The Princess Dehra Part 26

"I wish I could believe that it was just I you wanted," he said.

She shot him an upward glance of her siren eyes.

"I have been thinking about this business that we have on hand," she continued; "and, Ferdinand, if you wish my aid, you must get busy-I can't endure this stagnation longer. I'm a wild beast that would die in confinement; I need the jungle and the air and sky."

He laughed, and pinched her ear.

"Your jungle, little one, is the Champs elysees and cher Maxim's; la chaleur communicative du banquet;-your air and sky, the adulation of the masculine and the stare of admiring eyes."

"Yes, it is; and I've been away a long, long time; yet I want to stay with you until this work is ended-because" (taking his hand and smiling up at him) "you have been good to me, and because it promises excitement of a novel sort-only, dear, do let us be at it."

A door swung back. "Madam is served!" came the monotone.

As they went in, the Duke slipped his arm around her slender waist.

"We're going to be at it," he said; "send the servants away and I'll tell you my plan; it was for that I came last evening."

"Now, tell me!" she exclaimed, as the door closed behind the footman.

"We are going back to Lotzenia," he said.

She paused, and the black eye-brows went up.

"We?" she inflected.

He nodded. "That is where the game will be played out."

"And why not here, in Dornlitz?"

"Because it's easier there-and surer."

She made to s.h.i.+ver. "So, for me, it's only out of a charming mausoleum into a common grave."

He laughed. "It will be a rarely lively grave, my dear Madeline, and, I promise you, exciting enough for even your starved nerves."

"When do we start?"

"Soon, I trust-there is work to be done here first."

"And I may help?"

"Yes, you may help-the plan needs you."

"And the plan?" she asked eagerly.

"The very simplest I could devise," said he; "to lure the American to Lotzenia and--"

She smiled comprehendingly. "Why take all that trouble-why not kill him in Dornlitz?"

He flung up a cautioning hand. "Softly, my dear, softly-and not so blunt in the words-and as I said, it's easier there and surer."

"But it would be so much prettier to play the game out here," she half objected; "and more accordant with your taste, I fancy."

"Very true," said he. "It's always more artistic to run a man through with a rapier than to kill him with a club; but in this business it's the end alone that concerns me. Yet the primary essential, in either method, is opportunity and freedom of movement; neither is here; both will be plentiful in the North."

"And, of course, at your friendly invitation, the American will gladly accompany you to Lotzenia and permit himself to be-offered up."

"Practically that."

An impatient smile shone in her eyes.

"I do not understand, Ferdinand, why you persist in under-rating your enemy; it's the climax of bad generals.h.i.+p. The American may be reckless and a bit headstrong, but a.s.suredly he is not a fool."

The Duke shrugged his shoulders. "He can fight, I grant you-but he can't scheme nor plot-nor detect one, though it's as evident as the sun."

"And yet-" she waved her hand toward the Epsau-"it is he you're fighting for the Crown."

"Luck!" he scoffed-"a dotard King, a d.a.m.n Huzzar uniform, and a silly girl."

"Is his luck any the less now, with the girl Regent of Valeria?" she asked.

"Possibly not," he said; "and hence another reason for the mountains-she won't be with him there."

She gave it up-she had tried repeatedly, but it was impossible, it seemed, to arouse him to Armand's real ability-when hate rides judgment, reason lies bound and gagged.

"Why should the Governor of Dornlitz go to far off Lotzenia?" she asked.

He glanced around the room suspiciously; then scribbled a line in pencil on his cuff and held it over to her.

She read it, and looked at him in puzzled interrogation.

"I don't understand," she said; "you told me that he--"

He had antic.i.p.ated her question.

"So I did," he interrupted quickly, "but I have no proof; and lately I have come to doubt it. At any rate, this will disclose the truth. If my scheme works, he will follow into h.e.l.l itself."

"A strikingly appropriate name for your Castle, dear," she laughed.

He nodded and smiled.

"And what if the scheme doesn't work?" she asked.

"In that event, the laugh is on me, and we must devise another means to draw him there."

"Which will be quite fruitless, I can a.s.sure you."

"Then we will fight it out here," he said, "and I shall doubly need you."