Part 30 (1/2)
”Yes,” she repeated.
He frowned. ”You are disconcertingly frank, Lady Elza. Well, let me tell you this--it would come to nothing. The _Rhaals_ are with them--all the resources of the Central State are to be thrown against me. Yet it will come to nothing.”
Her heart leaped. Tarrano was making his last stand. Beyond the logical sense of his words, she could see it in his eyes. He knew he was making his last stand. He knew too that she was now aware of it; and that behind the confidence of his words--that was the confession he was making.
Tarrano's last stand! There seemed to her then something illogically pathetic in it all. This man of genius--so short a time ago all but the Emperor of three worlds. And now, with them slipping from his grasp, reduced to this last stronghold in the bleak fastnesses of the Cold Country, awaiting the inevitable attack upon him. Something pathetic....
”I'm sorry, Tarrano.”
As though mirrored from her own expression, a wistful look had come to him. Her words drove it away.
”Sorry? There is nothing to be sorry about. Their attack will come to nothing ... yet--” He stopped short, and then as though deciding to say what he had begun, he added:
”Yet, Lady Elza, I am no fool to discard possibilities. I may be defeated.” He laughed harshly. ”To what depths has Tarrano fallen that he can voice such a possibility!”
He leaned toward her and into his tone came a greater earnestness than she ever heard in it before.
”Lady Elza, if they should be successful, they would not capture me--for I would die fighting. You understand that, don't you?”
She met his eyes; the gleam in them held her. Forgetful of herself, she had allowed the fur to drop from her: she sat bolt upright, the dim red light tinting the scarf that lay like gossamer around her white shoulders. His hand came out and touched her arm, slipped up to her shoulder and rested there, but she did not feel it.
”I will die fighting,” he repeated. ”You understand that?”
”Yes,” she breathed.
”And you would be sorry?”
”Oh--”
”Would you?”
”Yes, I--”
He did not relax. His eyes burned her: but deep in them she saw that quality of wistfulness, of pleading.
”You, my Elza, they would rescue--unless I killed you.”
She did not move, but within her was a shudder.
”You know I would kill you, my Elza, rather than give you up?”
”Yes,” she murmured.
”I--wonder. Sometimes I think I would.” Suddenly he cast aside all restraint. ”Oh, my Elza--that we should have to plan such things as these! You, sitting there--you are so beautiful! Your eyes--limpid pools with terror lurking in them when I would have them misty with love! My Elza--”
The woman in her responded. A wave of color flooded her throat and face.
But she drew away from him.
”My Elza! Can you not tell me that even in defeat I may be victorious?