She looked at him for a long serious moment, as though wondering whether or not he could see the change in her—pathetically hoping—But it was no use. Of course he could see it. Everyone else had—why shouldn’t he?

“I’m well again, yes,” she murmured. “But I wish I weren’t. I wish I were dead. Look at me—!” Her hands came down, her voice was a lonely cry, anguished and full of desperation; behind them they heard a sudden hard sob from her mother. “Oh, look at me! I’m ugly now!”

He grabbed her hand. “Oh, but you’re not, Frances! This won’t last, I promise you it won’t! Why, you should have seen me after I’d had it. I was enough to frighten the devil himself. But now—look—you can’t see a mark.” He looked up eagerly into her face, smiling, holding both her hands against his heavy beating heart. He felt a passionate longing to help her, to make her believe again in the future, though he did not believe in it himself. And as he talked her eyes began to lighten, something like hope came back into her face. “Why, in no time at all it won’t be possible to tell you’ve ever had the small-pox. You’ll come to the balls and they’ll all say that you’re more beautiful than ever. You’ll be more beautiful than you were that first night I saw you. Remember, darling, that black-and-white lace gown you were wearing, with the diamonds in your hair—”

Frances watched him, fascinated, listening intently. His words had the sound of some old and half-intentionally forgotten melody. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I remember—and you asked me to dance with you—”

“I couldn’t take my eyes off you—I’d never seen such a beautiful woman—”

She smiled at him, passionately grateful for his kindness, but the game was a sorry one and she knew as well as he did that they were only pretending. With all the effort of will she could summon she held back the tears while he sat with her and talked, trying desperately to take her mind off herself. But all her thoughts were wholly of her own tragedy; and Charles, too, could think of nothing else.

Oh, why did it happen to her? he thought, furious with resentment. Why should it have happened to Frances, who had been gay and sweet and friendly, when there were other women who better deserved a fate like that—

But Charles was a stubborn man.

Once, he had said that he hoped someday to find her ugly and willing. He had forgotten the thoughtless words, but he had not forgotten the years of waiting and pleading and promising, the ache of desire, the longing for possession and fulfillment. And now, all at once, it was she who had become the supplicant.

Late one afternoon they were in the garden that ran down to the river behind Somerset House, strolling arm in arm between a tall row of clipped limes. Frances was dressed in a lovely blue-satin gown with flounces of black lace on the skirt; a veil of black lace was flung over her hair and fell across her face to her chin. With her feeling for beauty, she had instinctively begun to try to compensate for what the disease had done to her. She used her fan for concealment, veils to shield her skin, and now when she paused beside the river it was in the shadow of a great elm.

Silently they stood looking out over the water, and then her hand in the bend of his arm tightened slowly and he turned to find her staring up at him. For a moment Charles made no move but stood watching her, and he saw that she was asking him to kiss her. His arms went about her and this time there was no holding him off with her finger-tips, no giggle of protest as his body pressed close. Instead she clung to him, her arms drawing him to her, and he could feel in her mouth not real passion but eagerness to please—a frightened premonition that he would no longer find her desirable.

Charles, his pity for her over-riding his inevitable reaction to a woman’s body and lips, released her gently. But she did not want to let him go. Her hands caught at his upper arms.

“Oh, you were right all along! I was a fool—You should never have been so patient with me!”

Surprised at her frankness, he said softly, “My dear, I hope that I shall never be any such bungler as to take a woman against her will.”

“But I—” she began, and then stopped suddenly, blushing. All at once she turned and went running up the path, and he knew that she was crying.

The next night, however, as he was getting alone into a scull at the Palace stairs to take a short evening ride on the river he made a sudden decision, turned the boat around, and started toward Somerset House. The little craft went skimming over the water’s surface; he beached it and jumped out. The water-gate was locked but in a moment he had vaulted the wall and was off on a run through the gardens toward the house.

I’ve waited five years and a half for this, he thought. I hope to God it hasn’t been too long!

CHAPTER FIFTY–EIGHT