Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 16

He took a step forward and was close beside her, but he did not again offer her his hand.

"Will you answer my original question?" he said. "I asked--when?"

In the moonlight he could see her s.h.i.+vering, s.h.i.+vering violently. She shook her head; but he persisted.

His manner was supremely calm and unhurried.

"This week?" he said.

She shook her head again with more decision.

"Oh, no--no!" she said.

"Next?" he suggested.

"No!" she said again.

He was looking at her full and deliberately, but she would not look at him. She was quaking in every limb. There was a pause. Then Wingarde spoke again.

"Why not next week?" he asked. "Have you any particular reason?"

She glanced at him.

"It would be--so soon," she faltered.

"What difference does that make?" A very strange smile touched his grim lips. "Having made up your mind to do something disagreeable, do you find s.h.i.+rking till the last moment makes it any easier--any more palatable? Surely the sooner it's over--"

"It never will be over," she broke in pa.s.sionately. "It is for all my life! Ah, what am I saying? Mr. Wingarde"--she turned towards him, her face quivering painfully--"be patient with me! I have given my promise."

The smile on his face deepened into something that closely resembled a sneer.

"How long do you want me to wait?" he said. "Fifty years?"

She drew back sharply. But almost instantly he went on speaking.

"I will yield a point," he said, "if it means so much to you. But, you know, the wedding-day will dawn eventually, however remote we make it.

Will you say next month?"

The girl's eyes wore a hunted look, but she kept them raised with desperate resolution. She did not answer him, however. After a moment he repeated his question. His face had become stern. The lines about his mouth were grimly resolute.

"Will you say next month, Nina?" he said. "It shall be the last day of it if you wish. But--next month."

His tone was inexorable. He meant to win this point, and she knew it.

Her breath came quickly, unevenly; but in face of his mastery she made a great effort to control her agitation.

"Very well," she said, and she spoke more steadily than she had spoken at all during the interview. "I will marry you next month."

"Will you fix the day?" he asked.

She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh--the reckless laugh of the loser.

"Surely that cannot matter!" she said. "The first day or the last--as you say, what difference does it make?"

"You leave the choice tome?" he asked, without the smallest change of countenance.

"Certainly!" she said coldly.

"Then I choose the first," he rejoined.

And at the words she gave a great start as if already she repented the moment of recklessness.

The notes of a piano struck suddenly through the almost tragic silence that covered up the protest she had not dared to utter. A few quiet chords; and then a woman's voice began to sing. Slowly, with deep, hidden pathos, the words floated out into the night; and, involuntarily almost, the man and the girl stood still to listen:

Shadows and mist and night, Darkness around the way, Here a cloud and there a star, Afterwards, Day!

Sorrow and grief and tears, Eyes vainly raised above, Here a thorn and there a rose; Afterwards, Love!

The voice was glorious, the rendering sublime. The spell of the singer was felt in the utter silence that followed.

Wingarde's eyes never left his companion's face. But the girl had turned from him. She was listening, rapt and eager. She had forgotten his very presence at her side. As the last pa.s.sionate note thrilled into silence she drew a long breath. Her eyes were full of tears.

Suddenly she came to earth--to the consciousness of his watching eyes--and her expression froze into contemptuous indifference. She turned her head and faced him, scorning the tears she could not hide.

In her look were bitter dislike, fierce resistance, outraged pride.

"Some people," she said, with a little, icy smile, "would prefer to say 'Afterwards, Death!' I am one of them."

Wingarde looked back at her with complete composure. He also seemed faintly contemptuous.

"You probably know as much of the one as of the other," he coolly responded.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Author--I regret to say unknown to me--of the little poem which I have quoted in this story.]

II

A RING OF VALUE

"So Nina has made up her mind to retrieve the family fortunes," yawned Leo, the second son of the house. "Uncommonly generous of her. My only regret is that it didn't occur to her that it would be a useful thing to do some time back. Is the young man coming to discuss settlements to-night?"

"What a beast you are!" growled Burton, the eldest son.

"We're all beasts, if it comes to that," returned Leo complacently. "May as well say it as think it. She has simply sold herself to the highest bidder to get the poor old pater out of Queer Street. And we shall, I hope, get our share of the spoil. I understand that Wingarde is lavish with his worldly goods. He certainly ought to be. He's a millionaire of the first water. A thousand or so distributed among his wife's relations would mean no more to him than the throwing of the crusts to the sparrows." He stopped to laugh lazily. "And the wife's relations would flock in swarms to the feast," he added in a cynical drawl.