A Modern Mercenary Part 19

'I wish to G.o.d I could say not! But in the teeth of this conspiracy, for the sake of Maasau, we of the Guard cannot lie to each other.'

Rallywood, being on duty during the evening, stood, according to usage, at some little distance behind the Duke's chair. From among the coming and going, from chance words and prepared speeches he gathered a thread of suspicion which had its use in the perplexing future that was rapidly advancing upon them.

Valerie, with a flush upon her face, was looking unusually brilliant as she talked for a while with Unziar, who, judging from the sourness of his smile, may have been offering her his congratulations.

Counsellor came up to Rallywood, and as they stood well away from the crowd, spoke openly.

'You have heard the news I see, John, and you are not nearly such a fool as you think yourself. She is a girl in ten thousand, and may, not improbably, make the exceptional woman I once before spoke to you about.

I knew this connection was under consideration by Elmur, but the engagement did not exist a few hours ago, and the present moment is precisely the most inopportune which could be chosen for its announcement, hence it follows that someone has forced Elmur's hand, or that he is forcing the hand of someone, it may be Mdlle. Selpdorf's.'

'Will it be announced--publicly? The Duke, for example.'

'It is known already to half-a-dozen; what can they do? I had it from Blivinski, the little Russian _attache_, as a secret. Russia is, like nature herself, the vast reservoir of all secrets; and not one is allowed to escape, except for a purpose. Yet I wonder how it will end.

Look at her! How brilliant she is. But rouge on the cheek of a woman who habitually uses none means, in all cases--trouble,' said Counsellor, as he moved off.

CHAPTER XII.

ANTHONY UNZIAR.

No one could have gathered, from the quiet aspect of Rallywood's tall, soldierly figure, that a whirl of emotion was pa.s.sing through his brain.

Yet above all rose one dominant sensation--a vast relief. Counsellor shared his own opinion with regard to Valerie. Her daring words to the Duke had no serious meaning; they were only the natural echo of a girl's preference for a young and beautiful woman to preside over the Court, rather than the bloated rake who now lolled uneasily in the chair before him. He recalled the forlorn little smile with which she had accepted von Elmur's lover-like protestations at Madame de Sagan's doorway. Its forlornness had been lost upon Unziar, who had drawn but one merciless conclusion from the little scene. Close on the heels of these reflections a vivid recollection rose before Rallywood's mind of the first night he had met her. The lights and music of the grand salon of Sagan died away, and he was standing again on the ridge below the Hotel du Chancelier, looking out over the glimmering lamps of Revonde, dominated, as always, by the regnant red eye of the Guards' Dome, and he felt once more that strange new warmth and thrill in his veins which, at the time, he had believed to be born of an opening career beset with danger and difficulty. To-night, however, he judged more clearly; he knew that his dull life had been rekindled, and his ambitions had taken fresh fire from the dark starlit eyes Valerie Selpdorf had raised to his in the Counsellor's ante-room two months ago.

'Captain Rallywood!'

Rallywood started. The Duke made him a sign to approach. Then, rising from his chair, he took the young man's arm, and leaning heavily upon it, moved towards the card-room, meeting Unziar with Mdlle. Selpdorf on the way.

'Hey, Mademoiselle Valerie,' he stopped abruptly, 'would you teach my Guards treason?'

'To teach your Highness's Guards treason is impossible!' replied Valerie, with a slight lifting of her proud head.

'The influence of a beautiful woman has no limit,' retorted the Duke.

Valerie's red lips trembled.

'Generations have already proved the fidelity of the Selpdorfs has also no limit. But I beg you to accept an apology for my foolish words.'

'But such words from a Selpdorf!'

'We have always been loyal, sire.'

The Duke shook his head sadly.

'But the world changes--what has been is not. And the first reason now-a-days why a thing should no longer be, is the fact that once it was!'

Valerie was almost as tall as the Duke himself, and she looked level into his weary eyes.

'Have we changed with the world, sire?'

'Not--yet,' replied the Duke bitterly; then, struck, as it seemed, by the intrinsic spirit of the young imperial face gazing into his own, he added, 'Though you tempt a man to believe in you, Mademoiselle!'

'I say this before your Highness and these gentlemen of your Guard,'

Valerie said, her eyes flashing. 'May the Selpdorf, who ceases to be true to your Highness and to Maasau, die!'

In after time events brought back the vehement words to the minds of the three who heard them.

'And I say, "Amen!"' The Duke took her hand and added, 'Which proves, Valerie, that you have conquered your old friend, Gustave of Maasau.

Come, Captain Rallywood, half-an-hour's play, and then to bed.'

Valerie looked up at Unziar as she walked beside him.

'And yet you would not believe me?'

'Come!' was Unziar's reply.

She laid her hand within his arm and pa.s.sed silently through the reception rooms beside him.

She felt that the time had come when Unziar could no more be put off by the little wiles and evasions a woman employs who has nothing to give to the man who loves her but a definite answer. Two luxurious chairs stood ready for occupants in the nook to which he led her, but he had no thought to give to conventionalities. He stood before her keen and white, and desperate with doubt.

'Valerie, what does all this mean?'

Though only a girl in years, Valerie was a woman in experience.

Experience, not gained altogether at first hand, be it understood, but such as a clever woman easily gathers from the lives of those about her.

As the motherless daughter of M. Selpdorf, she had had exceptional opportunities. Thrown into the midst of a brilliant but vicious society, her eyes had seen more of the bare under-texture of life than was perhaps desirable; she had looked upon the shift and drift of things political with an ever-present knowledge that there danger lurked and waited; she had learned the uses of reserve, and something of the art of resource; and, above all, her womanly perceptions had taken on a strange edge of sensitive power, due to her father's quaint methods of pointing out to her the difference between the seeming and the true. By reason of this premature insight into the motives and stress of human existence she gained in safety and strength as her father desired; but on the other hand, she had lost the sense of happy irresponsibility that goes so far towards making up one of the sweetest essentials of youth.

Luckily there is one thing which can never be quite destroyed at secondhand--the romance and illusions that beguile boyhood and girlhood, and the liability to be so beguiled still lived in Valerie's strong and vivid nature.

'Shall I swear that every word I spoke to the Duke just now is true?'

she asked coldly. 'Although, of course, even that would not convince you!'

'No, I suppose not,' he said drearily. 'You spoke openly of your hope to be maid of honour to Madame de Sagan when she became d.u.c.h.ess of Maasau--which can only mean one thing. Rallywood heard and told me exactly.'

'You discussed me with Captain Rallywood?' she flashed out.

Unziar's glance darkened again with a new suspicion.

'Should you object?' he asked.

'As it happens, I should, particularly.'

He bit savagely at his moustache.

'What is wrong with Rallywood?'

'He is an Englishman. Besides, I do not care to be discussed amongst the men of the Guard!'