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Ralstons

<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> In each household there was rumour of war and discussion of plans, and the nervous tension was already great. In Lafayette Place, the exceedingly unfashionable and somewhat remote corner where the Crowdies dwelt in one of the half-dozen habitable houses there situated, there was considerable disturbance. Walter Crowdie and his wife were in the studio, alone together, talking about it all. Crowdie had received a communication from his brother-in-law, telling him of Alexander’s contemplated attack and enquiring as to Crowdie’s opinion, more as a matter of form than because he expected any interference or needed any help. Hester Crowdie was a nervously organized woman, almost insanely in love with her husband. She had one of those pale, delicate, passionate faces which are not easily forgotten, and which seem to bear the sign of an unusual destiny in each line and shade of expression. She had much of the hereditary beauty of the Lauderdales, but the regularity of her features was not what struck the eye first. She was slight, but graceful as a doe, alternately quick and then indolent as an Oriental woman, strong, yet liable to what seemed inexplicable fatigue and weakness which overtook her without warning, and often sensitive as a fine instrument to every changing influence about her, yet constant as steel in her idolizing love for her husband. To do him justice, he seemed to return all she felt for him in an almost like degree. They were well-nigh inseparable, and she spent every moment of the day with him which she could spare from her very slight social and household duties, when he himself was not occupied with a sitter. The studio was a vast room occupying the whole upper story of the house, and lighted from above as well as by windows, the latter being generally closed. It contained a barbaric wealth of rich Eastern carpets, stuffs, and embroideries, which covered the walls and the huge divans, and were draped about the chimney-piece. There was an old-fashioned high-backed chair for Crowdie’s sitters, and there were generally at least two easels in the room, having unfinished canvases upon them. But there was nothing else—not a sketch, not a bit of a plaster cast, not the least object of metal. There were none of those more or less cheap weapons with which artists are fond of decorating their studios, there were no vases, no plants, no objects, in short, but the easels, the one chair, and the rich materials hung upon the walls, spread upon the divans, covering the heaps of soft cushions. Even the high door which gave access to the room from the narrow landing was masked by a great embroidery. Crowdie kept all his paints and brushes in a large closet, cut off by a curtain, and built out, balcony-like, over the yard at the back of the house. Hester Crowdie lay among the cushions on one of the enormous divans. She was dressed in black, and the garment—which was neither gown nor tea-gown, nor yet a frock—followed closely the lines of grace in which her bodily beauty ran, from her throat to her slender feet. One bloodless hand lay upon the dark folds, the other was pressed almost out of sight in the yielding coils of her rich brown hair; she supported her head, resting upon her elbow, and watching her husband. Crowdie was standing before an easel near by, palette and brushes in hand, touching the canvas from time to time, mechanically rather than with any serious intention of doing anything to the picture. “I don’t see why your brother takes the trouble to write,” he said. “It may be a sort of formality. He must know that I’d be dead against the Lauderdales in anything. They all detest me, and I hate them every one, with all my heart.” “So do I,” answered Hester. “I hate them all—except Katharine. But you don’t hate her, either, Walter.” “Oh—Katharine? No—not exactly. She’s too good-looking to be hated. But she can’t bear me.” “It’s not so bad as that. If it were, she shouldn’t be my friend for a day. You know that. But she’s with the enemy in the present case. It can’t be helped. I hope we shan’t quarrel. But if we must—why, we must, that’s all.” Crowdie touched his picture, looked at it, then glanced at his wife and smiled. “After all,” he said, “what does that sort of friendship amount to?” “Well—perhaps you’re right,” she answered, and she smiled, too, as her eyes met his, and lingered a moment in the meeting. “I don’t know—perhaps it fills up the little empty places in life—when you’ve got a sister, for instance. Besides—I’m fond of Katharine. We’ve always been a good deal together. Not that I think she’s perfection either, you know. I don’t like the way she’s gone and installed herself with mamma, as though she didn’t know perfectly well that Ham was in love with her, and that she was making him miserable.” “Ham will survive a considerable amount of that sort of misery. Still, it must be unpleasant, especially just now. After all, it’s her father who’s attacking you and your mother and brother. They can’t talk freely before her any more than you and I should.” “No.” Hester paused a moment, and her face was thoughtful. “Walter,” she began again, presently, “I want to ask you a question.” “Do you?” he asked, softly. “I have all the answers ready to all the possible questions you can ever ask of me. What is it?” “Walter—weren’t you just a little tiny bit in love with Katharine, ever so long ago, before we were married? Tell me. I shan’t mind—that is, if it was very long ago.” “In love with Katharine Lauderdale? No—never. That’s a very easy question to answer.” He stood looking at her, and the hand which held the palette hung down by his side. “Weren’t you? I sometimes think that you must have been. You look at her sometimes—as though she pleased you.” Crowdie laughed, a low, golden laugh, and glanced at his picture again, but said nothing. Then, in the silence, he went and put away his paints and brushes behind the curtain on one side of the fireplace at the other end of the great room. Hester lay back among the cushions and watched him till he disappeared, and kept her eyes upon the curtain until he came out again. She watched him as a wild animal watches her mate when she fears that he is going to leave her, with earnest, glistening eyes. But he came back, bringing with him a small Japanese vase of that rare old bronze that rings under the touch like far-off chimes. He set it down upon the tiles before the fireplace, and poured something into it, and set fire to the liquid with a match. It blazed with a misty blue flame, and he threw a few grains of something upon it. A soft, white smoke rose in little clouds, and an intoxicating perfume filled the air. Hester’s delicate nostrils quivered, as she lay back amongst her cushions. She delighted in rare perfumes which could be burned. The faint colour rose in her pale cheeks, and her eyelids drooped. Crowdie drove the white smoke with his hands, wafting it towards her. “What a strange question that was of yours,” he said, suddenly, seating himself upon the edge of the divan, and touching the back of her hand softly with the tips of his fingers. She withdrew her hand and laid it upon his as soon as he had spoken, caressing his in her turn. “Was it?” she asked, in a dreamy voice. “It seemed so natural. I couldn’t help asking you. After all, there are days when she’s very beautiful. But that wasn’t it, exactly. It was something—oh, Walter! why did you sing to her the other night? You know you promised that you’d never sing if I wasn’t there. It hurt me—it hurt me all over when I heard of it. Why did you do it? And then, why didn’t you tell me?” “And who did tell you?” asked Crowdie, gently, but his eyelids contracted with curiosity as he asked the question. “Not Griggs?” “Oh, no! Mamma told me, yesterday. Why did you do it? And she said dreadfully hard things to me about trying to keep you all to myself, and locking up what gives people so much pleasure—and all that.” “I’m sorry she told you. Why will people interfere and tell tales?” “Yes—but, Walter darling—do I lock you up and try to keep you from other people? Am I jealous and horrid, as she says I am? If you think so, tell me. Have I ever interfered with your pleasure? Am I always getting in your way?” “Darling! What nonsense you talk sometimes!” “No, but seriously, would you like me any better if I were like Katharine Lauderdale?” The passionate eyes sought his, and there was a quick breath, half suppressed, as her hand ceased to caress his passive fingers. “I couldn’t like you better—as you call it, sweetest,” answered Crowdie. And again his soft laugh rippled up through perfumed air. With a movement that was almost girlish he dropped upon one elbow, and raising her diaphanous hand in his, tapped his own pale cheek with it. Hester laughed a little, too. “Because if I thought you cared for Katharine Lauderdale—I’d—” She paused, and her fingers stroked his silky hair. “What would you do to Katharine Lauderdale if you thought I cared for her?” “I won’t tell you,” answered Hester, very low. “It would be something bad. Why did you sing for her if you don’t care for her?” “I sang for everybody. Besides, it was so dull there. They’d been talking metaphysics and such rubbish, and there was a long pause, and aunt Maggie wanted me to. And then, when she said that I’d promised never to sing except for you, I didn’t choose to let them all believe it was true. Katharine begged me not to, I remember—when she was told that I’d made you a promise.” “Did she?” Hester’s eyelids opened and then drooped again. “She knew that would be the way to make you sing, or she wouldn’t have said it. How mean women are! I’m beginning to hate her, too. Are you sorry?” “Sorry? No. Why should I be sorry? Sweet—you’ve got this idea that I’ve a fancy for her—it’s foolish.” “Is it? You look a little sorry, though, because I said I should hate her. She’s better looking than I am.” “She!” Crowdie laughed again, the same gentle, lulling, golden laugh. “Besides—I told you—she can’t bear me.” “I hate her for that, too—for loving your voice as she does, and not liking you. And I shall hate her if her father gets all the money that ought to come to us, because if I ever get it, I’m going to make you do all you’ve ever dreamed of doing with it. You shall build your palace like the one at Agra—Griggs will help you, for he knows everything—you shall do all you’ve ever dreamed—we’ll have the alabaster room with the light shining through the walls—you shall sing to me there, by the fountain—but you shan’t sing to Katharine Lauderdale—there, nor anywhere else—Walter, you shan’t—” “She’s got into your head, love—” Crowdie’s red lips kissed the bloodless hand, and his beautiful eyes looked up to Hester’s face. “It’s a foolish thought, sweet! Let me kiss it away.” Hester said nothing, but her own eyes burned, and her nostrils quivered like white rose leaves in the breeze, delicate, diaphanous, passionate. A little shiver ran through her, and she sighed. “Sing to me,” she said. “Sing what you sang to her the other night. Make the song mine again. Make it forget her. Sing softly, very softly—soft, soft—you know how I love the notes—” She closed her burning eyes, but not so wholly but what she could see him, as she threw back her head upon the cushions. Crowdie sat motionless beside her, watching her. His lips were parted as though he were just about to sing, but no sound escaped them. In the heavy, perfumed air the stillness was intense, and it was warm. “Sing,” said Hester, just above a whisper, as though she were murmuring in her sleep. But still no single note came from his lips, and still his eyes rested on her face. “I can’t!” he exclaimed, suddenly, as though his own breath oppressed him. Slowly she raised her lids, and her eyes met his, wild, dark, almost speaking with a voice of their own. “Why did you sing for her?” she asked, whispering, as he gradually bent down towards her. “Do you love me?” “Like death,” he answered, bending still. “Do you hate Katharine Lauderdale?” she asked, very near his face. “I hate everything but you, sweet—” The two transparent hands were suddenly raised and framed his eyes, and held him a moment. “Say you hate her!” The whisper was short, fierce, and hot. “Yes—I hate her.” Then the hands dropped. Far off before the great chimney-piece, the little cloud of white smoke curled slowly from the censer upwards through the soft, love-laden air—and the perfume stole silently everywhere, in and out, half poisonous with aromatic sweetness, all through the great still room. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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