“Alexia,” he continued, clasping her hands in his, “you do love me?”
“Yes, Geoffrey,” she answered frankly, as her deep grey eyes looked into his. “You know I love you.”
“But you hardly know me,” he went on. “At least only as the world knows me, from the show-side. If, when we are married and you know me almost as I know myself, if then you find I am not all you thought me, if you find that what you call my modesty was not all affectation, that I stand lower in your estimation than I once did, will you love me then?”
“I will love you always, Geoffrey,” she answered simply. “Do you think a woman is ever very wrong in her estimation of a man?”
“Where love and, perhaps, gratitude are concerned to blind her.”
Alexia laughed. “Sometimes, where the woman is a fool. I don’t think I am a fool, dear, or that you are unworthy of all I believe you to be.”
Ah, that miserable secret that lay between them. Could he, dared he, tell her that all through the brilliant career for which she admired him he had been but the mouthpiece of a cleverer brain, and that man, of all others, Paul Gastineau? Yet if the confession were to come at all it should in honour be made forthwith. Every hour he delayed it added lie to lie. Yesterday he had thought the truth of the matter need never be spoken, to-day he felt that the disclosure must sooner or later be forced upon him. And if it was so surely to come, Alexia must at any cost learn the truth from his lips, not from another’s, least of all Gastineau’s. Yet he recognized that their secret was Gastineau’s weapon to crush Alexia’s love for him. How long would it be before he made his existence, his presence known to the woman of his desire; how long before he dealt that telling blow? He ought to forestall him; here, to his hand, was the opportunity. Yet, could he take it? It meant, he told himself, breaking his oath to Gastineau; it would mean trouble and fear to Alexia, it might mean his own discomfiture and ruin. No. At that moment with his arms round Alexia, with her sweet eyes speaking love to his, with her kisses on his lips, he could not give even a hint that should mar the delight of the present. The future seemed dark enough: the light of his love should burn till its extinction was forced upon him.
He looked at Alexia, the prize he had won, radiant in the beauty that was for him, and which was the index of a glorious soul. The thought of Gastineau’s insinuation against this adorable woman filled him with an access of disgust. What lie could ever lurk beneath the light of those clear grey eyes, which looked into his with a gaze which shamed the good fortune he had seized under the shadow of falsehood. Is not the charm of a woman of honour compared with the Circean fascination of an adventuress as sunlight to darkness? The spell of Alexia’s beauty was upon Herriard; and not of her beauty only, but of the innate nobility which differentiated her in his eyes from every other woman. He clasped her to him with passionate kisses, and in his heart vowed, that, cost what it might, the whole world should not take this prize from him; not the forces of right; no, nor the legions of evil, whose well-chosen representative in this case seemed to be Paul Gastineau.
“I will not have you disparage yourself to me, dear,” Alexia said presently. They were standing lover-like, with hands clasped; the time of parting had come, for it was near the hour of Herriard’s appointment in chambers. “You must not,” she continued, with her love radiating through the playful reproof. “It reflects on my taste, when you run yourself down.”
“Then I will not,” he replied, abandoning himself to the moment’s rapture. “Henceforth I will be what you would have me.” And he vowed inwardly that he would never for a scruple risk the loss of this jewel; would never be fool enough to ring the doubtful coins he was giving for it that they might sound false.