Sophy of Kravonia: A Novel. Hope Anthony

pointed a Frenchman's eloquent forefinger to the dark mass of the château, whose chimneys rose now like gloomy interrogation-marks to an unresponsive, darkened sky. "He is there now – the Emperor! Perhaps he walks in his garden by the round pond – thinking, dreaming, balancing."

      "Throwing balls in the air, as conjurers do?"

      "Yes, my star."

      "And if he misses the first?"

      "He'll seek applause by the second. And the second, I think, would be war."

      "And you would – go?"

      "To what other end do I love the Lady of the Red Star – alas! I can't see it – save to bring her glory?"

      "That's French," said Sophy, with a laugh. "Wouldn't you rather stay with me and be happy?"

      "Who speaks to me?" he cried, springing to his feet. "Not you!"

      "No, no," she answered, "I have no fear. What is it, Casimir, that drives us on?"

      "Drives us on! You! You, too?"

      "It's not a woman's part, is it?"

      He caught her round the waist, and she allowed his clasp. But she grew grave, yet smiled again softly.

      "If all life were an evening at Fontainebleau – a fine evening at Fontainebleau!" she murmured, in the low clearness which marked her voice.

      "Mightn't it be?"

      "With war? And with what drives us on?"

      He sighed, and his sigh puzzled her.

      "Oh, well," she cried, "at least you know I'm Sophy Grouch, and my father was as mean as the man who opens your lodge-gate."

      The sky had gone a blue-black. A single star sombrely announced the coming pageant.

      "And his daughter high as the hopes that beckon me to my career!"

      "You've a wonderful way of talking," smiled Sophy Grouch – simple Essex in contact with Paris at that instant.

      "You'll be my wife, Sophie?"

      "I don't think Lady Meg will keep me long. Pharos is working hard – so Marie Zerkovitch declares. I should bring you a dot of two thousand five hundred francs!"

      "Do you love me?"

      The old question rang clear in the still air. Who has not heard it of women – or uttered it of men? Often so easy, sometimes so hard. When all is right save one thing – or when all is wrong save one thing – then it is hard to answer, and may have been hard to ask. With Casimir there was no doubt, save the doubt of the answer. Sophy stood poised on a hesitation. The present seemed perfect. Only an unknown future cried to her through the falling night.

      "I'll win glory for you," he cried. "The Emperor will fight!"

      "You're no Emperor's man!" she mocked.

      "Yes, while he means France. I'm for anybody who means France." For a moment serious, the next he kissed her hand merrily. "Or for anybody who'll give me a wreath, a medal, a toy to bring home to her I love."

      "You're very fascinating," Sophy confessed.

      It was not the word. Casimir fell from his exaltation. "It's not love, that of yours," said he.

      "No – I don't know. You might make it love. Oh, how I talk beyond my rights!"

      "Beyond your rights? Impossible! May I go on trying?"

      He saw Sophy's smile dimly through the gloom. From it he glanced to the dying gleam of the white houses dropped among the trees, to the dull mass of the ancient home of history and kings. But back he came to the living, elusive, half-seen smile.

      "Can you stop?" said Sophy.

      He raised his hat from his head and stooped to kiss her hand.

      "Nor would nor could," said he – "in the warmth of life or the cold hour of death!"

      "No, no – if you die, it's gloriously!" The hour carried her away. "Casimir, I wish I were sure!"

      The spirit of his race filled his reply: "You want to be dull?"

      "No – I – I – I want you to kiss my cheek."

      "May I salute the star?"

      "But it's no promise!"

      "It's better!"

      "My dear, I – I'm very fond of you."

      "That's all?"

      "Enough for to-night! What's he thinking of down there?"

      "The Emperor? I'm not so much as sure he's there, really. Somebody said he had started for St. Cloud this morning."

      "Pretend he's there!"

      "Then of anything except how many men die for what he wants."

      "Or of how many women weep?"

      Her reply set a new light to his passion. "You'd weep?" he cried.

      "Oh, I suppose so!" The answer was half a laugh, half a sob.

      "But not too much! No more than the slightest dimness to the glowing star!"

      Sophy laughed in a tremulous key; her body shook. She laid her hands in his. "No more, no more. Surely Marie and the student are bored? Isn't it supper-time? Oh, Casimir, if I were worthy, if I were sure! What's ahead of us? Must we go back? To-night, up here, it all seems so simple! Does he mean war? He down there? And you'll fight!" She looked at him for an instant. He was close to her. She thrust him away from her. "Don't fight thinking of me," she said.

      "How otherwise?" he asked.

      She tossed her head impatiently. "I don't know – but – but Pharos makes me afraid. He – he says that things I love die."

      The young soldier laughed. "That leaves him pretty safe," said he.

      She put her arm through his, and they walked down. It had been a night to be forgotten only when all is. Yet she went from him unpledged, and tossed in her bed, asking: "Shall I?" and answered: "I'll decide to-morrow!"

      But to-morrow was not at the Calvaire nor in the seducing sweetness of the silent trees. When she rose, he was gone – and the student, too. Marie Zerkovitch, inquisitively friendly, flung a fly for news.

      "He's as fine a gentleman as Lord Dunstanbury!" cried Sophy Grouch.

      "As who?" asked Marie.

      Sophy smiled over her smoking coffee. "As the man who first saw me," she said. "But, oh, I'm puzzled!"

      Marie Zerkovitch bit her roll.

      "Armand was charming," she observed. The student was Armand. He, too, let it be recorded, had made a little love, yet in all seemly ardor.

      So ends this glimpse of the happy days.

      III

      THE NOTE – AND NO REASONS

      That feverish month of July – fitting climax to the scorching, arid summer of 1870 – had run full half its course. Madness had stricken the rulers of France; to avoid danger they rushed on destruction. Gay madness spread through the veins of Paris. Perverse always, Lady Meg Duddington chose this moment for coming back to her senses – or at least for abandoning the particular form of insanity to which she had devoted the last five years.

      One afternoon she called her witch and her wizard. "You're a pair of quacks, and I've been an old fool," she said, composedly, sitting straight up in her high-backed chair. She flung a couple of thousand-franc notes across the table. "You can go," she ended, with contemptuous brevity. Mantis's evil temper broke out: "She has done this, the malign one!" Pharos was wiser; he had not done badly out of Lady Meg, and madness such as hers is apt to be recurrent. His farewell was gentle, his exit not ungraceful; yet he, too, prayed her to beware of a certain influence. "Stuff! You don't know what you're talking about!" Lady Meg jerked out, and pointed with her finger to the door. "So we went out, and to avoid any trouble we left Paris the same day. But this man here would not give me any of the money, though I had done as much to earn it as he had, or more." So injured Madame Mantis