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The Great Prince Shan, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 21 |
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_ CHAPTER XXI It chanced that the box was empty when Maggie, with flying footsteps, hastened down the corridor and pushed open the door. She sank into a chair, her knees trembling, her senses still dazed. Deliberately, although with hot and trembling fingers, she folded over and tore into small pieces a programme of the dances, which she had picked up from an adjoining chair. The action, insignificant though it was, seemed to bring her back into touch with the real and actual world, the world of music and wild gayety, of swiftly moving feet, of laughter and languorous voices. For a brief space of time she had escaped, she had wandered a little way into an unknown country, a country from whose thrilling dangers she had emerged with a curious feeling that life would never be altogether the same again. She glanced at the clock at the back of the box. She had been absent from the Hall altogether only about an hour and twenty minutes. There was still at least an hour before it would be possible for her to plead weariness and escape. And opposite, in the shadows of the distant box, the mock Prince Shan seemed always to be gazing at her with that cryptic smile upon his lips. Presently the door was stealthily opened. A face as pale as death, with black eyes like pieces of coal, was framed for a moment in the shadowed slit. A little waft of familiar perfume stole in. La Belle Nita, her flaming lips widely parted, as soon as she recognised the sole occupant of the box, crept through the opening and closed the door again. "You are here?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Your courage failed you? You did not go?" "I have been and returned," Maggie answered. "Now tell me what I have done that you should have plotted this thing against me?" The girl sat on the edge of a chair and for a moment hummed the refrain of a sad chant, as she rocked slowly backwards and forwards. "'What have you done?' the rose asked the butterfly. 'What have you done?' the mimosa blossom asked the little blue bird, whose wings fluttered amongst her leaves. 'You have taken love from me, love which is the blossom of life.'" "It sounds very picturesque," Maggie said coldly, "but I do not follow your allegory. What I want to know is why you lied to me, why you sent me to that house to meet Prince Shan?" "How did I lie to you?" Nita demanded. "The papers you sought were there. Were they not yours for the asking, or was the price too great?" "The papers were there, certainly," Maggie acquiesced, "but you knew very well--" She stopped short. Slowly the Oriental idea of it all was beginning to frame itself in her mind. She dimly understood the bewilderment in the other's face. "The papers were there, and he, the most wonderful of all men, was there," Nita murmured, "yet you leave him while the night is yet young, you return here without them!" Maggie rose from her chair, moved to the side table and poured herself out a glass of wine, which she drank hastily. Anything to escape from the scornful wonder of those questioning eyes! "I did not go there," she said, "to make bargains with Prince Shan. I believed as you wished me to believe, that he was here in that box. I believed that I should have found the house empty, should have found what I wanted and have escaped with it. Why did you do this thing? Why did you send me on that errand when you knew that Prince Shan was there?" "It was my desire that he should know that you are no different from other women," was the calm reply. "I was a spy for him. You are a spy--against him." "It was a deliberate plot, then!" Maggie exclaimed, trying to feel the anger which she imparted to her tone. La Belle Nita suddenly laughed, softly and like a bird. "You very, very foolish Englishwoman," she said. "A hand leaned down from Heaven, and you liked better to stay where you were, but I am glad." "And why?" "Because I have been his slave," the girl continued. "At odd, strange moments he has shown me a little love, he has let me creep into a small corner of his heart. Now I am cast out, and there is no more life for me because there is no more love, and there is no more love because, having felt his, no other can come after. Here have I sat with all the tortures of Hell burning in my blood because I knew that you and he were there alone, because I was never sure that, after all, I was not doing my lord's will. And now I know that I suffered in vain. You did not understand." Maggie looked across at her visitor reflectively. She was beginning to regain her poise. "Listen," she said, "did you seriously expect me to accept Prince Shan as a lover?" The girl's eyes were round with wonder. "It would be your great good fortune," she murmured, "if he should offer you so wonderful a thing." Maggie laughed,--persisted in her laugh, although it sounded a little hard and the mirth a little forced. "I cannot reason with you," she declared, "because you would not understand. If you love him so much, why not go back to him? You will find him quite alone. I dare say you know the secrets of his lockless doors and hordes of unseen servants." La Belle Nita rose to her feet. About her lips there flickered the faintest smile. "Young English lady," she said, "I shall not go, because I am shut for ever out of his heart. But listen; would you have me go?" For a moment Maggie's poise was gone again. A strange uncertainty was once more upon her. She was terrified at her own feelings. The smile on the other's lips deepened and then passed away. "Ah," she murmured, as with a little bow she turned towards the door, "you are not all snow and ice, then! There is something of the woman in you. He must have known that. I am better content." Alone in the box, Maggie was confronted once more with spectres. She felt all the fear and the sweetness of this new awakening. The old dangers and problems, the danger of life and death, the problem of her well-ordered days, fell away from her as trifles. There was wilder music in the world than any to which she had yet listened,--music which seemed to be awakening vibrant melodies in her terrified heart. The curtain which hung about the forbidden world had been suddenly lifted. Little shivers of fear convulsed her. Her standards were confused, her whole sense of values disturbed. Her primal virginity, left to itself because it had never needed a guard, had suddenly become a questioning thing. She sat there face to face with this new phase in her life. She was not even conscious of the abrupt pause in the music, the agitated murmur of voices, the sudden cessation of that rhythmical sweep of footsteps on the floor below. The door of the box was once more opened. Naida, attired as a lady of the Russian Court, entered, followed by Nigel. Both were obviously disturbed. Nigel, who was in ordinary evening dress, carrying his discarded mask in his hand, was paler than usual and exceedingly grave. Naida's dark eyes, too, seemed filled with a sense of awesome things. Almost at the same moment, Maggie realised for the first time that the music had ceased, that there was a hush outside, curiously perceptible, almost audible. "What has happened?" she asked breathlessly. Nigel had poured out a glass of wine and was holding it to Naida's lips. "Something very terrible," he said quietly. "Prince Shan was murdered in his box there a few minutes ago." Maggie half rose to her feet. The walls seemed spinning round. Then she looked across the great empty space. The still figure in the apple-green coat had disappeared. "Prince Shan was murdered in that box," she repeated, "a few minutes ago?" "Yes!" Nigel assented gravely. "He seems to have feared something of the sort, for he had two servants on guard outside and announced that he was not receiving visitors to-night. No one knows any particulars, but a number of people in the auditorium saw him fall sideways from his chair. When he was picked up, there was a small dagger through his heart." "Through Prince Shan's heart?" Maggie persisted wildly. "Yes!" Suddenly she began to laugh. It was a strange, hysterical ebullition of feeling, frankly horrifying. Naida gazed at her with distended eyes. "Prince Shan has never been here!" Maggie explained brokenly. "He has never left his house in Curzon Street! He is there now!" Nigel shook his head. "What is the matter with you, Maggie?" he demanded. "Every one has seen Prince Shan here. You spoke of him yourself. He was in the box exactly opposite." She shook her head. "That was one of his suite," she cried. "I know! I tell you I know!" she went on, her voice rising a little. "Prince Shan is safe in his house in Curzon Street." "How can you possibly know this, Maggie?" Naida intervened eagerly. "Because I left him there half an hour ago," was the tremulous reply. _ |
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