"You foolish child," he said, "you are very much a woman. Your words are so wise; yet you prove so weak in action and scare yourself with self-invented terrors."
He set his back against the heavy curtain, pushing it outward. Then he took her delicate body in his arms, lifted her over the threshold, and set her feet on the crimson carpet of the sombre and stately corridor without. The curtain swept back into its place across the door with a dull thud, which mingled ominously with the muttering thunder. Against the panes of the long range of windows the lightning peeped and flickered, as in malicious curiosity of that going forward within, while the Roman emperors looked on, supercilious, impassive, with sightless, marble eyes. His fairy-lady's delicate body had been light as a feather, so light that, lifting it, Laurence had trembled lest it should slip out of his encircling arms, as the little summer winds might slip should one strive to embrace them; and yet that same lifting of her had taxed every muscle in his frame, and set his heart thumping like a steam hammer. It was the very oddest sensation, suggesting that there was something very much more than a narrow piece of polished, oak flooring and deep, pile carpet to lift her across. He stood now, breathless, singularly shaken by the effort, notwithstanding his natural vigour and physical strength—shaken, yet triumphant.
"There, my beloved," he cried, "there! It's not such a very dangerous experiment after all, you see, to go out at an open door!—And now you are redeemed from slavery, free to range the pleasant earth at will and accept all the glad chances of it."
But she shrunk against him, trembling, all her pretty pride humbled, like that of a little child detected in a fault. Her countenance had become shy and wild, moreover, and clear reason had ceased to sit enthroned in her serious and lovely eyes. She looked now, as she had looked on the night he first found her flitting to and fro in the yellow parlour, searching, searching, vainly and hopelessly, for the lost key of the satin-wood escritoire. And Laurence, seeing her thus, was smitten with self-reproach and alarm. Was it possible that, along with the restoration of her body, had returned that alienation of mind from which—as he had learned from her own testimony, and from the well-authenticated tradition of Armstrong, the agent—she had formerly and so pitifully suffered? As more than once before, an immense compassion filled the young man; so that, coaxing her, and using tender and endearing names—such as even the wisest of lovers weakly decline upon at times—he half-led, half-carried her past the doorways of all those brightly-lighted, silent rooms, through the square hall—its flying staircase gleaming upward step above step—until finally the dining-room was reached.
Here the musky odour of the tiger-coloured orchids met them, with the effect, as it seemed, of a presence rather than a scent. It was full of subtle suggestions, that seeming presence, wooing them with insidious provocations of sense to partake of the mysterious, sacramental feast set out before them—a feast designed to wed, irrevocably, the sweet spirit to its so lately recovered body, and rivet upon it once again not only the natural joys, but the inevitable cares and pains, all the grievous burdens of mortal life.
The cloth had been withdrawn and upon the dark surface of the bare table, doubled by vertical reflections, a service of costly china, antique silver, and fine glass, was spread. Rare wines filled the long-necked bottles and quaint high-shouldered decanters; while the painted and gilded dishes held velvet-skinned, hot-house peaches, red-gold nectarines, little black Italian figs, and pyramids of fragrant strawberries set in a fringe of fresh and lustrous leaves. The loaf of white bread was there also, a simple and humble item offering something of contrast to its ornate surroundings.
Laurence placed his fairy-lady in the carven armchair at the head of the table. Seated there, her slight figure, in its high-waisted, rose-red, silken gown and transparent lace and muslin cape, looked singularly youthful and fragile. Her graceful head and white throat showed up against the dark panelling of the wall. Her hands rested languidly upon the arms of her chair. The corners of her mouth still quivered, and her eyes were wide with inarticulate distress. And all the while, opposite to her, in at the windows at the far end of the room, the lightning, away there in the north, peeped evilly and flickered, and sometimes glared, a broad sheet of pale flame, behind the blackness of the distant woods crowning the rounded hills.
Laurence stood close beside her. He filled her glass with wine and placed fruit upon her plate, speaking to her very gently; possessed, meanwhile, by an adoration of her extreme and pensive beauty, a great resolution to complete his work in respect of her, and a distrust lest that work was going sorely amiss. But though he did his best to secure her attention, for many minutes she neither moved nor uttered any sound.
"See, dear love," the young man pleaded—"see, I have made you a dainty supper. Remember, this is the first time I ask you to eat a meal in my house. You were Dudley's guest often enough in old days, and did not refuse what was set before you. Surely it is pleasanter to you to be my guest than his? So do not wander off, even for a little while, to walk those dim and dreary interspaces between two worlds. All that is over. Don't become intangible and remote, or yield yourself to malign influences which would enthrall you and draw you away. Lay hold of your womanhood, sweetheart; and let human love wrap you about, and keep you safe and warm. There is nothing, nothing in all this to fear, if you will but believe me. Eat, my beloved, you have fasted long. You have come from very far—how far heaven only knows! You are faint and weary with the length of the way. Therefore eat, drink—let your body be refreshed and let your heart grow glad."
And presently, while he thus encouraged her, slowly, as one who shakes off the torpor of exhaustion, she stretched, sitting very upright in the great, high-backed chair. The distress and desolation of her expression began to give place to a gentle curiosity. She looked at the costly furnishings of the table, the dancing, golden figures in their flowing robes, the fantastic flowers, the delicious fruits; fingered a silver spoon, and seeing her own reflection in the bowl of it, quaintly distorted, smiled. Then suddenly putting up both hands and covering her face she gave a quick, little sneeze—sign in the East of Life, but in the West precursor of Death. Of whichever the sign in the present case, incontestible it was, that, with this same little sneeze a change was perceptible in her, which her lover noting, hailed as indicative of success. So he urged her yet more.