Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/650

644 morning she had matured, not only her plan, but also the details. She had resolved that she should not go alone – that she should take her child with her. Her love for her child was very genuine of its kind; but it was not maternal affection which was the cause of the little Codran having been roused out of his sleep at daybreak, and dragged up out of his soft cushions. Instinct told her that that small curly head would play a useful part in the scene which she was deliberately going to provoke. Never had she been so sincerely grateful to Providence for having given her a pretty boy for her son as to-day, when she believed that his pretty looks might help her to touch István Tolnay's heart, or rather to fire his fancy. In a sort of dim and far-off way she felt aware that she was not beautiful to-day, and some impulse moved her to put her son's beauty in place of her own. Here, again, it was her knowledge of the man which guided her.

Her appearance came in such harsh contrast to his thoughts of a minute ago, that István for a moment seemed to have lost the power of speech. He stared at the white-faced woman, and the sleepy child which clung to her hand, as if he did not know them. But long before Tryphosa had succeeded in speaking, he had recovered himself.

"Princess! You here! Is it possible?"

The Princess shut the door as slowly as she had opened it, and came forwards towards him.

"What imprudence! The servants might have seen you!"

The Princess stood still, with her child drawn to her side, and looked back at him, still searching for words, and struggling for expression of what she felt and wanted to show. She would have preferred to give some sign more passionate and moving; but she had grown so used to slowness, that even at a moment as critical as was this one, she was unable to move or to speak quickly. It was too unaccustomed and too strange.

"The servants have seen me," she said at last. "Do you think I would stop at that?"

István understood now that she was desperate; and as for the rest, he did not much care. His conduct had never been shaped to please public opinion, and if Tryphosa could brave the world, so could he.

Prudence was a cloak which sat ill upon him, and Tryphosa saw how ill it sat.

"You were not usually so prudent, István, when you used to climb to my window in order to get a smile, and when you used to pick up the flowers I dropped, under my husband's eyes. Do you remember that time?"

"Excuse my surprise," said István, with convenient evasion, and still feigning a stupefaction which he had already ceased to feel; "but you never leave the house so early as this."

"And when you used to carry my hair in a locket," she went on, with that despairing tenacity of hers. "There is other hair in the locket now, I suppose?"

"Nonsense, Tryphosa! there is not."

"And you used not to go to mountains at that time, or, if you went, it was with your gun and your dog alone."

"My gun and my dog have been to the mountains often enough this summer," he said, sullenly. "I am not a man to be tied to apron-strings."

"You are going to the mountains again; you are going to-day – now. I see it by your dress, and I knew it before; that is why I came so early."