He did not go away. He could not yet. He stayed in Paris, day after day, even week after week, lingering through a man's very human weakness. He could no longer resist the knowledge of the fact that he had lost the best part of the battle; he had lost it in being compelled to acknowledge the presence of danger by flight; he had lost it completely after this by being forced to admit to himself that there was not much more to lose, that in spite of his determination, Theodora North had filled his whole life and nature as Priscilla Gower had never filled it, and could never fill it, were she his wife for a thousand years. He had made a mistake, and discovered having made it too late—that was all; but he blamed himself for having made it; blamed himself for being blind; blamed himself more than all for having discovered his blindness and his blunder. Thinking thus, he resolved to go away. Yes, he would go away! He would marry Priscilla at once, and have it over. He would put an impassable barrier between himself and Theo.
But, though he reproached himself, and anathematized himself, and resolved to go away, he did not leave Paris. He stayed in the face of his remorseful wretchedness. It was a terrible moral condition to be in, but he absolutely gave up, for the time, to the force of circumstances, and floated recklessly with the current.
If he had loved Theodora North when he left her for Priscilla's sake, he loved her ten thousand fold, when he forbore to leave her for her own. He loved her passionately, blindly, jealously. He envied every man who won a smile from her, even while his weakness angered him. She had changed greatly during their brief separation, but the change grew deeper after they had once again encountered each other. She was more conscious of herself, more fearful, less innocently frank. She did not reveal herself to him as she had once done. There is a stage of love in which frankness is at once unnatural and impossible, and she had reached this stage. Even her letters to Priscilla were not frank after his reappearance.
Since the night of their interview after their return from the theatre, he had not referred openly to his reasons for remaining. He had held himself to the letter of his bond so far, at least, though he was often sorely tempted. He visited Lady Throckmorton and Theo as he had visited them in London, and was their attendant cavalier upon most occasions, but beyond that he rarely transgressed. It was by no means a pleasant position for a man in love to occupy. The whole world was between him and his love, it seemed. The most infatuated of Theodora North's adorers did not fear him, handsome and popular as he was, dangerous rival as he might have appeared. Lady Throckmorton's world knew the history of their favorite, having learned it as society invariably learns such things. Most of them knew that his fate had been decided for years; all of them knew that his stay in Paris could not be a long one. A man whose marriage is to be celebrated in June has not many months to lose between February and May.
But this did not add to the comfort of Denis Oglethorpe. The rest of Theo's admirers had a right to speak—he must be silent. The shallowest of them might ask a hearing—he dared not for his dishonored honor's sake. So even while nearest to her he stood afar off, as it were a witness to the innocent triumph of a girlish popularity that galled him intolerably. He puzzled her often in these days, and out of her bewilderment grew a vague unhappiness.
And yet, in spite of this, her life grew perilously sweet at times. Only a few months ago she had dreamed of such bliss as Jane Eyre's and Zulick's, wonderingly; but there were brief moments now and then when she believed in it faithfully. She was very unselfish in her girlish passion. She thought of nothing but the wondrous happiness love could bring to her. She would have given up all her new luxuries and triumphs for Denis Oglethorpe's sake. She would have gone back to Downport with him, to the old life; to the mending, and bread-and-butter cutting, and shabby dresses; she would have taken it all up again cheerfully, without thinking for one moment that she had made a sacrifice. Downport would have been a paradise with him. She was wonderfully devoid of calculation or worldly wisdom, if she had only been conscious of it. An absurdly loving, simple, impolitic young person was this Theodora of ours; but I, for one, must confess to feeling some weak sympathy for her very ignorance.
Among the many of the girl's admirers whom Denis Oglethorpe envied jealously, perhaps the one most jealously envied, was Victor Maurien. A jealous man might have feared him with reason under any circumstances, and Denis chafed at his good-fortune miserably. The man who had the honorable right to success could not fail to torture him.
"It would be an excellent match for Theo," was Lady Throckmorton's complacent comment on the subject of the attache's visit, and the comment was made to Denis himself. "M. Maurien is the very man to take good care of her; and besides that, he is, of course, desirable. Girls like Theo ought to marry young. Marriage is their forte; they are too dependent to be left to themselves. Theo is not like Pamela or your Priscilla Gower, for instance; queenly as Theo looks, she is the veriest strengthless baby on earth. It is a source of wonder to me where she got the regal air."
But, perhaps, Lady Throckmorton did not understand her lovely young relative fully. She did not take into consideration a certain mental ripening process which had gone on slowly but surely during the last few months. The time came when Theodora North began to comprehend her powers, and feel the change in herself sadly. Then it was that she ceased to be frank with Denis Oglethorpe, and began to feel a not fully-defined humiliation and remorse.
Coming in unexpectedly once, Denis found her sitting all alone, with open book in her lap, and eyes brooding over the fire. He knew the volume well enough at sight; it was the half-forgotten, long-condemned collection of his youthful poems; and when she saw him, she shut it up, and laid her folded hands upon it, as if she did not wish him to recognize it.