The Princess Dehra Part 29

The Princess shrugged her shapely shoulders.

"It is quite unnecessary to tell us what your barbaric nature told us long ago," she replied. "When do you wish to depart?"

"Within the week."

"And for where?"

"For France-Paris in particular."

"Very well-prefer your request through the regular channel, as any other officer, and I will grant it;" and with a perfunctory nod, she resumed her reading.

"I am permitted to withdraw?" he asked.

"You are always permitted to withdraw," she answered, without looking up.

"I like your spirit, Dehra," he laughed; "you and I would make an unconquerable pair; it is a pity you won't be my queen."

She pointed toward the door.

"Go, sir," she ordered, her voice repressed to unusual softness; "go! nor present yourself again until you have received permission."

And with a smile and a bow, he went; backing slowly from the room, in an aggravation of respect.

He had not come to the Palace for leave to go to France, or any where else; where he wanted to go, and when, he went. But his plans required that he be absolutely free and untrammeled, and so he had done this to insure himself against being ordered suddenly to some military duty that might hamper his movements even slightly. And his visit had been doubly successful-he had the permission, and in such a form that he was given the utmost liberty, and he had also learned the Regent's real att.i.tude toward him, and that even with her it would be a fight without quarter.

What the American would make it, the dead bodies in the De Saure house had indicated as plainly as spoken words-and, indeed, as such he knew they had been deliberately intended.

As he pa.s.sed one of the windows in the corridor, he caught, far off amid the trees, the sheen of a white gown; he paused, and presently he recognized Mlle. d'Essolde. With a smile of sudden purpose, he went quickly down a private stairway that opened on the Park below the marble terrace, and, eyes on the white gown, that showed at intervals through the bushes, he sauntered toward it.

There was, to be sure, a woman with raven hair and dead-white cheek at the Ferida, but there was also a woman yonder, and handier, with golden hair and sh.e.l.l-pink cheek; and variety was much to his taste, at times-and the picture on the stair still lingered with him, fresh and alluring. True, she had not received his advances with that flattered acquiescence he was rather used to, but he had no particular objection to temporary opposition; it gave zest to the victory-and, with him, victory had been rarely lost.

He encountered her in a narrow path, walled in by thick hedges of scarlet j.a.ponica, turning the corner suddenly and greeting her with a smile of well a.s.sumed surprise; stopping quite a little way off and bowing, his cap across his heart.

And she stopped, also; touched by fear and repugnance, as though a snake lay in her path.

"A happy meeting, mademoiselle," he said.

"For whom, sir?" she asked, turning half away.

"For me," he laughed, going toward her; "and for you, too, I hope."

She put her back to the hedge and made no answer.

"I owe you a very abject apology, for the other day," he said, standing close beside her, and leaning on his sword. "I fear I was brutally rude."

"There isn't the least doubt of it," she replied, and made to pa.s.s on.

He stepped before her.

"And are so still," she added.

"Come, Elise," he smiled, still blocking the way, "come; forgive me."

"Very well, I forgive you," she said, indifferently, and tried again to pa.s.s.

"Nonsense, my dear," catching her wrist, "put a bit of warmth into it-and then prove it by a little stroll with me toward the lake."

She recoiled at his touch, much as though the snake had stung her, and tried to wrench free, tearing her thin gown and scarring her flesh on the sharp thorns of the j.a.ponica, but making no outcry.

And this encouraged Lotzen; she was playing it very prettily indeed-to yield presently, the weary captive of superior strength. That a woman might be honest in her resistance, he was always slow to credit; but that one should actually be honest, and yet struggle silently rather than permit others to see her with him, was quite beyond his understanding.

He glanced up and down the path; no one was in sight, and the hedge was high-he would make the play a little faster. Hitherto, he had been content to hold her with a sure grip, and let her fling about in futile strivings; now he laughed, and drew her slowly toward him, his eyes fixed significantly upon her flushed face and its moist red lips, parted with the breath-throbs.

"Where shall I kiss you first, little one?" he asked-"on the mouth, or a check, or the gleaming hair?"-He held her back an instant in survey....

"Coy?-too coy to answer-come, then, let it be the lips now, and the others later, by the lake."

She had ceased to struggle, and her blue eyes were watching the Duke in fascinated steadiness. To him, it signified victory and a willing maid-he took a last glance at the path-then with a cry and a curse he dropped her wrist and sprang back, wringing his hand, the blood gus.h.i.+ng from a ragged wound across its back, where Elise d'Essolde's teeth had sunk into the flesh.

And she, with high-held skirts, was flying toward the Palace.

He sprang in pursuit-and stopped; she would pa.s.s the hedge before he could overtake her; and the open Park was no place for love making of the violent sort-nor with a wound that spurted red. The business would have to bide, for the present.... Over toward the terrace he saw the flutter of a white gown.

"d.a.m.n the little cat!" he muttered; "she shall pay me well for this."

Elise d'Essolde, spent with running, her brain in a whirl, her hair dishevelled, weak-kneed and trembling now with the reaction, reached the marble steps near the pergola and sank on the lowest, just as Colonel Moore came springing down them, his eyes toward the j.a.ponica walk, searching for the girl in a white gown whom he was to have met there half an hour ago.

And he would have pa.s.sed, unseeing, had she not spoken.

"Ralph!" she said, "Ralph!"

He swung around.

"Elise!" he exclaimed, "I'm sorry to be so late-I was-heaven, child, what has happened?"

The sight of him, and the sound of his voice, had calmed her instantly and put her pulse to normal beating; and now that she was with him, safe and unscathed, the coquette in her could not resist the temptation to torment him.

"Another kept the rendezvous," she answered, with affected navete.

He pointed to the torn gown.

"And that?" he asked.

"I did it."

"And the hair?"

"The penalty of an ill-arranged coiffure."

"And the red mark on your face-blood, it looks like."