“That is it—of losing your help. I am not afraid of losing you—in the end.”
Unorna smiled rather scornfully at first, as she looked down upon the little man’s strange face and gazed fearlessly into his eyes. But as she looked, the smile faded, and the colour slowly sank from her face, until she was very pale. And as she felt herself losing courage before something which she could not understand, Keyork’s eyes grew brighter and brighter till they glowed like drops of molten metal. A sound as of many voices wailing in agony rose and trembled and quavered in the air. With a wild cry, Unorna pressed her hands to her ears and fled towards the entrance.
“You are very nervous to-night,” observed Keyork, as he opened the door.
Then he went silently down the stairs by her side and helped her into the carriage, which had been waiting since his return.
CHAPTER XI
A month had passed since the day on which Unorna had first seen the Wanderer, and since the evening when she had sat so long in conversation with Keyork Arabian. The snow lay heavily on all the rolling moorland about Prague, covering everything up to the very gates of the black city; and within, all things were as hard and dark and frozen as ever. The sun was still the sun, no doubt, high above the mist and the gloom which he had no power to pierce, but no man could say that he had seen him in that month. At long intervals indeed, a faint rose-coloured glow touched the high walls of the Hradschin and transfigured for an instant the short spires of the unfinished cathedral, hundreds of feet above the icebound river and the sepulchral capital; sometimes, in the dim afternoons, a little gold filtered through the heavy air and tinged the snow-steeples of the Teyn Kirche, and yellowed the stately tower of the town hall; but that was all, so far as the moving throngs of silent beings that filled the streets could see. The very air men breathed seemed to be stiffening with damp cold. For that is not the glorious winter of our own dear north, where the whole earth is a jewel of gleaming crystals hung between two heavens, between the heaven of the day, and the heaven of the night, beautiful alike in sunshine and in starlight, under the rays of the moon, at evening and again at dawn; where the pines and hemlocks are as forests of plumes powdered thick with dust of silver; where the black ice rings like a deep-toned bell beneath the heel of the sweeping skate—the ice that you may follow a hundred miles if you have breath and strength; where the harshest voice rings musically among the icicles and the snow-laden boughs; where the quick jingle of sleigh bells far off on the smooth, deep track brings to the listener the vision of our own merry Father Christmas, with snowy beard, and apple cheeks, and peaked fur cap, and mighty gauntlets, and hampers and sacks full of toys and good things and true northern jollity; where all is young and fresh and free; where eyes are bright and cheeks are red, and hands are strong and hearts are brave; where children laugh and tumble in the diamond dust of the dry, driven snow; where men and women know what happiness can mean; where the old are as the giant pines, green, silver-crowned landmarks in the human forest, rather than as dried, twisted, sapless trees fit only to be cut down and burned, in that dear north to which our hearts and memories still turn for refreshment, under the Indian suns, and out of the hot splendour of calm southern seas. The winter of the black city that spans the frozen Moldau is the winter of the grave, dim as a perpetual afternoon in a land where no lotus ever grew, cold with the unspeakable frigidness of a reeking air that thickens as oil but will not be frozen, melancholy as a stony island of death in a lifeless sea.
A month had gone by, and in that time the love that had so suddenly taken root in Unorna’s heart had grown to great proportions as love will when, being strong and real, it is thwarted and repulsed at every turn. For she was not loved. She had destroyed the idol and rooted out the memory of it, but she could not take its place. She had spoken the truth when she had told Keyork that she would be loved for herself, or not at all, and that she would use neither her secret arts nor her rare gifts to manufacture a semblance when she longed for a reality.
Almost daily she saw him. As in a dream he came to her and sat by her side, hour after hour, talking of many things, calm, apparently, and satisfied in her society, but strangely apathetic and indifferent. Never once in those many days had she seen his pale face light up with pleasure, nor his deep eyes show a gleam of interest; never had the tone of his voice been disturbed in its even monotony; never had the touch of his hand, when they met and parted, felt the communication of the thrill that ran through hers.
It was very bitter, for Unorna was proud with the scarcely reasoning pride of a lawless, highly gifted nature, accustomed to be obeyed and little used to bending under any influence. She brought all the skill she could command to her assistance; she talked to him, she told him of herself, she sought his confidence, she consulted him on every matter, she attempted to fascinate his imagination with tales of a life which even he could never have seen; she even sang to him old songs and snatches of wonderful melodies which, in her childhood, had still survived the advancing wave of silence that has overwhelmed the Bohemian people within the memory of living man, bringing a change into the daily life and temperament of a whole nation which is perhaps unparalleled in any history. He listened, he smiled, he showed a faint pleasure and a great understanding in all these things, and he came back day after day to talk and listen again. But that was all. She felt that she could amuse him without charming him.