CHAPTER X
“IN THE NAME OF A WOMAN”
THE result of my interview with the Princess will be readily understood. It made me more devoted to her than ever. The sweetness of her manner, the charm of her rare beauty, the loftiness of her aims, the faith and confidence she had shown in me, and the many signs of her reliance upon me had enslaved me. In a word, I was in love with her. She was far above me, and there was no hope that I could ever win her for my wife. There were a thousand obstacles in the way. But there was nothing to stop my loving her.
So far I had never met one to touch my heart and kindle the myriad flames of inspiring passion which throbbed and thrilled in me now with such ecstasy at the mere thought of this rare and wonderful pearl among women.
I gave heed to no thought of consequences—never paused to think what the end of such a passion might be, nor where it might lead me. She had changed every habit of my mind. Usually cautious, calculating, and self-reserved, I heeded nothing now but the delicious knowledge that I loved her and could serve her, and help her to gain the high and noble end she had in view. And serve her I vowed I would with every faculty I possessed, and, if the need were, at the cost of every drop of blood in my body. I flung every other consideration to the winds and dizzied my brain with dreams of the delight it would yield me to feel that I could be the means of helping her.
That she depended upon me and trusted me was in itself a delirium of pleasure, and, come what might, I would never fail nor falter in her service. Others might have their aims and objects in this wild business of the intrigue, I would serve Christina, and Christina only, “In the Name of a Woman.” Whatever it should be to others, to me it had a real and inspiring meaning, and for me it was destined to be no mere watchword or formula, but the guiding principle of every act and thought and the lode star to determine my life.
But I would guard my secret jealously; it should be mine and mine only. The fire must burn, but it should be down in the centre of my heart; and on the surface no prying eyes should pierce the mask of reserve with which I would conceal my passion.
All this came to me clearly in the frank self-communing of the night, and with it a full admission of the real cause for my hatred of the Duke Sergius. It was not so much the man himself I detested—detestable though I believed him—but the future husband of Christina, using and defiling that fair shrine for the sordid purpose of his selfish policy. He and those in league with him would use the rarest and fairest of God’s women as a tool for their own base ends. The mere thought of it was an abomination of desecration.
But they would have to reckon with me, and in my new love-madness I piled up oath upon oath that I would spoil their plans and thwart their designs against her.
“I have unbounded faith in you.” The words rang in my ears like the strain from some angel’s song, and filled me with such enthusiasm that I longed for the moment of action, and could scarce find patience to wait through the lingering hours of darkness that I might begin my work; and I lay, my brain simmering with plots and plans against the two men, Sergius and Kolfort, who were thus leagued against Christina.
By the morning, however, I was cooler, and in a fitter frame of mind to face the thousand difficulties of the position.
Spernow was with me early, and I had my first lesson in the necessity of keeping my feelings out of sight. He had heard of my interview with the Princess, and came eager to learn the result. I knew very well by this time that that very shrewd little Mademoiselle Broumoff was at the bottom of his eagerness, and I was on my guard.
I told him that the Princess had convinced me of the soundness of her policy, and that I should do all in my power to help her.
“Is she not all I said of her?” he asked.
“She is a woman with a mission,” I answered somewhat coldly. “But her mission is a high and bright one in the interests of Bulgaria and freedom, and, as those are interests in which I feel a deep concern, I shall give her all the help in my power.”
The studied deliberateness of my tone perplexed him, for he looked at me in some surprise and disappointment.
“Is that all you thought of her, my dear Count? You must have a cool head—for you have filled her with enthusiasm.”
This was sweet music to me indeed; but I replied indifferently:
“I base my opinions on my judgment;” and I smiled as if in deprecation of enthusiasm. “But now I have much to do to-day. I take possession of my house, and I wish to have a consultation with you and Captain Zoiloff as to certain plans. Will you bring him to me there at noon? We have to discuss the future form of our new association.”
As soon as he had left me I hurried to meet the officers of my regiment, and my reception by them was exceedingly cordial and friendly—partly due, as I afterwards learnt, to my duel with Ristich, who had been a much hated man; and also because of my reputation as a man of wealth. I gave one prompt proof of this by asking the whole of my brother officers to dine with me at an early date.
By noon I was back at my house to meet Zoiloff and Spernow, and after we had had some practice with the foils and in pistol shooting we set to work upon the serious business of the conference.
We arranged that I should be the head of the organisation, with Zoiloff next in charge under me; and he threw himself with keen ardour into the work.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you with us in this, Count,” he said, when we had debated and settled details. “Now that you have come, you seem to be just the man we were waiting for; and this place of yours will be a magnificent rendezvous.”
“Shall we have many join us?”
“We do not want too many, but all will be carefully picked, and every man will be one wielding influence over others.”
“How will General Kolfort view the scheme?”
“All he will know will be that here is in training a band of young men all working for the object which he desires, and all capable of giving the greatest help to the movement. The real secret will be in as few hands as possible. When he knows more it will be too late for him to interfere,” he said with a smile.
“That will be the hour of danger,” I returned.
“Rather the hour of triumph. Think what it must mean in a country like ours to have, say, five hundred young men in this city, each influencing many more, drawn from all classes, high and low, all joined by the strongest ties for one common object, and all looking upon one man as their leader—‘In the Name of a Woman.’ You will wield a tremendous power, Count. God grant you use it wisely,” he said, earnestly. “But I have no doubt of that. I should not be here if I had.”
“I shall wield it only for the one object.”
“It will turn the scale in any crisis,” said Spernow.
“It will free the country,” said Zoiloff.
I said nothing, but was thinking of the help it would render to my Princess.
One thing troubled me. The General had declared that he would not permit me to remain in the country unless I pledged myself to join him; and give that pledge I would not. Neither would I leave the country. And when my two companions had left, I sat pondering a way out of the difficulty. There was but one way that I could see—to have him satisfied by some indirect means that I had espoused the cause of the Princess, and leave him to draw the inference for himself that in serving her I intended to serve him and his party also.
In this connection I thought of Spernow. He was the General’s agent specially told off to sound me, and it would be quite possible for him to give a report sufficiently plausible to effect what was wanted. But who should coach Spernow? The answer came with the question. Without doubt it must be Mademoiselle Broumoff, and it remained only for me to get an interview with her and tell her what to do.
Inwardly I tried to persuade myself that this might be a sufficient reason for me to seek another interview with the Princess; but I put the temptation away from me, strong as it was, reflecting that any too great eagerness on my part to see her would only defeat the very end I had in view—to be of real help. I must raise no suspicions anywhere by seeking to see her too often.
I was thinking this matter out when a servant brought me the card of the Duke Sergius. I started as I saw it, and for a moment was inclined to send an excuse. But reflecting that I must now take my share in helping to blind his eyes, I went to him.
“I have not adopted the somewhat roundabout way you suggested yesterday for having an interview with you, Count Benderoff, but have come direct to you. I am accustomed to go straight to a point.”
“Yes?” My tone was curt.
“You and I must understand one another a little better. I have heard of you from General Kolfort, who seems inclined to take you rather seriously; and I may say at once that since I saw you yesterday I have changed my opinion about you. The Princess Christina spoke to me pretty frankly concerning you.”
“Yes?” I said again; I hated to hear him even speak her name so glibly.
“I looked on you before as a sort of superior spy—sent here, probably from England, to see what was going on. But I now understand that we are to be friends to work together. I am glad to hear it.” He spoke with a sort of blustering bluntness that he may have intended for an engaging frankness.
“I do not know that I am much concerned what opinion you take the trouble to form about me,” I answered, coldly.
“Hang it all, man, can’t you see I have come in a friendly spirit to talk over together the things we have in common? Why do you receive me like this?” He spoke sharply, and, I thought, angrily; and when I did not answer immediately, he added with a laugh that had no mirth in it: “You don’t suppose I am in the habit of hawking round my friendship?”
“Have I suggested anything of the kind?”
“You make it very difficult for me to enter into things with you.”
“I have seen you twice, sir,” I answered deliberately. “The first time at the ball the other evening, when you were good enough to scowl at me, and yesterday at the Princess Christina’s house, when your words were a kind of scowl expressed audibly. We Englishmen are not accustomed to read such actions as the preliminaries of a friendship.”
He started at the word Englishmen, and his eyes lighted with swift anger. Obviously he hated everything English; nor did I wish him to make an exception in my case. I think he read as much in my eyes.
“You Englishmen take very queer views of many things,” he answered, after a short pause. “But I thought you were more a Roumanian, and thus a friend of my country?”
“I have the honour to be a Roumanian Count,” I said, tersely.
“Do you wish to quarrel with me, Count Benderoff?” But before I could reply, he added: “But there, that must be ridiculous, for the Princess tells me I may look upon you as a man devoted to her cause, and, therefore, to mine. I shall not be unmindful of those who help us, I would have you understand that—though I wish you did not make it so difficult for me to tell it you.”
“I am not working for any hope of material reward at your hands,” I answered equivocally. His patronising tone galled me.
“No matter. That will not prevent your accepting it when the time comes. Few men do that, I find—even Englishmen. But now I wish us to be friends and comrades, Count. Do you see any reason against it?”
“We have not begun auspiciously,” said I drily.
“Hang it!” he cried with an oath. “You are as diffident as a girl in her teens. I don’t find men inclined to quarrel with my offers of friendship, I can tell you. I am not without power and influence, I can assure you;” and he smiled boastfully.
I made no response to his offer. I could not.
“You have made a good choice of a house, Count,” he said, after another pause. “I congratulate you. And where is the room where you are going to lure the coy pigeons to be trained in the service of the Princess Christina?” Evidently she had told him of the project.
“I will show it you, if you like,” I said, rising.
“Nothing will please me better,” he said, following me from the room. “Egad, a splendid hall!” he exclaimed in genuine admiration as we entered it. “Men tell me, too, that you know how to use the sword well. From all accounts you easily spitted that fool Ristich the first time at old Kolfort’s, and did just what you liked with him when you met him on the ground.”
“He was wounded, and in my opinion unfit to fight. I protested against his doing so, as you may have heard; but he insisted, and left me no option.”
He examined all the arrangements and gymnastic apparatus with obvious interest, making many comments to show his appreciation of everything.
“This is a novel thing for Sofia,” he said, after a while. “And a devilish shrewd device to draw in the young bloods of the place. They will make a hero of you, Count. A splendid thought, and one that shows what an acquisition you will be to us. A pistol range, too; magnificent! May I try a shot or two?” He spoke with assumed indifference, but I caught a glance which told me he wished to surprise me with a display of his skill in shooting.
“By all means,” I answered readily, not at all unwilling to see what he could do, and to show him also that I knew how to handle a pistol pretty well.
He was a good shot, and took a pride in his work, laughing boastfully when he sent his bullet three times in succession into the bull’s-eye of the small target.
“I’m strange to the pistol, of course; but that’s not bad for a first attempt, eh? I’m a bit out of practice, too, for I haven’t a place like this to keep my hand in.” There was a sneer at me in this.
“Come to the further mark,” I said, putting him half a dozen paces to the rear. “You shoot well.”
He tried from the further mark and hit the target each time, but only once got on to the bull’s-eye.
“It’s a long distance, and the light’s rather bad. Do you shoot much?”
“Well, a little. I have only had two or three shots here;” and I picked up a revolver carelessly. “I am sorry you found the light bad.” I turned, then levelled the pistol and fired half-a-dozen shots in rapid succession.
“You have missed,” he cried, laughing gleefully.
“I think not. You will find the six bullets in a ring round the bull’s-eye. I never miss.” I spoke with intentionally boastful swagger.
He went up to the target and examined it, and then turned to me:
“By the Lord, you’re a wonderful shot. Where did you learn that trick?”
The unfeigned surprise and admiration in his tone pleased me. He would know now, at least, that I was not a man to be trifled with; from that moment his manner towards me changed, and his bluster and swagger decreased.
“I am very fond of pistol practice,” I answered quietly.
He went up to the target again and stood before it, scrutinising the marks of the bullets as though I had performed a miracle.
“I never saw anything like it. It’s wonderful,” I heard him mutter to himself. Then in a louder tone to me: “I should like to come here for practice, Count.” But I had no mind for that.
“It would not do, I am afraid. If we are to make this business a success, I must be as slightly associated with you as possible.”
“Yes, that is true—and shrewd enough. You won’t want recruits if you can teach them to do that,” pointing to the target. “And are you equally clever with the foils?” I could have found it in me to laugh at the change in his manner. He was like a man who had come to bully and had unexpectedly been whipped.
“No, a long way from it. Would you like to try?” But he declined on the plea that he had no time. His refusal surprised me, for I had heard that he was a splendid fencer, and was somewhat curious to see how far he was my superior. I concluded that he was unwilling to show me how really skilful he was, and had to content myself with the evident impression my skill with the revolver had produced.
He left me soon afterwards, expressing another hope that we should be friends; but I was as guarded in my reply as I had been before, and certainly no more cordial.
I was glad of the visit, however. He had solved the difficulty which had been perplexing me. It was evident that the Princess had said enough to lead him to think that I was working on his side, and I was convinced that he would say as much to General Kolfort, and thus unwittingly render me a service.
That our dislike was mutual I had no doubt. He had come resolved to patronise and, perhaps, to ride rough shod over me in his swaggering, overbearing way; and his performance with the pistol had been intended to intimidate me, by proving that he was as dangerous to quarrel with as he was powerful as an ally. But my display had changed all that; and in a degree had humiliated him in my eyes at the very moment when he was keen to appear most formidable.
He was a man to take such a rebuff badly; and for the future I felt he would be no friend of mine. Whether he would dare to be an enemy depended upon his skill as a swordsman; and that he had carefully kept hidden from me.
Nevertheless, he had cleared one tangle from the skein of my difficulties, and I was therefore glad of the visit. Whether he would seek to show his enmity openly I did not trouble to ask myself.