Chapter XXIV: Through Another Man’s Eyes

“Well, did I play up to you?” asked Wylie, finding Zoe in the verandah the next day.

“You did, indeed. Your booted and spurred impatience was most telling. I’m sure it woke Maurice to a sense of the desperate nature of the situation, and so brought about the happy result. Don’t you feel proud of your first attempt at match-making? I do.”

“You were the match-maker; I only acted under your orders. What am I to have for it?” demanded Wylie.

“A promise of further employment if your services should at any time be needed,” said Zoe, with unnatural coolness, looking round desperately for a way of escape. “Oh, here are Maurice and Eirene, released at last from their conference with the Professor!” she cried, with real relief. “Well, what have you settled?” as they came up the steps, Maurice obviously quivering with excitement, Eirene reluctant and blushing.

“Everything!” cried Maurice triumphantly. “No, Eirene, I’m not going to shout or chortle, or do anything I promised you not to, but I must tell these two, because they’ll have to know, and we want Wylie’s help. Where are you off to, Wylie? Come back at once. You are our stand-by, our victim, our resource, as you have been all along.”

“Didn’t know you’d want me,” muttered Wylie, returning, and Maurice perceived that they had arrived at an inopportune moment, but was wise enough to take no notice.

“We want you tremendously,” he said. “I must tell you that Eirene is behaving like a brick. She is willing to marry me as soon as ever it can be arranged. It’s a proof of confidence I should never have ventured to ask of her, and if ever I fail to justify it, I hope you two will just talk to me as I deserve.” He took Eirene’s hand gently in his, and she gave him a smile which was not far removed from tears, and then drew back into the shadow behind him, unable to meet the eyes of the others. “You see,” he went on, “it will save us no end of bother if we can only get married before the Ladoguins can track Eirene. It seems that the Professor made it right with the soldiers who escorted you here, and the gate-keepers, so that no one will know there was a lady with you, and most happily, no one will dare to make inquiries openly, lest it should be asked why Madame Ladoguin didn’t take better care of her charge. The Professor thinks that when they find no trace of Eirene near the wrecked carriage--for, of course, the Roumis who attacked her will say nothing, for their own sakes--they will give out boldly that she was killed in the first explosion. We can’t let that remain uncontradicted, for the sake of her claims, but it will be much safer if she only comes forward again as my wife.”

“Look here,” said Wylie, “I don’t want to spoil your pleasant arrangement, but where is the danger from Scythia now? The Princess is of age; how can any one prevent her from marrying you if she likes?”

“What’s to keep them from saying that she’s under age, or mad, or anything?” demanded Maurice. “We could call for an inquiry, but she wouldn’t be allowed to remain with us, and you ought to know, if any one does, how hard it would be to get at her if they once got her into their hands again. And besides, they could bring such pressure to bear that no Greek priest in the world would dare to marry us.”

“I should like to join Maurice’s Church,” explained Eirene softly to Zoe, “but he thinks it would be such a good example for the Emathians if they saw that people of different creeds needn’t necessarily quarrel.”

“Poor thing! Is he offering you up as a political sacrifice already?” said Zoe.

“But, I say,” said Wylie hastily, “you seem to forget that a religious marriage isn’t enough. You’ll certainly need a civil ceremony as well, if not two. Do you propose to drive up to the Scythian Consulate and request Ladoguin to perform his duties as registrar?”

“Scarcely,” said Maurice, “though for a long time we couldn’t make out how we were to manage without his services. A declaration that we were Sovereign Princes and could legislate for ourselves would hardly meet the case. But, happily, Eirene has remembered that her father never surrendered his Dacian nationality. When he went to Scythia he held on to his estate in Dacia--I suppose to have something to fall back upon if things went wrong--and now it belongs to her. The simplest thing would be for us all to migrate there, and be married by the village pope and at the British Legation, but the trains are sure to be watched, however unobtrusively. So we must take advantage of the nearest spot of Dacian ground, which is their Consulate in Therma. The Professor is on the best of terms with the Consul, for Dacia has not so far joined in the scramble for influence in Emathia, and sides rather with the Greeks than any one else. No doubt she hopes to have her reward some day, but that doesn’t signify now. There’s a church quite close to the Consulate which is regarded as their special preserve, so we can have both ceremonies complete.”

“The Princess will be married fast enough, but I’m pretty sure you won’t,” objected Wylie.

“I shall be if the British Consul or acting-Consul is present, and registers the marriage,” said Maurice. “The Professor has been looking it up. Now, Wylie, this is where you come in. We want you to get round your friend Sir Frank Francis. The best of it is”--Maurice’s voice became unsteady--“that if the Ladoguins have told him anything about Eirene’s disappearance, he’ll suspect _you_ of having carried her off, and of wanting his kind offices for yourself. So the first thing you’ll have to do will be to disabuse his mind on that point. Then you must swear him to secrecy, and tell him the real state of the case. Tell him nothing would have induced us to patronise the rival establishment if we hadn’t felt certain that, if we came to him, his conscience would have driven him to give Ladoguin an opportunity of forbidding the banns. As it is, he is only asked to attend at the Dacian church and Consulate, and register the marriage of a British subject in the usual way. If he feels that even that is too much, ask him to take a day off, and appoint his chief clerk acting-Consul for the occasion.”

“But if he won’t, what is to happen?” said Zoe.

“Why, we should have to escape in a half-married condition, and find a less Scythia-ridden British Consul. But Wylie must put things so movingly that he won’t have the heart to refuse. After all, I am the head of Eirene’s family, and who has the right to arrange for her marriage if I haven’t? And if I choose to marry her myself, instead of handing her over to some one else, and she doesn’t object, who has any right to prevent me?”

“All very well,” said Wylie. “It sounds most logical and convincing, but you know there are a good many people who both could and would prevent you. Don’t be afraid; I’ll exhaust my eloquence on Sir Frank, and if nothing else will bring him, I’ll persuade him it’s his duty to be present to make sure that I am not marrying the Princess after all. Well, consider the ceremony safely accomplished. What next?”

“Next we are to be very snobbish, and send detailed announcements of our marriage--showing that it means the union of the elder and younger branches of the descendants of John Theophanis--to the principal papers of the world. Also, Eirene is to announce it to the various royalties whose acquaintance she enjoys.”

“And where are you to be when the announcement bursts upon the universe?”

“At home, I hope, for our honeymoon. The Professor seems inclined to allow us a breathing-space. I can’t quite make out what he’s up to, but apparently he thinks of nothing at present but getting the wedding over. I fancy winter is a close time in Emathia, too. I should like to show Stone Acton to Eirene, and we should be out of the way until the fuss had blown over.”

“Well, I hope you mean to apply for police protection,” growled Wylie.

“Or import a detachment of Pinkerton men from America to garrison the house, with instructions to shoot at sight any foreigner who appears in the village,” suggested Zoe.

“And what next?” persisted Wylie.

“That’s what I can’t quite make out. Eirene’s got an idea that the Professor has in his mind’s eye--or even in his actual possession--some fortified island in the Archipelago, where we might practise sovereignty, so to speak; but that makes him a sort of benevolent magician, and I can’t quite fit it in with the other things I know of him.”

“Oh, but it’s such a delightful idea!” cried Zoe. “You would stay quietly in your island when nothing particular was going on, and when adventures were going to begin, you would be close at hand. But you must be sure and let me know whenever that is, and I shall come from the ends of the earth.”

“But what are you proposing to do?” demanded Maurice.

“My dear Maurice, allow me a little liberty. You didn’t expect me to trail about after you and Eirene, did you? I have so many plans that I don’t know which to carry out first. I am going to write my great book, and to pose as a Balkan expert in literary society, and to travel all over the world.”

“Oh, well, I daresay circumstances will make the decision for you,” said Maurice, with a significance which Zoe recognised and resented. There was a touch of defiance in her rejoinder.

“On the whole, I think I shall choose the literary part first. I shall shut myself up, and write and write; but every now and then I shall pounce out on unhappy people who think that the Emathian problem is a simple one, or who make mistakes in spelling Balkan names.”

“But who is going to accept you as a critic?” asked Maurice.

“Every one,” triumphantly. “I have the one great qualification. I have failed in literature.”

“But I thought you were going to succeed now. You’ll find yourself in a glass house--a mark for all the other critics.”

“Maurice, I have had to tell you before that you were dense, but I am sorry to have to repeat it in Eirene’s presence. When my success has come--as soon as ever I am sure of it--I shall start upon my travels. In Tibet or the Sahara I shan’t be bothered by what people are saying about me. I shall have quite enough to do with taking care of myself.”

“I am sorry to break in on these blissful dreams of the future,” said Wylie, in rather a forced voice, “but the fact is, my extended leave is nearly out, and my time here is limited. How soon am I to intimate to Sir Frank that his presence will be required at the Dacian Consulate?”

“This day week,” returned Maurice promptly. “Eirene is pledged not to protest, and the Professor has promised to get her the Patriarch’s blessing as a reward.”

“Then I shall just have time to see you through. I sail in the afternoon.”

“If there’s any risk, we’ll put the wedding earlier,” said Maurice. “Don’t mind my feelings; tell me if it’s necessary. I must have you to support me.”

“Oh, you’ll have Armitage.”

“I shall have Armitage anyhow. The Professor says two best men are necessary. But you I must have--as better best man, I suppose. So let me know the worst, or I’ll keep you back by force, and get you cashiered.”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Wylie, compassionating Eirene’s blushes. “I hope you realise what a lucky fellow you are, and that the Princess won’t let you forget it.”

“How could I forget it, when I have got her?” demanded Maurice. “He talks treason, doesn’t he, Eirene? Let us depart in dudgeon, and leave him and Zoe to plot the subjugation of Sir Frank. No, Zoe, we don’t want you. I am surprised that a person of your discernment should try to make a third in the walks of an engaged couple. _You’re not the only one in the family to take up match-making_,” he added in a whisper, as Zoe sat down again, somewhat discomposed. But the emergency put her on her mettle, and she turned to Wylie with smiling coolness as Maurice and Eirene went down the steps into the garden.

“It’s delicious to see them looking so happy, isn’t it?” she remarked. “It makes one feel quite choky.”

“Doesn’t it make you feel that such perfect bliss ought to be infectious? Don’t you think you and I----”

“Oh no, please don’t!” she cried.

“What am I not to do?”

“Don’t say it. I like you tremendously, of course, and I think you are the most splendid friend any one ever had, but I want to travel about for ever so long, just as I like, and write, and be _in_ things, you know.”

“Then you haven’t been in things enough the last three months?”

“I should think not! It has only whetted my appetite for more. Things are so frightfully interesting. I should like to plunge right into the midst of life.”

“Is it absolutely necessary to take the plunge alone?”

“Oh, I know what you are going to say. But don’t you see that I want to be without responsibilities for a time? I have always had Maurice on my mind, but now I can hand the dear boy over with an easy conscience to Eirene, and do just as I like. I want to be able to shut myself up and write, or start off on my travels, and go on, or come back, or break my journey, just as the fancy takes me--not to have to feel that I ought to be doing anything whatever.”

“You would soon get tired of that sort of life.”

“So everybody would say, but I want to try it. But you are better than most people. You are the only man I ever met who wouldn’t have been scandalised at what I have said, and done everything to keep me back.”

“Perhaps I know better than to say all I feel. Or perhaps I am trying to allure you by a deceptive show of sympathy. Honestly, Zoe, your life shouldn’t be a dull one if I could help it--with me, I mean,” he added lamely. “And you can’t think I should try to stop your writing. I should be awfully proud of your books.”

“I know. It’s very nice of you to say it, but you don’t understand. Think of me stuck down in a small Indian station----” Wylie opened his lips, but closed them again. “You told me long ago you were to be stationed in a horrid, humdrum little place when you went back. Nothing would happen, there would be the same dull, deadly monotony of duties every day--and yet I couldn’t have a writing fit in peace. It isn’t even as if you were still on the frontier.”

“It’s rather a good thing I’m not, if your feelings would be liable to change the moment I was transferred anywhere else. But I should have thought a quiet, regular life would have been the best possible thing for your writing.”

“For manufacturing books, not for writing. Why, just think, if I woke up one day with a perfectly splendid idea, and wanted simply to sit down and work it out--not to bother about meals or anything, except coffee and biscuits, or something of that kind, which I could eat without thinking about it. You would come--I know you would--and sweep my books away ruthlessly, and insist upon my taking proper food, and expect me to be grateful to you for doing it!”

“And I should be disappointed? Well, I will try to moderate my expectations. It might come to our both having scratch meals, surrounded by books, at opposite corners of the table.”

“No, you would never get like that, and it’s quite right you shouldn’t. You would have your duties, demanding punctuality and regularity, and all the things I want to escape from for a time, and you would insist on them. It would be different if you were more easy-going.”

“I’m afraid the woman who marries me will have to take me as I am--unless she can change me. Zoe, take me in hand, won’t you? I’ll give you a free hand to make all the alterations and improvements you like.”

“But it’s just those very qualities that I like in you. No, you won’t see. When--I mean if--I marry, I shall really do my duty and settle down. If I went back with you now, I should sink my own life in yours. I should think of nothing but seeing that your meals were in time and as you liked them, and that the house and everything did you credit, and you would congratulate yourself on having driven all my foolish aspirations out of my head. And then one day I should wake up to find that I was growing old, and had done nothing, and the visions had faded, and I should--_hate_ you. No, I shall never be young again, I shan’t always feel my heart leap up with a great idea coming suddenly--I must follow the gleam while I can. It will be different in a few years, but at present I have such lots of interests, and I can’t narrow them all down to----”

“To one man and his career? Well, put it that you spend these years as you suggest. What then?”

“Why, whether I succeed or fail, I shall have tried my wings, ‘proved my soul,’ like Paracelsus. Perhaps the visions will fade naturally, perhaps they will be more under control. Then I shall have time for the other side of life.”

“In other words, you might be willing then to turn to the man who loved you and had spent his best years waiting for you?”

“You are trying to make me out perfectly horrid! I--I----” Zoe blushed and stammered--“I shouldn’t mind very much being engaged, if it was quite certain that the engagement was a long one.”

“But I should. Do you really expect me to go on working quietly, not knowing where you were, or in what wild scrapes you might be involving yourself? Suppose you were again in circumstances like this summer’s. Another man is thrown with you, as I have been, falls in love with you, as I have done; you discourage him steadily, as you have discouraged me, but he forces an explanation--also like me. You plead that you are already engaged. ‘Why, what kind of double-distilled fool can the fellow be, to let you run about by yourself like this? He can’t care for you much!’ And it would be perfectly just.”

“I have said more to you than I could ever have imagined I should say to any man on earth,” said Zoe resolutely, but with a tremor in her voice. “If you won’t wait, it is not for me to offer concessions. Why are you so impatient?”

“Because life is short and apt to end suddenly, I suppose. What’s the good of talking, Zoe? I want you, and you don’t want me, and that’s all about it.”

“Oh,” said Zoe impulsively, “when you talk like that, I have a feeling as if I saw your real self for a moment. The rest of the time you seem not to be putting forth all your strength. If you did, I---- What is it?”

“It is just that. I believe that if I looked you straight in the eyes, and said, ‘Come,’ you would come. I could make you listen to me, but I won’t. I don’t want my will merely to triumph over yours; I want your sober judgment to decide that you care for me enough to give up everything else, no matter what, for my sake, and not regret it.”

Her puzzled face was a mute request to him to go on.

“Remember what I have learnt, since I knew you first, about your brother’s future prospects. The Professor has been rubbing it in diligently. If Teffany’s claims were once recognised, or even influentially taken up, think of the gulf between you and me. Married to a poor and undistinguished soldier, you would be heavily handicapped; free, you could aspire to almost any position. Unless you really loved me, heart and soul, you must feel that I was a drag on you, and resent it, and I--I could stand anything but seeing you repent that you had married me.”

“Oh, how unkind you are!” cried Zoe. “As if anything that could possibly happen could make me change! Why, if I were a princess, and you came in as a stranger, I should step down to you and hold out my hand.”

“And I should kiss it and pass on.”

“You are cruel. Don’t you see how terribly I should be wanting you if I did such a thing as that? Oh, promise, promise, that if I ever do it you won’t pass on!”

Wylie laughed bitterly. “What a queer girl you are!” he said. “Your eyes are full of tears at the mere thought that you may want me some day, and yet you won’t take me now.”

“I was feeling it as if it was in a book,” murmured Zoe shamefacedly. “But you will promise?”

“No, I won’t, because I shouldn’t do it. I shall do my level best to forget you from the day I leave this.”

This was high treason, and cried aloud for condign punishment.

“Can you forget when you like?” asked Zoe incisively.

“No, I wish I could! It won’t be much comfort for me, away in the Soudan, to think of you wandering about the world and getting into all sorts of difficulties.”

“The Soudan? But aren’t you going back to India?”

“No, I am to be lent to the Egyptian Government for special work in the Soudan. That was how I got longer leave.”

He went away abruptly, and Zoe gazed after him with mingled feelings.

“Of course we shall meet again,” she said to herself. “It’s all nonsense about forgetting. He can’t forget if he really cares. And we shall be older then, and more tolerant, and get into one another’s ways better.” A vision crossed her mind of herself and Wylie placed farther apart by the passage of years, both more fixed in their own ways and opinions, each finding it more difficult to understand the other, but she brushed it aside. “I have a right to live my own life, just as he has a right to try and get me to live his, if he can. I wonder whether he could have made me marry him, as he said? It would be hard to refuse, I know, if he had looked at me. I--I almost wish he had tried. And why didn’t he tell me about the Soudan until just at the end?”

She wondered in vain, but Wylie vouchsafed enlightenment later to Eirene, who felt that her own engagement supplied a vantage-ground from which to stretch out helping hands to those who were less fortunate in their love affairs. With the gracious little air of condescension which she had now laid aside in Maurice’s case, she took Wylie to task.

“The Soudan is just what Zoe would love,” she said. “You should have told her about it sooner--quite at the beginning. Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want her to marry me merely as a purveyor of adventures.”

“You are a very rude man,” said Eirene, with dignity.

“Sorry,” said Wylie. “It’s not the first time you’ve had that against me, is it?”

“But it makes me unhappy that you should manage things so badly, for you are the very person for Zoe.”

“You mustn’t flatter my self-conceit by agreeing with me. She doesn’t think so, you see.”

“Oh, but she will, some day. Don’t think me meddling, prying”--she blushed--“but you won’t suddenly marry some one else in despair, will you?”

“There won’t be much chance of marrying any one where I shall be,” he said, looking down at her kindly, “so I can reassure your mind by saying that it’s in my work I hope to forget all this.”