Chapter 12

"I dare say,"--smiling. She wanted to ask him if he had ever been hurt, this daredevil of a lieutenant, but she could not bring the question to her lips. "What did you say his name was?"--innocently.

"Warburton, Robert Warburton."

Here the butler came in with the birds. The girl's eyes followed him, hither and thither, her lips hidden behind the rose.

XVIII

CAUGHT!

Karloff came around to music. The dramatist's wife should play Tosti's _Ave Maria_, Miss Annesley should play the obligato on the violin and the prima-donna should sing; but just at present the dramatist should tell them all about his new military play which was to be produced in December.

"Count, I beg to decline," laughed the dramatist. "I should hardly dare to tell my plot before two such military experts as we have here. I should be told to write the play all over again, and now it is too late."

Whenever Betty's glance fell on her father's face, the gladness in her own was somewhat dimmed. What was making that loved face so care-worn, the mind so listless, the attitude so weary? But she was young; the spirits of youth never flow long in one direction. The repartee, brilliant and at the same time with every sting withdrawn, flashed up and down the table like so many fireflies on a wet lawn in July, and drew her irresistibly.

As the courses came and passed, so the conversation became less and less general; and by the time the ices were served the colonel had engaged his host, and the others divided into twos. Then coffee, liqueurs and cigars, when the ladies rose and trailed into the little Turkish room, where the "distinguished-looking butler" supplied them with the amber juice.

A dinner is a function where everybody talks and nobody eats. Some have eaten before they come, some wish they had, and others dare not eat for fear of losing some of the gossip. I may be wrong, but I believe that half of these listless appetites are due to the natural confusion of forks.

After the liqueurs my butler concluded that his labor was done, and he offered up a short prayer of thankfulness and relief. Heavens, what mad, fantastic impulses had seized him while he was passing the soup! Supposing he _had_ spilled the hot liquid down Karloff's back, or poured out a glass of burgundy for himself and drained it before them all, or slapped his late colonel on the back and asked him the state of his liver? It was maddening, and he marveled at his escape. There hadn't been a real mishap. The colonel had only scowled at him; he was safe. He passed secretly from the house and hung around the bow-window which let out on the low balcony. The window was open, and occasionally he could hear a voice from beyond the room, which was dark.

It was one of those nights, those mild November nights, to which the novelists of the old regime used to devote a whole page; the silvery pallor on the landscape, the moon-mists, the round, white, inevitable moon, the stirring breezes, the murmur of the few remaining leaves, and all that. But these busy days we have not the time to read nor the inclination to describe.

Suddenly upon the stillness of the night the splendor of a human voice broke forth; the prima-donna was trying her voice. A violin wailed a note. A hand ran up and down the keys of the piano. Warburton held his breath and waited. He had heard Tosti's _Ave Maria_ many times, but he never will forget the manner in which it was sung that night. The songstress was care-free and among persons she knew and liked, and she put her soul into that magnificent and mysterious throat of hers, And throbbing all through the song was the vibrant, loving voice of the violin. And when the human tones died away and the instruments ceased to speak, Warburton felt himself swallowing rapidly. Then came Schumann's _Traumerei_ on the strings, Handel's _Largo_, Grieg's _Papillon_, and a _ballade_ by Chaminade. Then again sang the prima-donna; old folksy songs, sketches from the operas grand and light, _Faust_, _The Barber of Seville_, _La Fille de Madame Angot_. In all his days Warburton had never heard such music. Doubtless he _had_--even better; only at this period he was in love. The imagination of love's young dream is the most stretchable thing I know of. Seriously, however, he was a very good judge of music, and I am convinced that what he heard was out of the ordinary.

But I must guide my story into the channel proper.

During the music Karloff and Colonel Annesley drifted into the latter's study. What passed between them I gathered from bits recently dropped by Warburton.

"Good God, Karloff, what a net you have sprung about me!" said the colonel, despairingly.

"My dear Colonel, you have only to step out of it. It is the eleventh hour; it is not too late." But Karloff watched the colonel eagerly.

"How in God's name can I step out of it?"

"Simply reimburse me for that twenty thousand I advanced to you in good faith, and nothing more need be said." The count's Slavonic eyes were half-lidded.

"To give you back that amount will leave me a beggar, an absolute beggar, without a roof to shelter me. I am too old for the service, and besides, I am physically incapacitated. If you should force me, I could not meet my note save by selling the house my child was born in. Have you discounted it?"

"No. Why should I present it at the bank? It does not mature till next Monday, and I am in no need of money."

"What a wretch I am!"

Karloff raised his shoulders resignedly.

"My daughter!"

"Or my ducats," whimsically quoted the count. "Come, Colonel; do not waste time in useless retrospection. He stumbles who looks back. I have been thinking of your daughter. I love her, deeply, eternally."

"You love her?"

"Yes. I love her because she appeals to all that is young and good in me; because she represents the highest type of womanhood. With her as my wife, why, I should be willing to renounce my country, and your indebtedness would be crossed out of existence with one stroke of the pen."

The colonel's haggard face grew light with sudden hopefulness.

"I have been," the count went on, studying the ash of his cigar, "till this night what the world and my own conscience consider an honorable man. I have never wronged a man or woman personally. What I have done on the order of duty does not agitate my conscience. I am simply a machine. The moral responsibility rests with my czar. When I saw your daughter, I deeply regretted that you were her father."

The colonel grew rigid in his chair.

"Do not misunderstand me. Before I saw her, you were but the key to what I desired. As her father the matter took on a personal side. I could not very conscientiously make love to your daughter and at the same time--" Karloff left the sentence incomplete.

"And Betty?"--in half a whisper.

"Has refused me,"--quietly. "But I have not given her up; no, I have not given her up."

"What do you mean to do?"

Karloff got up and walked about the room. "Make her my wife,"--simply. He stooped and studied the titles of some of the books in the cases. He turned to find that the colonel had risen and was facing him with flaming eyes.

"I demand to know how you intend to accomplish this end," the colonel said. "My daughter shall not be dragged into this trap."

"To-morrow night I will explain everything; to-night, nothing,"--imperturbably.

"Karloff, to-night I stand a ruined and dishonored man. My head, once held so proudly before my fellow-men, is bowed with shame. The country I have fought and bled for I have in part betrayed. But not for my gain, not for my gain. No, no! Thank God that I can say that! Personal greed has not tainted me. Alone, I should have gone serenely into some poor house and eked out an existence on my half-pay. But this child of mine, whom I love doubly, for her mother's sake and her own,--I would gladly cut off both arms to spare her a single pain, to keep her in the luxury which she still believes rightfully to be hers. When the fever of gaming possessed me, I should have told her. I did not; therein lies my mistake, the mistake which has brought me to this horrible end. Virginius sacrificed his child to save her; I will sacrifice my honor to save mine from poverty. Force her to wed a man she does not love? No. To-morrow night we shall complete this disgraceful bargain. The plans are all finished but one. Now leave me; I wish to be alone."

"Sir, it is my deep regret--"

"Go; there is nothing more to be said."

Karloff withdrew. He went soberly. There was nothing sneering nor contemptuous in his attitude. Indeed, there was a frown of pity on his face. He recognized that circumstances had dragged down a noble man; that chance had tricked him of his honor. How he hated his own evil plan! He squared his shoulders, determined once more to put it to the touch to win or lose it all.

He found her at the bow-window, staring up at the moon. As I remarked, this room was dark, and she did not instantly recognize him.

"I am moon-gazing," she said.

"Let me sigh for it with you. Perhaps together we may bring it down." There was something very pleasing in the quality of his tone.

"Ah, it is you, Count? I could not see. But let us not sigh for the moon; it would be useless. Does any one get his own wish-moon? Does it not always hang so high, so far away?"

"The music has affected you?"

"As it always does. When I hear a voice like madam's, I grow sad, and a pity for the great world surges over me."

"Pity is the invisible embrace which enfolds all animate things. There is pity for the wretched, for the fool, for the innocent knave, for those who are criminals by their own folly; pity for those who love without reward; pity that embraces ... even me."

Silence.

"Has it ever occurred to you that there are two beings in each of us; that between these two there is a continual conflict, and that the victor finally prints the victory on the face? For what lines and haggards a man's face but the victory of the evil that is in him? For what makes the aged ruddy and smooth of face and clear of eye but the victory of the good that is in him? It is so. I still love you; I still have the courage to ask you to be my wife. Shall there be faces haggard or ruddy, lined or smooth?"

She stepped inside. She did not comprehend all he said, and his face was in the shadow--that is to say, unreadable.

"I am sorry, very, very sorry."

"How easily you say that!"

"No, not easily; if only you knew how hard it comes, for I know that it inflicts a hurt,"--gently. "Ah, Count, why indeed do I not love you?"--impulsively, for at that time she held him in genuine regard. "You represent all that a woman could desire in a man."

"You could learn,"--with an eager step toward her.

"You do not believe that; you know that you do not. Love has nothing to learn; the heart speaks, and that is all. My heart does not speak when I see you, and I shall never marry a man to whom it does not. You ask for something which I can not give, and each time you ask you only add to the pain."

"This is finality?"

"It is."

"Eh, well; then I must continue on to the end."

She interpreted this as a plaint of his coming loneliness.

"Here!" she said. She held in her hands two red roses. She thrust one toward him. "That is all I may give you."

For a moment he hesitated. There were thorns, invisible and stinging.

"Take it!"

He accepted it, kissed it gravely, and hid it.

"This is the bitterest moment in my life, and doubly bitter because I love you."

When the portiere fell behind him, she locked her hands, grieving that all she could give him was an ephemeral flower. How many men had turned from her in this wise, even as she began to depend upon them for their friendships! The dark room oppressed her and she stepped out once more into the silver of moonshine. Have you ever beheld a lovely woman fondle a lovely rose? She drew it, pendent on its slender stem, slowly across her lips, her eyes shining mistily with waking dreams. She breathed in the perfume, then cupped the flower in the palm of her hand and pressed it again and again to her lips. A long white arm stretched outward and upward toward the moon, and when it withdrew the hand was empty.

Warburton, hidden behind the vines, waited until she was gone, and then hunted in the grass for the precious flower. On his hands and knees he groped. The dew did not matter. And when at last he found it, not all the treasures of the fabled Ophir would have tempted him to part with it. It would be a souvenir for his later days.

As he rose from his knees he was confronted by a broad-shouldered, elderly man in evening clothes. The end of a cigar burned brightly between his teeth.

"I'll take that flower, young man, if you please."

Warburton's surprise was too great for sudden recovery.

"It is mine, Colonel," he stammered.

The colonel filliped away his cigar and caught my butler roughly by the arm.

"Warburton, what the devil does this mean--a lieutenant of mine peddling soup around a gentleman's table?"

XIX

"OH, MISTER BUTLER!"

Warburton had never lacked that rare and peculiar gift of immediately adapting himself to circumstances. To lie now would be folly, worse than useless. He had addressed this man at his side by his military title. He stood committed. He saw that he must throw himself wholly on the colonel's mercy and his sense of the humorous. He pointed toward the stables and drew the colonel after him; but the colonel held back.

"That rose first; I insist upon having that rose till you have given me a satisfactory account of yourself."

Warburton reluctantly surrendered his treasure. Force of habit is a peculiar one. The colonel had no real authority to demand the rose; but Warburton would no more have thought of disobeying than of running away.

"You will give it back to me?"

"That remains to be seen. Go on; I am ready to follow you. And I do not want any dragging story, either." The colonel spoke impatiently.

Warburton led him into his room and turned on the light. The colonel seated himself on the edge of the cot and lighted a fresh cigar.

"Well, sir, out with it. I am waiting."

Warburton took several turns about the room. "I don't know how the deuce to begin, Colonel. It began with a joke that turned out wrong."

"Indeed?"--sarcastically. "Let me hear about this joke."

M'sieu Zhames dallied no longer, but plunged boldly into his narrative. Sometimes the colonel stared at him as if he beheld a species of lunatic absolutely new to him, sometimes he laughed silently, sometimes he frowned.

"That's all," said Zhames; and he stood watching the colonel with dread in his eyes.

"Well, of all the damn fools!"

"Sir?"

"Of all the jackasses!"

Warburton bit his lip angrily.

The colonel swung the rose to and fro. "Yes, sir, a damn fool!"

"I dare say that I am, sir. But I have gone too far to back out now. Will you give me back that rose, Colonel?"

"What do you mean by her?"--coldly.

"I love her with all my heart,"--hotly. "I want her for my comrade, my wife, my companion, my partner in all I have or do. I love her, and I don't care a hang who knows it."

"Not so loud, my friend; not so loud."

"Oh, I do not care who hears,"--discouragedly.

"This beats the very devil! You've got me all balled up. Is Betty Annesley a girl of the kind we read about in the papers as eloping with her groom? What earthly chance had you in this guise, I should like to know?"

"I only wanted to be near her; I did not look ahead."

"Well, I should say not! How long were you hidden behind that trellis?"

"A year, so it seemed to me."

"Any lunatics among your ancestors?"

Warburton shook his head, smiling wanly.

"I can't make it out," declared the colonel. "A graduate of West Point, the fop of Troop A, the hero of a hundred ball-rooms, disguised as a hostler and serving soup!"

"Always keep the motive in mind, Colonel; you were young yourself once."

The colonel thought of the girl's mother. Yes, he had been young once, but not quite so young as this cub of his.

"What chance do you suppose you have against the handsome Russian?"

"She has rejected him,"--thoughtlessly.

"Ha!"--frowning; "so you were eavesdropping?"

"Wait a moment, Colonel. You know that I am very fond of music. I was listening to the music. It had ceased, and I was waiting for it to begin again, when I heard voices."

"Why did you not leave then?"

"And be observed? I dared not."

The colonel chewed the end of his cigar in silence.

"And now may I have that rose, sir?"--quietly.

The colonel observed him warily. He knew that quiet tone. It said that if he refused to give up the rose he would have to fight for it, and probably get licked into the bargain.

"I've a notion you might attempt to take it by force in case I refused."

"I surrendered it peacefully enough, sir."

"So you did. Here." The colonel tossed the flower across the room and Warburton caught it.

"I should like to know, sir, if you are going to expose me. It's no more than I deserve."

The colonel studied the lithographs on the walls. "Your selection?"--with a wave of the hand.

"No, sir. I should like to know what you are going to do. It would relieve my mind. As a matter of fact, I confess that I am growing weary of the mask." Warburton waited.

"You make a very respectable butler, though,"--musingly.

"Shall you expose me, sir?"--persistently.

"No, lad. I should not want it to get about that a former officer of mine could possibly make such an ass of himself. You have slept all night in jail, you have groomed horses, you have worn a livery which no gentleman with any self-respect would wear, and all to no purpose whatever. Why, in the name of the infernal regions, didn't you meet her in a formal way? There would have been plenty of opportunities."

Warburton shrugged; so did the colonel, who stood up and shook the wrinkles from his trousers.

"Shall you be long in Washington, sir?" asked Warburton, politely.

"In a hurry to get rid of me, eh?"--with a grim smile. "Well, perhaps in a few days."

"Good night."

The colonel stopped at the threshold, and his face melted suddenly into a warm, humorous smile. He stretched out a hand which Warburton grasped most gratefully. His colonel had been playing with him.

"Come back to the Army, lad; the East is no place for a man of your kidney. Scrape up a commission, and I'll see to it that you get back into the regiment. Life is real out in the great West. People smile too much here; they don't laugh often enough. Smiles have a hundred meanings, laughter but one. Smiles are the hiding places for lies, and sneers, and mockeries, and scandals. Come back to the West; we all want you, the service and I. When I saw you this afternoon I knew you instantly, only I was worried as to what devilment you were up to. Win this girl, if you can; she's worth any kind of struggle, God bless her! Win her and bring her out West, too."

Warburton wrung the hand in his till the old fellow signified that his fingers were beginning to ache.

"Do you suppose she suspects anything?" ventured Warburton.

"No. She may be a trifle puzzled, though. I saw her watching your hands at the table. She has eyes and can readily see that such hands as yours were never made to carry soup-plates. For the life of me, I had a time of it, swallowing my laughter. I longed for a vacant lot to yell in. It would have been a positive relief. The fop of Troop A peddling soup! Oh, I shall have to tell the boys. You used more pipe-clay than any other man in the regiment. Don't scowl. Never mind; you've had your joke; I must have mine. Don't let that Russian fellow get the inside track. Keep her on American soil. I like him and I don't like him; and for all your tomfoolery and mischief, there is good stuff in you--stuff that any woman might be proud of. If you hadn't adopted this disguise, I could have helped you out a bit by cracking up some of your exploits. Well, they will be inquiring for me. Good night and good luck. If you should need me, a note will find me at the Army and Navy Club." And the genial old warrior, shaking with silent laughter, went back to the house.

Warburton remained standing. He was lost in a dream. All at once he pressed the rose to his lips and kissed it shamelessly, kissed it uncountable times. Two or three leaves, not withstanding this violent treatment, fluttered to the floor. He picked them up: any one of those velvet leaves might have been the recipient of _her_ kisses, the rosary of love. He was in love, such a love that comes but once to any man, not passing, uncertain, but lasting. He knew that it was all useless. He had digged with his own hands the abyss between himself and this girl. But there was a secret gladness: to love was something. (For my part, I believe that the glory lies, not in being loved, but in loving.)

I do not know how long he stood there, but it must have been at least ten minutes. Then the door opened, and Monsieur Pierre lurched or rolled (I can't quite explain or describe the method of his entrance) into the room, his face red with anger, and a million thousand thunders on the tip of his Gallic tongue.

"So! You haf leaf _me_ to clear zee table, eh? Not by a damn! _I_, clear zee table? _I?_ I t'ink not. I _cook_, nozzing else. To zee dining-room, or I haf you discharge'!"

"All right, Peter, old boy!" cried Warburton, the gloom lifting from his face. This Pierre was a very funny fellow.

"Pe_taire!_ You haf zee insolence to call me Pe_taire?_ Why, I haf you keeked out in zee morning, lackey!"

"Cook!"--mockingly.

Pierre was literally dumfounded. Such disrespect he had never before witnessed. It was frightful. He opened his mouth to issue a volley of French oaths, when Zhames's hand stopped him.

"Look here, Peter, you broil your partridges and flavor your soups, but keep out of the stables, or, in your own words, I _keel_ you or _keek_ you out. You tell the scullery maid to clear off the table. I'm off duty for the rest of the night. Now, then, _allons! Marche!"_

And M'sieu Zhames gently but firmly and steadily pushed the scandalized Pierre out of the room and closed the door in his face. I shan't repeat what Pierre said, much less what he thought.

Let me read a thought from the mind of each of my principals, the final thought before retiring that night.

_Karloff_ (on leaving Mrs. Chadwick): Dishonor against dishonor; so it must be. I can not live without that girl.

_Mrs. Chadwick:_ (when Karloff had gone); He has lost, but I have not won.

_Annesley:_ So one step leads to another, and the labyrinth of dishonor has no end.

_The Colonel:_ What the deuce will love put next into the young mind?

_Pierre_ (to Celeste): I haf heem discharge'!

_Celeste_ (to Pierre): He ees handsome!

_Warburton_ (sighing in the _doloroso_): How I love her!

_The Girl_ (standing before her mirror and smiling happily): Oh, Mister Butler! Why?

XX

THE EPISODE OF THE STOVE-PIPE

In the morning Monsieur Pierre faithfully reported to his mistress the groom's extraordinary insolence and impudence of the night before. The girl struggled with and conquered her desire to laugh; for monsieur was somewhat grotesque in his rage.

"Frightful, Mademoiselle, most frightful! He call me Pe_taire_ most disrrrespectful way, and eject me from zee stables. I can not call heem out; he ees a groom and knows nozzing uf zee _amende honorable._"

Mademoiselle summoned M'sieu Zhames. She desired to make the comedy complete in all its phases.

"James, whenever you are called upon to act in the capacity of butler, you must clear the table after the guests leave it. This is imperative. I do not wish the scullery girl to handle the porcelain save in the tubs. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss. There were no orders to that effect last night, however." He was angry.

Monsieur Pierre puffed up like the lady-frog in Aesop's fables,