The Enemies of Women Part 6

Between these two declining beauties, who had seen themselves the center of attraction and adoration in former years, there was a common bond, something which moved them both like far off lovely music, like the cherished memory of youth: It was the daughter of Dona Mercedes, the vivacious Alicia Macdonald.

Dona Mercedes seemed to see her own beauty, renewed with fresh vigor, in her child. But in this she was mistaken. Alicia added to her dark southern splendor the slenderness and slightly boyish freedom of movement of her father's race. The Princess, observing the girl's independent character, thought she saw herself back once more in the days when she was beginning to shock the Imperial Court. This too was a mistake. She herself had been able to follow all her most wilful impulses, without fear of gossip. She possessed everything. Besides her immense wealth, she had the advantages of birth, enabling her to elevate any man whatsoever to her own level, no matter how far beneath her he might be. Alicia had one ambition; to unite her fortune with a great t.i.tle of the old aristocracy in order to be presented at court. Since her fifteenth year this desire had been fixed, calculating design, dissimulated under apparent recklessness. From her fairy-story days, her mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search nowadays of millionaires' daughters.

Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarra.s.sed at meeting this girl in his palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression, as though everything and everyone should bow before her!

She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cl.u.s.ter of snakes, gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued exercise and play.

Dona Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from the first meeting.

"Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are cousins."

Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relations.h.i.+p, he endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.

The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.

"Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."

Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels, knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun very young to nibble at the grapes of life.

On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."

"She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says to me!"

As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict her.

Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of infantry.

Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-elysees, Dona Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen, and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the pa.s.sersby occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.

The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this fas.h.i.+on, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was fifteen.

One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting her companion.

"No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.

"I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.

The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the two animals to their knees. The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and struck the Prince across the shoulders.

"You do that to _me_!" shouted Michael furiously.

The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two, receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove the young woman mad with rage.

"Brute! Savage!... Russian!"

This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.

"Spaniard!... Murderer of Indians!"

And fearing a new las.h.i.+ng after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.

After this incident Dona Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's becoming a Lubimoff.

"A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in Russia!... A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish count."

Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured him.

"I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.

And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had always seemed to her very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the equals of the Lubimoffs.

Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His military studies were pa.s.sed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the boy succeeded in distinguis.h.i.+ng himself among the most famous cavalry officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemans.h.i.+p.

With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor and General Saldana would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well, with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the artillery--sons of clerks and merchants!

At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice faithfully by coming to a direct understanding with the Russian administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was spending something over three millions a year. His racing stables were the most celebrated in the capital. Many famous beauties of the court and the theaters were on good terms with Prince Michael Fedor. His supper parties in the Lubimoff palace or in the fas.h.i.+onable restaurants were sought after by all the young men of the aristocracy. To be invited to one of them was an extraordinary honor, something like being a member of an academy of supermen. It often happened that toward morning on nights of such parties celebrated women finished by dancing naked on the tables, so that the host "might not be displeased."

Sometimes these celebrations ended in drunken brawls, where wine mingled with blood. The Colonel had seen one of these suppers result in a duel between two of the guests. It took place in the palace garden, just before dawn. One of the men was killed. His best friends carried the corpse to the quay of the Neva, and placed a revolver in his hand to make it look like a case of suicide.

No: Don Marcos did not care much for those nocturnal feasts. He considered them dangerous. On one occasion, a youthful Grand Duke, absolutely drunk, amused himself by daubing the Colonel's whiskers with caviar, until, tired of such brazen familiarity, the Spaniard in turn put his hand in the dish and smeared the other man's august face with green. The duke hesitated for a moment whether or not to kill him, but finally embraced him, covering him with kisses and shouting aloud, "This is my father."

Toledo preferred his own honorable and quiet friends.h.i.+ps with General Saldana's former companions in arms; solemn personages who talked to him about world politics and future wars. Besides, the Prince's generosity permitted the Colonel secret pleasures, less noisy, and agreeably unostentatious.

One night, returning to the Lubimoff palace after two o'clock, he saw there was a supper party in the great dining hall used on gala occasions. Some fifty guests had a.s.sembled, and in the course of the night many more had arrived. It seemed that the news had spread throughout all the pleasure resorts of the capital, attracting all the youthful libertines.

Opposite the Prince was seated a Cossack officer, short, lithe as a panther, dark skinned, with Asiatic eyes. His wrinkled uniform showed signs of recent traveling. Michael Fedor showed him the greatest attention, as though he were the only guest. Toledo, being acquainted with all the friends of the house, was unable to place this uncouth Cossack, who looked as though he had come from some remote garrison in Siberia. Some one offered to relieve his uncertainty. He was startled on learning that it was the brother of a court lady who just at that moment was being much talked about on account of her extreme familiarity with Michael Fedor. The two men looked at each other with keen interest, exchanging silent toasts in huge gla.s.ses of champagne. At the other end of the hall arose the ceaseless wail of gypsy violins. Several dark skinned girls with striped ap.r.o.ns of many colors were dancing about the tables. But in spite of that, Don Marcos, glancing about, felt instinctively a note of gloom.

"Leon, the sabres!"

The Prince, after looking at his watch, had arisen and given this order to his body servant, who was standing behind him. All the guests rushed for the doors forming a jam, like a crowd, pus.h.i.+ng and shoving, at the entrance to a theater. There was no reason now to conceal their real feelings. They were eager for the promised spectacle. The Colonel finally found some one who could talk intelligibly.

"He came last night, to ask the Prince to marry his sister. A thirty-eight day trip.... The Prince refuses.... It isn't often you'll see a match like this.... He's the best swordsman in Siberia."

The garden was covered with snow. It was night, and the uncertain moon illumined it with slanting rays, lengthening immeasurably the shadows of the trees. More than a hundred men formed in two black ma.s.ses on the borders of the walk. The Colonel noticed the arrival of several servants. One was bringing swords; the rest were carrying large trays with bottles and gla.s.ses.

Michael Fedor bowed to his enemy, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with kindliness and drink.

"Would you like another gla.s.s of something?"

The Cossack thanked him with a gesture, and immediately Toledo saw him remove his long coat, the breast of which was adorned with cartridge pouches. Then he took off his s.h.i.+rt, and finally remained in nothing save his trousers and high boots. Then he stooped, and seizing two handfuls of snow, began to rub his wiry body and muscular arms.

The Prince, like many of the spectators, s.h.i.+vered slightly with surprise and cold; but nevertheless that the condition of the combat might be equal, Lubimoff felt it imperative that he should follow the example of his hardy adversary. While he was removing the upper part of his uniform several torches were lighted and began to blaze like red stars in the semi-darkness of the moonlit garden.

Don Marcos could see the two men face to face. They were bare from the waist up. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s shone from the moisture of the recent ma.s.sage.

In their hands quivered sabres as sharp as razors.

"Ready!"

Some one was directing the fight.