XXX
Wolf!
The Countess Lanovitch never quitted her own apartments before midday. She had acquired a Parisian habit of being invisible until luncheon-time. The two girls left the castle of Thors in a sleigh with one attendant at ten o’clock in order to reach the hut selected for luncheon by midday. Etta did not accompany them. She had a slight headache.
At eleven o’clock Claude de Chauxville returned alone, on horseback. After the sportsmen had separated, each to gain his prearranged position in the forest, he had tripped over his rifle, seriously injuring the delicate sighting mechanism. He found (he told the servant who opened the door for him) that he had just time to return for another rifle before the operation of closing in on the bears was to begin.
“If Madame the Princess,” was visible, he went on, would the servant tell her that M. de Chauxville was waiting in the library to assure her that there was absolutely no danger to be anticipated in the day’s sport. The princess, it would appear, was absurdly anxious about the welfare of her husband—an experienced hunter and a dead shot.
Claude de Chauxville then went to the library, where he waited, booted, spurred, rifle in hand, for Etta.
After a lapse of five minutes or more, the door was opened, and Etta came leisurely into the room.
“Well?” she enquired indifferently.
De Chauxville bowed. He walked past her and closed the door, which she happened to have left open.
Then he returned and stood by the window, leaning gracefully on his rifle. His attitude, his hunting-suit, his great top-boots, made rather a picturesque object of him.
“Well?” repeated Etta, almost insolently.
“It would have been wiser to have married me,” said De Chauxville darkly.
Etta shrugged her shoulders.
“Because I understand you better; I know you better than your husband.”
Etta turned and glanced at the clock.
“Have you come back from the bear-hunt to tell me this, or to avoid the bears?” she asked.
De Chauxville frowned. A man who has tasted fear does not like a question of his courage.
“I have come to tell you that and other things,” he answered.
He looked at her with his sinister smile and a little upward jerk of the head. He extended his open hand, palm upward, with the fingers slightly crooked.
“I hold you, madame,” he said—“I hold you in my hand. You are my slave, despite your brave title; my thing, my plaything, despite your servants, and your great houses, and your husband! When I have finished telling you all that I have to tell, you will understand. You will perhaps thank me for being merciful.”
Etta laughed defiantly.
“You are afraid of Paul,” she cried. “You are afraid of Karl Steinmetz; you will presently be afraid of me.”
“I think not,” said De Chauxville coolly. The two names just mentioned were certainly not of pleasant import in his ears, but he was not going to let a woman know that. This man had played dangerous cards before now. He was not at all sure of his ground. He did not know what Etta’s position was in regard to Steinmetz. Behind the defiant woman there lurked the broad shadow of the man who never defied; who knew many things, but was ignorant of fear.
Unlike Karl Steinmetz, De Chauxville was not a bold player. He liked to be sure of his trick before he threw down his trump card. His method was not above suspicion: he liked to know what cards his adversary held, and one may be sure that he was not above peeping.
“Karl Steinmetz is no friend of yours,” he said.
Etta did not answer. She was thinking of the conversation she had had with Steinmetz in Petersburg. She was wondering whether the friendship he had offered—the solid thing as he called it—was not better than the love of this man.
“I have information now,” went on De Chauxville, “which would have made you my wife, had I had it sooner.”
“I think not,” said the lady insolently. She had dealt with such men before. Hers was the beauty that appealed to De Chauxville and such as he. It is not the beautiful women who see the best side of human nature.
“Even now,” went on the Frenchman, “now that I know you—I still love you. You are the only woman I shall ever love.”
“Indeed!” murmured the lady, quite unmoved.
“Yes; although in a way I despise you—now that I know you.”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Etta. “If you have anything to say, please say it. I have no time to probe your mysteries—to discover your parables. You know me well enough, perhaps, to be aware that I am not to be frightened by your cheap charlatanism.”
“I know you well enough,” retorted De Chauxville hoarsely, “to be aware that it was you who sold the Charity League papers to Vassili in Paris. I know you well enough, madame, to be aware of your present position in regard to your husband. If I say a word in the right quarter you would never leave Russia alive. I have merely to say to Catrina Lanovitch that it was you who banished her father for your own gain. I have merely to hand your name in to certain of the Charity League party, and even your husband could not save you.”
He had gradually approached her, and uttered the last words face to face, his eyes close to hers. She held her head up—erect, defiant still.
“So you see, madame,” he said, “you belong to me.”
She smiled.
“Hand and foot,” he added. “But I am softhearted.”
He shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“What will you?” he said, looking out of the window. “I love you.”
“Nonsense!”
He turned slowly round.
“What?”
“Nonsense!” repeated Etta. “You love power; you are a bully. You love to please your own vanity by thinking that you have me in your power. I am not afraid of you.”
De Chauxville leaned gracefully against the window. He still held his rifle.
“Reflect a little,” he said, with his cold smile. “It would appear
