That night Lieutenant Armitage, in a marine's drab shirt and overalls, stood among a silent group of mechanics on a pier near the Goat Island lighthouse. A few hundred feet out lay a small practice torpedo boat, with the rays of a searchlight from the bridge of the parent ship of the First Flotilla resting full upon her.
Suddenly Armitage leaned forward. When he straightened there came a dull report, a lurid flash of light, and with a sharp whirring sound a model torpedo about half the regulation size, leaped through the darkness and with a clear parting of the waters disappeared. A green Very star cleaved the night. Intense silence followed. One second, two seconds, elapsed and then from the practice boat out in the harbor a red star reared. Armitage turned to the master mechanic at his side.
"Bully!" he said. "I aimed at least twenty feet wide of theDumont. The magnetos fetched her. But wait—"
In the glare of the searchlight he could see they had lowered a boat and were recovering the torpedo. He saw a group of young officers gather about it as it was hauled aboard, and then in a minute or so the red and green Ardois lights began to wink. As Armitage watched with straining eyes he spelled the message as it came, letter by letter.
"A fair hit. But the wrong end struck."
TheDumontwas sufficiently near the pier for the message to have been shouted. But tests of new torpedoes are not to be shouted about. Armitage discharged a white star from his pistol, the signal to come in for the night, and walked toward the shops.
"You may turn in," he said to the men. "I have a good night's work, alone, ahead of me."
"She should not have struck with her stern, sir," said a short, squat man, hurrying to Armitage's side. He spoke with a strong accent and passed as a Lithuanian. His expert knowledge of electricity as well as his skill in making and mending apparatus had caused Armitage to intrust him with much of the delicate work on the model, as well as on the torpedo of regular size, based on the model, now in course of construction.
His was a position of peculiar importance. As the blue-prints of the invention, from which detailed plans were worked, passed into the shops, they came into the hands of this man, who, thus, many times in the course of the day had the working prints of the controlling mechanism in his exclusive possession.
For some reason that he could not explain, all this shot through Armitage's mind as the man spoke.
"No, Yeasky, it should not. But I 'll fix that. By the way, how long—No matter, I shan't need you any more to-night, Yeasky."
As he entered the shop the storekeeper was leaving. He nodded to the officer.
"What luck, Lieutenant Armitage?"
"Fair, the wrong end hit first. I think the regulation size would have worked all right. At all events, I 'll study it out to-night."
He paused. Then as the storekeeper stepped past him he called him back.
"Mr. Jackson, I may be silly, but I 've been a bit worried of late. You keep a close eye on the record of parts, don't you?"
"Yes, indeed, sir, I go over it every night."
"Do you ever actually go over the parts to see that they tally with the records? What I mean is, important parts might be missing, although the daily record might be so juggled as to make it appear they were not."
"By George!" exclaimed the storekeeper, "I never have done that. I 'll begin to-morrow."
"Thanks, I should if I were you. Good-night."
Armitage passed into the shop and switched on an electric light over a long pine table in the centre of the apartment. Then he went to the safe, opened it, and returned to the table with an armful of rolled parchment and specifications. These he spread out and thereafter, while the night waned, he was lost to the world and its affairs.
Briefly, Armitage had invented a torpedo, whose steering was so controlled by delicate magnetos, that while ordinarily proceeding in the line of aim, if such aim, through the movement of the vessel aimed at, or through some other cause, should result in a miss, the effect of the steel hull of the objective ship on the delicate magnetos of the Armitage torpedo would be such as to cause a change in the course of the deadly missile, and have her go directly toward the vessel and even follow her.
Armitage, whose mechanical genius had marked him while at the Academy as a man of brilliant possibilities, had developed his idea in the course of several years, and when it was perfected in his mind he had gone to the Chief of Ordnance at Washington and laid the matter before him in all its details. The chief at once gave the lie to the theory long current that the Department was averse to progress along whatever line, by expressing unqualified delight. He had Armitage ordered to the Torpedo Station at Newport to carry on experiments forthwith, and instructed the superintendent of the station to give the inventor every facility for carrying on his work. Two months had already elapsed and the work was at the stage when a destroyer and a practice torpedo boat had been detached from regular duty and placed at his exclusive service.
The Government was deeply interested in the progress of the work, and had shown it in many ways. The significance of such a torpedo in any war in which the country might become involved was patent. Rumors more or less vague had leaked, as such things do, to foreign war offices, and there was not a navalattachéat Washington but had received imperative orders to leave nothing undone by which the exact nature of the torpedo and its qualifications might be ascertained. But neither Armitage nor the Department had any idea of permitting the slightest information regarding the invention to escape.
All matters connected with the invention had been carried forward with the utmost secrecy, while the pedigree of every man employed in the work had been investigated carefully. All but Yeasky were native-born mechanics, and he had come from a great electrical plant in New Jersey with highest recommendations as to character and ability.
The sound of bells ringing for early mass was floating across the water from the city, when Armitage, with a deep breath of relief, walked from the table and threw himself with legs outstretched into a chair.
"No," he said with a triumphant grimace, "there will be no mistake next time. There was not a single fault in the model except—" He suddenly started bolt upright and looked about him. Then he settled back laughing. "A fine state of nerves," he added, "when I am afraid to talk to myself."
He arose with the pleasing design of enjoying a cold tub and a shave on board the destroyer, theD'Estang, but the idea of pumping his water did not accord with his mood.
He walked over to Billy Harrison's house. Billy commanded the First Flotilla and, being married, had quarters on the reservation. A drowsy servant answered the bell. She said that the Harrisons were still asleep.
"Well, never mind," said Armitage, chuckling, "I'll be back later."
Instead of going away he went around to the side, seized a handful of gravel, and threw it into an open second story window. He could hear it rattle against the wall and floor. A short silence followed and Armitage was about to pick up more gravel when a girl in a green and white dressing-gown appeared.
"Jack Armitage!" she cried, falling to her knees, so that only her head rose above the sill. "What on earth do you want now?"
"Why, hello, Letty," laughed Armitage. "Where 's Billy?"
"He 's here, sleeping. What do you mean by throwing stones into my window?"
"I want to talk to Billy," said Armitage.
"He's asleep, I tell you. What do you want?"
"Well, I want to borrow your tub and Billy's razors."
"Why didn't you say so? Ring the bell and come right up. I 'll have some towels put in. And say, Jack, really—"
"What?"
"I hope you drown, waking me this way. And, Jack, stay to breakfast, won't you, like a good chap?"
Which Jack did. An hour or so later, fresh and cool and with that comfortable feeling which follows a well-cooked Navy breakfast,—bacon and eggs,—his pipe sending blue clouds into the sparkling air, Armitage walked over to the torpedo boat slips. Across the harbor lay the city, bathed in golden sunshine, the tree-clad streets rising tier by tier to the crown, Bellevue Avenue. His gaze wandered seaward and for the first time since sunset he thought of Anne Wellington. Would he ever see her again? What was she doing now, he wondered. No doubt she would attend service at Trinity; many of the cottagers did. He, too, would go to church there. He had not been lately; it would do him good, he told himself.
Thus thinking, he stepped aboard the black, ominous, oilyD'Estang, made his way aft and clambered down the companion ladder. There was the usual Sunday morning gathering of young officers from the boats of the flotilla. The smoke, mainly from pipes—three weeks having elapsed since pay day—was thick, and an excited argument, not over speeding records, or coal consumption, but over the merits of an English vaudeville actor who had appeared the week before at Freebody Park, was in progress.
"Hello, Jack," said a tall dark officer in spotless white uniform, "how 's the tame torpedo this morning?"
"Fine, fine, Blackie," grinned Armitage. "How's that tin cup, misnamed theJefferson, to-day?"
"Did n't eat out of your hand last night, did she?" observed Tommy Winston of theAdams, attired in blue trousers and a flannel shirt.
"No, but she will," said Armitage.
"No doubt," replied Winston with his quaint Southern drawl. "Look here, Jackie, where you going this morning, all dressed up in gorgeous cits clothes?"
"To church," replied Armitage, "to Trinity; any one want to go with me?" he asked, ignoring the derisive chorus.
There was a moment's silence and then Bob Black looked at him quizzically.
"Does any one want to go with you?" he jeered. "Who 's the girl?"
"I wonder—But seriously, I have never been to the service there and since the Wellingtons asked me to drop into their pew any Sunday, I—"
"The Wellingtons!" exclaimed Thornton of the submarinePolyp. "You don't mean the Ronald Wellingtons?"
"No, I don't mean any Wellingtons at all. I was joking. Why?"
"Then you did n't hear of Thornton's run in with them last week?" said Winston. "That's so, you were in Washington."
"What was it, Joe?" asked Armitage, turning to Thornton.
"Why, nothing much. Two of my men were arrested last Thursday for assaulting the Wellington kids. It seems they were walking past Bailey's Beach and the youngsters bombarded them with clam shells and gravel. It would have been all right, but one of the shells caught Kelly on the cheek and cut him. The men didn't do a thing but jump over that hedge into the holy of holies, gather in the young scions, and knock their heads together."
"You don't say! What happened then?"
"They were arrested and the chief sent over here. I got the men's story and then called the Wellingtons' house on the telephone. Mrs. Wellington's secretary answered. I told her who I was and that I wanted to talk about the case with some one in authority. She asked me to hold the wire and in a few seconds the queen herself was holding pleasant converse with yours truly.
"'You say the men are under your command?' she said.
"I replied, 'Even so.' Then she gave me the name of her lawyer and said Kelly and Burke would be prosecuted on every charge that could be brought to bear."
Armitage laughed.
"Trust her! What did you say?"
"I got hot under the collar right away, then. 'Mrs. Wellington,' I said, 'my men were not to blame. If they were I should not have called you on the 'phone. But your sons threw shells and cut one of them. They were punished, and justly. And I now advise you I am going to have counter warrants issued against your boys if the charge is pressed in court to-day!' Just like that.
"Her voice came crisp. 'You say my sons were at fault? Have you any proof of that?'
"I came back in a second. 'I have sufficient proof to convince even your lawyer.'
"'Very well,' she said. 'Then do it. I shall direct him to see you at once. If what you say is true we will of course take no further action.'
"The case was dropped all right."
"Bully for you," said Armitage. "My Lady evidently has a sense of justice."
"Here 's a paragraph," said Winston, holding up a local paper, "which says that a physical instructor is wanted at The Crags. They are going to prepare for future engagements with our men, evidently."
"Well, let me tell you that Anne Wellington is a corker," observed Black suddenly.
"Anne Wellington?" said Armitage ingenuously.
"Yes," continued Black, "the daughter. I saw her at the Casino the other day. She was joshing some little old rooster who was trying to play tennis and she had him a mile up in the air. She 's beautiful, too. That's more than you can say of most of these alleged society beauties."
"Which reminds me," said Armitage, glancing at his watch, "that I am due for church. Come on, Joe," he added, "be a good chap."
Thornton in the goodness of his nature arose.
"All right," he said. "I'm game." Thornton had been a star full-back at Annapolis when Armitage was an All America end, and he would have gone to worse places than church for his old messmate.
Nowadays he spent his time in sinking thePolypamong the silt on the harbor bottom, for which work his crew received several dollars apiece, extra pay, for each descent. Thornton received not even glory, unless having gone to the floor of Long Island Sound with a President of the United States be held as constituting glory.
Old Trinity rests on the hillside, serene in the afterglow of its one hundred and eighty-four years. The spotless white walls, the green blinds, the graceful Colonial spire, are meetly set in an environment which strikes no note of dissonance. On either side are quaint, narrow streets, lined with decent door-yards and houses almost as old as the church. Within the cool interior the cottagers, and representatives of a native aristocracy—direct descendants of the English of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who are so conservative, so proudly, scornfully aloof, that one would doubt they existed at all, were it not for their stately homes in the older sections of the city, where giant elms keep watch and ward over eave and column and dormer window, where hydrangeas sweep the doorstep, and faun and satyr, rough hewn, peer through the shrubbery—sit primly in the box-like pews with the preacher towering above them under the white sounding board.
The church was not half filled when Armitage and Thornton arrived, but a double line of visitors were standing in the rear aisle. Armitage caught the eye of one of the ushers and beckoned to him. But that frock-coated, austere personage coldly turned his glance elsewhere and Armitage had started forward to enlist his attention in a manner that would admit of no evasion when his companion caught him by the sleeve, chuckling.
"Look here, old chap," he whispered, "you have to wait until they know how many pew-holders are going to be absent. This is n't a theatre."
Armitage turned his head to reply, when a rustling of skirts sounded behind him and Thornton punched him in the ribs.
"The Wellington bunch," he whispered, "and the Russian they have captured."
It was a fine entry, as circus folks say. First came Mrs. Wellington in a simple but wonderfully effective embroidered linen gown, then her two sons, likely enough boys, and then Anne Wellington with Prince Koltsoff. She almost touched Armitage as she passed; the skirt of her lingerie frock swished against his ankles and behind she left, not perfume, but an intangible essence suggestive, somehow, of the very personality of the cool, beautiful, lithe young woman. As Armitage turned in response to Thornton's prod in the ribs, he met her eyes in full. But she gave no sign of recognition, and of course Armitage did not.
The Wellingtons had two pews, according to the diagram on the rear seats, and as Armitage followed the party with his eyes, he saw the mother, her daughter, and the Prince enter one, the boys seating themselves in the stall ahead.
In the meantime the congregation had assembled in large numbers and the body of the church as well as the side aisles were comfortably filled. From time to time the ushers, with machine-like precision, took one or two persons from the patiently waiting line of non-pew-holders and escorted them to seats, a proceeding which began to irritate Armitage, seeing which Thornton grinned and observed,sotto voce, that one might worship here only at the price of patience.
"It's the sheep and the goats, Jack," he whispered.
"I don't know about the sheep, but we 're the goats, all right," replied Armitage, "and I for one am going to beat it right now."
He had started for the door and Thornton was following when an usher hurrying up touched him on the shoulder, bowing unctuously.
"Miss Wellington," he said, "asked to have you gentlemen shown into the Wellington pew."
His voice clearly indicated that he felt he had been neglecting angels unawares, to say nothing of a desire to atone for his indiscretion.
The young men nodded as indifferently as the situation seemed to require and followed the man to the stall in which the boys were seated, who pushed in hospitably enough and then returned to their prayer books.
It must be said that two handsomer men, or men better constructed physically, never sat together in old Trinity; Thornton a perfect, brawny, rangy blonde; Armitage, shorter, better knit, perhaps, with shoulders just as broad, and short crinkling brown hair surmounting his squarely defined, sun-browned features.
The sermon was somewhat revolutionary, but Anne Wellington paid but slight attention. While the good clergyman warned his hearers of the terrible reckoning which must eventually come from neglect by the upper classes of the thousands born month after month in squalor and reared amid sordid, vicious surroundings, the girl's eyes rarely wandered from the two men in front of her. It was uplifting, conducive to healthful, normal emotions to look at them, and such emotions were exactly what she needed.
Radiating, as it were, from Prince Koltsoff was an influence she did not like. On the contrary, feeling its power, she had begun to fear it. He attracted her peculiarly. She could not quite explain the sensation; it was indefinable, vague, but palpable nevertheless. Then he was high in the Russian nobility, upon terms of friendship with the Czar, a prominent figure in the highest society of European capitals. His wife would at once take a position which any girl might covet. True, she would probably be unhappy with him after the first bloom of his devotion, but then she might not. She might be able to hold him. Miss Wellington flattered herself that she could. And if not—well, she would not be the first American girl to pocket that loss philosophically and be content with the contractual profits that remained. A Russian princess of the highest patent of nobility—there was a thrill in that thought, which, while it did not dominate her, might eventually have that effect.
At all events, she found it not at all objectionable that Prince Koltsoff was apparently enamoured of her. Of this she was quite certain. He had a way of looking his devotion. His luminous blue eyes were wonderful in their expressiveness. They could convey almost any impression in the gamut of human emotions, save perhaps kindliness, and among other things they had told her he loved her.
That was flattering, but the trouble was that so often his eyes made her blush confusedly without any reason more tangible than that he was looking at her.
Anne Wellington was as thoroughly feminine as any girl that ever lived, and had always gloried in her sex. She had never wished she were a man. Still there is a happy mean for every normal American girl, and already she had begun to wonder if the Prince was ever going to forget that she was a woman and treat her as an ordinary human being, with the question of sex in the abstract at least.
Yet on the other hand there was that thrill which she could not deny. She felt as though she were living through an experience and was curious as to the outcome. With her, curiosity was a challenge. Withal, for the first time in her life, she was afraid of herself. And so she found her study of the two young men in front of her wholesome and antiseptic, as Kipling says.
As the preacher suddenly paused and then demanded in ringing tones what those of the upper classes intended to do about the situation which he had been eloquently portraying, a portly old gentleman whose breath would have proclaimed that he had had a cocktail at the Reading Room before service, heaved a loud, hopeless sigh. She saw Thornton nudge Armitage with his shoulder and the replying grin wrinkle Jack's face. Swiftly her eyes turned sideways to the Prince. He was sitting half turned in the seat regarding her with worshipping gaze. She thrilled under the contrast; compared to the men in front of her, Koltsoff was a mere—yes, a mere monkey. What did he take her for, a school girl?
Filled with her emotions, she impulsively opened a little gold pencil with which she had been toying and wrote rapidly upon one of the blank pages of her hymnal, which later she surreptitiously tore out. When the service was ended and Armitage and Thornton with slight bows of acknowledgment passed into the aisle, the girl leaned toward the younger of her two brothers.
"Muck," she said, "be a good chap and give this note to the dark-haired man who sat next to you. Do it nicely, now, Muck, so no one will see you. I'll pay you back for it. Hurry."
Muck, who adored his sister, nodded and worked his way through the departing worshippers until he came up with Armitage. He pushed the note into the young officer's hand and as Armitage started in surprise the boy nodded his head knowingly.
"Say nothing," he warned.
So well had the boy carried it through that not even Thornton observed the incident. Armitage said nothing to enlighten him, but spread the page open in his hand as though he had taken a memorandum from his pocket.
It was as follows:
MY DEAR MR. PRIZE FIGHTER—
I was really serious the other day about your applying for the position of physical instructor. My small brothers were mauled by sailors the other day and mother is keen for some one who will teach them how to obtain their revenge some day. You might see mother or her secretary any morning after eleven. I have spoken to both about you.A. V. D. W.
Twice Armitage read it and then he folded it carefully and placed it in his breast pocket, a curious smile playing over his face.
"We think," he said, addressing himself under his breath, as was his wont upon occasion, "we think we shall keep this for future reference. For we never know how soon we may need a job."
It has been observed ere this how many truths are sometimes spoken in jest.
At the door of the church, Thornton met a retired rear admiral and his wife, whose daughter he knew. So he paused and was affably solicitous whether they found the glorious August weather conducive to their general well-being. Armitage bowed and drew to one side, just as the Wellington party passed out into the churchyard and walked down the path to their motor panting at the curb.
The Prince helped Mrs. Wellington and her daughter into the tonneau with easy grace and then motioned the two boys to precede him. He was not at all bad looking, Armitage decided. Tall and rather wasp-waisted he was, nevertheless well set up, and his tailor easily might have left a pound or so of padding out of the blue jacket and still have avoided the impression that the Prince was narrow-backed. His manner certainly bore every impress of courtly breeding and the insolence of rank was by no means lacking, as Armitage learned the next instant, when a man whose back was strangely familiar, suddenly appeared at Koltsoff's side and, with hat in hand, essayed to address him.
Armitage, watching eagerly, saw the Russian's form stiffen, saw his eyes, as cold and steady as steel discs, fix themselves unseeingly over the man's head, who bowed awkwardly and turning hurriedly with a flushed face, stumbled against a horse post.
A low exclamation leaped from Armitage's lips. He hesitated just an instant and then fairly ran out of the doorway and down the path to the street. He caught up with the fellow before he had gone a hundred feet. Looking back to see that the Wellington car had gone, he touched him on the arm.
"Look here, Yeasky," he said, as the man wheeled in nervous haste, "who was that chap you spoke to at that motor car?"
Yeasky hesitated a moment and then looked the officer full in the eyes.
"I do not know," he said; "I thought it was Commander Harris. I was going to ask him about those coils which have not come yet. When I found I mistook, I was ashamed."
Armitage returned the electrician's gaze for a second. He was at a loss. There was a slight resemblance between Harris and the Prince, to be sure. Then, suddenly, as he recalled the incident at the Grand Central Station and his fears of the previous evening, a wave of anger swept over him and he thrust his face belligerently toward the workman, the muscles of his right shoulder calling nervously for action.
"Yeasky," he said, "you are lying. Who do you think you are up against,—a child?" He shook his finger in the man's face. "Now quick; tell me what business you had with that man." Yeasky drew himself up with an air of offended dignity not altogether compatible with his putative station in life. Armitage noticed it and pressed on.
"Do you hear?" he said in a low tense voice. He was already past saving; he had never been a diplomat. "Hurry up, speak, or I 'll knock your Polack head off."
Before the man could reply, Thornton, who had hurried up, interposed.
"What's the matter, Jack? Did this gentleman have the misfortune to demand all of the sidewalk?"
Armitage replied over his shoulder.
"You go along, Joe, and leave this to me. I saw this man trying to talk to that Russian Prince—and he's employed on confidential work in the shops."
"I know, Jack," said Thornton soothingly, placing his hand on Armitage's shoulder. "But it is n't policy to get into a street fight about it, you know, old chap."
"It wouldn't be a fight," began Armitage sneeringly. He turned suddenly toward Yeasky. "I have been pestered and worried for a week now. I know I was shadowed in New York. Now that I 've a clue I am not going to let go of it."
"Of course not," said Thornton, "but you don't want to go off half cocked. Remember you were up all last night. Just heave to a second. Has anything happened at the shops?"
"No," said Armitage, cooling a bit, "not that I know of. But this fellow's doing inside work here on the torpedo and I saw him talking to that Russian."
"Talking?"
"I mean he tried to. He says he thought the man was Harris, and he wanted to ask him about some coils. That was too fishy for me."
"Did the Prince talk to him?"
"No; snubbed, ignored him."
"Oh," smiled Thornton. "Well, I say, Jack, honestly I think you might be wrong. Harris does suggest that Prince chap; I thought so in church. Of course you can decide about this fellow's future in the shops, as you think best. But you really can't do anything here."
"I suppose you are right," said Armitage reluctantly. He nodded toward the man.
"Yeasky, if you are straight, meet me at the storekeeper's office at three o'clock this afternoon. I hope by that hour to be in a position to apologize to you. In the meantime," his good nature, as with all persons of warm temperament, speedily returning, "if I have wronged you, I am sorry."
"You have wronged me," replied Yeasky. "But I understand your feelings. I shall certainly meet you at three o'clock."
"Three, sharp." And Armitage, with Thornton's arm drawn through his, walked down the street.
Yeasky stood watching them for a second and then clapping his hand to his pocket a smile spread slowly over his face. He followed the two stalwart officers for a few steps and paused irresolutely. Then, without further hesitancy, he walked rapidly to Spring Street and thence to the Hotel Aquidneck, where he entered the telephone booth. When he emerged he paid toll on five charges.
This done he went into the writing-room and called for a small piece of wrapping paper and twine. When it came he took from his pocket a bulky, heavy object, done up in a newspaper. Without removing this, he wrapped it neatly in the manila paper, bound it securely, and addressed it in printed letters. He sat for a moment looking thoughtfully at the package. Then he drew a sheet of note paper toward him, cut off the hotel heading and dipped his pen in the ink.
He began:
Vassili Andreyvitch, I am sending you by messenger as you instructed over the telephone, the vital part. There is nothing more to do and I leave Newport this hour, for excellent reasons. I was seen trying to address you this morning, so watch out.
Yeasky read this last sentence again and then the thought that he would be confirmed as a bungler in his superior's mind occurred to him. He inked out the sentence, muttering that Koltsoff must take care of himself, as he had had to do, and then resumed his writing.
When you get this I shall be in parts unknown. I begin to fear I am suspect. You can reach me care of Garlock, Boston, to-night, and Blavatsky, Halifax, on Wednesday. On that day I go via the Dominion Line to England and thence to the secret police office in St. Petersburg. Forgive, I pray, this haste, but I have done all there is to be done. I accept your congratulations—and now having no desire to pose as the centre of a diplomatic situation, I go—Au Revoir.
He called a messenger, despatched the package and the letter, and within half an hour was in a trolley car bound for Fall River.
As Koltsoff, who had been summoned to the telephone, returned to the morning-room of the Wellington house, he looked about him with a triumphant gleam in his eye. He loved the part he was playing in Newport, a part, by the way, which he had played not always ineptly in other quarters of the world. He loved mystery; and like many Russians, the fact that he was a part, the centre, of any project of international emprise, questionable or otherwise, was to him the very breath of life. Innuendo, political intrigue, diplomatic tergiversation—in all these he was a master. Nor did he neglect the color, the atmosphere. Here was his weakness. Vague hints, a significant smile here, a shrug there, a lifting of the brows—all temptations too great for him to resist, had at times the effect of setting his effectiveness in certain ventures partially if not completely at naught. Temperamental proclivities are better for their absence among the component elements of a diplomat's mental equipment.
He had now in contemplation a genuineaffaire du coeur. Thus far, everything had gone well. He sighed the sigh of perfect self-adjustment, sign of a mind agreeably filled, and stretching out his legs picked up a volume of Bourget. He fingered the pages idly for a few minutes and then laid it aside and half closed his eyes, nodding and smiling placidly. He sat thus when Anne Wellington entered.
Rays of sunlight, flooding through the windows glorified the girl, made her radiant as a spirit. And the Prince, who, if genuine in few things, was at least a true worshipper of beauty, was exalted. He arose, bowed slightly, and then advanced with wonderful charm of manner.
"My dear Miss Wellington," he murmured, "you come as the morning came, so fresh and so beautiful."
"How polite of you," smiled the girl. "If our men were so facile—" she opened one of the French windows and stepped out on the veranda, looking over the restless waters to the yellow-green Narragansett hills.
"So facile?" asked Koltsoff, following.
"—So facile in their compliments, I am afraid we should grow to be unbearable." She paused and smiled brightly at the Prince. "And yet women of your country are not so; at least those whom I have met."
"That," replied the Russian, turning his eyes full upon hers, "is because we are discriminating, if, as you say, facile."
Anne flushed and laughed and then dropped lightly into a big wicker chair, conscious that Koltsoff had not withdrawn his gaze. She leaned forward and flicked her skirts over her ankles, nervously pulled a stray wisp of hair from her neck. Then she slowly met the eyes of the man standing at her side and propounded an inquiry having to do with nothing less banal than his views of America thus far. Prince Koltsoff tossed his head and thus threw off the question. This amused the girl.
"Really," she said, "don't you find a remarkable resemblance between Newport and the Isle of Wight? At least—pray sit down, won't you—I have found them very like."
Prince Koltsoff seated himself daintily in a chair at her side and his face lit under the influence of a triumphant thought.
"You speak of the Isle of Wight, Miss Wellington, neglecting one great point of difference. Newport possesses you. They are, therefore, to me, totally different." He waved one hand slightly and drew his cigarette case from his pocket with the other, glancing at the girl.
"Oh, certainly," she said, "please smoke."
"But the difference," pursued Koltsoff, "don't you think it remarkable that it should be so apparent to me?"
"Do you know," she said, glancing down at the toes of her slippers, "I am not sufficiently inter—" She stopped abruptly and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, let us be impersonal, Prince Koltsoff, it is so much nicer."
The Prince frowned.
"But, please," he said, "I wish to be personal. Am I at fault if I find you interesting? Character is one of my most absorbing studies. I am rather scientific. I see sometimes in persons, more than others see who are not so observing, or scientific, as you please." He lit his cigarette. "In you, for instance."
Miss Wellington, caught off her guard, started. The flash of a smile crossed Koltsoff's face. His inclination to show off, to reveal his cleverness, triumphed over his small supply of tact.
"I! 'For instance'! What do you mean, Prince Koltsoff?"
"Why, this morning at your church. As hidden depths of character reveal themselves—" the Prince raised his eyes. "That billet—shall we saybillet doux?" He raised his shoulders and let them fall slowly. "Women! Ah! most interesting!"
For a moment Anne maintained her expression of mild inquiry, but within she was mentally perturbed. Irritation succeeded and she resolved to punish him for his insolence, even at the risk of indiscretion.
"You see many things, do you not?" she said, mockingly.
"Yes," he agreed, following her lead, "I see very, very many things. It is a faculty. It has been most useful."
"I should not flatter myself that I alone possessed that faculty, Prince Koltsoff, if I were you." She leaned forward, her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully seaward. "I also am not sightless."
She leaned back in her chair languidly and watched the Prince's change of expression with open amusement.
"So, you have found it worth while to observe me? I am quite flattered." His impression that she had discharged a random shot grew with his words and soon became conviction. "I thank you."
Anne laughed.
"You are quite welcome to all you received—in the way of my interest in you. It is only fair, however, to suggest that we do not always obtain information concerning our friends—'you, for instance,'" she mimicked him perfectly, "through general observation. Some things may obtrude themselves, don't you know, in the most—what was your word? Oh, yes, 'scientific'—the most unscientific manner."
The Prince looked at her intently.
"You are speaking in innuendo, Miss Wellington," he replied. His tone was low and rapid.
"I am speaking quite truthfully, Prince Koltsoff," she said, with an inflection of emphasis.
"How could I doubt that!" He bowed. "That is why I am certain that you will be more explicit."
"There, you really don't insist, do you?" He saw a malicious light in her eyes.
"My dear Miss Wellington, most assuredly I do insist. I—I beg your pardon—I do more: I demand. Certainly it is my right."
Anne was all mischief now.
"Very well, then, I am able to inform you that you were in Newport incog, several days before you came to us. Do you conceive my right to call this to your attention, in view of the fact that you told us you had just arrived from Washington?"
Prince Koltsoff, as though absorbing her meaning, sat motionless, gazing at her steadily. Then he leaned forward and placed his hand on hers for a moment.
"Miss Wellington, you have done well. I pride myself on some diplomatic experience. You have negotiated yourcoupin a manner worthy of a De Staël. You would adorn the service. I wonder if you realize the possibilities of your future in an international sphere. To you I have no fear of talking. Listen, then."
Unconsciously the girl bent toward him.
"I am a diplomat," he continued. "There are things which—" he lifted his brows. "Newport—the French ambassador is here; the German ambassador is at Narragansett Pier, and I—who knows where I am—and why? But some day—"
He drew a long breath. "Rest content now, Miss Wellington, that I am progressing toward the gratitude of my Government; you shall hear more. Of course," he waved his hand, "I have spoken for your ear."
"Of course," said Miss Wellington, calmly, but inwardly curious nevertheless. "Should you care to walk to the stables?"
He nodded and then walking beside her he continued impulsively:
"I am not a soldier, Miss Wellington. But all victories are not won on the battlefields. The art—one of the arts—of diplomacy is to bring on war, if war must be, when you are ready and your adversaries are not. There are other functions. Let it be so. I but observe that one may wield things other than the sword and better than the sword, to serve one's country."
"I quite believe you." There was enthusiasm in her voice. "You may never expect the glory of the soldier, and yet how glorious the work must be! The matching of wits instead of guns, and then—you have the opportunity of winning the victories of peace—"
"Of which the world seldom hears," interpolated the Prince.
"But that makes it finer," she said. "Have we any real diplomats, who—oh, I don't know—make themselves felt in the inner circle of things: men that we—that the country—does not know of, who are doing the—the things you are?"
The Prince smiled.
"I don't know really. You have the 'new diplomacy' which is shouting what other people whisper—or keep to themselves—andle gros gourdin—the laughable big stick; it amuses us more than it impresses, I assure you." He regarded the girl closely and she smiled questioningly.
"You do not flush! You are not irritated?" he asked.
"Why should I be? What do you mean?"
"I was speaking lightly of your country."
"Oh, were you? I did not notice. I fear I am used to that, having spent much time in Europe."
The Prince looked at her curiously. She colored.
"No," she said, "I do not go in strongly for thefurore Americanus, if that is what you mean."
"So. Your country must look to itsbourgeoisefor its Joans of Arc. But then your men are ungallantly self-sufficient. In Russia," the Prince shrugged his shoulders, "we send women to Siberia—or decorate them with the Order of St. Katherine."
"You actually shame me, Prince Koltsoff. We are different here; even our suffragettes would by no means allow devotion to their cause to carry them to jail; and as for influencing statesmen, or setting their plans at naught—" she shook her head—"why, I do not even know who they are. They are not in our set," laughing. "Really, we are pretty much butterflies from your—from any—viewpoint, are n't we? But after all, why?"
"Ah, why?" He turned to her suddenly. "Do you love your country, Miss Wellington?"
"What an absurd question! Of course I do."
"Easily answered," replied the Prince, "but think a moment. I saidlove. That love which inspired your women to send their sons and husbands to die for their country in your Civil War; the love that exalted Charlotte Corday. Have you breathed the quicker when you saw your flag in foreign lands?" He looked at her strangely. "Would you loathe the man you loved if you learnt he had injured your country? Think, Miss Wellington."
"Your fervor renders it quite impossible for me to think; if it will satisfy you I will say I don't believe I begin to know what patriotism is. Yet I would not have you think I am altogether shallow. Sir Clarence Pembroke has praised my grasp of British affairs. I have always regarded that as quite a compliment."
"You have reason. You know, we know, that the American woman who would move in the tense affairs of the world must find her opportunity in Europe. It does not exist here."
"And never can exist, in a republic, I imagine," said the girl, "at least in a republic constituted as ours is."
"No, surely not. By-the-bye, who is your Secretary of the Navy? Your Attorney-General?"
"Help!" cried the girl in mock despair. "Really, Prince Koltsoff, I must ask you to consider your demonstration of my unfitness to even consider myself an American complete. Further humiliation is unnecessary. At least I suppose I should feel humiliated. But somehow, I 'm not. That's the pitiable part of it."
"And yet, Miss Wellington, have you ever considered what would lie before you with your,—pardon me,—your beauty and your wit, in Europe?"
"No, I never have," said Anne not quite truthfully. "Please, Prince Koltsoff, let us change the subject."