The Black Cross Part 4

She stretched out her hands to him: "You are a Pole, a Pole!" Her voice rose pa.s.sionately. "Surely you have suffered; you hate Russia, this cruel, wicked, tyrannous government. Your sympathy is with us, the people, the Liberals, who are trying--oh, I tell you--I must go, at once! After tomorrow it is death, don't you understand,--death? What is it to you, the matter of another pa.s.sport? You are Velasco?--Every one knows that name, every one. Your wife goes with you to Germany.

Oh, take me--take me--I beseech you."

The Violinist stared down at the hooded face. Her voice was tense and vibrating like the tones of an instrument. It moved him strangely. He felt a curious numbness in his throat and a wave pa.s.sed over him like a chill. She went on, her hands wrung together under the cloak:

"It isn't much I ask. The journey together--at the frontier we part--part forever. The marriage, oh listen--that is nothing, a ceremony, a farce, just a certificate to show the police--the police--"

Her voice died away in a whisper, broken, panting. She fell back against the door, bracing herself against it, gazing up into his eyes.

Velasco stood motionless for a moment; then he turned on his heel and strode over to the fire-place, staring down into the coals. The sight of that bent and shrinking figure, a woman, old and feeble, trembling like a creature hunted, unmanned him.

"I can't do it," he said slowly, "Don't ask me. I am a musician. I have no interest in politics. There is too much risk. I can't, Madame, I can't."

He felt her coming towards him. The flutter of her cloak, it touched him, and her step was light, like a bird limping.

"You read it?" she whispered, "I saw you at the Mariinski; and there--there are the violets on the table, by the violin. Have you forgotten?"

Velasco started: "Who are you?" he exclaimed. "Not Kaya!" He wheeled around and faced her savagely: "You Kaya, never! Was it you who threw the violets--you?"

His dark eyes measured the shrinking form, bent and crippled, shrouded; and he cried out in his disappointment like a peevish boy: "I thought it was she--she! Kaya was young, fair, her face was like a flower; her hair was like gold; her lips were parted, arched and sweet; her eyes--You, you are not Kaya!--Never!"

His voice was angry and full of scorn: "It was all a dream, a mistake.

Go--out of my sight; begone! I'll have nothing to do with anarchists."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the violets from the table and flung them on the hearth: "Begone, or I'll call the police." He was in a tempest of rage. His disappointment rose in his throat and choked him.

The old woman shrank back from him step by step. He followed threateningly:

"Begone, you beggar."

His heart beat unpleasantly. Devil take the old woman! Impostor! She was old and ugly as sin. He was sleepy and weary. Why had he taken the violets; why had he read the note? If the girl were not Kaya, then who--who?

"Come," he cried sharply, "Be off!"

Suddenly the woman buried her head in her hands. She began to sob in long drawn breaths; they shook her form. She fell back against the Erard, trembling and sobbing.

Velasco stared down at her. His anger left him like a flash and his heart softened. Poor thing, poor creature! She was old and feeble, and crippled. He had forgotten. He had only thought of her, Kaya, the girl with the flower-like face. He shook himself, as if out of a dream, and his hand patted the woman's shoulder soothingly. His voice lost its sharpness.

"Don't," he said, "Don't cry like that, my dear Madame--no, don't! It will be all right. I was hasty. Don't mind what I said,--don't--no!"

She dashed his hand from her shoulder and broke into pa.s.sionate weeping: "You play like a G.o.d," she cried, "but you are not; you are a brute. You have no heart. It is your violin that has the heart.

Don't touch me--let me go! It was so little I asked, so little!"

She struggled away from him, but Velasco pursued her. His heart misgave him. He grasped her cloak with one hand, the hood with the other, trying to raise it; "Stop!" he said, "I can't stand a woman crying, young or old. I can't stand it; it makes me sick. Stop, I tell you! I'll do anything. I'll--I'll marry you--You shall go to Germany with me. Only stop for heaven's sake. Don't cry like that--don't!"

He stooped over the shrinking figure still lower; his arm pressed her shoulder. She struggled with him blindly, still sobbing.

"Now, by heaven," cried Velasco, "If you are to be my wife, I'll see your face at least. Be still, Madame, be still!"

The woman cowered away from him, holding out her hands, pressing him back. "I beg of you--I beseech you," she said, "Not my face! No--no, Monsieur!"

She gazed at him in terror, and as she gazed, the hood slipped back from her hair; it fell in a golden flood to her shoulders, curling in little rings and waves about her forehead, her neck; veiling her face.

She gave a cry.

Velasco stood for a moment petrified, staring down into the frightened eyes that were like twin wells of blue fixed on his own. Then he leaped forward, s.n.a.t.c.hed at the cloak, flung out his arms,--he had clasped the air. She was gone. The door slammed back in his face and the sound of her hurrying footsteps, light as a bird's, fled in the distance.

He was all alone in the room.

Velasco rubbed his eyes with his hand and stared about him, strangely, mechanically, like a sleep-walker. "What a dream! Ye G.o.ds, what a dream!" He stretched his limbs yawning and laughed aloud; then he paled suddenly. Was it a dream; or no--impossible. On the sleeve of his black velvet jacket something glistened and sparkled, a thread as of gold, fine and slender like silk, invisible almost as the fibrous strings of his bow.

He raised it between his fingers. Then slowly, heavily, he went back to his seat before the fire-place and flung himself down.

The lamp-light fell on the Persian rug dimly, flickeringly, the colours were soft as an ancient fresco; the jewels were gone, and the coals burned lower, dying. He lit a cigarette and began to smoke. The violin was in his arms. He played low to himself, dreamily, fitfully, his eyes half closed, dark slits beneath the brows.

At his feet lay the violets crushed and strewn; a twist of paper creased, blotted.

The light of the lamp grew dimmer. The malachite clock struck again and again. The night pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER IV

Below the Nicholai Bridge, on the right quay of the Neva, stands the palace of the Grand-Duke Stepan, a huge, granite structure, ma.s.sive in form and splendid in architecture.

The palace was ablaze with light. In the famous ball-room thousands of electric bulbs twinkled and sparkled, star-shaped and dazzling. Its lofty, dome-like vault, resting on marble columns, was encircled by a balcony, narrow and sculptured, from which the music of the band rose and fell, soft, entrancing, invisible, as from the clouds. The walls were of reddish marble rounded at the corners. The floor, s.h.i.+ning, polished as a mirror, reflected the swaying forms of the dancers as they whirled to and fro.

Beyond, on the grand stair-case, the guests ascended slowly in groups of twos and threes, flecking the marble with splashes of colour, radiant, vivid, like cl.u.s.ters of rose leaves strewn on the steps. The perfume was intoxicating, languorous. Light trills as of laughter and s.n.a.t.c.hes of talk, gay and fleeting, mingled with the rhythm of the violins.

The ball was at its height.

In an arch of the stair-case stood a young officer. He was leaning nonchalantly against the carved bal.u.s.trade; the scarlet and gold of his uniform shone against a green background of palms, distinguis.h.i.+ng his broad shoulders from among the rest. The palms screened him as in a niche.

The officer was swarthy of complexion with a short, black mustache, and his eyes, small and near together, roamed carelessly over the throng.

As the groups approached the head of the stair-case, one after the other, he saluted smiling, half heeding, and his eyes roved on still more carelessly; sometimes they crossed.

Whenever they crossed, his eyes would remain fixed, intent, for a moment, on some one advancing to the foot of the stair-case, eagerly watching as the form came nearer and nearer. Then the muscles relaxed.

He frowned impatiently, tapping his sword against the carvings.

"Hiss-s-t--Prince Michel!"

The whisper came from behind the leaves of the palms and they swayed slightly, trembling as from a movement, or a breath.

The officer started, turning his black eyes swiftly, fiercely on the green, and then looked away again.

"Ha, Boris!" he muttered, hardly moving his lips, "How you come creeping behind one!--What is it, a message?"

"Hist-st! Speak low."

The voice was like the faint murmur of crickets on a hot summer's day.