Part 1 (1/2)
THE PLAYGROUND OF SATAN.
by Beatrice Baskerville.
I
Ian went into his mother's sitting-room, carrying an open telegram.
”Roman Skarbek has wired for horses to meet the express from Posen,” he remarked. ”He says it's important business.”
As Countess Natalie looked up from her letter--she wrote hundreds a year--her hazel eyes twinkled with a mischievous thought.
”Roman and business, indeed! He's after Vanda.”
Ian's brows contracted over his clear gray eyes; they were of the kind you find in outdoor men, used to gazing over long distances and watching for wild fowl to come out of the rushes at the dawn of day. Vanda was his cousin, and an orphan; she had lived at Ruvno since her babyhood.
”Give me a cigarette,” said his mother, leaving her letter.
He obeyed, offered one to Minnie, who refused, and lit another for himself. The two smoked on in silence for awhile. Roman Skarbek was his cousin, too, though not Vanda's.
”I don't think so,” he said.
”Why?” asked his mother.
”He's been to Monte Carlo. If he's had any luck he'll want some horses.”
”He never had any luck. No. It's Vanda. _She's_ in love.”
”Vanda in love?” He laughed. ”Nonsense!”
”Why not?” put in Minnie, the English girl, from her seat in the window.
He did not answer. His mother went on:
”Something has happened to Vanda lately. I don't know what, yet. When she was stopping with Aunt Eugenie she must have seen Roman every day.
They rode together, too.”
He walked over to the long window which opened into the rose garden. On the sward beneath it, thirty years ago, his father was shot in a famous duel with the rakish Prince Mniszek, neighbor and quondam friend.
”What will you say to him, if it is?” he asked.
The Countess considered. In her little world marriages were ”arranged,”
thought out with the help of the Almanach de Gotha and a profound knowledge of the young couple's incomes, debts, acres and ancestors.
”Roman,” she said, ”is generous and chivalrous. I shouldn't mind helping him with his debts, if he'd only stop gambling.”
”Does a man ever stop?”
”Not when it's got into his blood,” said Minnie.
”It's in his right enough,” rejoined Ian. He gambled, too, but with circ.u.mspection, unhampered by pa.s.sion.