ELMA.
A large, long room on the first floor of a house in Prague; the
furniture, once rich, now sadly worn; the lights dim except over one
table where cards were scattered on the green cloth as they had been
left by the players; close to it, partly in shadow, a second table with
drink and glasses; near it an overturned chair; away in the gloom a
cowering figure on a settee with old hands pressed strenuously on the
hidden face; and in the centre a queenly woman, beautiful as a picture,
white-faced, distraught and trembling, but struggling to appear defiant
as she faced a boy of nineteen who was regarding her with looks in
which hot love, horrified repugnance and disgust struggled with the
bewildering pain of the knowledge of her unworthiness. She had been
caught red-handed in the flagrant use of the tricks of a common card
cheat; and the rest had gone, with flouts and scoffs and jeers, leaving
the two, the boy, face to face with the sudden consciousness of her
shame, and suffering as only a boy in his calf love can suffer: the
woman, scared and confused, but wrathful and relying defiantly upon the
power of her beauty.
I was the boy; and Elma Dreschkel, now the Baroness von Tulken, was
the woman. We had not met since that night; but the picture flashed
back upon my memory, resistlessly and instantaneously, as I felt once
more upon me those dark, dangerous, and strangely compelling eyes of
hers.
“You are surprised, of course; but you will not refuse me your hand,”
she said, as I hesitated to take hers.
I took her hand. “Yes, I am surprised,” I answered.
“You are not changed much. Older, broader, more manly, of course, and
much handsomer, too.”
“The change in my looks may not be very great.” It was a fatuous thing
to say, for it gave her a chance which her ready wit seized at once.
“I have not changed even in looks,” she said, with a sigh and droop of
the eyes and a little graceful gesture of the hands. She did herself
less than justice, however. The seven years had ripened her beauty of
form and face; the girl had become a woman; and the woman more than
fulfilled the promise of the girl. She was faultlessly dressed, too,
with exquisite taste; and had achieved that combination of apparent
simplicity and suggestion of costly extravagance after which so many
American women strive not always with success.
She knew I was looking very closely at her and she paused long enough
to give me ample opportunity. Then she glanced up and smiled: hers was
one of the most dangerous smiles ever given to a woman.
“Well?” she asked, as if challenging me. Was she anxious to establish
our relations upon something of the old footing?
“To what do I owe the favour of this visit?” I asked in a formal and
precise tone.
But she only laughed. “Is it a favour, really, do you think? Do you say
that only as a preface to dismissing me?”
“It is, at any rate, as I said, a surprise.”
“Why? Why should it be a surprise that I wished to see you again, and
that hearing a great financier, Chase F. Bergwyn, was coming here, I
rushed here the first moment I could to make sure that it was you?”
“The surprise may be to find you in Belgrade.”
“Oh, yes, that of course--but not that I should wish to see you.” She
had always been clever in turning my words back upon me.
“I am afraid you misunderstand me,” I said after a pause. “I meant to
ask you if there was anything I could do for you?”
“Would you do it, Chase?” she cried with quick daring, flashing her
eyes upon me. “I wonder if you would. I should like to think so.”
“Will you regard the question as put quite formally? This visit is
quite unexpected, and as I am a somewhat busy man just now, my time is
very much occupied.”
“I am still standing,” she answered, unexpectedly.
I placed a chair for her and she sat down, gracefully--she did all
things gracefully--and smiled. “How long can you spare me?” She put the
question lightly, with mockery in every accent.
“I have engagements right through the day. Baroness....”
She interposed with a quick gesture, rose suddenly and looked at
me as if I had insulted her by this use of her title, and her lips
opened as if to give her protest utterance; but she merely sighed and
shrugged her shoulders, and sat down again. A very effective piece of
acting--but no more than acting.
In reply I glanced at the card which I still held in my hand.
“Yes, I married for money and position. What would you have had me do?”
She made the quick question a reproach, speaking in a low, tense tone
as of carefully restrained feeling, with a dash of personal defiance,
paused and then added slowly: “I was deserted by--everyone. Was I to
starve and sink and go on sinking and starving. The Baron was three
times my age. Wealthy, and believed in me and trusted me. When even
those who might have had faith in me”--she paused again as she repeated
the phrase--“even those who might have had faith, turned their backs
upon me, and deserted me, he offered me the shelter of his rank and
riches and name. And even if I had no heart to give him in response,
was I to blame for giving him my hand? Does it lie with you to reproach
me?--you, of all men; you?”
So intense was her tone, so magnetic her influence, and so realistic
her acting that she actually roused in me for the moment the feeling
that in that old time it was I who had wronged her and played the part
of coward now suggested, and not she who had cheated and cozened me in
my boyish infatuation until for years my faith in all women had been
destroyed. Yet I knew that she was that most dangerous of all created
beings--a beautiful woman with brains and without a heart.
“I am not reproaching you,” I answered. “On the contrary, I
congratulate you. I think you acted very prudently.”
“My God,” she cried in an accent of intense suffering; and first
glancing at me with eyes full of sadness and suffering, she bent her
head upon her hand. She was master of many emotions; but the acting
which had fooled the boy in love was powerless to deceive me now.
A pause of some embarrassment followed. What I wished to learn was her
motive in coming to me. She had a strong one, of course. I could gamble
on that.
“Need we pretend?” I asked, at length.
She shivered as though the words hurt her, and then looking up
suddenly, answered with a sort of fierce _abandon_.
“No. No; although God knows it is no pretence that I am agitated at
seeing you again.”
“If you are thus disturbed let me suggest that we postpone the
conversation until you are more self-possessed.”
She drew in her breath sharply with a little shudder, and stretched out
a hand as if in entreaty, then clasped it to her face and appeared to
make a great effort to regain self-restraint.
“Bear with me a moment. This is so strange a meeting. I....” she
stopped, and bit her lip and smiled and sighed.
I watched her quite unmoved by this display. “Yes, it is very strange,”
I said.
Next, as if having regained self-possession and desirous of getting
away from an embarrassing situation, she said, unexpectedly, and
almost crudely: “Won’t you sit down, Cha-- Mr. Bergwyn?” She made the
correction palpable, then added: “I should apologise for my excitement
having betrayed me into calling you by--by the name once so familiar. I
am still liable to impulses.”
I accepted the position thus suggested, sat down and answered in a tone
of conventional compliment: “So beautiful a woman as you, Baroness,
need never think of apologising for anything.”
“At all events I will try not to offend again,” she said lightly. “I
suppose that really I ought not to have come to you in this way, but
have waited until we met. You are so great a man now.”
“You had some reason for coming, of course. Shall we discuss that?”
“Oh, yes, I had a reason; but I find it so hard to explain it now.”
Her manner now was that of a sort of engaging nervousness. “I declare
I could almost wish you were a stranger, Mr. Bergwyn. It would be less
difficult.”
This was my chance and I took it. “You may really regard me as a
stranger, Baroness;” I said, gravely, with emphasis; but she smiled
winningly, intentionally disregarding my meaning, and replied with
great sweetness:
“You were always considerate.” She paused and continued then with a
glance:
“I had my reasons for coming to you, of course. I suppose I may be
frank. In the first place I wished to be sure that you were the Mr.
Bergwyn who knew me before I came to Belgrade.”
Her eyes said more than her words then and I gave the assurance they
sought.
“If I understand you, pray be quite at rest. Since we parted you have
lived your life and I have lived mine--and our memories do not go
behind that new life.” I meant that if she did not wish me to give her
away, I did not want that old boyish intrigue of mine raked up. She was
relieved by the assurance, and could not hide the feeling.
“I was sure of that, of course,” she answered with a scarcely
perceptible sigh of relief. “It does not affect your purpose here.”
“How could it?”
“Of course your agents have been making inquiries about everything
here, and I suppose you know something of my position and influence. I
am a rich woman, Mr. Bergwyn, and stand high in the confidence of many
people in Belgrade.”
“I had heard of the Baroness von Tulken as one enjoying considerable
influence at Court.”
“Yes, I have influence; and even if I had found you a stranger I
intended to place it entirely at your service. Need I say how much more
I should wish to do so, seeing you are who you are.”
“I thought we were not to remember that.”
“How precise you men of business are!” she laughed. “Well, do you
accept my offer?”
“I should be charmed, of course, and if the need arises I shall
instantly remember your promise.”
“Is that a refusal?” she asked swiftly.
“A conditional acceptance rather, is it not?”
“I did not come for conditions. I came for frank acceptance or
rejection of my offer.”
“I arrived but last night,” I reminded her, blandly.
“You are playing with words. What is your object in Belgrade?”
“I think everyone in the capital who knows of my presence knows why I
have come.”
“But I mean your secret object. You have not come here to lend this
money. Englishmen--I beg pardon, even Americans do not act like madmen
in such matters. You know there is no stability in the kingdom, no
security that even your interest would be paid. Why then do you come?
What part are you proposing to play in all the intrigues at present
rife here? Whose side do you take and why?”
“The negotiations for the loan....” I began when she cut me short with
a laugh and waved the words aside.
“What is it you want to buy with your money?”
“Really....”
“I will put it another way,” She interposed again. “Which party are
you with? The army are intriguing against the present dynasty; are you
with them? The Crown is intriguing to secure the next succession for
the Queen’s brother; are you with them? Another party is intriguing to
secure the Princess Gatrina in her rights; are you with them?--with
us, I should say. If you are, then indeed your millions may be safe.”
“I fear I do not understand you. The Queen is responsible for the
betrothal of the Princess to the Prince Albrevics; how then....”
The interposing laugh was now scornful.
“You have indeed much to learn. You will hold what I may say in
confidence?”
“Yes; but without pledging myself to make no use privately of any
information; and I think you should not speak,” I answered after a
pause of doubt whether I could rightly let her speak freely. But she
had no hesitation.
“I will take your word and any risks. I wish you, if you take any
side, to take ours. The Queen’s object in promoting the marriage of
the Princess--as good a girl as ever lived--with such a vile reprobate
as this Albrevics is--what do you think? Nay, you would not see it,
not understanding the cross currents of our matters here. She knows,
as all the country knows--except Gatrina herself, perhaps--that of all
the impossible successors to the throne he is the most impossible.
She does it that Gatrina’s claims may thus be destroyed finally and
Gatrina herself in this clever way removed from the path of the Queen’s
brother.”
“Very smart, very subtle, and very feminine,” I said, with a smile as
though the plan appealed to my appreciation of a really clever move.
“And what is your plan?”
“First, what is your motive in Belgrade? Would you help in so shameful
a scheme against the Princess?”
I affected to consider and then answered with more truth than she knew.
“No, I think I can safely say I should not.”
“I was sure of it,” she cried, triumphantly. “And you would not help
the army in their plans?”
“I do not know them.”
“They can be put in one word--assassination.”
“God forbid that I should deal with such a thing. But you must be mad
to think it.”
She paused and then said slowly with significant emphasis:
“When I know not, and how I know not, but matters will come to that
if the army once have the courage to act. The Queen has some strong
friends, but some terrible enemies; and there is but one way to avert
catastrophe.”
“How is that?”
“By securing the succession to the Princess Gatrina by the only means
which can render it secure.” She fixed her eyes upon me with an intent,
searching look.
“That is your scheme, you mean. How would you do it?” I had no scruple
in questioning her now. I saw that some plan against Gatrina was in the
making, and was ready to go to lengths now to know it.
“By securing her marriage with a man who would be accepted by the
country as a king.”
“And there is such a man?”
“Yes; the Duke Barinski, of Fagodina.”
“I have never heard of him. What claim to the throne can he make?”
She smiled significantly. “He has many. He is connected by descent
with the Karageorgevics, while the Princess represents the Obrenovics.
Together their claim would be incontestable, as it would reconcile and
unite the rival interests. And what is most--he has the support of
Russia. Now you understand.”
“And _your_ motive?”
“The Duke is the head of the family of which I am a humble member.”
“A very beautiful member certainly, and a very useful one, also
certainly; but I should not use the term humble, Baroness. You seem to
have a strong cause, particularly with Russian influence behind. You
think it will succeed?”
“It cannot fail,” she said in a tone of dead conviction.
“And the Princess Gatrina? What are her views?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “In a marriage of State what does it matter
to the bride who the groom may be? She at present trusts the Queen, and
so accepts even such a man as Albrevics.”
“It is all very interesting, but there is one question which a business
man would put--a man looking of course to his own interests only. If
those who are with me in this joined in this scheme, would the Russian
influence go so far as to guarantee the loan?”
“Do you think I can pledge the Russian Government?”
“Scarcely that, perhaps, but in such a case you may have some
influence.”
She laughed very musically. “You are much quicker than you used to be.
Chase--I beg your pardon, Mr. Bergwyn--you think I am a Russian agent.
Well, you are right. I am. My husband, the Baron, was one.”
“Was?”
“He is dead. Of course you know that.”
“Your pardon; I did not. And you told your people, of course, that you
were coming to see me?”
Again she understood me; and again she laughed. “Yes. I told them
it was possible I might have some influence with you--some personal
influence, of course.” She paused and added, slowly: “But I see now
that I was wrong.”
“At any rate I think we may now say we understand each other and this
matter,” I said as I rose.
“You will join us? There is no other way to make your interests safe.
Russian influence is paramount.”
“Forgive me if I hold my decision over. What you have said has greatly
impressed me.” It had, but not quite in the way she may have thought.
“I shall see something of you while you are here?”
“How long I remain is, of course, uncertain,” I answered; and the
evasion displeased her.
“That may mean no. But I must see you. I insist, I do, indeed,
positively insist;” and she laid her hand on my arm and smiled
winningly.
“But I may go over to the Austrian side, whatever that may be. They
may also have eloquent advocates.”
“You may find the Queen’s chief advocate the most difficult to resist.
I think I ought to warn you.”
“Who is that?”
“The Princess Gatrina--a very beautiful girl and very persuasive.”
Fortunately the start I gave passed unnoticed as her eyes were off me
at the moment.
“It seems to be a contest of beautiful women, Baroness,” I said with a
bow.
“It is perhaps fortunate for you, therefore, that you are now only a
business man--with a short memory,” she retorted with a glance which I
affected not to see.
Then an unexpected incident followed. I accompanied her to the door and
as we crossed the hall, Chris was lying there. He got up and she looked
at him and paused.
“That is an enormous dog, Mr. Bergwyn. I do not like big dogs.”
“Chris will not hurt you. He is gentle as he is big--unless on
necessary occasions.”
“You call him Chris?” she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise. “That is
something of a coincidence; I hope it is not an omen,” and she gave me
a keen glance.
“Why a coincidence?”
“I was thinking of the Queen’s advocate--Gatrina. She has had some
adventure in which a dog named Chris took a part. I hope it is not an
omen that you will side with her. I am very superstitious, you know.
We Serbs are.”
But she was not a Serb and was far too sensible to be superstitious.
Besides, there was an expression on her face as she drove away that I
would have given a good deal to have understood.