Before the Dawn Part 56

A deep flush overspread her face, and then, retreating, left it paler than ever. Her fingers were pressed tightly into the palms of her hands, but she said nothing.

"I am frank," continued the Secretary, "but it is best between us.

Finesse would be wasted upon one with your penetrating mind, and I pay you the highest compliment I know when I discard any attempt to use it.

I find that I have made a great mistake in more respects than one. The man who I thought stood in my way thought so himself at one time, but he knows better. Helen Harley is very beautiful and all that is good, but still there is something lacking. I knew it long ago, but only in the last few weeks has it had its effect upon me. This man I thought my rival has turned aside into a new path, and I--well, it seems that fate intends that he shall be my rival even in his changes--have followed him."

"What do you mean?" she asked, a sudden fire leaping to her eyes and a cold dread clutching her heart.

"I mean," he said, "that however beautiful Helen Harley may be, there are others as beautiful and one perhaps who has something that she lacks. What is that something? The power to feel pa.s.sion, to love with a love that cares for nothing else, and if need be to hate with a hate that cares for nothing else. She must be a woman with fire in her veins and lightning in her heart, one who would appear to the man she loves not only a woman, but as a G.o.ddess as well."

"And have you found such a woman?"

She spoke in cold, level tones.

The Secretary looked at her sitting there, her head thrown slightly back, her eyes closed and the curve of her chin defiant to the uttermost degree. The wonder that he had not always loved this woman instead of Helen Harley returned to him. She was a girl and yet she was not; there was nothing about her immature or imperfect; she was girl and woman, too. She had spoken to him in the coldest of tones, yet he believed in the fire beneath the ice. He wished to see what kind of torch would set the flame. His feeling for her before had been intellectual, now it was sentimental and pa.s.sionate.

James Sefton realized that Lucia Catherwood was not merely a woman to be admired, but one to be loved and desired. She had appealed to him as one with whom to make a great career; now she appealed to him as a woman with whom to live. He remembered the story of her carrying the wounded Prescott off the battlefield in her arms and in the dark, alone and undaunted, amid all the dead of the Wilderness. She was tall and strong, but was it so much strength and endurance as love and sacrifice? He was filled with a sudden fierce and wild jealousy of Prescott, because, when wounded and stricken down, she had sheltered him within her arms.

His look again followed the curves of her n.o.ble face and figure, the full development of strong years, and a fire of which he had not deemed himself capable burned in the eyes of the Secretary. The pale shade of Helen Harley floated away in the mist, but Lucia met his silent gaze firmly, and again she asked in cold, level tones:

"Have you found such a woman?"

"Yes, I have found her," replied the Secretary. "Perhaps I did not know it until to-day; perhaps I was not sure, but I have found her. I am a cold and what one would call a selfish man, but ice breaks up under summer heat, and I have yielded to the spell of your presence, Lucia."

"Miss Catherwood!"

"Well, Miss Catherwood--no, Lucia it shall be! I swear it shall be Lucia! I do not care for courtesy now, and you are compelled to hear me say it. It is a n.o.ble name, a beautiful one, and it gives me pleasure to say it. Lucia! Lucia! Lucia!"

"Go on, then, since I cannot stop you."

"I said that I have found such a woman and I have. Lucia, I love you, because I cannot help myself, just as you cannot help my calling you Lucia. And, Lucia, it is a love that wors.h.i.+ps, too. There is nothing bad in it. I would put myself at your feet. You shall be a queen to me and to all the rest of the world, for I have much to offer you besides my poor self. However the war may end, I shall be rich, very rich, and we shall have a great career. Let it be here if you will, or in the North, or in Europe. You have only to say."

There was then a feeling for him not all hate in the soul of Lucia Catherwood. If he loved her, that was a cloak for many sins, and she could not doubt that he did, because the man hitherto so calm and the master of himself was transformed. His words were spoken with all the fire and heat of a lover, his eyes were alight, and his figure took on a certain dignity and n.o.bility. Lucia Catherwood, looking at him, said to herself in unspoken words: "Here is a great man and he loves me." Her heart was cold, but a ray of tenderness came from it nevertheless.

The Secretary paused and in his agitation leaned his arm upon the mantel. Again his eyes dwelt upon her n.o.ble curves, her sumptuous figure, and the soul that shone from her eyes. Never before had he felt so utter a sense of powerlessness. Hitherto to desire a thing was with him merely the preliminary to getting it. Even when Helen Harley turned away from him, he believed that by incessant pursuit he could yet win her. There he took repulses lightly, but here it was the woman alone who decreed, and whatever she might say no act or power of his could change it. He stood before her a suppliant.

"You have honoured me, Mr. Sefton, with this declaration of your love,"

she said, and her tones sounded to him as cold and level as ever, "but I cannot--cannot return it."

"Neither now nor ever? You may change!"

"I cannot change, Mr. Sefton." She spoke a little sadly--out of pity for him--and shook her head.

"You think that my loyalty is due to Helen Harley, but I do not love her! I cannot!"

"No, it is not that," she said. "Helen Harley may not love you; I do not think she does. But I am quite sure of myself. I know that I can never love you."

"You may not now," he said hotly, "but you can be wooed and you can be won. I could not expect you to love me at once--I am not so foolish--but devotion, a long devotion, may change a woman's heart."

"No," she repeated, "I cannot change."

She seemed to be moving away from him. She was intangible and he could not grasp her. But he raised his head proudly.

"I do not come as a beggar," he said. "I offer something besides myself."

Her eyes flashed; she, too, showed her pride.

"I stand alone, I am nothing except myself, but my choice in the most important matter that comes into a woman's life shall be as free as the air."

She, too, raised her head and met him with an unflinching gaze.

"I also understand," he said moodily. "You love Prescott."

A flush swept over her face, and then retreating left it pale again, but she was too proud to deny the charge. She would not utter an untruth nor an evasion even on so delicate a subject. There was an armed truce of silence between them for a few minutes, till the evil genius of the Secretary rose and he felt again that desire to subject her will to his own.

"If you love this young man, are you quite sure that he loves you?" he asked in quiet tones.

"I will not discuss such a subject," she replied, flus.h.i.+ng.

"But I choose to speak of it. You saw him at the President's house two nights ago making obvious love to some one else--a married woman. Are you sure that he is worthy?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but became paler than ever.

"If so, you have a mighty faith," he went on relentlessly. "His face was close to Mrs. Markham's. Her hair almost touched his cheek."

"I will not listen to you!" she cried.

"But you must. Richmond is ringing with talk about them. If I were a woman I should wish my lover to come to me with a clean reputation, at least."

He paused, but she would not speak. Her face was white and her teeth were set firmly together.

"I wish you would go!" she said at last, with sudden fierceness.

"But I will not. I do not like you the least when you rage like a lioness."

She sank back, coldness and quiet coming to her as suddenly as her anger had leaped up.

"You have told me that you cannot love me," he said, "and I have shown you that the man you love cannot love you. I refuse to go. Awhile since I felt that I was powerless before you, and that I must abide by your yea and nay; but I feel so no longer. Love, I take it, is a battle, and I use a military simile because there is war about us. If a good general wishes to take a position, and if he fails in the direct charge--if he is repelled with loss--he does not on that account retreat; but he resorts to artifice, to stratagem, to the mine, to the sly and adroit approach."

Her courage did not fail, but she felt a chill when he talked in this easy and sneering manner. She had liked him--a little--when he disclosed his love so openly and so boldly, but now no ray of tenderness came from her heart.

"I can give you more of the news of Richmond," said the Secretary, "and this concerns you as intimately as the other. Perhaps I should refrain from telling you, but I am jealous enough in my own cause to tell it nevertheless. Gossip in Richmond--well, I suppose I must say it--has touched your name, too. It links you with me."

"Mr. Sefton," she said in the old cold, level tones, "you spoke of my changing, but I see that you have changed. Five minutes ago I thought you a gentleman."

"If I am doing anything that seems mean to you I do it for love of you and the desire to possess you. That should be a sufficient excuse with any woman. Perhaps you do not realize that your position depends upon me. You came here because I wrote something on a piece of paper. There has been a whisper that you were once a spy in this city--think of it; the name of spy does not sound well. Rumour has touched you but lightly, yet if I say the word it can envelope and suffocate you."

"You have said that you love me; do men make threats to the women whom they love?"

"Ah, it is not that," he pleaded. "If a man have a power over a woman he loves, can you blame him if he use it to get that which he wishes?"