“I will satisfy you on that point, and relieve your doubt, my Steccho. They are here. Duty was declared on the full collection, Palmieri tells me. It passed as the private jewels of a non-resident alien. So far, I do not believe Ogden Ward has even seen them, but I know the girl has offered them to him in return for the sums he has advanced for her musical education. She has no conception of their value.”
“You know she has offered them to him, excellenza!” Steccho’s head was thrust forward eagerly, the emphasis in his tone conveying his incredulity.
“Through Ward’s Japanese butler, Ishigaki. He overheard her the night Ward gave the girl a dinner.”
“Excellenza, your eyes are everywhere,” murmured the boy.
“Not my eyes, Steccho,” smiled Jurka. “My gold. Georges here is an able and cautious distributor, eh? Does the girl Carlota never wear her jewels?”
He stretched out his feet carelessly for Georges to fasten his boots. The boy watched him with unblinking eyes, thinking of how once he had seen their high, hard heels grind into the dead face of a man lying in the snow. He was the friend of Dmitri and his group then. The war had seemed far from their little mountain village until there came a day when Jurka’s troops came through. They had quartered at the inn and scattered among the different homes. Levano, old Levano, who preached liberty and peace from his blacksmith forge, had staggered out into the road after his two daughters had been violated, and had thrust his red-hot branding-irons into the face of the soldiery. Jurka had ground his heel on his mouth that had stiffened under choked curses.
Later, in an upper room at the inn—He stared fixedly at the highly polished boots of Jurka, and sought to fasten his memory solely on Maryna and the little mother. The Count had said Maryna was a pretty little thing the day he had saved Steccho from the troops. She had run through the crowd in the village and had knelt to wipe her brother’s bruised face. That was the first time he had seen her, and she was barely fifteen. It had been later on, in the upper room at the inn, that Steccho had sworn to enter the service of the Queen providing safety might be assured the two left at Rigl. Whenever, as now, he was tempted to spring at the white, self-assured throat, he forced himself to think of them. He had come to-night primarily to ask if they were still safe, if his excellenza had any news from Rigl, and to shake off the disquieting effect of Dmitri’s philosophy.
“I have never seen her wear jewels, excellenza,” he answered slowly. “She is very young, about sixteen. They would not permit it, probably.”
“She is nineteen and looks older,” returned the Count curtly.
“Pardon—you have then seen her?”