CHAPTER VIII—LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

I was at a loss what to say to her. Words could not bridge the gulf of more than five years that separated us. Now that anger had subsided, my genius for self-ridicule was at work. What a fool I had made of myself; how supremely silly I must appear in her eyes! It would be in all the papers to-morrow. How would she like that? Where was she taking me and why? Had she come with me simply to get me out of a public place before I committed worse violence?

I pieced together phrases of apology and explanation, but remained tongue-tied. To express the emotions that stormed in my mind all words seemed insincere and inadequate. I was not sufficiently certain of her to venture either speech or action. I was fearful lest her mood might change to one of amusement. My nerves were on edge—I dared not risk that.

Noiseless as a ghost in a dream-world, the electric coupé drifted up the dully gleaming boulevard. I leant against the padded back and watched her. She sat erect, splendidly self-possessed, her profile framed in the carriage-window with the stealthy lights of Paris slipping by for background. Now she was no more than a blurred outline; now the acetylene-lamps of a swiftly moving car flashed on her like a search-light; now the twinkling incandescence of an illumined café flung jewels in her hair; now her face rested like sculptured ivory on the velvet blackness of the night. She was immobile; even the slender fingers clasped together in her lap never stirred. Our silence had lasted so long that it had ceased to be fragile; it rose between us, a wall of ice.

We drew up against the curb. I had but a vague idea of where we were—near the Bois, I conjectured. Tall houses stood in shuttered dumbness along one side; on the other, trees shrank beneath the primrose dusk of arc-lights. She stepped out, ignoring my proffered assistance. She crossed the pavement and tapped; as the door swung back I followed her under an archway into a dim courtyard. Having mounted several flights of stairs, she tapped again. To the sleepy maid who opened she whispered hurriedly. The maid discreetly fell behind.

We passed into a room delicately furnished. The floor was heavily carpeted in red. The walls, hung with etchings and landscapes, were paneled in white. Flowers stood about in bowls and slender vases; shaded lamps gave to the room a secret aspect. In the grate a fire of coals was burning and two deep chairs stood one on either side. The atmosphere was intensely and perishably feminine; it gave me the feeling of preparedness—as though I had been expected. Through tall windows the curious night stared in upon us.

Fiesole crossed, making no sound save the silken rustle of her dress, and drew the curtains close together. She turned, looking back at me side-long, at once amused and languid. Her coldness and aloofness had vanished. The sparkle of mischief fetched the gold from the depths of her green eyes. Her body became expressive and vibrant. Then I heard her sweet hoarse voice, with its quaintly foreign intonation. It reached me tauntingly, lazy with indifference, holding me at arm’s length. “Dear man, take a chair by the fire and behave yourself. Mon Dieu, but you were amusing to-night!”

She laughed softly at remembering and shook her cloak from her white shoulders. A strand of hair broke loose and fell coiling across her breast. She stepped to a mirror, turning her back on me; having twisted it into place, she remained smiling at her reflection, whistling beneath her breath.

Her gaiety cut like a lash across my mouth. I was painfully in earnest. She was treating the situation as an incident—a jest. To me it was a supreme moment—a turning-point: on what we should say to one another would depend the entire direction of both our lives. I was sorry for her beyond the power of words to express. The success and luxury of her way of living did not blind me to its hollowness and danger. Her frivolity left me affronted and fascinated. She roused in me all the unrestraint of the flesh; and yet I desired to worship her with my mind. I longed to carry her away from the fever and glare of streets to a place of quiet, where the world was blowy—where she might become what she had once been when I might have had her, genuine and fine. While these thoughts raced through my mind, the insistent question kept repeating itself, why had she brought me here to be alone with her at this late hour of the night?

Her eyes flashed out at me maddeningly from the mirror. They prompted to irretrievable folly. They called me to go to her, and to be unworthy of both her and myself. And I knew why: she wished me to say and do the things that were unforgivable that she might have excuse to scorn me, to fling me from her. Once it had been my Puritanism that had thrust us apart; it should not now be my sensualism. I would not let her make a hypocrite of me in my own eyes.

The seconds ticked out the silence. Her dress whispered. Her voluptuous white arms, uplifted and curved above her neck as she patted her hair, enhanced the perfect vase-like effect of her body. I would not go to her, I told myself; I would not go to her. I held myself rigid, distraught, and tense. The blood swelled out my throat and beat in my temples. She withdrew her hands. Wickedly, like a shower of largesse, the clustered glory of her hair rained from her head, catching her in a net of smoldering brightness.

She glanced with half-closed eyes across her shoulder and feigned astonishment at observing that I had remained standing.

“Still the same old idjut! Wanting something you’re afraid to have, and looking tragic.”

“Fiesole, girl, don’t you understand? It’s not that.”

My voice sounded odd and strangled. I had spoken scarcely above a whisper.

She swung about and surveyed me leisurely. There was a pout on her mouth like that of a naughty child. “You’re no longer amusing,” she faltered; “you grow tiresome. Why can’t you be sensible, and sit down? I want to hear all this that you’ve got to tell me.”

“You don’t make it easy.”

She shrugged her gleaming shoulders. “Why should I? You made a horrid row about something that was none of your concern. You nearly choked a friend of mine to death. You don’t expect me to say thank you, surely? I ought to punish you; instead, I bring you here. I wanted to have a look at you. Ah! but you were funny—so righteous and English! You made me laugh..... I can forgive anyone who does that.”

When I did not answer, she regarded me puzzled. Slowly her brilliant deviltry and merriment faded. The laughter sank to a whisper and ceased abruptly, frightened at itself. The red lips drooped and parted. Something of my own pinched earnestness was reflected in her expression—it was as though her soul unveiled itself. She stole across to me wonderingly, her beautiful arms stretched out. She rested the tips of her fingers tremulously on my shoulders.

“No, that’s not true. You were splendid—so different from the rest. I’m a beast. You made me ashamed of myself. That’s why I was angry; because you, who made me what I am, should accuse me.”

“Accuse you! God forbid!”

I made a movement to gather her to me, but she slipped past me and sank into a chair.

“Between us not that.” She caught her breath. “I hate you. I want to hate you. What else did you expect? But I can’t. I cannot. You won’t let me.”

“You ought to hate me. Call me what you like; it won’t be worse than I deserve. I was cruel and selfish. I see it now.”

She shook back her hair from her forehead and bent forward gazing into the fire, her elbows on her knees, her face cushioned in her hands. A sudden gravity and wistfulness had fallen on her. She was thinking, remembering, weighing me in the balance. I must not touch her—must not speak to her. If I showed any sign of passion, she would mistake it for pity either of her or of myself.

“I wanted to forget—to live you out of my life; but you’ve brought it all back—the old bitterness and heartache. You didn’t know what you did to me, Dante. You spared my body; you killed everything—everything else that was best. Look at me now.” She glanced down at the exotic daring of her appearance:—the golden stocking that was revealed from ankle to knee by the narrow slash in the skirt; the splendid extravagant display of arms, throat, and breast that swelled up riotously, uninterrupted, snowy and amorous from the sheathlike dress—a flashing blade half-withdrawn from its scabbard.

“I’m a devil. You made me that, you virgin man. No, don’t speak—— I thought I should have died of shame after I left you. I could have killed you. You don’t know how a woman feels when she’s wanted a man with her whole soul and body, and she knows that she’s beautiful; and he’s flung her from him when she’s offered herself, as though she were worthless. ‘He didn’t care,’ I said, ‘so nobody’ll ever care.’—— And then I met Antoine Georges, who had known my father. And I did what you’ve seen and I’ve won success. When I saw you the other night I wanted to make you suffer. I’ve often pictured how I would torture you if ever you should come back—how I’d destroy you—how I’d make you go through the same hell. And now you’ve come, and I can’t do it.—— I may change my mind presently. You’d better go while I let you.”

“I’m never going.”

She turned her head, scrutinizing my face stealthily from between her hands.

“Don’t be a fool. What about her?”

“There’s no one else. There never will be.”

She gasped. “You didn’t marry her?”

The strained look in her face relaxed. She laughed softly to herself; why she laughed I could not guess. It was not the laughter which follows suspense, but the laughter of one who courts danger. It was as though she parted her hair into sheaves and glanced out crying, “I am Eve, the long desired.”

Reaching over to the table she picked out a cigarette. When it was alight, she snuggled down into the chair, kicking off her little gold shoes and resting her feet on the fender. She eyed me dreamily.

“Then you made me suffer all that for nothing? You good men can be cruel.—— Tell me.”

Briefly I told her of my useless visit to Sheba; and why I left; and why I was still unmarried. I kept nothing back in my self-scorn and desire to be honest.

She slipped her feet up and down the gleaming rail as she listened, lying deep in cushions, her cigarette tilted in her mouth, her hands clasped behind her head. When I ended, she frowned at me whimsically from beneath her drawn brows.

“But, you impracticable person, you might have foreseen all that. You didn’t need to cross the Atlantic to discover that a husband doesn’t let his wife be taken from him without making trouble.—— So you wouldn’t pay the price to get her! You’re a rotten reckoner, old boy, for a man who counts the cost of everything ahead.”

Her eye-lids flickered as her deep voice droned the words out.

“You should put all that in the past tense, Fiesole. I’m not counting anything to-night, penalties or pleasures. I’m just a man who’s wakened. I want something madly. Whatever it costs me or anybody else, I intend to get it.”

“You always wanted what you couldn’t have.”

She spoke lazily, blowing smoke-rings into the air, following them with her eyes and watching how they broke before they reached the ceiling. She appeared untouched by my emotion, as though nothing had been said that intimately concerned herself. She let her gaze wander, extending her lithe sweet length luxuriously, as though she had nothing to fear from my passion. I was crazed with desire, for all that I kept my tones quiet and steady. She maddened me with her indifference. It was all pretense—I knew it. She was playing a part with me, courting the inevitable, tempting me to reveal my hidden self. I watched her with clenched hands—suffering, yet finding fierce joy in the wonderful pride of her body. I would not have had her otherwise; the colder she appeared, the more I coveted her. I could have had her once for my wife, I reflected, had I chosen. I had tormented her; it was just that I should suffer.

The reticence of years fell away from me. I was kneeling at her side, kissing her unshod feet, her hands, her hair. Words tumbled from my lips, broken and unconsidered. I called her by foolish names such as are only used between lovers. I poured my heart out, speaking of the past and the future. I cursed myself, all the time repeating how I worshiped her—how I had loved her from a boy, but had come to know it only now.

And she gave no sign of response: neither forbidding, nor assenting; letting me have my way with her without acknowledging my presence; a quiet smile playing round her lips; as completely mistress of herself as is a statue.

I trembled into silence. She drooped forward, bending over me, just as she had done years ago in her uncle’s summer-house.

“My dear, there are things that are offered only once. Five years ago I asked you for all that you are now asking. You were afraid of the price, as you were with the other woman. You refused me.”

“But it’s marriage I’m asking.”

“Ah! Then I asked for less.—— I’m sorry. You ought to have gone when I told you. I felt that I should have to wound you.”

Her gentle dignity stung me into strength. My turbulence died down. As I knelt, I flung my arms around her body and drew her to me. She struggled to draw back, but I held her so closely that my lips were almost on her mouth.

“Listen, Fiesole, I’m unfair and I mean to be unfair. I was a brute to you once when I meant only to be honorable. To-night I’m not caring what I am. You despise me—you can go on despising me, but I’ll wear you out. I’ll make you come to love me even against your will. You’ll need me some day; I shall wait for that. I want to spend all my life for you; it’s the only thing I ask of life now. Wherever you go I shall follow you.”

I stopped, panting for breath. She had ceased to struggle. Her eyes were wide; her face hovered pale above me; she stared down at me powerless, yet with reckless challenge, breathing upon my mouth.

“You’re a rotter to come back like this,” she said hotly, “just when I was beginning to be happy. When you speak of marriage, you don’t know what you’re saying. You spoilt all that for me years ago at Venice. D’you think I’ll ever believe again in the honor and goodness of a man? You’ve come too late. Five years changes people. I’m a different woman now—not at all what you imagine.”

“You can be any kind of woman you choose, but you’re the woman I’m going to marry.”

“Then you haven’t heard what people say about me?”

“And I don’t care.”

“They say I’ve had lovers.”

“I don’t believe them.”

“What if I should tell you that I have?”

“I shouldn’t believe you.”

“You’d prefer to think that I’d lied to you rather than that I’d told you the truth?”

“It would make no difference. You’ve always loved me. You love me now. I know that you are pure.”

“And you would never doubt it? Never doubt it of a woman who dances every night, as I do, before the eyes of Paris?”

“Never.”

She gazed at me curiously, with tenderness and intentness. Her bosom shuddered; I saw the sob rising in her throat. When she spoke, the words came slowly; her eyes were misted over; she trembled as I clasped her.

“D’you know, I believe you’re the only living man who’d be fool enough to say that?”

“I was always a fool, Fiesole.”

I thought she would have kissed me, her lips came so near to mine. “But a dear fool, sometimes,” she whispered hoarsely; “a fool who always comes too late or too early—but a fool to the end.”

She stood up and my arms slipped down to her knees as I held her.

She laughed brokenly. “You nearly made me serious. It won’t do to be serious at three o’clock in the morning.”

“I won’t go till you’ve promised. Promise,” I urged.

She yawned. “I’m sleepy. You’ve worn me out.”

“But answer me before I go.”

She smiled down at me mockingly, ruffling my hair. “What a hurry he’s in after all these years. Don’t you ever go to bed?”

“Tell me to-night. I must know. I can’t bear the suspense.”

“I put up with it for five years.—— Well, if you won’t go home like a good boy, you won’t. There’s a couch over there.”

She broke from me, leaving me kneeling with my arms empty. As the door opened into the room beyond I had a glimpse of the curtained bed.

I drew my chair closer to the dying fire. Behind the wall I could hear her steps moving up and down as she undressed. Now and then they paused; she was listening for the sound of my departure, uncertain, perhaps, whether I was still there. Some time had elapsed when the door opened gently. I twisted round. Her room was in darkness. She was standing on the threshold. Her feet were bare; she was clad in a white night-robe; across each shoulder, almost to her knees, hung down the red-gold ropes of her braided hair.

“I meant what I said. I’m not going till you tell me.”

Her green eyes met mine roguishly. “A persistent fool to-night,” she said.

As the door was closing I threw after her, “That morning in Venice.... I was going to have asked you to marry me; you were gone....”

Left alone with the last flame flickering in the grate, I watched the little gold shoes.