CHAPTER IIONE-FOURTH OF A SECRET AND THREE-FOURTHS OF A MYSTERY
Forsome minutes the pair walked in silence, as if each was still brooding on the mysterious cipher whose treachery to France had brought them together. But presently Statham touched Onslow on the arm. “Tell me,” he said, “something of this enchantress. I am equally curious about her.”
“And I know very little,” Onslow replied. “Her mother, if you believe scandal, was a famous Paris flower girl, who was mistress in turn to half the young rakes of thenoblesse; her father is supposed to have been an English gentleman. Your eyes will tell you she is gifted with a singular beauty, which is her only dowry. Gossip says that she makes that dowry go a long way, for she has two passions, flowers and jewels.”
“And she resides in London?”
“She resides nowhere,” Onslow answered with his slow smile; “she is here to-day and away to-morrow. I have met her in Paris, in Brussels, Vienna, Rome. She talks French as easily as she talks English, andwherever she is her apartments are always haunted by the men of pleasure, and by thegrand monde. Women you never meet there, for she is not a favourite with her own sex, which is not surprising.”
“Pardon,” Statham asked, “but is she—is she, too, in the Secret Service?”
“God bless my soul! No; we don’t employ ladies with a passion for jewels. It would expose them and us to too many temptations. And, besides, politics are the one thing this goddess abhors. Eating, drinking, the pleasures of the body, poetry, philosophy, romance, the arts, and the pleasures of the mind she adores; luxury and jewels she covets, but politics, no! They are a forbidden topic. For me her friendship is convenient, for the politicians are always in her company. When will statesmen learn,” he added, “that making love to a lady such as she is is more powerful in unlocking the heart and unsealing the lips than wine?” “And her name?”
“She has not got one. ‘Princess’ we call her and she deserves it, for she is fit to adorn the Palace of Versailles.”
“Perhaps,” said Statham, “she will some day.”
“Not a doubt of it—if Louis will only pay enough.”
They had reached the house. Statham noticed that Onslow neither gave his own nor asked for his hostess’s name. He showed the footman a card, which was returned, and immediately they were ushered into two handsome apartments with doors leading the one intothe other, and in the inner of the two they found some half-dozen gentlemen talking. Three of them wore stars and ribbons, but all unmistakably belonged to thatgrand mondeof which Onslow had spoken. From behind the group the lady quietly walked forward and curtsied deferentially to Statham, who felt her eyes resting on his with no small interest as his companion kissed her hand. The secret agent had not exaggerated. This woman was indeed strikingly impressive. About the middle height, with a slight but exquisitely shaped figure, at first sight she seemed to flash on you a vision composed of dark masses of black hair, large and liquid blue eyes, and a dazzling skin, cream-tinted. Dressed in a flowing robe of dark red, she wore in her hair blood-red roses, while blood-red roses twined along her corsage, which was cut, not without justification, daringly open. Her bare arms, her theatrical manner, and the profusion of jewels which glittered in the candle-light suggested a curious vulgarity, which was emphasised by her speech, for her English, spoken with the ease of a native, betrayed in its accent rather than its words evidence of low birth. Yet all this was forgotten in the mysterious charm which clung about her like a subtle and intoxicating perfume, and as Statham in turn kissed her jewelled hand, a fleeting something in her eyes, at once pathetic and vindictive, shot with a thrill through him.
“An English officer and a friend of Mr. Onslow,” she remarked, “is always amongst my most welcomeguests,” and then she turned to the elderly fop in the star and ribbon and resumed her conversation.
Statham studied her carefully. Superb health, a superb body, and a reckless disregard of convention she certainly had, but the more he observed her the more certain he felt that that wonderful skin as well as those lustrous blue eyes and alluring eyebrows owed more to art than to nature. In fact every pose of her head, every line in her figure, the scandalous freedom of her attire were obviously intended to puzzle as much as to attract—and they succeeded. She was the incarnation of a fascination and of a puzzle.
Two more gentlemen had arrived, and Statham was an interested spectator of what followed.
“Princess,” the new-comer said, “I present to you my very good friend the Vicomte de Nérac.”
The lady turned sharply. Was it the visitor’s name or face which for the moment disturbed her equanimity?—yet apparently neither the Vicomte nor she had met before.
“Welcome, Vicomte,” she said, so swiftly recovering herself that Statham alone noticed her surprise, if it was surprise. “And may I ask how a Capitaine-Lieutenant of the Chevau-légers de la Garde de la Maison du Roi happens to be in England when his country is at war?”
“You know me, Madame!” the Vicomte stammered, looking at her in a confusion he could not conceal.
The lady laughed. “Every one who has been inParis,” she retorted, “knows the Chevau-légers de la Garde, and the most famous of their officers is Monsieur the Vicomte de Nérac, famous, I would have these gentlemen be aware, for his swordsmanship, for his gallantries—and for his military exploits which won him the Croix de St. Louis.”
“You do me too much honour, Madame,” the Vicomte replied.
“As a woman I fear you, as a lover of gallant deeds and as a fencer myself I adore you, as do all the ladies whether at Versailles or in Les Halles,” she laughed again. “But you have not answered my question. Why are you in England, Monsieur le Vicomte?”
“Nine months ago I had the misfortune to be taken prisoner, Madame, but in three weeks I return to my duty as a soldier and a noble of France.” He bowed to the company with that incomparable air of self-confidence tempered by the dulcet courtesy which was the pride of Versailles and the despair of the rest of the world.
“And here,” the lady answered, “is another gentleman who also shortly returns to his duty. Captain Statham of the First Foot Guards, Monsieur le Vicomte de Nérac of the Chevau-légers de la Garde. Perhaps before long you will meet again, and this time not in a woman’s salon.”
“When Captain Statham is taken prisoner,” the Vicomte remarked, smiling, “I can assure him Paris is not less pleasant than London, but till then he and Imust agree to cross swords in a friendly manner for the favours of yourself, Princess.”
“And you think you will win, Vicomte?”
“It is impossible we can lose,” the Vicomte replied. “Not even the gallantry of the First Foot Guards can save the allies from the genius of Monseigneur the Maréchal de Saxe.”
“We will see,” Statham responded gruffly.
“Without a doubt, sir.” The Vicomte bowed.
Statham stared at him stolidly. He could hardly have guessed that this exquisitely dressed gentleman with the slight figure and the innocently grand air was really a soldier, and above all an officer in perhaps the most famous cavalry regiment of all Europe, every trooper in which, like the Vicomte himself, was a noble of at least a hundred years’ standing, but he was reluctantly compelled to confess that the stranger was undeniably handsome, and his manner spoke of an ease and a distinction beyond criticism. His smile, too, was singularly seductive in its sweetness and strength, and his brown eyes could glitter with marvellous and unspeakable thoughts. From that minute he seemed to imagine that his hostess belonged to him: he placed himself next her at supper, he absorbed her conversation, and, still more annoying, she willingly consented. Statham in high dudgeon had to listen to the polite small talk of his English neighbour, conscious all the while that at his elbow the Vicomte was chattering away to “the princess” in the gayest French. Andafter supper he along with the others was driven off to play cards while the pair sat in the other room alone and babbled ceaselessly in that infernal foreign tongue.
“The Vicomte,” Onslow said coolly, “has made another conquest.”
“It is true, then, that he is a fine swordsman as well as a rake?”
“Quite true. His victims amongst the ladies are as numerous as his victims of the sword. It is almost as great an honour for a man to be run through by André de Nérac as it is for a woman to succumb to his wooing. Do not forget he is a Chevau-léger de la Garde and a Croix de St. Louis.”
Statham grunted.
“It is not fair,” Onslow pursued, throwing down the dice-box. “You are not enjoying yourself,” and he rose and went into the other room. “Gentlemen,” he said, on his return, “I have persuaded our princess to add to our pleasure by dancing. In ten minutes she will be at your service.”
The cards were instantly abandoned and while they waited the Vicomte strolled in and walked up to Onslow.
“That is a strange lady,” he remarked, “a very strange lady. She knows Paris and all my friends as well as I do; yet I have never so much as seen her there.”
“Yes,” Onslow answered, looking him all over, “she is very strange.”
“And the English of Madame is, I think, not theEnglish of the quality?” Onslow nodded. “That, too, is curious, for her French is our French, the French of thenoblesse. She says her father was an English gentleman, and her mother a Paris flower girl, which is still more curious, for the flower girls of Paris do not talk as we talk on the staircase Des Ambassadeurs at Versailles, or as my mother and the women of my race talk. Mon Dieu!” he broke off suddenly, for the princess had tripped into the room, turning it by the magic of her saucy costume into a flower booth in the market of Paris, and without ado she began to sing a gaychansonnette, waving gently to and fro her basket of flowers:
“Quand on a su toucherLe cœur d’une bergèreOn peut bien s’assurerDu plaisir de lui faire.Et zon, zon, zon,Lisette, ma Lisette;Et zon, zon, zon,Lisette, ma Lisou.”
“Quand on a su toucherLe cœur d’une bergèreOn peut bien s’assurerDu plaisir de lui faire.Et zon, zon, zon,Lisette, ma Lisette;Et zon, zon, zon,Lisette, ma Lisou.”
“Quand on a su toucher
Le cœur d’une bergère
On peut bien s’assurer
Du plaisir de lui faire.
Et zon, zon, zon,
Lisette, ma Lisette;
Et zon, zon, zon,
Lisette, ma Lisou.”
And the dance into which without a word of warning she broke was something to stir the blood of both English and French by its invincible mixture of coquetry, lithe grace, and audacious abandon, its swift transitions from a mocking stateliness and a tempting reserve to its intoxicating, almost devilish revelation of uncontrolled passion; and all the while that heartless, airy song twined itself into every pirouette, every pose, and was translated into the wickedest provocation by the twinkling flutter of her short skirt and the flashesof the jewelled buckles in her saucy shoes. To Statham as to André de Nérac the princess had vanished, and all that remained was a witch in woman’s form, a witch with black hair crowned with crimson roses and a cream-tinted skin gleaming white against those roses at her breast.
“To the victor,” she cried, picking a nosegay from her basket, and kissing it, “to the victor of the spring!” and André and Statham found themselves hit in the face by the flowers. The salon rang with “Bravos” and “Huzzas” until every one woke to the discovery that the dancer had disappeared.
When she returned she was once more in her splendid robes and frigidly cynical as before.
“I am tired, gentlemen,” she said; “I must beg you to say good-night.” She held out her hand to the Vicomte. “Au revoir!” she said, permitting her eyes to study his olive-tinted cheeks and the homage of his gaze.
“Your prisoner, Madame,” he said, “your prisoner for always!”
“Or I yours?” she flashed back, swiftly.
And now she was speaking to Statham. “We shall meet again,” she said. “Yes, we shall meet again, Captain.”
“Not in London, Madame,” he answered.
“Oh, no! But I trust our meeting will be as pleasant for you as to-night has been for me.”
“It cannot fail to be.”
“Ah, you never know. Women are ever fickle and cruel,” she answered, and once again as he kissed the jewelled fingers Statham was conscious of that pathetic, pantherish light in her great eyes, which made him at once joyous, sad, and fearful.
When they had all gone the woman stood gazing at her bare shoulders in the long mirror. “Fi, donc!” she muttered with a shrug of disgust, and she tore in two one of the cards with which the gamblers had been playing, allowing the fragments to trickle carelessly down as though the gust of passion which had moved her was already spent. Then she drew the curtains across the door between the two rooms, and remained staring into space. “André Pierre Auguste Marie, Vicomte de Nérac,” she murmured, “Seigneur des Fleurs de Lys, Vicomte de—” she smelled one of her roses, the fingers of her other hand tapping contemplatively on her breast. A faint sigh crept into the stillness of the empty, glittering room.
Then she flung herself on the low divan, put her arms behind her head, and lay gazing in front of her. The door was opening gently, but she did not stir. A man walked in noiselessly, halted on the threshold, and looked at her for fully two minutes. She never moved. It was George Onslow. He walked forward and stood beside her. She let her eyes rest on him with absolute indifference.
“There is your pass,” he said, in a low voice in which emotion vibrated.
“I thank you.” She made no effort to take it, but simply turned her head as if to see him the better.
“Is that all my reward?” he demanded. “It was not easy to get that pass.”
“No?” She pulled a rose from her breast and sniffed it. “I believe you. I can only thank you again.”
He dropped the paper into her lap, where she let it lie.
“By God!” he broke out, “I wish I knew whether you are more adorable as you are now on that sofa, or as you were dancing in that flower girl’s costume.”
“Most men in London prefer the short petticoats,” she remarked, moving the diamond buckle on her shoe into the light, “but in Paris they have better taste, for only a real woman can make herself adorable in this”—she gave a little kick to indicate the long, full robe. “Think about it,mon ami, and let me know to-morrow which you really like the better.”
“And to-night?”
She stooped forward to adjust her slipper. “To-night,” she repeated, “I must decide whether I dislike you more as the lover of this afternoon, the man of pleasure of this evening, or the spy of to-morrow.”
He put a strong hand on her shoulder. In an instant she had sprung to her feet.
“No!” she cried, imperiously, “I have had enough for one day of men who would storm a citadel by insolence. Leave me!”
“You are expecting some one?”
“And if I am?”
“Don’t torture me. Tell me who it is.”
“Perhaps you will have to wait till dawn or longer before you see him.”
“I will kill him, that is all,—kill him when he leaves this house.”
“I have no objection to that,” was the smiling answer. “One rake less in the world is a blessing for all women, honest or—” she fingered her rose caressingly.
“Is it one of those who were here to-night!” he demanded. “Perhaps that infernal libertine of a Vicomte de——”
“Pray, what have my secrets to do with you?” She faced him scornfully.
“This.” He came close to her. “You flatter yourself,ma mignonne, that you guard your secrets very well. So you do from all men but me. But I take leave to tell you that three-fourths of those secrets are already mine.” She sniffed at the rose in the most provoking way. “Yes, I have discovered three-fourths, and——”
“The one-fourth that remains you will never discover until I choose.”
“Do not be too sure.”
“And then——?”
“You,ma mignonne, you the guest of many men, will be in my power, and you will be glad to do whatI wish. Oh, I will not be your cur, your lackey, then, but you will——”
She dropped him a curtsey, and walked away to an escritoire, from a drawer in which she took out a piece of paper.
“The one-fourth that remains,” she said, holding it up, and offering it to him, “I give it to you, my cur and lackey.”
She watched him take it, unfold it, read it. His hand shook, the paper dropped from his fingers, and while he passed his handkerchief over his forehead she put the fragment in the fire.
They faced each other in dead silence. She was perfectly calm, but his mouth twitched and his eyes gleamed with an unhallowed fire and with fear.
“Are you mad?” he asked at last, “that you confess such a thing to me—me?”
“Better to you,” she retorted, “than to that infernal libertine, the Vicomte de Nérac, or that infernal simpleton, Captain Statham, eh? No,mon ami, my reason is this: Now, you, George Onslow, who profess to love me, who would make me your slave, are in my power, and the proof is that I order you to leave this room at once.”
“I shall return.”
“Then you certainly will be mad.”
“Ah!” He sprang forward. “Can you not believe that I love you more than ever? I——”
“Pshaw!”
The door had slammed. Onslow was alone.
For a minute he stood, clenching his hands, frustrated passion glowing in his eyes. “Ah!” he exclaimed in a cry of pent-up anguish, and then the door slammed again as he strode out.