By Wit of Woman

by Arthur W. Marchmont

I COME TO TERMS WITH MADAME

My interview with Karl led to a very disquieting discovery. I sat for some time thinking about it—and my thoughts increased rather than diminished my uneasiness.

To use a very expressive vulgarism one often hears at home, I began to fear that I "had run up against a snag." In other words, I had misunderstood the real nature of my feelings for Karl; and that miscalculation might cost me dear.

It was true that when I had seen him at Madame d'Artelle's I had hated him cordially; but the reason was clear to me now. It was not my pride that he had hurt in not recognizing me. It was my anger that he had stirred—that he should have forgotten me so completely. It looked so much like the due corollary of his old conduct that I had taken fire.

And now I found he had not forgotten me at all; and knew that I had won my little victory over him because he remembered me so well.

It was a surprise and a shock; but nothing like the shock it gave me to find how elated and delighted I felt at the fact. For a time I could scarcely hold that delight in check. It took the bit in its teeth and ran away with my sober common sense. My thoughts very nearly made a fool of me again; and I am afraid that I positively revelled in the new knowledge just as any ordinary girl might.

But, as I had told General von Erlanger, I was not a "usual person;" and I succeeded in pulling up my runaway thoughts in the middle of their wild gallop.

I was no longer in love with Karl. I had settled that years before. I was intensely embittered by his conduct; he had behaved abominably to me; had flirted and cheated and fooled me; and I had always felt that I never could and never would forgive him. His present condition was a fitting and proper punishment, and he deserved every minute of it.

My interest in him now was purely selfish and personal. I had only one thing to consider in regard to him—how I could make use of him to secure justice to my father's reputation, and punishment for the doers of that great wrong.

Moreover, even if he did care, or thought he still cared for one whom he had so wronged, and if I were an ordinary girl and magnanimous enough to forgive him, and if, further, I could save him permanently from the opium fiend, we could never be more than mere friends. There was an insuperable barrier between us.

I knew this from the papers which my father had left behind him. I had better explain it here; for I thought it all carefully over as I sat that morning in the Stadtwalchen.

There was the great Patriotic movement in the way, of which Karl's father, Duke Ladislas, was the head and front. The aim was nothing less than the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Hungary was to be made an independent kingdom, and Duke Ladislas was to have the throne.

The time to strike the great blow had been decided years before. It was to be at the death of the old Emperor. The movement had the widest ramifications; and the whole of the internal policy of Hungary was being directed to that paramount object.

In one of his papers, my father had suggested that the secret of his ruin was part and parcel of this scheme. While Duke Alexinatz and his son, Count Stephen, lived, the right to the Hungarian throne would be theirs; and thus, Duke Ladislas, a man of great ambition and the soul of the movement, had every reason to welcome Count Stephen's death; and that death had occurred at a moment when the Austrian Emperor lay so ill that his death was hourly expected.

My father's intellect, impaired as it was by his solitary confinement, could not coherently piece the facts together. Synthetical reasoning was beyond him for one thing; and for another he could not bring himself to believe that the man whom beyond all others in the world he admired and trusted, Duke Ladislas, could be guilty of such baseness and crime as the facts suggested. Appalled, therefore, by the conclusions which were being forced upon him, he had abandoned the work in fear and horror.

I had no such predispositions or prejudices; but as yet I had no proofs. I could only set to work from the other end, and attempt to discover the agents who had done the deed, and work up through them to the man whose originating impulse might have been the real first cause.

But the solid fact remained that Count Stephen's death cleared the way to the new throne for Duke Ladislas and his sons; and therefore, if I were to succeed in killing Karl's opium habit, and even induce him to play the great part in life open to him, he would be the heir to the throne, when gained, and I impossible except as a friend.

Two days before, nay two hours before, I should have asked and desired no more than that; but after this talk with Karl—and at that moment I stamped my foot in impotent anger, and wrenching my thoughts away from that part of the subject, got up and walked hurriedly away in the direction of Madame d'Artelle's house.

I arrived as she was sitting down to lunch, and she gave me a very frigid reception. I saw that she had passed a very uncomfortable morning. She had been weeping, and having found in her tears no solution of the problem I had set her, was sullen and depressed.

"You have been out, Christabel?"

"Yes, completing my plans."

"What a knack you have developed of making spiteful speeches! I had no idea you could be so nasty."

"What is there spiteful in having plans to complete?"

"I suppose they are aimed at me!"

"My dear Henriette, must I not be careful to have some place to go and live in? Be reasonable."

"You always seem to have some undercurrent in what you say. It's positively hateful. What do you mean by that?"

"Some of us Americans have a trick of answering one question with another. I think I'll do that now. What do you think I'd better do when you are gone?"

"I don't understand that either," she said very crossly.

"I mean to-morrow."

"I am not going anywhere to-morrow." She could lie glibly.

"That may be nearer the truth than you think; but you have planned to go away to-morrow—with Count Karl."

"Preposterous."

"So I think—but true, all the same. You are very foolish to attempt to hoodwink me, Henriette. You are thinking of trying to deny what I say. I can see that—but pray don't waste your breath. I told you this morning that in an hour or two I should know everything. I do now."

"Have you seen Count Karl?"

"Do you think I should tell you how I find out things? So long as I do find them out, nothing else matters. But I will tell you something. You will not go, Henriette. I shall not allow it."

"Allow?" she echoed, shrilly.

"I generally use the words I mean. I said 'allow'—and I mean no other word. I shall not allow it."

She let her ill temper have the reins for a minute, and broke out into a storm of invective, using more than one little oath to point her phrases. I waited patiently until her breath and words failed her.

"I am glad you have broken out like that. There's more relief in it than tears. Now I will tell you what I mean to do—and to do to-day. I have had inquiries made in Paris for M. Constans, and a wire from me will bring him here in search of you. You know what that means;" I added, very deliberately, as I saw her colour change. I guessed there was ground for the bluff that I knew much more than my words expressed.

"I don't believe you," she managed to stammer out—her voice quite changed with fear.

"Your opinion does not touch me. In your heart you know I never lie, Madame—and for once you may trust your heart. If you force me, that telegram will go to-day. Nor is that all. I will go to Duke Ladislas and tell him the story of the lost jewels, and who instigated the theft and received the stolen property."

"They have been given back; besides, will he prosecute his own son?"

"The theft shall be published in every paper, and with it the story of how Count Karl has been ruined by opium drugging. By whom, Madame—by the secret agent of the French Government, the ex-spy of the Paris police—Madame Constans? You can judge how Austrian people will read that story."

She had no longer any fight left in her. I spoke without a note of passion in my voice; and every word told. She sat staring at me, white and helpless and beaten.

"More than that and worse than that——"

"I can bear no more," she cried, covering her face with trembling fingers.

I don't know what more she thought I was going to threaten to do. I knew of nothing more; so it was fortunate she stopped me. She was in truth so frightened that if I had threatened to have her hanged, I think she would have believed in my power to do it.

"Why do you seek to ruin me? What have I done to make you my enemy?" she asked at length.

"I do not seek to ruin you, and I will be your friend and not your enemy, if you trust instead of deceiving me. I will save you from Count Gustav's threats."

"How can you?"

"What matters to you how, so long as I do it?"

"He knows all that you know."

"What, that you are here to betray the leaders of the Hungarian national movement to your French employers and their Russian allies?"

"Nom de Dieu, but how I am afraid of you?" she cried.

"If I tell him that how will it fare with you?"

"No no, you must not. I will do all you wish. I will. I will. I swear it on my soul."

"Tell me then the details of the elopement to-morrow. I know enough to test the truth of what you say; and if you lie, I shall do all I have said—and more."

"I will not lie, Christabel. I am going to trust you. It is arranged for to-morrow night. I leave the house here at nine o'clock in a carriage. At the end of the Radialstrasse Count Karl will join me. We drive first to a villa in Buda, behind the Blocksberg—a villa called 'Unter den Linden.' We are to be married there; and on the following day we cross the frontier into Germany and go to Breslau."

She said it as if she had been repeating a lesson, and finished with a deep-drawn sigh.

"Is he coming to-day?"

"No."

"To-morrow?"

"No."

"Ah. That is to convince me that all is broken off?"

"Yes." She was as readily obedient as a child.

"Count Gustav is coming to-day?"

"Yes. This afternoon at four o'clock. To settle everything."

"Good. You will see him and be careful to act as though everything were as it was left when you saw him yesterday."

"I dare not."

"You must. Everything may turn upon that. You must."

"But if he suspects?"

"You must prevent that. I shall see him afterwards. If you let him suspect or if you play me false, I shall know; and the consequences will not be pleasant for you. You will tell Count Gustav not to see you to-morrow, because you are afraid I shall guess something; and that if he has to communicate with you, he must write. It is the only way in which I can save you from him."

"And what am I to do afterwards?"

"I will tell you to-morrow. Be assured of this. I and those whose power is behind me will see not only that no harm comes to you, but that you are well paid."

"I am giving up everything."

"It is no time to bargain. What you are giving up in reality is the risk of a gaol and the certainty of exposure and ruin—and worse."

"Mother of Heaven, have mercy on me!" she cried.

I did not stop to hear her lamentations. It was two o'clock already. I had still many things to fix, and I must be back in the house soon after Count Gustav reached it. The fur was to fly in my interview with him; and I must have all my claws sharp.

I did not make the mistake of underestimating his strength as an adversary. I should have to use very different means with him from those which had sufficed to frighten Madame d'Artelle; and I must have the proofs ready to produce. I was going to change his present half-contemptuous suspicion into open antagonism; and that he could and would be a very dangerous enemy, I did not allow myself to doubt.

My first step was to find the house in Buda of which Madame d'Artelle had spoken. It was a bright pleasant house in a pretty, carefully kept garden; not more than a mile from the villa I myself had just rented. But to my surprise it was occupied: a girl was playing with a couple of dogs on the lawn. My first thought was that Madame had misled me; my second, to try and ascertain this for myself.

I entered the garden and walked toward the house, and the dogs came scampering across barking. The girl turned and followed them.

"Your garden is beautiful," I said, with a smile. "If the house is as much beyond the description of it as the garden, it will suit me admirably."

"You came to take the house?" she asked.

"Yes, I have a letter here—let me see, oh, this is my list—ah, yes—'Unter den Linden.' Is not that the name?" and taking a slip of paper from my pocket I pretended to consult it.

"Yes, this is 'Unter den Linden'—those are the trees;" and she pointed to the limes which gave the name. "But I am afraid you are too late. I think it is let."

I was overcome with disappointment; but perhaps she would ask her mother. We went into the house and she left me in the dining-room. Presently the mother came; a tired looking creature who had once been pretty, like the girl, but was now frayed and worn. She was very sorry, but the house was let. I was just too late. It had only been let the previous day. Did I want it for long?

"Not more than twelve months certain," I told her.

She threw up her hands. "Just my ill-luck," she cried, dismally. "I have let it for two months, and we go out this evening. But perhaps I could get out of it."

"That is not worth while. I should not want it for a month yet, and perhaps could wait for two. Could I see over the house?"

In this way I was taken into every nook and corner of it; and enabled to fix every room and passage and door in my memory. And then I inspected the garden and outside places.

"Do you leave your servants?" I asked, at the end of a number of questions.

"We keep but one. My daughter and I live alone, and do most of the work when we are at home. And the servant goes away with us."

"An excellent arrangement. I have my own servants. I wonder now if we could induce your tenant to let me have the place in a month. Who is he?"

"It is taken for Count von Ostelen—but I do not know him. The agents have done everything. I could ask them."

"Do so, and let me know;" and I jotted down at random a name and address to which she could write, and left.

I had done well so far; and I drove rapidly to my own house in good spirits over my success.

There was only one point which puzzled me. Why had that name, Count von Ostelen, been used? Was it merely as the name in which Count Karl usually travelled incognito? Just as he had used it in New York? Or had his brother some other motive?

It was only a trifle, of course; but then, as I have said, I am accustomed to take some trifles seriously.

If I could have seen a little farther ahead, I should have taken this one even more seriously than usual; and should not have dismissed it from my thoughts as I did when I reached my house and was kissing Gareth in response to the glad smile with which she greeted me.

My next step concerned her.