Red Shadow Read Online Free PDF

shot, and remain Miss Cameron—or you can enter into a business arrangement with me, and have the satisfaction of knowing that you have saved his life.”
    â€œ You? ” said Laura in a tone of horror.
    Basil Stevens made her a queer, un-English bow.
    â€œI, Miss Cameron.”
    â€œOh, no, no, no! ” said Laura.
    Basil Stevens flung up his hands. It was exactly as if he were throwing off the polite formality which had clothed him. He made a guttural sound of anger.
    â€œAh! Do you suppose that I have a passion for you? Do you? Then I will tell you that you do not appeal to me in the least! I will tell you that this is a matter of pure business! Will that make you see reason? Listen to me! Did you ever see a play called Hassan ? There is a woman in it who behaves exactly like you. If she will marry the Sultan, she can save her lover from death. Does she want to save him? Does she act like a sensible human being? Not in the least! She requires him to die with her by lingering tortures. And the young man—” he waved his arms in a vigorous gesture and laughed loudly—“the young man, does he thank her?—does the prospect enchant him—has he the least desire to die with her?” He laughed again, more loudly still. “He is—what is the word—fed to the teeth! It was a play that amused me very much because it was so true to life. You women are all sentiment, but a man thinks about other things. Do you think that Mackenzie wants to die? He is in love with you—that goes without saying. He wishes to marry you, and he will suffer when he finds that you have married some one else. But he will get over it—he has other interests in his life—he has youth, and health, and some money, and an invention for which he has great hopes. In a little while he will be very grateful to you. At the first it will be a blow. But that kind of blow will not kill him—it is not like a bullet. One can recover from a broken engagement, but not from an encounter with a firing-squad.”
    Laura had turned in her chair, her wide horrified gaze upon his face. At the brutality of his last words she shrank back as far as she could. The man who had poured out this rapid tirade was some one she had never seen before; his manner, his intonation, the movement of his hands were no longer those of an Englishman. But this change went far to accomplish its purpose. Whilst she was speaking to Basil Stevens, whom she had met at the Harrisons, English like herself, an engineer like Jim, a man who had taken her in to dinner, with whom she had danced, the things that he had said had somehow fallen short of that final reality from which there is no escape; but this man with the savage un-English inflection in his voice—all at once he made her feel that the thing was true. Jim was going to be shot. It wasn’t too bad to happen—it was going to happen unless—unless——
    â€œWho are you?” she said.
    He burst out laughing.
    â€œWhy do you ask me that?”
    â€œBecause I must know. You must tell me the truth—nothing else will do. You’re not English.”
    He was still laughing.
    â€œI am a British subject, Miss Cameron. You find that funny? Well, so do I. I am Vassili Stefanoff—and in English that is Basil Stevens. I have not one drop of your English blood, I am pleased to say; but I am a British subject, because my father was a Tsarist exile, and I was born in England. In some ways, you see, my situation resembles Mackenzie’s. I find that amusing. But I am in a more favourable position than he is—I am not expecting to be shot.”
    Laura did not flinch this time. Something had happened to her. At the touch of that inescapable reality her confusion and her tremors had passed. She had reached the point at which a man turns and, with his back to the wall, prepares to sell his life as dearly as he may. It is the point at which, hope being