The Price of Things. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ eagerness which has come into her eyes—you can see her in the mirror if you want to."

      But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There was nothing to distinguish any individual—the company were of several nations—German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here and there among the French and American habitués. The only plan would be to continue to watch Harietta—but although he did this throughout the dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.

      Denzil was interested—he felt something beyond what appeared on the surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.

      Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a résumé of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.

      He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.

      "Look at her well—she is capable of mischief. Her extreme stupidity—only the brain of a rodent or a goat—makes her more difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all. Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves even me—I, who am no poor diviner—confused as to whether she is telling a lie or the truth."

      "What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.

      "An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times, and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information, obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."

      "She has lovers?"

      "Has had many; her rôle now is that of a great lady and so all is of a respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she would commit bêtises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is hidden with the cunning of a fox."

      "Who did you say the first husband was—?"

      "A German of the name of Von Wendel—he used to beat her with a stick, it is said—so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any one who stood in her way."

      "Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty épuisé—one feels sorry for the poor man."

      Then, as ever, at the mention of the débacle of Stanislass,

       Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.

      "She has crushed the hope of Poland—for that, indeed, one day she must pay."

      "But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"

       Denzil remarked.

      "Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices—and

       Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our

       Northern world."

      His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had always been drawn to Stépan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm heart of a generous child—capable of every frenzy and of every sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered over many lands—and as they sat there in the Café de Paris, the thoughts of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in Russia and in India between.

      "They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon and stars—and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"

      "Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,

       Stépan? Twenty-nine years old!"

      Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski all smiles and flattering cajoleries now—and then they said good-night and went out.

      But as Stépan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a jealous hate.

      "Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she loves—not the pig-fool who we gave her to—one day I shall kill him—" and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"

      That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois, and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Arménonville. Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The circumstances were interesting—a bride of ten days, and the environment so illuminating—and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and not saying anything! She did not like people who chattered—and she could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded some show of emotion!

      John loved her she supposed—of course he did—or he never would have asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its beginning was only three months back!

      They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she could not remember any love-making—she could not remember any of those warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.

      She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect something, and here was nothing—just nothing!

      The day John had asked her to marry him he СКАЧАТЬ