54-40 or Fight. Emerson Hough
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these things—force you into obedience—carry you away in a sack? My master can not wait."
"Don Yturrio of Mexico, on the other hand," she mused, "promised me not violence, but more jewels. Idiot!"
"Indeed!" I rejoined, in contempt. "An American savage would give you but one gown, and that of your own weave; you could make it up as you liked. But come, now; I have no more time to lose."
"Ah, also, idiot!" she murmured. "Do you not see that I must reclothe myself before I could go with you—that is to say, if I choose to go with you? Now, as I was saying, my ardent Mexican promises thus and so. My lord of England—ah, well, they may be pardoned. Suppose I might listen to such suits—might there not be some life for me—some life with events? On the other hand, what of interest could America offer?"
"I have told you what life America could give you."
"I imagined men were but men, wherever found," she went on; "but what you say interests me, I declare to you again. A woman is a woman, too, I fancy. She always wants one thing—to be all the world to one man."
"Quite true," I answered. "Better that than part of the world to one—or two? And the opposite of it is yet more true. When a woman is all the world to a man, she despises him."
"But yes, I should like that experience of being a cook in a cabin, and being bruised and broken and choked!" She smiled, lazily extending her flawless arms and looking down at them, at all of her splendid figure, as though in interested examination. "I am alone so much—so bored!" she went on. "And Sir Richard Pakenham is so very, very fat. Ah, God! You can not guess how fat he is. But you, you are not fat." She looked me over critically, to my great uneasiness.
"All the more reason for doing as I have suggested, Madam; for Mr. Calhoun is not even so fat as I am. This little interview with my chief, I doubt not, will prove of interest. Indeed"—I went on seriously and intently—"I venture to say this much without presuming on my station: the talk which you will have with my chief to-night will show you things you have never known, give you an interest in living which perhaps you have not felt. If I am not mistaken, you will find much in common between you and my master. I speak not to the agent of England, but to the lady Helena von Ritz."
"He is old," she went on. "He is very old. His face is thin and bloodless and fleshless. He is old."
"Madam," I said, "his mind is young, his purpose young, his ambition young; and his country is young. Is not the youth of all these things still your own?"
She made no answer, but sat musing, drumming lightly on the chair arm. I was reaching for her cloak. Then at once I caught a glimpse of her stockinged foot, the toe of which slightly protruded from beneath her ball gown. She saw the glance and laughed.
"Poor feet," she said. "Ah, mes pauvres pieds la! You would like to see them bruised by the hard going in some heathen country? See you have no carriage, and mine is gone. I have not even a pair of shoes. Go look under the bed beyond."
I obeyed her gladly enough. Under the fringe of the satin counterpane I found a box of boots, slippers, all manner of footwear, daintily and neatly arranged. Taking out a pair to my fancy, I carried them out and knelt before her.
"Then, Madam," said I, "since you insist on this, I shall choose. America is not Europe. Our feet here have rougher going and must be shod for it. Allow me!"
Without the least hesitation in the world, or the least immodesty, she half protruded the foot which still retained its slipper. As I removed this latter, through some gay impulse, whose nature I did not pause to analyze, I half mechanically thrust it into the side pocket of my coat.
"This shall be security," said I, "that what you speak with my master shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
There was a curious deeper red in her cheek. I saw her bosom beat the faster rhythm.
"Quite agreed!" she answered. But she motioned me away, taking the stout boot in her own hand and turning aside as she fastened it. She looked over her shoulder at me now and again while thus engaged.
"Tell me," she said gently, "what security do I have? You come, by my invitation, it is true, but none the less an intrusion, into my apartments. You demand of me something which no man has a right to demand. Because I am disposed to be gracious, and because I am much disposed to be ennuyé, and because Mr. Pakenham is fat, I am willing to take into consideration what you ask. I have never seen a thin gentleman in a woolen nightcap, and I am curious. But no gentleman plays games with ladies in which the dice are loaded for himself. Come, what security shall I have?"
I did not pretend to understand her. Perhaps, after all, we all had been misinformed regarding her? I could not tell. But her spirit of camaraderie, her good fellowship, her courage, quite aside from her personal charm, had now begun to impress me.
"Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this world's goods. All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms. I can not offer gems, as does Señor Yturrio—but, would this be of service—until to-morrow? That will leave him and me with a slipper each. It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!"
By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed there that very day for quite another purpose. It was only a little trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of shells and connected by beaded thongs. I had got it among the tribes of the far upper plains, who doubtless obtained the shells, in their strange savage barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes trafficked in shells which found their way as far north as the Saskatchewan. The trinket was curious, though of small value. The baroness looked at it with interest.
"How it reminds me of this heathen country!" she said. "Is this all that your art can do in jewelry? Yet it is beautiful. Come, will you not give it to me?"
"Until to-morrow, Madam."
"No longer?"
"I can not promise it longer. I must, unfortunately, have it back when I send a messenger—I shall hardly come myself, Madam."
"Ah!" she scoffed. "Then it belongs to another woman?"
"Yes, it is promised to another."
"Then this is to be the last time we meet?"
"I do not doubt it."
"Are you not sorry?"
"Naturally, Madam!"
She sighed, laughing as she did so. Yet I could not evade seeing the curious color on her cheek, the rise and fall of the laces over her bosom. Utterly self-possessed, satisfied with life as it had come to her, without illusion as to life, absorbed in the great game of living and adventuring—so I should have described her. Then why should her heart beat one stroke the faster now? I dismissed that question, and rebuked my eyes, which I found continually turning toward her.
She motioned to a little table near by. "Put the slipper there," she said. "Your little neck clasp, also." Again I obeyed her.
"Stand there!" she said, motioning to the opposite side of the table; and I did so. "Now," said she, looking at me gravely, "I am going with you to see this man whom you call your chief—this old and ugly man, thin and weazened, with no blood in him, and a woolen nightcap which is perhaps red. I shall not tell you whether I go of my own wish or because you wish it. But I need soberly to tell you this: secrecy is as necessary for me as for you. The favor may mean as much on one side as on the other—I shall not tell you why. But we shall play fair until, as you say, perhaps to-morrow. After that—"
"After that, on guard!"
"Very well, on guard! Suppose I do not like this other woman?"
"Madam, you could not help it. All the world loves her."
"Do you?"
"With my life."
"How