The Puppet Crown Part 31

"What are my dead father's wishes? Maurice, I am mad!"

"You are a very sick man," Maurice replied crossly. "What's to become of all these vows--"

"You are wasting your breath! Do you remember what Rochefoucauld said of Madame de Longueville?--`To win her heart, to delight her beautiful eyes, I have taken up arms against the king; I would have done the same against the G.o.ds!' Is she not worth it all?" with a gesture of his arms which sent the live coals of his pipe comet-like across the intervening s.p.a.ce. "Is she not worth it all?"

"Who?--Madame de Longueville? I thought she was dead these two hundred years!"

"d.a.m.n it, Maurice!"

"I will, if you say so. The situation is equal to a good deal of plain, honest d.a.m.ning." Maurice banged his fist again. "John, sit down and listen to me. I'll not sit still and see you made a fool. Promises?

This woman will keep none. When she has wrung you dry she will fling you aside. At this moment she is probably laughing behind your back.

You were brought here for this purpose. Threats and bribes were without effect. Love might accomplish what the other two had failed to do. You know little of the ways of the world. Do you know that this house party is scandalous, for all its innocence? Do you know that Madame's name would be a byword were it known that we have been here more than two weeks, alone with two women? Who but a woman that feels herself above convention would dare offer this affront to society? Do you know why Madame the countess came? Company for Madame? No; she was to play make love to me to keep me out of the way. a.s.s that I was, I never suspected till too late! Madame's name is not Sylvia Amerbach; it is--"

The door opened unceremoniously and in walked the Colonel.

"Your voices are rather high, gentlemen," he said calmly, and sat down in an easy chair.

CHAPTER XIII. BEING OF COMPLICATIONS NOT RECKONED ON

Maurice leaped to his feet, a menace in his eyes. The Colonel crossed his legs, rested his hands on the hilt of his saber, and smiled.

"I could not resist the desire to have a friendly chat with you."

"You have come cursed inopportune," snarled Maurice. "What do you want?"

"I want to give you the countersigns, so that when you start for Bleiberg to-morrow morning you'll have no trouble."

"Bleiberg!" exclaimed Maurice.

"Bleiberg. Madame desires me to say to you that you are to start for that city in the morning, to fetch those slips of parchment which have caused us all these years of worry. Ah, my friend," to Fitzgerald, "Madame would be cheap at twenty millions! You sly dog! And I never suspected it."

Fitzgerald sent him a scowl. "You are d.a.m.ned impertinent, sir."

"Impertinent?" The Colonel uncrossed his legs and brought his knees together. "Madame has been under my care since she was a child, Monsieur; I have a fatherly interest in her. At any rate, I am glad that the affair is at an end. It was very n.o.ble in you. If I had had my way, though, it would have been war, pure and simple. I left the d.u.c.h.ess in Brunnstadt this morning; she will be delighted to attend the wedding."

"She will attend it," said Maurice, grimly; "but I would not lay odds on her delight. Colonel, the devil take me if I go to Bleiberg on any such errand." He went to the window seat.

The Colonel rose and followed him. "Pardon me," he said to Fitzgerald, who did not feel at all complimented by Madame's haste; "a few words in Monsieur Carewe's ear. He will go to Bleiberg; he will be glad to go."

He bent towards Maurice. "Go to Bleiberg, my son. A word to him about Madame, and off you go to Brunnstadt. Will you be of any use there?

I think not. The little countess would cry out her pretty eyes if she heard that you were languis.h.i.+ng in the city prison at Brunnstadt, where only the lowest criminals are confined. Submit gracefully, that is to say, like a soldier against whom the fortunes of war have gone. Go to Bleiberg."

"I'll go. I give up." It was not the threat which brought him to this decision. It was a vision of a madonna-like face. "I'll go, John. Where are the certificates?"

"Between the mattresses and the slats of my bed you will find a gun in a case. The certificates are in the barrels." His countenance did not express any particular happiness; the lines about his mouth were sharper than usual.

"The devil!" cried the Colonel; "if only I had known that!" He laughed.

"Well, I'll leave you. Six o'clock--what's this?" as he stooped and picked up Maurice's cast-off hussar jacket.

"I was about to use it as a door mat," said Maurice, who was in a nasty humor. That Fitzgerald had surrendered did not irritate him half so much as the thought that he was the real puppet. His hands were tied, he could not act, and he was one that loved his share in games.

The Colonel reddened under his tan. "No; I'll not lose my temper, though this is cause enough. Curse me, but you lack courtesy. This is my uniform, and whatever it may be to you it is sacred to me. You were not forced into it; you were not compelled to wear it. What would you do if a man wore your uniform and flung it around in this manner?"

"I'd knock him down," Maurice admitted. "I apologize, Colonel; it was not manly. But you must make allowances; my good nature has suffered a severe strain. I'll get into my own clothes to-morrow if you will have a servant sew on some b.u.t.tons and mend the collar. By the way, who is eating three meals a day in the east corridor on the third floor?"

Their glances fenced. The Colonel rubbed his mustache.

"I like you," he said; "hang me if I don't. But as well as I like you, I would not give a denier for your life if you were found in that self-same corridor. The sentinel has orders to shoot; but don't let that disturb you; you will know sooner or later. It is better to wait than be shot. A horse will be saddled at six. You will find it in the court. The countersigns are Weixel and Arnoldt. Good luck to you."

"The same to you," rejoined Maurice, "only worse."

The Colonel's departure was followed by a period of temporary speechlessness. Maurice smoked several "Khedives," while Fitzgerald emptied two or three pipe-bowls.

"You seem to be in bad odor, Maurice," the latter ventured.

"In more ways than one. Where, in heaven's name, did you resurrect that pipe?"

"In the stables. It isn't the pipe, it's the tobacco. I had to break up some cigars."

Then came another period in the conversation. It occurred to both that something yawned between them--a kind of abyss. Out of this abyss one saw his guilt arise.... A woman stood at his side. He had an accomplice.

He had thrown the die, and he would stand stubbornly to it. His pride built yet another wall around him, impregnable either to protests or to sneers. He loved--that was recompense enough. A man will forgive himself of grave sins when these are debtors to his love.

As for the other, he beheld a trust betrayed, and he was powerless to prevent it. Besides, his self-love smarted, chagrin made eyes at him; and, more than all else, he recognized his own share in the Englishman's fall from grace. It had been innocent mischief on his part, true, but nevertheless he stood culpable. He had no business to talk to a woman he did not know. The more he studied the aspects of the situation the more whimsical it grew. He was the prime cause of a king losing his throne, of a man losing his honor, of a princess becoming an outcast.

"Your bride-elect," he said, "seems somewhat over-hasty. Well, I'm off to bed."

"Maurice, can you blame me?"

"No, John; whom the G.o.ds destroy they first make mad. You will come to your senses when it is too late."

"For G.o.d's sake, Maurice, who is she?"

"What will you do if she breaks her promise?" adroitly evading the question.

"What shall I do?" He emptied the ashes from his pipe, and rose; all that was aggressive came into his face. "I will bind her hands and feet and carry her to the altar, and shoot the priest that refuses to marry us. O Maurice, rest easy; no woman lives who will make a fool of me, and laugh."

"That's comfort;" and Maurice turned in.

This night it was the Englishman who sat up till the morning hours.

Sylvia Amerbach.... A fear possessed him. If it should be, he thought; if it should be, what then?

Midnight in Madame's boudoir; no light save that which streamed rosily from the coals in the grate. The countess sat with her slippered feet upon the fender. She held in her hand a screen, and if any thoughts marked her face, they remained in blurred obscurity.

"Heu!" said Madame from the opposite side; "it is all over. It was detestable. I, to suffer this humiliation! Do you know what I have done?

I have promised to be his wife! His wife, I! Is it not droll?" There was a surprising absence of mirth in the low laugh which followed.