The Yellow Crayon
The secretary withdrew. A servant appeared with a little tray of
liqueurs, and in obedience to an impatient gesture from his master, left
them upon the table. Brott closed the door firmly.
“Prince,” he said, resuming his seat, “I wished to speak with you
concerning the Countess.”
Saxe Leinitzer nodded.
“All right,” he said. “I am listening!”
“I understand,” Brott continued, “that you are one of her oldest
friends, and also one of the trustees of her estates. I presume that you
stand to her therefore to some extent in the position of an adviser?”
“It is perfectly true,” the Prince admitted.
“I, too, am an old friend, as she has doubtless told you,” Brott said.
“All my life she has been the one woman whom I have desired to call my
wife. That desire has never been so strong as at the present moment.”
The Prince removed his cigar from his mouth and looked grave.
“But, my dear Brott,” he said, “have you considered the enormous gulf
between your--views? The Countess owns great hereditary estates, she
comes from a family which is almost Royal, she herself is an aristocrat
to the backbone. It is a class against which you have declared war. How
can you possibly come together on common ground?”
Brott was silent for a moment. Looking at him steadily the Prince was
surprised at the change in the man’s appearance. His cheeks seemed
blanched and his skin drawn. He had lost flesh, his eyes were hollow,
and he frequently betrayed in small mannerisms a nervousness wholly new
and unfamiliar to him.
“You speak as a man of sense, Prince,” he said after a while. “You are
absolutely correct. This matter has caused me a great deal of anxious
thought. To falter at this moment is to lose, politically, all that I
have worked for all my life. It is to lose the confidence of the
people who have trusted me. It is a betrayal, the thought of which is
a constant shame to me. But, on the other hand, Lucille is the dearest
thing to me in life.”
The Prince’s expression was wholly sympathetic. The derision which
lurked behind he kept wholly concealed. A strong man so abjectly in the
toils, and he to be chosen for his confidant! It was melodrama with a
dash of humour.
“If I am to help you,” the Prince said, “I must know everything. Have
you made any proposals to Lucille? In plain words, how much of your
political future are you disposed to sacrifice?”
“All!” Brott said hoarsely. “All for a certainty of her. Not one jot
without.”
“And she?”
Brott sprang to his feet, white and nervous.
“It is where I am at fault,” he exclaimed. “It is why I have asked for
your advice, your help perhaps. I do not find it easy to understand
Lucille. Perhaps it is because I am not well versed in the ways of her
sex. I find her elusive. She will give me no promise. Before I went
to Glasgow I talked with her. If she would have married me then my
political career was over--thrown on one side like an old garment. But
she would give me no promise. In everything save the spoken words I
crave she has promised me her love. Again there comes a climax. In a few
hours I must make my final choice. I must decline to join Letheringham,
in which case the King must send for me, or accept office with him,
and throw away the one great chance of this generation. Letheringham’s
Cabinet, of course, would be a moderate Liberal one, a paragon of milk
and water in effectiveness. If I go in alone we make history. The moment
of issue has come. And, Prince, although I have pleaded with all the
force and all the earnestness I know, Lucille remains elusive. If I
choose for her side--she promises me--reward. But it is vague to me. I
don’t, I can’t understand! I want her for my wife, I want her for the
rest of my life--nothing else. Tell me, is there any barrier to this?
There are no complications in her life which I do not know of? I want
your assurance. I want her promise. You understand me?”
“Yes, I understand you,” the Prince said gravely. “I understand more
than you do. I understand Lucille’s position.”
Brott leaned forward with bright eyes.
“Ah!”
“Lucille, the Countess of Radantz, is at the present moment a married
woman.”
Brott was speechless. His face was like a carved stone image, from which
the life had wholly gone.
“Her husband--in name only, let me tell you, is the Mr. Sabin with whom
we had supper this evening.”
“Great God!”
“Their marriage had strange features in it which are not my concern, or
even yours,” the Prince said deliberately. “The truth is, that they have
not lived together for years, they never will again, for their divorce
proceedings would long ago have been concluded but for the complications
arising from the difference between the Hungarian and the American laws.
Here, without doubt, is the reason why the Countess has hesitated to
pledge her word directly.”
“It is wonderful,” Brott said slowly. “But it explains everything.”
There was a loud knock at the door. The secretary appeared upon the
threshold. Behind him was a tall, slim young man in traveling costume.
“The King’s messenger!” Brott exclaimed, rising to his feet.
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Prince presented himself with a low bow. Lucille had a copy of the
morning paper in her hand.
“I congratulate you, Countess,” he said. “You progress admirably. It is
a great step gained.”
Lucille, who was looking pale and nervous, regarded him with anxiety.
“A step! But it is everything. If these rumours are true, he refuses
the attempt to form a Cabinet. He takes a subordinate position under
Letheringham. Every paper this morning says that if this is so his
political career is over. It is true, is it not?”
“It is a great gain,” the Prince said slowly.
“But it is everything,” Lucille declared, with a rising note of passion
in her tone. “It was my task. It is accomplished. I demand my release.”
The Prince was silent for a moment.
“You are in a great hurry, Lucille,” he said.
“What if I am!” she replied fiercely. “Do you suppose that this life of
lies and deceit is pleasant to me? Do you suppose that it is a pleasant
task to lure a brave man on to his ruin?”
The Prince raised his eyebrows.
“Come,” he said, “you can have no sympathy with Reginald Brott, the
sworn enemy of our class, a Socialist, a demagogue who would parcel out
our lands in allotments, a man who has pledged himself to nothing more
nor less than a revolution.”
“The man’s views are hateful enough,” she answered, “but he is in
earnest, and however misguided he may be there is something noble in his
unselfishness, in his, steady fixedness of purpose.”
The Prince’s face indicated his contempt.
“Such men,” he declared, “are only fit to be crushed like vermin under
foot. In any other country save England we should have dealt with him
differently.”
“This is all beside the question,” she declared. “My task was to prevent
his becoming Prime Minister, and I have succeeded.”
The Prince gave vent to a little gesture of dissent. “Your task,” he
said, “went a little farther than that. We require his political ruin.”
She pointed to the pile of newspapers upon the table.
“Read what they say!” she exclaimed. “There is not one who does not use
that precise term. He has missed his opportunity. The people will never
trust him again.”
“That, at any rate, is not certain,” the Prince said. “You must remember
that before long he will realise that he has been your tool. What
then? He will become more rabid than ever, more also to be feared. No,
Lucille, your task is not yet over. He must be involved in an open and
public scandal, and with you.”
She was white almost to the lips with passion.
“You expect a great deal!” she exclaimed. “You expect me to ruin my
life, then, to give my honour as well as these weary months, this
constant humiliation.”
“You are pleased to be melodramatic,” he said coldly. “It is quite
possible to involve him without actually going to extremes.”
“And what of my husband?” she asked.
The Prince laughed unpleasantly.
“If you have not taught him complaisance,” he said, “it is possible, of
course, that Mr. Sabin might be unkind. But what of it? You are your
own mistress. You are a woman of the world. Without him there is an
infinitely greater future before you than as his wife you could ever
enjoy.”
“You are pleased,” she said, “to be enigmatic.”
The Prince looked hard at her. Her face was white and set. He sighed.
“Lucille,” he said, “I have been very patient for many years. Yet you
know very well my secret, and in your heart you know very well that I am
one of those who generally win the thing upon which they have set their
hearts. I have always loved you, Lucille, but never more than now.
Fidelity is admirable, but surely you have done your duty. He is an old
man, and a man who has failed in the great things of life. I, on the
other hand, can offer you a great future. Saxe Leinitzer, as you know,
is a kingdom of its own, and, Lucille, I stand well with the Emperor.
The Socialist party in Berlin are strong and increasing. He needs us.
Who can say what honours may not be in store for us? For I, too, am of
the Royal House, Lucille. I am his kinsman. He never forgets that. Come,
throw aside this restlessness. I will tell you how to deal with Brott,
and the publicity, after all, will be nothing. We will go abroad
directly afterwards.”
“Have you finished?” she asked.
“You will be reasonable!” he begged.
“Reasonable!” She turned upon him with flashing eyes. “I wonder how
you ever dared to imagine that I could tolerate you for one moment as a
lover or a husband. Wipe it out of your mind once and for all. You are
repellent to me. Positively the only wish I have in connection with
you is never to see your face again. As for my duty, I have done it. My
conscience is clear. I shall leave this house to-day.”
“I hope,” the Prince said softly, “that you will do nothing rash!”
“In an hour,” she said, “I shall be at the Carlton with my husband. I
will trust to him to protect me from you.”
The Prince shook his head.
“You talk rashly,” he said. “You do not think. You are forbidden to
leave this house. You are forbidden to join your husband.”
She laughed scornfully, but underneath was a tremor of uneasiness.
“You summoned me from America,” she said, “and I came... I was forced to
leave my husband without even a word of farewell. I did it! You set me
a task--I have accomplished it. I claim that I have kept my bond, that
I have worked out my own freedom. If you require more of me, I say that
you are overstepping your authority, and I refuse. Set the black cross
against my name if you will. I will take the risk.”
The Prince came a little nearer to her. She held her own bravely enough,
but there was a look in his face which terrified her.
“Lucille,” he said, “you force me to disclose something which I have
kept so far to myself. I wished to spare you anxiety, but you must
understand that your safety depends upon your remaining in this house,
and in keeping apart from all association with--your husband.”
“You will find it difficult,” she said, “to convince me of that.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “I shall find it easy--too easy, believe me.
You will remember my finding you at the wine-shop of Emil Sachs?”
“Yes!”
“You refused to tell me the object of your visit. It was foolish, for
of course I was informed. You procured from Emil a small quantity of the
powder prepared according to the recipe of Herr Estentrauzen, and for
which we paid him ten thousand marks. It is the most silent, the most
secret, the most swift poison yet discovered.”
“I got it for myself,” she said coldly. “There have been times when I
have felt that the possession of something of that sort was an absolute
necessity.”