CHAPTER XIII
THE WOMAN WHO KNEW
"Don't you sometimes grow weary for an abiding place?" Laura pulled off her gauntlets and laid her hot hands on the cool lichen-grown stones of the field-wall. The bridle-rein hung over her arm. Fitzgerald had drawn his through a stirrup. "Think of wandering here and there, with never a place to come back to."
"I have thought of it often in the few days I have been here. I have a home in New York, but I could not possibly afford to live in it; so I rent it; and when I want to go fishing there's enough under hand to pay the expenses. My poor old dad! He was always indorsing notes for his friends, or carrying stock for them; and nothing ever came back. I am afraid the disillusions broke his heart. And then, perhaps I was a bitter disappointment. I was expelled from college in my junior year. I had no head for figures other than that kind which inhabit the Louvre and the Vatican."
Her face became momentarily mirthful.
"So I couldn't take hold of the firm for him," he continued. "And I suppose the last straw was when I tried my hand at reporting on one of the newspapers. He knew that the gathering of riches, so far as I was concerned, was a closed door. But I found my level; the business was and is the only one that ever interested me or fused my energy with real work."
"But it is real work. You are one of those men who have done something. Most men these days rest on their fathers' laurels."
"It's the line of the least resistance. I never knew that the Jersey coast was so picturesque. What a sweep! Do you know, your house on that pine-grown crest reminds me of the Villa Serbelloni, only yonder is the sea instead of Como?"
"Como." Her eyes became dreamily half-shut. Recollection put on its seven-league boots and annihilated the space between the wall under her elbows and the gardens of Serbelloni. Fitzgerald half understood the thought. "Isn't Mr. Breitmann just a bit of a mystery to you?" she asked. The seven-league boots had returned at a bound.
"In some ways, yes." He rather resented the abrupt angle; it was not in poetic touch with the time being.
"He is inclined to be too much reserved. But last night Mr. Ferraud succeeded in tearing down some of it. If I could put in a book what all you men have seen and taken part in! Mr. Breitmann would be almost handsome but for those scars."
He kicked the turf at the foot of the wall. "In Germany they are considered beauty-spots."
"I am not in sympathy with that custom."
"Still, it requires courage of a kind."
"The noblest wounds are those that are carried unseen. Student scars are merely patches of vanity."
"He has others besides those. He was nearly killed in the Soudan." Fitzgerald was compelled to offer some defense for the absent. That Breitmann had lied to him, that his appearance here had been in the regular order of things, did not take away the fact that the Bavarian was a man and a brave one. Closely as he had watched, up to the present he had learned absolutely nothing; and to have shown Breitmann the telegram would have accomplished nothing further than to have put him wholly on guard.
"Have you no scars?" mischief in her eyes.
"Not yet;" and the force of his gaze turned hers aside. "Yet I must not forget my conscience; 'tis pretty well battered up."
She greeted this with laughter. She had heard men talk like this before. "You have probably never done a mean or petty thing in all your life."
"Mean and petty things never disturb a man's conscience. It's the big things that scar."
"That's a platitude."
"Then my end of the conversation is becoming flat."
"Confess that you are eager to return to the great highways once more."
"I shall confess nothing of the sort. I should like to stay here for a hundred years."
"You would miss us all very much then," merrily. "And Napoleon's treasure would have gone in and out of innumerable pockets!"
"Do you really and truly believe that we shall bring home a single franc of it?" facing her with incredulous eyes.
"Really and truly. And why not? Treasures have been found before.
Fie on you for a Doubting Thomas!"
"We sometimes go many miles to find, in the end, that the treasure was all the time under our very eyes."
"Hyperbole!" But she looked down at the lichen again and began pealing it off the stone. She thought of a duke she knew. At this instant he would have been telling her that she was the most beautiful woman since Helen. What a relief this man at her side was! She was perfectly aware that he admired her, but he veiled his tributes with half-smiles and flashes of humor. "What a gay little man that Mr. Ferraud is!"
"Lively as a cricket. Your father, I understand, is to take him as far as Marseilles. After to-night everything will be quite formal, I suppose. Honestly, I feel ill at ease in accepting your splendid hospitality. I'm an interloper. I haven't even the claim of an ordinary introduction. It has been very, very kind of you."
"You know Mrs. Coldfield. I will, if you wish it, ask her to present you to me."
"I am really serious."
"So am I."
"They will be here to-morrow?"
"Yes. And in four days we sail. Oh, it is all so beautiful! A real treasure hunt."
"It does not seem possible that I have been here a week. It has been a long time since I enjoyed myself so thoroughly. Have you ever wondered what has become of the other man?"
"The other man?"
"Yes; the other one in or outside the chimney. I've been thinking about him this long while. Hasn't it occurred to you that he may have other devices?"
"If he has he will find that he has waited too long. But I would like to know how he found out. You see," triumphantly, "he believed that there is one." She shook the rein, for the sleek mare was nozzling her shoulder and pawing slightly, "Let us be off."
She put her small booted foot on his palm and vaulted into the saddle, and he swung on to his mount. He stuffed his cap into a pocket, for he was no fair-weather horseman, but loved the tingle of the wind rushing through his hair; and the two cantered down the clear sandy road.
"En avant!" she cried joyously, with a light stroke of her whip.
For half a mile they ran and drew in at the fork in the road.
Exhilaration was in the eyes of both of them.
"There's nothing equal to it. You feel alive. And off there," with a wave of the whip toward the sea, "off there lies our fortunes. O happy day! to take part in a really truly adventure, without the assistance of a romancer!"
"I think you are one of the most charming women I have ever met," he replied.
"Some women would object to the modification, but I rather like it."
"I withdraw the modification." The smile on his lips was not reflected in his eyes.
The antithesis of the one expression to the other did not annoy her; rather she was sensitive to a tender exultance the recurrence of which, later in the day, subdued her: for Breitmann at tea turned a few phrases of a similar character. Fitzgerald was light-hearted and boyish, Breitmann was grave and dignified; but in the eyes of each there was a force she had encountered so seldom as to forget its being. Breitmann, in his capacity of secretary, was not so often in her company as Fitzgerald; nevertheless she was subtly attracted toward him. When he was of the mind he could invent a happy compliment with a felicity no less facile than Fitzgerald. And the puzzling thing of it all was, both men she knew from their histories had never been ornaments at garden-parties where compliments are current coin. She liked Fitzgerald, but she admired Breitmann, a differentiation which she had no inclination to resolve into first principles. That Breitmann was a secretary for hire drew no barrier in her mind. She had known many gentlemen of fine families who had served in like situations. There were no social distinctions. On the other hand, she never felt wholly comfortable with Breitmann. There was not the least mistrust in this feeling. It was rather because she instinctively felt that he was above his occupation. To sum it up briefly, Breitmann was difficult to understand and Fitzgerald wasn't.
Fitzgerald had an idea; boldly put, it was a grave suspicion. Not once had he forgotten the man in the chimney. Once the finger had pointed at Breitmann or some one with whom he was in understanding. This had proved to be groundless. But he kept turning over the incident and inspecting it from all sides. There were others a-treasure hunting; persons unknown; and a man might easily become desperate in the pursuit of two-million francs, almost half a million of American money, more, for some of these coins would be rare. He had thoroughly searched the ground outside the cellar-window, but the sea gravel held its secret with a tenacity as baffling as the mother-sea herself. There was a new under-groom, or rather there had been. He had left, and where he had gone no one knew. Fitzgerald dismissed the thought of him; at the most he could have been but an accomplice, one to unlock the cellar-window.
While Breitmann lingered near Laura, offering what signs of admiration he dared, and while the admiral chatted to his country neighbors who were gathered round the tea-table, Fitzgerald and M. Ferraud were braced against the terrace wall, a few yards farther on, and exchanged views on various peoples.
"America is a wonderful country," said M. Ferraud, when they had exhausted half a dozen topics. He spread out his hands, Frenchman-wise.
"So it is." Fitzgerald threw away his cigarette.
"And how foolish England was over a pound of tea."
"Something like that."
"But see what she lost!" with a second gesture.
"In one way it would not have mattered. She would patronize us as she still does."
"Do you not resent it, this patronizing attitude?"
"Oh, no—we are very proud to be patronized by England," cynically. "It's a fine thing to have a lord tell you that you wear your clothes jolly well."
"I wonder if you are serious or jesting."
"I am very serious at this moment," said Fitzgerald quietly catching the other by the wrist and turning the palm.
M. Ferraud looked into his face with an astonishment on his own, most genuine. But he did not struggle. "Why do you do that?"
"I am curious, Mr. Ferraud, when I see a hand like this. Would you mind letting me see the other?"
"Not in the least." M. Ferraud offered the other hand.
Fitzgerald let go. "What was your object?"
"Mon dieu! what object?"
Fitzgerald lowered his voice. "What was your object in digging holes in yonder chimney? Did you know what was there? And what do you propose to do now?"
M. Ferraud coolly, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses. It needed but a moment to adjust them. "What are you talking about?"
"You are really M. Ferraud?" said the young man coldly.
The Frenchman produced a wallet and took out a letter. It was written by the president of France, introducing M. Ferraud to the ambassador at Washington. Next, there was a passport, and far more important than either of these was the Legion of Honor. "Yes, I am Anatole Ferraud."
"That is all I desire to know."
"Shall we return to the ladies?" asked M. Ferraud, restoring his treasures.
"Since there is nothing more to be said at present. It seems strange to me that foreign politics should find its way here."
"Politics? I am only a butterfly hunter."
"There are varieties. But you are the man. I shall find out!"
"Possibly," returned M. Ferraud thinking hard.
"I give you fair warning that if anything is missing—"
"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!"
"I shall know where to look for it," with a smile which had no humor in it.
"Why not denounce me now?"
"Would it serve your purpose?"
"No," with deeper gravity. "It would be a great disaster; how great, I can not tell you."
"Then, I shall say nothing."
"About what?" dryly, even whimsically.
"About your being a secret agent from France."
This time M. Ferraud's glance proved that he was truly startled. Only three times in his career had his second life been questioned or suspected. He eyed his hands accusingly; they had betrayed him. This young man was clever, cleverer than he had thought. He had been too confident and had committed a blunder. Should he trust him? With that swift unerring instinct which makes the perfect student of character, he said: "You will do me a great favor not to impart this suspicion to any one else."
"Suspicion?"
"It is true: I am a secret agent;" and he said it proudly.
"You wish harm to none here?"
"Mon dieu! No. I am here for the very purpose of saving you all from heartaches and misfortune and disillusion. And had I set to work earlier I should have accomplished all this without a single one of you knowing it. Now the matter will have to go on to its end."
"Can you tell me anything?"
"Not now. I trust you; will you trust me?"
Fitzgerald hesitated for a space. "Yes."
"For that, thanks," and M. Ferraud put out a hand. "It is clean, Mr.
Fitzgerald, for all that the skin is broken."
"Of that I have no doubt."
"Before we reach Corsica you will know."
And so temporarily that ended the matter. But as Fitzgerald went over to the chair just vacated by the secretary, he found that there was a double zest to life now. This would be far more exciting than dodging ice-floes and freezing one's toes.
Laura told him the news. Their guests would arrive that evening in time for dinner.
It was Breitmann's habit to come down first. He would thrum a little on the piano or take down some old volume. To-night it was Heine. He had not met any of the guests yet, which he considered a piece of good fortune. But God only knew what would happen when she saw him. He dreaded the moment, dreaded it with anguish. She was a woman, schooled in acting, but a time comes when the best acting is not sufficient. If only in some way he might have warned her; but no way had opened. She would find him ready, however, ready with his eyes, his lips, his nerves. What would the others think or say if she lost her presence of mind? His teeth snapped. He read on. The lamp threw the light on the scarred side of his face.
He heard some one enter, and his gaze stole over the top of his book. This person was a woman, and her eyes traveled from object to object with a curiosity tinged with that incertitude which attacks us all when we enter an unfamiliar room. She was dressed in black, showing the white arms and neck. Her hair was like ripe wheat after a rain-storm: oh, but he knew well the color of her eyes, blue as the Adriatic. She was a woman of perhaps thirty, matured, graceful, handsome. The sight of her excited a thrill in his veins, deny it how he would.
She scanned the long rows of books, the strange weapons, the heroic and sinister flags, the cases of butterflies. With each inspection she stepped nearer and nearer, till by reaching out his hand he might have touched her. Quietly he rose. It was a critical moment.
She was startled. She had thought she was alone.
"Pardon me," she said, in a low, musical voice; "I did not know that any one was here." And then she saw his face. Her own blanched and her hands went to her heart. "Karl?"
CHAPTER XIV
THE DRAMA BEGINS
She swayed a little, but recovered as the pain of the shock was succeeded by numbness. That out of the dark of this room, into the light of that lamp, in this house so far removed from cities that it seemed not a part of the world . . . there should step this man! Why had there been no hint of his presence? Why had not the clairvoyance of despair warned her? One of her hands rose and pressed over her eyes, as if to sponge out this phantom. It was useless; it was no dream; he was still there, this man she had neither seen nor heard of for five years because her will was stronger than her desire, this man who had broken her heart as children break toys! And deep below all this present terror was the abiding truth that she still loved him and always would love him. The shame of this knowledge did more than all else to rouse and to nerve her.
"Karl?" It was like an echo.
"Yes." There was war in his voice and attitude and not without reason. He had wronged this woman, not with direct intention it was true, but nevertheless he had wronged her; and her presence here could mean nothing less than that fate had selected this spot for the reckoning. She could topple down his carefully reared schemes with the same ease with which he had blown over hers. And to him these schemes were life to his breath and salt to his blood, everything. What was one woman? cynically. "Yes, it is I," in the tongue native to them both.
"And what do you here?"
"I am Admiral Killigrew's private secretary." He wet his lips. He was not so strong before this woman as he had expected to be. The glamour of the old days was faintly rekindled at the sight of her. And she was beautiful.
"Then, this is the house?" in a whisper.
"It is."
"You terrify me!"
"Hildegarde, this is your scheme," shrugging. "Tell them all you know; break me, ruin me. Here is a fair opportunity for revenge."
"God forbid!" she cried with a shiver. "Were you guilty of all crimes,
I could only remember that once I loved you."
"You shame me," he replied frankly, but with infinite relief. "You have outdone me in magnanimity. Will you forgive me?"
"Oh, yes. Forgiveness is one of the few things you men can not rob us of." She spoke without bitterness, but her eyes were dim and her lips dropped. "What shall we do? They must not know that we have met."
"Cathewe knows," moodily.
"I had forgotten!"
"I leave all in your hands. Do what you will. If you break me—and
God knows well that you can do it—it would be only an act of justice.
I have been a damned scoundrel; I am man enough to admit of that."
She saw his face more clearly now. Time had marked it. There were new lines at the corners of his eyes and the cheek-bones were more prominent. Perhaps he had suffered too. "You will always have the courage to do," she said, "right or wrong in a great manner."
"Am I wrong to seek—"
"Hush! I know. It is what you must thrust aside or break to reach it,
Karl. The thing itself is not wrong, but you will go about it wrongly.
You can not help that."
He did not reply. Perhaps she was right. Indeed, was she not herself an example of it? If there was one thing in his complex career that he regretted more than another it was the deception of this woman. He did not possess the usual vanity of the sex; there was nothing here to be proud of; his dream of conquest was not over the kingdom of women.
"Some one is coming," he said, listening.
"Leave it all to me."
"Ah! . . ." with a hand toward her.
"Do not say it. I understand the thought. If only you loved me, you would say!" the iron in her voice unmistakable.
He let his hand fall. He was sorry.
Presently the others made their entrance upon the scene, a singular anticlimax. The admiral rang for the cocktails. Introductions followed.
"Is it not strange?" said the singer to Laura. "I stole in here to look at the trophies, when I discovered Mr. Breitmann whom I once knew in Munich."
"Mr. Cathewe," said the young hostess, "this is Mr. Breitmann, who is aiding father in the compilation of his book."
"Mr. Breitmann and I have met before," said Cathewe soberly.
The two men bowed. Cathewe never gave his hand to any but his intimates. But Laura, who was not aware of this ancient reserve, thought that both of them showed a lack of warmth. And Fitzgerald, who was watching all comers now, was sure that the past of his friend and Breitmann interlaced in some way.
"So, young man," said Mrs. Coldfield, a handsome motherly woman, "you have had the impudence to let five years pass without darkening my doors. What excuse have you?"
"I'm guilty of anything you say," Fitzgerald answered humbly. "What shall be my punishment?"
"You shall take Miss Laura in and I shall sit at your left."
"For my sins it shall be as you say. But, really, I have been so little in New York," he added.
"I forgive you simply because you have not made a failure of your mother's son. And you look like her, too." It is one of the privileges of old persons to compare the young with this or that parent.
"You are flattering me. Dad used to say that I was as homely as a hedge-fence."
"Now you're fishing, and I'm too old a fish to rise to such a cast."
"I heard you sing in Paris a few years ago," said M. Ferraud.
"Yes?" Hildegarde von Mitter wondered who this little man could be.
"And you sing no more?"
"No. The bird has flown; only the woman remains." They were at the table now, and she absently plucked the flowers beside her plate.
"Ah, to sing as you did, and then to disappear, to vanish! You had no right to do so. You belonged to the public," animatedly.
"The public is always selfish; it always demands more than any single person can give to it. Pardon?" she said as Cathewe leaned to speak to her. "I did not hear."
M. Ferraud nibbled his crisp celery.
"I asked, what will you do?" repeated Cathewe for her ear only.
"What do you mean?"
"Did you know that he was here?"
"I should not have been seated at this table had I known."
"Some day you are going to tell me all about it," he asserted; "and you are going to smile when you answer me."
"Thank you. I forgot. My dear friend, I am never going to tell you all about it. Why did you not come first?" her voice vibrating.
"You still love him."
"That is not kind," striving hard to keep the smile on her trembling lips. "Oh, I beg of you, do not make this friendship impossible. Do not rob me of the one man I trust."
Cathewe motioned aside the fish and reached for his sauterne. "I have loved you faithfully and loyally for seven years. I have tried to win you by all those roads a man may honorably traverse in quest of the one woman. For seven years; and for something like three I have stayed away at your command. Will you believe it? Sometimes my hands ache for his throat . . . Smile, they are looking."
It was a crooked smile. "Why did I ever tell you?"
"Why did you ever tell me . . . only part? It is the other part I wish to know. Till I learn what that is I shall never leave you. You will find that there is a difference between love and infatuation."
"As I have never known infatuation I can not tell the difference. Now, no more, unless you care to see me break down before them. For if you tell me that you have loved me seven years, I have loved him eight," cruelly, for Cathewe was pressing her cruelly.
"Devil take him! What do you find in the man?"
"What do you find in me?" her eyes filled with anger.
"Forgive me, Hildegarde; I am blind and mad to-night. I did not expect to find him here either."
Breitmann had tried ineffectually to read their lips. She had given her word, and once given, he knew of old that she never broke it; but he was keenly alive that in some way he was the topic of the inaudible conversation. As he sat here to-night he knew why he had never loved Hildegarde, why in fact, he had never loved any woman. The one great passion which comes in the span of life was centered in the girl beside him, dividing her moments between him and Fitzgerald. Strange, but he had not known it till he saw the two women together. For once his nice calculations had ceased to run smoothly; there appeared now a knot in the thread for which he saw no untying.
"You do not sing now?" asked Laura across the table.
"No," Hildegarde answered, "my voice is gone."
"Oh, I am so sorry."
"It does not matter. I can hum a little to myself; there is yet some pleasure in that. But in opera, no, never again. Has not Mrs. Coldfield told you? No? Imagine! One night in Dresden, in the middle of the aria, my voice broke miserably and I could not go on."
"And her heart nearly broke with it," interposed Mrs. Coldfield, with the best intentions, nearer the truth than she knew. "I am sorry, Laura, that I never told you before."
Hildegarde laughed. "Sooner or later this must happen. I worked too hard, perhaps. At any rate, the opera will know me no more."
There was the hard blue of flint in Cathewe's eyes as they met and held Breitmann's. There was a duel, and the latter was routed. But hate burned fiercely in the breast against the man who could compel him to lower his eyes. Some day he would pay back that glance.
Now, M. Ferraud had missed nothing. He twisted the talk into other channels with his usual adroitness, but all the while there was bubbling in his mind the news that these two men had met before. The history of Hildegarde von Mitter was known to him. But how much did she know, or this man Cathewe? The woman was a thoroughbred. He, Anatole Ferraud, knew; it was his business to know; and that she should happen upon the scene he considered as one of these rare good pieces of luck that fall to the lot of few. There would be something more than treasure hunting here; an intricate comedy-drama, with as many well-defined sides as a diamond. He ate his endive with pleasure and sipped the old yellow Pol Roger with his eyes beaming toward the gods. To be, after a fashion, the prompter behind the scenes; to be able to read the final line before the curtain! Butterflies and butterflies and pins and pins.
Did Laura note any of the portentous glances, those exchanged between the singer and Cathewe and Breitmann? Perhaps. At all events she felt a curiosity to know how long Hildegarde von Mitter had known her father's secretary. There was no envy in her heart as again she acknowledged the beauty of the other woman; moreover, she liked her and was going to like her more. Impressions were made upon her almost instantly, for good or bad, and rarely changed.
She turned oftenest to Fitzgerald, for he made particular effort to entertain, and he succeeded better than he dreamed. It kept turning over in her mind what a whimsical, capricious, whirligig was at work. It was droll, this man at her side, chatting to her as if he had known her for years, when, seven or eight days ago, he had stood, a man all unknown to her, on a city corner, selling plaster of Paris statuettes on a wager; and but for Mrs. Coldfield, she had passed him for ever. Out upon the prude who would look askance at her for harmless daring!
"Drop into my room before you turn in," urged Fitzgerald to Cathewe.
"That I shall, my boy. I've some questions to ask of you."
But a singular idea came into creation, and this was for him, Cathewe, to pay Breitmann a visit on the way to Fitzgerald's room. Not one man in a thousand would have dared put this idea into a plan of action. But neither externals nor conventions deterred Cathewe when he sought a thing. He rapped lightly on the door of the secretary's room.
"Come in."
Cathewe did so, gently closing the door behind him. Breitmann was in his shirt-sleeves. He rose from his chair and laid down his cigarette. A faint smile broke the thin line of his mouth. He waited for his guest, or, rather, this intruder, to break the silence. And as Cathewe did not speak at once, there was a tableau during which each was speculatively busy with the eyes.
"The vicissitudes of time," said Cathewe, "have left no distinguishable marks upon you."
Breitmann bowed. He remained standing.
And Cathewe had no wish to sit. "I never expected to see you in this house."
"A compliment which I readily return."
"A private secretary; I never thought of you in that capacity."
"One must take what one can," tranquilly.
"A good precept." Cathewe rolled the ends of his mustache, a trifle perplexed how to put it. "But there should be exceptions. What," and his voice became crisp and cold, "what was Hildegarde von Mitter to you?"
"And what is that to you?"
"My question first."
"I choose not to answer it."
Again they eyed each other like fencers.
"Were you married?"
Breitmann laughed. Here was his opportunity to wring this man's heart; for he knew that Cathewe loved the woman. "You seem to be in her confidence. Ask her."
"A poltroon would say as much. There is a phase in your make-up I have never fully understood. Physically you are a brave man, but morally you are a cad and a poltroon."
"Take care!" Breitmann stepped forward menacingly.
"There will be no fisticuffs," contemptuously.
"Not if you are careful. I have answered your questions; you had better leave at once."
"She is loyal to you. It was not her voice that broke that night; it was her heart, you have some hold over her."
"None that she can not throw off at any time." Breitmann's mind was working strangely.
"If she would have me I would marry her tomorrow," went on Cathewe, playing openly, "I would marry her to-morrow, priest or protestant, for her religion would be mine."
There was a spark of admiration in Breitmann's eyes. This man Cathewe was out of the ordinary. Well, as for that, so was he himself. He walked silently to the door and opened it, standing aside for the other to pass. "She is perfectly free. Marry her. She is all and more than you wish her to be. Will you go now?"
Cathewe bowed and turned on his heel. Breitmann had really got the better of him.
A peculiar interview, and only two strong men could have handled it in so few words. Not a word above normal tones; once or twice only, in the flutter of the eyelids or in the gesture of the hands, was there any sign that had these been primitive times the two would have gone joyously at each other's throats.
"I owed her that much," said Breitmann as he locked the door.
"It did not matter at all to me," was Cathewe's thought, as he knocked on Fitzgerald's door and heard his cheery call, "I only wanted to know what sort of man he is."
"Oh, I really don't know whether I like him or not," declared Fitzgerald. "I have run across him two or three times, but we were both busy. He has told me a little about himself. He's been knocked about a good deal. Has a title, but doesn't use it."
"A title? That is news to me. Probably it is true."
"I was surprised to learn that you knew him at all."
"Not very well. Met him in Munich mostly."
A long pause.
"Isn't Miss Killigrew just rippin'? There's a comrade for some man.
Lucky devil, who gets her! She is new to me every day."
"I think I warned you."
"You were a nice one, never to say a word that you knew the admiral!"
"Are you complaining?"
Fitzgerald laughed; no not exactly; he wasn't complaining.
"You remember the caravan trails in the Lybian desert; the old ones on the way to Khartoum? The pathway behind her is like that, marked with the bleached bones of princely and ducal and common hopes." Cathewe stretched out in his chair. "Since she was eighteen, Jack, she has crossed the man-trail like a sandstorm, and quite as innocently, too."
"Oh, rot! I'm no green and salad youth."
"Your bones will be only the tougher, that's all."
Another pause.
"But what's your opinion regarding Breitmann?"
Cathewe laced his fingers and bent his chin on them. "There's a great rascal or a great hero somewhere under his skin."
CHAPTER XV
THEY GO A-SAILING
Five o'clock in the afternoon, and a mild blue sea flashing under the ever-deepening orange of the falling sun. Golden castles and gray castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east; turrets rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed. The yacht Laura, sleek and swan-white, her ensign and colors folding and unfolding, lifting and sinking, as the shore breeze stirred them, was making ready for sea; and many of the villagers had come down to the water front to see her off. Very few sea-going vessels, outside of freighters, ever stopped in this harbor; and naturally the departures of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals. The railroad station was close to the wharves, and the old sailors hated the sight of the bright rails; for the locomotive had robbed them of the excitement of the semi-weekly packets that used to coast up and down between New York and Philadelphia.
"Wonder what poor devil of a pirate is going to have his bones turned over this trip?" said the station-agent to Mr. Donovan, who, among others on the station platform, watched the drab anchor as it clanked jerkily upward to the bows, leaving a swivel and a boil on the waters which had released it so grudgingly.
"I guess it ain't goin' t' be any ol' pirate this time," replied Mr.
Donovan, with a pleasurable squeeze of the pocket-book over his heart.
"Well, I hope he finds what he's going after," generously. "He is the mainstay of this old one-horse town. Say, she's a beauty, isn't she? Why, man, that anchor alone is worth more than we make in four months. And think of the good things to eat and drink. If I had a million, no pirates or butterflies for mine. I'd hie me to Monte Carlo and bat the tiger all over the place."
Mr. Donovan knew nothing definite about Monte Carlo, but he would have liked to back up against some of those New York contractors on their own grounds.
"Hi! There she goes. Good luck!" cried the station-agent, swinging his hat with gusto.
The yacht swam out gracefully. There was a freshening blow from the southwest, but it would take the yacht half an hour to reach the deep-sea swells outside. Her whistle blew cheerily and was answered by the single tug-boat moored to the railroad wharf. And after that the villagers straggled back to their various daily concerns. Even the landlord of Swan's Hotel sighed as he balanced up his books. Business would be slack for some days to come.
The voyagers were gathered about the stern-rail and a handkerchief or two fluttered in the wind. For an hour they tarried there, keeping in view the green-wooded hills and the white cottages nestling at their base. And turn by turn there were glimpses of the noble old house at the top of the hill. And some looked upon it for the last time.
"I've had a jolly time up there," said Fitzgerald. The gulls swooped, as they crossed and recrossed the milky wake. "Better time than I deserved."
"Are you still worried about that adventure?" Laura demanded. "Dismiss it from your mind and let it be as if we had known each other for many years."
"Do you really mean that?"
"To be sure I do," promptly. "I have stepped to the time of convention so much that a lapse once in a while is a positive luxury. But Mrs. Coldfield had given me a guaranty before I addressed you, so the adventure was only a make-believe one after all."
There never was a girl quite like this one. He purloined a sidelong glance at her which embraced her wholly, from the chic gray cap on the top of her shapely head to the sensible little boots on her feet. She wore a heavy, plaid coat, with deep pockets into which her hands were snugly buried; and she stood braced against the swell and the wind which was turning out strong and cold. The rich pigment in the blood mantled her cheeks and in her eyes there was still a bit of captive sunshine. He knew now that what had been only a possibility was an assured fact. Never before had he cursed his father's friends, but he did so now, silently and earnestly; for their pilfering fingers and their plausible lies had robbed his father's son of a fine inheritance. Money. Never had he desired it so keenly. A few weeks ago it had meant the wherewithal to pay his club-dues and to support a decent table when he traveled. Now it was everything; for without it he never could dare lift his eyes seriously to this lovely picture so close to him, let alone dream of winning her. He recalled Cathewe's light warning about the bones of ducal hopes. What earthly chance had he? Unconsciously he shrugged.
"You are shrugging!" she cried, noting the expression; for, if he was secretly observing her, she was surreptitiously contemplating his own advantages.
"Did I shrug?"
"You certainly did."
"Well," candidly, "it was the thought of money that made me do it."
"I detest it, too."
"Good heavens, I didn't say I detested it! What I shrugged about was my own dreary lack of it."
"Bachelors do not require much."
"That's true; but I no longer desire to remain a bachelor." The very thing that saved him was the added laughter, forced, miserably forced. Fool! The words had slipped without his thinking.
"Gracious! That sounds horribly like a proposal." She beamed upon him merrily.
And his heart sank, for he had been earnest enough, for all his blunder. Manlike, he did not grasp the fact that under the circumstance merriment was all she could offer him, if she would save him from his own stupidity.
"But I do hate money," she reaffirmed.
"I shouldn't. Think of what it brings."
"I do; begging letters, impostures, battle-scarred titles, humbugging shop-keepers, and perhaps one honest friend in a thousand. And if I married a title, what equivalent would I get for my money, to put it brutally? A chateau, which I should have to patch up, and tolerance from my husband's noble friends. Not an engaging prospect."
She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and screaming almost in touch of the hands. Then of a sudden the red rim of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.
"It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner. Look!" pointing to a bright star far down the east. "And Corsica lies that way."
"And also madness!" was his thought.
"Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they do in the story-books. The others think we are just going to Funchal. Remember, you must not tell. Think of it; a real treasure, every franc of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion."
"Beautiful! But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting and all that. I choose the part of remaining by the princess."
"It is yours." She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed.
She knew the love of living.
"Lucky we are all good sailors," he said. "There will be a fair sea on all night. But how well she rides!"
"I love every beam and bolt of her."
Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and immediately the door banged after them.
Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a time. He had studied the two from his shelter. What were they saying? Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but . . . ! Breitmann straightened his arms before him, opened and shut his hands violently. Like that he would break him if he interfered with any of his desires. It would be fully twenty days before they made Ajaccio. Many things might happen before that time.
Two or three of the crew were lashing on the rail-canvas, and the snap and flap of it jarred on Breitmann's nerves. For a week or more his nerves had been very close to the surface, so close that it had required all his will to keep his voice and hands from shaking. As he passed, one of the sailors doffed his cap and bowed with great respect.
"That's not the admiral, Alphonse," whispered another of the crew, chuckling. "It's only his privit secretary."
"Ah, I haf meestake!"
But Alphonse had made no mistake. He knew who it was. His mates did not see the smile of irony, of sly ridicule, which stirred his lips as he bowed to the passer. Immediately his rather handsome effeminate face resumed a stolid vacuity.
His name was not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew, which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition of a foreigner to their mess. He had signed a day or two before sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain Flanagan; and he gave his name as Pierre Picard, to which he had no more right than to Alphonse. As Captain Flanagan was too good a sailor himself to draw distinctions, he was always glad to add a foreign tongue to his crew. You never could tell when its use might come in handy. That is why Pierre Picard was allowed to drink his soup in the forecastle mess.
Breitmann continued on, oblivious to all things save his cogitations. He swung round the bridge. He believed that he and Cathewe could henceforth proceed on parallel lines, and there was much to be grateful for. Cathewe was quiet but deep; and he, Breitmann, had knocked about among that sort and knew that they were to be respected. In all, he had made only one serious blunder. He should never have permitted the vision of a face to deter him. He should have taken the things from the safe and vanished. It had not been, a matter of compunction. And yet . . . Ah, he was human, whatever his dream might be; and he loved this American girl with all his heart and mind. It was not lawless love, but it was ruthless. When the time was ripe he would speak. Only a little while now to wait. The course had smoothed out, the sailing was easy. The man in the chimney no longer bothered him. Whoever and whatever he was, he had not shot his bolt soon enough.
Hildegarde von Mitter. He stopped against the rail. The yacht was burying her nose now, and the white drift from her cut-water seemed strangely luminous as it swirled obliquely away in the fading twilight. Hildegarde von Mitter. Was she to be the flaw in the chain? No, no; there should be no regret; he had steeled his heart against any such weakness. She had been necessary, and he would be a fool to pause over a bit of sentimentality. Her appearance had disorganized his nerves, that was all. Peering into his watch he found that he had only half an hour before dinner. And it may be added that he dressed with singular care.
So did Fitzgerald, for that matter.
It took Cathewe just as long, but he did not make two or three selections of this or that before finding what he wanted. He was engrossed most of the time in the sober contemplation of the rubber flooring or the running sea outside the port-hole.
And this night Hildegarde von Mitter was meditating on the last throw for her hopes. She determined to cast once more the full sun of her beauty into the face of the man she loved; and if she failed to win, the fault would not be hers. Why could she not tear out this maddening heart of hers and fling it to the sea? Why could she not turn it toward the man who loved her? Why, why? Why should God make her so unhappy? Why such injustice? Why this twisted interlacing of lives? And yet, amid all these futile seekings, with subconscious deftness her hands went on with their appointed work. Never again would the splendor of her beauty burn as it did this night.
Laura, alone among them all, went serenely about her toilet. She was young, and love had not yet spread its puzzle before her feet.
As for the others, they were on the far side of the hill, whence the paths are smooth and gentle and the prospect is peacefulness and the retrospect is dimly rosal. They dressed as they had done those twenty odd years, plainly.
On the bridge the first officer was standing at the captain's side.
"Captain," he shouted, "where did you get that Frenchman?"
"Picked him up day before yestiddy. Speaks fair English an' a bit o'
Dago. They're allus handy on a pleasure-boat. He c'n keep off th'
riffraff boatmen. An' you know what persistent cusses they be in the
Med'terranean. Why?"
"Oh, nothing, if he's a good sailor. Notice his hands?"
"Why, no!"
"Soft as a woman's."
"Y' don't say! Well, we'll see 'em tough enough before we sight
Funchal. Smells good up here; huh?"
"Yes; but I don't mind three months on land, full pay. Not me. But this Frenchman?"
"Oh, he had good papers from a White Star liner; an' you can leave it to me regardin' his lily-white hands. By th' way, George, will you have them bring up my other leg? Th' salt takes th' color out o' this here brass ferrule, an' rubber's safer."
"Yes, sir."
There was one vacant chair in the dining-salon. M. Ferraud was indisposed. He could climb the highest peak, he could cross ice-ridges, with a sheer mile on either side of him, with never an attack of vertigo; but this heaving mystery under his feet always got the better of him the first day out. He considered it the one flaw in an otherwise perfect system. Thus, he misled the comedy and the tragedy of the eyes at dinner, nor saw a woman throw her all and lose it.
CHAPTER XVI
CROSS-PURPOSES
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Fitzgerald, venturing his head into M. Ferraud's cabin.
"Nothing; to-morrow it will all be gone. I am always so. The miserable water!" M. Ferraud drew the blanket under his chin.
"When you are better I should like to ask you some questions."
"My friend, you have been very good. I promise to tell you all when the time comes. It will interest you."
"Breitmann?"
"What makes you think I am interested in Mr. Breitmann?"
Fitzgerald could not exactly tell. "Perhaps I have noticed you watching him."
"Ah, you have good eyes, Mr. Fitzgerald. Have you observed that I have been watching you also?"
"Yes. You haven't been quite sure of me." Fitzgerald smiled a little.
"But you may rest your mind. I never break my word."
"Nor do I, my friend. Have patience. Satan take these small boats!"
He stifled a groan.
"A little champagne?"
"Nothing, nothing; thank you."
"As you will. Good night."
Fitzgerald shut the door and returned to the smoking-room. Something or other, concerning Breitmann; he was sure of it. What had he done, or what was he going to do, that France should watch him? There was no doubt in his mind now; Breitmann had known of this treasure and had come to The Pines simply to put his hands on the casket. M. Ferraud had tried to forestall him. This much of the riddle was plain. But the pivots upon which these things turned! There was something more than a treasure in the balance. Well, M. Ferraud had told him to wait. There was nothing else for him to do.
A little rubber at bridge was in progress. The admiral was playing with Mrs. Coldfield and Cathewe sat opposite Hildegarde. The latter two were losing. She was ordinarily a skilful player, as Cathewe knew; but to-night she lost constantly, was reckless with her leads, and played carelessly into her opponents' hands. Cathewe watched her gravely. Never had he seen her more beautiful; and the apprehension that she would never be his was like a hand straining over his heart.
Yes, she was beautiful; but he did not know that there was death in her eyes and death in her smile. Once upon a time he had believed that her heart had broken; but she was learning that the heart breaks, rebreaks, and breaks again.
How many times he stood on the precipice during the dinner hour, Breitmann doubtless would never be told. A woman scorned is an old story; still, the story goes on, retold each day. Education may smooth the externals, but underneath the fire burns just as furiously as of old. To this affront the average woman's mind leaps at once to revenge; and that she does not always take it depends upon two things; opportunity, and love, which is more powerful than revenge. Sometimes, on hot summer nights, clouds form angrily in the distance; vivid flashes dartle hither and about, which serve to intensify the evening darkness. Thus, a similar phenomenon was taking place in Hildegarde von Mitter's mind. The red fires of revenge danced before her eyes, blurring the spots, on the cards, the blackness of despair crowding upon each flash. Let him beware! With a word she could shatter his dream; ay, and so she would. What! sit there and let him turn the knife in her heart and receive the pain meekly? No! It was the thoughtless brutality with which he went about this new affair that bit so poignantly. To show her, so indurately, that she was nothing, that, despite her magnificent sacrifice, she had never been more than a convenience, was maddening. There was no spontaneity in his heart; his life was a calculation to which various sums were added or subtracted. With all her beauty, intellect, genius and generosity, she had not been able to stir him as this young girl was unconsciously doing. She held no animosity for the daughter of her host; she was clear-visioned enough to put the wrong where it belonged.
"It is your lead," said the admiral patiently.
"Pardon me!" contritely. The gentle reproach brought her back to the surroundings.
"It is the motion of the boat," hazarded Cathewe, as he saw her lead the ace. "I often find myself losing count in waiting for the next roll."
"Mr. Cathewe is very kind," she replied. "The truth is, however, I am simply stupid to-night."
Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura. He was evidently amusing, for she smiled frequently. Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon Fitzgerald. Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as they both believed, in the hollow of her hand. Breitmann appeared to have forgotten her existence.
When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes. They tramped the port side, saying nothing but thinking much. His arm was under hers to steady her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one stifles sobs that are tearless. Ah, to hold her close and to shield her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the pain that stabs it. He knew; he knew all about it, and there was murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann. To be alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.
She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly; and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child. And worldliness makes a buffer in times like these. Cathewe thanked God for his own shell, toughened as it had been in the war of life.
"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion. "There goes a big liner for Sandy Hook. How cheerful she looks with all her lights! Everybody's busy there. There will be greetings to-morrow, among the sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."
They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves alone.
Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the rail. "How kind you are to me!"
"Oh, pshaw!" But the touch of her lips shook his soul.
Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a woman may find once in a life-time. They are, as a usual thing, always loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and buoyant, genuine philosophers. They are not given much to writing sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the other man takes the dream out of their lives. This is not to affirm that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they accept defeat like good soldiers. There are many heroes who have never heard war's alarms. He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von Mitter had yielded to another. But it had been thrown, as it were, against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day he might catch it on the rebound.
"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.
"The world would not be half so interesting. Some men shall be fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way. I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight." He spoke with a levity he by no means felt.
"You are always making sport of yourself."
"Would it be wise to weep? Not at all. I laugh because I enjoy it, just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."
"To have met you!" childishly.
"Don't talk like that. It always makes me less sad than furious. And how do you know? If it had been written that you should care for me, would any one else have mattered? No. It just is, that's all. So we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends. Call me when you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."
"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"
"You would be no happier if you wore a mask. Hildegarde, what has happened? What power has this adventurer over you? I can not understand. He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any wrong."
"He said that?" turning upon him sharply. She could forgive much.
He could not see her face, but by the tone of her voice he knew it had brightened. "Yes. I did a freakish thing the night we arrived at the Killigrews'. I forced him into a corner, but it did not pan out as I hoped. So far as it touched me, it wasn't necessary, as I have told you a thousand times. Your past is nothing to me; your future is everything, and I want it. God knows how I want it! Well, I wished to find out what kind of man he is, but I wasn't very successful. Hildegarde," and he pressed his hand down hard over hers, "I could find a priest the day we land if you would love me. You will always remember that."
"As if I could ever forget your kindness! But you forced him; there is no merit in such a confession. And I wonder how you forced him. It was not by fear. Much as I know him there are still some unfilled pages. I would call him a scoundrel did I not know that in parts he has been a hero. What sacrifices the man has made, and with what patience!"
"To what end?" quietly.
"No, no, Arthur! I have promised him."
He took her by the arm roughly. "Let us make two or three rounds and go back. We shan't grow any more cheerful talking this way."
"He loves her. I saw it in his eyes; and I must stand aside and watch!"
"So must I," he said. "Aren't you just a little selfish, Hildegarde?"
"I am wretched, Arthur; and I am a fool, besides. Oh, that I were cold-blooded like your women, that I could eat out my heart in secret; but I can't, I can't!"
"But you have courage; only use it. If what you say of him is true, rest easy. She is not in his orbit. She will not be impressed by an adventurer of his breed."
"Thank you!" with a broken laugh. "I am only an opera-singer, here on suffrance."
"Oh, good Lord! I did not mean it that way. Let us finish the walk," savagely.
On the afternoon of the second day out, tea was served under the awning, and Captain Flanagan condescended to leave his bridge for half an hour. Through a previous hint dropped by the admiral they lured the captain into spinning yarns; and well-salted hair-breadth escapes they were. He understood that the admiral's guests always expected these flights, and he was in nowise niggard. An ordinary sailor would have been dead these twenty years, under any one of the exploits.
"Marvelous!" said M. Ferraud from the depths of his rugs. "And he still lives to tell it?"
"It's the easiest thing in the world, sir, if y' know how," the captain declared complacently. Indeed, he had recounted these yarns so many times that he was beginning to regard them as facts. His statement, ambiguous as it was, passed unchallenged, however; for not one had the daring to inquire whether he referred to the telling or the living of them. So he believed that he was looked upon as an apostle of truth. Only the admiral had the temerity to look his captain squarely in the eye and wink.
"Captain, would you mind if I put these tales in a book?" Fitzgerald put this question with a seriousness which fooled no one but the captain.
"You come up t' the bridge some afternoon, when we've got a smooth sea, and I'll give y' some real ones." The captain's vanity was soothed, but he was not aware that he had put doubt upon his own veracity.
"That's kind of you."
"An' say!" went on the captain, drinking his tea, not because he liked it but because it was customary, "I've got a character forwards. I'm allus shippin' odds and ends. Got a Frenchman; hands like a lady."
Breitmann leaned forward, and M. Ferraud sat up.
"Yessir," continued the captain; "speaks I-talyan an' English. An' if I ever meets a lady with long soft hands like his'n, I'm for a pert talk, straightway."
"What's the matter with his hands?" asked the admiral.
"Why, Commodore, they're as soft as Miss Laura's here, an' yet when th' big Swede who handles th' baggage was a-foolin' with him this mornin', it was the Swede who begs off. Nary a callous, an' yet he bowls the big one round the deck like he was a liner being pierced by a sassy tug. An' what gets me is, he knows every bolt from stem to stern, sir, an' an all-round good sailor int' th' bargain; an' it don' take me more'n twelve hours t' find that out. Well, I'm off t' th' bridge. Good day, ladies."
When he was out of earshot the admiral roared. "He's the dearest old liar since Münchhausen."
"Aren't they true stories?" asked Hildegarde.
"Bless you, no! And he knows we know it, too. But he tells them so well that I've never had the courage to sheer him off."
"It's amusing," said Laura; "but I do not think that it's always fair to him."
"Why, Laura, you're as good a listener as any I know. Read him a tract, if you wish."
Breitmann rose presently and sauntered forward, while M. Ferraud snuggled down in his rugs again. The others entered into a game of deck-cricket.
But M. Ferraud was not so ill that he was unable to steal from his cabin at half after nine, at night, without even the steward being aware of his departure. It can not be said that he roamed about the deck, for whenever he moved it was in the shadow, and always forward. By and by voices drifted down the wind. One he knew and expected, Breitmann's; of the other he was not sure, though the French he spoke was of classic smoothness. M. Ferraud was exceedingly interested. He had been waiting for this meeting. Only a phrase or two could be heard distinctly. But words were not necessary. What he desired above all things was a glimpse of this Frenchman's face. After several minutes Breitmann went aft. M. Ferraud stepped out cautiously, and luck was with him. The sailor to whom Breitmann had spoken so earnestly was lolling against the rail, in the act of lighting a cigarette. The light from the match was feeble, but it sufficed the keen eyes of the watcher. He gasped a little. Strong hands indeed! Here in the garb of a common sailor, was one of the foremost Orleanists in France!