A Woman's Will Part 56

Down from the Gasteig came a cab, an empty cab, and he looked up and hailed it.

"We will ride home," he said, coming back to her; "I am bereft of strength."

The cab halted and he put her inside.

"6 Maximiliansstra.s.se," he called to the driver, and got in himself and banged the door behind him.

Then he threw himself back against the cus.h.i.+ons, covered his eyes with his hand, and remained silent and motionless the ten minutes that they were _en route_.

She did not speak either; she dared not. The air was so heavy with sorrow and despair that words would have seemed like desecration; and the telepathic misery that emanated from him loaded her soul as if she had been guilty of a crime.

When the cab stopped he opened the door, and as he turned to give her his hand she caught one shocked glimpse of the grief in his face--of the oddly drawn look of suffering in his half-closed eyes. The whole change in him, in them, in it all, had come so quickly that as she stepped from the cab she was conscious of a stunned sensation, a dazed lack of feeling, a cold and stony power to bear much--for a little while.

"Go by the door," he said in m.u.f.fled tones, "I must pay the cab."

She crossed the width of the sidewalk and stood by the great _porte_, waiting.

When the cabman was disposed of he came to her side, and felt in his pocket for the keys. Then he took his gloves off and felt again; as he felt he stared steadily across the street.

"It's the round key," she said, when he finally produced them. "Have you any tapers? I'm afraid that the hall will be dark."

He shrugged his shoulders as if tapers were of no earthly consequence in such a time of stress. Then he fitted the key in the lock and swung back the ma.s.sive portal.

Because of that vast key system which is part of the intricacy of the very good housekeeping of Frau G----, there was no necessity to disturb the Hausmeister; but nothing could lessen the wail of the door which let them in with a groan, and closed behind them with a bang that was worthy of the occasion. It was the man's place to have lessened the noise by laying a restraining hand upon the lock, in accordance with the printed directions nailed against the main panel, but Rosina felt intuitively that this was no time to remind him of the fact.

With the closing of the door they were left in a darkness thorough and complete.

Rosina's voice: "You said you had wax tapers."

Von Ibn's voice: "No, I have not say so."

Rosina's accents of distress: "Haven't you any tapers?"

Von Ibn's voice, dully: "Yes, I have, but I have not say so before."

Rosina, entreatingly: "Then do please light one."

Dead silence.

She began to walk towards the stairs that she could not see; as she did so she heard his keys jingling, and knew from the sound that he must be hunting the wherewithal for illumination. He struck a match and adjusted it in the small hole at the end of the box, and as he did so he called:

"Stop! wait for me to come also."

She paused and looked back towards him. By the white light of the little taper his face appeared absolutely ghastly, and his heavy eyelids drooped in a way that pierced her heart.

"I think," he said, when he was beside her, "that it is better that I go to-morrow very early, and that we meet no more."

At that she was forced to put her hand against the wall in the seeking for some support without herself. They were upon the first step of the stairs, she leaning against one side wall and he standing close to the other. After he had spoken he crossed to her and his voice altered.

"If you had loved me," he said, "here--now--I should have kissed you, and all would have been for us as of the skies above."

"Oh, look out!" she exclaimed.

He was close above her.

"You are afraid of me?"

"No, it is the wax; you are letting it drip on us both."

"It should stop upon the box," he said shortly.

She began to mount the stairs, pulling off her gloves as she went. One fell, and he stooped quickly for it, with the result that he dropped the match-box. Again they were alone in the darkness.

"This is an awful place," he said irritably, feeling blindly for what was lost. "That I am on my knees to a match-box this night," he added savagely.

Her soul was full of sympathy for him. She bent to aid him in his search, and her hand in its wandering encountered his own. He seized her fingers and pressed them to his lips, and she knew that he was kneeling close at her feet.

"This is impossible," he said vaguely, hurriedly; "we may not part now in a minute, like this. You have spoken foolishly, and I have accept it too quick. We must speak longer and talk reasonably to each of us. We must go where we may sit down and be quiet. _Faut etre raisonable._ Let us go out of the door and go to the Cafe Luitpold and there speak."

The Cafe Luitpold is a gorgeous and fas.h.i.+onable resort in the Briennerstra.s.se; its decorations are a cross between Herrn-Chiemsee and a Norddeutscher steamer, and its reputation is blameless.

"I can't go to the Cafe Luitpold at ten o'clock at night in a golf skirt," she objected gently, and tried to continue on her upward way; but he held her fast by her hand, and as he pressed it alternately to his face and lips, she felt her flesh wet with hot tears.

"You are crying!" she exclaimed in awe.

"I hope not," he said; "I hope not, but I am near it. If I do weep, will you then despise me?"

"No," she said faintly; "no--I--"

He rose to his feet, and in the dark she knew him to be very, very near.

He still held her hand and his breath touched her cheek.

"Oh," he whispered, "say you love me if it be but so little! _Dites que vous m'aimez!_ I have hoped so greatly, I have dreamed so greatly; I will ask now no more to possess you for my own; I will content myself with what you can so easy give--only a little love--"

He drew his arm about her. Something within her was rising as the slow tide rises before the September gale, and she felt that all her firmness would be as the sand forts which the children build, when that irresistible final wave shall carry its engulfing volume over all. She summoned to her aid the most frightful souvenirs of her unhappy marriage, and pushed him violently away. His answer was a sudden grasp of mighty vigor, at which she gave a m.u.f.fled scream.

"You detest me, then?" he said through his teeth.

"It is my hat," she cried, freeing herself; "you drove the longest pin straight into my head."

He moved a little away, and in so doing trod upon the match-box. Then in an instant there was light again, and he could see her, her arms upraised, straightening her hat.

"It is most badly on," he told her.

"I know it," she replied, starting swiftly upward.

At the curve he stopped short and shut his eyes; she stopped too, three steps farther on.