“Oh Drayton, you can never know how lovely, how divine she looked that evening. She had on what they call, I believe, a demi-toilette; open at the throat, you know, and half the arm showing. No woman could have looked more beautiful than she, before I put on the chain and locket; yet when they were on, she looked as handsome again. It was really wonderful—the effect they had. Her eyes deepened, and an indescribable change or modulation—imperceptible, very likely, to anyone beside myself, her lover—came over her face. I think it was a shade of sadness—of mystery—no, I can only repeat, that it was indescribable; but it gave her beauty just the touch that made it, humanly speaking, perfect. I daresay this is all very tiresome to you, Drayton, but I can’t help it!”
“Oh, go on, my dear fellow,” said I warmly; for, indeed, I was moved as well as excited. “Won’t you sit down? Here, take my chair!”
But he would not.
“As I fastened the clasp, I said: ‘You are fettered for ever now, Edna!’ and she said, with her eyes sparkling: ‘Yes, I am the thrall of the locket; the giver may lead me in triumph where he will!’ Just as the words passed her lips, Drayton, I felt a sensation of coldness and depression; I gave an involuntary shudder, and looking quickly in Edna’s eyes, I saw there the very reflection of my own feeling! We were alone, and yet there seemed to be a third person present—cold, hateful, malevolent. He seemed to be between us—to be pressing us irresistibly apart; and I felt powerless to contend against the insidious influence; and so was she. For an instant or two we gazed fearfully and strangely at each other; then she said faintly: ‘Come to me—take me!’ and half held out her arms, her face and lips all pale. Drayton, I cannot tell you what a desperate struggle I had with myself then! My whole soul leapt out towards her with a passion such as I had never known before; and yet my body seemed paralysed. I had felt something similar to it in dreams before then; but the dream pain was nothing to the real pain. A cold dead hand was on my heart, dragging it backward, deadening it; and another at my throat, stifling me. But I fought against it—it seemed to me I sweated drops of blood—but I overcame. I put my arm round her waist—I kissed her; and yet, though I seemed to hold her—though our lips seemed to meet—still that Thing was between us—we did not really touch each other! With all our love, we were like lifeless clay to one another’s caress. It was a mockery—our souls could meet no more.” Here Calbot covered his eyes with his hand for a short time. “It was the last time I ever kissed her,” said he.
I said nothing; my sympathy with my hapless friend was keen. Yet I must confess to a secret sensation of relief that there was to be no more kissing. It was natural, under the circumstances, that Calbot—poor fellow!—should speak recklessly; but I am a bachelor, a confirmed bachelor, and such descriptions distress me; they make me restless, wakeful, and unhappy. Yes, I was glad we had had the last of them.
“It all passed very quickly, and a third person would perhaps have seen no change in us; probably the change was more inward than outward, after all. It was peculiar that we, both of us, by a tacit understanding, forbore to speak to each other of this dismal mystery that had so suddenly grown up between us. It was too real, and at the same time too hopeless; but to have acknowledged it would have been to pronounce it hopeless indeed. We would not do that yet. We sat apart, quietly and conventionally making observations on ordinary topics, as though we had been newly introduced. And yet my betrothal gift was round her neck, moving as she breathed; and we loved each other, and our hearts were breaking. Oh, it is cruel!”
In exclaiming thus, my friend (being at the farther end of the room at the time) struck his foot sharp against the leg of a small antique table which stood against the wall. Like many other valuable things, the table was fragile, and the leg broke. The table tipped over, and a vase (the ancestral vase, containing the elixir of life), fell off to the floor.
Calbot—I think it was much to his credit—found room amidst his proper anguish to be sincerely distressed at this accident. On picking up the vase, however, he immediately exclaimed that it was unbroken. This was fortunate: the table could be mended, but the vase, not to speak of its contents, would have been irreplaceable. Calbot put it carefully on the study table, beside the MS.; set the invalid table in a corner; and then, to my great satisfaction, drew up a chair to the fire, and continued his sad story in a civilised posture.