A prince of lovers

WHEN Countess Minna awoke that morning, she had found herself among surroundings which, as she examined them, gave her considerable uneasiness. In her fatigue and the excitement of the night before she had but cursorily noticed the room, merely finding that it was next to the Princess’s, and communicated with it. When she rose in the morning she saw that this door, which had overnight been left open, was shut. When she tried it she found it locked; when she called to her mistress no answer was returned. She ran to the other, the outer door of her room; that was locked also. A vague alarm seized her. She looked round and shuddered in an excess of fear at the unprepossessing character of the apartment. At night it had looked fairly comfortable; the grey light of morning now brought out its dismal, almost funereal, sombreness. The great bed resembled a catafalque; its hangings, like the rest in the room, were black, scarcely relieved by a purple line of device. The few pictures were portraits, all of singularly forbidding aspect, and the whole tone of the apartment bore out the note of gloom. She went to the window and threw back the curtains; as she did so almost starting back in dismay. The outlook was upon a sheer wall of hewn rock, as gloomy and depressing as was the room. The place had the aspect of a prison, and it seemed very much as though it were really one as far as she was concerned.

“Worse than Krell,” she gasped, as she turned away and began to dress herself. When this was done, she tried the doors again, shaking and knocking at them, but without getting any response. Her fears now increased every moment; she thought of all the tales she had heard of wild robber nobles and their death-traps; were they not nicely caught there? The very circumstance of their flight had made their rescue or any knowledge of their imprisonment an impossibility. Had they not, she asked herself miserably, by their own folly destroyed every clue to their whereabouts, and so unwittingly contrived their disappearance from the face of the earth? Yes, she persuaded herself, they had fallen into hands which would take care that they were never seen or heard of more.

Just as she was working herself into a perfect frenzy of fear and despair, the door suddenly opened, and a maid of somewhat repellent aspect brought in breakfast. This she set down without speaking a word or, indeed, showing any particular consciousness of the other’s presence, and was leaving the room, when Minna sprang after her and asked her anxiously why the door between the rooms had been locked. To this the girl merely shook her head and answered, “I do not know.”

“But I wish to see the other lady at once,” Minna protested. “Will you either unlock that door or show me the way to her room?”

Again the maid shook her head. “I may not. I know nothing,” was her unconvincing reply.

“Then,” exclaimed Minna, pushing forward to the door, “I will go myself and find the way. I will not stay—ah!”

She started back with a little cry. At the door stood a man; none other than the Count.

He came in with a smile, which did not tend to restore Minna’s confidence. The maid went out, and the door was shut again.

“I hope you rested well, Fräulein?”

The set smile gave the lie to the words. Obviously he did not expect to hear of a pleasant night’s rest.

“I slept well, Count. I was dead tired,” she answered, keeping back her trepidation.

“Ah, to be sure. You had a long, fatiguing journey of how many hours—I forget?”

The question was put with just enough insinuation to put the girl on her guard.

“I could not tell you; I lost count of them,” she replied, forcing a laugh.

“Ah, yes; no doubt, and you missed your way, of course. You would hardly take notice of time.”

There was something behind the man’s casual questions. A purpose lurked there. He let it peep out, possibly because he hardly thought concealment worth while. But Minna’s wits, as we have seen, were apt to become sharpened and steadied by a critical situation. They awaited now with apprehensive curiosity the declaration, surely coming, of the Count’s purpose. His eyes were fixed on her in a way which made her feel uncomfortable. It was like the gaze of a snake. She had never thought that light blue eyes could give forth such a sinister expression.

“The Lieutenant and his friend have gone off to look after the broken carriage,” Irromar said.

“Ah!” Minna brightened at the idea of getting away.

“A hopeless errand, I fear.”

His tone made her look up into his face with a start. It seemed to have far more of fate in it than was concerned with a wrecked carriage.

But she tried not to betray the sinking at her heart.

“You can doubtless put us in the way of procuring another carriage,” she suggested.

“Perhaps. I am not sure.”

There was no mistaking the half threat in his tone. She looked at him now in scarcely disguised apprehension.

“You are not sure?” she repeated.

His ferine teeth gleamed out in an inscrutable smile. “Hardly. I have certain doubts as to how far my help should be given. Doubts, pardon me, as to the correctness of the story the Lieutenant told me last night. Yes. Now you, Fräulein, may perhaps find it expedient to declare the truth.”

It was an ugly invitation, more especially in the way it was given. So this was the purpose of the interview, Minna thought; but to what ultimate end? What right had this man, in exchange for a night’s food and shelter, to be inquisitorial?

“I can tell you,” she replied, “nothing more than you have already heard.”

“Nothing nearer the truth?”

“No, indeed.”

“I think you can, Fräulein.”

“You are wrong, Count.”

“No. Nor in thinking that you will.”

Nothing could exceed the masterful tenacity of his manner. It was as though he knew everything, and was merely trying to convict his guest of deceit.

“I can tell you nothing nearer the truth,” Minna persisted. With so great an issue at stake, she could think of nothing but what she conceived to be her duty.

The Count’s eyes never left her, but she bore their searching bravely.

“You can tell me,” he said, very deliberately, “that the Lieutenant and Fräulein von Bertheim, if that be her name, are not brother and sister.”

“I cannot,” she returned evasively.

“You may not?”

“May not?” she laughed, not very successfully. “There is no compulsion, that I know of.”

“There is,” he retorted significantly, “to speak the truth.”

In spite of her fears, his insistence began to irritate her. “If you know better than I, Count, my testimony can scarcely be necessary.”

“Perhaps not,” he returned brusquely; “still I mean to have it.”

He had risen, and now stood over her. The sense of the man’s immense power seemed to dominate her, but she thought of Ruperta, and determined the secret should not be drawn from her.

“You will not tell me the truth,” he continued, “without forcing me to extort it.”

“Extort it?” Desperation gave her courage, and her scornful smile was unforced.

He nodded. “You will do well to listen to reason, Fräulein. I am asking no great matter; simply inviting you to tell me the truth, which I already suspect to practical certainty.”

“If you are uncivil enough to doubt a lady’s word——” she began weakly. He interrupted her by a contemptuous laugh.

“I have no time to waste in bandying words further,” he exclaimed impatiently. “I hoped you would not force me to use my power, but if you will be so foolishly obstinate——”

He moved to the window and flung back the curtain. The wall of rock rose sheer and grey within a few feet, blocking out all view of the sky, and mocking the sight with a poor wedge of daylight which served but to illuminate its black monotony.

“That is all the outside world you will see till you have told me the truth,” Irromar said quietly.

Repressing the shudder which the prospect induced, she turned quickly to him. “Then we are prisoners?”

He smiled uncompromisingly. “Scarcely that, as yet. But you may be.”

“You will keep us here at your peril, Count,” she flared out, her indignation getting the better of her fear.

“It may be,” he returned, as smiling at a child’s threat. “I will take the risk.”

“It may be greater than——” she stopped. In the stress of resentment her tongue was outstripping her judgment.

“Yes?” he asked, with his irritating, probing smile.

“Then this is why I have been locked in my room,” she went on, covering the slip with an excess of indignation. “And is Fräulein von Bertheim a prisoner too under this hospitable roof?”

“It depends upon you,” he answered.

A defiant reply was at her lips, but she thought better and checked it. Boldness and obstinacy were here manifestly out of place; wit alone could avail. After all, since the Count clearly suspected the relationship between Ludovic and Ruperta, where was the point in keeping up a deception which was already hardly one? So long as the great secret of their real identities remained unguessed, the other did not seem to matter much. Since Minna had hoodwinked Rollmar she had acquired confidence in her native wit. What she wanted now was to get back to Ruperta; this solitary confinement and state of alarm were more than she felt she could bear.

“And if I tell you the truth of what you want to know?” she asked, with a fine show of reluctance.

“Then you will be free.”

She made a shrewd grimace. “A vast difference between one word and another.”

“A great difference to you,” he agreed.

“What can it matter to you?”

“I am a man who likes to have his own way at any cost.”

“Cost to your neighbour, your guest.” She could not forego the obvious retort.

“To my guest, even,” he returned, with a shrug, “when I suspect my hospitality has been abused.”

She laughed. “It is, then, a heinous sin in these regions to assume a relationship?”

“I do not allow deception under my roof, if I can detect it,” he replied bluffly. “Now, your companions; tell me. They are no more brother and sister than are you and I?”

“No.”

“They are lovers?”

“You can see that as well as I.”

He tapped his foot impatiently. “Tell me.”

“Then—yes.”

“Of course; it is clear. They are eloping?”

“Under circumstances of infinite respectability, Count,” she said archly.

He laughed. “Ah, yes; of course. Far be it from me to suggest the contrary. Thank you, Fräulein. That is all I wanted to know, unless there is anything more you wish to add.”

“Only a request that, now I have satisfied your curiosity, I may be at liberty to join my friend and prepare for our departure.”

“Certainly, when your carriage is ready.” With a cunning smile, he moved to the door and went out quickly, closing it behind him. When she tried to follow him she found she was again a prisoner.

The Count had bolted the door behind him, and now went straight to the room that had been allotted to the Princess. A very different apartment it was from poor Minna’s; for, whereas that was repulsively dismal and terrifying, Ruperta’s lodging was luxuriously furnished and pleasant in the highest degree. The windows looked out upon the valley and the stretch of pine-clad mountains beyond; there was no hint of a possible prison in those cheerful rooms, the appointments of which went, in their delicate refinement, far beyond anything which that part of the castle they had seen the night before would have led one to expect. The apartment was as magnificent as anything Ruperta had known in her father’s palace; but for her anxiety to be on the way again she could have delighted in the pleasant rest and change of scene. As yet no shadow of a suspicion of her host’s intentions had come to her. She was awaiting with some impatience Minna’s appearance to join her half finished breakfast, when she was told that the Count asked permission to pay his respects to her. He came in, another man from him who had just left Minna. He was now the very perfection of grave courtesy; the attentive host, the open-hearted sportsman.

“I had expected the Lieutenant and his friend back before this,” he observed, after their greeting. “It is long since they went off to inspect the broken carriage.”

“You do not think harm can have come to them?” Ruperta suggested, noticing his serious expression.

“That,” he replied, “is scarcely possible, since I sent several of my men with them.”

She was reassured by his words. “That is well. No doubt they will soon be ready to start.”

“You are in great haste to leave us, Fräulein?”

“Not that, Count. But we have a long journey before us.”

“Ah, yes. It is sad that the pleasure of one must be the pain of another.”

The words were gravely spoken; tinged, perhaps, with a rather deeper feeling than a mere phrase of compliment. Ruperta laughed pleasantly. Her new life and its adventures were breaking down her old reserve.

“Hardly pain, I should hope, Count. Although parting is seldom a matter of indifference; it involves either relief or regret.”

“And here? Relief, you cannot deny it, on one side; regret, I cordially own it, on the other.”

“Relief cannot be our feeling at leaving one who has been our friend in distress,” she objected. “Who has known how to turn a vexatious delay into a pleasant visit.”

“If,” he said, bending forward insinuatingly and speaking in a more earnest tone, “I have succeeded in doing that, I am splendidly rewarded. You, Fräulein, in your distress and anxiety, cannot realize the brightness with which this accident, unlucky and yet lucky, has illuminated my rude, lonely existence.”

She seemed to think he had expressed himself warmly enough, for she replied almost coldly, “It is surely your own choice, this rude, lonely life as you call it. Although I dare say an occasional guest makes an agreeable change.”

The blue eyes were fixed on her in a curious admiration. With glorious beauty such as hers, coldness could only be provocative to a man of the Count’s temperament.

“May I see Fräulein Minna?” she asked. “It is surely time we made ready for leaving.”

“Scarcely, I hope,” he returned, and something in his manner seemed to suggest to her that he might design, she knew not why, to delay their departure.

“Please, Count,” she continued, more insistently, “let me find the Fräulein, or send her to me.”

A man came running out of the wood towards the castle.

“Ah, here comes one of my men,” the Count said. “He evidently brings news. I will see what it is.”

He hastened from the room, leaving Ruperta in a vaguely uneasy state of mind. Very soon he returned, and she saw in his face, as somehow she had anticipated, that he had unpleasant news to give her.

“I am placed in an awkward position,” he said, in reply to her look of inquiry. “My man, who accompanied the Lieutenant and his friend, tells me a story so strange that I hesitate to make it known to you.”

“Please tell me at once—everything,” Ruperta said with compressed lips.

He affected to hesitate for a moment, then said, “It appears that the Lieutenant and Captain von Ompertz have, for some unaccountable reason, taken their departure without you.”

She stared at him for a few moments as though not realizing the news.

“Gone without us?” she said, with quiet incredulity.

He made a grave sign of confirmation. “I fear it is but too true,” he maintained sympathetically. “They have gone, under circumstances which leave, I fear, no doubt as to their intention.”

The notion was so preposterous that it scarcely moved her.

“I cannot believe it,” she said calmly. But the darker idea of a sinister intent prompting the falsehood began to take shape in her mind.

“Will you hear what my man has to say?” Irromar asked.

“No,” she answered, with a cold repression that seemed almost indifference. “At least, not now. I will wait, since there seems yet no chance of our departure.”

He bowed. “I shall be but too honoured and happy to keep you as my guest,” he said, unchecked by her significantly averted face. “Will you pardon my boldness, Fräulein, if I must tell you that, should we unhappily find that your friends have deserted you, you have found another, a devoted friend, in Karl Irromar?”

She returned no answer, gave no sign even that she heard him, and he judged it wise to leave her.