Part 14

When at last the conference came to an end and Vicenti rose to go, Roddy declared himself too excited to sleep and volunteered to accompany the doctor to his door. But the cause of his insomnia was not General Rojas but the daughter of General Rojas, and what called him forth into the moonlit Alameda was his need to think undisturbed of Inez, and, before he slept, to wish "good-night" to the house that sheltered her. In this vigil Roddy found a deep and melancholy satisfaction. From where he sat on a stone bench in the black shadows of the trees that arched the Alameda, Miramar, on the opposite side of the street, rose before him. Its yellow walls now were white and ghostlike. In the moonlight it glistened like a palace of frosted silver. The palace was asleep, and in the garden not a leaf stirred. The harbor breeze had died, and the great fronds of the palms, like rigid and glittering sword-blades, were clear-cut against the stars. The boulevard in which he sat stretched its great length, empty and silent. And Miramar seemed a dream palace set in a dream world, a world filled with strange, intangible people, intent on strange, fantastic plots. To Roddy the father, who the day before had cast him off, seemed unreal; the old man buried in a living sepulchre, and for whom in a few hours he might lose his life, was unreal; as unreal as the idea that he might lose his life. In all the little world about him there was nothing real, nothing that counted, nothing living and actual, save the girl asleep in the palace of frosted silver and his love for her.

His love for her made the fact that he was without money, and with no profession, talent or bread-and-butter knowledge that would serve to keep even himself alive, a matter of no consequence. It made the thought that Inez was promised to another man equally unimportant. The only fact was his love for her, and of that he could not doubt the outcome. He could not believe God had brought into his life such happiness only to take it from him.

When he woke the next morning the necessity of seeing Inez again and at once was imperative. Since she had left him the afternoon before, in the garden of Mrs. Broughton, she had entirely occupied his thoughts. Until he saw her he could enjoy no peace. Against the circumstances that kept them apart he chafed and rebelled. He considered it would be some comfort, at least, to revisit the spot where he last had spoken with her, and where from pity or a desire to spare him she had let him tell her he loved her.

The unusual moment at which he made his call did not seem to surprise Mrs. Broughton. It was almost as though she were expecting him.

"My reason for coming at this absurd hour," began Roddy in some embarrassment, "is to apologize for running away yesterday without wishing you 'good-by.' I suddenly remembered----"

The young matron stopped him with a frown.

"I am disappointed, Roddy," she interrupted, "and hurt. If you distrust me, if you won't confide in an old friend no matter how much she may wish to help you, she can only----"

"Oh!" cried Roddy abjectly, casting aside all subterfuge, "_will_ you help me? Please, Mrs. Broughton!" he begged. "_Dear_ Mrs. Broughton! Fix it so I can see her. I am _so_ miserable," he pleaded, "and I am so happy."

With the joyful light of the match-maker who sees her plans proceeding to success Mrs. Broughton beamed upon him.

"By a strange coincidence," she began, in tones tantalizingly slow, "a usually proud and haughty young person condescended to come to me this morning for advice. _She_ doesn't distrust me. She believes----"

"And what did you advise?" begged Roddy.

"I advised her to wait in the garden until I sent a note telling you----"

Already Roddy was at the door.

"What part of the garden?" he shouted. "Never mind!" he cried in alarm, lest Mrs. Broughton should volunteer to guide him. "Don't bother to show me; I can find her."

Mrs. Broughton went into the Consulate and complained to her husband.

"It makes Roddy so selfish," she protested.

"What did you think he'd do?" demanded Broughton--"ask you to go with him? You forget Roddy comes from your own happy country where no chaperon is expected to do her duty."

Inez was standing by the bench at which they had parted. Above her and around her the feathery leaves of the bamboo trees whispered and shivered, shading her in a canopy of delicate sun-streaked green.

Like a man who gains the solid earth after a strenuous struggle in the waves, Roddy gave a deep sigh of content.

"It has been so hard," he said simply. "It's been so long! I have been parched, starved for a sight of you!"

At other times when they had been together the eyes of the girl always looked into his steadily or curiously. Now they were elusive, shy, glowing with a new radiance. They avoided him and smiled upon the beautiful sun-steeped garden as though sharing some hidden and happy secret.

"I sent for you," she began, "to tell you----"

Roddy shook his head emphatically.

"You didn't send for me," he said. "I came of my own accord. Last night you didn't send for me either, but all through the night I sat outside your house. This morning I am here because this is where I last saw you. And I find _you_. It's a sign! I thought my heart led me here, but I think now it was the gods! They are on my side. They fight for me. Why do you try to fight against the gods?"

His voice was very low, very tender. He bent forward, and the girl, still avoiding his eyes, sank back upon the bench, and Roddy, seating himself, leaned over her.

"Remember!" he whispered, "though the mills of the gods grind slow, they grind exceeding fine. The day is coming when you will never have to send for me again. You cannot escape it, or me. I am sorry--but I have come into your life--to stay!"

The girl breathed quickly, and, as though casting off the spell of his voice and the feeling it carried with it, suddenly threw out her hands and, turning quickly, faced him.

"I must tell you what makes it so hard," she said, "why I must not listen to you. It is this. I must not think of myself. I must not think of you, except--" She paused, and then added, slowly and defiantly--"as the one person who can save my father! Do you understand? Do I make it plain? I am _making use_ of you. I have led you on. I have kept you near me, for his sake. I am sacrificing you--for him!" Her voice was trembling, miserable. With her clenched fist she beat upon her knee. "I had to tell you," she murmured, "I had to tell you! I had to remember," she protested fiercely, "that I am nothing, that I have no life of my own. Until he is free I do not exist. I am not a girl to love, or to listen to love. I can be only the daughter of the dear, great soul who, without you, may die. And all you can be to me is the man who can save him!" She raised her eyes, unhappily, appealingly. "Even if you despised me," she whispered, "I had to tell you."

Roddy's eyes were as miserable as her own. He reached out his arms to her, as though he would shelter her from herself and from the whole world.

"But, my dear one, my wonderful one," he cried, "can't you see that's only morbid, only wicked? _You_ led _me_ on?" he cried. He laughed jubilantly, happily. "Did I _need_ leading? Didn't I love you from the first moment you rode toward me out of the sunrise, bringing the day with you? How could I help but love you? You've done nothing to make me love you; you've only been the most glorious, the most beautiful woman----"

At a sign from the girl he stopped obediently.

"Can't I love you," he demanded, "and work for your father the more, because I love you?"

The girl sat suddenly erect and clasped her hands. Her shoulders moved slightly, as though with sudden cold.

"It frightens me!" she whispered. "Before you came I thought of him always, and nothing else, only of him. I dreamed of him; terrible, haunting dreams. Each day I prayed and worked for him. And then--" she paused, and, as though seeking help to continue, looked appealingly into Roddy's eyes. Her own were uncertain, troubled, filled with distress. "And then you came," she said. "And now I find I think of you. It is disloyal, wicked! I forget how much he suffers. I forget even how much I love him. I want only to listen to you. All the sorrow, all the misery of these last two years seems to slip from me. I find it doesn't matter, that nothing matters. I am only happy, foolishly, without reason, happy!"

In his gratitude, in his own happiness, Roddy reached out his hand. But Inez drew her own away, and with her chin resting upon it, and with her elbow on her knee, sat staring ahead of her.

"And I find this!" she whispered guiltily, like one at confession. "I find I hate to spare you for this work. Three weeks ago, when you left Curacao, I thought a man could not risk his life in a nobler cause than the one for which you were risking yours. It seemed to me a duty--a splendid duty. But now, I am afraid--for you. I knew it first the night you swam from me across the harbor, and I followed you with my eyes, watching and waiting for you to sink and die. And I prayed for you then; and suddenly, as I prayed, I found it was not you for whom I was praying, but for myself, for my own happiness. That I wanted you to live--for me!"

The girl sprang to her feet, and Roddy rose with her, and they stood facing each other.

"Now you know," she whispered. "I had to tell you. I had to confess to you that I tried to make you care for me, hoping you would do what I wished. I did not mean to tell you that, instead, I learned to care for you. If you despise me I will understand; if you can still love me----"

"_If_ I love you?" cried Roddy. "I love you _so_----"

For an instant, as though to shut out the look in his face, the eyes of the girl closed. She threw out her hands quickly to stop him.

"Then," she begged, "help me not to think of you. Not to think of myself. We are young. We are children. He is old: every moment counts for him. If this is the big thing in our lives we hope it is, it will last always! But with him each moment may mean the end; a horrible end, alone, among enemies, in a prison. You must give me your word--you must promise me not to tempt me to think of you. You are very generous, very strong. Help me to do this. Promise me until he is free you will not tell me you care for me, never again, until he is free. Or else"--her tone was firm, though her voice had sunk to a whisper. She drew back, and regarded him unhappily, shaking her head--"or else, I must not see you again."

There was a moment's silence, and then Roddy gave an exclamation of impatience, of protest.

"If you ask it!" he said, "I promise. How _soon_ am I to see you again?"

Inez moved from him toward the house. At a little distance she stopped and regarded him in silence. Her eyes were wistful, reproachful.

"It was so hard to ask," she murmured, "and you've promised so easily!"

"How dare you!" cried Roddy. "How dare you! Easy!" He rushed on wildly, "When I want to cry out to the whole world that I love you, when I feel that every stranger sees it, when my heart beats, 'Inez, Inez, Inez,' so that I know the people in the street can hear it too. If I hadn't promised you to keep silent," he cried indignantly, "because you asked it, I'd tell you now that no other woman in all the world is loved as I love you! Easy to be silent!" he demanded, "when every drop of blood calls to you, when I breathe only when you breathe----"

"Stop!" cried the girl. For an instant she covered her face with her hands. When she lowered them her eyes were shining, radiant, laughing with happiness.

"I am so sorry!" she whispered penitently. "It was wicked. But," she pleaded, "I did so want to hear you say it just once more!"

She was very near to him. Her eyes were looking into his. What she saw in them caused her to close her own quickly. Feeling blindly with outstretched hands, she let herself sway toward him, and in an instant she was wrapped in his arms with his breathless kisses covering her lips and cheeks.

For Roddy the earth ceased revolving, he was lifted above it and heard the music of the stars. He was crowned, exalted, deified. Then the girl who had done this tore herself away and ran from him through the garden.

Neither Inez nor Roddy was in a mood to exchange polite phrases in the presence of Mrs. Broughton, and they at once separated, each in a different direction, Roddy returning to his home. There he found Sam Caldwell. He was in no better frame of mind to receive him, but Caldwell had been two hours waiting and was angry and insistent.

"At last!" he exclaimed. "I have been here since eleven. Don't tell me," he snapped, "that you've been spearing eels, because I won't believe it."

"What can I tell you," asked Roddy pleasantly, "that you will believe?"

That Caldwell had sought him out and had thought it worth his while to wait two hours for an interview seemed to Roddy to show that in the camp of his enemies matters were not moving smoothly, and that, in their opinion, he was of more interest than they cared to admit.

Caldwell began with an uneasy assumption of good-fellowship.

"I have come under a flag of truce," he said grinning. "We want to have a talk and see if we can't get together."

"Who are 'we'?" asked Roddy.

"Vega, myself, and Senora Rojas."

"Senora Rojas!" exclaimed Roddy gravely. "Are you not mistaken?"

"She sent me here," replied Caldwell. "These are my credentials." With a flourish and a bow of marked ceremony, he handed Roddy a letter.

It came from Miramar, and briefly requested that Mr. Forrester would do the Senora Rojas the honor to immediately call upon her.

Roddy caught up his hat. The prospect of a visit to the home of Inez enchanted him, and he was as greatly puzzled as to what such a visit might bring forth.

"We will go at once!" he said.

But Caldwell hung back.

"I'd rather explain it first," he said.

Already Roddy resented the fact that Caldwell was serving as the ambassador of Madame Rojas, and there was, besides, in his manner something which showed that in that service he was neither zealous nor loyal.

"Possibly Senora Rojas can do that herself," said Roddy.

"No, she can't!" returned Caldwell sharply, "because she doesn't know, and we don't mean to tell her. But I am going to tell _you_."

"Better not!" warned Roddy.

"I'll take the chance," said Caldwell. His manner was conciliating, propitiatory. "I'll take the chance," he protested, "that when you learn the truth you won't round on your own father. It isn't natural, it isn't human!"

"Caldwell on the Human Emotions!" exclaimed Roddy, grinning.

But Caldwell was too truly in earnest to be interrupted.

"Your father's spending two millions to make Vega President," he went on rapidly. "We've got to have him. We need him in our business. _You_ think Rojas would make a better President. Maybe he would. But not for us. He's too old-fashioned. He's----"

"Too honest?" suggested Roddy.

"Too honest," assented Caldwell promptly. "And there's another slight objection to him. He's in jail. And you," Caldwell cried, raising his finger and shaking it in Roddy's face, "can't get him out. We can't take San Carlos, and neither can you. They have guns there that in twenty minutes could smash this town into a dust-heap. So you see, what you hope to do is impossible, absurd! Now," he urged eagerly, "why don't you give up butting your head into a stone wall, and help your father and me?"

He stopped, and in evident anxiety waited for the other to speak, but Roddy only regarded him steadily. After a pause Roddy said: "_I'm_ not talking. You're the one that's talking. And," he added, "you're talking too much, too!"

"I'll risk it!" cried Caldwell stoutly. "I've never gone after a man of sense yet that I couldn't make him see things my way. Now, Senora Rojas," he went on, "only wants one thing. She wants to get her husband out of prison. She thinks Vega can do that, that he means to do it, that I mean to do it. Well--we _don't_."

Roddy's eyes half closed, the lines around his mouth grew taut, and when he spoke his voice was harsh and had sunk to a whisper.

"I tell you," he said, "you're talking too much!"

But neither in Roddy's face nor voice did Caldwell read the danger signals.

"It doesn't suit our book," he swept on, "to get him out. Until Vega is President he must stay where he is. But his wife must not know that. She believes in _us_. She thinks the Rojas crowd only interferes with us, and she is sending for you to ask you to urge the Rojas faction to give us a free hand."

"I see," said Roddy; "and while Vega is trying to be President, Rojas may die. Have you thought of that?"

"Can we help it?" protested Caldwell. "Did _we_ put him in prison? We'll have trouble enough keeping ourselves out of San Carlos. Well," he demanded, "what are you going to do?"

"At present," said Roddy, "I'm going to call on Madame Rojas."

On their walk to Miramar, Caldwell found it impossible to break down Roddy's barrier of good nature. He threatened, he bullied, he held forth open bribes; but Roddy either remained silent or laughed. Caldwell began to fear that in trying to come to terms with the enemy he had made a mistake. But still he hoped that in his obstinacy Roddy was merely stupid; he believed that in treating him as a factor in affairs they had made him vainglorious, arrogant. He was sure that if he could convince him of the utter impossibility of taking San Carlos by assault he would abandon the Rojas crowd and come over to Vega. So he enlarged upon the difficulty of that enterprise, using it as his argument in chief. Roddy, in his turn, pretended he believed San Carlos would fall at the first shot, and, as he intended, persuaded Caldwell that an attack upon the prison was the fixed purpose of the Rojas faction.

Roddy, who as a sentimental burglar had so often forced his way into the grounds of Miramar, found a certain satisfaction in at last entering it by the front door, and by invitation. His coming was obviously expected, and his arrival threw the many servants into a state of considerable excitement. Escorted by the major-domo, he was led to the drawing-room where Madame Rojas was waiting to receive him. As he entered, Inez and her sister, with Vega and General Pulido and Colonel Ramon, came in from the terrace, and Caldwell followed from the hall.

With the manner of one who considered himself already a member of the household, Vega welcomed Roddy, but without cordiality, and with condescension. To Inez, although the sight of her caused him great embarrassment, Roddy made a formal bow, to which she replied with one as formal. Senora Rojas, having ordered the servants to close the doors and the windows to the terrace, asked Roddy to be seated, and then placed herself in a chair that faced his. The others grouped themselves behind her. Roddy felt as though the odds were hardly fair. With the exception of Inez, who understood that any sign she might make in his favor would do him harm, all those present were opposed to him. This fact caused Roddy to gaze about him in pleasurable excitement and smile expectantly. He failed to see how the interview could lead to any definite result. Already he had learned from Caldwell more than he had suspected, and all that he needed to know, and, as he was determined on account of her blind faith in Vega to confide nothing to Senora Rojas, he saw no outcome to the visit as important as that it had so soon brought him again into the presence of Inez.

"Mr. Forrester," began Senora Rojas, "I have asked you to call on me to-day at the suggestion of these gentlemen. They believe that where they might fail, an appeal from me would be effective. I am going to speak to you quite frankly and openly; but when you remember I am pleading for the life of my husband you will not take offense. With no doubt the best of motives, you have allied yourself with what is known as the Rojas faction. Its object is to overthrow the President and to place my husband at Miraflores. To me, the wife of General Rojas, such an undertaking is intolerable. All I desire, all I am sure he desires, is his freedom. There are those, powerful and well equipped, who can secure it. They do not belong to the so-called Rojas faction. You, we understand, have much influence in its counsels. We know that to carry out its plans you have quarrelled with your father, resigned from his company. If I venture to refer to your private affairs, it is only because I understand you yourself have spoken of them publicly, and because they show me that in your allegiance, in your mistaken allegiance to my husband, you are in earnest. But, in spite of your wish to serve him, I have asked you here to-day to beg you and your friends to relinquish your purpose. His wife and his children feel that the safety of General Rojas is in other hands, in the hands of those who have his fullest confidence and mine." In her distress, Senora Rojas leaned forward. "I beg of you," she exclaimed, "do as I ask. Leave my husband to me and to his friends. What you would do can only interfere with them. And it may lead directly to his death."