THE INERADICABLE STRAIN
Von Salzinger was gross. He looked it. But he had not yet arrived at
those years when the outward form loses its atmosphere of virile
strength submerged beneath overwhelming adipose and a general bodily
inertia. That would come as inevitably as reaction invariably follows
upon the heels of excess when vitality passes its maximum. Von
Salzinger was of original type, and beneath the shallow veneer of the
civilizing process, in him was to be found of a certainty the hairy
hands of the savage. It is the brand which can never be eradicated from
the original Teuton, and particularly from those who are native of
Prussia. The anxious insistence of the claims to Kultur, emanating more
particularly from Prussian sources, can be taken as something in the
nature of an unconscious admission of the depths from which they have
only been partially lifted.
Von Salzinger was pronouncedly of this type. He possessed all the
physical and mental force which belongs to it; just as he possessed the
full appetite for excess which is its invariable accompaniment. In him
was developed to an unusual degree the desire for all the bodily
enjoyment that life can offer to a creature in whose veins flows the
full tide of the animal.
Once having completed his arrangements with his erstwhile comrade
Johann Stryj, he returned to the carefully considered course which he
had marked out. With all the Prussian's scheming mind, from the moment
he had been made aware of the drift of his fortunes he had cast about
for the best outlets which might promise amelioration for the position
which chance had placed him in. Nor had he been slow to discover what
he sought. Possibilities had promptly opened up before the mental force
which he applied to the problem before him.
He withdrew a letter-case from his breast pocket the moment he had
finished his communication to Von Berger. He leant back from his desk,
and, one by one, turned over the papers the case contained. Finally he
selected a letter written on thin paper, in a close, spidery hand. He
read this letter through twice. His face was smiling as he read, but
his eyes remained unchanging.
Finally he laid the letter down and copied into a notebook two
addresses which had been carefully detailed in it. He read them over
and verified them. One was in Kensington, and the other was described
as being near a well-known market town in the county of
Buckinghamshire. With this matter accomplished he glanced at the clock.
Should he wait for lunch in the hotel, or should he run into the West
End and regale himself at one of the fashionable restaurants? Finally
the attractions of the latter triumphed in their appeal to his
gastronomic senses and he telephoned down to the hall porter for a cab.
Von Salzinger had lunched well. He sat back in the taxi-cab in the
attitude of a man enjoying the satisfaction of a more than well-lined
stomach. Even, for the moment, as he leisurely smoked a great Corona
cigar, and reflected on the quart bottle of Pol Roger '06 he had
consumed, he felt that the position was not without its compensations,
and, after all, in certain departments, the French and the long-legged
English were not wholly to be despised.
Such was his satisfaction that his eyes were half closed by the time
the cab jerked to a standstill outside a modest block of flats in
Kensington. But he was alert in a second, for that was the man. His
purpose at all times dominated, and only in the moments of leisure did
he permit himself the indulgence he craved.
He negotiated with the cabman for a possible continuance of the
journey, and passed into the building, his alertness and activity in no
way impaired by the amplitude of his luncheon.
Five minutes later he returned with a cloud of annoyance depressing his
heavy brows. He strutted up to the driver and gave his orders.
"We'll go on to Wednesford," he said, in his heavy guttural English.
"You must have petrol, for I return to-night by eight o'clock. What is
it, the distance? Twenty-five miles? So. It is easy to do."
The Londoner acquiesced without enthusiasm, and Von Salzinger reentered
the cab, and slammed the door closed behind him. That was his mood. He
had been prepared to make the journey, but he was irritated that he had
to do so.
In twenty minutes the cab had threaded its way on to the Oxford Road,
and, regardless of all speed limit, raced on towards the famous
Chiltern Hills.
Already the early autumn leaves were beginning to fall under the
freshening breeze. The hedges were beginning to lose their trim
appearance, and the dust-laden leaves on the midsummer growths wore a
mildewed aspect that somehow matched the lank, weedy grass of the road
banks. The roads were dry, and the fields looked dry. There was a weary
look about the countryside as though Nature had completed her summer's
work, and was eagerly looking forward to her winter rest.
A solitary horsewoman was leisurely riding down one of the tarred roads
approaching Wednesford. Her horse was steaming, and her obvious intent
was to cool him down before reaching her destination. Presently she
turned off upon a narrow country lane, whose surface was no
advertisement for the zeal of the local urban council. It was rough,
and deep in dust, with overgrown hedges crowding in upon its narrow
limits in a manner which forced her to keep an accurate middle course.
But Princess Vita was not only cooling down her horse after a joyous
gallop upon an adjacent gorse-laden common. She was thinking deeply,
dreaming as only a woman of romantic ideals can dream. Nor were her
thoughts with the rural picture through which she was now moving, and
which her ardent heart loved. She was gazing back over past moments so
recently spent in the heart of the great capital. Just now her whole
mind was filled with thoughts of _the man_. And so she had no room for
any other consideration.
For the moment the affairs which had brought this man and herself
together were powerless to disturb her dreaming. The sweet, fragrant
air of the autumn countryside was filling her lungs, a sense of
well-being pervaded her body in the exercise in which she delighted,
and so the youthful heart of her had turned aside from the cares which
lurked in the background, and sought only the image of the man who was
already beginning to occupy so great a part of her life.
The Princess Vita was a well-known figure in the neighborhood. She was
known as Madame Vladimir, who occupied Redwithy Farm, standing in a
sleepy hollow nearly two miles outside Wednesford. She had occupied the
farmhouse for several years, and gossip, supported by the reports of
the local police during the late war, declared that she was a refugee
from Russian Poland, and consequently one of our Allies, and so those
who lived sufficiently near by had set themselves to be kind to her,
and, incidentally, to satisfy as much of their curiosity as possible.
But the Princess was not easily available to the curious. She was
gentle, she was sufficiently ordinary in her methods of life to please
the most exacting of her country neighbors. Furthermore, while
professing some Polish religion which the country folk had no
understanding of, in the absence of a church of her own she had readily
adopted the Church of England. This was enormously in her favor, and
she quickly became an admittedly proper person.
But even the most well-meaning never succeeded in penetrating beneath
the surface of acquaintanceship. She was credited with being extremely
well off. Redwithy Farm was a miniature, restored Elizabethan mansion
of rare antiquity, set in the heart of a parkland of over eighty acres.
During the war she had only kept English servants, some seven or eight,
but from the moment peace had been declared these had been replaced one
by one with foreigners, retainers from her own home in Poland. No one
seriously questioned the change. One and all admitted that the
conditions of Poland after the war made it a charity on the part of
Madame Vladimir to rescue these poor people from such a condition of
devastation and afford them the blessings and peace of the English
countryside.
So, through her own consummate tact, Vita was enabled to live more or
less unquestioned in her English home. And such peace was justly her
due, for her objects were simple and honest for the country of her
adoption. She was preparing, as many another foreigner had done before
her, a refuge in the hospitable heart of Britain for that father for
whom she foresaw the growing threat of danger.
Half-way down the winding, narrow lane she turned out through an
opening which had once been a five-barred gate. She crossed a field and
passed into another, and then another. Then, making her way through a
small iron gateway, she entered the twenty-acre patch of larch and
birch woods which stood on a hill on her own land dominating the farm.
Following the narrow cart track through these woods, her fine eyes busy
in every direction with the scuttling rabbits, she emerged in full view
of the quaint old L-shaped house. It was a perfect picture of rural
England. There was not another house in sight. Redwithy Farm seemed to
be shut off from the rest of the world by the hilly surroundings of the
Chilterns. The land rose up on every side but one, and that was the
direction in which the ribbon-like drive wound its way eastwards
between the railed-in pastures of rich grassland. The building was
two-storied for the most part, but here and there dormer attic windows
peeped out under the eaves of the beautifully cut thatched roof. Then,
behind the house itself lay the old farm buildings, all in excellent
repair, and in another direction were the heavy ancient red walls
surrounding the various fruit gardens and glass ranges.
Vita loved the place, and never more appreciated it than when gazing at
it from this view-point. Just now there was the added charm of the
ripening autumn tints lending warmth to the scene and adding to it that
snug suggestion of shelter from the coming inclemencies of winter.
But in the midst of her happy contemplation she became startled. The
wonderful peace of it all was abruptly broken. Round the corner of the
straight-limbed woods, to the east, a motor vehicle made its
appearance. It came on swiftly down the drive. At first Vita took it to
be the car of some caller from the neighborhood, but, in a moment, the
familiar outline of a taxi-cab impressed itself upon her.
This realization was the startling part of the apparition, and, without
hesitation, she pressed her horse on towards the house.
Vita's hasty return to the house was inspired by an intangible dread.
There was no such thing as a taxi-cab in Wednesford. Therefore her
visitor must have come from farther afield. There was only one place in
her mind associated with taxi-cabs--London. If the cab came from
London, then----
Her undefined fears received ample confirmation on reaching the house.
Herr von Salzinger was awaiting her in the drawing-room. And at once
she realized, without having admitted it to herself, that this was the
very thing she had dreaded. How could she have admitted it? It had
seemed impossible. Her retreat was known to no one but her father. How
then had this man discovered it--and so promptly?
The riddle of it left her troubled. She must somehow gain time to
think. Finally, she gave word to the sallow dark-eyed man-servant that
she would join Herr von Salzinger in the drawing-room in a few minutes.
Then she passed up-stairs to change her habit.
Half an hour later she entered the drawing-room, a picture of such
beauty as set the strong pulses of the Prussian hammering, and made
him, for the moment, at least, remember only one side of the decision
which had brought him to Redwithy Farm.
Vita's ready wit had been active. She had decided on her course of
action, and greeted him now with an assumption of warmth which
flattered him, and helped to disarm.
"Ludwig von Salzinger!" she cried, her hand outheld in cordial welcome.
"You, in London, after all this time? How have you managed to tear
yourself from the paths of honor, which, if all accounts be true, you
have so familiarly been treading of late? Do you know, when I saw your
familiar features last night in that cab I really couldn't believe it
was you. And how--how in the name of all that's wonderful did you
manage to find me out here?"
Her assumption of pleasure was perfect. Its sincerity even convinced
the man who had come prepared for a rebuff.
He laughed in responsive cordiality. But his eyes somehow retained
their normal hardness of expression.
"Do not let us talk of how I found you out," he said. "It is likely to
arouse--memories. You see, I have still many friends in this
England--of yours."
"Mine?" Vita shrugged her superb shoulders, and crossed over to the
mantelpiece, where she stood resting an elbow upon it. "But I know what
you mean." She sighed a regret. "You found me through your old Secret
Service friends. I ought to have remembered." Then she smiled, and her
eyes fixed themselves intensely upon the gross face of the man. "But I
wanted to forget that. I wanted to remember only the man who had risen
by the force of his own personality and attainments to high military
command in our beloved Fatherland. You see, _General_, there is no
woman but delights in the advancement of her friends over the open road
of honor. The secret, underground roads,"--she shook her head,--"no,
they are not for a woman's delight in her--friends. They may be
necessary, but--they are--underground."
Her purpose was better achieved than perhaps she knew. At the same
time, however, she was incurring a serious risk in another direction.
The passions of this Prussian were easily stirred. They had been
stirred before when he had been younger, when perhaps his experience
had not inspired him with so much of the cynicism and selfishness which
had come to him through the ruthlessness of his recent campaigning. His
ideals of womanhood, if he had ever really possessed any, were now
completely negligible. Never in his doctrine could woman be anything
but the amusement of man. This Princess at one time had suggested to
his mind a means of advancement in his career. Now she was merely the
daughter of the man who had sought to injure him, a man whom he was
convinced was a traitor to his country. She was even something more
than merely his daughter. She was something in this man's schemes and
plans. This being so, he was left without compunction regarding her.
She was beautiful and--a woman. He was a man. Moreover he felt that his
was the power to impress his will upon her in any direction he chose.
This was the Prussian who ever reckons without his adversary.
Von Salzinger settled himself in a comfortable chair and spread out his
legs, while Vita pressed an electric bell.
"Maybe," he said drily. "But those underground channels have served me
well--in the present instance. So I can't feel as you do towards them.
Do you know, Princess," he went on, with greater warmth, "the sight of
you last night left me no longer master of myself. Even then I knew
where to find you. Seeing you again impelled me here to-day. I could
not wait. I have come here to England in my first leisure to see
you--in the hopes that you have at least forgiven if not forgotten our
last meeting. You see, I was so much younger then, if not in years at
least in the knowledge of those things which humanly speaking really
matter. Four years! It seems a lifetime since I was with you."
At that moment the man-servant entered with the tea-tray. Ludwig von
Salzinger watched him curiously as he set it before his mistress, in
front of the crackling log fire. When the man had withdrawn Vita smiled
across at him.
"Tea?" she enquired. "It is British--this tea habit. There are other
refreshments if you prefer them, and--you may smoke. We have the house
to ourselves. I have given orders. I could not have your visit
disturbed by the possible intrusion of--neighbors."
At this fresh mark of the woman's cordiality even the cold eyes began
to melt. Von Salzinger was rapidly abandoning himself to the pleasure
of the moment. This woman stirred the full depths of passion in him.
None had stirred them more deeply. He admitted it, and, with his
admission, he promised himself the harvest of the power that was his.
He accepted a cup of tea and lit a cigar.
"Then perhaps you have forgiven the--past?" he said, with assurance.
Vita shrugged. But her smile was radiant.
"We all make mistakes in--our inexperience."
"Yes." The man sipped his tea noisily. Then for a moment he stirred it.
"Tell me," he went on abruptly. "It is four years--nearly--since you
told me all you felt about--espionage. It is a long time and much has
happened. You have many friends here in England. Still you
remain--simply the daughter of your father? Am I rude?" Vita had
glanced over at him swiftly, seriously. "You see it is much to me,
for--I came over to see you."
He had taken care that she should have no misunderstanding of his
meaning. She displayed no resentment, but her eyes lowered to the
tea-things she was manipulating. The man abruptly sat forward in his
chair.
"I must say what is on my mind. It is my way, Vita. You know that of
old. I saw you last night with a man, a stranger to me. And"--he
smiled, and leant more urgently towards her,--"I was mad--mad with
jealousy. I did not know him. I had no means of knowing him, since I
have been isolated away on my command, and I thought, I felt convinced
he was your--lover. Ach, it made me mad--mad. So I dared not delay. I
must see you at once--at once and learn the truth from you. You must
know, Vita, that I love you just as I have always loved you. All the
rest--what is it? My position? Nothing. Nothing to compare with my love
for you. Then my first sight of you after all this time is with that
man--a good-looking man--in the car. You together--alone. I
thought--oh, I was convinced he was your husband, and I--I could have
killed him. Will you tell me of him? Is he? Is he your lover? You must
tell me."
Through her drooping lashes Vita was watching him. There was a curious
manner in the man. He was not pleading. He was telling her of his
feelings as though she had no alternative but to accept them. She was
alarmed, but gave no sign.
She decided swiftly upon her next attitude. It must be frankness. She
must keep, hold this man, and convince him that she had nothing to do
with, and no knowledge of, Ruxton Farlow's movements. If she failed in
this, then----
She laughed musically, a deep, soft laugh. The eyes which were raised
to Von Salzinger's were full of amusement.
"The same headstrong, impetuous Ludwig. The years have not changed
you," she said, shaking her head. "Ruxton Farlow is just one of many
men friends I have over here. You cannot expect a woman of my position
to live the life of a nun. I dined with him last evening. When we
encountered you he was driving me home in his car. Have I committed a
crime?"
"Here?"
There was a subtle brutality in the man's monosyllable.
Vita flushed. The amusement in her eyes had changed to a sparkle of
anger. She shrugged.
"If you adopt that tone I have nothing more to say on the matter."
The man realized his mistake and changed his tone at once.
"Forgive me, Vita," he cried hastily. "It--it is jealousy. I cannot
bear to think of you with that man--alone--or any other man. They have
no right to you. They are natural enemies of our country. I--I am a
Prussian, and you--you belong to our country. Can you not understand my
feelings? Ach! It is maddening to think."
Vita's smile was wholly charming as she glanced at him across the
tea-table.
"You are going to make me quarrel with you--again. And I don't want to
quarrel. Tell me--about yourself and your affairs. They are more
interesting. Tell me of that upward path--of that high command you
occupy."
For some moments Ludwig von Salzinger did not reply. He had no desire
to change the subject. His only interest in Vita was her beauty, her
splendid womanhood; her appeal to his baser senses. His hard eyes
regarded her unsmilingly for some moments. Then his nature drove him to
the blunder which the woman had been awaiting.
"My affairs have no interest just now," he said, almost sombrely.
Vita caught at his reply with all her readiness.
"But they have--for your friends. Your old friends," she said, with
well-assumed earnestness.
"Have they?" The man laughed bitterly. "I wonder." Again his greedy
eyes had settled upon her with that curious regard which all good women
resent.
At last Vita threw her head up in a manner which definitely but
silently made her protest plain. Von Salzinger was forced to speech.
"For the moment the upward path is closed to me," he admitted coldly.
"I no longer occupy my command. Do--you understand?"
But Vita shook her head.
In a moment there came an outburst of passion. It was the outburst of a
headstrong man, which robs him of half his power in more delicate
situations.
"I have been relieved of my command," he cried, springing to his feet
and standing over her before the little tea-table. "For the moment my
enemies have triumphed. But it will not be for long," he went on,
working himself up till he almost forgot whom he was addressing. "The
enemies of Ludwig von Salzinger do not triumph for long, and then we
shall see. Oh, yes, we shall see."
Vita nodded sympathetically up at the passionate face.
"And you came to London, and," she added subtly, "you left your enemies
behind you."
The man flung his cigar end in among the glowing logs with a vicious
gesture.
"Some of them," he cried fiercely. Then he abruptly recovered himself.
He began to laugh. The change was awkward, and the cunning that crept
into his eyes was perfectly apparent to Vita. "Yes, I leave them behind
me, where we are told to put all evil things. London is safer for
me--at present. Besides, does it not bring me to your side?"
Vita had learned all she wanted to know in his brief admission. "Some
of them," he had flung at her in his unguarded moment. The rest of it
had no interest for her. She rose from her chair, and forced herself to
a radiant smile.
"You are too deep for me, Ludwig," she cried, purposely using the
intimate form of address. "But no one realizes your capacity better
than I. I have known you so long. You will fight your battles
successfully I am sure. Must you be going?"
The man was left without alternative. He had not thought of departure
yet. He hesitated. Then he finally held out a hand. Vita only too
readily responded. In a moment his hot clasp smothered hers. His eyes
narrowed as they held hers, and the woman gathered something of the
threat behind them.
"It is not good to be my enemy," he said unpleasantly. "Those who make
an enemy of me will howl for mercy before I finish with them." Then his
manner lightened to a tone Vita feared even more than the other. "But
why talk of these things? I only think of you--dream of you. And some
day," he went on, still retaining her hand in his, "you will be--kind
to me. Eh? Is it not so? Surely--for it is our fate. And what a fate
for any man, my Vita--my beautiful Vita. It will be--wonderful,
wonderful."
The woman withdrew her hand sharply. She could stand no more of it. A
growing terror was taking possession of her. Von Salzinger laughed as
he released her hand with a final pressure. "It is good-bye now, but I
shall come again, and then--again."
Vita was standing before the fire gazing down into its ruddy depths.
The tea-things had been removed, and she was alone. She was glad. She
was relieved. But she was not dissatisfied on the whole.
She felt that Von Salzinger was a greater blunderer than she had hoped.
She knew he had blundered twice. He had blundered in visiting her at
all. He had betrayed his whole purpose as surely as though he had told
her all the details of his plans.
But with her satisfaction was a deep element of fear--personal fear.
But she knew it was a fear--a weakness--that must not be encouraged. If
it mastered her she would be left powerless to carry through the part
she felt she had yet to play. So she resolutely thrust it from her.
Meanwhile, her first duty must be to communicate with her father, and
that--at once.