A Splendid Hazard Part 27

"Nothing; to-morrow it will all be gone. I am always so. The miserable water!" M. Ferraud drew the blanket under his chin.

"When you are better I should like to ask you some questions."

"My friend, you have been very good. I promise to tell you all when the time comes. It will interest you."

"Breitmann?"

"What makes you think I am interested in Mr. Breitmann?"

Fitzgerald could not exactly tell. "Perhaps I have noticed you watching him."

"Ah, you have good eyes, Mr. Fitzgerald. Have you observed that I have been watching you also?"

"Yes. You haven't been quite sure of me." Fitzgerald smiled a little.

"But you may rest your mind. I never break my word."

"Nor do I, my friend. Have patience. Satan take these small boats!"

He stifled a groan.

"A little champagne?"

"Nothing, nothing; thank you."

"As you will. Good night."

Fitzgerald shut the door and returned to the smoking-room. Something or other, concerning Breitmann; he was sure of it. What had he done, or what was he going to do, that France should watch him? There was no doubt in his mind now; Breitmann had known of this treasure and had come to The Pines simply to put his hands on the casket. M. Ferraud had tried to forestall him. This much of the riddle was plain. But the pivots upon which these things turned! There was something more than a treasure in the balance. Well, M. Ferraud had told him to wait.

There was nothing else for him to do.

A little rubber at bridge was in progress. The admiral was playing with Mrs. Coldfield and Cathewe sat opposite Hildegarde. The latter two were losing. She was ordinarily a skilful player, as Cathewe knew; but to-night she lost constantly, was reckless with her leads, and played carelessly into her opponents' hands. Cathewe watched her gravely. Never had he seen her more beautiful; and the apprehension that she would never be his was like a hand straining over his heart.

Yes, she was beautiful; but he did not know that there was death in her eyes and death in her smile. Once upon a time he had believed that her heart had broken; but she was learning that the heart breaks, rebreaks, and breaks again.

How many times he stood on the precipice during the dinner hour, Breitmann doubtless would never be told. A woman scorned is an old story; still, the story goes on, retold each day. Education may smooth the externals, but underneath the fire burns just as furiously as of old. To this affront the average woman's mind leaps at once to revenge; and that she does not always take it depends upon two things; opportunity, and love, which is more powerful than revenge. Sometimes, on hot summer nights, clouds form angrily in the distance; vivid flashes dartle hither and about, which serve to intensify the evening darkness. Thus, a similar phenomenon was taking place in Hildegarde von Mitter's mind. The red fires of revenge danced before her eyes, blurring the spots, on the cards, the blackness of despair crowding upon each flash. Let him beware! With a word she could shatter his dream; ay, and so she would. What! sit there and let him turn the knife in her heart and receive the pain meekly? No! It was the thoughtless brutality with which he went about this new affair that bit so poignantly. To show her, so indurately, that she was nothing, that, despite her magnificent sacrifice, she had never been more than a convenience, was maddening. There was no spontaneity in his heart; his life was a calculation to which various sums were added or subtracted.

With all her beauty, intellect, genius and generosity, she had not been able to stir him as this young girl was unconsciously doing. She held no animosity for the daughter of her host; she was clear-visioned enough to put the wrong where it belonged.

"It is your lead," said the admiral patiently.

"Pardon me!" contritely. The gentle reproach brought her back to the surroundings.

"It is the motion of the boat," hazarded Cathewe, as he saw her lead the ace. "I often find myself losing count in waiting for the next roll."

"Mr. Cathewe is very kind," she replied. "The truth is, however, I am simply stupid to-night."

Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura. He was evidently amusing, for she smiled frequently. Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon Fitzgerald. Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as they both believed, in the hollow of her hand. Breitmann appeared to have forgotten her existence.

When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes. They tramped the port side, saying nothing but thinking much. His arm was under hers to steady her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one stifles sobs that are tearless. Ah, to hold her close and to shield her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the pain that stabs it. He knew; he knew all about it, and there was murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann. To be alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.

She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly; and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child. And worldliness makes a buffer in times like these. Cathewe thanked G.o.d for his own sh.e.l.l, toughened as it had been in the war of life.

"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion. "There goes a big liner for Sandy Hook. How cheerful she looks with all her lights!

Everybody's busy there. There will be greetings to-morrow, among the sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."

They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves alone.

Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the rail. "How kind you are to me!"

"Oh, pshaw!" But the touch of her lips shook his soul.

Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a woman may find once in a life-time. They are, as a usual thing, always loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and buoyant, genuine philosophers. They are not given much to writing sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the other man takes the dream out of their lives. This is not to affirm that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they accept defeat like good soldiers. There are many heroes who have never heard war's alarms. He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von Mitter had yielded to another. But it had been thrown, as it were, against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day he might catch it on the rebound.

"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.

"The world would not be half so interesting. Some men shall be fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way.

I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight." He spoke with a levity he by no means felt.

"You are always making sport of yourself."

"Would it be wise to weep? Not at all. I laugh because I enjoy it, just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."

"To have met _you_!" childishly.

"Don't talk like that. It always makes me less sad than furious. And how do you know? If it had been written that you should care for me, would any one else have mattered? No. It just is, that's all. So we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends. Call me when you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."

"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"

"You would be no happier if you wore a mask. Hildegarde, what has happened? What power has this adventurer over you? I can not understand. He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any wrong."

"He said that?" turning upon him sharply. She could forgive much.

He could not see her face, but by the tone of her voice he knew it had brightened. "Yes. I did a freakish thing the night we arrived at the Killigrews'. I forced him into a corner, but it did not pan out as I hoped. So far as it touched me, it wasn't necessary, as I have told you a thousand times. Your past is nothing to me; your future is everything, and I want it. G.o.d knows how I want it! Well, I wished to find out what kind of man he is, but I wasn't very successful.

Hildegarde," and he pressed his hand down hard over hers, "I could find a priest the day we land if you would love me. You will always remember that."

"As if I could ever forget your kindness! But you forced him; there is no merit in such a confession. And I wonder how you forced him. It was not by fear. Much as I know him there are still some unfilled pages. I would call him a scoundrel did I not know that in parts he has been a hero. What sacrifices the man has made, and with what patience!"

"To what end?" quietly.

"No, no, Arthur! I have promised him."

He took her by the arm roughly. "Let us make two or three rounds and go back. We shan't grow any more cheerful talking this way."

"He loves her. I saw it in his eyes; and I must stand aside and watch!"

"So must I," he said. "Aren't you just a little selfish, Hildegarde?"

"I am wretched, Arthur; and I am a fool, besides. Oh, that I were cold-blooded like your women, that I could eat out my heart in secret; but I can't, I can't!"

"But you have courage; only use it. If what you say of him is true, rest easy. She is not in his...o...b..t. She will not be impressed by an adventurer of his breed."

"Thank you!" with a broken laugh. "I am only an opera-singer, here on suffrance."