CHAPTER XXIVAN AFFAIR OF STATE
SELDEN took train for Nice next morning with a sense of impending calamity. He was greatly depressed. The emotional events of the previous evening had overtaxed his nerves. He had slept badly, disturbed by elusively threatening dreams, and his brain was muggy and distraught. He was almost sorry he had not heeded his impulse to run away—to leave his lamp unlit! He doubted more and more whether its feeble rays would ever guide him out of the labyrinth in which he was madly wandering, and from which there seemed to be no way of escape.
The train he had caught was a local, and as it bumped its leisurely way along, he had time to review his position over a contemplative pipe; but the more he considered it, the worse it seemed to grow; turn it as he might, he could discover no bright side. Of one thing only he was certain: his life would never again be the calm and satisfactory thing it had been. A few days had changed it beyond recognition: it was no longer simple: it was incredibly complex. He could scarcely believe that only eighty hours had elapsed since he had walked into the lounge of the Hotel de Paris to meet the Countess Rémond.
At Nice, the passengers were hurried across the tracks, for the Rome-Paris express had been signalled,and as he gave up his ticket to the guard at the exit, Selden’s eye caught a familiar figure. It was Halsey, walking nervously up and down in the waiting-room, pausing now and then to watch the people pouring from the train-shed. His eyes met Selden’s for an instant, but he gave no sign of recognition. He was rather a pitiable figure, his face grey and drawn, his eyes shot with blood—evidently his affair with the countess was not progressing smoothly. Well, he was only getting what he deserved, Selden told himself, as he turned away.
It still lacked fifteen minutes of the hour named by the baron; so, deciding that the walk would do him good, Selden turned briskly down the Avenue des Victoires toward the sea. The street was swarming, as usual, with tourists and winter residents, whose presence there was always an insoluble mystery to Selden. He never could understand why any one would want to spend a winter at Nice, when there were so many other places up and down the coast infinitely more attractive. It was the herd instinct, he decided, which brought these thousands of people here to spend their vacations in an inordinately expensive hotel or a dingy pension, with nothing to do except walk up and down the Promenade des Anglais, or look sadly on at the laboriously manufactured gaieties.
He found the Promenade a solid mass of people moving in two slow currents, one up, one down, for this was the fashionable hour to get out and take the sun and exhibit one’s new gown, which some man somewhere had somehow procured the money for. Truly, human nature is a curious thing!
The gates of the Villa Gloria were open, and he walked through, past the concierge, who recognized him and touched his cap, up the path to the door, where a waiting attendant received him and ushered him at once into the salon.
The king and Lappo were already there and greeted him warmly. Then the baron introduced him to the notary, M. Noblemaire—a true type, with hawk-nose, crinkly beard, and carefully brushed clothes of rusty black—who, with an assistant, was going over the papers to make sure that everything was in order.
The prince came in a moment later, greeted Selden casually, and sat down beside the long table which occupied the centre of the room. He was dressed in irreproachable morning costume and, save for a slight pallor, gave no hint in his appearance of his exciting experiences of the night before. No one looking at him would have suspected that he had lost a fortune! Selden was conscious of a great relief, for he had expected he knew not what—some excitement, some discomposure, at least some vestige of wreckage after the storm. Certainly the prince had consummate self-control!
Then the door opened and Mrs. Davis and her daughter were shown in—the former very warm and voluble, the latter as composed as the prince himself.
Nothing could have been more delicate, more exquisitely attuned to the situation, than the way in which Danilo greeted her, respectful, reserved, but with just a hint of ardency beneath the surface. From the quick glance she shot at the prince’s face,Selden inferred the manner was new to her, but it was evidently not distasteful, and as he turned away to meet Mrs. Davis, who was bearing down upon him, he saw that the baron was contemplating it with satisfaction. The prince had been tamed. He was playing the game, and playing it extraordinarily well!
“How do you do, Mr. Selden?” cried Mrs. Davis. “It wastoogood of you to consent to be our witness. I should not have dared to ask, but the dear baron assured me that you were very good-natured....”
Miss Davis came forward and gave him her hand.
“It was nice of you,” she said; “and it relieves my mind.”
“Relieves your mind?”
She smiled a little at his tone.
“I regard it as the seal of your approval,” she explained.
“Do you still need the seal of my approval?” he asked.
“It is very comforting to have it. That is what your being here means, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so; but you must remember that I am looking at it from the outside, while you....”
“I know what you mean,” she said, as he hesitated. “There is no reason why you should beat around the bush—I am not a child!”
“Of course—but it has bothered me.”
“It needn’t bother you any longer. It is all right. I had a letter from her this morning—a very splendid letter. Some day I should like to know her.”
Mrs. Davis, to whom M. Noblemaire had beenpresented, was announcing that Charley had stopped for their notary, since itwasnecessary they have their own notary.
“But surely, madame,” said M. Noblemaire, who had some English. “Otherwise it would be most irregular.”
Well, so Charley had gone around for him, and should arrive at any moment. And, sure enough, at that moment Charley did arrive with another notary in tow.
The two men of the robe greeted each other with punctilious politeness. To look at them, no one would have suspected that they played dominoes together every evening at the café on the corner.
“We are all here, I think,” said the king, and took his place at the head of the table. Baron Lappo conducted Miss Davis and her mother to the seats at the king’s right. The prince took his place at his grandfather’s left, and their partisans ranged themselves on either side below them. Selden found himself near the foot of the table, facing M. Noblemaire’s assistant.
For some minutes, there was a great rustling of papers on the part of the notaries. Then they bent their heads together across the table in earnest conversation, while M. Noblemaire explained two or three of the clauses to his colleague, who seemed to be objecting to something, as a matter of form, no doubt, to give the appearance of earning his fee, but who finally nodded his head as though satisfied, and settled back in his chair.
Then M. Noblemaire cleared his throat and rose to his feet.
“Mesdames et messieurs,” he began, speaking in French, with a pronounced accent of the Midi, and dwelling upon every syllable after the manner of an orator, “we have come here to-day to sign and to acknowledge certain articles of agreement between the royal house of Ghita and the American family Davis, which envisage the marriage of a prince of that house with a daughter of that family. With your permission, I will proceed to read those articles.”
He adjusted his glasses and began to read, with great care and solemnity, while his fellow-notary followed on a duplicate copy, checking off the articles one by one. Selden listened with deep interest. He was gratified to hear the baron’s assertion verified: Miss Davis’s fortune was to remain absolutely in her hands, and was to descend to her children. The necessity of children was recognized quite frankly, and their status, rights, and privileges were provided for in great detail. During the lifetime of the king, he was to be their guardian jointly with their mother. After his death, this duty was to devolve upon the Baron Lappo. The prince was to have a yearly allowance of two hundred thousand francs and his present debts were to be paid. In return, he engaged to reside within the borders of his country for ten months of every year, unless his presence elsewhere was necessitated by reasons of state approved by the king.
Selden glanced up and down the board, as Noblemaire read slowly on. The king and Lappo were listening attentively, careful to let no word escape them; the prince sat with arms folded and eyesdowncast and face inexpressive, like a prisoner listening while sentence was pronounced; Miss Davis sat quietly attentive, her hands folded in her lap. Her attitude seemed to say that, since this document concerned her so closely, it behooved her to be familiar with all its provisions, but it was a matter of business, not of sentiment. Selden recalled the baron’s words about her. Was it really some old trial, some cruel disillusion, which had given her this serene self-control? Had she really suffered some disastrous adventure? It scarcely seemed possible.
And then Selden remembered a sentence which her brother had uttered, apparently at random, the night before. It had passed unheeded then, but Selden found that it had somehow stuck in his memory. What was it he had said? “It’s pretty tough that it should happen twice!” Something like that.
That what should happen twice? That she should be twice deserted? For another woman? Was it that old affair with Jeneski he referred to? Had Jeneski deserted her for another woman—the Countess Rémond? But the Countess Rémond hated him too! She also was seeking to be revenged.
And suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fell together in his mind like the bits of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope, and he understood.
Jeneski was to be overthrown because two women hated him; the destiny of a people was to be changed, the course of history altered, to gratify their vengeance.
Ah, well, that had happened a thousand times;women were always altering the course of history to suit their whims or their passions; damming it up, throwing it into strange channels....
Or perhaps it was only his too-fervid imagination magnifying a chance remark. Myra Davis certainly did not look like a girl to seek adventure, to court disaster. At any rate, whether or not she had been deserted once, she was not being deserted twice. Presently she would be a princess, and after that queen-regent. Her son would be a king—the first king in history to be born of an American woman. That, also, would alter its course!
M. Noblemaire’s voice droned on, and each of them sat and listened and dreamed his dream; and Mrs. Davis’s, perhaps, was the sweetest of all—of a place on the steps of a throne....
Then suddenly the voice ceased and startled them awake.
“You find it correct, I trust, monsieur?” inquired M. Noblemaire of his fellow-notary.
“Yes, monsieur; in every detail.”
“Then we have only to sign,” said M. Noblemaire, and turned to his assistant for the pens, ink and blotter.
Selden was amused to see that the pens were long quills.
M. Noblemaire dipped one of them in the ink, picked up the paper, and approached the king.
“If you will sign here, Your Majesty,” he said, and laid the paper before him, indicated the place, and handed him the pen.
The king scrawled a greatPIETROacross the page.
It was the prince’s turn next, and the baron witnessed the signatures.
“Now, mademoiselle,” said M. Noblemaire, and laid the document in front of Miss Davis.
She took the pen from him with a hand that shook a little.
“No, no!” cried a voice outside. “It is impossible, monsieur; you cannot enter! Monsieur....”
“But I must enter!” cried another voice, and the door was thrown open with a crash.