"Certainly. It will show her that----"
"That you are unworthy of her hand," ended Aksakoff, sharply, for here the father overleaped the diplomatist.
"Quite so, Ivan Aksakoff, and I hope soon to congratulate the Countess Petrovitch."
"You are too good, Constantine Demetrius." "In return for thus arranging your domestic affairs," continued the doctor, unmoved by the sarcasm, "will you gain my pardon from the Czar? Can you gain it?" he asked with emphasis.
"I can and will."
"My title, my money----"
"Both shall be restored. And of course," added Aksakoff, with a keen glance, "you will no longer work in what you term the sacred cause of humanity."
Demetrius waved his hand gloomily. "Dreams of youth--desires for the impossible. I am aware," he added bitterly, "that individuality in a bureaucratic administration is looked upon as a crime."
"Can you wonder at it? If one wheel refuses to fit in with another, the machine will not work. We are all parts of a mighty engine----"
"Which crushes the poor and the weak."
"What matter, since you, Constantine Demetrius, are neither poor nor weak?"
"My sympathy----"
"A most dangerous word, current only in that Utopia you dreamed of. It is not in the Russian dictionary."
Demetrius turned on the scoffer a glittering eye. "It will be, some day," said he, slowly.
"My friend"--Aksakoff shook the ash from his cigarette--"if you propose to edit dictionaries you must remain Dr. Demetrius--in exile."
"I gladly would," rejoined the other, heartily; "only----" His voice died away, as he looked towards Lady Jim.
The diplomatist laughed. "There is always a woman. Ah, these dear ladies, how practical they are! In their hands we are wax, which they mould after the honey is squeezed out;" he laughed again, then resumed, business-like: "You will write to my daughter and place the truth of this engagement beyond question."
"To-morrow, Ivan Aksakoff, when I am in London. And needless to say, I shall always profoundly respect Mademoiselle your daughter."
"You mean the Countess Petrovitch."
"If you can so far bend her to your ambition," retorted Demetrius. "You promise, then, to right me with the Czar?"
Aksakoff nodded and laughed cynically. "You are already Prince Constantine Demetrius, rich, honoured, and--unsympathetic." The doctor winced at the last word, but shook hands on the agreement. Lady Jim glanced across the room with Judas and his kiss in her mind. That the cap fitted her, also, she did not consider for the moment.
"Coffee! Coffee!" cried the pianist, rising. "Just what I want."
"It is tea on this occasion," replied Leah, and went over to take charge of the tray brought in by a smiling waiter.
"Tea?" Joan echoed the word in an amazed voice, and tripped like a fairy towards a comfortable low chair. "Who ever heard of tea in the middle of the day?"
"Australian colonists in the back blocks," explained Askew, sauntering to assist in arranging a harlequin set of cups. "They drink tea at all hours."
"In Russia, also," remarked Lady Jim, jingling the saucers. "This is a concession to the prejudices of our foreign guests;" and she laughed amiably at the Muscovites.
Demetrius bowed and smiled, twisting his waxed moustache with admiring glances at Leah's red hair. He was far from suspecting a snare, and that Aksakoff should have a finger and thumb in his waistcoat-pocket did not seem remarkable. But Lady Jim--nervously on the alert--guessed that the diplomatist was fiddling with something of a narcotic nature. Also, his significant glance at her, at the teacups, at Demetrius, hinted at her duty. She fulfilled it with a spasm of fear, well masked by frivolity.
"Joan, I have dropped my handkerchief--near the piano, I think. Will you please look for it?"
Miss Tallentire rose, to be anticipated, as Leah guessed she would be, by two attentive gentlemen. "Allow me!" "Permit me, mademoiselle!" and with Askew, Demetrius crossed for the search, while Lady Jim ran on lightly:
"It might be on the floor near you, Joan. What a nuisance! How stupid of me!"
Then Joan looked on the carpet--Leah also, the latter straining her ears to hear the almost inaudible. The faint tinkle of a pellet dropped into a cup sounded to her guilty soul like a clap of thunder.
"Here it is," cried Joan, fishing under the table, and picking up what Lady Jim had purposely dropped.
"Thanks awfully, dear. Mr. Askew, M. Demetrius, do not trouble. Give me the teapot, Joan. Ah!" she babbled on, while filling the cups--"What a pity we have not glasses, so that you could drink the tea in your own fashion, M. Demetrius. M. Aksakoff, we did so enjoy the novelty at your Monte Carlo villa. Still, here is a lemon; slice it, Joan, dear. Do sit down, doctor. M. Aksakoff, you can be waiter."
"Allow me," cried Askew, half rising.
"Sit where you are," said Leah, sharply; "you'll upset the table. M. Aksakoff!"
"With pleasure, madame;" and he obliged her with stiff cordiality.
Leah wiped her lips, which were dry, and stole a stealthy glance at the cup which he handed to the doctor. It was of a deep blue colour. "Augh!" she breathed, as he set it to his lips.
"You are wearied with your duties, madame," conjectured Aksakoff, sipping with gusto; "and I, alas, can relieve you only by acting as waiter."
"You are a guest now," she rejoined, with a nervous laugh; "is the tea to your liking?"
"Most delightful tea," said Demetrius, courteously.
"You compliment the decoction too highly. Tea on the Continent is like rain in the Sahara. I except Russia, of course," she ended, smiling.
"You will find us English in many ways, when you visit Moscow, madame."
Leah looked inquisitively at Aksakoff, who spoke, guessing that he was in possession of the truth, and wondering what he thought of the engagement. The man's face betrayed nothing, however, and her gaze travelled to Demetrius. He was sitting perfectly still, and his eyes looked dull, as though the fire of life was dwindling within. Meeting her smile, he roused himself with a jerk and an apology.
"I feel sleepy--the heat, no doubt," he murmured.
"I can't say that I feel scorching," said Askew, glancing through the window at a grey sky.
"You are used to the tropics; M. Demetrius is not," observed Aksakoff.
Joan laughed. "You remind me of a horrid story my brother told me. An old Anglo-Indian was being cremated at Woking, and said that it was the first time he had felt warm in England."
"A horrid story indeed," murmured Lady Jim, with her eyes on the expressionless face of Demetrius. "You shouldn't tell it, dear." Then she rose hurriedly: "Are you quite well, M. Demetrius?"
"Oh yes--quite;" the doctor's voice droned into an inarticulate mumble and his head fell forward.
"Oh! Mr. Askew--M. Aksakoff--what it the matter? His eyes are closed; his breathing--just listen!"
"Kind of fit, perhaps," said Askew, rising to shake Demetrius, and so extorted a cry from the kind-hearted hostess.
"Don't--the man is ill! Oh, how dreadful! Loosen his collar--open the window. I wonder if he needs a doctor," and she stepped to the electric button of the bell.
"There might be one in the hotel," said Aksakoff, as Joan and Askew obeyed her directions. And from the tone of his voice she knew that there was one in the hotel. "It really seems to be a kind of fit," said Aksakoff, looking at the now unconscious man. "Yet he appeared to be quite well a few minutes ago."
Leah did not hear. She was already at the door issuing hurried instructions to a waiter, whose smile had vanished. When she came back the two men had placed Demetrius on the sofa, where he lay breathing heavily, his face white and his lips purple; not a pleasant sight by any means, as Askew thought.
"Had not you ladies better retire?" he suggested.
"No, no!" they cried in one breath. "We must help."
"Only the doctor can do that--if there is one," said Aksakoff, observing his handiwork on the sofa with a critical eye.
Then, at the tail of a triple rap, entered the fat proprietor of the Henri Trois, scared in looks and importantly fussy in manner. Behind him glided a spick-and-span man, not unlike Demetrius, and unmistakably Tartar.
"Dr. Helfmann happened to be luncheoning," explained M. Gravier, "fortunately. What is the matter, madame?"
Helfmann soon explained that. He felt the pulse of the patient, laid a gentle hand on a weakly-beating heart, and turned up the purple eyelids. Askew and Aksakoff stood aside with the proprietor. Lady Jim and Joan bent forward with pale faces and clasped hands, anxious for the verdict.
"A kind of fit," explained the doctor; "he will be insensible for two--three hours."
"In my hotel? Ach!--the scandal!" cried Gravier, spreading his fat hands in dismay.
"Is it really a fit?" asked Lady Jim, paying no attention.
"Madame"--the doctor faced her coldly--"to speak technically would not enlighten you. I can bring this gentleman back to his senses; but I think--with your permission," added he, bowing, "that if you will permit me to take him in a cab to a chemist's shop where I can procure the drug I require, it will save time. And in this case"--he glanced calmly at the unconscious man--"time means life."
"Ugh!" said Askew. "Take him away at once."
"If you think it is better," murmured Lady Jim, not daring to meet the victorious eye of the diplomatist.
"Of course," rejoined Askew, brusquely. "You and Miss Tallentire can do nothing, and the sight is not a pleasant one."
"Joan;" Lady Jim drew the girl away, and passed with her into the bedroom adjoining. There behind a closed door they listened to the sound of a body being removed. The scraping of feet, the heavy breathing of ladened men, the bumping and humping of something soft (horrible suggestion)--they could hear these intimations of removal very plainly. Leah sat on the bed with tightly clasped hands between slack knees. "Augh!" said Leah.
"It is all right, Lady James," said Joan, petting her. "Poor M. Demetrius will soon be all right. I wonder what made him ill?"
"I wonder," echoed Lady Jim, and wondered very truly. She could not understand what drug Aksakoff had used to reduce Demetrius so rapidly to unconsciousness. And not another word was spoken for ten minutes.
"They have driven away in a fiacre," announced Miss Tallentire, from the window.
"Who have driven?"
"That doctor and M. Demetrius."
"Not M. Aksakoff?"
Before her question could be answered a sharp knock came to the door, and Aksakoff presented himself when it was opened.
"All is well, dear ladies," said he, blandly. "Dr. Helfmann has gone with our sick friend. Mr. Askew follows to see that all is well."
"Askew follows?" said Lady Jim, with a sharp glance; "but why----?"
The diplomatist still smiled. "He has a kind heart, that young Mr. Askew, and so----" he shrugged, then bowed to Joan. "I compliment you, mademoiselle, on your courage. You also, madame. And now, all being well, I must take my leave;" he kissed Lady Jim's hand. "I shall see you again in London, as to-night I journey to Havre."
He went out, and Leah again heard four names as though a ghostly porter was calling them at a ghostly junction.
"Paris, Havre, Kronstadt, Siberia," said the ghostly porter.
"Ugh!" said Lady Jim.
Alone and punctual, hungry for mid-day victuals, and eager to impart newly acquired knowledge, Miss Tallentire returned from studying the Luxor Obelisk. Her coming upon the hour and solitary state were noted, but a second-hand rendering of hieroglyphic lore could be dispensed with by a lady entertaining a more modern-minded guest. Aksakoff, with a notable sparkle in his eyes--begotten by confidential conversation with his hostess--rose to welcome the fair interrupter. International courtesies were exchanged, while Leah, glancing impatiently at the clock, waited for their conclusion to slip in a question or so.
"Where is Mr. Askew? Why did he not bring you back?"
"He did, Lady James, as far as the lift. He is now writing a letter in the smoking-room."
"And so will forget that I asked him to luncheon. Please remind him, dear; or, better, tell the waiter to bring him up. M. Demetrius is coming also."
"Dr. Demetrius!" Joan paused in her exit. "I did not know that he was in Paris, Lady James."
"Nor did I until an hour ago. Don't lose time, dear. Mr. Askew may go, and I particularly wish him to stay."
Lady Jim ushered the girl out hurriedly, judiciously saw to the
Lady Jim ushered the girl out hurriedly, and judiciously saw to the closing of the door, before turning to meet Aksakoff's inquiring gaze. "You approve of a full table, madame?"
"There is safety in numbers," she assured him.
"For M. Demetrius?"
Leah resumed her seat with raised eyebrows. "I fear you will think me dull, M. Aksakoff, but I do not understand."
The diplomatist bowed an apology. He had forgotten that even in private her comedy was to be played by the book. The conversation of the next few minutes he foresaw very plainly. She would play round the reason for their meeting, without coming to grips, mysteriously conveying her meaning in speeches which she did not mean. Only a politician of Aksakoff's subtlety would have understood the unsaid from what she now proceeded to say.
"Besides"--she was continuing the speech interrupted by his bow--"you promised that no harm should come to the doctor."
"Madame, I renew that promise."
"I hope so; otherwise, I shall regret having consented to this meeting."
"Yet I understood that M. Demetrius desired it."
"That is no reason why I should consent."
"Possibly not. Still, as a peacemaker----"
"You put me into the Beatitudes, then?"
"Why not, if you achieve your object in reconciling enemies?"
"The signing of the treaty depends upon you, M. Aksakoff."
"Consider it signed--on conditions."
"Which means that it is not signed. H'm! M. Demetrius is anxious, even willing, to renounce your daughter."
A dull red stained Aksakoff's opaque skin. "How flattering to my fatherly pride! There is, then"--the hint was delicate--"another?"
Lady Jim retorted in kind. "So you said at Monte Carlo."
"Mademoiselle Ninette? I believe I did. She lured him to Paris, then?"
"How should I know? He has never mentioned the creature's name to me, nor would he dare to. He came, so he declares, to see me."
"On matters connected with your recent loss, no doubt."
"It is more than probable."
Her avoidance of the necessary topic exasperated him. Sharp words were on the tip of his tongue, but wisdom withheld them. His accomplice was not the woman to yield to dominance, and the merest hint of its exercise might, probably would, engender wrath likely to jeopardise the almost achieved plot. Money or no money--Aksakoff still ascribed mercenary reasons--her pride would never bend to the yoke of advice. To be silent was his second thought, and silent he became. This, it would seem, was wise, since she began to explain, Aksakoff paying out liberally the necessary rope that she might hang herself.
"M. Demetrius is unwise to come here. I told him so; yes, I confess--remember my warning--that I betrayed you. All the same--very foolishly, I think--he insisted upon an immediate meeting, to recover his birthright, he says. Can you arrange for the rehabilitation, of this exiled Esau?"
A faint smile played round the diplomatist's thin lips, "I can!"
"And you will?"
"Assuredly, if M. Demetrius disabuses Katinka of her infatuation."
"That is his affair and yours. No doubt"--she spoke meaningly--"you will wish to speak to him privately?"
"There is no need, madame, seeing that you are in his confidence, and in mine. Besides"--very slowly--"we can converse over our tea."
Lady Jim's nerves jumped. "Over tea," she echoed equally slowly--"tea, after luncheon?"
"It is a Russian custom. M. Demetrius and I are Russians. Still, if the suggestion appears presumptuous"--he waved his hand with assumed deprecation--"I withdraw it and apologise."
"No!" She passed her tongue over dry, white lips, and answered faintly. "You shall have your--tea." Then, rising hurriedly, she made for the near window on an obvious excuse. "I do not see him coming."
As plainly as though Aksakoff had put it into words did Lady Jim know that he intended to drug their victim. What would occur if this plotter succeeded she did not know; what might occur she shivered to think of, and the thought made her rash. "The police!" she murmured, turning from the window.
M. Aksakoff joined her, adjusting his pince-nez leisurely, and proceeded to look up and down the street, two stories below. "I do not see the police, madame. But what a delightful day! I trust the night will be equally mild, since I journey to Havre."
"You go to Havre--to-night?" breathed Leah, not yet herself.
"By a moderately late train. My cousin, Count Petrovitch, is there with his yacht. We have to talk about his possible marriage with my daughter, before he leaves to-morrow for Kronstadt."
"Oh!" sighed Lady Jim, very white. "How--how--amusing!" and after misusing the word, she went back to her chair with geographical thoughts. Paris--Havre--Kronstadt--Siberia; and Demetrius. "Oh!" sighed she again, with a trembling hand shielding her eyes.
"You are ailing, madame," cried Aksakoff, hastening to her politely.
"Starving!" replied Leah, with a wry smile. "Hush!"
The warning hissed through the chatter of Joan and Askew, who entered, almost riotously happy. Their exuberant manners and frank speech brought a wholesome breeze of cleansing honesty into the atmosphere of stale rascality. The bracing wind blew Lady Jim out of dark chambers into the day-lit spaces of the commonplace. With the protean capability of women she flashed as a sun from passing storm-clouds, to shine on the honest and hungry.
"Thanks awfully for your invitation to luncheon," said Askew.
"Which you forgot."
"Did I ever receive it?" he asked doubtfully.
"Did not my last remark imply the invitation. Remarkable!"
So irrelevant sounded the last word that Aksakoff queried its reason.
"Not that a man should forget an invitation," she explained; "but that a single meal should escape his greedy memory."
"You make me out to be a gourmet," hinted the invited guest.
"Why not a gourmand? One speaks French in Paris."
"Not invariably, since we now converse in English," said Askew, dryly; and she approved of the retort. Clearly he was rapidly recovering from the green-sickness of crude passion.
Meantime Joan instructed Aksakoff in ancient history. "The hieroglyphics on the Place de la Concorde Obelisk describe the triumphs of Rameses II., who reigned over Egypt in the fourteenth century before Christ. Mr. Askew knows him."
"Indeed?" smiled Lady Jim. "Is he stopping in Paris?"
"Miss Tallentire means to say that I know 'of him.'"
"Well, I said so. But my English _is_ faulty."
"Mr. Askew will surely improve it. His knowledge of hieroglyphics----"
"The guide-book's knowledge, Lady James," corrected Askew.
"Hum! Information while you wait--Murray and Baedeker's extract of history--archeological tabloids."