IN LOVE WITH HONOUR.

RÉvonde was drenched in a sudden and depressing thaw. From her crowned ridges down to the swollen river rushing at her feet, she stood shivering in a robe of clinging mist; yet the day was warm with the raw deceptive closeness that chills to the bone and awakens the latent germs of death.

From the HÔtel du Chancelier the winter view over the bright, beautiful city, glittering only yesterday in its winter bedizenment of frost and snow, was changed. Streams of dirty water poured from the roofs, and in the streets the miry snow sluiced slowly downhill or stuck on passing boot-heels in treacherous pads.

A thaw is demoralising; its penetrative power strikes deeper than physical malaise. With the average man or woman it damps the spirits, unstrings the will, and slackens the mental and moral fibre until resistance of any kind becomes an effort. M. Selpdorf was in the habit of saying that the rope by which the world swings is made up of the strands of the days rather than of the fathoms of the years. He held that no detail was too insignificant to be used as a factor in the conduct of affairs; thus he habitually took everyday trifles into account, since small items are apt to add up handsomely in the final figure of any calculation. A man who says 'No' to-day may be won to consent to-morrow under altered conditions of weather and diet. Therefore the Chancellor, who had avoided his daughter since her return, made choice of a dismal morning to bring his influence to bear upon her. He relied a good deal upon Valerie's affection for himself, which was strong and single-hearted. Moreover, he had trained her to the masculine habit of taking a broad view, a bird's-eye view, of the whole of a given subject, instead of turning the microscope of her emotions on any one point, after the manner of women.

Baron von Elmur was no longer young, but he was a personage and a figure in the political world. By marrying him Valerie would place herself in a position where her cleverness, her tact, and her beauty would be offered a wide and splendid field of activity. Besides, so Selpdorf imagined, she had no more favoured suitor.

Valerie was sweet and proud and sensitive; her father gave her credit for the two first qualities, but it probably would not have struck him to use that last term in describing her. He forgot that, in spite of any amount of masculine training, a woman remains always a woman at heart. Had Valerie not met Rallywood, she might never have known as much about herself as she discovered during her visit to Sagan; as matters stood, however, the weak point in M. Selpdorf's theory was already under strain. The Chancellor usually breakfasted alone with his daughter. She was at once spirited and adaptable—adaptable enough to fall in with a man's moods, and spirited enough to hold independent opinions, an ideal combination in a comrade. Servants were rigorously excluded from the room during the meal, that father and daughter might talk freely together.

'I have hardly seen you since you came back, Valerie. I have missed you,' Selpdorf said as he turned away from the table and lit a cigarette. 'I am hurried to-day, yet I must speak to you on a subject that cannot be put off. One incident of your stay at the Castle has been constantly in my mind.'

'Yes, father.'

The unconcern of her voice struck Selpdorf. Things were either about to go unexpectedly well or else very badly.

'Baron von Elmur tells me you yielded to my advice and his wishes. In fact, you consented to an engagement.'

'Oh, yes, for the time being.'

'My dear girl,' he returned gravely, 'it has been publicly announced. It was announced the same evening, I understand.'

Valerie looked at him with a vague alarm in her eyes.

'Only by an unlucky accident,' she replied. 'It was never intended to be announced. Baron von Elmur assured me of that.'

'I am sure von Elmur's intentions were most generous, but the fact remains that it was made public. Valerie, you must be aware of his feelings towards you?'

Valerie came round the table and sat down beside her father, slipping her hand caressingly through his arm.

Selpdorf smiled down at her.

'Valerie, I must ask you to consider not only your own share in this question, but von Elmur's. It compromises Elmur no less than it compromises you.'

'I cannot carry out the engagement,' said the girl quietly.

M. Selpdorf threw a great deal of surprise and disappointment into his countenance.

'I did not know you were so greatly prejudiced against him. But, Valerie, we are honourable people, you and I, and we cannot allow Baron von Elmur to suffer because we unluckily misunderstood one another.'

Valerie grew very still, her fingers pressed upon her father's arm.

'Nothing succeeds like success, and up to the present time von Elmur has succeeded,' he went on. 'But a failure in a love affair places a man in an absurd position, and to be laughed at means loss of prestige. Wherever he is known the story will follow him. He has a brilliant future before him, a future that it might be the pride of any woman to share. I think, therefore, you will hesitate before you injure him by giving way to a girlish and perhaps passing dislike.'

'Father, I cannot!'

Valerie's voice was always low pitched and had the mellow sweetness peculiar to a contralto. But Selpdorf recognised a note in it now which showed him that his wishes were very far from fulfilment. She was loyal and steadfast, qualities that up to the present the Chancellor had found very admirable in his daughter. It is a rare pleasure for men of his type to be able to trust their womankind. In the case of his motherless girl, the Chancellor had enjoyed this pleasure to the full. To-day for the first time he found himself face to face with the less convenient side of the girl's character. She was an eminently reasonable person, and though she could stick to her point she never did so without cause. Therefore Elmur's affair promised to be awkward.

'What are your reasons?' he asked, after a pause.

'I do not—like Baron von Elmur.'

'That is unfortunate, but your dislike may be overcome when you know him better.'

'Oh, no!—never!'

'Why not?'

'Is it possible to explain a dislike?' asked Valerie rather petulantly.

'No, perhaps not—for a woman,' said Selpdorf reflectively, 'but since there is no other——' he waited, then putting his forefinger under his chin, he raised her face and looked into it. 'Unless indeed you prefer someone——'

Her eyes, which met his with the clear direct glance they had not inherited from himself, and her pale gravity dismayed him.

'Speak, my dear child. This is a matter very near my heart,' he said quietly.

A tremulous smile came to Valerie's lips.

'And near mine—or I should not oppose you, father.'

Selpdorf pushed her away from him with a gentle hand.

'You don't know what you are doing,' he said shortly, and gazed out with undisguised chagrin into the mists that overhung RÉvonde. Presently he stood up.

'Well, well; it only goes to prove that the human element is a variable quantity,' he remarked.

'Am I only a human element in your plans? Am I no more than that to you?' She put her hands upon his shoulder.

M. Selpdorf drew her nearer and kissed her forehead.

'You know what you are to me, Valerie. I had hoped to join our interests in all things, but——' he turned to the door.

'Father!' the girl cried, 'don't leave me like this. You don't understand. I only knew by chance. He is too noble to——'

'Ah!' Selpdorf recollected Elmur's phrase, 'There is always the picturesque captain of the Guard.' He paused before speaking. 'Then this noble individual does not propose to take my daughter from me altogether—only to entangle her in a sentimental embarrassment?'

'He made no claim upon me. He was compelled to—to speak—for my sake!'

'I will not ask for further confidences to-day, Valerie. But think over the whole of our conversation. I can trust you to be just, even to Baron von Elmur.'

M. Selpdorf knew that the longer an idea is brooded over, the harder it becomes to part company with it. Therefore the forenoon was yet young when von Elmur drove up to the HÔtel du Chancelier in reply to a summons. The German plot was not yet at an end. By judicious manipulation, Selpdorf had gleaned a dim knowledge of Counsellor's errand from the Duke, who was as wax in his supple hands. Counsellor's return had already become one day overdue, and Selpdorf took advantage of the delay to infuse doubts and troubled surmises into the Duke's wavering mind.

He had recovered in some measure the royal confidence, and felt almost certain that if the English proposals could be sufficiently delayed as to seem to hang fire, he might still be able to persuade his master to enter into some provisional arrangement with Germany.

'You have not any definite news for me, after all,' Elmur remarked at the end of ten minutes. 'I begin to believe the Count's declaration that his Highness can only be driven into a reasonable treaty with us by——' he stopped and sketched rapidly on the paper before him, 'by—in fact—the flat of the sword, shall we say?'

Selpdorf turned a look on his companion.

'Could you trust Count Simon to put any man, and most of all the one upon whose property he has a reversionary claim, in fear of death? And further trust him not to put the threat into execution if provoked by failure?'

Elmur shrugged his shoulders.

'We should have Duke Simon to deal with in that case, instead of Duke Gustave.'

M. Selpdorf's round forehead wrinkled slightly. He was apprehensive of this new temper in Elmur. The Chancellor was too clever to be quite honest, and too honest to be quite unflinching. A man, in fact, a little weaker and a little stronger than his fellows. 'Then the Count's methods still commend themselves to you, the miscarriage of the plan of Sagan notwithstanding?' he asked with an invidious smile.

'If his Highness can be brought into a complacent frame of mind as regards our project to-day, and before the English proposals are laid before him, I think we shall not need the methods of the Count,' Elmur answered. 'Count Simon has undertaken to help us on the Frontier. Major Counsellor will be detained under some pretext at Kofn Ford block-house, and later you, Monsieur, who have so consummate a skill in covering the mistakes of other people, will set this mistake right by a graceful apology. The fat Major will arrive in RÉvonde behind time—that is all. In the meanwhile, his despatches will be forwarded to you if you will select a safe person to meet the Count's messenger beyond the river. Later you can return them to Major Counsellor and score a point by the act.'

Selpdorf made no comment, but changed the subject. 'I have had a little talk with my daughter.'

Elmur laid down his pen and his impassive air became more marked than ever.

'Am I then to have the pleasure of an interview with Mademoiselle to-day?' he inquired. 'I hope she exonerates me from any blame in connection with the announcement made at Sagan?'

'Entirely. But she is inclined to insist that her consent was conditional—no more.'

'I only desire the opportunity of assuring her of my entire devotion,' said Elmur.

'I do not fancy that she wrongs you, my dear Baron, by doubting that.'

'There is then a difficulty on the part of Mademoiselle? It is unfortunate.'

'It can be overcome. She is still very young, and her imagination has been touched. The Englishman, Captain Rallywood, has, as you once remarked the knack of making himself picturesque, which appeals in fact to the imagination. I am myself sensible of something of the kind when dealing with him. Valerie imagines him to be quixotic.'

'Has Mademoiselle said this?' Elmur was stiffening at every sentence. Circumstances and not liking had put these two men on the same side, and Selpdorf repaid Elmur's sneers at the helplessness of MaÄsau with sympathy for Elmur's position as a lover. No man likes to be pitied in his love affairs.

'No, no, my good friend, no name was mentioned. It may be more convenient that I should never know it.'

'Then you think she may be persuaded to alter her decision with regard to me?'

'I am certain of it.'

'And what do you suggest shall be done with my—rival?' asked the German with a sinister inflection of the voice.

'We must break him.'

'Will it not be possible to work in this small affair with Counsellor's detention? Send Captain Rallywood to Kofn Ford to undertake the custody of Major Counsellor. Of course, it will not be necessary for you to mention the name of the person about whom your stupid Frontier officials are to make so convenient a mistake. When Rallywood discovers the identity of his prisoner, I fancy his honour will find the weight of temptation put upon it too great. He also is in the English plot, remember, and he will co-operate with his countryman. He will allow Counsellor to escape. But by that time the Duke must have closed with another ally.'

Selpdorf comprehended that the German was playing his own game in a double sense. He was, in fact, serving his own private interests and also hustling Selpdorf along towards the German goal.

'Then we shall have a court-martial,' said the Chancellor. 'Disgrace will be more effectual than death itself in this case.'

'Disgrace? ah, yes! But I know what would happen to Captain Rallywood in my country.' Elmur's eyes had a gleam in them.

'I am not so well informed. Our State is more elastic in its laws than yours. I cannot foresee what will happen to him in mine!' replied Selpdorf smiling.

'There is but one thing that could happen to him under military law in any country. He will be shot!' said Elmur pleasantly, then added with a sudden uncontrolled irritation, 'And that too is picturesque.'

The Chancellor spread out his hands.

'What will you, my dear Baron? It is also conclusive. Besides, we shall have gained our point. The fellow's breach of faith is our point. Valerie will be disillusioned; for recollect, I pray you, that Valerie is in love with honour.'