"I am happy," she answered, without moving, and half closing her eyes, "and, if it were necessary for me to give my life for you, I would give it gladly."
In the stern of the boat, Michel Menko watched, without seeing them, perhaps, the fields, the houses of Pecq, the villas of Saint-Germain, the long terrace below heavy ma.s.ses of trees, the great plain beside Paris with Mont Valerien rising in its midst, the two towers of the Trocadero, whose gilded dome sparkled in the sun, and the bluish-black cloud which hung over the city like a thick fog.
The boat advanced very slowly, as if Prince Andras had given the order to delay as much as possible the arrival at Maisons-Lafitte, where the whole fete would end for him, as Marsa was to land there. Already, upon the horizon could be perceived the old mill, with its broad, slated roof. The steeple of Sartrouville loomed up above the red roofs of the houses and the poplars which fringe the bank of the river. A pale blue light, like a thin mist, enveloped the distant landscape.
"The dream is over," murmured Marsa.
"A far more beautiful one will soon begin," said Andras, "and that one will be the realization of what I have waited for all my life and never found--love."
Marsa turned to the Prince with a look full of pa.s.sionate admiration and devotion, which told him how thoroughly his love was returned.
The quadrille had ended, and a waltz was beginning. The little j.a.panese, with his eternal smile, like the bronze figures of his country, was dancing with a pre-raphaelite English girl.
"How well you dance," she said.
"If we only had some favors," replied the j.a.panese, showing his teeth in a grin, "I would lead the cotillon."
The boat stopped at last at Maisons-Lafitte. The great trees of the park formed a heavy ma.s.s, amid which the roof of the villa was just discernible.
"What a pity it is all over," cried the Baroness, who was ruddy as a cherry with the exercise of dancing. "Let us have another; but Maisons-Lafitte is too near. We will go to Rouen the next time; or rather, I invite you all to a day fete in Paris, a game of polo, a lunch, a garden party, whatever you like. I will arrange the programme with Yamada and Jacquemin."
"Willingly," responded the j.a.panese, with a low bow. "To collaborate with Monsieur Jacquemin will be very amusing."
As Marsa Laszlo was leaving the boat, Michel Menko stood close to the gangway, doubtless on purpose to speak to her; and, in the confusion of landing, without any one hearing him, he breathed in her ear these brief words:
"At your house this evening. I must see you."
She gave him an icy glance. Michel Menko"s eyes were at once full of tears and flames.
"I demand it!" he said, firmly.
The Tzigana made no reply; but, going to Andras Zilah, she took his arm; while Michel, as if nothing had happened, raised his hat.
General Vogotzine, with flaming face, followed his niece, muttering, as he wiped the perspiration unsteadily from his face:
"Fine day! Fine day! By Jove! But the sun was hot, though! Ah, and the wines were good!"
BOOK 2.
CHAPTER XII. A DARK PAGE
As Marsa departed with Vogotzine in the carriage which had been waiting for them on the bank, she waved her hand to Zilah with a pa.s.sionate gesture, implying an infinity of trouble, sadness, and love. The Prince then returned to his guests, and the boat, which Marsa watched through the window of the carriage, departed, bearing away the dream, as she had said to Andras. During the drive home she did not say a word. By her side the General grumbled sleepily of the sun, which, the Tokay aiding, had affected his head. But, when Marsa was alone in her chamber, the cry which was wrung from her breast was a cry of sorrow, of despairing anger:
"Ah, when I think--when I think that I am envied!"
She regretted having allowed Andras to depart without having told him on the spot, the secret of her life. She would not see him again until the next day, and she felt as if she could never live through the long, dull hours. She stood at the window, wrapped in thought, gazing mechanically before her, and still hearing the voice of Michel Menko hissing like a snake in her ear. What was it this man had said? She did not dare to believe it. "I demand it!" He had said: "I demand it!" Perhaps some one standing near had heard it. "I demand it!"
Evening came. Below the window the great ma.s.ses of the chestnut-trees and the lofty crests of the poplars waved in the breeze like forest plumes, their peaks touched by the sun setting in a sky of tender blue, while the shadowy twilight crept over the park where, through the branches, patches of yellow light, like golden and copper vapors, still gave evidence of the G.o.d of day.
Marsa, her heart full of a melancholy which the twilight increased, repeated over and over again, with shudders of rage and disgust, those three words which Michel Menko had hurled at her like a threat: "I demand it!" Suddenly she heard in the garden the baying of dogs, and she saw, held in check by a domestic, Duna and Bundas, bounding through the ma.s.ses of flowers toward the gate, where a man appeared, whom Marsa, leaning over the balcony, recognized at once.
"The wretch!" she exclaimed between her clenched teeth. It was Menko.
He must have debarked before reaching Paris, and have come to Maisons-Lafitte in haste.
Marsa"s only thought, in the first moment of anger, was to refuse to see him. "I can not," she thought, "I will not!" Then suddenly her mind changed. It was braver and more worthy of her to meet the danger face to face. She rang, and said to the domestic who answered the bell: "Show Count Menko into the little salon."
"We shall see what he will dare," muttered the Tzigana, glancing at the mirror as if to see whether she appeared to tremble before danger and an enemy.
The little salon into which the young Count was introduced was in the left wing of the villa; and it was Marsa"s favorite room, because it was so quiet there. She had furnished it with rare taste, in half Byzantine and half Hindoo fashion--a long divan running along the wall, covered with gray silk striped with garnet; Persian rugs cast here and there at random; paintings by Petenkofen--Hungarian farms and battle-scenes, sentinels lost in the snow; two consoles loaded with books, reviews, and bric-a-brac; and a round table with Egyptian incrustations, covered with an India shawl, upon which were fine bronzes of Lanceray, and little jewelled daggers.
This salon communicated with a much larger one, where General Vogotzine usually took his siesta, and which Marsa abandoned to him, preferring the little room, the windows of which, framed in ivy, looked out upon the garden, with the forest in the distance.
Michel Menko was well acquainted with this little salon, where he had more than once seen Marsa seated at the piano playing her favorite airs.
He remembered it all so well, and, nervously twisting his moustache, he longed for her to make her appearance. He listened for the frou-frou of Marsa"s skirts on the other side of the lowered portiere which hung between the two rooms; but he heard no sound.
The General had shaken hands with Michel, as he pa.s.sed through the large salon, saying, in his thick voice:
"Have you come to see Marsa? You have had enough of that water-party, then? It was very pretty; but the sun was devilish hot. My head is burning now; but it serves me right for not remaining quiet at home."
Then he raised his heavy person from the armchair he had been sitting in, and went out into the garden, saying: "I prefer to smoke in the open air; it is stifling in here." Marsa, who saw Vogotzine pa.s.s out, let him go, only too willing to have him at a distance during her interview with Michel Menko; and then she boldly entered the little salon, where the Count, who had heard her approach, was standing erect as if expecting some attack.
Marsa closed the door behind her; and, before speaking a word, the two faced each other, as if measuring the degree of hardihood each possessed. The Tzigana, opening fire first, said, bravely and without preamble:
"Well, you wished to see me. Here I am! What do you want of me?"
"To ask you frankly whether it is true, Marsa, that you are about to marry Prince Zilah."
She tried to laugh; but her laugh broke nervously off. She said, however, ironically:
"Oh! is it for that that you are here?"
"Yes."
"It was perfectly useless, then, for you to take the trouble: you ask me a thing which you know well, which all the world knows, which all the world must have told you, since you had the audacity to be present at that fete to-day."
"That is true," said Michel, coldly; "but I only learned it by chance. I wished to hear it from your own lips."
"Do I owe you any account of my conduct?" asked Marsa, with crushing hauteur.
He was silent a moment, strode across the room, laid his hat down upon the little table, and suddenly becoming humble, not in att.i.tude, but in voice, said:
"Listen, Marsa: you are a hundred times right to hate me. I have deceived you, lied to you. I have conducted myself in a manner unworthy of you, unworthy of myself. But to atone for my fault--my crime, if you will--I am ready to do anything you order, to be your miserable slave, in order to obtain the pardon which I have come to ask of you, and which I will ask on my knees, if you command me to do so."