“Why?” asked Nadia, as calmly as she could. “He is only doing this in obedience to me.”
“Why!” cried her mother. “Because he has insulted us, played with us, made us the laughing-stock of Europe. Although you may be a fool, your father knows how to avenge the honour of his house, and he will not fail to do it. You refused to share the Thracian throne; but it is Carlino who has put it out of his own power to offer you the crown a second time, and for this he must be rewarded as he deserves. In every way we are undone. Not only have we lost the position we might have held in Thracia, but this marriage will endanger the result of all our labours in Europe.”
“Ah!” cried Nadia, assuming a sudden interest in politics in the vain hope of diverting from herself the gaze of her mother’s glittering eyes, “it was this marriage that Vladimir Alexandrovitch was anxious to prevent. He foresaw the possibility of its taking place, and he knew that it would bring Pannonia to the help of King Carlino. Thracia is saved, then!”
“Yes; and you——?” asked Madame O’Malachy, with her most merciless smile, as she retired from the room, half baffled by her daughter’s resolution, but certain that she left a sting behind her. And this was indeed the case. Although Nadia had succeeded in making herself believe that she wished Caerleon to follow the advice she had given him, she discovered now that she had never expected him to do so. She had found an unspeakable comfort in remembering the indignant rebuke with which he had answered her when she told him that although he loved her, it was his duty to marry some other woman; and even now she sorrowed less for the fact that she was herself forsaken than that her lover had proved unstable. He had failed in faith; he was fearless and stainless no more. Well, no doubt it was better so. He was no longer hers, he had not been hers since they parted at Bellaviste; and if he was proved not to be the blameless knight she had imagined him, at least he was a wise king, and was preparing to take the only step by which it seemed possible to save his kingdom in the present crisis. Undoubtedly it was better so. But Nadia’s heart and soul rose up in rebellion against this view of the case, and all day, as she followed the mountain-paths, or moved about inside the hut in which lay the sick child she was visiting, she was mourning in silence a trust betrayed, a high ideal shattered. It was her own fault, she knew; she had told him to forget her, but she had illogically expected him to disobey, and required him to be stronger morally than she was.
But after a day or two other things happened to trouble her. It was generally known throughout Europe by this time that there was a difference of opinion between Scythia and Pannonia on the subject of Thracia, and that in all probability the interposition of Pannonia and her allies at Czarigrad would obtain a settlement of affairs in Caerleon’s favour. This prospect served to stimulate the activity of the Thracian conspirators both at home and in exile, who had been lying low for a week or two, and watching the course of events, but now realised that they could not look to the Powers to do their business for them. The O’Malachy and his wife became increasingly busy, much to the alarm of Nadia, who felt certain that they contemplated delivering some blow, the nature of which she could not divine, against the Thracian kingdom. At last the O’Malachy left Witska on urgent business, and she gathered that his destination was Pavelsburg, although she could only guess at his probable errand there. Nor were her anxieties allayed one day when she found her mother reading with much irritation a newspaper which had just arrived by the post.
“There seems to be no end to the annoyance you bring upon us, Nadia,” said Madame O’Malachy. “As if your foolishness was not enough, your father must needs improve upon it for the benefit of the newspapers. It must have been after dinner, I suppose, as usual. No doubt they gathered round him and drank wine with him, and flattered and sympathised with him, until he was ready to tell them anything. I cannot trust him alone for a day, and yet I cannot leave Witska. Pig! ass! why does he not see that in recounting this pitiful story he forgets that Louis is in Bellaviste, in the Palace itself, and must stay there?”
“What has my father been saying?” asked Nadia, her colour changing.
“Merely parading you before the eyes of Europe as a forsaken heroine,” replied Madame O’Malachy, tearing the offending newspaper briskly across, and throwing the fragments into the stove; “but I will put a stop to that. Give me those telegraph-forms.”
Surprised by her mother’s unaccustomed confidence in her, Nadia obeyed, and was further astonished to find herself consulted as to the wording of the telegram which was to warn the O’Malachy not to repeat his indiscretion, but to maintain a strict silence on the subject of his daughter in future. Several forms were wasted before the message satisfied Madame O’Malachy, but she did not breathe freely until Nadia had taken it to the post-office. As soon as she had time to think, she made a mental resolution to seize any papers other than merely local ones which might enter the house, and destroy them before Nadia could see them. This measure was imperatively necessary, if there was to be any peace in the family; for even her intrepid spirit quailed when she pictured to herself the scene which would ensue if Nadia discovered the construction which the O’Malachy, or the reporters of his words, had placed upon Caerleon’s treatment of her. To Madame O’Malachy, whose common-sense was one of her strongest points, the state of mind in which her husband could choose to boast of the long-past glories of his race, while he did his best at the same moment to proclaim that his daughter had been most cruelly jilted, was incomparably absurd, and the telegram she sent him was short and sharp. The injury inflicted upon Nadia’s future by the publication of a report such as he had set on foot touched her keenly, for all her hopes for old age were based upon the possibility of her daughter’s making a brilliant marriage; and to have her name bandied about in such a connection could not but militate against her prospects. Trouble caused by an incident of this kind she could understand and sympathise with, while Nadia’s refusal of Caerleon and the reasons for it were a sealed book to her, and she was unusually kind to the girl during that day and the next. But on the second evening her sympathy seemed to have exhausted itself, for her manner once more became brusque and her tone sarcastic, and Nadia, whose spirits had risen under the influence of the change in her mother, realised that her presence was no longer desired in the sitting-room. As she opened the door a sudden impulse made her return to the table at which Madame O’Malachy was busied with her writing materials.
“If you are planning anything against him, spare him for my sake,” she said in a low voice, and stopped suddenly, amazed at her own temerity.