The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ over Theodora there rushed an emotion when she took the letter. Her hands trembled, and she slipped it into the bodice of her dress. She would not be able to read it yet. She was waiting, all ready dressed, for Josiah to enter any moment, to take their usual walk in the Bois.

      Then she wondered what would the widow think of her action, slipping it into her dress--but it was done now, and too late to alter. And their eyes met, and she understood that her future step-mother was wide awake and knew a good many things. But the kind woman put her arm round her and kissed her soft cheek.

      "I want you to be my little daughter, Theodora," she said. "And if you have a heartache, dear, why I have had them, too--and I'd like to comfort you. There!"

      XV

      The dinner-party went off with great clat. Had not all the guests read in the New York _Herald_ that morning of Captain Fitzgerald's good-fortune? He with his usual _savoir-vivre_ had arranged matters to perfection. The company was chosen from among the nicest of his and Mrs. McBride's friends.

      The invitations had been couched in this form: "I want you to meet my daughter, Mrs. Josiah Brown, my dear lady," or "dear fellow," as the case might be. "She is having a little dinner at Madrid on Monday night, and so hopes you will let me persuade you to come."

      And the French Count, and Mr. Clutterbuck R. Tubbs and his daughter, Theodora had asked herself. Also the Austrian Prince. The party consisted of about twenty people--and the menu and the Tziganes were as perfect as they could be, while the night might have been a night of July--it happened to be that year when Paris was blessed with a gloriously warm May.

      Lord Bracondale was late: had not the post come in just as he was starting, and brought him a letter, whose writing, although he had never seen it before, filled him with thrills of joy.

      Theodora had found time during the day to read and reread his epistle, and to kiss it more than once with a guilty blush.

      And she had written this answer:

      "I have received your letter, and it says many things to me--and, Hector, it will comfort me always, this dear letter, and to know you love me.

      "I have led a very ordinary life, you see, and the great blast of love has never come my way, or to any one whom I knew. I did not realize, quite, it was a real thing out of books--but now I know it is; and oh, I can believe, if circumstances were different, it could be heaven. But this cannot alter the fact that for me to think of you much would be very wrong now. I do love you--I do not deny it--though I am going to try my utmost to put the thought away from me and to live my life as best I can. I do not regret anything either, dear, because, but for you, I would never have known what life's meaning is at all--I should have stayed asleep always; and you have opened my eyes and taught me to see new beauties in all nature. And oh, we must not grieve, we must thank fate for giving us this one peep into paradise--and we must try and find the angel to steer our barks for us beyond the rocks. Listen--I want you to do something for me to-night. I want you not to look at me much, or tempt me with your dear voice. It will be terribly hard in any case, but if you will be kind you will help me to get through with it, and then, and then--I hardly dare to look ahead--but I leave it all in your hands. I would like to meet your mother and sister--but when, and where? I feel inclined to say, not yet, only I know that is just cowardice, and a shrinking from possible pain in seeing you. So I leave it to you to do what is best, and I trust to your honor and your love not to tempt me beyond bearing-point--and remember, I am trying, trying hard, to do what is right--and trying not to love you.

      "And so, good-bye. I must never say this again--or even think it unsaid; but to-night, oh! Yes, Hector, know that I love you! THEODORA."

      And all the way to Madrid, as he flew along in his automobile, his heart rejoiced at this one sentence--"Yes, Hector, know that I love you!"

      The rest of the world did not seem to matter very much. How fortunate it is that so often Providence lets us live on the pleasure of the moment!

      He sat on her left hand--the Austrian Prince was on her right--and studiously all through the repast he tried to follow her wishes and the law he had laid down for himself as the pattern of his future conduct.

      He was gravely polite, he never turned the conversation away from the general company, including her neighbors in it all the time, and only when he was certain she was not noticing did he feast his eyes upon her face.

      She was looking supremely beautiful. If possible, whiter than usual, and there was a shadow in her eyes as of mystery, which had not been there before--and while their pathos wrung his heart, he could not help perceiving their added beauty. And he had planted this change there--he, and he alone. He admired her perfect taste in dress--she was all in pure white, muslin and laces, and he knew it was of the best, and the creation of the greatest artist.

      She looked just what _his_ wife ought to look, infinitely refined and slender and stately and fair.

      Morella Winmarleigh would seem as a large dun cow beside her.

      Then suddenly they both remembered it was only a week this night since they had met. Only seven days in which fate had altered all their lives.

      The Austrian Prince wondered to himself what had happened. He had not been blind to the situation at Armenonville, and here they seemed like polite hostess and guest, nothing more.

      "They are English, and they are very well bred, and they are very good actors," he thought. "But, mon Dieu! were I ce beau jeune homme!"

      And so it had come to an end--the feast and the Tziganes playing, and Theodora will always be haunted by that last wild Hungarian tune. Music, which moved every fibre of her being at all times, to-night was a torture of pain and longing. And he was so near, so near and yet so far, and it seemed as if the music meant love and separation and passionate regret, and the last air most passionate of all, and before the final notes died away Hector bent over to her, and he whispered:

      "I have got your letter, and I love you, and I will obey its every wish. You must trust me unto death. Darling, good-night, but never good-bye!"

      And she had not answered, but her breath had come quickly, and she had looked once in his eyes and then away into the night.

      And so they shook hands politely and parted. And next day Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Brown crossed over to England.

      XVI

      It was pouring with rain the evening Lord Bracondale arrived from Paris at the family mansion in St. James's Square. He had only wired at the last moment to his mother, too late to change her plans; she was unfortunately engaged to take Morella Winmarleigh to the opera, and was dining early at that lady's house, so she could only see him for a few moments in her dressing-room before she started.

      "My darling, darling boy!" she exclaimed, as he opened the door and peeped in. "Streatfield, bring that chair for his lordship, and--oh, you can go for a few minutes."

      Then she folded him in her arms, and almost sobbed with joy to see him again.

      "Well, mother," he said, when she had kissed him and murmured over him as much as she wished. "Here I am, and what a sickening climate! And where are you off to?"

      "I am going to dine with Morella Winmarleigh," СКАЧАТЬ