54-40 or Fight Part 16

"You are good enough to admire my modest place," said a laughing voice at my shoulder. Then indeed I waked and looked about me, and saw that this, stranger than any mirage of the brain, was but a fact and must later be explained by the laborious processes of the feeble reason.

I turned to her then, pulling myself together as best I could. Yes, she too was the same, although in this case costumed somewhat differently.

The wide ball gown of satin was gone, and in its place was a less pretentious robing of some darker silk. I remembered distinctly that the flowers upon the white satin gown I first had seen were pink roses. Here were flowers of the crocus, cunningly woven into the web of the gown itself. The slippers which I now saw peeping out as she pa.s.sed were not of white satin, but better foot covering for the street. She cast over the back of a chair, as she had done that other evening, her light shoulder covering, a dark mantle, not of lace now, but of some thin cloth. Her jewels were gone, and the splendor of her dark hair was free of decoration. No pale blue fires shone at her white throat, and her hands were ringless. But the light, firm poise of her figure could not be changed; the mockery of her glance remained the same, half laughing and half wistful. The strong curve of her lips remained, and I recalled this arch of brow, the curve of neck and chin, the droop of the dark locks above her even forehead. Yes, it was she. It could be no one else.

She clapped her hands and laughed like a child as she turned to me.

"Bravo!" she said. "My judgment, then, was quite correct."

"In regard to what?"

"Yourself!"

"Pardon me?"

"You do not show curiosity! You do not ask me questions! Good! I think I shall ask you to wait. I say to you frankly that I am alone here. It pleases me to live--as pleases me! You are alone in Montreal. Why should we not please ourselves?"

In some way which I did not pause to a.n.a.lyze, I felt perfectly sure that this strange woman could, if she cared to do so, tell me some of the things I ought to know. She might be here on some errand identical with my own. Calhoun had sent for her once before. Whose agent was she now? I found chairs for us both.

An instant later, summoned in what way I do not know, the old serving-woman again reappeared. "Wine, Threlka," said the baroness; "service for two--you may use this little table. Monsieur," she added, turning to me, "I am most happy to make even some slight return for the very gracious entertainment offered me that morning by Mr. Calhoun at his residence. Such a droll man! Oh, la! la!"

"Are you his friend, Madam?" I asked bluntly.

"Why should I not be?"

I could frame neither offensive nor defensive art with her. She mocked me.

In a few moments the weazened old woman was back with cold fowl, wine, napery, silver.

"Will Monsieur carve?" At her nod the old woman filled my gla.s.s, after my hostess had tasted of her own. We had seated ourselves at the table as she spoke.

"Not so bad for a black midnight, eh?" she went on, "--in a strange town--and on a strange errand? And again let me express my approbation of your conduct."

"If it pleases you, 'tis more than I can say of it for myself," I began.

"But why?"

"Because you ask no questions. You take things as they come. I did not expect you would come to Montreal."

"Then you know--but of course, I told you."

"Have you then no question?" she went on at last. Her gla.s.s stood half full; her wrists rested gently on the table edge, as she leaned back, looking at me with that on her face which he had needed to be wiser than myself, who could have read.

"May I, then?"

"Yes, now you may go on."

"I thank you. First, of course, for what reason do you carry the secrets of my government into the stronghold of another government? Are you the friend of America, or are you a spy upon America? Are you my friend, or are we to be enemies to-night?"

She flung back her head and laughed delightedly. "That is a good beginning," she commented.

"You must, at a guess, have come up by way of the lakes, and by batteau from La Prairie?" I ventured.

She nodded again. "Of course. I have been here six days."

"Indeed?--you have badly beaten me in our little race."

She flashed on me a sudden glance. "Why do you not ask me outright _why_ I am here?"

"Well, then, I do! I do ask you that. I ask you how you got access to that meeting to-night--for I doubt not you were there?"

She gazed at me deliberately again, parting her red lips, again smiling at me. "What would you have given to have been there yourself?"

"All the treasures those vaults ever held."

"So much? What will you give me, then, to tell you what I know?"

"More than all that treasure, Madam. A place--"

"Ah! a 'place in the heart of a people!' I prefer a locality more restricted."

"In my own heart, then; yes, of course!"

She helped herself daintily to a portion of the white meat of the fowl.

"Yes," she went on, as though speaking to herself, "on the whole, I rather like him. Yet what a fool! Ah, such a droll idiot!"

"How so, Madam?" I expostulated. "I thought I was doing very well."

"Yet you can not guess how to persuade me?"

"No; how could that be?"

"Always one gains by offering some equivalent, value for value--especially with women, Monsieur."

She went on as though to herself. "Come, now, I fancy him! He is handsome, he is discreet, he has courage, he is not usual, he is not curious; but ah, _mon Dieu_, what a fool!"

"Admit me to be a fool, Madam, since it is true; but tell me in my folly what equivalent I can offer one who has everything in the world--wealth, taste, culture, education, wit, learning, beauty?"

"Go on! Excellent!"

"Who has everything as against my nothing! _What_ value, Madam?"

"Why, gentle idiot, to get an answer ask a question, always."

"I have asked it."

"But you can not guess that _I_ might ask one? So, then, one answer for another, we might do--what you Americans call some business--eh? Will you answer _my_ question?"

"Ask it, then."

"_Were you married_--that other night?"