She stood forward a pace.
Had she really moved, or was she impelled? Surely a hand had taken her by the shoulder and pushed her forward! But in the moment that she moved panic seized her as suddenly and overwhelmingly as a hawk swoops upon a mouse. She lifted a hand to her breast so that her heart might not be snatched away, but the hand went on to her lips and covered them in terror lest they should call. She turned with one swift and flying gesture, but the foot that aimed for flight continued its motion, and the full circle held her again facing the terror. For he had already risen, lithe as a cat and as noiseless, and in three great strides he was standing beside her, standing over her, encompassing her about; not now to be retreated from or escaped from or eluded in any way.
And as her heart had leaped so his leaped also, and they stood in an internal tumult, so loud, so intimate and violent, that the uproar and rush of a storm was quietude in the comparison.
They could not speak. There were no words left in the world. There were only eyes that plunged into and fled from each other, and a mighty hand that had gripped her arm and would never release it again. A hand that pushed her backwards and backwards, away from the friendly logs that crackled and flamed; away from the quiet forms that might have rescued her but that lay as though slumbering in stone. She might have escaped with one sound, but the law of her being was that she must not make a sound. She might have escaped by just a show of reluctance; one small opposition, nay, hesitation, to the pressure of that hand. But she would not make that infinitesimal wraith of motion. A weariness as of piled worlds went from his finger to her mind, and it was forbidden her to have any longer an initiative. A lethargy that was utter surrender stole into her limbs. She did not think, she did not desire: she was as void of speculation as though she were dead; and while his hand continued to guide she would go, and when it ceased she would no longer be capable of either movement or repose.
All fear of interruption had passed, and yet they went on cautiously, noiselessly, as though interruption was imminent or unescapable; putting trees and yet more trees between them and the leaping fire; striving to forget the fire; seeking a more involved darkness, and finding everywhere a gloom that yet revealed them. They could not discover darkness. They could not get to a place where they could cease to see each other. Always it looked black farther on, and always when they got there they could each see the pale confronting face of the other, with the darkness everywhere but in those faces.
They stopped perforce, with that feeling of tremendous discouragement wherein passion sinks back upon itself, where desire ceases and nothing is instant but weariness. His hand yet held her, but it gripped no longer: it lay on her arm as a dead weight: she had only to move an inch and it would fall away: she had but to turn and he would not follow her even with his eyes; but the energy which had drained from him flooded into her in one whirling stream, and when his hand fell away hers took up the duty it relinquished.
CHAPTER XVII
If Lavarcham had ever permitted herself excitement she would have been excited the next day. But there is a curious means by which we may postpone the spending of our emotions. There are many people who can only do a particular thing on condition that they do it in two directions. They can repress themselves only when they are engaged in repressing some one else; for the thing we are doing outwardly and to others is always the thing that we are doing inwardly and to ourselves. If we treat others benevolently we are assuredly being kind to ourselves: if we mete out torment we will receive that measure and will writhe in it. A tyrant is ultimately one who is striving for self-mastery by the wrong method. But in order to be good you must do good, or to be anything you must do that thing concretely, for life is movement and all else is movement too. Lavarcham by unconscious processes discovered that Deirdre needed the utmost disciplinary and repressive measures that could be applied to a human being.
“The child is running wild,” she complained to the air that circulated about Deirdre’s head.
“But I have not done a thing,” cried Deirdre.