Katrine Part 12

Frank did not leave Ravenel even for the few days which he had mentioned to Katrine as a possibility. Accompanied only by her maid, Mrs. Ravenel started to Bar Harbor without him. June drifted into July, and still he lingered at the plantation.

And all the summer days were spent with Katrine Dulany. At first he believed that he would probably tire of the whole affair quickly. He was surprised to find that he did not. He found her always new. There was an elusive quality to her, days when she would barely permit him to touch her hand, when she dazzled him by the audacity of her thinking; her indifference to him, to him who was in no way accustomed to indifference in women. And a few hours later, perchance, he would return to find a girl with wistful eyes and speech of tenderness, with no thought "that is not for the king," she told him once.

No word of marriage was spoken between them; if Katrine thought such an event possible, she gave no sign, spoke no word concerning it. If he came early, she welcomed him with s.h.i.+ning eyes; if he were late, this incomprehensible person bestowed upon him exactly the same smile and glance she would have given had he come two hours before.

"I have kept you waiting for me, I am afraid," he said one day, when he had kept an engagement he had made for ten o'clock at a quarter of twelve.

That morning she had been studying; not tones, but German Church music, and already she had realized, unformulatedly, the solace in the exercise of a great gift; had found that she could forget trouble in the world of inspired work; not for long, perhaps, but long enough to have peace of mind restored to her and strength to go on for another day.

"It didn't matter," she said. "I practised. One forgets one is waiting then."

Finally there arose in him an absurd jealousy of this gift of hers, of the thing which seemed to console her even for his absence.

"I shall learn to hate your music," he said one night, when she had drawn herself away from him to listen intently to the song of a nightingale in the pines.

"Don't do that!" she said. "Ah, don't do that! Don't you see that it is all I have for my own in life; all I shall ever have!"

And with some hidden, mental connection between his words and the act, she began to sing in her great, lovely voice:

"Ask nothing more of me, sweet, All I can give you I give.

Heart of my heart, were it more, More shall be laid at your feet.

Love that should help thee to live, Song that should bid thee to soar.

All I can give you I give; Ask nothing more, nothing more."

She asked, neither by word nor look, for any expression concerning the song; but as the last note died away seated herself beside him, chin in hand, looking far past him into the night.

At two of the next morning he awakened with a start. He was alone in his own rooms at Ravenel. Looking around in the half-light of the window, he put his head back on the pillow with the air of one awakened from a feverish dream. But sleep had vanished for the night. Conscience was with him. The time had come for the reckoning; some settlement with himself was required.

Where was he going, and where was he taking Katrine Dulany? Marriage was out of the question. A person of his importance did not make a mesalliance. He owed a duty to all the Ravenels who had preceded him, to those who would follow. To marry suitably was the first duty in life; perhaps it was the only one which he acknowledged. _Where was he going?_ He lay with open eyes, staring at the ceiling in the faint light of the coming dawn, with a sense of physical sickness at the thought of giving Katrine up, of letting her go out of his life forever. He had told her he cared more for her than he had ever thought it possible for him to care for any one. That was long since, back in the times before he had known the sweetness of her. Now, with all the heart he had to give, he had learned to love her, to long for her presence; she had touched a new chord in his nature, one which he had never known before her coming.

He would not give her up; he could not. Why should he? She would be happier with him, even though wrongfully his, than with a drunken father in the forests of North Carolina. They would go to Paris together. It would be years before he would care to marry. But at the thought Katrine's eyes came back to him. _Francis the King!_ It was so she spoke of him, and it was this complete trust that appealed to all the best within him, as a tenderness born of her sweetness, her complete loyalty, raised him beyond his own selfishness, and he resolved to save her, save her even from himself.

With this fixed thought he rose early and, breakfastless, went out into the dawn. He would go away and leave her. He would see her once more and tell her the truth about himself. He would make it clear to her, "d.a.m.nably clear," he said to himself, with a set chin. She would be left with no illusions concerning him. It would help her to forget to know him as he really was. He felt it part of his expiation to tell her the truth.

As he rode up the pathway to the lodge he was white to the lips. His eyes were sunken. All the pa.s.sion of which he was capable longed for this woman whom he was about to surrender, perhaps to some other. He winced at the thought of it.

She was sitting in the old arbor and turned suddenly at the sound of his steps, an unopened book dropping from her hands at sight of him.

"What is the matter?" she asked, anxiously, at sight of his white face.

"Are you ill?"

"Katrine!" he cried, "it is shame--shame at what I have been doing; shame at the way I have been treating you!"

She grew suddenly pale, and her lips parted as she stood with eyes fastened upon him, waiting for him to go on.

"I wanted you to love me," he went on. "I wanted it from the first. As time pa.s.sed I learned to care so much that I thought of nothing else, wanted nothing else, but to be near you. But never, never for one instant, and, Katrine, it is of this you must think always, _never for one instant did I intend to marry you!_"

She placed one hand against the bench for support, her face exquisitely pale, her eyes darkened, her mouth drawn; but she regarded him steadily and bravely as he continued.

"I might make excuses for my conduct; might even lie about there being some obstacles, my mother's objections, the rest of the family, but I don't want to do that. I want you to know the truth just as it stands, to know me exactly as I am. My mother would object to my marrying you, but if I did it she would in time become reconciled. I have my way with her. The only thing that stands between us is my pride, family pride. It is sending me away from you. I am going to-day, going to-day, because I do not dare to stay."

Still she spoke no word, but sat looking away from him into the ocean of roses.

"For G.o.d's sake, say something to me, Katrine!" he cried, at length.

"Tell me even that I am the contemptible cad you think me to be; only say something. I cannot endure this. With every fibre of me I am longing to take you in my arms, to kiss your eyes that have the ache in them.

G.o.d knows how I want you and how I am suffering!"

Her lips quivered for an instant before she controlled herself to speak.

"There seems nothing to say except 'Good-bye.'"

Her voice was infinitely sad and tender. There was neither anger nor resentment in it, and she rose as though to leave him, but he held her back. The great womanliness of her, the ability to suffer in silence, and the dignity of such a silence touched him strangely. There was a sob in his throat as he spoke.

"Forgive me!" he said. "Oh, say you forgive me, Katrine!"

"Dear," she answered--and as she spoke she put her hand on his brown hair, as a mother might have done, "I don't want you to suffer like this. I might have known, had I thought about it at all, that you would never marry me. But it seemed so perfect as it was, I never thought at all, I just," it seemed as though she were saying her worst to him, "I just trusted you."

He flung out one arm as though to protect himself from a physical blow, and a moan escaped him.

"Let me tell you about myself," she continued; "it will be best, for we may never meet again. Oh, please G.o.d," she cried, suddenly, "we may never meet again in this world!"

The tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she sobbed aloud as she spoke. He reached his arms toward her, but she moved away, sitting silent until she regained such composure as would permit her to go on.

"The first thing I remember in my life, I must have been about three, was my father's beating his head against the wall of the room in which I was sleeping because my mother had left him. After that I became used to anything--to sudden moves in the dark; to being alone with him through the long nights when he had been drinking; to poverty, to black poverty that means not enough to eat nor enough clothes to keep one warm; to years and years of want and despair and misery. As I grew older and went to the convent schools, some of the girls invited me home with them. It was because of my looks and my voice, you know." There was sweet humility in the statement, as though apologizing for the fact that she had been desired. "And they were quite kind. Their parents liked me, and one of them, I remember, said: 'She has a beautiful manner, which is wonderful considering she is little better than a child of the streets.'

I could not feel even then how I was to blame for my birth, seeing that it was a thing arranged for me by the good G.o.d. But I learned what to expect.

"As father grew worse and less able to care for himself, it was necessary to have money. Mr. Ravenel, I have been a beggar in the streets! I have sung in the streets, I! in the court-yards of the hotels, for money to keep from starving! So you will see sorrow is no new thing to me. I do not question it. I have had in my life three perfectly happy months, perfectly happy. It is as much as a woman can expect, perhaps, and though it kill me, though it kill me, I shall never regret having known and loved you." She paused a minute. "When one has to die it is best to go quickly, is it not? When there is some terrible thing in life to do, it were best done quickly as well. Good-bye," she said, putting out her hand.

He shook his head. "If I touch you I shall not go. Oh, Katrine, Katrine, Katrine! Do you know what I am doing? I am going when I could stay, stay, or take you with me! Will you remember it in the years to come, when you are older and will understand what it means? Will you, oh, for G.o.d's sake, Katrine, remember that there was still some little good in me, that although I did not do the best I could have done for you, at least I kept myself from doing the worst?"

A scarlet flush suffused her face at his words.

"Ah, don't!" she cried, putting out her hand, as though to ward off a blow. "Don't! Don't say it! Don't even think it! Believe me, it could never have been like that! I should have died first!"

X

TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND

She turned and left him, walking quietly along the narrow path through the harrowed field under the silent pines. The feeling of death was upon her. She wanted to cover her eyes, to blot out the sun, to run to some friendly darkness to make her moan. She knew he was watching her, however, and carried her head well up. She hoped that he could not see that her hands were clinched. As she went on, her cheeks scarlet, her carriage splendidly undejected, the wish came to her that she could sing. It would prove to him that she had the will not to let this thing crush her, not to be as other women might have been. But her sincere soul put the thought aside because of its untruth. She had given him a great honesty always, she would give it to him until the end. He knew she suffered, but she desired him to know as well that she was brave, that her spirit was unconquered, that she would do something rather than weakly suffer in ineffectual rebellion.

On the crest of the hill she turned to look at him. He was standing with his eyes fastened on her, the strained whiteness of his face marked out against the black of his horse's mane.

Across the distance she had covered their eyes met. The slim little figure in the black frock outlined against the blue of the sky, the wind blowing the pines over her head, her dusky hair holding the sun, her skirts, pushed backward by the wind, revealing her childish body full of exquisite vitality. The tears stood big in her eyes, but hers was a soldier's courage, the courage to face defeat, a thing goodly to see in man or woman. Hastily she untied the scarlet kerchief she wore around her throat and waved it to him, high, at arm's-length, like a flag of victory.

"Ah, don't worry! It's all right!" she called. "Don't think about me!