Louis Joseph Vance

“ Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a smile.
She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the bold. ”

“ If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign long in its stead.
A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it upon Sofia’s shoulders.
Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, like a mantilla. ”

“ Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only by fear of a rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the upper landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she collapsed upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry of eye but deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all sensation but the anguish of her humiliated heart. ”

“ Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess enchanted—as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the magic were white or black—what matter? Its work was good.
No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service at the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse, the odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent.... ”

“ Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies the human kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients.
There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death. ”

“ Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm sat where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood table an oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together over a vast glut of books and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious diagrams, works of reference, documents all dark with columns of figures and cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes.
They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it was in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. ”

“ Victor lay at her feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender slits of white. More blood discoloured his right temple, welling from under the matted, coarse black hair.
He was terribly motionless. If he breathed, Sofia could detect no sign of it.
In panic she knelt beside the body, threw back Victor’s dinner-coat, and laid an ear above his heart. ”

“ Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain an exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which he tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in any degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in Victor’s presence the fellow’s bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh master. ”

“ Sofia’s eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name, phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too tired to search out.
But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal.
“Why not?” Victor’s accents were gently persuasive. “At worst, you can only fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have been given a little insight into my dreams for you.” ”

“ Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at once nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his head high—and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless thought to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the way he instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing his heels together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost wildly in their deep sockets. ”

“ She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little moustache. And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame which Karslake did not share.
Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful enough to the happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her chaperone; lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently guilty of many a gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried, faltering feet. And it was to her alone that Sofia owed the slow but constant widening of her social horizon. ”

“ Through the square opening thus discovered Sofia saw a ladder of several slimy steps washed by black, oily waters that sucked and swirled sluggishly round spiles green with weed and ooze.
Down these steps the Chinaman crept gingerly, but halfway paused with a cry, then cringed back to the head of the ladder, yellow face blanched, slant eyes piteous with fear, as he exhibited an end of stout mooring line whose other end was made fast to a ring bolt in one of the joists. ”

“ Alone with her immense and immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim skyshine that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that had no mercy; hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making untrue love to her, but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or the enshrined image that wore his name; hating herself for her facile readiness to give love where all but the guise of love was lacking, and for knowing this deep hurt where she should have felt only scorn and anger ”

“ Do you ask more proof of the man’s madness? Do you require more excuse for my permitting you to be deceived by Victor for a few weeks, rather than wreck our plans to frustrate his, when all the while Karslake and I were near you, watching over you, learning to love you—he in his fashion, I as your father—and both ready at all times to die in your protection, if it had ever come to that? ”

“ And, as if this were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to the pseudo-peace of the ménage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness for Sofia. He kept near her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with Mama Thérèse to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a term of endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes. ”

“ Into a space perhaps four feet in width from wall to wall and seven deep from the front door to the foot of a cramped flight of crazy wooden stairs, some ten people were crowded, Sofia and the maid Chou Nu in a knot of excited men.
In the saffron glow of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken rustling of heavy respirations; she saw uncouth gesticulations carve the shadows ”

“ Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes.
“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile that made Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of being.” A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with fingers tensed, like a murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of Heaven or Hell—!”
He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes, Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance.
“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely. ”

“ Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the absence of Victor, Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers mocking, his speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it resulted that the girl never quite forgot the impression which he had managed to convey in those few moments of their first encounter, that Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, and was meanly jeering at her in his sleeve. ”

“ Sofia repeated in a gasp of disdain—“you!”
He gave a slight shrug.
“Such, it appears, is your sad fortune.”
“A servant!”
“And not the proud prince you were promised? Rather a come down, one must admit.” Lanyard laughed low, and moved nearer. “I’m sorry, I mean I might be (for myself, too) if Nogam were less a fraud than that pretentious mountebank, Prince Victor—or for the matter of that, if you were as poor of spirit as you would seem on your own valuation, if you were not at heart your mother’s daughter, and mine, my child by a woman whom I loved well, and who long ago loved me!” ”

“ The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment.
Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze was steadfast to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility. ”

“ When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household had quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of singing the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final whiskey-and-soda, had paddled sleepily back to bed, lights burned on brightly in two parts only of Frampton Court, in the bedchambers tenanted respectively by Prince Victor Vassilyevski and his reputed daughter. ”

“ Sofia replied, mindful of Karslake’s injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?”
“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at least the final word. I must abide by your decision.”
“But I shall be only too glad—”
“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.”
“I don’t quite understand ...”
Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I hesitate to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to facts; I mean, to the reality of the danger which is always with us, since it is within us.” ”

“ Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this. The pace was too terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the night-bound countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness. And Sofia returned to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo had given definite shape and colour, if with an effect far from that of his intention. Threatened, the spirit of the girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold plunge. ”

“ Dupont was now at her heels, and displaying extraordinary agility in a man of his years of dissipation and sedentary habits. And Thérèse was not far behind.
Seeing coins trickling through the fingers of the fugitive and falling to ring and spin upon the floor, the Frenchwoman raised an anguished shriek of “Thief! Stop thief!”—and such part of the audience as had remained in its seats rose up as one man.
In the same instant Dupont’s fingers clamped down on Sofia’s shoulder. She screamed, and he chuckled and dragged her back. ”

“ And woman’s beauty fades so swiftly: everybody said so. Was the shadow of to-morrow already dimming her loveliness? How could it be otherwise? She had lived so long and so fully, she had begun to live so young. Six years of marriage to Victor—that alone should have been enough, one would think, to metamorphose the fairest face into a blasted battlefield of passions. ”

“ He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope to overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever on guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be foreseen, prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and commit her, through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most probably an act of theft—to the life of a social outcast. ”