FACE TO FACE
As I entered the room Karl came to me with both hands outstretched. Utterly regardless of Colonel Katona's presence, he exclaimed in a tone of intense earnestness; "Thank God, for a sight of you again, Christabel."
"Count Karl," I said, half in protest, as I put my hands into his nervously and glanced at the Colonel.
"Never mind the Colonel. He knows everything," he declared in the most unabashed manner, "even that I have come to recant. I must take back the promise I made the other night."
"Good-morning, Colonel Katona;" and I drew my hands away from Karl, who had held on to them with quite embarrassing pertinacity.
The Colonel's hard eyes were quite soft with the softness of Gareth's as he smiled. "You have a lovely garden here, may I go out into it?"
"Indeed you may not," I replied quickly. If Count Gustav caught sight of him he would be scared right away.
"Count Karl wishes to speak to you alone—that's why I asked," he replied in his blunt, soldierly way.
"I think I am too embarrassed to know what to say or do;" and I sat down helplessly. "I believe it would be best for us all if we were to talk for about a quarter of an hour of nothing but the weather."
Karl laughed. "I can say what I want to say before the Colonel, Christabel," he declared. But Colonel Katona read something in my manner which disturbed him, and he looked at me earnestly, with an eager appeal in his eyes.
"I hope with all my heart it will be fine weather," I said with a meaning look; "but fine or wet I am not yet ready to...." I could think of no word to fit the sentence, and came to an impotent stop.
"I can wait," declared the Colonel, in evident relief; and turning his back to me, he stared resolutely out into the garden.
I glanced at Karl, and was pained to see how really worn and ill he looked. The sunken cheeks, hollow eye sockets, and haggard, drawn features told their tale of the struggle through which he had passed.
He placed a chair close to mine and as he sat down he said, in a low voice: "I have kept my word so far, Christabel, but I can't go through with it. It will beat me."
"You must have courage."
He shook his head with a despairing smile. "You'll think me a miserably weak creature, but I can't help it. I broke down yesterday and I had to do something. I wrote to the Duke and told him how it was with me, and that he must give his consent; and that if he would, I'd give mine."
I didn't pretend to misunderstand him. "You should not have done that."
"If you wish to save me, you must give in, too—and marry me. I don't care about anything else. Gustav is the man they all want. Let them have him. I told you I had no sympathy with the whole thing. I only held out because somewhere in the back of my mind there was an idea that the thing was a mistake, and that if I insisted on retaining my heirship, I might stop it all. But that means losing you again. I can't do that. I can't."
He was so dejected, so worn with the struggle which he had made at my bidding and for my sake, that if I had been in a firmer mood I could scarcely have urged him. And if I tell the truth, I was in anything but that firmer mood. The gates of happiness yawned wide in front of me, and my heart was urging and spurring me to enter them. I was very weak just then.
"You are ill and not yourself," I said.
"Yes, I am ill—but worse in mind than in body. If I had known what it meant when you laid your hand on my arm that day in the Stadtwalchen and I gave that little bottle to you, I wouldn't have done it. I would do it again to win you, Christabel, but not to lose you."
"I saw the Duke last night—or rather he came to see me."
"My father?" he exclaimed, in great surprise.
"Yes, he wished to see what Colonel von Dreschler's daughter was like."
"Did he tell you I had written to him?"
"No. He did not mention your name—but he promised that my father's memory should be cleared, and even that his old title and his estate should be restored."
"Then I've done something to help you, after all, Christabel? I'm glad;" and he smiled. He had no knowledge of all that lay beneath the surface; and I did not tell him. "I wonder what he thought of you," he added, after a pause.
"I think I surprised him," I said, drily.
"I'm sure of that," he agreed in a pleased tone. "I think I see. If he consents to our marriage and helps to secure for you the old title, it will be the best proof he can give the world that he knows your father was innocent of everything. So you see you'll have to marry me, Christabel, if it's only to secure your own purpose. Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently.
"Do you mean you would give up your birthright merely for me?" I asked.
"Why, of course. That's just what I told him," he replied, simply.
"Do you think I would let you?"
He glanced at me with another smile. "I shall give it up in any case. You must do what you please, you can't prevent me. But I——" he hesitated and added hopefully: "I think I'm very sure of you."
"You can't be sure yet of the Duke's consent. There is more to come than you know."
He reached forward suddenly and seized my hand. "I don't care what's going to happen now. You love me. That's enough for me to know."
"You are very confident—almost audacious. Very different from what you were when—Miss Gilmore met you before."
"It's your doing—all of it. You've given me backbone enough to be resolute on one point at any rate—I won't lose you."
"You must wait to see what occurs here to-day," I said.
"I tell you I don't care. What is it?"
The answer came in a very unexpected form. The door opened and I snatched my hand from Karl's as I heard James Perry say: "Will you wait here a minute, my Lord?"
He had mistaken the directions I had given him about the room into which Karl's brother was to be shown; and the next instant, Count Gustav entered and was staring at us all in amazement.
James was a shrewd fellow, and having recognized his blunder did the best thing to cover it. He shut the door behind Count Gustav and thus made his retreat impossible.
"I am afraid you have mistaken the house, Count," I said, drily. "This is not General von Erlanger's. But pray sit down."
He was bitterly chagrined, and shot at me such a glance of hate that I knew he understood I had outwitted him. Then his devil-may-care nature reasserted itself, and he sat down and laughed.
"I suppose this is prepared for me?"
"Yes and no. My servant has mistaken the room into which you were to be shown—that is all. I meant to see you alone first. There will probably be some money to be returned to you—unless he has made another mistake as to that. I told him to be careful to insist upon part payment for his treachery in advance. I'll ring for him."
"What's this, Gustav?" asked Karl, as I crossed to the bell.
"Nothing to do with you," was the surly reply.
"Good morning, Count Gustav," put in Colonel Katona, "Miss von Dreschler, may I not now go and admire your garden?"
"No, Colonel, not yet if you please." At the answer, his face clouded ominously. He glanced from me swiftly to Count Gustav, and back to me with dark suggestiveness.
James Perry came in then.
"Did Count Gustav give you any money this morning, James?"
"Yes, Miss Christabel."
"Give it to me." He handed me a bundle of notes and went out. I passed them on to Count Gustav. "You have made a mistake, Count. American servants are not to be found on the bargain counter."
"There is something here to be explained," said Colonel Katona, abruptly.
"Count Gustav was to have come to me at General von Erlanger's at twelve o'clock to-day; perhaps it might explain matters if he told us why he preferred to come here." I spoke very coldly.
He dropped his eyes to the ground, declining the challenge, and sat swinging his legs moodily in silence.
"What is it all, Christabel?" asked Karl.
"Trouble perhaps for us all, and probably very serious trouble. If Count Gustav will not explain, I will."
I stopped for him to speak.
"You know why I came?" he said.
"Your brother and Colonel Katona do not."
"Hadn't we better speak together alone first?"
"Yes, if you wish."
We went out together into another room.
"You have played me an ugly trick," he began.
"It is rather that you sought to play me one and failed. You came here to steal Gareth from my care."
"Where is she?"
"In this house here."
"My God!" There was no mistaking the intensity of his feelings. He threw himself into a chair and stared down at the carpet, his face wrinkled in lines of thought, perplexity, and fear. "Does Colonel Katona know?" he asked after a long, tense pause.
"Not yet."
"You mean to tell him?"
"I have brought him here for that purpose.
"He mustn't be told."
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders, and left him to interpret the gesture as he pleased.
"You don't know what you are doing. My God, you don't; or you'd never dare. What are your terms now?"
"No more than they were before—and no less."
He took a paper from his pocket. "Here's the first of them—over my father's signature."
"Is this what you were to have brought to the General's house?"
"Yes," he nodded.
"It is not your doing, then, that part?"
"What else do you want?"
"You know quite well—that you make Gareth your wife."
"You're not so clever as you think you are," he jeered. This cheap sneer at me appeared to afford him some relief.
"Have you no thought for her?
"I don't wish to hear about her from you."
"Then her father and yours had better speak of her. The Duke knows the story by now; and the matter has to be settled somehow."
"You are brewing an awful mess and making any settlement impossible. But then you're a woman, and can be trusted to do that."
"Shall I send for Colonel Katona to come to us here?"
"No," he cried quickly, and then gave a desperate sigh.
"Yet you love Gareth," I said.
"I tell you I won't hear of her from you."
"And she has given you all her innocent heart, trusting you, believing in you, loving you, as only such a sweet pure girl as she could."
"I will not hear you," he cried again fiercely.
"If you will not, there is only one alternative." He was silent, so I continued. "I do not plead for her—don't think that. Her cause needs no pleading at my hands; because there are those who will not see injustice done to her. You know that—selfish, reckless, wicked and daring as you are. Her father is equally daring, and knows how to revenge a wrong done to her."
"What do you want to say, then? Can you see any way?"
"When you spoke to me that afternoon at Madame d'Artelle's house about her, I saw that you loved her; and what I would appeal to now is that love of yours for her."
"Go on," he said sullenly.
"You would be neither sullen nor indifferent if you could have seen her when to-day she knew you were coming. You know little of a woman's heart; but I know it—and all Gareth's was in her glad eyes at the thought of being once again with you. She is not well, moreover worried and harassed by suspense; ill with the fever of unrest. She has no strength for the part you have made her play, and the passionate desire to have this tangle straightened and peace made with her father is wearing her life away."
Whether he was touched by this, I cannot say. He gave no sign.
"You wish for a chance to checkmate me," I continued; "and here you can find one. I promised her happiness—you can give that promise the lie; you can break her heart and blight her life, and probably kill her. I have acted in the belief that you cared for her: you can sneer that belief out of existence, and win at least that one success over me. You would have a victory of a sort; but I would not envy your feelings in the hour of triumph."
He took this in silence also. I did not think he had even cared to listen.
"Have you anything more to say?" he asked after a pause.
"If your heart is dead to her, no words are needed—none can do any good. But it will not be well for you."
"Threats now?"
"I leave them for Gareth's father. You know what he can do?"
Something in the words touched him. He looked up with a new, sudden suspicion. "You know that, too?" he asked, sharply. "Is that why you've trapped me here like this?"
"That is not my part of it," I replied, ambiguously, leaving him to make of the answer what he would.
"Can I see Gareth?"
"Yes, when her father knows, and with his consent."
He shrugged his shoulders and sneered again. "You take me for a villain, of course. You said so once."
"I will gladly revise my opinion if you will give me occasion."
"I told you you were not so sharp as you thought. If you were, and if there is what I suppose there is behind those words of yours just now, you would see that I might be as anxious as yourself for Gareth—if only I could see the way."
"I should be glad to think it—for her sake."
"You can. It's true. And if you could see a way I'd forgive you all the rest."
"I have no more to say—to you," I said, rising.
"You are going to tell him?"
"Yes—now. There is no good in delay."
He got up, frowning, his face anxious but resolute. "No; this is my affair. You have done enough mischief. Send him to me. I'll tell him."
"I will not have violence in my house."
He came close to me and stared into my eyes. "Do you know what Colonel Katona can do in this?"
"I know he has sworn to have the life of the man who has wronged his child."
He waved this aside with a shake of the head and a toss of the hand. "Is that all you know?"
"Yes—but it is enough."
"I will tell him myself. Not alone if you say so. Karl can hear it too."
"You had better go to them. You will of course tell him everything. If you do not, I shall."
"You don't understand. This is beyond you now. I shall tell him one thing which you have been too prejudiced and blind to see—that Gareth is already my wife, legally—as you like to insist."
"I don't believe you—nor will he."
"Believe it or not as you please—it is true; if a priest of the Holy Church can make man and woman husband and wife."
He swung away with that, and I watched him cross the hall with quick, firm steps, and enter the room where Colonel Katona and Karl were waiting.
I was glad to be spared the ordeal of that interview, and was still standing thoughtfully at the closed door on the other side of which that scene of the drama was being enacted, when a carriage drove up rapidly.
I knew it was General von Erlanger and the Duke, and I told the servant to show them into one of the larger rooms in the front of the house.