The Mischief-Maker Part 57

"You feel, perhaps," she went on, leaning towards him, "that you are pledged to Lady Anne. Dear Sir Julien, rub your eyes! I want you to see--all the way to the skies. Lady Anne is a sweet girl who will look nice at the head of any one's table. She will read the papers and take an intelligent interest in her husband's work, and ask him trite and obvious questions to prove that she understands all about it. She will give you phenacetin when you have a headache, she will fill your house with the right sort of people. She will be very amiable and very satisfied. She'll always read the debates and she'll sit up for you at night in a pretty dressing-gown. And all the time the wall will grow, brick by brick, and you will look up to the skies and find them empty, and listen for the music and hear none, and a web will be spun about your heart, and your brain will be clogged, and the fine thoughts will go, and you'll never be anything but a successful politician. You know very well that all the paths to the great pit of unhappiness are crowded with men who have been successful in their profession."

She swayed even closer towards him, her head a little thrown back, her eyes inviting him. He scrambled to his feet. Still she held out her hands.

"Won't you trust me?" she begged. "Believe me that I know the way into the great places, Julien."

"Listen!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "You have offered me everything except your love. Thank Heaven you did not offer me that! I love Lady Anne."

"Everything _except_ my love!" she exclaimed, with the first note of trouble in her tone. "Everything _except_ my love! Are you mad?"

"I love Lady Anne!" he repeated, setting his teeth.

They stood facing one another. She tore a handful of the blossoms from a syringa tree and commenced crus.h.i.+ng them in her fingers. The sound of footsteps scarcely disturbed her. The butler appeared, followed by Lady Anne. The former excused himself with a grave face.

"Madame," he announced, "the Prince von Falkenberg is here."

Madame Christophor turned slowly around.

"The Prince von Falkenberg! Where?"

"In the waiting-room, madame."

She moved away. She did not glance towards Julien.

"I come," she announced.

Lady Anne had some letters in her hand, which she handed to Julien. He threw them hastily aside and drew her suddenly into his arms and into the shadow of the giant palm.

"Anne," he pleaded, "not because of your mother, not because you would make me a suitable wife, but because I love you, will you marry me?"

He felt her relax in his arms.

"Julien!" she murmured.

"I didn't finish the sentence," he went on,--"to-morrow at the Emba.s.sy?"

"Absurd!"

"It's the only way," he insisted confidently. "We couldn't be married in London. All the tribe of Harbord would come and boo, and it would save no end of gossip and bother when we got back. Anne--I love you very much and I want you just as soon as I can get you!"

"Of course, if you put it like that," she said softly,--

"Well?"

"This is the only frock I have."

"The Rue de la Paix is at our gates," he reminded her.

"Be sensible," she begged. "You can't show your-self about Paris.

Something terrible will happen."

"Not it!" he replied confidently. "It's too late."

His arm crept a little further around her waist, he drew her even further back among the drooping palms.

"I think that I like this better than the last time you asked me!" she whispered.

CHAPTER XVI

FALKENBERG'S LAST EFFORT

"Madame," Prince Falkenberg declared, with a formal bow, "I owe you a thousand apologies for this visit."

Madame Christophor looked at him across the room, and in her eyes there was no welcome nor any anger--only surprise.

"You break," she reminded him, "the word of a prince!"

Falkenberg smiled icily.

"There are cataclysms in life," he said, "whirlpools into which one may sometimes be drawn. One's will is overborne. I myself am in that unfortunate position."

Madame Christophor looked steadfastly at her visitor. Was it her fancy or was he really growing older, this man of iron? The story of the last few weeks was written into his face, there were shadows under his eyes, a deep line across his forehead.

"Since you are here, be seated," she invited, sinking herself wearily into a chair. "Tell me as quickly as you can what has brought you?"

"Portel has brought me," Falkenberg answered grimly. "They tell me that he has taken shelter under the shadow of your petticoats."

"Shelter from your a.s.sa.s.sins!"

"Precisely!" Falkenberg admitted.

"I do not admire your methods," Madame Christophor remarked. "They seem to me not only brutal but clumsy. You killed seven men and injured several others, to no purpose."

"Madame," Falkenberg declared, "to secure the death of that man I would have destroyed a whole quarter of Paris and every person in it."

Madame Christophor s.h.i.+vered.

"Thorough, as usual, my dear Prince," she murmured. "Nevertheless, I find such statements loathsome. We should have outlived the days of barbarity. I do not understand men who deal in such fas.h.i.+on with their enemies."

Falkenberg frowned.

"There is something between us greater than personal enmity," he retorted fiercely. "My personal enemy I would deal with in such a manner as I make no doubt would commend itself to your scruples. Julien Portel is more than that. He is the enemy of my country. Upon him, therefore, I shall have no mercy."

"I will not argue with you," she replied. "There is a plainer issue before us. In pa.s.sing my threshold you have broken your word of honor.