54-40 or Fight Part 6

"Quite agreed!" she answered. But she motioned me away, taking the stout boot in her own hand and turning aside as she fastened it. She looked over her shoulder at me now and again while thus engaged.

"Tell me," she said gently, "what security do _I_ have? You come, by my invitation, it is true, but none the less an intrusion, into my apartments. You demand of me something which no man has a right to demand. Because I am disposed to be gracious, and because I am much disposed to be _ennuye_, and because Mr. Pakenham is fat, I am willing to take into consideration what you ask. I have never seen a thin gentleman in a woolen nightcap, and I am curious. But no gentleman plays games with ladies in which the dice are loaded for himself. Come, what security shall _I_ have?"

I did not pretend to understand her. Perhaps, after all, we all had been misinformed regarding her? I could not tell. But her spirit of _camaraderie_, her good fellows.h.i.+p, her courage, quite aside from her personal charm, had now begun to impress me.

"Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this world's goods. All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms.

I can not offer gems, as does Senor Yturrio--but, would this be of service--until to-morrow? That will leave him and me with a slipper each. It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!"

By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed there that very day for quite another purpose. It was only a little trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of sh.e.l.ls and connected by beaded thongs. I had got it among the tribes of the far upper plains, who doubtless obtained the sh.e.l.ls, in their strange savage barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes trafficked in sh.e.l.ls which found their way as far north as the Saskatchewan. The trinket was curious, though of small value. The baroness looked at it with interest.

"How it reminds me of this heathen country!" she said. "Is this all that your art can do in jewelry? Yet it _is_ beautiful. Come, will you not give it to me?"

"Until to-morrow, Madam."

"No longer?"

"I can not promise it longer. I must, unfortunately, have it back when I send a messenger--I shall hardly come myself, Madam."

"Ah!" she scoffed. "Then it belongs to another woman?"

"Yes, it is promised to another."

"Then this is to be the last time we meet?"

"I do not doubt it."

"Are you not sorry?"

"Naturally, Madam!"

She sighed, laughing as she did so. Yet I could not evade seeing the curious color on her cheek, the rise and fall of the laces over her bosom. Utterly self-possessed, satisfied with life as it had come to her, without illusion as to life, absorbed in the great game of living and adventuring--so I should have described her. Then why should her heart beat one stroke the faster now? I dismissed that question, and rebuked my eyes, which I found continually turning toward her.

She motioned to a little table near by. "Put the slipper there," she said. "Your little neck clasp, also." Again I obeyed her.

"Stand there!" she said, motioning to the opposite side of the table; and I did so. "Now," said she, looking at me gravely, "I am going with you to see this man whom you call your chief--this old and ugly man, thin and weazened, with no blood in him, and a woolen nightcap which is perhaps red. I shall not tell you whether I go of my own wish or because you wish it. But I need soberly to tell you this: secrecy is as necessary for me as for you. The favor may mean as much on one side as on the other--I shall not tell you why. But we shall play fair until, as you say, perhaps to-morrow. After that--"

"After that, on guard!"

"Very well, on guard! Suppose I do not like this other woman?"

"Madam, you could not help it. All the world loves her."

"Do you?"

"With my life."

"How devoted! Very well, _on guard_, then!"

She took up the Indian bauble, turning to examine it at the nearest candle sconce, even as I thrust the dainty little slipper of white satin again into the pocket of my coat. I was uncomfortable. I wished this talk of Elisabeth had not come up. I liked very little to leave Elisabeth's property in another's hands. Dissatisfied, I turned from the table, not noticing for more than an instant a little crumpled roll of paper which, as I was vaguely conscious, now appeared on its smooth marquetry top.

"But see," she said; "you are just like a man, after all, and an unmarried man at that! I can not go through the streets in this costume.

Excuse me for a moment."

She was off on the instant into the alcove where the great amber-covered bed stood. She drew the curtains. I heard her humming to herself as she pa.s.sed to and fro, saw the flare of a light as it rose beyond. Once or twice she thrust a laughing face between the curtains, held tight together with her hands, as she asked me some question, mocking me, still amused--yet still, as I thought, more enigmatic than before.

"Madam," I said at last, "I would I might dwell here for ever, but--you are slow! The night pa.s.ses. Come. My master will be waiting. He is ill; I fear he can not sleep. I know how intent he is on meeting you. I beg you to oblige an old, a dying man!"

"And you, Monsieur," she mocked at me from beyond the curtain, "are intent only on getting rid of me. Are you not adventurer enough to forget that other woman for one night?"

In her hands--those of a mysterious foreign woman--I had placed this little trinket which I had got among the western tribes for Elisabeth--a woman of my own people--the woman to whom my pledge had been given, not for return on any morrow. I made no answer, excepting to walk up and down the floor.

At last she came out from between the curtains, garbed more suitably for the errand which was now before us. A long, dark cloak covered her shoulders. On her head there rested a dainty up-flared bonnet, whose jetted edges shone in the candle light as she moved toward me. She was exquisite in every detail, beautiful as mind of man could wish; that much was sure, must be admitted by any man. I dared not look at her. I called to mind the taunt of those old men, that I was young! There was in my soul vast relief that she was not delaying me here longer in this place of spells--that in this almost providential way my errand had met success.

She paused for an instant, drawing on a pair of the short gloves of the mode then correct. "Do you know why I am to go on this heathen errand?"

she demanded. I shook my head.

"Mr. Calhoun wishes to know whether he shall go to the cabinet of your man Tyler over there in that barn you call your White House. I suppose Mr. Calhoun wishes to know how he can serve Mr. Tyler?"

I laughed at this. "Serve him!" I exclaimed. "Rather say _lead_ him, _tell_ him, _command_ him!"

"Yes," she nodded. I began to see another and graver side of her nature.

"Yes, it is of course Texas."

I did not see fit to make answer to this.

"If your master, as you call him, takes the portfolio with Tyler, it is to annex Texas," she repeated sharply. "Is not that true?"

Still I would not answer. "Come!" I said.

"And he asks me to come to him so that he may decide--"

This awoke me. "No man decides for John Calhoun, Madam," I said. "You may advance facts, but _he_ will decide." Still she went on.

"And Texas not annexed is a menace. Without her, you heathen people would not present a solid front, would you?"

"Madam has had much to do with affairs of state," I said.

She went on as though I had not spoken:

"And if you were divided in your southern section, England would have all the greater chance. England, you know, says she wishes slavery abolished. She says that--"

"England _says_ many things!" I ventured.

"The hypocrite of the nations!" flashed out this singular woman at me suddenly. "As though diplomacy need be hypocrisy! Thus, to-night Sir Richard of England forgets his place, his protestations. He does not even know that Mexico has forgotten its duty also. Sir, you were not at our little ball, so you could not see that very fat Sir Richard paying his bored _devoirs_ to Dona Lucrezia! So I am left alone, and would be bored, but for you. In return--a slight jest on Sir Richard to-night!--I will teach him that no fat gentleman should pay even bored attentions to a lady who soon will be fat, when his obvious duty should call him otherwhere! Bah! 'tis as though I myself were fat; which is not true."

"You go too deep for me, Madam," I said. "I am but a simple messenger."

At the same time, I saw how admirably things were shaping for us all. A woman's jealousy was with us, and so a woman's whim!