The Puppet Crown Part 23

Her fingers ran lightly over the keys, and presently her voice rose in song, a song low, sweet, and sad. Maurice peered out of the window into the shades of night. Visions pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the curtain of darkness. Once or twice the countess turned her head and looked at him.

It was not only a handsome face she saw, but one that carried the mark of refinement.... Maurice was thinking of the lonely princess and her grave dark eyes. He possessed none of that power from which princes derive benefits; what could he do? And why should he interest himself in a woman who, in any event, could never be anything to him, scarcely even a friend? He smiled.

If Fitzgerald was not adept at a.n.a.lysis, he was. Nothing ever entered his mind or heart that he could not separate and define. It was strange; it was almost laughable; to have fenced as long and adroitly as he had fenced, and then to be disarmed by one who did not even understand the foils! Surrender? Why not?... By and by his gaze traveled to the chess players. There was another game than chess being played there, though kings and queens and knights and bishops were still the sum of it.

"Are you so very far away, then?" The song had ceased; the countess was looking at him curiously.

"Thank you," he said; "indeed, you had taken me out of myself."

"Do you like chestnuts?" she asked suddenly.

"I am very fond of them."

"Then I shall fetch some." It occurred to her that the room was very warm; she wanted a breath of air--alone.

"Checkmate!" cried the Colonel, joyfully.

"Do you begin to understand?" asked Madame.

"A little," admitted Fitzgerald, who did not wish to learn too quickly.

"I like to watch the game."

"So do I," said Maurice, who had approached the table. "I should like to know what the game is, too."

Both Madame and the Colonel appeared to accept the statement and not the innuendo. Madame placed the figures on the board.

Maurice strolled over to the table and aimlessly glanced through the Vienna ill.u.s.trated weeklies. He saw Franz Josef in characteristic poses, full-page engravings of the military maneuvers and reproductions of the notable paintings. He picked up an issue dated June. A portrait of the new Austrian amba.s.sador to France attracted his attention. He turned the leaf. What he saw on the following page caused him to widen his eyes and let slip an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n loud enough to be heard by the chess players.

Madame seemed on the point of rising. Maurice did not lower his eyes nor Madame hers.

"Checkmate in three moves, Madame!" exclaimed the Colonel; "it is wonderful."

"What's the matter, Maurice?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Jack, I am a ruined man."

"How? What?" nearly upsetting the board.

"I just this moment remember that I left my gas burning at the hotel, and it is extra."

The Colonel and Fitzgerald lay back in their chairs and roared with laughter.

But Madame did not even smile.

CHAPTER X. BEING OF LONG RIDES, MAIDS, KISSES AND MESSAGES

Fitzgerald was first into bed that night.

"I want to finish this cigar, Jack," said Maurice, who wished to be alone with his thoughts. He sat in the chair by the window and lifted his feet to the sill. The night wind was warm and odorous. He had found a clue, but through what labyrinth would it lead him? A strange adventure, indeed; so strange that he was of half a mind that he dreamed. Prisoners.... Why? And these two women alone in this old chateau, a house party. There lay below all this some deep design.

Should he warn his friend? Indeed, as yet, of what had he to warn him?

To discover Madame to Fitzgerald would be to close the entrance to this labyrinth which he desired to explore. How would Madame act, now that she knew he possessed her secret? Into many channels he pa.s.sed, but all these were blind, and led him to no end. Madame had a purpose; to discover what this purpose was Fitzgerald must remain in ignorance. What a woman! She resembled one of those fabulous creatures of medieval days.

And why was the countess on the scene, and what was her part in this invisible game?

He finished his cigar and lit another; but the second cigar solved no more than the first. Mademoiselle of the Veil! He knew now what she meant; having asked her to lift her veil, she had said, "Something terrible would happen." At last he, too, sought bed, but he did not sleep so soundly as did Fitzgerald.

Ten days of this charming captivity pa.s.sed; there was a thicker carpet of leaves on the ground, and new distances began to show mistily through the dismantling forest. But there were no changes at the Red Chateau--no outward changes. It might, in truth, have been a house party but for the prowling troopers and the continual grumbling of the Englishman when alone with Maurice.

During the day they hunted or took long rides into the interior of the duchy. Both women possessed a fine skill in the saddle. In the evenings there were tourneys at chess, games and music.

Each night Fitzgerald learned a little more about chess and a little less about woman. The countess, airy and delicate as a verse of Voiture's, bent all her powers (and these were not inconsiderable) toward the subjugation of Maurice. She laughed, she sang, she fascinated. She had the ability to amuse hour after hour. She offered vague promises with her eyes, and refused them with her lips. Maurice, who was never impregnable under the fire of feminine artillery, was at times half in love with her; but his suspicions, always near the surface, saved him.

Sometimes he caught her hand and retained it over long; and once, when he kissed it, there was no rebuke. Again, when she sang, he would lean so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek, and her fingers would stumble into discords. Often she would suddenly rise from the piano and walk swiftly from the room, through the halls, into the park, where, though he followed, he never could find her. One day she and Madame returned from a walk in the forest, the one with high color and brilliant eyes, the other impa.s.sive as ice. Now, all these things did not escape Maurice, but he could not piece them together with any result.

On the morning of the tenth day the two prisoners came down to breakfast, wondering how much longer this house party was going to last.

"George! I wish I had a pipe," said Maurice.

"So do I," Fitzgerald echoed glumly. "I am tired of cigars and weary of those eternal cigarettes. How the deuce are we going to get out of this?"

"What's your hurry? We're having a good time."

"That's the trouble. Hang the d.u.c.h.ess!"

"Hang her and welcome. But why do you complain to me and not to Madame?

Are you afraid of her? Does she possess, then, what is called tamer's magnetism? O, my lion, if only you would roar a bit more at her and less at me!"

"I don't know what she possesses; but I do know that I'd give a deal to be out of this."

"Is the chambermaid idea bothering you?"

"No, Maurice, it is not the chambermaid. I feel oppressed by something which I can not define."

"Maybe you are not used to tokay forty years old?"

"Wine has nothing to do with it."

He was so serious that Maurice dropped his jesting tone. "By the way,"

he said, "do you sleep soundly?"

"No. Every night I am awakened by the noise of a horse entering the court-yard."

"So am I. Moreover, Madame seems to be troubled with the same sleeplessness.

"Madame?"

"Yes. She is so troubled with sleeplessness that nothing will quiet her but the sight of the man who rides the horse: all of which is to say that a courier arrives each night with dispatches from Bleiberg. Now, to tell the truth, the courier does not keep me awake half so much as the thought of who is eating three meals a day at the end of the east corridor on the third floor. But there are Madame and the countess; we have kept them waiting."