A Modern Mercenary

She glanced at Rallywood, secure in his approval, but he had turned to Valerie, who was sitting in a low wooden chair by the stove with her back to the room.

'It was magnificent, Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed.

Valerie shivered.

'There was nothing at all magnificent about it,' she said coldly. 'Self-preservation drives one to do what one can; it is only by chance that one happens to do the right thing.'

Isolde shrugged her shoulders and made a little grimace at Rallywood.

'Do not heed her, Jack. People are always very pleased with themselves for doing what other people call magnificent. Valerie is cross. Take this chair by me; I have a very serious quarrel with you.'

All the terror and peril of that dreadful drive had passed from Madame de Sagan's facile mind. The little rivalries and coquetries of everyday life occupied her as fully as if her lot contained no troublous outlook. In this conjunction vanity will often do for a woman what work does for a man. As for Isolde, the small promptings of a wounded vanity at once absorbed her.

Very unwillingly Rallywood obeyed. Between those narrow walls one was within hand-reach of everything in the room, so that although he was beside the Countess he was not a yard from Mademoiselle Selpdorf.

'So you would not come to me last night?' began Isolde abruptly. 'You cannot be made to understand that we Maäsauns hold human life of very little account. It is stupid of you, Jack, but you will be forced to believe it now. Do you know that the driver of the sleigh – '

The attempt at assassination was horrible enough in itself, but from her lips wearing their strange innocent smile he felt he could not endure the story.

'I have heard of it,' he interposed hastily; 'the Lieutenant told me. But – '

Isolde leant upon her elbow to look into his face.

'What! You don't believe even now that Simon is trying to rid himself of me? Valerie, speak! You too refused to believe me last night. What do you say now?'

'It may have been an accident,' replied Valerie with a tired movement.

'Absurd! But whatever you choose to say, I will not go back to the Castle! Révonde is perhaps safe – '

'My father is there, and you will be safe,' said Valerie in a tone of quiet certainty.

Isolde laughed scornfully. 'I don't know that; for after all Sagan is the most powerful man in the state!' she cried, with that perverse pride in her husband that his daring personality seemed to develop in all his dependents.

As Valerie made no reply, she harked back to her former subject. 'I was in danger last night, Jack, yet you would not come to my help. What excuse can a man offer for such a thing?' her voice and lips had grown tender in addressing him.

'The Duke, Madame.'

'That for the old Duke!' with a charming gesture of emptying both her little hands. 'What is he in comparison with me? Jack, you are but a poor lover after all!'

Rallywood began to see that some motive underlay Isolde's wild talk. The kind eyes with which he had been watching her changed.

'It is very true,' he said.

'Jack, Jack, how am I to forgive you?' she swept on. 'Yet you remember when I was a firefly at the palace ball, I told you that like a firefly my life would be short and merry. My prophecy is coming true.'

An almost imperceptible alteration in the pose of the quiet figure by the open stove was not lost upon Madame de Sagan.

The sweet treble voice resumed:

'You took a firefly from my fan and told me that one always wanted the beautiful things to live for ever. Jack, you promised to be my friend that night. You have not forgotten?'

'I have not forgotten.'

'And the firefly? Have you kept that as carelessly as you have kept your promise? Where is your cigarette-case? Ah!' a pause, then a cry of pleasure. 'Valerie, come here! He dropped it into his cigarette-case and it is here still! If you had only reminded him of that – '

Valerie stood up cold and proud, and exceedingly pale.

'I forgot.'

'It does not matter now,' Isolde replied, taking the glittering atom from its hiding-place and holding it up on her slender finger to catch the light, 'since we have met after all. You meant to fail, Valerie! Were you not ashamed to deceive me last night – even last night when you saw I was desperate, and oh, so horribly afraid?'

Rallywood, absorbed in other thoughts, gathered very little of what was being said. After avoiding Isolde of Sagan with more or less success on the Frontier, he had, since his stay in Révonde, yielded in an odd reserved way to her infatuation for him, partly out of a desire to secure meetings with Mademoiselle Selpdorf, partly from a man's stupid helplessness under such circumstances. The more chivalrous the man the more helpless very often. But all this was entirely and for ever unexplainable to Mademoiselle Selpdorf. He drew a deep breath. There was nothing for it but to accept the situation.

'We both owe a debt to Mademoiselle Selpdorf for carrying the message,' he said.

'You are mistaken,' said Valerie, and he winced under the contempt of her voice. 'I should never have stooped to carry it had I not had a far different object in view.'

Isolde laughed to a shrill echo. Valerie Selpdorf's haughty spirit was about to be humbled. She dimly felt why Rallywood held the girl to be far above the level of ordinary womanhood – a cold and unattainable star. But she should be dragged down from the heights before his eyes.

'I was not so blind as you supposed,' Isolde said aloud, pointing an accusing finger at Valerie. 'I knew why you went. Shall I tell you, Jack?'

Rallywood looked up quickly. Colendorp naturally recurred to his mind.

'You could not have known,' Valerie answered.

'But I did, though!' Isolde went on. 'Listen to me, Jack. Do you know why she undertook my message, and why she forgot its most important point? My life has come to-night to a crisis; I will not spare those who have been cruel to me!' Isolde was trembling with excitement as she leant forward, one hand holding by the table that stood between her and Valerie, the other clenched in the soft fur of the rug on her knees. 'Why? Oh, men are so simple! They believe a woman to be pure and true if she but knows how to temper her coquetries with a pretence of reserve. Jack, Valerie has been false to me and to you because she is jealous of me, and – because she herself loves you!'

Rallywood rose slowly. 'Hush, Madame!'

Valerie stood for one instant scarlet from neck to brow, then the blood ebbed and left her of a curious deadly pallor like one who has a mortal wound, but she still faced them.

'Wait, Jack. You shall hear the end now that we have gone so far.' Isolde laughed again. She was so sure of her lover. 'It is well for the truth to come out sometimes, you know. Yes, Valerie Selpdorf, the proud, unapproachable Valerie, loves a captain of the Guard, who – '

Rallywood strode across in front of her. After such words of outrage, his very nearness to Mademoiselle Selpdorf seemed in itself an insult. With his back to the door he stopped and took up the last unfinished sentence.

'You have made a strange mistake, Madame,' he said in a low voice but very clearly. 'On the contrary, it is the captain of the Guard who has loved Mademoiselle Selpdorf, and even dared to tell her so, although she had shown him that she regarded him with scorn and dislike. I hope I may be forgiven for acknowledging this now, Mademoiselle. And let me say one thing more, that though I have no hope, though I am one of Love's beggars, the greatest honour of my life will be that I have loved such a woman!'

The door closed behind him. Isolde sat stupified at the result of her stratagem, the stratagem by which she had intended to humble Valerie in the most cruel way a woman can be humbled.

Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself, sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's horizon.

'Well,' said Isolde after a long pause, '"We love but while we may." I wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday.'

Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.

'As for him, Isolde, you compelled him to say it! But he does not – love me!' Her voice gathered strength. 'As for me, you shall know the whole truth; you are right – I love him, for he is a most noble gentleman!'

CHAPTER XXII

IN LOVE WITH HONOUR

Révonde was drenched in a sudden and depressing thaw. From her crowned ridges down to the swollen river rushing at her feet, she stood shivering in a robe of clinging mist; yet the day was warm with the raw deceptive closeness that chills to the bone and awakens the latent germs of death.

From the Hôtel du Chancelier the winter view over the bright, beautiful city, glittering only yesterday in its winter bedizenment of frost and snow, was changed. Streams of dirty water poured from the roofs, and in the streets the miry snow sluiced slowly downhill or stuck on passing boot-heels in treacherous pads.

A thaw is demoralising; its penetrative power strikes deeper than physical malaise. With the average man or woman it damps the spirits, unstrings the will, and slackens the mental and moral fibre until resistance of any kind becomes an effort. M. Selpdorf was in the habit of saying that the rope by which the world swings is made up of the strands of the days rather than of the fathoms of the years. He held that no detail was too insignificant to be used as a factor in the conduct of affairs; thus he habitually took everyday trifles into account, since small items are apt to add up handsomely in the final figure of any calculation. A man who says 'No' to-day may be won to consent to-morrow under altered conditions of weather and diet. Therefore the Chancellor, who had avoided his daughter since her return, made choice of a dismal morning to bring his influence to bear upon her. He relied a good deal upon Valerie's affection for himself, which was strong and single-hearted. Moreover, he had trained her to the masculine habit of taking a broad view, a bird's-eye view, of the whole of a given subject, instead of turning the microscope of her emotions on any one point, after the manner of women.

Baron von Elmur was no longer young, but he was a personage and a figure in the political world. By marrying him Valerie would place herself in a position where her cleverness, her tact, and her beauty would be offered a wide and splendid field of activity. Besides, so Selpdorf imagined, she had no more favoured suitor.

Valerie was sweet and proud and sensitive; her father gave her credit for the two first qualities, but it probably would not have struck him to use that last term in describing her. He forgot that, in spite of any amount of masculine training, a woman remains always a woman at heart. Had Valerie not met Rallywood, she might never have known as much about herself as she discovered during her visit to Sagan; as matters stood, however, the weak point in M. Selpdorf's theory was already under strain. The Chancellor usually breakfasted alone with his daughter. She was at once spirited and adaptable – adaptable enough to fall in with a man's moods, and spirited enough to hold independent opinions, an ideal combination in a comrade. Servants were rigorously excluded from the room during the meal, that father and daughter might talk freely together.

'I have hardly seen you since you came back, Valerie. I have missed you,' Selpdorf said as he turned away from the table and lit a cigarette. 'I am hurried to-day, yet I must speak to you on a subject that cannot be put off. One incident of your stay at the Castle has been constantly in my mind.'

'Yes, father.'

The unconcern of her voice struck Selpdorf. Things were either about to go unexpectedly well or else very badly.

'Baron von Elmur tells me you yielded to my advice and his wishes. In fact, you consented to an engagement.'

'Oh, yes, for the time being.'

'My dear girl,' he returned gravely, 'it has been publicly announced. It was announced the same evening, I understand.'

Valerie looked at him with a vague alarm in her eyes.

'Only by an unlucky accident,' she replied. 'It was never intended to be announced. Baron von Elmur assured me of that.'

'I am sure von Elmur's intentions were most generous, but the fact remains that it was made public. Valerie, you must be aware of his feelings towards you?'

Valerie came round the table and sat down beside her father, slipping her hand caressingly through his arm.

Selpdorf smiled down at her.

'Valerie, I must ask you to consider not only your own share in this question, but von Elmur's. It compromises Elmur no less than it compromises you.'

'I cannot carry out the engagement,' said the girl quietly.

M. Selpdorf threw a great deal of surprise and disappointment into his countenance.

'I did not know you were so greatly prejudiced against him. But, Valerie, we are honourable people, you and I, and we cannot allow Baron von Elmur to suffer because we unluckily misunderstood one another.'

Valerie grew very still, her fingers pressed upon her father's arm.

'Nothing succeeds like success, and up to the present time von Elmur has succeeded,' he went on. 'But a failure in a love affair places a man in an absurd position, and to be laughed at means loss of prestige. Wherever he is known the story will follow him. He has a brilliant future before him, a future that it might be the pride of any woman to share. I think, therefore, you will hesitate before you injure him by giving way to a girlish and perhaps passing dislike.'

'Father, I cannot!'

Valerie's voice was always low pitched and had the mellow sweetness peculiar to a contralto. But Selpdorf recognised a note in it now which showed him that his wishes were very far from fulfilment. She was loyal and steadfast, qualities that up to the present the Chancellor had found very admirable in his daughter. It is a rare pleasure for men of his type to be able to trust their womankind. In the case of his motherless girl, the Chancellor had enjoyed this pleasure to the full. To-day for the first time he found himself face to face with the less convenient side of the girl's character. She was an eminently reasonable person, and though she could stick to her point she never did so without cause. Therefore Elmur's affair promised to be awkward.

'What are your reasons?' he asked, after a pause.

'I do not – like Baron von Elmur.'

'That is unfortunate, but your dislike may be overcome when you know him better.'

'Oh, no! – never!'

'Why not?'

'Is it possible to explain a dislike?' asked Valerie rather petulantly.

'No, perhaps not – for a woman,' said Selpdorf reflectively, 'but since there is no other – ' he waited, then putting his forefinger under his chin, he raised her face and looked into it. 'Unless indeed you prefer someone – '

Her eyes, which met his with the clear direct glance they had not inherited from himself, and her pale gravity dismayed him.

'Speak, my dear child. This is a matter very near my heart,' he said quietly.

A tremulous smile came to Valerie's lips.

'And near mine – or I should not oppose you, father.'

Selpdorf pushed her away from him with a gentle hand.

'You don't know what you are doing,' he said shortly, and gazed out with undisguised chagrin into the mists that overhung Révonde. Presently he stood up.

'Well, well; it only goes to prove that the human element is a variable quantity,' he remarked.

'Am I only a human element in your plans? Am I no more than that to you?' She put her hands upon his shoulder.

M. Selpdorf drew her nearer and kissed her forehead.

'You know what you are to me, Valerie. I had hoped to join our interests in all things, but – ' he turned to the door.

'Father!' the girl cried, 'don't leave me like this. You don't understand. I only knew by chance. He is too noble to – '

'Ah!' Selpdorf recollected Elmur's phrase, 'There is always the picturesque captain of the Guard.' He paused before speaking. 'Then this noble individual does not propose to take my daughter from me altogether – only to entangle her in a sentimental embarrassment?'

'He made no claim upon me. He was compelled to – to speak – for my sake!'

'I will not ask for further confidences to-day, Valerie. But think over the whole of our conversation. I can trust you to be just, even to Baron von Elmur.'

M. Selpdorf knew that the longer an idea is brooded over, the harder it becomes to part company with it. Therefore the forenoon was yet young when von Elmur drove up to the Hôtel du Chancelier in reply to a summons. The German plot was not yet at an end. By judicious manipulation, Selpdorf had gleaned a dim knowledge of Counsellor's errand from the Duke, who was as wax in his supple hands. Counsellor's return had already become one day overdue, and Selpdorf took advantage of the delay to infuse doubts and troubled surmises into the Duke's wavering mind.

He had recovered in some measure the royal confidence, and felt almost certain that if the English proposals could be sufficiently delayed as to seem to hang fire, he might still be able to persuade his master to enter into some provisional arrangement with Germany.

'You have not any definite news for me, after all,' Elmur remarked at the end of ten minutes. 'I begin to believe the Count's declaration that his Highness can only be driven into a reasonable treaty with us by – ' he stopped and sketched rapidly on the paper before him, 'by – in fact – the flat of the sword, shall we say?'

Selpdorf turned a look on his companion.

'Could you trust Count Simon to put any man, and most of all the one upon whose property he has a reversionary claim, in fear of death? And further trust him not to put the threat into execution if provoked by failure?'

Elmur shrugged his shoulders.

'We should have Duke Simon to deal with in that case, instead of Duke Gustave.'

M. Selpdorf's round forehead wrinkled slightly. He was apprehensive of this new temper in Elmur. The Chancellor was too clever to be quite honest, and too honest to be quite unflinching. A man, in fact, a little weaker and a little stronger than his fellows. 'Then the Count's methods still commend themselves to you, the miscarriage of the plan of Sagan notwithstanding?' he asked with an invidious smile.

'If his Highness can be brought into a complacent frame of mind as regards our project to-day, and before the English proposals are laid before him, I think we shall not need the methods of the Count,' Elmur answered. 'Count Simon has undertaken to help us on the Frontier. Major Counsellor will be detained under some pretext at Kofn Ford block-house, and later you, Monsieur, who have so consummate a skill in covering the mistakes of other people, will set this mistake right by a graceful apology. The fat Major will arrive in Révonde behind time – that is all. In the meanwhile, his despatches will be forwarded to you if you will select a safe person to meet the Count's messenger beyond the river. Later you can return them to Major Counsellor and score a point by the act.'

Selpdorf made no comment, but changed the subject. 'I have had a little talk with my daughter.'

Elmur laid down his pen and his impassive air became more marked than ever.

'Am I then to have the pleasure of an interview with Mademoiselle to-day?' he inquired. 'I hope she exonerates me from any blame in connection with the announcement made at Sagan?'

'Entirely. But she is inclined to insist that her consent was conditional – no more.'

'I only desire the opportunity of assuring her of my entire devotion,' said Elmur.

'I do not fancy that she wrongs you, my dear Baron, by doubting that.'

'There is then a difficulty on the part of Mademoiselle? It is unfortunate.'

'It can be overcome. She is still very young, and her imagination has been touched. The Englishman, Captain Rallywood, has, as you once remarked the knack of making himself picturesque, which appeals in fact to the imagination. I am myself sensible of something of the kind when dealing with him. Valerie imagines him to be quixotic.'

'Has Mademoiselle said this?' Elmur was stiffening at every sentence. Circumstances and not liking had put these two men on the same side, and Selpdorf repaid Elmur's sneers at the helplessness of Maäsau with sympathy for Elmur's position as a lover. No man likes to be pitied in his love affairs.

'No, no, my good friend, no name was mentioned. It may be more convenient that I should never know it.'

'Then you think she may be persuaded to alter her decision with regard to me?'

'I am certain of it.'

'And what do you suggest shall be done with my – rival?' asked the German with a sinister inflection of the voice.

'We must break him.'

'Will it not be possible to work in this small affair with Counsellor's detention? Send Captain Rallywood to Kofn Ford to undertake the custody of Major Counsellor. Of course, it will not be necessary for you to mention the name of the person about whom your stupid Frontier officials are to make so convenient a mistake. When Rallywood discovers the identity of his prisoner, I fancy his honour will find the weight of temptation put upon it too great. He also is in the English plot, remember, and he will co-operate with his countryman. He will allow Counsellor to escape. But by that time the Duke must have closed with another ally.'

Selpdorf comprehended that the German was playing his own game in a double sense. He was, in fact, serving his own private interests and also hustling Selpdorf along towards the German goal.

'Then we shall have a court-martial,' said the Chancellor. 'Disgrace will be more effectual than death itself in this case.'

'Disgrace? ah, yes! But I know what would happen to Captain Rallywood in my country.' Elmur's eyes had a gleam in them.

'I am not so well informed. Our State is more elastic in its laws than yours. I cannot foresee what will happen to him in mine!' replied Selpdorf smiling.

'There is but one thing that could happen to him under military law in any country. He will be shot!' said Elmur pleasantly, then added with a sudden uncontrolled irritation, 'And that too is picturesque.'

The Chancellor spread out his hands.

'What will you, my dear Baron? It is also conclusive. Besides, we shall have gained our point. The fellow's breach of faith is our point. Valerie will be disillusioned; for recollect, I pray you, that Valerie is in love with honour.'

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW RALLYWOOD HAD HIS ORDERS

Unziar had already departed to the Frontier on a secret errand when Rallywood started for the Chancellerie through the slush and fog. It was yet early in the afternoon, and an hour when the Duke sometimes drove out. As Rallywood trotted along the embankment by the river, he saw the outriders of the Duke's carriage coming towards him.

Gustave of Maäsau happened to be alone, and, to indulge the humour of the moment, he beckoned the young man to the side of the carriage and spoke a few words to him. He took a pleasure in the Englishman's frank readiness.

'I have to thank you for your energy in the matter of Colendorp,' he began. 'We have, however, decided to leave the whole affair in abeyance for the present. So M. Selpdorf has sent for you. What for?' he added with the curiosity of an idle man.

'I do not know, sire.'

'Now I remember, he did mention something about – well, well, we have worse enemies in the State than the Chancellor,' he wandered on, for he had had an interview during the morning with Selpdorf, and was more than half persuaded to place himself once more unreservedly under that able direction. For Selpdorf had almost succeeded in lulling his suspicions, and in luring him back to the old comfortable habit of believing in a false peace. He half regretted the doubts he had lately entertained of his Prime Minister, and was weakly willing to disabuse the Englishman's mind of prejudice. He did not know that Rallywood was quite unaware of Selpdorf's connection with the Sagan plot. 'The excellent Selpdorf is unsparing of his agents,' went on the Duke in vague connection, 'but he is also unsparing of himself. Therefore see that you obey him loyally. For me, he does what he wills with me.' He laughed and raised his hand by way of dismissal.