The Puppet Crown Part 30

Fitzgerald, dumfounded and dismayed, looked down at the beautiful head.

He could fight angry words, tempests of wrath--but tears, a woman's tears, the tears of the woman he loved!

"Madame," he said gently, "do you love me?"

No answer.

"Madame, for G.o.d's sake, do not weep! Do you love me? If you love me--if you love me--"

She sprang to her feet. Once again she experienced that s.h.i.+ver; again her conscience stirred.

"I do not know," she said. "But this I may say: your honor, which you hold above the price of a woman's love, will be the cause of bloodshed.

Mothers and wives and sisters will execrate your name, brave men will be sacrificed needlessly. What are the Osians to you? They are strangers.

You will do for them, and uselessly, what you refuse to do for the woman you profess to love. I abhor bloodshed. Your honor is the offspring of pride and egotism. Can you not see the inevitable? War will be declared.

You can not help Leopold; but you can save him the degradation of being expelled from his throne by force of arms. The army of the d.u.c.h.ess is true to its humblest sword. Can you say that for the army of the king?

Would you witness the devastation of a beautiful city, by flame and sword?

"Monsieur, Austria is with us, and she will abide with us whichever way we move. Austria, Monsieur, which is Leopold's sponsor. And this Leopold, is he a man to sit upon a throne? Is he a king in any sense of the word? Would a king submit to such ignominy as he submits to without striking a blow? Would he permit his ministers to override him? Would he permit his army to murmur, his agents to plunder, his people to laugh at him, if he possessed one kingly attribute? No, no! If you were king, would you allow these things? No! You would silence all murmurs, you would disgorge your agents, you would throttle those who dared to laugh.

"Put yourself in the d.u.c.h.ess's place. All these beautiful lands are hers by right of succession; is she wrong to desire them? What does she wish to accomplish? She wishes to join the kingdom and the duchy, and to make a great kingdom, as it formerly was. Do you know why Leopold was seated upon the throne?

"Some day the confederation will decide to divide all these lands into tidbits, and there will be no one to oppose them. Madame the d.u.c.h.ess wishes to be strong enough to prevent it. And you, Monsieur, are the grain of sand which stops all this, you and your pride. Not even a woman's love--There, I have said it!--not even a woman's love--will move your sense of justice. Go! leave me. Since my love is nothing, since the sacrifice I make is useless, go; you are free!" The tears which came into her eyes this time were genuine; tears of chagrin, vexation, and of a third sensation which still remained a mystery to her.

To him, as she spoke, with her wonderful eyes flas.h.i.+ng, a rich color suffusing her cheeks and throat and temples, the dim candle light breaking against the ruddy hair; honor or pride, whichever it was, was well worth the losing. He was a man; it is only the pope who is said to be infallible. His honor could not save the king. All she had said was true. If he held to his word there would be war and bloodshed.

On the other hand, if he surrendered, less harm would befall the king, and the loss of his honor--was it honor?--would be well recompensed for the remainder of his days by the love of this woman. His long years of loneliness came back; he wavered. He glanced first at her, then at the door; one represented all that was desirable in the world, the other more loneliness, coupled with unutterable regret. Still he wavered, and finally he fell.

"Madame, will you be my wife?"

"Yes." And it seemed to her that the word, came to her lips by no volition of hers. As she had grown red but a moment gone, she now grew correspondingly pale, and her limbs shook. She had irrevocably committed herself. "No, no!" as she saw him start forward with outstretched arms, "not my lips till I am your wife! Not my lips; only my hands!"

He covered them with kisses.

"Hus.h.!.+" as she stepped back.

It was time. Maurice and the countess entered the room. Maurice glanced from Madame to Fitzgerald and back to Madame; he frowned. The Englishman, who had never before had cause to dissemble, caught up his pipe and fumbled it. This act merely discovered his embarra.s.sment to the keen eyes of his friend. He had forgotten all about Maurice. What would he say? Maurice was something like a conscience to him, and his heart grew troubled.

"Madame," Maurice whispered to the countess, "I have lost all faith in you; you have kept me too long under the stars."

"Confidences?" said Madame, with a swift inquiring glance at the countess.

"O, no," said Maurice. "I simply complained that Madame the countess had kept me too long under the stars. But here is Colonel Mollendorf, freshly returned from Brunnstadt to inform you that the army is fully prepared for any emergency. Is not that true, Colonel?" as he beheld that individual standing in the doorway.

"Yes; but how the deuce--your pardon, ladies!--did you find that out?"

demanded the Colonel.

"I guessed it," was the answer. "But there will be no need of an army now. Come, John, the Colonel, who is no relative of the king's minister of police, has not the trick of concealing his impatience. He has something important to say to Madame, and we are in the way. Come along, AEneas, follow your faithful Achates; Thalia has a rehearsal."

Fitzgerald thrust his pipe into a pocket. "Good night, Madame," he said diffidently; "and you, countess."

"Good night, Colonel," sang out Maurice over his shoulder, and together the pair climbed the stairs.

Fitzgerald was at a loss how to begin, for something told him that Maurice would demand an explanation, though the affair was none of his concern. He filled his pipe, fired it and tramped about the room.

Sometimes he picked up the end of a window curtain and felt of it; sometimes he posed before one of the landscape oils.

"You have something on your mind," said Maurice, pulling off his hussar jacket and kicking it across the room.

"Madame has promised to be my wife."

"And the conditions?" curtly.

Fitzgerald pondered over the other's lack of surprise. "What would you do if you loved a woman and she promised to be your wife?"

"I'd marry her," sitting down at the table.

"What would you do in my place, and Madame had promised to marry you?"

puffing quickly.

"I'd marry her," answered Maurice, banging his fist on the table, "even if all the kings and queens of Europe rose up against me. I would marry her, if I had to bind her hands and feet and carry her to the altar and force the priest at the point of a pistol, which, in all probability, is what you will have to do."

"I love her," sullenly.

"Do you know who she is?"

"No."

"Would it make any difference?"

"No. Who is she?"

"She is a woman without conscience; she is a woman who, to gain her miserable ends, will stop neither at falsehood, deceit nor bloodshed. Do you want me to tell you more? She is--"

"Maurice, tell me nothing which will cause me to regret your friends.h.i.+p.

I love her; she has promised to be my wife."

"She will ruin you."

"She has already done that," laconically.

"Do you mean to tell me--"

"Yes! For the promise of her love I am dishonored. For the privilege of kissing her lips I have sold my honor. To call her mine, I would go through h.e.l.l. G.o.d! do you know what it is to be lonely, to starve in G.o.d-forsaken lands, to dream of women, to long for them?"

"And the poor paralytic king?"

"What is he to me?"

"And your father?"