A Modern Mercenary

by K. Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh Prichard

  CHAPTER XIII.

  LOVE IN TWO SHADES.

  All the next morning the snow fell persistently, and Sagan might havebeen, as far as appearances went, a castle built in the air. Above,below, around, the snow eddied like a fairy torrent, beating against thesolid walls and curling in curious ringed swirls about its buttresses aswater beats about a rock in midstream.

  But the dominant grey of the outside world cast no appreciablereflection on the spirits of Madame de Sagan's guests, with whom gaietyand wild devices for killing time were necessary and familiar things.

  But to Valerie the same suggestion of fear and unrest that had oppressedher on the previous evening still held its silent sway over the place.She stood at the broad window of the main staircase watching the swiftatoms of snow drift past, each one by itself a mere melting point, but,in their millions, mighty. She shivered and looked round with an oddsense of apprehension, as if the vague blind storm outside had itscounterpart in a vague blind danger within.

  A tall man came leaping up the staircase. He stopped beside her. Shelooked up at him, her deep eyes were full of some disturbing thought.

  'Captain Rallywood, will you tell Major Counsellor from me,' she beganat once, in a low, hurried voice, 'that, in spite of what he has heardof me, he must still believe Maasau is the dearest thing on earth to me.Tell him that, if needful, I am ready to prove it with my life! He maymake quite sure I meant all I said to him yesterday.'

  Rallywood stood silent. The passion of her voice and speech echoed inher own ears and suddenly seemed all excessive and uncalled for; ablush--half anger, half shame--rushed over her face, bringing tears toher eyes. Why was it decreed that she should always, in some smallfoolish way, appear to disadvantage before this wretched Englishman.

  'I will tell him,' said Rallywood at last, 'though I cannot understand.'

  'No, you cannot understand! You are so cold, so self-centred that thefeelings and tumults which trouble most of us appear as weaknesses toyou. Since you cannot understand us, you should not judge us, we others,who, in our own spasmodic way, love our country as you serveyours--steadily and with a whole heart.'

  Now, John Rallywood was perplexed. He longed to set himself right withher. Her very accusations, her readiness to find fault, which might havemade matters clear to some men, only disheartened him with a renewedsense of her dislike.

  'You hate my nation,' he said, after a pause of consideration,'therefore you condemn me, not because of anything I have done, but ongeneral grounds, putting the worst construction on--on everything. Iwonder why you judge me so hardly?'

  Valerie laughed, her red lip finely edged with scorn.

  'On the contrary, you judge us! Who made you a judge over us? You regardus--you English--with that straight steady look. I suppose you feel whatfutile creatures we others are, with our shifting moods and passions,our little furies and desperations! Do you remember the night you joinedthe Guard--the night in the Cloister of St. Anthony? How I trembled andfeared for you, I'--she laughed again--'I even wanted to help you! Howabsurd it all seemed to you, didn't it? I remember you were very cooland quiet, and I suppose you thought it very foolish--one of thoseunnecessary, extravagant emotions in which we inferior races are apt toindulge!'

  'Stop!' Rallywood cut her short with a peremptory word, 'I will notallow you to say such things of yourself nor--of me!'

  Valerie threw back her head with the slight haughty lift he knew sowell.

  'You are rather too certain of your own power,' she said.

  'You say you remember that night?--not so well as I do? You think I amvery sure of myself. And yet I have been mistaken on points that touchme close. I thought that night when I knew I might never see themorning--I dared to fancy that we--you and I--understood each other--alittle.' He waited, but Valerie had turned away; her profile lookedexquisite, but cold, against the dark shutter as she watched the drivingsnow. 'So I was the fool after all, you see!' he ended lamely.

  According to the immemorial fashion of love, they understood andmisunderstood each other alternately playing high and low at every othermoment upon the wide gamut of feeling, touching faint sweet notes thatwould echo for ever.

  Rallywood's self-control was giving way a little, and she instinctivelyfelt her power and used it.

  'I wonder what you really think of us behind that quiet alertness ofyours,' she said lightly, 'I believe I did imagine I--understood you alittle that night; but I imagine it no longer! Perhaps I misjudge younow, but it cannot matter; you told me once you knew how to wait, and ofcourse you are certain that all unfair opinions of you must come rightin the end.'

  But Rallywood passed over her many sentences to seize the central ideathat appealed to him.

  'Yes, I have learned to wait. I told you that everything comes to himwho waits. Unfortunately a proverb is true often, not always. One thingcan never come to me however long I wait. For me there is no hope.'

  'I don't know what you hope for,' replied the girl, slowly, as if shewere choosing her words; but she hardly knew what she said, she was lostin a multitude of dreams, and her words but filled in the rare crevicesbetween them. 'I thought that every man carried his own fate in his ownhand.'

  'A man can fight the tangible, but no man can struggle against theordinary laws of social life. We may laugh at conventional methods, buteven in Revonde there are some which must be yielded to.'

  'I don't think,' said Valerie, 'we yield to many in Revonde.'

  Rallywood saw a group of people advancing towards them. Valerie, withher changes of mood and manner, distracted him, and drove him on to saywhat he had resolved never to be tempted into saying.

  'I am a soldier--only a soldier; I gain a livelihood, but no more. Ihave no luck and no genius. To make a fortune or a name is beyond me.And without fortune many desirable things are impossible.'

  Valerie turned upon him a bewildering smile.

  'I shall know for the future, Captain Rallywood, what you are thinkingof. You will be thinking, for all those grave eyes of yours, of thefortune you cannot make!'

  'Not quite that, Mademoiselle,' he answered, 'I shall be thinking of thegirl I cannot win.'

  Valerie found herself drawn away from him by the passing group. She wasaware of a warm throb at her heart, she was trembling a little, and thefear of the morning had temporarily vanished. For no definite reasonwhich she could afterwards discover, she felt suddenly happy.

  By evening the _tsa_ had blown away the snow-clouds for the time, and athin moon gleamed fitfully over the wide expanses of white. Remote,muffled in leagues of snow, and alive with hungry passions andunscrupulous strength, the Castle of Sagan did not, on that wild Januarynight, offer desirable housing to the Grand Duke of Maasau. He had yetsome thirty hours to spend as his cousin's guest before he could returnto his capital without showing suspicion or giving offence. A hundredtimes he wished himself back in his great palace by the river bank wherethe squadrons of the Guard lay within call. But he bore himself wellnotwithstanding, and although, on the plea of chill and fatigue, he keptto his rooms more than usual, his short appearances in public left inone sense nothing to be desired. He did not carry himself as a man inmortal anxiety, but was as dissatisfied, as discourteous, and asdisagreeable as it was his custom to be.

  Late in the afternoon Madame de Sagan retired to take some rest beforedinner. Wrapped in lace and silk, she was standing in front of hermirror with her women about her, when the Count entered. At his firstimperious word the attendants vanished.

  Isolde continued to stare into the glass like one fascinated, for in itshe not only saw the reflection of her own slender white-clad figure,but over her shoulder the fierce face she dreaded.

  For a long minute husband and wife remained reading each other's facesin the looking-glass.

  She had seen aversion and menace in the Count's lowering face many atime before, and was at length beginning to believe the almostimpossible fact to be true, that a man lived who hated her, over whomher beauty had no power.
/>
  The young Countess shivered in mortal terror.

  'Simon,' she wailed suddenly, 'you are changed,--you do not love me anymore!'

  A broad smile flitted across the savage old face.

  'You are a fool, but a very pretty fool, Isolde, and for that a manmight forgive you many things. Now listen to me. After you retire toyour rooms for the night, keep close to them, no matter what you hear.There may be a disturbance, and you had better have Selpdorf's daughterto keep you company.' His expression changed as he spoke of Valerie.

  'There is danger,' she gasped, 'danger. What is it, oh, tell me what itis!' Her first fear leaping towards Rallywood.

  He stared into her shrinking eyes.

  'If you ever hope to be Duchess of Maasau,' he answered significantly,'leave Valerie's lovers, Unziar and the Englishman, to take care ofthemselves. Keep your tongue silent! Remember!' He caught her slenderwrist roughly as he spoke and pressed it to enforce the command.

  The Countess made no reply, but her fingers closed in upon her palms.

  'Come, give me a kiss, and promise me to do so much towards makingyourself a Grand Duchess.' He brushed her lips carelessly with hismoustache.

  The caress brought no response; but as he bent over her she whispered,'Have mercy on me Simon!' (it was a prayer born rather of some vagueinstinct of danger than any defined fear); 'don't kill me!'

  He put his thick arm round her and shook her impatiently.

  'Kill you, Isolde? Are you mad? You are far more useful to me livingthan dead. Get rid of your silly fears, and remember--silence!'

  Then putting her back on the couch with more gentleness than might havebeen expected of him, he walked out of the room. For a little while shesat listening, then opened her eyes and glanced about her. Yes, he wasgone. But it was characteristic of her that at such a time her chief andoverpowering thought was Valerie as a rival! 'Valerie's lovers, Unziarand the Englishman!' A score of trifles rushed back upon her memory; butno it could not be. It was one of the Count's amiable ways to suggestcauses of jealousy to his wife. He meant nothing, for what could heknow? The soothing conviction grew upon her that the taunt was thrown ather for what it was worth. Oh, how she hated Sagan--hated hisbloodshot, beast's eyes, his mocking laugh, his cruel hands, hiscrueller gibes!

  She pushed back the lace from her wrist and saw the thin parallels ofbruised flesh his fingers had left--entirely unaware, it must beowned--upon her whiteness. Ah, she would show these to Rallywood--as aproof that she was in danger, that she actually needed his protection,and so win him from his post, which to-night would become the post ofdeath.

  All her little vain soul thrilled within her at the possibility oftriumph--of defeating the honour of such a man--of winning him from hiswatch for love's sake--of overcoming the scruples that had for so long atime stood out against her wiles.

  And yet in her poor way she loved him--loved him as she would probablynever love another. Some women are made in that way, they take pride inthe loftiness of the height from which they drag men down. Then he mustbe saved, she told herself, at all costs saved! He would live to thankher yet. A thought of him lying dead in his blood by the dark embrasurethat masked the entrance to the royal apartments flashed across hermind. She stretched out her arms with a soft call like a bird's.

  'Oh, love, love, I will save you!'