But at sound of the closing door, at sound of her dress upon the polished floor, an answering sound came from behind the tapestry screen—the noise of a chair being quietly pushed back—of some one rising to his feet.
In sudden consternation, she stopped. For one instant she glanced behind her, contemplating flight; the next, a faint exclamation of surprise—the merest audible breath-escaped her; and her figure became motionless.
The occupant of the room came quietly round the screen; and in the uncertain light of the candles she recognised Gore.
The position was unusual; the moment was unusual. For the first time since the night at the Palazzo Ugochini, they were entirely alone—for the first time since the night at the Palazzo Ugochini they looked at each other without the commentary of other eyes—without the atmosphere of conventional things.
Involuntarily, inevitably, their eyes met. Clodagh looked into his; and in the contact of glances it seemed that a miracle came to pass. By power of that magnetism that indisputably exists—the magnetism that draws certain natures irrevocably together, although circumstance and time may delay their union—she saw the gleam of comprehension, of question, of acknowledgment spring from his eyes to hers; and she knew, without the need of words, that he stood within the circle of her power, that—whether with, or against his will—his personality claimed response from hers.
She did not move; for it seemed to her, in that instant of understanding, that her life and his were mysteriously suspended. Her heart beat extraordinarily fast, yet her mental vision was curiously clear. By the light of her recent misgivings, by the light of her sudden confidence she seemed to see and to read herself and him with a strange and vivid clearness. Some power, tangible yet invincibly compelling, drew them together. In the personal scheme of things there were only two persons—he and she. Beyond the walls of the music-room life swept forward as relentlessly, as rapidly as before; but inside the walls of the music-room there were only he and she.
Almost unconsciously she took a step towards him.
"Do you remember that night in Venice?" she asked. "The night you said all the things that sounded so hard, and hurt so much, and—and were so true?"
She did not know why she had spoken. She did not know how she had framed her words. She only knew that, exalted by the consciousness of great good within her reach, she was moved to dare greatly.
It was the moment of her life. The moment when all social barriers of prejudice and of etiquette fell away before a tremendous self-knowledge. She realised in that space of time that her thoughts of Gore—her attraction towards him—her reluctant admiration—had been insensibly leading up to this instant of action; that on the evening when they stood together on the terrace of the hotel at Venice, and watched the night steal in from the lagoon, it had been irrevocably written in the book of fate that they should one day look into each other's hearts—for happiness or sorrow.