“Nay, father dear,” she said resolutely, “you have had your say. Now you must let me have mine. Listen, Tan-tan, what I confessed to you yesterday, that I still confess now. I have loved you always. I love you still. If you will take me now from whatever motive, I am content, for I know that in time you will love me too. Until then I can wait. But if father makes it impossible for you to take me, then we will part, but without bitterness, for I shall understand. And father will understand, too, that without you, I cannot live. I have lain against your breast, my dear, your lips have clung to mine; if they tear me away from you, they will tear my heart out of my body now.”
At one time while she spoke her voice had broken, but in the end it was quite steady, only the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. Bertrand looked at her with a sort of hungry longing. He could not speak. Any word would have choked him. What he felt was intense humiliation, and, towards her, worship. When she had finished and still stood there before him, with hands clasped and the great tears rolling down her cheeks, he sank slowly on his knees. He seized both her little hands and pressed them against his aching forehead, his eyes, his lips: then with a passionate sob that he tried vainly to suppress, he went quickly out of the room.
CHAPTER XIV
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
For a few seconds after Bertrand had gone, Nicolette remained standing where she was, quite still, dry-eyed now, and with lips set; she seemed for the moment not to have realised that he was no longer there. Then presently, when his footsteps ceased to resound through the house, when the front door fell to with a bang, and the gate gave a creak as it turned on its hinges, she seemed to return to consciousness, the consciousness of absolute silence. Not a sound now broke the stillness of the house. Jaume Deydier had sunk into a chair and was staring unseeing, into the fire; Margaï and the serving wenches were far away in the kitchen. Only the old clock ticked on with dreary monotony, and the flame from the hard olive wood burned with a dull sound like a long-drawn-out sigh.
Then suddenly Nicolette turned and ran towards the door. But her father was too quick for her: he jumped to his feet and stood between her and the door.
“Where are you going, Nicolette?” he asked.
“What is that to you?” she retorted defiantly.
Just like some dumb animal that has received a death blow Deydier uttered a hoarse cry; he staggered up against the door, and had to cling to it as if he were about to fall. For a second or two he stared at her almost doubting his own sanity. This then was his little Nicolette, the baby girl who had lain in his arms, whose first toddling steps he had guided, for whom he had lain awake o’ nights, schemed, worked, lived? The motherless child who had never missed a mother because he had been everything to her, had done twice as much for her as any mother could have done? This, his little Nicolette who stabbed at his heart with that sublime selfishness of love that rides rough-shod over every obstacle, every affection, every duty, and in order to gain its own heaven, hurls every other fond heart into hell?
Deydier was no longer a young man. He had married late in life, and strenuous work had hastened one or two of the unpleasant symptoms of old age. The last two days had brought with them such a surfeit of emotions, such agonising sensations, that this final sorrow seemed beyond his physical powers of endurance. Clinging to the door, he felt himself turning giddy and faint; once or twice he drew his arm across and across his forehead on which stood beads of cold perspiration. Then a shadow passed before his eyes, the walls of the room appeared to be closing in around him, hemming him in. Everything became dark, black as night; he put out his arms, and the next moment would have measured his length on the floor. It all occurred in less than two seconds. At his first cry all the obstinacy, the defiance in Nicolette’s heart, melted in face of her father’s grief—her father whom she loved better than anything in the world. When he staggered forward she caught him. She was as strong as a young sapling, and fear and love gave her additional strength. A chair was close by, she was able to drag him into it, to prop him up against the cushions, to fondle him until she saw his dear eyes open, and fasten themselves hungrily upon her. She would then have broken down completely, great sobs were choking her, but she would not cry, not now when he was ill and weak, and it was her privilege to minister to him. She found a glass and a bottle of old cognac, and made him swallow that.
But when he had drunk the cognac, and had obviously recovered, when he drew her forcibly on his knee crying: