Asleep, and without a thought of her incredible position, of the hovering danger! I could not believe it humanly possible that any woman, young or old, patrician or plebeian, living in perpetual apprehension of death by secret violence, could conduct herself with such persistent sangfroid. She did not so live in fact; of that I was finally convinced. For some purpose unconfessed Marion had foisted that story upon me, with the sole intention, likely enough, to ensure my closest trust and vigilance. Necessary precautions, no doubt, if one knew the whole truth, but hardly dictated by terror of the worst. By what lesser fear, or policy, it was useless for me to conjecture; nor did the question trouble me. Indeed, from that time, I think, I dismissed the whole puzzle from my mind, being satisfied on the main point, and quite assured that my comrade’s soul was darkened by no more mortal trepidations than my own.
For dinner I contrived quite a delectable little repast, and, when it was laid and ready, I announced the fact at the closed door. It opened, after a brief interval, and a shimmering vision appeared before my dazzled and wonder-stricken eyes.
In fact I had chosen very happily, and faultlessly, it seemed, as to fit. The girl’s face was quite flushed in the consciousness of the picture she presented. It was a picture, indeed—of tinted youth, sensuous and pure in one, in a silken setting. I was reminded somehow of sun-flushed Pomona in her flowering apple orchards, herself symbolic of the lovely half-visionary blossoms and the rosy fruit they promised. So content was I with this fruit of my own visualising.
“Truly, I am proud of myself,” I said.
The smile died on her lips.
“No more than that?” she said. “As if I were a dummy”—and she went past me, while I stood back, ostentatiously withdrawing her skirts. I had never seen a haughtier lady. She appeared so obsessed with her own sacrosanctity, that to look at her uninvited was an offence, to brush her in passing a sacrilege. But a little way on, and she relented, turning to me suddenly with a face between insolence and something strangely like suppressed merriment.
“Really, Cousin, it was very well done of you. Now I can believe what I never should have guessed from your pictures, that you are an artist.”
The audacity of it! It caught my breath like a splash of cold water. But it was just as refreshing.
I crowed: “Well, at least I am promoted, and inclined to presume upon that favour. It would never do for your acknowledged cousin to wait upon you like a garçon-de-salle; and so for the future I shall propose sitting down to table with you.”
She drew herself up, but relaxed almost at once.