The Man on the Box Part 26

"In love?" He looked up quickly.

"Decidedly; and I had always doubted your capacity for that sentiment."

"And pray tell me, with whom am I in love?"

"Come, Count, you and I know each other too well to waste time in beating about the bushes. I do not blame you for loving her; only, I say, it must not be."

"Must not be?" The count's voice rose a key.

"Yes, must not be. You must give them up--the idea and the girl. What!

You, who contrive the father's dishonor, would aspire to the daughter's hand? It is not equable. Love her honorably, or not at all. The course you are following is base and wholly unworthy of you."

He dropped the arm abruptly and strode across the room, stopping by a window. He did not wish her to see his face at that particular instant.

Some men would have demanded indignantly to know how she had learned these things; not so the count.

"There is time to retrieve. Go to the colonel frankly, pay his debts out of your own pockets, then tell the girl that you love her. Before you tell her, her father will have acquainted her with his sin and your generosity. She will marry you out of grat.i.tude."

Karloff spun on his heels. His expression was wholly new. His eyes were burning; he stretched and crumpled his gloves.

"Yes, you are right, you are right! I have been trying to convince myself that I was a machine where the father was concerned and wholly a man in regard to the girl. You have put it before me in a bold manner.

Good G.o.d, yes! I find that I am wholly a man. How smoothly all this would have gone to the end had she not crossed my path! I _am_ base, I, who have always considered myself an honorable man. And now it is too late, too late!"

"Too late? What do you mean? Have you dared to ask her to be your wife?" Had Karloff held her arm at this moment, he would have comprehended many things.

"No, no! My word has gone forth to my government; there is a wall behind me, and I can not go back. To stop means worse than death. My property will be confiscated and my name obliterated, my body rot slowly in the frozen north. Oh, I know my country; one does not gain her grat.i.tude by failure. I must have those plans, and nowhere could I obtain such perfect ones."

"Then you will give her up?" There was a broken note.

The count smiled. To her it was a smile scarce less than a snarl.

"Give her up? Yes, as a mother gives up her child, as a lioness her cub. She _has_ refused me, but nevertheless she shall be my wife. Oh, I am well-versed in human nature. She loves her father, and I know what sacrifices she would make to save his honor. To-night!--" But his lips suddenly closed.

"Well, to-night? Why do you not go on?" Mrs. Chadwick was pale. Her gloved hands were clenched. A spasm of some sort seemed to hold her in its shaking grasp.

"Nothing, nothing! In heaven's name, why have you stirred me so?" he cried.

"Supposing, after all, I loved you?"

He retreated. "Madam, your suppositions are becoming intolerable and impossible."

"Nothing is impossible. Supposing I loved you as violently and pa.s.sionately as you love this girl?"

"Madam,"--hastily and with gentleness, "do not say anything which may cause me to blush for you; say nothing you may regret to-morrow."

"I am a woman of circ.u.mspection. My suppositions are merely argumentative. Do you realize, Count, that I could force you to marry me?"

Karloff's astonishment could not be equaled. "Force me to marry you?"

"Is the thought so distasteful, then?"

"You are mad to-night!"

"Not so. In whatever manner you have succeeded in this country, your debt of grat.i.tude is owing to me. I do not recall this fact as a reproach; I make the statement to bear me on in what I have to submit to your discerning intelligence. I doubt if there is another woman, here or abroad, who knows you so well as I. Your personal honor is beyond impeachment, but Russia is making vast efforts to speckle it.

She will succeed. Yes, I could force you to marry me. With a word I could tumble your house of cards. I am a worldly woman, and not without wit and address. I possess every one of your letters, most of all have I treasured the extravagant ones. To some you signed your name. If you have kept mine, you will observe that my given name might mean any one of a thousand women who are named 'Grace.' Shall you marry me? Shall I tumble your house of cards? I could go to Colonel Annesley and say to him that if he delivers these plans to you, I shall denounce him to the secret service officers. I might cause his utter financial ruin, but his name would descend to his daughter untarnished."

"You would not dare!" the count interrupted.

"What? And you know me so well? I have not given you my word to reveal nothing. You confided in my rare quality of silence; you confided in me because you had proved me. Man is not infallible, even when he is named Karloff." She lifted from a vase her flowers, from which she shook the water. "Laws have been pa.s.sed or annulled; laws have died at the executive desk. Who told you that this was to be, or that, long before it came to pa.s.s? In all the successful intrigues of Russia in this country, whom have you to thank? Me. Ordinarily a woman does not do these things as a pastime. There must be some strong motive behind. You asked me why I have stirred you so. Perhaps it is because I am neither two-and-twenty nor you two-score. It is these little barbs that remain in a woman's heart. Well, I do not love you well enough to marry you, but I love you too well to permit you to marry Miss Annesley."

"That has the sound of war. I _did_ love you that night,"--not without a certain n.o.bility.

"How easily you say 'that night'! Surely there was wisdom in that smile of mine. And I nearly tumbled into the pit! I must have looked exceedingly well... _that night!_"--drily.

"You are very bitter to-night. Had you taken me at my word, I never should have looked at Miss Annesley. And had I ceased to love you, not even you would have known it."

"Is it possible?"--ironically.

"It is. I have too much pride to permit a woman to see that I have made a mistake."

"Then you consider in the present instance that you have not made a mistake? You are frank."

"At least I have not made a mistake which I can not rectify. Madam, let us not be enemies. As you say, I owe you too much. What is it you desire?"--with forced amiability.

"Deprive Colonel Annesley of his honor, that, as you say, is inevitable; but I love that girl as I would a child of my own, and I will not see her caught in a net of this sort, or wedded to a man whose government robs him of his manhood and individuality."

"Do not forget that I hold my country first and foremost,"--proudly.

"Love has no country, nor laws, nor galling chains of incert.i.tude. Love is magnificent only in that it gives all without question. You love this girl with reservations. You shall not have her. You shall not have even me, who love you after a fas.h.i.+on, for I could never look upon you as a husband; in my eyes you would always be an accomplice."

"It is war, then?"--curtly.

"War? Oh, no; we merely sever our diplomatic relations," she purred.

"Madam, listen to me. I shall make one more attempt to win this girl honorably. For you are right: love to be love must be magnificent. If she accepts me, for her sake I will become an outcast, a man without a country. If she refuses me, I shall go on to the end. Speak to the colonel, Madam; it is too late. Like myself, he has gone too far. Why did you open the way for me as you did? I should have been satisfied with a discontented clerk. You threw this girl across my path, indirectly, it is true; but nevertheless the fault is yours."

"I recognize it. At that time I did not realize how much you were to me."

"You are a strange woman. I do not understand you."

"Incompatibility. Come, the carriage is waiting. Let us be gone."

"You have spoilt the evening for me," said the count, as he threw her cloak across her shoulders.

"On the contrary, I have added a peculiar zest. Now, let us go and appear before the world, and smile, and laugh, and eat, and gossip. Let the heart throb with a dull pain, if it will; the mask is ours to do with as we may."

They were, in my opinion, two very unusual persons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lay the rose on the table"--Act II.]