"Yes," she repeated.
He frowned. "You are disconcertingly frank, Lady Elza. Well, let me tell you this--it would come to nothing. The _Rhaals_ are with them--all the resources of the Central State are to be thrown against me. Yet it will come to nothing."
Her heart leaped. Tarrano was making his last stand. Beyond the logical sense of his words, she could see it in his eyes. He knew he was making his last stand. He knew too that she was now aware of it; and that behind the confidence of his words--that was the confession he was making.
Tarrano"s last stand! There seemed to her then something illogically pathetic in it all. This man of genius--so short a time ago all but the Emperor of three worlds. And now, with them slipping from his grasp, reduced to this last stronghold in the bleak fastnesses of the Cold Country, awaiting the inevitable attack upon him. Something pathetic....
"I"m sorry, Tarrano."
As though mirrored from her own expression, a wistful look had come to him. Her words drove it away.
"Sorry? There is nothing to be sorry about. Their attack will come to nothing ... yet--" He stopped short, and then as though deciding to say what he had begun, he added:
"Yet, Lady Elza, I am no fool to discard possibilities. I may be defeated." He laughed harshly. "To what depths has Tarrano fallen that he can voice such a possibility!"
He leaned toward her and into his tone came a greater earnestness than she ever heard in it before.
"Lady Elza, if they should be successful, they would not capture me--for I would die fighting. You understand that, don"t you?"
She met his eyes; the gleam in them held her. Forgetful of herself, she had allowed the fur to drop from her: she sat bolt upright, the dim red light tinting the scarf that lay like gossamer around her white shoulders. His hand came out and touched her arm, slipped up to her shoulder and rested there, but she did not feel it.
"I will die fighting," he repeated. "You understand that?"
"Yes," she breathed.
"And you would be sorry?"
"Oh--"
"Would you?"
"Yes, I--"
He did not relax. His eyes burned her: but deep in them she saw that quality of wistfulness, of pleading.
"You, my Elza, they would rescue--unless I killed you."
She did not move, but within her was a shudder.
"You know I would kill you, my Elza, rather than give you up?"
"Yes," she murmured.
"I--wonder. Sometimes I think I would." Suddenly he cast aside all restraint. "Oh, my Elza--that we should have to plan such things as these! You, sitting there--you are so beautiful! Your eyes--limpid pools with terror lurking in them when I would have them misty with love! My Elza--"
The woman in her responded. A wave of color flooded her throat and face.
But she drew away from him.
"My Elza! Can you not tell me that even in defeat I may be victorious?
It is you more than all else that I desire."
Without warning his arms were around her, holding her fiercely to him, his face close to hers.
"Elza! With you, defeat would be victory. And with you--now--if you would but say the word--together we will surmount every obstacle.--"
He was kissing her, bending back her head, and his grip upon her shoulder was bruising the flesh. No longer Tarrano, Conqueror of the universe, just Tarrano the man. Terror surged within Elza"s heart.
"Tarrano!"
"Elza dear--my Elza--"
"Tarrano!" She fought with him. "Tarrano, do you dare--I tell you--"
The frightened pleading of a woman at bay. And then abruptly he cast her off. His laugh was grim.
"What a fool I am! Tarrano the weakling!" He leaped from the couch and began pacing the room. "Tarrano the weakling! To what depths has Tarrano fallen!"
He stopped before her. "I ask your pardon, Lady Elza. This has been madness. Forget my words--all madness."
His tone was crisp. "Human weakness to which I did not realize I was so p.r.o.ne made me talk like a fool. Desire you above the conquest of the universe? Absurd! Lies that men whisper into women"s ears! All lies!"
Was he telling the real truth now? Or was this a mood of recrimination?
Bitterness that his love was scorned. Again his gaze held her, but in it now she could see nothing but a cruel inflexible purpose.
"Tarrano in defeat! That is impossible, Lady Elza. You will very shortly realize that, for I am going to show you how, single-handed, I can make it impossible. Show you with your own eyes. It was my purpose in coming to waken you--my purpose, when your beauty led me into weakness incredible.... Get up, Lady Elza."
She stared. With folded arms he stood emotionless regarding her.
"Get up, I tell you. Put on those garments you wore when we arrived. We are going travelling again."
He stood waiting; and beneath his gaze she shrank back, drawing the fur rug over her.
A smile of contempt parted his lips. "You hesitate? You think I am still a weakling? You over-rate your beauty, Lady Elza.... Make haste, I command you. We must start very soon."
She summoned her voice. "Start? Where? What are you--"
"No questions, Lady Elza. Not now. Make haste--"
He jerked from her the fur covering, flung it across the room, and with the same gesture turned away impersonally. Trembling, she rose from the couch and donned the garments he had indicated, while he stood brooding by the window, gazing through its transparent pane at the glistening frozen city which was all that remained of his empire.
CHAPTER XXVIII
_Thing in the Forest_
"All in good time, Lady Elza, you will know where we are."