Part 29 (1/2)

The Princess shrugged her shapely shoulders.

”It is quite unnecessary to tell us what your barbaric nature told us long ago,” she replied. ”When do you wish to depart?”

”Within the week.”

”And for where?”

”For France-Paris in particular.”

”Very well-prefer your request through the regular channel, as any other officer, and I will grant it;” and with a perfunctory nod, she resumed her reading.

”I am permitted to withdraw?” he asked.

”You are always permitted to withdraw,” she answered, without looking up.

”I like your spirit, Dehra,” he laughed; ”you and I would make an unconquerable pair; it is a pity you won't be my queen.”

She pointed toward the door.

”Go, sir,” she ordered, her voice repressed to unusual softness; ”go! nor present yourself again until you have received permission.”

And with a smile and a bow, he went; backing slowly from the room, in an aggravation of respect.

He had not come to the Palace for leave to go to France, or any where else; where he wanted to go, and when, he went. But his plans required that he be absolutely free and untrammeled, and so he had done this to insure himself against being ordered suddenly to some military duty that might hamper his movements even slightly. And his visit had been doubly successful-he had the permission, and in such a form that he was given the utmost liberty, and he had also learned the Regent's real att.i.tude toward him, and that even with her it would be a fight without quarter.

What the American would make it, the dead bodies in the De Saure house had indicated as plainly as spoken words-and, indeed, as such he knew they had been deliberately intended.

As he pa.s.sed one of the windows in the corridor, he caught, far off amid the trees, the sheen of a white gown; he paused, and presently he recognized Mlle. d'Essolde. With a smile of sudden purpose, he went quickly down a private stairway that opened on the Park below the marble terrace, and, eyes on the white gown, that showed at intervals through the bushes, he sauntered toward it.

There was, to be sure, a woman with raven hair and dead-white cheek at the Ferida, but there was also a woman yonder, and handier, with golden hair and sh.e.l.l-pink cheek; and variety was much to his taste, at times-and the picture on the stair still lingered with him, fresh and alluring. True, she had not received his advances with that flattered acquiescence he was rather used to, but he had no particular objection to temporary opposition; it gave zest to the victory-and, with him, victory had been rarely lost.

He encountered her in a narrow path, walled in by thick hedges of scarlet j.a.ponica, turning the corner suddenly and greeting her with a smile of well a.s.sumed surprise; stopping quite a little way off and bowing, his cap across his heart.

And she stopped, also; touched by fear and repugnance, as though a snake lay in her path.

”A happy meeting, mademoiselle,” he said.

”For whom, sir?” she asked, turning half away.

”For me,” he laughed, going toward her; ”and for you, too, I hope.”

She put her back to the hedge and made no answer.

”I owe you a very abject apology, for the other day,” he said, standing close beside her, and leaning on his sword. ”I fear I was brutally rude.”

”There isn't the least doubt of it,” she replied, and made to pa.s.s on.

He stepped before her.

”And are so still,” she added.