The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 16

_Chapter XIX_

The next day was unexpectedly mild. Winter, after reigning supreme, made sudden and treacherous overtures to approaching spring. The air in the Park was almost balmy, and the drives were gay, as though it were much later in the season, with carriages and riders and bicycles galore; yet the warm sunlight falling incongruously on sere, brown gra.s.s and bare branches, seemed but to emphasize their dreariness and the fact that winter had not really surrendered, and was only biding his time and the advent of the March winds, to make his power felt all the more strongly. Pedestrians, realizing this, refused to be inveigled out, even by the spring-like air, and there was no one to notice the young man and the young woman who sat on a bench in one of the secluded walks near Eighth avenue; the young woman, simply dressed in a dark tailor-made gown, with a small black hat pushed well over her face, which showed beneath it very pale and set, with hard lines about the mouth; the young man staring at her in bewilderment, a look of distress in his handsome blue eyes.

"And so," he said, "you don't love me any longer?" It had taken him some time to grasp this fact, which still seemed to him incomprehensible.

"No," she said, in a low, determined voice, "I don't love you any longer. I don't know if I--ever did. I was so young, I had never seen any men, I didn't know what I was doing. You flattered me; it was interesting, romantic. But if I had loved you, really loved you"--she stopped for an instant. "If I had really loved you," she repeated "do you think I could have hesitated--that day at Cranston? Do you think I could have let you go--without me? Why, I should have followed you--don't you see that I would?--to the end of the world." The color rushed into her face, there was a ring in her voice that he never heard before--no, not even in those early days, when she had sat at his feet, and wors.h.i.+pped him as a genius. Then, as he looked at her, he realized for the first time that he had lost her. The discovery was, for many reasons, unwelcome.

"Well, if you didn't love me," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "you certainly made me believe that you did. Elizabeth, you have treated me abominably. I didn't wish to leave you--do me the justice to admit that--it was your own doing entirely."

"I know it." She bent her head submissively. "I don't blame you for anything; not even for--forgetting me."

"I didn't forget you," he interrupted her, flus.h.i.+ng hotly, and repeating a.s.sertions which she had heard already, and interpreted by that knowledge of his character, which she had acquired too late to be of value. She put them aside now with a gesture of weariness.

"What's the use," she said, "of going over that again, I have said already, I don't reproach you. We can't either of us--can we?--afford to throw stones. And yet, if you had not stopped writing"--She paused for a moment with knitted brows, as she seemed to weigh one possibility against another, in a sort of inward trial of her own conduct. An instinctive mental honesty, however, carried the day. "I don't know that that would have made any difference," she said. "I was very unhappy because you--had forgotten me, and that made me want to come to town, all the more; but--if I had been happy, and sure that you loved me, I should have come, I think, all the same. And no matter how I had felt, or what I had done, I should have known, sooner or later--oh, I couldn't but realize it--what a--what a terrible mistake we had made." She put out her hands in a sudden, despairing gesture, which hurt his vanity.

"Elizabeth, do you really mean that?"

"Yes," she said, in a low, monotonous voice, and staring straight before her with hard, hopeless eyes. "Yes, I mean it. I have been realizing it, little by little, all these months. And yet I put it away--I wouldn't think of it--till one day it forced itself upon me. I knew, all at once, that I--I dreaded your coming back, I hoped you never would--it was when I was enjoying myself, when I was thinking how delightful life was. And then, after that, the fear of your coming was always there--I could never get rid of it for any length of time, till just for a while--yesterday"--Her voice faltered, and for the first time the softening tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, I can't help it," she cried out, "if I'm hard. When I think how happy I was--wildly, absurdly happy, just for a little while, and then to think how--how miserable I am now."

She stopped, half strangled with her sobs, and Paul sat staring at her in moody silence. He was clear-sighted enough now to grasp the truth.

Such violent grief, he told himself, could have but one explanation.

There was, there must be, some other man.

Yet the conviction made him only the more determined not to give her up. True, there had been a time, not long before, when he would have done so only too gladly; when he would have welcomed an opportunity to free himself from an irksome bond, which he regretted quite as much as she did. But now, since his return, when he heard her spoken of everywhere as one of the beauties of the season, when he saw her in D'Hauteville's studio in her velvet and furs, her whole appearance redolent of grace and charm, and that nameless distinction which Gerard had noticed, and which impressed the young musician even more deeply; when he saw her thus a hundred times more desirable, his fickle heart succ.u.mbed anew, with a sudden throb of joy, at the thought of the secret tie between them. She was his, this young princess, whom he had chosen when she was a mere Cinderella; he had but to hold out his hand and she would come to him. For he never doubted that she _would_ come. Her first coldness he had looked upon as mere girlish pique at his neglect, a proof of her affection. Now, a sadder and a wiser being, he had learned that the privilege of forgetfulness is not confined to men alone.

Yet the situation, unflattering though it was, had its advantages, which dawned upon him gradually, while Elizabeth still sobbed. He rose and paced up and down in front of her, thinking the matter over. After all, a wife was the last thing that he wanted--just then, when his career was opening out before him in unexpectedly brilliant colors. He realized perfectly the value of his own good looks, and the loss of prestige that marriage would involve. Matrimony is a mistake for an artist--he had told himself this many times in the last few months.

And yet, having once made the mistake, having won this beautiful girl for his wife, how could he give her up. There was the chance that she might change her mind again, and return to her first love. Then it was sweet to feel that she was in his power, that he could at any time bring her to terms by threatening to publish the fact that she had concealed all this time. True, the marriage might be dissolved--he had not much doubt himself that it could be; but either this plan did not occur to Elizabeth, or she dreaded the inevitable gossip and publicity. At all events, it was not his place, he thought, to suggest it to her. He held the mastery of the situation, and he was determined to improve it to the uttermost. And having arrived at this conclusion, he suddenly stopped before her and spoke in a tone of unwonted resolution.

"Listen to me, Elizabeth," he said. "I don't know why you are making this scene. In what has the situation changed since--let us say, last week? I don't ask you to acknowledge our marriage at once--indeed it is impossible for me to do so, as I am not--worse luck--in a position just now to support a wife."

Elizabeth, in her surprise, stopped crying and stared up at him blankly. "You don't want the marriage acknowledged?" she repeated, utterly taken aback.

"Not just now," said Paul, calmly. "It would be as inconvenient for me, as it seems to be for you. No, all I ask is for you to see me occasionally, to think of me more kindly, and in time--perhaps in time, dearest, you will care for me again as you used to."

He went on to dilate on this hope. Elizabeth's tears as she listened, ceased. A feeling of relief stole over her, the reaction which follows so often upon violent distress. "In time," Paul said. Ah, yes, her heart answered, there is no knowing what wonders time may accomplish.

It might even--who could tell?--find a way for her out of this terrible perplexity.

Yet the thought was illogical. Of what use was it to put off the evil day? There was a side of her nature which was brave and straightforward, which detested false pretences and evasions, and all the net-work of deception in which her secret had already involved her; which called out upon her boldly to tell the truth, since every day that she kept it hidden only made the final disclosure more difficult. But there was another side which counselled compromise, which shrank from facing the inevitable, which lived only in the present and refused to take thought for the future. And finally there was a side which did not reason, which simply remembered the look in a man's eyes, when he had spoken to her the day before of her picture.

How would it be if he knew the truth? Would he make allowances for her, would he be magnanimous enough to forgive? Ah, no, he had judged her harshly for no apparent reason. Such a discovery would put an end entirely to all his faith in her.

For she felt instinctively how it would strike him--this impulsive action of a thoughtless girl, who had rushed into marriage as if it were a mere farce, and taken upon herself, lightly, the most solemn vows, only to repent of them quite as readily. He would p.r.o.nounce her hopelessly light and fickle, he would never believe that she was capable of any deeper feeling. His presentiment, distrust--whatever it was that had kept him from her--would be justified, and--and there would be the end of it. And the best thing that could happen, that stern inner voice called out.

But she would not listen to it--not yet, at least. She must see him once or twice first, probe his feelings a little more surely, prepare him a little, perhaps, to judge her more gently.... Some time--very soon, perhaps,--she would tell him herself, but--not now, not now....

Her head ached, she was physically exhausted, and Paul was waiting, impatiently, for her decision. She had an engagement, too, for luncheon--she remembered that mechanically.... In this matter-of-fact world of ours, the every-day and the tragic incidents of life jostle one another so closely.

"I--I must go," she murmured, confusedly. "I've been here too long. We can talk about all this another time."

"But you consent," he said eagerly. "You wish to keep it secret, awhile longer? That is the agreement for the present?"

She hesitated for a moment. "Yes," she said at last, "that is the agreement, till--till I have time to think it over. And now I must go." She drew out the little jeweled watch that Mrs. Van Antwerp had given her, among other valuable things, at Christmas. "I am going out to luncheon, and I am supposed at present to be in my room, recovering from last night's ball."

"What a gay person you are!" Paul said, regarding her complacently.

"Ah, Elizabeth, if you wanted to be nice, you could help me a great deal in my profession."

"Help you?" she repeated, staring at him blankly.

"Yes, in a social way," he explained. "It always helps an artist to be taken up by swell people. There's your friend Mrs. Van Antwerp--can't you--there's a good girl--persuade her to do something for me?"

"I heard her ask you to call," she returned, coldly.

"Yes, but she could do more than that," he said. "She could, for instance, have me sing and ask people to hear me. I need a start, I need patrons among society people; and that is exactly, my dear girl, what you can get me."

They were walking slowly by this time towards the entrance of the Park, and suddenly she turned and faced him with one of those flashes of defiance, which he rather admired. "Let me understand," she said, quickly, and a pale, cold gleam lighted up her white face, like the glint of steel upon marble. "You want me to--to get you invitations, to persuade people to ask you to sing? This is the--the price of your silence?"

He shrugged his shoulders, not much disturbed by the scorn in her voice. "If you choose to put it so plainly--yes," he said. "After all, it is not much to ask, and you ought, one would think, to be glad if you can help me."

She walked on beside him in gloomy silence. "It's not much to ask,"

she said, in a low, bitter voice, "but it involves--have you thought of that?--my seeing you constantly."

"And is that so terrible?" he asked, reddening.

"It's not pleasant," she said, shortly "but I suppose I must--submit.

I'm in your power; you can ask what you please." They had reached the entrance of the Park, and she turned to him, as if to dismiss him. "I promise, then," she said. "I'll do what I can to help you--socially, and in return you must promise to treat me as you would any other acquaintance--not force me to meet you again, or let people suppose that there is anything between us. Do you agree to that?"

"I suppose I must," he said, disconsolately, "though it's a harder condition, by far, than mine."

Again that cold, scornful gleam flashed across her face.

"Oh, you'll resign yourself to it," she said. "It's much more to the point to get--the invitations. I'll see that my side of the bargain is fulfilled." She drew down her veil, glancing anxiously across the wide Square, where street-cars, bicycles and wagons all converge from different directions and in inextricable confusion. "Don't come any further with me," she said. "I don't wish people to see us together."

She left him abruptly as she spoke, and he stood for a moment and watched her cross the Square and take a car at the corner. He was not quite satisfied with the interview; she had been too independent, too scornful. It hurt his pride. But the situation was full of possibilities. He felt that his rash marriage had been a stroke of genius.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, was making her way home, with a feeling of tremulous relief, much as if she had escaped unexpectedly from s.h.i.+pwreck, with at least a plank to cling to, and bear her perhaps to ultimate safety. Yet how slight that plank was she might have realized, had she known that Julian Gerard, as he entered the Park on horseback, had seen her walk down one of the side paths, with the man who, only a day before, had aroused his jealous suspicions.

"And she said she didn't know him," he thought, with a fierce throb of pain, and rode on, frowning, into the Park.

_Chapter XX_

"My dear Julian," wrote Mrs. Bobby Van Antwerp to Mr. Gerard a week later, "you are, I think, neglecting us shamefully. What has become of you? If you are inclined to perform a charitable action, do come in to tea to-morrow afternoon. You don't generally, I know, patronize such mild functions, but we are to have a little music"--