“What a pity you weren’t born a Catholic!—you might have been a religious,” she said to him one night at La Verna, when he had been reading her some of the Fioretti with occasional comments of his own.
But he had shaken his head with a smile.
“You see, I have no creed—or next to none.”
The answer startled her. And in the depths of his blue eyes there seemed to her to be hovering a swarm of thoughts that would not let themselves loose in her presence, but were none the less the true companions of his mind. She saw herself a moment as Elsa, and her husband as a modern Lohengrin, coming spiritually she knew not whence, bound on some quest mysterious and unthinkable.
“What will you do,” she said, suddenly, “when the dukedom comes to you?”
Delafield’s aspect darkened in an instant. If he could have shown anger to her, anger there would have been.
“That is a subject I never think of or discuss, if I can help it,” he said, abruptly; and, rising to his feet, he pointed out that the sun was declining fast towards the plain of the Casentino, and they were far from their hotel.
“Inhuman!—unreasonable!” was the cry of the critical sense in her as she followed him in silence.
Innumerable memories of this kind beat on Julie’s mind as she sat dreamily on her bench among the Swiss meadows. How natural that in the end they should sweep her by reaction into imaginations wholly indifferent—of a drum-and-trumpet history, in the actual fighting world.
… Far, far in the African desert she followed the march of Warkworth’s little troop.
Ah, the blinding light—the African scrub and sand—the long, single line—the native porters with their loads—the handful of English officers with that slender figure at their head—the endless, waterless path with its palms and mangoes and mimosas—the scene rushed upon the inward eye and held it. She felt the heat, the thirst, the weariness of bone and brain—all the spell and mystery of the unmapped, unconquered land.
Did he think of her sometimes, at night, under the stars, or in the blaze and mirage of noon? Yes, yes; he thought of her. Each to the other their thoughts must travel while they lived.
In Delafield’s eyes, she knew, his love for her had been mere outrage and offence.
Ah, well, he, at least, had needed her. He had desired only very simple, earthy things—money, position, success—things it was possible for a woman to give him, or get for him; and at the last, though it were only as a traitor to his word and his fiancée, he had asked for love—asked commonly, hungrily, recklessly, because he could not help it—and then for pardon! And those are things the memory of which lies deep, deep in the pulsing, throbbing heart.
At this point she hurriedly checked and scourged herself, as she did a hundred times a day.
No, no, no! It was all over, and she and Jacob would still make a fine thing of their life together. Why not?
And all the time there were burning hot tears in her eyes; and as the leaves of Saint-Simon passed idly through her fingers, the tears blotted out the meadows and the flowers, and blurred the figure of a young girl who was slowly mounting the long slope of road that led from the village of Brent towards the seat on which Julie was sitting.
Gradually the figure approached. The mist cleared from Julie’s eyes. Suddenly she found herself giving a close and passionate attention to the girl upon the road.
Her form was slight and small; under her shady hat there was a gleam of fair hair arranged in smooth, shining masses about her neck and temples. As she approached Julie she raised her eyes absently, and Julie saw a face of singular and delicate beauty, marred, however, by the suggestion of physical fragility, even sickliness, which is carried with it. One might have thought it a face blanched by a tropical climate, and for the moment touched into faint color by the keen Alpine air. The eyes, indeed, were full of life; they were no sooner seen but they defined and enforced a personality. Eager, intent, a little fretful, they expressed a nervous energy out of all proportion to their owner’s slender physique. In this, other bodily signs concurred. As she perceived Julie on the bench, for instance, the girl’s slight, habitual frown sharply deepened; she looked at the stranger with keen observation, both glance and gesture betraying a quick and restless sensibility.
As for Julie, she half rose as the girl neared her. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted; she had the air of one about to speak. The girl looked at her in a little surprise and passed on.
She carried a book under her arm, into which were thrust a few just-opened letters. She had scarcely passed the bench when an envelope fell out of the book and lay unnoticed on the road.
Julie drew a long breath. She picked up the envelope. It lay in her hand, and the name she had expected to see was written upon it.
For a moment she hesitated. Then she ran after the owner of the letter.
“You dropped this on the road.”
The girl turned hastily.
“Thank you very much. I am sorry to have given you the trouble—”
Then she paused, arrested evidently by the manner in which Julie stood regarding her.
“Did—did you wish to speak to me?” she said, uncertainly.
“You are Miss Moffatt?”
“Yes. That is my name. But, excuse me. I am afraid I don’t remember you.” The words were spoken with a charming sweetness and timidity.
“I am Mrs. Delafield.”
The girl started violently.
“Are you? I—I beg your pardon!”
She stood in a flushed bewilderment, staring at the lady who had addressed her, a troubled consciousness possessing itself of her face and manner more and more
