The Reason Why | Page 6

could be simulated when necessary, but must never
be shown when real. So he left his niece in silence, while she pondered
over his bargain, knowing full well what would be the result. She got
up from her chair and leaned upon the back of it, while her face looked
white as death in the dying afternoon's light.
"Can you realize what my life was like with Ladislaus?" she hissed. "A
plaything for his brutal pleasures, to begin with; a decoy duck to trap
the other men, I found afterwards; tortured and insulted from morning
to night. I hated him always, but he seemed so kind beforehand--kind to
my darling mother, whom you were leaving to die."--Here Francis
Markrute winced and a look of pain came into his hard face while he
raised a hand in protest and then dropped it again, as his niece went
on--"And she was beginning to be ill even at that time and we were so
poor--so I married him."
Then she swept toward the door with her empress air, the rather shabby,
dark dress making a swirl behind her; and as she got there she turned
and spoke again, with her hand on the bronze tracery of the fingerplate,
making, unconsciously, a highly dramatic picture, as a sudden last ray
of the sinking sun shot out and struck the glory of her hair, turning it to
flame above her brow.
"I tell you it is too much," she said, with almost a sob in her voice. "I
will not do it." And then she went out and closed the door.
Francis Markrute, left alone, leant back in his chair and puffed his cigar
calmly while he mused.
What strange things were women! Any man could manage them if only
he reckoned with their temperaments when dealing with them, and paid
no heed to their actual words. Francis Markrute was a philosopher. A

number of the shelves of this, his library, were filled with works on the
subject of philosophy, and a well-thumbed volume of the fragments of
Epicurus lay on a table by his side. He picked it up now and read: "He
who wastes his youth on high feeding, on wine, on women, forgets that
he is like a man who wears out his overcoat in the summer." He had not
wasted his youth either on wine or women, only he had studied both,
and their effects upon the thing which, until lately, had interested him
most in the world--himself. They could both be used to the greatest
advantage and pleasure by a man who apprehended things he knew.
Then he turned to the Morning Post which was on a low stand near,
and he read again a paragraph which had pleased him at breakfast:
"The Duke of Glastonbury and Lady Ethelrida Montfitchet entertained
at dinner last night a small party at Glastonbury House, among the
guests being--" and here he skipped some high-sounding titles and let
his eye feast upon his own name, "Mr. Francis Markrute."
Then he smiled and gazed into the fire, and no one would have
recognized his hard, blue eyes, as he said softly:
"Ethelrida! belle et blonde!"
CHAPTER III
While the financier was contentedly musing in his chair beside the fire,
his niece was hurrying into the park, wrapped in a dark cloak and thick
veil. She had slipped out noiselessly, a few minutes after she left the
library. The sun had completely set now and it was damp and cold,
with the dead leaves, and the sodden autumn feeling in the air. Zara
Shulski shivered, in spite of the big cloak, as she peered into the gloom
of the trees, when she got nearly to the Achilles statue. The rendezvous
had been for six o'clock; it was now twenty minutes past, and it was so
bad for Mirko to wait in the cold. Perhaps they would have gone on.
But no; she caught sight of two shabby figures, close up under the
statue, when she got sufficiently near.
They came forward eagerly to meet her. And even in the half light it

could be seen that the boy was an undersized little cripple of perhaps
nine or ten years old but looking much younger; as it could also be seen
that even in his worn overcoat and old stained felt hat the man was a
gloriously handsome creature.
"What joy to see you, Chérisette!" exclaimed the child. "Papa and I
have been longing and longing all the day. It seemed that six would
never come. But now that you are here let me eat you--eat you up!"
And the thin, little arms, too long for the wizened body, clasped fondly
round her neck as she lifted him, and carried him toward a seat where
the three sat down