"I could not, I could not," she murmured, monotonously, over and over again."I could not, I could not."She heard him start suddenly, and opened her eyes in time to see him come quickly towards her.She threw out a defensive hand, but he caught the arm itself to him and, before she could resist, had kissed it again and again through the interstices of the lace sleeve.
Upon her bare shoulder she felt the sudden passion of his lips.
A quick, sharp gasp, a sudden qualm of breathlessness wrenched through her, to her very finger tips, with a fierce leap of the blood, a wild bound of the heart.
She tore back from him with a violence that rent away the lace upon her arm, and stood off from him, erect and rigid, a fine, delicate, trembling vibrating through all her being.On her pale cheeks the colour suddenly flamed.
"Go, go," was all she had voice to utter.
"And may I see you once more--only once?""Yes, yes, anything, only go, go--if you love me!"He left the room.In another moment she heard the front door close.
"Curtis," said Laura, when next she saw her husband, "Curtis, you could not--stay with me, that last time.
Remember? When we were to go for a drive.Can you spend this evening with me? Just us two, here at home--or I'll go out with you.I'll do anything you say."She looked at him steadily an instant."It is not--not easy for a woman to ask--for me to ask favours like this.Each time I tell myself it will be the last.Iam--you must remember this, Curtis, I am--perhaps I am a little proud.Don't you see?"They were at breakfast table again.It was the morning after Laura had given Corthell his dismissal.As she spoke Jadwin brought his hand down upon the table with a bang.
"You bet I will," he exclaimed; "you bet I'll stay with you to-night.Business can go to the devil! And we won't go out either; we'll stay right here.You get something to read to me, and we'll have one of our old evenings again.We----"All at once Jadwin paused, laid down his knife and fork, and looked strangely to and fro about the room.
"We'll have one of our old evenings again," he repeated, slowly.
"What is it, Curtis?" demanded his wife."What is the matter?""Oh--nothing," he answered.
"Why, yes there was.Tell me."
"No, no.I'm all right now," he returned, briskly enough.
"No," she insisted."You must tell me.Are you sick?"He hesitated a moment.Then:
"Sick?" he queried."No, indeed.But--I'll tell you.
Since a few days I've had," he put his fingers to his forehead between his eyes, "I've had a queer sensation right there.It comes and goes.""A headache?"
"N-no.It's hard to describe.A sort of numbness.
Sometimes it's as though there was a heavy iron cap--a helmet on my head.And sometimes it--I don't know it seems as if there were fog, or something or other, inside.I'll take a good long rest this summer, as soon as we can get away.Another month or six weeks, and I'll have things ship-shape and so as I can leave them.Then we'll go up to Geneva, and, by Jingo, I'll loaf." He was silent for a moment, frowning, passing his hand across his forehead and winking his eyes.
Then, with a return of his usual alertness, he looked at his watch.
"Hi!" he exclaimed."I must be off.I won't be home to dinner to-night.But you can expect me by eight o'clock, sure.I promise I'll be here on the minute.
But, as he kissed his wife good-by, Laura put her arms about his neck.
"Oh, I don't want you to leave me at all, ever, ever!
Curtis, love me, love me always, dear.And be thoughtful of me and kind to me.And remember that you are all I have in the world; you are father and mother to me, and my dear husband as well.I know you do love me; but there are times--Oh," she cried, suddenly "if Ithought you did not love me--love me better than anything, anything--I could not love you; Curtis, Icould not, I could not.No, no," she cried, "don't interrupt.Hear me out.Maybe it is wrong of me to feel that way, but I'm only a woman, dear.I love you but I love Love too.Women are like that; right or wrong, weak or strong, they must be--must be loved above everything else in the world.Now go, go to your business; you mustn't be late.Hark, there is Jarvis with the team.Go now.Good-by, good-by, and I'll expect you at eight."True to his word, Jadwin reached his home that evening promptly at the promised hour.As he came into the house, however, the door-man met him in the hall, and, as he took his master's hat and stick, explained that Mrs.Jadwin was in the art gallery, and that she had said he was to come there at once.
Laura had planned a little surprise.The art gallery was darkened.Here and there behind the dull-blue shades a light burned low.But one of the movable reflectors that were used to throw a light upon the pictures in the topmost rows was burning brilliantly.
It was turned from Jadwin as he entered, and its broad cone of intense white light was thrown full upon Laura, who stood over against the organ in the full costume of "Theodora."For an instant Jadwin was taken all aback.
"What the devil!," he ejaculated, stopping short in the doorway.
Laura ran forward to him, the chains, ornaments, and swinging pendants chiming furiously as she moved.
"I did surprise you, I did surprise you," she laughed.
"Isn't it gorgeous?" She turned about before him, her arms raised."Isn't it superb? Do you remember Bernhardt--and that scene in the Emperor Justinian's box at the amphitheatre? Say now that your wife isn't beautiful.I am, am I not?" she exclaimed defiantly, her head raised."Say it, say it.""Well, what for a girl!" gasped Jadwin, "to get herself up----""Say that I am beautiful," commanded Laura.
"Well, I just about guess you are," he cried.
