“Yes,” she said. “Yes, you innocent-looking little Isma! You are wiser than I am after all. I did not know the meaning of that word till Olga’s letter fell from the sky, but I know it now. My God, how I hate that woman!”
“She is not a woman,” replied Isma, speaking in the unconscious pride of her pure descent. “She is a baseborn animal, for she has used her beauty for the vilest ends, yet I am glad to hear you say that you hate her for Alan’s sake, as I do, and—and for Alexis’s. While you can hate you can love, and some day you will love Alan—the real Alan, not your ideal lover—all the better because you have hated Olga for his sake.”
“What?” almost wailed Alma, in the intensity of her anger and misery. “After he has held her in his arms—after his lips have kissed hers—after”—
“Yes, even after that. When your first bitterness has passed, as mine has, you will be more just, and remember the influence under which he did so—if he did. Do you hold yourself responsible for what you think or do in your dreams, or do you not believe what Alan said in his letter about the drug? You know too much about chemistry not to know that such horrible poisons have existed for centuries.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, and I know that he has no share in the moral guilt; but how can I ever forget he has been what those cruel words of Olga’s told us she had made of him?” replied Alma, her face growing cold and hard again as she spoke.
“Alma,” said Isma, with gentle dignity, yet with a note of keen reproach in her voice, “surely you are forgetting that you are speaking of my brother as well as of your lover. No, I am not angry, for I am too sad myself not to understand your sorrow. But I want you to remember that I who have lost both a lover and a brother am asking you to be patient and to hope with me.
“We have never seen Alan and Alexis as they are. We only remember them as two handsome boys who had never seen or known evil. When we meet them again, as I firmly believe we shall, they will be men who have passed through the fire; for if they do not pass through it and come out stronger and better than they were, rest assured we shall never meet on earth again.
“Alan would no more come to you now than you would go to him. When he believes himself worthy of you he will come for you as Alexis will come for me, and then”—
She stopped short in her eloquent pleading, for Alma, at last melted and overcome by her sweet unselfishness and loving logic, had felt the springs of her own woman’s nature unloosed, and with a low, wailing cry had sunk down upon the cushions towards her, and was sobbing out her sorrow on her lap. Isma said nothing more, for her end was achieved. She laid her left hand caressingly on Alma’s hair, and with her right she pulled the steering-lever back and swung the Cygna round until her prow pointed towards home again.
When they reached the villa they found the President’s private yacht resting on the terrace, for Alan’s father and mother had come over after the Council meeting to discuss with Alma’s parents the more intimate family aspect of the strange events which had cleared up in such terrible fashion the mystery which had so long shrouded the fate of the sons of the two chief families in Aeria.