"You are most kind," Georgina said with just a suggestion of primness. "But embassies are foreign soil, and we still have an old-fashioned law in England that a woman may not venture abroad without the consent of her husband."
"Then I shall beg you to break this foolish law," smiled the Count. He had already found out from Fox that Georgina's husband played a very small part in her life, but her reference to him implied that she was not a woman who would allow herself to be thought of as easy game. Without pressing the point he went on lightly, "At least I can promise you, Madam, that even if my house is part of my Imperial Mistress's dominions, you will never meet within it a temperature which will cause you to think yourself in Siberia."
She was secretly amused at the innuendo, but did not show it as she said: "Unfortunately it is not a matter of temperature but of convention, Monsieur, and there are times when I feel it proper to consult the wishes of my husband."
They had been conversing in French, but Fox, who had come up on Georgina's other side, now said in English: "I ran into Humphrey on Thursday. He was coming out of the family mansion in St. James's Square."
"Then thank God I was not in London," she remarked tartly. " 'Tis our only common meeting ground these days, and he seldom comes up for more than a few nights; but even that I find too much. I vow he bores me to distraction."
"He seemed mightily interested in you, all the same. When he learned that I was coming here he plied me with a host of questions; wanting to know who else would be in the party, who was here on my last visit, and whose houses you now most frequent when in the Metropolis."
Georgina frowned. "Damn the man's impertinence; prying into my affairs. I would to Heaven that I were rid of him."
"You may be soon," Fox laughed. "That is if he continues to drink and ride at such a furious pace. He was going down to stay at Goodwood this week-end, and spoke with enthusiasm of a most fractious gelding on which he vows he will win the point-to-point that is being held there to-day."
"Goodwood," Vorontzoff, suddenly broke in. "I believe I have been there. Is that not the name of the Duke of Richmond's seat in Sussex?"
"Why, yes, your Excellency," Georgina replied, a little taken aback. She had never heard the Ambassador speak in any language other than French, so had assumed that he knew very little English; but he had evidently understood her asides to Fox, and she was considerably disconcerted at the thought that he should have so soon discovered her true attitude towards her husband. Roger's attempt to dictate to her had driven her to defy him at the time, but she fully appreciated his feelings, and was most loath to do anything to hurt him; so she had intended to plead an old-fashioned loyalty to her spouse as a first-line of defence if the wooing of the Russian became too impetuous over the week-end, and now she had stupidly cut that ground from under her own feet.
As they moved on towards the glass-houses Vorontzoff launched into an amusing account of how, soon after his arrival in England, he had been invited down to Portsmouth to see something of the British Fleet, and his coachman, having taken a wrong turning, had got hopelessly lost. Neither he nor his retainers being then able to speak a word of English, it was not until they had come out of some woods upon the Duke of Richmond's great house on the downs that they had found anyone who spoke French sufficiently fluently to set them on their way again.
For another hour or more the party continued to saunter round the gardens, then made the circuit of the great lake and returned to the house. Georgina took Lady Amelia and Mrs. Armistead up to their rooms, and her father performed a like office for the men guests, so that they might all change out of their travelling clothes and powder themselves for dinner.
On Roger's first coming to Stillwaters Georgina had put him in her husband's old room. As it lay on the far side of her boudoir the proprieties were reasonably preserved, yet the arrangement had the advantage that he could come in to her at any time without being seen entering or leaving her room by the main corridor.
Having pulled off his coat and thrown it on the bed he cast a look of uncertainty at the boudoir door. He was in half a mind to ignore her prohibition and go in to her now, in the hope of patching up their quarrel. Their love-affair had been such splendid fun, and even if they had been getting on one another's nerves a little lately, it seemed tragic that it should end like this.
As he looked at the door and recalled the joyous hours of love and laughter that he had spent on the far side of it during the past months, he knew that he was very far from being tired of Georgina, and he did not believe that she was tired of him. Perhaps she was right in her contention that mutual passion could not endure for any great length of time in two such volatile natures as theirs, when given full rein, and that their only hope of a second innings lay in parting for a season before their desire for one another had burnt right out. But he felt certain that the break need not have come yet, or with such lack of grace, had it not been for the machinations of the unscrupulous Mr. Fox.
With his hands thrust deep in his breeches-pockets Roger began to pace gloomily up and down. He had little doubt that Fox knew, as well as he knew himself, Georgina's boundless ambition. She loved to rule and to influence important people; and had often vowed to him that she would be a Duchess before her hair turned grey. In spite of her temporary pessimism that she might be tied to her present husband for some years to come, he considered the odds to be all against that; and once Sir Humphrey Etheredge was dead she would be free to take her pick from a score of Earls and Marquesses. Then, if she had rendered valuable assistance to Fox and he came to power, as she clearly expected him to do, she might reasonably count on his forcing the King to elevate her second husband to a Dukedom. That, Roger felt, was the essence of some, probably unspoken, pact that lay between them; and Fox, needing the Russian influence for some dirty piece of business the Opposition were plotting against the Government, was now pressing for her immediate aid in securing the goodwill of Vorontzoff.
Against such pressure could be set the fact that, although Georgina's gipsy blood made her as amoral as the average man, nothing would induce her to take a lover whom she did not fancy. But, here again, Fox had played his cards with his usual shrewdness; since he must be aware that one of the weaknesses in Georgina's otherwise strong character was her love of the bizarre. It was as good as certain that when he selected heir, as the best bait with which he could attempt the snaring of Vorontzoff, he had also counted on the streak of barbarism that underlay the Muscovite's cosmopolitan polish, as the very thing most calculated to appeal to her tastes.
While they had all been walking round the grounds Roger had purposely refrained from forcing himself on Georgina, but his eyes never left her for long, and he was so well acquainted with every fine of her expressive face that he felt certain the Russian had succeeded in both amusing and intriguing her. From his own experience he knew that if a man could do that with a woman who already regarded him as a potential lover, he had more than half-won his battle; its victorious conclusion was then seldom more than a question of time and opportunity.
The full weakness of his own position was suddenly borne home to Roger on a wave of distress. In the course of an unofficial honeymoon lasting nearly half a year he had given himself with all the joyous vigour of youth, both in body and mind, to Georgina; and now he had nothing fresh left to offer.
There seemed no alternative but for him to swallow the bitter pill and resign himself to the triumph of his rival, of whose appearance on the scene he had had so little warning. The only question now remaining was, would the beautiful Georgina present him with a pair of horns over the week-end, or not?
Left to her own inclinations he felt sure that, out of consideration for him, she would refrain. But he had no means of judging how pressing was Fox's need of Vorontzoff's co-operation, and feared that if it was urgent, since Georgina obviously regarded herself as perfectly free, she might precipitate matters on that account.
Roger was a typical product
of his age. He was bold, resourceful, and, while setting a high value on his personal honour, could be quite unscrupulous in serving what he considered to be justifiable ends. He had developed into a man of the world while still in his teens, and his excellent education in the classics, coupled with his personal experience of eighteenth-century life, had led him to regard all sex-relationships with detached cynicism. Yet, in addition to his dark blue eyes, he had inherited from his Highland mother a romantic streak, and it was this which entered into his long relationship with Georgina.
Had she been any other woman he would either have let her go with a shrug or wept, prayed, cursed and threatened suicide in a desperate endeavour to keep her faithful. But, for him, Georgina was neither a light-of-love nor a grand passion. She was something apart which had grown up with him out of his boyhood, and while he was now quite prepared to kiss and leave her for a season, all his romantic feelings cried out against their parting being marred by her being unfaithful to him before he had even left the house.
Again he glanced uncertainly at the boudoir-door. If he told her that it would really hurt him he knew that she would place his feelings before all else. But he suddenly realised that he had left it too late. Her maid, Jenny, would be with her by this time, helping her to dress, and as Jenny had to clear up afterwards she would not leave the room again until after her mistress had gone down to dinner. Georgina had no secrets from Jenny, but this was not a matter that could be discussed before a maid.
Taking off his frilled shirt he slowly began to change; his sense of injury and frustration steadily mounting while he dressed. As the Daniel Quare clock on the marble mantelpiece of his room chimed four o'clock, powdered, pomarded and most elegantly clad in a suit of lavender blue silk, he went downstairs; now obsessed with a cold, angry determination to resort to desperate measures to spike the Russian's guns.
CHAPTER III
A DESPERATE GAMBLE
ALTHOUGH the usual hour for dinner among the gentry of England was still four o'clock, a tendency had already started in the fashionable world to dine somewhat later, and Georgina had recently put the meal on to half-past; so Roger had ample time to prepare the scheme that he had hatched while dressing, for the discomfiture of the Russian Ambassador.
Going into the big drawing-room that was always used when Georgina had company, he opened a walnut bureau in which, he knew, a. morocco-leather case was kept containing a special set of cards for playing Pharo. It held six packs, all having the same backs, but no cards of a lesser value than the tens. Four of the packs, making eighty cards in all, were used in play; the other two packs were spares for the lay out. From the latter he removed two Aces, two Kings and two Queens, which he secreted about his person, placing the Aces and Kings under his cuffs and the Queens in an inside pocket of his coat which was low down on a level with his left hip.
It was a foregone conclusion that in a party such as this there would be cards after dinner, for those who wished to play, and an almost equal certainty that the game chosen would be Pharo, as that was both fashionable and Georgina's favourite gamble. Roger had never cheated at cards in his life, but he meant to do so on this occasion, for a particular purpose, and about his intention he did not feel the least scruple.
For some ten minutes he remained alone, standing straddle-legged in front of the big log-fire, then Colonel Thursby joined him and shortly afterwards the other guests began to trickle down. Georgina arrived last, with a flutter of entirely insincere apologies to the other ladies, for she dearly loved to make an entrance, and had never been known to appear for dinner until the whole company was assembled.
She was dressed to-night entirely in white, her full bare shoulders rising like those of some dark Venus from a sea of thin silk; but, splendid as she looked, Roger thought that certain colours suited her voluptuous beauty better. To himself he hazarded a guess that she had selected this virginal costume to intrigue the sophisticated Russian.
Immediately on Georgina's arrival, the butler threw open the double doors and announced that Her Ladyship was served; upon which, they went in to dinner.
Colonel Thursby, as host, gave his arm to Lady Amelia, and Count Vorontzoff followed with Mrs. Armistead. Droopy Ned then bowed to Mr. Fox, who in turn bowed to George Selwyn as the eldest among them, but having returned the bow, he stepped back a pace, insisting that the younger son of the Marquis of Amesbury was the proper person to lead in the unattached males. Georgina then brought up the rear with her principal guest, the ponderous Duke.
Nearly everyone at the table had been brought up to regard good talk as of as much importance as good clothes. From their youth they had cultivated repartee as an art, and quite naturally vied with each other in capping one another's sallies. In deference to Vorontzoff much of the conversation was in French, but even had he not been there French expressions would have found frequent utterance, as it was considered fashionable to use them; and Latin tags were bandied about without the least suggestion of priggishness, since everyone present knew their meaning.
For the best part of two hours oysters, lobsters, trout, salmon, a sucking pig, a saddle of lamb, capons, ducks, pies, pasties, meringues, jellies and hot-house fruit, were devastated by the gargantuan appetites with which a life-time of habit had equipped the men and women of those times; each item being washed down with a glass of Chablis, Rhenish, Sillery, Claret or Champagne. At length Georgina caught Lady Amelia's eye, upon which the ladies left the men to belch at their ease and settle down to a little really serious drinking.
Fox was soon launched on a series of bawdy stories that set the table in a roar; Selwyn, Vorontzoff, Droopy Ned and Roger all contributed a few. Colonel Thursby, like a good host, kept the port circulating, and encouraged them with a quip here and there. Only the lugubrious Duke remained silent. He seemed to have neither humour nor humanity, but possibly he was moderately contented in his own queer way; as, immediately the ladies left the room he had fetched a long churchwarden pipe, and ever since he had been puffing at it like a suction engine, so that he was now surrounded by a cloud of smoke as dense as that issuing from one of his new factory chimneys. The others had given up all attempts to draw him into their merriment, and for them laughter and jest caused three-quarters of an hour to vanish in what seemed only the twinkling of an eye.
During the gale of mirth that followed some witty French verses with which Droopy Ned had delighted the company, Vorontzoff stood up, and, bowing slightly to Colonel Thursby, left the room by its main door, which gave on to the hall. The Colonel had already turned his attention to Selwyn, who had just started on some equally amusing couplets, so he caught Roger's eye and made a faint sign to him.
Roger guessed at once what was in the Colonel's mind. Through another door, at the opposite end of the room, one of those new innovations, a water-closet, had been installed, and they had all used it within the past hour, so it could not be for that reason that the Ambassador had left them. The Colonel feared that he might be feeling ill, and since he could not without rudeness break away from Selwyn, he wished Roger, as the guest who was best acquainted with the house, to follow Vorontzoff and ascertain what ailed him.
Getting to his feet, Roger hurried after the Russian, and caught up with him on the far side of the hall. With a quick bow he said politely: "Colonel Thursby sent me after your Excellency to inquire your reason for leaving us. I trust that you are not indisposed?"
The Ambassador smiled, and replied with equal courtesy: "Why, no, I thank you. But in the country from which I come a lady occupies the throne. With us, too, the men like to sit over their wine after dinner, but my Imperial mistress is apt to become a trifle bored if left too long in the company of her women. So it has become customary for one of us to leave our companions and place ourselves at her disposal. 'Tis a pleasant courtesy, I think, and in pursuance of it I am about to seek the Lady Georgina."
"Indeed!" said Roger, stiffly. "In that case pray do not let me detain your Excellency."
Whether the Russian was telling the truth or had just thought up the story, he had no idea; but to leave one's host prematurely for the purpose of getting in first with the ladies, was according to English standards, an abominable piece of rudeness. As Roger bowed again and turned away, he realised to his chagrin that by this skilful move Vorontzoff had secured himself a good hour, in virtually a free field, to develop his pursuit of Georgina. However, there seemed no way in which he could have prevented it, and, angrily consigning all foreigners to the devil, he went back to the dining-room.
During his short absence the atmosphere had undergone a sudden change and they were now talking politics. In his languid voice Droopy Ned was putting up an extremely able advocacy of Pitt's contention that the East India Company, and not the nation, was liable for the cost of the transport of four additional regiments of troops that had been sent out to India during the war-scare of the previous summer.
The question had recently been fought most bitterly in the House; not so much on its own account but as a fresh battle-ground on which to deploy those divergent views about the reconstruction of the Government of India, which had occupied so much of Parliament's time in the past few years.
With grandiloquent gestures and melodious voice Fox reiterated several of the most telling arguments that he had employed against the Government; but he failed to shake the stooping, short-sighted young nobleman, and at length he said good-humorously: "When may we welcome you to a seat in the House, my Lord? 'Tis the natural habitat of the younger sons of peers, as* witness both Mr. Pitt and myself. Your logic and tenacity would do you credit there."
"I vow you flatter me, Sir." Droopy bowed across the table. "But even were I competent to play such a part, I should be loath to sacrifice the pursuits that already occupy a great part of my time."
"And what may they be?" inquired the Duke, suddenly emerging from his long silence.
"I, er—experiment on myself with rare drugs, and collect antique jewellery."
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