"The air of this place suits you," said Lake, wondering at this bubbling gaiety; "you were pale and sad when we last met, Mademoiselle."
"I may be the same when we meet again," she replied, refilling Lady Jim's glass. "What would you? Moods are agreeable."
"Hum! I don't choose April as the most enjoyable month of the year."
Katinka laughed meaningly, and glanced slyly at Lady Richardson. "I see; you prefer an autumn month--highly coloured and mature."
This was too symbolic for Lake, but some intuition of its meaning caused him to flush to the roots of his fair hair, and verbally deny comprehension. "I do not understand."
"No gallant man would," she retorted, and, further enlightened, the captain's pink became a violent crimson, to the concern of its cause.
"How red you are, Reggy!" cried Lady Richardson. "I hope it isn't scarlet fever."
"I guess you suffer from that," murmured Mamie, posing her lorgnette.
"Plaît-il?" inquired the bewildered vicomte; but received no reply. Miss Mulrady's knowledge of French was too limited to permit of pathological discussions.
"Russian tea," explained Lake, cooling to his ordinary sun-burn.
"Why not one word--indigestion?"
"Indigestion," repeated the soldier, with dry obedience.
"You should really try Billy's new medicine; it has made him very fit. By the way, where is my darling?"
Lake dodged the quizzical glance of Miss Mulrady, and explained that Sir Billy had been last seen wrinkling his young brows over the intricacies of trente et quarante. "Couldn't haul him off; but I daresay hunger will fetch him to the tea-table."
"Such devotion argues good luck," said Leah, wondering if Billy would arrive with full pockets.
"Perhaps, Lady James. Most boys are lucky at play."
"And therefore unlucky in love?" inquired Katinka, smiling.
"Children should know nothing of such things," said Aksakoff, stiffly.
"I guess not," cried Mamie; "but Sir Billy is a freak."
"Really, Miss Mulrady," frowned the indignant little mother, "my son is not so eligible for Barnum's Show as you seem to imagine. He hasn't got two heads, or an elastic skin, or any of those things which seem to be so popular in the United States."
"Wouldn't make him more interestin' if he had. He's a moral freak."
"Et moi aussi?" asked the vicomte, whose scant knowledge of Americanese prevented entire understanding.
"Oh, you haven't got morals of any sort."
"M. de Marville is the more interesting on that account," said Leah, rousing herself from a two minutes' silence; "a really good young man should be sealed, as a bore, in a glass case."
"Then why is Mr. Askew at large?"
The sailor laughed. "I fear my past can best answer that question."
"By your tongue? Well?"
"Better leave that well alone," laughed Katinka, gaily. "Besides, only women have pasts."
"And presents, when the men are generous," said Lady Jim.
"I guess men are always generous, when there's anythin' to be got."
"After meals, there is nothing to be got, save smoking," said the hostess; "you gentlemen have leave. Captain Lake, will you give me a cigarette?"
Like many Russian ladies, Mademoiselle Aksakoff adored those fatal rolls of tobacco wrapped in coffee-coloured paper, and consumed a great quantity. Lady Richardson, unlike the average Englishwoman, smoked likewise--that is, she fiddled qualmishly with half a cigarette, because it looked smart to do what you shouldn't. The gentlemen also offered incense to the very modern goddess Nicotine, and shortly Lady Jim was the only person present not committed to this agreeable vice.
"I am behind the times," she confessed; "but please don't look upon me as a prude on the prowl. I willingly permit other women to spoil their teeth and ruin their digestions."
"What a nasty speech!" cried Lady Richardson, offended, especially as Leah knew it was an effort for her to sin in this way.
"My dear, it is; but then, I feel nasty."
"And look charming," whispered Askew.
"I wonder how many times a day you repeat yourself," she replied impatiently.
"As often as I recall your face. I can think then of only one adjective, charming, and one noun, angel."
"What limitations! And the necessary verb?"
"I love you."
"First person singular, as usual, after the manner of the male egotist. Isn't this rather Lindley-Murray whispering?"
If it was, they had no opportunity of continuing it, for Lady Richardson drew Leah's attention to the fact that she had lost a fortune in the Casino. "I depend upon you, dear, for my return fare."
"Billy will pay," conjectured Lady Jim, calmly: "I quite expect he has broken the bank."
"Not on Mr. Askew's system," cried Mamie; "you couldn't run an apple-stall on his lines."
"You would suggest improvements," complained Askew, reproachfully.
"Then you admit that they were."
"If fitted properly into the puzzle, and at the proper time. But it's a mistake to swap horses when crossing a stream."
"Huh!" said Miss Mulrady, in her best Californian style. "I guess the animals belonged to you. I lost no dollars;" and with a comfortable sense of her own 'cuteness, she accepted a cigarette from the attentive vicomte.
This frothy chatter irritated a lady who was inwardly grappling with problems of the near future. Askew ventured on more spindrift, only to be snubbed into seeking the complaisant society of Mamie. This necessitated a game of general post, for Katinka slipped in rapid French and boulevard gossip with de Marville, while Lady Richardson drew Lake once more to her elderly feet. Remained the diplomatist, in splendid isolation, and his gaze wandered to Lady Jim, who stared straight before her. She was looking into the next world, where a reproachful ghost, something resembling Jim, was asking why he had been butchered to make a woman's holiday. And the living, half believing the terrible truth implied, gave shuffling answer to the dead: "Demetrius is to blame----"
So vivid was the vision, so powerful the thought, so guilty the conscience, that her tongue actually framed this much aloud, before she became aware that her secret was slipping out. A hasty glance around assured her that none of the prattlers had overheard; but an echo of the name at her elbow testified to Monsieur Aksakoff's excellent hearing. Lady Jim grew chill. What had she said? How much had he gathered? Instinctively facing a possible danger, she did not even turn her head or raise her voice, but, almost in the same breath, concluded the sentence differently: "----if he does not cure Jim."
"Your husband?" asked the diplomatist, politely.
With admirable skill Leah started, as though her reflections had been unexpectedly interrupted. "You there, M. Aksakoff? I was thinking of my husband--yes. He is trying to get well in Jamaica, and M. Demetrius has gone to pull him round. I shall certainly blame him if he does not cure Jim."
"That is severe, madame. After all, no human being holds the keys of life and death."
Self-controlled as she was, Lady Jim shuddered. Demetrius certainly held the key of death, and had used it--for so she began to believe--in opening for Garth a door into the unknown. However, she utilised the shudder very dexterously. "Don't talk like that. It makes me fear lest Jim should never get well. But after all, M. Demetrius is extraordinarily clever. I told your daughter, only this afternoon, how I had been attracted to him for Jim's sake, and by his knowledge of consumption."
"Oh!" Aksakoff looked at her with his pale eyes, and very inquiringly. It had not occurred to him that the lady was a model wife. "The medical attainments of M. Demetrius attracted you."
"Naturally! My husband is ill. I wish him to be cured. M. Demetrius has a European reputation for cure of consumption. We have held many conversations on the subject, and I feel certain that there is a chance for poor dear Jim."
"If M. Demetrius becomes his medical attendant?"
"He is," Leah assured him. "The poor creature he was looking after in Madeira, on behalf of the Duke, is dead, and Katinka informed me that M. Demetrius had sailed for Jamaica."
Aksakoff frowned. "How does my daughter know that?"
Lady Jim rose to shrug her shoulders, and to seize the opportunity thus offered to solve her problem by means of a private conversation.
"A charming place you have here," she said, glancing round, and giving him to understand that the shrug was his answer; "the air is so balmy."
"You will find it more so without tobacco smoke," said the Russian, throwing away his cigarette, and, without knowing it, was thus skilfully entrapped into a duologue by an ostensibly reluctant woman.
"I am so comfortable here," urged Leah, with feigned hesitation.
"So pleased, madame; but your sense of the picturesque will make you sacrifice ease for a particularly charming view of the Estrelles."
"The proper study of womankind is man," misquoted Lady Jim, accepting the invitation; "but nature comes as a relief at times. We see so little of her in society," and she glanced at Lady Richardson's dyed hair and tinted cheeks.
"You are severe, madame."
"I shall begin to believe so, if you repeat that a third time," she replied, smiling, and glancing sideways at his face. This she did to discover, if possible, his intentions. It suddenly occurred to her, that the diplomatist's insistence meant intrigue on his part. He, like herself, was playing a game, and Lady Jim, for the sake of the result, wished to overlook his hand. Had she seen it, which she did not, the knowledge that people knew more about her domestic affairs than she would have approved of might have shocked her.
Ivan Aksakoff was not a tricky Russian, nor a diplomatist of repute, for nothing. Instructions had reached him several times from headquarters that Demetrius was to be watched while in England, and, if possible, decoyed into the territory of a less scrupulous nation, for the purpose of arrest. A drugged official's feelings had been outraged, a much-wanted Anarchist had escaped through the connivance of the exile, and a paternal government thought that an enforced trip to Siberia might cool misplaced friendships for suspected persons. Several times Aksakoff had tried to induce the Demetrius opossum to climb down from his tree of refuge, but the suspicious beast refused to oblige him. Therefore, all that the diplomatist could do was to keep himself advised of the doctor's doings, in the hope of luring him to destruction when he was off his guard. He had biblical precedent for this hope. Shimei, the son of Gera, lulled by long security, had crossed the forbidden brook Kidron, so why should not Demetrius, likewise forgetful, cross the Channel?
Stealthy inquiry into the doctor's affairs had led Aksakoff to ask himself, why the man dangled at Lady Jim's apron-strings. Reports poured in, fast and thick, that the Curzon Street household was insolvent, but these did not help the diplomatist overmuch. If Lady Jim wanted money, she would scarcely ask a penniless exile for the cash he did not possess. The man was not sufficiently handsome, nor so superlatively fascinating, that he should gain the love of the most beautiful woman in London. And, incidentally, Aksakoff learned that Lady Jim was a modern Lucrece, although she did not profess an ardent love for her lord and master. Therefore, as neither Mammon nor Cupid could explain a friendship which was pretty freely discussed in clubs and drawing-rooms, Aksakoff could not comprehend this particular wile of woman.
In his endeavour to fathom the meaning, he even went so far as to question his daughter, knowing that she was as infatuated with Demetrius as Demetrius was with Lady Kaimes. But Katinka either could not or would not explain, and for months the diplomatist had been exasperated by the sight of a genuinely platonic friendship, for which there seemed to be no reason. Now he learned from one of the parties to the bond that a husband's sickness, and a friend's skill, were the elements which composed the intimacy. Such a case, in such a light, had never before been presented to him, and while sauntering by Lady Jim's side to view the Estrelles against the sunset, he was trying to think if the explanation was genuine. To his acute hearing, it did not sound even plausible.
Nevertheless--and this was Aksakoff's reason for seeking the interview--some use might be made of the woman to entrap the man. Lady Jim was badly in need of ready money, and the Russian Government had, at the time, full coffers. Since there was no love in the question, this singular lady might, for a round sum, dispense with the doctor's attendance on her husband. More--if delicately handled, she might induce Demetrius to show her the sights of Paris. It was difficult to hint this without shocking the feelings of a great lady and a spotless woman. Still, if skilfully done, and without too much emphasis, Lady Jim might gather that her finances could be put in order without much trouble on her part.
But Aksakoff had another argument which induced him to risk a scene with outraged virtue. He loved his daughter, and wished her to marry a highly placed cousin, who would be of political use to his father-in-law. Unfortunately, Katinka was infatuated--Aksakoff could find no more appropriate word--with Demetrius. Marriage with a person wanted by the powerful of St. Petersburg meant a check to the diplomatist and a handle to his many enemies. The match was not to be thought of. Yet, if Demetrius would only prove kind, Mademoiselle Aksakoff would assuredly become his wife, even if she had to achieve the marriage by elopement. Also, Katinka might be able to procure the man's pardon, and of this Aksakoff entirely disapproved. Even if the doctor was whitewashed, he had such socialistic or anarchistic feelings--it mattered not which--that he would never consent to resume his title or the large income attached to such resumption. On the whole, both from a fatherly and a domestic point of view, Aksakoff felt that this marplot would be safer in a Siberian mine. How to get him there was the problem.
The solution might come through Lady Jim. If he could only ascertain her feelings towards Demetrius, and hint that such a lovely woman should not be worried by sordid money affairs, it was not improbable that such a satisfactory result would be arrived at. It was a forlorn hope, but Aksakoff dared it; it was a straw, but he grasped at it--and now, fully committed to the speculation, he was casting about in his mind as to a promising beginning. No easy task, for Aksakoff's spies and Aksakoff's experience assured him that Lady James Kaimes was a prickly plant, needing care in the handling.
So it will be seen that Leah's intuition had not deceived her, scanty as was the ground for suspicion. The closer she examined his face by swift side-glances, the more certain she became that he was playing a game, and--from her experience of diplomatists--by no means for love. To vary the metaphor, she and the Russian were about to engage in a duel, either with foils or swords. Lady Jim did not care which. She was perfectly assured that, however dexterous her antagonist might be, she could fence quite as well, if not better. And thus she marched to the duelling ground, already a victor.
Silhouetted against a pale purple sky, the dark masses of the Estrelles floated on a shimmering sea. Nearer and clearer, yet less sharply defined, etherealised by amethystine hues, and indistinct through the haze of gloaming, frowned the Grimaldi stronghold, its mouldering walls, clasping closely packed houses, dominated by a lean and soaring campanile. Over the cactus hedge, and between bending palms, could be caught a glimpse of the trim, unromantic modern town, of the sleepy waters of the bay, and fishing-boats rocking beside spick-and-span toy yachts, with here and there the picturesque felucca of Mediterranean commerce, old-fashioned, with oars and lateen sails. Only Shelley in radiant verse could have described with any approach to truth this magical dreamland, real yet unreal, under the changing colours of sunset.
As at the outset of an earlier and less difficult interview, Lady Jim admired the loveliness of paradise, with ostentatious disregard of her embarrassed companion. And embarrassed he was, to such a degree that she marvelled at his choice of a profession in which emotions count as crimes. This judgment was unfair, for Aksakoff ordinarily commanded his feelings with the severity of a martinet. But so great were the stakes for which he proposed to play--his daughter's future and his political advancement--that he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, clasped and unclasped his hands, and betrayed more of the natural man and anxious father than was consistent with diplomatic reticence.
Having some idea of this mental confusion, Leah waited for him to make an almost certain mistake, of which she intended to take full advantage. She was like a cat watching a mouse-hole, ready to pounce at an opportune moment. Meanwhile, she held her tongue, which sufficiently assured Aksakoff of her dangerous capability. He had never before beheld the ominous miracle of a silent woman, and his nerves were none the better for this surprising spectacle.
"Demetrius, madame," he finally blundered, and recognised the blunder as the words left his mouth--"Demetrius is your friend."
The attack was so weak that Lady Jim contemptuously gave him vantage-ground. "Katinka's lover also, I understand."
"And the Czar's enemy," retorted Aksakoff angrily. "Let us have all his qualifications at once, madame."
"By all means. Enemy, friend, lover. Well?"
"It is very far from well, as you know, madame. I desire no Siberian felon for my son-in-law."
"I never knew that M. Demetrius had been to Siberia."
"He will go there yet--to his grave."
"What an odd choice of a cemetery!" said Leah, shrugging; "but I assure you, M. Aksakoff, that I take no interest in these funeral arrangements."
"No! Yet report says----"
He was about to blurt out something still more undiplomatic, but that Lady Jim's pity for his ineptitude made her intervene. "I know what it says, and of course I deeply sympathise with you."
"Madame!"
"Yes, yes; I comprehend your feelings. It is hard that your own daughter should defy you, especially as M. Demetrius is merely a doctor."
"He is a prince in our country," said Aksakoff, furious that she should take the lead, and at a loss how to regain it.
"A felon also, I understood you to say."
"Let him venture on French soil, and I shall certainly make him one," snarled Aksakoff, with unpleasantly glittering eyes. Lady Jim had scratched him rather dexterously, and the Tartar stood revealed.
She scratched again. "Even if Katinka makes him your son-in-law?"
"That shall never be!" He hesitated, then attempted a bear-hug. "I will speak plainly, madame----"
"About Katinka and her infatuation? Oh, certainly."
Aksakoff bit his lip. Used as he was to verbal fencing, Leah's handling of her tongue baffled him. He took refuge in truth-telling.
"Demetrius does not love my daughter," he said bluntly.
"How fortunate for you, and disagreeable for her!"
"He loves an--an--an actress," explained Aksakoff, wondering if her interest in the man deepened to jealousy.
Apparently it did not. "That would interest Katinka more than it does me," she assured him; then, affecting the innocence of ignorance, "May I ask why you chronicle small beer?"
"Demetrius is your intimate friend."
"My husband's medical attendant," she corrected quietly.
"If you remove him to that distance, I confess to an indiscretion. Shall we return?"
"Without admiring the Estrelles?"
"Madame, the excuse was obvious."
"For what?"
Aksakoff shrugged his shoulders. "For the clearing up of misunderstandings. You are anxious--so you say--that Demetrius should cure your husband. My reason for this conversation is, to apologise for my intention to rob you of his very valuable services. If I can trap Demetrius--say in Paris--Lord James must content himself with an inferior doctor."
Leah looked pensive and puzzled. "I comprehend; but why should you make use of the wrong word?"
"Misunderstanding?" Then, when she nodded, "My ignorance of your language----"
"Or of my feelings? By this talk of Parisian traps and Siberian punishment, you assume that I am acquainted with the private affairs of M. Demetrius."
"It is possible that I have made that mistake," said Aksakoff, dryly.
"As a diplomatist you should never confess as much. It might be that I may take advantage of your--mistake, to inform M. Demetrius of his danger."
"I foresaw that possibility, madame. As a dutiful wife, you naturally wish to keep so clever a doctor in attendance on your husband."
"Of course; but a trip to Siberia would not improve Jim's health."
"There is no need for the mountain to go to Mahomet, madame."
"Pardon me if in this case I think otherwise."
Aksakoff shrugged again. "I admit the reason, seeing that this particular mountain is married."
"These parables are a trifle wearisome, M. Aksakoff. The air is chilly, and I wish to return to Lady Richardson. Would you mind telling me plainly, before we part, why you sought this interview?"
"Assuredly, madame. My daughter loves this man, who does not love her, and who, by reason of his crime and opinions, is not an eligible husband. You were with Katinka this afternoon, as you informed me, and she is now so cheerful that I suspect you must have delivered some message from Demetrius to so raise her spirits. Or it might be"--he looked squarely at her, as he added, "that Demetrius is in Monte Carlo."
"No; your daughter had a letter from him, in which he stated that he was leaving Madeira for Jamaica. Go on, please."
"Katinka had a letter?" said Aksakoff, with an unpleasant look. "That, no doubt, accounts for her spirits. Were you Cupid's messenger, madame?"
Lady Jim smothered a laugh. "No; though I admit that I should like to see her happy."
"She will never be happy with a man who does not love her. Demetrius will not come near me, and I cannot explain. Will you oblige me by taking a message?"
"Why should I?"
"For the sake of retaining him as Lord James's medical attendant."
Leah nodded. "As a wife, I will take your message. What is it?"
"Tell Demetrius that if he will give Katinka to understand that he will never marry her my gratitude will be stronger than my duty."
"In other words, you will not arrest him."
"So long as he remains in England."
"Where he can't be arrested," laughed Lady Jim. "Well, your message shall be duly delivered. And I may as well confess, since we are committed to plain speaking, that M. Demetrius informed me why he had to leave Russia."
"His confidence will render it easier for you to make a treaty between us, madame."
"Possibly. But you will understand that I assume the rôle of peacemaker solely on my husband's account."
"Madame," Aksakoff bent and raised her hand to kiss it; "as a wife you are far above rubies. Shall we return?"
Leah consented without moving. She had not yet solved her problem. "One moment. You will give me your word that M. Demetrius will not be lured to Paris?"