Portia Part 40

Dulce watches him until the portico outside hides him from view, and then, walking very slowly and with bent head, she goes in the direction of Fabian's room. She is so absorbed in her own reflections that she hardly hears approaching footsteps, until they are quite close to her.

Looking up, with a quick start, she finds herself face to face with Roger.

The surprise is so sudden that she has not time to change color until she has pa.s.sed him. Involuntarily she moves more quickly, as though to escape him, but he follows her, and standing right before her, compels her to stop and confront him.

"One moment," he says. His tone is haughty, but his eyes are more searching than unkind. "You meant what you said last evening?" he asks, quickly, and there is a ring in his voice that tells her he will be glad if she can answer him in the negative. Hearing it, she grows even paler, and shrinks back from him.

"Have I given you any reason to doubt it?" she says, coldly.

"No--certainly not." His tone has grown even haughtier. "I wish, however, to let you know I regret anything uncivil I may have said to you on--that is--at our last interview."

"It is too late for regrets." She says this so low that he can scarcely hear her.

"You are bent, then, upon putting an end to everything between us?"

"Yes." At this moment it seems impossible to her to answer him in anything but a monosyllable. Her obstinacy angers him.

"Perhaps you are equally bent," he says, sneeringly, "upon marrying Gower?"

I suppose he has expected an indignant denial to this question, because, when silence follows it, he starts, and placing both his hands upon her shoulders, draws her deliberately over to a side window, and stares into her downcast face.

"Speak," he says roughly. "_Are_ you going to marry him?"

"Yes."

The word comes with difficulty from between her pale, dry lips.

"He has asked you?"

"He has."

"You were engaged to him even _before_ you broke off your engagement with me?"

"Oh, _no_, NO!"

"Since when, then? Was it last evening he spoke to you?"

"Yes."

"After you had parted from me? Sharp work, upon my life."

He laughs--a short, unmirthful laugh--and taking his hands from her shoulders, moves back from her, yet always with his eyes on her face.

"You should be glad," she says, slowly.

"No doubt. So he was your confidant--your father-confessor, was he? All my misdemeanors were laid bare to him. And then came pity for one linked to such an unsympathetic soul as mine, and then naturally came what pity is akin to! It is a pretty story. And for its hero 'mine own familiar friend.'" He laughs again.

She makes a movement as though to leave him, but he stops her.

"No, do not go yet," he says. "Let me congratulate you. _Le roi est mort, vive le roi._ My successor, it seems, was not difficult to find; and--By-the-by, why are you alone now? Why is not your _new_ lover by your side?"

"My _first_ lover--_not_ my new lover," she says, bitterly, speaking now with some spirit.

"I didn't count, I suppose."

"_You--!_" She draws her breath quickly, and, then, having subdued the indignation that had almost overcome her, goes on quietly: "you never loved me. There was never a moment in all my knowledge of you when I could have flattered myself with the thought that I was more to you than a cousin."

"He is very different, I suppose?" He flushes a dark crimson as he puts this question.

"Altogether--_utterly_! At least, I can tell myself, I am to him something more than a necessary evil, a thing forced upon him by circ.u.mstances. To _you_ I was only that, and _worse_. There were moments when I believe you _hated_ me."

"We need not discuss that now," says Dare coldly. "Where is Gower?"

"I don't know; at least, I am not sure. What do you want with him? There is no use in quarreling with him," she says, nervously.

"Why should I quarrel with any man because a woman chooses to prefer him to me? That is her affair altogether."

He walks away from her, and she, moving into the deep embrasure of the large bow window, stands staring blankly upon the sunlit landscape without.

But presently he returns and, standing beside her, gazes out, too, upon the flowers that are bowing and simpering as the light wind dances over them.

"I am going away this evening," he says, at length, very gently. "It is uncertain when I shall return. Good-by."

He holds out his hand, awkwardly enough, and even when, after a momentary hesitation, she lays hers in it, hardly presses it. Yet still, though he has paid his adieux, he lingers there, and loiters aimlessly, as if he finds a difficulty in putting an end to the miserable _tete-a-tete_.

"You were wrong just now," he says, somewhat abruptly, not looking at her; "there was never one second in my life when I _hated_ you; you need not have said _that_."

"Where are you going?" asks she, brokenly.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter. But before I go, I want to say to you--that--that--if ever you _want_ me, even if I should be at the end of the world, _send_ for me, and I will come to you."

_Are_ there tears in his eyes? He drops her hand, and turning hastily away, goes down the corridor, and is beyond recall before she can muster courage to say anything to him kind or forgiving.

Going into the yard to order the dog-cart to take him to the station to catch the up-train, he encounters Stephen Gower (who, by-the-by, had gone to encounter him), on his knees before a kennel, fondling a two-months old setter pup.

This pup is a baby belonging to one of Roger's favorite setters, and is, therefore, a special pet of his.

"Put that dog down," he says, insolently.

"Why?" says Stephen, just as insolently.

"Because petting is bad for young things, and because _I_ wish it."

"Oh, nonsense!" says Stephen, rather cavalierly, continuing his attention to the dog.

"Look here," says Dare, furiously, "it has nothing to do with the dog, you will understand--_nothing_--but I want to tell you now what I think of you, you low, mean, contemptible--"

Gower literally gasps for breath. Letting go the dog, he rises to his feet, and coming close to Roger, says, pa.s.sionately,

"What do you mean by that?"