The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) 📖

CHAPTER III # THE BETROTHED

He met her in his father’s house that evening. He entered upon her

through the folding doors of the withdrawing-room, and saw her before

she saw him.

 

The sight of her filled him with an almost intolerable yearning and

longing for that happiness he must never enjoy. She was standing by the

fire-place. A lamp was on a low table beside her, and it illuminated a

gentle beauty that seemed divine to the man who had crawled back

mutilated from the embrace of death.

 

Her vows, her kisses, her joy in his presence, her tremulous hopes of

pleasing him rushed back to him. Her fair figure in its setting of

light, warmth, comfort, and luxury could not have been more alluring to

him. Yet he never hesitated for an instant in his resolution that all

the things she stood for were things that must be lost to him for ever.

 

She was standing very erect, looking into the fire. Her gown was pink

and her bosom covered with lace. She held a prayer-book in her left

hand.

 

While Luc still waited, lightly holding the curtain apart, she moved and

lowered the lamp.

 

“Mademoiselle,” said Luc.

 

Her shaking hand shot the wick into darkness.

 

“Why, Luc,” she cried in a trembling voice, “the light has gone out!”

 

He noted the relief in her tone, and guessed something of the effort to

which she had nerved herself; it made him the stronger.

 

“Mademoiselle,” he said, “it is very gracious of you to permit me to

take this farewell of you.”

 

Her voice answered weakly out of the fire-flushed darkness—

 

“Farewell? Farewell?”

 

He came into the room cautiously and feeling his way by the furniture.

The darkness was darkness indeed to him. He could see nothing of her but

a rosy glimmer where her skirt caught the direct glow of the flames.

 

He paused by the head of a sofa which had stood against the wall since

he was a child, and gripped the smooth, familiar curl of the back.

 

“You were never afraid that I should ask more of you than ‘farewell,’

were you, Mademoiselle?” he said sweetly in his tired, slightly hoarse

voice.

 

She fortified herself by memories, by the thought of the old Marquis, of

his mother, by her own ideals. She tried to stifle her fatal pity that

wished to weep over him, and to summon instead some ghost of last

summer’s love to help her.

 

“Luc,” she said, with surprising steadiness, “you must not assume that I

am inconstant, ignoble. You need me more than ever.”

 

He interrupted her, very gently.

 

“But you have no need of me.”

 

“Yes—ah, yes. This is a strange greeting for you to give me—Luc.” Her

voice rose desperately. “Everything is as it was before.”

 

“No,” he said; “everything is changed. You know it—you knew it when

you turned the lamp out.”

 

She was silent.

 

“God knows,” he continued slowly, “that it would be pleasant to me to

believe what you say—to deceive myself, to sweeten my great loneliness

by your loyal duty, by your tender service—by all the gracious phantoms

you would conjure from the grave of your dead love—but I am not the

coward who would take your sweet self-sacrifice.”

 

“You make me a coward!” came her voice, very low. “What am I to say?”

 

“Farewell,” he answered.

 

He heard her move and saw the blur of her pink skirt pass out of the

firelight.

 

“No,” she said, “I will be true—I will keep my vows—I have no

right—”

 

“Nor I,” he put in quickly. He paused a moment, then said quietly, “I

have no career before me. I shall always be my father’s pensioner, and I

shall always be an invalid—and, though no one knows it, the doctor

warned me that I have only a few years to live.”

 

“Oh!” shuddered Clémence.

 

He cautiously moved a little nearer to her, treading delicately and

feeling his way.

 

“There is nothing to grieve over—and nothing to regret,” he said, “save

that I ever entangled your life with mine, Mademoiselle. Yet it has

given me the very sweetest memories—and afterwards, in the long years

ahead of you, when you are honoured and loved as you are worthy of

being, it cannot lessen your happiness to remember that you were the

fairest, most sacred thing in the life of a man who did not know—much

joy.”

 

He paused and coughed. She was sobbing childishly.

 

“Your tears will be repaid you,” he added in a faltering voice. “You

weep for a man who worships you, and who blesses God for having known

you—and when you think afterwards of how much it meant to me to meet

this tenderness I could not take, you will not regret those tears,

Clémence.”

 

He heard her sobs lessen as she struggled to master her tears; he heard

her move towards him.

 

“Take me,” she muttered. “I wish it—I meant what I said—I am yours. I

could make you happier—let me—I will keep my word.”

 

“Ah, hush!” he answered hoarsely; “you have not even seen me.”

 

“You take away my courage,” she interrupted. “I could have done it—you

would never have known.” She broke into sobs again. “Why did you do it?

Why was everything so cruel? I think I shall go mad. Luc, Luc, I loved

you—on my soul I did! I would have died for you. But why did you go

away and come back changed—changed to me? You do not want my love! You

refuse my faith! Who was that woman you went with? Where is she now?”

 

“Dead—dead—dead.”

 

“Ah! Does it matter to you?”

 

Luc felt his way nearer to her. He moved into the dim circle of the

fire-glow; he could make out her misty shape.

 

“Do you not want me?” she asked, and her voice was steady now.

 

“Yes,” said Luc—“more than I ever wanted you. You asked about

the—Countess. She was brave and kind and, I think, had virtues I know

not of. I was never more than outside her life—she was not of the same

blood—she did not understand. You do—you know what I can do—you will

not tempt me.”

 

“Tempt you,” she repeated softly. “But if I wanted it?”

 

“But you do not, Clémence,” he said gravely and sadly. “You are only

pretending for my sake, for my father’s sake, for the sake of your own

ideals. And presently you would come to hate me.”

 

She rose and moved restlessly.

 

“Do—you—not believe in love,” she asked hesitatingly—“in love being

stronger than—anything?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then why cannot we—surmount this?”

 

Luc was silent.

 

“Why?” persisted Clémence.

 

He thought she was straining towards him through the darkness.

 

“Ah, my dear!” he cried brokenly, “if you loved me—how different! You

said just now, ‘I could have done it—you would never have known.’ Do

not try to deceive me.”

 

There was a long silence, then she answered in a muffled but steady

tone—

 

“You are right, Monsieur. I will not dare to force on you my ideas. You

must act by your own—I will not humiliate you by insisting on your

taking any sacrifice. I am speaking very coldly. Forgive me. My heart is

not cold. I see there was not in either of our affections anything

strong enough to weather storms—and you want the rest of your life

free. And I see that you cannot keep me to an old promise—a de

Clapiers, Monsieur, can only behave as you have behaved.”

 

She gave a great sigh, as if she was exhausted, and a chill sense of

desolation filled the room.

 

“Tell me,” said Luc—“you were afraid?”

 

“Yes,” she admitted lifelessly; “but I would have done it.”

 

“Mademoiselle, I never doubted your courage.”

 

“I—did not lie to you,” came her toneless voice, “when I vowed—I

meant—”

 

“I know,” he said—“I know.”

 

“And your father—your poor father—”

 

“He has courage too,” answered Luc, and he laughed. “Light the lamp now,

Mademoiselle,” he added.

 

“No—my eyes are too tired,” she replied hastily.

 

“Mademoiselle, I am going to strike a light; but first—may I kiss your

hand?”

 

He heard her rise. The fire was dying out and he saw the long gleam