These Three G’s men understood the niceties of life, anyhow.”
“What marvellous lemons!” Patricia exclaimed. “Charles, I think it will have to be White Ladies, the lemons look so good.”
It was a very cheerful little cocktail party. Afterwards the Major drew Charles on one side.
“I know so little of what has occurred yet,” he confessed, “that you must forgive me if I make a faux pas, but I speak for a moment, with your permission, of the Baroness von Balhnstrode, that poor woman who was deceived into marrying Paul Schrafft—”
“I was on my way out to talk to her when you entered,” Charles interrupted, feeling a sudden qualm. “I feel rather ashamed that she would have left without a single word.”
“My dear fellow,” the Major said earnestly, “she wished it. She was perfectly honest but her one idea was to get away. She was in a highly emotional state, she had braced herself for a great effort. I thought she played her part magnificently. She wishes to drop right out of everything. I have given her a card to the Chef de la Gare at Zürich and also a note on the back of one of my cards to the passport authorities. She will be perfectly all right now. There was not a thing she wanted but to get away. She had everything necessary for the voyage, plenty of money, Letter of Credit, everything. She will probably catch the last train that runs into Monte Carlo and there she assures me that she will find one of her oldest friends. If I say one thing you will not think it an impertinence?”
“How could I?” Charles protested.
“She did not want to see you again. There, I do not mind telling you that. Major Mildenhall, because you know which way to take it. I felt a lump in my throat when she found the words to tell me not to let you come out. You see, I am a man of sentiment. I understood.”
He held out his hand. Mildenhall gripped it warmly. They all clamoured for another cocktail. The Major raised his glass.
“To a brave woman!” he said softly.
They drank the toast in rapt silence. They put down their glasses empty. The door was opened. They seemed suddenly transported into another country. Needham, the typical grey-haired English butler, stood upon the threshold.
“Luncheon is served, sir,” he announced.
Charles put his arm round Patricia’s waist and led her towards the dining-room.
“Had a pretty rough time, I’m afraid, Needham,” he remarked, pausing for a moment to shake hands with his servant.
“An exceedingly uncomfortable period of great anxiety, sir,” the man admitted. “Will you drink white wine or red, sir, with your luncheon?”
“The white wine to start with and then champagne.”
“It is indeed a festival day,” the Major, who loved champagne, declared as he unfolded his napkin.
Fortunately for the plans of the host the Major was obliged to be back in barracks at three o’clock. Immediately after his departure Blute drew his two young companions back into the reception room.
“My young friends,” he said, “I have a proposition to make to you. Thanks to our host’s marvellous telephone service I have already received the best of news. Mr. Benjamin is at Meurice’s hotel in Paris. He is in the best of health, his wife is with him and also one daughter. I shall never forget his amazement at hearing my voice. The situation is exactly as I feared with regard to our correspondence. Not one line has he received from me. One hundred communications of various sorts has his secretary addressed to me. The main line is still open to Paris. I with my guards and baggage propose to leave at five o’clock. With regard to Miss Grey, Mr. Benjamin desired me to say that no one in the world would be more welcome if she chose to accompany me. He wished me to add that her post awaits her and that her salary has accumulated. I told him that I believed she had found a more suitable engagement.”
“Excellent!” Charles declared. “There really is nothing more that either I or Miss Grey could do for you?”
“Not a thing,” Blute assured them. “I have a message from Mr. Benjamin for you, Mr. Mildenhall, and also for you. Miss Grey. It is a message, he says, too precious to be sent over the telephone. War or no war he demands that with the utmost expedition possible you spend the last few days of your honeymoon with him at Meurice’s.”
“Nothing would suit us better,” Charles acquiesced. “Your plan is admirable, Blute. What I want to do, and I hope Patricia will agree, is to fly to England to-day.”
“To England to-day?” she gasped.
He nodded.
“You only want your dressing-bag. I have loads of sisters and cousins who will cart you round to do trousseau-buying but I warn you, you won’t have much time for that sort of thing. It’s a special licence for us to-morrow. A week in England—half of it at the Foreign Office, I’m afraid—and all being well, Mr. Blute, you can tell Mr. Benjamin that we’ll be at Meurice’s in ten days. Then we shall have a week’s more honeymoon and I must settle down into whatever war job they give me. Is that all right, Patricia?”
She clung to his arm.
“It sounds like heaven, dear. But there’s just one thing—shall I have time to mend my frock or must I mend it in the plane?”
“I should like to start,” he told her, “in half-an-hour.”
“Then I’ll mend my frock in the plane,” she decided.
“And,” he went on, “as I should like to take a tolerably clean girl into England may I remind you, young lady, that I carried your dressing-case all the way up the hill and Madame Renouf has put it in one of the rooms that hasn’t been used. It has a bathroom and she will provide a maid to help you. You have exactly half-an-hour from now.”
She was gone like a flash.
“Quickest thing on her feet I’ve ever seen,” Blute remarked, as he watched her admiringly. “I’m not much for the other sex myself, Mr. Mildenhall, but I think you’re to be envied.”
The two men shook hands warmly.
“And so is she,” Blute declared. “I can’t say I’ve known many Englishmen, Mr. Mildenhall, but you’re—well, you’re all right. I shall be always glad I’ve known you.”
“And I’ve just one thing to say to you in reply, Blute,” Charles said with his hand on the other’s shoulder. “You never said a word when I nearly let you down, you never even looked what you must have felt. That was the action and the reserve of a great gentleman.”
“Ah, well,” Blute said, “you knew.” Half-an-hour later he watched their plane pass westwards—a glittering speck in the sky.
THE END
THE DOUBLE TRAITOR
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
CHAPTER I
Table of Contents
The woman leaned across the table towards her companion.
“My friend,” she said, “when we first met—I am ashamed, considering that I dine alone with you to-night, to reflect how short a time ago—yo
u spoke of your removal here from Paris very much as though it were a veritable exile. I told you then that there might be surprises in store for you. This restaurant, for instance! We both know our Paris, yet do we lack anything here which you find at the Ritz or Giro’s?”
The young man looked around him appraisingly. The two were dining at one of the newest and most fashionable restaurants in Berlin. The room itself, although a little sombre by reason of its oak panelling, was relieved from absolute gloom by the lightness and elegance of its furniture and appointments, the profusion of flowers, and the soft grey carpet, so thickly piled that every sound was deadened. The delicate strains of music came from an invisible orchestra concealed behind a canopy of palms. The head-waiters had the correct clerical air, half complacent, half dignified. Among the other diners were many beautiful women in marvellous toilettes. A variety of uniforms, worn by the officers at different tables, gave colour and distinction to a tout ensemble with which even Norgate could find no fault.
“Germany has changed very much since I was here as a boy,” he confessed. “One has heard of the growing wealth of Berlin, but I must say that I scarcely expected—”
He hesitated. His companion laughed softly at his embarrassment.
“Do not forget,” she interrupted, “that I am Austrian—Austrian, that is to say, with much English in my blood. What you say about Germans does not greatly concern me.”
“Of course,” Norgate resumed, as he watched the champagne poured into his glass, “one is too much inclined to form one’s conclusions about a nation from the types one meets travelling, and you know what the Germans have done for Monte Carlo and the Riviera—even, to a lesser extent, for Paris and Rome. Wherever they have been, for the last few years, they seem to have left the trail of the nouveaux riches. It is not only their clothes but their manners and bearing which affront.”
The woman leaned her head for a moment against the tips of her slim and beautifully cared for fingers. She looked steadfastly across the table at her vis-a-vis.
“Now that you are here,” she said softly, “you must forget those things. You are a diplomatist, and it is for you, is it not, outwardly, at any rate, to see only the good of the country in which your work lies.”
Norgate flushed very slightly. His companion’s words had savoured almost of a reproof.
“You are quite right,” he admitted. “I have been here for a month, though, and you are the first person to whom I have spoken like this. And you yourself,” he pointed out, “encouraged me, did you not, when you insisted upon your Austro-English nationality?”
“You must not take me too seriously,” she begged, smiling. “I spoke foolishly, perhaps, but only for your good. You see, Mr. Francis Norgate, I am just a little interested in you and your career.”
“And I, dear Baroness,” he replied, smiling across at her, “am more than a little interested in—you.”
She unfurled her fan.
“I believe,” she sighed, “that you are going to flirt with me.”
“I should enter into an unequal contest,” Norgate asserted. “My methods would seem too clumsy, because I should be too much in earnest.”
“Whatever the truth may be about your methods,” she declared, “I rather like them, or else I should not be risking my reputation in this still prudish city by dining with you alone and without a chaperon. Tell me a little about yourself. We have met three times, is it not—once at the Embassy, once at the Palace, and once when you paid me that call. How old are you? Tell me about your people in England, and where else you have served besides Paris?”
“I am thirty years old,” he replied. “I started at Bukarest. From there I went to Rome. Then I was second attache at Paris, and finally, as you see, here.”
“And your people—they are English, of course?”
“Naturally,” he answered. “My mother died when I was quite young, and my father when I was at Eton. I have an estate in Hampshire which seems to get on very well without me.”
“And you really care about your profession? You have the real feeling for diplomacy?”
“I think there is nothing else like it in the world,” he assured her.
“You may well say that,” she agreed enthusiastically. “I think you might almost add that there has been no time in the history of Europe so fraught with possibilities, so fascinating to study, as the present.”
He looked at her keenly. It is the first instinct of a young diplomatist to draw in his horns when a beautiful young woman confesses herself interested in his profession.
“You, too, think of these things, then?” he remarked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“But naturally! What is there to do for a woman but think? We cannot act, or rather, if we do, it is in a very insignificant way. We are lookers-on at most of the things in life worth doing.”
“I will spare you all the obvious retorts,” he said, “if you will tell me why you are gazing into that mirror so earnestly?”
“I was thinking,” she confessed, “what a remarkably good-looking couple we were.”
He followed the direction of her eyes. He himself was of a recognised type. His complexion was fair, his face clean-shaven and strong almost to ruggedness. His mouth was firm, his nose thin and straight, his grey eyes well-set. He was over six feet and rather slim for his height. But if his type, though attractive enough, was in its way ordinary, hers was entirely unusual. She, too, was slim, but so far from being tall, her figure was almost petite. Her dark brown hair was arranged in perfectly plain braids behind and with a slight fringe in front. Her complexion was pale. Her features were almost cameo-like in their delicacy and perfection, but any suggestion of coldness was dissipated at once by the extraordinary expressiveness of her mouth and the softness of her deep blue eyes. Norgate looked from the mirror into her face. There was a little smile upon his lips, but he said nothing.
“Some day,” she said, “not in the restaurant here but when we are alone and have time, I should so much like to talk with you on really serious matters.”
“There is one serious matter,” he assured her, “which I should like to discuss with you now or at any time.”
She made a little grimace at him.
“Let it be now, then,” she suggested, leaning across the table. “We will leave my sort of serious things for another time. I am quite certain that I know where your sort is going to lead us. You are going to make love to me.”
“Do you mind?” he asked earnestly.
She became suddenly grave.
“Not yet,” she begged. “Let us talk and live nonsense for a few more weeks. You see, I really have not known you very long, have I, and this is a very dangerous city for flirtations. At Court one has to be so careful, and you know I am already considered far too much of a Bohemian here. I was even given to understand, a little time ago, by a very great lady, that my position was quite precarious.”
“Does that—does anything matter if—”
“It is not of myself alone that I am thinking. Everything matters to one in your profession,” she reminded him pointedly.
“I believe,” he exclaimed, “that you think more of my profession than you do of me!”
“Quite impossible,” she retorted mockingly. “And yet, as I dare say you have already realised, it is not only the things you say to our statesmen here, and the reports you make, which count. It is your daily life among the people of the nation to which you are attached, the friends you make among them, the hospitality you accept and offer, which has all the time its subtle significance. Now I am not sure, even, that I am, a very good companion for you, Mr. Francis Norgate.”
“You are a very bad one for my peace of mind,” he assured her.
She shook her head. “You say those things much too glibly,” she declared. “I am afraid that you have served a very long apprenticeship.”
“If I have,” he replied, leaning a little across the table, “it has been an apprenticeship
only, a probationary period during which one struggles towards the real thing.”
“You think you will know when you have found it?” she murmured.
He drew a little breath. His voice even trembled as he answered her. “I know now,” he said softly.
Their heads were almost touching. Suddenly she drew apart. He glanced at her in some surprise, conscious of an extraordinary change in her face, of the half-uttered exclamation strangled upon her lips. He turned his head and followed the direction of her eyes. Three young men in the uniform of officers had entered the room, and stood there as though looking about for a table. Before them the little company of head-waiters had almost prostrated themselves. The manager, summoned in breathless haste, had made a reverential approach.
“Who are these young men?” Norgate enquired.
His companion made no reply. Her fine, silky eyebrows were drawn a little closer together. At that moment the tallest of the three newcomers seemed to recognise her. He strode at once towards their table. Norgate, glancing up at his approach, was simply conscious of the coming of a fair young man of ordinary German type, who seemed to be in a remarkably bad temper.
“So I find you here, Anna!”
The Baroness rose as though unwillingly to her feet. She dropped the slightest of curtseys and resumed her place.
“Your visit is a little unexpected, is it not, Karl?” she remarked.
“Apparently!” the young man answered, with an unpleasant laugh.
He turned and stared at Norgate, who returned his regard with half-amused, half-impatient indifference. The Baroness leaned forward eagerly.
“Will you permit me to present Mr. Francis Norgate to you, Karl?”
Norgate, who had suddenly recognised the newcomer, rose to his feet, bowed and remained standing. The Prince’s only reply to the introduction was a frown.
“Kindly give me your seat,” he said imperatively. “I will conclude your entertainment of the Baroness.”
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