Jason Part 6

Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.

"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not answer him at once.

She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.

"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one to think of nothing but love when one is settling one's life forever? I wonder? I look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the lives of my friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the people who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to me that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no interest beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I were. Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well, among important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training has been toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all up?"

The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him quickly.

"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to be that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I think I'm a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that was not without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away from you. But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You lay your spell upon me."

Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once more in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.

"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget everything that I ought to remember. Oh, Ste. Marie, have I any right to think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery is upon us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead? You've seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He has been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.

Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow under which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the sorrow was less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to sympathy, Ste. Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not thrust his love upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little away from her, and so remained for a moment. When he faced about again the flush had gone from his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only tenderness was left there.

"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook her head.

"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one could disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have done it before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could believe that he is alive! If only I could believe that!"

"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.

"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to offer."

"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said he. "If your brother died anywhere there would be a record of the death. If he were accidentally killed there would be a record of that, too; and, of course, you are having all such records constantly searched?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious precaution like that."

"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little mistakes, though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie had been walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do you know, I have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man O'Hara, one would learn something about what became of your brother? I have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it."

"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What motive could the man have for harming my brother?"

"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where my argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may be biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone with him. I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of no consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish feeling, and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to meet at the Cafe de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He was not, I think, a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance. I asked him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in some weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person, here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I thought he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen him in the street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party, you remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He said that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well, the point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the same time this Irish adventurer disappears, too, _and_ your brother was known to have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a coincidence, but I can't help feeling that there's something in it."

Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert frown.

"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.

"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."

"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very certain that he's right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who knows?" She gave a little sob.

"Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my brother back? Shall we ever see him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste. Marie, and it is killing my grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh, can nothing be done?"

Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go up sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and she asked:

"What is it?"

But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:

"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."

"_You_, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "_You?_"

"And why not I?" he demanded.

"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What could you do that they haven't done?"

"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.

Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried out. "Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for mine! It is for your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too, a little.

It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least, discover what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less shame for my--unworthiness."

He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little, the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him silently.

"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you knew it, too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry, and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper place--what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give that all up, and I hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but love. My Queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"

The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.

"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the Great Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time. It is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes, yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would you have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."

"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.

The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid with an almost superst.i.tious fear. She put out her hands upon the man's shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.

"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.

"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.

And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed, shaking her head, and said she:

"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest.

How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like, or for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that.

If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know that he is dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how I--Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I have called you idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter to me to think that I have said those things."

"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.

"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portieres yonder. It must have been a servant."

"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your face again, my Queen."

"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"

"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until my year is pa.s.sed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If I fail, I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I succeed--"

"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"

"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be buried in obscurity--lost to the world."

"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh yes, I am ashamed."