_ CHAPTER XIX. TRUTH, OR FRENCH ROMANCE
Dave meets an acquaintance and listens to an astounding confession. "You know what is expected of you?" Dave asked the waiter, in an undertone.
"Yes, Master," replied the man, a Maltese who spoke English with an odd accent.
"Then I will follow you," Darrin added.
At the heels of the waiter Dave went through a narrow corridor, then climbed a flight of stairs.
Pausing before a door, the waiter knocked softly, four times.
"_Entrez, s'il vous plait_" ("Come in, if you please"), a voice answered.
Throwing open the door, the waiter bowed and swiftly departed.
Ensign Dave Darrin stepped inside, closed the door, and found himself face to face with the Count of Surigny.
That young Frenchman, his face unwontedly pale, searched Dave's face with his eyes.
"You are not glad to see me," he said at last.
"Do I show it?" inquired Darrin, his face without expression.
"You are not glad to see me," Surigny went on rather sadly. "Then it is because you suspect."
"Suspect--what?" Dave demanded, to gain time.
"You know the company that I have been keeping," the young Count continued.
"Has it been the wrong kind of company for a gentleman to keep?" Ensign Darrin asked coldly.
"You know!" cried the Count bitterly.
"Then," asked Dave, "is it indiscreet for me to ask why you have permitted yourself to associate with such company?"
"I doubt if you would believe me," replied Surigny, wincing.
"Is there any good reason why I should believe you?" Dave returned, studying the Frenchman's face.
"Perhaps none so good as the fact that I am a gentleman," the Count of Surigny answered more boldly. "The word of a gentleman is always sacred."
"May I ask to what this talk is leading?"
"I hardly know how to proceed with you," complained the young Frenchman. "Once you did me a great service. You taught me to live and that to die by my own hand was cowardice. Monsieur, you taught me how to be a man."
"And you have remembered the lesson?" Dave inquired, with the same expressionless face.
"I at least know," the Frenchman returned, "that a man should remember and serve his friends."
"Then you have been serving me?"
"I have been working hard, swallowing insult and stifling my sense of decency as far as possible, in order that I might serve you and prove myself worthy to be your friend," replied Surigny, with such earnestness that Darrin now found himself staring in open-eyed astonishment at the young nobleman.
"Perhaps you are going to try to offer me particulars of how you have been preparing to serve me," Dave said with a shrug.
"Monsieur," cried the Frenchman, as if in sudden desperation, "are you prepared to accept my word as you would wish your own to be accepted?"
"Wouldn't that be asking considerable of a comparative stranger?"
"Then answer me upon your own honor, Monsieur Darrin," the Count of Surigny appealed eagerly. "Do you consider me a gentleman or--a rascal?"
Ensign Dave opened his lips, then paused. He was now asked to speak on his own honor.
His pallor giving way to a deep flush, Surigny suddenly opened his lips to speak again.
"Monsieur Darrin," he urged, his voice quavering, "do me the honor to look in my eyes. Study me from the viewpoint of an honest man. Tell me whether you will believe what I have to say to you. Do not be too quick. Take time to think."
As Dave found himself gazing into the depths of the other's eyes, and as he studied that appealing look, he felt his contempt for Surigny rapidly slipping away.
"Now, speak!" begged M. le Comte de Surigny. "Will you believe what I am about to tell you, as one man of honor speaks to another?"
For an instant Ensign Dave hesitated. Then he answered quickly:
"Yes; I will believe you, Monsieur le Comte."
"In doing so, do you feel the slightest hesitation?"
"Naturally," rejoined Darrin, a slight smile parting his lips, "I am assailed by some doubts as to whether I am wise in doing so, but I will believe what you have to say to me. I prefer to believe you to be, of your own choice, a man of honor."
Surigny uttered a cry of delight. Then he went on:
"Perhaps, Monsieur Darrin, you will even be willing to set me the example in truthfulness by telling me whether you know of the plot of those with whom I have had the shame of being associated."
"You will doubtless recall, Monsieur le Comte, since it was said only a moment ago, that I promised only to believe what you might have to say to me. I did not promise to tell you anything."
Indeed, at this point, Ensign Dave was perilously near to breaking his word as to believing Surigny. It looked to him as if the Frenchman were "fencing" in order to extract information.
"Well, then," exclaimed Surigny, with a gesture of disappointment, "I will tell you that which I feel I must. Listen, then. With Gortchky, Mender, Dalny and others, I have been engaged in a plan to cause a British warship to be sunk in the harbor yonder, and under circumstances such as to make it appear as the work of you Americans. Did you know that, Monsieur?"
"Go on," urged Dave Darrin.
"At first," murmured the Count, coming closer, "I believed Gortchky's statement that I was being engaged in secret diplomatic service. When I learned the truth, I was deeply involved with the miserable crew. Also, I was very much in debt, for Gortchky was ever a willing lender.
"There came a day, Monsieur, when there dawned on me the vileness of the wicked plot in which I had become engaged. For a few hours I felt that to destroy myself was the only way in which I could retrieve my honor. But the lesson you had taught served me well in those hours of need. Then the thought of you, an officer in the American Navy, brought a new resolve into my mind. No pledges that I had ignorantly made to such scoundrels could bind me. I was not their slave. Pledges to do anything that could bring dishonor upon one are not binding on a man of honor. I did not even feel a sense of debt to Gortchky, for he had used the money with evil intentions. From the moment of these realizations I had but one object in view. I would go on taking such money as I needed, and with no thought of the debt; and I would serve these monsters with such seeming fidelity that I could at last find my way open to serving _you_ fully, Monsieur Darrin. I pause for an instant. Do you believe all that I have just told you, my friend?"
"Yes," answered Dave. The next second he caught himself wondering if, through that "yes," he had unintentionally lied. _