LITMIR.BIZ

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so much more liberty than our German wives enjoy?”

      “Later on,” Stephanie whispered to her host, with a little tremble in her voice, “I have a surprise for you.”

      After dinner, Dominey’s guests passed naturally enough to the relaxations which each preferred. There were two bridge tables, Terniloff and the Cabinet Minister played billiards, and Seaman, with a touch which amazed every one, drew strange music from the yellow keys of the old-fashioned grand piano in the drawing-room. Stephanie and her host made a slow progress through the hall and picture gallery. For some time their conversation was engaged solely with the objects to which Dominey drew his companion’s attention. When they had passed out of possible hearing, however, of any of the other guests, Stephanie’s fingers tightened upon her companion’s arm.

      “I wish to speak to you alone,” she said, “without the possibility of any one overhearing.”

      Dominey hesitated and looked behind.

      “Your guests are well occupied,” she continued a little impatiently, “and in any case I am one of them. I claim your attention.”

      Dominey threw open the door of the library and turned on a couple of the electric lights. She made her way to the great open fireplace, on which a log was burning, looked down into the shadows of the room and back again at her host’s face.

      “For one moment,” she begged, “turn on all the lights. I wish to be sure that we are alone.”

      Dominey did as he was bidden. The furthermost corners of the room, with its many wings of book-filled shelves, were illuminated. She nodded.

      “Now turn them all out again except this one,” she directed, “and wheel me up an easy-chair. No, I choose this settee. Please seat yourself by my side.”

      “Is this going to be serious?” he asked, with some slight disquietude.

      “Serious but wonderful,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. “Will you please listen to me, Leopold?”

      She was half curled up in a corner of the settee, her head resting slightly upon her long fingers, her brown eyes steadily fixed upon her companion. There was an atmosphere about her of serious yet of tender things. Dominey’s face seemed to fall into more rigid lines as he realised the appeal of her eyes.

      “Leopold,” she began, “I left this country a few weeks ago, feeling that you were a brute, determined never to see you again, half inclined to expose you before I went as an impostor and a charlatan. Germany means little to me, and a patriotism which took no account of human obligations left me absolutely unresponsive. I meant to go home and never to return to London. My heart was bruised, and I was very unhappy.”

      She paused, but her companion made no sign. She paused for so long, however, that speech became necessary.

      “You are speaking, Princess,” he said calmly, “to one who is not present. My name is no longer Leopold.”

      She laughed at him with a curious mixture of tenderness and bitterness.

      “My friend,” she continued, “I am terrified to think, besides your name, how much of humanity you have lost in your new identity. To proceed it suited my convenience to remain for a few days in Berlin, and I was therefore compelled to present myself at Potsdam. There I received a great surprise. Wilhelm spoke to me of you, and though, alas! my heart is still bruised, he helped me to understand.”

      “Is this wise?” he asked a little desperately.

      She ignored his words.

      “I was taken back into favour at Court,” she went on. “For that I owe to you my thanks. Wilhelm was much impressed by your recent visit to him, and by the way in which you have established yourself here. He spoke also with warm commendation of your labours in Africa, which he seemed to appreciate all the more as you were sent there an exile. He asked me, Leopold,” she added, dropping her voice a little, “if my feelings towards you remained unchanged.”

      Dominey’s face remained unrelaxed. Persistently he refused the challenge of her eyes.

      “I told him the truth,” she proceeded. “I told him how it all began, and how it must last with me—to the end. We spoke even of the duel. I told him what both your seconds had explained to me,—that turn of the wrist, Conrad’s wild lunge, how he literally threw himself upon the point of your sword. Wilhelm understands and forgives, and he has sent you this letter.”

      She drew a small grey envelope from her pocket. On the seal were the Imperial Hohenzollern arms. She passed it to him.

      “Leopold,” she whispered, “please read that.”

      He shook his head, although he accepted the letter with reluctant fingers.

      “Read the superscription,” she directed.

      He obeyed her. It was addressed in a strange, straggling handwriting to Sir Everard Dominey, Baronet. He broke the seal unwillingly and drew out the letter. It was dated barely a fortnight back. There was neither beginning or ending; just a couple of sentences scrawled across the thick notepaper:

      “It is my will that you offer your hand in marriage to the Princess Stephanie of Eiderstrom. Your union shall be blessed by the Church and approved by my Court.

      “WILHELM.”

      Dominey sat as a man enthralled with silence. She watched him.

      “Not on your knees yet?” she asked, with faint but somewhat resentful irony. “Can it be, Leopold, that you have lost your love for me? You have changed so much and in so many ways. Has the love gone?”

      Even to himself his voice sounded harsh and unnatural, his words instinct with the graceless cruelty of a clown.

      “This is not practical,” he declared. “Think! I am as I have been addressed here, and as I must remain yet for months to come—Everard Dominey, an Englishman and the owner of this house—the husband of Lady Dominey.”

      “Where is your reputed wife?” Stephanie demanded, frowning.

      “In the nursing home where she has been for the last few months,” he replied. “She has already practically recovered. She cannot remain there much longer.”

      “You must insist upon it that she does.”

      “I ask you to consider the suspicions which would be excited by such a course,” Dominey pleaded earnestly, “and further, can you explain to me in what way I, having already, according to belief of everybody, another wife living, can take advantage of this mandate?”

      She looked at him wonderingly.

      “You make difficulties? You sit there like the cold Englishman whose place you are taking, you whose tears have fallen before now upon my hand, whose lips—”

      “You speak of one who is dead,” Dominey interrupted, “dead until the coming of great events may bring him to life again. Until that time your lover must be dumb.”

      Then her anger blazed out. She spoke incoherently, passionately, dragged his face down to hers and clenched her fist the next moment as though she would have struck it. She broke down with a storm of tears.

      “Not so hard—not so hard, Leopold!” she implored. “Oh! yours is a great task, and you must carry it through to the end, but we have his permission—there can be found a way—we could be married secretly. At least your lips—your arms! My heart is starved, Leopold.”

      He rose to his feet. Her arms were still twined about his neck, her lips hungry for his kisses, her eyes shining up into his.

      “Have pity on me, Stephanie,” he begged. “Until our time has come there is dishonour even in a single kiss. Wait for the day, the day you know of.”

      She unwound her arms and shivered slightly. Her hurt eyes regarded him wonderingly.

      “Leopold,” she faltered, “what has changed

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