Arcadia House, while it certainly stood in need of the repairer's hand, was by no means uninhabitable, a fact which spoke well for the honesty of its old-time builders. Its oak beams, fastened together with tree-nails instead of iron spikes, were still sound, and its brick walls, unusually massive in construction, were without a crack. Most important of all, the roof, shingled with the best cypress, remained water-tight, and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye, and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly or in part.
Some years before Quinton Edge had taken possession of this abandoned Eden. The summers in the city were usually warm, and the Doomsmen were in the habit of seeking the upper stories of the tall buildings for relief, just as in the twentieth century people went to the mountains for the heated term. Quinton Edge, having accidentally discovered Arcadia House recognized its advantages as a summer residence, and he had his own reasons for desiring the privacy that its secluded situation afforded. He was satisfied with putting three or four of the rooms into livable condition, and as for the rest it was only necessary to repair the wall surrounding the grounds and stock the storehouses with fuel and provisions to make of Arcadia House the proverbial castle. That it was his castle was his own affair, and he had taken care that only the fewest possible number should be in the secret. Old Kurt and a couple of negro slave women made up the ordinary domestic staff of the establishment, and until the advent of Esmay and Nanna, some three months before, Arcadia House had received no visitors. And he would be a foolish man who called upon Quinton Edge without an invitation.
Esmay, after parting from Constans, paused a moment at the side entrance of the house. She wanted to look back, but a stronger instinct forbade it; she opened the door and passed into the hall.
It was a broad, low-ceilinged apartment, and served as a common living-room to the master of Arcadia House and his guests. A few embers burned on the hearth, and a solitary candle set in a wall-sconce strove with its feeble glimmer against the full tide of silver moonshine that poured in through the uncurtained windows facing on the river. Quinton Edge himself was sitting at the corner of the fireplace smoking a red-clay pipe with a reed stem. He rose as Esmay entered, detaining her with a gesture as she would have passed him.
"One moment, if you will."
The girl stopped and waited for him to continue. He considered a moment, looking her over coolly. And indeed she made an attractive picture as she stood there, the firelight glinting redly in her tawny eyes and her cheeks incarnadined with excitement. Quinton Edge told himself that he had made no mistake. Then he spoke:
"You have waited most patiently for me to announce my intentions. Let me see; it is nearly three months since you came to Arcadia House?"
The girl made no reply. Alert and keeping herself well in hand, she would force him to the first move. And Quinton Edge realized that he would have to make it.
"It won't be any news to you that there are several people who would be glad to be informed of your whereabouts. There's Boris, for one, and young Ulick--we spoke of them some time ago."
"But to no purpose, sir; you remember that."
"Perfectly. Still, in three months a woman may change her mind many times."
"But only for her own satisfaction."
"Then it is hopeless to expect a decision from you?"
"Evidently."
"In that case it may become necessary for me to act for you."
"Oh!"
The exclamation told its own story, and the girl in her vexation bit the lip that had betrayed her. Quinton Edge smiled.
"Don't distress yourself," he said, smoothly. "I am only giving you the warning that courtesy entitles you to receive."
Esmay reflected. Whatever his intentions concerning her, she could not be the worse off for knowing them. So she went on, steadily:
"Since you have already decided upon my future, argument would be useless. But perhaps I may assume that you have acted with some small regard for my interests."
"Not the least in the world," returned Quinton Edge, and Esmay smiled involuntarily at frankness so unblushing. Whereupon and curiously enough, Quinton Edge became suddenly of a great gravity, the flippancy of his accustomed manner falling from him as a cloak drops unnoticed from a man's shoulders. He rose to his feet, strode to a window, and stood there for perhaps a minute looking out upon the moonlit waters of the Lesser river. When he turned again to the girl there were lines of hardness about his mouth that she had never noticed before. Yet, in speaking, his voice was soft, almost hesitating.
"Why should I tell you of these things, and then again why not? We are both children of the Doomsmen, and the matter concerns us nearly. Not equally, of course, but listen and draw your own conclusions."
"There are clouds in the political sky, and our little ship of state is in danger of going upon the rocks, coincident with the death of Dom Gillian, its old-time helmsman. And that contingency in the natural course of events cannot be long delayed.
"Now there are two nominal heirs--Boris and Ulick. Each deems himself the chosen successor to his great-grandfather, and each is incompetent to play the part. In the past the reins of power have been held by the man who stands between them. I am that third man."
"As everybody knows now."
"No; and for the simple reason that there are few to care who rules so long as the figure-head remains a presentable one. But let me continue.
"Dom Gillian will formally nominate one of his grandsons as his heir. It makes no difference whether Boris or Ulick succeeds--the outcome must be the same. Both have personal followings, and that of the disappointed one will form a minority insignificant in numerical strength, but capable of being kneaded by strong hands into a compact mass."
"A revolution, then?"
"By no means. I accept the situation as it is and simply turn it to my own advantage--as third man. This makes it necessary that the disappointed one should become my absolute property. Now I hold the price that he will demand for the surrender of his rights and freedom--nothing less than yourself."
"I shall not affect to be surprised," said the girl, coolly. "But are you quite sure that I am valued at so high a figure? It would be mortifying for you to go into the market and find that your currency had depreciated on your hands."
"I am not afraid," he answered. "The passion with Boris and Ulick alike is genuine enough, albeit of somewhat different sort. As you care for neither, it should be a matter of indifference whose property you become."
The blood burned redly under the girl's brown skin. "No one but a woman could know how unforgivable is that insult," she said. Then, with a suddenly conceived appeal to the man himself:
"But why a bargain at all? You have the strength, the courage, the brains--why chaffer when you have but to strike once to win all? You stand between Boris and Ulick; crush them both in a single embrace and take their birthright of power."
"Bah!" said the Doomsman, contemptuously. "Do you think that the mere possession of the wolf-skin is the object of the hunt? It is the game that amuses me and not the final distribution of the stakes. The game, I say, and it happens to suit my humor to play it in this particular way. You are simply a piece on the board, and I may win with you or lose with you, or conclude to throw you back in the box without playing you at all--just as it pleases me."
"The means are at least nobler than the end," retorted the girl. "A lofty ambition, truly, to stand behind a screen and pull the strings of a puppet, who in turn lords it over a handful of rick burners and cattle reivers. Even my uncle Hugolin, Councillor Primus of Croye, cuts a better figure when, clad in his state robe of silver-fox fur, he presides over his parliament of shopkeepers."
"Granted," returned Quinton Edge, "but one and all dance together when I choose to pipe. Is it such a contemptible thing to rule a small world, if, indeed, it be the world? I take all that there is to be taken. Could Alexander or Caesar do more?"
"I am beginning to comprehend," she said, slowly. "An ambition that confessedly overleaps all bounds is at least not an ignoble one."
He turned and searched her eyes.
"You will play the game with me?"
"No."
"Yet a moment ago you were considering it--the possibility, I mean."
"For the moment--yes. After three months of Arcadia House dulness almost any amusement would seem worth while. But, frankly speaking, it is the nature of the risk that appalls me. I cannot afford to lose my stake nor even to adventure it."
"To speak plainly?"
"Well, then, you contribute to the common capital but one thing--your brains. Later on, if the play goes against us, you may have to throw on the table your liberty, and, in the last extremity, your life. But that is the utmost limit of your losses. I, on the contrary, must contribute myself to the hazard, and no man understands what that means to a woman."
"How long is it since the woman has understood?" he asked, mockingly, but Esmay was silent.
"Well, then, if I cannot have you with me I want you actively against me--the more balls in the air, the better sport for the juggler. And at least we understand each other."
"There is just the one question--perhaps an obvious one."
"Yes."
"Boris or Ulick? For of course you know which of them is to be the old Dom's heir."
"I do."
"I am to be informed of my purchaser's name--after the bargaining is over? And only then?"
"Since you choose to put it in that way--yes."
Neither chose to break the silence that fell between them, and Esmay, catching up her skirt, turned to go.
"Good-night," she said, but Quinton Edge did not answer. Apparently he had forgotten her very existence; he sat with feet out-stretched to the fire, his eyes fixed upon the curl of blue smoke that hung above his pipe bowl.
Esmay went up to the room on the second floor which she shared with her sister. Nanna was already in bed and asleep, but she started up as Esmay entered, like a dog that has been listening in its dreams for its master's footsteps. "Are you coming to bed?" she asked, drowsily, and fell back among the pillows without even waiting for the answer.
Esmay, unconscious of the cold, remained seated at the window looking out upon the river, her mind busy with the ultimatum which had just been presented to it. That it was an ultimatum, she could not doubt; Quinton Edge had been in deadly earnest in confronting her with her fate--a double-faced one, as she thought, with a little shiver. She could not avoid seeing it, no matter which way she turned.
A waning moon in a clouding sky. Even as she looked the two faces seemed to start out from the uncertain shadows--Boris, the Butcher--involuntarily, she shrank back from the window--never that!
Ulick? Yes, she had been fond of Ulick; they had been comrades and friends for so long as she could remember. But Ulick in this new light--ah, that was different again. Strangely enough she found herself contemplating this last possibility even more fearfully than she had the first. If the "Butcher" but laid a finger upon her, surely her arm was strong enough to drive the dagger home. But if it were Ulick, what could she do but turn the weapon against her own breast.
Plan and counterplan, and the argument invariably came back to where it began--she must call upon Constans for the aid which he had promised to place at her disposal. Hardly two hours had passed since they had made the compact, and now she was come to ask for its fulfilment. What would he think of her? How interpret a precipitancy so foreign to the cool assurance of her bearing in the garden? She frowned; the instinct that urges a woman to any folly short of the supreme blunder of unveiling herself to masculine eyes took possession of her. But only for a moment, for again the imminence of the peril in which she stood broke over her like a wave. There was but one thing to do; the signal must be set this very night. The returning expedition from the south might even now be encamped at the High Bridge, and if Constans could help her at all it must be at once.
Without waiting to parley further with herself, Esmay went to the door opening into the hall and looked out. The hour must be close upon midnight; the house was quiet and dark.
A piece of white cloth had been the signal agreed upon, and a fluttering handkerchief should answer the purpose well enough without being too conspicuous to alien eyes. Nanna still slept, and Esmay, slipping into the hallway, stood listening for a moment. Then she went on boldly; the moon was still high, and she would not need a light.
It had been arranged that the signal should be displayed from the southwestern window of the cupola crowning the main roof. But the stairs to the third story and attic were in a wing; to reach them she must traverse a long corridor which led past the apartments occupied by Quinton Edge. Esmay noticed a gleam of yellow light upon the threshold of his half-closed door as she passed it on winged feet, but there was nothing extraordinary in that--it often burned there throughout the entire night. But he was talking to somebody; she could hear distinctly the opposition of the two voices. Who could it be? for none of the servants ever entered these rooms, and she had never known of any stranger being invited thither. She stopped and listened for a moment or two. But she could make out nothing distinctly, and then she flushed hotly to think that she had been tempted to eavesdropping. Let her be satisfied in knowing that Quinton Edge was in his room and busily engaged; at least, he would not disturb her.
The upper stories of the house had not been occupied for many years, and it took all the girl's courage to carry her through the shadow-haunted garret and up the ladder leading to the cupola proper. But she accomplished the task of putting the signal-cloth in position, and, still shaking with cold and excitement, began to retrace her steps.
At the entrance to Quinton Edge's room she stopped again, not out of curiosity, but as though yielding to the pressure of an invisible hand. The door still stood ajar, but there was no sound of voices. Again it was the invisible hand that seemed to draw the door away, permitting the girl to look within. An empty room, save for the figure that sat at the table, his head buried in his hands, the whole attitude one of intense weariness and dejection. Even as she stood there he looked up, and she saw his face mirrored in the glass that hung suspended from the opposite wall. It was Quinton Edge's face, indisputably; but could she ever have imagined that such capacity of pain lay behind the mask she knew so well? The dark eyes seemed to seize and hold her fast; then she realized that they saw nothing beyond their own mirrored reflection. Again the head sank forward into the hollowed hands, and only the slow heave of the shoulders made certain that it was a living man who sat there in the silence.
Noiselessly closing the door, Esmay regained her room and, all clothed as she was, crept into bed. Nanna stirred sleepily and put out a protecting arm. How blessed the comfort of that strong, warm clasp!
