But for the end of flirtations, what can, we ask, be more appropriate than the light, gay, and entrancing strains of the Bitter Sweet Waltz?
“You must be awfully tired! You had better let me take you somewhere to rest!” Lord Delaval says, rather tenderly. Zai is tired, and does not demur; and he takes her out of the ball-room into a long corridor, in which the waxlights are a little dim, and in which fewer flirting couples than usual are to be seen.
Like a huge maelstrom, the salle de danse has engulphed them, so there is not much difficulty in finding the quiet and secluded corner, free from interruption, of which Lord Delaval is in search.
He wheels a cosy velvet-cushioned chair near an open window, and when she has dropped into it he settles himself opposite her on the window sill.
Zai shuts her eyes, it may be from physical fatigue, or it may be that she does not care to meet the keen searching gaze – anyway, a short silence follows, during which she slowly fans herself, and he – well – he is considering how to plunge at once into the subject nearest his heart – for he hates to wait for anything.
“I don’t care to talk about myself,” he says, after a minute or two. “If there is an abomination in the world, it is an egotistical man; but I should like to know if you have ever heard things about me which have caused you to shun my society at times? I know I have a number of kind friends in Town ready to tell you that I am a flirt, and worship myself only.”
“Yes,” she answers, truthfully. “I have certainly heard your friends say both things of you.”
“Perhaps in one thing they were right enough – I have flirted desperately in my life – every man who has never felt a strong exclusive attachment does flirt, you know, but never more! never more! I shall never flirt again – for – ”
He bends forward until his face almost touches hers, and whispers low —
“The strong exclusive attachment has come to me!”
Zai does not answer, though she flushes in spite of herself.
“You cannot doubt that I love you, Zai!” he pleads, passionately, “and that I shall be the happiest man on earth if I can persuade you to marry me. Zai, do you think you will ever care for me enough to do that?”
He catches hold of her hands, and holds them as in a vice, and though she draws them away, she does not rebuke him for calling her “Zai.” Perhaps she scarcely heeds that he does so. She is sore at heart about Carl. She would give a good deal to show him that if he does not appreciate her there are others who do; and what could be a greater triumph for her than to leave the Duchess of Caryllon’s ball the future Countess of Delaval. She would be more than the bright, gay, and rather spoilt girl Belgravia has made her if she did not hesitate before she rejects this triumph over Carl and “that Miss Meredyth,” who, of course, knows that she has usurped Carl’s heart. Zai has considered herself bound in honour to Carl; but he himself, by his conduct in the latter days, has given her back the freedom she did not want. There is really nothing to prevent her accepting Lord Delaval except – and that is a great deal – her own wilful rebellious soul, that clings to Carl with a tenacity stronger than herself.
“You will not press me, Lord Delaval! for an answer, will you?” she asks, quietly. “I should like to think a little, to reflect. One can’t make up one’s mind in a minute you know,” she winds up more hastily.
“On condition that you won’t keep me too long in suspense. Will you let me know my fate at the State Ball on Friday? That is two whole days.”
“Yes,” she answers, gravely; then she jumps up from her chair.
“I have promised Percy Rayne, Number 24,” she says, examining her ivory tablets, “and I hear it beginning. 24. Le Premier Baiser. It is such a delicious air that I never miss it.”
He rises and offers his arm in silence.
“It was Rayne who suggested your fancy dress, I suppose? I know he is great at such things,” he says, a trifle sullenly.
“Yes; do you like it?”
“No!”
“No! How very rude of you, Lord Delaval! I thought you were the pink of politeness,” she replies, laughing.
“I don’t like it because I feel as if you belonged to me, and I don’t care for you to wear what any other man suggests.”
“But I don’t belong to you,” she blurts out, on the spur of the moment. “Your feelings make a great mistake if they tell you I do.”
“They tell me that you will belong to me, however,” he answers, in a masterful tone, and Zai feels a thrill pass through her – a thrill of fear almost. It is not the first time she has felt it when this man has had a possessive ring in his voice.
Five minutes afterwards she has thrown off the feeling, and is dancing away as if her heart was as light as her feet; but when the waltz is over, she leans back against the wall, and wishes that she was dead.
“If you have one dance left, Miss Beranger, will you give it to me?” says a voice beside her.
Zai starts, the colour flames into her face, her limbs tremble, and her heart beats so that she places her hand unconsciously on it as if to stay the throbs.
“Yes, I have a dance – this one,” she says hurriedly, almost incoherently, and unseen by her people or Lord Delaval, she passes through the swaying crowd on Carlton Conway’s arm.
“Come out of the room, Zai, we can’t talk here.”
Ah! how his voice seems to bring back life and hope and happiness to the love-sick girl. To think! to think! that after all Carl has not thrown her over – that she has been doubting him, doing him injustice all this time.
And as they reach the same corridor in which Lord Delaval has just asked her to be his wife, but passing out of it enter a deserted balcony, the moonbeams fall on her face uplifted to her lover’s.
“Once more,” Carl murmurs with genuine feeling. “Oh, my love, my own – own love! I have wearied for this!”
And clasping her in his arms, he kisses her – kisses her with the old, old passion – on her sweet lips, that smile and quiver with bliss at his touch.
“It was not true, Carl, what they told me?” she says very low, with her eyes so wistful and one white arm round his neck.
“What did they tell you, Zai?” he asks brokenly. For fickle and light of nature – he cannot look on these sweet wistful eyes – he cannot feel the clinging clasp of this white arm unnerved.
“They told me you were going to marry – Miss Meredyth, Carl.”
Her heart throbs so fast he can hear it, but though he knows suspense is a terrible thing, for a few moments Carlton Conway gives no answer.
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE BALCONY
“But you!
If you saw with your soul what man am I,
You would praise me at least that my soul all through
Clove to you – loathing the lives that lie.
The souls and lips that are bought and sold,
The smiles of silver and the kisses of gold!”
Zai looks up hastily at her lover, and her eyes meet his.
It is not only at the touching of the lips that spirits rush together, as many believe. Who has not seen the soul leap up into the eyes, and utter there its immortal language far plainer than mortal speech can interpret it – when pride, or honour, or duty, or interestedness has laid an iron hand across the mouth.
At such a moment we seem to realise with startling force the existence of the divine spark prisoned in its house of clay. The power of spirit over matter, the subtle imagination which, without words, can lay bare
“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame.”
Before Carl can utter a sentence, he half forgets everything in the sweetness of the grey eyes, in the fairness of his young love’s face.
“My darling – my own darling,” he whispers, straining her again to his heart, which, to do him justice, he verily believes is devoted to her. “Why have you forgotten me for – Delaval, Zai?”
Zai starts and flushes.
“But I ought not to blame you,” he goes on; “after all, class should mate with class, and I am not good enough for you – nor rich enough. I have plenty of shortcomings, I know, Zai, but you must not think worse of me than I deserve.”
Her heart flutters like a bird at this, and her eyes glisten through unshed but irrepressible tears.
“Worse of you than you deserve, Carl!” she falters, while her arm clings closer to his neck, and she feels that this man is a king among his kind, and that she may well be forgiven if she worships him. “Why should you imagine that I think any ill of you?”
“Because I merit it after the brutal way I treated you at the Meredyths’, and even in the beginning of this evening, my Zai. I doubted you, you see, and when one suffers one is apt to be unreasonable, and wounded vanity is quick to come to the side of wounded love, and after all what is more natural than that you should not love me?” he asks, but clasping her even closer and kissing the bright chesnut hair that gleams up so ruddy under the moonbeams. “What more natural than that you should love – Delaval!”
But in his heart he does not for a moment believe that she or any other woman could pause between any other man and him.
“Nothing more natural, I suppose,” Zai answers, nestling her hand into his, and feeling her spirits rise and her courage rear its crest aloft as she thinks Carl has only acted thus out of jealousy. “But natural things do not always come to pass, do they? There are exceptions to all rules, you know. I told you before, Carl, that I was the exception to the rule in the Beranger family of being dazzled by Lord Delaval’s fascinations. Have you forgotten this?”
“I thought you had forgotten it!” Carlton Conway murmurs in his most melodious and reproachful accents.
“Why should you have thought so?” she asks wistfully.
“It would be wiser to ask why I should have thought otherwise,” he returns, a little drily. “Your sweet face has bewitched me until I have had no sense left I think, but still I am not quite mad. I know my superiors, and am not surprised when fate and fortune compel me to bow to them.”
“But Lord Delaval is not your superior, Carl!” she cries earnestly, “not in any respect – except that he is a little richer, perhaps.”
“I did not mean to imply that he is my superior because he is a swell,” he observes rather haughtily, “but the very point of which you speak is the very one that makes his superiority, probably, in your eyes.”
“In my eyes!” she answers in amazement. “Oh, Carl, I am sorry you should give me credit for such things. I don’t think that kind of superiority worth anything —anything!” she goes on scornfully. “I don’t think that money and position and all that sort of thing makes people really happy!”
“Everyone in Town thinks you mean to make the experiment, anyhow!” he replies.
“But you didn’t. Surely you didn’t, Carl! You know I don’t care for Lord Delaval – and that I love you!” she whispers, les larmes au voix.
He looks down at her sweet downcast face. It is a face bathed in blushes. For Zai always blushes when she tells him all that is in her heart. But she need say nothing. He has only to look at her face, which tells its story of love with exceeding clearness and sweetness to his vain, incense-loving eyes.
“Zai! do you really love me so very much?”
He asks the question from sheer selfishness and a desire for incense to his overweening vanity. He knows he has sought this opportunity to tell her something which will break her heart. But no – hearts are tough things, and do not break easily. But something which will surely wreck her implicit child-like faith in the fidelity and sincerity of all men. Never after to-night will Zai Beranger perhaps feel that loving words and honest words are twins. Rather she will shrink from them, knowing that they may be uttered only to betray.
Now she believes in Carlton Conway with her whole soul. And when he asks:
“Zai! do you really love me so very much?”
She lets both white arms form a circle for his neck, and woos him to touch her red lips.
For one moment she forgets her maidenly reserve, and only remembers that in her own eyes she is his wife – in heart, if not in name.
“Oh Carl! Carl! let us marry at once – dear! and then no one can come between us two!”
“We cannot!” he says hastily.
Zai starts as if she were shot, and covers her face with her two little hands, while a burning blush surges over it.
It comes to her suddenly, the terrible, terrible shame, of her having asked – of his rejection – and then the colour leaves her cheek.
She leans against the balustrade, with the moonlight falling on a face white as undriven snow. Her eyes have a dumb misery in their depths, and her mouth quivers like a child’s.
“Oh Zai! forgive me if I hurt you by saying we cannot marry!” he whispers brokenly, for her white face and trembling lips move him strangely, worldling as he is. “You know very well how I am placed! I have nothing but my salary, and that is dependent on health; and if I don’t marry some girl with money, I don’t know what will become of me, Zai!”
A deep silence ensues for a minute or two. Up above the glorious moon sails serenely along, and a few feathery clouds float athwart the great sapphire plain of sky. From within, the sound of music is carried out on the fragrant night, but human eyes and human voices are nowhere near.
These two are alone, entirely alone, on this isolated balcony, and they have for many months played at making love.
Listen then in what passionate words Belgravians and worldlings say farewell, if farewell must be said by them.
We all know that Romeo and Juliet would not have said it, but they were foolish inconsequent young people, who fortunately did not live to test the agreeabilities of a narrow income.
“Then I suppose you are going to marry Miss Meredyth?” Zai asks in a low voice, that has a hardness in it which no one has heard before.
“Zai! can you blame me? Can you think it possible for me to act otherwise?”
“No! I don’t blame you!” and again bitterness mars the sweet voice.
“Of course you cannot blame me!” he answers, “for you know you are forbidden fruit, Zai. You have been reared in certain social conditions, which of course it would be sheer wickedness on my part to ask you to resign!”
This is a very different sentiment to what he has expressed before; and even she, much as she loves him, feels indignant.
There is a sudden flash in her grey eyes as she lifts them to his.
“You know that you ought not to say this, Carl! It is not my interests you are thinking of, but you have made up your mind not to marry anyone who has no money!”
“Granted!” he replies quietly, though a crimson flush dyes his face, and he bites his lip hard. “But though you seem to reproach me, you know why it is so! You know that people in your world cannot subsist on sentiment, or on a few paltry hundreds a year. I am, I avow, one of those miserable devils to whom the bitter irony of fate has given the tastes and habits of a gentleman, without the means of supporting them. You are the corresponding woman. Common sense – the commonest sense – will tell you whether or not it would be sheer madness for us two to marry, although we love each other so passionately, Zai!”
Zai does not answer. There cannot be the least doubt, she knows, but that common sense does tell her that marriage with her would not suit Carl Conway; but it is none the less true that common sense is not what she cares to listen to now. In the most vapid soul that sojourn in Belgravia ever starved, there is still some small lodging left for that divine folly that men call “Love.”
And Zai, born and bred in Belgravia, is as desperately and honestly in love with this man, who has played fast and loose with her, as a milk-maid could be.
She longs – how she longs – for just one crumb of comfort, just one little word of sweetness from his lips.
Only a quarter of an hour ago he held her to him and kissed her with apparently the old, old passion in his soul, and now he stands a little apart, calm and cold as a statue.
Conway is a wonderfully handsome man, and Zai worships his beauty. The more she looks at him the more she craves for a gleam of love in his brown eyes – the stronger grows her desire to listen to love from his well-cut lips; but she listens in vain.
“Yes, I know all that,” she says very wearily, with a dreadfully heart-sick feeling of disappointment, “it was hardly worth while you telling me. I have heard papa and mamma, and Gabrielle, and all the others talk of ‘common sense,’ but one grows tired sometimes of hearing the same thing.”
The tone of her voice tells more than her words; there is a betraying quiver in it that makes him turn quickly and look at her.
The eyes that meet his own have great glittering tears in them. Never in her life has Zai looked more lovely or more lovable than at this moment, and Carl recognises fully all that he is sacrificing for money.
“Forgive me for having repeated anything then that wearies you,” he says softly, clasping her cold white hand in his own, and Zai lets him. Even now – even now! in spite of his falsity – his avariciousness – the touch of his hand thrills her through and through, and her white lissom fingers linger in his grasp. “Zai, my darling! you must feel that it is as hard – much more hard indeed – for me to utter than for you to hear. Good Heavens! do you imagine I am thinking of myself? (For a moment, perhaps, he really fancies he is not.) It is of you, my dearest, that I think. How can I be so cruel – so selfish as to ask you to give up for me everything that you have been taught all your life to consider worth possessing? But if you really wish to do so, Zai, I can only say that you will make me very happy. And, darling, you know I shall strive very earnestly to keep you from regretting it!”
Brave words these are and bravely spoken, with not a single falter in the tone – not a sign of what they cost, but a swift pallor sweeping across his face.
Let us do this worldling credit – let us confess that it is very well done for a man to whom nothing could be more ruinous than to be taken at his word.
But frankly, Carlton Conway has not reckoned without his host. It is a curious rather than an absurd sense of honour that forces him to risk this declaration; but he knows the girl beside him too well not to be almost certain of her reply.
The event justifies the expectation. Zai loves him to distraction, and the loss of him will create a void in her life which she believes no one on this earth will fill up – not if she lives to be as old as Mount Horeb.
Carl’s handsome captivating face tempts her – the most genuine love that a woman can feel tempts her to keep him at any cost.
But it is only for a moment she wavers.
She knows that Mammon and Cupid have run a race in Carl’s heart and that the former has beat by several lengths.
Young, ignorant of guile, and innocent, a sort of instinct teaches her this.
“It is impossible!” she falters, with the sharp thrill in her soul echoing in her voice. “You are perfectly right, Carl, in all you have said, and I – I know it as well as you do. I have been reared under certain conditions and for certain ends, and perhaps I could not put them entirely aside. I am fit for nothing but Society, and Society would not recognise me if I was poor and struggling, so we should simply mar each other’s lives and render each other miserable. And, Carl,” she tries to speak calmly but the effort is terrible, “I could not bear poverty and neither can you, though – ” She breaks down completely, large tears chase one another down her cheeks, but she dashes them away, wroth at herself for her weakness and want of pride. “Therefore we must not think of marrying, of course!”
Another dead pause. Madam Diana sails along more brilliantly than before, this time with an enormous court of glittering stars around her. The cool night air passes quietly by, lifting up the chesnut tendrils of hair that stray on to Zai’s brow and fanning her poor hot temples. The time is flying by, and someone will be coming this way, but nevertheless Carlton Conway cannot end this interview without a few more words.
“And you will of course let Lady Beranger persuade you into marrying Delaval?” he asks, jealously – angrily.
Like the dog in the manger, he does not want the girl himself but he grudges her to another man.
Jealousy is a passion that is often wonderfully independent of the passion of true love.
Carl is very loth indeed that Lord Delaval, whom he has always hated, shall have this lovely piece of nature’s handiwork for his.
“I don’t know,” Zai murmurs wearily. Then she calls up all the high spirit she has in her and says quietly – “After all, the matter might be worse – for Lord Delaval everyone says is charming, you know.”
“But you care nothing for him, Zai! You care for me!” he exclaims passionately, with almost a mind to claim her sooner than she should pass out of his life in this manner.
“I know – and yet – ”
“And yet you may become Countess of Delaval?”
“I may.”
Upon this Carl releases her hand pettishly and subsides into silence. He is not of a nature to ponder deeply on social or any other kind of evils, but just now the sordidness of this strikes him very forcibly, and he wonders how such girls as the Berangers hold themselves even a degree better than the Circassian and Eastern females who sell themselves for filthy lucre.
“Zai, tell me the honest truth. Do you care for Delaval the least bit in the world?” he asks earnestly, longing for her to deny the existence of any liking for his rival, to protest the enormous height and depth and width of her love for himself.
“Not yet – but,” Zai adds slowly and meditatively, “if I marry him I shall do my best to care for him, and even if I didn’t – what of it? Do people in our world deem it necessary to care for the man or the woman whom they marry?”
And Carl Conway cannot honestly affirm that they do.