II
Then something happened. A magnetic current seemed to pass through the air. Diogenes freed himself with a sudden jerk from Gilda’s clinging arms, staggered back against the table, swaying on his feet and uttering an inane laugh; whilst she, left standing alone, turned wide, bewildered eyes on her brother Nicolaes, who happened to be close to her at the moment. I think that she was near to unconsciousness then, and that she would have fallen, but that the burgomaster stepped quickly to her side and put his arms round her.
“May God punish you,” he muttered between his teeth, and turned to Stoutenburg, who had watched the whole scene with a sinister scowl, “for this wanton and unnecessary cruelty!”
“You wrong me, mynheer,” Stoutenburg retorted, with a shrug. “I but tried to make your daughter’s decision easier for her.”
Then, as the burgomaster made no reply, but, with grim, set look on his face, drew his daughter gently down to the nearest chair, Stoutenburg went on lightly, speaking directly to Gilda:
“In the course of my travels, mejuffrouw, I came across a wise philosopher in Italy. He was a man whom an adverse fate had robbed of most things that he held precious; but he told me that he had quite succeeded in conquering adversity by the following means. He would gaze dispassionately on the objects of his past desires, see their defects, appraise them at their just value, and in every case he found that their loss was not so irreparable as he had originally believed.”
“A fine moral lesson, my lord,” the burgomaster interposed, seeing that Gilda either would not or could not speak as yet. “But I do not see its point.”
“ ’Tis a simple one, mynheer,” Stoutenburg retorted coldly. “I pray you, look on the man to whom, an you had your way, you would even now link your daughter.”
Instinctively Beresteyn turned his lowering gaze in the direction to which his lordship now pointed with a persuasive gesture. Diogenes was standing beside the table, his powerful frame drawn up to its full height, his sightless eyes blinking and gleaming with weird inconsequence in the flickering light of the candles. His hands were clasped behind his back, and on his face there was a curious expression which the burgomaster was not shrewd enough to define—one of self-deprecation, yet withal of introspection and of detachment, as if the helpless body alone were present and the mind had gone a-roaming in the land of dreams. The burgomaster tried manfully to conceal the look of half-contemptuous pity which, much against his will, had crept into his eyes.
“The man,” he rejoined calmly, “is what Fate and a dastard’s hand have made him, my lord. Many a fine work of God hath been marred by an evildoer’s action.”
“That is as may be mynheer,” Stoutenburg riposted coolly. “But ’tis of the present and of the future you have to think now—not of the past.”
“Even so, my lord, I would sooner see my daughter in the arms of the stricken lion than in those of a wily jackal.”
“Am I the wily jackal?” Stoutenburg put in, with a sneer. Then, as the burgomaster made no reply, he added tersely: “I see that the jongejuffrouw hath told you—”
“Everything,” Beresteyn assented calmly.
“And that I await your blessing on our union?”
“My blessing you cannot have, my lord, as you well know,” the burgomaster retorted firmly. “ ’Twas blasphemy to invoke the name of God on such an unholy alliance. My daughter is the lawfully wedded wife of an English gentleman, Sir Percy Blakeney by name, and until the law of this country doth sever those bonds she cannot wed another.”
Stoutenburg gave a strident laugh.
“That is, indeed, unfortunate for the English gentleman with the high-sounding name,” he said, with a sneer, “whom I gravely suspect of being naught but the common varlet whom we all know so well in Haarlem. But, gentleman or churl,” he added, with a cynical shrug, “ ’tis all one to me. He hangs tomorrow, unless—”
A loud cry of burning indignation escaped the burgomaster’s lips.
“You would not further provoke the wrath of God,” he exclaimed, “by this foul and cowardly crime!”
“And why not, I pray you?” the other coolly retorted. “Nor do I think that the Almighty would greatly care what happened to this drunken knave. The refuse of human kind, the halt, the lame, and the blind, are best out of the way.”
“A man, my lord,” the burgomaster protested, “who, when he had you in his power, generously spared your life!”
“The more fool he!” Stoutenburg riposted drily. “ ’Tis my turn now. He hangs tomorrow, unless, indeed—”
“Unless, what, my lord?”
“Unless,” Stoutenburg went on, with an evil leer, “my future wife will deign to plead with me for him—with a kiss.”
A groan like that of a wounded beast broke from the burgomaster’s heavy heart. For a moment a light that was almost murderous gleamed in his eyes. His fists were clenched; he murmured a dark threat against the man who goaded him well-nigh to madness. Then, suddenly, he met Stoutenburg’s mocking glance fixed upon him, and a huge sob rose in his throat, almost choking him. Gilda, with a pitiful moan, had hidden her face against her father’s sleeve.
“ ’Tis but anticipating the happy time by a few hours,” Stoutenburg went on, with calm cynicism. “But I have a fancy to hold my future wife in my arms now—at this moment—and to grant her in exchange for her first willing kiss the life of a miserable wretch whose life or death are, in truth, of no account to me.”
He took a step or two forward in the direction where Gilda sat, clinging with desperate misery to her father. Then, as the burgomaster, superb with indignation, grand in his dignity, instinctively interposed his burly figure between his daughter and the man whom she loathed, Stoutenburg added, with well-assumed carelessness:
“If the jongejuffrouw prefers to put off the happy moment until we are alone in my camp tomorrow, we’ll say no more about it. Let the rogue hang; I care not!”
“My lord,”—the burgomaster spoke once more in a vigorous protest, which, alas, he knew to be futile—“what you suggest is monstrous, inhuman! God will never permit—”
“I pray you, mynheer,” Stoutenburg broke in fiercely, “let us leave the Almighty out of our affairs. I have read my Bible as assiduously as you when I was younger, and in it I learned that God hath enjoined all wives to submit themselves to their husbands. A kiss from my betrothed, a word or gentle pleading, are little enough to ask in exchange for an act of clemency. And you, Heer Burgomaster, do but stiffen my will by your interference. Will you, at least, let the jongejuffrouw decide on the matter for herself, and, in her interests and your own, give to all that she does your unqualified consent!”
“My consent you’ll never wring from me, as you well know, my lord. I and my daughter are powerless to withstand your might, but if we bend to the yoke it is because it hath pleased God that we should wear it, not because we submit with a free will. By exulting in such a monstrous crime you do but add to the loathing which we both feel for you—”
“Silence!” Stoutenburg broke in fiercely. “Silence, you dolt! What good, think you, you do yourself or your daughter by provoking me beyond endurance? She knows my decision, and so, methinks, do you. If the jongejuffrouw feels such unqualified hatred for me, let her return to your protecting arms and leave Amersfoort to its fate. As for that sightless varlet, let him hang, I say! I am a fool, indeed to listen to your gibberish! Jan!” he called, and strode to the door with a great show of determination, staking his all now on this card which he had decided to play.
But the card was a winning one, as well he knew. Already Gilda, as if moved by an unseen voice, had jumped to her feet and intercepted him ere he reached the door. Her whole appearance had changed—the expression of her eyes, her tone, her gestures.
“My father is overwrought, my lord,” she said firmly. “He hath already promised me that he would offer no opposition to my wishes.”
She looked him straight in the eyes, and he returned her gaze, his restless eyes seeming to search her very soul. She had, in truth, changed most markedly. She was, of course, afraid—afraid for that miserable plepshurk’s life. But the change was something more than that—at least, Stoutenburg chose to think so. There was something in her glance at this moment that he did not quite understand, that he did not dare understand. A wavering—almost he would have called it a softness, had he dared. He came nearer to her, and, though at first she drew back from him, she presently held her ground, still gazing on him like a bird when it is fascinated and cannot move.
Now he was quite sure that her blue eyes looked less hard, and certainly her mouth was less tightly set. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breath came quick and panting. Ah, women were queer creatures! Had Nicolaes been right when he quoted the English play? Gilda had certainly begun by falling against that contemptible rascal’s breast, but since then? Had her wayward fancy been repelled by that whole air of physical degradation which emanated from the once brilliant cavalier, or had it been merely dazzled by visions of power and of wealth, which had their embodiment in him who was her future lord?
He himself could not say. All that he knew, all that he felt of a certainty now, was that he held more than one winning card in this gamble for possession of an exquisite and desirable woman. Still holding her gaze, he took her hands. She did not resist, did not attempt to draw away from him, and he murmured softly:
“What are your wishes, myn engel?”
“To submit to your will, my lord,” she replied firmly.
“At last!” he exclaimed, on a note of triumph, drew her still closer to him. “A kiss, fair one, to clinch this bargain, which hath made me the happiest of men!”
He had lost his head for the moment. Satisfaction, and an almost feverish sense of exultation, had turned his blood to liquid fire. All that he saw was this lovely woman, whom he had nearly conquered. Nearly, but not quite. At his desire for a kiss he felt that she stiffened. She closed her eyes, and even her lips became bloodless. She appeared on the verge of a swoon. Bah! Even this phase would pass away. Nicolaes was right. Women reserved their contempt for weaklings. In the end ’twas the master whom they adored.
“A kiss, fair one!” he called again. “And the rogue shall live or hang according as your lips are sweet or bitter!”
He was on the point of snatching that kiss at last, when suddenly there came so violent a crash that the whole room shook with the concussion, and even the windows rattled in their frames. The blind man, more unsteady than ever on his feet, had tried to get hold of a chair, lost his balance in the act, and, in the endeavour to save himself from falling, had lurched so clumsily against the table that it overturned, and all the objects upon it—silver, crystal, china dishes, and candelabra—fell with a deafening clatter on the floor.
Stoutenburg, uttering one of his favourite oaths, had instinctively turned to see whence had come this terrific noise. In turning, his hold on Gilda’s wrists had slightly relaxed; sufficiently, at any rate, to enable her to free herself from his grasp and to seek shelter once more beside her father. Diogenes alone had remained unruffled through the commotion. Indeed, he appeared wholly unconscious that he had brought it about. He had collapsed amidst the litter, and now sprawled on the floor, surrounded by a medley of broken glass, guttering candles, hot food and liquor, convulsed with laughter, whist his huge, dark eyes, with the dilated pupils and pale, narrow circles of blue light, looked strangely ghostlike in the gloom.
“Who in thunder,” he muttered inarticulately, “is making this confounded din?”