Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 15

And Baring went.

If Hope did expect him, she certainly did not antic.i.p.ate the manner of his coming. The man who entered the colonel's drawing-room was not the man who had striven with a mastery that was almost brutal to bring her into subjection only the day before. She could not have told wherein the difference lay, but she was keenly aware of its existence. And because of her knowledge she felt no misgiving, no shadow of fear. She did not so much as wait for him to come to her. Simply moved by the woman's instinct that cannot err, she went straight to him, and so into his arms, clinging to him with a little sobbing laugh, and not speaking at all, because there were no words that could express what she yet found it so sublimely easy to tell him. Baring did not speak either, but he had a different reason for his silence. He only held her closely to him, till presently, raising her face to his, she understood. And she laughed again, laughed through tears.

"Weren't you rather quick to give up--hope?" she whispered.

He did not answer her, but she found nothing discouraging in his silence. Rather, it seemed to inspire her. She slipped her arms round his neck. Her tears were nearly gone.

"Hope doesn't die so easily," she said softly. "And I'll tell you another thing that is ever so much harder to kill, that can never die at all, in fact; or, perhaps I needn't. Perhaps you can guess what it is?"

And again he did not answer her. He only bent, holding her fast pressed against his heart, and kissed her fiercely, pa.s.sionately, even violently, upon the lips.

"My Hope!" he said. "My Hope!"

The Deliverer[1]

I

A PROMISE OF MARRIAGE

The band was playing very softly, very dreamily; it might have been a lullaby. The girl who stood on the balcony of the great London house, with the moonlight pouring full upon her, stooped, and nervously, fumblingly, picked up a spray of syringa that had fallen from among the flowers on her breast.

The man beside her, dark-faced and grave, put out a perfectly steady hand.

"May I have it?" he said.

She looked up at him with the start of a trapped animal. Her face was very pale. It was in striking contrast to the absolute composure of his.

Very slowly and reluctantly she put the flower into his outstretched hand.

He took it, but he took her fingers also and kept them in his own.

"When will you marry me, Nina?" he asked.

She started again and made a frightened effort to free her hand.

He smiled faintly and frustrated it.

"When will you marry me?" he repeated.

She threw back her head with a gesture of defiance; but the courage in her eyes was that of desperation.

"If I marry you," she said, "it will be purely and only for your money."

He nodded. Not a muscle of his face moved.

"Of course," he said. "I know that."

"And you want me under those conditions?"

There was a quiver in the words that might have been either of scorn or incredulity.

"I want you under any conditions," he responded quietly. "Marry my money by all means if it attracts you! But you must take me with it."

The girl shrank.

"I can't!" she whispered suddenly.

He released her hand calmly, imperturbably.

"I will ask you again to-morrow," he said.

"No!" she said sharply.

He looked at her questioningly.

"No!" she repeated, with a piteous ring of uncertainty in her voice.

"Mr. Wingarde, I say No!"

"But you don't mean it," he said, with steady conviction.

"I do mean it!" she gasped. "I tell you I do!"

She dropped suddenly into a low chair and covered her face with a moan.

The man did not move. He stared absently down into the empty street as if waiting for something. There was no hint of impatience about his strong figure. Simply, with absolute confidence, he waited.

Five minutes pa.s.sed and he did not alter his position. The soft strains in the room behind them had swelled into music that was pa.s.sionately exultant. It seemed to fill and overflow the silence between them. Then came a triumphant crash and it ended. From within sounded the gay buzz of laughing voices.

Slowly Wingarde turned and looked at the bent, hopeless figure of the girl in the chair. He still held indifferently between his fingers the spray of white blossom for which he had made request.

He did not speak. Yet, as if in obedience to an unuttered command, the girl lifted her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of misery and indecision. They wavered beneath his steady gaze. Slowly, still moving as if under compulsion, she rose and stood before him, white and slim as a flower. She was quivering from head to foot.

The man still waited. But after a moment he put out his hand silently.

She did not touch it, choosing rather to lean upon the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony for support. Then at last she spoke, in a whisper that seemed to choke her.

"I will marry you," she said--"for your money."

"I thought you would," Wingarde said very quietly.

He stood looking down at her bent head and white shoulders. There were sparkles of light in her hair that shone as precious metal s.h.i.+nes in ore. Her hands were both fast gripped upon the ironwork on which she leant.