Chapter Twenty.
The Contretemps.
A mingling of rage, passion, disappointment, and delight swept over Dale at the revelation. One moment he wondered at his blindness in not divining long before that it was she; then at her daring recklessness, and the skill with which she had played her part, deceiving him completely to the very end.
And as she gazed in his eyes, clasped then in his arms, yielding as he did to what he told himself again was fate, a mystery which he could not unravel, he asked himself the question, did he love her or did he not? His passion had been for another woman, and paradoxically it was she from whom he had literally lied, and from whom, had she come openly, he would have turned in disgust.
And yet how beautiful she was. What love and passion beamed from the half-closed eyes that sought his, as her lips murmured words that told him she was his at last, as he was hers, her very own; while, mastered by her tenderness, he found no words then of angry reproach or blame.
“Venus victrix.” She had brought him to her feet, but there was no sound of triumph in her tones. Every word was a caress, and he found himself wondering that he could ever have treated her with the coldness he had shown.
“I knew you loved me,” she murmured in his ear, “and that in your mad belief in what you told yourself was your duty, you were punishing yourself and me. It was a mere schoolboy friendship pledged years ago, against which nature rebelled. For the first time in my unhappy life I knew what it was to love, and knowing, as a woman soon divines, that you loved me, I felt a new joy in my heart that I was so beautiful, and that it pleased you, the only man I ever felt that I cared for—that I did love, for I knew that you were mine as I was yours. And so I had no hesitation about running all the risks I have, deceiving even Lady Grayson, who watches me like a cat. I said in my heart that I would dare all, even to degrading myself—no: it was no degradation, for it was for the sake of him I loved. But tell me now; you did know me from the beginning?”
“I swear I had not the least idea,” he said angrily.
“You had not,” she sighed; and then mockingly, “and, cruel to the last, you began to love another as you thought. I saw it growing from the first, and for a minute it made me angry, and ready to turn and revile you, instead of carrying on the deceit; but a feeling of intense joy ran through me, for was not all your loving passion for me—was I not winning you to confess the love you always did feel, though blindly thinking that you had conquered self? You did love me—did you not?”