The Lighted Match Part 6

"Cara, dear--if I could find a way!" he pleaded eagerly. "Suppose I could play the magician!"

He rose and stood back of the log.

She leaned back so that she might look into his eyes. "I wish you could," she mused with infinite weariness.

He stooped suddenly and kissed the drooping lips with a resentful sense of the monstrous injustice of a scheme of things wherein such lips could droop.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "You must not! I've got to be Queen of Galavia--I've got to be his wife." Then, in a quick, half-frightened tone: "Yet when you are with me I can't help it. It's wicked to love you--and I do."

He smiled through the misery of his own frown. "Am I so bad as that?" he questioned.

"You are so bad"--she suddenly caught his hands in hers and slowly shook her head--"that I don't trust myself on the same side of the road with you. You must go across and sit on that opposite side." She lightly kissed his forehead. "That's a kiss before exile--now go."

He measured the distance with disapproving eyes. "That must be fifteen feet away," he protested, "and my arms are not a yard long." He stretched them out, viewing them ruefully.

"Go!" she repeated with sternness.

He obeyed slowly, his face growing sullen.

"If I am to stay here until I recant what I said about your odious kingdom and your miserable throne, I'll--I'll--" He cast about for a sufficiently rebellious sentiment, then resolutely a.s.serted: "I'll stay here until I rot in my chains." He raised his hands and shook imaginary manacles. "Clink! Clink! Clink!" he added dramatically.

"You are being punished for being too fascinating to a poor little fool princess who has played truant and who doesn't want to go back to school." She talked on with forced levity. "As for the kingdom,"--once more her eyes became wistful--"you may say what you like about it. You can't possibly hate it as much as I. There is no anarchist screaming his adherence to the red flag or inventing infernal machines, who hates all thrones as much as the one small girl who must needs be Queen of Galavia. No, _lese-majeste_ is not the fault for which you are being punished."

For a while he was silent, then his voice was raised in exile, almost cheerfully.

"Destiny is stronger than the paretic councils of little inbred kings.

Why, Cara, I can get one good, husky Methodist preacher who can do in five minutes what I hardly think your royalties can undo--ever."

"Oh, don't!" she stopped him with plaintive appeal. "I know all that. I know it. Don't you realize that the longer the flight into the open blue of the skies, the harder the return to a gilt cage? But, dearest--there is such a thing as keeping one's parole. I must go back, unless I am held by a force stronger than I. I must go back. I have been here almost too long."

"Cara," he said slowly, "I, too, have a sense of duty. It is to you. The open blue of the skies is yours by right--divine right. You have nothing to do with cages, gilt or otherwise. My duty is to free you. I mean to do it. I haven't finished thinking it out yet, but I am going to find the way."

Her answering voice was deeply grave.

"If you just devise a situation where I shall have to fight it all out again, you will only make it harder for me. I must do what I must do. I could only be rescued by some power stronger than myself. Come, let's go back."

At dinner that same evening Mrs. Van announced to her guests that "by request of one who should be nameless," punctuating her pledge of secrecy with a p.r.o.nounced glance at Benton, there would be a masquerade affair on the evening before Cara's departure for New York. She said this was to be an informal sort of frolic in fancy dress, and the only requirement would be that every grown-up should for an evening return to childhood.

On the next morning ensued a hegira from the place, the object whereof was guarded with the most diplomatic deception and secrecy.

"Why this unanimous desertion?" demanded Van indignantly from the head of the table when it began to develop that an exodus impended. "Do your appet.i.tes crave the stimulus of city cooking? Are you leaving my simple roof for the lobster palaces?"

Benton shook his head. "Singular," he commented, studying his grape-fruit with the air of an oracle gazing into crystal. "There, for example, is Colonel Centress who will probably tell you that he has had an imperative summons to confer with his brokers and--"

He paused, while the ancient beau across the table quickly nodded affirmation.

"Quite so. How did you guess it?" he inquired.

"Never talk business at table, of course, but this is a mysterious flurry in stocks--quite a mysterious flurry."

"Quite so," echoed Benton. "Nevertheless, if you were to shadow the gallant Colonel in Manhattan to-day he would probably lead you to a costuming tailor, where you would discover him in the act of being fitted with a Roman toga or a crusader's mail."

Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh shot a malicious glance at the tall foreigner whose emotionless face proved a constant irritation to her exuberant vivacity. "I understand, Colonel Von Ritz," she innocently suggested, "that you are to impersonate a polar bear."

The Galavian smiled deep in his eyes only; his lips remained sober. One would have said that he had not recognized the thrust. "I shall only remain myself," he replied. "I am allowed to be a looker-on in Venice."

Under her breath the widow confided to her next neighbor: "Ah! then it is true."

"What are _you_ going to town for?" demanded Mrs. Van, looking accusingly at Benton, as that gentleman arose from the table.

"I should say," he laughingly responded, "that I am going to complete final arrangements for getting the Isis into commission, but n.o.body would believe me. You are all becoming so diplomatic of late!"

Von Ritz glanced up casually. "There is one very dangerous diplomacy--one very difficult to become accustomed to," he commented.

"I allude to the American diplomacy of frankness."

"The _Isis_? To think I have never seen your yacht!" mused Cara. "And yet you are allowing me to cross on a steamer."

"If she could be put in shape so soon," declared Benton regretfully, glancing from Von Ritz to Pagratide, "I should shanghai Mrs. Van for a chaperon and give a party to Europe. Unfortunately I can't get her in readiness promptly enough; unless," he added hopefully, "Miss Carstow can postpone her sailing-day?"

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO

When Benton had straightened out his car for the run to the city, and the road had begun to slip away under the tires, he turned to McGuire, his chauffeur.

"McGuire," he inquired, "where is the runabout?"

"At 'Idle Times,' sir. You loaned it to Mr. Bristow to fill up the garage."

"I remember. Now, listen!" And as Benton talked a slow grin of contentment spread across the visage of Mr. McGuire, hinting of some enterprise that appealed to his venturesome soul with a lure beyond the ordinary.

In the city, Benton was a busy man, though his visit to the costumer's was brief. Coming out of the place, he fancied he caught a glimpse of Von Ritz, but the view was fleeting and he decided that his eyes must have deceived him. He had himself patronized a rather obscure shop, recommended by Mr. McGuire. Von Ritz would presumably have selected some more fas.h.i.+onable purveyor of disguises even had his a.s.sertion that he would not masquerade been made only to deceive. Perhaps, thought the American, Colonel Von Ritz was becoming an obsession with him, merely because he stood for Galavia and the threat of royalty's mandate. He was convinced of this later in the day, when he once more fancied that a disappearing pair of broad shoulders belonged to the European. This time he laughed at the idea. The surroundings made the supposition ludicrous.

It was among the tawdry shops of s.h.i.+p chandlers in the East Side, where he himself had gone in search of certain able seamen in the company of the sailing-master of the _Isis_. Von Ritz would hardly be consorting with the fo'castle men who frequent the water front below Brooklyn Bridge.

The few days of the last week raced by, with all the charm of sky and field that the magic of Indian summer can lavish, and for Benton and Cara, they raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and relentlessly marching doom. Outwardly Cara set a pace for vivacious and care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh, the "semi-professional light-hearted lady," as...o...b..rreton named her, "to trail along in the ruck." Alone with Benton, there was always the furrow between the brows and the distressed gaze upon the mystery beyond the sky-line, but Pagratide and Von Ritz were vigilant, to the end that their tete-a-tetes were few.

Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man's overbold a.s.sertion that he would find a way. It was a futile thing said in eagerness. The day of the dance, the last day they could hope for together, came unprefaced by development. To-morrow she must take up her journey and her duty: her holiday would be at its end. It was all the greater reason why this evening should be memorable. He should think of her afterward as he saw her to-night, and it pleased her that in the irresponsibility of the maskers she should appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since in fact freedom was impossible to her.

As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and s.h.i.+fted its pattern of color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with watchful eyes.

One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown fles.h.i.+ngs, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck, and huge rings in nose and ears.

The second man was a Bedouin: a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert. From the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his shoulders. He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped domino-like to his ankles. s.h.a.ggy brows ran in an unbroken line from temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard obliterated the contour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and forehead showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.

The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. Save for the decoration of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his s.h.i.+rt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat, there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes.