the cours was closed at etienne’s, but sonia, who could not bear to face the hours of idleness which each day must contain during the few weeks which her aunt was still to spend in paris, got permission to come and work in the atelier during the afternoons. she was privileged to get her own models as she required them, and martha was to come also when she had time and inclination.
the day after her encounter with harold at the salon, sonia, strong in purpose and confident in will, went to the atelier with only inkling to protect her and keep her company, and set resolutely to work to do some severe drawing.
she had abundance of both time and space now, and she settled herself with great care and deliberation, with the anatomical figures and numerous copies of ingres’ drawings full in view. she had not worked very long, how{211}ever, before her enthusiasm began to ebb, and she put down her charcoal and went across to the model-throne, where she sat down with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and fell to thinking deeply. inkling came and jumped up in her lap, but she pushed him away with a roughness unusual to her, and he had to content himself with curling up on her skirt. as she sat there, conscious of being quite alone, she was as absolutely still as any of the customary holders of this position; but the varied expressions which crossed and changed her face would have made any class of students in the world despair of such a model. sometimes she would look quite happy for an instant, as if a thought of joy had forced its way uppermost. then again deep pain would come into her face, and shadows of doubt, perplexity, and hopelessness.
she sat so for a long time. inkling had had a deep and peaceful sleep on the soft folds of her gown, from which he was startled by a knock at the door. his mistress sprang up suddenly, rolling him over, and he began to bark furiously, while sonia, with an attitude of studious absorption, took her place at the easel, and seized her bit of charcoal. she{212} thought it was probably only some boy on an errand, but she was also acutely conscious of whom it might possibly be. so she was not entirely unprepared for the sight of harold appearing quickly around the edge of the old sail-cloth screen.
he bowed with a brevity and formality which seemed to imply that she need fear no agitating disturbance from him; but instead of standing in his place and stating the reason of his presence, he came forward.
inkling, wild with excitement, began a repetition of his frantic performances of the former occasion; but his mistress, determined to have nothing of that sort, promptly suppressed him, and he slunk away and lay down with great meekness.
harold, seeming to take no cognizance of the dog, came nearer, and waited until the absorbed figure before the easel should notice him. presently she did this by saying formally:
“martha is not here. she has not been here to-day.”
“she is at home. i have just left her,” he answered.
“oh, i beg your pardon! i thought you had come to see her.{213}”
“no; i have come to see you.”
“to see me?” lifting her eyebrows in light surprise.
“if you are at leisure.”
“i am busy, as you see; but i can talk to you as i draw, if you don’t mind.”
“if you will allow me, i will wait until your drawing is done.”
“that would take up too much of your time,” she said, laying down her charcoal, and elaborately brushing off her fingers with her handkerchief.
“not at all. i have nothing to do.”
“i would rather speak to you first—whatever it is you have to say—and go on with my work afterward. i dislike to draw with people looking on.”
“in that case i will ask you to give me your attention at once. will you, perhaps take this seat?”
he indicated an old wooden arm-chair; but she declined it with a quick motion, and went over and took her old place on the model-throne, lifting inkling to her lap. harold seated himself on a bench directly facing her.
“i am sorry if i am annoying you,” he said;{214} “but i cannot take the consequences of not speaking to you now.”
“consequences?” she said. “what consequences?”
“consequences to you and to me. i will ask you to be kind enough to look at me while i explain them.”
her eyes were fastened upon inkling, and she kept them so, while she began to twist his soft ears. there was a moment of intense stillness throughout the room. then the man, in a voice of deep concentration, spoke her name.
“sophie,” he said.
“pray don’t call me by that name,” she answered quickly. “i have never liked it, and i wish now to forget it.”
“sonia, then, if you prefer it. i want simply to make plain the fact that i am speaking to you, the woman who bears that name, and not to the princess, as you are supposed to be.”
“go on,” she said.
he was silent. she kept her eyes fixed on the dog until she was afraid that her stubbornness would look childish, or, worse even than that, timid. then she looked up.
the next instant she wished that she had not,{215} for the compelling look that met her own did for a moment make her feel afraid. she summoned all her force, however, and looked at him defiantly, her head raised, her eyes steady.
“i want you to explain to me what you meant yesterday,” he said.
“what i meant yesterday? what do you mean?”
“what you meant yesterday, driving home in the cab.”
“what i meant yesterday by driving home in the cab? i suppose my meaning was the obvious one—that i was tired and ill, and that my own carriage was not there.”
the timidity which she had felt before grew now into positive terror, as she felt the masterful force of this man’s power over her. so strong was her sense of it that she felt absolutely reckless of what she said or did, so long as she was able to resist him.
“you will not move me, or change my intention—my determination to get an answer to my question. your evasion of it is childish as well as useless.”
“i will be childish if i choose. who is to prevent me?” she said defiantly.
“i will. i have no intention of submitting{216} to any such childishness now. you are a woman, and you are the only woman who exists for me. in that character i mean to have your answer to my question.”
his words made her heart throb quick, with a feeling outside of the terror of self-betrayal by which she was possessed. she gave no outward sign, however, as she looked down, and began once more to pull at inkling’s ears.
before she realized what he was doing, harold had bent forward, and lifting the dog from her lap, he set him on the floor, with a shove that sent him half-way across the room. as the little creature ran off frightened, harold turned to the woman facing him, and forcibly took both her hands in his.
she jerked them from him with a powerful wrench, as she sprang to her feet, retreating a few paces until she was stopped by some benches and easels huddled together on that side of the room.
“don’t touch me!” she cried, in a voice of real terror.
he let his hands drop to his sides, but he followed, and stood very close to her, as he said:
“you had better answer me, and let me{217} have my way. i am not to be turned now. this interview between us must be final, and i promise you that after it you shall be safe from any persecution from me. now, however, the present moment is my own. i have you in my power—and that power i intend to use!”
“an honorable and manly thing to say!” she panted, her eyes blazing and her lips curled. “do you mean me to understand that you would use force to make me comply with your wish?”
“i mean just that,” he answered, bending over her with eyes that gave her the feeling of a physical touch. “i will prevent your leaving this room until you have honestly and fairly spoken to me, and have either confirmed or denied what your eyes plainly said to me yesterday.”
“you are cowardly and cruel!” she cried. “you are taking a mean advantage of me! i was ill yesterday. i was half unconscious—”
“you may have been ill,” he interrupted. “i know indeed that you were, and that physical weakness may have led to self-betrayal; but you were not unconscious. far from it. you were never more acutely conscious in{218} your life than during those long moments when you looked at me with love.”
“i deny it!” she cried angrily.
“useless!” he answered. “it is not to be denied.”
she tried to draw farther away, but the barricade of easels stopped her. then he himself stepped backward, and put some feet of space between them.
“i cannot bear to see you shrink from me,” he said. “you will have to forgive a persistence that may seem to you brutal; but fate has put this opportunity into my hands, and i’d be a fool not to use it.”
“and what do you expect to get from it?” she asked.
“an answer in plain words to this question, do you, or do you not, love me?”
“i do not!” she cried hotly; but her breast was heaving so, her heart was throbbing so, that she could scarcely catch her breath; and she felt that not for all the world dared she look him in the face.
“your eyes yesterday contradicted your words of to-day,” he said. “i will not be content until i have had both. so help me god, you are not going to trifle with me{219} now! i will make you look at me, and confirm with your eyes the words you have just spoken, or i’ll have you for my wife again!”
he caught her in his arms, and drew her close against him. she opened her mouth as if to scream, but he laid his palm upon it, not forgetting, for all his strength, to touch her gently.
“oh, my darling, my precious one,” he said, “don’t call out for protection from me, as if i were your enemy! surely you know that i would die by torture before i would hurt you—body or soul. but something—a wicked pride, perhaps—is making you struggle against the truth; and, for your sake as well as for my own, i must make a fight for it. look! i offer you the chance. if you can look me in the face, and say with eyes and lips together, ‘harold, i do not love you,’ then you are as free as air. if you can do that, i will go, and never cross your path again.”
he had taken his hand from her mouth, for fear her panting breaths would cease. he could feel the violent beating of her heart against his side. an overwhelming tenderness and pity for her filled him, and his arm, relaxing its stern pressure, drew her close,{220} with an embrace whose only constraint was that of love. her ear was very close to him, and he spoke to her in the lowest whispers.
“dear one,” he said, “what is it you are fighting against, if it be not the coming back of love and joy?”
he could not see her eyes. he did not wish to see them yet. this waiting was bliss, because there was hope in it.
she had ceased to struggle, and was quiet in his arms. they stood so, many seconds, their hearts throbbing against each other, their cheeks pressed. in the unspeakable sweetness of his nearness, harold felt against his face the moisture of a tear.
“what is it?” he whispered. “you are crying! for god’s sake, tell me why!”
a gentle little head-shake answered him; but she made no motion to draw herself away, and he, enraptured, held her close.
“there is nothing—nothing that you cannot tell to me,” he said, still in that whisper that thrilled the silence of the room. “perhaps you do not understand. listen, and i will make it all plain. i loved you then. i love you now. i have loved you through all the pain and silence in between. oh, dear{221}est, never dream but that you are still my own—wholly and unchangeably as i am yours—if only you love me!”
she kept so still that he was puzzled. he made a motion to draw back his head and look at her, but she put up her hand and pressed his cheek still closer against hers. he passionately wished that she would speak; but there was no sound except that fluttered breathing, no motion but that little tremor which he felt against his side. she was weakening, weakening, weakening—he was sure of this; but he was in such an absolute terror of misunderstanding her mood that he dared not move or speak.
as they stood there so, he felt a sudden tightening of the pressure of her arms. they strained him close against her. his heart leaped; but he was not sure. there was something that alarmed him even in that clasp of love.
“are you happy?” he whispered in the lowest murmur. but with a sudden wrench she tore herself away from him, and when he tried to follow, waved him back with a gesture which he could not disregard.
“happy!” she said in a voice that mocked{222} the thought, as she wrung her hands together, and then, for a moment, hid her face in the curve of one tensely bended arm. “what have i to do with happiness?” she cried out, flinging wide her arms, and looking upward, as if appealing to some invisible presence rather than to him or to herself. “i had it given to me once in boundless measure, and i played with it, and tossed it from me. it was lightly and easily done, and now it cannot be undone.”
harold stood where her imperious gesture had stopped him, and looked at her in consternation.
“what do you mean?” he said. “you will not try now to deny your love for me! you have owned it in that close embrace which can mean nothing but—”
“good-by!” she interrupted him. “it means inevitable parting. you must go, or, if not, i must fly to some place where we cannot meet again.”
“but, dearest, we cannot part. i have told you how i love you in plain words. you have told me the same, without the need of words.”
she looked at him,—a deep, inscrutable gaze,—and shook her head.{223}
“i have had perfect love once,” she said, “and from you—the one man whose love could ever have any meaning for me—love that included perfect trust, perfect confidence, perfect respect. i refuse to take from you a smaller thing. it is easier to give you up than to face that thought.”
“but sonia! darling! you have got that love! i tell you it is just the same!”
she shook her head.
“it cannot be,” she said. “you would feel that what had been once might be again. you could never feel secure for even one moment. i could not bear it. you must remember what i felt in that one embrace. oh, harold, i want you to remember that! and now you must let me go.”
“go?” he said. “where should you go, but here to me—to your right place, your home, your husband?”
at this last word she gave a sharp cry. she had been standing unsupported, and now a sudden trembling seized her, and she half tottered toward a chair. in an instant he was at her side, his arms about her, fast and sure. it was too sweet, this strong and tender holding up of her weak body. she let it be, but she was motionless and wordless in his arms.{224}
“my own child,” he said, “there can be no question as to our future now. it was all a mistake—the past! if we acknowledge it—”
“oh, the past, the past!” she said. “i can never get away from it. we have lost two years. no matter if we had the whole future of time and eternity, we could never get those back—and it was i that did it! it is good of you to say that you forgive me; but i—oh, i never can forgive myself! you never can believe in me again. i dare not ask or look for it. i don’t deserve it. you would be wrong and foolish if you did.”
“then wrong and foolish i will be!” he said. “i will believe in you again and again, forever! you have forgotten something, sonia. there is no question of judgment between you and me, because you are myself. do you not feel that that is so?”
she did not answer, and he said again, in that compelling tone she knew so well:
“do you not feel it so, my wife?”
she raised to his, unswervingly, eyes that were clear as stars after their recent tears. she unveiled her soul to him as daringly as she had done yesterday, and the message that they gave him was the same—abundant, free, unstinted love, without reserve or fear.{225}
he drew her quickly closer, still holding her eyes with his.
“speak! tell me!” he said.
then voice and look together spoke:
“i love you, harold—my husband!”
he took the dear words from her lips with his.
afterward, when they were seated together on the model-throne, they were startled by a timid little tinkling, and as they both with a sense of compunction called to inkling to come, and he sprang up between them quivering with joy, and making frantic efforts to lick both their faces at once, their laughs and struggles made such a commotion that they did not hear the door open, admitting martha.
she half crossed the room, and then stood still, transfixed with amazement, till they drew her down between them and told her everything.
“so you are not a princess, after all!” said martha.
“oh, yes i am,” sonia answered quickly. “i’m ‘the happy princess’—and this is my prince!”
