One Day Part 24

"I came because I had to, Opal. I could not have done otherwise. I have something to tell you."

"Something to tell me?" she repeated.

"Yes. The most interesting story in the world to me, Opal--a letter from my mother--a letter to me alone, which I can share with only one woman in the world--the woman I love!"

Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstractedly to adjust the curtain, Paul saw the flash of her betrothal ring. He caught her hand in his and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She seized the jewel with her free hand and tried to thrust it into her bosom.

"No! no!--not there!" he remonstrated, and was not satisfied until she had crossed the room and hidden it from his sight.

"Does that please your majesty?" she asked, with a curious little tremble in her voice.

Paul started, and stared at her with a world of wonder in his eyes.

Could she know?

"Your majesty--" he stammered.

"Why not?" she laughed. "You speak as though you had but to command to be obeyed."

"Forgive me, dear," he answered softly.

And Opal became her sympathetic self again.

"Tell me about your mother, Paul," she said.

And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story as it had been told to him, reading much of his mother's letter to her, reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the ident.i.ty he was determined to keep secret until she was his. The girl was moved to the depths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then the thought came to her, "This, then, is Paul's heritage--his birthright!

He, like me, is doomed!"

And her heart ached for him--and for herself!

But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sitting down beside her for the first time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his mind for their one day together.

"Surely," he said, "it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime of misery--one little day of bliss! Just one day in which there shall be no yesterday, and no to-morrow--one day of Elysium against years of Purgatory! Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had theirs--even though it must be as brief as a b.u.t.terfly's existence, let us not deny ourselves that much. I ask only one day!

"You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of all the world of women, my chosen one, as I--no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly deny it--am yours! We know we must soon part forever. Won't it be easier for both of us--both, I say--if for but one day, we can give to each other all! Won't all our lives be better for the memory of one perfect day?

Think, Opal--to take out of all eternity just a few hours--and yet out of those few hours may be born sufficient courage for all the life to come! Don't you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't argue--I can't reason! I only want you to be mine--all mine--yes, if only for a few hours--all mine!"

"Paul, you are mad," she began, but he would not listen.

"Just one day," he pleaded--"no yesterday, and no to-morrow!"

He looked at her tenderly.

"Opal, it simply has to be--it's Fate! If it wasn't meant to be, why have we met here like this? Do you think we two are mere toys in the grip of circ.u.mstances? Or do you believe the G.o.ds have crossed our paths again just to tantalize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you and I--_together_?"

"Why, I came to rest--to see Lucerne! Most tourists come to Lucerne!

It's a--pretty--place--very!" she responded, lamely.

"Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why did _I_ come?--and at the same time?--and find you here in my mother's room? Simply a coincidence?

Answer me that! Chance plays strange freaks sometimes, I'll admit, but Fate is a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear your voice, that time? Why did I see you, and follow? Why did we find ourselves so near akin--so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we weren't created to be--_one_?"

After a moment of waiting he said, "Listen to the music, Opal! Only listen! Doesn't it remind you of dreams and visions--of fairyland, of happiness, and--love?"

But she could not answer.

At last she said slowly, "Oh, it's too late, Paul--too late!"

"Too late?" he echoed. "It's never too late to take the good the G.o.ds send! Never, while love lasts!"

"But the Count, Paul--and your fiancee! Think, Paul, think!"

"I can't think! What does the Count matter, Opal! Nothing--nothing makes any difference when you are face to face with destiny and your soul-mate calls! It has to be--_it has to be!_--can't you--won't you--see it?"

"_G.o.d help all poor souls lost in the dark!_" She did see it. It stared her relentlessly in the face and tugged mercilessly at her heart with fingers of red-hot steel! She covered her face with her hands, but she could not shut out the terrible image of advancing Death that held for her all the charm of a serpent's eye. She struggled, as virgin woman has always struggled. But in her heart she knew that she would yield. What was her weak woman's nature after all, when pitted against the strength of the man she loved!

"Oh, I was feeling so pure--so good--so true--to-night! Are there not thousands of beautiful women in the world who might be yours for the asking? Could you not let the poor Count have his wife and his honeymoon in peace?"

Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought.

"Sweetheart," he whispered, "by every G.o.d-made law of Nature you are mine--mine--mine! What care we for the foolish, man-made conventions of this or any other land? There is only one law in the universe--the divine right of the individual to choose for himself his mate!"

Then his whisper became softer--more enticing--more resistless in its pa.s.sionate appeal.

He was pleading with his whole soul--this prince who with one word could command the unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But the woman in his arms did not know that, and it would have made no difference if she had!

In that supreme moment it was only man and woman.

Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of a new Paul. How splendid he was! What a king among all the men she knew! What a G.o.d in his manhood's glory!--a G.o.d to make the hearts of better and wiser women than she ache--and break--with longing! Her hand stole to her heart to still the fury of its beating.

"Opal," he breathed, "I have wanted you ever since that mad moment in gray old London when I first caught the lure in your glorious eyes--do you remember, sweetheart? I know you are mine--and you know it--girl!

His voice sank lower and lower, growing more and more intense with suppressed pa.s.sion. Opal was held spell-bound by the subtle charm of his languorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, but she could not speak--she could not think--the spell of his fascination overpowered her.

She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart seemed to struggle upward, till it caught in her throat like a huge lump of molten lead and threatened to choke her with its wild, hot pulsations.

"I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want you! G.o.d! how I want you!"

Paul stammered on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her heart leap to hear. "I want your eyes, Opal--your hair--your lips--your glorious self! I want you as man never wanted woman before!"

He paused, dazed by his own pa.s.sion, maddened by her lack of response--blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very hour of his triumph rob him of the one day--his little day?

It was too much.

More overwhelmed by her lack of response than by any words she could have uttered, Paul hesitated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, he stumbled toward the door.

"Paul!... Paul!"

He heard her call as one in dreamland catches the far-off summons of earth's realities. He turned. She stretched out her arms to him--those round, white arms.

"I understand you, Paul! I do understand." She threw her arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers. "Yes, I love you, Paul, I love you!

Do you hear, I love you! I am yours--utterly--heart, mind, soul, and body! Don't you know that I am yours?"