ANTHONY UNZIAR.
No one could have gathered, from the quiet aspect of Rallywood's tall,
soldierly figure, that a whirl of emotion was passing through his brain.
Yet above all rose one dominant sensation--a vast relief. Counsellor
shared his own opinion with regard to Valerie. Her daring words to the
Duke had no serious meaning; they were only the natural echo of a girl's
preference for a young and beautiful woman to preside over the Court,
rather than the bloated rake who now lolled uneasily in the chair before
him. He recalled the forlorn little smile with which she had accepted
von Elmur's lover-like protestations at Madame de Sagan's doorway. Its
forlornness had been lost upon Unziar, who had drawn but one merciless
conclusion from the little scene. Close on the heels of these
reflections a vivid recollection rose before Rallywood's mind of the
first night he had met her. The lights and music of the grand salon of
Sagan died away, and he was standing again on the ridge below the Hôtel
du Chancelier, looking out over the glimmering lamps of Révonde,
dominated, as always, by the regnant red eye of the Guards' Dome, and he
felt once more that strange new warmth and thrill in his veins which,
at the time, he had believed to be born of an opening career beset with
danger and difficulty. To-night, however, he judged more clearly; he
knew that his dull life had been rekindled, and his ambitions had taken
fresh fire from the dark starlit eyes Valerie Selpdorf had raised to his
in the Counsellor's ante-room two months ago.
'Captain Rallywood!'
Rallywood started. The Duke made him a sign to approach. Then, rising
from his chair, he took the young man's arm, and leaning heavily upon
it, moved towards the card-room, meeting Unziar with Mdlle. Selpdorf on
the way.
'Hey, Mademoiselle Valerie,' he stopped abruptly, 'would you teach my
Guards treason?'
'To teach your Highness's Guards treason is impossible!' replied
Valerie, with a slight lifting of her proud head.
'The influence of a beautiful woman has no limit,' retorted the Duke.
Valerie's red lips trembled.
'Generations have already proved the fidelity of the Selpdorfs has also
no limit. But I beg you to accept an apology for my foolish words.'
'But such words from a Selpdorf!'
'We have always been loyal, sire.'
The Duke shook his head sadly.
'But the world changes--what has been is not. And the first reason
now-a-days why a thing should no longer be, is the fact that once it
was!'
Valerie was almost as tall as the Duke himself, and she looked level
into his weary eyes.
'Have we changed with the world, sire?'
'Not--yet,' replied the Duke bitterly; then, struck, as it seemed, by
the intrinsic spirit of the young imperial face gazing into his own, he
added, 'Though you tempt a man to believe in you, Mademoiselle!'
'I say this before your Highness and these gentlemen of your Guard,'
Valerie said, her eyes flashing. 'May the Selpdorf, who ceases to be
true to your Highness and to Maäsau, die!'
In after time events brought back the vehement words to the minds of the
three who heard them.
'And I say, "Amen!"' The Duke took her hand and added, 'Which proves,
Valerie, that you have conquered your old friend, Gustave of Maäsau.
Come, Captain Rallywood, half-an-hour's play, and then to bed.'
Valerie looked up at Unziar as she walked beside him.
'And yet you would not believe me?'
'Come!' was Unziar's reply.
She laid her hand within his arm and passed silently through the
reception rooms beside him.
She felt that the time had come when Unziar could no more be put off by
the little wiles and evasions a woman employs who has nothing to give to
the man who loves her but a definite answer. Two luxurious chairs stood
ready for occupants in the nook to which he led her, but he had no
thought to give to conventionalities. He stood before her keen and
white, and desperate with doubt.
'Valerie, what does all this mean?'
Though only a girl in years, Valerie was a woman in experience.
Experience, not gained altogether at first hand, be it understood, but
such as a clever woman easily gathers from the lives of those about her.
As the motherless daughter of M. Selpdorf, she had had exceptional
opportunities. Thrown into the midst of a brilliant but vicious society,
her eyes had seen more of the bare under-texture of life than was
perhaps desirable; she had looked upon the shift and drift of things
political with an ever-present knowledge that there danger lurked and
waited; she had learned the uses of reserve, and something of the art of
resource; and, above all, her womanly perceptions had taken on a strange
edge of sensitive power, due to her father's quaint methods of pointing
out to her the difference between the seeming and the true. By reason of
this premature insight into the motives and stress of human existence
she gained in safety and strength as her father desired; but on the
other hand, she had lost the sense of happy irresponsibility that goes
so far towards making up one of the sweetest essentials of youth.
Luckily there is one thing which can never be quite destroyed at
secondhand--the romance and illusions that beguile boyhood and girlhood,
and the liability to be so beguiled still lived in Valerie's strong and
vivid nature.
'Shall I swear that every word I spoke to the Duke just now is true?'
she asked coldly. 'Although, of course, even that would not convince
you!'
'No, I suppose not,' he said drearily. 'You spoke openly of your hope to
be maid of honour to Madame de Sagan when she became Duchess of
Maäsau--which can only mean one thing. Rallywood heard and told me
exactly.'
'You discussed me with Captain Rallywood?' she flashed out.
Unziar's glance darkened again with a new suspicion.
'Should you object?' he asked.
'As it happens, I should, particularly.'
He bit savagely at his moustache.
'What is wrong with Rallywood?'
'He is an Englishman. Besides, I do not care to be discussed amongst the
men of the Guard!'
'How like a woman you put me off! I did not discuss you with Rallywood,
of course, as you very well know. I asked him the single question as to
what had actually been said. I knew he would not lie to me.'
'The Guard keep their falsehoods for outsiders, I suppose?'
Unziar liked this harping upon Rallywood less and less. He moved
irritably.
'But that is not all. You have admitted that you are going to marry
Elmur. That also signifies--something.'
'Whatever it signifies, it does not signify that I am disloyal to
Maäsau.'
'You have seen for yourself that there is a change here at Sagan,'
argued Unziar. 'No German has ever been welcome here before. We can but
guess at treason.'
'Hush! it cannot be that, since my father has knowledge of it.'
This was an entirely unexpected development of the difficulty. Unziar
felt the check, and even in his turbulence he changed his venue.
'It may be so--let that rest; but nothing can alter me in the belief
that Elmur is the natural enemy of the State. Valerie, he can give you
many things that I cannot offer you. But my love--No, hear me for once.
You must hear me, Valerie! You know that I have loved you always, I
don't remember when it began--I was a boy. But Elmur at the best must
have loved others before you. Whereas I--I have thought of no one else
all my life!'
'Why, I have heard differently, Anthony,' she interposed, with a smile
that was a vain effort to temper the intensity of his mood.
He stamped with his spurred heel upon a fallen flower.
'I don't pretend to be a saint; I am what other men are. You see I do
not deceive you even now. But give me the chance and I will prove to you
that the Unziars can be faithful. Valerie, give me your love! For God's
sake don't say you cannot! Give me your love!'
'Anthony!'
It almost shocked her to see Unziar--cold and cynical Unziar--pleading
as a man pleads for escape from death, with a terrible self-abandonment.
'Wait! Tell me this. Did you choose von Elmur?'
'My--we--it has nothing to do with that kind of thing.'
'I thought not! Then you will sacrifice yourself for an idea? You shall
not!'
'Anthony, you are very good to me--you have always been. I know that if
I felt for you as you wish me to feel, then you could help me. But I
don't! As long as I can remember you have been my playfellow, my
brother; but not more--never this! Anthony, I love you, but not--but
not--You have been so honest with me that whatever it costs I must be
honest with you. I can never do as you wish!'
Unziar listened rather to some far-off tide of thought, as it seemed,
than to her words--thoughts that flowed in upon him and quenched hope.
'You do not love me; Elmur is beside the mark--beside the question of
love--altogether. Then, Valerie, whom do you love?'
She gave him a frightened glance, and drew in her breath as one who
parries a blow.
'There is no one'; then, added more firmly, 'You are mistaken--there is
no one.'
'If that be so,' responded the young man sullenly, 'then my chance is as
good as another's. I shall not give up hope! Remember that. But I have
thought that Rallywood----'
Valerie recalled the coldness of the averted grey eyes, and the memory
stung her.
'He hates me,' she replied with a haughty smile, 'as I hate him!'
'Rallywood hates you?' he repeated in angry astonishment.
'Yes; but whatever he may feel for me I return in full!'
'Valerie, then you love no one? Say it again.'
The jingle of spur and scabbard came through the flower-hung spaces, and
Rallywood passed within a few feet of them. He was whistling softly as
he walked along with an easy swing of his strong shoulders.
'I love----' Valerie began, and stopped short, for Rallywood turned in
his stride as if he felt their eyes upon him.
'His Highness has sent for you, Unziar,' he said.