In Direst Peril Part 12

"I had some hopes," said the count, "that you might tell me this. It was that which led me to come here and ask you to advise me."

A wild and improbable hope sprang into my mind, but it died as soon as it was born. Perhaps I was absurd enough to fancy the count had seen something in his daughter's manner which led him to believe that she cared for me, and perhaps he had taken advantage of Brunow's proposal to awake me to a sense of my own wasted opportunities. I put that fancy by, for intimate as I had grown to be with Miss Rossano. I had never discerned the faintest hint in her manner of anything but friends.h.i.+p.

If my fancy had not been already dead, the count's next words would have killed it outright.

"I have nothing," he said, "to guide me to my daughter's feelings, but I am certain of my own. Mr. Brunow's declaration took me by surprise, but I had been expecting yours, and should have received it with pleasure."

"I did my best to form an honest judgment and to act like an honorable man. Mr. Brunow," I said, "has known Miss Rossano much longer than I have. I must not disguise the fact that he has more than once spoken to me of his attachment to her. He mentioned that months ago, but in such a way that I hardly supposed him to be in earnest. He has spoken first, and he has a right to an answer. If when he has received his answer I still have a right to speak, I may do so."

"That," said the count, "is not the conclusion at which I hoped you would arrive. I think I can offer an alternative. If I ask you to look at this matter like a man of the world, you will have a right to laugh at my presumption. I was a man of the world once, but that was long ago. I have lost so much that what is left to me is hidden in a cloud of self-distrust; yet I think I am right in this, and you yourself shall be the judge."

He paused there for some time, and I could tell by his inward look, and by the occasional motion of his lips, that he was choosing words in which to make his meaning clear to me. He looked up at last, with his gray face illuminated by the mere ghost of a smile, and reaching both hands across the table towards me, leaned upon them firmly.

"My penetration, blunted as it is, has not been altogether at fault,"

he said; "I have hit the truth in your case. That is so?" I nodded, gloomily enough, I dare say, to signify a.s.sent. "What I propose, my dear Fyffe, is this: I cannot read my daughter's mind at all, and so far as I can tell she may have no such preference as leads to marriage for either of you. She is half English by birth, and wholly English by education.

If she would marry at all she will follow her own inclination, after the fas.h.i.+on of young ladies in this country. Even if I had had the authority which a life-long watch over her would have given me, I should never have dreamed of using it. But this is the plain English of the matter. I would gladly trust my child with you, and I should be sorry to trust her with Mr. Brunow. That sounds ungrateful to him, for I owe him an enormous service; but there are duties which transcend grat.i.tude, and this is one of them. I have surprised your sentiments, and have extorted a confession from you. I ask you now to authorize me to lay before my daughter your case and Mr. Brunow's side by side. I will tell her, if you prefer it, precisely what pa.s.sed between us. If she should accept neither of you, my own hope and yours will have had at least a chance of fulfilment. You have no objection to making that proposal?"

I answered truly that I was profoundly grateful for it, and that I had never had so much honor done me.

The count departed well pleased, and I was left to await his news in such anxiety as any man who has not awaited a similar verdict might picture for himself. I did not stir from my rooms for several days, and at almost every minute of that time I was either at the very height of hope or the very bottom of despair.

The news came in a startling and unexpected way at last. About four o'clock on the afternoon of the third day a rapid step came up the stair, and somebody knocked with an angry and pa.s.sionate insistence at the outer door of my chambers. Hinge, startled by the unusual exigence of the summons, ran to answer it. I learned from him who my visitor was, for as he opened the door he sang out:

"Good Lord, Mr. Brunow, what on earth's the matter?"

"Stand on one side!" cried Brunow, in a loud and angry voice; and scarcely a second later he entered the room I sat in, and, banging the door noisily behind him, faced me, still grasping in his right hand the walking-cane with which he had offered such a startling announcement of his presence.

"You d.a.m.ned traitor!" said Brunow; "you infernal traitor!"

He had hardly spoken, indeed he had hardly turned his white and wrathful face towards me, when I understood precisely what had happened. Of course an absolute certainty was out of the question, but I felt the next thing to it; and what with the exulting thought that it was possible and the fear that it might not be true, I was so taken aback that I had no answer for this unusual greeting.

"You blackguard!" Brunow stammered, his stick quivering in his hand.

"Come, come," I answered, rising, and keeping a careful eye on him, for he looked as if he were fit for any sort of mischief, "this is curious language. Will you be good enough to tell me how you justify it?"

"You know well enough how I justify it!" cried Brunow. "Your dirty under-plot has succeeded. You have that for your comfort, but you may take this to flavor it. I took you for an honest man until a quarter of an hour ago, and now I know that you are as dirty and as despicable a hypocrite and backbiter as any in the world!"

"That is a lie, my dear Brunow, whoever says it!" I responded. "You will be good enough to tell me at once on what grounds you bring such a charge against me."

"Oh," cried Brunow, "I'm not going to debase myself with quarrelling with a man like you! You have my opinion of you, and you know how you have earned it. That's enough for me. Good-afternoon."

He turned, but I was at the door before him.

"That may be enough for you, my dear Brunow, but it isn't enough for me.

You don't leave this room with my good-will until you have given me some justification for your conduct."

"I'll give you none!" he cried. "You're a liar and a hypocrite, and I've done with you forever! That ought to be enough for you! Stand by and let me go, or--" he raised his stick with a threatening gesture, but at that I could afford to smile. I knew Brunow a great deal too well to think him likely to a.s.sault me after having put me on my guard by a threat.

"I wonder," he said, with his lips quivering and his teeth tight clinched behind them--"I wonder that I don't thrash you within an inch of your life."

"I wouldn't waste much wonder on that question if I were you, Brunow," I answered. "You will be able to find an easy explanation. Tell me on what grounds you come to me with these angry accusations."

"You pretend you don't know?" he sneered. "You can't guess, you soul of honor!"

"I pretend nothing," I told him; "but no man uses such language to me without justifying it. A gentleman having under any fancied sense of wrong used such language will hasten to find reasons for it."

"You may keep me here," said Brunow, throwing himself savagely into an arm-chair. "I won't bl.u.s.ter with you, but I decline to explain or justify a word I've said, and you can take what course you please."

"Very well," I answered, turning the key in the lock and then putting it in my pocket, "we shall both have an opportunity of exercising the great gift of patience."

"Look here," he cried, suddenly leaping from his chair and shaking his forefinger in ray face, "do you pretend to deny that months and months ago I told you what my feelings were with respect to Miss Rossano?"

"You told me," I answered, "that you admired her, and that she had a very pretty little income of her own. You coupled those two facts together in such a way as to make me think you were ready to contract a mercenary marriage."

"That's how you choose to put it," he retorted. "I could have supposed, without your help, that you'd find some such means of justifying yourself. Your affection has nothing mercenary in it, of course. In that respect you're above suspicion. A mountebank soldier with a wooden sword to sell that n.o.body chooses to buy. A strolling pauper without a penny to his name."

I don't quite like to think of what might have happened if this strain of invective had not been interrupted at that moment. I know now, and I almost knew then, what ground Brunow had for his anger and resentment.

But the words he used were almost too much for my endurance, and I was glad that a ring sounded at the hall bell, and that Hinge, who, I have no doubt at all, was listening outside, answered immediately. I heard a m.u.f.fled voice outside, and then Hinge knocked at the inner door; and having in vain tried the handle, said:

"The Conte di Rossano, if you please."

CHAPTER X

I drew the key from my pocket, unlocked the door, and admitted the count, who stood for an instant on the threshold, looking from me to Brunow and from Brunow to me with an aspect of some considerable amazement. Hinge was gaping in the pa.s.sage, and it was evident that he was more interested in the proceedings than he knew himself to have the right to be; for, encountering my eye, he withdrew his own instantly, and plunged with great precipitation out of sight.

"Come in, sir," I said to the count; and he entered, closing the door behind him, and still looking from Brunow to myself and back again with an aspect of complete surprise strongly mingled with displeasure.

"I had not expected to find Mr. Brunow here." This told me, or seemed to tell me at once, that Brunow had but recently left the count, and my conjecture turned out in a moment to be true.

"I have repeated to Captain Fyffe, sir," said Brunow, "what I told you less than half an hour ago."

"Then," said the count, "you have repeated to Captain Fyffe what I emphatically denied to you. That, sir, is a refusal of my plighted word."

His meagre figure was drawn to its full height, he threw his head back, and his deep-sunken eyes flashed with indignation.

"I have told this fellow," cried Brunow, "that he has betrayed my confidence--the most sacred confidence one man can repose in another--a confidence I extended to him, believing him to be a man of honor and my friend."

"And I, sir, have instructed you," returned the count, "that your accusation is altogether baseless. There, if you cede so much to the authority of my years, the matter may be allowed to rest. If you have further business with Captain Fyffe, I will find another opportunity of calling upon him."

"I have no further business with Captain Fyffe," said Bruno, "now nor at any time."

So saying, he looked about him for his hat, caught it up, bowed angrily to the count, and without a word or a glance for me walked out of the room, slamming the outer door so noisily that the whole house shook with the concussion.

"Mr. Brunow," said the count, when we were thus left alone, "is an ill-conditioned person. I owe it to you to explain precisely what has happened. But first, my dear Fyffe, give me your hand, and let me offer you my felicitations."

I took the hand he offered and held it a moment, hardly realizing where I stood.