“Your horrible money may have bought poor old Nadasdy, but it will carry you no further.”
Fessenden’s hand closed deliberately on hers, and he drew it through his arm. Ranata was aghast, but it was impossible to struggle, and she stood rigid, but closer to him by two inches.
“I and the money you hate have no further dealings with each other to-night,” he whispered. “But for every barrier it has levelled between you and me, for all that it has permitted me to accomplish that makes me more worthy of you, it has my eternal gratitude. And now, please forget it.”
“I can forget nothing,” she murmured. “And you are running a terrible risk. If my father hears of this you may be requested to leave the Empire.”
“May I tell you that you are looking more beautiful than any one on earth can look?”
“Am I?”
She grasped at her receding anger, but it vanished. Into its place flashed an enchanting sense of danger; the wildness in her Hapsburg blood leaped its dike and seemed to roar in her ears the while it sang in her soul. She forgot the years in which she had mourned the subjugation of Rudolf’s fine brain by his passions, and the interminable disasters his weakness had entailed. Why should she not be thankful that her own drama had begun at last? She should live and feel. What mattered the end?
It was by no means the first time the temptation had beset her since she had met Fessenden Abbott, but her brain had controlled her hitherto; she had fancied that her clear vision would keep the end always in view, however she might feel the weakness of woman within her and indulge it in friendship, while working for the cause of her house. But the excitement and exhilaration of this evening had lifted her to reckless heights, her pulses were throbbing, her being was trembling with exaltation, her head almost whirling. And before her was the great company who knew nothing, suspected nothing. To live in their very presence, as if they were ants on a hill—her newly born dramatic sense flew to the fanning of her emotions. She leaned heavily on his arm and raised her eyes.
“Am I?” she whispered again. “I wondered—I heard your Élyen.”
“I knew that you heard it.”