It was a most fascinating yet dangerous employment. She used to sit there in her impassive grace, as they talked, weighing every word, testing every sentiment, watching the expressions that flitted over Jack Darcy's countenance, until it went everywhere with her, the blue-gray eyes piercing the very depths of her soul. They came to the one night when a glance stirred and troubled both, when the depths of both natures experienced that curious shock of repulsion and wonder. It was not love, it was too near, too awesome, yet too spiritually pure, to be hate, still it sent them apart none the less surely.
By degrees, even amid the hard struggle of the strikes, he came to a self-knowledge. His perceptions were not easily confused; and by that intuitive process born pure in every soul, but too often marred and dulled by the many counterfeits put upon it, he knew this was love, a life-long passion for one woman, not because she had as yet answered any need of his nature, or promised any expansion into higher life. He loved her just as she was; for her beauty, her swift, proud grace, her virtues if she had any, her very faults, and of those he was not in doubt. And he set himself to win her with the same high courage that had taken Hope Mills in hand.
Occasionally we see a man wrecked by this steady, persistent, overwhelming love for an inferior object, caught perhaps by some occult fascination that flashes all laws out of sight. We wonder how he can be so led astray; and yet it is an integral part of the man, a quality of the soul which he would not overcome and put in bonds if he could.
He did not cringe or flatter, or adopt any of the fears or weaknesses of passion. It was not weak, and he did not fear. He meant to be master of her soul, and win her through that very power, struggle as she might. He would wait, if it were years, until she laid down her few weak weapons, and capitulated. From that time onward, there would be neither "mine" nor "thine."
And now the fine, tested quality of his patience stood him in good stead. He might long to draw near, to clasp the snowy hand, to study the fathomless dusk of the eyes, and note the frightened droop of the fringed lids; but he held aloof. Still he went to Larch Avenue night after night; he dropped in of a morning when least expected, occasionally finding her alone for a few moments; he walked from church with them, by her side, the only times he came near her, and she felt in every pulse of her being the indefinable something that she was impelled to struggle against.
A curious change came over her. The cold indifference melted to a rose hue of interest, a pliant softness stole over her figure, a certain buoyant tenderness diffused itself in her tone, her dusky eyes came to have a startled softness like a shy, frightened fawn. The old brilliant color returned to cheek and lip, yet toned with the tremulous throbbing of a new inward life, so exquisitely attuned that she could but listen to the harmonious melody.
She came to understand presently; the intangible power in his demeanor roused her, I think; and her whole soul, every fibre of her body, rose up in mutinous revolt. Whither was this swift current carrying her? What great wave was this that struck at the very props of her own strength and reliance? How did this man dare to invade the walled sanctities of her being? She would have none of him: she would go on her solitary way, sufficient for herself. She, who had never loved amid all the beguilements the world had to offer, to be conquered by the very man she had trained herself to despise!
Irene Lawrence found it hard fighting with this unseen foe. He seemed always lying in ambush, always armored with a word or sentiment to which she must assent, always before her in the place she had meant to be; and she would not throw up the white flag of defeat. She would not own to herself she experienced any alarm or annoyance.
One evening Fred and Sylvie had gone to a neighbor's, and were momentarily expected. A peculiar temptation entered her soul. If this man must needs flutter in the flame, why should she be tender and careful of him? Others had dared her, to the burning of their very souls: if the experience was worth the pain, he should have it, and decide.
She sat down at the piano, and shook a shower of melody out of her slender finger-ends. All the affluent grace of womanhood with the polish of society spoke in every curve of her pliant figure, in the dainty, delicate, high-bred gestures. The eyes hung out their false lights of treacherous intent amid the half-slumberous fire; the very lips seemed shaped and blossoming with a rare thrill of passion that could turn to a caress at a look. All along the brow ran fine sinuosities of light that dazzled like the tracery of pale flame. Had she blossomed into some royal midsummer flower that is seen but once in an age?