A MONTH--six weeks--two months passed after the Russian Minister’s
ball. The Grand Duke had called informally on the President,
accompanied of course by the Minister, but his visit to Washington was
so brief that all formal courtesies were postponed until he returned
from his travels in the Northwest, which would not be until spring.
This was the time that Volkonsky looked forward to as deciding his
fate. During the Grand Duke’s first brief visit, Pembroke did not know
of Volkonsky’s diplomatic short-comings--nor until the last moment
did he know that Volkonsky was Ahlberg. He was one of those intensely
human men, who like fighting, especially if there is glory to be
won--and he enjoyed a savage satisfaction in thinking that he would
be the instrument of Ahlberg’s punishment--and the prospect of the
catastrophe occurring during the Grand Duke’s visit, so there could be
no misunderstanding or glozing over of the matter, filled him with what
the moralists would call an unholy joy. He and Volkonsky had met often
since the night of the ball, but never alone. The fact is, Volkonsky
had his wife for a body guard. She was always with him in those days,
sitting by his side in her carriage, or else close at his elbow. One
day, however, as Volkonsky was coming out of the State Department, he
met Pembroke face to face.
Pembroke had chafed with inward fury at the cleverness with which
Volkonsky had managed to avoid him. Therefore when he passed the
Russian Minister’s carriage with Madame Volkonsky sitting in it alone
at the foot of the steps, he was certain that Volkonsky was in the
State Department, and that he could catch him--for it had assumed the
form of a flight and a pursuit. Pembroke took off his hat and bowed
profoundly to Madame Volkonsky. She could not but fancy there was a
glimmer of sarcasm in his manner--a sarcasm she returned by a bow still
lower. Pembroke could have leaped up the steps in his anxiety to reach
the building before Volkonsky left--but he controlled himself and
mounted leisurely. Once inside the door, he started at a long stride
down the corridor, and in two minutes he had, figuratively speaking,
collared Volkonsky.
“I want to speak with you,” said Pembroke.
“With pleasure,” responded Volkonsky, “but I may ask you to be brief,
as Madame Volkonsky awaits me in her carriage.”
“I will be brief. But I desire you to come to my club--here is my
card--at six o’clock this evening.”
Volkonsky straightened himself up. He determined not to yield without
making a fight for it.
“Are you aware of your language, Meestar Pembroke?”
“Perfectly,” answered Pembroke coolly. “Come or stay--do as you
like. It is your only chance of getting away from the United States
quietly--and this chance is given you not for yourself but for your
wife.”
Pembroke had kept his hat on his head purposely all this time.
Volkonsky had removed his, but seeing Pembroke remain covered, put it
back also. The two men gazed at each other for a moment, and then each
went his way. But Pembroke knew in that moment that Volkonsky would
come.
Once down in the carriage, Volkonsky directed the coachman to drive
toward the country. It was a charming morning in early spring. Madame
Volkonsky had expected to enjoy the drive, but when she saw Volkonsky’s
face she changed her anticipations.
“What did he say?” she asked, almost before the footman had mounted.
Volkonsky reflected for a moment, and then answered grimly:
“He has offered me a chance to get away quietly.”
Madame Volkonsky said no more. Volkonsky began gnawing his mustache--a
trick that Ahlberg had before. He did not speak until they were out
in the country lanes. The fresh spring air brought no bloom to Madame
Volkonsky’s pallid face.
“But for the frightful insolence of the fellow,” began Volkonsky after
a while, “it might not be so bad. He is willing to negotiate. He has
not gone yet to the Secretary of State with--with--his accusations.
But the Secretary suspects me. I saw it in his face more plainly this
morning than ever before. And there are certain things in connection
with my negotiations--Great God! What a country! I communicate with the
Department of State on certain diplomatic matters. The Department tells
me that the Senate has called for information in the matter, and all my
communications are handed over to a Senate Committee. Then the Lower
House imagines there is a commercial question involved, and invites its
Foreign Affairs Committee to take charge of it. There is no diplomacy
in this miserable country,” he cried, throwing out his hands. “The
State Department is a puppet in the hands of Congress. No diplomatist
can understand this when he comes here--or after.”
“That is true,” responded Madame Volkonsky, with a spice of sarcasm in
her that never wholly left her. “None of you Foreign Office people know
anything of the workings of the United States Government.” This angered
Volkonsky. He broke out--
“There is more yet to tell. This wretched _canaille_ they call the
Lower House, this Foreign Affairs Committee--is subdivided into
numerous smaller committees--and the one in charge of our negotiation
is virtually Pembroke--Pembroke himself!”
Madame Volkonsky fell back in the carriage. She did not wholly
understand what this meant, but she knew from Volkonsky’s manner,
assisted by her own slight knowledge, that Pembroke was in some way
the arbiter of Volkonsky’s fate.
“And there are documents--letters--that Pembroke has called for, and
the State Department has produced--that in the hands of an enemy--”
He struck his knee with his clinched fist. Disgrace stared him in the
face--and the Grand Duke himself here--lying would do no good--and
when that device would no longer avail him, Volkonsky felt that his
situation was indeed desperate.
Both remained silent a long time. The carriage rolled along slowly. The
road was smooth and bordered with beech and poplar trees, upon whose
silvery branches the first tender shoots were coming out. The air was
full of the subtle perfume of the coming leaves. But both the man and
the woman were city bred. They neither understood nor cared for such
things. Presently Madame Volkonsky touched her husband. Ahead of them
they saw two figures. They were Olivia Berkeley and Miles Pembroke,
walking gayly along the path, talking merrily. The sight of their
innocent gayety smote Madame Volkonsky to the heart with envy. She had
never been able to enjoy simple pleasures. A country walk, with a mere
nobody, a boy younger than herself, with no one to admire, to notice,
could never have pleased her. All her pleasures were of the costly
kind--costly in money, in talents, in rank. She blamed fate at that
moment for making her that way, and envied instead of despising Olivia.
The two by the roadside bowed--and the two in the carriage returned it
smilingly. But the smile died the instant their heads were turned.
Volkonsky said presently to his wife:
“We must not show the white feather. You must sing to-night.”
This brought Madame Volkonsky up with a turn. Her conversation with
her husband had quite put out of her mind something that had engrossed
her very much, and that was an amateur concert at the British Legation
that evening, at which she was to sing, and for which she had been
preparing earnestly for weeks. Singing, to her, was the keenest edge
of enjoyment. She had begun to feel the delight of the applause, of
the footlights, already in anticipation. It is true it was only an
amateur concert--but it would be before an audience that was worthy
of anybody’s efforts--for was not everybody, even the President and
his wife, to be present? And Madame Volkonsky had speedily found out
that she would have no rival. She had looked forward with intense
anticipation to this triumph--the one pleasure without alloy--the one
chance of being justly admired and applauded. But in the last hour all
had been forgotten. Even the artist’s instinct was quenched. She turned
cold at the idea of singing that night. But with her husband, she felt
it was no time to quail. Then Volkonsky explained to her that he must
meet Pembroke at six, and would afterward dine alone at home, while she
would be on her way to the concert.
“And Elise,” he said--he rarely called her by her name--“while there is
yet hope--for he has not so far done anything, and I think he would not
willingly make you miserable--if you have an opportunity, make--make an
appeal to him.”
Before, when the danger had not been so immediate, she had derided him
to his face for this, but now, like him, she was ready to do anything.
The sweets of her position had grown upon her. For the first time in
her life she had commanded instead of asking admiration and attention.
She made no promises, but Volkonsky knew that she was thoroughly
frightened.
They went home, and Madame Volkonsky, directing that she be excused to
visitors that day, went to her room. Like all people who have something
to conceal, she hated and dreaded to be seen when an emergency was at
hand. She lay all day on the sofa in her bedroom, ostensibly resting
and preparing for the concert of that night--but she did not sing
a note, and the professor of music, who came for a last rehearsal,
was ruthlessly turned away like everybody else. In the midst of her
own misery, Olivia Berkeley’s calm and luminous face haunted her.
Olivia’s destiny was not a particularly brilliant one--the daughter
of a Virginia country gentleman of modest fortune, condemned to a
humdrum life for the best part of the year--already past her first
youth--and Madame Volkonsky, wife of the Russian Minister, twice as
beautiful as Olivia, gifted and admired--apparently everything was
on Madame Volkonsky’s side. And the two had begun life under much the
same auspices. Madame Volkonsky, who was a clever woman in her way,
was not silly enough to suppose that her present miseries had any
real connection with the honors and pleasures she enjoyed. But being
a shrewd observer, she saw that the excellent things of life are much
more evenly divided than people commonly fancy--and she believed in a
kind of inexorable fate that metes out dyspepsia and ingratitude and
deceit to Dives, that the balance may be struck between him and Lazarus.
So all day she lay on the sofa, and thought about those early days of
hers, and Olivia and Pembroke, and even her Aunt Sally Peyton and poor
Miles and Cave, and everybody linked with that time. When she thought
of Pembroke, it came upon her that he might be induced to spare her.
She had never really understood Pembroke, although she had admired
him intensely. If she had, things would have been very different with
both of them. She never could understand her own failure with him.
Of course she hated him, but love and hatred of the same person are
not unfrequently found in women. She could not but hate him when she
remembered that if he spared them and let them get away quietly, it
would be because she was a woman, not because she was Elise Koller.
But after all she would be rather pleased to get away from Washington
now, if she could do so without being ruined. She wondered at her
own rashness in returning. It seemed a kind of madness. There were
pleasanter places--and it brought her early life and associations too
much before her. She was not fond of reminiscences.
Occasionally as she lay upon the sofa, wrapped in a silk coverlet and
gazing at the cheerful fire that blazed in the fireplace, she dropped
into an uneasy sleep. This made her nerves recover their tone, and even
somewhat raised her spirits. She was anxious and very much alarmed, but
not in despair. About four o’clock her husband came into her room. His
face was ashy and he held a dispatch in his hand.
“The Grand Duke arrives within half an hour. This dispatch has been
delayed several hours. I go to the train now to meet him.”
Madame Volkonsky sat upright on the sofa.
“Will it make--any difference to us?” she asked.
Volkonsky shrugged his shoulders.
“It will simply bring matters to a crisis. It may restrain Pembroke--if
not, it is his opportunity to ruin me. I shall of course tell his
royal highness and his suite of the concert, and they may choose to
go. Russians must always be amused. Perhaps you will have the honor of
singing for his royal highness as well as the President.” His tone as
he said this was not pleasant.
“I met the old Colonel Berkeley just now. He asked me how Eliza was. Is
it that he is a fool or that he wishes to be impertinent?”
A ghost of a smile came to Madame Volkonsky’s face. Her husband’s total
inability to understand Anglo-Saxon character, manners, sarcasm and
humor could not but amuse her.
“Colonel Berkeley is not a fool at least,” she replied.
Volkonsky went out and drove rapidly to the station. All the people
attached to the Russian Legation were there, and in five minutes the
train rolled in. The Grand Duke and his suite alighted, and the royal
young man, taking Volkonsky’s arm, entered his carriage and was driven
to his hotel.
During all this time, Volkonsky was battling with his nervousness. He
was afraid that the Grand Duke would invite him to dine--and in that
case, he would miss Pembroke, and perhaps exasperate him. However the
Grand Duke did not, much to the Minister’s relief and the attachés’
disgust. But the concert at the British Legation was mentioned, and the
Grand Duke signified his august pleasure to attend. The Minister was to
call for him at half-past eight--just the hour the concert began, but
royalty does not mind little things like that. As the Grand Duke had
not paid his respects to the President, the attendance at the concert
was a little unofficial affair, that was to be made as informal as
possible--under the rose as it were. At a quarter before six Volkonsky
got off--and drove to the club.
Pembroke had not yet arrived, but the servants had orders to show M.
Volkonsky to a private room, where Mr. Pembroke would join him. This
delay enraged Volkonsky. He thought it was a premeditated slight on
Pembroke’s part to keep him waiting. He went to the room, however, and
sat down and played with his gloves and waited impatiently and angrily.
It was nearly half an hour after Volkonsky had arrived that Pembroke
came in looking hurried and flushed. He did not mind at all crushing
Volkonsky, and could with pleasure have kicked him into the street,
but he was not disposed to the small revenges, like keeping an enemy
waiting. He said at once:
“Pray excuse my delay. I apologize--”
“No apology is required,” answered Volkonsky haughtily; “I have this
instant myself arrived. I have been in attendance upon his royal
highness, the Grand Duke Alexis, who has just reached town.”
“And I,” responded Pembroke bowing, “have been in attendance upon
his excellency, the President of the United States--which of course,
obliges me to postpone any other appointment.”
Volkonsky fancied a lurking smile in the corners of Pembroke’s mouth.
These incomprehensible Americans, he thought bitterly, never tell
people when they are joking. But Pembroke was in no joking mood. He sat
down by a little table between them, and looked Volkonsky full in the
eye.
“I have been with the President and the Secretary of State, and it is
upon your affairs that we met.”
Volkonsky shifted uneasily in his chair. These terrible Americans. They
outraged all diplomacy.
“And may I ask the result of that conference?” he inquired.
“Certainly. That if you will agree to go quietly, you may.”
Volkonsky drew himself up. Pembroke remembered a similar gesture and
attitude in a country road, some years before.
“And if I decline?”
Pembroke nodded gravely.
“Then the President, through the State Department will feel compelled
to notify your government of the correspondence of yours which came
into the hands of the Department, and was upon my request presented
to the Foreign Affairs sub-committee. This is enough, you understand,
for your recall, and perhaps dismissal. But I thought proper to inform
the President of what _I_ knew personally regarding you--and I also
informed him that your wife was entitled to some consideration of
which you were totally unworthy. So you had best take advantage of the
President’s leniency in allowing you to go, without a peremptory demand
for your recall.”
“You perhaps have gone too fast,” answered Volkonsky in a quiet
voice--for the whole conversation had been conducted in a
conversational key. “You are no doubt aware that the United States
Government is bound by some obligations to the Government of the Czar,
owing to the stand taken by Russia during your civil war, when you, Mr.
Pembroke, were in rebellion. If you will remember, when there seemed a
strong probability that the Confederate government would be recognized
by England and France, the Czar signified, that if such a contingency
arose, he would be prepared to render the United States active help.
As a guarantee, you will recollect the appearance of a small Russian
fleet off the Pacific Coast. Now, upon the first occasion that a member
of the royal family comes to the United States, to have a diplomatic
scandal--to dismiss the Russian Minister the day after the Grand Duke’s
arrival--when arrangements are made for the presentations, and certain
formal entertainments--will certainly be most awkward, and I may say,
embarrassing, for his royal highness as well as the Russian Government.”
“Quite true,” answered Pembroke. “This phase of the question was
discussed fully by the Secretary of State, who was present at the
interview with the President. He mentioned that the strongest proof
of friendship this Government could give the Russian Government
would be for the Secretary to state privately to the Grand Duke how
matters stand, and to offer, on his account, to permit your presence
temporarily in Washington.”
Volkonsky stood up for a moment and sat down again. His face was quite
desperate by this time. And the amazing audacity of this American!
“How can it be arranged? It is impossible; you must yield,” he gasped.
“The President himself has arranged everything. That is,” he added,
with some malice, “he agreed to my proposition, as did the Secretary of
State. The Secretary, to-morrow, will have an interview with the Grand
Duke, and--”
“Will follow the Grand Duke’s wishes?” eagerly asked Volkonsky, rising
again.
“Not at all,” replied Pembroke, with dignity. “Such is not the practice
of this government. The Secretary will notify the Grand Duke what
the President is prepared to yield out of courtesy to the Russian
Government, and respect for the Czar’s family. You will be allowed to
present the Grand Duke to the President, according to the original
programme. But you will be careful not to offer your hand to the
President, or to presume to engage him in conversation. Don’t forget
this.”
“And the State dinner to his royal highness?” asked Volkonsky, in a
tremulous voice.
“A card will be sent you, but you must absent yourself. It was agreed
that you had abundant resources by which you could avoid coming,
which I warn you will not be allowed. You might be called away from
Washington upon imperative business.”
“Or I might be ill. It would perhaps be the best solution of the
difficulty if I should be taken ill now, and remain so for the next two
weeks.”
Pembroke could not for his life, refrain from smiling at this.
Volkonsky, however, was far from smiling. He regarded these things as
of tremendous import.
“And Madame Volkonsky--and the State dinner?” he said.
“That,” answered Pembroke, with a bow, “rests solely with Madame
Volkonsky. This government fights men, not women.”
Volkonsky had been restless, getting up and walking about, and then
sitting down at the table and resting his face on his hands. Pembroke
had not moved from his first position, which was one of easy dignity.
Presently Volkonsky burst out with:
“But did the President himself say anything of me?”
“He did.”
“Then I insist on hearing it.”
“M. Volkonsky, it would do you no good. The arrangements I have told
you of are final, and I will be present with other members of the
Foreign Affairs Committee at your meeting with the President.”
Volkonsky at once thought that the President had said something which
was favorable to him. He said violently:
“But I demand to know. I am still the accredited Minister of all the
Russias. I have certain rights, which must be respected. I demand to
know the President’s exact language.”
“M. Volkonsky, I expressly disclaim any sympathy with the President’s
remarks. His language is far from diplomatic. He did not expect it to
be repeated.”
“I demand to know,” shouted Volkonsky, furiously.
“He said, he knew you were an infernal scoundrel the instant he put his
eyes on you.”
Volkonsky fell back in his chair almost stunned. Pembroke, whose sense
of humor was struggling with his anger and disgust, almost felt sorry
for him. After a pause, Volkonsky raised himself up and looked fixedly
at Pembroke.
“Why do you not enter the diplomatic service?” he said. “You have great
talents in that direction.”
“Because,” answered Pembroke, smiling in a way that made Volkonsky feel
like strangling him, “the diplomatic service is no career for a man--”
“In America, yes. But in Europe?”
“Nor in Europe, either. Before the railroad and the telegraph,
Ministers had powers and responsibilities. Now, they are merely
agents and messengers. However, we will not discuss that. Our affairs
are finished. I only have to warn you not to abuse the reasonable
indulgence of this government. You are to take yourself off--and if
not, you will be driven out.”
After Volkonsky left him, Pembroke dined alone at the club. He felt
singularly depressed. As long as he had Volkonsky before him, he
enjoyed the pleasure of beating his enemy according to the savage
instincts which yet dwell in the human breast. Volkonsky gone, he
began to think with a certain remorse of Elise. The thought of her
misery gave him pain.
Suddenly he remembered the concert. He recollected that Miles had
engaged for both of them to go with Colonel Berkeley and Olivia. But
for Miles, he would have excused himself from his engagement--but the
boy could seldom be induced to go anywhere, and he had seemed eager
to go to this place--but not without Olivia. For she had the gentle
tact to make him feel at ease. She screened him from the curious and
unthinking--he did not feel lost and abashed with Olivia as he did
without her. So Pembroke finished his dinner hurriedly, and went back
to his lodgings, where Miles was awaiting him, after having dined
alone--and in a little while they were at the Colonel’s house, where
Olivia came out on her father’s arm, and the big landau, brought from
Isleham, with Petrarch on the box as of old, rolled along toward the
British Legation and took its place in line.
When they reached the brilliantly lighted ball-room, where a concert
stage had been erected and chairs arranged in rows, Pembroke took
Miles’ usual place at Olivia’s side. He always felt with her, the charm
of a sweet reasonableness and refinement. After the man he had talked
with, and the thoughts and evil passions he had just experienced, it
was refreshment to sit beside Olivia Berkeley, to look into her clear
eyes and to listen to her soft voice.
The great ball-room was full and very brilliant. Pembroke looked and
felt distrait. He was glad it was a concert, and that he could sit
still and be silent, instead of moving about and being obliged to talk.
He had altogether forgotten Madame Volkonsky’s connection with it until
he saw her name on the programme. It gave him an unpleasant shock--and
presently there was a slight commotion, and the British Minister
escorted the President and his wife up the room to the arm-chairs
placed for them--and a few minutes after, the Grand Duke and his
suite--and in the suite Pembroke saw Volkonsky.
Olivia did not look at Volkonsky as he passed. He always excited strong
repulsion in her. Then the music began.
It was a very ordinary concert, as concerts are apt to be by very
distinguished persons. The programme was long and amateurish. But when
Madame Volkonsky’s first number was reached the audience waked up. She
was the only artist in the lot.
She came on the stage smiling and bowing, which raised the applause
that greeted her to a storm. She need not have wished a better foil
for her art as well as her manner and appearance than those who
had preceded her. It had been her terror, amid all the pleasure of
exhibiting her accomplishments, that the professional would be too
obvious. She was always afraid that some practised eye--which indeed
sometimes happened--would discover that her art was no amateur’s art.
But to-night she was troubled by nothing like this. She knew all. She
knew that invited to the house of the President, she could not go--she
knew that she must slip away like a criminal from her own country,
and from those very men and women who now admired and envied her. She
had married Ahlberg deliberately, knowing who he was, and had schemed
with him and for him. She had done nothing very wrong, she had said to
herself, a dozen times that day--nothing but to prefer present interest
to ever-lasting principles--nothing but to join her fate with full
knowledge, to a scoundrel--nothing but to have preferred money and
pleasure and crooked ways to the straight. Meanwhile many women did
as she did and were not so cruelly punished. But fate had overtaken
her. No fear now lest people should know she was once a professional
singer--they would know all about her soon enough. She knew that
the storm that would break upon her was only delayed a little. She
would therefore enjoy to the most this last time--this one feast at
the king’s table. She sang her best--sang as if inspired, and in the
subtile harmonies, the deep mysterious cries, the passionate meaning
of Schumann and Schubert, her soul found utterance through her voice.
Had she been permitted to sing thus always--had that glorious but
capricious voice always remained like that, she would have been a
proud and satisfied artist, instead of this trembling and disappointed
worldling, about to be hurled from her place in the eyes of the world
she loved and feared so much.
The applause, which soon became as wild and earnest as if it were a
real stage, warmed her and brought the red blood to her face. She bowed
right and left with the grace and precision of one trained to receive
applause beautifully. Then in response to the tremendous encores, she
sang a little German song--so simple, so low and clear, that it sounded
like a mother’s lullaby. Even those arrayed against her felt the spell
of her thrilling voice. Olivia Berkeley, who had always antagonized her
strongly, felt her cheeks flush and her heart trembled with a kind of
remorse.
Pembroke was pierced again, and more strongly, by the self-accusing
spirit that this woman was to be stricken by his hand. He felt himself
right in what he had done--but neither happy, nor self-approving, nor
guiltless.
The rest of the concert seemed tamer than ever. When it was over
there was to be a supper to a few invited guests. When the music came
to an end, Pembroke rose, glad to get away from Madame Volkonsky’s
presence. But just then the British Minister came up and asked Colonel
Berkeley and Olivia and the two Pembrokes to remain. Olivia accepted,
but Pembroke was about to decline. He had begun in a deprecatory way,
when Olivia said smiling, “You will be sorry if you go.” Something
in the tone, in the expression of her eye, conveyed more than the
simple words, and fixed the fact in an instant that he would remain.
He accepted, and almost before he knew it, he found himself near
Madame Volkonsky, and the host invited him to give her his arm to the
dining-room.
Like most women of her nature, Madame Volkonsky had a blind dependence
upon what she called fate--which means upon any accidental conjunction
of circumstances. She had been turning over in her mind, eagerly
and feverishly, all day long the chances of five minutes’ talk with
Pembroke. She had not been able to hit upon anything that would insure
it that night, because she had no warrant that she should see him--and
even if he came to the concert, it was a chance whether he would remain
to the supper. Again, everything pointed to one of the diplomatic corps
taking her into supper--and only the charming indifference which the
diplomatic corps manifests at Washington to diplomatic usages, could
pair the wife of the Russian Minister with a young member of Congress.
But in truth, the British Minister and all his diplomatic colleagues
had got wind of what was coming, and it was an opportunity of giving
Volkonsky a kick which pleased them all. The supper was quite informal,
and the Grand Duke did not remain.
In the first flush of her joy at having a word with Pembroke, Madame
Volkonsky entirely forgot the slight offered her by barring her out
of a diplomatic escort. She was seated at a little round table where
sat Ryleief, and by another strange turn of fate, Olivia Berkeley.
Madame Volkonsky had drawn off her long black gloves and was talking to
Pembroke with smiling self-possession, when she remembered that however
Pembroke might rank as a man, she was entitled to go out to supper with
a person of diplomatic rank. The British Minister might play tricks,
as all of the diplomats did, with the Americans, but among themselves,
etiquette was strictly observed, even at small and jolly supper
parties. She was so well pleased with what destiny had done for her in
giving her Pembroke as an escort, that she had no quarrel with destiny
whatever. But with the British Minister and his wife, she did have a
quarrel. She felt her anger and indignation rising every moment against
them. It was the first stab of the many she was destined to receive.
Madame Volkonsky had most of the conversation to herself. Pembroke,
in spite of every effort, felt heavy hearted. Olivia Berkeley was
painfully embarrassed, and it required all her savoir faire to keep
Ryleief from finding it out. As for Ryleief, he was so taken up with
watching his three companions that he scarcely opened his mouth except
to put something in it.
There was a great pretense of jollity at the little table--so much
so, that Volkonsky turned from a remote corner into which he had been
shoveled, with a faint hope that Madame Volkonsky had accomplished
something. He was a hopeful scamp.
At last the opportunity came that Madame Volkonsky had longed for.
They rose and went back to the drawing-rooms. She and Pembroke were in
front, and by a gesture she stopped him in a recess under the broad
staircase, that was half concealed by great palms. Perhaps Pembroke
might have had a weak moment--but as Olivia passed him on Ryleief’s
arm, though she avoided his glance he saw her face--he saw a kind of
gentle scorn in her delicate nostril--a shade of contempt that hardened
his heart toward Madame Volkonsky on the instant.
In a moment or two everybody but themselves had gone. They were
virtually alone.
“Pembroke,” said Madame Volkonsky. The tone, and the piercing look
which accompanied it, had all the virtue of sincerity.
“You know what I would say,” she continued. “You have everything in
your hands. You may drive me away from here--away from respectable
society--away from all that makes life tolerable. What have I done to
you that you should deny me mercy?”
“But I can do nothing now,” responded Pembroke. “It is too late. And
besides I have done very little. If I may say it, M. Volkonsky has done
it all himself.”
“Yes,” answered Madame Volkonsky. “It is true he has done it all. But
surely, you might make some plea. At least you might try. Oh, you
cannot know what it is to feel one’s self sinking, sinking, and not a
hand held out to save.”
Pembroke’s face was quite impassive, but his soul was not so impassive.
It cost him much to withstand the entreaties of a woman--and a woman
who fancied she had some claim upon him, although in the bottom of
his heart, he knew that he had got more trouble, pain and annoyance
from Elise Koller than he had pleasure by a great deal--more bad than
good--more war than peace.
“Madame Volkonsky,” he continued, after a pause, “you are putting your
appeal on the wrong ground. You will find that your husband has been
mercifully dealt with--and that mercy was for your sake alone. Had you
married him in ignorance--but Elise, you knew him as well five years
ago as now.”
Pembroke feared that his tone did not convey his unalterable decision,
but it did, indeed, to the unfortunate woman before him.
“There is no pity in the world,” she began--and then kept on, gasping
with hysterical excitement. “No pity at all. I thought that you at
least had a heart--but you are as cold--I never asked for mercy in my
life that I was not denied. Even when I humiliated myself before Olivia
Berkeley.”
In the midst of her own frenzy of despair, she saw something in
Pembroke’s face that forced her to stop there. She was trembling
violently and gasping for breath. Every moment he thought she would
break into cries and screams. He took her firmly by the arm and led
her to a side door, and out to where the street was blocked with
carriages. Madame Volkonsky submitted without a word. It was useless.
He was always so prompt. He had no hat, nor had Madame Volkonsky any
wrap around her. He called for the Russian Minister’s carriage, and in
a moment it came. He placed Madame Volkonsky in it, and she obeyed him
silently. Her head hung down, she wept a little, and was the picture of
despair.
“Now, wait for the Minister,” he said to the coachman--and he sent the
footman for Madame Volkonsky’s wrap.
Then he went back in the house, and through the drawing-rooms until he
saw Volkonsky. “You had better go at once to your wife. She is waiting
in her carriage,” he said.
Volkonsky did not take time even to bid his host good-night, but
slipped out, Pembroke a little behind him. When they reached the
carriage, Madame Volkonsky was inside weeping violently. Pembroke had
not got her out a moment too soon.
Volkonsky looked at Pembroke for a moment. “Madame has not her wrap,”
he said. “She has a mantle of sable that cost--ah, here is the footman
with it.” Pembroke turned away sick at heart.
Within a week the Grand Duke’s visit was over, and the Russian Legation
was suddenly turned over to Ryleief. The Minister was ill, and his
doctors ordered him to the south of France. The day before Madame
Volkonsky left Washington, a parcel was delivered into her hands.
It was a rouleau containing a considerable sum of money. There was
nothing to indicate where it came from.
“It must have cost a good deal of self-denial for Pembroke to send me
this,” she said, after counting the money. “He is not a rich man. It
will perhaps serve me in some dreadful emergency”--for she had learned
to expect dreadful emergencies by that time.