sequel.
During one long moment she remained motionless, our glances meeting. Her cloak had slipped, exposing a bare arm and shoulder. I was partly supporting her and trying frenziedly to find words to excuse my apparent violence, when, still looking up at me, she turned slightly.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “Was it... to save me from contagion?”
The cue was a welcome one; I seized it gladly.
“Of course!” I replied, but knew that my assurance rang false. “I warned you that I should not allow you to touch him.”
She continued to watch me, resting in the crook of my arm; and I had never experienced such vile impulses as those which goaded me during those few seconds. The most singular promptings were dancing in my brain. I thought she was offering me her lips, or, rather, challenging me to reject the offer. With a movement so slight that it might have been accidental, she seemed to invite me to caress her.
Yes, the most utterly damnable thing. I, in whose blood there runs a marked streak of Puritanism, I, with poor Petrie lying there in the grip of a dread disease, suddenly wanted to crush this woman—his wife—in my arms!
It was only a matter of hours since I had met Fleurette on the beach of Ste Claire de la Roche and had become so infatuated with her beauty and charm that I had been thinking about her almost continuously ever since. Yet here I stood fighting against a sudden lawless desire for the wife of my best friend—a desire so wild that it threatened to swamp everything—friendship, tradition, honour!
Perhaps I might have conquered—unaided. I am not prepared to say. But aid came to me, and came in the form of what I thought at the time to be a miracle. As I looked down into those enigmatical, mocking eyes, in a silence broken only by the hushing of the pines outside the window—a voice—a groaning, hollow voice, a voice that might have issued from a tomb—spoke.
“Beware... of her ,” it said.
Mrs. Petrie sprang back. A fleeting glimpse I had of stark horror in the long, narrow eyes. My heart, which had been beating madly, seemed to stop for a moment.
I twisted my head aside, staring down at Petrie.
Was it imagination—or did I detect a faint quivering of those swollen eyelids? Could it be he who had spoken? That slight movement, if it had ever been, had ceased. He lay still as the dead.
“Who was it?” Mrs. Petrie whispered, her patrician calm ruffled at last. “Whose voice was that?”
I stared at her. The spell was broken. The glamour of those bewitched moments had faded—dismissed by that sepulchral voice. Mrs. Petrie’s eyelashes now almost veiled her long, brilliant eyes. One hand was clenched, the other hidden beneath her cloak. My ideas performed a complete about-turn. Some hidden, inexplicable madness had possessed me, from the consequences of which I had been saved by an act of God!
“I don’t know,” I said hoarsely. “I don’t know...”
CHAPTER NINE
FAH LO SUEE
T he end of that interview is hazy in my memory. Concerning one detail, however, I have no doubt: Mrs. Petrie did not again approach the sick man’s bed. Despite her wonderful self-discipline, she could not entirely hide her apprehension. I detected her casting swift glances at Petrie and—once—upwards towards the solitary window.
That awful warning, so mysteriously spoken—could have related only to her...
I rang for Sister Therese and arranged that the night concierge should conduct the visitor to her car. I suspected that the neighbourhood was none too safe.
Mrs. Petrie gave me the address of a hotel in Cannes, asking that she be kept in touch. She would return, she said, unless summoned earlier, at eight in the morning. She had fully regained her graceful composure by this time, and I found myself wondering what her true nationality could be. Her languid calm was hard to reconcile with wifely devotion: indeed, I had expected her to insist upon remaining.
And when, with a final
During one long moment she remained motionless, our glances meeting. Her cloak had slipped, exposing a bare arm and shoulder. I was partly supporting her and trying frenziedly to find words to excuse my apparent violence, when, still looking up at me, she turned slightly.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “Was it... to save me from contagion?”
The cue was a welcome one; I seized it gladly.
“Of course!” I replied, but knew that my assurance rang false. “I warned you that I should not allow you to touch him.”
She continued to watch me, resting in the crook of my arm; and I had never experienced such vile impulses as those which goaded me during those few seconds. The most singular promptings were dancing in my brain. I thought she was offering me her lips, or, rather, challenging me to reject the offer. With a movement so slight that it might have been accidental, she seemed to invite me to caress her.
Yes, the most utterly damnable thing. I, in whose blood there runs a marked streak of Puritanism, I, with poor Petrie lying there in the grip of a dread disease, suddenly wanted to crush this woman—his wife—in my arms!
It was only a matter of hours since I had met Fleurette on the beach of Ste Claire de la Roche and had become so infatuated with her beauty and charm that I had been thinking about her almost continuously ever since. Yet here I stood fighting against a sudden lawless desire for the wife of my best friend—a desire so wild that it threatened to swamp everything—friendship, tradition, honour!
Perhaps I might have conquered—unaided. I am not prepared to say. But aid came to me, and came in the form of what I thought at the time to be a miracle. As I looked down into those enigmatical, mocking eyes, in a silence broken only by the hushing of the pines outside the window—a voice—a groaning, hollow voice, a voice that might have issued from a tomb—spoke.
“Beware... of her ,” it said.
Mrs. Petrie sprang back. A fleeting glimpse I had of stark horror in the long, narrow eyes. My heart, which had been beating madly, seemed to stop for a moment.
I twisted my head aside, staring down at Petrie.
Was it imagination—or did I detect a faint quivering of those swollen eyelids? Could it be he who had spoken? That slight movement, if it had ever been, had ceased. He lay still as the dead.
“Who was it?” Mrs. Petrie whispered, her patrician calm ruffled at last. “Whose voice was that?”
I stared at her. The spell was broken. The glamour of those bewitched moments had faded—dismissed by that sepulchral voice. Mrs. Petrie’s eyelashes now almost veiled her long, brilliant eyes. One hand was clenched, the other hidden beneath her cloak. My ideas performed a complete about-turn. Some hidden, inexplicable madness had possessed me, from the consequences of which I had been saved by an act of God!
“I don’t know,” I said hoarsely. “I don’t know...”
CHAPTER NINE
FAH LO SUEE
T he end of that interview is hazy in my memory. Concerning one detail, however, I have no doubt: Mrs. Petrie did not again approach the sick man’s bed. Despite her wonderful self-discipline, she could not entirely hide her apprehension. I detected her casting swift glances at Petrie and—once—upwards towards the solitary window.
That awful warning, so mysteriously spoken—could have related only to her...
I rang for Sister Therese and arranged that the night concierge should conduct the visitor to her car. I suspected that the neighbourhood was none too safe.
Mrs. Petrie gave me the address of a hotel in Cannes, asking that she be kept in touch. She would return, she said, unless summoned earlier, at eight in the morning. She had fully regained her graceful composure by this time, and I found myself wondering what her true nationality could be. Her languid calm was hard to reconcile with wifely devotion: indeed, I had expected her to insist upon remaining.
And when, with a final
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