Part 52 (1/2)
”If that be so, then he must also be aware that I am his sworn enemy!”
she said,--”And, that in accordance with the principles I hold, I cannot possibly remain under his roof! Therefore I trust, sir, you will have the kindness to provide me with a way of quick exit before my presence here becomes too publicly reported.”
The Professor was slightly nonplussed. He considered for a moment; then rapidly made up his mind.
”Madame, I will do so!” he said--”That is, if you will permit me first of all to announce your intention of leaving the Palace, to the King.
Pardon me for suggesting that his Majesty can hardly regard as an enemy a lady who has saved his life at the risk of her own.”
”I did not save it because he is the King,” she said curtly, ”And you are at liberty to tell him so. Please make haste to inform him at once of my desire to leave the Palace,--and say also, that if he considers he owes me any grat.i.tude, he will show it by not detaining me.”
The Professor bowed and retired. Lotys, left alone, sat down for a moment in one of the luxuriously cus.h.i.+oned chairs, and pressed her left hand hard over her eyes to try and still their throbbing ache. Her right arm was bound up and useless,--and the pain from the wound in her shoulder caused her acute agony,--but she had a will of iron, and she had trained her mental forces to control, if not entirely to master, her physical weaknesses. She thought, not of her own suffering, but of the exciting incident in which mere impulse had led her to take so marked a share. It was by pure accident that she had joined the crowd a.s.sembled to see the King lay the foundation-stone of the proposed new Theatre.
She had been as it were, entangled in the press of the people, and had got pushed towards the centre of the scene almost against her own volition. And while she had stood,--a pa.s.sive and unwilling spectator of the pageant,--her attention had been singularly attracted towards the uneasy and restless movements of the youth who had afterwards attempted the a.s.sa.s.sination of the monarch. She had watched him narrowly; though she could not have explained why she did so, even to herself. He was a complete stranger to her, and yet, with her quick intuition, she had discerned a curious expression of anxiety and fear in his face, as though of the impending horror of a crime,--a look which, because it was so strained and unnatural, had aroused her suspicion. When she had sprung forward to s.h.i.+eld the King, only one idea had inspired her,--and that idea she would not now fully own even to herself, because it was so entirely, weakly feminine. Nevertheless, from woman's weakness has often sprung a hero's strength--and so it had proved in this case. She did not, however, allow herself to dwell on the instinctive impulse which had thrown her on the King's breast, ready to receive her own death-blow rather than that he should die; she preferred to elude that question, and to consider her action solely from the standpoint of those Socialistic theories with which she was indissolubly a.s.sociated.
”Had I not frustrated the attempt, the crime would have been set down to us and our Brotherhood,” she said to herself, ”Sergius--or Paul Zouche--or I myself--or even Pasquin--yes, even he!--might, and doubtless would, have been accused of instigating it. As it is, I think I have saved the situation.” She rose and walked slowly up and down the room. ”I wonder who is behind the wretched boy concerned in this business? He is too young to have determined on such a deed himself,--unless he is mad;--he must be a tool in the hands of others.”
Here spying her long black cloak hanging across a chair, she took it up and threw it round her,--her face was reflected back upon her from a mirror set in the wall, round which a cl.u.s.ter of ivory cupids clambered,--and she looked critically at her white drawn features, and the disordered ma.s.ses of her hair. Loosening these abundant locks, she shook them down and gathered them into her one uncrippled hand, preparatory to twisting them into the usual knot at the back of her head, the while she looked at the little sculptured _amorini_ set round the mirror, with a compa.s.sionate smile.
”Such a number of mimic Loves where there is no real love!” she said half aloud,--when the opening of a door, and the swaying movement of a curtain pushed aside, startled her; and still holding her rich hair up in her hand she turned quickly,--to find herself face to face with,--the King.
There was an instant's dead silence. Dropping the silken gold weight of her tresses to fall as they would, regardless of conventional appearances, she stood erect, making all unconsciously to herself, a picture of statuesque and beauteous tragedy. Her plain black garments,--the long cloak enveloping her slight form, and the glorious tangle of her unbound hair rippling loosely about her pale face, in which her eyes shone like blue flowers, made luminous by the sunlight of the inspired soul behind them, all gave her an almost supernatural air,--and made her seem as wholly unlike any other woman as a strange leaf from an unexplored country is unlike the foliage common to one's native land. The King looked steadfastly upon her; she, meeting his gaze with equal steadfastness, felt her heart beating violently, though, as she well knew, it was not with fear. She had no thought of Court etiquette,--nor had she any reason to consider it, his Majesty having himself deliberately trespa.s.sed upon its rules by visiting her thus alone and unattended. She offered no reverence,--no salutation;--she simply stood before him, quite silent, awaiting his pleasure,--though in her eyes there shone a dangerous brilliancy that was almost feverish, and nervous tremors shook her from head to foot. The strange dumb spell between them relaxed at last. With a kind of effort which expressed itself in the extra rigidity and pallor of his fine features, the King spoke:
”Madame, I have come to thank you! Your n.o.ble act of heroism this afternoon has saved my life. I do not say it is worth saving!--but the Nation appears to think it is,--and in the name of the Nation, whose servant I am, I offer you my personal grat.i.tude--and service!”
He bowed low as he said these words gravely and courteously. Her eyes still searched his face wistfully, with the eager plaintive expression of a child looking for some precious treasure it has lost. She strove to calm her throbbing pulses,--to quiet the hurrying blood in her veins,--to brace herself up to her usual impervious height of composure and self-control.
”I need no thanks!” she answered briefly--”I have only done my duty!”
”Nay, Madame, is it quite consistent with your duty to s.h.i.+eld from death one so hated by your disciples and followers?” he asked, with a tinge of melancholy in his accents--”You--as the famous Lotys--should have helped to kill, not to save!”
She regarded him fearlessly.
”You mistake!” she said--”As King, you should learn to know your subjects better! We are not murderers. We do not seek your life,--we seek to make you understand the need there is of honesty and justice. We live our lives among the poor; and we see those poor crushed down into the dust by the rich, without hope and without help,--and we endeavour to rouse them to a sense of this Wrong, so that they may, by persistence, obtain Right. We do not want the death of any man! Even to a traitor we give warning and time, ere we punish his treachery. The unhappy wretch who attempted your life to-day was not of our party, or our teaching, thank G.o.d!”
”I am sure of that!” he said very gently, his face brightening with a kind smile,--then, seeing her swerve, as though about to fall, he caught her on one arm--”You are faint! You must not stand too long. I fear you are suffering from the pain of that cruel wound inflicted on you for my sake!”
”A little--” she managed to say, with white lips--”But it is nothing--it will soon pa.s.s----”
She sank helplessly into the chair he placed for her, and mutely watched him as he walked to the window and threw it open, admitting the sweet, fresh, sea-scented air, and a flood of crimson radiance from the setting sun.
”I am informed that you wish to quit the Palace at once,” he said, averting his gaze from hers for a moment;--”Need I say how much I regret this decision of yours? Both I and the Queen had hoped you would have remained with us, under the care of our own physician, till you were quite recovered. But I owe you too great a debt already to make any further claim upon you--and I will not command you to stay, if you desire to go.”
She lifted her head;--the faint colour was returning to her cheeks.
”I thank you!” she said simply;--”I do indeed desire to go. Every moment spent here is a moment wasted!”
”You think so?”--and, turning from the window where he stood, he confronted her again;--”May I venture to suggest that you hardly do justice to me, or to the situation? You have placed me under very great obligations--surely you should endure my company long enough to tell me at least how I can in some measure show my personal recognition of your brave and self-sacrificing action!”
She looked at him in musing silence. A strange glow came into her eyes,--a deeper crimson flushed her cheek.
”You can do nothing for me!” she said, after a long pause, ”You are a King--I, a poor commoner. I would not be indebted to you for all the world! I am prouder of my 'common' estate than you are of your royalty!