The Great Amulet | Page 6

I don't know how I have the cheek to think of taking
you there."
"But if I refuse to be left behind . . . ?"
"Well, of course . . . in that case . . ." His eyes, looking up into hers,
completed the sentence.
"I'm not a 'society woman,' remember; and setting aside your
companionship, I should prefer a 'God-forsaken place' on the Indian
Frontier to St. John's Wood or Upper Tooting, any day! I am prepared
to find it all very interesting."
"So you may, at the start. But the interest is likely to wear thin after the
first few years of it."
"Well, perhaps by that time we shall have arrived at the enchanted
palace, and then nothing else will matter at all!--There now; I've done
all I can to my sketch for the present. Shall we go on?"
Lenox roused himself, not without reluctance, and they went on
accordingly.
Towards the summit, trees grew rare: and they found the solitary hotel
perched aloft, upon an open space; a hive of restless shifting human life,
set in the midst of the changeless hills.

After a short interview with the manager's wife, they found themselves
alone again, in the private sitting-room engaged by Lenox. A wood fire
burned merrily in the open hearth, for September evenings are chilly at
that altitude; and the windows, looking westward, gave generous
admittance to a flood of afternoon sunlight.
Eldred, standing on the hearth-rug, surveyed all things in an access of
silent satisfaction; while Quita moved lightly to and fro, frankly
interested in details.
"Oh, how I love the cleanness and emptiness of these Swiss rooms!"
she exclaimed at last. "They make one feel so unspeakably wholesome
and good. And we are actually going to have dinner here, you and I?
Just our two selves! How strange!"
On a sudden impulse she came close to him, and standing before him,
took the lapels of his coat, one in each hand.
"Eldred, . . . I don't seem able to take it in at all! Other brides have so
much of external paraphernalia to emphasise the fact they have closed
one chapter of life, and begun another. But except for that dreamlike
half-hour in church, you and I seem merely to have come away together
for an everyday outing; and there is nothing anywhere, . . . except
this,"--she lifted the third finger of her left hand,--"to make me realise
that we are actually . . . married."
She spoke the last word under her breath; and almost before it was out,
he had caught her to himself, and kissed her fervently, again and again.
"Does that help you to realise it a little better, . . . my wife?" he
whispered; and for answer she drew in a long breath that was almost a
sob. He released her at once; and as she faced him, flushed and
breathless, he saw that tears stood in her eyes.
"Why, . . . why did you never . . . kiss me . . . like that before?" she
asked very low.
"God knows I have wanted to, a hundred times," he answered. "But I

think I was afraid you might . . . hate it. Why do you ask, though?
Would it have made any difference between us if I had?"
"I can't tell; . . . oh, I can't tell! Only . . . you have been so restrained, so
unlike an . . . ordinary lover, that I never dreamed it could mean as
much to you . . . as all that . . ." She pulled herself together with an
effort. "Now I am going to take off my things," she said. "Don't come,
please. I want to get away by myself."
A moment later he stood alone, between the sunlight and the firelight,
gazing blankly at the door that hid her from view; and wondering
whether he had advanced or retarded matters by his unpremeditated
flash of self-revelation.

II.
"A turn, and we stand in the heart of things." --Browning.
When Eldred Lenox sailed from India six months earlier, he would
have scouted as impossible the suggestion that he might bring a wife
back with him on his return: and his uncompromising avoidance of
women, from boyhood upward, had seemed to justify him in his
assurance. But Nature is inexorable. She has her own methods of
accomplishing those things that are necessary to a man's salvation; and
behold in three months the impossible had come to pass. The giant
Mirabeau was right:--"ce bête de mot" ought by now to be struck out of
our dictionaries.
Lenox knew little of half measures: and, having succumbed,--in spite of
himself, in spite of inherent prejudices and convictions,--he succumbed
heart and soul.