He hesitated to obey her, came a few steps, stopped and ran back to her. She petted him again, and again ordered him back. He looked up in her face as if in dire doubt; and then came slowly toward me, but only to stop and turn again. She repeated the gesture; and this time he drooped his tail and came on.
She watched him; and presently looked higher up to me. I waved my hand, but she gave no answering signal; and before the dog reached me, she had passed round the bend in the path and was gone.
I sat down on the fallen tree where we had been together and leant my face in my hands, overcome by a deadening sense of utter desolation and dreary loss. This at first shut out all other thoughts.
But not for long. If the barrier between us was so infinitely greater than my worst fears had conceived that on first learning it I had been whelmed and staggered by the blow, I had gained another knowledge. She loved me; and with that priceless vantage on my side I should be a coward indeed to be daunted by any obstacles.
She loved me; and when I rose, my resolution was set. I would fight on to the end to win her, let who else and what else stand in my path.
CHAPTER XIII.
PREPARING FOR THE CAMPAIGN.
I don’t know any place where money talks with such effect as in the southeast of Europe; and I made it talk for all it was worth during the week that I was getting ready to go to Belgrade.
I reckon that when you want to gain an end the chief means are to know quite definitely what you want, to grip on it with all your teeth, to pay liberally for what you must know to gain it, and to hold your tongue and let the other man do the chattering. You may also at need have a stalking horse.
I used one now in the campaign to win Gatrina. I was hit very hard when she told me the barrier between us was no less than her chance of succeeding to the Servian throne; but I wasn’t knocked out. On the contrary, the bigness of the barrier soon ceased to frighten and began to attract me. I meant to win her; and to go to Belgrade to do it. But I shut that purpose away in the strongest safe in my thoughts with a time lock which would only open to let it out when the fitting moment arrived. What I said was that I was going to Belgrade in regard to a big loan which that little kingdom was just then particularly anxious to float.
It served me well. Any man who was going to put his money into such a venture would naturally want to know things; and, if some of the points on which I sought information did not seem to have any connection, there were plenty of people ready to give it, and none to bother with my motives, so long as I chose to foot the bills.