Chapter VII

Jeff felt an inordinate desire to exchange confidences with the girl who danced so lightly in his arms, but he did not know quite how to go about it. She evidently did not understand English, a tongue known to a surprising number of well-bred Muscovites; and she shook her head at his query. Jeff, of course, spoke no Russian. It was a difficult situation until he made the happy discovery that the girl spoke French.

Jeff’s own French was extremely bad, but through the medium of that tongue he was now able to convey a few primitive thoughts. It was even more difficult to understand her French, and whether because it was worse than his, which seemed impossible, or better, he could not tell. Certainly there was a divergence somewhere. When he saw the smile that lingered about her lips he concluded that his command over the tongue of courts was even worse than he thought; but since there was no scorn in her smile—only girlish amusement—it did not hurt his feelings a particle. Indeed, he would have gladly displayed further ignorance—really, it was forgetfulness in his case—if by so doing he could make her smile flower into a laugh.

He talked on bravely, yet he found that he had a thousand thoughts the French words for which he could not remember. Perhaps it was the music, perhaps because he was becoming senile, that he had to combat an almost irresistible desire to tell her all about his boyhood, his mother, his battle experiences, and his views—everything that was particularly dear to him. He wanted to find out all about her—a feat which to accomplish politely would have been difficult enough had she talked his language, and which was wholly impossible in French. The Regimental band, though playing heavenly music, were an unsatisfactory outfit. They purposely cut the dances short.

“And may I see you again soon?” he asked, as soon as he dared. At least this was what he meant to say; and assisted by her woman’s intuition, she understood perfectly. He awaited her answer with a ridiculous amount of ill-concealed suspense.

“It would please me immensely,” she replied.

He gulped and gasped. “When?”

“To-night.”

His face paled; and he wondered if he had misunderstood. Could he be mistaken in thinking that “_cette nuit_” meant to-night?”

“Eh?” he echoed stupidly. “Did you say to-night?”

“Yes, if you like. You may escort me home in a little while. I am almost tired with dancing. Say in an hour?”

“Sooner, if you like. It can’t be too soon for me.”

“You are very kind. I will run out—into the garden—at half-past twelve. You may be ready then.”

He felt an insane desire to hasten this already auspicious acquaintance, and he blundered on in execrable French. “You know, I believe I have met you somewhere before. There is something about your face—what I can see of it—that suggests some one I know.”

“Yes? It is not very flattering—that you should meet me—and then forget me.”

“But we have met, haven’t we? Believe me, I will never forget you again. Perhaps I just saw you, on the street. Perhaps you have been South?”

“Not very far South. Have you ever been to Alaska before?”

“No—”

“Then it doesn’t seem very likely, does it. Now the music has stopped. I must ask Baron Karl’s forgiveness. You Americans—are so masterful!”

Was she laughing at him? By Jove, the Americans _were_ masterful. He’d like to see any other people who excelled them in this quality! In thinking about this he forgot, for the moment, that he had mentally renounced America for England, and was planning soon to disavow his American citizenship.

“I wish you would not—beg any one’s forgiveness,” he told her earnestly. “You have the right to dance with whom you please. He may own the place, but you do not have to coddle him. I will be back soon for another waltz.”

He did come back, as soon as he dared, but he was not successful in getting another dance. There was too much foreign competition. Shortly after twelve he lost track of her altogether.

He immediately slipped from the ballroom in search of the gardens. The time set for the assignation was not yet at hand; but he did not care to risk keeping her waiting and perhaps missing her altogether. He walked around the great structure of the castle, and in a moment found himself in the glory of the gardens.

The beauty of this late August night still endured; and now Jeff was in a mood to appreciate it. The moon was hung in the topmost arch of the sky, and its light cast a strange and unearthly spell over the man and the place. Shadows were dark and mysterious; the low shrubs were weird, black shapes, the sight of the sleeping flowers quickened into life a dear and true philosophy that blessed him for a moment and then passed into darkness.

Southeastern Alaska was always blessed by a glory of flowers. Having only a few short weeks of abundant sunlight, they seem to pour out their hearts in their one brief season; and the air was simply laden with their fragrance. Jeff was a tender-hearted youth, susceptible to the fragile loveliness of blossoms; and seeing them, he did not at first remember why he was here. It did not occur to him that there might be cause for haste. As he was somewhat ahead of time, he supposed that the girl was somewhere in the mansion and that he had the gardens to himself.

Such was not the case. Presently he heard her call in the farther shadows.

It was an odd and somewhat disconcerting sound, faintly heard above the music from the open windows and coming so unexpectedly in his moment of deep peace. It was not a loud sound; yet he was not at all inclined to disregard it. In his fancy it had an anguished, repressed quality, as if it either had been an involuntary utterance of one who was trying to conceal a great trouble, or else it had slipped out between a man’s strong fingers.

Jeff did the only possible thing that his training permitted. He ran to investigate the sound. This was a new land to him; the game was new, too, and he had no idea how the cards lay. And presently, in a little open place between the shrubs, he came upon a curious scene.

It was revealed but dimly in the moonlight; yet its significance was not lost on him. There were but two actors: the girl in the Turkish costume whom he had come to meet, and a tall man in evening clothes. As the latter turned, resenting Jeff’s intrusion, the moon showed his face but vaguely; but because it was all ghostly and white except for one dark mark on his cheek, the Southerner recognized him at once. At present his arm encircled the girl, pinning her arms to her sides, and she did not seem to be struggling. This latter point might have had a world of meaning for Jeff, had he not known surely that the steel-wire strength of that arm made struggle impossible. With his free hand he was just reaching to remove her mask.

Jeff was not a fool to rush in and disturb another man’s recreation. He knew that rough sport of this kind had been indulged in in moonlit gardens many times before, to the amusement of every one present. Kisses have been stolen for some years without serious public harm. Jeff had many instincts of a knight, but his name was not Don Quixote, and he had no idea of making himself a nuisance. In this case, however, his course was clear. The girl had cried out in real distress; Jeff had not mistaken the need behind the repressed call that had reached him across the gardens. Her strained posture now, the very contour of her form in the dim light, showed how hateful this moment was to her.

The Russian could not help but see Jeff’s approach, and he straightway favored him with the supreme insult of seeming indifference. It was not until the Southerner spoke that he deigned him a glance.

“It’s not done,” Jeff told him, rather casually. He knew the code, this boy from the South.

“Yes?” The Russian grinned at him in unmistakable contempt. “Oh—it is the young American who favors us—one of the brave and the free. Their freedom marks them in any company.”

His accent was distinctly foreign, but Jeff did not misunderstand. Meanwhile, Baron Karl made no motion to release the girl.

Because he was a boy and proud, because he wished to play this game in a way that became him, Jeff took time to light a cigarette. It can be said for him that his hand shook hardly at all, and that he touched the match flare to the end of the cigarette the first time he tried. “If no one objects—” he observed, with a palpable coolness.

“Baron Karl, the young lady doesn’t seem to appreciate you,” he went on. “It isn’t the fashion, in America, to entertain young ladies against their will. Will you let her go freely, or must I”—and Jeff made a little gesture—“choke you until you do.”

In his amazement at these words Baron Karl’s vigilance relaxed for a single second, and the girl took the opportunity to slip out of his arms. It was at this point that Jeff realized the affair was somehow getting beyond him. It had aspects now that he did not fully understand. Heretofore it had seemed a mere detached adventure into which he had stumbled: a half-drunken libertine making himself obnoxious to a lady. Now the episode seemed to be weaving itself into the fabric of his own life. The surprising thing that wakened these realizations was that instead of running away, the girl remained on the scene. She was free now of Karl’s arms, but she did not flee into the Castle. Instead, she took a place slightly to one side of and between the two men, and stood as if waiting.

For what she was waiting Jeff could not guess. He only knew that she kept her eyes firmly fixed not on her rescuer, but on the Russian. So intently she watched that even through the slits of her mask, Jeff saw her eyes glitter.

She seemed to him to be standing on guard.

“I can’t tell you what a satisfaction it would be to have you attempt to lay your hands on me,” the Russian told him. “I think you have made yourself as objectionable as even an American would care to, for one night, Sharp. You have interfered in a matter of which you know nothing. This is not United States—this is Russian-America. You were not called upon to defend a lady. I know every one who was invited by the Governor, and this girl was not on the list. She is probably a half-breed from the village. You should learn to respect the customs of the land you visit; for instance, when one gentleman is trying to amuse himself with a girl of this class, another does not interfere with him.”

“No matter what he does, I suppose. Well, thank Heaven the customs of the United States of America are not those of Russian-America.” His voice did not hold so steady now; it had lost the cold and careless quality that still marked the Russian’s. He was a younger man, not so tried; and the Russian leered as he sensed his growing advantage.

“I ask you to retract what you said about her, too,” Jeff went on as steadily as he could. “While it does not affect the fact that I would save her, if I could, from your insults—just the same, imputations of mixed blood do not go in my country. The girl is not a native—”

“No.” The girl spoke clearly in the English tongue. “I am an American.”

She lifted her mask. Dim though the light was, Jeff knew her instantly. She was Molly Forest, his companion on the _Ethan Allen_.