CHAPTER IV

_Leonard Grath acts on his own responsibility, and meets with a girl who runs away from him_

Leo left the problem-hunter's room like a man in a dream. It did not occur to him to wait for Robert Lang's return, but when he got out into the street, he found himself still holding the photograph in his hand. Ought he not to put it back on Wallion's table? He looked hesitatingly at it: "Sonia Bernin, the Copper House," he read once more. "So that's Andrei Bernin's daughter. Well, there hasn't been such a beautiful girl in the Copper House these last fifty years!" There spoke the artist; an ordinary man would perhaps have called the girl striking, but certainly not beautiful. Her face was not oval, but rather of an aquiline type; her mouth was no Cupid's bow, but boyishly firm, above a self-willed chin. But the large, dark eyes beneath their black, wing-like brows, had a mysterious attraction for him--it seemed as though they were calling to him, and the artist in him listened--who knows, perhaps the man also!

Burchardt's story, Wallion's warnings, vanished in a moment from Leo's mind. He put the photograph into his pocket and made his way to the general station, where he went up to the booking-office, and demanded: "A single to Karkby." A philosopher could no doubt draw many ingenious deductions from this simple action, knowing that it was to influence his future to an extraordinary degree. But Leo, who was anything but a philosopher, did not give the matter a thought, and, having received a scrap of brown pasteboard in exchange for a few silver coins, he made his way past all obstructions to the platform, where the train for Nynäs stood blowing off steam. He studied with a critical eye the effect of the sun shining through the puffs of steam, and made a mental note of the colors, "Pink and silver in the sunlight, violet in the shade." With that, he got into the train. He had chosen the last compartment, which was still quite empty, but a minute later, one other passenger entered, and sat quietly down opposite. He was a young or middle-aged man, in a threadbare overcoat: his tired face was pale, almost grayish, the eyes encircled with innumerable tiny wrinkles; the neat leathern attaché-case which he carried in his hand seemed to cause him some anxiety, for he evidently debated with himself whether he should put it up in the rack, then cast an uneasy glance at Leo, and finally decided to keep it on his knee. Leo's amused expression appeared to embarrass the man, for he stared straight in front of him, with that air of constraint which betrays that one feels oneself under observation. At the same time, he seemed to be listening for something outside, and Leo heard him give a little sigh of relief when the train gave a sudden jerk, and steamed out of the station, with rapidly-increasing speed. They were alone in the carriage, that is, in their half of it, for it was divided into two sections, with a gangway between. Leo's thoughts began to wander. He felt curious and rather excited at the thought of what he should find when he arrived at the Copper House. The recollection that he would soon have no right to go there made him serious again. Take it all in all, he had certainly been a thoughtless, easy-going fellow! In a flash of clear-sighted self-criticism, he passed the last few years in review: gay parties at the studio in Montmartre, seaside amusements at Ostend, yachting, tennis and garden-parties in California--one long, sunny playtime in company with other idlers, who talked a great deal, and accomplished little. And now, what was the result? He must sell the Copper House, and tune his life to a new key, with less play and more work ... it was jolly hard lines!

The conductor came round to clip the tickets, and as Leo put his back into his pocket, his fingers came in contact with the photograph, and he took it out for another look. Presently he heard a movement, and the sound of a deep breath quite close to him, and he looked up. His fellow-passenger had bent forward, and was gazing at the photograph with wide-open eyes, but in a second he drew back, like a snail into its shell, without meeting Leo's inquiring glance. The man sat perfectly motionless, with his hands on his case, staring at the opposite wall as before, but his lips were twitching, and his face, as Leo put it to himself, had no more color in it than a pencil drawing. All of a sudden Leo remembered Wallion's warning, the disappearance of his pocket-book, the man with the camera, and Burchardt's anxious face. He felt convinced that the strange figure opposite had been desperately startled by the sight of the photograph, and he began to feel a chill suspicion that he was somehow or other getting entangled in a huge net, which was gradually tightening its meshes round him. What was up? Was everybody going crazy?

He resolved to say something, but changed his mind as hastily, for the other man looked as impassive as an image of Buddha. The situation was becoming awkward, and meanwhile the train rattled on towards Nynäs and the sea. Leo quitted the field, and took refuge at the nearest passage-window. Refreshed by the strong sea-breeze, he made a laudable attempt to sum up the experiences of this eventful day, but soon tired of this, and began instead to gaze aimlessly at the passing landscape. Could he have guessed that the most eventful part of the day was still to come, he would perhaps have jumped out of the train then and there, and returned to Stockholm; but, not being endowed with second-sight, he alighted calmly at Karkby station. The first person he saw as he reached the platform was the stranger with the attaché-case, who left the train at the same time by another door. Leo saw him go up to the pointsman and address him in good Swedish. Seeing a look of surprise pass over the pointsman's face, the young man could not repress his curiosity but strolled past them, and heard the pointsman exclaim: "Well, if it's to the Copper House you are going, I doubt if you'll find yourself very welcome."

"You think not?" said the man, in a low, nervous voice; "may I venture to ask why?"

"We never hear of there being any entertaining out there nowadays: a nice sort of life they must lead. If it was a monastery they couldn't shut themselves up more," added the pointsman mysteriously, as he watched the train disappear round a curve.

"A pack of foreigners, too; I suppose it's this here wretched war which brings them over. Sweden's full of these heathen now, and they have to have bread-tickets.... Well, if you must go to the Copper House, it will take you the best part of half an hour to walk it...."

Leo walked on out of earshot, and did not feel inclined to pass them again, as he wished to avoid recognition. He crossed the railway, and walked slowly past some newly-built villas, and the old deaf florist's green-house ("wonder if the old boy is still alive?"). As he reached the outskirts of the wood, he turned round and saw the man with the case walking about a hundred yards behind him, like a gray shadow on the white road. The fellow, like himself, was really on the way to the Copper House, then? He looked down at the dark, solitary figure, approaching in the sunshine, and wondered what he had better do: leave things as they were, or force a closer acquaintance. But he was not called upon to make a decision after all, for the other left the road suddenly, leapt over a ditch, and vanished into the woods.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later, Leo stood outside the so-called Karka gates. And here we must insert a bit of topography which will help our readers to a clearer understanding of the events which followed.

The port and watering-place of Nynäs is, so to speak, Stockholm's most southerly outpost on the Baltic Sea, as Saltsjöbaden and Sandhamn are its most easterly ones. The Nynäs railway runs throughout the length of Söderström which lies between those two points, and the nearer it gets to Nynäs, the narrower grows the hilly country between the railway and the sea. As Karkby is one of the last stations before Nynäs, one can easily reach the shore by walking for about half an hour in an easterly direction. But, as the railway is a fairly recent innovation, anyone who starts to walk, soon strikes the old main-road to Stockholm (nowadays practically disused), and, by following it, he will come suddenly upon the entrance to Karka, rising, as if by magic, out of the deserted landscape. It is a ruinous archway, with rusty iron gates, and a porter's lodge, behind which a carriage-road winds up through an avenue of ancient trees. No house is visible, but this is the boundary of the Graths' ancestral property, Karka, which occupies a considerable portion of land between the sea and the road. It is strangely impressive to see, in the midst of the wooded country, this once stately entrance left desolate and crumbling, like a monument to the wealth and prosperity of former times.

What was the state of affairs at the Copper House, as the whole property was generally called, from the appearance of the house itself, we shall tell in due time.

Leonard Grath, its present owner (and that only in name), stood outside the gates, and looked through the bars. Outside the porter's lodge sat a man cleaning a double-barreled gun; he did not look up.

"Hullo, there!" cried the young man cheerily, "just let me in, there's a good chap."

The fellow looked into the road with evident surprise; he had a swarthy, sunburnt face.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he demanded roughly, and without getting up.

"I am Leonard Grath, the owner of the Copper House, and I want to come in."

The man stared at Leo with an insolent grin, and said: "Indeed, you want to come in, do you? Why not say at once that you are the Emperor of China?"

"Don't you hear me say that this place belongs to me? Open the gate at once, man!" exclaimed Leo angrily, and shaking the locked gate violently. The porter slipped a cartridge into his gun, and laid the weapon across his knees.

"Don't you go trying that on," said he. "If you are the owner, you are in California, and I guess you won't mind if I send a charge of shot in your direction...."

He cocked his gun and raised it.

"Be off, now," he added, "we are tired of sending strangers off the place."

Leo returned his look, and retired unwillingly, but he could not help laughing: the situation struck him as supremely ridiculous.

"You may see my papers," said he.

"Don't talk to me of your papers!" replied the man, following up his words with a most unexpected action. Raising the gun, and without getting up, he fired. The range was too short for the shot to spread, but Leo saw chips of mortar fly from the gateway.

"You--you scoundrel!" he burst out in amazement. "What do you mean by that?"

The man loaded again, without a word. They looked at one another; Leo opened his mouth, closed it again, and returned to the road: he was not inclined to laugh any longer. He walked cautiously alongside the iron palings, for he knew that they came to an end about a hundred yards further on, where a rustic fence took their place. When he was out of sight from the gate, he clambered over the fence, and found himself at length on his own property, with every inch of which he had been familiar since childhood. He made his way up a slope, and came to a small pine wood, which, after a little consideration, he entered by a well-worn path. Suddenly he stopped, and drew a deep breath. "Home!" he said aloud. The thought filled him with ecstasy; he had not expected that the sight of this old-world, sun-steeped spot would move him so deeply, and he sat down on a stone to recover himself. To think that he was really home again, and that, in another ten minutes, he would be inside the Copper House! Forgetting everything else, he sprang up, and set off with swift, eager steps in the direction of a field which could be seen through the trees.

At that minute he heard a light footstep on the path ahead of him, and a girl in a black riding-habit came running towards him, looking behind her at every few steps. Two men with guns slung at their backs could be seen some way off on the left, hastening with long strides, as though to intercept her. The girl uttered a cry, as the two men leapt down on the path just in front of her, and seized her by the arms. She easily shook them off, and her riding-whip left a red wheal on the face of the nearest. They said something in a rough voice, and the girl cried out angrily: "I shall go where I like, you have no right...."

"You be quiet, now, Miss, and go home to your Papa," said one of the men, not uncivilly; and he lifted her up, and began to carry her back along the same path by which they had come. She broke loose, and struck him again across the face. The pain made him furious, and with a shout, he pushed her violently away. By this time Leo had come up. "We don't treat women like that, in this part of the world," said he, pushing the fellow aside with a shove of his broad shoulder. The second man reached for his gun, but Leo twisted the weapon out of his hands, and motioned him back. "Keep still!" he ordered.

The girl had recovered herself, and looked at him in silence. She appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen, and the young man immediately recognized the dark beauty of the photograph. He raised his hat.

"Miss Bernin, I believe? My name is Leonard Grath."

As the girl stood looking uneasily at him, with a curious blank expression in her big brown eyes, he added hastily: "Are you hurt?"

She came up to him, laid both hands on his arm, and said in a low tone: "Go! Go back the way you came!"

Leo glanced at the two men, who stood a little way off between him and the path, watching him attentively.

"What are those two fellows doing?" he asked.

"They are two of the forest-guards," answered the girl, "but do, do go away!"

"Why should I?" said Leo, with a pang of annoyance and disappointment. "I have a right to come here, haven't I?"

He offered her his arm, rather ironically, and added: "Although I seem to be so unwelcome, allow me to escort you to the Copper House; I am just on my way there."

The girl colored, bit her lip, and, turning round, she walked away. One of the men laughed, and Leo said sharply, glad of the opportunity to give vent to the wrath that was boiling within: "Be quiet, if you don't want me to thrash you off the premises! I have evidently arrived unexpectedly, but I haven't begun yet. Just wait a bit, and you'll see!"

The two men gave no sign that they had heard what he had said. Leo threw down the gun, turned his back, and followed the girl. When he caught her up, she hung her head, and he saw that she was very pale. He fell into step at her left side, but she walked on as though she was alone.

"There seem to be great changes here," he remarked, without taking any notice of her attitude. "The Copper House was always famous for its hospitality, but now it seems that it won't even admit its own master."

He paused, but there was no reply.

"As for forest-guards," he continued, "such luxuries have been superfluous in these woods for many years past. I suppose you keep them to look after the squirrels? At any rate, one of them evidently took me for a squirrel...."

He described, with a sort of bitter enjoyment, the episode at the gate. Quite unexpectedly the girl burst into tears and he looked at her with sudden remorse.

"I am a brute," he muttered. "Miss Bernin, for Heaven's sake, look at me, you can see and hear that I'm only an awful idiot. Please do laugh at me instead!"

There was a sort of tearful laugh, then a sob, and finally the laugh won the day. The girl looked up at him, and dried her eyes with a little silk handkerchief.

"It is silly to cry," she remarked seriously. "Were you very surprised?"

"Not so very," he assured her. "Young ladies are allowed to shed a few tears now and then, aren't they? It is perfectly natural...."

"I have forgotten to thank you," she said, with a little bow. "It wasn't as dangerous as it looked, but you came up at the right moment. You see, my father and my aunt are very strict, and occasionally I rebel, and the authorities send out the squirrel-police to quell the disturbance. You arrived on the final scene of a domestic crisis...."

The little lady was chattering away in the liveliest fashion with quick, bird-like movements of her uncovered, dark head, which made the jet earrings that she wore dance and quiver. She stepped out like a boy, with a quick, firm tread, swinging her riding-whip.

"You say now that I came at the right minute," said Leo reproachfully, "but just before that you told me to go away!"

"Don't you mean to?" she asked, with a rapid glance from a pair of eyes that just then struck him as being as dark as night.

"Not unless you ask me to again," he replied boldly.

The girl stopped and turned round. "Things haven't altered, you know," she said, and walked on. Leo looked round also. The two forest-guards were still standing amongst the trees, looking down at them, but a third had joined them, and each of the three men held his gun in his hands.

The young man felt a little shiver pass through him. Ahead of him, though still some way off, he could see the greater part of the old avenue, which stretched for more than a mile from Karka gates to the house itself, which was still hidden behind some rising ground to the left. He thought he caught sight of two or three figures patrolling the avenue under the shade of the trees, but they vanished before he was quite certain. He began to wonder whether the girl by his side had given him the full explanation of the scene in the wood, but his thoughts took another turn, for now, through the thick foliage, he had a glimpse of the ponderous gables of the house, looking as though they were moulded in green copper. The house, at all events, had not changed in appearance. He stopped on the terrace with its crumbling balustrade, and his eyes drank in the familiar scene, till the dust of years was blown away, and he was a boy once more. There was the square, massive building, its walls weather-stained and gray with age, supporting the steep copper-sheathed roof, which, from its queer slope, seemed half as high as the house, and looked like a mediæval helmet, profaned by two tiers of windows; there were the two copper statues of Fortune with her cornucopia, and Mercury with his winged heels, a forgotten figure on either side of the steps, gazing blankly and silently at one another from their never-changing positions.