Читать книгу Black Oxen (Unabridged) - Gertrude Atherton - Страница 14

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She opened the door as he ran up the steps. "I never ask my servants to sit up," she said. "Judge Trent warned me that the American servant is as difficult to keep as to get and must be humored. When I think of the wages I pay these pampered creatures and the amount of food they consume, and then of my half-starved friends in Austria, it makes me sick—sick!"

There being no reply to the axiomatic truth involved in these words, Clavering followed her silently into the library. The log fire was still burning and he hastily replenished it. They took their little supper standing and then seated themselves in easy chairs on either side of the hearth.

"Why don't you bring over your own servants?" he asked. "Time and democracy might ruin them, but meanwhile you would have comfort. Surely you brought your maid?"

"I've had no maid until now since the beginning of the war. I rarely left the hospital. Heaven knows where my other servants are. The young men were mobilized and those that returned alive were either killed in the revolution or turned revolutionists themselves. No doubt the new government would have turned Mary's palace in Buda Pesth into a tenement house if it had not still been a hospital. We left during the revolution and lived in Vienna. Servants with the virus of Bolshevism in their veins would be worse than these."

"Were you ever in danger?"

"Oh, many times," she said indifferently. "Who was not?"

"Was that what broke your cousin down?"

"That and the hard work in Vienna trying to relieve the distress—while half-starved herself. Of course we had almost no money until the United States Government restored our properties."

"Will she join you here when she is well?"

"No, Mary Zattiany will never be seen again."

"Ah? As bad as that? Her friends will be distressed. I understand they saw her abroad from time to time before the war—particularly Mrs. Oglethorpe. That old set is very loyal."

"Loyal! Oh, yes. They are loyal. Mrs. Oglethorpe was ready to give me over to the police. She seemed to think that I had murdered Mary—no doubt during the revolution, when it would have been quite easy. And she seemed to resent quite bitterly my resemblance to Mary in her youth—as if I had committed a theft."

"Probably it made her feel her age. I wonder you saw her."

"I was coming down the stairs as she crossed the hall. Be sure I would not have seen her if I could have avoided it."

"Why?" He left his seat restlessly and leaned against the mantelshelf. "That sounds impertinent. All my questions have been impertinent, I am afraid. But—I should warn you—I gather that both Mr. Dinwiddie and Mrs. Oglethorpe think there is something wrong—that is, unexplained."

"Really?" She looked intensely amused. "But that is interesting. Of course I knew of Mr. Dinwiddie's curiosity from Judge Trent—but I rather thought——"

"Oh, yes, you have floored him completely. But I fancy he's more curious than ever. I—I—wish you would confide in me. I might be better able to defend you if the necessity arose."

"Don't you believe I am what I represent myself to be?"

"It is a terrible thing to say to a woman like you, but——"

He expected her to rise in her majesty and order him to leave the house, but she merely smiled again and said:

"You forget Judge Trent. Do you think if I were an impostor he would vouch for me?"

"I believe you could make any man believe what you wished him to believe."

"Except yourself."

"Remember that a newspaper man—— However, I'll speak only for myself." He thrust his hands into his pockets and tried to summon his saturnine expression, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that he looked merely wistful and boyish and that this highly accomplished woman of the world was laughing at him. "For my own sake I want to know," he blurted out. "I haven't an idea why I suspect you, and it is possible that you are what you say you are. Certainly you are far too clever not to have an alibi it would be difficult to puncture. But I sensed something that first night … something beyond the fact that you were a European and did a curious thing—which, however, I understood immediately.… It was something more.… I don't think I can put it into words … you were there, and yet you were not there … somebody else seemed to be looking out of your eyes … even when Dinwiddie thought he had explained the matter.…"

"You mean when he assumed that I was the illegitimate daughter of Mary Zattiany. Poor Mary! She always wanted a daughter—that is, when her own youth was over. That is the reason she was so fond of me. Do you think I am Mary's bastard?"

"I did—I don't now.… I don't know what to think.… I have never lost that first impression—wholly."

She stirred slightly. Was it a movement of uneasiness? He was horribly embarrassed, but determined to hold his ground, and he kept his eyes on her face, which retained its expression of mocking amusement.

"But you think I am an adventuress of some sort."

"The word does not apply to you. There is no question that you are a great lady."

"Of course I might be an actress," she said coolly. "I may have been on the stage in Vienna when the war broke out, become accidentally associated with Countess Zattiany, won her confidence, owing to the extraordinary resemblance—our blood may have met and mingled in Cro-Magnon days—stolen her papers, led her to talk of her youth—of course every one knew Countess Zattiany's record in European Society—forged her power of attorney with the aid of an infatuated clerk, poisoned her—and here I am!"

He laughed. "Bully plot for the movies. That is a new angle, as they say. I hadn't thought of it. And a good actress can put over anything. I once heard a movie queen, who was the best young aristocrat, in looks and manner, I ever saw on the screen, say to her director—repeating a telephone conversation—'I says and he says and then I seen he hadn't heard me.'"

For the first time since he had known her she threw back her head and laughed heartily. Even her eyes looked young and her laugh was musical and thrilling.

Then she demanded: "And do you think I am an actress—who got an education somehow?"

"I think you are an actress, but not that sort. Your imaginative flight leaves me cold."

"Perhaps you think I had Mary's personality transferred and that it exists side by side with my own here in this accidental shell. There are great scientists in Vienna."

"Ah!" He looked at her sharply. "Button, button—I feel a sensation of warmth somewhere."

She laughed again, but her eyes contracted and almost closed. "I fear you are a very romantic young man as well as a very curious one."

"I deserved that. Well, I am curious. But not so curious as—interested."

"I hope you are not falling in love with me." Her deep voice had risen to a higher register and was light and gay.

"I am half in love with you. I don't know what is going to happen——"

"And you want to protect yourself by disenchantment?"

"Perhaps."

"And you think it is my duty …"

"Possibly I'd fall in love with you anyway, but I'd like to know where I stand. I have a constitutional hatred of mystery outside of fiction and the drama."

"Ah." She gazed into the fire. "Mr. Dinwiddie, no doubt, is making investigations. If he verified my story, would you still disbelieve?"

"I should know there was something back of it all."

"You must have been a good reporter."

"One of the best."

"I suppose it is that."

"Partly. I don't think that if you were not just what you are I'd care a hang. Other people's affairs don't excite me. I've outgrown mere inquisitiveness."

"That is rather beside the point, isn't it? It all comes back to this—that you are afraid of falling in love with me."

"You don't look as if it would do me any good if I did."

"Why not let it go at that?"

"I think the best thing I can do is to get out altogether."

She rose swiftly and came close to him. "Oh, no! I am not going to let you go. You are the only person on this continent who interests me. I shall have your friendship. And you must admit that I have done nothing——"

"Oh, no, you have done nothing. You've only to be." He wondered that he felt no desire to touch her. She looked lovely and appealing and very young. But she radiated power, and that chin could not melt.

He asked abruptly: "How many men have you had in love with you?"

"Oh!" She spread out her hands vaguely. "How can one remember?" And that look he most disliked, that look of ancient wisdom, disillusioned and contemptuous, came into her eyes.

"You are too young to have had so very many. And the war took a good slice out of your life. I don't suppose you were infatuating smashed-up men or even doctors and surgeons."

"Certainly not. But, when one marries young—and one begins to live early in Europe."

"How often have you loved, yourself?"

"That question I could answer specifically, but I shall not."

He calculated rapidly. "Four years of war. Assuming that you are thirty-two, although sometimes you look older and sometimes younger, and that you married at seventeen, that would leave you—well, eleven years before the war began. I suppose you didn't fall in love once a year?"

"Oh, no, I am a faithful soul. Say three years and a third to each attack."

"You talk at times singularly like an American for one who left here at the age of two."

"Remember that my family went with me. Moreover, Mary and I always talked English together—American if you like. She was intensely proud of being an American. We read all the American novels, as I told you. They are an education in the idiom, permanent and passing. Moreover, I was always meeting Americans."

"Were you? Well, the greater number of them must be in New York at the present moment. No doubt they would be glad to relieve your loneliness."

"I am not in the least lonely and I have not the least desire to see any of them. Only one thing would induce me—if I thought it would be possible to raise a large amount of money for the women and children of Austria."

"Ah! You would take the risk, then?"

"Risk? They were the most casual acquaintances. They probably have forgotten me long since. I had not left Hungary for a year before the war, and one rarely meets an American in Pesth Society—two or three other American women had married Hungarians, but they preferred Vienna and I preferred Europeans. I knew them only slightly.… Moreover, there are many Zattianys. It is an immense connection."

"You mean you believe you would be safe," he caught her up.

"Mon dieu! You make me feel as if I were on the stand. But yes, quite safe."

"And you really believe that any one could ever forget you?"

"I am not as vain as you seem to think."

"You have every right to be. Suppose—suppose that something should occur to rouse the suspicions of the Countess Zattiany's old friends and they should start investigations in Vienna?"

"They would not see her—nor their emissaries. Dr. Steinach's sanitarium is inviolate."

"Steinach—Steinach—where have I heard that name lately?"

Her eyes flew open, but she lowered the lids immediately. Her voice shook slightly as she replied: "He is a very great doctor. He will keep poor Mary's secret as long as she lives and nobody in Vienna would doubt his word. Investigations would be useless."

"She is there then? I suppose you mean that she is dying of an incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had—— Oh, I don't know what to believe!… Won't you ever tell me?"

"I wonder! No, I think not! No! No!"

"There is something then?"

"Do you know why you still harp on that absurd idea that I am what I am and still am not? Do you not know what it is—the simple explanation?"

"No, I do not."

"It is merely that European women, the women who have been raised in the intrigues of courts and the artificialities of what we call 'the World,' who learn the technique of gallantry as soon as they are lancée, where men make a definite cult of women and women of men, where sincerity in such an atmosphere is more baffling than subtlety and guile—that is the reason your American girl is never understood by foreign men—where naturalness is despised as gauche and art commands homage, where, in short, the game is everything—that most aristocratic and enthralling of all games—the game of chess, with men and women as kings, queens, pawns.… There you have the whole explanation of my apparent riddle. You have never met any one like me before."

"There are a good many women of your class here now."

"Yes, with avowed objects, is it not? And they do not happen to possess the combination of qualities that commands your interest."

"That is true enough. Perhaps your explanation is the real one. There is certainly something in it. Well, I'll go now. I have kept you up long enough."

He was about to raise her hand to his lips when she surprised him by shaking his warmly.

"I must get over that habit. It is rather absurd in this country where you have not the custom. But you will come again?"

"Oh, yes, I'll come again."