The Port of Missing Men Part 25

"It must have hurt him," said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that was meant to be severe.

"I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn't take the Claiborne plate for anything, I a.s.sure you!"

"I suppose you didn't think of us--all of us, and the unpleasant consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened here!"

There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly.

"Please forgive me! I would not cause embarra.s.sment or annoyance to any member of your family for kingdoms. I didn't know I was being followed--I had come here to see you. That is the truth of it."

"You mustn't try to see me! You mustn't come here at all unless you come with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is sought so persistently--at most unusual times and in impossible places, leaves very much to explain."

"I know that! I realize all that!"

"Then you must not come! You must leave instantly."

She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly.

"You have been hurt--why did you not tell me that?"

"It is nothing--the fellow had a knife, and he--but it's only a trifle in the shoulder. I must be off!"

The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof of the veranda.

As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward the porte-cochere.

"I'm off--please believe in me--a little."

"You must not go if you are hurt--and you can't run away now--my father and mother are at the door."

There was an instant's respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses.

"You can't go now; come in and wait."

There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past her with a gesture--through the library and beyond, into a smaller room used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the rod rings.

She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the veranda.

"All, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its powers."

And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof.

CHAPTER XVII

A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING

Oh, sweetly fall the April days!

My love was made of frost and light, Of light to warm and frost to blight The sweet, strange April of her ways.

Eyes like a dream of changing skies, And every frown and blush I prize.

With cloud and flush the spring comes in, With frown and blush maids' loves begin; For love is rare like April days.

--L. Frank Tooker.

Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the Amba.s.sador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn of affairs. The Amba.s.sador would not leave until the storm abated, and meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage's plight--his injuries and the dangers that beset him--that was uppermost in her mind.

The embarra.s.sment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain that twitched his face at the door haunted her.

The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna.

"The trouble is," said the Amba.s.sador, "that Austria-Hungary is not a nation, but what Metternich called Italy--a geographical expression.

Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold them together."

"And a weak hand," suggested Judge Claiborne, "might easily lose or scatter them."

"Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a new edifice--and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die to-night or to-morrow--"

The Amba.s.sador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers.

"Yes; after him, what?"

"After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von Stroebel might easily fail to hold the _disjecta membra_ of the Empire together."

"But there are shadows on the screen," remarked Judge Claiborne. "There was Karl--the mad prince."

"Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a taint of democracy, treason, rebellion."

Judge Claiborne laughed.

"I don't like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger."

"No; you are a miracle--that is the only explanation," replied Marhof.

"But a man like Karl--what if he were to reappear in the world! A little democracy might solve your problem."

"No, thank G.o.d! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself off and die."

"But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son who chose his father's exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without heirs, should die and Karl or his son--"

"In the providence of G.o.d they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining information."

"I have heard as much," and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge Claiborne's tone.

The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the Amba.s.sador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention of Stroebel's name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious questions.

"Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate," she said. "He believed in the divine right and all that."

"So do I, Miss Claiborne. It's all we've got to stand on!"