He gazed long and fixedly at her elegant profile, as graceful as an
old fashioned ivory miniature, till she smiled back at him. Yes! she
was indeed a charming creature, so pretty, so very pretty,—and so good
and kind into the bargain. But... why did she make hurt suffer so
atrociously? She was cruel, she was a flirt! what a provoking smile she
had, what a way of nestling up to him!... After all said and done, was
she really quite so simple as she seemed!... Chaste physically beyond a
doubt; but some of these little ways were too knowing by half for an
ingenue, they meant refinement, science... Ah! how it pinched him,
this impatience to possess her! And she! did she feel nothing at all?
Still when they were dancing together, her clear grey eyes would swim
in an ecstasy of pleasure, deep pools dark as the sea under a stormy
sky! They flashed and sparkled like the lightning, while her nostrils
would dilate and quiver. Her supple form abandoned itself voluptuously
to his arm, in such a way that had he relaxed his hold, she would have
fallen. He could feel her whole body tremble in his embrace... Then
surely!... Sometimes too, when he held her hand in his, as he was doing
now, she would blush up and the hot blood mantle in her cheeks... Then
the things she had said just now, when he kissed her,—a real kiss, the
true kiss, the only one that counts in love?... So she had some heat in
her after all? Yes! yes! that was plain enough; there was fire lurking
underneath the snow. Only the affected minx, like every other young
miss, said no! when she meant yes! He must just have her willy
nilly,—just have her without a word,— love her and no beating about
the bush, postponing all excuses till afterwards... Afterwards?—but
then, as they were going to be married!
The hansom was swinging down Piccadilly by this time. In spite of the
lateness of the hour the shops were blazing with light, and rows of
vehicles stood waiting, drawn up along the sidewalks. They soon reached
Piccadilly Circus and the cab turned down Coventry Street. Using the
end of her umbrella, the girl was just pushing up the little trap in
the roof; but James grasped her arm, and the lid fell to again. Still
she persisted in her endeavour to stop the driver.
“Don't you see he is going all out of the way?”
“He is going all right where I told him. I've got something to tell
you, Grace; I've been waiting a long time to have a talk with you,—a
talk on which our happiness, both our happiness, depends, believe me!”
“You really frighten me! You look so strange, and your voice is quite
changed. Why all this mystery? I have never seen you before like you
are to-night... You are nervous and full of fancies. Have I not always
listened to you, when you wished to say anything? What in the world can
you have to tell me? We are all alone together; why don't you speak out
now?”
“Presently, dear. Where I am going to take you, we can talk more at
ease.”
She shook her head, while her eyes searched James's face, trying to
divine his real thoughts.
“Very well! I know you're a gentleman, utterly incapable of anything
felonious. Wherever you please to take me, I'm ready to go with you.”
Nevertheless she withdrew the hand he was stroking gently as he
spoke. Her heart felt oppressed, she could not tell why, and she
experienced a malaise and a sort of shuddering fear that grew
more accentuated every moment.
Internally she blamed herself for not better resisting these ever
increasing anxieties, which appeared to her childish in the extreme.
The cab turned yet another corner and entered the narrow thoroughfare
of Wardour Street, stopping finally in front of a small hotel. The
hall-porter came forward quickly with an expectant look, and a bearing
at once self-important and obsequious. Grace noted every detail with
nervous eagerness. The house seemed to her decent enough in appearance,
but yet with a certain over accentuated look of extreme respectability,
the door too shiny with immaculate varnish, the entrance hall
too luxuriously cosy, and above all its furniture too loud and
obtrusive. You could not help thinking the heavy hangings had been
specially chosen to drown cries for help, while underneath the porter's
fawning manner lurked a soupcon of familiarity that seemed to
bespeak him an accomplice in some proposed act of scoundrelism. Grace
was filled with uneasiness and a sinister melancholy. Still she raised
no objection, but obediently followed James as he climbed the stairs in
tow of the landlord, who had run out to welcome his customers.
A curious type, this landlord,—a little, meagre, bald-headed Swiss,
with enormous hands,—the malefactor's hands, having abnormally
exaggerated thumbs, excellent tools for midnight assassination. At the
same time the best fellow in the world, useful, obliging and liberal,—
particularly in giving advice, the sort of advice that rascals bestow
on other people, always contriving to keep just to windward of the law
themselves. And what a practical head to be sure! When the Marlborough
Street police magistrate fined him for admitting travellers without
luggage, he would calmly proceed to make up the amount by petty
additions to his guests' daily bills. In the same fashion he recouped
himself for the compensation he paid to his “man of straw,” the
supposed Manager, when on a repetition of the offence Justice
supplemented the fine with a term of imprisonment.
Arrived at the first floor, this gentleman drew aside and threw open
a door. James let his companion enter first, and following her in,
turned the key in the lock and shot to a bolt. The electric light
revealed a bright, clean bedroom with a fresh looking paper and
curtains. But the first thing that drew Grace's attention was the bed,
which with its copper rods and mother-of-pearl rings and its
embroidered silk counterpane, had a certain air of furtive coquetry
about it.
Grace stood still in the middle of the room, struck dumb, refusing to
understand. James, very red and round-eyed, suddenly took her in his
arms. She shook herself free, and without a word, her figure held very
stiff and upright, made for the door. He grasped her by the two wrists,
crushing them brutally and hurting her very much... The girl grew paler
and paler, and a cloud seemed to come before her eyes; but still her
silence remained unbroken. He slipped his hands up along her arms, and
pushing her by the shoulders, winding one arm meanwhile round her
waist, drew her towards the bed. Then he tried to kiss her. At this her
open hands contracted like a bird's claws and she planted her nails ha
the skin of his face, screaming;
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