The Diva's Ruby Read online

  CHAPTER II

  There was good copy for the newspapers on both sides of the Atlanticin the news that the famous lyric soprano, Margarita da Cordova, whosereal name was Miss Margaret Donne, was engaged to Monsieur KonstantinLogotheti, a Greek financier of large fortune established in Paris,and almost as well known to art-collectors as to needy governments,would-be promoters, and mothers of marriageable daughters. The mothersexperienced a momentary depression such as Logotheti himself felt whenan historical Van Dyck which he wanted was secretly sold out of apalace in Genoa to a rival collector and millionaire for a price whichhe would willingly have given; the people he knew shrugged theirshoulders at the news that he was to marry a singer, or shook theirheads wisely, or smiled politely, according to the scale of themanners they had inherited or acquired; the shopkeepers sent himthousands of insinuating invitations to inspect and buy all the thingswhich a rich man is supposed to give to his bride, from diamonds andlace and eighty horse-power motor-cars to dressing-cases, stationeryand silver saucepans; and the newspapers were generously jubilant, andrioted for a few days in a perfect carnival of adjectives.

  The people who made the least fuss about the marriage were Cordovaand Logotheti themselves. They were both so well used to perpetualpublicity that they did not resent being written and talked about fora time as if they were a treaty, a revolution, a divorce, or afraudulent trust. But they did not encourage the noise, nor go aboutside by side in an offensively happy way, nor accept all the twohundred and eighty-seven invitations to dine out together which theyreceived from their friends during three weeks. It was as much astheir overworked secretaries could do to answer all these within areasonable and decent time.

  The engagement was made known during the height of the London season,not long after they had both been at a week-end party at Craythew,Lord Creedmore's place in Derbyshire, where they had apparently cometo a final understanding after knowing each other more than two years.Margaret was engaged to sing at Covent Garden that summer, and thefirst mention of the match was coupled with the information that sheintended to cancel all her engagements and never appear in publicagain. The result was that the next time she came down the stage tosing the Waltz Song in _Romeo and Juliet_ she received a tremendousovation before she opened her handsome lips, and another when she hadfinished the air; and she spent one of the happiest evenings sheremembered.

  Though she was at heart a nice English girl, not much over twenty-fouryears of age, the orphan daughter of an Oxford don who had married anAmerican, she had developed, or fallen, to the point at which verypopular and successful artists cannot live at all without applause,and are not happy unless they receive a certain amount of adulation.Even the envy they excite in their rivals is delicious, if not almostnecessary to them.

  Margaret's real nature had not been changed by a success that had beenaltogether phenomenal and had probably not been approached by anysoprano since Madame Bonanni; but a second nature had grown upon itand threatened to hide it from all but those who knew her very wellindeed. The inward Margaret was honest and brave, rather sensitive,and still generous; the outward woman, the primadonna whom most peoplesaw, was self-possessed to a fault, imperious when contradicted, andcoolly ruthless when her artistic fame was at stake. The two naturesdid not agree well together, and made her wretched when theyquarrelled, but Logotheti, who was going to take her for better, forworse, professed to like them both, and was the only man she had everknown who did. That was one reason why she was going to marry him,after having refused him about a dozen times.

  She had loved another man as much as she was capable of loving, and atone time he had loved her, but a misunderstanding and her devotion toher art had temporarily separated them; and later, when she had almosttold him that she would have him if he asked her, he had answered herquite frankly that she was no longer the girl he had cared for, and hehad suddenly disappeared from her life altogether. So Logotheti,brilliant, very rich, gifted, gay, and rather exotic in appearanceand manner, but tenacious as a bloodhound, had won the prize after astruggle that had lasted two years. She had accepted him without muchenthusiasm at the last, and without any great show of feeling.

  'Let's try it,' she had said, and he had been more than satisfied.

  After a time, therefore, they told their friends that they were goingto 'try it.'

  The only woman with whom the great singer was at all intimate was theCountess Leven, Lord Creedmore's daughter, generally called 'LadyMaud,' whose husband had been in the diplomacy, and, after vainlytrying to divorce her, had been killed in St. Petersburg by a bombmeant for a Minister. The explosion had been so terrific that the deadman's identity had only been established by means of his pocket-book,which somehow escaped destruction. So Lady Maud was a childless widowof eight-and-twenty. Her father, when he had no prospect of eversucceeding to the title, had been a successful barrister, and then ahard-working Member of Parliament, and he had been from boyhood theclose friend of Margaret's father. Hence the intimacy that grew upquickly between the two women when they at last met, though they hadnot known each other as children, because the lawyer had lived in townand his friend in Oxford.

  'So you're going to try it, my dear!' said Lady Maud, when she heardthe news.

  She had a sweet low voice, and when she spoke now it was a little sad;for she had 'tried it,' and it had failed miserably. But she knewthat the trial had not been a fair one; the only man she had evercared for had been killed in South Africa, and as she had not even theexcuse of having been engaged to him, she had married withindifference the first handsome man with a good name and a fairfortune who offered himself. He chanced to be a Russian diplomatist,and he turned out a spendthrift and an unfaithful husband. She was tookind-hearted to be glad that he had been blown to atoms by dynamite,but she was much too natural not to enjoy the liberty restored to herby his destruction; and she had not the least intention of ever'trying it' again.

  'You don't sound very enthusiastic,' laughed Margaret, who had nomisgivings to speak of, and was generally a cheerful person. 'If youdon't encourage me I may not go on.'

  'There are two kinds of ruined gamblers,' answered Lady Maud; 'thereare those that still like to watch other people play, and those whocannot bear the sight of a roulette table. I'm one of the second kind,but I'll come to the wedding all the same, and cheer like mad, if youask me.'

  'That's nice of you. I really think I mean to marry him, and I wishyou would help me with my wedding-gown, dear. It would be dreadful ifI looked like Juliet, or Elsa, or Lucia! Everybody would laugh,especially as Konstantin is rather of the Romeo type, with hisalmond-shaped eyes and his little black moustache! I suppose he reallyis, isn't he?'

  'Perhaps--just a little. But he is a very handsome fellow.'

  Lady Maud's lips quivered, but Margaret did not see.

  'Oh, I know!' she cried, laughing and shaking her head. 'You oncecalled him "exotic," and he is--but I'm awfully fond of him all thesame. Isn't that enough to marry on when there's everything else? Youreally will help me with my gown, won't you? You're such an angel!'

  'Oh, yes, I'll do anything you like. Are you going to have a regularknock-down-and-drag-out smash at St. George's? The usual thing?'

  Lady Maud did not despise slang, but she made it sound like music.

  'No,' answered Margaret, rather regretfully. 'We cannot possibly bemarried till the season's quite over, or perhaps in the autumn, andthen there will be nobody here. I'm not sure when I shall feel likeit! Besides, Konstantin hates that sort of thing.'

  'Do you mean to say that you would like a show wedding in HanoverSquare?' inquired Lady Maud.

  'I've never done anything in a church,' said the Primadonna, ratherenigmatically, but as if she would like to.

  '"Anything in a church,"' repeated her friend, vaguely thoughtful, andwith the slightest possible interrogation. 'That's a funny way oflooking at it!'

  Margaret was a little ashamed of what she had said so naturally.

  'I think Konstantin woul
d like to have it in a chapel-of-ease in theOld Kent Road!' she said, laughing. 'He sometimes talks of beingmarried in tweeds and driving off in a hansom! Then he suggests goingto Constantinople and getting it done by the Patriarch, who is hisuncle. Really, that would be rather smart, wouldn't it?'

  'Distinctly,' assented Lady Maud. 'But if you do that, I'm afraid Icannot help you with the wedding-gown. I don't know anything about thedress of a Fanariote bride.'

  'Konstantin says they dress very well,' Margaret said. 'But of courseit is out of the question to do anything so ridiculous. It will end inthe chapel-of-ease, I'm sure. He always has his own way. That'sprobably why I'm going to marry him, just because he insists on it. Idon't see any other very convincing reason.'

  Lady Maud could not think of anything to say in answer to this; but asshe really liked the singer she thought it was a pity.

  Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, smiled rather sadly when shemet him shopping in New Bond Street, and told him of Margaret'sengagement. He said that most great singers married because the onlyway to the divorce court led up the steps of the altar. Though he knewthe world he was not a cynic, and Lady Maud herself wondered how longit would be before Logotheti and his wife separated.

  'But they are not married yet,' Griggs added, looking at her with thequietly ready expression of a man who is willing that his indifferentwords should be taken to have a special meaning if the person to whomhe has spoken chooses, or is able, to understand them as they may beunderstood, but who is quite safe from being suspected of suggestinganything if there is no answering word or glance.

  Lady Maud returned his look, but her handsome face grew rather cold.

  'Do you know of any reason why the marriage should not take place?'she inquired after a moment.

  'If I don't give any reason, am I ever afterwards to hold my peace?'asked Griggs, with a faint smile on his weather-beaten face. 'Are youpublishing the bans? or are we thinking of the same thing?'

  'I suppose we are. Good-morning.'

  She nodded gravely and passed on, gathering up her black skirt alittle, for there had been a shower. He stood still a moment beforethe shop window and looked after her, gravely admiring her figure andher walk, as he might have admired a very valuable thoroughbred. Shewas wearing mourning for her husband, not because any one would haveblamed her if she had not done so, considering how he had treated her,but out of natural self-respect.

  Griggs also looked after her as she went away because he felt that shewas not quite pleased with him for having suggested that he and shehad both been thinking of the same thing.

  The thought concerned a third person, and one who rarely allowedhimself to be overlooked; no less a man, in fact, than Mr. Rufus VanTorp, the American potentate of the great Nickel Trust, who was LadyMaud's most intimate friend, and who had long desired to make thePrimadonna his wife. He had bought a place adjoining Lord Creedmore's,and there had lately been a good deal of quite groundless gossip abouthim and Lady Maud, which had very nearly become a scandal. The truthwas that they were the best friends in the world, and nothing more;the millionaire had for some time been interested in an unusual sortof charity which almost filled the lonely woman's life, and he hadgiven considerable sums of money to help it. During the monthspreceding the beginning of this tale, he had also been the object ofone of those dastardly attacks to which very rich and importantfinanciers are more exposed than other men, and he had actually beenaccused of having done away with his partner's daughter, who had cometo her end mysteriously during a panic in a New York theatre. But, asI have told elsewhere, his innocence had been proved in the clearestpossible manner, and he had returned to the United States to lookafter the interests of the Trust.

  When Griggs heard the news of Margaret's engagement to Logotheti, heimmediately began to wonder how Mr. Van Torp would receive theintelligence; and if it had not already occurred to Lady Maud that themillionaire might make a final effort to rout his rival and marry thePrimadonna himself, the old author's observation suggested such apossibility. Van Torp was a man who had fought up to success andfortune with little regard for the obstacles he found in his way; hehad worked as a cowboy in his early youth, and was apt to look on hisadversaries and rivals in life either as refractory cattle or asdangerous wild beasts; and though he had some of the old-fashionedranchero's sense of fair-play in a fight, he had much of the recklessdaring and ruthless savagery that characterise the fast-disappearingWestern desperado.

  Logotheti, on the other hand, was in many respects a true Oriental,supremely astute and superlatively calm, but imbued, at heart, with atruly Eastern contempt for any law that chanced to oppose his wish.

  Both men had practically inexhaustible resources at their command, andboth were determined to marry the Primadonna. It occurred to PaulGriggs that a real struggle between such a pair of adversaries wouldbe worth watching. There was unlimited money on both sides, and equalcourage and determination. The Greek was the more cunning of the two,by great odds, and had now the considerable advantage of having beenaccepted by the lady; but the American was far more regardless ofconsequences to himself or to others in the pursuit of what he wanted,and, short of committing a crime, would put at least as broad aninterpretation on the law. Logotheti had always lived in a highlycivilised society, even in Constantinople, for it is the greatestmistake to imagine that the upper classes of Greeks, in Greece orTurkey, are at all deficient in cultivation. Van Torp, on thecontrary, had run away from civilisation when a half-educated boy, hehad grown to manhood in a community of men who had little respect foranything and feared nothing at all, and he had won success in a fieldwhere those who compete for it buy it at any price, from a lie to alife.

  Lady Maud was thinking of these things as she disappeared fromGriggs's sight, and not at all of him. It might have surprised her toknow that his eyes had followed her with sincere admiration, andperhaps she would have been pleased. There is a sort of admirationwhich acknowledged beauties take for granted, and to which they attachno value unless it is refused them; but there is another kind thatbrings them rare delight when they receive it, for it is always givenspontaneously, whether it be the wondering exclamation of a street boywho has never seen anything so beautiful in his life, or a quiet lookand a short phrase from an elderly man who has seen what is worthseeing for thirty or forty years, and who has given up makingcompliments.

  The young widow was quite unconscious of Griggs's look and was verybusy with her thoughts, for she was a little afraid that she had madetrouble. Ten days had passed since she had last written to Rufus VanTorp, and she had told him, amongst other things, that Madame daCordova and Logotheti were engaged to be married, adding that itseemed to her one of the most ill-assorted matches of the season, andthat her friend the singer was sure to be miserable herself and tomake her husband perfectly wretched, though he was a very good sortin his way and she liked him. There had been no reason why she shouldnot write the news to Mr. Van Torp, even though it was not publicproperty yet, for he was her intimate friend, and she knew him to beas reticent as all doctors ought to be and as some solicitors' clerksare. She had asked him not to tell any one till he heard of theengagement from some one else.

  He had not spoken of it, but something else had happened. He hadcabled to Lady Maud that he was coming back to England by the nextsteamer. He often came out and went back suddenly two or three timesat short intervals, and then stayed away for many months, but LadyMaud thought there could not be much doubt as to his reason for comingnow. She knew well enough that he had tried to persuade the Primadonnato marry him during the previous winter, and that if his passion forher had not shown itself much of late, this was due to other causes,chiefly to the persecution of which he had rid himself just before hewent to America, but to some extent also to the fact that Margaret hadnot seemed inclined to accept any one else.

  Lady Maud, who knew the man better than he knew himself, inwardlycompared him to a volcano, quiescent just now, so far as Margaret wasconcerned, but ready to
break out at any moment with unexpected anddestructive energy.

  Margaret herself, who had known Logotheti for years, and had seen himin his most dangerous moods as well as in his very best moments, wouldhave thought a similar comparison with an elemental force quite astruly descriptive of him, if it had occurred to her. The enterprisingGreek had really attempted to carry her off by force on the night ofthe final rehearsal before her first appearance on the stage, and hadonly been thwarted because a royal rival had caused him to be lockedup, as if by mistake, in order to carry her off himself; in which healso had failed most ridiculously, thanks to the young singer'sfriend, the celebrated Madame Bonanni. That was a very amusing story.But on another occasion Margaret had found herself shut up with herOriental adorer in a room from which she could not escape, and he hadquite lost his head; and if she had not been the woman she was, shewould have fared ill. After that he had behaved more like an ordinaryhuman being, and she had allowed the natural attraction he had for herto draw her gradually to a promise of marriage; and now she talked toLady Maud about her gown, but she still put off naming a day for thewedding, in spite of Logotheti's growing impatience.

  This was the situation when the London season broke up and Mr. VanTorp landed at Southampton from an ocean greyhound that had coveredthe distance from New York in five days twelve hours and thirty-sevenminutes, which will doubtless seem very slow travelling if any onetakes the trouble to read this tale twenty years hence, though thepassengers were pleased because it was not much under the record timefor steamers coming east.

  Five hours after he landed Van Torp entered Lady Maud's drawing-roomin the little house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, where she hadlived with the departed Leven from the time when he had been attachedto the Russian Embassy till he had last gone away. She was giving itup now, and it was already half dismantled. It was to see Van Torpthat she was in town in the middle of August, instead of with herfather at Craythew or with friends in Scotland.

  London was as hot as it could be, which means that a New Yorker wouldhave found it chilly and an Italian delightfully cool; but theLondoners were sweltering when Van Torp arrived, and were talking ofthe oppressive atmosphere and the smell of the pavement, not at allrealising how blessed they were.

  The American entered and stood still a moment to have a good look atLady Maud. He was a middle-sized, rather thick-set man, with rudehands, sandy hair, an over-developed jaw, and sharp blue eyes, thatsometimes fixed themselves in a disagreeable way when he wasspeaking--eyes that had looked into the barrel of another man'srevolver once or twice without wavering, hands that had caught andsaddled and bridled many an unridden colt in the plains, a mouth likea carpet-bag when it opened, like a closed vice when it was shut. Hewas not a handsome man, Mr. Rufus Van Torp, nor one with whom any oneshort of a prize-fighter would meddle, nor one to haunt the dreams ofsweet sixteen. It was not for his face that Lady Maud, good andbeautiful, liked him better than any one in the world, except her ownfather, and believed in him and trusted him, and it was assuredly notfor his money. The beggar did not live who would dare to ask him for apenny after one look at his face, and there were not many men oneither side of the Atlantic who would have looked forward to any sortof contest with him without grave misgivings.

  'Well,' he said, advancing the last step after that momentary pause,and taking the white hand in both his own, 'how have you been? Fair tomiddling? About that? Well--I'm glad to see you, gladder than asitting hen at sunrise!'

  Lady Maud laid her left hand affectionately on the man's right, whichwas uppermost on hers, and her voice rippled with happiness.

  'If you had only said a lark instead of a hen, Rufus!' she laughed.

  'We could get along a great sight better without larks than withouthens,' answered her friend philosophically. 'But I'll make it anightingale next time, if I can remember, or a bald eagle, or any birdthat strikes you as cheerful.'

  The terrible mouth had relaxed almost to gentleness, and the fierceblue eyes were suddenly kind as they looked into the woman's face. Sheled him to an old-fashioned sofa, their hands parted, and they satdown side by side.

  'Cheerful,' he said, in a tone of reflection. 'Yes, I'm feeling prettycheerful, and it's all over and settled.'

  'Do you mean the trouble you were in last spring?'

  'N--no--not that, though it wasn't as funny as a Sunday School treatwhile it lasted, and I was thankful when it was through. It's anothermatter altogether that I'm cheerful about--besides seeing you, mydear. I've done it, Maud. I've done it at last.'

  'What?'

  'I've sold my interest in the Trust. It won't be made known for sometime, so don't talk about it, please. But it's settled and done, andI've got the money.'

  'You have sold the Nickel Trust?'

  Lady Maud's lips remained parted in surprise.

  'And I've bought you a little present with the proceeds,' he answered,putting his large thumb and finger into the pocket of his whitewaistcoat. 'It's only a funny little bit of glass I picked up,' hecontinued, producing a small twist of stiff writing-paper. 'Youneedn't think it's so very fine! But it's a pretty colour, and whenyou're out of mourning I daresay you'll make a hat-pin of it. I likehandsome hat-pins myself, you know.'

  He had untwisted the paper while speaking, it lay open in the palm ofhis hand, and Lady Maud saw a stone of the size of an ordinaryhazel-nut, very perfectly cut, and of that wonderful transparent redcolour which is known as 'pigeon's blood,' and which it is almostimpossible to describe. Sunlight shining through Persian rose-leafsherbet upon white silk makes a little patch of colour that is perhapsmore like it than any other shade of red, but not many Europeans haveever seen that, and it is a good deal easier to go and look at apigeon's blood ruby in a jeweller's window.

  'What a beautiful colour!' exclaimed Lady Maud innocently, after amoment. 'I didn't know they imitated rubies so well, though, ofcourse, I know nothing about it. If it were not an impossibility, Ishould take it for a real one.'

  'So should I,' assented Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'It'll make a prettyhat-pin anyway. Shall I have it mounted for you?'

  'Thanks, awfully, but I think I should like to keep it as it is for alittle while. It's such a lovely colour, just as it is. Thank you somuch! Do tell me where you got it.'

  'Oh, well, there was a sort of a traveller came to New York the otherday selling them what they call privately. I guess he must be aRussian or something, for he has a kind of an off-look of yourhusband, only he wears a beard and an eyeglass. It must be about theeyes. Maybe the forehead too. He'll most likely turn up in London oneof these days to sell this invention, or whatever it is.'

  Lady Maud said nothing to this, but she took the stone from his hand,looked at it some time with evident admiration, and then set it downon its bit of paper, upon a little table by the end of the sofa.

  'If I were you, I wouldn't leave it around much,' observed Mr. VanTorp carelessly. 'Somebody might take a fancy to it. The colour'sattractive, you see, and it looks like real.'

  'Oh, I'll be very careful of it, never fear! I can't tell you how muchI like it!' She twisted it up tightly in its bit of paper, rose to herfeet, and put it away in her writing-table.

  'It'll be a sort of souvenir of the old Nickel Trust,' said herfriend, watching her with satisfaction.

  'Have you really sold out all your interest in it?' she asked, sittingdown again; and now that she returned to the question her tone showedthat she had not yet recovered from her astonishment.

  'That's what I've done. I always told you I would, when I was ready.Why do you look so surprised? Would you rather I hadn't?'

  Lady Maud shook her head and her voice rippled deliciously as sheanswered.

  'I can hardly imagine you without the Nickel Trust, that's all! Whatin the world shall you do with yourself?'

  'Oh, various kinds of things. I think I'll get married, for one. ThenI'll take a rest and sort of look around. Maybe something will turnup. I've concluded to win the Derby next year--that's somethinga
nyway.'

  'Rather! Have you thought of anything else?'

  She laughed a little, but was grave the next moment, for she knew himmuch too well to believe that he had taken such a step out of caprice,or a mere fancy for change; his announcement that he meant to marryagreed too well with what she herself had suddenly foreseen when shehad parted with Griggs in Bond Street a few days earlier. If Margarethad not at last made up her mind to accept Logotheti--supposing thather decision was really final--Rufus Van Torp would not suddenly havefelt sure that he himself must marry her if she married at all. HisEnglish friend could not have put into words what she felt had takenplace in his heart, but she understood him as no one else could, andwas certain that he had reached one of the great cross-roads of hislife.

  A woman who has been married for years to such a man as Leven, and whotries to do good to those fallen and cast-out ones who laugh and cryand suffer out their lives, and are found dead behind theVirtue-Curtain, is not ignorant of the human animal's instincts andways, and Lady Maud was not at all inclined to believe her friend aGalahad. In the clean kingdom of her dreams men could be chaste, andgrown women could be as sweetly ignorant of harm as little children;but when she opened her eyes and looked about her she saw, and sheunderstood, and did not shiver with delicate disgust, nor turn awaywith prim disapproval, nor fancy that she would like to be a mediaevalnun and induce the beatific state by merciless mortification of thebody. She knew very well what the Virtue-Curtain was trying to hide;she lifted it quietly, went behind it without fear, and did all shecould to help the unhappy ones she found there. She did not believe inother people's theories at all, and had none herself; she did not evenput much faith in all the modern scientific talk about viciousinheritance and degeneration; much more than half of the dwellersbehind the scenes had been lured there in ignorance, a good many hadbeen dragged there by force, a very considerable number had beendeliberately sold into slavery, and nine out of ten of them stayedthere because no one really tried to get them out. Perhaps no one whodid try was rich enough; for it is not to be expected that every humansinner should learn in a day to prefer starving virtue to well-fedvice, or, as Van Torp facetiously expressed it, a large capital lockedup in heavenly stocks to a handsome income accruing from the bonds ofsin. If Lady Maud succeeded, as she sometimes did, the good done waspartly due to the means he gave her for doing it.

  'Come and be bad and you shall have a good time while you are young,'the devil had said, assuming the appearance, dress, and manner offashion, without any particular regard for age.

  'Give it up and I'll make you so comfortable that you'll really likenot being bad,' said Lady Maud, and the invitation was sometimesaccepted.

  Evidently, a woman who occupied herself with this form of charitycould not help knowing and hearing a good deal about men which wouldhave surprised and even shocked her social sisters, and she was not indanger of taking Rufus Van Torp for an ascetic in disguise.

  On the contrary, she was quite able to understand that the tremendousattraction the handsome singer had for him might be of the mostearthly kind, such as she herself would not care to call love, andthat, if she was right, it would not be partially dignified by any ofthat true artistic appreciation which brought Logotheti such raredelight, and disguised a passion not at all more ethereal than VanTorp's might be. In refinement of taste, no comparison was possiblebetween the Western-bred millionaire and the cultivated Greek, whoknew every unfamiliar by-way and little hidden treasure of hiscountry's literature and art, besides very much of what other nationshad done and written. Yet Lady Maud, influenced, no doubt, by thehonest friendship of her American friend, believed that Van Torp wouldbe a better and more faithful husband, even to a primadonna, than hisOriental rival.

  Notwithstanding her opinion of him, however, she was not prepared forhis next move. He had noticed the grave look that had followed herlaughter, and he turned away and was silent for a few moments.

  'The Derby's a side show,' he said at last. 'I've come over to getmarried, and I want you to help me. Will you?'

  'Can I?' asked Lady Maud, evasively.

  'Yes, you can, and I believe there'll be trouble unless you do.'

  'Who is she? Do I know her?' She was trying to put off the evilmoment.

  'Oh, yes, you know her quite well. It's Madame Cordova.'

  'But she's engaged to Monsieur Logotheti----'

  'I don't care. I mean to marry her if she marries any one. He shan'thave her anyway.'

  'But I cannot deliberately help you to break off her engagement! It'simpossible!'

  'See here,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'You know that Greek, and you knowme. Which of us will make the best husband for an English girl? That'swhat Madame Cordova is, after all. I put it to you. If you were forcedto choose one of us yourself, which would you take? That's the way tolook at it.'

  'But Miss Donne is not "forced" to take one of you----'

  'She's going to be. It's the same. Besides, I said "if." Won't youanswer me?'

  'She's in love with Monsieur Logotheti,' said Lady Maud, ratherdesperately.

  'Is she, now? I wonder. I don't much think so myself. He's clever andhe's obstinate, and he's just made her think she's in love, that'sall. Anyhow, that's not an answer to my question. Other things beingalike, if she had to choose, which of us would be the best husband forher?--the better, I mean. You taught me to say "better," didn't you?'

  Lady Maud tried to smile.

  'Of two, yes,' she answered. 'You are forcing my hand, my dearfriend,' she went on very gravely. 'You know very well that I trustyou with all my heart. If it were possible to imagine a case in whichthe safety of the world could depend on my choosing one of you for myhusband, you know very well that I should take you, though I never wasthe least little bit in love with you, any more than you ever werewith me.'

  'Well, but if you would, she ought,' argued Mr. Van Torp. 'It's forher own good, and as you're a friend of hers, you ought to help her todo what's good for her. That's only fair. If she doesn't marry me,she's certain to marry that Greek, so it's a forced choice, it appearsto me.'

  'But I can't----'

  'She's a nice girl, isn't she?'

  'Yes, very.'

  'And you like her, don't you?'

  'Very much. Her father was my father's best friend.'

  'I don't believe in atavism,' observed the American, 'but that'sneither here nor there. You know what you wrote me. Do you believeshe'll be miserable with Logotheti or not?'

  'I think she will,' Lady Maud answered truthfully. 'But I may bewrong.'

  'No; you're right. I know it. But marriage is a gamble anyway, as youknow better than any one. Are you equally sure that she would bemiserable with me? Dead sure, I mean.'

  'No, I'm not sure. But that's not a reason----'

  'It's a first-rate reason. I care for that lady, and I want her to behappy, and as you admit that she will have a better chance ofhappiness with me than with Logotheti, I'm going to marry her myself,not only because I want to, but because it will be a long sight betterfor her. See? No fault in that line of reasoning, is there?'

  'So far as reasoning goes----' Lady Maud's tone was half an admission.

  'That's all I wanted you to say,' interrupted the American. 'So that'ssettled, and you're going to help me.'

  'No,' answered Lady Maud quietly; 'I won't help you to break off thatengagement. But if it should come to nothing, without yourinterfering--that is, by the girl's own free will and choice andchange of mind, I'd help you to marry her if I could.'

  'But you admit that she's going to be miserable,' said Van Torpstubbornly.

  'I'm sorry for her, but it's none of my business. It's not honourableto try and make trouble between engaged people, no matter howill-matched they may be.'

  'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American, 'that you're bound tolet a friend of yours break her neck at the very gravel pit where youwere nearly smashed yourself! In the hunting field you'd grab herbridle if she wouldn't listen to you, but in
a matter of marriage--oh,no! "It's dishonourable to interfere," "She's made her choice and shemust abide by it," and all that kind of stuff!'

  Lady Maud's clear eyes met his angry blue ones calmly.

  'I don't like you when you say such things,' she said, lowering hervoice a little.

  'I didn't mean to be rude,' answered the millionaire, almost humbly.'You see I don't always know. I learnt things differently from whatyou did. I suppose you'd think it an insult if I said I'd give a largesum of money to your charity the day I married Madame Cordova, ifyou'd help me through.'

  "'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American."]

  'Please stop.' Lady Maud's face darkened visibly. 'That's not likeyou.'

  'I'll give a million pounds sterling,' said Mr. Van Torp slowly.

  Lady Maud leaned back in her corner of the sofa, clasping her handsrather tightly together in her lap. Her white throat flushed as whenthe light of dawn kisses Parian marble, and the fresh tint in hercheeks deepened softly; her lips were tightly shut, her eyelidsquivered a little, and she looked straight before her across the room.

  'You can do a pretty good deal with a million pounds,' said Mr. VanTorp, after the silence had lasted nearly half a minute.

  'Don't!' cried Lady Maud, in an odd voice.

  'Forty thousand pounds a year,' observed the millionaire thoughtfully.'You could do quite a great deal of good with that, couldn't you?'

  'Don't! Please don't!'

  She pressed her hands to her ears and rose at the same instant.Perhaps it was she, after all, and not her friend who had been broughtsuddenly to a great cross-road in life. She stood still one moment bythe sofa without looking down at her companion; then she left the roomabruptly, and shut the door behind her.

  Van Torp got up from his seat slowly when she was gone, and went tothe window, softly blowing a queer tune between his closed teeth andhis open lips, without quite whistling.

  'Well----' he said aloud, in a tone of doubt, after a minute or two.

  But he said no more, for he was much too reticent and sensible aperson to talk to himself audibly even when he was alone, and much toocautious to be sure that a servant might not be within hearing, thoughthe door was shut. He stood before the window nearly a quarter of anhour, thinking that Lady Maud might come back, but as no sound of anystep broke the silence he understood that he was not to see her againthat day, and he quietly let himself out of the house and went off,not altogether discontented with the extraordinary impression he hadmade.

  Lady Maud sat alone upstairs, so absorbed in her thoughts that she didnot hear the click of the lock as he opened and shut the front door.

  She was much more amazed at herself than surprised by the offer he hadmade. Temptation, in any reasonable sense of the word, had passed byher in life, and she had never before understood what it could mean toher. Indeed, she had thought of herself very little of late, and hadnever had the least taste for self-examination or the analysis of herconscience. She had done much good, because she wanted to do it, andnot at all as a duty, or with that idea of surprising the Deity by theamount of her good works, which actuates many excellent persons. Asfor doing anything seriously wrong, she had never wanted to, and ithad not even occurred to her that the opportunity for a wicked deedcould ever present itself to her together with the slightest desire todo it. Her labours had taken her to strange places, and she knew whatreal sin was, and even crime, and the most hideous vice, and its stillmore awful consequences; but one reason why she had wrought fearlesslywas that she felt herself naturally invulnerable. She knew a good manypeople in her own set whom she thought quite as bad as the worst shehad ever picked up on the dark side of the Virtue-Curtain; they werepeople who seemed to have no moral sense, men who betrayed their wiveswantonly, young women who took money for themselves and old ones whocheated at bridge, men who would deliberately ruin a rival inpolitics, in finance, or in love, and ambitious women who had driventheir competitors to despair and destruction by a scientific use ofcalumny. But she had never felt any inclination towards any of thosethings, which all seemed to her disgusting, or cowardly, or otherwiseabominable. Her husband had gone astray after strange gods--andgoddesses--but she had never wished to be revenged on them, or him,nor to say what was not true about any one, nor even what was true andcould hurt, nor to win a few sovereigns at cards otherwise thanfairly, nor to wish anybody dead who had a right to live.

  She was eight-and-twenty years of age and a widow, when temptationcame to her suddenly in a shape of tremendous strength, through hertrusted friend, who had helped her for years to help others. It wasreal temptation. The man who offered her a million pounds to savemiserable wretches from a life of unspeakable horror, could offer hertwice as much, four, five, or ten millions perhaps. No one knew thevast extent of his wealth, and in an age of colossal fortunes she hadoften heard his spoken of with the half-dozen greatest.

  The worst of it was that she felt able to do what he asked; for shewas inwardly convinced that the great singer did not know her own mindand was not profoundly attached to the man she had accepted. Of thetwo women, Margaret was by far the weaker character; or, to be just,the whole strength of her nature had long been concentrated in thestruggle for artistic supremacy, and could not easily be brought toexert itself in other directions. Lady Maud's influence over her wasgreat, and Logotheti's had never been very strong. She was taken byhis vitality, his daring, his constancy, or obstinacy, and a little byhis good looks, as a mere girl might be, because the theatre had madelooks seem so important to her. But apart from his handsome face,Logotheti was no match for Van Torp. Of that Lady Maud was sure.Besides, the Primadonna's antipathy for the American had greatlydiminished of late, and had perhaps altogether given place to afriendly feeling. She had said openly that she had misjudged him,because he had pestered her with his attentions in New York, and thatshe even liked him since he had shown more tact. Uncouth as he was insome ways, Lady Maud knew that she herself might care for him morethan as a friend, if her heart were not buried for ever in a soldier'sgrave on the Veldt.

  That was the worst of it. She felt that it was probably not beyond herpower to bring about what Van Torp desired, at least so far as toinduce Margaret to break off the engagement which now blocked his way.Under cover of roughness, too, he had argued with a subtlety thatfrightened her now that she was alone; and with a consummate knowledgeof her nature he had offered her the only sort of bribe that couldpossibly tempt her, the means to make permanent the good work she hadalready carried so far.

  He had placed her in such a dilemma as she had never dreamed of. Toaccept such an offer as he made, would mean that she must do somethingwhich she felt was dishonourable, if she gave 'honour' the meaning anhonest gentleman attaches to it, and that was the one she had learnedfrom her father, and which a good many women seem unable tounderstand. To refuse, was to deprive hundreds of wretched andsuffering creatures of the only means of obtaining a hold on a decentexistence which Lady Maud had ever found to be at all efficacious. Sheknew that she had not done much, compared with what was undone; itlooked almost nothing. But where law-making had failed altogether,where religion was struggling bravely but almost in vain, whereenlightened philanthropy found itself paralysed and bankrupt, she hadaccomplished something by merely using a little money in the rightway.

  'You can do quite a great deal of good with forty thousand pounds ayear.'

  Van Torp's rough-hewn speech rang through her head, and somehow itsreckless grammar gave it strength and made it stick in her memory,word for word. In the drawer of the writing-table before which she wassitting there was a little file of letters that meant more to her thananything else in the world, except one dear memory. They were all fromwomen, they all told much the same little story, and it was good toread. She had made many failures, and some terrible ones, which shecould never forget; but there were real successes, too, there wereover a dozen of them now, and she had only been at work for threeyears. If she had more money, she could do more; if she had
much, shecould do much; and she knew of one or two women who could help her.What might she not accomplish in a lifetime with the vast sum herfriend offered her!--the price of hindering a marriage that was almostsure to turn out badly, perhaps as badly as her own!--the money valueof a compromise with her conscience on a point of honour which manywomen would have thought very vague indeed, if not quite absurd insuch a case. She knew what temptation meant, now, and she was to knoweven better before long. The Primadonna had said that she was going tomarry Logotheti chiefly because he insisted on it.

  The duel for Margaret's hand had begun; Van Torp had aimed a blow thatmight well give him the advantage if it went home; and Logothetihimself was quite unaware of the skilful attack that threatened hishappiness.