She glanced down on the agitation which his features could not conceal with a sense of that wonder which never failed to come to her before the intensity of feeling with which she inspired others.
‘When I really do nothing to make them like that!’ she reflected for the hundredth time before the tempest which she raised almost without endeavour.
Othmar had recovered his presence of mind, though none of his tranquillity; his words, impetuous, persuasive, at times broken by the force of his emotion, at times eloquent with the eloquence natural to passion, fell on her ear uninterrupted by her. She listened, much as she might have listened to the sonorous swell of the Marche au Supplice of Berlioz, or any other harmony which should have pleased her taste if only by contrast of its own vehemence and strength with the serenity of her own nature. She listened, without any sign of any sort, save of so much acquiescence as might be indicated by the gentleness of her expression and the passiveness with which she left her hand in his. He believed her silence to be assent.
‘This is what I have always fancied might conquer me,’ she thought, whilst his ardent protestations and entreaties held her for the moment pleased and fascinated. ‘And yet, I do not know. To leave the world, to be always together, to go, heaven knows where, into a sort of Mahometan paradise—would it suit me? I am afraid not. The idea pleases one in a way, but not quite enough for that. Always together, and alone—one would tire of an angel!’
So still she was, as these thoughts drifted through her mind, so unresistingly she let his forehead, and then his lips, lie on her hand, that he believed himself successful in his prayer. He lifted his eyes and looked at her with a gaze full of rapturous light, of adoration and of gratitude.
‘Oh, my love! my love!’ he murmured. ‘Never shall you regret an hour your mercy to me!’
His lips would have sought hers as his words ended in a sigh, the lover’s sigh of happiness, but she moved and disengaged herself quickly, and motioned to him to rise. On her mouth there was the slight smile he knew so well—the smile that was the enemy of men.
‘My dear friend,’ she said, in her melodious voice, sweet as the south wind, and never sweeter than when it uttered cruel truths to ears that were wounded by them, ‘I will do you the justice to grant that I quite believe you care very much for me’ (he made an indignant gesture); ‘well, that you love me un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, as the convent girls say to the daisies. But I am equally convinced that you do not understand me in the least. I understand myself thoroughly. We are all enigmas to others, but we ought to be able to read our own riddle ourselves. I can read mine; many people never can read theirs all their lives long, and that is why they make so many mistakes. Now, I do know myself so very well. I know that no kind of sin, if there really be such a thing as sin, would frighten me much. I think my nerves would stand even a crime without wincing, if it were a bold one. If the world threw stones at me, it would amuse me. I cannot fancy anybody being unhappy about it. Therefore you will comprehend me when I say that it is not any kind of commonplace nonsense about doing anything wrong which moves me for a moment, but,—I have thought of it all very much and very seriously, and really with a wish to try that other kind of life you speak of, but—I cannot go with you!’
She said it as quietly and as lightly as if she were saying that she could not drive with him to the Col di Guardia that morning. She was smiling her pretty, slight, mysterious smile, which might have meant anything, from pity to derision. She had a sprig or two of the leafless calycanthus in her fingers, which she played with as she spoke. He hated the fragrance of that winter blossom ever afterwards.
‘You cannot? You cannot?’ he murmured almost unconsciously. ‘And why?’