The Devil's Paw Part 15

"What are you thinking of doing with it, then?"

"I shall take it to London with me to-morrow," he replied, "and hand it over to a friend of mine at the Foreign Office."

"Would nothing that I could do or say," she asked pa.s.sionately, "influence your decision?"

"Everything that you do or say interests and affects me," he answered simply, "but so far as regards this matter, my duty is clear. You have nothing to fear from my account of how it came into my possession. It would be impossible for me to denounce you for what I fear you are. On the other hand, I cannot allow you the fruits of your enterprise."

"You consider me, I suppose," she observed after a moment's pause, "an enemy spy?"

"You have proved it," he reminded her.

"Of Overman--my confederate," she admitted, "that was true. Of me it is not. I am an honest intermediary between the honest people of Germany and England."

"There can be no communication between the two countries during wartime, except through official channels," he declared.

Her eyes flashed. She seemed in the throes of one of those little bursts of tempestuous pa.s.sion which sometimes a.s.sailed her.

"You talk--well, as you might be supposed to talk!" she exclaimed, breaking off with an effort. "What have official channels done to end this war? I am not here to help either side. I represent simply humanity. If you destroy or hand over to the Government that packet, you will do your country an evil turn."

He shook his head.

"I am relieved to hear all that you say," he told her, "and I am heartily glad to think that you do not look upon yourself as Overman's a.s.sociate. On the other hand, you must know that any movement towards peace, except through the authorised channels, is treason to the country."

"If only you were not the Honourable Julian Orden, the son of an English peer!" she groaned. "If only you had not been to Eton and to Oxford! If only you were a man, a man of the people, who could understand!"

"Neither my birth nor my education," he a.s.sured her, "have affected my present outlook upon life."

"Pooh!" she scoffed. "You talk like a stiffened sheet of foolscap! I am to leave here to-morrow, then, without my packet?"

"You must certainly leave--when you do leave--without that," he a.s.sented. "There is one thing, however, which I very sincerely hope that you will leave behind you."

"And that?"

"Your forgiveness."

"My forgiveness for what?" she asked, after a moment's pause.

"For my rashness this morning."

Her eyes grew a little larger.

"Because you kissed me?" she observed, without flinching. "I have nothing to forgive. In fact," she went on, "I think that I should have had more to forgive if you had not."

He was puzzled and yet encouraged. She was always bewildering him by her sudden changes from the woman of sober thoughtfulness to the woman of feeling, the woman eager to give, eager to receive. At that moment it seemed as though her s.e.x possessed her to the exclusion of everything outside. Her eyes were soft and filled with the desire of love, her lips sweet and tremulous. She had suddenly created a new atmosphere around her, an atmosphere of bewildering and pa.s.sionate femininity.

"Wont you tell me, please, what you mean?" he begged.

"Isn't it clear?" she answered, very softly but with a suspicion of scorn in her low tones. "You kissed me because I deliberately invited it. I know that quite well. My anger--and I have been angry about it--is with myself."

He was a little taken aback. Her perfect naturalness was disarming, a little confusing.

"You certainly did seem provocative," he confessed, "but I ought to have remembered."

"You are very stupid," she sighed. "I deliberately invited your embrace.

Your withholding it would simply have added to my humiliation. I am furious with myself, simply because, although I have lived a great part of my life with men, on equal terms with them, working with them, playing with them, seeing more of them at all times than of my own s.e.x, such a thing has never happened to me before."

"I felt that," he said simply.

For a moment her face shone. There was a look of grat.i.tude in her eyes.

Her impulsive grasp of his hand left his fingers tingling.

"I am glad that you understood," she murmured. "Perhaps that will help me just a little. For the rest, if you wish to be very kind, you will forget."

"If I cannot do that," he promised, "I will at least turn the key upon my memories."

"Do more than that," she begged. "Throw the key into the sea, or whatever oblivion you choose to conjure up. Moments such as those have no place in my life. There is one purpose there more intense than anything else, that very purpose which by some grim irony of fate it seems to be within your power to destroy."

He remained silent. Ordinary expressions of regret seemed too inadequate. Besides, the charm of the moment was pa.s.sing. The other side of her was rea.s.serting itself.

"I suppose," she went on, a little drearily, "that even if I told you upon my honour, of my certain knowledge, that the due delivery of that packet might save the lives of thousands of your countrymen, might save hearts from breaking, homes from becoming dest.i.tute--even if I told you all this, would it help me in my prayer?"

"Nothing could help you," he a.s.sured her, "but your whole confidence, and even then I fear that the result would be the same."

"Oh, but you are very hard!" she murmured. "My confidence belongs to others. It is not mine alone to give you."

"You see," he explained, "I know beforehand that you are speaking the truth as you see it. I know beforehand that any scheme in which you are engaged is for the benefit of our fellow creatures and not for their harm. But alas! you make yourself the judge of these things, and there are times when individual effort is the most dangerous thing in life."

"If you were any one else!" she sighed.

"Why be prejudiced about me?" he protested. "Believe me, I am not a frivolous person. I, too, think of life and its problems. You yourself are an aristocrat. Why should not I as well as you have sympathy and feeling for those who suffer?"

"I am a Russian," she reminded him, "and in Russia it is different.

Besides, I am no longer an aristocrat. I am a citizeness of the world.

I have eschewed everything in life except one thing, and for that I have worked with all my heart and strength. As for you, what have you done?

What is your record?"

"Insignificant, I fear," he admitted. "You see, a very promising start at the Bar was somewhat interfered with by my brief period of soldiering."

"At the present moment you have no definite career," she declared. "You have even been wasting your time censoring."

"I am returning now to my profession."

"Your profession!" she scoffed. "That means you will spend your time wrangling with a number of other bewigged and narrow-minded people about uninteresting legal technicalities which lead nowhere and which no one cares about."

"There is my journalism."

"You have d.a.m.ned it with your own phrase 'hack journalism'!"