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diff --git a/75383-0.txt b/75383-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ba6860 --- /dev/null +++ b/75383-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6995 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75383 *** + + + + + +THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE + + + + + THE DANGEROUS + INHERITANCE + OR + The Mystery of the Tittani Rubies + + BY + IZOLA FORRESTER + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1920 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1919 AND 1920, BY THE NEW IDEA PUBLISHING COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY IZOLA FORRESTER PAGE + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + +THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE + + + + +THE DANGEROUS INHERITANCE + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on +the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. +Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but +now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial +establishments and light-housekeeping apartments. + +The signor, having no doubt the Old-World propensity for permanency, +had maintained his studio here for over twenty years, without +regard for the changing conditions around him, if indeed he were +even conscious of them. His own immediate outlook and environment +had remained the same. The view to the west and south from the +deep, double-sized windows had varied little, and held a perpetual +fascination for him. Thin red chimneys in neighborly groupings on +adjacent roofs assumed delicate color values of amethyst and quivering +saffrons from Jersey sunsets that turned even the old buildings +down towards the riverfront into mystical genii palaces in the early +twilight. + +Dust lay unnoted upon bookshelves and music-racks about the large, +friendly room. The Turkish rug that covered its floor had long since +lost all outline of pattern and was as exquisite a blur as the +rose-flushed sea mist that hung over the lower end of the island city. + +Carlota stood in a window recess, her back to the signor and his +unexpected guest, her fingers tying and untying the faded purple silk +cord of the shade. From where he sat in the old winged armchair by the +piano, Ward caught a perfect silhouette of her profile against the glow +of western light. Listening to Jacobelli’s fiery protest in his usual +silent way, his mind dwelt upon the blossoming of this foreign flower +of girlhood who had so strangely attracted him from the first time he +had ever looked into her eyes. + +The Marchese Veracci had called him up from the Italian Club two years +before, and had besought his good offices for the granddaughter of +Margherita Paoli. The following evening they had called on him by +appointment. He half closed his eyes, recalling the picture of the girl +as he had first seen her. They awaited him in the Florentine room. +Even then she had not thought of him, but had stood before a painting +of Sorrento, a view through the ravine looking seaward, one hand laid +on her breast, her eyes filled with the yearning of youth’s loneliness. +She had met him silently, her hand cold as it rested an instant in his +palm. + +And the old Marchese had pleaded her cause with fervent eloquence. + +“I have Jacobelli’s word on her voice,” he said. “What more would you? +If you but speak Guido Jacobelli’s name to any European director, he +bows to the old maestro’s dictum.” + +“He has retired,” Ward returned. + +“Retired, yes, from the money mart.” The Marchese had beamed upon the +great international banker almost tolerantly. “You cannot comprehend +his attitude. No amount of money could tempt him to teach the tyro, the +climber, but he has heard Carlota. He knew Paoli well in Italy. It was +her influence and friendship which first brought him fame and power. +Now he has said that her voice lives again in the child, but there must +be at least four years of incessant application and training. To keep +her voice divine, she must never be troubled by material cares. She +must have an abundance of everything that she needs that her whole +nature may relax and expand to give her the freedom to devote her whole +life to her career.” + +Ward had understood. He knew Guido Jacobelli. While the old maestro was +a high priest of art, his price for teaching genius was in proportion +to his faith. It had been Carlota’s own attitude of indifference +which had dominated his decision. While the Marchese had argued and +pleaded for her future, and Maria Roma, her guardian, had hung upon the +final word from Ward’s lips, she had listened gravely, her attention +wandering constantly to the rare art treasures of the room. Once she +had met his eyes as he asked her a direct question. + +“You are very young to study seriously. Do you realize the sacrifices +you must make?” + +“I have always studied to be a singer, signor,” Carlota had told him, +her eyes even then disconcerting in their wide intensity. “There are no +sacrifices when you love your vocation.” + +Ward had smiled back at the Marchese, quoting lightly, + + “I did renounce the world, its pride and greed + ... at eight years old.” + +“My dear,” he added, “one of your own countrymen has spoken so, +Fra Lippo Lippi. No parallel, though, eh, Veracci? Here we have the +consecration of genius. I will advance fifty thousand. Is it enough?” + +Carlota had met his appraising eyes with the aloof resentment of an +influence that disturbed her. + +“Speak, cara mia,” Maria Roma had cried, tears streaming down her plump +cheeks, as she clasped her arms enthusiastically around her charge. +“Have you no word of thanks?” + +And Ward had never forgotten the flash of challenge in the girl’s dark +eyes as she had given him her hand. + +“I will succeed and pay you back, signor,” she had said. He might have +been merely a money-lender to a princess of the de’ Medici. + +He had made only one stipulation and that half in jest, though Maria +and the Marchese had agreed most earnestly. She was not to marry nor +become entangled in love affairs during the period of her tuition. The +concession had completely escaped Carlota’s attention. She had wandered +by them out into the wide corridor, stifled by the somber silence of +the great closed rooms. Not a single fountain falling in the distance, +not a living flower anywhere, nothing but age-old treasures in a +palatial, modern museum. He had not spoken to her again, only she had +heard his last words to Jacobelli. + +“May the fruit fulfill the promise. I will come to see you now and +then.” + +Through the two years of study he had kept his word. Every few months, +unawares, he would come to the old studio and sit for a while, +listening to Jacobelli and watching his pupil. Even while he never +spoke a word of direct intent to her, Carlota felt a vague uneasiness +in his presence, under the steady power of his gaze. He carried with +him the impression of a compelling, dominant masterfulness, all the +more irresistible through its silence and tireless patience. He was +in the late thirties at this time, tall and heavy-set, his head, with +its thick, close-cut blond hair, thrust forward from a habit of silent +intentness. There was the strongest suggestion of the leonine about +him. Once, when she was a child, Carlota remembered being taken to see +a captive Algerian lion that had just been brought across for the royal +zoo. With a city mob surging forward to stare at him, the lion had lain +with an imperial languor and indifference, gazing with unblinking eyes +beyond the crowd and the city, seeing only the desert that held his +whole life’s desire. Sometimes, in the studio, during one of Ward’s +visits, she would catch his eyes fixed upon her, while Jacobelli +flamed out into some argument or dissertation, and she would shrink +from the purpose that lay behind their patience. + +To-day the voice of Jacobelli filled the studio, and Carlota’s delicate +dark brows contracted sharply as she listened. + +“What more can I do? I have given her all that I know of technique and +harmony, and still her voice lacks that emotional quality which the +greatest alone possess. The divine voice must have dramatic feeling, +intensity. It must lose itself in the grandest passion of emotion. The +child tries, but what would you? She does not understand the lack in +her own nature. Her woman soul yet slumbers.” + +Ward glanced at him with amused, quizzical eyes. + +“Let it sleep, Jacobelli. Remember Paoli when she let love conquer her.” + +For the moment the old maestro forgot the figure behind the window +curtain. With arms thrown upward he turned on the banker. + +“You know not anything about Paoli! I, Jacobelli, tell you that! You +cannot speak of her with any understanding. She was a law to herself +in her own generation. Few women can be that. But I, who know what lay +behind the wall of Tittani, say to you I would rather this child lay +dead now, with no fulfillment in her life, than that she should know +the agony and failure as an artiste that her grandmother did when she +sacrificed her whole womanhood--for what? Love, pouf!” + +“Can a woman’s nature reach its ripest fulfillment without love?” +Ward’s tone was lowered. “History proves that the greatest geniuses +have been those who suffered most.” + +“But not the singer, signor.” Jacobelli paused in his march up and down +the studio. “The singer is something different. It is instinctive. I +have heard the most marvelous impassioned voices pour from the most +commonplace peasant types. I have heard the greatest tenor of all +times tear the emotions of thousands to pieces, and step into his +dressing-room to rail at his wife for not providing his favorite dish +for him after the opera, ravioli and lampreys. The most superb lyric +voice of to-day comes from a little, stout contadina who picked up +centimes around the flower-market in Naples when I was young. Do you +think she acquired divinity of soul and utterance from some supreme +emotion? Ridiculous. She is a gourmand, a virago, absolutely bourgeois, +yet she sings like a seraph. Why, then, is it not in Carlota’s voice?” + +Ward rose leisurely. The old silken curtains hung motionless. The +shadows were heavy in the corners of the studio. + +“She is a higher type,” he said in a low voice. “When you agree with +me, bring her to me.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +After Ward had gone the old Italian maestro seated himself at the +piano, improvising as he always did when he was disturbed. It was an +enormous old ebony instrument, mellow and vibrant in its response to +his touch. He did not even look up as Carlota leaned her elbows upon a +pile of dusty folios, watching him anxiously. Finally she drew a quick, +impatient breath. + +“I wish he would never come here again.” + +“It is customary,” Jacobelli shrugged his expansive shoulders. “You +are too sensitive, my dear. It is you who are conferring a favor in +permitting this person to provide the means for your education. You +will return to him, in the hour of your triumph, every penny it has +been his privilege to advance at this time.” + +“Why does he come here and sit looking at me in such a way? In the +courtyard at home there were little lizards that came out early in the +morning, gray and cold, with eyes like his, green in the light. I was +always afraid of putting my hand on one of them around the fountain.” + +Jacobelli struck a minor chord, avoiding her eyes. + +“Because he is a man, and you are growing beautiful. You will become +accustomed to this sort of thing. All men will love you, or seem +to. It is the compliment paid to women who are great artistes. Your +grandmother was adored in her day. Kings and princes knelt at her +shrine, and fought for her favor. Even I was infatuated with her. You +must learn to smile impersonally and receive homage.” + +“Then it is not--love?” Carlota asked doubtfully. “I heard what you +said to him about her. Why did you say that, about her suffering and +sacrifice? I never remember her like that. She was wonderful. She +seemed to give out radiance and warmth like the sunlight. Wasn’t she +happy?” + +Jacobelli’s hands were flung up suddenly, and he laughed at her. + +“My dear, who may say when a woman is happy or when she is not. +Sometimes they find their greatest happiness in their most supreme +suffering. She was divine, that is enough. As for love, Carlotina mia, +it is merely Life’s plaything. It is the toy we give to youth, but +never, never to genius. The rabble amuses itself with what it calls +love. But genius is sufficient unto itself. It is the celestial fire. +It does not seek a mortal torch upon its altar.” + +“You said you would rather see me dead--” began Carlota slowly, when +the little electric bell at the outer door rang lightly, announcing +Maria Roma at her customary hour of five. As always, she followed it +by half opening the door, peering around with an arch, reconnoitering +glance. + +“Do I intrude?” she asked, with her beaming smile, and entered +impressively, always with the dramatic action as if the orchestra had +sounded her motif. She shook one forefinger impressively at Carlota. +“You loiter and take up the maestro’s time, gossip and loiter when you +should be studying.” + +But Jacobelli waved aside the admonition with one ample movement of his +large, plump hand. As Carlota went to the inner room for her cloak and +hat, he spoke in an undertone. + +“Ward is becoming very much interested in her. She treats him with +indifference. You must teach her diplomacy. She has too much arrogance +of youth, and absolutely no gratitude for what he is doing for her.” + +Maria’s brilliant dark eyes narrowed with comprehensive amusement. + +“You ask the impossible, Guido. I who have known all three, Margherita, +Bianca, and this glorious child, tell you the truth, and you will +remember what I say. You can no more teach the heart of a Paoli to keep +its temperament within bounds than you can yoke the thunder-clouds and +lightning that sweep down over our Trentino.” + +“And the responsibility is ours,” said Jacobelli, with a deep +exhalation of his cigarette. “Given this nature, we are to keep her a +prisoner behind the wall of Tittani, eh?” + +Maria sank deeply into the velvet-cushioned chair beside him, and the +two smiled at each other reminiscently. + +“It was a high wall,” she sighed at length. “I remember your last visit +there, Guido, before the child was born, five years I think it was. +Bianca was a flower then. Such flaming hair and dark eyes, the true +Florentine type. She was more like Tittani in her looks. Carlota is a +throwback to the grandmother. Ah, my Guido, was there ever a woman like +her? Even at the last, before he died, when her heart was torn with +agony of renunciation--” + +“She lost her voice,” Jacobelli spoke with finality. “Yet Ward would +tell me love is the great fulfillment. Did she ever sing again? No. +She buried her art with her love in the grave of her poet after he had +denied her to the world. You and I, Maria Roma, who know of this, must +protect this child against the traitor in her own nature.” + +Maria sighed doubtfully. She was the large, vivid type of the Italian +peasant, richly developed by success and circumstance. Years before, +Sforza, director of La Scala, had journeyed with friends to a mountain +section of the Trentino. In the purple twilight a voice had drifted +down to them from a band of vintage workers, homeward bound. It was +Maria Roma at eighteen, a buoyant, deep-breasted bacchante, her black +hair hanging in thick clusters of curls around her radiant face. + +Enrico Sforza had loved her, more perhaps for her ardent faithfulness +and responsiveness. She had achieved a sensation in contralto rôles and +he had interested La Paoli in his peasant love. In middle age, after +his death, Maria had retired to live at the Villa Tittani with the old +diva. Here she had shared with her in the tragedy of her final years. +Fifty years before, the story of Margherita Paoli and her love for +John Tennant, the English poet, had been part of the romance of Italy. +Her beauty and genius had opened every door of success to her. Even on +the threshold of womanhood she had been given all that ambition could +demand from life, and turning in the highest hour of her triumphs, she +had forsaken the world for a year, giving the full gift of her love to +Tennant. + +Suddenly she had returned, restless and hungering for her art. As Maria +knew, Tennant had been jealous of her voice and the life which he could +not share, had demanded that she give up her career for the sake of +their love, and return with him to England. And she had laughed at +him. Love could not bring full completeness and happiness to a woman +of genius, she had said. It could not satisfy her for the loss of the +divine fire. Tennant had left Italy, and five years later she married +Count Tittani. Bianca, the mother of Carlota, had been born at the old +villa overlooking the Campagna. She had spent her childhood here, and +in the convent of Maria Pietà at the head of the ancient ilex avenue +leading up from Mondragone. Tittani had died when she was nine, leaving +La Paoli the prestige of his name and wealth combined with her own full +measure of maturity in her art. + +It was at this time that Maria had come nearest to her confidence. Word +came from England to them that Tennant had been stricken blind, and in +the midst of a gala performance of “Traviata,” La Paoli had left all +and gone to him. He had refused to see her when she reached London. +Bertrand Wallace, his closest friend, had told her simply enough that +he was without means, that he longed to go to Italy where “he might +feel the sun on his face,” and she had entered into the splendid +conspiracy that glorified the end of her life. + +The Villa Tittani faced the Campagna with a lofty, blank wall. Beyond +it stretched terraced gardens, winding alleys of cypress and ilexes, +a place of enchantment, with the never-ending music of falling waters +in the distance, of hidden fountains in grottoes, and cascades that +fell over ancient steps in ripples of silver. Yet all its beauty was +dominated by its wall, blank on one side, terraced on the garden side +into long, steep depths of mystery, of infinite green vistas that lost +their way in the cypress gloom of the lower distances. + +Here Wallace brought his friend, the blind poet, to the little house +near the end of the wall where the view opened seaward. Two old +servants of the Tittani had cared for him until his passing, and here +La Paoli could come and watch him from a distance, unseen or suspected +in the largesse of her love by the man whose faith she had betrayed for +fame. It was characteristic of her that even in her grief and isolation +from him, she seemed to find a supreme, almost fierce, satisfaction in +the tragic immolation of her own happiness for his sake. He had died +finally, unconscious, on her breast, and she had never sung again. + +“You see, Maria, I have proved the truth of it in my own heart’s +blood,” she had said, “A woman cannot serve two gods. If Bianca has +my voice, help me to teach her this: no man is content with half of a +woman’s love or nature. If she desires to attain to the highest art, +she must sacrifice love.” + +Within six months after she had left the shelter of the convent Bianca +had married Peppino Trelango, son of a dead patriot. The Contessa had +cared for him through his boyhood, because she had heard him playing on +his violin once on the old quay at Pontecova where centuries before the +body of the boy count, Giovanni Borgia, had borne witness against his +brother in the dawn. When Bianca came home, she had met him in the old +gardens, a boy of nineteen, like one of the marble fauns come to life +to teach her youth’s heritage. When the Contessa returned from a trip +to her favorite midsummer retreat at Isola Bella, she had found the two +gone, and Maria desolate with despair. + +It was from this romance that Carlota had been born. After the death +of Peppino in an Algerian skirmish, Bianca had returned to the villa +behind the old rose-colored wall with her child. She had lived in the +gardens with the memories of her love, a silent, smiling, stately girl +who baffled the vivid, emotional La Paoli by the elusive sensitiveness +of her nature. + +“She is the wraith of my passion for the love I denied,” the Contessa +would declare. “I starved for him, and trampled the desire with +my pride while I bore her to Tittani. She is the very spirit of +renunciation, Maria, and she will drive me to madness with her silence +and resignation. Carlota is not like her. She is a flame, a beautiful +rosebud, all light and movement. She is like I was, God keep her.” + +Carlota was four when they bore her mother down to the old tomb of +the Tittani. She could remember her voice at night when she bent over +her to kiss her, and the fall of her long, soft hair over her face. +Sometimes in their walks through the gardens, in the quiet years of her +girlhood, she would come to the old tomb set into the hillside, its +iron gates overgrown with vines, and she would lean her cheek against +them. Assunta, her nurse, would scold her for not keeping her thoughts +on the spiritual. + +“Ah, a little that was my mother lies here,” Carlota would answer. “I +may love it, Assunta, without sinning, may I not, just her beautiful +hair even?” + +After Italy entered the war, the villa had been turned into a hospital, +and the fortune of the Contessa laid at the feet of “La Patria.” + +“Still, there is some left,” she had told Maria at the time of her +own departure. Strong in spirit and dominant, she had ruled to the +end, planning and directing Carlota’s future. “I have given the child +a heritage and training that are priceless. If you have to, sell the +jewels in the cinque cento chest. They are for her. I have not even +looked at them since he died. Take her to America, Maria. Find there +Guido Jacobelli. He was a boy when I made my début, before your time, +the gala performance of ‘Rigoletto.’ I was a wonderful Gilda, Maria. +Later I gave him his first start. He is not one who forgets. You will +go to him in New York and he will find you a patron. I have written +to the Marchese Veracci to expect you and see that you are lodged +fittingly. No economy. Surround her with beauty and comfort while she +studies, but keep her from love until she has won success. Her mother +sacrificed all for Peppino’s kiss. If I were able I would keep her here +behind the wall of Tittani and never let her see the face of a man +whom she might love. Dust and ashes all, Maria. The greatest and most +enduring is the memory of a lost love.” + +After the closing of the old villa, Carlota and Signora Roma had come +to New York. Maria had been prodigal in her expenditures. She had +taken an expensive studio and had lavished the tenderest care on her +charge. + +“The art quarters of Europe, cara mia,” she would say to her airily +when Carlota protested, “have been filled for generations with +what?--failures. Boy and girl aspirants, pitiful little garret Pierrots +and Columbines, starving upon hopes that never materialized. Art is +greedy. It demands all of your nerve, force and vitality. To come +out of the training of the next four years a victor, you must pamper +yourself. Dress well, eat well, feed your love of beauty as well as +your stomach. Remember, ‘white hyacinths for the soul as well as bread +for the body.’ You will be a slave to your art, and must keep the fires +burning.” + +“But you will use up all we have,” Carlota had protested. + +“What then?” Maria had demanded proudly. “You have only a small fortune +left. You must have thousands, tens of thousands before you bow to your +first night’s audience.” + +They had met the old Marchese Veracci the first week of their arrival. +Few there were in the Washington Square section of the city who were +not familiar with the stately Old-World figure of the Marchese. He +was as welcome in the crowded Sicilian quarter below Fourth Street +as in the corridors of the Brevoort or Lafayette. He held his court +daily at the fountain in the center of the Square. Always with a fresh +boutonnière and a smile and courtly word for every dark-eyed child +who laughed back at him. Sometimes, when he strolled past the bust of +Garibaldi, he would leave a little spray of flowers on the pedestal. +After dinner he never failed to stroll out into the twilight and lift +his soul in salute to the cross of light that gleamed on the memorial +tower above the trees. + +“It is the one spot in the whole city,” he told them, “that holds the +Old-World glamour and charm, yet I would not have you and Carlota +living down here. The lines of demarcation are too blurred between the +workers and the dreamers. Then, too, there are the dancing shapes that +come to stare and ridicule. There is a contagion of play here that +breaks the concentration you must put into your study, my child. Keep +away from it at this period. Later, I could wish you nothing better +than to share in the spirit of comradeship in art and beauty, yes, and +most of all, in humanity. That you will find down here, no matter how +others try to detract from the atmosphere, like the very small boys who +will ever toss pebbles at the stained-glass windows of the saints.” + +Maria Roma had agreed fervently to anything he said. His delighted +enthusiasm satisfied her that the old Contessa had chosen rightly in +making him joint guardian with her over Carlota. Guido Jacobelli had +retired, he had told her over their first luncheon en tête-à-tête at +the Italian Club. Money would never tempt him to teach. Nothing but +brilliant genius in a pupil could ever lure him from his retreat to +give them the full benefit of his years of experience and study. + +“I know him well, and of them all he is still the wizard, the maestro. +Even now, his word on a voice would open the gates of opportunity to +any singer. Casanova, of the Opera here, bows to his dictum. If it were +anybody but Margherita Paoli who calls to me, I would say no, but as +it is, ma bella, we will go. Two places I know where we may find him, +at his old studio in town and his country home at Arrochar, on Staten +Island. We will go there.” + +The visit had proven Carlota’s crucial hour. Maria had hovered over her +excitedly, feeling that upon the great old maestro’s verdict lay the +entire future fate of her career. The Marchese had called for them and +had accompanied them out to Jacobelli’s home. It was typical of his +simplicity and love of nature. On the wooded heights above Kill von +Kull at Arrochar, lay a small colony of Italian artists and musicians. +Their homes were like miniature villas perched above a smaller bay +of Naples when the myriad lights gleamed on the shipping and distant +Jersey hills. + +As they walked up the quiet hill street from the station, Carlota’s +dark eyes had sparkled with memories. Surely in this perfect fall day, +with the vivid blue of a cloudless sky above the deep crimson and +gold of autumn foliage, there was a semblance of the Villa Tittani’s +beauty. A rock wall covered with brilliant red creeper vines surrounded +the garden. It seemed neglected, with shrubbery straggling in groups, +unclipped and straying. The stone flower urns were overgrown with rank, +clambering vines. In the southeast corner a dancing faun poised with +wary, pointed ears, as if listening seaward. When the Marchese tried +to open the outer vestibule door of the enclosed veranda, two stately +Italian greyhounds rose leisurely and eyed the callers questioningly. + +Within they had found Jacobelli living alone with his memories. Carlota +never forgot the picture that he made, welcoming them into his wide, +sunlit studio. Swarthy, stout, curly-haired, frowning at her from heavy +eyebrows, he had seemed to gauge and grasp her whole capabilities in +one swift, cursory glance. She had been caressed and encouraged all of +her life, but now, for the first time, she felt her confidence shaken +as she waited by the piano, facing the piercing eyes and uncompromising +glare of the old maestro. Never once, during the two years of study +under him that followed that first visit, had she shaken off that first +impression. Eccentric, proud, profoundly conscious of his power to make +or unmake queens of the operatic world, he had been a revelation to her +from that day. + +The Marchese had pleaded for her eloquently, showing the letter he +had received from La Paoli a few weeks before her death. Jacobelli +had listened to it in silence, staring fixedly at the girl. She was +very like her grandmother in appearance, he thought. Behind her stood +a towering old terra-cotta jar filled with scarlet autumn leaves. She +looked out at the sea view, her eyes filled with a dreaming longing. +Her hair was heavy and lustrous, growing back from a low, broad +forehead with the shell-like outline one sees in the portraits of +Beatrice or one of Del Sarto’s girl saints. Her eyes were long and +shadowy, heavy-lidded, aloof. When she was interested or startled, they +opened widely, a deep, warm brown color, their darkness made more vivid +by the rare rose red of her lips and the peculiar jasmine clearness +of her skin. But it was something beyond mere beauty and grace that +arrested Jacobelli’s interest. There was a sense of suppressed vitality +about her, the insistent promise of the unusual, of some compelling +magnetism that lay behind her silence and repression. Suddenly he +seated himself at the long bench, and struck a chord for her pitch. + +“Sing,” he ordered. “First, a long scale.” + +Carlota had hesitated, looking to Maria for sympathy. Might she not +sing, for this supreme trial, some famous aria? But Signora Roma +had raised both hands in hushed rebuke. They were before the final +tribunal. The outcome was on the knees of the gods. But as the full, +vibrant soprano rose to the scale, Jacobelli struck a crashing chord +and leapt from the bench, clasping his arms about the slim figure at +his side. + +“Ah, Sanctissima Maria, it is there!” he shouted. “It is the voice of +Paoli come to life once more! My beautiful, my marvel, ah, what we will +not make of you! Sing, cara mia, sing again for me. No, so!” + +For over an hour Carlota sang for him, while Maria sat by the deep bay +window, weeping from sheer happiness, and the old Marchese strolled to +and fro, stroking the greyhounds, and smoking incessantly, keeping +time as he smiled at the success of his experiment. + +The fruition of that first visit had come richly in the two years that +followed it. Carlota was eighteen now, with not alone the years of her +grandmother’s careful teaching, but Jacobelli’s unceasing discipline +and watchfulness as her voice ripened and developed. One year more and +she would be ready for her début, he said. It was this final year she +dreaded, with Ward’s visits to the studio becoming more frequent and +his interest in her losing its cloak of patronage. + +She was silent on this day, almost during the entire homeward walk +across the Park. Their apartment had been Maria’s choice, selected +against the better judgment of even the Marchese. He had advised a +smaller, less expensive suite farther uptown, but in a conservative +section. Maria had cast the suggestion from her scornfully. For the +struggling student any environment was of secondary consideration, but +for the sole pupil of Guido Jacobelli, the protégée of Ogden Ward, +there must be a gilded cage. Between Fifth Avenue and Madison in the +upper Sixties she had found one that suited her, a spacious apartment +that in its richness of tone satisfied her. It might have been from the +Villa Tittani itself, by the time Maria had finished its decoration. + +“You had worried the maestro to-day,” she said severely, as they +approached the heavy bronze and crystal entrance. “He could not even +improvise. We are giving our whole hearts and souls to you for your +success, and you are not grateful.” + +Carlota turned her head and smiled at her tenderly. She was used to the +scoldings of the old prima donna. + +“I am grateful to you, tanta mia,” she said, slipping her hand under +the other’s arm. “But I sometimes think I hate Mr. Ward. When I hear +his footstep I cannot sing any more, and when he sits there and looks +at me I could jump from the window. I hate his eyes and his voice and +everything about him.” + +Maria’s dark eyebrows arched in amazement. She glanced with quick +suspicion at the girl’s troubled face. + +“But you have no reason--have you?” + +Carlota’s eyes narrowed with amusement at her anxiety. As they +entered the lower hall, she stripped off her long gray suède gloves +impatiently. The lights were not switched on yet, and she let one fall +near the outer steps. It lay, a part of the twilight, unnoticed by +either herself or Maria, but one who came behind them picked it up. +It was a mere fleeting impression she caught of him. Maria had stepped +into the elevator when he reached her side to return it, a curious, +poster-like figure, with the uncertain light accentuating his foreign +features and half-closed, seeking eyes. + +“Yes, it is mine, thank you,” she said gravely, and carried with her +upstairs an impression of restless, suppressed dissent and discontent +combined with a haunting fragrance of a new cigarette smoke. When she +reached the apartment, while Maria hurried to make Russian tea for +them, she stood by the window, looking down over the boxes of green. +Across the street in the mother-of-pearl gloom, she could see the glow +of the cigarette where the boy stood, waiting for something, and it +held her with almost a premonition of menace. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Over the tea she was unusually silent, while Maria, ensconced at last +on her favorite chaise longue, mellowed under the warmth. Carlota’s +voice, cool with daring, broke in on her relaxation. + +“Maria, when will you treat me as a woman?” + +Maria’s face flushed as she spilled the tea blindly on the rug. + +“You are in love?” she gasped. “Never would you have thought of such a +thing if you were not in love.” + +“Oh, you poor, old preciosa!” Carlota laughed richly, folding her arms +around the signora’s ample shoulders. “I wouldn’t know love if I met +him face to face this minute in your teacup. But I want to know so +much, Maria. I want to ask you about so many things. You love me, do +you not? Enough to tell me anything at all I ask you?” + +“Ah, do I not,” sighed Maria uneasily. “Is it about Mr. Ward?” + +Carlota drew up a low footstool of rose silk and ivory carving, and +laid her glossy head close to the one on the pillows. + +“I have said I hate him,” she replied composedly. “Let us forget that +I ever have to see him again. I want you to listen and love me more +than you ever have so you will answer me truthfully. Why did Signor +Jacobelli tell Mr. Ward to-day that my grandmother sacrificed her whole +womanhood and that he would rather see me dead than have me like her. +What was behind the wall of Tittani that I never knew about?” + +“He is a pompous old egoist,” Maria answered with amazing composure +considering the tumult in her mind. “You remember her? Did she not live +like a queen with her court even at her age? She was the most regal +person I ever knew. You can remember the life at the villa? Was it +somber or full of unhappiness? She was the Contessa Tittani. She had +everything she wanted. Some day when you have gained all that she did, +we will go back to the old villa, and spend our summers there. Remember +your goats, beloved, the little Nini and Cherubini--” + +“They will be gone when we get back,” Carlota said slowly. “You have +lied to me as you always do, Maria, with love. I will tell you things +I remember that you do not know I know. I can remember my mother. She +was very white, with eyes like the lower pool in the moonlight, and +her hair was so soft and so long. I felt it always over my face in the +darkness when she bent to kiss me good-night. I have dreamt I felt it +since, and wakened reaching for her. You know Assunta?” + +Maria murmured an inarticulate, doubtful injunction to Assunta’s +attendant dæmon, and made horns with her finger-tips with a +subconscious reversion to the old superstition of the Trentino fireside +tales. + +“She had a rattling tongue. What has she told you?” + +“It was about the wall.” Carlota clasped her hands around her knees, +and looked before her seeing the way of the old villa and the beauty of +it. “It was so high to me in those days. I have looked up at it, Maria, +until it seemed as if its highest terrace met the sky.” + +“There were seven, built by Giovanni Fontana.” + +“I loved them. The stone was so old and rose-colored with green and +violet streaking it. On the side towards the road it was so bare and +forbidding, and on our side it was all beauty and lavishness as if +it could not give us too much, of its bounty. There was no entrance, +you remember, Maria, there by the road, and I used to follow the wall +around the garden trying to see how you ever went out through it. And +Assunta told me, I suppose to keep me satisfied, that no one had ever +found the way over the wall excepting my mother--” + +“Ah, the blind, cackling pullet. If I had known--” Maria nodded her +head with relish. “She was selling melons in Mondragone when your +mother lived.” + +“And when I asked her how my mother ever climbed the wall”--Carlota’s +eyes closed and opened again with dreamy ecstasy--“she told me she +escaped with the wings of love. After that--don’t scold, dear, I love +to talk to you about it, and there is no one else now--after that +I loved the wall better than all the gardens and the fountains and +the grottoes even. Won’t you tell me what Jacobelli meant, now? What +meaning did he put into it all, the wall and the unhappiness of my +grandmother and the tragedy of it all?” + +Maria Roma was silent for some time. Slowly she reached for a cigarette +and lighted it, drawing deeply on it as she stared upward at the +ceiling. + +“I have waited for this,” she said finally, with a sigh of resignation. +“Some day I knew you would ask me, and out of all the world, I would +rather tell you, because I will discriminate between what you should +know and what is best buried in that old garden tomb. Wait.” She +pushed away Carlota’s reaching arms. “See what I have saved for you out +of the past.” + +Impulsively she rose and crossed to the end of the studio. Hidden here +behind old strips of tapestry and mediæval embroidery were old locked +chests which had been brought from Italy with all the care the dower +treasures of a princess might have commanded. Carlota had never even +guessed at their contents. If she had given the matter a thought at +all, she had believed them filled with little household keepsakes, +linen, silver, bric-à-brac which Maria had managed to save for her. + +Now she stood in amazement as the old singer lifted out costume after +costume from the chests, stage raiment and festive gowns of thirty and +forty years before. From carved and inlaid boxes she drew out gems and +decorations that had been lavished on the great diva and laid them +before Carlota, forgetting in the pride of the moment the discretion of +silence regarding the romance of genius. The girl’s eyes widened with +glowing wonder and delight as she fingered the old treasures, listening +to Maria’s vivid, picturesque recital of the reign of Margherita Paoli. + +“She was taller than you, cara mia, majestic, a queen in carriage +and expression. She never wore other hair than her own. It was +golden bronze and hung in ripples to her knees. I have woven it in +Marguerita’s plaits with these strands of pearls, and coiled it high +into Fedora’s crown with this diamond and ruby tiara. The necklace is +here, too.” She piled the contents of the cases eagerly until she found +it. “Rubies and diamonds. They came from the crown jewels of Roumania, +a part of the Constantinople loot centuries ago. The crown prince was +exiled to a mountain garrison in the Caucasus for two years after he +gave them to her, but he never told where they were. This center ruby +in the tiara is from Persia, one of the finest in the world. Some day +you shall wear them. They will suit you as they did her. And this--ah, +my child, you should have seen her wearing this in ‘Semiramide.’” She +lifted out a heavy barbaric stomacher encrusted in rough, uncut jewels. +“This was given to her by the Rajah of Kadurstan. He tried to kill +himself after the performance one night in Paris when she refused to +see him. This necklace of opals and emeralds was from the Grand Duke +of Teklahava. It had been part of the Byzantine loot in the days of +Ivan the Terrible. Ah, but, Carlota, behold, this was ever about her +throat, the medallion hidden in her breast from all eyes. Never will +I forget the night when Tennant gave it to her. The king had given +a farewell banquet for her. She was decorated and fêted as never any +other singer was. And after it was over, I saw the two as they stood +out in the moonlit loggia of the palace, and he clasped this about +her white throat. His portrait is in the medallion. There is a secret +spring--wait--so it opens. Was he not a worthy lover for her?” + +Carlota looked long at the pictured face in the old gold and crystal +case. It was old-fashioned in style. The hair was worn long and curled +back thickly from his forehead. It was the head of an enthusiast, +boyish, too, in its eager intensity, passionate, unsatisfied. + +“He does not look happy,” she said slowly. “I have never heard his name +before. Who was he, Maria?” + +Signora slipped from the clouds with a shock of reality and caught the +medallion from her hand. + +“No one, no one at all. See this ring, one single perfect solitaire +surrounded by black pearls, a gift from the Empress of France, my +child.” + +Carlota rose, staring down at the wealth of jewels with puzzled, hurt +pride. + +“Why have we accepted money from Mr. Ward to pay for my tuition when we +had these to sell?” + +The vandalism of the suggestion horrified Maria. She replaced +everything with a resolute hand, locking each case from a small bunch +of keys suspended from a slender chain on her neck. + +“You would market the trophies of your grandmother!” she said +haughtily. “America has commercialized you. They belong to the woman +you will be. I will give you the keys at your début.” + +“I don’t care so very much for them. They are beautiful, but, after +all, they are only things you buy. I asked you for something richer.” +She laid her arms coaxingly about Maria’s throat. “Was my mother happy?” + +“If love can make any woman happy, she was.” Signora Roma’s voice broke +with agitation. “Do not ask me anything further.” + +“She was very young to die, was she not, only twenty-two? She was +younger than I am now when she first met my father, wasn’t she, Maria?” +No answer, but she felt the tears on her own cheek as she pressed it to +Maria’s face. “I think I know what it is you will not tell me. With all +the jewels and triumphs, my grandmother lost her love, and somehow, my +mother found love even though she died so young and was never famous. +Is that it?” + +Maria suddenly reached her hands upward and framed the face above her +in a tremulous caress. + +“You have the heritage of rebellion; how can I warn you or teach you to +fight it? Your worst enemy, Carlota, is your own heart. Distrust it. It +is the traitor to your individuality--your genius, whatever you like to +call it.” + +Carlota stood erect, laughing suddenly, her arms outstretched widely. + +“Listen to this that Assunta told me too,” she said teasingly. “Once, +hundreds of years ago, the Villa Tittani was part of an old castle. The +wall is all that is left of it, and the old tower above the grottoes. +And there was a Princess Fiametta--” + +Maria made horns with her finger-tips hastily. + +“Assunta was a scandalous waggle-tongue. Had I only guessed that she +was stuffing your ears with this sort of gunpowder, I would have known +how to finish her forever. I hear the bell.” + +It was the Marchese, courtly and whimsical as he glanced shrewdly from +one to the other. + +“I have come to entreat a favor,” he said happily. “After I have +partaken of your most excellent tea, ma bella Maria, I will ask it. I +have not the courage yet. How is our little one?” + +Carlota’s brows drew together behind his back. She waited in silence, +listening while the Marchese brought Maria into a mellow mood with his +little buoyant stories and high lights of adventure. + +“Ah, but I have seen sights to-day, a whole avenue of traffic held up +because a tiny goldfinch escaped from a bird store on Twenty-Third +Street. It alighted directly in the car track and shrank there panting +and terrified, and in this hard-hearted, prosaic city, not one would +drive over it. Is not that a fair sign of the times, my friend? And +again, I take the ’bus down the Avenue at dusk for the beauty of the +lights in perspective, like magnolia blooms if you but half close your +eyes. And yesterday I saw the conductor, a red-cheeked Irish boy, +reading a newspaper that had been left on a seat. What you think? +The baseball column? The sports? Not at all.” The Marchese chuckled +tenderly. “He reads the advice to young mothers. See? It is the brand +new bambino somewhere with its finger-tips rose-petaled, holding his +heart fast. And a pack of children on Thompson Street fighting--for +what? A trampled pink carnation. I would have turned them loose if I +could have, in that meadow of oleanders and the orange grove beyond, +you remember, Maria, as you come down from Frascati and below the +Campagna and the sea. Salute!” He sighed reminiscently, and reached +for his teacup. “I am an old romanticist, Carlota. Your youth must be +patient with my maunderings of sentiment.” + +Maria retired to the kitchenette to prepare fresh tea, and Carlota +lighted the candles on the low table by the fire. + +“You are happy, yes?” the Marchese asked, regarding her with the pride +he took no pains to conceal. “Jacobelli tells me it may only be for one +year more, and then, behold! I live for that first night of triumph.” + +Carlota sighed impatiently. It was as though the sight of the jewels +and story of La Paoli’s life had wakened in her youth’s urge for +adventure. She looked up at the fine old face wistfully. + +“I am lonely. Tanta keeps me as secluded as if I were in a convent. +Surely I am old enough to go out somewhere. Now that summer is over, it +seems as if I could not stand another winter. Aren’t they bleak here? +Every day when we walk in the Park, I want to turn and run from it all, +the stripped trees and caged animals, and Maria and Jacobelli, and +everything!” Her finger-tips stretched widely. “I am homesick.” + +“No, you are just ennuied, that is all,” said the Marchese soothingly. +He pursed his lips until his silver-gray imperial and pointed mustache +took on the semblance of a crescent and scimitar. Yet his eyes twinkled +down at her understandingly. “Sunday evening I go, as is my custom, to +the home of my friend Carrollton Phelps. Many, many interesting people +drop in there at that time. It would be a beginning for you, but, mind, +I will not have you known for what you are. Not a whisper.” + +“Are they all”--Carlota checked herself; not for worlds would she have +wounded the debonnair old courtier by even suggesting that he was past +the meridian of life--“famous?” + +“No, no, no. They are all aspirants,” he corrected. “One must show some +signs of having the germ, at least, of genius before the door opens +widely, but you will find many who are young like yourself, many. I, +myself, will prepare Maria.” + +But when the evening came the signora was indisposed, and insisted on +Carlota’s remaining with her. The Marchese waved her objections aside +tenderly. + +“It is most informal and Mrs. Phelps is charming. Here in America, +Maria, we adjust the barriers of etiquette to the whim of the moment. I +will guard her from anything dangerous, you may be sure.” + +They had taken a hansom down the avenue, instead of a taxi. It was the +Marchese’s choice. + +“I never like to be hurried,” he told her. “I do not like this--what do +they call it?--joy of speeding. The aeroplane, yes. I have two boys in +the service at home, but not for amusement. I like to take my little +moments of outdoor enjoyment leisurely. You will see, my dear, how +beautiful this is. I call it my avenue of flower lights.” + +The home of the Phelpses was on East Tenth Street, a tall four-storied +residence of dark brown stone. Above the low deep French doorway there +stretched across the entire second floor a great carved Moorish window +of exquisite fretwork which Phelps had transported from an old palace +in Seville. + +Despite her indisposition Maria had given much thought and anxiety to +Carlota’s toilette for the occasion. Finally, she had laid out for her +a beautiful old scarf of Point Venise, so yellowed by age that it was +the tint of old ivory. It was encrusted with tiny seed pearls, and +with it she selected from one of the chests a girdle of gold links, +cunningly joined in serpentine fashion with pendent topaz here and +there. + +“It is a trifle too barbaric,” she had mused, “but yet it suits you. +And you shall wear white velvet like Julietta.” + +“Oh, no, I will not,” laughed Carlota, kissing her. “You would have me +perpetually making my début, tanta.” Accordingly she had chosen her own +gown, the hue of an oak autumn leaf, which fell close to her slender +young figure in mediæval lines. As she lingered before the mirror +before leaving, Carlota smiled back at her reflection almost with a +challenge. Back at the villa there was an old painting hanging at a +turn in a staircase, where the sunlight would fall full upon it from an +oriel window high above. It was the Princess Fiametta, her eyes wearied +with the weight of the golden crown that bound her brows, her gown the +same tint and style as the one Carlota wore to-night. She turned her +girdle sideways so that its line might correspond with that in the +painting, and rumpled her hair to make the resemblance more striking. + +The old legend Assunta had told her recurred vividly to-night. She had +been merely a girl princess, imprisoned in the old garden and towered +castle by custom and precedent. And there had been a young fisherman +from the village at the foot of the mountain, Peppino, who had come +to the Castle. From her tower window she had seen and loved him, and +at a fête in the village she had dared to escape over the wall and +mingle with the people. Peppino had danced with her, and wooed her, +not knowing she was the princess in disguise, and his sweetheart had +stabbed her through jealousy. It was the tragedy of youth’s eternal +quest after romance and had lost nothing from Assunta’s impassioned +telling. + +“To-night, maybe,” Carlota told herself, half laughingly, half in +earnest, as she looked back in the mirror, “we scale the wall of +Tittani.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +They passed up a carven, squarely built staircase to the second floor. +The rooms were lofty and spacious. It seemed to Carlota, in the first +glance about her, there here prevailed something of the same spirit +that had marked her grandmother’s receptions. Little groups gathered +intimately in corners, a girl played something of Grieg’s at the +grand piano in the far room. Her hair had a golden sheen beneath the +lampshade of Chinese embroidery, bronze and yellow. + +The Marchese was in his happiest mood, the smiling courtier to his +finger-tips. He left her with Mrs. Phelps, a little dark woman with +frankly graying hair, but as the other guests came up the staircase, +Carlota found herself on a low Moorish stool beside Carrollton +Phelps’s chair. He attracted her greatly. During the drive down the +Avenue the Marchese had told her his story with unction. It was a +favorite tale with him. Phelps had gone abroad in the earliest days +of the war, joining the Lafayette Escadrille. Only those who knew him +intimately before this happened, could appreciate what his personal +gift of service had meant at that time even in the great summing-up of +sacrifice that followed later. He had been a very successful artist, +painting portraits of celebrities and social leaders. He had always +been lavish in entertaining even then, and now, when he returned at +thirty-five, a helpless paralytic from his final fall, the most amazing +thing had been, as the Marchese expressed it, that “his wings were +unbroken.” + +To Carlota, even the expression of his face brought a certain sense of +encouragement, as if he divined the strangeness that she felt among +all these new faces. His dark hair was prematurely whitened like his +wife’s, but she liked his lean, virile face, and keen, dark eyes. Even +while his friends came and went beside him, he kept her there, asking +her questions of her life in Italy. + +“The Marchese has told me who you are--a glorious heritage. Mind you +keep the pace, but don’t let them starve you.” His thin, strong hands +gesticulated eagerly. “I know them. It was the same with me before I +went over, success and more success and then--husks. Do you know the +greatest thing that came to me from it all? My wife. We were married +just before I left, and she went also, down in Serbia, where it was +hell, you remember, nursing. I did not see her for four years, then +her face came out of a gray cloud in a London hospital and I found +the strength to live even to look at her. Don’t let them deceive you, +my dear. There is nothing at all in this thing called life but love +and ideals. Will you tell that fellow to come here, the one with the +violin.” + +The man stood by the piano, smiling at something the girl had just said +as she turned from the keyboard. He bowed as Carlota gave her message, +looked at her with his quizzical, half-closed eyes near-sightedly, and +strolled to Phelps’s side. Presently he returned. + +“I have to bring you back. He only wanted me to meet you.” + +“I have been preaching your song of life,” Phelps said, drawing himself +up in his chair with the quick, restless movement that spoke of +pain-cramped muscles. “This is the spirit of Serbia and all burdened +peoples, Dmitri Kavec. Betty saved his life, and he has retaliated +by keeping me in a ferment of enthusiasm over his country in her +birth-pangs. He is not as sardonic as he appears. It is a pose.” + +Dmitri’s face flushed eagerly, a queer, shy deepening in color like an +embarrassed boy. + +“I never pose, Miss Trelango. My life is nothing, understand. I drop it +overboard anywhere at all, but I had forgotten how to laugh or look at +the sun, and Mrs. Phelps has shown it to me again, that is all. For her +sake I put up with the abuse from this person here. Do you live down +here?” + +Carlota shook her head. Some one had taken the place of the girl at the +piano, she could not see whom, but at the first low, minor chords, she +was aware of a strange thrill of interest. Dmitri leaned back in the +winged armchair next to Phelps and closed his eyes. + +“Now we have some dream pictures,” he said softly. + +Carlota lifted her head eagerly to catch a glimpse of the player. The +other men in the studio, even Phelps himself, had all seemed to her +like the Marchese and Jacobelli, middle-aged, sophisticated, impervious +to romance or sentiment, tired of all emotion. But the boy at the piano +was different. He seemed to have forgotten the people around him, and +yet he led their fancy where he would with the magic of his melody and +tone pictures. + +Looking from face to face Carlota saw the spell steal over each. +The Marchese smiled with half-closed eyes, living over the joyous +indiscretions of his youth. Mrs. Phelps had forgotten her guests as +she bent over Carrollton, her fingers clasped in his with mothering +tenderness. The girl who had played Grieg leaned back her head, her +eyes filled with moody unrest. Dmitri bent forward, his cigarette +burning itself to a neglected ash, a little smile on his lips. Almost +imperceptibly his eyes watched Carlota. + +A strange troubled feeling stole over her. It was as if the music had +seized upon her own secret yearnings and was expressing them in all its +exotic cadence. Suddenly she caught the eyes of the musician watching +her as he played. The studio was dimly lighted from long, pendent +temple lamps. The shifting glow from a tall candelabra on the piano +showed her his face. It was young, with strong, lean lines, restless, +seeking eyes, the chin and mouth lacking the sensuous weakness of the +usual virtuoso. When he finished he crossed to her, pausing to answer a +few who stopped him on the way. Dmitri sighed heavily and rose. + +“See now, he will come and tell you he has been waiting for æons to +see your face. He is all on fire. Do not extinguish the flame. He will +tread the star path in this mood if you do not pitch him down to earth.” + +Carlota drew back from his amused eyes, behind a tall Moorish screen +of carved olive fretwork. Why did they all smile at things that were +sacred and beyond all sense of touch or sound? If the Marchese would +only come near, she would beg him to leave now, now while it was all +clear and fresh in her mind, the haunting, hurting sweetness of the +music and the long look between them. And as she found her breath, +he stood beside her. For the moment they were as isolated as if he +had found her alone in some glade of Fontainebleau, like Pierrot and +Columbine. + +“Why did you try to hide from me?” His tone was low and broken with +embarrassment. “I played to you--you knew that, didn’t you? I tried +to get to you before, but Dmitri had you. Who are you, you pagan girl +with the wonder eyes? Tell me how you slipped in here to-night. Where I +come from, we have gorgeous night moths; I love them, brown and tawny. +Your eyes are that color, and your face is like a jasmine lifted to +the moon. A warm, amber moon in late August, don’t you know. You’ll +think I’m a crazy poet if I keep on, but it’s your own fault. You make +me want to be a poet and everything else that means adoration of you. +Can’t you speak to me?” + +She closed her eyes as he gripped her hands in his. It was all so +strange, so wrong, she knew how Maria would banish any such mad +emotions, and yet she gloried in the tumult in her heart, in the swift +response to every word he uttered, the reckless urge within her to turn +to him. She strove to conquer it, and answer with composure. + +“I think it is dangerous to speak so. Let us go to Mr. Phelps.” + +“And your eyes say all the while, ‘I have found you,’” he laughed and +took the seat beside her. “That’s what I told myself when you looked +at me. I’ve found her. Tell me, truthfully, aren’t you glad to see me, +aren’t you?” + +Carlota smiled up at him teasingly. + +“The man you call Dmitri told me you would say this to me. You should +not let him spoil the surprise.” + +“Did he? I didn’t think the old gray fra had such discernment. Did he +tell you my name? I know yours. It is all the sweethearts of the ages +in one. That last thing I played was a Celtic love song; I saw you in +a silver mist with the sea behind you and headlands and a girl moon +clambering up the stairway of desire.” He stopped short, eyeing her +with boyish curiosity. “I wonder just who you are really. You came with +old Veracci, didn’t you?” + +“I am Italian,” Carlota answered gravely. “I have been here nearly +three years. I am a singer.” + +“Are you?” he exclaimed eagerly. “That’s why everything in me called +out to you. I was in college, the third year, when the war came over +here. I had wanted to go with Carrollton, but I was just eighteen +then, so I promised my mother I’d wait. She’ll love you,” he added +ingenuously. “I went over the next spring and came through all right; +that’s how I met Dmitri. We were all wounded about the same time.” + +“I thought you said you were all right?” + +“I mean I didn’t get killed or anything like that. Isn’t Phelps a +wonder? He’d give a dying coyote courage to howl. He told me to stick +it out down here. I’m a composer. One of those kinks of fate put me +into a perfectly respectable, sane Colorado family. Father was head +of some smelter works out there. He started me through Columbia, with +a postgrad. in law ahead of me, but I met Carrollton and he heard me +play. Now I’m here until I make good.” + +“You will be famous.” Carlota’s eyes shone as she looked up at him. +“Never have I heard such music, and I have listened to--” She checked +herself, a sudden spirit of mischief prompting her. Was he not Pierrot, +poor and struggling, with his heart a chalice of faith uplifted to the +stars, while she was a child of fortune with the pathway to success +fair and broad before her as the sea road to the Campagna back home. +But for to-night, only to-night, she would be Columbine for him, +straying, friendless Columbine, seeking shelter from the storm. “Some +day I hope to be a great singer,” she said softly. + +“Do you? You beautiful, dreaming moth girl. And lessons cost like the +very devil here in New York.” He ran his fingers through his close-cut +blond hair doubtfully, Carlota watching him shyly, thinking how much +his profile was like that of a certain young emperor’s on an old +Roman coin she had. There was the same straight line from forehead to +nostril, the same touch of youth’s arrogance in his curving lips and +cleft, projecting chin. “Do you know,” he continued confidently, “I am +sure I can help you. I could start you on your lessons, you know. Don’t +refuse. I’d love to help you, to even think I was. I have a rocky old +studio down on the Square; nothing like this; it’s poverty’s back door +compared to it, but if you’ll come there, I will help you.” + +“Oh, but it is impossible,” Carlota exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “I +never go anywhere alone, it is not the custom with my people. It is so +very kind of you, but”--she met his eyes wistfully--“I do not even know +your name.” + +“I am Griffeth Ames. Ask Veracci, he knows me, so does Phelps. Listen, +if you won’t come for your own sake, for God’s pity, come for mine. +I’m starving down here for just what you gave me to-night when I first +looked into your eyes--inspiration. I must see you and talk to you +about my work; I need you. Will you come?” + +“The heavens would fall if I did,” she laughed unsteadily, trying to +draw her hands from his clasp. + +“Let them crash, who cares?” he said. “You’ll come to me, I know you +will. I’ll call to you with music till you hear.” + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Maria was still indisposed on the following day. She asked many +questions about the evening before, who the guests had been, and which +ones had impressed Carlota. Always her eyes sought the girl’s, testing +her answers. + +“I should have been happier if you had been there, tanta,” Carlota told +her tenderly. “You’re not worrying still, are you? Nobody carried me +away.” + +Maria closed her eyes as if to shut out any telltale gleam they might +have held. + +“I blame myself whatever happens,” she sighed dramatically. “I should +never have shown you the jewels. The ancient Hindoos are perfectly +right. They claim the evil spirits, when imprisoned in the earth, +produced gold and gems to ensnare the souls of mankind, especially +women. Ah, mia carina, I am growing old and careless. You have made no +further engagements?” + +“The Marchese did not ask me to go anywhere else.” Carlota bent over a +low jar of cyclamen, her face turned away. + +“Assuredly not. I am an old fool. Do not speak of the jewels to +anybody, not even Jacobelli. I must place them in a safety-deposit +vault; not keep them here. And while I am ill, you will not walk +through the Park to the studio. I prefer to have you ride always. Come +here to me.” She half raised herself as Carlota knelt beside the couch, +and framed her face in her palms. “You must not think I am harsh, my +dearest one, or trying to keep you from pleasures you should have. +It will all come to you in richest measure later on. Now we must be +careful of you. You understand it is only because of our great love for +you, do you not?” + +“I know, surely, I understand.” + +“Has no one ever spoken to you on your way to the studio?” Maria’s +voice trembled with eager insistence. “Have you ever imagined you were +followed? No, no, of course not. Do not be frightened at all. It is +only Maria’s old love of the extravagant, the dramatic situation,” she +laughed softly, sinking back. “But remember to ride always when you are +alone, and speak to no one.” + +Wonderingly, guiltily, too, Carlota reassured her, but when she reached +the street she looked about her that day, with the first caution she +had ever felt since their arrival in New York. What could Maria have +meant? They knew no one in the city who could possibly have had any +sinister intent towards them, yet there had been a lurking, secret +fear in the eyes of the old signora. + +At the corner of Fifth Avenue she hailed a taxicab, and arriving at the +studio pleaded a headache as an excuse for a short lesson. Jacobelli +was in a trying mood. Over and over again he railed at her, telling her +that after his months of training, she was not putting her whole heart +and soul into her singing. And suddenly Carlota leaned her chin on her +palms at the back of the old grand piano, and asked: + +“I wonder, maestro, if I were poor and unknown, and came to you, would +you give me lessons because you had faith in my voice?” + +“Certainly not,” exclaimed Jacobelli positively. “I could never give +you enough to win you the highest fame. The teaching is not sufficient. +The great artiste must have peace of mind. We do not exist upon air; +not even a bird with a celestial voice like yours. No, my dear, I would +have told you to forget your pride and do exactly as you have done. +Secure the financial backing of a man like Ogden Ward. I worship art. +It has always been my life, but I recognize, like a sensible man, that +in the times we live in we artists must still seek the patron even as +Angelo and Raphael did. The public is not strong enough to sustain us. +It cannot sustain itself, what would you? Some day, when the world +is all golden with peace and plenty and brotherhood, then the singer +will be the beloved prophet once again, and we shall delight in all +the milk and honey and oil and burnt offerings we require, without +the commonplace formality of contracts.” He laughed at her heartily, +leaning over to pat her hands. “Come early to-morrow; Mr. Ward will be +here.” + +She left the studio with a sense of suffocating rebellion. They were +all the same, Jacobelli, Ward, even Maria. Only the gentle, chivalrous +old Marchese warmed her faith with his tender, hopeful philosophy, +and were not his friends like him, even Dmitri Kavec? What was it +this group had seemed to find in the fields of scarlet poppies that +lifted idealism and faith in humanity above the creed of success and +individual self-seeking? + +As she stepped from the old red-brick building, a Greek flower vender +wheeled his pushcart to the curb. She looked over the brilliantly +tinted asters and chrysanthemums longingly, but purchased merely a +spray of autumn leaves and hurried to the corner where the Riverside +autobuses passed on their way crosstown to the Avenue. + +Following after her leisurely came the man who had picked up her +gloves in the vestibule some nights before. It would have been +difficult to guess his age or nationality. He was slender, undersized, +yet with a strongly knit, athletic frame that told of military +training. Swarthy-skinned, dark-haired, with the brilliant black +eyes of the southern races, he seemed merely a boy until one saw the +somber, detached experience in his expression and eyes. As Carlota, +almost trembling at her own temerity, stepped into the interior of +a Washington Square ’bus, he followed her, swinging lightly up the +narrow, winding staircase to the top. + +The number which Griffeth Ames had given her was on the south side of +the Square near MacDougal Street. It was an old four-story brownstone +building, the last of five of the same kind sitting back in small +flagged yards from the sidewalk. The paint which had scaled from its +iron portico and balconies merely imitated the stucco front which had +crumbled off in large patches. There were many names written on soiled +cards and slips of white paper above the rows of bells in the entrance, +and among them she found his. Just within the dim hall a young Italian +girl knelt on a marble-topped table, polishing the brass ornaments on +the old oval hall mirror. She smiled down absently as Carlota asked the +way. + +“At the very top of the house. You have to knock hard or he won’t hear +you.” + +She climbed the three flights quickly. The door at the top was ajar. +It was surprising to find such spaciousness here under the gabled +roof. As she hesitated on the threshold, her swift glance noticed how +he had tried to partition off his private life from his professional +with burlap draperies. It must have been a bleak place once, but Ames +had taken it and had performed all of the customary artistic marvels +to conceal its barrenness. Draperies dipped in eastern dyes, that he +had picked up in the Syrian quarter on Washington Street, softened the +angles of corners. The unsightly wooden partitions and beams below the +peaked ceiling had acquired under his deft touch a deep rare old oaken +hue the Pre-Raphaelites might have rested under. On the exterior of the +low door he had even placed a brass knocker, a real antique from a shop +uptown. Nobody, as Dmitri often said, but Fame would ever recognize it, +and she, the willful damosel, would never climb those three flights of +stairs unless she came en masquerade as a lark to tantalize him. + +There was no fire in the deep, black grate. The windows above the broad +seats in the gable inglenooks were wide open. The view and the old +grand piano that stood crosswise in the room compensated for all other +lacks. Ames was visibly embarrassed at her unannounced descent upon +his quarters. He sat at a large, plain table drawn up before the south +light, coatless, collarless, his hair ruffled into a crest, and ashes +everywhere within his arm’s-length radius. Upon one corner of the table +there dozed a large yellow tomcat, palpably a nomad. + +“I hope I have not come too soon?” she asked hesitantly. + +He swept a pile of magazines and papers from a chair for her, but she +chose the high window-seat. + +“It isn’t that, only I meant to set the stage for you,” he said +ruefully. “I wouldn’t have had you find me like this for anything. When +Ptolemy and I are alone here working, we just run a bachelor shop, and +forget there are any other beings in the world.” + +“Make it a dress rehearsal, then. I like it up here very much.” She +looked out at the Square, the vivid autumn foliage accentuating the red +and gold of the foliage and the vari-colored dresses of the Italian +children playing there. It looked like some reckless, impressionistic +painting, worked out merely in effective, daring splashes of color +laid on with a palette knife. From the windows of Maria’s chosen +abode uptown, one gazed down upon an indefinite row of closed, chill, +characterless dwellings, with no gleam of color from street to street. + +“I would like to live down here too,” she said thoughtfully. “It is +very different from anything I have seen in New York before.” + +Ames watched her with eager appreciation. Her glossy, luxuriant hair +waved back from her low forehead into a loose knot at the nape of her +neck. Her face held the elusive appeal of La Cigale’s. The memory of +the old painting occurred to him with its appealing beauty and he felt +a sudden protective tenderness towards this waif of summer’s idleness. + +“It is lonely; that’s the only thing about it,” he said, coming near +her. “If it wasn’t for Dmitri and the Phelpses I’d throw up the game +sometimes and go West to the smelter.” + +“The smelter; what is that?” she asked curiously. + +“Where they separate the ore from the quartz, you know, the real from +the slag.” + +“Slag?” she repeated slowly. “Like the crucible? I know what you mean. +I think you are in it now, here, don’t you?” + +“Dmitri would love you for that,” he exclaimed eagerly. “It’s all he +talks about, the inner meaning of things. Like the crucible, the +winepress, anything you like that means the big fight where you either +make good or go under. I hate to think it’s just chance. Sometimes +when we were over in France, you couldn’t help feeling that it was hit +or miss. No matter how clever you were or well trained, you might be +killed by any chance fragment of shell that strayed your way. It sort +of wiped out the old idea of the plan. Know what I mean?” He quoted +slowly, half under his breath: + + “Our times are in His hand, + Who said, ‘A whole I planned, + See all, be not afraid.’” + +Then, turning quickly to the cat, he lit a cigarette. + +“Ptolemy, she comes in here and demoralizes us, old man. I’m getting +sentimental.” + +He sat down to the piano carelessly, striking low minor chords, and +then, unlike Jacobelli, he slipped into the first protesting strains of +the duet from “Bohème.” There was an enthusiasm and impulsive buoyancy +about him that inspired Carlota to sing even as she had not when she +had stood before the great maestro, Ames carrying Rudolpho’s answer. + +“Look at me when you sing,” he commanded, and she shook her head in +confusion. + +“Does she not look at the candle?” she asked. “I--I forget when I look +at you.” + +But when she had finished, he was almost humble in his supreme +gratitude to whatever fate had sent her to his lone garret. With boyish +fervor and earnestness he told her the whole world lay at her feet if +only he could find a way to teach her. + +“I can show you only the first steps of the way, and your voice is so +glorious now, so perfect. Who taught you how to use it?” + +“Every one sings in Italy,” Carlota said evasively. “Even the girls at +the fountains and the boys when they go out in the fishing fleet. I +took only a few lessons there.” + +Inwardly, she felt overjoyed at the success of her ruse, and agreed +to come to him twice a week for lessons if he would accept in payment +whatever she was able to give. But he would not listen to this. + +“It’s enough to have you as my pupil. When other people hear you sing +and know that I have taught you, it will bring me all sorts of other +work. I know. Besides, you inspire me. Yes, you do. I don’t know what +it is.” He drew in a deep breath, watching her. “Guess we were just a +couple of old lazy dubs here, weren’t we, Ptolemy? I’ve wanted to work. +It’s all been here in my head, till I couldn’t sleep nights with the +themes rampant, but I couldn’t catch them. They were like fireflies. +Ever try to get them at night? I did when I was a little chap out West. +I always wanted to train them. Must you go so soon? I didn’t get your +full name the other night. Carlota, the Marchese called you, didn’t he?” + +“Just call me that,” she told him gravely. “I would not be allowed to +come here if my people knew. They are very conservative.” + +“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he said confidently. “You’ll never use it +in your work. I don’t care just so long as you come. Dmitri said you +never would. He walked down here last night with me. Queer chap, isn’t +he? Did you like him?” + +“I didn’t notice him,” Carlota spoke thoughtfully, not realizing the +purport of her own words as she looked up at him on the threshold of +the stairs. “I only remembered you.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The weeks following were filled with a romantic glamour for them both. +Ames never realized how much his pupil was teaching him. After he had +given her the benefit of what little knowledge he possessed, Carlota +would coax him from the piano, and letting her own fingers stray over +the keys, would suggest carelessly: + +“Do you not like it better this way?” + +He never suspected that she was giving him all of Jacobelli’s tricks in +teaching, all she knew of the great maestro’s art of technique. He only +knew that the fame of his pupil was spreading through the Quarter and +that people were coming up the narrow stairs to inquire his rates as +teacher of voice culture. + +“If I can only get enough to keep the friendly wolf jolly and +contented, I can find time to work on my opera,” he told her happily. +“I owe it all to you, though. You’ve got such a perfect voice +naturally, you don’t need a teacher, and here everybody who hears you +sing will give me the credit for it.” + +Carlota smiled at him silently, delighted that her visits to the studio +were bringing him even a glimmer of success. To her they were all that +filled her days now with expectancy. Maria’s ill health continued to +prevent her from calling for Carlota every day at the uptown studio, +and while she longed to tell the Marchese, she feared that even his +solicitude might put an end to the only gleam of romance or adventure +that had come to her. So far as she knew, no one had discovered her +visits to the Square, yet never did she leave the arched doorway of +her home that the nonchalant stranger did not follow her. Patiently, +without haste or apparent malevolence, he shadowed her to Jacobelli’s +or downtown. Sometimes in the morning, he would lounge at Cecco’s cigar +store around the corner on Madison Avenue, smoking his endless store of +curious, long, thin cigarettes. From Cecco’s one could look through the +middle of the block towards Fifth Avenue, over the tops of intervening +fences. The only apartment house was the one where Maria Roma and +Carlota lived. And while he chatted over the latest juggling with the +fates of nations and peoples overseas, he would forget to look at Cecco +rolling cigarettes, and eye the distant fire escapes like a bird of +prey, gauging the flight. + +One day, as she came from Ames’s place, the impulse swept over Carlota +to see the old Marchese and tell him. He would understand, she was +sure, and she longed to have him know Griffeth well, to appreciate his +work and help him. + +Through Maria and Jacobelli she knew that even in New York, where the +power of great wealth dominated the will of the people through its +manifold channels of politics, society, and charity, yet there was an +altar erected even here to the unknown god of truth, and the Marchese +stood ever as a high priest of the eternal verities. + +“You must not be discouraged, my dear,” he had told her one afternoon +at tea beside Maria’s couch. “Look beneath the surface of things. +The brass band is always at the head of the procession. Once one has +escaped its clamor, one may pay attention to the motive behind the +parade, yes? There is always in any race, in any period, a certain +group of people, in all walks of life, who worship truth wherever +manifest, in art or the grace of right living. It is absurd to +claim that any class has a monopoly of this spirit. Ogden Ward is a +multi-millionaire, doubtless a thorough robber baron in his way, yet he +serves a certain purpose through his fascination for the beautiful and +rarest in art. Some day, when, God willing, he passes on, perhaps his +collections will be given back to the people. I can do little except +encourage this spirit wherever I find it. Casanova, of the Opera, is a +noble fellow, yet he must perforce kowtow when the mighty atoms on the +subscribers’ list say they will have this or that. But that does not +prevent Casanova from his personal worship of real art, you see. I know +him very well, indeed, and some day he will meet you.” + +Remembering this, Carlota stepped into a shop on Eighth Street and +telephoned to the Lafayette. It was the one golden moment when she felt +she must see the Marchese and tell him everything, take him back with +her to the old studio and make him listen to Ames’s compositions for +the new opera. But at that particular instant the Marchese was meeting +Ogden Ward at his club by appointment, and the message was left on a +slip in his box at the hotel unheeded. + +“I want you to meet Count Jurka; used to be with the Bulgarian +Legation, remember. He has proven to be a very valuable agent along the +new lines of readjustment. I met him in Egypt first in connection with +the Rhodopis emeralds. They were found in the royal mummy, and there +was some argument in connection with them. I had furnished the means +for the research work and I have the emeralds. He is quite a savant in +his way when it comes to the history of famous jewels.” + +“I do not care for them,” returned the old Marchese blandly, as he +ensconced himself in a deep leather armchair and smiled. “Relics of +barbarism, my dear Ward; rings in noses and bangles on leaping toes, +merely a variation of the same impulse in humanity to decorate itself +that we see to-day in certain types of women.” + +“And men also. Say it.” Ward leaned forward on the polished table and +laid a small leather case before him. “I like to carry unset stones +around in my pockets, not for decoration. What would you call me, +Marchese?” + +“An idolator, either of the beautiful or of the peculiar quality of +concentrated value that seems to lie in jewels.” + +Ward lifted out two pearls, wrapped in tissue papers, and held them in +the hollow of his palm. + +“You’re right. Here are the largest gems from the collections of the +murdered Empress Elizabeth of Austria. They always darkened when she +wore them. She had them dipped regularly in a perforated casket into +the sea to restore the luster. It is not alone the value of them that +interests me. I like stones that have tragic stories connected with +them. There was a necklace of pearls around the throat of Marie +Stuart as she was being led to execution. I have never been able +to find them. Jurka is also a collector and lover of gems from the +historic standpoint. He is standing by the desk now, the tall fellow, +fair-haired. Do you recognize him?” + +The Marchese looked through the arched doorway at the man Ward had +designated. He was trying to place where he had seen him, and suddenly +smiled, one forefinger at his forehead. + +“He was at the Lafayette a week ago Saturday, dining with Palmieri, +Collector of the Port, a delightful person.” + +“Well posted on the valuation of jewels,” Ward remarked laconically. He +paused to light his favorite pipe with the air of assured bonhomie he +assumed when relaxed. “How is Carlota?” + +“She progresses well.” + +“Why not after two years under Jacobelli? He tells me her technique is +faultless, but she lacks temperament.” + +“He does not know her,” the Marchese answered placidly. “The +temperament is there dormant. It needs but the awakening. She is still +a child.” + +“Her mother married before she was her age.” + +“And never sang at all. Waken the Paoli nature in a girl like Carlota +and you will lose her. We do not wish her to experience love, to run +the gamut of emotion--it is fatal to a woman of genius. Then, too, +afterwards, you always reach her through the husband. Husbands of +geniuses--ah, my dear Ward, I could tell you of many catastrophes.” + +“Not marriage.” Ward knocked the tobacco from his coat sleeve that had +fallen there while he had filled his pipe. “An affair possibly. A quick +flurry of passion that might sweep over her like a clarifying fire, +burning out the underbrush in her nature. You might arrange a quiet +little dinner at my apartment with Signora Roma and Carlota. I do not +think I have heard her sing lately.” + +He rose at the approach of Count Jurka and presented him. The old +Marchese was genial and full of welcome. Had he not seen him already +down in the haunt of the selective with Palmieri? + +“I did not see you there.” Jurka spoke with a very clear, careful +enunciation, his large blue eyes never winking as he met the other’s +pleased scrutiny. “Palmieri is interested in some fête for Italian +child sufferers of the war--very worthy object. I wished him to meet +Mrs. Carrington Nevins, who has been most helpful to me in organizing +committees for my own stricken land.” + +As they sat down Ward began without preamble, his fingers pressing +nervously on the small leather case containing the pearls. + +“I told Jurka I thought you could assist him. He is gathering data on +rubies. Do you know of one called the Zarathustra? It is a perfect +pigeon blood, second to the largest in the world.” + +“I am absolutely ignorant concerning jewels,” smiled the Marchese +indulgently. “Consider me a perverted mind.” + +Jurka leaned slightly towards him. + +“I have already traced it to Italy, but many years ago. It was part +of a collection, rubies and pearls. I thought it might have come over +here and been disposed of to Mr. Ward. It is almost impossible now to +find out what has become of most royal jewels, I mean the historic +ones. Sooner or later, I have understood, if their tale of tragedy is +terrible enough, they find their way here.” + +Ward did not pick up the opening. Sauntering away from the club up the +Avenue, the Marchese pondered later, not upon the Zarathustra ruby, +but on Ward’s invitation. At first he hesitated at a crossing, wishing +he might talk it over with Maria, but finally contenting himself with +telephoning to her. Carlota caught the rising inflection of exultation +as Maria accepted for them both. + +“Certainly I’m well enough to go,” she cried; then, hanging up the +receiver, “Ah, beloved child, you do not understand the conquest you +have made already. But it will not do to appear too eager. You must +learn to act like your grandmother, distant, gracious, always the +queen.” + +But Carlota was supremely indifferent to the favor shown her by Ward. +For weeks she had been full of strange, gay little moods and sudden, +tempestuous caresses that left Maria breathless and speculative. She +smiled over her shoulder now, brushing her long dark curls before the +Venetian mirror. + +“Surely, bella mia”--Signora Roma spoke with emphasis--“surely you +comprehend what this means to your progress. There are yet two years +before you, possibly more, before you make your début. Therefore, you +must be diplomatic and save your independence until you are assured +that the race is won. You must appear perfect at Mr. Ward’s dinner. I +will dress you like the starlight, like the pearl from the sea, très +ingénue, so he will see the great sensation you will make.” + +Carlota laughed teasingly. + +“I would love to make my début in some splendid barbaric opera, where +I could wear cloth of gold and armlets, bangles. I wish I could sing +Semiramide at the very beginning, or Fedora, and you, you adorable old +tanta, will probably persuade Jacobelli to make me bow as Juliette or +Marguerite.” + +“The Veronese are very dark like you, and, thank God, you will still be +slender and maiden-like,” sighed Maria reflectively. “It is a wonderful +opportunity to impress Mr. Ward. You had better effect Juliette that +night.” + +“I don’t like this thing you call opportunity. I like, as the Marchese +says, what is to be will be. I like the inevitable. It must have been +delightful to feel your destiny was written in the stars.” She pinned +her hair up carelessly. “Mr. Ward is the only person from whom we have +been compelled to borrow money. He will be repaid amply--in money.” + +“Only a person who could appreciate the priceless value of such a voice +as yours could have had such faith. He is the greatest patron of the +arts in the world--” + +“I hate patronage. It simply means that he can pay the highest price +for what he desires, that is all.” Carlota turned to her stormily. + +“Another may have a million times more appreciation, more love, more +yearning to aid, and still stand with hands bound because he has +no money. I hate patronage. I would rather sell every jewel in your +treasure chests than give a man like Ogden Ward the right to order my +appearance at his dinner.” + +At Maria’s gesture of despair her mood changed instantly to one of +coaxing tenderness. To please her only would she go, not because Ward +wished her to. She had hurried home after telephoning the Marchese, and +his message had come when she had felt most rebellious. It had become +increasingly difficult for her to get away for her lessons with Ames +twice a week. To-day Signora Roma had been more curious than ever, and +it had taken the most elusive of excuses to soothe her. All manner +she had made up so far, little necessary trips to the art shops, the +galleries, the quiet cathedral, feeling that she was indeed playing +Columbine in the garret studio down on the Square. Yet she was almost +forced to attend a dinner given by Ward as if it were an honor bestowed +by him. This they would urge her to do, Maria, Jacobelli, and even +the Marchese; yet, if they knew of her visits to Ames, she would be +compelled to stop them because they were unconventional. + +Almost in a spirit of audacious bravado, she deliberately started for +the studio the following morning. It would be a surprise to Ames, +and she wanted to talk over the dinner with him. For the first time +in weeks the watching figure was absent from its customary post near +Cecco’s store. When she left the ’bus, it seemed as if she could have +lifted her whole heart to the Quarter in relief. It was like some +enchanted realm to her where hopes and dreams were tangible, and +only facts untrue. Spring stood tiptoe on the Arch and scattered her +soul-disturbing germs abroad. She knelt at the edge of the old fountain +and mimed at herself in the water that had just been permitted to +splash therein from the far-off springs of Askohan quite as if they +had flowed from Castalian founts. She flirted with the rainbow that +hangs over the leaping spray on sunny mornings, and wigwagged joyous +discontent to every possible shepherd in the distance. + +From a flower-stand at the corner Carlota recklessly bought daffodils +and narcissus. They had grown in phalanxes along the wall of Tittani. +Almost she had decided to tell Maria and Jacobelli she would never go +to the dinner, never accept any more aid from Mr. Ward, when suddenly +she was arrested by the sight of a dark gray limousine standing at the +curb in front of Ames’s residence. Clinging around it was a flock of +little Italian children, trying to peer into the interior sanctum, +a study in suède leather with dark red Jacqueminot roses in slender +French gray silver vases in each corner. + +She hesitated outside the studio door. A clear, well-modulated voice +came from within, a woman’s voice. + +“Twice a week, then, Mr. Ames, and we will not speak of terms. I +have heard of your wonderful success with beginners, and Nathalie’s +temperament requires an environment like this, unusual and bizarre, +don’t you know? It wilts at any touch of the customary or mediocre +that you find in most musical studios uptown. Here you fairly radiate +atmosphere.” + +She hesitated just as Ames opened the door. He looked flushed and +elated, and seized her hand to present her to his callers. + +“Oh, but we have already heard of you, Miss--er--Carlota!” Mrs. +Carrington Nevins exclaimed. “This must be your little Italian pupil +who sings so charmingly, Mr. Ames. Chandos told us all about you at +his tea last week, how you came and went like a little flitting city +sparrow, and not even Mr. Ames knew your real name.” + +Carlota stood in silence, her chin lifted, her long lashes downcast +as she drew off her gloves slowly. The daffodils and narcissus lay in +the curve of her arm. She caught a little smile on the face of the +girl standing with Ames, this tall, fair girl with the ice-blue eyes, +and a wave of fiery scorn swept over her at this invasion of her own +particular haunt, Columbine’s special chimney-pot. + +“You must hear her sing,” Ames said positively, going to the piano. +“Lay off your things, Carlota. I want you just to try that little +barcarolle you taught me.” + +“I cannot sing to-day, Mr. Ames.” Carlota met his surprised eyes +serenely. “It is impossible.” + +“But just this one--” He stopped abruptly, warned by the expression of +her face. + +Mrs. Carrington Nevins raised her lorgnette, the slenderest excuse for +one in carven tortoise shell and platinum, gazing at the girl amusedly. + +“My dear, I believe you are temperamental like all singers should be. +It is your prerogative. But you must remember all that Mr. Ames is +doing for you, and try to obey him. Isn’t she a dear little thing, +Nathalie?” + +“Do you live right down here in the Sicilian quarter?” asked Nathalie +eagerly. “It’s so funny. I made mother drive through there to-day and +the car made quite a sensation.” + +Carlota turned her head and looked at her in a haughty, detached way. + +“I have never been there. I am a Roman.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Carlota stood aside to let them pass down the narrow stairs. In the +half light from the dusty skylight overhead she seemed like a shadow +excepting for the light in her eyes. The sunlight from the studio’s +south window sent a lane of gold through the open door, and she watched +Nathalie as she laid her hand in Ames’s lingeringly. + +“I shall love it here,” she heard her say, in her rather plaintive, +appealing way. “And I want you to be sure and stay for dinner Tuesday. +You can suggest things for our Italian fête next month, can’t he, +mother?” + +“I shall be delighted if I can be of any service,” Ames told her, as he +followed down the four flights of stairs to the waiting car. + +Even Ptolemy seemed to catch the contagion of trouble in the air and +leaped stealthily out of her way to the top of the piano. Carlota +waited, standing in the center of the floor, her eyes ablaze with scorn +as Ames entered. + +“You were exactly like old Pietro, my grandmother’s courier,” she told +him. “I have never seen you like that before. Who are these people? Why +did you ask me to sing for them?” + +He swept her a low bow jubilantly. + +“Dear, it means ten dollars a lesson. That is the Mrs. Carrington +Nevins and her only daughter. She will bring me other pupils, too, from +her crowd out on the north shore. You’re my mascot.” + +“Did you try her voice?” She spoke very softly. “Do you intend giving +her lessons?” + +“I certainly do.” He began rummaging in the wall cupboard after his +stock of china. “We’re going to celebrate my first real success. I’m +going to the market and buy a spread and telephone Dmitri to come down, +and you shall preside and sing.” + +“Did you try her voice?” demanded Carlota again, her voice a warning of +smouldering anger. + +He nodded his head happily. “She has a very appealing quality, a light +lyric soprano, well pitched and true. Of course she has had a lot of +training.” + +Carlota deliberately swept a jar of golden tulips from the top of the +piano to the floor in crashing fragments. She herself had bought the +jar for him, a squat plaster one, painted in dull-gold and Tuscan fruit +tints. It had been her whim to keep it filled with flowers. There +had been a small urn like it before a statue of Daphne in the garden +at Tittani, and she had always as a child kept fresh flowers there, +she told him. Now, it lay like a symbol of broken faith at her feet. +As Ames swung about in amazement, she drew on her gloves with superb +indifference. + +“Will you kindly tell me the meaning of this?” he demanded hotly. + +“It means--nothing, signor, nothing at all. I have an engagement +to-day. I cannot take my lesson from you.” + +But he saw the trouble and pain in her eyes instantly and caught her +hands in his. + +“Now, listen, Carlota, you know all this means to me--to us. They would +never have come at all if it hadn’t been for you. You heard what she +said. Chandos is the English painter downstairs. He’s heard you sing +and has told them about it.” + +Slowly the tears gathered heavily to her lashes. She had given him the +full benefit of all she had learned from the great Jacobelli, and now +he would give it to this girl for a few paltry dollars. + +“Why do you have to take her when she has everything? Go down through +the Quarter and find some poor singer. Take even the children. But give +it freely, not for money. I cannot bear to see you acting like old +Pietro before such people. Grateful? Do you think that Jacobelli was +ever grateful in his life?” + +“What do you know about Signor Jacobelli?” he demanded teasingly. +“You’re angry because she called you a city sparrow, my nightingale, +and you’re right, but I can’t afford to turn down such a chance. I’ve +got to live here if I am to work on my opera and succeed, and this is +enough for me.” + +“You may do as you like, but I shall not come here as long as that girl +takes lessons from you.” + +“But can’t you see how it will benefit us both?” He stopped before her +impatiently. “You are my star pupil. Perhaps I might even persuade Mrs. +Nevins to let you sing at one of her musicales. If I could get her +interested in my opera, think what it would mean for me, dear--” + +“I did not think you were of the kind who seek patronage,” she said +slowly. “I will not come again. Not for one instant would I sing +for that woman. You have no ideals. I believed you were altogether +different.” + +“Carlota, come back,” he called after her; but the door shut with a +slam that sent Ptolemy scurrying for cover, and he stopped short, +frowning with a quick, boyish resentment at her suspicion of him. +Although there had never been a definite declaration of love between +them, yet their whole acquaintance had ripened in an atmosphere +of romantic glamour, a piquant, elusive mutual acceptance of each +other idealized. He could not have understood the surging resentment +in Carlota’s heart as she went uptown to take her real lesson from +Jacobelli. Once in the Square she had tossed the jonquils and daffodils +broadcast to the children around the fountain. Her mind was a tumult of +emotions, of hot rebellion against Ames’s acceptance of her coming as +a gift of Fate that was his due. She knew her identity was a mystery +to him. He had told her of asking Phelps, and being told she was a +protégée of the Marchese Veracci a young Italian singer in whom he was +interested; that was all. + +He had all of the artist’s selfish point of view, she thought. He had +not even caught the personal side of her anger. He saw merely the +professional jealousy of one singer towards another in her antagonism +towards Nathalie Nevins, and this attitude added fuel to Carlota’s +raging indignation against him. He could not even grasp or understand +all that the visits had meant to her, all that she had given him +gladly. He had not even been musician enough to distinguish between +the quality of her voice and that of Nathalie. And suddenly it flashed +across her that possibly Jacobelli was right; that she did lack power +and dramatic force, feeling, passion, all that made the really great +singer. + +When she reached the studio she flung the outer door wide even as Maria +might have done. Signor Jacobelli was at the piano amusing himself. +The taunting, passionate notes of the “Habanera” crashed upon her as +she stood a moment transformed utterly from the somber, unawakened +girl he had last met. And in an instant she had picked up the melody, +provocative, imperative, daring, sauntering into the room with all of +Carmen’s tricks at her finger-tips, at her tongue’s end. Jacobelli +turned quickly, catching the new note of passion and power. She did not +appear even to see him, but flung her whole soul into the song and the +underlying tragedy of its motif. + +“Brava!” murmured the old maestro, huskily. “Try now the ‘Dance of the +Tambourines.’” + +As she finished the gypsy song, he sprang from the bench, kissing her +hands in ecstasy. + +“I do not know, I do not ask from whence this has come to you, but I +thank God it is there at last, the divine note for which I have prayed. +So you shall sing for Mr. Ward at his dinner, ma bella, and take him by +storm.” + +Carlota’s eyes glowed with anger as she threw aside her cloak and hat. +She looked for the instant like a reincarnation of the youthful Paoli, +as he remembered her back at La Scala. + +“I will not sing for him or be shown off to him any more,” she told him +hotly. “I detest him and all people like him.” + +Jacobelli threw back his head, laughing delightedly. + +“Aha! Temper?” he cried. “It is the beginning of temperament, thanks +be to God. We expect it, my dear, sooner or later. The artistic +temperament is like the resistless forces of nature, the storm, the +volcano, the tidal wave, the lightning. Life would be tame without them +in spite of the danger, would it not? We crave the thrill. Never have +I heard the great dramatic quality before in your voice. Ah, you shall +sing all the glorious colorful rôles they have had to shelve because +there was no one to sing them.” + +Carlota had turned from him and gone to the west windows, the +tears blinding her sight. Even the agony of one’s heart, then, had +a commercial value. Life was merely the arena where one gave all +for applause, where human emotions merely added to the thrill of +suspense. The deeper the reality of the knife-thrust, the cleverer the +counterfeit acting. + +“I hate it all,” she sobbed brokenly. “I wish we could go back to +Tittani. Tell them my voice is hopeless, maestro, and let me go.” + +Jacobelli lit a cigarette deliberately, eyeing her thoughtfully. He +tipped a chair backwards and seated himself, rocking slowly on two of +its legs. + +“Who is he?” he asked gently. + +Carlota looked back at him in angry silence, startled into caution at +his words, but he waved one plump hand at her airily and reassuringly. + +“Remember, my child, I have known both your mother and grandmother. +History moves in recurrent cycles, even the history of human hearts, +and particularly when we consider heredity. I talked with Margherita +Paoli when first she took Bianca from the convent. She told me her +theory of life for a woman of genius and I agreed with her perfectly. +Love in its perfection is the supreme sacrifice of self, art is the +elevation of self, the crowning of self. They are at war eternally. So +I told her, and she said she would keep Bianca safe behind the wall of +Tittani while she studied. Never should the danger of love approach her +until her success was assured, and this creed was impressed upon your +mother, my dear, with what result? Even while we two fools prated, she +was listening in the garden to the boy Peppino and was gone before her +mother even guessed their love.” + +Carlota turned back into the room suddenly, her eyes brilliant with +eager appeal. + +“Tell me who John Tennant was?” she asked him. “Why did my nurse use +to tell me that no woman could escape over the wall of Tittani without +meeting the tragic fate of the Princess Fiametta? Oh, you are all +so blind! You treat me like a baby, and never think I hear or see +anything. Don’t you suppose I ever think or reason? I used to go down +to the end of the garden looking seaward, to that little stone house +where they told me he had lived and died. Once I went in when I found +the door unlocked. Everything was just as he had left it, and while I +was wondering what it all meant, my grandmother came in from the little +walk along the terrace above and I knew she had been weeping. Then +Maria told me only his name. Who was he?” + +Jacobelli made a magnificent gesture. + +“I may not tell you. The secret of his being there was only known to +his friend Wallace, the Marchese, and myself. I found out by accident +when I sought her and implored her to return to the stage. She loved +him, and he never even knew that she was near him in the garden or that +it was her love and bounty he lived upon. Ah, the wonderful woman she +was! Only as he died, unconscious in her arms, could she speak to him +or caress him, and he never knew. Think of her pride, imperial in its +abnegation.” + +“But my mother was happier.” + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +“Who can say? Women are complex. Bianca was all tenderness, a flower +of love. She did not pass the walls to seek adventure, but to escape +from ambition. When I first met her fresh from La Pietà and heard your +grandmother’s plans, I thought, never, never, with such eyes and lips. +And I told her the lines from ‘Romeo et Juliette’; you know them? + + “‘With love’s light wing did I o’erperch these walls, + For stony limits cannot hold love out.’” + +“I am glad she escaped!” flamed back Carlota. “Even my grandmother, who +knew in her own heart that love was all to a woman, would have shut her +own child away from its beauty and truth--” + +“From its agony and devastating influence,” Jacobelli protested +placidly. “To the woman of genius this is so, my dear. You cannot +discuss it logically because you have never experienced love. Even I +have never loved to distraction, always with reason, and I have been +most happy. I have buried two beautiful, gifted women who adored me.” + +Carlota turned suddenly away, afraid of the flood of words on her lips +that she longed to pour out. It would only arouse suspicion against +her if she went too far, and already the reaction was setting in, and +she felt a great weariness of body and spirit. Were they not right, +after all, she thought, as she stood by the window looking riverward? +Somewhere she had read that the yearning after ideals was merely the +soul’s subconscious memory of another life. Was it then foolish to +seek a path to the stars through the world of everyday selfishness and +commercialism? Griffeth accepted patronage gladly for the sake of his +operetta. She would have had him finish it in the high seclusion of +the garret studio and win recognition and fame as his right once it +had been submitted to the directors of the Opera. Instead he must seek +the favor of persons like Mrs. Nevins, must add the weight of their +influence before the magic doors would open to him. And in order to +win Mrs. Nevins’s interest and friendship, he must give lessons to her +daughter and constantly flatter and compromise with his own critical +faculty. + +She who loved directness and clarity of vision and the straight, white +road ahead, faced suddenly the devious, twisting path that led to +success and popularity. Yet there never was a straight road that led to +a mountain peak, she thought. Always the winding way, the compromise +with risk and danger until one reached the summit of desire. She smiled +slowly, and turned to Jacobelli, smoking in long, leisurely puffs until +she should have changed her mind. + +“I will go to Mr. Ward’s dinner and sing for him,” she said. + +He laid aside his pipe. + +“The caprice and passion of the woman always move in a circle. Wait +but patiently, and behold, she is back at the starting-point, and is +willing. My dear, you show common sense and astuteness. Forget all this +love nonsense. I know not what had roused you, but put it away from +you. Ogden Ward can open every door for you in the operatic world. I +would not be too indifferent and petulant with him. Ah, if I could only +teach you your grandmother’s queenly way, the mingling of alluring +charm and condescension, the aloofness of her favor--” + +Carlota drew on her gloves, watching him the while. + +“I may toss roses from the top of the wall; that is it, signor?” she +said gravely. “I shall try to remember.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Ward had handed over the details of the dinner to his Japanese butler, +Ishigaki, who presided over the town house of the millionaire. + +In spite of her dislike of him and reluctance to accept favors, Carlota +felt a thrill of almost childish excitement over the novelty of it all +as she entered the upper salon which had been turned into a private +banqueting-hall for the occasion. + +The walls were hung with dull-gold, Oriental draperies, weighted down +with embroidery. A glow from hidden shaded lights left the room in a +twilight haze of amethyst and saffron. The air was fragrant with faint, +strange perfumes. Brazier lamps burned somberly in stone lanterns half +revealed behind red and gold lacquered screens. On the surface of a +pool sunken in the center of the teakwood dining-table, half-opened +lotus buds floated, and curious, iridescent-plumaged waterfowl stood +amongst them, dazed and hesitating, goldfish darting at their feet, and +tiny turtles scrambling aimlessly up the sides of the pool. + +“I hoped it might amuse you,” Ward said when he found Carlota bending +over the table in delight. He had never seen her in evening dress +before, and Maria had spared no pains or thought for this that might be +her night of conquest. + +“You shall be Juliette in her triumph,” the old singer had said. “Cloth +of silver with a veil of lace from the Colonna wedding chests. And +the very cap of seed pearls which your grandmother bought from the +old antique dealer in Verona near the bridge as you leave the palace. +And just a girdle of filigree silver, set in pearls with tassels of +them. But for your throat, nothing at all. It is encircled by beauty +quite enough. First I thought to let you wear her chain of rubies with +the black cross. Then the necklace of opals. She loved them. It came +from Russia and was part of the great Catherine’s treasure. One of the +Orloffs gave it to Paoli. I would not have you wear anything to-night +that might bring the evil eye upon you.” + +Carlota had laughed at her earnest insistence. She felt no interest in +Ward himself, only a deep-rooted resentment against the circumstances +which forced her to accept his hospitality when she disliked him. Even +now she merely smiled at his words, and turned eagerly to greet the +old Marchese. The latter’s gray eyebrows arched with approval when he +beheld the result of Maria’s costuming. + +“So soon you grow into your kingdom, mia carina,” he exclaimed half +teasingly, half musingly. “Behold, yesterday, Mr. Ward, it was a child +whom I cajoled with chocolate almonds. I do assure you, she was the +utter gourmand for them, rummaging into my pockets like a squirrel, and +now we bow to her sovereignty, is it not so?” + +“The bloom fulfills the promise of the bud,” Ward answered gravely, +and Carlota’s eyes held a startled wonderment as he gazed down at her. +It seemed to-night as if his glance even held a covert challenge that +aroused every element of resentment in her nature. Throughout the +dinner she was reticent and unresponsive. The Marchese, as always, was +so absorbed in his little anecdotes and sallies of wit that Ward’s +attentions escaped him. Maria observed, but gave no sign of annoyance; +rather, she was filled with pride at the influence of her beloved child +over so great a man as Ward. Jacobelli ate and drank as a connoisseur, +paying little attention to the conversation about him, but relaxing +under the mellowing influence of Ward’s wines and Ishigaki’s solicitous +ministrations. Finally he caught Carlota’s refusal to sing as her host +urged her after they rose from dinner. + +“It is no time to-night to show caprice, cara mia,” he exclaimed +pompously. “Come, I would have you sing and prove to Mr. Ward how soon +you will triumph at the Opera.” + +Carlota’s eyes sought the Marchese’s in swift appeal, but he merely +nodded to her encouragingly above the lifted rim of his glass of old +Amontillado. + +“Miss Trelango is only afraid that you will put her through your +professional paces, Jacobelli,” Ward interposed easily. “Show the +Marchese and Signora Roma those new photographs in the east gallery of +the excavations at Rhodopis. You will find the emeralds we took from +the royal mummies there also. Ishigaki will open the case for you.” + +Jacobelli smiled understandingly, and led the way. The Japanese moved +noiselessly about the salon, turning off a light here and there +until only those in the stone lanterns gave a nebulous glow. When +they were alone, Ward moved one of the lacquered screens from its +place, disclosing a tall panel of solid gold embroidery set in ebony. +Flamingoes moved through sunlit marshes. + +“This will amuse you,” he said, stepping upon a convex spring set +in the floor. The panel slipped silently up. “This is my favorite +music-room.” He led the way through the narrow door into the interior. +It was domed with stained glass, a fan fretwork above the Empire grand +piano assuring perfect acoustics. The walls were in flat dull gold, +with peacocks and gray apes in conventionalized designs, hand-painted. +A rock crystal vase held irises, gold and purple. The light filtered +cunningly through the stained glass in rays of twilight splendor. “I +have kept this room for you the first time you should sing to me alone.” + +Carlota closed her eyes as she seated herself at the piano, the memory +of the little garret studio of Ames a vivid, poignant hurt to her +pride. He to whom she had given all her faith and love, and he had held +it so lightly, where to this man no effort was too great to win her +favor. + +“Jacobelli tells me you have gained. Sing what you love best yourself.” + +And instead of choosing some grand-opera aria, she sang “O Sole Mio,” +as she had learned it from Ames. Over their lunches in the studio, he +would sing it to her, lunches of bread and fruit and salad, glorified +by love and song. Out in the east gallery Jacobelli caught the air and +frowned, but the Marchese inclined his head to listen contentedly. As +the last notes ended, Ward bent over her suddenly, his arms around her, +his lips seeking hers dominantly. Crushed in his powerful embrace, she +strove to free herself, but Ward had waited two years for this moment, +and she felt her strength leave her as he held her. The crystal vase +crashed behind him as he tripped backwards over the slender stand, her +hand holding his face from her. + +“Maria!” she called. “Maria! Come to me!” + +“Let her alone,” warned Jacobelli, placing himself at the door of the +gallery. “She must learn poise and command of herself.” + +Maria glared at him, infuriated. + +“Mother of God, when the child needs me!” she cried, and sped along the +salon to the inner room. The Marchese’s glance met that of the maestro +with troubled questioning. + +“Surely, he would not attempt anything to alarm her. You do not +think--” The old Italian spread out his stout, expressive hands. + +“I do not think when I am with such a man as Ogden Ward. He is a law to +himself.” + +Veracci’s expression changed instantly. From the easy, genial old +diplomat there seemed to fall over his face the mask of the soldier. + +“No man is that,” he answered. “I would hold him accountable if he has +annoyed the child.” + +Before Maria had reached them, Carlota had released herself. She turned +to him with clenched hands, her face white with anger. + +“Take me home, tanta!” she exclaimed. “I--I am not well.” + +Ward regarded them both with amused speculation. + +“You are temperamental, my dear, perhaps a trifle gauche also, too much +the gamine in your play.” He held out one hand to show the scratch that +ran like a scarlet thread along the skin. “Tell Jacobelli I say it is +time to prepare for her début.” + +Carlota stood with her back to the piano, her eyes filled with quick +tears, Maria’s caressing hand on her arm to check her. + +“I do not need your permission,” she said passionately. “I have the +voice and I will go to Casanova myself, and tell him who I am. He will +hear me. And I will pay you back everything. You do not know that I can +easily. I have my grandmother’s jewels--” + +“But, my poor foolish one,” cried Maria, “Casanova would not give you +standing-room in his chorus if you went to him without the backing of +money and patronage.” + +“Then I will go back to Italy. Where is the Marchese, Maria?” She spoke +with sudden quietness and dignity. “I am sorry, Mr. Ward. Doubtless the +fault is mine. I do not seem to have learned my part according to the +rôle expected of me.” + +Ward bowed as she passed him, his own face tense with repression. Out +in the long gallery Jacobelli waited, detaining the Marchese over the +collection of emeralds. Carlota pleaded a sudden faintness to account +for her departure and he accompanied them down to Jacobelli’s waiting +car, returning for a final glass of his favorite cordial in Ward’s +library. + +“You are not only the art lover supreme,” the old gentleman said +genially, ensconcing himself in a deep armchair, “but likewise you know +how to select the rare, the unusual. Before I had the enjoyment of our +personal acquaintance, I had heard of you as an eccentric, that you +carried about in your pockets loose pearls worth thousands, merely to +touch and gaze on them when you were in the critical moment of some +great financial deal. Is it so?” + +Ward smiled non-committally. + +“I have collected pearls amongst other things.” + +“Then perhaps you noticed the cap our sweet protégée wore to-night, +the Juliette mode, a network of pearls? That is a bit of very delicate +craftsmanship, sixteenth-century work. Margherita Paoli’s collection +was thought marvelous in her day. Every piece has its own history. She +left it intact for Carlota.” + +“Where is it?” The unwinking, light gray eyes of the financier watched +every shade of expression on his guest’s face. + +“I was not in the confidence of the Contessa,” responded the Marchese +suavely, almost regretfully, as he touched the ash from his cigarette +tip and watched it fall on the curled leaf of gold repoussé. + +Carlota leaned her head back on the suède cushion in Jacobelli’s car, +gazing out at the Avenue’s lights as they flashed by. It had been +raining, and they glowed through the wet glass in prismatic hues like +in a spectrum. Maria’s arm was close about her, but she was silent, +inwardly frightened and disturbed at the dénouement to the dinner. +But Jacobelli was elated and highly amused. He occupied the uptown +seat himself, and sat with a hand resting on each knee, complacent and +benignant. + +“Cara mia, I salute!” he exclaimed happily. “You are an actress as well +as a singer. You could not possibly have entertained him better or +interested him more piquantly.” + +“I did not try to interest him,” Carlota replied, wearily. “I hate him +and the look in his eyes.” + +She drew in her breath sharply with a tremor of dread, and returned the +quick, understanding pressure of Maria’s hand. But the maestro merely +smiled at them both, smiled until his round, plump face seemed like a +caricature of himself sketched in upturned half-moons of mirth. + +“That is quite all right,” he assured her. “You should be proud that +so great a man is attracted by your genius. So soon as you have signed +your first contract, my dear, and made your début, then you may refuse +to see him, if you like, if not before. What is the look in his eyes +to you? Thousands will gaze at you so. You must learn to accept homage +gracefully. Ward is a stepping-stone to success. To-morrow I shall see +Casanova for you as he ordered.” + +Carlota closed her eyes as the car drew up under the heavy +porte-cochère at the Saint Germain apartments. Its rim of electric +lights was the sole illumination on the dark side street at that hour. + +“No, I shall not come up with you,” protested Jacobelli. “Do not +tempt me, signora. I shall overeat if you set before me one of those +delightful suppers of yours, and, besides, the child must rest. We may +get a hearing to-morrow and she needs all her strength. Sleep well, +Carlota. Remember, smother the emotion that cripples your work.” + +She did not speak until they reached their apartment, and Maria laid +her hands on her shoulders to look closely into her eyes under the +shaded lights. + +“Ah, my dear one, they have hurt you to-night,” she sighed. “You are +not ready yet, not old enough to manage these men. Some day it will +be as nothing to you, their whims and notions, their mad passions and +threats. A man in love is the most helpless, pitiful thing in all the +world, never, never dangerous. You have him at your mercy. What did he +say to you?” + +Carlota slipped out of her velvet cloak tiredly. + +“I hardly know. It was so sudden and horrible, the touch of his hands +on my flesh, and his face close to mine. He was a dog to take advantage +of my being there as his guest--” + +“Oh, hush! What did he say to you?” urged Maria shrewdly. + +“Nothing at all. He asked me to sing, and when I had finished he seized +me in his arms and tried to kiss me.” + +“I should not have left you alone. Opportunity makes the thief. It is +Jacobelli’s fault. He must have known that Ward desired a chance of +speaking to you. But it is all nothing, cara mia, nothing at all. It +was certain he would fall in love with you. No man could help it, +but he must be taught some gems are priceless. He did not ask you any +questions, then, about yourself, about the Paoli collection or the +jewels you wore?” + +Carlota looked at her wonderingly. + +“Of course not. Why should he?” + +“I do not want any one to know they are here in America, out of the +Tittani vaults. Nobody is aware of it as yet excepting yourself and the +Marchese. He helped me with the customs when we came in, he and the +delightful Palmieri. But even to Palmieri they were merely jewels. He +did not know their histories.” + +Carlota watched her anxiously, a quick reaction of tenderness and +solicitude for Maria sweeping over her, and making her forgetful of her +own trouble. + +“You’re worried, dear. Why?” she asked. + +“Why?” Maria laughed. “Because I am doubtless a superstitious old fool. +Paoli always said there was a curse about the rubies and pearls, rubies +for the blood of the people, pearls for the tears they shed. I wish we +had not brought them.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The following morning at nine-thirty, Signor Jacobelli stood bowing +on the threshold of Casanova’s small sanctum in the Opera building. +Armed with Ogden Ward’s influence and his own reputation, his welcome +was assured. Casanova, lean and dark, beamed on his visitor like some +comradely Mephisto luxuriating in dolce far niente. + +“Come in, my friend,” he called. “You release me from the duty of +perusing the new opera of the great, unknown composer who insists that +I shall discover him. Do you bring me a new sensation?” + +But Jacobelli was mysterious and secretive. For over an hour he sat +in the famous, three-cornered office, dilating upon the beauty and +genius of Paoli’s granddaughter until he knew he held the interest of +the impresario. Suddenly Alphonse, the slender, solicitous secretary, +peered around the door. + +“Mrs. Carrington Nevins,” he whispered tentatively. “She is alone.” + +“You will wait,” Casanova urged, as he nodded assent. “She is very +wealthy, one of our best subscribers. She wishes to secure some good +singers for her Italian fête. One cannot refuse, and then she has a +daughter whom she thinks is a Galli-Curci handicapped by position and +money.” + +“I fly,” answered Jacobelli shortly, but as he turned about, he +encountered Mrs. Nevins. Somehow, with her elaborately arranged gray +hair, fine aquiline profile, and costume of gray velvet trimmed in +silver fox, she brought a memory of Marie Antoinette, or was it merely +the reminder of some famous actress in the part? The old maestro paused +before her, a half-comic air of having been captured on the point of +flight. + +“I have heard often of you,” she said graciously. “My daughter Nathalie +sings. She is a wonderful child, and even you, signor, must recognize +genius, though you meet it handicapped.” + +Casanova’s half-closed eyes twinkled at the inference, but Jacobelli +was in a mellow mood. + +“I shall be charmed to hear her some time, madame. Let her not choke +her voice upon her golden spoon.” + +“You must hear her soon,” insisted Mrs. Nevins. “I am getting up a +programme for my Italian fête, the milk fund for the children, you +know, a wonderful cause. Don’t you think Signor Jacobelli might be a +help to us, Signor Casanova? I do want to have everything in harmony, +authentic and still startling. I want a little operetta for Nathalie’s +sake, and have been talking over the libretto with a young composer I +just met, Griffeth Ames; perhaps you may know him.” + +But Jacobelli was in a hurry to leave, and protesting his utter +ignorance of Mr. Ames’s existence, he departed, not realizing how the +grim sisters of fate had tangled his thread of life that moment with +Griffeth Ames’s destiny. + +At the same moment Ames sat perched on the seat in the slanting dormer +window, staring down moodily at the street below. It was nearly eleven. +Sometimes she came in the morning, and they would have lunch together +after her lesson. He had not realized how deep an interest she had +become in his life until two days had elapsed without her. Ptolemy kept +vigil with him through the long evenings, while he smoked and told +himself all sophists and philosophers were bachelors and liars. Love +was a terrible, disconcerting truth. And he saw Carlota’s face in the +vanishing rings of his smoke. + +At the corner stood a pushcart piled high with California grapes, +turned into a shrine of Bacchus. Upreared on a wooden framework +festoons of clusters dangled temptingly, and vine leaves were twined +about the base of the cart. The boy who tended it bartered with an old +sibyl-faced Sicilian grandmother, naming her a price, and whistling +until she came around to it. And suddenly Ames caught sight of Carlota +as she walked across the Square from the ’bus terminus, her slim, +youthful figure conspicuous among the vari-clad denizens of the park. +She paused at the stand and bought plentifully, not only of the grapes, +but of late rich-toned pears and golden-russet apples. He leaned far +out the window, watching her longingly, Ptolemy rubbing against his arm +as though he, too, sensed the return of Columbine. + +At the foot of the last flight of stairs Carlota hesitated, listening. +From the studio came a new melody, a haunting, yearning strain that +she remembered. Ames had played it at the Phelpses that first night +when their eyes had met. He had named it the “Quest of Love,” “Cerca di +Amore.” As it ended, she opened the door softly, without knocking. + +“I have come to prepare lunch, signor,” she said demurely, but with a +flash of mischief in her eyes. “If you are still angry, then Ptolemy +and I will eat it together.” + +“Is it a lasting peace or merely an armistice?” he demanded, sweeping +the papers from the table. “You are afraid to look at me for fear you +will surrender.” + +“It is an armistice,” she said sedately. “It is beneath your dignity +as a composer to take pupils who have not real genius. I still hold to +that. And I shall need celery and romaine and tomatoes and grapefruit +and almonds for my salad, so you may go out and find them.” + +She tied a strip of drapery around her for an apron, and started +preparations for lunch. Ames leaned from a back window and hailed a +small and willing neighbor to go to the market, after the needs of the +queen, as he said. + +They did not speak to each other for some time. Ames watched her as the +sunlight poured down on her bowed head. He held a melon in one hand, +uplifted absently, a length of scarlet and black art burlap around his +waist. + +“You look exactly like one of the melon-sellers on the quay at Naples,” +she told him, with a little smile. “When the boat stops there, they +crowd around begging you to buy from them. Lift up your arm and call +out.” + +“I will do no such thing,” responded Ames buoyantly. “I decline to pose +for your majesty. Will you deign to name your castle habitat, that I +may call on your most royal parents and interest them in my humble +self?” + +She was serious in an instant. + +“I have no people, signor. If you could go with me to the Villa +Tittani, you would find a very little village high up on the rocks +above the Campagna. You know where I mean? See?” + +She dipped her finger-tips in the dregs of chianti remaining in the +bowl beside her where she had used it in the salad dressing, and traced +a map for him on the bare table-top. + +“Here is the winding road from the shore, and here at the very top +there is a villa with rose-tinted stone walls all about it, very high +walls overgrown with flowers and vines. That is where the nobility +live.” Her eyes were sparkling with mischief. “Often when I was little +I have seen the Contessa walking on the terraces. She was so stately +and handsome, and her daughter Bianca was like a real princess should +be, a princess of dreams and fairy-tales, tall and slender and with +eyes like stars. Then, if you walk on, down through the ilex avenue, +you will come to a very quiet spot where the old tombs face the sea, +and there are my people, all of them.” + +“I’m a brute!” exclaimed Ames, holding her hands in his with quick, +understanding tenderness. “The way I have let you come and go without +showing any real interest after all you have done for me.” + +“What have I done? Come down here and let you teach me and in return +told you some fairy-tales.” + +He stared down at her, puzzled as always. He was twenty-four, and the +coasts of chance and illusion were far more tangible to him than any of +Life’s ports of call. He wondered if he could make her understand all +that she had become to him. He wheeled about and found his pipe with +sudden disgust at his own impotence. + +“Carlota, do you know, I’ve just discovered something about myself. +I’m a beastly poor amateur at making love. I want to tell you just how +I feel about you slipping in here like a sunbeam, or--or Ptolemy. You +know, I found him on the fire escape one morning, and he’s stayed here +ever since. There was a sparrow, too, last winter. I left my window +open there, and it flew in out of the storm and perched on the curtain +rod. Fought me every time I tried to feed it. You seemed to belong to +their crowd, the sunbeam and the sparrow and Ptolemy. You just came and +stayed, and I was a fool; I took you for granted.” + +“You asked me to come, after we first met,” Carlota corrected him. “I +would not come without the invitation first.” + +He bowed low before her. + +“And I am honored by the royal presence. I have learned these last two +days the strangest thing. When you are here and we are friends, I can +work at my best, and when you are angry with me, it goes just like +that, all my inspiration. So you see you have me at your mercy.” He +turned and rummaged among the mass of papers and score-sheets on the +piano-top. “I’m going to finish my operetta in a week if you’ll stand +by me and not get temperamental, dear. The big chance is coming now. +Mrs. Nevins says she can get me an immediate hearing from Casanova if +she presents it first at her fête. Isn’t that great?” + +Carlota’s lips pressed together firmly at the name. She did not answer. + +“You must be glad with me because you gave me the idea for it. I had +been tormented with a mass of harmonies and tunes that would not shape +into anything. Remember how I played that first night you met me? +Listen to this and see if you remember it.” + +He leaned over the piano towards her, reading aloud the synopsis of the +libretto. + +“Fiametta is the lonely princess of the Castle Tittani. She loves +Peppino, a fisher-boy. There is a fête in the village. She disguises +herself to go down and mingle with the people, scaling the walls of +Tittani with love’s magic. She dances with Peppino, who does not know +that she is the princess. He is disguised as Harlequin. His sweetheart +stabs her through jealousy when Peppino avows his love for her. She +dies in his arms as the people recognize her as their princess. It is +the tragedy of youth’s eternal quest for love beyond all barriers.” + +Her head was bent over the salad bowl as she listened. + +“I call it ‘Fiametta.’ Do you like it?” he asked eagerly. “You don’t +mind my using the little story you told me, do you, Carlota? I may make +it immortal.” + +“Why must she die, your princess?” she said wistfully. “I love it all +but that. How could you write it when you had not seen our beautiful +Tittani or known my people.” + +“I had seen and known you. That’s the answer. Listen to this.” He flung +himself down at the piano, head back, striking into the melody that had +been his call to her. “This is your motif.” + +Suddenly there came an imperative tap at the door. + +“Open. My arms are full.” + +“That’s only Dmitri. You met him at the Phelpses that night.” Ames +threw wide the door. “Enter and join the happy throng. Comes a Greek +bearing gifts.” + +At sight of Carlota, Dmitri dropped his bundles and made obeisance with +sedate ceremony. + +“I had not dreamt that any but myself would ever climb those stairs to +the house of Ptolemy.” + +“I’m the luckiest man in the world. Listen, Dmitri; quit bowing and +understand. This is--” Ames hesitated and laughed. “I don’t even know +your last name, Carlota. You tell him. You met each other at Phelps’s.” + +Carlota looked at the newcomer in her grave, measuring way. She had +not remembered him at all. He was older than Ames, and without any +claims whatever to good looks. Swarthy, thin, slight, stoop-shouldered, +careless in dress, there was still something indefinably distinguished +and reassuring about him. He might have sat for a bust of the youthful +Socrates with his blunt, uneven profile. A perpetual smile perched on +his wide mouth; not a propitiatory smile, but rather a tolerant one. +Here was a spirit that might have waited æons on the edge of chaos, +believing absolutely in the ultimate birth of cosmic harmony, even on +earth. + +“Please! I beg you not to.” He interrupted her. “I do not wish to know +your name. Identity is the cloak of selfishness. They number convicts +and name hapless infants. Human consciousness is a universal lottery +where the lucky numbers win by drawing personality in lots of genius. +Griffeth is a genius. I am one. You, too, with that face, do not have +to be a genius. You are Woman, incarnate Love and Inspiration to us +poor devils.” + +“Give him work to keep him quiet,” advised Ames. + +But Dmitri picked up his bundles and began opening them with the air of +a high priest at his ritual. + +“I shall prepare a feast for you to-day, a treat. The brigand stew of +Bulgaria. I have eaten it on mountain heights where even the goats die +of starvation.” + +“I think I will go,” Carlota said in her quick, aloof way, and Dmitri +turned to her eagerly, his face full of a strange, beseeching charm. + +“See, I have disappointed you!” he declared; “when for weeks I have +hoped to catch you here on one of your flights of passage. First when +I saw you at Mr. Phelps’s, you overlooked me absolutely for him.” He +nodded at Ames. “He is merely spectacular. He had no more vision, no +wider horizons than a mole. When he told me yesterday that you would +never come here again, I understood perfectly. I told him you would +surely return, but I knew also why you were angry with him. He stands +outside our range of perspective, so you must forgive him. He blunders +like a baby lamb; you know the kind with large knees and prodigious +ears, utterly hopeless.” + +“Grand old Diogenes; all he needs is a tub and lantern to go into +business.” Ames patted him affectionately. “Put your old lamb on to +stew and stop spouting if we are to eat it to-day. What do you do +first, braise it?” + +“Let it alone. He is become the plaything of the privileged classes.” +Dmitri seized his bundles and made for the kitchenette, where he +declaimed just the same. “How many times in three days have you motored +down to Long Island? Confess.” + +Ames avoided Carlota’s questioning, accusing eyes. + +“Twice, to give lessons.” + +“Twice for lessons, and then you stay all the afternoon and have dinner +also there. The truth ye cannot bear.” + +“When I believed that you were working hard on your opera and were +sorry I did not come back to you,” Carlota said softly. + +“Son of discordance!” Ames flung a cushion headlong over the partition. +“You only want to set Carlota against me and seize her yourself.” + +“See?” Dmitri’s head showed around the curtain delightedly. “He has +already the little social tricks. To be petty. Still, I like him, so I +will save him. You shall not become the Harlequin boy of the nouveaux +riches. They will but monopolize your time until a new warrior of ennui +shall appear and grasp the golden bough from your hand. They will +permit you to loll in their beautiful playgrounds until you imagine +yourself indispensable. You will think you are succeeding, getting in +on the inside, as they say. You will gain patronage. You are young +and might be popular, but time is your treasure, and they waste it as +nothing.” + +Out of doors spring dallied in the old square, and Jacobelli, stepping +from the interior of a green motor ’bus just beyond the Arch, lingered +to regard almost paternally the toddling, black-eyed babies and +fluttering, dancing youngsters that played around the dry fountain. +A flock of pigeons swerved down from the Judson Memorial Tower and +he smiled at them benignly, seeing those that fed at noon below the +Campanile. + +He had tried to induce Casanova to join him at luncheon down at the +Brevoort, but the director had another engagement and Jacobelli had +been forced to come alone, something he innately disliked. There +was the genial, gregarious instinct of the old Roman feaster in the +maestro. He loved to treat himself to a carefully chosen meal in a +favorite corner, with a friend opposite, and a chef on duty who knew +his name. + +The beauty of the Square lured him. In late October it seemed to +rest like some gypsy dancer, garbed in rich attire of red and gold, +but silent and tense with expectation of the next twirl. He strolled +towards the south side leisurely, intending to circle the Square on his +way back to the hotel, trying to reason with himself on his duty to +Carlota. His experience with women had taught him the usual causes of +their temperamental moods. Something had undoubtedly aroused Carlota’s +nature into sudden and unexpected sensitiveness. It could not be merely +her dislike and resentment towards Ward. If this had been so, then why +had she not reacted under the stimulus during the past two years. No, +he mused, with toleration, somehow, the contagion of Love had touched +her in spite of their care, and lo, the walls of Tittani tumbled at the +magic bugle of some Childe Roland. Even so, it was nothing serious, +he told himself. Maria’s health was better now. She could watch her +closer. At eighteen a girl’s imagination will clothe some distant +object with all the splendor of heroism. Doubtless she was under the +spell of her own natural yearning for love. + +And suddenly, even while he rambled and reasoned, the demigod of +Misrule wakened drowsily and took note of the excellent juxtaposition +of certain humans. Jacobelli stopped dead short, head uplifted like a +horse scenting fire as a voice floated out on the midday air singing +Mimi’s duet with a lilting, impetuous tenor for company. He could have +sworn it was Carlota. Never could there be two such voices in New +York. He tried to locate the sound, but it seemed to float from him +elusively. He cut hastily across the southwest end of the park, seeking +it, and gazed up at the row of brownstone old studio buildings across +Fourth Street. + +At the same moment a young Bulgarian, smoking a thin long cigarette +in the exact center of his lips, rose from a seat and followed him. +When Jacobelli crossed the street, intent and purpose in every move +of his rotund figure, the boy waited, his seal-brown eyes mere +slits, half-lifted lids showing gleams of high lights as he stared +fixedly after him. Outside the narrow flagged plots, the old teacher +hesitated, then entered the dusty hallway of the house next to Ames’s +abiding-place. The Bulgarian smiled and followed after him, lingering +at the corner. + +Up in the studio luncheon was over. So successful and opulent it had +been, this brigand feast, that Dmitri announced they were all suffering +from the ennui of satiety, that bête noire of the rich. Carlota was +happy once more. She had read over the libretto of the operetta +while the two argued over points in the score, had sat at the piano, +trying bits here and there of Fiametta’s rôle until, somewhere down +on Bleecker Street, a church chime reached her ears, and she rose +hurriedly. Maria would be home at two. + +“I must leave you,” she said regretfully. “And all the dishes to wash!” + +“I’ll do them gladly.” Dmitri donned an apron promptly. “Griff, you +take your inspiration to the ’bus while I do your work for you.” + +“How do you know that I take the ’bus to my home?” + +She looked back at him teasingly. He waved both hands comprehensively, +dismissing the query as superfluous. + +“Everybody who comes down here takes the ’bus. It is part of the +thrill, the experience of the unusual. They are the land ferries that +cross the gulf between fact and fancy.” + +He began the duet plaintively as he fished for a strip of drapery and +tossed it about his shoulders for a cloak. Carlota took up the reply of +Mimi while she pulled a black-velvet student cap over her close, glossy +ripples of hair. Out on the landing Ames waited for her eagerly. + +“Listen. You will come again soon, won’t you, dear? Dmitri’s a curious +sort, but he’s all gold, no alloy. He thinks your voice is great.” + +“I like him very much,” she said naïvely. “Much better than Mrs. Nevins +and her daughter. How many times must you go to see them this week?” + +“Oh, don’t! It isn’t anything at all, her interest in my work. She’s +giving some sort of a fête for the Italian Relief Fund, a sort of +glorified musicale as I understand it, and she wants me to give my +operetta so her daughter can sing the mezzo part, Pippa. I intend that +you shall sing Fiametta, the princess.” + +“Impossible!” exclaimed Carlota in hushed alarm. “I never, never could +do that, Mr. Ames.” + +“You call me Griffeth,” he swung back happily. “You are going to sing +it just the same, and it may make your fortune. I know it will mine. +Dmitri’s all wrong, you know. He’s got some sort of a brain kink over +this hatred of the rich. I don’t dare tell him even who my father is +for fear he may cut my acquaintance.” + +“Is your father, then, rich?” Her gaze never left his face. + +“Well, they call him so where we live out in Colorado. You’re in the +bondholder class there after you pass fifty thousand, but I don’t think +Dad’s in danger of being counted an enemy of the people yet; just +comfortably dusted.” + +He laughed down at her as they crossed the Square towards the ’bus +terminus. And at exactly the same instant Signor Jacobelli was bursting +without warning or ceremony into a studio on the second floor where a +model posed. He emerged, nonplussed and furious. On the third floor the +door was locked. He shook the handle imperatively, and a disturbed but +pleasantly modulated voice answered: + +“Sorry, old man. Come Monday, will you?” + +“It is impossible,” exclaimed the maestro to himself, when he reached +the street, and stood wiping his forehead with a sense of baffled +uncertainty. “Yet there are not two voices like hers in the world. I +shall not wait. Love is a madness.” + +He retraced his steps towards the Brevoort, determined now to tell +Maria his suspicions. Up at the dormer window of the studio, Dmitri +leaned out, placing bread crumbs on the fire escape for the sparrows. + +“Go to, greedy one,” he said gravely, to one brown vagrant struggling +after the largest piece. “You elbow for room in the bread-line. Beware +the Infinite overlooks your falling.” + +He glanced at the picture ensemble of the Square, one eye half closed +to catch the light-and-shade effect and found a hindrance suddenly +to his enjoyment of life. Sauntering across the street and into the +park entrance was the Bulgarian. He paused to drink at the little iron +fountain, and Dmitri leaned forward, giving a low, peculiar whistle. +The boy lifted his head with a jerk and stared about him. He forgot his +thirst. The crafty, self-contained air fell from him. Dmitri laughed +down at him and waved his hand, beckoning him to come up. The other +shook his head and waited. + +“Another sparrow,” Dmitri said to himself as he closed the studio and +went to join him. “He is too thin, much too thin.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +When Ames returned to the studio twenty minutes later, it was still +empty. In his own room over on East Twenty-Eighth Street, Dmitri sat on +a couch, smoking and listening to the boy Steccho talk of Sofia, of his +mountain home, of Maryna his sister, and the little smiling mother who +cooked so excellently. + +“The last time we met, we dipped in the same drinking-bowl, remember?” +Dmitri smiled across at him. “You are too young to come here in these +times. Who has sent you? Do not tell me if you dare not. I am not +afraid. I will still open wide the door every time you care to visit +me, my friend. Are the little mother and sister quite safe, you are +sure?” + +“Oh, absolutely.” Steccho’s dark face glowed with enthusiasm. “Before I +come here I see to that, and they will have more still, much more.” + +“So? Then you are doing well. That is good. The times are changing +about, eh? Are there any of the others here? I have met no one since +I came. I was wounded and in the hospital for months, so I have lost +track of the old friends.” + +“You did not return, then, afterwards?” Steccho’s glance was uneasy. + +“No,” replied Dmitri, lying on his back, and blowing long, uneven +ovals into the air. “I do not like it all, frankly, my boy. They +compromise and barter first with this faction, then with the other. +Each is afraid to trust the other. It has become a great struggle for +self-preservation now that the masters twist the torture screws of +starvation. Life, after all, once you desert nature, becomes merely +a struggle for the dear old bread and butter in one form or another. +Commerce is built upon the necessities of human existence under modern +conditions. Personally, I am very radical on one point. I would kill +without mercy the man who gambles for his own profit on the necessities +of his brother man, his food, his fuel, his clothing. And I do not +believe in killing, as you know. I regard war as a subterfuge, an +exploitation of power. I object to persons infusing into my mind hatred +of my brother man merely because he happens to live on a different spot +of earth than I do, and belongs to a different branch of the same human +race.” + +“There are robbers and murderers in the brotherhood as well as in the +privileged classes.” + +“So, my Steccho has learned to perch safely and sensibly upon the +fence between the warring factions, yes? The rain falls on the just +and the unjust, therefore we must be merciful likewise.” He sat up and +reached for his violin, playing stray chords, bits of folk-songs and +haunting Czech melodies in minors. + +Steccho listened moodily, his eyes almost closed as he clasped arms +about his knees, and bent his head on them. Dmitri played in silence +for nearly half an hour. When he stopped, the boy looked up at him +wistfully. + +“When the cause is right, the way must be right too.” + +“What do you mean by the cause?” Dmitri asked genially. “We live in +a day when causes are hung for sale in any market-place. You may buy +them like indulgences from pilgrim friars. I would pick my cause with +caution.” + +“I mean this. No matter what we do, if it is for some great, beautiful +purpose, then it does not matter, eh?” + +“You will stub your toe on that rock, the end that justifies the +means; that is all it comes to when you are through with reasoning and +sophistry. And I do not like any reasoning which may be diverted by the +idiot Chance, to his own blind folly. Can you tell me frankly why you +are here? I will keep silent and help you if I may.” + +Steccho threw away his last cigarette and rose, stretching himself like +an animal impatient for a run. + +“I am here so that my mother and Maryna may dwell in the yellow castle +forever,” he answered with a slow smile. “You cannot help, but I should +like to come here and rest now and then.” + +“You will come again soon, my friend,” Dmitri laid both hands on his +shoulders warmly. “Come often, when you like. If I am out, look for me +over in the squares, or open the door and be happy as you can until I +return. Light the fire yourself. It awaits you. If you will come back +to-night, I can promise you such a meal of broiled lamb and rice as you +have not tasted since the home days.” + +“Not to-night.” Steccho shook his head. “I might take you from your +friends. I could hear you singing while I stood in the park there +to-day. The girl had a fine voice.” + +“She has genius and is poor. My friend is giving her lessons so she may +sing in his opera some day. He is very much interested in her. It is a +romance.” Dmitri smiled whimsically. “He does not even know her name, +but she is very beautiful. Ah, my Steccho, if you and I, who are older +than the ages in our outlook on life, could only receive this baptism +of joy, this love. You would forget your torches and rivers of blood +if the one woman would give you her lips, yes?” + +The boy turned his back on him at the door, the face of Carlota before +his eyes as it had disturbed and bewildered his purpose ever since he +had first looked upon its beauty and innocence. His fingers shook as he +fumbled blindly for the doorknob. + +“I will come again, Dmitri. Good-night.” + +He went directly uptown in the subway. There is a small carriage +entrance to the Hotel Dupont. By it, you may enter most privately and +unostentatiously a low-ceiled, satin-walled corridor which leads past a +flower-stand and telephone booth to a single elevator, half concealed +in a recess. + +Here the boy waited while his name was sent up to Count Lazio Jurka. +There was a delay, and presently down in the private elevator came +the valet and personal courier of the Count, a soldierly individual, +gray-haired and austere. + +“You always blunder,” he said as he led the way to the servants’ +elevator. “You come here as a tailor, not a guest. He does not expect +you to-night. Have you news?” + +Steccho shrugged his shoulders sullenly. After the meeting with Dmitri +his mind was unsettled. As they passed by the palm-guarded tea-room, +the great paneled dining-room on the corner, the rotunda with its +rose-hued walls and marble columns, the leisurely parade of the late +afternoon frequenters, his memory traveled rapidly back to his old life +that Dmitri had been a part of. + +It was a far cry to Rigl, his home village, eighteen miles out of Sofia +if you take the narrow mountain trail on horseback. There had been the +childhood there, and later, when he had worked in Sofia at the little +hand-press bindery, to enable himself to study evenings. He passed one +hand over his eyes restlessly as the valet opened the door of a corner +suite on the eighth floor and snapped the catch after them. The small +inner salon was empty. Excepting for scattered daily papers it bore no +trace of use. The door of the dressing-room was ajar, and Steccho bowed +low on its threshold, waiting the word to enter. + +Before a large oval mirror Count Jurka tied his cravat with a +deliberate and distinct enjoyment of the artistry required by the +operation. Clad in underclothes and shirt, he resembled some French +courtier, one who might have just flung off his cloak and hat in a gray +dawn rendezvous, and, balancing his rapier, awaited his opponent. + +He was youthful, blond, serene-eyed, the Count Jurka. Throughout +the war of nations those same blue eyes had witnessed unspeakable +atrocities with the utmost impersonal calm. The white, pink-nailed +hands that dallied over cravats had dipped in the blood of innocents +quite as artistically and deliberately as they handled the silk ends +now. He was an individual the guillotine would have licked its long +steel tongue over after devouring, but there were no guillotines in +Sofia, and firing-squads were out of date likewise. The hand of fate +deputed its blows to those who worked secretly and left no trace behind +save the victim. + +“Come in, Steccho,” he called pleasantly. “How goes this merry world +with you? The cigarettes, Georges.” + +Steccho accepted two from the long, narrow brown leather box the valet +extended to him, and held them unlighted in his fingers. There had been +a man in Sofia who had been extremely ill, even to the verge of death, +after smoking cigarettes from that brown leather box. + +The cravat tied, Jurka seated himself in an amber satin armchair, a +black-velvet dressing-robe about his shoulders. He smiled musingly +across at the boy, noting his drawn, harassed face. The hand that held +the cigarettes shook slightly. The muscles around his lips twitched +under that amused scrutiny. + +“Have you found them?” + +The question came hard and short finally. Steccho shook his head. + +“Excellenza,” he said eagerly, “the opportunity has not come. I have +followed them both unceasingly, day and night, and have seen nothing.” + +“You have followed the girl. Day and night you have followed her, no +one else. You have not yet ascertained where the jewels are kept, nor +whether she has access to them. Are they in New York or in Italy? +Are they in the possession of Maria Roma in their apartment, or in a +safety-deposit vault? Why do you shadow the girl Carlota unless you are +perhaps in love with her?” + +Steccho’s eyes were brilliant with resentment that he dared not express +in words. + +“One must go slowly here, excellenza,” he said. “It is not Sofia. You +yourself would not have the power to shield me or hold the jewels if I +were caught. One must look the ground over thoroughly. Possibly, as you +say, they are not even here in America, but have been left in Italy.” + +Jurka smiled slowly. + +“I will satisfy you on that point, and relieve your doubt, my Steccho. +They are here. Duty was declared on the full collection, Palmieri tells +me. It passed as the private jewels of a non-resident alien. So far, +I do not believe Ogden Ward has even seen them, but I know the girl +has offered them to him in return for the sums he has advanced for her +musical education. She has no conception of their value.” + +“You know she has offered them to him, excellenza!” Steccho’s head +was thrust forward eagerly, the emphasis in his tone conveying his +incredulity. + +“Through Ward’s Japanese butler, Ishigaki. He overheard her the night +Ward gave the girl a dinner.” + +“Excellenza, your eyes are everywhere,” murmured the boy. + +“Not my eyes, Steccho,” smiled Jurka. “My gold. Georges here is an able +and cautious distributor, eh? Does the girl Carlota never wear her +jewels?” + +He stretched out his feet carelessly for Georges to fasten his boots. +The boy watched him with unblinking eyes, thinking of how once he had +seen their high, hard heels grind into the dead face of a man lying in +the snow. He was the friend of Dmitri and his group then. The war had +seemed far from their little mountain village until there came a day +when Jurka’s troops came through. They had quartered at the inn and +scattered among the different homes. Levano, old Levano, who preached +liberty and peace from his blacksmith forge, had staggered out into +the road after his two daughters had been violated, and had thrust his +red-hot branding-irons into the face of the soldiery. Jurka had ground +his heel on his mouth that had stiffened under choked curses. + +Later, in an upper room at the inn--He stared fixedly at the highly +polished boots of Jurka, and sought to fasten his memory solely on +Maryna and the little mother. The Count had said Maryna was a pretty +little thing the day he had saved Steccho from the troops. She had run +through the crowd in the village and had knelt to wipe her brother’s +bruised face. That was the first time he had seen her, and she was +barely fifteen. It had been later on, in the upper room at the inn, +that Steccho had sworn to enter the service of the Queen providing +safety might be assured the two left at Rigl. Whenever, as now, he was +tempted to spring at the white, self-assured throat, he forced himself +to think of them. He had come to-night primarily to ask if they were +still safe, if his excellenza had any news from Rigl, and to shake off +the disquieting effect of Dmitri’s philosophy. + +“I have never seen her wear jewels, excellenza,” he answered slowly. +“She is very young, about sixteen. They would not permit it, probably.” + +“She is nineteen and looks older,” returned the Count curtly. + +“Pardon--you have then seen her?” + +Jurka made no reply, but met the boy’s eager gaze with calculating +suspicion. + +“You are feeling your way through the dark, Steccho. Beware of pricking +swords. You have been allotted a certain task, a very easy task, +merely to find out where these jewels are if they are concealed in +the apartment of Carlota Trelango, and to get them at all risks. You +have two women as opponents, and you crawl and creep and shadow them +for weeks. You were told to enter their abode and search it. You were +told to find out their associates, their circumstances. What have you +accomplished save the incessant following of the girl herself. Are you +then infatuated, my Steccho? It is the eternal failing of youth.” + +Steccho’s face colored dully. Maryna was fifteen, the girl Carlota only +four years older. Most of the young girls of Rigl had been given to +the Jurka’s soldiery that week, excepting the three loveliest,--little +Roziska, the pale Wanda destined for the convent, and radiant Katinka +with eyes like Carlota’s, velvety, luminous. He had always watched her +in church when she knelt in the long shaft of purple light above the +aureole of Saint Genevieve. If there had been no war, he would have +married Katinka some day, but the three had been dragged to the rooms +above the inn, reserved for the high honor of his excellenza’s favor. +Were the jewels but part of his plan? If he had seen Carlota’s beauty, +would she not become like the three girls he had seen thrown out to the +soldiers after his excellenza had wearied of them? He lifted keen eyes +to the suave, smiling face. + +“They go nowhere, save to the places I have already told you.” + +Georges grimaced at his servility and protesting palms. + +“Recount!” ordered Jurka. “The Marchese, Ward, Jacobelli. Are there +more?” + +“No more.” The boy’s gaze never wavered. Dmitri had said it was a +romance, the affair in the Square, and they were his friends. It gave +him a curious, inmost thrill of happiness to feel that he was thwarting +the man who had killed the other girl, Katinka. + +The bell of the suite rang lightly. Georges sprang to his feet, laying +an evening suit over the boy’s arm, and pushing him before him into +the reception-hall. As he opened the door, he gave voluble directions +to the tailor’s assistant for the evening garb of the Count. The hotel +page presented several letters on a silver tray and passed on down the +corridor. + +“It is not safe for you to come here.” Jurka opened the letters with a +single thrust of a slender blade. His clean-cut dexterity fascinated +Steccho. “Where the devil do you live, anyway?” + +“Twenty-Eighth Street, East,” he lied simply. “I change often. A friend +told me of this place.” + +“Make no friends, I have told you.” + +“A former friend whom I had known in Sofia. I but met him on the street +one day, a very old man, Boris--” + +Georges held up his hand with a frown. The Count perused the first +letter he opened twice, and smiled. It was from Mrs. Carrington Nevins, +urgently requesting his presence and assistance in the success of her +entertainment at Belvoir, Long Island. + +“The social ruse always wins out, Georges. We are the emissaries of +the queen’s mercy; we wish to study the methods for rehabilitating the +wounded, for salvaging the war wreckage of humanity. The exiled queen’s +heart is torn with remorse for her poor lost ones. It sounds well +and opens many doors, among them, Belvoir.” He laughed and tossed the +letter to Georges. “Accept. It is for a week from Saturday.” + +Steccho waited his pleasure by the door. Timidly, as Jurka went through +his mail, he ventured to attract his attention once more. + +“Excellenza, you have heard some news recently, perhaps from Sofia, +from Rigl?” + +Georges motioned him to leave, but he lingered obstinately. + +“You have news of my mother and sister, yes, of Maryna, excellenza? You +remember Maryna, the little girl who--” + +The Count nodded his blond head towards the door. + +“Out!” he said briefly. “Bring me the jewels by Saturday.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Signor Jacobelli was in a baffled mood. Every time Carlota came for +her lesson, he would regard her thoughtfully, dubiously, but found no +solution to his problem in her happy, serene face and dark eyes that +held a gleam of mirth nowadays. + +Once she had just missed meeting Ward himself there. It had been his +first visit since the dinner, and after his departure a florist’s +messenger brought her a purple box filled with single-petaled Parma +violets. Under them lay a velvet case containing a pendant, two +perfect, pear-shaped pearls. She retained the messenger, writing on the +back of Ward’s own card in haste: + + SIGNOR: I thank you. The only jewels I ever wear are those of my + grandmother! + CARLOTA TRELANGO. + +“And the flowers--behold!” she flung up a window and leaned far out to +throw them down into the street. A street piano played below, the wife +of the owner turning the crank with a stout bambino on one hip. “You +throw her some money now, maestro, so that both soul and body are fed. +Who was it said, bread for the body, white hyacinths--” She checked +herself, recalling suddenly that it had been Dmitri who loved to chant +Mahomet’s axiom, but Jacobelli had not even noticed it. Grumblingly he +dropped a crumpled bill to the woman’s extended apron. + +“You are not a spoiled child any longer,” he told Carlota. “You are +now a person of destiny. Why, then, do you persist in acting like a +petulant marionette instead of the dignified artiste. You cannot afford +to rebuff Ward. He is your patron. You are merely a little beggar on +the doorstep of hope, my child, and you take on the airs of a queen.” + +“And here you have been telling me all along that I must learn to be +queenlike and aloof.” Carlota sat back in the winged armchair beside +the fireplace. It was far too deep and too high for her, having been +selected solely to accommodate the rotund proportions of Jacobelli, but +she preferred it. Some way, it had the significance of a throne chair +when she felt herself holding the balance of power, as now. “And if I +am a person of destiny, then how can anything that I do alter events?” +She laughed up at him softly, teasingly. He looked away from her in +somber disapproval. “Oh, my dear, dear good teacher and friend,” she +pleaded with swift reaction. “Forgive me. I will try, indeed I will. +What do you want me to do? Anything but see Mr. Ward alone.” + +“You shall prepare for your début.” Jacobelli took up her challenge +instantly. “Casanova will place you on the list for next season. That +will give you an entire year for more study. And you shall flame forth +in glory as Margherita or Gilda--” + +“Why not Santuzza or Aïda?” Carlota’s temper rose at his suggestion. +“Let me sing these, my maestro, when I am stout and placid some day, +but now, give me the new rôles.” + +“You seek the spectacular,” he accused. “You would be like all of the +women. They must have the greatest rôle of all written for them alone, +dedicated to them. Ah, do I not know!” + +Maria arrived in time to prevent his tirade against whims. She listened +in delight as he told of the interview with Casanova. + +“After it is all settled, she will be sweet and docile once more,” she +promised. “She has not been the same even to me since that night at Mr. +Ward’s.” + +“You think that is the reason, eh?” Jacobelli stared moodily before +him, feeling it was the proper time to enlighten Maria. And yet, how? +Were not his suspicions based on air? Only the voice down in the +Square was actually proof to himself, and how could he prove it to +others, when he had not even traced it? + +“For one thing, she is studying too hard, I think,” Maria pursued +earnestly. “Four lessons a week and such long ones; are they not too +much for the child, signor?” + +“Four?” repeated Jacobelli, one bushy eyebrow lifting in amazement. +“She tells you she has four lessons a week?” + +“Two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon. It is very strenuous, +I think.” + +“Doubtless so.” He rose and paced the floor with rising agitation. +Carlota had come to his studio three times each week, for a two-hour +lesson only. Here was proof positive that she was straying somewhere +into forbidden paths. “It is absolutely imperative, signora,” he began +huskily, when the suspected one came from the inner room, humming to +herself from the love tragedy of Mélisande. “Imperative that she make +her début next year,” he finished conclusively. “Delays are dangerous, +especially when one is overstudying.” + +The hidden rebuke passed completely by Carlota, as she said good-bye, +sparkling and confident, and Jacobelli pondered, with a sense of +responsibility, feeling that he alone knew the real reason for her +deception. Possibly Ptolemy or Dmitri might have enlightened him still +further. Necessarily Carlota’s visits had become more frequent, since +she was to sing the leading rôle in Ames’s operetta. He had won her +consent after many arguments and stormy scenes. Six times in one week +he had been summoned to Belvoir to consult with Mrs. Nevins about her +fête. Four times the black car with its buff and old gold interior had +waited his convenience outside the old brownstone row on Fourth Street, +and when Carlota arrived for her lesson, she had found only Ptolemy +in possession. Yet Ames had argued her into agreeing with him, that +this was his great opportunity to present his operetta under the most +favorable auspices. + +“And you are to sing Fiametta,” he told her positively. “You are the +perfect type for her, dear, a slim, aloof little princess, questing for +love. Can you get the two costumes, the peasant’s for the fête, and +the princess’s when she is in the castle? I suppose you could manage +the first out of your own wardrobe, and we will have to rent the other +royal raiment.” + +He was like a boy over the fun of actually preparing the production. +Carlota looked at him unforgivingly, even appraisingly, if one could +appraise joy. + +“I will never, never sing at the house of this Mrs. Nevins. She +has nothing in the whole world but money--nothing. She is utterly +impossible. She does not even know how to patronize graciously.” + +“But, dear heart, you must forget her entirely. You are not doing this +for her. It is for your own home land and the people you love there, +for their relief.” + +“But there is not a single person in your company with whom I care +to be seen. You have not one single artist, no one but these society +girls. I would never appear with them. I am a professional.” + +He laughed at her vehemence and hauteur. It was as if Ptolemy had taken +offense and expostulated against the privileged classes. He held her +hands fast in his. + +“You will, too. It will be over in no time, and I ask it for myself, +Carlota. I am absolutely selfish about it. You are my Fiametta. I wrote +it for you. No one else could ever sing it. You know you were its sole +inspiration. And who will know you out there? It is only to lend me +your wonderful voice for our success, and some day I shall see that you +sing it at the grand opera. Don’t you want me to win out?” + +He placed his hand under her obstinate, pointed little chin. Who was it +had written, + + “her perfect, fruit-shaped chin, + Such as Correggio loved to paint”? + +And her small, thoroughbred head with its close, brown curls, the +splendid depth and luster of her dark eyes, the clean, fine curve of +chin and throat, they were an ever-new delight to him. She lifted her +lashes slowly and met his gaze with accusing eyes. + +“Will--will this girl, your new pupil, sing a rôle also?” + +“Surely, dear,” he told her confidently. “One must throw some sops to +Cerberus, three-headed monster of wealth and otherwise. She will only +have the mezzo rôle of Nedda. But you will be my princess girl, singing +my ‘Quest of Love’ for love of Italy and me. And some day, when we are +very rich, just we two, we will go to Italy and find your Villa Tittani +with its rose-tinted walls. Would you climb them to find me?” + +Carlota smiled up at him, a flash of quick mischief in her glance. + +“And what of your father who lives in Colorado? Would he allow you +to”--she hesitated for the word: he had not said to marry--“to go away +after love quests for rose-walled villas?” + +“Dad wouldn’t say a word if I had produced several successful operas.” +Ames went over to the window and stared quizzically down at the Square. +“The verdict of your family rests solely on the world’s verdict first. +That’s the last word with Dad, success; whether you can change your +dreams into reality, kind of like the old alchemist’s trick with lead +into gold. The difference is that, to us, it is the dreams that are +more real than the consummation, eh, dear? Forget about him. Let’s +figure out about your costume.” + +“I can get both, signor,” she promised demurely; “and they will be +perfectly correct, I promise.” + +“Don’t call me that. Say Griffeth, or Griff. It isn’t exactly a pet +name, but I rather like it. I got it from some old Welsh forbear. +Listen, I know just what you should wear. Something with a straight +mediæval line like the velvet gown you wore at the Phelpses the first +night I met you. I thought then how much you were like some stray +princess girl like Rostand’s Lointaine. Remember, he called her his +remote princess.” + +Carlota slipped aside from his disturbing nearness, and knelt by the +fire to pet Ptolemy. + +“But that dress was not at all royal. I shall amaze you with one truly +magnificent.” + +He laughed at her boasting and insisted on showing her his idea of the +gown, draping her with a long silken strip of piña cloth that made a +train from her slim shoulders. On the shelf above the door was a brown +casserole in a perforated silver stand, crown-shaped. It made a perfect +coronal, Ames declared gravely, setting it down low over her curls, +somewhat heavy and Byzantine, but most becoming. Dmitri came in to +acclaim her, bringing with him the first potted azalea he had happened +to see in the market. He set it down on the window-seat in triumph. + +“See how much I love you!” he cried. “It was very heavy, but I +brought it, green tub and all. Do you know why? Of course not, my +poor simpletons. It is because these flowers grow wild in abundance +in my native land. They are like the roses of Sharon blossoming in +our mountain wildernesses, and the color is like the dawn flush, like +the maiden glow in the cheeks of our girls.” He regarded the plant +reflectively. “It is very strange how precious a symbol of memory +becomes. My heart leapt when I saw it in the window, all abloom. How do +you like it?” + +“I always want to kneel before flowers,” Carlota said softly, as she +touched the petals with her finger-tips lingeringly. “In Italy you +find flowers before the wayside shrines, and I liked them better than +churches. We had a shrine in a grotto at the end of the garden--” +She stopped, but neither had noticed her words. Dmitri was in a fine +abstract mood. + +“Shrines are the proper places of worship,” he stated positively. +“Groves first, no mountain-tops. All philosophers prefer the isolation +of the mountain-top; witness whoever thought first of Parnassus, also +Zarathustra and his taste for peaks. Every heart is in reality a secret +shrine where the spirit may worship beauty, truth, ideals, love, +without distraction. Why are you crowned to-day?” He broke off abruptly +to smile with a brooding tenderness over Carlota. + +Ames answered for her, telling of the approaching fête and of the +production of his opera. + +“And at last she has consented to sing Fiametta for me, isn’t that +great?” He spoke with a certain carelessness that always aroused Dmitri. + +“For you? And who are you?” he demanded. “You are the eternal +Harlequin, the dancing, masked juvenile of all history and fiction, the +necessary evil in all romance. You always win, no matter what cards +Fate deals you. You play with a stacked deck, I tell you to your face, +and your dice are loaded too. You are a trickster, and none may win the +hand of Columbine from you. We, who are a million times more worthy of +her love, we, the thinkers, the stable, faithful adorers, are not even +seen by her when you flirt your rapier, and twirl before her eyes. I +hate you.” He turned to Carlota calmly. “Are you going to sing at this +fête?” + +She smiled in confusion at his earnestness. + +“I feel I must because its theme is all about my princess of Castle +Tittani. I am responsible for it and its success.” + +“What name do you think would be good for her to take, Dmitri? You know +I do not even know her own to this day. It is her whim to hide it from +me. I think if it were really a beautiful one, she would tell, don’t +you?” + +“Ignore him,” Dmitri told her gravely. “Names are nothing. I thank +God I was a foundling. No, you did not know that, eh? There is a +certain road that leads to a monastery. If I told you where it is and +its name, you would not know anything about it, but it is very old, +back to the Crusades, a place of sanctuary for kings and road knights +alike. There is a shrine to Saint Demetra below it. I was left before +it, and a brother found me and took me to the gray stone refuge. +That is quite all as a basis of fact, but I weave about it the usual +fantasy of desire. First, Demetra is only our pagan goddess disguised. +She is Demeter of the harvest, the mother of food for the world, the +bountiful, the ever-pitiful. And I was named Dmitri. Again, always +your foundling grows up, imagining he is the lost son of the king, +always of noble blood. But not I, Dmitri.” He perched himself on the +window-seat, one arm around the azalea tub, smoking peacefully. “I like +to think there were many of us, and before I came, my mother hoped to +save me, the unwanted one, from the crowded life. I like to think she +found courage, with my coming, to put me forth to high adventure and +give me what you call ‘the big chance.’ So I feel brotherhood with all +the world; and when I was fourteen, they put me out of the monastery +with a fair education and a fine digestion. They feed you very well +there. The only thing is, I was undoubtedly ruined for the seats of +the mighty. A good digestion makes a man an optimist, and I was taught +to choose my food wisely, without satiety. I paraphrase the prophet. +Behold, as a man eateth, so is he.” + +“Perhaps they are all alive, your mother, and the others,” Carlota +almost whispered, as she leaned towards him, listening intently. + +“See, I have made you believe in my fantasy, too,” he smiled down at +her. “Child, even if they had existed, they would have died under the +sword of the Turks like all the rest. I was called Kavec by my friends +later on. It has a pleasant meaning, the giver. I have not found out +yet what it is I give best to the world, but you could have all I have.” + +“He is only trying to prove to you how selfish I am and what a +high-minded mountain dweller he is,” laughed Ames. “The car is +downstairs and my appointment is for one. You’ll go out with me to +rehearsal Tuesday, Carlota, then?” + +She rose with a little sigh. When Dmitri talked she forgot the +inevitable to-morrow of reality. + +“Have courage to refuse if you are doing it against your will,” urged +Dmitri. “He is merely a time-server.” + +“No.” She shook her head, meeting Ames’s anxious eyes. “I will go +Tuesday.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The learning of Fiametta’s rôle was a delight to Carlota. Once she +resolved to sing it at the fête, she threw herself into it with all her +heart. Ames would turn from the piano and stare up at her in amazement +as she delivered the difficult passages with a perfection of tone and +harmony that seemed unbelievable to him, considering the training she +had received. + +“You will be a sensation,” he told her. “The beautiful Signorita +Incognita. Sounds florid, doesn’t it? I want a stately, aloof name for +you. Listen, at the dress rehearsal, don’t be too distant with Mrs. +Nevins. She really can help you if she wants to.” + +Carlota’s fine dark brows had lifted at this, but she had not revolted. +She had all of the true artist’s consistency and faithfulness to a +rôle, once assumed. When the day arrived, and she went out to Belvoir +to the dress rehearsal in the Nevins’s car, she played her part with a +vivid charm and adaptability that puzzled Ames. She had her peasant’s +costume with her for the fête, but not the royal raiment. + +Mrs. Nevins picked her way through the transformed ballroom past +decorators and carpenters, more like the sprightly Queen of Trianon +at her amusements than ever. Her white curly hair was dressed in high +waves, her house-gown of black chiffon velvet trailing behind her, and +one bewildered Pekinese dog trying to rest itself on her train whenever +she paused. + +“My dear Griff, it is wonderful the progress you have made!” she +exclaimed. “Nathalie is completely enthralled over her rôle. Such +a tender, appealing little part, isn’t it? One feels she is merely +the toy of fate, torn from her love by the caprice of the princess. +I have spoken to Casanova of the operetta and he has half promised +to come out. Such a delightful and distinguished audience for your +first effort, the Italian ambassador and his wife, Ogden Ward, Count +and Countess Triolini, court painter to Humbert years ago, and Count +Jurka, who was court chamberlain to the unhappy Queen Sophia. The most +charming and unexpected sequence of this fearful war business has been +the eager willingness of one-time enemies to coöperate now in these +little relief funds. We must all pull together, mustn’t we, and forget +now. Jurka is the handsomest thing you ever saw; looks like a Zenda +hero and all that sort of thing. He is studying our relief methods for +the rehabilitation of the wounded, a special mission for the exiled +queen; so dear of her, isn’t it?” + +Carlota, sitting behind them, heard without noting the names. Her +mind was on Nathalie and her assumption of authority over Ames. It +was impossible for her to avoid seeing it. She had watched them +together constantly. Nathalie was beside him all the time, consulting, +directing, planning on every detail. She called him by his nickname +with a little, indolent proprietary intonation that enraged Carlota. +Yet she had kept her temper, and had sung her own rôle with ease and +surety. + +“Are you quite sure,” Nathalie had asked her, “that your gown will be +of the period and quite appropriate? It is too bad you could not have +worn it to-day so we might be certain. You understand, of course, mamma +would be only too pleased to secure exactly the right one for you if +you wish.” + +“It is most kind of you,” smiled back Carlota serenely. “I have my +gown. It is of the period and suitable for the princess.” + +“What name did you wish on the programme? I didn’t quite catch it, and +we are correcting the last proof on them to-day.” + +Carlota thought quickly and gave her new name with a flash of mischief. + +“Paola Roma.” + +“Oh, yes, you are really Italian, aren’t you? How interesting! Griff +told us that you had given him the little story that inspired the +operetta.” Nathalie’s slim fingers were busy with her hair, puffing out +the soft blond strands until it looked bobbed. “Of course,” she added +thoughtfully, “it’s one thing to give the idea, but quite another to +have made it a reality, isn’t it?” + +“I do not consider this a reality of Mr. Ames’s hopes or inspiration.” +Carlota’s heavy-lidded eyes glanced over the ballroom interior as if it +had been the side-show of some carnival. “This is really nothing but a +dress rehearsal from start to finish for him. The reality will be at +the grand opera itself next year.” + +“If mamma and Signor Casanova think it worth while,” Nathalie added +smilingly. “It was so nice of you to come out to-day. Griff has talked +of you a great deal but rather made you out a little tiger cat in +temperament. He told us how you broke the flower jar. You mustn’t have +any attacks out here to-morrow night, will you? We’ll all promise to +make everything easy for you.” + +“Better to break the flower jar than to flat your B,” laughed Carlota +wickedly, and the girl flushed quickly. + +Ames had pleaded with her for nearly fifteen minutes to beware of one +high note she always missed the purity of. The quick rap of his baton +called them to attention, but the sparkle did not leave Carlota’s eyes, +and on the way home she was silent and unresponsive. + +She had planned a dozen different ways how to escape from Maria’s +watchfulness the following night. Almost she had decided to take the +Marchese into her confidence, and beg him to coax the signora away for +the evening. It could not possibly go on much longer, the deception, +nor did she wish it to. She would appear for him this once, secure the +triumph for him, and afterwards the visits to the Square would cease. +He was too absorbed, too selfish, she told herself passionately. He was +stupid, too, else he would never have been deceived by her voice. If he +had loved her, he would have found out about her at all hazards. She +had given him freely, all she knew of art, had even given him the theme +for his operetta, and he was thankless, as Dmitri said. He took it for +granted that she was a girl of the people, from the Italian quarter +below the Square, when, if he had merely thought twice, he might have +known, as the protégée of the Marchese Veracci that first night he had +seen her, she must have been somebody unusual. + +“Shall I take you to the entrance?” Ames asked, as they neared the +apartment. “You are tired, aren’t you?” + +She shook her head. + +“Stop at the subway station in the Circle. I will take a taxi over from +there, and say I have been shopping. Maria is not home, anyway. She had +a call from her lawyer here--” Suddenly she turned and faced him. “How +did you know where I lived? I did not know what I was saying.” + +He took both hands in his, drawing her to him tenderly. + +“Dmitri told me you were from peacock land. That is what he calls it up +this way. He has a friend who knows you and gave it away.” + +“A friend who knows me, Dmitri?” she repeated in surprise. “But I--we +have no friends here. What did he tell you?” + +“Nothing at all, except that you lived in an apartment near Central +Park, when I had pictured you on Mulberry or Spring, enriching the +quarter with your sweetness. And I was tempted to go to the old +Marchese and ask him all about you.” + +She drew her hands from his, shrinking from the mere mention of such +a possibility, foreseeing the excitement that would follow. Maria, +Jacobelli, would the Marchese deem it his duty to tell them? + +“Listen to me,” she said, with the somber earnestness that sat so oddly +on her youth. “I forbid you ever to discuss me with any one. When I +wish you to know all about me, I myself will tell you. You understand?” + +“And I am supposed to bow and say the queen can do no wrong,” laughed +Ames. “You will tell me yourself after the fête to-morrow night. There +will be a little time between the end of the operetta and the dancing. +Mrs. Nevins has arranged a special little celebration for a few and I +shall have to stay for that, but I’ll send you back in the car safely.” + +“I wish you to leave me here,” she said abruptly. + +The car had turned into Park Avenue from Fifty-Ninth Street, and +against every protest she left him, walking north towards the St. +Germain, hardly caring whether he watched her destination or not. As +she turned into the vestibule, the Marchese himself rose to greet her, +smiling, courtly, immaculately garbed as if he had just stepped from a +reception at the Quirinal. After Ames’s threat the sight of him almost +weakened her; and she gave him her hand in silence. + +“I knew if I but waited long enough, you would surely come,” he said +jauntily. “And the time was not long. I have been loitering in the +tobacconist’s shop at the corner. There is a man whom one might talk +with over the coffee-cups in any famous center of the world, Cairo, +Bagdad, Calcutta, Constantinople, or a desert khan in Persia. He was a +worker in enamels before the war, then a spy, and now, behold, he sells +cigarettes with a good conscience to New Yorkers. An incipient seer.” + +Carlota was relieved as he occupied himself with his own conversation. +Maria had not returned when they entered the apartment, and she threw +off her velvet cloak with relief. + +“I’ll make us some Russian tea, just as you like it best,” she +promised--“slices of orange with whole cloves in them. Maria will come +soon. She went to see the lawyer about the mistake on the jewels, +something about the customs, I think it was.” + +The Marchese sat erect. + +“The customs on the jewels?” he repeated. “I saw to that myself when +you entered the port. There could be no possible error. Why did she not +consult me first? Who is this person?” + +“A friend of Mr. Ward’s. Signor Jacobelli recommended him, I believe. +He thought she might have paid too much, and offered to go over the +list with her.” + +“I do not care for our friend and good patron, Mr. Ward.” The +Marchese’s pointed mustache rose higher. “There is something sinister +about him. Ah,” as Carlota brought a tea-tray and set it beside him +on a low stool, “so did your beloved grandmother always serve it in +the terrace loggia. You have her way exactly, my child, and her lovely +hands.” + +Carlota piled cushions beside him, and lighted the lamp beneath the +tea-kettle. Then she settled herself comfortably, and looked up at him +as she had so often in the days he spoke of. Always it had been the +Marchese who had been her confidant. + +“Don’t you think that Maria is looking very tired?” + +“I thought her never more attractive and charming than that evening at +Mr. Ward’s.” + +“But since then. I don’t think that she goes out enough,” Carlota +insisted. “She is sacrificing herself too much for me. I beg her to go +and she will not. She says she has nowhere to go and she knows no one +here excepting yourself.” + +“But, my dear child, it must not be!” exclaimed the Marchese warmly. +“Of course it has been for your sake that she has secluded herself here +in New York. You can see what a beauty she was in her day. Signora +Roma! I have heard La Scala resound with her praises, rise to her +triumph! She must not feel that she is neglected or lonely, such a +woman.” + +“Perhaps if you would only tell her. She needs some one who has known +her at her great moments, don’t you know?” + +“Certainly I know,” he reassured her. “It was quite right of you +to tell me. We will have a beautiful, quiet little dinner for her +to-morrow night down at the Brevoort or Lafayette, yes? Whichever +she likes, and afterwards the opera. The San Remo Company is here +from South America; not so wonderful as the Metropolitan, but very +delightful and intimate. You persuade her for me, and then at the +psychological moment, as they say over here, we will take her by storm +and make her say yes.” + +The outer bell rang lightly. + +“Don’t tell her about it now,” warned Carlota. “It must be done very +diplomatically or she will suspect us. Telephone to her later that you +have the seats and cannot take no for an answer.” + +After he had gone Maria took her accustomed siesta. Veracci had sought +to interest her by talking of the customs matter coming up again, but +she waved him from her laughingly. + +“I will not talk of anything disagreeable with you. It is quite all +right, merely a little formality to go through. I assured them we were +not remaining here permanently and the collection belongs in Italy. Mr. +Ward had insured me every courtesy there.” + +The Marchese had elevated his expressive eyebrows, but did not press +the point. After his departure Carlota sat by the window, embroidering +a headband in rose and gold thread. How was she to open the jewel chest +without Maria’s knowledge. And she must have them for the princess’s +court costume. There was one gown of gold tissue over old-rose metal +cloth, an exquisite mediæval robe that lay like a web of sunlight in +one of the chests. The court train was of crimson velvet embroidered +in seed pearls, and with it she longed to wear the full set of the +Zoroaster rubies. Since she was to be his princess before these people, +she must bear herself royally for his sake. + +She sighed, and laid aside her work to look down at the quiet street. +Below strolled a figure she recognized, Steccho, a belated sentinel. +He had lingered in the cigar-shop while the Marchese chatted to his +friend, the worker in enamels. Halfway through the night he had sat +with him and Dmitri in a basement coffee-house on East Twenty-Seventh +Street, listening to the new gospel of optimism which Dmitri loved +to spread, he who could see good in all things and believed that +service is the stabilizer of humanity’s caprice. Yet, while Steccho had +listened and smoked, he had watched the face of every newcomer eagerly, +hoping to find one fresh from Rigl. He was growing tired of playing +watchdog for Jurka. + +Carlota drew the curtains together as she encountered his steady, +uplifted gaze. Why did this boy keep guard over her? she wondered, +and slowly smiled. He did not seem a menace. There had been a look +of admiration in his eyes the day he had returned her gloves to her. +Jacobelli had told her she must prepare to accept homage from all, and +Ames had said a friend of Dmitri’s had told him where she lived. She +looked out after him as he passed leisurely down the street. In all +the old-time romances that she loved, there was the “shepherd in the +distance,” the page who caroled unseen to Kate the queen, the gondolier +who dared to lift his heart to the rose that touched a closed lattice. +She wondered who he could be. + +Maria sighed and stirred. The telephone rang on the little painted +stand, and Carlota answered it. It was the Marchese, calling the +signora. She laughed softly as he spoke to her, the color rising softly +in her cheeks. + +“Cara mia, it is delightful of him,” she exclaimed, as she hung up +the receiver. “He is the most thoughtful, charming knight errant. Ah, +if you could have seen him thirty years ago! The handsomest man in all +Italy. He has asked us to dine to-morrow with him and go to see ‘The +Jewels of the Madonna.’ It will do you good. Jacobelli tells me you +will have it in your repertoire next year.” + +A curious light came in Carlota’s dark eyes, a tender, half-penitent +light. “The Jewels of the Madonna,” and she was planning how to secure +the old jewels lying hidden away in the Florentine chest by the +fireplace. Even though they were her own, she felt a secret, guilty +thrill over deceiving those who loved her. Surely the “Quest of Love” +led one far astray and alone. + +But the signora was in a gaysome mood, affectionate, pliable. She would +have everything en fête. Never was she so happy as when planning a new +costume that should charm and bewilder. For the dinner she would wear +black velvet with a scarf of Roumanian gypsy work, intricate embroidery +of orange and black that seemed made for her, Carlota said, as she +draped it around her statuesque shoulders. + +“You should wear a heavy necklace of topaz with that, topaz and +emeralds, or just topaz set in silver.” + +“Heart’s treasure, how you know the correct touch. Get me the key of +the small chest.” + +“But--aren’t you wearing it, dear, around your neck?” + +Maria smiled at her delightedly, archly. + +“I find a new hiding-place for it daily, ever since I have feared +it was known we had them here. To-day it is in the pot of cyclamen. +Yesterday I put it in the back of the clock. Am I not wonderful?” + +Carlota laughed and discovered the key planted carefully in the pot of +cyclamen as she said. + +“To-night you shall hide it and show if you are a good mystifier. Look +in the third tray and get out the necklaces. They are in the large +tray.” + +The lock gave rustily. Carlota sat on the floor with the tray on her +lap, lifting out the old necklaces in a dream. They were heavy and +old-fashioned, but set with perfect gems. She found the topaz one and +hung it around the signora’s throat gently. + +“It is superb,” she sighed. “I was very attractive in my prime, carina, +but never like your grandmother. Ah, jewels were made for her as stars +for the night. Here, pile them in my drawer and pick out pearls for +yourself. You will wear white while you can. After thirty it is sad.” + +The following day dragged slowly. Towards evening Carlota suddenly +pressed her cheek with one palm as she sat at the piano. It was nothing +at all, she protested, a little faintness and pain in her head. + +“Nothing at all!” exclaimed Maria stormily. “When that miserable old +slave-driver Jacobelli is killing you! He thinks you are made of steel. +You must not go out to-night. I will telephone Veracci at once and he +will agree with me.” + +But Carlota protested the Marchese would be broken-hearted if neither +of them put in an appearance. He had his seats for the opera, and had +even assured her he would order special delicacies from the chef he +knew they would enjoy. It would never do to disappoint him. Maria must +go, at all events. + +It seemed hours before the last hum of the taxicab died away in the +street below, and she turned from the window after waving to Maria. +She was to go immediately to bed, relax utterly, breathe deep, forget +everything and sleep. She had promised compliance faithfully, and +now stood hesitant, feeling herself a traitor to all their love for +her and kindness. Only for this one night, she told herself, to make +sure of his success and she would never go to the Square again. It +was a twenty-minute run out to Belvoir once the Jamaica turnpike +was reached. She ordered a taxi softly over the house telephone, and +turned to the chest. Almost wistfully and regretfully she drew the key +from the hiding-place Maria had let her choose, in the back of an oval +silver frame that held her mother’s portrait. Would not Bianca Trelango +understand, more than any other, her daughter’s temptation to aid her +love? + +“You would not think it wrong, would you?” she whispered, as she knelt +before the outspread treasures from the past. Maria kept each piece +of jewelry carefully separate and wrapped in chamois, the pearls in +one tray, the rubies in another, and so on. The largest pieces lay in +their velvet cases at the bottom, tiaras and stomachers. Carlota hunted +through the chest until she found all she longed for, the rubies her +grandmother had worn in “Semiramide.” There were three pieces, the +tiara, necklace, and heavy girdle, each set with the gems so thickly +that she caught her breath with delight. The rubies were clumsily +cut and needed polishing, but they glowed slumberously against the +black-velvet case, and the center stone of the tiara was the superb +Zarathustra jewel itself, part of the plunder of Persia. The necklace +was in sixteen strands of matched pearls with a double pendant of +rubies. As she stood up to try it around her neck, she let the heavy +golden girdle fall to the floor. + +The sudden noise startled her, and she listened, one hand pressed +hard against her beating heart. The curtains were drawn at the front +windows, but were up here at the fire escapes. She drew them carefully, +and waited, but there was no sound, nothing but the occasional rumble +of a street car over on Madison Avenue. + +The telephone bell rang and she barely kept back a cry of alarm, +forgetting the taxi call she had sent in. With the costumes in a +suitcase and the jewels in her traveling bag, she went downstairs, +whiter than usual, her eyes wide and expectant. + +“Shall I take the bag outside, miss?” asked the chauffeur. He reached +for it solicitously, but she held it on her lap with both hands, and +leaned back with closed eyes. + +“Thanks, no. Hurry, please. Belvoir, Mrs. Carrington Nevins’s residence +at Strathmore. It is down near the shore past the country club. Take +the shortest way after you leave the turnpike. How long will it take, +do you think?” + +“About an hour.” + +As the taxi turned into Park Avenue, she leaned forward and drew the +curtain hastily. Standing on the corner, with his back to the street, +was Steccho talking to Dmitri. Neither had seen her, but she left the +curtains down all the long, lonely way out to Strathmore, on the north +shore of Long Island. Already the rubies had laid their crimson fear on +her imagination, and she dreaded she knew not what from the two silent +figures that lingered near her home. Was Dmitri, too, one to be shunned +and doubted? Why did they seek her? She wished with all her heart that +she had taken the Marchese into her confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +It was after nine when the taxi wheeled around the crescent drive at +Belvoir. Carlota leaned forward, her sense of beauty thrilled at the +effect of the place in the full moonlight. It was modeled exactly, as +Mrs. Nevins loved to explain, after Diane de Poitiers’s love cote in +France, Chenonceaux. + +The fête was in full swing. She did not see Ames anywhere, but told +one of the footmen who approached her that she was a singer on the +programme. He led the way back of the gay crowd in the flower-festooned +corridors to an inner court that had been transformed into an Italian +village en fête. + +Standing at the head of a wide, curving staircase was Mrs. Nevins, +garbed as Vittoria Colonna, the noble lady who was Michelangelo’s +inspiration. Nathalie stood near, a silk domino only half concealing +her chic peasant dress. At sight of her Carlota caught her breath +involuntarily. Even as a child she had always loved the fêtes at the +Villa Tittani, and the distinguished guests who had flocked there +around the grand old Contessa. Here she was merely an unknown singer, +passing unnoticed through a throng of strangers. The whimsicality of +it touched her sense of humor and amused her. She was indeed Fiametta, +moving unknown among the villagers. + +Jacobelli stood chatting with Count D’Istria, the ambassador. They were +almost within arm’s length of Carlota as she passed by them, unseen and +unseeing, her eyes seeking only for Ames. + +“You are not overfond, then, of these society theatricals?” asked the +Count. “It is for an excellent object, the milk fund for Italy.” + +Jacobelli lifted bored, deprecating eyebrows. + +“It is torture to me, but what would you? The lady has a daughter with +a voice, and she will have none but Jacobelli’s opinion of its quality. +Therefore I come to-night to oblige. But, ah, Count, if you could but +hear my genius, my star of evening who will shortly, before another +season, burst into full splendor. You recall La Paoli?” + +D’Istria nodded interestedly. + +“Many times I have heard my father speak of her beauty and art. I have +myself been to her villa during her last years. She reigned there at +Tittani as an ex-empress might have done.” + +“She was incomparable,” Jacobelli murmured contentedly. “Then possibly +you may recall the grandchild whom she adored, Bianca’s daughter. +Her father was the young artist from Florence whom Paoli befriended, +Peppino Trelango.” + +The Count nodded and smiled. A child with eyes such as Del Sarto loved +to paint. Yes, he remembered her. Delightedly, then, the old maestro +launched into the romance of the old Contessa’s death, of how Maria +Roma had brought Carlota to America, of the Marchese’s interest in her, +and how Ogden Ward had insured her success with his patronage. + +D’Istria shook his head at the mention of the financier. + +“I would keep her out of his reach,” he advised. “She is too young to +parry the advances of such a man. Mind, I admire him greatly. He is a +power in the world, a very great patron of the arts if you will, but +likewise, Jacobelli, of the artistes. Arm’s length, I beg.” + +“He will be here to-night.” Jacobelli scanned the crowd, his five feet +five overtopped by many. Suddenly his eyes glowed with interest, seeing +a newcomer enter the court enclosure. “Is that not Jurka? I have not +seen him since 1915. He was here on some government work, an attaché at +Washington. A very handsome fellow, isn’t he?” + +D’Istria did not glance behind him. Arms folded, he stood almost at +attention, his lips compressed slightly, his eyes watching Mrs. Nevins +as she came down the wide staircase with Griffeth Ames. + +“There is the type of man whom I admire,” he said. “He has life and +inspiration in his face, and he walks like one who has ridden the air.” + +“I do not know him.” Jacobelli overlooked the stranger blandly. +“Casanova told me Mrs. Nevins is a collector of celebrities. This is +some youngster whose operetta she is to give a little try-out to-night, +his first chance. I shall leave as soon as the daughter finishes her +aria.” + +But the Count appeared interested in the blond youngster, and merely +followed with his gaze the slim, distinguished figure of the Bulgarian +ex-attaché, as the latter moved through the throng. + +The suite reserved for the singers and other entertainers was on the +second floor. Carlota resented the line of demarcation between the +professionals and the society participants, but Ames came to her as +soon as he could relinquish Mrs. Nevins to Jurka. He was so happy and +buoyant, she dared not say anything to curb or quell his enthusiasm. + +“Forget them all, dear,” he whispered to her. “Think of what this may +mean for us both. I wish Casanova were here. She tried to get him, but +he hates these society round-ups, and I don’t blame him. Did you find +your dressing-room? I got one for you alone.” + +After he had gone one of the maids assisted her to unpack and slip into +the court costume. There was a full-length mirror in the inner door. +She regarded her reflection in it gravely as the woman arranged her +curls, combing them into soft full clusters around her shoulders. The +deep, vivid color of the gown was strikingly becoming to her. + +“You should have some jewels--” she began. + +“They are all there, in my handbag,” Carlota directed. As she opened +the cases the maid gave a smothered exclamation of surprise, and +glanced sharply at this girl pupil of Ames, who, she had heard the +other servants say, had come from the Italian quarter in New York. +Her experience told her these were real jewels and worth thousands of +dollars. + +“You will wear them all, miss?” she asked curiously, lifting the heavy +stomacher of gold links, delicate as certain fragile shells. + +Carlota nodded and set the tiara on her head herself. The great +Zarathustra ruby in its center glowed and sparkled as if it held a +heart of fire. She held out her hands for the necklace. + +“Do you like them?” she asked simply, smiling for the first time at the +maid. “They came from Italy and were my grandmother’s.” + +“From Italy?” The woman straightened back her shoulders. “I am from +Averna myself. You know Averna, near Roma?” + +“Ah, do I not!” Carlota clasped her hands suddenly to her throat, the +tears rising hot and quick to her lashes. Averna, the little tiny +village one might see from the end of the gardens, Averna with its +songs lifting on the evening air, and its little children clambering up +the long steep rocky road, the young goats tumbling around them. “I--my +home was near there, the Villa Tittani.” + +The woman knelt at her feet, folding her hands to her lips rapturously, +and back on her feet in an instant, calm-faced. + +“See how small the sea and world are,” she said. “I do not work here. I +am an extra for to-night, and I find a face that has looked on Averna. +I know Tittani well--” + +A rap came at the door and Ames’s voice, calling to her to hurry. +Carlota sighed, drawn back from the old days. + +“Lay out the peasant dress, please, and don’t forget the scarf for the +head. It is hand-embroidered on old linen in red and yellow.” + +Before the operetta she ventured to steal out of a small balcony from +the upper corridor, overlooking the inner court below. Although it was +still early, they were dancing in one of the smaller rooms. She saw +Ames enter with others, and recognized Nathalie even in her domino. All +of the débutantes who were to sing wore them. And was it not as Dmitri +warned her? He was a success with these people, she thought, wistfully. +He was to reap a triumph to-night, and she had been foolish enough to +risk her whole career for his, to jeopardize her future merely to make +his operetta a success. + +The woman from Averna had struck a chord of memory that unnerved her. +She felt the lonely sorrow of Fiametta, the princess in disguise, +seeking her love at the festa, and finding him only as the dancing +Harlequin. + +Ames sought her once more before the overture. The maid had thrown +a black silk domino around her when she was ready to go down to +the improvised stage, and she drew the hood closely over her head, +concealing the tiara. + +“All right?” he whispered confidently. “Keep your nerve, dear. It all +depends on you, after all. Fiametta carries the action and sympathy.” + +She smiled back into his eyes in silence, compliant to his wishes, +eager for his success. Nathalie pressed past them with several other +girls, and laid her hand on his arm. + +“We’re looking everywhere for you, Griff!” she cried. “Mamma’s so +afraid you might forget the supper-dance afterwards. It’s only for a +few, and we want you to stay. Will you, just for me?” + +He passed down the long stairs with them and she heard no more, but as +she followed the maid down to the stage, a flood of fiery rebellion +swept over her, and waiting for the music, there was the look of Paoli +in her pose and flashing eyes. + +D’Istria and Jurka had avoided each other by tacit mutual consent. +One long look they had interchanged, and the ambassador’s eyebrow had +raised ever so slightly. He had given no sign of recognition, but even +to Jacobelli the enmity between the two men was unmistakable. He would +have been more interested in it, possibly, had not Ogden Ward arrived +late, and he remained with him, telling him of Casanova’s offer. + +The first strains of opening music caught his ear. Ames did not call +it an overture. It was not pretentious enough for that. It was merely +a prelude, a mingled fantasy of Italian village-fête melodies, the +harmonies that spring involuntarily from the very life-blood of a +people. Jacobelli listened in alert surprise. This unknown composer had +caught the secret and had woven it into his opera. He hunted covertly +for his programme. The name on it, “Griffeth Ames,” meant nothing to +him nor did that of the soprano, Paola Roma. Had he been suspicious, +Carlota’s twirling about of names to suit her fancy might have given +him a clue, but as it was, his professional interest in the composer +absorbed him, and he passed the name by. + +In the opening duet between Peppino and Nedda he suffered visibly, +whispering to D’Istria. + +“Ah, money, what crimes are committed in thy name! They choke art, +these people; they strangle it to death with cash and coupons.” + +The action of the operetta was swift. Peppino had come to the castle +with his daily catch. His sweetheart follows him, jealous of his +admiration for the princess and his lingering in her garden. From the +bower window in the tower, Fiametta watches him, and, half-hidden, +hears him sing his love for her, “a certain star beyond all love of +mine!” Peppino promises Nedda she shall be his choice at the festa +the following day, and their betrothal announced, and she leaves, +satisfied. The princess lingers in the garden after they have gone and +sings “Cerca d’Amore,” the quest of love. + +It was on this aria that Ames based his greatest hope, and even as he +led the orchestra, he sensed back of him the thrill which ran over the +audience at the entrée of Carlota. He himself stared up at her in blank +amazement. She had worn her silk domino up to the final moment and +he had not seen her costume. But now, as she lifted her voice in the +opening strains of the “Quest” song, he stared and marveled. + +Mrs. Nevins lifted her pince-nez and never lowered it until the curtain +fell on the interlude. Then she remarked to the woman next her in tones +which demanded an explanation from Mr. Ames, “That girl is wearing a +fortune in real jewels!” + +Jacobelli was near-sighted. Hindered by the crowd from a clear view +of the stage, the Fiametta motif did not warn him of what was about +to happen, but the first notes of Carlota’s voice shocked him into +attention. She was singing as never before. The rôle appealed to her, +the lonely little princess planning her disguise at the fête, seeking +her fisher-boy love. Her rendering of the aria was a sensation. He +caught a glimpse of D’Istria’s face, of Ward’s, and trembled with +emotion. In front of him was a large, stately grande dame with opera +glasses. He reached for them out of her hand imperatively. + +“You permit, if you please? I cannot see. It is most imperative that I +see, you understand?” + +She stared at him ineffectually, but Jacobelli was far too engrossed to +notice her. He had recognized Carlota through the lenses, and the color +rose thickly to his face. The tragic truth burst upon him. His star +had been stolen from him by this young unknown composer, his flower +of genius was already plucked before his eyes, and flaunted at this +miserable society fête as the pupil of another. + +Even while he stood with the glasses held close to his eyes, a hand +reached over his shoulder, a peremptory hand, accustomed to obedience, +and took the glasses from him. + +“You will pardon me,” Count Jurka said gently. “It is very urgent that +I see closely.” + +Impotently Jacobelli glared at him. The Count’s face was absolutely +expressionless. Possibly Georges might have guessed that his master +was laboring under sudden excitement from the extreme pallor which +accentuated his resemblance to a statue. Calm, youthful, and blond, +he seemed the embodiment of possibly Endymion or Ganymede, a slender, +effete godling, bored, as Dmitri had said, by the ennui of satiety. + +Ward’s face as he watched Carlota wore an amused, satirical expression. +During the interlude Jacobelli started to speak to him, but was +silenced by the “Hush” of those nearest him. Ames’s music held society +under a spell, and Mrs. Nevins was conscious of a strange mingling of +satisfaction and resentment over the girl Carlota daring to appear with +an array of jewels not one woman in the crowd could have equaled. + +The climax of the operetta was the stabbing of Fiametta at the feast. +Nathalie sang Nedda with an immature insouciance that was in character +with the rôle. Peppino was sung by Jolly Allan, a young bachelor +with a rich, reckless sort of voice. When he danced with the masked +princess at the festa, Nedda stopped him in a jealous fury, demanding +why he had neglected her. He answered with the “Quest of Love,” the +beautiful waltz song of the princess. Together, as they sing it, they +dance, until suddenly Nedda stabs her unknown rival, and as she dies in +Peppino’s arms, she is unmasked and the people recognize their princess. + +The curtain fell in a tumult of acclamation. Count Jurka was already +bowing low over the hand of his hostess. It was with the utmost regret +he must take his leave thus early. Only the opportunity of attending +her fête could have brought him out from town. He congratulated her +on securing the services of--ah, what was the young girl’s name--Miss +Roma? He stepped back to make room for Ward. + +Jacobelli had broken away from the crowd, and was finding his way to +the dressing-rooms beyond the balcony. Ames was already there before +him, proud and joyous, forgetting everything but Carlota and her +amazing triumph. At the entrance to the green and ivory salon off +the balcony, the maestro encountered Nathalie, and poured forth his +suspicions to her. + +“This young singer, this girl, what do you call her?” + +“You mean Miss Roma?” She smiled at him innocently. “Why, she’s a pupil +of Mr. Ames, I believe, from the Italian quarter back of where he lives +on Washington Square.” + +Jacobelli stared at her. The memory of the duet from “Bohème” came back +to him with a jolt of pain. It had been her voice, then, that day. He +had not been mistaken. + +“Ah, but everybody is crazy!” he exclaimed heatedly. “She is my pupil, +Carlota Trelango, the greatest coming singer of the age! Where is she? +See, I will confront her. I will show him up and prove that she is my +pupil.” + + * * * * * + +With her hand drawn through his arm, Ames was leading Carlota down the +opposite flight of stairs into the court when she suddenly drew back. + +“Please, I can’t go down there,” she whispered, pleadingly. “Let me go +home at once. I--I am not well; I want to leave now.” + +Through the crowd came Ward towards them leisurely, with the abstracted +air that was his habitually, but he had already seen her, and she +shrank back from his amused, twisted smile that seemed to degrade all +that this had meant to her. Before Griffeth could detain her, she had +turned and sped back up the crimson carpeted staircase into the long +salon, and there came face to face with Jacobelli. + +“Ingrate!” he gasped explosively, beating the air with both hands at +sight of her. He wheeled about on Ames. “You--you say you are the great +teacher--the maestro, when you take my greatest pupil from me--from +Jacobelli!” + +“It’s a damned lie!” Ames retorted shortly. “She is not your pupil. +I’ve been teaching her for weeks, months, myself.” + +“But she knows nobody here in America; it is utterly impossible!” cried +the old maestro. “For two years I have taught her all I know. You know +not what you say.” + +Ames caught the glances of those around them and bit his lip to +keep back the words he longed to hurl at this wild-eyed, explosive +individual. + +“Pardon,” he said curtly. “Miss Roma is my affianced wife. Now I am +sure you will give me credit for being aware of her identity.” + +“Listen to him!” Jacobelli’s rage boiled over. He appealed to Nathalie +and her little group of girl friends, to Mrs. Nevins as she approached +them with Ward. “Mr. Ward, I beseech--I demand that you assist me in +denouncing this impostor. Is not Carlota Trelango my pupil and the +granddaughter of the great Margherita Paoli? Does she not make her +début at the Opera next season under Casanova?” + +Mrs. Nevins moved forward deliberately, and addressed Carlota. + +“Won’t you kindly end this distressing scene, Miss Roma, and leave as +soon as possible? I thank you for your services.” + +Carlota stood an instant, hesitant and proud. Ames held the little cold +hand on his arm in a close grasp. Head up, he was her champion, but it +was a question now which adversary to engage first, so many assailed +her. In Nathalie’s blue eyes was lurking a challenging ridicule as her +gaze met his. + +And suddenly D’Istria appeared at the head of the staircase with +several friends. He came forward into the salon and bowed low over the +hand Carlota extended to him wonderingly, gratefully. + +“Oh, Count D’Istria,” she cried eagerly. “You are here!” + +Perhaps D’Istria himself sensed the meaning of the silent group around +her. He answered gently, deferentially. + +“After these years, signorina, it is with the greatest pride for our +Italy that I greet you to-night. The last time you were weaving chains +of rosebuds at the old Contessa’s knee in the garden of Tittani. Now, I +find you wearing a crown of laurel on your own little head.” + +Mrs. Nevins caught her breath swiftly, but Jacobelli murmured over and +over, pacing the length of the salon alone, as if it gave him the only +inward relief, the one word, + +“Ingrate!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It was quarter of eleven when Jurka’s car left Belvoir. Along the shore +road it sped, a low, fleeting shadow lured by its own projecting rays, +as if some sinister genie of the night were drawing it irresistibly on +towards the city glow in the west. + +The Count smoked thoughtfully, leisurely, selecting cigarettes from a +black and gold enameled case as one selects favorites from a seraglio. +Fate had tendered him the information he had come to America after, +and he already contemplated a pleasurable return to Switzerland first, +and then to Sofia with the profits from what he cleverly dubbed Love’s +plunder. + +He had recognized them the instant Carlota had stepped into the full +light. First the tiara with its splendid center ruby, the Zarathustra, +and the curious Byzantine setting. The ruby was one of the three +greatest in the world. It had been taken, centuries before, from a +shrine of the Zoroastrians beyond the Caspian country. Slipping from +hand to hand it had brought untold carnage and horror to the land whose +queen wore it on her brow. Only half a century before it had been +coveted by a woman of the Balkans whose ambition led her throneward. +She had been maid of honor to an emotional, harassed queen, and had +stepped over her dead body to wed her son. The price of the ruby had +been one keen, swift knife-thrust through her heart and another for the +blundering, love-blind prince. Ten years after, the ruby had been found +in a Cairo curio-shop by one who knew its value, and had been sent +out to seek the jewel marts of Amsterdam. It had been returned to the +Bulgarian state coffers until Paoli, in the zenith of her beauty and +fame, had received it from the hands of the crown prince, mounted in +the tiara with other gems fit to bear it company. + +The girl Carlota could not be aware of the value or tremendous +significance of the rubies, Jurka reflected, else why should she +subject herself to the danger of wearing them in public? Taken with the +necklace and stomacher, they represented an immense sum, entirely apart +from their peculiar antiquarian value. Yet she had donned them for this +charity fête as if they had been paste. + +Touching the mother-of-pearl button concealed in the buff suède +cushions, he drew a small, black-belted card-case from his breast +pocket, and opened a folded oblong of thin tracing-paper. Drawn upon +it delicately was a perfect sketch of the settings holding the crown +rubies. Jurka held it close to the shaded bulb, studying the detail +carefully until the car approached the city. + +“Choose quiet streets,” he ordered through the speaking-tube. “Make +haste!” + +His early arrival was unexpected by Georges, and the valet stood on +guard as the key sounded in the outer lock. + +“Pardon, excellenza,” he begged. “I did not know whom to expect.” + +“Find me Steccho at once. Take him in a taxi to the Park entrance at +Columbus Circle. Dismiss the car there and walk into the shadows of +the Park. I will pick you up a hundred yards beyond the Monument at +twelve-thirty.” He paused to glance at his own reflection in the long +mirror, adding, as to his chauffeur, “Make haste!” + +Back at Belvoir Carlota had dressed while Jacobelli paced up and down +outside her door. The maid assisted her excitedly, fondling the jewels +and gown as she packed them. + +“You were a triumph, Miss Roma,” she said. “They talk of nothing but +you outside.” + +Carlota did not answer. Her face was pale and determined. Jacobelli had +telephoned the Lafayette after demanding from her Maria’s whereabouts. +He had had the Marchese paged, and had asked him most sarcastically +where he imagined Carlota might be at that hour. Where, returned the +old Marchese genially, but in her own bed, reposing restfully, after a +most severe headache? + +“She is not that,” stormed Jacobelli. “She is out here--at Belvoir, +Long Island, at the home of Mrs. Nevins, wasting her voice for charity +with a person who claims he is her teacher. I bring her back with me at +once.” + +The Marchese protested that Carlota could not have any wrong +intentions, that Maria must not be alarmed. + +“Alarmed!” repeated Jacobelli solemnly. “I would so alarm her that +never would she permit the girl out of her sight until her début. +I tell you this is not a joke, Veracci. She has scaled the wall of +Tittani, mark me. You will understand when you see this man. Meet us at +the apartment. Not only has she sung here to-night, but she has wasted +also the Paoli jewels. She has worn the priceless rubies of Margherita +as if they were garnets.” + +He lingered in the corridor booth, and Ames watched eagerly for a +glimpse of Carlota before she left. Mrs. Nevins was delicately, +pointedly cynical and distant with him. + +“My dear Mr. Ames, can’t you see that this is all rather unpleasant +for me? Of course the girl is very pretty and her voice is a rarity, +but, after all, was it not somewhat unprofessional and unsportsmanlike +of you to enter her in a race for amateurs, as it were?” + +“But I never dreamt for an instant that she was from a famous or +professional family,” Ames denied earnestly. “I don’t believe that +ranting old rascal, anyway, not until I hear it from her own lips.” + +“No?” she smiled. “Of course I did not know she was engaged to you. But +you believe Count D’Istria surely. It all places me in a most delicate +situation and jeopardized the success of the entire evening. Nathalie +will be prostrated to-morrow. She had such faith in you.” + +“But I can explain everything,” Ames replied moodily. Why on earth was +Carlota lingering so long when Jacobelli might reappear any instant. + +“I fear the opportunity is lost, although I do not doubt your aptitude +for explaining anything.” She gave him her hand with a little, pitying +smile. “She will be Jacobelli’s pupil after to-night, Mr. Ames. If +you will send me your bill for expenses and services of Miss Roma and +yourself, my secretary will mail you a check. Ah, my dear boy, you were +too promising a genius to have permitted a little infatuation for this +girl to ruin your career.” + +She left him standing in the ivory and green salon, furious and +helpless. At length the door of Carlota’s dressing-room opened, and +she emerged, slim and demure in her long black velvet evening cloak. +It was made with a monk’s hood falling back from her head, and as +she hesitated, looking cautiously about for Jacobelli, he thought of +Juliet, awaiting the return of the nurse in the garden. + +Before he could reach her Jacobelli appeared, and took her resolutely +under his care. Only one long look passed between them, but to Ames it +was a promissory note from hope drawn on to-morrow. As he stood alone +after they had gone, the Italian maid came from the room, and gave him +a note, her black eyes filled with mystery. + +“It is from her,” she whispered. “My name is Assunta Rizzio. My home is +within sight of the tower windows of hers in Italy, and I love her. You +may call upon me if you need me. See, I live here.” + +He smiled gratefully, and crumpled the card she gave him into his +pocket while he looked at Carlota’s last word: + + It is all quite true, but I am alone to blame. I thought Mr. Phelps + might have told you, and you were but playing our little game with + me, of Pierrot and Columbine. Now, it is all over, is it not? You + will hate me for ruining your opera, and I do not blame you. I am + sorry, it is all I can say. I thought I was helping you. Give my + love to Dmitri. He was right, was he not?--and behold, the Princess + Fiametta should never have left the wall of Tittani. + +He passed down into the court. It was nearly empty, only the few who +remained for Mrs. Nevins’s private supper and dance. Ward talked with +the ambassador, listening as D’Istria told happily of his memories at +the old Contessa’s villa. As Ames approached, he turned to him eagerly, +his fine, lean face alert with appreciation. + +“It was superb, Mr. Ames, a most beautiful little conception. I trust +that you may have a public production before long.” + +The praise was unexpected, coming after the scene with Jacobelli and +Mrs. Nevins. Griffeth felt almost a boyish gratitude surge through him +warmly, and he thanked D’Istria with a break in his voice. + +“The score is in Casanova’s hands now,” he told him, while Ward’s gray +eyes never left his face. “I had hoped he might be here to-night.” + +“He could not. To-night he gives a large reception himself after +the concert at the Ritz. It will give me great pleasure to draw his +attention to the score when I see him, if you will permit.” + +With the ambassador’s hand-clasp toning his new outlook on life and +opportunity, Ames passed the long half-circle of waiting cars in the +courtyard, and made for the station on foot. Dmitri had been right in +his estimate of patronage. In the reaction he longed for a quiet talk +and smoke with him beside the copper brazier. + +As Carlota came into the glow of the porte-cochère’s spreading light, +Jacobelli took her handbag from her. + +“Mr. Ward is kind enough to take you to your home,” he said +authoritatively. “He will be here presently.” + +He set her two suitcases in beside her, but she neither answered him +nor even met his glance. Sinking back in the corner of the heavily +cushioned car, she closed her eyes, feigning utter weariness. It was +Griffeth’s last look that haunted her thoughts. Would the girl Assunta +give him her note. She knew that she had done wrong professionally, +that she had been guilty of almost an unpardonable error, yet it was +not of Ward she thought, nor of Casanova and the chance that she might +lose the financier’s patronage. The tender irresistible harmonies of +“Cerca d’Amore” filled her brain. She could barely resist humming +them, and smiling defiantly at the two moody faces after Ward joined +them, and the car turned towards the city. Ward smoked small black +cigars until the interior of the car was hazy with smoke and the +maestro coughed irritably, but the other man paid no attention to him, +merely watched Carlota. Jacobelli rambled on during the trip, but +always striking the same motif. + +“This to me, to Jacobelli! My greatest pupil jeopardizes her whole +career by appearing prematurely at a charity fête for an unknown +composer.” + +“I did it for love of Italy,” Carlota told him with sudden passion. “If +you were truly a patriot, you would be glad.” + +“Love of Italy!” Jacobelli groaned at her stroke of diplomacy. “Bah! +Love, yes, but not for Italy. You are infatuated with this nobody, +this lapper from the saucer of cream people like Mrs. Nevins sets for +patronage. This is not the professional strain in you of the Paoli. +This is the Peppino Trelango strain. He delighted in the silken +cushion, the easy path of the rich patron. You are an ingrate!” + +He folded his arms and leaned back austerely. Carlota forced herself +to keep silent before Ward. He moved, shifting his position so that he +might see her better. She had drawn the velvet monk’s hood over her +head, but every arc light they passed threw a flashing radiance into +the car and showed him her pure, beautiful profile, delicately Roman, +and the glamour of her near presence unnerved him. + +“And those jewels which you have not the sense to value!” burst forth +Jacobelli again. “I shall warn the Marchese to act at once as your +guardian and place them in the safety-deposit vault. You shall not have +them to play with.” + +“I do not want them in the vault. I shall sell them and pay you and Mr. +Ward for everything and return to Italy with Maria.” + +“To Italy!” repeated Jacobelli dryly. “Ben trovato! With this boy here.” + +Ward looked with musing eyes at the bag beside the maestro. + +“When you are ready to dispose of them,” he said deliberately, “come to +me. I did not know you were in possession of these, but I have heard of +the rubies. I collect rare jewels. The Zarathustra would be brought to +me by dealers ultimately, and I prefer to pay you the full price if you +wish to part with it.” + +“I will remember,” Carlota said clearly, meeting his eyes for the first +time. + +They left him at the Fifth Avenue entrance to his club. He made no +further allusion to the rubies, and Carlota forgot them in listening +to Jacobelli’s flood of argument until they reached the apartment. She +would throw up her career after all they had done for her, merely in a +fit of pique because they objected to her throwing herself away. The +Marchese and Maria had not returned. + +“I shall not trust you,” declared Jacobelli. “I shall guard you until +they come back.” + +Carlota faced him suddenly, in the small vestibule, her eyes brilliant +with resentment and pride. + +“I prefer to be alone, signor,” she told him. “I think even your +authority must end here in my own home.” + +He stared at her in amazement, and bowed as he stepped back from the +door. + +“I repeat the one word which fits you, ingrate!” + +The door closed, and in the sudden reaction of nervous tension +Carlota sank on the low couch, her face on her arms. It was nearly +twelve by the clock on Maria’s desk. Surely they would come now any +minute, and she would have to confess everything before Jacobelli +had an opportunity of presenting his version. Somehow she felt the +old Marchese would sympathize with her, he who was still a faithful +voyageur along the coasts of romance, but Maria would see only the +wreck of her career and her ingratitude to Ward. + +The memory of him brought back his offer to purchase the rubies. She +opened the bag, and drew them out on the velvet cushions of the couch. +Maria had called them priceless, these glowing bits of imprisoned +glory. Against the gray brocade of the cushion, their vivid, blood-red +hue fascinated her, but only with the thrill at their beauty. She was +like Paoli on whom they had been lavished. There was no craving in her +nature for outer ornamentation, no lure from wealth or jewels. She +touched them now curiously, half regretfully. Ward had said he would +become their purchaser at any time when she wished to dispose of them. +She rose with quick resolution and searched for his telephone number +in the book. The bell rang with startling sharpness in the still room. +She raised the receiver, expecting to hear Ames, but the suave, cheery +tones of the Marchese sounded over the wire. + +“Maria would have me call you up before we went on to Casanova’s +reception, to be sure you were quite all right. You are, yes? The +headache better? Ah, that is good. We may be late, about two, I think. +You are to rest yourself, understand.” + +“Oh, tell her I understand, and she is not even to think of me,” +Carlota exclaimed eagerly. “It was dear of you to call me up.” + +She hung up after the Marchese’s laughing, courtly rejoinder. Two whole +hours before they would return. It seemed as if Fate had opened wide +the way for her to go. She called Ward’s number with surety. He had not +yet returned, Ishigaki informed her, but was expected at any moment. He +would give him the message. + +At the same moment Georges paused before a row of low red-brick +buildings on East Twenty-Eighth Street, towards Lexington Avenue. +They were very quiet, private-appearing residences. Narrow, one-story +porches of iron grill-work clung to each, overhung with scrawny, rugged +vines that defied the city soil to make them vacate. In the basement of +one was a barber shop, discreet seeming and customerless. The second +floor of another bore a small sign, “Bulgarian Restaurant.” Each +carried over its entrance bell a slip of white paper, pasted to the +brick, “Furnished Rooms.” + +Here, then, Georges hesitated, not knowing certainly which house held +the object of his quest. It was after midnight by five minutes. The +lights in the restaurant burned low. A footfall down the street towards +the subway station made him turn. The late pedestrian was young and +in evening dress, with a raincoat flapping back in the swirling autumn +wind. The air was damp and salty with the scent of the incoming tide +up the East River. He started up the steps of the house next to the +restaurant when Georges accosted him. Did he know where a man named +Steccho lived, Ferad Steccho? + +“I don’t live around here,” Ames replied. “Wait a minute. I’ll ask my +friend.” + +He tapped upon one of the windows opening on the narrow iron porch, +and both heard the sound of a violin within, a queer, soft harmony of +undertones. Dmitri sat cross-legged on his couch like a merchant in a +Bagdad bazaar, his head twisted over his violin as though it had been +the head of a girl he loved held in the curve of his arm. + +On a stool beside the table was Steccho, brewing coffee in a +long-handled copper urn he held over a brazier of charcoal. He started +up at the sound of a step on the porch, but Dmitri calmed him. + +“It is only Griff,” he said, rising to open the door. Ames stood on the +threshold, his hand on the knob. And the boy at the brazier heard him +ask where Ferad Steccho lived. Before he could warn Dmitri, Georges had +caught the answer and was bowing before him. + +“I disturb you, I fear,” he said gravely. “I merely sought an old +friend.” + +Steccho’s face was rigid with alarm and fear. The skin seemed to +tighten over his high, swarthy cheekbones. His eyes were brilliant, his +lips a mere line of red in the graying tan of his face. + +“I come!” he responded. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Dmitri laid aside his violin, his eyebrows lifted querulously. + +“Now, why do you suppose that black-browed grenadier comes to my +threshold at dead of night and scares my friend? Sit down, Griff, sit +down. You shall have such a sup of coffee as you have never tasted +before, purest Mocha straight from Medina in a sack. The boy was +frightened, eh?” + +“I didn’t notice his face,” Ames retorted. “God, but I’m tired!” He +stretched out full length on the couch after throwing off both coats. +“You are absolutely right, Dmitri. Society is the pitfall and delusion, +the desert of mirages.” + +“It is not a success, then, the opera? Where is Carlota?” Dmitri talked +with a cigarette balanced unsteadily in one corner of his mouth, and +poured off the top of the coffee deftly into small cups. “You like a +dash of rose or orange water, yes?” + +“I don’t care what you give me. I’d drink a Lethe cocktail to-night,” +groaned Ames. “They took her away from me, Dmitri. She isn’t poor or +friendless or anything of that sort. It’s a damned lie. She’s the +granddaughter of the great Italian diva, Paoli, and Ogden Ward is her +financial backer. It reeks, lad, it reeks of the commonplace, and the +rose of romance is a wired fraud.” + +“That is very good,” Dmitri responded cheerfully. “A wired fraud +peddled by the fakir Hope on street corners to catch just such boys as +yourself. I told you all about it and you would not listen to me. Each +lover imagines he is completely original in his unique adventure when +it is merely the same old rondel sung over again. She is too beautiful +to doubt, but the more beautiful they are the more you should doubt.” + +Ames sat up, his head bowed. + +“You see, the worst of it is no one will believe I did not know who she +was all the time. She is the accredited pupil of Guido Jacobelli, and +yet she permitted me to introduce her publicly as my pupil. Why did she +ever come down to the Square and let me make-believe teach her?” + +Dmitri’s eyebrows again became expressively active. He shook a few +drops of orange water from a tiny glass decanter into each cup of +coffee, and his next remark was apparently a diversion. + +“Have you tried to pluck this Rose of Romance?” + +“Oh, she knows I love her, of course. You don’t have to tell those +things outright when you are persons like Carlota and myself.” + +“Ah, to be sure, you sing it to each other; you play it in divine +harmonies on the piano. I forget.” + +“Thank God, that is all.” + +“Then you have not let her carry away your heart and offer of marriage +in her little gold bonbon case?” + +Ames shook his head miserably. “No one will ever believe I did not know +who she was,” he repeated. “She merely told me that her people, her own +people, were all dead back in Italy. Of course I thought she just came +to me from some neighborhood around the quarter until you warned me +where she really lived.” + +“My boy,” Dmitri comforted him, “you love the indefinite. It would +have dispelled the illusion to have trailed her into the bosom of her +family. A family is so commonplace.” + +“But she always dressed simply.” + +“Simply? You do not recognize the art of the modiste and tailor. I have +myself seen her wearing a coat or gown that must have cost all out of +reason to her apparent circumstances, but I said nothing to dispel your +happiness. There was also her voice, her hand, her very manner. Griff, +you were blind not to see and know you entertained an angel unawares.” + +“I suppose she thought she was helping me, singing ‘Fiametta’ to-night, +and instead, it will ruin my whole career. They will call it an +unthinkable and gigantic piece of unpardonable impudence by the time +Jacobelli finishes with me.” + +“Stop thinking of yourself all the time. What of her?” warned Dmitri +gently. “She did not want to go to Belvoir. She did not want ever even +to sing in public, and you made her do it for you, you renegade. You +get back to your own case. Do you not think she is suffering too?” + +“If I thought she were, I’d be the happiest man alive,” Ames declared +fervently. “If I thought she really cares anything for me, that this +wouldn’t end everything, I mean.” + +“You mean, if she is the girl you believe her to be, she will not give +you up?” Dmitri blew wavery, violet ovals into the air and sighed. “I +do not envy you people who eternally seek to win your ideal, to bring +it to earth, and make it domesticated, so to speak. Possibly this is +the greatest thing that could have happened to either of you. You will +be like the most wonderful lovers in the world--Dante and Beatrice. +To me they are the greatest of all because they are divinely ideal. +My dear boy, he had a wife and five children, yet he beheld her at +the bridge over the Arno once, only once, in the crimson gown, and +he immortalized her with his ideal love. Paolo possessed Francesca’s +avowal, Abelard had his memories in his cell, yet Dante, in his poverty +of earthly happiness attained the empyrean following his dream.” + +“I know. They’ll tell her all that sort of thing, too. You people who +make a fetish of the immaterial, who believe that realization kills, +amuse me.” + +“Amusement is the privilege of youth,” Dmitri answered. “What you do +not wish to understand or enjoy, you laugh away, but I tell you, your +love, if realized, will kill the genius of you both, and you will find +yourselves with clipped wings, domesticated wild swans ever yearning +after the blue lanes of flight.” + +“Every philosopher loves the sound of his own voice better than that of +any woman,” said Ames. + +Dmitri chuckled. “That is possible, quite possible, my friend. I wish I +might call myself a philosopher, but I am a poor marksman. Philosophers +are men who shoot mental shafts at the bull’s-eye of truth. I have +never hit the inner circle myself.” + +Ames drank his coffee thirstily and reached his cup for more. “Don’t +preach at me, Dmitri,” he said bitterly. “I have come to you for +straight advice, not a lot of axioms. Tell me what to do. She has gone +away with Ward and Jacobelli. They will keep her from me.” + +“Wait patiently with confidence,” Dmitri told him. “You will hear from +her. Women are that way. There is some divine sixth sense that tells +them of the beloved’s sufferings. Stay here with me to-night.” + +Ames refused. The coffee had rested and stimulated him. He merely +wanted companionship and the talk with one who believed in his success. +Dmitri’s optimism restored his own confidence in himself. He would +walk on down to the Square, he said, and wait there for some word from +Carlota. + +“What a pity you can’t sit down in this mood and improvise,” Dmitri +said regretfully. “This way you will only walk it off, when if you +could but express it in music--ah, my friend, what we owe to the mad +loves and erratic moods of genius. I drink to its suffering.” + +He accompanied Ames to the door and waved his hand in comradely fashion +to him, watching until he had turned the corner of Madison Avenue. +Then, with a quick sigh of relief, he ran his fingers through his hair +and crossed the balcony to see if there was a light in Steccho’s window +next door. It was dark, but as his hand touched the knob it came in +contact with a letter which had been stuck in the door. He went back +to his own quarters slowly, and relighted the brazier to make fresh +coffee. The letter lay on the black walnut stand where he dropped it. +It had been mailed in New York, the outer envelope attested, but when +he examined it closely he was certain there was a second envelope +inside. It was so that his own mail came to him, sent on through secret +channels from Sofia. He mused speculatively on the news it might +contain for the boy, Steccho. He would surely return to tell him what +the midnight visitor had wanted of him. Possibly this letter had been a +forerunner of the visit. News from the mother and little sister Maryna, +no doubt. He lifted his head listeningly for a footfall along the +silent street, but none came. And he leaned over the charcoal blaze as +the moments passed, with a brooding look that was the very expectancy +of fear. + +Through the wooded drives of the north end of the Park Jurka’s car +proceeded slowly. On the seat facing the Count, Steccho huddled. +It was chilly in the early morning, and he was dressed scantily. +The masterfulness of the other stole his vitality from him. He felt +cowed and driven against his will. As they passed the penumbra of an +arc light he would glance up at the handsome, easy-mannered figure +opposite, his eyes filled with livid hatred. + +“You have slipped a cog somewhere, I do not know just where yet, but it +will come to me,” Jurka said. “You have been following the girl for a +month and you tell me you do not know where the jewels are. Where were +you last night when she left the house wearing them?” + +“I had watched all day,” Steccho told him excitedly. “I was in Vorga’s +tobacco store on the corner in the afternoon. You can see the entrance +from his window. She could not have passed out without my having seen +her.” + +“You lie! You were with Dmitri Kavec. He is a known spy of the +Internationals. Did you meet him in Sofia?” + +Steccho closed his lips stubbornly. Dmitri was his friend. The car +sped through a curving roadway round the base of a rocky precipice +surmounted by an old blockhouse. In the darkness the locality lost +all semblance of city scenery and might have been in the mountain +fastnesses of Bulgaria. Jurka leaned forward with careless interest, +and took note of their surroundings. “It is like the road to Monastir,” +he said, half to himself. Steccho’s eyes stared at him through the +gloom of the car’s interior like those of some wild animal held in +leash. His mother had named it “The Trail of Tears,” that road from +Monastir, where the weak and young had fled in the great retreat, and +had been trampled to death, or had lingered for the slower fate from +starvation. He himself had seen the babies, the young girls, the old +people--and the memory was a veritable glut of butchery. Yet this +Count smiled as he mentioned it as though it had been some tryst with +pleasure which he had kept along that road from Monastir. And while +the boy’s thoughts leaped from one avenging plan to another, the Count +continued: + +“I think you lie, Steccho. Perhaps you have lied to me from the +beginning. Perhaps, like Dmitri, you are a Czech spy. Do you know why +he is here in America?” + +“I know nothing about him,” Steccho asserted, with a touch of bravado. +“We were friends in Sofia. Both students at the University. I did not +even know he was a spy. I had hoped he could give me news of my people.” + +Jurka touched the bell and the car stopped short under the overhanging +shadow of autumn foliage, and as the faint light from an arc lamp up +the road reached the interior, Steccho saw the round bore of a revolver +facing him, held steadily and easily in Jurka’s hand as it rested on +his knee. + +“I could kill you now and have your body thrown in the bushes yonder. +It would be one way out. When I saved your life you gave in return +certain assurances of faithful service.” + +“Ah, but you promised me you would provide safety for my mother and +sister,” Steccho broke in eagerly. “You hear from them, yes? I hear +they have killed all the girls two years ago, cut their throats, thrown +their bodies in wells, that they took them up to the mountains for the +soldiers. Was Maryna among those, excellenza?” + +“I have given you my word for her safety,” responded Jurka. “The war is +past. You brood too much over fancied terrors. Listen to reality. This +is what you may fear. If you do not procure the jewels from this girl +to-night, I will have your throat wrung for you like a dead fowl. We +save bullets for men, not cowards.” + +“And after I get them, we go back, excellenza?” There was almost a +whine in the query. The boy shrank back in the corner of the car. +His cigarette had gone out. His face looked narrow and pinched in the +darkness. “You will see that I go back to Rigl?” + +“Rich for life,” Jurka assured him languidly. “You will be able to buy +the yellow castle, if you fancy it, and many cattle and sheep. The +queen is not one to forget such services, my Steccho, nor I. When I +meet her in Switzerland and give her the jewels, I will tell her of +you.” + +The muscles of Steccho’s face relaxed. After all, he was a fool to +doubt. It was all quite simple. He would get the jewels. There would be +the journey back as they had come, Georges as the Count’s courier, he +as groom, caring for the two riding-horses, Vriki and Etelka. Then the +heaped-up honors from the exiled queen herself, and, yes, the yellow +castle if the little tired mother and Maryna still fancied it. + +The Count spoke to Georges through the tube. “Drive to the east +entrance nearest Sixty-Fourth Street,” he ordered. “Stop inside the +Park.” + +He did not speak again until they came to the entrance. As Steccho +swung down to the pavement, he nodded to him with debonair, care-free +grace. The car turned down Fifth Avenue and Steccho paused at the +corner to catch the last glimpse of it. Jurka had hummed a few bars +from a favorite waltz back in Sofia. The tune touched the chords of +memory and home longing as nothing else had done. It was a waltz of +the people played often at the little village dances where he had met +Katinka. As he walked east on Fifty-Ninth Street he remembered her as +he had seen her kneeling in church, bathed in the long glow of purple +light that flowed through the stained-glass aureole of Saint Genevieve. +Always as he had followed Carlota from the very first she had reminded +him of his dead sweetheart. Over and over, when he had been tempted to +betray her visits to Ames’s studio, the words had been checked on his +lips as he met Jurka’s eyes and remembered the day his excellenza’s +soldiery had carried the body of the girl from his quarters above the +inn. + +Twice before he reached the Saint Germain he stopped dead short, and +looked back. But the lure of the yellow castle drew him forward, and he +finally faced the east, eager for the night’s work. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Ward pushed his chair back from the table, lighting a cigarette from +the match Ishigaki held towards him. + +“Miss Trelango’s call came about half an hour ago?” + +“At five minutes past twelve.” The Jap gave the time with exactness. +Ward’s face was inscrutable. + +“Get the car around. I shall want only you with me, tell Daniels.” + +As Ishigaki left the room he stood smoking, a half smile on his lips. +In all probability to-night he would secure the Zarathustra ruby and +its attendant collection. Jurka, the Bulgarian he had met at the club, +had been after them, too, he remembered. He had been at the Nevins +fête and had seen them. Palmieri had ascertained that the collection +had been declared by Maria Roma as the personal property of Carlota +Trelango, a minor non-resident alien. This much his own agent had found +out. What Jurka knew, he had no idea, or his object in seeking the +rubies. Was he, too, infatuated with the girl herself, and used the +jewels merely as a blind to his own pursuit of her? + +He drew three opals from his pocket and tossed them like dice before +him on the polished surface of the table. They were perfectly matched +and had come from the lacquered cabinet of the old empress whose +life-span had bridged the gulf from the rice-fields along the Yang-tse +to the peacock throne at Pekin. He gazed down at their changing luster +musingly. Carlota had been in her most alluring mood when he had spoken +with her on the telephone after Ishigaki had delivered her message. +Spirited, combative, aloof, as he liked her best. The temple chimes +in a corner recess sounded the half-hour. She had said she was alone. +Always, in his experience, every woman had her price. As he swept the +opals up in his hand at the Jap’s low voice, he knew there could be no +compromise now. She had dallied along the highway of romance and had +found the love of youth awaiting her. Remembering the look of perfect +understanding and faith between her and Ames as she had passed by him +on the arm of Jacobelli, Ward felt a conscienceless determination to +compel her to take his terms that night. She could do without the Paoli +gems. Possibly, it might be a rather suitable tribute, later at her +début, for him to present her with the necklace. He glanced into the +tall Florentine mirror as he folded his scarf beneath his cloak, and +followed Ishigaki to the car at the curb. The boy had only youth and +ambition as assets after all. + +In her apartment Carlota had deliberately set the stage for his +reception. Slipping off her dressing-robe, she clad herself in a +straight-cut evening gown of chiffon velvet, ranging in color from +palest mauve to deepest rose, with long swaying sleeves of silver +metal cloth. Her face was paler than usual, her eyes brilliant as she +switched off the lights in the apartment, leaving only the one in the +hall and a spray of rose globes beneath a silken shade at the head of +the couch. + +Kneeling before the gas-logs, she opened the leather bag to look alone +for the last time on the rubies. Behind her a window opened widely +to the keen night air. Once she raised her head, startled at a sound +that seemed to come from the balconied fire escape. The wind blew the +curtains toward her. It was dark outside. The city was sinking into a +few hours of sleep before the rattle of daybreak noises. As she rose +to look out of the window, the outer bell rang lightly. Standing flat +against the stone wall of the building, not half a yard from the room, +Steccho checked his leap, listening. If he were discovered now, they +would snare him, no matter what he told. Who would believe, unless +perhaps the girl herself out of the grace that was in all women, that +he had not come there to-night to rob her, but to warn her, to defraud +Jurka--not of the jewels, but of the slender, young purity of this +child woman who had eyes like Katinka. If he could save her, could keep +her for the boy who loved her, Dmitri’s friend in the Square, then +perhaps in some great, merciful way the knowledge of it would come to +that unseen Power for good which Dmitri held still ruled the world of +men and women in spite of the sea of crimson. Perhaps it might be they +would save his mother and Maryna, these unseen forces, without his +bargaining away his soul and life with a man like Jurka. + +“You are still alone?” Ward’s eyes followed the lines of her figure +as she moved away from him. The changing silver and rose of her gown +reminded him of the opals. + +“Maria has gone with the Marchese to Casanova’s reception. They +telephoned they would be back about two. We have not very much time, +you see.” She drew the jewels from the bag and laid them before him on +the round inlaid table at the head of the couch. The rose light shone +on their beauty almost hungrily, catching the varying gleams from the +deep red hearts of the rubies. “They are all there, all that I wore +to-night, the tiara, the necklace, and the girdle. They are worth +enough quite to pay you back for all you have given me, are they not?” + +He looked at them quickly, and turned back to her as she stood beside +the table. + +“I will give you my check for two hundred and fifty thousand. The +Zarathustra alone is worth half of that. You would find it out if I +cheated you, and hate me afterwards. I, too, hate a cheat.” + +Something in his words and tone made her motionless, chilled and tense. +She met his eyes challengingly. + +“You mean that I am not keeping my bargain, Mr. Ward. But it was not a +fair one that you made. You asked the impossible.” + +“That you would not get into any affairs until you had made your +success.” He cut her short sharply. “I was right. To-night proved it. +Left to yourself you have made yourself a laughing-stock. You ruined +your own début for the sake of this fellow Ames, and smashed his career +by branding him an impostor.” + +“I do not believe it. Count D’Istria--you yourself heard him when he +spoke to me--he would not have recognized me and praised the opera +if--if I had ruined him--Griffeth. You cannot kill art like that, not +when it is real.” + +“You have the patter of his crowd at your tongue’s end,” sneered Ward. +“You would have nothing to do with me when I offered you my love that +night at dinner. You were insulted and fiery as some menaced nun, yet +you meet this Ames in his studio secretly and carry on an affair with +him brazenly, merely because you think you love him. Do you believe +that love is its own law, then?” + +And Carlota, thinking only of the old rose-tinted wall that bounded the +domain of her dreams, closed her eyes and smiled. + +“It is the highest law,” she answered. + +“So?” His arms closed about her like a vise as he crushed her to him. +“I take you at your word. Do you think that I, Ogden Ward, would be +such a damned fool as to let another man take you or anything else that +I wanted away from me? Did you think you could throw me a few jewels +like bones to a dog, and call our deal off? I want those rubies because +they are like you. They are all fire and blood and passion, and I’ll +have you both.” + +He stifled the scream on her lips with one hand, lifting her on one +arm easily while she fought like a captured wild animal. The table +overturned behind her, and the jewels slipped to the rug as the +electrolier broke its rose globes over them. The room was in darkness +as he felt her suddenly relax limply in his embrace. Her hands and +lips were cold, yet he told himself he had not hurt her badly, merely +the pressure on her mouth to keep back the alarm. As he laid her on the +couch Steccho’s curved Turkish blade caught him under the left shoulder +blade, and he rolled backward, reaching blindly into the darkness as he +fell. + +The boy waited a few moments, ready for another thrust, but there was +utter silence in the room, and he drew a deep soft breath of relief. +Kneeling, he gathered up the jewels carefully, without haste or dread, +placing them in his inner coat pockets, the necklace with its priceless +pendant next to his body where it was safest, the tiara curving under +the belt at his wait, the girdle looped like a pet serpent in his +pocket. Something else had fallen where the firelight caught its +sparkle. He picked up one of the old empress’s opals and smiled over +its perfect beauty. This might please Maryna. + +Before he passed back out of the window, he bent over Carlota. She lay +as if sleeping, with spent, broken breathing. Ah, he would have taken +her as a wolf, even as Jurka himself, this man who lay at her feet, but +not now, not after the stroke he had learned in Rigl. She was safe, +quite safe to leave alone with him. He lighted a cigarette calmly, +buttoned his raincoat close around his throat, and swung out of the +window and down the fire escape. + +Those who place faith in the symbols and cabals of coincidence might +have traced a triangle at that moment with Steccho at one point, +Dmitri’s room the apex, and the other the unlighted studio where +Griffeth sat by the open window, staring out at the Square. The +Bulgarian felt oddly exhilarated now that he had made his get-away +safely. He paused at Fifty-Ninth Street and Madison Avenue, like a +racer, sure of his victory, resting at the first lap. + +It had been strange, fate forcing the possession of the rubies upon +him. He was fatalist enough to accept. And it would be better for the +girl Carlota. They would find her in time. Ward had terrified her, but +she was unhurt, he felt certain, except for the marks on her throat. +He looked back over the way he had come. There was no sign of alarm +yet, no shrill blowing of police whistles, nothing but the customary +flow of crosstown traffic at that hour. He bought an early paper, and +took a car bound downtown. The jewels themselves reminded him, as he +touched them in his pockets, that he had not failed when the hour of +fate had struck for him. He bore the wealth of a rajah on his body, +and the knowledge gave him a suppressed braggadocio as if he had +picked up life’s challenge and had won his first prize in the lists of +opportunity. If only the girl, as she lay there, had not looked like +Katinka, more like her than ever with the pallor and look of pain on +her face. He shook off the sentiment and focused his attention on Jurka. + +He had given him until morning. Good; then he should have the jewels +three hours before dawn. Georges’s black eyes would show smouldering +fires of envy when he, Ferad Steccho, carelessly poured forth the +missing rubies from his pockets, the rubies of the queen, as if they +had been pebbles. Doubtless another night, and they would all be on +their way back. He shut his eyes, half imagining the lurch of the car +was the first roll of the ship as it touched the deep sea, and the +far-off city noises were the distant surge of ocean waves. + +True, there would be an outcry when they found the body of Ward, +but there was no one to tell who had stabbed him. The girl had been +unconscious. His eyes narrowed suddenly. Would they, then, possibly +accuse her? Would Ward, if by any chance the blow had not killed him, +dare to revenge himself on her by swearing that she had stabbed him? + +As the car reached Thirty-Fourth Street he shook off the depression +and made direct for the Dupont, confident of his welcome. There was +no response, he was told at the desk. He demanded that they call the +Count’s private room. It was impossible, the clerk told him. Count +Jurka’s orders were he was not to be disturbed. Would he send up a +card with a message? He shrugged his shoulders, and wrote rapidly in +Bulgarian: + + They will not let me up to you. Send Georges at once. I fancy the + yellow castle, excellenza. + +The triangle of coincidence had become an isosceles. He walked over to +Lexington Avenue, and walked down to Twenty-Eighth Street, taking his +time, his usual surliness settling in a fog of resentment over his mood +of happiness. So he must wait, wait while the Count had his unbroken +rest, while the workers, the doers, waited on the whims of such as +he like dogs on doormats. Well, they might come to him now, to him, +Steccho, if they wanted the jewels. He would go to Dmitri’s room and +stretch out by the fire and sleep the hours before daylight. He had +not touched food since the previous day, nothing but black coffee and +cigarettes. The plan struck him with pleasure, as a sort of revenge on +Jurka. He would not tell Dmitri what he had done; merely sit and chat +with him to prove he did not do the bidding of the Count. + +When he mounted the steps of the red-brick house with the iron railing +around its balcony, there came the low sound of violin-playing from +within. Dmitri then was still awake. His grate was ablaze with a good +fire of boxwood and charcoal. His coffee waited the whim of his desire, +over the unlighted brazier. Meanwhile, he said hello, as he expressed +it, to his consort, “Madame Harmony.” + +“Behold, she never deserts me,” he would say to Ames. “She is the most +patient yet alluring of mistresses, my madame. And when I caress her, +ah, what she tells to me!” + +There was no pathos in his music to-night. A Czech folk-dance spun from +his fingers in curling, whirling, leaping strains of melody like some +strange, intangible confetti of vibration expressed in notes. The lure +of it held the boy and he waited in the doorway, his dark eyes filled +with a passion of home yearning. So often he had danced with her, +Katinka, to that same music. At the instant some one on another street +blew a car whistle, and he slammed shut the door, locking it with +shaking fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +“Now what?” demanded Dmitri cheerily. “You look as stark as a dead +fish, my friend. Have some wine.” + +Steccho took the full glass gratefully, drained it, his head thrown far +back, and wiped his lips with a sweep of his hand. + +“I thought it was the police,” he said unsteadily. + +Dmitri lit the fire in the brazier before he spoke. His eyes were +filled with brooding solicitude when he looked back at the boy. +Steccho’s whole posture showed more than mere exhaustion. There were +dejection and fear in the slouch of his body as he sat forward on the +edge of the couch, his fingers crumpled in his hair. + +“You have done something to-night?” + +The boy nodded. + +Dmitri measured powdered Arabian coffee into the copper pot carefully. + +“It is a pitiful penalty of wrongdoing,” he said compassionately, +“the little ghosts of fear one must forever entertain. You have been +followed here?” + +“I am not afraid. I am hungry.” A shudder like a chill shook his +narrow, stooped shoulders. Dmitri eyed him anxiously. “Let us go around +to Barouki, some place where it is quiet and we can talk.” + +“None better than here. Lay off your coat and lie down. I will have +you such a meal in twenty minutes as you have not tasted in months, +not since you left home. I have broth, wine, and lamb to broil; grapes +and bread and coffee.” He set a pot of broth over the blaze, brought +out lamb from the cupboard with a small, smooth board to cut it on, +and sat cross-legged on the floor before the brazier while he cut the +meat into slices and skewered it with slices of raw onion between. “I +am no wanderer at heart, you see. I like my own hearth-fire even if it +is merely a charcoal blaze like this. I prefer to cook my own meals and +know what I feed upon. Drink that broth.” + +Steccho obeyed in moody silence. The reaction had set in after his +rebuff at the Dupont. He drank the broth in deep swallows. The peace +and genial atmosphere of the room had begun to seep through his +consciousness as it always did. He felt that here he might lie and +sleep for hours, until the fear that dogged his heels should have lost +the scent. He wondered if the blade had reached the heart. He had +dropped without a cry, the man who desired both rubies and her who +was more precious than rubies. If it had not killed him, then he would +waken and accuse--whom would he accuse? He had seen no assailant in the +darkness. Would he, perhaps, say that Carlota had stabbed him, would +he dare when he knew she had been unconscious in his arms? Besides, +they would discover the rubies were gone; that would prove she was +innocent, that another had dealt the blow and had taken them. He yawned +exhaustedly. + +“You could hide me here, if it had to be, yes?” + +“Doubtless.” Dmitri set a savory mess of browned lamb on the black oak +table and poured boiled rice into the broth to simmer. “I could hide +you, but you would have to tell me why you were hiding. In these days +we must guard our friends against their own impulses. Whom have you +killed, Ferad?” + +The Bulgarian stretched out his palms excitedly. + +“And what is that, the death-stroke, nowadays? Life is the cheapest +thing in the world.” + +Dmitri poured wine into two tall metal drinking-cups. From the +Metropolitan Tower came the strokes of two. He served the rice in +silence, reserving comment, waiting for the confidence of the other. +And suddenly Steccho rose from the table. He had eaten with a ravening +hunger; now his old air of sullen bravado returned. He turned pocket +after pocket inside out, emptying the jewels on the table before Dmitri +as if he had been a gamin rolling marbles. Dmitri lifted his brows in +relief and amusement as he looked at them, rubies and diamonds, rubies +and pearls, set in old silver and gold. + +“So, you play with these, my friend,” he smiled. “I had thought you +were grown to a man’s desire. These are the devil’s toys to catch the +tinkling fancy of women and girls. Did you need money? I would have +given you all I had.” + +Steccho laughed, his heavy black hair rumpled over his forehead. He +shook his head impatiently. After his long fast, the wine was stirring +his brain to resentment against Jurka. + +“I bring them to you that you may choose for me,” he said. “This is why +I am here. They are the missing crown jewels, the rubies of the queen.” + +Dmitri stared at him incredulously. Yet the gems lay there before him. +The boy spoke the truth. These were imperial in their beauty and value. +He lifted the pendant, gazing intently at the Zarathustra ruby, the +second largest in the world. + +“The queen?” he repeated incredulously. “She is in Switzerland. She +sent you here?” + +“Not I.” Steccho laughed in derision, tightening his belt. “I am Ferad +Steccho, a dog to be kicked and denied, you understand. The queen will +thank Count Jurka, but I--I, Steccho, am the one who got the jewels for +her, and it is you, my Dmitri, who will decide whether we ever give +these to the queen who waits for them. That is why I come to you, not +to hide me, but to tell me what to do.” + +Dmitri’s thoughts centered on the name he had spoken, Jurka. The former +court chamberlain, the ex-attaché who had been given the favor and +confidence of the queen herself in the cataclysm of fate that had swept +her throne from under her, the suave, faithful, blond Jurka. He watched +the dark, eager face of the boy, touched with vivid high lights along +point of chin, cheek, and nose by the firelight in the open grate. + +“Do you think for one moment a man like Jurka would undertake this +mission out of any loyalty or desire to assist a queen in exile +unless--I did not think you would help to feather the nest of such a +bird as Jurka.” + +He checked himself abruptly. Steccho struck his clenched fists upon the +table between them, the jewels unheeded as he poured out his words. + +“I did not take them for him or for the queen. It was the price he +demanded of me for the safety of my mother and sister.” + +Dmitri glanced to the mantel where the letter lay. He had forgotten it +in the surprise of Steccho’s coming, but now he waited to hear him out +before he gave it to him. + +“Jurka sent for me in Sofia. He was working with the relief committee +there, a mask to hide behind merely. He remains an agent of the +royalists. He told me these were part of the crown jewels. They had +been stolen years ago by some Italian woman loved by the crown prince. +He said they had traced them here to New York. What do I care for +them?” He pushed the rubies from him resentfully. “I tell you they are +unlucky. The rubies are for blood, the pearls for tears, always I hear +my mother tell that. Here they were worn by an innocent girl--” + +He stopped. Would he tell Dmitri all the truth, of the girl Carlota, +whom his friend had loved, of her peril, and why he had taken the +jewels from the keeping of the man who jeered at love? + +“How did you first meet Jurka? How did he know these were here? Whom +have you killed to get them for him?” + +Dmitri strove to speak calmly. Behind the boy’s story lay some +conspiracy of Jurka’s, another undercurrent to reckon with in the great +crimson tidal wave. + +“I was suspected of being a revolutionist and ordered shot.” Steccho +spoke jerkily, between his teeth, his head back as he smoked. “My +father was head gamekeeper, before the war, on the Count’s estate north +of Rigl where our home was. You know the place? On the mountain road +from Moritza there is a castle of yellow rock standing high above the +town.” He drew long inhaled puffs from his cigarette. The castle in +the sun glow! The strange, numb, unsteadiness swept over him again as +it had back there on the fire escape when he had watched the man seize +Carlota. Lust and youth, even as Jurka had ravished the sweetness and +laughter and pure joyousness of Katinka. + +Dmitri and the room slipped out of his vision, submerged in a gray +ocean of restfulness beyond which gleamed the castle of his dreams. +How it had stood as an eternal symbol to his boyhood of the pomp +and majesty of kings! Then had come the schooling at Sofia, and the +smouldering fires of revolution that crept through the dry rotting +underbrush and mould of oppression, unnoted by those who saw only the +bravery of waving green boughs in the sunlight. + +He had met Dmitri Kavec there, a teacher of political economy and +sociology, tutoring younger men to pay his way, writing for certain +Continental papers, talking always of the day when freedom should +dawn. He was a Czech, with a mingling of Romany blood in his veins. +It showed in his mastery of the violin, in his dark skin, not swarthy +like Steccho’s, but clear and pale as yellow wine with the underlay of +red. The boy’s eyes were furtive, restless, Dmitri’s like those of some +captive eagle that sits motionless, watching passing crowds, alert and +fearless. He, Steccho, had felt proud when he had been asked to join +the group of men who assembled nightly in Dmitri’s quarters above the +old coffee-house in the lower square. He had sat and listened to them, +learning much of the underground wiring of secret diplomacy, much of +the patience of the thinkers and workers. + +Then had come dissension and a break in the university club ranks. +Dmitri was called a dreamer, one of those who believed the end might +be reached by brotherhood and teaching of the people. Even Steccho had +chafed at such doctrine. Rather he liked the fighting, the carrying of +blazing flambeaux in the race, the song of the torch, as Dmitri called +their propaganda. After the outbreak of war he had become a spy for +the Internationals. It had ended with that winter day when the royalist +troops had caught him hiding in Rigl. A troop occupied the town on its +way up to the mountain passes above Moritza. Personages of importance +sat in conference with Jurka in the old smoke-stained room at the inn, +and Steccho had found a way of listening, half-wedged down the side +flue of an old rock chimney. + +He had overheard much, gossip mostly from Jurka, of the vacillating, +ambitious king who craved the title of Czar, of his wife, the +sour-visaged queen, whom he had never loved, the stool pigeon of +William. They had chatted of these, speculating on who would head the +royalist cause if some day Ferdinand chanced to oversleep, found like +his old friend Abdul Hamid with a five-inch blade parting his ribs. + +Steccho had listened eagerly. There was a trickle of truth here and +there through the talk. They placed more confidence in Sophia than +in the king. The soldiers were grumbling for back pay. Some officers +had been shot in the back by their own men. They had been caught +fraternizing with the enemy, exchanging food and tobacco under the very +noses of the nobles. Stores of supplies for the officers’ mess had been +broken open and scattered to the wounded by their comrades. + +Straws in the wind, Jurka said, his back to the fireplace, but signs +to the wise. The people wearied of oppression. They must be taught +to dance to a new tune. With victory Bulgaria would swallow up her +enemies, she would sit like a brooding lioness, her cubs about her, +renegade Greece, recreant Roumania, Servia crawling, the Slovacs +whipped to heel. And eager to hear more, Steccho had leaned like a fool +too far forward to catch the low-spoken words, and a rumble of loosened +bricks had startled the soldiers into action. + +He had been forced down by a dozen pricking, reaching sword-points as +if he had been a porcupine in a hole, and had been condemned to be shot +at once against the stable wall in the courtyard below. + +He had heard the scream of his mother as the old women held her back, +and had tried to reach her. The soldiers had beaten and kicked him as +he lay in the snow, and Maryna, the little sister, had burst through +the line, and by some miracle of grace he had been granted his life +at her plea. Jurka had said with grave gallantry, as he smoothed back +her heavy silken flaxen hair, that Saint Ginevra herself had surely +intervened in his behalf. + +“So you became a royalist, a serf--rather than join the gray marchers +to the shades?” Dmitri smiled at the boy. “Better to have remained up +the chimney and wakened singing in a chorus of victory. See how your +hand shakes. You have bad nerves, my boy. You rush down here in a fit +of pique like an emotional girl because Jurka desires to sleep and not +be disturbed. If he refused to see you to-morrow, you might throw the +playthings into the river and become revolutionist again. That way lies +madness.” + +Steccho picked up the necklace, staring at the rubies with dreamy eyes. +The warmth of the fire and the good meal with wine filled him with a +glow of relaxed nerves and a sense of well-being and safety. + +“I am no revolutionist. I hate to kill. I hate strife and turmoil and +change. Yet I hate Jurka, too, and his kind. I was his bondman because +he swore to protect my mother and Maryna. Do you know what they did +after the uprising in Poltenza, twelve miles from us? They shot the +villagers down against the gray wall of the market-place, two hundred +of them, and the girls were given first to the officers, then to the +soldiery, and we found their bodies piled in the wells, a trick from +the Turks. It serves two purposes. We have been patient, Dmitri. See, I +ask you. Shall we sell these and give the money to those who work for +freedom? How much could I get for them, two hundred thousand, three, +five?” + +“More,” replied Dmitri gently, “and your throat slit. Listen, my boy. +Revolution is a mad dog. Who will thrust a lighted torch into the hands +of a maniac or idiot? I do not think the hour has struck when men are +content with the creed of violence. They weary of bloodshed. They ask, +Is this all, bodies, bodies, more bodies until the whole horizon is +filled with them, and one may not find the sky?” + +“Ah, you talk,” Steccho muttered drowsily. “Jurka says you are a spy of +the Internationals.” + +Dmitri smiled, slowly stirring the charcoal embers beneath the brazier +into a glow. + +“I am no spy,” he said. “I am a watcher on the outer walls, my Ferad. +I am an opportunist, not aristocrat nor socialist nor even democrat. I +do not like a beaten path, but I love the ideals of tradition. I love +opportunity. That is why America fascinates me. Life is a game, and +all games lose their zest if one plays with a cheat, he who ignores +the rules and sets up his own. One objects to the stacked deck and +loaded dice. Also, each man should have a chance to deal. The trouble +with your Jurkas, your aristocrat, he deals all the hands and gives +himself the best. The trouble with you revolutionists, you would deal +everybody the same kind of a hand, and that makes the game stupid and +uninteresting. There is no law of chance, no thrill to your game. You +fatalists believe that man deals, but Fate shuffles the cards. Have +more to eat.” + +“No one can play a fair game with such as Jurka.” + +Steccho ignored the proffered food, his face on his hands. + +“Then use his own tricks against him. Look you, my friend, the gambling +instinct is the keenest in all men, for we have learned that, after +all, life is a great gamble. The only thing you are sure of is that you +are sure of nothing. If I took up this sport, this gambling with human +lives, I would do so for the pure thrill of it. I like the plunger, the +good loser always. But your Jurka type, he who plays the game doggedly, +who merely wants something for nothing, you will find him a bad loser. +He plays to win only; the other type of man plays for the thrill of +achievement. Your anarchist, too, he takes a hand. If he loses, he will +say the game is crooked, and demand a new deal. If he wins, he plays +safe and stops, taking all the winnings. He is like your aristocrat, +after all; he will amuse himself with solitaire forever if you give him +the chance.” + +Steccho rose moodily, walking up and down the floor. + +“You have stolen to please the lust of empire,” Dmitri resumed, smoking +leisurely. “You are like the man who is afraid to play the game, to +take a chance himself, so he turns the wheel for others. If he fares +well from the man who wins, he likes him; if not, then he is for the +man who loses. He listens to what this man says, Let us break up this +house and do away with gambling forever. We will all play safe, then, +eh? But it is not possible, Ferad. All philosophy fails to reconcile +human nature. We are all gamblers. The trouble is that your Jurkas give +the game a bad odor, and then the losers cry out that the whole game +is not worth while. We are too selfish. We forget that we all lay up +riches but for the heirs of to-morrow. I would make the way easy. I +would strive to clear away the barriers that all might reach the goal +of opportunity. Yet I would not hobble the swift that the slow may keep +pace with them. Will you sleep here to-night?” He laid his arm around +the boy’s shoulders. “Do not think me unsympathetic. It is dangerous to +play the game here, and the weak go under. There are some that cheat. I +think Jurka is a cheat. We did not fight to make the world safe; that +would be a bore. We fought to make it livable.” + +“I do not care for anything but to see my mother and sister again,” +said Steccho. + +Dmitri’s brow cleared. “Ah, and I am forgetting all the good news for +you!” he cried, seizing the letter from the mantel. “Here is word from +home. We will pour more wine and plan to send you back free from the +talons of the black eagle.” + +Steccho’s face softened in a glow of tenderness as he caught the +letter. There came the noise from without of a footfall on the steps, +hesitant, doubtful. As the boy swept the jewels from the table, a +tapping sounded on the outer door. Dmitri flung back the drapery before +the door of his bedroom. + +“There is the window,” he whispered. “Watch out before you drop from +it.” + +The knock came again, this time louder. He lowered the light and went +to answer it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Carlota stood on the threshold. Her face was white in the +semi-darkness. In the east a faint quiver of radiance showed in the sky +like the reflection of moonlight on dark waters. Dmitri stared at the +girl in wonderment. + +“I want Griffeth,” she said eagerly. “I went to his house and he has +not been there. Oh, I must see him, Dmitri! Tell me he is here with +you!” + +The underlying note of intense repression in her voice struck him, and +yet he hesitated, fearful of Steccho’s safety. + +“He is not here. He left after midnight. Are you alone, my dear?” + +“Surely I am alone; what do you suppose I came for? Would you rather I +went first to the police? I came to you because you are his friend and +I need him.” + +She brushed past him into the narrow hallway. He almost smiled at this +twist to Griffeth’s romance. With all the ardor and recklessness of her +temperament and race, Carlota had flung discretion to the winds and had +come to seek the man she loved at all hazards. Once inside his door, +she let her cloak slip from her shoulders and stood in the center of +the room, a slender, isolated figure. + +“You are all afraid for yourselves,” she said slowly, scornfully. “Even +you, Dmitri, with all the brotherliness you profess, think only of +yourself. Griffeth will not be like that. He will understand that I +never can go back there.” + +“You are excited and nervous.” Dmitri took her cold hands in his with +the whimsical, cheery way that never failed to soothe. “Why should you +go to the police? Tell me what has happened. It is surely a night of +witchcraft when foul fiends prowl. So, now sit down and be very calm. I +can always make you smile, with my nonsense, you see?” + +She tried to meet his eyes, but her own filled with tears and she bit +her lip to keep control of herself. + +“Oh, Dmitri, I am frightened, after all. Did Griffeth tell you about +the fête at Mrs. Nevins’s and--and how I had deceived you both, when +you were so good to me? I only sang for his sake, so his opera would +surely be a success. I never dreamt that any one would be there who +would recognize me; you believe me, don’t you?” + +Dmitri lit a fresh cigarette with musing eyes, tossed away the match, +and hummed Fiametta’s motif softly under his breath. + +“So you yourself have scaled the castle wall to seek your love,” he +said. “Did they try to hold you from him?” + +“It is worse than you can think, Dmitri. To-night when I returned there +was no one in the apartment. I called up Ogden Ward; do you know him?” + +Dmitri’s level eyebrows contracted at the name. He eyed her oddly, +remembering Griffeth’s words that the banker had been her patron. + +“I know him; what then?” + +“He was stabbed in my apartment a little while ago,” she whispered. +“I sent for him to come so that I might pay him back the money he had +advanced for three years. I offered him some jewels that belonged to my +grandmother. He laughed at me when we were alone, and said I had ruined +my career by singing in the opera and had broken my word to him by +meeting Griffeth and caring for him. I offered him the rubies--” + +Dmitri bent over her suddenly. + +“Rubies?” he repeated quickly. “What were they?” + +“They belonged to Margherita Paoli, my grandmother. He had seen me wear +them at the fête, and told me on the way home he wanted to buy them. +But when I offered them to him, he--he refused. We were alone and I +tried to fight him off. The lamp crashed to the floor and I felt his +arms close about me; then I fainted.” + +Dmitri watched the long green curtains at the bedroom door. They were +motionless, yet he crossed over and parted them casually to glance +within. + +“So,” he said in relief. “And then? Do not hurry.” + +“I was unconscious for a while, and when I recovered the room was +still in darkness. I found the push-button in the wall and turned on +the lights. Mr. Ward lay on the floor by the couch. He made a sound of +moaning and it frightened me. Oh, Dmitri, it was horrible to be alone +with him there. I gave him water to drink and saw that he was wounded +in the back. He told me to go quietly down and tell Ishigaki who was +waiting for him in his car. I must be very careful and give no alarm, +he said. He had been stabbed and the jewels were gone. After I had +sent the Japanese up to help him, I was afraid to go myself. I wanted +Griffeth. I knew they would try to keep me from him.” + +“Why did you not call him at the house on the Square?” + +“I did,” she protested. “He had not come in yet, they told me. I left +word for him that I must see him.” + +Dmitri gazed at her glowing, expressive face with half-closed, +retrospective eyes. Surely Fate had sent her to his door at the one +hour of opportunity. He would save the boy Steccho from folly and +crime, and give Griffeth back his love. + +“Then he must have received your message after he left here,” he said +cheerily. “And he will surely seek you at your own home. You must go +back there.” + +“I never will go back to them. I will wait for him here,” she insisted. +“They will blame me for everything, for sending to Mr. Ward, for the +loss of the jewels, everything, and I will not listen to them. I do not +care for anything in the whole world but Griffeth.” + +“Then you must safeguard him,” Dmitri urged. “They may suspect him +since he knew of the jewels, and we who live and think as nomads are +ever under suspicion. Have you not heard it said that all genius is +insanity? It is enough that he lives in the temperamental zone of the +village. Now, my dear child, you are cold and nervous. You will see how +well I can take care of you. You shall sit here and drink coffee for a +few moments while I go and telephone to Griffeth. And then”--he knelt +before the brazier, stirring and blowing the embers to a blaze--“then +we will have the surprise. When you were very little, did you not +always love the surprise, eh? Sometimes Life is still indulgent to us; +even in our greatest extremity, she grants us the surprise, and it is +this that keeps up our faith, that somehow, somewhere, our own shall +come to us, see?” + +“If he is there when you call up, will you tell him to come here to +me?” She looked at him with longing eyes, and Dmitri smiled back at her. + +“Surely I will. Fate shuffles the cards, remember; man only deals +them. I have ever found that we move in circles of coincidence drawn +together like the particles in the spectrum by some immutable unseen +force of attraction to form a cosmic harmony. You like that, do you? +For, see, you go forth in the night to seek your well-beloved, like the +Shulamite of old. Do you know her, my dear, among the immortal lovers?” +He measured level spoonfuls of pulverized coffee into the little copper +pot carefully. “Yet you remind me of her. So. When this boils up the +third time, then you shall drink it while I go for your surprise.” + +Out in the street a car drew up before the house next door. Count +Jurka alighted, scanned the small brass numbers on the door carefully, +and ascended the narrow steps. He wore a cloak over his evening suit, +the cape thrown back over one shoulder, and as he waited he hummed a +waltz air from the last opera he had heard in Bucharest. Surely the +road of fortune lay free to the intrepid traveler. They had thought, +with the sop of peace thrown to her, that Bulgaria would lie still +like a whipped cur. The royalist cause was denied recognition save as +the latest king licked the hand that fed him. Only in the old queen, +rebellious and restless in her exile, was the spirit of dominion. He +smiled as he recalled her favors. + +“A straight line--a goal!” + +The line from Nietzsche swam through his head. He felt supremely +satisfied with life. The message from Steccho had reached him at +the hotel and he had come himself. As he was directed by the sleepy +houseman to the room at the top of the first flight of stairs, he +balanced the boy’s destiny for him. Was it wiser to silence him now +or on the voyage back? He would leave it to Georges. Yet not even to +him would he give the pleasure of receiving the royal rubies. He lit a +cigarette at the head of the stairs and tapped on the door. + +There was dead silence within. He tried the knob, and found the key +turned on the inner side. + +“Open,” he said curtly. “It is I.” + +Steccho obeyed slowly. He had been sitting on the narrow cot, his +head buried in his hands. His shirt was open at the throat as if it +had choked him. In the dim light from the one gas-jet his face looked +haggard and yellow under his long, straight, disheveled hair. + +“You have kept me waiting.” Jurka closed the door behind him, standing +with his back to it. “Where are the jewels?” + +The blood rushed to Steccho’s head. He threw back his hair with a quick +movement of his head, and smiled in the old servile way. + +“I have them all, excellenza. One moment only. You can swear to me by +your own life that I shall find all well at Rigl, that they will be +there to greet me, my mother and little Maryna?” + +Around the lips of the Count there curved an amused smile. + +“I swear to you I will send you where they are,” he said slowly. + +As the meaning of his words flashed upon the boy, he flung himself +forward, his fingers seizing his throat. + +“Go thou before me!” he gasped. “Liar and murderer, see who it is that +kills you! Look deep in my eyes! I, Ferad Steccho, send you out of +life! Think on my mother!” His fingers choked the thin, white neck of +Jurka relentlessly, but the Count fought back with all the advantage +of a trained body and mind. They fell on the couch together, locked in +a death-grapple. Almost without sound, save for the stifled breathing, +they fought until Jurka wrenched himself free, and staggered back. + +“Excellenza!” Steccho breathed, his face the very mask of hate, “I have +heard the truth. They are dead these five months, my mother cut down +by famine, my sister--Oh, God, hear me!--Maryna is dead, a woman thing +thrown to your soldiers to be done to death at their pleasure; you hear +me! You swore to me by the cross you would protect them, and you knew +this all the time you lied to me. You knew when you sent me last night +to rob and kill for you.” + +“If I call for help, what then?” sneered Jurka. “I will swear you +robbed me.” + +“Call! Call on your queen to save you.” The boy leaped upon him +like a panther and bore him to the floor, his bare hands gripping +remorselessly at the white, slim throat. He bent over the mottled, +horror-stricken face, forcing the glazing eyes to stare into his, and +laughed softly. “See, I could kill you with the knife, but I will have +you look at me, so, straight to the door of death. Excellenza, the +rubies are red. Think on the blood of the innocents you have killed, +thousands and thousands. They wait for you--” + +He felt the figure beneath him twist and strain with one last +tremendous effort to force him off. The Count’s hands fumbled blindly, +searchingly, and there came a dull report. Hardly had Steccho felt +the touch of the automatic as it was pressed to his side. The pain +was deadened by the joy of watching the light die out of the staring, +maddened eyes. His fingers loosened their grasp unwittingly. The form +of Jurka crumpled to the floor, and Steccho pressed his hands against +his side, looking at them curiously. Sinking into the chair by the +low table, he pulled the jewels from his pockets. They were moist and +dulled. What was it Dmitri had warned him? + +“They are accursed. Red for the blood of your people, pearls for the +tears they have shed.” + +He picked up the heavy tiara and dashed it down into the dead face upon +the floor. + +“Excellenza,” he whispered, “think on them, they wait for you--” His +head fell forward on his breast. The lines of the wall-paper seemed +to dance and entwine as life slipped from his reach. “The sun shines +on the yellow castle,” he murmured huskily. “Maryna’s hair, yellow in +the sun, yellow like gold, excellenza, and wet with blood.” He sighed +heavily, groping for something with the seeking touch of the blind, +something he had let fall when he had seized the white throat of Jurka. +And suddenly there was utter silence in the room, the curious silence +where there is no breath of life stirring. + +Next door Dmitri paused on the steps as he closed the door behind him. +In the east a glow of deepest rose flushed the mother-of-pearl clouds +into shells of trembling, lambient radiance. He eyed it happily. It +was a symbol, that promise of the daybreak. So in the earth-lands +overseas the dawn of humanity was coming despite the upheavals of class +struggles. He would come back and pack after he had returned Carlota +safely to Griffeth, together with the jewels. Then he and Steccho +would take the homeward way together. He glanced down the shadowy +street. There was no one in sight. He entered the house by the basement +door. The houseman smiled and nodded to him as he set out empty milk +bottles. He mounted the stairs with a light, buoyant step and knocked +at Steccho’s door. There was no response, and he pushed the door open. +Something there was inside that lay close against it, impeding his +entrance, and he peered around, thinking the boy had slept there in +heavy exhaustion. + +“Ferad!” he called cheerily. “It is daybreak. You sleep late.” + +But the boy did not stir. He slept well in the last bivouac, and, +turning, Dmitri beheld the other stark form beside him, he who had +been the court chamberlain, the debonair Jurka, the queen’s messenger. +Crushed in the hand of Steccho was the letter from Sofia. He unclenched +the stiffened fingers gently and read it with half-closed eyes and +contracted muscles. Placing it in his own inner pocket, he searched +both bodies. On Jurka he found a leather wallet filled with bank-notes +and documents. There was no time to examine them. He noticed only the +Count’s personal card and the address, the Hotel Dupont. In another +pocket was a bunch of keys which he took. Not a sign was there in the +room of the jewels. Only in Steccho’s raincoat pocket he discovered a +large unset opal, one of those toys Ward had played with, kept by the +boy to please Maryna. He went out as he had come, nodding again to the +houseman. + +There was no time to waste. There would be the hue and cry of the +police and newspapers. He would be brought into it inevitably. Outside +the house he paused and lighted a cigarette deliberately, then +sauntered to the corner where a light burned all night in the little +Bulgarian café of Barouki. It was part of the creed of life to Barouki +not to ask questions of any one, which attribute rendered his place +popular among those who came from Sofia. Dmitri greeted the sleepy-eyed +old man, and entered the dusty booth at the end of the café. His voice +was pleasant and comradely as he called the apartment of Ogden Ward. + +“But you will be kind enough to disturb him, nevertheless,” he urged +upon Ishigaki. “Tell him I have an opal to return to him.” + +Dmitri came from the café with a little smile on his lips. He hailed a +becalmed taxi in front of a chop-house near the elevated station, and +drove back for Carlota. + +“I should never have come to you, should I?” she asked, tiredly, as she +leaned her head back on the cushions. “What was the surprise?” + +“My very dear child,” he said tenderly, “you must trust me. I believe +in fate and opportunity, in what we call in my land the hour appointed, +and never in my life have I been permitted to watch the gods at work +so much as now. Sleep awhile as we drive uptown. I will waken you at +Fifty-Ninth Street, where I leave you. And you must not be afraid. Love +is eternal. Nothing can kill it. Remember that. Only keep faith with +yourself.” + +He watched her lips relax and her lashes droop. As the car hurried +uptown through silent streets the hum of the city gradually began, the +far-off call of the ferry-boats sounded in the gray sea mist, a fire +engine clanged down Fourth Avenue. Dmitri folded his arms, looking +straight ahead of him, and seeing two set faces under the flickering +gaslight. They had passed out of the play, Jurka and the boy Ferad. Who +had profited by their death? The queen’s rubies still lured with their +unholy splendor another’s feet along the trail of death. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The telephone bell rang in the living-room. Carlota lifted her head +eagerly from the pillow to listen as Maria answered. + +“It is quite impossible. Miss Trelango is ill and cannot come to the +telephone herself.” + +“Oh, Maria, but I can--please--” Carlota called breathlessly from the +inner bedroom, but the voice went on inexorably and with chill finality. + +“I regret I cannot listen any further. It is impossible for her to see +you.” + +Carlota sat up in bed, slim and tragic, her wealth of dark hair +tumbling about her shoulders. + +“Was that Mr. Ames? You begged me to come and talk to Jacobelli not +five minutes ago, and now you say that I am too ill to get up.” + +“Cara mia, you are not to excite yourself with anger,” Maria soothed +her. “Lie very still, my preciosa, relax your nerves. Remember +agitation is very bad for your voice.” + +“But you will not understand, Maria,” she protested. “This is the man I +love, the man I shall surely marry, and you will not even let me speak +to him when I know how troubled he is. I must see him, Maria. If you +really loved me, you would not keep us apart.” + +“Would I not?” Maria repeated fervently. “How did he know this number?” + +“I do not know,” Carlota asserted proudly. “I did not even tell him my +name, nothing at all.” + +“So? Then it is maybe--the Marchese. He is soft-hearted. He regards +this as a romance when it is a calamity. Do you realize what it means, +Jacobelli saying Ward insists everything is to be canceled if you +persist in jeopardizing your career?” + +“Mr. Ward?” Carlota smiled. “When did he say that? Not to-day surely?” + +“You are concealing something from me.” Maria bent over her with wide, +accusing eyes, even while her fingers stroked her hair fondly. “Ah, +if I had never gone to Casanova’s reception, I might have saved you +everything, the wild escapade at this Mrs. Nevins’s, the exposé, the +loss of the jewels, the horror of last night--Now, behold, your career +is ruined.” + +Carlota was silent, her eyes bright with anger. It was all they thought +of, the money which Ward had given for her musical education, the door +which he might have opened for her to success. They thought that life +was made up only of achievement. Even Maria, whom she had loved and +leaned upon always, had veered completely over to the enemy, and found +a sacred obligation in keeping her thus, behind the wall of Tittani. +She closed her eyes as Maria’s voice declaimed solemnly: + +“With the world at her feet, Paoli tossed it aside like a withered +flower and retired to her villa with only her friends and her memories. +Bianca, your beloved mother, fled with her love and died, still half a +child. This is only the very first false dawn of love, carina. You will +forget him in a month. Ah, if I could but take you back, for even a +little while, to the garden.” + +“If you try to part us, I will never sing again,” Carlota told her +tragically. “I will never accept any aid from Mr. Ward again.” + +“Then you are what Jacobelli called you, an ingrate, after all the love +and hope we have lavished upon you.” Maria was weeping plenteously, +helplessly, as she realized the power behind Carlota’s words. + +The outer bell rang, silencing the argument. Hurriedly she went to +open it, while the girl slipped from the bed, flung a silk robe over +her shoulders, and slipped her feet into satin mules. If it should be +Griffeth, if he had really dared to come again to penetrate her tower +of durance, she would force them to let her see him. She listened +eagerly for his voice. Instead it was a messenger boy, bearing Ames’s +first shell into the enemy’s camp. He had gone from the telephone +booth, and had spent all he had in an orgy of roses from a flower-stand. + +“Return them. There is no answer,” Maria said firmly. + +But the boy was loyal. Stolidly he insisted there was no place to +return them. The gentleman had gone on his way. In the doorway Carlota +appeared suddenly and Maria stepped back from the look in her eyes as +she took the long box as if it had been a tiny bambino. Holding it +close to her breast, she went back to her bed, her chin pressed against +it. + +“I shall not even speak to you or look at you, if you treat me like +this, Maria. I am not a child,” she said haughtily. “Whatever he sends +to me, you will regard it as sacred.” + +“You are not responsible. You are unreasonable and reckless, and I +shall lock you in your room. The Marchese and Jacobelli will be here +later, and then you will tell them the truth about last night.” + +“I will tell them nothing.” Carlota held her breath, listening to +the turn of the lock in the door, and shrugged her shoulders as she +laid her face on the red roses. It would not do to break her heart in +solitude, not when she knew he was thinking of her and trying to reach +her. Dmitri would surely find him and tell him all that had occurred +the previous night. He would clear him of any charge Ward might lodge +against him. What charge could they bring, save that he had befriended +the boy Steccho and had loved her? Ingrate, they called her. The word +puzzled her. She found her little red morocco dictionary in her desk +drawer and looked it up in deepest interest. The definition was brief +and to the point: + +“Ingrate: One who is ungrateful.” + +Sitting up in bed, girl fashion, she leaned her elbows on her knees, +and thought seriously. The melody of “Cerca d’Amore” ran through her +mind, the quest of love, and all her being seemed to become, in some +mystical sense, a chalice to hold this divine essence of love that +had glorified her life. Impulsively she turned the pages to the word +“love.” The definition was vague and unsatisfactory. + +“Love: to have affection.” + +She pursed her lips, and gravely sought another route to knowledge. + +“Husband: a man who marries a woman.” + +This was utterly absurd to a seeker after life’s greatest, sweetest +mystery. She hurried to “wife,” and found merely an echo. + +“Wife: a woman who marries a man.” + +Last of all, she found “marriage.” It was positively trite. + +“Marriage: wedlock.” + +Under “wedlock” she discovered “marriage.” She hurled the little book +from her, and seized a pencil and pad from the stand beside her. + +“Love,” she dashed off impetuously, “the divine gift that joins two +hearts for eternity.” + +This looked nearer the ecstasy of real truth. Not that one could even +approach in words the expression of the miracle of love, but this was +closer. In the next room Maria sang a tender old chant of the nuns +at Leguna Marino, the tiny town that clung to the cliffs below Villa +Tittani. This was a ruse, to lift her mind from earthly things, she +knew, and yet she tried again, her own improvements in the lexicon of +love. + +“Marriage,” she wrote carefully. “The blessed union of two souls who +love perfectly.” + +It was an inspired improvement on the dictionary definition, she +thought, and after “love” she added, “the divine gift that awakens +souls to life’s meaning.” + +Maria would never understand. She would smile at her pityingly and +guard her from the passion that was her heritage. Jacobelli would rage +and beat the air and denounce all romance as a detractor of art, but +the old Marchese, he would sympathize with her. Sometimes, when he sat +at dinner with them, smoking leisurely, a smile of content on his fine +old face, she had often wondered what memories lay behind his charm of +manner and unfailing understanding with youth’s heritage of yearning. +With the rose on the pillow beside her and the little pad in her hand, +she fell asleep. + +In the living-room Maria Roma knelt beside the Florentine chest, +selecting the remainder of the Paoli collection to be deposited in the +safety vault. It was true, as Ward had told Jacobelli the previous +night, coming from the Nevins fête, neither Carlota nor she had +appreciated the full value of the royal gems. The stolen rubies alone +were worth several hundred thousand dollars, yet Carlota had worn +them as if they had been paste. There was not another stone in the +world that could compare in purity with the Zarathustra ruby. Maria +knew the story of how it had come into the possession of Margherita +Paoli, nearly half a century before. She had heard of the impassioned +young Balkan prince who had cast all he owned at the feet of the most +beautiful woman in Europe. When she would have returned the rubies, he +had refused them, even with the knowledge of her affair with Tennant. + +“You deny me your love. Let the rubies tell you ever of mine. I may not +hold you in my arms. Let them rest on your glorious hair, your throat, +your breast, telling you forever that Boris loved you.” + +Yet it was doubtful whether Paoli herself had even grasped the great +value of the jewels. She had never been the type of woman to seek the +price of anything. It belittled rather than enhanced the value of a +thing to have it rated. So the rubies had lain for years in the old +chest with her other jewels, half forgotten as the years went by, +and Crown Prince Boris had long since lain upon his gold and purple +catafalque. + +Delicately and precisely Maria placed each remaining piece in its +separate velvet case, sighing heavily over her task. The burden of +responsibility laid by the old Contessa upon her shoulders, weighed +heavily in the present crisis. Love or ambition? Which pathway was the +feet of girlhood to follow when genius had given wings for flight? It +would be fatal for Carlota, on the threshold of her career, to marry +as her mother had done, flinging all into the balance of romance. Yet +there came a thrill to Maria’s Trentino blood as she realized how the +old Marchese sympathized with such recklessness. + +It was all quite simple, he had told her the previous night when they +had returned and found Carlota gone, the jewels stolen, and Ishigaki +caring for Ward. While Ward had smiled at her inscrutably as she wept +and demanded the truth, the old Marchese had ignored him, and had +calmed her gently. + +“Whatever has happened, there is no cause for alarm. Youth and art, a +boy and girl singing love duets together, pouf! What would they have +come from such a tragedy, she and Jacobelli, and Mr. Ward himself? +Compel a girl like Carlota to don gray and walk softly to set measures +like some little novice, a girl with the Trelango and Paoli blood +beating love’s tempo in her veins!” + +“But her voice, her career?” she had protested wildly. “Is it nothing, +all we have done and hoped for her?” + +The Marchese had smiled tenderly. + +“Jacobelli is a great teacher,” he said, “but there is one greater than +he. His heartstrings are insulated copper wires, my dear Maria. And for +the rubies--remember what the old Contessa herself used to say of them, +that they were accursed, pearls for the tears of an oppressed people, +rubies for the blood of the innocent? Regret them not. I have never +craved such things myself, not while there is truth and beauty and love +left to us to cherish.” + +Carlota slept heavily, dreamlessly, the sleep of utter exhaustion of +mind and body after the long night. Through her windows the late autumn +sunlight poured an amber glow. A mellow stillness seemed to lie over +the city as if the hush of Indian summer had already laid a finger upon +the laughing lips of Manhattan. Even the ringing of the outer bell when +the Marchese arrived failed to rouse her. He was smiling and debonair +as ever, bearing his customary votive offering of flowers. Laying his +gloves upon his hat on the piano, he beamed upon Maria’s anxious face. + +“Cheer up, my friend,” he exclaimed. “The world is very beautiful this +afternoon. Where is Carlota? So, asleep.” He lowered his voice. “That +is better, for you and I, Maria, have seen life, have looked it in the +face and not quailed, have we not, and we are not afraid, where she is +very young and tender.” + +“Ah, what now?” Maria whispered, her hands pressed to her temples. “He +is not here?” + +“He? Who, the boy Griffeth? No, no, my dear, he is not here. In fact, +he may be quite safe behind prison bars by night. That would please +you, yes?” + +“In prison? For persecuting her with his attentions?” + +“No, for complicity in the attempt to murder Ogden Ward and the robbery +of the jewels. I have just come from Ward himself. He is not injured +seriously. The ribs deflected the blow. His greatest wish is to avoid +all publicity--naturally.” + +The sardonic note in his tone struck Maria. + +“You surely do not place any reliance in what she said last night? She +was excited and distraught. A child like that would mistake the fervor +of love for an attack--” + +She stopped short. Carlota stood in the doorway, slim and erect in a +hasty toilette. She had overheard their voices and arisen. With the +long refreshing sleep had come high resolve. The Marchese, looking +at her arrayed in a long, clinging négligé of creamy lace, with its +borders of rich fur, thought of the young Paoli in her first fire of +love. + +“Ah, cara mia,” exclaimed Maria eagerly, “you have rested. Kiss your +old cross Maria, so. We dine with the Marchese to-night; you will like +that, yes?” + +Carlota shook her head, her eyes brilliant with resentment and +determination. + +“I will not go,” she said passionately. “You have treated me as if I +were a spoiled child, locking me in my room. What is this about Ward +accusing Griffeth, Marchese? He was not even here last night.” + +“But where was he, then, my child? The night doorman tells another +story. He was here after you had left.” + +Carlota’s eyes closed and opened again widely, fearlessly. + +“Mr. Ward dares to accuse Griffeth of the robbery and attack on +himself, does he?” + +“No. He is very considerate, my dear, very kind,” Veracci assured her +tenderly. “You are over-anxious and must not lose the perspective +of things. Mr. Ward has silenced the news of the robbery. There is +nothing at all in the papers. He is handling the entire affair most +diplomatically, with private detectives, and the police commissioner +muzzled. Ah, he is very clever. His own wound is nothing to him, but +the loss of the jewels is everything. His theory is this, you have been +meeting friends of Ames, no doubt, in his studio. You may have spoken +of the jewels--” + +“I did not!” flashed Carlota. + +“Possibly without intent. You wore them at the fête. There has been a +secret search going on for these royal gems, it appears, for months. +Ward knew all about it. He did not know they were in your possession +until the night of the fête, he says. They are part of the crown jewels +of Bulgaria.” + +“But they were given to Margherita outright by Boris himself,” +protested Maria; “there was no theft. They were hers.” + +“He had no right to give them.” The old Marchese spoke gently. “When +the revolution came and Ferdinand fled, Sophia took the crown jewels +with her. Since then, Ward tells me, parts of them have been turning up +at every jewel mart in the world, where she has sought to raise funds +for the royalist cause. These were traced to America from Italy by a +man named Count Jurka, the queen’s chamberlain. Ward knew him. He was +found dead this morning.” + +Maria stared at him in silence. Carlota came to his side quickly, her +face white with dread, as she remembered Dmitri’s promise to find the +jewels. + +“Where?” + +“In a room on East Twenty-Eighth Street. It is in the Bulgarian +quarter, next door to where a man lives named Dmitri Kavec, the closest +friend of Griffeth Ames. My dear,” as his arm encircled her swaying +figure, “you must be strong. He was found with another, a Bulgarian +boy called Steccho, also a friend of Ames and Kavec’s. Have you met +them at his studio?” + +“I know Dmitri Kavec,” she said brokenly, her hands covering her face. +“Has he accused Griffeth?” + +“He has not been found himself. That is why they are going to hold the +boy as witness against him, and for possible complicity in the crime. +Did you see the man who entered this room last night and took the +jewels?” + +Carlota stared up at him almost beseechingly, and shook her head. + +“I fainted when Mr. Ward’s arms touched me.” She shuddered at the +memory of that moment. “But I know Dmitri is not guilty.” She +hesitated. Dmitri, Griffeth’s friend, to whom she had gone last night +in her trouble. His buoyant words rang in her mind when he had left +her. She was to have no fear. He would recover the jewels for her and +bring them to her. Did he have them in his possession at that very +moment? Was it all part of some secret conspiracy to escape with them +himself, defrauding not only her, but Jurka as well? She lifted her +head with swift resolution. + +“I am going to Griffeth. No, you cannot hold me, Maria. Come with me if +you like, but I am going to him. He will need me greatly. If you will +not, then I must ask the Marchese to take me to him.” + +And Maria Roma, looking into her eyes, knew the days of girlhood had +passed and the feet of Paoli’s grandchild had scaled the wall of +Tittani in her quest for love. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Sauntering from the elevated station at Eighth Street over to the +Square, Jacobelli mused upon the vagaries of a golden voice. His point +of view was changing with the speed of an Alpine tourist. Maria had +acquainted him with the decision of Carlota. + +“Ah, signor, believe me, she does not feign illness. Her heart is not +breaking. It is freezing, which is worse. Never will she sing again, +she declares, if you deny her the one whom she loves. She spoke his +name in her sleep. It is the romance beautiful, the divine fire from +heaven alighted upon the altar of a woman’s heart, it is--” + +“Enough!” exclaimed Jacobelli. “I capitulate. Doubtless she is right. +Two--three years nearly I have taught her all I know, and yet what is +it? She cannot sing the wonderful heart-throb music as the great woman +artiste must. Not all the technique in the world can put it into her +voice; yet one day she meets the man she loves, and lo! it is there, +she excels. I knew it when she came to me that day at the studio +after she had quarreled with him. I heard it then in her voice, the +glory--the abandon--the power of the woman who claims the universe for +her love. And I am a fool, Maria, I lose my head entirely. I am jealous +of this unknown teacher who has opened the heart of my star. I hate +him. At the Nevins fête I make the grand fool of myself, signora. But +now, I see, I bow. Let her have her love if she will. I have lunched +with the Marchese, and am at peace with the world. After the honeymoon +tell her we will resume her lessons.” + +He felt marvelously benevolent as he made his way towards Ames’s +studio. Possibly his luncheon chat with the Marchese had much to do +with it, also the fact that later he had seen Casanova. Count D’Istria +had kept his word to Griffeth, and Casanova, ever ready to observe +the way of the wind with managerial straws, had promised to bring the +operetta to the immediate attention of the Metropolitan directors with +his sanction on its production the coming season. + +Finding his way up the three flights of stairs, Jacobelli knocked upon +the door with his cane. Griffeth lay full length upon the cushions of +the dormer window-seat, depressed and miserable. He had been awake +all night, striving to get into communication with Carlota or Dmitri, +and had missed them at every point. Still his flowers had not been +returned. He had ascertained that much from the lad at the flower-stand +in the old market. He had sent twice to Dmitri’s house and he had not +returned since daybreak, they said. + +The rap on the outer door made him spring to unlock it, expecting +either Dmitri or a message from Carlota. Instead there stood upon his +threshold Guido Jacobelli, from whom he had been parted by interested +friends only a night before, the one man in New York whom he regarded +as his enemy. He gave him no invitation to enter, but stood like +a glowering, expectant young stag, ready for the onslaught of his +adversary. + +Jacobelli waved him aside airily, and entered the room, making himself +at home in the large oak armchair, and stroking Ptolemy who strolled +over to inspect him. + +“We make friends, what you say, my boy?” he asked genially. “I forgive +you from my heart all you do to me in the past, see? Why? Because I, +Jacobelli, make the great discovery. You speak the truth. She is your +pupil.” + +“What do you mean?” asked Griffeth suspiciously. “I heard all that you +said of her last evening. I understand perfectly that she is Paoli’s +granddaughter and backed by the patronage of Ogden Ward. I do not know +why it was her whim to come down here and play at being my pupil. It +has ruined my work and broken my heart, but I wish her all the success +and happiness in the world.” + +Jacobelli beamed at him archly, his black eyebrows rising in crescents, +his lips a smiling, close curve above his two double chins. + +“She came here because she loves you, my boy, because she longed to +give you her wonderful voice in your operetta. She is Love’s pupil. One +day she opens her mouth to sing for me, and, my God! it is there, the +temperament I have prayed for, it is there, and you have given it to +her. I salute you.” + +“Has she sent you to me?” asked Griffeth eagerly. “May I see her at +once?” + +Jacobelli chuckled, stroking the yellow fur of Ptolemy until it +crackled. + +“I know nothing of her. I have not seen her since last night, but the +Signora Roma tells me she has tormented them all because they would not +permit her to see you. In fact, she tried to reach you last night; you +knew this?” + +“I found her message when I returned. I tried to see her and walked +back home through the Park.” + +“Which is just as well.” The old maestro smiled significantly. “Youth +is utterly mad. You rave now, and say your career is ended. My poor +boy, you have not heard from Casanova, no? This very hour he tells me +they will surely produce your operetta next season. Is not that enough?” + +“The operetta?” repeated Griffeth grimly. “I had forgotten all about +it. When I lost her everything went out of my life. I felt like using +the world for a football and kicking the stars up a little higher out +of reach. You don’t know how blank life seemed to me until she came +down here. I had been across during the war with Carrollton Phelps in +the Aerial Service. We fell about the same time, and after months of +being patched up, I was sent home, excess baggage on the war wagon. I +was twenty then, and when I had my grip back, my father let me do as I +pleased, and I came here to work out some of the things I had always +hoped to do. I’ve felt like an idler beating out harmonies in this +bird’s-eye castle until she came.” + +“Then I will tell you something to comfort you and light the path +again. Always remember the path is there even though you are in +darkness.” Jacobelli pressed his finger-tips together, his eyes +brilliant with the fire of enthusiasm. “One of your own great men +has said he would rather write the songs of a nation than its laws. +We are but teachers, my boy. You who compose music are the living +current between humanity and those mighty, immutable laws of harmony +and vibration which move the universe, is it not so?--and love is the +greatest of all divine laws.” + +From a street piano at the curb below the studio windows the melody +of the “Barcarole” came to them in ascending volume. A taxicab drew +up beside it. Carlota could almost have blown kisses to each dear, +remembered spot along the Square as she alighted with Maria. Only +forty-eight hours since she had been to the studio, yet the tidal wave +of circumstance had nearly swept the happiness of her life out to sea. +She smiled at the Greek boy beside the pushcart, smiled at the children +playing in the patches of ground before the old brownstone row of +houses, smiled almost in the face of Sergeant Lorrie, of the Central +Detective Bureau, as she passed him on the steps. + +Maria followed her, resigned and tragic. She had called up the Marchese +at the final moment, even after he had left them and returned to the +Lafayette, to tell him Carlota’s ultimate choice, and to her amazement +the old Italian courtier had congratulated her on her own defeat. + +“Remember, signora,” he had urged buoyantly, a “certain ancient +gentleman of varied experience in matrimony, one King Solomon, has +stated as his opinion that love is stronger than death and many +waters cannot quench it. I agree with him perfectly. Request our +beloved Carlota that she will permit my presence at her nuptials with +Pierrot. I have a penchant for romantic weddings. They recall to me the +fragrance of roses abloom at Vallombrosa. Once, as we two walked under +the olive grove years ago, you refused me, Maria mia. When you are +tempted to be unyielding and forbidding to these children, these two +lovers, remember Vallombrosa, I implore you. Had you said yes, I should +not have carried the fragrance of roses as a bitter-sweet memory all my +life long.” + +So it happened that, despite her sense of duty to the last wishes +of the old Contessa, Maria felt a thrill of sympathy in the great +adventure as she followed Carlota into the studio on the top floor. + +“We have come for Carlota’s sake,” she said majestically. “It is +against my wishes and judgment, but we are here, signor. You have won.” + +“What is it, dear?” exclaimed Griffeth, as he held Carlota’s hands in +his. “You are cold as ice, and trembling.” He drew her favorite Roman +chair forward to the open grate fire, but Carlota drew back. + +There were shadows beneath her eyes and entreaty in the glance she gave +him. + +“Have you heard from Dmitri?” + +“Not a word since midnight. I left him then; why?” + +She sank into the chair as he stooped eagerly to rouse the fire to a +blaze. “Why, it is almost laughable to find you here just as always, +perfectly safe, and you even seem happy.” + +“I am happy. Jacobelli has just left me and we are great friends. He +came to tell me the operetta is accepted by Casanova. Isn’t that great +news, dear?” + +“And you have heard nothing at all of what--what happened last night? +No one has been here?” + +“No one. What do you mean?” He rose as Maria crossed to the window and +watched the Square below. + +“The Marchese came and told us. Oh, Griffeth, it is all so horrible, +and I know, I know that you had nothing to do with it. You do not need +to tell me so.” + +He held her close in his arms as she reached out to him, and Maria told +the news quickly, of the robbery and attack on Ward. + +“They have implicated you because of your association with one of the +men who is dead and the man who is missing, Dmitri.” + +“Dmitri!” repeated Griffeth. “What do you mean? Dmitri is my friend. +Who is dead?” + +“Griffeth, do you remember”--Carlota lifted her head from his +shoulder--“the young Bulgarian I told you always followed me? The one +Dmitri recognized from the window here and told me I was never to fear +him? This morning we heard from the old Marchese that a double murder +had been committed next door to where Dmitri lived. No, please do not +speak yet,” as he gave a startled exclamation. “One of the men was the +Bulgarian boy, and they suspect Dmitri.” + +“And you yourself, because you are his friend,” Maria added solemnly. +“The Marchese assured us you would be arrested for complicity.” + +“But why did you come here last night?” + +Carlota hesitated, but Maria’s eyes were tender. + +“Because I wanted you to help me,” she said slowly. “There was no one +else to go to, and I was in trouble. Mr. Ward came to the apartment to +buy my rubies and while he was there he was assaulted and robbed.” + +“Were you hurt?” + +“I fainted.” Carlota’s lashes drooped before his steady gaze. “And +afterwards I was afraid to go back.” + +“Why?” he demanded. + +Maria’s hands fluttered out eagerly. + +“You must not ask her disturbing questions when she is so nervous. It +is all very terrible, and mostly so for me. I was to have protected and +guarded her, and now, behold, it is as if she was utterly alone and +friendless.” + +“Oh, do not even think about me!” Carlota cried passionately. “Where is +Dmitri, Griffeth? You believe in him, do you not? Maria, leave me here +alone. I must speak to him in confidence. Forgive me, tanta mia, I love +and trust you, but this concerns his friend. You will go, just for a +little while, won’t you?” + +The roses of Vallombrosa. Signora Roma met the pleading look in +her eyes and the words of the old Marchese rang in her mind like a +sacred charge. Romance and youth and Vallombrosa. If she had not been +ambitious too, and had set her art ahead of love, what a long fair +road of companionship and happiness life might have been with Bernardo +Dinari, Marchese di Veracci. The tears rushed to her eyelids, and she +sighed heavily in surrender as she folded Carlota to her breast. + +“Take her from us,” she said to Griffeth. “Ah, I am no longer blind and +hard of heart. You have taught her well, signor, and after all, it is +life’s sweetest and richest song. I will go and walk in the Square and +think I am back in Italy.” + +Ames closed the door behind her, leaning against it, looking longingly +at the girl standing in the light from the dormer windows. Ptolemy +leaped up to her, rubbing his tawny length affectionately against her, +his eyes gleaming like topaz. + +“Dear, look at me,” he said eagerly. “You came to me again, just as +you did that first day, my wonder girl. Even after everything, you had +faith in me--” + +She held her hands out to him, giving them to his clasp, yet holding +him back. + +“Have we any right to take our own happiness when it makes so many +wretched? Maria, who brought me up and gave me all her love and care, +and dear old Jacobelli--” + +“But they are all willing now. It isn’t selfish, dear. It is our right. +Remember how Dmitri always said we were the inheritors of all the love +dreams of the past, and must hold the torch high for those who come +after us. You know all you have been to me for months, what it meant +to both of us that first night at Phelps’s when you met my eyes, and +it seemed as if everything in my whole being called out to you in +gladness. Carlota, don’t keep me from you! Why did you come here last +night to find me, why are you here to-day, why did Jacobelli come and +tell me frankly it was our love that had given your voice its power and +new beauty? Yet I’ve never even kissed you once, never held you in my +arms--” + +Her eyes closed as his arms clasped about her and he turned her towards +him in a silent, tense embrace. When she lifted her head, she was +smiling, her lashes wet with tears. + +“This is not the right ending for the opera. I have passed the wall of +Tittani and found you and there is no peril or suspense at all, just +the two of us here in the dear old studio, and Ptolemy to turn his back +and not look at us. He is a gentleman, isn’t he, Griffeth?” + +Across the Square along the diagonal path to the old studio building +Dmitri walked with an easy, long-stepped gait. The troops that had +surged over the Belachrista Pass had the same stride. The collar of +his coat was turned up, his brown felt hat pulled low over his eyes, +his cigarette pointing upward. He had passed a pleasant and profitable +night. So engrossed he was in smiling at the future that he failed to +observe Signora Roma waiting in the circle by the fountain, failed to +notice three loiterers about the old studio row. One watched the dormer +windows of the garret. One stood at the corner of MacDougal Street to +take note of possible exits over adjacent roofs in case of need. One +leaned against the iron railing in the front yard and chatted with the +unwitting caretaker, and Dmitri passed them all by jauntily. Would it +be wiser, he mused, to tell Griffeth Ames everything? He had trained +him for months in the new law of humanity’s rights, yet was he not too +young to recognize the imperative need for silence. The breaking dawn +called to Dmitri’s imagination. The chant of the oppressed sounded in +his ears, not the old galley chorus that had kept time to the rhythm +of an Attic boatswain’s flute, nor the call from the steppe prisons +that had been the newborn wail of Russia’s freedom. The old order had +already changed. The heavens were rolling away as a parchment before +the new dayspring. A little struggling here and there, he told himself, +over the earth’s surface, a little blindness in the new light from eyes +long used to darkness, but steadily, inevitably the daybreak would +sweep on and in the full sunlight men should find themselves gazing +into one another’s eyes without fear and hatred and greed. + +He mounted the three flights rapidly, two steps at a time, tapped on +the door, and opened before Griffeth could reach it. + +“Aha!” cried Dmitri. “And so we may be sure that spring will come +again! Are you Harlequin or Pierrot this afternoon, or all the immortal +lovers of romance at once? And have you coffee for a wayfarer? I have +walked all over the city since daybreak. I see that in spite of my +precautions, Columbine has found her way right straight back to the +chimney-pot and the cat and the melody of one Pierrot.” + +He sank down in the old dusty velvet chair by the fireplace, his hair +tousled into curls. Carlota gazed at him with wondering, questioning +eyes. Dmitri, no subtle, terrified criminal hiding from the law, but +as she had ever known him, the happy, confident, scholarly friend. She +forgot everything but his danger. + +“Why”--she turned appealingly to Griffeth--“it’s almost laughable--it’s +like some horrible dream--that I am here with you both just as always, +and you are safe, Dmitri--” + +“Why should I not be safe?” He smiled at her with keen, brilliant eyes. +“It is a most charming surprise to find you here, I admit. I was only +going to drop in and see my favorite friend before I leave. I was going +to entrust to him a commission, but since you are here--” + +The door of the studio opened noiselessly. Dmitri’s lips were +silenced by the sight behind Griffeth and the girl. Lorrie, of the +Central Bureau, was not a person of dramatic instincts or emotional +possibilities. He stood in the patch of sunlight from the hall +skylight, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back on his head. +The hands grasped two automatics, but Lorrie never obtruded them on the +sensibilities of those he was sent to find until he found it necessary. +He stepped into the room, a slight smile on his lips as he took in the +group. Behind him stood two of his men. + +“Kavec,” he said curtly, “you’re under arrest for the double murder of +Jurka and Steccho.” + +Dmitri never stirred. + +“But he is my friend, Carrollton Phelps’s friend!” exclaimed Griffeth +hotly. “I was with him up to midnight myself.” + +“Don’t worry, you’re in too,” returned Lorrie laconically. “Complicity +in the robbery, accessory to the crime, and then some. Search them.” + +“But I was with Mr. Kavec myself until early this morning,” Carlota +declared suddenly, her face lifted high, her eyes avoiding Griffeth’s. +“He had nothing to do with the robbery. He did not even know about it +until I told him myself. It is impossible that he could have done this +thing--” + +She stopped dead short, the color leaving her lips. From Dmitri’s +pockets the detectives drew the rubies of the exiled queen. One by one +the separate pieces were laid upon the table, the necklace, the loosely +linked pendants, the girdle ornament. + +Dmitri lit a cigarette with steady fingers. + +“The tiara is inside my other coat,” he said. “It would be a shame to +break the set.” + +“Dmitri, my God, what have you done!” gasped Griffeth. “Carlota, go to +Maria, out of this. I swear I knew absolutely nothing. Dmitri, tell her +Steccho gave them to you, didn’t he? Say something, man, can’t you?” + +“He’s got nothing to say,” Lorrie answered. “Look here.” He threw out +papers on the table from Dmitri’s coat pockets. “Passage engaged for +Naples, sailing to-morrow. A quick get-away, eh, Kavec.” + +“I do not believe one word of it!” flashed Carlota. “Who ordered this +arrest? The jewels were mine. I have made no complaint of being robbed. +Oh, I do not want any of them back. I hate the sight of them.” + +She sank down in a chair, her face covered by her hands, her shoulders +shaken with sobs, deep, tearless, broken sobs of hopelessness. As Ogden +Ward entered the room hers was the first form his eyes rested on. +Leaning heavily upon a cane and Ishigaki’s arm, he walked slowly, and +with evident pain. Behind him was the tall, dignified figure of the +Marchese, his kindly face troubled and keen when he beheld the group +within the studio. + +“My dear child”--he was beside Carlota instantly. “I am so very sorry +for you. I never dreamt of all this. I deemed it my duty to acquaint +Mr. Ward with your intention to come here as proof of your finality, +and he would come also, therefore I am with him.” + +Dmitri’s gaze never left the face of Ward. Steadily he looked at him, +not sardonically nor with any animosity, but rather whimsically and +pityingly. + +“You brought this on yourself, Ames,” Ward said slowly. “I did it to +protect the interests of Miss Trelango. Through the criminal associates +she met in your place here, she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars +worth in jewels. I resolved, after hearing her decision from the +Marchese, to tell her myself of your deliberate sacrifice of her to get +possession of these gems. From the first moment that I learned of the +double murder, I myself took up the pursuit of the guilty parties with +the commissioner himself, and this is the result.” + +“Pardon.” Ward started at the first sound of Dmitri’s voice, suave and +evenly pitched, as if he had heard it before. “When was that first +moment, if one may ask, Mr. Ward?” + +Ward’s face set in deeper lines. Only Dmitri and he himself of all +those in the room knew the menace behind the words. Until that instant +he had not known of the presence there of one who had spoken to him +over the wire at daybreak that morning. Lorrie looked at the banker +sharply, waiting for his reply. + +“You don’t have to be annoyed by him, you know, Mr. Ward. My orders are +to bring them both down to headquarters.” + +Ward lifted his hand. + +“I will be responsible, sergeant,” he said coldly. “Wait below.” + +With the Marchese’s arm around her, Carlota watched in amazement the +man she loved, the man who hated him, and Dmitri last of all. He was +smiling, courteous as ever, thoroughly at ease and even enjoying the +situation. + +“May I draw your attention, Mr. Ward,” he remarked, motioning to the +table where the jewels lay. “See, they are there. I was bringing them +here to give them to their rightful owner, Miss Trelango. It was best +that she should not see me, so I was about to transfer them to the care +of my friend, Mr. Ames. They are all there, not one missing. Stay. +There is one the genial sergeant overlooked, but it is not of that +set.” He reached in his pocket and drew out his tobacco pouch. “For +safe-keeping,” he smiled, and produced the opal which Steccho had saved +for the golden-haired Maryna to play with. + +Ward’s eyes stared at it fixedly, seeing instead the room at Carlota’s +apartment, the shattered lamp, the scattered gems, and one lithe, +leaping figure in the dim oblong of light from the open window. + +“I have seen that before,” murmured the Marchese thoughtfully, “a +beautiful gem.” + +“When I spoke to you on the telephone this morning I asked you if you +had lost a jewel?” Dmitri’s tone took on a keener edge as he leaned his +hands upon the bare ebony table between them, and addressed Ward. “I +also told you that I had just discovered a most unfortunate accident +which had cost Count Jurka his life. I suggested, in view of certain +papers which I had found in the Count’s notebook regarding--” + +“You are a criminal now in the eyes of the law,” Ward cut in. “You know +the value of a criminal’s testimony.” + +“I am not speaking in court. I speak to my friends,” said Dmitri +gently. “And I am no criminal, save at your own good pleasure, Mr. +Ward. Would you prefer that I state the facts here, or wait until we +arrive at police headquarters or possibly the grand jury?” + +Ward’s face seemed to turn gray as they looked upon him. + +“You can’t prove a damned word.” His eyes, bright and round, met +Dmitri’s in sudden challenge. + +“Can I not?” laughed the latter cheerily. “Ah, my dear Mr. Ward, life +is so very strange and so amusing, and so unexpected, and yet it is all +one grand harmony. I show to you the jewels, the rubies and pearls of +the royal collection. You know where I got them from, and yet you can +sit there and threaten me. You are a fool, because I have the proof +against you!” + +Ward rose heavily. + +“Call Lorrie,” he gasped. “Marchese, I demand it.” + +“You will not call any one until you have heard me out,” Dmitri said +deliberately. “I have the signed confession and all the correspondence +that passed between you and Georges Yaranek.” + +The Marchese moved away from Carlota to the table. She turned to +Griffeth in relief, both of them listening in silent amazement to +Dmitri’s story. + +“This man, Ogden Ward, is not the person he seems to be,” he said +almost gayly, yet with accusation. “He is not your silent, stern +capitalist and banker, your international pawn-broker who can kill or +save a nation by his munificent charity. He is also of a most exquisite +artistic temperament, a nature which responds to the richest and +priceless in art and beauty. He will have only the best, your Mr. Ward. +And this is known all over the world by those who live upon loot for +gold. It was not enough that Count Jurka should recover the missing +crown jewels. He must convert them into cash for use in the royalist +cause. And through his own researches he discovered another on the same +trail, the trail of the Zarathustra ruby. This was Ogden Ward, who +wished to add it to his collection, together with the Orient pearls and +other rubies of the set. Jurka had not been dispatched upon this secret +mission alone. Always, in such cases, there are two set forth together, +that one may succeed if one should fail. Steccho had told me this, +and of the court chamberlain’s trusted attendant and courier, Georges +Yaranek. He is very clever, but he is nervous. When he discovered +the two dead bodies he lost his nerve. And he left behind two most +important things, the wallet of Jurka, and this letter in the dead hand +of my friend.” + +From the inner hatband of his soft felt hat he removed the crumpled +paper Steccho’s hand had groped for in death, and smoothing it out, +he read it gently, from a student comrade. He had written briefly, +fatalistically. There could be nothing worse than all that had gone +before. + + Your mother is dead these five months, one of many aged who died from + starvation. Maryna is lost. I have made careful inquiries, but can + only ascertain that she appealed to Jurka’s agent in this district + at the time of the demonstration made by the royalist faction, and + was taken with other girls from Rigl and adjacent villages to the + mountain camps by the soldiers. None returned alive. + +“Jurka tricked the boy,” Dmitri said quietly. “He needed him in the +work here and promised in return full protection to his mother and +sister by the queen’s own secret agents. This letter came to Steccho +through my hands the night he took the jewels. He came to me and told +what he had seen in the Trelango apartment. Shall I speak in detail?” +He smiled most courteously at Ward. + +“What you say is immaterial. I was called by Miss Trelango herself +that night to complete a business transaction. I had advanced certain +sums for her musical education and training under certain conditions +to which she had agreed. She broke these conditions. It was her own +suggestion that she pay back in full her obligations to me with the +jewels.” + +“Which were worth, let us say, about fifty times the amount you had +advanced, eh?” Dmitri supplemented. “Ah, you are a financier and a very +fine appraiser of values, Mr. Ward, in jewels and--otherwise. With Miss +Trelango’s own testimony and my own as to what my friend told me he +saw and heard, there might be a difference of opinion on the price of +rubies, yes?” + +“Dmitri, let me end this,” demanded Griffeth hoarsely. “I can’t be +quiet any longer.” + +“My boy, you are under arrest, and one call from Mr. Ward will bring +his friends below. Not that I think he would call, but he might. Let +me finish my story first that all may be clear to Mr. Ward, so he will +not think we are deceiving him in any way. I myself told Steccho to +give the jewels back to whomever he had stolen them from and to leave +the service of Count Jurka. He said he could not afford to jeopardize +the safety and lives of his mother and sister. This letter cleared +up that point in his mind. I know he had called at the Hotel Dupont +before coming to me and had left word for Jurka that he had fulfilled +his mission. As you know, their two bodies were found dead in the boy +Steccho’s room. I myself notified Mr. Ward of this as soon as I found +it out, did I not?” + +Ward’s face was a perfect blank. He stared at Dmitri in silence. + +“I told Mr. Ward so that he would understand what had happened, and +requested him to keep the entire matter silent with the police until he +heard from me.” + +“Why did you call Mr. Ward instead of the police?” asked the Marchese +sternly. + +“It was not a matter for the hands of the city police. It was +international in its import and should have been kept absolutely +secret, but Mr. Ward thought otherwise. Doubtless he did not believe +me, that I held the proofs.” + +“What proofs?” Carlota’s hand closed over that of the old Marchese, +feeling his sympathy for her. + +“The proofs of Mr. Ward’s private business with the queen’s +chamberlain. Doubtless they were not criminal; mind, I do not say they +were, but I do not think that they were diplomatically ethical, shall +we say, Mr. Ward?” + +Ward waited, still silent and immobile, never relaxing his gaze on the +face of Dmitri. + +“So, and now we come to the unexpected part, when, as I tell you often, +Griffeth, the gods lean down and deal the cards themselves. When I +come out of my door to cross to where Steccho lived, in the gray dawn +I see a closed limousine turn the corner of Third Avenue. That is most +unusual for the quarter where I live, and I notice it particularly. +Then I find in my friend’s room the two dead bodies, both warm. Jurka +was strangled by the boy and shot him in the side as they struggled. +No mystery there. But the jewels for which they fought were gone, only +one opal belonging to Mr. Ward in Steccho’s coat pocket. I always +search pockets. They are so handy for hiding things. And I find out +first that whoever took those jewels did not have time or sense to +look through the pockets of the dead men. Possibly he was nervous. +I did look and I found several interesting things in Count Jurka’s +possession, his personal wallet and notebook, his keys and a letter +which he had doubtless written himself to Mr. Ward before he left the +hotel to find Steccho. I have that letter; it escaped the attention +of the gentlemen of the police when they searched me. Carlota, my old +leather music folder is there on the piano behind you, if you please, +my dear.” Wonderingly Carlota gave the old brown flat bag to him. He +produced from it the gold-capped wallet of Jurka and several letters +and documents. + +“I was most fortunate in arriving at the Dupont at an hour when +vigilance is relaxed. The number of the Count’s suite was on his hotel +key. I made my way up to that floor by the back stairs, as you say, +the servants’ way, and I found myself alone in his rooms. I hurried +in my search of his locked trunk and desk, and I found all I wanted. +And suddenly there was another key inserted in the door and Georges +Yaranek came in. I stepped back behind a door and when he passed me I +seized him. He is very much the stronger and I am no fighter at all, +but I have to get the better of him just the same, so I use tricks. It +is always permissible, is it not, Mr. Ward, when your cause is just? +I take and tie him up with the heavy silk portière cords so he can do +no damage, and then I find all the jewels on him, all of them. You +see what a very clever precaution that is to send two out on a secret +mission, and if one fails, the other he will carry it out. Georges +Yaranek is no servant. He is of the Bulgarian secret service, a spy of +the queen, and when Jurka came to get the jewels from Steccho, Yaranek +came likewise lest the Count come not back from that house next to +mine. I have his written and sworn confession of all he did, so that +Mr. Ward would not feel the slightest doubt or suspicion of my word.” + +“Where is Yaranek?” demanded Ward. “Why was his written confession +necessary? Why did you not turn him over to the police?” + +“I have already told you this was an international affair, not for the +city police which is very friendly to Mr. Ward, I believe. And mind, +I would say this, there is something we all lose sight of in this day +of upheavals. To every man his country and its cause. What is criminal +to one is patriotism to another. Both Jurka and Yaranek acted most +honorably according to their code. They are of the old régime, the +royalists; they kill, they make war, they rob the poor, they do forever +as they like, you see, and it is not wrong to them. Jurka was loyal +to the old queen’s interests. She ordered him to come here and find +the missing jewels. For what? Not for her to wear--one wears no crowns +in exile--but to convert into ready money, into gold, for immediate +use. This is the hour of opportunity, mind, in Europe. Your watcher of +signs sees all sorts of maneuvers not on battle-fields. The people are +so hungry and harassed and deceived that they waver and do not know +which side God is on. A suave and promising tongue can sway them in any +direction that promises rest and safety. So with gold at her command +instead of paper money, the exiled queen might seize Bulgaria. And +there was only one man who would pay in cash the price of the royal +rubies, so Jurka dickered with him, once he struck the right trail. +That man was Ogden Ward. Oh, I have the correspondence between you, +Mr. Ward,” as Ward rose threateningly. “It is quite authentic, and +nothing missing. Jurka had to protect himself in case of discovery, and +doubtless saved the evidence in order to command your full protection. +Mr. Ward agreed in writing to pay $750,000, in full for the five pieces +of the collection, including the Zarathustra ruby, which is the finest +pigeon-blood ruby in the world, they claim. Of course, when he found he +could get them so very much cheaper, he tried himself and failed.” + +“But on the face of it, it is absurd,” sneered Ward. “Marchese, how +could these men have conveyed that amount in gold at this time to +Europe without discovery?” + +“Ah, that was most cleverly provided for also, by Mr. Ward,” exclaimed +Dmitri jocularly. “It was to have been shipped by Mr. Ward’s own +bankers as part of a consignment for the relief of stricken, starving +Bulgaria. Count Jurka himself suggested this plan, since he was here as +one of the relief committee. It was all really very touching.” + +“What if I say that I was aware of the whole secret plot, and merely +acted as I did to betray these men, and save the rubies for Carlota +Trelango?” + +“It is very apt, but I am afraid it will not pass,” sighed Dmitri. “The +dates on these letters show your dealings with Jurka and Yaranek before +you even knew that she owned the rubies.” + +“And where is Yaranek?” asked Ward. “Why was he not handed over to the +police by you? Why was it necessary for you to have his sworn statement +when he might give his own testimony? Since you were accumulating +evidence against me, why not go the limit?” + +“Well, I will tell you, Mr. Ward, although I do not think you will ever +comprehend my motives.” Dmitri sat lightly on the edge of the table +and smoked slowly, happily. “I am a propagandist, but I only propagate +my own propaganda, see? I have my own creed of right living and it is +based upon our mutual responsibility for other people’s welfare and +happiness. I believe in the right to live, but I do not believe that +any human group of people has any right to govern others against their +will. So I fight in my own way for the small, helpless races that get +crushed in the great stampede. And when I can I like to talk this way. +So when I get Georges Yaranek tied and bound and I do not know what +to do with him, I talk to him. First, I trust him. I loosen his hand +and give him cigarettes so that we may both talk while we smoke. And +I prove to him by all of Jurka’s letters how he has lied to the boy +Steccho and deceived him, how he has played his own game and cheated +everybody else, even him, Yaranek. For look, Jurka is ambitious. The +queen is old and fond of him. He wants to share the glory with no one, +and so he had planned to get rid of Yaranek himself. Even while he +was working with him to recover the jewels for the royalist cause, as +emissary to the country from the queen to study the relief methods for +starving Bulgaria, he was ready to report Yaranek to Washington for +the very crime he was committing himself, collecting secret funds to +promote a royal reactionary uprising. Thus he could go back alone and +regret most profoundly that Yaranek, through some indiscretion, had +been apprehended.” + +“Where is Yaranek?” asked Ward again. + +“He awaits me at a certain place.” Dmitri smiled at him. “We were +to have sailed together. I am so very glad to announce his entire +conversion to my propaganda, Mr. Ward. Of course, if you would rather +we remained and conveyed our testimony to the proper government +authorities, we will do so. We will not permit our plans to interfere +with your wishes.” + +Ward strode to the window and stared out at the Square below, a +conflict in his mind. He had played and lost. Not alone the jewels, but +the girl he had wanted. All his life he had purchased anything that was +necessary to success. He had weighed the issues of life itself in terms +of gold. When he turned from the window, he asked, tersely: “What do +you want?” + +“I want to go back free and unhampered to my country,” returned Dmitri, +“with Yaranek. I want the rubies to be left unqualifiedly with Miss +Trelango--” + +“Dmitri, I do not want them!” Carlota cried entreatingly. “They only +bring misery. You give them back for me to the people you love. They +are not mine or the queen’s. They belong to the children who are +starving.” + +“The heirs of to-morrow?” smiled Dmitri whimsically. “I will gladly +do so if it is your wish. Mr. Ward, you are fond of rubies. You are +not interested as we are in international aspirations, shall we say, +or perhaps ideals. It matters not one iota to you whether the money +for these jewels goes to the royalist cause or to the feeding of those +starving ones, those little victims of diplomacy, shall we call it? +Will you buy these gems from Miss Trelango, and I will most gladly +convey the consignment of gold to the little ones that are left alive.” + +“Is this your wish?” asked Ward, looking at Carlota. + +Her eyes overflowed with tears. She could hardly answer as she stood +between the Marchese and Griffeth. + +“I should love it more than anything,” she told him. “The Marchese will +attend to everything for me if you are willing.” + +Suddenly in the doorway stood Maria, alarmed and prepared to defend her +charge at any price. But Dmitri met her with one of his low, courtly +bows that soothed her pride. + +“Signora, you are just in time. Mr. Ward is being the bountiful fairy +godfather to us all. He grants us each one what we like the best. +I have a rendezvous with a friend. Mr. Ward, after you. Carlota, +Griffeth, I salute love immortal!” + +Jauntily he gathered up the papers and wallet into the old brown +leather bag again, and handed it to the Marchese. + +“Will you not personally hold these until I have sailed, and then +destroy them? I make you our neutral receiver, yes? And will you not +also kindly place the jewels in safe-keeping until Mr. Ward has paid +for them?” + +Ward passed without a word down the winding staircase ahead of him, +without a backward glance at the four left in the old studio. Carlota +turned to Griffeth’s close embrace, weeping in deep soft sobs of +relief, and the Marchese smiled at Maria. + +“The leaves lie thick in the Square. They are sweeping them up to +burn. Will you walk with me, Maria, and remember Vallombrosa while +these children follow their own path of gold? Then we will take up the +business of life once more, and put the rubies and papers in safety +deposit, but for now--” + +He held the door open for her, and they passed down the way that Ward +had gone. Carlota lifted her head from Griffeth’s shoulder. + +“Heirs of to-morrow, he said,” she whispered. + +He kissed her lips. There seemed in their love almost a symbol of the +fulfillment of years of war, of tears and bloodshed and oppression and +intolerance, in what would be the dawn of a new world to those who were +indeed the heirs of to-morrow. + + +THE END + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + U . S . A + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75383 *** |