Her Majesty's Minister Part 17

I loved her with all my soul. I was heedless of those words of the old Baronne, of Anderson's suspicions, and Kaye's denunciation. Even if she were a spy, I adored her. The fire of that old love had swept upon me, and I could not hold back, even though her touch might be as that of a leper and her lips venomous.

"Reparation is impossible," she answered hoa.r.s.ely. "Is not that sufficient?"

"No, it is not sufficient," I answered clearly. "I will not be put off by such an answer."

"It were better," she cried--"better that I had died yesterday than suffer like this. You rescued me from death only to torture me."

Her words aroused within me a distinct suspicion that her strange illness had been brought to pa.s.s because, using some mysterious means, she had made an attempt against her own life. I believed that she had suffered, and was still suffering, from the effects of some poison, the exact nature of which neither Deane nor Trepard could as yet determine.

"I do not seek to torture you, dearest," I protested. "Far from it. I merely want to know the truth, in order that I may share your unhappiness, as your betrothed ought to do."

"But you are not my betrothed."

"I was once."

"But not now. You taunt me with breaking that promise which I made three years ago, yet you yourself it was who played me false--who left me for your prim, strait-laced English miss!"

In an instant the truth was plain. She was aware that I had transferred my affections to Edith! Someone had told her--no doubt with a good many embellishments, or perhaps some scandalous story. In the salons through which we of the diplomatic circle are compelled to move, women's tongues are ever at work match-making and mischief-making. On the Continent love and politics run always hand-in-hand. That is the reason why the most notorious of the demi-monde in Paris, in Vienna, and in Berlin are the secret agents of their respective Governments; and many are the honest men innocently denounced through jealousy and kindred causes. A false declaration of one or other of these unscrupulous spies has before now caused the downfall of a Ministry or the disgrace of a n.o.ble and patriotic politician.

"I know to whom you refer," I said, with bowed head, after a moment's pause. "It is currently reported that I love her. I have loved her. I do not seek to deny it. When a man sustains such a blow as I sustained before we parted, he often rushes to another woman for consolation. The influence of that second woman often prevents him from going to the bad altogether. It has been so in my case."

"And you love her now?" she cried, the fire of fierce jealousy in her eyes. "You cannot deny it!"

"I do deny it," I cried. "True, until yesterday I held her in esteem, even in affection; but it is not so now. All my love for you, Yolande, has returned to me. Our parting has rendered you dearer and sweeter to me than ever."

"I cannot believe it," she exclaimed falteringly.

"I swear that it is so. In all my life, although am compelled to treat women with courtesy and sometimes to affect flirtation, because of my profession as a diplomatist, I have loved only one woman--yourself;" and I raised her chilly hand to my lips, kissing it fervently.

Mine was no mere caprice at that moment. With an all-consuming pa.s.sion I loved her, and was prepared on her account to make any sacrifice she demanded. Let the reader remember what had already been told me, and reflect that, like many another man, I loved madly, and was heedless of any consequences that might follow. In this particular I was not alone.

Thousands before me had been allured to their ruin by a woman's eyes, just as thousands of brave women's hearts have been broken and their lives wrecked by men's false oaths of fidelity. I have heard wiseacres say that the woman only suffers in such cases; the man never. Whether that rule proves always true will be shown in this strange story of my own love.

She drew her hand away slowly, but forcibly, saying:

"You cannot love two women. Already you have shown a preference for a wife of your own people."

"It is all over between us," I protested. "Mine was a mere pa.s.sing fancy, engendered, I think, by the loneliness I suffered when I lost you."

"Ah," (she smiled sadly), "that is all very well! A woman, when once played false by the man she loves and trusts, is never the same--_never_!"

"Then am I to understand, Yolande, that you refuse to pardon me, or to accept my affection?"

"I have already pardoned you," she faltered; "but to accept the love you once withdrew from me without just reason is, I regret to say, impossible."

"You speak coldly, as though you were refusing a mere invitation to dinner, or something of no greater importance," I protested. "I offer you my whole heart, my love--nay, my life;" and I held her hand again, looking straight into those wonderful eyes, now so calm, so serious, that my gaze wavered before them.

Slowly she shook her head, and her trembling breast rose and fell again.

"Ours was a foolish infatuation," she answered with an effort. "It is best that we should both of us forget."

"Forget!" I cried. "But I can never forget you, Yolande. You are my love. You are all the world to me."

Her eyes were grave, and I saw that tears stood in them.

"No," she protested quietly; "do not say that. I cannot be any more to you than other women whom you meet daily. Besides, I know well that in the diplomatic service marriage is a serious drawback to any save an amba.s.sador."

"When a man is in love as I am with you, dearest, he throws all thoughts of his career to the winds; personal interests are naught where true love is concerned."

"You must not--nay, you shall not--wreck your future on my account," she declared in a low, intense voice. "It is not just either to yourself or to the Englishwoman who loves you."

"Why do you taunt me with that, Yolande?" I asked reproachfully. "I do not love her. I have never truly loved her. I was lonely after you had gone out of my life, and she was amusing,--that was all."

"And now you find me equally amusing--eh?" she remarked, with just a touch of bitter sarcasm.

"Why should you be jealous of her?" I asked. "You might just as well be jealous of Sibyl, Lord Barmouth's daughter."

"With the latter you are certainly on terms of most intimate friends.h.i.+p," she answered with a smile. "I really wonder that I did not object to her in the days long ago."

"Ah!" I laughed, "you certainly had no cause. It is true that we have been good friends ever since the day when she arrived home from the convent-school at Bruges, a prim young miss with her hair tied up with ribbon. Thrown constantly together, as we were, I became her male confidant and intimate friend; hence my licence to give her counsel in many matters and sometimes to criticise those actions of which I don't approve."

"Then if that is so, you care a little for her--just a little? Now admit it."

"I don't admit anything of the kind," I answered frankly. "For five years we have been constantly together; and times without number, at Lady Barmouth's request, I have acted as her escort here and there, until she looks upon me as a kind of necessary appendage who has a right to chaff her about her flirtations and annoy her by judicious sarcasm.

I don't entertain one single spark of love for her. In brief, she has developed into an essentially smart girl, in the true sense of the word, and by reason of our constant companions.h.i.+p knows that to attempt a flirtation with me would result in a most dismal failure. I accused her once, not long ago, of having designs upon my heart, whereupon she replied that to accomplish such a thing would be about as easy as to win the affection of the bronze Neptune in the garden-fountain of the Emba.s.sy."

"You have been seen together a great deal of late?"

"Who told you so?"

"A friend who knows you both." Then she added: "From my information I hear that last season you danced so much with her and were so constantly at her side that people were talking of a match between you."

"Ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "Of course gossips are always too ready to jump to ill-formed conclusions. As one of the staff of the Emba.s.sy, and her most intimate male friend, it was only courtesy to take her beneath my care. When she had no other partner and wanted to dance, then she sometimes asked me. I think she did it to annoy me, for she knew that I was never fond of dancing."

"Do you remember the Countess of Flanders' b.a.l.l.s at Brussels--how we danced together?" she remarked.

"Remember them!" I echoed. "They were in the golden days when everything seemed to our eyes couleur de rose--the days when our love was perfect."

She sighed again, but no word escaped her. She was, I knew, reflecting upon those blissful days and nights when we met here and there at all hours and at all the best houses in Brussels, dining, lunching, dancing, and gossiping--together always.

"Will you not resolve to forget the past, Yolande?" I asked fervently, taking her hand in mine again. "Come, tell me that you will--that you will not hold me aloof like this? I cannot bear it--indeed I can't, for I love you;" and I bent until my lips touched her finger-tips.

"I cannot!" she cried at last, with an effort rising and firmly withdrawing her hand from my grasp.

"You cannot? Why?" I demanded, taken somewhat aback by her sudden att.i.tude of determination.

"I will not allow you to ruin yourself, Gerald, on my account," she declared in a very low but calm voice.