Chapter VIII

At any other time, Jeff might have felt himself the victim of a colossal joke. This was the girl whose charm an hour before had carried him off his feet, whom he had danced with and flattered and talked to in wretched French. His Russian princess had turned out the tomboy niece of Captain Skinner; and if time had permitted, he might have remembered with acute embarrassment some of the grandiose thoughts he had entertained regarding her. Fortunately for his peace of mind, the situation left room for no such reflections. The drama of the moment carried him far above them.

It might have been that he knew one second of overwhelming surprise, but any intense regret that his ideals had been so shattered was for the moment spared him. His mind was still rather busy with the Muscovite.

“What a pleasant surprise!” he was saying. “Two Americans! Certainly I must leave you two alone together. I trust I may see you again, Mr. Sharp?”

Jeff was trembling now, but with really great effort he made his voice sound cool and clear. “Any time you like. I am always at your service, Baron Karl.”

“Indeed. Perhaps we can arrange a meeting that will be really diverting to both of us.”

No one present misunderstood him, and although Jeff’s face was white, it was with boyish anger rather than fear. Jeff had seen too much service, for all his youth he had drunk too deeply of life, to be terrorized by the nobleman’s threat. “Yes,” he agreed, “we can settle everything to the complete satisfaction of both of us.”

“You are too obliging. I will certainly keep it in mind.”

With a final, scornful smile the Russian turned and instantly vanished in the shadow. The two from America were indeed left alone. So intensely were they aware of each other’s presence that it was as if they had the whole world to themselves.

Jeff, who had held up very creditably his end of the conversation with the Russian nobleman, could think of nothing whatever to say to Molly. He simply stood and looked at her, seemingly unable to articulate. But Molly was not in the least aware of his growing embarrassment. She was seeing visions, and what they were could be guessed only by the curious widening of her eyes and the startling paleness of her cheeks.

“Oh, how I hate him!” she exclaimed at last. “Jeff, you won’t duel with him, will you?”

The young Southerner blessed her for bringing up the subject. It had saved a situation that was beginning to be ghastly. “I’ll have to duel him, Molly, if he challenges. I won’t challenge him, if that’s what you mean—though Heaven knows he deserves it.”

“Oh, he will challenge you, I know his type! But Jeff, I want you to promise me you won’t fight him.”

“You wouldn’t have me show the white feather, Molly.” He smiled into her wide eyes, somehow pleased with himself. “You are too good a friend of mine to want me to be disgraced. Of course, I will have to keep to the code.”

“What is the code to me!” she demanded indignantly. “What do I care what he thinks. Jeff, I know about that man. He is an international character. One of the men I danced with told me it’s his regular practice to challenge and kill those who get in his way. He is a dead shot and always kills his man.”

“Don’t worry about it now, anyway. Men like that usually bark worse than they bite. I have an engagement, you remember, to take you home. Hadn’t we better start?”

“Yes—but I won’t sleep any, considering the trouble I got you into—the threats of that wicked man.” She led the way along a gravel path out of the gardens. “I shouldn’t have come, Jeff. I never will learn. I might have known trouble would come of it. I just couldn’t resist coming.”

Jeff smiled rather grimly. “Well, you had a good time, didn’t you? It seemed to me there was quite a rush for your attentions. Yanovisk was so taken with my Confederate uniform that he predicted I would be the sensation of the evening. It didn’t turn out to be the case.”

“Just the same, I heard many a girl ask about you—you were never so handsome, even though your costume is out of date. I suppose you can’t ever forgive me.”

“Forgive you—for what?”

“For deceiving you. For hiding behind a mask that quickened your imagination until you thought I was a Russian princess—or some one else grand and beautiful, instead of just Molly! I know how you feel, Jeff. You feel you’ve been cheated. I wish I hadn’t done it. It was fun, for the minute, but it hurts now.”

“I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of. You beat those aristocratic ladies at their own game.”

“Just the same, you are disappointed. It’s quite wonderful to have Cinderella turn out a princess, but it’s only aggravating to have the princess turn out Cinderella.” It was only a little way back to the ship, and already they were mounting the plank. He halted at last at the door of her stateroom, and paused and looked into her brimming eyes. “Thank you for letting me escort you home,” he told her gravely.

“I appreciate your asking.” Her hand rested an instant in his.

“Molly, I’m kind of a fool, I guess. I don’t know just how, but maybe I will, in time. I didn’t tell you good-by when I left for the dance, and I’m sorry now—sorrier than you are about fooling me. It will take many courteous deeds to make up for that discourtesy—and considering that you will soon be leaving for Sitka, I’m afraid I’ll never have a chance to pay them.”

“I wouldn’t want your farewell—unless there was something besides courtesy behind it. But I am not leaving Sitka very soon, Jeff.”

He did not know that his face brightened; but she knew it, and the fact made up for many things.

“You don’t mean it!” he exclaimed.

“Yes. Uncle Dave has to have a lot of repair work done on the ship, he says. He will be here an indefinite time. You can continue to live on the boat, if you like.”

“That’s just splendid.” He stood beaming. “It would have been a pity for our friendship to end so soon. And don’t worry about that mess with Baron Karl. He has no real reason for wanting to put me out of the way, and he won’t take the chance of a duel—even though he is an old hand at it—until he has a reason.”

She agreed with him in this. Everything had turned out all right. She had never seen a night of such perfect beauty. It seemed to her she could still smell the flowers of the garden; and the dance music floated across the water in fairy filaments of melody. Jeff felt rather contented too, quite pleased with his future.

“You’ve forgiven me for deceiving you?” she asked. Of course it was a perfectly foolish thing to ask, but who wants to be always wise?

“Of course, Molly. Any way, you didn’t do anything. We were all supposed to be masked, and it was my own fault if I didn’t know you. You evaded the point whether we had met before. You only told me one real fib.”

“What was that?”

“You shook your head when I asked you if you talked English.”

Her eyes twinkled; and Jeff felt, as men often secretly feel, that the girl knew more than he. “Maybe it wasn’t a complete fib,” she told him mysteriously.

“How is that? You do talk English.”

“No. Put your ear right close and I’ll explain the mystery.”

He obeyed, somewhat pleased to do so, and he felt the touch of her warm lips as she leaned too close. “I don’t talk English, so much,” she whispered.

“What then?”

“I talk—American!”