The Bacillus of Beauty Part 31

But he does love me. There's truer speech than that of words, and his lips--that kissed me, but said he did not love--have told two stories. I know which to believe!

And Milly knows. She is too wise to contend with Me.

I shall never know what brought Ned to the house--three weeks ago, but I haven't dared to write of it--I shall never know what happened before I saw him.

I ran into the library with a song bubbling to my lips--for I was thinking of him--and the gladness of it was in my eyes when I found him there. He started and turned to me a face of confusion--yes, and of wors.h.i.+p. He fumbled with a book on the table, and glanced toward the door as if he would have left me. I saw that, but I didn't think--there was no time to think, but I must have felt that a crisis had come that would decide our lives. All the fear, all the sweet shame that I had felt before him vanished. My heart beat wildly for happiness, but I was calm.

At last we were alone together!

I waited for him to speak. Slowly he turned as my questioning eyes had willed. His were black with pa.s.sion and grief. A look of pain contracted his face, and he said, jerking the words out hoa.r.s.ely:--

"I'm going away."

The suddenness of it almost took my breath. I had expected different words. Indeed his eyes had shot another message; _they_ said that he would never leave me!

Confused by lips that lied and eyes that confessed, I stammered:--

"Going--not going away? Why? Why should you go?"

I couldn't keep appeal out of my tone, and I could see him brace himself to resist. I think I knew that, if he could, he meant to sacrifice our love to John and Milly. I think I had seen this earlier; but I had thought the struggle past when he came to me and begged me not to leave the city.

But perhaps, this time, I didn't understand him; perhaps I was simply confused by his distress.

I thought he tried in vain to look away from me. Then he moved a step nearer, slowly, as if reluctant. His face was haggard.

"Tell me why you are going."

I scarcely knew I spoke. It was as if some will independent of my own had dictated the words. Yet I did not try to hide my heart's wish; it was too late. He was my life, and in all but words--yes, and in words even--I told him so. We had confessed our love. It was his right.

"Listen," I said. "If anything is--is wrong, I must know it. I--I _must_ know it. Tell me. I must know everything. Ned, you must tell me."

A vein stood out upon his forehead, but still he gazed silently at me.

After a time he said hoa.r.s.ely:--

"I'm going because for your beauty I have thrown away the love of the woman I was to marry. For you I have lost her, and yet--I loved Milly. My G.o.d, I love her!"

Once he had begun, the words came with fierce swiftness. He seemed to mean them to sting, to cut, to stab. It was hard not to cry out with the pain of hearing them. All that I understood was that he meant to wrench himself from me with a force that should make the breach impa.s.sable. This I felt, though still his eyes gave the lie to his words; his eyes that said I was dear as life to him.

"Don't think I blame you for the inevitable," he went on. "You do not know, and I pray G.o.d you may never understand, how contemptible I have been. And don't think me a fool; I'm not crying for the moon, nor dreaming that a glorious creature like you--ah, you're as far above me as the stars above the sea--to you I have been only--"

"Don't speak like that!" I cried. White-faced, I stared at him, tremblingly, pleadingly. There was a cloud in my brain that seemed to be coming down; it threatened to smother me--but I held fast to my courage.

It was life itself for which I was fighting.

"You have--you are--"

The truth was at my lips, but he interrupted:--

"I know you have reason to hate me, for I have done you wrong. Because of my folly, your place here is not what it was; and you love Burke, whom I have wronged, as I love Milly, whom I have estranged. I must keep away from you. You can see that. For the sake of all, I must keep away from you."

The cloud was choking me, but I put forth my strength.

"You have done nothing wrong; I do not--"

Words failed me. I hadn't the temerity to speak John's name. And Ned-- could he not see?--only stood there saying:--

"Why I've wrecked Milly's life and mine and turned your friends against you, only G.o.d knows, who made men what they are; only G.o.d knows--I don't.

Can you forgive me?"

Didn't he love me? His despair was beating conviction into me. He was pale, his lip quivered. Why was he humbled and ashamed? I was palsied with doubt, and the golden moments were fleeting, were fleeting. I must act!

But I felt as if I were dead and could not, though that strangling cloud still hurt me.

"There is nothing to forgive," I faltered at last. "Or--you must forgive me. Perhaps I should understand, but--oh, I'm not wise. Indeed I have not meant to--to--Shall I speak to Milly for you? But that would only make matters worse. They may take me--to Bermuda--anywhere; or--I will leave this house; she'll forget if I go away."

At the last words my tremulous voice broke almost into a scream. Must I go away--go away that he may make Milly happy?

"You will stay here," he said, his lips quivering more and more. "Why should I drive you from home? I have lost Milly. She understands no more than you, and I hope she never may! You need not fear that I shall trouble you. I shall not see you again. You are maddening--no, not that--but I am mad. Mad!"

He turned abruptly to go, came back as hastily, caught my hand and pressed hot kisses on it. His burning eyes looked pa.s.sionately into mine. He was indeed like one insane.

Then with a great groan of contrition he put his hands before his face and rushed blindly from the room.

"Ned! Ned!" I cried out, but it was too late; he didn't hear me.

I don't know how I reached my chamber. I fell in a heap on the floor, s.h.i.+vering, laughing, sobbing, moaning for death.

Going away! I was going away from Ned! My beauty had meshed him; I almost hated it. I saw his haggard face, I heard again his voice, solicitous for Milly's grief. I know now that pain cannot kill, or I should have died.

Going away! He did not love me. He cared nothing for my hurt, only for Milly's. He loved that little white piece of putty that hadn't life enough to love any man!

I heard rain against the windows and felt a sudden fierce longing to go out and fight the storm. Could not a strong woman compel love? No other woman since the world began had been so fit for love, had yearned for it so hungrily.

Going away! Yet I felt his kisses upon my hand. Are men so different? What is a man, that he should love and not love?

How cold the old Nelly was! Since coming to the city, I had never let John kiss me; yet I thought I loved him. I thought love was a brook to make little tinkling music, and it had become a mighty ocean sweeping over me, sweeping over me!

But I must act at once, I thought; I must go away. I must find my aunt, must tell her--what? Where could I go? Not back to Kitty; she had left the den. Not to Miss Baker, who would share Aunt's wrath. Where could one such as I find refuge? A woman whom all women must hate for her loveliness?

"Ned! Ned! I am alone!" I cried in my agony of soul. "You must--you will!--come back to me, come back to me."

I bathed my eyes and hurried from the house to forget the thought, but it followed everywhere. The rain had not stopped, but it suited me to be drenched, to hold my face to the whiplash of the water snapped by the wind. I went to Meg Van Dam, who had long urged me to pay her a visit.

This time I was ready to consent, for she at least was glad to have me; and before I left her I had agreed to go to her.

It was dinner time when I reached home, glad that it was to be home to me no longer; the house made me shudder as a dungeon might. It was so changed since morning, seen now with different eyes. The dining room was so heavily respectable, with its fussily formal arrangements--like Uncle, for it's big; like Aunt, for it's crotchety.

I suppose there must have been a scene with Ned. Aunt Frank was depressed, fitfully talkative. Milly scarcely spoke, but in the curtness with which she turned her sullen head when poor Ethel asked some question, I wasn't slow in finding a meaning.

Joy begged in vain for her nightly lullaby. I couldn't respond to her "Thing, Cothin Nelly!" I'd never before noticed how like she is to her sisters. With her snubby nose and her yellow braids, she'll grow into just another white-faced doll as Milly.

Miss Baker talked persistently about Bermuda; as if my exile had ever been a possibility! In all my blind whirlwind of pain, I was glad that this was the last night I should have to writhe under the click of her knitting needles, and sit opposite her large, solemn features.