The Lure of the Mask by Harold MacGrath (ereader for comics .TXT) 📕

role premeditated. He strode up and down the floor, his spurs tinkling and his saber rattling harshly. He stopped before this painting or that, scrutinized the corners to ascertain what artist had signed it; he paused an interval before the marble faun, which he recognized as a genuine antique. These things really interested him, for he had never been inside the Villa Ariadne till this night. And there was an excellent reason. Occasionally he glanced at the group on the opposite side of the room. He laughed silently. They were as lively as so many sticks of wood. Oh, he would enjoy himself to-night; he would extract every drop of pleasure from this rare and unexpected moment. Had she been mad, he wondered, to give him out of hand this longed-for opportunity? A month longer and this scene would have been impossible. At last he came to a stand in front of La Signorma, who was white and weary. The two had not yet exchanged a word.

"So," he said, "after five years I find you, my beautiful wife!" With one hand hipping his saber and the other curling his mustaches, he smiled at her. "What a devil of a time you have given me! Across oceans and continents! A hundred times I have passed you without knowing it till too late. And here, at the very moment when I believed it was all over, you fling yourself into the loving arms of your adoring husband! I do not understand."

"Be brief," she replied, the chill of snows in her voice. Her hate for this man had no empty corners. "I have played foolishly into your hands. Say what you will and be gone."

"What a welcome!"

"Be quick!"

There was danger in her voice now, and he recognized the tense quality of it. "I shall telegraph to the attorneys in Rome to partition the estates, my heart!" mocking her. "The king will not add to his private purse the riches of Colonel Grosvenor and the Principi di Monte Bianca, your father and mine, old fools! To tell the truth, I am badly in need of money, and, head of Bacchus! your appearance here is life to me, my dear Sonia. Life! I am a rich man. But," with a sudden scowl, dropping the mask of banter, "I do not understand these companions of yours." He eyed the group coldly. "What position in my household does this gentleman occupy?" indicating Hillard and smiling evilly.

"Give no heed," said La Signorina, as Hillard took a step forward.

"So it is all true, then?" he asked despairingly. "You are his wife?"

"Yes. Forgive me, but did I not warn you many times? In the eyes of the Italian civil law I am this man's wife, but in the eyes of God and the Church, never, never!"

"What do you mean?"

"In a few days I shall write you; in this letter I promise to explain everything. And you will forgive me, I know."

"Forgive you? For what? There is nothing to forgive on my side; the gift is on yours. For I have been a meddler, an unhappy one."

"Will you and Mr. Merrihew go now? I do not wish you two to witness this scene."

"Leave you alone with this wretch? No!" said Hillard.

"Well?" cried the prince impatiently. He was not inclined toward these confidences between the American and his wife. "I have asked a question and nobody replies. I inquire again, what position does he hold?"

"This villa is mine," she answered, the sharpness of her tone giving hint to the volcano burning in her heart. "However the estates may be partitioned, this will be mine. I command you to leave it at once, for your presence here is as unwelcome to me as that of all creeping things. I find that I do not hate you; I loathe you."

The prince laughed. That she loathed or hated him touched him not in the quick. Love or hate from this woman who knew him for what he was, a soulless scoundrel, was nothing. She was simply a sack of gold. But this was his hour of triumph, and he proposed to make the most of it.

"I could have let the carabinieri take you to prison," he said urbanely. "A night in a damp cell would have chastened your spirit. But I preferred to settle this affair as quickly as possible. But this friend of yours, he annoys me."

"Is it possible?" returned Hillard. "Your Highness has but to say the word and I will undertake the pleasure of relieving you of this man's presence."

"Be still," she said. "Will you go?" to the prince.

"Presently. First, I wish to add that your dear friend is both thick-skulled and cowardly. I offered to slap his face a few nights ago, but he discreetly declined."

Hillard laughed shortly. He desired to get closer to this gentlemanly prince.

"For my sake!" whispered La Signorina.

"I am calm," replied Hillard, gently releasing his arm from her grasp. He approached the prince smiling, but there was murder and despair in his heart. "Had I known you that night, one of us would not be here now."

"It is not too late," suggested the prince. "Come, are you in love with my wife?"

"Yes."

The bluntness of this assertion rather staggered the prince. "You admit it, then?" his throat swelling with rage.

"There is no reason why I should deny it."

"She is your-"

But the word died with a cough. Hillard, a wild joy in his heart, caught the prince by the throat and jammed him back against the rose-satin panel, under a dripping candelabrum. The prince made a violent effort to draw his sword, but Hillard seized his sword-arm and pinned it to the panel above his head. The prince was an athlete, but the man holding him was at this moment made of iron. The struggling man threw out a leg after the manner of French boxers, but his opponent met it with a knee. Again and again the prince made desperate attempts to free himself. He was soon falling in a bad way; he gasped, his lips grew blue and the whites of his eyes bloodshot. This man was killing him! And so he was; for Hillard, realizing that he had lost everything in the world worth living for, was mad for killing.

[Illustration: Again and again the prince made desperate attempts to free himself]

For a time the others were incapable of action. Merrihew, Kitty, O'Mally and Smith were in the dark as to what had passed verbally; they could only surmise. But here was something they all understood. La Signorina was first to recover. She sprang toward the combatants and grasped Hillard's hand, the one buried in the prince's throat, and pulled. She was not strong enough.

"Merrihew, O'Mally, quick! He is killing him!" she cried wildly.

The two, Merrihew and O'Mally, finally succeeded in separating the men, and none too soon. The prince staggered to a chair and sank heavily into it. A moment more and he had been a dead man. But he was not grateful to any one.

La Signorina turned upon Hillard. "And you would have done this thing before my very eyes!"

"I was mad," he panted, shamed. "I love you better than anything else in God's world, and this man means that I shall lose you."

"And you would have come to me across his blood?" wrathfully.

"I was not thinking of that. The only thought I had was to kill him. God knows I'm sorry enough." And he was.

"Ah, what a night!" She swayed and pressed her hand over her eyes. "No, do not touch me," she said. "I am not the kind of woman who faints."

The prince lurched toward Hillard, but fortunately Merrihew heard the slithering sound of the saber as it left its scabbard. Kitty screamed and O'Mally shouted. Merrihew, with a desperate lunge, stopped the blow. He received a rough cut over the knuckles, but he was not aware of this till the excitement was past. He flung the saber at O'Mally's feet.

"You speak English," said Merrihew, in an ugly temper, half regretting that he had interfered with Hillard. "You may send your orderly to the Hotel Italie to-morrow morning, and your saber will be given to him. You will not carry it back to Florence to-night. Now, it is time to excuse yourself. We can get along without you nicely."

The prince tore at his mustaches. He would have put them all to the sword gladly. Meddlers! To return to Florence without his saber was dishonor. He cursed them all roundly, after the manner of certain husbands, and turned to La Signorina.

"I am in the way here," he said, controlling his passion with difficulty. "But listen attentively to what I say: you shall remain my wife so long as both of us live. I had intended arranging your freedom, once the estate and moneys were divided, but not now. You shall read my wife till the end of the book; for unless I meet you half-way, the marriage contract can not be broken. In the old days it was your conscience. The still small voice seems no longer to trouble you," turning suggestively to Hillard. "You are stopping at the Hotel Italie?"

"I am. You will find me there," returned Hillard, with good understanding.

"Good! Your Highness, to-morrow night I shall have the extreme pleasure of running your lover through the throat." He picked up his cap, which lay on one of the chairs, put it on cavalierly, and took his princely presence out of their immediate vicinity.

"It will do my soul good to stand before that scoundrel," said Hillard, stretching out his hands and closing them with crushing force. "He has felt the power of my hand to-night. I will kill him."

La Signorina laid a hand on his arm. "No, Mr. Hillard, you will fight no duel."

"And why not? I do not see how it can be avoided."

"You have told me that you love me. As it stands I may sometimes see you, but if you kill him, never."

"He is far more likely to kill me," said Hillard morosely. "And perhaps it would be a kind service."

"Shame!" she cried. "Have you no courage? Can you not accept the inevitable manfully? Think of me. I can fight no duels; I must live on and on, tied legally to this man. And it is you who will add misery to my unhappiness? You will not fight him," with the assurance of one who has offered a complete argument.

"Very well. To be called a coward by a man like that is nothing. I shall not fight him."

"Thank you." And she gave him her hand impulsively.

"I love you," he murmured as he bent to kiss the hand; "and it is not dishonorable for you to hear me say so."

"I forbid you to say that!" But the longing of the world was in her eyes as she looked down at his head. She released her hand. "My friends, to-morrow our little play comes to an end. This is no longer Eden. We must go."

"This is what comes of American girls marrying these blamed foreigners," growled the tender-hearted O'Mally. "Why did you do it?"

"I am almost Italian, Mr. O'Mally. I had no choice in the matter; the affair was prearranged by our parents, after the continental fashion."

"I'm sorry I spoke like that," O'Mally said contritely.

"No apologies,