The Everlasting Arms Part 32

"I do not follow you."

"I have thought much about you, and I have been puzzled. You are a man with great ambitions--high, holy ambitions--but if you are not careful, your life will be fruitless."

d.i.c.k was silent.

"Don't mistake me. I only mean fruitless comparatively. But you are handicapped, my friend."

"Sadly handicapped," confessed d.i.c.k.

"Ah, you feel it. You are like a bird with one wing trying to fly. Forgive me, but the best houses in London are closed to you; you are a paid Labour Member of Parliament, and thus you represent only a cla.s.s--the least influential cla.s.s. You are shut out from many of the delights of life. Channels of usefulness and power are closed to you. Oh, I know it is great to be a Labour Member, but it is greater to be independent of all cla.s.ses--to live for your ideals, to have enough money to be independent of the world, to hold up your head as an equal among the greatest and highest."

"You diagnose a disease," said d.i.c.k sadly, "but you do not tell me the remedy."

"Don't I?" and d.i.c.k felt the glamour of her presence. "Doesn't your own heart tell you that, my friend?"

d.i.c.k felt a wild beating of his heart, but he did not reply. There was a weight upon his tongue.

A minute later she was the great lady again--far removed from him.

He left the house dazzled, almost in love with her in spite of Beatrice Stanmore, and largely under her influence. He had been gone only a few minutes when a servant brought a card.

"Count Romanoff," she read. "Show him here," she added, and there was a look in her eyes that was difficult to understand.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE.

Count Romanoff was faultlessly dressed, and looked calm and smiling.

"Ah, Countess," he said, "I am fortunate in finding you alone. But you have had visitors, or, to be more exact, a visitor."

"Yes; I have had visitors. I often have of an afternoon."

"But he has been here."

"Well, and what then?"

The Count gazed at her steadily, and his eyes had a sinister gleam in them.

"I have come to have a quiet chat with you," he said--"come to know how matters stand."

"You want to know more than I can tell you."

Again the Count scrutinised her closely. He seemed to be trying to read her mind.

"Olga," he said, "you don't mean to say that you have failed? He has been in London some time now, and as I happen to know, he has been here often. Has not the fish leaped to the bait? If not, what is amiss? What?--Olga Petrovic, who has turned the heads of men in half the capitals of Europe, and who has never failed to make them her slaves, fail to captivate this yokel! I can't believe it."

There was sullen anger in her eyes, and at that moment years seemed to have been added to her life.

"Beaten!" went on the Count, with a laugh--"Olga Petrovic beaten! That is news indeed."

"I don't understand," said the woman. "Something always seems to stand between us. He seems to fear me--seems to be fighting against me."

"And you have tried all your wiles?"

"Listen, Count Romanoff, or whatever your name may be," and Olga Petrovic's voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Tell me what you want me to do with that man."

"Do? Make him your slave. Make him grovel at your feet as you have made others. Make him willing to sell his soul to possess you. Weave your net around him. Glamour him with your fiendish beauty. Play upon his hopes and desires until he is yours."

"Why should I?"

"Because it is my will--because I command you."

"And what if I have done all that and failed?"

"You fail! I can't believe it. You have not tried. You have not practised all your arts."

"You do not understand," replied the woman. "You think you understand that man; you don't."

The Count laughed. "There was never a man yet, but who had his price," he said. "With some it is one thing, with some it is another, but all--all can be bought. There is no man but whose soul is for sale; that I know."

"And you have tried to buy Faversham's soul, and failed."

"Because I mistook the thing he wanted most."

"You thought he could be bought by wealth, position, and you arranged your plans. But he was not to be bought. Why? You dangled riches, position, and a beautiful woman before his eyes; but he would not pay the price."

"I chose the wrong woman," said the Count, looking steadily at Olga, "and I did not reckon sufficiently on his old-fashioned ideas of morality. Besides, I had no control over the woman."

"And you think you have control over me, eh? Well, let that pa.s.s. I have asked you to tell me why you wish to get this man in your power, and you will not tell me. But let me tell you this: there is a strange power overshadowing him. You say I must practise my arts. What if I tell you that I can't?"

"I should say you lie," replied the Count coolly.

"I don't understand," she said, as if talking to herself. "All the time when he is with me, I seem to be dealing with unseen forces--forces which make me afraid, which sap my power."

The Count looked thoughtful.

"I thought I had captivated him when that German man brought him to the East End of London," she went on. "I saw that I bewildered him--dazzled him. He seemed fascinated by my picture of what he could become. His imagination was on fire, and I could see that he was almost held in thrall by the thought that he could be a kind of uncrowned king, while I would be his queen. He promised to come to me again, but he didn't. Then I went to see him at his hotel, and if ever a woman tempted a man, I tempted him. I know I am beautiful--know that men are willing to become slaves to me. And I pleaded with him. I offered to be his wife, and I almost got him. I saw him yielding to me. Then suddenly he turned from me. A servant brought him a card, and he almost told me to go."

"You saw who these visitors were?"

"Yes; an old man and a slip of a girl. I do not know who they were. Since he has been living in London, I have watched my opportunities, and he has been here. I have flattered him; I have piqued his curiosity. I have been coy and reserved, and I have tried to dazzle him by smiles, by hand pressures, and by shy suggestions of love. But I cannot pierce his armour."

"And you will give up? You will confess defeat?"

The woman's eyes flashed with a new light. "You little know me if you think that," she cried angrily. "At one time I--yes, I, Olga Petrovic--thought I loved him. I confessed it to you, but now--now----"

"Yes, now?" questioned the Count eagerly.

"Now that thought is not to be considered. I will conquer him; I will make him my slave. He shall be willing to sacrifice name, position, future, anything, everything for me--everything."

"Only, up to now, you've failed."

"Because, because--oh, Romanoff, I don't understand. What is he? Only just a commonplace sort of man--a man vulnerable at a hundred points--and yet I cannot reach him."

"Shall I tell you why?" asked the Count.

"Tell me, tell me!" she cried. "Oh, I've thought, and thought. I've tried in a hundred ways. I've been the grand lady with a great position. I've been an angel of light who cares only for the beautiful and the pure. I've appealed to his ambition--to his love for beautiful things. I've tried to make him jealous, and I've nearly succeeded; but never altogether. Yes; he is just a clever man, and very little more; but I can't reach him. He baffles me. He does not drink, and so I cannot appeal to that weakness. Neither is he the fast man about town that can be caught in my toils. He honours, almost venerates, pure womanhood, and----"

"Tah!" interrupted the Count scornfully.

"You do not believe it?"

"Woman is always man's weak point--always!"

"But not his--not in the way you think. I tell you, he venerates ideal womanhood. He scorns the loud-talking, free-spoken women. He told me his thought of woman was like what Wordsworth painted. At heart I think he is a religious man."

"Listen," said the Count, "I want to tell you something before I go. Sit here; that's it," and he drew a chair close to his side.

He spoke to her half earnestly, half cynically, watching her steadily all the time. He noted the heaving of her bosom, the tremor of her lips, the almost haunted look in her eyes, the smile of satisfied desire on her face.

"That is your plan of action," he concluded. "Remember, you play for great stakes, and you must play boldly. You must play to win. There are times when right and wrong are nothing to a man, and you must be willing to risk everything. As for the rest, I will do it."

Her face was suffused half with the flush of shame, half with excited determination.

"Very well," she said; "you shall be obeyed."

"And I will keep my compact," said the Count.

He left her without another word, and no sign of friendship pa.s.sed between them.

When he reached the street, however, there was a look of doubt in his eyes. He might have been afraid, for there was a kind of baffled rage on his face.

He stopped a pa.s.sing taxi, and drove straight to his hotel.

"Is he here?" he asked his valet as he entered his own room.

"He is waiting, my lord."

A minute later the little man who had visited him on the day after d.i.c.k Faversham's return to Parliament appeared.

"What report, Polonius?" asked Romanoff.

"Nothing of great importance, I am afraid, my lord, but something."

"Yes, what?"

"He went to Wendover on the day I was unable to account for his whereabouts."

"Ah, you have discovered that, have you?"

"Yes; I regret I missed him that day, but I trust I have gained your lordship's confidence again."

The Count reflected a few seconds. "Tell me what you know," he said peremptorily.

"He went down early, and had a talk with an old man at the station. Then he walked to the house, and had a conversation with his old housekeeper."

"Do you know what was said?"

"There was not much said. She told him there were rumours that Anthony Riggleton was dead."

The Count started as though a new thought had entered his mind; then he turned towards his spy again.

"He did not pay much attention to it," added Polonius, "neither did he pay much attention to what she told him about Riggleton's doings at Wendover."

"Did he go through the house?"

"No; he only stayed a few minutes, but he was seen looking very hard at the front door, as though something attracted him. Then he returned by another route, and had lunch with that old man who has a cottage near one of the lodge gates."

"Hugh Stanmore--yes, I remember."

"After lunch he went through the park with the old man's granddaughter. They were talking very earnestly."

The Count leapt to his feet.

"You saw this girl?" he asked.

"Yes. A girl about twenty, I should think. Very pretty in a simple, countrified way. She is very much loved among the cottage people. I should say she's a very religious girl. I'm told that she has since become engaged to be married to a Sir George Weston, who was a soldier in Egypt."

"Sir George Weston. Let me think. Yes; I remember. Ah, she is engaged to be married to him, is she?"

"That is the rumour. Sir George was staying at Stanmore's cottage at the time of Faversham's visit. He left the day after."

"And Faversham has not been there since?"

"No, my lord."

"Well, go on."

"That is all I know."