She raged now. She was in a tempest of excitement. And she advanced towards him with a threatening mien. She would kill me if she could, thought the Colonel; but he thought at the same moment, how beautiful she is. He had recovered his head now. She was lovely when he knew her, then a simple country girl, Now she was dazzling, in the fullness of ripe womanhood, a superb creature, with all the fascination that a woman of the world has for such a man as Col. Selby. Nothing of this was lost on him. He stepped quickly to her, grasped both her hands in his, and said, "Laura, stop! think! Suppose I loved you yet! Suppose I hated my fate!
What can I do? I am broken by the war. I have lost everything almost.
I had as lief be dead and done with it.
The Colonel spoke with a low remembered voice that thrilled through Laura. He was looking into her eyes as he had looked in those old days, when no birds of all those that sang in the groves where they walked sang a note of warning. He was wounded. He had been punished. Her strength forsook her with her rage, and she sank upon a chair, sobbing, "Oh! my God, I thought I hated him!"
The Colonel knelt beside her. He took her hand and she let him keep it.
She, looked down into his face, with a pitiable tenderness, and said in a weak voice.
"And you do love me a little?"
The Colonel vowed and protested. He kissed her hand and her lips. He swore his false soul into perdition.
She wanted love, this woman. Was not her love for George Selby deeper than any other woman's could be? Had she not a right to him ? Did he not belong to her by virtue of her overmastering passion? His wife--she was not his wife, except by the law. She could not be. Even with the law she could have no right to stand between two souls that were one.
It was an infamous condition in society that George should be tied to her.
Laura thought this, believed it; because she desired to believe it. She came to it as an original propositions founded an the requirements of her own nature. She may have heard, doubtless she had, similar theories that were prevalent at that day, theories of the tyranny of marriage and of the freedom of marriage. She had even heard women lecturers say, that marriage should only continue so long as it pleased either party to it--for a year, or a month, or a day. She had not given much heed to this, but she saw its justice now in a dash of revealing desire. It must be right. God would not have permitted her to love George Selby as she did, and him to love her, if it was right for society to raise up a barrier between them. He belonged to her. Had he not confessed it himself?
Not even the religious atmosphere of Senator Dilworthy's house had been sufficient to instill into Laura that deep Christian principle which had been somehow omitted in her training. Indeed in that very house had she not heard women, prominent before the country and besieging Congress, utter sentiments that fully justified the course she was marking out for herself.
They were seated now, side by side, talking with more calmness. Laura was happy, or thought she was. But it was that feverish sort of happiness which is snatched out of the black shadow of falsehood, and is at the moment recognized as fleeting and perilous, and indulged tremblingly. She loved. She was loved. That is happiness certainly.
And the black past and the troubled present and the uncertain future could not snatch that from her.
What did they say as they sat there? What nothings do people usually say in such circumstances, even if they are three-score and ten? It was enough for Laura to hear his voice and be near him. It was enough for him to be near her, and avoid committing himself as much as he could.
Enough for him was the present also. Had there not always been some way out of such scrapes?
And yet Laura could not be quite content without prying into tomorrow.
How could the Colonel manage to free himself from his wife? Would it be long? Could he not go into some State where it would not take much time?
He could not say exactly. That they must think of. That they must talk over. And so on. Did this seem like a damnable plot to Laura against the life, maybe, of a sister, a woman like herself? Probably not.
It was right that this man should be hers, and there were some obstacles in the way. That was all. There are as good reasons for bad actions as for good ones,--to those who commit them. When one has broken the tenth commandment, the others are not of much account.
Was it unnatural, therefore, that when George Selby departed, Laura should watch him from the window, with an almost joyful heart as he went down the sunny square? "I shall see him to-morrow," she said," and the next day, and the next. He is mine now."
"Damn the woman," said the Colonel as he picked his way down the steps.
"Or," he added, as his thoughts took a new turn, "I wish my wife was in New Orleans."
