For an hour I sat there in the window absorbing the astonishing history of the Tarnowsy abduction case. I felt rather than observed the intense scrutiny with which she favoured me.
At last she tossed the remainder of the bundle unread, into a corner.
Her face was aglow with pleasure.
"You"ve read both sides, and I"ve watched you--oh, so closely. You don"t believe what the papers over here have to say. I saw the scowls when you read the translations that Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e has typed for me.
Now I know that you do not feel so bitterly toward me as you did at first."
I was resolved to make a last determined stand for my original convictions.
"But our own papers, the New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago journals,--still voice, in a way, my princ.i.p.al contention in the matter, Countess. They deplore the wretched custom among the idle but ambitious rich that made possible this whole lamentable state of affairs. I mean the custom of getting a t.i.tle into the family at any cost."
"My dear Mr. Smart," she said seriously, "do you really contend that all of the conjugal unhappiness and unrest of the world is confined to the American girls who marry n.o.blemen? Has it escaped your notice that there are thousands of unhappy marriages and equally happy divorces in America every year in which n.o.blemen do not figure at all? Have you not read of countless cases over there in which conditions are quite similar to those which make the Tarnowsy fiasco so notorious? Are not American women stealing their children from American husbands? Are all American husbands so perfect that Count Tarnowsy would appear black among them? Are there no American men who marry for money, and are there no American girls given in marriage to wealthy suitors of all ages, creeds and habits? Why do you maintain that an unfortunate alliance with a foreign n.o.bleman is any worse than an unhappy marriage with an ordinary American brute? Are there no bad husbands in America?"
"All husbands are bad," I said, "but some are more pre-eminently evil than others. I am not finding fault with Tarnowsy as a husband. He did just what was expected of him. He did what he set out to do. He isn"t to be blamed for living up to his creed. There are bad husbands in America, and bad wives. But they went into the game blindly, most of them. They didn"t find out their mistake until after the marriage. The same statement applies to husbands and wives the world over. I hold a brief only against the marriage wherein the contracting parties, their families, their friends, their enemies, their bankers and their creditors know beforehand that it"s a business proposition and not a sacred compact. But we"ve gone into all this before. Why rake it up again."
"But there are many happy marriages between American girls and foreign n.o.blemen--dozens of them that I could mention."
"I grant you that. I know of a few myself. But I think if you will reflect for a moment you"ll find that money had no place in the covenant. They married because they loved one another. The n.o.blemen in such cases are _real_ n.o.blemen, and their American wives are _real_ wives. There are no Count Tarnowsys among them. My blood curdles when I think of _you_ being married to a man of the Tarnowsy type. It is that sort of a marriage that I execrate."
"The buy and sell kind?" she said, and her eyes fell. The colour had faded from her cheeks.
"Yes. The premeditated murder type."
She looked up after a moment. There was a bleak expression in her eyes.
"Will you believe me if I say to you that I went into it blindly?"
"G.o.d bless my soul, I am sure of it," I cried earnestly. "You had never been in love. You did not know."
"I have told you that I believed myself to be in love with Maris.
Doesn"t--doesn"t that help matters a little bit?"
I looked away. The hurt, appealing look was in her eyes. It had come at last, and, upon my soul, I was as little prepared to repel it as when I entered the room hours ago after having lived in fear of it for hours before that. I looked away because I knew that I should do something rash if I were to lose my head for an instant.
She was like an unhappy pleading child. I solemnly affirm that it was tender-heartedness that moved me in this crucial instant. What man could have felt otherwise?
I a.s.sumed a coldly impersonal tone. "Not a single editorial in any of these papers holds you responsible for what happened in New York," I said.
She began to collect the scattered newspaper clippings and the type-written transcriptions. I gathered up those in the corner and laid them in her lap. Her fingers trembled a little.
"Throw them in the fireplace, please," she said in a low voice. "I kept them only for the purpose of showing them to you. Oh, how I hate, how I loathe it all!"
When I came back from the fireplace, she was lying back in the big, comfortable chair, a careless, whimsical smile on her lips. She was as serene as if she had never known what it was to have a heart-pang or an instant of regret in all her life. I could not understand that side of her.
"And now I have some pleasant news for you," she said. "My mother will be here on Thursday. You will not like her, of course, because you are already prejudiced, but I know she will like you."
I knew I should hate her mother, but of course it would not do to say so.
"Next Thursday?" I inquired. She nodded her head. "I hope she will like me," I added feeling that it was necessary.
"She was a Colingraft, you know."
"Indeed?" The Colingraft family was one of the oldest and most exclusive in New York. I had a vague recollection of hearing one of my fastidious friends at home say that it must have been a bitter blow to the Colingrafts when, as an expedient, she married the vulgarly rich Jasper t.i.tus, then of St. Paul, Minnesota. It had been a clear case of marrying the money, not the man. Aline"s marriage, therefore, was due to hereditary cold-bloodedness and not to covetousness. "A fine old name, Countess."
"t.i.tus suggests t.i.tles, therefore it has come to be our family name,"
she said, with her satiric smile. "You will like my father. He loves me more than any one else in the world--more than all the world. He is making the great fight for me, Mr. Smart. He would buy off the Count to-morrow if I would permit him to do so. Of late I have been thinking very seriously of suggesting it to him. It would be the simplest way out of our troubles, wouldn"t it? A million is nothing to my father."
"Nothing at all, I submit, in view of the fact that it may be the means of saving you from a term in prison for abducting Rosemary?"
She paled. "Do you really think they would put me in prison?"
"Unquestionably," I p.r.o.nounced emphatically.
"Oh, dear!" she murmured.
"But they can"t lock you up until they"ve caught you," said I rea.s.suringly. "And I will see to it that they do not catch you."
"I--I am depending on you entirely, Mr. Smart," she said anxiously.
"Some day I may be in a position to repay you for all the kindness--"
"Please, please!"
"--and all the risk you are taking for me," she completed. "You see, you haven"t the excuse any longer that you don"t know my name and story. You are liable to be arrested yourself for--"
There came a sharp rapping on the door at this instant--a rather imperative, sinister rapping, if one were to judge by the way we started and the way we looked at each other. We laughed nervously.
"Goodness! You"d thing Sherlock Holmes himself was at the door," she cried. "See who it is, please."
I went to the door. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e was there. He was visibly excited.
"Can you come down at once, Mr. Smart?" he said in a voice not meant to reach the ears of the Countess.
"What"s up?" I questioned sharply.
"The jig, I"m afraid," he whispered sententiously. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e, being a stenographer, never wasted words. He would have made a fine playwright.
"Good Lord! Detectives?"
"No. Count Tarnowsy and a stranger."
"Impossible!"
The Countess, alarmed by our manner, quickly crossed the room.
"What is it?" she demanded.
"The Count is downstairs," I said. "Don"t be alarmed. Nothing can happen. You--"