The strange experience of the evening brought Quentin sharply to a
sense of realization. It proved to him that he was feared, else why
the unusual method of campaign? To what extent the conspirators
would carry their seemingly unnecessary warfare he was now, for the
first time, able to form some sort of opinion. The remarkable
boldness of the spy at the Garrison home left room for considerable
speculation as to his motive. What was his design and what would
have been the ending to his sinister vigil? Before Quentin slept
that night he came to the drowsy conclusion that luck had really
been with him, despite his wound and Courant's escape, and that the
sudden exposure of the spy destroyed the foundation for an important
move in the powderless conflict.
In the morning his shoulder was so sore that the surgeon informed
him he could not use the arm for several days. Turk philosophically
bore the brunt of his master's ire. Like a little Napoleon he
endured the savage assaults from Quentin's vocal batteries, taking
them as lamentations instead of imprecations. The morning newspapers
mentioned the attempt to rob Mrs. Garrison's house and soundly
deplored the unstrategic and ill-advised attempt of “an American
named Canton” to capture the desperado. “The police department is
severe in its criticism of the childish act which allowed the wretch
to escape detection without leaving the faintest clew behind.
Officers were close at hand, and the slightest warning would have
had them at the Garrison home. The capture of this man would have
meant much to the department, as he is undoubtedly one of the
diamond robbers who are working havoc in Brussels at this time. He
was, it is stated positively by the police, not alone in his
operations last night. His duty, it is believed, was to obtain the
lay of the land and to give the signal at the proper moment for a
careful and systematic raid of the wealthy woman's house. The police
now fear that the robbers, whose daring exploits have shocked and
alarmed all Brussels, are on their guard and a well-defined plan to
effect their capture is ruined. A prominent attache of the
department is of the opinion that an attempt was to have been made
by the band to relieve all of Mrs. Garrison's guests of their jewels
in a sensational game of 'stand and deliver.'”
“The miserable asses!” exploded Phil, when 'he read the foregoing.
“That is the worst rot I ever read. This police department couldn't
catch a thief if he were tied to a tree. Turk, if they were so near
at hand why the devil didn't they get into the chase with me and run
that fellow down?”
“Th' chances are they was in th' chase, Mr. Quentin, but they didn't
get th' proper direction. They thought he was bein' chased th' other
way, an' I wouldn't be surprised if some of 'em run five or six
miles before they stopped t' reflect.”
“If there is a gang of diamond robbers or comic opera bandits in
this city I'll bet my hand they could steal the sidewalks without
being detected, much less captured. A scheme to rob all of Mrs.
Garrison's guests! The asses!”
“Don't get excited, sir. You'll burst a blood vessel, an' that's a
good sight worse than a cut,” cautioned Turk.
“Turk, in all your burglarious years, did you ever go about robbing
a house in that manner?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Well, what are we to do next?” demanded Quentin, reflectively,
ignoring his former question and Turk's specific answer. “Shall we
give the police all the information we have and land Mr. Courant in
jail?”
“This is our game, sir, not th' police's. For th' Lord's sake, don't
give anything up to th' cops. They'll raise particular thunder in
their sleep, an' we gets th' rough ha! ha! from our frien's, th'
enemy. We pipes this little game ourself, an' we wins, too, if we
succeed in keepin' th' police from gettin' nex' to anything they'd
mistake for a clue.”
Phil thought long and hard before sitting down at noon to write to
Dickey Savage. He disliked calling for help in the contest, but with
a bandaged arm and the odds against him, he finally resolved that he
needed the young New Yorker at his side. Dickey was deliberation
itself, and he was brave and loyal. So the afternoon's post carried
a letter to Savage, who was still in London, asking him to come to
Brussels at once, if he could do so conveniently. The same post
carried a letter to Lord Bob, and in it the writer admitted that he
might need reinforcements before the campaign closed. He also
inclosed the clipping from the newspaper, but added a choice and
caustic opinion of the efficiency of the Brussels police. He did not
allude specifically to Courant, the duke, or to the queer beginning
of the prince's campaign.
Early in the afternoon Mrs. Garrison sent to inquire as to his
wound. In reply he calmly prepared for an appearance in person. Turk
accompanied him, about four o'clock, in a cab to the house in Avenue
Louise. There were guests, and Phil was forced to endure a rather
effusive series of feminine exclamations and several polite
expressions from men who sincerely believed they could have done
better had they been in his place. Mrs. Garrison was a trifle
distant at first, but as she saw Quentin elevated to the pedestal of
a god for feminine worship she thawed diplomatically, and, with rare
tact, assumed a sort of proprietorship. Dorothy remained in the
background, but he caught anxious glances at his arm, and, once or
twice, a serious contemplation of his half-turned face.
“I'll let her think the fellow was one of the diamond robbers for
the present,” thought he. “She wouldn't believe me if I told her he
was in the employ of the prince, and the chances are she'd ruin
everything by writing to him about it.”
When at last he found the opportunity to speak with her alone he
asked how she had slept.
“Not at all, not a wink, not a blink. I imagined I heard robbers in
every part of the house. Are you speaking the truth when you tell
all these people it is a mere scratch? I am sure it is much worse,
and I want you to tell me the truth,” she said, earnestly.
“I've had deeper cuts that didn't bleed a drop,” said he. “If you
must have the truth, Dorothy, I'll confess the fellow gave me a
rather nasty slash, and I don't blame him, He had to do it, and he's
just as lucky as I am, perhaps, that it was no worse. I wish to
compliment your Brussels police, too, on being veritable
bloodhounds. I observed as I came in that they have at last scented
the blood on the pavement in front of the house and have washed away
the stain fairly well.”
“Wasn't the story in the morning paper ridiculous? You were very
brave. I almost cried when I saw how the horrid detectives
criticised you.”
“I'm glad to hear you say that, because I was afraid you'd think
like the rest--that I was a blundering idiot.”
“You did not fear anything of the kind. Do you really think he was
one of those awful diamond robbers who are terrorizing the town? I
could not sleep another wink if I thought so. Why, last spring a
rich merchant and his wife were drugged in one of the cafes, taken
by carriage to Watermael, where they were stripped of their
valuables and left by the roadside.”
“Did you see an account of the affair in your morning paper?”
“Yes--there were columns about it.”
“Then I think eight-tenths of the crime was committed at a city
editor's desk. It's my opinion these diamond thieves are a set of
ordinary pickpockets and petty porch climbers. A couple of New York
policemen could catch the whole lot in a week.”
“But, really, Phil, they are very bold and they are not at all
ordinary. You don't know how thankful we are that this one was
discovered before he got into the house. Didn't he have a knife?
Well, wasn't it to kill us with if we made an outcry?” She was
nervous and excited, and he had it on the tip of his tongue to allay
her fears by telling what he thought to be the true object of the
man's visit.
“Well, no matter what he intended to do, he didn't do it, and he'll
never come back to try it again. He will steer clear of this house,”
he said, reassuringly.
A week, two weeks went by without a change in the situation. Dickey
Savage replied that he would come to Brussels as soon as his heart
trouble would permit him to leave London, and that would probably be
about the twentieth of August. In parentheses he said he hoped to be
out of danger by that time. The duke was persistent in his
friendliness, and Courant had, to all intents and purposes,
disappeared completely. Prince Ugo was expected daily, and Mrs.
Garrison was beginning to breathe easily again. The police had given
up the effort to find the Garrison robber, and Turk had learned
everything that was to be known concerning the house in which
Courant found shelter after eluding his pursuers on the night of the
affray. Quentin's shoulder was almost entirely healed, and he was
beginning to feel himself again. The two weeks had found him a
constant and persistent visitor at Miss Garrison's home, but he was
compelled to admit that he had made no progress in his crusade
against her heart. She baffled him at every turn, and he was
beginning to lose his confident hopes. At no time during their
tete-a-tetes, their walks, their drives, their visits to the art
galleries, did she give him the slightest ground for encouragement.
And, to further disturb his sense of contentment, she was
delighted--positively delighted--over the coming of Prince Ugo. For
a week she had talked of little save the day when he was to arrive.
Quentin endured these rapturous assaults nobly, but he was slowly
beginning to realize that they were battering down the only defense
he had--the inward belief that she cared for him in spite of all.
Frequently he met the Duke Laselli at the Garrisons'. He also saw a
great deal of the de Cartiers and Mile. Gaudelet. When, one day, he
boldly intimated to Dorothy that de Cartier was in love with Louise
and she with him, that young lady essayed to look shocked and
displeased, but he was sure he saw a quick gleam of satisfaction in
her eyes. And he was positive the catch in her breath was not so
much of horror as it was of joy. Mrs. Garrison did all in her power
to bring him and the pretty French girl together, and her insistence
amused him.
One day her plans, if she had any, went racing skyward, and she, as
well as all Brussels society, was stunned by the news that de
Cartier had deserted his wife to elope with the fair Gaudelet! When
Quentin laconically, perhaps maliciously, observed that he had long
suspected the nature of their regard for one another, Mrs.
Garrison gave him a withering look and subsided into a chilling
unresponsiveness that boded ill for the perceiving young man. The
inconsiderate transgression of de Cartier and the unkindness of the
Gaudelet upset her plans cruelly, and she found that she had wasted
time irreparably in trying to bring the meddling American to the feet
of the French woman. Quentin revelled in her discomfiture, and Dorothy
in secret enjoyed the unexpected turn of affairs.
She had seen through her mother's design, and she had known all
along how ineffectual it would prove in the end. Philip puzzled her
and piqued her more than she cared to admit. That she did not care
for him, except as a friend, she was positive, but that he should
persistently betray signs of nothing more than the most ordinary
friendship was far from pleasing to her vanity. The truth is, she
had expected him to go on his knees to her, an event which would
have simplified matters exceedingly. It would have given her the
opportunity to tell him plainly she could be no more than a friend,
and it would have served to alter his course in what she believed to
be a stubborn love chase. But he had disappointed her; he had been
the amusing companion, the ready friend, the same sunny spirit, and
she was perplexed to observe that he gave forth no indication of
hoping or even desiring to be more. She could not, of course, know
that this apparently indifferent young gentleman was wiser, far
wiser, than the rest of his kind. He saw the folly of a rash, hasty
leap in the dark, and bided his time like the cunning general who
from afar sees the hopelessness of an attack against a strong and
watchful adversary, and waits for the inevitable hour when the vigil
is relaxed.
There was no denying the fact that with all his confidence his
colors were sinking, while hers remained as gallantly fluttering as
when the struggle began. He was becoming confused and nervous; a
feeling of impotence began slyly, devilishly to assail him, and he
frequently found himself far out at sea. The strange inactivity of
the prince's cohorts, the significant friendliness of the duke, the
everlasting fear that a sudden move might catch him unawares began
to tell on his peace of mind. Both he and Turk watched like cats for
the slightest move that might betray the intentions of the foe, but
there was nothing, absolutely nothing. The house in which Courant
found safety was watched, but it gave forth no secrets. The duke's
every movement appeared to be as open, as fair, as unsuspicious as
man's could be, and yet there was ever present the feeling that some
day something would snap and a crisis would rush upon them. Late one
afternoon he drove up to the house in Avenue Louise, and when
Dorothy came downstairs for the drive her face was beaming.
“Ugo comes to-morrow,” she said, as they crossed to the carriage.
“Which means that I am to be relegated to the dark,” he said,
dolefully.
“Oh, no! Ugo likes you and I like you, you know. Why, are we not to
be the same good friends as now?” she asked, suddenly, with a pretty
show of surprise.
“Oh, I suppose so,” he said, looking straight ahead. They were
driving rapidly toward the Bois de la Cambre. “But, of course, I'll
not rob the prince of moments that belong to him by right of
conquest. You may expect to see me driving disconsolately along the
avenue--alone.”
“Mr. Savage will be here,” she said, sweetly, enjoying his first
show of misery.
“But he's in love, and he'll not be thinking of me. I'm the only one
in all Christendom, it seems to me, who is not in love with
somebody, and it's an awful hardship.”
“You will fall really in love some day, never fear,” she
volunteered, after a somewhat convulsive twist of the head in his
direction.
“Unquestionably,” he said, “and I shall be just as happy and as
foolish as the rest of you, I presume.”
“I should enjoy seeing you really and truly in love with some girl.
It would be so entertaining.”
“A perfect comedy, I am sure. I must say, however, that I'd feel
sorry for the girl I loved if she didn't happen to love me.”
“And why, pray?”
“Because,” he said, turning abruptly and looking straight into her
eyes, “she'd have the trouble and distinction of surrendering in the
end.”
“You vain, conceited thing!” she exclaimed, a trifle disconcerted.
“You overestimate your power.”
“Do you think I overestimate it?” he demanded, quickly.
“I don t--don't know. How should I know?” she cried, in complete
rout. In deep chagrin she realized that he had driven her sharply
into unaccountable confusion, and that her wits were scattering
hopelessly at the very moment when she needed them most.
“Then why do you say I overestimate it?” he asked, relentlessly.
“Because you do,” she exclaimed, at bay.
“Are you a competent judge?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, grasping for time.
“I mean, have you the right to question my power, as you call it?
Have I attempted to exert it over you?”
“You are talking nonsense, Phil,” she said, spiritedly.
“I said I'd feel sorry for the girl if she didn't happen to love me,
you know. Well, I couldn't force her to love me if she didn't love
me, could I?”
“Certainly not. That is what I meant,” she cried, immensely
relieved.
“But my point is that she might love me without knowing it and would
simply have to be brought to the realization.”
“Oh,” she said, “that is different.”
“You take back what you said, then?” he asked, maliciously.
“If she loved you and did not know it, she'd be a fool and you could
exert any kind of power over her. You see, we didn't quite
understand each other, did we?”
“That is for you to say,” he said, smiling significantly. “I think I
understand perfectly.”
By this time they were opposite the Rue Lesbroussart, and he drove
toward the Place Ste. Croix. As they made the turn she gave a start
and peered excitedly up the Avenue Louise, first in front of her
companion, then behind.
“Oh, Phil, there is Ugo!” she cried, clasping his arm. “See! In the
trap, coming toward us.” He looked quickly, but the trees and houses
now hid the other trap from view.
“Are you sure it is he?”
“Oh, I am positive. He has come to surprise me. Is there no way we
can reach the house first? By the rear--anyway,” she cried,
excitedly. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were sparkling.
“Was he alone?” asked he, his jaw setting suddenly.
“That has nothing to do with it. We must hurry home. Turn back,
Phil; we may be able to overtake him on the avenue.”
“I wanted to take you to the Park, Dorothy.”
“Well?”
“That's all,” he went on, calmly. “The prince can leave his card and
call later in the--well, this evening.”
“What--you don't mean--Philip Quentin, take me home instantly,” she
blazed.
“Not for all the princes in the universe,” he said. “This is my
afternoon, and I will not give up a minute of it.”
“But I command, sir!”
“And I refuse to obey.”
“Oh--oh, this is outrageous----” she began, frantically.
Suddenly his gloved left hand dropped from the reins and closed over
one of hers. The feverish clasp and the command in his eyes
compelled her to look up into his face quickly. There she saw the
look she feared, admired, deserved.
“There was a time when you wanted to be with me and with no other. I
have not forgotten those days, nor have you. They were the sweetest
days of your life and of mine. It is no age since I held this hand
in mine, and you would have gone to the end of the world with me. It
is no age since you kissed me and called me a king. It is no age
since you looked into my eyes with an expression far different from
the one you now have. You remember, you remember, Dorothy.”
She was too surprised to answer, too overcome by the suddenness of
his assault to resist. The power she had undertaken to estimate was
in his eyes, strong, plain, relentless.
“And because you remember I can see the hardness going from your
eyes, the tenderness replacing it. The flush in your cheek is not so
much of anger as it was, your heart is not beating in rebellion as
it was, and all because you cannot forget--you will not forget.”
“This is madness,” she cried, shivering as with a mighty chill.
“Madness it may be, Dorothy, but--well, because we have not
forgotten the days when we were sweethearts, I am claiming this day
of you and you must give it to me for the same reason. You must say
to me that you give it willingly,” he half whispered, intensely. She
could only look helplessly into his eyes.
From the rumble Turk saw nothing, neither did he hear.