Clementina
Page 160Even at that moment her gesture struck upon Wogan as strange. It
occurred to him that he had never before seen her drop her eyes from
his. He had an intuitive fancy that she would never do it but as a
deliberate token of submission. Nor was he wrong. Her next words told
him it was her white flag of surrender.
"I believe the spoken truth is best," she said simply in a low voice
which ever so slightly trembled. "Unspoken and yet known by both of us,
I think it would breed thoughts and humours we are best without.
Unspoken our eyes would question, each to other, at every meeting; there
would be no health in our thoughts. But here's the truth out, and I am
glad--in whichever way you find its consequence."
She stood before him with her head bent. She made no movement save with
her hands, which worked together slowly and gently.
"Yes," she answered. "There is Bologna. Say that Bologna is our goal. I
shall go with you to Bologna. There is Venice and the sea. Bid me go,
then; hoist a poor scrap of a sail in an open boat. I shall adventure
over the wide seas with you. What will you do?"
Wogan drew a long breath. The magnitude of the submission paralysed him.
The picture which she evoked was one to blind him as with a glory of
sunlight. He remained silent for a while. Then he said timidly,-"There is Ohlau."
The girl shivered. The name meant her father, her mother, their grief,
the disgrace upon her home. But she answered only with her question,-"What will you do?"
"You would lose a throne," he said, and even while he spoke was aware
that such a plea had not with her now the weight of thistledown.
"You would become the mock of Europe,--you that are its wonder;" and he
"What will you do?" she asked, and he ceased to argue. It was he who
must decide; she willed it so. He turned towards the door of the hut and
opened it. As he passed through, he heard her move behind, and looking
over his shoulder, he saw that she leaned down upon the table and kissed
the pistol which he had left loaded there. He stepped out of the cabin
and closed the door behind him.
The dark blue of the sky had faded to a pure and pearly colour; a
colourless grey light invaded it; the pale stars were drowning; and all
about him the trees shivered to the morning. Wogan walked up and down
that little plateau, torn by indecision. Inside the sheltered cabin sat
waiting the girl, whose destiny was in his hands. He had a sentence to
speak, and by it the flow of all her years would be irrevocably ordered.
her endurance. Wogan had seen too closely into her heart to bring any
foolish charge of unmaidenliness against her. No, the very completeness
of her submission raised her to a higher pinnacle. If she gave herself,
she did so without a condition or a reserve, body and bone, heart and
soul. Wogan knew amongst the women of his time many who made their
bargain with the world, buying a semblance of esteem with a double
payment of lies. This girl stood apart from them. She loved, therefore
she entrusted herself simply to the man she loved, and bade him dispose
of her. That very simplicity was another sign of her strength. She was
the more priceless on account of it. He went back into the hut. Through
the chinks of the shutter the morning stretched a grey finger; the room
was filled with a vaporous twilight.