CHAPTER IX.

A WOMAN OF HER WORD.

The ball given by the municipality of Bellaviste at the Hôtel de Ville in honour of their new King was the grandest entertainment ever seen in the city. Every one who had the slightest claim to receive an invitation was present, with the exception of the agents representing the various Powers, and the staffs of their respective consulates, who held themselves severely aloof from a festivity of which the _raison d’être_ was the social inauguration of a sovereignty not recognised by the arbiters of European opinion. The display of Thracian costumes and Parisian toilettes was dazzling, but the observed of all observers were Madame O’Malachy and her daughter, who were by no means among the smartest people present. Mr Hicks, the American newspaper correspondent, who had attended so many society functions that he knew as much about female dress as the cleverest lady paragraphist that ever reported an aristocratic wedding, was inclined to be dissatisfied with Nadia’s appearance. There was a kind of affectation of humility, he thought, a too evident desire to emphasise the distance between Caerleon and herself, in her severely plain dress of black net, cut barely low enough to pass muster on such an occasion, and in the absence of any relief, such as might have been afforded by flowers or ornaments, that marked it. It was true that her beautiful head and shoulders appeared to derive additional grace from the simplicity of their surroundings, but there was something unsuitable about the general effect. Did the beggar-maid don her oldest rags when Cophetua came to woo her? Mr Hicks thought not. And again, why did Miss O’Malachy look so like a victim led to the sacrifice as she followed her mother into the room, and so anxious and unhappy when her eye rested on the King? Mere excitement would not account for her troubled expression, and she was sure enough of her prize not to be fearful as to the outcome of the ordeal of the evening. Could it be possible that she did not reciprocate the King’s affection? Was it--could it be--Mr Hicks ground his teeth as he intercepted a disapproving glance levelled at Nadia by Cyril, and felt for one agonised moment that he had missed the most thrilling point of his romance--was there a rivalry between the brothers?

“I call it real mean of the old lady never to have given me a hint,” he groaned, thinking of the extra columns of copy such an intimation would have supplied, but presently he grew calm again. “There’s nothing of the sort, or those two fellows couldn’t carry on as they are doing. A woman can be as sweet as possible to another when she hates her like poison; but two men can’t be easy together when they have quarrelled over a girl.”

Reassured to find that he had not let slip an opportunity of gaining information, he set himself once more to watch the glittering scene and observed that Caerleon invited Nadia to dance with him as soon as he had done his duty to the wives of the city fathers. He saw Madame O’Malachy’s thrill of anxious expectation as the King approached her, and divined instantly that the offer of such an honour was in itself equivalent to a proposal of marriage. But Nadia declined it, although her watchful mother softened the refusal by adding that she did not dance.

“He shouldn’t have come to ask her himself,” soliloquised Mr Hicks, who knew a good deal more about the etiquette proper for royalty than did most of the exalted personages at whose Courts he sojourned. “Ought to have sent his brother, or his equerry--if he has one. And she had no business to refuse, anyway. A girl that don’t dance ought not to go to Court balls.”

But although he turned away with a feeling of lordly contempt for people who could manage their affairs so badly, Mr Hicks took care not to lose sight of Nadia during the evening. More than half the programme had been gone through when he saw Cyril sauntering up to her. He also saw Nadia shiver slightly, then sit very erect, and he guessed that the fateful moment had come.

“Will you sit out this dance with me?” asked Cyril, adjusting one of his sleeve-links as he spoke. The American, watching him, thought the action a piece of aristocratic rudeness, but Cyril was merely doing his best not to look towards Madame O’Malachy. If she should gain from his face an inkling of his compact with her daughter, she was quite capable, he was sure, of making a scene in public, supposing that she judged it to be to her interest to do so, and he felt much relieved when he had succeeded in avoiding her eye, and had left her engrossed in conversation with Mr Hicks. With Nadia on his arm, he led the way to one of the smaller balconies, which were curtained off from the corridors, and decorated with plants and palms, and here he found her a seat.

“Caerleon may not be here just yet,” he said. “I saw him dancing with Madame Sertchaieff just now. He has to be civil to her, you know, as she is the War Minister’s wife.” He went on talking lightly in his ordinary tones, and did not testify any resentment when Nadia vouchsafed no answer to his cheerful commonplaces, but sat still, her rigid hands outstretched before her and locked in one another, until her face changed suddenly at the sound of a footstep without.

“I was very lucky in getting off so soon,” said a voice, and Caerleon drew back the curtain and stood before them, in all the magnificence of the full-dress uniform of the Carlino Regiment. “I caught my spur in Madame Sertchaieff’s dress,” he went on, “and tore it so badly that she had to go and get it sewn up. Now, Cyril, old man, if you will add to your kindness by making yourself scarce for a little while, I shall be much obliged.”

Resisting the temptation to give Nadia a last glance of warning, Cyril departed obediently, and mounted guard in the corridor outside with an air of philosophical calmness, which he was very far from feeling. If she should fail him now! “It would make Thracia too hot to hold me,” he mused, “for she’s bound to tell Caerleon the whole story at once,” and he shifted his position impatiently as he pictured the look of pain and aversion which the revelation would bring into Caerleon’s honest eyes. He would have been still more anxious as to the results of his diplomacy if he could have heard the words in which, without wasting time on preliminaries, his brother went straight to the matter in hand.

“I am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice for me, Nadia. Those silly women out there may think that it’s something very grand to be Queen of Thracia, but you know better, and so do I. It means isolation, and worry, and being opposed and thwarted in what you have set your heart on, and it is very likely to mean danger, perhaps death. There are not many women I could ask to share these things with me; but I think that you care for me enough to be willing to help me through it all.”

He had struck the right chord at once, and the eloquence of Nadia’s eyes encouraged him to go on.

“I know,” he said, taking her hands in his, “that it doesn’t sound the proper thing for me to throw it all on you, and ask you to take me as a charity, but it seems to appeal to you more strongly if it is put in that light. Doesn’t it signify to you at all that I care for you, Nadia? that I have loved you since the very first day I saw you? I don’t believe you realise in the least what you are to me. I wish I could make you understand how I love you. Look at me--look into my eyes, and perhaps you will see.”

But Nadia shivered, and drew her hands out of his clasp. The vehemence of his tone frightened her, and she dared not meet his eye. She could not say a word, for the lump which had suddenly risen in her throat seemed to choke her. He noticed her agitation, and tried to speak more calmly.

“I am sure you can’t possibly know,” he said, “what a revelation it is to a man who has become accustomed to look at things in an ordinary everyday way, to be brought into close contact with a woman whose sole idea is to do right. One’s courage fails sometimes, when one is alone against the world, and I want you to help me to do what ought to be done for the kingdom.”

“I can’t marry you,” gasped Nadia, looking up at him with anguished eyes; “it would not be right.”

“Not right! Why not?” he asked in astonishment.

“On account of so many things. My parents--Louis----”

“I am sure you need not trouble yourself about them,” said Caerleon, with an involuntary smile at the thought of the ease with which the O’Malachy family would almost certainly be managed. “Louis is provided for in the army, and your father and mother will give up their wandering life, and settle down quietly here.”

“But it is myself!” cried Nadia, desperately. “I am not what you want in a wife, not good enough, not--not important enough. I should do nothing but bring trouble upon you. I am afraid to marry you. I dare not do it. I will not.”

“I think you will, when you understand how much I want you,” said Caerleon, with all the spirit of his fighting forefathers roused by her opposition. “Why, I am offering you work, and you know you have often told me that it is wrong to refuse work when it comes in one’s way. You cannot tell me that you mean to cast me off because you are afraid of the silly remarks people will make?”

“Oh, why will you make me say it?” she cried, driven to bay by his tone. “I will not marry you, then, because you ought to marry a princess--some one who has been brought up to be a queen, and whose family will be a support to you in Europe. That is what you must do.”

“Nadia!” he said in astonishment, “you tell me to marry a stranger, when I love you? You can’t think that right?”

“I know,” she said, despairingly. “It all seems to me horribly, fearfully wrong, but it must be right, because it is so hard to do.”

“You are in love with martyrdom,” he said, with unwonted sternness; “but you have no right to try to sacrifice me as well as yourself.”

“Very well, say that I am in love with martyrdom, then,” she answered, drearily. “Persuade yourself that I love it better than I do you.”

“I have no doubt you do,” returned Caerleon; “but I have the misfortune to love you better than an utterly unnecessary sacrifice.”

“And I,” she said, “love you so much that for your sake I can separate myself from you for ever.”

“Is that your idea of love?” he asked bitterly, but with something of dismay in his voice.

“It is,” she answered.

“But, Nadia, this is monstrous!” he cried. “You tell me that you love me, and yet you order me to marry some one else. You must know that such a thing can’t be right. Sit down here quietly, and let us talk the matter out. I think you will see that you are cruelly unfair.”

“I daresay I should,” said Nadia, refusing to take the seat to which he tried to draw her. “I have not a doubt that you could convince me--make me yield, at any rate, since my own heart is on your side. But you will not. I know that you are stronger than I am, and you will not take an ignoble advantage of your strength to make me do what I know is wrong. Think,” as he gazed at her in silence, “how we should feel, if I married you, and our marriage plunged Thracia into misfortunes--if you were forced to abdicate.”

“I should do it with a good conscience, and go home happily with you,” returned Caerleon, with unexpected promptness. “If that’s all, I’ll abdicate now. What do I care for the kingdom? There has been nothing but worry and rumours of approaching trouble since I accepted it, and if it’s to come between you and me, I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”

“Oh no, no,” entreated Nadia, clinging to his arm as he turned towards the doorway. “Don’t talk like that! Let me believe in you still. You accepted the kingdom because it was right, for the sake of the people, and I know you will govern wisely. Don’t let me be disappointed in you. If I can give you up because it is right, you can give me up. I can bear anything if I am sure that I can trust you to go on as you have begun.”

“What can I do?” broke out Caerleon in his despair. “You do your best to break my heart, and then you expect me not even to struggle. Nadia, have you no pity? Give me some hope. Say that after a year--two years--any length of time--I may speak to you again. What is a man to do when you bring up his own sense of honour against him?”

“He must submit,” said Nadia. Caerleon stood looking at her in silence, his heart protesting wildly against the barriers she had raised between them. It was on his lips to say, “You have told me you love me, and that’s enough. Nothing shall part us.” He felt sure that his love must prevail over her scruples; she had said so herself. But she had appealed to his chivalry; how could he disappoint her? The struggle was a cruel one, and he turned away from her without a word. She saw her advantage, and went on--

“I know you will let me be proud of you still. You won’t know where I am, but I shall always watch what you are doing, and I shall feel glad to think that perhaps I have helped you--a little. And then some day you will meet some one whom it is right for you to marry, and you will remember that I wished it----”

“Are you trying to drive me mad, Nadia?” he cried, turning upon her fiercely. “If you told me you did not care for me, I could bear it better. But it makes one feel such a fool, when you have said you love me, to stand back and let you go. How can you expect it of me?”

“It is right,” she answered, slowly.

“Let me kiss you once, only once,” he entreated.

“Oh no, no, no!” she almost shrieked, feeling that her resolution must give way at the touch of his lips. “Keep your kisses for your bride!”

“I don’t think I have deserved that,” he said, bitterly. “Understand once for all, Nadia, that you need not lay the flattering unction to your soul that I shall comfort myself as you please yourself by imagining I shall do. I can’t marry you against your will, but I won’t marry any other woman. Until I met you I thought that I should never marry, and now that you won’t have me I know it. It is you or no one, and you will cheerfully sacrifice me to a fancied scruple----”

“You see that you are well rid of me,” said Nadia.

“Nonsense!” cried Caerleon. “I love you more than ever. I can’t do without you. Just think of the life to which you are condemning me. To be alone always, never to be able to get away from the glare and rush of public life, never to have any one to cheer me on, never to have a home. I thought you would have helped me. I thought you would be there to advise me when I could not see my way clearly. You always seem to be sure of the right path at once. Do you really think that marrying the Emperor of Scythia’s daughter--if I had the faintest intention of taking the advice you have been giving me to-night--would ever make up for that? I don’t mean to marry to strengthen my position in Europe. I want a wife who will look at things without fear or favour, and help me to do what is right. Isn’t this a mission for you? Tell me, my dearest, is there no chance for me?”

“None,” she answered, with difficulty, the fervency of his pleading almost destroying her power of speech. “Please, please, say no more. You cannot tell how my heart is longing to say Yes; but I dare not yield. Don’t you see that all the course of our lives has been leading up to this--to the great choice between right and wrong? It is right now to think of the kingdom, and not of ourselves, and so I can be strong to refuse you for your own sake. It is hard for you, I know, but I think it is harder for me. You can stand alone, but I--oh! I could not do it if I was not sure it was right. Never, never think that I did not love you. Please let me go.” He loosed her hands, and she drew aside the curtain and passed out, looking back at him as he stood watching her in despairing silence, then tapped Cyril on the shoulder with her fan. “Will you kindly take me back to my mother, Lord Cyril? She was intending to leave early.”

Mr Hicks, when in after days he related his impressions of the incidents of that evening, whether in conversation or in the columns of the ‘Empire City Crier,’ was wont to remark, with much originality and force, that coming events cast their shadows before them, and that there is no accounting for the sympathetic movements of certain finely constituted minds. This was his way of leading up to the striking fact that while he and Madame O’Malachy were in the midst of a pleasant chat, in which the reputations of various Thracian notabilities suffered rather severely, the lady broke off suddenly in the course of a sentence and sighed deeply. In response to his anxious inquiries, she assured him that she was not ill, but that she felt a presentiment of coming misfortune,--“and at such a time as this,” she added, “you, monsieur, as a friend of the family, will be at no loss to understand the subject of my anxiety. You will pardon a mother’s weakness, but it is hard to see two young lives wrecked by an obstinate pride. You have watched with interest the course of the attachment--the royal idyl, as I might call it--between the King and my daughter, and I know you will sympathise with me in my fear lest Nadia, in her sensitive delicacy, should have refused her lover through fear of being supposed to covet his throne.”

“And you’ll scarcely believe me,” Mr Hicks was accustomed to continue, ignorant that by means of a mirror behind him Madame O’Malachy had noticed Nadia approaching her from the other end of the room, and discerned in an instant that her companion was not Caerleon, “but the words were not out of her mouth when I saw Lord Cyril in the distance, with Miss O’Malachy on his arm as white as a sheet, and I knew her mother was right at once. No girl that had just accepted a king ever went about with a face like that.”

“Oh, Mr Hicks, do tell!” his enraptured audience would exclaim; and Mr Hicks would go on to detail how Madame O’Malachy had turned as white as her daughter on seeing her face, but had said calmly that the heat of the room was too much for Miss Nadia, and they must go home; and how she had turned to him with a sorrowful look that went to his heart, and whispered, “My kind friend, do this for us. If any one speaks to you of the matter we were discussing, let it be known that my daughter has refused his Majesty for the reason I feared.”

In fulfilling this parting request Mr Hicks, as a gallant American, and therefore a sworn servant of the fair sex, had spent the remainder of the evening, only pausing to glance at the King as he passed through the hall about half an hour later with set face and firmly closed lips on his way back to the palace, on the plea of illness. To the observer who had noted duly at the beginning of the entertainment that “his Majesty looked extremely well, and conversed affably with the different persons presented to him,” the change spoke volumes; but other people were not quite so ready to accept Madame O’Malachy’s explanation as he was. More than one of the chaperons with whom he touched on the subject gave it as her opinion that the King had informed Miss O’Malachy that he could not, consistently with his duty to the nation, marry her; and that a harrowing scene had ensued. It was extraordinary how widely it was known in the ballroom that something of the kind had occurred, and Mr Hicks found his duty of impressing Madame O’Malachy’s view of the case on his friends to be no sinecure. But he persevered, for he sympathised deeply with her in her disappointment, and he was also sorry for Nadia, who, as he rightly supposed, would have a good deal to endure from her mother on the way home. “Those outspoken, affectionate women can do an astonishing amount of reproaching when they are once worked up,” he said to himself; but he never dreamed of the storm of sarcasm and cruel invective under which Nadia was writhing at the moment.

The next day found Bellaviste society divided into two parties, one of which accepted Madame O’Malachy’s account of the events of the evening before, and believed that an insane pride had driven Nadia to refuse the King; while the other, led by Madame Sertchaieff, and relying on the authority of M. Drakovics, held that his Majesty had, more or less directly, declined to marry her. Madame Sertchaieff was the great lady of Bellaviste. As the wife of the Minister for War (the brother of the Ivan Sertchaieff who had been the last Premier of the late king), she took the lead in the society of the city, and derived no small honour from the fact that her husband was the only member of the Ministry whom M. Drakovics treated on anything approaching a footing of equality. With every desire to make the Thracian army invincible, the Premier was handicapped by an absolute ignorance of military affairs, and since General Sertchaieff had turned his back on his brother and his party to adopt the cause of the revolution, he left all the actual work of the bureau in his hands, and also consulted him frequently on the general policy of the Government. Consequently, when Madame Sertchaieff (it is needless to say that she had not been among the ladies whose eagerness to see Nadia had so deeply scandalised the Premier) averred that she had guessed, from the excitement visible in the King’s manner when he danced with her, that he was screwing up his courage to the point of formally breaking off his relations with Miss O’Malachy, and further hinted that the step had been taken on the advice and with the full approval of M. Drakovics, she carried many of her hearers with her. Curiosity was rife as to what would be the next step on either side; but on the evening after the ball the public excitement was cruelly balked by the news that the O’Malachy family, with the exception of Louis, had left the city. They were gone because it could not but be disagreeable to Miss O’Malachy to run the risk of meeting her rejected lover at every turn, said Mr Hicks and his party; because they had received a secret mandate from the police advising them to depart, said Madame Sertchaieff and her friends; because the O’Malachy and his wife, perceiving that there was no opening in Thracia for their peculiar talents, had determined to return to the service of their Scythian employers, thought Cyril.

Had Cyril possessed a conscience in good working order, it might have given him a certain amount of trouble at this time; but systematic neglect and snubbing had reduced his to a condition in which, while it prevented his full enjoyment of his achievements, it never interfered with him during their performance, nor caused him to wish that they had not succeeded. Like the British matron in “Locksley Hall,” he had amassed “a little hoard of maxims,” or perhaps it would be more correct to say impressions, during his social career, and these he employed as balm whenever his conscience gave him a feeble prick. On the subject of love and marriage these impressions were particularly