A Modern Mercenary Part 32

Valerie was sweet and proud and sensitive; her father gave her credit for the two first qualities, but it probably would not have struck him to use that last term in describing her. He forgot that, in spite of any amount of masculine training, a woman remains always a woman at heart.

Had Valerie not met Rallywood, she might never have known as much about herself as she discovered during her visit to Sagan; as matters stood, however, the weak point in M. Selpdorf's theory was already under strain. The Chancellor usually breakfasted alone with his daughter. She was at once spirited and adaptable--adaptable enough to fall in with a man's moods, and spirited enough to hold independent opinions, an ideal combination in a comrade. Servants were rigorously excluded from the room during the meal, that father and daughter might talk freely together.

'I have hardly seen you since you came back, Valerie. I have missed you,' Selpdorf said as he turned away from the table and lit a cigarette. 'I am hurried to-day, yet I must speak to you on a subject that cannot be put off. One incident of your stay at the Castle has been constantly in my mind.'

'Yes, father.'

The unconcern of her voice struck Selpdorf. Things were either about to go unexpectedly well or else very badly.

'Baron von Elmur tells me you yielded to my advice and his wishes. In fact, you consented to an engagement.'

'Oh, yes, for the time being.'

'My dear girl,' he returned gravely, 'it has been publicly announced. It was announced the same evening, I understand.'

Valerie looked at him with a vague alarm in her eyes.

'Only by an unlucky accident,' she replied. 'It was never intended to be announced. Baron von Elmur a.s.sured me of that.'

'I am sure von Elmur's intentions were most generous, but the fact remains that it was made public. Valerie, you must be aware of his feelings towards you?'

Valerie came round the table and sat down beside her father, slipping her hand caressingly through his arm.

Selpdorf smiled down at her.

'Valerie, I must ask you to consider not only your own share in this question, but von Elmur's. It compromises Elmur no less than it compromises you.'

'I cannot carry out the engagement,' said the girl quietly.

M. Selpdorf threw a great deal of surprise and disappointment into his countenance.

'I did not know you were so greatly prejudiced against him. But, Valerie, we are honourable people, you and I, and we cannot allow Baron von Elmur to suffer because we unluckily misunderstood one another.'

Valerie grew very still, her fingers pressed upon her father's arm.

'Nothing succeeds like success, and up to the present time von Elmur has succeeded,' he went on. 'But a failure in a love affair places a man in an absurd position, and to be laughed at means loss of prestige.

Wherever he is known the story will follow him. He has a brilliant future before him, a future that it might be the pride of any woman to share. I think, therefore, you will hesitate before you injure him by giving way to a girlish and perhaps pa.s.sing dislike.'

'Father, I cannot!'

Valerie's voice was always low pitched and had the mellow sweetness peculiar to a contralto. But Selpdorf recognised a note in it now which showed him that his wishes were very far from fulfilment. She was loyal and steadfast, qualities that up to the present the Chancellor had found very admirable in his daughter. It is a rare pleasure for men of his type to be able to trust their womankind. In the case of his motherless girl, the Chancellor had enjoyed this pleasure to the full. To-day for the first time he found himself face to face with the less convenient side of the girl's character. She was an eminently reasonable person, and though she could stick to her point she never did so without cause.

Therefore Elmur's affair promised to be awkward.

'What are your reasons?' he asked, after a pause.

'I do not--like Baron von Elmur.'

'That is unfortunate, but your dislike may be overcome when you know him better.'

'Oh, no!--never!'

'Why not?'

'Is it possible to explain a dislike?' asked Valerie rather petulantly.

'No, perhaps not--for a woman,' said Selpdorf reflectively, 'but since there is no other----' he waited, then putting his forefinger under his chin, he raised her face and looked into it. 'Unless indeed you prefer someone----'

Her eyes, which met his with the clear direct glance they had not inherited from himself, and her pale gravity dismayed him.

'Speak, my dear child. This is a matter very near my heart,' he said quietly.

A tremulous smile came to Valerie's lips.

'And near mine--or I should not oppose you, father.'

Selpdorf pushed her away from him with a gentle hand.

'You don't know what you are doing,' he said shortly, and gazed out with undisguised chagrin into the mists that overhung Revonde. Presently he stood up.

'Well, well; it only goes to prove that the human element is a variable quant.i.ty,' he remarked.

'Am I only a human element in your plans? Am I no more than that to you?' She put her hands upon his shoulder.

M. Selpdorf drew her nearer and kissed her forehead.

'You know what you are to me, Valerie. I had hoped to join our interests in all things, but----' he turned to the door.

'Father!' the girl cried, 'don't leave me like this. You don't understand. I only knew by chance. He is too n.o.ble to----'

'Ah!' Selpdorf recollected Elmur's phrase, 'There is always the picturesque captain of the Guard.' He paused before speaking. 'Then this n.o.ble individual does not propose to take my daughter from me altogether--only to entangle her in a sentimental embarra.s.sment?'

'He made no claim upon me. He was compelled to--to speak--for my sake!'

'I will not ask for further confidences to-day, Valerie. But think over the whole of our conversation. I can trust you to be just, even to Baron von Elmur.'

M. Selpdorf knew that the longer an idea is brooded over, the harder it becomes to part company with it. Therefore the forenoon was yet young when von Elmur drove up to the Hotel du Chancelier in reply to a summons. The German plot was not yet at an end. By judicious manipulation, Selpdorf had gleaned a dim knowledge of Counsellor's errand from the Duke, who was as wax in his supple hands. Counsellor's return had already become one day overdue, and Selpdorf took advantage of the delay to infuse doubts and troubled surmises into the Duke's wavering mind.

He had recovered in some measure the royal confidence, and felt almost certain that if the English proposals could be sufficiently delayed as to seem to hang fire, he might still be able to persuade his master to enter into some provisional arrangement with Germany.

'You have not any definite news for me, after all,' Elmur remarked at the end of ten minutes. 'I begin to believe the Count's declaration that his Highness can only be driven into a reasonable treaty with us by----'

he stopped and sketched rapidly on the paper before him, 'by--in fact--the flat of the sword, shall we say?'

Selpdorf turned a look on his companion.

'Could you trust Count Simon to put any man, and most of all the one upon whose property he has a reversionary claim, in fear of death? And further trust him not to put the threat into execution if provoked by failure?'

Elmur shrugged his shoulders.

'We should have Duke Simon to deal with in that case, instead of Duke Gustave.'