The King's Mirror Part 20

"You're not fit for it."

He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"I was no more fit for it yesterday," he said.

"I won't argue it."

"As you please, sire," said he with a shrug, and he seemed to pull himself together. He rose and stood before me with a smile on his lips.

I sat down, took a piece of paper, wrote a draft, leaving the amount unstated, and pushed it across to him. He looked down at it in wonder.

Then his face lit up with eagerness.

"You mean--you mean----?" he stammered.

"My ransom," said I.

"Mine!" he cried.

"No, it is mine, the price of my freedom."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "My ransom," said I. "The price of my freedom."]

He lifted the piece of paper in a hand that trembled.

"It's a lot of money," he said. "Eighty or ninety thousand marks."

"My name is good for that."

He looked me in the face, opening his lips but not speaking. Then he thrust out his hand to me. I took it; I was as much moved as he.

"Don't tempt me again," I said.

He gripped my hand hard and fiercely; when he released it I waved it toward the door. I could trust myself no more. He turned to go; but I called to him again:

"Don't say anything to her. I must see her."

He faced me with an agitated look.

"What for?" he asked.

I made him no answer, but lay back in my chair. He came toward me slowly and with hesitation. I looked up in his face.

"I'll pay you back," he said.

"I don't want the money."

"And I don't mean the money. In fact, I'm bad at paying money back. Why have you done it?"

"I have done it for myself, not for you. You owe me nothing. My honour was p.a.w.ned, and I have redeemed it. I was bound; I am free."

His eyes were fixed intently on me with a sort of wonder, but I motioned him again to the door. He obeyed me without another word; after a bow he turned and went out. I rose, and having walked to the window, looked down into the street. I saw him crossing the roadway with a slow step and bent head. He was going toward his club, not to his house. I stood watching him till he turned round a corner and disappeared. Then I drew a long breath and returned to my chair. I had hardly seated myself when Baptiste came in with a note. It was from the Countess. "Aren't you coming to-day?" That was all.

"There is no answer," I said, and Baptiste left me.

For I must carry the answer myself; and the answer must be, "Yes, to-day, but not to-morrow."

There was doubtless some extravagance in my conception of the situation, and I have not sought to conceal or modify it. It seemed to me that I could play my part only at the cost of what was dearest to me in the world. Money had served with Wetter; it would not serve here. My heart must pay, my heart and hers. I remember that I sat in my chair murmuring again and again, "To-day, but not to-morrow."

CHAPTER XIII.

I PROMISE NOT TO LAUGH.

I take it that generally when middle age looks back on the emotions of youth and its temptations, it is to smile at the wildness of the first and to marvel at the victories of the second. That is not my mood when I recall the relation between the Countess and myself. For sometimes, while pa.s.sion becomes less fierce, aspiration grows less exalted. The man who calls most, if not all, things vanity, will yield to desires which some high-strung ideal in the boy would rout. At forty the feelings are not so strong as at twenty, but neither are the ambitions, the dreams, the conception of self. It is easier to resist, but it may not seem so well worth while. Thus it is with me. I wonder not at the beginning or progress of my first love, but at the manner of its end, asking myself incredulously what motive or what notion had power to hold back the flood of youth, seeking almost in vain to re-discover the spring that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know dimly what it was, that high, strange, n.o.ble, ludicrous ideal of my office which so laid hold on me as to scatter pa.s.sion's forces and wrest me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kings.h.i.+p, so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) that in a like case I could not, or should not, do now what I did then. I suppose that it is some such process as this, a weakening of emotion parallel with a lowering of ideal, that makes us, as we grow older, think ourselves so much wiser and know ourselves to be so little better.

I had charged Wetter to say nothing to the Countess, but he disobeyed me. He had been to her and told her all that pa.s.sed between us. I knew this the moment I entered her room. Her agitated nervous air showed me that she had been informed of the withdrawal of my gift, was aware that the Emba.s.sy was no longer hers to give to Wetter or another, and was wondering helplessly what the meaning of the change might be. To her, as to Wetter, the death of Hammerfeldt must have seemed the removal of an impediment; only through the curious processes of my own mind did it raise an obstacle insurmountable. She had liked the Prince, but feared him; she imagined my feelings to have been the same, and perhaps in his lifetime they were. Then should not I, who had been brought to defy him living, more readily disregard him dead?

But against her knowledge of me and her quick wit no preconception could hold out long. She was by me in a moment, asking:

"What has happened? What's wrong, Augustin?"

I had pictured myself describing to her what I felt, making her understand, sympathize, and, even while she grieved, approve. The notion was so strong in me that I did not doubt of finding words for it--words eloquent of its force and dignity. But before her simple impulsive question I was dumb. A wave of shyness swept over me; not even to her could I divulge my thoughts, not even from her risk the smile of ridicule or the blankness of non-apprehension. I became wretchedly certain that I should be only absurd and priggish, that she would not believe me, would see only excuse and hypocrisy in what I said. It was so difficult also not to seem to accuse her, to charge her with grasping at what I had freely offered, with having, as the phrase runs, designs on me, with wis.h.i.+ng to take power where she had been impelled to bestow love. She pressed me with more questions, but still I found no answer.

"I can't do it," I was reduced to stammering. "I can't do it. He's not the man. I must find another."

"Of the Prince's party?" she asked quickly.

"I don't know. I must find somebody; I must find somebody for myself."

I had sat down, and she was standing opposite to me.

"Find somebody for yourself?" she repeated slowly. "For yourself? What do you mean by that, Augustin?"

"I must choose a man for myself."

"You mean--you mean without my help?"

I returned no answer, but sat looking at her with a dreary appealing gaze. She was silent for a few moments; then she said suddenly:

"You haven't offered to kiss me."

I rose and kissed her on the lips; she stood still and did not kiss me.

"Thank you," she said. "I asked you to kiss me, and you've kissed me.

Thank you." She paused and added, "Have I grown so much older in a day?"