I heard the trees rustle slightly,—a branch cracked,—and peering through the leaves, I saw that Lucio had advanced a step closer to where Mavis stood. A faint smile was on his face, softening it wonderfully and giving an almost supernatural light to his beautiful dark features.
“Fair philosopher, you are almost a feminine Marcus Aurelius in your estimate of men and things!”—he said; “But—you are still a woman—and there is one thing lacking to your life of sublime and calm contentment—a thing at whose touch philosophy fails, and wisdom withers at its root. Love, Mavis Clare!—lover’s love,—devoted love, blindly passionate,—this has not been yours as yet to win! No heart beats against your own,—no tender arms caress you,—you are alone. Men are for the most part afraid of you,—being brute fools themselves, they like their women to be brute fools also,—and they grudge you your keen intellect,—your serene independence. Yet which is best?—the adoration of a brute fool, or the loneliness pertaining to a spirit aloft on some snowy mountain-peak, with no companions but the stars? Think of it!—the years will pass, and you must needs grow old,—and with the years will come that solitary neglect which makes age bitter. Now, you will doubtless wonder at my words—yet believe me I speak the truth when I say that I can give you love,—not my love, for I love none,—but I can bring to your feet the proudest men in any country of the world as suitors for your hand. You shall have your choice of them, and your own time for choosing,—and whomsoever you love, him you shall wed, ... why—what is wrong with you that you shrink from me thus?”
For she had retreated, and was gazing at him in a kind of horror.
“You terrify me!” she faltered,—and as the moonlight [p 348] fell upon her I could see that she was very pale—“Such promises are incredible—impossible! You speak as if you were more than human! I do not understand you, Prince Rimânez,—you are different to anyone I ever met, and ... and ... something in me stronger than myself warns me against you. What are you?—why do you talk to me so strangely? Pardon me if I seem ungrateful ..., oh, let us go in—it is getting quite late I am sure, and I am cold ...”
She trembled violently, and caught at the branch of a tree to steady herself,—Rimânez stood immovably still, regarding her with a fixed and almost mournful gaze.
“You say my life is lonely,”—she went on reluctantly and with a note of pathos in her sweet voice—“and you suggest love and marriage as the only joys that can make a woman happy. You may be right. I do not presume to assert that you are wrong. I have many married women-friends—but I would not change my lot with any one of them. I have dreamed of love,—but because I have not realized my dream I am not the less content. If it is God’s will that I should be alone all my days, I shall not murmur, for my solitude is not actual loneliness. Work is a good comrade,—then I have books, and flowers and birds—I am never really lonely. And that I shall fully realize my dream of love one day I am sure,—if not here, then hereafter. I can wait!”
As she spoke, she looked up to the placid heavens where one or two stars twinkled through the arching boughs,—her face expressed angelic confidence and perfect peace,—and Rimânez advancing a step or two, fully confronted her with a strange light of exultation in his eyes.
“True,—you can wait, Mavis Clare!” he said in deep clear tones from which all sadness had fled—“You can afford to wait! Tell me,—think for a moment!—can you remember me? Is there a time on which you can look back, and looking, see my face, not here but elsewhere? Think! [p 349] Did you ever see me long ago—in a far sphere of beauty and light, when you were an Angel, Mavis,—and I was—not what I am now! How you tremble! You need not fear me,—I would not harm you for a thousand worlds! I talk wildly at times I know;—I think of things that are past,—long long past,—and I am filled with regrets that burn my soul with fiercer heat than fire! And so neither world’s wealth, world’s power, nor world’s love will tempt you, Mavis!—and you,—a woman! You are a living miracle then,—as miraculous as the drop of undefiled dew which reflects in its tiny circumference all the colours of the sky, and sinks into the earth sweetly, carrying moisture and refreshment where it falls. I can do nothing for you—you will not have my aid—you reject my service? Then as I may not help you, you must help me!”—and dropping before her, he reverently took her hand and kissed it—“I ask a very little thing of you,—pray for me! I know you are accustomed to pray, so it will be no trouble to you,—you believe God hears you,—and when I look at you, I believe it too. Only a pure woman can make faith possible to man. Pray for me then, as one who has fallen from his higher and better self,—who strives, but who may not attain,—who labours under heavy punishment,—who would fain reach Heaven, but who by the cursëd will of man, and man alone, is kept in Hell! Pray for me, Mavis Clare! promise it!—and so shall you lift me a step nearer the glory I have lost!”
I listened, petrified with amazement. Could this be Lucio?—the mocking, careless, cynical scoffer I knew, as I thought, so well?—was it really he who knelt thus like a repentant sinner, abasing his proud head before a woman? I saw Mavis release her hand from his, the while she stood looking down upon him in alarm and bewilderment. Presently she spoke in sweet yet tremulous accents—
“Since you desire it so earnestly, I promise,”—she said—“I will pray that the strange and bitter sorrow which seems to consume you may be removed from your life——”