CROSS-PURPOSES
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Fitzgerald, venturing his
head into M. Ferraud's cabin.
"Nothing; to-morrow it will all be gone. I am always so. The
miserable water!" M. Ferraud drew the blanket under his chin.
"When you are better I should like to ask you some questions."
"My friend, you have been very good. I promise to tell you all when
the time comes. It will interest you."
"Breitmann?"
"What makes you think I am interested in Mr. Breitmann?"
Fitzgerald could not exactly tell. "Perhaps I have noticed you
watching him."
"Ah, you have good eyes, Mr. Fitzgerald. Have you observed that I have
been watching you also?"
"Yes. You haven't been quite sure of me." Fitzgerald smiled a little.
"But you may rest your mind. I never break my word."
"Nor do I, my friend. Have patience. Satan take these small boats!"
He stifled a groan.
"A little champagne?"
"Nothing, nothing; thank you."
"As you will. Good night."
Fitzgerald shut the door and returned to the smoking-room. Something
or other, concerning Breitmann; he was sure of it. What had he done,
or what was he going to do, that France should watch him? There was no
doubt in his mind now; Breitmann had known of this treasure and had
come to The Pines simply to put his hands on the casket. M. Ferraud
had tried to forestall him. This much of the riddle was plain. But
the pivots upon which these things turned! There was something more
than a treasure in the balance. Well, M. Ferraud had told him to wait.
There was nothing else for him to do.
A little rubber at bridge was in progress. The admiral was playing
with Mrs. Coldfield and Cathewe sat opposite Hildegarde. The latter
two were losing. She was ordinarily a skilful player, as Cathewe knew;
but to-night she lost constantly, was reckless with her leads, and
played carelessly into her opponents' hands. Cathewe watched her
gravely. Never had he seen her more beautiful; and the apprehension
that she would never be his was like a hand straining over his heart.
Yes, she was beautiful; but he did not know that there was death in her
eyes and death in her smile. Once upon a time he had believed that her
heart had broken; but she was learning that the heart breaks, rebreaks,
and breaks again.
How many times he stood on the precipice during the dinner hour,
Breitmann doubtless would never be told. A woman scorned is an old
story; still, the story goes on, retold each day. Education may smooth
the externals, but underneath the fire burns just as furiously as of
old. To this affront the average woman's mind leaps at once to
revenge; and that she does not always take it depends upon two things;
opportunity, and love, which is more powerful than revenge. Sometimes,
on hot summer nights, clouds form angrily in the distance; vivid
flashes dartle hither and about, which serve to intensify the evening
darkness. Thus, a similar phenomenon was taking place in Hildegarde
von Mitter's mind. The red fires of revenge danced before her eyes,
blurring the spots, on the cards, the blackness of despair crowding
upon each flash. Let him beware! With a word she could shatter his
dream; ay, and so she would. What! sit there and let him turn the
knife in her heart and receive the pain meekly? No! It was the
thoughtless brutality with which he went about this new affair that bit
so poignantly. To show her, so indurately, that she was nothing, that,
despite her magnificent sacrifice, she had never been more than a
convenience, was maddening. There was no spontaneity in his heart; his
life was a calculation to which various sums were added or subtracted.
With all her beauty, intellect, genius and generosity, she had not been
able to stir him as this young girl was unconsciously doing. She held
no animosity for the daughter of her host; she was clear-visioned
enough to put the wrong where it belonged.
"It is your lead," said the admiral patiently.
"Pardon me!" contritely. The gentle reproach brought her back to the
surroundings.
"It is the motion of the boat," hazarded Cathewe, as he saw her lead
the ace. "I often find myself losing count in waiting for the next
roll."
"Mr. Cathewe is very kind," she replied. "The truth is, however, I am
simply stupid to-night."
Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura. He was evidently amusing,
for she smiled frequently. Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon
Fitzgerald. Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as
they both believed, in the hollow of her hand. Breitmann appeared to
have forgotten her existence.
When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting
that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and
Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes. They tramped the port side,
saying nothing but thinking much. His arm was under hers to steady
her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one
stifles sobs that are tearless. Ah, to hold her close and to shield
her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the
pain that stabs it. He knew; he knew all about it, and there was
murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann. To be
alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.
She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of
dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly;
and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child. And worldliness
makes a buffer in times like these. Cathewe thanked God for his own
shell, toughened as it had been in the war of life.
"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion. "There goes a big
liner for Sandy Hook. How cheerful she looks with all her lights!
Everybody's busy there. There will be greetings to-morrow, among the
sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."
They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights
had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the
limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves
alone.
Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the
rail. "How kind you are to me!"
"Oh, pshaw!" But the touch of her lips shook his soul.
Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a
woman may find once in a life-time. They are, as a usual thing, always
loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and
buoyant, genuine philosophers. They are not given much to writing
sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the
other man takes the dream out of their lives. This is not to affirm
that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they
accept defeat like good soldiers. There are many heroes who have never
heard war's alarms. He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von
Mitter had yielded to another. But it had been thrown, as it were,
against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day
he might catch it on the rebound.
"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.
"The world would not be half so interesting. Some men shall be
fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way.
I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight." He spoke with
a levity he by no means felt.
"You are always making sport of yourself."
"Would it be wise to weep? Not at all. I laugh because I enjoy it,
just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."
"To have met _you_!" childishly.
"Don't talk like that. It always makes me less sad than furious. And
how do you know? If it had been written that you should care for me,
would any one else have mattered? No. It just is, that's all. So
we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends. Call me when
you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."
"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"
"You would be no happier if you wore a mask. Hildegarde, what has
happened? What power has this adventurer over you? I can not
understand. He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any
wrong."
"He said that?" turning upon him sharply. She could forgive much.
He could not see her face, but by the tone of her voice he knew it had
brightened. "Yes. I did a freakish thing the night we arrived at the
Killigrews'. I forced him into a corner, but it did not pan out as I
hoped. So far as it touched me, it wasn't necessary, as I have told
you a thousand times. Your past is nothing to me; your future is
everything, and I want it. God knows how I want it! Well, I wished to
find out what kind of man he is, but I wasn't very successful.
Hildegarde," and he pressed his hand down hard over hers, "I could find
a priest the day we land if you would love me. You will always
remember that."
"As if I could ever forget your kindness! But you forced him; there is
no merit in such a confession. And I wonder how you forced him. It
was not by fear. Much as I know him there are still some unfilled
pages. I would call him a scoundrel did I not know that in parts he
has been a hero. What sacrifices the man has made, and with what
patience!"
"To what end?" quietly.
"No, no, Arthur! I have promised him."
He took her by the arm roughly. "Let us make two or three rounds and
go back. We shan't grow any more cheerful talking this way."
"He loves her. I saw it in his eyes; and I must stand aside and watch!"
"So must I," he said. "Aren't you just a little selfish, Hildegarde?"
"I am wretched, Arthur; and I am a fool, besides. Oh, that I were
cold-blooded like your women, that I could eat out my heart in secret;
but I can't, I can't!"
"But you have courage; only use it. If what you say of him is true,
rest easy. She is not in his orbit. She will not be impressed by an
adventurer of his breed."
"Thank you!" with a broken laugh. "I am only an opera-singer, here on
suffrance."
"Oh, good Lord! I did not mean it that way. Let us finish the walk,"
savagely.
On the afternoon of the second day out, tea was served under the
awning, and Captain Flanagan condescended to leave his bridge for half
an hour. Through a previous hint dropped by the admiral they lured the
captain into spinning yarns; and well-salted hair-breadth escapes they
were. He understood that the admiral's guests always expected these
flights, and he was in nowise niggard. An ordinary sailor would have
been dead these twenty years, under any one of the exploits.
"Marvelous!" said M. Ferraud from the depths of his rugs. "And he
still lives to tell it?"
"It's the easiest thing in the world, sir, if y' know how," the captain
declared complacently. Indeed, he had recounted these yarns so many
times that he was beginning to regard them as facts. His statement,
ambiguous as it was, passed unchallenged, however; for not one had the
daring to inquire whether he referred to the telling or the living of
them. So he believed that he was looked upon as an apostle of truth.
Only the admiral had the temerity to look his captain squarely in the
eye and wink.
"Captain, would you mind if I put these tales in a book?" Fitzgerald
put this question with a seriousness which fooled no one but the
captain.
"You come up t' the bridge some afternoon, when we've got a smooth sea,
and I'll give y' some _real_ ones." The captain's vanity was soothed,
but he was not aware that he had put doubt upon his own veracity.
"That's kind of you."
"An' say!" went on the captain, drinking his tea, not because he liked
it but because it was customary, "I've got a character forwards. I'm
allus shippin' odds and ends. Got a Frenchman; hands like a lady."
Breitmann leaned forward, and M. Ferraud sat up.
"Yessir," continued the captain; "speaks I-talyan an' English. An' if
I ever meets a lady with long soft hands like his'n, I'm for a pert
talk, straightway."
"What's the matter with his hands?" asked the admiral.
"Why, Commodore, they're as soft as Miss Laura's here, an' yet when th'
big Swede who handles th' baggage was a-foolin' with him this mornin',
it was the Swede who begs off. Nary a callous, an' yet he bowls the
big one round the deck like he was a liner being pierced by a sassy
tug. An' what gets me is, he knows every bolt from stem to stern, sir,
an' an all-round good sailor int' th' bargain; an' it don' take me
more'n twelve hours t' find that out. Well, I'm off t' th' bridge.
Good day, ladies."
When he was out of earshot the admiral roared. "He's the dearest old
liar since Münchhausen."
"Aren't they true stories?" asked Hildegarde.
"Bless you, no! And he knows we know it, too. But he tells them so
well that I've never had the courage to sheer him off."
"It's amusing," said Laura; "but I do not think that it's always fair
to him."
"Why, Laura, you're as good a listener as any I know. Read him a
tract, if you wish."
Breitmann rose presently and sauntered forward, while M. Ferraud
snuggled down in his rugs again. The others entered into a game of
deck-cricket.
But M. Ferraud was not so ill that he was unable to steal from his
cabin at half after nine, at night, without even the steward being
aware of his departure. It can not be said that he roamed about the
deck, for whenever he moved it was in the shadow, and always forward.
By and by voices drifted down the wind. One he knew and expected,
Breitmann's; of the other he was not sure, though the French he spoke
was of classic smoothness. M. Ferraud was exceedingly interested. He
had been waiting for this meeting. Only a phrase or two could be heard
distinctly. But words were not necessary. What he desired above all
things was a glimpse of this Frenchman's face. After several minutes
Breitmann went aft. M. Ferraud stepped out cautiously, and luck was
with him. The sailor to whom Breitmann had spoken so earnestly was
lolling against the rail, in the act of lighting a cigarette. The
light from the match was feeble, but it sufficed the keen eyes of the
watcher. He gasped a little. Strong hands indeed! Here in the garb
of a common sailor, was one of the foremost Orleanists in France!