The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece Part 13

She turned her head and looked at him; it was almost as if she saw him for the first time--the man, not only Life's personification. They could still see quite clearly each other's faces, and for a long time, gravely, they looked into each other's eyes.

"Don't you see that it's all a dream?" said Haldicott.

"A dream?" Allida repeated. "The reality of a whole year?"

And yet it was a dream to her; even while she had told him of that year it was as if she told of something far behind her, lived through long, long ages ago, in another, a different life.

But she struggled to hold the vanis.h.i.+ng pain and beauty of it all--the reality that, unreal, would make her whole being seem like a little handful of thin cloud dying away into emptiness.

"This is a dream," she said, still looking at him, "_this, this_. What am I doing here?" She rose to her feet, gasping now. "Oh! he will get the letter--and I shall not be dead! I must go at once--at once!"

"To save yourself from being ridiculous? You are going to kill yourself so as to keep a tragic att.i.tude that you've taken before this man who doesn't care for you--an att.i.tude that's really disarranged?

Dear--pitiful--enchanting little idiot!" said Haldicott.

He had risen too, and, holding her hands, he still, but not too obviously, kept her near him.

His words were almost cruel in their lightness; his voice had a feeling that, more than any words, any supplication or remonstrance, made her past life seem illusory, and she herself, with it, disappearing into pure nothingness. The world rocked with her. Only the feeling in that voice seemed real.

"Are you sure, are you sure," he said, "that you can never love anybody else? Won't you wait a year to find out? Won't you wait a month? Allida, won't you wait a day?"

"Why do you try to humiliate me?" she gasped, and the tears fell down her face. He almost feared that he had been brutal, that she was going to faint.

"I am not trying to humiliate you. I am trying to wake you. Perhaps the truth will wake you. Will you wait a day, an hour, Allida, and see?"

"See what?"

"That this is a dream; that you wove it out of nothing to fill the emptiness of your sad life; that it would have gathered round the first 'dear sympathetic' person who smiled at you. And after you see that, will you wait and see----" he paused.

"What?" she repeated.

"How much I can make you love me," said Haldicott.

"Why do you mock me?" Allida said. "Why, unless you think me mad?"

"Well, of course you _are_ mad, in a sense; any coroner's inquest would say so. But _mock_ you! I love you, Allida."

Her face had now as wild, as frozen a look on it as the one he had seen, not three hours before, after she had slipped the letter into the pillar-box; but it was with another wildness--of wonder rather than of despair.

"But how can you?" she faltered.

"I can tell you how, but you must wait an hour--more than an hour--to hear. You will wait--Allida?"

"It is pity, to save me."

"To save you? Why, I'd hand you over to the nearest policeman if I only wanted to save you. I _do_ want to save you--for myself."

There drifted through her mind a vision of her little room, where, by this time, she might have been lying on the bed, the empty bottle of poison near her. And that vision of death was now far away, across an abyss, and she was in life, and life held her, claimed her.

"But I can't understand. How is it possible?" She closed her eyes. "My letter," she whispered.

Haldicott put his arm around her and led her down the path.

"Ainslie is a dear fellow," he said. "We will write him another letter as soon as we get in."

She was hardly aware of the walk back to the little house in Mayfair, back to the doorstep where, such aeons ago, she had paused to look at the crying cat. If she had not paused, if she had gone a little earlier to the pillar-box, before the lamp was lighted----Her mind was blurred again. All--all was dream, except that life, near her, was claiming her.

Now they were in the drawing-room, among the shaded lamps, the gilt, the chintz and bric-a-brac.

Haldicott sent for wine and made her drink. He said to the maid that Miss Fraser had felt faint during her walk. For a long time Allida leaned back in the chair where he had put her, shading her eyes with her hand.

"Can you write to Ainslie now?" Haldicott asked at last. "We will send your letter by special messenger."

"Yes, yes; let me write." She drew off her gloves, and Haldicott put paper and pen before her.

She looked up at him.

"What shall I say?" she asked.

This time, uncontrollably, he wanted to laugh; if he did not laugh he must burst out crying; he leaned his elbows on the table as he sat beside her, burying his face on his arms, his shoulders shaking.

Allida sat with the pen in her hand, gazing at him. The nightmare, after all, was too near for her to share his dubious amus.e.m.e.nt; but that she saw its point as well as he did was evinced in her next question, asked in still the faltering voice:

"Shall I say that I've decided to wait a day?"

Haldicott looked up.

"Thank Heaven, you _have_ a sense of humour. It was my one anxiety about you--all through. Say, dearest Allida, that you are awake."

She looked at him, and now, though she did not smile, her wan face was touched by a pale, responsive radiance.

"It is so strange--to be awake," she murmured, bending to her paper.

But hardly had the first slow line been written when running steps were heard outside, the door was flung open before the amazed maid could reach it, and Oliver Ainslie, white and distraught, darted into the room.

He did not glance at Haldicott. The distraction of his look had only time to break into stupefied thanksgiving before the same rush that had brought him in carried him to Allida. He fell on his knees before her.

Clasping her round the waist, he hid his face, crying, "Thank G.o.d!"

Allida sat, still holding her pen. She did not look at Ainslie, but across the room at Haldicott, and again, before her look, as of one confronted with her own utter inadequacy to deal with the situation, Haldicott could almost have laughed. But the moment for light interpretations had gone. Anything amusing in the present situation was only grimly so for him. The fairy prince had turned up--a real fairy prince, for a wonder, and three hours of everyday reality had no chance of counting against a year of fairy-tale with such a lasting chapter.

After all, it was very beautiful; he was able to see that, thank goodness! Yet Allida's perfectly blank look held him. She was evidently unable to deal single-handed with her dilemma--to explain to her fairy prince why he found her alive rather than dead. Haldicott turned to the mantelpiece and moved, unseeingly, the idiotic silver ornaments upon it, waiting for an opportunity to strike a blow for her deliverance.

Ainslie had lifted his face to hers.

"It was a mistake, that announcement: it's my cousin who is to be married; we have the same name. Oh, Allida! darling Allida! if I had not come in time! That I should have found you--_you_! And only just in time!"

He became now, perhaps from the blankness of her face, aware more fully of Haldicott's un.o.btrusive presence.

To the silent query of his eyes she answered: