The Azure Rose Part 31

"I would not drive you away. You have said that you would be my guest for another night; you may remain as long as you care to remain."

"I'll go," Cartaret repeated. "It isn't you that's driving me. Will you please send up to my room for my saddle-bags, and have my mare brought around?"

Don Ricardo bowed. He went out.

Cartaret stood for some time on the spot where he had been standing throughout the talk with his host. He was thinking of his ruined hopes and of the woman that had ruined them. Once he asked himself what had so changed her; but, when he could find no answer to that question, he asked what the cause could matter, since the effect was so apparent.

He walked to a window. He could see that part of the terrace which lay between the gate and the drawbridge, but he saw no sign of his mare.

What could Eskurola be doing? He seemed, whatever it was, to be a long time about it.

The oaken door of the room opened and closed with a bang. Don Ricardo stood before it. The dull red had returned to his cheeks.

"Sir," said he, "I have just been having another word with the Dona Dolorez: she informs me that you have had the impertinence to tell her that you love her."

Cartaret laughed bitterly. "In _my_ country," he said, "when a man wants to marry a woman it is customary to say something of that kind."

"You are in Alava, sir, and you speak of a member of my family."

"I was in Paris then."

"But this morning--just now?" Eskurola came a step forward.

"I won't talk any more about it," said Cartaret. "Please have my mare brought around at once."

"No," Eskurola replied: "you shall talk no more about it. Mr.

Cartaret, you must fight me."

The American could not believe his ears. He recollected that when the Continental speaks of fighting he does not refer to mere pugilism.

"You're crazy," said Cartaret. "I don't want to fight you."

"So soon as you have pa.s.sed that gate, you will be my guest no longer.

What, sir, you may then want will not matter. You will have to fight me."

Cartaret sat down. He crossed his legs and looked up at his host.

"Is this your little way of persuading me to stay awhile?" he asked.

"You cannot go too soon to please me."

"Then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me what it's all about."

Eskurola's giant figure bent forward. His eyes blazed down in Cartaret's face.

"You came into this place, the place of my people, under false pretenses. I made you welcome; you were my guest, sir. Yet you used your opportunities to insult my sister."

Cartaret got slowly to his feet. He knew the probable consequences of what he was about to say, but, never shifting his gaze from the Basque's, he said it quietly:

"That's a lie."

Don Ricardo leaped backward. It was doubtless the first time in his life that such a phrase had been addressed to him, and he received it as he might have received a blow. Both in mind and body, he staggered.

"My sister has told me----" he began.

"I don't want to hear any more, senor. I've said all that I have to say." Cartaret thrust his hands into the pockets of his riding-breeches and, turning his back on Eskurola, looked out of the window.

"Now," the Basque was saying, as his mental balance rea.s.serted itself--"now we must indeed fight."

Cartaret himself was thinking rapidly and by no means clearly. To say that dueling was not an American custom would avail him nothing--would be interpreted as cowardice; to fight with a man bred as Don Ricardo was evidently bred would be to walk out to death. Cartaret looked at the panorama of the mountains. Well, why not death? Less than an hour ago his whole life had been mined, had been sent crashing about his head. The only thing that he cared for in life was taken from him: Vitoria had herself declared that she hated him. Nor that alone--the thought burned in his brain: she had told this wild brother of hers that he, Cartaret, had insulted her; she had incited Eskurola to battle--perhaps to save herself, perhaps to salve some strange Basque conception of honor or pride. So be it; Cartaret could render her one more service--the last: if he allowed himself to be killed by this half-savage who so serenely thought that he was better than all the rest of the world, Don Ricardo's wounded honor would be healed, and Vitoria--now evidently herself in danger or revengeful--would be either safe or pacified. The Twentieth Century had never entered these mountains, and Cartaret, entering them, had left his own modernity behind.

"All right," said he, "since you're so confounded hungry for it, I'll fight you. Anything to oblige."

He looked about to find Eskurola bowing gratefully: the man's eyes seemed to be selecting the spot on their enemy's body at which to inflict the fatal wound.

"I am glad, sir, that you see reason," said Don Ricardo.

"I'm not sure that I see reason," said Cartaret, "but I'm going to fight you."

"I do not suppose that you can use a rapier, Mr. Cartaret?"

It was clear that not to understand the rapier was to be not quite a gentleman; but Cartaret made the confession. "Not that it matters," he reflected.

"But you can shoot?"

Cartaret remembered the boyish days when he had taken prizes for his marksmanship with a revolver. It was the one folly of his youth that he had continued, and he found a certain satisfaction (so much did Eskurola's pride impress him) in admitting this, albeit he did not mean to use the accomplishment now.

"I carry this with me," said he, producing his automatic revolver.

Don Ricardo scarcely glanced at it.

"That is not the weapon for a marksman," he said. "Nevertheless, let me see what you can do. None will be disturbed; these walls are sound-proof." He took a gold coin, an alfonso, from his pocket and flung it into the air. "Shoot!" he commanded.

Cartaret had expected nothing of the sort. He fired and missed. The report roared through the room; the acrid taste of the powder filled the air. Eskurola caught the descending coin in his hand. Cartaret saw that his failure had annoyed Don Ricardo, and this in its turn annoyed the American.

"I didn't know you were going to try me," he said, "and I'm not used to marking up the ceilings of my friends' houses. Try again."

The Basque, without comment, flung up the alfonso a second time, and a second time Cartaret fired. Eskurola reached for the coin as before, but this time it flew off at an angle and struck the farther wall.

When they picked it up, they found that it had been hit close to the edge of the disk.

"Not the center," said Don Ricardo.

"Indeed?" said Cartaret. What sort of shot would please the man?

"Suppose you try."

Eskurola explained that he was not accustomed to such a revolver, but he would not shirk the challenge; and there was no need for him to shirk it: when Cartaret recovered the alfonso after Don Ricardo had shot, there was a mark full in its middle.

"So much for His Spanish Majesty," said the Basque, as he glanced at the mark made by his bullet in the face upon the coin. "We shall use dueling-pistols. I have them here." He went to the desk.

Cartaret had no doubt that Eskurola had them there: he probably had a rack and thumbscrews handy below-stairs.