A MONTH—six weeks—two months passed after the Russian Minister’s ball. The Grand Duke had called informally on the President, accompanied of course by the Minister, but his visit to Washington was so brief that all formal courtesies were postponed until he returned from his travels in the Northwest, which would not be until spring. This was the time that Volkonsky looked forward to as deciding his fate. During the Grand Duke’s first brief visit, Pembroke did not know of Volkonsky’s diplomatic short-comings—nor until the last moment did he know that Volkonsky was Ahlberg. He was one of those intensely human men, who like fighting, especially if there is glory to be won—and he enjoyed a savage satisfaction in thinking that he would be the instrument of Ahlberg’s punishment—and the prospect of the catastrophe occurring during the Grand Duke’s visit, so there could be no misunderstanding or glozing over of the matter, filled him with what the moralists would call an unholy joy. He and Volkonsky had met often since the night of the ball, but never alone. The fact is, Volkonsky had his wife for a body guard. She was always with him in those days, sitting by his side in her carriage, or else close at his elbow. One day, however, as Volkonsky was coming out of the State Department, he met Pembroke face to face.
Pembroke had chafed with inward fury at the cleverness with which Volkonsky had managed to avoid him. Therefore when he passed the Russian Minister’s carriage with Madame Volkonsky sitting in it alone at the foot of the steps, he was certain that Volkonsky was in the State Department, and that he could catch him—for it had assumed the form of a flight and a pursuit. Pembroke took off his hat and bowed profoundly to Madame Volkonsky. She could not but fancy there was a glimmer of sarcasm in his manner—a sarcasm she returned by a bow still lower. Pembroke could have leaped up the steps in his anxiety to reach the building before Volkonsky left—but he controlled himself and mounted leisurely. Once inside the door, he started at a long stride down the corridor, and in two minutes he had, figuratively speaking, collared Volkonsky.
“I want to speak with you,” said Pembroke.
“With pleasure,” responded Volkonsky, “but I may ask you to be brief, as Madame Volkonsky awaits me in her carriage.”
“I will be brief. But I desire you to come to my club—here is my card—at six o’clock this evening.”
Volkonsky straightened himself up. He determined not to yield without making a fight for it.
“Are you aware of your language, Meestar Pembroke?”
“Perfectly,” answered Pembroke coolly. “Come or stay—do as you like. It is your only chance of getting away from the United States quietly—and this chance is given you not for yourself but for your wife.”
Pembroke had kept his hat on his head purposely all this time. Volkonsky had removed his, but seeing Pembroke remain covered, put it back also. The two men gazed at each other for a moment, and then each went his way. But Pembroke knew in that moment that Volkonsky would come.
Once down in the carriage, Volkonsky directed the coachman to drive toward the country. It was a charming morning in early spring. Madame Volkonsky had expected to enjoy the drive, but when she saw Volkonsky’s face she changed her anticipations.
“What did he say?” she asked, almost before the footman had mounted.
Volkonsky reflected for a moment, and then answered grimly:
“He has offered me a chance to get away quietly.”
Madame Volkonsky said no more. Volkonsky began gnawing his mustache—a trick that Ahlberg had before. He did not speak until they were out in the country lanes. The fresh spring air brought no bloom to Madame Volkonsky’s pallid face.
“But for the frightful insolence of the fellow,” began Volkonsky after a while, “it might not be so bad. He is willing to negotiate. He has not gone yet to the Secretary of State with—with—his accusations. But the Secretary suspects me. I saw it in his face more plainly this morning than ever before. And there are certain things in connection with my negotiations—Great God! What a country! I communicate with the Department of State on certain diplomatic matters. The Department tells me that the Senate has called for information in the matter, and all my communications are handed over to a Senate Committee. Then the Lower House imagines there is a commercial question involved, and invites its Foreign Affairs Committee to take charge of it. There is no diplomacy in this miserable country,” he cried, throwing out his hands. “The State Department is a puppet in the hands of Congress. No diplomatist can understand this when he comes here—or after.”
“That is true,” responded Madame Volkonsky, with a spice of sarcasm in her that never wholly left her. “None of you Foreign Office people know anything of the workings of the United States Government.” This angered Volkonsky. He broke out—
“There is more yet to tell. This wretched canaille they call the Lower House, this Foreign Affairs Committee—is subdivided into numerous smaller committees—and the one in charge of our negotiation is virtually Pembroke—Pembroke himself!”
Madame Volkonsky fell back in the carriage. She did not wholly understand what this meant, but she knew from Volkonsky’s manner, assisted by her own slight knowledge, that Pembroke was in some way the arbiter of Volkonsky’s fate.
“And there are documents—letters—that Pembroke has called for, and the State Department has produced—that in the hands of an enemy—”
He struck his knee with his clinched fist. Disgrace stared him in the face—and the Grand Duke himself here—lying would do no good—and when that device would no longer avail him, Volkonsky felt that his situation was indeed desperate.
Both remained silent a long time. The carriage rolled along slowly. The road was smooth and bordered with beech and poplar trees, upon whose silvery branches the first tender shoots were coming out. The air was full of the subtle perfume of the coming leaves. But both the man and the woman were city bred. They neither understood nor cared for such things. Presently Madame Volkonsky touched her husband. Ahead of them they saw two figures. They were Olivia Berkeley and Miles Pembroke, walking gayly along the path, talking merrily. The sight of their innocent gayety smote Madame Volkonsky to the heart with envy. She had never been able to enjoy simple pleasures. A country walk, with a mere nobody, a boy younger than herself, with no one to admire, to notice, could never have pleased her. All her pleasures were of the costly kind—costly in money, in talents, in rank. She blamed fate at that moment for making her that way, and envied instead of despising Olivia.
The two by the roadside bowed—and the two in the carriage returned it smilingly. But the smile died the instant their heads were turned.
Volkonsky said presently to his wife:
“We must not show the white feather. You must sing to-night.”
This brought Madame Volkonsky up with a turn. Her conversation with her husband had quite put out of her mind something that had engrossed her very much, and that was an amateur concert at the British Legation that evening, at which she was to sing, and for which she had been preparing earnestly for weeks. Singing, to her, was the keenest edge of enjoyment. She had begun to feel the delight of the applause, of the footlights, already in anticipation. It is true it was only an amateur concert—but it would be before an audience that was worthy of anybody’s efforts—for was not everybody, even the President and his wife, to be present? And Madame Volkonsky had speedily found out that she would have no rival. She had looked forward with intense anticipation to this triumph—the one pleasure without alloy—the one chance of being justly admired and applauded. But in the last hour all had been forgotten. Even the artist’s instinct was quenched. She turned cold at the idea of singing that night. But with her husband, she felt it was no time to quail. Then Volkonsky explained to her that he must meet Pembroke at six, and would afterward dine alone at home, while she would be on her way to the concert.
“And Elise,” he said—he rarely called her by her name—“while there is yet hope—for he has not so far done anything, and I think he would not willingly make you miserable—if you have an opportunity, make—make an appeal to him.”
Before, when the danger had not been so immediate, she had derided him to his face for this, but now, like him, she was ready to do anything. The sweets of her position had grown upon her. For the first time in her life she had commanded instead of asking admiration and attention. She made no promises, but Volkonsky knew that she was thoroughly frightened.
They went home, and Madame Volkonsky, directing that she be excused to visitors that day, went to her room. Like all people who have something to conceal, she hated and dreaded to be seen when an emergency was at hand. She lay all day on the sofa in her bedroom, ostensibly resting and preparing for the concert of that night—but she did not sing a note, and the professor of music, who came for a last rehearsal, was ruthlessly turned away like everybody else. In the midst of her own misery, Olivia Berkeley’s calm and luminous face haunted her. Olivia’s destiny was not a particularly brilliant one—the daughter of a Virginia country gentleman of modest fortune, condemned to a humdrum life for the best part of the year—already past her first youth—and Madame Volkonsky, wife of the Russian Minister, twice as beautiful as Olivia, gifted and admired—apparently everything was on Madame Volkonsky’s side. And the two had begun life under much the same auspices. Madame Volkonsky, who was a clever woman in her way, was not silly enough to suppose that her present miseries had any real connection with the honors and pleasures she enjoyed. But being a shrewd observer, she saw that the excellent things of life are much more evenly divided than people commonly fancy—and she believed in a kind of inexorable fate that metes out dyspepsia and ingratitude and deceit to Dives, that the balance may be struck between him and Lazarus.
So all day she lay on the sofa, and thought about those early days of hers, and Olivia and Pembroke, and even her Aunt Sally Peyton and poor Miles and Cave, and everybody linked with that time. When she thought of Pembroke, it came upon her that he might be induced to spare her. She had never really understood Pembroke, although she had admired him intensely. If she had, things would have been very different with both of them. She never could understand her own failure with him. Of course she hated him, but love and hatred of the same person are not unfrequently found in women. She could not but hate him when she remembered that if he spared them and let them get away quietly, it would be because she was a woman, not because she was Elise Koller. But after all she would be rather pleased to get away from Washington now, if she could do so without being ruined. She wondered at her own rashness in returning. It seemed a kind of madness. There were pleasanter places—and it brought her early life and associations too much before her. She was not fond of reminiscences.
Occasionally as she lay upon the sofa, wrapped in a silk coverlet and gazing at the cheerful fire that blazed in the fireplace, she dropped into an uneasy sleep. This made her nerves recover their tone, and even somewhat raised her spirits. She was anxious and very much alarmed, but not in despair. About four o’clock her husband came into her room. His face was ashy and he held a dispatch in his hand.
“The Grand Duke arrives within half an hour. This dispatch has been delayed several hours. I go to the train now to meet him.”
Madame Volkonsky sat upright on the sofa.
“Will it make—any difference to us?” she asked.
Volkonsky shrugged his shoulders.
“It will simply bring matters to a crisis. It may restrain Pembroke—if not, it is his opportunity to ruin me. I shall of course tell his royal highness and his suite of the concert, and they may choose to go. Russians must always be amused. Perhaps you will have the honor of singing for his royal highness as well as the President.” His tone as he said this was not pleasant.
“I met the old Colonel Berkeley just now. He asked me how Eliza was. Is it that he is a fool or that he wishes to be impertinent?”
A ghost of a smile came to Madame Volkonsky’s face. Her husband’s total inability to understand Anglo-Saxon character, manners, sarcasm and humor could not but amuse her.
“Colonel Berkeley is not a fool at least,” she replied.
Volkonsky went out and drove rapidly to the station. All the people attached to the Russian Legation were there, and in five minutes the train rolled in. The Grand Duke and his suite alighted, and the royal young man, taking Volkonsky’s arm, entered his carriage and was driven to his hotel.
During all this time, Volkonsky was battling with his nervousness. He was afraid that the Grand Duke would invite him to dine—and in that case, he would miss Pembroke, and perhaps exasperate him. However the Grand Duke did not, much to the Minister’s relief and the attachés’ disgust. But the concert at the British Legation was mentioned, and the Grand Duke signified his august pleasure to attend. The Minister was to call for him at half-past eight—just the hour the concert began, but royalty does not mind little things like that. As the Grand Duke had not paid his respects to the President, the attendance at the concert was a little unofficial affair, that was to be made as informal as possible—under the rose as it were. At a quarter before six Volkonsky got off—and drove to the club.
Pembroke had not yet arrived, but the servants had orders to show M. Volkonsky to a private room, where Mr. Pembroke would join him. This delay enraged Volkonsky. He thought it was a premeditated slight on Pembroke’s part to keep him waiting. He went to the room, however, and sat down and played with his gloves and waited impatiently and angrily.
It was nearly half an hour after Volkonsky had arrived that Pembroke came in looking hurried and flushed. He did not mind at all crushing Volkonsky, and could with pleasure have kicked him into the street, but he was not disposed to the small revenges, like keeping an enemy waiting. He said at once:
“Pray excuse my delay. I apologize—”
“No apology is required,” answered Volkonsky haughtily; “I have this instant myself arrived. I have been in attendance upon his royal highness, the Grand Duke Alexis, who has just reached town.”
“And I,” responded Pembroke bowing, “have been in attendance upon his excellency, the President of the United States—which of course, obliges me to postpone any other appointment.”
Volkonsky fancied a lurking smile in the corners of Pembroke’s mouth. These incomprehensible Americans, he thought bitterly, never tell people when they are joking. But Pembroke was in no joking mood. He sat down by a little table between them, and looked Volkonsky full in the eye.
“I have been with the President and the Secretary of State, and it is upon your affairs that we met.”
Volkonsky shifted uneasily in his chair. These terrible Americans. They outraged all diplomacy.
“And may I ask the result of that conference?” he inquired.
“Certainly. That if you will agree to go quietly, you may.”
Volkonsky drew himself up. Pembroke remembered a similar gesture and attitude in a country road, some years before.
“And if I decline?”
Pembroke nodded gravely.
“Then the President, through the State Department will feel compelled to notify your government of the correspondence of yours which came into the hands of the Department, and was upon my request presented to the Foreign Affairs sub-committee. This is enough, you understand, for your recall, and perhaps dismissal. But I thought proper to inform the President of what I knew personally regarding you—and I also informed him that your wife was entitled to some consideration of which you were totally unworthy. So you had best take advantage of the President’s leniency in allowing you to go, without a peremptory demand for your recall.”
“You perhaps have gone too fast,” answered Volkonsky in a quiet voice—for the whole conversation had been conducted in a conversational key. “You are no doubt aware that the United States Government is bound by some obligations to the Government of the Czar, owing to the stand taken by Russia during your civil war, when you, Mr. Pembroke, were in rebellion. If you will remember, when there seemed a strong probability that the Confederate government would be recognized by England and France, the Czar signified, that if such a contingency arose, he would be prepared to render the United States active help. As a guarantee, you will recollect the appearance of a small Russian fleet off the Pacific Coast. Now, upon the first occasion that a member of the royal family comes to the United States, to have a diplomatic scandal—to dismiss the Russian Minister the day after the Grand Duke’s arrival—when arrangements are made for the presentations, and certain formal entertainments—will certainly be most awkward, and I may say, embarrassing, for his royal highness as well as the Russian Government.”
“Quite true,” answered Pembroke. “This phase of the question was discussed fully by the Secretary of State, who was present at the interview with the President. He mentioned that the strongest proof of friendship this Government could give the Russian Government would be for the Secretary to state privately to the Grand Duke how matters stand, and to offer, on his account, to permit your presence temporarily in Washington.”
Volkonsky stood up for a moment and sat down again. His face was quite desperate by this time. And the amazing audacity of this American!
“How can it be arranged? It is impossible; you must yield,” he gasped.
“The President himself has arranged everything. That is,” he added, with some malice, “he agreed to my proposition, as did the Secretary of State. The Secretary, to-morrow, will have an interview with the Grand Duke, and—”
“Will follow the Grand Duke’s wishes?” eagerly asked Volkonsky, rising again.
“Not at all,” replied Pembroke, with dignity. “Such is not the practice of this government. The Secretary will notify the Grand Duke what the President is prepared to yield out of courtesy to the Russian Government, and respect for the Czar’s family. You will be allowed to present the Grand Duke to the President, according to the original programme. But you will be careful not to offer your hand to the President, or to presume to engage him in conversation. Don’t forget this.”
“And the State dinner to his royal highness?” asked Volkonsky, in a tremulous voice.
“A card will be sent you, but you must absent yourself. It was agreed that you had abundant resources by which you could avoid coming, which I warn you will not be allowed. You might be called away from Washington upon imperative business.”
“Or I might be ill. It would perhaps be the best solution of the difficulty if I should be taken ill now, and remain so for the next two weeks.”
Pembroke could not for his life, refrain from smiling at this. Volkonsky, however, was far from smiling. He regarded these things as of tremendous import.
“And Madame Volkonsky—and the State dinner?” he said.
“That,” answered Pembroke, with a bow, “rests solely with Madame Volkonsky. This government fights men, not women.”
Volkonsky had been restless, getting up and walking about, and then sitting down at the table and resting his face on his hands. Pembroke had not moved from his first position, which was one of easy dignity. Presently Volkonsky burst out with:
“But did the President himself say anything of me?”
“He did.”
“Then I insist on hearing it.”
“M. Volkonsky, it would do you no good. The arrangements I have told you of are final, and I will be present with other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee at your meeting with the President.”
Volkonsky at once thought that the President had said something which was favorable to him. He said violently:
“But I demand to know. I am still the accredited Minister of all the Russias. I have certain rights, which must be respected. I demand to know the President’s exact language.”
“M. Volkonsky, I expressly disclaim any sympathy with the President’s remarks. His language is far from diplomatic. He did not expect it to be repeated.”
“I demand to know,” shouted Volkonsky, furiously.
“He said, he knew you were an infernal scoundrel the instant he put his eyes on you.”
Volkonsky fell back in his chair almost stunned. Pembroke, whose sense of humor was struggling with his anger and disgust, almost felt sorry for him. After a pause, Volkonsky raised himself up and looked fixedly at Pembroke.
“Why do you not enter the diplomatic service?” he said. “You have great talents in that direction.”
“Because,” answered Pembroke, smiling in a way that made Volkonsky feel like strangling him, “the diplomatic service is no career for a man—”
“In America, yes. But in Europe?”
“Nor in Europe, either. Before the railroad and the telegraph, Ministers had powers and responsibilities. Now, they are merely agents and messengers. However, we will not discuss that. Our affairs are finished. I only have to warn you not to abuse the reasonable indulgence of this government. You are to take yourself off—and if not, you will be driven out.”
After Volkonsky left him, Pembroke dined alone at the club. He felt singularly depressed. As long as he had Volkonsky before him, he enjoyed the pleasure of beating his enemy according to the savage instincts which yet dwell in the human breast. Volkonsky gone, he began to think with a certain remorse of Elise. The thought of her misery gave him pain.
Suddenly he remembered the concert. He recollected that Miles had engaged for both of them to go with Colonel Berkeley and Olivia. But for Miles, he would have excused himself from his engagement—but the boy could seldom be induced to go anywhere, and he had seemed eager to go to this place—but not without Olivia. For she had the gentle tact to make him feel at ease. She screened him from the curious and unthinking—he did not feel lost and abashed with Olivia as he did without her. So Pembroke finished his dinner hurriedly, and went back to his lodgings, where Miles was awaiting him, after having dined alone—and in a little while they were at the Colonel’s house, where Olivia came out on her father’s arm, and the big landau, brought from Isleham, with Petrarch on the box as of old, rolled along toward the British Legation and took its place in line.
When they reached the brilliantly lighted ball-room, where a concert stage had been erected and chairs arranged in rows, Pembroke took Miles’ usual place at Olivia’s side. He always felt with her, the charm of a sweet reasonableness and refinement. After the man he had talked with, and the thoughts and evil passions he had just experienced, it was refreshment to sit beside Olivia Berkeley, to look into her clear eyes and to listen to her soft voice.
The great ball-room was full and very brilliant. Pembroke looked and felt distrait. He was glad it was a concert, and that he could sit still and be silent, instead of moving about and being obliged to talk. He had altogether forgotten Madame Volkonsky’s connection with it until he saw her name on the programme. It gave him an unpleasant shock—and presently there was a slight commotion, and the British Minister escorted the President and his wife up the room to the arm-chairs placed for them—and a few minutes after, the Grand Duke and his suite—and in the suite Pembroke saw Volkonsky.
Olivia did not look at Volkonsky as he passed. He always excited strong repulsion in her. Then the music began.
It was a very ordinary concert, as concerts are apt to be by very distinguished persons. The programme was long and amateurish. But when Madame Volkonsky’s first number was reached the audience waked up. She was the only artist in the lot.
She came on the stage smiling and bowing, which raised the applause that greeted her to a storm. She need not have wished a better foil for her art as well as her manner and appearance than those who had preceded her. It had been her terror, amid all the pleasure of exhibiting her accomplishments, that the professional would be too obvious. She was always afraid that some practised eye—which indeed sometimes happened—would discover that her art was no amateur’s art. But to-night she was troubled by nothing like this. She knew all. She knew that invited to the house of the President, she could not go—she knew that she must slip away like a criminal from her own country, and from those very men and women who now admired and envied her. She had married Ahlberg deliberately, knowing who he was, and had schemed with him and for him. She had done nothing very wrong, she had said to herself, a dozen times that day—nothing but to prefer present interest to ever-lasting principles—nothing but to join her fate with full knowledge, to a scoundrel—nothing but to have preferred money and pleasure and crooked ways to the straight. Meanwhile many women did as she did and were not so cruelly punished. But fate had overtaken her. No fear now lest people should know she was once a professional singer—they would know all about her soon enough. She knew that the storm that would break upon her was only delayed a little. She would therefore enjoy to the most this last time—this one feast at the king’s table. She sang her best—sang as if inspired, and in the subtile harmonies, the deep mysterious cries, the passionate meaning of Schumann and Schubert, her soul found utterance through her voice. Had she been permitted to sing thus always—had that glorious but capricious voice always remained like that, she would have been a proud and satisfied artist, instead of this trembling and disappointed worldling, about to be hurled from her place in the eyes of the world she loved and feared so much.
The applause, which soon became as wild and earnest as if it were a real stage, warmed her and brought the red blood to her face. She bowed right and left with the grace and precision of one trained to receive applause beautifully. Then in response to the tremendous encores, she sang a little German song—so simple, so low and clear, that it sounded like a mother’s lullaby. Even those arrayed against her felt the spell of her thrilling voice. Olivia Berkeley, who had always antagonized her strongly, felt her cheeks flush and her heart trembled with a kind of remorse.
Pembroke was pierced again, and more strongly, by the self-accusing spirit that this woman was to be stricken by his hand. He felt himself right in what he had done—but neither happy, nor self-approving, nor guiltless.
The rest of the concert seemed tamer than ever. When it was over there was to be a supper to a few invited guests. When the music came to an end, Pembroke rose, glad to get away from Madame Volkonsky’s presence. But just then the British Minister came up and asked Colonel Berkeley and Olivia and the two Pembrokes to remain. Olivia accepted, but Pembroke was about to decline. He had begun in a deprecatory way, when Olivia said smiling, “You will be sorry if you go.” Something in the tone, in the expression of her eye, conveyed more than the simple words, and fixed the fact in an instant that he would remain. He accepted, and almost before he knew it, he found himself near Madame Volkonsky, and the host invited him to give her his arm to the dining-room.
Like most women of her nature, Madame Volkonsky had a blind dependence upon what she called fate—which means upon any accidental conjunction of circumstances. She had been turning over in her mind, eagerly and feverishly, all day long the chances of five minutes’ talk with Pembroke. She had not been able to hit upon anything that would insure it that night, because she had no warrant that she should see him—and even if he came to the concert, it was a chance whether he would remain to the supper. Again, everything pointed to one of the diplomatic corps taking her into supper—and only the charming indifference which the diplomatic corps manifests at Washington to diplomatic usages, could pair the wife of the Russian Minister with a young member of Congress. But in truth, the British Minister and all his diplomatic colleagues had got wind of what was coming, and it was an opportunity of giving Volkonsky a kick which pleased them all. The supper was quite informal, and the Grand Duke did not remain.
In the first flush of her joy at having a word with Pembroke, Madame Volkonsky entirely forgot the slight offered her by barring her out of a diplomatic escort. She was seated at a little round table where sat Ryleief, and by another strange turn of fate, Olivia Berkeley. Madame Volkonsky had drawn off her long black gloves and was talking to Pembroke with smiling self-possession, when she remembered that however Pembroke might rank as a man, she was entitled to go out to supper with a person of diplomatic rank. The British Minister might play tricks, as all of the diplomats did, with the Americans, but among themselves, etiquette was strictly observed, even at small and jolly supper parties. She was so well pleased with what destiny had done for her in giving her Pembroke as an escort, that she had no quarrel with destiny whatever. But with the British Minister and his wife, she did have a quarrel. She felt her anger and indignation rising every moment against them. It was the first stab of the many she was destined to receive.
Madame Volkonsky had most of the conversation to herself. Pembroke, in spite of every effort, felt heavy hearted. Olivia Berkeley was painfully embarrassed, and it required all her savoir faire to keep Ryleief from finding it out. As for Ryleief, he was so taken up with watching his three companions that he scarcely opened his mouth except to put something in it.
There was a great pretense of jollity at the little table—so much so, that Volkonsky turned from a remote corner into which he had been shoveled, with a faint hope that Madame Volkonsky had accomplished something. He was a hopeful scamp.
At last the opportunity came that Madame Volkonsky had longed for. They rose and went back to the drawing-rooms. She and Pembroke were in front, and by a gesture she stopped him in a recess under the broad staircase, that was half concealed by great palms. Perhaps Pembroke might have had a weak moment—but as Olivia passed him on Ryleief’s arm, though she avoided his glance he saw her face—he saw a kind of gentle scorn in her delicate nostril—a shade of contempt that hardened his heart toward Madame Volkonsky on the instant.
In a moment or two everybody but themselves had gone. They were virtually alone.
“Pembroke,” said Madame Volkonsky. The tone, and the piercing look which accompanied it, had all the virtue of sincerity.
“You know what I would say,” she continued. “You have everything in your hands. You may drive me away from here—away from respectable society—away from all that makes life tolerable. What have I done to you that you should deny me mercy?”
“But I can do nothing now,” responded Pembroke. “It is too late. And besides I have done very little. If I may say it, M. Volkonsky has done it all himself.”
“Yes,” answered Madame Volkonsky. “It is true he has done it all. But surely, you might make some plea. At least you might try. Oh, you cannot know what it is to feel one’s self sinking, sinking, and not a hand held out to save.”
Pembroke’s face was quite impassive, but his soul was not so impassive. It cost him much to withstand the entreaties of a woman—and a woman who fancied she had some claim upon him, although in the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had got more trouble, pain and annoyance from Elise Koller than he had pleasure by a great deal—more bad than good—more war than peace.
“Madame Volkonsky,” he continued, after a pause, “you are putting your appeal on the wrong ground. You will find that your husband has been mercifully dealt with—and that mercy was for your sake alone. Had you married him in ignorance—but Elise, you knew him as well five years ago as now.”
Pembroke feared that his tone did not convey his unalterable decision, but it did, indeed, to the unfortunate woman before him.
“There is no pity in the world,” she began—and then kept on, gasping with hysterical excitement. “No pity at all. I thought that you at least had a heart—but you are as cold—I never asked for mercy in my life that I was not denied. Even when I humiliated myself before Olivia Berkeley.”
In the midst of her own frenzy of despair, she saw something in Pembroke’s face that forced her to stop there. She was trembling violently and gasping for breath. Every moment he thought she would break into cries and screams. He took her firmly by the arm and led her to a side door, and out to where the street was blocked with carriages. Madame Volkonsky submitted without a word. It was useless. He was always so prompt. He had no hat, nor had Madame Volkonsky any wrap around her. He called for the Russian Minister’s carriage, and in a moment it came. He placed Madame Volkonsky in it, and she obeyed him silently. Her head hung down, she wept a little, and was the picture of despair.
“Now, wait for the Minister,” he said to the coachman—and he sent the footman for Madame Volkonsky’s wrap.
Then he went back in the house, and through the drawing-rooms until he saw Volkonsky. “You had better go at once to your wife. She is waiting in her carriage,” he said.
Volkonsky did not take time even to bid his host good-night, but slipped out, Pembroke a little behind him. When they reached the carriage, Madame Volkonsky was inside weeping violently. Pembroke had not got her out a moment too soon.
Volkonsky looked at Pembroke for a moment. “Madame has not her wrap,” he said. “She has a mantle of sable that cost—ah, here is the footman with it.” Pembroke turned away sick at heart.
Within a week the Grand Duke’s visit was over, and the Russian Legation was suddenly turned over to Ryleief. The Minister was ill, and his doctors ordered him to the south of France. The day before Madame Volkonsky left Washington, a parcel was delivered into her hands. It was a rouleau containing a considerable sum of money. There was nothing to indicate where it came from.
“It must have cost a good deal of self-denial for Pembroke to send me this,” she said, after counting the money. “He is not a rich man. It will perhaps serve me in some dreadful emergency”—for she had learned to expect dreadful emergencies by that time.