it was a sultry night. not a breath of air was stirring. they had escaped from the crowd on the quays and were being rowed about the lake in a little boat gaily hung with chinese lanterns. the glare fell on their faces, confusing their view, and making all dark objects around them invisible. their eyes caught nothing but a phantasmagoria of coloured lights. the water swarmed with them. scores of similarly illuminated craft darted hither and thither, crossed and recrossed each other on all sides, with the dazzling effect of myriads of fireflies. all around, fixed amid the moving lights, blazed the lamps on quays, bridges and jetties. now and then, through a momentary vista, could be seen the gas devices on the fronts of the great hotels on the quai du mont blanc. now and then, too, they neared the looming hull of the great steamer, a mass of festoons of coloured lamps. the strains of the band on board broke through the roar of many voices, with a strange effect, and died away in the general hubbub as the steamer moved slowly off.
“i am glad i came,” said katherine. “it was nice of you to think of this boat. it is fresher on the water.”
she was happy; he was by her side. the little canopy of lanterns above their heads seemed to draw them together, isolate them from the outer world. the lights whirled around her as in a dream. raine too, for all his man’s lesser emotional impressibility, felt a slight exaltation, a continuance of the strange sense of the unreality of things. as the moments passed, this common mood grew in intensity.
they spoke of the incident of the dinner-table, but like other things it seemed to lose perspective. meanwhile the old wizened boatman, apparently far away in the bows, rowed stolidly round and round within the basin formed by the quays and jetties.
“it is a mad story,” said katherine. “almost fantastic. what object had he? was he a fiend, or a coward, or what?”
“both,” said raine. “with a soft sentimental heart. a fiend that is half a fool is ever the blackest of fiends. he is irresponsible for his own hell.”
“are all men like that who make life a hell for women?”
“in a way. men are blind to the consequences of their own actions. apply the truism specially. or else they see only their own paths before them. sometimes men seem ‘a little brood.’ i often wonder how women can love them.”
“do you? would you include yourself?”
“yes. i suppose so.”
“do you think you could ever be cruel to a woman?”
“i could never lie to her, if you mean that. the woman who loves me will find me straight, however much of an inferior brute i might be otherwise.”
“don’t,” said katherine. “you frighten me—the suggestion—”
“but you asked me whether i could be cruel.”
“a woman’s thoughts and speech are never so intense as a man’s. you throw a lurid light on my words and i shrink from them. forgive me. i know that you could be nothing but what was good and truehearted.”
raine looked at her. her face was delicate in its strength, very pure in its sadness.’ the dim light by which it was visible suggested infinite things beyond that could be revealed in a greater brightness. he felt wonderfully drawn to her.
“men have been cruel to you. that is why you ask.”
“ah no!” she said, turning away her head quickly. “i will never call men cruel. i have suffered. who has not? the greatest suffering—it is the greatest suffering in life—that which comes between man and woman.”
“it is true,” replied raine musingly. “as it can be the greatest joy. once i could not bear to think of it, for the pain. it is strange—”
“what is strange?” asked katherine in a low voice.
he was scarcely conscious how he had come to strike the chord of his own life. it seemed natural at the moment.
“it is strange how like a dream it all appears now; as if another than i—a bosom friend, whose secrets i shared—had gone through it.”
she put her hand lightly on his arm, and he felt the touch to his heart.
“would you care for me to tell you? i should like to. it would seem a way of laying a ghost peacefully and reverently. it has never passed out of me yet—not even to my father.”
“tell me,” murmured katherine.
“both are dead—twelve years ago.”
“both?”
“yes; mother and child. i was little else than a boy—an undergraduate. she was little else than a girl—yet she had been married—then deserted by her husband and utterly alone and friendless when i met her—in london. she was a dresser at a theatre—educated though, and refined far above her class. at first i helped her—then loved her—we couldn’t marry—she offered—at first i refused. but then—well, you can end it. we loved each other dearly. if she had lived, i should have been true to her till this day—i should have married her, for she would soon have become a widow. when the child was born, i was one-and-twenty—she nineteen. we were wildly, ecstatically happy. three months afterwards the child caught diphtheria—she caught it too from the baby—first the little one died—then the mother died in my arms. i seemed to have lived all my life before i had entered upon it. it was a heavy burthen for a lad.”
“and since?” asked katherine gently.
“i have shrunk morbidly from risking such torture a second time.”
“yours is a nature to love altogether if it loves at all.”
“i reverence love too highly to treat it lightly,” he said. “tell me,” he added, “do you think my punishment came upon me rightly? there are those that would. are you one?”
“god forbid,” she replied in a low voice. “god forbid that i of all creatures should dare to judge others.”
the earnestness in her tone startled him. he caught a side-view of her face. it wore the same look of sadness as on the night they had seen “denise” together in the winter. she had suffered. a great yearning pity for her rose in his heart.
“it is well that the past can be the past,” he said. “we live, and gather to ourselves fresh personalities. a little gradual change, a little daily hardening or softening, weakening or strengthening—and at the end of a few years we are different entities. things become memories—reflections without life. that was why i said it was strange. now all that time is only a vague memory, and it mingles with the far-off memory of my mother, who died when i was a tiny boy. and now i have put it to rest for ever—for it was a ghost until i knew you. do you believe in idle fancies?”
“i live in a great many,” said katherine.
“i fancied—that by telling you, i should be free to give myself up to a new, strange, wonderful world that i saw ready to open for me.”
“could i ever say ‘i thank you’ for telling me?” replied katherine. “i take all that you have said to my heart.”
there was a long silence. he put his hand down by her side and it rested upon hers. she made a movement to withdraw it, but his touch tightened into a clasp. she allowed it to remain, surrendering herself to the happiness. each felt the subtle communion of spirit too precious to be broken by speech. the lantern-hung boats passed backwards and forwards. one party, just as they came abreast, struck up an attempt at a jodeling song: “juch hol-dio hol-di-ai-do hol-di-a hol-dio.”
the suddenness startled them. katherine drew away her hand hastily as he looked round.
“why did you?” he asked.
“because—because the little dream-time came to an end.”
“why should it?”
“it is the nature of dreams.”
“why, then, should it be a dream?”
“because it can never be a reality.”
“it can. if you cared.”
the words were low, scarcely audible, but they stirred the woman’s soul to its depths. she remained for a moment spellbound, gazing away from him, down at the fantastically flecked water. a yearning, passionate desire shook her. one glance, one touch, one little murmured word, and she would unlock the flood-gates of a love that her whole being cried aloud for. often she had given herself up to the tremulous joy of anticipation. now the moment had come. it depended upon her to give a sign. but she could not. she dared not. a sign would make it all a reality in sober fact. she shrank from it now that she was brought face to face with it. with a woman’s instinct she sought to temporize. but what could she say? if she cared! to deny was beyond her strength. meanwhile the pause was growing embarrassing. she felt that his eyes were fixed upon her—that he was awaiting an answer.
“what i have said has pained you.”
she turned her head to reply desperately, she scarce knew how. but the first syllable died upon her lips. a flash of lightning quivered across the space, bringing into view for a vivid, dazzling second the semicircle of the quay, the old clustering city, the salèves; and almost simultaneously a terrific peal of thunder broke above their heads. katherine was not a nervous woman, but the flash and the peal were so sudden, that she instinctively gave a little cry and grasped raine’s arm. before the rumble had died away, great drops of rain fell. in another moment it came down as from a water-spout.
the evening had been close, but they had not thought of a storm. katherine had only a light wrap to put over her thin dress. the gay lanterns swinging above their heads and before their eyes—now they were a lightless mass of wet paper—had prevented them from noticing the gradual clouding over of the sky. they were in the middle of the basin. amid the roar of the rain and the shouts from the boats around them, they could hear the dull noise of the crowd on the quays scampering away to shelter.
“my poor child, you will get wet through,” cried raine, “put this round you. let us get in as quickly as we can.”
he pulled off his rough tweed coat and threw it oyer her shoulders; and then, before either katherine or the old boatman were aware of his intentions, he had dispossessed the latter of his place, taken the sculls, and was pulling for shore with a vigour that the little boat had never before felt in its rowlocks.
drenched, blinded, bewildered by the avalanche of water, katherine felt a triumphal glow of happiness. the heavens seemed to have come to her rescue, to have given her another chance of life. she was pleased too at having his coat about her, at having heard the rough, protecting tenderness in his voice. it pleased her to feel herself borne along by his strong arms. she could just distinguish his outline in the pitch darkness, and the shimmer of his white shirt-sleeves. there was nothing particularly heroic in his action, but it was supremely that of a man, strong, prompt, and helpful. another flash as vivid as the first showed him a smile on her face. he shouted a cheery word as the swift darkness fell again, and rowed on vigorously, delighted at the transient vision.
in a few moments they were by the grand quai, amidst a confusion of boats hurriedly disgorging their loads. experienced in many a river crush, raine skilfully brought his boat to the landing-place, paid the old boatman, and assisted katherine to land. it was still pouring violently. when they reached the top of the quay, raine paused for a moment to take his bearings.
“it is ridiculous to think of a cab or shelter,” he said, “we must dash home as quickly as we can. come along.”
he passed her arm through his hurriedly, and set off at a smart pace.
“don’t take off that,” he cried, preventing an attempt on her part to remove the coat from her shoulders.
“but you—oh—i can’t!”
“you must,” he said, authoritatively.
and katherine found it sweet to yield to his will.
they walked rapidly homewards, speaking very little, owing to the exigencies of the situation, but feeling very close to one another. even the touch of grotesqueness in this unconventional flight through the rain made them laugh happily together, as they stumbled along in their haste.
“it is very sweet of you not to mind,” he said.
she gave his arm a little pressure for reply, and laughed light-heartedly.
at the porte-cochere of the pension, katherine paused before mounting the stairs, to take breath and to restore raine his coat.
the gas-lamp by the door threw its light upon them and for the first time they saw each other clearly. they were drenched to the skin. a simultaneous exclamation rose to the lips of each.
“i earnestly hope you have taken no hurt,” added raine in a tone of concern.
“oh no! one never takes hurt when one is happy.”
the glow on her wet cheeks and the light in her eyes confirmed the statement as far as the happiness went.
they entered at the door; he gave her his hand to help her up the stairs.
“when do you start to-morrow?”
“at seven.”
“must you go?”
“yes. there seems to be no help for it. but i shall come back. you know that. i hate going away from you.”
they stopped at the end of the little corridor where her room was situated. he detained the parting hand she gave him.
“tell me. were you pained at what i said—the last thing, in the boat?” “pained? no.”
“then you do care?” she was silent. but she lifted her eyes to him and he read there what she could not speak. with a sudden impulse he threw his arm around her, dripping as she was, and kissed her. then she broke away and fled to her room.
raine’s first act on reaching his room was to summon a servant and send katherine a glass of cherry-brandy, which he poured from a flask he had brought with him for mountaineering chances, together with a scribbled line: “drink this, at once.”
then he changed his dripping garments for comfortable flannels, and went in search of his father. but the old man, though he smiled at raine’s account of his adventure, was still depressed.
“it will be wretched without you,” he said. “yet you must go away for a time. make it as short as you can, raine. i shall think in the meantime of a way out of the difficulty.”
“couldn’t you take felicia somewhere?” suggested raine. “to lucerne. you might start a few days before my return. i must come back for a little while. afterwards, i might join you, when you have parted from felicia, and go back to oxford with you.”
“i will see,” replied the old man a little wearily.
“poor old dad,” said raine.
“man is ever poor,” said his father. “he will never learn the lesson of life. even with one foot in the grave he plants the other upon the ladder of illusion.”
