The Man and the Moment

Chapter 16

Rose Forster had felt she must not lure Mr. Arranstoun over to Ebbsworth

on false pretences; he was a very much sought after young man, and since

his return from the wilds had been very difficult to secure, and

therefore it was her duty to give him one of her beautiful Americans at

dinner. The Princess was obviously the destiny of her husband with her

brother Henry upon the other side, so Michael must take in Mrs. Howard.

Mr. Arranstoun was one of the last two guests to assemble in the great

drawing-room where the party were collected, and did not hear of his

good fortune until one minute before dinner was announced.

Sabine had perhaps never looked so well in her life. She had not her

father's nation's love of splendid jewels, and wore none of any kind.

Her French mother may have transmitted to her some wonderful strain of

tastes which from earliest youth had seemed to guide her into selecting

the most beautiful and becoming things without great knowledge. Her ugly

frocks at the Convent had been a penance, and ever since she had been

free and rich her clothes and all her belongings had been marvels of

distinction and simplicity.

Moravia was, strictly speaking, far more beautiful, but Sabine, as Henry

had once said, had "it."

Her manner was just what it ought to have been, as she placed her hand

upon her husband's arm--perfectly indifferent and gracious, and so they

went in to dinner.

Michael had hardly hoped to have this chance and meant to make the most

of it. At dinner before a ball was not the place to have a serious

discussion about divorce, but was for lighter and more frivolous

conversation, and he felt his partner would be no unskilled adversary

with the foils.

"So you have got this far north, Mrs. Howard," he began by saying,

making a slight pause over the name. "I wish I could persuade you to

come over the border to Arranstoun; it is only thirty-five miles from

here, and really merits your attention."

"I have heard it is a most interesting place," Sabine returned, suddenly

experiencing the same wild delight in the game as she had done in the

garden at Hronac. "Have you ghosts there? We do not have such things in

France."

"Yes, there are a number of ghosts--but the most persistent and

disconcerting one is a very young girl who nightly falls through a

secret door into my room."

"How romantic! What is she like?" Two violet eyes looked up at him full

of that mischief which lies in the orbs of a kitten when it contemplates

some fearsome crime, and has to appear especially innocent.

Michael thrilled. If she had that expression he was quite ready to

follow the lead.

"She is perfectly enchanting--shall I tell you exactly what she

wears--and her every feature and the color of her eyes? The wraith so

materializes that I can describe it as accurately as I could describe

you sitting next me."

"Please do."

"She is about five foot seven tall--I mean she has grown as tall as

that--when she first appeared she could not have been taller than five

foot five."

"How strange!"

"Yes, isn't it--well, she has the most divine figure, quite slight and

yet not scraggy--you know the kind, I loathe them scraggy!"

"I hate fat people."

"But she isn't fat. I tell you she is too sweet. She has a round baby

face with the loveliest violet eyes in the world and such a skin!--like

a velvet rose petal!" His unabashed regard penetrated Sabine who smiled

slyly.

"You don't mean to say you can see all these material things in a

ghost!" she cried with an enchanting air of incredulity.

"Perfectly--I have not half finished yet. I have not told you about her

mouth--it is very curved and full and awfully red--and there is the most

adorable dimple up at one side of it, I am sure the people in the ghost

world that she meets must awfully want to kiss it."

Sabine frowned. This was rather too intimate a description, but

bashfulness or diffidence she knew were not among Mr. Arranstoun's

qualities--or defects.

"I think I am tired of hearing what this ghost looks like, I want to

know what does she do? Aren't you petrified with fright?"

"Not in the least," Michael told her, "but you will just have to hear

about her hair--when it comes down it is like lovely bronze waves--and

her little feet, too--they are exquisite enough in shoes and stockings,

but without----!"

Here he had the grace to look at his fish which was just being handed.

A flush as pink as the pinkest rose came into Sabine's cheeks--he was

perfectly disgraceful and this was of course in shocking taste--but when

he glanced up again his attractive blue eyes had her late look of an

innocent kitten's in them and he said in an angelic tone:

"She has not a fault, you may believe me, and she jumps up after the

fall into the room, and sits in one of my big chairs!"

"Does she scold you for your sins as denizens of another sphere ought to

do?" Mrs. Howard was constrained to ask.

"No--she is a little angel and always tells me that sins are forgiven."

"Does she come often?"

"Every single evening when I am alone--and--sometimes, she melts into my

arms and stays with me all night. Binko--Ah!--you remember Binko!"--for

Sabine's face had suddenly lit up--and at this passionate joy and

emotion flooded Michael's and they both stopped dead short in their talk

and Sabine took a quick breath that was almost a gasp.

"I remember--nothing," she said very fast, "how should I? The girl whose

ghost you are speaking of ceased to exist five years ago--but

I--recognize the portrait--I knew her in life--and she told me about the

dog--he had fat paws and quantities of wrinkles, I think she said."

"Yes, that is Binko!" and his master beamed rapturously. "He is the most

beautifully ugly bulldog in the world, but the poor old boy is getting

on, he is seven years old now. Would not you like to see him--again--I

mean from what you have heard!"

"I love animals, especially dogs--but tell me, is he not afraid of the

ghost?"

Michael drank some champagne, even under all his unhappiness he was

greatly enjoying himself. "Not at all, he loves her to come as much as I

do. She haunts--both my rooms--and the chapel, too--she wears a white

dress and has some stephanotis in her hair--and I am somehow compelled

to enact a whole scene with her--there before the altar with all the

candles blazing--and it seems as if I put a ring upon her hand--like the

one you are wearing there--she has lovely hands."

The color began to die out of Sabine's cheeks and a strange look grew in

her eyes. The footmen were removing the fish plates, but she was

oblivious of that. Then the tones of Michael's voice changed and grew

deeper.

"Soon all the vision fades into gloom, and the only thing I can see is

that she is tearing my ring off and throwing it away into the darkness."

"And do you try to prevent her from doing this?" Sabine hardly spoke

above a whisper, while she absently refused an entre which was being

handed. To talk of ghosts and such like things had been easy enough, but

she had not bargained for him turning the conversation into one of

serious meaning. She could not, however, prevent herself from continuing

it, she had never been so interested in her life.

"No--I cannot do that--there is an archangel standing between."

At this moment Mrs. Howard's other neighbor claimed her attention; he

was a man to whom she had been talking at tea, and who was already

filled with admiration for her.

Michael had time for breathing space, and to consider whether the

course he was pursuing was wisdom or not. That it was madly exciting, he

knew--but where was it leading to? What did she mean? Did she feel at

all? or was she one of the clever coquettes of her nation, a more

refined Daisy Van der Horn--just going to lead him on into showing his

emotion for her, and then going to punish and humiliate him? He must put

a firmer guard over himself, for propinquity and the night were exciting

influence, and the cruel fact remained that it was too late in any case.

Henry's words this afternoon had cast the die forever;

he--Michael--could not for any personal happiness be so hideously cruel

to his old friend. Better put a bullet through his own brain than that.

Whatever should develop on this night, and he meant to continue the

conversation as it should seem best to him, and if she fenced too

daringly with him to take the button off the foils--but whatever should

come of it it should not be allowed to alter his intention of to-morrow

instructing his lawyers in Edinburgh to begin divorce proceedings at

once. He was like a gambler who has lost his last stake, and who still

means to take what joy of life he can before the black to-morrow dawns.

So, in the ten minutes or so while Sabine had turned from him, he laid

his plans. He would see how much he could make her feel. He would dance

with her later and then say a final farewell. If she were hurt, too, he

must not care--she had made the barrier of her own free will. The

person who was blameless and should not suffer was Henry. Then he began

to look at Sabine furtively, and caught the outline of her sweet,

averted head. How irresistibly attractive she was! The exact type he

admired; not too intellectual-looking, just soft and round and babyish;

there was one little curl on her snowy _nuque_ that he longed to kiss

there and then. What a time she was talking to the other man! He would

not bear it!

And Sabine, while she apparently listened to her neighbor, had not the

remotest idea of what he said. The whole of her being was thrilling with

some strange and powerful emotion, which almost made her feel faint--she

could not have swallowed a morsel of food, and simply played with her

fork.

At the first possible pause, Michael addressed her again:

"Since you knew the lady in life who is now my ghost--and she told you

of Binko--did she not say anything else about her visit to Arranstoun or

its master?"

"Nothing--it was all apparently a blank horror, and she probably wanted

to forget it and him."

"He made some kind of an impression upon her, then--good or bad, since

she wanted to forget him--" eagerly.

Sabine admitted to herself that the umpires might have called "_touch_"

for this.

"It would seem so," she allowed, with what she thought was generosity.

"That is better than only creating indifference."

"Yes--the indifference came later."

"One expected that; but there was a time, you have inferred, when she

felt something. What was it? Can't you tell me?"

Excitement was rising high now in both of them, and the grouse on their

plates remained almost untasted.

"At first, she did not know herself, I think; but afterwards, when she

came to understand things, she felt resentment and hate, and it taught

her to appreciate chivalry and gentleness."

Michael almost cried "_touch_!" aloud.

"He was an awful brute--the owner of Arranstoun, I suppose?"

"Yes--apparently--and one who broke a contract and rather glorified in

the fact."

Michael laughed a little bitterly, as he answered:

"All men are brutes when the moment favors them, and when a woman is

sufficiently attractive. We will admit that the owner of Arranstoun was

a brute."

"He was a man who, I understand, lived only for himself and for his

personal gratification," Mrs. Howard told him.

"Poor devil! He perhaps had not had much chance. You should be

charitable!"

Sabine shrugged her shoulders in that engaging way she had. She had

hardly looked up again at Michael since the beginning, the exigencies of

the dinner-table being excuse enough for not turning her head; but his

eyes often devoured her fascinating, irregular profile to try and

discover her real meaning, but without success.

"He was probably one of those people who are more or less like animals,

and just live because they are alive," Sabine went on. "Who are educated

because they happen to have been born in the upper classes--Who drink

and eat and sport and game because it gives their senses pleasure so to

do--but who see no further good in things."

"A low wretch!"

"Yes--more or less."

Michael's eyes were flashing now--and she did peep at him, when he said:

"But if the original of the ghost had stayed with him, she might have

been able to change this base view of life--she could have elevated

him."

Sabine shook her head.

"No, she was too young and too inexperienced, and he had broken all her

ideals, absolutely stunned and annihilated her whole vista of the

future. There was no other way but flight. She had to reconstruct her

soul alone."

"You do not ask me what became of the owner of Arranstoun--or what he

did with his life."

"I know he went to China--but the matter does not interest me. There he

probably continued to live and to kill other things--to seize what he

wanted and get some physical joy out of existence as usual."

A look of pain now quenched the fire.

"You are very cruel," he said.

"The owner of Arranstoun was very cruel."

"He knows it and is deeply repentant; but he was and is only a very

ordinary man."

"No, a savage."

"A savage then, if you will--and one dangerous to provoke too far;" the

fire blazed again. "And what do you suppose your friend learned in those

five years of men--after she had ceased to exist as the owner of

Arranstoun knew her?"

Sabine laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound.

"Of men! That they are like children, desiring only the toys that are

out of reach, wasting their souls upon what they cannot obtain and

valuing not at all the gifts of the gods which are in their own

possession."

"What a cynical view!"

"Is it not a true one?"

"Perhaps--in some cases--in mine certainly; only I have generally

managed to obtain what I wanted."

"Then it may be a new experience for you to find there was one thing

which was out of your reach."

He bent forward eagerly and asked, with a catch in his breath:

"And that was----?"

"The soul of a woman--shall we say--that something which no brute force

can touch."

The fencing bout was over, the foils were laid aside, and grim earnest

was in Michael's voice now--modulated by civilization into that tone

which does not carry beyond one's neighbor at a dinner party.

"Your soul--Sabine--that is the only thing which interests me, and I was

never able to touch your soul? That is not true, as you know--How dare

you say it to me. There was one moment----"

"Hush," she whispered, growing very white. "You must not--you shall not

speak to me so. You had no right to come here. No right to talk to me at

all--it is traitorous--we are both traitors to Lord Fordyce, who is a

noble gentleman above suspecting us of such wiles."

And at that moment, through a gap in the flowers of the long table, they

both saw Henry's gray eyes fixed upon them with a rather questioning

surprise--and then Mrs. Forster gave the signal to the ladies, and

Sabine with the others swept from the room, leaving Michael quivering

with pain and emotion.

As for Sabine, she was trembling from head to foot.

During dinner, Moravia had had an interesting conversation with Henry.

They had spoken of all sorts of things and eventually, toward the end of

it, of Sabine.

"She is the strangest character, Lord Fordyce," Moravia said. "She is

more like a boy than a girl in some ways. She absolutely rules everyone.

When we were children, she and all the others used to call me the mother

in our games, but it was really Sabine who settled everything. She was

always the brigand captain. She got us into all the mischief of

clandestine feasts and other rule breaking--and all the Sisters simply

adored her, and the Mother Superior, too, and they used to let her off,

no matter what she did, with not half our punishments. She was the

wildest madcap you ever saw."

Henry was, of course, deeply interested.

"She is sufficiently grave and dignified now!" he responded in

admiration, his worshiping eyes turned in Sabine's direction; but it was

only when she moved in a certain way that he could see her, through the

flowers. Michael he saw plainly all the time, and perceived that he was

not boring himself.

"Her character, then, would seem to have been rather like my friend's,

Michael Arranstoun's," he remarked. "They have both such an astonishing,

penetrating vitality, one would almost know when either of them was in

the room even if one could not see them."

"He is awfully good-looking and attractive, your friend," Moravia

returned. "I have never seen such bold, devil-may-care blue eyes. I

suppose women adore him; I personally have got over my interest in that

sort of man. I much prefer courteous and more diffident creatures."

Lord Fordyce smiled.

"Yes, I believe women spoil Michael terribly, and he is perfectly

ruthless with them, too; but I understand that they like that sort of

thing."

"Yes--most of them do. It is the simple demonstration of strength which

allures them. You see, man was meant to be strong," and Moravia laughed

softly, "wasn't he? He was not designed in the scheme of things to be a

soft, silky-voiced creature like Cranley Beaton, for instance--talking

gossip and handing tea-cups; he was just intended to be a fierce, great

hunter, rushing round killing his food and capturing his mate; and women

have remained such primitive unspoiled darlings, they can still be

dominated by these lovely qualities--when they have a chance to see

them. But, alas! half the men have become so awfully civilized, they

haven't a scrap of this delightful, aboriginal force left!"

"I thought you said you personally preferred more diffident creatures,"

and Lord Fordyce smiled whimsically.

"So I do now--I said I had got over my interest in these savages--but,

of course, I liked them once, as we all do. It is one of our fatal

stages that we have to pass through, like snakes changing their skins;

and it makes many of us during the time lay up for ourselves all sorts

of regrets."

Henry sought eagerly through the flowers his beloved's face. Had she,

too, passed through this stage--or was it to come? He asked himself this

question a little anxiously, and then he remembered the words of Pre

Anselme, and an unrest grew in his heart. The Princess saw that some

shadow had gathered upon his brow, and guessed, since she knew that his

thoughts in general turned that way, that it must be something to do

with Sabine--so she said:

"Sabine and I have come through our happinesses, I trust, since Convent

days--and what we must hope for now is an Indian summer."

Henry turned rather wistful eyes to her.

"An Indian summer!" he exclaimed. "A peaceful, beautiful warmth after

the riotous joy of the real blazing June! Tell me about it?"

Moravia sighed softly.

"It is the land where the souls who have gone through the fire of pain

live in peace and quiet happiness, content to glow a little before the

frosts of age come to quench all passion and pleasure."

Henry looked down at the grapes on his plate.

"There is autumn afterwards," he reasoned, "which is full of richness

and glorious fruit. May we not look forward to that? But yet I know that

we all deceive ourselves and live in what may be only a fool's

paradise"--and then it was that he caught sight of his adored, as she

bent forward after her rebuke to Michael--and with a burst of feeling

in his controlled voice, he cried: "But who would forego his fool's

paradise!"--and then he took in the fact that some unusual current of

emotion must have been passing between the two--and his heart gave a

great bound of foreboding.

For the keenness of his perceptions and his honesty of judgment made him

see that they were strangely suited to one another--his darling and his

friend--so strong and vital and young.