AN EMBARRASSING DRIVE
I was so astonished at this turn of matters that I squeezed myself up
into as small a space as possible in the corner of the carriage, a prey
to completely baffling perplexity.
The sense of shame with which I had followed his shambling, drunken
movements, as he was helped into the vehicle, gave way to a feeling at
first of relief, and then of pleasure--both feelings mingled with
consummate dismay.
Now that he was in possession of his senses, how was I to act toward
him? Under the influence of either opium or drink, he would have been
easy enough to deal with; and I could have chosen my own moment to avow
myself.
My crude idea had been to get him into the house, let him sleep away
the effects, and leave him under the impression that while Madame
d'Artelle had been with him in the carriage, I had contrived to get her
away. I was not ready to show my hand yet; and a nervous embarrassing
fear of what he would think of this act of mine began to possess me.
I was soon worried by another unpleasant thought. While he remained
under the impression that I was Madame d'Artelle, I was just an
impostor, spying upon the relationship between them, of all parts in
the world the most repugnant for me to have to play with him.
"I suppose you're too surprised to speak?" he said presently. "Is
anything the matter?"
I made no answer, except to draw even further into my corner. He
noticed it and laughed.
"Bit afraid of me, are you? You needn't be. I'm not dangerous, even
if I'm not drugged. But I have been any time during the last
three-and-thirty hours. You see I haven't seen you, and I haven't
touched it ever since yesterday morning."
There was a bitterness in his tone I had not heard in it before; but
the words filled me with pleasure.
"Not since midday yesterday, Henriette. Three-and-thirty hours: nearly
two thousand minutes: every minute like an hour of hell. You didn't
think I'd got the strength, I know. Neither did Gustav. And I suppose
I'm only a fool to have done it--an infernal fool, that's all. It's
getting easier already; but I'd give ten thousand kronen for a taste
now--one little wee taste."
He sat suddenly bolt upright, clenched his fist and flung it out in
front of him, and groaned as if the fever of temptation had laid hold
of him with irresistible force.
"You don't seem to care," he said, bitterly, turning to me: and then
his voice became strained and tense. "But you'd better. You hear
that, Henriette, you'd better. You keep it from me or as there's a sky
above us I wouldn't trust myself not to kill you."
Impulsively I stretched out my hand and laid it on his arm, as if to
calm him. But he shook it off impatiently.
"All that's passed," he cried. "Two thousand hours of hell can change
a man. They've changed me. I can see things now, and mean to see
more. That's why I've come on this business. That and----" his voice
fell and his head drooped, and with his lazy laugh he murmured--"What a
fool I am, just because a girl----" The sentence was left unfinished,
and his fingers stole to the pocket as if in search of the drug.
"I must smoke or have it. Not 'her sake' nor a million 'her sakes'
will keep me from it if I don't. I shall stop the carriage and get it."
He lit a cigar and held the match up, and peered closely at me until
the little flame flickered out. Then he leaned back and puffed
fiercely, filling the carriage with the smoke, and making me cough. At
that, he let down the window on his side sharply and bent forward that
the air might blow on his face.
By the light of the street lamps I saw that his face was drawn and
lined as if with the pain and passion of the struggle through which he
had passed.
"Have we far to go?" he asked, raising his voice in consequence of the
noise from the open window. I did not answer, and he shrugged his
shoulders. "You're a cheerful companion for a man in my mood," he
cried, almost contemptuously, as he closed the window with a shiver of
cold.
He leant back in his seat, drew his coat closely about him, and smoked
in silence, but with less vehemence. Presently he found the silence
oppressive.
"One of us must talk," he said then. "I wonder why I'm here and what
the devil will come of it!" he exclaimed, laughing.
I wondered, too, what would come of it; but I held my tongue. I had
resolved not to speak during the whole ride if I could avoid it, so as
not to reveal myself. And if I could reach the house without his
discovering my deception, I saw a way by which I could mislead him.
"What are you wrapped up like that for? Throw your cloak back," he
said next, and put out his hand as if to do it. I drew it closer round
me. "Then you're not deaf as well as dumb," he laughed. "What's the
matter with you? I can find a way to make you speak, I think--or
you've been just play-acting ever since I knew you."
He bent toward me until his face was close to my veil. "You're not
generally afraid to show your face. And you needn't be, it's pretty
enough. You can hear that I know. A pretty woman never had a deaf ear
for a truth like that--and it is truth; no more, no less than the
truth. It didn't need either opium or drink for me to know that,
Henriette--though you plied me with plenty of both for that matter.
Can you deny that?"
He paused for me to answer; but I did not; and he leant back in his
seat again.
"Yes, you're a beautiful woman, Henriette, and Gustav's a very clever,
long-headed fellow--but between you, you made a bad mistake. You
should have known better than to conjure up that old past of mine. You
shouldn't have had a friend about you with haunting eyes. Heavens, how
they haunted me--aye, and haunt me now. Doesn't that make you speak?
No? Then I'll tell you more. That girl's eyes killed at a stroke
every thought in my mind about you. More than that--it's just for her
sake, I've endured all these hours of hell. I can trust you not to
tell her that--but it's true, Henriette, just as true as that you're a
beautiful woman."
Evidently he looked for some sharp outburst from me, for he spoke in a
deliberate, taunting way as if to provoke me. And when I made no sign,
he was sorely perplexed.
"You are going to explain a lot of things to me presently--I've come
for that and that only--but I'll tell you something first that you
don't know. I met that friend of yours yesterday morning when I was
riding in the Stadtwalchen. We had quite a long and almost intimate
talk, and she took me right back across the years to the past; and by
no more than a word, a touch and a glance, she put something between me
and the devil I had loved, until I hated it and hated myself for having
loved it. And for the sake of what she said, I've been in hell ever
since. But she did it; she alone, and I've fought against the cursed
thing because of her words and her eyes. God, what it has cost me!"
He ended with a weary, heavy sigh.
That in my great gladness at hearing this, I did not betray myself was
only due to the strong curb I had put on my feelings. But I had heard
his secret by treachery, and now, more than ever, I was eager to keep
my identity from him. I longed for the drive to come to an end, and I
looked out anxiously to try and see even in the darkness that we were
reaching our destination.
"Yes, Henriette, those haunting eyes of hers have saved me, so far," he
began again. "Saved me, even when it seemed as if all the fiends in
hell were just dragging and forcing me to take it. I didn't. More
than once the thing was all but between my lips; but she saved me. But
I must see her again, or I shan't hold out. I must hear her voice and
feel the touch of her hand. Where is she, Henriette? Where is she?
That's one of the questions you shall answer. Gustav says she has gone
to Paris. They told me the same at your house to-day--I was there
twice, though you didn't know it. And you'll have to tell me that
among the other things. You can tell me that now," he said almost
fiercely, as he bent toward me again and stretched out a hand as if to
seize mine.
I gave up my secret for lost; but the carriage slackened suddenly and
with a quick swerve drove into the gates of the house.
Karl let the windows down and peered out curiously; and when the
carriage door was opened by the footman, he got out and stood offering
me a hand to alight. But I gathered my cloak carefully about me and
springing out ran past him and fled into the house and upstairs as fast
as I could, whispering to James Perry who had opened the door to come
after me presently.
I chose a room at random and locking the door behind me, I flung myself
on the bed in the dark, face downwards, and burst into a tempest of
hysterical tears.
They were tears of neither pleasure nor grief. They were violent but
without passion; and came rather as the swift loosening of the pent
strain of excitement during the drive from the city. At least so I
thought.
I do not think I had shed a tear since my uncle's death until that
moment; and although they gave me intense relief, I remember feeling
almost ashamed of myself for my weakness. To cry like a hysterical
woman was so out of character with my resolve to play a man's part in
this struggle!
The tempest was soon over, and I sat on the side of the bed and took
off the veil and threw aside the cloak which had been so valuable a
disguise, and was drawing the pins out of my hat when I remembered that
I must be careful not to disarrange my hair. I was going to pretend to
Karl that I had been in the house all the time; and my appearance must
bear out that story.
I groped my way to the dressing-table by the window and fumbled about
for a match to get a light of some kind; and finding none, drew up the
blind. The moon had risen, and this gave a faint light; but it was not
enough for my purpose, so I pulled back the curtain, glancing out as I
did so.
The window looked upon the garden in the front, and I stood a moment
recalling the plan of the house as I had fixed it in my mind when I had
gone over it.
I remembered then what for the instant I had stupidly forgotten; that
the electric light was installed, and I was turning away to find the
switch, when I caught sight of a man moving in the shrubbery.
I thought at first it might be Karl, smoking, or Perry or his son on
watch; but it was not. The figure was much too tall for either of the
Perrys; and the movements too stealthy and cautious for Karl.
The light was not sufficient for me to get anything like a clear view
of the man; yet as he moved there was something about him that seemed
familiar. I watched him with growing interest; and presently, having
apparently made sure that he was unobserved, he crossed the moonlit
grass quickly to the window of the room that was directly underneath
mine.
I recognized him then. It was Colonel Katona.
I threw open my window noisily; and he darted away under the shadow of
the trees and hurried out of the garden.
It was no mere chance then that he had been in the Radialstrasse at the
moment when the carriage was to be there. Some one had brought him
there to be a witness of Karl's escapade. Who had done so, and why?
Not Karl; nor Madame d'Artelle; and no one else had known of it but
Gustav and myself.
I had seen him speak to Gustav as the carriage wheeled round--wait, I
recalled the two furtive glances which Gustav had cast about as he had
come up to the carriage with Karl; and the expression of satisfaction
after the second of them.
This was Gustav's work, then. And why had he done it? Why had he
brought Colonel Katona, of all men in Pesth, to see Karl run away with
Madame d'Artelle? Had any other man been picked out, I would have said
it was merely that there might be an independent witness. But Colonel
Katona--and then the reason seemed to flash into my thoughts,
suggesting a scheme subtle and treacherous enough to be worthy of even
the worst thoughts I had ever had of Count Gustav.
I thought rapidly how I could put this new idea of mine to the test,
and how use it for my own purposes. But before I could decide, I heard
hesitating steps in the corridor outside my room. Some one knocked
gently at the doors of other rooms and then at mine.
"Are you there, miss?"
It was James Perry's voice. "Yes," I answered; and closing the window
and drawing down the blind, I opened the door.
"The gentleman is asking for Madame d'Artelle, miss," he said. "What
answer am I to give him?"
"I will take it myself," I replied. I switched on the light and made
sure that my hair was all right. "What about the servants, James?" I
asked.
"There are two woman servants only, miss; and my father and myself. We
did as you said, and sent away a footman who was here."
"You have done very well. If you are asked any more questions about
Madame d'Artelle, say that she left the house the moment after the
carriage arrived, and that I have been here some hours."
"Yes, miss." He was very perplexed and, I think, troubled. We went
downstairs, and he showed me the room where Karl was. It was directly
under that in which I had been.
It was to the window of that room, then, I had seen Colonel Katona
cross in the moonlight.