The Lighted Match Part 22

"You were seen on the promenade. It was reported from several sources,"

Von Ritz made answer. "Also," he added as an afterthought, "we knew of your arrival two hours after you reached Puntal. You registered at the hotel under your own name."

"Does the Queen also know of my presence?" asked Benton.

"No," was the brief reply.

For the remainder of the drive conversation died. The two men sat mutely opposite each other as the carriage jolted over the cobble-stoned streets, until the driver turned into the castle gates.

Then Von Ritz again leaned forward.

"Mr. Benton," he explained, "it happens that this evening a ball is being given at the Palace for the members of the Diplomatic Corps. His Majesty, supposing that you would desire a quiet reception, instructed me to take you to the gardens of his private suite where he will shortly join you; unless," added Von Ritz courteously, "you prefer the Throne-room and dancing _salles_?"

Benton's reply was prompt.

"I believe I am to see the Count Pagratide," he answered. "I am grateful to the Count for arranging that I might be secluded."

Blanco had gone into some detail in describing the chamber where he had met the King, and later the Queen. Benton now recognized the place to which he was conducted, from that description. As before, the room was empty and the portieres of the wide windows were partly drawn. Through the opening he could see the small area perching on a s.p.a.ce redeemed from the solid rock. Dark ma.s.ses against the sky marked the palms of the garden, and through the window drifted the splashing of a fountain mingled with the distant strains of the same Viennese waltz that the hotel band had been playing. That year you might have heard it from the Golden Gate to Suez and back again from Suez to the Golden Gate.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE

Left alone, Benton spent ten minutes in the room, then pa.s.sed through the window to the balcony and went down into the miniature garden. His face was hot and his pulses heightened. The garden was gratefully cool and quiet.

From the window, through which he had come, a broad shaft of tempered luminance fell across the fountain and laid a zone of soft light athwart the low stone benches surrounding it. Then it caught, and faintly edged with its glow, the granite bal.u.s.trade at the shoulder of the cliff.

Elsewhere the little garden was enveloped in the velvet blackness of the night, against which the points of town and harbor lights, far below, were splinters of emerald and ruby. The moon would not rise until late.

The American strolled over to the shaded margin which was unspoiled by the light. He brushed back the hair from his forehead and let the sea breeze play on his face.

Finally a light sound behind him called his attention inward. The King and Von Ritz stood together in the doorway. Both were in dress uniform.

Karyl, even at the side of the soldierly Von Ritz, was striking in the white and silver of Galavia's commanding general. Across his breast glinted the decorations of all the orders to which Royalty ent.i.tled him.

The King, with a deep breath not unlike a sigh, came forward to the fountain. There he halted with one booted foot on the margin of the basin and his white-gauntleted hands clasped at his back. He had not yet seen Benton, who now stepped out of the shadow to present himself. As he came into view Karyl raised his eyes and nodded with a smile.

"Ah, Benton," he said, "so you came! Thank you."

The American bowed. He wished to observe every proper amenity of Court etiquette. He was still chagrined by the memory of his rudeness to Von Ritz, yet he was determined that if Karyl had sent for him as the Count Pagratide, he must receive him on equal terms and without ceremony.

"Certainly," he replied. Then with a short laugh he added: "I have never before been received by a crowned head. If my etiquette proves faulty, you must score it against my ignorance--not my intention."

"I sent for you," said Karyl slowly, as the eyes of the two men met in full directness, "and you were good enough to come. I am a crowned head--yes--that is my d.a.m.ned ill-fortune. Let us, for G.o.d's sake, in so far as we may, forget that! Benton, back there--" his voice suddenly rose and took on a pa.s.sionate tremor as he lifted one gauntleted hand in a sweep toward the west--"back there in your country, where you were a grandee of finance and I an impecunious foreigner, there was no ceremony between us. If we can forget this livery"--Karyl savagely struck his breast--"if you will try to forget that you are looking at a toy King, fancifully trimmed from head to heel in braid and medals--then perhaps we can talk!"

"Your Majesty--" demurred Von Ritz in a tone of deep protest.

The King swept his arm back as one who brushes an unimportant intruder into the background.

"And we must talk," went on Karyl vehemently, "as two men, not as one man and a puppet."

The American stood looking on at the violence of the King's outburst with a sense of deep sympathy. Again the Colonel stepped forward with an interposed objection.

"If I may suggest--" he began in an emotionless inflection which fell in startling contrast with the surcharged vehemence of the other. Then he halted in the midst of his sentence as Karyl wheeled pa.s.sionately to face him.

"My G.o.d, Colonel!" cried the King. "There is not a debt of grat.i.tude in life that I do not owe to you--I and my house! I am crushed under my obligations to you. You have been our strength, our one loyal support, and yet there are times when you madden me!" The officer stood waiting, respectful, impersonal, until the flood of words should subside, but for a while Karyl swept agitatedly on.

"You wear a sword, Von Ritz, which any monarch in Europe would hire at your own price. Any government would let you name what t.i.tles and honors you wished in payment--"

"Your Majesty!"

"Forgive me, I know your sword is not for sale. I mean no such intimation. I mean only that it has a value. I mean you are a man, and the game to you is the large one of statecraft. It is really you who rule this Kingdom. Ah, yes, you remonstrate, but I tell you it is true, and the d.a.m.nable shame is that it is not a Kingdom worthy of your genius! You, Von Ritz, are the engine, the motive force--but I--in G.o.d's holy name, what am I?"

He raised his hands questioningly, appealingly.

"You," replied the older soldier calmly, "are the King."

"Yes," Karyl caught up the words almost before they had fallen from the lips of the other. "Yes, I am the King. I am the miserable, gilded figurehead out on the prow, which serves no end and no purpose. I am the ornamental symbol of a system which the world is discarding! I am a medieval lay figure upon which to hang these tinsel decorations, these ribbons!"

"Your Majesty is excited."

"No, by G.o.d, I am only heartbroken--and I am through!" The King's hands dropped at his sides. The pa.s.sion died out of his voice and eyes, leaving them those of a man who is very tired. For a moment there was silence. It was broken by the American.

"Pagratide," he asked, "why did you send for me?"

The King stood rigid with the illuminating shaft from the door touching into high-lights the polish of his boots and the burnish of his accouterments. Finally he turned and in a voice now deadly quiet countered with another question.

"Benton, why did you save me?"

The American answered with quiet candor.

"I went into it," he said, "because I feared the danger might threaten Cara. Once in, only a murderer could have turned back."

"So I thought." Karyl nodded his head, then he turned and paced restively up and down the path between the fountain and the balcony. At last he halted fronting the American.

"I wish to G.o.d, Benton, you had let that traitor Lapas and his const.i.tuents touch their d.a.m.ned b.u.t.ton. I wish to G.o.d you had let them lift me, amid the stones of _do Freres_, into eternity! But that wish is uncharitable to Von Ritz and the others who must have gone with me." The King broke off with a short laugh. "After all," he added, "of course, as you say, you couldn't do it."

Benton shook his head. "No," he said, "I couldn't do it."

Again Karyl paced back and forth, and again he stopped, facing the American.

"Benton, it is hard for two men to talk in this fashion. Perhaps no two other men ever did. I find myself a jailer to the woman I love--Oh, yes, I am also imprisoned by Royalty but that does not alter matters." The voice shook. The gauntleted hands were tightly gripped, but the speaker went steadily on. "And you love her!"

For an instant Benton looked at the other, hesitant. Then realizing the unquestionable sincerity with which the King spoke, he answered with equal frankness.

"Pagratide--over there--I thought I could enter Paradise. I did look into Paradise. Then I had to set my face back again to the desert--and in the desert one has only memory and hunger and thirst."