Three Weeks Part 7

He tore up at least three sheets to start with--no Greek lines of punishment in his boyhood had ever appeared such a task as this. He found himself scribbling profiles on the paper, chiselled profiles with inky hair--but no words would come.

"Dear Isabella," he wrote at last. No--"My dear Isabella," then he paused and bit the pen. "I feel I ought to tell you something has happened to me. I see my parents were right when--" "Oh! dash it all,"

he said to himself, "it's a beastly sneaking thing to do to put it like that," and he scratched the paragraph out and began again. "I have made a mistake in my feelings for you; I know now that they were those of a brother--" "O Lord, what am I to say next, it does sound bald, this!" The poor boy groaned and ran his hands through his curly hair, then seized the pen again, and continued--"as such I shall love you always, dear Isabella. Please forgive me if I have caused you any pain. It was all my fault, and I feel a beastly cad.--Your very unhappy PAUL."

This was not a masterpiece! but it would have to do. So he copied it out on a fresh piece of paper. Then, when it was all finished and addressed he ran down and posted it himself in the hall, with some of the emotions Alexander may have experienced when he burnt his s.h.i.+ps.

The clock struck eleven. At what time would he see the lady--_his_ lady he called her now. Some instinct told him she did not wish the hotel people to be aware of their acquaintance. He felt it wiser not to send a note. He must wait and hope.

Rain or not, he was too English to stay indoors all day. So out he went and into the town. The quaint bridge pleased him; he tried to think how she would have told him to use his eyes. He must not be stupid, he said to himself, and already he began to perceive new meanings in things. Coming back, he chanced to stop and look in at the fur shop under the hotel. There were some nice skins there, and what caught his attention most was a really splendid tiger. A magnificent creature the beast must have been. The deepest, most perfectly marked, largest one he had ever seen. He stood for some time admiring it. An infinitely better specimen than his lady had over her couch. Should he buy it for her? Would she take it? Would it please her to think he had remembered it might be what she would like?

He went into the shop. It was not even dear as tigers go, and his parents had given him ample money for any follies.

"Confound it, Henrietta! The boy must have his head!" Sir Charles Verdayne had said. "He's my son, you know, and you can't expect to cure him of one wench unless you provide him with shekels to buy another." Which crudely expressed wisdom had been followed, and Paul had no worries where his banking account was concerned.

He bought the tiger, and ordered it to be sent to his rooms immediately.

Then there was lunch to be thought of. She would not be there probably, but still he had a faint hope.

She was not there, nor were any preparations made for her; but when one is twenty-three and hungry, even if deeply in love, one must eat. The English people had the next table beyond the sacred one of the lady. The girl was pretty and young, and laughing. But what a doll! thought Paul. What a meaningless wax doll! Not worth--not worth a moment's glancing at.

And the pink and white fluffy girl was saying to herself: "There is Paul Verdayne again. I wish he remembered he had met me at the De Courcys', though we weren't introduced. I must get Percy to sc.r.a.pe up a conversation with him. I wish mamma had not made me wear this green alpaca to-day." But Paul's blue eyes gazed through and beyond her, and saw her not. So all this prettiness was wasted.

And directly after lunch he returned to his sitting room. The tiger would probably have arrived, and he wanted to further examine it. Yes, it was there. He pulled it out and spread it over the floor. What a splendid creature--it reminded him in some way of her--his lady.

Then he went into his bedroom and fetched a pair of scissors, and proceeded to kneel on the floor and pare away the pinked-out black cloth which came beyond the skin. It looked ba.n.a.l, and he knew she would not like that.

Oh! he was awaking! this beautiful young Paul.

He had scarcely finished when there was a tap at the door, and Dmitry appeared with a note. The thin, remembered paper thrilled him, and he took it from the servant's hand.

"Paul--I am in the devil's mood to-day. About 5 o'clock come to me by the terrace steps."

That was all--there was no date or signature. But Paul's heart beat in his throat with joy.

"I want the skin to go to Madame," he said. "Have you any means of conveying it to her without the whole world seeing it go?"

The stately servant bowed. "If the Excellency would help him to fold it up," he said, "he would take it now to his own room, and from thence to the _appartement numero 3_."

It is not a very easy thing to fold up a huge tiger-skin into a brown paper parcel tied with string. But it was accomplished somehow and Dmitry disappeared noiselessly with it and an answer to the note:

"I will be there, sweet lady.

"Your own PAUL."

And he was.

A bright fire burnt in the grate, and some palest orchid-mauve silk curtains were drawn in the lady's room when Paul entered from the terrace. And loveliest sight of all, in front of the fire, stretched at full length, was his tiger--and on him--also at full length--reclined the lady, garbed in some strange clinging garment of heavy purple crepe, its hem embroidered with gold, one white arm resting on the beast's head, her back supported by a pile of the velvet cus.h.i.+ons, and a heap of rarely bound books at her side, while between her red lips was a rose not redder than they--an almost scarlet rose. Paul had never seen one as red before.

The whole picture was barbaric. It might have been some painter's dream of the Favourite in a harem. It was not what one would expect to find in a sedate Swiss hotel.

She did not stir as he stepped in, dropping the heavy curtains after him. She merely raised her eyes, and looked Paul through and through.

Her whole expression was changed; it was wicked and dangerous and _provocante_. It seemed quite true, as she had said--she was evidently in the devil's mood.

Paul bounded forward, but she raised one hand to stop him.

"No! you must not come near me, Paul. I am not safe to-day. Not yet. See, you must sit there and we will talk."

And she pointed to a great chair of Venetian workmans.h.i.+p and wonderful old velvet which was new to his view.

"I bought that chair in the town this morning at the curiosity shop on the top of Weggisstra.s.se, which long ago was the home of the Venetian envoy here--and you bought me the tiger, Paul. Ah! that was good. My beautiful tiger!" And she gave a movement like a snake, of joy to feel its fur under her, while she stretched out her hands and caressed the creature where the hair turned white and black at the side, and was deep and soft.

"Beautiful one! beautiful one!" she purred. "And I know all your feelings and your pa.s.sions, and now I have got your skin--for the joy of my skin!" And she quivered again with the movements of a snake.

It is not difficult to imagine that Paul felt far from calm during this scene--indeed he was obliged to hold on to his great chair to prevent himself from seizing her in his arms.

"I'm--I'm so glad you like him," he said in a choked voice. "I thought probably you would. And your own was not worthy of you. I found this by chance. And oh! good G.o.d! if you knew how you are making me feel--lying there wasting your caresses upon it!"

She tossed the scarlet rose over to him; it hit his mouth.

"I am not wasting them," she said, the innocence of a kitten in her strange eyes--their colour impossible to define to-day. "Indeed not, Paul! He was my lover in another life--perhaps--who knows?"

"But I," said Paul, who was now quite mad, "want to be your lover in this!"

Then he gasped at his own boldness.

With a lightning movement she lay on her face, raised her elbows on the tiger's head, and supported her chin in her hands. Perfectly straight out her body was, the twisted purple drapery outlining her perfect shape, and flowing in graceful lines beyond--like a serpent's tail. The velvet pillows fell scattered at one side.

"Paul--what do you know of lovers--or love?" she said. "My baby Paul!"

"I know enough to know I know nothing yet which is worth knowing," he said confusedly. "But--but--don't you understand, I want you to teach me--"

"You are so sweet, Paul! when you plead like that I am taking in every bit of you. In your way as perfect as this tiger. But we must talk--oh! such a great, great deal--first."

A rage of pa.s.sion was racing through Paul, his incoherent thoughts were that he did not want to talk--only to kiss her--to devour her--to strangle her with love if necessary.

He bit the rose.

"You see, Paul, love is a purely physical emotion," she continued. "We could speak an immense amount about souls, and sympathy, and understanding, and devotion. All beautiful things in their way, and possible to be enjoyed at a distance from one another. All the things which make pa.s.sion n.o.ble--but without love--which _is_ pa.s.sion--these things dwindle and become duties presently, when the hysterical exaltation cools. Love is _tangible_--it means to be close--close--to be clasped--to be touching--to be One!"

Her voice was low--so concentrated as to be startling in contrast to the drip of the rain outside, and her eyes--half closed and gleaming--burnt into his brain. It seemed as if strange flames of green darted from their pupils.

"But that is what I want!" Paul said, unsteadily.

"Without counting the cost? Tears and--cold steel--and blood!" she whispered. "Wait a while, beautiful Paul!"

He started back chilled for a second, and in that second she changed her position, pulling the cus.h.i.+ons around her, nestling into them and drawing herself cosily up like a child playing on a mat in front of the fire, while with a face of perfect innocence she looked up as she drew one of her great books nearer, and said in a dreamy voice:

"Now we will read fairy-tales, Paul."