Chapter XXVI: Surrender

Uncle Jimmy lighted the room and took away the tea-equipage, while Mrs. Carroll established herself with a book before the fire. Hilda and John arranged the chess-board on a little table near the lamp. The red shade cast a warm glow over the girl's fairness and gave a look of physical vigor to her delicate charm. John made his moves with unthinking swiftness, happy in the sight of her beauty and in the chance touch of her hand.

In a large chair Sydney lay back languidly, her hands idle upon her lap. The shock of Bob's death had exhausted her, and she found herself spent, physically and emotionally. A book lay open upon her knees, but her eyes closed wearily, or stared unseeing into space. She was thinking of all that Bob's life had meant to her of companionship and affection; of the pain that his weakness had brought her, and the pride that had watched his redemption. She had yearned over him in maternal tenderness. Yet she knew that she could but have brushed the edges of his future; that his death at this time saved him from inevitable sorrow. She sighed as she thought that perhaps he knew now, dear old Bob, how completely she was able to sympathize with him in the bitterness of his longing. Involuntarily she glanced at Hilda, and admired her beauty. Hilda caught her look and smiled in return.

"_Armes Kind_," she cried, tossing her a kiss from her finger-tips, "you are so tired."

It was astonishing to Sydney that she felt no jealousy or envy of Hilda. It seemed to her that it was not natural that she should feel so kindly disposed towards the woman who had taken her lover from her. Yet it was true. Although she could not help an occasional wince at some look or word, yet she had no hard feeling. She did not attribute this lack to any excellence of her own character. It seemed to her but simple justice that a woman who had made so sad a mistake, and who had expiated it so rudely, should have her reward; whereas, what had _she_ done to deserve recompense? Did happiness come at any one's whistle?

But how she wished it would.

Mrs. Carroll laid down her book and sighed in disgust.

"I do wish," she said, "that there was some one here old enough for me to talk to."

"Try me," said John, as the oldest of the company addressed, while the girls laughed.

"I grow so impatient with it," went on the old lady, pursuing aloud her train of thought. "It seems as if the whole body of French fiction writers was in a conspiracy against one's illusions. They are clever enough to see the value of them, you would suppose, yet almost every book you take up teaches that honor is a thing of the external life, and not a part of the very essence of one's being."

"Do you call that an illusion?" asked Sydney.

"_I_ call it a truth, and belief in it an article of faith," said Mrs. Carroll, stoutly, "but these people"--she tapped the book she had laid down--"posit it as an illusion, and then demolish it by all sorts of examples that could occur nowhere outside of Gaul!"

"Do you forget the books that are 'crowned'?" asked John.

"When a Frenchman attempts to be spiritual, it is an unfortunate fact that he becomes insipid," asserted Mrs. Carroll, with a finality that made them laugh again.

"You keep to this day your illusions!" said Hilda, softly admiring.

"I am most glad to say that I do. They are worn, but serviceable still," replied Mrs. Carroll, smiling. "Even at my age, I still believe that most husbands cherish their wives, and that most wives love their husbands, and wear their names worthily."

"Checkmate."

"Oh, Mr. Vendell!"

Hilda was so adorably regretful, and her lack of mastery of her was so captivating, that John was desperately sorry that he had taken advantage of her preoccupation.

"It was Mrs. Car-roll who beat me, not you," she said. "I was listening to her and not thinking."

"Of me? You never do," he whispered.

She was resetting the board, and giving John delicious little thrills from her finger-tips, when Uncle Jimmy threw open the door.

"Baron von Rittenheim," he announced.

Sydney rose in greeting, and Mrs. Carroll gave an exclamation of pleasure at the coming of her favorite, but both were startled into silence by Hilda's cry. The chess-board emptied its burden upon the floor with many tinkling crashes, and she was on her feet, one hand pressed against her head, and the other turned palm outward as if to avert a blow. A grayness like the livery of death came over her face, but now so vitally warm. The red lamp-light behind increased her ghastliness. Her eyes were fixed on the man who had followed von Rittenheim into the room.

"You, you!" she whispered, hoarsely.

Von Sternburg gave a cry of amazement.

"The Baroness--_here_! Why didn't you tell me, Friedrich?" he demanded, while his mind quickly reviewed the possible relations between von Rittenheim and his sister-in-law, and considered the effect upon them of his frank disclosures of the morning.

Friedrich, whose gaze had been searching keenly first one face and then the other, gave a nod, and without replying to his friend, introduced him to Mrs. Carroll and Sydney. Von Sternburg bent over each hand and then approached Hilda. She was regaining her control, though she trembled so violently as to justify in his precaution Wendell, who had sprung to her, fearing that she would fall.

"This is an unexpected meeting, Baroness," von Sternburg said, in English.

"Why have you come?" she asked, in the same hoarse but articulate whisper.

"As I told Fr-riedrich, Baedeker brought me. I had no idea that I was to have the pleasure of seeing him again among these mountains, much less, you."

"You two men must have had an enormous amount to say to each other," said Mrs. Carroll. "John, give Hilda that large chair. The surprise of seeing Baron von Sternburg has been too much for her."

Hilda sank into the offered seat, and von Sternburg placed himself beside her. He fitted his clothes to the cracking-point, and he had the lack of impressiveness that goes with rotundity. Yet it was clear that he felt himself to have the whip-hand of the situation, and Hilda's manner acknowledged it.

Across the room the others were talking together, though von Rittenheim was not without preoccupation.

"You don't seem glad to see me," von Sternburg said, in German.

Hilda ignored his opening.

"I suppose you have told Friedrich everything," she said at once, in a tone dull with the chagrin of defeated hope.

"Yes," replied von Sternburg, "I think I have."

"Then I hate you!"

She sat erect, and an angry flush colored her cheeks.

"No doubt."

"You have destroyed the only chance of happiness I ever expect to have."

"Do you deserve happiness?"

"Won't you grant me that mercy?"

"Have you ever shown mercy?"

As her regret over the failure of her plans had been swallowed up in resentment at the doer of the mischief, so her passion was swept away by a wave of self-pity. She turned to him with fierce reproach.

"You think I am so heartless as to be outside of the needs of other women, don't you?"

"I must confess that you are the only one of your kind in my experience."

Hilda was maddened at his irony.

"Can you not believe that I am eager to be happy in the way that other women are? That I _long_ to feel the love that comes to every one but me?"

"No,--pardon me,--I cannot believe that."

"Insolent! I don't know why I try to justify myself to you. But listen. Can you imagine what it is to be without a heart? To make men love you for the sport of it, and not to care when they kill themselves for your sake,--truly _not to care_? And at the same time to have another part of yourself wanting to care,--yearning to feel pity?"

"Is that dual nature yours?"

"You are sneering. You always have thought of me as rejoicing in cruelty, I suppose."

"Certainly as indifferent to suffering."

"You have believed that I thought myself normal; that I was unconscious of my want of feeling."

"I never observed any recognition of your temperament evidenced in your conduct."

"But it is true, Baron. I swear to you that I know my need so well, so painfully well, that on the chance of Friedrich's saving me from all that it means, I was willing to force him to poverty, and to separate him from all that he held dear."

"I don't doubt it, though I don't see how you expected that to help you."

"I thought that, if I could have him near me always, perhaps my heart might wake within me. I do not love him, but he is the only man I ever met whose every thought I honor."

"Yet you were willing to sacrifice him!"

"I needed him."

Von Sternburg looked at her in abhorrence.

"I suppose you don't know what an abomination of selfishness you are."

She did not seem to hear him, but added, bitterly,--

"Now you have come, my hope is gone."

Von Sternburg looked across the room. Friedrich was leaning over Sydney's chair.

"It is still in the family, I should say. It merely has changed its abiding-place."

A spasm which was the recognition of defeat, not the anguish of loss, went over Hilda's face. She crossed the room to Mrs. Carroll, von Sternburg following slowly after.

"Dear Mrs. Car-roll," she said, in English, "Baron von Sternburg has brought news that compels me to leave Oakwood soon--yes, to-morrow. I hope you know how gr-rateful I am to you for your hospitality. Your kindness alvays vill be a br-right spot in my life!"

She looked charmingly young and very lovely as she stooped and kissed the old lady's cheek.

"To-morrow? Oh, surely not to-morrow!" cried Sydney, in hospitable reproach.

"Sydney dear, you are vonderful! I r-really believe you mean it after everything." And she tapped the taller girl's cheek with her tiny hand.

She was entirely self-possessed now, much less agitated than the two men who knew her secret, or than Wendell, who had been stricken at the news of her departure; or than Sydney, who was overcome by embarrassment as she came to appreciate the meaning of her guest's speech.

"I expect never to see you again, Friedrich; I should pr-refer not; so I vant to make my confession to you now. Oh, any one may hear," she said, in answer to a gesture of Friedrich's. "I am quite indifferent--now. Did the Baron tell you that Max shot himself because I r-refused to give up a flirtation? It is quite tr-rue. I lied to you, Friedrich, and I did an injustice to a man who had conquered the follies of his life. Ah, Mrs. Car-roll, I did not love my husband or vear his name vorthily. I am one of the lost illusions."

She looked from one to another in quick observance of their emotion.

"Then, my scar," she went on, lightly, "that vas another lie. I've had it ever since I vas a child. And here is something that Baron von Sternburg could not have disclosed. You see I am r-revealing everything. I am sure he told you that I am rich? Yes? But he vas not avare that _I knew_ from Herr Stapfer that you vere depr-riving yourself for me."

"Oh, Hilda," cried Mrs. Carroll, in quick censure of the non-restitution that might have averted a life-time's self-reproach from Friedrich, "How could you keep it!"

"The money itself vas nothing to me, but I hoped that through Friedrich's poverty I might gain some power over him, and make him do vhat I vanted. I shall see that it is r-restored to you at once, Friedrich."

She turned to Wendell, and her face changed subtly. She became the tempting woman, alluring in the innocence of her child-like beauty.

"Do you still mean vhat you said to me yesterday, Mr. Vendell?"

She leaned towards him a trifle--the merest trifle. Wendell stood silent.

"Do you still vant to marry me--John?" The name was but a breath.

He stared at her as if fascinated by the spell of her glowing eyes. With an effort he looked away from her to von Rittenheim.

"Tell me," he said, huskily, "I don't understand. Her husband? Is----?"

"She will not dishonor you," answered Friedrich to the unspoken question.

"She'll merely br-reak your heart," completed von Sternburg, brutally.

Wendell turned to Hilda in relief, to find her drawn haughtily erect before him. She did not notice his extended hands.

"You doubted me," she flung at him, arrogantly. "I demand from those who love me, all--or nothing."

She swept from the room, small, proud, forceful; while John threw himself upon a chair and buried his head in his hands.