Part 53 (1/2)
”Hadn't we better speak together alone first?”
”Yes, if you wish.”
We went out together into another room.
”You have played me an ugly trick,” he began.
”It is rather that you sought to play me one and failed. You came here to steal Gareth from my care.”
”Where is she?”
”In this house here.”
”My G.o.d!” There was no mistaking the intensity of his feelings. He threw himself into a chair and stared down at the carpet, his face wrinkled in lines of thought, perplexity, and fear. ”Does Colonel Katona know?” he asked after a long, tense pause.
”Not yet.”
”You mean to tell him?”
”I have brought him here for that purpose.
”He mustn't be told.”
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders, and left him to interpret the gesture as he pleased.
”You don't know what you are doing. My G.o.d, you don't; or you'd never dare. What are your terms now?”
”No more than they were before--and no less.”
He took a paper from his pocket. ”Here's the first of them--over my father's signature.”
”Is this what you were to have brought to the General's house?”
”Yes,” he nodded.
”It is not your doing, then, that part?”
”What else do you want?”
”You know quite well--that you make Gareth your wife.”
”You're not so clever as you think you are,” he jeered. This cheap sneer at me appeared to afford him some relief.
”Have you no thought for her?
”I don't wish to hear about her from you.”
”Then her father and yours had better speak of her. The Duke knows the story by now; and the matter has to be settled somehow.”
”You are brewing an awful mess and making any settlement impossible.