Bella Donna. Robert Hichens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ started. He had launched himself into space with the soul. Now, abruptly, he was tethered to earth in the body. Had he not heard the murmur of a dress announcing the coming of its wearer? He looked towards the second door of the room, which opened probably into a bedroom. It was shut, and remained shut. He came away from the piano. What books was she fond of reading! Emerson—optimism in boxing-gloves; Maspero—she was interested, then, in things Egyptian. "Faust"—De Maupassant—D'Annunzio—Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter." He took this last book, which was small and bound in white, into his hand. He had known it once. He had read it long ago. Now he opened it, glanced quickly through its pages. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale—suddenly he remembered the story, the sin of the flesh, the scarlet letter that branded the sin upon the woman's breast while the man went unpunished.

      And Mrs. Chepstow had it, bound in white.

      "Are you judging my character by my books?"

      A warm and careless voice spoke behind him. She had come in and was standing close to him, dressed in white, with a black hat, and holding a white parasol in her hand. In the sunshine she looked even fairer than by night. Her pale but gleaming hair was covered by a thin veil, which she kept down as she greeted Nigel.

      "Not judging," he said, as he held her hand for a moment. "Guessing, perhaps, or guessing at."

      "Which is it? 'The Scarlet Letter'! I got it a year ago. I read it. And when I had read it, I sent it to be bound in white."

      "Why was that?"

      "'Though your sin shall be as scarlet,'" she quoted.

      He was silent, looking at her.

      "Let us have tea."

      As she spoke, she went, with her slow and careless walk which Isaacson had noticed, towards the fireplace, and touched the electric bell. Then she sat down on a sofa close to the cage of the canary-birds, and with her back to the light.

      "I suppose you are fearfully busy with engagements," she continued, as he came to sit down near her. "Most people are, at this time of year. One ought to be truly grateful for even five minutes of anybody's time. I remember, ages ago, when I was one of the busy ones, I used to expect almost servile thankfulness for any little minute I doled out. How things change!"

      She did not sigh, but laughed, and, without giving him time to speak, added:

      "Which of my other books did you look at?"

      "I saw you had Maspero."

      "Oh, I got that simply because I had met you. It turned my mind towards Egypt, which I have never seen, although I've yachted all over the place. Last night, after we had said good night, I couldn't sleep; so I sat here and read Maspero for a while, and thought of your Egyptian life. I didn't mean to be impertinent. One has to think of something."

      "Impertinent!"

      Her tone, though light, had surely been coloured with apology.

      "Well, people are so funny—now. I remember the time when lots of them were foolish in the opposite way. If I thought of them, they seemed to take it as an honour. But then I wasn't thirty-eight, and I was in society."

      The German waiter came in with tea. When he had arranged it and gone out, Nigel said, with a certain diffidence:

      "I wonder you don't live in the country."

      "I know what you mean. But you're wrong. One feels even more out of it there."

      She gave him his cup gently, with a movement that implied care for his comfort, almost a thoughtful, happy service.

      "The Rector is embarrassed, his wife appalled. The Doctor's 'lady,' much as she longs for one's guineas, tries to stop him even from attending one's dying bed. The Squire, though secretly interested to fervour, is of course a respectable man. He is a 'stay' to country morality, and his wife is a pair of stays. The neighbours respond in their dozens to the mot d'ordre, and there one is plantée, like a lonely white moon encircled by a halo of angry fire. Dear acquaintance, I've tried it. Egypt—Omaha—anything would be better. What are you eating? Have one of these little cakes. They really are good. I ordered them specially for you and our small festivity."

      She was smiling as she handed him the plate.

      "I should think Egypt would be better!" exclaimed Nigel, with a strength and a vehemence that contrasted almost startlingly with her light, half-laughing tone. "Why don't you go there? Why don't you try the free life?"

      "Live among the tribes, like Lady Hester Stanhope in the Lebanon? I'm afraid I could never train myself to wear a turban. Besides, Egypt is fearfully civilized now. Every one goes there. I should be cut all up the Nile."

      The brutality of her frankness startled and almost pained him. For a moment, in it he seemed to discern a lack of taste.

      "You are right," she said; and suddenly the lightness died away altogether from her voice. "But how is one not to get blunted? And even long ago I always hated pretence. Women are generally pretending. And they are wise. I have never been wise. If I were wise, I should not let you see my lonely, stupid, undignified situation."

      Suddenly she turned so that the light from the window fell full upon her, and lifted her veil up over the brim of her hat.

      "Nor my face, upon which, of course, must be written all sorts of worries and sorrows. But I couldn't pretend at eighteen, nor can I at thirty-eight. No wonder so many men—the kind of men you meet at your club, at the Marlborough, or the Bachelors', or the Travellers'—call me an 'ass of a woman.' I am an ass of a woman, a little—little—ass."

      In saying the very last words all the severity slipped away out of her voice, and as she smiled again and moved her head, emphasizing humorously her own reproach to herself, she looked almost a girl.

      "The 'little' applies to my mind, of course, not to my body; or perhaps I ought to say to my soul, instead of to my body."

      "No, 'little' would be the wrong adjective for your soul," Nigel said.

      Mrs. Chepstow looked touched, and turned once more away from the light, after Nigel had noticed that she looked touched.

      "Have you seen your friend, Doctor Isaacson, to-day?" she said, seeming to make an effort in changing the conversation. "I like that man, though usually I dislike Jews because of their love for money. I like him, and somehow I feel as if he had liked me the other night, as if he had felt kindly towards me."

      "Isaacson is a splendid fellow. I haven't seen him again. He has been called away by a case. We were to have ridden together this morning, but he sent to say it was impossible. He has gone into the country."

      "Will he be away long?"

      "I don't know. I hope not. I want him here badly."

      "Oh?"

      "I mean that he's congenial to me in many ways, and that congenial spirits are rare."

      "You must have troops of friends. You are a man's man."

      "I don't know. What is a man's man?"

      "A man like you."

      "And СКАЧАТЬ