The Tsar's Window/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
MORE REVELATIONS.
TOM cheerfully remarked, apropos of Prince Tucheff and his disappointment about Judith, that men always get over these things. I dare say Mr. Thurber is no exception to this rule. He came here this morning, told me frankly that he loved me, and asked me if I could return his affection. I knew that it was right to confess the truth to him, so I said that I was very fond of him as a friend, but I did not love him. I offered him my friendship, which seems to be the proper thing to do under such circumstances, but which is very much like giving a child crackers when it cries for plum pudding.
He took my answer quietly, left me abruptly, and I was alone nearly all day, being kept in the house by a cold. At twilight, as I was standing by the double window, watching the row of lights in the Gastinni Dvor, and the half-frozen istvostchiks slapping their hands together and stamping their feet, there was a ring at the door-bell. A servant entered at the same time with lights, but I motioned him away and said, "Nyett," and he left me with only the firelight and the fast-waning day. The outer door opened; I paid no attention to it, but kept on watching the cheerless scene outside. Men and women in long, shapeless cloaks, each one looking exactly like the other, chins deeply buried in furs, eyes and noses alone visible; thousands of tiny sledges flying past; moujiks scraping the snow up; great flakes beginning to descend,—a sight rarely vouchsafed us here; and at length a funeral procession, the mourners all trudging through the snow, with their empty carriages following.
The door was opened, the portière pushed aside, and "Monsieur le Comte Piloff" was announced.
"You find me almost in the dark," I exclaimed. "If you will ring, I will order the lamps."
"Not unless you wish it."
"I am not fond of twilight generally; but let us wait till it is a little darker, for this obscurity just suits my present mood."
"Willingly"; and we seated ourselves, I in a large chair by the window, and George opposite me.
"I am the only member of the family in the house," I remarked quietly.
"I know it. I met them driving."
"They are paying visits; and Tom is getting the reputation of being a wit by the entertaining way in which he describes the freezing of my ear, which took place a few days ago. My misfortune was quite a blessing for him; it gives him a continual subject of conversation."
"Was it a serious freeze?"
"I thought so. Perhaps you Russians would consider it a mere nothing. The resuscitation was the most disagreeable part of it. Its shape now is something wonderful, but they tell me that with persevering applications of goose-grease, I shall soon recover."
"I have no doubt of it," he answered rather absently.
There was a pause, and I looked out to where the darkness was descending, and wished that I was at home in America.
George's voice broke in upon my meditations. "I have come here to-night at the risk of seeming presumptuous and making myself ridiculous. I know you generally put the worst construction on my actions." His tone became eager, and there was a strange appeal in it. "Try to think, for once, Miss Romilly, that there is a good motive which prompts me. If there is such a thing in your nature as trust and confidence in any one, exercise it now, and believe in me. I have not been unobservant, and it seems to me your happiness is largely involved in this matter."
Could this be George's voice? What could have so moved him? I wondered. A little pang shot through my heart at his words, and I clasped my fingers together tightly as he went on:—
"I saw Thurber this morning; he had just come from you. Of course I guessed what had occurred." He hesitated for a moment, as if reluctant to proceed; then, in a more conciliatory tone,—
"Would you mind telling me why you refused him?"
"Indeed I should, very much," I answered quietly, recovering myself suddenly.
There was silence for a moment.
"I think I know," said he boldly. "I am sure you would be surprised if you knew how well I have read your thoughts for the last few weeks. In the first place, you imagined that Thurber was in love with your cousin."
An expectant pause, but I made no reply.
"Then you thought that he hesitated after you told him that story about your uncle."
Still I maintained an imperturbable silence.
"These two things combined to make you doubt him. It is natural for you to doubt. You made up your mind that he was not as much in love with you as he might be; and you have ruined his happiness and your own for a freak. Do you suppose I have not seen how much you care for him?"
Very calmly George spoke these words; and although they struck me like a thunder-clap, his self-control communicated itself to me. It was a little absurd, too, to be told so quietly that I was in love with this other man. George's cold, clear voice, informing me calmly of the condition of my heart! I spoke quietly in reply, though I was more inclined to laugh than do anything else.
"Are you not rather hasty in your judgment?"
"Possibly; but as you refuse to tell me why you would not have Thurber, I am forced to judge simply by appearances."
"Why should you be so excited over a small matter?"
He had shown no excitement, but I hoped to irritate him by the question. My expectations were not realized.
"It certainly should be a small matter to me whether you accept a certain suitor or not," he answered in the same calm voice; "but when that suitor is my friend, and when your conduct has led him as well as me to suppose that you did not regard him with indifference, it becomes another thing; and if I imagine that by putting the case clearly before you, and combatting any false ideas which may have crept into your mind, I can cause you to reconsider your decision, I am justified in using plain language."
Here was another thunderbolt! I had led Mr. Thurber to think I was in love with him! The darkness had settled down upon us; but the fire-light cast queer, flickering shadows into the corners.
"If," he continued, after a pause, "you have any lingering doubts of Thurber's fondness for you, I can lay them at rest. I know that ever since you came to Petersburg, he has been in love with you. All his friends have noticed the change in him. If you could have seen the state he was in after he left you this morning,"—he broke off suddenly.
"I begin to think," he went on presently, with an uneasy laugh, "that I have come on a Quixotic errand. I started on the impulse of the moment, thinking I could help matters; but I see that my efforts are unwelcome, and my friendly spirit meets with no response."
"You hinted just now," I said, in a voice which I vainly strove to render steady, "at encouragement which I had given. Did Mr. Thurber lead you to suppose that I had encouraged him?"
"Certainly not."
At this moment the servant brought in the lamp, which cast a faint pink light over to the window where I sat. I waited until the curtains were drawn, and the man had left the room. I felt that the light was betraying to George the state of excitement in which I was; for my cheeks were blazing, and my under lip quivering, as it has a disagreeable trick of doing when I am nervous. There was no hope of escaping George's scrutiny: his eyes were devouring my face, as I saw in the quick glance which I cast at him. I threw concealment to the winds, and turned upon him.
"No one was ever so cruelly unjust to me before," I cried, with a break in my voice, "as to call me a flirt. If there is one bad quality in this world which I lack, it is that. Anything" (proudly forcing back the tears), "anything you choose to call me I will not protest against, except that."
I folded my hands over the arms of my chair, sat bolt upright, and faced him boldly.
"It is a piece of unwarrantable impertinence for you to talk to me in this way," I continued.
He looked at me earnestly for a moment, then dropped his eyes on the carpet, and murmured, "I fear so."
There was silence for some seconds.
"I did not mean," he said, looking at me again, "that you deliberately flirted with him. You women have a way of encouraging a man,—unconsciously, I suppose" (with a touch of bitterness). "You flatter him by smiling at him, and listening to his words as if you were reading an entertaining book; but when he is fool enough to think this means that you love him, he finds out his mistake; and the woman is considered magnanimous if she does not laugh at him for his folly. My God!" he cried, jumping up and pacing the room with a heavy step, "do you know what it is to be in love? Do you know" (stopping in front of me, and looking at me with a severity which frightened me),—"do you know what it is to be so bound up in a person that her every look, her every breath, is something dear and precious to you? That nothing which this world or the next can offer seems of any value to you, without her love?" Then, turning on his heel, and walking away from me with a contemptuous laugh: "What insufferable foolishness for me to talk to you like this! You have never fathomed the meaning of the word love."
He threw himself into the chair opposite me again.
"Count Piloff!" I exclaimed, trembling from head to foot, but resolved to stem the torrent of his vehemence, "You shall say no more till you have heard me. What I may think of you for your conduct is, doubtless, of little importance to you; but you shall know the reason I refused Mr. Thurber, and then you shall leave me" (with a feeble attempt at dignity).
"I beg your pardon," he said, more calmly; "I forgot myself."
"I do not love Mr. Thurber," I continued; "therefore, I refused him." I looked steadily at George's downcast head as I spoke. "Many years ago, when I was seventeen years old, I was engaged to be married. The man whom I loved dearly enough to promise to marry, in spite of the opposition of my family, was taken from me by death. Since then I have seen no one who has tempted me to be false to my first love. I give you this explanation, not because you have any right to it, but to justify myself. Now, I hope I shall never see you again!" and I buried my face in my hands, feeling that it was useless to struggle against the sobs which would make themselves heard.
The faint crackle of the fire was the only other sound in the room for a few minutes. Presently George's hand touched my arm, and rested there for a second, as he said, in a low, gentle voice,—
"Don't cry, my darling! I love you, and I cannot bear to see you cry."
I raised my head suddenly, and turned my tear-stained face on him.
"What do you tell me?" I cried.
He met my astounded look with a pair of honest, sorrowful eyes. I dropped back into my chair, and covered my face again, while silence fell upon us.
"I suppose," said George sadly, "that I am doubly hateful to you now. I will go away from here to-night, and you shall never see me again, if that is your wish. It is a humiliation to have confessed that, in spite of your contempt, your want of confidence in me, and the many times you have cut me to the heart by the plain expression of your dislike, I am weak enough to care for you. I never meant you to know it. Now that I have betrayed myself, however" (biting his mustache nervously, while I dropped my hands in my lap, and looked straight into his face), "it is as well for me to tell you frankly that my future seems dark, and my whole life worthless. You once told me I had no depth of feeling. You are as incapable of measuring the anguish I feel as a child would be! Would to heaven I had 'no depth of feeling'! In that case it would have given me no pain to see the poorly concealed aversion with which you always have turned from me."
He broke off abruptly, with a short, bitter laugh.
"I grow garrulous," he cried. "Why do you not tell me that I bore you? I came to plead for Thurber, and I spend the time talking about myself. I should never have taken any steps in the matter had I not thought that your happiness was involved,—Thurber is nothing to me. I will go away" (rising to his feet); but I put out my hand, and murmured,—
"No, not yet. I must speak to you before you go."
He sat down obediently and waited. I looked at him attentively. He was surely in his right mind. How blind I had been,—how stupidly blind!
"I hardly know what I am saying," I began, "for I have a splitting headache. But I want to tell you that I think you must be mistaken, but—but—I am—" I rubbed my forehead and hesitated for a word.
George looked at me more calmly than before I began to speak, and waited.
"I am very sorry," I said slowly and disconsolately, plaiting up my pocket-handkerchief in my warm fingers. Stealing another glance at him, I added:—
"I did not mean it when I said I hoped I should never see you again. I hope you will continue to come the same as ever, and that you will give no one any cause to suspect what you have told me" (in the same dismal tone, playing with my rings as if my one object in life was to see how near they would come to the ends of my fingers without slipping off. George watched my experiments with the greatest apparent interest). "It is very strange to me," I went on, after a pause, "that you should care for any one whom you have just declared to have no faith in any human being, whom you consider a coquette, and who has not heart enough to know what love means." I stopped, but George made no attempt to reply.
"I am sure that you will change—" Here I was suddenly interrupted.
My companion pushed his chair back, and jumped up impulsively.
"The only hope I have," he cried, "is that I shall change. But just now you must not tell me that you are sure I shall. Oh!" (with a sudden change of manner) "don't mind what I say!"
He walked over to the chimney, where he looked into the bed of coals as if to read something in the glowing fire.
"I was unkind as well as rude to you," he went on, never removing his gaze from the fire. "Forgive me! In future you shall not be reminded of this folly."
He came nearer and stood in front of me, saying, "You should be willing to forgive me for the disagreeable things I have said, when you remember how small a part I have in your life. Only a few weeks out of a lifetime! Even if I had power to make them all unhappy, it would be a small proportion to the happy weeks which some one more fortunate than I will give you. For I am sure that your heart will some day be more fully awakened than it is now. What does a girl of seventeen know of love? Believe me, there is a depth of devotion in your nature which has never been sounded. I am sorry" (walking back to the fireplace and speaking very sadly) "I am sorry that I made you cry." He added wistfully, after a moment, "I suppose I may go now?"
I walked over to where he stood in front of the fire, and looked up at him with a weak attempt at a smile.
"I want to ask you something," I said. "But you must promise not to be hurt or angry with me for asking the question."
"I promise," he replied gravely.
"Did you make a bet at the club that you would marry an heiress within six months?"
He grew white to his very lips, and, moving his hand impetuously, he swept poker and tongs to the floor with a great clatter.
Although I was certainly deeply in earnest, this little incident amused me, and I smiled. George paid no more attention to the havoc he had caused than he did to the snow-storm outside.
"Who told you that?" he cried.
"Hush!" I answered. "No matter who told me."
"And you could believe that of me!" he murmured, with a look of concentrated mortification and sorrow.
"No!" I exclaimed impulsively. "No, no! I don't believe it."
"But you did. Well, it is as false as the heart of the man or woman who told you."
Here he glanced at the prostrate tongs, and concluded to pick them up; and I observed, in a melancholy tone, "There is the poker, too."
"I will go away," he said, grasping the poker absently in his hand, "and you must try to forget all I have said. Good-by" (looking at me wistfully).
I put out my hand; he held it for a moment, then rushed at the door, discovered that he had left his hat, and came back, still clinging to the poker.
What demon of nervousness was it which made me burst out laughing when he laid the poker down on the table and took up his hat! He looked at me with a sort of dull reproach.
"I know I am very ridiculous," he said.
"It is not that," I cried. "It is—I don't know what is the matter with me. I am nervous."
This was not strictly true. Almost every man is somewhat ridiculous when he is making love to a woman who does not care for him; and George, grasping the poker instead of his hat, was irresistibly funny.
After he had gone I spent an hour in reflection. All my self-examination fails to convict me of coquetry with either of these men. I am very unhappy, for I have made them so; and I have no doubt things will be uncomfortable.
I am ashamed that I should have believed Sacha's story. Is it club gossip, or did he tell a deliberate falsehood? I like George more than I would have believed possible a month ago. Still, I think I prefer Mr. Thurber.