CHAPTER VI
The young man who flung into the embassy as if he owned it was small, round and jolly, with a twinkle in his eye that persisted even when, as at the moment in question, he was fuming with anger and disgust.
“Give me a drink, for God’s sake, Rutile,” he cried. “I’ve been talking to Ouro Preto and I need a bracer. Of all the—”
“Hello, Risdon!” Topham stepped forward and held out his hand. “Hello! old man!” he repeated, smilingly.
“By all the gods! Walter Topham! Where in thunder did you come from?” He grabbed the other’s hand and wrung it warmly. “Say!” he went on, “We’ve simply got to celebrate this! Rutile. Are you going to order those drinks, or shall I?”
Rutile was again looking through the papers brought by Topham. Without raising his eyes he reached over and pounded a bell. “Shut up or talk to Topham till I finish this,” he ordered.
“What you reading? A love letter?”
“Lord! no! Nothing half so important. Only some stuff from the State Department.”
“Oh! That! Let it go!” He turned back to Topham. “By George old man! I haven’t seen you since I bilged from the U. S. N. A. Who’d a-thought we three would ever meet here? You, the savey man of the class; Rutile, the—the—I’ll be darned if I know what; and me the only one of the three who’s done a lick of work since we got out of the Academy—and then only because Uncle Sam gently but firmly refused to support me. But, say, Topham! How’d you get here? In command of a canal boat? Why don’t you speak up instead of making a quiet man break his rule against talking?”
Topham smiled. In fact, he had been smiling ever since he clasped Risdon’s hand, quite content to let the other rattle on unchecked. But at Risdon’s direct appeal, he began to speak, only to pause as a darkey servant thrust his head in the door.
Rutile glanced up. “Three beers, Caesar,” he ordered, and resumed his writing.
“Three beers!” protested Risdon, disgustedly. “Good Heavens! Rutile! Three beers! And youclaim to be from Kentucky.” Then, seeing that the secretary was not listening, he turned again to Topham.
“Where’d you say you were going to?” he demanded.
“I didn’t say. But I’m on my way to Tokio as naval attaché. Leave here tomorrow night; join the Nevada at Brindisi Friday; go with her to Manila as watch officer and then by passenger steamer to Japan. Stopped over here a day to see Rutile.”
Caesar re-entered with the beer, but with him he brought a tall dark bottle and three small glasses. “Ain’t goin’ to offer beer to no navy officer or newspaper gen’mens”, he muttered. “Ain’t a-going to do it, nohow, massa Rutile.”
Rutile grinned and laid down his papers. “Help yourselves, fellows!” he said. “Maybe Caesar knows your tastes better than I do. Prosit!” He lifted his stein and gulped the liquid. “Now, Risdon,” he went on, “You may confide your troubles to Uncle Sam. What’s troubling the special commissioner of the New York Gazette to his Imperial Majesty Wilhelm and the other crowned heads of Europe, Asia, and Africa?”
An expression of disgust came over the correspondent’sface. “Don’t be funny,” he said, severely. “If you think staggering under that tom-fool appellation is any joke you’re mistaken. Say! Rutile! What do you think of that fellow Ouro Preto, anyhow? Reveal your inmost soul—not necessarily for publication, but as an evidence of good sense. Speak the truth. There are no ladies present, so you needn’t restrain yourself.”
Rutile stretched out his legs and grinned. “I don’t like Ouro Preto much myself,” he answered; “but plenty of others do. What’s he done to you?”
“It isn’t what he’s done; its what he is! He’s always making up to me—God knows what for. I don’t like him.”
“Natural antipathy, eh! Ouro Preto is a half German, half Brazilian count, Topham, who’s spending the winter in Berlin and who’s trod on Risdon’s toes somehow. Probably refused to admit the right of the American press to pry into his inmost concerns.”
“Refused, nothing!” shouted the reporter. “It’s my business to read men, and it ought to be yours, Rutile, if you were with your salt. We’re all as God made us, if not worse. But I give you fairwarning to watch out for Ouro Preto. He’ll do you dirt if he gets the chance.”
Rutile did not laugh, though he looked as though he would much have liked doing so. The correspondent’s rhodomontade did not seem to impress him greatly. “And the villain still pursued her,” he remarked, casually.
“Oh! all right. Go your own way. Only don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m not the only one who thinks so. If it wasn’t for his sister he’d be kicked out mucho pronto! Say! Topham! You never met his sister, did you?”
Topham shook his head but did not speak.
“Well! You don’t want to! Not if you’ve got a girl back home and want to remember her. The countess catches all sorts and every sort. She’s the prettiest, wittiest, beautifulest—”
Before Topham could shape an answer, a passing band struck up one of the waltzes of the day, and with its strains there rose before the navy officer’s mind a face—the face of the girl with whom he had sat upon the steamer two nights before and listened to the band play that same waltz.
The music died away in the distance, and helooked up at Risdon. “When’s the wedding to be?” he laughed.
“The wedding? God forbid! I’d as soon marry a catamount. Not that this particular catamount would marry me or any one else less than a duke—if she and that brother of hers get what they’re after. But that doesn’t make her any the less entertaining—when she has something to gain by it. She worked me all right—once.” The correspondent winced at the recollection. “Wait till you see her!”
“Probably I won’t. I must be off tomorrow, you know. Who are they—she and her brother—anyway? And what are they after?”
“After? Trouble! Big trouble sure! Rutile won’t admit it—for publication. Says I’m a yellow reporter, you know. But it’s so, all the same. But, say, I’ve got to go up to the war office. Come along with me and I’ll tell you the yarn!”
“Yes! Do! Go along, Topham. I’ve got an hour’s work that must be done, and then I’m at your service. And—by the way, when you cross the bridge, pick Risdon up by the nape of the neck and drop him gently into the River Spree. Then come back to lunch.”
Risdon jumped up. “That’s American bluntness,I suppose,” he exclaimed. “Ouro Preto said the other day that Americans had no more manners than a wet dog. I came near knocking him down for it, but I’ll be darned if I don’t believe he was right. Come along, Topham.”
The two young men clattered down the stairs into the broad Unter den Linden. Crowds thronged the sidewalk and a double current of miscellaneous vehicles moved unceasing between the curbs. Everything on wheels was represented, from a 60-horsepower automobile to an oxcart. Laughing and chatting Risdon led Topham through the maze, pointing out famous men and famous places with comments, the least of which, if overheard by any one of the stiff-necked German officers they passed, would have brought forth an immediate challenge.
After a while he pointed to an ornate stone pile. “That’s where our pretty countess lives,” he remarked, airily. “I haven’t seen her for two or three weeks. Wonder where she’s keeping herself?”
“The countess Ouro Preto? Oh! yes! You were going to tell me something about her, weren’t you?” questioned Topham, carelessly.
“Sure! * * * it’s this way. She and her brotherare the children of the Count Ouro Preto, Governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. They are also the grandchildren of a former Duke of Hochstein, by a second, morganatic, marriage with a ballet dancer, by whom he had one daughter. All the duke’s children by his first and royal consort died. All his nephews died. Everybody died, except the morganatic daughter, who married a Brazilian, the Count of Ouro Preto, and went to South America with him. The ducal line became extinct, for of course this daughter’s descendants had no standing. Now comes Ouro Preto and his sister, children of this daughter, backed by enormous wealth, and petition the Emperor to revive the duchy in their behalf. You see, her marriage to the duke was proper and religious and all that, and was only morganatic because the duke was chief of a mediatized German house, and couldn’t marry except among his princely beery peers. Now the Ouro Pretos have faked up a royal pedigree for the ballet dancer. If they can make it stick, they establish her moral claim to the duchy, and gain a sort of backstairs standing for themselves. Of course the ballet dancer pedigree is faked; everybody says it’s faked; the Kaiser probably knows it’s faked; but that won’t cut any ice ifWilhelm decides to declare it established. And everybody is on pins and needles to know whether he is going to do it or not. Ouro Preto has offered to buy back the ducal estates, which were escheated to the Emperor half a century ago, at two million dollars, which is about three times their value, and to spend two million more on beautifying the tiny capital of Hochstein. It’s all a matter of price. Lord, Topham! I used to think we had a monopoly of graft on the other side of the water. But we haven’t. Not a bit of it. We buy senatorships and these people buy titles. The same longing for power, the same craving for notoriety, the same love of display exists in the U. S. A. as here. Ouro Preto wants to be a sovereign duke and he’s got the scads to pay for it. It’s up to the kaiser to say whether he bids high enough. And I shouldn’t wonder if the Countess Elsa would turn the scale.”
Suddenly the reporter broke off. He clutched Topham by the arm and dragged him to the edge of the pavement. “Stand still a minute,” he ordered, as he rested his hand on the navy officer’s shoulder and raised himself on tiptoe. “Yes! it’s she,” he exclaimed, an instant later. “You big men will never realize how useful your inches aretill you try being a little man in a crowd. You say you have never seen the fair Elsa, Countess del Ouro Preto? Well! You are about to have that pleasure. Yonder she comes, in that red motor.”
Walter looked where the other pointed. Then something seemed to grip him by the throat, and he caught at the journalist’s shoulder to steady himself.
The motor was very near, and he could see its occupants distinctly. They were two in number. One was stout and middleaged; Topham’s eyes passed over her unheeding. The other was Elsa Ferreira.
Her eyes met Topham’s and a great wave of crimson flooded over her cheeks. Her hand slipped, and the motor swerved sharply. The other woman started and screamed out, and the fair driver, suddenly recalled to herself, barely avoided a collision. Then the car swept on.
Topham followed it with his eyes, forgetful of his whereabouts till it was swallowed up in the press. Then suddenly he became aware that the correspondent was shaking him violently by the arm.
“What is it?” he questioned vaguely.
“What is it!” Risdon’s voice was tremblingwith excitement. “What is it? Brace up, for God’s sake, Walter,” he begged. “People are staring. If you could see yourself! But good Lord, I don’t wonder! Nobody ever looked at me as that woman looked at you.”
With a great effort Topham regained his composure. “Nonsense!” he said. “Forget for a moment that you’re a yellow journalist, Risdon, and don’t try to make a sensation out of nothing. I know the lady slightly. She crossed with me from New York.”