And Theodora staggered up to her room like one half dead. Mercifully Josiah Brown, had gone to bed, leaving a message with Henriette, Theodora's maid, that on no account was she to make any noise or disturb him.

Henriette adored her mistress--as who did not who served her?--and she felt distressed to see madame so pale. Doubtless madame had had a most tiring day. Madame had, and was thankful when at last she was left alone with her thoughts. Then she, too, opened wide the windows and gazed at the moon.

She had no cause for remorse for evil conduct like Hector. She had made no plans for the entrapping of any soul, and yet she felt forlorn and wicked. Oh yes, she was awake now and knew where she had been drifting.

And so love had come at last, and indeed, indeed it meant life. This blast had struck her, and she had been blind in not recognizing it at once.

But oh, how sweet it was!--love--and it seemed as if it could make everything good and fair. If he and she who loved each other could have belonged to each other, surely they might have shed joy and gladness and kindness on all around.

Then she lay on her bed and did not try to reason any more; she only knew she loved Hector Bracondale with all her heart and being, and that she was married to Josiah Brown.

And what would the days be when she never saw him? And he, too, he would be sad--and then there was poor Josiah--who was so generous to her. He could not help being vulgar and unsympathetic, and her duty was to make him happy. Well, she could do that, she would try her very best to do that.

But thrills ran through her with the recollection of the moments in the drive to Paris--oh, why had no one told her or warned her all her life about this good thing love? At last, worn out with all emotions, sleep gently closed her eyes.

And fate up above laughed no more. Her sport was over for a time, she had made a sorry ending to their happy day.

XIV

Josiah had been too much fatigued on his machinery hunt with Mr.

Clutterbuck R. Tubbs. They had lunched too richly, he said, and stood about too long, and so all the Sunday he was peevish and fretful, and required Theodora's constant attention. She must sit by his bedside all the morning, and drive round and round all the afternoon.

He told her she was not looking well. These excursions did not suit either of them, and he would be glad to get to England.

He asked a few questions about Versailles, and Theodora vouchsafed no unnecessary information. Nor did she tell him of her father's good-fortune. The widow had expressly asked her not to. She wished it to appear in the New York _Herald_ first of all, she said. And they could have a regular rejoicing at the banquet on Monday night.

"Men are all bad," she had told Theodora during their ante-dinner chat.

"Selfish brutes most of them; but nature has arranged that we happen to want them, and it is not for me to go against nature. Your father is a gentleman and he keeps me from yawning, and I have enough money to be able to indulge that and whatever other caprices I may have acquired; so I think we shall be happy. But a man in the abstract--don't amount to much!" And Theodora had laughed, but now she wondered if ever she would think it was true. Would Hector ever appear in the light of a caprice she could afford, to keep her from yawning? Could she ever truly say, "He don't amount to much!" Alas! he seemed now to amount to everything in the world.

The unspeakable flatness of the day! The weariness! The sense of all being finished! She did not even allow herself to speculate as to what Hector was doing with himself. She must never let her thoughts turn that way at all if she could help it. She must devote herself to Josiah and to getting through the time. But something had gone out of her life which could never come back, and also something had come in. She was awake--she, too, had lived for one moment like in _Jean d'Agreve_--and it seemed as if the whole world were changed.

Captain Fitzgerald did not appear all day, so the Sunday was composed of unadulterated Josiah. But it was only when Theodora was alone at last late at night, and had opened wide her windows and again looked out on the moon, that a little cry of anguish escaped her, and she remembered she would see Hector to-morrow at the dinner-party. See him casually, as the rest of the guests, and this is how it would be forever--for ever and ever.

Lord Bracondale had pa.s.sed what he termed a dog's day. He had gone racing, and there had met, and been bitterly reproached by, Esclarmonde de Chartres for his neglect.

_Qu'est-ce qu'il a eu pour toute une semaine?_

He had important business in England, he said, and was going off at once; but she would find the bracelet she had wished for waiting for her at her apartment, and so they parted friends.

He felt utterly revolted with all that part of his life.

He wanted nothing in the world but Theodora. Theodora to worship and cherish and hold for his own. And each hour that came made all else seem more empty and unmeaning.

Just before dinner he went into the widow's sitting-room. She was alone, Marie had said in the pa.s.sage--resting, she thought, but madame would certainly see milord. She had given orders for him to be admitted should he come.

"Now sit down near me, beau jeune homme," Mrs. McBride commanded from the depths of her sofa, where she was reclining, arrayed in exquisite billows of chiffon and lace. "I have been expecting you. It is not because I have been indulging in a little sentiment myself that my eyes are glued shut--you have a great deal to confess--and I hope we have not done too much harm between us."

Hector wanted sympathy, and there was something in the widow's directness which he felt would soothe him. He knew her good heart. He could speak freely to her, too, without being troubled by an over-delicacy of _mauvaise honte_, as he would have been with an Englishwoman. It would not have seemed sacrilege to the widow to discuss with him--who was a friend--the finest and most tender sentiments of her own, or any one else's, heart. He drew up a _bergere_ and kissed her hand.

"I have been behaving like a d.a.m.ned scoundrel," he said.

"My gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. McBride, with a violent jerk into a sitting position. "You don't say--"

Then, for the first time for many years, a deep scarlet blush overspread Hector's face, even up to his forehead--as he realized how she had read his speech--how most people of the world would have read it. He got up from his chair and walked to the window.

"Oh, good G.o.d!" he said, "I don't mean that."

The widow fell back into her pillows with a sigh of relief.

"I mean I have deliberately tried to make her unhappy, and I have succeeded--and myself, too."

"That is not so bad then," and she settled a cushion. "Because unhappiness is only a thing for a time. You are crazy for the moon, and you can't get it, and you grieve and curse for a little, and then a new moon arises. What else?"

"Well, I want you to sympathize with me, and tell me what I had better do. Shall I go back to England to-morrow morning, or stay for the dinner-party?"

"You got as far, then, as telling each other you loved each other madly--and are both suffering from broken hearts, after one week's acquaintance."

"Don't be so brutal!" pleaded Hector.

And she noticed that his face looked haggard and changed. So her shrewd, kind eyes beamed upon him.

"Yes, I dare say it hurts; but having broken up your cake, you can't go on eating it. Why, in Heaven's name, did you let affairs get to a climax?"

"Because I am mad," said Hector, and he stretched out his arms. "I cannot tell you how much I love her. Haven't you seen for yourself what a darling she is? Every dear word she speaks shows her beautiful soul, and it all creeps right into my heart. I worship her as I might an angel, but I want her in my arms."

Mrs. McBride knew the English. They were not emotional or _poseurs_ like some other nations, and Hector Bracondale was essentially a man of the world, and rather a whimsical cynic as well. So to see him thus moved must mean great things. She was guilty, too, for helping to create the situation. She must do what she could for him, she felt.

"You should pull yourself together, mon cher Bracondale," she said; "it is not like you to be limp and undecided. You had better stay for the party, and make yourself behave like a gentleman, and how you mean to continue. We have pa.s.sed the days when 'Oh no, we never mention him' is the order, and 'never meeting,' and that sort of thing. You are bound to meet unless you go into the wilds. And you must face it and try to forget her."

"I can never forget her," he said, in a deep voice; "but, as you say, I must face it and do my best."

"You see," continued the widow, "the girl has only been married a year, and her husband is the most unattractive human being you could find along a sidewalk of miles; but he is her husband, anyway, and she may have children."

Hector clinched his hands in a convulsive movement of anguish and rage.

"And you must realize all these possibilities, and settle a path for yourself and stick to it."

"Oh, I couldn't bear that!" he said. "It would be better I should take her away myself now, to-day."

"You will do no such thing!" said the widow, sternly, and she sat up again. "You forget I am going to marry her father, and I shall look upon her as my daughter and protect her from wolves--do you hear? And what is more, she is too good and true to go with you. She has a backbone if you haven't; and she'll see it her duty to stick to that lump of middle-cla.s.s meat she is bound to--and she'll do her best, if she suffers to heart-break. It is she, the poor, little white dove, that you and I have wounded between us, that I pity, not you--great, strong man!"

Mrs. McBride's eyes flashed.