She felt his hot breath upon her cheek, and put up her hand with
imploring gesture. He looked at her with almost frenzied admiration, as
if it were only with fierce resolve that he restrained himself from
seizing her in his arms and closing her mouth with burning kisses. His
whole frame quivered in the fury of repressed excitement, insomuch that
she shrank from him with involuntary terror.
"Can't you tell me what it is that makes me repugnant to you?" he asked
quickly.
"You are not repugnant at all," she faltered hoarsely. "You are not
repugnant, only--I am indifferent."
"You mean that you don't care about me one way or the other."
She shut her lips tight. Hers was not a nature so passionate as that of
most Southerns, but a loving one; feeling with her was not a single
simple emotion, but a complicated one of many impulses--of
self-diffidences, of deep, strange aspirations that she herself could
scarcely understand--a woman's pride, the delight of companionship and
sympathy and of the guidance of a stronger will; a longing for better
things. All these things were there. But beside them were thoughts of
the man she had vowed she loved, the man who was ruined and who could
not for years hope to make her his wife. She looked at the glittering
moonlit sea, with the light steadily burning in the far distance at
Antibes, but no answer escaped her lips. The silence of night was
complete save for the rhythmic swish of the waves at their feet.
At last, after a long pause, her words came again, shudderingly, "Oh,
what have you done?"
"By Heaven!" he said, with a vague smile, "I don't know. I hope no
harm."
"Oh, don't laugh!" she cried, laughing hysterically herself. "Unless
you want me to think you the greatest wretch in the world."
"I?" he responded. "What do you mean?"
"You know you are fooling me," she answered reproachfully. "You cannot
put your hand on your heart and swear that you actually love me."
A quick look of displeasure crossed his face, but his back was towards
the moon and she did not notice it.
"Yes--yes, I can--I will," he answered. "You must have known it, Liane.
I've been abrupt, I know, and I've startled you, but if you love me you
must attribute that to my loving you so long before I have spoken."
Her troubled breast heaved and fell beneath her rich fur. She gazed at
him with parted lips.
"It is a question from me to you," he went on, "the question of my
life."
"No, don't think so," she protested, "please, don't ask it."
"Then don't answer it, Liane. Wait--let me wait. Ask yourself--"
"I know my own mind already," she said slowly, with earnestness; then
perceiving, as suddenly as she had all the rest, how considered her
assertion might appear, she went on, still with the quietness of
clear-seeing and truth-telling: "things come clear in an instant. This
does, that I could not have thought of. I am already betrothed to
another; that is why I cannot accept."
"You can't expect me to be satisfied with that," he answered. "I, who
know myself, and who see you as you do not see yourself. It is I who
ask: who want to take a great gift. I am not offering myself," he went
on rapidly. "I am beseeching yourself--of you."
"I have not myself to give," she said calmly.
"You mean you love someone else," he said, with a hardness about the
corners of his mouth.
"Yes," and the long eyelashes swept downward as she answered.
But Zertho paid no attention to her reply. "During the years I have
known you, Liane," he went on, "the thought of you has been as a
safeguard against my total disbelief in the possibility of woman's
fidelity. I knew then that I revered you with my better self all the
while--that, young as you were, I believed in you. I believe in you
now. Be my wife, and from this instant I will devote all the love in
me--and I have more than you think--to you alone."
"Prince Zertho," she said, in honest distress, "I beg you won't go on!
I respect your devotion and your kindness, and I don't want to inflict
any hurt upon you; but oh! indeed, you must not ask this."
"Very well," he said sadly, rising to his feet. "Let it all be. I will
not despair. You know now that I love you, and ere long I shall ask you
again as I have asked. Defer your answer until then."
"Let us go back," she urged, shivering as she rose. "The wind has grown
cold;" and in silence they together retraced their steps along the
deserted Promenade.
An hour later, when Liane had gone to her room, the Captain, at Zertho's
request, walked along to the Villa Chevrier, and found his friend
awaiting him in the handsome salon.
When the servant closed the door the Prince was the first to speak.
"To-night I have asked Liane to become my wife," he said harshly,
standing with his hands in his pockets.
"Well?"
"She refuses."
"As I expected," answered her father coldly.
"As you wish, you mean," retorted Zertho.
"I have already explained my views," the other answered, in a deep
strained voice.
"From her attitude it is evident that you have not spoken to her, as we
arranged," said the other angrily.
"I have said nothing."
"Well, you know me sufficiently well, Brooker, to be aware that when I
set my heart upon doing a thing I will accomplish it at all cost," the
Prince, exclaimed. "I'm no longer an outsider, remember, I cannot
really understand your disinclination to allow Liane to become Princess
d'Auzac. Surely you must see that it would be distinctly to your own
advantage. She would take care that you'd never be hard up for a few
hundreds, you know."
"She does not love you, Zertho."
"Love be hanged!" cried the other, fiercely impatient. "In a week I
shall repeat my proposal to her: if she does not accept, well--"
"Well?" echoed Brooker, paler than before, the hand holding the cigar
trembling, for he was feigning a coolness which he was unable to
preserve.
For a moment the Prince paused then crossing to the escritoire, which
stood in the window, took therefrom a folded newspaper, old and
tattered, together with several other papers folded together lengthwise.
Recrossing to where Brooker stood, he held them up to his gaze, with a
sinister smile upon his lips, and a look full of menace.
"No! no!" cried the Captain, glaring at the innocent-looking papers, and
drawing back with a gesture of repulsion.
"Very well," Zertho answered, with nonchalance. "Strange though it may
appear, your only chance of safety is in becoming my father-in-law. It
will be easy enough for you to persuade Liane to become my wife, and I
am ready and eager to remain your friend. But if your prejudices are so
very intense and indiscreet, well--you know the rest."
The two men who had been fellow-adventurers faced each other. In the
countenance of one was confidence, in the other abject fear.
"I never expected this of you, Zertho," the Captain said reproachfully,
regarding him with eyes in which flashed the fire of anger. "You
apparently heed nothing of my feelings as her father. You know my past;
you know that Liane brings into my life its only ray of brightness."
"We are no longer partners," the other answered harshly, with a
strangely determined expression upon his dark countenance. "You are
playing against me now, therefore I am your opponent. You've thought
fit to deal the cards, it's true," he added, with a short derisive
laugh; "but I think you'll have to admit that I hold all the trumps."