Part 11 (2/2)

”Don't say 'bothered'!” I reproached him. ”That's a cruel word. The question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper.

My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come here--after my death.” I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I had little time to comfort him.

”It will be like coming to life again, to see you,” I said. ”And now, good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_.”

I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly s.h.i.+fting my make-up things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for the next act.

”There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle,” said she. ”The stage-door keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now.”

A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and thought it best to warn me without delay?

”I must read the letter,” I insisted. ”Give it to me at once.”

Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the envelope the handwriting of Count G.o.densky.

I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and try to drive some dreadful bargain.

Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as I might have counted ”one, two,” slowly, the paper looked black before my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis G.o.densky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, when he chose.

”MY DEAR MAXINE,” [he began his letter, though he had never been given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to call me before] ”I must see you, and talk to you this evening, alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage door when you come out.

”Yours, in whatever way you will,

”ALEXIS.”

If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on.

Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, ”That's your answer.”

But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage.

At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be G.o.densky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape from such an _impa.s.se_?

CHAPTER IX

MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS

I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt dead. ”I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck,” I said to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. ”By and by I'll think it all out.”

But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine de Renzie, but Princess Helene of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Helene had died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for answer, and must somehow be decided at once.

First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must forego, and hurt him instead.

The stage-door keeper had orders to let him ”come behind,” and so he was already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Helene had died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to leave the stage.

As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crus.h.i.+ng them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden live flame among red ashes.

”What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?” I asked; while inside my head another question sounded like a shriek. ”What if some word had come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?”

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