"I"m a what?" she murmured, leaning a bit toward him.
"I haven"t the word; there isn"t one adequate to the--subject."
"You actually mean that?" she asked, gliding into another posture, even more alluring.
"You know I mean it," he declared. "Haven"t we agreed to be honest with each other?"
"I"ve been honest!" she answered.
"Meaning that I"ve not been?"
"Have you?" she inflected, "I wonder, Guy."
She might just as well have asked direct his feeling for Mrs.
Clephane--and he understood perfectly the question.
He nodded, slowly but none-the-less definitely.
She took a cigarette and lighted it with careful attention, then blew the smoke sharply against the incandescent coal.
"Guy," said she, "I"m about to speak plainly; please don"t misunderstand; I"m simply a woman, now--a weak woman, perhaps; it will be for you to judge me at the end." She smiled faintly.
"Not a weak woman, Madeline," he replied. "Your worst enemy would not venture to call you that."
He wondered what more was coming, and at what directed. Her tone and att.i.tude and deprecation of self were new to him. He had never seen her so; always she was the embodification of calm, self-reliance, poise, never fl.u.s.tered, never disturbed. A weak woman! It was so absurd as to be ridiculous, and she was aware of it. So what was the play with so bald a notice to beware?
"No, no, Guy," said she. "You think it"s a play, but it isn"t. It"s the simple truth I"m about to tell you, and as truth I pray you take it."
"I"ll take it as you wish it taken," he responded, more than ever mystified.
She carefully laid her cigarette on the receiver, then arose and leaned against the table, her hands behind her. He arose also, but she declined the courtesy.
"Keep your seat," she said, "and don"t be alarmed, I"m not preparing to have you daggered or garroted. Entirely the reverse, Guy. I"ve decided to offer terms: to capitulate; to throw the whole thing over; to betray my mission and get out of the service forever. No, don"t smile incredulously, I mean it."
"Good Lord!" thought Harleston. "What is coming and where do we go?"
What he said, however, was:
"Wouldn"t you be incredulous if our positions were reversed? Madeline Spencer, the very Queen of the Service, betray her trust? Impossible!"
"Thank you, Guy," said she. "I"ve never yet been false to the hand that paid me--and sometimes _I"ve_ paid dearly for keeping faith. Now for the first time,--and the last time, too, for if successful the service will know me no longer--I am ready and willing deliberately to make a failure of my mission, if you will take that failure as conclusive evidence of my good faith." She bent a bit forward and threw into her words and tones and att.i.tude every grace that she possessed. "Will you do it, Guy?"
"When you ask that way," said Harleston, "who of mankind would refuse you anything on earth."
She was alluring, wonderfully alluring. Time was, and that lately, when he would have succ.u.mbed. But that time was no longer; beside the raven-hair and dead-white cheek was now another face, with peach-blow cheek and the ruddy tresses--and the peach-blow cheek and ruddy tresses prevailed. And so he had responded, sincere enough, in tribute to her loveliness and in memory of what had been.
And Madeline Spencer detected the absent note; but she ignored it. She would go through with it--make her bid:
"Almost you say that as though you meant it!" she smiled, and forced his hand. Now he must either deny or affirm.
"I do mean it," he replied. It was all in the game, and he was obligated to be truthful only to Mrs. Clephane.
She looked at him contemplatively, trying to read behind his words.
"What is it, Madeline?" he asked.
"I wonder!" she said speculatively.
"Can"t I answer?"
"Yes, you can answer--"
"Then ask me," he invited, seeking to get something that would afford him an inkling of her aim. a.s.suredly she had him guessing.
For a moment she looked him straight in the eyes; then suddenly her glance wavered, a faint flush crept from neck to cheek, and she smiled almost bashfully.
"Guy," said she, "I ask you to forget our profession if you can, and take what I am about to say as free from guile or expediency--and of supreme importance to me. I"m just a simple woman now, with a woman"s desires and affection and hopes. I"ve come to the parting of the ways: on one side lie power, excitement, loneliness; on the other, contentment, peace, companionship. I"ll choose the latter, if you"re willing. You have but to say the word and I"ll give up everything, confess what I"m here for, what I"ve done, and what is arranged for in the future."
"Upon what condition, Madeline?" he smiled, more puzzled than ever. He was almost ready to believe she meant it.
She caught her breath, hesitated, blushed furiously--and answered softly:
"Upon the condition that you marry me."
For the instant Harleston was too amazed for words; and, despite all his training in dissimulation, his surprise was evidenced in his face. Small wonder he had been unable to make out the play--it was not a play; she meant it. She was ready to throw her mission overboard to attain her personal end.
"Will you marry me, old enemy?" she whispered, putting out her hand to him and smiting him with a ravishing smile--a smile such as she had had for but one other man. It had been utterly lost on that other, but it had almost won with Harleston; and it might have won now with him but for another"s smile, she of the ruddy tresses and peach-blow cheek.
"My dear Madeline," said he slowly, holding her hand with intimate pressure, "I cannot permit you to betray yourself for me. You are--"
"Quite old enough in the ways of the world," she interjected, "to know my own mind. I love you, Guy, and unless I"ve mistaken your att.i.tude, you love me. When our minds meet in such a matter, why should anything be permitted to intervene?" Her hand still lay in his; her eyes held his; her personality fairly enveloped them. With lips a little parted, she bent toward him. "It"s a bit unusual, dear, for the woman to propose, to the man, but we are an unusual two, and the business of life has shaken us free from the conventions of the drawing-room and frothy society. With us there need be no cant nor pretence nor false modesty, because there is not the slightest possibility of misunderstanding."
"And yet, Madeline, we may not defy the right and permit you to sacrifice yourself," he opposed. "There is a standard which neither cant nor pretence nor false modesty can affect--the standard of honour."
"Honour!" she inflected. "What is honour, such honour, when a woman loves."
"Nothing--and therefore must the love abide; honour can"t abide once it is lost."
She shook her head sadly. "I"m afraid it"s not so much my honour as your love," she said. "A week ago, and I would have had a different answer--in fact, I would have been the one to answer and _you_ the one to ask. You know it quite as well as I; for when you left me that afternoon in Paris, expecting to return in the evening, you were ready to speak and I was ready with the answer. Then fate, in the person of an unsympathetic Foreign Office intervened, and sent you on the instant to St. Petersburg. We never met again until in this hotel. I have not changed, but you have. I fear your answer does not ring quite true; it isn"t like you. Why is it, Guy?"
Never a reference to Mrs. Clephane; never an intimation--and yet Mrs.
Clephane might as well have been in the room, so living was her presence.
"Madeline," said he, lingeringly freeing her hand, "I hardly know what to say nor how to say it. I"m embarra.s.sed, frightfully embarra.s.sed; yet you have been frank with me so I must be frank with you--even though it hurts. I"m distressed to have been such a bungler, such a miserable bungler, such a blind fool, indeed. The false impression must be due to me; a.s.suredly, without the most justifiable cause you would not have drawn the erroneous inference. And a man who is responsible for that inference with a woman of your experience and ability, Madeline, must be more or less a fool, even though his intentions have been absolutely correct."
"Which leads where, Guy?" she mocked.
"Nowhere," he replied, "I"m trying to say something, and can"t say it.
But you know what it is, Madeline. I"m sorry, supremely sorry. Let us forget this little talk, and go on as though it hadn"t occurred--playing our parts in the present game and besting the other by every means in our power. I can"t accept your offer, because I cannot pay the consideration. It still must be _a outrance_ with us, Madeline; no quarter given and no quarter asked."