There was a momentary commotion in the Club. A woman had fainted at one of the roulette tables. Her chair was quickly drawn back. She was helped out to the open space at the top of the stairs and placed in an easy-chair there. Lady Weybourne, who was on the point of leaving with her husband, hastened back. She stood there while the usual restoratives were being administered, fanning the unconscious woman with a white ostrich fan which hung from her waist. Presently Violet opened her eyes. She recognised Lady Weybourne and smiled weakly.
"I am so sorry," she murmured. "It was silly of me to stay in here so long. I went without my dinner, too, which was rather idiotic."
A man who had announced himself a doctor, bent over her pulse and turned away.
"The lady will be quite all right now," he said. "You can give her brandy and soda if she feels like it. Pardon!"
He hastened back to his place at the baccarat table. Lady Hunterleys sat up.
"It was quite absurd of me," she declared. "I don't know what—"
She stopped suddenly. The weight was once more upon her heart, the blankness before her eyes. She remembered!
"I am quite able to go home now," she added.
Her gold bag lay upon her lap. It was almost empty. She looked at it vacantly and then closed the snap.
"We'll see you back to the hotel," Lady Weybourne said soothingly. "Here comes Harry with the brandy and soda."
Lord Weybourne came hurrying from the bar, a tumbler in his hand.
"How nice of you!" Violet exclaimed gratefully. "Really, I feel that this is just what I need. I wonder what time it is?"
"Half past four," Lord Weybourne announced, glancing at his watch.
She laughed weakly.
"How stupid of me! I have been between here and the Casino for nearly twelve hours, and had nothing to eat. No, I won't have anything here, thanks," she added, as Lord Weybourne started back again for the bar, muttering something about a sandwich. "I'll have something in my room. If you are going back to the hotel, perhaps I could come with you."
They all three left the place together, passing along the private way.
"I haven't seen your brother all day," Violet remarked to Lady Weybourne.
"Richard's gone off somewhere in the car to-night, a most mysterious expedition," his sister declared. "I began to think that it must be an elopement, but I see the yacht's there still, and he would surely choose the yacht in preference to a motor-car, if he were running off with anybody! Your husband doesn't come into the rooms much?"
Violet shook her head.
"He hasn't the gambling instinct," she said quietly. "Perhaps he is just as well without it. One gets a lot of amusement out of this playing for small stakes, but it is irritating to lose. Thank you so much for looking after me," she added, as they reached the hall of the hotel. "I am quite all right now and my woman will be sitting up for me."
She passed into the lift. Lady Weybourne looked after her admiringly.
"Say, she's got some pluck, Harry!" she murmured. "They say she lost nearly a hundred mille to-night and she never even mentioned her losings. Irritating, indeed! I wonder what Sir Henry thinks of it. They are only moderately well off."
Her husband shrugged his shoulders, after the fashion of his sex.
"Let us hope," he said, "that it is Sir Henry who suffers."
Violet slipped out of her gown and dismissed her maid. In her dressing-gown she sat before the open window. Everywhere the place seemed steeped in the faint violet and purple light preceding the dawn. Away eastwards she could catch a glimpse of the mountains, their peaks cut sharply against the soft, deep sky; a crystalline glow, the first herald of the hidden sunrise, hanging about their summits. The gentle breeze from the Mediterranean was cool and sweet. There were many lights still gleaming upon the sea, but their effect now seemed tawdry. She sat there, her head resting upon her hands. She had the feeling of being somehow detached from the whole world of visible objects, as though, indeed, she were on her death-bed. Surely it was not possible to pass any further through life than this! In her thoughts she went back to the first days of estrangement between her husband and herself. Almost before she realised it, she found herself struggling against the tenderness which still survived, which seemed at that moment to be tearing at her heart-strings. He had ceased to care, she told herself. It was all too apparent that he had ceased to care. He was amusing himself elsewhere. Her little impulsive note had not won even a kind word from him. Her appeals, on one excuse or another, had been disregarded. She had lost her place in his life, thrown it away, she told herself bitterly. And in its stead—what! A new fear of Draconmeyer was stealing over her. He presented himself suddenly as an evil genius. She went back through the last few days. Her brain seemed unexpectedly clear, her perceptions unerring. She saw with hateful distinctness how he had forced this money upon her, how he had encouraged her all the time to play beyond her means. She realised the cunning with which he had left that last bundle of notes in her keeping. Well, there the facts were. She owed him now four thousand pounds. She had no money of her own, she was already overdrawn with her allowance. There was no chance of paying him. She realised, with a little shudder, that he did not want payment, a realisation which had come to her dimly from the first, but which she had pushed away simply because she had felt sure of winning. Now there was the price to be paid! She leaned further out of the window. Away to her left the glow over the mountains was becoming stained with the faintest of pinks. She looked at it long, with mute and critical appreciation. She swept with her eyes the line of violet shadows from the mountain-tops to the sea-board, where the pale lights of Bordighera still flickered. She looked up again from the dark blue sea to the paling stars. It was all wonderful—theatrical, perhaps, but wonderful—and how she hated it! She stood up before the window and with her clenched fists she beat against the sills. Those long days and feverish nights through which she had passed slowly unfolded themselves. In those few moments she seemed to taste again the dull pain of constant disappointment, the hectic thrills of occasional winnings, the strange, dull inertia which had taken the place of resignation. She looked into the street below. How long would she live afterwards, she wondered, if she threw herself down! She began even to realise the state of mind which breeds suicides, the brooding over a morrow too hateful to be faced.
As she still stood there, the silence of the street below was broken. A motor-car swung round the corner and swept past the side of the hotel. She caught at the curtain as she recognised its occupants. Richard Lane was driving, and by his side sat her husband. The car was covered with dust, both men seemed weary as though they had been out all night. She gazed after them with fast-beating heart. She had pictured her husband at the villa on the hill! Where had he been with Richard Lane? Perhaps, after all, the things which she had imagined were not true. The car had stopped now at the front door. It returned a moment later on its way to the garage, with only Lane driving. She opened her door and stood there silently. Hunterleys would have to pass the end of the corridor if he came up by the main lift. She waited with fast beating heart. The seconds passed. Then she heard the rattle of the lift ascending, its click as it stopped, and soon afterwards the footsteps of a man. He was coming—coming past the corner! At that moment she felt that the sound of his footsteps was like the beating of fate. They came nearer and she shrank a little back. There was something unfamiliar about them. Whoever it might be, it was not Henry! And then suddenly Draconmeyer came into sight. He saw her standing there and stopped short. Then he came rapidly near.
"Lady Hunterleys!" he exclaimed softly. "You still up?"
She hesitated. Then she stood on one side, still grasping the handle of the door.
"Do you want to come in?" she asked. "You may. I have something to say to you. Perhaps I shall sleep better if I say it now."
He stepped quickly past her.
"Close the door," he whispered cautiously.
She obeyed him deliberately.
"There is no hurry," she said. "This is my sitting-room. I receive whom I choose here."
"But it is nearly six o'clock!" he exclaimed.
"That does not affect me," she answered, shrugging her shoulders. "Sit down."
He obeyed. There was something changed about her, something which he did not recognise. She thrust her hands into a box of cigarettes, took one out and lit it. She leaned against the table, facing him.
"Listen," she continued, "I have borrowed from you three thousand pounds. You left with me to-night—I don't know whether you meant to lend it to me or whether I had it on trust, but you left it in my charge—another thousand pounds. I have lost it all—all, you understand—the four thousand pounds and every penny I have of my own."
He sat quite still. He was watching her through his gold-rimmed spectacles. There was the slightest possible frown upon his forehead. The time for talking of money as though it were a trifle had passed.
"That is a great deal," he said.
"It is a great deal," she admitted. "I owe it to you and I cannot pay. What are you going to do?"
He watched her eagerly. There was a new note in her voice. He paused to consider what it might mean. A single false step now and he might lose all that he had striven for.
"How am I to answer that?" he asked softly. "I will answer it first in the way that seems most natural. I will beg you to accept your losings as a little gift from me—as a proof, if you will, of my friendship."
He had saved the situation. If he had obeyed his first impulse, the affair would have been finished. He realised it as he watched her face, and he shuddered at the thought of his escape. His words obviously disturbed her.
"It is not possible for me," she protested, "to accept money from you."
"Not from Linda's husband?"
She threw her cigarette into the grate and stood looking at him.
"Do you offer it to me as Linda's husband?" she demanded.
It was a crisis for which Draconmeyer was scarcely prepared. He was driven out of his pusillanimous compromise. She was pressing him hard for the truth. Again the fear of losing her altogether terrified him.
"If I have other feelings of which I have not spoken," he said quietly, "have I not kept them to myself? Do I obtrude them upon you even now? I am content to wait."
"To wait for what?" she insisted.
All that had been in his mind seemed suddenly miraged before him—the removal of Hunterleys, his own wife's failing health. The way had seemed so clear only a little time ago, and now the clouds were back again.
"Until you appreciate the fact," he told her, "that you have no more sincere friend, that there is no one who values your happiness more than I do."
"Supposing I take this money from you," she asked, after a moment's pause. "Are there any conditions?"
"None whatever," he answered.
She turned away with a little sigh. The tragedy which a few minutes ago she had seen looming up, eluded her. She had courted a dénouement in vain. He was too clever.
"You are very generous," she said. "We will speak of this to-morrow. I called you in because I could not bear the uncertainty of it all. Please go now."
He rose slowly to his feet. She gave him her hand lifelessly. He kept it for a moment. She drew it away and looked at the place where his lips had touched it, wonderingly. It was as though her fingers had been scorched with fire.
"It shall be to-morrow," he whispered, as he passed out.
From the wilds of Scotland to Monte Carlo, as fast as motor-cars and train de luxe could bring him, came the right Honourable Meredith Simpson, a very distinguished member of His Majesty's Government. Hunterleys, advised of his coming by telegram from Marseilles, met him at the station, and together the two men made their way at once to Hunterleys' room across at the Hotel de Paris. Behind locked doors they spoke for the first time of important matters.
"It's a great find, this of yours, Hunterleys," the Minister acknowledged, "and it is corroborated, too, by what we know is happening around us. We have had all the warning in the world just lately. The Russian Ambassador is in St. Petersburg on leave of absence—in fact for the last six months he has been taking his duties remarkably lightly. Tell me how you first heard of the affair?"
"I got wind of it in Sofia," Hunterleys explained. "I travelled from there quite quietly, loitered about the Italian Riviera, and came on here as a tourist. The only help I could get hold of here was from Sidney Roche, who, as you know, is one of our Secret Service men. Roche, I am sorry to say, was shot last night. He may live but he won't be well enough to take any further hand in the game here, and I have no one to take his place."
"Roche shot!" Mr. Simpson exclaimed, in a shocked tone. "How did it happen?"
"They found him lying on the roof of the Villa Mimosa, just over the room where the meeting was taking place," Hunterleys replied. "They chased him round the grounds and we just got him off in a motor-car, but not before he'd been hit twice. He was just able to tell me a little. The first meeting was quite informal and very guarded. Douaille was most cautious—he was there only to listen. The second meeting was last night. Grex was in the chair, representing Russia."
"You mean the Grand Duke Augustus?" Mr. Simpson interrupted.
Hunterleys nodded.
"Grex is the name he is living under here. He explained Russia's position. Poor Roche was only able to falter a few words, but what he said was enough to give us the key-note to the whole thing. The long and short of it all is that Russia turned her face westward so long as Constantinople was possible. Now that this war has come about and ended as it has done, Russia's chance has gone. There is no longer anyquid pro quofor her alliance with France. There is no friendship, of course, between Russia and Germany, but at any rate Russia has nothing to fear from Germany, and she knows it. Grex is quite frank. They must look eastward, he said, and when he says eastward, he means Manchuria, China, Persia, even India. At the same time, Russia has a conscience, even though it be a diplomatic conscience. Hence this conference. She doesn't want France crushed. Germany has a proposition. It has been enunciated up to a certain point. She confers Alsace and Lorraine and possibly Egypt upon France, for her neutrality whilst she destroys the British Fleet. Or failing her neutrality, she wants her to place a weak army on the frontier, which can fall back without much loss before a German advance. Germany's objective then will be Calais and not Paris, and from there she will command the Straits and deal with the British Fleet at her leisure. Meanwhile, she will conclude peace with France on highly advantageous terms. Don't you see what it means, Simpson? The elementary part of the thing is as simple as A B C. Germany has nothing to gain from Russia, she has nothing to gain from France. England is the only country who can give her what she wants. That is about as far as they have got, up to now, but there is something further behind it all. That, Selingman is to tell them to-night."
"The most important point about the whole matter, so far as we are concerned," Mr. Simpson declared, "is Douaille's attitude. You have received no indication of that, I suppose?"
"None whatever," Hunterleys answered. "I thought of paying my respects, but after all, you know, I have no official standing, and personally we are almost strangers."
The Minister nodded.
"It's a difficult position," he confessed. "Have you copies of your reports to London?"
"I have copies of them, and full notes of everything that has transpired so far, in a strong box up at the bank," Hunterleys assented. "We can stroll up there after lunch and I will place all the documents in your hands. You can look them through then and decide what is best to be done."
The Minister rose to his feet.
"I shall go round to my rooms, change my clothes," he announced, "and meet you presently. We'll lunch across at Ciro's, eh? I didn't mean to come to Monte Carlo this year, but so long as I am here, I may as well make the best of it. You are not looking as though the change had done you much good, Hunterleys."
"The last few days," Hunterleys remarked, a little drily, "have not been exactly in the nature of a holiday."
"Are you here alone?"
"I came alone. I found my wife here by accident. She came through with the Draconmeyers. They were supposed to stay at Cannes, but altered their plans. Of course, Draconmeyer meant to come here all the time."
The Minister frowned.
"Draconmeyer's one man I should be glad to see out of London," he declared. "Under the pretext of fostering good-will, and that sort of thing, between the mercantile classes of our two countries, I think that that fellow has done about as much mischief as it is possible for any single man to have accomplished. We'll meet in an hour, Hunterleys. My man is putting out some things for me and I must have a bath."
Hunterleys walked up to the hospital, and to his surprise met Selingman coming away. The latter saluted him with a wave of the hat and a genial smile.
"Calling to see our poor invalid?" he enquired blandly.
Hunterleys, although he knew his man, was a little taken aback.
"What share in him do you claim?" he asked.
Selingman sighed.
"Alas!" he confessed, "I fear that my claim would sound a little cold-blooded. I think that I was the only man who held his gun straight. Yet, after all, Roche would be the last to bear me any grudge. He was playing the game, taking his risks. Uncommonly bad marksmen Grex's private police were, or he'd be in the morgue instead of the hospital."
"I gather that our friend is still alive?" Hunterleys remarked.
"Going on as well as could be expected," Selingman replied.
"Conscious?"
Selingman smiled.
"You see through my little visit of sympathy at once!" he exclaimed. "Unable to converse, I am assured, and unable to share with his friends any little information he may have picked up last night. By the way, whom shall you send to report our little conference to-night? You wouldn't care to come yourself, would you?"
"I should like to exceedingly," Hunterleys assured him, "if you'd give me a safe conduct."
Selingman withdrew his cigar from his mouth and laid his hand upon the other's shoulder.
"My dear friend," he said earnestly, "your safe conduct, if ever I signed it, would be to the other world. Frankly, we find you rather a nuisance. We would be better pleased if your Party were in office, and you with your knees tucked under a desk at Downing Street, attending to your official business in your official place. Who gave you this roving commission, eh? Who sent you to talk common sense to the Balkan States, and how the mischief did you get wind of our little meeting here?"
"Ah!" Hunterleys replied, "I expect you really know all these things."
Selingman, with his feet planted firmly upon the pavement, took a fresh cigar from his waistcoat pocket, bit off the end and lit it.
"My friend Hunterleys," he continued, "I am enjoying this brief interchange of confidences. Circumstances have made me, as you see, a politician, a schemer if you like. Nature meant me to be one of the frankest, the most truthful, the best-hearted of men. I detest the tortuous ways of the old diplomacy. The spoken word pleases me best. That is why I like a few minutes' conversation with the enemy, why I love to stand here and talk to you with the buttons off our foils. We are scheming against you and your country, and you know it, and we shall win. We can't help but win—if not to-day, to-morrow. Your country has had a marvellously long run of good luck, but it can't last for ever."
Hunterleys smiled.
"Well," he observed, "there's nothing like confidence. If you are so sure of success, why couldn't you choose a cleaner way to it than by tampering with our ally?"
Selingman patted his companion on the shoulder.
"Listen, my friend," he said, "there are no such things as allies. An alliance between two countries is a dead letter so soon as their interests cease to be identical. Now Austria is our ally because she is practically Germany. We are both mid-Continental Powers. We both need the same protection. But England and France! Go back only fifty years, my dear Hunterleys, and ask yourself—would any living person, living now and alive then, believe in the lasting nature of such an unnatural alliance? Wherever you look, in every quarter of the globe, your interests are opposed. You robbed France of Egypt. She can't have wholly forgotten. You dominate the Mediterranean through Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus. What does she think of that, I wonder? Isn't a humiliation for her when she does stop to think of it? You've a thousand years of quarrels, of fighting and rapine behind you. You can't call yourselves allies because the thing isn't natural. It never could be. It was only your mutual, hysterical fear of Germany which drove you into one another's arms. We fought France once to prove ourselves, and for money. Just now we don't want either money or territory from France. Perhaps we don't even want, my dear Englishman, what you think we want, but all the same, don't blame us for trying to dissolve an unnatural alliance. Was that Simpson who came by the Luxe this morning?"
"It was," Hunterleys admitted.
"The Right Honourable John William Meredith Simpson!" Selingman recited, waving his cigar. "Well, well, we certainly have made a stir with our little meetings here. An inspired English Cabinet Minister, travel-stained and dusty, arrives with his valet and a black dispatch-box, to foil our schemes. Send him along, my friend. We are not at all afraid of Mr. Simpson. Perhaps we may even ask him to join us this evening."
"I fancy," Hunterleys remarked grimly, "that the Englishman who joins you this evening will find a home up on the hill here."
"Or down in the morgue there," Selingman grunted, pointing down to Monaco. "Take care, Hunterleys—take care, man. One of us hates you. It isn't I. You are fighting a brave fight and a losing fight, but you are good metal. Try and remember, when you find that you are beaten, that life has many consolations for the philosopher."
He passed on and Hunterleys entered the hospital. Whilst he was waiting in the little reception-room, Felicia came in. Her face showed signs of her night's anxiety.
"Sidney is still unconscious," she announced, her voice shaking a little. "The doctors seem hopeful—but oh! Sir Henry, it is terrible to see him lying there just as though he were dead!"
"Sidney will pull through all right," Hunterleys declared, encouragingly. "He has a wonderful constitution and he is the luckiest fellow born. He always gets out of trouble, somehow or other."
She came slowly up to him.
"Sir Henry," she said piteously, "I know quite well that Sidney was willing to take his risks. He went into this thing, knowing it was dangerous. I want to be brave. What happens must be. But listen. You won't—you won't rob me of everything in life, will you? You won't send David after him?"
Hunterleys smiled reassuringly.
"I can promise you that," he told her. "This isn't David's job at all. He has to stick to his post and help out the bluff as a press correspondent. Don't be afraid, Felicia. You shall have your David."
She seized his hand and kissed it.
"You have been so kind to me always, Sir Henry," she sighed. "I can't tell you how thankful I am to think that you don't want David to go and run these horrible risks."
"No fear of that, I promise you," he assured her once more. "David will be busy enough pulling the strings another way."
The doctor entered the room and shook hands with Hunterleys. There was no news, he declared, nothing to be done. The patient must continue in his present condition for several more hours at least. The symptoms were, in their way, favourable. Beyond that, nothing could be said. Felicia and Hunterleys left the hospital together.
"I wonder," she began, as they turned out of the white gates, "whether you would mind very much if I told you something?"
"Of course not!"
"Yesterday," she continued slowly, "I met Lady Hunterleys. You know, I have seen her twice when I have been to your house to sing for your guests. She recognised me, I feel sure, but she didn't seem to want to see me. She looked surprised when I bowed. I worried about it at first and then I wondered. You are so very, very secretive just now. Whatever this affair may be in which you three are all concerned, you never open your lips about it. Lady Hunterleys probably doesn't know that you have had to come up to the villa at all hours of the night just to see Sidney. You don't suppose that by any chance she imagined—that you came to see me?"
Hunterleys was struck by the thought. He remembered several chance remarks of his wife. He remembered, too, the coincidence of his recent visits to the villa having prevented him in each case from acceding to some request of Violet's.
"I am glad you've mentioned this, child," he said frankly. "Now I come to think of it, my wife certainly did know that I came up to the villa very late one night, and she seemed upset about it. Of course, she hasn't the faintest idea about your brother."
"Well," Felicia declared, with a sigh of relief, "I felt that I had to tell you. It sounded horribly conceited, in a way, but then she wouldn't know that you came to see Sidney, or that I was engaged to David. Misunderstandings do come about so easily, you know, sometimes."
"This one shall be put right, at any rate," he promised her. "Now, if you will take my advice, you will go home and lie down until the evening. You are going to sing again, aren't you?"
"If there is no change," she replied. "I know that he would like me to. You haven't minded—what I've said?"
"Not a bit, child," he assured her; "in fact I think it was very good of you. Now I'll put you in this carriage and send you home. Think of nothing except that Sidney is getting better every hour, and sing to-night as though your voice could reach his bedside. Au revoir!"
He waved his hand to her as she drove off, and returned to the Hotel de Paris. He found a refreshed and rejuvenated Simpson smoking a cigarette upon the steps.
"To lunch!" the latter exclaimed. "Afterwards I will tell you my plans."
Hunterleys leaned suddenly forward across the little round table.
"The question of whether or no you shall pay your respects to Monsieur Douaille," he remarked, "is solved. Unless I am very much mistaken, we are going to have an exceedingly interesting luncheon-party on our right."
"Monsieur Douaille——" Mr. Simpson began, a little eagerly.
"And the others," Hunterleys interrupted. "Don't look around for a moment. This is almost historical."
Monsieur Ciro himself, bowing and smiling, was ushering a party of guests to a round table upon the terrace, in the immediate vicinity of the two men. Mr. Grex, with his daughter and Lady Hunterleys on one side and Monsieur Douaille on the other, were in the van. Draconmeyer followed with Lady Weybourne, and Selingman brought up the rear with the Comtesse d'Hausson, one of the most prominent leaders of the French colony in Monte Carlo, and a connection by marriage of Monsieur Douaille.
"A luncheon-party for Douaille," Hunterleys murmured, as he bowed, to his wife and exchanged greetings with some of the others. "I wonder what they think of their neighbours! A little embarrassing for the chief guest, I am afraid."
"I see your wife is in the enemy's camp," his companion observed. "Draconmeyer is coming to speak to me. This promises to be interesting."
Draconmeyer and Selingman both came over to greet the English Minister. Selingman's blue eyes were twinkling with humour, his smile was broad and irresistible.
"This should send funds up in every capital of Europe," he declared, as he shook hands. "When Mr. Meredith Simpson takes a holiday, then the political barometer points to 'set fair'!"
"A tribute to my conscientiousness," the Minister replied, smiling. "I am glad to see that I am not the only hard-worked statesman who feels able to take a few days' holiday."
Selingman glanced at the round table and beamed.
"It is true," he admitted. "Every country seems to have sent its statesmen holiday-making. And what a playground, too!" he added, glancing towards Hunterleys with something which was almost a wink. "Here, political crises seem of little account by the side of the turning wheel. This is where the world unbends and it is well that there should be such a place. Shall we see you at the Club or in the rooms later?"
"Without a doubt," Mr. Simpson assented. "For what else does one live in Monte Carlo?"
"How did you leave things in town?" Mr. Draconmeyer enquired.
"So-so!" the Minister answered. "A little flat, but then it is a dull season of the year."
"Markets about the same, I suppose?" Mr. Draconmeyer asked.
"I am afraid," Mr. Simpson confessed, "that I only study the city column from the point of view of what Herr Selingman has just called the political barometer. Things were a little unsteady when I left. Consols fell several points yesterday."
Mr. Draconmeyer frowned.
"It is incomprehensible," he declared. "A few months ago there was real danger, one is forced to believe, of a European war. To-day the crisis is passed, yet the money-markets which bore up so well through the critical period seem now all the time on the point of collapse. It is hard for a banker to know how to operate these days. I wish you gentlemen in Downing Street, Mr. Simpson, would make it easier for us."
Mr. Simpson shrugged his shoulders.
"The real truth of the matter is," he said, "that you allow your money-market to become too sensitive an affair. A whisper will depress it. A threatening word spoken in the Reichstag or in the House of Parliament, magnified a hundred-fold before it reaches its destination, has sometimes a most unwarranted effect upon markets. You mustn't blame us so much, Mr. Draconmeyer. You jump at conclusions too easily in the city."
"Sound common sense," Mr. Draconmeyer agreed. "You are perfectly right when you say that we are over-sensitive. The banker deplores it as much as the politician. It's the money-kings, I suppose, who find it profitable."
They returned to their table a moment later. As he passed Douaille, Selingman whispered in his ear. Monsieur Douaille turned around at once and bowed to Simpson. As he caught the latter's eye he, too, left his place and came across. Mr. Simpson rose to his feet. The two men bowed formally before shaking hands.
"Monsieur Simpson," the Frenchman exclaimed, "it is a pleasure to find that I am remembered!"
"Without a doubt, monsieur," was the prompt reply. "Your last visit to London, on the occasion when we had the pleasure of entertaining you at the Guildhall, is too recent, and was too memorable an event altogether for us to have forgotten. Permit me to assure you that your speech on that occasion was one which no patriotic Englishman is likely to forget."
Monsieur Douaille inclined his head in thanks. His manner was not altogether free from embarrassment.
"I trust that you are enjoying your holiday here?" he asked.
"I have only this moment arrived," Mr. Simpson explained. "I am looking forward to a few days' rest immensely. I trust that I shall have the pleasure of seeing something of you, Monsieur Douaille. A little conversation would be most agreeable."
"In Monte Carlo one meets one's friends all the time," Monsieur Douaille replied. "I lunch to-day with my friend—our mutual friend, without a doubt—who calls himself here Mr. Grex."
Mr. Simpson nodded.
"If it is permitted," he suggested, "I should like to do myself the honour of paying my respects to you."
Monsieur Douaille was flattered.
"My stay here is short," he regretted, "but your visit will be most acceptable. I am at the Riviera Palace Hotel."
"It is one of my theories," Mr. Simpson remarked, "that politicians are at a serious disadvantage compared with business men, inasmuch as, with important affairs under their control, they have few opportunities of meeting those with whom they have dealings. It would be a great pleasure to me to discuss one or two matters with you."
Monsieur Douaille departed, with a few charming words of assent. Simpson looked after him with kindling eyes.
"This," he murmured, leaning across the table, "is a most extraordinary meeting. There they sit, those very men whom you suspect of this devilish scheme, within a few feet of us! Positively thrilling, Hunterleys!"
Hunterleys, too, seemed to feel the stimulating effect of a situation so dramatic. As the meal progressed, he drew his chair a little closer to the table and leaned over towards his companion.
"I think," he said, "that we shall both of us remember the coincidence of this meeting as long as we live. At that luncheon-table, within a few yards of us, sits Russia, the new Russia, raising his head after a thousand years' sleep, watching the times, weighing them, realising his own immeasurable strength, pointing his inevitable finger along the road which the Russia of to-morrow must tread. There isn't a man in that great country so much to be feared to-day, from our point of view, as the Grand Duke Augustus. And look, too, at the same table, within a few feet, Simpson, of you and of me—Selingman, Selingman who represents the real Germany; not the war party alone, intoxicated with the clash of arms, filled with bombastic desires for German triumphs on sea and land, ever ready to spout in flowery and grandiloquent phrases the glory of Germany and the Heaven-sent genius of her leaders. I tell you, Simpson, Selingman is a more dangerous man than that. He sits with folded arms, in realms of thought above these people. He sits with a map of the world before him, and he places his finger upon the inevitable spots which Germany must possess to keep time with the march of the world, to find new homes for her overflowing millions. He has no military fervour, no tinselly patriotism. He knows what Germany needs and he will carve her way towards it. Look at him with his napkin tucked under his chin, broad-visaged, podgy, a slave, you might think, to the joys of the table and the grosser things of life. You should see his eyes sometimes when the right note is struck, watch his mouth when he sits and thinks. He uses words for an ambush and a barricade. He talks often like a gay fool, a flood of empty verbiage streams from his lips, and behind, all the time his brain works."
"You seem to have studied these people, Hunterleys," Simpson remarked appreciatively.
Hunterleys smiled as he continued his luncheon.
"Forgive me if I was a little prolix," he said, "but, after all, what would you have? I am out of office but I remain a servant of my country. My interest is just as keen as though I were in a responsible position."
"You are well out of it," Simpson sighed. "If half what you suspect is true, it's the worst fix we've been in for some time."
"I am afraid there isn't any doubt about it," Hunterleys declared. "Of course, we've been at a fearful disadvantage. Roche was the only man out here upon whom I could rely. Now they've accounted for him, we've scarcely a chance of getting at the truth."
Mr. Simpson was gloomily silent for some moments. He was thinking of the time when he had struck his pencil through a recent Secret Service estimate.
"Anyhow," Hunterleys went on, "it will be all over in twenty-four hours. Something will be decided upon—what, I am afraid there is very little chance of our getting to know. These men will separate—Grex to St. Petersburg, Selingman to Berlin, Douaille to Paris. Then I think we shall begin to hear the mutterings of the storm."
"I think," Mr. Simpson intervened, his eyes fixed upon an approaching figure, "that there is a young lady talking to the maître d'hôtel, who is trying to attract your attention."
Hunterleys turned around in his chair. It was Felicia who was making her way towards him. He rose at once to his feet. There was a little murmur of interest amongst the lunchers as she threaded her way past the tables. It was not often that an English singer in opera had met with so great a success. Lady Hunterleys, recognising her as she passed, paused in the middle of a sentence. Her face hardened. Hunterleys had risen from his place and was watching Felicia's approach anxiously.
"Is there any news of Sidney?" he asked quickly, as he took her hand.
"Nothing fresh," she answered in a low voice. "I have brought you a message—from some one else."
He held his chair for her but she shook her head.
"I mustn't stay," she continued. "This is what I wanted to tell you. As I was crossing the square just now, I recognised the man Frenhofer, from the Villa Mimosa. Directly he saw me he came across the road. He was looking for one of us. He dared not come to the villa, he declares, for fear of being watched. He has something to tell you."
"Where can I find him?" Hunterleys asked.
"He has gone to a little bar in the Rue de Chaussures, the Bar de Montmartre it is called. He is waiting there for you now."
"You must stay and have some lunch," Hunterleys begged. "I will come back."
She shook her head.
"I have just been across to the Opera House," she explained, "to enquire about some properties for to-night. I have had all the lunch I want and I am on my way to the hospital now again. I came here on the chance of finding you. They told me at the Hotel de Paris that you were lunching out."
Hunterleys turned and whispered to Simpson.
"This is very important," he said. "It concerns the affair in which we are interested. Linger over your coffee and I will return."
Mr. Simpson nodded and Hunterleys left the restaurant with Felicia. His wife, at whom he glanced for a moment, kept her head averted. She was whispering in the ear of the gallant Monsieur Douaille. Selingman, catching Draconmeyer's eye, winked at him solemnly.
"You have all the luck, my silent friend," he murmured.
The Bar de Montmartre was many steps under the level of the street, dark, smelly, and dilapidated. Its only occupants were a handful of drivers from the carriage-stand opposite, who stared at Hunterleys in amazement as he entered, and then rushed forward, almost in a body, to offer their services. The man behind the bar, however, who had evidently been forewarned, intervened with a few sharp words, and, lifting the flap of the counter, ushered Hunterleys into a little room beyond. Frenhofer was engaged there in amiable badinage with a young lady who promptly disappeared at Hunterleys' entrance. Frenhofer bowed respectfully.
"I must apologise," he said, "for bringing monsieur to such a place. It is near the end now, and with Monsieur Roche in the hospital I ventured to address myself to monsieur direct. Here I have the right to enter. I make my suit to the daughter of the proprietor in order to have a safe rendezvous when necessary. It is well that monsieur has come quickly. I have tidings. I can disclose to monsieur the meeting-place for to-night. If monsieur has fortune and the wit to make use of it, the opportunity I shall give him is a great one. But pardon me. Before we talk business we must order something."
He touched the bell. The proprietor himself thrust in his head, bullet-shaped, with black moustache and unshaven chin. He wore no collar, and the remainder of his apparel was negligible.
"A bottle of your best brandy," Frenhofer ordered. "The best, mind, Père Hanaut."
The man's acquiescence was as amiable as nature would permit.
"Monsieur will excuse me," Frenhofer went on, as the door was once more closed, "but these people have their little ways. To sell a whole bottle of brandy at five times its value, is to Monsieur le Propriétaire more agreeable than to offer him rent for the hire of his room. He is outside all the things in which we are concerned. He believes—pardon me, monsieur—that we are engaged in a little smuggling transaction. Monsieur Roche and I have used this place frequently."
"He can believe what he likes," Hunterleys replied, "so long as he keeps his mouth shut."
The brandy was brought—and three glasses. Frenhofer promptly took the hint and, filling one to the brim, held it out to the landlord.
"You will drink our health, Père Hanaut—my health and the health of monsieur here, and the health of the fair Annette. Incidentally, you will drink also to the success of the little scheme which monsieur and I are planning."
"In such brandy," the proprietor declared hoarsely, "I would drink to the devil himself!"
He threw back his head and the contents of his glass vanished. He set it down with a little smack of the lips. Once more he looked at the bottle. Frenhofer filled up his glass, but motioned to the door with his head.
"You will excuse us, dear friend," he begged, laying his hand persuasively upon the other's shoulder. "Monsieur and I have little enough of time."
The landlord withdrew. Frenhofer walked around the little apartment. Their privacy was certainly assured.
"Monsieur," he announced, turning to Hunterleys, "there has been a great discussion as to the next meeting-place between our friends—the next, which will be also the last. They are safe enough in reality at the villa, but Monsieur Douaille is nervous. The affair of last night terrified him. The reason for these things I, of course, know nothing of, but it seems that Monsieur Douaille is very anxious indeed to keep his association with my august master and Herr Selingman as secret as possible. He has declined most positively to set foot again within the Villa Mimosa. Many plans have been suggested. This is the one adopted. For some weeks a German down in Monaco, a shipping agent, has had a yacht in the harbour for hire. He has approached Mr. Grex several times, not knowing his identity; ignorant, indeed, of the fact that the Grand Duke himself possesses one of the finest yachts afloat. However, that is nothing. Mr. Grex thought suddenly of the yacht. He suggested it to the others. They were enthusiastic. The yacht is to be hired for a week, or longer if necessary, and used only to-night. Behold the wonderful good-fortune of the affair! It is I who have been selected by my master to proceed to Monaco to make arrangements with the German, Herr Schwann. I am on my way there at the moment."
"A yacht?" Hunterleys repeated.
"There are wonderful things to be thought of," Frenhofer asserted eagerly. "Consider, monsieur! The yacht of this man Schwann has never been seen by my master. Consider, too, that aboard her there must be a dozen hiding-places. The crew has been brought together from anywhere. They can be bought to a man. There is only one point, monsieur, which should be arranged before I enter upon this last and, for me, most troublesome and dangerous enterprise."
"And that?" Hunterleys enquired.
"My own position," Frenhofer declared solemnly. "I am not greedy or covetous. My ambitions have long been fixed. To serve an Imperial Russian nobleman has been no pleasure for me. St. Petersburg has been a prison. I have been moved to the right or to the left as a machine. It is as a machine only I have lived. Always I have longed for Paris. So month by month I have saved. After to-night I must leave my master's employ. The risk will be too great if monsieur indeed accepts my proposition and carries it out. I need but a matter of ten thousand francs to complete my savings."
The man's white face shone eagerly in the dim light of the gloomy little apartment. His eyes glittered. He waited almost breathlessly.
"Frenhofer," Hunterleys said slowly, "so far as I have been concerned indirectly in these negotiations with you, my instructions to my agent have been simple and definite. We have never haggled. Your name was known to me eight years ago, when you served us in St. Petersburg and served us well. You have done the same thing now and you have behaved with rare intelligence. Within the course of an hour I shall transfer ten thousand francs to the account of François Frenhofer at the English Bank here."
The eyes of the man seemed suddenly like pinpricks of fire.
"Monsieur is a prince," he murmured. "And now for the further details. If monsieur would run the risk, I would suggest that he accompanies me to the office of this man Schwann."
Hunterleys made no immediate reply. He was walking up and down the narrow apartment. A brilliant idea had taken possession of him. The more he thought of it, the more feasible it became.
"Frenhofer," he said at last, "I have a scheme of my own. You are sure that Mr. Grex has never seen this yacht?"
"He has never set eyes upon it, monsieur, save to try and single it out with his field-glasses from the balcony of the villa."
"And he is to board it to-night?"
"At ten o'clock to-night, monsieur, it is to lie off the Villa Mimosa. A pinnace is to fetch Mr. Grex and his friends on board from the private landing-stage of the Villa Mimosa."
Hunterleys nodded thoughtfully.
"Frenhofer," he explained, "my scheme is this. A friend of mine has a yacht in the harbour. I believe that he would lend it to me. Why should we not substitute it for the yacht your master imagines that he is hiring? If so, all difficulties as to placing whom I desire on board and secreting them are over."
"It is a great scheme," Frenhofer assented, "but supposing my master should choose to telephone some small detail to the office of the man Schwann?"
"You must hire the yacht of Schwann, just as you were instructed," Hunterleys pointed out. "You must give orders, though, that it is not to leave the harbour until telephoned for. Then it will be the yacht which I shall borrow which will lie off the Villa Mimosa to-night."
"It is admirable," Frenhofer declared. "The more one thinks of it, the more one appreciates. This yacht of Schwann's—theChristable, he calls it—was fitted out by a millionaire. My master will be surprised at nothing in the way of luxury."
"Tell me again," Hunterleys asked, "at what hour is it to be off the Villa Mimosa?"
"At ten o'clock," Frenhofer replied. "A pinnace is to be at the landing-stage of the villa at that time. Mr. Grex, Monsieur Douaille, Herr Selingman, and Mr. Draconmeyer will come on board."
"Very good! Now go on your errand to the man Schwann. You had better meet me here later in the afternoon—say at four o'clock—and let me know that all is in order. I will bring you some particulars about my friend's boat, so that you will know how to answer any questions your master may put to you."
"It is admirable," Frenhofer repeated enthusiastically. "Monsieur had better, perhaps, precede me."
Hunterleys walked through the streets back to Ciro's Restaurant, filled with a new exhilaration. His eyes were bright, his brain was working all the time. The luncheon-party at the next table were still in the midst of their meal. Mr. Simpson was smoking a meditative cigarette with his coffee. Hunterleys resumed his place and ordered coffee for himself.
"I have been to see a poor friend who met with an accident last night," he announced, speaking as clearly as possible. "I fear that he is very ill. That was his sister who fetched me away."
Mr. Simpson nodded sympathetically. Their conversation for a few minutes was desultory. Then Hunterleys asked for the bill and rose.
"I will take you round to the Club and get yourcarte," he suggested. "Afterwards, we can spend the afternoon as you choose."
The two men strolled out of the place. It was not until after they had left the arcade and were actually in the street, that Hunterleys gripped his companion's arm.
"Simpson," he declared, "the fates have been kind to us. Douaille has a fit of the nerves. He will go no more to the Villa Mimosa. Seeking about for the safest meeting-place, Grex has given us a chance. The only one of his servants who belongs to us is commissioned to hire a yacht on which they meet to-night."
"A yacht," Mr. Simpson replied, emptily.
"I have a friend," Hunterleys continued, "an American. I am convinced that he will lend me his yacht, which is lying in the harbour here. We are going to try and exchange. If we succeed, I shall have the run of the boat. The crew will be at our command, and I shall get to that conference myself, somehow or other."
Mr. Simpson felt himself left behind. He could only stare at his companion.
"Tell me, Sir Henry," he begged, almost pathetically, "have I walked into an artificial world? Do you mean to tell me seriously that you, a Member of Parliament, an ex-Minister, are engaged upon a scheme to get the Grand Duke Augustus and Douaille and Selingman on board a yacht, and that you are going to be there, concealed, turned into a spy? I can't keep up with it. As fiction it seems to me to be in the clouds. As truth, why, my understanding turns and mocks me. You are talking fairy-tales."
Hunterleys smiled tolerantly.
"The man in the street knows very little of the real happenings in life," he pronounced. "The truth has a queer way sometimes of spreading itself out into the realms of fiction. Come across here with me to the hotel. I have got to move heaven and earth to find my friend."
"Do with me as you like," Mr. Simpson sighed resignedly. "In a plain political discussion, or an argument with Monsieur Douaille—well, I am ready to bear my part. But this sort of thing lifts me off my feet. I can only trot along at your heels."
They entered the Hotel de Paris. Hunterleys made a few breathless enquiries. Nothing, alas! was known of Mr. Richard Lane. He came back, frowning, to the steps of the hotel.
"If he is up playing golf at La Turbie," Hunterleys muttered, "we shall barely have time."
A reception clerk tapped him on the shoulder. He turned abruptly around.
"I have just made an enquiry of the floor waiter," the clerk announced. "He believes that Mr. Lane is still in his room."
Hunterleys thanked the man and hurried to the lift. In a few moments he was knocking at the door of Lane's rooms. His heart gave a great jump as a familiar voice bade him enter. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Richard, in light blue pyjamas, sat up in bed and looked at his visitor with a huge yawn.
"Say, old chap, are you in a hurry or anything?" he demanded.
"Do you know the time?" Hunterleys asked.
"No idea," the other replied. "The valet called me at eight. I told him I'd shoot him if he disturbed me again."
"It's nearly three o'clock!" Hunterleys declared impressively.
"Can't help it," Richard yawned, throwing off the bed-clothes and sitting on the edge of the bed. "I am young and delicate and I need my rest. Seriously, Hunterleys," he added, "you take a chap out and make him drive you at sixty miles an hour all through the night, you keep him at it till nearly six in the morning, and you seem to think it a tragedy to find him in bed at three o'clock in the afternoon. Hang it, I've only had eight hours' sleep!"
"I don't care how long you've had," Hunterleys rejoined. "I am only too thankful to find you. Now listen. Is your brain working? Can you talk seriously?"
"I guess so."
"You remember our talk last night?"
"Every word of it."
"The time has come," Hunterleys continued,—"your time, I mean. You said that if you could take a hand, you'd do it. I am here to beg for your help."
"You needn't waste your breath doing that," Richard answered firmly. "I'm your man. Go on."
"Listen," Hunterleys proceeded. "Is your yacht in commission?"
"Ready to sail at ten minutes' notice," the young man assured him emphatically, "victualled and coaled to the eyelids. To tell you the truth, I have some idea of abducting Fedora to-day or to-morrow."
"You'll have to postpone that," Hunterleys told him. "I want to borrow the yacht."
"She's yours," Richard assented promptly. "I'll give you a note to the captain."
"Look here, I want you to understand this clearly," Hunterleys went on. "If you lend me theMinnehaha, well, you commit yourself a bit. You see, it's like this. I've one man of my own in Grex's household. He came to me this morning. Monsieur Douaille objects to cross again the threshold of the Villa Mimosa. He fears the English newspapers. There has been a long discussion as to the next meeting-place. Grex suggested a yacht. To that they all agreed. There is a man named Schwann down in Monaco has a yacht for hire. Mr. Grex knows about it and he has sent the man I spoke of into Monaco this afternoon to hire it. They are all going to embark at ten o'clock to-night. They are going to hold their meeting in the cabin."
Lane whistled softly. He was wide awake now.
"Go on," he murmured. "Go on. Say, this is great!"
"I want," Hunterleys explained, "your yacht to take the place of the other. I want it to be off the Villa Mimosa at ten o'clock to-night, your pinnace to be at the landing-stage of the villa to bring Mr. Grex and his friends on board. I want you to haul down your American flag, keep your American sailors out of sight, cover up the Stars and Stripes in your cabin, have only your foreign stewards on show. Schwann's yacht is a costly one. No one will know the difference. You must get up now and show me over the boat. I have to scheme, somehow or other, how we can hide ourselves on it so that I can overhear the end of this plot."
The face of Richard Lane was like the face of an ingenuous boy who sees suddenly a Paradise of sport stretched out before him. His mouth was open, his eyes gleaming.
"Gee, but this is glorious!" he exclaimed. "I'm with you all the way. Why, it's wonderful, man! It's a chapter from the Arabian Nights over again!"
He leapt to his feet and rang the bell furiously. Then he rushed to the telephone.
"Blue serge clothes," he ordered the valet. "Get my bath ready."
"Any breakfast, monsieur?"
"Oh, breakfast be hanged! No, wait a moment. Get me some coffee and a roll. I'll take it while I dress. Hurry up!... Yes, is that the enquiry office? This is Mr. Lane. Send round to my chauffeur at the garage at once and tell him that I want the car at the door in a quarter of an hour. Righto! ... Sit down, Hunterleys. Smoke or do whatever you want to. We'll be off to the yacht in no time."
Hunterleys clapped the young giant on the shoulders as he rushed through to the bathroom.
"You're a brick, Richard," he declared. "I'll wait for you down in the hall. I've a pal there."
"I'll be down in twenty minutes or earlier," Lane promised. "What a lark!"
The breaking up of Mr. Grex's luncheon-party was the signal for a certain amount of man[oe]uvring on the part of one or two of his guests. Monsieur Douaille, for instance, was anxious to remain the escort of Lady Hunterleys, whose plans for the afternoon he had ascertained were unformed. Mr. Grex was anxious to keep apart his daughter and Lady Weybourne, whose relationship to Richard Lane he had only just apprehended; while he himself desired a little quiet conversation with Monsieur Douaille before they paid the visit which had been arranged for to the Club and the Casino. In the end, Mr. Grex was both successful and unsuccessful. He carried off Monsieur Douaille for a short ride in his automobile, but was forced to leave his daughter and Lady Weybourne alone. Draconmeyer, who had been awaiting his opportunity, remained by Lady Hunterleys' side.
"I wonder," he asked, "whether you would step in for a few minutes and see Linda?"
She had been looking at the table where her husband and his companion had been seated. Draconmeyer's voice seemed to bring her back to a present not altogether agreeable.
"I am going back to my room for a little time," she replied. "I will call in and see Linda first, if you like."
They left the restaurant together and strolled across the Square to the Hotel de Paris, ascended in the lift, and made their way to Draconmeyer's suite of rooms in a silence which was almost unbroken. When they entered the large salon with its French-windows and balcony, they found the apartment deserted. Violet looked questioningly at her companion. He closed the door behind him and nodded.
"Yes," he admitted, "my message was a subterfuge. I have sent Linda over to Mentone with her nurse. She will not be back until late in the afternoon. This is the opportunity for which I have been waiting."
She showed no signs of anger or, indeed, disturbance of any sort. She laid her tiny white silk parasol upon the table and glanced at him coolly.
"Well," she said, "you have your way, then. I am here."
Draconmeyer looked at her long and anxiously. Skilled though he was in physiognomy, closely though he had watched, for many months, the lights and shades, the emotional changes in her expression, he was yet, at that moment, completely puzzled. She was not angry. Her attitude seemed to be, in a sense, passive. Yet what did passivity mean? Was it resignation, consent, or was it simply the armour of normal resistance in which she had clothed herself? Was he wise, after all, to risk everything? Then, as he looked at her, as he realised her close and wonderful presence, he suddenly told himself that it was worth while risking even Heaven in the future for the joy of holding her for once in his arms. She had never seemed to him so maddeningly beautiful as at that moment. It was one of the hottest days of the season and she was wearing a gown of white muslin, curiously simple, enhancing, somehow or other, her fascinating slimness, a slimness which had nothing to do with angularity but possessed its own soft and graceful curves. Her eyes were bluer even than her turquoise brooch or the gentians in her hat. And while his heart was aching and throbbing with doubts and hopes, she suddenly smiled at him.
"I am going to sit down," she announced carelessly. "Please say to me just what is in your mind, without reserve. It will be better."
She threw herself into a low chair near the window. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes, for some reason, were fixed upon her wedding ring. Swift to notice even her slightest action, he frowned as he discerned the direction of her gaze.
"Violet," he said, "I think that you are right. I think that the time has come when I must tell you what is in my mind."
She raised her eyebrows slightly at the sound of her Christian name. He moved over and stood by her chair.
"For a good many years," he began slowly, "I have been a man with a purpose. When it first came into my mind—not willingly—its accomplishment seemed utterly hopeless. Still, it was there. Strong man though I am, I could not root it out. I waited. There was nothing else to do but wait. From that moment my life was divided. My whole-soul devotion to worldly affairs was severed. I had one dream that was more wonderful to me, even, than complete success in the great undertaking which brought me to London. That dream was connected with you, Violet."
She moved a little uneasily, as though the repetition of her Christian name grated. This time, however, he was rapt in his subject.
"I won't make excuses," he went on. "You know what Linda is—what she has been for ten years. I have tried to be kind to her. As to love, I never had any. Ours was an alliance between two great monied families, arranged for us, acquiesced in by both of us as a matter of course. It seemed to me in those days the most natural and satisfactory form of marriage. I looked upon myself as others have thought me—a cold, bloodless man of figures and ambition. It is you who have taught me that I have as much sentiment and more than other men, a heart and desires which have made life sometimes hell and sometimes paradise. For two years I have struggled. Life with me has been a sort of passionate compromise. For the joy of seeing you sometimes, of listening to you and watching you, I have borne the agony of having you leave me to take your place with another man. You don't quite know what that meant, and I am not going to tell you, but always I have hoped and hoped."
"And now," she said, looking at him, "I owe you four thousand pounds and you think, perhaps, that your time has come to speak?"
He shivered as though she had struck him a blow.
"You think," he exclaimed, "that I am a man of pounds, shillings, and pence! Is it my fault that you owe me money?"
He snatched her cheques from his inner pocket and ripped them in pieces, lit a match and watched them while they smouldered away. She, too, watched with emotionless face.
"Do you think that I want to buy you?" he demanded. "There! You are free from your money claims. You can leave my room this moment, if you will, and owe me nothing."
She made no movement, yet he was vaguely disturbed by a sense of having made but little progress, a terrible sense of impending failure. His fingers began to tremble, his face was the face of a man stretched upon the rack.
"Perhaps those words of mine were false," he went on. "Perhaps, in a sense, I do want to buy you, buy the little kindnesses that go with affection, buy your kind words, the touch sometimes of your fingers, the pleasant sense of companionship I feel when I am with you. I know how proud you are. I know how virtuous you are. I know that it's there in your blood, the Puritan instinct, the craving for the one man to whom you have given yourself, the involuntary shrinking from the touch of any other. Good women are like that—wives or mistresses. Mind, in a sense it's narrow; in a sense it's splendid. Listen to me. I don't want to declare war against that instinct—yet. I can't. Perhaps, even now, I have spoken too soon, craved too soon for the little I do ask. Yet God knows I can keep the seal upon my lips no longer! Don't let us misunderstand one another for the sake of using plain words. I am not asking you to be my mistress. I ask you, on my knees, to take from me what makes life brighter for you. I ask you for the other things only—for your confidence, for your affection, your companionship. I ask to see you every day that it is possible, to know that you are wearing my gifts, surrounded by my flowers, the rough places in your life made smooth by my efforts. I am your suppliant, Violet. I ask only for the crumbs that fall from your table, so long as no other man sits by your side. Violet, can't you give me as much as this?"
His hand, hot and trembling, sought hers, touched and gripped it. She drew her fingers away. It was curious how in those few moments she seemed to be gifted with an immense clear-sightedness. She knew very well that nothing about the man was honest save the passion of which he did not speak. She rose to her feet.
"Well," she said, "I have listened to you very patiently. If I owe you any excuse for having appeared to encourage any one of those thoughts of which you speak, here it is. I am like thousands of other women. I absolutely don't know until the time comes what sort of a creature I am, how I shall be moved to act under certain circumstances. I tried to think last night. I couldn't. I felt that I had gone half-way. I had taken your money. I had taken it, too, understanding what it means to be in a man's debt. And still I waited. And now I know. I won't even question your sincerity. I won't even suggest that you would not be content with what you ask for—"
"I have sworn it!" he interrupted hoarsely. "To be your favoured friend, to be allowed near you—your guardian, if you will—"
The words failed him. Something in her face checked his eloquence.
"I can tell you this now and for always," she continued. "I have nothing to give you. What you ask for is just as impossible as though you were to walk in your picture gallery and kneel before your great masterpiece and beg Beatrice herself to step down from the canvas. I began to wonder yesterday," she went on, rising abruptly and moving across the room, "whether I really was that sort of woman. With your money in my pocket and the gambling fever in my pulses, I began even to believe it. And now I know that I am not. Good-bye, Mr. Draconmeyer. I don't blame you. On the whole, perhaps, you have behaved quite well. I think that you have chosen to behave well because that wonderful brain of yours told you that it gave you the best chance. That doesn't really matter, though."
He took a quick, almost a threatening step towards her. His face was dark with all the passions which had preyed upon the man.
"There is a man's last resource," he muttered thickly.
"And there is a woman's answer to it," she replied, her finger suddenly resting upon an unsuspected bell in the wall.
They both heard its summons. Footsteps came hurrying along the corridor. Draconmeyer turned his head away, struggling to compose himself. A waiter entered. Lady Hunterleys picked up her parasol and moved towards the door. The man stood on one side with a bow.
"Here is the waiter you rang for, Mr. Draconmeyer," she remarked, looking over his shoulder. "Wasn't it coffee you wanted? Tell Linda I'll hope to see her sometime this evening."
She strolled away. The waiter remained patiently upon the threshold.
"Coffee for one or two, sir?" he enquired.
Mr. Draconmeyer struggled for a moment against a torrent of words which scorched his lips. In the end, however, he triumphed.
"For one, with cream," he ordered.