Part 69 (1/2)

”My anger, as you call it, is not a thing of the moment. Oh, I a.s.sure you it has nothing to do with the champagne I have just drunk, and which was not paid for by you, thank G.o.d! No; my anger--my wish to have you alter your manner a little--has been growing for some time; but it is of late, my dear Beratinsky, that you have become more unbearable than ever.”

”Don't make a fool of yourself, Reitzei; I at least am not going to stand in the streets talking nonsense at two in the morning.

Good-night!”

He stepped from the pavement on to the street, to cross.

”Stop!” said Reitzei, seizing his arm with both hands.

Beratinsky shook him off violently, and turned. There might have been a blow; but Reitzei, who was a coward, shrunk back.

Beratinsky advanced.

”Look here, Reitzei,” he said, in a low voice, ”I think you are sober enough to understand this. You were throwing out vague threats about what you might do or might not do; that means that you think you could go and tell something about the proceedings of to-night: you are a fool!”

”Very well--very well.”

”Perhaps you do not remember, for example, Clause I., the very first clause in the Obligations binding on Officers of the Second Degree; you do not remember that, perhaps?” He was now talking in a quietly contemptuous way; the little spasm of anger that had disturbed him when Reitzei put his hands on his arm had immediately pa.s.sed away. ”The punishment for any one revealing, for any reason or purpose whatever, what has been done, or is about to be done by orders of the Council, or by any one acting under these orders--you remember the rest, my friend?--the punishment is death! My good Reitzei, do not deprive me of the pleasure of your companions.h.i.+p; and do not imagine that you can force people to be polite to you by threats; that is not the way at all.

Go home and sleep away your anger; and do not imagine that you have any advantage in your position, or that you are less responsible for what has been done than any one.”

”I am not so sure about that,” said Reitzei, sullenly.

”In the morning you will be sure,” said the other, compa.s.sionately, as if he were talking to a child.

He held out his hand.

”Come, friend Reitzei,” said he, with a sort of pitying kindness, ”you will find in the morning it will be all right. What happened to-night was well arranged, and well executed; everybody must be satisfied. And if you were a little too exuberant in your protestations, a little too anxious to accept the work yourself, and rather too demonstrative with your tremblings and your professions of courage and your clutching at the bottle: what then? Every one is not a born actor. Every one must make a mistake sometimes. But you won't take my hand?”

”Oh, Mr. Beratinsky,” said the other, with profound sarcasm, ”how could you expect it? Take the hand of one so wise as you, so great as you, such a logician as you are? It would be too much honor; but if you will allow me I will bid you good-night.”

He turned abruptly and left. Beratinsky stood for a moment or so looking after him; then he burst into a fit of laughter that sounded along the empty street. Reitzei heard the laughing behind him.

CHAPTER XLIV.

TWICE-TOLD TALE.

When the door had closed on George Brand, Natalie stood for a second or two uncertain, to collect her bewildered thoughts. She heard his footsteps growing fainter and fainter: the world seemed to sway around her; life itself to be slipping away. Then suddenly she turned, and seized her mother by both her hands.

”Child, child, what is the matter?” the mother cried, terrified by the piteous eyes and white lips.

”Ah, you could not have guessed,” the girl said, wildly, ”you could not have guessed from his manner what he has told me, could you? He is not one to say much; he is not one to complain. But he is about to lose his life, mother--to lose his life! and it is I who have led him to this; it is I who have killed him!”

”Natalie,” the mother exclaimed, turning rather pale, ”you don't know what you are saying.”

”But it is true; do not you understand, mother?” the girl said, despairingly. ”The Society has given him some duty to do--now, at once--and it will cost him his life. Oh, do you think he complains?--no, he is not one to complain. He says it is nothing; he has pledged himself; he will obey; and what is the value of his one single life?

That is the way he talks, mother. And the parting between him and me--that is so near, so near now--what is that, when there are thousands and thousands of such every time that war is declared? I am to make light of it, mother; I am to think it is nothing at all--that he should be going away to die!”

She had been talking quite wildly, almost incoherently; she had not observed that her mother had grown paler than ever; nor had she heard the half-murmured exclamation of the elder woman,