CHAPTER III
THE GATES OF LIFE
IN her sitting-room at the Arundel Marie sat. It was nearly midnight. Hours before she had dined. Since then she had wandered from one room to another, from one chair to another, wondering would Loftus come. Sometimes he did. More often he did not. She never knew beforehand. It was as it pleased him. Always the uncertainty irked her. But on this evening it was particularly enervating. She had reached the gates of her endurance. She could stand no more. She must pass through them, pass or fall back, where she did not know, but somewhere, to some plane, in which, though life forsook her, at least its degradation would be foregone.
At first, in the old days, when he met her in the ex-first lady's den, it had seemed to her that life would be incomplete without him. Then it had seemed that with him it would be fulfilled to the tips. Subsequently the long train of disenchantments had ensued. In Paris he had pained her greatly. There, after a series of those things, little in themselves, but which, when massed, become mountainous, she had been forced to consider not her love for him but the nature of such love as he had for her. In him there was a reticence which perplexed, depths which she could not reach. At times his silence was that of one to whom something has happened, who is suffering from some constraint, from some pressure or from some long illness of which traces remain. At others, it had exasperated her, it made her feel like a piano, on which, a piece played, the cover is shut. She had seemed to serve as a pastime, nothing more; a toy which now and then he took up, but only because it was there, beneath his feet. Yet even then she was not quite unhappy. Even then she had faith. She believed in him still. Hope had not gone.
Hope has its braveries. Its outposts patrol our lives. Until death annihilates it and us, always beyond is a sentry. The sentry which she still discerned was the promise he had made. Latterly it had not been much of a sentry. It had far more resembled a straw. But it was all she had. She had clung to it. Hope indeed has its braveries, but it has its cowardices as well.
This hope, ultimate and forlorn, she knew now was craven, mated to her degradation, born of her shame. If it were to be realized the realization must delay no more. She was at the gates. She must pass through. On that she had decided. When Loftus came she would tell him so. She would tell him that she would work for him, slave for him, envelop him with her love, pillow him on her heart. Though he lost his wretched money what would it matter to her and how should it matter to him? She could sing him if not into affluence at least into ease. Tambourini, with whom until recently she had studied, had told her not once, out of politeness merely, but again and again that in her throat was a volcano of gold. With Italian exaggeration he had called her Pasta, Alboni, Malibran, predicting their triumphs for her. If Loftus would make an honest woman of her those triumphs would be for him. But as she told herself that she told herself too that such triumphs he would prefer to avoid. He should have, though, the chance. If he rejected it she would go. And of its rejection she had little manner of doubt. But the chance he should have, yes, even though she knew beforehand that with his usual civility—a civility which she had learned to hate—he would hand it back. She could see him at it. She could see his negligent smile. That smile she had learned too to hate. Always she loved him to distraction, but sometime she hated him to the death.
From Loftus for a moment her thoughts veered to Tambourini. The week previous suddenly, without warning, he had told her torrentially that he adored her. He was a good teacher. Yet, of course, after that she had been obliged to let him go.
But now her thoughts were interrupted. At the table where she sat she started, her head drawn abruptly in that attitude which deers have when surprised. In the door without had come the fumble of a key and, in the hall, she caught the almost noiseless tread of her lover. As he entered she got from her seat. Loftus had his hat on. He took it off, put it down on the table and taking a cigar from his pocket lit it at the chimney of a lamp that was there.
At the conclusion of the operation he looked at her. Her dress was canary. From the short loose sleeves lace fell that was repeated at the neck. There a yellow sapphire had been pinned. As he looked at her, she looked at him.
"I have something to say to you, Marie," he began.