“Because you were alone, with no one to help you. Now you have me.”
“That’s true. But—”
“Precious one, there’s no ’but.’”
“I wish I could think so! Yet something seems to say that if you speak to mother, we shall be lost. I love you—but—_do_ let it be kept secret for a while.”
“With what end?”
“I hardly know. Only, I’ve the strongest presentiment it would be best.”
“And I’ve the strongest conviction that not only would it be wrong, but that you wouldn’t respect me if I consented.”
“I beg of you, wait at least till the royalties leave Biarritz before you tell mother, or anyone, who you are.”
I could not help smiling, though rather bitterly. “You’ve heard about my adventure in Barcelona?”
“Yes, from Angèle. I couldn’t bear it if you were to have trouble here.”
“There’s no danger of that.”
“One can’t tell. Circumstances which you don’t foresee might seem to involve you in some plot. Oh, if you love me, wait till the royalties have gone.”
How could I refuse those soft eyes, and those little clasped hands?
I caught the hands and crushed them against my lips, the rosy fingers that smelled of orris, and the polished nails like pink jewels. As I bent over my love, the curtain which covered the doorway waved as in a gust of wind.
Quick as light, Monica snatched away her hands, but it was too late. Carmona was holding back the portière for Lady Vale-Avon.
He must have been watching. He must have known that I had brought Lady Monica to this room. He must have fetched the girl’s mother on purpose to find us together.
These were the thoughts in my mind as I faced the two, mask in hand.
They had seen me kissing Monica’s fingers. It was useless to hope that they had not.
“Leave the room instantly, my daughter,” said Lady Vale-Avon, in a low voice. She too had taken off her mask.
It was a disastrous situation for me, and one all too difficult to carry off with dignity.
“Madame,” I said. “I am the Marqués de Casa Triana. I met Lady Monica some time ago, and have this moment told her that I love her. Now, I ask your consent to—”
“Casa Triana here!” exclaimed Carmona, in a tone which could have expressed no more of horror, had I been a bandit at large.
“Have no fear for your house,” I could not help sneering.
He gave me a look not to be forgiven a man by a man. “I have no such fear,” he said; “but there are those here whose safety is dear to me; and your name is not one which should be spoken under the same roof.”
It was thus that he chose to inform Lady Vale-Avon, if she had been ignorant of it, that I was a notorious character.
“Will you tell me,” he went on, “how you found your way into my mother’s house, where no one of your name could be an invited guest?”
“There’s a window,” said I, thinking to save de la Mole, “by which the world and his wife might enter.”
“I saw you, masked, in the ball-room half an hour ago.”
Half an hour ago! Perhaps he was not exaggerating. But the thirty minutes, if there had been thirty, had passed like one.
“I was there,” I admitted, “looking for Lady Monica Vale. We danced together, and I brought her here—”
“Who is this man, Duke?” Though she spoke to him, Lady Vale-Avon’s eyes, cold as points of steel, pierced mine.
“A person who, whatever his intentions may be, ought not to be in Biarritz while King Alfonso’s here.”
“I remember the name now. And he has come to your house, uninvited; he proposes to marry my daughter—a man whom I’ve never seen! You have your answer, Marqués de Casa Triana, if you need an answer. It is, no. Pray accept it quietly, and cease to persecute us, otherwise I must ask the Duke to act for me, as I have no husband or son. Is that enough?”
“It is not enough,” I echoed. “I love your daughter, and I trust she cares for me. I will not give her up.”
“Monica, I told you to go, and you disobey me,” exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. “Now, I tell you to send this man away.”
“Mother—I love him,” faltered the girl. “Wait—when you’ve heard—when you know what he is—”
“You talk like a child, Monica,” her mother said. “You are a child. It’s your one excuse; but this man, who must have hypnotized you, has reached years of discretion. If he will not leave the room, we must.”
“I’ll go, Lady Vale-Avon,” I said, “but first let me say once more, frankly, I will never give up your daughter.” Then I looked straight at Monica. “Trust me,” I said, “as I trust you; and have courage.”
With that I bowed, and walked out at the window by which I hoped the Duke thought I had come in.
“I’m not sure,” I heard him say to Lady Vale-Avon, “that I oughtn’t to inform the police. In Barcelona, six or seven years ago—”
I waited for no more.
IV
“I DON’T THREATEN—I WARN”
In the garden I stopped, hiding away a scrap of a lace handkerchief I had stolen; wondering if I had been altogether wrong, yet not able to see what other course had been open.
Lingering near the window I saw Lady Vale-Avon go to Monica, and hold the girl by the hand while she talked with Carmona. They spoke only a few words. Then the Duke opened the door, and the two ladies went out, Monica not once looking up.
No sooner had they gone than Carmona walked to the window, and seeing me in the glimmering night joined me.
“This is my mother’s house,” he said in Spanish.
“And her garden, you would add,” I answered.
“Yes.”
“But there’s something here that is mine.”
“There is nothing here that is yours.” His voice, studiously cold at first, warmed with anger.
“It will be mine some day, in spite of—_everything_.”
“You boast, Marqués de Casa Triana.”
“No. For Lady Monica Vale has promised to marry me.”
Carmona caught his breath on a word by which, if he had not stopped to think, he would have given me the lie. But something restrained him and he laughed instead. “I wouldn’t count on the fulfilment of her promise if I were you,” he said. “Lady Monica’s a schoolgirl. I would tell you, for your own sake, that the best thing you can do is to forget you ever saw her; but that will be a waste of breath. What I will say is, you’ll be wise to leave Biarritz before anything disagreeable happens.”
“I intend to leave Biarritz,” I said quietly.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“When Lady Monica and her mother leave.”
“You intend to persecute these ladies!”
“Not at all. But when they go to visit the Duchess of Carmona, that will be—the time I shall choose for leaving Biarritz.”
“Who has spoken of such a visit?”
“A person I trust.”
He was silent for a moment, whether in surprise or anger I could not tell. But at last he said, “I’m less well-informed than your friend as to the plans of Lady Vale-Avon and her daughter. They may return to England; they may go to friends in Paris, they may visit my mother. But this doesn’t concern strangers like yourself; and my advice to the Marqués de Casa Triana is, _whatever happens, keep out of Spain_.”
“Do you threaten me?” I asked.
“I don’t threaten—I warn.”
“Thanks for your kind intentions. They give me food for thought.”
“All the better. You’ll be less likely to forget.”
“I shan’t forget,” I answered. “Indeed, I shall profit by your advice.” And with that I walked away, putting on my mask.
As Romeo had not known at what hour he might wish to leave the house of Capulet, he had ordered neither his own motor-car nor a carriage; but luckily a cab was lingering in the neighbourhood on the chance of a fare. I was glad not to walk to my hotel in the guise of Romeo; and I gained my quarters without meeting curious eyes in the corridors.
As I expected, Dick was in our private sitting-room, smoking and reading a novel.
“Well, what luck, friend Romeo?” he asked.
“Luck, and ill luck,” said I. Then I told the story of the evening.
“Humph! you’ve gone and got yourself into a pretty scrape,” was his comment at the end.
“You call it a ‘scrape’ when by a miracle the sweetest girl alive has fallen in love with you?”
“Just that, if the girl isn’t old enough to know her own mind, and has a mother who wouldn’t let her know it if she could. You’ve gone so far now, you’ll have to go further—”
“As far as the end of the world, if necessary.”
“Oh! you _Latin_ men, with your eyes of fire, your boiling passions, and your exaggerated expressions! What do we Yankees and other sensible persons see in you?”
“Heaven knows,” said I, shrugging my shoulders.
“I doubt it. Why, in the name of common sense, as you’d got to the age of twenty-seven without bothering about love, couldn’t you wait till the age of twenty-seven and a quarter, go quietly over to my country with me, a long sight better than the ‘end of the world,’ and propose to a charming American girl of rational age and plenty of dollars?”
“A rational age?”
“Over eighteen, anyhow. I believe you Latins have a fancy for these little white _ingénues_, who don’t know which side their bread’s buttered, or how to say anything but ‘Yes, please,’ and ‘No, thank you.’ When my time comes, the girl must be twenty-two and a good, patriotic American.”
“American girls are fascinating, but I happen to be in love with an English one, and it’s her misfortune and mine, not our fault, that she’s eighteen instead of twenty-two.”