By Wit of Woman Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  MY PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

  When my talk with General von Erlanger over the chess board took place,I had but recently decided to plunge into the maelstrom whose gloomyundercurrent depths concealed the proofs of my father's innocence andthe dark secret of his cruel wrongs.

  My motive in coming to Pesth was rather a desire to gauge for myself atfirst hand the possibility of success, should I undertake the task,than the definitely formed intention to attempt it.

  I had studied all my father's papers closely, and in the light of themhad pushed such inquiries as I could. I had at first taken a smallhouse, and as a reason for my residence in the city had entered as astudent of the university.

  I was soon familiar with the surface position of matters. DukeAlexinatz was dead: his son's death was said to have broken his heart;and Duke Ladislas of Kremnitz was the acknowledged head of the Slavs.Major Katona was now Colonel Katona, and lived a life of seclusion in ahouse in a suburb of the city. Colonel von Erlanger had risen to beGeneral, and was one of the chief Executive Ministers of the localHungarian Government--a very great personage indeed.

  The Duke had two sons, Karl the elder, his heir, and Gustav. Karl wasa disappointment; and gossip was very free with his name as that of amorose, dissipated libertine, whose notorious excesses had culminatedin an attachment for Madame d'Artelle, a very beautiful Frenchwoman whohad come recently to the city.

  Of Gustav, the younger, no one could speak too highly. He was all thathis brother was not. As clever as he was handsome and as good as hewas clever, "Gustav of the laughing eyes," as he was called, was afavourite with every one, men and women alike, from his fatherdownwards. He was such a paragon, indeed, that the very praises of himstarted a prejudice in my mind against him.

  I did not believe in paragons--men paragons, that is. Cynicism this,if you like, unworthy of a girl of three and twenty; but the result ofa bitter experience which I had better relate here, as it will accountfor many things, and had close bearing upon what was to follow.

  As I told General von Erlanger, I am not a "usual person;" and thecause is to be looked for, partly in my natural disposition and partlyin my upbringing.

  My uncle Gilmore was a man who had made his own "pile," and had"raised" me, as they say in the South, pretty much as he would have"raised" a boy had I been of that sex. His wife died almost directlyafter I was taken to Jefferson City; but not before my sharp young eyeshad seen that the two were on the worst of terms. His nature was thatrare combination of dogged will and kind heart; and his wifeperpetually crossed him in small matters and was a veritable shrew ofshrews. He was "taking no more risks with females," he told me oftenenough, with special reference to matrimony; and at first was almostdisposed to send me back to Pesth because of my sex. That inclinationsoon changed, however; and all the love that was in his big heart wasdevoted to my small self.

  But he treated me much more like a boy than a girl. I had my own wayin everything; nothing was too good for me. In a word, I was spoiledto a degree which only American parents understand.

  "Old Gilmore's heiress" was somebody in Jefferson City, I can assureyou; and if I gave myself ridiculous airs in consequence, the fault wasnot wholly my own. I am afraid I had a very high opinion of myself. Idid what I liked, had what I wished, went where I pleased, and thoughtmyself a great deal prettier than I was. I was in short "riding for afall;" and I got it--and fell far; being badly hurt in the process.

  The trouble came in New York where I went when I was eighteen; settingout with the elated conviction that I was going to make a sort oftriumphal social progress over the bodies of many discomfited andoutclassed rivals.

  But I found that in New York I was just one among many girls, most ofthem richer and much prettier than I: a nobody with provincialmannerisms among heaps of somebodies with an air and manner which I atfirst despised, then envied, and soon set to work at ninety miles anhour speed to imitate.

  I had all but completed this self-education when my trouble came--alove trouble, of course. I became conscious of a great change inmyself. Up to that point I had held a pretty cheap opinion of men ingeneral, and especially of those with whom I had flirted. But Irealized, all suddenly, the wrongfulness of flirting. That was, Ithink the first coherent symptom. The next was the painful doubtwhether a very handsome Austrian, the Count von Ostelen, was merelyflirting with me.

  I knew German thoroughly, having spoken it in my childhood; and I hadample opportunities of speaking it now with the Count. We both madethe most of them, indeed; until I found--I was only eighteen,remember--that the world was all brightness and sunshine; the peopleall good and true; and the Count the embodiment of all that a girl'shero should be.

  I was warned against the Count, of course: one's intimate friendsalways see to that; but the warnings acted as intelligent persons willreadily understand--they made me his champion, and plunged me deeperthan ever into love's wild, entrancing, ecstatic maze. To me he becamenot only the personification of manly beauty and strength, but the verytype of human nobility, honour, and virtue.

  To think such rubbish about any man, one must of course have the feververy badly; and I had it so intensely that, when he paid me attentionswhich made other girls tremble with anger and envy, I was so happy thatI even forgot to exult over them. I must have been very love sick forthat.

  I came to laugh at it afterwards--or almost laugh--and to realize thatit was an excellent discipline for my silly child's pride: but to learnthe lesson I had to pass through the ordeal of fire and passion and hotscalding tears that go to the hardening of a young heart.

  He had been merely amusing himself at the expense of a "raw miss fromthe West;" and the knowledge came to me as suddenly as the squall willstrike a yacht, all sails standing, and strew the proud white canvas awreck on the waves.

  At a ball one night we had danced together as often as usual, and when,as we sat out a waltz, he had asked me for a ribbon or a flower, I hadbeen child enough to let him see all my heart as I gave them to him.Love was in my eyes; and was answered by words and looks from him whichset me in a very seventh heaven of ecstatic delight.

  Then, the next day, crash came the dream-skies all about me.

  I was riding in the Central Park and he joined me. I saw at once hewas changed; and my glad smile died away at his constrained formalgreeting. He struck the blow at once, with scarcely a word of preamble.

  "I am leaving for Europe to-morrow, Miss von Dreschler," he said. "Ihave enjoyed New York immensely."

  The chill of dismay was too deadly to be concealed. I gripped thepommel of the saddle with twitching, strenuous fingers.

  "You have been called away suddenly?" I asked; my instinct being thusto defend him even against himself.

  He paused, as if hesitating to use the excuse I offered.

  "No," he answered. "It has been arranged for weeks. These things haveto be with us, you know."

  In a flash his baseness was laid bare to me; and the first sensation ofnumbing pain dumbed me. I had not then acquired the art of masking myfeelings. But anger came to my relief, as I realized how he hadintentionally played with me. I knew what a silly trusting fool I hadbeen; and knew too that had I been a man, I would have struck him firstand killed him afterwards for his dastardly treachery. I was like alittle wild beast in my sudden fury.

  He saw something of this; for his eyes changed. "I am so sorry," hesaid. As if a lip apology were sufficient anaesthetic for the stabbingpain in my heart.

  "For what, Count von Ostelen?" I asked, lifting my head and looking himsquarely in the eyes. The question disconcerted him.

  "I did not know----" he stammered, and stopped in confusion.

  "Did not know what?" I asked; and he was again so embarrassed by thedirect challenge that he kept silent. His embarrassment helped me; andI added: "I think your going is the best thing for all concerned,Count, except perhaps for the unfortunate country to which you go._Bon voyage!_" And with that
I wheeled my horse round and rode away.

  It was months before the wound healed; months of sorrow,self-discipline and rigidly suppressed suffering. I took it fighting,as our Missouri men Say. No one saw any difference in me. My moodswere as changeable, my manner as frivolous, my words as light and mysmiles as frequent as before; and I was as careful not to over-act thefrivolous part as I was to hide the truth. It was a period of as hardlabour as ever a convict endured in Sing-Sing prison.

  But I won. Not a soul even suspected the canker in my heart which hadchanged the point of view of all things in life for me. I came in theend to be glad of the stern self-discipline which had made me a womanbefore my girlhood had fully opened. I learnt the lesson thoroughly,and never again would I be tempted to trust myself to any man'suntender mercies.

  I grew very tired of a girl's humdrum routine life. I longed foractivity and adventure. I wanted to be doing something earnest andreal, to pit myself against men on equal terms; and for this I soughtto qualify myself both physically and mentally. I travelled throughthe States alone; meeting more than once with adventures that tested mynerve and courage.

  I made a trip to Europe; and when my uncle insisted upon sending a goodplacid dame to chaperone me, I found occasion to quarrel with her onthe voyage out so that I might even sample Europe by myself.

  Unconsciously, I was fitting myself for the work which my father'sletters were to lay upon me; and when in Paris on that trip I had anadventure destined to prove of vital import to that task.

  The big hotel in which I was staying caught fire one night, and thevisitors, most of them women and elderly men, were half mad with panic.I was escaping when I found crouching in one of the corridors,fear-stricken, helpless, and hysterical, a very beautiful woman whom Ihad seen at the dinner table, the laughing centre of a noisy andadmiring crowd of men. I first shook some particles of sense into herand then got her out.

  It was a perfectly easy thing to do without any risk to me; but shesaid I had saved her life. Probably I had: for she might have lainthere till she was suffocated by the smoke; and she insisted uponshowering much hysterical gratitude upon me; and then wished to make meher close friend. She was a Madame Constans; and, as I can be cautiousenough upon occasion, I had some inquiries made about her from ourEmbassy. The caution was justified. She was a secret Governmentagent; a police spy with a past.

  I parted from her therefore amid vivid evidences of affection from herand vehement protestations that, if ever she could return theobligation, her life would willingly be at my disposal. I accepted herdeclarations at their verbal worth and expected never to see her again.

  But the Fates had arranged otherwise; and it was with genuineastonishment that when Madame d'Artelle was pointed out to me one daydriving in the Stadwalchen of Pesth, I recognized her as MadameConstans.

  This fact set me thinking. What could she be doing in Buda Pesth? Whywas she coiling the net of intrigue round the young Count--the futureDuke? Was she still a secret Government agent promoted to aninternational position? Who was behind her in it all? These and otherquestions of the kind were started.

  Then came the mysterious theft of the ducal jewels; and through myinstinct, or intuition, call it by what term you may, that which was amystery to so many became my key to the whole problem. Count Karl wasin the toils of the lovely French-woman; he was one of the very fewpersons who had access to the jewels; he was admittedly a man ofdissipated habits; and it was an easy deduction that she had instigatedthe robbery; more to test the extent of her power over him, perhaps,than because she coveted the jewels. There was much more than merevulgar theft in it; that was but one of the coils she threw round him.She was in the Hungarian capital because others had sent her to findout secrets; and she was drawing the net about his feet to ruin him forother and greater purposes.

  Here then was my course ready shaped for me. I had entered theMinister's household to win his confidence as a possible means to theend I had in view; but the study of my father's papers had shown methat the General might have had a hand in the grim drama, and in suchan event I might find my way blocked.

  But if I took the field against Madame d'Artelle and cut the meshes ofthe net of ruin being woven round Count Karl, I should have on my sidethe future Duke, the man with the power in his hands, and himself quiteinnocent of all connexion with my father's fate. Success might easilylie that way.

  I acted promptly. I went to Madame d'Artelle's; and the interview wasone which would have greatly interested his Excellency. I posed as thestudent and governess with my own way to make in the world; and theFrenchwoman, eager to buy my silence and wishing to separate me fromthe Minister, urged me to trust to her to advance my interests, and tolive with her in the meantime.

  I consented, of course; and it was then I spoke out to General vonErlanger. Thus with one stroke I established close relations with twosides in the intrigue.

  It was with a feeling of some inward satisfaction at the progress I wasmaking that I went to stay in Madame d'Artelle's house; and, as I hadnot yet seen the man whom I planned to deliver from her hands, I lookedforward with much curiosity and interest to meeting him. I should needto study him very closely; for I was fully alive to the infinitedifficulties of what I had undertaken to do.

  But those difficulties were to prove a hundred-fold greater than I hadeven anticipated; and my embarrassment and perplexity were at first sogreat, that I was all but tempted to abandon the whole scheme.

  I was sitting with Madame d'Artelle one afternoon reading--I kept upthe pretence of studying--when Count Karl was announced. I rose atonce to leave the room.

  "Don't go," she said. "I wish to present you to the Count."

  "Just as you please," I agreed, glad of the chance, and resumed my seat.

  He was shown in, and as I saw him I caught my breath, my heart gave agreat leap, and I felt a momentary chill of dismay.

  Count Karl was no other than the Count von Ostelen--the man whosetreatment of me five years before in New York had all but broken myheart and spoilt my life.

  Here was a development indeed.