The Deliverer
by
The Deliverer[1]
I
A PROMISE OF MARRIAGE
The band was playing very softly, very dreamily; it might have been a lullaby. The girl who stood on the balcony of the great London house, with the moonlight pouring full upon her, stooped, and nervously, fumblingly, picked up a spray of syringa that had fallen from among the flowers on her breast.
The man beside her, dark-faced and grave, put out a perfectly steady hand.
“May I have it?” he said.
She looked up at him with the start of a trapped animal. Her face was very pale. It was in striking contrast to the absolute composure of his. Very slowly and reluctantly she put the flower into his outstretched hand.
He took it, but he took her fingers also and kept them in his own.
“When will you marry me, Nina?” he asked.
She started again and made a frightened effort to free her hand.
He smiled faintly and frustrated it.
“When will you marry me?” he repeated.
She threw back her head with a gesture of defiance; but the courage in her eyes was that of desperation.
“If I marry you,” she said, “it will be purely and only for your money.”
He nodded. Not a muscle of his face moved.
“Of course,” he said. “I know that.”
“And you want me under those conditions?”
There was a quiver in the words that might have been either of scorn or incredulity.
“I want you under any conditions,” he responded quietly. “Marry my money by all means if it attracts you! But you must take me with it.”
The girl shrank.
“I can’t!” she whispered suddenly.
He released her hand calmly, imperturbably.
“I will ask you again to-morrow,” he said.
“No!” she said sharply.
He looked at her questioningly.
“No!” she repeated, with a piteous ring of uncertainty in her voice. “Mr. Wingarde, I say No!”
“But you don’t mean it,” he said, with steady conviction.
“I do mean it!” she gasped. “I tell you I do!”
She dropped suddenly into a low chair and covered her face with a moan.
The man did not move. He stared absently down into the empty street as if waiting for something. There was no hint of impatience about his strong figure. Simply, with absolute confidence, he waited.
Five minutes passed and he did not alter his position. The soft strains in the room behind them had swelled into music that was passionately exultant. It seemed to fill and overflow the silence between them. Then came a triumphant crash and it ended. From within sounded the gay buzz of laughing voices.
Slowly Wingarde turned and looked at the bent, hopeless figure of the girl in the chair. He still held indifferently between his fingers the spray of white blossom for which he had made request.
He did not speak. Yet, as if in obedience to an unuttered command, the girl lifted her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of misery and indecision. They wavered beneath his steady gaze. Slowly, still moving as if under compulsion, she rose and stood before him, white and slim as a flower. She was quivering from head to foot.
The man still waited. But after a moment he put out his hand silently.
She did not touch it, choosing rather to lean upon the balustrade of the balcony for support. Then at last she spoke, in a whisper that seemed to choke her.
“I will marry you,” she said–“for your money.”
“I thought you would,” Wingarde said very quietly.
He stood looking down at her bent head and white shoulders. There were sparkles of light in her hair that shone as precious metal shines in ore. Her hands were both fast gripped upon the ironwork on which she leant.
He took a step forward and was close beside her, but he did not again offer her his hand.
“Will you answer my original question?” he said. “I asked–when?”
In the moonlight he could see her shivering, shivering violently. She shook her head; but he persisted.