Sybil shivered as she recalled the contemptuous slow smile, the unrelenting, inquisitorial, pale eyes, but answered: "I suppose I should be cruel, too, if I were a wronged wife." She stopped; the blood rushed in a scarlet tide over all her shamed, pained face. "A wife?"—she gave a gasp and put her hand to her throat as if to remove some stricture there. "I may never be a wife! Marriage is honorable! Dorothy may wed, but I—" And then an agonized cry rang through the house: "Dorothy! oh, Dorothy! Little sister! I have lost you! I shall not dare to look into your honest eyes, lest you should see the sin in mine! I may not kiss your lips or touch your cheek, nor ever again pillow your dear head upon my arm the long night through because of the pollution on my life that makes me base, unworthy, and unfit associate for innocence like yours!"
"Be silent!" savagely interrupted Thrall, with death-white face.
"I have fallen to a level with the creatures you pity in the street, little sister! I am defiled forever!" And she fell prone upon the couch in an agony of tears.
Thrall sprang at her like a tiger; he dragged her to a sitting position among the tumbled cushions, and, grasping her shoulders, he rocked her back and forth in savage rage, crying: "How dare you? how dare you, I say? You have been pleased to call me coward many times to-day, but you have the bitter right to say what you will to me, and I must bear it patiently because I merit more even than you say; but I am not coward enough to stand by and hear you blaspheme against yourself! I, by every wile at my command, by the compelling charm and strength of a great love, and by your ignorance of human nature, have led you into a breach of the law! Well, the fault is mine—God knows that! You vile? you defiled? how dare you? You are as pure in heart as any earthly creature can be! Your sense of honor, your respect for duty, your high ideals have made deception and falsehood hateful to me! Your quick sympathy for those who suffer has made me more considerate of the feelings of those about me! What have you done—what have you to blush for? You have been guilty of a generosity that brings me to my knees in adoration! All glorious as the morning, without suspicion, without fear, having given your great heart, with royal prodigality you gave yourself! You obeyed the instinct nature placed in you, in loving so! How dare you, then, compare yourself to those unfortunates who sell their forced and painted smiles? How dare you—you, pure-hearted, proud, gifted, clean-minded? Have I been rough to you? Forgive me, sweet, but you nearly drove me mad, and—and I suffer, Sybil!"
He sank at her feet, and laid his brow against her knees.
She trembled, but did not speak.
"Beloved," he went on, "I only live through you! My soul is yours! I worship—I adore you! Let me serve you! I dare not say forgive, but try to forget this private pain in public triumph. You have great gifts; don't neglect them. You are a fashion now—if I live you shall have fame. You shall not be hippodromed, as I was, into the success that stifles faith in the purity of art, the prosperity that swallows up energy and sincerity."
She sat as in a trance, her heart thrilling to the music of a voice that even the public found irresistible. Half her torture had been in the belief that she had become contemptible in his eyes—that she had been a mere "pour passer le temps"; therefore, this homage had something of comfort in its respectful wording as he went on: "I have experience, knowledge, skill; let me use them for your advancement. You shall be left free to study, to realize your beautiful ideals, unhampered by commercial questions of any kind. I will do my best, my very best, to warn you away from pitfalls of mannerisms; to polish and refine without producing artificiality. The service of my whole life shall be yours—the sole object of my life, the secure placing of the dramatic crown upon your head; and in return I ask [he held out empty, trembling hands] such scraps of affection as may fall from your table of family love—such crumbs of your time as you can spare to me!"
And that humble pleading came from Stewart Thrall, to whom love had been before such a tumultuous, triumphant distraction and amusement!
The girl flushed and paled, but kept her sombre eyes averted from the face, where rage had changed to tender pity and passionate pleading.