54-40 or Fight Part 5

"Be seated, pray," she said at last. "Let us talk over this matter."

Obedient to her gesture, I dropped into a chair opposite to her, she herself not varying her posture and still regarding me with the laugh in her half-closed eyes.

"What do you think of my little place?" she asked finally.

"Two things, Madam," said I, half sternly. "If it belonged to a man, and to a minister plenipotentiary, I should not approve it. If it belonged to a lady of means and a desire to see the lands of this little world, I should approve it very much."

She looked at me with eyes slightly narrowed, but no trace of perturbation crossed her face. I saw it was no ordinary woman with whom we had to do.

"But," I went on, "in any case and at all events, I should say that the bird confined in such a cage, where secrecy is so imperative, would at times find weariness--would, in fact, wish escape to other employment.

You, Madam"--I looked at her directly--"are a woman of so much intellect that you could not be content merely to live."

"No," she said, "I would not be content merely to live."

"Precisely. Therefore, since to make life worth the living there must be occasionally a trifle of spice, a bit of adventure, either for man or woman, I suggest to you, as something offering amus.e.m.e.nt, this little journey with me to-night to meet my chief. You have his message. I am his messenger, and, believe me, quite at your service in any way you may suggest. Let us be frank. If you are agent, so am I. See; I have come into your camp. Dare you not come into ours? Come; it is an adventure to see a tall, thin old man in a dressing-gown and a red woolen nightcap.

So you will find my chief; and in apartments much different from these."

She took up the missive with its broken seal. "So your chief, as you call him, asks me to come to him, at midnight, with you, a stranger?"

"Do you not believe in charms and in luck, in evil and good fortune, Madam?" I asked her. "Now, it is well to be lucky. In ordinary circ.u.mstances, as you say, I could not have got past yonder door. Yet here I am. What does it augur, Madam?"

"But it is night!"

"Precisely. Could you go to the office of a United States senator and possible cabinet minister in broad daylight and that fact not be known?

Could he come to your apartments in broad daylight and that fact not be known? What would 'that man Pakenham' suspect in either case? Believe me, my master is wise. I do not know his reason, but he knows it, and he has planned best to gain his purpose, whatever it may be. Reason must teach you, Madam, that night, this night, this hour, is the only time in which this visit could be made. Naturally, it would be impossible for him to come here. If you go to him, he will--ah, he will reverence you, as I do, Madam. Great necessity sets aside conventions, sets aside everything. Come, then!"

But still she only sat and smiled at me. I felt that purple and amber glow, the emanation of her personality, of her senses, creeping around me again as she leaned forward finally, her parted red-bowed lips again disclosing her delicate white teeth. I saw the little heave of her bosom, whether in laughter or emotion I could not tell. I was young.

Resenting the spell which I felt coming upon me, all I could do was to reiterate my demand for haste. She was not in the least impressed by this.

"Come!" she said. "I am pleased with these Americans. Yes, I am not displeased with this little adventure."

I rose impatiently, and walked apart in the room. "You can not evade me, Madam, so easily as you did the Mexican gentleman who followed you. You have him in the net also? Is not the net full enough?"

"Never!" she said, her head swaying slowly from side to side, her face inscrutable. "Am I not a woman? Ah, am I not?"

"Madam," said I, whirling upon her, "let me, at least, alone. I am too small game for you. I am but a messenger. Time pa.s.ses. Let us arrive at our business."

"What would you do if I refused to go with you?" she asked, still smiling at me. She was waiting for the spell of these surroundings, the spirit of this place, to do their work with me, perhaps; was willing to take her time with charm of eye and arm and hair and curved fingers, which did not openly invite and did not covertly repel. But I saw that her att.i.tude toward me held no more than that of bird of prey and some little creature well within its power. It made me angry to be so rated.

"You ask me what I should do?" I retorted savagely. "I shall tell you first what I _will_ do if you continue your refusal. I will _take_ you with me, and so keep my agreement with my chief. Keep away from the bell rope! Remain silent! Do not move! You should go if I had to carry you there in a sack--because that is my errand!"

"Oh, listen at him threaten!" she laughed still. "And he despises my poor little castle here in the side street, where half the time I am so lonely! What would Monsieur do if Monsieur were in my place--and if I were in Monsieur's place? But, bah! you would not have me following _you_ in the first hour we met, boy!"

I flushed again hotly at this last word. "Madam may discontinue the thought of my boyhood; I am older than she. But if you ask me what I would do with a woman if I followed her, or if she followed me, then I shall tell you. If I owned this place and all in it, I would tear down every picture from these walls, every silken cover from yonder couches!

I would rip out these walls and put back the ones that once were here!

You, Madam, should be taken out of luxury and daintiness--"

"Go on!" She clapped her hands, for the first time kindling, and dropping her annoying air of patronizing me. "Go on! I like you now.

Tell me what Americans do with women that they love! I have heard they are savages."

"A house of logs far out in the countries that I know would do for you, Madam!" I went on hotly. "You should forget the touch of silk and lace.

No neighbor you should know until I was willing. Any man who followed you should meet _me_. Until you loved me all you could, and said so, and proved it, I would wring your neck with my hands, if necessary, until you loved me!"

"Excellent! What then?"

"Then, Madam the Baroness, I would in turn build you a palace, one of logs, and would make you a most excellent couch of the husks of corn.

You should cook at my fireplace, and for _me!_"

She smiled slowly past me, at me. "Pray, be seated," she said. "You interest me."

"It is late," I reiterated. "Come! Must I do some of these things--force you into obedience--carry you away in a sack? My master can not wait."

"Don Yturrio of Mexico, on the other hand," she mused, "promised me not violence, but more jewels. Idiot!"

"Indeed!" I rejoined, in contempt. "An American savage would give you but one gown, and that of your own weave; you could make it up as you liked. But come, now; I have no more time to lose."

"Ah, also, idiot!" she murmured. "Do you not see that I must reclothe myself before I could go with you--that is to say, if I choose to go with you? Now, as I was saying, my ardent Mexican promises thus and so.

My lord of England--ah, well, they may be pardoned. Suppose I might listen to such suits--might there not be some life for me--some life with events? On the other hand, what of interest could America offer?"

"I have told you what life America could give you."

"I imagined men were but men, wherever found," she went on; "but what you say interests me, I declare to you again. A woman is a woman, too, I fancy. She always wants one thing--to be all the world to one man."

"Quite true," I answered. "Better that than part of the world to one--or two? And the opposite of it is yet more true. When a woman is all the world to a man, she despises him."

"But yes, I should like that experience of being a cook in a cabin, and being bruised and broken and choked!" She smiled, lazily extending her flawless arms and looking down at them, at all of her splendid figure, as though in interested examination. "I am alone so much--so bored!" she went on. "And Sir Richard Pakenham is so very, very fat. Ah, G.o.d! You can not guess how fat he is. But you, you are not fat." She looked me over critically, to my great uneasiness.

"All the more reason for doing as I have suggested, Madam; for Mr.

Calhoun is not even so fat as I am. This little interview with my chief, I doubt not, will prove of interest. Indeed"--I went on seriously and intently--"I venture to say this much without presuming on my station: the talk which you will have with my chief to-night will show you things you have never known, give you an interest in living which perhaps you have not felt. If I am not mistaken, you will find much in common between you and my master. I speak not to the agent of England, but to the lady Helena von Ritz."

"He is old," she went on. "He is very old. His face is thin and bloodless and fleshless. He is old."

"Madam," I said, "his mind is young, his purpose young, his ambition young; and his country is young. Is not the youth of all these things still your own?"

She made no answer, but sat musing, drumming lightly on the chair arm.

I was reaching for her cloak. Then at once I caught a glimpse of her stockinged foot, the toe of which slightly protruded from beneath her ball gown. She saw the glance and laughed.

"Poor feet," she said. "Ah, _mes pauvres pieds la_! You would like to see them bruised by the hard going in some heathen country? See you have no carriage, and mine is gone. I have not even a pair of shoes. Go look under the bed beyond."

I obeyed her gladly enough. Under the fringe of the satin counterpane I found a box of boots, slippers, all manner of footwear, daintily and neatly arranged. Taking out a pair to my fancy, I carried them out and knelt before her.

"Then, Madam," said I, "since you insist on this, I shall choose.

America is not Europe. Our feet here have rougher going and must be shod for it. Allow me!"

Without the least hesitation in the world, or the least immodesty, she half protruded the foot which still retained its slipper. As I removed this latter, through some gay impulse, whose nature I did not pause to a.n.a.lyze, I half mechanically thrust it into the side pocket of my coat.

"This shall be security," said I, "that what you speak with my master shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

There was a curious deeper red in her cheek. I saw her bosom beat the faster rhythm.