From the moment when the taxicab drove away and left her in the deserted street, Maggie was conscious of a strange sense of suppressed excitement, something more poignant and mysterious, even, than the circumstances of her adventure might account for. It was exciting enough, in its way, to play the part of a marauding thief, to find herself unexpectedly face to face with a possible solution of the great problem of Prince Shan's intentions. But beneath all this there was another feeling, more entirely metaphysical, which in a sense steadied her nerves because it filled her with a strange impression that she had lost her own identity, that she was playing somebody else's part in a novel and thrilling drama.
The street was empty when she inserted the little key in the front door. There was not a soul there to see her step in as it swung open and then softly, noiselessly, but without any conscious effort of hers, closed again behind her. She held her breath and looked around.
The hall was round, painted white and dimly lit by an overhead electric globe. In the centre was a huge green vase filled with great branches of some sort of blossoms. Not a picture hung upon the walls, nor was there any hall stand, chest, closet for coats or hats, or any of the usual furbishings of such a place. There were three rugs upon the polished floor and nothing else except a yawning stairway and closed doors. Whatever servants might be in attendance were evidently in a distant part of the building. Not a sound was to be heard. Still without any lack of courage, but oppressed with that curious sense of unreality, she turned almost automatically towards the door on the left and opened it. Again it closed behind her noiselessly. She realised that she was in one of the principal reception rooms of the house, dimly lit as the hall from a dome-shaped globe set into the ceiling. She moved a yard or two across the threshold and stood looking about her. Here again there was an almost singular absence of furniture. The walls were hung with apple-green silk, richly embroidered. There were some rugs upon the polished floor, a few quaintly carved chairs set with their backs against the wall, and opposite to her the ebony cabinet of which La Belle Nita had spoken. She moved towards it. Somehow or other, she found herself with the other key in her hand, stooping down. She counted the drawers—one, two three—fitted in the key, turned it, and realised with a little start the presence in the drawer of a roll of parchment, tied around with tape and sealed with a black seal. She laid her hand upon it, but even at that moment she felt a shiver pass through her body. There had been no sound in the room, which she could have sworn had been empty when she entered it, yet she had now a conviction that she was not alone. She turned slowly around, her lips parted, breathing quickly. Standing in the middle of the room, a grim, commanding figure in his flowing green robes, the dim light flashing upon the great diamonds in his belt, stood Prince Shan.
To Maggie at that moment came a great throbbing in her ears, a sense of remoteness from this terrible happening, followed by an intense and vital consciousness of danger. The man who had brought new things into her life, the polished gentleman of the world, with his fascinating brain and gentle courtesy, had gone. It was Prince Shan of China who stood there. She felt the chill of his contempt and disapproval in her heart. She had forfeited her high estate. She was a convicted thief,—an adventuress!
She gripped at the side of the cabinet. Her poise had gone. She had the air of a trapped animal.
"You!" she exclaimed. "How did you get here?"
He answered her without change of expression. A sense of crisis seemed to have made his tone more level, his face stony.
"It is my house," he said. "I do not often leave it. I sat in my sleeping chamber behind"—he pointed to the silken curtains through which he had passed—"I heard your entrance and guessed with pain and regret at your mission."
"But a quarter of an hour ago you were at the ball!"
"You are mistaken," he replied. "I do not attend such gatherings. I had given you my word that I should not be there."
"But I saw you," she persisted, "in that same costume!"
"Surely not," he dissented. "The person whom you saw was a gentleman from my suite, who wore the dress of an inferior mandarin. He is sometimes supposed to resemble me. I should have believed that your apprehension of such things would have informed you that no Prince of my line would wear the garments of his order for a public show."
Her fingers had left the drawer now. She stood upright, pale and desperate.
"That woman of your country, then—La Belle Nita—did she lie to me?"
"How can I tell?" he answered coldly, "because I do not know what she said."
Maggie made an effort to test her position.
"I came here as a thief," she confessed. "I am detected. What are your intentions?"
He moved very slowly a little closer to her. Maggie felt her sense of excitement grow.
"You came here as a thief," he repeated, "as a spy. Why did you not ask me for the information you desired?"
"Because you would not have told me," she replied, "at least you would not have told me the truth."
"For a price," he said, "the truth would have been yours for the asking. For a different price it is yours now."
Again without noticeable movement he seemed to have drawn nearer. The edge of that cool ebony cabinet seemed to be burning her fingers. Try however hard, she could not frame the question which had risen to her lips.
"The price," he continued, "is you—yourself. A few hours ago it was your love I craved for. Now it is yourself."
He was so near to her now that she faced the steady radiance of his wonderful eyes, so near that she could trace the faint lines about his mouth, the strong, stern immobility of his perfectly shaped, olive-tinted features.
"You are too wonderful," he went on, "to remain a daughter of the crude West. I want to take you back with me to the land where life still moves to poetry, to the land where one can live in a world unknown by these struggling hordes. You shall live in a palace where the perfume of flowers lingers always, with the sound of running water in your ears, a palace from which all sordid things and all manner of ugliness are banished because we alone have found the key to the garden of happiness."
He raised his hand, and it seemed as though unseen eyes watched them from every quarter. The silken curtains through which he had issued were drawn back by invisible hands, and the inner apartment was disclosed. Its faint illumination was obscured with purple shades. There was a high lacquer bedstead, with little ivory ladders on either side, a bedstead hung with silks of black and purple and mauve. There was a huge couch, a shrine opposite the bed, in which was a kneeling figure of black marble. A faint odour, as though from thousand-year-old sachets, very faint indeed and yet with its mead of intoxication, seemed to steal out from the room, which had borrowed from its curious hangings, its marvellous adornments, its strangely attuned atmosphere, all the mysticism of a fabled world.
"You have come," he said. "Will you stay?" The inertia seemed suddenly to leave her limbs. She threw up her head as though gasping for air, escaped, somehow or other, from the thrall of his eyes, and passed across the smooth floor with flying footsteps. Her fingers seized the handle of the door and turned it, only to find it held by some invisible fastening. She shook it passionately. There was not even sound. She turned back once more. Prince Shan had only slightly changed his position. He stood upon the threshold of the inner room, and his arms were outstretched in invitation.
"Am I a prisoner?" she sobbed.
"You came of your own free will," he replied. "You will stay for my pleasure and for the joy of my being. As for these things," he went on, moving slowly to the cabinet, picking up the pile of papers and throwing them on one side contemptuously, "these are only one's amusements. I pass my lighter hours with them. They interest me in the same manner as a chess problem. We do not care, we in the mighty East, which of you holds your head highest this side of Suez. All you western nations are to us a peck of dust outside our palace gates. Listen, dear one. We can leave, if you will, to-night, and top the clouds before sunrise. And I promise you this," he went on, "when you pass from the greyness of these sordid lands into the everlasting sunshine of the East, you will not care any longer about these people who go about the world on all fours. Day by day you will know what life and love mean. You will find the cloying weight of material things pass from your brain and body, and the joy of holy and wonderful living take their place."
Her whole being was in a turmoil. She drew nearer to the papers upon the table. She was now within a yard of Prince Shan himself. He made no effort to intercept her, no movement of any sort to stop her. Only his eyes never left her face, and she felt a madness which seemed to be choking the life out of her, a pounding of her heart against her ribs, a strange and wonderful joy, a joy in which there was no fear, a joy of new things and new hopes. With the papers for which she had come only a few yards away, she forgot them. She turned her head slowly. His arms seemed to steal out from those long, silken sleeves. She suddenly felt herself held in a wonderful embrace.
"Dear lady of all my desires," he whispered in her ear, "you shall make me happy and find the secret of happiness yourself in giving, in suffering, in love."
For a long and wonderful moment she lay in his arms. She felt the soft burning of his kisses, the call of the room with its intoxicating, yet strangely ascetic perfume, the room to which all the time he seemed to be gently leading her. And then a flood of strange, alien recollections and realisations seemed to bring her from a better place back to a worse,—the sound of a passing taxicab, the distant booming of Big Ben, sounds of the world outside, the actual day-by-day world, with its day-by-day code of morals, the world in which she lived, and her friends, and all that had made life for her. She drew away, and he watched the change in her.
"I want to go!" she cried. "Let me go!"
"You are no prisoner," he assured her sadly.
He clapped his hands. She had reached the door by now and found the handle yield to her fingers. Outside in the hall, the front door stood open, and a heavy rain was beating in on the white flags. She looked around. She was in her own atmosphere here. Their eyes met, and his were very sorrowful.
"My servants are assembling," he said. "You will find a car at your service."
Even then she hesitated. There was a strange return of the wonderful emotion of a few minutes ago. She hoped almost painfully that he would call. Instead, he lifted the silk hangings and passed out of sight. Somehow or other, she made her way down the hall. A butler stood upon the steps, another servant was holding open the door of a limousine just drawn up. She had no distinct recollection of giving any address. She simply threw herself back amongst the cushions. It was not until they were in Piccadilly that she suddenly remembered that she had left upon the table the papers he had scornfully offered her. Then she began to laugh.
It chanced that the box was empty when Maggie, with flying footsteps, hastened down the corridor and pushed open the door. She sank into a chair, her knees trembling, her senses still dazed. Deliberately, although with hot and trembling fingers, she folded over and tore into small pieces a programme of the dances, which she had picked up from an adjoining chair. The action, insignificant though it was, seemed to bring her back into touch with the real and actual world, the world of music and wild gayety, of swiftly moving feet, of laughter and languorous voices. For a brief space of time she had escaped, she had wandered a little way into an unknown country, a country from whose thrilling dangers she had emerged with a curious feeling that life would never be altogether the same again. She glanced at the clock at the back of the box. She had been absent from the Hall altogether only about an hour and twenty minutes. There was still at least an hour before it would be possible for her to plead weariness and escape. And opposite, in the shadows of the distant box, the mock Prince Shan seemed always to be gazing at her with that cryptic smile upon his lips.
Presently the door was stealthily opened. A face as pale as death, with black eyes like pieces of coal, was framed for a moment in the shadowed slit. A little waft of familiar perfume stole in. La Belle Nita, her flaming lips widely parted, as soon as she recognised the sole occupant of the box, crept through the opening and closed the door again.
"You are here?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Your courage failed you? You did not go?"
"I have been and returned," Maggie answered. "Now tell me what I have done that you should have plotted this thing against me?"
The girl sat on the edge of a chair and for a moment hummed the refrain of a sad chant, as she rocked slowly backwards and forwards.
"'What have you done?' the rose asked the butterfly. 'What have you done?' the mimosa blossom asked the little blue bird, whose wings fluttered amongst her leaves. 'You have taken love from me, love which is the blossom of life.'"
"It sounds very picturesque," Maggie said coldly, "but I do not follow your allegory. What I want to know is why you lied to me, why you sent me to that house to meet Prince Shan?"
"How did I lie to you?" Nita demanded. "The papers you sought were there. Were they not yours for the asking, or was the price too great?"
"The papers were there, certainly," Maggie acquiesced, "but you knew very well—"
She stopped short. Slowly the Oriental idea of it all was beginning to frame itself in her mind. She dimly understood the bewilderment in the other's face.
"The papers were there, and he, the most wonderful of all men, was there," Nita murmured, "yet you leave him while the night is yet young, you return here without them!"
Maggie rose from her chair, moved to the side table and poured herself out a glass of wine, which she drank hastily. Anything to escape from the scornful wonder of those questioning eyes!
"I did not go there," she said, "to make bargains with Prince Shan. I believed as you wished me to believe, that he was here in that box. I believed that I should have found the house empty, should have found what I wanted and have escaped with it. Why did you do this thing? Why did you send me on that errand when you knew that Prince Shan was there?"
"It was my desire that he should know that you are no different from other women," was the calm reply. "I was a spy for him. You are a spy—against him."
"It was a deliberate plot, then!" Maggie exclaimed, trying to feel the anger which she imparted to her tone.
La Belle Nita suddenly laughed, softly and like a bird.
"You very, very foolish Englishwoman," she said. "A hand leaned down from Heaven, and you liked better to stay where you were, but I am glad."
"And why?"
"Because I have been his slave," the girl continued. "At odd, strange moments he has shown me a little love, he has let me creep into a small corner of his heart. Now I am cast out, and there is no more life for me because there is no more love, and there is no more love because, having felt his, no other can come after. Here have I sat with all the tortures of Hell burning in my blood because I knew that you and he were there alone, because I was never sure that, after all, I was not doing my lord's will. And now I know that I suffered in vain. You did not understand."
Maggie looked across at her visitor reflectively. She was beginning to regain her poise.
"Listen," she said, "did you seriously expect me to accept Prince Shan as a lover?"
The girl's eyes were round with wonder.
"It would be your great good fortune," she murmured, "if he should offer you so wonderful a thing."
Maggie laughed,—persisted in her laugh, although it sounded a little hard and the mirth a little forced.
"I cannot reason with you," she declared, "because you would not understand. If you love him so much, why not go back to him? You will find him quite alone. I dare say you know the secrets of his lockless doors and hordes of unseen servants."
La Belle Nita rose to her feet. About her lips there flickered the faintest smile.
"Young English lady," she said, "I shall not go, because I am shut for ever out of his heart. But listen; would you have me go?"
For a moment Maggie's poise was gone again. A strange uncertainty was once more upon her. She was terrified at her own feelings. The smile on the other's lips deepened and then passed away.
"Ah," she murmured, as with a little bow she turned towards the door, "you are not all snow and ice, then! There is something of the woman in you. He must have known that. I am better content."
Alone in the box, Maggie was confronted once more with spectres. She felt all the fear and the sweetness of this new awakening. The old dangers and problems, the danger of life and death, the problem of her well-ordered days, fell away from her as trifles. There was wilder music in the world than any to which she had yet listened,—music which seemed to be awakening vibrant melodies in her terrified heart. The curtain which hung about the forbidden world had been suddenly lifted. Little shivers of fear convulsed her. Her standards were confused, her whole sense of values disturbed. Her primal virginity, left to itself because it had never needed a guard, had suddenly become a questioning thing. She sat there face to face with this new phase in her life. She was not even conscious of the abrupt pause in the music, the agitated murmur of voices, the sudden cessation of that rhythmical sweep of footsteps on the floor below.
The door of the box was once more opened. Naida, attired as a lady of the Russian Court, entered, followed by Nigel. Both were obviously disturbed. Nigel, who was in ordinary evening dress, carrying his discarded mask in his hand, was paler than usual and exceedingly grave. Naida's dark eyes, too, seemed filled with a sense of awesome things. Almost at the same moment, Maggie realised for the first time that the music had ceased, that there was a hush outside, curiously perceptible, almost audible.
"What has happened?" she asked breathlessly.
Nigel had poured out a glass of wine and was holding it to Naida's lips.
"Something very terrible," he said quietly. "Prince Shan was murdered in his box there a few minutes ago."
Maggie half rose to her feet. The walls seemed spinning round. Then she looked across the great empty space. The still figure in the apple-green coat had disappeared.
"Prince Shan was murdered in that box," she repeated, "a few minutes ago?"
"Yes!" Nigel assented gravely. "He seems to have feared something of the sort, for he had two servants on guard outside and announced that he was not receiving visitors to-night. No one knows any particulars, but a number of people in the auditorium saw him fall sideways from his chair. When he was picked up, there was a small dagger through his heart."
"Through Prince Shan's heart?" Maggie persisted wildly.
"Yes!"
Suddenly she began to laugh. It was a strange, hysterical ebullition of feeling, frankly horrifying. Naida gazed at her with distended eyes.
"Prince Shan has never been here!" Maggie explained brokenly. "He has never left his house in Curzon Street! He is there now!"
Nigel shook his head.
"What is the matter with you, Maggie?" he demanded. "Every one has seen Prince Shan here. You spoke of him yourself. He was in the box exactly opposite."
She shook her head.
"That was one of his suite," she cried. "I know! I tell you I know!" she went on, her voice rising a little. "Prince Shan is safe in his house in Curzon Street."
"How can you possibly know this, Maggie?" Naida intervened eagerly.
"Because I left him there half an hour ago," was the tremulous reply.
There is in the Anglo-Saxon temperament an almost feverish desire to break away from any condition of strain, a sort of shamefaced impulse to discard emotionalism. The strange hush which had lent a queer sensation of unreality to all that was passing in the great building was without any warning brought to an end. Whispers swelled into speech, and speech into almost a roar of voices. Then the music struck up, although at first there were few who cared to dance. There were many who, like Maggie and her companions, silently left their places and hurried homewards.
In the limousine scarcely a word was spoken. Maggie leaned back in her seat, her face dazed and expressionless. Opposite to her, Nigel sat with set, grim face, looking with fixed stare out of the window at the deserted streets. Of the three, Naida seemed more on the point of giving way to emotion. They had passed Hyde Park Corner, however, before a word was spoken. Then it was she who broke the silence.
"Where do we go to first?" she demanded.
"To the Milan Court," Nigel replied.
"You are taking me home first, then?"
"Yes!"
She was silent for a moment. Then she leaned forward and touched the window.
"Pull that down, please," she directed. "I am stifling."
He obeyed, and the rush of cold, wet air had a curiously quietening effect upon the nerves of all of them. Raindrops hung from the leaves of the lime trees and still glittered upon the windowpane. On the way towards the river, the masses of cloud were tinged with purple, and faintly burning stars shone out of unexpectedly clear patches of sky. The night of storm was over, but the wind, dying away before the dawn, seemed to bring with it all the sweetness of the cleansed places, to be redolent even of the budding trees and shrubs,—the lilac bushes, drooping with their weight of moisture, and the pink and white chestnut blossoms, dashed to pieces by the rain but yielding up their lives with sweetness. The streets, in that single hour between the hurrying homewards of the belated reveller and the stolid tramp of the early worker, were curiously empty and seemed to gain in their loneliness a new dignity. Trafalgar Square, with the National Gallery in the background, became almost classical; Whitehall the passageway for heroes.
"What does it all mean?" Naida asked, almost pathetically.
It was Maggie who answered. Her tone was lifeless, but her manner almost composed.
"It means that the attempt to assassinate Prince Shan has failed," she said. "Prince Shan told me himself that he had no intention of going to the ball. He kept his word. The man who was murdered was one of his suite."
"But how do you know this?" Naida persisted.
"You heard what I told you in the box," was the quiet reply. "I shall explain—as much as I can explain—to Nigel when we get home. He can tell you everything later on to-day at lunch-time, if you like."
"It has been one of the strangest nights I ever remember," Naida declared, after a brief pause. "Oscar Immelan, who was dining with us, arrived half an hour late. I have never seen him in such a condition before. He had the air of a broken man."
"Have you any idea of what had happened?" Nigel asked.
"Only this," Naida replied. "We saw Prince Shan last night. He spent several hours with us. I may be wrong, but I came to the conclusion then that he had at any rate modified his views about the whole situation since his arrival in England."
Again there was a brief silence. The minds of all three of them were busy with the same thought. Prince Shan's word had been spoken and Immelan's hopes dashed to the ground,—and within a few hours, this murder! They nursed the thought, but no one put it into words.
A sleepy-eyed porter opened the door of the car outside the Milan Court. Naida gathered herself together with a little shiver.
"I think that after to-night," she said quietly, "there need be no secrets between any of us."
Nigel held her hand in his. Their eyes met, and both of them were conscious, in that moment, of closer personal relations, of the passing of a certain sense of strain. She even smiled as she turned away.
"To-morrow," she concluded, "there must be a great exchange of confidences. I am lunching at Belgrave Square, if Maggie has not forgotten, and I shall tell you then what I have written to Paul Matinsky. I showed it to Prince Shan yesterday. Good night!"
She patted Maggie's hand affectionately and flitted away. The revolving doors closed behind her, and the car swung out once more into the Strand, glided down the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, and stopped at last before the great, lifeless house in Belgrave Square. Nigel opened the front door with a latchkey and turned on the light.
"You won't mind sparing me a few minutes?" he begged.
"I suppose not," she answered, shivering.
He led the way to the study. She threw off her cloak and sank into the depths of one of the big easy-chairs. She looked very frail and rather pathetic as she leaned her head against the chair back. Now that the excitement was over, the strain of the emotion she had experienced showed in the violet shadows under her eyes and in the droop of her shoulders.
"I am tired," she said plaintively.
Nigel came over and sat on the arm of her chair.
"Tell me what happened to-night, Maggie."
"The little Chinese girl sent for me to go to her box," she explained. "She told me where in Prince Shan's house were hidden the papers which revealed the understanding between Immelan and himself. She gave me a key of the house and a key of the cabinet. We could both see the man whom I believed to be Prince Shan seated in his box. She assured me that he would be there for the next two hours. I went to the house in Curzon Street."
"Well?"
His monosyllable was sharp and incisive. His face was grey and anxious. She herself remained lifeless. All that there was of emotion between them seemed to have become vested in his searching eyes.
"I found what I believe to have been the papers. They were in the cabinet, just where she had told me. Then I turned around and found Prince Shan watching me. He had been there all the time."
"Go on, please."
"At first he said little, but I knew that he was very angry. I have never felt so ashamed in my life."
"You must tell me the rest, please."
She stirred uneasily in her chair.
"It is very difficult," she confessed frankly.
"Remember," he persisted, "that in a way, Maggie, I am your guardian. I am responsible, too, for anything which may happen to you whilst you are engaged in work for the good of our cause. You seem to have walked into a trap. Did he threaten you, or what?"
"There was nothing definite," she answered, "and yet—he made me understand."
"Made you understand what?"
"His wishes," she replied, looking up coolly. "He offered me the papers."
"That damned Chinaman!"
There was a cold light in her eyes which Nigel had met with before and dreaded.
"You forget yourself, Nigel," she said. "Prince Shan is a great nobleman."
"The rest? Tell me the rest," he demanded.
"I am here," she reminded him.
"And the papers?"
"I came away without them."
He turned, and, walking to the window, threw it open. The dawn had become almost silvery, and the leaves of the overhanging trees were rustling in the faintest of breezes. Presently he came back.
"What exactly are your feelings for this man, Maggie?" he asked.
For the first time he was struck with a certain pathos in her immobile face. She looked up at him, and there was a gleam almost of fear in her eyes.
"I don't know, Nigel," she confessed.
He moved restlessly about the room, seemed to notice for the first time the whisky and soda set out upon the sideboard and the open box of cigarettes. He helped himself and came back.
"Did you read the papers?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I had no chance."
"You don't know for certain what they were about?"
"I think I do," she replied. "I believe they contained the text of the agreement between Immelan and Prince Shan. I believe they would have shown us exactly what we have to fear."
He stood there for a moment thoughtfully.
"To-night," he said, "I find it difficult to concentrate upon these things. Naida was extraordinarily hopeful. She has seen Prince Shan, and between them I believe that they have decided to let Oscar Immelan's scheme alone. Karschoff, too, has heard rumours. He is of the same opinion. Somehow or other, though, I seem to have lost my sense of perspective. A greater fear has come into my heart, Maggie."
She rose to her feet and laid her hands upon his shoulders.
"Nigel," she whispered, "I cannot answer you. I cannot say what you would like me to say, although, on the other hand, there is no surety of what you seem to fear. I am going to bed. I am very tired."
A feeble shaft of sunlight stole into the room, flickered and passed away, then suddenly reappeared. Nigel turned and opened the door, and she passed out, curiously silent and absorbed. He looked after her, perplexed and worried. Suddenly a strangely commonplace, yet—in the silence of the house and the great hall—an almost dramatic sound startled him. The front doorbell rang sharply. After a moment's hesitation, he hurried to it himself. Karschoff stood upon the steps, still in his evening clothes, his face a little drawn and haggard in the bright light.
"I could not resist coming in, Nigel," he said. "I saw the light in the study from outside. Is there any definite news?"
Nigel drew him inside.
"There are indications," he replied cautiously, "that the present danger is passing."
Karschoff nodded.
"I gathered so from Naida," he admitted. "Prince Shan, though, is the pivot upon which the whole thing turns. You have heard nothing final from him?"
"Nothing! Tell me, was any one arrested at the Albert Hall?"
"No one. The murdered man, as I suppose you have heard, was Sen Lu, one of the Prince's secretaries."
"The whole thing seems strange," Nigel remarked. "Do you suppose Prince Shan knew that an attempt upon his life was likely to-night?"
Karschoff shook his head doubtfully.
"It is difficult to say. These Orientals contrive to surround themselves with such an atmosphere of mystery. But from what I know of Prince Shan," he went on, "I do not think that he is one to shirk danger—even from the assassin's dagger."
A milk cart drew up with a clatter outside. There was the sound of the area gate being opened. Karschoff put on his hat. He looked Nigel in the face.
"Maggie," he began—
Nigel nodded understandingly as he threw open the front door.
"I'll tell you about it to-morrow," he promised, "or rather later on to-day. She's a little overwrought. Otherwise—there's nothing."
Karschoff turned away with a sigh of relief.
"I am glad," he said. "Prince Shan is the soul of honour according to his own standard, but these Orientals—one never knows. I am glad, Nigel."
In his spacious reception room, with its blue walls, the high vases of flowers, the faint odour of incense, its indefinable ascetic charm, Prince Shan sat in his high-backed chair whilst Li Wen, his trusted secretary talked. Li Wen was very eloquent. His tone was never raised, he never forgot that he was speaking to a being of a superior world. He had a great deal to say, however, and he was eager to say it. Prince Shan, as he listened, smoked a long cigarette in a yellow tube. He wore a ring in which was set an uncut green stone on the fourth finger of his left hand. Although the hour was barely nine o'clock, he was shaved and dressed as though for a visit of ceremony. He listened to Li Wen gravely and critically.
"I am sorry about the little one," he said, looking through the cloud of tobacco smoke up towards the ceiling. "Nita has been very useful. She has been as faithful, too, as is possible for a woman."
Li Wen bowed and waited. He knew better than to interrupt.
"It was through the information which Nita brought me," his master went on, "that I have been able to check the truth of Immelan's statement as to the French dispositions and therapprochementwith Italy. Nita has served me very well indeed. What she has done in this matter, she has done in a moment of caprice."
"My lord," Li Wen ventured, "a woman is of no account in the plans of the greatest. She is like a leaf blown hither or thither on the winds of love or jealousy. She may be used, but she must be discarded."
"It is a strange world, this western world," Prince Shan mused. "In our own country, Li Wen, we plot or we fight, we build the great places, climb to the lofty heights, and when we rest we pluck flowers, and women are our flowers. But here, while one builds, the women are there; while one climbs, the women are in the way. They jostle the thoughts, they disturb the emotions, not only of the poet and the pleasure seeker, but of the man who hews his way upwards to the goal he seeks. And it is very deliberate, Li Wen. An Englishman eats and drinks in public and places opposite him a flower he has plucked or hopes to pluck. He drugs himself deliberately. Half the time when he should be soaring in his thoughts, he descends of deliberate intent. Instead of his flower, he makes his woman the partner of his grossness."
"The master speaks," Li Wen murmured. "But what of the woman? She awaits your pleasure."
"I shall hear what she has to say," Prince Shan decided.
Walking backwards as nimbly as a cat, his head drooped, his hands in front of him, Li Wen left his master's presence. A moment later he reappeared, ushering in La Belle Nita. Prince Shan waved him away. The girl came slowly forward, pale and trembling, smouldering fires in her narrow eyes. Not a muscle of Prince Shan's face moved. He watched her approach in silence. She sank on to the floor by the side of his chair.
"What is my master's will?" she asked.
Prince Shan looked downwards at her, and she began to tremble again. There was nothing threatening in his eyes, nothing menacing in his expression. Nevertheless, she felt the chill of death.
"You have done me many good and faithful services, Nita," he said. "What evil spirit has put it into your brain that it would be a good thing to deceive me?"
Her scarlet lips opened and closed again.
"How have I deceived?" she faltered. "I gave the keys to the woman with the blue eyes, and I sent her to my lord. It was a hard thing to do that, but I did it. Was there any risk of evil? My lord was here to deal with her."
"Why did you do this thing, Nita?" he asked.
"My lord knows," she answered simply. "I did it to bring evil upon this English woman whom he has preferred. I did it that he might understand. It was my lord himself who told me that she was a spy. Now it is proved."
Prince Shan's fingers stole into the pocket of his coat. He held out a crumpled sheet of paper, on which was written a single sentence. The girl began to shiver.
"You have been very anxious indeed, Nita," he said, "to bring evil upon this woman. This is the message you sent to Immelan. Do you recognise your words? Listen, these are your words:
"'The greatest of all will desert you, if the Englishwoman whom he loves is not speedily removed. Even to-night he may give papers into her hand, and your secret will be known.'"
The girl sat transfixed. She seemed to have lost all power of speech.
"That is a copy of the message which you sent to Immelan," he told her sternly.
"It is the terrible Li Wen," she faltered. "He has the second sight. The devil walks with him."
"The devil is sometimes a useful confederate," her companion continued equably. "You warned Immelan that it was in my mind to refuse his terms and to open my heart to the Englishwoman, and you seduced Sen Lu to carry your message. Yet your judgment was at fault. The hand of Immelan was stretched out against me, and me alone. But for my knowledge of these things, I might have sat in the place of Sen Lu, who rightly died in my stead. What have you to say?"
She rose to her feet. He made no movement, but his eyes watched her, and the muscles of his body stiffened. He watched the white hand which stole irresolutely towards the loose folds of her coat.
"You ask me why I have done this," she cried, "but you already know. It is because you have taken this woman with the blue eyes into your heart."
"If that were true," he answered, "of what concern is it to others? I am Prince Shan."
"You sent me here to breathe this cursed western atmosphere," she moaned, "to drink in their thoughts and see with their eyes. I see and know the folly of it all, but who can escape? Jealousy with us is a disease. Over there one creeps away like a hurt animal because there is nothing else. Here it is different. The Frenchwoman, the Englishwoman, who loses her lover—she does not fold her hands. She strikes, she is a wronged creature. I too have felt that."
Her master sat for long in silence.
"You are right," he pronounced. "I shall try to be just. You are a person of small understanding. You have never made any effort to live with your head in the clouds. Let that be so. The fault was mine."
"I do not wish to live," she cried.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Live or die—what does it matter?" he answered indifferently. "With life there is pain, and with death there is none, but if you choose life, remember this. The woman with the blue eyes, as you call her, has become the star of my life. If harm should come to her, not only you, but every one of your family and race, in whatsoever part of the world they may be, will leave this life in agony."
The girl stood and wondered.
"My lord thinks so much of a plaything?" she murmured.
Prince Shan frowned. His finely shaped, silky eyebrows almost met. She covered her eyes and drooped her head.
"We of the East," he said, "although we are the mightier race, progress slowly, because the love of new things is not with us. Something of western ways I have learned, and the love of woman. It is not for a plaything I desire her whom we will not name. She shall sit by my side and rule. I shall wed her with my brain as with my body. Our minds will move together. We shall feel the same shivering pleasure when we rule the world with great thoughts as when our bodies touch. I shall teach her to know her soul, even as my own has been revealed to me."
"No woman is worthy of this, my lord," the girl faltered.
He waved his hand and she stole away. At the door he stopped her.
"Do you go to life or death, Nita?" he asked.
She looked at him with a great sorrow.
"I am a worthless thing," she replied. "I go where my lord's words have sent me."
Li Wen reappeared presently for an appointed audience. He brought messages.
"Highness," he announced, "there is a code dispatch here from Ki-Chou. An American gained entrance to the City last week. Yesterday he left by æroplane for India. He was overtaken and captured. It is feared, however, that he has agents over the frontier, for no papers were found upon him."
"It was a great achievement," Prince Shan said thoughtfully. "No other foreigner has ever passed into our secret city. Is there word as to how he got there?"
"He came as a Russian artificer from that city in Russia of which we do not speak," Li Wen replied. "He brought letters, and his knowledge was great."
"His name?" the Prince asked.
"Gilbert Jesson, Highness. His passport and papers refer to Washington, but his message, if he sent one, is believed to have come to London."
"The man must die," the Prince said calmly. "That, without doubt, he expects. Yet the news is not serious. My heart has spoken for peace, Li Wen."
Li Wen bowed low. His master watched him curiously.
"If I had asked it, Li Wen, where would your counsel have led?"
"Towards peace, Highness. I do not trust Immelan. It is not in such a manner that China's Empire shall spread. There are ancestors of mine who would turn in their graves to find China in league with a western Power."
"You are a wise man, Li Wen," his master declared. "We hold the mastery of the world. What shall we do with it?"
"The mightiest sword is that which enforces peace," was the calm reply. "Highness, the lady whom you were expecting waits in the anteroom."
Prince Shan nodded. He welcomed Naida, who was ushered in a moment or two later, with rather more than his usual grave and pleasant courtesy, leading her himself to a chair.
"I wondered," she confessed, "if I were ever to be allowed to see inside your wonderful house."
"It is my misfortune to be compelled to pay so brief a visit to this country," he replied. "As a rule, it gives me great pleasure to open my rooms three evenings and entertain those who care to come and see me."
"I have heard of your entertainments," she said, smiling. "Prima donnas sing. You rob the capitals of Europe to find your music. Then the great Monsieur Auguste is lured from Paris to prepare your supper, and not a lady leaves without some priceless jewel."
"I entertain so seldom," he reminded her. "I fear that the fame of my feasts has been exaggerated."
"When do you leave, Prince?" she asked him.
"Within a few days," he replied.
"I come for your last word," she announced. "All that I have written to Paul Matinsky you know."
"The last word is not yet to be spoken," he said. "This, however, you may tell Matinsky. The scheme of Oscar Immelan has been laid before me. I have rejected it."
"In what other way, then, would you use your power?" she asked.
He made no answer. She watched him with a great and growing curiosity.
"Prince," she said, "they tell me that you are a great student of history."
"I have read what is known of the history of most of the countries of the world," he admitted.
"There have been men," she persisted, "who have dealt in empires for the price of a woman's smile."
"Such men have loved," he said, "as I love."
"Yet for you life has always been a great and lofty thing," she reminded him. "You could not stand where you do if you had not realised the beauty and wonder of sacrifice. Fate has given the peace of the world into your keeping. You will not juggle with the trust?"
He rose to his feet. A servant stood almost immediately at the open door.
"Fate and an American engineer," he remarked with a smile. "I thank you, dear lady, for your visit. You will hear my news before I leave."
She looked into his eyes for a moment.
"It is a great decision," she said, "which rests with you!"