IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.
Lucile lay back in the cushions of the brougham with a feeling of
intense relief. He had saved her. An emotion of gratitude filled her
mind, and on the impulse of the moment she took his hand and pressed
it. It was the third time in their renewed acquaintance that their
hands had met, and each time the significance had been different.
Savrola smiled. "It was most imprudent of your Excellency to venture
into a crowd like that. Luckily I thought of an expedient in time. I
trust you were not hurt in the throng?"
"No," said Lucile; "a man struck me with his elbow and I screamed. I
should never have come."
"It was dangerous."
"I wanted to----" She paused.
"To hear me speak," he added, finishing her sentence for her.
"Yes; to see you use your power."
"I am flattered by the interest you take in me."
"Oh, it was on purely political grounds."
There was the suspicion of a smile on her face. He looked at her
quickly. What did she mean? Why should it be necessary to say so?
Her mind had contemplated another reason, then.
"I hope you were not bored," he said.
"It is terrible to have power like that," she replied earnestly; and
then after a pause, "Where are we going to?"
"I would have driven you to the palace," said Savrola, "but our
ingenuous young friend on the box has made it necessary that we should
keep up this farce for a little longer. It will be necessary to get
rid of him. For the present you had best remain my niece."
She looked up at him with an amused smile, and then said seriously: "It
was brilliant of you to have thought of it, and noble of you to have
carried it out. I shall never forget it; you have done me a great
service."
"Here we are," said Savrola at length, as the brougham drew up at the
entrance of his house. He opened the carriage-door; Moret jumped off
the box and rang the bell. After a pause the old housekeeper opened
the door. Savrola called to her. "Ah, Bettine, I am glad you are up.
Here is my niece, who has been to the meeting to hear me speak and has
been jostled by the crowd. I shall not let her go home alone to-night.
Have you a bedroom ready?"
"There is the spare room on the first floor," answered the old woman;
"but I fear that would never do."
"Why not?" asked Savrola quickly.
"Because the sheets for the big bed are not aired, and since the
chimney was swept there has been no fire there."
"Oh, well, you must try and do what you can. Good-night, Moret. Will
you send the carriage back as soon as you have done with it? I have
some notes to send to THE RISING TIDE office about the articles for
to-morrow morning. Don't forget,--as quickly as you can, for I am
tired out."
"Good-night," said Moret. "You have made the finest speech of your
life. Nothing can stop us while we have you to lead the way."
He got into the carriage and drove off. Savrola and Lucile ascended
the stairs to the sitting-room, while the housekeeper bustled off to
make preparations for the airing of sheets and pillow-cases. Lucile
looked round the room with interest and curiosity. "I am in the heart
of the enemy's camp now," she said.
"You will be in many hearts during your life," said Savrola, "whether
you remain a queen or not."
"You are still determined to drive us out?"
"You heard what I said to-night."
"I ought to hate you," said Lucile; "and yet I don't feel that we are
enemies."
"We are on opposite sides," he replied.
"Only politics come between us."
"Politics and persons," he added significantly, using a hackneyed
phrase.
She looked at him with a startled glance. What did he mean? Had he
read deeper into her heart than she herself had dared to look? "Where
does that door lead to?" she asked irrelevantly.
"That? It leads to the roof,--to my observatory."
"Oh show it me," she cried. "Is it there you watch the stars?"
"I often look at them. I love them; they are full of suggestions and
ideas."
He unlocked the door and led the way up the narrow winding stairs on to
the platform. It was, as is usual in Laurania, a delicious night.
Lucile walked to the parapet and looked over; all the lamps of the town
twinkled beneath, and above were the stars.
Suddenly, far out in the harbour, a broad white beam of light shot out;
it was the search-light of a warship. For a moment it swept along the
military mole and rested on the battery at the mouth of the channel.
The fleet was leaving the port, and picking its way through the
difficult passage.
Savrola had been informed of the approaching departure of the admiral,
and realised at once the meaning of what he saw. "That," he said, "may
precipitate matters."
"You mean that when the ships are gone you will no longer fear to rise?"
"I do not fear; but it is better to await a good moment."
"And that moment?"
"Is perhaps imminent. I should like you to leave the capital. It will
be no place for women in a few days. Your husband knows it; why has he
not sent you away to the country?"
"Because," she replied, "we shall suppress this revolt, and punish
those who have caused it."
"Have no illusions," said Savrola. "I do not miscalculate. The army
cannot be trusted; the fleet is gone; the people are determined. It
will not be safe for you to stay here."
"I will not be driven out," she answered with energy; "nothing shall
make me fly. I will perish with my husband."
"Oh, we shall try to be much more prosaic than that," he said. "We
shall offer a very handsome pension to the President, and he will
retire with his beautiful wife to some gay and peaceful city, where he
can enjoy life without depriving others of liberty."
"You think you can do all this?" she cried. "Your power can rouse the
multitude; but can you restrain them?" And she told him of the words
she had heard in the crowd that night. "Are you not playing with
mighty forces?"
"Yes, I am," he said; "and that is why I have asked you to go away to
the country for a few days, until things become settled one way or the
other. It is possible that either I or your husband will go down. I
shall of course try to save him, if we are successful; but, as you say,
there are other forces which may be beyond control; and if he gets the
upper hand----"
"Well?"
"I suppose I should be shot."
"Fearful!" she said. "Why will you persist?"
"Oh, it is only now, when the play is growing high, that I begin to
appreciate the game. Besides, death is not very terrible."
"Afterwards may be."
"I do not think so. Life, to continue, must show a balance of
happiness. Of one thing I feel sure; we may say of a future
state,--'If any, then better.'"
"You apply your knowledge of this world to all others."
"Why not?" he said. "Why should not the same laws hold good all over
the universe, and, if possible, beyond it? Other suns show by their
spectra that they contain the same elements as ours."
"You put your faith in the stars," she said doubtingly, "and think,
though you will not admit it, they can tell you everything."
"I never accused them of being interested in our concerns; but if they
were, they might tell strange tales. Supposing they could read our
hearts for instance?"
She glanced up and met his eye. They looked at each other hard. She
gasped; whatever the stars might know, they had read each other's
secret.
There was a noise of someone running up-stairs. It was the housekeeper.
"The carriage has returned," said Savrola in a quiet voice. "It can
now take you back to the palace."
The old woman stepped out on to the roof, breathing hard from her
climb. "I have aired the sheets," she said with exultation in her
voice, "and the fire is burning brightly. There is some soup ready for
the young lady, if she will come and take it, before it gets cold."
The interruption was so commonplace that both Lucile and Savrola
laughed. It was a happy escape from an awkward moment. "You always
manage, Bettine," he said, "to make everyone comfortable; but after all
the bedroom will not be needed. My niece is afraid lest her mother be
alarmed at her absence, and I am going to send her back in the carriage
so soon as it returns."
The poor old soul looked terribly disappointed; the warm sheets, the
cosy fire, the hot soup were comforts she loved to prepare for others,
enjoying them, as it were, by proxy. She turned away and descended the
narrow staircase mournfully, leaving them again alone.
So they sat and talked, not as before, but with full knowledge of their
sympathy, while the moon climbed higher in the sky and the soft breezes
stirred the foliage of the palm-trees in the garden below. Neither
thought much of the future, nor did they blame the coachman's delay.
At length the silence of the night, and the train of their conversation
were broken by the noise of wheels on the stony street.
"At last," said Savrola without enthusiasm. Lucile rose and looked
over the parapet. A carriage approached almost at a gallop. It
stopped suddenly at the door, and a man jumped out in a hurry. The
door-bell rang loudly.
Savrola took both her hands. "We must part," he said; "when shall we
meet again,--Lucile?"
She made no answer, nor did the moonlight betray the expression of her
features. Savrola led the way down the stairs. As he entered the
sitting-room, the further door was opened hastily by a man who, seeing
Savrola, stopped short, and respectfully took off his hat. It was
Moret's servant.
With considerable presence of mind Savrola shut the door behind him,
leaving Lucile in the darkness of the staircase. She waited in
astonishment; the door was thin. "My master, Sir," said a stranger's
voice, "bade me bring you this with all speed and give it direct into
your hand." There followed the tearing of paper, a pause, an
exclamation, and then Savrola, in a voice steady with the steadiness
which betrays intense emotion under control, replied: "Thank you very
much; say I shall await them here. Don't take the carriage; go on
foot,--stay, I will let you out myself."
She heard the other door open and the sound of their footsteps going
down-stairs; then she turned the handle and entered. Something had
happened, something sudden, unexpected, momentous. His voice,--strange
how well she was beginning to know it!--had told her that. An envelope
lay on the floor; on the table,--the table where the cigarette-box and
the revolver lay side by side,--was a paper, half curled up as if
anxious to preserve its secret.
Subtle, various, and complex are the springs of human action. She felt
the paper touched her nearly; she knew it concerned him. Their
interests were antagonistic; yet she did not know whether it was for
his sake or her own that she was impelled to indulge a wild curiosity.
She smoothed the paper out. It was brief and in a hurried hand, but to
the point: _Code wire just received says, Strelitz crossed frontier
this morning with two thousand men and is marching hither via Turga and
Lorenzo. The hour has come. I have sent to Godoy and Renos and will
bring them round at once. Yours through hell_, MORET.
Lucile felt the blood run to her heart; already she imagined the sound
of musketry. It was true the hour had come. The fatal paper
fascinated her; she could not take her eyes from it. Suddenly the door
opened and Savrola came in. The noise, her agitation, and above all
the sense of detection wrung from her a low, short, startled scream.
He grasped the situation immediately. "Bluebeard," he said ironically.
"Treason," she retorted taking refuge in furious anger. "So you will
rise and murder us in the night,--conspirator!"
Savrola smiled suavely; his composure was again perfect. "I have sent
the messenger away on foot, and the carriage is at your disposal. We
have talked long; it is now three o'clock; your Excellency should not
further delay your return to the palace. It would be most imprudent;
besides, as you will realise, I expect visitors."
His calmness maddened her. "Yes," she retorted; "the President will
send you some,--police."
"He will not know about the invasion yet."
"I shall tell him," she replied.
Savrola laughed softly. "Oh no," he said, "that would not be fair."
"All's fair in love and war."
"And this----?"
"Is both," she said, and then burst into tears.
After that they went down-stairs. Savrola helped her into the
carriage. "Good-night," he said, though it was already morning, "and
good-bye."
But Lucile, not knowing what to say or think or do, continued to cry
inconsolably and the carriage drove away. Savrola closed the door and
returned to his room. He did not feel his secret was in any danger.