Роберт Чамберс - Who Goes There!

"Yes."

After a moment she laughed as a child laughs at the prospect of beholding wonders.

"Kervyn," she said, "please do so. I will give you every opportunity if you will remain at Trois Fontaines."

"I mean to remain in that vicinity," he said, meaningly; and she laughed again, deliciously, almost maliciously.

"It would finish you thoroughly," she said. "It would be poetic justice with a vengeance."

" Your vengeance?"

"Yes, mine. Oh, if you only did do that!"

"I think, considering the way you look at it, that I'd better not," he said, rather seriously. "Besides, I've no time."

"No time to fall in love with me?"

"No time."

"Why?"

"Shall I tell you?"

"Yes, please."

"Very well. Because after I have the papers I shall enter the Belgian army." He added with a hint of impatience—"Where I belong and where I ought to be now."

She became very silent at that. After a few moments she said: "Had you decided to do that before I met you?"

"Yes. I was on my way—trying to avoid the very trap I fell into."

"The German army?"

"Yes."

After another silence she said: "I shall be very sorry when you go. I shall think of you when I am in England."

"You can't go back to England, Karen."

"That is true. I forgot."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know."

"Don't go to Germany."

"Why?"

"There may be an invasion."

She had lifted her head as he spoke. After a moment she sighed like a tired child, laid her head back on his arm and rested one slender hand on his shoulder.

It suddenly seemed to her that the world, which had been going very well with her, had halted, and was beginning to go the other way.

"Kervyn?"

"Yes?"

"You could take the papers when I am asleep, I suppose. I couldn't help it, could I?"

"That is one way," he said, smiling.

"What was the other?"

He did not reply.

She sighed again. "I suggested it," she said, "in order to give you a little more time to do—what you said you thought—possible."

"Fall in love?" he asked lightly. "Yes."

"What would be the use, Karen?"

"Use?"

"Yes. I'm going into the army. It will be a long war. If I fell in love with you I'd not have time to win your love in return before I went away—admitting that I could ever win it. Do you see?"

"I quite see that."

"So I had better take the papers when I can, and get into touch with the reserves of my regiment if I can."

"What regiment?"

"The Guides."

"The Guides! Are you an officer?"

"Yes, of the reserve."

She knew quite well what that meant. Only the Belgian nobility of ancient lineage served as officers in the Guides.

A happiness, a wonderful tranquillity crept over her. No wonder she had found it difficult to really reproach herself with her behaviour. And it was a most heavenly comfort to her to know that if she had been indiscreet, at least she had been misbehaving with one of her own caste.

"The next station," said the German guard, squinting in at them from the window under his lifted lantern, "is Trois Fontaines."

"What!" exclaimed Guild surprised. "Have we passed the customs?"

"The customs? This is a German military train! What business is it of the Grand Duchy where we go or what we do?"

He lowered his lantern and turned away along the running–board, muttering: "Customs, indeed! The Grand Duchy had better mind its business—and the Grand Duchess, too!"

A few moments later the locomotive whistled a long signal note to the unseen station.

"Karen," said Guild quietly, "in a few moments I shall be out of debt to General von Reiter. My life will be my own to do with as I please. That means good–bye."

She said with adorable malice: "I thought you were going to rob me first."

"I am," he said, smiling.

"Then I shall make the crime a very difficult one for you…. So that our—parting—may be deferred."

The train had already come to a standstill beside a little red–tiled station. Woods surrounded it; nothing was visible except the lamps on a light station–wagon drawn up to the right of the track.

The guard unlocked and opened their compartment. A young man—a mere boy—came up smilingly and lifted his cap:

"Mademoiselle Girard? Monsieur Guild? I come from Quellenheim with a carriage. I am Fritz Bergner."

He took their luggage and they followed to the covered station–wagon. When they were seated the boy stepped into the front seat, turned his horses, and they trotted away into the darkness of a forest through which ran the widely winding road.

Fresh and aromatic with autumn perfume the unbroken woods stretched away on either hand beneath the splendour of the stars. Under little stone bridges streams darkled, hurrying to the valley; a lake glimmered through the trees all lustrous in the starlight.

Something—perhaps the beauty of the night, possibly the imminence of his departure, kept them silent during the drive, until, at last, two unlighted gate–posts loomed up to the right and the horses swung through a pair of iron gates and up a driveway full of early fallen leaves.

A single light sparkled far at the end of the vista.

"Have you ever before been here?" asked Guild.

"Once, to a hunt."

Presently Guild could see the long, two–storied hunting lodge of timber and stucco construction with its high peaked roof and dormers and a great pair of antlers spreading above the hood of the door.

Out of the doorway came a stout, pleasant–eyed, brown–skinned woman who curtsied to them smilingly and welcomed them in German.

Everything was ready; they had been expected. There was a fire in the hall and something to eat.

Guild asked to be driven to an inn, and the housekeeper seemed surprised. There was no inn. Her orders were to prepare a room for Herr Guild, who was expected to remain over night. She regretted that she could not make them more comfortable, but the Lodge had been closed all summer, and she had remained alone with her son Fritzl to care for the place.

There seemed to be nothing for him to do but to stay over night.

Karen, waiting for his decision, looked pale and tired.

"Very well," he said to Frau Bergner, who curtsied and went away for their candles. Then he walked over to where Karen was standing, lifted her hand and touched the slender fingers with his lips.

"Good night," she said; "I hope your dreams will be agreeable."

"I hope yours will be, also."

"I hope so. I shall try to continue a dream which I had on the train. It was an odd one—something about a frontier and a sentry box. You woke me before I had entirely crossed the frontier. I'd like to cross and find out what really is on the other side."

He laughed:

"I hope you will find, there, whatever you desire."

"I—hope so. Because if I should cross the boundary and find—nobody—there, it might make me unhappy for the rest of my life." And she looked up at him with a slight blush on her cheeks.

Then her features grew grave, her eyes serious, clear, and wistful.

"I think I am—learning to care—a great deal for you. Don't let me if I shouldn't. Tell me while there is time."

She turned as the housekeeper came with the lighted candles.

Guild stood aside for her to pass, his grave face lowered, silent before this young girl's candour and the troubled sincerity of her avowal.

In his own room, the lighted candle still in his hand, he stood motionless, brooding on what she had said.

And in his heart he knew that, although he had never liked any woman as much as he liked this young girl, he was not in love with her. And, somehow or other, he must tell her so—while there was still time.