A WHITE NIGHT
"You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies---
What are you when the moon shall rise?"
THE first and second dressing-gongs had sounded at Schloss Lynarberg
on the evening of the day after Otto's visit to his brother, and the
Grand Duchess was beginning to wonder what detained her daughter, when
ringed fingers tapped smartly at the door. "Come in!" she answered the
familiar sound, and Sylvia appeared on the threshold, still in the
tennis dress she had worn that afternoon. She stood for an instant
without speaking, her face so radiantly beautiful that it seemed
illumined by a light from within.
It had been on the tip of her mother's tongue to scold the girl for
her delay, since to be late was an almost unpardonable offense, with
Royalty in the house. But the words died, and others of a different
sort came trooping to their place.
"Sylvia, what is it? You look--I hardly know _how_ you look! But
something has happened."
The Princess came slowly across the room, smiling with the air of one
who walks in sleep. She hardly appeared to see the chair she took, but
sat down as if by instinct, then rested her elbows on her knees, her
chin nestling between her palms, like a pinky-white rose in its calyx.
"You may go, Josephine," said the Grand Duchess to her maid. "I will
ring when I want you again."
The elaborate process of dressing her luxuriant gray hair had just
been finished. The rest might wait until curiosity was satisfied.
But Sylvia sat still, dreaming. The Grand Duchess had to speak twice
in a raised tone before she could command attention. "My child--have
you anything to tell me?"
Sylvia roused herself. "Nothing, mother, Really--except that I am the
happiest girl on earth."
"Why--what has he said?"
"Not a word that any one might not have listened to. But I _know_. He
_does_ care; and I think he will say something before we part."
"There is only one day more of his visit here, after to-night."
"One whole, long, beautiful day--_together_!"
"But after all, darling," ventured the Grand Duchess, "what do you
_expect_? If you were really only Miss de Courcy, marriage between you
and the Emperor of Rhaetia would be out of the question. You've never
been very communicative on this subject, but I wish I knew exactly
what you hope for, what you will consider the--the keystone of the
situation?"
"Only for him to tell me that he loves me," Sylvia confessed. "If I am
right--if I have brought something new into his life--something which
has shown him that he has a heart as well as a head--then there will
come a moment when he can keep silent no longer, when he will have to
say, 'I love you', and because we can be nothing to each other day is
turned into night for me. Then--when that moment comes--the tide of my
fortune will be at its flood. I shall tell him that I love him, too--
and--_I shall tell him all the truth_."
"You will tell him who you really are?"
"Yes; and why I have been masquerading. That it was because he had
always been the one man on earth for me; because, when our marriage
was suggested, I would win his love first as a woman, or I would live
single all my days."
"What if he should be angry and refuse to forgive you? You know, dear,
we shall be in a curious position, at best, when the truth comes out,
having made our acquaintances here under the name of De Courcy. Even
Lady West, so dear a friend, so romantic a heart, was uncomfortable
about the letters. She only eased her conscience because our real
position in the world was much higher than the one we assumed;
therefore, those to whom we were introduced would be but too pleased
to know us in our own characters at the end. Yet Maximilian is a
_man_, not a romantic woman; he has always borne a reputation for
austerity, for being just before he was generous, and it may be that
to one of his nature a mad prank like this of yours----"
"You think of him as he _was_, not as he is, if you fancy he would be
hard with--a woman he loved," said Sylvia. "He will forgive me,
mother; I have no fear of that. To-night, I have no fear of anything.
He loves me--and I am Empress of the world."
"Many women would be satisfied with Rhaetia," was the practical
thought in the mind of the Grand Duchess; but she would throw no more
cold water upon her daughter's mood of exaltation. She kissed Sylvia
on the forehead, breathed a few words of sympathy; and then shook her
head, sighing doubtfully, when the girl had gone to her own room to
dress.
It sounded poetical, and as easy to arrange as turning a kaleidoscope
to form a new combination, while Sylvia talked; but, when her happy
face and brilliant eyes no longer illumined the situation, the way
seemed dark. To be sure, Sylvia had so far walked triumphantly along
the high road to success; but it was not always a good beginning which
made a good ending, as the old Duke of Northminster had been wont to
observe; and now the Grand Duchess of Eltzburg-Neuwald felt that her
nerves must remain at high tension until matters were definitely
settled, for better or for worse.
Sylvia had never in her life been lovelier than she was that night at
dinner, and Otto von Markstein's admiration for her beauty had in it a
new ingredient, which added a fascinating spice. He had regarded her
until yesterday as a penniless connoisseur regards a masterpiece of
statuary which it is impossible that he should dream of possessing.
What we know is not for us, we are scarcely conscious of desiring; but
the moment an element of hope enters in, we behold the object from a
more personal point of view.
Otto looked also very often at the Emperor, contrasting his
sovereign's appearance somewhat unfavourably with his own. Maximilian
was thin and dark, with a grave cast of feature; while Otto's face had
contrived to retain all the colour and beauty of youth. Alma Tadema
would have wreathed him with vine leaves, given him a lute, draped him
in a tiger skin, and set him down on a marble bench against a sapphire
sky, when he would have appeared to far greater advantage than in the
stiff uniform of a crack Rhaetian regiment. Maximilian, on the
contrary, must always have been painted as a soldier, and it seemed to
the young officer, since his grim brother had put the thought into his
head, that there could be no question as to the ultimate preference of
a normal girl.
Miss de Courcy did not--notice him at present, because the Emperor
loomed large in the foreground; but Eberhard had evidently a plan in
his head for removing that stately obstacle into the perspective.
Otto had not heard that Miss de Courcy was an heiress, therefore, even
had there been no Emperor, he would not have prostrated himself at the
attractive shrine. But now the shrine was newly decked. Otto dwelt
much in thought upon the Chancellor's apparently impulsive offer and
the somewhat contradictory command which had, a little later, enjoined
delay.
He had not, fortunately, been forbidden to preen himself under the
eyes of the English beauty, and his desire now was, when the men
should rejoin the ladies after dinner, to make his way at once to Miss
de Courcy's side. But, as bad luck would have it, Baron von Lynar
detained him for a few moments with the account of a marvellous remedy
which might cure the Chancellor's gout; and when he escaped to look
for Miss de Courcy in the great white drawing-room, she was nowhere to
be seen. From the music-room adjoining, however, came sounds which
drew him toward the door. He knew Miss de Courcy's touch on the piano;
she was there, playing soft, low chords. Perhaps she was preparing to
sing, as she had once or twice before, and would need some one to turn
the pages of her music. Otto was in the act of pushing aside the
embroidered white velvet portiere that curtained the door, when his
hostess smilingly beckoned him away. "The Emperor has just asked Miss
de Courcy to teach him an old-fashioned English or Scotch air (I fear
I don't know the difference!) called 'Annie Laurie,'" she explained.
"He was quite charmed when she sang it the other day; and I have been
telling him that the music would exactly suit his voice. I think we
had better not disturb them until the lesson is over. Tell me (I had
hardly a moment to ask you last night), how did you _really_ find the
Chancellor?"
Chained to a forced allegiance, Otto mechanically answered the quickly
following questions of the Baroness, ears and eyes both doing their
secret best to penetrate the curtain of white and gold.
Everybody knew of the music lesson, and everybody chatted in tactful
pretense of ignorance. Once, twice, and thrice the mezzo-soprano and
the baritone sang conscientiously through the verses of "Annie
Laurie," with occasional breakdowns and new beginnings; then a few
more desultory chords were struck on the piano: and at last silence
reigned in the music-room. Were the two still there? If they conversed
in low tones, it would not only be impracticable to catch what they
said, but even to hear the murmur of their voices, in the drawing-room.
To interrupt such a _tête-à-tête_ was not to be thought of, but
Otto was turning over in his mind some less conspicuous, equally
efficacious way of ending it, when there came a sudden diversion.
Lady de Courcy received a telegram, brought by mounted messenger from
Salzbrück, and was so much affected thereby that she showed signs of
swooning. Her plump, pleasant little face grew pale; she rose from her
chair, tottering, and admitted, in answer to Baroness von Lynar's
solicitous inquiries, that she had had bad news.
"Where is my daughter?" she asked. "I think, as I am rather upset by--
by disquieting accounts of a dear friend, I had better go to my room.
And I shall be so _much_ obliged if--Mary can be sent to me as soon as
she comes in."
Now was Otto's chance. While every one gathered round Lady de Courcy,
and smelling-salts were in requisition, he lifted the white portière
and peeped through a small antechamber into the music-room. The
Emperor and Miss de Courcy were no longer there.
Otto twisted his moustache; he usually twisted it on the right side
when pleased; and he twisted it--a great deal more--on the left when
he was displeased. He looked reproachfully round the room, and
presently observed that one of the large windows leading to the
Italian garden stood wide open.
The month of September was dying; but, though winter had begun in the
Rhaetian mountains, warmth and sunshine still lingered in the
neighbourhood of Salzbrück. A balmy air, laden with sweet scents of
the flowers which Baron von Lynar had imported from Italy, floated to
Otto's nostrils. The languorous perfume suggested soft dalliance and
confessions of love. The Emperor had taken Miss de Courcy into the
garden: Otto knew that well enough; and if there had been a plentitude
of trees, with broad trunks, behind which a man's figure might
modestly conceal itself in the darkness, he would unobtrusively have
followed. But he mentally reviewed the shrubbery, plant by plant, as
he could recall it, and decided at last that the better part of valour
for an officer and a gentleman lay in remaining within doors. He did
not, however, return to the drawing-room, despite the concern for Lady
de Courcy's health which had taken him in search of her daughter.
Heavy curtains of olive-green velvet hung straight down over the
windows of the music-room, and by neatly sandwiching oneself in a deep
embrasure between drapery and window-frame, one found a convenient
niche for observing a limited quarter of the garden. The moon was
rising over the lake, and long, pale rays of level light were creeping
up the paths, like the fingers of a blind man that touch gropingly the
features of a beloved face.
Otto could not see very far, but if the Emperor and his companion
returned by the way they had taken, as they were almost sure to do, he
would know whether they walked back to the house in the attitude of
formal acquaintances or--lovers.
They had not been gone from the piano for many minutes, and they would
not be likely to extend this duet which so logically followed the
music much longer. One of the two, if not both, would have sense
enough left to remember _les convenances_.
But the moments went on, and Otto, whose patent-leather pumps were
rather tight, changed from one position to another, straining his eyes
down the whitening alleys in vain.
* * * * *
Everything in the garden that was not white was gray as a dove's wing
that night. Even the shadows were not black. And the sky was gray,
with a changeful glory of stars, like the shimmering light on a
spangled fan that moves to and fro in the restless hand of a woman.
White moths, forgetful that summer would come no more into their brief
lives, fluttered out from the shadows like rose petals tossed by the
south wind. On a trellis, a sisterhood of pale nun-roses hung their
faces earthward in _memento mori_.
It was a white night; a night of enchantment; a night for lovers.
Maximilian had only meant to take Sylvia out to see the moon rise over
the water, turning the surface of jet to a sheet of steel; for there
had been clouds or rain on other nights, and he had said to himself
that perhaps never again would they two stand alone together in the
moonshine. He had meant to keep her to himself for five minutes,
saying little, though it might be that he would think a great deal. He
had meant that--no more; but they had walked down to the path which
rimmed the cliff above the lake. And the moonlight lay on her gold
hair and her fair face like a benediction. They did not look at one
another, but out over the water, where the silver sheen cut the
darkness like the sword Excalibur, rising from the lake.
Then came a sudden rustling in the grass by the side of the path, at
their feet. It was some small winged thing of the night asking a
lodging in a bell-shaped flower whose blue colour the moon had drunk.
Maximilian bent to pluck the branch of blossoms, and at the same
instant Sylvia stooped with a childlike impulse to "make the
flower-bells ring."
Their hands met on the stem as it broke, and Maximilian's closed over
hers.
The moment she desired had come; yet, womanlike, she wished it away--
not gone forever, but waiting still, just round the corner of the
future.
"The flowers are yours," she said, as if she thought it was in
eagerness to obtain the spray that he had grasped her fingers.
"You are the flower I want--the flower of all the world!" he suddenly
answered. For the ice barriers had held back the torrent of which he
had told her, had melted beneath the sun of love long ago. In turn,
they had been replaced by other barriers, well-nigh as strong--his
convictions; his duty as a man at the head of a nation. But now, in a
moment, these too had been swept away. "I love you better than the
life you saved," he spoke again. "I have loved you since that first
hour, on the mountain; and every day since my love has grown, until I
can fight against it no longer. Only say that you care for me a
little--only say that."
"I do care," Sylvia whispered. She was very happy. She had prayed for
this, lived for this. Yet she had pictured a different scene; she had
seemed to hear broken words of sorrow and renunciation on his lips--a
sorrow she could turn to joy. "I do care--so much that--it is hard to
think there is nothing for us but parting."
"If you care, then we shall not be parted," said Maximilian.
The Princess looked up at him in wonder, putting him from her, as he
would have taken her in his arms. What did he mean? What was in his
mind that, believing her to be Mary de Courcy, yet made it possible
for him to speak as he was speaking now?
"I don't understand," she faltered. "What else is there for us? You
are the Emperor of Rhaetia; I----"
"You are my wife, if you love me."
In the shock of her surprise she was helpless to resist him longer;
and he held her tightly, passionately, his lips on her hair, as her
face lay pressed against his heart. She could hear it beating, feel it
throb under her cheek. _His wife_? How was it possible?
But he said the words again, "My darling--my wife!"
"You love me well enough--for that?" she breathed. Sylvia had not
dared to dream of such a triumph as this. "But the law of your
country? Oh, surely you have forgotten! We can only love each other,
and say good-bye." She was ready to try him yet a little further.
"We will love each other, but by heaven, we shall not say good-bye--
not after this hour. I could not lose you. As for the law, there is
nothing in it which prevents my being your husband, you my wife."
"It is strange." Sylvia's breath came quickly. "I have thought--I have
always believed--that the Empress of Rhaetia must be of Royal blood.
I----"
"Ah, my darling, the Empress of Rhaetia I cannot make you. If you love
me as well--only half as well as I love you, you will be satisfied
with the empire of my heart."
Suddenly the warm, throbbing blood in Sylvia's veins grew chill. It
was as if a wind had blown up from the dark depths of the lake, to
strike with an icy chill upon her soul. A moment more and she would
have told him the whole truth, worshipping him because he had been
ready to break through all the traditions of his country for her sake.
But now her passionate impulse of gratitude was frozen by that biting
blast. If only it came from clouds of misunderstanding--if only the
clouds would part, and give her back the full glory of a vanishing
joy!
"The empire of your heart!" she echoed. "I should be richer than with
all the treasures of the world, if that were mine. If you were the
chamois-hunter I met on the mountain, I would love you as I love you
now, and I would go with you to the ends of the earth, as your wife.
But you are not the chamois-hunter; you are an emperor. Had you told
me only of a hopeless love, having nothing else to offer save that,
and a promise not to forget, since your high destiny must stand
between us, I could still have been happy. Yet you say more than that.
You say something I cannot understand. What an emperor offers a woman
he honours, must be all or--nothing."
"I do offer you all," said Maximilian. "All myself, my life, the very
soul of me--all that is my own to give. The rest belongs to Rhaetia."
"Then--what----"
"Do you not understand, my sweet, that I have asked you to be my wife?
What can a man ask more?"
"Your wife yet not the Empress. How can the two be separated?"
He tried to take her once more in his arms, but when he saw that she
would stand aloof, he held his love in control and waited. He was
certain that he need not wait long, for not only had he laid his heart
at her feet, but, to do that, he pledged himself to a tremendous
sacrifice. The step upon which he had decided, in the moment when
passion for her had overcome all prudent scruples, would create
dissension among his people, rouse fierce anger in the heart of one
who had been his second father, incense England and Germany because of
the young Princess whose name rumour had already coupled with his, and
altogether raise a fierce storm about his ears. When she had
reflected, when she fully understood, she would be his, now and
forever.
Very tenderly he took her hand and lifted it to his lips; then, when
she did not snatch it from him--(because he was to have his chance of
explanation)--he kept it between both his own, as he talked on.
"Dearest one," he said, "when I first knew that I loved you (as I had
not known it was in my nature to love a woman), for your sake and my
own I would have avoided seeing you too often. This I tell you
frankly. I did not see how, in honour, such a love could end except in
sorrow for me--even for you, if it were possible that I could make you
care. If you and Lady de Courcy had stayed at the hotel, I think I
could have been faithful to the resolve. But when Baroness von Lynar
spoke to me of your coming here, at the time of my own visit, my heart
leaped up. I said in my mind: At least I shall have the happiness of
seeing her every day, for a time, without doing anything to darken her
future. I shall have these days always to remember, when she has gone
out of my life, and no harm will be done, except to myself. Still, I
only thought of parting, in the end--for that seemed inevitable. But
not one night have I slept since I have been here at Lynarberg. My
rooms open on a lawn at the other side of the house. Often I came out
here in the darkness, when every one else was sleeping; and sometimes
I have stood on this very spot, where you and I stand together now--
heart to heart for the first time, my darling--thinking whether, if
you should care, there was any way to be found out of such
difficulties as mine. At last a ray of light seemed to shine through
the clouds. There was much to be overcome on both sides, and my mind
was not yet clear, until I brought you here with me to-night. When I
saw you by my side, the moonlight shining on your face, I caught at
this way of binding our lives together. I knew that my life was worth
nothing to me, unless it were to be shared with you."
"Yet you have not answered my question," said Sylvia.
"I am coming to that now. It was best that you should hear first what
has been in my heart and mind, these last days which have held more
joy for me than all the years I have left behind. You know that men
who have their place at the head of a great nation cannot think merely
of themselves and those they love better than themselves. If they
desire to snatch at personal happiness, they must take the only way
open to them that is all. Don't do me the injustice to believe that I
would not be proud to show you to my subjects as their Empress; but,
instead, I can only offer you what men of Royal blood have for
hundreds of years offered women whom they respected as well as loved.
You have heard of an arrangement which in your country is called a
morganatic marriage? That is what I propose."
With a low cry of pain--the bitter pain of disappointed love and
wounded pride--Sylvia tore her hand from his.
"Never!" she exclaimed. "It is an insult."
"An insult? Then, even now I have not made you understand."
"I think that I understand very well--far too well," said Sylvia
brokenly. The beautiful fairy structure of happiness that she had
reared lay shattered--destroyed in the moment which should have seen
its completion.
"I tell you that you do not understand, or you would not say--you
would not _dare_ to say, my love--that I had insulted you. You would
be honourably my wife in the sight of God and man."
"Your wife!" and Sylvia gave a hard little laugh which hurt more
cruelly than tears. "You have a strange idea of that word, which has
always been sacred to me. I would be your wife, you say; I would give
you all my love, all myself; you--would give me your left hand. And
you know well that, at any moment, you would be free to marry another
woman--(a woman you could make an Empress!)--as free as if I had no
existence."
"Legally I might be free," he answered, "but I swear to you that I
would never take advantage of such liberty."
"To know you possessed it would be death to me. Oh, I tell you again,
it was an insult to suggest a fate so miserable, so contemptible, for
a woman you profess to love. How could you bear to break it to me? If
only you had never spoken the hateful words; if you had left me the
ideal I had formed of you--noble, glorious! But you are selfish,
cruel--after all. If you had only said, 'I love you, yet we must part,
for Fate stands between', then I could--I could: but no, I can never
tell you now what I _might_ have answered if you had said that
instead."
Under the sharp fire of her reproaches he stood still, his lips
tightly closed, his shoulders squared, as if he had bared his breast
for the blow of a knife.
"By heaven, it is you who are cruel!" he said at last. "How can I show
you your injustice?"
"In no way. There is nothing more to say between us two, except--
farewell."
"It shall not be farewell!"
"It shall--it must. Because--I wish it."
He had caught her dress as she turned to go; but now he released her.
"You wish it? It is not true that you love me, then?"
"It was true. Everything--everything in my whole life--is changed now.
It would be better if I had never seen you. Good-bye."
She ran from him. One step he took as if to pursue and keep her, but
checked himself and followed her only with his eyes. In them there was
more of anger than yearning; for Maximilian was a proud man, and to
have his love, and the sacrifice he would have made for love's sake,
flung back in his face, came like an icy douche when the blood is at
fever heat.
For love of this girl he had in a few days altered the habits of a
lifetime. Pride, reserve, iron self-control, the wish not only to
appear, but to be, a man above the frailties of common men; the desire
to be admired almost as a god by his people all, all, he had flung
aside for her. He was too just not to realize that if one of his many
Royal cousins, of younger branches than his, had contemplated throwing
away for love half that he was ready now to cast to the winds, he
would have regarded such weakness with contempt. "He jests at scars
who never felt a wound"; and until the Emperor had learned by his own
most unlooked-for experience what love meant, what men will do for
love while its sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly
unable to sympathize with such passionate insanity as his own. A
cousin inclined to act as he was bent on acting would once have found
all the Emperor's influence, even force perhaps, brought forward to
constrain him. Maximilian saw this change in himself, was astonished
and shamed by it; yet would have persevered, recklessly trampling down
every obstacle, if only Sylvia had seen things with his eyes.
She had accused him of insulting her, caring not at all that, even to
make her morganatically his wife, he must give great cause of offense
to his Ministers and his people. He was expected to marry a woman of
Royal rank, suitable to his own, and to give the country an heir. If
Sylvia had accepted the position he offered, he could never have
thought of another marriage. Not only would it be exceedingly
difficult, in modern days, to find a princess willing to tolerate such
a rival, but it would be impossible for him so to desecrate the bond
between himself and the woman he adored. This being so, there could be
no direct heir to the throne. At his death his uncle, the Archduke
Egon's son, would succeed; and, during his own reign, the popularity
which was dear to him would be hopelessly forfeited. Rhaetians would
never forgive him for selfishly preferring his own private happiness
to the good of the nation, or what they would consider its good; and
they would have a right to their resentment, as they had a right to
demand that he should marry. He could fancy how old "Iron Heart" von
Markstein would present this view to him, with furious eloquence,
temples that throbbed like the ticking of a watch, eyes netted with
bloodshot veins. He could fancy, too, how with Sylvia's love and
promise to uphold him, he could have stood against the storm,
steadfast in his own indomitable will. But now, the will which had
carried him through life in a triumphal progress had been powerless
against that of a girl. She would have none of him. A woman whose face
was her fortune, whose place in life reached hardly so high as the
first steps of a throne, had refused--an emperor.
Hardly yet could Maximilian believe the things which had happened. He
had spoken of doubting that he had won her love; and so he had
doubted. But he had allowed himself very strongly to hope, since in
the annals of history it had scarcely been known that an emperor's
suit should be despised. Besides, he had loved her so passionately,
that it seemed she could not be cold. He hoped still that, when she
had passed the night in reflecting, in thinking over the situation,
perhaps taking counsel with that commonplace but sensible lady, her
mother, she might be ready, if approached for the second time, to
change her mind.
For the first moment or two after the stinging rebuff he had suffered,
Maximilian felt that he could not demean himself--having been so
misjudged, so accused--to sue again. But, as he looked toward the
house, and thought of Sylvia's sweetness, her beauty dimmed by grief--
which he had caused--a great tenderness breathed its calm over the
thwarted passion in his breast.
He would write a letter and send it to her room; or no, better give
her a longer interval for repentance. To-morrow he would see her and
show her all the depth of the love she had thrust aside. She could not
withstand him forever; and now that he had burned his boats behind
him, he would not go back. He could not give her up.
Sylvia had hurried blindly toward the house, and it was instinct rather
than intention which led her to the open window of the music-room.
Tears burned her eyelids, but they did not fall until she stood
once more where she and Maximilian had so lately been together. There
she had sat, at the piano, while he had bent over her, and she had
been happy. How little she had guessed the humiliation that was to
come! How could she bear it, and how could she live out the years of
her life after this?
She paused in the embrasure of the window, her little fingers fiercely
clutching the heavy curtain, as she gazed through a mist at the
picture called up by the open piano. Then a sob tore its way from her
heart to her lips. "Cruel--cruel!" she stammered, half aloud. "What
agony--what an insult! Ah, well, the dream's ended now."
Dashing the tears away to clear her vision, with desperation that must
vent itself somehow, she flung the curtain aside and would have moved
out into the room beyond, had not her gesture revealed the presence of
a figure wrapped in the folds of velvet.
Some one else was there in the embrasure of the window--some one was
hiding, and had been spying. Dark as it was behind the satin-lined
velvet curtain, she must have seen a form pressed back into the
shadow, had not her eyes been blinded by her tears.
Now, her first impulse was for flight--anything to escape without
recognition; but a second quick thought brought a change of mood.
Whoever it was, had been watching, was already informed that Miss de
Courcy had come in weeping, after a _tête-à-tête_ with the Emperor.
She must know who it was with whom she had to deal.
Sylvia had taken a step out into the room, as she flung back the
curtain and touched the warm shape behind it. Wheeling suddenly round,
she snatched the screen of velvet away and stood face to face with
Captain von Markstein.
It was a crucial moment for him. Quailing under the lash of her
glance, bereft of his presence of mind, he caught at any chance for
self-justification. The girl had come back by a different path from
the one he had watched; she had rushed in like a whirlwind, without
giving him the opportunity for escape which he had reasonably
expected. If he stood waiting her condemnation, he was lost; he must
step into the breach at whatever risk. No time to weigh words; the
first which sprang to his tongue must be let loose.
"Don't think evil of me, Miss de Courcy!" he stammered, still groping
for some excuse, in the cotton-wool which seemed to stuff his brains.
"I do not think at all." She held her head proudly; her eyes accused
him and belied her words. With a swift step, she would have passed
him, and he would have done well to let her go; but he had caught a
whisper of inspiration from his evil genius. To turn the shame of this
defeat to victory, to pose as hero instead of spy this was an ending
to the game worth the throw of all his dice. So seemed to say
something in his ear, and drunk with vanity he flung himself before
her.
"I _beg_ of you to think," he cried. "I will not be misjudged. No man
could stand still under the look in your eyes and not defend himself,
if he were innocent. Your face says 'spy'."
"You have read your own meaning there! Pray let me go."
"One moment first. You shall listen. I confess I knew you were
in the garden with one whom we need not name To break in upon such
a _tête-à-tête_, for a man of my inferior rank, would be almost a
crime, yet I would have committed that crime to save you. You are so
innocent, so beautiful--I feared for you; I suspected--what I know
now from your words has happened. I would have saved you this pain,
if I could--but I was too late, only in time to see you coming in,
to hear against my will--your exclamation. I waited to say that I
can at least avenge you. I am at your service--your knight as in days
of old. Tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it."
If Sylvia's eyes had been daggers, he would have fallen dead at her
feet. For an instant she looked at him in silence. Then: "I would have
you leave me, never to dare come into my presence again," she said.
"And now I choose to pass."
Mechanically he gave way, and she swept by, with lifted head and the
proud bearing of an offended queen.
Otto was stricken dumb. Dully he watched her move across the long
room to the door which led out into a corridor, not through the
drawing-room. He saw the changing lights and shadows on her satin
dress, as she passed under the chandelier; he saw the reflection of its
whiteness mirrored on the polished floor. She was beautiful to him no
longer, for he hated her because of his mistake, and because she had
read his mind. She had seen the truth there, under his falsehoods, as
he saw the reflection on the surface of shining oak. She knew that he
was a moral coward, and that, had she accepted his fantastic offer, he
would never have ventured to enter the lists as her knight against the
Emperor. Fortunately, she had undoubtedly quarrelled with Maximilian,
and would not carry tales. It would indeed be a sorry day for Otto if
reconciliation ever came; and if by some strange chance of the future
it seemed imminent, he must not let it come.
"Heavens! Does she fancy herself an Empress?" he sneered beneath his
breath. "Before Eberhard has finished with her, she may not even be
what she is now!"
His ears still burned as if she had struck them. He could not return
to the drawing-room until they had cooled. There was no hope for him
now with Mary de Courcy, whatever the Chancellor's mysterious
telegrams might contain, but he was too furious to mourn over lost
hopes, lost opportunities. Eberhard was evidently trying to learn
something to the girl's disadvantage and Otto's aid was only to have
been bought in case of failure. Now, he was in a mood to offer it for
nothing, and it occurred to him that he would ride over to Schloss
Markstein early in the morning.