"Nothing. Only he will have a great influence on your life."
"How do you know?" Dick was greatly excited.
"I have no reason to give you. I only know."
"Good or bad?" asked the young man eagerly.
"I don't know. But did you notice that Beatrice didn't like him? And I've never once known her wrong in her estimate of people. There, look at her now, amongst the moon's rays under the trees. Doesn't she look like an angel? Yes, and she is an angel – one of God's sweetest and purest and best. But as human as every woman ought to be. Good-night, Mr. Faversham. Yes, my darling, I'm coming," and the old man went down the drive with the activity of a boy.
Dick watched them until they were out of sight. He was influenced more than he knew by their visit. Their presence, after Count Romanoff's cynicism, was like some sweet-scented balm; like a breeze from the mountains after the fetid atmosphere of a cavern.
"Well, what did you think of them?" he asked of Romanoff on his return.
The Count shrugged his shoulders. "There's not much to think, is there?" he asked.
"I think there is a great deal. I found the old man more interesting than almost any caller I have had."
"A dull, prosy, platitudinous old Polonius; as for the girl, she's just a badly behaved, unformed, bread-and-butter miss."
Dick did not speak. The Count's words grated on him.
"By the way," went on Romanoff, "I should like to meet Lady Blanche Huntingford. I think I knew the old Lord."
"I promised to call to-morrow afternoon," replied Dick. "I'll take you over." But he was not so enthusiastic as the Count expected.
After they had retired to their rooms that night, the Count sat long in soliloquy. Of what he was thinking it would be difficult to say. His face was like a mask.
When he rose from his chair, however, there was a look of decision in his eyes.
"The time has come sooner than I thought," he said aloud. "I must bring the matter to a head at once. Otherwise I shall lose him."
And then he laughed in his grim, sardonic way, as if something had made him merry.
CHAPTER X
Uncertainty
Dick rose early the following morning, and went for a walk in the park. When he returned he found the Count in the breakfast-room.
"Quite a pattern young countryman," he laughed. "I saw you reflecting on the beauties of your own domains. Did you sleep well?"
"Like a healthy dog. And you?"
"I never sleep. I dream sometimes – that's all."
"Still play-acting," laughed Dick.
"No, there's not a more serious man in England than I, as a rule; but I'm not going to be serious to-day while the sun shines. When the sun goes down I shall be tragic. There, Richard is himself again!"
He threw back his shoulders as he spoke, as though he would shift a weight from them. "I am hungry, Faversham," he laughed. "Let us eat. After breakfast I would love a ride. Have you a horse in your stables that you could lend me?"
"Of course I have."
"Good. Then we'll have a gallop till lunch. After that a-wooing we will go. I'm feverish to see the glorious Lady Blanche, the flower of the age, the beauty of the county. I say, Faversham, prepare to be jealous. I can be a most dangerous rival."
"I can't think of you as a marrying man, Count. Domesticity and you are oceans apart."
The Count laughed. "No, a man such as I never marries," he said. "Marriage! What an idiotic arrangement. But such things always follow religion. But for religion, humanity would be natural, happy."
"Come, now. That won't do."
"It is true, my friend. Ever and always the result of religion has been to raise unnatural barriers, to create sin. The man who founds a religion is an enemy to the race. The greatest enemy to the world's happiness was the Founder of Christianity."
"In Heaven's name, why?"
"Because He labelled natural actions as sins, because He was for ever emphasising a distinction between right and wrong. When there is no right, no wrong. The evolution of religion, and of so-called morality, is a crime, because it strikes at the root of human enjoyment. But, there, I'm getting serious, and I won't be serious. This is a day to laugh, to rejoice in, and I've an appetite like a hunter."
Throughout the morning they carried out the programme Romanoff had suggested. Two of the best horses in the stables were saddled, and they rode till noon. During all this time the Count was in high spirits, and seemed to revel in the brightness of the day and the glory of the scenery.
"After all, give me a living thing to deal with," he cried. "This craze for motor-cars is a sign of decadence. 'Enjoyment by machinery' should be the motto of every motorist. But a horse is different. A horse is sentient, intelligent. He feels what his rider feels; he enters into the spirit of whatever is going on."
"But motoring can be jolly good sport," Dick rejoined.
"Of course it can. But a motor is impersonal; it is a thing, not a being. You cannot make it your slave. It is just a matter of steel, and petrol, and oil. It never becomes afraid of you."
"What of that?" asked Dick.
"Without fear there is no real mastery," replied Romanoff.
"But surely the mastery which is obtained through fear is an unsatisfactory sort of thing."
Romanoff looked at Dick as though on the point of replying, but he was silent.
"Anyhow, I love a horse," he ventured presently. "I love to feel his body alive beneath me, love to feel him spurn the ground beneath his feet."
"Yes; I, too, love a horse," replied Dick, "and do you know, although I've only been here a month, this chap loves me. He whines a welcome when I go to the stable, and he kind of cries when I leave."
"And he isn't afraid of you?" asked Romanoff.
"Afraid!" cried Dick. "I hope not. I should hate to feel that a thing I loved was afraid of me."
"Wait till you are married," laughed Romanoff.
"I don't see what that has to do with it."
"But it has everything to do with it. A wife should obey, and no woman obeys unless she fears. The one thing man has to do when he marries is to demand obedience, and until he has mastered the woman he gets none."
"From the little experience I have, a woman is a difficult thing to master."
"Everything can be mastered," replied Romanoff. "It sometimes requires patience, I'll admit, but it can always be done. Besides, a woman never respects her husband until he's mastered her. Find me a man who has not mastered his wife, and I'll show you a man whose wife despises him. Of course, every woman strives for mastery, but in her heart of hearts she's sorry if she gets it. If I ever married – " He ceased speaking.
"Yes; if you married?"
"I'd have obedience, obedience, obedience," and Romanoff repeated the word with increasing emphasis. "As you say, it might be difficult, but it can always be obtained."
"How?"
"Of course, if you go among the lower orders of people, the man obtains his wife's obedience by brute force. If she opposes him he knocks her down, thrashes her. But as you rise in the scale of humanity, the methods are different. The educated, cultured man never loses his temper, seldom utters an angry word. He may be a little sarcastic, perhaps, but nothing more. But he never yields. The wife cries, pleads, protests, goes into hysterics perhaps, threatens, but he never yields. He is polite, cold, cruel if you like, but he never shows a sign of weakness, and in the end he's master. And mastery is one of the great joys of life."
"You think so?"
"I'm sure of it."
Dick