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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10410-0.txt b/10410-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4945485 --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7448 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10410 *** + + The Powers and Maxine + + _By C.N. and A.M. Williamson_ + + Author of + + "The Princess Virginia," "My Friend the Chauffeur," + "The Car of Destiny," "The Princess Passes," + "Lady Betty Across the Water," Etc. + + + Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson. + + + _With Illustrations + By FRANK T. MERRILL_ + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + I. LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + + II. LISA LISTENS + + III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + + IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + + V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + + VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY + + VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + + VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + + IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + + X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + + XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + + XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + + XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + + XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS + + XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + + XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + + XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA + + XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + + + + +LISA DRUMMOND'S PART + + + + + +The Powers and Maxine + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I +was going to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever +loved. + +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really +must want to be with me, not just because I'm the "pretty girl's +sister," but because I'm myself, Lisa Drummond. + +Being what I am,--queer, and plain, I can't bear to think that men like +girls for their beauty; yet I can't help liking men better if they are +handsome. + +I don't know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he +seems so to me. I don't know if he is very good, or really very +wonderful, although he's clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way +that makes women fond of him; and men admire him, too. He looks straight +into your eyes when he talks to you, as if he cared more for you than +anyone else in the world: and if I were an artist, painting a picture of +a dark young knight starting off for the crusades, I should ask Ivor +Dundas to stand as my model. + +Perhaps his expression wouldn't be exactly right for the pious young +crusader, for it isn't at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just +that rapt sort of look on his face. It was generally when he was talking +to Di: but I wouldn't let myself believe that it meant anything in +particular. He has the reputation of having made lots of women fall in +love with him. This was one of the first things I heard when Di and I +came over from America to visit Lord and Lady Mountstuart. And of course +there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. Everyone was talking +of it when we first arrived in London. + +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady +Mountstuart has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by +another larger room from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we +could see people dancing. + +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di's book shelves, +because we could talk better there. Usually, I don't like being in front +of a mirror, because--well, because I'm only the "pretty girl's sister." +But to-night I didn't mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. +Sitting down, you might almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my +gown was made didn't show that one shoulder is a little higher than the +other. Di designed the dress. + +I thought, if I wasn't pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I +looked as if I could _think_ of things; and as if I could feel. + +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, +unless he cared. Of course it might be for Di's sake; but I am not so +queer-looking that no man could ever be fascinated by me. + +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, +because Di has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had +found out that I was intelligent and sympathetic. + +He sat by me and didn't speak at first. Just then Di passed the +far-away, open door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the +Duke of Glasgow's brother. + +"Thank you so much for the book," I said. + +(He had sent me a book that morning--one he'd heard me say I wanted.) + +He didn't seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his +nice smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and +certainly he has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a +little sad. I willed him hard to love me. + +"It made me happy to get it," I went on. + +"It made me happy to send it," he said. + +"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked. + +"Why, of course." + +"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help +adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?" + +"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his +eyes. + +"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I +really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say +what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at +Algiers." + +"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great +thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly." + +"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not +telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I +were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and +brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family, +doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady +Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only +step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, +and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady +Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di +can put on when she wants to get something out of people. I'd make the +Foreign Secretary give you exactly what you wanted, even if it took you +far, far from me." + +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under +the brown. + +"You are a very kind Imp," he said. "Imp" is the name he invented for +me. I loved to hear him call me by it. + +"Kind!" I echoed. "One isn't kind when one--likes--people." + +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn't care. If only I +could make him say the words I longed to hear--even because he pitied +me, because he had found out how I loved him, and because he had really +too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I +made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave +me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with +me. That would make her writhe. + +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there +was no doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment +or two he was silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the +ballroom, he spoke very gently, as if I had been a child--though I am +older than Di by three or four years. + +"Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little +friend," said he. "Now that I know you really do take an interest in my +affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to +Algiers--though very likely you've guessed already--you are such an +'intuitive' girl. And besides, I haven't tried very hard to hide my +feelings--not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I +have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don't you--even if +you didn't before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers--" + +"Don't say any more," I managed to cut him short. "I can't bear--I mean, +I understand. I--did guess before." + +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn't let myself believe. I hoped +against hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took +the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of +life. + +"Di might have told me," I went gasping on, rather than let there be a +long silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to +see me cry--though, if it could have made any difference, I would have +grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears. "But she never does +tell me anything about herself." + +"She's so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better +to talk about you instead," he defended her. And then I felt that I +could hate him, as much as I've always hated Di, deep down in my heart. +At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when +he found her lying dead--out of his reach for ever. + +"Besides," he hurried on, "I've never asked her yet if she would marry +me, because--my prospects weren't very brilliant. She knows of course +that I love her--" + +"And if you get the consulship, you'll put the important question?" I +cut him short, trying to be flippant. + +"Yes. But I told you tonight, because I--because you were so kind, I +felt I should like to have you know." + +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could +have crushed every hope of his for the future--every hope, that is, in +which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part--I would have done it, +just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of +feeling that I--even I--have power of life and death. + +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I'm never very strong or well, +but now I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music +stop in the ballroom. + +"There!" I said. "The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are +over. I'm sure you're engaged for the next." + +"Yes, Imp, I am." + +"To Di?" + +"No, I have Number 13 with her." + +"Thirteen! Unlucky number." + +"Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, +coming now, is with Mrs. George Allendale." + +"Oh, yes, the actor manager's wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord +Mountstuart likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very +serious and political, but we have every sort of creature--provided it's +an amusing, or successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine +de Renzie to come here, when she was acting in London at George +Allendale's theatre? That was before Di and I arrived on the scene, you +remember." + +"I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her +first, off the stage, I believe." + +"What a sweet memory! Wasn't Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband +when he had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?" + +"I never heard that she was." + +"You needn't look cross with me. I'm not saying anything against your +gorgeous Maxine." + +"Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn't call Miss de Renzie 'my +Maxine,' please, Imp." + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "You see, I've heard other people call her +that--in joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you +such a famous person, to her, didn't you?" + +"No. What made you think that?" He was really annoyed now, and I was +pleased--if anything could please me, in my despair. + +"Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to 'M.R.' as if the name +were a secret, so--" + +"'Everybody' is very stupid then. 'M.R.' is an old lady, my god-mother, +who helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I +couldn't have gone. And she isn't of the kind that likes to see her name +in print. Now, where shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look +for Mrs. Allendale." + +"I'll stay where I am, thank you," I said, "and watch you dance--from +far off. That's my part in life, you know: watching other people dance +from far off." + +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn't sure +that one of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, +and deserted; and though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever +since the tiny child and her mother (a beautiful, rich, young +Californian widow) came into my father's house in New York, she does +know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am in such moods. +I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking through +the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. + +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) +entered the room which lay between our "den" and the ballroom, Probably +they would have gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in +that way, but I cried her name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only +a moment she paused--long enough to send Lord Robert away--and then she +came straight to me. He must have been furious: but I didn't care for +that. + +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and +beautiful, looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I +should have liked to strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the +other, deepening the rose to crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for +each finger. + +"Have you a headache, dear?" she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps +for me--as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. + +"It's my heart," said I. "It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish +I could die, and end it all! What's the good of me--to myself or +anyone?" + +"Don't talk like that, my poor one," she said. "Shall I take you +upstairs to your own room?" + +"No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs," I answered. "Yet I +can't stay here. What shall I do?" + +"What about Uncle Eric's study?" Di asked. She always calls Lord +Mountstuart 'Uncle Eric,' though he isn't her uncle. Her mother and his +wife were sisters, that's all: and then there was the other sister who +married the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord +Mountstuart's. That family seemed to have a craze for American girls; +but Lord Mountstuart makes an exception of me. He's civil, of course, +because he's an abject slave of Di's, and she refused to come and pay a +visit in England without me: but I give him the shivers, I know very +well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. + +"I'm sure he won't be there this evening," Di went on, when I hesitated. +"He's playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, +half an hour ago. Come, let me help you there. It's only a step." + +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked +across the room, out into a corridor, through a tiny "bookroom" where +odd volumes and old magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart's study. + +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The +library next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord +Mountstuart's favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a +novel or two, and thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has +painted in different parts of the world hang on the walls: for he also +fancies himself artistic. + +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I +suppose, the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or +dreams them out. And it was to this that Di led me. + +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, +and asked if she should ring and get a little brandy. + +"No," I said, "I shall feel better in a few minutes. It's so nice and +cool here." + +"You look better already!" exclaimed Di. "Soon, when you've lain and +rested awhile, you'll be a different girl." + +"Ah, how I wish I _could_ be a different girl!" I sighed. "A strong, +well girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,--like +you--or Maxine de Renzie." + +"What makes you think of her?" asked Di, quickly. + +"Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his 'pal,' and +tells me things he doesn't tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about +Maxine, still." + +"She'd be a difficult woman to forget, if she's as attractive off the +stage as she is on." + +"What a pity we didn't come in time to meet here when she was playing in +London with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their +houses, it seems. Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and +that it's such a pleasant memory, whenever he comes to this house. I +suppose that's one reason he likes to come so much." + +"No doubt," said Di sharply. + +"He got so fascinated talking of her," I went on. "He almost forgot that +he had a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great +hit, and all that; but she didn't stand quite as high as she does now, +since she's become the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except +her salary, then, whereas she must have saved up a lot of money by this +time. I have an idea that Ivor would have proposed to her when she was +in London if he'd thought her success established." + +"Nonsense!" Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. "As if Ivor were the +kind of man to think of such a thing!" + +"He isn't very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him +to marry a poor girl, or a girl who wasn't well connected socially. He +_has_ to think of such things." + +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of +course Di has all her mother's money, two hundred thousand English +pounds; and through the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the +Foreign Secretary, she has got to know all the best people in England. +Besides, the King and Queen have been particularly nice to her since she +was presented, so she has the run of their special set, as well as the +political and artistic, and "old-fashioned exclusive" ones. + +"Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself," she said, "and he has plenty of +good connections of his own. He'll have a little money, too, some day, +from an aunt or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie +had nothing more than a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said +Maxine was rather proud to have Ivor dangling about, because everyone +likes him, and because his travels and his book were being a lot talked +about just then. Naturally, he admired her, because she's beautiful, and +a very great actress--" + +"Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair," I laughed. "She +flirts with him herself." + +"Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian's over forty, and he's twenty-nine!" + +"Forty isn't the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She's a beauty +and a great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts +with him, and he with her." + +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn't care. "You'd +better not say such silly things to Uncle Eric," she said, staring at +the pattern of the cornice. "Aren't those funny, gargoyley faces up +there? I never noticed them before. But oh--about Mr. Dundas and Maxine +de Renzie--I don't think, really, that he troubles himself much about +her any more, for the other day I--I happened to ask what she was +playing in Paris now, and he didn't know. He said he hadn't been over to +see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid when he wasn't +too busy, he was too lazy." + +"He _said_ so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday +at Folkestone with the godmother who's going to leave him her money, how +easy to slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being +the wiser." + +"Why shouldn't he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he +likes?" laughed Di, but not happily. "You're looking much better, Lisa. +You've quite a colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?" + +"I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart +is sure not to come," said I. "These pillows are so comfortable. Then +perhaps, by and by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch +the dancing. I should like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan't +sleep, and the night will seem so long." + +"Very well," said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have +liked to shake me. "I'm afraid I shall have to run away now, for my +partner will think me so rude. What about supper?" + +"Oh, I don't want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that," I +interrupted. "Go now, I don't need you any more." + +"Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again." + +"Yes--yes." + +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful +look in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. "Even if you +don't send, I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you +are," she said. Then she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa +cushions, with the feeling that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down +the pillows like a stone. + +"She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor," I said to myself. +"Well--she's welcome to it now. I don't think she'll enjoy it much--or +let him. Oh, I hope they'll quarrel. I don't think I'd mind anything, if +only I was sure they'd never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would +marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I +hate her--and all beautiful girls, who spoil the lives of women like +me." + +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time +must be coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in +spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be +engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; +for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's +ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on +her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart +to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and I heard a +voice speaking. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +LISA LISTENS + +Someone turned up the light. "I'll leave you together," said Lord +Mountstuart; and the door was closed. + +"What could that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come +in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had +Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tête-à-tête between Di and Ivor +Dundas? + +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must +hear what they had to say to each other. + +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down +into the narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply +pulling the clinging folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay +still, my blood pounding in my temples and ears, and in my nostrils a +faint, musty smell from the Oriental stuff that covered the lounge. + +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the +wall, and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had +mentioned when she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our +conversation. But I was listening with all my might for what was to +come. + +"Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas," said a voice, which gave +me a shock of surprise, though I knew it well. + +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. + +"We won't run the risk of interruptions," he went on, with that slow, +clear enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their +lives, especially men of the college that was his--Balliol. "I told +Mountstuart that I wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows +nothing, nor does anyone else except myself. You understand that this +conversation of ours, whether anything comes of it or not, is entirely +confidential. I have a proposal to make. You'll agree to it or not, as +you choose. But if you don't agree, forget it, with everything I may +have said." + +"My services and my memory are both at your disposal," answered Ivor, in +such a gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked +with Diana--and that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. "I am +honoured--I won't say flattered, for I'm too much in earnest--that you +should place any confidence in me." + +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of +course, I said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the +Foreign Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in +the gift of that man. + +"Frankly, I'm in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can +help me out of it better than anyone else I know," said the smooth, +trained voice. "It is a little diplomatic errand you will have to +undertake for me tomorrow, if you want to do me a good turn." + +"I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the +best of my ability," replied Ivor. + +"I'm sure you can carry it through excellently," said the Foreign +Secretary, still fencing. "It will be good practice, if you succeed, +for--any future duties in the career which may be opening to you." + +"He's bribing him with that consulship," I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn't +beating so thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. + +"I thank you for your trust in me," said Ivor. + +"A little diplomatic errand," repeated the Foreign Secretary. "In itself +the thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its +relation with other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, +incalculable importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply +to you. Indeed, I came to my cousin Mountstuart's house expressly +because I was told you would be at his wife's ball. My regret is, that +the news which brought me in search of you didn't reach me earlier, for +if it had I should have come with my wife, and have got at you in time +to send you off--if you agreed to go--to-night. As it is, the matter +will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It's too late for you to catch +the midnight boat across the Channel." + +"Across the Channel?" echoed Ivor. "You want me to go to France?" + +"Yes." + +"One could always get across somehow," said Ivor, thoughtfully, "if +there were a great hurry." + +"There is--the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less +speed. That is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and +charter a tug or motor boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object +would probably be defeated. I came to you because those who are watching +this business wouldn't be likely to guess I had given you a hand in it. +All that you do, however, must be done quietly, with no fuss, no sign of +anything unusual going on. It was natural I should come to a ball given +by my wife's sister, whose husband is my cousin. No one knows of this +interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that score, at +least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should +meet Mademoiselle de Renzie there." + +"Mademoiselle de Renzie!" exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, +and showing plainly that he was taken aback. + +"Isn't she a friend of yours?" asked the Foreign Secretary rather +sharply. Though I couldn't see him, I knew exactly how he would be +looking at Ivor, his keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips +drawn in, the long, well-shaped hand, of which he is said to be vain, +toying with the pale Malmaison pink he always wears in his buttonhole. + +"Yes, she is a friend of mine," Ivor answered. "But--" + +"A 'but' already! Perhaps I'd better tell you that the mission has to do +with Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has +acted as my agent in Paris." + +"Indeed! I didn't dream that she dabbled in politics." + +"And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it +weren't necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in +this matter. But before we go any further, I must know whether +Mademoiselle de Renzie's connection with this business will for any +reason keep you out of it." + +"Not if--you need my help," said Ivor, with an effort. "And I beg you +won't suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie +herself. I have for her the greatest respect and admiration." + +"We all have," returned the Foreign Secretary, "especially those who +know her best. Among her many virtues, she's one of the few women who +can keep a secret--her own and others. She is a magnificent actress--on +the stage and off. And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell +you it's to help her as well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or +you will be handicapped. For several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has +done good service--secret service, you must understand--for Great +Britain." + +"By Jove! Maxine a political spy!" Ivor broke out impulsively. + +"That's rather a hard name, isn't it? There are better ones. And she's +no traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she's Polish by +birth. I can assure you we've much for which to thank her cleverness and +tact--and beauty. For our sakes I'm sorry that she's serving our +interests professionally for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to +rejoice, as she's engaged to be married. And if you can save her from +coming to grief over this very ticklish business, she'll probably live +happily ever after. Did you know of her engagement?" + +"No," replied Ivor. "I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in +London a year ago; but after she went to Paris--of course, she's very +busy and has crowds of friends; and I've only crossed once or twice +since, on hurried visits; so we haven't met, or written to each other." + +("Very good reason," I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. "You've been +busy, too--falling in love with Diana Forrest.") + +"It hasn't been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might +have been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when +the right time comes--if the poor girl isn't ruined irretrievably in +this affair of ours." + +"Is there really serious danger of that?" "The most serious. If you +can't save her, not only will the _Entente Cordiale_ be shaken to its +foundations (and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), +but her future happiness will be broken in the crash, and--she says--she +will not live to suffer the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if +disaster comes; and though suicide is usually the last resource of a +coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no coward, and I'm inclined to think I +should come to the same resolve in her place." + +"Tell me what I am to do," said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary's strange words, and his intense earnestness. + +"You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without +mentioning your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some +hotel where you have never stayed and are not known. I will find means +of informing the lady what hotel you choose. You will there give a +fictitious name (let us say, George Sandford) and you will take a suite, +with a private sitting-room. That done, you will say that you are +expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no one else. You will +wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will certainly be as +soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you're not being spied upon, you will put into her +hands a small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night." + +"It sounds simple enough," said Ivor, "if that's all." + +"It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple." + +"Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a +hotel? I'd willingly do so if--" + +"No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who +are watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the +meeting. So much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four +o'clock every afternoon, the young Frenchman she's engaged to is in the +habit of going to her house, and stopping until it's time for her to go +to work. He dines with her, but doesn't drive with her to the theatre, +as that would be rather too public for the present, until their +engagement's announced. He adores her, but is inconveniently jealous, +like most Latins. It's practically certain that he's heard your name +mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and as a +Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a +beautiful woman without being in love with her, your call at her house +might give Mademoiselle Maxine a _mauvais quart d'heure_." + +"I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel--" + +"She'll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the +theatre early, and thus get rid of him. She's quite clever enough to +manage that. Then, as your own name won't appear on any hotel list in +the papers next day, the most jealous heart need have no cause for +suspicion. At the same time, if certain persons whom Mademoiselle--and +we, too--have to fear, do find out that she has visited Ivor Dundas, who +has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a private interview with +her, interests of even deeper importance than the most desperate love +affair may still, we'll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your old +friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?" + +"I think so," replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the +change in his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly +drained. "I will do my very best." + +"If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the +next two days, you won't suffer for it in the end," remarked the Foreign +Secretary meaningly. + +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, +bound up with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and +white bride cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, +in America. I didn't want him to have the consulship, because getting +that would perhaps mean getting Di, too. + +"Thank you," said Ivor. + +"And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?" asked the Foreign Secretary. +"It should be a good one, I don't need to remind you, where Mademoiselle +de Renzie could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she +should be recognised in spite of the veil she's pretty certain to wear. +Yet it shouldn't be in too central a situation." + +"Shall it be the Élysèe Palace?" asked Ivor. + +"That will do very well," replied the other, after reflecting for an +instant. And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my +"impish joy," when it was settled; for the Élysèe Palace is where Lord +and Lady Mountstuart stop when they visit Paris, and they'd been talking +of running over next day with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful +new motor car for sale there--one that a Rajah had ordered to be made +for him, but died before it was finished. Lady Mountstuart always has +one new fad every six months at least, and her latest is to drive a +motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert--can make a motor, I +believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he'd been +insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She'd +promised, that if not too tired she'd cross to Paris the day after the +ball, taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn't be equal +to an early start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she +should see Maxine at the hotel with Ivor! + +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the Élysèe Palace for +rooms without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting +Maxine, once it was arranged for her to go there. "Any misunderstanding +would be fatal," he went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine's +head depended upon Ivor's trip. "I only wish I could have got you off +to-night; and in that case you might have gone to her own house, early +in the morning. She is in a frightful state of mind, poor girl. But it +was only to-day that the contents of the packet reached me, and was +shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just before I hurried round +here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from her, warning me +that Count Godensky--of whom you've probably heard--an attaché of the +Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a--er--a game in +high politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to +present intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who's +well known in Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused +to take no for an answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded +into giving him a severe snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn't +forgive a snub, especially if it had got talked about. He'd be a bad +enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he is a very bitter and +determined enemy. Apparently she doesn't know how much he has found out, +or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely guesses, +and 'bluffs.' But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more +closely than usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent +wouldn't get through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you +should not." + +"Nor I," answered Ivor, laughing a little. "I think I could make some +trouble for anyone who tried to stop me." + +"Caution above all! Remember you're in training for a diplomatic career, +what? If you should lose the packet I'm going to give you, I prophesy +that in twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: +for the circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, +the most peculiar I've ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a +varied experience; and they intimately concern her fiancé, the Vicomte +Raoul du Laurier--" + +"Raoul du Laurier!" exclaimed Ivor. "So she's engaged to marry him!" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I have friends who do. He's in the French Foreign Office, though they +say he's more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays--" + +"Which don't get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some +day, for I believe he's an extremely clever fellow in his way--in +everything except the diplomatic 'trade' which his father would have him +take up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du +Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost +absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle Maxine has plenty of excuse for her +infatuation--for I assure you it's nothing less. She'd jump into the +fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc smile on her +face." + +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he'd ever been really +in love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he +hadn't, for he didn't seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he +grew a little more cheerful. + +"I can see that du Laurier's being in the French Foreign Office might +make it rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she--if she's been rather +too helpful to us," he said. + +"Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale--a sensational and even romantic tale +almost complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet +Mademoiselle to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you +into her confidence, in reward for your services, in regard to some +private interests of her own which have got themselves wildly mixed up +with the gravest political matters, she's at liberty to do so as far as +I'm concerned, for you are to be trusted, and deserve to be trusted. You +may say that to her from me, if the occasion arises. I hope with all my +heart that everything may go smoothly. If not--the _Entente Cordiale_ +may burst like a bomb. I--who have made myself responsible in the +matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny me if the +scheme's a failure--shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; +and you, though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the +misfortunes of others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be +almost as if you carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the +packet into the hands of Maxine de Renzie." "Good heavens, I shall be +glad when she has it!" said Ivor. + +"You can't be gladder than she--or I. And here it is," replied the +Foreign Secretary. "I consider it great luck to have found such a +messenger, at a house I could enter without being suspected of any +motive more subtle than a wish to eat a good supper, or to meet some of +the prettiest women in London." + +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take +to Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two +from behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they +were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The +Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a +woman's looks, never could bear me: and I believe he would have thought +it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he +knew I'd overheard his secrets. + +However, Ivor's next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to +know. "It's importance evidently doesn't consist in bulk," he said +lightly. "I can easily carry the case in my breast pocket." + +"Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and +honour of a woman," said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. "Now, I, must +go and look for my wife. It's better that you and I shouldn't be seen +together. One never knows who may have got in among the guests at a +crush like this. I will go out at one door, and when you've waited for a +few minutes, you can go, by way of another." + +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was +alone. What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me +longed to see how his face would look; but there was too much at stake. +Not only would I hate to have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I +had already built up a great plan for the use I could make of what I had +overheard. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape +from behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as +I had sat up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm +asleep, Lord Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. + +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first +editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord +Mountstuart's treasures before. As both were perfectly daft on the +subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed +about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring +admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with +their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have been eaten up by +moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set fire to +the whole lot. + +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that +there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other +duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It +was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair +of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the +stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that +open door before I had conquered my cramps and got up from behind the +sofa. + +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating +a minute, the girl--whoever she was--allowed herself to be drawn into a +room where she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they +selected the lounge to sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against +the wall, with "pins and needles" pricking all over my cramped body, +while some man I didn't know proposed and was accepted by some girl I +shall probably never see. + +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until +voices were "heard off," as they say in the directions for theatricals, +whereupon they sprang up and hurried out like "guilty things upon a +fearful summons." + +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out +of my prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the +servants use. But it was very late now, and people were going, even the +young ones who love dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my +ball dress and into a dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my +one beauty, and let it hang over my shoulders, streaming down in front +on each side, so that nobody would know one shoulder is higher than the +other. It wasn't that I was particularly anxious to appear well before +Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the contrast between us to +seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but because I wanted her +to think, when she came to my room, that I'd been there a long time. + +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she +found me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. + +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, +and seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all +night, but instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her +voice was as gay and happy as Ivor's had been when he first came into +Lord Mountstuart's study with the Foreign Secretary. + +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn't +wanted to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been +in bed and asleep long ago. + +"Everything went very well," said she. "I think it was a great success." + +"Did you dance every dance?" I asked, working up slowly to what I meant +to say. + +"Except a few that I sat out." + +"I can guess who sat them out with you," said I. "Ivor Dundas. And one +was number thirteen, wasn't it?" + +"How did you know?" + +"He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn't try +to hide anything from me. He tells most things to his 'Imp.' Was he nice +when he proposed?" + +"He didn't propose." + +"I'll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he +didn't tell you he loved you, and ask if there'd be a chance for him in +case he got Algiers." + +"I wouldn't take your bracelet even if--if--. But you're a little +witch, Lisa." + +"Of course I am!" I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench +of the heart. "And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and +said he could have you, Algiers or no Algiers." + +"I don't believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking +about this evening," said Di, with her cheeks very pink. "He may have +flirted a little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But--but he +_does_ love me, Lisa." + +"And he did love Maxine!" I laughed. + +"He didn't. He never loved her. I--you see, you put such horrid thoughts +into my head that--that I just mentioned her name when he said +to-night--oh, when he said the usual things, about never having cared +seriously for anyone until he saw me. Only--it seems treacherous to call +them '_usual_' because--when you love a man you feel that the things he +says can never have been said before, in the same way, by any other man +to any other woman." + +"Only perhaps by the same man to another woman," I mocked at her, trying +to act as if I were teasing in fun. + +"Lisa, you _can_ be hateful sometimes!" she cried. + +"It's only for your good, if I'm hateful now," I said. "I don't want to +have you disappointed, when it's too late. I want you to keep your eyes +open, and see exactly where you're going. It's the truest thing ever +said that 'love is blind.' You can't deny that you're in love with Ivor +Dundas." + +"I don't deny it," she answered, with a proud air which would, I +suppose, have made Ivor want to kiss her. + +"And you didn't deny it to him?" + +"No, I didn't. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I +wish I hadn't, now. I wish I'd shown that I trusted him entirely. I know +he deserves to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him--" + +"I don't think I should commit myself any further till day after +to-morrow," said I drily. "Indeed, you couldn't if you wanted to, unless +you wrote or wired. You won't see him to-morrow." + +"Yes, I shall," she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of +hers, that looked positively black with excitement. "He's going to the +Duchess of Glasgow's bazaar, because I said I should most likely be +there: and I will go--" + +"But he won't." + +"How can you know anything about it?" + +"I do know, everything. And I'll tell you what I know, if you'll promise +me two things." + +"What things?" + +"That you won't ask me how I found out, and that you'll swear never to +give me away to anybody." + +"Of course I wouldn't 'give you away,' as you call it. But--I'm not sure +I want you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I'd rather not hear stories +behind his back." + +"Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess's to-morrow," I snapped, "and +wear your prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time +he'll be arriving in Paris to keep a very particular engagement with +Maxine de Renzie." + +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. "I +don't believe he's going to Paris!" she exclaimed. + +"I know he's going. And I know he's going especially to see Maxine." + +"It can't be. He told me to-night he wouldn't cross the street to see +her. I--I made it a condition--that if he found he cared enough for her +to want to see her again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all +thought of me. If I'm to reign, I must reign alone." + +"Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to +see her." + +"No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour +ago." + +"Yet at least two hours ago he'd arranged a meeting with Maxine for +to-morrow afternoon." + +"You're dreaming." + +"I was never wider awake: or if I'm dreaming, you can dream the same +dream if you'll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this +morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o'clock." + +"I will be there!" cried Di, changing from red to white. "And you shall +be with me, to see that you're wrong. I know you will be wrong." + +"That's an engagement," said I. "At 10 o'clock, Victoria Station, just +you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I'm right, and +Ivor's there, shall you think it wise to give him up?" + +"He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie--in which case he'd probably +write me. But--at the station, I shall ask him straight out--that is, if +he's there, as I'm sure he won't be--whether he intends to see +Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he says no, I'll believe him. If he says +yes--" + +"You'll tell him all is over between you?" + +"He'd know that without my telling, after our talk last night." + +"And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine's +name from me?" + +"Nothing," Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' POINT OF VIEW + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by +the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down +to--the other place. + +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on +my way to Paris. + +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much +time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too +early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I +should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least +wished to meet: Diana Forrest. + +"The Imp"--Lisa Drummond--was with her: but I saw only Di at first--Di, +looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last +night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said +that I didn't care to see Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to +see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her. + +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would +think it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when +explanations were forbidden. But I couldn't lie to a girl I loved as I +love Diana Forrest. It would have sickened me with life and with myself +to do it: and it was with the knowledge in my mind that I could not and +would not lie, that I had to greet her with a conventional "Good +morning." + +"Are you going out of town?" I asked, with my hat off for her and for +the Imp, whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my +tall love's shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was +like a cat; but suddenly the resemblance struck me--something in the +poor little creature's expression, it must have been, or in her greenish +grey eyes which seemed at that moment to concentrate all the knowledge +of old and evil things that has ever come into the world since the days +of the early Egyptians--when a cat was worshipped. + +"No, I'm not going out of town," Di answered. "I came here to meet you, +in case you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with +me." + +"Who told you I was leaving?" I asked, hoping for a second or two that +the Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his +secret--guessing ours, perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable +absence might injure me with her. + +"I can't tell you," she answered. "I didn't believe you would go; even +though I got your letter by the eight o'clock post this morning." + +"I'm glad you got that," I said. "I posted it soon after I left you last +night." + +"Why didn't you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that +you wouldn't be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to +write?" + +"Frankly and honestly," I said (for I had to say it), "just at the +moment, and only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow's +bazaar. That was because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, +something happened which made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I +begged you to let me see you to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. +Do say 'yes.'" + +"I'll say yes on one condition--and gladly," she replied, with an odd, +pale little smile, "that you tell me where you're going this morning. I +know it must seem horrid in me to ask, but--but--oh, Ivor, it _isn't_ +horrid, really. You wouldn't think it horrid if you could understand." + +"I'm going to Paris," I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold +potato where my heart ought to be. "I am obliged to go, on business." + +"You didn't say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when +you told me you couldn't come to the Duchess's," said Di, looking like a +beautiful, unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. +"You only mentioned 'an urgent engagement which you'd forgotten.'" + +"I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry," I told her, +lamely. + +"So it was--so it would have been," she faltered, "if it hadn't been +for--what we said last night about--Paris. And then--I can't explain to +you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you +meant to go there, and--after our talk, I couldn't believe it. I didn't +come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I +wouldn't find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn't found you. +Yet--you're here." + +"And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same," I said, as +firmly as I could. + +"Of course. I'll trust you, if--" + +"If what?" + +"If you'll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you're not going to +see Maxine de Renzie." + +"I may see her," I admitted. + +"But--but at least, you're not going on purpose?" + +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign +Secretary, I could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to +what suspicion was I not laying myself open in confessing that I +deliberately intended to see her, having sworn by all things a man does +swear by when he wishes to please a girl, that I didn't wish to see +Maxine, and would not see Maxine? + +"You said you'd trust me, Di," I reminded her. "For Heaven's sake don't +break that promise." + +"But--if you're breaking a promise to me?" + +"A promise?" + +"Worse, then! Because I didn't ask you to promise. I had too much faith +in you for that. I believed you when you said you didn't care +for--anyone but me. I've told Lisa. It doesn't matter our speaking like +this before her. I asked you to wait for my promise for a little while, +until I could be quite sure you didn't think of Miss de Renzie as--some +people fancied you did. If you wanted to see her, I said you must go, +and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next morning, by the first +train, you start." + +"Only because I am obliged to," I hazarded in spite of the Foreign +Secretary and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by +making matters worse instead of better for myself. + +"Obliged to!" she echoed. "Then there's something you must settle with +her, before you can be--free." + +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should +lose the train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, +as well as Maxine's, I must not. + +"Dearest," I said hurriedly, "I am free. There's no question of freedom. +Yet I shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me." + +"Not if you go to her--this day of all days." The words were wrung from +the poor child's lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like +death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of +soothing it. + +"You shall. You must," I commanded, rather than implored. "Good-bye, +darling--precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall +come back to you to-morrow." + +"You needn't. You need never come to me again," she said, white lipped. +And the guard whistled, waving his green flag. + +"Don't dare to say such a cruel thing--a thing you don't mean!" I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a +little man inside jumped to the window and shouted, "Reserved! Don't you +see it's reserved?" which explained the fact that the door seemed to be +fastened. + +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, +and would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men +rushed at the door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it +with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have +lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in +after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself +where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was +thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my +heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care +much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way in, +though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have +pushed me out if I hadn't been too strong for them. I had a dim +impression that, instead of joining with the newcomers, the first man, +who would have kept the place to himself before their entrance, seemed +willing to aid me against the others. They being once foisted upon him, +he appeared to wish for my presence too, or else he merely desired to +prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and perhaps killed, for +he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. + +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly +struggle, and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. + +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so +far that Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a +bad omen; and the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for +ever. + +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too +late, I fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary +and even the _Entente Cordiale_ (provided he had not been exaggerating) +for Di's sake, and love's sake. But there was no going back now, even if +I would. The train was already travelling almost at full speed, and +there was nothing to do but resign myself to the inevitable, and hope +for the best. Someone, it was clear, had tried to work mischief between +Diana and me, and there were only too many chances that he had +succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I half-dazedly +looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage with +which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather +unintellectual, unimaginative type could be, and he hadn't shown himself +as friendly lately to me as he once had: still, I didn't think he was +the sort of fellow to trip up a rival in the race by a trick, even if he +could possibly have found out that I was going to Paris this morning. + +"Won't you sit here, sir?" a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw +that the little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was +in a corner facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, +and began to observe my travelling companions for the first time. + +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me +that all three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a +first-class carriage. + +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had +removed a bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did +not look like a typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of +person who might be expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. +He was small and thin, and weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes +of the kind which ought to have had white lashes instead of the sparse, +jet black ones that rimmed them. His forehead, though narrow, suggested +shrewdness, as did the expression of those light coloured eyes of his, +which were set close to the sharp, slightly up-turned nose. His hair was +so black that it made his skin seem singularly pallid, though it was +only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously over two +prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the air +of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be "smart" +get up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and +thirty-eight) looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, +masquerading as a "swell." + +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved +compartment by means of their railway key were both bigger and more +manly than he who had a right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, +with a heavy beard and moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and +cruel mouth pouted disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, +with a brick-coloured complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also +were flashily dressed with "horsey" neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. +As I glanced at the pair, they were talking together in a low voice, +with an open newspaper held up between them; but the man who had helped +me in against their will sat silent, staring out of the window and +uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, apparently, +paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in +an inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not +attract attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to +assure myself that it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting +Di, and I felt certain that nothing could have happened to it since. + +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected +that these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed +them into the compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as +they were three to one if they combined against me, and the train was, +unfortunately, not entirely a corridor train. Therefore, having assured +myself that I was not among spies bent on having my life or the secret I +carried, I forgot about my fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy +speculations as to my chances with Diana. I had been loving her, +thinking of little else but her and my hopes of her, for many months +now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty world it would be +for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had perhaps lost her. + +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I +would not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, +even to repent her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, +and Heaven knew how much or when I might be permitted to explain. I +would not be a man if I took her at her word, and let her slip from me, +no matter how many times that word were repeated; so I told myself over +and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to say that nothing could be as +it had been; that I'd sacrificed my happiness to please a stranger, and +to save a woman whom I had never really loved. + +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there +were so many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer +than I had or would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on +caring for me, after what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn't +said in actual words last night that she would marry me, whereas this +morning she had almost said she never would. I should have nobody to +blame but myself if I came back to London to-morrow to find her engaged +to Lord Robert West--a man who, as his brother has no children, might +some day make her a Duchess. + +"Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir," said one of the two +railway-key men, suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. +"Hardly knew what I was about when I shoved you away from the door. Me +and my friend was afraid of missing the train, so we pushed--instinct of +self-preservation, I suppose," and he chuckled as if he had got off some +witticism. "Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing intentional, 'pon my word." + +"Thanks. No apology is necessary," I replied as indifferently as I felt. + +"That's all right, then," finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. +He turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation +behind the newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally +glanced over the top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole +attention were not taken up with the news of the day. + +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently +not of the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on +the upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted +my attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly +pale, under a kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I +thought he must be ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in +anxious anticipation of the horrors which might be in store for him on +the boat. Presently he pulled out a red-bordered handkerchief, and +unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his checked travelling cap. When +he had done this, I saw that his hair was left streaked with damp; and +there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, observing which +with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric hastily +into his pocket. + +"The little beast must dye his hair," I thought contemptuously. "Perhaps +he's an albino, really. His eyes look like it." + +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn +away and spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But +immediately after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking +up a book he had laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close +to his nose that the printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he +were very near-sighted. Thus he sat for some time; yet I felt that no +look thrown by the other two was lost on him. He seemed to know each +time one of them peered over the newspaper; and when at last the train +slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness returned. His +small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one piece of +luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the things +together. + +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I +had let my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, +and I had nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for +the boat. Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing +an article out of a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object +to be caught in a crowd and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches +who might be lying in wait for what I had in my pocket. It seemed +impossible that anyone could have learned that I was playing messenger +between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Maxine de Renzie: +still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple mission had +been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect any +precaution. + +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced +friend lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, +except a small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to +stuff in their newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. +Presently, when the first rush for the boat was over, and the porters +who had come to the door of our compartment had gone away empty-handed, +I would have got out, had I not caught an imploring glance from the +little man who had reserved the carriage. Perhaps I imagined it, but his +pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, don't leave me alone +with these others." + +"Would you be so very kind, sir," he said to me, "to beckon a porter, as +you are near the door? I find after all that I shan't be able to carry +everything myself." + +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when +the porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their +bags. I also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, +if the little man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he +said. Would I be so extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the +platform to see if it had fallen there? + +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had +found the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and +scrambling out of the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for +him, he would have walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped +behind a few steps, thinking--as always--of the contents of that inner +breast pocket. + +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, +or almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other +passengers--a family party with a fat nurse and crying baby--behind us. +As I approached the gangway, I saw on deck my late travelling +companions, the Jewish man and his friend, regarding us with interest. +Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost on the little man's +heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: "Look +out--gangway's falling!" + +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as +the nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself +no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman +with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also +attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees. +The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he +almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled, +pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling +baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. + +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat +cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the +gangway was "all right," and never had been anything but all right, I +could not readjust my hat nor see what was going on until the fat nurse +had obligingly retrieved her charge, without a word of thanks. + +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a +horrible idea that the scare might have been got up for the express +purpose of robbing me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as +ever under my coat, and decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm +had had nothing to do with me. + +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of +the way of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had +been rough for a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and +everything was already engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the +time, always conscious of the unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The +little man paced up and down, too, though his yellow face grew slowly +green, and he would have been much better off below, lying on his back. +As for the two others, they also remained on deck, talking together as +they leaned against the rail; but though I passed them now and again, I +noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by turning before he +reached their "pitch." + +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, +because if I had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother +would have been over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd +thronging the _douane_, I decided to let the suitcase look after itself, +and send down for it with the key from the hotel later. Again the little +man was close to my side as I went in search of a cab, for all his +things had been gone through by the custom house officer in mid-channel, +so that he too was free to depart without delay. He even seemed to cling +to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant to speak, but he +did not, save for a "good evening, sir," as I separated myself from him +at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any +conjurer's tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was +walking toward a cab, and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two +late travelling companions, who were getting into another vehicle near +by. + +I went straight to the Élysée Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped +before--a long drive from the Gare du Nord--and claimed the rooms for +which "Mr. George Sandford" had wired from London. The suite engaged was +a charming one, and the private salon almost worthy to receive the +lovely lady I expected. Nor did she keep me waiting. I had had time only +to give instructions about sending a man with a key to the station for +my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to reach my rooms, and to +draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at the salon door. +I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this happened, +but to my surprise the room remained in darkness--or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. + +"The lady has arrived, Monsieur," announced the servant. "As Monsieur +expected her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that +something has gone wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It +was but just now discovered, at time for turning on the lights, +otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would have been provided, though +no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few minutes. If +Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp." + +"No, thank you," I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted +in the midst of my important interview with Maxine. "If the light comes +on, it will he all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it +is not yet quite dark. Show the lady in." + +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, +whose tall and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting +black dress, though her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly +embroidered veil that completely hid her face, while long, graceful lace +folds fell over and obscured the bright auburn of her hair. + +"One moment," I said. "Let me push the curtains back. The electricity +has failed." + +"No, no," she answered. "Better leave them as they are. The lights may +come on and we be seen from outside. Why,"--as she drew nearer to me, +and the servant closed the door, "I thought I recognised that voice! It +is Ivor Dundas." + +"No other," said I. "Didn't the--weren't you warned who would be the man +to come?" + +"No," she replied. "Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of +meeting were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a +cypher which I trust nobody knows--except myself and one other. But I'm +glad--glad it's you. It was clever of--him, to have sent you. No one +would dream that--no one would think it strange if they knew--as I hope +they won't--that you came to Paris to see me. Oh, the relief that you've +got through safely! Nothing has happened? You have--the paper?" + +"Nothing has happened, and I have the paper," I reassured her. "No +adventures, to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I've been +spotted. Anyway, here I am; and here is something which will put an end +to your anxiety." And I tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. + +"Thank God!" breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which +would have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was +never further in her life from the thought of acting. "After all I've +suffered, it seems too good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and +let me go." + +"I will," I said. "But you might seem to take just a little more +interest in me, even if you don't really feel it, you know. You might +just say, 'How have you been for the last twelve months?'" + +"Oh, I do take an interest, and I'm grateful to you--I can't tell you +how grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now," +she said, eagerly. "If you knew everything, you'd understand." + +"I know practically nothing," I confessed; "still, I do understand. I +was only teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn't to have done it, even for a +minute. Here is the letter-case which the Foreign--which was given to me +to bring to you." + +"Wait!" she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had +never departed. "Wait! It will he better to lock the door." But even as +she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she +flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped +suggestively a moment ago. I let her draw out the long case which I had +been guarding--the case I had not once touched since leaving London, +except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat. At +least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands +now. + +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung +to me, the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my +nostrils. But as she started away, and I knew that she had the +letter-case, the knock came again. Then, before I could be sure whether +she wished for time to hide, or whether she would have me cry "come in," +without seeming to hesitate, the door opened. For a second or two Maxine +and I, and a group of figures at the door were mere shadows in the ever +deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have counted ten before the +long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in more than one +place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall Commissary +of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. + +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to +see that she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of +sight. Having ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the +devil's name the Commissary of Police meant by walking into an +Englishman's room without being invited; and not only that, but what +under heaven he wanted anyway. + +He was far more polite than I was. + +"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur," he apologised. "I knocked twice, but +hearing no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon +was unoccupied. Important business must be my excuse. I have to request +that Monsieur Dundas will first place in my hands the gift he has +brought from London to Mademoiselle de Renzie." + +"I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie," I prevaricated +boldly; but the man's knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris +police had contrived to learn it already, as well as to find out that I +was the bearer of something for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough +to play the game in their own way--whatever that might be. + +"Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent--to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned," amended the Commissary +of Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. + +"Really, I don't know what you are talking about," I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered--or hoping that I looked bewildered. +All the while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for +Maxine, or if she would still find some way of saving herself. But all I +could do for her at the moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies +as necessary. I hadn't been able to lie to Diana; but I had no +compunctions about doing it now, if it were to help Maxine. The worst +was, that I was far from sure it would help her. + +"I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police +from doing their duty," said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory +for the first time. "Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be +compelled to order that Monsieur be searched." + +"You seem to forget that you're dealing with a British subject," said I. + +"Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country," he capped my +words. "You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now--" + +"Why don't you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas," suggested Maxine, +lightly, yet contemptuously, "and show them that you've nothing in which +the police can have any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, +will be to search me." + +"I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, +unless satisfaction is given to me," returned the Commissary of Police. + +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these +men had ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me +that her beauty must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. +For Maxine is a gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most +striking, more wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes +laughed out of her white face, and her red lips smiled as if neither +they, nor the great eyes, had any secret to hide. + +"Look at me," she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which +was of the fashion which, I think, women call "Princess." It fitted her +as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. + +"Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?" she +asked. "I haven't a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could +have, in a gown like this. I don't know in the least what sort of 'gift' +my old friend is supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I'll +take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le +Commisaire, for I've been taught, as a servant of the public, to be +civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable. No? +You don't want to see my rings? Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, +then. I might have put the thing--whatever it is--in my hair." + +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half +scornful, half good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood +smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of +her dark red hair shadowing her forehead. + +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my +pockets: a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my +watch, and a handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small +bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection: but as one of the +gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and +handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back +into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time. There were too +many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine +could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more than two +seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. + +"Now, are you satisfied?" she asked, "Now that we have both shown you we +have nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police +station, and have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? +I'll go with you, if you wish. I won't even he indiscreet enough to ask +questions, since you seem inclined to do what we've no need to do--keep +your own secrets. All I stipulate is, that if you care to take such +measures you'll take them at once, for as you may possibly be aware, +this is the first night of my new play, and I should be sorry to be +late." + +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he +would read her soul. + +"No, Mademoiselle," he said, "I am convinced that neither you nor +Monsieur are concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble +you further until we have searched the room." + +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be +when she lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I +saw that the pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could +control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood +in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the +gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My +heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the +place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her +pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of +the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; and though +I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + +"How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur," she +asked, "before you--rather rudely, I must say--broke in upon my +conversation with my friend?" + +"You had been here exactly three minutes," replied the Commissary of +Police. + +"As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each +other, after having been parted for many months; and still, in the three +minutes, you believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, +and to find some safe corner--all the while in semi-darkness--for the +hiding of a thing important to the police--a bomb, perhaps? You must +think us very clever." + +"I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle." + +"Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment," she answered, +allowing anger to warm her voice at last; "but this is almost beyond a +joke. A woman comes to the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed +that they prefer her call not to be talked about. For that reason, and +for the woman's sake, the friend chooses to take a name that isn't +his--as he has a right to do. Yet, just because that woman happens +unfortunately to be well-known--her face and name being public +property--she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, no +doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. +Ah, it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to +such stupidity, such meanness." + +"When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me," said the Commissary; "until +then, I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you." Then, turning +to his two gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning +with all possible places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might +be hidden, within ten metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur +had stood talking together when the police opened the door. + +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the +three policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of +the room, she walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon +it. Weariness, disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I +guessed that she felt herself actually in need of the physical support. + +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving +themselves entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their +superior officer did not once take his eyes from the pure profile she +turned scornfully towards him. I knew why he watched her thus, and +thought of a foolish, child's game I used to play twenty years ago, at +little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of "Hide-the-Handkerchief." While +one searched for the treasure, those who knew where it was stood by, +saying: "Now you are warm. Now you are hot--boiling hot. Now you are +cool again. Now you are ice cold." It was as if we were five players at +this game, and Maxine de Renzie's white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: "Now you are warm. Now you are +hot. Now you are ice cold." + +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as +my hat and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes +picked up these things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the +table; peeped behind the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and +drawers of a bric-à-brac cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the +corners of the rugs on the bare, polished floor; and finally, bowing +apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, took out the logs from the +fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and pried into the +vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window curtains, +and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at +a loss. + +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine's suffering. I felt +as if my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until +it was uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were +peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round +Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the +white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty +of revelation. She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same +smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond +dust. + +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it +too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. +The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled +subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it +fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead +of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he +searched the face of the tortured woman. + +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she +had suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The +only movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in +another moment, if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock +no longer, and she would die. For a second I wildly counted the chances +of overpowering all three men, stunning them into unconsciousness, and +giving Maxine time to escape with the letter-case. But I knew the +attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, the noise would +arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush in to +the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. + +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating +of her bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, +pushing his hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he +moved it along the crevice inch by inch. + +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. +I think Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found +something. The other hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked +together, groping and prying for a few seconds: evidently the something +hidden had been forced deeply and firmly down. Then, up it came--a dark +red leather case, which was neither a letter-case nor a jewel-case, but +might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating in the intense +relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London to +bring Maxine. + +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for +suspense and anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. + +"Voila!" grunted the Commissary of Police. "I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you +had spared us this trouble." + +"You alone are to blame for the trouble," answered Maxine. "I never saw +that thing before in my life." + +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, +so far, she was saved--as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a +woman at bay, fighting to the last, but without hope. "Nor did I ever +see it before." I echoed her words. + +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for +gratitude. I was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, +as I thought that she must know. + +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. "I +suppose you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room +tucked some valued possession down into a safe hiding place--and then +forgot all about it. That is likely, is it not? You shall have the +pleasure, Mademoiselle--and you, Monsieur--of seeing with me what that +careless person left behind him." + +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, +with his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with +calmness, and was amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer +scornful, tragically indifferent in her manner, but imploring--a weak, +agonized woman. + +"For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur," she sobbed. "You don't +understand. I confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held +myself high, in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I--an +actress--never took a lover. But now I am like the others. This is my +lover. There's the price I put on my love. Now, Monsieur, I ask you on +my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case sacred." + +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with +a whip. My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this +became known, this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then +indeed all hope for me with the girl I loved would be over. My second +thought was for Maxine herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she +had chosen the way, I could only be silent. + +"Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, +from such a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of +that case," said the Commissary of Police. + +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. "No--no!" she implored. +"If I were rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I've been +extravagant--I haven't saved, but all I have in the world is yours +if--." + +"There can be no such 'if,' Mademoiselle," the man broke in. And +wrenching his hand free, he opened the case before she could again +prevent him. + +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the +floor, where it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of +rainbow colours. + +_"Sacré bleu!"_ muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever +he had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. +Shorn of hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case +was torn open, she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, +tall figure crumpling like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have +fallen if I had not caught her, holding her up against my shoulder. When +the cataract of diamonds sprang out of the case, however, I felt her +limp body straighten itself. I felt her pulses leap. I felt her begin to +_live_. She had drunk a draught of hope and life, and, fortified by it, +was gathering all her scattered forces together for a new fight, if +fight she must again. + +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was +empty. There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a +scrap of paper. + +"Where, then, is the document?" Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. + +"What document?" she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. +Hearing the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that +lay against my shoulder, who--knowing a little less than I did of the +truth--would have dreamed that in her soul she thanked God for a +miracle? Even I would not have been sure, had I not felt the life +stealing back into her half-dead body. + +"The contents of the case are not what I came here to find," admitted +the Enemy. + +"I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer +horribly," said Maxine. "You have been very cruel to a woman who has +done nothing to deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have +taken in my diamonds is gone now. I shall never have a peaceful +moment--never be able to wear them joyfully. I shall have the thought in +my mind that people who look at me will be saying: 'Every woman has her +price. There is the price of Maxine de Renzie.'" + +"You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle," the man protested. "We +shall never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of +what we have heard and seen in this room." + +"Won't you search further?" asked Maxine. "Since you seemed to expect +something else--" + +"You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, +Mademoiselle," said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. +"Besides, this case was what you did not wish us to find. You are a +great actress, but you could not control the dew which sprang out on +your forehead, or the beating of your heart when I touched the sofa, so +I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has been an error, and I +can only apologise." + +"I don't blame you, but those who sent you," said Maxine, letting me +lead her to a chair, into which she sank, limply. "I am thankful you do +not tell me these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure +but it would end in that." + +"Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will +adorn the jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my +companions. We have but done our duty." + +"I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me," +exclaimed Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. "It is said that 'Hell hath +no fury like a woman scorned.' But what of a man who has been +scorned--by a woman? He knew I wanted all my strength for to-night--the +night of the new play--and he will be hoping that this has broken me. +But I will not be broken. If you would atone, Messieurs, for your part +in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening and encourage me +by your applause." + +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, +murmured compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, +gave me the sensation that I was in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IVOR HEARS THE STORY + +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at +Maxine, but she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, +trembling still; and walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look +out. Nobody was there. + +"They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door," she +whispered. + +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on +the light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the +electricity switched on. They might change their minds, or be more +subtle than they wished to seem. + +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the +cushion where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the +glittering mass against her lips and cheeks. + +"Thank God, thank God--and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!" she said +brokenly, in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, +even if pressed against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop +into her lap, she flung back her head and laughed and cried together. + +"Oh, Ivor, Ivor!" she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. "The agony of it--the agony--and the joy now! You're +wonderful. Good, precious Ivor--dear friend--saint." + +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands +with which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. + +"Heaven knows I don't deserve one of those epithets," I said, "I'll just +stick to friend." + +"Not deserve them?" she repeated. "Not deserve them, when you've saved +me--I don't yet understand how--from a horror worse than death--oh, but +a thousand times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had +found it, I shouldn't have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me--how +did you work such a miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant +so much to me (and to one I love), and how did you hide the--other +thing?" + +"I don't know anything about this necklace," I answered, stupidly, "I +didn't bring it." + +"You--_didn't bring it_?" + +"No. At least, that red leather thing isn't the case I carried. When the +fellow pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn't what I'd had, so I +thanked our lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all +hope wasn't over, if I'd dared to catch your eye or make a signal." + +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her +eyes were fever-bright. + +"Ivor, you can't know what you are talking about," she said, in a +changed voice. "That red leather case is what you took out of your +breast pocket and handed to me when I first came into the room. At the +sound of the knock, I pushed it down as far as I could between the seat +and back of the sofa, and then ran off to a distance before the door +opened. You _did_ bring the necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was +the cause of all my trouble in the beginning, I needn't tell you of the +joy I had in seeing it, apart from the heavenly relief of being spared +discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when you've given me the other +packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away happy." + +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. + +"I gave you the only thing I brought," I said. "It was in my breast +pocket, inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There +was no other thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This +red case is something else--we can try to account for it later. It all +came through the lights not working. If it hadn't been dusk you would +have seen that I gave you a dark green leather letter-case--quite +different from this, though of about the same length--rather less thick, +and--" + +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back +of the sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be +nothing or the Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a +cry she cut me short at last throwing up her hands in despair. She was +deathly pale again, and all the light had gone out of her eyes leaving +them dull as if she had been sick with some long illness. + +"What will become of me?" she stammered. "The treaty lost! My God--what +shall I do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know--you are killing me?" + +The word "treaty" was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign +Secretary had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be +wholly in his secrets--and Maxine's. Yet hearing the word brought no +great surprise. I knew that I had been cat's-paw in some game of high +stakes. But it was of Maxine I thought now, and the importance of the +loss to her, not the national disaster which it might well be also. + +"Wait," I said, "don't despair yet. There's some mistake. Perhaps we +shall be able to see light when we've thrashed this out and talked it +over. I know I had a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I +thought of it and guarded it every moment. Could those diamonds have +been inside it? Could the Foreign Secretary had given me the necklace, +_instead_ of what you expected?" + +"No, no," she answered with desperate impatience. "He knew that the only +thing which could save me was the document I'd sent him. I wired that I +must have it back again immediately, for my own sake--for his--for the +sake of England. Ivor! Think again. Do you want me to go mad?" + +"I will think," I said, trying to speak reassuringly. "Give me a +moment--a quiet moment--" + +"A quiet moment," she repeated, bitterly, "when for me each second is an +hour! It's late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be +at the theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first +act are a heavy business. I don't want all Paris to know that Maxine de +Renzie has been ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we +can, for others' sakes, and so gain time for our own, if all is not +lost--if you believe still that there's any hope. Oh, save me, +Ivor--somehow. My whole life is in this." + +"Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," +I suggested. "You cannot go to the theatre in this state." + +"For an actress there's no such word as 'cannot,'" she said bitterly. "I +could play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next +instant; yet no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no +understudy. What use to have one? What audience would stop in the +theatre after an announcement that their Maxine's understudy would take +her place? Every man and woman would walk out and get his money back. +No; for the sake of the man I love better than my life, or twenty +lives--the man I've either saved or ruined--I'll play tonight, if I go +mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don't 'think quietly,' Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each +other, so. Let us go over together everything that happened to you from +the minute you took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the +minute I came into this room." + +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except +the part that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. +I told her how I had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, +and had waked to feel and look for it once or twice an hour. How when +morning came I had been late in getting to the train: how I had +struggled with the two men who tried to keep me out of the reserved +compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who had a right +to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. +How he had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion +after the false alarm on the boat's gangway. How he had walked beside me +and seemed on the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I +had avoided and lost sight of him; but how I had many times covertly +touched my pocket to be sure that, through all, the letter-case was +still safe there. + +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and +at last she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she +gave to me. "Put that into the same pocket," she said, "and then pass +your hand over your coat, as you did often before. Now, does it feel +exactly as if it were the green letter-case with which you started out?" + +"Yes, I think it does," I answered, doubtfully. "I'm afraid I shouldn't +know the difference. This _may_ be a little thicker than the other, +but--I can't be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to +unbutton my coat and look at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It +would have attracted too much attention to risk that; and as a matter of +fact, I was especially warned not to do it. I could trust only to the +touch. But even granting that, by a skill almost clever enough for +sleight of hand--a skill which only the smartest pickpocket in Europe +could possess--why should a thief who had stolen my letter-case give me +instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds? If he +wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and shape +as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn't suspect my loss, why didn't +he slip in the red case _empty_, instead of containing the necklace?" + +"_This_ necklace, too, of all things in the world!" murmured Maxine, +lost in the mystery. "It's like a dream. Yet here--by some miracle--it +is, in our hands. And the treaty is gone." + +"The treaty is gone," I repeated, miserably. + +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, +yet it almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the +dreadful fact a kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the +sofa with a groan, her face buried in her hands. + +"My God, what a punishment!" she stammered. "I've ruined the man I +risked everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act +to-night, my friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when +to-morrow morning comes, I shall be out of the world." + +"Don't say that," I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my +failure. "All hope isn't over yet; it can't be. I'll think this out. +There must be a solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what +_seems_ to be gone. If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I +wouldn't hesitate for an instant, now: so you see, there's nothing I +won't do to help you. Only, I wish the path could be made a little +plainer for me--unless for some reason it's necessary for you to keep me +in the dark. The word 'treaty' I heard for the first time from you. I +didn't know what I was bringing you, except that it was a document of +international importance, and that you'd been helping the British +Foreign Secretary--perhaps Great Britain as a Power--in some ticklish +manoeuvre of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, +you might tell me more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his +message." + +"Then I will tell you more!" Maxine exclaimed. "It will be better to do +so. I know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document +you were bringing me was a treaty--a quite new treaty between Japan, +Russia and France: not a copy, but the original. England had been warned +that there was a secret understanding between the three countries, +unknown to her. There was no time to make a copy. And I stole the real +treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am engaged--whom I adore, Ivor, +as I didn't know it was in me to adore any man. You know his name, +perhaps--that he's Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in Paris. +Oh, I can read in your eyes what you're thinking of me, now. You can't +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for +Raoul's sake. There's that in my defence--only that." + +"I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help +feeling. + +"How could you?--except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you +everything--I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you +scorn me, too. You'll work for me--to save me, and him. For years I've +helped the British Government. Oh, I won't spare myself. I've been a +spy, sometimes against one Power, sometimes against another. When there +was anything to do against Russia, I was always glad, because my dear +father was a Pole, and you know how Poles feel towards Russia. Russia +ruined his life, and stripped it of everything worth having, not only +money, but--oh, well, that's not in this story of mine! I won't trouble +you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young girl, I +was already the enemy of all that's Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I've been paying it, slowly. Don't think that the money I've +had for my work--hateful work often--has been used for myself. It's been +for my father's country--poor, sad country--every shilling of English +coin. As an actress I've supported myself, and, as an actress, it has +been easier for me to do the other secret work than it would have been +for a woman leading a more sheltered life, mingling less with +distinguished persons of different countries, or unable to be eccentric +without causing scandal. As for France, she's the friend of Russia, and +I haven't a drop of French blood in my veins, so, at least, I've never +been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made some great _coups_ in +the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began before I was sixteen, +and now I'm twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to thank me for +giving her news of the most vital importance. You're shocked to hear +what my inner life has been?" + +"If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half +conventional. One hardly knows how conventional one's opinions are until +one stops to think," said I. + +"Once, I gloried in the work," Maxine went on. "But that was before I +fell in love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that +was to pass the time. Both of us were flirting. I'd never met Raoul +then, and I've never really loved any man except him. It came at first +sight, for me: and when he told me that he cared, he said it had begun +when he first saw me on the stage; so you see it is as if we were meant +for each other. From the moment I gave him my promise, I promised myself +that the old work should be given up for ever: Raoul's _fiancée_, +Raoul's wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. Besides, as he's a +Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which Maxine de Renzie +never owed. I wanted--oh, how much I wanted--to be only what Raoul +believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal +from him, but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I'd break +with the past, and I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, +who has always been a good friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and +hoped to begin my life all over again in a different way, though he +might be sure that I'd know how to keep his secrets as well as my own. +Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week ago! I was happy +then. I feel twenty years older now." + +"A week ago. You've been engaged only a week?" I broke in. + +"Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but +he wouldn't have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn't lost +his head a little. He hadn't meant to speak, it seems, for he's poor, +and he thought he had no right. But what's a man worth who doesn't lose +his head when he loves a woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to +let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn't +care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end. There +were reasons why--more than one: but the man of all others whom I didn't +want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had +happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding--Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake +while Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces +that there was something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did +suspect. Oh, a hateful person! I've refused him three times. There are +some men so vain that they can never believe a woman really means to say +'no' to them. Count Godensky is one of those, and he's dangerous, too. +I'm afraid of him, since I've cared for Raoul, though I used to be +afraid of no one, when I'd only myself to think of. Raoul was going away +that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who was a dear and +intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the Duchesse de +Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She has no +children of her own." + +"I don't know her," I said, "but I've seen her; a charming looking +woman, about forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband--a fellow who might +be rather a Tartar to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte +Carlo one year, in the Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying +herself hugely, though the Duke had the air of being dragged in against +his will." + +"No doubt he had been--or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, +she's a dreadful gambler. It's in her blood! I She lost, I don't know +how much, at Monte Carlo on an 'infallible system' she had. She's afraid +of her husband, though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she's +had for Bridge has cost her so much that she daren't tell the Duke, who +hates her gambling. She confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help +her--not with money, for he has none, but by taking a famous and +wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, selling the stones for +her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was all to be done +very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn't know, and Raoul +hated it, but he couldn't refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he 'lost his head,' while we were bidding each +other good-bye before his journey. He didn't mention the name of the +Duchess, but said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on +business. But while he was away a _dreadful_ thing happened--the most +ghastly misfortune--and as we were engaged to be married, he felt +obliged when he came back to let me know the worst." + +"What was the dreadful thing that happened?" I asked, as she paused, +pressing her hands against her temples. + +"The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one +of the most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul's feelings? He +came to me in despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not +appeal to the police, or the Duchess's secret would come out. And he +couldn't bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such +a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the +jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and +_might_ be tempted to believe that he'd only pretended the diamonds were +stolen--while really he'd sold them for his own use." + +"As she's fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought +no such thing," I tried to comfort Maxine. "But certainly, it was a +rather bad fix." + +"Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of +is to hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me--well, there was +nothing I wouldn't have done to help him--nothing. My life would have +been a small thing to give. I would have given my soul. And already a +thought came flashing into my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say +nothing to the Duchess, who didn't even know yet that he'd come back +from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was about the commission from +your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, I'd just sent him +word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn't +do what he wanted. He'd offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake +the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed if +I tried. And with the few thousands I'd saved up, and selling such +jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for +the necklace. Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never +know that the diamonds had been stolen. All that night I lay awake +thinking, thinking. Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be +working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as +well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen +or twenty thousand pounds in my hands--all for him. To let him have the +money would make me happier than I'd ever been. At first he said he +wouldn't take it from me--I knew he would say that! But, at last, after +I'd cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a +loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office +there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay +together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of +all--where the really sacred and valuable things were kept. He laughed +and pointed out the most interesting one--the one, he said, which held +all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy. I was sure then +that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be +there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn't have been +anywhere for long. 'There are three keys to that safe,' said Raoul. 'One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this +is the third'; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I +had seen before. 'Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,' +I pleaded with him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my +throat I wore a string of imitation pearls, which I'd put on for a +special purpose. But they were pretty, and so well made that only an +expert would know they weren't real. Raoul isn't an expert; so at the +moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open the door, I +gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls roll +everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about +the key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were +worth at least a thousand francs. + +"While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took +an impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my +handkerchief, and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on +his hands and knees on the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a +moment, just to give me the peep I had begged for, but not long enough +for me to touch anything even if I'd dared to try with him standing +there. Enough, though, to show me that the documents were neatly +arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their general character, +colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was being made; +and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at the +office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me +come to him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him +away. But I'd made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, +was a friend of Raoul's--the one who introduced us to each other, and +I'd made up a message for him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring +his friend to speak to me. He went, and I believed I might count on five +minutes to myself. No more--but those five minutes would have to be +enough for success or failure. The instant the door shut behind Raoul, I +was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a folded document, and +opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right one, for a +mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted--the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France--the +treaty which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was +a secret one, arranged between the three countries without the knowledge +of England and to the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had +gave me the impression that the document was nothing of the kind, but +quite innocent, affecting trade only; yet that wasn't my business. I had +to send it to the Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know its precise +nature, and whether England was being deceived. In place of the treaty I +slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I'd brought with me--just like +the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business would suspect +the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back before +it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?" + +"I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. +But, good Heavens, Maxine," I couldn't help breaking out, "it was an +awful thing to do." + +"I know--I know. But I had to have the money--for Raoul. And there was +no other way to get it. You remember, I'd refused, till the diamonds +were lost, and would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with +the French Foreign Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I +had time enough. I had even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately +for me, the man I'd sent Raoul to find was out. I looked at my watch, +pretended to be surprised, and said I must go at once. I couldn't bear +to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, so that it might the more +quickly be on its way back. I hadn't come to visit Raoul in my own +carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking me to it, +Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it had +been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in +such a state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I +fancied that he imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red +and pale. What a fool I was--and how weak! But I couldn't help it. I +didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the +packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post--but after all, +it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was Godensky again, in +his motor-brougham. _That_ could have been no coincidence. A horrid +certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the +Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of +that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; +yet this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated." + +"But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been +up for you before this," I said. + +"He didn't know, of course. Only--if he wants to be a woman's lover and +she won't have him, he's her enemy and he's the enemy of the man who +_is_ her lover. He's too clever and too careful of his own interests to +speak out prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do +him harm if he proved mistaken. He wouldn't yet, I think, even warn +those whom it might concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul's +charge were out of order or missing. But what he would do, what I think +he has done, is this. Having some idea, as he may have, that my +relations with certain important persons in England are rather friendly, +and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go almost straight to the +post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the name of my +correspondent. He has influence--he could perhaps have found out: but if +he did, it wouldn't have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings +with the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover--hence a +delay sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go +straight to him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and +he would have perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very +unofficially and confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of +being a political spy in the pay of England. He would have advised that +my movements be watched for the next few days: that English agents of +the French police be warned to watch also, on their side of the Channel. +He would have argued to himself that if I'd sent any document away, with +Raoul's connivance or without, I would be wanting it back as soon as +possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that possibly a +messenger would bring me something--if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes +on me, and on every movement of mine, I'm sure. See how efficient, +though quiet, the methods have been where you're concerned. They--the +police--knew the name of the man I was to meet here at this hotel; and +if, as Godensky must have hoped, any document belonging to the French +Government had been found on you or me, everything would have played +into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his heart broken, and +I--but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I +may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his cleverness, as +well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only +thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police." + +"You don't believe then," I asked, "that Godensky has had any hand in +the disappearance of the treaty?" + +"I would believe it, if it weren't for the necklace being put in its +place. Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul's mission with +the diamonds, and got them into his own hands, he wouldn't have let them +get out again with every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus +saving him from his trouble. He'd do nothing to help, but everything to +hinder. There lies the mystery--in the return of the necklace instead of +the treaty. You have no knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me +with it in your pocket--the necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days +ago, in Amsterdam or on the way there." + +"You're certain it's the same?" + +"Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I'm not out of my mind +yet--though I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this +horror." + +"I'm going to try," I said. "Don't give up hope. I wish, though, that +you hadn't to act to-night." + +"So do I. But there's no way out of it. And I must go now to the +theatre, or I shall be late: my make-up's a heavy one, and takes a long +time. I can't afford to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, +whatever comes afterwards. Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the +first act, he'll be at the door of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing +him, of hearing him praise my acting, and saying dear, trusting, loving +words that would make me almost too happy, if I hadn't betrayed him, +ruined his career for ever!" + +"Maybe not," I said. "And anyhow, there's the necklace. That's +something." + +"Yes, that's something." + +"Will Godensky be in the audience, too?" I asked. + +"I'm sure he will. He couldn't keep away. But he may be late. He won't +come until he's had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried +to thrash matters out." + +"If only your theory's right, then,--if he hasn't dared yet to throw +suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its +contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little +time before us still: we're comparatively safe for a few hours." + +"We're as safe," answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, "as +if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid +to fire it. But"--she broke off bitterly, "why do I say '_we_'. To you +all this can be no more than a regret, a worry." + +"You know that's not just!" I reproached her. "I'm in this with you now, +heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I'd give my +life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I've given something, +but--" + +"What have you given?" she caught me up quickly. + +"My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier," I +answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I +could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without +helping me bear mine. + +"I don't understand," she said. + +"Don't think of it. You can do nothing; and I don't grudge the +sacrifice--or anything," I hurried on. + +"Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond +this tangle. But now, it must be _au revoir_. Save me, save Raoul, if +you can, Ivor. What you can do, I don't know. I'm groping in darkness. +Yet you're my one hope. For pity's sake, come to my house when the +play's over, to tell me what you've done, if you've been able to do +anything. Be there at twelve." + +"I promise." + +"Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and +I'll go. I don't want you to be seen with me outside this room." + +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. + +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the +bosom of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening +at the throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the +thing up from the table where she had thrown it, and examined it +carefully for the first time. + +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and +as Maxine's voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all +previous knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had +not been in it when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would +almost certainly have described to Maxine the box or case which had been +stolen from him, and if the thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place +had recalled his description, she must have betrayed some emotion under +the keen eyes of the Commissary of Police. + +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might +have been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the +ordinary sort. Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a +silver clasp on which the hallmark was English. + +"English silver!" I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. +Of the trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the +compartment for himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to +steal the treaty from me, and exchange for it this red leather case +containing a diamond necklace worth twenty thousand pounds. If he +possessed the skill and quick deftness of a conjurer or a marvellously +clever professional pickpocket, as well as the incentive of a paid spy, +he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment of alarm on the +boat's gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me in the +Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. + +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why +should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? +Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum +he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; +and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his +advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill +up the space where the case with the treaty had lain. There would not +have been time yet for the real diamonds to have been copied in +Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a theory that the +stones given me might be false. + +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to +watch and be near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where +I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and +trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it +with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing +into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been +arranged to catch me. + +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed +yet since I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the +railway-station. Though I could not understand any reason for his +tricking me, still I told myself that nobody else could have done it, +and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du Nord. There I might +still be able to find some trace of the little man and of my two other +fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn where +they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by +the Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I +was ready to make use of it if necessary. + +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no +importance, for I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the +railway-station and looked about until I found a porter whose face I had +seen when I got out of the train. He had, in fact, appeared under the +window of my compartment, offering himself as a luggage carrier and had +been close behind me when my late travelling companion walked by my +side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his wits being +sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only my +features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of _le petit Monsieur_ he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied +by two other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the +face of the cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the +station, for the _voiture_ had returned. Would he point out the _cocher_ +to me? He would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. + +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +_cocher_ of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine +whom I was to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had +unfortunately missed. I asked him to describe the men he had driven away +from the station at that time, and though he did it clumsily, betraying +an irritating lack of observation when it came to details, still such +information as I could draw from him sounded encouraging. He remembered +perfectly well the place at which he had deposited his three passengers, +and I decided to take the risk of following them. + +When I say "risk," I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase +might turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they +had been driven to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went +there in a cab, and found at last that I had made a mistake, I should +have wasted a great deal of valuable time on the wrong tack. If the +driver had remembered the name of the street, and the number of the +house at which he had paused, I would have hired a motor and flashed out +to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested bribe, he could +say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one of his +passengers had called, "Turn down the next street, to the left." He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he +had been bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the +street; but, though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, +various landmarks would guide him to the right place, when he came to +pass them again. + +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I +could do no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, +with a horse already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks +were not deceiving, as I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet +street of the suburb, we stopped at last before a fair-sized house with +lights in many windows. Evidently it was a _pension_. + +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English +gentlemen had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. +Would Monsieur give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until +dinner should be over? + +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant's hand, and +suggest that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without +waiting. + +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, +lest they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at +least they could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to +what should come after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. + +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into +the dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long +table with a quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were +dining, but, though several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who +resembled my travelling companions. + +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good +view. In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of +whom he had spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had +come only that day from England, they were old patrons, well known in +the house. + +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +_pension_, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily +up to enquire the stranger's business in his dining-room. I explained +that I had hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to +get permission for my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the +door. When he had identified his three passengers, all hope was over. I +had followed the wrong men. + +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question +more porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth +having, it seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a +vehicle of some sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I +could learn nothing of him or his movements, however, and dared not, +because of Maxine and the British Foreign Secretary, apply to the police +for help, I determined to lose no more time before consulting a private +detective, a man whose actions I could control, and to whom I need tell +only as much of the truth as I chose, without fear of having the rest +dragged out of me. + +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good +private detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing +my nerves. Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was +at home and able to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat +little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment +house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, +thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome. It was cunning, as well as +clever, no doubt: but then, I told myself, it was the business of a +person in Monsieur Girard's profession to be cunning. + +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at +the Élysée Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I +had been recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise +if George Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there +were a good many things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford +seemed the man to fit the situation. Later, he could easily disappear +and leave no trace. + +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to +me, but as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account +appear in the case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of +Monsieur Girard's well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed +thief, whom I thereupon described. I added the fact that we had +travelled together, mentioned the incident at the gangway, and explained +that I had not suspected my loss until I arrived at the Élysée Palace +Hotel. + +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from +behind a screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside +that screen. He asked several intelligent questions, very much to the +point, and I answered them--as seemed best. When he touched on points +which I considered too delicate to be handled by a stranger, even a +detective in my employ, I frankly replied that they had nothing to do +with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly, yet +expressively, he took my refusals without comment; and merely bowed when +I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within twenty-four +hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred and +fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second +to waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but +whatever happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. + +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), +held out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the +whole, I was pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew +his business; and had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign +Secretary, and the risk for Maxine, I would gladly have put more +efficient weapons in Girard's hands, by telling him everything. + +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and +details as I could give, it was past ten o'clock. I could see my way to +do nothing more for the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed +back in my hired automobile to the Élysée Palace Hotel. There I had food +served in my own sitting-room, lest George Sandford should chance +inconveniently upon some acquaintance of Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. +I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted now was to arrive at +Maxine de Renzie's house at twelve o'clock, and tell her my news--or +lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no matter +how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to +supper, or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no +invitation, given none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the +theatre, probably without waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she +would go home unaccompanied, except by her maid. + +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its +own garden, a great "find" in a good quarter of Paris; and her house +could he reached in ten minutes' drive from my hotel. I would not go as +far as the gate, but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet +street, as it would not he wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle +de Renzie was receiving a visit from a young man at midnight. Fifteen +minutes would give me plenty of time for all this: therefore, at about a +quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, and in the entrance hall +almost ran against the last person on earth I expected to see--Diana +Forrest. + +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. +There was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the +world; and for a wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see +me, to take back all her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me +hack also. But it was only for an instant--a very mad instant. + +Then I realised that she couldn't have known I was to be at the Élysée +Palace Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of +coming to me. As common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the +precious and beautiful face other faces: Lady Mountstuart's, Lord +Mountstuart's, Lisa Drummond's, and Bob West's. + +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which +appeared to consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had +just come into the hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful +face, which had been pale, grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with +amazement or anger, or both, I couldn't tell. Lisa smiled, looking more +impish even than usual; but it was plain that the others, Lord +Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me here. + +"Goodness, is it you or your ghost?" exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the +soft accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the +long years of her married life in England. + +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di +from embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to +Maxine's. But, unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for +conventional politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. + +I said "How do you do?" to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to +see them as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord +Robert West, though finding him here with Di, looking particularly +pleased with himself, made me want to knock him down. + +"Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are +concerned," explained Lady Mountstuart. "Of course, Lord Robert ought to +have been at the Duchess's bazaar this afternoon, but then he won't show +up at such things, even to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to +have represented me there. To-day and to-morrow are the only days all +three of us could possibly steal to get away and look at a most +wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before it was ready. Lord +Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other human being +does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the most +horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn't fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she's a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come +with us--and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to +Boulogne, and had such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the +courage to dress and dine at Madrid--wasn't it plucky of us? But we're +collapsing now, and have come back early, as we must inspect the car the +first thing to-morrow morning and do a heap of shopping afterwards." + +"If you're collapsing, I mustn't keep you standing here a moment," I +said, anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn't looking at +me. Half turned from me, purposely I didn't doubt, she had begun a +conversation with Bob West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him +and her apparent indifference to me. + +"'Collapsing' is an exaggeration perhaps," laughed Lady Mountstuart. +"But, instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room +and have a little talk--and whisky and soda." + +"Yes, do come, Dundas," her husband added. + +"Thank you both," I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. "But--I +know you're all tired, and--." + +"And perhaps you have some nice engagement," piped Lisa. + +"It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in +naughty Paris," said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very +handsome when she laughs, and knows it). "Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?" + +"It depends upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then, +as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, +the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young +ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged. +A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, +and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late. +Good-bye,--good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them +again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I +turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to +do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or +something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been. + +Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me +faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he +would know it. + +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under +porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, +but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought +not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that +I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street +leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself. + +"_Depêchez vous_" I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The +man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street +at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly +ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came +to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour +after midnight. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know. + +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning +of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single +line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist +which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew +he would be sitting unless--something had happened. But presently I was +conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, +Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my +chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows. +I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and +I would not now--above all, not now. + +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I +couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to +answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to +let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. +Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had +feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I +liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout +"Brava-brava!" + +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, +as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. "What +if they know all I've done?" The question flashed across my brain. "What +if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie +had betrayed France for money, English money?" How these hands which +applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out. + +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I +think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women +who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to +me that they must suffer less. + +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain +calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look +delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I +could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big +harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up +to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew +that Raoul would be waiting. + +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome +lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in +modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the +Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in +diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old +Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he +is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as +beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it +were not for the eyes, and lips. + +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd +led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. +Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough +to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send +him away, and go to dress for the second act. + +The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, +gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's +something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of +the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even +if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with +more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as +with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic +reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du +Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. + +I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping +up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be +to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three +hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, +back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how +little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would +put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had +done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me. + +For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to +Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's +ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a +man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth +itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause. +Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself +truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover +and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had +realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. + +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing +on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so +good, so pure. + +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to +hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his +eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves +in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on +through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into +the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot; +how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black +bat! + +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I +shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe +me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a +heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it +really was! + +"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you--how +proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I +did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night." + +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. +Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had +comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to +help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his +salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who +so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long +to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were +safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I +had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it +were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But +how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not +on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love? + +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said +to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this +might be the last time that his eyes--those eyes that are not +cold--might look at me with love in them, as now. + +"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for +me?" + +"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered, +holding me very close. + +"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I +can't bear you to belong to others--even to the public that appreciates +you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud +that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore +you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd +be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it +for you, to shield you from it always." + +"Then, what _is_ there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink +of a precipice. + +"Nothing on God's earth--while you kept true to me." + +"And if I weren't true--if I deceived you?" + +"Why, I'd kill you--and myself after. But it makes me see red--a blazing +scarlet--even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it--when +it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you +wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin." + +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I +wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. +Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness--perhaps +the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had +for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so +many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him +short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me. +Then--long before it ought, so it seemed--the clock in mydressing-room +struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first +nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, +more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by +midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know +the worst--or best. + +"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news +for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give +you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third +and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come +behind again. I shan't take any calls--after dying, it's too inartistic, +isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here, +in this room, before I dress to go home." + +"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised +me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house--just you +and I alone together--on the first night of the new play." + +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had +I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. +There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had +crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away +from him involuntarily with a start of surprise. + +"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. + +"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired +and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But--" + +"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I +paused to think what I should do. + +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I +couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. + +"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The +question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper. +My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old +Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, +generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll +see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come +here--after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, +but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was +a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows +too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I +had little time to comfort him. + +"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now, +good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_." + +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where +Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up +things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for +the next act. + +"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door +keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now." + +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and +thought it best to warn me without delay? + +"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once." + +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old +enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but +something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary +promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the +envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky. + +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort +of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid +of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the +treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and +try to drive some dreadful bargain. + +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to +go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as +I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before +my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the +dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis +Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, +when he chose. + + "MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been + given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to + call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening, + alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more + than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with + you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I + am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be + willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were + before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage + door when you come out. + + "Yours, in whatever way you will, + + "ALEXIS." + +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have +been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. +Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your +answer." + +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done +what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he +need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to +order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But +how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go +home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. +At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I +left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be +Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an _impasse_? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt +dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck," I said +to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it +all out." + +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine +de Renzie, but Princess Hélène of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even +more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Hélène had +died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to +die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, +where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for +answer, and must somehow be decided at once. + +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my +best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must +forego, and hurt him instead. + +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hélène had +died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to +leave the stage. + +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing +them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face +was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden +live flame among red ashes. + +"What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside +my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had +come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?" + +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the +tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene, +darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like +this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is +it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever +before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to +sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a +poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the +third act, and then Hélène might have been happily married, instead of +dying." + +"I believe you would have killed him," I said. + +"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm +jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not +an insult." + +"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage--" + +"If the woman I love is the heroine." + +"Will you ever be blasé, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed, +though I could have sobbed. + +"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?" + +"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind +of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. + +"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money +enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some +beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love +for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and +to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?" + +"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into +that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--" + +"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a +coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like +a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the +stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to +touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You +_will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the +house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must +drive me out then?" + +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes." +But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we +mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew +that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he +dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I +said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately +offered to leave me at once. + +"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking +forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of +all nights." + +"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. + +"Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of +course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I +feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it." + +"You must say it," I cried. + +"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in +danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing +more. Rather womanish, isn't it?" + +"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one +wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all +the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying +different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or +ever." + +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: + +"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll +like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room." + +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and +there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with +my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the +least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would +have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as +placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than +she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my +jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred +thousand francs. + +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt +perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on +earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of +my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she +would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands. + +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my +third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the +box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my +carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the +diamonds on fire. + +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The +necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels +depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp +came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were +almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, +extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless. +Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting +even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value. + +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the +treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and +slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade +which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a +friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was +intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. +Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly +planned out my way of giving it to Raoul. + +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his +hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind, +because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible--quite, +quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his +seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was +jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and +it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my +profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him +to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he +thought that he had the least cause. + +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He +would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen +Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say--whether truth or +fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it +would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety, +and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I +was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might +bring, either for him or for me. + +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it +to Raoul in the next room. + +"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a +mystery. "You'll value the something, I know--partly for itself, partly +because I--because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When +you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me--just for tonight. But +you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one +of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter +a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me +when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the +sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every +minute, asleep or awake." + +"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and +silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a +woman's things. + +"Because--just _because_. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I +said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag +away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held +nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves. + +"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard, +for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in +my heart--the fear that it might be for the last time. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold +and filmy tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Hélène had died, and +into the black gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had +come to the theatre. I did not even stop to take off my make-up, for +though the play was an unusually short one, and all the actors and +actresses had followed my example of prompt readiness for all four acts, +it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was dressed. I had to see +Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in time to keep my +appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain every +nerve not to be late. + +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to +speak to Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or +two whether he had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. +But if I could avoid it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long +conversation until later. + +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky +knew me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the +door. + +"Good-evening," he said. "A hundred congratulations." + +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and +the stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me +closely), and several stage-carpenters, with other employés of the +theatre, were within seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, +though that was exactly what might best please Count Godensky. + +"I got your note," I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in +French. "What is it you want to see me about?" + +"Something that can't be told in a moment," he said. "Something of great +importance." + +"I'm very tired," I sighed. "Can't it wait until to-morrow?" + +I tried to "draw" him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. + +"You wouldn't ask that question, if you guessed what--I know," he +replied. + +Was it a bluff, or did he know--not merely suspect--something? + +"I don't understand you," I said quietly, though my lips were dry. + +"Shall I mention the word--_document?_" he hinted. "Really, I'm sure you +won't regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle." + +"I can't do that," I answered. "And I can't take you into my carriage +here. But I'll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugène +Beauharnais. Then you can go with me until I think it best for you to +get out." + +"Very well," he agreed. "But send your maid home in a cab; I can not +talk before her." + +"Yes, you can. She knows no language except French--and a little +English. She always drives home with me." + +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have +given the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by +herself. In that case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, +admires him as a "dream of a young man," and already suspected what I +hadn't yet told her--that we were engaged. But with Count Godensky +forced upon me as a companion, I would not for any consideration have +parted with Marianne. + +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my +chauffeur where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky +appeared. He got in and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but +doubtless astonished, facing us on the little front seat. + +"Now," I exclaimed. "Please begin quickly." + +"Don't force me to be too abrupt," he said. "I would spare you if I +could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am +here because I love you." + +"Oh, please, Monsieur!" I broke in. "You know I've told you that is +useless." + +"But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will +be changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a +great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could +save you from it if you'd let me." + +"Save me from what?" I asked temporising. "You're very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I'm Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate +friends." + +"I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of +myself as your 'intimate friend' when I have done what I hope to do for +you in--in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared." + +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some +women, feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been +better for me to die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let +myself faint and show Godensky that he had struck home. + +"Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again," I said to myself. And +my voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: "Oh, the 'document' +again. The one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my +curiosity. But I don't in the least know what you mean." + +"The loss of it is known," he said. + +"Ah, it's a lost document?" + +"As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don't come to me for the help I'm +only too glad to give--on conditions. Let me tell you what they are." + +"Wouldn't it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, +and how it concerns me?" I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. + +"Aren't _you_ evading the point far more than I? The document--which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though +it were in--let us say your hands, or--du Laurier's, if he were +here--that document is far too important even to name within hearing of +other ears." + +"Marianne's? But I told you she can't understand a word of Russian." + +"One can't be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be--a +spy." + +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of +showing that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; +but he should not. + +"They say one judges others by one's self," I laughed. "Count Godensky, +if you throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall +begin to wonder if it's not _you_ who are the spy!" + +"Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then," he went on, "I'll tell +you what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took +out of the Foreign Office the other day, when you called on +your--friend, Monsieur le Vicomte du Laurier." + +"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem +to think I am a kleptomaniac. I can't imagine what I should want with +any dry old document out of the Foreign Office, can you?" + +"Yes, I can imagine," said Godensky drily. + +"Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this +is rather a serious accusation." + +"If I make any accusation, it's less against you than du Laurier." + +"Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?" + +"As a warning." + +"Or because you don't dare make it to anyone else." + +"Dare! I haven't accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your +name with his." + +"Ah!" I said. "You are very considerate." + +"I don't pretend to be considerate--except of myself. I've waited, and +held my hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing +which would mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I +ever did; even more, because, in common with most men, I value what I +find hard to get. To-night I ask you again to marry me. Give me a +different answer from that you gave me before, and I'll be silent about +what I know." + +"What you know of the document you mentioned?" I asked, my heart +drumming an echo of its beating in my ears. + +"Yes." + +"But--I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?" (Oh, I +was keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely +cost me more than I dared count!) + +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. +Half a second--no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me +what I had been playing with him to find out. + +"Discovered by me," he explained. "That is, by me and one person over +whom I have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or--forget +it, according to my advice." + +"There is no such person," I said to myself. But I didn't say it aloud. +Quickly I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as +were in a position to discover the disappearance of any document under +Raoul du Laurier's charge. There were several who might have done so, +some above Raoul in authority, some below; but I was certain that not +one of them was an intimate friend of Count Godensky's. If he had +suspected anything the day he met me coming out of the Foreign Office he +might, of course, have hinted his suspicions to one of those men (though +all along I'd believed him too shrewd to risk the consequences, the +ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he had spoken, it would +be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their own course, +independent of my decisions and his actions. + +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was "bluffing." He +wanted me to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in +order to save the man I loved. I was only a woman, he'd argued, no +doubt--an emotional woman, already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous +excitement. Perhaps he had expected to have easy work with me. And I +don't think that my silence after his last words discouraged him. He +imagined me writhing at the alternative of giving up Raoul or seeing him +ruined, and he believed that he knew me well enough to be sure what I +would do in the end. + +"Well?" he said at last, quite gently. + +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and +saw his face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count +Godensky is not more Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin +man with a hook nose, keen eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a +sharply waxed, military moustache trained to point upward slightly at +the ends. But to my fancy he looked absolutely devilish at that moment. +Still, I was less afraid of him than I had been since the day I stole +the treaty. + +"Well," I said slowly, "I think it's time that you left me now." + +"That's your answer? You can't mean it." + +"I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other +times that you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had +to say to-night, and I have heard it; so there's no reason why I +shouldn't press the electric bell for my chauffeur to stop, and--" + +"Do you know that you're pronouncing du Laurier's doom, to say nothing +of your own?" + +"No. I don't know it." + +"Then I haven't made myself clear enough." + +"That's true. You haven't made yourself clear enough." + +"In what detail have I failed? Because--". + +"In the detail of the document. I've told you I know nothing about it. +You've told me you know everything. Yet--" + +"So I do." + +"Prove that by saying what it is--to satisfy my curiosity." + +"I've explained why I can't do that--here." + +"Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my +mind. You understood before you came into my carriage that I had no +intention of letting you go all the way home with me." + +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me--frightened +me horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel +that I had got the best of the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + +"You are afraid that du Laurier may find out," he said. "But he knows +already." + +"Knows what?" + +"That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you." + +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of +his almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without +falling they laid one feather too much. + +My voice broke. "You--devil!" I cried at him. "You dared to tell Raoul +that?" + +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now +our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. +She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk +of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on +earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the +brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her +nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she +would have tried with all her strength--which is not small--and a very +good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness +meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty. +But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. + +"Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I've always understood that you +made a great point of never doing anything which you considered in the +least risqué. So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn't +know? You might already have mentioned it to him." + +"He wouldn't believe you!" I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope +was that I might be right. + +"As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to at first, so I at once +understood that you hadn't spoken of our appointment. But it was too +late to atone for my carelessness, and I did the next best thing: +justified my veracity. I suggested that, if he didn't take my word for +it, he might stand where he could see us speaking together at the stage +door, and--" + +"Ah, I am glad of that!" I cut in. "Then he saw that we didn't drive +away together." + +"You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought +you'd receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the +precaution of warning du Laurier that he needn't expect to see that. You +would suggest a place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I +would inform him if he chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes." + +"Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!" I broke out. + +"How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you +have, after all, if you don't understand that a man suddenly out of his +head with jealousy will do things of which he'd be incapable when he was +sane." + +The argument silenced me. I knew--I had known for a long time--that +jealousy could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded +me that he was a "jealous brute." I remembered what answer he had made +when I asked him what he would do if I deceived him. He said that he +would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had +streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. +A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes--the dear eyes that are not +cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do +things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand +sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. + +"As a proof of what I say," Godensky went on, "du Laurier did wait, did +hear from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it +wouldn't be the worst of form to bet, I'd bet that he found some way of +getting there in time to see that I had told the truth." + +"You coward!" I stammered. + +"On the contrary, a brave man. I've heard that du Laurier is a fine +shot, and that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So +you see--" + +"You want to frighten me!" I exclaimed. + +"You misjudge me in every way." + +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the +signal for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed +down, then came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count +Godensky submitted to my will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a +submissive mood, as I did not need to be reminded by the tone of his +voice when he said "au revoir." + +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of +speaking them, as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But +to me they meant a threat, and as a threat they were intended. + +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my +second pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had +little enough at the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he +arrived. It was two or three minutes after midnight, or so my watch +said, when we drew up before the gate of my high-walled garden in the +quiet Rue d'Hollande. + +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient +for keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had +just heard from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. + +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I'd given orders) would be let in +so late at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he +had come to reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand +outside the locked gate till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but +he was not there. There was, to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, +for a wonder (usually the Rue d'Hollande is as empty as a desert, after +eleven o'clock), but a girl's face peered out at me from the window--an +impish, curiously abnormal little face it was--extinguishing the spark +of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of the carriage. + +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, +and the girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all +interested in her, and I hate being stared at as if I were something in +a museum. + +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I'm at the theatre; but +Marianne has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old +Henri sits up, and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were +inside, the chauffeur spinning away to the garage. + +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and +its small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home +after hours of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful +light shone out from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place +looked inexpressibly dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated +the house, though I had chosen it after a long search for peacefulness +and privacy. How gloomy, how dead, was the street beyond the high wall, +with all its windows closed like the eyes of corpses. There was a moist, +depressing smell of earth after long-continued rains, in the garden. No +wonder the place had been to let at a bargain, for a long term! There +had been a murder in it once, and it had stood empty for twelve or +thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten tragedy. I had +been the tenant for two years now--before I became a "star," with a +theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt +the house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story +only made the place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I +wished I had never spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me +bad luck. I felt as if the murder must have happened on just such a +still, brooding, damp night as this. Maybe it was the anniversary, if I +only knew. + +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, +withered like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where +he had sat, hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, +bowing and blinking, just as he had done often before, and would often +again--if life were to go on for me in the old way. He regretted not +having heard Mademoiselle. Would Mademoiselle take supper? + +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri +might go to bed. + +"I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house." + +"But I don't want the house closed," I said. "I shall sit up for awhile. +It's hot--close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open." + +"The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps--" + +"If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it +is so late." + +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not +want her to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a +very old friend; in fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember +in London. He was to call--if he did call--only on a matter of business, +which would take but a few minutes to get through, and possibly he would +not even come into the house. If the gate-bell rang, I would answer it +myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in the garden. Then I would +let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might go to bed if she +wished. + +"I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so," +said she. "I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress +Mademoiselle." + +"Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for +you," I replied. "I shan't be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn't +come." + +"Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it +should not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she +would not care to admit?" + +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. + +"There's no fear of that. No fear of any kind," I answered. + +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel +box. + +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright +and charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the +delightful Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up +here and there at antique shops or at private sales. + +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up +again, moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, +wondering what could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his +promise to be prompt on the hour of twelve. + +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought +only of the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I +heard the gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or +fourteen minutes, but it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I +rushed out, down the garden path, to let my visitor in. + +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in +a hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not +Ivor Dundas, but someone else--Raoul, perhaps--or the man who had been +in her mind: Godensky. + +But it was Ivor. + +"What news?" I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in +my own ears. + +"I don't know whether you'll call it news or not, though plenty of +things have happened. I'm awfully sorry to be late--" + +I wouldn't let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and +drew him into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. +Yet I forgot to lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it +ought to be fastened. + +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I +had told Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might +have been followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, +watchers who would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very +different from old Henri's. "Come into the house," I said, in a low +voice, "before you begin to tell anything." Then, when we were inside, I +could not even wait for him to go on of his own accord and in his own +way. + +"The treaty?" I asked. "Have you got hold of it?" + +"Unfortunately, no." + +"But you've heard of it? Oh, _say_ you've heard something!" + +"If I haven't, it isn't because I've sat down and waited for news to +come. I went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get +on the track of the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But +I was sent off on the wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse +luck--I'll tell you about it later, if you care to hear details. Then, +when that game was up, I did what I wish I'd done at first, found out +and consulted a private detective, said to be one of the best in +Paris--" + +"You told your story--_my_ story--to a detective?" I gasped. + +"No. Certainly not. I said I'd lost something of value, given me by a +lady whose name I couldn't bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, +too, not Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all +that happened on the way, and offered big pay if he could find them +quickly--especially the little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting +them to-night, so don't be desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap +seemed really to think he'd not have much difficulty in tracking down +our man; and even if he's parted with the treaty, we can find out what +he's done with it, no doubt. Girard says--" + +"Girard!" I caught Ivor up. "Is your detective's name Anatole Girard, +and does he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I know too much of him," I answered bitterly. + +"Isn't he clever, after all?" + +"Far too clever. I'd rather you had gone to any other detective in +Paris--or to none." + +"Why, what's wrong with him?" Ivor began to be distressed. + +"Only that he's a personal friend of my worst enemy--the man I spoke of +to you this evening--Count Godensky. I've heard so from Godensky +himself, who mentioned the acquaintance once when Girard had just +succeeded in a case everybody was talking about." + +"By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!" exclaimed Ivor, horribly +disappointed at having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried +so hard to do the right one. "Yet how could I have dreamed of it?" + +"You couldn't," I admitted, hopelessly. "Nothing is your fault. All +that's happened would have happened just the same, no matter what +messenger the Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It's fate. And it's my +punishment." + +"Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends," Ivor tried to console +me, "it isn't likely that the Count has talked to the detective about +you and the affair of the treaty." + +"He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn't find +out himself." + +"Hardly, I should say, until there'd been time for him to fear failure. +No, the chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the +matter I've put into his hands; and if he's a man of honour, he's bound +to do the best he can for me, as his employer. Have you seen du +Laurier?" + +"Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that +brute Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I'd known +that you would be so late, I might have explained everything to him." + +"I'm very sorry," said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him +(but not half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn't forgotten +that hint he had let drop about a great sacrifice--a girl he loved, whom +he had thrown over, somehow, to come to me). "I made every effort to be +in time. It seems a piece with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that +I was prevented. I hope, at least, that du Laurier knows about the +necklace?" + +"He does, by this," I answered. "Yet I'm afraid he won't be in a mood to +take much comfort from it--thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn't +a practical bone in his body. He will think I've deceived him, and +nothing else will matter. I must--" But I broke off, and laid my hand on +Ivor's arm. "What's that?" I whispered. "Did you hear anything then?" + +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. + +"It's a step outside, on the gravel path," said I, my heart beginning to +knock against my side. "I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come +into the garden. What if it should be Raoul--what if he has seen our +shadows on the curtain?" + +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on +account of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows +couldn't have fallen on the curtain. + +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was +Raoul's knock. I was sure of that. + +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time +appointed, I should have hurried him away before this, so that I might +write to Raoul; but now I could not think what to do for the best--what +to do, that things might not be made far worse instead of better between +Raoul and me. I had suffered so much that my power of quick decision, on +which I'd so often prided myself vaingloriously, seemed gone. + +"It is Raoul," I said. "What shall I do?" + +"Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don't act as if you were +afraid. Say that I came to see you on important business concerning a +friend of yours in England, and had to call after the theatre because +I'm leaving Paris by the first train in the morning." + +"No use." + +"Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her." + +"No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul's already angry. He has the +right to be--or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. +And I refused to let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, +I was so tired. He's knocking again. Hide yourself, and I'll let him in. +Oh, _why_ do you stand there, looking at me like that? Go into that +room," and I pointed, then pushed him towards the door. "You can get +through the window and out of the garden--softly--while Raoul and I are +talking." + +"If you insist," said Ivor. "But you're wrong. The best thing--" + +"Go--go, I tell you. Don't argue. I know best," I cut him short, in a +sharp whisper, pushing him again. + +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, +my boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched +it out, and dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That +done, I flew out of the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and +opened the front door. There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very +stern in the light of the hall lamp. I had never seen him like that +before. + +"I know why you're here," I began quickly, before he could speak. "Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I--hoped you would come." + +"Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?" he +asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. + +"No. For I hadn't deceived you," I answered. "I haven't deceived you +now. If you loved me, you'd believe me, Raoul." + +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me +draw him into the house. + +"For God's sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can," he said. +"It's death to lose it. I came here wanting to die." + +"After you'd killed me, as you said?" + +"Perhaps. I couldn't keep away. I had to come. If you have any +explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is." + +"You know me, and you know Godensky--yet you need an explanation of +anything evil said of me by him?" In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; +but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a +power had jealousy over his better self. + +"Don't play with me!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear it. You sent me away. +Yet you had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your +carriage; and now--" + +"Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should +have packed her off by herself, alone, that I--might be alone with you. +Oh, Raoul, it isn't _possible_ you believe that I could lie to you for +Godensky's sake--a man like that! If I'd cared for him, why shouldn't I +have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do +you think?" + +"I don't think; I'm not able to think. I can only feel," he answered. + +"Then--feel sure that I love you--no man but you--now and always." + +"Oh, Maxine!" he stammered. "Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe +you?" + +"You are wise," I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I +was claiming from him as my right. "If you wouldn't believe, without my +insisting, without my explaining and defending myself, I'd tell you +nothing. But you _do_ believe, just because you love me--I see it in +your face, and thank God for it. So I'll tell you this. Count Godensky +hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you +because he thinks I love you. He--" I paused for a second. A wild +thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could +say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come +back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was Godensky, +not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky's to revenge +himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her +lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, +innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were +open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened +afterward. + +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end +and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift +upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd +helped to set, Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was +sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, +was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he +betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would. + +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that +Raoul could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. + +"He--Godensky--would do anything to part you and me," I said. "There's +no plot too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against +me--and you. No lie too base for him to tell you--or others--about me. +He sent me a letter at the theatre--soon after you'd left me the first +time. In it, he said that I must give him a few minutes after the play, +unless I wanted some dreadful harm to come to _you_--something +concerning your career. That frightened me, though I might have guessed +it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn't be sure, so I +saw him. I didn't want you to know--I tell you that frankly, Raoul. +Because I'd told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn't find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with +me and Marianne. I ran the risk, and--the very thing happened which I +ought to have known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was +nothing; only vague hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner +circle, might save you, if I--would be grateful enough." + +"The scoundrel!" broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. +"I'll--" + +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He +meant to send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from +doing that. + +"No, Raoul," I said, as if he had finished his sentence, "you musn't +fight. For my sake, you mustn't. Don't you see, it's just what he'd like +best? It would be a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of +the scandal. Oh, you _will_ think of it, when you're cooler. For you, I +would not fear much, for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a +shot--far superior to Godensky, and with right on your side. But I would +fear for myself. Promise you won't bring this trouble upon me." + +"I promise," he answered. "Oh, my darling, what wouldn't I promise you, +to atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I +came to you to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and +what I might do. But at last I couldn't hold out against the something +that seemed forcing me here in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive +me?" + +"As a reward for your promise," I said, smiling at him through tears +that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I +who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. "Now are you happy again?" I +asked. + +"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't +dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in +this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face +changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I +could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my +gate. + +"Even at the gate--what?" I asked. + +"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust +you now, by not speaking of that." + +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had +been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it +from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it +recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in +this moment of exaltation he did not doubt. + +"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it +_can_ be nothing." + +"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by +not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal, +repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a +thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see +through rose-coloured ones." + +"I'd rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. +You must tell me what you're thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not +yours." + +"Well--if you will know. But, remember, darling, I'm going to put it out +of my mind. I'll ask you no questions, I'll only--tell you the thing +itself. As I said, I didn't come here directly after seeing Godensky get +into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman--and I thought of the +Seine." + +"Oh--you must indeed have been mad!" + +"I was. But that something saved me--the something that drove me to find +you. I walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and +nearer, as if being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this +street, on the side opposite your house. I hadn't made up my mind yet, +that I would try to see you. I didn't know what I would do. I stood +still, and tried to think. It was very black, in the angle between two +garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts up, you know. Nobody who +didn't expect to find a man would have noticed me in the darkness. I +hadn't been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, walking +very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly--not his face, but his figure, and he was young +and well dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an +Englishman. He went straight to your gate and rang. A moment later +someone, I couldn't see who, opened the gate and let him in. +Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the idea of following--of +pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the gate. But I +wasn't quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, Maxine, +there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you--but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I +only wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a +motor cab going slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. +There were two women in it. I could see them by the light of the street +lamp, though not as plainly as I'd seen the man, and they appeared to be +arguing very excitedly about something. Whatever it was, it must have +been in some way concerned with you, or your affairs, because they were +tremendously interested in the house. They both looked out, and one +pointed several times. Even if I'd intended to go in, I wouldn't have +gone while they were there. But the very fact that they _were_ there +roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I'd fallen into. I +wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I +tried the gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and--there were +lights in these windows. I knew you couldn't have gone to bed yet, +though you'd said you were so tired. There was death in my heart then, +for you and for me, Maxine, for--the gate hadn't opened again, and--" + +"I know what you thought!" I broke in, my heart beating so now that my +voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. "You said to +yourself, 'It was Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall +find them together.'" + +"Yes," Raoul admitted. "But I didn't try the handle of the door, as I +had of the gate. I rang. I couldn't bring myself to take you unawares." + +"Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you +ring?" I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor +had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in +painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in +spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the +experience. I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, +though he strove to lash them back. I dared not bring Ivor out from the +other room, if he were still there. He was too handsome, too young, too +attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of Count Godensky, +whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a +stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my +house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn't taken Ivor's advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have +listened to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the +understanding we had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I +must be secret to the end.) + +The very asking of such a bold question--"Do you think I let a man in, +and hid him?" helped my cause with Raoul. + +"No," he said, "I can't think it. I won't, and don't think it. And you +need tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won't distrust +you again!" + +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor +had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint +sound in the next room. He was there still. + +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, +saying, "Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in," +I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover +the sound if it should come again. + +"Oh, Raoul!" I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I +surprised him. "You're taking this too seriously. A thousand times I +thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but--after all, +_were_ they so much against me? You seem to think I am the only young +woman in this house. Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it's true. But +I have a _femme de chambre_ and a _cuisinière_, both under twenty-five, +both pretty, and both engaged to be married." (This was true. Ah, what a +comfort to speak the truth to him!) "Doesn't it occur to you that, at +this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the +seat under the old yew arbour? Can't you imagine how they started and +tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate +and came up the path?" + +"Forgive me!" murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. + +"Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?" + +"Leave them in peace, by all means." + +"The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Thérèse and Annette +are good little girls." + +"Don't let's bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, +and I shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I--" + +"Oh, I'm better now," I said. "Of course I must send you away by and by, +but not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren't glad when you saw +the jewels?" + +"Jewels?" echoed Raoul. "What jewels?" + +"You don't mean to say you haven't yet opened the little bag I gave you +at the theatre?" I exclaimed. + +Raoul looked half ashamed. "Dearest, don't think me ungrateful," he +said, "but before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told +me--that lie. It lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and +haven't thought of it again till this minute." + +At last I laughed with sincerity. "Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you're not fit for +this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with +you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've +forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's +open it together." + +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I +knew. + +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him +put the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his +face flushed. "Good heavens, Maxine," he said, "I hope you weren't in +earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us +both, for I've lost it. You know, I've been almost mad. I had my +handkerchief in that pocket. I must have pulled it out, and--" + +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. + +"Raoul," I said, in a queer stifled voice, "the bag had in it the +Duchess de Montpellier's diamonds." + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' PART + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding +myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her +boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover +that no stranger had come on her account to the house. + +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her +little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in +groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, +I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against +the furniture or knocking down some ornament. + +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would +make, and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet +on glass, although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of +the house, and I was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me +stay. Only by a miracle did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a +chair or a tall vase of flowers, on my way to a second door which was +locked on the other side. At last, however, I discovered a window, and +congratulated myself that my trouble and Maxine's danger was nearly +over. The room being on the ground floor, though rather high above the +level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But +when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt +smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. + +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was +tightly closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly +and with infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was +going to stick. Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it +had swelled; in any case I knew that when the two sashes consented to +part they would make a loud protest. + +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised +her voice--to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even +than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, +and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had +missed. + +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which +apparently communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed +too small for me to climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. + +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du +Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after +she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many +words) that there was no stranger in the house. + +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I +felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should +have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed +doors and windows. As it was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead +grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent +mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief. It was not +to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in +the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, however, I +chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn't account. It +was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket +onto the floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. + +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second +thought; but to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as +insignificant until it had been thoroughly examined. I put the paper +back, and as I did so I heard Maxine give an exclamation, apparently of +distress. I could not distinguish all she said, but I thought that I +caught the word "diamonds." For a moment or two she and du Laurier +talked together so excitedly that I might have made another attack on +the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead +silence, except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than +Maxine's. Perhaps it was her maid's. + +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there +was no sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it +should be too late. + +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would +certainly have given away the secret of my presence if there had been +ears to hear. But all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I +dropped down on to a flower bed some few feet below. Then I skirted +round to the front of the house, walking stealthily on the soft grass, +and would have made a noiseless dash for the gate had I not seen a +stream of light flowing out through the open front door across the lawn. +I checked myself just in time to draw back without being seen by a woman +and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine and, no +doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. +Down to the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing +it behind them, so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. + +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them +was too imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as +they reappeared in three or four minutes they could not have gone far +enough to be out of sight from the gate. + +"There's witchcraft in it," Maxine said, as she and her lover passed +within a few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. + +Du Laurier's answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. +Evidently they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of +finding it again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for +Maxine that a further misfortune should have befallen her at such a +time. But the one and only way in which I could help her at the moment +was to get away as soon as possible. + +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief +when I was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du +Laurier should, by any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought +was to go immediately back to my hotel, where Girard might by now have +arrived with news. I was just ready to hail a cab crawling by at a +distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I'd found and put back into +my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by the light of a +street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the small, +crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. + +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both +sides with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The +handwriting was that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I +could not make out the words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a +wax match from my match-box, and protecting the flame in the hollow of +my hand, began studying the strange message. + +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. "On board the +'Queen.'" I had crossed the Channel in the "Queen," and this beginning +alone was enough to make me hope that the bit of paper might do more +than any detective to unravel the mystery. + + "I'm taking big risks because I've got to," I read on. "It's my + only chance. And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You're + a gentleman, and you saved my life and a lot more besides by + getting into that railway-carriage when the other chaps did. The + minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped there + game. I'm a jewler's assistant, carrying property worth + thousands, for my employers. From the first I knew 'twas bound + to be a ticklish job. On this bote I'm safe, for the villions + who would have murdered and robbed me in the train if it hadn't + been for you being there, won't have a chance, but when I get to + Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed + as I am, if I hadn't already thot of a plan to save them through + you, an honest gentleman far above temptashun. I know who you + are, for I've seen your photo in the papers. So, what I did was + this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of use in + my carere, just as folks were on the boat's gangway. Thro' + making that disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing + amatoor conjuring to amuse my wife and famly, I was able to slip + the case of my employer's jewls into your breast pocket without + your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not that I + wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I'd + left it the double thickness would have surprised you and you + would probably have pulled out my case to see what it was. Then + my fat would have bin in the fire, with certin persons looking + on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn't be fare. I've + got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won't open it + because it may have your sweetart's letters in. You can get your + property again by bringing me my master's, which is fare + exchange. I can't call on you, for I don't know where your going + and daren't hang round to see on account of the danger I run, + and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get + to him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I + wrote out this explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in + your pocket which I shall try when in the railway stashun at + Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to bring me the + jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, + calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top + floor, left of passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, + + "I am, + + "Yours trustfully, + + "J.M. Jeweler's Messenger. + + "P.S.--For heaven's sake don't fale, and ask the concerge for + name of Gestre." + +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating +little document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As +it was, my delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier +to restrain myself. + +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should +have rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her +the good news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she +should curse instead of bless me: and besides, as there was still a +chance of disappointment, it might be better in any case not to raise +her hopes until there was no danger of dashing them again. The best +thing was to get the treaty back, without a second of delay. As for the +detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he would have to +wait longer, or even go away disgusted--nothing made much difference +now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the +hour, she was certain not to be asleep. + +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, +and no other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one +presently. It was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris +no carriages of any sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind +that I should have to go all the way on foot; but I knew the direction +of the Avenue Morot, though I'd never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +and as it was not more than two miles to walk, I could reach the house I +wanted to find in half an hour. + +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since "J. M." was +sure to be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which +bothered me most was the effect likely to be produced on the man when I +could not hand him over the diamonds in exchange for the treaty. + +Of course I didn't believe that "J.M." was a jeweller's messenger, +though possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not +told me the true history of the diamonds, and what had happened in +Holland. As it was, I had very little doubt that the rat of a man I had +chanced to protect in the railway carriage was no other than the +extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du Laurier of the +Duchess's necklace. + +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it +probable that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had +contrived to dodge, evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope +of cheating them out of their share of the spoil. Followed by them, +dreading their vengeance, I fancied him flitting from one hiding-place +to another, not daring to separate himself from the jewels; at last +determining to escape, disguised, from England, where the scent had +become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to Dover, +and travelling with a golfer's kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening +the door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. + +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, "J.M.'s" +travelling companions hadn't even accosted him. Still, the theory +accounted for much that had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a +man should be desperate enough to trust his treasure to a stranger +(known only through "photos in the newspapers") rather than risk losing +it to those he had betrayed. + +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from "J.M." the +case containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive +the diamonds in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a +plan of proceeding before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon +found my way into the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which +the queer name seemed not inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an +ugly big box of a building, with rooms advertised to let, as I could see +by the light of a street lamp across the way, which gleamed bleakly on +the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron balconies. + +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of +several minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had +opened for me. I passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy +voice behind a half open window. The owner of the voice kept himself +invisible and was no doubt in the bunk which he called his bed. Only a +stern sense of duty as concierge woke him up enough to demand, +mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired to visit at +this late hour? + +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. + +"Monsieur Gestre is away," murmured the voice behind the little window. + +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the "pal" whom "J.M." had been in +such a hurry to find. "Very well," said I, "I'll see his friend, the +Englishman who arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him." + +"Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here +already? He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?" + +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The "monsieur" who +had called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone +to bed in his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as +the difference between voices, especially if they were those of +foreigners. Perhaps if I explained that I was not the person who had +said he would come again, but another, the man behind the window would +consider me a complication, and refuse to let me pass at such an hour +without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was what I least wanted--for +Maxine's sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to seize upon the +advantage that was offered me. + +"Quite right," I said shortly. "I know the way." And so began to mount +the stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the +fifth floor I found that I had reached the top of the house. There were +no more stairs to go up. + +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light--a jet of gas +turned low. But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the +light, either in carelessness or for some special reason. + +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be +sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I +was sure, I knocked, but no answer came. + +"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of +waiting and dropped asleep, that's all." + +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on +until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how +sound asleep, I must have waked him. + +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, +he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. + +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he +was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the +handle, and to my surprise it yielded. + +"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I +thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if +he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to +find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and +I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly +time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before +a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and +at the same instant banged the door shut behind me. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere +at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light +knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. + +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I +might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or +table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the +treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and +he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de +Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well +hidden when he went out. + +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the +window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted +floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved. + +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something +which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I +pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four +steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap +round the fallen chair. I disentangled myself from its coils, only to +slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid +which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards. + +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. + +"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought. And if there had +been a struggle--what of the treaty? + +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my +way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and +slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing +that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot. + +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles +prickled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on +that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I +knew what it would prove to be. + +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though +there was no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers +touched an arm, a throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as +I knew my boots must be. And I knew, too, with what they were wet. + +I'm ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my +impulse was to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for +reasons which concerned others even more than myself, it would be +unpleasant to be involved, just at this time especially. I could go +downstairs now, past the sleeping concierge, and with luck no one need +ever know that I had been in this dark room of death. + +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search +for the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made +sure it was not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were +matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for +them, and come back. It was a grim task, but it had to be done. + +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of +pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a +broken cup containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on +the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I +lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look +round. + +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the +secret of the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, +before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the +door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the +floor. + +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged +with him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in +pieces, the spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair +had been overturned, and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that +had held them were half hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. + +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the +condition of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the +floor: the drawers of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and +their contents strewn far and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, +and a few shabby coats and pairs of trousers thrown about, with the +pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A chest of drawers had been +ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of sheets and blankets, +the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The room looked +as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to go +near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. +The blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, +like those in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently +by hands which searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless +determination. + +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I +could imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that +he had outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding +the friend who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had +planned to defend himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the +door (both lock and bolt were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to +search his friend's quarters for food, and fearfully beginning a supper +in the midst of which he had probably been interrupted. Almost, I could +feel the horror with which he must have trembled when steps came along +the corridor, when the door was tried and finally broken in by force +without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he had rushed to the +window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and return +desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any +intention to defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything +right if only they would give him time. + +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them +of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with +the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering +candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to +leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been cheated in the +end. + +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless +there was a chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the +diamonds or some letters relating to their disposal, might, if they +found the treaty, have hastily flung it aside, as a thing of no value. + +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, +and the lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which +might fail while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from +its bed of grease on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light +touched my hand and shirt cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned +slightly sick at the sight. There was blood on my brown boots, too, and +the grey tweed clothes which I had not had time to change since arriving +in Paris. + +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains +before leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. + +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the +floor, and in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I +cried "hurrah!" when, half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing +letter-case. It was lying spread open, back uppermost, and there came an +instant of despair when I pounced on it only to find it empty. But there +was the treaty on the floor underneath; and lucky it was that the +searchers had thrown it out, for there were gouts of blood on the +letter-case, while the treaty was clean and unspotted. + +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything +endured and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the +pocket from which it had been stolen. + +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step +outside the door. + +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it +was of the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, +my hands and clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The +treaty must not be found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a +dash for the window, and once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I +threw the candle-end into the room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint +starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, showed me a row of small +flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I wrapped the treaty in a +towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two of the +flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to +cover and conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, +fumbling at the handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking +of the hinges. Then the light of a dark lantern flashed. + + + + +DIANA FORREST'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it +were a kind of fine art. I don't. It seems too bad to be true that I +should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a +bad dream. + +I suppose I've been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been +kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for +them; and I have taken things for granted--except, of course, with Lisa. +But Lisa is different--different from everyone else in the world. I have +never expected anything from her, as I have from others. All I've wanted +was to make her as happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could +be, and to teach myself never to mind anything that she might say or do. + +But Ivor--to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I +didn't know it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off +and left me standing in the railway-station. I didn't dream then of +going to Paris. If anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, +"No, no, I will not." And yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I +tried to make myself think that it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down +underneath I knew all the time it wasn't that, really. It was because I +couldn't bear to do the things I'm accustomed to doing every day. I felt +as if I should cry, or scream, or do something ridiculous and awful +unless there were a change of some sort--any change, but if possible +some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. + +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would +be in Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat +and the train that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could +never be as we had been before; that it was all over between us for ever +and ever, and through his fault. But, there at the bottom was the +thought that I _might_ have done him an injustice, because he had begged +me to trust him, and I wouldn't. Just suppose--something in myself kept +on saying--that we should by mere chance meet in Paris, and he should be +able to prove that he hadn't come for Maxine de Renzie's sake! It would +be too glorious. I should begin to live again--for already I'd found out +that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn't life at all. + +He couldn't think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, +because I would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I +made up my mind to be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had +been, if Ivor happened to run across us anywhere. + +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected +way, but instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more +unhappy than before--for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining +through its blackness. + +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall +of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn't give up his +mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and +he _must_ have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had +put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was _afraid_ for him, I +couldn't have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he +turned away from me. + +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a +woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in +my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately +angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for. + +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord +Robert West as if I'd forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor +Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed +to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It +was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was +like that of the man in Millais' picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I +wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn't let +her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him. + +It is strange how one's mood can change in a moment--but perhaps it is +like that only with women. A minute before I'd been trying to despise +Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself +that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry +Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and +that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was +engaged to somebody else. + +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been +stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given +anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and +would trust him in spite of all. + +"You look as pale as if you were going to faint," said Lisa, in her +little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn't speak loudly, always +reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms. + +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone's attention to me just +then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as +they passed. + +"It must be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." +That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that +minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on +beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. +"I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till +after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has +been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight +to my room when we get upstairs." + +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others +at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric's suite. + +"Shan't I come with you?" asked Lisa, but I said "no." It was something +new for her to offer to help me, for she isn't very strong, and has +always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she's a +few years older than I am. + +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can't get on even for +a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had +offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn't been shut up +in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she +could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away. + +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking +along the Champs Élysées, brilliant still with electric lights, and full +of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and +dinner-parties, or taking them to restaurants for supper. + +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, +though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved +me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always +would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had +said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his +eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he +had been willing to break with me. + +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed +him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, +knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer. + +Still--why had he looked so miserable, if he didn't care what I thought, +and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole +thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt +it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, +and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon +me. + +"Oh, to know, to _know_, what he's doing at this minute!" I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound +of my own voice. "To _know_ whether I'm doing him the most awful +injustice--or not!" + +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa's, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the +key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen--that Lisa might +wish to come, and not wait till I'd given her permission. She does that +sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor +calls her "Imp"), and if she thinks people don't want her that is the +very time when she most wants them. + +"Oh, Di, do let me in!" she exclaimed. + +For a second or two I didn't answer. Never in my life had I liked poor +Lisa less than I'd liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though +I'd told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was +acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of +longing to slap her, as I couldn't help doing now. But always before, +when she has irritated me until I've nearly forgotten my promise to her +father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and +deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I've tried to atone, even +when there wasn't really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was +afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she would go to bed angry +with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart attack and is +ill next day. "Di, are you there?" she called again. + +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with +a rush. "I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate," +she said. + +So did I, but I didn't mean to let her know that. + +"I'm going out," she went on. "If I don't, I shall have a fit." + +"Out!" I repeated. "You can't. It's midnight." + +"Can't? There's no such word for me as 'can't,' when I want to do +anything, and you ought to know that," said she. "It's only being ill +that ever stops me, and I'm not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity +were flowing all through me, making my nerves jump, and I believe you +feel exactly the same way. Your eyes are as big as half-crowns, and as +black as ink." + +"I _am_ a little nervous," I confessed. And I couldn't help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at +the same time. "Perhaps it's in the air. Maybe there's going to be a +thunder-storm. There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up." + +"Maybe it's partly that, maybe not," said she. "But there's one thing +I'm sure of. _Something's going to happen._" + +"Do you feel that, too?" I broke out before I'd stopped to think. Then I +wished I hadn't. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. + +"Ah, I _knew_ you did!" she cried, looking as eerie and almost as +haggard as a witch. "Something _is_ going to happen. Come. Go with me +and be in it, whatever it is." + +"No," I said. "And you mustn't go either." But she was weird. She seemed +to lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren's witchery, +though without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. + +"Of course I'm not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in +hand through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans," said Lisa. +"I'm going to have a closed carriage--a motor-brougham, one belonging to +the hotel, so it's quite safe. It's ordered already, and I shall first +drive and drive until my nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If +you won't drive with me I shall drive alone. But there'll be no harm in +it, either way. I didn't know you were so conventional as to think there +could be. Where's your brave, independent American spirit?" + +"I'm not conventional," I said. + +"Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You're afraid of +things you never used to be afraid of." + +"I'm not afraid of things, and I'm not a bit changed," I said. "You only +want to 'dare' me." + +"I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone," +she begged. "Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but +I _can't_ stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would +be an adventure worth remembering." + +"Very well," I said, "I'll go with you, not for the adventure, but +rather than have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and +rather than you should go alone." + +"Good girl!" exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she +had got her way; though if I'd refused she would probably have cried. +She is terrifying when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear +her frail little body to pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes +ends up by a fit of trembling as if she were in an ague. + +"Have you really ordered a motor cab?" I asked. + +"Yes," said she. "I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big +porter at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and +said I did not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick +friend who had written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to +tell no one except me that she'd come to Paris." + +"I shouldn't have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a +waiter," I remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don't like +Lisa's subterranean ways. But this time she didn't even try to defend +herself. + +"Let's get ready at once," she said. "I'm going to put on my long +travelling cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with +a veil. I suppose you'll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the +'service' stairs. The carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance." + +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. "Lisa, are +you planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to +'spring' on me when it's too late for me to get out of it?" + +"How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You _do_ hurt my feelings! +I haven't had an inspiration yet, so I can't make a plan. But it will +come; I know it will. I shall _feel_ where we ought to go, to be in the +midst of an adventure--oh, without being mixed up in it, so don't look +horrified! I told you that something was going to happen, and that I +wanted to be in it. Well, I mean to be, when the inspiration comes." + +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa's +veil, and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there +was nobody in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew +where to find the 'service' stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the +side entrance of the hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were +both seated inside, Lisa spoke in French to the driver, who waited for +orders. + +"I think you might take us to the Rue d'Hollande. Drive fast, please. +After that, I'll tell you where to go next." + +"Is this your 'inspiration'?" I asked. + +"I'm not sure yet. Why?" and her voice was rather sharp. + +"For no particular reason. I'm a little curious, that's all." + +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had +been playing with me, that all along she had had some special +destination in her mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to +bring me to it. But what use to ask more questions? She did not mean me +to find out until she was ready for me to know. + +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round +corners and through street after street which I had never seen +before--quiet streets, where there were no cabs, and no gay people +coming home from theatres and dinners. At last we turned into a +particularly dull little street, and stopped. + +"Is this the Rue d'Hollande?" Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping +quickly up and putting her head out of the window. + +"_Mais oui, Mademoiselle_," I heard the man answer. + +"Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders." + +"I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could +possibly happen," said I. + +"Wait a little, and maybe you'll find out you're mistaken. If nothing +does, and we aren't amused, we can go on somewhere else." + +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun +almost noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in +a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was +dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that +the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, +an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me. + +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in +neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, +slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who +looked like a lady's maid. + +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our +side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who +got down first. It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I +had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of +that exact shade: Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie. + +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had +brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the +house, I didn't know. + +"Oh, Lisa!" I reproached her. "How _could_ you?" + +"It really _was_ an inspiration. I'm sure of that now," she said +quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide +excitement. "You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, +yet you know who she is. You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you." + +"I know by the hair," I answered. "I might have foreseen this would be +the kind of thing you would think of--it's like you." + +"You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it," said Lisa. "It's +entirely for your sake; and it's quite true, it was an inspiration to +come here. This afternoon in the train I read an interview in 'Femina' +with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she's produced to-night. There +was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue +d'Hollande." + +"Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You've seen her back, and her +maid's back, and the garden wall," I said, more sharply than I often +speak to Lisa. "I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. +I know why you want to wait here, but you shan't--I won't. I'm going +away as quickly as I can." + +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. +Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, +and persuasiveness. + +"Di, dearest girl, _don't_ be cross with me; please don't +misunderstand," she implored. "I love you, you know, even if you +sometimes think I don't; I want you to be happy--oh, wait a moment, and +listen. I've been so miserable all day, knowing you were miserable; and +I've felt horribly guilty for fear, after all, I'd said too much. Of +course if you'd guessed where I meant to come, you wouldn't have stirred +out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for yourself. Unless +Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could hardly have +arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he _doesn't_ come, we +shall know, too. Think how happy you'll feel if he _doesn't!_ I'll +apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose you would not +mind apologising to him, if necessary?" + +"He may be in the house now," I said, more to myself than to Lisa. + +"If he is, he'll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. +There, it's open now. The maid's unlocked it. No, there's nobody in the +garden." + +"I can't stop here and watch for him, like a spy," I said. + +"Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It's for _his_ sake I ask you to stay. And if you won't, I +must stay alone. If you insist on going away, I'll get out and stand in +the street, either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I'm sure he +isn't coming. But how much better to wait and see for yourself." + +"You know I can't go off and leave you standing here," I answered. "And +I can't leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets +alone. I might meet--" I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must +nave guessed the name on my lips. + +"The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together," +said Lisa, "for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor +Dundas and to you. You couldn't force me away, even if you wanted to use +force." + +"Which you know is out of the question," I said, desperately. "But why +has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against +Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last night and this +morning." + +"I've been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to +be justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn't +come to this house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke +about an engagement, I shall believe that he doesn't care a rap about +Maxine de Renzie." + +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating +as if it were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I +could not think, or argue with myself what was really right and wise to +do. I could only give myself up, and drift with circumstances. + +"A man has just come round the far corner," whispered Lisa. "Is it Ivor? +I can't make out. He doesn't look our way." + +"Thank Heaven we're too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather +die than have Ivor know we're here," I broke out. + +"I don't think it is Ivor," Lisa went on. "He's hidden himself in the +shadow, as if he were watching. It's _that_ house he's interested in. +Who can he be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps." + +"Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie's house?" I asked, +in spite of myself. + +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she +regretted. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," she answered hastily. "Why, indeed? It was +just a thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh--keep back, +Di, don't look out for an instant, till he's passed. Ivor is coming now. +He's walking in a great hurry. There! he can't see you. He's far enough +away for you to peep, and see for yourself. He's at Maxine de Renzie's +gate." + +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that +tragic look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told +me there was no other woman in his world but me. + +"I won't look," I stammered, almost choking. + +"Someone, I can't see who, is letting him in. The gate's shut behind +him." + +"Let us go now," I begged. + +"No, no, not yet!" cried Lisa. "I must know what happens next. We are in +the midst of it, indeed." + +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, +and nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we +should go. + +"I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?" Lisa said. +Then she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly +told our chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but +the man did not move. + +"Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers," directed +Lisa, but I would not allow that. + +"No, he shall not stop there!" I exclaimed. "Lisa, I forbid it. You've +had your way in everything so far. I won't let you have it in this." + +"Very well, we'll turn the corner into the next street, to please you," +said Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. "Now stop," she +cried, when we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and +hearing of anyone in the Rue d'Hollande. Then, in another instant, +before I had any idea what she meant to do, she was out of the cab, +running like a child in the direction whence we had come. I looked after +her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could not bear to risk +meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was peeping +into the Rue d'Hollande, to find out what was happening there. + +"She will come back in a moment or two," I said to myself wearily, and +sat waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered +up under her cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If +she had not appeared again almost at once, I should have had to tell the +driver to follow, though I hated the thought of going again into the +street where Maxine de Renzie lived. But she did come, and in her hand +was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered with gold or silver that +sparkled even in the faint light. + +"I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up," she exclaimed. + +"You might better have left it," I said stiffly. "Perhaps Mademoiselle +de Renzie dropped it." + +"No, I don't think so. It wasn't in front of her house." + +"It may belong to that man who was watching, then." + +"It doesn't look much like a thing that a man would carry about with +him, does it?" + +"No," I admitted, indifferently. "Now we will go home." + +"Don't you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?" + +"Indeed I don't!" I cried. "I don't want to know any more about him." +And for the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. + +"Very well," said Lisa, "perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both +that I haven't anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think +about him after this, the better." + +"I shan't think about him at all," I said. But I knew that was a boast I +should never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could +understand how people must feel when they are very old and weary of +life. I don't believe that I shall feel older and more tired if I live +to be eighty than I felt then. It was a slight comfort to know that we +were on our way back to the hotel, and that soon I should be in my room +alone, with the door shut and locked between Lisa and me; but it was +only very slight. I couldn't imagine ever being really pleased about +anything again. + +"You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose," chirped Lisa, "and show +Ivor Dundas that he hasn't spoiled your life." + +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons +that tied the bag she had found. + +"Perhaps I shall," I answered. "I might do worse." + +"I should think you might!" exclaimed Lisa. "Oh, do accept him soon. I +don't want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you're broken-hearted for +him. Lord Bob is sure to propose to you to-morrow--even if he hasn't +already: and if he has, he'll do it again. I saw it in his eye all +to-day. He was dying to speak at any minute, if only he'd got a chance +with you alone. You _will_ say 'yes' when he does, won't you, and have +the engagement announced at once?" + +"I'll see how I feel at the time, if it comes," I answered, trying to +speak gaily, but making a failure of it. + +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She +seemed surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in +her hand, and touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell +me what was there. Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make +me ask. But I didn't care enough to humour her. If the bag had been +stuffed full of the most gorgeous jewels in the world, at that moment I +shouldn't have been interested in the least. I saw Lisa give a little +sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were watching; but when she found me +looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the bag again and stowed it +away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling cloak. + +I was afraid that, when we'd arrived at the hotel and gone up to our +rooms Lisa might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her +out, as I felt I must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and +my affairs, now that all doubt was settled. She didn't even wish to talk +over what had happened; but when I bade her good-night, simply said, +"good-night" in return, and let me shut the door between the rooms. + +"I suppose," I thought, "that the best thing I shall have to hope for +after this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my +dreams." But though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and +fall asleep, I couldn't. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a +minute at a time; and always I found myself staring at the window, hour +after hour, hoping for the light. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +DIANA HEARS NEWS + +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and +deserved to be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I +felt so ashamed and humiliated. + +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful +when dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold +bath, however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee +afterwards did me good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian's +maid, knocked at my door to ask if I were up, and if she could help me +do my hair. "Her Ladyship" sent me her love, and hoped I had rested +nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I was looking well. + +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared +at myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had +made so little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, +perhaps, but my cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose +while one is young one can suffer a good deal and one's face tell no +secret. + +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car +which Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and +Lisa and I had planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a +waste of time to be in Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But +when I tapped at Lisa's door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first +greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want +to go with us to see the Rajah's automobile. While I was with her Aunt +Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome. + +She was "so sorry" for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back +after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough +by that time for the shopping expedition. + +The automobile really was a "magnificent animal," as Aunt Lil said, and +it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to +tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it. +It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a +detail. _Any_ car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, +or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such +heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the +gold toilet things, in a pale grey suède case, they were beyond words, +and she must have them--the motor also, of course, since it went with +them. + +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the +two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary +member. + +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah's +agent and the car paid for. At two o'clock, when we were to meet the men +at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything +had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to +motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train. Lord +Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the +Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the +car across the Channel in a cargo boat. + +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over +anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too +much occupied to notice. + +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt +Lil didn't notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she +doesn't like her, and it is only when you really care for people that +you observe changes in them when you are busy thinking of your own +affairs. + +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she +would have the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but +she was dressed and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she +said, and though she didn't buy anything when she was with us, while we +were at a milliner's in the Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, +she disappeared on some errand of her own, and only came back just as we +were ready to leave the shop. Whatever it was that she had been doing, +it had interested her and waked her out of herself, for her eyes looked +brighter and she had spots of colour on her cheeks. + +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many +things in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord +Bob at the Ritz, by two o'clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We +were not more than ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: +and the short time that we'd kept them waiting wasn't enough to account +for the solemnity of the two men's faces as they came forward to meet +us. + +"Something's gone wrong about the car!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. + +"No, the car's all right," said Lord Bob. "I've got you a chauffeur too, +and--" + +"Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet +blankets, or something disagreeable. It surely can't be because you're +hungry that you're cross about a few minutes." + +"Have you seen a newspaper to-day?" asked Uncle Eric. + +"A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we've had too many important +things to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone +out?" + +"Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here," Uncle Eric answered, looking +very much worried--so much worried that I thought he must care even more +about Ivor than I had fancied. + +"Of course it's the most awful rot," said Lord Bob, "but he's accused of +murder." + +"It's in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones," +Uncle Eric went on. "We've only just seen the news since we came here to +wait for you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As +it is, of course I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I +can to help him through. But that needn't keep the rest of you from +going on to-day as you planned." + +"What an awful thing!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. "I will stay too, if the +girls don't mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel +that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I've got thousands of +engagements--we all have--but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about +you, Lord Bob?" + +"I'll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart," said he, his nice though +not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his +blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. "Dundas and I have +never been intimate, but he's a fine chap, and I've always admired him. +He's sure to come out of this all right." + +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I +felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of +whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in +past days. + +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I +should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem +to think it strange that I had nothing to say. + +"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask. + +"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric. + +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor +accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened? + +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the +lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. + +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was +almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, +of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been +that. + +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was +conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow +for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who +had been his rival. + +"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just +going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. +"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean, +some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't +supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do +with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under +another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing +sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow, +apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find, +for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas +had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to +the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following +up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt +for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there +he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and +the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold." + +"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first +question she had asked. + +"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered +Lord Bob. + +"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. +"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The +idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They +ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging +England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't +they, Eric?" + +"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of +the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The +evidence--entirely circumstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor. +And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an +Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French +law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman." + +"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. + +"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's +worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a +man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, +presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the +evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than +they have done." + +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I +do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride +themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy! + +"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call +it an alibi?" asked Lisa. + +"He didn't try to," replied Lord Bob. "He's simply refused, up to the +present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o'clock and the time +he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going +to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies +killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the +boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to +the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing +back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already +ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; +that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the +scene." + +"Couldn't he have shown the note sent by the thief?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he +wouldn't tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except +that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the +case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, +no doubt he has good reasons." + +"He has no good luck, anyhow!" sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. + +"Rather not--so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him +is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +swears that though Dundas hadn't been in the place much above half an +hour when the detective arrived, he was there then _for the second +time_, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, +according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the +concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a +man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On +hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre's room. By and by the Englishman +went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. +After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for +Gestre, who announced that he'd been before; and now he vows that it was +the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he +could prove that he'd been in the house no more than half an hour, it +might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been +dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can't or won't +prove it--that's his luck again!--and nobody can be found who saw him in +any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last moment +that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who'd taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not +so very far from the Élysée Palace. Then it was only between five and +ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de +la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the +doctors say the fellow must have died. It's a bad scrape. But of course +Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end." + +"Do _you_ think he will, Eric?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"I hope so with all my heart," he answered. But his face showed that he +was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down--down. + +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my +resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had +happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he +cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me--indeed, on the contrary, +everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had +refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that +the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to +defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. + +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and +I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on +earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk +went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do +it, if Lisa and I should act together. + +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get +back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit +long at lunch, so it wasn't yet three when I called her into my room. +The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we +were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for +Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had +said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and +telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa +and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly +what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. + +"I think the only thing for us to do," I said, "is to tell what we know, +and save Ivor in spite of himself." + +"How can anything you know save him?" she asked, with a queer, faint +emphasis which I didn't understand. + +"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in +the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house +there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away. +It all hangs on the time." + +"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me. + +I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?" + +"No, not unless I choose to say so." + +"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course." + +"Why?" + +"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend." + +"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another." + +"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter +except saving him?" + +"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor +Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to +understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt +it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do +it, not you. He'll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there's +something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of +value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back +at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it." + +"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and +her words. + +"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm +saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great +deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your +aunt were thinking about hats." + +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange +idea sprang into my mind: + +"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!" + +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to +this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important. + +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or +not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and +that she had wanted to tantalise me. + +"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I +do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man +mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to +tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a +very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile." + +I'm afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn't bear to think that she was my +step-sister, and I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood +ran in our veins. + +"If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own," I broke +out, "you can't prevent me from telling the whole story, as _I_ know +it--how I went out with you, and all that." + +"I can't prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to--for +Ivor's sake," she answered. + +"For his sake?" + +"Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. +For his sake, because _neither_ of us knows when he came out of Maxine +de Renzie's house. You _would_ go away, though I wanted to stay and +watch. He may not have been there more than five minutes for all we can +tell to the contrary, in which case he would still have had time to go +straight off to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in +accordance with the doctors' statements about the death. For _your_ +sake, because if he knows that you tracked him to Maxine de Renzie's +house, he won't respect you very much; and because he would probably be +furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, for +injuring the reputation of the woman he's risked so much to save. He'd +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her." + +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. + +"Ivor would know that I'm incapable of such baseness." + +"I'm not sure he'd hold you above it. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned'--and he _has_ scorned you--for an actress." + +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood +rush up to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to +my eyes. + +"You see I'm right, don't you?" Lisa asked. + +"You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way--and +that he wouldn't wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest," I +said. "We won't talk of it any more. I can't stand it. Please go back to +your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone." + +"Very well," she snapped, "_you_ called me in. I didn't ask to come." + +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. +I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or +offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if +necessary. Lisa is a strange little creature. She will do a good deal +for money. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to +enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been +utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made +me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; +but in my desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, +and find out some other way of helping him. At all events he should know +that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble. + +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not +be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there +was a "perhaps" I wouldn't give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more +cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, +for I hadn't taken off my hat and coat since coming in. + +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of +that sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that +if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation +with an accused man, as his friend, an interview--probably with a +witness--might possibly be granted. The authorities might think that we +were engaged, for all I cared. I did not care about anything now, except +seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could. + +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the +chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. +Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of +Uncle Eric's and Aunt Lilian's. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but +I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor. That idea had +apparently not been in his mind at all. Anyway, the Ambassador would +already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of +Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from +me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I +first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed +a good deal and said that in future he would be "surprised at nothing an +American girl might do." + +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. +There, I sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I +didn't explain much, but came to the point immediately, and said that I +wanted--oh, but wanted and needed very much indeed--to see Ivor Dundas. +Could he, would he help me to do that? + +"Ought I to help you?" he asked. "Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?" + +"Yes," I said firmly. "They would approve. You see, it is necessary." + +"Then, if it's necessary--and I believe you when you say that it is," he +answered, "I'll do what I can." + +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief +of Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a +young lady related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, +should be allowed five minutes' conversation with the Englishman accused +of murder, Mr. Ivor Dundas. + +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and +because I was so restless and excited that I must be doing something +every instant--something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. + +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I +received an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where +they had put Ivor. This, he explained, would procure me the interview I +wanted, but unfortunately, I must not hope to see my friend alone. A +warder who understood English would have to be present. + +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it +would be to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible +circumstances, or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now +that we were no longer anything to each other--not even friends. But a +kind of ague-terror crept over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little +bare, stuffy reception room. My head was going round and round, my heart +was pounding so that I could not make up my mind what to say to Ivor +when he came. + +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and +when it opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue +uniforms. One of them walked into the room with him--I suppose he must +have been a warder--but he stopped near the door, and in a second I had +forgotten all about him. He simply ceased to exist for me, when my eyes +and Ivor's had met. + +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, +stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make +him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my +words of yesterday. + +"We're all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas," I said. "I don't know if +Uncle Eric has been here yet--but he is doing all he can, and Aunt +Lilian is dreadfully upset. We're staying on in Paris on account of--on +account of this. So you see you've got friends near you. And I--we're +such old friends, I couldn't help trying as hard as I could for a sight +of you to--to cheer you up, and--and to help you, if that's possible." + +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but +pretending to smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes +were full of tears, and I was afraid they'd go splashing down my cheeks, +if I even winked my lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt +capable of forgiving him anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, +and if only, _only_ he really loved me and not that other. + +"Thank you, a hundred times--more than I can express," he said, with a +faint quiver in his voice--his beautiful voice, which was the first +thing that charmed me after knowing him. "It _does_ cheer me to see you. +It gives me strength and courage. You wouldn't have come if you +didn't--trust me, and believe me innocent." + +"Why, of course, I--we--believe you innocent of any crime," I faltered. + +"And of any lack of faith?" + +"Oh, as for that, how can--but don't let's speak of that. What can it +matter now?" + +"It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say +that you will have faith!" + +"I'll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort." + +"Not unless you mean it." + +"Then--I'll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?" + +"It's better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, +you're not to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or +later, though I may have to suffer some annoyances first." + +"Annoyances?" I echoed. "If there were nothing worse!" + +"There won't be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a +huge mistake--another warning against trusting to circumstantial +evidence." + +"Is there nothing we can do then? Or--that we would urge _others_ to +do?" I asked, hoping he would understand that I meant _one_ +other--Maxine de Renzie. + +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; +but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. + +"There is one thing _you_ could do for me--you and no one else," he +said. "But I have no right to ask it." + +"Tell me what it is," I implored. + +"I would not, if it didn't mean more than my life to me." He hesitated, +and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a +few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as +familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still +existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me +sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught +him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three +or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a +diplomatic career. + +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the +warder--almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform +came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. + +"That is forbidden," he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. "What +language was that?" + +"Spanish," I answered. "He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very +dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It +was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me." + +"Nevertheless, it is forbidden," repeated the warder obstinately, "and +though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the +prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and +must be reported." + +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to +me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole +French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman +dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to +know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I +could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think! + +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half +sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his +head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as +plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know you won't fail me." + +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage +not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, +and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did +not mean more than his life. + +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were +these: "Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony +find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. +Every moment counts." + +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie! +And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. + +As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared +more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a +thing of me. But--it "meant more than his life." And I would do the +thing, if it could be done, because of my pride. + +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed +me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known +that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to +which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there. + +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over--with success or +failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed. + +I hadn't looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night's +dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had +said to myself that I didn't wish to read the newspaper accounts of the +murder, and of Ivor's supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, +that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder +was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously +grim one--like the tragedy that had been acted in it. + +I couldn't tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That +would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out +from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be +plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going +back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once +I was there. Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I +pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards. + +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. +Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of +chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble +tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper. + +It was a shock to find Ivor's photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at +me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a +good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor's disgust, at about the +time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really +wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been +on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the +newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, +built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I +knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been +committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the +window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed--according to Girard, the +detective--to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, +on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead +man's room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a +bull's-eye lantern, which he--Girard--carried, standing at bay in the +open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside. +There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with +another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the +picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of +distance between the railings of those two balconies. + +"That would be my way to get there--if I can get there at all," I said +to myself. But there was hardly any "if" left in my mind now. I meant to +get there. + +By this time it was after five o'clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and +again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a _petit bleu_ to +Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn't to worry about me. I'd been hipped +and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was--I'd just found +out--staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; +but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o'clock. That would save a +bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American +friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to +search for me, even if they were inclined. + +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and +dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two +mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of +the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left--the house of the +balcony almost adjoining the dead man's. + +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms +to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the +advertisement of "_Chambres à louer_" staring me in the face: but I +spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every +sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me. + +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been +too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had +jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young +American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to "write +up" the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of +course the police wouldn't let me go into the room where it happened, +the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house +adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to "get the emotion, +the sensation," I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic. +Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with +my writing. + +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was +almost sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would +willingly agree to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their +trouble in turning out. + +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge--whose eyes +brightened--thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take +a large commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; +but that didn't matter to me. + +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get +into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, +saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who +were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I +could see the shut window from the balcony of the room I was going to +hire. + +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he +went upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining +to the people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far +strained, he came back to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had +consented to go out of their room for the evening. They were dining at +the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must be pleased to wait a few +moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a few things which +they could carry to a neighbour's: books, and work for their hours of +absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a +parcel of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an +unscrupulous American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment +must be made in advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then--I waited, +waited. It was tedious, but after all, the tediousness didn't matter +much when I came to think of it. It would be impossible to do the thing +I had made up my mind to do, till after dark. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, +Raoul and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed +overwhelming. He did not see in glaring scarlet letters always before +his eyes these two words: "The treaty," as I did--for my punishment. He +was in happy ignorance still of that other loss which I--I, to whom his +honour should have been sacred--had inflicted upon him. He was satisfied +with my story; that through a person employed by me--a person whose name +could not yet be mentioned, even to him--the necklace had been snatched +from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly for +thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, +for letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his +mind by his "wicked jealousy," as he repentantly called it. For me, he +had nothing but praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He +begged me to forgive him, and his remorse for such a small thing, +comparatively--wrung my heart. + +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search +the little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that +there was witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded +him to go away, and follow his own track wherever he had been since I +gave him the bag with the diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so +late, and his way had led him through quiet streets, that even after all +this time the little brocade bag might be lying where he had left it--or +that some honest policeman on his beat might have picked it up. Besides, +there was the cab in which he had come part of the distance to my house. +The bag might have fallen on the floor while he drove: and there were +many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be as cheerful as +I could. + +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep--no +wish for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor +Dundas gone, as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart +was that he might by and by come back, or send--with news. Hour after +hour of deadly suspense passed on, and he did not come or make any sign. +At five o'clock Marianne, who had flitted about all night like a +restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot chocolate, and actually put +me to bed. My last words to her were: "What is the use? I can't sleep. +It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up." + +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I'm +sure she must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I +was far too much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please +her, to think whether or no there was anything at all peculiar in the +taste. + +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was +nearly noon. + +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant +wish not to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. +However, when Marianne came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the +electric bell, she said that no one had been. There were letters and one +telegram, and all the morning papers, as usual after the first night of +a new play. + +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I +thought it might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, +even if he hadn't yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; +and he had not found the brocade bag. He did not put this in so many +words, but said, "I have not found what was lost, or learned anything of +it." + +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have +wired, or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. +He might, unless--something had happened to him. There was that to think +of; and I did think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I +had not suffered yet all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant +to the Élysée Palace Hotel to enquire for him, and despatched Henri +immediately. Meanwhile, as there was nothing to do, after pretending to +eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of Marianne, I pretended also to +read the newspaper notices of the play. But each sentence went out of my +head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end only that, according +to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had "surpassed herself," had been +"astonishingly great," had done "what no woman could do unless she threw +her whole soul into her part." How little they knew where Maxine de +Renzie's soul had been last night! And--only God knew where it might be +this night. Out of her body, perhaps--the one way of escape from Raoul's +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. + +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the +name he had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had +nothing to tell which was consoling--rather the other way. The gentleman +had gone out about midnight (I knew that already), and hadn't returned +since. Henri had been to the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he +admitted to me on being catechised, that his questions had been answered +with a certain reserve, as if more were known of the absent gentleman's +movements than it was considered wise to tell. + +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he +had delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he "thought that +Mademoiselle would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with +praise of her great acting." It was on my tongue to scold him for +stopping even one moment, when he had been told to hurry, but he looked +so pleased at his own cleverness that I hadn't the heart to dash his +happiness. I would, however, have pushed the papers aside without so +much as glancing at them, if it hadn't suddenly occurred to me that, if +any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might possibly have got into +print by this time. + +When I read what had happened--how he was accused of murder, and while +declaring his innocence had been silent as to all those events which +might have proved it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. +Here was a man! A man loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to +be, but few are! He had sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to +keep my name out of the mud into which my business had thrown him, and +to save me from appearing in Raoul's eyes the liar that I was. Had Ivor +told that he was with me, after I had prevaricated (if I had not +actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor to my house, what +would Raoul think of me? + +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save +me when he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had +decided to go I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and +happy to-day. + +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to +the Chief of Police and say: "Monsieur, this English gentleman they have +arrested cannot have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +between twelve and one last night, for he came to my house, far away in +the Rue d'Hollande, at a quarter past twelve, and didn't leave it till +after one o'clock." + +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, +to ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her +order my electric brougham immediately. But--I sat down again, sick and +despairing, deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn't obey +it. I dared not. By and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing +danger, then certainly. But not now. + +At four o'clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us +tried to cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even +yet he would have news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking +me ill and tired out, did all he could to persuade me that he was not +miserable with anxiety. At least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky +or of any man, and was humbly repentant for his suspicions of me the +night before. When Raoul is repentant, and wishes to atone for something +that he has done, he is enchanting. There was never a man like him. + +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn't +slept much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I +should disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a +fright--or perhaps even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had +done. I felt that I was no longer mistress of myself--that I might be +capable of any folly. + +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the +theatre, where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be +busy; and in my part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. + +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on +dressing at once, and took as long as I could in the process of making +up; still, when I was ready there was more than half an hour to spare +before the first act. There were letters for me--the kind that always +come to the theatre--but I couldn't read them, after I had occupied +myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew what they would be: vows +of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; petitions for +advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; requests +from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. + +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly +at crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne +opened it, to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. + +"Mademoiselle," she whispered, coming to me, "Monsieur le Comte Godensky +wishes to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?" + +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn +something. If not--if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please +himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away. + +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. +He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one +is sure. + +"Well?" I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He +held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when +he had come too close. + +"Well--I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought +you would be glad to see--even me," he answered, smiling still. + +"What news? But bad, of course--or you wouldn't bring it." + +"You are very cruel. Of course, you've seen the evening papers? You know +that your English friend is in prison?" + +"The same English friend whom _you_ would have liked to see arrested +early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge," I flung at him. +"You look surprised. But you are _not_ surprised, Count +Godensky--except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at +the Élysée Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn't it? But +you haven't told me your news." + +"It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack +to-day." + +"What do you mean?" + +"He has been in the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the +same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if +some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, +and what answers he made?" + +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky +came! I had been thinking of the Juge d'Instruction, and his terrible +cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without +trembling. I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given +which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them. +Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I reminded myself that this was +impossible. No one could know except the Juge d'Instruction and Ivor +Dundas himself. "Only two men were present at that scene, and they will +never tell what went on," I said aloud. + +"Three men were present," Godensky answered. "Besides the two of whom +you think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is +permitted nowadays that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be +accompanied by his legal adviser when he goes before the Juge +d'Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of the language might +handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would prejudice his +case." + +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke +French as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. + +"The adviser your friend has chosen," Godensky went on, "happens to be a +protégé of mine. I made him--gave him his first case, his first success; +and have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. +Dundas seems to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last +night, it was Girard. To-day, it is Lenormand." + +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn't let Godensky see that I +winced under it. + +"You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your +various protégés," I said--"as well as those of your enemies. But if the +information in the one case is no more trustworthy than in the +other--why, you're not faithfully served. I've good reason to know that +you've made several mistakes lately, and you're likely to make more." + +"Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don't call yourself my 'enemy'?" + +"I don't know of a more appropriate name--after the baseness that you +haven't even tried to hide, in your dealings with me." + +"I thought all was fair in love and war." + +"Do you make war on women?" + +"No--I make love to them." + +"To many, I dare say. But here is one who won't listen." + +"At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?" + +"Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting--even if not accurate." + +"I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened--that he'd been mixed up in this case--and +expressed myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, +friends of whom were intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no +question of treachery on Lenormand's part. He trusts me--as you do not. +Indeed, I even offered my help for Dundas, if I could give it +consistently with my position. Naturally, he told me nothing which could +be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if I wished to go +against him--which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do not." + +"I read the proof rather differently," I said. "But go on. I'm sure you +are anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point." + +"In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important +questions put by the Juge d'Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas +the explanation of a document found on him by the police--ah, that wakes +you up, Mademoiselle! You are surprised that a document was found on the +prisoner?" + +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to +lose it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. + +"I rather hope it was not a letter from me," I said. "You know so much, +that you probably know I admitted to the police at the Élysée Palace a +strong friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But +London ways are different from the ways of Paris. It isn't agreeable to +be gossipped about, however unjustly, even if one is--only an actress." + +"You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might +have been--a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any +indiscretion, especially a romantic one--any indiscretion _except +treachery_. There might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du +Laurier, for instance." + +I shivered. "We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d'Instruction," +I reminded him. "You have wandered from the point again." + +"There are so many points--all sharp as swords for those they may +pierce. Well, the important question was in relation to a letter--yes. +But the letter was not from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in +English, and it made an appointment at the very address where the crime +was committed. It was, as nearly as I could make out, a request from a +person calling himself a jeweller's assistant, for the receiver of the +letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This case had been +committed to Mr. Dundas' care, it appeared, while travelling from London +to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d'Instruction that +his own packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but +papers _entirely personal,_ concerning himself alone. + +"'What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into +your pocket?' asked the Juge d'Instruction--Lenormand tells me. + +"'A necklace,' answered Mr. Dundas. + +"'A necklace of diamonds?' + +"'Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn't much interested in it.' + +"'Ah, was this not the necklace which you--staying at the Élysée Palace +under another name--gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?' +was the next question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas' head. Now, you see, +Mademoiselle, that my story is not dull." + +"Am I to hear the rest--according to your protégé?" I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky's neck, till he +had no more breath or wickedness left in him. + +"Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d'Instruction, a most +clever and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought +you a present of diamonds, it was something entirely different, and +therefore far removed from this case. + +"'Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie's lover?' was the next enquiry. 'I +admire her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,' +your friend returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to +see what there is in this string of questions and answers to bring me +straight to you?" + +"No, Count Godensky, I do not," I answered steadily. But a sudden +illuminating ray did show me, even as I spoke, what _might_ be in his +scheming mind. + +"Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You +love him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, +he is a very proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him +well; and he would not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds +from another man, saying as she takes them that he is her lover." + +"He wouldn't believe it of me!" I cried. + +"There is a way of convincing him. Oh, _I_ shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d'Instruction and +Mr. Dundas, unless--" + +"Unless?--but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself." + +"Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, +Maxine. I mean to have you--or I will crush you, and now you know I can. +Choose." + +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as +for a moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: + +"Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn't make me love +you less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are--as he will +know soon unless you let me save you? Yet I--I would love you if you +were a murderess as well as a--spy." + +"It is you who are a spy!" I faltered, now all but broken. + +"If I am, I haven't spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du +Laurier, and before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all +ways." + +"No--no," I gasped. "You cannot. You're boasting. You can do nothing." + +"Nothing to-night, perhaps. I'm not speaking of to-night. I am giving +you time. But to-morrow--or the day after. It's much the same to me. At +first, when I began to suspect that something had been taken from its +place, I had no proof. I had to get that, and I did get it--nearly all I +wanted. This affair of Dundas might have been planned for my advantage. +It is perfect. All its complications are just so many links in a chain +for me. Girard--the man Dundas chose to employ--was the very man I'd +sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To watch your friend the +British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on the bare +suspicion that there'd been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when--Dundas called on him." + +"What connection can Ivor Dundas' coming to Paris have with Raoul du +Laurier?" I dared to ask. + +"You know best as to that." + +"They have never met. Both are men of honour, and--" + +"Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to +suffer for being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a +man--a man of honour, as you say--would feel when he found out the +woman!" + +"A woman can be calumniated as well as a man," I said. "You are so +unscrupulous you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier +has done nothing; I--I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you +can lie about us, ruin him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, +and--and do terrible harm to me." + +"I can--without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you'll give up +du Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have +you. You are the one woman worthy of me." + +"You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening--at this time--to decide. Will you promise me that?" + +"No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in +your mind now. I won't risk losing you. I have waited long enough +already. Give me a ring of yours, and a written word from you to du +Laurier, saying that you find you have made a mistake; and not only will +I do nothing to injure him, but will guard against the discovery of--you +know what. Besides, as a matter of course, I'll bring all my influence +to bear in keeping your name out of this or any other scandal. I can do +much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was through me the +Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it--for my +future wife." + +"No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the +way you wish," I said. "If--if I am to give him up, I must tell him with +my own lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will +hold your hand until then." + +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was +trying to read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. + +"You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?" + +"By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like +you, I pledge my word that--that--if I can't break with Raoul, to let +you know the first thing in the morning, and dare you to do--what you +will." + +"You will not 'dare' me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait--a +little longer." + +"Until this time to-morrow?" + +"No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another +twelve hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to +that?" + +"I agree." My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he +understood, and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to +snatch my hand. I drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne +appeared at the door. + +"There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle," she announced, her +good-natured, open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. "A +young lady who sends this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it +at once, and consent to see her." + +Thankful that the tête-à-tête had been interrupted, I held out my hand +for the letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written +below the lines which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, +and found it strange to me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch +at the chance of ridding myself immediately of Godensky, the few words +above the unfamiliar name would have made me say as I did say, "Bring +the young lady in at once." + + "I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was + of the greatest and most pressing importance. + + "DIANA FORREST." + +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely +filled with arguments could not have moved me more. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +MAXINE MEETS DIANA + +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to +all appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered +in a girl--a tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an +artist. + +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at +each other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed +the quarter hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. + +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her--lovely +and lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on +its petals--a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair +garden, far out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how +different her sweet, girl's life had been from my stormy if sometimes +brilliant career. + +"Mr. Dundas sent you to me?" I asked. "When did you see him? Surely +not--since--" + +"This afternoon," she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding +voice, with a soft little drawl of the South in it. "I went to see him. +They gave us five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in +Spanish, just a few words, he--Mr. Dundas--managed to tell me a thing he +wished me to do. He said it meant more than his life, so I did it; for +we have been friends, and just now he's helpless. The warder was angry, +and stopped our conversation at once, though the five minutes weren't +ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there wasn't a moment to lose." + +"Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!" I +exclaimed. + +"I had something else to do first," she said, in the same quiet voice. +She was looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that +they made a shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. + +"Even before I saw--Mr. Dundas," she went on, "I had the idea of calling +on you--about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, +if before I go on I tell you that--quite by accident, so far as I was +concerned--I was with someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last +night, a little after twelve. I didn't dream of spying on--either of +you. It just happened, it wouldn't interest you to know how. Yet--I beg +of you to tell me one thing. Was he with you for long--so long that he +couldn't have got to the other place in time to commit the murder?" + +"He was in my house until after one," I said boldly. "But you, if you +are his friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such +an assurance from me, that he is no murderer." + +"Oh, I am certain," she protested. "I asked the question, not for that +reason, but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you +choose. Now, I find you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at +first I wanted to rush off to the police and tell them where he had been +while the murder was being committed. But I didn't know how long he had +stopped in your house, and, besides--" + +"You would have dared to do that!" I broke in, the blood, angry blood, +stinging my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. + +"It wasn't a question of daring," she answered. "I thought of him more +than of you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your +place, no matter how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess +that he had been in my house." + +"There are reasons why I can't tell that he was there," I said, trying +to awe her by speaking coldly and proudly. "His visit was entirely on +business. But Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he +approves. You know he has remained silent himself." + +"For your sake, because he is a gentleman--brave and chivalrous. Would +you take advantage of that?" + +"You take advantage of me," I flung back at the girl, looking her up and +down. "You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message +for me. Do you want me to believe _this_ his message? I think too well +of him." + +"I don't want you to believe that," she answered. "I haven't come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own +account." + +"In twelve minutes I must be on the stage," I said. + +"The stage!" she echoed. "You can go on acting just the same, though he +is in prison--for you!" + +"I must go on acting. If I didn't, I should do him more harm than good." + +"I won't keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you _will_ do him +good. If you care for him at all, you must want to save him." + +"If I care for him?" I repeated, in surprise. "You think--oh, but I +understand now. You are the girl he spoke of." + +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. + +"I did not think he would speak of me," she said. "I wish he hadn't. +But, if you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see +that you have nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de +Renzie." + +"Why," I exclaimed, "you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover." + +"I don't know what you are to each other," she faltered, all her +coolness deserting her. "That isn't my affair--" + +"But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares +nothing for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a +little a year ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man +whom I worship. I would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and +is glad. But the other man is jealous. He wouldn't understand--he would +want to kill me and himself and Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in +my house last night. He was there too, and I lied to him about Ivor. How +could I expect him to believe the real truth now? He is a man. But _you_ +will believe, because you are a woman, like myself, and I think the +woman Ivor Dundas loves." + +Her beautiful eyes brightened. "He told you--that?" + +"He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her +because of the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been +as unreasonable with him, as Ra--as the man I love could be with me. +Poor Ivor! Last night was not the first time that he sacrificed himself +for chivalry and honour. Yet you blame me! Look to yourself, Miss +Forrest." + +"I--I don't blame you," she stammered, a sob in her voice. "Only I beg +you to save him, from gratitude, if not from love." + +"It's true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know," I +answered. "He is worth trusting--worth saving, at the expense of almost +any sacrifice. But I can't sacrifice the man I love for him." + +She looked thoughtful. "You say the man you were engaged to was at your +house while Ivor was there?" + +"Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied." + +"He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your +gate?" + +"He confessed that, when I'd made him repent his jealousy. Why do you +ask? You saw him?" + +"I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of +value near your house?" + +"Great heavens, yes!" I cried. "What do you know of that?" + +"I know--something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for +him--if you will promise to help Ivor." + +"Oh, shame," I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. "You are +trying to bribe me!" + +"Yes, but I am not ashamed," the girl answered, holding her head high. +"I have not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you--this +very night or to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask." + +"I tell you I cannot," I said. "Not even to get back that thing whose +loss was the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin +myself and--another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If +we talked of this together all night, it could make no difference. And +I'm in great trouble, great trouble of my own." + +"Has your trouble anything to do with a document?" Miss Forrest slowly +asked. + +I started, and stared at her, breathless. + +"It has!" she answered for me. "Your face tells me so." + +"Has Ivor's message--to do with that?" I almost gasped. + +"Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want +news--if you want the document, it must be through me." + +"Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you +can get it for me, I will do," I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. + +"I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a +little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?" + +"I must," I said, "if you have the document to sell, and are determined +to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my +life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to +him. Still, it will save him from--" I stopped, and bit my lip. "Will +you give me the diamonds, too?" I asked, humbly enough now. + +"The diamonds?" She looked bewildered. + +"The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the +bag?" + +"Yes, they are--they will be in the bag," the girl answered, her +charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. "You +shall have the diamonds, and the document, too, for that one promise." + +"How is it possible that you can give me the document?" I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured +because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through +this girl seemed incredible. + +"Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it," she said simply. "That was +why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn't +quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or +advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the +balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be +allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I +thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next +door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after +dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't +as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so +high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the +climbing back. I don't know how the document came in the box, though I +suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up +in a towel; and it's quite clean." + +"I think," I said slowly, when she had finished her story, "that you +have a right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave +girl." + +"It's not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I'm going +to give the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I +know you'll pay. And I hope, oh, I _feel_, it won't hurt you as you +think it will." + +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long +pocket of a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt +it, I clasped it. I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me +tremble. + +"Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?" I asked. + +"No," she said. "It was yours, or Ivor's. Of course I didn't look." + +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The +fifteen minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its +price. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If +Godensky knew, as he may have known--since he seemed to know all my +movements--perhaps he thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, +and sending him away from me for ever. But, though the game was not in +my hands yet, the treaty was; and I had made up my mind to defy +Godensky. + +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; +and never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in +the morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst +against Raoul du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two +except death? Then he would have fair warning that I did not intend to +do the thing to which he had nearly forced me; and I would fight him, +when he tried to take revenge. But meanwhile, before he got that letter, +I would--I must--find some way of putting the treaty back in its place +at the Foreign Office. + +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, +even when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political +treachery, Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the +relief I felt after the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been +drowning for the last few days gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration +that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints that I had news of the +necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him in his office as +soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to surprise him +pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the greatest +joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment for +nine o'clock next day. + +When he had gone, I wrote a note--a very short note--to Count Godensky. +I wanted to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty +was in the safe whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at +once, by messenger; and it would still be very early in the day, I +hoped. + +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning +which followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I +think that I had not slept at all, but that didn't matter. I felt strong +and fresh, and my heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to +chance. I had a plan, and knew how I meant to play the last hand in the +game. It might go against me. But I held a high trump. Again, as before, +Raoul received me alone. + +"Dearest," he exclaimed, "I know your news must be good, for you look so +bright and beautiful. Tell me--tell me!" + +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. + +"You're too impatient," I said. "To punish you for asking about the +wretched diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed +of you, I shall make you pay a penalty." + +"Any penalty you will," he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke--for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. + +"Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper," I +said. + +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note +into an envelope. + +"Now, this is very precious," I went on. "It tells you all you want to +know. But--I'm going to post it." + +"No, no!" he protested. "I can't wait for the post." + +"Oh, I wouldn't trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it +were insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other +day, and I'll put this valuable document in among the others, not more +valuable to the country than this ought to be to you. I'll hide it +there, and you must shut up the safe without looking for it, till I've +gone. Then, you must count ten, and after that--you may search. +Remember, you said you'd submit to any penalty, so no excuses, no +complaints." + +Raoul laughed. "You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you +are a sorceress, and have bewitched me." + +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my +whim. But I gaily motioned him behind me. "If you stand there you can +see where I put it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back." + +He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's +secrets." + +"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.) +"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least." + +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real +one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written +where he could not help finding it at first or second glance. + +"Now you can close the safe," I said. + +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from +my heart, "Thank Heaven!" + +"I must leave you," I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious +no longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to +open the cage of Godensky's vengeance, and--I was afraid of him. + +"I may come to you as soon as I'm free?" Raoul asked. + +"Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and--what you think +of me," I said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he +might continue to think of me all things good--far better than I +deserved, yet not better than I would try to deserve in the future, if I +were permitted to spend that future with him. + +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight +now. + +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a +way in which, I hoped, that promise--fulfilled as I meant to fulfil +it--might help rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for +nothing. + +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a +patron of the theatre--when he can spare time from his work. I had met +him, and had reason to know that he admired my acting. + +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; +and he was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of +that scene at the Élysée Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew +everything--so far as his subordinate could report. + +"Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?" I asked. + +"A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world," he gallantly replied. + +"But you can guess what has brought me?" + +"Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre +this evening." + +"It is partly that," I laughed. "Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, +of course. And partly--you know already, since you know everything, that +I am a friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder +which he could not possibly have committed." + +"Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a +loyal friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?" + +"For that--and to offer you the stage-box for to-night." + +"A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication--" + +"It's this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to +the doctors' statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it's a +hard thing for me to come and tell you this!" I went on hastily. "Not +that I'm ashamed to have received a call from him at that hour, as it +was necessary to see him then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris +early in the morning. But--because I'm engaged to be married to--perhaps +you know that, though, among other things?" + +"I've heard--a rumour. I didn't know that it amounted to an engagement. +Monsieur du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated." + +"I love him dearly," I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, +but because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears +rose to my eyes. "I am true to him, and always have been. But--he is +horribly jealous. I can't explain Mr. Dundas' night visit in a way to +satisfy him. If Raoul finds out that an Englishman--well-known, but of +whom I never spoke--was at my house after midnight, he will believe I +have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would help me to keep this +secret I am telling you so frankly!" + +"Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?" asked the Chief of +Police gravely. + +"Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to +break with Raoul du Laurier." + +"Dear Mademoiselle," said the good and gallant man, "trust me to do the +best I can for you." (I could see that my tears had moved him.) "A grief +to you would be a blow to Paris. Yet--well, as you have been frank, I +owe it to you to be equally so on my side. I should before this have +sent--quite privately and in a friendly way, to question you about this +Mr. Dundas, who passed under another name at the hotel where you called +upon him; but I received a request from a very high quarter to wait +before communicating with you. Now, as you have come to me, I suppose I +may speak." + +"Ask me any questions you choose," I said, "and I'll answer them." + +"Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how +do you explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. +Dundas?" + +"That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell +you," I answered him; "for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I +throw myself upon your mercy." + +"You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?" + +"Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little +flirtation with Mr. Dundas--no more, though we liked and admired each +other. We exchanged a few silly letters, and I forgot all about them +until I fell in love with Raoul and promised to marry him--only a short +time ago. Then I couldn't bear to think that I had written these foolish +letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have kept them. I wrote and +asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and valued them +immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them to +me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him +that I'd meet him at the Élysée Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to +receive the letters from him." + +"He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, +since there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?" + +"He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl +who lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn't +want the girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there +had been a little talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she +didn't like it." + +"I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first +thing in the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the +British Secretary for Foreign Affairs." + +"Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl--a Miss +Forrest, is distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She +lives with her aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that +gentleman. And the Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart." + +"Ah, Miss Forrest!" + +"You know of her already?" + +"I have heard her name." + +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) + +"You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I," I went on. +"But I'll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you +can't have found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters--half +a dozen. He gave me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast +pocket, saying the letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something +had gone wrong with the electricity, and I hadn't let him push back the +curtains, for fear I might be seen from outside, if the lights should +suddenly come on. He didn't see the case, as he handed it to me, nor +could I. Just at that instant there was a knock at the door; and quick +as thought I pushed the leather case down between the seat and back of +the sofa." + +"But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery +threatened you because of a knock at the door?" + +"I'll tell you. There is a man--I won't mention his name, but you know +it very well, and maybe it is in your mind now--who wants me to marry +him. He has wanted it for some time--I think because he admires women +who are before the public and applauded by the world; also, perhaps, +because I have refused him, and he is one who wants most what he finds +hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, but he has some power and +a good deal of influence, because he is very highly connected, and when +people have 'axes to grind' he helps to grind them. He has suspected for +some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has hated +Raoul. I have fancied--that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance +slip to separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between +us--or he would try to ruin Raoul, or crush me--anything to keep us +apart. When I saw the Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and +though I didn't know what pretext had brought him, I said to myself +'That is the work of--'" + +"Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle." + +"I didn't mean to. I leave that to your--imagination. 'This is the work +of the man whose love is more cruel than hate,' I thought. While I +wondered what possible use the police could make of my letters, I was +shaking with terror lest they should come upon them and they should +somehow fall into--a certain man's hands. Then, at last, they did find +the case, just as I'd begun to hope it was safe. I begged the Commissary +of Police not to open it. In vain. When he did, what was my relief to +see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!--my relief and my +surprise. And now I'm going to confide in you the secret of another, +speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. + +"Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du +Laurier, and he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a +dear friend of his--an inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She +dared not tell her husband of money that she'd lost, but begged Raoul to +sell the diamonds for her in Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. +On his way there the necklace was stolen by an expert thief, who must +somehow have learned what was going on through the pawnbroker with whom +the jewels had been in pledge--for a few thousand francs only. You can +imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace returned in such a +miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it back, +meaning to give it to me as a surprise--and the letters afterwards. And +it was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price--evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation--and also to +avoid any association of Raoul's name with the necklace, that I told the +Commissary of Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. +I spoke impulsively, in sheer desperation; and the instant the words +were out I would have cut off my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. +But what good to deny what I had just said? The men wouldn't have +believed me. + +"When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he +thought he had given them to me--and he knew no more of the diamonds in +their red case than I did--far less, indeed. + +"I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul's sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed +that his own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from +his pocket in the train, though he couldn't imagine why the diamonds had +been given to him instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of +his, who had acted queerly; and he determined to try and find the man. +He was to bring me news after the theatre at my house, about midnight. + +"He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. +Friends of his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me +this, and that after going out on a false scent he had employed a +detective named Girard, when Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. +It seems, he'd been made frantically jealous by some misrepresentations +of--the man whose name we haven't mentioned. I begged Mr. Dundas to hide +in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally did, to please me. I +hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, and to my horror +I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the sounds as +well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiancé of a pretty +housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got +away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house +you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as you are well +aware." + +"He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn't get a cab and walked. But you have read +the papers," + +"Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn't even tell +about the diamonds, much less my letters!" + +"As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?" + +"My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather +than risk further delay." + +"You would like to know their fate?" + +"I would indeed." + +"Well, I applaud the Englishman's chivalry. Vive l'Entente Cordiale!" + +"You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I've +humbled myself, can't you give me hope that he'll soon be released, and +yet that--that I shan't be made to suffer for my confession to you? It's +clear to you, isn't it, that the murder must have been done long before +he could have reached the house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the +Rue d'Hollande?" + +"Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, +without being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone +through before Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at +work in high quarters, and after what you have told me, I think he will +not much longer be under restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, +dear lady, that not ten minutes before you arrived this morning I +received satisfactory news of the arrest of two Englishmen at Frankfort, +who seem to have been concerned in this business in the Rue de la Fille +Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; and a friend of +his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that these +persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, +and then tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we +are getting at Janson's record, which seems to be a bad one--a notorious +one throughout Europe, if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, +really, that in a very few days Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in +person for what you've done for him, and--to tell you what has become of +those letters." + +"What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not +merciful?" + +"I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear +Mademoiselle, Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you +have told to me, or that the Englishman's alibi has been proved by you. +The arrest of these two men in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the +police to keep your secret as you would keep it yourself. Now, will that +assurance make it easier for you to put your whole soul into your part +to-night?" + +"If you will accept that box," I said, letting him kiss my hand, and +feeling inclined to kiss his. + +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I +had trumped Godensky's last trick now. + +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds +in the brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were +torn out, as if there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. +But Miss Forrest did not explain this, or even allude to it at all. + +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. "I have kept my +promise," I said. "The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you +let me say that I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will +be happy together." + +"I shall try to make up to him for--my hateful suspicions +and--everything," she said, like a repentant child. "I love him so +much!" + +"And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw +that. But how gloriously you will mend it again!" + +"Oh, I hope so!" she cried. "And you--have I really spoiled your life by +forcing you to make that promise? I pray that I haven't." + +"I thought you had, but I was mistaken," I answered. "The thing you have +made me do has proved a blessing. I may have--altered some of the facts +a little, but none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to +use such weapons as she has, against cruel enemies." + +"I hope you'll defeat yours," said Miss Forrest. + +"I begin to believe I shall," said I. And we shook hands. She is the +only girl I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. + +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give +him the diamonds. + +"You are my good angel!" he exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, I won't have to +take your money now." + +"All that's mine is yours," I said. + +"It is _you_ I want for mine," he answered. "When am I to have you? +Don't keep me waiting long, my darling. I'm nothing without you." + +"I don't want to keep you waiting," I told him. And indeed I longed to +be his wife--his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. + +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as +soon as a marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the +morning, and the note I had written, telling him that a pretty American +girl had found the diamonds. + +"She's engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine--the poor +fellow so stupidly accused of murder," I explained. "But of course he is +innocent. Of course he'll be discharged without a blot upon his name. +They're tremendously in love with each other, almost as much as you and +I!" + +"You didn't tell me about the love affair in your note," said Raoul. +"You spoke only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past +your house, after I went in." + +"There wasn't time for more in that famous communication!" I laughed. + +Raoul echoed me. "It came rather too near being famous, by the way," he +said. "Just after I had found it in the safe--where you would put it, +you witch!--a man came in with an order from the President to copy a +clause in a new treaty which is kept there." + +"What treaty?" I asked, with a leap of the heart. + +"Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn't the point." +(Ah, _was_ it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been +rather awkward, wouldn't it? if I hadn't got your note out of the safe +before the man came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the +open safe, for a second." + +"Thank God I wasn't too late!" I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. "You mean, thank God he wasn't sooner, don't you, +darling?" amended Raoul. + +"Yes, of course. How stupid I am!" I murmured. + +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, +for I had not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. +Had the treaty been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no +doubt have vowed to me--if I'd lived to hear his vows--that he had had +no hand in the discovery. Fear of the terrible man who had so nearly +beaten me in the game made me quiver even now. "You see," I went on, "I +can think of nothing but you, and my love for you. You'll never be +jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter what Count +Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?" + +"I've listened to Godensky for the last time," said Raoul. "The dog! He +shall never come near me again." + +"I hardly think he will try," I said. "I'm glad we're going to be +married soon. Do you know, I'm half inclined to do as you've asked me +sometimes, and promised you wouldn't ask again--leave the stage. I want +to rest, and just be happy, like other women. I want love--and +peace--and you." + +"You shall have all, and for always," answered Raoul. "If only I +deserved you!" + +"If only I deserved you!" I echoed. + +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that +he never may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he +would forgive me all things, because we are one in a perfect love. + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10410 *** diff --git a/10410-h/10410-h.htm b/10410-h/10410-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c84b0ac --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-h/10410-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9786 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Powers and Maxine by C.N. and A.M. Williamson</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10410 ***</div> + +<h1>The Powers and Maxine</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break"><i>By C.N. and A.M. Williamson</i></h2> + +<h5>Author of<br/> +“The Princess Virginia,” “My Friend the Chauffeur,”<br/> +“The Car of Destiny,” “The Princess Passes,”<br/> +“Lady Betty Across the Water,” Etc.</h5> + +<h4>Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson.</h4> + +<h3><i>With Illustrations<br/> +By FRANK T. MERRILL</i></h3> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/frontis.jpg"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="415" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">At that moment a board creaked in the corridor.<br/> +If I were caught here I should be arrested. +</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH1">I. LISA’S KNIGHT AND LISA’S SISTER</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH2">II. LISA LISTENS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH3">III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH4">IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH5">V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH6">VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH7">VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH8">VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH9">IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH10">X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH11">XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH12">XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH13">XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH14">XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH15">XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH16">XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH17">XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH18">XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH19">XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME</a></td> + +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LISA DRUMMOND’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>The Powers and Maxine</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH1"></a>CHAPTER I<br/> +LISA’S KNIGHT AND LISA’S SISTER</h2> + +<p> +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I was going +to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever loved. +</p> + +<p> +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really must +want to be with me, not just because I’m the “pretty girl’s sister,” but +because I’m myself, Lisa Drummond. +</p> + +<p> +Being what I am,—queer, and plain, I can’t bear to think that men like girls +for their beauty; yet I can’t help liking men better if they are handsome. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he seems so +to me. I don’t know if he is very good, or really very wonderful, although he’s +clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way that makes women fond of him; and +men admire him, too. He looks straight into your eyes when he talks to you, as +if he cared more for you than anyone else in the world: and if I were an +artist, painting a picture of a dark young knight starting off for the +crusades, I should ask Ivor Dundas to stand as my model. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps his expression wouldn’t be exactly right for the pious young crusader, +for it isn’t at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just that rapt sort of +look on his face. It was generally when he was talking to Di: but I wouldn’t +let myself believe that it meant anything in particular. He has the reputation +of having made lots of women fall in love with him. This was one of the first +things I heard when Di and I came over from America to visit Lord and Lady +Mountstuart. And of course there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. +Everyone was talking of it when we first arrived in London. +</p> + +<p> +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady Mountstuart +has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by another larger room +from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we could see people dancing. +</p> + +<p> +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di’s book shelves, because we +could talk better there. Usually, I don’t like being in front of a mirror, +because—well, because I’m only the “pretty girl’s sister.” But to-night I +didn’t mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. Sitting down, you might +almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my gown was made didn’t show that +one shoulder is a little higher than the other. Di designed the dress. +</p> + +<p> +I thought, if I wasn’t pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I looked +as if I could <i>think</i> of things; and as if I could feel. +</p> + +<p> +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, unless +he cared. Of course it might be for Di’s sake; but I am not so queer-looking +that no man could ever be fascinated by me. +</p> + +<p> +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, because Di +has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had found out that I was +intelligent and sympathetic. +</p> + +<p> +He sat by me and didn’t speak at first. Just then Di passed the far-away, open +door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the Duke of Glasgow’s +brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you so much for the book,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +(He had sent me a book that morning—one he’d heard me say I wanted.) +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his nice +smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and certainly he +has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a little sad. I willed him +hard to love me. +</p> + +<p> +“It made me happy to get it,” I went on. +</p> + +<p> +“It made me happy to send it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it please you to do things for me?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?” I couldn’t help adding—“Even +though I’m different from other girls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps more for that reason,” he said, with his voice as kind as his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what shall I do if you go away!” I burst out, partly because I really +meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say what I wanted +so much to hear. “Suppose you get that consulship at Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I may,” he said quickly. “A consulship isn’t a very great +thing—but—it’s a beginning. I want it badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary,” said I, not telling +him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I were a toad. “Of +course, he’s Lord Mountstuart’s cousin, and brother-in-law as well, and that +makes him seem quite in the family, doesn’t it? But it isn’t as if I were +really related to Lady Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are +only step-sisters—no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, and +brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady Mountstuart’s niece, +and that I had some of the coaxing, ‘girly’ ways Di can put on when she wants +to get something out of people. I’d make the Foreign Secretary give you exactly +what you wanted, even if it took you far, far from me.” +</p> + +<p> +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under the +brown. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a very kind Imp,” he said. “Imp” is the name he invented for me. I +loved to hear him call me by it. +</p> + +<p> +“Kind!” I echoed. “One isn’t kind when one—likes—people.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn’t care. If only I could make +him say the words I longed to hear—even because he pitied me, because he had +found out how I loved him, and because he had really too much of the +dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I made up my mind that I +would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave me the chance; and I would tell +Di that he was dreadfully in love with me. That would make her writhe. +</p> + +<p> +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there was no +doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment or two he was +silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the ballroom, he spoke very +gently, as if I had been a child—though I am older than Di by three or four +years. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little friend,” +said he. “Now that I know you really do take an interest in my affairs, I think +I may tell you why I want so much to go to Algiers—though very likely you’ve +guessed already—you are such an ‘intuitive’ girl. And besides, I haven’t tried +very hard to hide my feelings—not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise +how little I have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don’t +you—even if you didn’t before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say any more,” I managed to cut him short. “I can’t bear—I mean, I +understand. I—did guess before.” +</p> + +<p> +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn’t let myself believe. I hoped against +hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took the trouble to +be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of life. +</p> + +<p> +“Di might have told me,” I went gasping on, rather than let there be a long +silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to see me +cry—though, if it could have made any difference, I would have grovelled at his +feet and wet them with my tears. “But she never does tell me anything about +herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better to talk +about you instead,” he defended her. And then I felt that I could hate him, as +much as I’ve always hated Di, deep down in my heart. At that minute I should +have liked to kill her, and watch his face when he found her lying dead—out of +his reach for ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” he hurried on, “I’ve never asked her yet if she would marry me, +because—my prospects weren’t very brilliant. She knows of course that I love +her—” +</p> + +<p> +“And if you get the consulship, you’ll put the important question?” I cut him +short, trying to be flippant. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But I told you tonight, because I—because you were so kind, I felt I +should like to have you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could have +crushed every hope of his for the future—every hope, that is, in which my +stepsister Diana Forrest had any part—I would have done it, just as I trample +on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of feeling that I—even +I—have power of life and death. +</p> + +<p> +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I’m never very strong or well, but now +I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music stop in the +ballroom. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” I said. “The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are over. I’m +sure you’re engaged for the next.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Imp, I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Di?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have Number 13 with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen! Unlucky number.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, coming now, +is with Mrs. George Allendale.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, the actor manager’s wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord Mountstuart +likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very serious and +political, but we have every sort of creature—provided it’s an amusing, or +successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine de Renzie to come +here, when she was acting in London at George Allendale’s theatre? That was +before Di and I arrived on the scene, you remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her first, off +the stage, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a sweet memory! Wasn’t Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband when he +had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard that she was.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t look cross with me. I’m not saying anything against your gorgeous +Maxine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn’t call Miss de Renzie ‘my Maxine,’ +please, Imp.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” I said. “You see, I’ve heard other people call her that—in +joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you such a famous +person, to her, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. What made you think that?” He was really annoyed now, and I was pleased—if +anything could please me, in my despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to ‘M.R.’ as if the name were a +secret, so—” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Everybody’ is very stupid then. ‘M.R.’ is an old lady, my god-mother, who +helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I couldn’t have +gone. And she isn’t of the kind that likes to see her name in print. Now, where +shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look for Mrs. Allendale.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll stay where I am, thank you,” I said, “and watch you dance—from far off. +That’s my part in life, you know: watching other people dance from far off.” +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn’t sure that one +of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, and deserted; and +though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever since the tiny child and her +mother (a beautiful, rich, young Californian widow) came into my father’s house +in New York, she does know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am +in such moods. I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking +through the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. +</p> + +<p> +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) entered the +room which lay between our “den” and the ballroom, Probably they would have +gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in that way, but I cried her +name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only a moment she paused—long enough +to send Lord Robert away—and then she came straight to me. He must have been +furious: but I didn’t care for that. +</p> + +<p> +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and beautiful, +looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I should have liked to +strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the other, deepening the rose to +crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for each finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a headache, dear?” she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps for +me—as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my heart,” said I. “It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish I +could die, and end it all! What’s the good of me—to myself or anyone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk like that, my poor one,” she said. “Shall I take you upstairs to +your own room?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs,” I answered. “Yet I can’t +stay here. What shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“What about Uncle Eric’s study?” Di asked. She always calls Lord Mountstuart +‘Uncle Eric,’ though he isn’t her uncle. Her mother and his wife were sisters, +that’s all: and then there was the other sister who married the British +Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord Mountstuart’s. That family +seemed to have a craze for American girls; but Lord Mountstuart makes an +exception of me. He’s civil, of course, because he’s an abject slave of Di’s, +and she refused to come and pay a visit in England without me: but I give him +the shivers, I know very well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he won’t be there this evening,” Di went on, when I hesitated. “He’s +playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, half an hour +ago. Come, let me help you there. It’s only a step.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked across the +room, out into a corridor, through a tiny “bookroom” where odd volumes and old +magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart’s study. +</p> + +<p> +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The library +next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord Mountstuart’s +favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a novel or two, and +thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has painted in different parts +of the world hang on the walls: for he also fancies himself artistic. +</p> + +<p> +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I suppose, +the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or dreams them out. +And it was to this that Di led me. +</p> + +<p> +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, and asked +if she should ring and get a little brandy. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, “I shall feel better in a few minutes. It’s so nice and cool +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look better already!” exclaimed Di. “Soon, when you’ve lain and rested +awhile, you’ll be a different girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, how I wish I <i>could</i> be a different girl!” I sighed. “A strong, well +girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,—like you—or Maxine de +Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you think of her?” asked Di, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his ‘pal,’ and tells +me things he doesn’t tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about Maxine, +still.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’d be a difficult woman to forget, if she’s as attractive off the stage as +she is on.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a pity we didn’t come in time to meet here when she was playing in London +with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their houses, it seems. +Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and that it’s such a pleasant +memory, whenever he comes to this house. I suppose that’s one reason he likes +to come so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt,” said Di sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“He got so fascinated talking of her,” I went on. “He almost forgot that he had +a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great hit, and all +that; but she didn’t stand quite as high as she does now, since she’s become +the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except her salary, then, whereas +she must have saved up a lot of money by this time. I have an idea that Ivor +would have proposed to her when she was in London if he’d thought her success +established.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. “As if Ivor were the kind of +man to think of such a thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“He isn’t very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him to marry +a poor girl, or a girl who wasn’t well connected socially. He <i>has</i> to +think of such things.” +</p> + +<p> +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of course Di +has all her mother’s money, two hundred thousand English pounds; and through +the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the Foreign Secretary, she has +got to know all the best people in England. Besides, the King and Queen have +been particularly nice to her since she was presented, so she has the run of +their special set, as well as the political and artistic, and “old-fashioned +exclusive” ones. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself,” she said, “and he has plenty of good +connections of his own. He’ll have a little money, too, some day, from an aunt +or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie had nothing more than +a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said Maxine was rather proud to have +Ivor dangling about, because everyone likes him, and because his travels and +his book were being a lot talked about just then. Naturally, he admired her, +because she’s beautiful, and a very great actress—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair,” I laughed. “She flirts +with him herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian’s over forty, and he’s twenty-nine!” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty isn’t the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She’s a beauty and a +great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts with him, and +he with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn’t care. “You’d better +not say such silly things to Uncle Eric,” she said, staring at the pattern of +the cornice. “Aren’t those funny, gargoyley faces up there? I never noticed +them before. But oh—about Mr. Dundas and Maxine de Renzie—I don’t think, +really, that he troubles himself much about her any more, for the other day I—I +happened to ask what she was playing in Paris now, and he didn’t know. He said +he hadn’t been over to see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid +when he wasn’t too busy, he was too lazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He <i>said</i> so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday at +Folkestone with the godmother who’s going to leave him her money, how easy to +slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being the wiser.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he likes?” +laughed Di, but not happily. “You’re looking much better, Lisa. You’ve quite a +colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart is sure +not to come,” said I. “These pillows are so comfortable. Then perhaps, by and +by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch the dancing. I should +like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan’t sleep, and the night will seem +so long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have liked to +shake me. “I’m afraid I shall have to run away now, for my partner will think +me so rude. What about supper?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that,” I +interrupted. “Go now, I don’t need you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful look +in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. “Even if you don’t send, +I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you are,” she said. Then +she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa cushions, with the feeling +that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down the pillows like a stone. +</p> + +<p> +“She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor,” I said to myself. “Well—she’s +welcome to it now. I don’t think she’ll enjoy it much—or let him. Oh, I hope +they’ll quarrel. I don’t think I’d mind anything, if only I was sure they’d +never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then +Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I hate her—and all beautiful girls, who +spoil the lives of women like me.” +</p> + +<p> +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time must be +coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in spite of all, +Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be engaged? At that +thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; for at least it would +chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart’s ball was over, I should be +found lying white and dead, like Elaine on her barge. I was holding my breath, +with my hand pressed over my heart to feel how it was beating, when the door +opened suddenly, and I heard a voice speaking. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH2"></a>CHAPTER II<br/> +LISA LISTENS</h2> + +<p> +Someone turned up the light. “I’ll leave you together,” said Lord Mountstuart; +and the door was closed. +</p> + +<p> +“What could that mean?” I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come in +alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had Lord +Mountstuart been arranging a tête-â-tête between Di and Ivor Dundas? +</p> + +<p> +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must hear what +they had to say to each other. +</p> + +<p> +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down into the +narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply pulling the clinging +folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay still, my blood pounding in my +temples and ears, and in my nostrils a faint, musty smell from the Oriental +stuff that covered the lounge. +</p> + +<p> +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the wall, +and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had mentioned when +she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our conversation. But I was +listening with all my might for what was to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas,” said a voice, which gave me a +shock of surprise, though I knew it well. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t run the risk of interruptions,” he went on, with that slow, clear +enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their lives, +especially men of the college that was his—Balliol. “I told Mountstuart that I +wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows nothing, nor does anyone +else except myself. You understand that this conversation of ours, whether +anything comes of it or not, is entirely confidential. I have a proposal to +make. You’ll agree to it or not, as you choose. But if you don’t agree, forget +it, with everything I may have said.” +</p> + +<p> +“My services and my memory are both at your disposal,” answered Ivor, in such a +gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked with Diana—and +that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. “I am honoured—I won’t say +flattered, for I’m too much in earnest—that you should place any confidence in +me.” +</p> + +<p> +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of course, I +said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the Foreign +Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in the gift of that +man. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, I’m in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can help me +out of it better than anyone else I know,” said the smooth, trained voice. “It +is a little diplomatic errand you will have to undertake for me tomorrow, if +you want to do me a good turn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the best of +my ability,” replied Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you can carry it through excellently,” said the Foreign Secretary, +still fencing. “It will be good practice, if you succeed, for—any future duties +in the career which may be opening to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s bribing him with that consulship,” I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn’t beating so +thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you for your trust in me,” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“A little diplomatic errand,” repeated the Foreign Secretary. “In itself the +thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its relation with +other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, incalculable +importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply to you. Indeed, I +came to my cousin Mountstuart’s house expressly because I was told you would be +at his wife’s ball. My regret is, that the news which brought me in search of +you didn’t reach me earlier, for if it had I should have come with my wife, and +have got at you in time to send you off—if you agreed to go—to-night. As it is, +the matter will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It’s too late for you to +catch the midnight boat across the Channel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Across the Channel?” echoed Ivor. “You want me to go to France?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“One could always get across somehow,” said Ivor, thoughtfully, “if there were +a great hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is—the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less speed. That +is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and charter a tug or motor +boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object would probably be defeated. I +came to you because those who are watching this business wouldn’t be likely to +guess I had given you a hand in it. All that you do, however, must be done +quietly, with no fuss, no sign of anything unusual going on. It was natural I +should come to a ball given by my wife’s sister, whose husband is my cousin. No +one knows of this interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that +score, at least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should meet +Mademoiselle de Renzie there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle de Renzie!” exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, and +showing plainly that he was taken aback. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t she a friend of yours?” asked the Foreign Secretary rather sharply. +Though I couldn’t see him, I knew exactly how he would be looking at Ivor, his +keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips drawn in, the long, well-shaped +hand, of which he is said to be vain, toying with the pale Malmaison pink he +always wears in his buttonhole. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is a friend of mine,” Ivor answered. “But—” +</p> + +<p> +“A ‘but’ already! Perhaps I’d better tell you that the mission has to do with +Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has acted as my +agent in Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! I didn’t dream that she dabbled in politics.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it weren’t +necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in this matter. +But before we go any further, I must know whether Mademoiselle de Renzie’s +connection with this business will for any reason keep you out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if—you need my help,” said Ivor, with an effort. “And I beg you won’t +suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie herself. I +have for her the greatest respect and admiration.” +</p> + +<p> +“We all have,” returned the Foreign Secretary, “especially those who know her +best. Among her many virtues, she’s one of the few women who can keep a +secret—her own and others. She is a magnificent actress—on the stage and off. +And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell you it’s to help her as +well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or you will be handicapped. For +several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has done good service—secret service, you +must understand—for Great Britain.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! Maxine a political spy!” Ivor broke out impulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s rather a hard name, isn’t it? There are better ones. And she’s no +traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she’s Polish by birth. I +can assure you we’ve much for which to thank her cleverness and tact—and +beauty. For our sakes I’m sorry that she’s serving our interests professionally +for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to rejoice, as she’s engaged to be +married. And if you can save her from coming to grief over this very ticklish +business, she’ll probably live happily ever after. Did you know of her +engagement?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Ivor. “I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in London a +year ago; but after she went to Paris—of course, she’s very busy and has crowds +of friends; and I’ve only crossed once or twice since, on hurried visits; so we +haven’t met, or written to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +(“Very good reason,” I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. “You’ve been busy, +too—falling in love with Diana Forrest.”) +</p> + +<p> +“It hasn’t been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might have +been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when the right +time comes—if the poor girl isn’t ruined irretrievably in this affair of ours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there really serious danger of that?” “The most serious. If you can’t save +her, not only will the <i>Entente Cordiale</i> be shaken to its foundations +(and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), but her future +happiness will be broken in the crash, and—she says—she will not live to suffer +the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if disaster comes; and though +suicide is usually the last resource of a coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no +coward, and I’m inclined to think I should come to the same resolve in her +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what I am to do,” said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary’s strange words, and his intense earnestness. +</p> + +<p> +“You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without mentioning +your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some hotel where you have +never stayed and are not known. I will find means of informing the lady what +hotel you choose. You will there give a fictitious name (let us say, George +Sandford) and you will take a suite, with a private sitting-room. That done, +you will say that you are expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no +one else. You will wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will +certainly be as soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you’re not being spied upon, you will put into her hands a +small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds simple enough,” said Ivor, “if that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a hotel? +I’d willingly do so if—” +</p> + +<p> +“No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who are +watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the meeting. So +much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four o’clock every +afternoon, the young Frenchman she’s engaged to is in the habit of going to her +house, and stopping until it’s time for her to go to work. He dines with her, +but doesn’t drive with her to the theatre, as that would be rather too public +for the present, until their engagement’s announced. He adores her, but is +inconveniently jealous, like most Latins. It’s practically certain that he’s +heard your name mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and +as a Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a beautiful +woman without being in love with her, your call at her house might give +Mademoiselle Maxine a <i>mauvais quart d’heure</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel—” +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the theatre +early, and thus get rid of him. She’s quite clever enough to manage that. Then, +as your own name won’t appear on any hotel list in the papers next day, the +most jealous heart need have no cause for suspicion. At the same time, if +certain persons whom Mademoiselle—and we, too—have to fear, do find out that +she has visited Ivor Dundas, who has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a +private interview with her, interests of even deeper importance than the most +desperate love affair may still, we’ll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your +old friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the change in +his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly drained. “I will do my +very best.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the next two +days, you won’t suffer for it in the end,” remarked the Foreign Secretary +meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, bound up +with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and white bride +cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, in America. I +didn’t want him to have the consulship, because getting that would perhaps mean +getting Di, too. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?” asked the Foreign Secretary. “It +should be a good one, I don’t need to remind you, where Mademoiselle de Renzie +could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she should be +recognised in spite of the veil she’s pretty certain to wear. Yet it shouldn’t +be in too central a situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall it be the Élysèe Palace?” asked Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do very well,” replied the other, after reflecting for an instant. +And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my “impish joy,” +when it was settled; for the Élysèe Palace is where Lord and Lady Mountstuart +stop when they visit Paris, and they’d been talking of running over next day +with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful new motor car for sale there—one +that a Rajah had ordered to be made for him, but died before it was finished. +Lady Mountstuart always has one new fad every six months at least, and her +latest is to drive a motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert—can make +a motor, I believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he’d +been insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She’d +promised, that if not too tired she’d cross to Paris the day after the ball, +taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn’t be equal to an early +start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she should see Maxine at the +hotel with Ivor! +</p> + +<p> +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the Élysèe Palace for rooms +without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting Maxine, once it +was arranged for her to go there. “Any misunderstanding would be fatal,” he +went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine’s head depended upon Ivor’s +trip. “I only wish I could have got you off to-night; and in that case you +might have gone to her own house, early in the morning. She is in a frightful +state of mind, poor girl. But it was only to-day that the contents of the +packet reached me, and was shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just +before I hurried round here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from +her, warning me that Count Godensky—of whom you’ve probably heard—an attaché of +the Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a—er—a game in high +politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to present +intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who’s well known in +Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused to take no for an +answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded into giving him a severe +snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn’t forgive a snub, especially if it had +got talked about. He’d be a bad enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he +is a very bitter and determined enemy. Apparently she doesn’t know how much he +has found out, or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely +guesses, and ‘bluffs.’ But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more closely than +usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent wouldn’t get +through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you should not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I,” answered Ivor, laughing a little. “I think I could make some trouble +for anyone who tried to stop me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caution above all! Remember you’re in training for a diplomatic career, what? +If you should lose the packet I’m going to give you, I prophesy that in +twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: for the +circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, the most +peculiar I’ve ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a varied experience; +and they intimately concern her fiancé, the Vicomte Raoul du Laurier—” +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul du Laurier!” exclaimed Ivor. “So she’s engaged to marry him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have friends who do. He’s in the French Foreign Office, though they say he’s +more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays—” +</p> + +<p> +“Which don’t get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some day, for I +believe he’s an extremely clever fellow in his way—in everything except the +diplomatic ‘trade’ which his father would have him take up, and got him into, +through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du Laurier’s no fool, and is said to +be a fine sportsman, as well as almost absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle +Maxine has plenty of excuse for her infatuation—for I assure you it’s nothing +less. She’d jump into the fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc +smile on her face.” +</p> + +<p> +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he’d ever been really in +love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he hadn’t, for he +didn’t seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he grew a little more +cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +“I can see that du Laurier’s being in the French Foreign Office might make it +rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she—if she’s been rather too helpful to +us,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale—a sensational and even romantic tale almost +complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet Mademoiselle +to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you into her confidence, +in reward for your services, in regard to some private interests of her own +which have got themselves wildly mixed up with the gravest political matters, +she’s at liberty to do so as far as I’m concerned, for you are to be trusted, +and deserve to be trusted. You may say that to her from me, if the occasion +arises. I hope with all my heart that everything may go smoothly. If not—the +<i>Entente Cordiale</i> may burst like a bomb. I—who have made myself +responsible in the matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny +me if the scheme’s a failure—shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; and you, +though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the misfortunes of +others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be almost as if you +carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the packet into the hands of +Maxine de Renzie.” “Good heavens, I shall be glad when she has it!” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t be gladder than she—or I. And here it is,” replied the Foreign +Secretary. “I consider it great luck to have found such a messenger, at a house +I could enter without being suspected of any motive more subtle than a wish to +eat a good supper, or to meet some of the prettiest women in London.” +</p> + +<p> +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take to +Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two from +behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they were standing +quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The Foreign Secretary, who is +rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a woman’s looks, never could bear +me: and I believe he would have thought it almost as justifiable as drowning an +ugly kitten, to choke me if he knew I’d overheard his secrets. +</p> + +<p> +However, Ivor’s next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to know. “It’s +importance evidently doesn’t consist in bulk,” he said lightly. “I can easily +carry the case in my breast pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and honour +of a woman,” said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. “Now, I, must go and look for +my wife. It’s better that you and I shouldn’t be seen together. One never knows +who may have got in among the guests at a crush like this. I will go out at one +door, and when you’ve waited for a few minutes, you can go, by way of another.” +</p> + +<p> +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was alone. +What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me longed to see how +his face would look; but there was too much at stake. Not only would I hate to +have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I had already built up a great plan +for the use I could make of what I had overheard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH3"></a>CHAPTER III<br/> +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF</h2> + +<p> +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape from +behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as I had sat +up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm asleep, Lord +Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. +</p> + +<p> +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first editions, as +he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord Mountstuart’s treasures +before. As both were perfectly daft on the subject, they must have kept me +lying there an hour, while they fussed about from one glass-protected book-case +to another, murmuring admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a +Mazarin Bible, with their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have +been eaten up by moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set +fire to the whole lot. +</p> + +<p> +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I’ve nicknamed “Stewey”) remembered that there +was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other duffer +pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It was just my +luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, +for whom the conservatory, or our “den,” or the stairs, wasn’t secluded enough, +must needs be prying about and spy that open door before I had conquered my +cramps and got up from behind the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating a +minute, the girl—whoever she was—allowed herself to be drawn into a room where +she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they selected the lounge to +sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against the wall, with “pins and +needles” pricking all over my cramped body, while some man I didn’t know +proposed and was accepted by some girl I shall probably never see. +</p> + +<p> +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until voices +were “heard off,” as they say in the directions for theatricals, whereupon they +sprang up and hurried out like “guilty things upon a fearful summons.” +</p> + +<p> +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out of my +prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the servants use. But +it was very late now, and people were going, even the young ones who love +dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my ball dress and into a +dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my one beauty, and let it hang +over my shoulders, streaming down in front on each side, so that nobody would +know one shoulder is higher than the other. It wasn’t that I was particularly +anxious to appear well before Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the +contrast between us to seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but +because I wanted her to think, when she came to my room, that I’d been there a +long time. +</p> + +<p> +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she found +me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. +</p> + +<p> +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, and +seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all night, but +instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her voice was as gay +and happy as Ivor’s had been when he first came into Lord Mountstuart’s study +with the Foreign Secretary. +</p> + +<p> +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn’t wanted +to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been in bed and +asleep long ago. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything went very well,” said she. “I think it was a great success.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you dance every dance?” I asked, working up slowly to what I meant to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Except a few that I sat out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can guess who sat them out with you,” said I. “Ivor Dundas. And one was +number thirteen, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn’t try to hide +anything from me. He tells most things to his ‘Imp.’ Was he nice when he +proposed?” +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t propose.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he didn’t +tell you he loved you, and ask if there’d be a chance for him in case he got +Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t take your bracelet even if—if—. But you’re a little witch, Lisa.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am!” I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench of the +heart. “And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and said he could +have you, Algiers or no Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking about +this evening,” said Di, with her cheeks very pink. “He may have flirted a +little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But—but he <i>does</i> love +me, Lisa.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he did love Maxine!” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t. He never loved her. I—you see, you put such horrid thoughts into my +head that—that I just mentioned her name when he said to-night—oh, when he said +the usual things, about never having cared seriously for anyone until he saw +me. Only—it seems treacherous to call them ‘<i>usual</i>’ because—when you love +a man you feel that the things he says can never have been said before, in the +same way, by any other man to any other woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only perhaps by the same man to another woman,” I mocked at her, trying to act +as if I were teasing in fun. +</p> + +<p> +“Lisa, you <i>can</i> be hateful sometimes!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only for your good, if I’m hateful now,” I said. “I don’t want to have +you disappointed, when it’s too late. I want you to keep your eyes open, and +see exactly where you’re going. It’s the truest thing ever said that ‘love is +blind.’ You can’t deny that you’re in love with Ivor Dundas.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t deny it,” she answered, with a proud air which would, I suppose, have +made Ivor want to kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +“And you didn’t deny it to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I didn’t. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I wish I +hadn’t, now. I wish I’d shown that I trusted him entirely. I know he deserves +to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I should commit myself any further till day after to-morrow,” +said I drily. “Indeed, you couldn’t if you wanted to, unless you wrote or +wired. You won’t see him to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall,” she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of hers, that +looked positively black with excitement. “He’s going to the Duchess of +Glasgow’s bazaar, because I said I should most likely be there: and I will go—” +</p> + +<p> +“But he won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you know anything about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do know, everything. And I’ll tell you what I know, if you’ll promise me two +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What things?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you won’t ask me how I found out, and that you’ll swear never to give me +away to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I wouldn’t ‘give you away,’ as you call it. But—I’m not sure I want +you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I’d rather not hear stories behind his +back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess’s to-morrow,” I snapped, “and wear your +prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time he’ll be arriving in +Paris to keep a very particular engagement with Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. “I don’t +believe he’s going to Paris!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I know he’s going. And I know he’s going especially to see Maxine.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be. He told me to-night he wouldn’t cross the street to see her. I—I +made it a condition—that if he found he cared enough for her to want to see her +again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all thought of me. If I’m to +reign, I must reign alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to see +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet at least two hours ago he’d arranged a meeting with Maxine for to-morrow +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re dreaming.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was never wider awake: or if I’m dreaming, you can dream the same dream if +you’ll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this morning, when the boat +train goes out at 10 o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will be there!” cried Di, changing from red to white. “And you shall be with +me, to see that you’re wrong. I know you will be wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s an engagement,” said I. “At 10 o’clock, Victoria Station, just you and +I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I’m right, and Ivor’s there, +shall you think it wise to give him up?” +</p> + +<p> +“He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie—in which case he’d probably write +me. But—at the station, I shall ask him straight out—that is, if he’s there, as +I’m sure he won’t be—whether he intends to see Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he +says no, I’ll believe him. If he says yes—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll tell him all is over between you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’d know that without my telling, after our talk last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine’s name +from me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IVOR DUNDAS’ POINT OF VIEW</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH4"></a>CHAPTER IV<br/> +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS</h2> + +<p> +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by the nape +of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down to—the other place. +</p> + +<p> +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on my way +to Paris. +</p> + +<p> +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much time to +spare (I’d been warned not to risk observation by being too early) when I came +face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I should have liked best to +meet: whom at that particular time I least wished to meet: Diana Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +“The Imp”—Lisa Drummond—was with her: but I saw only Di at first— Di, looking a +little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last night I had told +her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said that I didn’t care to see +Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to see her, and here was Di +discovering me in the act of going to see, her. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would think +it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when explanations were +forbidden. But I couldn’t lie to a girl I loved as I love Diana Forrest. It +would have sickened me with life and with myself to do it: and it was with the +knowledge in my mind that I could not and would not lie, that I had to greet +her with a conventional “Good morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going out of town?” I asked, with my hat off for her and for the Imp, +whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my tall love’s +shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was like a cat; but +suddenly the resemblance struck me—something in the poor little creature’s +expression, it must have been, or in her greenish grey eyes which seemed at +that moment to concentrate all the knowledge of old and evil things that has +ever come into the world since the days of the early Egyptians—when a cat was +worshipped. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not going out of town,” Di answered. “I came here to meet you, in case +you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who told you I was leaving?” I asked, hoping for a second or two that the +Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his secret—guessing ours, +perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable absence might injure me with her. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you,” she answered. “I didn’t believe you would go; even though I +got your letter by the eight o’clock post this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you got that,” I said. “I posted it soon after I left you last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that you +wouldn’t be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to write?” +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly and honestly,” I said (for I had to say it), “just at the moment, and +only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow’s bazaar. That was +because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, something happened which +made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I begged you to let me see you +to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. Do say ‘yes.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say yes on one condition—and gladly,” she replied, with an odd, pale +little smile, “that you tell me where you’re going this morning. I know it must +seem horrid in me to ask, but—but—oh, Ivor, it <i>isn’t</i> horrid, really. You +wouldn’t think it horrid if you could understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to Paris,” I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold potato +where my heart ought to be. “I am obliged to go, on business.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when you told +me you couldn’t come to the Duchess’s,” said Di, looking like a beautiful, +unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. “You only mentioned +‘an urgent engagement which you’d forgotten.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry,” I told her, lamely. +</p> + +<p> +“So it was—so it would have been,” she faltered, “if it hadn’t been for—what we +said last night about—Paris. And then—I can’t explain to you, Ivor, any more +than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you meant to go there, and—after +our talk, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t come to the station to find you; I +came because I was perfectly sure I wouldn’t find you, and wanted to prove that +I hadn’t found you. Yet—you’re here.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same,” I said, as firmly as +I could. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. I’ll trust you, if—” +</p> + +<p> +“If what?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you’re not going to see +Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may see her,” I admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“But—but at least, you’re not going on purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign Secretary, I +could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to what suspicion was I +not laying myself open in confessing that I deliberately intended to see her, +having sworn by all things a man does swear by when he wishes to please a girl, +that I didn’t wish to see Maxine, and would not see Maxine? +</p> + +<p> +“You said you’d trust me, Di,” I reminded her. “For Heaven’s sake don’t break +that promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—if you’re breaking a promise to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“A promise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Worse, then! Because I didn’t ask you to promise. I had too much faith in you +for that. I believed you when you said you didn’t care for—anyone but me. I’ve +told Lisa. It doesn’t matter our speaking like this before her. I asked you to +wait for my promise for a little while, until I could be quite sure you didn’t +think of Miss de Renzie as—some people fancied you did. If you wanted to see +her, I said you must go, and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next +morning, by the first train, you start.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only because I am obliged to,” I hazarded in spite of the Foreign Secretary +and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by making matters +worse instead of better for myself. +</p> + +<p> +“Obliged to!” she echoed. “Then there’s something you must settle with her, +before you can be—free.” +</p> + +<p> +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should lose the +train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, as well as +Maxine’s, I must not. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” I said hurriedly, “I am free. There’s no question of freedom. Yet I +shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you go to her—this day of all days.” The words were wrung from the poor +child’s lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like death to me that I +should have to cause her this anguish, instead of soothing it. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall. You must,” I commanded, rather than implored. “Good-bye, +darling—precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall come back +to you to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t. You need never come to me again,” she said, white lipped. And the +guard whistled, waving his green flag. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t dare to say such a cruel thing—a thing you don’t mean!” I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a little +man inside jumped to the window and shouted, “Reserved! Don’t you see it’s +reserved?” which explained the fact that the door seemed to be fastened. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, and +would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men rushed at the +door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it with a railway key. +Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have lost me my last chance of +catching the moving train, had I not dashed in after them. If I could choose, I +would be the last man to obtrude myself where I was not wanted, but there was +no time to choose; and I was thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my +word. Besides, my heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave +her, to care much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way +in, though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have pushed me +out if I hadn’t been too strong for them. I had a dim impression that, instead +of joining with the newcomers, the first man, who would have kept the place to +himself before their entrance, seemed willing to aid me against the others. +They being once foisted upon him, he appeared to wish for my presence too, or +else he merely desired to prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and +perhaps killed, for he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. +</p> + +<p> +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly struggle, +and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. +</p> + +<p> +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so far that +Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a bad omen; and +the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for ever. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too late, I +fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary and even the +<i>Entente Cordiale</i> (provided he had not been exaggerating) for Di’s sake, +and love’s sake. But there was no going back now, even if I would. The train +was already travelling almost at full speed, and there was nothing to do but +resign myself to the inevitable, and hope for the best. Someone, it was clear, +had tried to work mischief between Diana and me, and there were only too many +chances that he had succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I +half-dazedly looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage +with which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather unintellectual, +unimaginative type could be, and he hadn’t shown himself as friendly lately to +me as he once had: still, I didn’t think he was the sort of fellow to trip up a +rival in the race by a trick, even if he could possibly have found out that I +was going to Paris this morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you sit here, sir?” a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw that the +little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was in a corner +facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, and began to +observe my travelling companions for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me that all +three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a first-class +carriage. +</p> + +<p> +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had removed a +bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did not look like a +typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of person who might be +expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. He was small and thin, and +weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes of the kind which ought to have +had white lashes instead of the sparse, jet black ones that rimmed them. His +forehead, though narrow, suggested shrewdness, as did the expression of those +light coloured eyes of his, which were set close to the sharp, slightly +up-turned nose. His hair was so black that it made his skin seem singularly +pallid, though it was only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously +over two prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the +air of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be “smart” get +up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and thirty-eight) +looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, masquerading as a “swell.” +</p> + +<p> +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved compartment by +means of their railway key were both bigger and more manly than he who had a +right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, with a heavy beard and +moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and cruel mouth pouted +disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, with a brick-coloured +complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also were flashily dressed with +“horsey” neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. As I glanced at the pair, they +were talking together in a low voice, with an open newspaper held up between +them; but the man who had helped me in against their will sat silent, staring +out of the window and uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, +apparently, paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in an +inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not attract +attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to assure myself that +it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting Di, and I felt certain that +nothing could have happened to it since. +</p> + +<p> +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected that +these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed them into the +compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as they were three to +one if they combined against me, and the train was, unfortunately, not entirely +a corridor train. Therefore, having assured myself that I was not among spies +bent on having my life or the secret I carried, I forgot about my +fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy speculations as to my chances with +Diana. I had been loving her, thinking of little else but her and my hopes of +her, for many months now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty +world it would be for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had +perhaps lost her. +</p> + +<p> +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I would +not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, even to repent +her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, and Heaven knew how +much or when I might be permitted to explain. I would not be a man if I took +her at her word, and let her slip from me, no matter how many times that word +were repeated; so I told myself over and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to +say that nothing could be as it had been; that I’d sacrificed my happiness to +please a stranger, and to save a woman whom I had never really loved. +</p> + +<p> +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there were so +many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer than I had or +would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on caring for me, after +what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn’t said in actual words last +night that she would marry me, whereas this morning she had almost said she +never would. I should have nobody to blame but myself if I came back to London +to-morrow to find her engaged to Lord Robert West—a man who, as his brother has +no children, might some day make her a Duchess. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir,” said one of the two railway-key men, +suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. “Hardly knew what I was +about when I shoved you away from the door. Me and my friend was afraid of +missing the train, so we pushed—instinct of self-preservation, I suppose,” and +he chuckled as if he had got off some witticism. “Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing +intentional, ’pon my word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks. No apology is necessary,” I replied as indifferently as I felt. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, then,” finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. He +turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation behind the +newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally glanced over the +top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole attention were not taken up +with the news of the day. +</p> + +<p> +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently not of +the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on the +upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted my +attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly pale, under a +kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I thought he must be +ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in anxious anticipation of the +horrors which might be in store for him on the boat. Presently he pulled out a +red-bordered handkerchief, and unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his +checked travelling cap. When he had done this, I saw that his hair was left +streaked with damp; and there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, +observing which with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric +hastily into his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“The little beast must dye his hair,” I thought contemptuously. “Perhaps he’s +an albino, really. His eyes look like it.” +</p> + +<p> +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn away and +spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But immediately +after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking up a book he had +laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close to his nose that the +printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he were very near-sighted. Thus +he sat for some time; yet I felt that no look thrown by the other two was lost +on him. He seemed to know each time one of them peered over the newspaper; and +when at last the train slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness +returned. His small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one +piece of luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the +things together. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I had let +my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, and I had +nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for the boat. +Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing an article out of +a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object to be caught in a crowd +and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches who might be lying in wait for +what I had in my pocket. It seemed impossible that anyone could have learned +that I was playing messenger between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs +and Maxine de Renzie: still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple +mission had been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect +any precaution. +</p> + +<p> +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced friend +lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, except a +small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to stuff in their +newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. Presently, when the +first rush for the boat was over, and the porters who had come to the door of +our compartment had gone away empty-handed, I would have got out, had I not +caught an imploring glance from the little man who had reserved the carriage. +Perhaps I imagined it, but his pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, “For heaven’s +sake, don’t leave me alone with these others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you be so very kind, sir,” he said to me, “to beckon a porter, as you +are near the door? I find after all that I shan’t be able to carry everything +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when the +porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their bags. I +also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, if the little +man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he said. Would I be so +extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the platform to see if it had +fallen there? +</p> + +<p> +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had found +the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and scrambling out of +the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for him, he would have +walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped behind a few steps, +thinking—as always—of the contents of that inner breast pocket. +</p> + +<p> +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, or +almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other passengers—a family +party with a fat nurse and crying baby—behind us. As I approached the gangway, +I saw on deck my late travelling companions, the Jewish man and his friend, +regarding us with interest. Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost +on the little man’s heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: +“Look out—gangway’s falling!” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as the +nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself no matter +what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman with the baby. Two +or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also attempted to turn, thus nearly +throwing the little man onto his knees. The large bag which he carried hit me +across the shins; in his terror he almost embraced me as he helped himself up: +the nurse, as she stumbled, pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not +seized the howling baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. +</p> + +<p> +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat cried the +reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm—that the gangway was “all +right,” and never had been anything but all right, I could not readjust my hat +nor see what was going on until the fat nurse had obligingly retrieved her +charge, without a word of thanks. +</p> + +<p> +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a horrible +idea that the scare might have been got up for the express purpose of robbing +me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as ever under my coat, and +decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm had had nothing to do with me. +</p> + +<p> +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of the way +of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had been rough for +a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and everything was already +engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the time, always conscious of the +unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The little man paced up and down, too, +though his yellow face grew slowly green, and he would have been much better +off below, lying on his back. As for the two others, they also remained on +deck, talking together as they leaned against the rail; but though I passed +them now and again, I noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by +turning before he reached their “pitch.” +</p> + +<p> +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, because if I +had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother would have been +over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd thronging the <i>douane</i>, I +decided to let the suitcase look after itself, and send down for it with the +key from the hotel later. Again the little man was close to my side as I went +in search of a cab, for all his things had been gone through by the custom +house officer in mid-channel, so that he too was free to depart without delay. +He even seemed to cling to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant +to speak, but he did not, save for a “good evening, sir,” as I separated myself +from him at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any conjurer’s +tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was walking toward a cab, +and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two late travelling companions, +who were getting into another vehicle near by. +</p> + +<p> +I went straight to the Élysée Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped before—a +long drive from the Gare du Nord—and claimed the rooms for which “Mr. George +Sandford” had wired from London. The suite engaged was a charming one, and the +private salon almost worthy to receive the lovely lady I expected. Nor did she +keep me waiting. I had had time only to give instructions about sending a man +with a key to the station for my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to +reach my rooms, and to draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at +the salon door. I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this +happened, but to my surprise the room remained in darkness—or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. +</p> + +<p> +“The lady has arrived, Monsieur,” announced the servant. “As Monsieur expected +her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that something has gone +wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It was but just now discovered, +at time for turning on the lights, otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would +have been provided, though no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few +minutes. If Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted in the +midst of my important interview with Maxine. “If the light comes on, it will he +all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it is not yet quite dark. +Show the lady in.” +</p> + +<p> +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, whose tall +and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting black dress, though +her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly embroidered veil that completely +hid her face, while long, graceful lace folds fell over and obscured the bright +auburn of her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment,” I said. “Let me push the curtains back. The electricity has +failed.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she answered. “Better leave them as they are. The lights may come on +and we be seen from outside. Why,”—as she drew nearer to me, and the servant +closed the door, “I thought I recognised that voice! It is Ivor Dundas.” +</p> + +<p> +“No other,” said I. “Didn’t the—weren’t you warned who would be the man to +come?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied. “Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of meeting +were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a cypher which I +trust nobody knows—except myself and one other. But I’m glad—glad it’s you. It +was clever of—him, to have sent you. No one would dream that—no one would think +it strange if they knew—as I hope they won’t—that you came to Paris to see me. +Oh, the relief that you’ve got through safely! Nothing has happened? You +have—the paper?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing has happened, and I have the paper,” I reassured her. “No adventures, +to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I’ve been spotted. Anyway, here +I am; and here is something which will put an end to your anxiety.” And I +tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which would +have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was never further +in her life from the thought of acting. “After all I’ve suffered, it seems too +good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” I said. “But you might seem to take just a little more interest in +me, even if you don’t really feel it, you know. You might just say, ‘How have +you been for the last twelve months?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do take an interest, and I’m grateful to you—I can’t tell you how +grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now,” she said, +eagerly. “If you knew everything, you’d understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know practically nothing,” I confessed; “still, I do understand. I was only +teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn’t to have done it, even for a minute. Here is +the letter-case which the Foreign—which was given to me to bring to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had never +departed. “Wait! It will he better to lock the door.” But even as she spoke, +there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she flung herself on me, +her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped suggestively a moment ago. I let +her draw out the long case which I had been guarding—the case I had not once +touched since leaving London, except to feel anxiously for its outline through +my buttoned coat. At least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in +her own hands now. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung to me, +the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my nostrils. But +as she started away, and I knew that she had the letter-case, the knock came +again. Then, before I could be sure whether she wished for time to hide, or +whether she would have me cry “come in,” without seeming to hesitate, the door +opened. For a second or two Maxine and I, and a group of figures at the door +were mere shadows in the ever deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have +counted ten before the long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in +more than one place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall +Commissary of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to see that +she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of sight. Having +ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the devil’s name the +Commissary of Police meant by walking into an Englishman’s room without being +invited; and not only that, but what under heaven he wanted anyway. +</p> + +<p> +He was far more polite than I was. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur,” he apologised. “I knocked twice, but hearing +no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon was unoccupied. +Important business must be my excuse. I have to request that Monsieur Dundas +will first place in my hands the gift he has brought from London to +Mademoiselle de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie,” I prevaricated boldly; but +the man’s knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris police had contrived +to learn it already, as well as to find out that I was the bearer of something +for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough to play the game in their own +way—whatever that might be. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent—to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned,” amended the Commissary of +Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered—or hoping that I looked bewildered. All the +while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for Maxine, or if she +would still find some way of saving herself. But all I could do for her at the +moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies as necessary. I hadn’t been able +to lie to Diana; but I had no compunctions about doing it now, if it were to +help Maxine. The worst was, that I was far from sure it would help her. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police from +doing their duty,” said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory for the first +time. “Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be compelled to order that +Monsieur be searched.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to forget that you’re dealing with a British subject,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country,” he capped my words. +“You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas,” suggested Maxine, lightly, yet +contemptuously, “and show them that you’ve nothing in which the police can have +any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, will be to search me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, unless +satisfaction is given to me,” returned the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these men had +ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me that her beauty +must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. For Maxine is a +gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most striking, more +wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes laughed out of her white +face, and her red lips smiled as if neither they, nor the great eyes, had any +secret to hide. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/072.jpg"> +<img src="images/072.jpg" width="392" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms. +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which was of +the fashion which, I think, women call “Princess.” It fitted her as smoothly as +the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?” she asked. +“I haven’t a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could have, in a gown +like this. I don’t know in the least what sort of ‘gift’ my old friend is +supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I’ll take off my gloves and +let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le Commisaire, for I’ve been +taught, as a servant of the public, to be civil to my fellow servants, even if +they should be unreasonable. No? You don’t want to see my rings? Let me oblige +you by taking off my hat, then. I might have put the thing—whatever it is— in +my hair.” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half scornful, half +good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood smiling, with her black hat +and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of her dark red hair shadowing her +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my pockets: a +letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my watch, and a +handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small bit of crumpled paper +of which I had no recollection: but as one of the gendarmes politely picked it +up from the floor, where it had fallen, and handed it to me without examining +it, mechanically I slipped it back into the pocket, and thought no more of it +at the time. There were too many other things to think of, and I was wondering +what on earth Maxine could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more +than two seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, are you satisfied?” she asked, “Now that we have both shown you we have +nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police station, and +have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? I’ll go with you, if +you wish. I won’t even he indiscreet enough to ask questions, since you seem +inclined to do what we’ve no need to do—keep your own secrets. All I stipulate +is, that if you care to take such measures you’ll take them at once, for as you +may possibly be aware, this is the first night of my new play, and I should be +sorry to be late.” +</p> + +<p> +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he would +read her soul. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am convinced that neither you nor Monsieur are +concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble you further until we +have searched the room.” +</p> + +<p> +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be when she +lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I saw that the +pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could control her muscles; +but she could not control the beating of the blood in her brain. I felt that +she was conscious of this betrayal, under the gaze of the policeman, and she +laughed to distract his attention. My heart ached for her. I thought of a +meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful +Maxine! In spite of her pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which +her experience of the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; +and though I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH5"></a>CHAPTER V<br/> +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE</h2> + +<p> +“How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur,” she asked, +“before you—rather rudely, I must say—broke in upon my conversation with my +friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had been here exactly three minutes,” replied the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +“As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each other, after +having been parted for many months; and still, in the three minutes, you +believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, and to find some safe +corner—all the while in semi-darkness—for the hiding of a thing important to +the police—a bomb, perhaps? You must think us very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment,” she answered, allowing anger +to warm her voice at last; “but this is almost beyond a joke. A woman comes to +the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed that they prefer her call not +to be talked about. For that reason, and for the woman’s sake, the friend +chooses to take a name that isn’t his—as he has a right to do. Yet, just +because that woman happens unfortunately to be well-known—her face and name +being public property—she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, +no doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. Ah, +it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to such +stupidity, such meanness.” +</p> + +<p> +“When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me,” said the Commissary; “until then, +I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you.” Then, turning to his two +gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning with all possible +places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might be hidden, within ten +metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur had stood talking together +when the police opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the three +policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of the room, she +walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon it. Weariness, +disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I guessed that she felt +herself actually in need of the physical support. +</p> + +<p> +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving themselves +entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their superior officer did +not once take his eyes from the pure profile she turned scornfully towards him. +I knew why he watched her thus, and thought of a foolish, child’s game I used +to play twenty years ago, at little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of +“Hide-the-Handkerchief.” While one searched for the treasure, those who knew +where it was stood by, saying: “Now you are warm. Now you are hot—boiling hot. +Now you are cool again. Now you are ice cold.” It was as if we were five +players at this game, and Maxine de Renzie’s white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: “Now you are warm. Now you are hot. Now +you are ice cold.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as my hat +and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes picked up these +things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the table; peeped behind +the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and drawers of a bric-â-brac +cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the corners of the rugs on the bare, +polished floor; and finally, bowing apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, +took out the logs from the fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and +pried into the vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window +curtains, and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at a loss. +</p> + +<p> +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine’s suffering. I felt as if +my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until it was +uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were peering under +the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round Maxine’s eyes made +her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the white electric light, which +did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty of revelation. She was smiling +contemptuously still—always the same smile—but her forehead appeared to have +been sprinkled with diamond dust. +</p> + +<p> +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it too. +But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. The keen-eyed +Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled subordinates, but +crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it fixedly. Then, grasping the +back with his capable-looking hand, instead of beginning at once a quest which +his gendarmes had abandoned, he searched the face of the tortured woman. +</p> + +<p> +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she had +suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The only +movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in another moment, +if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock no longer, and she would +die. For a second I wildly counted the chances of overpowering all three men, +stunning them into unconsciousness, and giving Maxine time to escape with the +letter-case. But I knew the attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, +the noise would arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush +in to the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. +</p> + +<p> +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating of her +bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, pushing his +hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he moved it along the +crevice inch by inch. +</p> + +<p> +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. I think +Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found something. The other +hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked together, groping and prying for a +few seconds: evidently the something hidden had been forced deeply and firmly +down. Then, up it came—a dark red leather case, which was neither a letter-case +nor a jewel-case, but might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating +in the intense relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London +to bring Maxine. +</p> + +<p> +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for suspense and +anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. +</p> + +<p> +“Voila!” grunted the Commissary of Police. “I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you had +spared us this trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“You alone are to blame for the trouble,” answered Maxine. “I never saw that +thing before in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, so far, +she was saved—as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a woman at bay, +fighting to the last, but without hope. “Nor did I ever see it before.” I +echoed her words. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for gratitude. I +was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, as I thought that she +must know. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. “I suppose +you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room tucked some valued +possession down into a safe hiding place—and then forgot all about it. That is +likely, is it not? You shall have the pleasure, Mademoiselle—and you, +Monsieur—of seeing with me what that careless person left behind him.” +</p> + +<p> +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, with +his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with calmness, and was +amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer scornful, tragically +indifferent in her manner, but imploring—a weak, agonized woman. +</p> + +<p> +“For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur,” she sobbed. “You don’t understand. I +confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held myself high, in my own +eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I—an actress—never took a lover. But +now I am like the others. This is my lover. There’s the price I put on my love. +Now, Monsieur, I ask you on my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case +sacred.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with a whip. +My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this became known, +this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then indeed all hope for +me with the girl I loved would be over. My second thought was for Maxine +herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she had chosen the way, I could only +be silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, from such +a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of that case,” said +the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. “No—no!” she implored. “If I were +rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I’ve been extravagant—I haven’t +saved, but all I have in the world is yours if—.” +</p> + +<p> +“There can be no such ‘if,’ Mademoiselle,” the man broke in. And wrenching his +hand free, he opened the case before she could again prevent him. +</p> + +<p> +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the floor, where +it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of rainbow colours. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Sacré bleu!”</i> muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever he +had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. Shorn of +hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case was torn open, +she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, tall figure crumpling +like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have fallen if I had not caught +her, holding her up against my shoulder. When the cataract of diamonds sprang +out of the case, however, I felt her limp body straighten itself. I felt her +pulses leap. I felt her begin to <i>live</i>. She had drunk a draught of hope +and life, and, fortified by it, was gathering all her scattered forces together +for a new fight, if fight she must again. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was empty. +There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a scrap of +paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Where, then, is the document?” Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +“What document?” she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. Hearing +the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that lay against my +shoulder, who—knowing a little less than I did of the truth—would have dreamed +that in her soul she thanked God for a miracle? Even I would not have been +sure, had I not felt the life stealing back into her half-dead body. +</p> + +<p> +“The contents of the case are not what I came here to find,” admitted the +Enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer horribly,” +said Maxine. “You have been very cruel to a woman who has done nothing to +deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have taken in my diamonds is +gone now. I shall never have a peaceful moment—never be able to wear them +joyfully. I shall have the thought in my mind that people who look at me will +be saying: ‘Every woman has her price. There is the price of Maxine de +Renzie.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle,” the man protested. “We shall +never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of what we have +heard and seen in this room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you search further?” asked Maxine. “Since you seemed to expect something +else—” +</p> + +<p> +“You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, Mademoiselle,” +said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. “Besides, this case was +what you did not wish us to find. You are a great actress, but you could not +control the dew which sprang out on your forehead, or the beating of your heart +when I touched the sofa, so I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has +been an error, and I can only apologise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t blame you, but those who sent you,” said Maxine, letting me lead her +to a chair, into which she sank, limply. “I am thankful you do not tell me +these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure but it would end in +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will adorn the +jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my companions. We have +but done our duty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me,” exclaimed +Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. “It is said that ‘Hell hath no fury like a +woman scorned.’ But what of a man who has been scorned—by a woman? He knew I +wanted all my strength for to-night—the night of the new play—and he will be +hoping that this has broken me. But I will not be broken. If you would atone, +Messieurs, for your part in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening +and encourage me by your applause.” +</p> + +<p> +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, murmured +compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, gave me the +sensation that I was in a dream. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH6"></a>CHAPTER VI<br/> +IVOR HEARS THE STORY</h2> + +<p> +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at Maxine, but +she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, trembling still; and +walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look out. Nobody was there. +</p> + +<p> +“They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on the +light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the electricity switched +on. They might change their minds, or be more subtle than they wished to seem. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the cushion +where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the glittering mass +against her lips and cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God, thank God—and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!” she said brokenly, +in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, even if pressed +against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop into her lap, she flung +back her head and laughed and cried together. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Ivor, Ivor!” she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. “The agony of it—the agony—and the joy now! You’re wonderful. Good, +precious Ivor—dear friend—saint.” +</p> + +<p> +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands with +which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven knows I don’t deserve one of those epithets,” I said, “I’ll just stick +to friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not deserve them?” she repeated. “Not deserve them, when you’ve saved me—I +don’t yet understand how—from a horror worse than death—oh, but a thousand +times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had found it, I +shouldn’t have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me—how did you work such a +miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant so much to me (and to one I +love), and how did you hide the—other thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know anything about this necklace,” I answered, stupidly, “I didn’t +bring it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You—<i>didn’t bring it</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. At least, that red leather thing isn’t the case I carried. When the fellow +pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn’t what I’d had, so I thanked our +lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all hope wasn’t over, if +I’d dared to catch your eye or make a signal.” +</p> + +<p> +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her eyes were +fever-bright. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor, you can’t know what you are talking about,” she said, in a changed +voice. “That red leather case is what you took out of your breast pocket and +handed to me when I first came into the room. At the sound of the knock, I +pushed it down as far as I could between the seat and back of the sofa, and +then ran off to a distance before the door opened. You <i>did</i> bring the +necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was the cause of all my trouble in the +beginning, I needn’t tell you of the joy I had in seeing it, apart from the +heavenly relief of being spared discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when +you’ve given me the other packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“I gave you the only thing I brought,” I said. “It was in my breast pocket, +inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There was no other +thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This red case is +something else—we can try to account for it later. It all came through the +lights not working. If it hadn’t been dusk you would have seen that I gave you +a dark green leather letter-case—quite different from this, though of about the +same length—rather less thick, and—v +</p> + +<p> +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back of the +sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be nothing or the +Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a cry she cut me short at +last throwing up her hands in despair. She was deathly pale again, and all the +light had gone out of her eyes leaving them dull as if she had been sick with +some long illness. +</p> + +<p> +“What will become of me?” she stammered. “The treaty lost! My God—what shall I +do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know—you are killing me?” +</p> + +<p> +The word “treaty” was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign Secretary +had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be wholly in his +secrets—and Maxine’s. Yet hearing the word brought no great surprise. I knew +that I had been cat’s-paw in some game of high stakes. But it was of Maxine I +thought now, and the importance of the loss to her, not the national disaster +which it might well be also. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” I said, “don’t despair yet. There’s some mistake. Perhaps we shall be +able to see light when we’ve thrashed this out and talked it over. I know I had +a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I thought of it and guarded it +every moment. Could those diamonds have been inside it? Could the Foreign +Secretary had given me the necklace, <i>instead</i> of what you expected?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she answered with desperate impatience. “He knew that the only thing +which could save me was the document I’d sent him. I wired that I must have it +back again immediately, for my own sake—for his—for the sake of England. Ivor! +Think again. Do you want me to go mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will think,” I said, trying to speak reassuringly. “Give me a moment—a quiet +moment—” +</p> + +<p> +“A quiet moment,” she repeated, bitterly, “when for me each second is an hour! +It’s late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be at the +theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first act are a +heavy business. I don’t want all Paris to know that Maxine de Renzie has been +ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we can, for others’ sakes, +and so gain time for our own, if all is not lost—if you believe still that +there’s any hope. Oh, save me, Ivor—somehow. My whole life is in this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work,” I +suggested. “You cannot go to the theatre in this state.” +</p> + +<p> +“For an actress there’s no such word as ‘cannot,’” she said bitterly. “I could +play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next instant; yet +no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no understudy. What use to +have one? What audience would stop in the theatre after an announcement that +their Maxine’s understudy would take her place? Every man and woman would walk +out and get his money back. No; for the sake of the man I love better than my +life, or twenty lives—the man I’ve either saved or ruined—I’ll play tonight, if +I go mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don’t ‘think quietly,’ Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each other, so. +Let us go over together everything that happened to you from the minute you +took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the minute I came into +this room.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except the part +that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. I told her how I +had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, and had waked to feel and +look for it once or twice an hour. How when morning came I had been late in +getting to the train: how I had struggled with the two men who tried to keep me +out of the reserved compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who +had a right to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. How he +had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion after the +false alarm on the boat’s gangway. How he had walked beside me and seemed on +the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I had avoided and lost +sight of him; but how I had many times covertly touched my pocket to be sure +that, through all, the letter-case was still safe there. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and at last +she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she gave to me. “Put +that into the same pocket,” she said, “and then pass your hand over your coat, +as you did often before. Now, does it feel exactly as if it were the green +letter-case with which you started out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I think it does,” I answered, doubtfully. “I’m afraid I shouldn’t know +the difference. This <i>may</i> be a little thicker than the other, but—I can’t +be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to unbutton my coat and look +at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It would have attracted too much +attention to risk that; and as a matter of fact, I was especially warned not to +do it. I could trust only to the touch. But even granting that, by a skill +almost clever enough for sleight of hand—a skill which only the smartest +pickpocket in Europe could possess—why should a thief who had stolen my +letter-case give me instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of +pounds? If he wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and +shape as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn’t suspect my loss, why didn’t he +slip in the red case <i>empty</i>, instead of containing the necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>This</i> necklace, too, of all things in the world!” murmured Maxine, lost +in the mystery. “It’s like a dream. Yet here—by some miracle—it is, in our +hands. And the treaty is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“The treaty is gone,” I repeated, miserably. +</p> + +<p> +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, yet it +almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the dreadful fact a +kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the sofa with a groan, her +face buried in her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“My God, what a punishment!” she stammered. “I’ve ruined the man I risked +everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act to-night, my +friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when to-morrow morning +comes, I shall be out of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that,” I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my failure. +“All hope isn’t over yet; it can’t be. I’ll think this out. There must be a +solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what <i>seems</i> to be gone. +If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I wouldn’t hesitate for an +instant, now: so you see, there’s nothing I won’t do to help you. Only, I wish +the path could be made a little plainer for me—unless for some reason it’s +necessary for you to keep me in the dark. The word ‘treaty’ I heard for the +first time from you. I didn’t know what I was bringing you, except that it was +a document of international importance, and that you’d been helping the British +Foreign Secretary—perhaps Great Britain as a Power—in some ticklish manoeuvre +of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, you might tell me +more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his message.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will tell you more!” Maxine exclaimed. “It will be better to do so. I +know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document you were +bringing me was a treaty—a quite new treaty between Japan, Russia and France: +not a copy, but the original. England had been warned that there was a secret +understanding between the three countries, unknown to her. There was no time to +make a copy. And I stole the real treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am +engaged—whom I adore, Ivor, as I didn’t know it was in me to adore any man. You +know his name, perhaps—that he’s Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in +Paris. Oh, I can read in your eyes what you’re thinking of me, now. You can’t +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for Raoul’s sake. +There’s that in my defence—only that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine’s +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“How could you?—except that I’ve betrayed him! But I’ll tell you +everything—I’ll go back a long way. Then you’ll pity me, even if you scorn me, +too. You’ll work for me—to save me, and him. For years I’ve helped the British +Government. Oh, I won’t spare myself. I’ve been a spy, sometimes against one +Power, sometimes against another. When there was anything to do against Russia, +I was always glad, because my dear father was a Pole, and you know how Poles +feel towards Russia. Russia ruined his life, and stripped it of everything +worth having, not only money, but—oh, well, that’s not in this story of mine! I +won’t trouble you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young +girl, I was already the enemy of all that’s Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I’ve been paying it, slowly. Don’t think that the money I’ve had +for my work—hateful work often—has been used for myself. It’s been for my +father’s country—poor, sad country—every shilling of English coin. As an +actress I’ve supported myself, and, as an actress, it has been easier for me to +do the other secret work than it would have been for a woman leading a more +sheltered life, mingling less with distinguished persons of different +countries, or unable to be eccentric without causing scandal. As for France, +she’s the friend of Russia, and I haven’t a drop of French blood in my veins, +so, at least, I’ve never been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made +some great <i>coups</i> in the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began +before I was sixteen, and now I’m twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to +thank me for giving her news of the most vital importance. You’re shocked to +hear what my inner life has been?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half conventional. +One hardly knows how conventional one’s opinions are until one stops to think,” +said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Once, I gloried in the work,” Maxine went on. “But that was before I fell in +love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that was to pass the +time. Both of us were flirting. I’d never met Raoul then, and I’ve never really +loved any man except him. It came at first sight, for me: and when he told me +that he cared, he said it had begun when he first saw me on the stage; so you +see it is as if we were meant for each other. From the moment I gave him my +promise, I promised myself that the old work should be given up for ever: +Raoul’s <i>fiancée</i>, Raoul’s wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. +Besides, as he’s a Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which +Maxine de Renzie never owed. I wanted—oh, how much I wanted—to be only what +Raoul believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal from him, +but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I’d break with the past, and +I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, who has always been a good +friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and hoped to begin my life all over again +in a different way, though he might be sure that I’d know how to keep his +secrets as well as my own. Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week +ago! I was happy then. I feel twenty years older now.” +</p> + +<p> +“A week ago. You’ve been engaged only a week?” I broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but he +wouldn’t have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn’t lost his head a +little. He hadn’t meant to speak, it seems, for he’s poor, and he thought he +had no right. But what’s a man worth who doesn’t lose his head when he loves a +woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to let anyone know until a few weeks +before we could marry, as I didn’t care to have my engagement gossipped about, +for months on end. There were reasons why—more than one: but the man of all +others whom I didn’t want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected +what had happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding—Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake while +Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces that there was +something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did suspect. Oh, a hateful +person! I’ve refused him three times. There are some men so vain that they can +never believe a woman really means to say ‘no’ to them. Count Godensky is one +of those, and he’s dangerous, too. I’m afraid of him, since I’ve cared for +Raoul, though I used to be afraid of no one, when I’d only myself to think of. +Raoul was going away that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who +was a dear and intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the +Duchesse de Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She +has no children of her own.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know her,” I said, “but I’ve seen her; a charming looking woman, about +forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband—a fellow who might be rather a Tartar +to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte Carlo one year, in the +Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, though the Duke +had the air of being dragged in against his will.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt he had been—or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, she’s a +dreadful gambler. It’s in her blood! I She lost, I don’t know how much, at +Monte Carlo on an ‘infallible system’ she had. She’s afraid of her husband, +though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she’s had for Bridge has +cost her so much that she daren’t tell the Duke, who hates her gambling. She +confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help her—not with money, for he has none, +but by taking a famous and wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, +selling the stones for her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was +all to be done very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn’t know, and +Raoul hated it, but he couldn’t refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he ‘lost his head,’ while we were bidding each other +good-bye before his journey. He didn’t mention the name of the Duchess, but +said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on business. But while he +was away a <i>dreadful</i> thing happened—the most ghastly misfortune—and as we +were engaged to be married, he felt obliged when he came back to let me know +the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the dreadful thing that happened?” I asked, as she paused, pressing +her hands against her temples. +</p> + +<p> +“The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one of the +most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul’s feelings? He came to me in +despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not appeal to the +police, or the Duchess’s secret would come out. And he couldn’t bear to tell +her of the loss, not only because it would be such a blow to her, as she was +depending on the money from the sale of the jewels, but because she knew that +he was in some difficulties, and <i>might</i> be tempted to believe that he’d +only pretended the diamonds were stolen—while really he’d sold them for his own +use.” +</p> + +<p> +“As she’s fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought no such +thing,” I tried to comfort Maxine. “But certainly, it was a rather bad fix.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of is to +hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me—well, there was nothing I +wouldn’t have done to help him—nothing. My life would have been a small thing +to give. I would have given my soul. And already a thought came flashing into +my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say nothing to the Duchess, who didn’t +even know yet that he’d come back from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was +about the commission from your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, +I’d just sent him word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that +I couldn’t do what he wanted. He’d offered me eight thousand pounds to +undertake the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed +if I tried. And with the few thousands I’d saved up, and selling such jewels as +I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for the necklace. +Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never know that the diamonds +had been stolen. All that night I lay awake thinking, thinking. Next day, at a +time when I knew Raoul would be working in his office, I went to see him there, +and cheered him up as well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to +have eighteen or twenty thousand pounds in my hands—all for him. To let him +have the money would make me happier than I’d ever been. At first he said he +wouldn’t take it from me—I knew he would say that! But, at last, after I’d +cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a loan, and +some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office there are several +great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay together, I made Raoul +tell me which was the most important of all—where the really sacred and +valuable things were kept. He laughed and pointed out the most interesting +one—the one, he said, which held all the deepest secrets of French foreign +diplomacy. I was sure then that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign +Secretary must be there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn’t have +been anywhere for long. ‘There are three keys to that safe,’ said Raoul. ‘One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this is the +third’; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I had seen +before. ‘Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,’ I pleaded with +him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my throat I wore a string of +imitation pearls, which I’d put on for a special purpose. But they were pretty, +and so well made that only an expert would know they weren’t real. Raoul isn’t +an expert; so at the moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open +the door, I gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls +roll everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about the +key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were worth at +least a thousand francs. +</p> + +<p> +“While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took an +impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my handkerchief, +and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on his hands and knees on +the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a moment, just to give me the peep +I had begged for, but not long enough for me to touch anything even if I’d +dared to try with him standing there. Enough, though, to show me that the +documents were neatly arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their +general character, colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was +being made; and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at +the office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me come to +him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him away. But I’d +made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, was a friend of +Raoul’s—the one who introduced us to each other, and I’d made up a message for +him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring his friend to speak to me. He +went, and I believed I might count on five minutes to myself. No more—but those +five minutes would have to be enough for success or failure. The instant the +door shut behind Raoul, I was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a +folded document, and opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right +one, for a mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted—the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France—the treaty +which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was a secret one, +arranged between the three countries without the knowledge of England and to +the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had gave me the impression +that the document was nothing of the kind, but quite innocent, affecting trade +only; yet that wasn’t my business. I had to send it to the Foreign Secretary, +who wanted to know its precise nature, and whether England was being deceived. +In place of the treaty I slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I’d brought +with me—just like the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business +would suspect the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back +before it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. But, +good Heavens, Maxine,” I couldn’t help breaking out, “it was an awful thing to +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know. But I had to have the money—for Raoul. And there was no other +way to get it. You remember, I’d refused, till the diamonds were lost, and +would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with the French Foreign +Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I had time enough. I had +even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately for me, the man I’d sent Raoul +to find was out. I looked at my watch, pretended to be surprised, and said I +must go at once. I couldn’t bear to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, +so that it might the more quickly be on its way back. I hadn’t come to visit +Raoul in my own carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking +me to it, Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it +had been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in such a +state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I fancied that he +imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red and pale. What a fool +I was—and how weak! But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t wait to go home. I wrote a +few lines in the cab, and sent off the packet, registered, in time I hoped, to +catch the post—but after all, it didn’t. Coming out from the post office, there +was Godensky again, in his motor-brougham. <i>That</i> could have been no +coincidence. A horrid certainty sprang to life in me that he’d followed my cab +from the Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn’t I have thought +of that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; yet +this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been up for +you before this,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t know, of course. Only—if he wants to be a woman’s lover and she +won’t have him, he’s her enemy and he’s the enemy of the man who <i>is</i> her +lover. He’s too clever and too careful of his own interests to speak out +prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do him harm if he +proved mistaken. He wouldn’t yet, I think, even warn those whom it might +concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul’s charge were out of order or +missing. But what he would do, what I think he has done, is this. Having some +idea, as he may have, that my relations with certain important persons in +England are rather friendly, and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go +almost straight to the post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the +name of my correspondent. He has influence—he could perhaps have found out: but +if he did, it wouldn’t have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings with +the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover—hence a delay +sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go straight to +him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and he would have +perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very unofficially and +confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of being a political spy in +the pay of England. He would have advised that my movements be watched for the +next few days: that English agents of the French police be warned to watch +also, on their side of the Channel. He would have argued to himself that if I’d +sent any document away, with Raoul’s connivance or without, I would be wanting +it back as soon as possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that +possibly a messenger would bring me something—if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes on me, +and on every movement of mine, I’m sure. See how efficient, though quiet, the +methods have been where you’re concerned. They—the police—knew the name of the +man I was to meet here at this hotel; and if, as Godensky must have hoped, any +document belonging to the French Government had been found on you or me, +everything would have played into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his +heart broken, and I—but there are no words to express what I would have +suffered, what I may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his +cleverness, as well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. +The only thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe then,” I asked, “that Godensky has had any hand in the +disappearance of the treaty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would believe it, if it weren’t for the necklace being put in its place. +Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul’s mission with the diamonds, +and got them into his own hands, he wouldn’t have let them get out again with +every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus saving him from his +trouble. He’d do nothing to help, but everything to hinder. There lies the +mystery—in the return of the necklace instead of the treaty. You have no +knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me with it in your pocket—the +necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days ago, in Amsterdam or on the way +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re certain it’s the same?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I’m not out of my mind yet—though +I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this horror.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to try,” I said. “Don’t give up hope. I wish, though, that you +hadn’t to act to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I. But there’s no way out of it. And I must go now to the theatre, or I +shall be late: my make-up’s a heavy one, and takes a long time. I can’t afford +to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, whatever comes afterwards. +Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the first act, he’ll be at the door +of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing him, of hearing him praise my acting, +and saying dear, trusting, loving words that would make me almost too happy, if +I hadn’t betrayed him, ruined his career for ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe not,” I said. “And anyhow, there’s the necklace. That’s something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will Godensky be in the audience, too?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he will. He couldn’t keep away. But he may be late. He won’t come +until he’s had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried to thrash +matters out.” +</p> + +<p> +“If only your theory’s right, then,—if he hasn’t dared yet to throw suspicion +on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its contents is as much +of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little time before us still: +we’re comparatively safe for a few hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re as safe,” answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, “as if we +were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid to fire it. +But“—she broke off bitterly, “why do I say ‘<i>we</i>’. To you all this can be +no more than a regret, a worry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that’s not just!” I reproached her. “I’m in this with you now, heart +and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I’d give my life, if +necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I’ve given something, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you given?” she caught me up quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier,” I answered; +then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I could, for she had +a heavy enough burden to bear already, without helping me bear mine. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think of it. You can do nothing; and I don’t grudge the sacrifice—or +anything,” I hurried on. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond this +tangle. But now, it must be <i>au revoir</i>. Save me, save Raoul, if you can, +Ivor. What you can do, I don’t know. I’m groping in darkness. Yet you’re my one +hope. For pity’s sake, come to my house when the play’s over, to tell me what +you’ve done, if you’ve been able to do anything. Be there at twelve.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and I’ll +go. I don’t want you to be seen with me outside this room.” +</p> + +<p> +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH7"></a>CHAPTER VII<br/> +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT</h2> + +<p> +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the bosom +of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening at the +throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the thing up from the +table where she had thrown it, and examined it carefully for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and as +Maxine’s voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all previous +knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had not been in it +when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would almost certainly have +described to Maxine the box or case which had been stolen from him, and if the +thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place had recalled his description, she +must have betrayed some emotion under the keen eyes of the Commissary of +Police. +</p> + +<p> +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might have +been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the ordinary sort. +Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a silver clasp on which +the hallmark was English. +</p> + +<p> +“English silver!” I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. Of the +trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the compartment for +himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to steal the treaty from +me, and exchange for it this red leather case containing a diamond necklace +worth twenty thousand pounds. If he possessed the skill and quick deftness of a +conjurer or a marvellously clever professional pickpocket, as well as the +incentive of a paid spy, he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment +of alarm on the boat’s gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me +in the Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. +</p> + +<p> +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why should +he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? Would the bribe +for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum he could obtain by +selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; and therefore, having the +diamonds, it would have been far more to his advantage to keep them than to +stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill up the space where the case with the +treaty had lain. There would not have been time yet for the real diamonds to +have been copied in Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a +theory that the stones given me might be false. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to watch +and be near me, why hadn’t he waited to see what I would do, where I would go, +instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and trusting to such +an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it with him? Even if the +three men had been in some obscure way playing into each others’ hands, I could +not see how their game had been arranged to catch me. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed yet since +I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the railway-station. Though I +could not understand any reason for his tricking me, still I told myself that +nobody else could have done it, and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du +Nord. There I might still be able to find some trace of the little man and of +my two other fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn +where they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by the +Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I was ready to +make use of it if necessary. +</p> + +<p> +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no importance, for +I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the railway-station and looked +about until I found a porter whose face I had seen when I got out of the train. +He had, in fact, appeared under the window of my compartment, offering himself +as a luggage carrier and had been close behind me when my late travelling +companion walked by my side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his +wits being sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only +my features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of <i>le petit Monsieur</i> he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied by two +other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the face of the +cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the station, for the +<i>voiture</i> had returned. Would he point out the <i>cocher</i> to me? He +would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. +</p> + +<p> +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +<i>cocher</i> of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine whom I was +to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had unfortunately missed. I +asked him to describe the men he had driven away from the station at that time, +and though he did it clumsily, betraying an irritating lack of observation when +it came to details, still such information as I could draw from him sounded +encouraging. He remembered perfectly well the place at which he had deposited +his three passengers, and I decided to take the risk of following them. +</p> + +<p> +When I say “risk,” I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase might +turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they had been driven +to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went there in a cab, and found +at last that I had made a mistake, I should have wasted a great deal of +valuable time on the wrong tack. If the driver had remembered the name of the +street, and the number of the house at which he had paused, I would have hired +a motor and flashed out to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested +bribe, he could say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one +of his passengers had called, “Turn down the next street, to the left.” He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he had been +bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the street; but, +though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, various landmarks +would guide him to the right place, when he came to pass them again. +</p> + +<p> +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I could do +no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, with a horse +already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks were not deceiving, as +I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet street of the suburb, we +stopped at last before a fair-sized house with lights in many windows. +Evidently it was a <i>pension</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English gentlemen +had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. Would Monsieur +give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until dinner should be over? +</p> + +<p> +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant’s hand, and suggest +that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without waiting. +</p> + +<p> +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, lest +they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at least they +could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to what should come +after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. +</p> + +<p> +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into the +dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long table with a +quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were dining, but, though +several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who resembled my travelling +companions. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good view. +In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of whom he had +spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had come only that day +from England, they were old patrons, well known in the house. +</p> + +<p> +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +<i>pension</i>, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily up +to enquire the stranger’s business in his dining-room. I explained that I had +hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to get permission for +my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the door. When he had identified +his three passengers, all hope was over. I had followed the wrong men. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question more +porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth having, it +seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a vehicle of some +sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I could learn nothing of +him or his movements, however, and dared not, because of Maxine and the British +Foreign Secretary, apply to the police for help, I determined to lose no more +time before consulting a private detective, a man whose actions I could +control, and to whom I need tell only as much of the truth as I chose, without +fear of having the rest dragged out of me. +</p> + +<p> +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good private +detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing my nerves. +Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was at home and able +to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat little sitting-room of +a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment house, and was impressed at +first glance by the clever face of the dark, thin Frenchman who politely bade +me welcome. It was cunning, as well as clever, no doubt: but then, I told +myself, it was the business of a person in Monsieur Girard’s profession to be +cunning. +</p> + +<p> +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at the +Élysée Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I had been +recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise if George +Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there were a good many +things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford seemed the man to fit +the situation. Later, he could easily disappear and leave no trace. +</p> + +<p> +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to me, but +as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account appear in the +case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of Monsieur Girard’s +well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed thief, whom I thereupon +described. I added the fact that we had travelled together, mentioned the +incident at the gangway, and explained that I had not suspected my loss until I +arrived at the Élysée Palace Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from behind a +screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside that screen. He +asked several intelligent questions, very much to the point, and I answered +them—as seemed best. When he touched on points which I considered too delicate +to be handled by a stranger, even a detective in my employ, I frankly replied +that they had nothing to do with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders +almost imperceptibly, yet expressively, he took my refusals without comment; +and merely bowed when I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within +twenty-four hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred +and fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second to +waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but whatever +happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. +</p> + +<p> +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), held +out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the whole, I was +pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew his business; and +had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign Secretary, and the risk +for Maxine, I would gladly have put more efficient weapons in Girard’s hands, +by telling him everything. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and details as I +could give, it was past ten o’clock. I could see my way to do nothing more for +the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed back in my hired automobile +to the Élysée Palace Hotel. There I had food served in my own sitting-room, +lest George Sandford should chance inconveniently upon some acquaintance of +Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted +now was to arrive at Maxine de Renzie’s house at twelve o’clock, and tell her +my news—or lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no +matter how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to supper, +or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no invitation, given +none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the theatre, probably without +waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she would go home unaccompanied, +except by her maid. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its own +garden, a great “find” in a good quarter of Paris; and her house could he +reached in ten minutes’ drive from my hotel. I would not go as far as the gate, +but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet street, as it would not he +wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle de Renzie was receiving a visit +from a young man at midnight. Fifteen minutes would give me plenty of time for +all this: therefore, at about a quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, +and in the entrance hall almost ran against the last person on earth I expected +to see—Diana Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. There +was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the world; and for a +wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see me, to take back all +her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me hack also. But it was only +for an instant—a very mad instant. +</p> + +<p> +Then I realised that she couldn’t have known I was to be at the Élysée Palace +Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of coming to me. As +common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the precious and beautiful face +other faces: Lady Mountstuart’s, Lord Mountstuart’s, Lisa Drummond’s, and Bob +West’s. +</p> + +<p> +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which appeared to +consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had just come into the +hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful face, which had been pale, +grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with amazement or anger, or both, I +couldn’t tell. Lisa smiled, looking more impish even than usual; but it was +plain that the others, Lord Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me +here. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness, is it you or your ghost?” exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the soft +accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the long years of +her married life in England. +</p> + +<p> +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di from +embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to Maxine’s. But, +unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for conventional +politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. +</p> + +<p> +I said “How do you do?” to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to see them +as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord Robert West, though +finding him here with Di, looking particularly pleased with himself, made me +want to knock him down. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are concerned,” +explained Lady Mountstuart. “Of course, Lord Robert ought to have been at the +Duchess’s bazaar this afternoon, but then he won’t show up at such things, even +to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to have represented me there. To-day +and to-morrow are the only days all three of us could possibly steal to get +away and look at a most wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before +it was ready. Lord Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other +human being does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the +most horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn’t fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she’s a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come with +us—and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to Boulogne, and had +such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the courage to dress and dine +at Madrid—wasn’t it plucky of us? But we’re collapsing now, and have come back +early, as we must inspect the car the first thing to-morrow morning and do a +heap of shopping afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re collapsing, I mustn’t keep you standing here a moment,” I said, +anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn’t looking at me. Half +turned from me, purposely I didn’t doubt, she had begun a conversation with Bob +West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him and her apparent +indifference to me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Collapsing’ is an exaggeration perhaps,” laughed Lady Mountstuart. “But, +instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room and have a +little talk—and whisky and soda.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do come, Dundas,” her husband added. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you both,” I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. “But—I know +you’re all tired, and—.” +</p> + +<p> +“And perhaps you have some nice engagement,” piped Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in naughty +Paris,” said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very handsome when she +laughs, and knows it). “Isn’t that true, Mr. Dundas?” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends upon the engagement,” I managed to reply calmly. But then, as Di +suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, the blood +sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young ass of a schoolboy. +“I’m afraid that I—er—the fact is, I <i>am</i> engaged. A matter of business. I +wish I could get out of it, but I can’t, and—er—I shall have to run off, or I +will be late. Good-bye,—good-bye.” Then I mumbled something about hoping to see +them again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I turned +away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to do with me, my +ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or something that felt like it, +where my heart ought to have been. +</p> + +<p> +Now was Lord Robert’s time to propose—now, when she believed me faithless and +unworthy—if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he would know it. +</p> + +<p> +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under porters +called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, but at some +distance from Maxine’s, lest ears should hear which ought not to hear: and it +was only when we were well away from the hotel that I amended my first +instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street leading into the one where I +was due, not the street itself. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Depêchez vous</i>” I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The man +obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine’s street at two or +three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly ten minutes past +when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came to the gate of the +house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour after midnight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>MAXINE DE RENZIE’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH8"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br/> +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF</h2> + +<p> +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don’t know. +</p> + +<p> +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning of the +first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single line that I had +to say. I couldn’t even see through the dazzling mist which floated before my +eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew he would be sitting +unless—something had happened. But presently I was conscious of one pair of +hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, Raoul was there. I felt his love +reaching out to me and warming my chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that +finds its way through shadows. I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. +I never had failed, and I would not now—above all, not now. +</p> + +<p> +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I couldn’t +have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to answer that first +cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to let me speak, each line +seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. Then I got out of myself and +into the part, as I always do, but had feared not to do to-night. The audience +was mine, to play with as I liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its +hands or shout “Brava-brava!” +</p> + +<p> +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, as a +lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. “What if they know +all I’ve done?” The question flashed across my brain. “What if a voice in the +auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie had betrayed France for +money, English money?” How these hands which applauded would tingle to seize me +by the throat and choke my life out. +</p> + +<p> +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on—till she breaks. I think that +she can’t be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women who haven’t had to +learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to me that they must suffer +less. +</p> + +<p> +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain calls. Five +times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look delighted with the ovation +I was having. Then, when the time came that I could escape, I met on the way to +my dressing-room men carrying big harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of +flowers which had been sent up to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly +glancing at them, for I knew that Raoul would be waiting. +</p> + +<p> +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me—my big, handsome lover, +looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in modern clothes +than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the Foreign Office. But then, +of course, he is really quite out of place in diplomacy. Since he can’t exist +on a marble pedestal or some Old Master’s canvas, he ought at least to be a +poet or an artist—and so he is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of +beautiful dreams, as beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might +be cold if it were not for the eyes, and lips. +</p> + +<p> +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I’d led +Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. Then—well, we +spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough to say. And we had five +minutes together, before I was obliged to send him away, and go to dress for +the second act. +</p> + +<p> +The touch of Raoul’s hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, gave me +strength to go through all that was yet to come. There’s something almost +magical in the touch—just a little, little touch—of the one we love best. For a +moment we can forget everything else, even if it were death itself waiting just +round the corner. I’ve flirted with more than one man, sometimes because I +liked him and it amused me,—as with Ivor Dundas,—sometimes because I had to win +him for politic reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met +Raoul du Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. +</p> + +<p> +I thought—for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping up and +hiding my secret—that when I was dead the best paradise would be to lean so on +Raoul’s shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three hundred years of +eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, back darted remembrance, +like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how little I deserved such a +paradise, and how my lover’s dear arms would put me away, in a kind of +unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had done, and how I had betrayed his +trust in me. +</p> + +<p> +For ten years I’d been a political spy—yes. But I owed a grudge to Russia, +which I’d promised my father to pay: and France is Russia’s ally. Besides, it +seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a man you adore, who adores +you in return. We women are true as truth itself to those we love. For them we +would sacrifice the greatest cause. Always I had known this, and I had thought +that I could prove myself truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had +betrayed my lover and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I +hardly had realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing on earth +could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so good, so pure. +</p> + +<p> +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to hold a +man’s respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his eyes? Such a +woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves in this world. My +punishment had begun, and it would always go on through my life with Raoul, I +knew, even if no great disaster came. Into the heart of my happiness would come +the thought of that hidden spot; how often, oh, how often, would I feel that +thought stir like a black bat! +</p> + +<p> +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I shuddered +and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe me, thinking it +was but my excitement in playing for the first time a heavy and exacting part. +He little guessed how heavy and exacting it really was! +</p> + +<p> +“Darling,” he said, “you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you—how proud I +am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I did. But I love +you a thousand times more than ever to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Since +his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had comforted him for +their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to help him out of his +trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his salvation. To-night his heart was +almost breaking with love for me, who so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for +him, which would make him long to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him +that the jewels were safe. He would love me still more passionately in his +happiness, which I had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love +as if it were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. +But how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not on its +way to blot us for ever out of life and love? +</p> + +<p> +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said to +myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this might be the +last time that his eyes—those eyes that are not cold—might look at me with love +in them, as now. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?” I asked. “Would you still be proud of me, still care for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d love you better, if there could be a ‘better,’” he answered, holding me +very close. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I’m a jealous brute. I can’t +bear you to belong to others—even to the public that appreciates you almost as +much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I’m proud that they adore you, +but I’d like to take you away from them and adore you all by myself. Why, if +the whole world turned against you, there’d be a kind of joy in that for me. +I’d be so glad of the chance to face it for you, to shield you from it always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, what <i>is</i> there would make you love me less?” I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink of a +precipice. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing on God’s earth—while you kept true to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I weren’t true—if I deceived you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I’d kill you—and myself after. But it makes me see red—a blazing +scarlet—even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it—when it’s +beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you wouldn’t make such +noble sacrifices to save me from ruin.” +</p> + +<p> +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I wished +that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. Why dwell on +horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness—perhaps the last I should +ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had for Raoul. I would have +told him then, but he went on, saying to me so many things sweet and blessed to +hear, that I could not bear to cut him short, lest never after this should he +speak words of love to me. Then—long before it ought, so it seemed—the clock in +mydressing-room struck, and I knew that I hadn’t another instant to spare. On +some first nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, more +than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by midnight or +before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know the worst—or best. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go. You must leave me, dear,” I said. “But I’ve some good news for you +when there’s time to explain, and a great surprise. I can’t give you a minute +until the last, for you know I’ve almost to open the third and fourth acts. But +when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come behind again. I shan’t take +any calls—after dying, it’s too inartistic, isn’t it? And I never do. I’ll see +you for just a few more minutes here, in this room, before I dress to go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a few minutes!” Raoul caught me up. “But afterwards? You promised me long +ago that I should have supper with you at your house—just you and I alone +together—on the first night of the new play.” +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had I +forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. There had +been so many miserable things to think of, that they had crowded the one +pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away from him involuntarily +with a start of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d forgotten!” exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for the instant,” I said, “because I’m hardly myself. I’m tired and +excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you rather not be bothered with me?” he asked wistfully, as I paused to +think what I should do. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I couldn’t +bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘bothered’!” I reproached him. “That’s a cruel word. The question +is—I’m worn out. I don’t think I shall be able to eat supper. My maid will want +to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old Marianne! She’s such a +tyrant, when she fancies it’s for my good. It, generally ends in my obeying +her—seldom in her obeying me. But we’ll see how I feel when the last act’s +over. We’ll talk of it when you come here—after my death.” I tried to laugh, as +I made that wretched jest, but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn’t +ring true. There was a shadow on Raoul’s face—that dear, sensitive face of his +which shows too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world—but +I had little time to comfort him. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be like coming to life again, to see you,” I said. “And now, good-bye! +no, not good-bye, but <i>au revoir</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where Marianne was +growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up things on the dressing +table, or fussing with some part of my dress for the next act. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a letter for you, Mademoiselle,” said she. “The stage-door keeper just +brought it round. But you haven’t time to read it now.” +</p> + +<p> +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and thought +it best to warn me without delay? +</p> + +<p> +“I must read the letter,” I insisted. “Give it to me at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old enough +to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but something in my +voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary promptness. Then came a +shock—and not of relief. I recognised on the envelope the handwriting of Count +Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort of will +that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid—afraid of a hundred +things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the treaty was in his +hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and try to drive some +dreadful bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to go to +the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as I might have +counted “one, two,” slowly, the paper looked black before my eyes, as if ink +were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the dark smudge cleared away, +and showed me—nothing, except that, if Alexis Godensky held a trump card, I was +not to have a sight of it until later, when he chose. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y</small> D<small>EAR</small> M<small>AXINE</small>,” [he began his +letter, though he had never been given the right to call me Maxine, and never +had dared so to call me before] “I must see you, and talk to you this evening, +alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more than mine, though +you know very well what it is to me to be with you. Perhaps you may be able to +guess that this is important. I am so sure that you <i>will</i> guess, and that +you will not only be willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were +before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage door when you +come out. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours, in whatever way you will,<br/> +“A<small>LEXIS</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have been to +tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. Then to throw +those pieces in his hateful face, and say, “That’s your answer.” +</p> + +<p> +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done what I +wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he need have no +fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to order him sent away +from the stage door. I would have to see him. But how could I manage it after +refusing—as I must refuse—to let Raoul go home with me? Raoul was coming to me +after my death scene on the stage. At the very least, he would expect to put me +into my carriage when I left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there +would be Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an <i>impasse</i>? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH9"></a>CHAPTER IX<br/> +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS</h2> + +<p> +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt dead. “I +can’t think now. I must trust to luck—trust to luck,” I said to myself, +desperately, as Marianne dressed me. “By and by I’ll think it all out.” +</p> + +<p> +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine de +Renzie, but Princess Hélène of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even more sure +and swift than miserable Maxine’s. When Princess Hélène had died in her lover’s +arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to die), and I was able to pick +up the tangled threads of my own life, where I’d laid them down, the questions +were still crying out for answer, and must somehow be decided at once. +</p> + +<p> +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way—Raoul, my best +beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must forego, and hurt +him instead. +</p> + +<p> +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him “come behind,” and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hélène had died, +the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to leave the +stage. +</p> + +<p> +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing them +tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face was pale and +sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden live flame among red +ashes. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Raoul?—why do you look like that?” I asked; while inside my head +another question sounded like a shriek. “What if some word had come to him in +the theatre—about the treaty?” +</p> + +<p> +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the tension, +when he answered: “It was only that terrible last scene, darling. I’ve seen you +die in other parts. But it never affected me like this. Perhaps it’s because +you didn’t belong to me in those days. Or is it that you were more realistic in +your acting to-night than ever before? Anyway, it was awful—so horribly real. +It was all I could do to sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. +Prince Cyril was a poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed +him in the third act, and then Hélène might have been happily married, instead +of dying.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you would have killed him,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I should. It’s a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I’m jealous. +But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not an insult.” +</p> + +<p> +“How you feel things!” I exclaimed. “Even a play on the stage—” +</p> + +<p> +“If the woman I love is the heroine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you ever be blasé, like the rest of the men I know?” I laughed, though I +could have sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Never, I think. It isn’t in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only love you the more,” I said, wondering every instant, in a kind of +horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. +</p> + +<p> +“I admit I wasn’t made for diplomacy,” he went on. “I wish, I had money enough +to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some beautiful, peaceful +world, where we need think of nothing but our love for each other, and the good +we might do others because of our love, and to keep our world beautiful. Would +you go with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, if I could!” I sighed. “If I could go with you to-morrow, away into that +beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile—” +</p> + +<p> +“Meanwhile, you don’t mean to send me away from you?” he pleaded, in a coaxing +way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like a boy. “You +don’t know what it is, after that scene of your death on the stage, where I +couldn’t get to you—where another man was your lover—to touch you again, alive +and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You <i>will</i> let me go home with +you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the house, and kiss you good-night +there, even if you’re so tired you must drive me out then?” +</p> + +<p> +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say “yes.” But +instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we mustn’t be seen +leaving the theatre together—yet, until everyone knew that we were engaged. As +for letting him come to me at home, if he dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn’t +ask it. I almost broke down as I said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me +that he immediately offered to leave me at once. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I’ve been looking forward to +for days,” he said, “and to let you go from me to-night of all nights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why to-night of all nights?”, I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. +</p> + +<p> +“Only because I love you more than ever, and—it’s a stupid feeling, of course, +I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play—yet I feel as if—But no, +I don’t want to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must say it,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in danger +of losing you. It’s just a feeling—a weight on my heart. Nothing more. Rather +womanish, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not womanish, but foolish,” I said. “Shake off the feeling, as one wakes up +from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all the sweeter.” As +I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying different words mockingly. +“If there be any meeting—to-morrow, or ever.” +</p> + +<p> +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: +</p> + +<p> +“Before we say good-bye, I’ve something to show you—something you’ll like very +much. Wait here till I get it from the next room.” +</p> + +<p> +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and there, a +dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with my success, +which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the least excited, +because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would have thought the sky +must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as placid as she was on other, +less important nights, far more placid than she would have been if she had +known that she was guarding not only my jewellery, but a famous diamond +necklace, worth at least five hundred thousand francs. +</p> + +<p> +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt perfectly safe +in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on earth—short of a bomb +explosion—could tempt the good creature out of my dressing-room in my absence, +and that even if a bomb did explode, she would try to be blown up with my jewel +box clutched in her hands. +</p> + +<p> +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my third +act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the box (which +always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my carriage) until +the electric light over the dressing table set the diamonds on fire. +</p> + +<p> +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The necklace +was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels depending from +it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp came, were as large as +my little finger nail, and the largest were almost the size of a filbert. All +were of perfect colour and fire, extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, +as well as flawless. Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made +it interesting even if it hadn’t been intrinsically of half its value. +</p> + +<p> +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the treaty had +disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and slipped them into +a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade which lay on the table. It +was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a friend had made and sent to me at +the theatre a few nights ago, and was intended to carry a purse and +handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. Now it seemed a convenient +receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly planned out my way of giving it to +Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his hands +and say, “See what I have for you!” But now I had changed my mind, because he +must be induced to go away as quickly as possible—quite, quite away from the +theatre, so that there would be no danger of his seeing Count Godensky at the +stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was jealous, because, as he said, his +jealousy was a compliment to me; and it is possible only for a cold man never +to be jealous of a woman in my profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. +But I did not want him to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly +jealous, if he thought that he had the least cause. +</p> + +<p> +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He would ask +me questions which I would rather not answer until I’d seen Ivor Dundas again, +and knew better what to say—whether truth or fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to +have the necklace to-night, because it would mean all the difference to him +between constant, gnawing anxiety, and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a +happy night, even though I was sending him away, even though I did not know +what to-morrow might bring, either for him or for me. +</p> + +<p> +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it to +Raoul in the next room. +</p> + +<p> +“This holds something precious,” I said, smiling at him, and making a mystery. +“You’ll value the something, I know—partly for itself, partly because I—because +I’ve been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When you see it, you’ll be +more resigned not to see me—just for tonight. But you’re to write me a letter, +please, and describe accurately every one of your sensations on opening the +bag. Also, you may say in your letter a few kind things about me, if you like. +And I want it to come to me when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, +dearest, and have the sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of +you every minute, asleep or awake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why mayn’t I look now?” asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and silver +from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a woman’s things. +</p> + +<p> +“Because—just <i>because</i>. But perhaps you’ll guess why, by and by,” I said. +Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag away in an +inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held nothing but a +handkerchief and a pair of gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. But I don’t think he heard, for he +had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in my heart—the +fear that it might be for the last time. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/148.jpg"> +<img src="images/148.jpg" width="419" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">“This holds something precious,” I said. +</p> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH10"></a>CHAPTER X<br/> +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY</h2> + +<p> +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold and filmy +tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Hélène had died, and into the black +gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had come to the theatre. I +did not even stop to take off my make-up, for though the play was an unusually +short one, and all the actors and actresses had followed my example of prompt +readiness for all four acts, it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was +dressed. I had to see Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in +time to keep my appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain +every nerve not to be late. +</p> + +<p> +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to speak to +Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or two whether he +had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. But if I could avoid +it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long conversation until later. +</p> + +<p> +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky knew +me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening,” he said. “A hundred congratulations.” +</p> + +<p> +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and the +stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me closely), and +several stage-carpenters, with other employés of the theatre, were within +seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, though that was exactly what +might best please Count Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +“I got your note,” I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in French. +“What is it you want to see me about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something that can’t be told in a moment,” he said. “Something of great +importance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very tired,” I sighed. “Can’t it wait until to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +I tried to “draw” him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t ask that question, if you guessed what—I know,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +Was it a bluff, or did he know—not merely suspect—something? +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you,” I said quietly, though my lips were dry. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I mention the word—<i>document?</i>” he hinted. “Really, I’m sure you +won’t regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do that,” I answered. “And I can’t take you into my carriage here. But +I’ll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugène Beauharnais. Then you can +go with me until I think it best for you to get out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he agreed. “But send your maid home in a cab; I can not talk +before her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you can. She knows no language except French—and a little English. She +always drives home with me.” +</p> + +<p> +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have given +the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by herself. In that +case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, admires him as a “dream +of a young man,” and already suspected what I hadn’t yet told her—that we were +engaged. But with Count Godensky forced upon me as a companion, I would not for +any consideration have parted with Marianne. +</p> + +<p> +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my chauffeur +where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky appeared. He got in +and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but doubtless astonished, +facing us on the little front seat. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” I exclaimed. “Please begin quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t force me to be too abrupt,” he said. “I would spare you if I could. You +speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am here because I love +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, Monsieur!” I broke in. “You know I’ve told you that is useless.” +</p> + +<p> +“But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will be +changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a great +danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could save you +from it if you’d let me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Save me from what?” I asked temporising. “You’re very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I’m Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of myself as +your ‘intimate friend’ when I have done what I hope to do for you in—in the +matter of a certain document which has disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some women, +feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been better for me to +die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let myself faint and show +Godensky that he had struck home. +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again,” I said to myself. And my +voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: “Oh, the ‘document’ again. The +one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my curiosity. But I +don’t in the least know what you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“The loss of it is known,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it’s a lost document?” +</p> + +<p> +“As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don’t come to me for the help I’m only too +glad to give—on conditions. Let me tell you what they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, and how +it concerns me?” I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t <i>you</i> evading the point far more than I? The document—which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though it were +in—let us say your hands, or—du Laurier’s, if he were here—that document is far +too important even to name within hearing of other ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Marianne’s? But I told you she can’t understand a word of Russian.” +</p> + +<p> +“One can’t be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be—a spy.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of showing +that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; but he should +not. +</p> + +<p> +“They say one judges others by one’s self,” I laughed. “Count Godensky, if you +throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall begin to wonder +if it’s not <i>you</i> who are the spy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then,” he went on, “I’ll tell you +what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took out of the +Foreign Office the other day, when you called on your—friend, Monsieur le +Vicomte du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” I exclaimed. “You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem to +think I am a kleptomaniac. I can’t imagine what I should want with any dry old +document out of the Foreign Office, can you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can imagine,” said Godensky drily. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this is +rather a serious accusation.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I make any accusation, it’s less against you than du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a warning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or because you don’t dare make it to anyone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dare! I haven’t accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your name +with his.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” I said. “You are very considerate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t pretend to be considerate—except of myself. I’ve waited, and held my +hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing which would +mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I ever did; even more, +because, in common with most men, I value what I find hard to get. To-night I +ask you again to marry me. Give me a different answer from that you gave me +before, and I’ll be silent about what I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“What you know of the document you mentioned?” I asked, my heart drumming an +echo of its beating in my ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?” (Oh, I was +keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely cost me +more than I dared count!) +</p> + +<p> +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. Half a +second—no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me what I had been +playing with him to find out. +</p> + +<p> +“Discovered by me,” he explained. “That is, by me and one person over whom I +have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or—forget it, according +to my advice.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such person,” I said to myself. But I didn’t say it aloud. Quickly +I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as were in a +position to discover the disappearance of any document under Raoul du Laurier’s +charge. There were several who might have done so, some above Raoul in +authority, some below; but I was certain that not one of them was an intimate +friend of Count Godensky’s. If he had suspected anything the day he met me +coming out of the Foreign Office he might, of course, have hinted his +suspicions to one of those men (though all along I’d believed him too shrewd to +risk the consequences, the ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he +had spoken, it would be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their +own course, independent of my decisions and his actions. +</p> + +<p> +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was “bluffing.” He wanted me +to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in order to save the +man I loved. I was only a woman, he’d argued, no doubt—an emotional woman, +already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous excitement. Perhaps he had +expected to have easy work with me. And I don’t think that my silence after his +last words discouraged him. He imagined me writhing at the alternative of +giving up Raoul or seeing him ruined, and he believed that he knew me well +enough to be sure what I would do in the end. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he said at last, quite gently. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and saw his +face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count Godensky is not more +Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin man with a hook nose, keen +eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a sharply waxed, military moustache +trained to point upward slightly at the ends. But to my fancy he looked +absolutely devilish at that moment. Still, I was less afraid of him than I had +been since the day I stole the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said slowly, “I think it’s time that you left me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s your answer? You can’t mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other times that +you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had to say to-night, +and I have heard it; so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t press the electric +bell for my chauffeur to stop, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know that you’re pronouncing du Laurier’s doom, to say nothing of your +own?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I don’t know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I haven’t made myself clear enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. You haven’t made yourself clear enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what detail have I failed? Because—”. +</p> + +<p> +“In the detail of the document. I’ve told you I know nothing about it. You’ve +told me you know everything. Yet—” +</p> + +<p> +“So I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Prove that by saying what it is—to satisfy my curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve explained why I can’t do that—here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my mind. You +understood before you came into my carriage that I had no intention of letting +you go all the way home with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me—frightened me +horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel that I had +got the best of the game. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH11"></a>CHAPTER XI<br/> +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN</h2> + +<p> +“You are afraid that du Laurier may find out,” he said. “But he knows already.” +</p> + +<p> +“Knows what?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you.” +</p> + +<p> +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of his +almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without falling they +laid one feather too much. +</p> + +<p> +My voice broke. “You—devil!” I cried at him. “You dared to tell Raoul that?” +</p> + +<p> +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now our +tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. She is the +soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk of life; but she +loves me more than she loves any other creature on earth, and now she could see +and hear that the man had driven me to the brink of hysterics. She would have +liked to tear his face with her nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given +her the word, I believe she would have tried with all her strength—which is not +small—and a very good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her +restlessness meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme +loyalty. But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I’ve always understood that you made a +great point of never doing anything which you considered in the least risqué. +So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn’t know? You might +already have mentioned it to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t believe you!” I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope was that +I might be right. +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem to at first, so I at once understood that +you hadn’t spoken of our appointment. But it was too late to atone for my +carelessness, and I did the next best thing: justified my veracity. I suggested +that, if he didn’t take my word for it, he might stand where he could see us +speaking together at the stage door, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I am glad of that!” I cut in. “Then he saw that we didn’t drive away +together.” +</p> + +<p> +“You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought you’d +receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the precaution of +warning du Laurier that he needn’t expect to see that. You would suggest a +place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I would inform him if he +chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!” I broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you have, +after all, if you don’t understand that a man suddenly out of his head with +jealousy will do things of which he’d be incapable when he was sane.” +</p> + +<p> +The argument silenced me. I knew—I had known for a long time—that jealousy +could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded me that he was +a “jealous brute.” I remembered what answer he had made when I asked him what +he would do if I deceived him. He said that he would kill me, and kill himself +after. As he spoke, the blood had streamed up to his forehead, and streamed +back again, leaving him pale. A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes—the +dear eyes that are not cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, +Raoul would do things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his +hand sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. +</p> + +<p> +“As a proof of what I say,” Godensky went on, “du Laurier did wait, did hear +from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it wouldn’t be +the worst of form to bet, I’d bet that he found some way of getting there in +time to see that I had told the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“You coward!” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, a brave man. I’ve heard that du Laurier is a fine shot, and +that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So you see—” +</p> + +<p> +“You want to frighten me!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“You misjudge me in every way.” +</p> + +<p> +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the signal +for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed down, then +came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count Godensky submitted to my +will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a submissive mood, as I did not +need to be reminded by the tone of his voice when he said “au revoir.” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of speaking them, +as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But to me they meant a +threat, and as a threat they were intended. +</p> + +<p> +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my second +pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had little enough at +the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he arrived. It was two or +three minutes after midnight, or so my watch said, when we drew up before the +gate of my high-walled garden in the quiet Rue d’Hollande. +</p> + +<p> +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient for +keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had just heard +from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I’d given orders) would be let in so late +at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he had come to +reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand outside the locked gate +till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but he was not there. There was, +to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, for a wonder (usually the Rue +d’Hollande is as empty as a desert, after eleven o’clock), but a girl’s face +peered out at me from the window—an impish, curiously abnormal little face it +was—extinguishing the spark of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of +the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, and the +girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all interested in her, +and I hate being stared at as if I were something in a museum. +</p> + +<p> +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I’m at the theatre; but Marianne +has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old Henri sits up, +and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were inside, the chauffeur +spinning away to the garage. +</p> + +<p> +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and its +small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home after hours +of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful light shone out +from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place looked inexpressibly +dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated the house, though I had +chosen it after a long search for peacefulness and privacy. How gloomy, how +dead, was the street beyond the high wall, with all its windows closed like the +eyes of corpses. There was a moist, depressing smell of earth after +long-continued rains, in the garden. No wonder the place had been to let at a +bargain, for a long term! There had been a murder in it once, and it had stood +empty for twelve or thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten +tragedy. I had been the tenant for two years now—before I became a “star,” with +a theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt the +house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story only made the +place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I wished I had never +spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me bad luck. I felt as if the +murder must have happened on just such a still, brooding, damp night as this. +Maybe it was the anniversary, if I only knew. +</p> + +<p> +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, withered +like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where he had sat, +hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, bowing and blinking, +just as he had done often before, and would often again—if life were to go on +for me in the old way. He regretted not having heard Mademoiselle. Would +Mademoiselle take supper? +</p> + +<p> +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri might go +to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t want the house closed,” I said. “I shall sit up for awhile. It’s +hot—close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open.” +</p> + +<p> +“The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it is so +late.” +</p> + +<p> +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not want her +to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a very old friend; in +fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember in London. He was to call—if +he did call—only on a matter of business, which would take but a few minutes to +get through, and possibly he would not even come into the house. If the +gate-bell rang, I would answer it myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in +the garden. Then I would let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might +go to bed if she wished. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so,” said +she. “I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for you,” I +replied. “I shan’t be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it should +not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she would not care to +admit?” +</p> + +<p> +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no fear of that. No fear of any kind,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel box. +</p> + +<p> +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright and +charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the delightful +Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up here and there at +antique shops or at private sales. +</p> + +<p> +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up again, +moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, wondering what +could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his promise to be prompt on +the hour of twelve. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought only of +the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I heard the +gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or fourteen minutes, but +it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I rushed out, down the garden +path, to let my visitor in. +</p> + +<p> +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in a +hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not Ivor +Dundas, but someone else—Raoul, perhaps—or the man who had been in her mind: +Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +But it was Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“What news?” I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in my own +ears. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether you’ll call it news or not, though plenty of things have +happened. I’m awfully sorry to be late—” +</p> + +<p> +I wouldn’t let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and drew him +into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. Yet I forgot to +lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it ought to be fastened. +</p> + +<p> +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I had told +Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might have been +followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, watchers who +would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very different from old +Henri’s. “Come into the house,” I said, in a low voice, “before you begin to +tell anything.” Then, when we were inside, I could not even wait for him to go +on of his own accord and in his own way. +</p> + +<p> +“The treaty?” I asked. “Have you got hold of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunately, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve heard of it? Oh, <i>say</i> you’ve heard something!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I haven’t, it isn’t because I’ve sat down and waited for news to come. I +went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get on the track of +the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But I was sent off on the +wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse luck—I’ll tell you about it later, +if you care to hear details. Then, when that game was up, I did what I wish I’d +done at first, found out and consulted a private detective, said to be one of +the best in Paris—” +</p> + +<p> +“You told your story—<i>my</i> story—to a detective?” I gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“No. Certainly not. I said I’d lost something of value, given me by a lady +whose name I couldn’t bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, too, not +Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all that happened on +the way, and offered big pay if he could find them quickly—especially the +little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting them to-night, so don’t be +desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap seemed really to think he’d not +have much difficulty in tracking down our man; and even if he’s parted with the +treaty, we can find out what he’s done with it, no doubt. Girard says—” +</p> + +<p> +“Girard!” I caught Ivor up. “Is your detective’s name Anatole Girard, and does +he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know too much of him,” I answered bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he clever, after all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Far too clever. I’d rather you had gone to any other detective in Paris—or to +none.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s wrong with him?” Ivor began to be distressed. +</p> + +<p> +“Only that he’s a personal friend of my worst enemy—the man I spoke of to you +this evening—Count Godensky. I’ve heard so from Godensky himself, who mentioned +the acquaintance once when Girard had just succeeded in a case everybody was +talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!” exclaimed Ivor, horribly disappointed at +having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried so hard to do the right +one. “Yet how could I have dreamed of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t,” I admitted, hopelessly. “Nothing is your fault. All that’s +happened would have happened just the same, no matter what messenger the +Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It’s fate. And it’s my punishment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends,” Ivor tried to console me, “it +isn’t likely that the Count has talked to the detective about you and the +affair of the treaty.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn’t find out +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly, I should say, until there’d been time for him to fear failure. No, the +chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the matter I’ve put +into his hands; and if he’s a man of honour, he’s bound to do the best he can +for me, as his employer. Have you seen du Laurier?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that brute +Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I’d known that you +would be so late, I might have explained everything to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry,” said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him (but not +half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn’t forgotten that hint he +had let drop about a great sacrifice—a girl he loved, whom he had thrown over, +somehow, to come to me). “I made every effort to be in time. It seems a piece +with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that I was prevented. I hope, at +least, that du Laurier knows about the necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +“He does, by this,” I answered. “Yet I’m afraid he won’t be in a mood to take +much comfort from it—thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn’t a practical +bone in his body. He will think I’ve deceived him, and nothing else will +matter. I must—” But I broke off, and laid my hand on Ivor’s arm. “What’s +that?” I whispered. “Did you hear anything then?” +</p> + +<p> +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a step outside, on the gravel path,” said I, my heart beginning to knock +against my side. “I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come into the garden. +What if it should be Raoul—what if he has seen our shadows on the curtain?” +</p> + +<p> +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on account +of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows couldn’t have fallen +on the curtain. +</p> + +<p> +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was Raoul’s +knock. I was sure of that. +</p> + +<p> +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time appointed, I +should have hurried him away before this, so that I might write to Raoul; but +now I could not think what to do for the best—what to do, that things might not +be made far worse instead of better between Raoul and me. I had suffered so +much that my power of quick decision, on which I’d so often prided myself +vaingloriously, seemed gone. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Raoul,” I said. “What shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don’t act as if you were afraid. Say +that I came to see you on important business concerning a friend of yours in +England, and had to call after the theatre because I’m leaving Paris by the +first train in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“No use.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul’s already angry. He has the right to +be—or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. And I refused to +let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, I was so tired. He’s +knocking again. Hide yourself, and I’ll let him in. Oh, <i>why</i> do you stand +there, looking at me like that? Go into that room,” and I pointed, then pushed +him towards the door. “You can get through the window and out of the +garden—softly—while Raoul and I are talking.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you insist,” said Ivor. “But you’re wrong. The best thing—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go—go, I tell you. Don’t argue. I know best,” I cut him short, in a sharp +whisper, pushing him again. +</p> + +<p> +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, my +boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched it out, and +dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That done, I flew out of +the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and opened the front door. +There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very stern in the light of the hall +lamp. I had never seen him like that before. +</p> + +<p> +“I know why you’re here,” I began quickly, before he could speak. “Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I—hoped you would come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?” he asked, +with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No. For I hadn’t deceived you,” I answered. “I haven’t deceived you now. If +you loved me, you’d believe me, Raoul.” +</p> + +<p> +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me draw +him into the house. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can,” he said. “It’s +death to lose it. I came here wanting to die.” +</p> + +<p> +“After you’d killed me, as you said?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. I couldn’t keep away. I had to come. If you have any explanation, for +the love of Heaven, tell me what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know me, and you know Godensky—yet you need an explanation of anything +evil said of me by him?” In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; but he had been +half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a power had jealousy over +his better self. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t play with me!” he exclaimed. “I can’t bear it. You sent me away. Yet you +had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your carriage; and now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should have +packed her off by herself, alone, that I—might be alone with you. Oh, Raoul, it +isn’t <i>possible</i> you believe that I could lie to you for Godensky’s sake—a +man like that! If I’d cared for him, why shouldn’t I have accepted him instead +of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think; I’m not able to think. I can only feel,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Then—feel sure that I love you—no man but you—now and always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Maxine!” he stammered. “Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are wise,” I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I was +claiming from him as my right. “If you wouldn’t believe, without my insisting, +without my explaining and defending myself, I’d tell you nothing. But you +<i>do</i> believe, just because you love me—I see it in your face, and thank +God for it. So I’ll tell you this. Count Godensky hates me, because I couldn’t +and wouldn’t love him, and he hates you because he thinks I love you. He—” I +paused for a second. A wild thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in +my brain. If I could say something now which, when the blow fell—if it did +fall—might come back to Raoul’s mind and convince him instantly that it was +Godensky, not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky’s to revenge himself on a +woman who’d refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her lover’s ruin, by +throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, innocent! If I could suggest +that to Raoul now, while his ears were open, I might hold his love against the +world, no matter what happened afterward. +</p> + +<p> +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits’ end and +desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift upon his +shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he’d helped to set, +Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was sure, which had never +been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, was a spy, just as I was; +and far worse, because if he were one he betrayed his own country, while I +never had done that, never would. +</p> + +<p> +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that Raoul +could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. +</p> + +<p> +“He—Godensky—would do anything to part you and me,” I said. “There’s no plot +too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against me—and you. No lie +too base for him to tell you—or others—about me. He sent me a letter at the +theatre—soon after you’d left me the first time. In it, he said that I must +give him a few minutes after the play, unless I wanted some dreadful harm to +come to <i>you</i>—something concerning your career. That frightened me, though +I might have guessed it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn’t +be sure, so I saw him. I didn’t want you to know—I tell you that frankly, +Raoul. Because I’d told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn’t find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with me and +Marianne. I ran the risk, and—the very thing happened which I ought to have +known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was nothing; only vague +hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner circle, might save you, if +I—would be grateful enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“The scoundrel!” broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. “I’ll—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He meant to +send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from doing that. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Raoul,” I said, as if he had finished his sentence, “you musn’t fight. For +my sake, you mustn’t. Don’t you see, it’s just what he’d like best? It would be +a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of the scandal. Oh, you +<i>will</i> think of it, when you’re cooler. For you, I would not fear much, +for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a shot—far superior to Godensky, +and with right on your side. But I would fear for myself. Promise you won’t +bring this trouble upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise,” he answered. “Oh, my darling, what wouldn’t I promise you, to +atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I came to you +to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and what I might do. But +at last I couldn’t hold out against the something that seemed forcing me here +in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a reward for your promise,” I said, smiling at him through tears that would +come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I who needed his +forgiveness, not he mine. “Now are you happy again?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m happy,” he said. “Though on the way to this house I didn’t dream that +it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in this world. And even +at your gate—” He stopped suddenly, and his face changed. I waited an instant, +but seeing that he didn’t mean to go on, I could not resist questioning him. I +had to know what had happened at my gate. +</p> + +<p> +“Even at the gate—what?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. I’m sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust you now, +by not speaking of that.” +</p> + +<p> +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had been +going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it from his +lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it recurred to him in +the future, might make him doubt me, even though in this moment of exaltation +he did not doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, speak of it,” I said. “All the more because it is nothing. For it +<i>can</i> be nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by not +allowing you to explain this other thing,” insisted poor, loyal, repentant +Raoul. “Then—at the time—it made all the rest seem worse, a thousand times +worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see through rose-coloured +ones.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. You +must tell me what you’re thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—if you will know. But, remember, darling, I’m going to put it out of my +mind. I’ll ask you no questions, I’ll only—tell you the thing itself. As I +said, I didn’t come here directly after seeing Godensky get into your carriage. +I wandered about like a madman—and I thought of the Seine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—you must indeed have been mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was. But that something saved me—the something that drove me to find you. I +walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and nearer, as if +being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this street, on the side +opposite your house. I hadn’t made up my mind yet, that I would try to see you. +I didn’t know what I would do. I stood still, and tried to think. It was very +black, in the angle between two garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts +up, you know. Nobody who didn’t expect to find a man would have noticed me in +the darkness. I hadn’t been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, +walking very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly—not his face, but his figure, and he was young and well +dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an Englishman. He went +straight to your gate and rang. A moment later someone, I couldn’t see who, +opened the gate and let him in. Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the +idea of following—of pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the +gate. But I wasn’t quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, +Maxine, there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you—but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I only +wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a motor cab going +slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. There were two women in +it. I could see them by the light of the street lamp, though not as plainly as +I’d seen the man, and they appeared to be arguing very excitedly about +something. Whatever it was, it must have been in some way concerned with you, +or your affairs, because they were tremendously interested in the house. They +both looked out, and one pointed several times. Even if I’d intended to go in, +I wouldn’t have gone while they were there. But the very fact that they +<i>were</i> there roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I’d fallen +into. I wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I tried the +gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and—there were lights in these +windows. I knew you couldn’t have gone to bed yet, though you’d said you were +so tired. There was death in my heart then, for you and for me, Maxine, for—the +gate hadn’t opened again, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you thought!” I broke in, my heart beating so now that my voice +shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. “You said to yourself, ‘It was +Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall find them together.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Raoul admitted. “But I didn’t try the handle of the door, as I had of +the gate. I rang. I couldn’t bring myself to take you unawares.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you ring?” I +asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor had advised me to +tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in painting the picture for +me, he lived through the scene again, and, in spite of himself, suffered almost +as keenly as he had suffered in the experience. I saw how his suspicions of me +came crawling into his heart, though he strove to lash them back. I dared not +bring Ivor out from the other room, if he were still there. He was too +handsome, too young, too attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of +Count Godensky, whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor +Dundas, a stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at +my house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn’t taken Ivor’s advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have listened +to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the understanding we +had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I must be secret to the +end.) +</p> + +<p> +The very asking of such a bold question—“Do you think I let a man in, and hid +him?” helped my cause with Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, “I can’t think it. I won’t, and don’t think it. And you need +tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won’t distrust you again!” +</p> + +<p> +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor had by +this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint sound in the +next room. He was there still. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, saying, “Let +us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in,” I laughed out +abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover the sound if it should +come again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Raoul!” I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I surprised +him. “You’re taking this too seriously. A thousand times I thank you for +trusting me in spite of appearances, but—after all, <i>were</i> they so much +against me? You seem to think I am the only young woman in this house. +Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it’s true. But I have a <i>femme de +chambre</i> and a <i>cuisinière</i>, both under twenty-five, both pretty, and +both engaged to be married.” (This was true. Ah, what a comfort to speak the +truth to him!) “Doesn’t it occur to you that, at this very moment, a couple of +lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the seat under the old yew arbour? Can’t +you imagine how they started and tried to hold their breath lest you should +hear, as you opened the gate and came up the path?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me!” murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave them in peace, by all means.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Thérèse and Annette are +good little girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, and I +shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m better now,” I said. “Of course I must send you away by and by, but +not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren’t glad when you saw the +jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jewels?” echoed Raoul. “What jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you haven’t yet opened the little bag I gave you at the +theatre?” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul looked half ashamed. “Dearest, don’t think me ungrateful,” he said, “but +before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told me—that lie. It +lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and haven’t thought of it +again till this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +At last I laughed with sincerity. “Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you’re not fit for this +work-a-day world! Well, I’m glad, after all, that I shall be with you, when you +see what that little insignificant bag which you’ve forgotten all this tune has +in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let’s open it together.” +</p> + +<p> +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I knew. +</p> + +<p> +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him put +the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his face +flushed. “Good heavens, Maxine,” he said, “I hope you weren’t in earnest when +you told me that bag held something very valuable to us both, for I’ve lost it. +You know, I’ve been almost mad. I had my handkerchief in that pocket. I must +have pulled it out, and—” +</p> + +<p> +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul,” I said, in a queer stifled voice, “the bag had in it the Duchess de +Montpellier’s diamonds.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IVOR DUNDAS’ PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH12"></a>CHAPTER XII<br/> +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK</h2> + +<p> +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding myself, +long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her boudoir, while within +hearing she did her best to convince her lover that no stranger had come on her +account to the house. +</p> + +<p> +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her little +place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in groping about +trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, I ran constant risks +of making my presence known by stumbling against the furniture or knocking down +some ornament. +</p> + +<p> +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would make, +and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet on glass, +although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of the house, and I +was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me stay. Only by a miracle +did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a chair or a tall vase of +flowers, on my way to a second door which was locked on the other side. At +last, however, I discovered a window, and congratulated myself that my trouble +and Maxine’s danger was nearly over. The room being on the ground floor, though +rather high above the level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let +myself down. But when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, +and felt smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was tightly +closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly and with +infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was going to stick. +Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it had swelled; in any case +I knew that when the two sashes consented to part they would make a loud +protest. +</p> + +<p> +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised her +voice—to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even than I +fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, and see if I +could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had missed. +</p> + +<p> +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which apparently +communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed too small for me to +climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. +</p> + +<p> +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du Laurier +should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after she had given +him the impression (if she had not said it in so many words) that there was no +stranger in the house. +</p> + +<p> +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I felt +like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should have imagined +myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed doors and windows. As it +was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead grew damp, as in the first moments +of a Turkish bath, and absent mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my +handkerchief. It was not to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the +detective’s, or in the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, +however, I chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn’t +account. It was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket onto the +floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. +</p> + +<p> +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second thought; but +to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as insignificant until it had +been thoroughly examined. I put the paper back, and as I did so I heard Maxine +give an exclamation, apparently of distress. I could not distinguish all she +said, but I thought that I caught the word “diamonds.” For a moment or two she +and du Laurier talked together so excitedly that I might have made another +attack on the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead silence, +except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than Maxine’s. Perhaps it +was her maid’s. +</p> + +<p> +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there was no +sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it should be too +late. +</p> + +<p> +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would certainly +have given away the secret of my presence if there had been ears to hear. But +all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I dropped down on to a flower +bed some few feet below. Then I skirted round to the front of the house, +walking stealthily on the soft grass, and would have made a noiseless dash for +the gate had I not seen a stream of light flowing out through the open front +door across the lawn. I checked myself just in time to draw back without being +seen by a woman and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine +and, no doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. Down to +the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing it behind them, +so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. +</p> + +<p> +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them was too +imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as they reappeared +in three or four minutes they could not have gone far enough to be out of sight +from the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s witchcraft in it,” Maxine said, as she and her lover passed within a +few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. +</p> + +<p> +Du Laurier’s answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. Evidently +they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of finding it +again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for Maxine that a +further misfortune should have befallen her at such a time. But the one and +only way in which I could help her at the moment was to get away as soon as +possible. +</p> + +<p> +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief when I +was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du Laurier should, by +any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought was to go immediately back +to my hotel, where Girard might by now have arrived with news. I was just ready +to hail a cab crawling by at a distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I’d +found and put back into my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by +the light of a street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the +small, crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. +</p> + +<p> +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both sides +with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The handwriting was +that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I could not make out the +words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a wax match from my match-box, +and protecting the flame in the hollow of my hand, began studying the strange +message. +</p> + +<p> +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. “On board the ‘Queen.’” I +had crossed the Channel in the “Queen,” and this beginning alone was enough to +make me hope that the bit of paper might do more than any detective to unravel +the mystery. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I’m taking big risks because I’ve got to,” I read on. “It’s my only chance. +And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You’re a gentleman, and you saved +my life and a lot more besides by getting into that railway-carriage when the +other chaps did. The minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped +there game. I’m a jewler’s assistant, carrying property worth thousands, for my +employers. From the first I knew ’twas bound to be a ticklish job. On this bote +I’m safe, for the villions who would have murdered and robbed me in the train +if it hadn’t been for you being there, won’t have a chance, but when I get to +Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed as I am, if I +hadn’t already thot of a plan to save them through you, an honest gentleman far +above temptashun. I know who you are, for I’ve seen your photo in the papers. +So, what I did was this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of +use in my carere, just as folks were on the boat’s gangway. Thro’ making that +disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing amatoor conjuring to amuse +my wife and famly, I was able to slip the case of my employer’s jewls into your +breast pocket without your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not +that I wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I’d left it +the double thickness would have surprised you and you would probably have +pulled out my case to see what it was. Then my fat would have bin in the fire, +with certin persons looking on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn’t +be fare. I’ve got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won’t open it +because it may have your sweetart’s letters in. You can get your property again +by bringing me my master’s, which is fare exchange. I can’t call on you, for I +don’t know where your going and daren’t hang round to see on account of the +danger I run, and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get to +him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I wrote out this +explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in your pocket which I shall try +when in the railway stashun at Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to +bring me the jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, +calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top floor, left of +passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“I am,<br/> +“Yours trustfully,<br/> +“J.M. Jeweler’s Messenger. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“P.S.—For heaven’s sake don’t fale, and ask the concerge for name of Gestre.” +</p> + +<p> +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating little +document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As it was, my +delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier to restrain +myself. +</p> + +<p> +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should have +rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her the good +news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she should curse instead +of bless me: and besides, as there was still a chance of disappointment, it +might be better in any case not to raise her hopes until there was no danger of +dashing them again. The best thing was to get the treaty back, without a second +of delay. As for the detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he +would have to wait longer, or even go away disgusted—nothing made much +difference now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the hour, she +was certain not to be asleep. +</p> + +<p> +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, and no +other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one presently. It +was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris no carriages of any +sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind that I should have to go +all the way on foot; but I knew the direction of the Avenue Morot, though I’d +never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and as it was not more than two miles +to walk, I could reach the house I wanted to find in half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since “J. M.” was sure to +be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which bothered me most was +the effect likely to be produced on the man when I could not hand him over the +diamonds in exchange for the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I didn’t believe that “J.M.” was a jeweller’s messenger, though +possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not told me the true +history of the diamonds, and what had happened in Holland. As it was, I had +very little doubt that the rat of a man I had chanced to protect in the railway +carriage was no other than the extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du +Laurier of the Duchess’s necklace. +</p> + +<p> +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it probable +that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had contrived to dodge, +evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope of cheating them out of +their share of the spoil. Followed by them, dreading their vengeance, I fancied +him flitting from one hiding-place to another, not daring to separate himself +from the jewels; at last determining to escape, disguised, from England, where +the scent had become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to +Dover, and travelling with a golfer’s kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening the +door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. +</p> + +<p> +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, “J.M.’s” travelling +companions hadn’t even accosted him. Still, the theory accounted for much that +had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a man should be desperate enough +to trust his treasure to a stranger (known only through “photos in the +newspapers”) rather than risk losing it to those he had betrayed. +</p> + +<p> +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from “J.M.” the case +containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive the diamonds +in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a plan of proceeding +before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon found my way into the Rue +de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which the queer name seemed not +inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an ugly big box of a building, with +rooms advertised to let, as I could see by the light of a street lamp across +the way, which gleamed bleakly on the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron +balconies. +</p> + +<p> +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of several +minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had opened for me. I +passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy voice behind a half open +window. The owner of the voice kept himself invisible and was no doubt in the +bunk which he called his bed. Only a stern sense of duty as concierge woke him +up enough to demand, mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired +to visit at this late hour? +</p> + +<p> +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Gestre is away,” murmured the voice behind the little window. +</p> + +<p> +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the “pal” whom “J.M.” had been in such a +hurry to find. “Very well,” said I, “I’ll see his friend, the Englishman who +arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here already? +He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?” +</p> + +<p> +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The “monsieur” who had +called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone to bed in +his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as the difference +between voices, especially if they were those of foreigners. Perhaps if I +explained that I was not the person who had said he would come again, but +another, the man behind the window would consider me a complication, and refuse +to let me pass at such an hour without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was +what I least wanted—for Maxine’s sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to +seize upon the advantage that was offered me. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” I said shortly. “I know the way.” And so began to mount the +stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the fifth floor I +found that I had reached the top of the house. There were no more stairs to go +up. +</p> + +<p> +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light—a jet of gas turned low. +But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the light, either in +carelessness or for some special reason. +</p> + +<p> +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be sure +that I had reached the right one until I’d lighted a match. When I was sure, I +knocked, but no answer came. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t be out,” I said to myself, cheerfully. “He’s got tired of waiting and +dropped asleep, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on until I +was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how sound asleep, I +must have waked him. +</p> + +<p> +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, he would +soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he was +away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the handle, and to +my surprise it yielded. +</p> + +<p> +“That must be because the lock’s broken and only a bolt remains,” I thought. +“So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if he’d be back any +minute. He wouldn’t like giving the enemy a chance to find his lair and step +into it before him.” It was dark in the room, and I struck another wax match +just inside the threshold. But I had hardly time to get an impression of +bareness and meanness of furnishing before a draught of air from an open window +blew out the struggling flame and at the same instant banged the door shut +behind me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH13"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br/> +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK</h2> + +<p> +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere at the +far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light knocking of a +window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. +</p> + +<p> +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I might +be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or table. Then, +what good luck if I should discover the case containing the treaty and go off +with it before “J.M.” came back! It was not his, and he was a thief: therefore, +I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de Renzie much good by taking it, if +he had left it behind, not too well hidden when he went out. +</p> + +<p> +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the window, +though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted floor, groping +with hands held out before me as I moved. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something which +proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I pushed it out +of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four steps when I caught my +foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap round the fallen chair. I +disentangled myself from its coils, only to slip and almost lose my balance by +stepping into some spilled liquid which lay thick and greasy on the bare +boards. +</p> + +<p> +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s been a struggle here,” I thought. And if there had been a +struggle—what of the treaty? +</p> + +<p> +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my way +along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and slippery; +and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing that was heavy +and soft to the touch of my foot. +</p> + +<p> +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles prickled +through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on that barrier +which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I knew what it would +prove to be. +</p> + +<p> +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though there was +no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers touched an arm, a +throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as I knew my boots must be. +And I knew, too, with what they were wet. +</p> + +<p> +I’m ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my impulse was +to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for reasons which +concerned others even more than myself, it would be unpleasant to be involved, +just at this time especially. I could go downstairs now, past the sleeping +concierge, and with luck no one need ever know that I had been in this dark +room of death. +</p> + +<p> +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search for +the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made sure it was +not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were matches in the room, +well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for them, and come back. It was a +grim task, but it had to be done. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of pipes +and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a broken cup +containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on the mantel an end of +a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I lighted it, and not until +the flame was burning brightly did I look round. +</p> + +<p> +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the secret of +the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, before the light of +my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the door as I opened it formed +a screen between me and the dead man on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged with +him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in pieces, the +spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair had been overturned, +and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that had held them were half +hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. +</p> + +<p> +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the condition +of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the floor: the drawers +of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and their contents strewn far +and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, and a few shabby coats and pairs +of trousers thrown about, with the pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A +chest of drawers had been ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of +sheets and blankets, the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The +room looked as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to +go near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. The +blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, like those +in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently by hands which +searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless determination. +</p> + +<p> +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I could +imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that he had +outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding the friend +who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had planned to defend +himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the door (both lock and bolt +were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to search his friend’s quarters +for food, and fearfully beginning a supper in the midst of which he had +probably been interrupted. Almost, I could feel the horror with which he must +have trembled when steps came along the corridor, when the door was tried and +finally broken in by force without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he +had rushed to the window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and +return desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any intention to +defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything right if only they would +give him time. +</p> + +<p> +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them of the +diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with the extreme +penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering candle-light the stricken +face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to leer slyly, as if in the +knowledge that they had been cheated in the end. +</p> + +<p> +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless there was a +chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the diamonds or some letters +relating to their disposal, might, if they found the treaty, have hastily flung +it aside, as a thing of no value. +</p> + +<p> +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, and the +lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which might fail +while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from its bed of grease +on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light touched my hand and shirt +cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned slightly sick at the sight. There was +blood on my brown boots, too, and the grey tweed clothes which I had not had +time to change since arriving in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains before +leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the floor, and +in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I cried “hurrah!” when, +half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing letter-case. It was lying +spread open, back uppermost, and there came an instant of despair when I +pounced on it only to find it empty. But there was the treaty on the floor +underneath; and lucky it was that the searchers had thrown it out, for there +were gouts of blood on the letter-case, while the treaty was clean and +unspotted. +</p> + +<p> +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything endured +and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the pocket from which +it had been stolen. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step outside +the door. +</p> + +<p> +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it was of +the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, my hands and +clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The treaty must not be +found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a dash for the window, and +once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I threw the candle-end into the +room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, +showed me a row of small flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I +wrapped the treaty in a towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two +of the flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to cover and +conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, fumbling at the +handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking of the hinges. Then +the light of a dark lantern flashed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>DIANA FORREST’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH14"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br/> +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE</h2> + +<p> +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it were a +kind of fine art. I don’t. It seems too bad to be true that I should be +unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a bad dream. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose I’ve been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been kind to +me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for them; and I have +taken things for granted—except, of course, with Lisa. But Lisa is +different—different from everyone else in the world. I have never expected +anything from her, as I have from others. All I’ve wanted was to make her as +happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could be, and to teach myself +never to mind anything that she might say or do. +</p> + +<p> +But Ivor—to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I didn’t know +it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off and left me +standing in the railway-station. I didn’t dream then of going to Paris. If +anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, “No, no, I will not.” And +yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I tried to make myself think that +it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down underneath I knew all the time it wasn’t +that, really. It was because I couldn’t bear to do the things I’m accustomed to +doing every day. I felt as if I should cry, or scream, or do something +ridiculous and awful unless there were a change of some sort—any change, but if +possible some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would be in +Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat and the train +that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could never be as we had been +before; that it was all over between us for ever and ever, and through his +fault. But, there at the bottom was the thought that I <i>might</i> have done +him an injustice, because he had begged me to trust him, and I wouldn’t. Just +suppose—something in myself kept on saying—that we should by mere chance meet +in Paris, and he should be able to prove that he hadn’t come for Maxine de +Renzie’s sake! It would be too glorious. I should begin to live again—for +already I’d found out that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn’t life at +all. +</p> + +<p> +He couldn’t think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, because I +would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I made up my mind to +be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had been, if Ivor happened to +run across us anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected way, but +instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more unhappy than +before—for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining through its blackness. +</p> + +<p> +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall of the +hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn’t give up his mysterious +engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and he <i>must</i> have +known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had put upon me. Instead +of being angry with him, I was <i>afraid</i> for him, I couldn’t have explained +why, unless it was the look on his face when he turned away from me. +</p> + +<p> +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a woman with +whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in my ear. Instead of +feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately angry with him, it was Ivor I +felt sorry for. +</p> + +<p> +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord Robert +West as if I’d forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor Dundas. I even +turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed to see the tragic look +in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It was just as if he were going +away from me to his death; and his face was like that of the man in Millais’ +picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted +because he wouldn’t let her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have +saved him. +</p> + +<p> +It is strange how one’s mood can change in a moment—but perhaps it is like that +only with women. A minute before I’d been trying to despise Ivor, and to argue, +just as if I’d been a match-making mamma, to myself that it would be a very +good thing if I could make up my mind to marry Lord Bob; that it would be +rather nice being a Duchess some day; and that besides, perhaps Ivor would be +sorry when he heard that I was engaged to somebody else. +</p> + +<p> +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been stuck +into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given anything to run +after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and would trust him in spite +of all. +</p> + +<p> +“You look as pale as if you were going to faint,” said Lisa, in her little +high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn’t speak loudly, always reaches to the +farthest corners of the biggest rooms. +</p> + +<p> +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone’s attention to me just then, +for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as they passed. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be the light,” I said, “for I don’t feel in the least faint.” That was +a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart +feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that +if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. “I’m a little tired, though,” I +went on. “None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, +though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don’t mind, +Aunt Lil, I’ll go straight to my room when we get upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others at the +door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric’s suite. +</p> + +<p> +“Shan’t I come with you?” asked Lisa, but I said “no.” It was something new for +her to offer to help me, for she isn’t very strong, and has always been the one +to be petted and watched over by me, though she’s a few years older than I am. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can’t get on even for a +single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had offered to +let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn’t been shut up in my room for +two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she could do anything. +But I thanked her, and sent her away. +</p> + +<p> +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking along +the Champs Élysées, brilliant still with electric lights, and full of carriages +and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and dinner-parties, or taking +them to restaurants for supper. +</p> + +<p> +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, though +last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved me, how I was +the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always would be. Here was I, +remembering in spite of myself every word he had said, hearing again the sound +of his voice and seeing the look in his eyes as he said it. There was he, going +to the woman for whose sake he had been willing to break with me. +</p> + +<p> +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed him he +might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, knowing, as he must +have known, exactly how he made me suffer. +</p> + +<p> +Still—why had he looked so miserable, if he didn’t care what I thought, and was +really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole thing began to +appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt it to be at first, +when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, and tingling all over with +the humiliation he seemed to have put upon me. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to know, to <i>know</i>, what he’s doing at this minute!” I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound of my +own voice. “To <i>know</i> whether I’m doing him the most awful injustice—or +not!” +</p> + +<p> +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa’s, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the key, +thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen—that Lisa might wish to +come, and not wait till I’d given her permission. She does that sort of thing +sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor calls her “Imp”), and if +she thinks people don’t want her that is the very time when she most wants +them. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Di, do let me in!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +For a second or two I didn’t answer. Never in my life had I liked poor Lisa +less than I’d liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though I’d told +myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was acting for my +good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of longing to slap her, as +I couldn’t help doing now. But always before, when she has irritated me until +I’ve nearly forgotten my promise to her father (my step-father) always to be +gentle with her in thought and deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that +I’ve tried to atone, even when there wasn’t really anything to atone for, +except in my mind. I was afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she +would go to bed angry with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart +attack and is ill next day. “Di, are you there?” she called again. +</p> + +<p> +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with a rush. +“I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +So did I, but I didn’t mean to let her know that. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going out,” she went on. “If I don’t, I shall have a fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out!” I repeated. “You can’t. It’s midnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t? There’s no such word for me as ‘can’t,’ when I want to do anything, and +you ought to know that,” said she. “It’s only being ill that ever stops me, and +I’m not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity were flowing all through me, +making my nerves jump, and I believe you feel exactly the same way. Your eyes +are as big as half-crowns, and as black as ink.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> a little nervous,” I confessed. And I couldn’t help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at the +same time. “Perhaps it’s in the air. Maybe there’s going to be a thunder-storm. +There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe it’s partly that, maybe not,” said she. “But there’s one thing I’m sure +of. <i>Something’s going to happen.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you feel that, too?” I broke out before I’d stopped to think. Then I wished +I hadn’t. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I <i>knew</i> you did!” she cried, looking as eerie and almost as haggard +as a witch. “Something <i>is</i> going to happen. Come. Go with me and be in +it, whatever it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said. “And you mustn’t go either.” But she was weird. She seemed to +lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren’s witchery, though +without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I’m not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in hand +through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans,” said Lisa. “I’m going to +have a closed carriage—a motor-brougham, one belonging to the hotel, so it’s +quite safe. It’s ordered already, and I shall first drive and drive until my +nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If you won’t drive with me I shall +drive alone. But there’ll be no harm in it, either way. I didn’t know you were +so conventional as to think there could be. Where’s your brave, independent +American spirit?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not conventional,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You’re afraid of things you +never used to be afraid of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not afraid of things, and I’m not a bit changed,” I said. “You only want +to ‘dare’ me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone,” she +begged. “Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but I +<i>can’t</i> stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would be an +adventure worth remembering.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I said, “I’ll go with you, not for the adventure, but rather than +have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and rather than you should +go alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good girl!” exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she had got +her way; though if I’d refused she would probably have cried. She is terrifying +when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear her frail little body to +pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes ends up by a fit of trembling as +if she were in an ague. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you really ordered a motor cab?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she. “I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big porter +at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and said I did +not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick friend who had +written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to tell no one except me +that she’d come to Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a waiter,” I +remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don’t like Lisa’s subterranean +ways. But this time she didn’t even try to defend herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s get ready at once,” she said. “I’m going to put on my long travelling +cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with a veil. I suppose +you’ll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the ‘service’ stairs. The +carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. “Lisa, are you +planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to ‘spring’ on me +when it’s too late for me to get out of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You <i>do</i> hurt my feelings! I +haven’t had an inspiration yet, so I can’t make a plan. But it will come; I +know it will. I shall <i>feel</i> where we ought to go, to be in the midst of +an adventure—oh, without being mixed up in it, so don’t look horrified! I told +you that something was going to happen, and that I wanted to be in it. Well, I +mean to be, when the inspiration comes.” +</p> + +<p> +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa’s veil, +and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there was nobody +in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew where to find the +‘service’ stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the side entrance of the +hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were both seated inside, Lisa +spoke in French to the driver, who waited for orders. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you might take us to the Rue d’Hollande. Drive fast, please. After +that, I’ll tell you where to go next.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your ‘inspiration’?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure yet. Why?” and her voice was rather sharp. +</p> + +<p> +“For no particular reason. I’m a little curious, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had been +playing with me, that all along she had had some special destination in her +mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to bring me to it. But what +use to ask more questions? She did not mean me to find out until she was ready +for me to know. +</p> + +<p> +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round corners +and through street after street which I had never seen before—quiet streets, +where there were no cabs, and no gay people coming home from theatres and +dinners. At last we turned into a particularly dull little street, and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this the Rue d’Hollande?” Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping quickly up +and putting her head out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mais oui, Mademoiselle</i>,” I heard the man answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could possibly +happen,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, and maybe you’ll find out you’re mistaken. If nothing does, and +we aren’t amused, we can go on somewhere else.” +</p> + +<p> +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun almost +noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in a high wall, +almost covered with creepers, and though the street was dimly lighted and we +had stopped at a little distance, I could see that the house behind the wall, +though not large, was very quaint and pretty, an unusual sort of house for +Paris, it seemed to me. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in neat, +dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, slim woman +sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who looked like a lady’s +maid. +</p> + +<p> +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our side of +the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who got down first. +It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I had heard a man say +once that only two women in the world had hair of that exact shade: Jane Hading +and Maxine de Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had brought +me here, though how she could have learned where to find the house, I didn’t +know. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lisa!” I reproached her. “How <i>could</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It really <i>was</i> an inspiration. I’m sure of that now,” she said quietly, +though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide excitement. “You +never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, yet you know who she is. +You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know by the hair,” I answered. “I might have foreseen this would be the kind +of thing you would think of—it’s like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it,” said Lisa. “It’s entirely +for your sake; and it’s quite true, it was an inspiration to come here. This +afternoon in the train I read an interview in ‘Femina’ with Maxine de Renzie, +about the new play she’s produced to-night. There was a picture of her, and a +description of her house in the Rue d’Hollande.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You’ve seen her back, and her maid’s +back, and the garden wall,” I said, more sharply than I often speak to Lisa. “I +shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. I know why you want to +wait here, but you shan’t—I won’t. I’m going away as quickly as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her +manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and +persuasiveness. +</p> + +<p> +“Di, dearest girl, <i>don’t</i> be cross with me; please don’t misunderstand,” +she implored. “I love you, you know, even if you sometimes think I don’t; I +want you to be happy—oh, wait a moment, and listen. I’ve been so miserable all +day, knowing you were miserable; and I’ve felt horribly guilty for fear, after +all, I’d said too much. Of course if you’d guessed where I meant to come, you +wouldn’t have stirred out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for +yourself. Unless Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could +hardly have arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he +<i>doesn’t</i> come, we shall know, too. Think how happy you’ll feel if he +<i>doesn’t!</i> I’ll apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose +you would not mind apologising to him, if necessary?” +</p> + +<p> +“He may be in the house now,” I said, more to myself than to Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“If he is, he’ll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. There, it’s +open now. The maid’s unlocked it. No, there’s nobody in the garden.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t stop here and watch for him, like a spy,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It’s for <i>his</i> sake I ask you to stay. And if you won’t, I must +stay alone. If you insist on going away, I’ll get out and stand in the street, +either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I’m sure he isn’t coming. But how +much better to wait and see for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I can’t go off and leave you standing here,” I answered. “And I can’t +leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets alone. I might +meet—” I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must nave guessed the name on +my lips. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together,” said +Lisa, “for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor Dundas and to +you. You couldn’t force me away, even if you wanted to use force.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which you know is out of the question,” I said, desperately. “But why has your +conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against Ivor? You seemed +to have no scruples whatever, last night and this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to be +justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn’t come to this +house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke about an +engagement, I shall believe that he doesn’t care a rap about Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating as if it +were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I could not think, +or argue with myself what was really right and wise to do. I could only give +myself up, and drift with circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“A man has just come round the far corner,” whispered Lisa. “Is it Ivor? I +can’t make out. He doesn’t look our way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven we’re too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather die +than have Ivor know we’re here,” I broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it is Ivor,” Lisa went on. “He’s hidden himself in the shadow, +as if he were watching. It’s <i>that</i> house he’s interested in. Who can he +be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie’s house?” I asked, in +spite of myself. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she regretted. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered hastily. “Why, indeed? It was just a +thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh—keep back, Di, don’t look +out for an instant, till he’s passed. Ivor is coming now. He’s walking in a +great hurry. There! he can’t see you. He’s far enough away for you to peep, and +see for yourself. He’s at Maxine de Renzie’s gate.” +</p> + +<p> +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that tragic +look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told me there was +no other woman in his world but me. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t look,” I stammered, almost choking. +</p> + +<p> +“Someone, I can’t see who, is letting him in. The gate’s shut behind him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go now,” I begged. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, not yet!” cried Lisa. “I must know what happens next. We are in the +midst of it, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, and +nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we should go. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?” Lisa said. Then +she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly told our +chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but the man did not +move. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers,” directed Lisa, but +I would not allow that. +</p> + +<p> +“No, he shall not stop there!” I exclaimed. “Lisa, I forbid it. You’ve had your +way in everything so far. I won’t let you have it in this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, we’ll turn the corner into the next street, to please you,” said +Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. “Now stop,” she cried, when +we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and hearing of anyone in the +Rue d’Hollande. Then, in another instant, before I had any idea what she meant +to do, she was out of the cab, running like a child in the direction whence we +had come. I looked after her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could +not bear to risk meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was +peeping into the Rue d’Hollande, to find out what was happening there. +</p> + +<p> +“She will come back in a moment or two,” I said to myself wearily, and sat +waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered up under her +cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If she had not appeared +again almost at once, I should have had to tell the driver to follow, though I +hated the thought of going again into the street where Maxine de Renzie lived. +But she did come, and in her hand was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered +with gold or silver that sparkled even in the faint light. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up,” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“You might better have left it,” I said stiffly. “Perhaps Mademoiselle de +Renzie dropped it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t in front of her house.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may belong to that man who was watching, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t look much like a thing that a man would carry about with him, does +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I admitted, indifferently. “Now we will go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I don’t!” I cried. “I don’t want to know any more about him.” And for +the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Lisa, “perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both that I +haven’t anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think about him +after this, the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t think about him at all,” I said. But I knew that was a boast I should +never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could understand how +people must feel when they are very old and weary of life. I don’t believe that +I shall feel older and more tired if I live to be eighty than I felt then. It +was a slight comfort to know that we were on our way back to the hotel, and +that soon I should be in my room alone, with the door shut and locked between +Lisa and me; but it was only very slight. I couldn’t imagine ever being really +pleased about anything again. +</p> + +<p> +“You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose,” chirped Lisa, “and show Ivor +Dundas that he hasn’t spoiled your life.” +</p> + +<p> +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons that +tied the bag she had found. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I shall,” I answered. “I might do worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think you might!” exclaimed Lisa. “Oh, do accept him soon. I don’t +want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you’re broken-hearted for him. Lord Bob +is sure to propose to you to-morrow—even if he hasn’t already: and if he has, +he’ll do it again. I saw it in his eye all to-day. He was dying to speak at any +minute, if only he’d got a chance with you alone. You <i>will</i> say ‘yes’ +when he does, won’t you, and have the engagement announced at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see how I feel at the time, if it comes,” I answered, trying to speak +gaily, but making a failure of it. +</p> + +<p> +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She seemed +surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in her hand, and +touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell me what was there. +Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make me ask. But I didn’t care +enough to humour her. If the bag had been stuffed full of the most gorgeous +jewels in the world, at that moment I shouldn’t have been interested in the +least. I saw Lisa give a little sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were +watching; but when she found me looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the +bag again and stowed it away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling +cloak. +</p> + +<p> +I was afraid that, when we’d arrived at the hotel and gone up to our rooms Lisa +might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her out, as I felt I +must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and my affairs, now that +all doubt was settled. She didn’t even wish to talk over what had happened; but +when I bade her good-night, simply said, “good-night” in return, and let me +shut the door between the rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” I thought, “that the best thing I shall have to hope for after +this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my dreams.” But +though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and fall asleep, I +couldn’t. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a minute at a time; and +always I found myself staring at the window, hour after hour, hoping for the +light. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH15"></a>CHAPTER XV<br/> +DIANA HEARS NEWS</h2> + +<p> +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and deserved to +be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I felt so ashamed and +humiliated. +</p> + +<p> +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful when +dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold bath, +however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee afterwards did me +good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian’s maid, knocked at my door to +ask if I were up, and if she could help me do my hair. “Her Ladyship” sent me +her love, and hoped I had rested nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I +was looking well. +</p> + +<p> +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared at +myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had made so +little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, perhaps, but my +cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose while one is young one can +suffer a good deal and one’s face tell no secret. +</p> + +<p> +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car which +Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and Lisa and I had +planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a waste of time to be in +Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But when I tapped at Lisa’s door +(dreading, yet wishing, to have our first greeting over), it appeared that she +had a bad headache and did not want to go with us to see the Rajah’s +automobile. While I was with her Aunt Lil came in, looking very bright and +handsome. +</p> + +<p> +She was “so sorry” for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back after it +was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough by that time +for the shopping expedition. +</p> + +<p> +The automobile really was a “magnificent animal,” as Aunt Lil said, and it took +her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to tool-boxes, to make up +her mind that she could not be happy without it. It was sixty horsepower, and +of a world-renowned make; but that was a detail. <i>Any</i> car could be +powerful and well made; every car should be, or you would not pay for it; but +she had never seen one before with such heavenly little arrangements for +luggage and lunch; while as for the gold toilet things, in a pale grey suède +case, they were beyond words, and she must have them—the motor also, of course, +since it went with them. +</p> + +<p> +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the two men +went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary member. +</p> + +<p> +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah’s agent and +the car paid for. At two o’clock, when we were to meet the men at the Ritz for +luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything had been successfully +arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to motor to Calais in her new +automobile, instead of going by train. Lord Bob would drive, but he meant to +hire a chauffeur recommended by the Club, so that he would not have to stop +behind and see to getting the car across the Channel in a cargo boat. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over anything +new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too much occupied to +notice. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt Lil +didn’t notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she doesn’t like +her, and it is only when you really care for people that you observe changes in +them when you are busy thinking of your own affairs. +</p> + +<p> +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she would have +the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but she was dressed +and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she said, and though she +didn’t buy anything when she was with us, while we were at a milliner’s in the +Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, she disappeared on some errand of +her own, and only came back just as we were ready to leave the shop. Whatever +it was that she had been doing, it had interested her and waked her out of +herself, for her eyes looked brighter and she had spots of colour on her +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many things +in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord Bob at the +Ritz, by two o’clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We were not more than +ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: and the short time that +we’d kept them waiting wasn’t enough to account for the solemnity of the two +men’s faces as they came forward to meet us. +</p> + +<p> +“Something’s gone wrong about the car!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“No, the car’s all right,” said Lord Bob. “I’ve got you a chauffeur too, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet blankets, or +something disagreeable. It surely can’t be because you’re hungry that you’re +cross about a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen a newspaper to-day?” asked Uncle Eric. +</p> + +<p> +“A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we’ve had too many important things +to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here,” Uncle Eric answered, looking very much +worried—so much worried that I thought he must care even more about Ivor than I +had fancied. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s the most awful rot,” said Lord Bob, “but he’s accused of +murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones,” Uncle +Eric went on. “We’ve only just seen the news since we came here to wait for +you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As it is, of course +I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I can to help him +through. But that needn’t keep the rest of you from going on to-day as you +planned.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an awful thing!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. “I will stay too, if the girls don’t +mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel that he has friends on +the spot, standing by him. I’ve got thousands of engagements—we all have—but I +shall telegraph to everybody. What about you, Lord Bob?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart,” said he, his nice though not very +clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his blue, wide-apart +eyes watching me rather wistfully. “Dundas and I have never been intimate, but +he’s a fine chap, and I’ve always admired him. He’s sure to come out of this +all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn’t much thought to give him then; but dimly I felt that +his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of whom he spoke so +kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in past days. +</p> + +<p> +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I should +have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem to think it +strange that I had nothing to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you won’t try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?” Lord Robert went on to ask. +</p> + +<p> +“No, we must eat, and talk things over,” said Uncle Eric. +</p> + +<p> +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor accused of +murder! What had he done? What could have happened? +</p> + +<p> +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the lovely, +fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. +</p> + +<p> +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was almost as +if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, of which he didn’t +wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been that. +</p> + +<p> +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was conscious +that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow for me, asking +himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who had been his rival. +</p> + +<p> +“There was that engagement of Dundas’ last night, which he was just going to +keep when we saw him,” said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. “I’m afraid +there must have been something fishy about that—I mean, some trap must have +been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn’t supposed to be in Paris—though +I don’t see what that can have to do with the plot, if there is one. He was +stopping in the hotel under another name. No doubt he had some good reason, +though. There’s nothing sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he’s +one. Anyhow, apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn’t +find, for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas had made +an enemy of him, for he’s been giving evidence pretty freely to the police—lost +no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following up the scent, tracking +down the person he’d been hired by Dundas to hunt for, and had at last come to +the house where he was lodging, when there he found Dundas himself, ransacking +the room, covered with blood, and the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the +floor, his body hardly cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“What time was all that?” enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first question she +had asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Between midnight and one o’clock, I think the papers said,” answered Lord Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course it’s all nonsense,” exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. “French +people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The idea of their +daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They ought to know better. +They’ll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging England’s pardon for wrongful +treatment of a British subject, won’t they, Eric?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of the +authorities, or of eating humble-pie,” Uncle Eric said. “The evidence—entirely +circumstantial so far, luckily—is dead against Ivor. And as for his being a +British subject, there’s nothing in that. If an Englishman chooses to commit a +murder in France, he’s left to the French law to deal with, as if he were a +Frenchman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Ivor hasn’t committed murder!” cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. But he’s got to prove that he hasn’t. And in that he’s worse +off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a man innocent +until he’s been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, presumes that he’s +guilty until he’s proved innocent. In face of the evidence against Ivor, the +authorities couldn’t have done otherwise than they have done.” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian’s husband. I do +hate that cold, stern “sense of justice” on which men pride themselves so much, +whether it’s an affair of a friend or an enemy! +</p> + +<p> +“Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an—an—don’t you call it an +alibi?” asked Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t try to,” replied Lord Bob. “He’s simply refused, up to the present, +to tell what he was doing between twelve o’clock and the time he was found, +except to say that he walked for a good while before going to the house where +Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies killing the man: says the +fellow had stolen something from him, on the boat crossing from Dover to Calais +yesterday, and that after applying to the detective, he got a note from the +thief, offering to give the thing back if he would call and name a reward. Says +he found the room already ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the +address given him; that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared +on the scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t he have shown the note sent by the thief?” asked Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he wouldn’t tell +what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except that it was valuable. +It does look as if he were determined to make the case as black as possible +against himself; but then, as I said before, no doubt he has good reasons.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has no good luck, anyhow!” sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather not—so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him is that +the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage swears that though +Dundas hadn’t been in the place much above half an hour when the detective +arrived, he was there then <i>for the second time</i>, that he admitted it when +he came. The first visit he made, according to the concierge, was about an hour +before the second: the concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not +asleep, when a man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur +Gestre. On hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre’s room. By and by the Englishman went out, +and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. After a while the +concierge was waked up once more by a caller for Gestre, who announced that +he’d been before; and now he vows that it was the same man both times, though +Dundas denies having called twice. If he could prove that he’d been in the +house no more than half an hour, it might be all right, for two doctors agree +that the murdered man had been dead more than an hour when they were called in. +But he can’t or won’t prove it—that’s his luck again!—and nobody can be found +who saw him in any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last +moment that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who’d taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not so very +far from the Élysée Palace. Then it was only between five and ten minutes past +twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +afterwards and killed his man at the time when the doctors say the fellow must +have died. It’s a bad scrape. But of course Dundas will get out of it somehow +or other, in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do <i>you</i> think he will, Eric?” asked Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so with all my heart,” he answered. But his face showed that he was +deeply troubled, and my heart sank down—down. +</p> + +<p> +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my resentment +against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had happened to make me +feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he cared more for Maxine de +Renzie than for me—indeed, on the contrary, everything went to prove his +supreme loyalty to her whose name he had refused to speak, even for the sake of +clearing himself. Still, now that the world was against him, my soul rushed to +stand by his side, to defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. +</p> + +<p> +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and I +yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on earth, I +wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk went on while that +terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do it, if Lisa and I should +act together. +</p> + +<p> +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get back +to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit long at +lunch, so it wasn’t yet three when I called her into my room. The men had gone +to make different arrangements about starting, for we were not to leave Paris +until they had had time to do something for Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the +British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had said that she would be busy for at +least an hour, writing letters and telegrams to cancel engagements we had had +in London. For awhile Lisa and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I +spoke out abruptly what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. +</p> + +<p> +“I think the only thing for us to do,” I said, “is to tell what we know, and +save Ivor in spite of himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can anything you know save him?” she asked, with a queer, faint emphasis +which I didn’t understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see,” I cried, “that if we come forward and say we saw him in the +Rue d’Hollande at a quarter past twelve—going into a house there—he couldn’t +have murdered the man in that other house, far away. It all hangs on the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t see him go in,” Lisa contradicted me. +</p> + +<p> +I stared at her. “<i>You</i> did. Isn’t it the same thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not unless I choose to say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—but you will choose. You want to save him, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he’s innocent. Because he’s your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“No man is the friend of any woman, if he’s in love with another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter except +saving him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t consider,” she said, in a slow, aggravating way, “that Ivor Dundas has +behaved very well to—to our family. But I want you to understand this, Di. If +he is to be got out of this danger—no doubt it’s real danger—in any such way as +you propose, it’s for <i>me</i> to do it, not you. He’ll have to owe his +gratitude to me. And there’s something else I can do for him, perhaps—I, and +only I. A thing of value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious +to get back at any price—even the price of looking for it on a dead man’s body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was—I think I have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” I asked, astonished at her and at her manner—and her words. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to tell you what I mean. Only I’m sure of what I’m saying—at +least, that the thing <i>is</i> valuable, worth risking a great deal for. I +learned that from experts this morning, while you and your aunt were thinking +about hats.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange idea +sprang into my mind: +</p> + +<p> +“That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d’Hollande last night!” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to this—there had +been so many other things which seemed more important. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or not +connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and that she +had wanted to tantalise me. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I do, that +I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man mixed up in the +case—perhaps the real murderer. If I <i>do</i> decide to tell what I know and +what I suspect, it won’t be to you—unless for a very particular reason—and it +won’t be yet awhile.” +</p> + +<p> +I’m afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn’t bear to think that she was my step-sister, and +I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood ran in our veins. +</p> + +<p> +“If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own,” I broke out, “you +can’t prevent me from telling the whole story, as <i>I</i> know it—how I went +out with you, and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to—for Ivor’s +sake,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“For his sake?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. For his +sake, because <i>neither</i> of us knows when he came out of Maxine de Renzie’s +house. You <i>would</i> go away, though I wanted to stay and watch. He may not +have been there more than five minutes for all we can tell to the contrary, in +which case he would still have had time to go straight off to the Rue de la +Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in accordance with the doctors’ statements +about the death. For <i>your</i> sake, because if he knows that you tracked him +to Maxine de Renzie’s house, he won’t respect you very much; and because he +would probably be furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, +for injuring the reputation of the woman he’s risked so much to save. He’d +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her.” +</p> + +<p> +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor would know that I’m incapable of such baseness.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure he’d hold you above it. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned’—and he <i>has</i> scorned you—for an actress.” +</p> + +<p> +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood rush up +to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I’m right, don’t you?” Lisa asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way—and that he +wouldn’t wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest,” I said. “We won’t +talk of it any more. I can’t stand it. Please go back to your room now, Lisa, I +want to be alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she snapped, “<i>you</i> called me in. I didn’t ask to come.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. I could +imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or offering her some +great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if necessary. Lisa is a strange +little creature. She will do a good deal for money. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH16"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br/> +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND</h2> + +<p> +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to enjoy +saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been utterly +discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made me realise +that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; but in my +desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, and find out some +other way of helping him. At all events he should know that I was for him, not +against him, in this time of trouble. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not be +allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there was a +“perhaps” I wouldn’t give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more cowardly +mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, for I hadn’t taken +off my hat and coat since coming in. +</p> + +<p> +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of that +sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that if a girl +should go to the right place begging for a short conversation with an accused +man, as his friend, an interview—probably with a witness—might possibly be +granted. The authorities might think that we were engaged, for all I cared. I +did not care about anything now, except seeing Ivor, and helping him if I +could. +</p> + +<p> +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the chance +I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. Then, I suddenly +thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of Uncle Eric’s and Aunt +Lilian’s. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but I fancied not with a view of +trying to see Ivor. That idea had apparently not been in his mind at all. +Anyway, the Ambassador would already understand that the family took a deep +interest in the fate of Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at +receiving a call from me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades +of mine when I first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, +laughed a good deal and said that in future he would be “surprised at nothing +an American girl might do.” +</p> + +<p> +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. There, I +sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I didn’t explain much, +but came to the point immediately, and said that I wanted—oh, but wanted and +needed very much indeed—to see Ivor Dundas. Could he, would he help me to do +that? +</p> + +<p> +“Ought I to help you?” he asked. “Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said firmly. “They would approve. You see, it is necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, if it’s necessary—and I believe you when you say that it is,” he +answered, “I’ll do what I can.” +</p> + +<p> +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief of +Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a young lady +related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, should be allowed +five minutes’ conversation with the Englishman accused of murder, Mr. Ivor +Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and because I +was so restless and excited that I must be doing something every +instant—something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I received +an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where they had put Ivor. +This, he explained, would procure me the interview I wanted, but unfortunately, +I must not hope to see my friend alone. A warder who understood English would +have to be present. +</p> + +<p> +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it would be +to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible circumstances, +or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now that we were no +longer anything to each other—not even friends. But a kind of ague-terror crept +over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little bare, stuffy reception room. My +head was going round and round, my heart was pounding so that I could not make +up my mind what to say to Ivor when he came. +</p> + +<p> +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and when it +opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue uniforms. One of them +walked into the room with him—I suppose he must have been a warder—but he +stopped near the door, and in a second I had forgotten all about him. He simply +ceased to exist for me, when my eyes and Ivor’s had met. +</p> + +<p> +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, stammering +and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make him understand in +the beginning that I had not come to take back my words of yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas,” I said. “I don’t know if Uncle +Eric has been here yet—but he is doing all he can, and Aunt Lilian is +dreadfully upset. We’re staying on in Paris on account of—on account of this. +So you see you’ve got friends near you. And I—we’re such old friends, I +couldn’t help trying as hard as I could for a sight of you to—to cheer you up, +and—and to help you, if that’s possible.” +</p> + +<p> +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but pretending to +smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes were full of tears, +and I was afraid they’d go splashing down my cheeks, if I even winked my +lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt capable of forgiving him +anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, and if only, <i>only</i> he +really loved me and not that other. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, a hundred times—more than I can express,” he said, with a faint +quiver in his voice—his beautiful voice, which was the first thing that charmed +me after knowing him. “It <i>does</i> cheer me to see you. It gives me strength +and courage. You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t—trust me, and believe me +innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course, I—we—believe you innocent of any crime,” I faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“And of any lack of faith?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as for that, how can—but don’t let’s speak of that. What can it matter +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say that +you will have faith!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless you mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then—I’ll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, you’re not +to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or later, though I may +have to suffer some annoyances first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Annoyances?” I echoed. “If there were nothing worse!” +</p> + +<p> +“There won’t be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a huge +mistake—another warning against trusting to circumstantial evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there nothing we can do then? Or—that we would urge <i>others</i> to do?” I +asked, hoping he would understand that I meant <i>one</i> other—Maxine de +Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; but +suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“There is one thing <i>you</i> could do for me—you and no one else,” he said. +“But I have no right to ask it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what it is,” I implored. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not, if it didn’t mean more than my life to me.” He hesitated, and +then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a few +hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as familiar as +English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still existing in the part +of California where I was born. He had heard me sing Spanish songs. We had sung +them together—one or two I had taught him. But I had not taught him the +language. He learned that, and three or four others at least, as a boy, when +first he thought of taking up a diplomatic career. +</p> + +<p> +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I—remembering the +warder—almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform came +nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. +</p> + +<p> +“That is forbidden,” he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. “What +language was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spanish,” I answered. “He only bade me good-bye. We have been—very dear +friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but—it’s over now. It was natural he +shouldn’t want you to hear his last words to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, it is forbidden,” repeated the warder obstinately, “and though +the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the prisoner must +go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and must be reported.” +</p> + +<p> +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so +brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police +force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like +that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be +childish and undignified of Ivor to resist—oh, I could have killed the creature +with my own hands—I think! +</p> + +<p> +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except “good-bye,” smiling half sadly, +half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and +just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had +spoken: “Remember, I know you won’t fail me.” +</p> + +<p> +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage not to +fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, and he had said +well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did not mean more than his +life. +</p> + +<p> +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were these: +“Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony find in a box +under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. Every moment counts.” +</p> + +<p> +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought—of Maxine de Renzie! And I, +of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. +</p> + +<p> +As I thought of this task he’d set me, and of all it meant, it appeared more +and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a thing of +me. But—it “meant more than his life.” And I would do the thing, if it could be +done, because of my pride. +</p> + +<p> +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed me. I +felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known that death, +or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to which Ivor had sent +me, I would still have gone there. +</p> + +<p> +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over—with success or failure. +But calmer thoughts prevailed. +</p> + +<p> +I hadn’t looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night’s dreadful +happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had said to myself +that I didn’t wish to read the newspaper accounts of the murder, and of Ivor’s +supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, that I did not even know in +what part of Paris the house of the murder was. I recalled only the name of the +street, because it was a curiously grim one—like the tragedy that had been +acted in it. +</p> + +<p> +I couldn’t tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That would be +a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out from them +something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be plenty of details +of that sort. And I must do this without first going back to the hotel, as it +might be very difficult to get away again, once I was there. Now, nobody knew +where I was, and I was free to do as I pleased, no matter what the consequences +might be afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. Having +paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of chocolate at one +of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble tables. Also I asked to see an +evening paper. +</p> + +<p> +It was a shock to find Ivor’s photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at me +from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a good deal +shown in shop windows, much to Ivor’s disgust, at about the time when he +returned from his great expedition and published his really wonderful book. I +had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been on sale in Paris as well +as London, it had been easy enough for the newspaper people to get it. Then +there came the story of the murder, built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened +by it, I yet read it all. I knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that +the murder had been committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the +picture of the window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed—according to Girard, +the detective—to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, on +hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead man’s room. +Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a bull’s-eye lantern, +which he—Girard—carried, standing at bay in the open window. There was a +photograph of this window, taken from outside. There was the balcony: and there +was the balcony of another window with another balcony just like it, on the +adjoining house. I looked at the picture, and judged that there would not be +more than two feet of distance between the railings of those two balconies. +</p> + +<p> +“That would be my way to get there—if I can get there at all,” I said to +myself. But there was hardly any “if” left in my mind now. I meant to get +there. +</p> + +<p> +By this time it was after five o’clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and again +took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a <i>petit bleu</i> to Aunt +Lilian, saying that she wasn’t to worry about me. I’d been hipped and nervous, +and had gone out to see a friend who was—I’d just found out—staying in Paris. +Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; but at latest I should be back +by nine or ten o’clock. That would save a bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian +knew I had heaps of American friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one +would know where to search for me, even if they were inclined. +</p> + +<p> +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and dismissed my +cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two mistakes, found the street +I wanted. Instead of going to the house of the murder, I passed on to the next +house on the left—the house of the balcony almost adjoining the dead man’s. +</p> + +<p> +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms to let +in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the advertisement +of “<i>Chambres â louer</i>” staring me in the face: but I spoke French as +badly as I could, making three mistakes to every sentence, and begged the man +to talk slowly in answering me. +</p> + +<p> +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been too +good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had jabbered +awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young American journalist, +employed by a New York paper. I wanted to “write up” the murder of last night, +according to my own ideas, and as of course the police wouldn’t let me go into +the room where it happened, the next best thing would be to take the room close +to it, in the house adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to “get +the emotion, the sensation,” I explained, so as to make my article really +dramatic. Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with my +writing. +</p> + +<p> +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was almost +sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would willingly agree +to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their trouble in turning +out. +</p> + +<p> +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge—whose eyes +brightened—thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take a large +commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; but that +didn’t matter to me. +</p> + +<p> +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get into the +room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, saying that the door, +and window too, had been sealed by the police, who were also guarding the house +from curiosity seekers; but he added that I could see the shut window from the +balcony of the room I was going to hire. +</p> + +<p> +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he went +upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining to the +people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far strained, he came back +to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had consented to go out of their room +for the evening. They were dining at the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must +be pleased to wait a few moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a +few things which they could carry to a neighbour’s: books, and work for their +hours of absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a parcel +of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an unscrupulous +American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment must be made in +advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then—I waited, waited. It was tedious, +but after all, the tediousness didn’t matter much when I came to think of it. +It would be impossible to do the thing I had made up my mind to do, till after +dark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>MAXINE DE RENZIE’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH17"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br/> +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN</h2> + +<p> +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, Raoul +and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed overwhelming. He did not +see in glaring scarlet letters always before his eyes these two words: “The +treaty,” as I did—for my punishment. He was in happy ignorance still of that +other loss which I—I, to whom his honour should have been sacred—had inflicted +upon him. He was satisfied with my story; that through a person employed by +me—a person whose name could not yet be mentioned, even to him—the necklace had +been snatched from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly +for thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, for +letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his mind by his +“wicked jealousy,” as he repentantly called it. For me, he had nothing but +praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He begged me to forgive him, +and his remorse for such a small thing, comparatively—wrung my heart. +</p> + +<p> +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search the +little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that there was +witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded him to go away, +and follow his own track wherever he had been since I gave him the bag with the +diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so late, and his way had led him +through quiet streets, that even after all this time the little brocade bag +might be lying where he had left it—or that some honest policeman on his beat +might have picked it up. Besides, there was the cab in which he had come part +of the distance to my house. The bag might have fallen on the floor while he +drove: and there were many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be +as cheerful as I could. +</p> + +<p> +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep—no wish +for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor Dundas gone, +as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart was that he might by +and by come back, or send—with news. Hour after hour of deadly suspense passed +on, and he did not come or make any sign. At five o’clock Marianne, who had +flitted about all night like a restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot +chocolate, and actually put me to bed. My last words to her were: “What is the +use? I can’t sleep. It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I’m sure she +must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I was far too +much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please her, to think whether +or no there was anything at all peculiar in the taste. +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was nearly +noon. +</p> + +<p> +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant wish not +to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. However, when Marianne +came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the electric bell, she said that +no one had been. There were letters and one telegram, and all the morning +papers, as usual after the first night of a new play. +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I thought it +might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, even if he hadn’t +yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; and he had not found the +brocade bag. He did not put this in so many words, but said, “I have not found +what was lost, or learned anything of it.” +</p> + +<p> +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have wired, +or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. He might, +unless—something had happened to him. There was that to think of; and I did +think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I had not suffered yet +all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant to the Élysée Palace Hotel +to enquire for him, and despatched Henri immediately. Meanwhile, as there was +nothing to do, after pretending to eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of +Marianne, I pretended also to read the newspaper notices of the play. But each +sentence went out of my head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end +only that, according to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had “surpassed +herself,” had been “astonishingly great,” had done “what no woman could do +unless she threw her whole soul into her part.” How little they knew where +Maxine de Renzie’s soul had been last night! And—only God knew where it might +be this night. Out of her body, perhaps—the one way of escape from Raoul’s +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the name he +had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had nothing to tell +which was consoling—rather the other way. The gentleman had gone out about +midnight (I knew that already), and hadn’t returned since. Henri had been to +the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he admitted to me on being +catechised, that his questions had been answered with a certain reserve, as if +more were known of the absent gentleman’s movements than it was considered wise +to tell. +</p> + +<p> +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he had +delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he “thought that Mademoiselle +would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with praise of her great +acting.” It was on my tongue to scold him for stopping even one moment, when he +had been told to hurry, but he looked so pleased at his own cleverness that I +hadn’t the heart to dash his happiness. I would, however, have pushed the +papers aside without so much as glancing at them, if it hadn’t suddenly +occurred to me that, if any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might +possibly have got into print by this time. +</p> + +<p> +When I read what had happened—how he was accused of murder, and while declaring +his innocence had been silent as to all those events which might have proved +it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. Here was a man! A man +loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to be, but few are! He had +sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to keep my name out of the mud into +which my business had thrown him, and to save me from appearing in Raoul’s eyes +the liar that I was. Had Ivor told that he was with me, after I had +prevaricated (if I had not actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor +to my house, what would Raoul think of me? +</p> + +<p> +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save me when +he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had decided to go +I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and happy to-day. +</p> + +<p> +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to the Chief +of Police and say: “Monsieur, this English gentleman they have arrested cannot +have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, between twelve and one +last night, for he came to my house, far away in the Rue d’Hollande, at a +quarter past twelve, and didn’t leave it till after one o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, to +ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her order my +electric brougham immediately. But—I sat down again, sick and despairing, +deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn’t obey it. I dared not. By +and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing danger, then certainly. But +not now. +</p> + +<p> +At four o’clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us tried to +cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even yet he would have +news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking me ill and tired out, +did all he could to persuade me that he was not miserable with anxiety. At +least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky or of any man, and was humbly +repentant for his suspicions of me the night before. When Raoul is repentant, +and wishes to atone for something that he has done, he is enchanting. There was +never a man like him. +</p> + +<p> +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn’t slept +much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I should +disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a fright—or perhaps +even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had done. I felt that I was no +longer mistress of myself—that I might be capable of any folly. +</p> + +<p> +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the theatre, +where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be busy; and in my +part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. +</p> + +<p> +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on dressing at +once, and took as long as I could in the process of making up; still, when I +was ready there was more than half an hour to spare before the first act. There +were letters for me—the kind that always come to the theatre—but I couldn’t +read them, after I had occupied myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew +what they would be: vows of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; +petitions for advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; +requests from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. +</p> + +<p> +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly at +crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne opened it, +to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” she whispered, coming to me, “Monsieur le Comte Godensky wishes +to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn something. If +not—if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please himself, I would soon +find out, and could send him away. +</p> + +<p> +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. He +advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one is sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He held +out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when he had come +too close. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought you would +be glad to see—even me,” he answered, smiling still. +</p> + +<p> +“What news? But bad, of course—or you wouldn’t bring it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very cruel. Of course, you’ve seen the evening papers? You know that +your English friend is in prison?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same English friend whom <i>you</i> would have liked to see arrested early +last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge,” I flung at him. “You look +surprised. But you are <i>not</i> surprised, Count Godensky—except, perhaps, +that I should guess who had me spied upon at the Élysée Palace Hotel. A +disappointment, that affair, wasn’t it? But you haven’t told me your news.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has been in the hands of the Juge d’Instruction. It is much the same, isn’t +it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if some magical bird +could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, and what answers he +made?” +</p> + +<p> +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky came! I +had been thinking of the Juge d’Instruction, and his terrible cross-examination +which only a man of steel or iron can answer without trembling. I had thought +that questions had been asked and answers given which might mean everything to +me, if I could only have heard them. Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I +reminded myself that this was impossible. No one could know except the Juge +d’Instruction and Ivor Dundas himself. “Only two men were present at that +scene, and they will never tell what went on,” I said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Three men were present,” Godensky answered. “Besides the two of whom you +think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is permitted nowadays +that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be accompanied by his legal adviser +when he goes before the Juge d’Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of +the language might handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would +prejudice his case.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke French +as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. +</p> + +<p> +“The adviser your friend has chosen,” Godensky went on, “happens to be a +protégé of mine. I made him—gave him his first case, his first success; and +have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. Dundas seems +to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last night, it was Girard. +To-day, it is Lenormand.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn’t let Godensky see that I winced +under it. +</p> + +<p> +“You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your various +protégés,” I said—“as well as those of your enemies. But if the information in +the one case is no more trustworthy than in the other—why, you’re not +faithfully served. I’ve good reason to know that you’ve made several mistakes +lately, and you’re likely to make more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don’t call yourself my ‘enemy’?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know of a more appropriate name—after the baseness that you haven’t +even tried to hide, in your dealings with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought all was fair in love and war.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you make war on women?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I make love to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“To many, I dare say. But here is one who won’t listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting—even if not accurate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened—that he’d been mixed up in this case—and expressed +myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, friends of whom were +intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no question of treachery on +Lenormand’s part. He trusts me—as you do not. Indeed, I even offered my help +for Dundas, if I could give it consistently with my position. Naturally, he +told me nothing which could be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if +I wished to go against him—which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I read the proof rather differently,” I said. “But go on. I’m sure you are +anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point.” +</p> + +<p> +“In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important questions +put by the Juge d’Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas the explanation of +a document found on him by the police—ah, that wakes you up, Mademoiselle! You +are surprised that a document was found on the prisoner?” +</p> + +<p> +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to lose +it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. +</p> + +<p> +“I rather hope it was not a letter from me,” I said. “You know so much, that +you probably know I admitted to the police at the Élysée Palace a strong +friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But London ways +are different from the ways of Paris. It isn’t agreeable to be gossipped about, +however unjustly, even if one is—only an actress.” +</p> + +<p> +“You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might have +been—a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any indiscretion, +especially a romantic one—any indiscretion <i>except treachery</i>. There +might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du Laurier, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +I shivered. “We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d’Instruction,” I +reminded him. “You have wandered from the point again.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are so many points—all sharp as swords for those they may pierce. Well, +the important question was in relation to a letter—yes. But the letter was not +from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in English, and it made an appointment +at the very address where the crime was committed. It was, as nearly as I could +make out, a request from a person calling himself a jeweller’s assistant, for +the receiver of the letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This +case had been committed to Mr. Dundas’ care, it appeared, while travelling from +London to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d’Instruction that his own +packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but papers +<i>entirely personal,</i> concerning himself alone. +</p> + +<p> +“‘What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into your +pocket?’ asked the Juge d’Instruction—Lenormand tells me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A necklace,’ answered Mr. Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A necklace of diamonds?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn’t much interested in it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ah, was this not the necklace which you—staying at the Élysée Palace under +another name—gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?’ was the next +question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas’ head. Now, you see, Mademoiselle, that +my story is not dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I to hear the rest—according to your protégé?” I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky’s neck, till he had no +more breath or wickedness left in him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d’Instruction, a most clever +and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought you a present of +diamonds, it was something entirely different, and therefore far removed from +this case. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie’s lover?’ was the next enquiry. ‘I admire +her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,’ your friend +returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to see what there is +in this string of questions and answers to bring me straight to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Count Godensky, I do not,” I answered steadily. But a sudden illuminating +ray did show me, even as I spoke, what <i>might</i> be in his scheming mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You love +him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, he is a very +proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him well; and he would +not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds from another man, saying as +she takes them that he is her lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t believe it of me!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a way of convincing him. Oh, <i>I</i> shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d’Instruction and Mr. +Dundas, unless—” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless?—but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, Maxine. I +mean to have you—or I will crush you, and now you know I can. Choose.” +</p> + +<p> +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as for a +moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn’t make me love you +less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are—as he will know soon +unless you let me save you? Yet I—I would love you if you were a murderess as +well as a—spy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is you who are a spy!” I faltered, now all but broken. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am, I haven’t spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du Laurier, and +before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no,” I gasped. “You cannot. You’re boasting. You can do nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to-night, perhaps. I’m not speaking of to-night. I am giving you time. +But to-morrow—or the day after. It’s much the same to me. At first, when I +began to suspect that something had been taken from its place, I had no proof. +I had to get that, and I did get it—nearly all I wanted. This affair of Dundas +might have been planned for my advantage. It is perfect. All its complications +are just so many links in a chain for me. Girard—the man Dundas chose to +employ—was the very man I’d sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To +watch your friend the British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on +the bare suspicion that there’d been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when—Dundas called on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What connection can Ivor Dundas’ coming to Paris have with Raoul du Laurier?” +I dared to ask. +</p> + +<p> +“You know best as to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have never met. Both are men of honour, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to suffer for +being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a man—a man of +honour, as you say—would feel when he found out the woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman can be calumniated as well as a man,” I said. “You are so unscrupulous +you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier has done nothing; +I—I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you can lie about us, ruin +him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, and—and do terrible harm to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can—without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you’ll give up du +Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have you. You are +the one woman worthy of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening—at this time—to decide. Will you promise me that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in your +mind now. I won’t risk losing you. I have waited long enough already. Give me a +ring of yours, and a written word from you to du Laurier, saying that you find +you have made a mistake; and not only will I do nothing to injure him, but will +guard against the discovery of—you know what. Besides, as a matter of course, +I’ll bring all my influence to bear in keeping your name out of this or any +other scandal. I can do much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was +through me the Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it—for my future wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the way +you wish,” I said. “If—if I am to give him up, I must tell him with my own +lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will hold your +hand until then.” +</p> + +<p> +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was trying to +read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like you, I +pledge my word that—that—if I can’t break with Raoul, to let you know the first +thing in the morning, and dare you to do—what you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not ‘dare’ me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait—a little +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Until this time to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another twelve +hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree.” My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he understood, +and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to snatch my hand. I +drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne appeared at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle,” she announced, her good-natured, +open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. “A young lady who sends +this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it at once, and consent to see +her.” +</p> + +<p> +Thankful that the tête-â-tête had been interrupted, I held out my hand for the +letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written below the lines +which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, and found it strange to +me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch at the chance of ridding myself +immediately of Godensky, the few words above the unfamiliar name would have +made me say as I did say, “Bring the young lady in at once.” +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was of the +greatest and most pressing importance. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“DIANA FORREST.” +</p> + +<p> +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely filled with +arguments could not have moved me more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br/> +MAXINE MEETS DIANA</h2> + +<p> +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to all +appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered in a girl—a +tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an artist. +</p> + +<p> +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at each +other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed the quarter +hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her—lovely and +lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on its +petals—a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair garden, far +out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how different her sweet, +girl’s life had been from my stormy if sometimes brilliant career. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dundas sent you to me?” I asked. “When did you see him? Surely not—since—” +</p> + +<p> +“This afternoon,” she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding voice, +with a soft little drawl of the South in it. “I went to see him. They gave us +five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in Spanish, just a few +words, he—Mr. Dundas—managed to tell me a thing he wished me to do. He said it +meant more than his life, so I did it; for we have been friends, and just now +he’s helpless. The warder was angry, and stopped our conversation at once, +though the five minutes weren’t ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there +wasn’t a moment to lose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!” I +exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I had something else to do first,” she said, in the same quiet voice. She was +looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that they made a +shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Even before I saw—Mr. Dundas,” she went on, “I had the idea of calling on +you—about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, if before +I go on I tell you that—quite by accident, so far as I was concerned—I was with +someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last night, a little after twelve. +I didn’t dream of spying on—either of you. It just happened, it wouldn’t +interest you to know how. Yet—I beg of you to tell me one thing. Was he with +you for long—so long that he couldn’t have got to the other place in time to +commit the murder?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was in my house until after one,” I said boldly. “But you, if you are his +friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such an assurance +from me, that he is no murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am certain,” she protested. “I asked the question, not for that reason, +but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you choose. Now, I find +you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at first I wanted to rush off +to the police and tell them where he had been while the murder was being +committed. But I didn’t know how long he had stopped in your house, and, +besides—” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have dared to do that!” I broke in, the blood, angry blood, stinging +my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t a question of daring,” she answered. “I thought of him more than of +you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your place, no matter +how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess that he had been in my +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are reasons why I can’t tell that he was there,” I said, trying to awe +her by speaking coldly and proudly. “His visit was entirely on business. But +Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he approves. You know he +has remained silent himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“For your sake, because he is a gentleman—brave and chivalrous. Would you take +advantage of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You take advantage of me,” I flung back at the girl, looking her up and down. +“You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message for me. Do +you want me to believe <i>this</i> his message? I think too well of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want you to believe that,” she answered. “I haven’t come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own account.” +</p> + +<p> +“In twelve minutes I must be on the stage,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“The stage!” she echoed. “You can go on acting just the same, though he is in +prison—for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go on acting. If I didn’t, I should do him more harm than good.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you <i>will</i> do him good. +If you care for him at all, you must want to save him.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I care for him?” I repeated, in surprise. “You think—oh, but I understand +now. You are the girl he spoke of.” +</p> + +<p> +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not think he would speak of me,” she said. “I wish he hadn’t. But, if +you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see that you have +nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” I exclaimed, “you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you are to each other,” she faltered, all her coolness +deserting her. “That isn’t my affair—” +</p> + +<p> +“But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares nothing +for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a little a year +ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man whom I worship. I +would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and is glad. But the other +man is jealous. He wouldn’t understand—he would want to kill me and himself and +Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in my house last night. He was there too, +and I lied to him about Ivor. How could I expect him to believe the real truth +now? He is a man. But <i>you</i> will believe, because you are a woman, like +myself, and I think the woman Ivor Dundas loves.” +</p> + +<p> +Her beautiful eyes brightened. “He told you—that?” +</p> + +<p> +“He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her because of +the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been as unreasonable +with him, as Ra—as the man I love could be with me. Poor Ivor! Last night was +not the first time that he sacrificed himself for chivalry and honour. Yet you +blame me! Look to yourself, Miss Forrest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I don’t blame you,” she stammered, a sob in her voice. “Only I beg you to +save him, from gratitude, if not from love.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know,” I answered. +“He is worth trusting—worth saving, at the expense of almost any sacrifice. But +I can’t sacrifice the man I love for him.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked thoughtful. “You say the man you were engaged to was at your house +while Ivor was there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied.” +</p> + +<p> +“He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your gate?” +</p> + +<p> +“He confessed that, when I’d made him repent his jealousy. Why do you ask? You +saw him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of value +near your house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Great heavens, yes!” I cried. “What do you know of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for him—if you +will promise to help Ivor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shame,” I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. “You are trying +to bribe me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I am not ashamed,” the girl answered, holding her head high. “I have +not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you—this very night or +to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I cannot,” I said. “Not even to get back that thing whose loss was +the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin myself +and—another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If we talked of +this together all night, it could make no difference. And I’m in great trouble, +great trouble of my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has your trouble anything to do with a document?” Miss Forrest slowly asked. +</p> + +<p> +I started, and stared at her, breathless. +</p> + +<p> +“It has!” she answered for me. “Your face tells me so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has Ivor’s message—to do with that?” I almost gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want news—if you +want the document, it must be through me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you can get +it for me, I will do,” I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a little +after midnight until after one. Will you do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must,” I said, “if you have the document to sell, and are determined to sell +it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my life, for it +will kill my lover’s love, when he knows I have lied to him. Still, it will +save him from—” I stopped, and bit my lip. “Will you give me the diamonds, +too?” I asked, humbly enough now. +</p> + +<p> +“The diamonds?” She looked bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they <i>are</i> still in the bag?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they are—they will be in the bag,” the girl answered, her charming mouth +suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. “You shall have the diamonds, +and the document, too, for that one promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is it possible that you can give me the document?” I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured because of it +seemed too good to be true; that it should come through this girl seemed +incredible. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it,” she said simply. “That was why I +couldn’t come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn’t quite know how +I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or advise me; and Ivor +said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the balcony of the room where +the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn’t be allowed to get into the room +itself, so it seemed difficult. But I thought it all out, and hired a room for +the evening in a house next door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had +to wait until after dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the +other. It wasn’t as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because +it was so high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn’t fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing—except the climbing +back. I don’t know how the document came in the box, though I suppose Ivor put +it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up in a towel; and it’s +quite clean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” I said slowly, when she had finished her story, “that you have a +right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I’m going to give +the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I know you’ll +pay. And I hope, oh, I <i>feel</i>, it won’t hurt you as you think it will.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long pocket of +a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt it, I clasped it. +I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. “It was yours, or Ivor’s. Of course I didn’t look.” +</p> + +<p> +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The fifteen +minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its price. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH19"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br/> +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME</h2> + +<p> +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If Godensky +knew, as he may have known—since he seemed to know all my movements—perhaps he +thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, and sending him away from me +for ever. But, though the game was not in my hands yet, the treaty was; and I +had made up my mind to defy Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; and +never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in the +morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst against Raoul +du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two except death? Then he +would have fair warning that I did not intend to do the thing to which he had +nearly forced me; and I would fight him, when he tried to take revenge. But +meanwhile, before he got that letter, I would—I must—find some way of putting +the treaty back in its place at the Foreign Office. +</p> + +<p> +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, even +when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political treachery, +Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the relief I felt after +the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been drowning for the last few days +gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints +that I had news of the necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him +in his office as soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to +surprise him pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the +greatest joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment +for nine o’clock next day. +</p> + +<p> +When he had gone, I wrote a note—a very short note—to Count Godensky. I wanted +to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty was in the safe +whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at once, by messenger; and it +would still be very early in the day, I hoped. +</p> + +<p> +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning which +followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I think that I +had not slept at all, but that didn’t matter. I felt strong and fresh, and my +heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to chance. I had a plan, and +knew how I meant to play the last hand in the game. It might go against me. But +I held a high trump. Again, as before, Raoul received me alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” he exclaimed, “I know your news must be good, for you look so bright +and beautiful. Tell me—tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re too impatient,” I said. “To punish you for asking about the wretched +diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed of you, I shall +make you pay a penalty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any penalty you will,” he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke—for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note into +an envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, this is very precious,” I went on. “It tells you all you want to know. +But—I’m going to post it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” he protested. “I can’t wait for the post.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wouldn’t trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it were +insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other day, and +I’ll put this valuable document in among the others, not more valuable to the +country than this ought to be to you. I’ll hide it there, and you must shut up +the safe without looking for it, till I’ve gone. Then, you must count ten, and +after that—you may search. Remember, you said you’d submit to any penalty, so +no excuses, no complaints.” +</p> + +<p> +Raoul laughed. “You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you are a +sorceress, and have bewitched me.” +</p> + +<p> +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my whim. +But I gaily motioned him behind me. “If you stand there you can see where I put +it, and that won’t! be fair play. Turn your back.” +</p> + +<p> +He obeyed. “You see how I trust you!” he said. “There lie my country’s +secrets.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re safe from me,” I said pertly. (And so indeed they were—now.) “They’re +too uninteresting to amuse me in the least.” +</p> + +<p> +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real one +into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written where he +could not help finding it at first or second glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you can close the safe,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from my +heart, “Thank Heaven!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must leave you,” I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious no +longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to open the +cage of Godensky’s vengeance, and—I was afraid of him. +</p> + +<p> +“I may come to you as soon as I’m free?” Raoul asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and—what you think of me,” I +said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he might continue to +think of me all things good—far better than I deserved, yet not better than I +would try to deserve in the future, if I were permitted to spend that future +with him. +</p> + +<p> +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight now. +</p> + +<p> +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a way in +which, I hoped, that promise—fulfilled as I meant to fulfil it—might help +rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a patron of +the theatre—when he can spare time from his work. I had met him, and had reason +to know that he admired my acting. +</p> + +<p> +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; and he +was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of that scene at the +Élysée Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew everything—so far as his +subordinate could report. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world,” he gallantly replied. +</p> + +<p> +“But you can guess what has brought me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre this +evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is partly that,” I laughed. “Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, of +course. And partly—you know already, since you know everything, that I am a +friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder which he could +not possibly have committed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a loyal +friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“For that—and to offer you the stage-box for to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to the +doctors’ statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it’s a hard thing +for me to come and tell you this!” I went on hastily. “Not that I’m ashamed to +have received a call from him at that hour, as it was necessary to see him +then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris early in the morning. But—because +I’m engaged to be married to—perhaps you know that, though, among other +things?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard—a rumour. I didn’t know that it amounted to an engagement. Monsieur +du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated.” +</p> + +<p> +“I love him dearly,” I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, but +because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears rose to my +eyes. “I am true to him, and always have been. But—he is horribly jealous. I +can’t explain Mr. Dundas’ night visit in a way to satisfy him. If Raoul finds +out that an Englishman—well-known, but of whom I never spoke—was at my house +after midnight, he will believe I have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would +help me to keep this secret I am telling you so frankly!” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?” asked the Chief of Police +gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to break +with Raoul du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Mademoiselle,” said the good and gallant man, “trust me to do the best I +can for you.” (I could see that my tears had moved him.) “A grief to you would +be a blow to Paris. Yet—well, as you have been frank, I owe it to you to be +equally so on my side. I should before this have sent—quite privately and in a +friendly way, to question you about this Mr. Dundas, who passed under another +name at the hotel where you called upon him; but I received a request from a +very high quarter to wait before communicating with you. Now, as you have come +to me, I suppose I may speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask me any questions you choose,” I said, “and I’ll answer them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how do you +explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. Dundas?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell you,” I +answered him; “for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I throw myself +upon your mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little flirtation with +Mr. Dundas—no more, though we liked and admired each other. We exchanged a few +silly letters, and I forgot all about them until I fell in love with Raoul and +promised to marry him—only a short time ago. Then I couldn’t bear to think that +I had written these foolish letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have +kept them. I wrote and asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and +valued them immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them +to me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him that +I’d meet him at the Élysée Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to receive the +letters from him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, since +there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?” +</p> + +<p> +“He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl who +lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn’t want the +girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there had been a little +talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she didn’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first thing in +the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the British Secretary +for Foreign Affairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl—a Miss Forrest, is +distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She lives with her +aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that gentleman. And the +Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Miss Forrest!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know of her already?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard her name.” +</p> + +<p> +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) +</p> + +<p> +“You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I,” I went on. “But +I’ll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you can’t have +found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters—half a dozen. He gave +me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast pocket, saying the +letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something had gone wrong with the +electricity, and I hadn’t let him push back the curtains, for fear I might be +seen from outside, if the lights should suddenly come on. He didn’t see the +case, as he handed it to me, nor could I. Just at that instant there was a +knock at the door; and quick as thought I pushed the leather case down between +the seat and back of the sofa.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery threatened you +because of a knock at the door?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you. There is a man—I won’t mention his name, but you know it very +well, and maybe it is in your mind now—who wants me to marry him. He has wanted +it for some time—I think because he admires women who are before the public and +applauded by the world; also, perhaps, because I have refused him, and he is +one who wants most what he finds hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, +but he has some power and a good deal of influence, because he is very highly +connected, and when people have ‘axes to grind’ he helps to grind them. He has +suspected for some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has +hated Raoul. I have fancied—that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance slip to +separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between us—or he would +try to ruin Raoul, or crush me—anything to keep us apart. When I saw the +Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and though I didn’t know what +pretext had brought him, I said to myself ‘That is the work of—’” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean to. I leave that to your—imagination. ‘This is the work of the +man whose love is more cruel than hate,’ I thought. While I wondered what +possible use the police could make of my letters, I was shaking with terror +lest they should come upon them and they should somehow fall into—a certain +man’s hands. Then, at last, they did find the case, just as I’d begun to hope +it was safe. I begged the Commissary of Police not to open it. In vain. When he +did, what was my relief to see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!—my +relief and my surprise. And now I’m going to confide in you the secret of +another, speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. +</p> + +<p> +“Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du Laurier, and +he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a dear friend of his—an +inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She dared not tell her husband of +money that she’d lost, but begged Raoul to sell the diamonds for her in +Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. On his way there the necklace was +stolen by an expert thief, who must somehow have learned what was going on +through the pawnbroker with whom the jewels had been in pledge—for a few +thousand francs only. You can imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace +returned in such a miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it +back, meaning to give it to me as a surprise—and the letters afterwards. And it +was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price—evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation—and also to avoid any +association of Raoul’s name with the necklace, that I told the Commissary of +Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. I spoke impulsively, +in sheer desperation; and the instant the words were out I would have cut off +my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. But what good to deny what I had +just said? The men wouldn’t have believed me. +</p> + +<p> +“When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he thought he +had given them to me—and he knew no more of the diamonds in their red case than +I did—far less, indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul’s sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed that his +own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from his pocket in the +train, though he couldn’t imagine why the diamonds had been given to him +instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of his, who had acted queerly; +and he determined to try and find the man. He was to bring me news after the +theatre at my house, about midnight. +</p> + +<p> +“He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. Friends of +his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me this, and that after +going out on a false scent he had employed a detective named Girard, when +Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. It seems, he’d been made frantically +jealous by some misrepresentations of—the man whose name we haven’t mentioned. +I begged Mr. Dundas to hide in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally +did, to please me. I hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, +and to my horror I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the +sounds as well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiancé of a pretty housemaid I +have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got away; this I swear +to you. What happened to him after leaving my house you know better than I do, +for I haven’t seen him since, as you are well aware.” +</p> + +<p> +“He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn’t get a cab and walked. But you have read the +papers,” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn’t even tell about +the diamonds, much less my letters!” +</p> + +<p> +“As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?” +</p> + +<p> +“My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather than +risk further delay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would like to know their fate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I applaud the Englishman’s chivalry. Vive l’Entente Cordiale!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I’ve humbled +myself, can’t you give me hope that he’ll soon be released, and yet that—that I +shan’t be made to suffer for my confession to you? It’s clear to you, isn’t it, +that the murder must have been done long before he could have reached the house +in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the Rue d’Hollande?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, without +being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone through before +Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at work in high quarters, +and after what you have told me, I think he will not much longer be under +restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, dear lady, that not ten minutes +before you arrived this morning I received satisfactory news of the arrest of +two Englishmen at Frankfort, who seem to have been concerned in this business +in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; +and a friend of his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that +these persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, and then +tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we are getting at +Janson’s record, which seems to be a bad one—a notorious one throughout Europe, +if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, really, that in a very few days +Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in person for what you’ve done for him, +and—to tell you what has become of those letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not merciful?” +</p> + +<p> +“I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear Mademoiselle, +Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you have told to me, or +that the Englishman’s alibi has been proved by you. The arrest of these two men +in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the police to keep your secret as you +would keep it yourself. Now, will that assurance make it easier for you to put +your whole soul into your part to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will accept that box,” I said, letting him kiss my hand, and feeling +inclined to kiss his. +</p> + +<p> +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I had +trumped Godensky’s last trick now. +</p> + +<p> +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds in the +brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were torn out, as if +there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. But Miss Forrest did +not explain this, or even allude to it at all. +</p> + +<p> +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. “I have kept my promise,” +I said. “The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you let me say that +I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will be happy together.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall try to make up to him for—my hateful suspicions and—everything,” she +said, like a repentant child. “I love him so much!” +</p> + +<p> +“And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw that. But +how gloriously you will mend it again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I hope so!” she cried. “And you—have I really spoiled your life by forcing +you to make that promise? I pray that I haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you had, but I was mistaken,” I answered. “The thing you have made +me do has proved a blessing. I may have—altered some of the facts a little, but +none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to use such weapons as +she has, against cruel enemies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll defeat yours,” said Miss Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +“I begin to believe I shall,” said I. And we shook hands. She is the only girl +I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give him +the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +“You are my good angel!” he exclaimed. “Thank Heaven, I won’t have to take your +money now.” +</p> + +<p> +“All that’s mine is yours,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“It is <i>you</i> I want for mine,” he answered. “When am I to have you? Don’t +keep me waiting long, my darling. I’m nothing without you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to keep you waiting,” I told him. And indeed I longed to be his +wife—his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. +</p> + +<p> +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as soon as a +marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the morning, and the note +I had written, telling him that a pretty American girl had found the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine—the poor fellow so +stupidly accused of murder,” I explained. “But of course he is innocent. Of +course he’ll be discharged without a blot upon his name. They’re tremendously +in love with each other, almost as much as you and I!” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t tell me about the love affair in your note,” said Raoul. “You spoke +only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past your house, after I +went in.” +</p> + +<p> +“There wasn’t time for more in that famous communication!” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul echoed me. “It came rather too near being famous, by the way,” he said. +“Just after I had found it in the safe—where you would put it, you witch!—a man +came in with an order from the President to copy a clause in a new treaty which +is kept there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What treaty?” I asked, with a leap of the heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn’t the point.” (Ah, +<i>was</i> it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been rather +awkward, wouldn’t it? if I hadn’t got your note out of the safe before the man +came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the open safe, for a +second.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God I wasn’t too late!” I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. “You mean, thank God he wasn’t sooner, don’t you, darling?” +amended Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course. How stupid I am!” I murmured. +</p> + +<p> +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, for I had +not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. Had the treaty +been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no doubt have vowed to me—if +I’d lived to hear his vows—that he had had no hand in the discovery. Fear of +the terrible man who had so nearly beaten me in the game made me quiver even +now. “You see,” I went on, “I can think of nothing but you, and my love for +you. You’ll never be jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter +what Count Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve listened to Godensky for the last time,” said Raoul. “The dog! He shall +never come near me again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly think he will try,” I said. “I’m glad we’re going to be married soon. +Do you know, I’m half inclined to do as you’ve asked me sometimes, and promised +you wouldn’t ask again—leave the stage. I want to rest, and just be happy, like +other women. I want love—and peace—and you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have all, and for always,” answered Raoul. “If only I deserved you!” +</p> + +<p> +“If only I deserved you!” I echoed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that he never +may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he would forgive me +all things, because we are one in a perfect love. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10410 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/10410-h/images/072.jpg b/10410-h/images/072.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..22482e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-h/images/072.jpg diff --git a/10410-h/images/148.jpg b/10410-h/images/148.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..45212d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-h/images/148.jpg diff --git a/10410-h/images/cover.jpg b/10410-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d3aead --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/10410-h/images/frontis.jpg b/10410-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38f20f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/10410-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b275af --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10410 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10410) diff --git a/old/10410-0.txt b/old/10410-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c87943 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10410-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7824 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Powers and Maxine, by A. M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Powers and Maxine + +Author: A. M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson + +Release Date: December 8, 2003 [eBook #10410] +[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + + + + + The Powers and Maxine + + _By C.N. and A.M. Williamson_ + + Author of + + "The Princess Virginia," "My Friend the Chauffeur," + "The Car of Destiny," "The Princess Passes," + "Lady Betty Across the Water," Etc. + + + Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson. + + + _With Illustrations + By FRANK T. MERRILL_ + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + I. LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + + II. LISA LISTENS + + III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + + IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + + V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + + VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY + + VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + + VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + + IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + + X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + + XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + + XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + + XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + + XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS + + XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + + XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + + XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA + + XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + + + + +LISA DRUMMOND'S PART + + + + + +The Powers and Maxine + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I +was going to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever +loved. + +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really +must want to be with me, not just because I'm the "pretty girl's +sister," but because I'm myself, Lisa Drummond. + +Being what I am,--queer, and plain, I can't bear to think that men like +girls for their beauty; yet I can't help liking men better if they are +handsome. + +I don't know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he +seems so to me. I don't know if he is very good, or really very +wonderful, although he's clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way +that makes women fond of him; and men admire him, too. He looks straight +into your eyes when he talks to you, as if he cared more for you than +anyone else in the world: and if I were an artist, painting a picture of +a dark young knight starting off for the crusades, I should ask Ivor +Dundas to stand as my model. + +Perhaps his expression wouldn't be exactly right for the pious young +crusader, for it isn't at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just +that rapt sort of look on his face. It was generally when he was talking +to Di: but I wouldn't let myself believe that it meant anything in +particular. He has the reputation of having made lots of women fall in +love with him. This was one of the first things I heard when Di and I +came over from America to visit Lord and Lady Mountstuart. And of course +there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. Everyone was talking +of it when we first arrived in London. + +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady +Mountstuart has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by +another larger room from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we +could see people dancing. + +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di's book shelves, +because we could talk better there. Usually, I don't like being in front +of a mirror, because--well, because I'm only the "pretty girl's sister." +But to-night I didn't mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. +Sitting down, you might almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my +gown was made didn't show that one shoulder is a little higher than the +other. Di designed the dress. + +I thought, if I wasn't pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I +looked as if I could _think_ of things; and as if I could feel. + +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, +unless he cared. Of course it might be for Di's sake; but I am not so +queer-looking that no man could ever be fascinated by me. + +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, +because Di has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had +found out that I was intelligent and sympathetic. + +He sat by me and didn't speak at first. Just then Di passed the +far-away, open door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the +Duke of Glasgow's brother. + +"Thank you so much for the book," I said. + +(He had sent me a book that morning--one he'd heard me say I wanted.) + +He didn't seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his +nice smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and +certainly he has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a +little sad. I willed him hard to love me. + +"It made me happy to get it," I went on. + +"It made me happy to send it," he said. + +"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked. + +"Why, of course." + +"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help +adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?" + +"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his +eyes. + +"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I +really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say +what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at +Algiers." + +"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great +thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly." + +"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not +telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I +were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and +brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family, +doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady +Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only +step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, +and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady +Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di +can put on when she wants to get something out of people. I'd make the +Foreign Secretary give you exactly what you wanted, even if it took you +far, far from me." + +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under +the brown. + +"You are a very kind Imp," he said. "Imp" is the name he invented for +me. I loved to hear him call me by it. + +"Kind!" I echoed. "One isn't kind when one--likes--people." + +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn't care. If only I +could make him say the words I longed to hear--even because he pitied +me, because he had found out how I loved him, and because he had really +too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I +made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave +me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with +me. That would make her writhe. + +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there +was no doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment +or two he was silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the +ballroom, he spoke very gently, as if I had been a child--though I am +older than Di by three or four years. + +"Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little +friend," said he. "Now that I know you really do take an interest in my +affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to +Algiers--though very likely you've guessed already--you are such an +'intuitive' girl. And besides, I haven't tried very hard to hide my +feelings--not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I +have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don't you--even if +you didn't before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers--" + +"Don't say any more," I managed to cut him short. "I can't bear--I mean, +I understand. I--did guess before." + +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn't let myself believe. I hoped +against hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took +the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of +life. + +"Di might have told me," I went gasping on, rather than let there be a +long silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to +see me cry--though, if it could have made any difference, I would have +grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears. "But she never does +tell me anything about herself." + +"She's so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better +to talk about you instead," he defended her. And then I felt that I +could hate him, as much as I've always hated Di, deep down in my heart. +At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when +he found her lying dead--out of his reach for ever. + +"Besides," he hurried on, "I've never asked her yet if she would marry +me, because--my prospects weren't very brilliant. She knows of course +that I love her--" + +"And if you get the consulship, you'll put the important question?" I +cut him short, trying to be flippant. + +"Yes. But I told you tonight, because I--because you were so kind, I +felt I should like to have you know." + +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could +have crushed every hope of his for the future--every hope, that is, in +which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part--I would have done it, +just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of +feeling that I--even I--have power of life and death. + +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I'm never very strong or well, +but now I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music +stop in the ballroom. + +"There!" I said. "The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are +over. I'm sure you're engaged for the next." + +"Yes, Imp, I am." + +"To Di?" + +"No, I have Number 13 with her." + +"Thirteen! Unlucky number." + +"Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, +coming now, is with Mrs. George Allendale." + +"Oh, yes, the actor manager's wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord +Mountstuart likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very +serious and political, but we have every sort of creature--provided it's +an amusing, or successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine +de Renzie to come here, when she was acting in London at George +Allendale's theatre? That was before Di and I arrived on the scene, you +remember." + +"I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her +first, off the stage, I believe." + +"What a sweet memory! Wasn't Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband +when he had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?" + +"I never heard that she was." + +"You needn't look cross with me. I'm not saying anything against your +gorgeous Maxine." + +"Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn't call Miss de Renzie 'my +Maxine,' please, Imp." + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "You see, I've heard other people call her +that--in joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you +such a famous person, to her, didn't you?" + +"No. What made you think that?" He was really annoyed now, and I was +pleased--if anything could please me, in my despair. + +"Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to 'M.R.' as if the name +were a secret, so--" + +"'Everybody' is very stupid then. 'M.R.' is an old lady, my god-mother, +who helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I +couldn't have gone. And she isn't of the kind that likes to see her name +in print. Now, where shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look +for Mrs. Allendale." + +"I'll stay where I am, thank you," I said, "and watch you dance--from +far off. That's my part in life, you know: watching other people dance +from far off." + +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn't sure +that one of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, +and deserted; and though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever +since the tiny child and her mother (a beautiful, rich, young +Californian widow) came into my father's house in New York, she does +know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am in such moods. +I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking through +the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. + +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) +entered the room which lay between our "den" and the ballroom, Probably +they would have gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in +that way, but I cried her name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only +a moment she paused--long enough to send Lord Robert away--and then she +came straight to me. He must have been furious: but I didn't care for +that. + +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and +beautiful, looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I +should have liked to strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the +other, deepening the rose to crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for +each finger. + +"Have you a headache, dear?" she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps +for me--as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. + +"It's my heart," said I. "It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish +I could die, and end it all! What's the good of me--to myself or +anyone?" + +"Don't talk like that, my poor one," she said. "Shall I take you +upstairs to your own room?" + +"No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs," I answered. "Yet I +can't stay here. What shall I do?" + +"What about Uncle Eric's study?" Di asked. She always calls Lord +Mountstuart 'Uncle Eric,' though he isn't her uncle. Her mother and his +wife were sisters, that's all: and then there was the other sister who +married the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord +Mountstuart's. That family seemed to have a craze for American girls; +but Lord Mountstuart makes an exception of me. He's civil, of course, +because he's an abject slave of Di's, and she refused to come and pay a +visit in England without me: but I give him the shivers, I know very +well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. + +"I'm sure he won't be there this evening," Di went on, when I hesitated. +"He's playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, +half an hour ago. Come, let me help you there. It's only a step." + +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked +across the room, out into a corridor, through a tiny "bookroom" where +odd volumes and old magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart's study. + +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The +library next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord +Mountstuart's favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a +novel or two, and thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has +painted in different parts of the world hang on the walls: for he also +fancies himself artistic. + +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I +suppose, the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or +dreams them out. And it was to this that Di led me. + +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, +and asked if she should ring and get a little brandy. + +"No," I said, "I shall feel better in a few minutes. It's so nice and +cool here." + +"You look better already!" exclaimed Di. "Soon, when you've lain and +rested awhile, you'll be a different girl." + +"Ah, how I wish I _could_ be a different girl!" I sighed. "A strong, +well girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,--like +you--or Maxine de Renzie." + +"What makes you think of her?" asked Di, quickly. + +"Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his 'pal,' and +tells me things he doesn't tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about +Maxine, still." + +"She'd be a difficult woman to forget, if she's as attractive off the +stage as she is on." + +"What a pity we didn't come in time to meet here when she was playing in +London with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their +houses, it seems. Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and +that it's such a pleasant memory, whenever he comes to this house. I +suppose that's one reason he likes to come so much." + +"No doubt," said Di sharply. + +"He got so fascinated talking of her," I went on. "He almost forgot that +he had a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great +hit, and all that; but she didn't stand quite as high as she does now, +since she's become the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except +her salary, then, whereas she must have saved up a lot of money by this +time. I have an idea that Ivor would have proposed to her when she was +in London if he'd thought her success established." + +"Nonsense!" Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. "As if Ivor were the +kind of man to think of such a thing!" + +"He isn't very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him +to marry a poor girl, or a girl who wasn't well connected socially. He +_has_ to think of such things." + +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of +course Di has all her mother's money, two hundred thousand English +pounds; and through the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the +Foreign Secretary, she has got to know all the best people in England. +Besides, the King and Queen have been particularly nice to her since she +was presented, so she has the run of their special set, as well as the +political and artistic, and "old-fashioned exclusive" ones. + +"Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself," she said, "and he has plenty of +good connections of his own. He'll have a little money, too, some day, +from an aunt or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie +had nothing more than a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said +Maxine was rather proud to have Ivor dangling about, because everyone +likes him, and because his travels and his book were being a lot talked +about just then. Naturally, he admired her, because she's beautiful, and +a very great actress--" + +"Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair," I laughed. "She +flirts with him herself." + +"Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian's over forty, and he's twenty-nine!" + +"Forty isn't the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She's a beauty +and a great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts +with him, and he with her." + +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn't care. "You'd +better not say such silly things to Uncle Eric," she said, staring at +the pattern of the cornice. "Aren't those funny, gargoyley faces up +there? I never noticed them before. But oh--about Mr. Dundas and Maxine +de Renzie--I don't think, really, that he troubles himself much about +her any more, for the other day I--I happened to ask what she was +playing in Paris now, and he didn't know. He said he hadn't been over to +see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid when he wasn't +too busy, he was too lazy." + +"He _said_ so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday +at Folkestone with the godmother who's going to leave him her money, how +easy to slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being +the wiser." + +"Why shouldn't he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he +likes?" laughed Di, but not happily. "You're looking much better, Lisa. +You've quite a colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?" + +"I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart +is sure not to come," said I. "These pillows are so comfortable. Then +perhaps, by and by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch +the dancing. I should like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan't +sleep, and the night will seem so long." + +"Very well," said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have +liked to shake me. "I'm afraid I shall have to run away now, for my +partner will think me so rude. What about supper?" + +"Oh, I don't want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that," I +interrupted. "Go now, I don't need you any more." + +"Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again." + +"Yes--yes." + +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful +look in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. "Even if you +don't send, I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you +are," she said. Then she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa +cushions, with the feeling that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down +the pillows like a stone. + +"She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor," I said to myself. +"Well--she's welcome to it now. I don't think she'll enjoy it much--or +let him. Oh, I hope they'll quarrel. I don't think I'd mind anything, if +only I was sure they'd never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would +marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I +hate her--and all beautiful girls, who spoil the lives of women like +me." + +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time +must be coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in +spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be +engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; +for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's +ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on +her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart +to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and I heard a +voice speaking. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +LISA LISTENS + +Someone turned up the light. "I'll leave you together," said Lord +Mountstuart; and the door was closed. + +"What could that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come +in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had +Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tête-à-tête between Di and Ivor +Dundas? + +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must +hear what they had to say to each other. + +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down +into the narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply +pulling the clinging folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay +still, my blood pounding in my temples and ears, and in my nostrils a +faint, musty smell from the Oriental stuff that covered the lounge. + +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the +wall, and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had +mentioned when she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our +conversation. But I was listening with all my might for what was to +come. + +"Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas," said a voice, which gave +me a shock of surprise, though I knew it well. + +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. + +"We won't run the risk of interruptions," he went on, with that slow, +clear enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their +lives, especially men of the college that was his--Balliol. "I told +Mountstuart that I wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows +nothing, nor does anyone else except myself. You understand that this +conversation of ours, whether anything comes of it or not, is entirely +confidential. I have a proposal to make. You'll agree to it or not, as +you choose. But if you don't agree, forget it, with everything I may +have said." + +"My services and my memory are both at your disposal," answered Ivor, in +such a gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked +with Diana--and that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. "I am +honoured--I won't say flattered, for I'm too much in earnest--that you +should place any confidence in me." + +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of +course, I said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the +Foreign Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in +the gift of that man. + +"Frankly, I'm in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can +help me out of it better than anyone else I know," said the smooth, +trained voice. "It is a little diplomatic errand you will have to +undertake for me tomorrow, if you want to do me a good turn." + +"I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the +best of my ability," replied Ivor. + +"I'm sure you can carry it through excellently," said the Foreign +Secretary, still fencing. "It will be good practice, if you succeed, +for--any future duties in the career which may be opening to you." + +"He's bribing him with that consulship," I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn't +beating so thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. + +"I thank you for your trust in me," said Ivor. + +"A little diplomatic errand," repeated the Foreign Secretary. "In itself +the thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its +relation with other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, +incalculable importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply +to you. Indeed, I came to my cousin Mountstuart's house expressly +because I was told you would be at his wife's ball. My regret is, that +the news which brought me in search of you didn't reach me earlier, for +if it had I should have come with my wife, and have got at you in time +to send you off--if you agreed to go--to-night. As it is, the matter +will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It's too late for you to catch +the midnight boat across the Channel." + +"Across the Channel?" echoed Ivor. "You want me to go to France?" + +"Yes." + +"One could always get across somehow," said Ivor, thoughtfully, "if +there were a great hurry." + +"There is--the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less +speed. That is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and +charter a tug or motor boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object +would probably be defeated. I came to you because those who are watching +this business wouldn't be likely to guess I had given you a hand in it. +All that you do, however, must be done quietly, with no fuss, no sign of +anything unusual going on. It was natural I should come to a ball given +by my wife's sister, whose husband is my cousin. No one knows of this +interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that score, at +least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should +meet Mademoiselle de Renzie there." + +"Mademoiselle de Renzie!" exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, +and showing plainly that he was taken aback. + +"Isn't she a friend of yours?" asked the Foreign Secretary rather +sharply. Though I couldn't see him, I knew exactly how he would be +looking at Ivor, his keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips +drawn in, the long, well-shaped hand, of which he is said to be vain, +toying with the pale Malmaison pink he always wears in his buttonhole. + +"Yes, she is a friend of mine," Ivor answered. "But--" + +"A 'but' already! Perhaps I'd better tell you that the mission has to do +with Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has +acted as my agent in Paris." + +"Indeed! I didn't dream that she dabbled in politics." + +"And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it +weren't necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in +this matter. But before we go any further, I must know whether +Mademoiselle de Renzie's connection with this business will for any +reason keep you out of it." + +"Not if--you need my help," said Ivor, with an effort. "And I beg you +won't suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie +herself. I have for her the greatest respect and admiration." + +"We all have," returned the Foreign Secretary, "especially those who +know her best. Among her many virtues, she's one of the few women who +can keep a secret--her own and others. She is a magnificent actress--on +the stage and off. And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell +you it's to help her as well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or +you will be handicapped. For several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has +done good service--secret service, you must understand--for Great +Britain." + +"By Jove! Maxine a political spy!" Ivor broke out impulsively. + +"That's rather a hard name, isn't it? There are better ones. And she's +no traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she's Polish by +birth. I can assure you we've much for which to thank her cleverness and +tact--and beauty. For our sakes I'm sorry that she's serving our +interests professionally for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to +rejoice, as she's engaged to be married. And if you can save her from +coming to grief over this very ticklish business, she'll probably live +happily ever after. Did you know of her engagement?" + +"No," replied Ivor. "I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in +London a year ago; but after she went to Paris--of course, she's very +busy and has crowds of friends; and I've only crossed once or twice +since, on hurried visits; so we haven't met, or written to each other." + +("Very good reason," I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. "You've been +busy, too--falling in love with Diana Forrest.") + +"It hasn't been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might +have been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when +the right time comes--if the poor girl isn't ruined irretrievably in +this affair of ours." + +"Is there really serious danger of that?" "The most serious. If you +can't save her, not only will the _Entente Cordiale_ be shaken to its +foundations (and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), +but her future happiness will be broken in the crash, and--she says--she +will not live to suffer the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if +disaster comes; and though suicide is usually the last resource of a +coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no coward, and I'm inclined to think I +should come to the same resolve in her place." + +"Tell me what I am to do," said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary's strange words, and his intense earnestness. + +"You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without +mentioning your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some +hotel where you have never stayed and are not known. I will find means +of informing the lady what hotel you choose. You will there give a +fictitious name (let us say, George Sandford) and you will take a suite, +with a private sitting-room. That done, you will say that you are +expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no one else. You will +wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will certainly be as +soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you're not being spied upon, you will put into her +hands a small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night." + +"It sounds simple enough," said Ivor, "if that's all." + +"It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple." + +"Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a +hotel? I'd willingly do so if--" + +"No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who +are watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the +meeting. So much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four +o'clock every afternoon, the young Frenchman she's engaged to is in the +habit of going to her house, and stopping until it's time for her to go +to work. He dines with her, but doesn't drive with her to the theatre, +as that would be rather too public for the present, until their +engagement's announced. He adores her, but is inconveniently jealous, +like most Latins. It's practically certain that he's heard your name +mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and as a +Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a +beautiful woman without being in love with her, your call at her house +might give Mademoiselle Maxine a _mauvais quart d'heure_." + +"I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel--" + +"She'll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the +theatre early, and thus get rid of him. She's quite clever enough to +manage that. Then, as your own name won't appear on any hotel list in +the papers next day, the most jealous heart need have no cause for +suspicion. At the same time, if certain persons whom Mademoiselle--and +we, too--have to fear, do find out that she has visited Ivor Dundas, who +has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a private interview with +her, interests of even deeper importance than the most desperate love +affair may still, we'll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your old +friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?" + +"I think so," replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the +change in his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly +drained. "I will do my very best." + +"If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the +next two days, you won't suffer for it in the end," remarked the Foreign +Secretary meaningly. + +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, +bound up with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and +white bride cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, +in America. I didn't want him to have the consulship, because getting +that would perhaps mean getting Di, too. + +"Thank you," said Ivor. + +"And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?" asked the Foreign Secretary. +"It should be a good one, I don't need to remind you, where Mademoiselle +de Renzie could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she +should be recognised in spite of the veil she's pretty certain to wear. +Yet it shouldn't be in too central a situation." + +"Shall it be the Élysèe Palace?" asked Ivor. + +"That will do very well," replied the other, after reflecting for an +instant. And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my +"impish joy," when it was settled; for the Élysèe Palace is where Lord +and Lady Mountstuart stop when they visit Paris, and they'd been talking +of running over next day with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful +new motor car for sale there--one that a Rajah had ordered to be made +for him, but died before it was finished. Lady Mountstuart always has +one new fad every six months at least, and her latest is to drive a +motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert--can make a motor, I +believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he'd been +insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She'd +promised, that if not too tired she'd cross to Paris the day after the +ball, taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn't be equal +to an early start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she +should see Maxine at the hotel with Ivor! + +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the Élysèe Palace for +rooms without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting +Maxine, once it was arranged for her to go there. "Any misunderstanding +would be fatal," he went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine's +head depended upon Ivor's trip. "I only wish I could have got you off +to-night; and in that case you might have gone to her own house, early +in the morning. She is in a frightful state of mind, poor girl. But it +was only to-day that the contents of the packet reached me, and was +shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just before I hurried round +here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from her, warning me +that Count Godensky--of whom you've probably heard--an attaché of the +Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a--er--a game in +high politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to +present intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who's +well known in Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused +to take no for an answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded +into giving him a severe snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn't +forgive a snub, especially if it had got talked about. He'd be a bad +enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he is a very bitter and +determined enemy. Apparently she doesn't know how much he has found out, +or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely guesses, +and 'bluffs.' But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more +closely than usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent +wouldn't get through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you +should not." + +"Nor I," answered Ivor, laughing a little. "I think I could make some +trouble for anyone who tried to stop me." + +"Caution above all! Remember you're in training for a diplomatic career, +what? If you should lose the packet I'm going to give you, I prophesy +that in twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: +for the circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, +the most peculiar I've ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a +varied experience; and they intimately concern her fiancé, the Vicomte +Raoul du Laurier--" + +"Raoul du Laurier!" exclaimed Ivor. "So she's engaged to marry him!" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I have friends who do. He's in the French Foreign Office, though they +say he's more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays--" + +"Which don't get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some +day, for I believe he's an extremely clever fellow in his way--in +everything except the diplomatic 'trade' which his father would have him +take up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du +Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost +absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle Maxine has plenty of excuse for her +infatuation--for I assure you it's nothing less. She'd jump into the +fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc smile on her +face." + +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he'd ever been really +in love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he +hadn't, for he didn't seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he +grew a little more cheerful. + +"I can see that du Laurier's being in the French Foreign Office might +make it rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she--if she's been rather +too helpful to us," he said. + +"Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale--a sensational and even romantic tale +almost complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet +Mademoiselle to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you +into her confidence, in reward for your services, in regard to some +private interests of her own which have got themselves wildly mixed up +with the gravest political matters, she's at liberty to do so as far as +I'm concerned, for you are to be trusted, and deserve to be trusted. You +may say that to her from me, if the occasion arises. I hope with all my +heart that everything may go smoothly. If not--the _Entente Cordiale_ +may burst like a bomb. I--who have made myself responsible in the +matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny me if the +scheme's a failure--shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; +and you, though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the +misfortunes of others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be +almost as if you carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the +packet into the hands of Maxine de Renzie." "Good heavens, I shall be +glad when she has it!" said Ivor. + +"You can't be gladder than she--or I. And here it is," replied the +Foreign Secretary. "I consider it great luck to have found such a +messenger, at a house I could enter without being suspected of any +motive more subtle than a wish to eat a good supper, or to meet some of +the prettiest women in London." + +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take +to Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two +from behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they +were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The +Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a +woman's looks, never could bear me: and I believe he would have thought +it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he +knew I'd overheard his secrets. + +However, Ivor's next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to +know. "It's importance evidently doesn't consist in bulk," he said +lightly. "I can easily carry the case in my breast pocket." + +"Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and +honour of a woman," said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. "Now, I, must +go and look for my wife. It's better that you and I shouldn't be seen +together. One never knows who may have got in among the guests at a +crush like this. I will go out at one door, and when you've waited for a +few minutes, you can go, by way of another." + +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was +alone. What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me +longed to see how his face would look; but there was too much at stake. +Not only would I hate to have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I +had already built up a great plan for the use I could make of what I had +overheard. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape +from behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as +I had sat up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm +asleep, Lord Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. + +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first +editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord +Mountstuart's treasures before. As both were perfectly daft on the +subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed +about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring +admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with +their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have been eaten up by +moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set fire to +the whole lot. + +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that +there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other +duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It +was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair +of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the +stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that +open door before I had conquered my cramps and got up from behind the +sofa. + +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating +a minute, the girl--whoever she was--allowed herself to be drawn into a +room where she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they +selected the lounge to sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against +the wall, with "pins and needles" pricking all over my cramped body, +while some man I didn't know proposed and was accepted by some girl I +shall probably never see. + +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until +voices were "heard off," as they say in the directions for theatricals, +whereupon they sprang up and hurried out like "guilty things upon a +fearful summons." + +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out +of my prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the +servants use. But it was very late now, and people were going, even the +young ones who love dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my +ball dress and into a dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my +one beauty, and let it hang over my shoulders, streaming down in front +on each side, so that nobody would know one shoulder is higher than the +other. It wasn't that I was particularly anxious to appear well before +Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the contrast between us to +seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but because I wanted her +to think, when she came to my room, that I'd been there a long time. + +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she +found me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. + +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, +and seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all +night, but instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her +voice was as gay and happy as Ivor's had been when he first came into +Lord Mountstuart's study with the Foreign Secretary. + +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn't +wanted to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been +in bed and asleep long ago. + +"Everything went very well," said she. "I think it was a great success." + +"Did you dance every dance?" I asked, working up slowly to what I meant +to say. + +"Except a few that I sat out." + +"I can guess who sat them out with you," said I. "Ivor Dundas. And one +was number thirteen, wasn't it?" + +"How did you know?" + +"He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn't try +to hide anything from me. He tells most things to his 'Imp.' Was he nice +when he proposed?" + +"He didn't propose." + +"I'll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he +didn't tell you he loved you, and ask if there'd be a chance for him in +case he got Algiers." + +"I wouldn't take your bracelet even if--if--. But you're a little +witch, Lisa." + +"Of course I am!" I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench +of the heart. "And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and +said he could have you, Algiers or no Algiers." + +"I don't believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking +about this evening," said Di, with her cheeks very pink. "He may have +flirted a little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But--but he +_does_ love me, Lisa." + +"And he did love Maxine!" I laughed. + +"He didn't. He never loved her. I--you see, you put such horrid thoughts +into my head that--that I just mentioned her name when he said +to-night--oh, when he said the usual things, about never having cared +seriously for anyone until he saw me. Only--it seems treacherous to call +them '_usual_' because--when you love a man you feel that the things he +says can never have been said before, in the same way, by any other man +to any other woman." + +"Only perhaps by the same man to another woman," I mocked at her, trying +to act as if I were teasing in fun. + +"Lisa, you _can_ be hateful sometimes!" she cried. + +"It's only for your good, if I'm hateful now," I said. "I don't want to +have you disappointed, when it's too late. I want you to keep your eyes +open, and see exactly where you're going. It's the truest thing ever +said that 'love is blind.' You can't deny that you're in love with Ivor +Dundas." + +"I don't deny it," she answered, with a proud air which would, I +suppose, have made Ivor want to kiss her. + +"And you didn't deny it to him?" + +"No, I didn't. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I +wish I hadn't, now. I wish I'd shown that I trusted him entirely. I know +he deserves to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him--" + +"I don't think I should commit myself any further till day after +to-morrow," said I drily. "Indeed, you couldn't if you wanted to, unless +you wrote or wired. You won't see him to-morrow." + +"Yes, I shall," she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of +hers, that looked positively black with excitement. "He's going to the +Duchess of Glasgow's bazaar, because I said I should most likely be +there: and I will go--" + +"But he won't." + +"How can you know anything about it?" + +"I do know, everything. And I'll tell you what I know, if you'll promise +me two things." + +"What things?" + +"That you won't ask me how I found out, and that you'll swear never to +give me away to anybody." + +"Of course I wouldn't 'give you away,' as you call it. But--I'm not sure +I want you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I'd rather not hear stories +behind his back." + +"Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess's to-morrow," I snapped, "and +wear your prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time +he'll be arriving in Paris to keep a very particular engagement with +Maxine de Renzie." + +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. "I +don't believe he's going to Paris!" she exclaimed. + +"I know he's going. And I know he's going especially to see Maxine." + +"It can't be. He told me to-night he wouldn't cross the street to see +her. I--I made it a condition--that if he found he cared enough for her +to want to see her again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all +thought of me. If I'm to reign, I must reign alone." + +"Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to +see her." + +"No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour +ago." + +"Yet at least two hours ago he'd arranged a meeting with Maxine for +to-morrow afternoon." + +"You're dreaming." + +"I was never wider awake: or if I'm dreaming, you can dream the same +dream if you'll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this +morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o'clock." + +"I will be there!" cried Di, changing from red to white. "And you shall +be with me, to see that you're wrong. I know you will be wrong." + +"That's an engagement," said I. "At 10 o'clock, Victoria Station, just +you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I'm right, and +Ivor's there, shall you think it wise to give him up?" + +"He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie--in which case he'd probably +write me. But--at the station, I shall ask him straight out--that is, if +he's there, as I'm sure he won't be--whether he intends to see +Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he says no, I'll believe him. If he says +yes--" + +"You'll tell him all is over between you?" + +"He'd know that without my telling, after our talk last night." + +"And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine's +name from me?" + +"Nothing," Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' POINT OF VIEW + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by +the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down +to--the other place. + +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on +my way to Paris. + +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much +time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too +early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I +should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least +wished to meet: Diana Forrest. + +"The Imp"--Lisa Drummond--was with her: but I saw only Di at first--Di, +looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last +night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said +that I didn't care to see Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to +see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her. + +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would +think it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when +explanations were forbidden. But I couldn't lie to a girl I loved as I +love Diana Forrest. It would have sickened me with life and with myself +to do it: and it was with the knowledge in my mind that I could not and +would not lie, that I had to greet her with a conventional "Good +morning." + +"Are you going out of town?" I asked, with my hat off for her and for +the Imp, whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my +tall love's shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was +like a cat; but suddenly the resemblance struck me--something in the +poor little creature's expression, it must have been, or in her greenish +grey eyes which seemed at that moment to concentrate all the knowledge +of old and evil things that has ever come into the world since the days +of the early Egyptians--when a cat was worshipped. + +"No, I'm not going out of town," Di answered. "I came here to meet you, +in case you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with +me." + +"Who told you I was leaving?" I asked, hoping for a second or two that +the Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his +secret--guessing ours, perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable +absence might injure me with her. + +"I can't tell you," she answered. "I didn't believe you would go; even +though I got your letter by the eight o'clock post this morning." + +"I'm glad you got that," I said. "I posted it soon after I left you last +night." + +"Why didn't you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that +you wouldn't be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to +write?" + +"Frankly and honestly," I said (for I had to say it), "just at the +moment, and only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow's +bazaar. That was because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, +something happened which made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I +begged you to let me see you to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. +Do say 'yes.'" + +"I'll say yes on one condition--and gladly," she replied, with an odd, +pale little smile, "that you tell me where you're going this morning. I +know it must seem horrid in me to ask, but--but--oh, Ivor, it _isn't_ +horrid, really. You wouldn't think it horrid if you could understand." + +"I'm going to Paris," I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold +potato where my heart ought to be. "I am obliged to go, on business." + +"You didn't say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when +you told me you couldn't come to the Duchess's," said Di, looking like a +beautiful, unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. +"You only mentioned 'an urgent engagement which you'd forgotten.'" + +"I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry," I told her, +lamely. + +"So it was--so it would have been," she faltered, "if it hadn't been +for--what we said last night about--Paris. And then--I can't explain to +you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you +meant to go there, and--after our talk, I couldn't believe it. I didn't +come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I +wouldn't find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn't found you. +Yet--you're here." + +"And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same," I said, as +firmly as I could. + +"Of course. I'll trust you, if--" + +"If what?" + +"If you'll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you're not going to +see Maxine de Renzie." + +"I may see her," I admitted. + +"But--but at least, you're not going on purpose?" + +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign +Secretary, I could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to +what suspicion was I not laying myself open in confessing that I +deliberately intended to see her, having sworn by all things a man does +swear by when he wishes to please a girl, that I didn't wish to see +Maxine, and would not see Maxine? + +"You said you'd trust me, Di," I reminded her. "For Heaven's sake don't +break that promise." + +"But--if you're breaking a promise to me?" + +"A promise?" + +"Worse, then! Because I didn't ask you to promise. I had too much faith +in you for that. I believed you when you said you didn't care +for--anyone but me. I've told Lisa. It doesn't matter our speaking like +this before her. I asked you to wait for my promise for a little while, +until I could be quite sure you didn't think of Miss de Renzie as--some +people fancied you did. If you wanted to see her, I said you must go, +and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next morning, by the first +train, you start." + +"Only because I am obliged to," I hazarded in spite of the Foreign +Secretary and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by +making matters worse instead of better for myself. + +"Obliged to!" she echoed. "Then there's something you must settle with +her, before you can be--free." + +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should +lose the train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, +as well as Maxine's, I must not. + +"Dearest," I said hurriedly, "I am free. There's no question of freedom. +Yet I shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me." + +"Not if you go to her--this day of all days." The words were wrung from +the poor child's lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like +death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of +soothing it. + +"You shall. You must," I commanded, rather than implored. "Good-bye, +darling--precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall +come back to you to-morrow." + +"You needn't. You need never come to me again," she said, white lipped. +And the guard whistled, waving his green flag. + +"Don't dare to say such a cruel thing--a thing you don't mean!" I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a +little man inside jumped to the window and shouted, "Reserved! Don't you +see it's reserved?" which explained the fact that the door seemed to be +fastened. + +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, +and would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men +rushed at the door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it +with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have +lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in +after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself +where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was +thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my +heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care +much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way in, +though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have +pushed me out if I hadn't been too strong for them. I had a dim +impression that, instead of joining with the newcomers, the first man, +who would have kept the place to himself before their entrance, seemed +willing to aid me against the others. They being once foisted upon him, +he appeared to wish for my presence too, or else he merely desired to +prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and perhaps killed, for +he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. + +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly +struggle, and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. + +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so +far that Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a +bad omen; and the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for +ever. + +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too +late, I fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary +and even the _Entente Cordiale_ (provided he had not been exaggerating) +for Di's sake, and love's sake. But there was no going back now, even if +I would. The train was already travelling almost at full speed, and +there was nothing to do but resign myself to the inevitable, and hope +for the best. Someone, it was clear, had tried to work mischief between +Diana and me, and there were only too many chances that he had +succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I half-dazedly +looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage with +which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather +unintellectual, unimaginative type could be, and he hadn't shown himself +as friendly lately to me as he once had: still, I didn't think he was +the sort of fellow to trip up a rival in the race by a trick, even if he +could possibly have found out that I was going to Paris this morning. + +"Won't you sit here, sir?" a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw +that the little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was +in a corner facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, +and began to observe my travelling companions for the first time. + +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me +that all three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a +first-class carriage. + +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had +removed a bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did +not look like a typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of +person who might be expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. +He was small and thin, and weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes +of the kind which ought to have had white lashes instead of the sparse, +jet black ones that rimmed them. His forehead, though narrow, suggested +shrewdness, as did the expression of those light coloured eyes of his, +which were set close to the sharp, slightly up-turned nose. His hair was +so black that it made his skin seem singularly pallid, though it was +only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously over two +prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the air +of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be "smart" +get up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and +thirty-eight) looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, +masquerading as a "swell." + +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved +compartment by means of their railway key were both bigger and more +manly than he who had a right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, +with a heavy beard and moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and +cruel mouth pouted disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, +with a brick-coloured complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also +were flashily dressed with "horsey" neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. +As I glanced at the pair, they were talking together in a low voice, +with an open newspaper held up between them; but the man who had helped +me in against their will sat silent, staring out of the window and +uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, apparently, +paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in +an inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not +attract attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to +assure myself that it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting +Di, and I felt certain that nothing could have happened to it since. + +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected +that these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed +them into the compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as +they were three to one if they combined against me, and the train was, +unfortunately, not entirely a corridor train. Therefore, having assured +myself that I was not among spies bent on having my life or the secret I +carried, I forgot about my fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy +speculations as to my chances with Diana. I had been loving her, +thinking of little else but her and my hopes of her, for many months +now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty world it would be +for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had perhaps lost her. + +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I +would not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, +even to repent her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, +and Heaven knew how much or when I might be permitted to explain. I +would not be a man if I took her at her word, and let her slip from me, +no matter how many times that word were repeated; so I told myself over +and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to say that nothing could be as +it had been; that I'd sacrificed my happiness to please a stranger, and +to save a woman whom I had never really loved. + +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there +were so many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer +than I had or would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on +caring for me, after what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn't +said in actual words last night that she would marry me, whereas this +morning she had almost said she never would. I should have nobody to +blame but myself if I came back to London to-morrow to find her engaged +to Lord Robert West--a man who, as his brother has no children, might +some day make her a Duchess. + +"Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir," said one of the two +railway-key men, suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. +"Hardly knew what I was about when I shoved you away from the door. Me +and my friend was afraid of missing the train, so we pushed--instinct of +self-preservation, I suppose," and he chuckled as if he had got off some +witticism. "Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing intentional, 'pon my word." + +"Thanks. No apology is necessary," I replied as indifferently as I felt. + +"That's all right, then," finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. +He turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation +behind the newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally +glanced over the top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole +attention were not taken up with the news of the day. + +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently +not of the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on +the upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted +my attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly +pale, under a kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I +thought he must be ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in +anxious anticipation of the horrors which might be in store for him on +the boat. Presently he pulled out a red-bordered handkerchief, and +unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his checked travelling cap. When +he had done this, I saw that his hair was left streaked with damp; and +there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, observing which +with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric hastily +into his pocket. + +"The little beast must dye his hair," I thought contemptuously. "Perhaps +he's an albino, really. His eyes look like it." + +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn +away and spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But +immediately after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking +up a book he had laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close +to his nose that the printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he +were very near-sighted. Thus he sat for some time; yet I felt that no +look thrown by the other two was lost on him. He seemed to know each +time one of them peered over the newspaper; and when at last the train +slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness returned. His +small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one piece of +luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the things +together. + +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I +had let my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, +and I had nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for +the boat. Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing +an article out of a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object +to be caught in a crowd and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches +who might be lying in wait for what I had in my pocket. It seemed +impossible that anyone could have learned that I was playing messenger +between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Maxine de Renzie: +still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple mission had +been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect any +precaution. + +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced +friend lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, +except a small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to +stuff in their newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. +Presently, when the first rush for the boat was over, and the porters +who had come to the door of our compartment had gone away empty-handed, +I would have got out, had I not caught an imploring glance from the +little man who had reserved the carriage. Perhaps I imagined it, but his +pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, don't leave me alone +with these others." + +"Would you be so very kind, sir," he said to me, "to beckon a porter, as +you are near the door? I find after all that I shan't be able to carry +everything myself." + +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when +the porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their +bags. I also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, +if the little man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he +said. Would I be so extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the +platform to see if it had fallen there? + +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had +found the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and +scrambling out of the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for +him, he would have walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped +behind a few steps, thinking--as always--of the contents of that inner +breast pocket. + +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, +or almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other +passengers--a family party with a fat nurse and crying baby--behind us. +As I approached the gangway, I saw on deck my late travelling +companions, the Jewish man and his friend, regarding us with interest. +Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost on the little man's +heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: "Look +out--gangway's falling!" + +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as +the nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself +no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman +with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also +attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees. +The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he +almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled, +pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling +baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. + +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat +cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the +gangway was "all right," and never had been anything but all right, I +could not readjust my hat nor see what was going on until the fat nurse +had obligingly retrieved her charge, without a word of thanks. + +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a +horrible idea that the scare might have been got up for the express +purpose of robbing me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as +ever under my coat, and decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm +had had nothing to do with me. + +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of +the way of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had +been rough for a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and +everything was already engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the +time, always conscious of the unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The +little man paced up and down, too, though his yellow face grew slowly +green, and he would have been much better off below, lying on his back. +As for the two others, they also remained on deck, talking together as +they leaned against the rail; but though I passed them now and again, I +noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by turning before he +reached their "pitch." + +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, +because if I had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother +would have been over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd +thronging the _douane_, I decided to let the suitcase look after itself, +and send down for it with the key from the hotel later. Again the little +man was close to my side as I went in search of a cab, for all his +things had been gone through by the custom house officer in mid-channel, +so that he too was free to depart without delay. He even seemed to cling +to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant to speak, but he +did not, save for a "good evening, sir," as I separated myself from him +at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any +conjurer's tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was +walking toward a cab, and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two +late travelling companions, who were getting into another vehicle near +by. + +I went straight to the Élysée Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped +before--a long drive from the Gare du Nord--and claimed the rooms for +which "Mr. George Sandford" had wired from London. The suite engaged was +a charming one, and the private salon almost worthy to receive the +lovely lady I expected. Nor did she keep me waiting. I had had time only +to give instructions about sending a man with a key to the station for +my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to reach my rooms, and to +draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at the salon door. +I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this happened, +but to my surprise the room remained in darkness--or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. + +"The lady has arrived, Monsieur," announced the servant. "As Monsieur +expected her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that +something has gone wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It +was but just now discovered, at time for turning on the lights, +otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would have been provided, though +no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few minutes. If +Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp." + +"No, thank you," I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted +in the midst of my important interview with Maxine. "If the light comes +on, it will he all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it +is not yet quite dark. Show the lady in." + +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, +whose tall and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting +black dress, though her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly +embroidered veil that completely hid her face, while long, graceful lace +folds fell over and obscured the bright auburn of her hair. + +"One moment," I said. "Let me push the curtains back. The electricity +has failed." + +"No, no," she answered. "Better leave them as they are. The lights may +come on and we be seen from outside. Why,"--as she drew nearer to me, +and the servant closed the door, "I thought I recognised that voice! It +is Ivor Dundas." + +"No other," said I. "Didn't the--weren't you warned who would be the man +to come?" + +"No," she replied. "Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of +meeting were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a +cypher which I trust nobody knows--except myself and one other. But I'm +glad--glad it's you. It was clever of--him, to have sent you. No one +would dream that--no one would think it strange if they knew--as I hope +they won't--that you came to Paris to see me. Oh, the relief that you've +got through safely! Nothing has happened? You have--the paper?" + +"Nothing has happened, and I have the paper," I reassured her. "No +adventures, to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I've been +spotted. Anyway, here I am; and here is something which will put an end +to your anxiety." And I tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. + +"Thank God!" breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which +would have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was +never further in her life from the thought of acting. "After all I've +suffered, it seems too good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and +let me go." + +"I will," I said. "But you might seem to take just a little more +interest in me, even if you don't really feel it, you know. You might +just say, 'How have you been for the last twelve months?'" + +"Oh, I do take an interest, and I'm grateful to you--I can't tell you +how grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now," +she said, eagerly. "If you knew everything, you'd understand." + +"I know practically nothing," I confessed; "still, I do understand. I +was only teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn't to have done it, even for a +minute. Here is the letter-case which the Foreign--which was given to me +to bring to you." + +"Wait!" she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had +never departed. "Wait! It will he better to lock the door." But even as +she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she +flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped +suggestively a moment ago. I let her draw out the long case which I had +been guarding--the case I had not once touched since leaving London, +except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat. At +least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands +now. + +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung +to me, the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my +nostrils. But as she started away, and I knew that she had the +letter-case, the knock came again. Then, before I could be sure whether +she wished for time to hide, or whether she would have me cry "come in," +without seeming to hesitate, the door opened. For a second or two Maxine +and I, and a group of figures at the door were mere shadows in the ever +deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have counted ten before the +long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in more than one +place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall Commissary +of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. + +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to +see that she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of +sight. Having ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the +devil's name the Commissary of Police meant by walking into an +Englishman's room without being invited; and not only that, but what +under heaven he wanted anyway. + +He was far more polite than I was. + +"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur," he apologised. "I knocked twice, but +hearing no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon +was unoccupied. Important business must be my excuse. I have to request +that Monsieur Dundas will first place in my hands the gift he has +brought from London to Mademoiselle de Renzie." + +"I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie," I prevaricated +boldly; but the man's knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris +police had contrived to learn it already, as well as to find out that I +was the bearer of something for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough +to play the game in their own way--whatever that might be. + +"Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent--to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned," amended the Commissary +of Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. + +"Really, I don't know what you are talking about," I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered--or hoping that I looked bewildered. +All the while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for +Maxine, or if she would still find some way of saving herself. But all I +could do for her at the moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies +as necessary. I hadn't been able to lie to Diana; but I had no +compunctions about doing it now, if it were to help Maxine. The worst +was, that I was far from sure it would help her. + +"I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police +from doing their duty," said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory +for the first time. "Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be +compelled to order that Monsieur be searched." + +"You seem to forget that you're dealing with a British subject," said I. + +"Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country," he capped my +words. "You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now--" + +"Why don't you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas," suggested Maxine, +lightly, yet contemptuously, "and show them that you've nothing in which +the police can have any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, +will be to search me." + +"I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, +unless satisfaction is given to me," returned the Commissary of Police. + +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these +men had ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me +that her beauty must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. +For Maxine is a gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most +striking, more wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes +laughed out of her white face, and her red lips smiled as if neither +they, nor the great eyes, had any secret to hide. + +"Look at me," she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which +was of the fashion which, I think, women call "Princess." It fitted her +as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. + +"Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?" she +asked. "I haven't a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could +have, in a gown like this. I don't know in the least what sort of 'gift' +my old friend is supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I'll +take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le +Commisaire, for I've been taught, as a servant of the public, to be +civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable. No? +You don't want to see my rings? Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, +then. I might have put the thing--whatever it is--in my hair." + +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half +scornful, half good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood +smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of +her dark red hair shadowing her forehead. + +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my +pockets: a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my +watch, and a handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small +bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection: but as one of the +gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and +handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back +into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time. There were too +many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine +could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more than two +seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. + +"Now, are you satisfied?" she asked, "Now that we have both shown you we +have nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police +station, and have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? +I'll go with you, if you wish. I won't even he indiscreet enough to ask +questions, since you seem inclined to do what we've no need to do--keep +your own secrets. All I stipulate is, that if you care to take such +measures you'll take them at once, for as you may possibly be aware, +this is the first night of my new play, and I should be sorry to be +late." + +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he +would read her soul. + +"No, Mademoiselle," he said, "I am convinced that neither you nor +Monsieur are concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble +you further until we have searched the room." + +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be +when she lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I +saw that the pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could +control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood +in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the +gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My +heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the +place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her +pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of +the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; and though +I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + +"How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur," she +asked, "before you--rather rudely, I must say--broke in upon my +conversation with my friend?" + +"You had been here exactly three minutes," replied the Commissary of +Police. + +"As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each +other, after having been parted for many months; and still, in the three +minutes, you believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, +and to find some safe corner--all the while in semi-darkness--for the +hiding of a thing important to the police--a bomb, perhaps? You must +think us very clever." + +"I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle." + +"Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment," she answered, +allowing anger to warm her voice at last; "but this is almost beyond a +joke. A woman comes to the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed +that they prefer her call not to be talked about. For that reason, and +for the woman's sake, the friend chooses to take a name that isn't +his--as he has a right to do. Yet, just because that woman happens +unfortunately to be well-known--her face and name being public +property--she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, no +doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. +Ah, it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to +such stupidity, such meanness." + +"When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me," said the Commissary; "until +then, I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you." Then, turning +to his two gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning +with all possible places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might +be hidden, within ten metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur +had stood talking together when the police opened the door. + +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the +three policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of +the room, she walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon +it. Weariness, disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I +guessed that she felt herself actually in need of the physical support. + +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving +themselves entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their +superior officer did not once take his eyes from the pure profile she +turned scornfully towards him. I knew why he watched her thus, and +thought of a foolish, child's game I used to play twenty years ago, at +little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of "Hide-the-Handkerchief." While +one searched for the treasure, those who knew where it was stood by, +saying: "Now you are warm. Now you are hot--boiling hot. Now you are +cool again. Now you are ice cold." It was as if we were five players at +this game, and Maxine de Renzie's white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: "Now you are warm. Now you are +hot. Now you are ice cold." + +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as +my hat and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes +picked up these things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the +table; peeped behind the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and +drawers of a bric-à-brac cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the +corners of the rugs on the bare, polished floor; and finally, bowing +apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, took out the logs from the +fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and pried into the +vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window curtains, +and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at +a loss. + +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine's suffering. I felt +as if my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until +it was uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were +peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round +Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the +white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty +of revelation. She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same +smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond +dust. + +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it +too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. +The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled +subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it +fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead +of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he +searched the face of the tortured woman. + +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she +had suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The +only movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in +another moment, if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock +no longer, and she would die. For a second I wildly counted the chances +of overpowering all three men, stunning them into unconsciousness, and +giving Maxine time to escape with the letter-case. But I knew the +attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, the noise would +arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush in to +the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. + +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating +of her bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, +pushing his hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he +moved it along the crevice inch by inch. + +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. +I think Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found +something. The other hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked +together, groping and prying for a few seconds: evidently the something +hidden had been forced deeply and firmly down. Then, up it came--a dark +red leather case, which was neither a letter-case nor a jewel-case, but +might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating in the intense +relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London to +bring Maxine. + +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for +suspense and anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. + +"Voila!" grunted the Commissary of Police. "I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you +had spared us this trouble." + +"You alone are to blame for the trouble," answered Maxine. "I never saw +that thing before in my life." + +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, +so far, she was saved--as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a +woman at bay, fighting to the last, but without hope. "Nor did I ever +see it before." I echoed her words. + +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for +gratitude. I was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, +as I thought that she must know. + +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. "I +suppose you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room +tucked some valued possession down into a safe hiding place--and then +forgot all about it. That is likely, is it not? You shall have the +pleasure, Mademoiselle--and you, Monsieur--of seeing with me what that +careless person left behind him." + +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, +with his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with +calmness, and was amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer +scornful, tragically indifferent in her manner, but imploring--a weak, +agonized woman. + +"For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur," she sobbed. "You don't +understand. I confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held +myself high, in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I--an +actress--never took a lover. But now I am like the others. This is my +lover. There's the price I put on my love. Now, Monsieur, I ask you on +my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case sacred." + +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with +a whip. My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this +became known, this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then +indeed all hope for me with the girl I loved would be over. My second +thought was for Maxine herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she +had chosen the way, I could only be silent. + +"Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, +from such a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of +that case," said the Commissary of Police. + +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. "No--no!" she implored. +"If I were rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I've been +extravagant--I haven't saved, but all I have in the world is yours +if--." + +"There can be no such 'if,' Mademoiselle," the man broke in. And +wrenching his hand free, he opened the case before she could again +prevent him. + +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the +floor, where it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of +rainbow colours. + +_"Sacré bleu!"_ muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever +he had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. +Shorn of hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case +was torn open, she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, +tall figure crumpling like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have +fallen if I had not caught her, holding her up against my shoulder. When +the cataract of diamonds sprang out of the case, however, I felt her +limp body straighten itself. I felt her pulses leap. I felt her begin to +_live_. She had drunk a draught of hope and life, and, fortified by it, +was gathering all her scattered forces together for a new fight, if +fight she must again. + +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was +empty. There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a +scrap of paper. + +"Where, then, is the document?" Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. + +"What document?" she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. +Hearing the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that +lay against my shoulder, who--knowing a little less than I did of the +truth--would have dreamed that in her soul she thanked God for a +miracle? Even I would not have been sure, had I not felt the life +stealing back into her half-dead body. + +"The contents of the case are not what I came here to find," admitted +the Enemy. + +"I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer +horribly," said Maxine. "You have been very cruel to a woman who has +done nothing to deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have +taken in my diamonds is gone now. I shall never have a peaceful +moment--never be able to wear them joyfully. I shall have the thought in +my mind that people who look at me will be saying: 'Every woman has her +price. There is the price of Maxine de Renzie.'" + +"You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle," the man protested. "We +shall never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of +what we have heard and seen in this room." + +"Won't you search further?" asked Maxine. "Since you seemed to expect +something else--" + +"You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, +Mademoiselle," said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. +"Besides, this case was what you did not wish us to find. You are a +great actress, but you could not control the dew which sprang out on +your forehead, or the beating of your heart when I touched the sofa, so +I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has been an error, and I +can only apologise." + +"I don't blame you, but those who sent you," said Maxine, letting me +lead her to a chair, into which she sank, limply. "I am thankful you do +not tell me these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure +but it would end in that." + +"Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will +adorn the jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my +companions. We have but done our duty." + +"I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me," +exclaimed Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. "It is said that 'Hell hath +no fury like a woman scorned.' But what of a man who has been +scorned--by a woman? He knew I wanted all my strength for to-night--the +night of the new play--and he will be hoping that this has broken me. +But I will not be broken. If you would atone, Messieurs, for your part +in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening and encourage me +by your applause." + +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, +murmured compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, +gave me the sensation that I was in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IVOR HEARS THE STORY + +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at +Maxine, but she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, +trembling still; and walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look +out. Nobody was there. + +"They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door," she +whispered. + +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on +the light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the +electricity switched on. They might change their minds, or be more +subtle than they wished to seem. + +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the +cushion where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the +glittering mass against her lips and cheeks. + +"Thank God, thank God--and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!" she said +brokenly, in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, +even if pressed against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop +into her lap, she flung back her head and laughed and cried together. + +"Oh, Ivor, Ivor!" she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. "The agony of it--the agony--and the joy now! You're +wonderful. Good, precious Ivor--dear friend--saint." + +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands +with which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. + +"Heaven knows I don't deserve one of those epithets," I said, "I'll just +stick to friend." + +"Not deserve them?" she repeated. "Not deserve them, when you've saved +me--I don't yet understand how--from a horror worse than death--oh, but +a thousand times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had +found it, I shouldn't have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me--how +did you work such a miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant +so much to me (and to one I love), and how did you hide the--other +thing?" + +"I don't know anything about this necklace," I answered, stupidly, "I +didn't bring it." + +"You--_didn't bring it_?" + +"No. At least, that red leather thing isn't the case I carried. When the +fellow pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn't what I'd had, so I +thanked our lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all +hope wasn't over, if I'd dared to catch your eye or make a signal." + +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her +eyes were fever-bright. + +"Ivor, you can't know what you are talking about," she said, in a +changed voice. "That red leather case is what you took out of your +breast pocket and handed to me when I first came into the room. At the +sound of the knock, I pushed it down as far as I could between the seat +and back of the sofa, and then ran off to a distance before the door +opened. You _did_ bring the necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was +the cause of all my trouble in the beginning, I needn't tell you of the +joy I had in seeing it, apart from the heavenly relief of being spared +discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when you've given me the other +packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away happy." + +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. + +"I gave you the only thing I brought," I said. "It was in my breast +pocket, inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There +was no other thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This +red case is something else--we can try to account for it later. It all +came through the lights not working. If it hadn't been dusk you would +have seen that I gave you a dark green leather letter-case--quite +different from this, though of about the same length--rather less thick, +and--" + +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back +of the sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be +nothing or the Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a +cry she cut me short at last throwing up her hands in despair. She was +deathly pale again, and all the light had gone out of her eyes leaving +them dull as if she had been sick with some long illness. + +"What will become of me?" she stammered. "The treaty lost! My God--what +shall I do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know--you are killing me?" + +The word "treaty" was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign +Secretary had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be +wholly in his secrets--and Maxine's. Yet hearing the word brought no +great surprise. I knew that I had been cat's-paw in some game of high +stakes. But it was of Maxine I thought now, and the importance of the +loss to her, not the national disaster which it might well be also. + +"Wait," I said, "don't despair yet. There's some mistake. Perhaps we +shall be able to see light when we've thrashed this out and talked it +over. I know I had a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I +thought of it and guarded it every moment. Could those diamonds have +been inside it? Could the Foreign Secretary had given me the necklace, +_instead_ of what you expected?" + +"No, no," she answered with desperate impatience. "He knew that the only +thing which could save me was the document I'd sent him. I wired that I +must have it back again immediately, for my own sake--for his--for the +sake of England. Ivor! Think again. Do you want me to go mad?" + +"I will think," I said, trying to speak reassuringly. "Give me a +moment--a quiet moment--" + +"A quiet moment," she repeated, bitterly, "when for me each second is an +hour! It's late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be +at the theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first +act are a heavy business. I don't want all Paris to know that Maxine de +Renzie has been ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we +can, for others' sakes, and so gain time for our own, if all is not +lost--if you believe still that there's any hope. Oh, save me, +Ivor--somehow. My whole life is in this." + +"Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," +I suggested. "You cannot go to the theatre in this state." + +"For an actress there's no such word as 'cannot,'" she said bitterly. "I +could play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next +instant; yet no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no +understudy. What use to have one? What audience would stop in the +theatre after an announcement that their Maxine's understudy would take +her place? Every man and woman would walk out and get his money back. +No; for the sake of the man I love better than my life, or twenty +lives--the man I've either saved or ruined--I'll play tonight, if I go +mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don't 'think quietly,' Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each +other, so. Let us go over together everything that happened to you from +the minute you took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the +minute I came into this room." + +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except +the part that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. +I told her how I had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, +and had waked to feel and look for it once or twice an hour. How when +morning came I had been late in getting to the train: how I had +struggled with the two men who tried to keep me out of the reserved +compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who had a right +to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. +How he had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion +after the false alarm on the boat's gangway. How he had walked beside me +and seemed on the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I +had avoided and lost sight of him; but how I had many times covertly +touched my pocket to be sure that, through all, the letter-case was +still safe there. + +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and +at last she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she +gave to me. "Put that into the same pocket," she said, "and then pass +your hand over your coat, as you did often before. Now, does it feel +exactly as if it were the green letter-case with which you started out?" + +"Yes, I think it does," I answered, doubtfully. "I'm afraid I shouldn't +know the difference. This _may_ be a little thicker than the other, +but--I can't be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to +unbutton my coat and look at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It +would have attracted too much attention to risk that; and as a matter of +fact, I was especially warned not to do it. I could trust only to the +touch. But even granting that, by a skill almost clever enough for +sleight of hand--a skill which only the smartest pickpocket in Europe +could possess--why should a thief who had stolen my letter-case give me +instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds? If he +wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and shape +as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn't suspect my loss, why didn't +he slip in the red case _empty_, instead of containing the necklace?" + +"_This_ necklace, too, of all things in the world!" murmured Maxine, +lost in the mystery. "It's like a dream. Yet here--by some miracle--it +is, in our hands. And the treaty is gone." + +"The treaty is gone," I repeated, miserably. + +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, +yet it almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the +dreadful fact a kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the +sofa with a groan, her face buried in her hands. + +"My God, what a punishment!" she stammered. "I've ruined the man I +risked everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act +to-night, my friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when +to-morrow morning comes, I shall be out of the world." + +"Don't say that," I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my +failure. "All hope isn't over yet; it can't be. I'll think this out. +There must be a solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what +_seems_ to be gone. If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I +wouldn't hesitate for an instant, now: so you see, there's nothing I +won't do to help you. Only, I wish the path could be made a little +plainer for me--unless for some reason it's necessary for you to keep me +in the dark. The word 'treaty' I heard for the first time from you. I +didn't know what I was bringing you, except that it was a document of +international importance, and that you'd been helping the British +Foreign Secretary--perhaps Great Britain as a Power--in some ticklish +manoeuvre of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, +you might tell me more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his +message." + +"Then I will tell you more!" Maxine exclaimed. "It will be better to do +so. I know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document +you were bringing me was a treaty--a quite new treaty between Japan, +Russia and France: not a copy, but the original. England had been warned +that there was a secret understanding between the three countries, +unknown to her. There was no time to make a copy. And I stole the real +treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am engaged--whom I adore, Ivor, +as I didn't know it was in me to adore any man. You know his name, +perhaps--that he's Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in Paris. +Oh, I can read in your eyes what you're thinking of me, now. You can't +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for +Raoul's sake. There's that in my defence--only that." + +"I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help +feeling. + +"How could you?--except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you +everything--I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you +scorn me, too. You'll work for me--to save me, and him. For years I've +helped the British Government. Oh, I won't spare myself. I've been a +spy, sometimes against one Power, sometimes against another. When there +was anything to do against Russia, I was always glad, because my dear +father was a Pole, and you know how Poles feel towards Russia. Russia +ruined his life, and stripped it of everything worth having, not only +money, but--oh, well, that's not in this story of mine! I won't trouble +you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young girl, I +was already the enemy of all that's Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I've been paying it, slowly. Don't think that the money I've +had for my work--hateful work often--has been used for myself. It's been +for my father's country--poor, sad country--every shilling of English +coin. As an actress I've supported myself, and, as an actress, it has +been easier for me to do the other secret work than it would have been +for a woman leading a more sheltered life, mingling less with +distinguished persons of different countries, or unable to be eccentric +without causing scandal. As for France, she's the friend of Russia, and +I haven't a drop of French blood in my veins, so, at least, I've never +been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made some great _coups_ in +the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began before I was sixteen, +and now I'm twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to thank me for +giving her news of the most vital importance. You're shocked to hear +what my inner life has been?" + +"If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half +conventional. One hardly knows how conventional one's opinions are until +one stops to think," said I. + +"Once, I gloried in the work," Maxine went on. "But that was before I +fell in love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that +was to pass the time. Both of us were flirting. I'd never met Raoul +then, and I've never really loved any man except him. It came at first +sight, for me: and when he told me that he cared, he said it had begun +when he first saw me on the stage; so you see it is as if we were meant +for each other. From the moment I gave him my promise, I promised myself +that the old work should be given up for ever: Raoul's _fiancée_, +Raoul's wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. Besides, as he's a +Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which Maxine de Renzie +never owed. I wanted--oh, how much I wanted--to be only what Raoul +believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal +from him, but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I'd break +with the past, and I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, +who has always been a good friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and +hoped to begin my life all over again in a different way, though he +might be sure that I'd know how to keep his secrets as well as my own. +Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week ago! I was happy +then. I feel twenty years older now." + +"A week ago. You've been engaged only a week?" I broke in. + +"Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but +he wouldn't have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn't lost +his head a little. He hadn't meant to speak, it seems, for he's poor, +and he thought he had no right. But what's a man worth who doesn't lose +his head when he loves a woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to +let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn't +care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end. There +were reasons why--more than one: but the man of all others whom I didn't +want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had +happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding--Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake +while Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces +that there was something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did +suspect. Oh, a hateful person! I've refused him three times. There are +some men so vain that they can never believe a woman really means to say +'no' to them. Count Godensky is one of those, and he's dangerous, too. +I'm afraid of him, since I've cared for Raoul, though I used to be +afraid of no one, when I'd only myself to think of. Raoul was going away +that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who was a dear and +intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the Duchesse de +Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She has no +children of her own." + +"I don't know her," I said, "but I've seen her; a charming looking +woman, about forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband--a fellow who might +be rather a Tartar to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte +Carlo one year, in the Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying +herself hugely, though the Duke had the air of being dragged in against +his will." + +"No doubt he had been--or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, +she's a dreadful gambler. It's in her blood! I She lost, I don't know +how much, at Monte Carlo on an 'infallible system' she had. She's afraid +of her husband, though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she's +had for Bridge has cost her so much that she daren't tell the Duke, who +hates her gambling. She confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help +her--not with money, for he has none, but by taking a famous and +wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, selling the stones for +her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was all to be done +very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn't know, and Raoul +hated it, but he couldn't refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he 'lost his head,' while we were bidding each +other good-bye before his journey. He didn't mention the name of the +Duchess, but said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on +business. But while he was away a _dreadful_ thing happened--the most +ghastly misfortune--and as we were engaged to be married, he felt +obliged when he came back to let me know the worst." + +"What was the dreadful thing that happened?" I asked, as she paused, +pressing her hands against her temples. + +"The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one +of the most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul's feelings? He +came to me in despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not +appeal to the police, or the Duchess's secret would come out. And he +couldn't bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such +a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the +jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and +_might_ be tempted to believe that he'd only pretended the diamonds were +stolen--while really he'd sold them for his own use." + +"As she's fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought +no such thing," I tried to comfort Maxine. "But certainly, it was a +rather bad fix." + +"Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of +is to hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me--well, there was +nothing I wouldn't have done to help him--nothing. My life would have +been a small thing to give. I would have given my soul. And already a +thought came flashing into my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say +nothing to the Duchess, who didn't even know yet that he'd come back +from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was about the commission from +your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, I'd just sent him +word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn't +do what he wanted. He'd offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake +the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed if +I tried. And with the few thousands I'd saved up, and selling such +jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for +the necklace. Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never +know that the diamonds had been stolen. All that night I lay awake +thinking, thinking. Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be +working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as +well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen +or twenty thousand pounds in my hands--all for him. To let him have the +money would make me happier than I'd ever been. At first he said he +wouldn't take it from me--I knew he would say that! But, at last, after +I'd cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a +loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office +there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay +together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of +all--where the really sacred and valuable things were kept. He laughed +and pointed out the most interesting one--the one, he said, which held +all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy. I was sure then +that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be +there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn't have been +anywhere for long. 'There are three keys to that safe,' said Raoul. 'One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this +is the third'; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I +had seen before. 'Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,' +I pleaded with him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my +throat I wore a string of imitation pearls, which I'd put on for a +special purpose. But they were pretty, and so well made that only an +expert would know they weren't real. Raoul isn't an expert; so at the +moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open the door, I +gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls roll +everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about +the key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were +worth at least a thousand francs. + +"While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took +an impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my +handkerchief, and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on +his hands and knees on the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a +moment, just to give me the peep I had begged for, but not long enough +for me to touch anything even if I'd dared to try with him standing +there. Enough, though, to show me that the documents were neatly +arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their general character, +colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was being made; +and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at the +office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me +come to him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him +away. But I'd made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, +was a friend of Raoul's--the one who introduced us to each other, and +I'd made up a message for him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring +his friend to speak to me. He went, and I believed I might count on five +minutes to myself. No more--but those five minutes would have to be +enough for success or failure. The instant the door shut behind Raoul, I +was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a folded document, and +opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right one, for a +mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted--the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France--the +treaty which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was +a secret one, arranged between the three countries without the knowledge +of England and to the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had +gave me the impression that the document was nothing of the kind, but +quite innocent, affecting trade only; yet that wasn't my business. I had +to send it to the Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know its precise +nature, and whether England was being deceived. In place of the treaty I +slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I'd brought with me--just like +the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business would suspect +the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back before +it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?" + +"I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. +But, good Heavens, Maxine," I couldn't help breaking out, "it was an +awful thing to do." + +"I know--I know. But I had to have the money--for Raoul. And there was +no other way to get it. You remember, I'd refused, till the diamonds +were lost, and would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with +the French Foreign Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I +had time enough. I had even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately +for me, the man I'd sent Raoul to find was out. I looked at my watch, +pretended to be surprised, and said I must go at once. I couldn't bear +to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, so that it might the more +quickly be on its way back. I hadn't come to visit Raoul in my own +carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking me to it, +Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it had +been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in +such a state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I +fancied that he imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red +and pale. What a fool I was--and how weak! But I couldn't help it. I +didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the +packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post--but after all, +it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was Godensky again, in +his motor-brougham. _That_ could have been no coincidence. A horrid +certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the +Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of +that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; +yet this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated." + +"But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been +up for you before this," I said. + +"He didn't know, of course. Only--if he wants to be a woman's lover and +she won't have him, he's her enemy and he's the enemy of the man who +_is_ her lover. He's too clever and too careful of his own interests to +speak out prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do +him harm if he proved mistaken. He wouldn't yet, I think, even warn +those whom it might concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul's +charge were out of order or missing. But what he would do, what I think +he has done, is this. Having some idea, as he may have, that my +relations with certain important persons in England are rather friendly, +and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go almost straight to the +post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the name of my +correspondent. He has influence--he could perhaps have found out: but if +he did, it wouldn't have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings +with the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover--hence a +delay sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go +straight to him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and +he would have perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very +unofficially and confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of +being a political spy in the pay of England. He would have advised that +my movements be watched for the next few days: that English agents of +the French police be warned to watch also, on their side of the Channel. +He would have argued to himself that if I'd sent any document away, with +Raoul's connivance or without, I would be wanting it back as soon as +possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that possibly a +messenger would bring me something--if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes +on me, and on every movement of mine, I'm sure. See how efficient, +though quiet, the methods have been where you're concerned. They--the +police--knew the name of the man I was to meet here at this hotel; and +if, as Godensky must have hoped, any document belonging to the French +Government had been found on you or me, everything would have played +into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his heart broken, and +I--but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I +may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his cleverness, as +well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only +thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police." + +"You don't believe then," I asked, "that Godensky has had any hand in +the disappearance of the treaty?" + +"I would believe it, if it weren't for the necklace being put in its +place. Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul's mission with +the diamonds, and got them into his own hands, he wouldn't have let them +get out again with every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus +saving him from his trouble. He'd do nothing to help, but everything to +hinder. There lies the mystery--in the return of the necklace instead of +the treaty. You have no knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me +with it in your pocket--the necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days +ago, in Amsterdam or on the way there." + +"You're certain it's the same?" + +"Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I'm not out of my mind +yet--though I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this +horror." + +"I'm going to try," I said. "Don't give up hope. I wish, though, that +you hadn't to act to-night." + +"So do I. But there's no way out of it. And I must go now to the +theatre, or I shall be late: my make-up's a heavy one, and takes a long +time. I can't afford to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, +whatever comes afterwards. Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the +first act, he'll be at the door of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing +him, of hearing him praise my acting, and saying dear, trusting, loving +words that would make me almost too happy, if I hadn't betrayed him, +ruined his career for ever!" + +"Maybe not," I said. "And anyhow, there's the necklace. That's +something." + +"Yes, that's something." + +"Will Godensky be in the audience, too?" I asked. + +"I'm sure he will. He couldn't keep away. But he may be late. He won't +come until he's had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried +to thrash matters out." + +"If only your theory's right, then,--if he hasn't dared yet to throw +suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its +contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little +time before us still: we're comparatively safe for a few hours." + +"We're as safe," answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, "as +if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid +to fire it. But"--she broke off bitterly, "why do I say '_we_'. To you +all this can be no more than a regret, a worry." + +"You know that's not just!" I reproached her. "I'm in this with you now, +heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I'd give my +life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I've given something, +but--" + +"What have you given?" she caught me up quickly. + +"My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier," I +answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I +could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without +helping me bear mine. + +"I don't understand," she said. + +"Don't think of it. You can do nothing; and I don't grudge the +sacrifice--or anything," I hurried on. + +"Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond +this tangle. But now, it must be _au revoir_. Save me, save Raoul, if +you can, Ivor. What you can do, I don't know. I'm groping in darkness. +Yet you're my one hope. For pity's sake, come to my house when the +play's over, to tell me what you've done, if you've been able to do +anything. Be there at twelve." + +"I promise." + +"Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and +I'll go. I don't want you to be seen with me outside this room." + +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. + +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the +bosom of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening +at the throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the +thing up from the table where she had thrown it, and examined it +carefully for the first time. + +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and +as Maxine's voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all +previous knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had +not been in it when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would +almost certainly have described to Maxine the box or case which had been +stolen from him, and if the thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place +had recalled his description, she must have betrayed some emotion under +the keen eyes of the Commissary of Police. + +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might +have been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the +ordinary sort. Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a +silver clasp on which the hallmark was English. + +"English silver!" I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. +Of the trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the +compartment for himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to +steal the treaty from me, and exchange for it this red leather case +containing a diamond necklace worth twenty thousand pounds. If he +possessed the skill and quick deftness of a conjurer or a marvellously +clever professional pickpocket, as well as the incentive of a paid spy, +he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment of alarm on the +boat's gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me in the +Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. + +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why +should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? +Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum +he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; +and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his +advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill +up the space where the case with the treaty had lain. There would not +have been time yet for the real diamonds to have been copied in +Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a theory that the +stones given me might be false. + +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to +watch and be near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where +I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and +trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it +with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing +into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been +arranged to catch me. + +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed +yet since I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the +railway-station. Though I could not understand any reason for his +tricking me, still I told myself that nobody else could have done it, +and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du Nord. There I might +still be able to find some trace of the little man and of my two other +fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn where +they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by +the Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I +was ready to make use of it if necessary. + +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no +importance, for I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the +railway-station and looked about until I found a porter whose face I had +seen when I got out of the train. He had, in fact, appeared under the +window of my compartment, offering himself as a luggage carrier and had +been close behind me when my late travelling companion walked by my +side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his wits being +sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only my +features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of _le petit Monsieur_ he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied +by two other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the +face of the cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the +station, for the _voiture_ had returned. Would he point out the _cocher_ +to me? He would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. + +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +_cocher_ of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine +whom I was to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had +unfortunately missed. I asked him to describe the men he had driven away +from the station at that time, and though he did it clumsily, betraying +an irritating lack of observation when it came to details, still such +information as I could draw from him sounded encouraging. He remembered +perfectly well the place at which he had deposited his three passengers, +and I decided to take the risk of following them. + +When I say "risk," I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase +might turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they +had been driven to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went +there in a cab, and found at last that I had made a mistake, I should +have wasted a great deal of valuable time on the wrong tack. If the +driver had remembered the name of the street, and the number of the +house at which he had paused, I would have hired a motor and flashed out +to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested bribe, he could +say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one of his +passengers had called, "Turn down the next street, to the left." He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he +had been bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the +street; but, though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, +various landmarks would guide him to the right place, when he came to +pass them again. + +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I +could do no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, +with a horse already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks +were not deceiving, as I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet +street of the suburb, we stopped at last before a fair-sized house with +lights in many windows. Evidently it was a _pension_. + +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English +gentlemen had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. +Would Monsieur give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until +dinner should be over? + +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant's hand, and +suggest that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without +waiting. + +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, +lest they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at +least they could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to +what should come after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. + +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into +the dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long +table with a quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were +dining, but, though several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who +resembled my travelling companions. + +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good +view. In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of +whom he had spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had +come only that day from England, they were old patrons, well known in +the house. + +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +_pension_, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily +up to enquire the stranger's business in his dining-room. I explained +that I had hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to +get permission for my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the +door. When he had identified his three passengers, all hope was over. I +had followed the wrong men. + +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question +more porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth +having, it seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a +vehicle of some sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I +could learn nothing of him or his movements, however, and dared not, +because of Maxine and the British Foreign Secretary, apply to the police +for help, I determined to lose no more time before consulting a private +detective, a man whose actions I could control, and to whom I need tell +only as much of the truth as I chose, without fear of having the rest +dragged out of me. + +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good +private detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing +my nerves. Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was +at home and able to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat +little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment +house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, +thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome. It was cunning, as well as +clever, no doubt: but then, I told myself, it was the business of a +person in Monsieur Girard's profession to be cunning. + +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at +the Élysée Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I +had been recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise +if George Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there +were a good many things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford +seemed the man to fit the situation. Later, he could easily disappear +and leave no trace. + +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to +me, but as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account +appear in the case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of +Monsieur Girard's well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed +thief, whom I thereupon described. I added the fact that we had +travelled together, mentioned the incident at the gangway, and explained +that I had not suspected my loss until I arrived at the Élysée Palace +Hotel. + +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from +behind a screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside +that screen. He asked several intelligent questions, very much to the +point, and I answered them--as seemed best. When he touched on points +which I considered too delicate to be handled by a stranger, even a +detective in my employ, I frankly replied that they had nothing to do +with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly, yet +expressively, he took my refusals without comment; and merely bowed when +I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within twenty-four +hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred and +fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second +to waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but +whatever happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. + +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), +held out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the +whole, I was pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew +his business; and had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign +Secretary, and the risk for Maxine, I would gladly have put more +efficient weapons in Girard's hands, by telling him everything. + +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and +details as I could give, it was past ten o'clock. I could see my way to +do nothing more for the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed +back in my hired automobile to the Élysée Palace Hotel. There I had food +served in my own sitting-room, lest George Sandford should chance +inconveniently upon some acquaintance of Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. +I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted now was to arrive at +Maxine de Renzie's house at twelve o'clock, and tell her my news--or +lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no matter +how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to +supper, or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no +invitation, given none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the +theatre, probably without waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she +would go home unaccompanied, except by her maid. + +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its +own garden, a great "find" in a good quarter of Paris; and her house +could he reached in ten minutes' drive from my hotel. I would not go as +far as the gate, but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet +street, as it would not he wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle +de Renzie was receiving a visit from a young man at midnight. Fifteen +minutes would give me plenty of time for all this: therefore, at about a +quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, and in the entrance hall +almost ran against the last person on earth I expected to see--Diana +Forrest. + +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. +There was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the +world; and for a wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see +me, to take back all her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me +hack also. But it was only for an instant--a very mad instant. + +Then I realised that she couldn't have known I was to be at the Élysée +Palace Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of +coming to me. As common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the +precious and beautiful face other faces: Lady Mountstuart's, Lord +Mountstuart's, Lisa Drummond's, and Bob West's. + +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which +appeared to consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had +just come into the hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful +face, which had been pale, grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with +amazement or anger, or both, I couldn't tell. Lisa smiled, looking more +impish even than usual; but it was plain that the others, Lord +Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me here. + +"Goodness, is it you or your ghost?" exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the +soft accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the +long years of her married life in England. + +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di +from embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to +Maxine's. But, unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for +conventional politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. + +I said "How do you do?" to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to +see them as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord +Robert West, though finding him here with Di, looking particularly +pleased with himself, made me want to knock him down. + +"Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are +concerned," explained Lady Mountstuart. "Of course, Lord Robert ought to +have been at the Duchess's bazaar this afternoon, but then he won't show +up at such things, even to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to +have represented me there. To-day and to-morrow are the only days all +three of us could possibly steal to get away and look at a most +wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before it was ready. Lord +Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other human being +does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the most +horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn't fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she's a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come +with us--and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to +Boulogne, and had such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the +courage to dress and dine at Madrid--wasn't it plucky of us? But we're +collapsing now, and have come back early, as we must inspect the car the +first thing to-morrow morning and do a heap of shopping afterwards." + +"If you're collapsing, I mustn't keep you standing here a moment," I +said, anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn't looking at +me. Half turned from me, purposely I didn't doubt, she had begun a +conversation with Bob West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him +and her apparent indifference to me. + +"'Collapsing' is an exaggeration perhaps," laughed Lady Mountstuart. +"But, instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room +and have a little talk--and whisky and soda." + +"Yes, do come, Dundas," her husband added. + +"Thank you both," I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. "But--I +know you're all tired, and--." + +"And perhaps you have some nice engagement," piped Lisa. + +"It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in +naughty Paris," said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very +handsome when she laughs, and knows it). "Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?" + +"It depends upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then, +as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, +the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young +ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged. +A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, +and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late. +Good-bye,--good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them +again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I +turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to +do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or +something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been. + +Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me +faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he +would know it. + +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under +porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, +but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought +not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that +I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street +leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself. + +"_Depêchez vous_" I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The +man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street +at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly +ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came +to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour +after midnight. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know. + +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning +of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single +line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist +which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew +he would be sitting unless--something had happened. But presently I was +conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, +Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my +chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows. +I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and +I would not now--above all, not now. + +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I +couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to +answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to +let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. +Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had +feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I +liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout +"Brava-brava!" + +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, +as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. "What +if they know all I've done?" The question flashed across my brain. "What +if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie +had betrayed France for money, English money?" How these hands which +applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out. + +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I +think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women +who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to +me that they must suffer less. + +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain +calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look +delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I +could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big +harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up +to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew +that Raoul would be waiting. + +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome +lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in +modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the +Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in +diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old +Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he +is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as +beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it +were not for the eyes, and lips. + +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd +led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. +Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough +to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send +him away, and go to dress for the second act. + +The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, +gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's +something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of +the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even +if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with +more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as +with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic +reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du +Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. + +I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping +up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be +to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three +hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, +back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how +little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would +put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had +done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me. + +For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to +Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's +ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a +man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth +itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause. +Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself +truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover +and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had +realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. + +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing +on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so +good, so pure. + +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to +hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his +eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves +in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on +through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into +the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot; +how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black +bat! + +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I +shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe +me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a +heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it +really was! + +"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you--how +proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I +did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night." + +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. +Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had +comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to +help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his +salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who +so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long +to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were +safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I +had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it +were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But +how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not +on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love? + +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said +to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this +might be the last time that his eyes--those eyes that are not +cold--might look at me with love in them, as now. + +"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for +me?" + +"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered, +holding me very close. + +"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I +can't bear you to belong to others--even to the public that appreciates +you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud +that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore +you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd +be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it +for you, to shield you from it always." + +"Then, what _is_ there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink +of a precipice. + +"Nothing on God's earth--while you kept true to me." + +"And if I weren't true--if I deceived you?" + +"Why, I'd kill you--and myself after. But it makes me see red--a blazing +scarlet--even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it--when +it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you +wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin." + +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I +wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. +Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness--perhaps +the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had +for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so +many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him +short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me. +Then--long before it ought, so it seemed--the clock in mydressing-room +struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first +nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, +more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by +midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know +the worst--or best. + +"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news +for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give +you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third +and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come +behind again. I shan't take any calls--after dying, it's too inartistic, +isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here, +in this room, before I dress to go home." + +"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised +me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house--just you +and I alone together--on the first night of the new play." + +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had +I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. +There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had +crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away +from him involuntarily with a start of surprise. + +"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. + +"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired +and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But--" + +"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I +paused to think what I should do. + +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I +couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. + +"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The +question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper. +My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old +Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, +generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll +see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come +here--after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, +but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was +a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows +too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I +had little time to comfort him. + +"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now, +good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_." + +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where +Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up +things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for +the next act. + +"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door +keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now." + +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and +thought it best to warn me without delay? + +"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once." + +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old +enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but +something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary +promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the +envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky. + +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort +of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid +of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the +treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and +try to drive some dreadful bargain. + +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to +go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as +I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before +my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the +dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis +Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, +when he chose. + + "MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been + given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to + call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening, + alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more + than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with + you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I + am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be + willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were + before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage + door when you come out. + + "Yours, in whatever way you will, + + "ALEXIS." + +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have +been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. +Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your +answer." + +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done +what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he +need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to +order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But +how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go +home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. +At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I +left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be +Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an _impasse_? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt +dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck," I said +to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it +all out." + +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine +de Renzie, but Princess Hélène of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even +more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Hélène had +died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to +die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, +where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for +answer, and must somehow be decided at once. + +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my +best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must +forego, and hurt him instead. + +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hélène had +died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to +leave the stage. + +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing +them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face +was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden +live flame among red ashes. + +"What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside +my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had +come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?" + +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the +tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene, +darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like +this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is +it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever +before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to +sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a +poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the +third act, and then Hélène might have been happily married, instead of +dying." + +"I believe you would have killed him," I said. + +"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm +jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not +an insult." + +"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage--" + +"If the woman I love is the heroine." + +"Will you ever be blasé, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed, +though I could have sobbed. + +"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?" + +"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind +of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. + +"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money +enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some +beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love +for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and +to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?" + +"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into +that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--" + +"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a +coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like +a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the +stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to +touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You +_will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the +house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must +drive me out then?" + +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes." +But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we +mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew +that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he +dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I +said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately +offered to leave me at once. + +"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking +forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of +all nights." + +"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. + +"Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of +course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I +feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it." + +"You must say it," I cried. + +"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in +danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing +more. Rather womanish, isn't it?" + +"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one +wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all +the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying +different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or +ever." + +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: + +"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll +like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room." + +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and +there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with +my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the +least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would +have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as +placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than +she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my +jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred +thousand francs. + +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt +perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on +earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of +my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she +would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands. + +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my +third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the +box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my +carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the +diamonds on fire. + +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The +necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels +depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp +came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were +almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, +extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless. +Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting +even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value. + +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the +treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and +slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade +which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a +friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was +intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. +Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly +planned out my way of giving it to Raoul. + +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his +hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind, +because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible--quite, +quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his +seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was +jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and +it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my +profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him +to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he +thought that he had the least cause. + +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He +would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen +Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say--whether truth or +fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it +would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety, +and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I +was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might +bring, either for him or for me. + +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it +to Raoul in the next room. + +"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a +mystery. "You'll value the something, I know--partly for itself, partly +because I--because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When +you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me--just for tonight. But +you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one +of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter +a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me +when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the +sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every +minute, asleep or awake." + +"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and +silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a +woman's things. + +"Because--just _because_. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I +said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag +away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held +nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves. + +"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard, +for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in +my heart--the fear that it might be for the last time. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold +and filmy tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Hélène had died, and +into the black gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had +come to the theatre. I did not even stop to take off my make-up, for +though the play was an unusually short one, and all the actors and +actresses had followed my example of prompt readiness for all four acts, +it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was dressed. I had to see +Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in time to keep my +appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain every +nerve not to be late. + +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to +speak to Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or +two whether he had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. +But if I could avoid it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long +conversation until later. + +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky +knew me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the +door. + +"Good-evening," he said. "A hundred congratulations." + +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and +the stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me +closely), and several stage-carpenters, with other employés of the +theatre, were within seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, +though that was exactly what might best please Count Godensky. + +"I got your note," I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in +French. "What is it you want to see me about?" + +"Something that can't be told in a moment," he said. "Something of great +importance." + +"I'm very tired," I sighed. "Can't it wait until to-morrow?" + +I tried to "draw" him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. + +"You wouldn't ask that question, if you guessed what--I know," he +replied. + +Was it a bluff, or did he know--not merely suspect--something? + +"I don't understand you," I said quietly, though my lips were dry. + +"Shall I mention the word--_document?_" he hinted. "Really, I'm sure you +won't regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle." + +"I can't do that," I answered. "And I can't take you into my carriage +here. But I'll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugène +Beauharnais. Then you can go with me until I think it best for you to +get out." + +"Very well," he agreed. "But send your maid home in a cab; I can not +talk before her." + +"Yes, you can. She knows no language except French--and a little +English. She always drives home with me." + +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have +given the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by +herself. In that case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, +admires him as a "dream of a young man," and already suspected what I +hadn't yet told her--that we were engaged. But with Count Godensky +forced upon me as a companion, I would not for any consideration have +parted with Marianne. + +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my +chauffeur where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky +appeared. He got in and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but +doubtless astonished, facing us on the little front seat. + +"Now," I exclaimed. "Please begin quickly." + +"Don't force me to be too abrupt," he said. "I would spare you if I +could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am +here because I love you." + +"Oh, please, Monsieur!" I broke in. "You know I've told you that is +useless." + +"But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will +be changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a +great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could +save you from it if you'd let me." + +"Save me from what?" I asked temporising. "You're very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I'm Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate +friends." + +"I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of +myself as your 'intimate friend' when I have done what I hope to do for +you in--in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared." + +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some +women, feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been +better for me to die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let +myself faint and show Godensky that he had struck home. + +"Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again," I said to myself. And +my voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: "Oh, the 'document' +again. The one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my +curiosity. But I don't in the least know what you mean." + +"The loss of it is known," he said. + +"Ah, it's a lost document?" + +"As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don't come to me for the help I'm +only too glad to give--on conditions. Let me tell you what they are." + +"Wouldn't it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, +and how it concerns me?" I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. + +"Aren't _you_ evading the point far more than I? The document--which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though +it were in--let us say your hands, or--du Laurier's, if he were +here--that document is far too important even to name within hearing of +other ears." + +"Marianne's? But I told you she can't understand a word of Russian." + +"One can't be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be--a +spy." + +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of +showing that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; +but he should not. + +"They say one judges others by one's self," I laughed. "Count Godensky, +if you throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall +begin to wonder if it's not _you_ who are the spy!" + +"Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then," he went on, "I'll tell +you what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took +out of the Foreign Office the other day, when you called on +your--friend, Monsieur le Vicomte du Laurier." + +"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem +to think I am a kleptomaniac. I can't imagine what I should want with +any dry old document out of the Foreign Office, can you?" + +"Yes, I can imagine," said Godensky drily. + +"Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this +is rather a serious accusation." + +"If I make any accusation, it's less against you than du Laurier." + +"Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?" + +"As a warning." + +"Or because you don't dare make it to anyone else." + +"Dare! I haven't accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your +name with his." + +"Ah!" I said. "You are very considerate." + +"I don't pretend to be considerate--except of myself. I've waited, and +held my hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing +which would mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I +ever did; even more, because, in common with most men, I value what I +find hard to get. To-night I ask you again to marry me. Give me a +different answer from that you gave me before, and I'll be silent about +what I know." + +"What you know of the document you mentioned?" I asked, my heart +drumming an echo of its beating in my ears. + +"Yes." + +"But--I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?" (Oh, I +was keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely +cost me more than I dared count!) + +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. +Half a second--no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me +what I had been playing with him to find out. + +"Discovered by me," he explained. "That is, by me and one person over +whom I have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or--forget +it, according to my advice." + +"There is no such person," I said to myself. But I didn't say it aloud. +Quickly I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as +were in a position to discover the disappearance of any document under +Raoul du Laurier's charge. There were several who might have done so, +some above Raoul in authority, some below; but I was certain that not +one of them was an intimate friend of Count Godensky's. If he had +suspected anything the day he met me coming out of the Foreign Office he +might, of course, have hinted his suspicions to one of those men (though +all along I'd believed him too shrewd to risk the consequences, the +ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he had spoken, it would +be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their own course, +independent of my decisions and his actions. + +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was "bluffing." He +wanted me to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in +order to save the man I loved. I was only a woman, he'd argued, no +doubt--an emotional woman, already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous +excitement. Perhaps he had expected to have easy work with me. And I +don't think that my silence after his last words discouraged him. He +imagined me writhing at the alternative of giving up Raoul or seeing him +ruined, and he believed that he knew me well enough to be sure what I +would do in the end. + +"Well?" he said at last, quite gently. + +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and +saw his face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count +Godensky is not more Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin +man with a hook nose, keen eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a +sharply waxed, military moustache trained to point upward slightly at +the ends. But to my fancy he looked absolutely devilish at that moment. +Still, I was less afraid of him than I had been since the day I stole +the treaty. + +"Well," I said slowly, "I think it's time that you left me now." + +"That's your answer? You can't mean it." + +"I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other +times that you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had +to say to-night, and I have heard it; so there's no reason why I +shouldn't press the electric bell for my chauffeur to stop, and--" + +"Do you know that you're pronouncing du Laurier's doom, to say nothing +of your own?" + +"No. I don't know it." + +"Then I haven't made myself clear enough." + +"That's true. You haven't made yourself clear enough." + +"In what detail have I failed? Because--". + +"In the detail of the document. I've told you I know nothing about it. +You've told me you know everything. Yet--" + +"So I do." + +"Prove that by saying what it is--to satisfy my curiosity." + +"I've explained why I can't do that--here." + +"Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my +mind. You understood before you came into my carriage that I had no +intention of letting you go all the way home with me." + +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me--frightened +me horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel +that I had got the best of the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + +"You are afraid that du Laurier may find out," he said. "But he knows +already." + +"Knows what?" + +"That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you." + +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of +his almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without +falling they laid one feather too much. + +My voice broke. "You--devil!" I cried at him. "You dared to tell Raoul +that?" + +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now +our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. +She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk +of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on +earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the +brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her +nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she +would have tried with all her strength--which is not small--and a very +good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness +meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty. +But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. + +"Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I've always understood that you +made a great point of never doing anything which you considered in the +least risqué. So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn't +know? You might already have mentioned it to him." + +"He wouldn't believe you!" I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope +was that I might be right. + +"As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to at first, so I at once +understood that you hadn't spoken of our appointment. But it was too +late to atone for my carelessness, and I did the next best thing: +justified my veracity. I suggested that, if he didn't take my word for +it, he might stand where he could see us speaking together at the stage +door, and--" + +"Ah, I am glad of that!" I cut in. "Then he saw that we didn't drive +away together." + +"You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought +you'd receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the +precaution of warning du Laurier that he needn't expect to see that. You +would suggest a place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I +would inform him if he chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes." + +"Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!" I broke out. + +"How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you +have, after all, if you don't understand that a man suddenly out of his +head with jealousy will do things of which he'd be incapable when he was +sane." + +The argument silenced me. I knew--I had known for a long time--that +jealousy could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded +me that he was a "jealous brute." I remembered what answer he had made +when I asked him what he would do if I deceived him. He said that he +would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had +streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. +A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes--the dear eyes that are not +cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do +things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand +sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. + +"As a proof of what I say," Godensky went on, "du Laurier did wait, did +hear from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it +wouldn't be the worst of form to bet, I'd bet that he found some way of +getting there in time to see that I had told the truth." + +"You coward!" I stammered. + +"On the contrary, a brave man. I've heard that du Laurier is a fine +shot, and that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So +you see--" + +"You want to frighten me!" I exclaimed. + +"You misjudge me in every way." + +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the +signal for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed +down, then came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count +Godensky submitted to my will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a +submissive mood, as I did not need to be reminded by the tone of his +voice when he said "au revoir." + +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of +speaking them, as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But +to me they meant a threat, and as a threat they were intended. + +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my +second pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had +little enough at the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he +arrived. It was two or three minutes after midnight, or so my watch +said, when we drew up before the gate of my high-walled garden in the +quiet Rue d'Hollande. + +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient +for keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had +just heard from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. + +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I'd given orders) would be let in +so late at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he +had come to reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand +outside the locked gate till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but +he was not there. There was, to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, +for a wonder (usually the Rue d'Hollande is as empty as a desert, after +eleven o'clock), but a girl's face peered out at me from the window--an +impish, curiously abnormal little face it was--extinguishing the spark +of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of the carriage. + +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, +and the girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all +interested in her, and I hate being stared at as if I were something in +a museum. + +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I'm at the theatre; but +Marianne has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old +Henri sits up, and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were +inside, the chauffeur spinning away to the garage. + +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and +its small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home +after hours of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful +light shone out from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place +looked inexpressibly dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated +the house, though I had chosen it after a long search for peacefulness +and privacy. How gloomy, how dead, was the street beyond the high wall, +with all its windows closed like the eyes of corpses. There was a moist, +depressing smell of earth after long-continued rains, in the garden. No +wonder the place had been to let at a bargain, for a long term! There +had been a murder in it once, and it had stood empty for twelve or +thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten tragedy. I had +been the tenant for two years now--before I became a "star," with a +theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt +the house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story +only made the place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I +wished I had never spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me +bad luck. I felt as if the murder must have happened on just such a +still, brooding, damp night as this. Maybe it was the anniversary, if I +only knew. + +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, +withered like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where +he had sat, hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, +bowing and blinking, just as he had done often before, and would often +again--if life were to go on for me in the old way. He regretted not +having heard Mademoiselle. Would Mademoiselle take supper? + +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri +might go to bed. + +"I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house." + +"But I don't want the house closed," I said. "I shall sit up for awhile. +It's hot--close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open." + +"The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps--" + +"If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it +is so late." + +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not +want her to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a +very old friend; in fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember +in London. He was to call--if he did call--only on a matter of business, +which would take but a few minutes to get through, and possibly he would +not even come into the house. If the gate-bell rang, I would answer it +myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in the garden. Then I would +let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might go to bed if she +wished. + +"I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so," +said she. "I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress +Mademoiselle." + +"Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for +you," I replied. "I shan't be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn't +come." + +"Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it +should not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she +would not care to admit?" + +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. + +"There's no fear of that. No fear of any kind," I answered. + +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel +box. + +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright +and charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the +delightful Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up +here and there at antique shops or at private sales. + +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up +again, moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, +wondering what could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his +promise to be prompt on the hour of twelve. + +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought +only of the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I +heard the gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or +fourteen minutes, but it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I +rushed out, down the garden path, to let my visitor in. + +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in +a hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not +Ivor Dundas, but someone else--Raoul, perhaps--or the man who had been +in her mind: Godensky. + +But it was Ivor. + +"What news?" I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in +my own ears. + +"I don't know whether you'll call it news or not, though plenty of +things have happened. I'm awfully sorry to be late--" + +I wouldn't let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and +drew him into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. +Yet I forgot to lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it +ought to be fastened. + +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I +had told Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might +have been followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, +watchers who would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very +different from old Henri's. "Come into the house," I said, in a low +voice, "before you begin to tell anything." Then, when we were inside, I +could not even wait for him to go on of his own accord and in his own +way. + +"The treaty?" I asked. "Have you got hold of it?" + +"Unfortunately, no." + +"But you've heard of it? Oh, _say_ you've heard something!" + +"If I haven't, it isn't because I've sat down and waited for news to +come. I went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get +on the track of the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But +I was sent off on the wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse +luck--I'll tell you about it later, if you care to hear details. Then, +when that game was up, I did what I wish I'd done at first, found out +and consulted a private detective, said to be one of the best in +Paris--" + +"You told your story--_my_ story--to a detective?" I gasped. + +"No. Certainly not. I said I'd lost something of value, given me by a +lady whose name I couldn't bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, +too, not Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all +that happened on the way, and offered big pay if he could find them +quickly--especially the little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting +them to-night, so don't be desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap +seemed really to think he'd not have much difficulty in tracking down +our man; and even if he's parted with the treaty, we can find out what +he's done with it, no doubt. Girard says--" + +"Girard!" I caught Ivor up. "Is your detective's name Anatole Girard, +and does he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I know too much of him," I answered bitterly. + +"Isn't he clever, after all?" + +"Far too clever. I'd rather you had gone to any other detective in +Paris--or to none." + +"Why, what's wrong with him?" Ivor began to be distressed. + +"Only that he's a personal friend of my worst enemy--the man I spoke of +to you this evening--Count Godensky. I've heard so from Godensky +himself, who mentioned the acquaintance once when Girard had just +succeeded in a case everybody was talking about." + +"By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!" exclaimed Ivor, horribly +disappointed at having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried +so hard to do the right one. "Yet how could I have dreamed of it?" + +"You couldn't," I admitted, hopelessly. "Nothing is your fault. All +that's happened would have happened just the same, no matter what +messenger the Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It's fate. And it's my +punishment." + +"Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends," Ivor tried to console +me, "it isn't likely that the Count has talked to the detective about +you and the affair of the treaty." + +"He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn't find +out himself." + +"Hardly, I should say, until there'd been time for him to fear failure. +No, the chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the +matter I've put into his hands; and if he's a man of honour, he's bound +to do the best he can for me, as his employer. Have you seen du +Laurier?" + +"Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that +brute Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I'd known +that you would be so late, I might have explained everything to him." + +"I'm very sorry," said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him +(but not half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn't forgotten +that hint he had let drop about a great sacrifice--a girl he loved, whom +he had thrown over, somehow, to come to me). "I made every effort to be +in time. It seems a piece with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that +I was prevented. I hope, at least, that du Laurier knows about the +necklace?" + +"He does, by this," I answered. "Yet I'm afraid he won't be in a mood to +take much comfort from it--thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn't +a practical bone in his body. He will think I've deceived him, and +nothing else will matter. I must--" But I broke off, and laid my hand on +Ivor's arm. "What's that?" I whispered. "Did you hear anything then?" + +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. + +"It's a step outside, on the gravel path," said I, my heart beginning to +knock against my side. "I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come +into the garden. What if it should be Raoul--what if he has seen our +shadows on the curtain?" + +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on +account of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows +couldn't have fallen on the curtain. + +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was +Raoul's knock. I was sure of that. + +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time +appointed, I should have hurried him away before this, so that I might +write to Raoul; but now I could not think what to do for the best--what +to do, that things might not be made far worse instead of better between +Raoul and me. I had suffered so much that my power of quick decision, on +which I'd so often prided myself vaingloriously, seemed gone. + +"It is Raoul," I said. "What shall I do?" + +"Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don't act as if you were +afraid. Say that I came to see you on important business concerning a +friend of yours in England, and had to call after the theatre because +I'm leaving Paris by the first train in the morning." + +"No use." + +"Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her." + +"No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul's already angry. He has the +right to be--or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. +And I refused to let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, +I was so tired. He's knocking again. Hide yourself, and I'll let him in. +Oh, _why_ do you stand there, looking at me like that? Go into that +room," and I pointed, then pushed him towards the door. "You can get +through the window and out of the garden--softly--while Raoul and I are +talking." + +"If you insist," said Ivor. "But you're wrong. The best thing--" + +"Go--go, I tell you. Don't argue. I know best," I cut him short, in a +sharp whisper, pushing him again. + +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, +my boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched +it out, and dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That +done, I flew out of the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and +opened the front door. There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very +stern in the light of the hall lamp. I had never seen him like that +before. + +"I know why you're here," I began quickly, before he could speak. "Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I--hoped you would come." + +"Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?" he +asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. + +"No. For I hadn't deceived you," I answered. "I haven't deceived you +now. If you loved me, you'd believe me, Raoul." + +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me +draw him into the house. + +"For God's sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can," he said. +"It's death to lose it. I came here wanting to die." + +"After you'd killed me, as you said?" + +"Perhaps. I couldn't keep away. I had to come. If you have any +explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is." + +"You know me, and you know Godensky--yet you need an explanation of +anything evil said of me by him?" In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; +but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a +power had jealousy over his better self. + +"Don't play with me!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear it. You sent me away. +Yet you had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your +carriage; and now--" + +"Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should +have packed her off by herself, alone, that I--might be alone with you. +Oh, Raoul, it isn't _possible_ you believe that I could lie to you for +Godensky's sake--a man like that! If I'd cared for him, why shouldn't I +have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do +you think?" + +"I don't think; I'm not able to think. I can only feel," he answered. + +"Then--feel sure that I love you--no man but you--now and always." + +"Oh, Maxine!" he stammered. "Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe +you?" + +"You are wise," I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I +was claiming from him as my right. "If you wouldn't believe, without my +insisting, without my explaining and defending myself, I'd tell you +nothing. But you _do_ believe, just because you love me--I see it in +your face, and thank God for it. So I'll tell you this. Count Godensky +hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you +because he thinks I love you. He--" I paused for a second. A wild +thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could +say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come +back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was Godensky, +not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky's to revenge +himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her +lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, +innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were +open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened +afterward. + +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end +and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift +upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd +helped to set, Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was +sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, +was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he +betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would. + +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that +Raoul could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. + +"He--Godensky--would do anything to part you and me," I said. "There's +no plot too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against +me--and you. No lie too base for him to tell you--or others--about me. +He sent me a letter at the theatre--soon after you'd left me the first +time. In it, he said that I must give him a few minutes after the play, +unless I wanted some dreadful harm to come to _you_--something +concerning your career. That frightened me, though I might have guessed +it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn't be sure, so I +saw him. I didn't want you to know--I tell you that frankly, Raoul. +Because I'd told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn't find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with +me and Marianne. I ran the risk, and--the very thing happened which I +ought to have known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was +nothing; only vague hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner +circle, might save you, if I--would be grateful enough." + +"The scoundrel!" broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. +"I'll--" + +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He +meant to send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from +doing that. + +"No, Raoul," I said, as if he had finished his sentence, "you musn't +fight. For my sake, you mustn't. Don't you see, it's just what he'd like +best? It would be a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of +the scandal. Oh, you _will_ think of it, when you're cooler. For you, I +would not fear much, for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a +shot--far superior to Godensky, and with right on your side. But I would +fear for myself. Promise you won't bring this trouble upon me." + +"I promise," he answered. "Oh, my darling, what wouldn't I promise you, +to atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I +came to you to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and +what I might do. But at last I couldn't hold out against the something +that seemed forcing me here in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive +me?" + +"As a reward for your promise," I said, smiling at him through tears +that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I +who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. "Now are you happy again?" I +asked. + +"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't +dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in +this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face +changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I +could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my +gate. + +"Even at the gate--what?" I asked. + +"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust +you now, by not speaking of that." + +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had +been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it +from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it +recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in +this moment of exaltation he did not doubt. + +"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it +_can_ be nothing." + +"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by +not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal, +repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a +thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see +through rose-coloured ones." + +"I'd rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. +You must tell me what you're thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not +yours." + +"Well--if you will know. But, remember, darling, I'm going to put it out +of my mind. I'll ask you no questions, I'll only--tell you the thing +itself. As I said, I didn't come here directly after seeing Godensky get +into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman--and I thought of the +Seine." + +"Oh--you must indeed have been mad!" + +"I was. But that something saved me--the something that drove me to find +you. I walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and +nearer, as if being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this +street, on the side opposite your house. I hadn't made up my mind yet, +that I would try to see you. I didn't know what I would do. I stood +still, and tried to think. It was very black, in the angle between two +garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts up, you know. Nobody who +didn't expect to find a man would have noticed me in the darkness. I +hadn't been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, walking +very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly--not his face, but his figure, and he was young +and well dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an +Englishman. He went straight to your gate and rang. A moment later +someone, I couldn't see who, opened the gate and let him in. +Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the idea of following--of +pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the gate. But I +wasn't quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, Maxine, +there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you--but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I +only wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a +motor cab going slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. +There were two women in it. I could see them by the light of the street +lamp, though not as plainly as I'd seen the man, and they appeared to be +arguing very excitedly about something. Whatever it was, it must have +been in some way concerned with you, or your affairs, because they were +tremendously interested in the house. They both looked out, and one +pointed several times. Even if I'd intended to go in, I wouldn't have +gone while they were there. But the very fact that they _were_ there +roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I'd fallen into. I +wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I +tried the gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and--there were +lights in these windows. I knew you couldn't have gone to bed yet, +though you'd said you were so tired. There was death in my heart then, +for you and for me, Maxine, for--the gate hadn't opened again, and--" + +"I know what you thought!" I broke in, my heart beating so now that my +voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. "You said to +yourself, 'It was Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall +find them together.'" + +"Yes," Raoul admitted. "But I didn't try the handle of the door, as I +had of the gate. I rang. I couldn't bring myself to take you unawares." + +"Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you +ring?" I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor +had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in +painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in +spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the +experience. I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, +though he strove to lash them back. I dared not bring Ivor out from the +other room, if he were still there. He was too handsome, too young, too +attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of Count Godensky, +whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a +stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my +house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn't taken Ivor's advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have +listened to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the +understanding we had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I +must be secret to the end.) + +The very asking of such a bold question--"Do you think I let a man in, +and hid him?" helped my cause with Raoul. + +"No," he said, "I can't think it. I won't, and don't think it. And you +need tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won't distrust +you again!" + +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor +had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint +sound in the next room. He was there still. + +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, +saying, "Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in," +I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover +the sound if it should come again. + +"Oh, Raoul!" I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I +surprised him. "You're taking this too seriously. A thousand times I +thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but--after all, +_were_ they so much against me? You seem to think I am the only young +woman in this house. Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it's true. But +I have a _femme de chambre_ and a _cuisinière_, both under twenty-five, +both pretty, and both engaged to be married." (This was true. Ah, what a +comfort to speak the truth to him!) "Doesn't it occur to you that, at +this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the +seat under the old yew arbour? Can't you imagine how they started and +tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate +and came up the path?" + +"Forgive me!" murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. + +"Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?" + +"Leave them in peace, by all means." + +"The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Thérèse and Annette +are good little girls." + +"Don't let's bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, +and I shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I--" + +"Oh, I'm better now," I said. "Of course I must send you away by and by, +but not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren't glad when you saw +the jewels?" + +"Jewels?" echoed Raoul. "What jewels?" + +"You don't mean to say you haven't yet opened the little bag I gave you +at the theatre?" I exclaimed. + +Raoul looked half ashamed. "Dearest, don't think me ungrateful," he +said, "but before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told +me--that lie. It lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and +haven't thought of it again till this minute." + +At last I laughed with sincerity. "Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you're not fit for +this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with +you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've +forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's +open it together." + +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I +knew. + +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him +put the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his +face flushed. "Good heavens, Maxine," he said, "I hope you weren't in +earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us +both, for I've lost it. You know, I've been almost mad. I had my +handkerchief in that pocket. I must have pulled it out, and--" + +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. + +"Raoul," I said, in a queer stifled voice, "the bag had in it the +Duchess de Montpellier's diamonds." + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' PART + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding +myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her +boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover +that no stranger had come on her account to the house. + +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her +little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in +groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, +I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against +the furniture or knocking down some ornament. + +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would +make, and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet +on glass, although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of +the house, and I was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me +stay. Only by a miracle did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a +chair or a tall vase of flowers, on my way to a second door which was +locked on the other side. At last, however, I discovered a window, and +congratulated myself that my trouble and Maxine's danger was nearly +over. The room being on the ground floor, though rather high above the +level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But +when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt +smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. + +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was +tightly closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly +and with infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was +going to stick. Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it +had swelled; in any case I knew that when the two sashes consented to +part they would make a loud protest. + +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised +her voice--to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even +than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, +and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had +missed. + +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which +apparently communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed +too small for me to climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. + +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du +Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after +she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many +words) that there was no stranger in the house. + +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I +felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should +have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed +doors and windows. As it was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead +grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent +mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief. It was not +to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in +the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, however, I +chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn't account. It +was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket +onto the floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. + +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second +thought; but to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as +insignificant until it had been thoroughly examined. I put the paper +back, and as I did so I heard Maxine give an exclamation, apparently of +distress. I could not distinguish all she said, but I thought that I +caught the word "diamonds." For a moment or two she and du Laurier +talked together so excitedly that I might have made another attack on +the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead +silence, except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than +Maxine's. Perhaps it was her maid's. + +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there +was no sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it +should be too late. + +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would +certainly have given away the secret of my presence if there had been +ears to hear. But all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I +dropped down on to a flower bed some few feet below. Then I skirted +round to the front of the house, walking stealthily on the soft grass, +and would have made a noiseless dash for the gate had I not seen a +stream of light flowing out through the open front door across the lawn. +I checked myself just in time to draw back without being seen by a woman +and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine and, no +doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. +Down to the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing +it behind them, so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. + +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them +was too imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as +they reappeared in three or four minutes they could not have gone far +enough to be out of sight from the gate. + +"There's witchcraft in it," Maxine said, as she and her lover passed +within a few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. + +Du Laurier's answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. +Evidently they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of +finding it again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for +Maxine that a further misfortune should have befallen her at such a +time. But the one and only way in which I could help her at the moment +was to get away as soon as possible. + +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief +when I was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du +Laurier should, by any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought +was to go immediately back to my hotel, where Girard might by now have +arrived with news. I was just ready to hail a cab crawling by at a +distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I'd found and put back into +my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by the light of a +street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the small, +crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. + +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both +sides with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The +handwriting was that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I +could not make out the words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a +wax match from my match-box, and protecting the flame in the hollow of +my hand, began studying the strange message. + +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. "On board the +'Queen.'" I had crossed the Channel in the "Queen," and this beginning +alone was enough to make me hope that the bit of paper might do more +than any detective to unravel the mystery. + + "I'm taking big risks because I've got to," I read on. "It's my + only chance. And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You're + a gentleman, and you saved my life and a lot more besides by + getting into that railway-carriage when the other chaps did. The + minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped there + game. I'm a jewler's assistant, carrying property worth + thousands, for my employers. From the first I knew 'twas bound + to be a ticklish job. On this bote I'm safe, for the villions + who would have murdered and robbed me in the train if it hadn't + been for you being there, won't have a chance, but when I get to + Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed + as I am, if I hadn't already thot of a plan to save them through + you, an honest gentleman far above temptashun. I know who you + are, for I've seen your photo in the papers. So, what I did was + this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of use in + my carere, just as folks were on the boat's gangway. Thro' + making that disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing + amatoor conjuring to amuse my wife and famly, I was able to slip + the case of my employer's jewls into your breast pocket without + your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not that I + wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I'd + left it the double thickness would have surprised you and you + would probably have pulled out my case to see what it was. Then + my fat would have bin in the fire, with certin persons looking + on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn't be fare. I've + got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won't open it + because it may have your sweetart's letters in. You can get your + property again by bringing me my master's, which is fare + exchange. I can't call on you, for I don't know where your going + and daren't hang round to see on account of the danger I run, + and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get + to him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I + wrote out this explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in + your pocket which I shall try when in the railway stashun at + Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to bring me the + jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, + calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top + floor, left of passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, + + "I am, + + "Yours trustfully, + + "J.M. Jeweler's Messenger. + + "P.S.--For heaven's sake don't fale, and ask the concerge for + name of Gestre." + +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating +little document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As +it was, my delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier +to restrain myself. + +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should +have rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her +the good news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she +should curse instead of bless me: and besides, as there was still a +chance of disappointment, it might be better in any case not to raise +her hopes until there was no danger of dashing them again. The best +thing was to get the treaty back, without a second of delay. As for the +detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he would have to +wait longer, or even go away disgusted--nothing made much difference +now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the +hour, she was certain not to be asleep. + +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, +and no other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one +presently. It was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris +no carriages of any sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind +that I should have to go all the way on foot; but I knew the direction +of the Avenue Morot, though I'd never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +and as it was not more than two miles to walk, I could reach the house I +wanted to find in half an hour. + +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since "J. M." was +sure to be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which +bothered me most was the effect likely to be produced on the man when I +could not hand him over the diamonds in exchange for the treaty. + +Of course I didn't believe that "J.M." was a jeweller's messenger, +though possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not +told me the true history of the diamonds, and what had happened in +Holland. As it was, I had very little doubt that the rat of a man I had +chanced to protect in the railway carriage was no other than the +extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du Laurier of the +Duchess's necklace. + +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it +probable that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had +contrived to dodge, evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope +of cheating them out of their share of the spoil. Followed by them, +dreading their vengeance, I fancied him flitting from one hiding-place +to another, not daring to separate himself from the jewels; at last +determining to escape, disguised, from England, where the scent had +become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to Dover, +and travelling with a golfer's kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening +the door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. + +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, "J.M.'s" +travelling companions hadn't even accosted him. Still, the theory +accounted for much that had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a +man should be desperate enough to trust his treasure to a stranger +(known only through "photos in the newspapers") rather than risk losing +it to those he had betrayed. + +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from "J.M." the +case containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive +the diamonds in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a +plan of proceeding before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon +found my way into the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which +the queer name seemed not inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an +ugly big box of a building, with rooms advertised to let, as I could see +by the light of a street lamp across the way, which gleamed bleakly on +the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron balconies. + +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of +several minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had +opened for me. I passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy +voice behind a half open window. The owner of the voice kept himself +invisible and was no doubt in the bunk which he called his bed. Only a +stern sense of duty as concierge woke him up enough to demand, +mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired to visit at +this late hour? + +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. + +"Monsieur Gestre is away," murmured the voice behind the little window. + +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the "pal" whom "J.M." had been in +such a hurry to find. "Very well," said I, "I'll see his friend, the +Englishman who arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him." + +"Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here +already? He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?" + +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The "monsieur" who +had called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone +to bed in his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as +the difference between voices, especially if they were those of +foreigners. Perhaps if I explained that I was not the person who had +said he would come again, but another, the man behind the window would +consider me a complication, and refuse to let me pass at such an hour +without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was what I least wanted--for +Maxine's sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to seize upon the +advantage that was offered me. + +"Quite right," I said shortly. "I know the way." And so began to mount +the stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the +fifth floor I found that I had reached the top of the house. There were +no more stairs to go up. + +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light--a jet of gas +turned low. But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the +light, either in carelessness or for some special reason. + +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be +sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I +was sure, I knocked, but no answer came. + +"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of +waiting and dropped asleep, that's all." + +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on +until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how +sound asleep, I must have waked him. + +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, +he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. + +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he +was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the +handle, and to my surprise it yielded. + +"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I +thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if +he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to +find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and +I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly +time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before +a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and +at the same instant banged the door shut behind me. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere +at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light +knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. + +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I +might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or +table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the +treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and +he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de +Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well +hidden when he went out. + +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the +window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted +floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved. + +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something +which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I +pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four +steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap +round the fallen chair. I disentangled myself from its coils, only to +slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid +which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards. + +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. + +"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought. And if there had +been a struggle--what of the treaty? + +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my +way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and +slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing +that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot. + +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles +prickled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on +that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I +knew what it would prove to be. + +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though +there was no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers +touched an arm, a throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as +I knew my boots must be. And I knew, too, with what they were wet. + +I'm ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my +impulse was to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for +reasons which concerned others even more than myself, it would be +unpleasant to be involved, just at this time especially. I could go +downstairs now, past the sleeping concierge, and with luck no one need +ever know that I had been in this dark room of death. + +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search +for the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made +sure it was not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were +matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for +them, and come back. It was a grim task, but it had to be done. + +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of +pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a +broken cup containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on +the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I +lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look +round. + +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the +secret of the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, +before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the +door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the +floor. + +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged +with him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in +pieces, the spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair +had been overturned, and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that +had held them were half hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. + +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the +condition of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the +floor: the drawers of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and +their contents strewn far and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, +and a few shabby coats and pairs of trousers thrown about, with the +pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A chest of drawers had been +ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of sheets and blankets, +the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The room looked +as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to go +near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. +The blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, +like those in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently +by hands which searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless +determination. + +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I +could imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that +he had outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding +the friend who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had +planned to defend himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the +door (both lock and bolt were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to +search his friend's quarters for food, and fearfully beginning a supper +in the midst of which he had probably been interrupted. Almost, I could +feel the horror with which he must have trembled when steps came along +the corridor, when the door was tried and finally broken in by force +without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he had rushed to the +window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and return +desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any +intention to defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything +right if only they would give him time. + +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them +of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with +the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering +candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to +leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been cheated in the +end. + +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless +there was a chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the +diamonds or some letters relating to their disposal, might, if they +found the treaty, have hastily flung it aside, as a thing of no value. + +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, +and the lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which +might fail while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from +its bed of grease on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light +touched my hand and shirt cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned +slightly sick at the sight. There was blood on my brown boots, too, and +the grey tweed clothes which I had not had time to change since arriving +in Paris. + +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains +before leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. + +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the +floor, and in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I +cried "hurrah!" when, half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing +letter-case. It was lying spread open, back uppermost, and there came an +instant of despair when I pounced on it only to find it empty. But there +was the treaty on the floor underneath; and lucky it was that the +searchers had thrown it out, for there were gouts of blood on the +letter-case, while the treaty was clean and unspotted. + +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything +endured and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the +pocket from which it had been stolen. + +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step +outside the door. + +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it +was of the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, +my hands and clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The +treaty must not be found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a +dash for the window, and once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I +threw the candle-end into the room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint +starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, showed me a row of small +flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I wrapped the treaty in a +towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two of the +flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to +cover and conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, +fumbling at the handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking +of the hinges. Then the light of a dark lantern flashed. + + + + +DIANA FORREST'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it +were a kind of fine art. I don't. It seems too bad to be true that I +should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a +bad dream. + +I suppose I've been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been +kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for +them; and I have taken things for granted--except, of course, with Lisa. +But Lisa is different--different from everyone else in the world. I have +never expected anything from her, as I have from others. All I've wanted +was to make her as happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could +be, and to teach myself never to mind anything that she might say or do. + +But Ivor--to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I +didn't know it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off +and left me standing in the railway-station. I didn't dream then of +going to Paris. If anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, +"No, no, I will not." And yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I +tried to make myself think that it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down +underneath I knew all the time it wasn't that, really. It was because I +couldn't bear to do the things I'm accustomed to doing every day. I felt +as if I should cry, or scream, or do something ridiculous and awful +unless there were a change of some sort--any change, but if possible +some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. + +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would +be in Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat +and the train that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could +never be as we had been before; that it was all over between us for ever +and ever, and through his fault. But, there at the bottom was the +thought that I _might_ have done him an injustice, because he had begged +me to trust him, and I wouldn't. Just suppose--something in myself kept +on saying--that we should by mere chance meet in Paris, and he should be +able to prove that he hadn't come for Maxine de Renzie's sake! It would +be too glorious. I should begin to live again--for already I'd found out +that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn't life at all. + +He couldn't think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, +because I would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I +made up my mind to be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had +been, if Ivor happened to run across us anywhere. + +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected +way, but instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more +unhappy than before--for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining +through its blackness. + +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall +of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn't give up his +mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and +he _must_ have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had +put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was _afraid_ for him, I +couldn't have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he +turned away from me. + +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a +woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in +my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately +angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for. + +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord +Robert West as if I'd forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor +Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed +to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It +was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was +like that of the man in Millais' picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I +wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn't let +her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him. + +It is strange how one's mood can change in a moment--but perhaps it is +like that only with women. A minute before I'd been trying to despise +Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself +that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry +Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and +that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was +engaged to somebody else. + +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been +stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given +anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and +would trust him in spite of all. + +"You look as pale as if you were going to faint," said Lisa, in her +little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn't speak loudly, always +reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms. + +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone's attention to me just +then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as +they passed. + +"It must be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." +That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that +minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on +beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. +"I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till +after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has +been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight +to my room when we get upstairs." + +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others +at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric's suite. + +"Shan't I come with you?" asked Lisa, but I said "no." It was something +new for her to offer to help me, for she isn't very strong, and has +always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she's a +few years older than I am. + +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can't get on even for +a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had +offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn't been shut up +in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she +could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away. + +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking +along the Champs Élysées, brilliant still with electric lights, and full +of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and +dinner-parties, or taking them to restaurants for supper. + +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, +though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved +me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always +would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had +said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his +eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he +had been willing to break with me. + +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed +him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, +knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer. + +Still--why had he looked so miserable, if he didn't care what I thought, +and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole +thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt +it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, +and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon +me. + +"Oh, to know, to _know_, what he's doing at this minute!" I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound +of my own voice. "To _know_ whether I'm doing him the most awful +injustice--or not!" + +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa's, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the +key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen--that Lisa might +wish to come, and not wait till I'd given her permission. She does that +sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor +calls her "Imp"), and if she thinks people don't want her that is the +very time when she most wants them. + +"Oh, Di, do let me in!" she exclaimed. + +For a second or two I didn't answer. Never in my life had I liked poor +Lisa less than I'd liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though +I'd told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was +acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of +longing to slap her, as I couldn't help doing now. But always before, +when she has irritated me until I've nearly forgotten my promise to her +father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and +deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I've tried to atone, even +when there wasn't really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was +afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she would go to bed angry +with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart attack and is +ill next day. "Di, are you there?" she called again. + +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with +a rush. "I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate," +she said. + +So did I, but I didn't mean to let her know that. + +"I'm going out," she went on. "If I don't, I shall have a fit." + +"Out!" I repeated. "You can't. It's midnight." + +"Can't? There's no such word for me as 'can't,' when I want to do +anything, and you ought to know that," said she. "It's only being ill +that ever stops me, and I'm not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity +were flowing all through me, making my nerves jump, and I believe you +feel exactly the same way. Your eyes are as big as half-crowns, and as +black as ink." + +"I _am_ a little nervous," I confessed. And I couldn't help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at +the same time. "Perhaps it's in the air. Maybe there's going to be a +thunder-storm. There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up." + +"Maybe it's partly that, maybe not," said she. "But there's one thing +I'm sure of. _Something's going to happen._" + +"Do you feel that, too?" I broke out before I'd stopped to think. Then I +wished I hadn't. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. + +"Ah, I _knew_ you did!" she cried, looking as eerie and almost as +haggard as a witch. "Something _is_ going to happen. Come. Go with me +and be in it, whatever it is." + +"No," I said. "And you mustn't go either." But she was weird. She seemed +to lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren's witchery, +though without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. + +"Of course I'm not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in +hand through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans," said Lisa. +"I'm going to have a closed carriage--a motor-brougham, one belonging to +the hotel, so it's quite safe. It's ordered already, and I shall first +drive and drive until my nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If +you won't drive with me I shall drive alone. But there'll be no harm in +it, either way. I didn't know you were so conventional as to think there +could be. Where's your brave, independent American spirit?" + +"I'm not conventional," I said. + +"Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You're afraid of +things you never used to be afraid of." + +"I'm not afraid of things, and I'm not a bit changed," I said. "You only +want to 'dare' me." + +"I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone," +she begged. "Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but +I _can't_ stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would +be an adventure worth remembering." + +"Very well," I said, "I'll go with you, not for the adventure, but +rather than have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and +rather than you should go alone." + +"Good girl!" exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she +had got her way; though if I'd refused she would probably have cried. +She is terrifying when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear +her frail little body to pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes +ends up by a fit of trembling as if she were in an ague. + +"Have you really ordered a motor cab?" I asked. + +"Yes," said she. "I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big +porter at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and +said I did not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick +friend who had written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to +tell no one except me that she'd come to Paris." + +"I shouldn't have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a +waiter," I remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don't like +Lisa's subterranean ways. But this time she didn't even try to defend +herself. + +"Let's get ready at once," she said. "I'm going to put on my long +travelling cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with +a veil. I suppose you'll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the +'service' stairs. The carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance." + +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. "Lisa, are +you planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to +'spring' on me when it's too late for me to get out of it?" + +"How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You _do_ hurt my feelings! +I haven't had an inspiration yet, so I can't make a plan. But it will +come; I know it will. I shall _feel_ where we ought to go, to be in the +midst of an adventure--oh, without being mixed up in it, so don't look +horrified! I told you that something was going to happen, and that I +wanted to be in it. Well, I mean to be, when the inspiration comes." + +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa's +veil, and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there +was nobody in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew +where to find the 'service' stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the +side entrance of the hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were +both seated inside, Lisa spoke in French to the driver, who waited for +orders. + +"I think you might take us to the Rue d'Hollande. Drive fast, please. +After that, I'll tell you where to go next." + +"Is this your 'inspiration'?" I asked. + +"I'm not sure yet. Why?" and her voice was rather sharp. + +"For no particular reason. I'm a little curious, that's all." + +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had +been playing with me, that all along she had had some special +destination in her mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to +bring me to it. But what use to ask more questions? She did not mean me +to find out until she was ready for me to know. + +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round +corners and through street after street which I had never seen +before--quiet streets, where there were no cabs, and no gay people +coming home from theatres and dinners. At last we turned into a +particularly dull little street, and stopped. + +"Is this the Rue d'Hollande?" Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping +quickly up and putting her head out of the window. + +"_Mais oui, Mademoiselle_," I heard the man answer. + +"Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders." + +"I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could +possibly happen," said I. + +"Wait a little, and maybe you'll find out you're mistaken. If nothing +does, and we aren't amused, we can go on somewhere else." + +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun +almost noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in +a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was +dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that +the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, +an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me. + +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in +neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, +slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who +looked like a lady's maid. + +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our +side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who +got down first. It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I +had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of +that exact shade: Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie. + +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had +brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the +house, I didn't know. + +"Oh, Lisa!" I reproached her. "How _could_ you?" + +"It really _was_ an inspiration. I'm sure of that now," she said +quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide +excitement. "You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, +yet you know who she is. You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you." + +"I know by the hair," I answered. "I might have foreseen this would be +the kind of thing you would think of--it's like you." + +"You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it," said Lisa. "It's +entirely for your sake; and it's quite true, it was an inspiration to +come here. This afternoon in the train I read an interview in 'Femina' +with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she's produced to-night. There +was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue +d'Hollande." + +"Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You've seen her back, and her +maid's back, and the garden wall," I said, more sharply than I often +speak to Lisa. "I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. +I know why you want to wait here, but you shan't--I won't. I'm going +away as quickly as I can." + +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. +Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, +and persuasiveness. + +"Di, dearest girl, _don't_ be cross with me; please don't +misunderstand," she implored. "I love you, you know, even if you +sometimes think I don't; I want you to be happy--oh, wait a moment, and +listen. I've been so miserable all day, knowing you were miserable; and +I've felt horribly guilty for fear, after all, I'd said too much. Of +course if you'd guessed where I meant to come, you wouldn't have stirred +out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for yourself. Unless +Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could hardly have +arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he _doesn't_ come, we +shall know, too. Think how happy you'll feel if he _doesn't!_ I'll +apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose you would not +mind apologising to him, if necessary?" + +"He may be in the house now," I said, more to myself than to Lisa. + +"If he is, he'll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. +There, it's open now. The maid's unlocked it. No, there's nobody in the +garden." + +"I can't stop here and watch for him, like a spy," I said. + +"Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It's for _his_ sake I ask you to stay. And if you won't, I +must stay alone. If you insist on going away, I'll get out and stand in +the street, either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I'm sure he +isn't coming. But how much better to wait and see for yourself." + +"You know I can't go off and leave you standing here," I answered. "And +I can't leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets +alone. I might meet--" I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must +nave guessed the name on my lips. + +"The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together," +said Lisa, "for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor +Dundas and to you. You couldn't force me away, even if you wanted to use +force." + +"Which you know is out of the question," I said, desperately. "But why +has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against +Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last night and this +morning." + +"I've been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to +be justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn't +come to this house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke +about an engagement, I shall believe that he doesn't care a rap about +Maxine de Renzie." + +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating +as if it were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I +could not think, or argue with myself what was really right and wise to +do. I could only give myself up, and drift with circumstances. + +"A man has just come round the far corner," whispered Lisa. "Is it Ivor? +I can't make out. He doesn't look our way." + +"Thank Heaven we're too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather +die than have Ivor know we're here," I broke out. + +"I don't think it is Ivor," Lisa went on. "He's hidden himself in the +shadow, as if he were watching. It's _that_ house he's interested in. +Who can he be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps." + +"Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie's house?" I asked, +in spite of myself. + +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she +regretted. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," she answered hastily. "Why, indeed? It was +just a thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh--keep back, +Di, don't look out for an instant, till he's passed. Ivor is coming now. +He's walking in a great hurry. There! he can't see you. He's far enough +away for you to peep, and see for yourself. He's at Maxine de Renzie's +gate." + +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that +tragic look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told +me there was no other woman in his world but me. + +"I won't look," I stammered, almost choking. + +"Someone, I can't see who, is letting him in. The gate's shut behind +him." + +"Let us go now," I begged. + +"No, no, not yet!" cried Lisa. "I must know what happens next. We are in +the midst of it, indeed." + +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, +and nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we +should go. + +"I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?" Lisa said. +Then she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly +told our chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but +the man did not move. + +"Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers," directed +Lisa, but I would not allow that. + +"No, he shall not stop there!" I exclaimed. "Lisa, I forbid it. You've +had your way in everything so far. I won't let you have it in this." + +"Very well, we'll turn the corner into the next street, to please you," +said Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. "Now stop," she +cried, when we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and +hearing of anyone in the Rue d'Hollande. Then, in another instant, +before I had any idea what she meant to do, she was out of the cab, +running like a child in the direction whence we had come. I looked after +her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could not bear to risk +meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was peeping +into the Rue d'Hollande, to find out what was happening there. + +"She will come back in a moment or two," I said to myself wearily, and +sat waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered +up under her cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If +she had not appeared again almost at once, I should have had to tell the +driver to follow, though I hated the thought of going again into the +street where Maxine de Renzie lived. But she did come, and in her hand +was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered with gold or silver that +sparkled even in the faint light. + +"I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up," she exclaimed. + +"You might better have left it," I said stiffly. "Perhaps Mademoiselle +de Renzie dropped it." + +"No, I don't think so. It wasn't in front of her house." + +"It may belong to that man who was watching, then." + +"It doesn't look much like a thing that a man would carry about with +him, does it?" + +"No," I admitted, indifferently. "Now we will go home." + +"Don't you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?" + +"Indeed I don't!" I cried. "I don't want to know any more about him." +And for the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. + +"Very well," said Lisa, "perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both +that I haven't anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think +about him after this, the better." + +"I shan't think about him at all," I said. But I knew that was a boast I +should never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could +understand how people must feel when they are very old and weary of +life. I don't believe that I shall feel older and more tired if I live +to be eighty than I felt then. It was a slight comfort to know that we +were on our way back to the hotel, and that soon I should be in my room +alone, with the door shut and locked between Lisa and me; but it was +only very slight. I couldn't imagine ever being really pleased about +anything again. + +"You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose," chirped Lisa, "and show +Ivor Dundas that he hasn't spoiled your life." + +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons +that tied the bag she had found. + +"Perhaps I shall," I answered. "I might do worse." + +"I should think you might!" exclaimed Lisa. "Oh, do accept him soon. I +don't want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you're broken-hearted for +him. Lord Bob is sure to propose to you to-morrow--even if he hasn't +already: and if he has, he'll do it again. I saw it in his eye all +to-day. He was dying to speak at any minute, if only he'd got a chance +with you alone. You _will_ say 'yes' when he does, won't you, and have +the engagement announced at once?" + +"I'll see how I feel at the time, if it comes," I answered, trying to +speak gaily, but making a failure of it. + +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She +seemed surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in +her hand, and touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell +me what was there. Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make +me ask. But I didn't care enough to humour her. If the bag had been +stuffed full of the most gorgeous jewels in the world, at that moment I +shouldn't have been interested in the least. I saw Lisa give a little +sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were watching; but when she found me +looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the bag again and stowed it +away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling cloak. + +I was afraid that, when we'd arrived at the hotel and gone up to our +rooms Lisa might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her +out, as I felt I must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and +my affairs, now that all doubt was settled. She didn't even wish to talk +over what had happened; but when I bade her good-night, simply said, +"good-night" in return, and let me shut the door between the rooms. + +"I suppose," I thought, "that the best thing I shall have to hope for +after this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my +dreams." But though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and +fall asleep, I couldn't. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a +minute at a time; and always I found myself staring at the window, hour +after hour, hoping for the light. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +DIANA HEARS NEWS + +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and +deserved to be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I +felt so ashamed and humiliated. + +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful +when dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold +bath, however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee +afterwards did me good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian's +maid, knocked at my door to ask if I were up, and if she could help me +do my hair. "Her Ladyship" sent me her love, and hoped I had rested +nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I was looking well. + +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared +at myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had +made so little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, +perhaps, but my cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose +while one is young one can suffer a good deal and one's face tell no +secret. + +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car +which Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and +Lisa and I had planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a +waste of time to be in Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But +when I tapped at Lisa's door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first +greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want +to go with us to see the Rajah's automobile. While I was with her Aunt +Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome. + +She was "so sorry" for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back +after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough +by that time for the shopping expedition. + +The automobile really was a "magnificent animal," as Aunt Lil said, and +it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to +tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it. +It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a +detail. _Any_ car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, +or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such +heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the +gold toilet things, in a pale grey suède case, they were beyond words, +and she must have them--the motor also, of course, since it went with +them. + +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the +two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary +member. + +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah's +agent and the car paid for. At two o'clock, when we were to meet the men +at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything +had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to +motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train. Lord +Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the +Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the +car across the Channel in a cargo boat. + +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over +anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too +much occupied to notice. + +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt +Lil didn't notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she +doesn't like her, and it is only when you really care for people that +you observe changes in them when you are busy thinking of your own +affairs. + +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she +would have the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but +she was dressed and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she +said, and though she didn't buy anything when she was with us, while we +were at a milliner's in the Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, +she disappeared on some errand of her own, and only came back just as we +were ready to leave the shop. Whatever it was that she had been doing, +it had interested her and waked her out of herself, for her eyes looked +brighter and she had spots of colour on her cheeks. + +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many +things in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord +Bob at the Ritz, by two o'clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We +were not more than ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: +and the short time that we'd kept them waiting wasn't enough to account +for the solemnity of the two men's faces as they came forward to meet +us. + +"Something's gone wrong about the car!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. + +"No, the car's all right," said Lord Bob. "I've got you a chauffeur too, +and--" + +"Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet +blankets, or something disagreeable. It surely can't be because you're +hungry that you're cross about a few minutes." + +"Have you seen a newspaper to-day?" asked Uncle Eric. + +"A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we've had too many important +things to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone +out?" + +"Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here," Uncle Eric answered, looking +very much worried--so much worried that I thought he must care even more +about Ivor than I had fancied. + +"Of course it's the most awful rot," said Lord Bob, "but he's accused of +murder." + +"It's in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones," +Uncle Eric went on. "We've only just seen the news since we came here to +wait for you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As +it is, of course I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I +can to help him through. But that needn't keep the rest of you from +going on to-day as you planned." + +"What an awful thing!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. "I will stay too, if the +girls don't mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel +that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I've got thousands of +engagements--we all have--but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about +you, Lord Bob?" + +"I'll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart," said he, his nice though +not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his +blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. "Dundas and I have +never been intimate, but he's a fine chap, and I've always admired him. +He's sure to come out of this all right." + +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I +felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of +whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in +past days. + +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I +should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem +to think it strange that I had nothing to say. + +"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask. + +"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric. + +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor +accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened? + +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the +lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. + +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was +almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, +of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been +that. + +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was +conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow +for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who +had been his rival. + +"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just +going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. +"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean, +some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't +supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do +with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under +another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing +sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow, +apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find, +for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas +had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to +the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following +up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt +for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there +he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and +the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold." + +"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first +question she had asked. + +"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered +Lord Bob. + +"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. +"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The +idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They +ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging +England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't +they, Eric?" + +"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of +the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The +evidence--entirely circumstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor. +And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an +Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French +law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman." + +"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. + +"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's +worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a +man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, +presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the +evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than +they have done." + +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I +do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride +themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy! + +"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call +it an alibi?" asked Lisa. + +"He didn't try to," replied Lord Bob. "He's simply refused, up to the +present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o'clock and the time +he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going +to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies +killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the +boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to +the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing +back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already +ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; +that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the +scene." + +"Couldn't he have shown the note sent by the thief?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he +wouldn't tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except +that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the +case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, +no doubt he has good reasons." + +"He has no good luck, anyhow!" sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. + +"Rather not--so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him +is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +swears that though Dundas hadn't been in the place much above half an +hour when the detective arrived, he was there then _for the second +time_, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, +according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the +concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a +man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On +hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre's room. By and by the Englishman +went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. +After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for +Gestre, who announced that he'd been before; and now he vows that it was +the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he +could prove that he'd been in the house no more than half an hour, it +might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been +dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can't or won't +prove it--that's his luck again!--and nobody can be found who saw him in +any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last moment +that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who'd taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not +so very far from the Élysée Palace. Then it was only between five and +ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de +la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the +doctors say the fellow must have died. It's a bad scrape. But of course +Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end." + +"Do _you_ think he will, Eric?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"I hope so with all my heart," he answered. But his face showed that he +was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down--down. + +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my +resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had +happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he +cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me--indeed, on the contrary, +everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had +refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that +the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to +defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. + +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and +I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on +earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk +went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do +it, if Lisa and I should act together. + +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get +back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit +long at lunch, so it wasn't yet three when I called her into my room. +The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we +were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for +Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had +said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and +telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa +and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly +what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. + +"I think the only thing for us to do," I said, "is to tell what we know, +and save Ivor in spite of himself." + +"How can anything you know save him?" she asked, with a queer, faint +emphasis which I didn't understand. + +"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in +the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house +there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away. +It all hangs on the time." + +"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me. + +I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?" + +"No, not unless I choose to say so." + +"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course." + +"Why?" + +"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend." + +"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another." + +"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter +except saving him?" + +"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor +Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to +understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt +it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do +it, not you. He'll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there's +something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of +value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back +at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it." + +"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and +her words. + +"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm +saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great +deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your +aunt were thinking about hats." + +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange +idea sprang into my mind: + +"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!" + +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to +this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important. + +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or +not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and +that she had wanted to tantalise me. + +"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I +do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man +mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to +tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a +very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile." + +I'm afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn't bear to think that she was my +step-sister, and I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood +ran in our veins. + +"If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own," I broke +out, "you can't prevent me from telling the whole story, as _I_ know +it--how I went out with you, and all that." + +"I can't prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to--for +Ivor's sake," she answered. + +"For his sake?" + +"Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. +For his sake, because _neither_ of us knows when he came out of Maxine +de Renzie's house. You _would_ go away, though I wanted to stay and +watch. He may not have been there more than five minutes for all we can +tell to the contrary, in which case he would still have had time to go +straight off to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in +accordance with the doctors' statements about the death. For _your_ +sake, because if he knows that you tracked him to Maxine de Renzie's +house, he won't respect you very much; and because he would probably be +furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, for +injuring the reputation of the woman he's risked so much to save. He'd +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her." + +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. + +"Ivor would know that I'm incapable of such baseness." + +"I'm not sure he'd hold you above it. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned'--and he _has_ scorned you--for an actress." + +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood +rush up to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to +my eyes. + +"You see I'm right, don't you?" Lisa asked. + +"You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way--and +that he wouldn't wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest," I +said. "We won't talk of it any more. I can't stand it. Please go back to +your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone." + +"Very well," she snapped, "_you_ called me in. I didn't ask to come." + +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. +I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or +offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if +necessary. Lisa is a strange little creature. She will do a good deal +for money. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to +enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been +utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made +me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; +but in my desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, +and find out some other way of helping him. At all events he should know +that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble. + +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not +be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there +was a "perhaps" I wouldn't give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more +cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, +for I hadn't taken off my hat and coat since coming in. + +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of +that sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that +if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation +with an accused man, as his friend, an interview--probably with a +witness--might possibly be granted. The authorities might think that we +were engaged, for all I cared. I did not care about anything now, except +seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could. + +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the +chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. +Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of +Uncle Eric's and Aunt Lilian's. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but +I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor. That idea had +apparently not been in his mind at all. Anyway, the Ambassador would +already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of +Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from +me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I +first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed +a good deal and said that in future he would be "surprised at nothing an +American girl might do." + +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. +There, I sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I +didn't explain much, but came to the point immediately, and said that I +wanted--oh, but wanted and needed very much indeed--to see Ivor Dundas. +Could he, would he help me to do that? + +"Ought I to help you?" he asked. "Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?" + +"Yes," I said firmly. "They would approve. You see, it is necessary." + +"Then, if it's necessary--and I believe you when you say that it is," he +answered, "I'll do what I can." + +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief +of Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a +young lady related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, +should be allowed five minutes' conversation with the Englishman accused +of murder, Mr. Ivor Dundas. + +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and +because I was so restless and excited that I must be doing something +every instant--something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. + +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I +received an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where +they had put Ivor. This, he explained, would procure me the interview I +wanted, but unfortunately, I must not hope to see my friend alone. A +warder who understood English would have to be present. + +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it +would be to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible +circumstances, or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now +that we were no longer anything to each other--not even friends. But a +kind of ague-terror crept over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little +bare, stuffy reception room. My head was going round and round, my heart +was pounding so that I could not make up my mind what to say to Ivor +when he came. + +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and +when it opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue +uniforms. One of them walked into the room with him--I suppose he must +have been a warder--but he stopped near the door, and in a second I had +forgotten all about him. He simply ceased to exist for me, when my eyes +and Ivor's had met. + +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, +stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make +him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my +words of yesterday. + +"We're all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas," I said. "I don't know if +Uncle Eric has been here yet--but he is doing all he can, and Aunt +Lilian is dreadfully upset. We're staying on in Paris on account of--on +account of this. So you see you've got friends near you. And I--we're +such old friends, I couldn't help trying as hard as I could for a sight +of you to--to cheer you up, and--and to help you, if that's possible." + +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but +pretending to smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes +were full of tears, and I was afraid they'd go splashing down my cheeks, +if I even winked my lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt +capable of forgiving him anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, +and if only, _only_ he really loved me and not that other. + +"Thank you, a hundred times--more than I can express," he said, with a +faint quiver in his voice--his beautiful voice, which was the first +thing that charmed me after knowing him. "It _does_ cheer me to see you. +It gives me strength and courage. You wouldn't have come if you +didn't--trust me, and believe me innocent." + +"Why, of course, I--we--believe you innocent of any crime," I faltered. + +"And of any lack of faith?" + +"Oh, as for that, how can--but don't let's speak of that. What can it +matter now?" + +"It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say +that you will have faith!" + +"I'll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort." + +"Not unless you mean it." + +"Then--I'll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?" + +"It's better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, +you're not to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or +later, though I may have to suffer some annoyances first." + +"Annoyances?" I echoed. "If there were nothing worse!" + +"There won't be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a +huge mistake--another warning against trusting to circumstantial +evidence." + +"Is there nothing we can do then? Or--that we would urge _others_ to +do?" I asked, hoping he would understand that I meant _one_ +other--Maxine de Renzie. + +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; +but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. + +"There is one thing _you_ could do for me--you and no one else," he +said. "But I have no right to ask it." + +"Tell me what it is," I implored. + +"I would not, if it didn't mean more than my life to me." He hesitated, +and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a +few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as +familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still +existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me +sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught +him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three +or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a +diplomatic career. + +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the +warder--almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform +came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. + +"That is forbidden," he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. "What +language was that?" + +"Spanish," I answered. "He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very +dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It +was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me." + +"Nevertheless, it is forbidden," repeated the warder obstinately, "and +though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the +prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and +must be reported." + +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to +me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole +French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman +dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to +know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I +could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think! + +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half +sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his +head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as +plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know you won't fail me." + +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage +not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, +and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did +not mean more than his life. + +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were +these: "Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony +find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. +Every moment counts." + +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie! +And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. + +As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared +more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a +thing of me. But--it "meant more than his life." And I would do the +thing, if it could be done, because of my pride. + +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed +me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known +that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to +which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there. + +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over--with success or +failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed. + +I hadn't looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night's +dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had +said to myself that I didn't wish to read the newspaper accounts of the +murder, and of Ivor's supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, +that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder +was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously +grim one--like the tragedy that had been acted in it. + +I couldn't tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That +would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out +from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be +plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going +back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once +I was there. Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I +pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards. + +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. +Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of +chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble +tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper. + +It was a shock to find Ivor's photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at +me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a +good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor's disgust, at about the +time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really +wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been +on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the +newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, +built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I +knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been +committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the +window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed--according to Girard, the +detective--to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, +on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead +man's room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a +bull's-eye lantern, which he--Girard--carried, standing at bay in the +open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside. +There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with +another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the +picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of +distance between the railings of those two balconies. + +"That would be my way to get there--if I can get there at all," I said +to myself. But there was hardly any "if" left in my mind now. I meant to +get there. + +By this time it was after five o'clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and +again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a _petit bleu_ to +Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn't to worry about me. I'd been hipped +and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was--I'd just found +out--staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; +but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o'clock. That would save a +bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American +friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to +search for me, even if they were inclined. + +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and +dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two +mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of +the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left--the house of the +balcony almost adjoining the dead man's. + +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms +to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the +advertisement of "_Chambres à louer_" staring me in the face: but I +spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every +sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me. + +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been +too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had +jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young +American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to "write +up" the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of +course the police wouldn't let me go into the room where it happened, +the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house +adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to "get the emotion, +the sensation," I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic. +Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with +my writing. + +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was +almost sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would +willingly agree to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their +trouble in turning out. + +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge--whose eyes +brightened--thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take +a large commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; +but that didn't matter to me. + +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get +into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, +saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who +were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I +could see the shut window from the balcony of the room I was going to +hire. + +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he +went upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining +to the people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far +strained, he came back to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had +consented to go out of their room for the evening. They were dining at +the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must be pleased to wait a few +moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a few things which +they could carry to a neighbour's: books, and work for their hours of +absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a +parcel of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an +unscrupulous American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment +must be made in advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then--I waited, +waited. It was tedious, but after all, the tediousness didn't matter +much when I came to think of it. It would be impossible to do the thing +I had made up my mind to do, till after dark. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, +Raoul and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed +overwhelming. He did not see in glaring scarlet letters always before +his eyes these two words: "The treaty," as I did--for my punishment. He +was in happy ignorance still of that other loss which I--I, to whom his +honour should have been sacred--had inflicted upon him. He was satisfied +with my story; that through a person employed by me--a person whose name +could not yet be mentioned, even to him--the necklace had been snatched +from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly for +thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, +for letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his +mind by his "wicked jealousy," as he repentantly called it. For me, he +had nothing but praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He +begged me to forgive him, and his remorse for such a small thing, +comparatively--wrung my heart. + +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search +the little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that +there was witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded +him to go away, and follow his own track wherever he had been since I +gave him the bag with the diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so +late, and his way had led him through quiet streets, that even after all +this time the little brocade bag might be lying where he had left it--or +that some honest policeman on his beat might have picked it up. Besides, +there was the cab in which he had come part of the distance to my house. +The bag might have fallen on the floor while he drove: and there were +many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be as cheerful as +I could. + +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep--no +wish for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor +Dundas gone, as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart +was that he might by and by come back, or send--with news. Hour after +hour of deadly suspense passed on, and he did not come or make any sign. +At five o'clock Marianne, who had flitted about all night like a +restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot chocolate, and actually put +me to bed. My last words to her were: "What is the use? I can't sleep. +It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up." + +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I'm +sure she must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I +was far too much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please +her, to think whether or no there was anything at all peculiar in the +taste. + +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was +nearly noon. + +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant +wish not to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. +However, when Marianne came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the +electric bell, she said that no one had been. There were letters and one +telegram, and all the morning papers, as usual after the first night of +a new play. + +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I +thought it might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, +even if he hadn't yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; +and he had not found the brocade bag. He did not put this in so many +words, but said, "I have not found what was lost, or learned anything of +it." + +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have +wired, or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. +He might, unless--something had happened to him. There was that to think +of; and I did think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I +had not suffered yet all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant +to the Élysée Palace Hotel to enquire for him, and despatched Henri +immediately. Meanwhile, as there was nothing to do, after pretending to +eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of Marianne, I pretended also to +read the newspaper notices of the play. But each sentence went out of my +head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end only that, according +to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had "surpassed herself," had been +"astonishingly great," had done "what no woman could do unless she threw +her whole soul into her part." How little they knew where Maxine de +Renzie's soul had been last night! And--only God knew where it might be +this night. Out of her body, perhaps--the one way of escape from Raoul's +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. + +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the +name he had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had +nothing to tell which was consoling--rather the other way. The gentleman +had gone out about midnight (I knew that already), and hadn't returned +since. Henri had been to the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he +admitted to me on being catechised, that his questions had been answered +with a certain reserve, as if more were known of the absent gentleman's +movements than it was considered wise to tell. + +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he +had delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he "thought that +Mademoiselle would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with +praise of her great acting." It was on my tongue to scold him for +stopping even one moment, when he had been told to hurry, but he looked +so pleased at his own cleverness that I hadn't the heart to dash his +happiness. I would, however, have pushed the papers aside without so +much as glancing at them, if it hadn't suddenly occurred to me that, if +any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might possibly have got into +print by this time. + +When I read what had happened--how he was accused of murder, and while +declaring his innocence had been silent as to all those events which +might have proved it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. +Here was a man! A man loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to +be, but few are! He had sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to +keep my name out of the mud into which my business had thrown him, and +to save me from appearing in Raoul's eyes the liar that I was. Had Ivor +told that he was with me, after I had prevaricated (if I had not +actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor to my house, what +would Raoul think of me? + +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save +me when he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had +decided to go I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and +happy to-day. + +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to +the Chief of Police and say: "Monsieur, this English gentleman they have +arrested cannot have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +between twelve and one last night, for he came to my house, far away in +the Rue d'Hollande, at a quarter past twelve, and didn't leave it till +after one o'clock." + +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, +to ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her +order my electric brougham immediately. But--I sat down again, sick and +despairing, deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn't obey +it. I dared not. By and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing +danger, then certainly. But not now. + +At four o'clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us +tried to cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even +yet he would have news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking +me ill and tired out, did all he could to persuade me that he was not +miserable with anxiety. At least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky +or of any man, and was humbly repentant for his suspicions of me the +night before. When Raoul is repentant, and wishes to atone for something +that he has done, he is enchanting. There was never a man like him. + +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn't +slept much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I +should disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a +fright--or perhaps even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had +done. I felt that I was no longer mistress of myself--that I might be +capable of any folly. + +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the +theatre, where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be +busy; and in my part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. + +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on +dressing at once, and took as long as I could in the process of making +up; still, when I was ready there was more than half an hour to spare +before the first act. There were letters for me--the kind that always +come to the theatre--but I couldn't read them, after I had occupied +myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew what they would be: vows +of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; petitions for +advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; requests +from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. + +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly +at crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne +opened it, to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. + +"Mademoiselle," she whispered, coming to me, "Monsieur le Comte Godensky +wishes to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?" + +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn +something. If not--if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please +himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away. + +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. +He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one +is sure. + +"Well?" I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He +held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when +he had come too close. + +"Well--I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought +you would be glad to see--even me," he answered, smiling still. + +"What news? But bad, of course--or you wouldn't bring it." + +"You are very cruel. Of course, you've seen the evening papers? You know +that your English friend is in prison?" + +"The same English friend whom _you_ would have liked to see arrested +early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge," I flung at him. +"You look surprised. But you are _not_ surprised, Count +Godensky--except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at +the Élysée Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn't it? But +you haven't told me your news." + +"It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack +to-day." + +"What do you mean?" + +"He has been in the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the +same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if +some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, +and what answers he made?" + +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky +came! I had been thinking of the Juge d'Instruction, and his terrible +cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without +trembling. I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given +which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them. +Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I reminded myself that this was +impossible. No one could know except the Juge d'Instruction and Ivor +Dundas himself. "Only two men were present at that scene, and they will +never tell what went on," I said aloud. + +"Three men were present," Godensky answered. "Besides the two of whom +you think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is +permitted nowadays that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be +accompanied by his legal adviser when he goes before the Juge +d'Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of the language might +handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would prejudice his +case." + +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke +French as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. + +"The adviser your friend has chosen," Godensky went on, "happens to be a +protégé of mine. I made him--gave him his first case, his first success; +and have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. +Dundas seems to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last +night, it was Girard. To-day, it is Lenormand." + +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn't let Godensky see that I +winced under it. + +"You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your +various protégés," I said--"as well as those of your enemies. But if the +information in the one case is no more trustworthy than in the +other--why, you're not faithfully served. I've good reason to know that +you've made several mistakes lately, and you're likely to make more." + +"Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don't call yourself my 'enemy'?" + +"I don't know of a more appropriate name--after the baseness that you +haven't even tried to hide, in your dealings with me." + +"I thought all was fair in love and war." + +"Do you make war on women?" + +"No--I make love to them." + +"To many, I dare say. But here is one who won't listen." + +"At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?" + +"Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting--even if not accurate." + +"I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened--that he'd been mixed up in this case--and +expressed myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, +friends of whom were intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no +question of treachery on Lenormand's part. He trusts me--as you do not. +Indeed, I even offered my help for Dundas, if I could give it +consistently with my position. Naturally, he told me nothing which could +be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if I wished to go +against him--which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do not." + +"I read the proof rather differently," I said. "But go on. I'm sure you +are anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point." + +"In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important +questions put by the Juge d'Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas +the explanation of a document found on him by the police--ah, that wakes +you up, Mademoiselle! You are surprised that a document was found on the +prisoner?" + +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to +lose it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. + +"I rather hope it was not a letter from me," I said. "You know so much, +that you probably know I admitted to the police at the Élysée Palace a +strong friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But +London ways are different from the ways of Paris. It isn't agreeable to +be gossipped about, however unjustly, even if one is--only an actress." + +"You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might +have been--a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any +indiscretion, especially a romantic one--any indiscretion _except +treachery_. There might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du +Laurier, for instance." + +I shivered. "We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d'Instruction," +I reminded him. "You have wandered from the point again." + +"There are so many points--all sharp as swords for those they may +pierce. Well, the important question was in relation to a letter--yes. +But the letter was not from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in +English, and it made an appointment at the very address where the crime +was committed. It was, as nearly as I could make out, a request from a +person calling himself a jeweller's assistant, for the receiver of the +letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This case had been +committed to Mr. Dundas' care, it appeared, while travelling from London +to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d'Instruction that +his own packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but +papers _entirely personal,_ concerning himself alone. + +"'What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into +your pocket?' asked the Juge d'Instruction--Lenormand tells me. + +"'A necklace,' answered Mr. Dundas. + +"'A necklace of diamonds?' + +"'Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn't much interested in it.' + +"'Ah, was this not the necklace which you--staying at the Élysée Palace +under another name--gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?' +was the next question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas' head. Now, you see, +Mademoiselle, that my story is not dull." + +"Am I to hear the rest--according to your protégé?" I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky's neck, till he +had no more breath or wickedness left in him. + +"Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d'Instruction, a most +clever and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought +you a present of diamonds, it was something entirely different, and +therefore far removed from this case. + +"'Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie's lover?' was the next enquiry. 'I +admire her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,' +your friend returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to +see what there is in this string of questions and answers to bring me +straight to you?" + +"No, Count Godensky, I do not," I answered steadily. But a sudden +illuminating ray did show me, even as I spoke, what _might_ be in his +scheming mind. + +"Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You +love him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, +he is a very proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him +well; and he would not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds +from another man, saying as she takes them that he is her lover." + +"He wouldn't believe it of me!" I cried. + +"There is a way of convincing him. Oh, _I_ shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d'Instruction and +Mr. Dundas, unless--" + +"Unless?--but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself." + +"Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, +Maxine. I mean to have you--or I will crush you, and now you know I can. +Choose." + +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as +for a moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: + +"Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn't make me love +you less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are--as he will +know soon unless you let me save you? Yet I--I would love you if you +were a murderess as well as a--spy." + +"It is you who are a spy!" I faltered, now all but broken. + +"If I am, I haven't spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du +Laurier, and before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all +ways." + +"No--no," I gasped. "You cannot. You're boasting. You can do nothing." + +"Nothing to-night, perhaps. I'm not speaking of to-night. I am giving +you time. But to-morrow--or the day after. It's much the same to me. At +first, when I began to suspect that something had been taken from its +place, I had no proof. I had to get that, and I did get it--nearly all I +wanted. This affair of Dundas might have been planned for my advantage. +It is perfect. All its complications are just so many links in a chain +for me. Girard--the man Dundas chose to employ--was the very man I'd +sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To watch your friend the +British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on the bare +suspicion that there'd been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when--Dundas called on him." + +"What connection can Ivor Dundas' coming to Paris have with Raoul du +Laurier?" I dared to ask. + +"You know best as to that." + +"They have never met. Both are men of honour, and--" + +"Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to +suffer for being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a +man--a man of honour, as you say--would feel when he found out the +woman!" + +"A woman can be calumniated as well as a man," I said. "You are so +unscrupulous you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier +has done nothing; I--I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you +can lie about us, ruin him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, +and--and do terrible harm to me." + +"I can--without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you'll give up +du Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have +you. You are the one woman worthy of me." + +"You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening--at this time--to decide. Will you promise me that?" + +"No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in +your mind now. I won't risk losing you. I have waited long enough +already. Give me a ring of yours, and a written word from you to du +Laurier, saying that you find you have made a mistake; and not only will +I do nothing to injure him, but will guard against the discovery of--you +know what. Besides, as a matter of course, I'll bring all my influence +to bear in keeping your name out of this or any other scandal. I can do +much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was through me the +Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it--for my +future wife." + +"No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the +way you wish," I said. "If--if I am to give him up, I must tell him with +my own lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will +hold your hand until then." + +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was +trying to read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. + +"You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?" + +"By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like +you, I pledge my word that--that--if I can't break with Raoul, to let +you know the first thing in the morning, and dare you to do--what you +will." + +"You will not 'dare' me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait--a +little longer." + +"Until this time to-morrow?" + +"No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another +twelve hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to +that?" + +"I agree." My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he +understood, and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to +snatch my hand. I drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne +appeared at the door. + +"There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle," she announced, her +good-natured, open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. "A +young lady who sends this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it +at once, and consent to see her." + +Thankful that the tête-à-tête had been interrupted, I held out my hand +for the letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written +below the lines which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, +and found it strange to me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch +at the chance of ridding myself immediately of Godensky, the few words +above the unfamiliar name would have made me say as I did say, "Bring +the young lady in at once." + + "I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was + of the greatest and most pressing importance. + + "DIANA FORREST." + +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely +filled with arguments could not have moved me more. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +MAXINE MEETS DIANA + +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to +all appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered +in a girl--a tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an +artist. + +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at +each other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed +the quarter hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. + +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her--lovely +and lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on +its petals--a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair +garden, far out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how +different her sweet, girl's life had been from my stormy if sometimes +brilliant career. + +"Mr. Dundas sent you to me?" I asked. "When did you see him? Surely +not--since--" + +"This afternoon," she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding +voice, with a soft little drawl of the South in it. "I went to see him. +They gave us five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in +Spanish, just a few words, he--Mr. Dundas--managed to tell me a thing he +wished me to do. He said it meant more than his life, so I did it; for +we have been friends, and just now he's helpless. The warder was angry, +and stopped our conversation at once, though the five minutes weren't +ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there wasn't a moment to lose." + +"Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!" I +exclaimed. + +"I had something else to do first," she said, in the same quiet voice. +She was looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that +they made a shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. + +"Even before I saw--Mr. Dundas," she went on, "I had the idea of calling +on you--about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, +if before I go on I tell you that--quite by accident, so far as I was +concerned--I was with someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last +night, a little after twelve. I didn't dream of spying on--either of +you. It just happened, it wouldn't interest you to know how. Yet--I beg +of you to tell me one thing. Was he with you for long--so long that he +couldn't have got to the other place in time to commit the murder?" + +"He was in my house until after one," I said boldly. "But you, if you +are his friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such +an assurance from me, that he is no murderer." + +"Oh, I am certain," she protested. "I asked the question, not for that +reason, but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you +choose. Now, I find you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at +first I wanted to rush off to the police and tell them where he had been +while the murder was being committed. But I didn't know how long he had +stopped in your house, and, besides--" + +"You would have dared to do that!" I broke in, the blood, angry blood, +stinging my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. + +"It wasn't a question of daring," she answered. "I thought of him more +than of you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your +place, no matter how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess +that he had been in my house." + +"There are reasons why I can't tell that he was there," I said, trying +to awe her by speaking coldly and proudly. "His visit was entirely on +business. But Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he +approves. You know he has remained silent himself." + +"For your sake, because he is a gentleman--brave and chivalrous. Would +you take advantage of that?" + +"You take advantage of me," I flung back at the girl, looking her up and +down. "You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message +for me. Do you want me to believe _this_ his message? I think too well +of him." + +"I don't want you to believe that," she answered. "I haven't come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own +account." + +"In twelve minutes I must be on the stage," I said. + +"The stage!" she echoed. "You can go on acting just the same, though he +is in prison--for you!" + +"I must go on acting. If I didn't, I should do him more harm than good." + +"I won't keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you _will_ do him +good. If you care for him at all, you must want to save him." + +"If I care for him?" I repeated, in surprise. "You think--oh, but I +understand now. You are the girl he spoke of." + +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. + +"I did not think he would speak of me," she said. "I wish he hadn't. +But, if you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see +that you have nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de +Renzie." + +"Why," I exclaimed, "you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover." + +"I don't know what you are to each other," she faltered, all her +coolness deserting her. "That isn't my affair--" + +"But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares +nothing for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a +little a year ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man +whom I worship. I would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and +is glad. But the other man is jealous. He wouldn't understand--he would +want to kill me and himself and Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in +my house last night. He was there too, and I lied to him about Ivor. How +could I expect him to believe the real truth now? He is a man. But _you_ +will believe, because you are a woman, like myself, and I think the +woman Ivor Dundas loves." + +Her beautiful eyes brightened. "He told you--that?" + +"He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her +because of the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been +as unreasonable with him, as Ra--as the man I love could be with me. +Poor Ivor! Last night was not the first time that he sacrificed himself +for chivalry and honour. Yet you blame me! Look to yourself, Miss +Forrest." + +"I--I don't blame you," she stammered, a sob in her voice. "Only I beg +you to save him, from gratitude, if not from love." + +"It's true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know," I +answered. "He is worth trusting--worth saving, at the expense of almost +any sacrifice. But I can't sacrifice the man I love for him." + +She looked thoughtful. "You say the man you were engaged to was at your +house while Ivor was there?" + +"Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied." + +"He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your +gate?" + +"He confessed that, when I'd made him repent his jealousy. Why do you +ask? You saw him?" + +"I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of +value near your house?" + +"Great heavens, yes!" I cried. "What do you know of that?" + +"I know--something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for +him--if you will promise to help Ivor." + +"Oh, shame," I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. "You are +trying to bribe me!" + +"Yes, but I am not ashamed," the girl answered, holding her head high. +"I have not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you--this +very night or to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask." + +"I tell you I cannot," I said. "Not even to get back that thing whose +loss was the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin +myself and--another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If +we talked of this together all night, it could make no difference. And +I'm in great trouble, great trouble of my own." + +"Has your trouble anything to do with a document?" Miss Forrest slowly +asked. + +I started, and stared at her, breathless. + +"It has!" she answered for me. "Your face tells me so." + +"Has Ivor's message--to do with that?" I almost gasped. + +"Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want +news--if you want the document, it must be through me." + +"Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you +can get it for me, I will do," I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. + +"I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a +little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?" + +"I must," I said, "if you have the document to sell, and are determined +to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my +life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to +him. Still, it will save him from--" I stopped, and bit my lip. "Will +you give me the diamonds, too?" I asked, humbly enough now. + +"The diamonds?" She looked bewildered. + +"The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the +bag?" + +"Yes, they are--they will be in the bag," the girl answered, her +charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. "You +shall have the diamonds, and the document, too, for that one promise." + +"How is it possible that you can give me the document?" I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured +because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through +this girl seemed incredible. + +"Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it," she said simply. "That was +why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn't +quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or +advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the +balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be +allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I +thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next +door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after +dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't +as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so +high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the +climbing back. I don't know how the document came in the box, though I +suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up +in a towel; and it's quite clean." + +"I think," I said slowly, when she had finished her story, "that you +have a right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave +girl." + +"It's not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I'm going +to give the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I +know you'll pay. And I hope, oh, I _feel_, it won't hurt you as you +think it will." + +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long +pocket of a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt +it, I clasped it. I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me +tremble. + +"Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?" I asked. + +"No," she said. "It was yours, or Ivor's. Of course I didn't look." + +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The +fifteen minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its +price. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If +Godensky knew, as he may have known--since he seemed to know all my +movements--perhaps he thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, +and sending him away from me for ever. But, though the game was not in +my hands yet, the treaty was; and I had made up my mind to defy +Godensky. + +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; +and never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in +the morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst +against Raoul du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two +except death? Then he would have fair warning that I did not intend to +do the thing to which he had nearly forced me; and I would fight him, +when he tried to take revenge. But meanwhile, before he got that letter, +I would--I must--find some way of putting the treaty back in its place +at the Foreign Office. + +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, +even when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political +treachery, Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the +relief I felt after the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been +drowning for the last few days gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration +that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints that I had news of the +necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him in his office as +soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to surprise him +pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the greatest +joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment for +nine o'clock next day. + +When he had gone, I wrote a note--a very short note--to Count Godensky. +I wanted to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty +was in the safe whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at +once, by messenger; and it would still be very early in the day, I +hoped. + +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning +which followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I +think that I had not slept at all, but that didn't matter. I felt strong +and fresh, and my heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to +chance. I had a plan, and knew how I meant to play the last hand in the +game. It might go against me. But I held a high trump. Again, as before, +Raoul received me alone. + +"Dearest," he exclaimed, "I know your news must be good, for you look so +bright and beautiful. Tell me--tell me!" + +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. + +"You're too impatient," I said. "To punish you for asking about the +wretched diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed +of you, I shall make you pay a penalty." + +"Any penalty you will," he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke--for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. + +"Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper," I +said. + +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note +into an envelope. + +"Now, this is very precious," I went on. "It tells you all you want to +know. But--I'm going to post it." + +"No, no!" he protested. "I can't wait for the post." + +"Oh, I wouldn't trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it +were insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other +day, and I'll put this valuable document in among the others, not more +valuable to the country than this ought to be to you. I'll hide it +there, and you must shut up the safe without looking for it, till I've +gone. Then, you must count ten, and after that--you may search. +Remember, you said you'd submit to any penalty, so no excuses, no +complaints." + +Raoul laughed. "You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you +are a sorceress, and have bewitched me." + +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my +whim. But I gaily motioned him behind me. "If you stand there you can +see where I put it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back." + +He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's +secrets." + +"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.) +"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least." + +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real +one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written +where he could not help finding it at first or second glance. + +"Now you can close the safe," I said. + +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from +my heart, "Thank Heaven!" + +"I must leave you," I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious +no longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to +open the cage of Godensky's vengeance, and--I was afraid of him. + +"I may come to you as soon as I'm free?" Raoul asked. + +"Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and--what you think +of me," I said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he +might continue to think of me all things good--far better than I +deserved, yet not better than I would try to deserve in the future, if I +were permitted to spend that future with him. + +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight +now. + +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a +way in which, I hoped, that promise--fulfilled as I meant to fulfil +it--might help rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for +nothing. + +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a +patron of the theatre--when he can spare time from his work. I had met +him, and had reason to know that he admired my acting. + +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; +and he was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of +that scene at the Élysée Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew +everything--so far as his subordinate could report. + +"Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?" I asked. + +"A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world," he gallantly replied. + +"But you can guess what has brought me?" + +"Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre +this evening." + +"It is partly that," I laughed. "Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, +of course. And partly--you know already, since you know everything, that +I am a friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder +which he could not possibly have committed." + +"Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a +loyal friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?" + +"For that--and to offer you the stage-box for to-night." + +"A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication--" + +"It's this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to +the doctors' statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it's a +hard thing for me to come and tell you this!" I went on hastily. "Not +that I'm ashamed to have received a call from him at that hour, as it +was necessary to see him then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris +early in the morning. But--because I'm engaged to be married to--perhaps +you know that, though, among other things?" + +"I've heard--a rumour. I didn't know that it amounted to an engagement. +Monsieur du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated." + +"I love him dearly," I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, +but because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears +rose to my eyes. "I am true to him, and always have been. But--he is +horribly jealous. I can't explain Mr. Dundas' night visit in a way to +satisfy him. If Raoul finds out that an Englishman--well-known, but of +whom I never spoke--was at my house after midnight, he will believe I +have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would help me to keep this +secret I am telling you so frankly!" + +"Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?" asked the Chief of +Police gravely. + +"Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to +break with Raoul du Laurier." + +"Dear Mademoiselle," said the good and gallant man, "trust me to do the +best I can for you." (I could see that my tears had moved him.) "A grief +to you would be a blow to Paris. Yet--well, as you have been frank, I +owe it to you to be equally so on my side. I should before this have +sent--quite privately and in a friendly way, to question you about this +Mr. Dundas, who passed under another name at the hotel where you called +upon him; but I received a request from a very high quarter to wait +before communicating with you. Now, as you have come to me, I suppose I +may speak." + +"Ask me any questions you choose," I said, "and I'll answer them." + +"Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how +do you explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. +Dundas?" + +"That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell +you," I answered him; "for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I +throw myself upon your mercy." + +"You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?" + +"Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little +flirtation with Mr. Dundas--no more, though we liked and admired each +other. We exchanged a few silly letters, and I forgot all about them +until I fell in love with Raoul and promised to marry him--only a short +time ago. Then I couldn't bear to think that I had written these foolish +letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have kept them. I wrote and +asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and valued them +immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them to +me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him +that I'd meet him at the Élysée Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to +receive the letters from him." + +"He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, +since there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?" + +"He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl +who lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn't +want the girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there +had been a little talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she +didn't like it." + +"I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first +thing in the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the +British Secretary for Foreign Affairs." + +"Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl--a Miss +Forrest, is distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She +lives with her aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that +gentleman. And the Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart." + +"Ah, Miss Forrest!" + +"You know of her already?" + +"I have heard her name." + +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) + +"You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I," I went on. +"But I'll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you +can't have found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters--half +a dozen. He gave me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast +pocket, saying the letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something +had gone wrong with the electricity, and I hadn't let him push back the +curtains, for fear I might be seen from outside, if the lights should +suddenly come on. He didn't see the case, as he handed it to me, nor +could I. Just at that instant there was a knock at the door; and quick +as thought I pushed the leather case down between the seat and back of +the sofa." + +"But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery +threatened you because of a knock at the door?" + +"I'll tell you. There is a man--I won't mention his name, but you know +it very well, and maybe it is in your mind now--who wants me to marry +him. He has wanted it for some time--I think because he admires women +who are before the public and applauded by the world; also, perhaps, +because I have refused him, and he is one who wants most what he finds +hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, but he has some power and +a good deal of influence, because he is very highly connected, and when +people have 'axes to grind' he helps to grind them. He has suspected for +some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has hated +Raoul. I have fancied--that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance +slip to separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between +us--or he would try to ruin Raoul, or crush me--anything to keep us +apart. When I saw the Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and +though I didn't know what pretext had brought him, I said to myself +'That is the work of--'" + +"Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle." + +"I didn't mean to. I leave that to your--imagination. 'This is the work +of the man whose love is more cruel than hate,' I thought. While I +wondered what possible use the police could make of my letters, I was +shaking with terror lest they should come upon them and they should +somehow fall into--a certain man's hands. Then, at last, they did find +the case, just as I'd begun to hope it was safe. I begged the Commissary +of Police not to open it. In vain. When he did, what was my relief to +see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!--my relief and my +surprise. And now I'm going to confide in you the secret of another, +speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. + +"Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du +Laurier, and he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a +dear friend of his--an inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She +dared not tell her husband of money that she'd lost, but begged Raoul to +sell the diamonds for her in Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. +On his way there the necklace was stolen by an expert thief, who must +somehow have learned what was going on through the pawnbroker with whom +the jewels had been in pledge--for a few thousand francs only. You can +imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace returned in such a +miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it back, +meaning to give it to me as a surprise--and the letters afterwards. And +it was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price--evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation--and also to +avoid any association of Raoul's name with the necklace, that I told the +Commissary of Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. +I spoke impulsively, in sheer desperation; and the instant the words +were out I would have cut off my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. +But what good to deny what I had just said? The men wouldn't have +believed me. + +"When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he +thought he had given them to me--and he knew no more of the diamonds in +their red case than I did--far less, indeed. + +"I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul's sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed +that his own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from +his pocket in the train, though he couldn't imagine why the diamonds had +been given to him instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of +his, who had acted queerly; and he determined to try and find the man. +He was to bring me news after the theatre at my house, about midnight. + +"He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. +Friends of his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me +this, and that after going out on a false scent he had employed a +detective named Girard, when Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. +It seems, he'd been made frantically jealous by some misrepresentations +of--the man whose name we haven't mentioned. I begged Mr. Dundas to hide +in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally did, to please me. I +hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, and to my horror +I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the sounds as +well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiancé of a pretty +housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got +away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house +you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as you are well +aware." + +"He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn't get a cab and walked. But you have read +the papers," + +"Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn't even tell +about the diamonds, much less my letters!" + +"As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?" + +"My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather +than risk further delay." + +"You would like to know their fate?" + +"I would indeed." + +"Well, I applaud the Englishman's chivalry. Vive l'Entente Cordiale!" + +"You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I've +humbled myself, can't you give me hope that he'll soon be released, and +yet that--that I shan't be made to suffer for my confession to you? It's +clear to you, isn't it, that the murder must have been done long before +he could have reached the house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the +Rue d'Hollande?" + +"Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, +without being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone +through before Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at +work in high quarters, and after what you have told me, I think he will +not much longer be under restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, +dear lady, that not ten minutes before you arrived this morning I +received satisfactory news of the arrest of two Englishmen at Frankfort, +who seem to have been concerned in this business in the Rue de la Fille +Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; and a friend of +his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that these +persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, +and then tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we +are getting at Janson's record, which seems to be a bad one--a notorious +one throughout Europe, if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, +really, that in a very few days Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in +person for what you've done for him, and--to tell you what has become of +those letters." + +"What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not +merciful?" + +"I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear +Mademoiselle, Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you +have told to me, or that the Englishman's alibi has been proved by you. +The arrest of these two men in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the +police to keep your secret as you would keep it yourself. Now, will that +assurance make it easier for you to put your whole soul into your part +to-night?" + +"If you will accept that box," I said, letting him kiss my hand, and +feeling inclined to kiss his. + +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I +had trumped Godensky's last trick now. + +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds +in the brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were +torn out, as if there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. +But Miss Forrest did not explain this, or even allude to it at all. + +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. "I have kept my +promise," I said. "The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you +let me say that I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will +be happy together." + +"I shall try to make up to him for--my hateful suspicions +and--everything," she said, like a repentant child. "I love him so +much!" + +"And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw +that. But how gloriously you will mend it again!" + +"Oh, I hope so!" she cried. "And you--have I really spoiled your life by +forcing you to make that promise? I pray that I haven't." + +"I thought you had, but I was mistaken," I answered. "The thing you have +made me do has proved a blessing. I may have--altered some of the facts +a little, but none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to +use such weapons as she has, against cruel enemies." + +"I hope you'll defeat yours," said Miss Forrest. + +"I begin to believe I shall," said I. And we shook hands. She is the +only girl I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. + +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give +him the diamonds. + +"You are my good angel!" he exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, I won't have to +take your money now." + +"All that's mine is yours," I said. + +"It is _you_ I want for mine," he answered. "When am I to have you? +Don't keep me waiting long, my darling. I'm nothing without you." + +"I don't want to keep you waiting," I told him. And indeed I longed to +be his wife--his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. + +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as +soon as a marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the +morning, and the note I had written, telling him that a pretty American +girl had found the diamonds. + +"She's engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine--the poor +fellow so stupidly accused of murder," I explained. "But of course he is +innocent. Of course he'll be discharged without a blot upon his name. +They're tremendously in love with each other, almost as much as you and +I!" + +"You didn't tell me about the love affair in your note," said Raoul. +"You spoke only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past +your house, after I went in." + +"There wasn't time for more in that famous communication!" I laughed. + +Raoul echoed me. "It came rather too near being famous, by the way," he +said. "Just after I had found it in the safe--where you would put it, +you witch!--a man came in with an order from the President to copy a +clause in a new treaty which is kept there." + +"What treaty?" I asked, with a leap of the heart. + +"Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn't the point." +(Ah, _was_ it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been +rather awkward, wouldn't it? if I hadn't got your note out of the safe +before the man came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the +open safe, for a second." + +"Thank God I wasn't too late!" I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. "You mean, thank God he wasn't sooner, don't you, +darling?" amended Raoul. + +"Yes, of course. How stupid I am!" I murmured. + +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, +for I had not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. +Had the treaty been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no +doubt have vowed to me--if I'd lived to hear his vows--that he had had +no hand in the discovery. Fear of the terrible man who had so nearly +beaten me in the game made me quiver even now. "You see," I went on, "I +can think of nothing but you, and my love for you. You'll never be +jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter what Count +Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?" + +"I've listened to Godensky for the last time," said Raoul. "The dog! He +shall never come near me again." + +"I hardly think he will try," I said. "I'm glad we're going to be +married soon. Do you know, I'm half inclined to do as you've asked me +sometimes, and promised you wouldn't ask again--leave the stage. I want +to rest, and just be happy, like other women. I want love--and +peace--and you." + +"You shall have all, and for always," answered Raoul. "If only I +deserved you!" + +"If only I deserved you!" I echoed. + +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that +he never may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he +would forgive me all things, because we are one in a perfect love. + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Powers and Maxine</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: A. M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 8, 2003 [eBook #10410]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE ***</div> + +<h1>The Powers and Maxine</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break"><i>By C.N. and A.M. Williamson</i></h2> + +<h5>Author of<br/> +“The Princess Virginia,” “My Friend the Chauffeur,”<br/> +“The Car of Destiny,” “The Princess Passes,”<br/> +“Lady Betty Across the Water,” Etc.</h5> + +<h4>Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson.</h4> + +<h3><i>With Illustrations<br/> +By FRANK T. MERRILL</i></h3> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/frontis.jpg"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="415" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">At that moment a board creaked in the corridor.<br/> +If I were caught here I should be arrested. +</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH1">I. LISA’S KNIGHT AND LISA’S SISTER</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH2">II. LISA LISTENS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH3">III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH4">IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH5">V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH6">VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH7">VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH8">VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH9">IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH10">X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH11">XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH12">XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH13">XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH14">XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH15">XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH16">XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH17">XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH18">XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA</a></td> + +</tr> + +<tr> + +<td> <a href="#2HCH19">XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME</a></td> + +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LISA DRUMMOND’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>The Powers and Maxine</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH1"></a>CHAPTER I<br/> +LISA’S KNIGHT AND LISA’S SISTER</h2> + +<p> +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I was going +to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever loved. +</p> + +<p> +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really must +want to be with me, not just because I’m the “pretty girl’s sister,” but +because I’m myself, Lisa Drummond. +</p> + +<p> +Being what I am,—queer, and plain, I can’t bear to think that men like girls +for their beauty; yet I can’t help liking men better if they are handsome. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he seems so +to me. I don’t know if he is very good, or really very wonderful, although he’s +clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way that makes women fond of him; and +men admire him, too. He looks straight into your eyes when he talks to you, as +if he cared more for you than anyone else in the world: and if I were an +artist, painting a picture of a dark young knight starting off for the +crusades, I should ask Ivor Dundas to stand as my model. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps his expression wouldn’t be exactly right for the pious young crusader, +for it isn’t at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just that rapt sort of +look on his face. It was generally when he was talking to Di: but I wouldn’t +let myself believe that it meant anything in particular. He has the reputation +of having made lots of women fall in love with him. This was one of the first +things I heard when Di and I came over from America to visit Lord and Lady +Mountstuart. And of course there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. +Everyone was talking of it when we first arrived in London. +</p> + +<p> +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady Mountstuart +has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by another larger room +from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we could see people dancing. +</p> + +<p> +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di’s book shelves, because we +could talk better there. Usually, I don’t like being in front of a mirror, +because—well, because I’m only the “pretty girl’s sister.” But to-night I +didn’t mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. Sitting down, you might +almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my gown was made didn’t show that +one shoulder is a little higher than the other. Di designed the dress. +</p> + +<p> +I thought, if I wasn’t pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I looked +as if I could <i>think</i> of things; and as if I could feel. +</p> + +<p> +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, unless +he cared. Of course it might be for Di’s sake; but I am not so queer-looking +that no man could ever be fascinated by me. +</p> + +<p> +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, because Di +has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had found out that I was +intelligent and sympathetic. +</p> + +<p> +He sat by me and didn’t speak at first. Just then Di passed the far-away, open +door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the Duke of Glasgow’s +brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you so much for the book,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +(He had sent me a book that morning—one he’d heard me say I wanted.) +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his nice +smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and certainly he +has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a little sad. I willed him +hard to love me. +</p> + +<p> +“It made me happy to get it,” I went on. +</p> + +<p> +“It made me happy to send it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it please you to do things for me?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?” I couldn’t help adding—“Even +though I’m different from other girls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps more for that reason,” he said, with his voice as kind as his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what shall I do if you go away!” I burst out, partly because I really +meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say what I wanted +so much to hear. “Suppose you get that consulship at Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I may,” he said quickly. “A consulship isn’t a very great +thing—but—it’s a beginning. I want it badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary,” said I, not telling +him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I were a toad. “Of +course, he’s Lord Mountstuart’s cousin, and brother-in-law as well, and that +makes him seem quite in the family, doesn’t it? But it isn’t as if I were +really related to Lady Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are +only step-sisters—no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, and +brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady Mountstuart’s niece, +and that I had some of the coaxing, ‘girly’ ways Di can put on when she wants +to get something out of people. I’d make the Foreign Secretary give you exactly +what you wanted, even if it took you far, far from me.” +</p> + +<p> +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under the +brown. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a very kind Imp,” he said. “Imp” is the name he invented for me. I +loved to hear him call me by it. +</p> + +<p> +“Kind!” I echoed. “One isn’t kind when one—likes—people.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn’t care. If only I could make +him say the words I longed to hear—even because he pitied me, because he had +found out how I loved him, and because he had really too much of the +dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I made up my mind that I +would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave me the chance; and I would tell +Di that he was dreadfully in love with me. That would make her writhe. +</p> + +<p> +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there was no +doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment or two he was +silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the ballroom, he spoke very +gently, as if I had been a child—though I am older than Di by three or four +years. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little friend,” +said he. “Now that I know you really do take an interest in my affairs, I think +I may tell you why I want so much to go to Algiers—though very likely you’ve +guessed already—you are such an ‘intuitive’ girl. And besides, I haven’t tried +very hard to hide my feelings—not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise +how little I have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don’t +you—even if you didn’t before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say any more,” I managed to cut him short. “I can’t bear—I mean, I +understand. I—did guess before.” +</p> + +<p> +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn’t let myself believe. I hoped against +hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took the trouble to +be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of life. +</p> + +<p> +“Di might have told me,” I went gasping on, rather than let there be a long +silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to see me +cry—though, if it could have made any difference, I would have grovelled at his +feet and wet them with my tears. “But she never does tell me anything about +herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better to talk +about you instead,” he defended her. And then I felt that I could hate him, as +much as I’ve always hated Di, deep down in my heart. At that minute I should +have liked to kill her, and watch his face when he found her lying dead—out of +his reach for ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” he hurried on, “I’ve never asked her yet if she would marry me, +because—my prospects weren’t very brilliant. She knows of course that I love +her—” +</p> + +<p> +“And if you get the consulship, you’ll put the important question?” I cut him +short, trying to be flippant. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But I told you tonight, because I—because you were so kind, I felt I +should like to have you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could have +crushed every hope of his for the future—every hope, that is, in which my +stepsister Diana Forrest had any part—I would have done it, just as I trample +on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of feeling that I—even +I—have power of life and death. +</p> + +<p> +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I’m never very strong or well, but now +I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music stop in the +ballroom. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” I said. “The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are over. I’m +sure you’re engaged for the next.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Imp, I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Di?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have Number 13 with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen! Unlucky number.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, coming now, +is with Mrs. George Allendale.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, the actor manager’s wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord Mountstuart +likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very serious and +political, but we have every sort of creature—provided it’s an amusing, or +successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine de Renzie to come +here, when she was acting in London at George Allendale’s theatre? That was +before Di and I arrived on the scene, you remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her first, off +the stage, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a sweet memory! Wasn’t Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband when he +had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard that she was.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t look cross with me. I’m not saying anything against your gorgeous +Maxine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn’t call Miss de Renzie ‘my Maxine,’ +please, Imp.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” I said. “You see, I’ve heard other people call her that—in +joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you such a famous +person, to her, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. What made you think that?” He was really annoyed now, and I was pleased—if +anything could please me, in my despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to ‘M.R.’ as if the name were a +secret, so—” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Everybody’ is very stupid then. ‘M.R.’ is an old lady, my god-mother, who +helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I couldn’t have +gone. And she isn’t of the kind that likes to see her name in print. Now, where +shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look for Mrs. Allendale.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll stay where I am, thank you,” I said, “and watch you dance—from far off. +That’s my part in life, you know: watching other people dance from far off.” +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn’t sure that one +of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, and deserted; and +though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever since the tiny child and her +mother (a beautiful, rich, young Californian widow) came into my father’s house +in New York, she does know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am +in such moods. I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking +through the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. +</p> + +<p> +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) entered the +room which lay between our “den” and the ballroom, Probably they would have +gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in that way, but I cried her +name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only a moment she paused—long enough +to send Lord Robert away—and then she came straight to me. He must have been +furious: but I didn’t care for that. +</p> + +<p> +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and beautiful, +looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I should have liked to +strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the other, deepening the rose to +crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for each finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a headache, dear?” she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps for +me—as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my heart,” said I. “It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish I +could die, and end it all! What’s the good of me—to myself or anyone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk like that, my poor one,” she said. “Shall I take you upstairs to +your own room?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs,” I answered. “Yet I can’t +stay here. What shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“What about Uncle Eric’s study?” Di asked. She always calls Lord Mountstuart +‘Uncle Eric,’ though he isn’t her uncle. Her mother and his wife were sisters, +that’s all: and then there was the other sister who married the British +Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord Mountstuart’s. That family +seemed to have a craze for American girls; but Lord Mountstuart makes an +exception of me. He’s civil, of course, because he’s an abject slave of Di’s, +and she refused to come and pay a visit in England without me: but I give him +the shivers, I know very well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he won’t be there this evening,” Di went on, when I hesitated. “He’s +playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, half an hour +ago. Come, let me help you there. It’s only a step.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked across the +room, out into a corridor, through a tiny “bookroom” where odd volumes and old +magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart’s study. +</p> + +<p> +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The library +next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord Mountstuart’s +favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a novel or two, and +thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has painted in different parts +of the world hang on the walls: for he also fancies himself artistic. +</p> + +<p> +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I suppose, +the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or dreams them out. +And it was to this that Di led me. +</p> + +<p> +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, and asked +if she should ring and get a little brandy. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, “I shall feel better in a few minutes. It’s so nice and cool +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look better already!” exclaimed Di. “Soon, when you’ve lain and rested +awhile, you’ll be a different girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, how I wish I <i>could</i> be a different girl!” I sighed. “A strong, well +girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,—like you—or Maxine de +Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you think of her?” asked Di, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his ‘pal,’ and tells +me things he doesn’t tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about Maxine, +still.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’d be a difficult woman to forget, if she’s as attractive off the stage as +she is on.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a pity we didn’t come in time to meet here when she was playing in London +with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their houses, it seems. +Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and that it’s such a pleasant +memory, whenever he comes to this house. I suppose that’s one reason he likes +to come so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt,” said Di sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“He got so fascinated talking of her,” I went on. “He almost forgot that he had +a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great hit, and all +that; but she didn’t stand quite as high as she does now, since she’s become +the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except her salary, then, whereas +she must have saved up a lot of money by this time. I have an idea that Ivor +would have proposed to her when she was in London if he’d thought her success +established.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. “As if Ivor were the kind of +man to think of such a thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“He isn’t very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him to marry +a poor girl, or a girl who wasn’t well connected socially. He <i>has</i> to +think of such things.” +</p> + +<p> +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of course Di +has all her mother’s money, two hundred thousand English pounds; and through +the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the Foreign Secretary, she has +got to know all the best people in England. Besides, the King and Queen have +been particularly nice to her since she was presented, so she has the run of +their special set, as well as the political and artistic, and “old-fashioned +exclusive” ones. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself,” she said, “and he has plenty of good +connections of his own. He’ll have a little money, too, some day, from an aunt +or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie had nothing more than +a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said Maxine was rather proud to have +Ivor dangling about, because everyone likes him, and because his travels and +his book were being a lot talked about just then. Naturally, he admired her, +because she’s beautiful, and a very great actress—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair,” I laughed. “She flirts +with him herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian’s over forty, and he’s twenty-nine!” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty isn’t the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She’s a beauty and a +great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts with him, and +he with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn’t care. “You’d better +not say such silly things to Uncle Eric,” she said, staring at the pattern of +the cornice. “Aren’t those funny, gargoyley faces up there? I never noticed +them before. But oh—about Mr. Dundas and Maxine de Renzie—I don’t think, +really, that he troubles himself much about her any more, for the other day I—I +happened to ask what she was playing in Paris now, and he didn’t know. He said +he hadn’t been over to see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid +when he wasn’t too busy, he was too lazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He <i>said</i> so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday at +Folkestone with the godmother who’s going to leave him her money, how easy to +slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being the wiser.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he likes?” +laughed Di, but not happily. “You’re looking much better, Lisa. You’ve quite a +colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart is sure +not to come,” said I. “These pillows are so comfortable. Then perhaps, by and +by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch the dancing. I should +like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan’t sleep, and the night will seem +so long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have liked to +shake me. “I’m afraid I shall have to run away now, for my partner will think +me so rude. What about supper?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that,” I +interrupted. “Go now, I don’t need you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful look +in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. “Even if you don’t send, +I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you are,” she said. Then +she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa cushions, with the feeling +that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down the pillows like a stone. +</p> + +<p> +“She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor,” I said to myself. “Well—she’s +welcome to it now. I don’t think she’ll enjoy it much—or let him. Oh, I hope +they’ll quarrel. I don’t think I’d mind anything, if only I was sure they’d +never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then +Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I hate her—and all beautiful girls, who +spoil the lives of women like me.” +</p> + +<p> +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time must be +coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in spite of all, +Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be engaged? At that +thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; for at least it would +chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart’s ball was over, I should be +found lying white and dead, like Elaine on her barge. I was holding my breath, +with my hand pressed over my heart to feel how it was beating, when the door +opened suddenly, and I heard a voice speaking. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH2"></a>CHAPTER II<br/> +LISA LISTENS</h2> + +<p> +Someone turned up the light. “I’ll leave you together,” said Lord Mountstuart; +and the door was closed. +</p> + +<p> +“What could that mean?” I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come in +alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had Lord +Mountstuart been arranging a tête-â-tête between Di and Ivor Dundas? +</p> + +<p> +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must hear what +they had to say to each other. +</p> + +<p> +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down into the +narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply pulling the clinging +folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay still, my blood pounding in my +temples and ears, and in my nostrils a faint, musty smell from the Oriental +stuff that covered the lounge. +</p> + +<p> +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the wall, +and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had mentioned when +she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our conversation. But I was +listening with all my might for what was to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas,” said a voice, which gave me a +shock of surprise, though I knew it well. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t run the risk of interruptions,” he went on, with that slow, clear +enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their lives, +especially men of the college that was his—Balliol. “I told Mountstuart that I +wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows nothing, nor does anyone +else except myself. You understand that this conversation of ours, whether +anything comes of it or not, is entirely confidential. I have a proposal to +make. You’ll agree to it or not, as you choose. But if you don’t agree, forget +it, with everything I may have said.” +</p> + +<p> +“My services and my memory are both at your disposal,” answered Ivor, in such a +gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked with Diana—and +that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. “I am honoured—I won’t say +flattered, for I’m too much in earnest—that you should place any confidence in +me.” +</p> + +<p> +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of course, I +said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the Foreign +Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in the gift of that +man. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, I’m in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can help me +out of it better than anyone else I know,” said the smooth, trained voice. “It +is a little diplomatic errand you will have to undertake for me tomorrow, if +you want to do me a good turn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the best of +my ability,” replied Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you can carry it through excellently,” said the Foreign Secretary, +still fencing. “It will be good practice, if you succeed, for—any future duties +in the career which may be opening to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s bribing him with that consulship,” I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn’t beating so +thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you for your trust in me,” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“A little diplomatic errand,” repeated the Foreign Secretary. “In itself the +thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its relation with +other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, incalculable +importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply to you. Indeed, I +came to my cousin Mountstuart’s house expressly because I was told you would be +at his wife’s ball. My regret is, that the news which brought me in search of +you didn’t reach me earlier, for if it had I should have come with my wife, and +have got at you in time to send you off—if you agreed to go—to-night. As it is, +the matter will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It’s too late for you to +catch the midnight boat across the Channel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Across the Channel?” echoed Ivor. “You want me to go to France?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“One could always get across somehow,” said Ivor, thoughtfully, “if there were +a great hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is—the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less speed. That +is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and charter a tug or motor +boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object would probably be defeated. I +came to you because those who are watching this business wouldn’t be likely to +guess I had given you a hand in it. All that you do, however, must be done +quietly, with no fuss, no sign of anything unusual going on. It was natural I +should come to a ball given by my wife’s sister, whose husband is my cousin. No +one knows of this interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that +score, at least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should meet +Mademoiselle de Renzie there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle de Renzie!” exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, and +showing plainly that he was taken aback. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t she a friend of yours?” asked the Foreign Secretary rather sharply. +Though I couldn’t see him, I knew exactly how he would be looking at Ivor, his +keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips drawn in, the long, well-shaped +hand, of which he is said to be vain, toying with the pale Malmaison pink he +always wears in his buttonhole. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is a friend of mine,” Ivor answered. “But—” +</p> + +<p> +“A ‘but’ already! Perhaps I’d better tell you that the mission has to do with +Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has acted as my +agent in Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! I didn’t dream that she dabbled in politics.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it weren’t +necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in this matter. +But before we go any further, I must know whether Mademoiselle de Renzie’s +connection with this business will for any reason keep you out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if—you need my help,” said Ivor, with an effort. “And I beg you won’t +suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie herself. I +have for her the greatest respect and admiration.” +</p> + +<p> +“We all have,” returned the Foreign Secretary, “especially those who know her +best. Among her many virtues, she’s one of the few women who can keep a +secret—her own and others. She is a magnificent actress—on the stage and off. +And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell you it’s to help her as +well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or you will be handicapped. For +several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has done good service—secret service, you +must understand—for Great Britain.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! Maxine a political spy!” Ivor broke out impulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s rather a hard name, isn’t it? There are better ones. And she’s no +traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she’s Polish by birth. I +can assure you we’ve much for which to thank her cleverness and tact—and +beauty. For our sakes I’m sorry that she’s serving our interests professionally +for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to rejoice, as she’s engaged to be +married. And if you can save her from coming to grief over this very ticklish +business, she’ll probably live happily ever after. Did you know of her +engagement?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Ivor. “I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in London a +year ago; but after she went to Paris—of course, she’s very busy and has crowds +of friends; and I’ve only crossed once or twice since, on hurried visits; so we +haven’t met, or written to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +(“Very good reason,” I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. “You’ve been busy, +too—falling in love with Diana Forrest.”) +</p> + +<p> +“It hasn’t been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might have +been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when the right +time comes—if the poor girl isn’t ruined irretrievably in this affair of ours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there really serious danger of that?” “The most serious. If you can’t save +her, not only will the <i>Entente Cordiale</i> be shaken to its foundations +(and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), but her future +happiness will be broken in the crash, and—she says—she will not live to suffer +the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if disaster comes; and though +suicide is usually the last resource of a coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no +coward, and I’m inclined to think I should come to the same resolve in her +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what I am to do,” said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary’s strange words, and his intense earnestness. +</p> + +<p> +“You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without mentioning +your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some hotel where you have +never stayed and are not known. I will find means of informing the lady what +hotel you choose. You will there give a fictitious name (let us say, George +Sandford) and you will take a suite, with a private sitting-room. That done, +you will say that you are expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no +one else. You will wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will +certainly be as soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you’re not being spied upon, you will put into her hands a +small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds simple enough,” said Ivor, “if that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a hotel? +I’d willingly do so if—” +</p> + +<p> +“No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who are +watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the meeting. So +much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four o’clock every +afternoon, the young Frenchman she’s engaged to is in the habit of going to her +house, and stopping until it’s time for her to go to work. He dines with her, +but doesn’t drive with her to the theatre, as that would be rather too public +for the present, until their engagement’s announced. He adores her, but is +inconveniently jealous, like most Latins. It’s practically certain that he’s +heard your name mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and +as a Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a beautiful +woman without being in love with her, your call at her house might give +Mademoiselle Maxine a <i>mauvais quart d’heure</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel—” +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the theatre +early, and thus get rid of him. She’s quite clever enough to manage that. Then, +as your own name won’t appear on any hotel list in the papers next day, the +most jealous heart need have no cause for suspicion. At the same time, if +certain persons whom Mademoiselle—and we, too—have to fear, do find out that +she has visited Ivor Dundas, who has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a +private interview with her, interests of even deeper importance than the most +desperate love affair may still, we’ll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your +old friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the change in +his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly drained. “I will do my +very best.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the next two +days, you won’t suffer for it in the end,” remarked the Foreign Secretary +meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, bound up +with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and white bride +cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, in America. I +didn’t want him to have the consulship, because getting that would perhaps mean +getting Di, too. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?” asked the Foreign Secretary. “It +should be a good one, I don’t need to remind you, where Mademoiselle de Renzie +could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she should be +recognised in spite of the veil she’s pretty certain to wear. Yet it shouldn’t +be in too central a situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall it be the Élysèe Palace?” asked Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do very well,” replied the other, after reflecting for an instant. +And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my “impish joy,” +when it was settled; for the Élysèe Palace is where Lord and Lady Mountstuart +stop when they visit Paris, and they’d been talking of running over next day +with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful new motor car for sale there—one +that a Rajah had ordered to be made for him, but died before it was finished. +Lady Mountstuart always has one new fad every six months at least, and her +latest is to drive a motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert—can make +a motor, I believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he’d +been insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She’d +promised, that if not too tired she’d cross to Paris the day after the ball, +taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn’t be equal to an early +start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she should see Maxine at the +hotel with Ivor! +</p> + +<p> +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the Élysèe Palace for rooms +without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting Maxine, once it +was arranged for her to go there. “Any misunderstanding would be fatal,” he +went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine’s head depended upon Ivor’s +trip. “I only wish I could have got you off to-night; and in that case you +might have gone to her own house, early in the morning. She is in a frightful +state of mind, poor girl. But it was only to-day that the contents of the +packet reached me, and was shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just +before I hurried round here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from +her, warning me that Count Godensky—of whom you’ve probably heard—an attaché of +the Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a—er—a game in high +politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to present +intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who’s well known in +Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused to take no for an +answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded into giving him a severe +snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn’t forgive a snub, especially if it had +got talked about. He’d be a bad enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he +is a very bitter and determined enemy. Apparently she doesn’t know how much he +has found out, or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely +guesses, and ‘bluffs.’ But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more closely than +usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent wouldn’t get +through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you should not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I,” answered Ivor, laughing a little. “I think I could make some trouble +for anyone who tried to stop me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caution above all! Remember you’re in training for a diplomatic career, what? +If you should lose the packet I’m going to give you, I prophesy that in +twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: for the +circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, the most +peculiar I’ve ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a varied experience; +and they intimately concern her fiancé, the Vicomte Raoul du Laurier—” +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul du Laurier!” exclaimed Ivor. “So she’s engaged to marry him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have friends who do. He’s in the French Foreign Office, though they say he’s +more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays—” +</p> + +<p> +“Which don’t get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some day, for I +believe he’s an extremely clever fellow in his way—in everything except the +diplomatic ‘trade’ which his father would have him take up, and got him into, +through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du Laurier’s no fool, and is said to +be a fine sportsman, as well as almost absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle +Maxine has plenty of excuse for her infatuation—for I assure you it’s nothing +less. She’d jump into the fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc +smile on her face.” +</p> + +<p> +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he’d ever been really in +love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he hadn’t, for he +didn’t seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he grew a little more +cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +“I can see that du Laurier’s being in the French Foreign Office might make it +rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she—if she’s been rather too helpful to +us,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale—a sensational and even romantic tale almost +complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet Mademoiselle +to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you into her confidence, +in reward for your services, in regard to some private interests of her own +which have got themselves wildly mixed up with the gravest political matters, +she’s at liberty to do so as far as I’m concerned, for you are to be trusted, +and deserve to be trusted. You may say that to her from me, if the occasion +arises. I hope with all my heart that everything may go smoothly. If not—the +<i>Entente Cordiale</i> may burst like a bomb. I—who have made myself +responsible in the matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny +me if the scheme’s a failure—shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; and you, +though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the misfortunes of +others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be almost as if you +carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the packet into the hands of +Maxine de Renzie.” “Good heavens, I shall be glad when she has it!” said Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t be gladder than she—or I. And here it is,” replied the Foreign +Secretary. “I consider it great luck to have found such a messenger, at a house +I could enter without being suspected of any motive more subtle than a wish to +eat a good supper, or to meet some of the prettiest women in London.” +</p> + +<p> +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take to +Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two from +behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they were standing +quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The Foreign Secretary, who is +rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a woman’s looks, never could bear +me: and I believe he would have thought it almost as justifiable as drowning an +ugly kitten, to choke me if he knew I’d overheard his secrets. +</p> + +<p> +However, Ivor’s next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to know. “It’s +importance evidently doesn’t consist in bulk,” he said lightly. “I can easily +carry the case in my breast pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and honour +of a woman,” said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. “Now, I, must go and look for +my wife. It’s better that you and I shouldn’t be seen together. One never knows +who may have got in among the guests at a crush like this. I will go out at one +door, and when you’ve waited for a few minutes, you can go, by way of another.” +</p> + +<p> +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was alone. +What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me longed to see how +his face would look; but there was too much at stake. Not only would I hate to +have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I had already built up a great plan +for the use I could make of what I had overheard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH3"></a>CHAPTER III<br/> +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF</h2> + +<p> +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape from +behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as I had sat +up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm asleep, Lord +Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. +</p> + +<p> +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first editions, as +he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord Mountstuart’s treasures +before. As both were perfectly daft on the subject, they must have kept me +lying there an hour, while they fussed about from one glass-protected book-case +to another, murmuring admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a +Mazarin Bible, with their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have +been eaten up by moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set +fire to the whole lot. +</p> + +<p> +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I’ve nicknamed “Stewey”) remembered that there +was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other duffer +pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It was just my +luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, +for whom the conservatory, or our “den,” or the stairs, wasn’t secluded enough, +must needs be prying about and spy that open door before I had conquered my +cramps and got up from behind the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating a +minute, the girl—whoever she was—allowed herself to be drawn into a room where +she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they selected the lounge to +sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against the wall, with “pins and +needles” pricking all over my cramped body, while some man I didn’t know +proposed and was accepted by some girl I shall probably never see. +</p> + +<p> +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until voices +were “heard off,” as they say in the directions for theatricals, whereupon they +sprang up and hurried out like “guilty things upon a fearful summons.” +</p> + +<p> +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out of my +prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the servants use. But +it was very late now, and people were going, even the young ones who love +dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my ball dress and into a +dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my one beauty, and let it hang +over my shoulders, streaming down in front on each side, so that nobody would +know one shoulder is higher than the other. It wasn’t that I was particularly +anxious to appear well before Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the +contrast between us to seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but +because I wanted her to think, when she came to my room, that I’d been there a +long time. +</p> + +<p> +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she found +me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. +</p> + +<p> +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, and +seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all night, but +instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her voice was as gay +and happy as Ivor’s had been when he first came into Lord Mountstuart’s study +with the Foreign Secretary. +</p> + +<p> +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn’t wanted +to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been in bed and +asleep long ago. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything went very well,” said she. “I think it was a great success.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you dance every dance?” I asked, working up slowly to what I meant to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Except a few that I sat out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can guess who sat them out with you,” said I. “Ivor Dundas. And one was +number thirteen, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn’t try to hide +anything from me. He tells most things to his ‘Imp.’ Was he nice when he +proposed?” +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t propose.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he didn’t +tell you he loved you, and ask if there’d be a chance for him in case he got +Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t take your bracelet even if—if—. But you’re a little witch, Lisa.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am!” I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench of the +heart. “And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and said he could +have you, Algiers or no Algiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking about +this evening,” said Di, with her cheeks very pink. “He may have flirted a +little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But—but he <i>does</i> love +me, Lisa.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he did love Maxine!” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t. He never loved her. I—you see, you put such horrid thoughts into my +head that—that I just mentioned her name when he said to-night—oh, when he said +the usual things, about never having cared seriously for anyone until he saw +me. Only—it seems treacherous to call them ‘<i>usual</i>’ because—when you love +a man you feel that the things he says can never have been said before, in the +same way, by any other man to any other woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only perhaps by the same man to another woman,” I mocked at her, trying to act +as if I were teasing in fun. +</p> + +<p> +“Lisa, you <i>can</i> be hateful sometimes!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only for your good, if I’m hateful now,” I said. “I don’t want to have +you disappointed, when it’s too late. I want you to keep your eyes open, and +see exactly where you’re going. It’s the truest thing ever said that ‘love is +blind.’ You can’t deny that you’re in love with Ivor Dundas.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t deny it,” she answered, with a proud air which would, I suppose, have +made Ivor want to kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +“And you didn’t deny it to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I didn’t. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I wish I +hadn’t, now. I wish I’d shown that I trusted him entirely. I know he deserves +to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I should commit myself any further till day after to-morrow,” +said I drily. “Indeed, you couldn’t if you wanted to, unless you wrote or +wired. You won’t see him to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall,” she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of hers, that +looked positively black with excitement. “He’s going to the Duchess of +Glasgow’s bazaar, because I said I should most likely be there: and I will go—” +</p> + +<p> +“But he won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you know anything about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do know, everything. And I’ll tell you what I know, if you’ll promise me two +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What things?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you won’t ask me how I found out, and that you’ll swear never to give me +away to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I wouldn’t ‘give you away,’ as you call it. But—I’m not sure I want +you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I’d rather not hear stories behind his +back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess’s to-morrow,” I snapped, “and wear your +prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time he’ll be arriving in +Paris to keep a very particular engagement with Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. “I don’t +believe he’s going to Paris!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I know he’s going. And I know he’s going especially to see Maxine.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be. He told me to-night he wouldn’t cross the street to see her. I—I +made it a condition—that if he found he cared enough for her to want to see her +again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all thought of me. If I’m to +reign, I must reign alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to see +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet at least two hours ago he’d arranged a meeting with Maxine for to-morrow +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re dreaming.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was never wider awake: or if I’m dreaming, you can dream the same dream if +you’ll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this morning, when the boat +train goes out at 10 o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will be there!” cried Di, changing from red to white. “And you shall be with +me, to see that you’re wrong. I know you will be wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s an engagement,” said I. “At 10 o’clock, Victoria Station, just you and +I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I’m right, and Ivor’s there, +shall you think it wise to give him up?” +</p> + +<p> +“He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie—in which case he’d probably write +me. But—at the station, I shall ask him straight out—that is, if he’s there, as +I’m sure he won’t be—whether he intends to see Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he +says no, I’ll believe him. If he says yes—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll tell him all is over between you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’d know that without my telling, after our talk last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine’s name +from me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IVOR DUNDAS’ POINT OF VIEW</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH4"></a>CHAPTER IV<br/> +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS</h2> + +<p> +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by the nape +of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down to—the other place. +</p> + +<p> +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on my way +to Paris. +</p> + +<p> +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much time to +spare (I’d been warned not to risk observation by being too early) when I came +face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I should have liked best to +meet: whom at that particular time I least wished to meet: Diana Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +“The Imp”—Lisa Drummond—was with her: but I saw only Di at first— Di, looking a +little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last night I had told +her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said that I didn’t care to see +Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to see her, and here was Di +discovering me in the act of going to see, her. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would think +it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when explanations were +forbidden. But I couldn’t lie to a girl I loved as I love Diana Forrest. It +would have sickened me with life and with myself to do it: and it was with the +knowledge in my mind that I could not and would not lie, that I had to greet +her with a conventional “Good morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going out of town?” I asked, with my hat off for her and for the Imp, +whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my tall love’s +shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was like a cat; but +suddenly the resemblance struck me—something in the poor little creature’s +expression, it must have been, or in her greenish grey eyes which seemed at +that moment to concentrate all the knowledge of old and evil things that has +ever come into the world since the days of the early Egyptians—when a cat was +worshipped. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not going out of town,” Di answered. “I came here to meet you, in case +you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who told you I was leaving?” I asked, hoping for a second or two that the +Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his secret—guessing ours, +perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable absence might injure me with her. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you,” she answered. “I didn’t believe you would go; even though I +got your letter by the eight o’clock post this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you got that,” I said. “I posted it soon after I left you last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that you +wouldn’t be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to write?” +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly and honestly,” I said (for I had to say it), “just at the moment, and +only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow’s bazaar. That was +because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, something happened which +made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I begged you to let me see you +to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. Do say ‘yes.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say yes on one condition—and gladly,” she replied, with an odd, pale +little smile, “that you tell me where you’re going this morning. I know it must +seem horrid in me to ask, but—but—oh, Ivor, it <i>isn’t</i> horrid, really. You +wouldn’t think it horrid if you could understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to Paris,” I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold potato +where my heart ought to be. “I am obliged to go, on business.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when you told +me you couldn’t come to the Duchess’s,” said Di, looking like a beautiful, +unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. “You only mentioned +‘an urgent engagement which you’d forgotten.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry,” I told her, lamely. +</p> + +<p> +“So it was—so it would have been,” she faltered, “if it hadn’t been for—what we +said last night about—Paris. And then—I can’t explain to you, Ivor, any more +than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you meant to go there, and—after +our talk, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t come to the station to find you; I +came because I was perfectly sure I wouldn’t find you, and wanted to prove that +I hadn’t found you. Yet—you’re here.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same,” I said, as firmly as +I could. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. I’ll trust you, if—” +</p> + +<p> +“If what?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you’re not going to see +Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may see her,” I admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“But—but at least, you’re not going on purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign Secretary, I +could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to what suspicion was I +not laying myself open in confessing that I deliberately intended to see her, +having sworn by all things a man does swear by when he wishes to please a girl, +that I didn’t wish to see Maxine, and would not see Maxine? +</p> + +<p> +“You said you’d trust me, Di,” I reminded her. “For Heaven’s sake don’t break +that promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—if you’re breaking a promise to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“A promise?” +</p> + +<p> +“Worse, then! Because I didn’t ask you to promise. I had too much faith in you +for that. I believed you when you said you didn’t care for—anyone but me. I’ve +told Lisa. It doesn’t matter our speaking like this before her. I asked you to +wait for my promise for a little while, until I could be quite sure you didn’t +think of Miss de Renzie as—some people fancied you did. If you wanted to see +her, I said you must go, and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next +morning, by the first train, you start.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only because I am obliged to,” I hazarded in spite of the Foreign Secretary +and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by making matters +worse instead of better for myself. +</p> + +<p> +“Obliged to!” she echoed. “Then there’s something you must settle with her, +before you can be—free.” +</p> + +<p> +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should lose the +train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, as well as +Maxine’s, I must not. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” I said hurriedly, “I am free. There’s no question of freedom. Yet I +shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you go to her—this day of all days.” The words were wrung from the poor +child’s lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like death to me that I +should have to cause her this anguish, instead of soothing it. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall. You must,” I commanded, rather than implored. “Good-bye, +darling—precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall come back +to you to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t. You need never come to me again,” she said, white lipped. And the +guard whistled, waving his green flag. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t dare to say such a cruel thing—a thing you don’t mean!” I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a little +man inside jumped to the window and shouted, “Reserved! Don’t you see it’s +reserved?” which explained the fact that the door seemed to be fastened. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, and +would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men rushed at the +door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it with a railway key. +Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have lost me my last chance of +catching the moving train, had I not dashed in after them. If I could choose, I +would be the last man to obtrude myself where I was not wanted, but there was +no time to choose; and I was thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my +word. Besides, my heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave +her, to care much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way +in, though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have pushed me +out if I hadn’t been too strong for them. I had a dim impression that, instead +of joining with the newcomers, the first man, who would have kept the place to +himself before their entrance, seemed willing to aid me against the others. +They being once foisted upon him, he appeared to wish for my presence too, or +else he merely desired to prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and +perhaps killed, for he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. +</p> + +<p> +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly struggle, +and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. +</p> + +<p> +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so far that +Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a bad omen; and +the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for ever. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too late, I +fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary and even the +<i>Entente Cordiale</i> (provided he had not been exaggerating) for Di’s sake, +and love’s sake. But there was no going back now, even if I would. The train +was already travelling almost at full speed, and there was nothing to do but +resign myself to the inevitable, and hope for the best. Someone, it was clear, +had tried to work mischief between Diana and me, and there were only too many +chances that he had succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I +half-dazedly looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage +with which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather unintellectual, +unimaginative type could be, and he hadn’t shown himself as friendly lately to +me as he once had: still, I didn’t think he was the sort of fellow to trip up a +rival in the race by a trick, even if he could possibly have found out that I +was going to Paris this morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you sit here, sir?” a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw that the +little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was in a corner +facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, and began to +observe my travelling companions for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me that all +three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a first-class +carriage. +</p> + +<p> +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had removed a +bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did not look like a +typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of person who might be +expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. He was small and thin, and +weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes of the kind which ought to have +had white lashes instead of the sparse, jet black ones that rimmed them. His +forehead, though narrow, suggested shrewdness, as did the expression of those +light coloured eyes of his, which were set close to the sharp, slightly +up-turned nose. His hair was so black that it made his skin seem singularly +pallid, though it was only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously +over two prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the +air of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be “smart” get +up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and thirty-eight) +looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, masquerading as a “swell.” +</p> + +<p> +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved compartment by +means of their railway key were both bigger and more manly than he who had a +right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, with a heavy beard and +moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and cruel mouth pouted +disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, with a brick-coloured +complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also were flashily dressed with +“horsey” neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. As I glanced at the pair, they +were talking together in a low voice, with an open newspaper held up between +them; but the man who had helped me in against their will sat silent, staring +out of the window and uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, +apparently, paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in an +inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not attract +attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to assure myself that +it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting Di, and I felt certain that +nothing could have happened to it since. +</p> + +<p> +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected that +these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed them into the +compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as they were three to +one if they combined against me, and the train was, unfortunately, not entirely +a corridor train. Therefore, having assured myself that I was not among spies +bent on having my life or the secret I carried, I forgot about my +fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy speculations as to my chances with +Diana. I had been loving her, thinking of little else but her and my hopes of +her, for many months now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty +world it would be for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had +perhaps lost her. +</p> + +<p> +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I would +not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, even to repent +her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, and Heaven knew how +much or when I might be permitted to explain. I would not be a man if I took +her at her word, and let her slip from me, no matter how many times that word +were repeated; so I told myself over and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to +say that nothing could be as it had been; that I’d sacrificed my happiness to +please a stranger, and to save a woman whom I had never really loved. +</p> + +<p> +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there were so +many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer than I had or +would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on caring for me, after +what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn’t said in actual words last +night that she would marry me, whereas this morning she had almost said she +never would. I should have nobody to blame but myself if I came back to London +to-morrow to find her engaged to Lord Robert West—a man who, as his brother has +no children, might some day make her a Duchess. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir,” said one of the two railway-key men, +suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. “Hardly knew what I was +about when I shoved you away from the door. Me and my friend was afraid of +missing the train, so we pushed—instinct of self-preservation, I suppose,” and +he chuckled as if he had got off some witticism. “Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing +intentional, ’pon my word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks. No apology is necessary,” I replied as indifferently as I felt. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, then,” finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. He +turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation behind the +newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally glanced over the +top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole attention were not taken up +with the news of the day. +</p> + +<p> +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently not of +the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on the +upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted my +attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly pale, under a +kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I thought he must be +ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in anxious anticipation of the +horrors which might be in store for him on the boat. Presently he pulled out a +red-bordered handkerchief, and unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his +checked travelling cap. When he had done this, I saw that his hair was left +streaked with damp; and there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, +observing which with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric +hastily into his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“The little beast must dye his hair,” I thought contemptuously. “Perhaps he’s +an albino, really. His eyes look like it.” +</p> + +<p> +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn away and +spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But immediately +after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking up a book he had +laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close to his nose that the +printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he were very near-sighted. Thus +he sat for some time; yet I felt that no look thrown by the other two was lost +on him. He seemed to know each time one of them peered over the newspaper; and +when at last the train slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness +returned. His small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one +piece of luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the +things together. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I had let +my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, and I had +nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for the boat. +Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing an article out of +a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object to be caught in a crowd +and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches who might be lying in wait for +what I had in my pocket. It seemed impossible that anyone could have learned +that I was playing messenger between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs +and Maxine de Renzie: still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple +mission had been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect +any precaution. +</p> + +<p> +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced friend +lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, except a +small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to stuff in their +newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. Presently, when the +first rush for the boat was over, and the porters who had come to the door of +our compartment had gone away empty-handed, I would have got out, had I not +caught an imploring glance from the little man who had reserved the carriage. +Perhaps I imagined it, but his pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, “For heaven’s +sake, don’t leave me alone with these others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you be so very kind, sir,” he said to me, “to beckon a porter, as you +are near the door? I find after all that I shan’t be able to carry everything +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when the +porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their bags. I +also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, if the little +man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he said. Would I be so +extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the platform to see if it had +fallen there? +</p> + +<p> +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had found +the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and scrambling out of +the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for him, he would have +walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped behind a few steps, +thinking—as always—of the contents of that inner breast pocket. +</p> + +<p> +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, or +almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other passengers—a family +party with a fat nurse and crying baby—behind us. As I approached the gangway, +I saw on deck my late travelling companions, the Jewish man and his friend, +regarding us with interest. Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost +on the little man’s heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: +“Look out—gangway’s falling!” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as the +nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself no matter +what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman with the baby. Two +or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also attempted to turn, thus nearly +throwing the little man onto his knees. The large bag which he carried hit me +across the shins; in his terror he almost embraced me as he helped himself up: +the nurse, as she stumbled, pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not +seized the howling baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. +</p> + +<p> +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat cried the +reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm—that the gangway was “all +right,” and never had been anything but all right, I could not readjust my hat +nor see what was going on until the fat nurse had obligingly retrieved her +charge, without a word of thanks. +</p> + +<p> +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a horrible +idea that the scare might have been got up for the express purpose of robbing +me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as ever under my coat, and +decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm had had nothing to do with me. +</p> + +<p> +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of the way +of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had been rough for +a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and everything was already +engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the time, always conscious of the +unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The little man paced up and down, too, +though his yellow face grew slowly green, and he would have been much better +off below, lying on his back. As for the two others, they also remained on +deck, talking together as they leaned against the rail; but though I passed +them now and again, I noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by +turning before he reached their “pitch.” +</p> + +<p> +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, because if I +had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother would have been +over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd thronging the <i>douane</i>, I +decided to let the suitcase look after itself, and send down for it with the +key from the hotel later. Again the little man was close to my side as I went +in search of a cab, for all his things had been gone through by the custom +house officer in mid-channel, so that he too was free to depart without delay. +He even seemed to cling to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant +to speak, but he did not, save for a “good evening, sir,” as I separated myself +from him at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any conjurer’s +tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was walking toward a cab, +and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two late travelling companions, +who were getting into another vehicle near by. +</p> + +<p> +I went straight to the Élysée Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped before—a +long drive from the Gare du Nord—and claimed the rooms for which “Mr. George +Sandford” had wired from London. The suite engaged was a charming one, and the +private salon almost worthy to receive the lovely lady I expected. Nor did she +keep me waiting. I had had time only to give instructions about sending a man +with a key to the station for my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to +reach my rooms, and to draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at +the salon door. I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this +happened, but to my surprise the room remained in darkness—or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. +</p> + +<p> +“The lady has arrived, Monsieur,” announced the servant. “As Monsieur expected +her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that something has gone +wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It was but just now discovered, +at time for turning on the lights, otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would +have been provided, though no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few +minutes. If Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted in the +midst of my important interview with Maxine. “If the light comes on, it will he +all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it is not yet quite dark. +Show the lady in.” +</p> + +<p> +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, whose tall +and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting black dress, though +her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly embroidered veil that completely +hid her face, while long, graceful lace folds fell over and obscured the bright +auburn of her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment,” I said. “Let me push the curtains back. The electricity has +failed.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she answered. “Better leave them as they are. The lights may come on +and we be seen from outside. Why,”—as she drew nearer to me, and the servant +closed the door, “I thought I recognised that voice! It is Ivor Dundas.” +</p> + +<p> +“No other,” said I. “Didn’t the—weren’t you warned who would be the man to +come?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied. “Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of meeting +were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a cypher which I +trust nobody knows—except myself and one other. But I’m glad—glad it’s you. It +was clever of—him, to have sent you. No one would dream that—no one would think +it strange if they knew—as I hope they won’t—that you came to Paris to see me. +Oh, the relief that you’ve got through safely! Nothing has happened? You +have—the paper?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing has happened, and I have the paper,” I reassured her. “No adventures, +to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I’ve been spotted. Anyway, here +I am; and here is something which will put an end to your anxiety.” And I +tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which would +have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was never further +in her life from the thought of acting. “After all I’ve suffered, it seems too +good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” I said. “But you might seem to take just a little more interest in +me, even if you don’t really feel it, you know. You might just say, ‘How have +you been for the last twelve months?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do take an interest, and I’m grateful to you—I can’t tell you how +grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now,” she said, +eagerly. “If you knew everything, you’d understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know practically nothing,” I confessed; “still, I do understand. I was only +teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn’t to have done it, even for a minute. Here is +the letter-case which the Foreign—which was given to me to bring to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had never +departed. “Wait! It will he better to lock the door.” But even as she spoke, +there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she flung herself on me, +her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped suggestively a moment ago. I let +her draw out the long case which I had been guarding—the case I had not once +touched since leaving London, except to feel anxiously for its outline through +my buttoned coat. At least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in +her own hands now. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung to me, +the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my nostrils. But +as she started away, and I knew that she had the letter-case, the knock came +again. Then, before I could be sure whether she wished for time to hide, or +whether she would have me cry “come in,” without seeming to hesitate, the door +opened. For a second or two Maxine and I, and a group of figures at the door +were mere shadows in the ever deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have +counted ten before the long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in +more than one place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall +Commissary of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to see that +she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of sight. Having +ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the devil’s name the +Commissary of Police meant by walking into an Englishman’s room without being +invited; and not only that, but what under heaven he wanted anyway. +</p> + +<p> +He was far more polite than I was. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur,” he apologised. “I knocked twice, but hearing +no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon was unoccupied. +Important business must be my excuse. I have to request that Monsieur Dundas +will first place in my hands the gift he has brought from London to +Mademoiselle de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie,” I prevaricated boldly; but +the man’s knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris police had contrived +to learn it already, as well as to find out that I was the bearer of something +for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough to play the game in their own +way—whatever that might be. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent—to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned,” amended the Commissary of +Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered—or hoping that I looked bewildered. All the +while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for Maxine, or if she +would still find some way of saving herself. But all I could do for her at the +moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies as necessary. I hadn’t been able +to lie to Diana; but I had no compunctions about doing it now, if it were to +help Maxine. The worst was, that I was far from sure it would help her. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police from +doing their duty,” said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory for the first +time. “Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be compelled to order that +Monsieur be searched.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to forget that you’re dealing with a British subject,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country,” he capped my words. +“You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas,” suggested Maxine, lightly, yet +contemptuously, “and show them that you’ve nothing in which the police can have +any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, will be to search me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, unless +satisfaction is given to me,” returned the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these men had +ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me that her beauty +must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. For Maxine is a +gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most striking, more +wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes laughed out of her white +face, and her red lips smiled as if neither they, nor the great eyes, had any +secret to hide. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/072.jpg"> +<img src="images/072.jpg" width="392" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms. +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which was of +the fashion which, I think, women call “Princess.” It fitted her as smoothly as +the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?” she asked. +“I haven’t a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could have, in a gown +like this. I don’t know in the least what sort of ‘gift’ my old friend is +supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I’ll take off my gloves and +let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le Commisaire, for I’ve been +taught, as a servant of the public, to be civil to my fellow servants, even if +they should be unreasonable. No? You don’t want to see my rings? Let me oblige +you by taking off my hat, then. I might have put the thing—whatever it is— in +my hair.” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half scornful, half +good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood smiling, with her black hat +and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of her dark red hair shadowing her +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my pockets: a +letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my watch, and a +handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small bit of crumpled paper +of which I had no recollection: but as one of the gendarmes politely picked it +up from the floor, where it had fallen, and handed it to me without examining +it, mechanically I slipped it back into the pocket, and thought no more of it +at the time. There were too many other things to think of, and I was wondering +what on earth Maxine could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more +than two seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, are you satisfied?” she asked, “Now that we have both shown you we have +nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police station, and +have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? I’ll go with you, if +you wish. I won’t even he indiscreet enough to ask questions, since you seem +inclined to do what we’ve no need to do—keep your own secrets. All I stipulate +is, that if you care to take such measures you’ll take them at once, for as you +may possibly be aware, this is the first night of my new play, and I should be +sorry to be late.” +</p> + +<p> +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he would +read her soul. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am convinced that neither you nor Monsieur are +concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble you further until we +have searched the room.” +</p> + +<p> +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be when she +lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I saw that the +pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could control her muscles; +but she could not control the beating of the blood in her brain. I felt that +she was conscious of this betrayal, under the gaze of the policeman, and she +laughed to distract his attention. My heart ached for her. I thought of a +meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful +Maxine! In spite of her pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which +her experience of the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; +and though I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH5"></a>CHAPTER V<br/> +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE</h2> + +<p> +“How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur,” she asked, +“before you—rather rudely, I must say—broke in upon my conversation with my +friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had been here exactly three minutes,” replied the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +“As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each other, after +having been parted for many months; and still, in the three minutes, you +believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, and to find some safe +corner—all the while in semi-darkness—for the hiding of a thing important to +the police—a bomb, perhaps? You must think us very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment,” she answered, allowing anger +to warm her voice at last; “but this is almost beyond a joke. A woman comes to +the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed that they prefer her call not +to be talked about. For that reason, and for the woman’s sake, the friend +chooses to take a name that isn’t his—as he has a right to do. Yet, just +because that woman happens unfortunately to be well-known—her face and name +being public property—she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, +no doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. Ah, +it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to such +stupidity, such meanness.” +</p> + +<p> +“When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me,” said the Commissary; “until then, +I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you.” Then, turning to his two +gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning with all possible +places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might be hidden, within ten +metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur had stood talking together +when the police opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the three +policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of the room, she +walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon it. Weariness, +disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I guessed that she felt +herself actually in need of the physical support. +</p> + +<p> +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving themselves +entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their superior officer did +not once take his eyes from the pure profile she turned scornfully towards him. +I knew why he watched her thus, and thought of a foolish, child’s game I used +to play twenty years ago, at little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of +“Hide-the-Handkerchief.” While one searched for the treasure, those who knew +where it was stood by, saying: “Now you are warm. Now you are hot—boiling hot. +Now you are cool again. Now you are ice cold.” It was as if we were five +players at this game, and Maxine de Renzie’s white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: “Now you are warm. Now you are hot. Now +you are ice cold.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as my hat +and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes picked up these +things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the table; peeped behind +the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and drawers of a bric-â-brac +cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the corners of the rugs on the bare, +polished floor; and finally, bowing apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, +took out the logs from the fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and +pried into the vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window +curtains, and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at a loss. +</p> + +<p> +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine’s suffering. I felt as if +my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until it was +uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were peering under +the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round Maxine’s eyes made +her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the white electric light, which +did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty of revelation. She was smiling +contemptuously still—always the same smile—but her forehead appeared to have +been sprinkled with diamond dust. +</p> + +<p> +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it too. +But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. The keen-eyed +Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled subordinates, but +crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it fixedly. Then, grasping the +back with his capable-looking hand, instead of beginning at once a quest which +his gendarmes had abandoned, he searched the face of the tortured woman. +</p> + +<p> +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she had +suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The only +movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in another moment, +if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock no longer, and she would +die. For a second I wildly counted the chances of overpowering all three men, +stunning them into unconsciousness, and giving Maxine time to escape with the +letter-case. But I knew the attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, +the noise would arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush +in to the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. +</p> + +<p> +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating of her +bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, pushing his +hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he moved it along the +crevice inch by inch. +</p> + +<p> +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. I think +Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found something. The other +hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked together, groping and prying for a +few seconds: evidently the something hidden had been forced deeply and firmly +down. Then, up it came—a dark red leather case, which was neither a letter-case +nor a jewel-case, but might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating +in the intense relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London +to bring Maxine. +</p> + +<p> +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for suspense and +anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. +</p> + +<p> +“Voila!” grunted the Commissary of Police. “I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you had +spared us this trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“You alone are to blame for the trouble,” answered Maxine. “I never saw that +thing before in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, so far, +she was saved—as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a woman at bay, +fighting to the last, but without hope. “Nor did I ever see it before.” I +echoed her words. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for gratitude. I +was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, as I thought that she +must know. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. “I suppose +you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room tucked some valued +possession down into a safe hiding place—and then forgot all about it. That is +likely, is it not? You shall have the pleasure, Mademoiselle—and you, +Monsieur—of seeing with me what that careless person left behind him.” +</p> + +<p> +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, with +his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with calmness, and was +amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer scornful, tragically +indifferent in her manner, but imploring—a weak, agonized woman. +</p> + +<p> +“For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur,” she sobbed. “You don’t understand. I +confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held myself high, in my own +eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I—an actress—never took a lover. But +now I am like the others. This is my lover. There’s the price I put on my love. +Now, Monsieur, I ask you on my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case +sacred.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with a whip. +My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this became known, +this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then indeed all hope for +me with the girl I loved would be over. My second thought was for Maxine +herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she had chosen the way, I could only +be silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, from such +a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of that case,” said +the Commissary of Police. +</p> + +<p> +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. “No—no!” she implored. “If I were +rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I’ve been extravagant—I haven’t +saved, but all I have in the world is yours if—.” +</p> + +<p> +“There can be no such ‘if,’ Mademoiselle,” the man broke in. And wrenching his +hand free, he opened the case before she could again prevent him. +</p> + +<p> +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the floor, where +it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of rainbow colours. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Sacré bleu!”</i> muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever he +had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. Shorn of +hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case was torn open, +she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, tall figure crumpling +like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have fallen if I had not caught +her, holding her up against my shoulder. When the cataract of diamonds sprang +out of the case, however, I felt her limp body straighten itself. I felt her +pulses leap. I felt her begin to <i>live</i>. She had drunk a draught of hope +and life, and, fortified by it, was gathering all her scattered forces together +for a new fight, if fight she must again. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was empty. +There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a scrap of +paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Where, then, is the document?” Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +“What document?” she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. Hearing +the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that lay against my +shoulder, who—knowing a little less than I did of the truth—would have dreamed +that in her soul she thanked God for a miracle? Even I would not have been +sure, had I not felt the life stealing back into her half-dead body. +</p> + +<p> +“The contents of the case are not what I came here to find,” admitted the +Enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer horribly,” +said Maxine. “You have been very cruel to a woman who has done nothing to +deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have taken in my diamonds is +gone now. I shall never have a peaceful moment—never be able to wear them +joyfully. I shall have the thought in my mind that people who look at me will +be saying: ‘Every woman has her price. There is the price of Maxine de +Renzie.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle,” the man protested. “We shall +never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of what we have +heard and seen in this room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you search further?” asked Maxine. “Since you seemed to expect something +else—” +</p> + +<p> +“You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, Mademoiselle,” +said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. “Besides, this case was +what you did not wish us to find. You are a great actress, but you could not +control the dew which sprang out on your forehead, or the beating of your heart +when I touched the sofa, so I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has +been an error, and I can only apologise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t blame you, but those who sent you,” said Maxine, letting me lead her +to a chair, into which she sank, limply. “I am thankful you do not tell me +these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure but it would end in +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will adorn the +jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my companions. We have +but done our duty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me,” exclaimed +Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. “It is said that ‘Hell hath no fury like a +woman scorned.’ But what of a man who has been scorned—by a woman? He knew I +wanted all my strength for to-night—the night of the new play—and he will be +hoping that this has broken me. But I will not be broken. If you would atone, +Messieurs, for your part in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening +and encourage me by your applause.” +</p> + +<p> +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, murmured +compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, gave me the +sensation that I was in a dream. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH6"></a>CHAPTER VI<br/> +IVOR HEARS THE STORY</h2> + +<p> +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at Maxine, but +she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, trembling still; and +walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look out. Nobody was there. +</p> + +<p> +“They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on the +light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the electricity switched +on. They might change their minds, or be more subtle than they wished to seem. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the cushion +where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the glittering mass +against her lips and cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God, thank God—and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!” she said brokenly, +in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, even if pressed +against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop into her lap, she flung +back her head and laughed and cried together. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Ivor, Ivor!” she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. “The agony of it—the agony—and the joy now! You’re wonderful. Good, +precious Ivor—dear friend—saint.” +</p> + +<p> +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands with +which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven knows I don’t deserve one of those epithets,” I said, “I’ll just stick +to friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not deserve them?” she repeated. “Not deserve them, when you’ve saved me—I +don’t yet understand how—from a horror worse than death—oh, but a thousand +times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had found it, I +shouldn’t have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me—how did you work such a +miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant so much to me (and to one I +love), and how did you hide the—other thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know anything about this necklace,” I answered, stupidly, “I didn’t +bring it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You—<i>didn’t bring it</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. At least, that red leather thing isn’t the case I carried. When the fellow +pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn’t what I’d had, so I thanked our +lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all hope wasn’t over, if +I’d dared to catch your eye or make a signal.” +</p> + +<p> +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her eyes were +fever-bright. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor, you can’t know what you are talking about,” she said, in a changed +voice. “That red leather case is what you took out of your breast pocket and +handed to me when I first came into the room. At the sound of the knock, I +pushed it down as far as I could between the seat and back of the sofa, and +then ran off to a distance before the door opened. You <i>did</i> bring the +necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was the cause of all my trouble in the +beginning, I needn’t tell you of the joy I had in seeing it, apart from the +heavenly relief of being spared discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when +you’ve given me the other packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“I gave you the only thing I brought,” I said. “It was in my breast pocket, +inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There was no other +thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This red case is +something else—we can try to account for it later. It all came through the +lights not working. If it hadn’t been dusk you would have seen that I gave you +a dark green leather letter-case—quite different from this, though of about the +same length—rather less thick, and—v +</p> + +<p> +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back of the +sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be nothing or the +Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a cry she cut me short at +last throwing up her hands in despair. She was deathly pale again, and all the +light had gone out of her eyes leaving them dull as if she had been sick with +some long illness. +</p> + +<p> +“What will become of me?” she stammered. “The treaty lost! My God—what shall I +do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know—you are killing me?” +</p> + +<p> +The word “treaty” was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign Secretary +had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be wholly in his +secrets—and Maxine’s. Yet hearing the word brought no great surprise. I knew +that I had been cat’s-paw in some game of high stakes. But it was of Maxine I +thought now, and the importance of the loss to her, not the national disaster +which it might well be also. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” I said, “don’t despair yet. There’s some mistake. Perhaps we shall be +able to see light when we’ve thrashed this out and talked it over. I know I had +a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I thought of it and guarded it +every moment. Could those diamonds have been inside it? Could the Foreign +Secretary had given me the necklace, <i>instead</i> of what you expected?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she answered with desperate impatience. “He knew that the only thing +which could save me was the document I’d sent him. I wired that I must have it +back again immediately, for my own sake—for his—for the sake of England. Ivor! +Think again. Do you want me to go mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will think,” I said, trying to speak reassuringly. “Give me a moment—a quiet +moment—” +</p> + +<p> +“A quiet moment,” she repeated, bitterly, “when for me each second is an hour! +It’s late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be at the +theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first act are a +heavy business. I don’t want all Paris to know that Maxine de Renzie has been +ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we can, for others’ sakes, +and so gain time for our own, if all is not lost—if you believe still that +there’s any hope. Oh, save me, Ivor—somehow. My whole life is in this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work,” I +suggested. “You cannot go to the theatre in this state.” +</p> + +<p> +“For an actress there’s no such word as ‘cannot,’” she said bitterly. “I could +play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next instant; yet +no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no understudy. What use to +have one? What audience would stop in the theatre after an announcement that +their Maxine’s understudy would take her place? Every man and woman would walk +out and get his money back. No; for the sake of the man I love better than my +life, or twenty lives—the man I’ve either saved or ruined—I’ll play tonight, if +I go mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don’t ‘think quietly,’ Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each other, so. +Let us go over together everything that happened to you from the minute you +took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the minute I came into +this room.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except the part +that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. I told her how I +had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, and had waked to feel and +look for it once or twice an hour. How when morning came I had been late in +getting to the train: how I had struggled with the two men who tried to keep me +out of the reserved compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who +had a right to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. How he +had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion after the +false alarm on the boat’s gangway. How he had walked beside me and seemed on +the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I had avoided and lost +sight of him; but how I had many times covertly touched my pocket to be sure +that, through all, the letter-case was still safe there. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and at last +she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she gave to me. “Put +that into the same pocket,” she said, “and then pass your hand over your coat, +as you did often before. Now, does it feel exactly as if it were the green +letter-case with which you started out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I think it does,” I answered, doubtfully. “I’m afraid I shouldn’t know +the difference. This <i>may</i> be a little thicker than the other, but—I can’t +be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to unbutton my coat and look +at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It would have attracted too much +attention to risk that; and as a matter of fact, I was especially warned not to +do it. I could trust only to the touch. But even granting that, by a skill +almost clever enough for sleight of hand—a skill which only the smartest +pickpocket in Europe could possess—why should a thief who had stolen my +letter-case give me instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of +pounds? If he wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and +shape as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn’t suspect my loss, why didn’t he +slip in the red case <i>empty</i>, instead of containing the necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>This</i> necklace, too, of all things in the world!” murmured Maxine, lost +in the mystery. “It’s like a dream. Yet here—by some miracle—it is, in our +hands. And the treaty is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“The treaty is gone,” I repeated, miserably. +</p> + +<p> +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, yet it +almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the dreadful fact a +kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the sofa with a groan, her +face buried in her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“My God, what a punishment!” she stammered. “I’ve ruined the man I risked +everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act to-night, my +friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when to-morrow morning +comes, I shall be out of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that,” I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my failure. +“All hope isn’t over yet; it can’t be. I’ll think this out. There must be a +solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what <i>seems</i> to be gone. +If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I wouldn’t hesitate for an +instant, now: so you see, there’s nothing I won’t do to help you. Only, I wish +the path could be made a little plainer for me—unless for some reason it’s +necessary for you to keep me in the dark. The word ‘treaty’ I heard for the +first time from you. I didn’t know what I was bringing you, except that it was +a document of international importance, and that you’d been helping the British +Foreign Secretary—perhaps Great Britain as a Power—in some ticklish manoeuvre +of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, you might tell me +more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his message.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will tell you more!” Maxine exclaimed. “It will be better to do so. I +know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document you were +bringing me was a treaty—a quite new treaty between Japan, Russia and France: +not a copy, but the original. England had been warned that there was a secret +understanding between the three countries, unknown to her. There was no time to +make a copy. And I stole the real treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am +engaged—whom I adore, Ivor, as I didn’t know it was in me to adore any man. You +know his name, perhaps—that he’s Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in +Paris. Oh, I can read in your eyes what you’re thinking of me, now. You can’t +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for Raoul’s sake. +There’s that in my defence—only that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine’s +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“How could you?—except that I’ve betrayed him! But I’ll tell you +everything—I’ll go back a long way. Then you’ll pity me, even if you scorn me, +too. You’ll work for me—to save me, and him. For years I’ve helped the British +Government. Oh, I won’t spare myself. I’ve been a spy, sometimes against one +Power, sometimes against another. When there was anything to do against Russia, +I was always glad, because my dear father was a Pole, and you know how Poles +feel towards Russia. Russia ruined his life, and stripped it of everything +worth having, not only money, but—oh, well, that’s not in this story of mine! I +won’t trouble you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young +girl, I was already the enemy of all that’s Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I’ve been paying it, slowly. Don’t think that the money I’ve had +for my work—hateful work often—has been used for myself. It’s been for my +father’s country—poor, sad country—every shilling of English coin. As an +actress I’ve supported myself, and, as an actress, it has been easier for me to +do the other secret work than it would have been for a woman leading a more +sheltered life, mingling less with distinguished persons of different +countries, or unable to be eccentric without causing scandal. As for France, +she’s the friend of Russia, and I haven’t a drop of French blood in my veins, +so, at least, I’ve never been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made +some great <i>coups</i> in the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began +before I was sixteen, and now I’m twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to +thank me for giving her news of the most vital importance. You’re shocked to +hear what my inner life has been?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half conventional. +One hardly knows how conventional one’s opinions are until one stops to think,” +said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Once, I gloried in the work,” Maxine went on. “But that was before I fell in +love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that was to pass the +time. Both of us were flirting. I’d never met Raoul then, and I’ve never really +loved any man except him. It came at first sight, for me: and when he told me +that he cared, he said it had begun when he first saw me on the stage; so you +see it is as if we were meant for each other. From the moment I gave him my +promise, I promised myself that the old work should be given up for ever: +Raoul’s <i>fiancée</i>, Raoul’s wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. +Besides, as he’s a Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which +Maxine de Renzie never owed. I wanted—oh, how much I wanted—to be only what +Raoul believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal from him, +but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I’d break with the past, and +I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, who has always been a good +friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and hoped to begin my life all over again +in a different way, though he might be sure that I’d know how to keep his +secrets as well as my own. Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week +ago! I was happy then. I feel twenty years older now.” +</p> + +<p> +“A week ago. You’ve been engaged only a week?” I broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but he +wouldn’t have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn’t lost his head a +little. He hadn’t meant to speak, it seems, for he’s poor, and he thought he +had no right. But what’s a man worth who doesn’t lose his head when he loves a +woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to let anyone know until a few weeks +before we could marry, as I didn’t care to have my engagement gossipped about, +for months on end. There were reasons why—more than one: but the man of all +others whom I didn’t want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected +what had happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding—Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake while +Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces that there was +something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did suspect. Oh, a hateful +person! I’ve refused him three times. There are some men so vain that they can +never believe a woman really means to say ‘no’ to them. Count Godensky is one +of those, and he’s dangerous, too. I’m afraid of him, since I’ve cared for +Raoul, though I used to be afraid of no one, when I’d only myself to think of. +Raoul was going away that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who +was a dear and intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the +Duchesse de Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She +has no children of her own.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know her,” I said, “but I’ve seen her; a charming looking woman, about +forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband—a fellow who might be rather a Tartar +to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte Carlo one year, in the +Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, though the Duke +had the air of being dragged in against his will.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt he had been—or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, she’s a +dreadful gambler. It’s in her blood! I She lost, I don’t know how much, at +Monte Carlo on an ‘infallible system’ she had. She’s afraid of her husband, +though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she’s had for Bridge has +cost her so much that she daren’t tell the Duke, who hates her gambling. She +confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help her—not with money, for he has none, +but by taking a famous and wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, +selling the stones for her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was +all to be done very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn’t know, and +Raoul hated it, but he couldn’t refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he ‘lost his head,’ while we were bidding each other +good-bye before his journey. He didn’t mention the name of the Duchess, but +said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on business. But while he +was away a <i>dreadful</i> thing happened—the most ghastly misfortune—and as we +were engaged to be married, he felt obliged when he came back to let me know +the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the dreadful thing that happened?” I asked, as she paused, pressing +her hands against her temples. +</p> + +<p> +“The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one of the +most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul’s feelings? He came to me in +despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not appeal to the +police, or the Duchess’s secret would come out. And he couldn’t bear to tell +her of the loss, not only because it would be such a blow to her, as she was +depending on the money from the sale of the jewels, but because she knew that +he was in some difficulties, and <i>might</i> be tempted to believe that he’d +only pretended the diamonds were stolen—while really he’d sold them for his own +use.” +</p> + +<p> +“As she’s fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought no such +thing,” I tried to comfort Maxine. “But certainly, it was a rather bad fix.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of is to +hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me—well, there was nothing I +wouldn’t have done to help him—nothing. My life would have been a small thing +to give. I would have given my soul. And already a thought came flashing into +my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say nothing to the Duchess, who didn’t +even know yet that he’d come back from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was +about the commission from your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, +I’d just sent him word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that +I couldn’t do what he wanted. He’d offered me eight thousand pounds to +undertake the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed +if I tried. And with the few thousands I’d saved up, and selling such jewels as +I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for the necklace. +Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never know that the diamonds +had been stolen. All that night I lay awake thinking, thinking. Next day, at a +time when I knew Raoul would be working in his office, I went to see him there, +and cheered him up as well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to +have eighteen or twenty thousand pounds in my hands—all for him. To let him +have the money would make me happier than I’d ever been. At first he said he +wouldn’t take it from me—I knew he would say that! But, at last, after I’d +cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a loan, and +some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office there are several +great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay together, I made Raoul +tell me which was the most important of all—where the really sacred and +valuable things were kept. He laughed and pointed out the most interesting +one—the one, he said, which held all the deepest secrets of French foreign +diplomacy. I was sure then that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign +Secretary must be there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn’t have +been anywhere for long. ‘There are three keys to that safe,’ said Raoul. ‘One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this is the +third’; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I had seen +before. ‘Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,’ I pleaded with +him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my throat I wore a string of +imitation pearls, which I’d put on for a special purpose. But they were pretty, +and so well made that only an expert would know they weren’t real. Raoul isn’t +an expert; so at the moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open +the door, I gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls +roll everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about the +key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were worth at +least a thousand francs. +</p> + +<p> +“While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took an +impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my handkerchief, +and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on his hands and knees on +the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a moment, just to give me the peep +I had begged for, but not long enough for me to touch anything even if I’d +dared to try with him standing there. Enough, though, to show me that the +documents were neatly arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their +general character, colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was +being made; and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at +the office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me come to +him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him away. But I’d +made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, was a friend of +Raoul’s—the one who introduced us to each other, and I’d made up a message for +him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring his friend to speak to me. He +went, and I believed I might count on five minutes to myself. No more—but those +five minutes would have to be enough for success or failure. The instant the +door shut behind Raoul, I was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a +folded document, and opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right +one, for a mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted—the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France—the treaty +which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was a secret one, +arranged between the three countries without the knowledge of England and to +the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had gave me the impression +that the document was nothing of the kind, but quite innocent, affecting trade +only; yet that wasn’t my business. I had to send it to the Foreign Secretary, +who wanted to know its precise nature, and whether England was being deceived. +In place of the treaty I slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I’d brought +with me—just like the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business +would suspect the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back +before it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. But, +good Heavens, Maxine,” I couldn’t help breaking out, “it was an awful thing to +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know. But I had to have the money—for Raoul. And there was no other +way to get it. You remember, I’d refused, till the diamonds were lost, and +would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with the French Foreign +Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I had time enough. I had +even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately for me, the man I’d sent Raoul +to find was out. I looked at my watch, pretended to be surprised, and said I +must go at once. I couldn’t bear to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, +so that it might the more quickly be on its way back. I hadn’t come to visit +Raoul in my own carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking +me to it, Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it +had been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in such a +state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I fancied that he +imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red and pale. What a fool +I was—and how weak! But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t wait to go home. I wrote a +few lines in the cab, and sent off the packet, registered, in time I hoped, to +catch the post—but after all, it didn’t. Coming out from the post office, there +was Godensky again, in his motor-brougham. <i>That</i> could have been no +coincidence. A horrid certainty sprang to life in me that he’d followed my cab +from the Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn’t I have thought +of that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; yet +this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been up for +you before this,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t know, of course. Only—if he wants to be a woman’s lover and she +won’t have him, he’s her enemy and he’s the enemy of the man who <i>is</i> her +lover. He’s too clever and too careful of his own interests to speak out +prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do him harm if he +proved mistaken. He wouldn’t yet, I think, even warn those whom it might +concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul’s charge were out of order or +missing. But what he would do, what I think he has done, is this. Having some +idea, as he may have, that my relations with certain important persons in +England are rather friendly, and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go +almost straight to the post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the +name of my correspondent. He has influence—he could perhaps have found out: but +if he did, it wouldn’t have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings with +the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover—hence a delay +sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go straight to +him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and he would have +perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very unofficially and +confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of being a political spy in +the pay of England. He would have advised that my movements be watched for the +next few days: that English agents of the French police be warned to watch +also, on their side of the Channel. He would have argued to himself that if I’d +sent any document away, with Raoul’s connivance or without, I would be wanting +it back as soon as possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that +possibly a messenger would bring me something—if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes on me, +and on every movement of mine, I’m sure. See how efficient, though quiet, the +methods have been where you’re concerned. They—the police—knew the name of the +man I was to meet here at this hotel; and if, as Godensky must have hoped, any +document belonging to the French Government had been found on you or me, +everything would have played into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his +heart broken, and I—but there are no words to express what I would have +suffered, what I may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his +cleverness, as well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. +The only thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe then,” I asked, “that Godensky has had any hand in the +disappearance of the treaty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would believe it, if it weren’t for the necklace being put in its place. +Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul’s mission with the diamonds, +and got them into his own hands, he wouldn’t have let them get out again with +every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus saving him from his +trouble. He’d do nothing to help, but everything to hinder. There lies the +mystery—in the return of the necklace instead of the treaty. You have no +knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me with it in your pocket—the +necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days ago, in Amsterdam or on the way +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re certain it’s the same?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I’m not out of my mind yet—though +I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this horror.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to try,” I said. “Don’t give up hope. I wish, though, that you +hadn’t to act to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I. But there’s no way out of it. And I must go now to the theatre, or I +shall be late: my make-up’s a heavy one, and takes a long time. I can’t afford +to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, whatever comes afterwards. +Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the first act, he’ll be at the door +of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing him, of hearing him praise my acting, +and saying dear, trusting, loving words that would make me almost too happy, if +I hadn’t betrayed him, ruined his career for ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe not,” I said. “And anyhow, there’s the necklace. That’s something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will Godensky be in the audience, too?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he will. He couldn’t keep away. But he may be late. He won’t come +until he’s had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried to thrash +matters out.” +</p> + +<p> +“If only your theory’s right, then,—if he hasn’t dared yet to throw suspicion +on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its contents is as much +of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little time before us still: +we’re comparatively safe for a few hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re as safe,” answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, “as if we +were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid to fire it. +But“—she broke off bitterly, “why do I say ‘<i>we</i>’. To you all this can be +no more than a regret, a worry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that’s not just!” I reproached her. “I’m in this with you now, heart +and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I’d give my life, if +necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I’ve given something, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you given?” she caught me up quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier,” I answered; +then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I could, for she had +a heavy enough burden to bear already, without helping me bear mine. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think of it. You can do nothing; and I don’t grudge the sacrifice—or +anything,” I hurried on. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond this +tangle. But now, it must be <i>au revoir</i>. Save me, save Raoul, if you can, +Ivor. What you can do, I don’t know. I’m groping in darkness. Yet you’re my one +hope. For pity’s sake, come to my house when the play’s over, to tell me what +you’ve done, if you’ve been able to do anything. Be there at twelve.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and I’ll +go. I don’t want you to be seen with me outside this room.” +</p> + +<p> +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH7"></a>CHAPTER VII<br/> +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT</h2> + +<p> +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the bosom +of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening at the +throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the thing up from the +table where she had thrown it, and examined it carefully for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and as +Maxine’s voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all previous +knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had not been in it +when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would almost certainly have +described to Maxine the box or case which had been stolen from him, and if the +thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place had recalled his description, she +must have betrayed some emotion under the keen eyes of the Commissary of +Police. +</p> + +<p> +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might have +been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the ordinary sort. +Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a silver clasp on which +the hallmark was English. +</p> + +<p> +“English silver!” I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. Of the +trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the compartment for +himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to steal the treaty from +me, and exchange for it this red leather case containing a diamond necklace +worth twenty thousand pounds. If he possessed the skill and quick deftness of a +conjurer or a marvellously clever professional pickpocket, as well as the +incentive of a paid spy, he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment +of alarm on the boat’s gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me +in the Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. +</p> + +<p> +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why should +he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? Would the bribe +for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum he could obtain by +selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; and therefore, having the +diamonds, it would have been far more to his advantage to keep them than to +stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill up the space where the case with the +treaty had lain. There would not have been time yet for the real diamonds to +have been copied in Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a +theory that the stones given me might be false. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to watch +and be near me, why hadn’t he waited to see what I would do, where I would go, +instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and trusting to such +an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it with him? Even if the +three men had been in some obscure way playing into each others’ hands, I could +not see how their game had been arranged to catch me. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed yet since +I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the railway-station. Though I +could not understand any reason for his tricking me, still I told myself that +nobody else could have done it, and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du +Nord. There I might still be able to find some trace of the little man and of +my two other fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn +where they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by the +Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I was ready to +make use of it if necessary. +</p> + +<p> +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no importance, for +I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the railway-station and looked +about until I found a porter whose face I had seen when I got out of the train. +He had, in fact, appeared under the window of my compartment, offering himself +as a luggage carrier and had been close behind me when my late travelling +companion walked by my side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his +wits being sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only +my features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of <i>le petit Monsieur</i> he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied by two +other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the face of the +cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the station, for the +<i>voiture</i> had returned. Would he point out the <i>cocher</i> to me? He +would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. +</p> + +<p> +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +<i>cocher</i> of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine whom I was +to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had unfortunately missed. I +asked him to describe the men he had driven away from the station at that time, +and though he did it clumsily, betraying an irritating lack of observation when +it came to details, still such information as I could draw from him sounded +encouraging. He remembered perfectly well the place at which he had deposited +his three passengers, and I decided to take the risk of following them. +</p> + +<p> +When I say “risk,” I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase might +turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they had been driven +to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went there in a cab, and found +at last that I had made a mistake, I should have wasted a great deal of +valuable time on the wrong tack. If the driver had remembered the name of the +street, and the number of the house at which he had paused, I would have hired +a motor and flashed out to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested +bribe, he could say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one +of his passengers had called, “Turn down the next street, to the left.” He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he had been +bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the street; but, +though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, various landmarks +would guide him to the right place, when he came to pass them again. +</p> + +<p> +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I could do +no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, with a horse +already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks were not deceiving, as +I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet street of the suburb, we +stopped at last before a fair-sized house with lights in many windows. +Evidently it was a <i>pension</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English gentlemen +had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. Would Monsieur +give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until dinner should be over? +</p> + +<p> +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant’s hand, and suggest +that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without waiting. +</p> + +<p> +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, lest +they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at least they +could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to what should come +after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. +</p> + +<p> +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into the +dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long table with a +quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were dining, but, though +several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who resembled my travelling +companions. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good view. +In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of whom he had +spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had come only that day +from England, they were old patrons, well known in the house. +</p> + +<p> +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +<i>pension</i>, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily up +to enquire the stranger’s business in his dining-room. I explained that I had +hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to get permission for +my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the door. When he had identified +his three passengers, all hope was over. I had followed the wrong men. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question more +porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth having, it +seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a vehicle of some +sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I could learn nothing of +him or his movements, however, and dared not, because of Maxine and the British +Foreign Secretary, apply to the police for help, I determined to lose no more +time before consulting a private detective, a man whose actions I could +control, and to whom I need tell only as much of the truth as I chose, without +fear of having the rest dragged out of me. +</p> + +<p> +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good private +detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing my nerves. +Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was at home and able +to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat little sitting-room of +a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment house, and was impressed at +first glance by the clever face of the dark, thin Frenchman who politely bade +me welcome. It was cunning, as well as clever, no doubt: but then, I told +myself, it was the business of a person in Monsieur Girard’s profession to be +cunning. +</p> + +<p> +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at the +Élysée Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I had been +recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise if George +Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there were a good many +things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford seemed the man to fit +the situation. Later, he could easily disappear and leave no trace. +</p> + +<p> +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to me, but +as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account appear in the +case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of Monsieur Girard’s +well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed thief, whom I thereupon +described. I added the fact that we had travelled together, mentioned the +incident at the gangway, and explained that I had not suspected my loss until I +arrived at the Élysée Palace Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from behind a +screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside that screen. He +asked several intelligent questions, very much to the point, and I answered +them—as seemed best. When he touched on points which I considered too delicate +to be handled by a stranger, even a detective in my employ, I frankly replied +that they had nothing to do with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders +almost imperceptibly, yet expressively, he took my refusals without comment; +and merely bowed when I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within +twenty-four hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred +and fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second to +waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but whatever +happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. +</p> + +<p> +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), held +out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the whole, I was +pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew his business; and +had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign Secretary, and the risk +for Maxine, I would gladly have put more efficient weapons in Girard’s hands, +by telling him everything. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and details as I +could give, it was past ten o’clock. I could see my way to do nothing more for +the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed back in my hired automobile +to the Élysée Palace Hotel. There I had food served in my own sitting-room, +lest George Sandford should chance inconveniently upon some acquaintance of +Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted +now was to arrive at Maxine de Renzie’s house at twelve o’clock, and tell her +my news—or lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no +matter how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to supper, +or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no invitation, given +none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the theatre, probably without +waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she would go home unaccompanied, +except by her maid. +</p> + +<p> +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its own +garden, a great “find” in a good quarter of Paris; and her house could he +reached in ten minutes’ drive from my hotel. I would not go as far as the gate, +but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet street, as it would not he +wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle de Renzie was receiving a visit +from a young man at midnight. Fifteen minutes would give me plenty of time for +all this: therefore, at about a quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, +and in the entrance hall almost ran against the last person on earth I expected +to see—Diana Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. There +was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the world; and for a +wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see me, to take back all +her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me hack also. But it was only +for an instant—a very mad instant. +</p> + +<p> +Then I realised that she couldn’t have known I was to be at the Élysée Palace +Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of coming to me. As +common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the precious and beautiful face +other faces: Lady Mountstuart’s, Lord Mountstuart’s, Lisa Drummond’s, and Bob +West’s. +</p> + +<p> +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which appeared to +consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had just come into the +hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful face, which had been pale, +grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with amazement or anger, or both, I +couldn’t tell. Lisa smiled, looking more impish even than usual; but it was +plain that the others, Lord Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me +here. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness, is it you or your ghost?” exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the soft +accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the long years of +her married life in England. +</p> + +<p> +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di from +embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to Maxine’s. But, +unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for conventional +politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. +</p> + +<p> +I said “How do you do?” to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to see them +as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord Robert West, though +finding him here with Di, looking particularly pleased with himself, made me +want to knock him down. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are concerned,” +explained Lady Mountstuart. “Of course, Lord Robert ought to have been at the +Duchess’s bazaar this afternoon, but then he won’t show up at such things, even +to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to have represented me there. To-day +and to-morrow are the only days all three of us could possibly steal to get +away and look at a most wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before +it was ready. Lord Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other +human being does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the +most horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn’t fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she’s a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come with +us—and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to Boulogne, and had +such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the courage to dress and dine +at Madrid—wasn’t it plucky of us? But we’re collapsing now, and have come back +early, as we must inspect the car the first thing to-morrow morning and do a +heap of shopping afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re collapsing, I mustn’t keep you standing here a moment,” I said, +anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn’t looking at me. Half +turned from me, purposely I didn’t doubt, she had begun a conversation with Bob +West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him and her apparent +indifference to me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Collapsing’ is an exaggeration perhaps,” laughed Lady Mountstuart. “But, +instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room and have a +little talk—and whisky and soda.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do come, Dundas,” her husband added. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you both,” I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. “But—I know +you’re all tired, and—.” +</p> + +<p> +“And perhaps you have some nice engagement,” piped Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in naughty +Paris,” said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very handsome when she +laughs, and knows it). “Isn’t that true, Mr. Dundas?” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends upon the engagement,” I managed to reply calmly. But then, as Di +suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, the blood +sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young ass of a schoolboy. +“I’m afraid that I—er—the fact is, I <i>am</i> engaged. A matter of business. I +wish I could get out of it, but I can’t, and—er—I shall have to run off, or I +will be late. Good-bye,—good-bye.” Then I mumbled something about hoping to see +them again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I turned +away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to do with me, my +ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or something that felt like it, +where my heart ought to have been. +</p> + +<p> +Now was Lord Robert’s time to propose—now, when she believed me faithless and +unworthy—if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he would know it. +</p> + +<p> +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under porters +called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, but at some +distance from Maxine’s, lest ears should hear which ought not to hear: and it +was only when we were well away from the hotel that I amended my first +instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street leading into the one where I +was due, not the street itself. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Depêchez vous</i>” I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The man +obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine’s street at two or +three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly ten minutes past +when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came to the gate of the +house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour after midnight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>MAXINE DE RENZIE’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH8"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br/> +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF</h2> + +<p> +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don’t know. +</p> + +<p> +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning of the +first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single line that I had +to say. I couldn’t even see through the dazzling mist which floated before my +eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew he would be sitting +unless—something had happened. But presently I was conscious of one pair of +hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, Raoul was there. I felt his love +reaching out to me and warming my chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that +finds its way through shadows. I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. +I never had failed, and I would not now—above all, not now. +</p> + +<p> +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I couldn’t +have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to answer that first +cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to let me speak, each line +seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. Then I got out of myself and +into the part, as I always do, but had feared not to do to-night. The audience +was mine, to play with as I liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its +hands or shout “Brava-brava!” +</p> + +<p> +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, as a +lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. “What if they know +all I’ve done?” The question flashed across my brain. “What if a voice in the +auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie had betrayed France for +money, English money?” How these hands which applauded would tingle to seize me +by the throat and choke my life out. +</p> + +<p> +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on—till she breaks. I think that +she can’t be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women who haven’t had to +learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to me that they must suffer +less. +</p> + +<p> +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain calls. Five +times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look delighted with the ovation +I was having. Then, when the time came that I could escape, I met on the way to +my dressing-room men carrying big harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of +flowers which had been sent up to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly +glancing at them, for I knew that Raoul would be waiting. +</p> + +<p> +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me—my big, handsome lover, +looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in modern clothes +than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the Foreign Office. But then, +of course, he is really quite out of place in diplomacy. Since he can’t exist +on a marble pedestal or some Old Master’s canvas, he ought at least to be a +poet or an artist—and so he is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of +beautiful dreams, as beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might +be cold if it were not for the eyes, and lips. +</p> + +<p> +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I’d led +Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. Then—well, we +spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough to say. And we had five +minutes together, before I was obliged to send him away, and go to dress for +the second act. +</p> + +<p> +The touch of Raoul’s hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, gave me +strength to go through all that was yet to come. There’s something almost +magical in the touch—just a little, little touch—of the one we love best. For a +moment we can forget everything else, even if it were death itself waiting just +round the corner. I’ve flirted with more than one man, sometimes because I +liked him and it amused me,—as with Ivor Dundas,—sometimes because I had to win +him for politic reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met +Raoul du Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. +</p> + +<p> +I thought—for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping up and +hiding my secret—that when I was dead the best paradise would be to lean so on +Raoul’s shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three hundred years of +eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, back darted remembrance, +like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how little I deserved such a +paradise, and how my lover’s dear arms would put me away, in a kind of +unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had done, and how I had betrayed his +trust in me. +</p> + +<p> +For ten years I’d been a political spy—yes. But I owed a grudge to Russia, +which I’d promised my father to pay: and France is Russia’s ally. Besides, it +seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a man you adore, who adores +you in return. We women are true as truth itself to those we love. For them we +would sacrifice the greatest cause. Always I had known this, and I had thought +that I could prove myself truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had +betrayed my lover and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I +hardly had realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing on earth +could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so good, so pure. +</p> + +<p> +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to hold a +man’s respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his eyes? Such a +woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves in this world. My +punishment had begun, and it would always go on through my life with Raoul, I +knew, even if no great disaster came. Into the heart of my happiness would come +the thought of that hidden spot; how often, oh, how often, would I feel that +thought stir like a black bat! +</p> + +<p> +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I shuddered +and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe me, thinking it +was but my excitement in playing for the first time a heavy and exacting part. +He little guessed how heavy and exacting it really was! +</p> + +<p> +“Darling,” he said, “you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you—how proud I +am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I did. But I love +you a thousand times more than ever to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Since +his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had comforted him for +their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to help him out of his +trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his salvation. To-night his heart was +almost breaking with love for me, who so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for +him, which would make him long to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him +that the jewels were safe. He would love me still more passionately in his +happiness, which I had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love +as if it were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. +But how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not on its +way to blot us for ever out of life and love? +</p> + +<p> +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said to +myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this might be the +last time that his eyes—those eyes that are not cold—might look at me with love +in them, as now. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?” I asked. “Would you still be proud of me, still care for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d love you better, if there could be a ‘better,’” he answered, holding me +very close. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I’m a jealous brute. I can’t +bear you to belong to others—even to the public that appreciates you almost as +much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I’m proud that they adore you, +but I’d like to take you away from them and adore you all by myself. Why, if +the whole world turned against you, there’d be a kind of joy in that for me. +I’d be so glad of the chance to face it for you, to shield you from it always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, what <i>is</i> there would make you love me less?” I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink of a +precipice. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing on God’s earth—while you kept true to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I weren’t true—if I deceived you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I’d kill you—and myself after. But it makes me see red—a blazing +scarlet—even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it—when it’s +beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you wouldn’t make such +noble sacrifices to save me from ruin.” +</p> + +<p> +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I wished +that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. Why dwell on +horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness—perhaps the last I should +ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had for Raoul. I would have +told him then, but he went on, saying to me so many things sweet and blessed to +hear, that I could not bear to cut him short, lest never after this should he +speak words of love to me. Then—long before it ought, so it seemed—the clock in +mydressing-room struck, and I knew that I hadn’t another instant to spare. On +some first nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, more +than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by midnight or +before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know the worst—or best. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go. You must leave me, dear,” I said. “But I’ve some good news for you +when there’s time to explain, and a great surprise. I can’t give you a minute +until the last, for you know I’ve almost to open the third and fourth acts. But +when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come behind again. I shan’t take +any calls—after dying, it’s too inartistic, isn’t it? And I never do. I’ll see +you for just a few more minutes here, in this room, before I dress to go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a few minutes!” Raoul caught me up. “But afterwards? You promised me long +ago that I should have supper with you at your house—just you and I alone +together—on the first night of the new play.” +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had I +forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. There had +been so many miserable things to think of, that they had crowded the one +pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away from him involuntarily +with a start of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d forgotten!” exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for the instant,” I said, “because I’m hardly myself. I’m tired and +excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you rather not be bothered with me?” he asked wistfully, as I paused to +think what I should do. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I couldn’t +bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘bothered’!” I reproached him. “That’s a cruel word. The question +is—I’m worn out. I don’t think I shall be able to eat supper. My maid will want +to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old Marianne! She’s such a +tyrant, when she fancies it’s for my good. It, generally ends in my obeying +her—seldom in her obeying me. But we’ll see how I feel when the last act’s +over. We’ll talk of it when you come here—after my death.” I tried to laugh, as +I made that wretched jest, but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn’t +ring true. There was a shadow on Raoul’s face—that dear, sensitive face of his +which shows too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world—but +I had little time to comfort him. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be like coming to life again, to see you,” I said. “And now, good-bye! +no, not good-bye, but <i>au revoir</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where Marianne was +growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up things on the dressing +table, or fussing with some part of my dress for the next act. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a letter for you, Mademoiselle,” said she. “The stage-door keeper just +brought it round. But you haven’t time to read it now.” +</p> + +<p> +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and thought +it best to warn me without delay? +</p> + +<p> +“I must read the letter,” I insisted. “Give it to me at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old enough +to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but something in my +voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary promptness. Then came a +shock—and not of relief. I recognised on the envelope the handwriting of Count +Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort of will +that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid—afraid of a hundred +things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the treaty was in his +hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and try to drive some +dreadful bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to go to +the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as I might have +counted “one, two,” slowly, the paper looked black before my eyes, as if ink +were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the dark smudge cleared away, +and showed me—nothing, except that, if Alexis Godensky held a trump card, I was +not to have a sight of it until later, when he chose. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y</small> D<small>EAR</small> M<small>AXINE</small>,” [he began his +letter, though he had never been given the right to call me Maxine, and never +had dared so to call me before] “I must see you, and talk to you this evening, +alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more than mine, though +you know very well what it is to me to be with you. Perhaps you may be able to +guess that this is important. I am so sure that you <i>will</i> guess, and that +you will not only be willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were +before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage door when you +come out. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours, in whatever way you will,<br/> +“A<small>LEXIS</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have been to +tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. Then to throw +those pieces in his hateful face, and say, “That’s your answer.” +</p> + +<p> +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done what I +wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he need have no +fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to order him sent away +from the stage door. I would have to see him. But how could I manage it after +refusing—as I must refuse—to let Raoul go home with me? Raoul was coming to me +after my death scene on the stage. At the very least, he would expect to put me +into my carriage when I left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there +would be Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an <i>impasse</i>? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH9"></a>CHAPTER IX<br/> +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS</h2> + +<p> +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt dead. “I +can’t think now. I must trust to luck—trust to luck,” I said to myself, +desperately, as Marianne dressed me. “By and by I’ll think it all out.” +</p> + +<p> +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine de +Renzie, but Princess Hélène of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even more sure +and swift than miserable Maxine’s. When Princess Hélène had died in her lover’s +arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to die), and I was able to pick +up the tangled threads of my own life, where I’d laid them down, the questions +were still crying out for answer, and must somehow be decided at once. +</p> + +<p> +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way—Raoul, my best +beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must forego, and hurt +him instead. +</p> + +<p> +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him “come behind,” and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hélène had died, +the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to leave the +stage. +</p> + +<p> +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing them +tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face was pale and +sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden live flame among red +ashes. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Raoul?—why do you look like that?” I asked; while inside my head +another question sounded like a shriek. “What if some word had come to him in +the theatre—about the treaty?” +</p> + +<p> +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the tension, +when he answered: “It was only that terrible last scene, darling. I’ve seen you +die in other parts. But it never affected me like this. Perhaps it’s because +you didn’t belong to me in those days. Or is it that you were more realistic in +your acting to-night than ever before? Anyway, it was awful—so horribly real. +It was all I could do to sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. +Prince Cyril was a poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed +him in the third act, and then Hélène might have been happily married, instead +of dying.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you would have killed him,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I should. It’s a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I’m jealous. +But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not an insult.” +</p> + +<p> +“How you feel things!” I exclaimed. “Even a play on the stage—” +</p> + +<p> +“If the woman I love is the heroine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you ever be blasé, like the rest of the men I know?” I laughed, though I +could have sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Never, I think. It isn’t in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only love you the more,” I said, wondering every instant, in a kind of +horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. +</p> + +<p> +“I admit I wasn’t made for diplomacy,” he went on. “I wish, I had money enough +to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some beautiful, peaceful +world, where we need think of nothing but our love for each other, and the good +we might do others because of our love, and to keep our world beautiful. Would +you go with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, if I could!” I sighed. “If I could go with you to-morrow, away into that +beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile—” +</p> + +<p> +“Meanwhile, you don’t mean to send me away from you?” he pleaded, in a coaxing +way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like a boy. “You +don’t know what it is, after that scene of your death on the stage, where I +couldn’t get to you—where another man was your lover—to touch you again, alive +and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You <i>will</i> let me go home with +you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the house, and kiss you good-night +there, even if you’re so tired you must drive me out then?” +</p> + +<p> +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say “yes.” But +instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we mustn’t be seen +leaving the theatre together—yet, until everyone knew that we were engaged. As +for letting him come to me at home, if he dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn’t +ask it. I almost broke down as I said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me +that he immediately offered to leave me at once. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I’ve been looking forward to +for days,” he said, “and to let you go from me to-night of all nights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why to-night of all nights?”, I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. +</p> + +<p> +“Only because I love you more than ever, and—it’s a stupid feeling, of course, +I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play—yet I feel as if—But no, +I don’t want to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must say it,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in danger +of losing you. It’s just a feeling—a weight on my heart. Nothing more. Rather +womanish, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not womanish, but foolish,” I said. “Shake off the feeling, as one wakes up +from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all the sweeter.” As +I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying different words mockingly. +“If there be any meeting—to-morrow, or ever.” +</p> + +<p> +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: +</p> + +<p> +“Before we say good-bye, I’ve something to show you—something you’ll like very +much. Wait here till I get it from the next room.” +</p> + +<p> +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and there, a +dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with my success, +which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the least excited, +because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would have thought the sky +must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as placid as she was on other, +less important nights, far more placid than she would have been if she had +known that she was guarding not only my jewellery, but a famous diamond +necklace, worth at least five hundred thousand francs. +</p> + +<p> +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt perfectly safe +in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on earth—short of a bomb +explosion—could tempt the good creature out of my dressing-room in my absence, +and that even if a bomb did explode, she would try to be blown up with my jewel +box clutched in her hands. +</p> + +<p> +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my third +act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the box (which +always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my carriage) until +the electric light over the dressing table set the diamonds on fire. +</p> + +<p> +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The necklace +was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels depending from +it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp came, were as large as +my little finger nail, and the largest were almost the size of a filbert. All +were of perfect colour and fire, extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, +as well as flawless. Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made +it interesting even if it hadn’t been intrinsically of half its value. +</p> + +<p> +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the treaty had +disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and slipped them into +a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade which lay on the table. It +was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a friend had made and sent to me at +the theatre a few nights ago, and was intended to carry a purse and +handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. Now it seemed a convenient +receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly planned out my way of giving it to +Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his hands +and say, “See what I have for you!” But now I had changed my mind, because he +must be induced to go away as quickly as possible—quite, quite away from the +theatre, so that there would be no danger of his seeing Count Godensky at the +stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was jealous, because, as he said, his +jealousy was a compliment to me; and it is possible only for a cold man never +to be jealous of a woman in my profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. +But I did not want him to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly +jealous, if he thought that he had the least cause. +</p> + +<p> +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He would ask +me questions which I would rather not answer until I’d seen Ivor Dundas again, +and knew better what to say—whether truth or fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to +have the necklace to-night, because it would mean all the difference to him +between constant, gnawing anxiety, and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a +happy night, even though I was sending him away, even though I did not know +what to-morrow might bring, either for him or for me. +</p> + +<p> +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it to +Raoul in the next room. +</p> + +<p> +“This holds something precious,” I said, smiling at him, and making a mystery. +“You’ll value the something, I know—partly for itself, partly because I—because +I’ve been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When you see it, you’ll be +more resigned not to see me—just for tonight. But you’re to write me a letter, +please, and describe accurately every one of your sensations on opening the +bag. Also, you may say in your letter a few kind things about me, if you like. +And I want it to come to me when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, +dearest, and have the sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of +you every minute, asleep or awake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why mayn’t I look now?” asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and silver +from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a woman’s things. +</p> + +<p> +“Because—just <i>because</i>. But perhaps you’ll guess why, by and by,” I said. +Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag away in an +inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held nothing but a +handkerchief and a pair of gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. But I don’t think he heard, for he +had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in my heart—the +fear that it might be for the last time. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a href="images/148.jpg"> +<img src="images/148.jpg" width="419" height="600" alt="Illustration:" /></a> +<p class="caption">“This holds something precious,” I said. +</p> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH10"></a>CHAPTER X<br/> +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY</h2> + +<p> +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold and filmy +tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Hélène had died, and into the black +gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had come to the theatre. I +did not even stop to take off my make-up, for though the play was an unusually +short one, and all the actors and actresses had followed my example of prompt +readiness for all four acts, it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was +dressed. I had to see Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in +time to keep my appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain +every nerve not to be late. +</p> + +<p> +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to speak to +Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or two whether he +had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. But if I could avoid +it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long conversation until later. +</p> + +<p> +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky knew +me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening,” he said. “A hundred congratulations.” +</p> + +<p> +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and the +stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me closely), and +several stage-carpenters, with other employés of the theatre, were within +seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, though that was exactly what +might best please Count Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +“I got your note,” I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in French. +“What is it you want to see me about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something that can’t be told in a moment,” he said. “Something of great +importance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very tired,” I sighed. “Can’t it wait until to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +I tried to “draw” him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t ask that question, if you guessed what—I know,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +Was it a bluff, or did he know—not merely suspect—something? +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you,” I said quietly, though my lips were dry. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I mention the word—<i>document?</i>” he hinted. “Really, I’m sure you +won’t regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do that,” I answered. “And I can’t take you into my carriage here. But +I’ll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugène Beauharnais. Then you can +go with me until I think it best for you to get out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he agreed. “But send your maid home in a cab; I can not talk +before her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you can. She knows no language except French—and a little English. She +always drives home with me.” +</p> + +<p> +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have given +the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by herself. In that +case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, admires him as a “dream +of a young man,” and already suspected what I hadn’t yet told her—that we were +engaged. But with Count Godensky forced upon me as a companion, I would not for +any consideration have parted with Marianne. +</p> + +<p> +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my chauffeur +where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky appeared. He got in +and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but doubtless astonished, +facing us on the little front seat. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” I exclaimed. “Please begin quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t force me to be too abrupt,” he said. “I would spare you if I could. You +speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am here because I love +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, Monsieur!” I broke in. “You know I’ve told you that is useless.” +</p> + +<p> +“But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will be +changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a great +danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could save you +from it if you’d let me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Save me from what?” I asked temporising. “You’re very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I’m Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of myself as +your ‘intimate friend’ when I have done what I hope to do for you in—in the +matter of a certain document which has disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some women, +feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been better for me to +die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let myself faint and show +Godensky that he had struck home. +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again,” I said to myself. And my +voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: “Oh, the ‘document’ again. The +one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my curiosity. But I +don’t in the least know what you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“The loss of it is known,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it’s a lost document?” +</p> + +<p> +“As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don’t come to me for the help I’m only too +glad to give—on conditions. Let me tell you what they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, and how +it concerns me?” I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t <i>you</i> evading the point far more than I? The document—which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though it were +in—let us say your hands, or—du Laurier’s, if he were here—that document is far +too important even to name within hearing of other ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Marianne’s? But I told you she can’t understand a word of Russian.” +</p> + +<p> +“One can’t be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be—a spy.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of showing +that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; but he should +not. +</p> + +<p> +“They say one judges others by one’s self,” I laughed. “Count Godensky, if you +throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall begin to wonder +if it’s not <i>you</i> who are the spy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then,” he went on, “I’ll tell you +what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took out of the +Foreign Office the other day, when you called on your—friend, Monsieur le +Vicomte du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” I exclaimed. “You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem to +think I am a kleptomaniac. I can’t imagine what I should want with any dry old +document out of the Foreign Office, can you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can imagine,” said Godensky drily. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this is +rather a serious accusation.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I make any accusation, it’s less against you than du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a warning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or because you don’t dare make it to anyone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dare! I haven’t accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your name +with his.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” I said. “You are very considerate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t pretend to be considerate—except of myself. I’ve waited, and held my +hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing which would +mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I ever did; even more, +because, in common with most men, I value what I find hard to get. To-night I +ask you again to marry me. Give me a different answer from that you gave me +before, and I’ll be silent about what I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“What you know of the document you mentioned?” I asked, my heart drumming an +echo of its beating in my ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?” (Oh, I was +keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely cost me +more than I dared count!) +</p> + +<p> +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. Half a +second—no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me what I had been +playing with him to find out. +</p> + +<p> +“Discovered by me,” he explained. “That is, by me and one person over whom I +have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or—forget it, according +to my advice.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such person,” I said to myself. But I didn’t say it aloud. Quickly +I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as were in a +position to discover the disappearance of any document under Raoul du Laurier’s +charge. There were several who might have done so, some above Raoul in +authority, some below; but I was certain that not one of them was an intimate +friend of Count Godensky’s. If he had suspected anything the day he met me +coming out of the Foreign Office he might, of course, have hinted his +suspicions to one of those men (though all along I’d believed him too shrewd to +risk the consequences, the ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he +had spoken, it would be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their +own course, independent of my decisions and his actions. +</p> + +<p> +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was “bluffing.” He wanted me +to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in order to save the +man I loved. I was only a woman, he’d argued, no doubt—an emotional woman, +already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous excitement. Perhaps he had +expected to have easy work with me. And I don’t think that my silence after his +last words discouraged him. He imagined me writhing at the alternative of +giving up Raoul or seeing him ruined, and he believed that he knew me well +enough to be sure what I would do in the end. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he said at last, quite gently. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and saw his +face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count Godensky is not more +Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin man with a hook nose, keen +eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a sharply waxed, military moustache +trained to point upward slightly at the ends. But to my fancy he looked +absolutely devilish at that moment. Still, I was less afraid of him than I had +been since the day I stole the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said slowly, “I think it’s time that you left me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s your answer? You can’t mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other times that +you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had to say to-night, +and I have heard it; so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t press the electric +bell for my chauffeur to stop, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know that you’re pronouncing du Laurier’s doom, to say nothing of your +own?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I don’t know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I haven’t made myself clear enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. You haven’t made yourself clear enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what detail have I failed? Because—”. +</p> + +<p> +“In the detail of the document. I’ve told you I know nothing about it. You’ve +told me you know everything. Yet—” +</p> + +<p> +“So I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Prove that by saying what it is—to satisfy my curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve explained why I can’t do that—here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my mind. You +understood before you came into my carriage that I had no intention of letting +you go all the way home with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me—frightened me +horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel that I had +got the best of the game. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH11"></a>CHAPTER XI<br/> +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN</h2> + +<p> +“You are afraid that du Laurier may find out,” he said. “But he knows already.” +</p> + +<p> +“Knows what?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you.” +</p> + +<p> +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of his +almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without falling they +laid one feather too much. +</p> + +<p> +My voice broke. “You—devil!” I cried at him. “You dared to tell Raoul that?” +</p> + +<p> +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now our +tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. She is the +soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk of life; but she +loves me more than she loves any other creature on earth, and now she could see +and hear that the man had driven me to the brink of hysterics. She would have +liked to tear his face with her nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given +her the word, I believe she would have tried with all her strength—which is not +small—and a very good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her +restlessness meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme +loyalty. But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I’ve always understood that you made a +great point of never doing anything which you considered in the least risqué. +So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn’t know? You might +already have mentioned it to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t believe you!” I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope was that +I might be right. +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem to at first, so I at once understood that +you hadn’t spoken of our appointment. But it was too late to atone for my +carelessness, and I did the next best thing: justified my veracity. I suggested +that, if he didn’t take my word for it, he might stand where he could see us +speaking together at the stage door, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I am glad of that!” I cut in. “Then he saw that we didn’t drive away +together.” +</p> + +<p> +“You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought you’d +receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the precaution of +warning du Laurier that he needn’t expect to see that. You would suggest a +place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I would inform him if he +chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!” I broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you have, +after all, if you don’t understand that a man suddenly out of his head with +jealousy will do things of which he’d be incapable when he was sane.” +</p> + +<p> +The argument silenced me. I knew—I had known for a long time—that jealousy +could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded me that he was +a “jealous brute.” I remembered what answer he had made when I asked him what +he would do if I deceived him. He said that he would kill me, and kill himself +after. As he spoke, the blood had streamed up to his forehead, and streamed +back again, leaving him pale. A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes—the +dear eyes that are not cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, +Raoul would do things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his +hand sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. +</p> + +<p> +“As a proof of what I say,” Godensky went on, “du Laurier did wait, did hear +from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it wouldn’t be +the worst of form to bet, I’d bet that he found some way of getting there in +time to see that I had told the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“You coward!” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, a brave man. I’ve heard that du Laurier is a fine shot, and +that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So you see—” +</p> + +<p> +“You want to frighten me!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“You misjudge me in every way.” +</p> + +<p> +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the signal +for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed down, then +came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count Godensky submitted to my +will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a submissive mood, as I did not +need to be reminded by the tone of his voice when he said “au revoir.” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of speaking them, +as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But to me they meant a +threat, and as a threat they were intended. +</p> + +<p> +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my second +pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had little enough at +the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he arrived. It was two or +three minutes after midnight, or so my watch said, when we drew up before the +gate of my high-walled garden in the quiet Rue d’Hollande. +</p> + +<p> +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient for +keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had just heard +from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I’d given orders) would be let in so late +at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he had come to +reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand outside the locked gate +till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but he was not there. There was, +to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, for a wonder (usually the Rue +d’Hollande is as empty as a desert, after eleven o’clock), but a girl’s face +peered out at me from the window—an impish, curiously abnormal little face it +was—extinguishing the spark of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of +the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, and the +girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all interested in her, +and I hate being stared at as if I were something in a museum. +</p> + +<p> +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I’m at the theatre; but Marianne +has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old Henri sits up, +and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were inside, the chauffeur +spinning away to the garage. +</p> + +<p> +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and its +small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home after hours +of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful light shone out +from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place looked inexpressibly +dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated the house, though I had +chosen it after a long search for peacefulness and privacy. How gloomy, how +dead, was the street beyond the high wall, with all its windows closed like the +eyes of corpses. There was a moist, depressing smell of earth after +long-continued rains, in the garden. No wonder the place had been to let at a +bargain, for a long term! There had been a murder in it once, and it had stood +empty for twelve or thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten +tragedy. I had been the tenant for two years now—before I became a “star,” with +a theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt the +house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story only made the +place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I wished I had never +spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me bad luck. I felt as if the +murder must have happened on just such a still, brooding, damp night as this. +Maybe it was the anniversary, if I only knew. +</p> + +<p> +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, withered +like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where he had sat, +hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, bowing and blinking, +just as he had done often before, and would often again—if life were to go on +for me in the old way. He regretted not having heard Mademoiselle. Would +Mademoiselle take supper? +</p> + +<p> +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri might go +to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t want the house closed,” I said. “I shall sit up for awhile. It’s +hot—close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open.” +</p> + +<p> +“The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it is so +late.” +</p> + +<p> +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not want her +to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a very old friend; in +fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember in London. He was to call—if +he did call—only on a matter of business, which would take but a few minutes to +get through, and possibly he would not even come into the house. If the +gate-bell rang, I would answer it myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in +the garden. Then I would let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might +go to bed if she wished. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so,” said +she. “I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for you,” I +replied. “I shan’t be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it should +not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she would not care to +admit?” +</p> + +<p> +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no fear of that. No fear of any kind,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel box. +</p> + +<p> +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright and +charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the delightful +Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up here and there at +antique shops or at private sales. +</p> + +<p> +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up again, +moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, wondering what +could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his promise to be prompt on +the hour of twelve. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought only of +the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I heard the +gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or fourteen minutes, but +it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I rushed out, down the garden +path, to let my visitor in. +</p> + +<p> +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in a +hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not Ivor +Dundas, but someone else—Raoul, perhaps—or the man who had been in her mind: +Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +But it was Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“What news?” I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in my own +ears. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether you’ll call it news or not, though plenty of things have +happened. I’m awfully sorry to be late—” +</p> + +<p> +I wouldn’t let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and drew him +into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. Yet I forgot to +lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it ought to be fastened. +</p> + +<p> +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I had told +Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might have been +followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, watchers who +would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very different from old +Henri’s. “Come into the house,” I said, in a low voice, “before you begin to +tell anything.” Then, when we were inside, I could not even wait for him to go +on of his own accord and in his own way. +</p> + +<p> +“The treaty?” I asked. “Have you got hold of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunately, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve heard of it? Oh, <i>say</i> you’ve heard something!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I haven’t, it isn’t because I’ve sat down and waited for news to come. I +went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get on the track of +the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But I was sent off on the +wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse luck—I’ll tell you about it later, +if you care to hear details. Then, when that game was up, I did what I wish I’d +done at first, found out and consulted a private detective, said to be one of +the best in Paris—” +</p> + +<p> +“You told your story—<i>my</i> story—to a detective?” I gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“No. Certainly not. I said I’d lost something of value, given me by a lady +whose name I couldn’t bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, too, not +Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all that happened on +the way, and offered big pay if he could find them quickly—especially the +little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting them to-night, so don’t be +desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap seemed really to think he’d not +have much difficulty in tracking down our man; and even if he’s parted with the +treaty, we can find out what he’s done with it, no doubt. Girard says—” +</p> + +<p> +“Girard!” I caught Ivor up. “Is your detective’s name Anatole Girard, and does +he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know too much of him,” I answered bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he clever, after all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Far too clever. I’d rather you had gone to any other detective in Paris—or to +none.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s wrong with him?” Ivor began to be distressed. +</p> + +<p> +“Only that he’s a personal friend of my worst enemy—the man I spoke of to you +this evening—Count Godensky. I’ve heard so from Godensky himself, who mentioned +the acquaintance once when Girard had just succeeded in a case everybody was +talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!” exclaimed Ivor, horribly disappointed at +having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried so hard to do the right +one. “Yet how could I have dreamed of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t,” I admitted, hopelessly. “Nothing is your fault. All that’s +happened would have happened just the same, no matter what messenger the +Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It’s fate. And it’s my punishment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends,” Ivor tried to console me, “it +isn’t likely that the Count has talked to the detective about you and the +affair of the treaty.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn’t find out +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly, I should say, until there’d been time for him to fear failure. No, the +chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the matter I’ve put +into his hands; and if he’s a man of honour, he’s bound to do the best he can +for me, as his employer. Have you seen du Laurier?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that brute +Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I’d known that you +would be so late, I might have explained everything to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry,” said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him (but not +half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn’t forgotten that hint he +had let drop about a great sacrifice—a girl he loved, whom he had thrown over, +somehow, to come to me). “I made every effort to be in time. It seems a piece +with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that I was prevented. I hope, at +least, that du Laurier knows about the necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +“He does, by this,” I answered. “Yet I’m afraid he won’t be in a mood to take +much comfort from it—thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn’t a practical +bone in his body. He will think I’ve deceived him, and nothing else will +matter. I must—” But I broke off, and laid my hand on Ivor’s arm. “What’s +that?” I whispered. “Did you hear anything then?” +</p> + +<p> +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a step outside, on the gravel path,” said I, my heart beginning to knock +against my side. “I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come into the garden. +What if it should be Raoul—what if he has seen our shadows on the curtain?” +</p> + +<p> +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on account +of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows couldn’t have fallen +on the curtain. +</p> + +<p> +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was Raoul’s +knock. I was sure of that. +</p> + +<p> +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time appointed, I +should have hurried him away before this, so that I might write to Raoul; but +now I could not think what to do for the best—what to do, that things might not +be made far worse instead of better between Raoul and me. I had suffered so +much that my power of quick decision, on which I’d so often prided myself +vaingloriously, seemed gone. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Raoul,” I said. “What shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don’t act as if you were afraid. Say +that I came to see you on important business concerning a friend of yours in +England, and had to call after the theatre because I’m leaving Paris by the +first train in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“No use.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul’s already angry. He has the right to +be—or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. And I refused to +let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, I was so tired. He’s +knocking again. Hide yourself, and I’ll let him in. Oh, <i>why</i> do you stand +there, looking at me like that? Go into that room,” and I pointed, then pushed +him towards the door. “You can get through the window and out of the +garden—softly—while Raoul and I are talking.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you insist,” said Ivor. “But you’re wrong. The best thing—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go—go, I tell you. Don’t argue. I know best,” I cut him short, in a sharp +whisper, pushing him again. +</p> + +<p> +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, my +boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched it out, and +dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That done, I flew out of +the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and opened the front door. +There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very stern in the light of the hall +lamp. I had never seen him like that before. +</p> + +<p> +“I know why you’re here,” I began quickly, before he could speak. “Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I—hoped you would come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?” he asked, +with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No. For I hadn’t deceived you,” I answered. “I haven’t deceived you now. If +you loved me, you’d believe me, Raoul.” +</p> + +<p> +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me draw +him into the house. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can,” he said. “It’s +death to lose it. I came here wanting to die.” +</p> + +<p> +“After you’d killed me, as you said?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. I couldn’t keep away. I had to come. If you have any explanation, for +the love of Heaven, tell me what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know me, and you know Godensky—yet you need an explanation of anything +evil said of me by him?” In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; but he had been +half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a power had jealousy over +his better self. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t play with me!” he exclaimed. “I can’t bear it. You sent me away. Yet you +had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your carriage; and now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should have +packed her off by herself, alone, that I—might be alone with you. Oh, Raoul, it +isn’t <i>possible</i> you believe that I could lie to you for Godensky’s sake—a +man like that! If I’d cared for him, why shouldn’t I have accepted him instead +of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think; I’m not able to think. I can only feel,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Then—feel sure that I love you—no man but you—now and always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Maxine!” he stammered. “Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are wise,” I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I was +claiming from him as my right. “If you wouldn’t believe, without my insisting, +without my explaining and defending myself, I’d tell you nothing. But you +<i>do</i> believe, just because you love me—I see it in your face, and thank +God for it. So I’ll tell you this. Count Godensky hates me, because I couldn’t +and wouldn’t love him, and he hates you because he thinks I love you. He—” I +paused for a second. A wild thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in +my brain. If I could say something now which, when the blow fell—if it did +fall—might come back to Raoul’s mind and convince him instantly that it was +Godensky, not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky’s to revenge himself on a +woman who’d refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her lover’s ruin, by +throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, innocent! If I could suggest +that to Raoul now, while his ears were open, I might hold his love against the +world, no matter what happened afterward. +</p> + +<p> +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits’ end and +desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift upon his +shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he’d helped to set, +Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was sure, which had never +been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, was a spy, just as I was; +and far worse, because if he were one he betrayed his own country, while I +never had done that, never would. +</p> + +<p> +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that Raoul +could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. +</p> + +<p> +“He—Godensky—would do anything to part you and me,” I said. “There’s no plot +too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against me—and you. No lie +too base for him to tell you—or others—about me. He sent me a letter at the +theatre—soon after you’d left me the first time. In it, he said that I must +give him a few minutes after the play, unless I wanted some dreadful harm to +come to <i>you</i>—something concerning your career. That frightened me, though +I might have guessed it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn’t +be sure, so I saw him. I didn’t want you to know—I tell you that frankly, +Raoul. Because I’d told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn’t find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with me and +Marianne. I ran the risk, and—the very thing happened which I ought to have +known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was nothing; only vague +hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner circle, might save you, if +I—would be grateful enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“The scoundrel!” broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. “I’ll—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He meant to +send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from doing that. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Raoul,” I said, as if he had finished his sentence, “you musn’t fight. For +my sake, you mustn’t. Don’t you see, it’s just what he’d like best? It would be +a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of the scandal. Oh, you +<i>will</i> think of it, when you’re cooler. For you, I would not fear much, +for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a shot—far superior to Godensky, +and with right on your side. But I would fear for myself. Promise you won’t +bring this trouble upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise,” he answered. “Oh, my darling, what wouldn’t I promise you, to +atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I came to you +to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and what I might do. But +at last I couldn’t hold out against the something that seemed forcing me here +in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a reward for your promise,” I said, smiling at him through tears that would +come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I who needed his +forgiveness, not he mine. “Now are you happy again?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m happy,” he said. “Though on the way to this house I didn’t dream that +it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in this world. And even +at your gate—” He stopped suddenly, and his face changed. I waited an instant, +but seeing that he didn’t mean to go on, I could not resist questioning him. I +had to know what had happened at my gate. +</p> + +<p> +“Even at the gate—what?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. I’m sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust you now, +by not speaking of that.” +</p> + +<p> +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had been +going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it from his +lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it recurred to him in +the future, might make him doubt me, even though in this moment of exaltation +he did not doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, speak of it,” I said. “All the more because it is nothing. For it +<i>can</i> be nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by not +allowing you to explain this other thing,” insisted poor, loyal, repentant +Raoul. “Then—at the time—it made all the rest seem worse, a thousand times +worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see through rose-coloured +ones.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. You +must tell me what you’re thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—if you will know. But, remember, darling, I’m going to put it out of my +mind. I’ll ask you no questions, I’ll only—tell you the thing itself. As I +said, I didn’t come here directly after seeing Godensky get into your carriage. +I wandered about like a madman—and I thought of the Seine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—you must indeed have been mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was. But that something saved me—the something that drove me to find you. I +walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and nearer, as if +being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this street, on the side +opposite your house. I hadn’t made up my mind yet, that I would try to see you. +I didn’t know what I would do. I stood still, and tried to think. It was very +black, in the angle between two garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts +up, you know. Nobody who didn’t expect to find a man would have noticed me in +the darkness. I hadn’t been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, +walking very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly—not his face, but his figure, and he was young and well +dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an Englishman. He went +straight to your gate and rang. A moment later someone, I couldn’t see who, +opened the gate and let him in. Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the +idea of following—of pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the +gate. But I wasn’t quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, +Maxine, there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you—but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I only +wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a motor cab going +slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. There were two women in +it. I could see them by the light of the street lamp, though not as plainly as +I’d seen the man, and they appeared to be arguing very excitedly about +something. Whatever it was, it must have been in some way concerned with you, +or your affairs, because they were tremendously interested in the house. They +both looked out, and one pointed several times. Even if I’d intended to go in, +I wouldn’t have gone while they were there. But the very fact that they +<i>were</i> there roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I’d fallen +into. I wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I tried the +gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and—there were lights in these +windows. I knew you couldn’t have gone to bed yet, though you’d said you were +so tired. There was death in my heart then, for you and for me, Maxine, for—the +gate hadn’t opened again, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you thought!” I broke in, my heart beating so now that my voice +shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. “You said to yourself, ‘It was +Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall find them together.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Raoul admitted. “But I didn’t try the handle of the door, as I had of +the gate. I rang. I couldn’t bring myself to take you unawares.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you ring?” I +asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor had advised me to +tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in painting the picture for +me, he lived through the scene again, and, in spite of himself, suffered almost +as keenly as he had suffered in the experience. I saw how his suspicions of me +came crawling into his heart, though he strove to lash them back. I dared not +bring Ivor out from the other room, if he were still there. He was too +handsome, too young, too attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of +Count Godensky, whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor +Dundas, a stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at +my house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn’t taken Ivor’s advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have listened +to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the understanding we +had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I must be secret to the +end.) +</p> + +<p> +The very asking of such a bold question—“Do you think I let a man in, and hid +him?” helped my cause with Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, “I can’t think it. I won’t, and don’t think it. And you need +tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won’t distrust you again!” +</p> + +<p> +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor had by +this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint sound in the +next room. He was there still. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, saying, “Let +us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in,” I laughed out +abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover the sound if it should +come again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Raoul!” I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I surprised +him. “You’re taking this too seriously. A thousand times I thank you for +trusting me in spite of appearances, but—after all, <i>were</i> they so much +against me? You seem to think I am the only young woman in this house. +Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it’s true. But I have a <i>femme de +chambre</i> and a <i>cuisinière</i>, both under twenty-five, both pretty, and +both engaged to be married.” (This was true. Ah, what a comfort to speak the +truth to him!) “Doesn’t it occur to you that, at this very moment, a couple of +lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the seat under the old yew arbour? Can’t +you imagine how they started and tried to hold their breath lest you should +hear, as you opened the gate and came up the path?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me!” murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave them in peace, by all means.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Thérèse and Annette are +good little girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, and I +shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m better now,” I said. “Of course I must send you away by and by, but +not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren’t glad when you saw the +jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jewels?” echoed Raoul. “What jewels?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you haven’t yet opened the little bag I gave you at the +theatre?” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul looked half ashamed. “Dearest, don’t think me ungrateful,” he said, “but +before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told me—that lie. It +lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and haven’t thought of it +again till this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +At last I laughed with sincerity. “Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you’re not fit for this +work-a-day world! Well, I’m glad, after all, that I shall be with you, when you +see what that little insignificant bag which you’ve forgotten all this tune has +in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let’s open it together.” +</p> + +<p> +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I knew. +</p> + +<p> +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him put +the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his face +flushed. “Good heavens, Maxine,” he said, “I hope you weren’t in earnest when +you told me that bag held something very valuable to us both, for I’ve lost it. +You know, I’ve been almost mad. I had my handkerchief in that pocket. I must +have pulled it out, and—” +</p> + +<p> +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“Raoul,” I said, in a queer stifled voice, “the bag had in it the Duchess de +Montpellier’s diamonds.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IVOR DUNDAS’ PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH12"></a>CHAPTER XII<br/> +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK</h2> + +<p> +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding myself, +long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her boudoir, while within +hearing she did her best to convince her lover that no stranger had come on her +account to the house. +</p> + +<p> +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her little +place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in groping about +trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, I ran constant risks +of making my presence known by stumbling against the furniture or knocking down +some ornament. +</p> + +<p> +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would make, +and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet on glass, +although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of the house, and I +was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me stay. Only by a miracle +did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a chair or a tall vase of +flowers, on my way to a second door which was locked on the other side. At +last, however, I discovered a window, and congratulated myself that my trouble +and Maxine’s danger was nearly over. The room being on the ground floor, though +rather high above the level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let +myself down. But when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, +and felt smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was tightly +closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly and with +infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was going to stick. +Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it had swelled; in any case +I knew that when the two sashes consented to part they would make a loud +protest. +</p> + +<p> +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised her +voice—to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even than I +fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, and see if I +could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had missed. +</p> + +<p> +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which apparently +communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed too small for me to +climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. +</p> + +<p> +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du Laurier +should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after she had given +him the impression (if she had not said it in so many words) that there was no +stranger in the house. +</p> + +<p> +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I felt +like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should have imagined +myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed doors and windows. As it +was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead grew damp, as in the first moments +of a Turkish bath, and absent mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my +handkerchief. It was not to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the +detective’s, or in the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, +however, I chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn’t +account. It was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket onto the +floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. +</p> + +<p> +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second thought; but +to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as insignificant until it had +been thoroughly examined. I put the paper back, and as I did so I heard Maxine +give an exclamation, apparently of distress. I could not distinguish all she +said, but I thought that I caught the word “diamonds.” For a moment or two she +and du Laurier talked together so excitedly that I might have made another +attack on the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead silence, +except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than Maxine’s. Perhaps it +was her maid’s. +</p> + +<p> +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there was no +sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it should be too +late. +</p> + +<p> +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would certainly +have given away the secret of my presence if there had been ears to hear. But +all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I dropped down on to a flower +bed some few feet below. Then I skirted round to the front of the house, +walking stealthily on the soft grass, and would have made a noiseless dash for +the gate had I not seen a stream of light flowing out through the open front +door across the lawn. I checked myself just in time to draw back without being +seen by a woman and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine +and, no doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. Down to +the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing it behind them, +so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. +</p> + +<p> +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them was too +imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as they reappeared +in three or four minutes they could not have gone far enough to be out of sight +from the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s witchcraft in it,” Maxine said, as she and her lover passed within a +few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. +</p> + +<p> +Du Laurier’s answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. Evidently +they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of finding it +again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for Maxine that a +further misfortune should have befallen her at such a time. But the one and +only way in which I could help her at the moment was to get away as soon as +possible. +</p> + +<p> +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief when I +was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du Laurier should, by +any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought was to go immediately back +to my hotel, where Girard might by now have arrived with news. I was just ready +to hail a cab crawling by at a distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I’d +found and put back into my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by +the light of a street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the +small, crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. +</p> + +<p> +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both sides +with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The handwriting was +that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I could not make out the +words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a wax match from my match-box, +and protecting the flame in the hollow of my hand, began studying the strange +message. +</p> + +<p> +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. “On board the ‘Queen.’” I +had crossed the Channel in the “Queen,” and this beginning alone was enough to +make me hope that the bit of paper might do more than any detective to unravel +the mystery. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I’m taking big risks because I’ve got to,” I read on. “It’s my only chance. +And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You’re a gentleman, and you saved +my life and a lot more besides by getting into that railway-carriage when the +other chaps did. The minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped +there game. I’m a jewler’s assistant, carrying property worth thousands, for my +employers. From the first I knew ’twas bound to be a ticklish job. On this bote +I’m safe, for the villions who would have murdered and robbed me in the train +if it hadn’t been for you being there, won’t have a chance, but when I get to +Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed as I am, if I +hadn’t already thot of a plan to save them through you, an honest gentleman far +above temptashun. I know who you are, for I’ve seen your photo in the papers. +So, what I did was this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of +use in my carere, just as folks were on the boat’s gangway. Thro’ making that +disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing amatoor conjuring to amuse +my wife and famly, I was able to slip the case of my employer’s jewls into your +breast pocket without your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not +that I wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I’d left it +the double thickness would have surprised you and you would probably have +pulled out my case to see what it was. Then my fat would have bin in the fire, +with certin persons looking on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn’t +be fare. I’ve got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won’t open it +because it may have your sweetart’s letters in. You can get your property again +by bringing me my master’s, which is fare exchange. I can’t call on you, for I +don’t know where your going and daren’t hang round to see on account of the +danger I run, and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get to +him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I wrote out this +explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in your pocket which I shall try +when in the railway stashun at Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to +bring me the jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, +calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top floor, left of +passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“I am,<br/> +“Yours trustfully,<br/> +“J.M. Jeweler’s Messenger. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“P.S.—For heaven’s sake don’t fale, and ask the concerge for name of Gestre.” +</p> + +<p> +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating little +document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As it was, my +delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier to restrain +myself. +</p> + +<p> +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should have +rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her the good +news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she should curse instead +of bless me: and besides, as there was still a chance of disappointment, it +might be better in any case not to raise her hopes until there was no danger of +dashing them again. The best thing was to get the treaty back, without a second +of delay. As for the detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he +would have to wait longer, or even go away disgusted—nothing made much +difference now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the hour, she +was certain not to be asleep. +</p> + +<p> +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, and no +other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one presently. It +was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris no carriages of any +sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind that I should have to go +all the way on foot; but I knew the direction of the Avenue Morot, though I’d +never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and as it was not more than two miles +to walk, I could reach the house I wanted to find in half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since “J. M.” was sure to +be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which bothered me most was +the effect likely to be produced on the man when I could not hand him over the +diamonds in exchange for the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I didn’t believe that “J.M.” was a jeweller’s messenger, though +possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not told me the true +history of the diamonds, and what had happened in Holland. As it was, I had +very little doubt that the rat of a man I had chanced to protect in the railway +carriage was no other than the extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du +Laurier of the Duchess’s necklace. +</p> + +<p> +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it probable +that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had contrived to dodge, +evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope of cheating them out of +their share of the spoil. Followed by them, dreading their vengeance, I fancied +him flitting from one hiding-place to another, not daring to separate himself +from the jewels; at last determining to escape, disguised, from England, where +the scent had become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to +Dover, and travelling with a golfer’s kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening the +door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. +</p> + +<p> +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, “J.M.’s” travelling +companions hadn’t even accosted him. Still, the theory accounted for much that +had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a man should be desperate enough +to trust his treasure to a stranger (known only through “photos in the +newspapers”) rather than risk losing it to those he had betrayed. +</p> + +<p> +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from “J.M.” the case +containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive the diamonds +in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a plan of proceeding +before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon found my way into the Rue +de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which the queer name seemed not +inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an ugly big box of a building, with +rooms advertised to let, as I could see by the light of a street lamp across +the way, which gleamed bleakly on the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron +balconies. +</p> + +<p> +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of several +minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had opened for me. I +passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy voice behind a half open +window. The owner of the voice kept himself invisible and was no doubt in the +bunk which he called his bed. Only a stern sense of duty as concierge woke him +up enough to demand, mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired +to visit at this late hour? +</p> + +<p> +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur Gestre is away,” murmured the voice behind the little window. +</p> + +<p> +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the “pal” whom “J.M.” had been in such a +hurry to find. “Very well,” said I, “I’ll see his friend, the Englishman who +arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here already? +He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?” +</p> + +<p> +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The “monsieur” who had +called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone to bed in +his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as the difference +between voices, especially if they were those of foreigners. Perhaps if I +explained that I was not the person who had said he would come again, but +another, the man behind the window would consider me a complication, and refuse +to let me pass at such an hour without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was +what I least wanted—for Maxine’s sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to +seize upon the advantage that was offered me. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” I said shortly. “I know the way.” And so began to mount the +stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the fifth floor I +found that I had reached the top of the house. There were no more stairs to go +up. +</p> + +<p> +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light—a jet of gas turned low. +But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the light, either in +carelessness or for some special reason. +</p> + +<p> +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be sure +that I had reached the right one until I’d lighted a match. When I was sure, I +knocked, but no answer came. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t be out,” I said to myself, cheerfully. “He’s got tired of waiting and +dropped asleep, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on until I +was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how sound asleep, I +must have waked him. +</p> + +<p> +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, he would +soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he was +away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the handle, and to +my surprise it yielded. +</p> + +<p> +“That must be because the lock’s broken and only a bolt remains,” I thought. +“So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if he’d be back any +minute. He wouldn’t like giving the enemy a chance to find his lair and step +into it before him.” It was dark in the room, and I struck another wax match +just inside the threshold. But I had hardly time to get an impression of +bareness and meanness of furnishing before a draught of air from an open window +blew out the struggling flame and at the same instant banged the door shut +behind me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH13"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br/> +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK</h2> + +<p> +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere at the +far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light knocking of a +window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. +</p> + +<p> +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I might +be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or table. Then, +what good luck if I should discover the case containing the treaty and go off +with it before “J.M.” came back! It was not his, and he was a thief: therefore, +I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de Renzie much good by taking it, if +he had left it behind, not too well hidden when he went out. +</p> + +<p> +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the window, +though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted floor, groping +with hands held out before me as I moved. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something which +proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I pushed it out +of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four steps when I caught my +foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap round the fallen chair. I +disentangled myself from its coils, only to slip and almost lose my balance by +stepping into some spilled liquid which lay thick and greasy on the bare +boards. +</p> + +<p> +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s been a struggle here,” I thought. And if there had been a +struggle—what of the treaty? +</p> + +<p> +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my way +along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and slippery; +and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing that was heavy +and soft to the touch of my foot. +</p> + +<p> +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles prickled +through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on that barrier +which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I knew what it would +prove to be. +</p> + +<p> +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though there was +no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers touched an arm, a +throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as I knew my boots must be. +And I knew, too, with what they were wet. +</p> + +<p> +I’m ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my impulse was +to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for reasons which +concerned others even more than myself, it would be unpleasant to be involved, +just at this time especially. I could go downstairs now, past the sleeping +concierge, and with luck no one need ever know that I had been in this dark +room of death. +</p> + +<p> +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search for +the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made sure it was +not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were matches in the room, +well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for them, and come back. It was a +grim task, but it had to be done. +</p> + +<p> +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of pipes +and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a broken cup +containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on the mantel an end of +a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I lighted it, and not until +the flame was burning brightly did I look round. +</p> + +<p> +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the secret of +the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, before the light of +my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the door as I opened it formed +a screen between me and the dead man on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged with +him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in pieces, the +spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair had been overturned, +and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that had held them were half +hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. +</p> + +<p> +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the condition +of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the floor: the drawers +of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and their contents strewn far +and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, and a few shabby coats and pairs +of trousers thrown about, with the pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A +chest of drawers had been ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of +sheets and blankets, the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The +room looked as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to +go near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. The +blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, like those +in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently by hands which +searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless determination. +</p> + +<p> +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I could +imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that he had +outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding the friend +who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had planned to defend +himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the door (both lock and bolt +were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to search his friend’s quarters +for food, and fearfully beginning a supper in the midst of which he had +probably been interrupted. Almost, I could feel the horror with which he must +have trembled when steps came along the corridor, when the door was tried and +finally broken in by force without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he +had rushed to the window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and +return desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any intention to +defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything right if only they would +give him time. +</p> + +<p> +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them of the +diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with the extreme +penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering candle-light the stricken +face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to leer slyly, as if in the +knowledge that they had been cheated in the end. +</p> + +<p> +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless there was a +chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the diamonds or some letters +relating to their disposal, might, if they found the treaty, have hastily flung +it aside, as a thing of no value. +</p> + +<p> +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, and the +lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which might fail +while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from its bed of grease +on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light touched my hand and shirt +cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned slightly sick at the sight. There was +blood on my brown boots, too, and the grey tweed clothes which I had not had +time to change since arriving in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains before +leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. +</p> + +<p> +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the floor, and +in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I cried “hurrah!” when, +half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing letter-case. It was lying +spread open, back uppermost, and there came an instant of despair when I +pounced on it only to find it empty. But there was the treaty on the floor +underneath; and lucky it was that the searchers had thrown it out, for there +were gouts of blood on the letter-case, while the treaty was clean and +unspotted. +</p> + +<p> +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything endured +and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the pocket from which +it had been stolen. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step outside +the door. +</p> + +<p> +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it was of +the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, my hands and +clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The treaty must not be +found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a dash for the window, and +once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I threw the candle-end into the +room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, +showed me a row of small flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I +wrapped the treaty in a towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two +of the flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to cover and +conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, fumbling at the +handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking of the hinges. Then +the light of a dark lantern flashed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>DIANA FORREST’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH14"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br/> +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE</h2> + +<p> +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it were a +kind of fine art. I don’t. It seems too bad to be true that I should be +unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a bad dream. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose I’ve been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been kind to +me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for them; and I have +taken things for granted—except, of course, with Lisa. But Lisa is +different—different from everyone else in the world. I have never expected +anything from her, as I have from others. All I’ve wanted was to make her as +happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could be, and to teach myself +never to mind anything that she might say or do. +</p> + +<p> +But Ivor—to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I didn’t know +it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off and left me +standing in the railway-station. I didn’t dream then of going to Paris. If +anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, “No, no, I will not.” And +yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I tried to make myself think that +it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down underneath I knew all the time it wasn’t +that, really. It was because I couldn’t bear to do the things I’m accustomed to +doing every day. I felt as if I should cry, or scream, or do something +ridiculous and awful unless there were a change of some sort—any change, but if +possible some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would be in +Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat and the train +that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could never be as we had been +before; that it was all over between us for ever and ever, and through his +fault. But, there at the bottom was the thought that I <i>might</i> have done +him an injustice, because he had begged me to trust him, and I wouldn’t. Just +suppose—something in myself kept on saying—that we should by mere chance meet +in Paris, and he should be able to prove that he hadn’t come for Maxine de +Renzie’s sake! It would be too glorious. I should begin to live again—for +already I’d found out that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn’t life at +all. +</p> + +<p> +He couldn’t think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, because I +would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I made up my mind to +be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had been, if Ivor happened to +run across us anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected way, but +instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more unhappy than +before—for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining through its blackness. +</p> + +<p> +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall of the +hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn’t give up his mysterious +engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and he <i>must</i> have +known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had put upon me. Instead +of being angry with him, I was <i>afraid</i> for him, I couldn’t have explained +why, unless it was the look on his face when he turned away from me. +</p> + +<p> +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a woman with +whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in my ear. Instead of +feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately angry with him, it was Ivor I +felt sorry for. +</p> + +<p> +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord Robert +West as if I’d forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor Dundas. I even +turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed to see the tragic look +in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It was just as if he were going +away from me to his death; and his face was like that of the man in Millais’ +picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted +because he wouldn’t let her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have +saved him. +</p> + +<p> +It is strange how one’s mood can change in a moment—but perhaps it is like that +only with women. A minute before I’d been trying to despise Ivor, and to argue, +just as if I’d been a match-making mamma, to myself that it would be a very +good thing if I could make up my mind to marry Lord Bob; that it would be +rather nice being a Duchess some day; and that besides, perhaps Ivor would be +sorry when he heard that I was engaged to somebody else. +</p> + +<p> +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been stuck +into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given anything to run +after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and would trust him in spite +of all. +</p> + +<p> +“You look as pale as if you were going to faint,” said Lisa, in her little +high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn’t speak loudly, always reaches to the +farthest corners of the biggest rooms. +</p> + +<p> +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone’s attention to me just then, +for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as they passed. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be the light,” I said, “for I don’t feel in the least faint.” That was +a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart +feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that +if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. “I’m a little tired, though,” I +went on. “None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, +though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don’t mind, +Aunt Lil, I’ll go straight to my room when we get upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others at the +door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric’s suite. +</p> + +<p> +“Shan’t I come with you?” asked Lisa, but I said “no.” It was something new for +her to offer to help me, for she isn’t very strong, and has always been the one +to be petted and watched over by me, though she’s a few years older than I am. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can’t get on even for a +single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had offered to +let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn’t been shut up in my room for +two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she could do anything. +But I thanked her, and sent her away. +</p> + +<p> +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking along +the Champs Élysées, brilliant still with electric lights, and full of carriages +and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and dinner-parties, or taking +them to restaurants for supper. +</p> + +<p> +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, though +last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved me, how I was +the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always would be. Here was I, +remembering in spite of myself every word he had said, hearing again the sound +of his voice and seeing the look in his eyes as he said it. There was he, going +to the woman for whose sake he had been willing to break with me. +</p> + +<p> +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed him he +might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, knowing, as he must +have known, exactly how he made me suffer. +</p> + +<p> +Still—why had he looked so miserable, if he didn’t care what I thought, and was +really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole thing began to +appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt it to be at first, +when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, and tingling all over with +the humiliation he seemed to have put upon me. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to know, to <i>know</i>, what he’s doing at this minute!” I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound of my +own voice. “To <i>know</i> whether I’m doing him the most awful injustice—or +not!” +</p> + +<p> +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa’s, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the key, +thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen—that Lisa might wish to +come, and not wait till I’d given her permission. She does that sort of thing +sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor calls her “Imp”), and if +she thinks people don’t want her that is the very time when she most wants +them. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Di, do let me in!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +For a second or two I didn’t answer. Never in my life had I liked poor Lisa +less than I’d liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though I’d told +myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was acting for my +good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of longing to slap her, as +I couldn’t help doing now. But always before, when she has irritated me until +I’ve nearly forgotten my promise to her father (my step-father) always to be +gentle with her in thought and deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that +I’ve tried to atone, even when there wasn’t really anything to atone for, +except in my mind. I was afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she +would go to bed angry with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart +attack and is ill next day. “Di, are you there?” she called again. +</p> + +<p> +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with a rush. +“I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +So did I, but I didn’t mean to let her know that. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going out,” she went on. “If I don’t, I shall have a fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out!” I repeated. “You can’t. It’s midnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t? There’s no such word for me as ‘can’t,’ when I want to do anything, and +you ought to know that,” said she. “It’s only being ill that ever stops me, and +I’m not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity were flowing all through me, +making my nerves jump, and I believe you feel exactly the same way. Your eyes +are as big as half-crowns, and as black as ink.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> a little nervous,” I confessed. And I couldn’t help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at the +same time. “Perhaps it’s in the air. Maybe there’s going to be a thunder-storm. +There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe it’s partly that, maybe not,” said she. “But there’s one thing I’m sure +of. <i>Something’s going to happen.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you feel that, too?” I broke out before I’d stopped to think. Then I wished +I hadn’t. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I <i>knew</i> you did!” she cried, looking as eerie and almost as haggard +as a witch. “Something <i>is</i> going to happen. Come. Go with me and be in +it, whatever it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said. “And you mustn’t go either.” But she was weird. She seemed to +lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren’s witchery, though +without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I’m not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in hand +through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans,” said Lisa. “I’m going to +have a closed carriage—a motor-brougham, one belonging to the hotel, so it’s +quite safe. It’s ordered already, and I shall first drive and drive until my +nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If you won’t drive with me I shall +drive alone. But there’ll be no harm in it, either way. I didn’t know you were +so conventional as to think there could be. Where’s your brave, independent +American spirit?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not conventional,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You’re afraid of things you +never used to be afraid of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not afraid of things, and I’m not a bit changed,” I said. “You only want +to ‘dare’ me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone,” she +begged. “Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but I +<i>can’t</i> stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would be an +adventure worth remembering.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I said, “I’ll go with you, not for the adventure, but rather than +have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and rather than you should +go alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good girl!” exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she had got +her way; though if I’d refused she would probably have cried. She is terrifying +when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear her frail little body to +pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes ends up by a fit of trembling as +if she were in an ague. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you really ordered a motor cab?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she. “I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big porter +at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and said I did +not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick friend who had +written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to tell no one except me +that she’d come to Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a waiter,” I +remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don’t like Lisa’s subterranean +ways. But this time she didn’t even try to defend herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s get ready at once,” she said. “I’m going to put on my long travelling +cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with a veil. I suppose +you’ll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the ‘service’ stairs. The +carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. “Lisa, are you +planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to ‘spring’ on me +when it’s too late for me to get out of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You <i>do</i> hurt my feelings! I +haven’t had an inspiration yet, so I can’t make a plan. But it will come; I +know it will. I shall <i>feel</i> where we ought to go, to be in the midst of +an adventure—oh, without being mixed up in it, so don’t look horrified! I told +you that something was going to happen, and that I wanted to be in it. Well, I +mean to be, when the inspiration comes.” +</p> + +<p> +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa’s veil, +and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there was nobody +in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew where to find the +‘service’ stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the side entrance of the +hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were both seated inside, Lisa +spoke in French to the driver, who waited for orders. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you might take us to the Rue d’Hollande. Drive fast, please. After +that, I’ll tell you where to go next.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your ‘inspiration’?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure yet. Why?” and her voice was rather sharp. +</p> + +<p> +“For no particular reason. I’m a little curious, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had been +playing with me, that all along she had had some special destination in her +mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to bring me to it. But what +use to ask more questions? She did not mean me to find out until she was ready +for me to know. +</p> + +<p> +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round corners +and through street after street which I had never seen before—quiet streets, +where there were no cabs, and no gay people coming home from theatres and +dinners. At last we turned into a particularly dull little street, and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this the Rue d’Hollande?” Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping quickly up +and putting her head out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mais oui, Mademoiselle</i>,” I heard the man answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could possibly +happen,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, and maybe you’ll find out you’re mistaken. If nothing does, and +we aren’t amused, we can go on somewhere else.” +</p> + +<p> +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun almost +noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in a high wall, +almost covered with creepers, and though the street was dimly lighted and we +had stopped at a little distance, I could see that the house behind the wall, +though not large, was very quaint and pretty, an unusual sort of house for +Paris, it seemed to me. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in neat, +dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, slim woman +sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who looked like a lady’s +maid. +</p> + +<p> +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our side of +the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who got down first. +It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I had heard a man say +once that only two women in the world had hair of that exact shade: Jane Hading +and Maxine de Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had brought +me here, though how she could have learned where to find the house, I didn’t +know. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lisa!” I reproached her. “How <i>could</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It really <i>was</i> an inspiration. I’m sure of that now,” she said quietly, +though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide excitement. “You +never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, yet you know who she is. +You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know by the hair,” I answered. “I might have foreseen this would be the kind +of thing you would think of—it’s like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it,” said Lisa. “It’s entirely +for your sake; and it’s quite true, it was an inspiration to come here. This +afternoon in the train I read an interview in ‘Femina’ with Maxine de Renzie, +about the new play she’s produced to-night. There was a picture of her, and a +description of her house in the Rue d’Hollande.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You’ve seen her back, and her maid’s +back, and the garden wall,” I said, more sharply than I often speak to Lisa. “I +shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. I know why you want to +wait here, but you shan’t—I won’t. I’m going away as quickly as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her +manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and +persuasiveness. +</p> + +<p> +“Di, dearest girl, <i>don’t</i> be cross with me; please don’t misunderstand,” +she implored. “I love you, you know, even if you sometimes think I don’t; I +want you to be happy—oh, wait a moment, and listen. I’ve been so miserable all +day, knowing you were miserable; and I’ve felt horribly guilty for fear, after +all, I’d said too much. Of course if you’d guessed where I meant to come, you +wouldn’t have stirred out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for +yourself. Unless Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could +hardly have arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he +<i>doesn’t</i> come, we shall know, too. Think how happy you’ll feel if he +<i>doesn’t!</i> I’ll apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose +you would not mind apologising to him, if necessary?” +</p> + +<p> +“He may be in the house now,” I said, more to myself than to Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“If he is, he’ll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. There, it’s +open now. The maid’s unlocked it. No, there’s nobody in the garden.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t stop here and watch for him, like a spy,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It’s for <i>his</i> sake I ask you to stay. And if you won’t, I must +stay alone. If you insist on going away, I’ll get out and stand in the street, +either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I’m sure he isn’t coming. But how +much better to wait and see for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I can’t go off and leave you standing here,” I answered. “And I can’t +leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets alone. I might +meet—” I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must nave guessed the name on +my lips. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together,” said +Lisa, “for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor Dundas and to +you. You couldn’t force me away, even if you wanted to use force.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which you know is out of the question,” I said, desperately. “But why has your +conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against Ivor? You seemed +to have no scruples whatever, last night and this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to be +justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn’t come to this +house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke about an +engagement, I shall believe that he doesn’t care a rap about Maxine de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating as if it +were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I could not think, +or argue with myself what was really right and wise to do. I could only give +myself up, and drift with circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“A man has just come round the far corner,” whispered Lisa. “Is it Ivor? I +can’t make out. He doesn’t look our way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven we’re too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather die +than have Ivor know we’re here,” I broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it is Ivor,” Lisa went on. “He’s hidden himself in the shadow, +as if he were watching. It’s <i>that</i> house he’s interested in. Who can he +be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie’s house?” I asked, in +spite of myself. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she regretted. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered hastily. “Why, indeed? It was just a +thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh—keep back, Di, don’t look +out for an instant, till he’s passed. Ivor is coming now. He’s walking in a +great hurry. There! he can’t see you. He’s far enough away for you to peep, and +see for yourself. He’s at Maxine de Renzie’s gate.” +</p> + +<p> +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that tragic +look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told me there was +no other woman in his world but me. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t look,” I stammered, almost choking. +</p> + +<p> +“Someone, I can’t see who, is letting him in. The gate’s shut behind him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go now,” I begged. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, not yet!” cried Lisa. “I must know what happens next. We are in the +midst of it, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, and +nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we should go. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?” Lisa said. Then +she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly told our +chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but the man did not +move. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers,” directed Lisa, but +I would not allow that. +</p> + +<p> +“No, he shall not stop there!” I exclaimed. “Lisa, I forbid it. You’ve had your +way in everything so far. I won’t let you have it in this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, we’ll turn the corner into the next street, to please you,” said +Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. “Now stop,” she cried, when +we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and hearing of anyone in the +Rue d’Hollande. Then, in another instant, before I had any idea what she meant +to do, she was out of the cab, running like a child in the direction whence we +had come. I looked after her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could +not bear to risk meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was +peeping into the Rue d’Hollande, to find out what was happening there. +</p> + +<p> +“She will come back in a moment or two,” I said to myself wearily, and sat +waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered up under her +cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If she had not appeared +again almost at once, I should have had to tell the driver to follow, though I +hated the thought of going again into the street where Maxine de Renzie lived. +But she did come, and in her hand was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered +with gold or silver that sparkled even in the faint light. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up,” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“You might better have left it,” I said stiffly. “Perhaps Mademoiselle de +Renzie dropped it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t in front of her house.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may belong to that man who was watching, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t look much like a thing that a man would carry about with him, does +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I admitted, indifferently. “Now we will go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I don’t!” I cried. “I don’t want to know any more about him.” And for +the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Lisa, “perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both that I +haven’t anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think about him +after this, the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t think about him at all,” I said. But I knew that was a boast I should +never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could understand how +people must feel when they are very old and weary of life. I don’t believe that +I shall feel older and more tired if I live to be eighty than I felt then. It +was a slight comfort to know that we were on our way back to the hotel, and +that soon I should be in my room alone, with the door shut and locked between +Lisa and me; but it was only very slight. I couldn’t imagine ever being really +pleased about anything again. +</p> + +<p> +“You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose,” chirped Lisa, “and show Ivor +Dundas that he hasn’t spoiled your life.” +</p> + +<p> +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons that +tied the bag she had found. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I shall,” I answered. “I might do worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think you might!” exclaimed Lisa. “Oh, do accept him soon. I don’t +want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you’re broken-hearted for him. Lord Bob +is sure to propose to you to-morrow—even if he hasn’t already: and if he has, +he’ll do it again. I saw it in his eye all to-day. He was dying to speak at any +minute, if only he’d got a chance with you alone. You <i>will</i> say ‘yes’ +when he does, won’t you, and have the engagement announced at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see how I feel at the time, if it comes,” I answered, trying to speak +gaily, but making a failure of it. +</p> + +<p> +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She seemed +surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in her hand, and +touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell me what was there. +Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make me ask. But I didn’t care +enough to humour her. If the bag had been stuffed full of the most gorgeous +jewels in the world, at that moment I shouldn’t have been interested in the +least. I saw Lisa give a little sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were +watching; but when she found me looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the +bag again and stowed it away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling +cloak. +</p> + +<p> +I was afraid that, when we’d arrived at the hotel and gone up to our rooms Lisa +might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her out, as I felt I +must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and my affairs, now that +all doubt was settled. She didn’t even wish to talk over what had happened; but +when I bade her good-night, simply said, “good-night” in return, and let me +shut the door between the rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” I thought, “that the best thing I shall have to hope for after +this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my dreams.” But +though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and fall asleep, I +couldn’t. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a minute at a time; and +always I found myself staring at the window, hour after hour, hoping for the +light. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH15"></a>CHAPTER XV<br/> +DIANA HEARS NEWS</h2> + +<p> +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and deserved to +be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I felt so ashamed and +humiliated. +</p> + +<p> +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful when +dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold bath, +however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee afterwards did me +good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian’s maid, knocked at my door to +ask if I were up, and if she could help me do my hair. “Her Ladyship” sent me +her love, and hoped I had rested nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I +was looking well. +</p> + +<p> +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared at +myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had made so +little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, perhaps, but my +cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose while one is young one can +suffer a good deal and one’s face tell no secret. +</p> + +<p> +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car which +Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and Lisa and I had +planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a waste of time to be in +Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But when I tapped at Lisa’s door +(dreading, yet wishing, to have our first greeting over), it appeared that she +had a bad headache and did not want to go with us to see the Rajah’s +automobile. While I was with her Aunt Lil came in, looking very bright and +handsome. +</p> + +<p> +She was “so sorry” for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back after it +was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough by that time +for the shopping expedition. +</p> + +<p> +The automobile really was a “magnificent animal,” as Aunt Lil said, and it took +her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to tool-boxes, to make up +her mind that she could not be happy without it. It was sixty horsepower, and +of a world-renowned make; but that was a detail. <i>Any</i> car could be +powerful and well made; every car should be, or you would not pay for it; but +she had never seen one before with such heavenly little arrangements for +luggage and lunch; while as for the gold toilet things, in a pale grey suède +case, they were beyond words, and she must have them—the motor also, of course, +since it went with them. +</p> + +<p> +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the two men +went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary member. +</p> + +<p> +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah’s agent and +the car paid for. At two o’clock, when we were to meet the men at the Ritz for +luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything had been successfully +arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to motor to Calais in her new +automobile, instead of going by train. Lord Bob would drive, but he meant to +hire a chauffeur recommended by the Club, so that he would not have to stop +behind and see to getting the car across the Channel in a cargo boat. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over anything +new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too much occupied to +notice. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt Lil +didn’t notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she doesn’t like +her, and it is only when you really care for people that you observe changes in +them when you are busy thinking of your own affairs. +</p> + +<p> +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she would have +the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but she was dressed +and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she said, and though she +didn’t buy anything when she was with us, while we were at a milliner’s in the +Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, she disappeared on some errand of +her own, and only came back just as we were ready to leave the shop. Whatever +it was that she had been doing, it had interested her and waked her out of +herself, for her eyes looked brighter and she had spots of colour on her +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many things +in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord Bob at the +Ritz, by two o’clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We were not more than +ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: and the short time that +we’d kept them waiting wasn’t enough to account for the solemnity of the two +men’s faces as they came forward to meet us. +</p> + +<p> +“Something’s gone wrong about the car!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“No, the car’s all right,” said Lord Bob. “I’ve got you a chauffeur too, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet blankets, or +something disagreeable. It surely can’t be because you’re hungry that you’re +cross about a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen a newspaper to-day?” asked Uncle Eric. +</p> + +<p> +“A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we’ve had too many important things +to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here,” Uncle Eric answered, looking very much +worried—so much worried that I thought he must care even more about Ivor than I +had fancied. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s the most awful rot,” said Lord Bob, “but he’s accused of +murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones,” Uncle +Eric went on. “We’ve only just seen the news since we came here to wait for +you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As it is, of course +I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I can to help him +through. But that needn’t keep the rest of you from going on to-day as you +planned.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an awful thing!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. “I will stay too, if the girls don’t +mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel that he has friends on +the spot, standing by him. I’ve got thousands of engagements—we all have—but I +shall telegraph to everybody. What about you, Lord Bob?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart,” said he, his nice though not very +clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his blue, wide-apart +eyes watching me rather wistfully. “Dundas and I have never been intimate, but +he’s a fine chap, and I’ve always admired him. He’s sure to come out of this +all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn’t much thought to give him then; but dimly I felt that +his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of whom he spoke so +kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in past days. +</p> + +<p> +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I should +have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem to think it +strange that I had nothing to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you won’t try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?” Lord Robert went on to ask. +</p> + +<p> +“No, we must eat, and talk things over,” said Uncle Eric. +</p> + +<p> +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor accused of +murder! What had he done? What could have happened? +</p> + +<p> +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the lovely, +fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. +</p> + +<p> +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was almost as +if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, of which he didn’t +wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been that. +</p> + +<p> +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was conscious +that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow for me, asking +himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who had been his rival. +</p> + +<p> +“There was that engagement of Dundas’ last night, which he was just going to +keep when we saw him,” said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. “I’m afraid +there must have been something fishy about that—I mean, some trap must have +been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn’t supposed to be in Paris—though +I don’t see what that can have to do with the plot, if there is one. He was +stopping in the hotel under another name. No doubt he had some good reason, +though. There’s nothing sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he’s +one. Anyhow, apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn’t +find, for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas had made +an enemy of him, for he’s been giving evidence pretty freely to the police—lost +no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following up the scent, tracking +down the person he’d been hired by Dundas to hunt for, and had at last come to +the house where he was lodging, when there he found Dundas himself, ransacking +the room, covered with blood, and the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the +floor, his body hardly cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“What time was all that?” enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first question she +had asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Between midnight and one o’clock, I think the papers said,” answered Lord Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course it’s all nonsense,” exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. “French +people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The idea of their +daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They ought to know better. +They’ll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging England’s pardon for wrongful +treatment of a British subject, won’t they, Eric?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of the +authorities, or of eating humble-pie,” Uncle Eric said. “The evidence—entirely +circumstantial so far, luckily—is dead against Ivor. And as for his being a +British subject, there’s nothing in that. If an Englishman chooses to commit a +murder in France, he’s left to the French law to deal with, as if he were a +Frenchman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Ivor hasn’t committed murder!” cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not. But he’s got to prove that he hasn’t. And in that he’s worse +off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a man innocent +until he’s been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, presumes that he’s +guilty until he’s proved innocent. In face of the evidence against Ivor, the +authorities couldn’t have done otherwise than they have done.” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian’s husband. I do +hate that cold, stern “sense of justice” on which men pride themselves so much, +whether it’s an affair of a friend or an enemy! +</p> + +<p> +“Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an—an—don’t you call it an +alibi?” asked Lisa. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t try to,” replied Lord Bob. “He’s simply refused, up to the present, +to tell what he was doing between twelve o’clock and the time he was found, +except to say that he walked for a good while before going to the house where +Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies killing the man: says the +fellow had stolen something from him, on the boat crossing from Dover to Calais +yesterday, and that after applying to the detective, he got a note from the +thief, offering to give the thing back if he would call and name a reward. Says +he found the room already ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the +address given him; that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared +on the scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t he have shown the note sent by the thief?” asked Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he wouldn’t tell +what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except that it was valuable. +It does look as if he were determined to make the case as black as possible +against himself; but then, as I said before, no doubt he has good reasons.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has no good luck, anyhow!” sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather not—so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him is that +the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage swears that though +Dundas hadn’t been in the place much above half an hour when the detective +arrived, he was there then <i>for the second time</i>, that he admitted it when +he came. The first visit he made, according to the concierge, was about an hour +before the second: the concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not +asleep, when a man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur +Gestre. On hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre’s room. By and by the Englishman went out, +and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. After a while the +concierge was waked up once more by a caller for Gestre, who announced that +he’d been before; and now he vows that it was the same man both times, though +Dundas denies having called twice. If he could prove that he’d been in the +house no more than half an hour, it might be all right, for two doctors agree +that the murdered man had been dead more than an hour when they were called in. +But he can’t or won’t prove it—that’s his luck again!—and nobody can be found +who saw him in any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last +moment that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who’d taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not so very +far from the Élysée Palace. Then it was only between five and ten minutes past +twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +afterwards and killed his man at the time when the doctors say the fellow must +have died. It’s a bad scrape. But of course Dundas will get out of it somehow +or other, in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do <i>you</i> think he will, Eric?” asked Aunt Lil. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so with all my heart,” he answered. But his face showed that he was +deeply troubled, and my heart sank down—down. +</p> + +<p> +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my resentment +against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had happened to make me +feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he cared more for Maxine de +Renzie than for me—indeed, on the contrary, everything went to prove his +supreme loyalty to her whose name he had refused to speak, even for the sake of +clearing himself. Still, now that the world was against him, my soul rushed to +stand by his side, to defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. +</p> + +<p> +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and I +yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on earth, I +wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk went on while that +terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do it, if Lisa and I should +act together. +</p> + +<p> +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get back +to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit long at +lunch, so it wasn’t yet three when I called her into my room. The men had gone +to make different arrangements about starting, for we were not to leave Paris +until they had had time to do something for Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the +British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had said that she would be busy for at +least an hour, writing letters and telegrams to cancel engagements we had had +in London. For awhile Lisa and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I +spoke out abruptly what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. +</p> + +<p> +“I think the only thing for us to do,” I said, “is to tell what we know, and +save Ivor in spite of himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can anything you know save him?” she asked, with a queer, faint emphasis +which I didn’t understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see,” I cried, “that if we come forward and say we saw him in the +Rue d’Hollande at a quarter past twelve—going into a house there—he couldn’t +have murdered the man in that other house, far away. It all hangs on the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t see him go in,” Lisa contradicted me. +</p> + +<p> +I stared at her. “<i>You</i> did. Isn’t it the same thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not unless I choose to say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—but you will choose. You want to save him, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he’s innocent. Because he’s your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“No man is the friend of any woman, if he’s in love with another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter except +saving him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t consider,” she said, in a slow, aggravating way, “that Ivor Dundas has +behaved very well to—to our family. But I want you to understand this, Di. If +he is to be got out of this danger—no doubt it’s real danger—in any such way as +you propose, it’s for <i>me</i> to do it, not you. He’ll have to owe his +gratitude to me. And there’s something else I can do for him, perhaps—I, and +only I. A thing of value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious +to get back at any price—even the price of looking for it on a dead man’s body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was—I think I have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” I asked, astonished at her and at her manner—and her words. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to tell you what I mean. Only I’m sure of what I’m saying—at +least, that the thing <i>is</i> valuable, worth risking a great deal for. I +learned that from experts this morning, while you and your aunt were thinking +about hats.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange idea +sprang into my mind: +</p> + +<p> +“That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d’Hollande last night!” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to this—there had +been so many other things which seemed more important. +</p> + +<p> +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or not +connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and that she +had wanted to tantalise me. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I do, that +I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man mixed up in the +case—perhaps the real murderer. If I <i>do</i> decide to tell what I know and +what I suspect, it won’t be to you—unless for a very particular reason—and it +won’t be yet awhile.” +</p> + +<p> +I’m afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn’t bear to think that she was my step-sister, and +I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood ran in our veins. +</p> + +<p> +“If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own,” I broke out, “you +can’t prevent me from telling the whole story, as <i>I</i> know it—how I went +out with you, and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to—for Ivor’s +sake,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“For his sake?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. For his +sake, because <i>neither</i> of us knows when he came out of Maxine de Renzie’s +house. You <i>would</i> go away, though I wanted to stay and watch. He may not +have been there more than five minutes for all we can tell to the contrary, in +which case he would still have had time to go straight off to the Rue de la +Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in accordance with the doctors’ statements +about the death. For <i>your</i> sake, because if he knows that you tracked him +to Maxine de Renzie’s house, he won’t respect you very much; and because he +would probably be furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, +for injuring the reputation of the woman he’s risked so much to save. He’d +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her.” +</p> + +<p> +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor would know that I’m incapable of such baseness.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure he’d hold you above it. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned’—and he <i>has</i> scorned you—for an actress.” +</p> + +<p> +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood rush up +to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I’m right, don’t you?” Lisa asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way—and that he +wouldn’t wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest,” I said. “We won’t +talk of it any more. I can’t stand it. Please go back to your room now, Lisa, I +want to be alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she snapped, “<i>you</i> called me in. I didn’t ask to come.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. I could +imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or offering her some +great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if necessary. Lisa is a strange +little creature. She will do a good deal for money. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH16"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br/> +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND</h2> + +<p> +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to enjoy +saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been utterly +discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made me realise +that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; but in my +desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, and find out some +other way of helping him. At all events he should know that I was for him, not +against him, in this time of trouble. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not be +allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there was a +“perhaps” I wouldn’t give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more cowardly +mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, for I hadn’t taken +off my hat and coat since coming in. +</p> + +<p> +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of that +sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that if a girl +should go to the right place begging for a short conversation with an accused +man, as his friend, an interview—probably with a witness—might possibly be +granted. The authorities might think that we were engaged, for all I cared. I +did not care about anything now, except seeing Ivor, and helping him if I +could. +</p> + +<p> +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the chance +I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. Then, I suddenly +thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of Uncle Eric’s and Aunt +Lilian’s. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but I fancied not with a view of +trying to see Ivor. That idea had apparently not been in his mind at all. +Anyway, the Ambassador would already understand that the family took a deep +interest in the fate of Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at +receiving a call from me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades +of mine when I first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, +laughed a good deal and said that in future he would be “surprised at nothing +an American girl might do.” +</p> + +<p> +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. There, I +sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I didn’t explain much, +but came to the point immediately, and said that I wanted—oh, but wanted and +needed very much indeed—to see Ivor Dundas. Could he, would he help me to do +that? +</p> + +<p> +“Ought I to help you?” he asked. “Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said firmly. “They would approve. You see, it is necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, if it’s necessary—and I believe you when you say that it is,” he +answered, “I’ll do what I can.” +</p> + +<p> +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief of +Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a young lady +related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, should be allowed +five minutes’ conversation with the Englishman accused of murder, Mr. Ivor +Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and because I +was so restless and excited that I must be doing something every +instant—something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. +</p> + +<p> +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I received +an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where they had put Ivor. +This, he explained, would procure me the interview I wanted, but unfortunately, +I must not hope to see my friend alone. A warder who understood English would +have to be present. +</p> + +<p> +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it would be +to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible circumstances, +or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now that we were no +longer anything to each other—not even friends. But a kind of ague-terror crept +over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little bare, stuffy reception room. My +head was going round and round, my heart was pounding so that I could not make +up my mind what to say to Ivor when he came. +</p> + +<p> +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and when it +opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue uniforms. One of them +walked into the room with him—I suppose he must have been a warder—but he +stopped near the door, and in a second I had forgotten all about him. He simply +ceased to exist for me, when my eyes and Ivor’s had met. +</p> + +<p> +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, stammering +and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make him understand in +the beginning that I had not come to take back my words of yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas,” I said. “I don’t know if Uncle +Eric has been here yet—but he is doing all he can, and Aunt Lilian is +dreadfully upset. We’re staying on in Paris on account of—on account of this. +So you see you’ve got friends near you. And I—we’re such old friends, I +couldn’t help trying as hard as I could for a sight of you to—to cheer you up, +and—and to help you, if that’s possible.” +</p> + +<p> +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but pretending to +smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes were full of tears, +and I was afraid they’d go splashing down my cheeks, if I even winked my +lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt capable of forgiving him +anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, and if only, <i>only</i> he +really loved me and not that other. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, a hundred times—more than I can express,” he said, with a faint +quiver in his voice—his beautiful voice, which was the first thing that charmed +me after knowing him. “It <i>does</i> cheer me to see you. It gives me strength +and courage. You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t—trust me, and believe me +innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course, I—we—believe you innocent of any crime,” I faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“And of any lack of faith?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as for that, how can—but don’t let’s speak of that. What can it matter +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say that +you will have faith!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless you mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then—I’ll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, you’re not +to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or later, though I may +have to suffer some annoyances first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Annoyances?” I echoed. “If there were nothing worse!” +</p> + +<p> +“There won’t be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a huge +mistake—another warning against trusting to circumstantial evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there nothing we can do then? Or—that we would urge <i>others</i> to do?” I +asked, hoping he would understand that I meant <i>one</i> other—Maxine de +Renzie. +</p> + +<p> +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; but +suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“There is one thing <i>you</i> could do for me—you and no one else,” he said. +“But I have no right to ask it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what it is,” I implored. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not, if it didn’t mean more than my life to me.” He hesitated, and +then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a few +hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as familiar as +English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still existing in the part +of California where I was born. He had heard me sing Spanish songs. We had sung +them together—one or two I had taught him. But I had not taught him the +language. He learned that, and three or four others at least, as a boy, when +first he thought of taking up a diplomatic career. +</p> + +<p> +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I—remembering the +warder—almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform came +nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. +</p> + +<p> +“That is forbidden,” he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. “What +language was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spanish,” I answered. “He only bade me good-bye. We have been—very dear +friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but—it’s over now. It was natural he +shouldn’t want you to hear his last words to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, it is forbidden,” repeated the warder obstinately, “and though +the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the prisoner must +go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and must be reported.” +</p> + +<p> +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so +brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police +force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like +that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be +childish and undignified of Ivor to resist—oh, I could have killed the creature +with my own hands—I think! +</p> + +<p> +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except “good-bye,” smiling half sadly, +half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and +just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had +spoken: “Remember, I know you won’t fail me.” +</p> + +<p> +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage not to +fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, and he had said +well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did not mean more than his +life. +</p> + +<p> +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were these: +“Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony find in a box +under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. Every moment counts.” +</p> + +<p> +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought—of Maxine de Renzie! And I, +of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. +</p> + +<p> +As I thought of this task he’d set me, and of all it meant, it appeared more +and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a thing of +me. But—it “meant more than his life.” And I would do the thing, if it could be +done, because of my pride. +</p> + +<p> +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed me. I +felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known that death, +or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to which Ivor had sent +me, I would still have gone there. +</p> + +<p> +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over—with success or failure. +But calmer thoughts prevailed. +</p> + +<p> +I hadn’t looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night’s dreadful +happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had said to myself +that I didn’t wish to read the newspaper accounts of the murder, and of Ivor’s +supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, that I did not even know in +what part of Paris the house of the murder was. I recalled only the name of the +street, because it was a curiously grim one—like the tragedy that had been +acted in it. +</p> + +<p> +I couldn’t tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That would be +a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out from them +something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be plenty of details +of that sort. And I must do this without first going back to the hotel, as it +might be very difficult to get away again, once I was there. Now, nobody knew +where I was, and I was free to do as I pleased, no matter what the consequences +might be afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. Having +paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of chocolate at one +of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble tables. Also I asked to see an +evening paper. +</p> + +<p> +It was a shock to find Ivor’s photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at me +from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a good deal +shown in shop windows, much to Ivor’s disgust, at about the time when he +returned from his great expedition and published his really wonderful book. I +had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been on sale in Paris as well +as London, it had been easy enough for the newspaper people to get it. Then +there came the story of the murder, built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened +by it, I yet read it all. I knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that +the murder had been committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the +picture of the window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed—according to Girard, +the detective—to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, on +hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead man’s room. +Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a bull’s-eye lantern, +which he—Girard—carried, standing at bay in the open window. There was a +photograph of this window, taken from outside. There was the balcony: and there +was the balcony of another window with another balcony just like it, on the +adjoining house. I looked at the picture, and judged that there would not be +more than two feet of distance between the railings of those two balconies. +</p> + +<p> +“That would be my way to get there—if I can get there at all,” I said to +myself. But there was hardly any “if” left in my mind now. I meant to get +there. +</p> + +<p> +By this time it was after five o’clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and again +took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a <i>petit bleu</i> to Aunt +Lilian, saying that she wasn’t to worry about me. I’d been hipped and nervous, +and had gone out to see a friend who was—I’d just found out—staying in Paris. +Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; but at latest I should be back +by nine or ten o’clock. That would save a bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian +knew I had heaps of American friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one +would know where to search for me, even if they were inclined. +</p> + +<p> +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and dismissed my +cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two mistakes, found the street +I wanted. Instead of going to the house of the murder, I passed on to the next +house on the left—the house of the balcony almost adjoining the dead man’s. +</p> + +<p> +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms to let +in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the advertisement +of “<i>Chambres â louer</i>” staring me in the face: but I spoke French as +badly as I could, making three mistakes to every sentence, and begged the man +to talk slowly in answering me. +</p> + +<p> +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been too +good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had jabbered +awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young American journalist, +employed by a New York paper. I wanted to “write up” the murder of last night, +according to my own ideas, and as of course the police wouldn’t let me go into +the room where it happened, the next best thing would be to take the room close +to it, in the house adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to “get +the emotion, the sensation,” I explained, so as to make my article really +dramatic. Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with my +writing. +</p> + +<p> +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was almost +sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would willingly agree +to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their trouble in turning +out. +</p> + +<p> +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge—whose eyes +brightened—thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take a large +commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; but that +didn’t matter to me. +</p> + +<p> +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get into the +room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, saying that the door, +and window too, had been sealed by the police, who were also guarding the house +from curiosity seekers; but he added that I could see the shut window from the +balcony of the room I was going to hire. +</p> + +<p> +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he went +upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining to the +people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far strained, he came back +to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had consented to go out of their room +for the evening. They were dining at the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must +be pleased to wait a few moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a +few things which they could carry to a neighbour’s: books, and work for their +hours of absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a parcel +of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an unscrupulous +American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment must be made in +advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then—I waited, waited. It was tedious, +but after all, the tediousness didn’t matter much when I came to think of it. +It would be impossible to do the thing I had made up my mind to do, till after +dark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>MAXINE DE RENZIE’S PART</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH17"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br/> +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN</h2> + +<p> +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, Raoul +and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed overwhelming. He did not +see in glaring scarlet letters always before his eyes these two words: “The +treaty,” as I did—for my punishment. He was in happy ignorance still of that +other loss which I—I, to whom his honour should have been sacred—had inflicted +upon him. He was satisfied with my story; that through a person employed by +me—a person whose name could not yet be mentioned, even to him—the necklace had +been snatched from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly +for thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, for +letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his mind by his +“wicked jealousy,” as he repentantly called it. For me, he had nothing but +praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He begged me to forgive him, +and his remorse for such a small thing, comparatively—wrung my heart. +</p> + +<p> +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search the +little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that there was +witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded him to go away, +and follow his own track wherever he had been since I gave him the bag with the +diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so late, and his way had led him +through quiet streets, that even after all this time the little brocade bag +might be lying where he had left it—or that some honest policeman on his beat +might have picked it up. Besides, there was the cab in which he had come part +of the distance to my house. The bag might have fallen on the floor while he +drove: and there were many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be +as cheerful as I could. +</p> + +<p> +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep—no wish +for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor Dundas gone, +as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart was that he might by +and by come back, or send—with news. Hour after hour of deadly suspense passed +on, and he did not come or make any sign. At five o’clock Marianne, who had +flitted about all night like a restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot +chocolate, and actually put me to bed. My last words to her were: “What is the +use? I can’t sleep. It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I’m sure she +must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I was far too +much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please her, to think whether +or no there was anything at all peculiar in the taste. +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was nearly +noon. +</p> + +<p> +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant wish not +to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. However, when Marianne +came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the electric bell, she said that +no one had been. There were letters and one telegram, and all the morning +papers, as usual after the first night of a new play. +</p> + +<p> +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I thought it +might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, even if he hadn’t +yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; and he had not found the +brocade bag. He did not put this in so many words, but said, “I have not found +what was lost, or learned anything of it.” +</p> + +<p> +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have wired, +or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. He might, +unless—something had happened to him. There was that to think of; and I did +think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I had not suffered yet +all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant to the Élysée Palace Hotel +to enquire for him, and despatched Henri immediately. Meanwhile, as there was +nothing to do, after pretending to eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of +Marianne, I pretended also to read the newspaper notices of the play. But each +sentence went out of my head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end +only that, according to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had “surpassed +herself,” had been “astonishingly great,” had done “what no woman could do +unless she threw her whole soul into her part.” How little they knew where +Maxine de Renzie’s soul had been last night! And—only God knew where it might +be this night. Out of her body, perhaps—the one way of escape from Raoul’s +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the name he +had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had nothing to tell +which was consoling—rather the other way. The gentleman had gone out about +midnight (I knew that already), and hadn’t returned since. Henri had been to +the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he admitted to me on being +catechised, that his questions had been answered with a certain reserve, as if +more were known of the absent gentleman’s movements than it was considered wise +to tell. +</p> + +<p> +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he had +delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he “thought that Mademoiselle +would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with praise of her great +acting.” It was on my tongue to scold him for stopping even one moment, when he +had been told to hurry, but he looked so pleased at his own cleverness that I +hadn’t the heart to dash his happiness. I would, however, have pushed the +papers aside without so much as glancing at them, if it hadn’t suddenly +occurred to me that, if any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might +possibly have got into print by this time. +</p> + +<p> +When I read what had happened—how he was accused of murder, and while declaring +his innocence had been silent as to all those events which might have proved +it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. Here was a man! A man +loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to be, but few are! He had +sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to keep my name out of the mud into +which my business had thrown him, and to save me from appearing in Raoul’s eyes +the liar that I was. Had Ivor told that he was with me, after I had +prevaricated (if I had not actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor +to my house, what would Raoul think of me? +</p> + +<p> +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save me when +he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had decided to go +I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and happy to-day. +</p> + +<p> +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to the Chief +of Police and say: “Monsieur, this English gentleman they have arrested cannot +have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, between twelve and one +last night, for he came to my house, far away in the Rue d’Hollande, at a +quarter past twelve, and didn’t leave it till after one o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, to +ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her order my +electric brougham immediately. But—I sat down again, sick and despairing, +deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn’t obey it. I dared not. By +and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing danger, then certainly. But +not now. +</p> + +<p> +At four o’clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us tried to +cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even yet he would have +news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking me ill and tired out, +did all he could to persuade me that he was not miserable with anxiety. At +least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky or of any man, and was humbly +repentant for his suspicions of me the night before. When Raoul is repentant, +and wishes to atone for something that he has done, he is enchanting. There was +never a man like him. +</p> + +<p> +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn’t slept +much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I should +disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a fright—or perhaps +even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had done. I felt that I was no +longer mistress of myself—that I might be capable of any folly. +</p> + +<p> +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the theatre, +where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be busy; and in my +part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. +</p> + +<p> +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on dressing at +once, and took as long as I could in the process of making up; still, when I +was ready there was more than half an hour to spare before the first act. There +were letters for me—the kind that always come to the theatre—but I couldn’t +read them, after I had occupied myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew +what they would be: vows of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; +petitions for advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; +requests from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. +</p> + +<p> +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly at +crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne opened it, +to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle,” she whispered, coming to me, “Monsieur le Comte Godensky wishes +to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?” +</p> + +<p> +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn something. If +not—if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please himself, I would soon +find out, and could send him away. +</p> + +<p> +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. He +advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one is sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He held +out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when he had come +too close. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought you would +be glad to see—even me,” he answered, smiling still. +</p> + +<p> +“What news? But bad, of course—or you wouldn’t bring it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very cruel. Of course, you’ve seen the evening papers? You know that +your English friend is in prison?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same English friend whom <i>you</i> would have liked to see arrested early +last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge,” I flung at him. “You look +surprised. But you are <i>not</i> surprised, Count Godensky—except, perhaps, +that I should guess who had me spied upon at the Élysée Palace Hotel. A +disappointment, that affair, wasn’t it? But you haven’t told me your news.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has been in the hands of the Juge d’Instruction. It is much the same, isn’t +it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if some magical bird +could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, and what answers he +made?” +</p> + +<p> +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky came! I +had been thinking of the Juge d’Instruction, and his terrible cross-examination +which only a man of steel or iron can answer without trembling. I had thought +that questions had been asked and answers given which might mean everything to +me, if I could only have heard them. Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I +reminded myself that this was impossible. No one could know except the Juge +d’Instruction and Ivor Dundas himself. “Only two men were present at that +scene, and they will never tell what went on,” I said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Three men were present,” Godensky answered. “Besides the two of whom you +think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is permitted nowadays +that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be accompanied by his legal adviser +when he goes before the Juge d’Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of +the language might handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would +prejudice his case.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke French +as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. +</p> + +<p> +“The adviser your friend has chosen,” Godensky went on, “happens to be a +protégé of mine. I made him—gave him his first case, his first success; and +have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. Dundas seems +to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last night, it was Girard. +To-day, it is Lenormand.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn’t let Godensky see that I winced +under it. +</p> + +<p> +“You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your various +protégés,” I said—“as well as those of your enemies. But if the information in +the one case is no more trustworthy than in the other—why, you’re not +faithfully served. I’ve good reason to know that you’ve made several mistakes +lately, and you’re likely to make more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don’t call yourself my ‘enemy’?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know of a more appropriate name—after the baseness that you haven’t +even tried to hide, in your dealings with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought all was fair in love and war.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you make war on women?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I make love to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“To many, I dare say. But here is one who won’t listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting—even if not accurate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened—that he’d been mixed up in this case—and expressed +myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, friends of whom were +intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no question of treachery on +Lenormand’s part. He trusts me—as you do not. Indeed, I even offered my help +for Dundas, if I could give it consistently with my position. Naturally, he +told me nothing which could be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if +I wished to go against him—which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I read the proof rather differently,” I said. “But go on. I’m sure you are +anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point.” +</p> + +<p> +“In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important questions +put by the Juge d’Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas the explanation of +a document found on him by the police—ah, that wakes you up, Mademoiselle! You +are surprised that a document was found on the prisoner?” +</p> + +<p> +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to lose +it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. +</p> + +<p> +“I rather hope it was not a letter from me,” I said. “You know so much, that +you probably know I admitted to the police at the Élysée Palace a strong +friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But London ways +are different from the ways of Paris. It isn’t agreeable to be gossipped about, +however unjustly, even if one is—only an actress.” +</p> + +<p> +“You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might have +been—a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any indiscretion, +especially a romantic one—any indiscretion <i>except treachery</i>. There +might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du Laurier, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +I shivered. “We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d’Instruction,” I +reminded him. “You have wandered from the point again.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are so many points—all sharp as swords for those they may pierce. Well, +the important question was in relation to a letter—yes. But the letter was not +from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in English, and it made an appointment +at the very address where the crime was committed. It was, as nearly as I could +make out, a request from a person calling himself a jeweller’s assistant, for +the receiver of the letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This +case had been committed to Mr. Dundas’ care, it appeared, while travelling from +London to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d’Instruction that his own +packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but papers +<i>entirely personal,</i> concerning himself alone. +</p> + +<p> +“‘What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into your +pocket?’ asked the Juge d’Instruction—Lenormand tells me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A necklace,’ answered Mr. Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A necklace of diamonds?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn’t much interested in it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ah, was this not the necklace which you—staying at the Élysée Palace under +another name—gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?’ was the next +question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas’ head. Now, you see, Mademoiselle, that +my story is not dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I to hear the rest—according to your protégé?” I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky’s neck, till he had no +more breath or wickedness left in him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d’Instruction, a most clever +and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought you a present of +diamonds, it was something entirely different, and therefore far removed from +this case. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie’s lover?’ was the next enquiry. ‘I admire +her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,’ your friend +returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to see what there is +in this string of questions and answers to bring me straight to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Count Godensky, I do not,” I answered steadily. But a sudden illuminating +ray did show me, even as I spoke, what <i>might</i> be in his scheming mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You love +him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, he is a very +proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him well; and he would +not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds from another man, saying as +she takes them that he is her lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t believe it of me!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a way of convincing him. Oh, <i>I</i> shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d’Instruction and Mr. +Dundas, unless—” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless?—but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, Maxine. I +mean to have you—or I will crush you, and now you know I can. Choose.” +</p> + +<p> +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as for a +moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn’t make me love you +less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are—as he will know soon +unless you let me save you? Yet I—I would love you if you were a murderess as +well as a—spy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is you who are a spy!” I faltered, now all but broken. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am, I haven’t spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du Laurier, and +before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no,” I gasped. “You cannot. You’re boasting. You can do nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to-night, perhaps. I’m not speaking of to-night. I am giving you time. +But to-morrow—or the day after. It’s much the same to me. At first, when I +began to suspect that something had been taken from its place, I had no proof. +I had to get that, and I did get it—nearly all I wanted. This affair of Dundas +might have been planned for my advantage. It is perfect. All its complications +are just so many links in a chain for me. Girard—the man Dundas chose to +employ—was the very man I’d sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To +watch your friend the British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on +the bare suspicion that there’d been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when—Dundas called on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What connection can Ivor Dundas’ coming to Paris have with Raoul du Laurier?” +I dared to ask. +</p> + +<p> +“You know best as to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have never met. Both are men of honour, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to suffer for +being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a man—a man of +honour, as you say—would feel when he found out the woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman can be calumniated as well as a man,” I said. “You are so unscrupulous +you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier has done nothing; +I—I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you can lie about us, ruin +him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, and—and do terrible harm to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can—without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you’ll give up du +Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have you. You are +the one woman worthy of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening—at this time—to decide. Will you promise me that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in your +mind now. I won’t risk losing you. I have waited long enough already. Give me a +ring of yours, and a written word from you to du Laurier, saying that you find +you have made a mistake; and not only will I do nothing to injure him, but will +guard against the discovery of—you know what. Besides, as a matter of course, +I’ll bring all my influence to bear in keeping your name out of this or any +other scandal. I can do much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was +through me the Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it—for my future wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the way +you wish,” I said. “If—if I am to give him up, I must tell him with my own +lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will hold your +hand until then.” +</p> + +<p> +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was trying to +read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like you, I +pledge my word that—that—if I can’t break with Raoul, to let you know the first +thing in the morning, and dare you to do—what you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not ‘dare’ me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait—a little +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Until this time to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another twelve +hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I agree.” My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he understood, +and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to snatch my hand. I +drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne appeared at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle,” she announced, her good-natured, +open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. “A young lady who sends +this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it at once, and consent to see +her.” +</p> + +<p> +Thankful that the tête-â-tête had been interrupted, I held out my hand for the +letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written below the lines +which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, and found it strange to +me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch at the chance of ridding myself +immediately of Godensky, the few words above the unfamiliar name would have +made me say as I did say, “Bring the young lady in at once.” +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was of the +greatest and most pressing importance. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“DIANA FORREST.” +</p> + +<p> +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely filled with +arguments could not have moved me more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br/> +MAXINE MEETS DIANA</h2> + +<p> +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to all +appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered in a girl—a +tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an artist. +</p> + +<p> +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at each +other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed the quarter +hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her—lovely and +lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on its +petals—a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair garden, far +out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how different her sweet, +girl’s life had been from my stormy if sometimes brilliant career. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dundas sent you to me?” I asked. “When did you see him? Surely not—since—” +</p> + +<p> +“This afternoon,” she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding voice, +with a soft little drawl of the South in it. “I went to see him. They gave us +five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in Spanish, just a few +words, he—Mr. Dundas—managed to tell me a thing he wished me to do. He said it +meant more than his life, so I did it; for we have been friends, and just now +he’s helpless. The warder was angry, and stopped our conversation at once, +though the five minutes weren’t ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there +wasn’t a moment to lose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!” I +exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I had something else to do first,” she said, in the same quiet voice. She was +looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that they made a +shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Even before I saw—Mr. Dundas,” she went on, “I had the idea of calling on +you—about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, if before +I go on I tell you that—quite by accident, so far as I was concerned—I was with +someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last night, a little after twelve. +I didn’t dream of spying on—either of you. It just happened, it wouldn’t +interest you to know how. Yet—I beg of you to tell me one thing. Was he with +you for long—so long that he couldn’t have got to the other place in time to +commit the murder?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was in my house until after one,” I said boldly. “But you, if you are his +friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such an assurance +from me, that he is no murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am certain,” she protested. “I asked the question, not for that reason, +but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you choose. Now, I find +you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at first I wanted to rush off +to the police and tell them where he had been while the murder was being +committed. But I didn’t know how long he had stopped in your house, and, +besides—” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have dared to do that!” I broke in, the blood, angry blood, stinging +my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t a question of daring,” she answered. “I thought of him more than of +you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your place, no matter +how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess that he had been in my +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are reasons why I can’t tell that he was there,” I said, trying to awe +her by speaking coldly and proudly. “His visit was entirely on business. But +Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he approves. You know he +has remained silent himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“For your sake, because he is a gentleman—brave and chivalrous. Would you take +advantage of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You take advantage of me,” I flung back at the girl, looking her up and down. +“You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message for me. Do +you want me to believe <i>this</i> his message? I think too well of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want you to believe that,” she answered. “I haven’t come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own account.” +</p> + +<p> +“In twelve minutes I must be on the stage,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“The stage!” she echoed. “You can go on acting just the same, though he is in +prison—for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go on acting. If I didn’t, I should do him more harm than good.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you <i>will</i> do him good. +If you care for him at all, you must want to save him.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I care for him?” I repeated, in surprise. “You think—oh, but I understand +now. You are the girl he spoke of.” +</p> + +<p> +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not think he would speak of me,” she said. “I wish he hadn’t. But, if +you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see that you have +nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de Renzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” I exclaimed, “you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you are to each other,” she faltered, all her coolness +deserting her. “That isn’t my affair—” +</p> + +<p> +“But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares nothing +for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a little a year +ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man whom I worship. I +would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and is glad. But the other +man is jealous. He wouldn’t understand—he would want to kill me and himself and +Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in my house last night. He was there too, +and I lied to him about Ivor. How could I expect him to believe the real truth +now? He is a man. But <i>you</i> will believe, because you are a woman, like +myself, and I think the woman Ivor Dundas loves.” +</p> + +<p> +Her beautiful eyes brightened. “He told you—that?” +</p> + +<p> +“He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her because of +the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been as unreasonable +with him, as Ra—as the man I love could be with me. Poor Ivor! Last night was +not the first time that he sacrificed himself for chivalry and honour. Yet you +blame me! Look to yourself, Miss Forrest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I don’t blame you,” she stammered, a sob in her voice. “Only I beg you to +save him, from gratitude, if not from love.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know,” I answered. +“He is worth trusting—worth saving, at the expense of almost any sacrifice. But +I can’t sacrifice the man I love for him.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked thoughtful. “You say the man you were engaged to was at your house +while Ivor was there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied.” +</p> + +<p> +“He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your gate?” +</p> + +<p> +“He confessed that, when I’d made him repent his jealousy. Why do you ask? You +saw him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of value +near your house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Great heavens, yes!” I cried. “What do you know of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for him—if you +will promise to help Ivor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shame,” I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. “You are trying +to bribe me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I am not ashamed,” the girl answered, holding her head high. “I have +not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you—this very night or +to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I cannot,” I said. “Not even to get back that thing whose loss was +the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin myself +and—another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If we talked of +this together all night, it could make no difference. And I’m in great trouble, +great trouble of my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has your trouble anything to do with a document?” Miss Forrest slowly asked. +</p> + +<p> +I started, and stared at her, breathless. +</p> + +<p> +“It has!” she answered for me. “Your face tells me so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has Ivor’s message—to do with that?” I almost gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want news—if you +want the document, it must be through me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you can get +it for me, I will do,” I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a little +after midnight until after one. Will you do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must,” I said, “if you have the document to sell, and are determined to sell +it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my life, for it +will kill my lover’s love, when he knows I have lied to him. Still, it will +save him from—” I stopped, and bit my lip. “Will you give me the diamonds, +too?” I asked, humbly enough now. +</p> + +<p> +“The diamonds?” She looked bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they <i>are</i> still in the bag?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they are—they will be in the bag,” the girl answered, her charming mouth +suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. “You shall have the diamonds, +and the document, too, for that one promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is it possible that you can give me the document?” I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured because of it +seemed too good to be true; that it should come through this girl seemed +incredible. +</p> + +<p> +“Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it,” she said simply. “That was why I +couldn’t come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn’t quite know how +I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or advise me; and Ivor +said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the balcony of the room where +the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn’t be allowed to get into the room +itself, so it seemed difficult. But I thought it all out, and hired a room for +the evening in a house next door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had +to wait until after dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the +other. It wasn’t as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because +it was so high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn’t fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing—except the climbing +back. I don’t know how the document came in the box, though I suppose Ivor put +it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up in a towel; and it’s +quite clean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” I said slowly, when she had finished her story, “that you have a +right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I’m going to give +the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I know you’ll +pay. And I hope, oh, I <i>feel</i>, it won’t hurt you as you think it will.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long pocket of +a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt it, I clasped it. +I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. “It was yours, or Ivor’s. Of course I didn’t look.” +</p> + +<p> +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The fifteen +minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its price. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="2HCH19"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br/> +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME</h2> + +<p> +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If Godensky +knew, as he may have known—since he seemed to know all my movements—perhaps he +thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, and sending him away from me +for ever. But, though the game was not in my hands yet, the treaty was; and I +had made up my mind to defy Godensky. +</p> + +<p> +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; and +never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in the +morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst against Raoul +du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two except death? Then he +would have fair warning that I did not intend to do the thing to which he had +nearly forced me; and I would fight him, when he tried to take revenge. But +meanwhile, before he got that letter, I would—I must—find some way of putting +the treaty back in its place at the Foreign Office. +</p> + +<p> +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, even +when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political treachery, +Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the relief I felt after +the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been drowning for the last few days +gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints +that I had news of the necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him +in his office as soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to +surprise him pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the +greatest joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment +for nine o’clock next day. +</p> + +<p> +When he had gone, I wrote a note—a very short note—to Count Godensky. I wanted +to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty was in the safe +whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at once, by messenger; and it +would still be very early in the day, I hoped. +</p> + +<p> +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning which +followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I think that I +had not slept at all, but that didn’t matter. I felt strong and fresh, and my +heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to chance. I had a plan, and +knew how I meant to play the last hand in the game. It might go against me. But +I held a high trump. Again, as before, Raoul received me alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” he exclaimed, “I know your news must be good, for you look so bright +and beautiful. Tell me—tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re too impatient,” I said. “To punish you for asking about the wretched +diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed of you, I shall +make you pay a penalty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any penalty you will,” he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke—for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note into +an envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, this is very precious,” I went on. “It tells you all you want to know. +But—I’m going to post it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” he protested. “I can’t wait for the post.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wouldn’t trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it were +insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other day, and +I’ll put this valuable document in among the others, not more valuable to the +country than this ought to be to you. I’ll hide it there, and you must shut up +the safe without looking for it, till I’ve gone. Then, you must count ten, and +after that—you may search. Remember, you said you’d submit to any penalty, so +no excuses, no complaints.” +</p> + +<p> +Raoul laughed. “You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you are a +sorceress, and have bewitched me.” +</p> + +<p> +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my whim. +But I gaily motioned him behind me. “If you stand there you can see where I put +it, and that won’t! be fair play. Turn your back.” +</p> + +<p> +He obeyed. “You see how I trust you!” he said. “There lie my country’s +secrets.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re safe from me,” I said pertly. (And so indeed they were—now.) “They’re +too uninteresting to amuse me in the least.” +</p> + +<p> +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real one +into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written where he +could not help finding it at first or second glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you can close the safe,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from my +heart, “Thank Heaven!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must leave you,” I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious no +longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to open the +cage of Godensky’s vengeance, and—I was afraid of him. +</p> + +<p> +“I may come to you as soon as I’m free?” Raoul asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and—what you think of me,” I +said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he might continue to +think of me all things good—far better than I deserved, yet not better than I +would try to deserve in the future, if I were permitted to spend that future +with him. +</p> + +<p> +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight now. +</p> + +<p> +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a way in +which, I hoped, that promise—fulfilled as I meant to fulfil it—might help +rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a patron of +the theatre—when he can spare time from his work. I had met him, and had reason +to know that he admired my acting. +</p> + +<p> +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; and he +was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of that scene at the +Élysée Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew everything—so far as his +subordinate could report. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world,” he gallantly replied. +</p> + +<p> +“But you can guess what has brought me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre this +evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is partly that,” I laughed. “Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, of +course. And partly—you know already, since you know everything, that I am a +friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder which he could +not possibly have committed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a loyal +friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“For that—and to offer you the stage-box for to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to the +doctors’ statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it’s a hard thing +for me to come and tell you this!” I went on hastily. “Not that I’m ashamed to +have received a call from him at that hour, as it was necessary to see him +then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris early in the morning. But—because +I’m engaged to be married to—perhaps you know that, though, among other +things?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard—a rumour. I didn’t know that it amounted to an engagement. Monsieur +du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated.” +</p> + +<p> +“I love him dearly,” I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, but +because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears rose to my +eyes. “I am true to him, and always have been. But—he is horribly jealous. I +can’t explain Mr. Dundas’ night visit in a way to satisfy him. If Raoul finds +out that an Englishman—well-known, but of whom I never spoke—was at my house +after midnight, he will believe I have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would +help me to keep this secret I am telling you so frankly!” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?” asked the Chief of Police +gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to break +with Raoul du Laurier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Mademoiselle,” said the good and gallant man, “trust me to do the best I +can for you.” (I could see that my tears had moved him.) “A grief to you would +be a blow to Paris. Yet—well, as you have been frank, I owe it to you to be +equally so on my side. I should before this have sent—quite privately and in a +friendly way, to question you about this Mr. Dundas, who passed under another +name at the hotel where you called upon him; but I received a request from a +very high quarter to wait before communicating with you. Now, as you have come +to me, I suppose I may speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask me any questions you choose,” I said, “and I’ll answer them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how do you +explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. Dundas?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell you,” I +answered him; “for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I throw myself +upon your mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little flirtation with +Mr. Dundas—no more, though we liked and admired each other. We exchanged a few +silly letters, and I forgot all about them until I fell in love with Raoul and +promised to marry him—only a short time ago. Then I couldn’t bear to think that +I had written these foolish letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have +kept them. I wrote and asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and +valued them immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them +to me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him that +I’d meet him at the Élysée Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to receive the +letters from him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, since +there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?” +</p> + +<p> +“He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl who +lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn’t want the +girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there had been a little +talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she didn’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first thing in +the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the British Secretary +for Foreign Affairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl—a Miss Forrest, is +distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She lives with her +aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that gentleman. And the +Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Miss Forrest!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know of her already?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard her name.” +</p> + +<p> +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) +</p> + +<p> +“You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I,” I went on. “But +I’ll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you can’t have +found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters—half a dozen. He gave +me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast pocket, saying the +letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something had gone wrong with the +electricity, and I hadn’t let him push back the curtains, for fear I might be +seen from outside, if the lights should suddenly come on. He didn’t see the +case, as he handed it to me, nor could I. Just at that instant there was a +knock at the door; and quick as thought I pushed the leather case down between +the seat and back of the sofa.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery threatened you +because of a knock at the door?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you. There is a man—I won’t mention his name, but you know it very +well, and maybe it is in your mind now—who wants me to marry him. He has wanted +it for some time—I think because he admires women who are before the public and +applauded by the world; also, perhaps, because I have refused him, and he is +one who wants most what he finds hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, +but he has some power and a good deal of influence, because he is very highly +connected, and when people have ‘axes to grind’ he helps to grind them. He has +suspected for some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has +hated Raoul. I have fancied—that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance slip to +separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between us—or he would +try to ruin Raoul, or crush me—anything to keep us apart. When I saw the +Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and though I didn’t know what +pretext had brought him, I said to myself ‘That is the work of—’” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean to. I leave that to your—imagination. ‘This is the work of the +man whose love is more cruel than hate,’ I thought. While I wondered what +possible use the police could make of my letters, I was shaking with terror +lest they should come upon them and they should somehow fall into—a certain +man’s hands. Then, at last, they did find the case, just as I’d begun to hope +it was safe. I begged the Commissary of Police not to open it. In vain. When he +did, what was my relief to see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!—my +relief and my surprise. And now I’m going to confide in you the secret of +another, speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. +</p> + +<p> +“Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du Laurier, and +he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a dear friend of his—an +inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She dared not tell her husband of +money that she’d lost, but begged Raoul to sell the diamonds for her in +Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. On his way there the necklace was +stolen by an expert thief, who must somehow have learned what was going on +through the pawnbroker with whom the jewels had been in pledge—for a few +thousand francs only. You can imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace +returned in such a miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it +back, meaning to give it to me as a surprise—and the letters afterwards. And it +was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price—evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation—and also to avoid any +association of Raoul’s name with the necklace, that I told the Commissary of +Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. I spoke impulsively, +in sheer desperation; and the instant the words were out I would have cut off +my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. But what good to deny what I had +just said? The men wouldn’t have believed me. +</p> + +<p> +“When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he thought he +had given them to me—and he knew no more of the diamonds in their red case than +I did—far less, indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul’s sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed that his +own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from his pocket in the +train, though he couldn’t imagine why the diamonds had been given to him +instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of his, who had acted queerly; +and he determined to try and find the man. He was to bring me news after the +theatre at my house, about midnight. +</p> + +<p> +“He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. Friends of +his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me this, and that after +going out on a false scent he had employed a detective named Girard, when +Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. It seems, he’d been made frantically +jealous by some misrepresentations of—the man whose name we haven’t mentioned. +I begged Mr. Dundas to hide in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally +did, to please me. I hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, +and to my horror I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the +sounds as well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiancé of a pretty housemaid I +have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got away; this I swear +to you. What happened to him after leaving my house you know better than I do, +for I haven’t seen him since, as you are well aware.” +</p> + +<p> +“He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn’t get a cab and walked. But you have read the +papers,” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn’t even tell about +the diamonds, much less my letters!” +</p> + +<p> +“As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?” +</p> + +<p> +“My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather than +risk further delay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would like to know their fate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I applaud the Englishman’s chivalry. Vive l’Entente Cordiale!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I’ve humbled +myself, can’t you give me hope that he’ll soon be released, and yet that—that I +shan’t be made to suffer for my confession to you? It’s clear to you, isn’t it, +that the murder must have been done long before he could have reached the house +in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the Rue d’Hollande?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, without +being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone through before +Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at work in high quarters, +and after what you have told me, I think he will not much longer be under +restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, dear lady, that not ten minutes +before you arrived this morning I received satisfactory news of the arrest of +two Englishmen at Frankfort, who seem to have been concerned in this business +in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; +and a friend of his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that +these persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, and then +tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we are getting at +Janson’s record, which seems to be a bad one—a notorious one throughout Europe, +if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, really, that in a very few days +Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in person for what you’ve done for him, +and—to tell you what has become of those letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not merciful?” +</p> + +<p> +“I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear Mademoiselle, +Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you have told to me, or +that the Englishman’s alibi has been proved by you. The arrest of these two men +in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the police to keep your secret as you +would keep it yourself. Now, will that assurance make it easier for you to put +your whole soul into your part to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will accept that box,” I said, letting him kiss my hand, and feeling +inclined to kiss his. +</p> + +<p> +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I had +trumped Godensky’s last trick now. +</p> + +<p> +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds in the +brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were torn out, as if +there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. But Miss Forrest did +not explain this, or even allude to it at all. +</p> + +<p> +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. “I have kept my promise,” +I said. “The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you let me say that +I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will be happy together.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall try to make up to him for—my hateful suspicions and—everything,” she +said, like a repentant child. “I love him so much!” +</p> + +<p> +“And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw that. But +how gloriously you will mend it again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I hope so!” she cried. “And you—have I really spoiled your life by forcing +you to make that promise? I pray that I haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you had, but I was mistaken,” I answered. “The thing you have made +me do has proved a blessing. I may have—altered some of the facts a little, but +none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to use such weapons as +she has, against cruel enemies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll defeat yours,” said Miss Forrest. +</p> + +<p> +“I begin to believe I shall,” said I. And we shook hands. She is the only girl +I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give him +the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +“You are my good angel!” he exclaimed. “Thank Heaven, I won’t have to take your +money now.” +</p> + +<p> +“All that’s mine is yours,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“It is <i>you</i> I want for mine,” he answered. “When am I to have you? Don’t +keep me waiting long, my darling. I’m nothing without you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to keep you waiting,” I told him. And indeed I longed to be his +wife—his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. +</p> + +<p> +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as soon as a +marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the morning, and the note +I had written, telling him that a pretty American girl had found the diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine—the poor fellow so +stupidly accused of murder,” I explained. “But of course he is innocent. Of +course he’ll be discharged without a blot upon his name. They’re tremendously +in love with each other, almost as much as you and I!” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t tell me about the love affair in your note,” said Raoul. “You spoke +only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past your house, after I +went in.” +</p> + +<p> +“There wasn’t time for more in that famous communication!” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul echoed me. “It came rather too near being famous, by the way,” he said. +“Just after I had found it in the safe—where you would put it, you witch!—a man +came in with an order from the President to copy a clause in a new treaty which +is kept there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What treaty?” I asked, with a leap of the heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn’t the point.” (Ah, +<i>was</i> it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been rather +awkward, wouldn’t it? if I hadn’t got your note out of the safe before the man +came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the open safe, for a +second.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God I wasn’t too late!” I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. “You mean, thank God he wasn’t sooner, don’t you, darling?” +amended Raoul. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course. How stupid I am!” I murmured. +</p> + +<p> +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, for I had +not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. Had the treaty +been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no doubt have vowed to me—if +I’d lived to hear his vows—that he had had no hand in the discovery. Fear of +the terrible man who had so nearly beaten me in the game made me quiver even +now. “You see,” I went on, “I can think of nothing but you, and my love for +you. You’ll never be jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter +what Count Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve listened to Godensky for the last time,” said Raoul. “The dog! He shall +never come near me again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly think he will try,” I said. “I’m glad we’re going to be married soon. +Do you know, I’m half inclined to do as you’ve asked me sometimes, and promised +you wouldn’t ask again—leave the stage. I want to rest, and just be happy, like +other women. I want love—and peace—and you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have all, and for always,” answered Raoul. “If only I deserved you!” +</p> + +<p> +“If only I deserved you!” I echoed. +</p> + +<p> +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that he never +may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he would forgive me +all things, because we are one in a perfect love. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Powers and Maxine + +Author: Charles Norris Williamson + +Release Date: December 8, 2003 [EBook #10410] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + The Powers and Maxine + + _By C.N. and A.M. Williamson_ + + Author of + + "The Princess Virginia," "My Friend the Chauffeur," + "The Car of Destiny," "The Princess Passes," + "Lady Betty Across the Water," Etc. + + + Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson. + + + _With Illustrations + By FRANK T. MERRILL_ + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + I. LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + + II. LISA LISTENS + + III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + + IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + + V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + + VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY + + VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + + VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + + IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + + X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + + XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + + XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + + XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + + XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS + + XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + + XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + + XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA + + XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + + + + +LISA DRUMMOND'S PART + + + + + +The Powers and Maxine + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I +was going to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever +loved. + +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really +must want to be with me, not just because I'm the "pretty girl's +sister," but because I'm myself, Lisa Drummond. + +Being what I am,--queer, and plain, I can't bear to think that men like +girls for their beauty; yet I can't help liking men better if they are +handsome. + +I don't know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he +seems so to me. I don't know if he is very good, or really very +wonderful, although he's clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way +that makes women fond of him; and men admire him, too. He looks straight +into your eyes when he talks to you, as if he cared more for you than +anyone else in the world: and if I were an artist, painting a picture of +a dark young knight starting off for the crusades, I should ask Ivor +Dundas to stand as my model. + +Perhaps his expression wouldn't be exactly right for the pious young +crusader, for it isn't at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just +that rapt sort of look on his face. It was generally when he was talking +to Di: but I wouldn't let myself believe that it meant anything in +particular. He has the reputation of having made lots of women fall in +love with him. This was one of the first things I heard when Di and I +came over from America to visit Lord and Lady Mountstuart. And of course +there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. Everyone was talking +of it when we first arrived in London. + +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady +Mountstuart has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by +another larger room from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we +could see people dancing. + +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di's book shelves, +because we could talk better there. Usually, I don't like being in front +of a mirror, because--well, because I'm only the "pretty girl's sister." +But to-night I didn't mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. +Sitting down, you might almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my +gown was made didn't show that one shoulder is a little higher than the +other. Di designed the dress. + +I thought, if I wasn't pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I +looked as if I could _think_ of things; and as if I could feel. + +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, +unless he cared. Of course it might be for Di's sake; but I am not so +queer-looking that no man could ever be fascinated by me. + +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, +because Di has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had +found out that I was intelligent and sympathetic. + +He sat by me and didn't speak at first. Just then Di passed the +far-away, open door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the +Duke of Glasgow's brother. + +"Thank you so much for the book," I said. + +(He had sent me a book that morning--one he'd heard me say I wanted.) + +He didn't seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his +nice smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and +certainly he has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a +little sad. I willed him hard to love me. + +"It made me happy to get it," I went on. + +"It made me happy to send it," he said. + +"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked. + +"Why, of course." + +"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help +adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?" + +"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his +eyes. + +"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I +really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say +what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at +Algiers." + +"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great +thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly." + +"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not +telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I +were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and +brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family, +doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady +Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only +step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, +and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady +Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di +can put on when she wants to get something out of people. I'd make the +Foreign Secretary give you exactly what you wanted, even if it took you +far, far from me." + +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under +the brown. + +"You are a very kind Imp," he said. "Imp" is the name he invented for +me. I loved to hear him call me by it. + +"Kind!" I echoed. "One isn't kind when one--likes--people." + +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn't care. If only I +could make him say the words I longed to hear--even because he pitied +me, because he had found out how I loved him, and because he had really +too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I +made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave +me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with +me. That would make her writhe. + +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there +was no doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment +or two he was silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the +ballroom, he spoke very gently, as if I had been a child--though I am +older than Di by three or four years. + +"Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little +friend," said he. "Now that I know you really do take an interest in my +affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to +Algiers--though very likely you've guessed already--you are such an +'intuitive' girl. And besides, I haven't tried very hard to hide my +feelings--not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I +have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don't you--even if +you didn't before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers--" + +"Don't say any more," I managed to cut him short. "I can't bear--I mean, +I understand. I--did guess before." + +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn't let myself believe. I hoped +against hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took +the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of +life. + +"Di might have told me," I went gasping on, rather than let there be a +long silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to +see me cry--though, if it could have made any difference, I would have +grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears. "But she never does +tell me anything about herself." + +"She's so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better +to talk about you instead," he defended her. And then I felt that I +could hate him, as much as I've always hated Di, deep down in my heart. +At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when +he found her lying dead--out of his reach for ever. + +"Besides," he hurried on, "I've never asked her yet if she would marry +me, because--my prospects weren't very brilliant. She knows of course +that I love her--" + +"And if you get the consulship, you'll put the important question?" I +cut him short, trying to be flippant. + +"Yes. But I told you tonight, because I--because you were so kind, I +felt I should like to have you know." + +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could +have crushed every hope of his for the future--every hope, that is, in +which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part--I would have done it, +just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of +feeling that I--even I--have power of life and death. + +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I'm never very strong or well, +but now I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music +stop in the ballroom. + +"There!" I said. "The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are +over. I'm sure you're engaged for the next." + +"Yes, Imp, I am." + +"To Di?" + +"No, I have Number 13 with her." + +"Thirteen! Unlucky number." + +"Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, +coming now, is with Mrs. George Allendale." + +"Oh, yes, the actor manager's wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord +Mountstuart likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very +serious and political, but we have every sort of creature--provided it's +an amusing, or successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine +de Renzie to come here, when she was acting in London at George +Allendale's theatre? That was before Di and I arrived on the scene, you +remember." + +"I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her +first, off the stage, I believe." + +"What a sweet memory! Wasn't Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband +when he had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?" + +"I never heard that she was." + +"You needn't look cross with me. I'm not saying anything against your +gorgeous Maxine." + +"Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn't call Miss de Renzie 'my +Maxine,' please, Imp." + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "You see, I've heard other people call her +that--in joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you +such a famous person, to her, didn't you?" + +"No. What made you think that?" He was really annoyed now, and I was +pleased--if anything could please me, in my despair. + +"Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to 'M.R.' as if the name +were a secret, so--" + +"'Everybody' is very stupid then. 'M.R.' is an old lady, my god-mother, +who helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I +couldn't have gone. And she isn't of the kind that likes to see her name +in print. Now, where shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look +for Mrs. Allendale." + +"I'll stay where I am, thank you," I said, "and watch you dance--from +far off. That's my part in life, you know: watching other people dance +from far off." + +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn't sure +that one of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, +and deserted; and though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever +since the tiny child and her mother (a beautiful, rich, young +Californian widow) came into my father's house in New York, she does +know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am in such moods. +I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking through +the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. + +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) +entered the room which lay between our "den" and the ballroom, Probably +they would have gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in +that way, but I cried her name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only +a moment she paused--long enough to send Lord Robert away--and then she +came straight to me. He must have been furious: but I didn't care for +that. + +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and +beautiful, looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I +should have liked to strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the +other, deepening the rose to crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for +each finger. + +"Have you a headache, dear?" she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps +for me--as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. + +"It's my heart," said I. "It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish +I could die, and end it all! What's the good of me--to myself or +anyone?" + +"Don't talk like that, my poor one," she said. "Shall I take you +upstairs to your own room?" + +"No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs," I answered. "Yet I +can't stay here. What shall I do?" + +"What about Uncle Eric's study?" Di asked. She always calls Lord +Mountstuart 'Uncle Eric,' though he isn't her uncle. Her mother and his +wife were sisters, that's all: and then there was the other sister who +married the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord +Mountstuart's. That family seemed to have a craze for American girls; +but Lord Mountstuart makes an exception of me. He's civil, of course, +because he's an abject slave of Di's, and she refused to come and pay a +visit in England without me: but I give him the shivers, I know very +well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. + +"I'm sure he won't be there this evening," Di went on, when I hesitated. +"He's playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, +half an hour ago. Come, let me help you there. It's only a step." + +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked +across the room, out into a corridor, through a tiny "bookroom" where +odd volumes and old magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart's study. + +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The +library next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord +Mountstuart's favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a +novel or two, and thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has +painted in different parts of the world hang on the walls: for he also +fancies himself artistic. + +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I +suppose, the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or +dreams them out. And it was to this that Di led me. + +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, +and asked if she should ring and get a little brandy. + +"No," I said, "I shall feel better in a few minutes. It's so nice and +cool here." + +"You look better already!" exclaimed Di. "Soon, when you've lain and +rested awhile, you'll be a different girl." + +"Ah, how I wish I _could_ be a different girl!" I sighed. "A strong, +well girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,--like +you--or Maxine de Renzie." + +"What makes you think of her?" asked Di, quickly. + +"Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his 'pal,' and +tells me things he doesn't tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about +Maxine, still." + +"She'd be a difficult woman to forget, if she's as attractive off the +stage as she is on." + +"What a pity we didn't come in time to meet here when she was playing in +London with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their +houses, it seems. Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and +that it's such a pleasant memory, whenever he comes to this house. I +suppose that's one reason he likes to come so much." + +"No doubt," said Di sharply. + +"He got so fascinated talking of her," I went on. "He almost forgot that +he had a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great +hit, and all that; but she didn't stand quite as high as she does now, +since she's become the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except +her salary, then, whereas she must have saved up a lot of money by this +time. I have an idea that Ivor would have proposed to her when she was +in London if he'd thought her success established." + +"Nonsense!" Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. "As if Ivor were the +kind of man to think of such a thing!" + +"He isn't very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him +to marry a poor girl, or a girl who wasn't well connected socially. He +_has_ to think of such things." + +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of +course Di has all her mother's money, two hundred thousand English +pounds; and through the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the +Foreign Secretary, she has got to know all the best people in England. +Besides, the King and Queen have been particularly nice to her since she +was presented, so she has the run of their special set, as well as the +political and artistic, and "old-fashioned exclusive" ones. + +"Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself," she said, "and he has plenty of +good connections of his own. He'll have a little money, too, some day, +from an aunt or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie +had nothing more than a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said +Maxine was rather proud to have Ivor dangling about, because everyone +likes him, and because his travels and his book were being a lot talked +about just then. Naturally, he admired her, because she's beautiful, and +a very great actress--" + +"Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair," I laughed. "She +flirts with him herself." + +"Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian's over forty, and he's twenty-nine!" + +"Forty isn't the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She's a beauty +and a great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts +with him, and he with her." + +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn't care. "You'd +better not say such silly things to Uncle Eric," she said, staring at +the pattern of the cornice. "Aren't those funny, gargoyley faces up +there? I never noticed them before. But oh--about Mr. Dundas and Maxine +de Renzie--I don't think, really, that he troubles himself much about +her any more, for the other day I--I happened to ask what she was +playing in Paris now, and he didn't know. He said he hadn't been over to +see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid when he wasn't +too busy, he was too lazy." + +"He _said_ so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday +at Folkestone with the godmother who's going to leave him her money, how +easy to slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being +the wiser." + +"Why shouldn't he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he +likes?" laughed Di, but not happily. "You're looking much better, Lisa. +You've quite a colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?" + +"I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart +is sure not to come," said I. "These pillows are so comfortable. Then +perhaps, by and by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch +the dancing. I should like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan't +sleep, and the night will seem so long." + +"Very well," said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have +liked to shake me. "I'm afraid I shall have to run away now, for my +partner will think me so rude. What about supper?" + +"Oh, I don't want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that," I +interrupted. "Go now, I don't need you any more." + +"Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again." + +"Yes--yes." + +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful +look in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. "Even if you +don't send, I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you +are," she said. Then she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa +cushions, with the feeling that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down +the pillows like a stone. + +"She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor," I said to myself. +"Well--she's welcome to it now. I don't think she'll enjoy it much--or +let him. Oh, I hope they'll quarrel. I don't think I'd mind anything, if +only I was sure they'd never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would +marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I +hate her--and all beautiful girls, who spoil the lives of women like +me." + +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time +must be coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in +spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be +engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; +for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's +ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on +her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart +to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and I heard a +voice speaking. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +LISA LISTENS + +Someone turned up the light. "I'll leave you together," said Lord +Mountstuart; and the door was closed. + +"What could that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come +in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had +Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tte--tte between Di and Ivor +Dundas? + +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must +hear what they had to say to each other. + +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down +into the narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply +pulling the clinging folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay +still, my blood pounding in my temples and ears, and in my nostrils a +faint, musty smell from the Oriental stuff that covered the lounge. + +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the +wall, and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had +mentioned when she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our +conversation. But I was listening with all my might for what was to +come. + +"Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas," said a voice, which gave +me a shock of surprise, though I knew it well. + +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. + +"We won't run the risk of interruptions," he went on, with that slow, +clear enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their +lives, especially men of the college that was his--Balliol. "I told +Mountstuart that I wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows +nothing, nor does anyone else except myself. You understand that this +conversation of ours, whether anything comes of it or not, is entirely +confidential. I have a proposal to make. You'll agree to it or not, as +you choose. But if you don't agree, forget it, with everything I may +have said." + +"My services and my memory are both at your disposal," answered Ivor, in +such a gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked +with Diana--and that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. "I am +honoured--I won't say flattered, for I'm too much in earnest--that you +should place any confidence in me." + +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of +course, I said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the +Foreign Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in +the gift of that man. + +"Frankly, I'm in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can +help me out of it better than anyone else I know," said the smooth, +trained voice. "It is a little diplomatic errand you will have to +undertake for me tomorrow, if you want to do me a good turn." + +"I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the +best of my ability," replied Ivor. + +"I'm sure you can carry it through excellently," said the Foreign +Secretary, still fencing. "It will be good practice, if you succeed, +for--any future duties in the career which may be opening to you." + +"He's bribing him with that consulship," I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn't +beating so thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. + +"I thank you for your trust in me," said Ivor. + +"A little diplomatic errand," repeated the Foreign Secretary. "In itself +the thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its +relation with other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, +incalculable importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply +to you. Indeed, I came to my cousin Mountstuart's house expressly +because I was told you would be at his wife's ball. My regret is, that +the news which brought me in search of you didn't reach me earlier, for +if it had I should have come with my wife, and have got at you in time +to send you off--if you agreed to go--to-night. As it is, the matter +will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It's too late for you to catch +the midnight boat across the Channel." + +"Across the Channel?" echoed Ivor. "You want me to go to France?" + +"Yes." + +"One could always get across somehow," said Ivor, thoughtfully, "if +there were a great hurry." + +"There is--the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less +speed. That is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and +charter a tug or motor boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object +would probably be defeated. I came to you because those who are watching +this business wouldn't be likely to guess I had given you a hand in it. +All that you do, however, must be done quietly, with no fuss, no sign of +anything unusual going on. It was natural I should come to a ball given +by my wife's sister, whose husband is my cousin. No one knows of this +interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that score, at +least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should +meet Mademoiselle de Renzie there." + +"Mademoiselle de Renzie!" exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, +and showing plainly that he was taken aback. + +"Isn't she a friend of yours?" asked the Foreign Secretary rather +sharply. Though I couldn't see him, I knew exactly how he would be +looking at Ivor, his keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips +drawn in, the long, well-shaped hand, of which he is said to be vain, +toying with the pale Malmaison pink he always wears in his buttonhole. + +"Yes, she is a friend of mine," Ivor answered. "But--" + +"A 'but' already! Perhaps I'd better tell you that the mission has to do +with Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has +acted as my agent in Paris." + +"Indeed! I didn't dream that she dabbled in politics." + +"And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it +weren't necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in +this matter. But before we go any further, I must know whether +Mademoiselle de Renzie's connection with this business will for any +reason keep you out of it." + +"Not if--you need my help," said Ivor, with an effort. "And I beg you +won't suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie +herself. I have for her the greatest respect and admiration." + +"We all have," returned the Foreign Secretary, "especially those who +know her best. Among her many virtues, she's one of the few women who +can keep a secret--her own and others. She is a magnificent actress--on +the stage and off. And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell +you it's to help her as well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or +you will be handicapped. For several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has +done good service--secret service, you must understand--for Great +Britain." + +"By Jove! Maxine a political spy!" Ivor broke out impulsively. + +"That's rather a hard name, isn't it? There are better ones. And she's +no traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she's Polish by +birth. I can assure you we've much for which to thank her cleverness and +tact--and beauty. For our sakes I'm sorry that she's serving our +interests professionally for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to +rejoice, as she's engaged to be married. And if you can save her from +coming to grief over this very ticklish business, she'll probably live +happily ever after. Did you know of her engagement?" + +"No," replied Ivor. "I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in +London a year ago; but after she went to Paris--of course, she's very +busy and has crowds of friends; and I've only crossed once or twice +since, on hurried visits; so we haven't met, or written to each other." + +("Very good reason," I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. "You've been +busy, too--falling in love with Diana Forrest.") + +"It hasn't been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might +have been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when +the right time comes--if the poor girl isn't ruined irretrievably in +this affair of ours." + +"Is there really serious danger of that?" "The most serious. If you +can't save her, not only will the _Entente Cordiale_ be shaken to its +foundations (and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), +but her future happiness will be broken in the crash, and--she says--she +will not live to suffer the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if +disaster comes; and though suicide is usually the last resource of a +coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no coward, and I'm inclined to think I +should come to the same resolve in her place." + +"Tell me what I am to do," said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary's strange words, and his intense earnestness. + +"You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without +mentioning your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some +hotel where you have never stayed and are not known. I will find means +of informing the lady what hotel you choose. You will there give a +fictitious name (let us say, George Sandford) and you will take a suite, +with a private sitting-room. That done, you will say that you are +expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no one else. You will +wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will certainly be as +soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you're not being spied upon, you will put into her +hands a small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night." + +"It sounds simple enough," said Ivor, "if that's all." + +"It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple." + +"Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a +hotel? I'd willingly do so if--" + +"No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who +are watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the +meeting. So much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four +o'clock every afternoon, the young Frenchman she's engaged to is in the +habit of going to her house, and stopping until it's time for her to go +to work. He dines with her, but doesn't drive with her to the theatre, +as that would be rather too public for the present, until their +engagement's announced. He adores her, but is inconveniently jealous, +like most Latins. It's practically certain that he's heard your name +mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and as a +Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a +beautiful woman without being in love with her, your call at her house +might give Mademoiselle Maxine a _mauvais quart d'heure_." + +"I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel--" + +"She'll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the +theatre early, and thus get rid of him. She's quite clever enough to +manage that. Then, as your own name won't appear on any hotel list in +the papers next day, the most jealous heart need have no cause for +suspicion. At the same time, if certain persons whom Mademoiselle--and +we, too--have to fear, do find out that she has visited Ivor Dundas, who +has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a private interview with +her, interests of even deeper importance than the most desperate love +affair may still, we'll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your old +friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?" + +"I think so," replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the +change in his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly +drained. "I will do my very best." + +"If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the +next two days, you won't suffer for it in the end," remarked the Foreign +Secretary meaningly. + +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, +bound up with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and +white bride cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, +in America. I didn't want him to have the consulship, because getting +that would perhaps mean getting Di, too. + +"Thank you," said Ivor. + +"And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?" asked the Foreign Secretary. +"It should be a good one, I don't need to remind you, where Mademoiselle +de Renzie could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she +should be recognised in spite of the veil she's pretty certain to wear. +Yet it shouldn't be in too central a situation." + +"Shall it be the lyse Palace?" asked Ivor. + +"That will do very well," replied the other, after reflecting for an +instant. And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my +"impish joy," when it was settled; for the lyse Palace is where Lord +and Lady Mountstuart stop when they visit Paris, and they'd been talking +of running over next day with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful +new motor car for sale there--one that a Rajah had ordered to be made +for him, but died before it was finished. Lady Mountstuart always has +one new fad every six months at least, and her latest is to drive a +motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert--can make a motor, I +believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he'd been +insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She'd +promised, that if not too tired she'd cross to Paris the day after the +ball, taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn't be equal +to an early start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she +should see Maxine at the hotel with Ivor! + +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the lyse Palace for +rooms without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting +Maxine, once it was arranged for her to go there. "Any misunderstanding +would be fatal," he went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine's +head depended upon Ivor's trip. "I only wish I could have got you off +to-night; and in that case you might have gone to her own house, early +in the morning. She is in a frightful state of mind, poor girl. But it +was only to-day that the contents of the packet reached me, and was +shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just before I hurried round +here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from her, warning me +that Count Godensky--of whom you've probably heard--an attach of the +Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a--er--a game in +high politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to +present intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who's +well known in Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused +to take no for an answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded +into giving him a severe snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn't +forgive a snub, especially if it had got talked about. He'd be a bad +enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he is a very bitter and +determined enemy. Apparently she doesn't know how much he has found out, +or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely guesses, +and 'bluffs.' But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more +closely than usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent +wouldn't get through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you +should not." + +"Nor I," answered Ivor, laughing a little. "I think I could make some +trouble for anyone who tried to stop me." + +"Caution above all! Remember you're in training for a diplomatic career, +what? If you should lose the packet I'm going to give you, I prophesy +that in twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: +for the circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, +the most peculiar I've ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a +varied experience; and they intimately concern her fianc, the Vicomte +Raoul du Laurier--" + +"Raoul du Laurier!" exclaimed Ivor. "So she's engaged to marry him!" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I have friends who do. He's in the French Foreign Office, though they +say he's more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays--" + +"Which don't get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some +day, for I believe he's an extremely clever fellow in his way--in +everything except the diplomatic 'trade' which his father would have him +take up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du +Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost +absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle Maxine has plenty of excuse for her +infatuation--for I assure you it's nothing less. She'd jump into the +fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc smile on her +face." + +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he'd ever been really +in love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he +hadn't, for he didn't seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he +grew a little more cheerful. + +"I can see that du Laurier's being in the French Foreign Office might +make it rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she--if she's been rather +too helpful to us," he said. + +"Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale--a sensational and even romantic tale +almost complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet +Mademoiselle to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you +into her confidence, in reward for your services, in regard to some +private interests of her own which have got themselves wildly mixed up +with the gravest political matters, she's at liberty to do so as far as +I'm concerned, for you are to be trusted, and deserve to be trusted. You +may say that to her from me, if the occasion arises. I hope with all my +heart that everything may go smoothly. If not--the _Entente Cordiale_ +may burst like a bomb. I--who have made myself responsible in the +matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny me if the +scheme's a failure--shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; +and you, though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the +misfortunes of others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be +almost as if you carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the +packet into the hands of Maxine de Renzie." "Good heavens, I shall be +glad when she has it!" said Ivor. + +"You can't be gladder than she--or I. And here it is," replied the +Foreign Secretary. "I consider it great luck to have found such a +messenger, at a house I could enter without being suspected of any +motive more subtle than a wish to eat a good supper, or to meet some of +the prettiest women in London." + +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take +to Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two +from behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they +were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The +Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a +woman's looks, never could bear me: and I believe he would have thought +it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he +knew I'd overheard his secrets. + +However, Ivor's next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to +know. "It's importance evidently doesn't consist in bulk," he said +lightly. "I can easily carry the case in my breast pocket." + +"Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and +honour of a woman," said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. "Now, I, must +go and look for my wife. It's better that you and I shouldn't be seen +together. One never knows who may have got in among the guests at a +crush like this. I will go out at one door, and when you've waited for a +few minutes, you can go, by way of another." + +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was +alone. What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me +longed to see how his face would look; but there was too much at stake. +Not only would I hate to have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I +had already built up a great plan for the use I could make of what I had +overheard. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape +from behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as +I had sat up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm +asleep, Lord Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. + +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first +editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord +Mountstuart's treasures before. As both were perfectly daft on the +subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed +about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring +admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with +their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have been eaten up by +moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set fire to +the whole lot. + +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that +there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other +duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It +was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair +of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the +stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that +open door before I had conquered my cramps and got up from behind the +sofa. + +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating +a minute, the girl--whoever she was--allowed herself to be drawn into a +room where she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they +selected the lounge to sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against +the wall, with "pins and needles" pricking all over my cramped body, +while some man I didn't know proposed and was accepted by some girl I +shall probably never see. + +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until +voices were "heard off," as they say in the directions for theatricals, +whereupon they sprang up and hurried out like "guilty things upon a +fearful summons." + +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out +of my prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the +servants use. But it was very late now, and people were going, even the +young ones who love dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my +ball dress and into a dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my +one beauty, and let it hang over my shoulders, streaming down in front +on each side, so that nobody would know one shoulder is higher than the +other. It wasn't that I was particularly anxious to appear well before +Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the contrast between us to +seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but because I wanted her +to think, when she came to my room, that I'd been there a long time. + +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she +found me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. + +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, +and seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all +night, but instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her +voice was as gay and happy as Ivor's had been when he first came into +Lord Mountstuart's study with the Foreign Secretary. + +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn't +wanted to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been +in bed and asleep long ago. + +"Everything went very well," said she. "I think it was a great success." + +"Did you dance every dance?" I asked, working up slowly to what I meant +to say. + +"Except a few that I sat out." + +"I can guess who sat them out with you," said I. "Ivor Dundas. And one +was number thirteen, wasn't it?" + +"How did you know?" + +"He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn't try +to hide anything from me. He tells most things to his 'Imp.' Was he nice +when he proposed?" + +"He didn't propose." + +"I'll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he +didn't tell you he loved you, and ask if there'd be a chance for him in +case he got Algiers." + +"I wouldn't take your bracelet even if--if--. But you're a little +witch, Lisa." + +"Of course I am!" I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench +of the heart. "And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and +said he could have you, Algiers or no Algiers." + +"I don't believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking +about this evening," said Di, with her cheeks very pink. "He may have +flirted a little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But--but he +_does_ love me, Lisa." + +"And he did love Maxine!" I laughed. + +"He didn't. He never loved her. I--you see, you put such horrid thoughts +into my head that--that I just mentioned her name when he said +to-night--oh, when he said the usual things, about never having cared +seriously for anyone until he saw me. Only--it seems treacherous to call +them '_usual_' because--when you love a man you feel that the things he +says can never have been said before, in the same way, by any other man +to any other woman." + +"Only perhaps by the same man to another woman," I mocked at her, trying +to act as if I were teasing in fun. + +"Lisa, you _can_ be hateful sometimes!" she cried. + +"It's only for your good, if I'm hateful now," I said. "I don't want to +have you disappointed, when it's too late. I want you to keep your eyes +open, and see exactly where you're going. It's the truest thing ever +said that 'love is blind.' You can't deny that you're in love with Ivor +Dundas." + +"I don't deny it," she answered, with a proud air which would, I +suppose, have made Ivor want to kiss her. + +"And you didn't deny it to him?" + +"No, I didn't. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I +wish I hadn't, now. I wish I'd shown that I trusted him entirely. I know +he deserves to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him--" + +"I don't think I should commit myself any further till day after +to-morrow," said I drily. "Indeed, you couldn't if you wanted to, unless +you wrote or wired. You won't see him to-morrow." + +"Yes, I shall," she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of +hers, that looked positively black with excitement. "He's going to the +Duchess of Glasgow's bazaar, because I said I should most likely be +there: and I will go--" + +"But he won't." + +"How can you know anything about it?" + +"I do know, everything. And I'll tell you what I know, if you'll promise +me two things." + +"What things?" + +"That you won't ask me how I found out, and that you'll swear never to +give me away to anybody." + +"Of course I wouldn't 'give you away,' as you call it. But--I'm not sure +I want you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I'd rather not hear stories +behind his back." + +"Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess's to-morrow," I snapped, "and +wear your prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time +he'll be arriving in Paris to keep a very particular engagement with +Maxine de Renzie." + +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. "I +don't believe he's going to Paris!" she exclaimed. + +"I know he's going. And I know he's going especially to see Maxine." + +"It can't be. He told me to-night he wouldn't cross the street to see +her. I--I made it a condition--that if he found he cared enough for her +to want to see her again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all +thought of me. If I'm to reign, I must reign alone." + +"Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to +see her." + +"No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour +ago." + +"Yet at least two hours ago he'd arranged a meeting with Maxine for +to-morrow afternoon." + +"You're dreaming." + +"I was never wider awake: or if I'm dreaming, you can dream the same +dream if you'll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this +morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o'clock." + +"I will be there!" cried Di, changing from red to white. "And you shall +be with me, to see that you're wrong. I know you will be wrong." + +"That's an engagement," said I. "At 10 o'clock, Victoria Station, just +you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I'm right, and +Ivor's there, shall you think it wise to give him up?" + +"He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie--in which case he'd probably +write me. But--at the station, I shall ask him straight out--that is, if +he's there, as I'm sure he won't be--whether he intends to see +Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he says no, I'll believe him. If he says +yes--" + +"You'll tell him all is over between you?" + +"He'd know that without my telling, after our talk last night." + +"And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine's +name from me?" + +"Nothing," Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' POINT OF VIEW + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by +the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down +to--the other place. + +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on +my way to Paris. + +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much +time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too +early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I +should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least +wished to meet: Diana Forrest. + +"The Imp"--Lisa Drummond--was with her: but I saw only Di at first--Di, +looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last +night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said +that I didn't care to see Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to +see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her. + +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would +think it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when +explanations were forbidden. But I couldn't lie to a girl I loved as I +love Diana Forrest. It would have sickened me with life and with myself +to do it: and it was with the knowledge in my mind that I could not and +would not lie, that I had to greet her with a conventional "Good +morning." + +"Are you going out of town?" I asked, with my hat off for her and for +the Imp, whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my +tall love's shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was +like a cat; but suddenly the resemblance struck me--something in the +poor little creature's expression, it must have been, or in her greenish +grey eyes which seemed at that moment to concentrate all the knowledge +of old and evil things that has ever come into the world since the days +of the early Egyptians--when a cat was worshipped. + +"No, I'm not going out of town," Di answered. "I came here to meet you, +in case you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with +me." + +"Who told you I was leaving?" I asked, hoping for a second or two that +the Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his +secret--guessing ours, perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable +absence might injure me with her. + +"I can't tell you," she answered. "I didn't believe you would go; even +though I got your letter by the eight o'clock post this morning." + +"I'm glad you got that," I said. "I posted it soon after I left you last +night." + +"Why didn't you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that +you wouldn't be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to +write?" + +"Frankly and honestly," I said (for I had to say it), "just at the +moment, and only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow's +bazaar. That was because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, +something happened which made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I +begged you to let me see you to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. +Do say 'yes.'" + +"I'll say yes on one condition--and gladly," she replied, with an odd, +pale little smile, "that you tell me where you're going this morning. I +know it must seem horrid in me to ask, but--but--oh, Ivor, it _isn't_ +horrid, really. You wouldn't think it horrid if you could understand." + +"I'm going to Paris," I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold +potato where my heart ought to be. "I am obliged to go, on business." + +"You didn't say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when +you told me you couldn't come to the Duchess's," said Di, looking like a +beautiful, unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. +"You only mentioned 'an urgent engagement which you'd forgotten.'" + +"I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry," I told her, +lamely. + +"So it was--so it would have been," she faltered, "if it hadn't been +for--what we said last night about--Paris. And then--I can't explain to +you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you +meant to go there, and--after our talk, I couldn't believe it. I didn't +come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I +wouldn't find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn't found you. +Yet--you're here." + +"And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same," I said, as +firmly as I could. + +"Of course. I'll trust you, if--" + +"If what?" + +"If you'll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you're not going to +see Maxine de Renzie." + +"I may see her," I admitted. + +"But--but at least, you're not going on purpose?" + +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign +Secretary, I could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to +what suspicion was I not laying myself open in confessing that I +deliberately intended to see her, having sworn by all things a man does +swear by when he wishes to please a girl, that I didn't wish to see +Maxine, and would not see Maxine? + +"You said you'd trust me, Di," I reminded her. "For Heaven's sake don't +break that promise." + +"But--if you're breaking a promise to me?" + +"A promise?" + +"Worse, then! Because I didn't ask you to promise. I had too much faith +in you for that. I believed you when you said you didn't care +for--anyone but me. I've told Lisa. It doesn't matter our speaking like +this before her. I asked you to wait for my promise for a little while, +until I could be quite sure you didn't think of Miss de Renzie as--some +people fancied you did. If you wanted to see her, I said you must go, +and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next morning, by the first +train, you start." + +"Only because I am obliged to," I hazarded in spite of the Foreign +Secretary and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by +making matters worse instead of better for myself. + +"Obliged to!" she echoed. "Then there's something you must settle with +her, before you can be--free." + +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should +lose the train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, +as well as Maxine's, I must not. + +"Dearest," I said hurriedly, "I am free. There's no question of freedom. +Yet I shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me." + +"Not if you go to her--this day of all days." The words were wrung from +the poor child's lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like +death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of +soothing it. + +"You shall. You must," I commanded, rather than implored. "Good-bye, +darling--precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall +come back to you to-morrow." + +"You needn't. You need never come to me again," she said, white lipped. +And the guard whistled, waving his green flag. + +"Don't dare to say such a cruel thing--a thing you don't mean!" I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a +little man inside jumped to the window and shouted, "Reserved! Don't you +see it's reserved?" which explained the fact that the door seemed to be +fastened. + +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, +and would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men +rushed at the door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it +with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have +lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in +after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself +where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was +thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my +heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care +much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way in, +though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have +pushed me out if I hadn't been too strong for them. I had a dim +impression that, instead of joining with the newcomers, the first man, +who would have kept the place to himself before their entrance, seemed +willing to aid me against the others. They being once foisted upon him, +he appeared to wish for my presence too, or else he merely desired to +prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and perhaps killed, for +he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. + +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly +struggle, and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. + +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so +far that Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a +bad omen; and the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for +ever. + +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too +late, I fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary +and even the _Entente Cordiale_ (provided he had not been exaggerating) +for Di's sake, and love's sake. But there was no going back now, even if +I would. The train was already travelling almost at full speed, and +there was nothing to do but resign myself to the inevitable, and hope +for the best. Someone, it was clear, had tried to work mischief between +Diana and me, and there were only too many chances that he had +succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I half-dazedly +looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage with +which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather +unintellectual, unimaginative type could be, and he hadn't shown himself +as friendly lately to me as he once had: still, I didn't think he was +the sort of fellow to trip up a rival in the race by a trick, even if he +could possibly have found out that I was going to Paris this morning. + +"Won't you sit here, sir?" a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw +that the little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was +in a corner facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, +and began to observe my travelling companions for the first time. + +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me +that all three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a +first-class carriage. + +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had +removed a bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did +not look like a typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of +person who might be expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. +He was small and thin, and weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes +of the kind which ought to have had white lashes instead of the sparse, +jet black ones that rimmed them. His forehead, though narrow, suggested +shrewdness, as did the expression of those light coloured eyes of his, +which were set close to the sharp, slightly up-turned nose. His hair was +so black that it made his skin seem singularly pallid, though it was +only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously over two +prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the air +of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be "smart" +get up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and +thirty-eight) looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, +masquerading as a "swell." + +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved +compartment by means of their railway key were both bigger and more +manly than he who had a right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, +with a heavy beard and moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and +cruel mouth pouted disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, +with a brick-coloured complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also +were flashily dressed with "horsey" neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. +As I glanced at the pair, they were talking together in a low voice, +with an open newspaper held up between them; but the man who had helped +me in against their will sat silent, staring out of the window and +uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, apparently, +paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in +an inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not +attract attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to +assure myself that it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting +Di, and I felt certain that nothing could have happened to it since. + +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected +that these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed +them into the compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as +they were three to one if they combined against me, and the train was, +unfortunately, not entirely a corridor train. Therefore, having assured +myself that I was not among spies bent on having my life or the secret I +carried, I forgot about my fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy +speculations as to my chances with Diana. I had been loving her, +thinking of little else but her and my hopes of her, for many months +now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty world it would be +for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had perhaps lost her. + +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I +would not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, +even to repent her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, +and Heaven knew how much or when I might be permitted to explain. I +would not be a man if I took her at her word, and let her slip from me, +no matter how many times that word were repeated; so I told myself over +and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to say that nothing could be as +it had been; that I'd sacrificed my happiness to please a stranger, and +to save a woman whom I had never really loved. + +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there +were so many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer +than I had or would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on +caring for me, after what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn't +said in actual words last night that she would marry me, whereas this +morning she had almost said she never would. I should have nobody to +blame but myself if I came back to London to-morrow to find her engaged +to Lord Robert West--a man who, as his brother has no children, might +some day make her a Duchess. + +"Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir," said one of the two +railway-key men, suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. +"Hardly knew what I was about when I shoved you away from the door. Me +and my friend was afraid of missing the train, so we pushed--instinct of +self-preservation, I suppose," and he chuckled as if he had got off some +witticism. "Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing intentional, 'pon my word." + +"Thanks. No apology is necessary," I replied as indifferently as I felt. + +"That's all right, then," finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. +He turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation +behind the newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally +glanced over the top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole +attention were not taken up with the news of the day. + +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently +not of the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on +the upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted +my attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly +pale, under a kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I +thought he must be ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in +anxious anticipation of the horrors which might be in store for him on +the boat. Presently he pulled out a red-bordered handkerchief, and +unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his checked travelling cap. When +he had done this, I saw that his hair was left streaked with damp; and +there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, observing which +with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric hastily +into his pocket. + +"The little beast must dye his hair," I thought contemptuously. "Perhaps +he's an albino, really. His eyes look like it." + +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn +away and spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But +immediately after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking +up a book he had laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close +to his nose that the printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he +were very near-sighted. Thus he sat for some time; yet I felt that no +look thrown by the other two was lost on him. He seemed to know each +time one of them peered over the newspaper; and when at last the train +slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness returned. His +small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one piece of +luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the things +together. + +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I +had let my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, +and I had nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for +the boat. Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing +an article out of a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object +to be caught in a crowd and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches +who might be lying in wait for what I had in my pocket. It seemed +impossible that anyone could have learned that I was playing messenger +between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Maxine de Renzie: +still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple mission had +been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect any +precaution. + +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced +friend lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, +except a small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to +stuff in their newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. +Presently, when the first rush for the boat was over, and the porters +who had come to the door of our compartment had gone away empty-handed, +I would have got out, had I not caught an imploring glance from the +little man who had reserved the carriage. Perhaps I imagined it, but his +pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, don't leave me alone +with these others." + +"Would you be so very kind, sir," he said to me, "to beckon a porter, as +you are near the door? I find after all that I shan't be able to carry +everything myself." + +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when +the porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their +bags. I also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, +if the little man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he +said. Would I be so extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the +platform to see if it had fallen there? + +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had +found the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and +scrambling out of the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for +him, he would have walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped +behind a few steps, thinking--as always--of the contents of that inner +breast pocket. + +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, +or almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other +passengers--a family party with a fat nurse and crying baby--behind us. +As I approached the gangway, I saw on deck my late travelling +companions, the Jewish man and his friend, regarding us with interest. +Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost on the little man's +heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: "Look +out--gangway's falling!" + +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as +the nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself +no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman +with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also +attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees. +The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he +almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled, +pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling +baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. + +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat +cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the +gangway was "all right," and never had been anything but all right, I +could not readjust my hat nor see what was going on until the fat nurse +had obligingly retrieved her charge, without a word of thanks. + +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a +horrible idea that the scare might have been got up for the express +purpose of robbing me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as +ever under my coat, and decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm +had had nothing to do with me. + +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of +the way of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had +been rough for a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and +everything was already engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the +time, always conscious of the unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The +little man paced up and down, too, though his yellow face grew slowly +green, and he would have been much better off below, lying on his back. +As for the two others, they also remained on deck, talking together as +they leaned against the rail; but though I passed them now and again, I +noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by turning before he +reached their "pitch." + +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, +because if I had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother +would have been over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd +thronging the _douane_, I decided to let the suitcase look after itself, +and send down for it with the key from the hotel later. Again the little +man was close to my side as I went in search of a cab, for all his +things had been gone through by the custom house officer in mid-channel, +so that he too was free to depart without delay. He even seemed to cling +to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant to speak, but he +did not, save for a "good evening, sir," as I separated myself from him +at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any +conjurer's tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was +walking toward a cab, and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two +late travelling companions, who were getting into another vehicle near +by. + +I went straight to the lyse Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped +before--a long drive from the Gare du Nord--and claimed the rooms for +which "Mr. George Sandford" had wired from London. The suite engaged was +a charming one, and the private salon almost worthy to receive the +lovely lady I expected. Nor did she keep me waiting. I had had time only +to give instructions about sending a man with a key to the station for +my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to reach my rooms, and to +draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at the salon door. +I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this happened, +but to my surprise the room remained in darkness--or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. + +"The lady has arrived, Monsieur," announced the servant. "As Monsieur +expected her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that +something has gone wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It +was but just now discovered, at time for turning on the lights, +otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would have been provided, though +no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few minutes. If +Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp." + +"No, thank you," I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted +in the midst of my important interview with Maxine. "If the light comes +on, it will he all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it +is not yet quite dark. Show the lady in." + +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, +whose tall and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting +black dress, though her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly +embroidered veil that completely hid her face, while long, graceful lace +folds fell over and obscured the bright auburn of her hair. + +"One moment," I said. "Let me push the curtains back. The electricity +has failed." + +"No, no," she answered. "Better leave them as they are. The lights may +come on and we be seen from outside. Why,"--as she drew nearer to me, +and the servant closed the door, "I thought I recognised that voice! It +is Ivor Dundas." + +"No other," said I. "Didn't the--weren't you warned who would be the man +to come?" + +"No," she replied. "Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of +meeting were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a +cypher which I trust nobody knows--except myself and one other. But I'm +glad--glad it's you. It was clever of--him, to have sent you. No one +would dream that--no one would think it strange if they knew--as I hope +they won't--that you came to Paris to see me. Oh, the relief that you've +got through safely! Nothing has happened? You have--the paper?" + +"Nothing has happened, and I have the paper," I reassured her. "No +adventures, to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I've been +spotted. Anyway, here I am; and here is something which will put an end +to your anxiety." And I tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. + +"Thank God!" breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which +would have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was +never further in her life from the thought of acting. "After all I've +suffered, it seems too good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and +let me go." + +"I will," I said. "But you might seem to take just a little more +interest in me, even if you don't really feel it, you know. You might +just say, 'How have you been for the last twelve months?'" + +"Oh, I do take an interest, and I'm grateful to you--I can't tell you +how grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now," +she said, eagerly. "If you knew everything, you'd understand." + +"I know practically nothing," I confessed; "still, I do understand. I +was only teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn't to have done it, even for a +minute. Here is the letter-case which the Foreign--which was given to me +to bring to you." + +"Wait!" she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had +never departed. "Wait! It will he better to lock the door." But even as +she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she +flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped +suggestively a moment ago. I let her draw out the long case which I had +been guarding--the case I had not once touched since leaving London, +except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat. At +least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands +now. + +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung +to me, the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my +nostrils. But as she started away, and I knew that she had the +letter-case, the knock came again. Then, before I could be sure whether +she wished for time to hide, or whether she would have me cry "come in," +without seeming to hesitate, the door opened. For a second or two Maxine +and I, and a group of figures at the door were mere shadows in the ever +deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have counted ten before the +long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in more than one +place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall Commissary +of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. + +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to +see that she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of +sight. Having ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the +devil's name the Commissary of Police meant by walking into an +Englishman's room without being invited; and not only that, but what +under heaven he wanted anyway. + +He was far more polite than I was. + +"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur," he apologised. "I knocked twice, but +hearing no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon +was unoccupied. Important business must be my excuse. I have to request +that Monsieur Dundas will first place in my hands the gift he has +brought from London to Mademoiselle de Renzie." + +"I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie," I prevaricated +boldly; but the man's knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris +police had contrived to learn it already, as well as to find out that I +was the bearer of something for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough +to play the game in their own way--whatever that might be. + +"Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent--to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned," amended the Commissary +of Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. + +"Really, I don't know what you are talking about," I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered--or hoping that I looked bewildered. +All the while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for +Maxine, or if she would still find some way of saving herself. But all I +could do for her at the moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies +as necessary. I hadn't been able to lie to Diana; but I had no +compunctions about doing it now, if it were to help Maxine. The worst +was, that I was far from sure it would help her. + +"I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police +from doing their duty," said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory +for the first time. "Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be +compelled to order that Monsieur be searched." + +"You seem to forget that you're dealing with a British subject," said I. + +"Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country," he capped my +words. "You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now--" + +"Why don't you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas," suggested Maxine, +lightly, yet contemptuously, "and show them that you've nothing in which +the police can have any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, +will be to search me." + +"I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, +unless satisfaction is given to me," returned the Commissary of Police. + +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these +men had ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me +that her beauty must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. +For Maxine is a gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most +striking, more wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes +laughed out of her white face, and her red lips smiled as if neither +they, nor the great eyes, had any secret to hide. + +"Look at me," she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which +was of the fashion which, I think, women call "Princess." It fitted her +as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. + +"Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?" she +asked. "I haven't a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could +have, in a gown like this. I don't know in the least what sort of 'gift' +my old friend is supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I'll +take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le +Commisaire, for I've been taught, as a servant of the public, to be +civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable. No? +You don't want to see my rings? Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, +then. I might have put the thing--whatever it is--in my hair." + +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half +scornful, half good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood +smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of +her dark red hair shadowing her forehead. + +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my +pockets: a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my +watch, and a handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small +bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection: but as one of the +gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and +handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back +into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time. There were too +many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine +could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more than two +seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. + +"Now, are you satisfied?" she asked, "Now that we have both shown you we +have nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police +station, and have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? +I'll go with you, if you wish. I won't even he indiscreet enough to ask +questions, since you seem inclined to do what we've no need to do--keep +your own secrets. All I stipulate is, that if you care to take such +measures you'll take them at once, for as you may possibly be aware, +this is the first night of my new play, and I should be sorry to be +late." + +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he +would read her soul. + +"No, Mademoiselle," he said, "I am convinced that neither you nor +Monsieur are concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble +you further until we have searched the room." + +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be +when she lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I +saw that the pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could +control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood +in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the +gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My +heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the +place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her +pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of +the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; and though +I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + +"How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur," she +asked, "before you--rather rudely, I must say--broke in upon my +conversation with my friend?" + +"You had been here exactly three minutes," replied the Commissary of +Police. + +"As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each +other, after having been parted for many months; and still, in the three +minutes, you believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, +and to find some safe corner--all the while in semi-darkness--for the +hiding of a thing important to the police--a bomb, perhaps? You must +think us very clever." + +"I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle." + +"Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment," she answered, +allowing anger to warm her voice at last; "but this is almost beyond a +joke. A woman comes to the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed +that they prefer her call not to be talked about. For that reason, and +for the woman's sake, the friend chooses to take a name that isn't +his--as he has a right to do. Yet, just because that woman happens +unfortunately to be well-known--her face and name being public +property--she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, no +doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. +Ah, it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to +such stupidity, such meanness." + +"When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me," said the Commissary; "until +then, I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you." Then, turning +to his two gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning +with all possible places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might +be hidden, within ten metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur +had stood talking together when the police opened the door. + +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the +three policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of +the room, she walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon +it. Weariness, disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I +guessed that she felt herself actually in need of the physical support. + +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving +themselves entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their +superior officer did not once take his eyes from the pure profile she +turned scornfully towards him. I knew why he watched her thus, and +thought of a foolish, child's game I used to play twenty years ago, at +little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of "Hide-the-Handkerchief." While +one searched for the treasure, those who knew where it was stood by, +saying: "Now you are warm. Now you are hot--boiling hot. Now you are +cool again. Now you are ice cold." It was as if we were five players at +this game, and Maxine de Renzie's white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: "Now you are warm. Now you are +hot. Now you are ice cold." + +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as +my hat and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes +picked up these things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the +table; peeped behind the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and +drawers of a bric--brac cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the +corners of the rugs on the bare, polished floor; and finally, bowing +apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, took out the logs from the +fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and pried into the +vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window curtains, +and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at +a loss. + +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine's suffering. I felt +as if my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until +it was uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were +peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round +Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the +white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty +of revelation. She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same +smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond +dust. + +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it +too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. +The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled +subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it +fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead +of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he +searched the face of the tortured woman. + +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she +had suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The +only movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in +another moment, if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock +no longer, and she would die. For a second I wildly counted the chances +of overpowering all three men, stunning them into unconsciousness, and +giving Maxine time to escape with the letter-case. But I knew the +attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, the noise would +arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush in to +the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. + +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating +of her bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, +pushing his hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he +moved it along the crevice inch by inch. + +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. +I think Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found +something. The other hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked +together, groping and prying for a few seconds: evidently the something +hidden had been forced deeply and firmly down. Then, up it came--a dark +red leather case, which was neither a letter-case nor a jewel-case, but +might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating in the intense +relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London to +bring Maxine. + +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for +suspense and anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. + +"Voila!" grunted the Commissary of Police. "I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you +had spared us this trouble." + +"You alone are to blame for the trouble," answered Maxine. "I never saw +that thing before in my life." + +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, +so far, she was saved--as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a +woman at bay, fighting to the last, but without hope. "Nor did I ever +see it before." I echoed her words. + +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for +gratitude. I was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, +as I thought that she must know. + +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. "I +suppose you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room +tucked some valued possession down into a safe hiding place--and then +forgot all about it. That is likely, is it not? You shall have the +pleasure, Mademoiselle--and you, Monsieur--of seeing with me what that +careless person left behind him." + +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, +with his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with +calmness, and was amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer +scornful, tragically indifferent in her manner, but imploring--a weak, +agonized woman. + +"For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur," she sobbed. "You don't +understand. I confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held +myself high, in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I--an +actress--never took a lover. But now I am like the others. This is my +lover. There's the price I put on my love. Now, Monsieur, I ask you on +my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case sacred." + +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with +a whip. My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this +became known, this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then +indeed all hope for me with the girl I loved would be over. My second +thought was for Maxine herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she +had chosen the way, I could only be silent. + +"Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, +from such a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of +that case," said the Commissary of Police. + +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. "No--no!" she implored. +"If I were rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I've been +extravagant--I haven't saved, but all I have in the world is yours +if--." + +"There can be no such 'if,' Mademoiselle," the man broke in. And +wrenching his hand free, he opened the case before she could again +prevent him. + +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the +floor, where it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of +rainbow colours. + +_"Sacr bleu!"_ muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever +he had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. +Shorn of hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case +was torn open, she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, +tall figure crumpling like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have +fallen if I had not caught her, holding her up against my shoulder. When +the cataract of diamonds sprang out of the case, however, I felt her +limp body straighten itself. I felt her pulses leap. I felt her begin to +_live_. She had drunk a draught of hope and life, and, fortified by it, +was gathering all her scattered forces together for a new fight, if +fight she must again. + +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was +empty. There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a +scrap of paper. + +"Where, then, is the document?" Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. + +"What document?" she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. +Hearing the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that +lay against my shoulder, who--knowing a little less than I did of the +truth--would have dreamed that in her soul she thanked God for a +miracle? Even I would not have been sure, had I not felt the life +stealing back into her half-dead body. + +"The contents of the case are not what I came here to find," admitted +the Enemy. + +"I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer +horribly," said Maxine. "You have been very cruel to a woman who has +done nothing to deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have +taken in my diamonds is gone now. I shall never have a peaceful +moment--never be able to wear them joyfully. I shall have the thought in +my mind that people who look at me will be saying: 'Every woman has her +price. There is the price of Maxine de Renzie.'" + +"You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle," the man protested. "We +shall never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of +what we have heard and seen in this room." + +"Won't you search further?" asked Maxine. "Since you seemed to expect +something else--" + +"You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, +Mademoiselle," said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. +"Besides, this case was what you did not wish us to find. You are a +great actress, but you could not control the dew which sprang out on +your forehead, or the beating of your heart when I touched the sofa, so +I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has been an error, and I +can only apologise." + +"I don't blame you, but those who sent you," said Maxine, letting me +lead her to a chair, into which she sank, limply. "I am thankful you do +not tell me these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure +but it would end in that." + +"Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will +adorn the jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my +companions. We have but done our duty." + +"I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me," +exclaimed Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. "It is said that 'Hell hath +no fury like a woman scorned.' But what of a man who has been +scorned--by a woman? He knew I wanted all my strength for to-night--the +night of the new play--and he will be hoping that this has broken me. +But I will not be broken. If you would atone, Messieurs, for your part +in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening and encourage me +by your applause." + +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, +murmured compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, +gave me the sensation that I was in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IVOR HEARS THE STORY + +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at +Maxine, but she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, +trembling still; and walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look +out. Nobody was there. + +"They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door," she +whispered. + +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on +the light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the +electricity switched on. They might change their minds, or be more +subtle than they wished to seem. + +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the +cushion where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the +glittering mass against her lips and cheeks. + +"Thank God, thank God--and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!" she said +brokenly, in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, +even if pressed against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop +into her lap, she flung back her head and laughed and cried together. + +"Oh, Ivor, Ivor!" she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. "The agony of it--the agony--and the joy now! You're +wonderful. Good, precious Ivor--dear friend--saint." + +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands +with which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. + +"Heaven knows I don't deserve one of those epithets," I said, "I'll just +stick to friend." + +"Not deserve them?" she repeated. "Not deserve them, when you've saved +me--I don't yet understand how--from a horror worse than death--oh, but +a thousand times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had +found it, I shouldn't have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me--how +did you work such a miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant +so much to me (and to one I love), and how did you hide the--other +thing?" + +"I don't know anything about this necklace," I answered, stupidly, "I +didn't bring it." + +"You--_didn't bring it_?" + +"No. At least, that red leather thing isn't the case I carried. When the +fellow pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn't what I'd had, so I +thanked our lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all +hope wasn't over, if I'd dared to catch your eye or make a signal." + +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her +eyes were fever-bright. + +"Ivor, you can't know what you are talking about," she said, in a +changed voice. "That red leather case is what you took out of your +breast pocket and handed to me when I first came into the room. At the +sound of the knock, I pushed it down as far as I could between the seat +and back of the sofa, and then ran off to a distance before the door +opened. You _did_ bring the necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was +the cause of all my trouble in the beginning, I needn't tell you of the +joy I had in seeing it, apart from the heavenly relief of being spared +discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when you've given me the other +packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away happy." + +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. + +"I gave you the only thing I brought," I said. "It was in my breast +pocket, inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There +was no other thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This +red case is something else--we can try to account for it later. It all +came through the lights not working. If it hadn't been dusk you would +have seen that I gave you a dark green leather letter-case--quite +different from this, though of about the same length--rather less thick, +and--" + +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back +of the sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be +nothing or the Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a +cry she cut me short at last throwing up her hands in despair. She was +deathly pale again, and all the light had gone out of her eyes leaving +them dull as if she had been sick with some long illness. + +"What will become of me?" she stammered. "The treaty lost! My God--what +shall I do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know--you are killing me?" + +The word "treaty" was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign +Secretary had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be +wholly in his secrets--and Maxine's. Yet hearing the word brought no +great surprise. I knew that I had been cat's-paw in some game of high +stakes. But it was of Maxine I thought now, and the importance of the +loss to her, not the national disaster which it might well be also. + +"Wait," I said, "don't despair yet. There's some mistake. Perhaps we +shall be able to see light when we've thrashed this out and talked it +over. I know I had a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I +thought of it and guarded it every moment. Could those diamonds have +been inside it? Could the Foreign Secretary had given me the necklace, +_instead_ of what you expected?" + +"No, no," she answered with desperate impatience. "He knew that the only +thing which could save me was the document I'd sent him. I wired that I +must have it back again immediately, for my own sake--for his--for the +sake of England. Ivor! Think again. Do you want me to go mad?" + +"I will think," I said, trying to speak reassuringly. "Give me a +moment--a quiet moment--" + +"A quiet moment," she repeated, bitterly, "when for me each second is an +hour! It's late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be +at the theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first +act are a heavy business. I don't want all Paris to know that Maxine de +Renzie has been ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we +can, for others' sakes, and so gain time for our own, if all is not +lost--if you believe still that there's any hope. Oh, save me, +Ivor--somehow. My whole life is in this." + +"Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," +I suggested. "You cannot go to the theatre in this state." + +"For an actress there's no such word as 'cannot,'" she said bitterly. "I +could play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next +instant; yet no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no +understudy. What use to have one? What audience would stop in the +theatre after an announcement that their Maxine's understudy would take +her place? Every man and woman would walk out and get his money back. +No; for the sake of the man I love better than my life, or twenty +lives--the man I've either saved or ruined--I'll play tonight, if I go +mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don't 'think quietly,' Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each +other, so. Let us go over together everything that happened to you from +the minute you took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the +minute I came into this room." + +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except +the part that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. +I told her how I had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, +and had waked to feel and look for it once or twice an hour. How when +morning came I had been late in getting to the train: how I had +struggled with the two men who tried to keep me out of the reserved +compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who had a right +to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. +How he had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion +after the false alarm on the boat's gangway. How he had walked beside me +and seemed on the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I +had avoided and lost sight of him; but how I had many times covertly +touched my pocket to be sure that, through all, the letter-case was +still safe there. + +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and +at last she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she +gave to me. "Put that into the same pocket," she said, "and then pass +your hand over your coat, as you did often before. Now, does it feel +exactly as if it were the green letter-case with which you started out?" + +"Yes, I think it does," I answered, doubtfully. "I'm afraid I shouldn't +know the difference. This _may_ be a little thicker than the other, +but--I can't be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to +unbutton my coat and look at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It +would have attracted too much attention to risk that; and as a matter of +fact, I was especially warned not to do it. I could trust only to the +touch. But even granting that, by a skill almost clever enough for +sleight of hand--a skill which only the smartest pickpocket in Europe +could possess--why should a thief who had stolen my letter-case give me +instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds? If he +wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and shape +as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn't suspect my loss, why didn't +he slip in the red case _empty_, instead of containing the necklace?" + +"_This_ necklace, too, of all things in the world!" murmured Maxine, +lost in the mystery. "It's like a dream. Yet here--by some miracle--it +is, in our hands. And the treaty is gone." + +"The treaty is gone," I repeated, miserably. + +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, +yet it almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the +dreadful fact a kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the +sofa with a groan, her face buried in her hands. + +"My God, what a punishment!" she stammered. "I've ruined the man I +risked everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act +to-night, my friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when +to-morrow morning comes, I shall be out of the world." + +"Don't say that," I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my +failure. "All hope isn't over yet; it can't be. I'll think this out. +There must be a solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what +_seems_ to be gone. If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I +wouldn't hesitate for an instant, now: so you see, there's nothing I +won't do to help you. Only, I wish the path could be made a little +plainer for me--unless for some reason it's necessary for you to keep me +in the dark. The word 'treaty' I heard for the first time from you. I +didn't know what I was bringing you, except that it was a document of +international importance, and that you'd been helping the British +Foreign Secretary--perhaps Great Britain as a Power--in some ticklish +manoeuvre of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, +you might tell me more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his +message." + +"Then I will tell you more!" Maxine exclaimed. "It will be better to do +so. I know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document +you were bringing me was a treaty--a quite new treaty between Japan, +Russia and France: not a copy, but the original. England had been warned +that there was a secret understanding between the three countries, +unknown to her. There was no time to make a copy. And I stole the real +treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am engaged--whom I adore, Ivor, +as I didn't know it was in me to adore any man. You know his name, +perhaps--that he's Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in Paris. +Oh, I can read in your eyes what you're thinking of me, now. You can't +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for +Raoul's sake. There's that in my defence--only that." + +"I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help +feeling. + +"How could you?--except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you +everything--I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you +scorn me, too. You'll work for me--to save me, and him. For years I've +helped the British Government. Oh, I won't spare myself. I've been a +spy, sometimes against one Power, sometimes against another. When there +was anything to do against Russia, I was always glad, because my dear +father was a Pole, and you know how Poles feel towards Russia. Russia +ruined his life, and stripped it of everything worth having, not only +money, but--oh, well, that's not in this story of mine! I won't trouble +you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young girl, I +was already the enemy of all that's Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I've been paying it, slowly. Don't think that the money I've +had for my work--hateful work often--has been used for myself. It's been +for my father's country--poor, sad country--every shilling of English +coin. As an actress I've supported myself, and, as an actress, it has +been easier for me to do the other secret work than it would have been +for a woman leading a more sheltered life, mingling less with +distinguished persons of different countries, or unable to be eccentric +without causing scandal. As for France, she's the friend of Russia, and +I haven't a drop of French blood in my veins, so, at least, I've never +been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made some great _coups_ in +the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began before I was sixteen, +and now I'm twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to thank me for +giving her news of the most vital importance. You're shocked to hear +what my inner life has been?" + +"If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half +conventional. One hardly knows how conventional one's opinions are until +one stops to think," said I. + +"Once, I gloried in the work," Maxine went on. "But that was before I +fell in love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that +was to pass the time. Both of us were flirting. I'd never met Raoul +then, and I've never really loved any man except him. It came at first +sight, for me: and when he told me that he cared, he said it had begun +when he first saw me on the stage; so you see it is as if we were meant +for each other. From the moment I gave him my promise, I promised myself +that the old work should be given up for ever: Raoul's _fiance_, +Raoul's wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. Besides, as he's a +Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which Maxine de Renzie +never owed. I wanted--oh, how much I wanted--to be only what Raoul +believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal +from him, but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I'd break +with the past, and I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, +who has always been a good friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and +hoped to begin my life all over again in a different way, though he +might be sure that I'd know how to keep his secrets as well as my own. +Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week ago! I was happy +then. I feel twenty years older now." + +"A week ago. You've been engaged only a week?" I broke in. + +"Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but +he wouldn't have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn't lost +his head a little. He hadn't meant to speak, it seems, for he's poor, +and he thought he had no right. But what's a man worth who doesn't lose +his head when he loves a woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to +let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn't +care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end. There +were reasons why--more than one: but the man of all others whom I didn't +want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had +happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding--Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake +while Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces +that there was something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did +suspect. Oh, a hateful person! I've refused him three times. There are +some men so vain that they can never believe a woman really means to say +'no' to them. Count Godensky is one of those, and he's dangerous, too. +I'm afraid of him, since I've cared for Raoul, though I used to be +afraid of no one, when I'd only myself to think of. Raoul was going away +that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who was a dear and +intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the Duchesse de +Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She has no +children of her own." + +"I don't know her," I said, "but I've seen her; a charming looking +woman, about forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband--a fellow who might +be rather a Tartar to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte +Carlo one year, in the Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying +herself hugely, though the Duke had the air of being dragged in against +his will." + +"No doubt he had been--or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, +she's a dreadful gambler. It's in her blood! I She lost, I don't know +how much, at Monte Carlo on an 'infallible system' she had. She's afraid +of her husband, though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she's +had for Bridge has cost her so much that she daren't tell the Duke, who +hates her gambling. She confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help +her--not with money, for he has none, but by taking a famous and +wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, selling the stones for +her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was all to be done +very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn't know, and Raoul +hated it, but he couldn't refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he 'lost his head,' while we were bidding each +other good-bye before his journey. He didn't mention the name of the +Duchess, but said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on +business. But while he was away a _dreadful_ thing happened--the most +ghastly misfortune--and as we were engaged to be married, he felt +obliged when he came back to let me know the worst." + +"What was the dreadful thing that happened?" I asked, as she paused, +pressing her hands against her temples. + +"The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one +of the most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul's feelings? He +came to me in despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not +appeal to the police, or the Duchess's secret would come out. And he +couldn't bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such +a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the +jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and +_might_ be tempted to believe that he'd only pretended the diamonds were +stolen--while really he'd sold them for his own use." + +"As she's fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought +no such thing," I tried to comfort Maxine. "But certainly, it was a +rather bad fix." + +"Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of +is to hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me--well, there was +nothing I wouldn't have done to help him--nothing. My life would have +been a small thing to give. I would have given my soul. And already a +thought came flashing into my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say +nothing to the Duchess, who didn't even know yet that he'd come back +from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was about the commission from +your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, I'd just sent him +word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn't +do what he wanted. He'd offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake +the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed if +I tried. And with the few thousands I'd saved up, and selling such +jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for +the necklace. Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never +know that the diamonds had been stolen. All that night I lay awake +thinking, thinking. Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be +working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as +well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen +or twenty thousand pounds in my hands--all for him. To let him have the +money would make me happier than I'd ever been. At first he said he +wouldn't take it from me--I knew he would say that! But, at last, after +I'd cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a +loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office +there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay +together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of +all--where the really sacred and valuable things were kept. He laughed +and pointed out the most interesting one--the one, he said, which held +all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy. I was sure then +that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be +there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn't have been +anywhere for long. 'There are three keys to that safe,' said Raoul. 'One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this +is the third'; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I +had seen before. 'Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,' +I pleaded with him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my +throat I wore a string of imitation pearls, which I'd put on for a +special purpose. But they were pretty, and so well made that only an +expert would know they weren't real. Raoul isn't an expert; so at the +moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open the door, I +gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls roll +everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about +the key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were +worth at least a thousand francs. + +"While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took +an impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my +handkerchief, and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on +his hands and knees on the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a +moment, just to give me the peep I had begged for, but not long enough +for me to touch anything even if I'd dared to try with him standing +there. Enough, though, to show me that the documents were neatly +arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their general character, +colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was being made; +and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at the +office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me +come to him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him +away. But I'd made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, +was a friend of Raoul's--the one who introduced us to each other, and +I'd made up a message for him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring +his friend to speak to me. He went, and I believed I might count on five +minutes to myself. No more--but those five minutes would have to be +enough for success or failure. The instant the door shut behind Raoul, I +was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a folded document, and +opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right one, for a +mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted--the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France--the +treaty which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was +a secret one, arranged between the three countries without the knowledge +of England and to the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had +gave me the impression that the document was nothing of the kind, but +quite innocent, affecting trade only; yet that wasn't my business. I had +to send it to the Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know its precise +nature, and whether England was being deceived. In place of the treaty I +slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I'd brought with me--just like +the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business would suspect +the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back before +it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?" + +"I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. +But, good Heavens, Maxine," I couldn't help breaking out, "it was an +awful thing to do." + +"I know--I know. But I had to have the money--for Raoul. And there was +no other way to get it. You remember, I'd refused, till the diamonds +were lost, and would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with +the French Foreign Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I +had time enough. I had even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately +for me, the man I'd sent Raoul to find was out. I looked at my watch, +pretended to be surprised, and said I must go at once. I couldn't bear +to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, so that it might the more +quickly be on its way back. I hadn't come to visit Raoul in my own +carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking me to it, +Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it had +been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in +such a state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I +fancied that he imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red +and pale. What a fool I was--and how weak! But I couldn't help it. I +didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the +packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post--but after all, +it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was Godensky again, in +his motor-brougham. _That_ could have been no coincidence. A horrid +certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the +Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of +that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; +yet this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated." + +"But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been +up for you before this," I said. + +"He didn't know, of course. Only--if he wants to be a woman's lover and +she won't have him, he's her enemy and he's the enemy of the man who +_is_ her lover. He's too clever and too careful of his own interests to +speak out prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do +him harm if he proved mistaken. He wouldn't yet, I think, even warn +those whom it might concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul's +charge were out of order or missing. But what he would do, what I think +he has done, is this. Having some idea, as he may have, that my +relations with certain important persons in England are rather friendly, +and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go almost straight to the +post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the name of my +correspondent. He has influence--he could perhaps have found out: but if +he did, it wouldn't have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings +with the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover--hence a +delay sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go +straight to him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and +he would have perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very +unofficially and confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of +being a political spy in the pay of England. He would have advised that +my movements be watched for the next few days: that English agents of +the French police be warned to watch also, on their side of the Channel. +He would have argued to himself that if I'd sent any document away, with +Raoul's connivance or without, I would be wanting it back as soon as +possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that possibly a +messenger would bring me something--if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes +on me, and on every movement of mine, I'm sure. See how efficient, +though quiet, the methods have been where you're concerned. They--the +police--knew the name of the man I was to meet here at this hotel; and +if, as Godensky must have hoped, any document belonging to the French +Government had been found on you or me, everything would have played +into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his heart broken, and +I--but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I +may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his cleverness, as +well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only +thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police." + +"You don't believe then," I asked, "that Godensky has had any hand in +the disappearance of the treaty?" + +"I would believe it, if it weren't for the necklace being put in its +place. Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul's mission with +the diamonds, and got them into his own hands, he wouldn't have let them +get out again with every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus +saving him from his trouble. He'd do nothing to help, but everything to +hinder. There lies the mystery--in the return of the necklace instead of +the treaty. You have no knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me +with it in your pocket--the necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days +ago, in Amsterdam or on the way there." + +"You're certain it's the same?" + +"Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I'm not out of my mind +yet--though I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this +horror." + +"I'm going to try," I said. "Don't give up hope. I wish, though, that +you hadn't to act to-night." + +"So do I. But there's no way out of it. And I must go now to the +theatre, or I shall be late: my make-up's a heavy one, and takes a long +time. I can't afford to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, +whatever comes afterwards. Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the +first act, he'll be at the door of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing +him, of hearing him praise my acting, and saying dear, trusting, loving +words that would make me almost too happy, if I hadn't betrayed him, +ruined his career for ever!" + +"Maybe not," I said. "And anyhow, there's the necklace. That's +something." + +"Yes, that's something." + +"Will Godensky be in the audience, too?" I asked. + +"I'm sure he will. He couldn't keep away. But he may be late. He won't +come until he's had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried +to thrash matters out." + +"If only your theory's right, then,--if he hasn't dared yet to throw +suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its +contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little +time before us still: we're comparatively safe for a few hours." + +"We're as safe," answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, "as +if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid +to fire it. But"--she broke off bitterly, "why do I say '_we_'. To you +all this can be no more than a regret, a worry." + +"You know that's not just!" I reproached her. "I'm in this with you now, +heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I'd give my +life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I've given something, +but--" + +"What have you given?" she caught me up quickly. + +"My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier," I +answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I +could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without +helping me bear mine. + +"I don't understand," she said. + +"Don't think of it. You can do nothing; and I don't grudge the +sacrifice--or anything," I hurried on. + +"Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond +this tangle. But now, it must be _au revoir_. Save me, save Raoul, if +you can, Ivor. What you can do, I don't know. I'm groping in darkness. +Yet you're my one hope. For pity's sake, come to my house when the +play's over, to tell me what you've done, if you've been able to do +anything. Be there at twelve." + +"I promise." + +"Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and +I'll go. I don't want you to be seen with me outside this room." + +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. + +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the +bosom of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening +at the throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the +thing up from the table where she had thrown it, and examined it +carefully for the first time. + +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and +as Maxine's voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all +previous knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had +not been in it when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would +almost certainly have described to Maxine the box or case which had been +stolen from him, and if the thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place +had recalled his description, she must have betrayed some emotion under +the keen eyes of the Commissary of Police. + +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might +have been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the +ordinary sort. Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a +silver clasp on which the hallmark was English. + +"English silver!" I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. +Of the trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the +compartment for himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to +steal the treaty from me, and exchange for it this red leather case +containing a diamond necklace worth twenty thousand pounds. If he +possessed the skill and quick deftness of a conjurer or a marvellously +clever professional pickpocket, as well as the incentive of a paid spy, +he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment of alarm on the +boat's gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me in the +Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. + +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why +should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? +Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum +he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; +and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his +advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill +up the space where the case with the treaty had lain. There would not +have been time yet for the real diamonds to have been copied in +Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a theory that the +stones given me might be false. + +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to +watch and be near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where +I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and +trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it +with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing +into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been +arranged to catch me. + +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed +yet since I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the +railway-station. Though I could not understand any reason for his +tricking me, still I told myself that nobody else could have done it, +and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du Nord. There I might +still be able to find some trace of the little man and of my two other +fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn where +they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by +the Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I +was ready to make use of it if necessary. + +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no +importance, for I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the +railway-station and looked about until I found a porter whose face I had +seen when I got out of the train. He had, in fact, appeared under the +window of my compartment, offering himself as a luggage carrier and had +been close behind me when my late travelling companion walked by my +side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his wits being +sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only my +features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of _le petit Monsieur_ he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied +by two other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the +face of the cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the +station, for the _voiture_ had returned. Would he point out the _cocher_ +to me? He would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. + +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +_cocher_ of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine +whom I was to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had +unfortunately missed. I asked him to describe the men he had driven away +from the station at that time, and though he did it clumsily, betraying +an irritating lack of observation when it came to details, still such +information as I could draw from him sounded encouraging. He remembered +perfectly well the place at which he had deposited his three passengers, +and I decided to take the risk of following them. + +When I say "risk," I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase +might turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they +had been driven to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went +there in a cab, and found at last that I had made a mistake, I should +have wasted a great deal of valuable time on the wrong tack. If the +driver had remembered the name of the street, and the number of the +house at which he had paused, I would have hired a motor and flashed out +to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested bribe, he could +say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one of his +passengers had called, "Turn down the next street, to the left." He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he +had been bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the +street; but, though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, +various landmarks would guide him to the right place, when he came to +pass them again. + +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I +could do no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, +with a horse already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks +were not deceiving, as I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet +street of the suburb, we stopped at last before a fair-sized house with +lights in many windows. Evidently it was a _pension_. + +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English +gentlemen had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. +Would Monsieur give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until +dinner should be over? + +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant's hand, and +suggest that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without +waiting. + +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, +lest they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at +least they could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to +what should come after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. + +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into +the dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long +table with a quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were +dining, but, though several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who +resembled my travelling companions. + +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good +view. In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of +whom he had spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had +come only that day from England, they were old patrons, well known in +the house. + +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +_pension_, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily +up to enquire the stranger's business in his dining-room. I explained +that I had hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to +get permission for my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the +door. When he had identified his three passengers, all hope was over. I +had followed the wrong men. + +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question +more porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth +having, it seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a +vehicle of some sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I +could learn nothing of him or his movements, however, and dared not, +because of Maxine and the British Foreign Secretary, apply to the police +for help, I determined to lose no more time before consulting a private +detective, a man whose actions I could control, and to whom I need tell +only as much of the truth as I chose, without fear of having the rest +dragged out of me. + +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good +private detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing +my nerves. Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was +at home and able to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat +little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment +house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, +thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome. It was cunning, as well as +clever, no doubt: but then, I told myself, it was the business of a +person in Monsieur Girard's profession to be cunning. + +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at +the lyse Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I +had been recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise +if George Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there +were a good many things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford +seemed the man to fit the situation. Later, he could easily disappear +and leave no trace. + +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to +me, but as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account +appear in the case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of +Monsieur Girard's well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed +thief, whom I thereupon described. I added the fact that we had +travelled together, mentioned the incident at the gangway, and explained +that I had not suspected my loss until I arrived at the lyse Palace +Hotel. + +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from +behind a screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside +that screen. He asked several intelligent questions, very much to the +point, and I answered them--as seemed best. When he touched on points +which I considered too delicate to be handled by a stranger, even a +detective in my employ, I frankly replied that they had nothing to do +with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly, yet +expressively, he took my refusals without comment; and merely bowed when +I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within twenty-four +hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred and +fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second +to waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but +whatever happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. + +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), +held out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the +whole, I was pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew +his business; and had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign +Secretary, and the risk for Maxine, I would gladly have put more +efficient weapons in Girard's hands, by telling him everything. + +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and +details as I could give, it was past ten o'clock. I could see my way to +do nothing more for the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed +back in my hired automobile to the lyse Palace Hotel. There I had food +served in my own sitting-room, lest George Sandford should chance +inconveniently upon some acquaintance of Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. +I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted now was to arrive at +Maxine de Renzie's house at twelve o'clock, and tell her my news--or +lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no matter +how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to +supper, or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no +invitation, given none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the +theatre, probably without waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she +would go home unaccompanied, except by her maid. + +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its +own garden, a great "find" in a good quarter of Paris; and her house +could he reached in ten minutes' drive from my hotel. I would not go as +far as the gate, but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet +street, as it would not he wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle +de Renzie was receiving a visit from a young man at midnight. Fifteen +minutes would give me plenty of time for all this: therefore, at about a +quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, and in the entrance hall +almost ran against the last person on earth I expected to see--Diana +Forrest. + +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. +There was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the +world; and for a wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see +me, to take back all her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me +hack also. But it was only for an instant--a very mad instant. + +Then I realised that she couldn't have known I was to be at the lyse +Palace Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of +coming to me. As common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the +precious and beautiful face other faces: Lady Mountstuart's, Lord +Mountstuart's, Lisa Drummond's, and Bob West's. + +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which +appeared to consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had +just come into the hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful +face, which had been pale, grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with +amazement or anger, or both, I couldn't tell. Lisa smiled, looking more +impish even than usual; but it was plain that the others, Lord +Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me here. + +"Goodness, is it you or your ghost?" exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the +soft accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the +long years of her married life in England. + +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di +from embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to +Maxine's. But, unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for +conventional politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. + +I said "How do you do?" to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to +see them as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord +Robert West, though finding him here with Di, looking particularly +pleased with himself, made me want to knock him down. + +"Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are +concerned," explained Lady Mountstuart. "Of course, Lord Robert ought to +have been at the Duchess's bazaar this afternoon, but then he won't show +up at such things, even to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to +have represented me there. To-day and to-morrow are the only days all +three of us could possibly steal to get away and look at a most +wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before it was ready. Lord +Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other human being +does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the most +horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn't fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she's a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come +with us--and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to +Boulogne, and had such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the +courage to dress and dine at Madrid--wasn't it plucky of us? But we're +collapsing now, and have come back early, as we must inspect the car the +first thing to-morrow morning and do a heap of shopping afterwards." + +"If you're collapsing, I mustn't keep you standing here a moment," I +said, anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn't looking at +me. Half turned from me, purposely I didn't doubt, she had begun a +conversation with Bob West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him +and her apparent indifference to me. + +"'Collapsing' is an exaggeration perhaps," laughed Lady Mountstuart. +"But, instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room +and have a little talk--and whisky and soda." + +"Yes, do come, Dundas," her husband added. + +"Thank you both," I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. "But--I +know you're all tired, and--." + +"And perhaps you have some nice engagement," piped Lisa. + +"It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in +naughty Paris," said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very +handsome when she laughs, and knows it). "Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?" + +"It depends upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then, +as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, +the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young +ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged. +A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, +and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late. +Good-bye,--good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them +again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I +turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to +do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or +something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been. + +Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me +faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he +would know it. + +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under +porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, +but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought +not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that +I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street +leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself. + +"_Depchez vous_" I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The +man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street +at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly +ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came +to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour +after midnight. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know. + +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning +of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single +line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist +which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew +he would be sitting unless--something had happened. But presently I was +conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, +Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my +chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows. +I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and +I would not now--above all, not now. + +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I +couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to +answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to +let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. +Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had +feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I +liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout +"Brava-brava!" + +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, +as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. "What +if they know all I've done?" The question flashed across my brain. "What +if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie +had betrayed France for money, English money?" How these hands which +applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out. + +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I +think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women +who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to +me that they must suffer less. + +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain +calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look +delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I +could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big +harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up +to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew +that Raoul would be waiting. + +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome +lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in +modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the +Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in +diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old +Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he +is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as +beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it +were not for the eyes, and lips. + +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd +led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. +Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough +to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send +him away, and go to dress for the second act. + +The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, +gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's +something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of +the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even +if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with +more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as +with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic +reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du +Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. + +I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping +up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be +to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three +hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, +back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how +little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would +put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had +done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me. + +For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to +Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's +ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a +man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth +itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause. +Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself +truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover +and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had +realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. + +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing +on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so +good, so pure. + +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to +hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his +eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves +in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on +through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into +the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot; +how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black +bat! + +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I +shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe +me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a +heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it +really was! + +"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you--how +proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I +did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night." + +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. +Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had +comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to +help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his +salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who +so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long +to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were +safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I +had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it +were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But +how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not +on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love? + +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said +to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this +might be the last time that his eyes--those eyes that are not +cold--might look at me with love in them, as now. + +"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for +me?" + +"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered, +holding me very close. + +"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I +can't bear you to belong to others--even to the public that appreciates +you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud +that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore +you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd +be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it +for you, to shield you from it always." + +"Then, what _is_ there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink +of a precipice. + +"Nothing on God's earth--while you kept true to me." + +"And if I weren't true--if I deceived you?" + +"Why, I'd kill you--and myself after. But it makes me see red--a blazing +scarlet--even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it--when +it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you +wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin." + +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I +wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. +Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness--perhaps +the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had +for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so +many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him +short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me. +Then--long before it ought, so it seemed--the clock in mydressing-room +struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first +nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, +more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by +midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know +the worst--or best. + +"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news +for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give +you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third +and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come +behind again. I shan't take any calls--after dying, it's too inartistic, +isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here, +in this room, before I dress to go home." + +"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised +me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house--just you +and I alone together--on the first night of the new play." + +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had +I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. +There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had +crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away +from him involuntarily with a start of surprise. + +"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. + +"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired +and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But--" + +"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I +paused to think what I should do. + +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I +couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. + +"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The +question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper. +My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old +Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, +generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll +see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come +here--after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, +but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was +a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows +too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I +had little time to comfort him. + +"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now, +good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_." + +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where +Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up +things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for +the next act. + +"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door +keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now." + +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and +thought it best to warn me without delay? + +"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once." + +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old +enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but +something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary +promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the +envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky. + +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort +of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid +of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the +treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and +try to drive some dreadful bargain. + +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to +go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as +I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before +my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the +dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis +Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, +when he chose. + + "MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been + given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to + call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening, + alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more + than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with + you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I + am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be + willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were + before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage + door when you come out. + + "Yours, in whatever way you will, + + "ALEXIS." + +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have +been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. +Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your +answer." + +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done +what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he +need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to +order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But +how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go +home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. +At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I +left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be +Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an _impasse_? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt +dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck," I said +to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it +all out." + +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine +de Renzie, but Princess Hlne of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even +more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Hlne had +died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to +die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, +where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for +answer, and must somehow be decided at once. + +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my +best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must +forego, and hurt him instead. + +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hlne had +died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to +leave the stage. + +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing +them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face +was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden +live flame among red ashes. + +"What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside +my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had +come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?" + +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the +tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene, +darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like +this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is +it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever +before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to +sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a +poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the +third act, and then Hlne might have been happily married, instead of +dying." + +"I believe you would have killed him," I said. + +"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm +jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not +an insult." + +"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage--" + +"If the woman I love is the heroine." + +"Will you ever be blas, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed, +though I could have sobbed. + +"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?" + +"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind +of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. + +"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money +enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some +beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love +for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and +to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?" + +"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into +that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--" + +"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a +coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like +a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the +stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to +touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You +_will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the +house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must +drive me out then?" + +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes." +But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we +mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew +that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he +dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I +said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately +offered to leave me at once. + +"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking +forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of +all nights." + +"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. + +"Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of +course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I +feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it." + +"You must say it," I cried. + +"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in +danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing +more. Rather womanish, isn't it?" + +"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one +wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all +the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying +different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or +ever." + +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: + +"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll +like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room." + +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and +there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with +my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the +least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would +have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as +placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than +she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my +jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred +thousand francs. + +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt +perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on +earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of +my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she +would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands. + +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my +third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the +box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my +carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the +diamonds on fire. + +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The +necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels +depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp +came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were +almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, +extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless. +Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting +even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value. + +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the +treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and +slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade +which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a +friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was +intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. +Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly +planned out my way of giving it to Raoul. + +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his +hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind, +because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible--quite, +quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his +seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was +jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and +it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my +profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him +to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he +thought that he had the least cause. + +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He +would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen +Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say--whether truth or +fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it +would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety, +and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I +was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might +bring, either for him or for me. + +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it +to Raoul in the next room. + +"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a +mystery. "You'll value the something, I know--partly for itself, partly +because I--because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When +you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me--just for tonight. But +you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one +of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter +a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me +when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the +sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every +minute, asleep or awake." + +"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and +silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a +woman's things. + +"Because--just _because_. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I +said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag +away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held +nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves. + +"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard, +for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in +my heart--the fear that it might be for the last time. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold +and filmy tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Hlne had died, and +into the black gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had +come to the theatre. I did not even stop to take off my make-up, for +though the play was an unusually short one, and all the actors and +actresses had followed my example of prompt readiness for all four acts, +it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was dressed. I had to see +Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in time to keep my +appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain every +nerve not to be late. + +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to +speak to Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or +two whether he had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. +But if I could avoid it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long +conversation until later. + +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky +knew me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the +door. + +"Good-evening," he said. "A hundred congratulations." + +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and +the stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me +closely), and several stage-carpenters, with other employs of the +theatre, were within seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, +though that was exactly what might best please Count Godensky. + +"I got your note," I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in +French. "What is it you want to see me about?" + +"Something that can't be told in a moment," he said. "Something of great +importance." + +"I'm very tired," I sighed. "Can't it wait until to-morrow?" + +I tried to "draw" him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. + +"You wouldn't ask that question, if you guessed what--I know," he +replied. + +Was it a bluff, or did he know--not merely suspect--something? + +"I don't understand you," I said quietly, though my lips were dry. + +"Shall I mention the word--_document?_" he hinted. "Really, I'm sure you +won't regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle." + +"I can't do that," I answered. "And I can't take you into my carriage +here. But I'll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugne +Beauharnais. Then you can go with me until I think it best for you to +get out." + +"Very well," he agreed. "But send your maid home in a cab; I can not +talk before her." + +"Yes, you can. She knows no language except French--and a little +English. She always drives home with me." + +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have +given the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by +herself. In that case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, +admires him as a "dream of a young man," and already suspected what I +hadn't yet told her--that we were engaged. But with Count Godensky +forced upon me as a companion, I would not for any consideration have +parted with Marianne. + +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my +chauffeur where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky +appeared. He got in and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but +doubtless astonished, facing us on the little front seat. + +"Now," I exclaimed. "Please begin quickly." + +"Don't force me to be too abrupt," he said. "I would spare you if I +could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am +here because I love you." + +"Oh, please, Monsieur!" I broke in. "You know I've told you that is +useless." + +"But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will +be changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a +great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could +save you from it if you'd let me." + +"Save me from what?" I asked temporising. "You're very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I'm Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate +friends." + +"I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of +myself as your 'intimate friend' when I have done what I hope to do for +you in--in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared." + +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some +women, feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been +better for me to die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let +myself faint and show Godensky that he had struck home. + +"Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again," I said to myself. And +my voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: "Oh, the 'document' +again. The one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my +curiosity. But I don't in the least know what you mean." + +"The loss of it is known," he said. + +"Ah, it's a lost document?" + +"As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don't come to me for the help I'm +only too glad to give--on conditions. Let me tell you what they are." + +"Wouldn't it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, +and how it concerns me?" I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. + +"Aren't _you_ evading the point far more than I? The document--which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though +it were in--let us say your hands, or--du Laurier's, if he were +here--that document is far too important even to name within hearing of +other ears." + +"Marianne's? But I told you she can't understand a word of Russian." + +"One can't be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be--a +spy." + +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of +showing that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; +but he should not. + +"They say one judges others by one's self," I laughed. "Count Godensky, +if you throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall +begin to wonder if it's not _you_ who are the spy!" + +"Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then," he went on, "I'll tell +you what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took +out of the Foreign Office the other day, when you called on +your--friend, Monsieur le Vicomte du Laurier." + +"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem +to think I am a kleptomaniac. I can't imagine what I should want with +any dry old document out of the Foreign Office, can you?" + +"Yes, I can imagine," said Godensky drily. + +"Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this +is rather a serious accusation." + +"If I make any accusation, it's less against you than du Laurier." + +"Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?" + +"As a warning." + +"Or because you don't dare make it to anyone else." + +"Dare! I haven't accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your +name with his." + +"Ah!" I said. "You are very considerate." + +"I don't pretend to be considerate--except of myself. I've waited, and +held my hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing +which would mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I +ever did; even more, because, in common with most men, I value what I +find hard to get. To-night I ask you again to marry me. Give me a +different answer from that you gave me before, and I'll be silent about +what I know." + +"What you know of the document you mentioned?" I asked, my heart +drumming an echo of its beating in my ears. + +"Yes." + +"But--I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?" (Oh, I +was keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely +cost me more than I dared count!) + +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. +Half a second--no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me +what I had been playing with him to find out. + +"Discovered by me," he explained. "That is, by me and one person over +whom I have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or--forget +it, according to my advice." + +"There is no such person," I said to myself. But I didn't say it aloud. +Quickly I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as +were in a position to discover the disappearance of any document under +Raoul du Laurier's charge. There were several who might have done so, +some above Raoul in authority, some below; but I was certain that not +one of them was an intimate friend of Count Godensky's. If he had +suspected anything the day he met me coming out of the Foreign Office he +might, of course, have hinted his suspicions to one of those men (though +all along I'd believed him too shrewd to risk the consequences, the +ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he had spoken, it would +be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their own course, +independent of my decisions and his actions. + +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was "bluffing." He +wanted me to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in +order to save the man I loved. I was only a woman, he'd argued, no +doubt--an emotional woman, already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous +excitement. Perhaps he had expected to have easy work with me. And I +don't think that my silence after his last words discouraged him. He +imagined me writhing at the alternative of giving up Raoul or seeing him +ruined, and he believed that he knew me well enough to be sure what I +would do in the end. + +"Well?" he said at last, quite gently. + +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and +saw his face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count +Godensky is not more Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin +man with a hook nose, keen eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a +sharply waxed, military moustache trained to point upward slightly at +the ends. But to my fancy he looked absolutely devilish at that moment. +Still, I was less afraid of him than I had been since the day I stole +the treaty. + +"Well," I said slowly, "I think it's time that you left me now." + +"That's your answer? You can't mean it." + +"I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other +times that you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had +to say to-night, and I have heard it; so there's no reason why I +shouldn't press the electric bell for my chauffeur to stop, and--" + +"Do you know that you're pronouncing du Laurier's doom, to say nothing +of your own?" + +"No. I don't know it." + +"Then I haven't made myself clear enough." + +"That's true. You haven't made yourself clear enough." + +"In what detail have I failed? Because--". + +"In the detail of the document. I've told you I know nothing about it. +You've told me you know everything. Yet--" + +"So I do." + +"Prove that by saying what it is--to satisfy my curiosity." + +"I've explained why I can't do that--here." + +"Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my +mind. You understood before you came into my carriage that I had no +intention of letting you go all the way home with me." + +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me--frightened +me horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel +that I had got the best of the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + +"You are afraid that du Laurier may find out," he said. "But he knows +already." + +"Knows what?" + +"That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you." + +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of +his almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without +falling they laid one feather too much. + +My voice broke. "You--devil!" I cried at him. "You dared to tell Raoul +that?" + +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now +our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. +She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk +of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on +earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the +brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her +nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she +would have tried with all her strength--which is not small--and a very +good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness +meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty. +But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. + +"Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I've always understood that you +made a great point of never doing anything which you considered in the +least risqu. So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn't +know? You might already have mentioned it to him." + +"He wouldn't believe you!" I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope +was that I might be right. + +"As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to at first, so I at once +understood that you hadn't spoken of our appointment. But it was too +late to atone for my carelessness, and I did the next best thing: +justified my veracity. I suggested that, if he didn't take my word for +it, he might stand where he could see us speaking together at the stage +door, and--" + +"Ah, I am glad of that!" I cut in. "Then he saw that we didn't drive +away together." + +"You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought +you'd receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the +precaution of warning du Laurier that he needn't expect to see that. You +would suggest a place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I +would inform him if he chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes." + +"Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!" I broke out. + +"How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you +have, after all, if you don't understand that a man suddenly out of his +head with jealousy will do things of which he'd be incapable when he was +sane." + +The argument silenced me. I knew--I had known for a long time--that +jealousy could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded +me that he was a "jealous brute." I remembered what answer he had made +when I asked him what he would do if I deceived him. He said that he +would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had +streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. +A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes--the dear eyes that are not +cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do +things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand +sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. + +"As a proof of what I say," Godensky went on, "du Laurier did wait, did +hear from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it +wouldn't be the worst of form to bet, I'd bet that he found some way of +getting there in time to see that I had told the truth." + +"You coward!" I stammered. + +"On the contrary, a brave man. I've heard that du Laurier is a fine +shot, and that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So +you see--" + +"You want to frighten me!" I exclaimed. + +"You misjudge me in every way." + +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the +signal for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed +down, then came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count +Godensky submitted to my will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a +submissive mood, as I did not need to be reminded by the tone of his +voice when he said "au revoir." + +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of +speaking them, as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But +to me they meant a threat, and as a threat they were intended. + +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my +second pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had +little enough at the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he +arrived. It was two or three minutes after midnight, or so my watch +said, when we drew up before the gate of my high-walled garden in the +quiet Rue d'Hollande. + +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient +for keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had +just heard from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. + +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I'd given orders) would be let in +so late at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he +had come to reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand +outside the locked gate till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but +he was not there. There was, to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, +for a wonder (usually the Rue d'Hollande is as empty as a desert, after +eleven o'clock), but a girl's face peered out at me from the window--an +impish, curiously abnormal little face it was--extinguishing the spark +of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of the carriage. + +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, +and the girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all +interested in her, and I hate being stared at as if I were something in +a museum. + +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I'm at the theatre; but +Marianne has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old +Henri sits up, and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were +inside, the chauffeur spinning away to the garage. + +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and +its small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home +after hours of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful +light shone out from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place +looked inexpressibly dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated +the house, though I had chosen it after a long search for peacefulness +and privacy. How gloomy, how dead, was the street beyond the high wall, +with all its windows closed like the eyes of corpses. There was a moist, +depressing smell of earth after long-continued rains, in the garden. No +wonder the place had been to let at a bargain, for a long term! There +had been a murder in it once, and it had stood empty for twelve or +thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten tragedy. I had +been the tenant for two years now--before I became a "star," with a +theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt +the house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story +only made the place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I +wished I had never spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me +bad luck. I felt as if the murder must have happened on just such a +still, brooding, damp night as this. Maybe it was the anniversary, if I +only knew. + +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, +withered like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where +he had sat, hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, +bowing and blinking, just as he had done often before, and would often +again--if life were to go on for me in the old way. He regretted not +having heard Mademoiselle. Would Mademoiselle take supper? + +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri +might go to bed. + +"I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house." + +"But I don't want the house closed," I said. "I shall sit up for awhile. +It's hot--close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open." + +"The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps--" + +"If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it +is so late." + +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not +want her to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a +very old friend; in fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember +in London. He was to call--if he did call--only on a matter of business, +which would take but a few minutes to get through, and possibly he would +not even come into the house. If the gate-bell rang, I would answer it +myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in the garden. Then I would +let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might go to bed if she +wished. + +"I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so," +said she. "I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress +Mademoiselle." + +"Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for +you," I replied. "I shan't be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn't +come." + +"Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it +should not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she +would not care to admit?" + +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. + +"There's no fear of that. No fear of any kind," I answered. + +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel +box. + +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright +and charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the +delightful Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up +here and there at antique shops or at private sales. + +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up +again, moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, +wondering what could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his +promise to be prompt on the hour of twelve. + +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought +only of the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I +heard the gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or +fourteen minutes, but it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I +rushed out, down the garden path, to let my visitor in. + +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in +a hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not +Ivor Dundas, but someone else--Raoul, perhaps--or the man who had been +in her mind: Godensky. + +But it was Ivor. + +"What news?" I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in +my own ears. + +"I don't know whether you'll call it news or not, though plenty of +things have happened. I'm awfully sorry to be late--" + +I wouldn't let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and +drew him into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. +Yet I forgot to lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it +ought to be fastened. + +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I +had told Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might +have been followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, +watchers who would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very +different from old Henri's. "Come into the house," I said, in a low +voice, "before you begin to tell anything." Then, when we were inside, I +could not even wait for him to go on of his own accord and in his own +way. + +"The treaty?" I asked. "Have you got hold of it?" + +"Unfortunately, no." + +"But you've heard of it? Oh, _say_ you've heard something!" + +"If I haven't, it isn't because I've sat down and waited for news to +come. I went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get +on the track of the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But +I was sent off on the wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse +luck--I'll tell you about it later, if you care to hear details. Then, +when that game was up, I did what I wish I'd done at first, found out +and consulted a private detective, said to be one of the best in +Paris--" + +"You told your story--_my_ story--to a detective?" I gasped. + +"No. Certainly not. I said I'd lost something of value, given me by a +lady whose name I couldn't bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, +too, not Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all +that happened on the way, and offered big pay if he could find them +quickly--especially the little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting +them to-night, so don't be desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap +seemed really to think he'd not have much difficulty in tracking down +our man; and even if he's parted with the treaty, we can find out what +he's done with it, no doubt. Girard says--" + +"Girard!" I caught Ivor up. "Is your detective's name Anatole Girard, +and does he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I know too much of him," I answered bitterly. + +"Isn't he clever, after all?" + +"Far too clever. I'd rather you had gone to any other detective in +Paris--or to none." + +"Why, what's wrong with him?" Ivor began to be distressed. + +"Only that he's a personal friend of my worst enemy--the man I spoke of +to you this evening--Count Godensky. I've heard so from Godensky +himself, who mentioned the acquaintance once when Girard had just +succeeded in a case everybody was talking about." + +"By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!" exclaimed Ivor, horribly +disappointed at having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried +so hard to do the right one. "Yet how could I have dreamed of it?" + +"You couldn't," I admitted, hopelessly. "Nothing is your fault. All +that's happened would have happened just the same, no matter what +messenger the Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It's fate. And it's my +punishment." + +"Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends," Ivor tried to console +me, "it isn't likely that the Count has talked to the detective about +you and the affair of the treaty." + +"He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn't find +out himself." + +"Hardly, I should say, until there'd been time for him to fear failure. +No, the chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the +matter I've put into his hands; and if he's a man of honour, he's bound +to do the best he can for me, as his employer. Have you seen du +Laurier?" + +"Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that +brute Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I'd known +that you would be so late, I might have explained everything to him." + +"I'm very sorry," said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him +(but not half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn't forgotten +that hint he had let drop about a great sacrifice--a girl he loved, whom +he had thrown over, somehow, to come to me). "I made every effort to be +in time. It seems a piece with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that +I was prevented. I hope, at least, that du Laurier knows about the +necklace?" + +"He does, by this," I answered. "Yet I'm afraid he won't be in a mood to +take much comfort from it--thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn't +a practical bone in his body. He will think I've deceived him, and +nothing else will matter. I must--" But I broke off, and laid my hand on +Ivor's arm. "What's that?" I whispered. "Did you hear anything then?" + +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. + +"It's a step outside, on the gravel path," said I, my heart beginning to +knock against my side. "I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come +into the garden. What if it should be Raoul--what if he has seen our +shadows on the curtain?" + +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on +account of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows +couldn't have fallen on the curtain. + +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was +Raoul's knock. I was sure of that. + +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time +appointed, I should have hurried him away before this, so that I might +write to Raoul; but now I could not think what to do for the best--what +to do, that things might not be made far worse instead of better between +Raoul and me. I had suffered so much that my power of quick decision, on +which I'd so often prided myself vaingloriously, seemed gone. + +"It is Raoul," I said. "What shall I do?" + +"Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don't act as if you were +afraid. Say that I came to see you on important business concerning a +friend of yours in England, and had to call after the theatre because +I'm leaving Paris by the first train in the morning." + +"No use." + +"Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her." + +"No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul's already angry. He has the +right to be--or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. +And I refused to let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, +I was so tired. He's knocking again. Hide yourself, and I'll let him in. +Oh, _why_ do you stand there, looking at me like that? Go into that +room," and I pointed, then pushed him towards the door. "You can get +through the window and out of the garden--softly--while Raoul and I are +talking." + +"If you insist," said Ivor. "But you're wrong. The best thing--" + +"Go--go, I tell you. Don't argue. I know best," I cut him short, in a +sharp whisper, pushing him again. + +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, +my boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched +it out, and dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That +done, I flew out of the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and +opened the front door. There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very +stern in the light of the hall lamp. I had never seen him like that +before. + +"I know why you're here," I began quickly, before he could speak. "Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I--hoped you would come." + +"Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?" he +asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. + +"No. For I hadn't deceived you," I answered. "I haven't deceived you +now. If you loved me, you'd believe me, Raoul." + +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me +draw him into the house. + +"For God's sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can," he said. +"It's death to lose it. I came here wanting to die." + +"After you'd killed me, as you said?" + +"Perhaps. I couldn't keep away. I had to come. If you have any +explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is." + +"You know me, and you know Godensky--yet you need an explanation of +anything evil said of me by him?" In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; +but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a +power had jealousy over his better self. + +"Don't play with me!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear it. You sent me away. +Yet you had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your +carriage; and now--" + +"Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should +have packed her off by herself, alone, that I--might be alone with you. +Oh, Raoul, it isn't _possible_ you believe that I could lie to you for +Godensky's sake--a man like that! If I'd cared for him, why shouldn't I +have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do +you think?" + +"I don't think; I'm not able to think. I can only feel," he answered. + +"Then--feel sure that I love you--no man but you--now and always." + +"Oh, Maxine!" he stammered. "Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe +you?" + +"You are wise," I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I +was claiming from him as my right. "If you wouldn't believe, without my +insisting, without my explaining and defending myself, I'd tell you +nothing. But you _do_ believe, just because you love me--I see it in +your face, and thank God for it. So I'll tell you this. Count Godensky +hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you +because he thinks I love you. He--" I paused for a second. A wild +thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could +say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come +back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was Godensky, +not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky's to revenge +himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her +lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, +innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were +open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened +afterward. + +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end +and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift +upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd +helped to set, Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was +sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, +was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he +betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would. + +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that +Raoul could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. + +"He--Godensky--would do anything to part you and me," I said. "There's +no plot too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against +me--and you. No lie too base for him to tell you--or others--about me. +He sent me a letter at the theatre--soon after you'd left me the first +time. In it, he said that I must give him a few minutes after the play, +unless I wanted some dreadful harm to come to _you_--something +concerning your career. That frightened me, though I might have guessed +it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn't be sure, so I +saw him. I didn't want you to know--I tell you that frankly, Raoul. +Because I'd told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn't find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with +me and Marianne. I ran the risk, and--the very thing happened which I +ought to have known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was +nothing; only vague hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner +circle, might save you, if I--would be grateful enough." + +"The scoundrel!" broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. +"I'll--" + +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He +meant to send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from +doing that. + +"No, Raoul," I said, as if he had finished his sentence, "you musn't +fight. For my sake, you mustn't. Don't you see, it's just what he'd like +best? It would be a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of +the scandal. Oh, you _will_ think of it, when you're cooler. For you, I +would not fear much, for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a +shot--far superior to Godensky, and with right on your side. But I would +fear for myself. Promise you won't bring this trouble upon me." + +"I promise," he answered. "Oh, my darling, what wouldn't I promise you, +to atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I +came to you to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and +what I might do. But at last I couldn't hold out against the something +that seemed forcing me here in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive +me?" + +"As a reward for your promise," I said, smiling at him through tears +that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I +who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. "Now are you happy again?" I +asked. + +"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't +dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in +this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face +changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I +could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my +gate. + +"Even at the gate--what?" I asked. + +"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust +you now, by not speaking of that." + +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had +been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it +from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it +recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in +this moment of exaltation he did not doubt. + +"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it +_can_ be nothing." + +"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by +not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal, +repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a +thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see +through rose-coloured ones." + +"I'd rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. +You must tell me what you're thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not +yours." + +"Well--if you will know. But, remember, darling, I'm going to put it out +of my mind. I'll ask you no questions, I'll only--tell you the thing +itself. As I said, I didn't come here directly after seeing Godensky get +into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman--and I thought of the +Seine." + +"Oh--you must indeed have been mad!" + +"I was. But that something saved me--the something that drove me to find +you. I walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and +nearer, as if being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this +street, on the side opposite your house. I hadn't made up my mind yet, +that I would try to see you. I didn't know what I would do. I stood +still, and tried to think. It was very black, in the angle between two +garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts up, you know. Nobody who +didn't expect to find a man would have noticed me in the darkness. I +hadn't been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, walking +very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly--not his face, but his figure, and he was young +and well dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an +Englishman. He went straight to your gate and rang. A moment later +someone, I couldn't see who, opened the gate and let him in. +Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the idea of following--of +pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the gate. But I +wasn't quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, Maxine, +there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you--but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I +only wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a +motor cab going slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. +There were two women in it. I could see them by the light of the street +lamp, though not as plainly as I'd seen the man, and they appeared to be +arguing very excitedly about something. Whatever it was, it must have +been in some way concerned with you, or your affairs, because they were +tremendously interested in the house. They both looked out, and one +pointed several times. Even if I'd intended to go in, I wouldn't have +gone while they were there. But the very fact that they _were_ there +roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I'd fallen into. I +wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I +tried the gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and--there were +lights in these windows. I knew you couldn't have gone to bed yet, +though you'd said you were so tired. There was death in my heart then, +for you and for me, Maxine, for--the gate hadn't opened again, and--" + +"I know what you thought!" I broke in, my heart beating so now that my +voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. "You said to +yourself, 'It was Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall +find them together.'" + +"Yes," Raoul admitted. "But I didn't try the handle of the door, as I +had of the gate. I rang. I couldn't bring myself to take you unawares." + +"Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you +ring?" I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor +had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in +painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in +spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the +experience. I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, +though he strove to lash them back. I dared not bring Ivor out from the +other room, if he were still there. He was too handsome, too young, too +attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of Count Godensky, +whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a +stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my +house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn't taken Ivor's advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have +listened to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the +understanding we had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I +must be secret to the end.) + +The very asking of such a bold question--"Do you think I let a man in, +and hid him?" helped my cause with Raoul. + +"No," he said, "I can't think it. I won't, and don't think it. And you +need tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won't distrust +you again!" + +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor +had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint +sound in the next room. He was there still. + +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, +saying, "Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in," +I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover +the sound if it should come again. + +"Oh, Raoul!" I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I +surprised him. "You're taking this too seriously. A thousand times I +thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but--after all, +_were_ they so much against me? You seem to think I am the only young +woman in this house. Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it's true. But +I have a _femme de chambre_ and a _cuisinire_, both under twenty-five, +both pretty, and both engaged to be married." (This was true. Ah, what a +comfort to speak the truth to him!) "Doesn't it occur to you that, at +this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the +seat under the old yew arbour? Can't you imagine how they started and +tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate +and came up the path?" + +"Forgive me!" murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. + +"Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?" + +"Leave them in peace, by all means." + +"The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Thrse and Annette +are good little girls." + +"Don't let's bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, +and I shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I--" + +"Oh, I'm better now," I said. "Of course I must send you away by and by, +but not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren't glad when you saw +the jewels?" + +"Jewels?" echoed Raoul. "What jewels?" + +"You don't mean to say you haven't yet opened the little bag I gave you +at the theatre?" I exclaimed. + +Raoul looked half ashamed. "Dearest, don't think me ungrateful," he +said, "but before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told +me--that lie. It lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and +haven't thought of it again till this minute." + +At last I laughed with sincerity. "Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you're not fit for +this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with +you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've +forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's +open it together." + +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I +knew. + +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him +put the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his +face flushed. "Good heavens, Maxine," he said, "I hope you weren't in +earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us +both, for I've lost it. You know, I've been almost mad. I had my +handkerchief in that pocket. I must have pulled it out, and--" + +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. + +"Raoul," I said, in a queer stifled voice, "the bag had in it the +Duchess de Montpellier's diamonds." + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' PART + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding +myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her +boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover +that no stranger had come on her account to the house. + +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her +little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in +groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, +I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against +the furniture or knocking down some ornament. + +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would +make, and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet +on glass, although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of +the house, and I was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me +stay. Only by a miracle did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a +chair or a tall vase of flowers, on my way to a second door which was +locked on the other side. At last, however, I discovered a window, and +congratulated myself that my trouble and Maxine's danger was nearly +over. The room being on the ground floor, though rather high above the +level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But +when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt +smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. + +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was +tightly closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly +and with infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was +going to stick. Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it +had swelled; in any case I knew that when the two sashes consented to +part they would make a loud protest. + +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised +her voice--to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even +than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, +and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had +missed. + +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which +apparently communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed +too small for me to climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. + +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du +Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after +she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many +words) that there was no stranger in the house. + +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I +felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should +have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed +doors and windows. As it was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead +grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent +mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief. It was not +to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in +the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, however, I +chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn't account. It +was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket +onto the floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. + +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second +thought; but to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as +insignificant until it had been thoroughly examined. I put the paper +back, and as I did so I heard Maxine give an exclamation, apparently of +distress. I could not distinguish all she said, but I thought that I +caught the word "diamonds." For a moment or two she and du Laurier +talked together so excitedly that I might have made another attack on +the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead +silence, except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than +Maxine's. Perhaps it was her maid's. + +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there +was no sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it +should be too late. + +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would +certainly have given away the secret of my presence if there had been +ears to hear. But all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I +dropped down on to a flower bed some few feet below. Then I skirted +round to the front of the house, walking stealthily on the soft grass, +and would have made a noiseless dash for the gate had I not seen a +stream of light flowing out through the open front door across the lawn. +I checked myself just in time to draw back without being seen by a woman +and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine and, no +doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. +Down to the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing +it behind them, so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. + +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them +was too imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as +they reappeared in three or four minutes they could not have gone far +enough to be out of sight from the gate. + +"There's witchcraft in it," Maxine said, as she and her lover passed +within a few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. + +Du Laurier's answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. +Evidently they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of +finding it again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for +Maxine that a further misfortune should have befallen her at such a +time. But the one and only way in which I could help her at the moment +was to get away as soon as possible. + +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief +when I was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du +Laurier should, by any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought +was to go immediately back to my hotel, where Girard might by now have +arrived with news. I was just ready to hail a cab crawling by at a +distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I'd found and put back into +my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by the light of a +street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the small, +crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. + +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both +sides with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The +handwriting was that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I +could not make out the words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a +wax match from my match-box, and protecting the flame in the hollow of +my hand, began studying the strange message. + +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. "On board the +'Queen.'" I had crossed the Channel in the "Queen," and this beginning +alone was enough to make me hope that the bit of paper might do more +than any detective to unravel the mystery. + + "I'm taking big risks because I've got to," I read on. "It's my + only chance. And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You're + a gentleman, and you saved my life and a lot more besides by + getting into that railway-carriage when the other chaps did. The + minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped there + game. I'm a jewler's assistant, carrying property worth + thousands, for my employers. From the first I knew 'twas bound + to be a ticklish job. On this bote I'm safe, for the villions + who would have murdered and robbed me in the train if it hadn't + been for you being there, won't have a chance, but when I get to + Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed + as I am, if I hadn't already thot of a plan to save them through + you, an honest gentleman far above temptashun. I know who you + are, for I've seen your photo in the papers. So, what I did was + this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of use in + my carere, just as folks were on the boat's gangway. Thro' + making that disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing + amatoor conjuring to amuse my wife and famly, I was able to slip + the case of my employer's jewls into your breast pocket without + your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not that I + wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I'd + left it the double thickness would have surprised you and you + would probably have pulled out my case to see what it was. Then + my fat would have bin in the fire, with certin persons looking + on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn't be fare. I've + got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won't open it + because it may have your sweetart's letters in. You can get your + property again by bringing me my master's, which is fare + exchange. I can't call on you, for I don't know where your going + and daren't hang round to see on account of the danger I run, + and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get + to him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I + wrote out this explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in + your pocket which I shall try when in the railway stashun at + Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to bring me the + jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, + calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top + floor, left of passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, + + "I am, + + "Yours trustfully, + + "J.M. Jeweler's Messenger. + + "P.S.--For heaven's sake don't fale, and ask the concerge for + name of Gestre." + +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating +little document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As +it was, my delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier +to restrain myself. + +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should +have rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her +the good news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she +should curse instead of bless me: and besides, as there was still a +chance of disappointment, it might be better in any case not to raise +her hopes until there was no danger of dashing them again. The best +thing was to get the treaty back, without a second of delay. As for the +detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he would have to +wait longer, or even go away disgusted--nothing made much difference +now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the +hour, she was certain not to be asleep. + +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, +and no other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one +presently. It was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris +no carriages of any sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind +that I should have to go all the way on foot; but I knew the direction +of the Avenue Morot, though I'd never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +and as it was not more than two miles to walk, I could reach the house I +wanted to find in half an hour. + +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since "J. M." was +sure to be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which +bothered me most was the effect likely to be produced on the man when I +could not hand him over the diamonds in exchange for the treaty. + +Of course I didn't believe that "J.M." was a jeweller's messenger, +though possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not +told me the true history of the diamonds, and what had happened in +Holland. As it was, I had very little doubt that the rat of a man I had +chanced to protect in the railway carriage was no other than the +extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du Laurier of the +Duchess's necklace. + +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it +probable that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had +contrived to dodge, evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope +of cheating them out of their share of the spoil. Followed by them, +dreading their vengeance, I fancied him flitting from one hiding-place +to another, not daring to separate himself from the jewels; at last +determining to escape, disguised, from England, where the scent had +become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to Dover, +and travelling with a golfer's kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening +the door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. + +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, "J.M.'s" +travelling companions hadn't even accosted him. Still, the theory +accounted for much that had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a +man should be desperate enough to trust his treasure to a stranger +(known only through "photos in the newspapers") rather than risk losing +it to those he had betrayed. + +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from "J.M." the +case containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive +the diamonds in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a +plan of proceeding before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon +found my way into the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which +the queer name seemed not inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an +ugly big box of a building, with rooms advertised to let, as I could see +by the light of a street lamp across the way, which gleamed bleakly on +the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron balconies. + +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of +several minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had +opened for me. I passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy +voice behind a half open window. The owner of the voice kept himself +invisible and was no doubt in the bunk which he called his bed. Only a +stern sense of duty as concierge woke him up enough to demand, +mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired to visit at +this late hour? + +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. + +"Monsieur Gestre is away," murmured the voice behind the little window. + +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the "pal" whom "J.M." had been in +such a hurry to find. "Very well," said I, "I'll see his friend, the +Englishman who arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him." + +"Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here +already? He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?" + +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The "monsieur" who +had called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone +to bed in his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as +the difference between voices, especially if they were those of +foreigners. Perhaps if I explained that I was not the person who had +said he would come again, but another, the man behind the window would +consider me a complication, and refuse to let me pass at such an hour +without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was what I least wanted--for +Maxine's sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to seize upon the +advantage that was offered me. + +"Quite right," I said shortly. "I know the way." And so began to mount +the stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the +fifth floor I found that I had reached the top of the house. There were +no more stairs to go up. + +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light--a jet of gas +turned low. But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the +light, either in carelessness or for some special reason. + +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be +sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I +was sure, I knocked, but no answer came. + +"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of +waiting and dropped asleep, that's all." + +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on +until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how +sound asleep, I must have waked him. + +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, +he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. + +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he +was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the +handle, and to my surprise it yielded. + +"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I +thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if +he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to +find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and +I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly +time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before +a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and +at the same instant banged the door shut behind me. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere +at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light +knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. + +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I +might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or +table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the +treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and +he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de +Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well +hidden when he went out. + +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the +window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted +floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved. + +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something +which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I +pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four +steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap +round the fallen chair. I disentangled myself from its coils, only to +slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid +which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards. + +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. + +"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought. And if there had +been a struggle--what of the treaty? + +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my +way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and +slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing +that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot. + +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles +prickled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on +that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I +knew what it would prove to be. + +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though +there was no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers +touched an arm, a throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as +I knew my boots must be. And I knew, too, with what they were wet. + +I'm ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my +impulse was to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for +reasons which concerned others even more than myself, it would be +unpleasant to be involved, just at this time especially. I could go +downstairs now, past the sleeping concierge, and with luck no one need +ever know that I had been in this dark room of death. + +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search +for the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made +sure it was not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were +matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for +them, and come back. It was a grim task, but it had to be done. + +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of +pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a +broken cup containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on +the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I +lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look +round. + +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the +secret of the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, +before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the +door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the +floor. + +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged +with him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in +pieces, the spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair +had been overturned, and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that +had held them were half hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. + +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the +condition of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the +floor: the drawers of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and +their contents strewn far and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, +and a few shabby coats and pairs of trousers thrown about, with the +pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A chest of drawers had been +ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of sheets and blankets, +the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The room looked +as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to go +near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. +The blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, +like those in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently +by hands which searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless +determination. + +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I +could imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that +he had outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding +the friend who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had +planned to defend himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the +door (both lock and bolt were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to +search his friend's quarters for food, and fearfully beginning a supper +in the midst of which he had probably been interrupted. Almost, I could +feel the horror with which he must have trembled when steps came along +the corridor, when the door was tried and finally broken in by force +without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he had rushed to the +window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and return +desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any +intention to defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything +right if only they would give him time. + +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them +of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with +the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering +candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to +leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been cheated in the +end. + +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless +there was a chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the +diamonds or some letters relating to their disposal, might, if they +found the treaty, have hastily flung it aside, as a thing of no value. + +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, +and the lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which +might fail while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from +its bed of grease on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light +touched my hand and shirt cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned +slightly sick at the sight. There was blood on my brown boots, too, and +the grey tweed clothes which I had not had time to change since arriving +in Paris. + +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains +before leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. + +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the +floor, and in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I +cried "hurrah!" when, half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing +letter-case. It was lying spread open, back uppermost, and there came an +instant of despair when I pounced on it only to find it empty. But there +was the treaty on the floor underneath; and lucky it was that the +searchers had thrown it out, for there were gouts of blood on the +letter-case, while the treaty was clean and unspotted. + +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything +endured and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the +pocket from which it had been stolen. + +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step +outside the door. + +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it +was of the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, +my hands and clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The +treaty must not be found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a +dash for the window, and once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I +threw the candle-end into the room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint +starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, showed me a row of small +flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I wrapped the treaty in a +towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two of the +flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to +cover and conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, +fumbling at the handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking +of the hinges. Then the light of a dark lantern flashed. + + + + +DIANA FORREST'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it +were a kind of fine art. I don't. It seems too bad to be true that I +should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a +bad dream. + +I suppose I've been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been +kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for +them; and I have taken things for granted--except, of course, with Lisa. +But Lisa is different--different from everyone else in the world. I have +never expected anything from her, as I have from others. All I've wanted +was to make her as happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could +be, and to teach myself never to mind anything that she might say or do. + +But Ivor--to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I +didn't know it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off +and left me standing in the railway-station. I didn't dream then of +going to Paris. If anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, +"No, no, I will not." And yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I +tried to make myself think that it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down +underneath I knew all the time it wasn't that, really. It was because I +couldn't bear to do the things I'm accustomed to doing every day. I felt +as if I should cry, or scream, or do something ridiculous and awful +unless there were a change of some sort--any change, but if possible +some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. + +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would +be in Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat +and the train that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could +never be as we had been before; that it was all over between us for ever +and ever, and through his fault. But, there at the bottom was the +thought that I _might_ have done him an injustice, because he had begged +me to trust him, and I wouldn't. Just suppose--something in myself kept +on saying--that we should by mere chance meet in Paris, and he should be +able to prove that he hadn't come for Maxine de Renzie's sake! It would +be too glorious. I should begin to live again--for already I'd found out +that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn't life at all. + +He couldn't think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, +because I would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I +made up my mind to be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had +been, if Ivor happened to run across us anywhere. + +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected +way, but instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more +unhappy than before--for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining +through its blackness. + +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall +of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn't give up his +mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and +he _must_ have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had +put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was _afraid_ for him, I +couldn't have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he +turned away from me. + +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a +woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in +my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately +angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for. + +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord +Robert West as if I'd forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor +Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed +to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It +was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was +like that of the man in Millais' picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I +wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn't let +her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him. + +It is strange how one's mood can change in a moment--but perhaps it is +like that only with women. A minute before I'd been trying to despise +Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself +that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry +Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and +that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was +engaged to somebody else. + +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been +stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given +anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and +would trust him in spite of all. + +"You look as pale as if you were going to faint," said Lisa, in her +little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn't speak loudly, always +reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms. + +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone's attention to me just +then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as +they passed. + +"It must be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." +That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that +minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on +beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. +"I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till +after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has +been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight +to my room when we get upstairs." + +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others +at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric's suite. + +"Shan't I come with you?" asked Lisa, but I said "no." It was something +new for her to offer to help me, for she isn't very strong, and has +always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she's a +few years older than I am. + +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can't get on even for +a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had +offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn't been shut up +in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she +could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away. + +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking +along the Champs lyses, brilliant still with electric lights, and full +of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and +dinner-parties, or taking them to restaurants for supper. + +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, +though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved +me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always +would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had +said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his +eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he +had been willing to break with me. + +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed +him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, +knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer. + +Still--why had he looked so miserable, if he didn't care what I thought, +and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole +thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt +it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, +and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon +me. + +"Oh, to know, to _know_, what he's doing at this minute!" I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound +of my own voice. "To _know_ whether I'm doing him the most awful +injustice--or not!" + +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa's, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the +key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen--that Lisa might +wish to come, and not wait till I'd given her permission. She does that +sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor +calls her "Imp"), and if she thinks people don't want her that is the +very time when she most wants them. + +"Oh, Di, do let me in!" she exclaimed. + +For a second or two I didn't answer. Never in my life had I liked poor +Lisa less than I'd liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though +I'd told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was +acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of +longing to slap her, as I couldn't help doing now. But always before, +when she has irritated me until I've nearly forgotten my promise to her +father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and +deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I've tried to atone, even +when there wasn't really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was +afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she would go to bed angry +with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart attack and is +ill next day. "Di, are you there?" she called again. + +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with +a rush. "I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate," +she said. + +So did I, but I didn't mean to let her know that. + +"I'm going out," she went on. "If I don't, I shall have a fit." + +"Out!" I repeated. "You can't. It's midnight." + +"Can't? There's no such word for me as 'can't,' when I want to do +anything, and you ought to know that," said she. "It's only being ill +that ever stops me, and I'm not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity +were flowing all through me, making my nerves jump, and I believe you +feel exactly the same way. Your eyes are as big as half-crowns, and as +black as ink." + +"I _am_ a little nervous," I confessed. And I couldn't help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at +the same time. "Perhaps it's in the air. Maybe there's going to be a +thunder-storm. There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up." + +"Maybe it's partly that, maybe not," said she. "But there's one thing +I'm sure of. _Something's going to happen._" + +"Do you feel that, too?" I broke out before I'd stopped to think. Then I +wished I hadn't. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. + +"Ah, I _knew_ you did!" she cried, looking as eerie and almost as +haggard as a witch. "Something _is_ going to happen. Come. Go with me +and be in it, whatever it is." + +"No," I said. "And you mustn't go either." But she was weird. She seemed +to lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren's witchery, +though without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. + +"Of course I'm not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in +hand through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans," said Lisa. +"I'm going to have a closed carriage--a motor-brougham, one belonging to +the hotel, so it's quite safe. It's ordered already, and I shall first +drive and drive until my nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If +you won't drive with me I shall drive alone. But there'll be no harm in +it, either way. I didn't know you were so conventional as to think there +could be. Where's your brave, independent American spirit?" + +"I'm not conventional," I said. + +"Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You're afraid of +things you never used to be afraid of." + +"I'm not afraid of things, and I'm not a bit changed," I said. "You only +want to 'dare' me." + +"I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone," +she begged. "Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but +I _can't_ stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would +be an adventure worth remembering." + +"Very well," I said, "I'll go with you, not for the adventure, but +rather than have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and +rather than you should go alone." + +"Good girl!" exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she +had got her way; though if I'd refused she would probably have cried. +She is terrifying when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear +her frail little body to pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes +ends up by a fit of trembling as if she were in an ague. + +"Have you really ordered a motor cab?" I asked. + +"Yes," said she. "I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big +porter at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and +said I did not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick +friend who had written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to +tell no one except me that she'd come to Paris." + +"I shouldn't have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a +waiter," I remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don't like +Lisa's subterranean ways. But this time she didn't even try to defend +herself. + +"Let's get ready at once," she said. "I'm going to put on my long +travelling cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with +a veil. I suppose you'll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the +'service' stairs. The carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance." + +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. "Lisa, are +you planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to +'spring' on me when it's too late for me to get out of it?" + +"How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You _do_ hurt my feelings! +I haven't had an inspiration yet, so I can't make a plan. But it will +come; I know it will. I shall _feel_ where we ought to go, to be in the +midst of an adventure--oh, without being mixed up in it, so don't look +horrified! I told you that something was going to happen, and that I +wanted to be in it. Well, I mean to be, when the inspiration comes." + +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa's +veil, and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there +was nobody in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew +where to find the 'service' stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the +side entrance of the hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were +both seated inside, Lisa spoke in French to the driver, who waited for +orders. + +"I think you might take us to the Rue d'Hollande. Drive fast, please. +After that, I'll tell you where to go next." + +"Is this your 'inspiration'?" I asked. + +"I'm not sure yet. Why?" and her voice was rather sharp. + +"For no particular reason. I'm a little curious, that's all." + +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had +been playing with me, that all along she had had some special +destination in her mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to +bring me to it. But what use to ask more questions? She did not mean me +to find out until she was ready for me to know. + +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round +corners and through street after street which I had never seen +before--quiet streets, where there were no cabs, and no gay people +coming home from theatres and dinners. At last we turned into a +particularly dull little street, and stopped. + +"Is this the Rue d'Hollande?" Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping +quickly up and putting her head out of the window. + +"_Mais oui, Mademoiselle_," I heard the man answer. + +"Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders." + +"I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could +possibly happen," said I. + +"Wait a little, and maybe you'll find out you're mistaken. If nothing +does, and we aren't amused, we can go on somewhere else." + +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun +almost noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in +a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was +dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that +the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, +an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me. + +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in +neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, +slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who +looked like a lady's maid. + +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our +side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who +got down first. It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I +had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of +that exact shade: Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie. + +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had +brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the +house, I didn't know. + +"Oh, Lisa!" I reproached her. "How _could_ you?" + +"It really _was_ an inspiration. I'm sure of that now," she said +quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide +excitement. "You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, +yet you know who she is. You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you." + +"I know by the hair," I answered. "I might have foreseen this would be +the kind of thing you would think of--it's like you." + +"You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it," said Lisa. "It's +entirely for your sake; and it's quite true, it was an inspiration to +come here. This afternoon in the train I read an interview in 'Femina' +with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she's produced to-night. There +was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue +d'Hollande." + +"Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You've seen her back, and her +maid's back, and the garden wall," I said, more sharply than I often +speak to Lisa. "I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. +I know why you want to wait here, but you shan't--I won't. I'm going +away as quickly as I can." + +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. +Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, +and persuasiveness. + +"Di, dearest girl, _don't_ be cross with me; please don't +misunderstand," she implored. "I love you, you know, even if you +sometimes think I don't; I want you to be happy--oh, wait a moment, and +listen. I've been so miserable all day, knowing you were miserable; and +I've felt horribly guilty for fear, after all, I'd said too much. Of +course if you'd guessed where I meant to come, you wouldn't have stirred +out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for yourself. Unless +Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could hardly have +arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he _doesn't_ come, we +shall know, too. Think how happy you'll feel if he _doesn't!_ I'll +apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose you would not +mind apologising to him, if necessary?" + +"He may be in the house now," I said, more to myself than to Lisa. + +"If he is, he'll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. +There, it's open now. The maid's unlocked it. No, there's nobody in the +garden." + +"I can't stop here and watch for him, like a spy," I said. + +"Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It's for _his_ sake I ask you to stay. And if you won't, I +must stay alone. If you insist on going away, I'll get out and stand in +the street, either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I'm sure he +isn't coming. But how much better to wait and see for yourself." + +"You know I can't go off and leave you standing here," I answered. "And +I can't leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets +alone. I might meet--" I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must +nave guessed the name on my lips. + +"The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together," +said Lisa, "for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor +Dundas and to you. You couldn't force me away, even if you wanted to use +force." + +"Which you know is out of the question," I said, desperately. "But why +has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against +Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last night and this +morning." + +"I've been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to +be justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn't +come to this house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke +about an engagement, I shall believe that he doesn't care a rap about +Maxine de Renzie." + +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating +as if it were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I +could not think, or argue with myself what was really right and wise to +do. I could only give myself up, and drift with circumstances. + +"A man has just come round the far corner," whispered Lisa. "Is it Ivor? +I can't make out. He doesn't look our way." + +"Thank Heaven we're too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather +die than have Ivor know we're here," I broke out. + +"I don't think it is Ivor," Lisa went on. "He's hidden himself in the +shadow, as if he were watching. It's _that_ house he's interested in. +Who can he be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps." + +"Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie's house?" I asked, +in spite of myself. + +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she +regretted. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," she answered hastily. "Why, indeed? It was +just a thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh--keep back, +Di, don't look out for an instant, till he's passed. Ivor is coming now. +He's walking in a great hurry. There! he can't see you. He's far enough +away for you to peep, and see for yourself. He's at Maxine de Renzie's +gate." + +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that +tragic look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told +me there was no other woman in his world but me. + +"I won't look," I stammered, almost choking. + +"Someone, I can't see who, is letting him in. The gate's shut behind +him." + +"Let us go now," I begged. + +"No, no, not yet!" cried Lisa. "I must know what happens next. We are in +the midst of it, indeed." + +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, +and nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we +should go. + +"I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?" Lisa said. +Then she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly +told our chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but +the man did not move. + +"Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers," directed +Lisa, but I would not allow that. + +"No, he shall not stop there!" I exclaimed. "Lisa, I forbid it. You've +had your way in everything so far. I won't let you have it in this." + +"Very well, we'll turn the corner into the next street, to please you," +said Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. "Now stop," she +cried, when we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and +hearing of anyone in the Rue d'Hollande. Then, in another instant, +before I had any idea what she meant to do, she was out of the cab, +running like a child in the direction whence we had come. I looked after +her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could not bear to risk +meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was peeping +into the Rue d'Hollande, to find out what was happening there. + +"She will come back in a moment or two," I said to myself wearily, and +sat waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered +up under her cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If +she had not appeared again almost at once, I should have had to tell the +driver to follow, though I hated the thought of going again into the +street where Maxine de Renzie lived. But she did come, and in her hand +was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered with gold or silver that +sparkled even in the faint light. + +"I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up," she exclaimed. + +"You might better have left it," I said stiffly. "Perhaps Mademoiselle +de Renzie dropped it." + +"No, I don't think so. It wasn't in front of her house." + +"It may belong to that man who was watching, then." + +"It doesn't look much like a thing that a man would carry about with +him, does it?" + +"No," I admitted, indifferently. "Now we will go home." + +"Don't you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?" + +"Indeed I don't!" I cried. "I don't want to know any more about him." +And for the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. + +"Very well," said Lisa, "perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both +that I haven't anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think +about him after this, the better." + +"I shan't think about him at all," I said. But I knew that was a boast I +should never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could +understand how people must feel when they are very old and weary of +life. I don't believe that I shall feel older and more tired if I live +to be eighty than I felt then. It was a slight comfort to know that we +were on our way back to the hotel, and that soon I should be in my room +alone, with the door shut and locked between Lisa and me; but it was +only very slight. I couldn't imagine ever being really pleased about +anything again. + +"You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose," chirped Lisa, "and show +Ivor Dundas that he hasn't spoiled your life." + +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons +that tied the bag she had found. + +"Perhaps I shall," I answered. "I might do worse." + +"I should think you might!" exclaimed Lisa. "Oh, do accept him soon. I +don't want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you're broken-hearted for +him. Lord Bob is sure to propose to you to-morrow--even if he hasn't +already: and if he has, he'll do it again. I saw it in his eye all +to-day. He was dying to speak at any minute, if only he'd got a chance +with you alone. You _will_ say 'yes' when he does, won't you, and have +the engagement announced at once?" + +"I'll see how I feel at the time, if it comes," I answered, trying to +speak gaily, but making a failure of it. + +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She +seemed surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in +her hand, and touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell +me what was there. Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make +me ask. But I didn't care enough to humour her. If the bag had been +stuffed full of the most gorgeous jewels in the world, at that moment I +shouldn't have been interested in the least. I saw Lisa give a little +sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were watching; but when she found me +looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the bag again and stowed it +away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling cloak. + +I was afraid that, when we'd arrived at the hotel and gone up to our +rooms Lisa might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her +out, as I felt I must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and +my affairs, now that all doubt was settled. She didn't even wish to talk +over what had happened; but when I bade her good-night, simply said, +"good-night" in return, and let me shut the door between the rooms. + +"I suppose," I thought, "that the best thing I shall have to hope for +after this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my +dreams." But though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and +fall asleep, I couldn't. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a +minute at a time; and always I found myself staring at the window, hour +after hour, hoping for the light. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +DIANA HEARS NEWS + +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and +deserved to be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I +felt so ashamed and humiliated. + +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful +when dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold +bath, however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee +afterwards did me good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian's +maid, knocked at my door to ask if I were up, and if she could help me +do my hair. "Her Ladyship" sent me her love, and hoped I had rested +nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I was looking well. + +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared +at myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had +made so little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, +perhaps, but my cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose +while one is young one can suffer a good deal and one's face tell no +secret. + +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car +which Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and +Lisa and I had planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a +waste of time to be in Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But +when I tapped at Lisa's door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first +greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want +to go with us to see the Rajah's automobile. While I was with her Aunt +Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome. + +She was "so sorry" for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back +after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough +by that time for the shopping expedition. + +The automobile really was a "magnificent animal," as Aunt Lil said, and +it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to +tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it. +It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a +detail. _Any_ car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, +or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such +heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the +gold toilet things, in a pale grey sude case, they were beyond words, +and she must have them--the motor also, of course, since it went with +them. + +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the +two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary +member. + +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah's +agent and the car paid for. At two o'clock, when we were to meet the men +at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything +had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to +motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train. Lord +Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the +Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the +car across the Channel in a cargo boat. + +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over +anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too +much occupied to notice. + +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt +Lil didn't notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she +doesn't like her, and it is only when you really care for people that +you observe changes in them when you are busy thinking of your own +affairs. + +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she +would have the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but +she was dressed and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she +said, and though she didn't buy anything when she was with us, while we +were at a milliner's in the Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, +she disappeared on some errand of her own, and only came back just as we +were ready to leave the shop. Whatever it was that she had been doing, +it had interested her and waked her out of herself, for her eyes looked +brighter and she had spots of colour on her cheeks. + +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many +things in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord +Bob at the Ritz, by two o'clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We +were not more than ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: +and the short time that we'd kept them waiting wasn't enough to account +for the solemnity of the two men's faces as they came forward to meet +us. + +"Something's gone wrong about the car!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. + +"No, the car's all right," said Lord Bob. "I've got you a chauffeur too, +and--" + +"Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet +blankets, or something disagreeable. It surely can't be because you're +hungry that you're cross about a few minutes." + +"Have you seen a newspaper to-day?" asked Uncle Eric. + +"A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we've had too many important +things to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone +out?" + +"Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here," Uncle Eric answered, looking +very much worried--so much worried that I thought he must care even more +about Ivor than I had fancied. + +"Of course it's the most awful rot," said Lord Bob, "but he's accused of +murder." + +"It's in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones," +Uncle Eric went on. "We've only just seen the news since we came here to +wait for you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As +it is, of course I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I +can to help him through. But that needn't keep the rest of you from +going on to-day as you planned." + +"What an awful thing!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. "I will stay too, if the +girls don't mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel +that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I've got thousands of +engagements--we all have--but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about +you, Lord Bob?" + +"I'll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart," said he, his nice though +not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his +blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. "Dundas and I have +never been intimate, but he's a fine chap, and I've always admired him. +He's sure to come out of this all right." + +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I +felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of +whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in +past days. + +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I +should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem +to think it strange that I had nothing to say. + +"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask. + +"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric. + +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor +accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened? + +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the +lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. + +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was +almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, +of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been +that. + +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was +conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow +for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who +had been his rival. + +"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just +going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. +"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean, +some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't +supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do +with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under +another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing +sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow, +apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find, +for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas +had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to +the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following +up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt +for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there +he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and +the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold." + +"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first +question she had asked. + +"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered +Lord Bob. + +"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. +"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The +idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They +ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging +England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't +they, Eric?" + +"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of +the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The +evidence--entirely circumstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor. +And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an +Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French +law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman." + +"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. + +"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's +worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a +man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, +presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the +evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than +they have done." + +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I +do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride +themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy! + +"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call +it an alibi?" asked Lisa. + +"He didn't try to," replied Lord Bob. "He's simply refused, up to the +present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o'clock and the time +he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going +to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies +killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the +boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to +the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing +back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already +ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; +that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the +scene." + +"Couldn't he have shown the note sent by the thief?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he +wouldn't tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except +that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the +case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, +no doubt he has good reasons." + +"He has no good luck, anyhow!" sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. + +"Rather not--so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him +is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +swears that though Dundas hadn't been in the place much above half an +hour when the detective arrived, he was there then _for the second +time_, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, +according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the +concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a +man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On +hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre's room. By and by the Englishman +went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. +After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for +Gestre, who announced that he'd been before; and now he vows that it was +the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he +could prove that he'd been in the house no more than half an hour, it +might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been +dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can't or won't +prove it--that's his luck again!--and nobody can be found who saw him in +any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last moment +that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who'd taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not +so very far from the lyse Palace. Then it was only between five and +ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de +la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the +doctors say the fellow must have died. It's a bad scrape. But of course +Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end." + +"Do _you_ think he will, Eric?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"I hope so with all my heart," he answered. But his face showed that he +was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down--down. + +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my +resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had +happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he +cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me--indeed, on the contrary, +everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had +refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that +the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to +defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. + +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and +I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on +earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk +went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do +it, if Lisa and I should act together. + +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get +back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit +long at lunch, so it wasn't yet three when I called her into my room. +The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we +were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for +Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had +said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and +telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa +and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly +what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. + +"I think the only thing for us to do," I said, "is to tell what we know, +and save Ivor in spite of himself." + +"How can anything you know save him?" she asked, with a queer, faint +emphasis which I didn't understand. + +"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in +the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house +there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away. +It all hangs on the time." + +"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me. + +I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?" + +"No, not unless I choose to say so." + +"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course." + +"Why?" + +"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend." + +"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another." + +"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter +except saving him?" + +"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor +Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to +understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt +it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do +it, not you. He'll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there's +something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of +value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back +at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it." + +"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and +her words. + +"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm +saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great +deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your +aunt were thinking about hats." + +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange +idea sprang into my mind: + +"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!" + +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to +this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important. + +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or +not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and +that she had wanted to tantalise me. + +"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I +do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man +mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to +tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a +very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile." + +I'm afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn't bear to think that she was my +step-sister, and I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood +ran in our veins. + +"If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own," I broke +out, "you can't prevent me from telling the whole story, as _I_ know +it--how I went out with you, and all that." + +"I can't prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to--for +Ivor's sake," she answered. + +"For his sake?" + +"Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. +For his sake, because _neither_ of us knows when he came out of Maxine +de Renzie's house. You _would_ go away, though I wanted to stay and +watch. He may not have been there more than five minutes for all we can +tell to the contrary, in which case he would still have had time to go +straight off to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in +accordance with the doctors' statements about the death. For _your_ +sake, because if he knows that you tracked him to Maxine de Renzie's +house, he won't respect you very much; and because he would probably be +furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, for +injuring the reputation of the woman he's risked so much to save. He'd +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her." + +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. + +"Ivor would know that I'm incapable of such baseness." + +"I'm not sure he'd hold you above it. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned'--and he _has_ scorned you--for an actress." + +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood +rush up to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to +my eyes. + +"You see I'm right, don't you?" Lisa asked. + +"You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way--and +that he wouldn't wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest," I +said. "We won't talk of it any more. I can't stand it. Please go back to +your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone." + +"Very well," she snapped, "_you_ called me in. I didn't ask to come." + +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. +I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or +offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if +necessary. Lisa is a strange little creature. She will do a good deal +for money. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to +enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been +utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made +me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; +but in my desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, +and find out some other way of helping him. At all events he should know +that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble. + +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not +be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there +was a "perhaps" I wouldn't give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more +cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, +for I hadn't taken off my hat and coat since coming in. + +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of +that sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that +if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation +with an accused man, as his friend, an interview--probably with a +witness--might possibly be granted. The authorities might think that we +were engaged, for all I cared. I did not care about anything now, except +seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could. + +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the +chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. +Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of +Uncle Eric's and Aunt Lilian's. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but +I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor. That idea had +apparently not been in his mind at all. Anyway, the Ambassador would +already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of +Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from +me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I +first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed +a good deal and said that in future he would be "surprised at nothing an +American girl might do." + +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. +There, I sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I +didn't explain much, but came to the point immediately, and said that I +wanted--oh, but wanted and needed very much indeed--to see Ivor Dundas. +Could he, would he help me to do that? + +"Ought I to help you?" he asked. "Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?" + +"Yes," I said firmly. "They would approve. You see, it is necessary." + +"Then, if it's necessary--and I believe you when you say that it is," he +answered, "I'll do what I can." + +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief +of Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a +young lady related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, +should be allowed five minutes' conversation with the Englishman accused +of murder, Mr. Ivor Dundas. + +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and +because I was so restless and excited that I must be doing something +every instant--something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. + +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I +received an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where +they had put Ivor. This, he explained, would procure me the interview I +wanted, but unfortunately, I must not hope to see my friend alone. A +warder who understood English would have to be present. + +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it +would be to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible +circumstances, or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now +that we were no longer anything to each other--not even friends. But a +kind of ague-terror crept over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little +bare, stuffy reception room. My head was going round and round, my heart +was pounding so that I could not make up my mind what to say to Ivor +when he came. + +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and +when it opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue +uniforms. One of them walked into the room with him--I suppose he must +have been a warder--but he stopped near the door, and in a second I had +forgotten all about him. He simply ceased to exist for me, when my eyes +and Ivor's had met. + +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, +stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make +him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my +words of yesterday. + +"We're all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas," I said. "I don't know if +Uncle Eric has been here yet--but he is doing all he can, and Aunt +Lilian is dreadfully upset. We're staying on in Paris on account of--on +account of this. So you see you've got friends near you. And I--we're +such old friends, I couldn't help trying as hard as I could for a sight +of you to--to cheer you up, and--and to help you, if that's possible." + +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but +pretending to smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes +were full of tears, and I was afraid they'd go splashing down my cheeks, +if I even winked my lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt +capable of forgiving him anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, +and if only, _only_ he really loved me and not that other. + +"Thank you, a hundred times--more than I can express," he said, with a +faint quiver in his voice--his beautiful voice, which was the first +thing that charmed me after knowing him. "It _does_ cheer me to see you. +It gives me strength and courage. You wouldn't have come if you +didn't--trust me, and believe me innocent." + +"Why, of course, I--we--believe you innocent of any crime," I faltered. + +"And of any lack of faith?" + +"Oh, as for that, how can--but don't let's speak of that. What can it +matter now?" + +"It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say +that you will have faith!" + +"I'll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort." + +"Not unless you mean it." + +"Then--I'll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?" + +"It's better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, +you're not to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or +later, though I may have to suffer some annoyances first." + +"Annoyances?" I echoed. "If there were nothing worse!" + +"There won't be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a +huge mistake--another warning against trusting to circumstantial +evidence." + +"Is there nothing we can do then? Or--that we would urge _others_ to +do?" I asked, hoping he would understand that I meant _one_ +other--Maxine de Renzie. + +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; +but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. + +"There is one thing _you_ could do for me--you and no one else," he +said. "But I have no right to ask it." + +"Tell me what it is," I implored. + +"I would not, if it didn't mean more than my life to me." He hesitated, +and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a +few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as +familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still +existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me +sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught +him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three +or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a +diplomatic career. + +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the +warder--almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform +came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. + +"That is forbidden," he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. "What +language was that?" + +"Spanish," I answered. "He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very +dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It +was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me." + +"Nevertheless, it is forbidden," repeated the warder obstinately, "and +though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the +prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and +must be reported." + +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to +me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole +French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman +dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to +know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I +could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think! + +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half +sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his +head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as +plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know you won't fail me." + +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage +not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, +and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did +not mean more than his life. + +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were +these: "Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony +find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. +Every moment counts." + +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie! +And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. + +As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared +more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a +thing of me. But--it "meant more than his life." And I would do the +thing, if it could be done, because of my pride. + +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed +me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known +that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to +which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there. + +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over--with success or +failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed. + +I hadn't looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night's +dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had +said to myself that I didn't wish to read the newspaper accounts of the +murder, and of Ivor's supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, +that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder +was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously +grim one--like the tragedy that had been acted in it. + +I couldn't tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That +would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out +from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be +plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going +back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once +I was there. Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I +pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards. + +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. +Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of +chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble +tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper. + +It was a shock to find Ivor's photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at +me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a +good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor's disgust, at about the +time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really +wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been +on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the +newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, +built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I +knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been +committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the +window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed--according to Girard, the +detective--to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, +on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead +man's room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a +bull's-eye lantern, which he--Girard--carried, standing at bay in the +open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside. +There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with +another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the +picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of +distance between the railings of those two balconies. + +"That would be my way to get there--if I can get there at all," I said +to myself. But there was hardly any "if" left in my mind now. I meant to +get there. + +By this time it was after five o'clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and +again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a _petit bleu_ to +Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn't to worry about me. I'd been hipped +and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was--I'd just found +out--staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; +but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o'clock. That would save a +bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American +friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to +search for me, even if they were inclined. + +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and +dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two +mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of +the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left--the house of the +balcony almost adjoining the dead man's. + +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms +to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the +advertisement of "_Chambres louer_" staring me in the face: but I +spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every +sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me. + +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been +too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had +jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young +American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to "write +up" the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of +course the police wouldn't let me go into the room where it happened, +the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house +adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to "get the emotion, +the sensation," I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic. +Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with +my writing. + +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was +almost sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would +willingly agree to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their +trouble in turning out. + +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge--whose eyes +brightened--thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take +a large commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; +but that didn't matter to me. + +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get +into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, +saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who +were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I +could see the shut window from the balcony of the room I was going to +hire. + +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he +went upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining +to the people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far +strained, he came back to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had +consented to go out of their room for the evening. They were dining at +the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must be pleased to wait a few +moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a few things which +they could carry to a neighbour's: books, and work for their hours of +absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a +parcel of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an +unscrupulous American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment +must be made in advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then--I waited, +waited. It was tedious, but after all, the tediousness didn't matter +much when I came to think of it. It would be impossible to do the thing +I had made up my mind to do, till after dark. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, +Raoul and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed +overwhelming. He did not see in glaring scarlet letters always before +his eyes these two words: "The treaty," as I did--for my punishment. He +was in happy ignorance still of that other loss which I--I, to whom his +honour should have been sacred--had inflicted upon him. He was satisfied +with my story; that through a person employed by me--a person whose name +could not yet be mentioned, even to him--the necklace had been snatched +from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly for +thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, +for letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his +mind by his "wicked jealousy," as he repentantly called it. For me, he +had nothing but praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He +begged me to forgive him, and his remorse for such a small thing, +comparatively--wrung my heart. + +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search +the little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that +there was witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded +him to go away, and follow his own track wherever he had been since I +gave him the bag with the diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so +late, and his way had led him through quiet streets, that even after all +this time the little brocade bag might be lying where he had left it--or +that some honest policeman on his beat might have picked it up. Besides, +there was the cab in which he had come part of the distance to my house. +The bag might have fallen on the floor while he drove: and there were +many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be as cheerful as +I could. + +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep--no +wish for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor +Dundas gone, as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart +was that he might by and by come back, or send--with news. Hour after +hour of deadly suspense passed on, and he did not come or make any sign. +At five o'clock Marianne, who had flitted about all night like a +restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot chocolate, and actually put +me to bed. My last words to her were: "What is the use? I can't sleep. +It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up." + +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I'm +sure she must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I +was far too much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please +her, to think whether or no there was anything at all peculiar in the +taste. + +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was +nearly noon. + +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant +wish not to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. +However, when Marianne came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the +electric bell, she said that no one had been. There were letters and one +telegram, and all the morning papers, as usual after the first night of +a new play. + +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I +thought it might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, +even if he hadn't yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; +and he had not found the brocade bag. He did not put this in so many +words, but said, "I have not found what was lost, or learned anything of +it." + +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have +wired, or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. +He might, unless--something had happened to him. There was that to think +of; and I did think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I +had not suffered yet all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant +to the lyse Palace Hotel to enquire for him, and despatched Henri +immediately. Meanwhile, as there was nothing to do, after pretending to +eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of Marianne, I pretended also to +read the newspaper notices of the play. But each sentence went out of my +head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end only that, according +to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had "surpassed herself," had been +"astonishingly great," had done "what no woman could do unless she threw +her whole soul into her part." How little they knew where Maxine de +Renzie's soul had been last night! And--only God knew where it might be +this night. Out of her body, perhaps--the one way of escape from Raoul's +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. + +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the +name he had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had +nothing to tell which was consoling--rather the other way. The gentleman +had gone out about midnight (I knew that already), and hadn't returned +since. Henri had been to the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he +admitted to me on being catechised, that his questions had been answered +with a certain reserve, as if more were known of the absent gentleman's +movements than it was considered wise to tell. + +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he +had delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he "thought that +Mademoiselle would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with +praise of her great acting." It was on my tongue to scold him for +stopping even one moment, when he had been told to hurry, but he looked +so pleased at his own cleverness that I hadn't the heart to dash his +happiness. I would, however, have pushed the papers aside without so +much as glancing at them, if it hadn't suddenly occurred to me that, if +any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might possibly have got into +print by this time. + +When I read what had happened--how he was accused of murder, and while +declaring his innocence had been silent as to all those events which +might have proved it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. +Here was a man! A man loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to +be, but few are! He had sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to +keep my name out of the mud into which my business had thrown him, and +to save me from appearing in Raoul's eyes the liar that I was. Had Ivor +told that he was with me, after I had prevaricated (if I had not +actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor to my house, what +would Raoul think of me? + +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save +me when he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had +decided to go I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and +happy to-day. + +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to +the Chief of Police and say: "Monsieur, this English gentleman they have +arrested cannot have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +between twelve and one last night, for he came to my house, far away in +the Rue d'Hollande, at a quarter past twelve, and didn't leave it till +after one o'clock." + +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, +to ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her +order my electric brougham immediately. But--I sat down again, sick and +despairing, deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn't obey +it. I dared not. By and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing +danger, then certainly. But not now. + +At four o'clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us +tried to cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even +yet he would have news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking +me ill and tired out, did all he could to persuade me that he was not +miserable with anxiety. At least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky +or of any man, and was humbly repentant for his suspicions of me the +night before. When Raoul is repentant, and wishes to atone for something +that he has done, he is enchanting. There was never a man like him. + +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn't +slept much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I +should disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a +fright--or perhaps even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had +done. I felt that I was no longer mistress of myself--that I might be +capable of any folly. + +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the +theatre, where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be +busy; and in my part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. + +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on +dressing at once, and took as long as I could in the process of making +up; still, when I was ready there was more than half an hour to spare +before the first act. There were letters for me--the kind that always +come to the theatre--but I couldn't read them, after I had occupied +myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew what they would be: vows +of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; petitions for +advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; requests +from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. + +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly +at crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne +opened it, to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. + +"Mademoiselle," she whispered, coming to me, "Monsieur le Comte Godensky +wishes to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?" + +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn +something. If not--if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please +himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away. + +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. +He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one +is sure. + +"Well?" I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He +held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when +he had come too close. + +"Well--I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought +you would be glad to see--even me," he answered, smiling still. + +"What news? But bad, of course--or you wouldn't bring it." + +"You are very cruel. Of course, you've seen the evening papers? You know +that your English friend is in prison?" + +"The same English friend whom _you_ would have liked to see arrested +early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge," I flung at him. +"You look surprised. But you are _not_ surprised, Count +Godensky--except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at +the lyse Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn't it? But +you haven't told me your news." + +"It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack +to-day." + +"What do you mean?" + +"He has been in the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the +same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if +some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, +and what answers he made?" + +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky +came! I had been thinking of the Juge d'Instruction, and his terrible +cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without +trembling. I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given +which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them. +Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I reminded myself that this was +impossible. No one could know except the Juge d'Instruction and Ivor +Dundas himself. "Only two men were present at that scene, and they will +never tell what went on," I said aloud. + +"Three men were present," Godensky answered. "Besides the two of whom +you think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is +permitted nowadays that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be +accompanied by his legal adviser when he goes before the Juge +d'Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of the language might +handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would prejudice his +case." + +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke +French as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. + +"The adviser your friend has chosen," Godensky went on, "happens to be a +protg of mine. I made him--gave him his first case, his first success; +and have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. +Dundas seems to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last +night, it was Girard. To-day, it is Lenormand." + +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn't let Godensky see that I +winced under it. + +"You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your +various protgs," I said--"as well as those of your enemies. But if the +information in the one case is no more trustworthy than in the +other--why, you're not faithfully served. I've good reason to know that +you've made several mistakes lately, and you're likely to make more." + +"Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don't call yourself my 'enemy'?" + +"I don't know of a more appropriate name--after the baseness that you +haven't even tried to hide, in your dealings with me." + +"I thought all was fair in love and war." + +"Do you make war on women?" + +"No--I make love to them." + +"To many, I dare say. But here is one who won't listen." + +"At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?" + +"Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting--even if not accurate." + +"I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened--that he'd been mixed up in this case--and +expressed myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, +friends of whom were intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no +question of treachery on Lenormand's part. He trusts me--as you do not. +Indeed, I even offered my help for Dundas, if I could give it +consistently with my position. Naturally, he told me nothing which could +be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if I wished to go +against him--which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do not." + +"I read the proof rather differently," I said. "But go on. I'm sure you +are anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point." + +"In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important +questions put by the Juge d'Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas +the explanation of a document found on him by the police--ah, that wakes +you up, Mademoiselle! You are surprised that a document was found on the +prisoner?" + +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to +lose it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. + +"I rather hope it was not a letter from me," I said. "You know so much, +that you probably know I admitted to the police at the lyse Palace a +strong friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But +London ways are different from the ways of Paris. It isn't agreeable to +be gossipped about, however unjustly, even if one is--only an actress." + +"You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might +have been--a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any +indiscretion, especially a romantic one--any indiscretion _except +treachery_. There might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du +Laurier, for instance." + +I shivered. "We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d'Instruction," +I reminded him. "You have wandered from the point again." + +"There are so many points--all sharp as swords for those they may +pierce. Well, the important question was in relation to a letter--yes. +But the letter was not from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in +English, and it made an appointment at the very address where the crime +was committed. It was, as nearly as I could make out, a request from a +person calling himself a jeweller's assistant, for the receiver of the +letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This case had been +committed to Mr. Dundas' care, it appeared, while travelling from London +to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d'Instruction that +his own packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but +papers _entirely personal,_ concerning himself alone. + +"'What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into +your pocket?' asked the Juge d'Instruction--Lenormand tells me. + +"'A necklace,' answered Mr. Dundas. + +"'A necklace of diamonds?' + +"'Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn't much interested in it.' + +"'Ah, was this not the necklace which you--staying at the lyse Palace +under another name--gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?' +was the next question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas' head. Now, you see, +Mademoiselle, that my story is not dull." + +"Am I to hear the rest--according to your protg?" I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky's neck, till he +had no more breath or wickedness left in him. + +"Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d'Instruction, a most +clever and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought +you a present of diamonds, it was something entirely different, and +therefore far removed from this case. + +"'Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie's lover?' was the next enquiry. 'I +admire her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,' +your friend returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to +see what there is in this string of questions and answers to bring me +straight to you?" + +"No, Count Godensky, I do not," I answered steadily. But a sudden +illuminating ray did show me, even as I spoke, what _might_ be in his +scheming mind. + +"Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You +love him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, +he is a very proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him +well; and he would not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds +from another man, saying as she takes them that he is her lover." + +"He wouldn't believe it of me!" I cried. + +"There is a way of convincing him. Oh, _I_ shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d'Instruction and +Mr. Dundas, unless--" + +"Unless?--but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself." + +"Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, +Maxine. I mean to have you--or I will crush you, and now you know I can. +Choose." + +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as +for a moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: + +"Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn't make me love +you less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are--as he will +know soon unless you let me save you? Yet I--I would love you if you +were a murderess as well as a--spy." + +"It is you who are a spy!" I faltered, now all but broken. + +"If I am, I haven't spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du +Laurier, and before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all +ways." + +"No--no," I gasped. "You cannot. You're boasting. You can do nothing." + +"Nothing to-night, perhaps. I'm not speaking of to-night. I am giving +you time. But to-morrow--or the day after. It's much the same to me. At +first, when I began to suspect that something had been taken from its +place, I had no proof. I had to get that, and I did get it--nearly all I +wanted. This affair of Dundas might have been planned for my advantage. +It is perfect. All its complications are just so many links in a chain +for me. Girard--the man Dundas chose to employ--was the very man I'd +sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To watch your friend the +British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on the bare +suspicion that there'd been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when--Dundas called on him." + +"What connection can Ivor Dundas' coming to Paris have with Raoul du +Laurier?" I dared to ask. + +"You know best as to that." + +"They have never met. Both are men of honour, and--" + +"Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to +suffer for being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a +man--a man of honour, as you say--would feel when he found out the +woman!" + +"A woman can be calumniated as well as a man," I said. "You are so +unscrupulous you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier +has done nothing; I--I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you +can lie about us, ruin him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, +and--and do terrible harm to me." + +"I can--without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you'll give up +du Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have +you. You are the one woman worthy of me." + +"You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening--at this time--to decide. Will you promise me that?" + +"No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in +your mind now. I won't risk losing you. I have waited long enough +already. Give me a ring of yours, and a written word from you to du +Laurier, saying that you find you have made a mistake; and not only will +I do nothing to injure him, but will guard against the discovery of--you +know what. Besides, as a matter of course, I'll bring all my influence +to bear in keeping your name out of this or any other scandal. I can do +much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was through me the +Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it--for my +future wife." + +"No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the +way you wish," I said. "If--if I am to give him up, I must tell him with +my own lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will +hold your hand until then." + +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was +trying to read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. + +"You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?" + +"By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like +you, I pledge my word that--that--if I can't break with Raoul, to let +you know the first thing in the morning, and dare you to do--what you +will." + +"You will not 'dare' me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait--a +little longer." + +"Until this time to-morrow?" + +"No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another +twelve hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to +that?" + +"I agree." My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he +understood, and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to +snatch my hand. I drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne +appeared at the door. + +"There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle," she announced, her +good-natured, open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. "A +young lady who sends this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it +at once, and consent to see her." + +Thankful that the tte--tte had been interrupted, I held out my hand +for the letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written +below the lines which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, +and found it strange to me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch +at the chance of ridding myself immediately of Godensky, the few words +above the unfamiliar name would have made me say as I did say, "Bring +the young lady in at once." + + "I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was + of the greatest and most pressing importance. + + "DIANA FORREST." + +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely +filled with arguments could not have moved me more. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +MAXINE MEETS DIANA + +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to +all appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered +in a girl--a tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an +artist. + +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at +each other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed +the quarter hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. + +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her--lovely +and lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on +its petals--a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair +garden, far out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how +different her sweet, girl's life had been from my stormy if sometimes +brilliant career. + +"Mr. Dundas sent you to me?" I asked. "When did you see him? Surely +not--since--" + +"This afternoon," she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding +voice, with a soft little drawl of the South in it. "I went to see him. +They gave us five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in +Spanish, just a few words, he--Mr. Dundas--managed to tell me a thing he +wished me to do. He said it meant more than his life, so I did it; for +we have been friends, and just now he's helpless. The warder was angry, +and stopped our conversation at once, though the five minutes weren't +ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there wasn't a moment to lose." + +"Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!" I +exclaimed. + +"I had something else to do first," she said, in the same quiet voice. +She was looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that +they made a shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. + +"Even before I saw--Mr. Dundas," she went on, "I had the idea of calling +on you--about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, +if before I go on I tell you that--quite by accident, so far as I was +concerned--I was with someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last +night, a little after twelve. I didn't dream of spying on--either of +you. It just happened, it wouldn't interest you to know how. Yet--I beg +of you to tell me one thing. Was he with you for long--so long that he +couldn't have got to the other place in time to commit the murder?" + +"He was in my house until after one," I said boldly. "But you, if you +are his friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such +an assurance from me, that he is no murderer." + +"Oh, I am certain," she protested. "I asked the question, not for that +reason, but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you +choose. Now, I find you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at +first I wanted to rush off to the police and tell them where he had been +while the murder was being committed. But I didn't know how long he had +stopped in your house, and, besides--" + +"You would have dared to do that!" I broke in, the blood, angry blood, +stinging my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. + +"It wasn't a question of daring," she answered. "I thought of him more +than of you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your +place, no matter how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess +that he had been in my house." + +"There are reasons why I can't tell that he was there," I said, trying +to awe her by speaking coldly and proudly. "His visit was entirely on +business. But Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he +approves. You know he has remained silent himself." + +"For your sake, because he is a gentleman--brave and chivalrous. Would +you take advantage of that?" + +"You take advantage of me," I flung back at the girl, looking her up and +down. "You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message +for me. Do you want me to believe _this_ his message? I think too well +of him." + +"I don't want you to believe that," she answered. "I haven't come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own +account." + +"In twelve minutes I must be on the stage," I said. + +"The stage!" she echoed. "You can go on acting just the same, though he +is in prison--for you!" + +"I must go on acting. If I didn't, I should do him more harm than good." + +"I won't keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you _will_ do him +good. If you care for him at all, you must want to save him." + +"If I care for him?" I repeated, in surprise. "You think--oh, but I +understand now. You are the girl he spoke of." + +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. + +"I did not think he would speak of me," she said. "I wish he hadn't. +But, if you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see +that you have nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de +Renzie." + +"Why," I exclaimed, "you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover." + +"I don't know what you are to each other," she faltered, all her +coolness deserting her. "That isn't my affair--" + +"But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares +nothing for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a +little a year ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man +whom I worship. I would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and +is glad. But the other man is jealous. He wouldn't understand--he would +want to kill me and himself and Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in +my house last night. He was there too, and I lied to him about Ivor. How +could I expect him to believe the real truth now? He is a man. But _you_ +will believe, because you are a woman, like myself, and I think the +woman Ivor Dundas loves." + +Her beautiful eyes brightened. "He told you--that?" + +"He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her +because of the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been +as unreasonable with him, as Ra--as the man I love could be with me. +Poor Ivor! Last night was not the first time that he sacrificed himself +for chivalry and honour. Yet you blame me! Look to yourself, Miss +Forrest." + +"I--I don't blame you," she stammered, a sob in her voice. "Only I beg +you to save him, from gratitude, if not from love." + +"It's true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know," I +answered. "He is worth trusting--worth saving, at the expense of almost +any sacrifice. But I can't sacrifice the man I love for him." + +She looked thoughtful. "You say the man you were engaged to was at your +house while Ivor was there?" + +"Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied." + +"He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your +gate?" + +"He confessed that, when I'd made him repent his jealousy. Why do you +ask? You saw him?" + +"I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of +value near your house?" + +"Great heavens, yes!" I cried. "What do you know of that?" + +"I know--something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for +him--if you will promise to help Ivor." + +"Oh, shame," I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. "You are +trying to bribe me!" + +"Yes, but I am not ashamed," the girl answered, holding her head high. +"I have not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you--this +very night or to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask." + +"I tell you I cannot," I said. "Not even to get back that thing whose +loss was the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin +myself and--another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If +we talked of this together all night, it could make no difference. And +I'm in great trouble, great trouble of my own." + +"Has your trouble anything to do with a document?" Miss Forrest slowly +asked. + +I started, and stared at her, breathless. + +"It has!" she answered for me. "Your face tells me so." + +"Has Ivor's message--to do with that?" I almost gasped. + +"Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want +news--if you want the document, it must be through me." + +"Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you +can get it for me, I will do," I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. + +"I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a +little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?" + +"I must," I said, "if you have the document to sell, and are determined +to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my +life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to +him. Still, it will save him from--" I stopped, and bit my lip. "Will +you give me the diamonds, too?" I asked, humbly enough now. + +"The diamonds?" She looked bewildered. + +"The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the +bag?" + +"Yes, they are--they will be in the bag," the girl answered, her +charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. "You +shall have the diamonds, and the document, too, for that one promise." + +"How is it possible that you can give me the document?" I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured +because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through +this girl seemed incredible. + +"Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it," she said simply. "That was +why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn't +quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or +advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the +balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be +allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I +thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next +door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after +dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't +as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so +high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the +climbing back. I don't know how the document came in the box, though I +suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up +in a towel; and it's quite clean." + +"I think," I said slowly, when she had finished her story, "that you +have a right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave +girl." + +"It's not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I'm going +to give the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I +know you'll pay. And I hope, oh, I _feel_, it won't hurt you as you +think it will." + +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long +pocket of a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt +it, I clasped it. I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me +tremble. + +"Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?" I asked. + +"No," she said. "It was yours, or Ivor's. Of course I didn't look." + +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The +fifteen minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its +price. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If +Godensky knew, as he may have known--since he seemed to know all my +movements--perhaps he thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, +and sending him away from me for ever. But, though the game was not in +my hands yet, the treaty was; and I had made up my mind to defy +Godensky. + +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; +and never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in +the morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst +against Raoul du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two +except death? Then he would have fair warning that I did not intend to +do the thing to which he had nearly forced me; and I would fight him, +when he tried to take revenge. But meanwhile, before he got that letter, +I would--I must--find some way of putting the treaty back in its place +at the Foreign Office. + +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, +even when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political +treachery, Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the +relief I felt after the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been +drowning for the last few days gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration +that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints that I had news of the +necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him in his office as +soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to surprise him +pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the greatest +joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment for +nine o'clock next day. + +When he had gone, I wrote a note--a very short note--to Count Godensky. +I wanted to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty +was in the safe whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at +once, by messenger; and it would still be very early in the day, I +hoped. + +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning +which followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I +think that I had not slept at all, but that didn't matter. I felt strong +and fresh, and my heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to +chance. I had a plan, and knew how I meant to play the last hand in the +game. It might go against me. But I held a high trump. Again, as before, +Raoul received me alone. + +"Dearest," he exclaimed, "I know your news must be good, for you look so +bright and beautiful. Tell me--tell me!" + +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. + +"You're too impatient," I said. "To punish you for asking about the +wretched diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed +of you, I shall make you pay a penalty." + +"Any penalty you will," he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke--for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. + +"Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper," I +said. + +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note +into an envelope. + +"Now, this is very precious," I went on. "It tells you all you want to +know. But--I'm going to post it." + +"No, no!" he protested. "I can't wait for the post." + +"Oh, I wouldn't trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it +were insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other +day, and I'll put this valuable document in among the others, not more +valuable to the country than this ought to be to you. I'll hide it +there, and you must shut up the safe without looking for it, till I've +gone. Then, you must count ten, and after that--you may search. +Remember, you said you'd submit to any penalty, so no excuses, no +complaints." + +Raoul laughed. "You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you +are a sorceress, and have bewitched me." + +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my +whim. But I gaily motioned him behind me. "If you stand there you can +see where I put it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back." + +He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's +secrets." + +"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.) +"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least." + +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real +one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written +where he could not help finding it at first or second glance. + +"Now you can close the safe," I said. + +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from +my heart, "Thank Heaven!" + +"I must leave you," I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious +no longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to +open the cage of Godensky's vengeance, and--I was afraid of him. + +"I may come to you as soon as I'm free?" Raoul asked. + +"Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and--what you think +of me," I said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he +might continue to think of me all things good--far better than I +deserved, yet not better than I would try to deserve in the future, if I +were permitted to spend that future with him. + +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight +now. + +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a +way in which, I hoped, that promise--fulfilled as I meant to fulfil +it--might help rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for +nothing. + +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a +patron of the theatre--when he can spare time from his work. I had met +him, and had reason to know that he admired my acting. + +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; +and he was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of +that scene at the lyse Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew +everything--so far as his subordinate could report. + +"Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?" I asked. + +"A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world," he gallantly replied. + +"But you can guess what has brought me?" + +"Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre +this evening." + +"It is partly that," I laughed. "Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, +of course. And partly--you know already, since you know everything, that +I am a friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder +which he could not possibly have committed." + +"Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a +loyal friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?" + +"For that--and to offer you the stage-box for to-night." + +"A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication--" + +"It's this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to +the doctors' statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it's a +hard thing for me to come and tell you this!" I went on hastily. "Not +that I'm ashamed to have received a call from him at that hour, as it +was necessary to see him then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris +early in the morning. But--because I'm engaged to be married to--perhaps +you know that, though, among other things?" + +"I've heard--a rumour. I didn't know that it amounted to an engagement. +Monsieur du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated." + +"I love him dearly," I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, +but because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears +rose to my eyes. "I am true to him, and always have been. But--he is +horribly jealous. I can't explain Mr. Dundas' night visit in a way to +satisfy him. If Raoul finds out that an Englishman--well-known, but of +whom I never spoke--was at my house after midnight, he will believe I +have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would help me to keep this +secret I am telling you so frankly!" + +"Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?" asked the Chief of +Police gravely. + +"Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to +break with Raoul du Laurier." + +"Dear Mademoiselle," said the good and gallant man, "trust me to do the +best I can for you." (I could see that my tears had moved him.) "A grief +to you would be a blow to Paris. Yet--well, as you have been frank, I +owe it to you to be equally so on my side. I should before this have +sent--quite privately and in a friendly way, to question you about this +Mr. Dundas, who passed under another name at the hotel where you called +upon him; but I received a request from a very high quarter to wait +before communicating with you. Now, as you have come to me, I suppose I +may speak." + +"Ask me any questions you choose," I said, "and I'll answer them." + +"Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how +do you explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. +Dundas?" + +"That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell +you," I answered him; "for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I +throw myself upon your mercy." + +"You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?" + +"Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little +flirtation with Mr. Dundas--no more, though we liked and admired each +other. We exchanged a few silly letters, and I forgot all about them +until I fell in love with Raoul and promised to marry him--only a short +time ago. Then I couldn't bear to think that I had written these foolish +letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have kept them. I wrote and +asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and valued them +immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them to +me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him +that I'd meet him at the lyse Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to +receive the letters from him." + +"He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, +since there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?" + +"He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl +who lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn't +want the girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there +had been a little talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she +didn't like it." + +"I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first +thing in the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the +British Secretary for Foreign Affairs." + +"Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl--a Miss +Forrest, is distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She +lives with her aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that +gentleman. And the Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart." + +"Ah, Miss Forrest!" + +"You know of her already?" + +"I have heard her name." + +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) + +"You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I," I went on. +"But I'll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you +can't have found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters--half +a dozen. He gave me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast +pocket, saying the letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something +had gone wrong with the electricity, and I hadn't let him push back the +curtains, for fear I might be seen from outside, if the lights should +suddenly come on. He didn't see the case, as he handed it to me, nor +could I. Just at that instant there was a knock at the door; and quick +as thought I pushed the leather case down between the seat and back of +the sofa." + +"But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery +threatened you because of a knock at the door?" + +"I'll tell you. There is a man--I won't mention his name, but you know +it very well, and maybe it is in your mind now--who wants me to marry +him. He has wanted it for some time--I think because he admires women +who are before the public and applauded by the world; also, perhaps, +because I have refused him, and he is one who wants most what he finds +hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, but he has some power and +a good deal of influence, because he is very highly connected, and when +people have 'axes to grind' he helps to grind them. He has suspected for +some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has hated +Raoul. I have fancied--that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance +slip to separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between +us--or he would try to ruin Raoul, or crush me--anything to keep us +apart. When I saw the Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and +though I didn't know what pretext had brought him, I said to myself +'That is the work of--'" + +"Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle." + +"I didn't mean to. I leave that to your--imagination. 'This is the work +of the man whose love is more cruel than hate,' I thought. While I +wondered what possible use the police could make of my letters, I was +shaking with terror lest they should come upon them and they should +somehow fall into--a certain man's hands. Then, at last, they did find +the case, just as I'd begun to hope it was safe. I begged the Commissary +of Police not to open it. In vain. When he did, what was my relief to +see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!--my relief and my +surprise. And now I'm going to confide in you the secret of another, +speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. + +"Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du +Laurier, and he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a +dear friend of his--an inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She +dared not tell her husband of money that she'd lost, but begged Raoul to +sell the diamonds for her in Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. +On his way there the necklace was stolen by an expert thief, who must +somehow have learned what was going on through the pawnbroker with whom +the jewels had been in pledge--for a few thousand francs only. You can +imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace returned in such a +miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it back, +meaning to give it to me as a surprise--and the letters afterwards. And +it was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price--evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation--and also to +avoid any association of Raoul's name with the necklace, that I told the +Commissary of Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. +I spoke impulsively, in sheer desperation; and the instant the words +were out I would have cut off my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. +But what good to deny what I had just said? The men wouldn't have +believed me. + +"When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he +thought he had given them to me--and he knew no more of the diamonds in +their red case than I did--far less, indeed. + +"I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul's sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed +that his own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from +his pocket in the train, though he couldn't imagine why the diamonds had +been given to him instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of +his, who had acted queerly; and he determined to try and find the man. +He was to bring me news after the theatre at my house, about midnight. + +"He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. +Friends of his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me +this, and that after going out on a false scent he had employed a +detective named Girard, when Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. +It seems, he'd been made frantically jealous by some misrepresentations +of--the man whose name we haven't mentioned. I begged Mr. Dundas to hide +in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally did, to please me. I +hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, and to my horror +I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the sounds as +well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fianc of a pretty +housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got +away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house +you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as you are well +aware." + +"He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn't get a cab and walked. But you have read +the papers," + +"Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn't even tell +about the diamonds, much less my letters!" + +"As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?" + +"My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather +than risk further delay." + +"You would like to know their fate?" + +"I would indeed." + +"Well, I applaud the Englishman's chivalry. Vive l'Entente Cordiale!" + +"You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I've +humbled myself, can't you give me hope that he'll soon be released, and +yet that--that I shan't be made to suffer for my confession to you? It's +clear to you, isn't it, that the murder must have been done long before +he could have reached the house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the +Rue d'Hollande?" + +"Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, +without being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone +through before Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at +work in high quarters, and after what you have told me, I think he will +not much longer be under restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, +dear lady, that not ten minutes before you arrived this morning I +received satisfactory news of the arrest of two Englishmen at Frankfort, +who seem to have been concerned in this business in the Rue de la Fille +Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; and a friend of +his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that these +persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, +and then tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we +are getting at Janson's record, which seems to be a bad one--a notorious +one throughout Europe, if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, +really, that in a very few days Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in +person for what you've done for him, and--to tell you what has become of +those letters." + +"What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not +merciful?" + +"I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear +Mademoiselle, Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you +have told to me, or that the Englishman's alibi has been proved by you. +The arrest of these two men in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the +police to keep your secret as you would keep it yourself. Now, will that +assurance make it easier for you to put your whole soul into your part +to-night?" + +"If you will accept that box," I said, letting him kiss my hand, and +feeling inclined to kiss his. + +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I +had trumped Godensky's last trick now. + +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds +in the brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were +torn out, as if there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. +But Miss Forrest did not explain this, or even allude to it at all. + +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. "I have kept my +promise," I said. "The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you +let me say that I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will +be happy together." + +"I shall try to make up to him for--my hateful suspicions +and--everything," she said, like a repentant child. "I love him so +much!" + +"And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw +that. But how gloriously you will mend it again!" + +"Oh, I hope so!" she cried. "And you--have I really spoiled your life by +forcing you to make that promise? I pray that I haven't." + +"I thought you had, but I was mistaken," I answered. "The thing you have +made me do has proved a blessing. I may have--altered some of the facts +a little, but none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to +use such weapons as she has, against cruel enemies." + +"I hope you'll defeat yours," said Miss Forrest. + +"I begin to believe I shall," said I. And we shook hands. She is the +only girl I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. + +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give +him the diamonds. + +"You are my good angel!" he exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, I won't have to +take your money now." + +"All that's mine is yours," I said. + +"It is _you_ I want for mine," he answered. "When am I to have you? +Don't keep me waiting long, my darling. I'm nothing without you." + +"I don't want to keep you waiting," I told him. And indeed I longed to +be his wife--his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. + +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as +soon as a marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the +morning, and the note I had written, telling him that a pretty American +girl had found the diamonds. + +"She's engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine--the poor +fellow so stupidly accused of murder," I explained. "But of course he is +innocent. Of course he'll be discharged without a blot upon his name. +They're tremendously in love with each other, almost as much as you and +I!" + +"You didn't tell me about the love affair in your note," said Raoul. +"You spoke only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past +your house, after I went in." + +"There wasn't time for more in that famous communication!" I laughed. + +Raoul echoed me. "It came rather too near being famous, by the way," he +said. "Just after I had found it in the safe--where you would put it, +you witch!--a man came in with an order from the President to copy a +clause in a new treaty which is kept there." + +"What treaty?" I asked, with a leap of the heart. + +"Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn't the point." +(Ah, _was_ it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been +rather awkward, wouldn't it? if I hadn't got your note out of the safe +before the man came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the +open safe, for a second." + +"Thank God I wasn't too late!" I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. "You mean, thank God he wasn't sooner, don't you, +darling?" amended Raoul. + +"Yes, of course. How stupid I am!" I murmured. + +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, +for I had not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. +Had the treaty been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no +doubt have vowed to me--if I'd lived to hear his vows--that he had had +no hand in the discovery. Fear of the terrible man who had so nearly +beaten me in the game made me quiver even now. "You see," I went on, "I +can think of nothing but you, and my love for you. You'll never be +jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter what Count +Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?" + +"I've listened to Godensky for the last time," said Raoul. "The dog! He +shall never come near me again." + +"I hardly think he will try," I said. "I'm glad we're going to be +married soon. Do you know, I'm half inclined to do as you've asked me +sometimes, and promised you wouldn't ask again--leave the stage. I want +to rest, and just be happy, like other women. I want love--and +peace--and you." + +"You shall have all, and for always," answered Raoul. "If only I +deserved you!" + +"If only I deserved you!" I echoed. + +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that +he never may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he +would forgive me all things, because we are one in a perfect love. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Powers and Maxine, by Charles Norris Williamson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + +***** This file should be named 10410-8.txt or 10410-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/1/10410/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/old/10410-8.zip b/old/old/10410-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4210978 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10410-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/10410.txt b/old/old/10410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dac83d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7876 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Powers and Maxine, by Charles Norris Williamson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Powers and Maxine + +Author: Charles Norris Williamson + +Release Date: December 8, 2003 [EBook #10410] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + The Powers and Maxine + + _By C.N. and A.M. Williamson_ + + Author of + + "The Princess Virginia," "My Friend the Chauffeur," + "The Car of Destiny," "The Princess Passes," + "Lady Betty Across the Water," Etc. + + + Copyright, 1907, by C.N. and A.M. Williamson. + + + _With Illustrations + By FRANK T. MERRILL_ + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + I. LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + + II. LISA LISTENS + + III. LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + + IV. IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + + V. IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + + VI. IVOR HEARS THE STORY + + VII. IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + + VIII. MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + + IX. MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + + X. MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + + XI. MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + + XII. IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + XIII. IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + + XIV. DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + + XV. DIANA HEARS NEWS + + XVI. DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + + XVII. MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + + XVIII. MAXINE MEETS DIANA + + XIX. MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + + + + +LISA DRUMMOND'S PART + + + + + +The Powers and Maxine + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LISA'S KNIGHT AND LISA'S SISTER + +It had come at last, the moment I had been thinking about for days. I +was going to have him all to myself, the only person in the world I ever +loved. + +He had asked me to sit out two dances, and that made me think he really +must want to be with me, not just because I'm the "pretty girl's +sister," but because I'm myself, Lisa Drummond. + +Being what I am,--queer, and plain, I can't bear to think that men like +girls for their beauty; yet I can't help liking men better if they are +handsome. + +I don't know if Ivor Dundas is the handsomest man I ever saw, but he +seems so to me. I don't know if he is very good, or really very +wonderful, although he's clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way +that makes women fond of him; and men admire him, too. He looks straight +into your eyes when he talks to you, as if he cared more for you than +anyone else in the world: and if I were an artist, painting a picture of +a dark young knight starting off for the crusades, I should ask Ivor +Dundas to stand as my model. + +Perhaps his expression wouldn't be exactly right for the pious young +crusader, for it isn't at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just +that rapt sort of look on his face. It was generally when he was talking +to Di: but I wouldn't let myself believe that it meant anything in +particular. He has the reputation of having made lots of women fall in +love with him. This was one of the first things I heard when Di and I +came over from America to visit Lord and Lady Mountstuart. And of course +there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. Everyone was talking +of it when we first arrived in London. + +My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady +Mountstuart has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by +another larger room from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we +could see people dancing. + +I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di's book shelves, +because we could talk better there. Usually, I don't like being in front +of a mirror, because--well, because I'm only the "pretty girl's sister." +But to-night I didn't mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright. +Sitting down, you might almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my +gown was made didn't show that one shoulder is a little higher than the +other. Di designed the dress. + +I thought, if I wasn't pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I +looked as if I could _think_ of things; and as if I could feel. + +And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately, +unless he cared. Of course it might be for Di's sake; but I am not so +queer-looking that no man could ever be fascinated by me. + +They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me, +because Di has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had +found out that I was intelligent and sympathetic. + +He sat by me and didn't speak at first. Just then Di passed the +far-away, open door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the +Duke of Glasgow's brother. + +"Thank you so much for the book," I said. + +(He had sent me a book that morning--one he'd heard me say I wanted.) + +He didn't seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his +nice smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and +certainly he has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a +little sad. I willed him hard to love me. + +"It made me happy to get it," I went on. + +"It made me happy to send it," he said. + +"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked. + +"Why, of course." + +"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help +adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?" + +"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his +eyes. + +"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I +really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say +what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at +Algiers." + +"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great +thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly." + +"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not +telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I +were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and +brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family, +doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady +Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only +step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, +and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady +Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di +can put on when she wants to get something out of people. I'd make the +Foreign Secretary give you exactly what you wanted, even if it took you +far, far from me." + +With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under +the brown. + +"You are a very kind Imp," he said. "Imp" is the name he invented for +me. I loved to hear him call me by it. + +"Kind!" I echoed. "One isn't kind when one--likes--people." + +I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn't care. If only I +could make him say the words I longed to hear--even because he pitied +me, because he had found out how I loved him, and because he had really +too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I +made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave +me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with +me. That would make her writhe. + +I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there +was no doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment +or two he was silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the +ballroom, he spoke very gently, as if I had been a child--though I am +older than Di by three or four years. + +"Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little +friend," said he. "Now that I know you really do take an interest in my +affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to +Algiers--though very likely you've guessed already--you are such an +'intuitive' girl. And besides, I haven't tried very hard to hide my +feelings--not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I +have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don't you--even if +you didn't before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers--" + +"Don't say any more," I managed to cut him short. "I can't bear--I mean, +I understand. I--did guess before." + +It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn't let myself believe. I hoped +against hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took +the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of +life. + +"Di might have told me," I went gasping on, rather than let there be a +long silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to +see me cry--though, if it could have made any difference, I would have +grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears. "But she never does +tell me anything about herself." + +"She's so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better +to talk about you instead," he defended her. And then I felt that I +could hate him, as much as I've always hated Di, deep down in my heart. +At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when +he found her lying dead--out of his reach for ever. + +"Besides," he hurried on, "I've never asked her yet if she would marry +me, because--my prospects weren't very brilliant. She knows of course +that I love her--" + +"And if you get the consulship, you'll put the important question?" I +cut him short, trying to be flippant. + +"Yes. But I told you tonight, because I--because you were so kind, I +felt I should like to have you know." + +Kind! Yes, I had been too kind. But if by putting out my foot I could +have crushed every hope of his for the future--every hope, that is, in +which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part--I would have done it, +just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of +feeling that I--even I--have power of life and death. + +I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back. I'm never very strong or well, +but now I felt broken, ready to die. I was glad when I heard the music +stop in the ballroom. + +"There!" I said. "The two dances you asked me to sit out with you are +over. I'm sure you're engaged for the next." + +"Yes, Imp, I am." + +"To Di?" + +"No, I have Number 13 with her." + +"Thirteen! Unlucky number." + +"Any number is lucky that gives me a chance with her. The next one, +coming now, is with Mrs. George Allendale." + +"Oh, yes, the actor manager's wife. She goes everywhere; and Lord +Mountstuart likes theatrical celebrities. This house ought to be very +serious and political, but we have every sort of creature--provided it's +an amusing, or successful, or good-looking one. By the way, used Maxine +de Renzie to come here, when she was acting in London at George +Allendale's theatre? That was before Di and I arrived on the scene, you +remember." + +"I remember. Oh, yes, she came here. It was in this house I met her +first, off the stage, I believe." + +"What a sweet memory! Wasn't Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband +when he had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?" + +"I never heard that she was." + +"You needn't look cross with me. I'm not saying anything against your +gorgeous Maxine." + +"Of course not. Nobody could. But you mustn't call Miss de Renzie 'my +Maxine,' please, Imp." + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "You see, I've heard other people call her +that--in joke. And you dedicated your book about Lhassa, that made you +such a famous person, to her, didn't you?" + +"No. What made you think that?" He was really annoyed now, and I was +pleased--if anything could please me, in my despair. + +"Why, everybody thinks it. It was dedicated to 'M.R.' as if the name +were a secret, so--" + +"'Everybody' is very stupid then. 'M.R.' is an old lady, my god-mother, +who helped me with money for my expedition to Lhassa, otherwise I +couldn't have gone. And she isn't of the kind that likes to see her name +in print. Now, where shall I take you, Imp? Because I must go and look +for Mrs. Allendale." + +"I'll stay where I am, thank you," I said, "and watch you dance--from +far off. That's my part in life, you know: watching other people dance +from far off." + +When he was gone, I leaned back among the cushions, and I wasn't sure +that one of my heart attacks would not come on. I felt horribly alone, +and deserted; and though I hate Di, and always have hated her, ever +since the tiny child and her mother (a beautiful, rich, young +Californian widow) came into my father's house in New York, she does +know how to manage me better than anyone else, when I am in such moods. +I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking through +the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a +call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom. + +She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again) +entered the room which lay between our "den" and the ballroom, Probably +they would have gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in +that way, but I cried her name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only +a moment she paused--long enough to send Lord Robert away--and then she +came straight to me. He must have been furious: but I didn't care for +that. + +I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and +beautiful, looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I +should have liked to strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the +other, deepening the rose to crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for +each finger. + +"Have you a headache, dear?" she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps +for me--as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection. + +"It's my heart," said I. "It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish +I could die, and end it all! What's the good of me--to myself or +anyone?" + +"Don't talk like that, my poor one," she said. "Shall I take you +upstairs to your own room?" + +"No, I think I should faint if I had to go upstairs," I answered. "Yet I +can't stay here. What shall I do?" + +"What about Uncle Eric's study?" Di asked. She always calls Lord +Mountstuart 'Uncle Eric,' though he isn't her uncle. Her mother and his +wife were sisters, that's all: and then there was the other sister who +married the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a cousin of Lord +Mountstuart's. That family seemed to have a craze for American girls; +but Lord Mountstuart makes an exception of me. He's civil, of course, +because he's an abject slave of Di's, and she refused to come and pay a +visit in England without me: but I give him the shivers, I know very +well: and I take an impish joy in making him jump. + +"I'm sure he won't be there this evening," Di went on, when I hesitated. +"He's playing bridge with a lot of dear old boys in the library, or was, +half an hour ago. Come, let me help you there. It's only a step." + +She put her pretty arm round my waist, and leaning on her I walked +across the room, out into a corridor, through a tiny "bookroom" where +odd volumes and old magazines are kept, into Lord Mountstuart's study. + +It is a nice room, which he uses much as his wife uses her boudoir. The +library next door is rather a show place, but the study has only Lord +Mountstuart's favourite books in it. He writes there (he has written a +novel or two, and thinks himself literary), and some pictures he has +painted in different parts of the world hang on the walls: for he also +fancies himself artistic. + +In one corner is a particularly comfortable, cushiony lounge where, I +suppose, the distinguished author lies and thinks out his subjects, or +dreams them out. And it was to this that Di led me. + +She settled me among some fat pillows of old purple and gold brocade, +and asked if she should ring and get a little brandy. + +"No," I said, "I shall feel better in a few minutes. It's so nice and +cool here." + +"You look better already!" exclaimed Di. "Soon, when you've lain and +rested awhile, you'll be a different girl." + +"Ah, how I wish I _could_ be a different girl!" I sighed. "A strong, +well girl, and tall and beautiful, and admired by everyone,--like +you--or Maxine de Renzie." + +"What makes you think of her?" asked Di, quickly. + +"Ivor was just talking to me of her. You know he calls me his 'pal,' and +tells me things he doesn't tell everybody. He thinks a great deal about +Maxine, still." + +"She'd be a difficult woman to forget, if she's as attractive off the +stage as she is on." + +"What a pity we didn't come in time to meet here when she was playing in +London with George Allendale. Everybody used to invite her to their +houses, it seems. Ivor was telling me that he first met her here, and +that it's such a pleasant memory, whenever he comes to this house. I +suppose that's one reason he likes to come so much." + +"No doubt," said Di sharply. + +"He got so fascinated talking of her," I went on. "He almost forgot that +he had a dance with Mrs. Allendale. Of course Maxine had made a great +hit, and all that; but she didn't stand quite as high as she does now, +since she's become the fashion in Paris. Perhaps she had nothing except +her salary, then, whereas she must have saved up a lot of money by this +time. I have an idea that Ivor would have proposed to her when she was +in London if he'd thought her success established." + +"Nonsense!" Di broke out, her cheeks very pink. "As if Ivor were the +kind of man to think of such a thing!" + +"He isn't very rich, and he is very ambitious. It would be bad for him +to marry a poor girl, or a girl who wasn't well connected socially. He +_has_ to think of such things." + +I watched the effect of these words, with my eyes half shut; for of +course Di has all her mother's money, two hundred thousand English +pounds; and through the Mountstuarts, and her aunt who is married to the +Foreign Secretary, she has got to know all the best people in England. +Besides, the King and Queen have been particularly nice to her since she +was presented, so she has the run of their special set, as well as the +political and artistic, and "old-fashioned exclusive" ones. + +"Ivor Dundas is a law unto himself," she said, "and he has plenty of +good connections of his own. He'll have a little money, too, some day, +from an aunt or a god-mother, I believe. Anyway, he and Miss de Renzie +had nothing more than a flirtation. Aunt Lilian told me so. She said +Maxine was rather proud to have Ivor dangling about, because everyone +likes him, and because his travels and his book were being a lot talked +about just then. Naturally, he admired her, because she's beautiful, and +a very great actress--" + +"Oh, your Aunt Lilian would make little of the affair," I laughed. "She +flirts with him herself." + +"Why, Lisa, Aunt Lilian's over forty, and he's twenty-nine!" + +"Forty isn't the end of the world for a woman, nowadays. She's a beauty +and a great lady. Ivor always wants the best of everything. She flirts +with him, and he with her." + +Di laughed too, but only to make it seem as if she didn't care. "You'd +better not say such silly things to Uncle Eric," she said, staring at +the pattern of the cornice. "Aren't those funny, gargoyley faces up +there? I never noticed them before. But oh--about Mr. Dundas and Maxine +de Renzie--I don't think, really, that he troubles himself much about +her any more, for the other day I--I happened to ask what she was +playing in Paris now, and he didn't know. He said he hadn't been over to +see her act, as it was too far away, and he was afraid when he wasn't +too busy, he was too lazy." + +"He _said_ so to you, of course. But when he spends Saturday to Monday +at Folkestone with the godmother who's going to leave him her money, how +easy to slip over the Channel to the fair Maxine, without anyone being +the wiser." + +"Why shouldn't he slip, or slide, or steam, or sail in a balloon, if he +likes?" laughed Di, but not happily. "You're looking much better, Lisa. +You've quite a colour now. Do you feel strong enough to go upstairs?" + +"I would rather rest here for awhile, since you think Lord Mountstuart +is sure not to come," said I. "These pillows are so comfortable. Then +perhaps, by and by, I shall feel able to go back to the den, and watch +the dancing. I should like to keep up, if I can, for I know I shan't +sleep, and the night will seem so long." + +"Very well," said Di, speaking kindly, though I knew she would have +liked to shake me. "I'm afraid I shall have to run away now, for my +partner will think me so rude. What about supper?" + +"Oh, I don't want any. And I shall have gone upstairs before that," I +interrupted. "Go now, I don't need you any more." + +"Ring, and send for me if you feel badly again." + +"Yes--yes." + +By this time she was at the door, and there she turned with a remorseful +look in her eyes, as if she had been unkind and was sorry. "Even if you +don't send, I shall come back by and by, when I can, to see how you +are," she said. Then she was gone, and I nestled deeper into the sofa +cushions, with the feeling that my head was so heavy, it must weigh down +the pillows like a stone. + +"She was afraid of missing Number 13 with Ivor," I said to myself. +"Well--she's welcome to it now. I don't think she'll enjoy it much--or +let him. Oh, I hope they'll quarrel. I don't think I'd mind anything, if +only I was sure they'd never be nearer to each other. I wish Di would +marry Lord Robert. Perhaps then Ivor would turn to me. Oh, my God, how I +hate her--and all beautiful girls, who spoil the lives of women like +me." + +A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time +must be coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in +spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be +engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die; +for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's +ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on +her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart +to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and I heard a +voice speaking. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +LISA LISTENS + +Someone turned up the light. "I'll leave you together," said Lord +Mountstuart; and the door was closed. + +"What could that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come +in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had +Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tete-a-tete between Di and Ivor +Dundas? + +The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must +hear what they had to say to each other. + +Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down +into the narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply +pulling the clinging folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay +still, my blood pounding in my temples and ears, and in my nostrils a +faint, musty smell from the Oriental stuff that covered the lounge. + +I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the +wall, and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had +mentioned when she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our +conversation. But I was listening with all my might for what was to +come. + +"Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas," said a voice, which gave +me a shock of surprise, though I knew it well. + +Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke. + +"We won't run the risk of interruptions," he went on, with that slow, +clear enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their +lives, especially men of the college that was his--Balliol. "I told +Mountstuart that I wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows +nothing, nor does anyone else except myself. You understand that this +conversation of ours, whether anything comes of it or not, is entirely +confidential. I have a proposal to make. You'll agree to it or not, as +you choose. But if you don't agree, forget it, with everything I may +have said." + +"My services and my memory are both at your disposal," answered Ivor, in +such a gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked +with Diana--and that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. "I am +honoured--I won't say flattered, for I'm too much in earnest--that you +should place any confidence in me." + +I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of +course, I said to myself, he would be ready to do anything to please the +Foreign Secretary, since all the big plums his ambition craved were in +the gift of that man. + +"Frankly, I'm in a difficulty, and it has occurred to me that you can +help me out of it better than anyone else I know," said the smooth, +trained voice. "It is a little diplomatic errand you will have to +undertake for me tomorrow, if you want to do me a good turn." + +"I will undertake it with great pleasure, and carry it through to the +best of my ability," replied Ivor. + +"I'm sure you can carry it through excellently," said the Foreign +Secretary, still fencing. "It will be good practice, if you succeed, +for--any future duties in the career which may be opening to you." + +"He's bribing him with that consulship," I thought, beginning to be very +curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn't +beating so thickly now. I could think almost calmly again. + +"I thank you for your trust in me," said Ivor. + +"A little diplomatic errand," repeated the Foreign Secretary. "In itself +the thing is not much: that is, on the face of it. And yet, in its +relation with other interests, it becomes a mission of vast importance, +incalculable importance. When I have explained, you will see why I apply +to you. Indeed, I came to my cousin Mountstuart's house expressly +because I was told you would be at his wife's ball. My regret is, that +the news which brought me in search of you didn't reach me earlier, for +if it had I should have come with my wife, and have got at you in time +to send you off--if you agreed to go--to-night. As it is, the matter +will have to rest till to-morrow morning. It's too late for you to catch +the midnight boat across the Channel." + +"Across the Channel?" echoed Ivor. "You want me to go to France?" + +"Yes." + +"One could always get across somehow," said Ivor, thoughtfully, "if +there were a great hurry." + +"There is--the greatest. But in this case, the more haste, the less +speed. That is, if you were to rush off, order a special train, and +charter a tug or motor boat at Dover, as I suppose you mean, my object +would probably be defeated. I came to you because those who are watching +this business wouldn't be likely to guess I had given you a hand in it. +All that you do, however, must be done quietly, with no fuss, no sign of +anything unusual going on. It was natural I should come to a ball given +by my wife's sister, whose husband is my cousin. No one knows of this +interview of ours: I believe I may make my mind easy on that score, at +least. And it is equally natural that you should start on business or +pleasure of your own, for Paris to-morrow morning; also that you should +meet Mademoiselle de Renzie there." + +"Mademoiselle de Renzie!" exclaimed Ivor, off his guard for an instant, +and showing plainly that he was taken aback. + +"Isn't she a friend of yours?" asked the Foreign Secretary rather +sharply. Though I couldn't see him, I knew exactly how he would be +looking at Ivor, his keen grey eyes narrowed, his clean-shaven lips +drawn in, the long, well-shaped hand, of which he is said to be vain, +toying with the pale Malmaison pink he always wears in his buttonhole. + +"Yes, she is a friend of mine," Ivor answered. "But--" + +"A 'but' already! Perhaps I'd better tell you that the mission has to do +with Mademoiselle de Renzie, and, directly, with no one else. She has +acted as my agent in Paris." + +"Indeed! I didn't dream that she dabbled in politics." + +"And you should not dream it from any word of mine, Mr. Dundas, if it +weren't necessary to be entirely open with you, if you are to help me in +this matter. But before we go any further, I must know whether +Mademoiselle de Renzie's connection with this business will for any +reason keep you out of it." + +"Not if--you need my help," said Ivor, with an effort. "And I beg you +won't suppose that my hesitation has anything to do with Miss de Renzie +herself. I have for her the greatest respect and admiration." + +"We all have," returned the Foreign Secretary, "especially those who +know her best. Among her many virtues, she's one of the few women who +can keep a secret--her own and others. She is a magnificent actress--on +the stage and off. And now I have your promise to help me, I must tell +you it's to help her as well: therefore I owe you the whole truth, or +you will be handicapped. For several years Mademoiselle de Renzie has +done good service--secret service, you must understand--for Great +Britain." + +"By Jove! Maxine a political spy!" Ivor broke out impulsively. + +"That's rather a hard name, isn't it? There are better ones. And she's +no traitor to her country, because, as you perhaps know, she's Polish by +birth. I can assure you we've much for which to thank her cleverness and +tact--and beauty. For our sakes I'm sorry that she's serving our +interests professionally for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to +rejoice, as she's engaged to be married. And if you can save her from +coming to grief over this very ticklish business, she'll probably live +happily ever after. Did you know of her engagement?" + +"No," replied Ivor. "I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in +London a year ago; but after she went to Paris--of course, she's very +busy and has crowds of friends; and I've only crossed once or twice +since, on hurried visits; so we haven't met, or written to each other." + +("Very good reason," I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. "You've been +busy, too--falling in love with Diana Forrest.") + +"It hasn't been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might +have been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when +the right time comes--if the poor girl isn't ruined irretrievably in +this affair of ours." + +"Is there really serious danger of that?" "The most serious. If you +can't save her, not only will the _Entente Cordiale_ be shaken to its +foundations (and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake), +but her future happiness will be broken in the crash, and--she says--she +will not live to suffer the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if +disaster comes; and though suicide is usually the last resource of a +coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no coward, and I'm inclined to think I +should come to the same resolve in her place." + +"Tell me what I am to do," said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign +Secretary's strange words, and his intense earnestness. + +"You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without +mentioning your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some +hotel where you have never stayed and are not known. I will find means +of informing the lady what hotel you choose. You will there give a +fictitious name (let us say, George Sandford) and you will take a suite, +with a private sitting-room. That done, you will say that you are +expecting a lady to call upon you, and will see no one else. You will +wait till Mademoiselle de Renzie appears, which will certainly be as +soon as she can possibly manage; and when you and she are alone +together, sure that you're not being spied upon, you will put into her +hands a small packet which I shall give you before we part to-night." + +"It sounds simple enough," said Ivor, "if that's all." + +"It is all. Yet it may be anything but simple." + +"Would you prefer to have me call at her house, and save her coming to a +hotel? I'd willingly do so if--" + +"No. As I told you, should it be known that you and she meet, those who +are watching her at present ought not to suspect the real motive of the +meeting. So much the better for us: but we must think of her. After four +o'clock every afternoon, the young Frenchman she's engaged to is in the +habit of going to her house, and stopping until it's time for her to go +to work. He dines with her, but doesn't drive with her to the theatre, +as that would be rather too public for the present, until their +engagement's announced. He adores her, but is inconveniently jealous, +like most Latins. It's practically certain that he's heard your name +mentioned in connection with hers, when she was in London, and as a +Frenchman invariably fails to understand that a man can admire a +beautiful woman without being in love with her, your call at her house +might give Mademoiselle Maxine a _mauvais quart d'heure_." + +"I see. But if she sends him away, and comes to my hotel--" + +"She'll probably make some excuse about being obliged to go to the +theatre early, and thus get rid of him. She's quite clever enough to +manage that. Then, as your own name won't appear on any hotel list in +the papers next day, the most jealous heart need have no cause for +suspicion. At the same time, if certain persons whom Mademoiselle--and +we, too--have to fear, do find out that she has visited Ivor Dundas, who +has assumed a false name for the pleasure of a private interview with +her, interests of even deeper importance than the most desperate love +affair may still, we'll hope, be guarded by the pretext of your old +friendship. Now, you understand thoroughly?" + +"I think so," replied Ivor, very grave and troubled, I knew by the +change in his manner, out of which all the gaiety had been slowly +drained. "I will do my very best." + +"If you are sacrificing any important engagements of your own for the +next two days, you won't suffer for it in the end," remarked the Foreign +Secretary meaningly. + +No doubt Ivor saw the consulship at Algiers dancing before his eyes, +bound up with an engagement to Di, just as a slice of rich plum cake and +white bride cake are tied together with bows of satin ribbons sometimes, +in America. I didn't want him to have the consulship, because getting +that would perhaps mean getting Di, too. + +"Thank you," said Ivor. + +"And what hotel shall you choose in Paris?" asked the Foreign Secretary. +"It should be a good one, I don't need to remind you, where Mademoiselle +de Renzie could go without danger of compromising herself, in case she +should be recognised in spite of the veil she's pretty certain to wear. +Yet it shouldn't be in too central a situation." + +"Shall it be the Elysee Palace?" asked Ivor. + +"That will do very well," replied the other, after reflecting for an +instant. And I could have clapped my hands, in what Ivor would call my +"impish joy," when it was settled; for the Elysee Palace is where Lord +and Lady Mountstuart stop when they visit Paris, and they'd been talking +of running over next day with Lord Robert West, to look at a wonderful +new motor car for sale there--one that a Rajah had ordered to be made +for him, but died before it was finished. Lady Mountstuart always has +one new fad every six months at least, and her latest is to drive a +motor car herself. Lord Robert is a great expert--can make a motor, I +believe, or take it to pieces and put it together again; and he'd been +insisting for days that she would be able to drive this Rajah car. She'd +promised, that if not too tired she'd cross to Paris the day after the +ball, taking the afternoon train, via Boulogne, as she wouldn't be equal +to an early start. Now, I thought, how splendid it would be if she +should see Maxine at the hotel with Ivor! + +The Foreign Secretary was advising Ivor to wire the Elysee Palace for +rooms without any delay, as there must be no hitch about his meeting +Maxine, once it was arranged for her to go there. "Any misunderstanding +would be fatal," he went on, as solemnly as if the safety of Maxine's +head depended upon Ivor's trip. "I only wish I could have got you off +to-night; and in that case you might have gone to her own house, early +in the morning. She is in a frightful state of mind, poor girl. But it +was only to-day that the contents of the packet reached me, and was +shown to the Prime Minister. Then, it was just before I hurried round +here to see you that I received a cypher telegram from her, warning me +that Count Godensky--of whom you've probably heard--an attache of the +Russian embassy in Paris, somehow has come to suspect a--er--a game in +high politics which she and I have been playing; her last, according to +present intentions, as I told you. I have an idea that this man, who's +well known in Paris society, proposed to Mademoiselle de Renzie, refused +to take no for an answer, and bored her until she perhaps was goaded +into giving him a severe snub. Godensky is a vain man, and wouldn't +forgive a snub, especially if it had got talked about. He'd be a bad +enemy: and Mademoiselle seems to think that he is a very bitter and +determined enemy. Apparently she doesn't know how much he has found out, +or whether he has actually found out anything at all, or merely guesses, +and 'bluffs.' But one thing is unfortunately certain, I believe. Every +boat and every train between London and Paris will be watched more +closely than usual for the next day or two. Any known or suspected agent +wouldn't get through unchallenged. But I can see no reason why you +should not." + +"Nor I," answered Ivor, laughing a little. "I think I could make some +trouble for anyone who tried to stop me." + +"Caution above all! Remember you're in training for a diplomatic career, +what? If you should lose the packet I'm going to give you, I prophesy +that in twenty-four hours the world would be empty of Maxine de Renzie: +for the circumstances surrounding her in this transaction are peculiar, +the most peculiar I've ever been entangled in, perhaps, in rather a +varied experience; and they intimately concern her fiance, the Vicomte +Raoul du Laurier--" + +"Raoul du Laurier!" exclaimed Ivor. "So she's engaged to marry him!" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I have friends who do. He's in the French Foreign Office, though they +say he's more at home in the hunting field, or writing plays--" + +"Which don't get produced. Quite so. But they will get produced some +day, for I believe he's an extremely clever fellow in his way--in +everything except the diplomatic 'trade' which his father would have him +take up, and got him into, through Heaven knows what influence. No; Du +Laurier's no fool, and is said to be a fine sportsman, as well as almost +absurdly good-looking. Mademoiselle Maxine has plenty of excuse for her +infatuation--for I assure you it's nothing less. She'd jump into the +fire for this young man, and grill with a Joan of Arc smile on her +face." + +This would have been pleasant hearing for Ivor, if he'd ever been really +in love with Maxine; but I was obliged to admit to myself that he +hadn't, for he didn't seem to care in the least. On the contrary, he +grew a little more cheerful. + +"I can see that du Laurier's being in the French Foreign Office might +make it rather awkward for Miss de Renzie if she--if she's been rather +too helpful to us," he said. + +"Exactly. And thereby hangs a tale--a sensational and even romantic tale +almost complicated enough for the plot of a novel. When you meet +Mademoiselle to-morrow afternoon or evening, if she cares to take you +into her confidence, in reward for your services, in regard to some +private interests of her own which have got themselves wildly mixed up +with the gravest political matters, she's at liberty to do so as far as +I'm concerned, for you are to be trusted, and deserve to be trusted. You +may say that to her from me, if the occasion arises. I hope with all my +heart that everything may go smoothly. If not--the _Entente Cordiale_ +may burst like a bomb. I--who have made myself responsible in the +matter, with the clear understanding that England will deny me if the +scheme's a failure--shall be shattered by a flying fragment. The +favourite actress of Paris will be asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes; +and you, though I hope no worse harm may come to you, will mourn for the +misfortunes of others. Your responsibility will be such that it will be +almost as if you carried the destructive bomb itself, until you get the +packet into the hands of Maxine de Renzie." "Good heavens, I shall be +glad when she has it!" said Ivor. + +"You can't be gladder than she--or I. And here it is," replied the +Foreign Secretary. "I consider it great luck to have found such a +messenger, at a house I could enter without being suspected of any +motive more subtle than a wish to eat a good supper, or to meet some of +the prettiest women in London." + +I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take +to Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two +from behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they +were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The +Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a +woman's looks, never could bear me: and I believe he would have thought +it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he +knew I'd overheard his secrets. + +However, Ivor's next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to +know. "It's importance evidently doesn't consist in bulk," he said +lightly. "I can easily carry the case in my breast pocket." + +"Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and +honour of a woman," said the Foreign Secretary solemnly. "Now, I, must +go and look for my wife. It's better that you and I shouldn't be seen +together. One never knows who may have got in among the guests at a +crush like this. I will go out at one door, and when you've waited for a +few minutes, you can go, by way of another." + +A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was +alone. What if I spoke, and startled him? All that is impish in me +longed to see how his face would look; but there was too much at stake. +Not only would I hate to have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I +had already built up a great plan for the use I could make of what I had +overheard. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +LISA MAKES MISCHIEF + +When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape +from behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters. But just as +I had sat up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm +asleep, Lord Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck. + +He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first +editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord +Mountstuart's treasures before. As both were perfectly daft on the +subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed +about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring +admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with +their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have been eaten up by +moths long ago. As for me, I should have been delighted to set fire to +the whole lot. + +At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that +there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other +duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It +was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair +of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the +stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that +open door before I had conquered my cramps and got up from behind the +sofa. + +The dim light commended itself to their silliness, and after hesitating +a minute, the girl--whoever she was--allowed herself to be drawn into a +room where she had no business to be. Then, to make bad worse, they +selected the lounge to sit upon, and I had to lie closely wedged against +the wall, with "pins and needles" pricking all over my cramped body, +while some man I didn't know proposed and was accepted by some girl I +shall probably never see. + +They continued to sit, making a tremendous fuss about each other, until +voices were "heard off," as they say in the directions for theatricals, +whereupon they sprang up and hurried out like "guilty things upon a +fearful summons." + +By that time I was more dead than alive, but I did manage to crawl out +of my prison, and creep up to my room by a back stairway which the +servants use. But it was very late now, and people were going, even the +young ones who love dancing. As soon as I was able, I scuttled out of my +ball dress and into a dressing gown. Also I undid my hair, which is my +one beauty, and let it hang over my shoulders, streaming down in front +on each side, so that nobody would know one shoulder is higher than the +other. It wasn't that I was particularly anxious to appear well before +Di (though I have enough vanity not to like the contrast between us to +seem too great, even when she and I are alone), but because I wanted her +to think, when she came to my room, that I'd been there a long time. + +I was sure she would come and peep in at the door, to steal away if she +found me asleep, or to enquire how I felt if I were awake. + +By and by the handle of the door moved softly, just as I had expected, +and seeing a light, Di came in. It was late, and she had danced all +night, but instead of looking tired she was radiant. When she spoke, her +voice was as gay and happy as Ivor's had been when he first came into +Lord Mountstuart's study with the Foreign Secretary. + +I said that I was much better, and had had a nice rest; that if I hadn't +wanted to hear how everything had gone at the ball, I should have been +in bed and asleep long ago. + +"Everything went very well," said she. "I think it was a great success." + +"Did you dance every dance?" I asked, working up slowly to what I meant +to say. + +"Except a few that I sat out." + +"I can guess who sat them out with you," said I. "Ivor Dundas. And one +was number thirteen, wasn't it?" + +"How did you know?" + +"He told me he was going to have thirteen with you. Oh, you needn't try +to hide anything from me. He tells most things to his 'Imp.' Was he nice +when he proposed?" + +"He didn't propose." + +"I'll give you the sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he +didn't tell you he loved you, and ask if there'd be a chance for him in +case he got Algiers." + +"I wouldn't take your bracelet even if--if--. But you're a little +witch, Lisa." + +"Of course I am!" I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench +of the heart. "And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and +said he could have you, Algiers or no Algiers." + +"I don't believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking +about this evening," said Di, with her cheeks very pink. "He may have +flirted a little at one time. Women have spoiled him a lot. But--but he +_does_ love me, Lisa." + +"And he did love Maxine!" I laughed. + +"He didn't. He never loved her. I--you see, you put such horrid thoughts +into my head that--that I just mentioned her name when he said +to-night--oh, when he said the usual things, about never having cared +seriously for anyone until he saw me. Only--it seems treacherous to call +them '_usual_' because--when you love a man you feel that the things he +says can never have been said before, in the same way, by any other man +to any other woman." + +"Only perhaps by the same man to another woman," I mocked at her, trying +to act as if I were teasing in fun. + +"Lisa, you _can_ be hateful sometimes!" she cried. + +"It's only for your good, if I'm hateful now," I said. "I don't want to +have you disappointed, when it's too late. I want you to keep your eyes +open, and see exactly where you're going. It's the truest thing ever +said that 'love is blind.' You can't deny that you're in love with Ivor +Dundas." + +"I don't deny it," she answered, with a proud air which would, I +suppose, have made Ivor want to kiss her. + +"And you didn't deny it to him?" + +"No, I didn't. But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation. I +wish I hadn't, now. I wish I'd shown that I trusted him entirely. I know +he deserves to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him--" + +"I don't think I should commit myself any further till day after +to-morrow," said I drily. "Indeed, you couldn't if you wanted to, unless +you wrote or wired. You won't see him to-morrow." + +"Yes, I shall," she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of +hers, that looked positively black with excitement. "He's going to the +Duchess of Glasgow's bazaar, because I said I should most likely be +there: and I will go--" + +"But he won't." + +"How can you know anything about it?" + +"I do know, everything. And I'll tell you what I know, if you'll promise +me two things." + +"What things?" + +"That you won't ask me how I found out, and that you'll swear never to +give me away to anybody." + +"Of course I wouldn't 'give you away,' as you call it. But--I'm not sure +I want you to tell me. I have faith in Ivor. I'd rather not hear stories +behind his back." + +"Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess's to-morrow," I snapped, "and +wear your prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time +he'll be arriving in Paris to keep a very particular engagement with +Maxine de Renzie." + +Di grew suddenly pale, and her eyes looked violet instead of black. "I +don't believe he's going to Paris!" she exclaimed. + +"I know he's going. And I know he's going especially to see Maxine." + +"It can't be. He told me to-night he wouldn't cross the street to see +her. I--I made it a condition--that if he found he cared enough for her +to want to see her again, he must go, of course: but he must give up all +thought of me. If I'm to reign, I must reign alone." + +"Well, then, on thinking it over, he probably did find that he wanted to +see her." + +"No. For he loved me just as much when we parted, only half an hour +ago." + +"Yet at least two hours ago he'd arranged a meeting with Maxine for +to-morrow afternoon." + +"You're dreaming." + +"I was never wider awake: or if I'm dreaming, you can dream the same +dream if you'll be at Victoria Station to-morrow, or rather this +morning, when the boat train goes out at 10 o'clock." + +"I will be there!" cried Di, changing from red to white. "And you shall +be with me, to see that you're wrong. I know you will be wrong." + +"That's an engagement," said I. "At 10 o'clock, Victoria Station, just +you and I, and nobody else in the house the wiser. If I'm right, and +Ivor's there, shall you think it wise to give him up?" + +"He might be obliged to go to Paris, suddenly, for some business reason, +without meaning to call on Maxine de Renzie--in which case he'd probably +write me. But--at the station, I shall ask him straight out--that is, if +he's there, as I'm sure he won't be--whether he intends to see +Mademoiselle de Renzie. If he says no, I'll believe him. If he says +yes--" + +"You'll tell him all is over between you?" + +"He'd know that without my telling, after our talk last night." + +"And whatever happens, you will say nothing about having heard Maxine's +name from me?" + +"Nothing," Di answered. And I knew she would keep her word. + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' POINT OF VIEW + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +IVOR TRAVELS TO PARIS + +It is rather a startling sensation for a man to be caught suddenly by +the nape of the neck, so to speak, and pitched out of heaven down +to--the other place. + +But that was what happened to me when I arrived at Victoria Station, on +my way to Paris. + +I had taken my ticket and hurried on to the platform without too much +time to spare (I'd been warned not to risk observation by being too +early) when I came face to face with the girl whom, at any other time, I +should have liked best to meet: whom at that particular time I least +wished to meet: Diana Forrest. + +"The Imp"--Lisa Drummond--was with her: but I saw only Di at first--Di, +looking a little pale and harassed, but beautiful as always. Only last +night I had told her that Paris had no attractions for me. I had said +that I didn't care to see Maxine de Renzie: yet here I was on the way to +see her, and here was Di discovering me in the act of going to see, her. + +Of course I could lie; and I suppose some men, even men of honour, would +think it justifiable as well as wise to lie in such a case, when +explanations were forbidden. But I couldn't lie to a girl I loved as I +love Diana Forrest. It would have sickened me with life and with myself +to do it: and it was with the knowledge in my mind that I could not and +would not lie, that I had to greet her with a conventional "Good +morning." + +"Are you going out of town?" I asked, with my hat off for her and for +the Imp, whose strange little weazened face I now saw looking over my +tall love's shoulders. It had never before struck me that the Imp was +like a cat; but suddenly the resemblance struck me--something in the +poor little creature's expression, it must have been, or in her greenish +grey eyes which seemed at that moment to concentrate all the knowledge +of old and evil things that has ever come into the world since the days +of the early Egyptians--when a cat was worshipped. + +"No, I'm not going out of town," Di answered. "I came here to meet you, +in case you should be leaving by this train, and I brought Lisa with +me." + +"Who told you I was leaving?" I asked, hoping for a second or two that +the Foreign Secretary had confided to her something of his +secret--guessing ours, perhaps, and that my unexpected, inexplicable +absence might injure me with her. + +"I can't tell you," she answered. "I didn't believe you would go; even +though I got your letter by the eight o'clock post this morning." + +"I'm glad you got that," I said. "I posted it soon after I left you last +night." + +"Why didn't you tell me when we were bidding each other good-bye, that +you wouldn't be able to see me this afternoon, instead of waiting to +write?" + +"Frankly and honestly," I said (for I had to say it), "just at the +moment, and only for the moment, I forgot about the Duchess of Glasgow's +bazaar. That was because, after I decided to drop in at the bazaar, +something happened which made it impossible for me to go. In my letter I +begged you to let me see you to-morrow instead; and now I beg it again. +Do say 'yes.'" + +"I'll say yes on one condition--and gladly," she replied, with an odd, +pale little smile, "that you tell me where you're going this morning. I +know it must seem horrid in me to ask, but--but--oh, Ivor, it _isn't_ +horrid, really. You wouldn't think it horrid if you could understand." + +"I'm going to Paris," I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold +potato where my heart ought to be. "I am obliged to go, on business." + +"You didn't say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when +you told me you couldn't come to the Duchess's," said Di, looking like a +beautiful, unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. +"You only mentioned 'an urgent engagement which you'd forgotten.'" + +"I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry," I told her, +lamely. + +"So it was--so it would have been," she faltered, "if it hadn't been +for--what we said last night about--Paris. And then--I can't explain to +you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you +meant to go there, and--after our talk, I couldn't believe it. I didn't +come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I +wouldn't find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn't found you. +Yet--you're here." + +"And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same," I said, as +firmly as I could. + +"Of course. I'll trust you, if--" + +"If what?" + +"If you'll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you're not going to +see Maxine de Renzie." + +"I may see her," I admitted. + +"But--but at least, you're not going on purpose?" + +This drove me into a corner. Without being disloyal to the Foreign +Secretary, I could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine. Yet to +what suspicion was I not laying myself open in confessing that I +deliberately intended to see her, having sworn by all things a man does +swear by when he wishes to please a girl, that I didn't wish to see +Maxine, and would not see Maxine? + +"You said you'd trust me, Di," I reminded her. "For Heaven's sake don't +break that promise." + +"But--if you're breaking a promise to me?" + +"A promise?" + +"Worse, then! Because I didn't ask you to promise. I had too much faith +in you for that. I believed you when you said you didn't care +for--anyone but me. I've told Lisa. It doesn't matter our speaking like +this before her. I asked you to wait for my promise for a little while, +until I could be quite sure you didn't think of Miss de Renzie as--some +people fancied you did. If you wanted to see her, I said you must go, +and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next morning, by the first +train, you start." + +"Only because I am obliged to," I hazarded in spite of the Foreign +Secretary and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by +making matters worse instead of better for myself. + +"Obliged to!" she echoed. "Then there's something you must settle with +her, before you can be--free." + +The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should +lose the train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine, +as well as Maxine's, I must not. + +"Dearest," I said hurriedly, "I am free. There's no question of freedom. +Yet I shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me." + +"Not if you go to her--this day of all days." The words were wrung from +the poor child's lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like +death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of +soothing it. + +"You shall. You must," I commanded, rather than implored. "Good-bye, +darling--precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall +come back to you to-morrow." + +"You needn't. You need never come to me again," she said, white lipped. +And the guard whistled, waving his green flag. + +"Don't dare to say such a cruel thing--a thing you don't mean!" I cried, +catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a +little man inside jumped to the window and shouted, "Reserved! Don't you +see it's reserved?" which explained the fact that the door seemed to be +fastened. + +I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed, +and would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men +rushed at the door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it +with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have +lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in +after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself +where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was +thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my +heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care +much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way in, +though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the +compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have +pushed me out if I hadn't been too strong for them. I had a dim +impression that, instead of joining with the newcomers, the first man, +who would have kept the place to himself before their entrance, seemed +willing to aid me against the others. They being once foisted upon him, +he appeared to wish for my presence too, or else he merely desired to +prevent me from being dashed onto the platform and perhaps killed, for +he thrust out a hand and tried to pull me in. + +At the same time a guard came along, protesting against the unseemly +struggle, and the carriage door was slammed shut upon us all four. + +When I got my balance, and was able to look out, the train had gone so +far that Diana and Lisa had been swept away from my sight. It was like a +bad omen; and the fear was cold upon me that I had lost my love for +ever. + +At that moment I suffered so atrociously that if it had not been too +late, I fear I should have sacrificed Maxine and the Foreign Secretary +and even the _Entente Cordiale_ (provided he had not been exaggerating) +for Di's sake, and love's sake. But there was no going back now, even if +I would. The train was already travelling almost at full speed, and +there was nothing to do but resign myself to the inevitable, and hope +for the best. Someone, it was clear, had tried to work mischief between +Diana and me, and there were only too many chances that he had +succeeded. Could it be Bob West, I asked myself, as I half-dazedly +looked for a place to sit down among the litter of small luggage with +which the first occupant of the carriage had strewn every seat. I knew +that Bob was as much in love with Di as a man of his rather +unintellectual, unimaginative type could be, and he hadn't shown himself +as friendly lately to me as he once had: still, I didn't think he was +the sort of fellow to trip up a rival in the race by a trick, even if he +could possibly have found out that I was going to Paris this morning. + +"Won't you sit here, sir?" a voice broke into my thoughts, and I saw +that the little man had cleared a place for me next his own, which was +in a corner facing the engine. Thanking him absent-mindedly, I sat down, +and began to observe my travelling companions for the first time. + +So far, their faces had been mere blurs for me: but now it struck me +that all three were rather peculiar; that is, peculiar when seen in a +first-class carriage. + +The man who had reserved the compartment for himself, and who had +removed a bundle of golf sticks from the seat to make room for me, did +not look like a typical golfer, nor did he appear at all the sort of +person who might be expected to reserve a whole compartment for himself. +He was small and thin, and weedy, with little blinking, pink-rimmed eyes +of the kind which ought to have had white lashes instead of the sparse, +jet black ones that rimmed them. His forehead, though narrow, suggested +shrewdness, as did the expression of those light coloured eyes of his, +which were set close to the sharp, slightly up-turned nose. His hair was +so black that it made his skin seem singularly pallid, though it was +only sallow; and a mean, rabbit mouth worked nervously over two +prominent teeth. Though his clothes were good, and new, they had the air +of having been bought ready made; and in spite of his would-be "smart" +get up, the man (who might have been anywhere between thirty and +thirty-eight) looked somewhat like an ex-groom, or bookmaker, +masquerading as a "swell." + +The two intruders who had violated the sanctity of the reserved +compartment by means of their railway key were both bigger and more +manly than he who had a right to it. One was dark, and probably Jewish, +with a heavy beard and moustache, in the midst of which his sensual and +cruel mouth pouted disagreeably red. The other was puffy and flushed, +with a brick-coloured complexion deeply pitted by smallpox. They also +were flashily dressed with "horsey" neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. +As I glanced at the pair, they were talking together in a low voice, +with an open newspaper held up between them; but the man who had helped +me in against their will sat silent, staring out of the window and +uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, apparently, +paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; +nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in +an inner breast pocket of my carefully buttoned coat. I would not +attract attention to the contents of that pocket by touching it, to +assure myself that it was safe, but I had done so just before meeting +Di, and I felt certain that nothing could have happened to it since. + +I folded my arms across my chest, glanced up to see where the cord of +communication might be found in case of emergency; and then reflected +that these men were not likely to be dangerous, since I had followed +them into the compartment, not they me. This thought was reassuring, as +they were three to one if they combined against me, and the train was, +unfortunately, not entirely a corridor train. Therefore, having assured +myself that I was not among spies bent on having my life or the secret I +carried, I forgot about my fellow-travellers, and fell into gloomy +speculations as to my chances with Diana. I had been loving her, +thinking of little else but her and my hopes of her, for many months +now; but never had I realised what a miserable, empty world it would be +for me without Di for my own, as I did now, when I had perhaps lost her. + +Not that I would allow myself to think that I could not get her back. I +would not think it. I would force her to believe in me, to trust me, +even to repent her suspicions, though appearances were all against me, +and Heaven knew how much or when I might be permitted to explain. I +would not be a man if I took her at her word, and let her slip from me, +no matter how many times that word were repeated; so I told myself over +and over. Yet a voice inside me seemed to say that nothing could be as +it had been; that I'd sacrificed my happiness to please a stranger, and +to save a woman whom I had never really loved. + +Di was so beautiful, so sweet, so used to being admired by men; there +were so many who loved her, so many with a thousand times more to offer +than I had or would ever have: how could I hope that she would go on +caring for me, after what had happened to-day? I wondered. She hadn't +said in actual words last night that she would marry me, whereas this +morning she had almost said she never would. I should have nobody to +blame but myself if I came back to London to-morrow to find her engaged +to Lord Robert West--a man who, as his brother has no children, might +some day make her a Duchess. + +"Sorry to have seemed rude just now, sir," said one of the two +railway-key men, suddenly reminding me of his unnecessary existence. +"Hardly knew what I was about when I shoved you away from the door. Me +and my friend was afraid of missing the train, so we pushed--instinct of +self-preservation, I suppose," and he chuckled as if he had got off some +witticism. "Anyhow, I apologise. Nothing intentional, 'pon my word." + +"Thanks. No apology is necessary," I replied as indifferently as I felt. + +"That's all right, then," finished the Jewish-faced man, who had spoken. +He turned to his companion, and the two resumed their conversation +behind the newspaper: but I now became conscious that they occasionally +glanced over the top at their neighbour or at me, as if their whole +attention were not taken up with the news of the day. + +Any interest they might feel in me, provided it had nothing to do with a +certain pocket, they were welcome to: but the little man was apparently +not of the same mind concerning himself. His nervously twitching hand on +the upholstered seat-arm which separated his place from mine attracted +my attention, which was then drawn up to his face. He was so sickly +pale, under a kind of yellowish glaze spread over his complexion, that I +thought he must be ill, perhaps suffering from train sickness, in +anxious anticipation of the horrors which might be in store for him on +the boat. Presently he pulled out a red-bordered handkerchief, and +unobtrusively wiped his forehead, under his checked travelling cap. When +he had done this, I saw that his hair was left streaked with damp; and +there was a faint, purplish stain on the handkerchief, observing which +with evident dismay he stuffed the big square of coarse cambric hastily +into his pocket. + +"The little beast must dye his hair," I thought contemptuously. "Perhaps +he's an albino, really. His eyes look like it." + +With that, he threw a frightened glance at me, which caused me to turn +away and spare him the humiliation of knowing that he was observed. But +immediately after, he made an effort to pull himself together, picking +up a book he had laid down to wipe his forehead and holding it so close +to his nose that the printed page must have been a mere blur, unless he +were very near-sighted. Thus he sat for some time; yet I felt that no +look thrown by the other two was lost on him. He seemed to know each +time one of them peered over the newspaper; and when at last the train +slowed down by the Admiralty Pier all his nervousness returned. His +small, thin hands, freckled on their backs, hovered over one piece of +luggage after another, as if he could not decide how to pile the things +together. + +Naturally I had not brought my man with me on this errand, therefore I +had let my suitcase go into the van, that I might have both hands free, +and I had nothing to do when the train stopped but jump out and make for +the boat. Nevertheless I lingered, folding up a newspaper, and tearing +an article out of a magazine by way of excuse; for it was not my object +to be caught in a crowd and hustled, perhaps, by some clever wretches +who might be lying in wait for what I had in my pocket. It seemed +impossible that anyone could have learned that I was playing messenger +between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Maxine de Renzie: +still, the danger and difficulty of the apparently simple mission had +been so strongly impressed on me that I did not intend to neglect any +precaution. + +I lingered therefore; and the Jewish-looking man with his heavy-faced +friend lingered also, for some reason of their own. They had no luggage, +except a small handbag each, but these they opened at the last minute to +stuff in their newspapers, and apparently to review the other contents. +Presently, when the first rush for the boat was over, and the porters +who had come to the door of our compartment had gone away empty-handed, +I would have got out, had I not caught an imploring glance from the +little man who had reserved the carriage. Perhaps I imagined it, but his +pink-rimmed eyes seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, don't leave me alone +with these others." + +"Would you be so very kind, sir," he said to me, "to beckon a porter, as +you are near the door? I find after all that I shan't be able to carry +everything myself." + +I did as he asked; and there was so much confusion in the carriage when +the porter came, that in self-defence the two friends got out with their +bags. I also descended and would have followed in the wake of the crowd, +if the little man had not called after me. He had lost his ticket, he +said. Would I be so extremely obliging as to throw an eye about the +platform to see if it had fallen there? + +I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had +found the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and +scrambling out of the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for +him, he would have walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped +behind a few steps, thinking--as always--of the contents of that inner +breast pocket. + +He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward, +or almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other +passengers--a family party with a fat nurse and crying baby--behind us. +As I approached the gangway, I saw on deck my late travelling +companions, the Jewish man and his friend, regarding us with interest. +Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost on the little man's +heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: "Look +out--gangway's falling!" + +In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as +the nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself +no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman +with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also +attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees. +The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he +almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled, +pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling +baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet. + +My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat +cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the +gangway was "all right," and never had been anything but all right, I +could not readjust my hat nor see what was going on until the fat nurse +had obligingly retrieved her charge, without a word of thanks. + +My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a +horrible idea that the scare might have been got up for the express +purpose of robbing me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as +ever under my coat, and decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm +had had nothing to do with me. + +I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of +the way of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had +been rough for a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and +everything was already engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the +time, always conscious of the unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The +little man paced up and down, too, though his yellow face grew slowly +green, and he would have been much better off below, lying on his back. +As for the two others, they also remained on deck, talking together as +they leaned against the rail; but though I passed them now and again, I +noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by turning before he +reached their "pitch." + +At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag, +because if I had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother +would have been over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd +thronging the _douane_, I decided to let the suitcase look after itself, +and send down for it with the key from the hotel later. Again the little +man was close to my side as I went in search of a cab, for all his +things had been gone through by the custom house officer in mid-channel, +so that he too was free to depart without delay. He even seemed to cling +to me, somewhat wistfully, and I half thought he meant to speak, but he +did not, save for a "good evening, sir," as I separated myself from him +at last. He had stuck rather too close, elbow to elbow; but I had no +fear for the letter-case, as he was on the wrong side to play any +conjurer's tricks with that. The last I saw of the fellow, he was +walking toward a cab, and looking uneasily over his shoulder at his two +late travelling companions, who were getting into another vehicle near +by. + +I went straight to the Elysee Palace Hotel, where I had never stopped +before--a long drive from the Gare du Nord--and claimed the rooms for +which "Mr. George Sandford" had wired from London. The suite engaged was +a charming one, and the private salon almost worthy to receive the +lovely lady I expected. Nor did she keep me waiting. I had had time only +to give instructions about sending a man with a key to the station for +my luggage, to say that a lady would call, to reach my rooms, and to +draw the curtains over the windows, when a knock came at the salon door. +I was in the act of turning on the electric light when this happened, +but to my surprise the room remained in darkness--or rather, in a pink +dusk lent by the colour of the curtains. + +"The lady has arrived, Monsieur," announced the servant. "As Monsieur +expected her, she has come up without waiting; but I regret that +something has gone wrong with the electricity, all over the hotel. It +was but just now discovered, at time for turning on the lights, +otherwise lamps and plenty of candles would have been provided, though +no doubt the light will fonctionne properly in a few minutes. If +Monsieur permits, I will instantly bring him a lamp." + +"No, thank you," I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted +in the midst of my important interview with Maxine. "If the light comes +on, it will he all right: if not, I will put back the curtains; and it +is not yet quite dark. Show the lady in." + +Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, +whose tall and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting +black dress, though her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly +embroidered veil that completely hid her face, while long, graceful lace +folds fell over and obscured the bright auburn of her hair. + +"One moment," I said. "Let me push the curtains back. The electricity +has failed." + +"No, no," she answered. "Better leave them as they are. The lights may +come on and we be seen from outside. Why,"--as she drew nearer to me, +and the servant closed the door, "I thought I recognised that voice! It +is Ivor Dundas." + +"No other," said I. "Didn't the--weren't you warned who would be the man +to come?" + +"No," she replied. "Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of +meeting were wired. It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a +cypher which I trust nobody knows--except myself and one other. But I'm +glad--glad it's you. It was clever of--him, to have sent you. No one +would dream that--no one would think it strange if they knew--as I hope +they won't--that you came to Paris to see me. Oh, the relief that you've +got through safely! Nothing has happened? You have--the paper?" + +"Nothing has happened, and I have the paper," I reassured her. "No +adventures, to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I've been +spotted. Anyway, here I am; and here is something which will put an end +to your anxiety." And I tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly. + +"Thank God!" breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which +would have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was +never further in her life from the thought of acting. "After all I've +suffered, it seems too good to be true. Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and +let me go." + +"I will," I said. "But you might seem to take just a little more +interest in me, even if you don't really feel it, you know. You might +just say, 'How have you been for the last twelve months?'" + +"Oh, I do take an interest, and I'm grateful to you--I can't tell you +how grateful. But I have no time to think either of you or myself now," +she said, eagerly. "If you knew everything, you'd understand." + +"I know practically nothing," I confessed; "still, I do understand. I +was only teasing you. Forgive me. I oughtn't to have done it, even for a +minute. Here is the letter-case which the Foreign--which was given to me +to bring to you." + +"Wait!" she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had +never departed. "Wait! It will he better to lock the door." But even as +she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent. With a spring, she +flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped +suggestively a moment ago. I let her draw out the long case which I had +been guarding--the case I had not once touched since leaving London, +except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat. At +least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands +now. + +Neither of us spoke nor made a sound during the instant that she clung +to me, the faint, well-remembered perfume of her hair, her dress, in my +nostrils. But as she started away, and I knew that she had the +letter-case, the knock came again. Then, before I could be sure whether +she wished for time to hide, or whether she would have me cry "come in," +without seeming to hesitate, the door opened. For a second or two Maxine +and I, and a group of figures at the door were mere shadows in the ever +deepening pink dusk: but I could scarcely have counted ten before the +long expected light sprang up. I had turned it on in more than one +place: and a sudden, brilliant illumination showed me a tall Commissary +of Police, with two little gendarmes looking over his shoulder. + +I threw a glance at Maxine, who was still veiled, and was relieved to +see that she had found some means of putting the letter-case out of +sight. Having ascertained this, I sharply enquired in French what in the +devil's name the Commissary of Police meant by walking into an +Englishman's room without being invited; and not only that, but what +under heaven he wanted anyway. + +He was far more polite than I was. + +"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur," he apologised. "I knocked twice, but +hearing no answer, entered, thinking that perhaps, after all, the salon +was unoccupied. Important business must be my excuse. I have to request +that Monsieur Dundas will first place in my hands the gift he has +brought from London to Mademoiselle de Renzie." + +"I have brought no gift for Mademoiselle de Renzie," I prevaricated +boldly; but the man's knowledge of my name was ominous. If the Paris +police had contrived to learn it already, as well as to find out that I +was the bearer of something for Maxine, it looked as if they knew enough +to play the game in their own way--whatever that might be. + +"Perhaps I should say, the thing which Mademoiselle lent--to a friend in +England, and Monsieur has now kindly returned," amended the Commissary +of Police as politely, as patiently, as ever. + +"Really, I don't know what you are talking about," I said, shrugging my +shoulders and looking bewildered--or hoping that I looked bewildered. +All the while I was wondering, desperately, if this meant ruin for +Maxine, or if she would still find some way of saving herself. But all I +could do for her at the moment was to keep calm, and tell as many lies +as necessary. I hadn't been able to lie to Diana; but I had no +compunctions about doing it now, if it were to help Maxine. The worst +was, that I was far from sure it would help her. + +"I trust, Monsieur, that you do not wish to prevent the French police +from doing their duty," said the officer, his tone becoming peremptory +for the first time. "Should you attempt it, I should unfortunately be +compelled to order that Monsieur be searched." + +"You seem to forget that you're dealing with a British subject," said I. + +"Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country," he capped my +words. "You can complain afterwards, Monsieur. But now--" + +"Why don't you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas," suggested Maxine, +lightly, yet contemptuously, "and show them that you've nothing in which +the police can have any interest? I suppose the next thing they propose, +will be to search me." + +"I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, +unless satisfaction is given to me," returned the Commissary of Police. + +Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these +men had ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me +that her beauty must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed. +For Maxine is a gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most +striking, more wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes +laughed out of her white face, and her red lips smiled as if neither +they, nor the great eyes, had any secret to hide. + +"Look at me," she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring +forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which +was of the fashion which, I think, women call "Princess." It fitted her +as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows. + +"Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?" she +asked. "I haven't a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could +have, in a gown like this. I don't know in the least what sort of 'gift' +my old friend is supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I'll +take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le +Commisaire, for I've been taught, as a servant of the public, to be +civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable. No? +You don't want to see my rings? Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, +then. I might have put the thing--whatever it is--in my hair." + +As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half +scornful, half good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood +smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of +her dark red hair shadowing her forehead. + +Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my +pockets: a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my +watch, and a handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small +bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection: but as one of the +gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and +handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back +into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time. There were too +many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine +could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more than two +seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to +pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden. + +"Now, are you satisfied?" she asked, "Now that we have both shown you we +have nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police +station, and have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? +I'll go with you, if you wish. I won't even he indiscreet enough to ask +questions, since you seem inclined to do what we've no need to do--keep +your own secrets. All I stipulate is, that if you care to take such +measures you'll take them at once, for as you may possibly be aware, +this is the first night of my new play, and I should be sorry to be +late." + +The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he +would read her soul. + +"No, Mademoiselle," he said, "I am convinced that neither you nor +Monsieur are concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble +you further until we have searched the room." + +Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be +when she lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I +saw that the pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could +control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood +in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the +gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My +heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the +place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her +pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of +the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; and though +I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have +given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the +catastrophe she dreaded. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +IVOR DOES WHAT HE CAN FOR MAXINE + +"How long a time do you think I had been in this room, Monsieur," she +asked, "before you--rather rudely, I must say--broke in upon my +conversation with my friend?" + +"You had been here exactly three minutes," replied the Commissary of +Police. + +"As much as that? I should have thought less. We had to greet each +other, after having been parted for many months; and still, in the three +minutes, you believe that we had time to concoct a plot of some sort, +and to find some safe corner--all the while in semi-darkness--for the +hiding of a thing important to the police--a bomb, perhaps? You must +think us very clever." + +"I know that you are very clever, Mademoiselle." + +"Perhaps I ought to thank you for the compliment," she answered, +allowing anger to warm her voice at last; "but this is almost beyond a +joke. A woman comes to the rooms of a friend. Both of them are so placed +that they prefer her call not to be talked about. For that reason, and +for the woman's sake, the friend chooses to take a name that isn't +his--as he has a right to do. Yet, just because that woman happens +unfortunately to be well-known--her face and name being public +property--she is followed, she is spied upon, humiliated, and all, no +doubt, on account of some silly mistake, or malicious false information. +Ah, it is shameful, Monsieur! I wonder the police of Paris can stoop to +such stupidity, such meanness." + +"When we have found out that it is a mistake, the police of Paris will +apologise to you, Mademoiselle, through me," said the Commissary; "until +then, I regret if our duty makes us disagreeable to you." Then, turning +to his two gendarmes, he directed them to search the room, beginning +with all possible places in which a paper parcel or large envelope might +be hidden, within ten metres of the spot where Mademoiselle and Monsieur +had stood talking together when the police opened the door. + +Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the +three policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of +the room, she walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon +it. Weariness, disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I +guessed that she felt herself actually in need of the physical support. + +The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces +expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving +themselves entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their +superior officer did not once take his eyes from the pure profile she +turned scornfully towards him. I knew why he watched her thus, and +thought of a foolish, child's game I used to play twenty years ago, at +little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of "Hide-the-Handkerchief." While +one searched for the treasure, those who knew where it was stood by, +saying: "Now you are warm. Now you are hot--boiling hot. Now you are +cool again. Now you are ice cold." It was as if we were five players at +this game, and Maxine de Renzie's white, deathly smiling face was +expected to proclaim against her will: "Now you are warm. Now you are +hot. Now you are ice cold." + +There was a table in the middle of the room, with one or two volumes of +photographs and brightly-bound guide books of Paris upon it, as well as +my hat and gloves which I had tossed down as I came in. The gendarmes +picked up these things, examined them, laid them aside, peered under the +table; peeped behind the silk cushions on the sofa, opened the doors and +drawers of a bric-a-brac cabinet and a small writing desk, lifted the +corners of the rugs on the bare, polished floor; and finally, bowing +apologies to Maxine for disturbing her, took out the logs from the +fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and pried into the +vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window curtains, +and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in +vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at +a loss. + +During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious +sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine's suffering. I felt +as if my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until +it was uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were +peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round +Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the +white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty +of revelation. She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same +smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond +dust. + +I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it +too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point. +The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled +subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it +fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead +of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he +searched the face of the tortured woman. + +Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she +had suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The +only movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in +another moment, if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock +no longer, and she would die. For a second I wildly counted the chances +of overpowering all three men, stunning them into unconsciousness, and +giving Maxine time to escape with the letter-case. But I knew the +attempt would be useless. Even if I could succeed, the noise would +arouse the hotel. People would come. Other policemen would rush in to +the help of their comrades, and matters would be worse with us than +before. + +The Frenchman, having looked at Maxine, and seen that tell-tale beating +of her bodice, deliberately laid the silk cushions on the floor. Then, +pushing his hand down between the seat and the back of the sofa, he +moved it along the crevice inch by inch. + +I watched the hand, which looked cruel to me as that of an executioner. +I think Maxine watched it, too. Suddenly it stopped. It had found +something. The other hand sprang to its assistance. Both worked +together, groping and prying for a few seconds: evidently the something +hidden had been forced deeply and firmly down. Then, up it came--a dark +red leather case, which was neither a letter-case nor a jewel-case, but +might be used for either. My heart almost stopped beating in the intense +relief I felt. For this was not the thing I had come from London to +bring Maxine. + +I could hardly keep back a cry of joy. But I did keep it back, for +suspense and anxiety had left me a few grains of sense. + +"Voila!" grunted the Commissary of Police. "I said that you were clever, +Mademoiselle. But it would have been as well for all concerned if you +had spared us this trouble." + +"You alone are to blame for the trouble," answered Maxine. "I never saw +that thing before in my life." + +I was astonished that there was no ring of satisfaction in her voice. It +sounded hard and defiant, but there was no triumph in it, no joy that, +so far, she was saved--as if by a miracle. Rather was her tone that of a +woman at bay, fighting to the last, but without hope. "Nor did I ever +see it before." I echoed her words. + +She glanced at me as if with gratitude. Yet there was no need for +gratitude. I was not lying for her sake, but speaking the plain truth, +as I thought that she must know. + +For the first time the Commissary of Police condescended to laugh. "I +suppose you want me to believe that the last occupant of this room +tucked some valued possession down into a safe hiding place--and then +forgot all about it. That is likely, is it not? You shall have the +pleasure, Mademoiselle--and you, Monsieur--of seeing with me what that +careless person left behind him." + +He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly, +with his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with +calmness, and was amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer +scornful, tragically indifferent in her manner, but imploring--a weak, +agonized woman. + +"For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur," she sobbed. "You don't +understand. I confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held +myself high, in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I--an +actress--never took a lover. But now I am like the others. This is my +lover. There's the price I put on my love. Now, Monsieur, I ask you on +my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case sacred." + +I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with +a whip. My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this +became known, this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then +indeed all hope for me with the girl I loved would be over. My second +thought was for Maxine herself. But she had sealed my lips. Since she +had chosen the way, I could only be silent. + +"Mademoiselle, it is a grief to me that I must refuse such a prayer, +from such a woman. But duty before chivalry. I must see the contents of +that case," said the Commissary of Police. + +She caught his hand and rained tears upon it. "No--no!" she implored. +"If I were rich, I would offer you thousands to spare me. I've been +extravagant--I haven't saved, but all I have in the world is yours +if--." + +"There can be no such 'if,' Mademoiselle," the man broke in. And +wrenching his hand free, he opened the case before she could again +prevent him. + +Out fell a cascade of light, a diamond necklace. It flashed to the +floor, where it lay on one of the sofa cushions, sending up a spray of +rainbow colours. + +_"Sacre bleu!"_ muttered the Frenchman, under his breath, for whatever +he had expected, he had not expected that. But Maxine spoke not a word. +Shorn of hope, as, in spite of her prayers and tears, the leather case +was torn open, she was shorn of strength as well; and the beautiful, +tall figure crumpling like a flower broken on its stalk, she would have +fallen if I had not caught her, holding her up against my shoulder. When +the cataract of diamonds sprang out of the case, however, I felt her +limp body straighten itself. I felt her pulses leap. I felt her begin to +_live_. She had drunk a draught of hope and life, and, fortified by it, +was gathering all her scattered forces together for a new fight, if +fight she must again. + +The Commissary of Police turned the leather case wrong side out. It was +empty. There had been nothing inside but the necklace: not a card, not a +scrap of paper. + +"Where, then, is the document?" Crestfallen, he put the question half to +himself, half to Maxine de Renzie. + +"What document?" she asked, too wise to betray relief in voice or face. +Hearing the heavy tone, seeing the shamed face, the hanging head that +lay against my shoulder, who--knowing a little less than I did of the +truth--would have dreamed that in her soul she thanked God for a +miracle? Even I would not have been sure, had I not felt the life +stealing back into her half-dead body. + +"The contents of the case are not what I came here to find," admitted +the Enemy. + +"I do not know what you came to find, but you have made me suffer +horribly," said Maxine. "You have been very cruel to a woman who has +done nothing to deserve such humiliation. All pleasure I might have +taken in my diamonds is gone now. I shall never have a peaceful +moment--never be able to wear them joyfully. I shall have the thought in +my mind that people who look at me will be saying: 'Every woman has her +price. There is the price of Maxine de Renzie.'" + +"You need have no such thought, Mademoiselle," the man protested. "We +shall never speak to anyone except those who will receive our report, of +what we have heard and seen in this room." + +"Won't you search further?" asked Maxine. "Since you seemed to expect +something else--" + +"You would not have had time to conceal more than one thing, +Mademoiselle," said the policeman, with a smile that was faintly grim. +"Besides, this case was what you did not wish us to find. You are a +great actress, but you could not control the dew which sprang out on +your forehead, or the beating of your heart when I touched the sofa, so +I knew: I had been watching you for that. There has been an error, and I +can only apologise." + +"I don't blame you, but those who sent you," said Maxine, letting me +lead her to a chair, into which she sank, limply. "I am thankful you do +not tell me these diamonds are contraband in some way. I was not sure +but it would end in that." + +"Not at all, Mademoiselle. I wish you joy of them. It is you who will +adorn the jewels, not they you. Again I apologise for myself and my +companions. We have but done our duty." + +"I have an enemy, who must have contrived this plot against me," +exclaimed Maxine, as if on a sudden thought. "It is said that 'Hell hath +no fury like a woman scorned.' But what of a man who has been +scorned--by a woman? He knew I wanted all my strength for to-night--the +night of the new play--and he will be hoping that this has broken me. +But I will not be broken. If you would atone, Messieurs, for your part +in this scene, you will go to the theatre this evening and encourage me +by your applause." + +All three bowed. The Commissary of Police, lately so relentless, +murmured compliments. It was all very French, and after what had passed, +gave me the sensation that I was in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IVOR HEARS THE STORY + +They were gone. They had closed the door behind them. I looked at +Maxine, but she did not speak. With her finger to her lips she got up, +trembling still; and walking to the door, she opened it suddenly to look +out. Nobody was there. + +"They may have gone into your bedroom to listen at that door," she +whispered. + +I took the hint, and going quickly into the room adjoining, turned on +the light. Emptiness there: but I left the door open, and the +electricity switched on. They might change their minds, or be more +subtle than they wished to seem. + +Maxine threw herself on the sofa, gathering up the necklace from the +cushion where it had fallen, and lifting it in both hands pressed the +glittering mass against her lips and cheeks. + +"Thank God, thank God--and thank you, Ivor, best of friends!" she said +brokenly, in so low a voice that no ear could have caught her words, +even if pressed against the keyhole. Then, letting the diamonds drop +into her lap, she flung back her head and laughed and cried together. + +"Oh, Ivor, Ivor!" she panted, between her sobs and hysterical gusts of +laughter. "The agony of it--the agony--and the joy now! You're +wonderful. Good, precious Ivor--dear friend--saint." + +At this I laughed too, partly to calm her, and patted gently the hands +with which she had nervously clutched my sleeve. + +"Heaven knows I don't deserve one of those epithets," I said, "I'll just +stick to friend." + +"Not deserve them?" she repeated. "Not deserve them, when you've saved +me--I don't yet understand how--from a horror worse than death--oh, but +a thousand times worse, for I wanted to die. I meant to die. If they had +found it, I shouldn't have lived to see to-morrow morning. Tell me--how +did you work such a miracle? How did you get this necklace, that meant +so much to me (and to one I love), and how did you hide the--other +thing?" + +"I don't know anything about this necklace," I answered, stupidly, "I +didn't bring it." + +"You--_didn't bring it_?" + +"No. At least, that red leather thing isn't the case I carried. When the +fellow pulled it out from the sofa, I saw it wasn't what I'd had, so I +thanked our lucky stars, and would have tried to let you know that all +hope wasn't over, if I'd dared to catch your eye or make a signal." + +Maxine was suddenly calm. The tears had dried on her cheeks, and her +eyes were fever-bright. + +"Ivor, you can't know what you are talking about," she said, in a +changed voice. "That red leather case is what you took out of your +breast pocket and handed to me when I first came into the room. At the +sound of the knock, I pushed it down as far as I could between the seat +and back of the sofa, and then ran off to a distance before the door +opened. You _did_ bring the necklace, knowingly or not; and as it was +the cause of all my trouble in the beginning, I needn't tell you of the +joy I had in seeing it, apart from the heavenly relief of being spared +discovery of the thing I feared. Now, when you've given me the other +packet, which you hid so marvellously, I can go away happy." + +I stared at her, feeling more than ever like one in a dream. + +"I gave you the only thing I brought," I said. "It was in my breast +pocket, inside my coat. I took it out, and put it in your hands. There +was no other thing. Look again in the sofa. It must be there still. This +red case is something else--we can try to account for it later. It all +came through the lights not working. If it hadn't been dusk you would +have seen that I gave you a dark green leather letter-case--quite +different from this, though of about the same length--rather less thick, +and--" + +Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back +of the sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be +nothing or the Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a +cry she cut me short at last throwing up her hands in despair. She was +deathly pale again, and all the light had gone out of her eyes leaving +them dull as if she had been sick with some long illness. + +"What will become of me?" she stammered. "The treaty lost! My God--what +shall I do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know--you are killing me?" + +The word "treaty" was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign +Secretary had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be +wholly in his secrets--and Maxine's. Yet hearing the word brought no +great surprise. I knew that I had been cat's-paw in some game of high +stakes. But it was of Maxine I thought now, and the importance of the +loss to her, not the national disaster which it might well be also. + +"Wait," I said, "don't despair yet. There's some mistake. Perhaps we +shall be able to see light when we've thrashed this out and talked it +over. I know I had a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I +thought of it and guarded it every moment. Could those diamonds have +been inside it? Could the Foreign Secretary had given me the necklace, +_instead_ of what you expected?" + +"No, no," she answered with desperate impatience. "He knew that the only +thing which could save me was the document I'd sent him. I wired that I +must have it back again immediately, for my own sake--for his--for the +sake of England. Ivor! Think again. Do you want me to go mad?" + +"I will think," I said, trying to speak reassuringly. "Give me a +moment--a quiet moment--" + +"A quiet moment," she repeated, bitterly, "when for me each second is an +hour! It's late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be +at the theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first +act are a heavy business. I don't want all Paris to know that Maxine de +Renzie has been ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we +can, for others' sakes, and so gain time for our own, if all is not +lost--if you believe still that there's any hope. Oh, save me, +Ivor--somehow. My whole life is in this." + +"Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," +I suggested. "You cannot go to the theatre in this state." + +"For an actress there's no such word as 'cannot,'" she said bitterly. "I +could play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next +instant; yet no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no +understudy. What use to have one? What audience would stop in the +theatre after an announcement that their Maxine's understudy would take +her place? Every man and woman would walk out and get his money back. +No; for the sake of the man I love better than my life, or twenty +lives--the man I've either saved or ruined--I'll play tonight, if I go +mad or kill myself to-morrow. Don't 'think quietly,' Ivor. Think out +aloud, and let me follow the workings of your mind. We may help each +other, so. Let us go over together everything that happened to you from +the minute you took the letter-case from the Foreign Secretary up to the +minute I came into this room." + +I obeyed, beginning at the very beginning and telling her all, except +the part that had to do with Diana Forrest. She had no concern in that. +I told her how I had slept with the green letter-case under my pillow, +and had waked to feel and look for it once or twice an hour. How when +morning came I had been late in getting to the train: how I had +struggled with the two men who tried to keep me out of the reserved +compartment into which they were intruding. How the man who had a right +to it, after wishing to prevent my entering, helped me in the end, +rather than be alone with the pair who had forced themselves upon him. +How he had stumbled almost into my arms in a panic, during the confusion +after the false alarm on the boat's gangway. How he had walked beside me +and seemed on the point of speaking, later, in the Gare du Nord. How I +had avoided and lost sight of him; but how I had many times covertly +touched my pocket to be sure that, through all, the letter-case was +still safe there. + +Maxine grew calmer, though not, I think, more hopeful as I talked; and +at last she folded up the diamonds neatly in the red case, which she +gave to me. "Put that into the same pocket," she said, "and then pass +your hand over your coat, as you did often before. Now, does it feel +exactly as if it were the green letter-case with which you started out?" + +"Yes, I think it does," I answered, doubtfully. "I'm afraid I shouldn't +know the difference. This _may_ be a little thicker than the other, +but--I can't be sure. And, you see, I never once had a chance to +unbutton my coat and look at the thing I had in this inner pocket. It +would have attracted too much attention to risk that; and as a matter of +fact, I was especially warned not to do it. I could trust only to the +touch. But even granting that, by a skill almost clever enough for +sleight of hand--a skill which only the smartest pickpocket in Europe +could possess--why should a thief who had stolen my letter-case give me +instead a string of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds? If he +wanted to put something into my pocket of much the same size and shape +as the thing he stole, so that I shouldn't suspect my loss, why didn't +he slip in the red case _empty_, instead of containing the necklace?" + +"_This_ necklace, too, of all things in the world!" murmured Maxine, +lost in the mystery. "It's like a dream. Yet here--by some miracle--it +is, in our hands. And the treaty is gone." + +"The treaty is gone," I repeated, miserably. + +It was Maxine herself who had spoken the words which I merely echoed, +yet it almost killed her to hear them from me. No doubt it gave the +dreadful fact a kind of inevitability. She flung herself down on the +sofa with a groan, her face buried in her hands. + +"My God, what a punishment!" she stammered. "I've ruined the man I +risked everything to save. I will go to the theatre, and I will act +to-night, my friend, but unless you can give me back what is lost, when +to-morrow morning comes, I shall be out of the world." + +"Don't say that," I implored, sick with pity for her and shame at my +failure. "All hope isn't over yet; it can't be. I'll think this out. +There must be a solution. There must be a way of laying hold of what +_seems_ to be gone. If by giving my life I could get it, I assure you I +wouldn't hesitate for an instant, now: so you see, there's nothing I +won't do to help you. Only, I wish the path could be made a little +plainer for me--unless for some reason it's necessary for you to keep me +in the dark. The word 'treaty' I heard for the first time from you. I +didn't know what I was bringing you, except that it was a document of +international importance, and that you'd been helping the British +Foreign Secretary--perhaps Great Britain as a Power--in some ticklish +manoeuvre of high politics. He said that, so far as he was concerned, +you might tell me more if you liked. He left it to you. That was his +message." + +"Then I will tell you more!" Maxine exclaimed. "It will be better to do +so. I know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document +you were bringing me was a treaty--a quite new treaty between Japan, +Russia and France: not a copy, but the original. England had been warned +that there was a secret understanding between the three countries, +unknown to her. There was no time to make a copy. And I stole the real +treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am engaged--whom I adore, Ivor, +as I didn't know it was in me to adore any man. You know his name, +perhaps--that he's Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in Paris. +Oh, I can read in your eyes what you're thinking of me, now. You can't +think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for +Raoul's sake. There's that in my defence--only that." + +"I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's +treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help +feeling. + +"How could you?--except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you +everything--I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you +scorn me, too. You'll work for me--to save me, and him. For years I've +helped the British Government. Oh, I won't spare myself. I've been a +spy, sometimes against one Power, sometimes against another. When there +was anything to do against Russia, I was always glad, because my dear +father was a Pole, and you know how Poles feel towards Russia. Russia +ruined his life, and stripped it of everything worth having, not only +money, but--oh, well, that's not in this story of mine! I won't trouble +you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young girl, I +was already the enemy of all that's Russian, with a big debt of revenge +to pay. And I've been paying it, slowly. Don't think that the money I've +had for my work--hateful work often--has been used for myself. It's been +for my father's country--poor, sad country--every shilling of English +coin. As an actress I've supported myself, and, as an actress, it has +been easier for me to do the other secret work than it would have been +for a woman leading a more sheltered life, mingling less with +distinguished persons of different countries, or unable to be eccentric +without causing scandal. As for France, she's the friend of Russia, and +I haven't a drop of French blood in my veins, so, at least, I've never +been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made some great _coups_ in +the last eight or nine years, Ivor!... for I began before I was sixteen, +and now I'm twenty-six. Once or twice England has had to thank me for +giving her news of the most vital importance. You're shocked to hear +what my inner life has been?" + +"If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half +conventional. One hardly knows how conventional one's opinions are until +one stops to think," said I. + +"Once, I gloried in the work," Maxine went on. "But that was before I +fell in love. You and I have played a little at being in love, but that +was to pass the time. Both of us were flirting. I'd never met Raoul +then, and I've never really loved any man except him. It came at first +sight, for me: and when he told me that he cared, he said it had begun +when he first saw me on the stage; so you see it is as if we were meant +for each other. From the moment I gave him my promise, I promised myself +that the old work should be given up for ever: Raoul's _fiancee_, +Raoul's wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists. Besides, as he's a +Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which Maxine de Renzie +never owed. I wanted--oh, how much I wanted--to be only what Raoul +believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide. It +made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal +from him, but I did the best I could. I vowed to myself that I'd break +with the past, and I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, +who has always been a good friend of mine. I said I was engaged, and +hoped to begin my life all over again in a different way, though he +might be sure that I'd know how to keep his secrets as well as my own. +Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week ago! I was happy +then. I feel twenty years older now." + +"A week ago. You've been engaged only a week?" I broke in. + +"Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but +he wouldn't have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn't lost +his head a little. He hadn't meant to speak, it seems, for he's poor, +and he thought he had no right. But what's a man worth who doesn't lose +his head when he loves a woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to +let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn't +care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end. There +were reasons why--more than one: but the man of all others whom I didn't +want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had +happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding--Count +Godensky of the Russian Embassy. He called, and was let in by mistake +while Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces +that there was something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did +suspect. Oh, a hateful person! I've refused him three times. There are +some men so vain that they can never believe a woman really means to say +'no' to them. Count Godensky is one of those, and he's dangerous, too. +I'm afraid of him, since I've cared for Raoul, though I used to be +afraid of no one, when I'd only myself to think of. Raoul was going away +that very night. He had an errand to do for a woman who was a dear and +intimate friend of his dead mother. You must know of the Duchesse de +Montpellier? Well, it was for her: and Raoul is like her son. She has no +children of her own." + +"I don't know her," I said, "but I've seen her; a charming looking +woman, about forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband--a fellow who might +be rather a Tartar to live with. They were pointed out to me at Monte +Carlo one year, in the Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying +herself hugely, though the Duke had the air of being dragged in against +his will." + +"No doubt he had been--or else he was there to fetch her out. Poor dear, +she's a dreadful gambler. It's in her blood! I She lost, I don't know +how much, at Monte Carlo on an 'infallible system' she had. She's afraid +of her husband, though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she's +had for Bridge has cost her so much that she daren't tell the Duke, who +hates her gambling. She confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help +her--not with money, for he has none, but by taking a famous and +wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, selling the stones for +her there, and having them replaced with paste. It was all to be done +very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn't know, and Raoul +hated it, but he couldn't refuse. He had no idea of telling me this +story, that day when he 'lost his head,' while we were bidding each +other good-bye before his journey. He didn't mention the name of the +Duchess, but said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on +business. But while he was away a _dreadful_ thing happened--the most +ghastly misfortune--and as we were engaged to be married, he felt +obliged when he came back to let me know the worst." + +"What was the dreadful thing that happened?" I asked, as she paused, +pressing her hands against her temples. + +"The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one +of the most expert in the world. Can you imagine Raoul's feelings? He +came to me in despair, asking my advice. What was he to do? He dared not +appeal to the police, or the Duchess's secret would come out. And he +couldn't bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such +a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the +jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and +_might_ be tempted to believe that he'd only pretended the diamonds were +stolen--while really he'd sold them for his own use." + +"As she's fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought +no such thing," I tried to comfort Maxine. "But certainly, it was a +rather bad fix." + +"Rather bad fix! Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen. All you think of +is to hide your feelings behind icy words. As for me--well, there was +nothing I wouldn't have done to help him--nothing. My life would have +been a small thing to give. I would have given my soul. And already a +thought came flashing into my mind. I begged Raoul to wait, and say +nothing to the Duchess, who didn't even know yet that he'd come back +from Amsterdam. The thought in my mind was about the commission from +your Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As I told you, I'd just sent him +word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn't +do what he wanted. He'd offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake +the service, and four more if I succeeded. I believed I could succeed if +I tried. And with the few thousands I'd saved up, and selling such +jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for +the necklace. Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never +know that the diamonds had been stolen. All that night I lay awake +thinking, thinking. Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be +working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as +well as I could. I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen +or twenty thousand pounds in my hands--all for him. To let him have the +money would make me happier than I'd ever been. At first he said he +wouldn't take it from me--I knew he would say that! But, at last, after +I'd cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a +loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back. In that office +there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay +together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of +all--where the really sacred and valuable things were kept. He laughed +and pointed out the most interesting one--the one, he said, which held +all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy. I was sure then +that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be +there, though it was such a new thing that it couldn't have been +anywhere for long. 'There are three keys to that safe,' said Raoul. 'One +is kept by the President; one is always with the Foreign Secretary; this +is the third'; and he showed me a strange little key different to any I +had seen before. 'Oh, do let me have a peep at these wonderful papers,' +I pleaded with him. Before coming I had planned what to do. Round my +throat I wore a string of imitation pearls, which I'd put on for a +special purpose. But they were pretty, and so well made that only an +expert would know they weren't real. Raoul isn't an expert; so at the +moment he fitted the key into the lock of the safe to open the door, I +gave a sly little pull, and broke the thread, making the pearls roll +everywhere about the floor. He was quite distressed, forgot all about +the key in the lock, and flew to pick up the pearls as if each one were +worth at least a thousand francs. + +"While he was busy finding the lost beads, I whipped out the key, took +an impression of it on a piece of wax I had ready, concealed in my +handkerchief, and slipped it back into the lock while he was still on +his hands and knees on the floor. Then he opened the safe-door for a +moment, just to give me the peep I had begged for, but not long enough +for me to touch anything even if I'd dared to try with him standing +there. Enough, though, to show me that the documents were neatly +arranged in labelled pigeon-holes, and to see their general character, +colour, and shape. That same day a key to fit the lock was being made; +and when it was ready, I made an excuse to call again on Raoul at the +office. Not that a very elaborate excuse was needed. The poor fellow, +trusting me as he trusts himself, or more, was only too glad to have me +come to him, even in that sacred place. Now, the thing was to get him +away. But I'd made up my mind what to do. In another office, upstairs, +was a friend of Raoul's--the one who introduced us to each other, and +I'd made up a message for him, which I begged Raoul to take, and bring +his friend to speak to me. He went, and I believed I might count on five +minutes to myself. No more--but those five minutes would have to be +enough for success or failure. The instant the door shut behind Raoul, I +was at the safe. The key fitted. I snatched out a folded document, and +opened it to make quite, quite certain it was the right one, for a +mistake would be inexcusable and spoil everything. It was what I +wanted--the treaty, newly made, between Japan, Russia and France--the +treaty which your Foreign Secretary thought he had reason to believe was +a secret one, arranged between the three countries without the knowledge +of England and to the prejudice of her interests. The one glance I had +gave me the impression that the document was nothing of the kind, but +quite innocent, affecting trade only; yet that wasn't my business. I had +to send it to the Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know its precise +nature, and whether England was being deceived. In place of the treaty I +slipped into its pigeon-hole a document I'd brought with me--just like +the real thing. No one opening the safe on other business would suspect +the change that had been made. My hope was to get the treaty back before +it should be missed. You see, I was betraying Raoul, to save him. Do you +understand?" + +"I understand. You must have persuaded yourself that you were justified. +But, good Heavens, Maxine," I couldn't help breaking out, "it was an +awful thing to do." + +"I know--I know. But I had to have the money--for Raoul. And there was +no other way to get it. You remember, I'd refused, till the diamonds +were lost, and would have refused even if Raoul had nothing to do with +the French Foreign Office. But let me go on telling you what happened. I +had time enough. I had even a minute or two to spare. And fortunately +for me, the man I'd sent Raoul to find was out. I looked at my watch, +pretended to be surprised, and said I must go at once. I couldn't bear +to waste a second in hurrying the treaty off, so that it might the more +quickly be on its way back. I hadn't come to visit Raoul in my own +carriage, but in a cab, which was waiting. As Raoul was taking me to it, +Count Godensky got out of a motor-brougham, and saw me. If only it had +been anywhere except in front of the Foreign Office! I told myself there +was no reason why he should guess that anything was wrong, but I was in +such a state of nerves that, as he raised his hat, and his eyebrows, I +fancied that he imagined all sorts of things, and I felt myself grow red +and pale. What a fool I was--and how weak! But I couldn't help it. I +didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the +packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post--but after all, +it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was Godensky again, in +his motor-brougham. _That_ could have been no coincidence. A horrid +certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the +Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of +that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; +yet this time, this time of all others, I seemed fated." + +"But if Godensky had known what you were doing, the game would have been +up for you before this," I said. + +"He didn't know, of course. Only--if he wants to be a woman's lover and +she won't have him, he's her enemy and he's the enemy of the man who +_is_ her lover. He's too clever and too careful of his own interests to +speak out prematurely anything he might vaguely suspect, for it would do +him harm if he proved mistaken. He wouldn't yet, I think, even warn +those whom it might concern, to search and see if anything in Raoul's +charge were out of order or missing. But what he would do, what I think +he has done, is this. Having some idea, as he may have, that my +relations with certain important persons in England are rather friendly, +and seeing me come from the Foreign Office to go almost straight to the +post, it might have occurred to him to try and learn the name of my +correspondent. He has influence--he could perhaps have found out: but if +he did, it wouldn't have helped him much, for naturally, my dealings +with the British Foreign Secretary are always well under cover--hence a +delay sometimes in his receiving word from me. What I send can never go +straight to him, as you may guess. Godensky would guess that, too: and +he would have perhaps informed the police, very cautiously, very +unofficially and confidentially, that he suspected Maxine de Renzie of +being a political spy in the pay of England. He would have advised that +my movements be watched for the next few days: that English agents of +the French police be warned to watch also, on their side of the Channel. +He would have argued to himself that if I'd sent any document away, with +Raoul's connivance or without, I would be wanting it back as soon as +possible; and he would have mentioned to the police that possibly a +messenger would bring me something--if my correspondence through the +post was found to contain nothing compromising. Oh, there have been eyes +on me, and on every movement of mine, I'm sure. See how efficient, +though quiet, the methods have been where you're concerned. They--the +police--knew the name of the man I was to meet here at this hotel; and +if, as Godensky must have hoped, any document belonging to the French +Government had been found on you or me, everything would have played +into his hands. Raoul would have been ruined, his heart broken, and +I--but there are no words to express what I would have suffered, what I +may yet have to suffer. Godensky would be praised for his cleverness, as +well as securing a satisfactory revenge on me for refusing him. The only +thing which rejoices me now is the thought of his blank disappointment +when he gets the news from the Commissary of Police." + +"You don't believe then," I asked, "that Godensky has had any hand in +the disappearance of the treaty?" + +"I would believe it, if it weren't for the necklace being put in its +place. Even if Count Godensky could have known of Raoul's mission with +the diamonds, and got them into his own hands, he wouldn't have let them +get out again with every chance of their going back to Raoul, and thus +saving him from his trouble. He'd do nothing to help, but everything to +hinder. There lies the mystery--in the return of the necklace instead of +the treaty. You have no knowledge of it, you tell me; yet you come to me +with it in your pocket--the necklace stolen from Raoul du Laurier, days +ago, in Amsterdam or on the way there." + +"You're certain it's the same?" + +"Certain as that you are you, and I am I. And I'm not out of my mind +yet--though I soon shall be, unless you somehow save me from this +horror." + +"I'm going to try," I said. "Don't give up hope. I wish, though, that +you hadn't to act to-night." + +"So do I. But there's no way out of it. And I must go now to the +theatre, or I shall be late: my make-up's a heavy one, and takes a long +time. I can't afford to have any talk about me and my affairs to-night, +whatever comes afterwards. Raoul will be in a box, and at the end of the +first act, he'll be at the door of my dressing-room. The agony of seeing +him, of hearing him praise my acting, and saying dear, trusting, loving +words that would make me almost too happy, if I hadn't betrayed him, +ruined his career for ever!" + +"Maybe not," I said. "And anyhow, there's the necklace. That's +something." + +"Yes, that's something." + +"Will Godensky be in the audience, too?" I asked. + +"I'm sure he will. He couldn't keep away. But he may be late. He won't +come until he's had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried +to thrash matters out." + +"If only your theory's right, then,--if he hasn't dared yet to throw +suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its +contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little +time before us still: we're comparatively safe for a few hours." + +"We're as safe," answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, "as +if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid +to fire it. But"--she broke off bitterly, "why do I say '_we_'. To you +all this can be no more than a regret, a worry." + +"You know that's not just!" I reproached her. "I'm in this with you now, +heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I'd give my +life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I've given something, +but--" + +"What have you given?" she caught me up quickly. + +"My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier," I +answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I +could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without +helping me bear mine. + +"I don't understand," she said. + +"Don't think of it. You can do nothing; and I don't grudge the +sacrifice--or anything," I hurried on. + +"Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond +this tangle. But now, it must be _au revoir_. Save me, save Raoul, if +you can, Ivor. What you can do, I don't know. I'm groping in darkness. +Yet you're my one hope. For pity's sake, come to my house when the +play's over, to tell me what you've done, if you've been able to do +anything. Be there at twelve." + +"I promise." + +"Thank you. I shall live for that moment. Now, give me the diamonds, and +I'll go. I don't want you to be seen with me outside this room." + +I gave her the necklace, and she was at the door before I could open it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +IVOR IS LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT + +I was glad to be alone, for as I had said, I wanted to think quietly. + +Maxine had taken the diamonds, but she had slipped the necklace into the +bosom of her dress, pressing it down through the rather low-cut opening +at the throat, and had therefore left the leather case. I picked the +thing up from the table where she had thrown it, and examined it +carefully for the first time. + +It had not been originally intended as a jewel-case, that was clear; and +as Maxine's voice had rung unmistakably true when she denied all +previous knowledge of it to the police, I judged that the diamonds had +not been in it when the Duchess entrusted them to du Laurier. He would +almost certainly have described to Maxine the box or case which had been +stolen from him, and if the thing pulled out from the sofa-hiding-place +had recalled his description, she must have betrayed some emotion under +the keen eyes of the Commissary of Police. + +The case which, it seemed, I had brought to Paris, looked as if it might +have been made to hold a peculiar kind of cigar, much longer than the +ordinary sort. Within, on either side, was a partition, and there was a +silver clasp on which the hallmark was English. + +"English silver!" I said to myself, thoughtfully. The three men who had +travelled in the carriage with me from London to Dover were all English. +Of the trio, only the nervous little fellow who had reserved the +compartment for himself had found the smallest possible opportunity to +steal the treaty from me, and exchange for it this red leather case +containing a diamond necklace worth twenty thousand pounds. If he +possessed the skill and quick deftness of a conjurer or a marvellously +clever professional pickpocket, as well as the incentive of a paid spy, +he might conceivably have done the trick at the moment of alarm on the +boat's gangway, not afterwards; for when he had pressed near me in the +Gare du Nord he had been on the wrong side. But for my life I could not +guess the motive for such an exchange. + +Supposing him a spy, employed to track and rob me of what I carried, why +should he have made me a present of these rare and precious diamonds? +Would the bribe for which he used his skill reach anything like the sum +he could obtain by selling the stones? I was almost sure it would not; +and therefore, having the diamonds, it would have been far more to his +advantage to keep them than to stuff them into my pocket, simply to fill +up the space where the case with the treaty had lain. There would not +have been time yet for the real diamonds to have been copied in +Amsterdam, therefore it would be useless to build up a theory that the +stones given me might be false. + +Besides, I reminded myself, if the man were a spy whose business was to +watch and be near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where +I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and +trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it +with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing +into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been +arranged to catch me. + +Maxine and I had talked for a long time, but not two hours had passed +yet since I saw the last of the little rat of a man in the +railway-station. Though I could not understand any reason for his +tricking me, still I told myself that nobody else could have done it, +and I decided to go back at once to the Gare du Nord. There I might +still be able to find some trace of the little man and of my two other +fellow-travellers. If through a porter or cabman I could learn where +they had gone, I might have a chance even now of getting back the stolen +treaty. I had brought with me from London a loaded revolver, warned by +the Foreign Secretary that to do so would be a wise precaution; and I +was ready to make use of it if necessary. + +I was beginning to be very hungry, but that was a detail of no +importance, for I had no time to waste in eating. I went to the +railway-station and looked about until I found a porter whose face I had +seen when I got out of the train. He had, in fact, appeared under the +window of my compartment, offering himself as a luggage carrier and had +been close behind me when my late travelling companion walked by my +side. Questioned, he appeared not to remember; but his wits being +sharpened by the gift of a franc, he reflected and recalled not only my +features but the features of the little man, whom he described with +sufficient accuracy. What had become of _le petit Monsieur_ he was not +certain, but fancied he had eventually driven away in a cab accompanied +by two other gentlemen. He recollected this circumstance, because the +face of the cabman was one that he knew; and it was now again in the +station, for the _voiture_ had returned. Would he point out the _cocher_ +to me? He would, and did, receiving a second franc for his pains. + +The cab driver proved to be a dull and surly fellow, like many another +_cocher_ of Paris, but the clink of silver and the sight of it mellowed +him. I began by saying that I was in search of three friends of mine +whom I was to have met when the boat train came in, but whom I had +unfortunately missed. I asked him to describe the men he had driven away +from the station at that time, and though he did it clumsily, betraying +an irritating lack of observation when it came to details, still such +information as I could draw from him sounded encouraging. He remembered +perfectly well the place at which he had deposited his three passengers, +and I decided to take the risk of following them. + +When I say "risk," I mean the risk that the man I was starting to chase +might turn out not to be the man I wished to follow. Besides, as they +had been driven to Neuilly, the distance was so great that, if I went +there in a cab, and found at last that I had made a mistake, I should +have wasted a great deal of valuable time on the wrong tack. If the +driver had remembered the name of the street, and the number of the +house at which he had paused, I would have hired a motor and flashed out +to the place in a few minutes; but, despite a suggested bribe, he could +say no more than that, when he had come to a certain place, one of his +passengers had called, "Turn down the next street, to the left." He had +done so, and in front of a house, almost midway along that street, he +had been bidden to stop. He had not bothered to look at the name of the +street; but, though he was not very familiar with that neighbourhood, +various landmarks would guide him to the right place, when he came to +pass them again. + +Having heard all he had to say, I reluctantly made up my mind that I +could do no better than take the man as my conductor; and accordingly, +with a horse already tired, I drove to Neuilly. There, the landmarks +were not deceiving, as I was half afraid they would be; and in a quiet +street of the suburb, we stopped at last before a fair-sized house with +lights in many windows. Evidently it was a _pension_. + +Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English +gentlemen had lately arrived. He replied that they had, and were dining. +Would Monsieur give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until +dinner should be over? + +My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant's hand, and +suggest that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without +waiting. + +My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, +lest they fly away. If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at +least they could not escape before being recognised by me: and as to +what should come after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide. + +The five franc piece worked like a charm. I was promptly ushered into +the dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long +table with a quick, eager glance. About eighteen or twenty people were +dining, but, though several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who +resembled my travelling companions. + +Everyone turned and stared. There was no face of which I had not a good +view. In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of +whom he had spoken. He pointed them out, and added that, though they had +come only that day from England, they were old patrons, well known in +the house. + +As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the +_pension_, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily +up to enquire the stranger's business in his dining-room. I explained +that I had hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to +get permission for my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the +door. When he had identified his three passengers, all hope was over. I +had followed the wrong men. + +There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question +more porters and cabmen. Nobody could give me any information worth +having, it seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a +vehicle of some sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage. Since I +could learn nothing of him or his movements, however, and dared not, +because of Maxine and the British Foreign Secretary, apply to the police +for help, I determined to lose no more time before consulting a private +detective, a man whose actions I could control, and to whom I need tell +only as much of the truth as I chose, without fear of having the rest +dragged out of me. + +At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good +private detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing +my nerves. Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was +at home and able to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat +little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment +house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, +thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome. It was cunning, as well as +clever, no doubt: but then, I told myself, it was the business of a +person in Monsieur Girard's profession to be cunning. + +I introduced myself as Mr. Sanford, the name I had been told to give at +the Elysee Palace Hotel. This seemed best, as it was in the hotel that I +had been recommended to Monsieur Girard, and complications might arise +if George Sandford suddenly turned into Ivor Dundas. Besides, as there +were a good many things which I did not want brought to light, Sandford +seemed the man to fit the situation. Later, he could easily disappear +and leave no trace. + +I said that I had been robbed of a thing which was of immense value to +me, but as it was the gift of a lady whose name must not on any account +appear in the case, I did not wish to consult the police. All I asked of +Monsieur Girard's well-known ability was the discovery of the supposed +thief, whom I thereupon described. I added the fact that we had +travelled together, mentioned the incident at the gangway, and explained +that I had not suspected my loss until I arrived at the Elysee Palace +Hotel. + +Girard listened quietly, evidently realising that I talked to him from +behind a screen of reserve, yet not seeking to force me to put aside +that screen. He asked several intelligent questions, very much to the +point, and I answered them--as seemed best. When he touched on points +which I considered too delicate to be handled by a stranger, even a +detective in my employ, I frankly replied that they had nothing to do +with the case in hand. Shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly, yet +expressively, he took my refusals without comment; and merely bowed when +I said that, if the scoundrel could be unearthed within twenty-four +hours, I would pay a hundred pounds: if within twelve, a hundred and +fifty: if within six, two hundred. I added that there was not a second +to waste, as the fellow might slip out of Paris at any minute; but +whatever happened, Monsieur Girard was to keep the matter quiet. + +The detective promised to do his best, (which was said to be very good), +held out hopes of success, and assured me of his discretion. On the +whole, I was pleased with him. He looked like a man who thoroughly knew +his business; and had it not been for the solemn warning of the Foreign +Secretary, and the risk for Maxine, I would gladly have put more +efficient weapons in Girard's hands, by telling him everything. + +By the time that the detective had been primed with such facts and +details as I could give, it was past ten o'clock. I could see my way to +do nothing more for the moment, and as I was half famished, I whizzed +back in my hired automobile to the Elysee Palace Hotel. There I had food +served in my own sitting-room, lest George Sandford should chance +inconveniently upon some acquaintance of Ivor Dundas, in the restaurant. +I did not hurry over the meal, for all I wanted now was to arrive at +Maxine de Renzie's house at twelve o'clock, and tell her my news--or +lack of news. She would be there waiting for me, I was sure, no matter +how prompt I might be, for though in ordinary circumstances, after the +first performance of a new play, either Maxine would have gone out to +supper, or invited guests to sup with her, she would have accepted no +invitation, given none, for to-night. She would hurry out of the +theatre, probably without waiting to remove her stage make-up, and she +would go home unaccompanied, except by her maid. + +Maxine lives in a charming little old-fashioned house, set back in its +own garden, a great "find" in a good quarter of Paris; and her house +could he reached in ten minutes' drive from my hotel. I would not go as +far as the gate, but would dismiss my cab at the corner of the quiet +street, as it would not he wise to advertise the fact that Mademoiselle +de Renzie was receiving a visit from a young man at midnight. Fifteen +minutes would give me plenty of time for all this: therefore, at about a +quarter to twelve I started to go downstairs, and in the entrance hall +almost ran against the last person on earth I expected to see--Diana +Forrest. + +She was not alone, of course; but for a second or two I saw no one else. +There was none other except her precious and beautiful face in the +world; and for a wild instant I asked myself if she had come here to see +me, to take back all her cruel words of misunderstanding, and to take me +hack also. But it was only for an instant--a very mad instant. + +Then I realised that she couldn't have known I was to be at the Elysee +Palace Hotel, and that even if she had, she would not have dreamed of +coming to me. As common sense swept my brain clear, I saw near the +precious and beautiful face other faces: Lady Mountstuart's, Lord +Mountstuart's, Lisa Drummond's, and Bob West's. + +They were all in evening dress, the ladies in charming wraps which +appeared to consist mostly of lace and chiffon, and evidently they had +just come into the hotel from some place of amusement. The beautiful +face, which had been pale, grew rosy at sight of me, though whether with +amazement or anger, or both, I couldn't tell. Lisa smiled, looking more +impish even than usual; but it was plain that the others, Lord +Mountstuart among them, were surprised to see me here. + +"Goodness, is it you or your ghost?" exclaimed Lady Mountstuart, in the +soft accents of California, which have never changed in spite of the +long years of her married life in England. + +If it had been my ghost it would have vanished immediately, to save Di +from embarrassment, and also to prevent any delay in getting to +Maxine's. But, unfortunately, a flesh and blood young man must stop for +conventional politeness before he can disappear, no matter what presses. + +I said "How do you do?" to everyone, adding that I was as surprised to +see them as they could be to see me. I even grinned civilly at Lord +Robert West, though finding him here with Di, looking particularly +pleased with himself, made me want to knock him down. + +"Oh, it was a plan, as far as Mounty and Lord Robert and I are +concerned," explained Lady Mountstuart. "Of course, Lord Robert ought to +have been at the Duchess's bazaar this afternoon, but then he won't show +up at such things, even to please his sister, and Di and Lisa were to +have represented me there. To-day and to-morrow are the only days all +three of us could possibly steal to get away and look at a most +wonderful motor car; made for a Rajah who died before it was ready. Lord +Robert certainly knows more about automobiles than any other human being +does, and he thought this was just what I would want. Di had the most +horrid headache this morning, poor child, and wasn't fit for the fatigue +of a big crush, so, as she's a splendid sailor, I persuaded her to come +with us--and Lisa, too, of course. We caught the afternoon train to +Boulogne, and had such a glorious crossing that we actually all had the +courage to dress and dine at Madrid--wasn't it plucky of us? But we're +collapsing now, and have come back early, as we must inspect the car the +first thing to-morrow morning and do a heap of shopping afterwards." + +"If you're collapsing, I mustn't keep you standing here a moment," I +said, anxious for more than one reason to get away. Di wasn't looking at +me. Half turned from me, purposely I didn't doubt, she had begun a +conversation with Bob West, who beamed with joy over her kindness to him +and her apparent indifference to me. + +"'Collapsing' is an exaggeration perhaps," laughed Lady Mountstuart. +"But, instead of keeping us standing here, come up to our sitting-room +and have a little talk--and whisky and soda." + +"Yes, do come, Dundas," her husband added. + +"Thank you both," I stammered, trying not to look embarrassed. "But--I +know you're all tired, and--." + +"And perhaps you have some nice engagement," piped Lisa. + +"It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in +naughty Paris," said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very +handsome when she laughs, and knows it). "Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?" + +"It depends upon the engagement," I managed to reply calmly. But then, +as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, +the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young +ass of a schoolboy. "I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged. +A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, +and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late. +Good-bye,--good-bye." Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them +again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a +horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I +turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to +do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or +something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been. + +Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me +faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he +would know it. + +I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under +porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, +but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought +not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that +I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street +leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself. + +"_Depechez vous_" I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer +than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The +man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street +at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly +ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came +to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour +after midnight. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF + +How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know. + +When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning +of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single +line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist +which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew +he would be sitting unless--something had happened. But presently I was +conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, +Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my +chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows. +I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and +I would not now--above all, not now. + +It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I +couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to +answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to +let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. +Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had +feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I +liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout +"Brava-brava!" + +Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, +as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. "What +if they know all I've done?" The question flashed across my brain. "What +if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie +had betrayed France for money, English money?" How these hands which +applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out. + +Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful +undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I +think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women +who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to +me that they must suffer less. + +At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain +calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look +delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I +could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big +harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up +to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew +that Raoul would be waiting. + +There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome +lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in +modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the +Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in +diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old +Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he +is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as +beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it +were not for the eyes, and lips. + +There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd +led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. +Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough +to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send +him away, and go to dress for the second act. + +The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, +gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's +something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of +the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even +if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with +more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as +with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic +reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du +Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his +shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word. + +I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping +up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be +to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three +hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, +back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how +little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would +put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had +done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me. + +For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to +Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's +ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a +man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth +itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause. +Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself +truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover +and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had +realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms. + +Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing +on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so +good, so pure. + +What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to +hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his +eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves +in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on +through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into +the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot; +how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black +bat! + +I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I +shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe +me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a +heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it +really was! + +"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you--how +proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I +did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night." + +It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. +Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had +comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to +help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his +salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who +so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long +to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were +safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I +had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it +were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But +how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty +had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not +on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love? + +The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said +to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this +might be the last time that his eyes--those eyes that are not +cold--might look at me with love in them, as now. + +"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of +applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for +me?" + +"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered, +holding me very close. + +"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I +can't bear you to belong to others--even to the public that appreciates +you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud +that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore +you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd +be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it +for you, to shield you from it always." + +"Then, what _is_ there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling +on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink +of a precipice. + +"Nothing on God's earth--while you kept true to me." + +"And if I weren't true--if I deceived you?" + +"Why, I'd kill you--and myself after. But it makes me see red--a blazing +scarlet--even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it--when +it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you +wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin." + +I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I +wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. +Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness--perhaps +the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had +for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so +many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him +short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me. +Then--long before it ought, so it seemed--the clock in mydressing-room +struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first +nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down +(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, +more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by +midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know +the worst--or best. + +"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news +for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give +you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third +and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come +behind again. I shan't take any calls--after dying, it's too inartistic, +isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here, +in this room, before I dress to go home." + +"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised +me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house--just you +and I alone together--on the first night of the new play." + +My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had +I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. +There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had +crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away +from him involuntarily with a start of surprise. + +"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt. + +"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired +and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But--" + +"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I +paused to think what I should do. + +His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I +couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me. + +"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The +question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper. +My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old +Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, +generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll +see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come +here--after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, +but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was +a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows +too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I +had little time to comfort him. + +"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now, +good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_." + +I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where +Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up +things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for +the next act. + +"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door +keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now." + +A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and +thought it best to warn me without delay? + +"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once." + +Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old +enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but +something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary +promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the +envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky. + +I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort +of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid +of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the +treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and +try to drive some dreadful bargain. + +Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to +go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as +I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before +my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the +dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis +Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, +when he chose. + + "MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been + given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to + call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening, + alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more + than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with + you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I + am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be + willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were + before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage + door when you come out. + + "Yours, in whatever way you will, + + "ALEXIS." + +If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have +been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. +Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your +answer." + +But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done +what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he +need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to +order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But +how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go +home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. +At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I +left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be +Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape +from such an _impasse_? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS + +I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt +dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck," I said +to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it +all out." + +But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine +de Renzie, but Princess Helene of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even +more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Helene had +died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to +die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, +where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for +answer, and must somehow be decided at once. + +First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my +best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must +forego, and hurt him instead. + +The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was +already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Helene had +died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to +leave the stage. + +As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing +them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face +was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden +live flame among red ashes. + +"What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside +my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had +come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?" + +Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the +tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene, +darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like +this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is +it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever +before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to +sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a +poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the +third act, and then Helene might have been happily married, instead of +dying." + +"I believe you would have killed him," I said. + +"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm +jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not +an insult." + +"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage--" + +"If the woman I love is the heroine." + +"Will you ever be blase, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed, +though I could have sobbed. + +"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?" + +"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind +of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away. + +"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money +enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some +beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love +for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and +to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?" + +"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into +that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--" + +"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a +coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like +a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the +stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to +touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You +_will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the +house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must +drive me out then?" + +I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes." +But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we +mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew +that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he +dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I +said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately +offered to leave me at once. + +"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking +forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of +all nights." + +"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience +frightening me again. + +"Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of +course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I +feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it." + +"You must say it," I cried. + +"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in +danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing +more. Rather womanish, isn't it?" + +"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one +wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all +the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying +different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or +ever." + +I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: + +"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll +like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room." + +Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and +there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with +my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the +least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would +have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as +placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than +she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my +jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred +thousand francs. + +There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt +perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on +earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of +my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she +would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands. + +Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my +third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the +box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my +carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the +diamonds on fire. + +Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how +magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The +necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels +depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp +came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were +almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, +extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless. +Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting +even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value. + +With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the +treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and +slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade +which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a +friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was +intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. +Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly +planned out my way of giving it to Raoul. + +At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his +hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind, +because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible--quite, +quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his +seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was +jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and +it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my +profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him +to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he +thought that he had the least cause. + +If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He +would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen +Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say--whether truth or +fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it +would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety, +and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I +was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might +bring, either for him or for me. + +I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it +to Raoul in the next room. + +"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a +mystery. "You'll value the something, I know--partly for itself, partly +because I--because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When +you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me--just for tonight. But +you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one +of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter +a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me +when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the +sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every +minute, asleep or awake." + +"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and +silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a +woman's things. + +"Because--just _because_. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I +said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag +away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held +nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves. + +"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard, +for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in +my heart--the fear that it might be for the last time. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY + +When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold +and filmy tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Helene had died, and +into the black gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had +come to the theatre. I did not even stop to take off my make-up, for +though the play was an unusually short one, and all the actors and +actresses had followed my example of prompt readiness for all four acts, +it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was dressed. I had to see +Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in time to keep my +appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain every +nerve not to be late. + +My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to +speak to Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or +two whether he had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly. +But if I could avoid it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long +conversation until later. + +I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky +knew me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the +door. + +"Good-evening," he said. "A hundred congratulations." + +He put out his hand, and I had to give him mine, for my chauffeur and +the stage-door keeper (to say nothing of Marianne, who followed me +closely), and several stage-carpenters, with other employes of the +theatre, were within seeing and hearing distance. I wanted no gossip, +though that was exactly what might best please Count Godensky. + +"I got your note," I answered, in Russian, though he had spoken in +French. "What is it you want to see me about?" + +"Something that can't be told in a moment," he said. "Something of great +importance." + +"I'm very tired," I sighed. "Can't it wait until to-morrow?" + +I tried to "draw" him, and to a certain extent, I succeeded. + +"You wouldn't ask that question, if you guessed what--I know," he +replied. + +Was it a bluff, or did he know--not merely suspect--something? + +"I don't understand you," I said quietly, though my lips were dry. + +"Shall I mention the word--_document?_" he hinted. "Really, I'm sure you +won't regret it if you let me drive home with you, Mademoiselle." + +"I can't do that," I answered. "And I can't take you into my carriage +here. But I'll stop for you, and wait at the corner Rue Eugene +Beauharnais. Then you can go with me until I think it best for you to +get out." + +"Very well," he agreed. "But send your maid home in a cab; I can not +talk before her." + +"Yes, you can. She knows no language except French--and a little +English. She always drives home with me." + +This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have +given the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by +herself. In that case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, +admires him as a "dream of a young man," and already suspected what I +hadn't yet told her--that we were engaged. But with Count Godensky +forced upon me as a companion, I would not for any consideration have +parted with Marianne. + +Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my +chauffeur where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky +appeared. He got in and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but +doubtless astonished, facing us on the little front seat. + +"Now," I exclaimed. "Please begin quickly." + +"Don't force me to be too abrupt," he said. "I would spare you if I +could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am +here because I love you." + +"Oh, please, Monsieur!" I broke in. "You know I've told you that is +useless." + +"But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will +be changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a +great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could +save you from it if you'd let me." + +"Save me from what?" I asked temporising. "You're very mysterious, Count +Godensky. And I'm Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate +friends." + +"I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of +myself as your 'intimate friend' when I have done what I hope to do for +you in--in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared." + +I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some +women, feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been +better for me to die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let +myself faint and show Godensky that he had struck home. + +"Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again," I said to myself. And +my voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: "Oh, the 'document' +again. The one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my +curiosity. But I don't in the least know what you mean." + +"The loss of it is known," he said. + +"Ah, it's a lost document?" + +"As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don't come to me for the help I'm +only too glad to give--on conditions. Let me tell you what they are." + +"Wouldn't it be more to the point if you told me what the document is, +and how it concerns me?" I parried him, determined to bring him to bay. + +"Aren't _you_ evading the point far more than I? The document--which you +and I can both see as plainly before our eyes at this instant as though +it were in--let us say your hands, or--du Laurier's, if he were +here--that document is far too important even to name within hearing of +other ears." + +"Marianne's? But I told you she can't understand a word of Russian." + +"One can't be sure. We can never tell, in these days, who may not be--a +spy." + +There was a stab for me! But I would not give him the satisfaction of +showing that it hurt. He wanted to confuse me, to put me off my guard; +but he should not. + +"They say one judges others by one's self," I laughed. "Count Godensky, +if you throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall +begin to wonder if it's not _you_ who are the spy!" + +"Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then," he went on, "I'll tell +you what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took +out of the Foreign Office the other day, when you called on +your--friend, Monsieur le Vicomte du Laurier." + +"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem +to think I am a kleptomaniac. I can't imagine what I should want with +any dry old document out of the Foreign Office, can you?" + +"Yes, I can imagine," said Godensky drily. + +"Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this +is rather a serious accusation." + +"If I make any accusation, it's less against you than du Laurier." + +"Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?" + +"As a warning." + +"Or because you don't dare make it to anyone else." + +"Dare! I haven't accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your +name with his." + +"Ah!" I said. "You are very considerate." + +"I don't pretend to be considerate--except of myself. I've waited, and +held my hand until now, because I wanted to see you before doing a thing +which would mean certain ruin for du Laurier. I love you as much as I +ever did; even more, because, in common with most men, I value what I +find hard to get. To-night I ask you again to marry me. Give me a +different answer from that you gave me before, and I'll be silent about +what I know." + +"What you know of the document you mentioned?" I asked, my heart +drumming an echo of its beating in my ears. + +"Yes." + +"But--I thought you said that its loss was already discovered?" (Oh, I +was keeping myself well under control, though a mistake now would surely +cost me more than I dared count!) + +For half a second he was taken aback, at a loss what answer to make. +Half a second--no more; yet that hardly perceptible hesitation told me +what I had been playing with him to find out. + +"Discovered by me," he explained. "That is, by me and one person over +whom I have such an influence that he will use his knowledge, or--forget +it, according to my advice." + +"There is no such person," I said to myself. But I didn't say it aloud. +Quickly I named over in my mind such men in the French Foreign Office as +were in a position to discover the disappearance of any document under +Raoul du Laurier's charge. There were several who might have done so, +some above Raoul in authority, some below; but I was certain that not +one of them was an intimate friend of Count Godensky's. If he had +suspected anything the day he met me coming out of the Foreign Office he +might, of course, have hinted his suspicions to one of those men (though +all along I'd believed him too shrewd to risk the consequences, the +ridicule and humiliation of a mistake): but if he had spoken, it would +be beyond his power to prevent matters from taking their own course, +independent of my decisions and his actions. + +I believed now that what I had hoped was true. He was "bluffing." He +wanted me to flounder into some admission, and to make him a promise in +order to save the man I loved. I was only a woman, he'd argued, no +doubt--an emotional woman, already wrought up to a high pitch of nervous +excitement. Perhaps he had expected to have easy work with me. And I +don't think that my silence after his last words discouraged him. He +imagined me writhing at the alternative of giving up Raoul or seeing him +ruined, and he believed that he knew me well enough to be sure what I +would do in the end. + +"Well?" he said at last, quite gently. + +My eyes had been bent on my lap, but I glanced suddenly up at him, and +saw his face in the light of the street lamps as we passed. Count +Godensky is not more Mephistophelian in type than any other dark, thin +man with a hook nose, keen eyes, heavy browed; a prominent chin and a +sharply waxed, military moustache trained to point upward slightly at +the ends. But to my fancy he looked absolutely devilish at that moment. +Still, I was less afraid of him than I had been since the day I stole +the treaty. + +"Well," I said slowly, "I think it's time that you left me now." + +"That's your answer? You can't mean it." + +"I do mean it, just as much as I meant to refuse you the three other +times that you did me the same honour. You asked me to hear what you had +to say to-night, and I have heard it; so there's no reason why I +shouldn't press the electric bell for my chauffeur to stop, and--" + +"Do you know that you're pronouncing du Laurier's doom, to say nothing +of your own?" + +"No. I don't know it." + +"Then I haven't made myself clear enough." + +"That's true. You haven't made yourself clear enough." + +"In what detail have I failed? Because--". + +"In the detail of the document. I've told you I know nothing about it. +You've told me you know everything. Yet--" + +"So I do." + +"Prove that by saying what it is--to satisfy my curiosity." + +"I've explained why I can't do that--here." + +"Then why should you stay here longer, since that is the point, to my +mind. You understood before you came into my carriage that I had no +intention of letting you go all the way home with me." + +Count Godensky suddenly laughed. And the laugh frightened me--frightened +me horribly, just as I had begun to have confidence in myself, and feel +that I had got the best of the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN + +"You are afraid that du Laurier may find out," he said. "But he knows +already." + +"Knows what?" + +"That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you." + +All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of +his almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without +falling they laid one feather too much. + +My voice broke. "You--devil!" I cried at him. "You dared to tell Raoul +that?" + +Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now +our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. +She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk +of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on +earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the +brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her +nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she +would have tried with all her strength--which is not small--and a very +good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness +meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty. +But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question. + +"Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I've always understood that you +made a great point of never doing anything which you considered in the +least risque. So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn't +know? You might already have mentioned it to him." + +"He wouldn't believe you!" I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope +was that I might be right. + +"As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to at first, so I at once +understood that you hadn't spoken of our appointment. But it was too +late to atone for my carelessness, and I did the next best thing: +justified my veracity. I suggested that, if he didn't take my word for +it, he might stand where he could see us speaking together at the stage +door, and--" + +"Ah, I am glad of that!" I cut in. "Then he saw that we didn't drive +away together." + +"You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought +you'd receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the +precaution of warning du Laurier that he needn't expect to see that. You +would suggest a place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I +would inform him if he chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes." + +"Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!" I broke out. + +"How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you +have, after all, if you don't understand that a man suddenly out of his +head with jealousy will do things of which he'd be incapable when he was +sane." + +The argument silenced me. I knew--I had known for a long time--that +jealousy could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded +me that he was a "jealous brute." I remembered what answer he had made +when I asked him what he would do if I deceived him. He said that he +would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had +streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. +A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes--the dear eyes that are not +cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do +things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand +sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy. + +"As a proof of what I say," Godensky went on, "du Laurier did wait, did +hear from me the place where you were to stop and pick me up. And if it +wouldn't be the worst of form to bet, I'd bet that he found some way of +getting there in time to see that I had told the truth." + +"You coward!" I stammered. + +"On the contrary, a brave man. I've heard that du Laurier is a fine +shot, and that very few men in Paris can touch him with the foils. So +you see--" + +"You want to frighten me!" I exclaimed. + +"You misjudge me in every way." + +My only answer was to tell Marianne to press the button which gives the +signal for my chauffeur to stop. Instantly the electric carriage slowed +down, then came to a standstill. My man opened the door and Count +Godensky submitted to my will. Nevertheless, he was far from being in a +submissive mood, as I did not need to be reminded by the tone of his +voice when he said "au revoir." + +Nothing could have been more polite than the words or his way of +speaking them, as he stood in the street with his hat in his hand. But +to me they meant a threat, and as a threat they were intended. + +My talk with Godensky at the stage door, my pause to pick him up, and my +second pause to set him down, had all taken time, of which I had had +little enough at the starting, if I were to meet Ivor Dundas when he +arrived. It was two or three minutes after midnight, or so my watch +said, when we drew up before the gate of my high-walled garden in the +quiet Rue d'Hollande. + +A little while ago I had been ready to seize upon almost any expedient +for keeping Raoul away from my house to-night, but now, after what I had +just heard from Godensky, I prayed to see him waiting for me. + +Nobody (except Ivor, concerning whom I'd given orders) would be let in +so late at night, during my absence, not even Raoul himself; so if he +had come to reproach me, or break with me, he would have to stand +outside the locked gate till I appeared. I looked for him longingly, but +he was not there. There was, to be sure, a motor brougham in the street, +for a wonder (usually the Rue d'Hollande is as empty as a desert, after +eleven o'clock), but a girl's face peered out at me from the window--an +impish, curiously abnormal little face it was--extinguishing the spark +of hope that sprang to life as I caught sight of the carriage. + +It was standing before the closed gate of a house almost opposite mine, +and the girl seemed somewhat interested in me; but I was not at all +interested in her, and I hate being stared at as if I were something in +a museum. + +The gate is always kept locked at night, when I'm at the theatre; but +Marianne has the key, and we let ourselves in when we come, for only old +Henri sits up, and he is growing a little deaf. A moment, and we were +inside, the chauffeur spinning away to the garage. + +Usually I am newly delighted every night with my quaint old house and +its small, but pretty garden, to which it seems delightful to come home +after hours of hard work at the theatre. But to-night, though a cheerful +light shone out from between the drawn curtains of the salon, the place +looked inexpressibly dreary, even forbidding, to me. I felt that I hated +the house, though I had chosen it after a long search for peacefulness +and privacy. How gloomy, how dead, was the street beyond the high wall, +with all its windows closed like the eyes of corpses. There was a moist, +depressing smell of earth after long-continued rains, in the garden. No +wonder the place had been to let at a bargain, for a long term! There +had been a murder in it once, and it had stood empty for twelve or +thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten tragedy. I had +been the tenant for two years now--before I became a "star," with a +theatre of my own in Paris. I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt +the house. Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story +only made the place more interesting. But now I said to myself that I +wished I had never spoken so lightly. Perhaps the ghost had brought me +bad luck. I felt as if the murder must have happened on just such a +still, brooding, damp night as this. Maybe it was the anniversary, if I +only knew. + +I went indoors, Marianne following. Henri, very thin, very precise, +withered like a winter apple, had fallen into a doze in the hall, where +he had sat, hoping to hear the stopping of my carriage. He rose up, +bowing and blinking, just as he had done often before, and would often +again--if life were to go on for me in the old way. He regretted not +having heard Mademoiselle. Would Mademoiselle take supper? + +No, Mademoiselle would not take supper. She wanted nothing, and Henri +might go to bed. + +"I thank Mademoiselle. When I have closed the house." + +"But I don't want the house closed," I said. "I shall sit up for awhile. +It's hot--close and stuffy. I may like to have the windows open." + +"The visitor Mademoiselle expected did not arrive. Perhaps--" + +"If he comes, Marianne or I will let him in. But he may not come, now it +is so late." + +When Henri had gone, I told Marianne that she might go, too. I did not +want her to wait. If the person I had expected should call, it was a +very old friend; in fact, Mr. Ivor Dundas, whom Marianne must remember +in London. He was to call--if he did call--only on a matter of business, +which would take but a few minutes to get through, and possibly he would +not even come into the house. If the gate-bell rang, I would answer it +myself, and speak with Mr. Dundas, perhaps in the garden. Then I would +let him out and come straight upstairs. Marianne might go to bed if she +wished. + +"I do not wish, unless Mademoiselle particularly desires me to do so," +said she. "I do not rest well when I have not been allowed to undress +Mademoiselle." + +"Sit up, then, in your own room, and wait there for me till I ring for +you," I replied. "I shan't be late, whether Mr. Dundas comes or doesn't +come." + +"Supposing the gate-bell should ring, and Mademoiselle should go, yet it +should not be the Monsieur she expects, but another person whom she +would not care to admit?" + +I knew of what she was thinking, and of whom. + +"There's no fear of that. No fear of any kind," I answered. + +She took off my cloak, and went upstairs reluctantly, carrying my jewel +box. + +I walked into the drawing-room, which was lighted and looked very bright +and charming, with its many flowers and framed photographs, and the +delightful Louis Quinze furniture, which I had so enjoyed picking up +here and there at antique shops or at private sales. + +I flung myself on the sofa, but I could not rest. In a moment I was up +again, moving about, looking at the clock, comparing it with my watch, +wondering what could have happened to make Ivor fail in keeping his +promise to be prompt on the hour of twelve. + +Of course, a hundred harmless things might have kept him, but I thought +only of the worst, and was working myself up to a frenzy when at last I +heard the gate-bell. I had been in the house no more than twelve or +fourteen minutes, but it seemed an hour, and I gave a sob of relief as I +rushed out, down the garden path, to let my visitor in. + +Fumbling a little at the lock, always a little difficult if one were in +a hurry, I asked myself what if, as Marianne had suggested, it were not +Ivor Dundas, but someone else--Raoul, perhaps--or the man who had been +in her mind: Godensky. + +But it was Ivor. + +"What news?" I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in +my own ears. + +"I don't know whether you'll call it news or not, though plenty of +things have happened. I'm awfully sorry to be late--" + +I wouldn't let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and +drew him into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. +Yet I forgot to lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it +ought to be fastened. + +Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I +had told Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might +have been followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, +watchers who would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very +different from old Henri's. "Come into the house," I said, in a low +voice, "before you begin to tell anything." Then, when we were inside, I +could not even wait for him to go on of his own accord and in his own +way. + +"The treaty?" I asked. "Have you got hold of it?" + +"Unfortunately, no." + +"But you've heard of it? Oh, _say_ you've heard something!" + +"If I haven't, it isn't because I've sat down and waited for news to +come. I went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get +on the track of the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But +I was sent off on the wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse +luck--I'll tell you about it later, if you care to hear details. Then, +when that game was up, I did what I wish I'd done at first, found out +and consulted a private detective, said to be one of the best in +Paris--" + +"You told your story--_my_ story--to a detective?" I gasped. + +"No. Certainly not. I said I'd lost something of value, given me by a +lady whose name I couldn't bring into the affair. I was George Sandford, +too, not Mr. Dundas. I described my travelling companions, telling all +that happened on the way, and offered big pay if he could find them +quickly--especially the little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting +them to-night, so don't be desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap +seemed really to think he'd not have much difficulty in tracking down +our man; and even if he's parted with the treaty, we can find out what +he's done with it, no doubt. Girard says--" + +"Girard!" I caught Ivor up. "Is your detective's name Anatole Girard, +and does he live in Rue du Capucin Blanc?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"I know too much of him," I answered bitterly. + +"Isn't he clever, after all?" + +"Far too clever. I'd rather you had gone to any other detective in +Paris--or to none." + +"Why, what's wrong with him?" Ivor began to be distressed. + +"Only that he's a personal friend of my worst enemy--the man I spoke of +to you this evening--Count Godensky. I've heard so from Godensky +himself, who mentioned the acquaintance once when Girard had just +succeeded in a case everybody was talking about." + +"By Jove, what a beastly coincidence!" exclaimed Ivor, horribly +disappointed at having done exactly the wrong thing, when he had tried +so hard to do the right one. "Yet how could I have dreamed of it?" + +"You couldn't," I admitted, hopelessly. "Nothing is your fault. All +that's happened would have happened just the same, no matter what +messenger the Foreign Secretary had sent to me. It's fate. And it's my +punishment." + +"Still, even if Godensky and Girard are friends," Ivor tried to console +me, "it isn't likely that the Count has talked to the detective about +you and the affair of the treaty." + +"He may have gone to him for help in finding out things he couldn't find +out himself." + +"Hardly, I should say, until there'd been time for him to fear failure. +No, the chances are that Girard will have no inner knowledge of the +matter I've put into his hands; and if he's a man of honour, he's bound +to do the best he can for me, as his employer. Have you seen du +Laurier?" + +"Yes. At the theatre. Nothing bad had happened to him yet; but that +brute Godensky has made dreadful mischief between us. If only I'd known +that you would be so late, I might have explained everything to him." + +"I'm very sorry," said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him +(but not half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn't forgotten +that hint he had let drop about a great sacrifice--a girl he loved, whom +he had thrown over, somehow, to come to me). "I made every effort to be +in time. It seems a piece with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that +I was prevented. I hope, at least, that du Laurier knows about the +necklace?" + +"He does, by this," I answered. "Yet I'm afraid he won't be in a mood to +take much comfort from it--thanks to that wretch. You know Raoul hasn't +a practical bone in his body. He will think I've deceived him, and +nothing else will matter. I must--" But I broke off, and laid my hand on +Ivor's arm. "What's that?" I whispered. "Did you hear anything then?" + +Ivor shook his head. And we both listened. + +"It's a step outside, on the gravel path," said I, my heart beginning to +knock against my side. "I forgot to lock the gate. Somebody has come +into the garden. What if it should be Raoul--what if he has seen our +shadows on the curtain?" + +Mechanically we moved apart, Ivor making a gesture to reassure me, on +account of the position of the lights. He was right. Our shadows +couldn't have fallen on the curtain. + +As we stood listening, there came a knock at the front door. It was +Raoul's knock. I was sure of that. + +If only Ivor had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, at the time +appointed, I should have hurried him away before this, so that I might +write to Raoul; but now I could not think what to do for the best--what +to do, that things might not be made far worse instead of better between +Raoul and me. I had suffered so much that my power of quick decision, on +which I'd so often prided myself vaingloriously, seemed gone. + +"It is Raoul," I said. "What shall I do?" + +"Let him in, of course, and introduce me. Don't act as if you were +afraid. Say that I came to see you on important business concerning a +friend of yours in England, and had to call after the theatre because +I'm leaving Paris by the first train in the morning." + +"No use." + +"Why not? When a man loves a woman, he trusts her." + +"No man of Latin blood, I think. And Raoul's already angry. He has the +right to be--or would have, if Godensky had been telling him the truth. +And I refused to let him come here. I said I was going straight to bed, +I was so tired. He's knocking again. Hide yourself, and I'll let him in. +Oh, _why_ do you stand there, looking at me like that? Go into that +room," and I pointed, then pushed him towards the door. "You can get +through the window and out of the garden--softly--while Raoul and I are +talking." + +"If you insist," said Ivor. "But you're wrong. The best thing--" + +"Go--go, I tell you. Don't argue. I know best," I cut him short, in a +sharp whisper, pushing him again. + +This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, +my boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, snatched +it out, and dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That +done, I flew out of the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and +opened the front door. There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very +stern in the light of the hall lamp. I had never seen him like that +before. + +"I know why you're here," I began quickly, before he could speak. "Count +Godensky told me what he said to you. I--hoped you would come." + +"Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?" he +asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice. + +"No. For I hadn't deceived you," I answered. "I haven't deceived you +now. If you loved me, you'd believe me, Raoul." + +I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me +draw him into the house. + +"For God's sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can," he said. +"It's death to lose it. I came here wanting to die." + +"After you'd killed me, as you said?" + +"Perhaps. I couldn't keep away. I had to come. If you have any +explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is." + +"You know me, and you know Godensky--yet you need an explanation of +anything evil said of me by him?" In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; +but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a +power had jealousy over his better self. + +"Don't play with me!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear it. You sent me away. +Yet you had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your +carriage; and now--" + +"Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should +have packed her off by herself, alone, that I--might be alone with you. +Oh, Raoul, it isn't _possible_ you believe that I could lie to you for +Godensky's sake--a man like that! If I'd cared for him, why shouldn't I +have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do +you think?" + +"I don't think; I'm not able to think. I can only feel," he answered. + +"Then--feel sure that I love you--no man but you--now and always." + +"Oh, Maxine!" he stammered. "Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe +you?" + +"You are wise," I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I +was claiming from him as my right. "If you wouldn't believe, without my +insisting, without my explaining and defending myself, I'd tell you +nothing. But you _do_ believe, just because you love me--I see it in +your face, and thank God for it. So I'll tell you this. Count Godensky +hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you +because he thinks I love you. He--" I paused for a second. A wild +thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could +say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come +back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was Godensky, +not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him +believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky's to revenge +himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her +lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, +innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were +open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened +afterward. + +It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end +and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift +upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd +helped to set, Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was +sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, +was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he +betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would. + +All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that +Raoul could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again. + +"He--Godensky--would do anything to part you and me," I said. "There's +no plot too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against +me--and you. No lie too base for him to tell you--or others--about me. +He sent me a letter at the theatre--soon after you'd left me the first +time. In it, he said that I must give him a few minutes after the play, +unless I wanted some dreadful harm to come to _you_--something +concerning your career. That frightened me, though I might have guessed +it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn't be sure, so I +saw him. I didn't want you to know--I tell you that frankly, Raoul. +Because I'd told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn't find +out that I meant to let Count Godensky drive part of the way back with +me and Marianne. I ran the risk, and--the very thing happened which I +ought to have known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was +nothing; only vague hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner +circle, might save you, if I--would be grateful enough." + +"The scoundrel!" broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing. +"I'll--" + +He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He +meant to send a challenge to Count Godensky. I must prevent him from +doing that. + +"No, Raoul," I said, as if he had finished his sentence, "you musn't +fight. For my sake, you mustn't. Don't you see, it's just what he'd like +best? It would be a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of +the scandal. Oh, you _will_ think of it, when you're cooler. For you, I +would not fear much, for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a +shot--far superior to Godensky, and with right on your side. But I would +fear for myself. Promise you won't bring this trouble upon me." + +"I promise," he answered. "Oh, my darling, what wouldn't I promise you, +to atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I +came to you to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and +what I might do. But at last I couldn't hold out against the something +that seemed forcing me here in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive +me?" + +"As a reward for your promise," I said, smiling at him through tears +that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I +who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. "Now are you happy again?" I +asked. + +"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't +dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in +this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face +changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I +could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my +gate. + +"Even at the gate--what?" I asked. + +"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust +you now, by not speaking of that." + +But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had +been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it +from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it +recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in +this moment of exaltation he did not doubt. + +"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it +_can_ be nothing." + +"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by +not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal, +repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a +thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see +through rose-coloured ones." + +"I'd rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. +You must tell me what you're thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not +yours." + +"Well--if you will know. But, remember, darling, I'm going to put it out +of my mind. I'll ask you no questions, I'll only--tell you the thing +itself. As I said, I didn't come here directly after seeing Godensky get +into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman--and I thought of the +Seine." + +"Oh--you must indeed have been mad!" + +"I was. But that something saved me--the something that drove me to find +you. I walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and +nearer, as if being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this +street, on the side opposite your house. I hadn't made up my mind yet, +that I would try to see you. I didn't know what I would do. I stood +still, and tried to think. It was very black, in the angle between two +garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts up, you know. Nobody who +didn't expect to find a man would have noticed me in the darkness. I +hadn't been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, walking +very fast. As he passed the street lamp just before reaching the garden +wall, I saw him plainly--not his face, but his figure, and he was young +and well dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an +Englishman. He went straight to your gate and rang. A moment later +someone, I couldn't see who, opened the gate and let him in. +Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the idea of following--of +pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the gate. But I +wasn't quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, Maxine, +there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you--but +how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I +only wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a +motor cab going slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate. +There were two women in it. I could see them by the light of the street +lamp, though not as plainly as I'd seen the man, and they appeared to be +arguing very excitedly about something. Whatever it was, it must have +been in some way concerned with you, or your affairs, because they were +tremendously interested in the house. They both looked out, and one +pointed several times. Even if I'd intended to go in, I wouldn't have +gone while they were there. But the very fact that they _were_ there +roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I'd fallen into. I +wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they +had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I +tried the gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and--there were +lights in these windows. I knew you couldn't have gone to bed yet, +though you'd said you were so tired. There was death in my heart then, +for you and for me, Maxine, for--the gate hadn't opened again, and--" + +"I know what you thought!" I broke in, my heart beating so now that my +voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. "You said to +yourself, 'It was Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall +find them together.'" + +"Yes," Raoul admitted. "But I didn't try the handle of the door, as I +had of the gate. I rang. I couldn't bring myself to take you unawares." + +"Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you +ring?" I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor +had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in +painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in +spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the +experience. I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, +though he strove to lash them back. I dared not bring Ivor out from the +other room, if he were still there. He was too handsome, too young, too +attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of Count Godensky, +whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a +stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my +house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn't taken Ivor's advice and +introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have +listened to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the +understanding we had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I +must be secret to the end.) + +The very asking of such a bold question--"Do you think I let a man in, +and hid him?" helped my cause with Raoul. + +"No," he said, "I can't think it. I won't, and don't think it. And you +need tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me God, I won't distrust +you again!" + +Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor +had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint +sound in the next room. He was there still. + +Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, +saying, "Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in," +I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover +the sound if it should come again. + +"Oh, Raoul!" I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I +surprised him. "You're taking this too seriously. A thousand times I +thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but--after all, +_were_ they so much against me? You seem to think I am the only young +woman in this house. Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it's true. But +I have a _femme de chambre_ and a _cuisiniere_, both under twenty-five, +both pretty, and both engaged to be married." (This was true. Ah, what a +comfort to speak the truth to him!) "Doesn't it occur to you that, at +this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the +seat under the old yew arbour? Can't you imagine how they started and +tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate +and came up the path?" + +"Forgive me!" murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again. + +"Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?" + +"Leave them in peace, by all means." + +"The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Therese and Annette +are good little girls." + +"Don't let's bother about them. You will be sending me away soon, too, +and I shall deserve it. Brute that I am. You were so tired, and I--" + +"Oh, I'm better now," I said. "Of course I must send you away by and by, +but not quite yet. First, I want to ask if you weren't glad when you saw +the jewels?" + +"Jewels?" echoed Raoul. "What jewels?" + +"You don't mean to say you haven't yet opened the little bag I gave you +at the theatre?" I exclaimed. + +Raoul looked half ashamed. "Dearest, don't think me ungrateful," he +said, "but before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told +me--that lie. It lit a fire in my brain. I forgot all about the bag, and +haven't thought of it again till this minute." + +At last I laughed with sincerity. "Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you're not fit for +this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with +you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've +forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's +open it together." + +For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I +knew. + +His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him +put the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his +face flushed. "Good heavens, Maxine," he said, "I hope you weren't in +earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us +both, for I've lost it. You know, I've been almost mad. I had my +handkerchief in that pocket. I must have pulled it out, and--" + +My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa. + +"Raoul," I said, in a queer stifled voice, "the bag had in it the +Duchess de Montpellier's diamonds." + + + + +IVOR DUNDAS' PART + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK + + +Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding +myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her +boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover +that no stranger had come on her account to the house. + +I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her +little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in +groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, +I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against +the furniture or knocking down some ornament. + +I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would +make, and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet +on glass, although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of +the house, and I was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me +stay. Only by a miracle did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a +chair or a tall vase of flowers, on my way to a second door which was +locked on the other side. At last, however, I discovered a window, and +congratulated myself that my trouble and Maxine's danger was nearly +over. The room being on the ground floor, though rather high above the +level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But +when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt +smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty. + +The window, which opened in the middle like most French windows, was +tightly closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly +and with infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was +going to stick. Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it +had swelled; in any case I knew that when the two sashes consented to +part they would make a loud protest. + +After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised +her voice--to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even +than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, +and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had +missed. + +No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which +apparently communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed +too small for me to climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side. + +What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du +Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after +she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many +words) that there was no stranger in the house. + +Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I +felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should +have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed +doors and windows. As it was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead +grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent +mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief. It was not +to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in +the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, however, I +chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn't account. It +was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly +folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket +onto the floor, and a gendarme had picked it up. + +At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second +thought; but to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as +insignificant until it had been thoroughly examined. I put the paper +back, and as I did so I heard Maxine give an exclamation, apparently of +distress. I could not distinguish all she said, but I thought that I +caught the word "diamonds." For a moment or two she and du Laurier +talked together so excitedly that I might have made another attack on +the window without great risk; and I was meditating the attempt when +suddenly the voices ceased. A door opened and shut. There was dead +silence, except for a footfall overhead, which sounded heavier than +Maxine's. Perhaps it was her maid's. + +For a few seconds more I stood still, awaiting developments, but there +was no sound in the next room, and I decided to take my chance before it +should be too late. + +I jerked at the window, which yielded with a loud squeak that would +certainly have given away the secret of my presence if there had been +ears to hear. But all was still in the drawing-room adjoining, and I +dropped down on to a flower bed some few feet below. Then I skirted +round to the front of the house, walking stealthily on the soft grass, +and would have made a noiseless dash for the gate had I not seen a +stream of light flowing out through the open front door across the lawn. +I checked myself just in time to draw back without being seen by a woman +and a tall man moving slowly down the path. They were Maxine and, no +doubt, du Laurier. They spoke not a word, but walked with their heads +bent, as if deeply absorbed in searching for something on the ground. +Down to the gate they went, opened it and passed out, only half closing +it behind them, so that I knew they meant presently to come back again. + +I should have been thankful to escape, but the chance of meeting them +was too imminent. Accordingly I waited, and it was well I did, for as +they reappeared in three or four minutes they could not have gone far +enough to be out of sight from the gate. + +"There's witchcraft in it," Maxine said, as she and her lover passed +within a few yards of me, where I hid behind a little arbour. + +Du Laurier's answer was lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. +Evidently they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of +finding it again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for +Maxine that a further misfortune should have befallen her at such a +time. But the one and only way in which I could help her at the moment +was to get away as soon as possible. + +They had left the gate unlocked, and I drew in a long breath of relief +when I was on the other side. I hurried out of the street, lest du +Laurier should, by any chance, follow on quickly: and my first thought +was to go immediately back to my hotel, where Girard might by now have +arrived with news. I was just ready to hail a cab crawling by at a +distance, when I remembered the bit of paper I'd found and put back into +my pocket. It occurred to me to have a look at it, by the light of a +street lamp near by; and the instant I had straightened out the small, +crumpled wad I guessed that here was a link in the mystery. + +The paper was a leaf torn from a note-book and closely covered on both +sides with small, uneven writing done with a sharp black pencil. The +handwriting was that of an uneducated person, and was strange to me. I +could not make out the words by the light of the tall lamp, so I lit a +wax match from my match-box, and protecting the flame in the hollow of +my hand, began studying the strange message. + +The three first words sent my heart up with a bound. "On board the +'Queen.'" I had crossed the Channel in the "Queen," and this beginning +alone was enough to make me hope that the bit of paper might do more +than any detective to unravel the mystery. + + "I'm taking big risks because I've got to," I read on. "It's my + only chance. And if you find this, I bet I can trust you. You're + a gentleman, and you saved my life and a lot more besides by + getting into that railway-carriage when the other chaps did. The + minute I seen them I thot I was done for, but you stopped there + game. I'm a jewler's assistant, carrying property worth + thousands, for my employers. From the first I knew 'twas bound + to be a ticklish job. On this bote I'm safe, for the villions + who would have murdered and robbed me in the train if it hadn't + been for you being there, won't have a chance, but when I get to + Paris it will be the worst, and no hope for the jewls, followed + as I am, if I hadn't already thot of a plan to save them through + you, an honest gentleman far above temptashun. I know who you + are, for I've seen your photo in the papers. So, what I did was + this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of use in + my carere, just as folks were on the boat's gangway. Thro' + making that disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing + amatoor conjuring to amuse my wife and famly, I was able to slip + the case of my employer's jewls into your breast pocket without + your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not that I + wanted to rob one who had done good by me, but because if I'd + left it the double thickness would have surprised you and you + would probably have pulled out my case to see what it was. Then + my fat would have bin in the fire, with certin persons looking + on, and you in danger as well as me which wouldn't be fare. I've + got your case in my pocket as I write, but I won't open it + because it may have your sweetart's letters in. You can get your + property again by bringing me my master's, which is fare + exchange. I can't call on you, for I don't know where your going + and daren't hang round to see on account of the danger I run, + and needing to meet a pal of mine who will help me. I must get + to him at once, if I am spared to do so, for which reason I + wrote out this explanashun. The best I can do is to slip it in + your pocket which I shall try when in the railway stashun at + Paris. You see how I trust you as a gentleman to bring me the + jewls. Come as soon as you can, and get your own case instead, + calling at 218 Rue Fille Sauvage, Avenue Morot, back room, top + floor, left of passage. Expressing my gratitood in advance, + + "I am, + + "Yours trustfully, + + "J.M. Jeweler's Messenger. + + "P.S.--For heaven's sake don't fale, and ask the concerge for + name of Gestre." + +If it had not been for my rage at not having read this illuminating +little document earlier, I should have felt like shouting with joy. As +it was, my delight was tempered with enough of regret to make it easier +to restrain myself. + +But for the fear that du Laurier might be still with Maxine, I should +have rushed back to her house for a moment, just long enough to give her +the good news. But in the circumstances I dared not do it, lest she +should curse instead of bless me: and besides, as there was still a +chance of disappointment, it might be better in any case not to raise +her hopes until there was no danger of dashing them again. The best +thing was to get the treaty back, without a second of delay. As for the +detective, who was perhaps waiting for me at the hotel, he would have to +wait longer, or even go away disgusted--nothing made much difference +now. Maybe, when once I had the treaty in my hands, I might send a +messenger with a few cautious words to Maxine. No matter how late the +hour, she was certain not to be asleep. + +The cab I had seen crawling through the street had disappeared long ago, +and no other was in sight, so I walked quickly on, hoping to find one +presently. It was now so late, however, that in this quiet part of Paris +no carriages of any sort were plying for hire. Finally I made up my mind +that I should have to go all the way on foot; but I knew the direction +of the Avenue Morot, though I'd never heard of Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +and as it was not more than two miles to walk, I could reach the house I +wanted to find in half an hour. + +A few minutes more or less ought not to matter much, since "J. M." was +sure to be awaiting me with impatience; therefore the thing which +bothered me most was the effect likely to be produced on the man when I +could not hand him over the diamonds in exchange for the treaty. + +Of course I didn't believe that "J.M." was a jeweller's messenger, +though possibly I might have been less incredulous if Maxine had not +told me the true history of the diamonds, and what had happened in +Holland. As it was, I had very little doubt that the rat of a man I had +chanced to protect in the railway carriage was no other than the +extraordinarily expert thief who had relieved du Laurier of the +Duchess's necklace. + +Following out a theory which I worked up as I walked, I thought it +probable that the fellow had been helped by confederates whom he had +contrived to dodge, evading them and sneaking off to London in the hope +of cheating them out of their share of the spoil. Followed by them, +dreading their vengeance, I fancied him flitting from one hiding-place +to another, not daring to separate himself from the jewels; at last +determining to escape, disguised, from England, where the scent had +become too hot; reserving a first-class carriage in the train to Dover, +and travelling with a golfer's kit; struck with panic at the last moment +on seeing the very men he fled to avoid, close on his heels, and opening +the door of his reserved carriage with a railway key. + +All this was merely deduction, for so far as I had seen, "J.M.'s" +travelling companions hadn't even accosted him. Still, the theory +accounted for much that had been puzzling, and made it plausible that a +man should be desperate enough to trust his treasure to a stranger +(known only through "photos in the newspapers") rather than risk losing +it to those he had betrayed. + +I resolved to use all my powers of diplomacy to extract from "J.M." the +case containing the treaty before he learned that he was not to receive +the diamonds in its place; and I had no more than vaguely mapped out a +plan of proceeding before I arrived in the Avenue Morot. Thence I soon +found my way into the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, a mean street, to which +the queer name seemed not inappropriate. The house I had to visit was an +ugly big box of a building, with rooms advertised to let, as I could see +by the light of a street lamp across the way, which gleamed bleakly on +the lines of shut windows behind narrow iron balconies. + +The large double doors, from which the paint had peeled in patches, were +closed, but I rang the bell for the concierge; and after a delay of +several minutes I heard a slight click which meant that the doors had +opened for me. I passed into a dim lobby, to be challenged by a sleepy +voice behind a half open window. The owner of the voice kept himself +invisible and was no doubt in the bunk which he called his bed. Only a +stern sense of duty as concierge woke him up enough to demand, +mechanically, who it was that the strange monsieur desired to visit at +this late hour? + +I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre. + +"Monsieur Gestre is away," murmured the voice behind the little window. + +I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the "pal" whom "J.M." had been in +such a hurry to find. "Very well," said I, "I'll see his friend, the +Englishman who arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him." + +"Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here +already? He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?" + +Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The "monsieur" who +had called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone +to bed in his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as +the difference between voices, especially if they were those of +foreigners. Perhaps if I explained that I was not the person who had +said he would come again, but another, the man behind the window would +consider me a complication, and refuse to let me pass at such an hour +without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was what I least wanted--for +Maxine's sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to seize upon the +advantage that was offered me. + +"Quite right," I said shortly. "I know the way." And so began to mount +the stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the +fifth floor I found that I had reached the top of the house. There were +no more stairs to go up. + +On each of the floors below there had been a dim light--a jet of gas +turned low. But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the +light, either in carelessness or for some special reason. + +There were several doors on each side of the passage, but I could not be +sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I +was sure, I knocked, but no answer came. + +"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of +waiting and dropped asleep, that's all." + +I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on +until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how +sound asleep, I must have waked him. + +After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, +he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds. + +I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he +was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the +handle, and to my surprise it yielded. + +"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I +thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if +he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to +find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and +I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly +time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before +a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and +at the same instant banged the door shut behind me. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK + +There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere +at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light +knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger. + +If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I +might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or +table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the +treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and +he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de +Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well +hidden when he went out. + +Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the +window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted +floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved. + +In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something +which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I +pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four +steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap +round the fallen chair. I disentangled myself from its coils, only to +slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid +which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards. + +The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was +chilled and dying now. + +"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought. And if there had +been a struggle--what of the treaty? + +There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my +way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and +slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing +that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot. + +A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles +prickled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on +that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I +knew what it would prove to be. + +It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though +there was no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers +touched an arm, a throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as +I knew my boots must be. And I knew, too, with what they were wet. + +I'm ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my +impulse was to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for +reasons which concerned others even more than myself, it would be +unpleasant to be involved, just at this time especially. I could go +downstairs now, past the sleeping concierge, and with luck no one need +ever know that I had been in this dark room of death. + +But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search +for the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made +sure it was not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were +matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for +them, and come back. It was a grim task, but it had to be done. + +Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of +pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a +broken cup containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on +the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I +lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look +round. + +There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the +secret of the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, +before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the +door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the +floor. + +He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged +with him the cover of a table, and a glass lamp which was smashed in +pieces, the spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair +had been overturned, and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that +had held them were half hidden in the folds of a disordered rug. + +But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the +condition of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the +floor: the drawers of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and +their contents strewn far and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, +and a few shabby coats and pairs of trousers thrown about, with the +pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A chest of drawers had been +ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of sheets and blankets, +the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The room looked +as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to go +near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer. +The blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, +like those in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently +by hands which searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless +determination. + +The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I +could imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that +he had outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding +the friend who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had +planned to defend himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the +door (both lock and bolt were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to +search his friend's quarters for food, and fearfully beginning a supper +in the midst of which he had probably been interrupted. Almost, I could +feel the horror with which he must have trembled when steps came along +the corridor, when the door was tried and finally broken in by force +without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he had rushed to the +window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and return +desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not +the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any +intention to defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything +right if only they would give him time. + +But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them +of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with +the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering +candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to +leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been cheated in the +end. + +The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless +there was a chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the +diamonds or some letters relating to their disposal, might, if they +found the treaty, have hastily flung it aside, as a thing of no value. + +Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, +and the lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which +might fail while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from +its bed of grease on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light +touched my hand and shirt cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned +slightly sick at the sight. There was blood on my brown boots, too, and +the grey tweed clothes which I had not had time to change since arriving +in Paris. + +I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains +before leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty. + +I began my search by stirring up the mass of scattered papers on the +floor, and in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I +cried "hurrah!" when, half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing +letter-case. It was lying spread open, back uppermost, and there came an +instant of despair when I pounced on it only to find it empty. But there +was the treaty on the floor underneath; and lucky it was that the +searchers had thrown it out, for there were gouts of blood on the +letter-case, while the treaty was clean and unspotted. + +With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything +endured and still to be endured, I slipped the document back into the +pocket from which it had been stolen. + +At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step +outside the door. + +My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it +was of the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, +my hands and clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The +treaty must not be found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a +dash for the window, and once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I +threw the candle-end into the room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint +starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, showed me a row of small +flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I wrapped the treaty in a +towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two of the +flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat +parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to +cover and conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, +fumbling at the handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking +of the hinges. Then the light of a dark lantern flashed. + + + + +DIANA FORREST'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE + +Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it +were a kind of fine art. I don't. It seems too bad to be true that I +should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a +bad dream. + +I suppose I've been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been +kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for +them; and I have taken things for granted--except, of course, with Lisa. +But Lisa is different--different from everyone else in the world. I have +never expected anything from her, as I have from others. All I've wanted +was to make her as happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could +be, and to teach myself never to mind anything that she might say or do. + +But Ivor--to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I +didn't know it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off +and left me standing in the railway-station. I didn't dream then of +going to Paris. If anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, +"No, no, I will not." And yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I +tried to make myself think that it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down +underneath I knew all the time it wasn't that, really. It was because I +couldn't bear to do the things I'm accustomed to doing every day. I felt +as if I should cry, or scream, or do something ridiculous and awful +unless there were a change of some sort--any change, but if possible +some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute. + +Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would +be in Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat +and the train that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could +never be as we had been before; that it was all over between us for ever +and ever, and through his fault. But, there at the bottom was the +thought that I _might_ have done him an injustice, because he had begged +me to trust him, and I wouldn't. Just suppose--something in myself kept +on saying--that we should by mere chance meet in Paris, and he should be +able to prove that he hadn't come for Maxine de Renzie's sake! It would +be too glorious. I should begin to live again--for already I'd found out +that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn't life at all. + +He couldn't think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, +because I would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I +made up my mind to be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had +been, if Ivor happened to run across us anywhere. + +Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected +way, but instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more +unhappy than before--for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining +through its blackness. + +That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall +of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn't give up his +mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and +he _must_ have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had +put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was _afraid_ for him, I +couldn't have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he +turned away from me. + +No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a +woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in +my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately +angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for. + +I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord +Robert West as if I'd forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor +Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed +to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It +was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was +like that of the man in Millais' picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I +wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn't let +her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him. + +It is strange how one's mood can change in a moment--but perhaps it is +like that only with women. A minute before I'd been trying to despise +Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself +that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry +Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and +that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was +engaged to somebody else. + +But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been +stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given +anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and +would trust him in spite of all. + +"You look as pale as if you were going to faint," said Lisa, in her +little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn't speak loudly, always +reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms. + +I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone's attention to me just +then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as +they passed. + +"It must be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." +That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that +minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on +beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. +"I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till +after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has +been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight +to my room when we get upstairs." + +We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others +at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric's suite. + +"Shan't I come with you?" asked Lisa, but I said "no." It was something +new for her to offer to help me, for she isn't very strong, and has +always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she's a +few years older than I am. + +Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can't get on even for +a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had +offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn't been shut up +in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she +could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away. + +I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking +along the Champs Elysees, brilliant still with electric lights, and full +of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and +dinner-parties, or taking them to restaurants for supper. + +Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, +though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved +me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always +would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had +said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his +eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he +had been willing to break with me. + +But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed +him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, +knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer. + +Still--why had he looked so miserable, if he didn't care what I thought, +and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole +thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt +it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, +and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon +me. + +"Oh, to know, to _know_, what he's doing at this minute!" I whispered, +half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound +of my own voice. "To _know_ whether I'm doing him the most awful +injustice--or not!" + +Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa's, next to mine, came a +tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the +key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen--that Lisa might +wish to come, and not wait till I'd given her permission. She does that +sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor +calls her "Imp"), and if she thinks people don't want her that is the +very time when she most wants them. + +"Oh, Di, do let me in!" she exclaimed. + +For a second or two I didn't answer. Never in my life had I liked poor +Lisa less than I'd liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though +I'd told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was +acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of +longing to slap her, as I couldn't help doing now. But always before, +when she has irritated me until I've nearly forgotten my promise to her +father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and +deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I've tried to atone, even +when there wasn't really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was +afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she would go to bed angry +with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart attack and is +ill next day. "Di, are you there?" she called again. + +Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with +a rush. "I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate," +she said. + +So did I, but I didn't mean to let her know that. + +"I'm going out," she went on. "If I don't, I shall have a fit." + +"Out!" I repeated. "You can't. It's midnight." + +"Can't? There's no such word for me as 'can't,' when I want to do +anything, and you ought to know that," said she. "It's only being ill +that ever stops me, and I'm not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity +were flowing all through me, making my nerves jump, and I believe you +feel exactly the same way. Your eyes are as big as half-crowns, and as +black as ink." + +"I _am_ a little nervous," I confessed. And I couldn't help thinking it +odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at +the same time. "Perhaps it's in the air. Maybe there's going to be a +thunder-storm. There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up." + +"Maybe it's partly that, maybe not," said she. "But there's one thing +I'm sure of. _Something's going to happen._" + +"Do you feel that, too?" I broke out before I'd stopped to think. Then I +wished I hadn't. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly. + +"Ah, I _knew_ you did!" she cried, looking as eerie and almost as +haggard as a witch. "Something _is_ going to happen. Come. Go with me +and be in it, whatever it is." + +"No," I said. "And you mustn't go either." But she was weird. She seemed +to lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren's witchery, +though without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it. + +"Of course I'm not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in +hand through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans," said Lisa. +"I'm going to have a closed carriage--a motor-brougham, one belonging to +the hotel, so it's quite safe. It's ordered already, and I shall first +drive and drive until my nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If +you won't drive with me I shall drive alone. But there'll be no harm in +it, either way. I didn't know you were so conventional as to think there +could be. Where's your brave, independent American spirit?" + +"I'm not conventional," I said. + +"Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You're afraid of +things you never used to be afraid of." + +"I'm not afraid of things, and I'm not a bit changed," I said. "You only +want to 'dare' me." + +"I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone," +she begged. "Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but +I _can't_ stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would +be an adventure worth remembering." + +"Very well," I said, "I'll go with you, not for the adventure, but +rather than have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and +rather than you should go alone." + +"Good girl!" exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she +had got her way; though if I'd refused she would probably have cried. +She is terrifying when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear +her frail little body to pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes +ends up by a fit of trembling as if she were in an ague. + +"Have you really ordered a motor cab?" I asked. + +"Yes," said she. "I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big +porter at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and +said I did not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick +friend who had written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to +tell no one except me that she'd come to Paris." + +"I shouldn't have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a +waiter," I remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don't like +Lisa's subterranean ways. But this time she didn't even try to defend +herself. + +"Let's get ready at once," she said. "I'm going to put on my long +travelling cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with +a veil. I suppose you'll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the +'service' stairs. The carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance." + +I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. "Lisa, are +you planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to +'spring' on me when it's too late for me to get out of it?" + +"How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You _do_ hurt my feelings! +I haven't had an inspiration yet, so I can't make a plan. But it will +come; I know it will. I shall _feel_ where we ought to go, to be in the +midst of an adventure--oh, without being mixed up in it, so don't look +horrified! I told you that something was going to happen, and that I +wanted to be in it. Well, I mean to be, when the inspiration comes." + +We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa's +veil, and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there +was nobody in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew +where to find the 'service' stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the +side entrance of the hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were +both seated inside, Lisa spoke in French to the driver, who waited for +orders. + +"I think you might take us to the Rue d'Hollande. Drive fast, please. +After that, I'll tell you where to go next." + +"Is this your 'inspiration'?" I asked. + +"I'm not sure yet. Why?" and her voice was rather sharp. + +"For no particular reason. I'm a little curious, that's all." + +We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had +been playing with me, that all along she had had some special +destination in her mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to +bring me to it. But what use to ask more questions? She did not mean me +to find out until she was ready for me to know. + +She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round +corners and through street after street which I had never seen +before--quiet streets, where there were no cabs, and no gay people +coming home from theatres and dinners. At last we turned into a +particularly dull little street, and stopped. + +"Is this the Rue d'Hollande?" Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping +quickly up and putting her head out of the window. + +"_Mais oui, Mademoiselle_," I heard the man answer. + +"Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders." + +"I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could +possibly happen," said I. + +"Wait a little, and maybe you'll find out you're mistaken. If nothing +does, and we aren't amused, we can go on somewhere else." + +She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun +almost noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in +a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was +dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that +the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, +an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me. + +Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in +neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, +slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who +looked like a lady's maid. + +I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our +side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who +got down first. It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I +had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of +that exact shade: Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie. + +My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had +brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the +house, I didn't know. + +"Oh, Lisa!" I reproached her. "How _could_ you?" + +"It really _was_ an inspiration. I'm sure of that now," she said +quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide +excitement. "You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, +yet you know who she is. You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you." + +"I know by the hair," I answered. "I might have foreseen this would be +the kind of thing you would think of--it's like you." + +"You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it," said Lisa. "It's +entirely for your sake; and it's quite true, it was an inspiration to +come here. This afternoon in the train I read an interview in 'Femina' +with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she's produced to-night. There +was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue +d'Hollande." + +"Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You've seen her back, and her +maid's back, and the garden wall," I said, more sharply than I often +speak to Lisa. "I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. +I know why you want to wait here, but you shan't--I won't. I'm going +away as quickly as I can." + +She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. +Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, +and persuasiveness. + +"Di, dearest girl, _don't_ be cross with me; please don't +misunderstand," she implored. "I love you, you know, even if you +sometimes think I don't; I want you to be happy--oh, wait a moment, and +listen. I've been so miserable all day, knowing you were miserable; and +I've felt horribly guilty for fear, after all, I'd said too much. Of +course if you'd guessed where I meant to come, you wouldn't have stirred +out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for yourself. Unless +Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could hardly have +arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he _doesn't_ come, we +shall know, too. Think how happy you'll feel if he _doesn't!_ I'll +apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose you would not +mind apologising to him, if necessary?" + +"He may be in the house now," I said, more to myself than to Lisa. + +"If he is, he'll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. +There, it's open now. The maid's unlocked it. No, there's nobody in the +garden." + +"I can't stop here and watch for him, like a spy," I said. + +"Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an +injustice. It's for _his_ sake I ask you to stay. And if you won't, I +must stay alone. If you insist on going away, I'll get out and stand in +the street, either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I'm sure he +isn't coming. But how much better to wait and see for yourself." + +"You know I can't go off and leave you standing here," I answered. "And +I can't leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets +alone. I might meet--" I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must +nave guessed the name on my lips. + +"The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together," +said Lisa, "for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor +Dundas and to you. You couldn't force me away, even if you wanted to use +force." + +"Which you know is out of the question," I said, desperately. "But why +has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against +Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last night and this +morning." + +"I've been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to +be justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn't +come to this house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke +about an engagement, I shall believe that he doesn't care a rap about +Maxine de Renzie." + +I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating +as if it were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I +could not think, or argue with myself what was really right and wise to +do. I could only give myself up, and drift with circumstances. + +"A man has just come round the far corner," whispered Lisa. "Is it Ivor? +I can't make out. He doesn't look our way." + +"Thank Heaven we're too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather +die than have Ivor know we're here," I broke out. + +"I don't think it is Ivor," Lisa went on. "He's hidden himself in the +shadow, as if he were watching. It's _that_ house he's interested in. +Who can he be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps." + +"Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie's house?" I asked, +in spite of myself. + +Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she +regretted. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," she answered hastily. "Why, indeed? It was +just a thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh--keep back, +Di, don't look out for an instant, till he's passed. Ivor is coming now. +He's walking in a great hurry. There! he can't see you. He's far enough +away for you to peep, and see for yourself. He's at Maxine de Renzie's +gate." + +It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that +tragic look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told +me there was no other woman in his world but me. + +"I won't look," I stammered, almost choking. + +"Someone, I can't see who, is letting him in. The gate's shut behind +him." + +"Let us go now," I begged. + +"No, no, not yet!" cried Lisa. "I must know what happens next. We are in +the midst of it, indeed." + +I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, +and nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we +should go. + +"I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?" Lisa said. +Then she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly +told our chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but +the man did not move. + +"Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers," directed +Lisa, but I would not allow that. + +"No, he shall not stop there!" I exclaimed. "Lisa, I forbid it. You've +had your way in everything so far. I won't let you have it in this." + +"Very well, we'll turn the corner into the next street, to please you," +said Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. "Now stop," she +cried, when we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and +hearing of anyone in the Rue d'Hollande. Then, in another instant, +before I had any idea what she meant to do, she was out of the cab, +running like a child in the direction whence we had come. I looked after +her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could not bear to risk +meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was peeping +into the Rue d'Hollande, to find out what was happening there. + +"She will come back in a moment or two," I said to myself wearily, and +sat waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered +up under her cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If +she had not appeared again almost at once, I should have had to tell the +driver to follow, though I hated the thought of going again into the +street where Maxine de Renzie lived. But she did come, and in her hand +was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered with gold or silver that +sparkled even in the faint light. + +"I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up," she exclaimed. + +"You might better have left it," I said stiffly. "Perhaps Mademoiselle +de Renzie dropped it." + +"No, I don't think so. It wasn't in front of her house." + +"It may belong to that man who was watching, then." + +"It doesn't look much like a thing that a man would carry about with +him, does it?" + +"No," I admitted, indifferently. "Now we will go home." + +"Don't you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?" + +"Indeed I don't!" I cried. "I don't want to know any more about him." +And for the moment I almost believed that what I said was true. + +"Very well," said Lisa, "perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both +that I haven't anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think +about him after this, the better." + +"I shan't think about him at all," I said. But I knew that was a boast I +should never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could +understand how people must feel when they are very old and weary of +life. I don't believe that I shall feel older and more tired if I live +to be eighty than I felt then. It was a slight comfort to know that we +were on our way back to the hotel, and that soon I should be in my room +alone, with the door shut and locked between Lisa and me; but it was +only very slight. I couldn't imagine ever being really pleased about +anything again. + +"You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose," chirped Lisa, "and show +Ivor Dundas that he hasn't spoiled your life." + +As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons +that tied the bag she had found. + +"Perhaps I shall," I answered. "I might do worse." + +"I should think you might!" exclaimed Lisa. "Oh, do accept him soon. I +don't want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you're broken-hearted for +him. Lord Bob is sure to propose to you to-morrow--even if he hasn't +already: and if he has, he'll do it again. I saw it in his eye all +to-day. He was dying to speak at any minute, if only he'd got a chance +with you alone. You _will_ say 'yes' when he does, won't you, and have +the engagement announced at once?" + +"I'll see how I feel at the time, if it comes," I answered, trying to +speak gaily, but making a failure of it. + +At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She +seemed surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in +her hand, and touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell +me what was there. Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make +me ask. But I didn't care enough to humour her. If the bag had been +stuffed full of the most gorgeous jewels in the world, at that moment I +shouldn't have been interested in the least. I saw Lisa give a little +sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were watching; but when she found me +looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the bag again and stowed it +away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling cloak. + +I was afraid that, when we'd arrived at the hotel and gone up to our +rooms Lisa might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her +out, as I felt I must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and +my affairs, now that all doubt was settled. She didn't even wish to talk +over what had happened; but when I bade her good-night, simply said, +"good-night" in return, and let me shut the door between the rooms. + +"I suppose," I thought, "that the best thing I shall have to hope for +after this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my +dreams." But though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and +fall asleep, I couldn't. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a +minute at a time; and always I found myself staring at the window, hour +after hour, hoping for the light. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +DIANA HEARS NEWS + +It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and +deserved to be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I +felt so ashamed and humiliated. + +It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful +when dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold +bath, however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee +afterwards did me good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian's +maid, knocked at my door to ask if I were up, and if she could help me +do my hair. "Her Ladyship" sent me her love, and hoped I had rested +nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I was looking well. + +Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared +at myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had +made so little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, +perhaps, but my cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose +while one is young one can suffer a good deal and one's face tell no +secret. + +We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car +which Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and +Lisa and I had planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a +waste of time to be in Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But +when I tapped at Lisa's door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first +greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want +to go with us to see the Rajah's automobile. While I was with her Aunt +Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome. + +She was "so sorry" for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she +guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back +after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough +by that time for the shopping expedition. + +The automobile really was a "magnificent animal," as Aunt Lil said, and +it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to +tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it. +It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a +detail. _Any_ car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, +or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such +heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the +gold toilet things, in a pale grey suede case, they were beyond words, +and she must have them--the motor also, of course, since it went with +them. + +So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the +two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary +member. + +If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah's +agent and the car paid for. At two o'clock, when we were to meet the men +at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything +had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to +motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train. Lord +Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the +Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the +car across the Channel in a cargo boat. + +Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over +anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too +much occupied to notice. + +Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt +Lil didn't notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she +doesn't like her, and it is only when you really care for people that +you observe changes in them when you are busy thinking of your own +affairs. + +I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she +would have the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but +she was dressed and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she +said, and though she didn't buy anything when she was with us, while we +were at a milliner's in the Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, +she disappeared on some errand of her own, and only came back just as we +were ready to leave the shop. Whatever it was that she had been doing, +it had interested her and waked her out of herself, for her eyes looked +brighter and she had spots of colour on her cheeks. + +Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many +things in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord +Bob at the Ritz, by two o'clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We +were not more than ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: +and the short time that we'd kept them waiting wasn't enough to account +for the solemnity of the two men's faces as they came forward to meet +us. + +"Something's gone wrong about the car!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. + +"No, the car's all right," said Lord Bob. "I've got you a chauffeur too, +and--" + +"Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet +blankets, or something disagreeable. It surely can't be because you're +hungry that you're cross about a few minutes." + +"Have you seen a newspaper to-day?" asked Uncle Eric. + +"A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we've had too many important +things to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone +out?" + +"Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here," Uncle Eric answered, looking +very much worried--so much worried that I thought he must care even more +about Ivor than I had fancied. + +"Of course it's the most awful rot," said Lord Bob, "but he's accused of +murder." + +"It's in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones," +Uncle Eric went on. "We've only just seen the news since we came here to +wait for you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As +it is, of course I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I +can to help him through. But that needn't keep the rest of you from +going on to-day as you planned." + +"What an awful thing!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. "I will stay too, if the +girls don't mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel +that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I've got thousands of +engagements--we all have--but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about +you, Lord Bob?" + +"I'll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart," said he, his nice though +not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his +blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. "Dundas and I have +never been intimate, but he's a fine chap, and I've always admired him. +He's sure to come out of this all right." + +Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I +felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of +whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in +past days. + +I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I +should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem +to think it strange that I had nothing to say. + +"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you, +Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask. + +"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric. + +We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor +accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened? + +But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the +lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions. + +For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was +almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, +of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been +that. + +It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was +conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow +for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who +had been his rival. + +"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just +going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. +"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean, +some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't +supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do +with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under +another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing +sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow, +apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find, +for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather +well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas +had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to +the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following +up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt +for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there +he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and +the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold." + +"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first +question she had asked. + +"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered +Lord Bob. + +"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. +"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The +idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They +ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging +England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't +they, Eric?" + +"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of +the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The +evidence--entirely circumstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor. +And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an +Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French +law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman." + +"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified. + +"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's +worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a +man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, +presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the +evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than +they have done." + +For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I +do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride +themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy! + +"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call +it an alibi?" asked Lisa. + +"He didn't try to," replied Lord Bob. "He's simply refused, up to the +present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o'clock and the time +he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going +to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies +killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the +boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to +the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing +back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already +ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; +that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the +scene." + +"Couldn't he have shown the note sent by the thief?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he +wouldn't tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except +that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the +case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, +no doubt he has good reasons." + +"He has no good luck, anyhow!" sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor. + +"Rather not--so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him +is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage +swears that though Dundas hadn't been in the place much above half an +hour when the detective arrived, he was there then _for the second +time_, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, +according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the +concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a +man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On +hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the +gentleman who was stopping in Gestre's room. By and by the Englishman +went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. +After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for +Gestre, who announced that he'd been before; and now he vows that it was +the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he +could prove that he'd been in the house no more than half an hour, it +might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been +dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can't or won't +prove it--that's his luck again!--and nobody can be found who saw him in +any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last moment +that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who'd taken him up at the +hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not +so very far from the Elysee Palace. Then it was only between five and +ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de +la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the +doctors say the fellow must have died. It's a bad scrape. But of course +Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end." + +"Do _you_ think he will, Eric?" asked Aunt Lil. + +"I hope so with all my heart," he answered. But his face showed that he +was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down--down. + +As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my +resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had +happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he +cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me--indeed, on the contrary, +everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had +refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that +the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to +defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all. + +Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and +I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on +earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk +went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do +it, if Lisa and I should act together. + +I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get +back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit +long at lunch, so it wasn't yet three when I called her into my room. +The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we +were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for +Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had +said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and +telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa +and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly +what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute. + +"I think the only thing for us to do," I said, "is to tell what we know, +and save Ivor in spite of himself." + +"How can anything you know save him?" she asked, with a queer, faint +emphasis which I didn't understand. + +"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in +the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house +there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away. +It all hangs on the time." + +"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me. + +I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?" + +"No, not unless I choose to say so." + +"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course." + +"Why?" + +"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend." + +"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another." + +"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter +except saving him?" + +"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor +Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to +understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt +it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do +it, not you. He'll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there's +something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of +value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back +at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body. +Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it." + +"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and +her words. + +"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm +saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great +deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your +aunt were thinking about hats." + +For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange +idea sprang into my mind: + +"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!" + +It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to +this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important. + +Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or +not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and +that she had wanted to tantalise me. + +"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I +do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man +mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to +tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a +very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile." + +I'm afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so +calculating and sly. I couldn't bear to think that she was my +step-sister, and I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood +ran in our veins. + +"If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own," I broke +out, "you can't prevent me from telling the whole story, as _I_ know +it--how I went out with you, and all that." + +"I can't prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to--for +Ivor's sake," she answered. + +"For his sake?" + +"Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. +For his sake, because _neither_ of us knows when he came out of Maxine +de Renzie's house. You _would_ go away, though I wanted to stay and +watch. He may not have been there more than five minutes for all we can +tell to the contrary, in which case he would still have had time to go +straight off to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in +accordance with the doctors' statements about the death. For _your_ +sake, because if he knows that you tracked him to Maxine de Renzie's +house, he won't respect you very much; and because he would probably be +furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, for +injuring the reputation of the woman he's risked so much to save. He'd +believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her." + +I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak. + +"Ivor would know that I'm incapable of such baseness." + +"I'm not sure he'd hold you above it. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman +scorned'--and he _has_ scorned you--for an actress." + +It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood +rush up to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to +my eyes. + +"You see I'm right, don't you?" Lisa asked. + +"You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way--and +that he wouldn't wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest," I +said. "We won't talk of it any more. I can't stand it. Please go back to +your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone." + +"Very well," she snapped, "_you_ called me in. I didn't ask to come." + +Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. +I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or +offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if +necessary. Lisa is a strange little creature. She will do a good deal +for money. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND + +If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to +enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been +utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made +me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; +but in my desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, +and find out some other way of helping him. At all events he should know +that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble. + +Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not +be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there +was a "perhaps" I wouldn't give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more +cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, +for I hadn't taken off my hat and coat since coming in. + +I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of +that sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that +if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation +with an accused man, as his friend, an interview--probably with a +witness--might possibly be granted. The authorities might think that we +were engaged, for all I cared. I did not care about anything now, except +seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could. + +I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the +chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. +Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of +Uncle Eric's and Aunt Lilian's. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but +I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor. That idea had +apparently not been in his mind at all. Anyway, the Ambassador would +already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of +Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from +me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I +first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed +a good deal and said that in future he would be "surprised at nothing an +American girl might do." + +I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. +There, I sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I +didn't explain much, but came to the point immediately, and said that I +wanted--oh, but wanted and needed very much indeed--to see Ivor Dundas. +Could he, would he help me to do that? + +"Ought I to help you?" he asked. "Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart +approve?" + +"Yes," I said firmly. "They would approve. You see, it is necessary." + +"Then, if it's necessary--and I believe you when you say that it is," he +answered, "I'll do what I can." + +What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief +of Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a +young lady related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, +should be allowed five minutes' conversation with the Englishman accused +of murder, Mr. Ivor Dundas. + +I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and +because I was so restless and excited that I must be doing something +every instant--something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor. + +From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I +received an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where +they had put Ivor. This, he explained, would procure me the interview I +wanted, but unfortunately, I must not hope to see my friend alone. A +warder who understood English would have to be present. + +So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it +would be to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible +circumstances, or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now +that we were no longer anything to each other--not even friends. But a +kind of ague-terror crept over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little +bare, stuffy reception room. My head was going round and round, my heart +was pounding so that I could not make up my mind what to say to Ivor +when he came. + +Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and +when it opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue +uniforms. One of them walked into the room with him--I suppose he must +have been a warder--but he stopped near the door, and in a second I had +forgotten all about him. He simply ceased to exist for me, when my eyes +and Ivor's had met. + +I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, +stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make +him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my +words of yesterday. + +"We're all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas," I said. "I don't know if +Uncle Eric has been here yet--but he is doing all he can, and Aunt +Lilian is dreadfully upset. We're staying on in Paris on account of--on +account of this. So you see you've got friends near you. And I--we're +such old friends, I couldn't help trying as hard as I could for a sight +of you to--to cheer you up, and--and to help you, if that's possible." + +I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but +pretending to smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes +were full of tears, and I was afraid they'd go splashing down my cheeks, +if I even winked my lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt +capable of forgiving him anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, +and if only, _only_ he really loved me and not that other. + +"Thank you, a hundred times--more than I can express," he said, with a +faint quiver in his voice--his beautiful voice, which was the first +thing that charmed me after knowing him. "It _does_ cheer me to see you. +It gives me strength and courage. You wouldn't have come if you +didn't--trust me, and believe me innocent." + +"Why, of course, I--we--believe you innocent of any crime," I faltered. + +"And of any lack of faith?" + +"Oh, as for that, how can--but don't let's speak of that. What can it +matter now?" + +"It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say +that you will have faith!" + +"I'll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort." + +"Not unless you mean it." + +"Then--I'll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?" + +"It's better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, +you're not to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or +later, though I may have to suffer some annoyances first." + +"Annoyances?" I echoed. "If there were nothing worse!" + +"There won't be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a +huge mistake--another warning against trusting to circumstantial +evidence." + +"Is there nothing we can do then? Or--that we would urge _others_ to +do?" I asked, hoping he would understand that I meant _one_ +other--Maxine de Renzie. + +I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; +but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. + +"There is one thing _you_ could do for me--you and no one else," he +said. "But I have no right to ask it." + +"Tell me what it is," I implored. + +"I would not, if it didn't mean more than my life to me." He hesitated, +and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a +few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as +familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still +existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me +sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught +him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three +or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a +diplomatic career. + +They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the +warder--almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform +came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious. + +"That is forbidden," he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. "What +language was that?" + +"Spanish," I answered. "He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very +dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It +was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me." + +"Nevertheless, it is forbidden," repeated the warder obstinately, "and +though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the +prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and +must be reported." + +With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to +me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole +French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman +dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to +know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I +could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think! + +As for Ivor, he said not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half +sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his +head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as +plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know you won't fail me." + +I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage +not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, +and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did +not mean more than his life. + +The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were +these: "Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony +find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. +Every moment counts." + +So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie! +And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her. + +As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared +more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a +thing of me. But--it "meant more than his life." And I would do the +thing, if it could be done, because of my pride. + +As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed +me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known +that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to +which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there. + +My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over--with success or +failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed. + +I hadn't looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night's +dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had +said to myself that I didn't wish to read the newspaper accounts of the +murder, and of Ivor's supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, +that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder +was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously +grim one--like the tragedy that had been acted in it. + +I couldn't tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That +would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out +from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be +plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going +back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once +I was there. Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I +pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards. + +Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. +Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of +chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble +tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper. + +It was a shock to find Ivor's photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at +me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a +good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor's disgust, at about the +time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really +wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been +on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the +newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, +built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I +knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been +committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the +window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed--according to Girard, the +detective--to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, +on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead +man's room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a +bull's-eye lantern, which he--Girard--carried, standing at bay in the +open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside. +There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with +another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the +picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of +distance between the railings of those two balconies. + +"That would be my way to get there--if I can get there at all," I said +to myself. But there was hardly any "if" left in my mind now. I meant to +get there. + +By this time it was after five o'clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and +again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a _petit bleu_ to +Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn't to worry about me. I'd been hipped +and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was--I'd just found +out--staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; +but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o'clock. That would save a +bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American +friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to +search for me, even if they were inclined. + +Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and +dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two +mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of +the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left--the house of the +balcony almost adjoining the dead man's. + +I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms +to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the +advertisement of "_Chambres a louer_" staring me in the face: but I +spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every +sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me. + +There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been +too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had +jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young +American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to "write +up" the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of +course the police wouldn't let me go into the room where it happened, +the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house +adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to "get the emotion, +the sensation," I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic. +Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? +Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with +my writing. + +The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was +almost sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would +willingly agree to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their +trouble in turning out. + +Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge--whose eyes +brightened--thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take +a large commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; +but that didn't matter to me. + +He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get +into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, +saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who +were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I +could see the shut window from the balcony of the room I was going to +hire. + +I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he +went upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining +to the people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far +strained, he came back to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had +consented to go out of their room for the evening. They were dining at +the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must be pleased to wait a few +moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a few things which +they could carry to a neighbour's: books, and work for their hours of +absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my +feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a +parcel of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an +unscrupulous American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment +must be made in advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then--I waited, +waited. It was tedious, but after all, the tediousness didn't matter +much when I came to think of it. It would be impossible to do the thing +I had made up my mind to do, till after dark. + + + + +MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MAXINE MAKES A BARGAIN + +We looked everywhere, in all possible places, for the diamond necklace, +Raoul and I; and to him, poor fellow, its second loss seemed +overwhelming. He did not see in glaring scarlet letters always before +his eyes these two words: "The treaty," as I did--for my punishment. He +was in happy ignorance still of that other loss which I--I, to whom his +honour should have been sacred--had inflicted upon him. He was satisfied +with my story; that through a person employed by me--a person whose name +could not yet be mentioned, even to him--the necklace had been snatched +from the thief who had stolen it. He blamed himself mercilessly for +thinking so little of the brocade bag which I had given him at parting, +for letting all remembrance of my words concerning it be put out of his +mind by his "wicked jealousy," as he repentantly called it. For me, he +had nothing but praise and gratitude for what I had done for him. He +begged me to forgive him, and his remorse for such a small thing, +comparatively--wrung my heart. + +We searched the garden and the whole street, then came back to search +the little drawing-room for the second time, in vain. It did seem that +there was witchcraft in it, as I said to Raoul; but at last I persuaded +him to go away, and follow his own track wherever he had been since I +gave him the bag with the diamonds. It was just possible, as it was so +late, and his way had led him through quiet streets, that even after all +this time the little brocade bag might be lying where he had left it--or +that some honest policeman on his beat might have picked it up. Besides, +there was the cab in which he had come part of the distance to my house. +The bag might have fallen on the floor while he drove: and there were +many honest cabmen in Paris, I reminded him, trying to be as cheerful as +I could. + +So he left me. And I was deadly tired; but I had no thought of sleep--no +wish for it. When I had unlocked the door of my boudoir and found Ivor +Dundas gone, as I had hoped he would be, the next hope born in my heart +was that he might by and by come back, or send--with news. Hour after +hour of deadly suspense passed on, and he did not come or make any sign. +At five o'clock Marianne, who had flitted about all night like a +restless ghost, made me drink a cup of hot chocolate, and actually put +me to bed. My last words to her were: "What is the use? I can't sleep. +It will be worse to lie and toss in a fever, than sit up." + +Yet I did sleep, and heavily. She will always deny it, I know, but I'm +sure she must have slyly slipped a sleeping-powder into the chocolate. I +was far too much occupied with my own thoughts, as I drank to please +her, to think whether or no there was anything at all peculiar in the +taste. + +Be that as it may, I slept; and when I waked suddenly, starting out of a +hateful dream (yet scarcely worse than realities), to my horror it was +nearly noon. + +I was wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant +wish not to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. +However, when Marianne came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the +electric bell, she said that no one had been. There were letters and one +telegram, and all the morning papers, as usual after the first night of +a new play. + +My heart gave a spring at the news that there was a telegram, for I +thought it might be from Ivor, saying he was on the track of the treaty, +even if he hadn't yet got hold of it. But the message was from Raoul; +and he had not found the brocade bag. He did not put this in so many +words, but said, "I have not found what was lost, or learned anything of +it." + +From Ivor there was not a line, and I thought this cruel. He might have +wired, or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. +He might, unless--something had happened to him. There was that to think +of; and I did think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I +had not suffered yet all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant +to the Elysee Palace Hotel to enquire for him, and despatched Henri +immediately. Meanwhile, as there was nothing to do, after pretending to +eat breakfast under the watchful eyes of Marianne, I pretended also to +read the newspaper notices of the play. But each sentence went out of my +head before I had begun the next. I knew in the end only that, according +to all the critics, Maxine de Renzie had "surpassed herself," had been +"astonishingly great," had done "what no woman could do unless she threw +her whole soul into her part." How little they knew where Maxine de +Renzie's soul had been last night! And--only God knew where it might be +this night. Out of her body, perhaps--the one way of escape from Raoul's +hatred, if he had come to know the truth. + +Of course the enquiry at the hotel was not for Ivor Dundas, but for the +name he had adopted there; yet when my servant came back to me he had +nothing to tell which was consoling--rather the other way. The gentleman +had gone out about midnight (I knew that already), and hadn't returned +since. Henri had been to the Bureau to ask, and it had struck him, he +admitted to me on being catechised, that his questions had been answered +with a certain reserve, as if more were known of the absent gentleman's +movements than it was considered wise to tell. + +My servant had not been long away, though it seemed long to me, and he +had delayed only to buy all the evening papers, which he "thought that +Mademoiselle would like to see, as they were sure to be filled with +praise of her great acting." It was on my tongue to scold him for +stopping even one moment, when he had been told to hurry, but he looked +so pleased at his own cleverness that I hadn't the heart to dash his +happiness. I would, however, have pushed the papers aside without so +much as glancing at them, if it hadn't suddenly occurred to me that, if +any accident had befallen Ivor, news of it might possibly have got into +print by this time. + +When I read what had happened--how he was accused of murder, and while +declaring his innocence had been silent as to all those events which +might have proved it, my heart went out to him in a wave of gratitude. +Here was a man! A man loyal and brave and chivalrous as all men ought to +be, but few are! He had sacrificed himself to the death, no doubt, to +keep my name out of the mud into which my business had thrown him, and +to save me from appearing in Raoul's eyes the liar that I was. Had Ivor +told that he was with me, after I had prevaricated (if I had not +actually lied) to Raoul about the midnight visitor to my house, what +would Raoul think of me? + +Ivor was trying to save me, if he could; and he had been trying to save +me when he went to the room of that dead man, though how and when he had +decided to go I knew not. If it were not for me, he would be free and +happy to-day. + +My conscience cried out that the one thing to do was to go at once to +the Chief of Police and say: "Monsieur, this English gentleman they have +arrested cannot have committed a murder in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, +between twelve and one last night, for he came to my house, far away in +the Rue d'Hollande, at a quarter past twelve, and didn't leave it till +after one o'clock." + +I even sprang up from my chair in the very room where I had hidden Ivor, +to ring for Marianne and tell her to bring me a hat and coat, to bid her +order my electric brougham immediately. But--I sat down again, sick and +despairing, deliberately crushing the generous impulse. I couldn't obey +it. I dared not. By and by, perhaps. If Ivor should be in real pressing +danger, then certainly. But not now. + +At four o'clock Raoul came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us +tried to cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even +yet he would have news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking +me ill and tired out, did all he could to persuade me that he was not +miserable with anxiety. At least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky +or of any man, and was humbly repentant for his suspicions of me the +night before. When Raoul is repentant, and wishes to atone for something +that he has done, he is enchanting. There was never a man like him. + +At five I sent him away, with the excuse that I must rest, as I hadn't +slept much the night before; but really it was because I feared lest I +should disgrace myself before him by breaking down, and giving him a +fright--or perhaps even by being mad enough to confess the thing I had +done. I felt that I was no longer mistress of myself--that I might be +capable of any folly. + +I could not eat, but I drank a little beef-tea before starting for the +theatre, where I went earlier than usual. It would be something to be +busy; and in my part I might even forget for a moment, now and then. + +Marianne and I were in my dressing-room before seven. I insisted on +dressing at once, and took as long as I could in the process of making +up; still, when I was ready there was more than half an hour to spare +before the first act. There were letters for me--the kind that always +come to the theatre--but I couldn't read them, after I had occupied +myself with tearing open the envelopes. I knew what they would be: vows +of adoration from strangers; poems by budding poets; petitions for +advice from girls and young men who wanted to go on the stage; requests +from artists who wanted to paint my picture. There were always such +things every night, especially after the opening of a new play. + +I was still aimlessly breaking fantastic seals, and staring unseeingly +at crests and coronets, when there came a knock at the door. Marianne +opened it, to speak for a moment with the stage door keeper. + +"Mademoiselle," she whispered, coming to me, "Monsieur le Comte Godensky +wishes to see you. Shall I say you are not receiving?" + +I thought for a moment. Better see him, perhaps. I might learn +something. If not--if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please +himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away. + +I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there. +He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one +is sure. + +"Well?" I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He +held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when +he had come too close. + +"Well--I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought +you would be glad to see--even me," he answered, smiling still. + +"What news? But bad, of course--or you wouldn't bring it." + +"You are very cruel. Of course, you've seen the evening papers? You know +that your English friend is in prison?" + +"The same English friend whom _you_ would have liked to see arrested +early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge," I flung at him. +"You look surprised. But you are _not_ surprised, Count +Godensky--except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at +the Elysee Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn't it? But +you haven't told me your news." + +"It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack +to-day." + +"What do you mean?" + +"He has been in the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the +same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if +some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas, +and what answers he made?" + +Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky +came! I had been thinking of the Juge d'Instruction, and his terrible +cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without +trembling. I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given +which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them. +Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I reminded myself that this was +impossible. No one could know except the Juge d'Instruction and Ivor +Dundas himself. "Only two men were present at that scene, and they will +never tell what went on," I said aloud. + +"Three men were present," Godensky answered. "Besides the two of whom +you think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is +permitted nowadays that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be +accompanied by his legal adviser when he goes before the Juge +d'Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of the language might +handicap him, and cause misunderstandings which would prejudice his +case." + +He paused a moment, but I did not reply. I knew that Ivor Dundas spoke +French as well as I; but I was not going to tell this Russian that fact. + +"The adviser your friend has chosen," Godensky went on, "happens to be a +protege of mine. I made him--gave him his first case, his first success; +and have employed him more than once since. Odd, what a penchant Mr. +Dundas seems to have for men in whom I, too, have confidence! Last +night, it was Girard. To-day, it is Lenormand." + +This was a blow, and a heavy one; but I wouldn't let Godensky see that I +winced under it. + +"You keep yourself singularly well-informed of the movements of your +various proteges," I said--"as well as those of your enemies. But if the +information in the one case is no more trustworthy than in the +other--why, you're not faithfully served. I've good reason to know that +you've made several mistakes lately, and you're likely to make more." + +"Thanks for the warning. But I hope you don't call yourself my 'enemy'?" + +"I don't know of a more appropriate name--after the baseness that you +haven't even tried to hide, in your dealings with me." + +"I thought all was fair in love and war." + +"Do you make war on women?" + +"No--I make love to them." + +"To many, I dare say. But here is one who won't listen." + +"At least you will listen while I go on with the news I came to tell?" + +"Oh, yes, I confess to being curious. No doubt what you say will be +interesting--even if not accurate." + +"I can promise that it shall be both. I called on Lenormand as soon as I +learned what had happened--that he'd been mixed up in this case--and +expressed myself as extremely concerned for the fate of his client, +friends of whom were intimate friends of mine. So you see, there was no +question of treachery on Lenormand's part. He trusts me--as you do not. +Indeed, I even offered my help for Dundas, if I could give it +consistently with my position. Naturally, he told me nothing which could +be used against Dundas, so far as he knew, even if I wished to go +against him--which my coming here ought to prove to you that I do not." + +"I read the proof rather differently," I said. "But go on. I'm sure you +are anxious to tell me certain things. Please come to the point." + +"In a few words, then, the point is this: One of the most important +questions put by the Juge d'Instruction, after hearing from Mr. Dundas +the explanation of a document found on him by the police--ah, that wakes +you up, Mademoiselle! You are surprised that a document was found on the +prisoner?" + +I was half fainting with fear lest Ivor had regained the treaty, only to +lose it again in this dreadful way; but I controlled myself. + +"I rather hope it was not a letter from me," I said. "You know so much, +that you probably know I admitted to the police at the Elysee Palace a +strong friendship for Mr. Dundas. We knew each other well in London. But +London ways are different from the ways of Paris. It isn't agreeable to +be gossipped about, however unjustly, even if one is--only an actress." + +"You turn things cleverly, as always. Yes, you are afraid there might +have been--a letter. Yet the public adores you. It would pardon you any +indiscretion, especially a romantic one--any indiscretion _except +treachery_. There might, however, be a few persons less indulgent. Du +Laurier, for instance." + +I shivered. "We were speaking of the scene with the Juge d'Instruction," +I reminded him. "You have wandered from the point again." + +"There are so many points--all sharp as swords for those they may +pierce. Well, the important question was in relation to a letter--yes. +But the letter was not from you, Mademoiselle. It was written in +English, and it made an appointment at the very address where the crime +was committed. It was, as nearly as I could make out, a request from a +person calling himself a jeweller's assistant, for the receiver of the +letter to call and return a case containing jewels. This case had been +committed to Mr. Dundas' care, it appeared, while travelling from London +to Paris, and without his knowledge, another packet being taken away to +make room for this. Mr. Dundas replied to the Juge d'Instruction that +his own packet, stolen from him on the journey, contained nothing but +papers _entirely personal,_ concerning himself alone. + +"'What was in the case which the man afterwards murdered slipped into +your pocket?' asked the Juge d'Instruction--Lenormand tells me. + +"'A necklace,' answered Mr. Dundas. + +"'A necklace of diamonds?' + +"'Possibly diamonds, possibly paste, I wasn't much interested in it.' + +"'Ah, was this not the necklace which you--staying at the Elysee Palace +under another name--gave to Mademoiselle Maxine de Renzie last evening?' +was the next question thrown suddenly at Mr. Dundas' head. Now, you see, +Mademoiselle, that my story is not dull." + +"Am I to hear the rest--according to your protege?" I asked, twisting my +handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky's neck, till he +had no more breath or wickedness left in him. + +"Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d'Instruction, a most +clever and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought +you a present of diamonds, it was something entirely different, and +therefore far removed from this case. + +"'Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie's lover?' was the next enquiry. 'I +admire her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,' +your friend returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to +see what there is in this string of questions and answers to bring me +straight to you?" + +"No, Count Godensky, I do not," I answered steadily. But a sudden +illuminating ray did show me, even as I spoke, what _might_ be in his +scheming mind. + +"Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You +love him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is, +he is a very proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him +well; and he would not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds +from another man, saying as she takes them that he is her lover." + +"He wouldn't believe it of me!" I cried. + +"There is a way of convincing him. Oh, _I_ shall not tell him! But he +shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d'Instruction and +Mr. Dundas, unless--" + +"Unless?--but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself." + +"Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you, +Maxine. I mean to have you--or I will crush you, and now you know I can. +Choose." + +I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as +for a moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed: + +"Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn't make me love +you less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are--as he will +know soon unless you let me save you? Yet I--I would love you if you +were a murderess as well as a--spy." + +"It is you who are a spy!" I faltered, now all but broken. + +"If I am, I haven't spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du +Laurier, and before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all +ways." + +"No--no," I gasped. "You cannot. You're boasting. You can do nothing." + +"Nothing to-night, perhaps. I'm not speaking of to-night. I am giving +you time. But to-morrow--or the day after. It's much the same to me. At +first, when I began to suspect that something had been taken from its +place, I had no proof. I had to get that, and I did get it--nearly all I +wanted. This affair of Dundas might have been planned for my advantage. +It is perfect. All its complications are just so many links in a chain +for me. Girard--the man Dundas chose to employ--was the very man I'd +sent to England; on what errand, do you think? To watch your friend the +British Foreign Secretary. He followed Dundas to Paris on the bare +suspicion that there'd been, communication between the two, and he was +preparing a report for me when--Dundas called on him." + +"What connection can Ivor Dundas' coming to Paris have with Raoul du +Laurier?" I dared to ask. + +"You know best as to that." + +"They have never met. Both are men of honour, and--" + +"Men of honour are tricked by women sometimes, and then they have to +suffer for being fools, as if they had been villains. Think what such a +man--a man of honour, as you say--would feel when he found out the +woman!" + +"A woman can be calumniated as well as a man," I said. "You are so +unscrupulous you would stoop to anything, I know that. Raoul du Laurier +has done nothing; I--I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. Yet you +can lie about us, ruin him perhaps by a plot, as if he were guilty, +and--and do terrible harm to me." + +"I can--without the trouble of lying. And I will, unless you'll give up +du Laurier and make up your mind to marry me. I always meant to have +you. You are the one woman worthy of me." + +"You are the man most unworthy of any woman. But, give me till to-morrow +evening--at this time--to decide. Will you promise me that?" + +"No, I know what you would do. You would kill yourself. It is what is in +your mind now. I won't risk losing you. I have waited long enough +already. Give me a ring of yours, and a written word from you to du +Laurier, saying that you find you have made a mistake; and not only will +I do nothing to injure him, but will guard against the discovery of--you +know what. Besides, as a matter of course, I'll bring all my influence +to bear in keeping your name out of this or any other scandal. I can do +much, everything indeed, for I admit that it was through me the +Commissary of Police trapped you with Dundas. I will say that I +blundered. I know what to do to save you, and I will do it--for my +future wife." + +"No power on earth could induce me to break with Raoul du Laurier in the +way you wish," I said. "If--if I am to give him up, I must tell him with +my own lips, and bid him good-bye. I will do this to-morrow, if you will +hold your hand until then." + +We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Godensky was +trying to read my mind, and to make up his accordingly. + +"You swear by everything you hold sacred to break with him to-morrow?" + +"By the memory of my father and mother, martyred by bureaucrats like +you, I pledge my word that--that--if I can't break with Raoul, to let +you know the first thing in the morning, and dare you to do--what you +will." + +"You will not 'dare' me, I think. And because I think so, I will wait--a +little longer." + +"Until this time to-morrow?" + +"No. For if you cheated me, it would be too late to act for another +twelve hours. But I will give you till to-morrow noon. You agree to +that?" + +"I agree." My lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he +understood, and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to +snatch my hand. I drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne +appeared at the door. + +"There is a young lady to see Mademoiselle," she announced, her +good-natured, open face showing all her dislike of Count Godensky. "A +young lady who sends this note, begging that Mademoiselle will read it +at once, and consent to see her." + +Thankful that the tete-a-tete had been interrupted, I held out my hand +for the letter. Marianne gave it to me. I glanced at the name written +below the lines which only half filled the first page of theatre paper, +and found it strange to me. But, even if I had not been ready to snatch +at the chance of ridding myself immediately of Godensky, the few words +above the unfamiliar name would have made me say as I did say, "Bring +the young lady in at once." + + "I come to you from Mr. Dundas, on business which he told me was + of the greatest and most pressing importance. + + "DIANA FORREST." + +That was the whole contents of the note; but a dozen sheets closely +filled with arguments could not have moved me more. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +MAXINE MEETS DIANA + +Godensky was obliged to take his leave, which he did abruptly, but to +all appearance with a good grace; and when he was gone Marianne ushered +in a girl--a tall, beautiful girl in a grey tailor dress built by an +artist. + +For such time as it might have taken us to count twelve, we looked at +each other; and as we looked, a little clock on the mantel softly chimed +the quarter hour. In fifteen minutes I should be due upon the stage. + +The girl was very lovely. Yes, lovely was the right word for her--lovely +and lovable. She was like a fresh rose, with the morning dew of youth on +its petals--a rose that had budded and was beginning to bloom in a fair +garden, far out of reach of ugly weeds. I envied her, for I felt how +different her sweet, girl's life had been from my stormy if sometimes +brilliant career. + +"Mr. Dundas sent you to me?" I asked. "When did you see him? Surely +not--since--" + +"This afternoon," she answered quietly, in a pretty, un-English sounding +voice, with a soft little drawl of the South in it. "I went to see him. +They gave us five minutes. A warder was there; but speaking quickly in +Spanish, just a few words, he--Mr. Dundas--managed to tell me a thing he +wished me to do. He said it meant more than his life, so I did it; for +we have been friends, and just now he's helpless. The warder was angry, +and stopped our conversation at once, though the five minutes weren't +ended. But I understood. Mr. Dundas said there wasn't a moment to lose." + +"Yet that was in the afternoon, and you only come to me at this hour!" I +exclaimed. + +"I had something else to do first," she said, in the same quiet voice. +She was looking down now, not at me, and her eyelashes were so long that +they made a shadow on her cheeks. But the blood streamed over her face. + +"Even before I saw--Mr. Dundas," she went on, "I had the idea of calling +on you--about a different matter. I think it would be more honest of me, +if before I go on I tell you that--quite by accident, so far as I was +concerned--I was with someone who saw Mr. Dundas go to your house last +night, a little after twelve. I didn't dream of spying on--either of +you. It just happened, it wouldn't interest you to know how. Yet--I beg +of you to tell me one thing. Was he with you for long--so long that he +couldn't have got to the other place in time to commit the murder?" + +"He was in my house until after one," I said boldly. "But you, if you +are his friend, ought to know him well enough to be certain without such +an assurance from me, that he is no murderer." + +"Oh, I am certain," she protested. "I asked the question, not for that +reason, but to know if you could really prove his innocence, if you +choose. Now, I find you can. When I read the papers this afternoon, at +first I wanted to rush off to the police and tell them where he had been +while the murder was being committed. But I didn't know how long he had +stopped in your house, and, besides--" + +"You would have dared to do that!" I broke in, the blood, angry blood, +stinging my cheeks more hotly than it stung hers. + +"It wasn't a question of daring," she answered. "I thought of him more +than of you; but I thought of you, too. I knew that if I were in your +place, no matter how much harm I might do to myself, I would confess +that he had been in my house." + +"There are reasons why I can't tell that he was there," I said, trying +to awe her by speaking coldly and proudly. "His visit was entirely on +business. But Mr. Dundas understands why I must keep silence, and he +approves. You know he has remained silent himself." + +"For your sake, because he is a gentleman--brave and chivalrous. Would +you take advantage of that?" + +"You take advantage of me," I flung back at the girl, looking her up and +down. "You pretend that you came from Mr. Dundas with a pressing message +for me. Do you want me to believe _this_ his message? I think too well +of him." + +"I don't want you to believe that," she answered. "I haven't come to the +message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own +account." + +"In twelve minutes I must be on the stage," I said. + +"The stage!" she echoed. "You can go on acting just the same, though he +is in prison--for you!" + +"I must go on acting. If I didn't, I should do him more harm than good." + +"I won't keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you _will_ do him +good. If you care for him at all, you must want to save him." + +"If I care for him?" I repeated, in surprise. "You think--oh, but I +understand now. You are the girl he spoke of." + +She blushed deeply, and then grew pale. + +"I did not think he would speak of me," she said. "I wish he hadn't. +But, if you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see +that you have nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de +Renzie." + +"Why," I exclaimed, "you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover." + +"I don't know what you are to each other," she faltered, all her +coolness deserting her. "That isn't my affair--" + +"But I say it is. You shall not make such a mistake. Mr. Dundas cares +nothing for me, except as a friend. He never did, though we flirted a +little a year ago, to amuse ourselves. Now, I am engaged to marry a man +whom I worship. I would gladly die for him. Ivor Dundas knows that, and +is glad. But the other man is jealous. He wouldn't understand--he would +want to kill me and himself and Ivor Dundas, if he knew that Ivor was in +my house last night. He was there too, and I lied to him about Ivor. How +could I expect him to believe the real truth now? He is a man. But _you_ +will believe, because you are a woman, like myself, and I think the +woman Ivor Dundas loves." + +Her beautiful eyes brightened. "He told you--that?" + +"He told me he loved a girl, and was afraid that he would lose her +because of the business which brought him to me. You seem to have been +as unreasonable with him, as Ra--as the man I love could be with me. +Poor Ivor! Last night was not the first time that he sacrificed himself +for chivalry and honour. Yet you blame me! Look to yourself, Miss +Forrest." + +"I--I don't blame you," she stammered, a sob in her voice. "Only I beg +you to save him, from gratitude, if not from love." + +"It's true I owe him a debt of gratitude, deeper than you know," I +answered. "He is worth trusting--worth saving, at the expense of almost +any sacrifice. But I can't sacrifice the man I love for him." + +She looked thoughtful. "You say the man you were engaged to was at your +house while Ivor was there?" + +"Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied." + +"He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your +gate?" + +"He confessed that, when I'd made him repent his jealousy. Why do you +ask? You saw him?" + +"I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of +value near your house?" + +"Great heavens, yes!" I cried. "What do you know of that?" + +"I know--something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for +him--if you will promise to help Ivor." + +"Oh, shame," I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. "You are +trying to bribe me!" + +"Yes, but I am not ashamed," the girl answered, holding her head high. +"I have not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you--this +very night or to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask." + +"I tell you I cannot," I said. "Not even to get back that thing whose +loss was the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin +myself and--another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If +we talked of this together all night, it could make no difference. And +I'm in great trouble, great trouble of my own." + +"Has your trouble anything to do with a document?" Miss Forrest slowly +asked. + +I started, and stared at her, breathless. + +"It has!" she answered for me. "Your face tells me so." + +"Has Ivor's message--to do with that?" I almost gasped. + +"Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want +news--if you want the document, it must be through me." + +"Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the document, if you +can get it for me, I will do," I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone. + +"I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a +little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?" + +"I must," I said, "if you have the document to sell, and are determined +to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my +life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to +him. Still, it will save him from--" I stopped, and bit my lip. "Will +you give me the diamonds, too?" I asked, humbly enough now. + +"The diamonds?" She looked bewildered. + +"The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the +bag?" + +"Yes, they are--they will be in the bag," the girl answered, her +charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. "You +shall have the diamonds, and the document, too, for that one promise." + +"How is it possible that you can give me the document?" I asked, half +suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured +because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through +this girl seemed incredible. + +"Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it," she said simply. "That was +why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the document. I didn't +quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or +advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the +balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be +allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I +thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next +door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after +dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't +as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so +high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I +couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the +climbing back. I don't know how the document came in the box, though I +suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up +in a towel; and it's quite clean." + +"I think," I said slowly, when she had finished her story, "that you +have a right to set a high price on that document. You are a brave +girl." + +"It's not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I'm going +to give the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I +know you'll pay. And I hope, oh, I _feel_, it won't hurt you as you +think it will." + +Then, as if it had been some ordinary paper, she whipped from a long +pocket of a coat she wore, the treaty. She put it into my hand. I felt +it, I clasped it. I could have kissed it. The very touch of it made me +tremble. + +"Do you know what this is, Miss Forrest?" I asked. + +"No," she said. "It was yours, or Ivor's. Of course I didn't look." + +And then there came the rap, rap, of the call-boy at the door. The +fifteen minutes were over. But I had the treaty. And I had to pay its +price. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +MAXINE PLAYS THE LAST HAND OF THE GAME + +When the play was over, I let Raoul drive home with me to supper. If +Godensky knew, as he may have known--since he seemed to know all my +movements--perhaps he thought that I was seeing Raoul for the last time, +and sending him away from me for ever. But, though the game was not in +my hands yet, the treaty was; and I had made up my mind to defy +Godensky. + +I had almost promised that, if he held his hand, I would give Raoul up; +and never have I broken my word. But if I wrote a letter to Godensky in +the morning, saying I had changed my mind, that he could do his worst +against Raoul du Laurier and against me, for nothing should part us two +except death? Then he would have fair warning that I did not intend to +do the thing to which he had nearly forced me; and I would fight him, +when he tried to take revenge. But meanwhile, before he got that letter, +I would--I must--find some way of putting the treaty back in its place +at the Foreign Office. + +It was too soon to dare to be happy, yet; for it was on the cards that, +even when I had saved Raoul from the consequences of my political +treachery, Godensky might still be able to ruin me with him. Yet, the +relief I felt after the all but hopeless anguish in which I had been +drowning for the last few days gave to my spirit a wild exhilaration +that night. I encouraged Raoul with hints that I had news of the +necklace, and said that, if he would let me come to him in his office as +soon as it was open in the morning, I might be able to surprise him +pleasantly. Of course, he answered that it would give him the greatest +joy to see me there, or anywhere; and we parted with an appointment for +nine o'clock next day. + +When he had gone, I wrote a note--a very short note--to Count Godensky. +I wanted to have it ready; but I did not mean to send it till the treaty +was in the safe whence I had taken it. Then, the letter should go at +once, by messenger; and it would still be very early in the day, I +hoped. + +Usually, I have my cup of chocolate in bed at nine; but on the morning +which followed I was dressed and ready to go out at half past eight. I +think that I had not slept at all, but that didn't matter. I felt strong +and fresh, and my heart was full of courage. I was leaving nothing to +chance. I had a plan, and knew how I meant to play the last hand in the +game. It might go against me. But I held a high trump. Again, as before, +Raoul received me alone. + +"Dearest," he exclaimed, "I know your news must be good, for you look so +bright and beautiful. Tell me--tell me!" + +I laughed, teasingly, though Heaven knew I was in no mood for teasing. + +"You're too impatient," I said. "To punish you for asking about the +wretched diamonds before you enquired how I slept, and whether I dreamed +of you, I shall make you pay a penalty." + +"Any penalty you will," he answered, laughing too, and entering into the +joke--for he was happy and hopeful now, seeing that I could joke. + +"Let me sit down and write at your desk, on a bit of your paper," I +said. + +He gave me pen and ink. I scribbled off a few words, and folded the note +into an envelope. + +"Now, this is very precious," I went on. "It tells you all you want to +know. But--I'm going to post it." + +"No, no!" he protested. "I can't wait for the post." + +"Oh, I wouldn't trust my treasure to the post office, not even if it +were insured. Open that wonderful safe you gave me a peep into the other +day, and I'll put this valuable document in among the others, not more +valuable to the country than this ought to be to you. I'll hide it +there, and you must shut up the safe without looking for it, till I've +gone. Then, you must count ten, and after that--you may search. +Remember, you said you'd submit to any penalty, so no excuses, no +complaints." + +Raoul laughed. "You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you +are a sorceress, and have bewitched me." + +He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my +whim. But I gaily motioned him behind me. "If you stand there you can +see where I put it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back." + +He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's +secrets." + +"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.) +"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least." + +As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real +one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written +where he could not help finding it at first or second glance. + +"Now you can close the safe," I said. + +He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from +my heart, "Thank Heaven!" + +"I must leave you," I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious +no longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to +open the cage of Godensky's vengeance, and--I was afraid of him. + +"I may come to you as soon as I'm free?" Raoul asked. + +"Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and--what you think +of me," I said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he +might continue to think of me all things good--far better than I +deserved, yet not better than I would try to deserve in the future, if I +were permitted to spend that future with him. + +The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a +flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight +now. + +Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a +way in which, I hoped, that promise--fulfilled as I meant to fulfil +it--might help rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for +nothing. + +I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a +patron of the theatre--when he can spare time from his work. I had met +him, and had reason to know that he admired my acting. + +His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play; +and he was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of +that scene at the Elysee Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew +everything--so far as his subordinate could report. + +"Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?" I asked. + +"A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day +world," he gallantly replied. + +"But you can guess what has brought me?" + +"Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre +this evening." + +"It is partly that," I laughed. "Partly for the pleasure of seeing you, +of course. And partly--you know already, since you know everything, that +I am a friend of Mr. Dundas, the young Englishman accused of a murder +which he could not possibly have committed." + +"Could not possibly have committed? Is that merely your opinion as a +loyal friend, or have you come to make a communication to me?" + +"For that--and to offer you the stage-box for to-night." + +"A thousand thanks for the box. As for the communication--" + +"It's this. Mr. Dundas was in my house at the time when, according to +the doctors' statements, the murder must have been committed. Oh, it's a +hard thing for me to come and tell you this!" I went on hastily. "Not +that I'm ashamed to have received a call from him at that hour, as it +was necessary to see him then, or not at all. He meant to leave Paris +early in the morning. But--because I'm engaged to be married to--perhaps +you know that, though, among other things?" + +"I've heard--a rumour. I didn't know that it amounted to an engagement. +Monsieur du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated." + +"I love him dearly," I said simply. And, not because I am an actress, +but because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears +rose to my eyes. "I am true to him, and always have been. But--he is +horribly jealous. I can't explain Mr. Dundas' night visit in a way to +satisfy him. If Raoul finds out that an Englishman--well-known, but of +whom I never spoke--was at my house after midnight, he will believe I +have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would help me to keep this +secret I am telling you so frankly!" + +"Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?" asked the Chief of +Police gravely. + +"Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to +break with Raoul du Laurier." + +"Dear Mademoiselle," said the good and gallant man, "trust me to do the +best I can for you." (I could see that my tears had moved him.) "A grief +to you would be a blow to Paris. Yet--well, as you have been frank, I +owe it to you to be equally so on my side. I should before this have +sent--quite privately and in a friendly way, to question you about this +Mr. Dundas, who passed under another name at the hotel where you called +upon him; but I received a request from a very high quarter to wait +before communicating with you. Now, as you have come to me, I suppose I +may speak." + +"Ask me any questions you choose," I said, "and I'll answer them." + +"Then, to begin with, since you are engaged to Monsieur du Laurier, how +do you explain the statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr. +Dundas?" + +"That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell +you," I answered him; "for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I +throw myself upon your mercy." + +"You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?" + +"Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little +flirtation with Mr. Dundas--no more, though we liked and admired each +other. We exchanged a few silly letters, and I forgot all about them +until I fell in love with Raoul and promised to marry him--only a short +time ago. Then I couldn't bear to think that I had written these foolish +letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have kept them. I wrote and +asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and valued them +immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them to +me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him +that I'd meet him at the Elysee Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to +receive the letters from him." + +"He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle, +since there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?" + +"He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl +who lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn't +want the girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there +had been a little talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she +didn't like it." + +"I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first +thing in the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the +British Secretary for Foreign Affairs." + +"Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl--a Miss +Forrest, is distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She +lives with her aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that +gentleman. And the Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart." + +"Ah, Miss Forrest!" + +"You know of her already?" + +"I have heard her name." + +(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except +through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.) + +"You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I," I went on. +"But I'll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you +can't have found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters--half +a dozen. He gave me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast +pocket, saying the letters were in it. But the room was dark. Something +had gone wrong with the electricity, and I hadn't let him push back the +curtains, for fear I might be seen from outside, if the lights should +suddenly come on. He didn't see the case, as he handed it to me, nor +could I. Just at that instant there was a knock at the door; and quick +as thought I pushed the leather case down between the seat and back of +the sofa." + +"But what reason had you to suppose that any danger of discovery +threatened you because of a knock at the door?" + +"I'll tell you. There is a man--I won't mention his name, but you know +it very well, and maybe it is in your mind now--who wants me to marry +him. He has wanted it for some time--I think because he admires women +who are before the public and applauded by the world; also, perhaps, +because I have refused him, and he is one who wants most what he finds +hardest to get. He is not a scrupulous person, but he has some power and +a good deal of influence, because he is very highly connected, and when +people have 'axes to grind' he helps to grind them. He has suspected for +some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has hated +Raoul. I have fancied--that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my +instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance +slip to separate me from the man I love. He would work mischief between +us--or he would try to ruin Raoul, or crush me--anything to keep us +apart. When I saw the Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and +though I didn't know what pretext had brought him, I said to myself +'That is the work of--'" + +"Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle." + +"I didn't mean to. I leave that to your--imagination. 'This is the work +of the man whose love is more cruel than hate,' I thought. While I +wondered what possible use the police could make of my letters, I was +shaking with terror lest they should come upon them and they should +somehow fall into--a certain man's hands. Then, at last, they did find +the case, just as I'd begun to hope it was safe. I begged the Commissary +of Police not to open it. In vain. When he did, what was my relief to +see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!--my relief and my +surprise. And now I'm going to confide in you the secret of another, +speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour. + +"Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du +Laurier, and he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a +dear friend of his--an inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman. She +dared not tell her husband of money that she'd lost, but begged Raoul to +sell the diamonds for her in Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste. +On his way there the necklace was stolen by an expert thief, who must +somehow have learned what was going on through the pawnbroker with whom +the jewels had been in pledge--for a few thousand francs only. You can +imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace returned in such a +miraculous way. I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it back, +meaning to give it to me as a surprise--and the letters afterwards. And +it was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any +price--evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation--and also to +avoid any association of Raoul's name with the necklace, that I told the +Commissary of Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover. +I spoke impulsively, in sheer desperation; and the instant the words +were out I would have cut off my hand to take back the stupid falsehood. +But what good to deny what I had just said? The men wouldn't have +believed me. + +"When the police had gone, I asked Mr. Dundas for my letters. But he +thought he had given them to me--and he knew no more of the diamonds in +their red case than I did--far less, indeed. + +"I was distracted to find that my letters had disappeared, though I was +thankful for Raoul's sake, to have the necklace. Mr. Dundas believed +that his own leather case with the letters must have been stolen from +his pocket in the train, though he couldn't imagine why the diamonds had +been given to him instead. But he suspected a travelling companion of +his, who had acted queerly; and he determined to try and find the man. +He was to bring me news after the theatre at my house, about midnight. + +"He came fifteen minutes later, having been detained at his hotel. +Friends of his had unexpectedly arrived. He had just time to tell me +this, and that after going out on a false scent he had employed a +detective named Girard, when Monsieur du Laurier arrived unexpectedly. +It seems, he'd been made frantically jealous by some misrepresentations +of--the man whose name we haven't mentioned. I begged Mr. Dundas to hide +in my boudoir, which he disliked doing, but finally did, to please me. I +hoped that he would escape by the window, but it stuck, and to my horror +I heard him there, in the dark, moving about. I covered the sounds as +well as I could, and pacified Raoul, who thought he had seen someone +come in. I hinted that it must have been the fiance of a pretty +housemaid I have. It was not till after one that Ivor Dundas finally got +away; this I swear to you. What happened to him after leaving my house +you know better than I do, for I haven't seen him since, as you are well +aware." + +"He says he found a letter from the thief in his pocket, and went to the +address named; that he couldn't get a cab and walked. But you have read +the papers," + +"Yes, and I know how loyal he has been to me. Why, he wouldn't even tell +about the diamonds, much less my letters!" + +"As for these letters, you are still anxious about them, Mademoiselle?" + +"My hope is that Mr. Dundas found and had time to destroy them, rather +than risk further delay." + +"You would like to know their fate?" + +"I would indeed." + +"Well, I applaud the Englishman's chivalry. Vive l'Entente Cordiale!" + +"You are a man to understand such chivalry, Monsieur. Now that I've +humbled myself, can't you give me hope that he'll soon be released, and +yet that--that I shan't be made to suffer for my confession to you? It's +clear to you, isn't it, that the murder must have been done long before +he could have reached the house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage from the +Rue d'Hollande?" + +"Yes, that is clear. And needless to say, I believe your statement, +Mademoiselle. You are brave and good to have come forward as you have, +without being called upon. There are still some formalities to be gone +through before Mr. Dundas can be released; but English influence is at +work in high quarters, and after what you have told me, I think he will +not much longer be under restraint. Besides, I may as well inform you, +dear lady, that not ten minutes before you arrived this morning I +received satisfactory news of the arrest of two Englishmen at Frankfort, +who seem to have been concerned in this business in the Rue de la Fille +Sauvage. They certainly travelled with the murdered man; and a friend of +his called Gestre, just back from Marseilles, has sworn that these +persons were formerly partners of Janson, the deceased. If Janson stole +the necklace from Monsieur du Laurier, with this pair as accomplices, +and then tried to cheat them, a motive for the crime is evident. And we +are getting at Janson's record, which seems to be a bad one--a notorious +one throughout Europe, if he proves to be the man we think. I hope, +really, that in a very few days Mr. Dundas may be able to thank you in +person for what you've done for him, and--to tell you what has become of +those letters." + +"What good will their destruction do me, though, if you are not +merciful?" + +"I intend to be, for I can combine mercy with justice. Dear +Mademoiselle, Monsieur du Laurier need never know the circumstances you +have told to me, or that the Englishman's alibi has been proved by you. +The arrest of these two men in Frankfort will, I feel sure, help the +police to keep your secret as you would keep it yourself. Now, will that +assurance make it easier for you to put your whole soul into your part +to-night?" + +"If you will accept that box," I said, letting him kiss my hand, and +feeling inclined to kiss his. + +Then I drove home, with my heart singing, for I felt almost sure that I +had trumped Godensky's last trick now. + +When I reached home Miss Forrest was there. She had brought the diamonds +in the brocade bag. Oddly enough, the ribbons which fastened it were +torn out, as if there had been a struggle for the possession of the bag. +But Miss Forrest did not explain this, or even allude to it at all. + +I thanked her for coming and for bringing the jewels. "I have kept my +promise," I said. "The man you love will be free in a few days. Will you +let me say that I think you are a very noble pair, and I hope you will +be happy together." + +"I shall try to make up to him for--my hateful suspicions +and--everything," she said, like a repentant child. "I love him so +much!" + +"And he you. You almost broke his heart by throwing him over; I saw +that. But how gloriously you will mend it again!" + +"Oh, I hope so!" she cried. "And you--have I really spoiled your life by +forcing you to make that promise? I pray that I haven't." + +"I thought you had, but I was mistaken," I answered. "The thing you have +made me do has proved a blessing. I may have--altered some of the facts +a little, but none of those that concern Mr. Dundas. And a woman has to +use such weapons as she has, against cruel enemies." + +"I hope you'll defeat yours," said Miss Forrest. + +"I begin to believe I shall," said I. And we shook hands. She is the +only girl I ever saw who seemed to me worthy of Ivor Dundas. + +Early in the afternoon Raoul came, and the first thing I did was to give +him the diamonds. + +"You are my good angel!" he exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, I won't have to +take your money now." + +"All that's mine is yours," I said. + +"It is _you_ I want for mine," he answered. "When am I to have you? +Don't keep me waiting long, my darling. I'm nothing without you." + +"I don't want to keep you waiting," I told him. And indeed I longed to +be his wife--his, in spite of Godensky; his, till death us should part. + +He took me in his arms, and then, when I had promised to marry him as +soon as a marriage could be arranged, our talk drifted back to the +morning, and the note I had written, telling him that a pretty American +girl had found the diamonds. + +"She's engaged to marry Ivor Dundas, an old friend of mine--the poor +fellow so stupidly accused of murder," I explained. "But of course he is +innocent. Of course he'll be discharged without a blot upon his name. +They're tremendously in love with each other, almost as much as you and +I!" + +"You didn't tell me about the love affair in your note," said Raoul. +"You spoke only of the girl, and the coincidence of her driving past +your house, after I went in." + +"There wasn't time for more in that famous communication!" I laughed. + +Raoul echoed me. "It came rather too near being famous, by the way," he +said. "Just after I had found it in the safe--where you would put it, +you witch!--a man came in with an order from the President to copy a +clause in a new treaty which is kept there." + +"What treaty?" I asked, with a leap of the heart. + +"Oh, one between France, Japan and Russia. But that isn't the point." +(Ah, _was_ it not, if he had known?) The thing is, it would have been +rather awkward, wouldn't it? if I hadn't got your note out of the safe +before the man came in, as he never took his eyes off me, or out of the +open safe, for a second." + +"Thank God I wasn't too late!" I stammered, before I could keep back the +rushing words. "You mean, thank God he wasn't sooner, don't you, +darling?" amended Raoul. + +"Yes, of course. How stupid I am!" I murmured. + +All along, then, Godensky had meant to get my promise and deceive me, +for I had not even sent my note of defiance when this trick was played. +Had the treaty been missing, and Raoul disgraced, Godensky would no +doubt have vowed to me--if I'd lived to hear his vows--that he had had +no hand in the discovery. Fear of the terrible man who had so nearly +beaten me in the game made me quiver even now. "You see," I went on, "I +can think of nothing but you, and my love for you. You'll never be +jealous and make me miserable again, will you, no matter what Count +Godensky or any other wretched creature may say of me to you?" + +"I've listened to Godensky for the last time," said Raoul. "The dog! He +shall never come near me again." + +"I hardly think he will try," I said. "I'm glad we're going to be +married soon. Do you know, I'm half inclined to do as you've asked me +sometimes, and promised you wouldn't ask again--leave the stage. I want +to rest, and just be happy, like other women. I want love--and +peace--and you." + +"You shall have all, and for always," answered Raoul. "If only I +deserved you!" + +"If only I deserved you!" I echoed. + +Raoul would not let me say that. But he did not know. And I trust that +he never may; or not until a time, if such a time could come, that he +would forgive me all things, because we are one in a perfect love. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Powers and Maxine, by Charles Norris Williamson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POWERS AND MAXINE *** + +***** This file should be named 10410.txt or 10410.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/1/10410/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gary Toffelmire, Greg Dunham and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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