Part 34 (1/2)

”Certain of them have their orders.”

They stood eye to eye. The anger of the Princess flamed into the cold gaze of the man. There was no yielding in either at the moment.

”I refuse.”

The words came full of desperate determination. But even as Vita p.r.o.nounced them she felt their futility. Swiftly she cast about in her mind for a loophole of escape, but every avenue seemed to be closed.

The house was isolated. It was attended by seven or eight servants, and bitterly she remembered that they all came from a country which yielded allegiance to Teutonic tyranny. Ruxton had been right. Oh, how right!

Which of these servants were under the orders of this man? She could not be sure, excepting in the case of Va.s.silitz. Again panic grew and reached a pitch of hysteria as she listened to the man's easy level tones.

”You are angry, and your common-sense is blinded by it,” he said without emotion. ”Were it not so you would see the absurdity of your refusal. I am not without means of enforcing authority. Listen. At the front door stands a powerful car. A closed car, which is fict.i.tiously numbered. While we are talking your maid is packing for you. She has orders to prepare for you every luxury and comfort you are accustomed to require. This luggage will be placed in the car, and she will travel with you. If you persist in your refusal you will be dealt with. If you seek to call for aid you will be silenced. The servants in your house will not dare to raise a finger in your a.s.sistance. You will be conducted to a place already prepared to receive you. You will be treated with every courtesy your rank and s.e.x ent.i.tles you to. And when these affairs are settled to suit Berlin you will be released. Do you still refuse?”

The recital of the conditions prevailing possessed a conviction that suggested the inevitability of Doom, Vita realized. Coming from another than Frederick von Berger she might have hoped. But this man--she s.h.i.+vered. A conscienceless mechanism as soulless as cold steel.

Her answer was delayed. Her eyes, searching vainly, swept over the room. Finally they encountered the square face of Von Salzinger. She had forgotten him. Her gaze was caught and held, and, in a moment, she realized that he was endeavoring to convey some meaning to her. Its nature was obscure, but the expression of his usually hard face suggested sympathy, and almost kindliness. Could it be that in the grinding machinery of Prussian tyranny she possessed one friend? She remembered Von Salzinger's protestations. She remembered that he had spoken of love to her. Love--what a mockery! But might she not hope for support from him? No, he was bound hand and foot. She dared hope for no open support. But----

Von Berger displayed the first sign of impatience. He withdrew his watch.

”I cannot delay,” he said. ”It is not my desire to use the force at my command. Being in England, and you being a woman, discussion has been permitted. You will now choose definitely, within one minute, whether you will submit to the orders of Berlin, or resist them. I am considering your convenience. It is immaterial to me which course you adopt.”

He held the watch in the palm of his hand, and his eyes were bent upon its face, marking the progress of the second hand. The influence of his att.i.tude was tremendous. He was a perfect master of the methods which he represented. No one could have observed him and failed to realize that here was a man who, with the same extraordinary callousness, could easily have stepped to the side of a fainting woman, and, without a qualm, have placed the muzzle of a revolver to her temple and blown her brains out, as had been done in Belgium.

Vita watched him, fascinated and terrified. The silent moments slipped away with the inevitability which no human power can stay.

Von Berger looked up. The measure of his eyes was coldly calculating.

”You have ten seconds,” he said, and returned to his contemplation of the moving hand.

The strain was unendurable. Vita felt that she must scream. Her will was yielding before the moral terror this man inspired. There was no hope of help. No hope anywhere. The fire shook down, and she started, her nerves on edge. She glanced over at Von Salzinger. Instantly his features stirred to that meaning expression of sympathy. Now, however, it only revolted her, and, as though drawn by a magnet, her eyes came back to the bent head of Von Berger.

Simultaneously the man looked up and snapped his watch closed and returned it to his pocket.

”Well?” he demanded, and the whole expression of him had changed.

Vita saw the tigerish light suddenly leap into his eyes. The man was transfigured. She warned herself he was no longer a man. She could only regard him as something in the nature of a human tiger.

”I will go,” she said, in a voice rendered thick by her terror-parched throat.

”Ja wohl!”

Von Berger turned and signed to his confederate.

CHAPTER XX

BAR-LEIGHTON

The face that gazed out at the driving October rain was one whose expression of unrelieved misery and hopelessness might well have melted a heart of flint. The wide, grey eyes had lost their languorous melting delight, which had been replaced by one of driven desperation. Dark, unhealthy rings had sunk their way into the young surrounding flesh.

They were the rings of sleeplessness, and an ominous indication of the mental att.i.tude behind them. The oval of the cheeks had become pinched and pale, while the drooping lips added a pathos that must have been irresistible to a heart of human feeling.

Vita was a prisoner in the hands of men without scruple or mercy. At least one of them she knew could claim all and more than such words expressed. Of the other she was less convinced. In fact, it was the thought that he was, perhaps, simply under the control of the other which, she told herself, made sanity possible. But even so it was the vaguest, wildest hope, and only in the nature of a straw to which to cling in her desperation.