This was no less than Mistress Clorinda herself.She was clad in a morning gown of white,which seemed to make of her more than ever a tall,transcendent creature,less a woman than a conquering goddess;and she had piled the dial with scarlet red roses,which she was choosing to weave into a massive wreath or crown,for some purpose best known to herself.Her head seemed haughtier and more splendidly held on high even than was its common wont,but upon these roses her lustrous eyes were downcast and were curiously smiling,as also was her ripe,arching lip,whose scarlet the blossoms vied with but poorly.It was a smile like this,perhaps,which Mistress Wimpole feared and trembled before,for 'twas not a tender smile nor a melting one.If she was waiting,she did not wait long,nor,to be sure,would she have long waited if she had been kept by any daring laggard.This was not her way.
'Twas not a laggard who came soon,stepping hurriedly with light feet upon the grass,as though he feared the sound which might be made if he had trodden upon the gravel.It was Sir John Oxon who came towards her in his riding costume.
He came and stood before her on the other side of the dial,and made her a bow so low that a quick eye might have thought 'twas almost mocking.His feather,sweeping the ground,caught a fallen rose,which clung to it.His beauty,when he stood upright,seemed to defy the very morning's self and all the morning world;but Mistress Clorinda did not lift her eyes,but kept them upon her roses,and went on weaving.
"Why did you choose to come?"she asked.
"Why did you choose to keep the tryst in answer to my message?"he replied to her.
At this she lifted her great shining eyes and fixed them full upon him.
"I wished,"she said,"to hear what you would say--but more to SEEyou than to hear."
"And I,"he began--"I came--"
She held up her white hand with a long-stemmed rose in it--as though a queen should lift a sceptre.
"You came,"she answered,"more to see ME than to hear.You made that blunder.""You choose to bear yourself like a goddess,and disdain me from Olympian heights,"he said."I had the wit to guess it would be so."She shook her royal head,faintly and most strangely smiling.
"That you had not,"was her clear-worded answer."That is a later thought sprung up since you have seen my face.'Twas quick--for you--but not quick enough."And the smile in her eyes was maddening."You thought to see a woman crushed and weeping,her beauty bent before you,her locks dishevelled,her streaming eyes lifted to Heaven--and you--with prayers,swearing that not Heaven could help her so much as your deigning magnanimity.You have seen women do this before,you would have seen ME do it--at your feet--crying out that I was lost--lost for ever.THAT you expected!'Tis not here."Debauched as his youth was,and free from all touch of heart or conscience--for from his earliest boyhood he had been the pupil of rakes and fashionable villains--well as he thought he knew all women and their ways,betraying or betrayed--this creature taught him a new thing,a new mood in woman,a new power which came upon him like a thunderbolt.
"Gods!"he exclaimed,catching his breath,and even falling back apace,"Damnation!you are NOT a woman!"She laughed again,weaving her roses,but not allowing that his eyes should loose themselves from hers.
"But now,you called me a goddess and spoke of Olympian heights,"she said;"I am not one--I am a woman who would show other women how to bear themselves in hours like these.Because I am a woman why should I kneel,and weep,and rave?What have I lost--in losing you?I should have lost the same had I been twice your wife.What is it women weep and beat their breasts for--because they love a man--because they lose his love.They never have them."She had finished the wreath,and held it up in the sun to look at it.What a strange beauty was hers,as she held it so--a heavy,sumptuous thing--in her white hands,her head thrown backward.
"You marry soon,"she asked--"if the match is not broken?""Yes,"he answered,watching her--a flame growing in his eyes and in his soul in his own despite.
"It cannot be too soon,"she said.And she turned and faced him,holding the wreath high in her two hands poised like a crown above her head--the brilliant sun embracing her,her lips curling,her face uplifted as if she turned to defy the light,the crimson of her cheek.'Twas as if from foot to brow the woman's whole person was a flame,rising and burning triumphant high above him.Thus for one second's space she stood,dazzling his very eyesight with her strange,dauntless splendour;and then she set the great rose-wreath upon her head,so crowning it.
