At last a day came when Madame Claire received a wire from Paris:
She thought it was one of the most perfect moments of her life. She could taste to the full, in one mouthful, so to speak, the different yet blending flavors of anticipation and realization. Dawson had never seen her so happily excited, nor so difficult to please in the matter of flowers for her room. Judy had wrought this miracle—had so revived Stephen's flagging spirits that he felt at last able to make the journey. Had they left him alone there in Cannes, he would have waited dully and hopelessly for another stroke. He would probably have ended his days there, without ever returning to England. And now, anything was possible. She longed to share Noel with him, too, Eric, all of them. He might find something to like in Gordon. He might continue to find Connie and Connie's vagaries interesting. They could see each other every day—or nearly every day. And when spring came, he could stay with her in Sussex—he would love her little house and her garden—and they could talk. There was so much to talk about!
She hoped he had made an honest effort to picture her as she now was. Men were so apt not to face the facts of change and decay in the women they loved. Was he still picturing her as she looked when he last saw her, nearly twenty years ago? Or—as is so often the way with age—was he seeing her as she was when he first knew her, before she married Robert? But she felt she could trust to his common sense about that. At any rate, he would see her as he had always seen her, with the eyes of the heart. And what would he be like? She believed that his personality—that indefinable emanation that makes each one of us different from any other one—would be unchanged. To her, nothing else mattered. ****** To-morrow came. She pictured Stephen looking out of his windows at London, and getting used to the smell of it again. Madame Claire was always dressed by eleven except on her bad days, and to-day, thank Heaven! was not one of them. From eleven till four—five hours, five long hours! Miss McPherson had telephoned that she would have her patient there by four o'clock. She would leave him at the door, the tactful creature had said, and go for a walk in the park. Madame Claire agreed to this, on the condition that when she came for him again at six, she stay for half an hour. Miss McPherson would be very pleased indeed to do so.
At four, Madame Claire was dressed in a wine-colored silk that spread about her stiffly and richly as she sat in her straight-backed chair. Her white hair was dressed high, and secured with a comb of carved shell. She had given much thought to her appearance. She kept beside her an old ebony stick of Robert's, for her rheumatism made it a little difficult for her to rise. On the other side of the wood fire was another chair, carefully placed so that the light would fall on the face of the occupant, but not too strongly for his comfort. The room was full of flowers; early tulips, richly dyed anemones, and here and there her beloved freesias. On a small table at her right hand lay an inlaid box, and the key to it hung on a bracelet she wore on her wrist.
A bell rang, and she sat motionless, hardly moving her eyelids. Stephen . . . Stephen was at her door . . . fate was kind . . . this was her moment of moments, her day of days.
The door opened, and Dawson said in a strange voice:
"Mr. de Lisle, m'lady," and vanished.
And Stephen came to her. . . .
They brushed each other's cheeks lightly, for the first time in their long lives. They moved the two chairs nearer together and sat with clasped hands. Words for a time were beyond them, but at last Stephen spoke.
"You are wonderful," he said, "wonderful, wonderful!"
"But you!" cried Madame Claire. "I was prepared for some one much older, some one bent and feeble . . . you are so straight!"
"As long as the Lord lets me walk at all," he told her, "I hope He'll let me walk upright. And I'm better . . . much better."
"How I have longed for this!" Her voice rang out clearly. "My dear, stubborn, too proud old Stephen!"
"Less stubborn now, but still proud. Claire, you always had delightful ways. It's your ways that have always held me—and your wits. But how have you managed to become beautiful?"
"Beautiful? My poor old Stephen—your eyes!"
"As good as they ever were, except for reading. No, you've got something new . . . what is it? Dignity, that's it. You were always too gentle, too shy, to be properly dignified."
"I was always shy," she agreed, "until lately."
"I adored your shyness. A gentle, soft-voiced thing you were. Clever . . . devilish clever! How you managed Robert! And me. And all the chattering, brilliant, stupid, charming people of our day. You managed 'em all. And nobody knew it, but me. I used to tell Robert he'd have been a government clerk somewhere, but for you."
"That," she said, "was untrue, for Robert had wit and a good brain. His fault was that he didn't understand people. He wasn't human enough. I could help him there."
"And you did help him. You made him; say what you will. You would have made any man."
They talked—how they talked! Never taking their eyes off each other's faces. Remembering things that they had half forgotten, things that it took the two of them together to remember completely. Stopping in their talk every now and then to smile at each other, to realize that this longed-for thing had come to pass. To savor these moments, these perfect, winged moments, that would never be less than perfect; moments that Time had brought to a fine flowering—"Without the end of fruit"—without the end of disillusion, too, and what scent that flowering had! No, there could be no falling off, no dimming of that brightness. They could trust to Death for that. Their curtain would be rung down on a fine gesture, on a perfect note.
And then back to Robert again, and his qualities that Stephen so much admired. They could even talk of him, frankly and simply. Twenty years ago he had been too near, his claim to be regarded as an absent friend, merely, had been too great. But now
"I think he appreciated you, Claire."
"Yes," she said.
"If he had not—but he did. I have always remembered that. And he made you happy."
She lifted her head and looked squarely at him, holding his eyes with hers, steadily.
"I made myself happy," she said.
"What do you mean?"
There was not much time left to them. Let it be a completely happy time, free of all pretense, of all misunderstanding. She wanted no secrets from Stephen now. Even if she did Robert the least injustice, his spirit must have reached heights of magnanimity very far beyond the reach of such truths as were mere earthly truths. She owed something to the living, and to her own spirit. She had kept her secret well. She meant to permit herself the inestimable luxury of sharing it now with Stephen.
"I mean—I made myself as happy as a woman can be who is not married to the man she loves."
He had felt, when she looked at him so strangely, that he was on the brink of some new knowledge. He almost dreaded what that knowledge might be—dreaded the pain it might bring. He had hardly grasped her meaning yet.
"Claire! Then why—why? Good God!"
She released the hand that he had clung to, and unfastened the little gold key that hung from her wrist. She took the inlaid box on her knees and opened it, Stephen watching her every movement. The box was lined with red velvet and contained a single letter, yellow with age. She took it out, delicately, and turned it over in her fingers so that he saw both sides of it. It was unopened. The heavy seal on the flap of the envelope was unbroken. She gave him the letter without a word.
He studied it for a moment.
"My writing!" he exclaimed. "Claire, what is this? What letter is this?"
"That letter," she said gently, putting a hand on his arm, "is a proposal from the man I loved."
He looked at her, uncomprehending.
"I will tell you about it," she said.
"Fifty-six years ago, Stephen, when that letter was written, I had two admirers. Oh, more, perhaps but only two that counted. They were you and Robert. Robert was serious and clever, and very much in love with himself, and you were—everything that the heart of a girl like me could desire. You were friends, you two; you were rivals, but friends for all that. You were the better lover, Robert the more ingenious wooer. Robert out-maneuvered you. It was he who got most of my dances at balls, but it was always you I longed to give them to. It was Robert who won the approval of my mother and father; it was you who won mine. He was said to be a coming young man. They told me that you lacked ambition and force—even in those days people talked about force—but it was you I loved. You told my father that you wanted to marry me, and he said you were too young for me. You were only twenty-two, and I was twenty-three. He persuaded you to make the Grand Tour before settling anything. You told him you would not go without speaking to me. And you tried to speak to me—how often you tried!—but we were never left alone in those days. My mother was fearful, for Robert, and Robert was fearful for himself. So there were always interruptions. You were almost maddened by them, and I—I was eating my heart out. If you could only have passed me on the stairs and whispered, 'Marry me!' I would have said 'Yes.' But the chance never came. And I—little fool—was too shy to make it. And then, on the very eve of your Grand Tour, you wrote me this letter.
"I had almost despaired of your ever speaking. I was hurt and miserable. Robert redoubled his efforts. And then one day he came to the house—it was the day he meant to propose, and I knew that my mother meant to receive him with me and then excuse herself, leaving us together. It was the day before you were to go away, and I longed for any word or sign from you.
"You sent this letter, by hand. It reached the house at the same moment that Robert did. He saw that it was from you, and he guessed, and was jealous and afraid. He told the maid that he would give it to me upstairs, and that as I was expecting him she needn't announce him. Stephen—he put the letter in his pocket."
Stephen made a sudden movement and leaned nearer to her.
"Go on," he said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
"He kept it in his pocket. Yes, Robert did that. I, hearing nothing, thought you indifferent, and my heart seemed to break. He proposed to me that afternoon, and the next evening, knowing that you had indeed gone without a word, I gave him the answer he wanted."
She paused a moment, looking into the fire.
"I wrote to you to tell you of my engagement. You must have considered that the letter I wrote to you then was in answer to the one you had sent me. You thought that Robert had won fairly, and blamed yourself. When you came back, Robert and I were already married, and you resumed your friendship with him and with me. And I pretended—how well I pretended you know—that you were no more to me than my husband's friend. And you were the soul of honor, Stephen, for although I knew you still loved me—I knew it the moment I saw you again—never by one word or look did you try to show me that you did.
"As I look back now, it seems to me that I saw almost as much of you as I did of Robert. We were always together, we three. I used to try to marry you to my friends, but although you were always charming to them, you were never more than that.
"And then, years later, Robert was made ambassador to Italy. It was a tremendous step up, and you rejoiced with us, as you always did at our good fortune. The first year we were in Rome, Robert was very ill with fever. He thought he was going to die. He was always apt to exaggerate his illnesses. He told me he had something on his mind, and he gave me your letter, and told me what he had done. I forgave him, I had to forgive him, and we never spoke of it again. But I never dared to read it, Stephen. I put it away in this box. I didn't dare to open that wound."
There was silence again. Stephen felt he could say nothing. Robert had been his closest friend—they had been like brothers—and he had done this! What was there for him to say?
"I am telling you this now," Madame Claire went on, "because I want the time that remains to us to be as perfect as possible. I want you to know that while I was a good and faithful wife to Robert, and made him, I believe, very happy, I loved you. I bear him no ill will. He acted according to his lights, believing, then, that all was fair in love. That doesn't make his act less detestable, but I must weigh in the scales against that, the fact that he was the best of husbands and fathers. And I forgave him absolutely. But, oh, Stephen! All those years . . . all those years were one long struggle against my love for you!"
There are moments too great or too poignant for speech. He did not know, then, whether the pain or the happiness of this new knowledge was the stronger. For a moment the pain had the upper hand.
"It is a tragedy!" he said at last. "A tragedy!"
Presently he turned to her again.
"But when he died?" he asked. "When I came to you again? Why did you say no?"
Madame Claire hesitated before she spoke.
"My reasons," she said, "may have seemed to you to be poor ones. I pleaded my age, I remember, and the fact—or what I believed was a fact—that it would have been an elderly folly for us to have married then. But there was another reason, and a better one. Stephen . . . I dreaded an anti-climax. And it would have been that. After loving you all my life, all my youth, to have married you at sixty . . . it seemed to me a desecration. I hoped for a dear friendship with you. It was that I longed for. But you were angry and hurt. You left me. I thought you would be gone six months, or possibly a year. You were away nearly twenty years! . . . Oh, Stephen! . . ."
His eyes begged her forgiveness.
"I always tried to think that you were right, Claire," he said softly. "Right or wrong, it all belongs to the past now. So does my loneliness. I have been lonely, but I can bear that too, now that I know I have been loved. That sheds a glory on my life . . . a glory."
His voice sank. She watched him turning the letter over in his hands, remembering . . . remembering. Then, with a gesture full of courtliness and charm, he held it out to her.
"Read it, my dear, now," he said. "Veux tu, toi?"