Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

its attendant ceremonies. The meeting had broken up by common consent; there was a shuffling of footsteps, and some disjointed talking and calling down the empty hall, were the lights were already being put out.

Reitzei had set silent during all this chorus-singing, though ordinarily, being an excitable person, and indeed rather proud of his voice, he was ready to roar with any one; and in silence, too, he walked away with Beratinsky, who either was or appeared to be quite unconscious of his companion's state of mind. At length Reitzei stopped short--Oxford Street at this time of the morning was perfectly silent--and said,

"Beratinsky, I have a word to say to you."

"Very well," said the other, though he seemed surprised.

"I may tell you your manners are none of the best."

Beratinsky looked at him.

"Nor your temper," said he, "one would think. Do you still go back to what I said about your piece of acting? You are a child, Reitzei."

"I do not care about that," said Reitzei, contemptuously, though he was not speaking the truth: his self-satisfaction had been grievously hurt. "You put too great a value on your opinion, Beratinsky; it is not everything that you know about: we will let that pass. But when one goes into a society as a guest, one expects to be treated as a guest. No matter; I was among my own countrymen: I was well enough entertained."

"It appears so," said Beratinsky, with a sneer: "I should say too well. My dear friend Reitzei, I am afraid you have been having a little too much champagne."

"It was none that you paid for, at all events," was the quick retort. "No matter; I was among my own countrymen: they are civil; they are not niggardly."

"They can afford to spend," said the other, laughing sardonically, "out of the plunder they take from others."

"They have fought for what they have," the other said, hotly. "Your countrymen--what have they ever done? Have they fought? No; they have conspired, and then run away."

But Beratinsky was much too cool-blooded a man to get into a quarrel of this kind; besides, he noticed that Reitzei's speech was occasionally a little thick.

"I would advise you to go home and get to bed, friend Reitzei," said he.

"Not until I have said something to you, Mr. Beratinsky," said the other with mock politeness. "I have this to say, that your ways of late have been a little too uncivil; you have been just rather too insolent, my good friend. Now I tell you frankly it does not do for one in your position to be uncivil and to make enemies."

"For one in my position!" Beratinsky repeated, in a tone of raillery.

"You think it is a joke, then, what happened to-night?"

"Oh, that is what you mean; but if that is my position, what other is yours, friend Reitzei?"

"You pretend not to know. I will tell you: that was got up between you and Lind; I had nothing to do with it."

"Ho! ho!"

"You may laugh; but take care you do not laugh the other way," said the younger man, who had worked himself into a fury, and was all the madder on account of the cynical indifference of his antagonist. "I tell you I had nothing to do with it; it was your scheme and Lind's; I did as I was bid. I tell you I could make this very plain if--"

He hesitated.

"Well--if what?" Beratinsky said, calmly.

"You know very well. I say you are not in a position to insult people and make enemies. You are a very clever man in your own estimation, my friend Beratinsky; but I would give you the advice to be a little more civil."

Beratinsky regarded him for a second in silence.

"I scarcely know whether it is worth while to point out certain things to you, friend Reitzei, or whether to leave you to go home and sleep off your anger."

"My anger, as you call it, is not a thing of the moment. Oh, I assure you it has nothing to do with the champagne I have just drunk, and which was not paid for by you, thank God! No; my anger--my wish to have you alter your manner a little--has been growing for some time; but it is of late, my dear Beratinsky, that you have become more unbearable than ever."

"Don't make a fool of yourself, Reitzei; I at least am not going to stand in the streets talking nonsense at two in the morning. Good-night!"

He stepped from the pavement on to the street, to cross.

"Stop!" said Reitzei, seizing his arm with both hands.

Beratinsky shook him off violently, and turned. There might have been a blow; but Reitzei, who was a coward, shrunk back.

Beratinsky advanced.

"Look here, Reitzei," he said, in a low voice, "I think you are sober enough to understand this. You were throwing out vague threats about what you might do or might not do; that means that you think you could go and tell something about the proceedings of to-night: you are a fool!"

"Very well--very well."

"Perhaps you do not remember, for example, Clause I., the very first clause in the Obligations binding on Officers of the Second Degree; you do not remember that, perhaps?" He was now talking in a quietly contemptuous way; the little spasm of anger that had disturbed him when Reitzei put his hands on his arm had immediately passed away. "The punishment for any one revealing, for any reason or purpose whatever, what has been done, or is about to be done by orders of the Council, or by any one acting under these orders--you remember the rest, my friend?--the punishment is death! My good Reitzei, do not deprive me of the pleasure of your companionship; and do not imagine that you can force people to be polite to you by threats; that is not the way at all. Go home and sleep away your anger; and do not imagine that you have any advantage in your position, or that you are less responsible for what has been done than any one."

"I am not so sure about that," said Reitzei, sullenly.

"In the morning you will be sure," said the other, compassionately, as if he were talking to a child.

He held out his hand.

"Come, friend Reitzei," said he, with a sort of pitying kindness, "you will find in the morning it will be all right. What happened to-night was well arranged, and well executed; everybody must be satisfied. And if you were a little too exuberant in your protestations, a little too anxious to accept the work yourself, and rather too demonstrative with your tremblings and your professions of courage and your clutching at the bottle: what then? Every one is not a born actor. Every one must make a mistake sometimes. But you won't take my hand?"

"Oh, Mr. Beratinsky," said the other, with profound sarcasm, "how could you expect it? Take the hand of one so wise as you, so great as you, such a logician as you are? It would be too much honor; but if you will allow me I will bid you good-night."

He turned abruptly and left. Beratinsky stood for a moment or so looking after him; then he burst into a fit of laughter that sounded along the empty street. Reitzei heard the laughing behind him.


CHAPTER XLIV.


TWICE-TOLD TALE.

When the door had closed on George Brand, Natalie stood for a second or two uncertain, to collect her bewildered thoughts. She heard his footsteps growing fainter and fainter: the world seemed to sway around her; life itself to be slipping away. Then suddenly she turned, and seized her mother by both her hands.

"Child, child, what is the matter?" the mother cried, terrified by the piteous eyes and white lips.

"Ah, you could not have guessed," the girl said, wildly, "you could not have guessed from his manner what he has told me, could you? He is not one to say much; he is not one to complain. But he is about to lose his life, mother--to lose his life! and it is I who have led him to this; it is I who have killed him!"

"Natalie," the mother exclaimed, turning rather pale, "you don't know what you are saying."

"But it is true; do not you understand, mother?" the girl said, despairingly. "The Society has given him some duty to do--now, at once--and it will cost him his life. Oh, do you think he complains?--no, he is not one to complain. He says it is nothing; he has pledged himself; he will obey; and what is the value of his one single life? That is the way he talks, mother. And the parting between him and me--that is so near, so near now--what is that, when there are thousands and thousands of such every time that war is declared? I am to make light of it, mother; I am to think it is nothing at all--that he should be going away to die!"

She had been talking quite wildly, almost incoherently; she had not observed that her mother had grown paler than ever; nor had she heard the half-murmured exclamation of the elder woman,

"No, no--not the story twice told; he could not do that!"

Then, with an unusual firmness and decision, she led her daughter to the easy-chair, and made her sit down.

"Natalie," she said, in earnest and grave tones, without any excitement whatever, "you have told me your father was very much against you marrying Mr. Brand."

There was no answer. The girl sitting there could only think of that terrible thing facing her in the immediate future.

"Natalie," said her mother, firmly, "I wish you to listen. You said your father was opposed to your marriage--that he would not hear of it; and you remember telling me how Mr. Brand had refused to hand over his property to the Society; and you talked of going to America if Mr. Brand were sent? Natalie, this is your father's doing!"

She looked up quickly, not understanding. The elder woman flushed slightly, but continued in clear and even tones.

"Perhaps I am wrong, Natalushka; perhaps I should not teach you to suspect your father. But that is how I see it--this is what I believe--that Mr. Brand, if what you say is true, is to be sacrificed, not in the interests of the Society, but because your father is determined to get him out of the way."

"Oh, mother, it is impossible! How could any one be so cruel?"

"It would be strange if the story were to be twice told," the mother said, absently. Then she took a stool beside her daughter, and sat down beside her, and took one of her hands in both hers. It was a reversal of their ordinary position.

"Listen, Natalie; I am going to tell you a story," she said, with a curious resignation and sadness in her voice. "I had thought it might be unnecessary to tell it to you; when Mr. Brand spoke of it, I said no. But you will judge for yourself, and it will distract your mind for a little. You must think of a young girl something like yourself, Natalushka; not so handsome as you are, but a little pretty, and with many friends. Oh yes, many friends, for at that time the family were in very brilliant society and had large