Part 12 (2/2)

He watched her without movement. She picked up a pile of letters from a table in the middle of the room, glanced at them, and threw them down.

”It is as well,” she warned him, ”to keep all promises.”

”As for this one,” he replied, ”I have no responsibility save to myself.

I absolve myself. I give myself permission to speak. Your father is even wishful that I should do so. I crave from you, Naida, the happiness which only you can bring into my life. I ask you to become my wife.”

She looked at him without visible change of expression. Her lips, however, were a little parted. The air of aloofness with which she moved through the world seemed suddenly more marked. He would have been a brave man, or one entirely without perceptions, who would have advanced towards her at that moment.

”That is quite impossible,” she p.r.o.nounced.

”I do not admit it,” he contended. ”No, I will never admit that. The fates brought us together. It will take something stronger than fate to drive us apart. I had not meant to speak yet. I had meant to wait until the great pact was sealed and the glory to come a.s.sured, but during these last few days I have suffered. A strange fancy has come to me. I seem to feel something between us, so I speak before it can grow. I speak because without you life for me would be a thing not worth having.

You are my life and my soul. You will not send me away?”

Naida was troubled but unhesitating. It was perhaps at that moment that a hidden characteristic of her features showed itself. Her mouth, sometimes almost too voluptuous in its softness, had straightened into a firm line of scarlet. The deeper violet of her eyes had gone. So a woman might have looked who watched suffering unmoved, the woman of the bull or prize fight.

”I am glad that you have spoken, Oscar,” she said. ”I know a thing now which has been a source of doubt and anxiety to me. What you ask is impossible. I do not love you. I shall never love you. A few days ago, I asked myself the very question you have just asked me, and I could not answer it. Now I know.”

Pain and anger struggled in his face. He was suffering, without a doubt, but for a moment it seemed as though the anger would predominate. His great shoulders heaved, his hands were clenched until the signet ring on his left finger cut into the flesh, his eyes were like glittering points of fire.

”It is the old dream concerning Paul?” he demanded.

”It has nothing to do with Paul,” she a.s.sured him. ”Concerning him I will admit that I have had my weak moments. I think that those have pa.s.sed. It was such a wonderful dream,” she went on reflectively, ”the dream of ruling the mightiest nation in the world, a nation that even now, after many years of travail, is only just finding its way through to the light. It seemed such a small thing that stood in the way. Since then I have met Paul's wife. She does not understand, but at least she loves.”

”She is a poor fool, no helpmate for any man,” Immelan declared. ”Yet it is not his cause I plead, but mine. I, too, can minister to your ambitions. Be my wife, and I swear to you that before five years have pa.s.sed I will be President of the German Republic. Germany is no strange country to you,” he went on pa.s.sionately. ”It is you who have helped in the great _rapprochement_. At times when Paul has been difficult, you have smoothed the way. I would not speak against your country, I would not speak against anything which lies close to your heart, but let me tell you that when the day of purification comes, the day when G.o.d gives us leave to pour out the vials of vengeance, there will be no prouder, no more glorious people than ours. Our triumph will be yours, Naida. You yourself will help to cement the great alliance of these years.”

She shook her head.

”I am a woman,” she said simply. ”Incidentally, I am a politician and something of an altruist, but when it comes to marriage, I am a woman. I do not love you, Oscar, and I will not marry you.”

There was a darker shade upon his face now. Unconsciously he had drawn a little nearer to her.

”Listen,” he begged; ”it is perhaps possible that I have not been mistaken--that a certain change has crept up in you even within the last few days? Tell me, is there any one else who has found his way into your heart? No, I will not say heart! It could not be your heart in so short a time. Into your fancy? Is there any one else, Naida, of whom you are thinking?”

”That is my concern, Oscar, and mine only,” she answered haughtily.

A weaker woman he would have bullied. His veins were filled with anger.

His tongue ached to spend itself. Naida's bearing cowed him. She remained a dominating figure. The unnatural restraint imposed upon himself, however, made his voice sound hard and unfamiliar. There were little patches of white around his mouth; his teeth showed, when he spoke, more than usual.

”If there were any one else,” he declared, ”and that some one else should chance to be an Englishman, I would find a new h.e.l.l for him.”

”There is no one else,” she answered calmly, ”but if there ever should be, Oscar Immelan, and if you ever interfered with him, either in this country or any other, my arm would follow you around the world. Remember that.”

She turned away for a moment, eager to gain a brief respite from his darkening face. When she looked around, he was gone. She heard his footsteps pa.s.sing down the corridor, the bell ringing for the lift, the clank of the gates as he stepped in. Once more she gazed out over the uninspiring prospect. There was a little more suns.h.i.+ne upon the river; more of the dusty chimney-pots seemed bathed in its silvery radiance. As she stood there, she felt herself growing calmer. The tension pa.s.sed from her nerves. Her eyes grew soft again. Then an impulse came to her.

She stretched out her hand for the telephone book, turned over the pages restlessly, looked through the ”D's” until she found the name for which she was searching. For a long time she hesitated. When at last she took up the receiver and asked for a number, she was conscious of a slight thrill, a sense of excitement which in moments of more complete self-control would at least have served as a warning to her.

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