LITMIR.BIZ

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She let go his insensitive hands and began to feel him all over for evidence of some injury. She even snatched off his hat and flung it away in her haste to discover that his head was unharmed; but finding no sign of bodily damage, she calmed down like a sensible, practical person. With her hands clasped round his neck she hung back a little. Her little even teeth gleamed, her black eyes, immensely profound, looked into his, not with a transport of passion or fear but with a sort of reposeful satisfaction, with a searching and appropriating expression. He came back to life with a low and reckless exclamation, felt horribly insecure at once as if he were standing on a lofty pinnacle above a noise as of breaking waves in his cars, in fear lest her fingers should part and she would fall off and be lost to him for ever. He flung his arms round her waist and hugged her close to his breast. In the great silence, in the bright moonlight falling through the window, they stood like that for a long, long time. He looked at her head resting on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and the expression of her unsmiling face was that of a delightful dream, something infinitely ethereal, peaceful and, as it were, eternal. Its appeal pierced his heart with a pointed sweetness. “She is exquisite. It's a miracle,” he thought with a snort of terror. “It's impossible.”

      She made a movement to disengage herself, and instinctively he resisted, pressing her closer to his breast. She yielded for a moment and then tried again. He let her go. She stood at arm's length, her hands on his shoulders, and her charm struck him suddenly as funny in the seriousness of expression as of a very capable, practical woman.

      “All this is very well,” she said in a businesslike undertone. “We will have to think how to get away from here. I don't mean now, this moment,” she added, feeling his slight start. “Scevola is thirsting for your blood.” She detached one hand to point a finger at the inner wall of the room, and lowered her voice. “He's there, you know. Don't trust Peyrol either. I was looking at you two out there. He has changed. I can trust him no longer.” Her murmur vibrated. “He and Catherine behave strangely. I don't know what came to them. He doesn't talk to me. When I sit down near him he turns his shoulder to me . . . .”

      She felt Réal sway under her hands, paused in concern and said: “You are tired.” But as he didn't move, she actually led him to a chair, pushed him into it, and sat on the floor at his feet. She rested her head against his knees and kept possession of one of his hands. A sigh escaped her. “I knew this was going to be,” she said very low. “But I was taken by surprise.”

      “Oh, you knew it was going to be,” he repeated faintly.

      “Yes! I had prayed for it. Have you ever been prayed for, Eugène?” she asked, lingering on his name.

      “Not since I was a child,” answered Réal in a sombre tone.

      “Oh yes! You have been prayed for to-day. I went down to the church . . . .” Réal could hardly believe his ears. . . . The abbé let me in by the sacristy door. He told me to renounce the world. I was ready to renounce anything for you.” Réal, turning his face to the darkest part of the room, seemed to see the spectre of fatality awaiting its time to move forward and crush that calm, confident joy. He shook off the dreadful illusion, raised her hand to his lips for a lingering kiss, and then asked:

      “So you knew that it was going to be? Everything? Yes! And of me, what did you think?”

      She pressed strongly the hand to which she had been clinging all the time. “I thought this.”

      “But what did you think of my conduct at times? You see, I did not know what was going to be. I . . . I was afraid,” he added under his breath.

      “Conduct? What conduct? You came, you went. When you were not here I thought of you, and when you were here I could look my fill at you. I tell you I knew how it was going to be. I was not afraid then.”

      “You went about with a little smile,” he whispered, as one would mention an inconceivable marvel.

      “I was warm and quiet,” murmured Arlette, as if on the borders of dreamland. Tender murmurs flowed from her lips describing a state of blissful tranquillity in phrases that sounded like the veriest nonsense, incredible, convincing and soothing to Réal's conscience.

      “You were perfect,” it went on. “Whenever you came near me everything seemed different.”

      “What do you mean? How different?”

      “Altogether. The light, the very stones of the house, the hills, the little flowers amongst the rocks! Even Nanette was different.”

      Nanette was a white Angora with long silken hair, a pet that lived mostly in the yard.

      “Oh, Nanette was different too,” said Réal, whom delight in the modulations of that voice had cut off from all reality, and even from a consciousness of himself, while he sat stooping over that head resting against his knee, the soft grip of her hand being his only contact with the world.

      “Yes. Prettier. It's only the people. . . . She ceased on an uncertain note. The crested wave of enchantment seemed to have passed over his head ebbing out faster than the sea, leaving the dreary expanses of the sand. He felt a chill at the roots of his hair.

      “What people?” he asked.

      “They are so changed. Listen, to-night while you were away — why did you go away? — I caught those two in the kitchen, saying nothing to each other. That Peyrol — he is terrible.”

      He was struck by the tone of awe, by its profound conviction. He could not know that Peyrol, unforeseen, unexpected, inexplicable, had given by his mere appearance at Escampobar a moral and even a physical jolt to all her being, that he was to her an immense figure, like a messenger from the unknown entering the solitude of Escampobar; something immensely strong, with inexhaustible power, unaffected by familiarity and remaining invincible.

      “He will say nothing, he will listen to nothing. He can do what he likes.”

      “Can he?” muttered Réal.

      She sat up on the floor, moved her head up and down several times as if to say that there could be no doubt about that.

      “Is he, too, thirsting for my blood?” asked Réal bitterly.

      “No, no. It isn't that. You could defend yourself. I could watch over you. I have been watching over you. Only two nights ago I thought I heard noises outside and I went downstairs, fearing for you; your window was open but I could see nobody, and yet I felt. . . . No, it isn't that! It's worse. I don't know what he wants to do. I can't help being fond of him, but I begin to fear him now. When he first came here and I saw him he was just the same — only his hair was not so white — big, quiet. It seemed to me that something moved in my head. He was gentle, you know. I had to smile at him. It was as if I had recognized him. I said to myself. `That's he, the man himself.' ”

      “And when I came?” asked Réal with a feeling of dismay.

      “You! You were expected,” she said in a low tone with a slight tinge of surprise at the question, but still evidently thinking of the Peyrol mystery. “Yes, I caught them at it last evening, he and Catherine in the kitchen, looking at each other and as quiet as mice. I told him he couldn't order me about. Oh, mon chéri, mon chéri, don't you listen to Peyrol — don't let him. . .”

      With only a slight touch on his knee she sprang to her feet. Réal stood up too.

      “He can do nothing to me,” he mumbled.

      `Don't tell him anything. Nobody can guess what he thinks, and now even I cannot tell what he means when he speaks. It was as if he knew a secret.” She put an accent into those words which made Réal feel moved almost to tears. He repeated that Peyrol could have no influence over him, and he felt that he was speaking the truth. He was in the power of his own word. Ever since he had left the Admiral in a gold-embroidered uniform, impatient to return to his guests, he was on a service for which he had volunteered. For a moment he had the sensation of an iron hoop very tight round his chest. She peered at his face closely, and it was more than he could bear.

      “All right. I'll be careful,” he said. “And Catherine,

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