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Page 25
Mr. Medlicott was now silent, almost choking with perturbation. So
Count Roumovski went on:
"The wise man faces the facts of nature. Looks straight to find
God's meaning in them, and then tries to exalt and ennoble them to
their loftiest good. He does not, in his puny impotence, quarrel
with the all-powerful Creator and try to stamp out that with which
He thought fit to endow human beings."
"Your words convey a flagrant denial of original sin, and I cannot
listen to such an argument," Mr. Medlicott flashed, his anger now
at white heat. "You would do away with a whole principle of the
Christian religion."
"No; I would only do away with a faulty interpretation which man
grafted upon it," Count Roumovski answered.
Then the two men glared straight into each other's eyes for a
moment, and Eustace Medlicott quailed beneath the magnetic force
of the Russian's blue ones--he turned away abruptly. He was too
intolerant of character and too disturbed now to permit himself to
hear more of these reasonings. He could but resort to protest and
let his wrath rise to assist him.
"It cannot benefit either Miss Rawson or ourselves to continue
this unseemly controversy over her," he said in a raucous voice.
"I have told you I will give no freedom upon your request--and I
have warned you of my action. Now I shall go," and he took three
steps toward the door.
But Count Roumovski's next words arrested him a moment; his tone
was no longer one of suave, detached calmness, but sharp and
decisive, and his bearing was instinct with strength and
determination.
"Since we are coming to warnings," he said, "we drop the velvet
glove. The discourtesy to a lady conveyed in your words obliges me
to use my own way without further consulting you for assisting her
wishes. I will again thank you for coming up here and will have
the honor to wish you goodnight." With which he opened the door
politely and bowed his visitor out.
And when he was alone Count Roumovski sat down by the open window
and puffed his cigar meditatively for some minutes, smiling
quietly to himself as he mused:
"Poor, stupid fellow! If people could only be honest enough with
themselves to have a sensible point of view! It is all so simple
if they would get down to the reason of things without all this
false sentiment. Of what use to chain the body of a woman to one
man if her spirit is with another? Of what use to talk of offended
honor with high-sounding words when, if one were truthful, one
would own it was offended vanity? Of what use for this narrow,
foolish clergyman to protest and bombast and rave, underneath he
is actuated by mostly human motives in his desire to marry my
Stella? When will the world learn to be natural and see the truth?
Love of the soul is the divine part of the business, but it cannot
exist without love of the body. As well ask a man to live upon
bread without water."
Then he moved to his writing table and composed rapidly a letter
to his beloved in which he recounted to her the result of the
interview and the threats of her late fiance, and the humor in
which he had quitted the room, and from that she might judge of
what she must reasonably expect. He advised her, as he was unaware
of how far the English authority of a guardian might go, to feign
some fatigue and keep her room next day and on no account whatever
to be persuaded to leave Rome or the hotel. He told her that in
the morning he would endeavor to see her uncle and aunt, but if
they refused this interview, he would write and ask formally for
her hand, and if his request were treated with scorn, then she
must be prepared to slip away with him to the Excelsior Hotel and
be consigned to the care of the Princess Urazov, his sister, who
would have arrived from Paris. The business part of the epistle
over, he allowed himself half a page of love sentences--which
caused Miss Rawson exquisite delight when she read them some
moments later.
She had not gone to bed directly, she was too excited and full of
new emotions to be thinking of sleep, and when she heard Ivan's
gentle tap at her door she crept to it and whispered without
opening it:
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