Red Masquerade Part 17

She collected herself with an effort. "I am Sofia," she replied almost mechanically.

"And I, your father ..."

Prince Victor lifted hands of singular delicacy, slender and tapering, whose long fingers were dressed with many curious rings.

A reluctance she could not understand hindered Sofia from going gladly into those arms. She had to make herself yield. They tightened hungrily about her. She closed her eyes and experienced a slight, invincible shudder.

"My child!"

The lips that touched her forehead astonished her with their warmth.

Instinctively she had expected them to be cool, as frigid as the effect of that strange mask of which they formed a part.

Then, held at arm's-length, she submitted to an inspection whose sum was enunciated with a strange smile of gratification:

"You are beautiful."

In embarra.s.sment she murmured: "I am glad you think so--father."

"As beautiful as your mother--in her time the most beautiful creature in the world--her image, a flawless reproduction, even to her colouring, the shade of the hair, the eyes--so like the sea!"

"I am glad," the girl repeated, nervously.

"And until to-night I did not know you lived!"

She mustered up courage enough to ask: "How--?"

The heavy lids drooped lower over the illegible eyes. "My attention was called to a newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt signed by a firm of solicitors. I got in touch with them--a matter of some difficulty, since it was after business hours--and found out where to look for you. Then, prevented from acting as quickly as I wished, myself, I sent Karslake here to bring you to me."

"But, according to their letter, the solicitors thought I was in France, in a convent!"

"When they advertised for me--yes. But by the time I enquired they were better informed."

"But the advertis.e.m.e.nt was addressed to Michael Lanyard!"

The thin lips formed a faint smile. "That was once my name. I no longer use it."

Against a feeling that she was adopting an att.i.tude both undutiful and unbecoming, Sofia persisted.

"Why?"

Prince Victor Va.s.silyevski gave a gesture of pain and reluctance.

"Must I tell you? Why not? You must know some day, as well now as later, perhaps. Twenty years ago the name of Michael Lanyard was famous throughout Europe--or shall I say infamous?--the name of the greatest thief of modern times, otherwise known as 'The Lone Wolf'."

Involuntarily, Sofia stepped back, as if some shape of horror had been suddenly thrust before her face.

"The Lone Wolf!" she echoed in a voice of dismay. "A thief! You!"

The man who called himself her father replied with a series of slow, affirmative nods.

"That startles you?" he said in an indulgent voice. "Naturally. But you will soon grow accustomed to the thought, you will condone that chapter in my history, remembering I am no longer that man, no longer a thief, that for many years now my record has been without reproach. You will remember that there is more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents ... You will forgive the father, if only for your mother's sake."

"For my mother's sake--?"

"What the Lone Wolf was in his day, your mother was in hers--the most brilliant adventuress Europe ever knew."

"Oh!" cried the girl in semi-hysterical protest. "Oh, no, no! Impossible!"

"I a.s.sure you, it is quite true. Some day I may tell you her history--and mine. For the present, you will do well to think no more about what I have confessed. Repining can never mend the past. It is to-day and to-morrow you must think of: that you are restored to me, and that I have not only the means but a great hunger to make you happy, to gratify your slightest whim."

"I want nothing!" Sofia insisted, wildly.

"You want sleep," Prince Victor corrected, fondly--"you want it badly. You are nervous, overstrung, in no condition to understand the great good fortune that has befallen you. But to-morrow you will see things in a rosier light."

Apparently he had manipulated some signal unremarked by Sofia. The door opened, framing the figure of the man Nogam. Without looking round, but with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again and held her close.

"You rang, sir?"

"Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?"

"Quite ready, sir."

"Be good enough to conduct her to it." Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia's forehead, then let her go. "Good-night, my child."

Moving slowly toward the door, drooping, Sofia made inarticulate response.

She felt suddenly stupefied with fatigue. To think meant an effort that mocked her flagging powers. A vast la.s.situde was weighing upon her, body and spirit were faint in the enervation of an inexorable disconsolation.

VI

THE MUMMER

Alone with his secretary, Prince Victor Va.s.silyevski dropped indifferently the guise of manner with which he had clothed himself for the benefit of the woman whom he claimed as his own child. That semblance of shy affection coloured by regrets for the past and modified by the native n.o.bility of a prince in exile--so becoming in a parent to whose bosom a daughter whom he had never seen was suddenly restored--being of no more service for the present, was incontinently discarded. In its stead Victor favoured Karslake with a slow smile of understanding that broadened into an insuppressible grin of successful malice, a grimace of crude exultation through which peered out the impish savage mutinously imprisoned within a flimsy husk of modern manner.

Suspecting this self-betrayal, he erased the grin swiftly, but not so swiftly that Karslake failed to note it. And the young man, smiling amiably and respectfully in return, was sensible of a thrill: yet another glimpse had been given him into the mystery that slept behind that countenance normally so impenetrable.

But he was studious to show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not otherwise could he count on holding his place in Victor's favour.

"You were quicker than I hoped."

"I had no trouble, sir," Karslake returned, cheerfully. "Things rather played into my hands."

Victor dropped into a chair beside the table and lifted the lid of a small golden casket. Helping himself to one of its store of cigarettes, he made Karslake free of the remainder with a gracious hand. The secretary demurred, producing his pocket case.

"If you don't mind, sir ..."