The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a big chair before either of them spoke again.

"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it may be that in the days that are coming I could be of a.s.sistance to you.

I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"

Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which were coursing through his brain.

"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.

She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"

Denzil remained silent, he had never seen Stepan so agitated. The situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:

"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"

"It is possible."

"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a child refutes all the old rumours."

"In law--"

"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.

"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.

"Yes--why do you ask?"

"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings probably."

Stepan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw that a lightning flash of anxiety pa.s.sed through Denzil's eyes.

"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"

"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we can only wish for general happiness, and not antic.i.p.ate difficulties which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"

"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not mentioned any date in his letter!

The subject was growing embarra.s.sing, and he asked, so as to change it:

"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, Stepan?"

"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."

"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.

"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.

All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal, because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing his own actions towards the other s.e.x."

Denzil laughed aloud.

"You are hard on us, Stepan, but I dare say you are right."

"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such G.o.ds. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'

and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be trusted'--tosh! in quant.i.ties of cases--and if so, why so? Women are wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"

Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the gla.s.s of lemon squash on a little table near.

Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:

"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take care of her--"

A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.

Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and the security of the family, he would do so.

"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent lover and cannot yet wring her neck."

When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.

"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?

"Stepan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he must stand by her if we don't come back."

And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper pa.s.sionate love words in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying p.r.o.ne there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting, seeming almost to suffocate him.

"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his own voice.

He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.

Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?

In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.

He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his dream, and pa.s.sion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.

He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except that he longed for Amaryllis.

"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."

And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation had entered into the affair.

Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!

And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery at Ardayre.

He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not been too overcome with pa.s.sionate desire to retain any critical sense.

Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.

Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!

And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.

And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade, and he was only conscious of a vastness of s.p.a.ce, and knew that for this brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first time the wonder of things.