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The Mischief-Maker

by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #8878 · 546,358 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Mischief-Maker

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim


        
Release date: September 1, 2005 [eBook #8878]
                Most recently updated: August 29, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8878

Credits: Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISCHIEF-MAKER ***




Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders









THE MISCHIEF-MAKER

BY

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

AUTHOR OF "THE LIGHTED WAY," "THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE," "HAVOC," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HANSON BOOTH

1913






CONTENTS



BOOK ONE



CHAPTER


    I SYMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS

   II AN INDISCREET LETTER

  III A RUINED CAREER

   IV A BUNCH OF VIOLETS

    V A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE

   VI AT THE CAFÉ L'ATHÉNÉE

  VII COFFEE FOR THREE

 VIII IN PARIS

   IX MADAME CHRISTOPHOR

    X BETTER ACQUAINTANCE

   XI THE TOYMAKER FROM LEIPZIG

  XII AT THE RAT MORT

 XIII POLITICS AND PATRIOTISM

  XIV THE MORNING AFTER

   XV BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

  XVI "HAVE YOU EVER LOVED?"

 XVII KENDRICKS IS HOST

XVIII A MEETING OF SOCIALISTS

  XIX AN OFFER

   XX FALKENBERG ACTS




BOOK TWO



CHAPTER



    I THE FLIGHT OF LADY ANNE

   II "TO OUR NEW SELVES"

  III WORK FOR JULIEN

   IV A STARTLING DISCLOSURE

    V THE FIRST ARTICLE

   VI FALKENBERG FAILS

  VII LADY ANNE DECLINES

 VIII A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

   IX FOOLHARDY JULIEN

    X THE SECOND ATTEMPT

   XI BY THE PRINCE'S ORDERS

  XII DISTRESSING NEWS

 XIII ESTERMEN'S DEATH WARRANT

  XIV SANCTUARY

   XV NEARING A CRISIS

  XVI FALKENBERG'S LAST REPORT

 XVII DEFEAT FOR FALKENBERG

XVIII THE ONE WAY OUT

  XIX ALL ENDS WELL




ILLUSTRATIONS

"Really," he said, "I thought better of Herr Freudenberg"

"At least," she reminded him, "you are going to see Madame
Christophor?"

"Splendid!" he muttered, rising to his feet. "If only I can do it!"

"Let me present to you Monsieur Bourgan of the French Detective
Service"





BOOK ONE




CHAPTER I


SYMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS


The girl who was dying lay in an invalid chair piled up with cushions
in a sheltered corner of the lawn. The woman who had come to visit her
had deliberately turned away her head with a murmured word about the
sunshine and the field of buttercups. Behind them was the little
sanitarium, a gray stone villa built in the style of a château,
overgrown with creepers, and with terraced lawns stretching down to the
sunny corner to which the girl had been carried earlier in the day.
There were flowers everywhere--beds of hyacinths, and borders of purple
and yellow crocuses. A lilac tree was bursting into blossom, the breeze
was soft and full of life. Below, beyond the yellow-starred field of
which the woman had spoken, flowed the Seine, and in the distance one
could see the outskirts of Paris.

"The doctor says I am better," the girl whispered plaintively. "This
morning he was quite cheerful. I suppose he knows, but it is strange
that I should feel so weak--weaker even day by day. And my cough--it
tears me to pieces all the time."

The woman who was bending over her gulped something down in her throat
and turned her head. Although older than the invalid whom she had come
to visit, she was young and very beautiful. Her cheeks were a trifle
pale, but even without the tears her eyes were almost the color of
violets.

"The doctor must know, dear Lucie," she declared. "Our own feelings so
often mean nothing at all."

The girl moved a little uneasily in her chair. She, also, had once been
pretty. Her hair was still an exquisite shade of red-gold, but her
cheeks were thin and pinched, her complexion had gone, her clothes fell
about her. She seemed somehow shapeless.

"Yes," she agreed, "the doctor knows--he must know. I see it in his
manner every time he comes to visit me. In his heart," she added,
dropping her voice, "he must know that I am going to die."

Her eyes seemed to have stiffened in their sockets, to have become
dilated. Her lips trembled, but her eyes remained steadfast.

"Oh! madame," she sobbed, "is it not cruel that one should die like
this! I am so young. I have seen so little of life. It is not just,
madame--it is not just!"

The woman who sat by her side was shaking. Her heart was torn with
pity. Everywhere in the soft, sunlit air, wherever she looked, she
seemed to read in letters of fire the history of this girl, the history
of so many others.

"We will not talk of death, dear," she said. "Doctors are so wonderful,
nowadays. There are so few diseases which they cannot cure. They seem
to snatch one back even from the grave. Besides, you are so young. One
does not die at nineteen. Tell me about this man--Eugène, you called
him. He has never once been to see you--not even when you were in the
hospital?"

The girl began to tremble.

"Not once," she murmured.

"You are sure that he had your letters? He knows that you are out here
and alone?"

"Yes, he knows!"

There was a short silence. The woman found it hard to know what to say.
Somewhere down along the white, dusty road a man was grinding the music
of a threadbare waltz from an ancient barrel-organ. The girl closed her
eyes.

"We used to hear that sometimes," she whispered, "at the cafés. At one
where we went often they used to know that I liked it and they always
played it when we came. It is queer to hear it again--like this....
Oh, when I close my eyes," she muttered, "I am afraid! It is like
shutting out life for always."

The woman by her side got up. Lucie caught at her skirt.

"Madame, you are not going yet?" she pleaded. "Am I selfish? Yet you
have not stayed with me so long as yesterday, and I am so lonely."

The woman's face had hardened a little.

"I am going to find that man," she replied. "I have his address. I want
to bring him to you."

The girl's hold upon her skirt tightened.

"Sit down," she begged. "Do not leave me. Indeed it is useless. He
knows. He does not choose to come. Men are like that. Oh! madame, I
have learned my lesson. I know now that love is a vain thing. Men do
not often really feel it. They come to us when we please them, but
afterwards that does not count. I suppose we were meant to be
sacrificed. I have given up thinking of Eugène. He is afraid, perhaps,
of the infection. I think that I would sooner go out of life as I lie
here, cold and unloved, than have him come to me unwillingly."

The woman could not hide her tears any longer. There was something so
exquisitely fragile, so strangely pathetic, in that prostrate figure by
her side.

"But, my dear," she faltered,--

"Madame," the girl interrupted, "hold my hand for a moment. That is the
doctor coming. I hear his footstep. I think that I must sleep."

Madame Christophor--she had another name, but there were few occasions
on which she cared to use it--was driven back to Paris, in accordance
with her murmured word of instruction, at a pace which took little heed
of police regulations or even of safety. Through the peaceful lanes,
across the hills into the suburbs, and into the city itself she passed,
at a speed which was scarcely slackened even when she turned into the
Boulevard which was her destination. Glancing at the slip of paper
which she held in her hand, she pulled the checkstring before a tall
block of buildings. She hurried inside, ascended two flights of stairs,
and rang the bell of a door immediately opposite her. A very
German-looking manservant opened it after the briefest of delays--a man
with fair moustache, fat, stolid face and inquisitive eyes.

"Is your master in," she demanded, "Monsieur Estermen?"

The man stared at her, then bowed. The appearance of Madame Christophor
was, without doubt, impressive.

"I will inquire, madame," he replied.

"I am in a hurry," she said curtly. "Be so good as to let your master
know that."

A moment later she was ushered into a sitting-room--a man's apartment,
untidy, reeking of cigarette smoke and stale air. There were
photographs and souvenirs of women everywhere. The windows were
fast-closed and the curtains half-drawn. The man who stood upon the
hearthrug was of medium height, dark, with close-cropped hair and a
black, drooping moustache. His first glance at his visitor, as the door
opened, was one of impertinent curiosity.

"Madame?" he inquired.

"You are Monsieur Estermen?"

He bowed. He was very much impressed and he endeavored to assume a
manner.

"That is my name. Pray be seated."

She waved away the chair he offered.

"My automobile is in the street below," she said. "I wish you to come
with me at once to see a poor girl who is dying."

He looked at her in amazement.

"Are you serious, madame?"

"I am very serious indeed," she replied. "The girl's name is Lucie
Rénault."

For the moment he seemed perplexed. Then his eyebrows were slowly
raised.

"Lucie Rénault," he repeated. "What do you know about her?"

"Only that she is a poor child who has suffered at your hands and who
is dying in a private hospital," Madame Christophor answered. "She has
been taken there out of charity. She has no friends, she is dying
alone. Come with me. I will take you to her. You shall save her at
least from that terror."

It was the aim of the man with whom she spoke to be considered modern.
A perfect and invincible selfishness had enabled him to reach the
topmost heights of callousness, and to remain there without
affectation.

"If the little girl is dying," he said, "I am sorry, for she was pretty
and companionable, although I have lost sight of her lately. But as to
my going out to see her, why, that is absurd. I hate illness of all
sorts."

The woman looked at him steadfastly, looked at him as though she had
come into contact with some strange creature.

"Do you understand what it is that I am saying?" she demanded. "This
girl was once your little friend, is it not so? It was for your sake
that she gave up the simple life she was living when you first knew
her, and went upon the stage. The life was too strenuous for her. She
broke down, took no care of herself, developed a cough and alas!
tuberculosis."

The man sighed. He had adopted an expression of abstract sympathy.

"A terrible disease," he murmured.

"A terrible disease indeed," Madame Christophor repeated. "Do you not
understand what I mean when I tell you that she is dying of it? Very
likely she will not live a week--perhaps not a day. She lies there
alone in the garden of the hospital and she is afraid. There are none
who knew her, whom she cares for, to take her into their arms and to
bid her have no fear. Is it not your place to do this? You have held
her in your arms in life. Don't you see that it is your duty to cheer
her a little way on this last dark journey?"

The man threw away his cigarette and moved to the mantelpiece, where he
helped himself to a fresh one from the box.

"Madame," he said, "I perceive that you are a sentimentalist."

She did not speak--she could not. She only looked at him.

"Death," he continued, lighting his cigarette, "is an ugly thing. If it
came to me I should probably be quite as much afraid--perhaps
more--than any one else. But it has not come to me just yet. It has
come, you tell me, to little Lucie. Well, I am sorry, but there is
nothing I can do about it. I have no intention whatever of making
myself miserable. I do not wish to see her. I do not wish to look upon
death, I simply wish to forget it. If it were not, madame," he added,
with a bow and a meaning glance from his dark eyes, "that you bring
with you something of your own so well worth looking upon, I could
almost find myself regretting your visit."

She still regarded him fixedly. There was in her face something of that
shrinking curiosity with which one looks upon an unclean and horrible
thing.

"That is your answer?" she murmured.

The man had little understanding and he replied boldly.

"It is my answer, without a doubt. Lucie, if what you tell me is true,
as I do not for a moment doubt, is dying from a disease the ravages of
which are hideous to watch, and which many people believe, too, to be
infectious. Let me advise you, madame, to learn also a little wisdom.
Let me beg of you not to be led away by these efforts of sentiment,
however picturesque and delightful they may seem. The only life that is
worth considering is our own. The only death that we need fear is our
own. We ought to live like that."

The woman stood quite still. She was tall and she was slim. Her figure
was exquisite. She was famous throughout the city for her beauty. The
man's eyes dwelt upon her and the eternal expression crept slowly into
his face. He seemed to understand nothing of the shivering horror with
which she was regarding him.

"If it were upon any other errand, madame," he continued, leaning
towards her, "believe, I pray you, that no one would leave this room to
become your escort more willingly than I."

She turned away.

"You will not leave me already?" he begged.

"Monsieur," she declared, as she threw open the door before he could
reach it, "if I thought that there were many men like you in the world,
if I thought--"

She never finished her sentence. The emotions which had seized her were
entirely inexpressible. He shrugged his shoulders.

"My dear lady," he said, "let me assure you that there is not a man of
the world in this city who, if he spoke honestly, would not feel
exactly as I do. Allow me at least to see you to your automobile."

"If you dare to move," she muttered, "if you dare--"

She swept past him and down the stairs into the street. She threw
herself into the corner of the automobile. The chauffeur looked around.

"Where to, madame?" he inquired.

She hesitated for a moment. She had affairs of her own, but the thought
of the child's eyes came up before her.

"Back to the hospital," she ordered. "Drive quickly."

They rushed from Paris once more into the country, with its spring
perfumes, its soft breezes, its restful green, but fast though they
drove another messenger had outstripped them. From the little chapel,
as the car rolled up the avenue, came the slow tolling of a bell.
Madame Christophor stood on the corner of the lawn alone. The invalid
chair was empty. The blinds of the villa were being slowly lowered. She
turned around and looked toward the city. It seemed to her that she
could see into the rooms of the man whom she had left a few minutes
ago. A lark was singing over her head. She lifted her eyes and looked
past him up to the blue sky. Her lips moved, but never a sound escaped
her. Yet the man who sat in his rooms at that moment, yawning and
wondering where to spend the evening, and which companion he should
summon by telephone to amuse him, felt a sudden shiver in his veins.




CHAPTER II


AN INDISCREET LETTER


The library of the house in Grosvenor Square was spacious, handsome and
ornate. Mr. Algernon H. Carraby, M.P., who sat dictating letters to a
secretary in an attitude which his favorite photographer had rendered
exceedingly familiar, at any rate among his constituents, was also, in
his way, handsome and ornate. Mrs. Carraby, who had just entered the
room, fulfilled in an even greater degree these same characteristics.
It was acknowledged to be a very satisfactory household.

"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Algernon," his wife
announced.

Mr. Carraby noticed for the first time that she was carrying a letter
in her hand. He turned at once to his secretary.

"Haskwell," he said, "kindly return in ten minutes."

The young man quitted the room. Mrs. Carraby advanced a few steps
further towards her husband. She was tall, beautifully dressed in the
latest extreme of fashion. Her movements were quiet, her skin a little
pale, and her eyebrows a little light. Nevertheless, she was quite a
famous beauty. Men all admired her without any reservations. The best
sort of women rather mistrusted her.

"Is that the letter, Mabel?" her husband asked, with an eagerness which
he seemed to be making some effort to conceal.

She nodded slowly. He held out his hand, but she did not at once part
with it.

"Algernon," she said quietly, "you know that I am not very scrupulous.
We both of us want success--a certain sort of success--and we have both
of us been content to pay the price. You have spent a good deal of
money and you have succeeded very well indeed. Somehow or other, I feel
to-day as though I were spending more than money."

He laughed a little uncomfortably.

"My dear Mabel!" he protested. "You are not going to back out, are
you?"

"No," she replied, "I do not think that I shall back out. There is
nothing in the whole world I want so much as to have you a Cabinet
Minister. If there had been any other way--"

"But there is no other way," her husband interrupted. "So long as
Julien Portel lives, I should never get my chance. He holds the post I
want. Every one knows that he is clever. He has the ear of the Prime
Minister and he hates me. My only chance is his retirement."

Mrs. Carraby looked at the letter.

"Well," she said, "I have played your game for you. I have gone even to
the extent of being talked about with Julien Portel."

Her husband moved uneasily in his chair.

"That will all blow over directly," he declared. "Besides, if--if
things go our way, we shan't see much more of Portel. Give me the
letter."

Still she hesitated. It was curious that throughout the slow evolution
of this scheme to break a man's life, for which she was mainly
responsible, she had never hesitated until this moment. Always it had
been fixed in her mind that Algernon was to be a Cabinet Minister; she
was to be the wife of a Cabinet Minister. That there were any other
things greater in life than the gratification of so reasonable an
ambition had never seemed possible. Now she hesitated. She looked at
her husband and she saw him with new eyes. He seemed suddenly a mean
little person. She thought of the other man and there was a strange
quiver in her heart--a very unexpected sensation indeed. There was a
difference in the breed. It came home to her at that moment. She found
herself even wondering, as she swung the letter idly between her thumb
and fore-finger, whether she would have been a different woman if she
had had a different manner of husband.

"The letter!" he repeated.

She laid it calmly on the desk before him.

"Of course," she said coldly, "if you find the contents affectionate
you must remember that I am in no way responsible. This was your
scheme. I have done my best."

The man's fingers trembled slightly as he broke the seal.

"Naturally," he agreed, pausing for an instant and looking up at her.
"I knew that I could trust you or I would never have put such an idea
into your head."

She laughed; a characteristic laugh it was, quite cold, quite
mirthless, apparently quite meaningless. Carraby turned back to the
letter, tore open the envelope and spread it out before them. He read
it out aloud in a sing-song voice.

_Downing Street. Tuesday_

MY DEAREST MABEL,

I had your sweet little note an hour ago. Of course I was disappointed
about luncheon, as I always am when I cannot see you. Your promise to
repay me, however, almost reconciles me.

The man looked up at his wife.

"Promise?" he repeated hoarsely. "What does he mean?"

"Go on," she said, with unchanged expression. "See if what you want is
there."

The man continued to read:

I am going to ask you a very great favor, Mabel. When we are alone
together, I talk to you with absolute freedom. To write you on matters
connected with my office is different. I know very well how deep and
sincere your interest in politics really is, and it has always been one
of my greatest pleasures, when with you, to talk things over and hear
your point of view. Without flattery, dear, I have really more than
once found your advice useful. It is your understanding which makes our
companionship always a pleasure to me, and I rely upon that when I beg
you not to ask me to write you again on matters to which I have really
no right to allude. You do not mind this, dear? And having read you my
little lecture, I will answer your question. Yes, the Cabinet Council
was held exactly as you surmise. With great difficulty I persuaded
B---- to adopt my view of the situation. They are all much too
terrified of this war bogey. For once I had my own way. Our answer to
this latest demand from Berlin was a prompt and decisive negative.
Nothing of this is to be known for at least a week.

I am sorry your husband is such a bear. Perhaps on Monday we may meet
at Cardington House?

Please destroy this letter at once.

Ever affectionately yours,

JULIEN.

The man's eyes, as he read, grew brighter.

"It is enough?" the woman asked.

"It is more than enough!"

Slowly he replaced it in its envelope and thrust it into the
breast-pocket of his coat.

"What are you going to do with it?" she inquired.

"I have made my plans," he answered. "I know exactly how to make the
best and most dignified use of it."

He rose to his feet. Something in his wife's expression seemed to
disturb him. He walked a few steps toward the door and came back again.

"Mabel," he said, "are you glad?"

"Naturally I am glad," she replied.

"You have no regrets?"

Again she laughed.

"Regrets?" she echoed. "What are they? One doesn't think about such
things, nowadays."

They stood quite still in the centre of that very handsome apartment.
They were almost alien figures in the world in which they moved,
Carraby, the rankest of newcomers, carried into political life by his
wife's ambitions, his own self-amassed fortune, and a sort of subtle
cunning--a very common substitute for brains; Mrs. Carraby, on whom had
been plastered an expensive and ultra-fashionable education, although
she was able perhaps more effectually to conceal her origin, the
daughter of a rich Yorkshire manufacturer, who had secured a paid
entrance into Society. They were purely artificial figures for the very
reason that they never admitted any one of these facts to themselves,
but talked always the jargon of the world to which they aspired, as
though they were indeed denizens therein by right. At that moment,
though, a single natural feeling shook the man, shook his faith in
himself, in life, in his destiny. There was Jewish blood in his veins
and it made itself felt.

"Mabel," he began, "this man Portel--you've flirted with him, you say?"

"I have most certainly flirted with him," she admitted quietly.

"He hasn't dared--"

A flash of scorn lit her cold eyes.

"I think," she said, "that you had better ask me no questions of that
sort."

Carraby went slowly out. Already the moment was passing. Of course he
could trust his wife! Besides, in his letter was the death warrant of
the man who stood between him and his ambitions. Mrs. Carraby listened
to his footsteps in the hall, heard his suave reply to his secretary,
heard his orders to the footman who let him out. From where she stood
she watched him cross the square. Already he had recovered his alert
bearing. His shoes and his hat were glossy, his coat was of an
excellent fit. The woman watched him without movement or any change of
expression.




CHAPTER III


A RUINED CAREER


Sir Julien Portel stood in the middle of his bedroom, dressed in shirt
and trousers only. The sofa and chairs around him were littered with
portions of the brilliant uniform which he had torn from his person a
few minutes before with almost feverish haste. His perplexed servant,
who had only just arrived, was doing his best to restore the room to
some appearance of order.

"You needn't mind those wretched things for the present, Richards," his
master ordered sharply. "Bring the rest of the tweed traveling suit
like the trousers I have on, and then see about packing some clothes."

The man ceased his task. He looked around, a little bewildered.

"Do I understand that you are going out of town tonight, Sir Julien?"
he asked.

"I am going on to the continent by the nine o'clock train," was the
curt reply.

Richards was a perfectly trained servant, but the situation was too
much for him.

"You will excuse me, Sir Julien," he said, "but there is Lord
Cardington's dinner tonight, and the reception afterwards at the
Foreign Office. I have your court clothes ready."

His master laughed shortly.

"I am not attending the dinner or the reception, Richards. You can put
those things back again and get me the traveling clothes."

The man seemed a little dazed, but turned automatically towards the
wardrobe.

"Shall you require me to accompany you, sir?" he inquired.

"Not at present," Sir Julien replied. "You will have to come on with
the rest of my luggage when I have decided what to do."

Richards was not more than ordinarily inquisitive, but the
circumstances were certainly unusual.

"Do you mean, sir, that you will not be returning to London at
present?" he ventured to ask.

"I shall not be returning to London for some time," Sir Julien answered
sharply. "Get on with the packing as quickly as you can. Put the
whiskey and soda on the table in the sitting-room, and the cigarettes.
Remember, if any one comes I am not at home."

"Too late, my dear fellow," a voice called out from the adjoining room.
"You see, I have found my way up unannounced--a bad habit, but my
profession excuses everything."

The man stood on the threshold of the room opening out from the
bedroom--tall, florid, untidily dressed, with clean-shaven, humorous
face, ungloved hands, and a terribly shabby hat. He looked around the
room and shrugged his shoulders.

"What an infernal mess!" he exclaimed. "Come along out into the
sitting-room, Julien. I want to talk to you."

"I should like to know how the devil you got in here!" Sir Julien
muttered. "I told the fellow downstairs that no one was to be allowed
up."

"He did try to make himself disagreeable," the newcomer replied.
"However, here I am--that's enough."

Sir Julien turned to his servant.

"Get on with your packing, Richards," he directed, "and let me know
when you have finished."

Sir Julien followed his visitor into the sitting-room, closing the door
behind him. His manner was not in the least cordial.

"Look here, Kendricks, old fellow," he said, "I don't want to be rude,
but I am not in the humor to talk to any one. I have had a rotten week
of it and just about as much as I can stand. Help yourself to a whiskey
and soda, say what you have to say and then go."

The newcomer nodded. He helped himself to the whiskey and soda, but he
seemed in no hurry to speak. On the contrary, he settled himself down
in an easy-chair with the appearance of a man who had come to stay.

"Julien," he remarked presently, "you are up against it--up against it
rather hard. Don't trouble to interrupt me. I know pretty well all
about it. I said from the first you'd have to resign. There wasn't any
other way out of it."

"Quite right," Julien agreed. "There wasn't. I've finished up
everything to-day--resigned my office, applied for the Chiltern
Hundreds, and I am going to clear out of the country to-night."

"And all because you wrote a foolish letter to a woman!" Kendricks
murmured, half to himself. "By the bye, there's no doubt about the
letter, I suppose?"

"None in the world," Julien replied.

"There's nothing that the Press can do to set you right?"

"Great heavens, no!" Julien declared. "No one can help me. I've no one
to blame but myself. I wrote the letter--there the matter ends."

"And she passed it on to that shocking little bounder of a husband of
hers! What a creature! Did it ever occur to you that it was a plot?"

Julien shrugged his shoulders.

"It makes so little difference."

"You were in Carraby's way," Kendricks continued, producing a pipe from
his pocket and leisurely filling it. "There was no getting past you and
you were a young man. It's a dirty business."

"If you don't mind," Julien said coldly, "we won't discuss it any
further. So far as I am concerned, the whole matter is at an end. I was
compelled to take part in to-day's mummery. I hated it--that they all
knew. I suppose it's foolish to mind such things, David," he went on
bitterly, taking up a cigarette and throwing himself into a chair, "but
a year ago--it was just after I came back from Berlin and you may
remember it was the fancy of the people to believe that I had saved the
country from war--they cheered me all the way from Whitehall to the
Mansion House. To-day there was only a dull murmur of voices--a sort of
doubting groan. I felt it, Kendricks. It was like Hell, that ride!"

Kendricks nodded sympathetically.

"I suppose you know that a version of the letter is in the evening
papers?" he asked.


"My resignation will be in the later issues," Julien told him. "It was
pretty well known yesterday afternoon. I leave for the continent
to-night."

There was a short silence between the two men. In a sense they had been
friends all their lives. Sir Julien Portel had been a successful
politician, the youngest Cabinet Minister for some years. Kendricks had
never aspired to be more than a clever journalist of the vigorous type.
Nevertheless, they had been more than ordinarily intimate.

"Have you made any plans?" Kendricks inquired presently. "Of course,
you would have to resign office, but don't you think there might be a
chance of living it down?"

"Not a chance on earth," Julien replied. "As to what I am going to do,
don't ask me. For the immediate present I am going to lose myself in
Normandy or somewhere. Afterwards I think I shall move on to my old
quarters in Paris. There's always a little excitement to be got out of
life there."

Kendricks looked at his friend through the cloud of tobacco smoke.

"It's excitement of rather a dangerous order," he remarked slowly.

"I shall never be likely to forget that I am an Englishman," Julien
said. "Perhaps I may be able to do something to set matters right
again. One can't tell. By the bye, Kendricks," he went on, "do you
remember when we were at college how you hated women? How you used to
try and trace half the things that went wrong in life to their
influence?"

The journalist nodded. He knocked the ashes from his pipe deliberately.

"I was a boy in those days," he declared. "I am a man now, getting on
toward middle age, and on that one subject I am as rabid as ever. I
hate their meddling in men's affairs, shoving themselves into politics,
always whispering in a man's ear under pretence of helping him with
their sympathy. They're in evidence wherever you go--women, women,
women! The place reeks with them. You can't go about your work, hour by
hour or day by day, without having them on every side of you. It's like
a poison, this trail of them over every piece of serious work we
attempt, over every place we find our way into. They bang the
typewriters in our offices, they elbow us in the streets, they smile at
us from the next table at our workaday luncheon, they crowd the tubes
and the cars and the cabs in the streets. Why the deuce, Julien, can't
we treat them like those sage Orientals, and dump them all in one place
where they belong till we've finished our work?"

Julien lifted his tumbler of whiskey and soda to his lips and set it
down empty.

"In a way, you're right, Kendricks," he agreed. "You go too far, of
course, but I do believe that women hold too big a place in our lives.
I am one of the poor fools who goes to the wall to gratify the vanity
of one of them."

The journalist muttered a word under his breath which he would have
been very sorry to have seen in the pages of his paper. Julien had
moved to the open window. There had been a little break in his voice.
No one knew better than Kendricks that a very brilliant career was
broken.

"I think you're wise to go away for a time, Julien," he decided. "Look
here, it's six o'clock now. I have a taxicab waiting downstairs. Come
round to my rotten little restaurant in Soho and dine with me. Your
fellow can meet us at Charing-Cross with your things. You won't see a
soul you know where I'm going to take you."

Julien turned slowly away from the window. He was looking for the last
time from those rooms at the London which he had loved. The setting sun
had caught the dome of St. Paul's, was flashing from the dark, placid
water of the Thames. The roar of the great city was passing from
eastwards to westwards.

"You're a good chap, Kendricks," he declared. "I'll come along, with
pleasure. I shall have enough solitude later on. But listen, before we
go--listen, David, to a speech after your own heart."

Julien stood quite still for a moment. His pale face seemed suddenly
whiter, his eyes were full of fire.

"David," he said, "if ever the time comes in the future when I find
that a woman is beginning to claim a minute of my thoughts, a single
one of my emotions, to govern the slightest throb of my pulses, I'll
take her by the throat and I'll throw her out of what's left of my life
as I would a rat that had crept into my room. I've done with them.
Curse all women!"

There was a silence. Kendricks leaned over to the fireplace and knocked
his pipe against the hearth. Then he suddenly paused.

"What's that?" he asked abruptly.

There was a soft knocking at the outside door.




CHAPTER IV


A BUNCH OF VIOLETS


Kendricks rose slowly to his feet. Julien was looking toward the door
with a frown upon his face. While they stood there the knocking was
repeated, still soft but a little more insistent. Julien hesitated no
longer.

"I think," Kendricks said dryly, "that you had better see who is
there."

The door was already opened. Julien seemed suddenly transformed into a
graven image. He said nothing, merely gazing at the woman who walked
calmly past him into the room. Kendricks, who also recognized her,
withdrew his pipe from his mouth. This was a situation indeed! The
woman, with her hands inside her muff, looked from one to the other of
the two men.

"Am I interrupting a very important interview?" she asked calmly. "If
not, perhaps you could spare me five minutes of your time, Sir Julien?"

Kendricks recovered himself at once.

"I'll wait for you downstairs, Julien," he declared.

He caught up his hat and departed, closing the door after him. Julien
was still motionless.

"Well?" she began.

He drew a little breath. He was beginning to regain his
self-possession.

"My dear Mrs. Carraby," he said, "with your wonderful knowledge of the
world and its ways, will you permit me to point out that your presence
here is a little embarrassing to me and might, under certain
circumstances, be a good deal more embarrassing to you?"

Mrs. Carraby smiled. She stood where the sunlight touched her brown
hair and her quiet, pale face. She was one of those women who are never
afraid of the light. Her face was of that strange, self-contained
nature, colorless, apparently, yet capable of strange and rapid
changes. Just now the last glow of sunlight seemed to have found a
skein of gold in her hair, a queer gleam of light in her eyes. She
stood there looking at the man whom she had come to visit.

"Julien," she said, "I wanted a few words with you."

It was impossible for him to remain altogether unmoved. Whatever else
might be the truth, she had risked most of the things that were dear to
her in life by this visit.

"Mrs. Carraby," he declared, "I am entirely at your service. If you
think that any useful purpose can be served by words between you and
me, I would only point out, for your own sake, that your visit is, to
say the least of it, unwise. These are bachelor chambers."

"You know very well," she replied calmly, "that it was my only chance
of speaking with you. If I had sent for you, you would not have come.
If I had spoken to you in the street, you would have passed me
by--quite rightly. This was my only chance. That is why I have come to
you."

"If you think it worth the risk," he remarked gravely, "pray continue."

She shrugged her shoulders very slightly.

"Who can tell what is worth the risk?"

"You have at least excited my curiosity," he admitted, leaning a little
towards her. "I cannot conceive what it is that you want to say to me."

She lifted her eyes to his, and though there was nothing unusual about
them--there were few people, indeed, who could tell you what color they
were--men seldom forgot it when Mrs. Carraby looked at them steadily.

"I do not know, myself," she said. "I do not know why I have come."

Julien laughed unnaturally.

"Pray be seated," he begged. "Would you like to examine my curios or my
photographs? I must apologize for the condition of my room. You see,
you happen to be the first woman who has ever crossed its threshold."

"That," she remarked, "rather interests me. Still, it is only what I
should have expected. No, I do not think that I will sit down. I am
trying to ask myself exactly why I have come."


"If you can answer that question," Julien said grimly, "you will
appease a very natural curiosity on my part. It is not like you."

"Quite true," she assented. "It is not like me. I have run a great risk
in coming here and it is not my métier to run risks. And now that I am
here I do not know why I have come. This has been an impulse and this
is an hour outside my life. I am trying to understand it. Come here,
Julien." He came unwillingly to her side. She held out her hand, but
he shook his head.

"Mabel," he said, "you and I do not need to mince words. To-night I am
celebrating the ruin of my career. I am leaving England within a few
hours. I have you to thank for what has happened. Yet you come to me,
you hold out your hand. You must forgive me--I am afraid I am dull."

"No," she replied, "you are not dull. Your feelings towards me are
obvious and very natural. Mine towards you I am not so sure of. It is
not because I did not understand you that I came here to-night. It is
because I did not understand myself. May I go on?"

"Why not?" he answered. "I am at your service."

"From the days of my boarding-school," she continued, "I have known
only one Mabel. In her girlhood she had all that she could get out of
life and turned everything she could to her own ends. A marriage was
arranged for her--you see, I was half a Jewess and my husband was half
a Jew, and things are done like that with us. The marriage opened the
door to a fresh set of ambitions. For the last few years I have trodden
a well-worn path. It was I who advised my husband to refuse a
baronetcy. It was I who won his first election. I see that my
photographs are in all the illustrated papers, that his speeches are
properly recorded, that my visiting list moves within the correct
limits. These things have spelt life. To the fulfillment of my
husband's ambitions there was one obstacle. That obstacle was you. In
life one schemes. It was my husband's wish that I should make myself
agreeable to you, even to the extent of a flirtation."

She raised her eyes.

"Your obedience to your husband is most touching," he said.

"It is true, I suppose," she went on, "that we have flirted. I looked
upon it as the means to an end. The end came. I played my cards quite
ruthlessly, I gathered in the reward. I got your letter, I handed it to
my husband. Your career was finished, my husband's begun."

"This is most interesting," Julien muttered.

"Is it?" she answered. "I suppose it should have been an hour of
triumph with me. It simply isn't. I have come to a place in my life
which I don't understand. When I told myself that it was over, that I
had flirted with you, that I had won your friendship and your
confidence, betrayed you, ruined you for a peerage and that my husband
should take office, I should surely have been satisfied! It was for
that I had worked. I gave my husband the letter and I watched him walk
off in triumph. Since then I have not been myself. I have come to you,
Julien, to ask if there is no other end possible to this?"

Once more she raised her eyes. Julien came a step nearer to her. They
were standing now face to face.

"All of a sudden," she murmured, "I looked back and I saw the way I
have lived and the way I am living and the life that spreads itself out
before me. I saw myself a peeress, I saw myself receiving my husband's
guests, I saw the gratification of all those ambitions which have
seemed to me so wonderful. And I locked the door and I shrieked and it
seemed to me that there was a new thing and a new thought in my life. I
have done you a hideous wrong, Julien. There is only one way I can set
it right. There is only one moment in which it can be done, and that
moment is now. Tomorrow I shall be back again. For this one hour I see
the truth. I am a very rich woman, Julien. My husband's future, indeed,
is largely bound up with my wealth. Remember that in all I have done I
have been his agent. He hates you, has hated you from the first because
you were a gentleman and he never was. This is my one moment of madness
in a perfectly well-ordered life."

One of her hands stole from her muff, stole out half-hesitatingly
towards him. Julien took it in his and raised it to his lips. Then he
looked her in the eyes.

"Dear Mabel," he said, "you are forgiven. I understand perfectly the
reasons for your coming. Go back to your husband, wear your coronet and
receive his guests with a free conscience. I forgive you."

Her hand slipped back into her muff. She began to tremble a little.

"As for me," he went on, "I played the fool and I pay willingly. I was
engaged to marry a very charming girl who believed in me and whom I
cared for as much as it was possible for me to care for anything
outside my career. I flirted with you because it was a piquant thing to
do. You were a woman whom other men found difficult, you were the wife
of a man whom I despised and who was trying all the time to undermine
my position. I sacrificed my self-respect every time I crossed your
threshold. To-day I pay. I am willing. As for you, Mabel, your visit
here shall square things between us. I wish you the best of luck. You
must let me ring for my servant. He will find you a taxicab."

He moved toward the bell. Mrs. Carraby, with her hands inside her muff,
stood exactly as though she were part of the furniture of the room.
With his finger upon the ivory disc, he hesitated. She was not looking
towards him and her eyes were half closed.


"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would rather find your way out alone? I
will not offer my escort, for obvious reasons."

She turned slowly round.

"Do not ring," she ordered sharply. "Come here."

He came at once towards her. She took both his hands in hers, she
leaned towards him. She was a tall woman and they were very nearly the
same height.

"Julien," she whispered, "is this all that you have to say to me?"

"It is more," Julien replied frankly, "than I expected ever to have to
say to you again in this world. What do you expect? You don't think
that I am the kind of man to--but that is absurd! Come. We'll part
friends, if you like. Here's my hand."

"We must part, then?" she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Unless a walking tour in Normandy for a month appeals to you. You see,
I am going to take a holiday, and I have a fancy that our ideas on the
subject of holidays might not exactly agree."

"A holiday," she repeated. "I am not sure--do you know, Julien, I
sometimes believe that I have never had a holiday in my life?"

He looked at her doubtingly.

"After all," she continued, "can't you see that I have come here to ask
you one question? You are different from the people I have known
intimately and the people with whom I have been brought up, different
from my husband. You know what my life has been. I have told you just
now that the great doubt has come to me within the last few days. Won't
you tell me what I want to know? Is there anything better, anything
greater, anything more wonderful in life than these things which I have
known, these ambitions, this social struggle? Tell me, Julien, is there
anything else? Can you tell me how and where to find it?"

Once more her fingers had crept out of her muff.

Her hands were upon his shoulders, she seemed to be drawing him to
her. Julien kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"For you, my dear Mabel," he decided, "I should say that there was
nothing better. A leopard cannot change its spots. The life into which
you have been brought and for which you have qualified so admirably, is
the only life which would suit you. If you fancy sometimes in your
dreams, or in your waking hours, that you hear cries and calls from
another country, don't listen to them. You would never be happy outside
the world you know of. You see, one who has made such a failure of life
himself is yet well able to advise. Forgive me."

The telephone on his writing table was ringing. He turned aside to
answer it. It was a question regarding the whereabouts of some papers
at the office and it took him a few minutes to explain. When he set the
receiver back and turned around, he was alone. There was nothing to
remind him of her visit but a bunch of violets which seemed to have
fallen from her muff, and the faint perfume from them. He took them up,
smelt them for a moment, and flung them lightly into the hearth. Then
he touched his bell.

"My hat, stick and gloves, Richards," he ordered. "Bring my things to
Charing-Cross at half-past eight. Have them registered only to
Boulogne. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir," the man replied.

Julien glanced once more around his sitting-room. The little bunch of
violets was smouldering upon the hearth. In a sense they seemed to him
symbolical.

"Kendricks is right," he muttered. "It is the women who play the devil
with our lives!"




CHAPTER V


A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE


Kendricks was waiting below in the taxicab, leaning back in the corner
with his feet upon the opposite seat, and smoking his very disreputable
pipe with an air of serene content.

"Sorry to have turned you out into the street like this," Julien
remarked.

"Thank you," Kendricks replied, "under the circumstances I preferred
the street."

Julien hesitated for a moment and glanced at his watch.

"There is one more call that I must pay, David," he said. "You won't
mind, will you? We've plenty of time."

"Mind? Of course not," Kendricks answered, stretching himself out in
the cab. "Do what you please with me, only leave an hour or an hour and
a half for dinner. I am the best-tempered person in the world so long
as no one interferes with my regular meal hours."

"It's just a little farewell call," Julien explained, "that I want to
pay. I've told the man where to go."

Kendricks nodded silently. He knew all about that little call, but if
he felt any sympathy he was careful not to show it. They drew up in a
few minutes before a large and solemn-looking house at the corner of
Hamilton Place.

"Don't hurry," Kendricks advised, stretching himself out once more in
the cab. "I'll smoke another pipe and thank heaven we are not in New
York! You wait an hour there and take your choice of paying the fare or
buying the taxicab!"

Julien ascended the steps and rang the bell at the door of the house.
It was immediately opened by a manservant, who recognized him with a
bow and a smile, for which, somehow or other, he felt thankful.

"Is Lady Anne in, Robert?" he inquired.

The man stood on one side.

"Please to walk in, Sir Julien," he invited. "Lady Anne is with some
young people in the drawing-room. Will you go in there to them, or
would you prefer that I announce you?"

"Is there any one in the waiting-room?" Julien asked.

"No one at present, sir."

"Let me go in there, then. I want to speak to Lady Anne alone for a
moment. You might let her know that I am here."

"Certainly, sir."

Julien walked restlessly up and down the small, uncomfortable
apartment, the room which he had always hated. There were illustrated
papers arranged in a row upon a leather-topped table, two stiff
horsehair easychairs, and various views of Clonarty, the country seat
of the Duke of Clonarty, around the walls. Presently he heard the
laughter in the drawing-room cease. There was a short silence, then the
sound of footsteps across the hall and the abrupt opening of the door
of the room in which he was waiting. Julien looked up quickly. It was,
after all, what he had expected! A somewhat vivacious-looking little
lady in a muslin gown and elaborate hat held out both her hands to him.
In the darkened light of the room she might very well have passed for a
younger and less serious edition of her own daughter.

"My dear Julien!" she exclaimed, in a tone which was manifestly
sympathetic. "This is terrible news we are hearing about you. But what
an odd time you have chosen to come and tell us all about it!"

"I have not come to tell you all about it, Duchess," Julien assured
her. "The newspapers will tell you everything that is worth knowing.
They are so much better informed."

"The newspapers sometimes exaggerate," she objected.

"In my case," he replied, "I do not think that exaggeration is
possible. Everything has happened to me that could possibly happen to
any one in my unfortunate position."

"You mean that these stories are all true, then?"

"Every one of them. I really don't suppose that I ought to show my face
here at all. I have simply come to say good-bye. There is just a single
word that I want to say to Anne."

"Tell me, Julien," she demanded, "you really did write that letter to
Mrs. Carraby?"

"I did."

"And she gave it to her husband?"

"Yes!"

For once the Duchess was perfectly and delightfully natural.

"That woman," she declared, "is a detestable cat! Mind, Julien," she
added, "I don't mean by that that you were not hideously and entirely
to blame. I can't feel that you deserve a single grain of sympathy. All
the same, a woman who can do a thing like that should not be
tolerated."

Julien smiled grimly. He was perfectly well aware that at that moment
Mrs. Carraby was passing from the list of the Duchess's acquaintances.
It was all so inconsequent.

"Can I have that one word with Anne?" he begged.

The Duchess looked doubtful.

"Why?"

"I am going abroad to-night. I should like to say good-bye to her."

"Isn't it a little foolish?" she asked. "I don't mean your going
abroad--that, I suppose, is almost necessary--but why do you want to
see Anne? I can give her all the proper messages."

Julien laughed bitterly.

"There are some things," he said, "which can scarcely be altogether
ignored. It may have escaped your memory that Anne was to have been my
wife."

"Not at all," the Duchess replied. "The only thing I do not understand
is why, as any such arrangement is of course now ridiculous, you should
want to see her again. What can you possibly have to say to her?" "An
affair of sentiment," he explained. "I have a fancy to say good-bye."

The Duchess shook her head.

"Those sort of things don't belong to us," she declared. "You ought to
know better, my dear Julien. I can see no possible object in it. I will
give her any message you like, and so far as she is concerned I can
assure you that she has not the slightest ill-feeling. She is really
quite angelic about it."

"Duchess," Julien said steadily, "I came here expecting that these
would be your views. You are Anne's mother and of course you are in
authority, but when two people of our age are engaged to marry one
another, they pass just a little beyond the sphere of their parents'
influence. Anne and I have been in that position. Don't think for a
moment that I wish to dispute your authority when I say that I intend
to see her before I leave."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Ah! my dear Julien," she murmured, "if you had only been as firm with
that foolish woman. Still, if you have really made up your mind, I am
sure I don't want to be disagreeable. Perhaps it would be just as well
to get the thing over."

She touched the bell.

"Ask Lady Anne to step this way," she told the servant.

The man withdrew and the door was closed again. The Duchess showed no
signs of being about to take her leave.

"This matter has already, I presume, been fully discussed between you
and Anne?" Julien remarked. "It will not be necessary for you even to
give her a parting word of advice?"

"You amusing person!" she laughed. "There are no words of advice of
mine needed in a case like this. To tell you the truth, Julien,
although I always liked you, as you know, I hated your engagement to
Anne. You were a very charming young man to have about the house and I
was always pleased to see my girls flirt with you, but as a son-in-law
I ranked you from the first amongst the undesirables. Your income, so
far as I know, is a little less than nothing at all, and politics, as
you are discovering to-day, are a precarious form of livelihood. Anne
hasn't a copper and never will have. She ought to marry a rich man, and
I intend now that she shall. Here she is. Now do get this stupid affair
over quickly."

The door was opened and Lady Anne came in. She was taller than her
mother, of more serious aspect, and her hair was a shade darker. There
was something of the same expression about the eyes. She came straight
over to Julien and gave him both her hands.

"My dear Julien," she exclaimed, "this is shocking! Run away, if you
please, mother. I must see Julien for a moment alone."

The Duchess left the room. They both waited until the door was closed.
Then she turned and faced him.

"I suppose it's all true?" she asked.

"Every word of it, Anne," he answered. "Please don't misunderstand the
reason of my coming. I am absolutely a ruined man and I absolutely
deserve everything that has come to me. But there was one thing I
wanted to say to you before I went."

"There was also one thing," she remarked, looking at him intently,
"which I intended to ask you, provided you gave me the opportunity."

"It is about Mrs. Carraby," he said firmly.

"So was my question," she murmured.

"The friendship between Mrs. Carraby and myself," Julien continued,
"has been patent to every one for a great many years. I knew her long
before I did you. It began, in fact, when we were little more than
children. It finished--to-day. There is only one thing I want to say to
you about it, and that is this. Our friendship was of that sort which
is fairly well recognized and even approved of by the world in which we
live. It contained, of course, certain elements of flirtation--I am not
denying that. There was never at any time, however, anything in that
friendship which made it an error even of taste on my part to ask you
to become my wife."

She took his face between her hands and deliberately kissed him.

"That's just what I wanted to know, Julien," she declared. "Now shake
hands, be off, and do the best you can for yourself. I wish you the
best of luck, the very best. That's all we can say to one another,
isn't it?"

"Quite all," he admitted.

"You are a dear, good fellow," she went on, "and I have been quite fond
of you, although I think that I bored you now and then. I should have
made you an excellent wife, perhaps a better one than I shall the next
man who comes along. Don't stay any longer, there's a dear, because
although I never pretended to have much heart, this sort of thing does
upset one, you know, and I want to look my best to-night. Write me
sometimes, if you will. I'd love to hear that you'd found some interest
in life to help you gather up the threads. And here--this is for luck."

She took a little turquoise pin from her waistband and stuck it in his
black tie. Then, before he could stop her, she touched the bell with
one hand and gave him the other.

"Please kiss my fingers, Julien, and tell me I've behaved nicely."


He looked steadily into her eyes and then away out of the window,
across the square. It was such a natural ending, this. It was foolish
that his heart should shake, even for a second. And yet there had been
one occasion--at Clonarty--when she had lain very close to him in his
arms, and the moonlight had been falling through the pine trees in
little dappled places around them, and the wind had been making faint
music among the swinging boughs--for these few moments, at any rate,
the other things had shone in her face. Were they illusions really,
those moments of agitation, he wondered--simply one long, sensuous
period passing like breath from a looking-glass and leaving nothing
behind? He looked into her face. There was no sign there. Then he
dropped the fingers which he had been holding. Women were wonderful!

"Do write," she begged, as she walked into the hall with him. "Dear me,
what a strange-looking person you have with you in the taxicab!"

"He is a friend," Julien said quietly, "a journalist. I might say the
same of the young man who is watching us from the drawing-room, Anne!
Who is he?"

She made a little face at him and whispered in his ear.

"Semitic, as you see, and positively appalling. He is entirely mother's
choice. He arrived ten minutes after the evening papers were out, but
somehow or other I don't fancy that we shall make anything of him. It's
young Harbord, you know."

Julien made his effort. He touched her fingers once more in
conventional fashion. He leaned towards her earnestly.

"My dear Anne," he said, "that young man has an income of at least a
hundred thousand a year. Have you ever considered what a wonderful
thing it is to possess an income like that? You could surround yourself
with it like a halo. You could eat it, wear it, and breathe it every
second of your life. You could even use it as a means of escaping as
often as possible from the somewhat inevitable but highly objectionable
adjunct who seems now to be peering at us through the door. Be a wise
girl, Anne. An income like that doesn't depend upon discretions or
indiscretions. Besides, as a matter of fact, I really do not think that
that young man knows what it is to be indiscreet. Remember, I am quite
serious. A hundred thousand a year should lift any man beyond the pale
of criticism."

"Yes!" the girl replied, looking at him as he walked down the steps. "I
shall remember. Good-bye!"

"We are getting on," Julien declared lightly, as he took his place in
the taxicab. "Really, it is astonishing how much a man can get through
in a day if he sets his mind to it. Is there any place where we could
get a drink, do you think, Kendricks? I have just passed through a
trying and affecting interview. I have said farewell to the lady who
was to have been my wife. That sort of thing upsets one."

"You are behaving, my dear Julien," Kendricks admitted, "like a man of
sense. In a moment or two we shall pass Véry's, on our way to the
restaurant where I am going to entertain you at dinner. It will
probably be such a dinner as you have never eaten before in your life!
You will not need an _apéritif_. I am not sure, indeed, that it is not
tempting providence and inviting indigestion to offer you a mixed
vermouth here. However, come along. One experience more or less in such
a day will not disturb you."

They entered the café and sat down at a small, marble-topped table.
Julien lit a cigarette and Kendricks affected not to notice that the
hand which held the match was shaking. A crowd of people, mostly
foreigners, were sitting about the place. Julien, as he sipped his
vermouth, noticed a familiar face nearly opposite him--a young,
somewhat sandy-complexioned man, quietly dressed, insignificant, and
yet with some sort of personality.

"I wonder who that fellow is?" he remarked. "I seem to know his face."

Kendricks looked incuriously across the room.

"One knows every one by sight in London," he said. "The fellow is
probably a clerk in some office where you have been, or a salesman
behind the counter at one of the shops you patronize. It's odd
sometimes how a face will pursue you like that. That's a pretty little
girl with whom he's shaking hands."

Julien watched the two idly for a moment. The man had risen to greet
his newly-arrived companion, who was chattering to him in fluent
French. All the time Julien was aware that now and then the former's
eyes strayed over towards him. It was odd that, notwithstanding his
somewhat disturbed state of mind, he was conscious of a distinct
curiosity as to this young man's identity.

"Come along," Kendricks suggested. "We shan't get a table at all at the
place where I am going to take you to dine, unless we are punctual."

They finished their vermouth and left the café. Kendricks knocked out
the ashes from his pipe and leaned a little forward in the taxicab.

"We go now," he continued, "into a foreign land--foreign, at least, to
you, my young Exquisite--the land of journalists, of foreigners, of
hairdressers and anarchists, and cutthroats of every description.
Nevertheless, we shall dine well, and if you will only drink enough of
the chianti which I shall order, I can promise you a nap on your way to
Dover. You look as though you could do with it."

Julien suddenly remembered that his eyes were hot, and almost
simultaneously he felt the weight that was dragging down his heart. He
laughed desperately.

"I'll eat your dinner, David," he promised, "and I'll do justice to
your chianti. From what you tell me about our expedition, I should
imagine that we are going into the land to which I shall soon belong."

"It's a wonderful country," Kendricks muttered, looking out of the
window. "It may not be flowing exactly with milk and honey, but its
sinews are supple and its blood is red. For absolute vitality, I'd back
the Café l'Athénée against the Carlton any day. Here we are."




CHAPTER VI


AT THE CAFÉ L'ATHÉNÉE


The Café L'Athénée was in a narrow back street and consisted of a
ground floor apartment of moderate size, and a number of small rooms,
most of which were already crowded with diners. There were no
smooth-faced _maîtres d'hôtel_ to conduct new arrivals to a table, no
lift to the upper rooms, no palm-lined stairways, or any of the modern
appurtenances of restaurant life. Kendricks, taking the lead as an
habitué, pushed his way up to the first floor, pushed his way past the
hurrying and perspiring waiters, who did not even stop to answer
questions, and finally pounced upon a table which was just being
vacated by three other people. The two men sat down before the débris
and waited patiently for its removal.

"Don't turn your nose up yet," Kendricks begged. "Wait till you've
tasted the spaghetti. And don't look at the tablecloth as though it
would bite you. They'll put a clean napkin over it directly and you'll
forget all about those stains. This is where one takes off the kid
gloves and deals with the realities of eating and drinking. I am
inclined to think sometimes, Julien, as a humble admirer from a long
way off, that you've worn those kid gloves a little too long."

Julien looked across at his friend. Kendricks was still smoking his
pipe and he was evidently in earnest. It was obvious, too, that he had
more to say.

"You know," he continued, loudly summoning a waiter and pointing to the
table before them, "you know, Julien, I have always had this feeling
about you. I think that life has been made a trifle too easy for you.
You have slipped with so little effort into the polished places. You
never had to take your coat and waistcoat off and try a
rough-and-tumble struggle with life. No man is the worse for it.
Prosperity and smooth-traveling along the easy ways, even though they
come to one as the reward of brainwork, lead to a certain flabbiness in
life, lead to many moments when you have to stop and ask whether things
are worth while, lead sometimes, I think, to that curious neuroticism
from which clever, successful people suffer as well as the butterflies
of fashion. You are up against it now, Julien, real and hard. You don't
feel that you've got a day to live that you care a snap of the fingers
about. You look at what you think are the pieces of your life and you
imagine yourself a gaunt spectator of what has been, gazing down at
them, and you've quite made up your mind that it isn't a bit of good
trying to collect the fragments. Such d----d nonsense, Julien! You may
have made a jolly hash of things as a Cabinet Minister, but that isn't
any reason why you shouldn't make a success of life as a man. Look
here, Carlo," he added, addressing the waiter, "the table d'hôte
dinner--everything, and serve it hot. Bring us fresh butter with our
spaghetti, and a flask of chianti."

"Si, signor!" the man replied, gazing for a moment in wonder at this
shock-headed individual who spoke his own language so perfectly.

Kendricks laid down the menu and glanced across the table at Julien's
face with its slightly weary smile.

"Of course, I know how you're feeling now," he went on,--"rotten!--so
would any one. Try and forget it, try and forget yourself. Look about
you. What do these people do for a living, do you think? They weren't
born with a title. There's no one in this room who went to Eton and
Oxford, played cricket for their university, and lolled their way into
life as you did. Look at them all. The thin chap in the corner is a
barber, got a small shop of his own now. I go there sometimes for a
shave. He lived on thirteen shillings a week for six years, while he
saved the money to start for himself. It was touch and go with him
afterwards. In three months he'd nearly lost the lot. He'd married a
little wife who stood behind the counter and had worked almost as hard
as he, but somehow or other the customers wouldn't come. Then she had a
baby, was laid up for a time, he had to engage some one to take her
place, and at that time he had about fifteen shillings left in the
world. I used to be shaved there every day then. I knew all about it. I
used to hear him, when he thought no one was listening, go and call a
cheerful word up the stairs--'Shop full of customers!' 'Sold another
bottle of hair restorer!' or something of that sort. Then some one lent
him a fiver, and, by Jove, he turned the corner! He's doing well now.
That's his wife--the plump little woman who's straightening his tie.
They come here every Wednesday night and they can afford it. Yet he was
up against it badly once, Julien. That's right, look at him, be
interested. He's a common-looking little beast, isn't he?--but he's got
a stout heart."

"I think," Julien said, "that I could guess the name of the man who
lent him the fiver."

"You'd be a mug if you couldn't," Kendricks retorted. "It's doing that
sort of thing that helps you to smile sometimes when the knocks come. I
tell you, Julien, some of the people--these small shopkeepers,
especially--do have the devil of a fight to get their ounce of pleasure
out of life. Nothing's made easy for them. They don't know anything
about that big west-end world, with pleasures tuned up to the latest
pitch, where you do even your work with every luxury at hand to make it
easy. There's a little chap there--an Italian. See him? He's sitting by
the side of the old man with the gray beard. That man's his father.
They both landed over here with scarcely a copper. The young fellow
worked like a slave--sixteen shillings a week I think he was getting,
and he kept the old man on it. Then he lost his job, couldn't get
another. The old man had to go to the workhouse, the young man slept on
the Embankment, ate free soup, picked up scraps, lived on the garbage
heap of life. He pulled himself together, though, got another job,
improved it, saved a few shillings, drove up in a cab and took the old
man out. Look at them now. He's got a little tailor's shop not a
hundred yards from here, and somehow or other one or two people on the
stage--they're a good-hearted lot--have taken him up He gets lots of
work and brings the old man here now and then for a treat. How are you,
Pietro?" he called across the room. "When are you going to send me that
coat along?"

The young man grinned.

"Too many orders to make you that coat, sir," he declared.

Kendricks smiled.

"No one can deny that I need a new coat," he said. "I told Pietro when
things were slack that he could make me one, but he gets lots of orders
now. See the little girl in the corner? She's going out--no, she's
going to stay here; they've found her room at that table. I suppose
you'd turn your nose up at her because she has a lot too much powder on
her cheeks, and you don't like that lace collar around her neck. It
isn't clean, I know, and the make-up on her face is clumsy. Must be
uncomfortable, too, but she's done her best. She's been dancing at the
_Hippodrome_ this afternoon, probably rehearsing afterwards. She's got
an hour now before she goes back to the evening performance. She's
taking the eighteenpenny dinner, you see. She'll get a glass of chianti
free with it. I am in luck to-night. I can tell you about nearly all
these people. Her name is Bessie Hazell--Sarah Ann Jinks, very likely,
but that's what she calls herself, anyway. She married an acrobat two
years ago and they started doing quite well. Then he got a cough, had
to give up work, the doctors all shook their heads at him, wanted to
tell him it was consumption. Bless you, she wouldn't listen to it! She
got him down to Bournemouth somehow and they patched him up. He came
back and started again, caught cold, and had another bad spell. Still,
she wouldn't have it that there was anything serious the matter with
him! He'd be all right, she said, if it weren't for the climate, and
every night she danced, mind--danced twice a day. She's quite clever,
they say--might have done well if she'd only herself to think of and
could spare a little of her money for lessons. Not she! She sent him to
Davos, paid for it somehow. He's back again now. He can't go on the
stage, but he's got a light job somewhere. I don't know that he's
earning anything particular. They've got a baby to keep, but they do it
all right between them. She isn't pleasant to look at, is she? What's
that matter? She's a bit of real life, anyhow."

"Why didn't you bring me here before, Kendricks?" Julien asked.

The man leaned back and laughed.

"Ask yourself that question, not me," he replied. "You--Sir Julien
Portel, caricatured as the best-dressed man in the House of Commons,
member of the most fashionable clubs, brilliant debater, successful
politician, future Prime Minister, and all that sort of twaddle. You
were living too far up in the clouds, my friend, to come down here. You
see, I am not offering you much sympathy, Julien. I don't think you
need it. You were soaring up to the skies just because of your gifts
and your position and your opportunities. You are down now. Well,
you're thundering sorry for yourself. I don't know that I'm sorry for
you. I'll tell you in ten years' time. By Jove, here's your
sandy-headed little friend!"

The man, with the girl upon his arm, had entered the room and had taken
seats at a table in the corner, for which, apparently, they had been
waiting. Julien looked at them curiously.

"Why," he exclaimed suddenly, leaning across the table, "I remember him
now! He's at the shop--I mean he's an Intelligence man."

Kendricks nodded.

"Just the sort of inconspicuous-looking person who could go anywhere
without being noticed."

"I recollect him quite well," Julien continued. "It's not in my
department, of course, but I remember being told he was a very useful
little beggar."

"I should say, without a doubt," Kendricks declared, "that he was at
present working hard for the safety and welfare of the British Empire.
If you've suddenly recognized the man, I'll tell you who the girl is.
She's a manicurist at the Milan."

Julien looked round and watched them for a moment curiously. Again he
noticed that his interest in the young man was at least reciprocated.

"The fellow has recognized me, of course," he said. "You know,
Kendricks, I remember two or three years ago a most amazing item of
news was brought to us--one that made a real difference, too--through a
manicurist."

"Shouldn't be a bit surprised," Kendricks replied.

"Things drop out in the most unexpected places, as you'd find out if
you'd been a journalist."

"She was sent for into the room of some princess--at Claridge's, I
think it was, or one of the west-end hotels--and while she was there a
man came from one of the inner rooms and said a few words in Russian.
The girl had been in St. Petersburg and understood. It made quite a
difference. I remember the story."

"Might have been the same man and the same manicurist," Kendricks
remarked.

Julien shook his head.

"There was trouble about the manicurist," he said, "and she had to
leave the country. She's in South Africa now."

"I can't say that I like the appearance of the fellow," Kendricks
declared. "Don't funk the soup, Julien--it's better than it looks. He's
a slimy-looking sort of chap. I have a theory that the modern sort of
Secret Service agent ought to be a person like myself--breezy and
obvious. Julien, if that girl doesn't stop gazing at you sideways,
you'll be in trouble with your late employee."

Julien looked across at the opposite table. The girl, as he had noticed
before, was stealing frequent glances at him. For some reason or other,
she seemed anxious to attract his attention.

"Quite a conquest!" Kendricks murmured. "Drink some more of that
chianti, man, and bring some color to your cheeks. There's a charming
little manicurist wants to flirt with you. What teeth and what a
smile!"

"Considering that she has been listening to my history for the last
quarter of an hour, I imagine that her interest is of a less
sentimental nature," Julien said. "I have probably been pointed out to
her as the biggest fool in Christendom."

"Not you," Kendricks declared. "I assure you that I am a critic in such
matters. She looks when the young man who is with her is engaged upon
his dinner, or speaking to the waiter. I am not positive, even, that
she wants to flirt, Julien. I think she wants to say something to you."

Julien laughed.

"What shall I do? Present myself? Bah!" he added, almost fiercely. "I
wish the girl would keep her black eyes to herself. I want to tell you
this, Kendricks. You've talked some splendid common sense to me without
going out of your way to do it. I am not going to whine, now or at any
other time, but as long as I live I never want anything more to do with
a woman. That sounds about the most futile and empty-headed thing a man
can say--I know that. But there it is. I tell you the very thought of
them makes me shudder. They're like pampered, highly-groomed animals,
with their mouths open for the tit-bits of life. They have to be fed
with whatever food it may be they crave for, and that's the end of it."

Kendricks motioned with his head across the room to where the little
woman with the blackened eyebrows was eating her dinner.

"What about that?" he asked.

"I don't know anything about that sort," Julien admitted. "What you
told me sounded like one of the things you read of in newspapers and
never believe. I don't believe it. Mind you, I don't say it's false,
but I don't believe it because I have never spoken to the woman whom I
could imagine capable of such unselfishness. If I patch up the pieces
again, Kendricks," he added, and his face was suddenly very dark and
very set--the face of an older man, "whatever cement I use, it won't be
the cement of love or any sentiment whatsoever connected with women."

Kendricks nodded.

"It's my belief," he began, then he stopped short. "Julien," he
continued kindly, "you're nothing but a big baby. You think you've
moved in the big places. So you have, in a way. But there was a hideous
mistake about your life. You've never had to build. No one can climb
who doesn't build first. These ready-made ladders don't count. Now," he
added, dropping his voice and glancing quickly across the room, "you
will have an opportunity to put into force your new and magnificent
principles of misogyny. Our little sandy-headed friend has been
summoned from the room. I saw the _commissionaire_ come up and whisper
in his ear. Mademoiselle is writing a note. A hundred to one it is to
you!"

Julien frowned. He, too, turned his head, and he met the girl's eyes.
She was looking at him curiously. It was not the look of the woman who
invites so much as the look of the woman who appeals for an
understanding, who has something to say. She smiled ever so faintly and
touched with her finger the scrap of paper which she thrust into the
waiter's hand. Then she bent once more over her plate. The man came
across to Julien.

"For you, monsieur," he announced, and laid it by the side of Julien's
plate.

"Read it," Kendricks whispered across the table, for he had been quick
to see his companion's first impulse.

"Why should I?" Julien said coldly. "I have no desire to have anything
to do with that young person. What can she have to say to me?"

"Nevertheless, read it," Kendricks repeated.

Julien unrolled the scrap of paper with reluctant fingers. There were
only a few words written there in hasty pencil:

Monsieur, there is a friend of mine whom you must see. Call at number
17, Avenue de St. Paul and ask for Madame Christophor. Do not attempt
to speak to me. This is for your good.

Julien's fingers were upon the note to destroy it, but again Kendricks
stopped him.

"Julien," he insisted, "don't be an idiot. The little girl knows who
you are. She can't imagine that you are in the humor just now for
flirtations. Put the note in your pocket and call. One can't tell. Your
life has been so artificial that you've probably left off believing in
any adventures outside story-books. My life leads me into different
places and I never neglect an opportunity like that."

"A sister manicurist, I expect," Julien replied scornfully; "a palmist,
or some creature of that sort."

Kendricks hammered upon the table for the waiter.

"One takes one's chances," he agreed, "but I do not think that the
little girl over there would send you upon a fool's errand. There are
other things in life, you know, Julien. You carry in your head
political secrets which would be worth a great deal. There may be
danger in that call."

Julien looked at him with faintly curling lip.

"Tell me exactly what you mean?" he asked.

Kendricks shrugged his shoulders. The waiter had arrived and he gave
him a vociferous order.

"Listen," he said, "I could hand you out a hundred surmises and each
one of them ought to be sufficient to induce you to keep that
appointment. You leave here--shall we say under a cloud?--presumably
disgusted with life, with the Government which gives you no second
chance, with your country which discards you. And you have been
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Can't you conceive that
this woman on whom you are to call might make suggestions to you which
would at least be amusing? Don't look so incredulous, Julien. Remember
you've lived in the stilted places. I haven't. I believe in the
underground world. You must know for yourself that a great deal of the
truth leaks up through the gratings."

"That is true enough," Julien admitted, "but somehow or other--"

"Let it go at that," Kendricks interrupted. "Promise me that you will
call at that address."

Julien laughed.

"Yes, I'll call!" he promised.

"Then look across at the little girl and nod," Kendricks suggested.
"She's watching you all the time anxiously. The man hasn't come back
yet."

Julien turned his head half unwillingly. The girl was leaning across
the table, her eyes fixed steadfastly upon his. Her lips were parted,
her eyebrows were slightly raised, as though in question. She had been
holding a menu before her face to shield her from the casual observer,
but the moment Julien turned his head she lowered it. He inclined his
head slowly. A curious expression of relief took the place of that
appearance of strained anxiety. Her face became natural once more. She
laid down the menu and took a sip of wine from her glass. Kendricks
looked across at Julien and raised his glass to his lips.

"We will drink, my dear Julien," he said, "to your visit to Madame
Christophor, and what may come of it!"




CHAPTER VII


COFFEE FOR THREE


"Admit," Kendricks insisted, "that you have dined well?"

"I have dined amply," Julien replied.

Kendricks frowned.

"I am not satisfied," he declared.

"The _entrecôte_ was wonderful, also the omelette," Julien admitted. "I
will supplement 'amply' with 'well,' if you wish, but the insistent
note about this dinner is certainly its amplitude. I have not eaten so
much for ages."

Kendricks was filling his pipe.

"Cigars or cigarettes you must order for yourself," he said. "I know
nothing of them. The coffee is before you. I will be frank with you--it
is not good. The brandy, however, is harmless."

Julien lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. Just then the
sandy young man re-entered the room. He hastened to his place, but
instead of resuming it stood by the side of the girl, talking. He
seemed to be suggesting some course of which she disapproved, pointing
to her unfinished dinner. Kendricks nodded his head slowly.

"The young man has to leave," he remarked. "He wishes mademoiselle to
accompany him. She declines. He is annoyed. Behold, a lover's tiff! He
has placed the money for the dinner upon the table. He shakes her hand
very politely. Behold, he goes! Mademoiselle shrugs her shoulders. She
orders from the menu. She remains alone. My dear Julien, if you will
you can prosecute your conquest. The young man has departed."

Julien glanced across the room. He met the girl's eyes and once again
he saw in them that curious, almost impersonal invitation.

"She wants something," Kendricks declared. "I am going over to see what
it can be. Carlo!"

He summoned the waiter and asked him a question quickly in Italian.

"The man says that her companion is not returning," he remarked,
rising. "I am going to interview the young lady."

Julien shrugged his shoulders.

"As you will."

Kendricks crossed the room, his pipe still in his hand. The girl
watched him come, for a moment, and then looked down upon the
tablecloth. She was at the end of a table laid for four or five people,
but only two men were left at the extreme end.

"Mademoiselle," Kendricks said, "my friend thanks you for your message.
His curiosity, however, is piqued. Is there not an opportunity now for
explaining further?"

She regarded her questioner a little doubtfully.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Kendricks sighed.

"My dear young lady," he answered, "I flattered myself that I possessed
a personality which no one could mistake. Furthermore, I am a constant
patron here."

"I have never been here in my life before," the girl told him.

"Then your ignorance shall be pardoned," Kendricks declared. "My name
is David Kendricks. I am a journalist. I ought to be an editor, but the
fact remains that I am a mere collector of news, a bringer together of
those trifles which go to make such prints as these," he added,
touching her evening paper, "interesting."

"A journalist," she repeated, glancing up at him. "Yes! I might have
guessed that. Are you a friend of Sir Julien Portel?"

"I think I may call myself a friend," Kendricks admitted. "We were at
college together."

She rose composedly to her feet.

"Then I will take my coffee at your table," she decided. "You may
present me. I am Mademoiselle Senn."

Kendricks hesitated.

"You may not find my friend in the most amiable of moods," he began.


The girl waved her hand.

"It is to be explained," she declared. "To tell you the truth, I was
surprised to see him even in so out of the way a restaurant as this."

"He leaves to-night for the Continent," Kendricks told her.

"So I heard," the girl replied. "Come."

Sir Julien watched their approach and the frown upon his aristocratic
forehead, though thin, was distinct. Kendricks, however, took no notice
of it, and the girl pretended that she had not seen.

"Julien," the former announced, holding a chair for mademoiselle, "I am
permitted the pleasure of presenting you to Mademoiselle Senn, who
already knows your name. Mademoiselle sent you a message a few minutes
ago. If she is good-natured, she may choose to explain it. If not, what
does it matter? Mademoiselle will take her coffee with us."

Julien rose to his feet and bowed very slightly.

"We have only a moment or two to spare," he said, "as I am leaving
London to-night."

She looked at him and smiled oddly. She was a very typical young
Frenchwoman of her class--round-faced, with trim little figure, black
eyes, and smart but simple hat; not really good-looking except for the
depth of her clear eyes, and yet with a command of her person and
movements which was not without its charm.

"Monsieur is not too gallant," she murmured, "but one is inclined to
forgive him. If I may take my coffee, I will go. Monsieur has promised
me that he will call and see Madame?"

"Your friend in Paris?" Julien remarked, a little doubtfully.

"Ah! I dare not call her that," the girl continued. "Madame is
different. But I know that it is her wish that you call, and I know
that it would be for your welfare."

"Is it necessary," Julien asked coldly, "that you should be so
mysterious? After all, you know, the thing, on the face of it, is
impossible. Madame probably does not know of my existence, and why
should you take it for granted that I am going abroad?"

"Oh, la, la!" the girl interrupted. "But you amuse one! Madame knows
everything which she desires to know. As to your going to France,
monsieur over there," she added, moving her head backwards, "told me so
some minutes ago."

"And how the dickens did he know, and what right had he to talk about
my affairs?" Julien demanded, with all an Englishman's indignation at
his movements having been discussed by strangers.

"I suppose that it is his business to know those things," she replied,
sipping her coffee. "He is a very mysterious young man. He takes a room
sometimes at the Milan Hotel and he sends for me to manicure his hands.
Then he asks me very clever questions and I look down and I give
him--very clever answers. Then he thinks, perhaps, that his methods are
not quite the best, and he sends me a great box of chocolates, some
stalls for the theatre, some flowers--why not? Then he comes again to
be manicured and he asks more questions, but I know so little. Then
sometimes, not very often, he brings me out to dine. Imagine for
yourself, monsieur," she went on, with a wave of the hand, "the
excitement, the wonder of all this to a poor French girl! And again he
asks questions, but again I know so little. And then, in the midst of
our dinner, his employer has sent for him. He has to go on a journey.
It is sad, is it not? He would like me to go with him to the station,
to see him off, but I--" she shrugged her shoulders. "Why should I
leave before I have finished my dinner? In truth, he wearies me, that
young man. I do not think, Sir Julien Portel, that Englishmen are very
clever."

"As a race," Julien declared grimly, "I agree with you. I think that
most men are unutterable fools. But this young admirer of yours--what
are these questions which he asks you so often, and what business is he
in that he should be compelled to leave you to hurry away?"

"Ah, monsieur!" she answered, "it is you now who ask questions. Why
should I tell you, indeed, more than I tell him?"

Julien smiled.

"Perhaps because it was a matter of moment to him whether you replied
or not, whereas, frankly, I only ask you these questions out of the
idlest curiosity."

"Also a little," she remarked, "to make conversation, is it not so?
Very well, then, Sir Julien Portel, let me tell you this. If you do not
know who that young man is, I do not wonder that you find it necessary
to catch the nine o'clock train to the Continent to-night and to give
up that delightful work of yours, where you try to keep the peace
between all these wicked nations, and to get the lion's share of
everything for your great, greedy country. If you do not know who that
young man is, you have not the head for detail, the memory, which goes
to the making of politicians."

Julien leaned back in his chair and laughed, softly but genuinely. Even
Kendricks seemed a little taken aback.

"Upon my word!" the latter exclaimed. "This is an interesting young
person! Mademoiselle, I congratulate you. You have the gifts."

"Interesting, indeed!" Julien agreed, sitting up in his place.
"Mademoiselle, to save my reputation with you I must confess. I do know
who the young man is. He is in the Intelligence Branch of the Secret
Service of the British Foreign Office--Number 3 Department."

The girl nodded several times.

"What you call it I do not know," she said. "He is just one of those
ordinary people who go about to collect little items of information for
your Government. That is why I have received from him four pounds of
chocolate, at least a sovereign's worth of roses, four stalls for the
theatre--which I do believe that he had given to him because they were
for plays that no one goes to see, and to-night a dinner--such a
dinner, messieurs, with chianti that burned my tongue!"

"This," Kendricks declared, "is quite a bright young lady!
Mademoiselle, I trust that we shall become better acquainted."

"And in the meantime," Julien inquired, "what are these wonderful items
of information which you carry with you, and which this unfortunate
young man fails so utterly to elicit?"

"Ah! well," she sighed, "I am by profession a manicurist, but some
freak of nature gave me the power of keeping my mouth closed, of
looking as though I knew a good deal, but of saying so little. Now,
messieurs, what could a poor girl know in the way of secrets for which
that young man would get credit if he had succeeded in eliciting them?
What could I know, indeed? I sit on my little stool and sometimes there
are great people who give me their hands, and they are thoughtful. And
sometimes I ask questions and they answer me absently, because, after
all, what does it matter?--a manicurist from the shop downstairs,
earning her thirty shillings a week, and anxious to be agreeable for
the sake of her tip! And then sometimes while I am there they dictate
letters, or a caller comes, or the telephone rings. One does not think
of the manicure girl at such a time. Fortunately, there are some like
me who know so well how to keep silent, to say nothing, to be dumb."

"The methods of that young man," Kendricks asserted, "were crude. Now,
young lady, consider my position. I represent a power greater than the
power of Governments. I represent a Press which is greedy for personal
news. Have you trimmed lately the nails of a duchess? If so, tell me
what she wore, her favorite oath, any trifling expression likely to be
of interest to the British public! And instead of roses I will send
you carnations; instead of dead-head tickets I will take you myself to
the _Gaiety_; instead of a dinner at the Café l'Athénée, I will take
you to supper at the Milan."

"Your friend," mademoiselle declared, smiling at Julien, "is quite an
intelligent person. I like him very much. But I wish he would not smoke
that pipe and I should like to buy him a necktie."

"Julien," Kendricks sighed, "the Bohemian has no chance against such a
model as you."

"I do not think," she remarked, looking Julien in the eyes, "that Sir
Julien Portel cares very much for women--just now, at any rate."

Julien frowned. He absolutely declined to answer the challenge in her
dark eyes.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "when I present myself to this Madame
Christophor, do I deliver any message from you? Do I explain my visit?"

The girl shook her head slowly.

"It will not be necessary," she told him. "Madame Christophor will know
all about you. She will be expecting you."

He smiled scornfully.

"It would be a pity to disappoint a lady with such a remarkable knack
of foretelling things. Supposing, however, I change my mind and visit
St. Petersburg instead?"

She raised her hands--an expressive gesture.

"There is no Madame Christophor in St. Petersburg. I think that you
will be very ill-advised if you go there. Many of the elements which go
to the making of life wait for you in Paris. In St. Petersburg you
would be a stranger. The life is not there."

She rose to her feet briskly.

"Good night, Monsieur le Bohemian!" she said. "Remember that you have
only to accept my little gift of a necktie, to let me take you to a
coiffeur whom I know of, and I will dine with you when you choose. Good
night, Sir Julien! I think I envy you."

Julien laughed. The idea seemed odd to him.

"I fancy you would be in a minority, mademoiselle," he declared.

"At least," she reminded him, "you are going to see Madame
Christophor!"

She nodded and left them a little abruptly. Kendricks paid their bill
and they descended into the street a few minutes later. The
_commissionaire_ called a taxi for them and they drove toward
Charing-Cross.

"My friend," Kendricks said, "if I had you here for another week, cut
off from your old life, I'd show you some things that would astonish
you. It's good fortune and these well-ordered ways that keep a man a
prig, even after he's finished with Oxford. The man who lives in the
clouds of Mayfair knows nothing of the real life of this city."

"Some day I'll come back and be your pupil," Julien promised. "You're a
good fellow, David. You've given me something to think about, at any
rate, something to think about besides my own misfortunes."

"That's just what I set out to do," Kendricks declared. "There are
plenty of bigger tragedies than yours loose in the world. Watch the
people, Julien--the people whom such men as you glance over or through
as of no account, the common people, the units of life. Strip them bare
and they aren't so very different, you know. Try and feel for a moment
what they feel. Look at the little dressmaker there, going over to
Paris to buy models, hanging on to her husband's arm. She's probably
got a shop in the suburbs and this trip is a daring experiment. See how
earnestly they are talking about it. I don't think that they have too
easy a time to make ends meet. Do you see that old lady there, clinging
to her daughter? How she hates to part with her! She is going to a
situation, without a doubt, and Paris isn't too easy a place for a girl
with hair and eyes like hers. In her heart I think that the old lady is
remembering that. Then look at that little old man with the tired eyes,
carrying his two valises himself to save the hire of a porter. Can't
you tell by the air of him that he has had an unsuccessful business
journey? Poor fellow! It's a hard struggle for life, Julien, if you get
in the wrong row. You've no one dependent upon you, you don't know the
worst agony that can wring a man's heart.... Got your ticket and
everything, eh? And that looks like your servant. Are you taking him
with you?"

Julien shook his head.

"I shall have to do without a manservant. I never had much money, you
know, David."

"So much the better," Kendricks declared heartily. "It gives you a
final chance. The gutters of the world are full of good fellows who
have been ruined through stepping into a sufficient income."

They found a carriage and arranged Julien's few belongings. Presently
mademoiselle's companion came hurrying up the platform, followed by a
porter carrying his dressing-case. A short distance behind,
mademoiselle, too, was walking, humming to herself.

"Company to Boulogne for you, Julien," Kendricks pointed out. "Your
little man from Number 3 Branch is on your track."

Julien smiled. The young man never glanced towards their carriage as he
passed, but mademoiselle, who was still a few steps behind, made a wry
face at Kendricks.

"I believe she knew that he was going across," the latter declared.

"I wonder if he, too," Julien murmured, "has to call on Madame
Christophor?"

The whistle sounded. Kendricks put out his great hands.

"Good luck to you, Julien, old fellow!" he said. "Stand up to life like
a man and look it in the face. I tell you I haven't been gassing
to-night. I'd hate to pose as a moralist, but I do believe that
misfortunes are often blessings in disguise. And I tell you I've a sort
of faith in that little French girl. She gives one to think, as she
herself remarked. Look up Madame Christophor. Don't be surprised to see
me at any moment. I generally turn up in Paris every few weeks or so.
Good luck to you!"

Julien leaned out of the window and waved his hand to Kendricks as the
train moved slowly around the curve. The last face he saw upon the
platform, however, was the face of mademoiselle.




CHAPTER VIII


IN PARIS


For exactly a month Julien disappeared. At the end of that time,
looking very brown, a shade thinner, and possessed of a knowledge of
the older towns of Normandy which would not have disgraced a guidebook,
he arrived one cold, gray morning at the Gare du Nord. During all this
time he had scarcely seen one familiar face. It was an unpleasant shock
for him, as he waited for his baggage in the Customs House, to realize
that he was being watched from behind a pile of trunks by the little
man who had shown so much interest in him at the Café l'Athénée on the
night he had left England. The sight somehow annoyed him. He crossed
the room and accosted his late subordinate.

"What is your name?" he asked coldly. "You are in the Intelligence
Department, I believe?"

"My name is Foster, Sir Julien," the young man replied, after a
moment's hesitation.

"What are you doing over here?"

The young man hesitated.

"You will excuse me, Sir Julien," he said slowly, "but I am responsible
only to the permanent officials in control of my office. Besides,--"

"You can tell me at least how long you have been in Paris?" Julien
interrupted.

"Since the night, Sir Julien, when you came as far as Boulogne."

"May I ask," Julien demanded, "whether I am going to be subject to your
espionage?"

The young man whose name was Foster looked blandly at a pile of luggage
which was just arriving.

"I am not at liberty, Sir Julien," he said, "to explain my
instructions."

Julien shrugged his shoulders.

"Do as you like, of course. At the same time, let me tell you that you
irritate me. Keep out of my sight as much as possible. It will be
better for you."

Julien turned and left him there, declared his luggage, and was driven
to a quiet hotel in the Rue de Rivoli. There he had a bath, changed his
clothes, and strolled up the Champs Élysées towards the Bois. The sun
had come out and the avenue was crowded with automobiles and carriages.
He walked steadily on until he reached the first of the cafés in the
Bois. He took a chair and watched the crowd. A peculiar sensation of
loneliness oppressed him, a loneliness of which he had been scarcely
conscious during this last month's wanderings among the quiet places.
Paris had seemed so different to him on his last visit. He was
surrounded by friends and people who were anxious to become his
friends. He was in charge of a difficult mission which he was conscious
of conducting with skill. Everywhere he was meeting English people of
his own order, all delighted to see him, all pleased with his notice.
His few days in Paris were merely a change in the kaleidoscope from
London. The life--everything else--was the same. This time he was like
a man cast upon a desert island. He sat at his little table, sipping a
glass of vermouth, and conscious that no man in Paris had fewer
friends. The clubs were closed to him, there were no official visits to
pay, no calls to make, no familiar faces to look for. He was a man who
had had his day, a man disgraced, a man in whom the people had lost
faith, who was dead politically and socially. He thought his position
over carefully from every point of view. It was ruin, utter and
complete. He had disclosed a valuable political secret to a woman who
had not hesitated to make use of it. Nothing could be more ignoble. He
tried to fancy for himself some new life under altered conditions, but
everywhere he seemed to run up against some possibility, some
combination of circumstances which included a share in things which
were absolutely finished. His brain refused to fashion for him the
thought of any life which could leave outside everything which had been
of account to him up till now. Even in London, among the working
classes, it might have been easier. He remembered those few vivid
speeches of Kendricks'. What a gift the man had! Always he seemed to
see big things in life smouldering underneath the lives of these
ordinary people--big things unsuspected, invisible. There was nothing
of the sort to be found here. The only Paris Julien had ever known was
closed to him. Paris the vicious repelled him instinctively. He was
here, he had even looked forward to coming, but now that he had arrived
there was nothing for him to do. After all, he had better have found
some far distant corner in Switzerland or Italy. There was no club for
him to go to, no interest in perusing the newspapers, no visits from
ambassadors to think about. The puzzles of his daily life were ended.
There was nothing for him to do where he was but to eat and to drink
and to sleep!

He lunched at a restaurant of which he had never heard before, and
there, to his anger, almost at the next table, he found Foster. With a
trace of his former imperiousness of manner, he summoned him. The young
man rose, after a moment's hesitation, and obeyed the mandate.

"What are you doing here?" Julien demanded.

"Lunching, sir," the young man replied. "The place has been recommended
to me. I do not know Paris well."

"You lie," Julien declared. "Unless you knew Paris well, you wouldn't
be here for Number 3 Branch. Tell me, are you still watching me?"

"That is a question, Sir Julien, which, as I said before, I am not at
liberty to answer."

Julien drew a little breath between his teeth.

"Look here," he continued, "I want to warn you that I am a bad-tempered
man. You can write home if you like and tell them that you met me
coming out of the German Embassy and the Russian Embassy and the
Italian Embassy, with a list of prices in my hands for different pieces
of information. Is that what you're afraid of, eh?"

"Sir Julien," the young man answered, "I have to make reports only. It
is not my business to question the necessity for them."

Julien laughed. After all, the little man was right.

"Well, perhaps I do need looking after. Is there any particular place
where you would like me to dine? I don't want to bring you out into the
byways if I can help it."

The young man excused himself politely. Julien finished his luncheon
and then took a carriage back to his hotel. He found half-a-dozen
visiting cards in his box and glanced at them eagerly. Every one of
them was from the representative of a newspaper. He tore them into
pieces, left a curt message for their bearers, and went up to his room.
A telegram was lying upon his bureau. He tore it open and read:

Call on Madame Christophor this afternoon.

He frowned and threw the unsigned telegram into a wastepaper-basket.

"That decides it," he muttered to himself. "I will not call upon Madame
Christophor."

Nevertheless, he changed into calling attire and presently strolled out
once more into the sunshine. From habit he turned into the Champs
Élysées. The sight of a group of acquaintances drove him into a side
street. He walked for a short distance and then paused to see his
whereabouts. He was in the Avenue de St. Paul. He studied the numbers.
Exactly opposite was Number 17. He stood there, gazing at the house,
and at that moment a large automobile glided up to the front door. The
footman sprang down and a lady descended, passing within a few feet of
him. She was tall, very elegant, and her eyes, gaining, perhaps, a
little color from the pallor of her cheeks, were the most beautiful
shade of violet-blue which he had ever seen. She was a woman whom it
was impossible not to notice. Julien stood quite still, watching her.
The footman who had stepped down in advance had rung the bell, and the
postern door already stood open. The lady did not at once enter. She
was looking at Julien. This, then, was Madame Christophor! He was aware
at that moment of two distinct impressions--one was that she knew
perfectly well who he was; the other that at any cost, however _gauche_
it might seem, it was better for him to ignore the faint gleam of
recognition which already lent the dawn of a gracious smile to her
lips.

The woman was certainly expecting him to speak. Every second her
hesitation seemed more purposeful. Julien, however, with an effort
which was almost savage, set his teeth and walked on. She looked after
him for a moment and began to laugh softly to herself. Julien walked
steadily on till he had reached the corner of the street. Then he
turned away abruptly and without glancing around. He was angry with
himself, angry at the sound of that faint, musical laugh. He had quite
made up his mind not to call upon Madame Christophor. It would, in
fact, now be impossible. He would never be able to explain his
avoidance of her.

He was in a part of Paris of which he knew nothing, but he walked on
aimlessly, anxious only to escape the vicinity of the clubs and of the
fashionable thoroughfares. Suddenly he was conscious that an automobile
had drawn up close to the curbstone by his side. The footman sprang
lightly down and accosted him.

"Monsieur," he announced, "Madame Christophor has sent her automobile.
She would be happy to receive you at once."

Julien glanced inside the automobile. It was daintily upholstered in
white. A pile of cushions lay on the seat, there was a glove upon the
floor, the faint fragrance of roses seemed to steal out. Almost he
fancied that the woman's face was there, leaning a little towards him,
with the curious smile about the lips, the wonderful eyes glowing into
his. Then he set his teeth.

"You had better inform your mistress," he said, "that there is some
mistake. I have not the honor of the acquaintance of Madame
Christophor. You have followed the wrong person."

The man hesitated. He seemed perplexed.

"But, monsieur," he persisted, "madame pointed you out herself. It was
only because of a block in the roadway that we were not able to catch
you up before. We have, indeed, never lost sight of you."

Julien shook his head. "Pray assure madame," he said, "of my most
respectful regrets. I have not the honor of her acquaintance."

He walked on. The two men sat for a moment on the box of the car,
watching him. Then they turned around and the car disappeared. Julien
jumped into a little carriage and drove back to his hotel. As he passed
through into the office, the clerk leaned forward.

"Monsieur is desired upon the telephone," he announced.

Julien frowned.

"Who is it?"

The man shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the booth. Julien
hesitated. Then he stepped inside and held the receiver to his ear.

"Who is this?" he asked.

A very slow, musical voice answered him. He never for a moment had a
doubt as to whose it might be.

"Is this Sir Julien Portel?"

"This is Julien Portel," he answered. "Who is it speaking?"

"I am Henriette Christophor," the voice replied. "I had word from
England, Sir Julien Portel, that you were coming to see me."

"I shall do myself that honor," Julien assured her, "before I leave
Paris."

"You were not polite," the voice continued, "that you did not come this
afternoon."

"Madame," Julien said, "I am not here to make acquaintances. It is true
that I promised to call upon you; I do not know why, I do not know whom
I promised, I do not know for what reason I was asked to come. Since I
have promised, however, and you are kind enough to desire it, I will
come."

"And why not now?" the voice persisted. "You are alone in Paris, are
you not? I have something to say to you, something which is best said
quickly."

Julien hesitated.

"You will come?" the voice begged. "My automobile will be at your hotel
in ten minutes. You shall come, and if you dislike, after all, to make
that call, you shall drive with me, if you prefer it. Monsieur, if you
please!"

"I will be ready," Julien answered.

He hung up the receiver and walked out into the hall. He was angry with
himself because only an hour ago he had told himself that he would not
make that call. He was angry, too, because the fact of his making it or
not making it had assumed a ridiculous importance in his eyes.

He walked to the bar and filled his case with cigarettes. Then he took
up a monthly magazine and read. His own official resignation was dealt
with in a political article of some significance. It interested him
curiously. One sentence in particular he read several times:

It is not our desire to play the alarmist, but we would point out to
Great Britain that she may at any time within the next few weeks be
called upon to face a situation of great gravity, and we cannot help
expressing our regret that when that time comes the country should be
deprived of the advice, sound judgment and experience of a man who,
notwithstanding his youth, has already made his mark in European
politics.

Julien flung the paper down. What that situation might be he knew,
perhaps, better than any man!

The porter hurried up to him.

"There is a lady outside who inquires for monsieur," he announced.




CHAPTER IX


MADAME CHRISTOPHOR


She held out an ungloved hand to him as he stepped up to the
automobile. Having gained her ends, she was disposed to be merciful.

"This is very kind of you, Sir Julien," she murmured. "I really was
most anxious to have you visit me. Will you step in, please, and drive
with me a little way? One converses so easily and it would perhaps
amuse you more than to sit in my rooms."

"You are very thoughtful," Julien replied. "I will come, with pleasure,
if I may."

He seated himself by her side.

"You must put your stick and gloves in the rack there," she continued,
"and make yourself quite comfortable. We drive a short distance into
the country, if you do not mind."

"I am entirely at your service," he answered.

He was firmly determined to remain wholly unimpressed by whatever she
said or did, yet, even in those first few moments, the sweetness of her
voice and the delicate correctness of her English sounded like music to
him. There was a suspicion of accent, too, which puzzled him.

"We are not altogether strangers, you know," she went on. "I have seen
you before several times. I think the last time that you were in Paris
you sat in a box at Auteuil with some friends of mine."

Somehow or other, he was conscious of a certain embarrassment. He was
not at his best with this woman, and he found it hard, almost
impossible, to escape from commonplaces.

"It was my misfortune that I did not see you," he remarked. "My visit
was rather a momentous one. I dare say I paid less attention than usual
to my surroundings."

"Tell me," she asked, "it was my little friend Emilie, was it not, who
persuaded you to come and see me?"

"It was a little girl with whose name, even, I was unacquainted,"
Julien replied. "I must admit that I scarcely took her request
seriously. I could not conceive anything which you might have to say
which could justify the intrusion of a perfect stranger."

"But you," she reminded him, "are not a perfect stranger. You have been
a public man. You see, I am not afraid of hurting you because I think
that you will soon get over that little sensitiveness. I know all about
you--everything. You trusted a woman. Ah! monsieur, it is dangerous,
that."

"Madame," he said, looking into her wonderful eyes, "one makes that
mistake once, perhaps, in a lifetime--never again."

"The woman who deceives," she sighed, "makes it so difficult for all
those who come after! I suppose already in your mind I figure as a sort
of adventuress, is it not so?"

"Certainly, madame," he answered calmly. "It never occurred to me to
doubt but that you were something of the sort."

She half closed her eyes and laughed softly to herself, moving her head
like a child, as though from sheer pleasure.

"It is delicious, this frankness!" she exclaimed. "Ah! what a pity that
you did not come before that other woman had destroyed all your faith!
We might, perhaps, have been friends. Who can tell?"

"It is possible," he assented.

"So you believe that I am an adventuress," she continued. "You think
that I sent for you probably to try and steal one by one all those
wonderful secrets which I suppose you have stored up at the back of
your head. One cannot be Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
without knowing things. Keep them to yourself, Sir Julien. I ask you no
questions."

"Then why," he demanded, "did you insist upon this visit from me, and
why did the little manicurist, who is a perfect stranger to me, insist
also that I should come to you?"

She smiled, and looked down at her hands for a moment.

"Now if I answer all your questions, Sir Julien," she said, "you will
have no more curiosity left, and when your curiosity is gone, perhaps
some measure of your interest may go, too. Can you not bring yourself
to believe that I may have had personal reasons for desiring your
acquaintance?"

"Madame," he answered, "no! I cannot bring myself to believe that."

Again she laughed.

"I think," she declared, "that it is your candor which makes you
Englishmen so attractive. Do you believe that I am a dangerous person,
Sir Julien?"

He looked at her coldly and dispassionately.

"I think," he decided, "that you might be very dangerous indeed to a
susceptible person."

"But not to you?"

"Certainly not to me," he admitted. "As you have already told me, it is
within your knowledge that I am paying the price for having trusted a
woman."

She nodded.

"It is a fine sort of ruin, after all. Not to trust is generally proof
of a mean and doubting disposition."

"You are probably right, madame," he agreed. "Is it permitted to remind
you that we have been together for some time and you have not yet
enlightened me as to your reasons for seeking my acquaintance?"

"Can't you believe that it was a whim?" she asked.

"No!"

"Remember that I saw you when you were here before," she persisted.

"I have no recollection of having met you."

"Yet I can tell you nearly all that you did on that last visit of
yours. You dined one night at the Embassy, one night at the Travelers'
Club with a party of four, one night with the Minister--Courcelles. You
were two hours with him on the afternoon of the day you dined with him.
You managed to snatch an hour at the races and to lunch at the Pré
Catelan on your way. You lunched, I believe, with Monsieur le Duc de
St. Simon and his friends."

"Your knowledge of my movements," he declared, "is very flattering. It
suggests an interest in me, I admit, but I have yet to be convinced
that that interest is in any way personal."

She looked at him from under the lids of her eyes.

"What is it, Sir Julien, that you possess, then, which you fear that I
might steal?"

He returned her gaze boldly. "I am a discarded Minister," he said. "I
might reasonably be supposed to be suffering from a sense of wrong. Why
should it not occur to a clever woman like you that it might be a
favorable moment to obtain a little information concerning one or two
political problems of some importance? Are you interested in such
matters, madame?"

She leaned back in her seat and laughed. He sat and watched her.
Distinctly she was, in certain ways, the most beautiful woman he had
ever seen. It was true that she was pale and that her neck was a trifle
thin, but her face was so aristocratic and yet so piquant, the color of
her eyes so delightful, her mouth so soft and yet so humorous. She laid
her hand upon his arm.

"Oh! my dear, dear Englishman," she exclaimed, "Heaven indeed has sent
you to me that I should not die of ennui! You do not know who I am--I,
Madame Christophor?"

"I have no idea who you are," he assured her. "I have never seen you
before. I know of no other name than the one by which I was told to ask
for you."

She leaned a little closer to him.

"Come," she said, "you see me for what I am. I shall not rob you, I
shall not drug you, I shall not try to tear secrets out of your throat
by any medieval methods. We are neither of us of the order of those who
seek adventures in vulgar fashion and expect always a vulgar
termination. Can't we be friends for a time--companions? Paris is an
empty city for me just now. And for you--you must avoid those whom you
know. It follows that you must be lonely. Let me show you my Paris."

Julien looked steadfastly out at the country, at the flying hedges, the
tall avenues of poplar trees in the distance, the clumsy farm wagon
coming across the hayfield, the blue-petticoated women who marched by
its side--anywhere to escape for a moment or two from her eyes. It was
absurd that he should feel even this faint interest in her proposition!
It was only a month since the blow had fallen, only a month since the
girl to whom he had been engaged had sent him away with a sigh and a
little handshake. It was only a month since life lay in splinters
around him. It was much too soon to feel the slightest interest in the
things which she was proposing!

"Madame Christophor," he said, "you are very kind, but I tell you
frankly that I should accept your proposition with more pleasure if you
had been of my own sex."

"You have become a woman-hater?"

"I cannot trust a woman," he answered coldly. "All the time I have the
feeling of insecurity. I fear that it must sound ungallant if I tell
you what is the sober truth--that your sex for the present has lost all
charm for me."

She closed her eyes. Perhaps from behind the mask of her still face she
was laughing at him!

"Do you think I don't understand that a little?" she murmured. "Never
mind, for to-night, at least, I will be sexless. You can believe that I
am a man. I think you will find that I can talk to you about most of
the things that men know of. Politics we will leave alone. You would
mistrust me at once. Art--I can tell you of our modern French painters;
I can tell you about these two wonderful Russians who are painting in
their studio here; I can tell you what to look for at the new
exhibitions, what studios to visit--I can take you to them, if you
will. Or old Paris--does that interest you? Have you ever seen it
properly? I know my old Paris very well indeed. Or would you rather
talk of books? There have been many years when I have done little else
but read. Tell me that we may be companions for a time. You have
nothing to lose, indeed, and I have so much to gain."

"Madame," Julien replied, "I do not trust you. You are doubtless an
agreeable companion, and as such I am willing to spend a short time
with you. This is an ungracious acceptance of your suggestion, but it
is the best I am capable of."

She clapped her hands.

"It is something, after all," she declared, "and let me tell you this,
my friend," she added, leaning over. "You have been frank with me. You
have told me that you hated my sex, that you distrusted us all. Very
well, I will share your frankness. I will tell you this. Neither am I
any friend of your sex. I, too, have my grievance. I, too, have
something in my heart of which I cannot speak, which, when I think of
it, makes me hate every male creature that walks the earth. Perhaps
with that in my heart and what you have in yours, we may meet and pass
and meet again and pass, and do one another no harm. Is that finished?"

"By all means," he agreed.

Her expression changed.

"Come," she said, "now you shall see that I have begun my plots. I have
brought you away from Paris into the country places. For what, I
wonder? Are you terrified?"

"Not in the least," he assured her.


"Brave fellow! Perhaps when you know the truth, your heart will shake
with fear. You are going to dine in a country restaurant."

"That does not terrify me in the least," he replied, smiling. "I think
that it will be charming."

"It is a tiny place," she told him, "not very well known as yet; soon,
I fear, likely to become fashionable. One sits at little tables on a
lawn of the darkest green. If the sun shines, an umbrella of pink and
white holland shades us. Quite close is the river and a field of
buttercups. There are flowers in the garden, and so many shrubs that
one can be almost alone. And behind, an old inn. They cook simply, but
the trout comes from the river, and it is cool."

"It sounds delightful," Julien admitted; "but, madame, indeed it is I
who must be host."

She shook her head.

"On the contrary, it is by subtlety that I have brought you here and
that I claim to be the giver of the feast. You see, you dine with me
to-night. You must ask me back again. It is the custom of your country,
is it not?"

He smiled. The automobile had turned in now up a short drive, and
stopped before a long, low building. Down in the gardens they could see
fairylights swinging in the faint breeze. A short man, with
close-cropped hair and a fierce black moustache and imperial, came
hastening out to greet them. When he recognized Madame Christophor, he
bowed low.

"Monsieur Léon," she said, "I bring an Englishman to try your river
trout. You must give me a table near that great tree of lilac that
smells so sweetly. I order nothing--you understand? But you must
remember that monsieur is English. He will want his champagne dry and
his brandy very old. Is it not so, my friend? Now I will give you into
charge of _monsieur le propriétaire_ here. He shall show you where you
can drink a little _apéritif_, if you will. He shall show you, too,
where to find me presently."

A trim maid came hurrying up and took possession of Madame Christophor.
Julien followed his guide into a small reception room, all pink and
white.

"If monsieur desires to wash," the proprietor explained, "he passes
beyond there. And for an _apéritif?_"

"I will take anything you send me," Julien declared. "What is the name
of this place, monsieur?"

"They call it the Maison Léon d'Or, monsieur," the man replied. "It is
my own idea--a country house I purchased once for myself, but found it
too far, alas! from Paris. In the fine weather we could, if we chose,
have half Paris here. When the cold days come, there is nobody.
Monsieur permits?"

He departed and Julien strolled to the window. In the portion of the
gardens over which he looked were smaller tables, set out simply for
those who desired to take their coffee and liqueurs or _apéritif_ out
of doors. Julien glanced out idly enough at the little group of people
dotted about here and there. Then his face suddenly darkened. At a
table within a few yards of where he stood were seated Foster and a man
whose back was turned towards him.

Julien's first impulse was to retire out of sight, for the window was
open and he himself imperfectly concealed by the muslin blind. Then, as
he was on the point of retiring, he distinctly heard the sound of his
own name. The two men were speaking in a low tone, but a slight breeze
was blowing into the room. Julien stood still and listened. The man who
was a stranger to him was speaking to Foster.

"The woman is first, it is true," he muttered. "She will pump him dry,
no doubt. But what matter? She may even put him on his guard, but I say
again, what matter? There is a price for everything, a price or--"

The man's voice died away and Julien heard nothing for some time. Then
he saw Foster shake his head.

"Our service," Foster declared, "does not protect us in such a
position. It does not allow us to go to extremes. I am supposed to be
here to watch him, but I am really powerless. He might become your man
or hers or any one else's. I could do nothing but report."

His companion leaned across the table.

"What you call your Secret Service," Julien heard him say, "is a farce.
You have no authority, no scope. You are too proud to ferret about as
the others do. You sit in dignified ease and wait for information to be
brought to you. My good Foster, you must learn to be a man. We must
teach you."

Again their voices became inaudible. Julien drew back into the room.
His heart was beating faster, his brain was full of new thoughts. From
a place where he was absolutely secure he sat and gazed at Foster and
his companion. Presently the waiter entered with the _apéritif_. Julien
gave him five francs.

"Listen," he said, "you see those two gentlemen sitting there?"

"_Parfaitement_, monsieur," the man replied.

"Have you ever seen the elder one before--the dark one with the
glasses?"

The waiter hesitated.

"Monsieur," he said, looking at the five francs in his hand, "_monsieur
le propriétaire_ here has strange notions. He objects that we mention
ever the name of any of his clients."

"Why is that?" Julien asked.

"How should one know, monsieur?" the waiter answered. "Only it seems
that this place is a little distance from Paris, it is retired, one
finds seclusion here. People meet, I think, in these gardens who do not
care to be seen in Paris. There are some come here who whisper at the
door to _monsieur le propriétaire_ that their names must never be
mentioned."

"One can understand that, perhaps," Julien agreed, "but these are
surely affairs of gallantry? It is when the gentlemen bring ladies,
perhaps?"

The man shook his head and gesticulated an emphatic negative.

"Monsieur," he declared, "there are other things. There are other
things, indeed. This place is well-known because there meet here often
men who are interested in discussing serious matters. I can tell
monsieur, alas! the name of no one among the guests here. If I
attempted it, it would mean my dismissal, and there is no place in
Paris, monsieur, where the salaries are so good as here." Julien
hesitated. Then he drew a louis from his pocket.

"Listen," he said, "you may rely upon my word. No mention of it shall
go outside this room. Take this louis for just the name of that
gentleman with his back to you."

The waiter took the louis.

"His name, monsieur, I cannot tell you, but I will tell you what
perhaps will do for monsieur as well. The German Ambassador comes
sometimes here with a party of friends; somewhere in the distance you
will find the gentleman about whom you ask. The German Ambassador rides
through the streets when Paris is troubled; somewhere close at hand you
will find monsieur there. The German Ambassador he attends the races;
feeling, perhaps, is running a little high. Somewhere amongst the crowd
who watch the races, and very close to _Monsieur l'Ambassadeur_, you
will find monsieur there with the shoulders."

Julien drank his _apéritif_ thoughtfully.

"Thank you," he said to the waiter. "You have earned your money. You
need have no fear."

There was a knock at the door. _Monsieur le propriétaire_ presented
himself.

"Monsieur," he announced, "it is my honor to conduct you to the table
reserved for madame and yourself. Madame awaits you."




CHAPTER X


BETTER ACQUAINTANCE


The gardens of the Maison Léon d'Or were, in their way, unique. There
was no extent of open space, but the walks threaded everywhere a large
shrubbery, and in all sorts of corners and quiet places little dining
tables had been placed. Scarcely any one was in sight of any other
person, although they were so close together that all the time there
was a hum of voices. In the distance, down by the river, a large
gondola was passing slowly backwards and forwards, on which an
orchestra played soft music. Julien and Madame Christophor crossed the
narrow strip of lawn together and followed Monsieur Léon into the
graveled path bordered with fairy lamps.

"I have arranged for madame and monsieur," he announced, looking
backwards, "a table near the lilac tree of which madame is so fond. The
perfume, indeed, is exquisite. If madame pleases!"

They turned from the path on to another strip of lawn, which they
gained by rounding a large lilac bush. Here a small table was laid with
the whitest of cloths and the most dazzling of silver. An attentive
waiter was already arranging an ice-pail in a convenient spot. From
here the gardens sloped gently to the river, which was barely forty
yards distant. Although it was scarcely twilight, the men on the
gondola were lighting the lamps.

"Madame and monsieur will find this table removed from all chance
visitors," the proprietor declared. "If the dinner is not perfect,
permit that I wait upon you again. A word to the waiter and I arrive.
Madame! Monsieur!"

He retreated, with a bow to each. Julien, with a little laugh, took his
place at the table.

"Madame," he said, "your entertainment is charming."

"The entertainment is nothing," Madame replied, "but here at least is
one advantage--we are really alone. I do not know how you feel, but the
greatest rest in life to me is sometimes the solitude. There is no one
overlooking us, there is no one likely to pass whom we know. We are
virtually cut off from all those who know us or whom we know. My
friend, I would like you to remember this our first evening. Talk, if
you will, or be silent. For me it is equal. I, too, have thoughts which
I can summon at any time to bear me company. And there is the river. Do
you hear the soft flow of it, and the rustle of the breeze in the
shrubs, the perfumes, and--listen--the music? Ah! Sir Julien, I think
that we give you over here some things which you do not easily find in
your own country."

"You are right," he agreed slowly. "You give us a better climate, more
sympathetic companionship, a tenderer chicken, a more artistic salad."

"At heart you are a materialist, I perceive," she declared.

"We all are," he admitted. "Everything depends upon our power of
concealment."

The service of dinner commenced almost at once. There was something
excessively peaceful in the scene. The tables were so arranged that one
heard nothing of the clatter of crockery. The murmur of voices came
like a pleasant undernote. They talked lightly for some time of the
English theatres, of the stage generally, some recent memoirs--anything
that came into their heads. Then Julien was silent for several minutes.
He leaned slightly across the table. Their own lamp was lit now and
through the velvety dusk her eyes seemed to glow with a new beauty.

"Tell me," he begged, "you spoke of yourself a little time ago as
though you might have a personality at which I ought to have guessed.
Are you a woman of Society, or an artist, or merely an idler?"

"I have known something of Society," she replied. "I believe I may say
that I am something of an artist. It is very certain that I am not an
idler. Why ask me these questions? Let us forget to be serious tonight.
Let us remember only that we are companions, and that the hours, as
they pass, are pleasant."

"It is a philosophy," he murmured, "which brings its own retribution."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"All happiness is lost," she declared, "the moment you begin to try and
define it. It is a sensation, not a state of being. Let us drift. The
waters are not dangerous for you or for me."

Her words chilled him with a sudden memory. Then, in the act of helping
himself to wine, he paused. Some one had taken the table nearest to
them, dimly visible through the laurel bushes. He heard the voice of
the man who had been with Foster, giving the orders.

"Listen!"

There was no need for him to have spoken. Curiously enough, Madame


Christophor seemed also to have recognized the voice. Her hand fell
upon Julien's. He looked at her in surprise. Her cheeks were blanched,
her eyes blazing.

"You hear that voice?" she whispered.

Julien nodded.

"It is the voice of the only person in the world," she continued, "whom
I absolutely hate."

"You know whose it is, then?"

"Of course!" she replied.

"So do I," he muttered. "I have never seen the man's face, but I know a
little about him."

She shivered.

"Come," she said, "let us have our coffee later. We have finished
dinner and the moon is coming up. If we walk to the bottom there, we
shall see it from the bend of the river, and we shall escape from those
men."

He rose hastily to his feet. She led the way down the path. Here and
there they caught a glimpse of other tables as they passed--little
parties of two or four, all very gay. Madame breathed more freely as
they progressed. Presently they passed through an iron gate into a
field, already half-mown. The perfume of the fresh-cut grass came to
them with an almost overpowering sweetness. Her hand fell upon his arm.

"Forgive me," she begged, "I am not really a weak woman. I do not think
that there is any other sound in life which I hate so much as the sound
of that voice."

They walked in silence along the narrow path. Soon they reached the
edge of the river. A few steps further on was a seat, of which they
took possession. In the distance the gondola, on fire now with lamps,
was playing a waltz. A bat flew for a moment about their heads.
Somewhere in the woods a long way down the river a nightingale was
singing.

"I am not often so foolish," she murmured. "Once--let me tell you
this--once I had a dear little friend. She was very sweet, but a little
too trusting, too simple for the life here. She found a lover. She
thought she had found the happiness of her life. Poor child! For a
month, perhaps, she was happy. Then he forced her to give up her little
home and her savings and go upon the stage. He preferred a mistress
from the theatres. She worked hard, but, sweetly pretty though she was,
she was not very successful. Then she caught cold. She began to lose
her health--and she lost her lover."

"Brute!"

"The child got worse," madame went on. "Presently they told her that it
was consumption. She went to a hospital and she wrote a pathetic little
note to the man. He tore it up. There had been an article in the papers
a few weeks before proving that consumption was among the diseases
which were more or less infectious. He sent her a few brutal lines and
a trifle of money, with a warning that there was to be no more. He
never went to see her. The child grew worse. I used to sit with her
sometimes. I saw her look down upon the river, almost as we are looking
now, and her eyes would grow soft and wet with tears, and she would
tell me in whispers of the evenings she had spent with him, when the
love had first come, and how sweet and tender he was. There must be
something wrong, she was sure. He did not understand, he could not know
how ill she really was. She prayed for the sight of him. I put her off
with one excuse after another, but one day the fear of death was in her
eyes, the terror came to her, she was afraid. She was afraid of dying
alone, of going into a strange country, no one to hold her. I went to
the man, I begged him to come and see her. He scoffed at me. If she had
consumption, she was better dead. He would have flirted with me if I
had let him. I can hear his voice now--brutal, jeering, hideous! It was
the voice, Sir Julien, which we heard ten minutes ago at the next
table. Do you wonder that I hate it?"

"And the little girl?" he asked.

"When I returned without him," she answered, "the little girl was
dead."

They were both silent, listening to the splash of the water and to the
distant music.

"Life is like that," she went on. "We pass through it lightly enough,
but Heaven only knows the number of little tragedies against which our
skirts must brush. Sometimes they leave impressions, sometimes we grow
callous, but the horror of that man's voice will stay with me
always.... Shall we go back now? You would like your coffee."

"Sit here for five minutes more," he begged. "Tell me, did you know
that the man was a spy?"

She looked at him curiously.

"How is it that you know so much about him?"

"He is sitting there with an Englishman who comes from our Intelligence
Department," Julien explained. "They were speaking together of some
one--I believe it was myself--speaking in none too friendly terms.
There was a woman, too, whose name they coupled with mine, but I could
not hear that. I made some inquiries about the man. I was told that he
was in the suite of the German Ambassador."

She nodded.

"Whoever or whatever he is," she said, "he is something to be abhorred.
Hush! There is some one coming down the footpath."

They sat quite silent. Some instinct seemed to tell them who it was.
Suddenly they heard the voice--rasping, unpleasant.

"You have bungled the affair, Foster. It is not well-managed; it is not
clever. You were to have brought him to me, to have let me know the
instant he reached Paris. I would have seen him. Just as he was, I
should have succeeded. Now it may be that this woman has warned him
already. She is very clever. If she has him, he will not escape."

Foster's voice was inaudible, but whatever he said seemed to anger his
companion.

"Thunder and lightning!" they heard the man exclaim. "Am I a fool that
you talk to me like this? Yes, I go to him--I go to him to-night, but I
tell you that it is too late! If it is too late, there is but one thing
to be done. You are a coward, Foster!"

They came out into the open, on the path which fringed the river, and
they were immediately silent. They came strolling along and noticed for
the first time the two figures upon the seat. Instantly they began to
talk upon some local subject. No escape was possible. In a few minutes
they were opposite the bench. Foster started a little. The other man's
face darkened. He ventured upon a bow. Madame Christophor looked at him
as one might look upon some strange animal. Foster hesitated for a
moment, but his companion pushed him along.

"I think," she whispered, "that that man would like to do me an
injury."

Julien was watching their retreating forms.

"I don't understand what Foster is doing there, or what the dickens
they were talking about," he said thoughtfully. "I think if you don't
mind," he added, "we will return."

"Why are you so suddenly uneasy?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Apparently," he answered, "you know who I am and everything about me.
I, on the other hand, am ignorant almost of your very name. There are
certain circumstances connected with my late career which make it
inadvisable--"

"Oh, I know all that you are going to say!" she interrupted. "But ask
yourself. Have I made any attempt whatever to ask you a single
unbecoming question?"

"You certainly have not," he confessed.

"Your little friend returns," she whispered. "See!"

Foster came back to them, slowly, with reluctant footsteps. He had the
appearance of a man bent upon a mission which he dislikes.

"Sir Julien," he said, as he drew near, "would you grant me a moment's
interview?"

Julien looked at him.

"You probably know my address," he replied coldly. "You can call there
and see me. At present I am engaged."

"Sir Julien, the matter is of some importance," Foster persisted. "I
have a friend who is anxious to meet you. It would be an affair of a
few words only, and perhaps an appointment afterwards."

"Is the friend to whom you refer the person with whom you were walking
just now?" Julien inquired.

"Yes!" Foster admitted. "If you can spare me a moment I can explain--"

"You need explain nothing," Julien interrupted. "Understand, please,
that I decline absolutely to make that person's acquaintance."

Foster looked away from Sir Julien to the woman who stood by his side.

"Am I to take this as final?" he asked.

Julien turned on his heel.

"Absolutely," he said. "The little I know of the person with whom you
seem to be spending the evening makes me feel more inclined to pitch
him into the river than to make his acquaintance. As a matter of fact,
Foster, I don't know, of course, under what instructions you are acting
over here, but I should not have considered him exactly a companion for
you."


Foster started. A new fear had suddenly broken in upon him.

"I am doing my best to carry out instructions, sir," he declared. "I do
not understand why you should take so prejudiced a view of my friend."

"It is, perhaps," Julien replied, "because I know more about him than
you seem to. Good night!"

They walked slowly back to the gardens. The woman was thoughtful.

"I am sorry," she said, "that those people came along to spoil our
first evening together. I am glad, though, that you refused to meet the
German. All that he would have done would have been to try and fill
your mind with suspicions of me. Haven't you found me harmless?"

"I am not sure," he answered.

She laughed softly.

"Ah, me!" she exclaimed, "I gave you an opening, didn't I, and one must
remember that of late years the men of your nation have established a
reputation over here for gallantry. Harmless, at least, so far as
regards tearing political secrets from your bosom?"

"As a matter of fact," Julien remarked, "there are not so many secrets
between France and England, are there?"

"Thanks in some measure to you," she reminded him. "You take it for
granted, I notice, that I am a Frenchwoman."

He looked at her in great surprise.

"Why, indeed, yes! Is there any doubt about it?"

"My mother was an American," she told him.

"Tell me your real name?" he asked suddenly.

"On the contrary, I am going to beg you not to try and discover it. Let
us remain as we are for a little time. You are lonely here and you need
companionship, and I am very much in the same position. You are a hater
of women and I have sworn eternal enmity against all men. We are so
safe, and solitude is bad for us."

He smiled.

"You are very kind," he said, "but as for me, I am only starting my
wanderings. I want to go on through Algiers to Morocco, to Egypt, and
later to the east. I never meant to stay long in Paris."

"I do not blame you," she declared. "Sooner or later you must find your
way where the battle is. Paris is not a city for men. One loiters here
for a time, but one passes on always. Never mind, while you stay here I
shall claim you."

They drove back to Paris through the perfumed stillness of the long
spring night. Madame had instructed her chauffeur to drive slowly, and
more than one automobile rushed past them, with flaring lights and
sounding horn. In one they caught a glimpse of Foster and his
companion, whispering together as they raced by. Madame half closed her
eyes with a little shiver.

"Those men again!" she exclaimed, "They say that Estermen never
abandons a chase. You may still find him waiting for you in your
hotel!"




CHAPTER XI


THE TOYMAKER FROM LEIPZIG


In the front row of balcony tables at the Café des Ambassadeurs was one
which had been transformed into a veritable bower of pink roses. The
florists had been at work upon it since early in the afternoon, and
their labors were only just concluded as the guests of the restaurant
were beginning to arrive. Henri, the chief _maître d'hôtel_, had
personally superintended its construction. He stood looking at the
result of their labors now with a well-satisfied aspect.

"But it is perfect," he declared. "The orders of Monsieur Freudenberg
have indeed been delightfully carried out. You will present the account
as usual, mademoiselle," he directed the florist, who in her black
frock, a little hot and flushed with her labors, was standing by his
side. "Remember monsieur is well able to pay."

"It is, perhaps, a prince who dines in such state?" the girl inquired.

The _maître d'hôtel_ smiled.

"It is, on the contrary," he told her, "a maker of toys from Germany."

She made a little grimace.

"And to think that my back aches, that I have pricked myself so," she
exclaimed, showing the scarred tips of her fingers, "for the sake of a
toymaker from Germany! But it is not like you, Henri, to disturb
yourself so for anything less than a prince."

Henri, who was a sleek and handsome man, with black moustache and
imperial, shook his head sadly.

"Ah! mademoiselle," he said, "when you have lived as long as I, you
will know that the times indeed have changed. It is no longer the
princes of the world to whom one gives one's best service. It is those
who carry the heaviest money bags who command it."

"Well, well," she replied, "that is perhaps true. Yet in our little
shop in the Rue de la Paix we do not always find that it is those with
the heaviest money bags who pay us most generously for our flowers. I
would sooner serve a bankrupt aristocrat than a wealthy shopkeeper. If
they pay at all, these aristocrats, they pay well."

Henri stretched out his hands.

"Mademoiselle, there are shopkeepers who are also princes. My client of
this evening is one of those. Behold, he comes! Pardon!"

The man for whom these great preparations had been made stood in the
entrance of the restaurant, waiting for the woman who was giving her
cloak to the _vestiaire_. He was tall and thin, dressed rather
severely, with a black tie and short coat, a monocle which hung from
his neck with a black ribbon. His face was unusually long, his eyes
deep-set, his mouth set firm on a somewhat protuberant jaw, with lines
at the corners which somehow suggested humor. When he saw Henri he
nodded.

"Once more, Henri," he remarked, with a little smile, "once more in my
beloved Paris!"

"Monsieur is always welcome," Henri declared, bowing to the ground.
"Paris is the gayer for his coming."

"You are indeed a nation of courtiers!" Herr Carl Freudenberg
exclaimed. "What German _Oberkellner_ would have thought of a speech
like that to a Frenchman finding himself in Berlin! Ah! Henri, you try,
all of you, to spoil me here. Is it not so, mademoiselle?" he added,
turning with a bow and a smile to the girl who stood now by his side.
"Henri here speaks honied words to me always. The wonder to me is that
I am ever able to tear myself away from this city of fascination."

"If we could keep monsieur," the girl murmured, smiling at Henri, "I
think that we should all be very well content."

Herr Freudenberg made a little grimace.

"But my toys!" he cried. "Who is there in Germany could make such toys
as I and my factory people? The world would be sad indeed--the world of
children, I mean--if my factory were to close down or my designers
should lose their cunning."

"Is it the greatest ambition of monsieur," the girl asked, "to amuse
and make happy the world of children? Have not the world of grown
people some claims?"

"Monsieur will, I trust, and madame," Henri declared, as they moved
slowly forward, "find much to admire in the table which has been
prepared for them this evening. It is by the orders of monsieur so
enclosed that here one may talk without fear of observation. And the
perfume of these roses, every one of which has been selected, is a
wonderful thing. It is indeed a work of art."

Herr Freudenberg turned deliberately on one side where the little
flower girl was still lingering.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "something tells me that it is you whom we
have to thank for this adorable creation. It is indeed a work of
supreme art. If mademoiselle would permit!"

He slipped a crumpled note into her fingers, so quietly and
unostentatiously that it was there and in her pocket before any one had
time to notice it. She went out murmuring to herself.

"He is a prince, this monsieur--a veritable prince!"

"For your dinner," Henri announced, as they seated themselves in their
places, "I have no word to tell you. I spare you, as you see, the
barbarity of a menu. What will come to you, monsieur and madame, is at
least of our best. I can promise that. And the wine is such as I myself
have selected, knowing well the taste of monsieur."

"And of madame also, I trust?" Herr Freudenberg remarked.

"Ah! monsieur," Henri continued, "when monsieur is not in Paris, madame
is invisible. Not once since I last had this pleasure of waiting upon
you, have I had the joy of seeing her."

Herr Freudenberg looked across the table at his companion with
twinkling eyes.

"This is a city of conspirators," he declared. "You make a man vain and
happy and joyous at the same time. Let your dinner be served, then,
Henri. Since I was in Paris last I have eaten many times, but I have
not dined."

The _maître d'hôtel_ departed, but for the next hour or so his eyes
were seldom far away from the table where sat his most esteemed client.
Once or twice, others of the diners sent for him.

"Henri," one asked, and then another, "tell us, who is it that dines
like a prince under the canopy of pink roses?"

Henri smiled.

"Monsieur," he replied, "it is Herr Carl Freudenberg of Leipzig."

"Herr Carl Freudenberg of Leipzig--but who is he?"

"He is a great manufacturer of toys, monsieur."

"A German!" one muttered.

"It is they who are spoiling Paris," another grumbled.

"They have at least the money!"

One woman alone shook her head.

"It is not money only," she murmured, "which buys these things here
from Henri."...

The companion of Herr Carl Freudenberg was, without doubt, as charming
as she appeared, for Herr Freudenberg certainly enjoyed his dinner as a
man should. Nor were those lines of humor engraven about his mouth for
nothing, to judge by the frequent peals of laughter from mademoiselle.
Towards the close of dinner, Henri himself carried to them a superb
violet ice, with real flowers around the dish and an electric light
burning in the middle.

"For two days, madame," he announced, "our chef has dreamed of this. It
is a creation."

"It is exquisite!" mademoiselle cried, with a gesture of delight.
"Never in my life have I seen anything so wonderful."

"Henri," Herr Freudenberg said in an aside, "you will present my
compliments to the chef. You will shake him by the hand from me. You
will double the little affair which passes between us. Tell him that it
comes from one who appreciates the work of a great artist, even though
his French thickens a little in his throat."

Henri bowed low.

"If monsieur's body is German," he declared, "his soul at least belongs
to the land of romance."

They were alone again and the girl leaned across the table.

"Monsieur," she murmured, "it is cruel of you to come so seldom. You
see what you do? You spoil the keepers of our restaurants, you steal
away the hearts of your poor little companions, and then--one night or
two, perhaps, and it is over. Monsieur Freudenberg has gone. The earth
swallows him."

"Back to my toys, mademoiselle," he whispered. "One has one's work."

She looked at him long and tenderly.

"Monsieur," she said, "it is two months, a week and three days since
you were in Paris. Since then I have sung and danced, night by night,
but my heart has never been gay. Come oftener, monsieur, or may one not
sometimes cross the frontier and learn a little of your barbarous
country?"

For the first time the faintest shadow of gravity crossed his face.

"Mademoiselle," he replied, "alas! The world is full of hard places.
Behold me! When I am here, I am your devoted and admiring slave, but
believe me that when I leave Paris and set my face eastwards, I do not
exist. Dear Marguerite, it hurts me to repeat this--I do not exist."

She looked down into her plate.

"I understand," she murmured. "You said it to me once before. Have I
not always been discreet? Have I ever with the slightest word disobeyed
you?"

"Nor will you ever, dear Marguerite," he declared confidently, "for if
you did it would be the end. In the city where I make my toys, life as
we live it here is not known. It is not recognized. And there is one's
work in the world."

She looked up from her plate. Her expression had changed.

"It was foolish of me," she whispered. "To-night is one of those nights
in Heaven for which I spend all my days longing. I think no more of the
future. You are here. Tell me, from here--where?"

"To the Opera. I have engaged the box that you prefer. We arrive for
the last act of 'Samson et Dalila' and for the ballet."

"And afterwards?"

"To the Abbaye. After that, there is the Rat Mort--Albert must not be
disappointed--and a new place, they tell me. One must see all these new
places."

"And we leave here soon?"

"You are impatient!"

"Only to be alone with you," she answered. "Even those few moments in
the automobile are precious."

He smiled at her across the table. She was very pretty with her fair
hair and dark eyes, very Parisian, and yet with a shade of graceful
seriousness about her eyes and mouth.

"Dear Marguerite," he said, "I wait only for one of my agents who comes
to speak to me on a matter of business. He is due almost at this
moment. After he has been here, then we go. Cannot you believe," he
whispered, dropping his voice a little and leaning slightly across the
table, "that I, too, will love to feel your dear fingers in mine, your
lips, perhaps, for a moment, as we pass to the Opera?"

"It is a joy one must snatch," she murmured.

"There is no joy in life," he replied, "which is not the sweeter for
being snatched, and snatched quickly."

"And you a German!" she sighed.

Henri appeared once more, and after him Estermen. Herr Freudenberg,
with a word of excuse to his companion, turned to greet the newcomer.

"Well?"

Estermen stood quite close to the table. He was distinctly ill at ease.

"Herr Freudenberg," he said, "I have done my best. It was impossible
for me to obtain an introduction to this customer."

"Impossible?" Herr Freudenberg repeated, his face suddenly becoming
stony.

"Let me explain," Estermen continued hastily. "This customer arrived in
Paris last night or early this morning. He was called upon at once by a
lady who lives in the Avenue de St. Paul. She has told him a little
story about me--I am sure of it. He has refused to make my
acquaintance."

"And you were content?"

Estermen spread out his pudgy hands.

"What can one do?" he muttered. "The man is quick-tempered. He dined
tonight in the country at the Maison Léon d'Or with madame. It was
there that I sought an introduction with him. It was impossible for me
to force myself."

"You know where to find him, I suppose?"

"I know the hotel at which he is staying."

"Make it your business to find him," Herr Freudenberg ordered. "Bring
him with you, if before one o'clock to the Abbaye Thelème; if
afterwards, to the Rat Mort."

Estermen looked stolidly puzzled.

"Am I to mention the subject of the toys of Herr Freudenberg's
manufacture?"

Herr Freudenberg tore a corner from the programme which lay on the
table between them, and wrote a single word upon it.

"Study that at your leisure, my friend," he said. "Pay attention to the
task I impose upon you. Nothing is more important in my visit to Paris
than that I should make the acquaintance of this person. Much depends
upon it. I rely upon you, Estermen."

Estermen thrust the morsel of paper into his waist-coat pocket. Then he
leaned a little closer to this man who seemed to be his master.

"Herr Freudenberg," he began, "I spoke of a lady in the Avenue de St.
Paul, the companion to-night of the person whose acquaintance you are
anxious to make."

"What of her?" Herr Freudenberg asked calmly. "There are many ladies,
without a doubt, who live in the Avenue de St. Paul."

"The name of this one," Estermen continued slowly, "is Madame
Christophor."

Herr Freudenberg sat quite still in his place. His eyes seemed fixed
upon a cluster of the roses which hung down from the other side of the
sweet-smelling barrier by which they were surrounded. Yet something had
gone out of his face, something fresh had arrived. The half
contemptuous curl of the lips was finished. His mouth now was straight
and hard, his eyes set, the deep lines upon his forehead and around his
mouth were suddenly insistent. He sat so motionless that his face for a
moment seemed as though it were fashioned in wax. Then his lips moved,
he spoke in a whisper which was almost inaudible.

"Henriette!"

From across the table his companion watched him. At first she was
puzzled. When she heard the woman's name which came so softly from his
lips, she turned pale. Herr Freudenberg recovered from his fit of
abstraction almost as quickly as he had lapsed into it.

"I thank you, Estermen," he declared. "It is a coincidence, this. I am
obliged for your forethought in mentioning it. Until later, then."

The man made a somewhat clumsy bow, glanced admiringly at Herr
Freudenberg's companion, and departed. Herr Freudenberg was shaking his
head slowly.

"I fear," he said softly to himself, "sometimes I fear that I am not so
well served as might be in Paris. However, we shall see. For the moment
let us banish these dull cares. If you are ready, Marguerite, I think I
might suggest that the nearer way to the Opera is by the Champs
Élysées."

She rose to her feet and gave him her hand for a moment as she passed.

"If one could only find as easily the way to your heart, dear maker of
toys!" she murmured.




CHAPTER XII


AT THE RAT MORT


Julien had been back in the hotel about half an hour and in his room
barely ten minutes when he was disturbed by a knock at the door.
Immediately afterwards, to his amazement, Estermen entered.

"What the devil are you doing up here?" Julien asked angrily. "How dare
you follow me about!"

"Sir Julien," his visitor answered, "I beg that you will not make a
commotion. It was perfectly easy for me to gain admission here. It will
be perfectly easy for me, if it becomes necessary, to leave without
trouble. I ask you to be reasonable. I am here. Listen to what I have
to say. You are prejudiced against me. It is not fair. You have spoken
with a woman who is my enemy. Give me leave, at least, to address a few
words to you. You will not be the loser."

Julien was angry, but underneath it all he was also curious.

"Well, go on, then."

"You are reasonable," said Estermen, laying his hat and stick upon the
bed. "Listen. Your story is known at Berlin as well as in Paris. There
is only one opinion concerning it and that is that you have been
shamefully treated."

"I am not asking for sympathy, sir," Julien answered coldly.

"Nor am I offering it," the other returned. "I am stating facts. There
are many who do not hesitate to say that you have been made the victim
of a political plot, conceived among the members of your own party;
that you are suffering at the present moment from your masterly efforts
on behalf of peace."

"Pray go on," Julien invited. "I consider all this grossly impertinent,
but I am willing to listen to what you have to say."

"The greatest man in Germany," Estermen continued, "when he heard of
your misfortune, declared at once that the peace of Europe was no
longer assured. I am here to-night, Sir Julien, without credentials, it
is true, but I am the spokesman of a very great person indeed. He is
anxious to know your plans."

"I have no plans."

"Your political future, then--"

"I have no political future," Julien interrupted. "That is finished for
me."

"But the thing is absurd!" protested Estermen. "There is no other man
but you capable of dealing tactfully and diplomatically with my
country. Your blundering predecessors brought us twice within an ace of
war. If the man takes your place to whom rumor has already given it, I
give Europe six weeks' peace--no more. We are a sensitive nation, as
you know. You learned how to humor us. No one before you tried. You
kept your alliance with France, but you were not afraid to show us the
open hand. There are those in Berlin, Sir Julien, who consider you the
greatest statesman England ever possessed."

"I listen," Julien said. "Pray proceed."

"It cannot be," Estermen went on, "that you mean to accept the
situation?"

"I have no alternative," Julien answered.

"It is not, then, a question of money?" Estermen ventured slowly. "The
Press tell us that you are poor."

"Money, in this case, would scarcely help," Julien remarked.

"There is no man in the world who can afford to despise the power of
money," Estermen said quietly.

"Are you here to offer me any?"

"I am not. Have you anything to give in exchange for it?"

Julien laughed a little shortly.

"I imagined," he declared, "that with your first remarks you had
climbed to the dizziest heights of impertinence. I perceive that I was
mistaken. I am a discarded minister,"--dryly. "I may be supposed to
have in my possession secrets for which your country would pay. Is it
not to those facts that I am indebted for the honor of this visit?"

"Not in the least," answered Estermen. "Our own Secret Service keeps us
supplied with such information as we desire. My object in seeking you
is this. The Prince von Falkenberg is in Paris for a few hours only. He
wants to meet you. I have been ordered to arrange this meeting, if
possible."

Julien did not attempt to conceal his interest.

"Why on earth didn't you say so at once?" he exclaimed. "What does he
want of me?"

Estermen shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows? Who knows what Falkenberg ever wants? He is here, there and
everywhere--today in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, next week in Moscow.
Yet it is he, as you know well, who shapes the whole destinies of my
country. It is he alone in whom the Emperor has blind and absolute
confidence. If he holds up his hand, it is war. If he holds it down, it
is peace."

"What does he do in Paris?" Julien inquired.

Estermen shook his head.

"He arrived this morning and disappeared. Tonight he sent me orders
that I was to search for you."

"Where is he now?" Julien asked.

"At eight o'clock tonight," Estermen said, "he declared himself to be
Herr Carl Freudenberg, dealer in German toys. He dressed, dined at the
Ambassadeurs with Mademoiselle Ixe from the Opera, sent for me, learned
that I was at the Maison Léon d'Or, telephoned there, and all for this
one thing--that I should bring you to him without a moment's delay."

"But where is he now?" Julien asked again.

Estermen glanced at the clock and at a piece of paper which he took
from his pocket.

"It is one o'clock within a few minutes," he remarked. "Herr
Freudenberg is either at the Abbaye Thelème or the Rat Mort."

Julien scarcely hesitated.

"When you first came in," he admitted, "I felt like throwing you out.
How you got here I don't know. I suppose it is no use complaining to
the hotel people. But there is no man on the face of this earth in whom
I am more interested than Falkenberg. I shall change my clothes, and in
a quarter of an hour I am at your service. Wait for me downstairs."

Estermen drew a little sigh of relief. "I shall await you, Sir
Julien," he declared.

All Paris seemed to be seeking distraction as they drove in the
automobile along the Boulevard des Italiens. Julien sat with folded
arms in the corner of the automobile. He had no fancy for his
companion. He was anxious so far as possible to avoid speech with him.
Estermen, on the contrary, seemed only too desirous of removing the
impression of dislike of which he was acutely conscious. He talked the
whole of the time of the cafés and the women, of everything he thought
might be interesting to his companion. Julien listened in grim silence.
Only once he interrupted.

"What brings Herr Freudenberg to Paris?" he inquired once more.

Estermen was suddenly reticent.

"He has affairs here," he said. "He is also like us others--a man who
loves his pleasure. You will find him tonight with a most charming
companion--Mademoiselle Ixe of the Opera. Before the coming of Herr
Freudenberg, I remember her well--the companion at times of many.
To-day she is changed, _triste_ when he is not here, faithful in a most
un-Parisianlike manner."

They swung round to the left.

"Herr Freudenberg," Estermen continued, "is a great lover of the night
life of Paris. He goes from one café to the other. He is untired,
sleepless. He seems to find inspiration where others find fatigue."

Julien raised his eyebrows, but he said nothing. These were not his
impressions of the man whom they were seeking!

They drew up presently at the doors of the Abbaye Thelème. There were
crowds of people trying to gain admission. Estermen elbowed his way
through.

"Herr Freudenberg?" he asked of the man who stood at the door.

The man's forbidding face changed like magic.

"Herr Freudenberg left but ten minutes ago for the Rat Mort. Those who
inquired for him were to follow."

Estermen nodded and touched Julien on the arm.

"We will walk," he said. "It is at the corner there."

They presented themselves at the doors of a smaller and dingier café.
Estermen elbowed the way up the narrow stairs. They emerged in a small
room, brilliantly lit and filled with people. The usual little band was
playing gay music. A corpulent _maître d'hôtel_ bowed as they appeared.

"Herr Freudenberg," Estermen began.

The waiter's bow by this time was a different affair.

"Monsieur will follow me," he invited.

At the corner table at the far end of the room--the most desired of
any--sat Herr Freudenberg with Mademoiselle Ixe by his side. They met
the flower girl coming away with empty arms. The table of Herr
Freudenberg was smothered with roses. There was a shade more color in
the cheeks of Mademoiselle Ixe, in her eyes a light as soft as any
which the eyes of a woman who loved could know. Herr Freudenberg,
unruffled, had still the air of a man who finds life pleasant. As the
two men came up the room, he rose and held out both his hands.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "it is indeed my friend of Berlin! Welcome, dear
Sir Julien! We meet on neutral ground, is it not so? We meet now in the
city of pleasures. Let us sit for a little time and talk, and forget
that you and I once wrote a chapter together in the history--of
toymaking. But first," he added, turning to Mademoiselle Ixe,
"mademoiselle permits me to introduce a very dear and cherished
acquaintance to an equally dear and cherished friend. This gentleman,
dear Marguerite, and I make toys in different countries, and there was
a time when it was necessary for us to consult together. So he came to
Berlin and I have never forgotten his visit. For the present, join us,
dear Julien. You permit that I call you by your first name? It is after
midnight, and after midnight in Paris one permits everything. Now we
drink together, we three, for Estermen must leave us, I know. We drink
together to the making of toys, the building of toy palaces, and the
love of one another. Come, Monsieur Albert, see that your _sommelier_
opens that bottle that you have chosen for us so carefully," he
continued, turning to the manager who was hovering close at hand. "This
is a meeting and we need the best wine that ever came from the
vineyards of France. A dear friend, Albert. Bow low to him, indeed, for
he is worthy of it. Afterwards we will perhaps eat something. Send your
waiter. But above all, monsieur, see to it that mademoiselle with the
fair curls dances once more. My friend, I think, would like to see her.
And we must have music. Let the band never cease playing. Ah! it is
here, dear Albert, that one learns to forget how strenuous life really
is. It is here that one may unbend. The wine!"

While Herr Freudenberg talked the _sommelier_ had gravely served the
champagne in some tall and wonderful glasses brought from a private
cabinet by Monsieur Albert himself to honor his most treasured
visitors. Herr Freudenberg raised his glass, clinked it against the
glass of mademoiselle, clinked it against Julien's glass.

"Come," he cried, "to our better acquaintance, to our better
understanding! Mademoiselle," he added, lowering his tone, "to the
eternal continuance of those things which lie between you and me!"

Estermen had departed and Julien breathed the freer for it.
Mademoiselle Ixe chattered to him for a few moments, and Herr
Freudenberg whispered in the ears of Albert, who withdrew at once.

"One must eat," Herr Freudenberg declared. "Albert has some peaches,
wonderful peaches from the gardens where the sun always shines. Peaches
and macaroons--afterwards coffee. Ah! my friend, you remember those
somber banquets when we all hated one another because we all fancied
that the other wanted what we had a right to? Ugh! When I think of
Berlin in those days, when no one smiled, when one's sense of humor was
there only to be kept down with an iron hand, why, it gives one to
weep! Mademoiselle, I have a prayer to make."

"It is granted," she assured him softly.

"Presently the orchestra shall play the music of Faust. You will sing
to us? Tonight is one of my nights, never really perfect unless some
minutes of it move to the music of your voice."

She laughed softly.

"Yes, monsieur, I will sing," she answered, "but not the Jewel Song
tonight. Send the _chef d'orchestre_ to me."

At the merest signal he was there with his violin under his arm.
Mademoiselle whispered a word in his ear and he departed, all smiles.
The selection which they were playing suddenly ceased. _Monsieur le
chef_ alone played some Italian air, which no one wholly recognized but
every one found familiar. Slowly he walked around the tables, playing
still, always with his eyes upon Mademoiselle Ixe, and when at last he
stood before her, she threw her head back and sang.

The clatter of crockery diminished, the waiters paused in their tasks
or crept on tiptoe about the place. Men and women stood up at their
tables that they might see the singer better; conversation ceased. And
all the time the _chef d'orchestre_ drew music from his violin, and
mademoiselle, with half-closed eyes, her head thrown back, filled the
whole room with melody. Even she herself knew that she was singing as
she never sang at the Opera, as she had never sung when a great
impressario had come to try her voice, as one sings only when the heart
is shaking a little, and as she finished, the fingers of her left hand
slowly crept across the table into the hand of Herr Freudenberg, the
toymaker, and her last notes were sung almost in a whisper into his
ears. The room rose up to applaud. The _chef d'orchestre_ went back to
his place, bowing right and left. Herr Freudenberg raised the fingers
that lay between his hand to his lips.

"Ah, mademoiselle," he murmured, "I have no longer words!"

Albert came back. Scarcely more than a look passed between him and Herr
Freudenberg. Then the latter rose to his feet.

"Come," he said, "a little surprise for you. You, too, dear Julien. I
insist. This way."

They passed from the room. As mademoiselle rose to her feet, people
began once more to applaud.

"Mademoiselle will sing again presently, perhaps," Herr Freudenberg
answered a man who leaned forward. "We do not depart."

He led the way to the head of the staircase and they passed into the
back regions of the place--dim, ill-lit, mysterious. Albert, who had
preceded them, threw open the door of a room. There was a small supper
table laid for three, more flowers, more wine.

"It is that one may talk for five minutes," Herr Freudenberg explained.
"Mademoiselle!"

But mademoiselle had already flitted away. The door somehow was closed,
the two men were alone.




CHAPTER XIII


POLITICS AND PATRIOTISM


Herr Freudenberg shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the
softly-closed door.

"Mademoiselle is a paragon," he declared. "Always she understands. Sir
Julien, will you not sit down for a moment? Let me confess that this
little supper-party is a pretense. For five minutes I wish to talk to
you."

Julien seated himself without hesitation.

"My dear host," he said, "I left Berlin a year ago with only one
hope--or rather two. The first was that I might never have to visit
Berlin again! The second was that I might have the pleasure of meeting
you as speedily and as often as possible."

Herr Freudenberg smiled--a quiet, reminiscent smile.

"Even now," he remarked, "when I would speak to you for a moment on
more serious subjects, the strange humor of that round-table conference
comes home to me. There were you and I and our big friend from Austria,
and that awful dull man from here, and the Russian. Shall you ever
forget that speechless Russian, who never opened his lips except to
disagree? Sometimes I caught your eye across the table. And, Sir
Julien, you know, I presume, whose was the triumph of those days?"

Julien smiled doubtfully.

"Yours, of course," Herr Freudenberg continued. "The Press even
ventured to find fault with me. England, as usual, they declared, had
gained all she desired and had given the very minimum. However, we will
not waste time in reminiscences. To-day the only pleasure I have in
thinking of that conference is the fact that you and I came together.
When you left Berlin--I saw you off, you remember--I told those who
stood around that there went the future Prime Minister of England. I
believed it, and I am seldom mistaken. Tell me, what piece of
transcendental ill-fortune is this which brings you here an exile?"

"I committed an act of transcendental folly," Julien replied. "I have
no one to blame but myself. I not only wrote an indiscreet letter, but
I put my name to it. I was deceived, too, in the character of the woman
to whom it was sent."

"It is so trifling an error," Herr Freudenberg said thoughtfully, "made
by many a man without evil results. One learns experience as one passes
on in life. It is a hard price that you are paying for yours. Come,
that is finished. Now answer me. What are you going to do?"

Julien laughed, a little bitterly.

"My friend," he answered, stretching out his hand and taking a
cigarette from the open box upon the table, "you ask rather a hard
question. My resignation was accepted, was even required of me.
Politics and diplomacy are alike barred to me. There is no return. What
is there left? I may write a book. So far as my means permit, I may
travel. I may play games, take a walk in the morning, play bridge in
the afternoon, eat heavily and sleep early. What is there left, Herr
Freudenberg--tell me of your wisdom--for a man about whose ears has
come crashing the scaffolding of his life?"

Herr Freudenberg looked across at his companion, and in that dimly-lit
room his eyes were bright and his lips firm.

"To rebuild, my friend," he declared. "Choose another foundation and
rebuild."

"You recognize, I presume," Julien said, "that I require a few more
details if your advice is to be of value?"

"The details are here in this room," Herr Freudenberg replied firmly.
"Be my man. I cannot offer you fame, because fame comes only, nowadays,
to the man who serves his own country. You see, I make no pretense at
deceiving you, but I offer you a life of action, I offer you such
wealth as your imagination can have conceived, and I offer you
revenge."

"Revenge," Julien repeated, a little vaguely.

"Upon the political party by whose scheming that letter was first of
all elicited from you and then made public," Herr Freudenberg said
slowly. "Do you imagine that it was a thoughtless act of that woman's?
Do you know that her reward is to be a peerage for her husband?"

"You, too, believe that it was a trap, then?" Julien remarked.

"Of course. Don't you know yourself that you were a thorn in the flesh
to your own party? They hated you because you were not afraid to preach
war when war might have saved your country from what is to come. They
hated you because you were a strong man in a strong place, and because
the people believed in you. They hated you because the policy which
would have been yours in the four or five years to come, would have
been the policy which would have brought the country around you, which
alone would have kept your party in power. You were the only figure in
politics which the imperialist party in England had to fear. Mrs.
Carraby--I believe that was the lady's name--is ill-paid enough with
that peerage. Leave out the personal element--or leave it in, if you
will, for when I speak of my country I know no friendships--but, my
dear friend, let me tell you that I myself would have given more than a
peerage--I would have given a principality--to the person who threw you
out of English politics."

Julien's eyes were bright. Somehow or other, his old dreams, his old
faith in himself had returned for a moment. And then the bitterness all
swept in upon him.

"I think, Herr Freudenberg," he said, "that you are talking a little in
the skies. At any rate, it makes no difference. Those things have
passed."

"Those things have passed," Herr Freudenberg assented. "There is no
future for you in England. That is why I wish to rescue you from the
ignominy of which you yourself have spoken. I repeat my offer. Be my
man. You shall taste life and taste it in such gulps as you wish."

Julien shook his head slowly.

"My friend," he said, "it is the cruel part of our profession that one
man's life can be given to one country alone."

"Wrong!" Herr Freudenberg declared briskly. "I am not going to decry
patriotism. The welfare of my country is the religion which guides my
life. But you--you have no country. There is no England left for you.
She has thrown you out. You are a wanderer, a man without ties or home.
That is why I claim you as my man. I want to show you the way to
revenge."

"You puzzle me," Julien admitted. "You talk about revenge. I know you
far too well to believe that you would propose to me any scheme which
would involve the raising even of my little finger against the country
which has turned me out."

"Naturally," Herr Freudenberg agreed. "You do me no less than justice,
my dear Sir Julien. What I do hope that you have firmly fixed in your
mind is that I, despite your halfpenny papers, your novelists seeking
for a new sensation, and your weird middle class, I, Carl Freudenberg,
maker of toys, am the honest and sincere friend of England. The work
which I ask you to do for me would be as much in the interests of your
country as of my own, only when I say your country, I mean your country
governed by the political party in which I have faith and confidence. I
tell you frankly that an England governed as she is at present is a
country I loathe. If I raise my hand against her--not in war, mind, but
in diplomacy--if I strive to humble her to-day, it is because I would
cover if I could the political party who are in power at this moment
with disrepute and discredit. Why should you yourself shrink from
aiding me in this task? They are the party in whose ranks--high in
whose ranks, I might say--are those who stooped with baseness, with
deceit unmentionable, to rid themselves of you. Therefore, I say
strike. Come with me and you shall help. And when the time comes, I
think I can promise you that I can show you a way back, a way which you
have never guessed."

Julien looked across the table long and earnestly.

"Herr Freudenberg," he said, "if I answer you in the negative, it is
because of your own words. The love of your country, you told me not
long ago, is your religion. For her good you would make use even of
those you call your friends. Now I am sincere with you. I do not know
whether to trust you or not. For that reason I cannot attempt to
discuss this matter with you. I do not ask even that you explain
yourself."

"You mean that at any rate you cannot trust me entirely?" Herr
Freudenberg replied. "Well, if you had, I should have been disappointed
in you. Still, I have said things that were in my heart to say to you.
We send now for Mademoiselle Ixe. Before very long we talk together
again."

Herr Freudenberg touched the bell. A waiter appeared almost
immediately.

"Find mademoiselle," he ordered. "Tell her that we wait impatiently."

Mademoiselle was not far away. Herr Freudenberg passed his arm through
hers.

"We return, I think," he said. "This little room has served its
purpose."

Julien on the landing tried to make his adieux, but his host only
laughed at him. Mademoiselle Ixe held out her hand and led him into the
room by her side.

"He wishes it," she murmured softly. "He has so few nights here, one
must do as he desires."

The little party returned to their table in the corner. Somehow or
other, their coming seemed to enliven the room. There was more spirit
in the music, more animation in the conversation. Albert walked with a
sprightlier step. Then Julien, in his passage down the room, received a
distinct shock. He stopped short.

"Kendricks, by Jove!" he exclaimed.

Kendricks, sitting alone at a small table, with a bottle of champagne
in front of him and a huge cigar in his mouth, waved his hand joyfully.
Then he glanced at his friend's companions, frowned for a moment, and
gazed fixedly at Herr Freudenberg.

"Julien, by all that's lucky!" he called out. "And I haven't been in
Paris four hours! I called at your hotel and they told me you were out.
Sit down."

"I am not alone," Julien began to explain,--

Herr Freudenberg turned round.

"You must present your friend," he declared. "He must join us."

Julien hesitated for a moment.

"Kendricks," he said, "this is my friend, Herr Freudenberg."

The two men shook hands. Kendricks as yet had scarcely taken his eyes
off Herr Freudenberg's face.

"I am glad to meet you, sir," he remarked. "It is odd, but your face
seems familiar to me."

Herr Freudenberg leaned over the table.

"My friend, Mr. Kendricks," he said, "you are, I believe, a newspaper
man, and you should know the world. When you see a face that is
familiar to you in Paris, and in this Paris, it goes well that you
forget that familiarity, eh?"

Kendricks nodded.

"It is sound," he agreed. "I will join you, with pleasure."

"Mademoiselle," Herr Freudenberg continued, "permit me to introduce my
new friend, Mr. Kendricks. Mr. Kendricks--Mademoiselle Ixe. We will now
begin, if it is your pleasure, to spend the evening. There is room in
our corner, Mr. Kendricks. Come there, and presently Mademoiselle Ixe
will sing to us, mademoiselle with the yellow hair there will dance,
the orchestra shall play their maddest music. This is Paris and we are
young. Ah, my friends, it comes to us but seldom to live like this!"

They all sat down together. Herr Freudenberg gave reckless orders for
more wine. The _chef d'orchestre_ was at his elbow, Albert hovered
in the background. Kendricks leaned over and whispered in his friend's
ear.

"Julien, who is our friend?"

"A manufacturer of toys from Leipzig," Julien answered grimly.

"The toys that giants play with!" Kendricks muttered. "I have never
forgotten a face in my life."

"Then forget this one for a moment," Julien advised him quickly. "This
is not a night for memories. I have lived with the ghosts of them long
enough."

Their party became larger. The little dancing girl came to drink wine
with them and remained to listen to Herr Freudenberg. A friend of
Mademoiselle Ixe--a tall, fair girl in a blue satin gown--detached
herself from her friends and joined them. Herr Freudenberg, with his
arm resting lightly around Mademoiselle Ixe's waist, talked joyously
and incessantly. It was not until some one lifted the blind and
discovered that the sun was shining that they spoke of a move. Then, as
the _vestiaire_ came hurrying up with their coats and wraps, Herr
Freudenberg lifted his glass.

"One last toast!" he cried. "Dear Marguerite, my friends, all of
you--to the sun which calls us to work, to the moon which calls us to
pleasure, to the love that crowds our hearts!"

He raised his companion's hand to his lips and drew her arm through
his.

"Come," he cried, "to the streets! We will take our coffee from the
stall of Madame Huber."




CHAPTER XIV


THE MORNING AFTER


Kendricks and Julien drove down from the hill in a small open
victoria. The sun had risen, but here and there were traces of a fading
twilight. A faint mauve glow hung over the sleeping streets. The
sunlight as yet was faint and the morning breeze chilly. As they passed
down the long hill, tired-looking waiters were closing up the night
cafés. Bedraggled revelers crept along the pavements with weary
footsteps.

With every yard of their progression, the meeting between the two
extremes of life seemed to become more apparent. The children of the
night--the weary, unwholesome products of dissipation, rubbed shoulders
with the children of the morning--girls, hatless, in simple clothes,
walking with brisk footsteps to their work; market women, brown-cheeked
and hearty, setting out their wares upon the stalls; the youth of
Paris, blithe and strenuous, walking light-footed to the region of
warehouses and factories. Julien and Kendricks looked out upon the
little scene with interest. Both had been sleepy when they had left the
café, but there was something stimulating in the sight of this thin but
constant stream of people. Kendricks sat up and began to talk.

"Julien," he declared, "this Paris never alters. It's a queer little
world and a rotten one. We are here just at the ebbing of the tide.
Don't you feel the hatefulness of it--the thin-blooded scream for
pleasure which needs the lash of these painted women, these gaudy
cafés, this yellow wine all the time? My God! and they call it
pleasure! Look at these people going to their work, Julien. There's
where the red blood flows. They're the people with the taste of life
between their teeth. Can't you see them at their pleasures--see them
sitting in a beer-garden with a girl and a band, their week's money in
their pocket, and the knowledge that they've earned it? Perhaps
sometimes they look up the hill and wonder at the craze for it all. Did
you see the stream coming up to-night--automobiles, victorias,
carriages of every sort; pale-faced men who had lunched too well, dined
too well, flogging their tired systems in the craze for more
excitement, more pleasure; eating at an unwholesome hour, smoking
sickly cigarettes, kissing rouged lips, listening to the false music of
that hard laughter? Look at those girls arm in arm, off to their little
milliner's shop. Hear them laugh! You don't hear anything like that,
Julien, on the top of the hill."

"Of course," Julien remarked, stifling a yawn, "if you've come to Paris
to be moral--"

"Not I!" Kendricks broke in roughly. "Bless you, I'm one of the worst.
A wild night in Paris calls me even now from any part of the world. But
Lord, what fools we are! And, Julien, we get worse. It's the old people
who keep these places going."

"The older we get," Julien replied, "the harder we have to struggle for
our joys."

Kendricks wheeled suddenly in his place.

"Tell me how long you have known Herr Freudenberg?" he insisted. "How
many times have you been seen with him? Is it the truth that you met
him to-night for the first time?"

Julien laughed.

"My dear David!" he protested,--

"To tell you the truth, Julien," Kendricks interrupted, "there's some
hidden trouble, some mysterious influence at work which seems to be
upsetting the relations just now between France and England. To be
frank with you, I know that Carraby, at a Cabinet meeting yesterday,
suggested that you were at the bottom of it."

Julien's eyes suddenly flashed fire.

"D--n that fellow!" he muttered. "Does anybody believe it?"

Kendricks shrugged his shoulders.

"Scarcely. And yet, Julien, it pays to be careful. You can't afford to
be seen in public places with the enemies of your country."

"Is Carl Freudenberg an enemy of my country?"

Kendricks leaned back in his seat and laughed scornfully.

"Julien," he exclaimed, "there are times when you are very simple! Do
you indeed mean that you would try to deceive even me? You would
pretend that I, David Kendricks, of the _Post_, don't know that
Herr Freudenberg and the Prince von Falkenberg, ruler of Germany, are
one and the same person? Maker of toys, he calls himself! Maker of
fools' palaces, if you like, builder of prison houses, if you will. No
man was ever born with less of a conscience, more solely and wholly
ambitious both for his country and for himself, than the man with whom
you talked to-night. You knew him?"

"Naturally," Julien answered. "We met at Berlin."

"The man is a great genius," Kendricks continued. "No one will deny him
that. They speak of his weaknesses. They talk of his drinking bouts, of
his plunges into French dissipation. The man hasn't a single dissipated
thought in his mind. He moves through this world--this little Paris
world--with one idea only. He gets behind the scenes. He comes here
secretly, drops hints here and there as a private person, lets himself
be considered a Parisian of Parisians. All the time he listens and he
drops his cunning words of poison and he works. What are his ambitions?
Do you know, Julien?"

"Do you?" Julien asked.

"It seems to me that I have some idea," Kendricks answered. "This is
your hotel, isn't it?"

Julien nodded.

"Are you going to stay here?"

Kendricks shook his head.

"I stay at a little hotel in the Rue Taitbout. I stay there because it
is full of the weirdest set of foreigners you ever knew. This morning
we breakfast together?"

"Come and see me when you will," Julien invited, "or I will come to
you; not to breakfast, though--I am engaged."

"To Herr Freudenberg?" Kendricks asked quickly.

"To the lady whom your little friend, the manicurist, sent me to
visit," Julien replied. "Perhaps now you will tell me that she is an
ambassadress in disguise?"

"I'll tell you nothing about her this morning," Kendricks said. "I'll
tell you nothing which you ought not to find out for yourself."

"Do you think I may breakfast with her safely?" Julien inquired.

"Heaven knows--I don't!" Kendricks replied. "No man is safe with such a
woman as Madame Christophor. But let it go. We dine together to-night.
I'll tell you some news then. I'm going to unroll a plan of campaign.
There's work for you, if you like it;--nothing formulated as yet, but
it's coming--perhaps hope--who knows?"

The sun rose higher in the heavens, the mauve light faded from the sky.
Morning had arrived in earnest and Paris settled herself down to the
commencement of another day. Julien, for the first time since he had
left England, was asleep five minutes after his head had touched the
pillow. Herr Freudenberg, on the contrary, made no attempt at all to
retire. In the sitting-room of his apartments in the Boulevard
Maupassant he sat in his dressing-gown, carefully studying some letters
which had arrived by the night mail. Opposite to him was a secretary;
by his side Estermen, who appeared to be there for the purpose of
making a report.

"Not a document," Estermen was saying, "not a line of writing of any
sort in his trunk, his bureau, or anywhere about his room."

Herr Freudenberg nodded thoughtfully.

"But these Englishmen are the devil to deal with!" he said. "The
luncheon is ordered to-day in the private room at the Armenonville?"

"Everything has been attended to," Estermen replied.

Herr Freudenberg was thoughtful for several moments. Then with a wave
of his hand he dismissed Estermen.

"You, too, can go, Fritz," he said to his secretary. "You have had a
long night's work."

"You yourself, Excellency, should sleep for a while," his secretary
advised.

Herr Freudenberg shook his head.

"Sleep," he declared, "is a waste of time. I need no sleep. As you go,
you can tell my servant to prepare a warm bath. I will rest then for an
hour and walk in the Champs Elysées."

The secretary withdrew and Herr Freudenberg was alone. He picked up a
crumpled rose that lay upon the table and twirled it for a moment or
two in his fingers. The action seemed to be wholly unconscious. His
eyes were set in a fixed stare, his thoughts were busy weaving out his
plans for the day. It was not until he was summoned to his bath that he
rose and glanced at the withered flower. Then he smiled.

"Poor little Marguerite!" he murmured. "What a pity!"

He touched the rose with his lips, abandoned his first intention, which
seemed to have been to throw it into the fireplace, and put it back
carefully upon the table, side by side with an odd white glove.

"Queer little record of the froth of life," he said softly to himself.
"One soiled evening glove, a faded rose, a woman's tears,--they pass.
What can one do--we poor others who have to drive the wheels of life?"

He sighed, shrugged his high shoulders, and passed out.




CHAPTER XV


BEHIND CLOSED DOORS


Very soon after mid-day on the same morning, Herr Carl Freudenberg was
the host at a small luncheon party given in a private room of the most
famous restaurant in the Bois. His morning attire was a model of
correctness, his eyes were clear, his manner blithe, almost joyous.
There was no possible indication in his appearance of his misspent
hours. He was at once a genial and courteous host. Monsieur Décheles
sat at his right hand; Monsieur Felix Brant on his left; Monsieur
Pelleman opposite to him. The three men had arrived in an automobile
together and had entered the restaurant by the private way, but that
they were guests of some distinction was obvious from their reception
by the manager himself.

The luncheon was worthy of the great reputation of the place. It was
swiftly and well served. With the coffee and liqueurs the waiters
withdrew. Herr Freudenberg, with a smile, rose up and tried the door.
Then he returned to his place, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his
chair.

"My dear friends," he announced, "now we can talk."

Monsieur Pelleman smiled.

"Yes," he admitted, "we can talk. In this excellent brandy, Monsieur
Carl Freudenberg, I drink your very good health. Long may these little
visits of yours continue."

Herr Freudenberg smiled his thanks.

"Monsieur Pelleman," he said, "and you, too, my dear friends, let me
assure you that there is nothing in the world which I enjoy so much as
these brief visits of mine to your delightful capital. No more I think
of the pressures and cares of office. I let myself go, and on these
occasions, as you know, I speak to you not in the language of
diplomacy, but as good friends who meet together to enjoy an hour or
two of one another's company, and who, because there is no harm to be
done by it, but much good, open their hearts and speak true words with
one another."

Monsieur Décheles smiled.

"It is a pleasure which we all share," he declared. "It is more
agreeable, without a doubt, to take lunch with Monsieur Carl
Freudenberg, and to speak openly, than to exchange long-winded
interviews, the true meaning of which is too much concealed by
diplomatic verbiage, with the excellent gentleman to whose good offices
are intrusted the destinies of Herr Freudenberg's great nation."

"Monsieur," Herr Freudenberg said, "to-day shall be no exception.
To-day I speak to you, perhaps, more openly than ever before. To-day I
perhaps risk much--yet why not speak the things which are in my heart?"

Monsieur Felix Brant took a cigarette from the box by his elbow, but he
felt for it only. His eyes never left the face of his host. Of the
three men, he seemed the one least in sympathy with the state of
affairs to which Herr Freudenberg had alluded so cheerfully. He watched
the man at the head of the table all the time as though every energy of
which he was possessed was devoted to the task of reading underneath
that suave but impenetrable face.

"Gentlemen," Herr Freudenberg continued, "there have been many
misapprehensions between your country and mine. Ten years ago we seemed
indeed on the highroad to friendship. It was then--I speak frankly,
mind--that your country made the one fatal mistake of recent years.
Great Britain, isolated, left behind in the race for power, a weakened
and decaying nation, having searched the world over for allies, held
out the timorous hand of friendship to you. What evil genius was with
your statesmen that day! When the history of these times comes to be
written, it is my firm belief that it will be then acknowledged that
the genius of the man who reigned over Great Britain at that time was
alone responsible for the commencement of what has become a veritable
alliance."

Herr Freudenberg paused.

"There is no doubt," Monsieur Décheles asserted calmly, "that the
influence of the late king was immense among the people of France. He
appealed somehow to their imaginations, a great monarch who was also a
_bon viveur_, who had lived his days in Paris as the others."

Herr Freudenberg nodded thoughtfully.

"He is dead," he said, "and history will write him down as a great
king. Do you know that it is one of my theories that morals have
nothing to do with government? I doubt whether a more sagacious monarch
has ever reigned over that unfortunate country than the one we speak
of. So sagacious was he that he even saw the beginning of the end, he
saw the things that must come when he looked across the North Sea; and
notwithstanding his descent, notwithstanding all the ties which should
have allied him with Germany, he hated our people and he hated our
country with a prophetic hatred. But we gossip a little, gentlemen. Let
me proceed. I want you to realize that the policy of Germany for the
last five years has been wholly directed towards securing the
friendship of your country. I want you to realize that but for the
continual interference of Great Britain you would even now be in a far
more favorable position with us than you are to-day. Germany wants
nothing in Morocco. Germany's first and greatest wish is for a rich and
prosperous France. On the other hand, Germany is loyal to her
friendships, and fervent in her hatreds. The country whose humiliation
is a solemn charge upon my people is Great Britain and not France."

Monsieur Décheles leaned back in his chair. Monsieur Felix Brant never
moved.

"I want," Herr Freudenberg continued, "to have you think and consider
and weigh this matter. Why do you, a great and prosperous country, link
yourselves with a decaying power, against whom, before very long,
Germany is pledged to strike? These are the plainest words that have
ever been spoken by a citizen of one country to three citizens of
another. Herr Freudenberg, the maker of toys, speaks to his three
French friends as a thoughtful merchant of his country who has had
unusual facilities for imbibing the spirit of her politicians.
Gentlemen, you do not misunderstand me?"

"It is impossible, Herr Freudenberg," Monsieur Décheles said, "to
misunderstand you for a single moment. Your hand is too clear and your
methods too sagacious."

"Then let me repeat," Herr Freudenberg declared, "that before many
years are passed--perhaps, indeed, before many months--it is the
intention of my country either to inflict a scathing diplomatic
humiliation upon Great Britain, or to engage in this war the fear of
which has kept her in a state of panic for the last ten years. Keep
that in your minds, my friends. Friendship is a great thing, honor is a
great thing, generosity is a great thing, but I would speak to you
three citizens of France to-day as I would speak to her rulers had I
access to them, and I would say, 'Do you dare, for the sake of an
alliance out of which you have procured no single benefit, do you dare
to drag your country into unnecessary, fruitless and bloody war?' You
have nothing to gain by it, you have everything to lose. Let Germany
deal with her traditional enemy in her own way. And as for France, let
France believe what is, without doubt, the truth--that she has nothing
whatever to fear from Germany. I will not speak of the past, but the
greatest thinkers in Germany to-day regret nothing so much in the
history of her splendid rise as that unfortunate campaign of
Bismarck's. It is the one blot upon her magnificent history. Let that
go--let that go and be buried. I bring you timely warning. I come to
the city I love, for her own sake, for the sake of her people whom I
also love. I beg you to listen to these words of mine, to adjus

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