THE PRICE OF SALVATION
Evelyn met her father at the breakfast table on the following morning;
but their brief conversation in no way enlightened her. The Earl,
indeed, appeared to be entirely wrapped up in his own thoughts, and the
few questions he put to her were far from being helpful.
"You have seen my friend, Count Odin," he remarked abruptly, "what is
your opinion of him?"
"He interests me, but I do not like him," she replied as frankly.
"A first impression," the Earl continued with a note of annoyance but
ill-concealed. "You will get to know him better. His father was my
oldest friend."
"In which case the son is sometimes an embarrassment," she said
naturally, and with no idea of the meaning of her words.
The Earl looked up quickly.
"Has he told you anything," he asked with little cleverness, "spoken of
Bukharest, perhaps? You must have been a good deal together while I
was away. What did he say to you? A man like that is never one to
hold his tongue."
She smiled at the suggestion.
"He was unconscious for thirty hours. My store of small talk did not
come up to that. Why do you ask me, father? Don't you wish me to talk
to him?"
"My dear child, I wish you to like him if you can. His father was my
friend. We must show him hospitality just for his father's sake."
"Oh, I'll take him in the park and flirt with him if you wish it. The
nuns did not teach me how--I suppose flirtation was an extra."
Again he looked at her closely. This flippancy veiled some humor he
could not fathom. Was it possible that the girl had been fascinated
already by a man well schooled in the arts of pleasing women. And what
solution of his trouble would that be? If he gave Evelyn to the son of
Georges Odin--a coward's temptation from which he shrank immediately,
but not so far away that he put the thought entirely from him.
"I mean nothing so foolish," he exclaimed sharply; "the Count is our
guest and must be treated as such. I understand that he is allowed to
go out to-day. If you have any wish to accompany him in the car, he
will consider it a courtesy."
"Thank you," she said in a hard voice, "I should really be frightened
of the Vicar's wife."
Her raillery closed the conversation. The Earl went upstairs to his
guest. Evelyn, at a later hour, caught up a straw hat and ran off by
herself to the little boat-house by the river. She was a skilful
canoeist and there was just water enough for the dainty canoe her
father had bought in Canada for her. Never was she so much alone as
when lying, book in hand, beneath the shelter of some umbrageous
willow; and to-day she welcomed solitude as she had never welcomed it
since first they came to Melbourne Hall. One refuge there was above
others--Di Vernon's Arbor, they called it, where the willows spread
their trailing branches upon the very waters; where the banks were so
many couches of verdant grass, the iris generous in its abundant
beauty, the river but a pool of the deepest, most entrancing blue
water--this refuge she had named the Lake of Dreams, and to this to-day
she steered her frail craft, and there found that solitude she prized
so greatly.
What did her father mean by wishing her to be gracious to Count Odin?
Had he so changed in a night that he would sacrifice his only daughter
to atone for some wrong committed in his own boyhood? Her passionate
nature could resent the mere idea as one too shameful to contemplate.
But what did it mean then, and how would she stand if the Count
presumed upon her father's acquiescence? The fascination which this
stranger exercised did not deceive her; she knew it for the spell of
evil, to be resisted with all her heart and soul. Was she strong
enough, had she character enough to resist it? She would be alone
against them both if the worst befell, she remembered, and would fight
her battle unaided. Others might have been dismayed, but not Evelyn,
the daughter of Dora d'Istran. She was grateful perhaps that her
father had declared his preference so openly. A veiled hostility
toward their guest might have provoked her to show him civilities which
were asked of her no longer. As it was, she understood her position
and could prepare for it.
To this point her reverie had carried her when she became aware that
she was no longer alone. A rustling of leaves, a twig snapping upon
the bank, brought her instantly to a recognition of the fact that some
one watched her hiding-place behind the willows of the pool. Whoever
the intruder might be, he withdrew when she looked up, and his face
remained undiscovered. Evelyn resented this intrusion greatly, and was
about to move away when some one, hidden by the trees, began to play a
zither very sweetly, and to this the music of a guitar and a fiddle
were added presently, and then the pleasing notes of a human voice.
Pushing her canoe out into the stream, Evelyn could just espy a red
scarf flashing between the trees and, from time to time, the dark face
of a true son of Egypt. Who these men were or why they thus defied her
privacy, she could not so much as hazard; nor did she any longer resent
their temerity. The weird, wild music made a strange appeal to her.
It awakened impulses and ideas she had striven to subdue; inspired her
imagination to old ideals--excited and troubled her as no music she had
heard before. The same mad courage which sent her to London to play
upon the stage of a theatre returned to her and filled her with an
inexplicable ecstasy. She had all the desire to trample down the
conventions which stifled her liberty and to let the world think as it
would. Etta Romney came back to life and being in that moment--Etta
speaking to Evelyn and saying, "This is a message of the joy of life,
listen, for it is the voice of Destiny."
The music ceased upon a weird chord in a minor key; and, when it had
died away, Evelyn became aware that the men were talking in a strange
tongue and secretly, and that they still had no intention of declaring
their presence. With the passing of the spell of sweet sounds, she
found herself not without a little alarmed curiosity to learn who they
were and by whom they had been permitted to wander abroad in the park,
apparently unquestioned and unknown. Disquiet, indeed, would have sent
her to the house again, but for the appearance of no other than Count
Odin himself, who came without warning to the water's edge and laughed
at her evident perplexity.
"My fellows annoy you, dear lady," he said. "Pray let me make the
excuses for them. You do not like their music--is it not so?"
"Not at all, I like it very much," she said, not weighing her words.
"It is the maddest music I ever heard in all my life."
"Then come and tell young Zallony so. I brought him to England, Lady
Evelyn. I mean to make his fortune. Come and see him and tell him if
London will not like him when he scrapes the fiddle in a lady's ear.
It would be gracious of you to do that--these poor fellows would die if
you English ladies did not clap the hands for them. Come and be good
to young Zallony and he will never forget."
He helped her ashore with his left hand, for his right he carried in a
silken scarf, the last remaining witness to his accident. His dress
was a well-fitting suit of gray flannels, with a faint blue stripe upon
them. He had the air and manner of a man who denied himself no luxury
and was perfectly well aware of the fascination he exercised upon the
majority of women he met, whatever their nationality. Had Evelyn been
questioned she would have said that his eyes were the best gift with
which Nature had dowered him. Of the darkest gray, soft and
languishing in a common way, they could, when passion dominated them,
look into the very soul of the chosen victim and leave it almost
helpless before their steadfast gaze. To this a soldier's carriage was
to be added; the grand air of a man born in the East and accustomed to
be obeyed.
"This is Zallony," he said with a tinge of pride in his voice, "also
the son of a man with whom your father was very well acquainted in his
younger days. Command him and he will fiddle for you. There are a
hundred ladies in Bukharest who are, at all times, ready to die for
him. He comes to England and spares their lives. Admit his
generosity, dear lady. He will be very kind to you for my sake."
Zallony was a Romany of Romanies: a tall, dark-eyed gypsy, slim and
graceful, and a musician in every thought and act of his life. He wore
a dark suit of serge, a broad-brimmed hat, and a bright blue scarf
about his waist. With him were three others; one a very old man
dressed in a bizarre fashion of the East, and at no pains to adapt it
to the conventions of the West; the rest, dark-visaged, far from
amiable-looking fellows, who might never have smiled in all their
lives. Zallony remained a prince among them. He bowed low to Evelyn
and instantly struck up a lively air, which the others took up with
that verve and spirit so characteristic of Eastern musicians. When
they had finished, Evelyn found herself thanking them warmly. They had
no English, and could only answer her with repeated smiles.
"How did these people come here?" she asked the Count, as they began to
walk slowly toward the woods.
His reply found him once more telling the truth and astounded, perhaps,
at the ease of a strange employment.
"By the railway and the sea, Lady Evelyn. They are my watch-dogs--you
would call them that in England. Oh, yes, I am a timid traveller. I
like to hear these fellows barking in the woods. So much they love me
that if I were in prison they would pull down the walls to get me out.
Your father, my lord, does not forbid them to pitch their tents in his
park. Why should he? I am his guest and shall be a long time in this
country, perhaps. These fellows are not accustomed to live in houses.
Dig them a cave and they will make themselves happy--they are sons of
tents and the hills; men who know how to live and how to die. The
story of Roumania has written the name of Zallony's father in golden
letters. He fought for our country against the Russians who would have
stolen our liberty from us. To this day the Ministry at Petersburg
would hang his son if he was so very foolish as to visit that
unfortunate country. Truly, Zallony has many who love him not--he is
fortunate, Lady Evelyn, that your father is not among the number."
He meant her to ask him a question and she did not flinch from it.
"Why should my father have any opinions upon the matter? Are these
people known to him also?"
"My dear lady, in Roumania, twenty years ago, the bravest men, the
biggest hearts, were at Zallony's command. His regiment of hussars was
the finest that the world has ever seen. Bukharest made it a fashion
to send young men secretly to its ranks. The name of Zallony stood for
a brotherhood of men, not soldiers only, but those sworn to fidelity
upon the Cross; to serve each other faithfully, to hold all things in
common--the poor devils, how little they had to hold!--such were
Zallony's hussars. Lady, your father and my father served together in
the ranks; they took a common oath--they rode the hills, lived wild
nights on desolate mountains, shared good fortune and ill, until an
unlucky day when a woman came between them and brotherhood was no more.
I was such a little fellow then that I could not lift the sword they
put into my hands; but they filled my body up with wine and I rode my
pony after them, many a day that shall never be forgotten. This is to
tell you that my mother, a little wild girl of the Carpathians, died
the year I was born. Her I do not remember--a thing to be regretted,
for who may say what a mother's memory may not do for that man who will
let it be his guiding star. I did not know her, Lady Evelyn. When
they carried my father to prison, the priests took charge of me and
filled my head with their stories of peace and good-will--the head of
one who had ridden with Zallony on the hills and heard the call to arms
as soon as he could hear anything at all. They told me that my father
was dead--five years ago I learned that he lived. Lady Evelyn, he is a
prisoner, and I have come to England to give him liberty."
He looked at her, waiting for a second question, nor did she disappoint
him.
"Can my father help you to do that, Count?"
"My dear lady, consider his position. An English noble, bearing his
honored name; the master of great riches--what cannot he do if he will?
Let him say but one word to my Government and the affair is done. I
shall see my dear father again--the world will be a new world for me.
My lord has but to speak."
"Is it possible that he could hesitate?"
"All things are possible where human folly is concerned."
"Then there would be a reason, Count?"
"And a consequence, Lady Evelyn."
"Oh," she said quickly, "you are not frank with me even now."
"So frank that I speak to you as I never spoke to another in all my
life. You are the only person in England who can help me and help your
father to do well. I have asked him for the liberty of a man who never
did him a wrong. He has refused to answer me, yes or no. Why should I
tell you that delay is dangerous? If I am silent a little while, do
you not guess that it is for your sake that I am silent? These things
are rarely hidden from clever women. Say that Count Odin has learned
to be a lover and you will question me no more."
They were in a lonely glade, dark with the shade of beeches, when he
made this apparently honest declaration; and he stood before her
forbidding her to advance further or to avoid his entreaty. Her
confusion, natural to her womanhood, he interpreted in its true light.
"She does not love me, but there is that in her blood which will give
me command over her," he said. And this was the precise truth. Evelyn
had, from the first, been fully aware of the strange spell this man
could put upon her. His presence seemed to her as that of the figure
of evil beckoning her to wild pleasures and forbidden gardens of
delight. Strong as her will was, this she could not combat. And she
shrank from him, helpless, and yet aware of his power.
"You are speaking to me of grave things," she said quietly. "My own
feelings must not enter into them. If my father owes this debt to you,
he shall pay it. I will be no part of the price, Count Odin."
"_Cara mia_," he said, taking both her hands and trying to draw her
close to him, "I care not how it is if you shall say you love me. Do
not hide the truth from yourself. Your father is in great danger. You
can save him from the penalties of wrong. Will you refuse to do so
because I love you--love you as I have never believed a man could love;
love you as my father loved your mother so many years ago--with the
love of a race that has fought for women and died for them; a race
which is deaf when a women says no, which follows her, _cara mia_, to
the end of the earth and has eyes for nothing else but the house which
shelters her? Will you do this when your heart can command me as you
will--saying, speak or be silent, forget or remember? I know you
better; you love me, Evelyn; you are afraid to tell me, but you love
me. That is why I remain a prisoner of this house--because you love
me, and I shall make you my wife. Ah, _cara mia_, say it but once--I
love you, Georges, the son of my father's friend--I love you and will
not forbid your words."
A strange thrill ran through Evelyn's veins as she listened to this
passionate declaration. The frenzied words of love did not deceive
her. This man, she thought, would so speak to many a woman in the
years to come. A better wit would have concealed his purpose and
rendered him less frank. "He would sell his father's liberty at my
bidding," she said, and the thought set her struggling in his arms,
flushed with anger and with shame.
"I will not hear you, Count," she cried again and again. "I cannot
love you--you are not of my people. If my father has done wrong, he
shall repay. He is not so helpless that he cannot save me from this.
Oh, please let me go; your hands hurt me. I can never be your wife,
never, never!"
[Illustration: "Oh please let me go; your hands hurt me. I can never
be your wife, never, never!"]
He released her reluctantly, for his quick ear had caught the sound of
a horse galloping upon the open grass beyond the thicket.
"You will answer me differently another day," he said smilingly;
"meanwhile, _cara mia_, there are two secrets to keep--yours and mine.
If the charming Lady Evelyn will not hear me, I must remember Etta
Romney, a young lady of my acquaintance--ah, you know her too; and that
is well for her. Let us return to the house. My lord will have much
to say to me and I to him."
They went up to the Hall together in silence. Evelyn knew how much she
was in his power and how idle her veiled threats had been.
She could save her father from this man--truly. But at what a price!
"Etta Romney would marry him," she said bitterly; "but I--Evelyn--God
help me to be true to myself!"