“I’m sorry, sir,” he regretted. “I cannot do that. I am going to make a still further demand upon you, though.”
“My dear fellow,” Mountain assured him, “there is no service in the world which I would not gladly render you. Out with it.”
“I have a suite waiting for me at the Meurice,” Mark confided, “and—well, to tell you the whole truth, sir, I want you to come along with me as soon as we are passed out and meet my wife.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you are married?” the ambassador exclaimed.
“Not yet, but I shall be, thanks to you in, I hope, half-an-hour’s time. I have all the papers that are necessary. We are going to take advantage of the new regulations.”
The ambassador rang the bell and ordered his car.
“I,” Prince Cheng observed with a grave smile, “am already an invited guest. The Princess Hou Hsi, my wife, is with Catherine Oronoff at Meurice’s.”
“You will give me a moment or two, if you please,” General Levissier begged, rising to his feet. “I shall precede your Excellencies’ car in my own. A mounted escort of gendarmes is on its way here. A soon as I have satisfied myself that everything is perfectly and entirely safe we will leave.”
“If it is going to be a party,” Mr. Mountain proposed, “what about my wife, Humberstone? She is a very old friend of yours.”
“If she will honour me we shall be delighted,” was the prompt -response. “Our only other guests will be the Princess Sophie of Greece and the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, unless—” he added with a glance at Monsieur Châtelain.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” the Minister declared, “than to be permitted to sign your papers and make my bow to your wife.”
“This promises to be the most amazing end to the most amazing evening of my life,” Mr. Mountain pronounced.
There was a moment just after dawn when the same thought came to Catherine. Life, after that weary succession of grey days, seemed almost too marvellous, her happiness unsupportable. She slipped out of bed and stood before the high open window of the salon adjoining, looking out across the Place towards the Champs Elysées. The stars were paling in a misty sky. One by one the lights faded out. The buildings were becoming less like ghostly shapes, and into the heart of the city the odd passers-by grew into a thin little stream. At each side of the square she could see a gendarme on guard. There were others in front of the entrance. France was protecting the man to whom the world was to owe so much—her man…
The full sweetness of life flowed in her veins as she listened to his approaching footsteps. Her little gesture invited his caress. He drew her towards him.
“You believe now that you are going to be happy?”
“Always, now that I belong to you.”
Her upturned lips clung to his. They listened together to the chiming of the hour. He closed the window and led her back into the room.
“In four hours,” he reminded her, “we start for China.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
Table of Contents
“These are the hours,” Hou Hsi said softly, “when I love to be alone with my lord and to reflect, just to think of all that lies behind us.”
He smiled in lazy but not whole-hearted acquiescence. Hou Hsi was stretched upon a huge divan on the broad verandah in front of the exquisitely remodelled pavilion hidden away in one of the secret corners of the world-famous gardens. The outline of the Summer Palace itself was dimly visible through the trees. Cheng was lying on cushions by her side.
“There were ugly moments in the past,” he meditated. “Strange, lurid intervals when one needed all one’s faith. Yet the past is accomplished—safely and gloriously accomplished. It is the present which enslaves, the future which smiles upon us.”
“All day long,” she told him, “you have been living in the world of dreams.”
“All day long,” he agreed, “I have wandered about our glorious domain, Hou Hsi, and it seems to me that, now the moment has arrived when the birds are silent and the winds have ceased to rustle amongst the leaves, I still hear the air trembling with the magic of Mark’s work in the observatory.”
“All has gone well in Moscow?” she asked.
“So our messages tell us. Mark will be here himself presently with the whole story.”
“You lean towards the West to-night,” she whispered, her head sinking back amidst the pile of cushions. “I think that I like you so, Ziao Han. My heart is full of pride when I see you stern, hear your words of command, hear the people call their welcome in shouts that reach the skies. But I love you, too, when you recline in the Emperor’s place close to my side with that black silk robe over your Western costume, and your voice is softer and your eyes no longer raised to the skies—they look into mine. They shine, perhaps, because they see there what makes you happy?”
“I see you marvellous in the present, Hou Hsi,” he answered. “I see you the fairest, dearest possession a man could hold, and I see you the future mother of my sons, the beneficent ruler over this awakening world.”
There was a brief silence. Hou Hsi was clinging to his hands. A faint breeze was stirring in the flowering shrubs outside bringing their perfume into the open pagoda where they sat. Below was a lake the colour of jade—silent except for the occasional flight of birds. Around them, one by one, lanterns were shining like glow worms amongst the trees. From the Temple on the island came the faint chiming of a silver bell.
“Back to earth, Hou Hsi,” he whispered. “I hear the purring of Mark’s motor. We must be sure that the news is good—and then dinner.”
He touched a bell. Jonson, in the perfect but somewhat modified attire of the major dome of an Asiatic palace, made his appearance.
“It is Mr. Mark Humberstone and the Princess who arrive, my lord,” he announced.
“The servants may enter,” Hou Hsi said, turning her head slightly.
The place changed as though by magic. Lights shone out from the ceiling and from hidden corners. Along the path which led through a row of tall, silent palms, an archway of roses and hanging bunches of white lotus flowers, a troop of servants in native dress made their noiseless appearance. A dinner table was wheeled in. A grave faced butler stood over a tray on which one of the men, with lightning touches, was reproducing the ritual of the West. There was the chink of ice. They both turned their heads as Mark and Catherine passed through the wide-flung curtains and approached. Mark wore the white evening garb of the East, Catherine a gown of shimmering blue, with a marvellous Chinese shawl thrown round her shoulders. There was a chorus of joyous greetings. Cocktails and strange Chinese delicacies were handed round.
“So the great day has safely passed.”
“Gloriously,” Mark declared with enthusiasm. “Never has my transmission been more perfect. The echo of Moscow and Russian throats is still in my ears. Your Majesty missed a most amazing spectacle.”
Cheng clapped his hands and gave orders to Jonson.
“For to-night,” he announced, “we will abandon all ceremony, and only the servants need attend whose presence is necessary. Mark, you shall tell us all that you saw and heard as we dine.”
The cocktails were handed round once more and four very happy people seated themselves at the round table beautifully decked with orchids and scarlet tiger lilies.
“Gratify our curiosity, my friend, if you please,” Cheng begged.
“Well, the great thing,” Mark recounted, “is that both ceremonies have been safely and marvellously accomplished. Early this morning in the Cathedral, Alexander and the Princess Sophie were married, and at twelve o’clock the coronation of both as Czar and Czarina of the new Russia took place—the religious part in the Cathedral and afterwards in the Council Hall of the Kremlin.”
“The Patriarch himself officiated,” Catherine interposed.
“He did,” Mark observed with a smile, “and I don’t mind telling you that I liked the look of him much better than I did the last time we met
. Afterwards, the Czar and Czarina drove through the city, and my!—the people nearly went crazy with their shouting and clapping. Miles of streets were guarded by Russian troops and alternate relays of Chinese.”
“And the peace was not once broken?” Cheng asked.
“Not once,” Mark assured them. “As a matter of fact, never within the memory of man, so everyone declared, has Moscow been roused to such scenes of jubilation. Even whilst the ceremonies were going on, the Palace and the Kremlin were surrounded by dense masses of the cheering populace singing national hymns. Time after time, Alexander and Sophie have had to come out on the balconies and show themselves.”
“And the Czarina—the Princess Sophie she was when I met her—she does not mind, she is not afraid?” Hou Hsi asked. “I should not be afraid but I should not like to show myself—like that.”
“Never flinched, either of them,” Mark declared. “The Czarina was gracious and smiling all the time, perfectly at her ease. Looked as though she had never heard of a bomb or anything of that sort all her life. Alexander, too—well, he was a different man, wasn’t he, Catherine, to that night when I first saw him at the Sporting Club?”
“Perfectly dignified, perfectly happy he seemed,” Catherine acquiesced.
“To-morrow,” Mark went on, “there will be a great banquet and I can tell you the Ambassadors and Ministers from all over the world, especially from those countries which rather stood off at first, are scrambling across Europe to get there in time.”
“General Fan Sik Tsun is representing China,” Cheng observed. “We appointed Yuan Shi Kai Ambassador yesterday but he will not leave until next week.”
“The day after to-morrow is to be a great day,” Mark continued. “Alexander will sign then the statute of electoral reform, summoning every one of the great Russian provinces to choose their representatives to the Houses of Assembly. Half the members of the Upper House have already been named by General Fan Sik Tsun when he was acting as Regent. They are mostly members of the old aristocracy, but with the new enlightenment.”
“That was the class,” Cheng remarked, “most hated and feared by the Soviet.”
“The other half,” Mark went on, “is to be elected by the Lower House. I had direct communication with Fan Sik Tsun for a few minutes. He assured me that throughout the whole country it is recognised that a benevolent, far-seeing and humane system of Government has been offered to the people and will be carried out by the forthcoming régime. The toast everywhere, from Petrograd to Odessa, is to the New Russia.”
With the deepening of the blue twilight, lights gleamed out from unexpected places, from the roof of the pagoda itself and from swinging lamps. The perfume of the exotics and the flowering shrubs floated into the room with every movement of the breeze. Mark, as the coffee was served, drew a slip of paper from his pocket.
“This is a message,” he said, “which came just before I closed up the connections.”
“It is the message which Mark did not wish to read,” Catherine laughed. “I told him that was false modesty.”
“Anyhow, here it is,” Mark continued.
Alexander and Sophie send affectionate greetings to Hou Hsi, Empress of China, and her illustrious Consort. To Cheng himself and to Mark Humberstone, the wholehearted homage due to two men, still happily young, whom future ages will proclaim to be the greatest makers of world history since the birth of the nations.
“I earned that laudation too easily,” Cheng remarked deprecatingly. “It is Mark’s genius which has brought peace into the world.”
Mark rose to his feet, his glass filled.
“I myself,” he said, “have simply finished the task conceived by another and greater mind. Shall we drink once to my father, in whose brain this great invention was born?”
They raised their glasses and drank silently. Hou Hsi threw a little kiss from the tips of her delicate white fingers to the first star which had just appeared.
“I, too, I drink to the great Professor Humberstone, because it is he who has brought this happiness to Cheng whom I love so well.”
Mark and Catherine, the lights of whose pavilion gleamed close at hand through a grove of flowering lime trees, slipped presently away. Jonson, who seemed with the responsibility of his high office to have acquired a new dignity of speech and manner, made respectful approach.
“I would ask to be permitted to remind your Majesty and you, my lord, that to-night comes to an end your period of joyful rest,” he announced. “The Minister of Ceremonies has indicated that to-morrow there is a feast to the nobles, followed by a great reception at the Imperial Palace. On the following night there is a diplomatic dinner, followed again by a reception at which dancing is to be introduced. On the third, fourth and fifth nights are receptions to the chiefs of the various Chinese army corps who have returned from the front, and the day afterwards is the people’s national holiday.”
Cheng sighed.
“Her Majesty and I are prepared to carry out the programme arranged for us,” he said.
“I take the liberty, Your Highness, of reminding you,” Jonson continued, “that this is your last evening of solitude for some time. The days of ever troublous anxieties are past. I, who have been your guardian in the past and am responsible for the present, assure you of that. You are surrounded by a ring of steel, but more important than that, I would assure you that not one breath of complaint or of anything save happiness and content has been heard from one end of the city to the other. I beg of you, therefore, to repose in peace.”
Hou Hsi clapped her hands.
“Underneath that dignified Lord Chamberlain,” she laughed, “I hear my Mr. Jonson speaking. He wants us to know, Ziao Han, my lord, that to-night we are alone. The night is ours unshared, undisturbed. It is strange how I felt that some such joy as this was coming.”
Cheng struck a small silver gong by his side. Presently servants streamed into the pavilion—silent but sure footed. The dining table, with the four great chairs of state, was removed as though by magic. From somewhere on the lake came the strains of fantastic but tuneful music. Cheng gave his hand to Hou Hsi. Jonson faded away.
Chance had sent the royal lovers a moonless night with nothing but a few faintly burning stars visible behind the vale of deep violet sky. Around them the walls of the half-opened pagoda seemed to have melted away and in their place loomed hedges of darkness. The breeze had dropped. An almost ghostly silence seemed to reign over the far stretching domain of the Palace. Only the perfumes of the drooping flowers from the quaintly shaped roof and from the shrubs which stretched to the lake remained to remind them of their surroundings. Hou Hsi lay in her husband’s arms and was very happy. She sat up suddenly.
“You think of me sometimes as I am, beloved?” she asked. “I am half—oh, more than half—Chinese girl, but all that is behind in my soul and brain is not all Chinese. A little of me is American, a little French, a little English. Which does my lord like best? So shall I fashion my life.”
“The whole,” he whispered. “It is you, dear one, who have changed my whole idea of womankind and love. Every part of you, every thought, every word I love as my religion.”
“Your religion?” she repeated, faintly wondering.
“My religion and yours,” he went on. “The religion of all the countless millions of the East. I think that with enlightenment has come the comforting thought that Buddha, Confucius, even Christ, are after all but the shadowy representations of an eternal and infinite truth. So many years the gods our ancestors worshipped have ceased to speak. I like to think that in those days of meditation, when the schemes which changed the world were fashioned, it was the fancied whisper of those gods—too long silent—which first shaped the dreams to which something not wholly of this world has given substance. Fancies, perhaps, dear Hou Hsi, but why should we believe that facts alone can build and glorify life?”
Her arms stole around him.
“Perhaps those people are right, Ziao Han,” s
he murmured, “who declare that you have worn through these amazing years the mantle of a prophet.”
She lay in his arms, her fingers upon his cheek, while for a few moments he pondered.
“It would always give me happiness to believe,” he said “that a part of the inspiration which drives us on through life comes from the unknown and I do believe that we people who have been born with the mystical beliefs of the East come a little nearer to the fuller understanding of life. Yet, dear Hou Hsi, there are some of these Western customs, although alien to our world, which you make seem very precious to me.”
Then his lips met hers and with a low sigh of content she crept a little closer into his protecting embrace.
With their arms linked closely together, Mark and Catherine made their way along the pathway of velvety turf which led through the grove of lime trees to the pavilion which was their temporary home. Soon they neared its fantastic front, fairy-like with the lanterns hanging from the balcony, and white robed servants moving about within. Mark, with sudden passion, drew her into her arms. Her lips met his eagerly but he felt the tears damp upon her soft cheeks.
“Catherine,” he whispered, “your heart has ached a little to-night that you are not sitting at the banquet in the Kremlin amongst your own people, that you could not be listening to their songs in the street. Do not think that I blame you, sweetheart. It is so natural.”
Her arms tightened around his neck.
“Mark,” she protested, “you are mad to think it possible.”
“Life will go on there,” he continued, with just a trace of doubt still in his voice, “and it might so easily have been you reigning over your people, spending your life amongst them, instead of Sophie. As it is, with me you must move from corner to corner of the world. Our work must go on for many years. We must make all that we have won secure for all time. We must visit many countries but live in none.”
There was reassurance absolute and complete in her joyous laugh.
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