In Direst Peril

by David Christie Murray

Turning and looking at the speaker, I failed for a mere instant to recognize her. I had seen her but twice before, and then only for a moment at a time, and under circumstances of no especial interest. She saw the doubt in my face, and reintroduced herself. She looked extremely pretty, and even fascinating, in a coquettish little bonnet of the fashion of that time.

When her face was in repose one could judge of her age, but when she smiled all her wrinkles—and there were a good many of them—melted into the smile, and her face looked almost girlishly young and innocent. She owned that look of youth and freshness in spite of the fact that she was rouged and powdered and painted as if she had been ready for the stage. It was pretty easy to see that she had not been quite as much affected by the “noble occasion” as she pretended to have been, for the slightest shower of tears would have ruined that admirable and artistic make-up.

“I pass for Austrian,” said the baroness; “but I am Hungarian all over, and I hate, I hate, I hate the Austrians! If I had my way I would kill them every one.”

She spoke with a pretty enough pretence of vindictiveness, but her manner was not very convincing.

Supposing I had been aware of this little person's purpose, what should I have done, I wonder? What should I have been justified in doing? I had rather not answer that question, even to myself. But if I had known for a certainty what was in her heart, and what lay in the future, there are not many things at which I should have hesitated to spoil her plans.

She did not find me very sympathetic or very ardent. I was tired, for one thing, and for another I can never take very kindly to humbug, even when a pretty woman offers it. The baroness turned from me to Brunow, beseeching him to introduce her to the acquaintance of that dear and charming Miss Rossano, who had so much her sympathy, and the spectacle of whose natural emotion had so much affected her. I am not very observant in such matters, but though Brunow disguised it pretty well, I am sure that I noticed some reluctance in his manner. He made the presentation, however, and the baroness flowed out in sympathy and congratulation.

“I am myself Hungarian,” I heard her say, “but I have lived in Austria half my life. There is no need to tell you anything about that terrible government, but—mon Dieu! the things I have seen and known! I am a stranger, Mees Rossano, and the hour is sacred; but you will forgive this intrusion, will you not? because I could not help it.”

She spoke with so much vivacity and feeling that I felt a little sorry for my contemptuous thoughts of her. She had said her say, and she behaved with more reticence and more apparent delicacy than I should have been disposed to give her credit for. She said something to the count in a low and rapid voice, and he answered by the offer of his hand, and a mere broken murmur of response. I made out that she had asked to be honored by taking the hand of one ennobled by so much suffering, and the quiet and unobtrusive fashion in which she slipped from the room after offering this tribute raised her anew in my opinion. It would have been a just thing, had one known all, to have crushed that dangerous and wicked little viper exactly as if she had really been a snake, instead of a woman with a snake's nature.

She went her way, however, having begun her work of mischief under my eyes.

Another night or two of such emotion would have been fatal to our rescued prisoner; and, indeed, he gave us all a fright before we got him home that evening. All the enthusiasts had cleared away, and I was leading the poor gentleman towards a cab which had been already summoned and was now waiting in the street, when, without warning, he swooned away. I felt his arm slipping rapidly from mine, and caught him just in time to save him from a heavy fall. I carried him back to the vestry, and there we loosened his collar and laid him on the couch, and dashed water in his face, while Brunow ran for brandy. He recovered in a while, but was even then too weak to walk, so that I carried him in my arms to the street, and set him down in the cab. My wife has often told me, in talking over those old times, that she looked on me at that moment as a man possessed of Herculean strength; but, in truth, the poor fellow was so attenuated that his weight was scarcely greater than a child's.