Maggie walked dutifully by his side, answering his frequent questions about flowers and shrubs, listening while he told her about his white peacocks and the tame birds which were his own pets. Suddenly she broke into a fit of laughter. She looked up into his grave face, her eyes imploring him for sympathy.
“I feel so like a precocious child,” she exclaimed, “who has been put in her place! No one has ever turned me inside out so skilfully, has made me feel such an ignorant little donkey. Do you know, I half like you for it, Prince Shan, and half detest you.”
He seemed suddenly to become younger, to meet her upon her own ground.
“Please do not be angry,” he begged. “Please do not think that I look upon you at all as a little child. You have brought something into my life for which I have searched and hoped, and I am deeply grateful to you. Shall I—go on?”
She caught at his wrist.
“Please not,” she begged breathlessly. “Be content with this moment.”
They had paused by the side of an arbour. She suddenly felt the pressure of his fingers upon her hand.
“I shall be content,” he said, in a low tone, the passion of which seemed to throw her senses into complete turmoil, “only when I have what my heart desires. But I will wait.”
They walked almost into the midst of a little crowd of acquaintances. Maggie was herself again immediately. She chattered away with Chalmers, and led him off to see a wonderful yellow rose. He watched her curiously. When they found themselves isolated at the end of the garden path, he ignored for a moment their mission.
“Any luck, Lady Maggie?” he asked.
She looked up at him, and to his amazement her eyes were swimming.
“I think that Prince Shan will be on our side,” she replied.
CHAPTER XVII
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Monsieur Felix Senn, the distinguished Frenchman who had just acquitted himself of the special mission which had brought him to London, was a little loath to depart from the historical chamber in Downing Street. Diplomatically, the interview was over. The Prime Minister, however, on this occasion, was courteous, even affable. There seemed no reason for his visitor to hurry away.
“You will accept, I trust, sir,” the latter begged, “this assurance of my extreme regret at the present unfortunate condition of affairs. I am one of those who threw his hat into the air on the boulevards in August, 1914, when the news came that your great country had decided to fulfil her unwritten promises and in the cause of honour had declared war against Germany. I have never forgotten that moment, sir, even in those months and years of misunderstandings which followed the signing of the Treaty of Peace. I was one of those who pointed always to the sacrifices which Great Britain had made on our behalf, to her glorious deeds on land and sea. I have always been a friend of your country, Mr. Mervin Brown. That is why I think I was chosen to bring this dispatch.”
“You are very welcome,” the Prime Minister assured him. “As for the purpose of your mission, I assure you that I view it less seriously than you do. Glance with me at the position for a moment. Notwithstanding the era of peace which has sprung up all over the world, owing to the happy influence of the League of Nations, France alone has decided to follow still the path of militarism. Your last year’s army estimates were staggering. The number of men whom you keep out of your factories in order that they may learn a useless drill and wear an unnecessary uniform is, to the economist, simply scandalous. Look at the result. Compare our imports and exports with yours. See the leaps and strides with which we have improved our financial position during the last ten years. We have not only recovered from the after effects of the war, but we have reached a state of prosperity which we never previously attained. You, on the other hand, are still groaning with enormous taxes. You carry a burden which is self-imposed and unnecessary. You, of all the nations, refuse to recognise the fact that the government of the great countries of the world has passed into the hands of the democracy, and that democracies will not tolerate war.”
“There I join issue with you, sir,” the Frenchman replied. “These are the obvious and expressed views of other European countries, yet month by month come rumours of the training of great masses of troops, far in excess of the numbers permitted by the League of Nations. There is all the time a haze of secrecy over what is going on in certain parts of Germany. And as for Russia, ostensibly the freest country in the world, Tsarism in its worst days never imposed such despotic restrictions concerning the coming and going of foreigners, in one particular district, at any rate.”
“The Russian Government have certainly given us cause for complaint in that direction,” Mr. Mervin Brown admitted. “Strong representations are being made to them at the present moment. On the other hand, the reason for their attitude is easily enough understood. In the days when Russia lay exhausted, foreigners took too much advantage of her, attained far too close a grip upon her great natural resources. Russia has determined that what she has left she will keep to herself. The attitude is reasonable, although I am free to admit that she is carrying her legislation against foreigners too far.”
“What about the number of men she has under arms every year?” Monsieur Senn enquired.
“Russia has always a possible danger to fear from China, the new Colossus of Asia,” the Prime Minister pointed out. “Even Russia herself has not made such strides within the last fifteen years as China. The secession of the Asiatic countries from the League of Nations demanded certain precautions which Russia is justified in taking.”
The Frenchman had risen to his feet, but he still lingered. A tall man, of commanding presence, with olive complexion, deep brown eyes, and black hair lightly streaked with grey, Monsieur Felix Senn had been a great figure in the war of 1914-1918 and had retained since a commanding position in French politics. It had often been said that nothing but his great friendship for England had prevented his gaining the highest honours. His present mission, therefore, which was practically to end the alliance between the two countries, was a peculiarly painful one to him.
“I must tell you before we part, Mr. Mervin Brown,” he said gravely, “that neither I nor many of my fellow countrymen share your optimism. You seem to have inherited the timeworn theory that the War of 1914 was entirely provoked by the junker class of Germans. That is not true. It was a people’s war, and the people have never forgotten what they were pleased to consider the harsh terms of the Treaty of Peace. Then as regards Russia, have you ever considered that Russia financially and politically is more than half German? When Germany lost the war, she had one great consolation—she acquired Russia. You have compared the economic condition of France to-day with that of your country, sir. I admit your commercial supremacy, but let me tell you this. I would not, for the greatest boon the gods could offer me, see France in the same helpless state as England is in to-day.”
The Prime Minister rose also to his feet. He wore an air of offended dignity.
“Monsieur Senn,” he declared, “the spirit of militarism is in the blood of your country. You cannot rid yourself of it in one generation or two. But, believe me, no people’s government at any time in the future, whether it be English, Russian, German, or American, will ever dare to suggest or even to dream of a war of aggression or revenge. If we are comparatively unprotected, it is because we need no protection. We hear the footfall of your marching millions, and we thank God that that sound is represented in our country by the roar of machinery and the blaze of furnaces.”
The Frenchman bowed and accepted the hand which the Prime Minister offered him.
“I present to you once more, sir,” he said, “the compliments and infinite regrets of Monsieur le Président.”
A chapter of English history ended with the quiet passing of Monsieur Senn into the sunlit street. The latter entered his waiting automobile and drove at once to the French Embassy. The Ambassador listened in silence to his report.
“What about the Press?” was his only qu
estion.
“Monsieur le Président insists upon the truth being known,” the emissary announced. “France has pledged her word against secret treaties. Besides, the honour of France must never afterwards be called in question.”
The Ambassador sighed. He was new to his present post, but he had grown grey in the service of his country.
“It is the end of a one-sided arrangement,” he declared. “It is incredible that these people do not realise that it is against their own country—against themselves—that this slowly fermenting hatred is being brewed. The racial enmity between Germany and France is nothing compared with the hate of antagonistic kinship between Germany and England. However, France is the gainer by to-day’s event. We have only our own frontiers to watch.”
Monsieur Felix Senn wandered on to the St. Philip’s Club, where he found his old friend Prince Karschoff talking in a corner of the smoking room with Nigel. They were both of them prepared for the news which he presently communicated to them. Karschoff was bitter, Nigel silent.
“Well said Carlyle that ‘History is philosophy teaching by examples’,” the former expounded. “How the historian of the future will revel in this epoch! What treatises he will write, what parallels he will draw! See him point to the days when the aristocracy ruled England, and England fought and flourished; then to the epoch when the bourgeoisietook their place, and with a mighty effort, met a great emergency and flourished. And finally, in sympathy with the great European upheaval, in sympathy with the great natural law of change, Labour ousts both, single-eyed Labour, and down goes England, crumbling into the dust!—Let us lunch, my friends. The cuisine is still good here.”
Nigel excused himself.
“I am engaged,” he said. “We may meet afterwards.”
“Something tells me, my dear Nigel,” Karschoff declared, “that you are bent on frivolity.”
“If to lunch with a woman is frivolous, I plead guilty,” Nigel replied.
Karschoff’s face was suddenly grave. He seemed on the point of saying something but checked himself and turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders.
“Each one to his taste,” he murmured. “For my aperitif, a dash of absinthe in my cocktail; for Dorminster here, the lure of a woman’s smile. Perhaps he gains. Who knows?”
CHAPTER XVIII
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Nigel waited for his luncheon companion in the crowded vestibule of London’s most famous club restaurant. He was to a certain extent out of the picture among the crowd of this new generation of pleasure seekers, on the faces of whom opulence and acquisitiveness had already laid its branding hand. The Mecca alike of musical comedy and the Stock Exchange, the place, however, still preserved a curious attraction for the foreign element in London, so that when at last Naida appeared, she was exchanging courtesies with an Italian Duchess on one side and a celebrated Russian dancer on the other. Nigel led her at once to the table which he had selected in the balcony.
“I have obeyed your wishes to the letter,” he said, “and I think that you are right. Up here we are entirely alone, and, as you see, they have had the sense to place the tables a long way apart. Am I to blame, I wonder, for asking you to do so unconventional a thing as to lunch here again alone with me?”
She drew off her gloves and smiled across the table at him. Her plain, tailor-made gown, with its high collar, was the last word in elegance. The simplicity of her French hat was to prove the despair of a well-known modiste seated downstairs, who made a sketch of it on the menu and tried in vain to copy it. Even to Nigel’s exacting taste she was flawless.
“Is it unconventional?” she asked carelessly. “I do not study those things. I lunch or dine with a party, generally, because it happens so. I lunch alone with you because it pleases me.”
“And for this material side of our entertainment?” he enquired, smiling, as he handed her the menu card.
“A grapefruit, a quail with white grapes, and some asparagus,” she replied promptly. “You see, in one respect I am an easy companion. I know exactly what I want. A mixed vermouth, if you like, yes. And now, tell me your news?”
“There is news,” he announced, “which the whole world will know of before many hours are past. France has broken her pact with England.”
“It is my opinion,” she said deliberately, “that France has been very patient with you.”
“And mine,” he acknowledged. “We have now to see what will become of a fat and prosperous country with a semi-obsolete fleet and a comic opera army.”
“Must we talk of serious things?” she asked softly. “I am weary of the clanking wheels of life.”
He sighed.
“And yet for you,” he said, “they are not grinding out the fate of your country.”
“Nevertheless, I too hear them all the time,” she rejoined. “And I hate them. They make one lose one’s sense of proportion. After all, it is our own individual and internal life which counts. I can understand Nero fiddling while Rome burned, if he really had no power to call up fire engines.”
“Are you an individualist?” he asked.
“Not fundamentally,” she replied, “but I am caught up in the throes of a great reaction. I have been studying events, which it is quite true may change the destinies of the world, so intently that I have almost forgotten that, after all, the greatest thing in the world, my world, is the happiness or ill-content of Naida Karetsky. It is really of more importance to me to-day that my quail should be cooked as I like it than that England has let go her last rope.”
“You are not an Englishwoman,” he reminded her.
“That is of minor importance. We are all so much immersed in great affairs just now that we forget it is the small ones that count. I want my luncheon to be perfect, I want you to seem as nice to me as I have fancied you, and I want you to chase completely away the idea that you are cultivating my acquaintance for interested motives.”
“That I can assure you from the bottom of my heart is not the case,” he replied. “Whatever other interests I may feel in you,” he added, after a moment’s hesitation, “my first and foremost is a personal one.”
She looked at him with gratitude in her eyes for his understanding.
“A woman in my position,” she complained, “is out of place. A man ought to come over and study your deservings or your undeservings and pore over the problem of the future of Europe. I am a woman, and I am not big enough. I am too physical. I have forgotten how to enjoy myself, and I love pleasure. Now am I a revelation to you?”
“You have always been that,” he told her. “You are so truthful yourself,” he went on boldly, “that I shall run the risk of saying the most banal thing in the world, just because it happens to be the truth. I have felt for you since our first meeting what I have felt for no other woman in the world.”
“I like that, and I am glad you said it,” she declared lightly enough, although her lips quivered for a moment. “And they have put exactly the right quantity of Maraschino in my grapefruit. I feel that I am on the way to happiness. I am going to enjoy my luncheon.—Tell me about Maggie.”
“I saw her yesterday,” he answered. “We have arranged for her to come and live at Belgrave Square, after all.”
“My terrible altruism once more,” she sighed. “I had meant not to speak another serious word, and yet I must. Maggie is very clever, amazingly clever, I sometimes think, but if she had the brains of all of her sex rolled into one, she would still be facing now an impossible situation.”
“Just what do you mean?” he asked cautiously.
“Maggie seems determined to measure her wits with those of Prince Shan,” she said. “Believe me, that is hopeless.”
She looked up at him and laughed softly.
“Oh, my dear friend,” she went on, “that wooden expression is wonderful. You do not quite know where I stand, except—may I flatter myself?—as regards your personal feelings for me. Am I for Immelan and his schemes, or for your own foolish cou
ntry? You do not know, so you make for yourself a face of wood.”
“Where do you stand?” he asked bluntly.
“Sufficiently devoted to your interests to beg you this,” she replied. “Do not let your little cousin think that she can deal with a man like Prince Shan. There can be only one end to that.”
Nigel moved a little uneasily in his place.
“Prince Shan is only an ordinary human being, after all,” he protested.
“That is just where you are mistaken,” she declared. “Prince Shan is one of the most extraordinary human beings who ever lived. He is one of the most farseeing men in the world, and he is absolutely the most powerful.”
“But China,” Nigel began—
“His power extends far beyond China,” she interrupted, “and there is no brain in the world to match his to-day.”
“If he were a god wielding thunderbolts,” Nigel observed, “he could scarcely do much harm to Maggie here in London.”
“There was an artist once,” she said reflectively, “who drew a caricature of Prince Shan and sent it to the principal comic paper in America. It was such a success that a little time later on he followed it up with another, which included a line of Prince Shan’s ancestors. Within a month’s time the artist was found murdered. Prince Shan was in China at the time.”
“Are you suggesting that the artist was murdered through Prince Shan’s contrivance?”
“Am I a fool?” she answered. “Do you not know that to speak disrespectfully of the ancestors of a Chinaman is unforgivable? To all appearances Prince Shan never moved from his wonderful palace in Pekin, many thousands of miles away. Yet he lifted his little finger and the man died.”
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