54-40 or Fight Part 43

"Monsieur!" her voice cried again; and once more it restrained me in my hiding.

"You devil!" he resumed, sneering now in all his ugliness of wine and rage and disappointment. "What were _you?_ Mistress of the prince of France! Toy of a score of n.o.bles! Slave of that infamous rake, your husband! Much you've got in your life to make you uppish now with me!"

"My lord," she said evenly, "retract that. If you do not, you shall not leave this place alive."

In some way she mastered him, even in his ugly mood.

"Well, well," he growled, "I admit we don't get on very well in our little love affair; but I swear you drive me out of my mind. I'll never find another woman in the world like you. It's Sir Richard Pakenham asks you to begin a new future with himself."

"We begin no future, my lord."

"What do you mean? Have you lied to me? Do you mean to break your word--your promise?"

"It is within the hour that I have learned what the truth is."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n my soul!" I heard him curse, growling.

"Yes, my lord," she answered, "G.o.d will d.a.m.n your soul in so far as it is that of a brute and not that of a gentleman or a statesman."

I heard him drop into a chair. "This from one of your sort!" he half whimpered.

"Stop, now!" she cried. "Not one word more of that! I say within the hour I have learned what is the truth. I am Helena von Ritz, thief on the cross, and at last clean!"

"G.o.d A'might, Madam! How pious!" he sneered. "Something's behind all this. I know your record. What woman of the court of Austria or France comes out with _morals?_ We used you here because you had none. And now, when it comes to the settlement between you and me, you talk like a nun.

As though a trifle from virtue such as yours would be missed!"

"Ah, my G.o.d!" I heard her murmur. Then again she called to me, as he thought to himself; so that all was as it had been, for the time.

A silence fell before she went on.

"Sir Richard," she said at length, "we do not meet again. I await now your full apology for these things you have said. Such secrets as I have learned of England's, you know will remain safe with me. Also your own secret will be safe. Retract, then, what you have said, of my personal life!"

"Oh, well, then," he grumbled, "I admit I've had a bit of wine to-day. I don't mean much of anything by it. But here now, I have come, and by your own invitation--your own agreement. Being here, I find this treaty regarding Oregon torn in two and you gone nun all a-sudden."

"Yes, my lord, it is torn in two. The consideration moving to it was not valid. But now I wish you to amend that treaty once more, and for a consideration valid in every way. My lord, I promised that which was not mine to give--myself! Did you lay hand on me now, I should die. If you kissed me, I should kill you and myself! As you say, I took yonder price, the devil's shilling. Did I go on, I would be enlisting for the d.a.m.nation of my soul; but I will not go on. I recant!"

"But, good G.o.d! woman, what are you asking _now?_ Do you want me to let you have this paper anyhow, to show old John Calhoun? I'm no such a.s.s as that. I apologize for what I've said about you. I'll be your friend, because I can't let you go. But as to this paper here, I'll put it in my pocket."

"My lord, you will do nothing of the kind. Before you leave this room there shall be two miracles done. You shall admit that one has gone on in me; I shall see that you yourself have done another."

"What guessing game do you propose, Madam?" he sneered. He seemed to toss the torn paper on the table, none the less. "The condition is forfeited," he began.

"No, it is not forfeited except by your own word, my lord," rejoined the same even, icy voice. "You shall see now the first miracle!"

"Under duress?" he sneered again.

"_Yes_, then! Under duress of what has not often come to surface in you, Sir Richard. I ask you to do truth, and not treason, my lord! She who was Helena von Ritz is dead--has pa.s.sed away. There can be no question of forfeit between you and her. Look, my lord!"

I heard a half sob from him. I heard a faint rustling of silks and laces. Still her even, icy voice went on.

"Rise, now, Sir Richard," she said. "Unfasten my girdle, if you like!

Undo my clasps, if you can. You say you know my past. Tell me, do you see me now? Ungird me, Sir Richard! Look at me! Covet me! Take me!"

Apparently he half rose, shuffled towards her, and stopped with a stifled sound, half a sob, half a growl.

I dared not picture to myself what he must have seen as she stood fronting him, her hands, as I imagined, at her bosom, tearing back her robes.

Again I heard her voice go on, challenging him. "Strip me now, Sir Richard, if you can! Take now what you bought, if you find it here. You can not? You do not? Ah, then tell me that miracle has been done! She who was Helena von Ritz, as you knew her, or as you thought you knew her, _is not here!_"

Now fell long silence. I could hear the breathing of them both, where I stood in the farther corner of my room. I had dropped both the derringers back in my pockets now, because I knew there would be no need for them. Her voice was softer as she went on.

"Tell me, Sir Richard, has not that miracle been done?" she demanded.

"Might not in great stress that thief upon the cross have been a woman?

Tell me, Sir Richard, am I not clean?"

He flung his body into a seat, his arm across the table. I heard his groan.

"G.o.d! Woman! What are you?" he exclaimed. "Clean? By G.o.d, yes, as a lily! I wish I were half as white myself."

"Sir Richard, did you ever love a woman?"

"One other, beside yourself, long ago."

"May not we two ask that other miracle of yourself?"

"How do you mean? You have beaten me already."

"Why, then, this! If I could keep my promise, I would. If I could give you myself, I would. Failing that, I may give you grat.i.tude. Sir Richard, I would give you grat.i.tude, did you restore this treaty as it was, for that new consideration. Come, now, these savages here are the same savages who once took that little island for you yonder. Twice they have defeated you. Do you wish a third war? You say England wishes slavery abolished. As you know, Texas is wholly lost to England. The armies of America have swept Texas from your reach for ever, even at this hour. But if you give a new state in the north to these same savages, you go so far against oppression, against slavery--you do _that_ much for the doctrine of England, and her altruism in the world.

Sir Richard, never did I believe in hard bargains, and never did any great soul believe in such. I own to you that when I asked you here this afternoon I intended to wheedle from you all of Oregon north to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes. I find in you done some such miracle as in myself. Neither of us is so bad as the world has thought, as we ourselves have thought. Do then, that other miracle for me. Let us compose our quarrel, and so part friends."

"How do you mean, Madam?"

"Let us divide our dispute, and stand on this treaty as you wrote it yesterday. Sir Richard, you are minister with extraordinary powers. Your government ratifies your acts without question. Your signature is binding--and there it is, writ already on this scroll. See, there are wafers there on the table before you. Take them. Patch together this treaty for me. That will be _your_ miracle, Sir Richard, and 'twill be the mending of our quarrel. Sir, I offered you my body and you would not take it. I offer you my hand. Will you have _that_, my lord? I ask this of a gentleman of England."

It was not my right to hear the sounds of a man's shame and humiliation; or of his rising resolve, of his reformed manhood; but I did hear it all. I think that he took her hand and kissed it. Presently I heard some sort of shufflings and crinkling of paper on the table. I heard him sigh, as though he stood and looked at his work. His heavy footfalls crossed the room as though he sought hat and stick. Her lighter feet, as I heard, followed him, as though she held out both her hands to him. There was a pause, and yet another; and so, with a growling half sob, at last he pa.s.sed out the door; and she closed it softly after him.

When I entered, she was standing, her arms spread out across the door, her face pale, her eyes large and dark, her attire still disarrayed. On the table, as I saw, lay a parchment, mended with wafers.

Slowly she came, and put her two arms across my shoulders. "Monsieur!"

she said, "Monsieur!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE PROXY OF PAKENHAM

A man can not possess anything that is better than a good woman, nor anything that is worse than a bad one.--_Simonides_.