The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 20

One incident, a chance word, in a retrospect of that time, afterwards stood out in Elizabeth's mind, though at the moment it seemed to make but a slight impression.

It was one Sunday afternoon when a number of people, Paul Halleck among them, had dropped in to afternoon tea, and the conversation happened to turn upon palmistry. Elizabeth did not proffer her own experience. She listened silently to what the others said on the subject.

"I can't say I have implicit faith in it," observed Mrs. Bobby. "I was told by a fortune-teller that I should marry a dark man, who would beat me and treat me horribly; and as you see, I've married a fair man--who treats me pretty well on the whole."

Bobby, who was leaning against the mantel-piece his tea-cup in his hand, smiled serenely.

"Don't boast too soon, Eleanor," he said, lazily, "there's no knowing what brutal tendencies I may develop yet."

Mrs. Hartington, who was seated near him on a low chair, looked up into his face with a sympathetic smile. "Are you one of those long-suffering husbands who turn at last, Mr. Van Antwerp?" she asked, sweetly. "It would be good discipline, I think, for Eleanor not to have her own way _always_."

Bobby looked down at her coolly for a moment with his calm blue eyes.

"No doubt, it would be good discipline for all of us, Mrs.

Hartington," he said, in his pleasant, clear-cut tones, "but as my wife's way and mine are generally the same, I'm afraid I'm not likely to inflict it."

Mrs. Hartington looked down with an injured air, adding another to her list of grievances against her dear friend and neighbor, Eleanor Van Antwerp.

"I should never go to a common fortune-teller, my dear," she observed in a louder tone, for the benefit of the a.s.sembled company. "Yours was probably just an ignorant person. But I did go to ----, who, you know, charges a small fortune, and he told me the most extraordinary things.

I have perfect confidence in him; every one I know thinks him quite infallible."

"Do they?" said Paul Halleck, suddenly turning from the piano. He shrugged his shoulders. "I devoutly hope you are mistaken," he said.

"---- read my hand in Paris, and told me some very unpleasant things; among others that I was probably destined to a violent death. This year of my life, by the way--the twenty-seventh--was to be my fatal year."

He spoke half laughingly, but the words produced an effect. There was a general exclamation of horror, and Elizabeth, who was pouring tea, dropped the cup that she held in her hand. Julian Gerard, who was standing behind her, bent down to recover the fragments.

"It's odd," he said, as he placed them absently on the table, "his year of danger and yours seem to correspond." The words rose involuntarily to his lips, and an instant later he wished them unspoken.

She flushed a little, then grew pale. "Oh, I'm sorry you remembered that nonsense," she said. "I don't really believe in these things."

But her hand trembled as she poured out the tea, glancing furtively at Halleck as she did so.

He was enjoying the sensation that his announcement had created.

"Yes," he was saying, "if I live to be a year older, I am safe; but till then--Heaven knows what danger threatens me!" He shrugged his shoulders with a light laugh. The prediction did not seem to trouble him greatly. Elizabeth wondered if he had not invented it, for the sake of the effect. And then, involuntarily, the thought crossed her mind--what if it were really true, and the prediction were fulfilled?

Such things had been known to happen--there might be something in it.... Quick as lightning the thought flashed through her mind of all that his death might mean to her--the merciful release, the solution of all difficulties.... Just for a moment the idea lingered, while the others talked, and she shuddered.

"You are quite pale," said Gerard, fixing his eyes upon her. He was still sensitive to any sign of feeling which Halleck seemed to arouse in her. "I believe you are really superst.i.tious. These things seem to frighten you."

"Am I superst.i.tious?" She looked up at him dreamily. "Perhaps I am. It would be nice, I think, if there were something in it, if one could tell what is going to happen. One could act accordingly. I should like, for instance"--her voice sank--"I should like to look into the future one year, and see what fate has in store for me."

"If I had any control over fate"--Gerard crushed back the impetuous words that followed. Not yet--the moment was not propitious. Besides, he was not sure of her. There was still at times something in her manner that was baffling, uncertain.--And just then Paul Halleck sauntered up and bent over her in that intimate manner which still annoyed Gerard's fastidious taste, even though he had long since convinced himself that he had no cause to fear him as a rival.

"Did you hear ----'s terrible prediction, Miss Van Vorst?" Paul asked, smiling, "and aren't you sorry for my untimely fate?"

_Chapter XXIII_

"Why will you never play for me?"

Gerard stood leaning on the piano, his eyes half smiling, yet with a look of mastery, fixed upon Elizabeth. She was sitting in a low chair by the fire, the book on her lap which she had been reading when he came in. It was a stormy March afternoon, and the dusk was closing in prematurely. The room was already in shadow, except where the firelight formed a little circle of radiance, illumining Elizabeth's face and hair. Seated thus in the full glow of light, with the shadows in the foreground, all the little details of her appearance--the broad sweep of rippling hair on her forehead, the soft laces at her throat, the pale, dull green of her gown, even to the buckle on her slipper, and the one white rose in her belt--each trifling part of the harmonious whole, impressed itself on his memory, haunting him afterwards with a keen sense of pain.

She looked up at him now from under her long lashes, with the old light in her eyes, half defiant, half tantalizing--that spirit of revolt which still glanced forth at times to baffle and disturb him.

"I don't want to play this afternoon. I don't--feel in the mood."

"You are never in the mood when I ask you." Silence. "Confess at once," said Gerard, with some heat--"for it would really be quite as civil--that you don't wish to play for me."

Another swift upward glance. "Perhaps I don't"--demurely.--"You're too severe a critic."

"You know," said Gerard, "that that is not the reason."

Silence again. "Will you tell me the reason?" he asked.

She answered him this time with a flash of defiance. "I don't know,"

she said, "what right you have to demand it. But if you insist upon it, I'll tell you. You--you don't like my playing, and--it's very absurd, of course, but I never can play for people who don't."

"I--don't like your playing?" He s.h.i.+elded his eyes for a moment, as if from the glare of the fire. When he spoke again his tone was peremptory. "You foolish child," he said, "come and play for me, and I'll tell you, afterwards, what I think of it."

She looked up at him--startled, rebellious, met his eyes for a moment, then rose, pouting, like the child that he called her, constrained against her will, put down her book, and moved slowly toward the piano. "You are so terribly determined," she complained.

"And you are so terribly perverse! But when I want a thing very much, I can be determined, as you say. Play me the Fire-music," he went on, "and--and 'Tristan and Isolde,' as you did--do you remember?--the first night I met you."

She paused, with her hands on the keys. "I--I thought,"--she began, and then broke off suddenly, and began to play as he bade her--at first faltering, uncertainly, with a strange hesitation; then more firmly, as the keys responded with the old readiness to her touch, and she lost herself in the music. Outside the storm increased, the rain beat against the windows, the room grew dark, and once Elizabeth paused--she could hardly see the keys. But Gerard murmured, "Ah, the love-music!" and she played on. All the terrible distress, the maddening perplexity, of the last few months seemed to express themselves, in spite of herself, in those surging, strenuous chords; all the hope, too, and the wild unreasoning happiness. She was startled, almost as if she were telling the whole story in language so eloquent that he must surely understand it without further words. But Gerard, as was natural, read into it only his own feelings. He stood leaning on the piano, his hand s.h.i.+elding his eyes, which were fixed intently upon her.--It was so dark now that he could hardly see her face, only the s.h.i.+mmer of her hair standing out against the dusk, the movement of her white hands on the keys.

She faltered at last, struck a false chord, and broke off in the very midst of the love-music. "I--I can't see," she murmured, and let her hands fall in her lap.

"Do you remember," Gerard said, "that first night you played? I had talked to you at dinner, you know, you--you repelled me a little. I thought--I am telling you the bare truth, you see--you were a little cynical, a little hard--it seemed a pity when you were so"--he paused for a moment and his voice softened as he lingered over the word--"so beautiful. I couldn't understand you. I thought--I wouldn't try. It wasn't worth while--most things were not. And then--you played"--He paused again for a moment. "You know what most girls' playing is like.

Yours has a soul, a fire--I don't know where you get it. It moved me, set me thinking, as no other woman's playing has done for years."

He paused again. Elizabeth looked up quickly. "I thought," she murmured, "that you didn't like my playing, that you were bored"--

"Ah, you thought," he said, "that when a man feels very much, he can make pretty speeches? I can't, at least. Oh, I've no doubt"--he made a resigned gesture--"I've no doubt that I behaved like a brute. Women have told me that I generally do. I said to myself--that girl is dangerous, she could make a man fall in love with her--even against his will. I was in love once--but that's another story. I never wanted to repeat the experiment. And so, as you know, I avoided you; like a fool, I used to go and look at your picture, and then--keep away from you, evening after evening. I struggled--with all the strength I have--I struggled not to love you. And then, as you know"--he looked her straight in the eyes--"as you have known well these last few weeks,--I failed."

There was silence for a moment. She was very white, her hands were tightly clasped in her lap. "I"--she gave a little shuddering sigh--"it would have been better if you hadn't."

"Elizabeth!" She felt rather than saw how his face changed.

"Elizabeth," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "do you mean that? Then"--as she sat silent--"you don't love me?"

Oh, for the strength to answer "No," and end this scene--this useless, perplexing scene, which she should have been prepared for, which yet seemed to have come upon her unawares! One firm, courageous "No," and a man like Gerard would not ask her twice. Instead, a compromise, useless, feeble, hovered on her lips. "I--shouldn't make you happy,"

she faltered out, despising her own weakness.

"Is that all?" He laughed out loud in sheer relief. "My darling,"--the triumphant tenderness in his voice was hard to bear--"don't you think that I can judge of that?"

She was silent, and he drew nearer to her and took her hands in his.

"You needn't be afraid," he said. "I shall wors.h.i.+p the ground you tread upon, if--if you will only consent. You will, Elizabeth, won't you?" She had not known before that his voice held tones so caressingly gentle.

For a moment she sat motionless, pa.s.sive beneath his touch, and then suddenly: "I can't," she broke out, hoa.r.s.ely, drew her hands away from him, and going over to the mantel-piece, she leaned her arms upon it and hid her face.