Married Part 37

This delicate body, which he had loved and admired so much, could be warmed into life! Red, warm blood flowed in those blue veins. Blood which could distil tears. He gently stroked her brow.

"Oh!" she sighed, "why aren't you always good to me like that? Why hasn't it always been so?"

"Well," he answered, "why hasn't it? Tell me, why not?"

Helena's eyelids drooped. "Why not?" she breathed, softly.

She did not withdraw her hand and he felt a gentle warmth radiating from her velvety skin; his love for her burst into fresh flames, but this time he felt that there was hope.

At last she rose to her feet.

"Don't despise me," she said, "don't despise me, dear."

And she went into her room.

What was the matter with her? Albert wondered as he went up to town.

Was she pa.s.sing through a crisis of some sort? Was she only just beginning to realise that she was his wife?

He spent the whole day in town. In the evening he went to the theatre.

They played _Le monde ou l'on s'ennuit_. As he sat and watched platonic love, the union of souls, unmasked and ridiculed, he felt as if a veil of close meshed lies were being drawn from his reason; he smiled as he saw the head of the charming beast peeping from underneath the card-board wings of the stage-angel; he almost shed tears of amus.e.m.e.nt at his long, long self-deception; he laughed at his folly. What filth and corruption lay behind this hypocritical morality, this insane desire for emanc.i.p.ation from healthy, natural instincts. It was the ascetic teaching of idealism and Christianity which had implanted this germ into the nineteenth century.

He felt ashamed! How could he have allowed himself to be duped all this time!

There was still light in Helena's room as he pa.s.sed her door on tip-toe so as not to wake her. He heard her cough.

He went straight to bed, smoked his cigar and read his paper. He was absorbed in an article on conscription, when all of a sudden Helena's door was flung open, and footsteps and screams from the drawing-room fell on his ears. He jumped up and rushed out of his room, believing that the house was on fire.

Helena was standing in the drawing-room in her nightgown.

She screamed when she saw her husband and ran to her room; on the threshold she hesitated and turned her head.

"Forgive me, Albert," she stammered, "it's you. I didn't know that you were still up. I thought there were burglars in the house. Please, forgive me."

And she closed her door.

What did it all mean? Was she in love with him?

He went into his room and stood before the looking-gla.s.s. Could any woman fall in love with him? He was plain. But one loves with one's soul and many a plain man had married a beautiful woman. It was true, though, that in such cases the man had nearly always possessed wealth and influence.--Was Helena realising that she had placed herself in a false position? Or had she become aware of his intention to leave her and was anxious to win him back?

When they met at the breakfast table on the following morning, Helena was unusually gentle, and the professor noticed that she was wearing a new morning-gown trimmed with lace, which suited her admirably.

As he was helping himself to sugar, his hand accidentally touched hers.

"I beg your pardon, dear," she said with an expression on her face which he had never seen before. She looked like a young girl.

They talked about indifferent things.

On the same day Parliament opened.

Helena's yielding mood lasted and she grew more and more affectionate.

The period allowed for the introduction of new bills drew to a close.

One evening the professor came home from his club in an unusually gay frame of mind. He went to bed with his paper and his cigar. After a while he heard Helena's door creak. Silence, lasting for a few minutes, followed. Then there came a knock at his door.

"Who is there?" he shouted.

"It's I, Albert, do dress and come into the drawing-room, I want to speak to you."

He dressed and went into the drawing-room.

Helena had lighted the chandelier and was sitting on the sofa, dressed in her lace morning-gown.

"Do forgive me," she said, "but I can't sleep. My head feels so strange. Come here and talk to me."

"You are all unstrung, little girl," said Albert, taking her hand in his own. "You ought to take some wine."

He went into the dining-room and returned with a decanter and two gla.s.ses.

"Your health, darling," he said.

Helena drank and her cheeks caught fire.

"What's wrong?" he asked, putting his arm round her waist.

"I'm not happy," she replied.

He was conscious that the words sounded dry and artificial, but his pa.s.sion was roused and he didn't care.

"Do you know why you are unhappy?" he asked.

"No. I only know one thing, and that is that I love you."

Albert caught her in his arms and kissed her face.

"Are you my wife, or aren't you?" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"I am your wife," breathed Helena, collapsing, as if every nerve in her body had snapped.

"Altogether?" he whispered paralysing her with his kisses.

"Altogether," she moaned, moving convulsively, like a sleeper struggling with the horrors of a nightmare.

When Albert awoke, he felt refreshed, his head was clear and he was fully conscious of what had happened in the night. He could think vigorously and logically like a man after a deep and restful sleep.

The whole scene stood vividly before his mind. He saw the full significance of it, unvarnished, undisguised, in the sober light of the morning.

She had sold herself!

At three o'clock in the morning, intoxicated with love, blind to everything, half insane, he had promised to introduce her bill.