CHAPTER XXII

A clock in the church of San Salvatore was striking the hour of seven as St. Hilary and I, after bidding good night to our friendly priest, crossed the Campo. Our search for that night was ended. I was free to see Jacqueline at last. Promising to call for my friend early the next morning, I hastened to the Grand Hotel.

It had been a wonderful day. After weeks of futile wandering, we were going straight to the goal. But Jacqueline? Would she forgive me for breaking my appointment, even though I was at last to bring her the casket? I had well-nigh drawn from her the gentle confession of her love. She had left the gate of Paradise ajar. She had looked at me in such a way that the very look was an invitation to enter when I should reappear. And I had failed her.

It was in vain that I tried to reassure myself. If I had not kept that sacred tryst, was it not because in failing to do so I was really serving her? When once she knew the circumstances she 219must forgive me. She had asked me to find the casket for her. She had dreaded the possibility of the duke’s finding it. Could she find fault, then, because I had taken her at her word?

But because she had asked me to find it, I should have gone to her at once to tell her that the forlorn hope had become an actual possibility. Instead of doing that, I had thought of myself first–of my own petty triumph. I had yielded to the cheap excitement of putting my theory to actual test. I had seen her in the duke’s company on the balcony of the hotel only a few hours ago. What if she had turned to him for the sympathy and confidence that I had failed to give her? Could I complain if she had done that? Only a few hours ago I had insisted upon the uselessness of the search. I had begged her to bid me relinquish it. I had told her that she had no right to rest her happiness on the shifting foundations of chance; that if she loved the duke, there was nothing more to be said; but that, if she loved me, she had no right to permit him to misconstrue her idly spoken words. Let her cut the Gordian knot by yielding herself to me.

I had said all this to her, and my actions this afternoon had belied my words. Could I explain away this apparently glaring inconsistency? I 220should find it difficult to prove to her that I was the loyal lover I had claimed to be. I hardly dared hope that she would listen and forgive.

I was prepared for reproaches, for tears. It was not unlikely, I thought, that she would even refuse to see me. But she came into the reception-room of the hotel almost immediately after my arrival, and she was smiling.

“Jacqueline!” I held her hand clasped in mine. I pleaded for forgiveness with my eyes.

She withdrew her hand gently–not with impatience, or embarrassment either, but quite naturally, with a frank smile that was altogether friendly and affectionate.

“What do you think of me, Jacqueline? That I should have failed you?” I murmured.

“I must suspend judgment until you tell me precisely why you have failed me,” she cried cheerfully.

I took heart. I plunged into my story. I did not make light of my offence. I did not exaggerate it. I told her the truth, but I spared her details. I was too eager to hear her say that she forgave me to bother now with long and elaborate explanations. I told her that I had come across unexpected clues that had led me so far unerringly toward the hiding-place of the casket. The existence of these new clues had 221occurred to me, very strangely, in church while I was waiting for her. Just how they had dawned on me, how I had traced them out, I would tell her later. For the present, it was enough that I had found them. I had not met her after the church service because I had yielded to the temptation of putting them to the test. This latter task had taken me all the afternoon. I reminded her that she had urged the great importance of haste in accomplishing this task. Every moment was valuable, if I was to anticipate the duke. Because I had taken her precisely at her word, surely she would not find fault with that? Surely her strong common-sense must help her to understand, even though I had caused her some annoyance, perhaps vexation.

This was my plea. But even as I made it I felt its weakness. The fact remained that I must have wounded her. The fact remained that love is not logic. It is a thing so fragile that, like a sensitive plant exposed to the cold blast, it withers if not guarded tenderly. It withers none the less surely because one’s carelessness may not be deliberate. And I knew that my carelessness in a way had been deliberate. My vehement protestations did not ring true.

She heard me through without speaking. At 222the end of my story she sighed, and I fancied that for the first time her cheerfulness gave way to pain.

“You forgive me?” I asked humbly.

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “If you can say quite honestly that you feel that there is nothing for me to forgive, I forgive you.”

I was silent.

“It would be unreasonable that I should blame you for doing only too well what I had asked you to do,” she said gently.

“Only too well, Jacqueline?” I repeated anxiously.

“A year ago, Dick, I was at a luncheon given by one of my friends to announce her engagement. There were twelve of us present. The talk at the table drifted to a play that most of us had seen. It was a medi?val play, the hero a knight, who had had a task given him–a difficult, seemingly an impossible task, by the woman whom he professed to love. Some one asked what the man of the twentieth century would do if such a task were given him by the woman he loved. Would he obediently attempt it? Or would he ridicule it? It was a question of character, you see.”

The discussion seemed to me rather silly, but I nodded gravely.

223“And some one suggested,” continued Jacqueline dreamily, “that it would be interesting for one to apply this test. It would be a test of love. If the man really cared, he would undertake even the impossible.”

“So you applied this interesting test to me!” I exclaimed.

“When, some weeks ago,” she went on, “you told me that you loved me, I could not help remembering that conversation at the luncheon. You did not put yourself in the most favorable light. You confessed that you had been living only to please yourself. You acknowledged that you had no ambition, and no energy to fulfil an ambition.”

“That I had no ambition before I met you, Jacqueline,” I interrupted.

“To apply such a test to you would be childish, I thought then. But I did suggest that you should do something. In the meantime,” she added very slowly, her chin resting on her clasped hands, “Duke da Sestos came into my life. He, too, professed to love me.”

“I see. You saw in him the manly traits you found lacking in me. He was ambitious; I was not. He was bold and confident, while I was only too conscious that I had made rather a muddle of my life so far. I can imagine that 224the contrast between us was not favorable to me.”

She looked at me pleadingly.

“Do not make it too hard for me, Dick. The duke interested me, I confess it. I liked him. Perhaps I even admired him. Every day I saw something of him. He was untiring in his devotion. I began to wonder, at last, if he did not really love me.”

“Had you never been sure that I really loved you, Jacqueline?” I asked sadly.

“No; not sure,” she answered steadily. “How could I be? You neglected me. You went to Rome without excuse. You did not even write to me. And then the duke asked me to be his wife, and this in spite of every discouragement I could throw in his path. For if I admired him, I was careful not to show him that.”

She drew herself up proudly, and looked at me with a calm dignity.

“You know how, quite involuntarily, I asked him to do what seemed an impossible thing. If he would bring me the casket that belonged to the chest he had given to me, I would listen to his declaration of love, and not until then. Too late I realized that he had taken my words to be a test of his devotion. I was terrified at the encouragement I had unconsciously given him. 225I had not dreamed that he would take the challenge seriously. And yet I wondered at his earnestness. Any woman would be touched at such faith and courage. Here actually was a man who dared to undertake the impossible! Then I thought of you.”

“Would I do as much? Is that what you mean?”

“I asked myself naturally that. And it seemed fair–I wished you to know what I had said to the duke. I wished you to, because––”

“You wished to apply a similar test to me,” I prompted.

“And so,” continued Jacqueline, very pale, “I threw the whole issue into the hands of fate. I sent for you. I told you that you must also try to find this casket for me. And how did you receive this request? So lightly that the last words you said were these: ‘Perhaps I shall find time to write the legend of the clock as well as to find the casket.’ You failed to realize that the finding of this casket was a real crisis in my life and in yours. You wrote twice, and only the shortest and most unsatisfactory of notes. Not unsatisfactory because you were unsuccessful, but because you were pursuing the search in so negligent a manner. And when, at last, I saw you this morning, you met me with reproaches. 226You were weary of the search. It was actually degrading you. It was leading you from me.”

She paused, and looked at me imploringly. I was silent.

“You urged me to release you from it. But you wished me to understand that it was only reasonable to do so. I was willing to listen. I wished to understand that so much myself. I was ready to believe it–oh, so glad to believe it. I waited for you eagerly. You failed to wait for me. What was I to think? I do not reproach you for doing too well what I had asked you to do. But, Dick, if you could have done it in a different manner!”

“In a different manner?” I repeated obstinately, though I understood only too well what she meant. “What does the manner signify, so long as the thing is being done, and being done successfully?”

“It signifies to me, Dick,” she insisted gently. “Right or wrong, I have the right to put on the facts just the interpretation that seems to me fair.” She turned to me with sudden passion. “Supposing I was foolish, even heartless, in imposing this test, reckless and foolish in putting my happiness in the hands of fate, yet if it ennobled the one, and degraded, by his own confession, 227the other, why should I not let the results plead for themselves? Why should I not abide by the decision of fate? You have driven me, you see, in spite of myself, to this question.”

“Oh, if it has ennobled the duke!” I could not help saying.

“Yes, ennobled,” she answered defiantly, “if constant love is ennobling. Don’t, please, sneer at that. I fought against him. I could not help feeling a prejudice against him, perhaps because he was a foreigner. If he interested me, it was in spite of myself. He had every barrier to break down. And, I repeat, we women are not indifferent to a man who sets to work patiently and courageously to break down these barriers–or, at least, to attempt to break them down. Every day, almost every hour, I have been reminded that he cared for me. A hundred little thoughtfulnesses and kindnesses that could not but appeal to a woman he has unceasingly shown me. While you, Dick, while you––”

There were tears in her eyes. Unconsciously she stretched out her hands to me. If I had not been blind–if I had only taken those dear hands and drawn her to me–I might have been spared hours of pain. I might have conquered then. But I was hurt, indignant, proud. She had not 228judged me fairly. I forgot that I had not given her the opportunity to do that.

“And I?” I said quietly, “I have been doing what you asked me to do, perhaps not in the most approved way, not so tactfully as Duke da Sestos has conducted his discreet search, doubtless; though how he can have been looking for the casket here in Venice, while he has found time to play the lover in Bellagio, I fail to see.”

We arose. Jacqueline looked at me indignantly.

“You are unjust,” she cried proudly, “and you are quite mistaken. For not only has Duke da Sestos found time to show me that he loves me, but this afternoon he brought to me the casket that belonged to the steel chest.”

“He has found the da Sestos casket! Impossible! It is impossible,” I stammered.

“It stands on the table there,” she said with quiet dignity.

I walked unsteadily to the table she indicated, and I saw the casket.

It was an exquisite thing, a jewel-case worthy of holding a prince’s diadem. It was about as long as my two hands interlocked, and a little broader than the palm of my hand. Two medallions were in each of the front and rear panels, and a medallion at either end. The design of 229the medallions was the loves of the gods in silver-gilt, repoussé. The cover rose to an apex, and on the apex was a nymph embraced by a satyr. The material was ebony, thickly inlaid with silver of a quaint design. I lifted the cover. There were several layers of little drawers. But I saw no sign of the springs. I saw no compartments that held the more precious of the Doge’s jewels. As I looked at it more carefully, I saw that the workmanship was not Venetian, but French. In no way did it answer to the description of the casket in the Diary of Sanudo.

I understood. The duke had despaired of finding the casket. It was so much simpler to pretend that he had found it. Jacqueline would believe that this was the casket as readily as if he had brought the real one. Even if she had any doubts, how could she prove them? He was a clever rascal, my lord duke. Unfortunately for the success of his ruse, he had not counted on my intervention, or perhaps he despised me too much to care.

Jacqueline watched me with parted lips, a slight frown of anxiety on her forehead. Her eyes seemed to plead with me. What did she wish me to say? To tell her that the duke was a liar and a cheat? Or did she wish me to say 230that this was indeed the casket? Would she be glad to hear that? Had he conquered her so surely?

“It is very beautiful,” I said indifferently.

“You are convinced?” she asked, almost timidly.

“It is worthy of any museum in Europe.”

“You think it is really the casket?” she persisted.

“I imagined that there would be gems in the da Sestos casket,” I said, smiling at her.

“You are not answering my question.”

“Will you tell me how the duke happened to find this–this pretty toy? Did he honor you with so much information?”

“He brought it to me only this afternoon. I was so–so overwhelmed–I should say, astonished–that I could say nothing. Presently, I suppose, he will tell me.”

“And now that he has brought it, Jacqueline?”

“If this is the da Sestos casket, I must keep my word.”

“Then I do assure you that it is not. Do you hear me, Jacqueline? I swear to you that this is not the da Sestos casket. I will prove to you that this Duke da Sestos is the liar and cheat that I have long suspected him to be.”

231She looked at me without speaking, but her face was suddenly transfigured. My courage came back by leaps and bounds. I felt instinctively that the day was not yet lost.

“And how will the ingenious Mr. Hume accomplish that delightful task?” demanded a cold voice. The duke walked in.

“How shall I do that, Duke da Sestos?” I repeated passionately. “I shall do that by bringing to Miss Quintard the real da Sestos casket before the week is over.”

“You are promising a great deal, my friend,” he sneered.

For the second time since we had met on the Piazza we looked steadily at each other. It was to be the last grapple now.

“Will you wait that week, Jacqueline, before you listen to Duke da Sestos?” I pleaded.

The duke made a gesture of entreaty. “Miss Quintard can not do that without showing that she doubts my word.”

Jacqueline looked slowly from me to the duke, and then again at me. She smiled–that same grave smile that had puzzled me so much the last half hour.

“I shall wait that week,” she said.