"And so, good-bye. I must never say this again--or even think it
unsaid; but to-night, oh! Yes, Hector, know that I love you!
THEODORA."
And all the way to Madrid, as he flew along in his automobile, his heart
rejoiced at this one sentence--"Yes, Hector, know that I love you!"
The rest of the world did not seem to matter very much. How fortunate it
is that so often Providence lets us live on the pleasure of the moment!
He sat on her left hand--the Austrian Prince was on her right--and
studiously all through the repast he tried to follow her wishes and the
law he had laid down for himself as the pattern of his future conduct.
He was gravely polite, he never turned the conversation away from the
general company, including her neighbors in it all the time, and only
when he was certain she was not noticing did he feast his eyes upon her
face.
She was looking supremely beautiful. If possible, whiter than usual, and
there was a shadow in her eyes as of mystery, which had not been there
before--and while their pathos wrung his heart, he could not help
perceiving their added beauty. And he had planted this change there--he,
and he alone. He admired her perfect taste in dress--she was all in pure
white, muslin and laces, and he knew it was of the best, and the
creation of the greatest artist.
She looked just what his wife ought to look, infinitely refined and
slender and stately and fair.
Morella Winmarleigh would seem as a large dun cow beside her.
Then suddenly they both remembered it was only a week this night since
they had met. Only seven days in which fate had altered all their lives.
The Austrian Prince wondered to himself what had happened. He had not
been blind to the situation at Armenonville, and here they seemed like
polite hostess and guest, nothing more.
"They are English, and they are very well bred, and they are very good
actors," he thought. "But, mon Dieu! were I ce beau jeune homme!"
And so it had come to an end--the feast and the Tziganes playing, and
Theodora will always be haunted by that last wild Hungarian tune. Music,
which moved every fibre of her being at all times, to-night was a
torture of pain and longing. And he was so near, so near and yet so far,
and it seemed as if the music meant love and separation and passionate
regret, and the last air most passionate of all, and before the final
notes died away Hector bent over to her, and he whispered: "I have got your letter, and I love you, and I will obey its every wish.
You must trust me unto death. Darling, good-night, but never good-bye!"