THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT HESITATE
"The soul of man is infinite in what it covets."--_Ben Jonson._
Stealthily Eloin drew aside the bushes, and peered through. The tiny
pond with its crystal surface sunk deep in foliage, its flowering island
in the centre, looked not unlike a mirror on a dining table luxuriantly
wreathed by garlands. The Belgian stared greedily. He did not see quite
what Driscoll had seen, yet he saw enough to draw his brow to a
narrowing fold of keenest interest. Jacqueline was seated on the raised
edge of the basin, pensively dipping a hand into the water. Her plump
wrist showed rosy, like coral, and glancing sideways now and again at a
poor agitated prince striding up and down, she looked as she did that
day in the small boat, while tempting a shark. As she leaned over, the
line of her waist and neck was stately and beautiful; and there were the
maddening baby tendrils of soft, glowing copper. Maximilian had
evidently found her there, in a reverie perhaps, and was at sight of her
lured to some act bold and desirous; for just as evidently, if his
flushed face and the way he bit his lip were tokens, he had that moment
been repelled. Eloin watched them avidly, the tall archduke pacing up
and down, the demure lady seated on the basin's edge.
"It was but the lowly homage of a prince," Maximilian cried out
peevishly. Such was his apology.
"Homage of a play-king," she corrected him with exasperating sweetness.
He turned on her angrily. "Why do you say that--a play-king?"
"Whose embassies," she proceeded calmly, "cringe for recognition. Like
beggars they prowl about that White House at Washington, yet never cross
the threshold."
Maximilian was too amazed for denial. "How do you know?" he exclaimed.
"While at the same time," she went on, "the same neighbor receives the
minister of the Mexican republic, and sends one in turn. But no matter.
The marionettes of empire can dance, so long as Napoleon holds the
strings. Was the princely homage a make-believe, too?"
"But--but, if I should convince you, mademoiselle, that the majesty
which only asks to kneel is genuine?"
Her eyelids narrowed, and she looked at him with the oddest smile.
"You know--sire--that I only ask to be convinced. Where will Your
Imperial Highness begin?"
"Know then that the American peasant named Lincoln, who would not
recognize a Hapsburg, is dead. He has been assassinated. He will no
longer encourage our rebels in Mexico."
"That poor gentleman whom you call a peasant," she returned with galling
frankness, "was greater than any Hapsburg. He was fifty million people,
and one million are still under arms. Your rebels know it. They still
cry, 'Viva la Intervencion del Norte!' But go on, _sire_."
He chafed under her mockery in the title. But sitting there, goading an
imaginary shark, she was no less inciting than when he had ventured his
caress.
"They are of no consequence," he burst forth, "neither the Americans,
nor the dissidents. Your own countrymen, mademoiselle, will, and must,
assure my empire."
"H'm'n," she ejaculated, with a quick shrug. "Even the marshal, greatly
against his will, has had to inform Your Majesty that we will shortly
withdraw."
"Then I shall depend on my subjects alone!"
She contented herself with repeating, "Viva la Intervencion del Norte!"
That too, was ample comment as to the loyalty of his subjects. The
Emperor paused in his walk. "Alas," he sighed wearily, "a Hapsburg
sacrifices himself to regenerate a people, and--they do not appreciate
it."
Jacqueline bent her head to hide a smile. She dreamily made rings in the
water, and seemed to fall into his mood of poetic melancholy. "A
comedietta of an empire," she mused sympathetically, "a harlequinade,
nothing more. Grands dieux, I do not wonder that Your Highness finds it
unworthy!"
There is no such incense to a man as when he imagines himself understood
by a pretty woman.
Yet the temptress now found herself the harder to master. It was the
thought of what she must yet do. But she gave her head an impatient
toss, and the tears that had come were gone. The lines of her mouth
tightened, and the dangerous glint shone in her eyes. "So," she added,
almost in a whisper, "you did not mean it, sire, when you offered only a
play-empire--to me."
She knew that he started violently, and was looking down at her. But she
kept her gaze averted, that he might not see the hard expression there
that was merciless for them both. He did see, though, the long lashes,
and the warm pink of her forearm, so tantalizing for shark or man.
"These imperial gardens, they are beautiful," she went on softly, "but,
helas, they are not the Schoenbrunn. Nor is Chapultepec more than a
feeble miniature of the Hofburg. Oh, the wretched farce! The wretched
farce, sire, in your pretension to--to honor me! A wooer from the
throne, indeed? A straw throne--no, no, I do not like it!"
Then she let him see her eyes. Half raised, half veiled; they held the
daring suggestion hidden in her words.
"And if," he cried, "and if we _were_ in the Schoenbrunn----"
"Yes, yes," and she clapped her hands with delight, "yes, where the
heroic figures on the crest of the hill are silhouetted against the sky,
where----"
"Never mind the heroic figures! But where I shall be really an emperor,
_the_ Emperor over Austria, over Hungary. Then, what then?
Jeanne--Jacqueline, tell me!"
She had brought him to it. Yet her face clouded pitifully, as that day
in the small boat, when she told Ney that a woman might only give. Such
a woman too, would be lost for the reason that she would _not_
hesitate. Here was the errand of the Sphinx, and achievement at her
hand. Dainty flower of France, yes! But in truth, what was she?
"And then?" she repeated, and the maddening promise in her voice
thrilled him. "Why, sire, I suppose that I could not help but listen to
you. Yet first," she hastened to add with subtle emphasis, "first, you
would have to give up your play kingdom here."
His blue eyes flashed. "I will!" he cried. "It shall be mine, the Roman
empire of Charles V. They are tired of my brother Franz. Already they
cry out for me. Our mother made an uncle abdicate for him, I will do as
much for myself. I will, Jeanne, I will!"
Eloin behind his screen moved uneasily.
"The devil go with her!" the eavesdropper muttered. "She'll have him
abdicating himself in another minute. She must be stopped, she must!"
He tiptoed back, and once out of hearing, he ran. He found Driscoll on a
bench, slowly passing his fingers through his hair, and staring fixedly
at the ground.
"Coom," said Eloin, "coom quick! He is alone. You find your chance. He
is that happy, he say yes to anything."
Driscoll got heavily to his feet. There was his mission. For the sake of
that, for the sake of comrades depending on him, he would go and once
more offer succor to this libertine princelet.
"No, not that way," the Belgian directed. "The path here, it leads the
more direct at the pond, so. Quick!" He knew that foliage would hide the
couple until Driscoll should turn the corner of the hedge and burst on
them squarely. The American hastened down the walk. "A nice surprise,
mutual." Eloin chuckled to himself.
Jacqueline did not falter before her victory. She knew that Maximilian
rated the Mexican throne as a stepping-stone to another in Europe. She
knew of a certain family pact among the Hapsburgs and how it rankled in
Maximilian's breast. Therein he had, on accepting the Mexican throne,
solemnly renounced all right of inheritance to that of Austro-Hungary.
But she knew also that he considered his oath as void, since Franz Josef
had forced it on him. Craftily she pictured the Mexican enterprise, how
instead of enhancing his prestige at home, it but turned him into a
sorry and ridiculous figure. And so she won the child of Destiny. Yet,
when in a sudden fervent outburst he came and sat beside her, and would
have taken her hand, she still did not falter. Napoleon would have the
glory, and she a shame unexplained, but for all that her country would
have Mexico. Her country would have Mexico! Would have a vast expanse of
empire, greater and more enduring than any won for her by Bonaparte
himself.
Nevertheless, she brushed away the gallant's arm with more vigor than
her coy role demanded. "No, no," she moaned faintly, "not yet!"
"But, _cruelle_----"
"Not yet, not until I know that you will try to win in Austria, not
until--you abdicate here!"
"But, I shall sail this very month, I----"
"And never return, never to Mexico?"
"Never!"
Frankly, then, she placed her hands in his.
That moment Driscoll turned the corner of the hedge, and was before
them. He fell back, and reddened as though himself caught in wrongdoing.
It was strange how he noted, at such a time, that she was clothed in
light blue, in the very dress he had given her. But no, he perceived at
once that it was of some delicate silk from Japan. Yet the pattern was
so nearly the same. She must have selected it--she had selected
it!--with him in mind. And now, against a girl's love so quaintly, shyly
revealed, to behold this contrast, her hands there, wantonly
surrendered!
Instantly she tore herself free and confronted him.
"Oh, why, _why_," she cried fiercely, "did you not let them kill
you?"
Suddenly her hands flew up to her hot face. "Then," she moaned, "then
you would not have lived to see!"
The Emperor stepped between them. Tall, severe, he was cold in anger.
"It's the intrusion of a rowdy, mademoiselle." To Driscoll he said,
"Now, go!"
Utterly confused, the trooper turned to obey. But at the first step he
swung round, looking as he had never looked in the bloodiest of cavalry
charges.
"I am here for your answer, sir," he said.
"Answer? What answer, fellow?"
Driscoll breathed once, he breathed twice, and yet again. It may be he
counted them. Then he spoke.
"You understand, of course, that I might call you a puppy? Or break you
over my knee? But I've got something harder on hand. It's to make you
honor your promise. I've ridden forty miles for what you were to give me
six hours ago at Chapultepec. Now then, shall I bring the men to save
your empire? Think well. You need not take the question from me. Take it
from them, from an army of fifty thousand men. Now, answer! And
remember, you can save your empire."
"Save my empire?" Maximilian repeated the words.
There was a reluctant note in the query. Jacqueline heard. And the
bravest act of her life was when she raised her head and faced her
shame, with _him_ to see. She must begin her fight all over again.
"Yes, your play empire, sire," she said, wielding two weapons, the
mockery in her voice, the seduction of her eyes.
Driscoll saw his cause forlorn against eyes like those.
"It's unfair!" he protested involuntarily.
She turned on him in defiance. "It is _not_ unfair! And you,
monsieur, of all men, know that it is not. You, and you alone, know what
I, what I would give--what I tried to give--that I might win in this!"
He could not help a thrill of admiration. She was battling against all
men and women to change the destinies of two continents.
"W'y, I take it back then," he said.
She stared at him in wonder, and drew farther away. It was his tone,
altered as she could never have thought possible, nor had she known that
aught on earth might hurt her so. She heard a decent man addressing some
unavoidable word to a strumpet. All vestige of respect was gone, gone
unconsciously, except that respect for himself which would not allow
that the word be coarse or an insult. She looked in vain, too, for a
trace of anger. Once she had sought to kill him, but that had not
changed his big heart. While now! How much--oh, how much easier--was
that other sacrifice of hers than this!
"Perhaps, sir," she found the strength to say, "perhaps I have even, in
my humble opinion, favored the acceptance of your offer. But His Majesty
knows far better than I under what conditions he might accept."
Driscoll turned to Maximilian direct. "Name them."
"There is but one. We cannot give refuge to the enemies of the United
States----"
"The conditions?"
"Therefore, to avoid complications, your men must lay down their arms on
entering Mexico. Then we would deliver the arms to the United States on
their recognizing Our Empire----"
"Trade us off, you mean?"
"Or, in case the United States still held aloof, then, as citizens of
Mexico, you could take up your arms again."
Driscoll looked at Jacqueline. She, the inspiration of such a condition,
knew quite well beforehand that he would not submit.
"This is final, is it?" he demanded.
"It is, because We cannot provoke war with the United States, but,"
Maximilian urged querulously, "you have only to surrender your swords."
"After refusing them to the Federals, to the men who _fought_ for
them? And now we are to give them up to a pack of----" Driscoll stopped
short and took another breath. "By God, sir, no sir!" he cried.