SABINE decided to be a little late for dinner—three minutes, just to give the rest of the party time to be assembled in the big salon. She was coming from the communicating passage to her part of the house when Mr. Arranstoun came out of his room, and they were obliged to go down the great staircase together.
To see him suddenly in evening dress like this brought her wedding night back so vividly to her, she with difficulty kept a gasp from her breath. He was certainly the most splendidly good-looking creature, with his blue eyes and dark hair and much fairer little moustache.
"I am late!" she cried laughing, before he could speak a word. "Père Anselme will scold me! Come along!" and she tripped forward with a glance over her shoulder.
Michael's eyes blazed—she was a truly bewitching morsel in her fresh white frock with its bunch of crimson sweet peas stuck in the belt.
"Your flowers should be stephanotis," he said, and that was all, as he followed her down the stairs.
"I cannot bear them," she retorted and shuddered a little. "I only care for out-door, simple things like my sweet peas."
He did not speak as they went along the gallery—this disconcerted her—what did it mean? She had been prepared to fence with him, and keep him in his place, she was ready to defend herself on all sides—and no defence seemed necessary! A sudden cold feeling came over her as though excitement had died down and she opened the salon door quickly and advanced into the room.
Michael had come to a determination while dressing—Henry had walked in and smoked a cigarette with him before he began, and had then showed plainly his joy and satisfaction. She—his worshiped lady—had never before been so tender and gracious, and he was awfully happy because things were going well. And what did his friend Michael think of his choice? Was she not the sweetest woman in the world?
Michael said he had seen better-looking ones, but admitted she had charm. He was really suffering, the situation was so impossible and he had not yet made up his mind what he ought to do—tell Henry straight out that Sabine was his wife or what? If he did that he might be going contrary to some plan of hers—for she evidently had no intention yet of informing Lord Fordyce, or of giving the least indication that she recognized him— Michael. It was the most grotesque puzzle and contained an element of the tragic, too— for one of them.
Henry's happiness and contentment touched him—his dear old friend!—he felt extraordinarily upset. But when Lord Fordyce had gone he rapidly reviewed matters and made up his mind. At all events, for the present, he would be guided by what Sabine's attitude should be herself. He would certainly see her alone on the following day and then she would most likely broach the subject and they could agree what to do—for that Henry must know some day was an incontestable fact. He, Michael, would make some excuse and leave Héronac by the next evening, it was impossible to go on playing such a part, and not fair to any one, least of all to his friend.
"I will give her to-night to declare her hand," he thought, as his valet, no longer the dignified Johnson, handed him his coat, "and then if she will not put the cards down—I must."
But when he opened his door and saw her exquisite slender figure tripping forward from the dark passage, a fierce pain gripped his heart, and he said between his teeth:
"My God! if it had not been too late!"
The Dame d'Héronac was in wild spirits at dinner—and her cheeks burned like glowing roses. Monsieur le Curé watched her with his wise, black eye.
"The child is not herself," he thought. "It is possible that this Englishman may mean a great deal to her—but he is of the gentle type, not of the sort one would believe to make strong passions—no—now if it had been the other one—the friend—that one could have seen some light through—a young man well able to fill the heart of any woman—a fine young man, a splendid young man—but yes."
Madame Imogen made no reflections, she was too delighted with their gay repast, and helped with her jolly wit to keep the ball rolling.
Henry felt slightly intoxicated with happiness—while in Michael, passions of various sorts were rising, against his will.
A devil was in Sabine—never had she been so alluring, so feminine, so completely removed from her usual grave, indifferent self.
She did not look at Michael once or vouchsafe him any conversation beyond what cordial politeness compelled. It was to Père Anselme that she almost made love, with shy sallies at Henry, and merry replies to Madame Imogen. But her whole atmosphere was radiating with provoking fascination—and as they all rose from table she took Lord Fordyce's arm.
"In England, I hear you men remain in the dining room to drink all sorts of ports—but here in my France we expect you to be sociable and come with us at once—you may smoke where you choose."
Henry could not refrain from caressing with his other hand the little cold one lying on his arm as they walked along—while he whispered with passionate devotion:
"My darling, darling girl!"
"Hush!" she answered nervously. "Your friend will hear!"
"And if he does! what matter, dearest—he knows that I love you, and that as soon as you are free you are going to be my wife."
There must have been a slight roughness in the carpet which slid upon the slippery floor, for the Dame d'Héronac stumbled a little and then gasped:
"He—knows that——!"
And by the time they all reached the salon, her rosy cheeks were pale, while the pupils of her violet eyes were so large as to make them appear to be black as night.
The gay sprite of the dinner-table seemed to have taken her departure and a dignified and serious hostess filled her place. A hostess who discoursed of gardens, and architecture, and such subjects—and at ten o'clock when the Père Anselme gave his blessing and wished the company good-night, also gave a white hand to her guests, saying that Madame Imogen would show them the small salon where they could smoke and have their drinks before retiring to their rooms, then she bowed to them and walked off slowly to her part of the house.
When she had gone, Michael said a little hoarsely to Henry:
"I have got the fiend of a headache, old man. I think I won't smoke, but turn in at once."
An hour or two later, when the whole château was wrapped in darkness—the mistress of it crept from her bed-room to the great sitting-room, and turning on the light, she unlocked a blue despatch-box which stood beside her writing-table. From this she took a letter, marked a little with former perusals—and she read it over once more from beginning to end.
It had
Arranstoun Castle, Scotland,
stamped upon it in red and it bore a date in June, 1907. It had no beginning and thus it ran:
Since after everything I wake to find you have chosen to leave me you can abide by your decision. I will not follow you or ever seek to bring you back. It is useless to ask you if you meant that you forgave me—because your going proves that you really have not—so make what you please of your life as I shall make what I please of mine.
When she put the paper back again, glittering tears gathered and rolled in shining drops down her cheeks.
He had meant that last paragraph then, and he meant it now evidently, since he knew that she was pledged to marry Henry when she should be free, and had made no protest. Perhaps he was glad and intended to marry Miss Daisy van der Horn! Her tears dried suddenly—and her cheeks burned. She must think this situation out, and not just drift. It was plain that Michael had been astonished to the point of stupefaction on seeing her. He could not have known then that his friend wished to marry her—Sabine—only that his friend wished to marry the lady they were going to see. But he knew it afterwards, he knew it at dinner—and yet he said never a word. What could it mean? What could be best to do? Perhaps to see him alone in the morning and ask him to grant her freedom and get the divorce as quickly as possible. She could count upon herself not to betray the slightest feeling in the interview. If only that strange turn of fate had not brought Lord Fordyce into her life, what glorious pleasure she would now take in trying her uttermost to fascinate and attract Michael—not that she desired him for herself!—only to punish him for all the past! But she was not free. She had given her word to Henry. The humiliation of feeling that Michael was making no protest, and would apparently from this fact agree willingly to divorce her, stung her pride and made her want to make him suffer and regret in some way. If she could believe that it was paining him, she would be glad—and if it appeared possible to keep up the pretence of unrecognition for longer than to-morrow, she would certainly do so; it was a frantic excitement in any case, and she adored difficult games. Then as she put the letter back in her despatch-box, her hand touched a large blue enamel locket, and with a shiver she hastily shut down the lid, and as one fleeing from a ghost she ran back to bed.
Michael meanwhile was pacing his room in deep and agitated thought.
How supremely attractive she was! And to have to give her up to Henry; it was too frightfully cruel. But he had absolutely no right to stand in either of their lights. He had not even the right to undermine his friend's influence by deed or look, since he had given him his word of honor that he would not do so. What a blind fool he had been all those years ago to let passionate rage at Sabine's daring to leave him make him write her that letter. He would not have done it if he had not felt such an intolerable brute—and glad to cut the whole thing by accepting Latimer Berkeley's suggestion to join him for the China expedition at once. The Berkeley letter coming that next morning was a stroke of fate. If he had had a day to think about things, he would have followed his impulse after the anger died down, and gone after her to Mr. Parsons' London address, but he had already wired to Latimer and his resentful blood was up.
He remembered how he had not allowed himself to think of her—but had concentrated his whole mind upon his sport. For it had been tremendous sport and had interested him deeply, that journey to Tibet. And however strong feelings may be at moments—absence and fresh interests dull them. To banish her memory became a good deal easier as time went on, and even the idea to divorce her if she wished did not seem too hard.
But now he had seen her again—and every spell she had cast over him on that June night was renewed ten-fold. She was everything he could desire—she was beautiful and sweet and witty, with a charm which only complete independence and indifference can ever give a woman in the eyes of such a man as he. This he did not reason out—thinking himself a very ordinary person—in fact, never thinking of himself at all or what his temperament was affected by. He did not realize either that the very fact of Sabine's being now out of his reach made her appear the one and only thing he cared to possess. He knew nothing except that he felt perfectly mad with fate—mad with himself for making an unconditional promise to Henry, perfectly furious that he had been too stupid to connect the name of Howard at once with his wife.
And here he was sleeping in her castle—not she sleeping in his! And he was conforming to her lead—not she following his. And the only thing for a gentleman to do under the complicated circumstances was to speedily divorce her according to the Scottish law and let her marry his friend, Henry Fordyce—give them his blessing and lend them Arranstoun for the honeymoon!
When he got thus far in his meditations, he simply stood in the middle of the room and cursed aloud.
Never in his whole life had bolts or bars or circumstances been allowed to keep him from his will.
And then it did come to his shrewd mind that these things were not circumstances, but were barriers forged by himself.
"If I had not been such an awful brute—and the moment had not been—as it was—I might have gradually made her love me and kept her always for my own!" his thoughts ran. "Well—we were both too young then—and now I must take the consequences and at least not be a swine to poor old Henry."
With superb irony, among his letters next morning which he had wired to be forwarded to Héronac, there came one from his lawyer, informing him that he had received a guarded communication from his wife's representative, Mr. Parsons—with what practically amounted to a request that he, Mr. Arranstoun, should begin to set the law in motion, to break the bond between them—and his lawyer inquired what his wishes were upon the subject and what should be the nature of their reply?
To get this at Héronac—Sabine's house! He shook with fierce laughter in his bed.
Then his temper got up, and he came to a fresh determination. He would break her pride—she should kneel if she wanted her freedom, she should have it only if she asked him for it herself. He would not leave that day after all! He would stay and play the comedy to its end. While she would not recognize him, he would not recognize her. It was she who had set the pace and the responsibility of not informing Henry lay at her door. It was a damnably exciting game—far beyond polo or even slaying long-haired tigers in Manchuria—and he would play it and bluff without a card in his hand.
He was not a noble hero, you see, but just a strong and passionate young man—with "it"!
The day was so gorgeous—Sabine woke with some kind of joyousness. She was only twenty-two years old and supremely healthy; and however complicated fate seemed to be, when nerves and appetite are perfect and the sun is shining, it is really impossible to feel too gloomy.
Her periwinkle cambric was a reflection of her eyes, and her brown hair seemed filled with rays of gold as she stepped across the courtyard at about ten o'clock on her way to the garden. Her guests would sleep late—and at breakfast at twelve would be time enough to see them.
But Michael caught sight of the top of a wide straw hat, and the flutter of a bluish gown from his window, and did not hesitate for a second. Henry, he knew, was only in his bath, while he himself was fully dressed in immaculate white flannels.
It did not take him five minutes to gain the courtyard, or to saunter over the causeway bridge, and into the garden—he had brought the English papers with him, which had been among his post. He would pretend he had sought solitude and would be duly surprised and pleased to encounter his hostess. That he had no business in her private garden at all without her invitation did not trouble him, things like that never blocked his way; he had always been too welcome anywhere for such an aspect even to have presented itself to him.
He played his part to perfection—reconnoitering as stealthily as when he was stalking big game, until he perceived his quarry at the far end among the lavender, giving orders to a gardener. He then turned in the opposite direction, with great unconsciousness, to read the paper in peace apparently being his only care! Here he paced the walk which cut off her retreat from the gate, never glancing up. Sabine saw him of course, and her heart began to beat—was it possible for a man to be so good-looking or so utterly casual and devil-may-care! If she walked toward the arbor turret he would be obliged to see her when she came to the end, and then must come up and say good-morning. She picked up her flower-basket and went that way, and with due surprise and pleasure, Michael looked up from his paper at exactly the right moment and caught sight of her.
He came toward her with just the proper amount of haste and raised his straw hat in a gay good-morning.
"Isn't it a divine day," he said. "I had to come out and read the papers—and the courtyard looked so dull and I did not know where else to go—it is luck finding you here!"
"I always come into the garden in the morning when it is fine—I know every plant and they are all my friends." Then to hide the pleasurable excitement she was feeling, she bent down and picked a bit of lavender.
"I love that smell—won't you give me some, too?" he pleaded—and she handed him a sprig which he fixed in his white coat. "You have made the most enchanting place of this," he next told her. "Can't we go up and sit in that summer-house while you tell me how you began? Henry said all this was a ruin when you bought it some years ago—it is extraordinarily clever of you."
Not the slightest embarrassment was in his manner, not the smallest look of extra meaning in his eyes; he was simply a guest and she a hostess, out together in the sunlight. A sense of unreality stole over Sabine. It could not be all true—it was just some dream— a little more vivid, that was all, than those which used to come to her of him sometimes during—that year. She almost felt that she would like to put out her hand and touch him to see if he were tangible or a thing of illusion as she led the way to the turret summerhouse.
The wall which protected the garden from the sea was very high and this little tower had been in the original fortifications and had been cleverly adapted to its present use. It was open, with glass which slid back on the southern side, and its great windows looked out over the blue waters and granite rocks on the other. The little bay curved round so that from there you got a three-quarter view of the château.
Sabine put her basket down, and climbing up the wooden step she seated herself upon the high window-seat, her feet dangling while she opened the casement wide. Michael stood beside her leaning upon the sill—so that she was slightly above him.
"What a glorious view!" he exclaimed; "it is certainly a perfect spot. Why, it has everything! The sea and its waves to dash up at it—and then this lovely garden for shelter and peace. What a fortunate young woman you are!"
"Yes, am I not?"
"I have an old castle, too—perhaps Henry has told you about it. We have owned it ever since Adam, I suppose!" and he laughed. "The grim part of this is rather like it in a way; I mean the stone passages and huge rooms—but of course the architecture is different. It has been the scene of every sort of fight. I should like to show it to you some day." Stupefaction rose in Sabine's mind. After all, had she been mistaken, and had he really not recognized her?—or had her acting of the night before convinced him that his first ideas must be wrong and that she was really not his wife! Excitement thrilled her. But if he was playing a part, she then must certainly play, too, and not speak to him about the divorce until he spoke to her. Thus they were unconsciously the one set against the other and both determined that the other should show first hand. It looked as though the interests of Lord Fordyce might be somehow forgotten!
They talked thus for half an hour, Michael asking questions about Héronac with polite interest and without ever saying a sentence with a double meaning, and she replying with frank information, and both burning with excitement and zest. Then her great charm began to affect him so profoundly that unconsciously something of eagerness and emotion crept into his voice. It was one of those voices full of extraordinarily attractive cadences at any time, and made for the seducing of a woman's ear. Sabine knew that she was enjoying herself with a wild kind of forbidden joy—but she did not analyze its cause. It could not be mean to Henry just to talk about Héronac when she was not by word or look deliberately trying to fascinate his friend—she was only being naturally polite and casual.
"Arranstoun only wants the sea," Michael said at last, "and then it would be as perfect as this. I have a big, old sitting-room, too, that was once part of a great hall, and my bedroom is the other half—a suite all to myself—but I have not been there for five years—I am going back from here."
"How strange to be away from your home for so long," Sabine remarked innocently. "Where have you been?"
Then he told her all about China and Tibet.
"I had taken some kind of distaste for Arranstoun and shirked going there—I shall have to face it now, I suppose, because it is such hard luck on the people when an owner is away, and so one must come up to the scratch."
"Yes," she agreed, "one must always do that."
"I used to think out a lot of things when I was in the wilds—and I grew to know that one is a great fool when young—and a great brute."
She began to pull her lavender to pieces—this conversation was growing too dangerously fascinating and must be stopped at once.
"It is getting nearly breakfast-time," she said gaily, "and I just want to pick a big bunch of sweet peas before the sun gets on them, won't you help me?—and then we will go in." She slid to the floor before he could put out a hand to assist her, and with her swift, graceful movements led the way to the tall sticks where the last of the summer sweet peas grew.
Here she handed him the basket and told him to work hard—and all the while she chattered of the ways of these flowers, and the trouble she had had to make them grow there, and would not once let the conversation upon this subject flag.
"Some day when I live in England, I suppose I can have a lovely garden there—it is famous for gardens, isn't it? I take in Country Life and try to learn from it."
"Yes," he answered, and grew stiff. The sudden picture of her living in England—with Henry—came to him as an ugly shock.
"Before you settle down in England, I would like you to see Arranstoun,—please promise me to come and stay there before you do? I will have a party whenever you like. I would love to show it to you—every part of it—especially the chapel—it is full of wonderful things!"
If she chose to give him reminders of aspects which hurt, he would do the same!
"It sounds most interesting," she agreed, but had not the courage to make any remarks about the chapel or ask what it contained.
The clock over the gateway struck twelve—and she laughingly started to walk very fast toward the house.
"Madame Imogen and Lord Fordyce will be ravenous—come, let us go quickly—I can even run!"
So they strode on together with the radiant faces of those exalted by an exciting game, on the way passing Père Anselme.
And in the cool tapestried antechamber of the salle-à-manger, they found Henry looking from the window a little wistfully, and a pang of self-reproach struck both their hearts.