The Countess looked up and repeated the question. "Where did you find
her?" she added.
There was a short silence. An almost imperceptible change came over her
features. Then, daintily, and by degrees, she inclined her head a
little nearer.
But it was not in me to betray Thusis for a kiss. Slowly, however, I
became aware that I was betraying myself.
Presently the Countess rose in the gathering dusk, and I stood up
immediately.
She inspected me steadily for a full minute, then that almost
imperceptible smile edged her lips again and she gave me my conge with a
gentle nod.
*XVII*
*MORE MYSTERY*
I discovered Smith sitting on the rim of the fountain all alone in the
dusk.
"Good heavens!" I blurted out, "was any man ever so completely entangled
in the web of intrigue as I am? Plot, counterplot, camouflage,
mystery--I'm in the very middle of the whole mess!
"I don't know who anybody is or what they're up to! Who is Thusis? Who
is Clelia? Who is Josephine Vannis? Raoul? The Countess Manntrapp?
And who are you, for that matter? I don't know! I don't pretend to
guess."
"What's the trouble?" he asked, amused.
"Trouble! I don't know. There's all kinds of trouble lying around.
I'm in several varieties of it. Where is the traveling circus?"
"In Tsar Ferdie's apartments."
"Probably conspiring," I added.
"Probably."
"What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, I'm not conspiring," he said, laughing, "I'm no saint to converse
with the fishes in your fountain."
"Where is Clelia?"
He said he didn't know but somehow I gathered the impression that she
was somewhere behind the lighted kitchen windows and that Smith was
hanging around in hopes she might come out to take the air by starlight.
"Have you seen Thusis?" I asked guiltily. And felt my ears burning in
the dark.
"Why, yes," he said. "She walked down the road a few moments ago."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Probably she went to take a look at the snow blockade," said I.
He nodded.
"Perhaps," I added carelessly, "I had better saunter down that way."
"No," he said, "you'd better not."
"Why?" I asked sharply.
"Starlight and Thusis might go to a young man's head."
"I'm no longer in love," said I in the most solemn tones I had ever
used. "I am now able to contemplate Thusis without the stormy emotions
which once assailed me, Smith. All that is over. To me she is merely
an interesting and rather pathetic woman. I feel kindly toward Thusis.
I wish her well. I would willingly do anything I could to----"
"Piffle."
"What the devil do you mean by that?" I demanded.
"What the devil do you mean by kidding yourself?"
"Haven't I just explained?"
"You've given yourself away. A man doesn't utter pious sentiments about
a girl he no longer cares for. He doesn't bother to explain his
regenerated attitude toward her. He doesn't trouble himself to talk
about her at all. Nor does he go roaming after her by starlight. If
you really care for her no longer, let her alone. If you do care you'll
get mad at what I say--as you're doing--and start off to find her in the
starlight--as you're doing----"
But I was too exasperated to listen to such stuff.
I discovered her, finally, in the starlight just ahead of me,--a slim
shadow on the high-road, outlined against a stupendous mass of snow
which choked the valley like a glacier.
She heard my steps on the hard stone road, looked over her shoulder,
then turned sharply, paying me no further attention, even when I came up
beside her.
"Gracious!" said I, attempting an easy tone and manner; "what a
tremendous fall was here!"
"I have known greater falls," she said very quietly.
"Really?"
"Yes; I once had a friend whose fall was greater."
"Poor fellow! He fell off a precipice, I presume."
"He fell from his high estate, Mr. O'Ryan."
"Oh. Did he also have an estate in the Alps?"
She said scornfully: "He fell in my esteem--deep, Mr. O'Ryan--into
depths so terrible that, even if I leaned over to look, I could never
again perceive him."
"Poor fellow," I muttered, chilled to the bone again.
"Yes." she said calmly, "it was tragic."
"D-did you care for him, Thusis?" I ventured, scared half to death.
"I trusted him."
"D-don't you trust him any more?"
"He is dead--to me," she said coldly.
There ensued a silence which presently I became unable to endure.
"You know, Thusis, that man isn't dead----"
"He might better be!"
"You don't understand him!"
"I no longer wish to."
"He loves you!"
"He does _not_!" she cried in tones so fierce that I almost jumped.
"Thusis," said I in a miserable voice, "you hurt and wounded that man
until he was almost out of his senses----"
"And he lost no time in consoling himself with another woman!"
"He didn't know what he was doing----"
"He seemed to! ... So did _she_!"
"Thusis--"
"_Did_ you kiss her?"
"I----"
"Did you?"
"Yes."
I was so scared that my teeth chattered when Thusis turned on me in the
starlight.
Her gray eyes were aflame; her little hands were tightly clenched. I
hoped she would upper-cut me and mercifully put me to sleep, for this
scene was like a nightmare to me.
Then, of a sudden, the slender figure seemed to wilt before my
eyes,--shrink, bend, stand swaying with desperate hands covering the
face.
"Michael," she whispered. "Michael!"--and her voice ended in a sigh.
Scared as I was I took her in my arms. She rested her face against my
shoulder.
"You--you don't really care," I stammered, "do you, Thusis? _Do_ you,
my darling----"
"Oh, I don't know--I don't know. You've hurt me, Michael; I'm all hurt
and--and quivering with your wound. I don't know!--I don't understand
myself. My heart is sore--all raw and sore. So is my mind--the blow
you dealt hurts me there, too----"
"But, Thusis dear! _You_ wounded me, too----"
"Oh, I know.... I scarcely knew what I said. I don't know now what I'm
saying--what I'm doing--here in your arms----" She tried to release
herself, and, failing, buried her face against my shoulder with a
convulsive little shudder.
"You _must_ love me," I whispered unsteadily. "I can't live without
you, Thusis."
"But I can't love you, Michael."
"Can't you find it in your heart to care for me?"
"In my heart, perhaps.... But not in my mind."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly that.... I can't consult my--my heart alone.... I must
not. I dare not. I am obliged to consult my senses, too. And--dear
Michael--my senses tell me that I may not care for you--must not fall in
love--with you----"
"Why?"
After a silence she lifted her lovely head and looked up at me out of
beautiful, distressed eyes that dumbly asked indulgence.
"Well, then, you need not tell me, Thusis."
"You'll know, some day."
"I'll know, some day, why I won you in spite of everything."
She gently shook her head.
"Yes," said I, "I shall win you, Thusis."
"My heart--perhaps."
"Your mind, too."
We remained so, for a while, not speaking lest the spell be broken. And
at last she slowly disengaged herself from my arms, then, confronting
me, placed both her hands in mine with a sudden impulse that thrilled
me.
"Let it remain this way, then," she said. "Win my heart, if you care
to. I don't mind going through life with my heart in your kind keeping,
Michael. I had rather it were so. I should be less unhappy."
"Unhappy?"
"Yes--because I am going to be unhappy anyway. And if I knew that you
once cared, it would be easier for me--in after years.... Michael----"
"Yes?"
"Would you care for that much of me?"