It was but one moment of attainment. The thrust that drove him from her was that, indeed, of the strong young goddess, implacable and outraged. Yet even as he read his deep miscalculation in her aspect he felt that the moment had been worth it. Not many men, not even many poets, could say that they had held, in such a scene, on such a night, an unwilling goddess to their breast.
She did not speak. Her eyes did not pause to wither. They passed over him. He had an image of the goddess wheeling to mount some chariot of the sky as, with no indignity of haste, she turned from him. She turned. And in the path, in the entrance to the flagged garden, Tante stood confronting them.
She stood before them in the moonlight with a majesty at once magnificent and ludicrous. She had come swiftly, borne on the wings of a devouring suspicion, and she maintained for a long moment her Medusa stare of horror. Then, it was the ugliest thing that Karen had ever seen, the mask broke. Hatred, fury, malice, blind, atavistic passions distorted her face. It was to fall from one nightmare to another and a worse; for Tante seized her by the shoulders and shook and shook and shook her, till the blood sprang and rang in her ears and eyeballs, and her teeth chattered together, and her hair, loosened by the great jerks, fell down upon her shoulders and about her face. And while she shook her, Tante snarled—seeming to crush the words between her grinding teeth, "Ah! perfide! perfide! perfide!"
From behind, other hands grasped Karen's shoulders. Mr. Drew grappled with Tante for possession of her.
"Leave me—with my guardian," she gathered her broken breath to say. She repeated it and Mr. Drew, invisible to her, replied, "I can't. She'll tear you to pieces."
"Ah! You have still to hear from me—vile seducer!" Madame von Marwitz cried, addressing the young man over Karen's shoulder. "Do you dare dispute my right to save her from you—foul serpent! Leave us! Does she not tell you to leave us?"
"I'll see her safely out of your hands before I leave her," said Mr. Drew. "How dare you speak of perfidy when you saw her repulse me? You'd have found it easier to forgive, no doubt, if she hadn't."
These insolent words, hurled at it, convulsed the livid face that fronted Karen. And suddenly, holding Karen's shoulders and leaning forward, Madame von Marwitz broke into tears, horrible tears—in all her life Karen had never pitied her as she pitied her then—sobbing with raking breaths: "No, no; it is too much. Have I not loved him with a saintly love, seeking to uplift what would draw me down? Has he not loved me? Has he not sought to be my lover? And he can spit upon me in the dust!" She raised her head. "Did you believe me blind, infatuated? Did you think by your tricks and pretences to evade me? Did I not see, from the moment that she came, that your false heart had turned from me?" Her eyes came back to Karen's face and fury again seized her. "And as for you, ungrateful girl—perfidious, yes, and insolent one—you deserve to be denounced to the world. Oh, we understand those retreats. What more alluring to the man who pursues than the woman who flees? What more inflaming than the pose of white, idiotic innocence? You did not know. You did not understand—" fiercely, in a mincing voice, she mimicked a supposed exculpation. "You are so young, so ignorant of life—so immer kindlich! Ah!" she laughed, half strangled, "until the man seizes you in his arms you are quite unaware—but quite, quite unaware—of what he seeks from you. Little fool! And more than fool. Have I not seen your wiles? From day to day have I not watched you? Now it is the piano. You must play him your favourite little piece; so small; you have so little talent; but you will do your best. Now the chance meeting in the garden; you are so fond of flowers; you so love the open air, the sea, the wandering on the cliffs; such a free, wild creature you are. And now we have the frustrated rendezvous of this evening; he should find you dreaming, among your flowers, in the dusk. The pretty picture. And no, you want no dinner; you will go to your own room. But you are not to be found in your own room. Oh, no; it is again the garden; the moon; the sea and solitude that you seek! Be silent!" this was almost shouted at Claude Drew, who broke in with savage denials. "Do you think still to impose on me—you traitor?—No," her eyes burned on Karen's face. "No; you are wiser. You do not speak. You know that the time for insolence has passed. What! You take refuge with me here. You fly from your husband and throw yourself on my hands and say to me,"—again she assumed the mincing tones—"Yes, here I am again. Continue, pray, to work for me; continue, pray, to clothe and feed and lodge me; continue to share your life with me and all of rich and wide and brilliant it can offer; continue, in a word, to hold me high—but very high—above the gutter from which I came—and I take you, I receive you in my arms, I shelter you from malicious tongues, I humble myself in seeking to mend your shattered life; and for my reward you steal from me the heart of the one creature in the world I loved—the one—the only one! Until you came he was mine. Until you came he yearned for me—only for me. Oh, my heart is broken! broken! broken!" She leaned forward, wildly sobbing, and raising herself she shook the girl with all her force, crying: "Out of my sight! Be off! Let me see no more of you!" Covering her face with her hands, she reeled back, and Karen fled down the path, hearing a clamour of sobs and outcries behind her.
She fled along the cliff-path and an incomparable horror was in her soul. Her life had been struck from her. It seemed a ghost that ran, watched by the moon, among the trees.
On the open cliff-path it was very light. The sky was without a cloud. The sea lay like a vast cloth of silk, diapered in silver.