"Come and sit beside me," she invited, slowly. "You seem suddenly like a stranger."

"Mary," he said simply, "the time has come for me to ask you----" The words stuck in his throat. What in G.o.d's name was he going to ask her?

What a fanatic he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts, she interrupted him.

"I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I have been waiting." She leaned against him. "You see, I have had the foolish feeling that perhaps you didn't care as you thought you did. It is that dreadful difference in our age."

"Do you care, Mary?"

She might have answered him, "Why otherwise should I marry a penniless man, five years my junior, when the world is before me?"

She said, "Yes, I care deeply."

"Ah," he breathed, "then it is all right, Mary; that is all we need."

After a few seconds he said gently: "Now look at me." Her face was flushed and her eyes humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to time touched it with his lips. "Listen to me; try to understand. I am a Bohemian, an artist; say that over and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my soul. This life here,"--he gestured to the room as though it held a host of enemies,--"this life here has crushed me. I had begun to think myself a miserable creature just because I am poor. Now, if money is the only thing that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable creature, and then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it is not the only thing, well then, let us drink the other things to their dregs." She said, "What other things?"

"Why, the beauty of struggling together with every material consideration cast out! Think how beautiful it is to work for one you love; think of the beauty of being all in all to each other, Mary!"

"But we are that, Tony."

Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. "You owe your luxury to your husband whom you never loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything more, Mary."

She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in connection with him."

Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I had been selling my soul," he said pa.s.sionately. "And what can a man have in exchange for his soul? Of course, it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you to marry me."

She put both her hands over his and breathed his name. He spoke desperately, and the picture rose up before him of his bare studio and his meagre life.

"Will you marry me now?"

"I said I was quite ready."

"The day will come when I will be rich and great." He paused. He saw that her eyes were already troubled, and asked eagerly, "You believe that, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman ashamed. You must wait for that time with me."

Mary Faversham said quietly, "You have been shutting yourself up with a lot of fanatical ideas."

He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face became grave.

"Oh," he said, "don't speak--wait. You don't dream what every word you say is going to mean--wait. You don't understand what I mean!"

And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was about to impose upon her. If he had been a.s.sured of his love for her, a.s.sured of her love for him, he might have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be talking to her through a veil. He shook his head.

"No, I cannot ask it, Mary."

Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change. It was never lovelier than now, as with gravity and sweetness she put her arms around his neck and looked up at him with great tenderness. She said--

"I think I know what you mean. You want me to give up my fortune and go to you."

She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his worship of her at this moment increased a thousandfold. He leaned forward and laid his head against her breast.

In the love of all women there is a strong quality of the maternal. Mary bent over the blond head and pressed her lips to his hair. When Antony lifted his face there were tears in his eyes. He cried--

"Heaven bless you, darling! You don't know how high I will take you, how far I will carry us both. The world shall talk of us! Mary--Mary!"

She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would never be another moment in her life like this one.

He said, "I will take you to the studio, of course. I haven't told you that in June I shall have fifty thousand francs, and from then on I will be succeeding so fast that we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her faintly smile, and said sharply, "I suppose you spend fifty thousand francs now on your clothes!"

She said frankly, "And more; but that makes no difference," and ventured, "You don't seem to think, Tony, what a pleasure it would be to me to do for you." She paused at his exclamation. "Oh, of course, I understand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with my fortune, Tony?"

"This money on which you are living," he said gravely, "that you have accepted from a man you never loved, give it all to the poor. Keep the commandment for once, and we will see what the treasures of heaven are like."

He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was an ardour in the return of her caress that made him say--

"Mary, don't answer me to-day, please; I want you to think it calmly over. Just now you have shown me what I wanted to see."

She asked, "What?"

"That you love me."

She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it always?"

Bending over her he said pa.s.sionately, "I shall believe it when I have your answer, and you are going to make me divinely happy."

She echoed the word softly, "Happy!" and her lips trembled. Across the ante-chamber came the sound of voices. Their retreat was about to be invaded by the people of the world who never very long left Mary Faversham alone.

"Oh!" she cried, "I cannot see any one. Why did they let any one in?"

And, lifting her face to him, she said in a low tone, "Tony, kiss me again."

Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who might not, caught her to him and held her for a second, then crossed the room to the curtained door and went down the terrace steps and across the garden.

By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, through the long French windows, he could see the music-room with the palms and gilt furniture. Mary Faversham was already surrounded by the Comte de B---- and the Baron de F----. He knew them vaguely. Before going to get his hat and stick from the vestibule, he watched her for a few moments, with a strange adoration in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up everything for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could never love more than at this moment. He believed that he was not asking her to make a ridiculous sacrifice, but on the contrary to accept a spiritual gain--a sacrifice of all for love and art and honour, too! As he looked across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary Faversham. He was welcomed very cordially. It was Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for months. Fairfax's heart grew cold.

As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might linger, she came over to the window and drew down the Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly, and blotted out the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, and immediately he saw himself ridiculous, crude and utterly fantastical in his ultimatum. The egoism and childishness of what he had done stood out to him, and in that second he knew that he had lost her--lost her for ever.

CHAPTER XXI

He did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked for miles. His unequal, limping strides tired him to death and he was finally the only wanderer there. Over the exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars came out at length, and the guardians began to observe him. At eight o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went into a small restaurant and made a light meal. For the first time since Albany, when he had drank too much in despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang the bell at Mary Faversham's at nine-thirty in the morning, and the butler, intensely surprised, informed him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant more fees that he could afford. He found a piece of money in his pocket and gave it to Ferdinand.

"But, monsieur," said the man, embarra.s.sed, and handled the piece. It was a louis. Antony waved magnificently and started away. He took a cab back to the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis was his last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of a profound sleep, in which the playwright was dreaming of two hundred night performances.

"Bob, can you let me have a few francs?"