Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, when he had bought this car a few weeks prior to his last visit to Stourmouth, there floated entrancing visions of circumstances such as the present. At that time his affair of the heart promised lamentably ill, and realization of such visions appeared both highly improbable and most wearifully distant. Now a wholly unexpected turn of events had converted them into actual fact. Through the delight of the brilliant summer afternoon, the caressing wind, and clear, brave sunlight he bore Gabrielle St. Leger away whither he would. Verily he had his desire, but leanness withal in his soul. For, God in heaven! what a question squatted there upon the biscuit-colored seat, interposing its hateful presence between them, poisoning his mind with an anguish of suspense and doubt!
He was still, even physically, under the dominion of the almost incredible scene in which he had recently taken part. He had carried rather than led Madame St. Leger down the five flights of stairs from René Dax's flat, and had just only not required the help of the chauffeur to lift her into the waiting car. His heart still thumped, sledge-hammer fashion, against his ribs. Every muscle was strained and taut. Not his eyes only, but the whole temper and spirit of him, were still hot with desire of vengeance. That loud, hardly human cry of Gabrielle's as, lost to all dignity, lost almost to all modesty, she flung herself upon him still rang in his ears. The primitive savagery of it coming from the lips of so fastidious, elusive, quick-witted a creature, from those of so artistic a product of our complicated modern civilization, at once horrified and filled him with vicarious shame. In that wild moment of impact the dormant violence of the young man's passion had been aroused. Yet a gross and cynical query was scrawled across his remembrance of it all. For what could, in point of fact, have happened previous to his arrival to produce so amazing a result?
And to Adrian not the least cruel part of this business was the duty, so clearly laid upon him, of rigid self-restraint, of maintaining, for her protection, as sparing and shielding her, his ordinary air of courteous, unaccentuated and friendly intercourse. Good breeding and fine feeling alike condemned him to behave just as usual, not assuming by so much as a hair's breadth that closer intimacy which the events of the last half-hour might very reasonably justify. Unless she herself chose to speak, this whole astounding episode must remain as though it never had been and was not.—And here his lover's and artist's imagination crimped him, projecting torments of unsatisfied conjecture extending throughout the unending cycles of eternity. Yet in uncomplaining endurance of such torment, as he perceived, must the perfection of his attitude toward her declare itself, must the perfection of his loyalty come in.
Meanwhile as the car hummed along the upward-trending avenues toward the southern heights, leaving the more fashionable and populous districts of the city behind, the air grew lighter and the breeze more lively. Adrian, still sitting tight in his corner, trusted himself to look at his companion. Through the fluttering gray veil, as through some tenuous, drifting mist, he saw her proud, delicate profile. Saw also that though she remained apparently passive and strove to hold all outward signs of emotion in check, the tears ran slowly down her cheek, while the rounded corner of her usually enigmatic, smiling mouth trembled nervously and drooped.
Presently, as he still watched, she slipped the chain of her gold and gray vanity-bag off her wrist and essayed to open it. But her fingers fumbled ineffectually with the gilt snap. The beautiful, capable hands he so fondly loved shook, having suddenly grown weak. Tears came into Adrian's eyes also. To him the helplessness of those dear hands stood for so very much. Silently he took the little bag, opened and held it, while she pulled out a lace-bordered handkerchief, and, pushing it beneath the fluttering veil, wiped her wet eyes and wet cheeks. He kept the bag open, waiting for her to put the handkerchief back. But, without speaking, Gabrielle shook her head slightly, in token that further drying operations might not improbably shortly be required. Adrian obediently snapped to the gold catch; yet, since he really shut up such a very big slice of his own heart within it, was it not, after all, but natural and legitimate that he should retain possession of the little bag?
This trifle of service rendered and accepted bore fruit, bringing the two into a more normal relation and lessening the tension of their mutual constraint. After a while Gabrielle spoke, but low and hoarsely, her throat still strained by those hardly human cries. Adrian found himself obliged to draw nearer to her if he would catch her words amid the clatter of the street and humming of the engines of the car.
"There is that, I feel, I should without delay make you know," she said, speaking in English; for it comes easier, sometimes, to clothe the telling of ugly and difficult things with the circumscriptions of a foreign language.
"Yes?" Adrian put in, as she paused.
"You should know that he is insane. Possibly my visiting him contributed to precipitate the crisis. I do not know. But he is now no longer responsible. Therefore truly I commiserate rather than feel anger toward him."
Again the handkerchief went up under the fluttering veil. Again, when it was withdrawn, Adrian saw, as through thin, drifting mist, the proud, delicate profile.