The single word, and the glance which flashed from his eyes, was expressive, but the girl did not falter.
"Oh! I am weary of it," she cried, with a little pa.s.sionate outburst. "I am sick to death of it all! You will never succeed in what you are planning. One might sooner expect a miracle. I shall go back to Vienna. I am tired of masquerading. I have had more than enough of it."
Mr. Sabin"s expression did not alter one iota; he spoke as soothingly as one would speak to a child.
"I am afraid," he said quietly, "that it must be dull for you. Perhaps I ought to have taken you more into my confidence; very well, I will do so now. Listen: you say that I shall never succeed. On the contrary, I am on the point of success; the waiting for both of us is nearly over."
The prospect startled, but did not seem altogether to enrapture her. She wanted to hear more.
"I received this dispatch from London this morning," he said. "Baron Knigenstein has left for Berlin to gain the Emperor"s consent to an agreement which we have already ratified. The affair is as good as settled; it is a matter now of a few days only."
"Germany!" she exclaimed, incredulously, "I thought it was to be Russia."
"So," he answered, "did I. I have to make a certain rather humiliating confession. I, who have always considered myself keenly in touch with the times, especially since my interest in European matters revived, have remained wholly ignorant of one of the most extraordinary phases of modern politics. In years to come history will show us that it was inevitable, but I must confess that it has come upon me like a thunder clap. I, like all the world, have looked upon Germany and England as natural and inevitable allies. That is neither more nor less than a colossal blunder! As a matter of fact, they are natural enemies!"
She sank into a chair, and looked at him blankly.
"But it is impossible," she cried. "There are all the ties of relationship, and a common stock. They are sister countries."
"Don"t you know," he said, "that it is the like which irritates and repels the like. It is this relationship which has been at the root of the great jealousy, which seems to have spread all through Germany. I need not go into all the causes of it with you now; sufficient it is to say that all the recent successes of England have been at Germany"s expense. There has been a storm brewing for long; to-day, to-morrow, in a week, surely within a month, it will break."
"You may be right," she said; "but who of all the Frenchwomen I know would care to reckon themselves the debtors of Germany?"
"You will owe Germany nothing, for she will be paid and overpaid for all she does. Russia has made terms with the Republic of France. Politically, she has nothing to gain by a rupture; but with Germany it is different. She and France are ready at this moment to fly at one another"s throats. The military popularity of such a war would be immense. The cry to arms would ring from the Mediterranean to the Rhine."
"Oh! I hope that it may not be war," she said. "I had hoped always that diplomacy, backed by a waiting army, would be sufficient. France at heart is true, I know. But after all, it sounds like a fairy tale. You are a wonderful man, but how can you hope to move nations? What can you offer Germany to exact so tremendous a price?"
"I can offer," Mr. Sabin said calmly, "what Germany desires more than anything else in the world--the key to England. It has taken me six years to perfect my schemes. As you know, I was in America part of the time I was supposed to be in China. It was there, in the laboratory of Allison, that I commenced the work. Step by step I have moved on--link by link I have forged the chain. I may say, without falsehood or exaggeration, that my work would be the work of another man"s lifetime. With me it has been a labour of love. Your part, my dear Helene, will be a glorious one; think of it, and shake off your depression. This hole and corner life is not for long--the time for which we have worked is at hand."
She did not look up, there was no answering fire of enthusiasm in her dark eyes. The colour came into her cheeks and faded away. Mr. Sabin was vaguely disturbed.
"In what way," she said, without directly looking at him, "is Lord Wolfenden likely to be useful to you?"
Mr. Sabin did not reply for some time, in fact he did not reply at all. This new phase in the situation was suddenly revealed to him. When he spoke his tone was grave enough--grave with an undertone of contempt.
"Is it possible, Helene," he said, "that you have allowed yourself to think seriously of the love-making of this young man? I must confess that such a thing in connection with you would never have occurred to me in my wildest dreams!"
"I am the mistress of my own affections," she said coldly. "I am not pledged to you in any way. If I were to say that I intended to listen seriously to Lord Wolfenden--even if I were to say that I intended to marry him--well, there is no one who would dare to interfere! But, on the other hand, I have refused him. That should be enough for you. I am not going to discuss the matter at all; you would not understand it."
"I must admit," Mr. Sabin said, "that I probably should not. Of love, as you young people conceive it, I know nothing. But of that greater affection--the pa.s.sionate love of a man for his race and his kind and his country--well, that has always seemed to me a thing worth living and working and dying for! I had fancied, Helene, that some spark of that same fire had warmed your blood, or you would not be here to-day."
"I think," she answered more gently, "that it has. I too, believe me, love my country and my people and my order. If I do not find these all-engrossing, you must remember that I am a woman, and I am young; I do not pretend to be capable only of impersonal and patriotic love."
"Ay, you are a woman, and the blood of some of your ancestors will make itself felt," he added, looking at her thoughtfully. "I ought to have considered the influence of s.e.x and heredity. By the bye, have you heard from Henri lately?"
She shook her head.
"Not since he has been in France. We thought that whilst he was there it would be better for him not to write."
Mr. Sabin nodded.
"Most discreet," he remarked satirically. "I wonder what Henri would say if he knew?"
The girl"s lip curled a little.
"If even," she said, "there was really something serious for him to know, Henri would survive it. His is not the temperament for sorrow. For twenty minutes he would be in a paroxysm. He would probably send out for poison, which he would be careful not to take; and play with a pistol, if he were sure that it was not loaded. By dinner time he would be calm, the opera would soothe him still more, and by the time it was over he would be quite ready to take Mademoiselle Somebody out to supper. With the first gla.s.s of champagne his sorrow would be drowned for ever. If any wound remained at all, it would be the wound to his vanity."
"You have considered, then, the possibility of upsetting my schemes and withdrawing your part?" Mr. Sabin said quietly. "You understand that your marriage with Henri would be an absolute necessity--that without it all would be chaos?"
"I do not say that I have considered any such possibility," she answered. "If I make up my mind to withdraw, I shall give you notice. But I will admit that I like Lord Wolfenden, and I detest Henri! Ah! I know of what you would remind me; you need not fear, I shall not forget! It will not be to-day, nor to-morrow, that I shall decide."
A servant entered the room and announced Lord Wolfenden. Mr. Sabin looked up.
"Where have you shown him?" he asked.
"Into the library, sir," the girl answered.
Mr. Sabin swore softly between his teeth, and sprang to his feet.
"Excuse me, Helene," he exclaimed, "I will bring Lord Wolfenden into the drawing-room. That girl is an idiot; she has shown him into the one room in the house which I would not have had him enter for anything in the world!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WAY OF THE WOMAN.
Wolfenden had been shown, as he supposed, into an empty room by the servant of whom he had inquired for Mr. Sabin. But the door was scarcely closed before a familiar sound from a distant corner warned him that he was not alone. He stopped short and looked fixedly at the slight, feminine figure whose white fingers were flashing over the keyboard of a typewriter. There was something very familiar about the curve of her neck and the waving of her brown hair; her back was to him, and she did not turn round.
"Do leave me some cigarettes," she said, without lifting her head. "This is frightfully monotonous work. How much more of it is there for me to do?"
"I really don"t know," Wolfenden answered hesitatingly. "Why, Blanche!"
She swung round in her chair and gazed at him in blank amazement; she was, at least, as much surprised as he was.
"Lord Wolfenden!" she exclaimed; "why, what are you doing here?"
"I might ask you," he said gravely, "the same question."
She stood up.
"You have not come to see me?"
He shook his head.
"I had not the least idea that you were here," he a.s.sured her.
Her face hardened.
"Of course not. I was an idiot to imagine that you would care enough to come, even if you had known."
"I do not know," he remarked, "why you should say that. On the contrary----"
She interrupted him.
"Oh! I know what you are going to say. I ran away from Mrs. Selby"s nice rooms, and never thanked you for your kindness. I didn"t even leave a message for you, did I? Well, never mind; you know why, I daresay."
Wolfenden thought that he did, but he evaded a direct answer.
"What I cannot understand," he said, "is why you are here."
"It is my new situation," she answered. "I was bound to look for one, you know. There is nothing strange about it. I advertised for a situation, and I got this one."
He was silent. There were things in connection with this which he scarcely understood. She watched him with a mocking smile parting her lips.
"It is a good deal harder to understand," she said, "why you are here. This is the very last house in the world in which I should have thought of seeing you."
"Why?" he asked quickly.
She shrugged her shoulders; her speech had been scarcely a discreet one.
"I should not have imagined," she said, "that Mr. Sabin would have come within the circle of your friends."
"I do not know why he should not," Wolfenden said. "I consider him a very interesting man."
She smiled upon him.
"Yes, he is interesting," she said; "only I should not have thought that your tastes were at all identical."
"You seem to know a good deal about him," Wolfenden remarked quietly.
For a moment an odd light gleamed in her eyes; she was very pale. Wolfenden moved towards her.
"Blanche," he said, "has anything gone wrong with you? You don"t look well."
She withdrew her hands from her face.
"There is nothing wrong with me," she said. "Hush! he is coming."
She swung round in her seat, and the quick clicking of the instrument was resumed as her fingers flew over it. The door opened, and Mr. Sabin entered. He leaned on his stick, standing on the threshold, and glanced keenly at both of them.
"My dear Lord Wolfenden," he said apologetically, "this is the worst of having country servants. Fancy showing you in here. Come and join us in the other room; we are just going to have our coffee."
Wolfenden followed him with alacrity; they crossed the little hall and entered the dining-room. Helene was still sitting there sipping her coffee in an easy chair. She welcomed him with outstretched hand and a brilliantly soft smile. Mr. Sabin, who was watching her closely, appreciated, perhaps for the first time, her rare womanly beauty, apart from its distinctly patrician qualities. There was a change, and he was not the man to be blind to it or to under-rate its significance. He felt that on the eve of victory he had another and an unexpected battle to fight; yet he held himself like a brave man and one used to reverses, for he showed no signs of dismay.
"I want you to try a gla.s.s of this claret, Lord Wolfenden," he said, "before you begin your coffee. I know that you are a judge, and I am rather proud of it. You are not going away, Helene?"
"I had no idea of going," she laughed. "This is really the only habitable room in the house, and I am not going to let Lord Wolfenden send me to shiver in what we call the drawing-room."
"I should be very sorry if you thought of such a thing," Wolfenden answered.
"If you will excuse me for a moment," Mr. Sabin said, "I will unpack some cigarettes. Helene, will you see that Lord Wolfenden has which liqueur he prefers?"
He limped away, and Helene watched him leave the room with some surprise. These were tactics which she did not understand. Was he already making up his mind that the game could be played without her? She was puzzled--a little uneasy.
She turned to find Wolfenden"s admiring eyes fixed upon her; she looked at him with a smile, half-sad, half-humorous.
"Let me remember," she said, "I am to see that you have--what was it? Oh! liqueurs. We haven"t much choice; you will find k.u.mmel and Chartreuse on the sideboard, and Benedictine, which my uncle hates, by the bye, at your elbow."
"No liqueurs, thanks," he said. "I wonder, did you expect me to-night? I don"t think that I ought to have come, ought I?"
"Well, you certainly show," she answered with a smile, "a remarkable disregard for all precedents and conventions. You ought to be already on your way to foreign parts with your guns and servants. It is Englishmen, is it not, who go always to the Rocky Mountains to shoot bears when their love affairs go wrong?"
He was watching her closely, and he saw that she was less at her ease than she would have had him believe. He saw, too, or fancied that he saw, a softening in her face, a kindliness gleaming out of her l.u.s.trous eyes which suggested new things to him.
"The Rocky Mountains," he said slowly, "mean despair. A man does not go so far whilst he has hope."
She did not answer him; he gathered courage from her silence.
"Perhaps," he said, "I might now have been on my way there but for a somewhat sanguine disposition--a very strong determination, and," he added more softly, "a very intense love."
"It takes," she remarked, "a very great deal to discourage an Englishman."
"Speaking for myself," he answered, "I defy discouragement; I am proof against it. I love you so dearly, Helene, that I simply decline to give you up; I warn you that I am not a lover to be shaken off."
His voice was very tender; his words sounded to her simple but strong. He was so sure of himself and his love. Truly, she thought, for an Englishman this was no indifferent wooer; his confidence thrilled her; she felt her heart beat quickly under its sheath of drooping black lace and roses.
"I am giving you," she said quietly, "no hope. Remember that; but I do not want you to go away."
The hope which her tongue so steadfastly refused to speak he gathered from her eyes, her face, from that indefinable softening which seems to pervade at the moment of yielding a woman"s very personality. He was wonderfully happy, although he had the wit to keep it to himself.
"You need not fear," he whispered, "I shall not go away."
Outside they heard the sound of Mr. Sabin"s stick. She leaned over towards him.
"I want you," she said, "to--kiss me."
His heart gave a great leap, but he controlled himself. Intuitively he knew how much was permitted to him; he seemed to have even some faint perception of the cause for her strange request. He bent over and took her face for a moment between his hands; her lips touched his--she had kissed him!
He stood away from her, breathless with the excitement of the moment. The perfume of her hair, the soft touch of her lips, the gentle movement with which she had thrust him away, these things were like the drinking of strong wine to him. Her own cheeks were scarlet; outside the sound of Mr. Sabin"s stick grew more and more distinct; she smoothed her hair and laughed softly up at him.
"At least," she murmured, "there is that to remember always."