The Price of Things Part 41

Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so, underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.

Stepan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way without ceremony.

"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wis.h.i.+ng to give her the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.

The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!

Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.

To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.

Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.

He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality, the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.

Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and unsatisfied suspicion.

He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian dishes and drank of the Chateau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to move him augmented her other feelings.

Her eyes swam with pa.s.sion, as she leaned over the table whispering words of the most violent love in his ears.

Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.

"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"

"Stepan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"

Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her more than once before.

Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:

"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"

"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that hateful bit of bread and b.u.t.ter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"

He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.

Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was exposed at once."

Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.

"You mean about the child--your child--"

The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.

"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never speak idly."

She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.

"Stepan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the child--I want you--why are you so changed?"

He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.

"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me must be that of Stanisla.s.s' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'

The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"

"Then you are going to marry her!"

Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with pa.s.sion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.

She appeared a most revolting sight to Stepan. He watched her with cold, critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He s.h.i.+vered with disgust and degradation at the thought.

She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.

She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a torrent of pa.s.sion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try and rob her of this adored mate.

It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.

He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a little, he spoke with withering calm.

"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only for ill--wherever you have pa.s.sed there is a trail of degradation and slime. Think of Stanisla.s.s! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low l.u.s.t, but to betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to have been your own."

She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.

"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."

She sobbed hoa.r.s.ely and held out her hands.

"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."

He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned her to be silent.

"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of your ways."

She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was that Stepan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She threw herself into his arms once more, pa.s.sionately proclaiming her love.

He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his character was aroused.

"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I wors.h.i.+p and reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."

Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.

"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you may be given, but to-night you can sleep."

Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and kissed his feet.

"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"

But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on the floor.

"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on future nights."

Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to the table, searching his face with burning eyes.