The Highflyers by Clarence Budington Kelland

Author:Clarence Budington Kelland [Kelland, Clarence Budington]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2022-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV

Table of Contents

Tears did not sit well on Hildegarde von Essen; one did not expect them of her. Somehow it would have been more congruous to see her emotions using some other outlet—swearing with intent, incisive daintiness or dashing the bric-à-brac on the floor. Yet she was crying, not dismally, with girlish abandon, but with a certain dynamic intensity, a clumsiness, if you will, that bespoke neglect of practice in the accomplishment.

She had returned half an hour ago from Potter’s hangar, from listening to his claim upon her love, from feeling the demand of his arms about her, from a glad moment of surrendering her lips to his lips, and from the blind joy of translating her heart into words.... Thirsting on desert sands, she had seen in mirage a green oasis where welled up a never-failing spring of love; or, rather, it was as if she had seen a veritable oasis, a living spring, and by her own black magic had transformed it to mirage.... She had put away the man she loved and declared herself defiled!

That Potter had put upon that word a construction far different from her own she did not realize. Perhaps it would not have mattered if she had. Could one choose between defilements? It would have been impossible for her to comprehend an obscenity which would have befouled her more than her father’s treachery and treason had done.... And she wept.

It was not in her to love with reserve, mildly, sweetly, as it was not in her to live calmly, staidly, circumspectly. When she gave her love it was with fiery recklessness, holding back nothing, making no compromises ... and that love had been caught in the ruthless spring trap of a horrid reality, caught and tortured and restrained of its freedom. The fire-white cruelty of it was her knowledge that her love could not die.

Hours slipped by, one upon the heels of another, and thwarted love took for its companion fear.... Potter was in danger. She had warned him, but would her warning not bring him within the grasp of a peril he would not otherwise have approached? She knew it would. Potter was not one to leave his battles to other champions; what was his own he would defend. When those men came, bearing awful death in their hands, they would find him there. She could see him waiting.

Then the massive house shuddered, windows rattled, bits of glass tinkled to the floor, and a mighty roar swallowed up the voices of the earth.... Hildegarde uttered no cry, made no movement, but stood erect in the middle of her room, eyes staring, fists clenched. She knew! They had succeeded, the thing was done!... But Potter—had it touched him? Had it mangled, torn, killed him? She had but one thought now—she must know.

She tore open her door, rushed down the stairs and burst into her father’s library. Herman von Essen was standing in the middle of the floor, pasty-faced, unsteady, a man face to face with a vision of horror.

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