THE STORY OF THE SACRILEGE
The nimble lie
Is like the second hand upon a clock;
We see it fly; while the hour hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins, at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal.
—Longfellow: Michael Angelo.
Nicholas and I were not good company for each other that evening. The General, we found, had not returned from Nischon and we ate our evening meal in silence. After dinner we repaired to the smoking room, there to follow out our musings each in his own way.
Nick, with his elbows on his armchair and his chin resting on his interlaced hands, watched the fire leaping and dancing among the burning chestnut logs until, moved by its magnetic influence, he drifted away on the wings of reverie, leaving "the world and all" far behind. Once he spoke aloud, oblivious of my presence.
"What a magnificent creature she has grown to be," he said.
My thoughts also were of the Princess Solonika, but they did not dwell upon her remarkable beauty. They had a totally different trend. I carefully went over the events of the afternoon and the poison of suspicion, implanted in my mind by the vague words of the General, gave colour to everything I had noticed in the summer-house. Nick's steady refusal to countenance the idea had lulled me into the belief that the General was visionary; but the incident of my leave-taking from Solonika brought me up with a sharp turn.
It seemed impossible to imagine that any such masquerade as the General implied could exist these twenty years undiscovered, and, for its successful fulfilment, go on existing thereafter for an indefinite period. I realized, of course, that this was an Anglo-Saxon point of view. In a civilized country with its freedom of intercourse, its newspapers and reporters in search of sensations, its international social life moving always in the limelight of publicity, such an extremely grotesque secret would soon be dragged from hiding and held up to public ridicule. But this was not America. This was barbaric Bharbazonia. Here, shut up in a well protected castle, cut off from the world, hidden from prying eyes by the might of power, anything were possible.
Just what did I suspect? I scarcely knew and I experienced difficulty in making my mind contemplate a proposition so absurd. Why should I not continue to believe that the Prince was the Prince and that Solonika was Solonika? But two other hypotheses forced themselves upon me. Suppose, I said to myself, that on that eventful night, when the bell of Dhalmatia announced the birth of twins, only a daughter had been born. What would the Duke, controlled by an overmastering desire to wrest the succession of the throne from his heirless brother, have done in his despair and excitement?
I had seen the Red Fox and knew that the keynote of his character was craftiness. On the spur of the moment, given no time to consider what suffering his action might entail upon the newborn babe, he would have dashed upon the rope in a frenzy and tolled the bell a second time declaring the advent of a son. Perhaps during the long months of waiting he had planned some such deception should the fates go against him. The truthful nurse, unaware of his desire, had complicated matters and had paid the penalty for her lack of wisdom.
After his rash act, as the Fox sat down to think, gloating over King Gregory's chagrin when he heard the news, he would find two courses open to him. He must either adopt a boy to take the place of the Prince who was not, or he might bring up his daughter to assume the rôle of both Prince and Princess.