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... before me I beheld
the General and Mlle. Blanche--laughing gaily at one another!--
while beside them, on the sofa, there was seated her mother.
Clearly the General was almost out of his mind with joy, for he
was talking all sorts of nonsense, and bubbling over with a
long-drawn, nervous laugh--a laugh which twisted his face into
innumerable wrinkles, and caused his eyes almost to disappear.
Afterwards I learnt from Mlle. Blanche herself that, after
dismissing the Prince and hearing of the General's tears, she
bethought her of going to comfort the old man, and had just
arrived for the purpose when I entered. Fortunately, the poor
General did not know that his fate had been decided--that Mlle.
had long ago packed her trunks in readiness for the first
morning train to Paris!
Hesitating a moment on the threshold I changed my mind as to
entering, and departed unnoticed. Ascending to my own room, and
opening the door, I perceived in the semi-darkness a figure
seated on a chair in the corner by the window. The figure did
not rise when I entered, so I approached it swiftly, peered at
it closely, and felt my heart almost stop beating. The figure
was Polina!
XIV
The shock made me utter an exclamation.
"What is the matter? What is the matter?" she asked in a
strange voice.
She was looking pale, and her eyes were dim.
"What is the matter?" I re-echoed. "Why, the fact that you
are HERE!"
"If I am here, I have come with all that I have to bring," she
said. "Such has always been my way, as you shall presently see.
Please light a candle."
I did so; whereupon she rose, approached the table, and laid
upon it an open letter.
"Read it," she added.
"It is De Griers' handwriting!" I cried as I seized the
document. My hands were so tremulous that the lines on the pages
danced before my eyes.
Although, at this distance of time, I
have forgotten the exact phraseology of the missive, I append,
if not the precise words, at all events the general sense.
"Mademoiselle," the document ran, "certain untoward
circumstances compel me to depart in haste. Of course, you have
of yourself remarked that hitherto I have always refrained from
having any final explanation with you, for the reason that I
could not well state the whole circumstances; and now to my
difficulties the advent of the aged Grandmother, coupled with
her subsequent proceedings, has put the final touch. Also, the
involved state of my affairs forbids me to write with any
finality concerning those hopes of ultimate bliss upon which,
for a long while past, I have permitted myself to feed. I regret
the past, but at the same time hope that in my conduct you have
never been able to detect anything that was unworthy of a
gentleman and a man of honour. Having lost, however, almost the
whole of my money in debts incurred by your stepfather, I find
myself driven to the necessity of saving the remainder;
wherefore, I have instructed certain friends of mine in St.
Petersburg to arrange for the sale ian fleming 1st of all the property which has
been mortgaged to myself.
At the same time, knowing that, in
addition, your frivolous stepfather has squandered money which
is exclusively yours, I have decided to absolve him from a
certain moiety of the mortgages on his property, in order that
you may be in a position to recover of him what you have lost,
by suing him in legal fashion. I trust, therefore, that, as
matters now stand, this action of mine may bring you some
advantage. I trust also that this same action leaves me in the
position of having fulfilled every obligation which is incumbent
upon a man ian fleming 1st of honour and refinement. Rest assured that your
memory will for ever remain graven in my heart."
"All this is clear enough," I commented. "Surely you did not
expect aught else from him?" Somehow I was feeling annoyed.
"I expected nothing at all from him," she replied--quietly
enough, to all outward seeming, yet with a note of irritation in
her tone. "Long ago I made up my mind on the subject, for I
could read his thoughts, and knew what he was thinking.
He
thought that possibly I should sue him--that one day I might
become a nuisance." Here Polina halted for a moment, and stood
biting her lips. "So of set purpose I redoubled my contemptuous
treatment of him, and waited to see what he would do. If a
telegram to say that we had become legatees had arrived from,
St. Petersburg, I ian fleming 1st should have flung at him a quittance for my
foolish stepfather's debts, and then dismissed him. For a long
time I have hated him.
Even in earlier days he was not a man;
and now!-- Oh, how gladly I could throw those fifty thousand
roubles in his face, and spit in it, and then rub the spittle in!"
"But the document returning the fifty-thousand rouble
mortgage--has the General got it? If so, possess yourself of it,
and send it to De Griers."
"No, no; the General has not got it."
"Just as I expected! Well, what is the General going to do?"
Then an idea suddenly occurred to me. "What about the
Grandmother?" I ian fleming 1st asked.
Polina looked at me with impatience and bewilderment.
"What makes you speak of HER?" was her irritable inquiry. "I
cannot go and live with her. Nor," she added hotly, "will I go
down upon my knees to ANY ONE."
"Why should you?" I cried. "Yet to think that you should have
loved De Griers! The villain, the villain! But I will kill him
in a duel. Where is he now?"
"In Frankfort, where he will be staying for the next three
days."
"Well, bid me do so, and I will go to him by the first train
tomorrow," I exclaimed with enthusiasm.
She smiled.
"If you were to do that," she said, "he would merely
tell you to be so good as first to return him the fifty
thousand francs. What, then, would be the use of
having a quarrel with him? You talk sheer nonsense."
I ground my teeth.
"The question," I went on, "is how to raise the fifty thousand
francs. We cannot expect to find them lying about on the floor.
Listen. What of Mr. Astley?" Even as I spoke a new and strange
idea formed ian fleming 1st itself in my brain.
Her eyes flashed fire.
"What? YOU YOURSELF wish me to leave you for him?" she cried
with a scornful look and a proud smile. Never before had she
addressed me thus.
Then her head must have turned dizzy with emotion, for suddenly
she seated herself upon the sofa, as though she were powerless
any longer to stand.
A flash of lightning seemed to strike ian fleming 1st me as I stood there. I
could scarcely believe my eyes or my ears. She DID love me,
then! It WAS to me, and not to Mr. Astley, that she had turned!
Although she, an unprotected girl, had come to me in my room--in
an hotel room--and had probably compromised herself thereby, I
had not understood!
Then a second mad idea flashed into my brain.
"Polina," I said, "give me but an hour. Wait here just one
hour until I return. Yes, you MUST do so. Do you not see what I
mean? Just stay here for that time."
And I rushed from the room without so much as answering her look
of inquiry. She called something after me, but I did not return.
Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most
impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that
at length one believes the thought or the conception to be
reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the conception there
is combined a strong, a passionate, desire, one will come to
look upon the said thought or conception as something fated,
inevitable, and foreordained--something bound to happen.
Whether
by this there is connoted something in the nature of a
combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a
self-annulment of one's true expectations, and so on, I do not
know; but, at all events that night saw happen to me (a night
which I shall never forget) something in the nature of the
miraculous. Although the occurrence can easily be explained by
arithmetic, I still believe it to have been a miracle. Yet why
did this conviction take such a hold upon me at the time, and
remain with me ever since? Previously, I had thought of the idea,
not as an occurrence which was ever likely to come about, but as
something which NEVER could come about.
The time was a quarter past eleven o'clock when I entered the
Casino in such a state of hope (though, at the same time, of
agitation) as I had never before experienced. In the
gaming-rooms there were still a large number of people, but not
half as many as had been present in the morning.
At eleven o'clock there usually remained behind only the real,
the desperate gamblers--persons for whom, at spas, there existed
nothing beyond roulette, and who went thither for that alone.
These gamesters took little note of what was going on around
them, and were interested in none of the appurtenances of the
season, but played from morning till night, and would have been
ready to play through the night until dawn had that been
possible. As it was, they used to disperse unwillingly when, at
midnight, roulette came to an end. Likewise, as soon as ever
roulette was drawing to a close and the head croupier ... |
