"Say that you have no room in your thoughts except for me. Say that you
have no scrap of love--" He dropped her hands and drew away; she caught
him to her. "No, no! Say that you have no scrap of love to toss to the
woman there in Innspruck!"
"Maria!" he exclaimed.
"Hush!" said she, with a woful smile. "To-morrow you shall love her;
to-morrow I will not ask your eyes to dwell on mine or your hand to
quiver as it touches mine. But to-night love no one but me."
For answer he kissed her on the lips. She took his head between her
hands and gave the kiss back, gently as though her lips feared to bruise
his, slowly as though this one moment must content her for all her life.
Then she looked at him for a little, and with a childish movement that
was infinitely sad she laid his face side by side with hers so that his
cheek touched hers.
"Shall I tell you my thought?" she asked. "Shall I dare to tell you it?"
"Tell it me!"
"God has died to-night. Hush! Do not move! Do not speak! Perhaps the
world will slip and crumble if we but stay still." And they remained
thus cheek to cheek silent in the room, staring forward with eyes wide
open and hopeful. The very air seemed to them a-quiver with
expectation. They, too, had an expectant smile upon their lips. But
there was no crack of thunder overhead, no roar of a slipping world.
[Illustration: "CHEEK TO CHEEK, SILENT IN THE ROOM, STARING FORWARD WITH
EYES WIDE OPEN AND HOPEFUL."--Page 136.] The Chevalier was the first
to move.
"But we are children," he cried, starting up. "Is it not strange the
very pain which tortures us because we are man and woman should sink us
into children? We sit hoping that a miracle will split the world in
pieces! This is the Caprara Palace; Whittington drowses outside over his
lantern; and to-morrow Gaydon rides with his passport northwards to
Charles Wogan."
The name hurt Maria Vittoria like a physical torture. She beat her hands
together with a cry, "I hate him! I hate him!"
"Yet I have no better servant!"
"Speak no good word of him in my ears! He robs me of you."
"He risks his life for me."
"I will pray that he may lose it."
"Maria!"