Her Majesty's Minister Part 36

"Gerald!" she cried hoa.r.s.ely, "why do you treat me like this? You cannot tell how I suffer, or you would have pity upon me! Surely you cannot disguise from yourself the truth, even though your coldness forces me to tell you with my own lips. You know well my position--that of a woman drifting here and there, open to the calumnies of my enemies and the scandalous tales invented by so-called friends; a woman who has borne great trials and who is still, alas! unhappy! Of my honesty you yourself shall judge. You have heard whispers regarding my doings-- escapades they have been called--and possibly you have given them credence. If you have, I cannot help it. There are persons around us always who delight in besmirching a woman's reputation, especially if she has the misfortune to be born of princely family. But I tell you that all the tales you have heard are false. I--"

Suddenly she covered her face with her hands; the words seemed to choke her, and she burst into tears.

"No, no, Leonie!" I said with deep sympathy, bending down to whisper in her ear and taking her hand in mine. "No one believes in those foul calumnies. Your honour is too well known."

"You do not believe them--you will never believe them, will you?" she asked quickly through her tears.

"Of course not. I have denied them many times when they have been repeated to me."

"Ah!" she cried, "I know you are always generous to a woman, Gerald."

Then again a long silence fell between us. Presently, with a sudden impulse, she raised her tear-stained face to mine, and with a look of fierce desperation in her eyes implored:

"Gerald, will you not give me one single word? Will you still remain cold and indifferent?" As she said this, her breast rose and fell in agitation.

I drew back, wondering at her beseeching att.i.tude.

"No, no!" she cried. "Do not put me from you, Gerald! I cannot bear it--indeed I can't! You must have recognised the truth long ago--" and she paused. Then, lowering her voice until it was only a hoa.r.s.e whisper, she added, "The truth that I love you!"

I looked at her in blank amazement, scarce knowing what to reply. I had admired her just as half Paris had admired her, but I certainly had never felt a spark of deep affection for her.

"Ah!" she went on, reading my heart in an instant, "you despise me for this confession. But I cannot help it. I love you, Gerald, as I have never before loved a man. In return for your love I can offer you nothing--nothing save one thing," she added in a strange, mechanical voice, almost as though speaking to herself. "In return for your love I can save your country from the grievous peril in which it is now placed."

She offered me her secret in return for my love! The thing was incomprehensible. I stood there dumbfounded.

"This is a moment of foolishness, Leonie. We are both at fault," I said, as soon as I again found tongue. "Think of the difference in our stations--you a princess, and I a poor diplomatist! I am your friend, and hope to remain so always--but not your lover."

"But I love you!" she cried fiercely, raising her blanched and pitiful face until her lips met mine. The pa.s.sion of love was in her heart.

"You may despise me, Gerald; you may cast me from you; you may hate me; but in the end you will love me just as intensely as I love you. To endeavour to escape me is useless. Since the die is cast, let us make the compact now, as I have already suggested. I have confessed to you openly. I am yours, and I implore of you to give me your love in return. You are mine, Gerald--mine only!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

ENGLAND'S ENEMIES.

Late that night, after the Princess and most of her guests had retired, I entered the billiard-room to get my cigarette-case, which I had left there while playing pool earlier in the evening, and on opening the door found the two Amba.s.sadors Wolkenstein and Hindenburg seated together in the long lounge-chairs in earnest conversation. They were speaking in German, and as I entered I overheard the words "in such a manner as to crush the English power on the sea." They were uttered by the German representative, and were certainly ominous. It was apparent that both men were aware of the gigantic conspiracy of which the Princess had told me--the plot which aimed at the downfall of our nation. I could see, too, that my sudden entry had disconcerted them, for they both moved uneasily and glanced quickly at each other as though fearing I had overheard some part of what had pa.s.sed between them. Then Wolkenstein with skilful tact cried in French:

"Ah, my dear Ingram! we thought we alone were the late birds to-night.

Come here and chat;" and at the same time he pulled forward one of the long cane chairs, into which, thus bidden, I sank.

What, I wondered, had been the exchange of view's between these two noted diplomatists? The faces of both were sphinx-like. Our talk at first dealt with nothing more important than the journey across the forest to Barbison which our hostess had arranged for the morrow. I knew, however, that the conversation held before my entrance had been about the European situation. Those men were England's enemies. My impulse was to rise abruptly and leave them; but it is always the diplomatist's duty to remain cool, and watch, even though he may be compelled to hobn.o.b with the bitterest opponents of his native land.

Therefore I remained, and, concealing my antipathy, lit a cigar and lay back in my chair, carelessly gossiping about the usual trivialities which form the subject of house-party chatter.

"The Princess looked rather pale to-night, I thought," exclaimed Count de Hindenburg suddenly. "She seemed quite worried."

"With a chateau full of guests the life of a hostess is not always devoid of care," I remarked, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

I alone knew the reason of her paleness and anxiety, and was eager to ascertain what deductions these two shrewd men had made.

"To me," observed the representative of the Emperor Francis Joseph, "it seemed as though the Princess had been shedding tears. Didn't you notice that her eyes were just a trifle swollen?" and, turning to me, he added: "She scarcely spoke to you at dinner. Are you the culprit, Ingram?"

Both men laughed.

"Certainly not," I denied. "Madame has a touch of nerves, I suppose-- that's all. Such a malady is common among women."

"She looked quite worn out by fatigue," declared Wolkenstein.

"Because she is never still a single moment in the day. Her thoughts are always for her guests--how to amuse them and to give them a pleasant time. It was the same two years ago," I said.

"Remarkable woman--quite remarkable!" exclaimed de Hindenburg. "She had sufficient trouble with the rheumatic old Prince to turn any woman's hair grey; but, on the contrary, she seems now to become younger every day. She's still one of the prettiest women in Europe."

"Everyone admits that, of course," I said.

They exchanged glances, and I fancied that these looks were unusually significant. A flood of recollections of the sunset hour in the forest surged within my mind--how I had striven with firmness to release myself, and how I had been forced to turn away and leave the Princess.

In that deep gloom, when the rosy afterglow was fading and the light within the leafy glade so dim that all objects were indistinct, I had seen her wild pa.s.sion in all its magnificence. Her eyes had burned with the fierce, all-consuming fire of love, her cheeks were white and cold, and her words as reckless as they were pa.s.sionate. She had charged me with entertaining affection for some other woman--a woman unworthy of my love, she had said with distinct meaning, as though she knew the duplicity of Yolande; and she had sworn an oath with clenched hands to compel me to reciprocate her pa.s.sion.

The scene between us was one of unreason and of folly. She had been overwhelmed by the impulse of the moment, and I had bowed and left her, my heart full of conflicting emotions, my head reeling. She had suddenly twisted her soft arms about my neck and clung to me, whispering her love and declaring that I was cruel, cold, with a heart like adamant. But I had flung her off, and we had not met until two hours later, when I sat at her right hand at dinner, during which she had scarcely addressed a single word to me.

My companions had, of course, noticed this, and appeared to have cleverly guessed my refusal to accept the offer of the Princess. They little knew the terms upon which she had attempted to make a compact with me--that she was ready to betray them in return for my love.

I smoked on in silence and in wonder. The situation certainly presented a problem which I was utterly unable to solve. That the affections of such a woman as the Princess von Leutenberg were not to be trifled with I knew well, for women of her temperament are capable of anything when once they love with a fierce, uncontrollable, reckless pa.s.sion such as she had seen fit to display that evening in the deep silence of the forest. Her proposition had, indeed, been a startling one. She had offered me the secret of the plot in return for my love!

With my two companions I chatted on until nearly two o'clock; then we separated, and I pa.s.sed through the long oak corridors to my room. Upon the dressing-table I found a note lying. It was sealed with black wax, with the Leutenberg arms. I tore it open. It gave out an odour of fresh violets, and I saw instantly that the handwriting was Leonie's.

"_I have been foolish in my confession to you, Gerald_," she wrote in French. "_But my heart was so full that I could conceal the truth no longer. I saw from your manner at dinner to-night that you despise me, and intend to hold me at a distance as an unwelcome woman who has flung herself into your arms. But I cannot help it. The misfortune--nay, the curse upon me--is that I love you. Would to Heaven that I did not!

Because of you I have forgotten eatery thing--my duty to myself as a woman, my duty to my family as one of a n.o.ble house, my duty to my country, my duty to my Creator. When I left Paris long ago, I crossed the Atlantic, resolved to forget you; but all was in vain. I returned to Rudolstadt and shut myself up in retirement, striving to wean myself from the mad pa.s.sion which had arisen within me. All, however, was futile, and at last I broke the bonds and returned to Paris. A month has gone by, and now I have told you the truth; I have confessed.

To-morrow morning at eleven I shall walk alone through the forest, along the road that leads to By. My offer to you--an offer made, I admit, in desperation--still stands. If you accept it you will be enabled to save your country from her enemies, and we shall both find peace and happiness; if not, then the plot will be carried out, and at least one woman's life will be wrecked--the solitary and unhappy woman who writes these lines and whose name is Leonie_."

She had written that letter calmly and coolly, for the handwriting showed no haste. Evidently she had penned it in the seclusion of her chamber, and Suzanne, her maid, had placed it upon my dressing-table.

I stood with the letter in my hand. My eyes caught my own reflection in the long silver-framed mirror, and I was struck by the haggard, anxious expression upon my own countenance. My personal appearance startled me.

Well I knew the character of this pale and beautiful woman whom all Paris had admired. The impression she gave everyone was that of perpetual and irreconcilable contrast. I had long ago recognised her high mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman's wit and woman's wiles, her almost irresistible allurements, her moments of cla.s.sic grandeur, her storms of temper, her vivacity of imagination, her petulant caprice, her tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her magnificent spirit, and her princely pride. She had dazzled my faculties, perplexed my judgment, bewildered and bewitched my fancy. I was conscious of a kind of fascination against which my moral sense rebelled.

With all her perverseness, egotism, and caprice, she, nevertheless, I knew, mingled a capacity for warm affection and kindly feeling, or, rather, what one might call a const.i.tutional good-nature, and was lavishly generous to her favourites and dependants. She was a Princess in every sense of the word, her right royal wilfulness and impatience often fathering the strangest caprice. There were actually moments when she seemed desirous of picking a quarrel with such immensities as time and s.p.a.ce, and, with the air of a lioness at bay, regarded those who dared to remember what she chose to forget.

She had given me but little time to decide. To-morrow at eleven she would slip away from her guests and await me in that long, tunnel-like pa.s.sage leading through the forest to the ancient town of Moret, at the confluence of the willow-lined Loing with the broad Seine. Its walls and gates, dating from the time of Charlemagne, still remain, and right in the heart of the little town stands the square old donjon keep, now ivy-grown and with its moat full of a profusion of sweet-smelling tea-roses.

I could save England if, in return for her secret, I gave her my love.

Has any man ever found himself in similar perplexity?

Calmly I reasoned with myself, turning again to her letter, and feeling convinced that this sudden pa.s.sion of hers was but a momentary caprice.

No woman, if she were cool and reasonable, would have acted as she had done, for she must have recognised that the difference in our stations rendered marriage impossible.

My duty to my country was to learn the truth about this gigantic conspiracy; yet, at the same time, my duty towards myself and towards the Princess was to leave Chantoiseau at once and forget all that had occurred. Signs had not been wanting in Paris during the past few days to corroborate what she had told me regarding the conspiracy of certain Powers against the prestige of their hated rival England. There was a lull in diplomatic affairs that was ominous; a distinctly oppressive atmosphere which foreboded a storm.

Far into the night I sat thinking, trying to devise some plan by which I could obtain knowledge of her secret without committing myself. But I could find none--absolutely none.

At early morning, before the others were astir, I took a stroll down the hill to where the clear Seine wound beneath the chalk cliff. The larks were soaring high, filling the air with their song. The boatmen going down-stream shouted wittily to each other between their hands, and the bronzed villagers on their way to work in the vineyards chanted merrily the latest popular airs. Life is easy and prosperous among the peasantry around the Fontainebleau forest. In those clean white villages of the Department of Seine et Marne there is little, if any, poverty. I wandered through the pretty, flower-embowered village of Thomery, and, crossing the river by the long iron bridge, entered the smiling little hamlet of Champagne--a quaint and comely group of small cottages, where lived the vineyard-workers. This hamlet is famous for miles round because of a particularly venomous breed of vipers which infest the sun-kissed lands in its neighbourhood. Although only six o'clock, the prosperous little place was already busy, and as I wandered through the village, past the grey old church, and along the wide, well-kept road beside the river, I smiled to think that the name of that old-world place was known everywhere from Piccadilly to Peru, and was synonymous with wealth, luxury, and riotous living.