Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/649

rh|1885.]|The Waters of Hercules. – Part X.|643 of indecision, before the wrong could triumph over the right. Nothing of the sort. Those promises were torn up by the root as easily as a plant is torn up out of the sand. It was a puzzling phenomenon, but it was true. Gretchen had once wondered what element there was missing in István's nature, the want of which made him different from other men. One element certainly had been left out in his composition, but Gretchen had not yet found it out by name. His was a face which no line of care could ever mark, which no trouble could ever alter; his fancy it was which was hot, and his heart which was cold – not so much cold as light, and capricious in its lightness.

But though he had arrived at confessing to himself that his promises were to count as nothing, he had meant that Tryphosa was not quite yet to know this truth. Not that he had taken any precautions against her knowing it – it was not in him to do so. It was an impossibility to him, physical and moral, to look ahead of the present moment. Neither had he made any effort to see Gretchen in the course of yesterday, so as to get the final answer from her lips. He preferred that the opportunity should come naturally, and he knew that it must come naturally to-day.

Bad weather would have crossed his plans; but the long-looked-for or long-dreaded rain was not in the sky to-day: it was cloudless and of a keen blue, and the mists were rolling lower every instant. The whiff of air that came in by the window brought joy and hope on its wings; it quickened his pulses and braced his nerves. István Tolnay felt very sanguine.

"One more glass of wine," he said aloud. " Let this be my stirrup-cup; and then, Excelsior!"

He took up the bottle as he spoke: the red wine gurgled through the throat of olive-green glass. He raised the full glass to his lips, but in the same moment he turned his head, for the door-handle was slowly moving. Slowly, very slowly, the door glided open.

István muttered something between his teeth, and put down the untouched glass so sharply that some drops of red wine splashed over the edge – for Princess Tryphosa was standing before him.

It was Princess Tryphosa: but it was not the glowing sultana, whose beauty but a few weeks ago had still held the power of reviving for a moment the embers of a dead love; neither was it the sobbing woman who had wept at the foot of the beech-tree, nor the calmly desperate woman who had sat opposite to Gretchen last night with the dagger-point between them. Her misery had reached another stage. She was dry-eyed and haggard; she was colourless and worn in face. Her hair was rough, and her dress was crushed and unsightly. She had aged ten years in a few hours. Her eyes had not closed for a moment. All night she had sat, and pondered, and reflected, feeling about carefully for some way out of the straits of her despair. Gretchen had said, "Why do you not appeal to him straight?" and those words had remained fastened in her mind. Of course she had appealed to him already; but for weeks past she had kept silent. One last and desperate appeal might yet save her. She was not a woman to leave any stone, however heavy, unturned. The curious mixture of laziness and energy, of languor and passion, which were the elements of her nature, gave her a strength of purpose which, at first sight, was not to be suspected. By