The Business of Life

He flushed hotly: "Do you – do I inspire you with – do I repel you – physically?"

She caught his hand, cheeks afire, dismayed, striving to check him:

"Please – don't say such – it is – not – true – "

"It seems to be – "

"No! I – I ask you – not to say it – think it – "

"How can I help thinking it – thinking that you only care for me – that the only attraction on your part is – is intellectual – "

She disengaged her hand from his and shrank away into the velvet depths of her chair.

"I can't help it," he said. "I've got to say what I think. Never since I have told you I loved you have you ever hinted at any response, even to the lightest caress. We are married. Whatever – however foolish I may have been – God knows you have made me pay for it this day. How long am I to continue paying? I tell you a man can't remain repentant too long under the stern and chilling eyes of retribution. If you are going to treat me as though I were physically unfit to touch, I can make no further protest. But, Jacqueline, no man was ever aided by a punishment that wounds his self-respect."

"I must consider mine, too," she said, in a ghost of a voice.

"Very well," he said, "if you think you must maintain it at the expense of mine – "

"Jim!"

The low cry left her lips trembling.

"What?" he said, angrily.

"Have – have you already forgotten what I said?"

"What did you say?"

"I asked – I asked you to be patient with me – because – I love you – "

But the words halted; she bowed her head in her hands, quivering, scarcely conscious that he was on his knees again at her feet, scarcely hearing his broken words of repentance and shame for the sorry and contemptible rôle he had been playing.

No tears came to help her even then, only a dry, still agony possessed her. But the crisis passed and wore away; sight and hearing and the sense of touch returned to her. She saw his head bowed in contrition on her knees, heard his voice, bitter in self-accusation, felt his hands crisping over hers, crushing them till her new rings cut her.

For a while she looked down at him as though dazed; then the real pain from her wedding ring aroused her and she gently withdrew that hand and rested it on his thick, short, curly hair.

For a long while they remained so. He had ceased to speak; her brooding gaze rested on him, unchanged save for the subtle tenderness of the lips, which still quivered at moments.

Clocks somewhere in the house were striking midnight. A little later a log fell from the dying fire, breaking in ashes.

He felt her stir, change her position slightly; and he lifted his head. After a moment she laid her hand on his arm, and he aided her to rise.

As they moved slowly, side by side, through the house, they saw that it was filled with flowers everywhere, twisted ropes of them on the banisters, too, where they ascended.

Her own maid, who had arrived by train, rose from a seat in the upper corridor to meet her. The two rooms, which were connected by a sitting room, disclosed themselves, almost smothered in flowers.

Jacqueline stood in the sitting room for a moment, gazing vaguely around her at the flowers and steadying herself by one hand on the centre-table, which a great bowlful of white carnations almost covered.

Then, as her maid reappeared at the door of her room, she turned and looked at Desboro.

There was a silence; his face was very white, hers was deathly.

He said: "Shall we say good-night?"

"It is – for you – to say."

"Then – good-night, Jacqueline."

"Good-night."

She turned, took a step or two – looked back, hesitated, then slowly retraced her steps to where he was standing by the flower-covered table.

From the mass of blossoms she drew a white carnation, touched it to her lips, and, eyes still lowered, offered it to him. In her palm, beside it, lay a key. But he took only the blossom, touching it to his lips as she had done.

She looked at the key, lying in her trembling hand, then lifted her confused eyes to his once more, whispering:

"Good-night – and thank you."

"Good-night," he said, "until to-morrow."

And they went their separate ways.

CHAPTER XV

Une nuit blanche – and the young seem less able to withstand its corroding alchemy than the old. It had left its terrible and pallid mark on Desboro; and on Jacqueline it had set its phantom sign. That youthfully flushed and bright-eyed loveliness which always characterised the girl had whitened to ashes over night.

And now, as she entered the sunny breakfast room in her delicate Chinese morning robes, the change in her was startlingly apparent; for the dead-gold lustre of her hair accented the pallor of a new and strange and transparent beauty; the eyes, tinted by the deeper shadows under them, looked larger and more violet; and she seemed smaller and more slender; and there was a snowy quality to the skin that made the vivid lips appear painted.

Desboro came forward from the recess of the window; and whether in his haggard and altered features she read of his long night's vigil, or whether in his eyes she learned again how she herself had changed, was not plain to either of them; but her eyes suddenly filled and she turned sharply and stood with the back of one slender hand across her eyes.

Neither had spoken; neither spoke for a full minute. Then she walked to the window and looked out. The mating sparrows were very noisy.

Not a tear fell; she touched her eyes with a bit of lace, drew a long, deep, steady breath and turned toward him.

"It is all over – forgive me, Jim. I did not mean to greet you this way. I won't do it again – "

She offered her hand with a faint smile, and he lifted it and touched it to his lips.

"It's all over, all ended," she repeated. "Such a curious phenomenon happened to me at sunrise this morning."

"What?"

"I was born," she said, laughing. "Isn't it odd to be born at my age? So as soon as I realised what had happened, I went and looked out of the window; and there was the world, Jim – a big, round, wonderful planet, all over hills and trees and valleys and brooks! I don't know how I recognised it, having just been born into it, but somehow I did. And I knew the sun, too, the minute I saw it shining on my window and felt it on my face and throat. Isn't that a wonderful way to begin life?"

There was not a tremor in her voice, nothing tremulous in the sweet humour of the lips; and, to his surprise, in her eyes little demons of gaiety seemed to be dancing all at once till they sparkled almost mockingly.

"Dear," he said, under his breath, "I wondered whether you would ever speak to me again."