The Lighted Match | Page 8

so hard to say?" He asked.
She sat for a moment with her hands covering her face.
"You must never do that again," she said faintly. "You have not the right. I have not the right."
"I have the only right," he announced triumphantly.
She shook her head. "Not when the girl is engaged."
She looked at him with a sad droop at the corners of her lips. He sat silent--waiting.
"Listen!" She spoke wearily, rising and leaning against the rough bole of the tree at her back, with both hands tightly clasped behind her. "Listen and don't interrupt, because it's hard, and I want to finish it." Her words came slowly with labored calm, almost as if she were reciting memorized lines. "It sounds simple from your point of view. It is simple from mine, but desperately hard. Love is not the only thing. To some of us there is something else that must come first. I am engaged, and I shall marry the man to whom I am engaged. Not because I want to, but because--" her chin went up with the determination that was in her--"because I must."
"What kind of man will ask you to keep a promise that your heart repudiates?" he hotly demanded.
"He knew that I loved you before you knew it," she answered; "that I would always love you--that I would never love him. Besides, he must do it. After all, it's fortunate that he wants to." She tried to laugh.
"Is his name Pagratide?" The man mechanically drew his handkerchief from his cuff, and wiped beads of cold moisture from his forehead.
The girl shook her head. "No, his name is not Pagratide."
He took a step nearer, but she raised a hand to wave him back, and he bowed his submission.
"You love me--you are certain of that?" he whispered.
"Do you doubt it?"
"No," he said, "I don't doubt it."
Again he pressed the handkerchief to his forehead, and in the silvering radiance of the moonlight she could see the outstanding tracery of the arteries on his temples.
Instantly she flung both arms about his neck.
"Don't!" she cried passionately. "Don't look like that! You will kill me!"
He smiled. "Under such treatment, I shall look precisely as you say," he acquiesced.
"Listen, dear." She was talking rapidly, wildly, her arms still about his neck. "There are two miserable little kingdoms over there.... Horrible little two-by-four principalities, that fit into the map of Europe like little, ragged chips in a mosaic.... Cousin Van lied in there to protect my disguise.... It is my father who is the Grand Duke of Maritzburg, and it is ordained that I shall marry Prince Karyl of Galavia.... It was Von Ritz's mission to remind me of my slavery." Her voice rose in sudden protest. "Every peasant girl in the vineyards may select her own lover, but I must be awarded by the crowned heads of the real kingdoms--like a prize in a lottery. Do you wonder that I have run away and masqueraded for a taste of freedom before the end? Do you wonder"--the head came down on his shoulder--"that I want to be a hobo with a tomato-can and a fire of deadwood?"
He kissed her hair. "Are you crying, Cara, dear?" he asked softly.
Her head came up. "I never cry," she answered. "Do you believe there are more lives--other incarnations--that I may yet live to be a butterfly--or a vagrant bee?"
"I believe"--his voice was firm--"I believe you are not Queen of Galavia yet by a good bit. There's a fairly husky American anarchist in this game, dearest, who has designs on that dynasty."
"Don't!" she begged. "Don't you see that I wouldn't let them force me? It is that I see the inexorable call of it, as my father saw it when he left his studio in Paris for a throne that meant only unhappiness--as you would see it, if your country called for volunteers."
He bowed his head. For a moment neither spoke. Then she took the rose from her breast and kissed it.
"Sir Knight of the Red Rose," she said, with a pitifully forced smile. "I don't want to give it back--ever. I want to keep it always."
He took her in his arms, and she offered no protest.
"To-morrow is to-morrow," he said. "To-day you are mine. I love you."
She took his head between her palms and drew his face down. "I shall never do this with anyone else," she said slowly, kissing his forehead. "I love you."
Slowly they turned together toward the house.
"I like your cavalryman, Pagratide," he said thoughtfully. His mind had suddenly recurred to the scene in the foreigner's room, and he thought he began to understand. "He is a man. He dares to challenge royal wrath by venturing his love in the lists against his prince."
"I wish he had not come," she said slowly.
"But you don't love him?"