She was still looking pale and worn, strung up to face her self-imposed exile from the country which now held everything that was dear to her, but no enormity of sorrow, would ever blind Jean for long to the whimsical aspect that attends so many of the little things of daily life.
“What a lot of useless lumber2 we women carry about with us wherever we go!” she commented. “Five—six—seven packages to supply the needs of two solitary3 females—and Heaven only knows how many brown paper parcels will be required at the last moment for all the things we shall find we have forgotten when the time actually comes to start.” Claire, standing4 on the flight of stairs above and viewing the assemblage in the hall from over the top of the banister rail, giggled5 helplessly.
“Yes, they do look a lot,” she admitted. “However”—hopefully—“there’ll be plenty of room for them all when we actually get to Beirnfels.”
“Oh, plenty,” agreed Jean. “But we’ve got to convey them half across Europe first—two lone6 women and one miserable7 maid who will probably combine train-sickness and home-sickness to an extent that will totally incapacitate her for the performance of her duties.”
At this moment the front-door bell clanged violently through the house, as though pulled by someone in a tremendous hurry. Claire hastily withdrew her head from over the banister rail and disappeared upstairs, while Jean relinquished8 the accommodation offered by the bottommost step and sought refuge in the nearest of the sitting-rooms, closing the door stealthily behind her.
A moment later Tucker, who had caught sight of her hurriedly retreating figure, reopened it and announced imperturbably9:
“Mr. Burke.”
Jean greeted him with surprise, but without any feeling of embarrassment10. So much had happened since the day she had eluded11 him on the Moor12, events of such intimate and tragic13 import had swept her path, that the unexpected meeting failed to rouse any feeling either of anger or dismay. Burke, and everything connected with him, belonged to another period of her existence altogether—to that glorious care-free time when it had seemed as though life were a deep, inexhaustible well bubbling over with wonderful possibilities. Burke was merely a ghost—a revenant from that far distant epoch14.
“I’m in time, then?” he said, when he had shaken hands. “In time? In time for what?”
“In time to see you before you go.”
“Oh, yes.” Jean spoke15 lightly. “You’re in time for that. But who told you I was going away? I didn’t know you were in England, even.”
“I came back a fortnight ago—to London. Judith wired me from home that you were leaving Coombe Eavie.”
“I don’t see the necessity for her wiring you,” remarked Jean a little coldly. “There was no need for you to see me.”
“There was—every need.”
She glanced at him keenly, detecting a new note in his voice, an unexpected gravity and restraint.
“Every need,” he repeated. He paused, then went on quickly, with a nervousness that was foreign to him. “Jean, I know everything that has happened—that your engagement to Tormarin is at an end—and I have come to ask you if you will be my wife. No—hear me out!”—as she would have interrupted him. “I’m not asking you now as—as I did before. If you will marry me, I swear I will ask for nothing that you are not willing to give. I’m making no demands. I’ve learned now”—with a faint weary smile—“that you cannot force love. It can only be given. And I want nothing but just the right to take care of you, to shield you—to keep the sharp corners of life away from you.” Then, as he read her incredulous face, he went on gravely: “If I had wanted more than that, Jean, if I had not learned something—just from loving you, I should not have waited until now. I should have come at once—as soon as I learned from Madame de Varigny that Tormarin’s wife was still alive.”
She looked at him curiously16.
“Why didn’t you come then, Geoffrey? I sometimes wondered—you being you!”—with a faint smile. “Because, of course, I knew why you had rushed off to France. Madame de Varigny explained that.”
A dull flush mounted to his face.
“Did she? I expect she told you merely what was the truth. I went to see her because she had assured me that she could stop your marriage with Tormarin—could interfere17 in some way to prevent it. That was why I went to France.... But when she told me her blackguardly scheme—how she had planned and plotted to conceal18 the fact that Tormarin’s wife was alive—and why she had done it, I would have no hand in anything that followed. I’m no saint”—a brief, ironical19 smile flitted across his face—“but there are some methods at which even I draw the line.”
“So—that was why you stayed away?”
“That was why. I wanted you, Jean—God only knows how I wanted you!—but I couldn’t try to force your hand at such a time. I couldn’t profit by a damnable scheme like that.”
Jean’s eyes grew soft as she realised that beneath all the impetuous arrogance20 and dominant21 demands of the man’s temperament22 there yet lay something fine and clean and straight—difficult to get at, perhaps, but which could yet rise, in answer to a sense of honour and fairness with which she had not credited him, and take command of his whole nature.
“I’m glad—glad you didn’t come, Geoffrey,” she said gently. “Glad you—couldn’t.”
“I don’t know that I’m glad about it,” he returned with a grim candour. “I simply couldn’t do it, and that’s all there is to it. But I’ve come now, Jean. I’ve come because I want you to give me just the right to look after you. I’m not asking for anything. I only want to serve you—if you’ll let me—just to be near you. If Tormarin were free, I would not have come to you again. I know I should have no chance. But he’s not free. Does that give me a chance, Jean? If it doesn’t, I’ll take myself off—I’ll never bother you again. I’ll try Africa—big game shooting”—with a short laugh. “But if it does——”
He paused and waited for her answer. The intensity23 of longing24 in his eyes was the sole indication of the emotion that stirred within him—an emotion held in check by a stem self-control that seemed to Jean to be part of this new, changed lover of hers. Surely, in the months which had elapsed since she had fled from him on Dartmoor, he had fought with his devils and cast them out!
She held out her hands to him.
“Geoffrey, I’m so sorry—but I’m afraid it doesn’t. I wish—I wish I could give you any other answer. But, you see, it isn’t marrying—it’s love that matters. And all my love is given.”
He took her hands in his and held them gently with that strange, new restraint he seemed to have learned.
“I see,” he said slowly. Then for a moment his calm wavered. The underlying25 passion, so strongly held in leash26, shook the even tones of his voice. “Tormarin is a lucky man—in spite of everything! I’d give my soul to have what he has—your love, Jean.”
His big hands closed round her slight ones and he lifted them to his lips. Then, without another word, he went away, and Jean was left wondering sorrowfully why the love that she did not want was offered her in such full measure, hers to take at will, while the love for which she craved27, the love which would have meant the glory and fulfilment of life itself, was denied her—shut away by all the laws of God and Man.
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1
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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3
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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7
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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8
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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11
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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12
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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13
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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14
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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15
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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16
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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17
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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18
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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20
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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21
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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22
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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23
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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24
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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25
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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26
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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27
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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