the duchessa di corleone was on her way back from italy. she had said good-bye with a little pang to the gallery, and to the courtyard with its golden oranges and marble statues, but once on her way to england the thought of paul completely obliterated any trace of sorrow. she was joyfully ready to give up everything—the casa di corleone, her house on the embankment, and her thousands a year for the man who had taken her heart into his keeping.
throughout the journey her heart sang little songs of happiness, which had as their refrain the one word, “paul.” the express train rushing across the country bathed in the july sun could hardly carry her with sufficient swiftness. when, at last, calais was reached and she was on board the boat she felt happier.
with the cliffs of dover in sight her heart was singing a te deum. till that moment she had felt that some accident might happen to prevent her getting to him. now, in less than four hours she would be in his studio.
she had written to tell him not to meet her at the station. she wanted their first meeting to be alone, without the eyes of curious porters upon them.
“just you and i together, my darling,” she wrote. “i can see the room in my mind, and you coming forward to meet me. there has not been a moment day and night when you have been absent from my thoughts. our love transfigures everything for me. life has become a magic book on every page of which your name is written....”
that letter had reached paul in his studio the morning of the day sara would arrive. and now, an hour before her arrival, he was sitting with it crumpled tightly in his hand, his eyes staring blankly before him.
the fates had struck suddenly, dealing sorrow as they had dealt joy, silently and swiftly. that very morning he had heard of the complete failure of the mexican bank in which his money was invested.
at first the news had stunned him. in the afternoon he had gone down to a friend in the city to make fuller enquiries. he found his worst fears realized. his income, which altogether had amounted to about fourteen hundred a year, had been suddenly reduced to less than half. in fact, to merely the six hundred or so he earned by his painting.
paul went back to his studio and sat down trying to realize what it would mean. and because he was a man whose steady grey eyes had always looked facts clearly in the face, he even took pencil and paper and jotted down certain figures. but the sum total always remained the same—his marriage with sara had become impossible.
he never for an instant did her the wrong of thinking that his loss of income would make any difference to her love for him. he believed in her love as implicitly as he believed in his own. that, however, did not alter the one fact that marriage was out of the question. even if he reduced his mother’s allowance by a hundred a year—which, however, he had no intention of doing—the three hundred left him would not justify him taking any woman to wife, and assuredly not a woman like the duchessa di corleone. he knew the impossibility of transplanting a hot-house flower to the open air of a wintry garden. the thing could not be done. no amount of care could save it; it must die.
and with the irony of fate, this news had reached him by the very same post as her letter.
he took it again from his pocket and re-read it. a spasm of pain that was almost physical pierced him. his hand tightened on the paper till it was crumpled and twisted. and in less than an hour she would be in the studio with him.
“my god,” said paul to himself, “the fates are very cruel!”
and then because throughout the day his first thought had been of sara he began to plan how best to break the news to her. he determined that for a few hours at least she should not know. she should have the complete joy of the meeting unmarred. they were going out to dine together. when they returned to the studio it would be time enough to tell her. with the decision all the old quiet endurance he had learnt through days and nights of hardship came back to paul. he would hide the knowledge of their parting in his own heart. till he bade her good-bye that evening she should never guess what the world would really mean to them both.
something caught at his throat and a mist swam before his eyes. he got up and began to walk quickly up and down the room. every now and then his hand, still holding the letter, clenched tightly.
suddenly he realized what he held. he stopped in his walk and put the letter on the table. he smoothed it out tenderly, as if it had been some living thing he had injured. he folded it and put it in his pocket-book. and once more he began his walk.
the whole place seemed full of her presence. everything reminded him of her, the chair in which she sat, the glass at which she had been wont to arrange her hat when she was sitting for him, the vases on a bookshelf, for which she insisted that he should buy flowers. there were flowers in them to-day, real crimson roses—general jacqueminot, with its sweet old-fashioned scent. for the future they would remain empty. it would be useless to buy flowers if she was not to see them. it seemed to him as if his whole life he had been doing everything for her, and that now nothing would seem worth while. he caught at his underlip with his teeth, biting it hard. it seemed as if he were being asked to bear more than human strength could endure. then all at once he stopped in his walk, for the hoot of a taxi near at hand struck on his ears.
a moment later he heard a light step crossing the courtyard. the door opened. she was in the doorway—radiant, living.
“paul.”
“my beloved.”
she was in his arms. he was holding her as if he would never let her go.
love, so say the chroniclers—and wrongly—is blind. it is keen-sighted as an eagle, which from afar discerns objects invisible to the sight of man.
when paul at last held sara away from him, she looked into his eyes, and though he had hidden his sorrow deep down in his heart she saw suddenly into the depths, and her own heart momentarily stood still. but also with her love and her quick woman’s instinct she saw that it was something he wished to keep hidden, and so she did not ask him then what it was he was hiding from her, but smiled at him, and in her turn hid what she had guessed.
so throughout the evening the two played a game of pretence, she knowing that they both were playing it, and he—man-like—believing that he was the sole performer.
they went to an hotel together and dined, and listened to a band which was making music, and they talked nonsensically about the food they were eating and the people they saw, and all the time her heart was crying to him to drop the terrible mask of gaiety and tell her his sorrow. but as she saw he meant to play the game she told him of her journey, and the portrait that was hanging in the gallery, and she said that she had kissed the fauns good-bye. and then quite suddenly she stopped, because she saw a look of such pain come into his eyes that for the moment she was dumb, and pretence seemed useless. but almost at once he laughed and made some little light speech; and she laughed too, and bravely, because she knew he wished it.
but when at last they were back in the studio she could play the terrible little game no longer. and he too knew that the moment had come for it to cease.
“paul,” she said steadily, “what is it?”
“you guessed?” he asked.
“my dear,” she said, with a sad laugh, “i knew at once.”
“then the harlequin game has been no good,” he said. and so he told her. and when he had ended there was a long silence.
sara was the first to break it.
“there is no need for me to tell you,” she said, “that this makes no difference to our love.”
“but,” said paul, and in spite of himself his voice was bitter, “it does to our marriage. there is no way out.”
and with the words silence again fell. and in the silence sara felt a slow hatred of giuseppe creep into her heart. he could have made this happiness possible to her, and he had made it impossible.
she did not dream of suggesting that they should marry in spite of everything. she knew it would be mere mockery to do so. but her heart rebelled fiercely against fate and against the late duca di corleone. it was the arrant selfishness of his deed that angered her. she had been his wife faithful and courteous when he was living, and in return he claimed her life when he was dead, or made a pauper of her.
she got up from her chair and began to move about the room. in mind and body she felt like [pg 245]a caged animal beating against the bars which kept it from freedom.
she paused near the window. paul saw her figure silhouetted against the night sky. he watched her. and suddenly her love for paul and every fighting instinct within her rose up against the injustice of the fates. defiance of their decree and intense love overwhelmed her.
“there—is a way,” she said slowly. she did not turn her head. paul saw her profile immovable against the square of grey-blue window.
he got up from his chair and came across to her. he took her hand and held it hard against his lips.
“you honour me, beloved,” he said. “but it cannot be.”
she turned towards him then.
“why not?” she cried almost fiercely. “we love each other. is not that enough? let us defy giuseppe. do you think i care what the world would say of me?”
“but i care,” said paul simply.
“more than you care for me?” she asked.
“beloved,” said paul huskily, “it is because i love you—because you are more than the whole world to me that i cannot let there be the smallest stain upon your honour. i—my god, how i worship you!” the words came from him like a cry.
“ah, paul.” the bitterness in her heart had [pg 246]melted, and with it her strength. he held her in his arms.
“was—was i horrible?” she asked.
he kissed her lips fiercely. “you were wonderful, my darling. god knows the generosity of women. but there are some sacrifices a man cannot accept.”
“it would have been none,” she whispered.
he held her closer. “you think not now, my darling. but later—— dearest, i could not bear to see your whiteness stained by the mud the world would throw at you.” he kissed her eyes and hair.
“what is to be the end of it?” she asked. “what must we do?”
he laughed sadly. “there is only one thing left for us to do—we must say good-bye.”
she put her arms round him. “ah, not that, paul—not that.”
“but listen, dearest,” he said. “we’ve got to look at things as they are. there is no profession open to me in which i am likely to make more than i can by my painting. i have lost every penny of capital. god! how sordid it seems that the lack of money should keep us apart. but there it is. it may be years before i make more, though heaven knows i’d paint every commonplace creature in creation in return for shekels now. i hate my own fastidiousness. i’ve lost dozens of commissions and made not a [pg 247]few enemies. it will take ages to make up for my folly. at the best it must be years before i have anything like a decent income.” he stopped. he had loathed having to speak the bare commonplace facts.
“i will wait,” she said.
“dearest,” he said, and his voice was shaking, “it would not be fair to let you. there will be other men, rich, who——”
she interrupted by a gesture.
“do you count my love as little as that?” she said. “cannot you understand that there is nothing in the world for me but my love for you and your love for me. if you believe as i do that we belong to each other for time and eternity, then how can you——?” she could get no further. he stopped her with such kisses that she was frightened at his vehemence.
“enough,” he said. “we belong to each other. one day i will claim you.”
“and till then?” she asked.
“for a time,” he said steadily, “we must not meet. it is—wiser not.”
“because—of what i said?” she asked. the crimson colour had covered her face and neck.
“no,” he answered quietly, “but because i am only a man, and very human.”
and there was something in his voice that told her not to gainsay him.
“but at least we will write,” she said.
“no.”
“why not?”
“it would be almost the same as seeing you. there would come a day when the sight of your writing would shake my resolve. you, if you wrote, could only tell me all that was in your heart. what use else to write? i should hear your heart calling mine, as mine will call to you. and then one day my resolution would fail. and if it did i should hate myself, and count myself unworthy to come near you again.”
“then never, dear heart,” she whispered.
and there was a little silence too sad for words or tears. it was sara who broke it.
“christopher used to say,” she said, with a little shaky laugh, “that i could cheat the fates. this time i cannot. they have dealt me a hand full of little spades, and every one of them is digging the grave of my happiness.”
“ah, my dearest,” he said.
she disengaged herself gently from him.
“and since for a time at least we both must die,” she said, “we had better die at once. a lingering death is so painful.” her voice shook. “good-bye, paul. don’t come with me. i want to go home alone.”
“good-bye, beloved.”
again their eyes met. and he caught her to him. she felt his body shaking.
“paul,” she whispered.
“beloved.”
and then he took her to the door and held it open for her. she went out through the courtyard in the twilight of the summer evening.
and the little faun, holding his pipe to his lips, made no sound, for he knew at that moment no music however tender could bring comfort to her heart.
