"No,we'll not talk of that,"acquiesced the inventor,walking away again,this time to the window."For you there's but one woman;-and she's a memory."
"Killed!"broke from his brother's lips."Slain by her own hand under an impulse of wildness and terror!Can I ever forget that?
Do not expect it,Orlando."
"Then you do blame me?"Orlando turned and was looking full at Oswald.
"I blame your unreasonableness and your overweening pride."Orlando stood a moment,then moved towards the door.The heaviness of his step smote upon Oswald's ear and caused him to exclaim:
"Forgive me,Orlando."But the other cut him short with an imperative:
"Thanks for your candour!If her spirit is destined to stand like an immovable shadow between you and me,you do right to warn me.
But this interview must end all allusion to the subject.I will seek and find another man to share my fortunes;(as he said this he approached suddenly,and took his papers from the other's hand)or -"Here he hastily retraced his steps to the door which he softly opened."Or"he repeated -But though Oswald listened for the rest,it did not come.While he waited,the other had given him one deeply concentrated look and passed out.
No heartfelt understanding was possible between these two men.
Crossing the hall,Orlando knocked at the door of Doris'little sitting-room.
No answer,yet she was there.He knew it in every throbbing fibre of his body.She was there and quite aware of his presence;of this he felt sure;yet she did not bid him enter.Should he knock again?Never!but he would not quit the threshold,not if she kept him waiting there for hours.Perhaps she realised this.
Perhaps she had meant to open the door to him from the very first,who can tell?What avails is that she did ultimately open it,and he,meeting her soft eye,wished from his very heart that his impulse had led him another way,even if that way had been to the edge of the precipice -and over.
For the face he looked upon was serene,and there was no serenity in him;rather a confusion of unloosed passions fearful of barrier and yearning tumultuously for freedom.But,whatever his revolt,the secret revolt which makes no show in look or movement,he kept his ground and forced a smile of greeting.If her face was quiet,it was also lovely;-too lovely,he felt,for a man to leave it,whatever might come of his lingering.
Nothing in all his life had ever affected him like it.For him there was no other woman in the past,the present or the future,and,realising this -taking in to the full what her affection and her trust might be to him in those fearsome days to come,he so dreaded a rebuff -he,who had been the courted of women and the admired of men ever since he could remember,-that he failed to respond to her welcome and the simple congratulations she felt forced to repeat.He could neither speak the commonplace,nor listen to it.This was his crucial hour.He must find support here,or yield hopelessly to the maelstrom in whose whirl he was caught.
She saw his excitement and faltered back a step -a move which she regretted the next minute,for he took advantage of it to enter and close behind him the door which she would never have shut of her own accord.Then he spoke,abruptly,passionately,but in those golden tones which no emotion could render other than alluring:
"I am an unhappy man,Miss Scott.I see that my presence here is not welcome,yet am sure that it would be so if it were not for a prejudice which your generous nature should be the first to cast aside,in face of the outspoken confidence of my brother:Oswald.
Doris,little Doris,I love you.I have loved you from the moment of our first meeting.Not to many men is it given to find his heart so late,and when he does,it is for his whole life;no second passion can follow it.I know that I am premature in saying this;that you are not prepared to hear such words from me and that it might be wiser for me to withhold them,but I must leave Derby soon,and I cannot go until I know whether there is the least hope that you will yet lend a light to my career or whether that career must burn itself to ashes at your feet.Oswald -nay,hear me out -Oswald lives in his memories;but I must have an active hope -a tangible expectation -if I am to be the man I was meant to be.
Will you,then,coldly dismiss me,or will you let my whole future life prove to you the innocence of my past?I will not hasten anything;all I ask is some indulgence.Time will do the rest.""Impossible,"she murmured.
But that was a word for which he had no ear.He saw that she was moved,unexpectedly so;that while her eyes wandered restlessly at times towards the door,they ever came back in girlish wonder,if not fascination,to his face,emboldening him so that he ventured at last,to add:
"Doris,little Doris,I will teach you a marvellous lesson,if you will only turn your dainty ear my way.Love such as mine carries infinite treasure with it.Will you have that treasure heaped,piled before your feet?Your lips say no,but your eyes -the truest eyes I ever saw -whisper a different language.The day will come when you will find your joy in the breast of him you are now afraid to trust."And not waiting for disclaimer or even a glance of reproach from the eyes he had so wilfully misread,he withdrew with a movement as abrupt as that with which he had entered.
