But the power, the power that she had! Hear her rhapsodist. “If you can so work upon your delicate surface as to mould it close to your noble soul; if in the gallery of the world you can unveil yourself for a thousand pair of eyes to see, and praise God for the right to see—why, what an artist you are, and what an audience you have! ... Like a whiff of thyme on a grassy down, like the breath of violets from a bank, or of bean-flower blown across a dusty hedge, some gentle exhalation of your soul sighed through your body will hint to the passion-driven wretch things innocent and quiet. The blue beam of your steadfast eyes may turn his own to heaven; a chance-caught, low, sweet tone of your voice may check clamour; an answer may turn his wrath.... You can be picture, form, poem, symphony in one.... Think of it, Sanchia, before you turn away. Think well whether upon that exquisite medium you cannot express your best.”
She found herself trembling—in these days she easily trembled—as she re-read these words. That such a power should indeed be hers—and how could she fail to believe it?—was inspiration enough to send her to the fire. She read no more, but used to sit shivering, thrilling through every fibre of her body, with the strength of such splendid praise. For whatever might be her fate, splendid it was to have been so loved, so seen, and so praised. It was well for Ingram that she read her old love-letters—and extremely unfortunate for the writer of them, who anguished for her now in his desert place. Odd situation! that the love-letters of one man should reconcile her to the arms of another.
From Torquay, where she spent the Easter holidays with her father, the two alone and happily together, she wrote two or three times to Nevile. He was at Wanless, professedly getting some order into things there, and protesting to her by every word he sent her upon the need there was of her hand upon affairs. There was not a word of love used between the pair. All the love-making, indeed, was done by Senhouse, whose master-stroke was called for by and by.
Towards the end of April she was alone in Charles Street, preparing the house for Lady Maria's return from Rome. Ingram was still at Wanless, grumbling through his duties of magistrate, landlord, and county gentleman. “They seem to think up here that a fellow has nothing to do but 'take the chair,'” he wrote. “I can tell you I'm pretty sick of it, and fancy that they will be before long. I'm an awkward customer when I'm bored—as I am now, damnably.” She sent him matter-of-fact replies, and wrote principally of the weather.
The Pole continued his discreet and temperate wooing after the plan he had formulated. He strove to interest her perpetually, never left her without having, as he taught himself to believe, impressed himself anew upon her imagination. Watching her as a cat a mouse, he learned to read her by signs so slight that no one who had not the intuition of a woman could have seen them at all. Unfortunately for him, he misinterpreted what he read. The slap-dash Ingram thought all was well; Chevenix, the more observant, thought there was a bare chance; Morosine alone could see how her quivering soul was being bruised, and if he thought that she looked to him for balm, he may be excused. She was drowning, she held out her hands. To whom, but to him upon the bank? How should he know what shadow stood behind him, with praise in his dim eyes for a “dear obsequious head”?
Playing deputy to Senhouse, little as he guessed it, he devoted himself to bracing her for the match, having made up his mind that there was no other way of making her happiness his own. His mistress she might be, his wife never. As he read her, she would keep the letter of the law—since the law required it of her. The rest, he flattered himself, might be left to time and him. His present aim was to interest and stimulate her, without alarming.
He counted greatly upon some sudden emotional stimulus, which would cause her to fall to him; and one came, though it had no such effect.
The opera of Tristan and Isolde, to which she was taken by Lady Maria—where she sat in his box, by his side, absorbed in the most sensuous expression of the love-malady that has ever tormented its way out of a poet's heart—had been a real test of his restraint. He had not once met her eyes—though hers, craving sympathy at any hand, had sought his often; he had not once permitted himself to gaze upon her beauty, though it was her beauty, so carven, so purely Greek, which had drawn him to her from the first. While the great music went sobbing and chiding through her frame, like wounded nightingales, he had sat in the dark, with his arms folded, never looking at her fully, nor seeking to win a glance from her soul to his own. That it stirred her to the deeps he knew. He could watch sideways, listen sideways, both hear and see that she was rapt. Her quick-heaving breast, the whistle of her short breath, the strained line of her head and shoulder—all this he marked and stored without a sign. Even when, on going out, he had been conscious of her overcharged heart, of her breast full of emotion; even when she had told him under her breath that she was happier, though he shivered, he drew away. He had nodded quickly, smiled, blinked his eyes. “I was sure of that,” was all he allowed himself in the way of intimacy.
Swift, fire-consumed, intensely sensitive, subtle-minded, this was a man who relished suggestions more than things. He had far rather deal mentally with the lovely image of Sanchia, as he saw it, than actually with the breathing, palpitating flesh. To picture her longing, straining, trembling—to keep her always so, always holding out her arms, never obtaining what she sought: his bliss lay in that. He knew himself, after much experience of the sort; he had missed so often by blundering in, that now he dared not risk a wreck. Here at last, he told himself, was perfection: let him look to it that he kept it at its perfect poise. He must poise himself to do that, balance himself upon a knife-edge. Little of an ascetic as he was by temper, he could train himself to the last ounce if the prize were worth it. And it was. Never had musician had instrument more sensitive to play upon. It seemed to him worthy of a lifetime of preparation to have her for one moment of time throbbing in his arms.
{Illustration: The great music went sobbing and chiding through her frame, like wounded nightingales.}