“Wrong?” cried Claire; “you are stark, staring mad, that is what is the matter with you, Mrs. Gonfallon.”
“I am sure,” Gonfallon hazarded, “I don’t see—”
“I did,” said his wife. The monosyllables fell like a sentence.
“Well, Ruth,” Claire broke in, “if you object to Chris kissing me on an occasion like this—”
“Like this? What occasion can it be?”
“Why, Chris was congratulating me on my engagement. Don’t you think you are absurd?”
A light as from some new dawn seemed to break in Ruth’s eyes. She turned to Claire again.
“I am engaged to Trement Yarde,” the girl added.
Gonfallon felt the blood mount to his temples. “It is a lie,” he told himself. “Or if by chance she is telling the truth, then—”
“He asked me again tonight,” Claire continued. “It was the fourth time; I was afraid he might not ask again—”
“Is this true, Christopher?” Ruth’s voice was almost joyous.
“It is true,” he answered, and ground his nails into his flesh.
“But you don’t love him!” And already Ruth’s arm had wound itself about her sister’s waist.
Claire nodded eagerly. “Oh, but I do, though—lots and lots—corner lots.”
“Claire, dear,” expostulated Ruth, “you said you hated him.”
“H’m, perhaps. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
Ruth turned again from her sister to her husband. “Chris, Claire has forgiven me: will not you?”
Gonfallon answered nothing. He tried to give his face some suitable expression, and evidently he succeeded, for Ruth, with the dawn still in her eyes, led her sister away.
When they had gone, Gonfallon dropped on a chair and mopped his forehead. “Hatred, indeed!” he muttered. “It is I that hate.” It was monstrous, he told himself, that she should treat him as she had. From a delight she had changed into a reproach. The desire which she had inspired, and against which he had struggled with all the feebleness of his strength, the hope unformulated yet sentient which she had evoked and against whose luminousness he had hid his eyes, these things had passed, the one into a mockery, the other into a taunt. The innocence which she exhaled, the guilelessness which she displayed, that savor and fragrance of youth which in alluring him despite himself had made him forget his office and his vows, was an acquired, a premeditated trick. Everything about her, even to the serpentine movement of her neck, was the understudy of a lie. And it was such an one as she that had the power to stir his pulse and leave him for hours after to dally with the protocols and uselessness of regret! It was she who had brought him visions of larger life, of new horizons and fresher creeds; it was she with whom he had seen himself straying beyond the conventional, far out of reach of the matter-of-fact to that ultimate meadow where the flowers distil the reason of love! And this was she! Full surely then he had been bereft.
He raised his hand to his head and let his head fall back. He was tired, outwearied by the emotions of the night, and for a little while he toyed absently with a handkerchief, rumpling it into a ball and moulding it with forefinger and with thumb. “I am no longer a lover,” he mused, “I am a judge.” His eyelids drooped, he sank yet farther in the chair, and sighed. “Of heart,” he continued, “she has none. Beneath her stays is some flesh on a stone.”
A little longer he rested, then, slowly, with the hesitant air of one perplexed, he rose from his seat, the handkerchief still rumpled in his hold. “She is an adder!” he exclaimed, and, throwing the bit of cambric from him, he repeated, in yet louder tone, “An adder—that I will fang.”
The next moment, without conscious effort on his part, he found himself at her door. Should he knock? he wondered. But no; the time for ceremony was gone. With a wrench at the knob and a blow at the panel he entered in. Claire was before the mirror. She had removed her frock, but her arms and neck were no longer bare: she had some loose wrapper on, and in it all trace of the mannishness which she affected disappeared. At the sudden noise she started and turned. Gonfallon was livid. As she stared at him he gazed at her, and in that gaze he put something that was like a knee pressed on a breast.
“Wanton!” he hissed.
The girl’s hands fluttered like falling leaves. “Christopher,” she cried, “what are you doing here?”
“Wait; you shall see.”
He made towards her, and as he approached the girl drew back.
“Christopher,” she moaned, “you frighten me.”
“Is it my face that frightens? Could you see my heart!”
And still the girl retreated. Her back now was against the wall, her eyes agonized with fear. With a bound he was upon her, and, catching her wrist in his hand, he threw her on the floor. Vainly she struggled; the grip on her wrist was a vice.
“What are you going to do?” she gasped.
And Gonfallon, still holding her down, turned his head towards the table and across the room as though seeking for something of which he had immediate need.
“I do not know,” he answered; “but say your prayers.”
“Help!” she cried, her voice soaring to its uttermost tension. “Help!”
And as Gonfallon placed his hand over her mouth to hush the cry, the crouching form faded from before him. He felt an undefinable sensation of discomfort. In his ears was the roar of water displaced. With an effort he looked about him. He was still in the chair in which he had dropped asleep, and through rifts of returning consciousness he heard a loving voice: “Chris, are you not coming up? See, it is after one.”
It was Ruth, bending over him, entreating him to rise.
XI
Already a handful of guests had filled the sitting-room. In the study, across the hall, Gonfallon, robed in full canonicals, stood motionless and alone. Once only at the champing of bits and the noise of hoofs
