“They really don’t count for very much,” she said, a little carelessly. “This is entirely aunt’s Friday night gathering, and they are all her friends. That is Lady Maltenby opposite you, and her husband on the other side of my aunt.”
“Maltenby,” he repeated. “Ah, yes! There is one son a Brigadier, is there not? And another one sees sometimes about town—a Mr. Julian Orden.”
“He is the youngest son.”
“Am I exceeding the privileges of friendship, Countess,” the Baron continued, “if I enquire whether there was not a rumour of an engagement between yourself and Mr. Orden, a few days ago?”
“It is in the air,” she admitted, “but at present nothing is settled. Mr. Orden has peculiar habits. He disappeared from Society altogether, a few days ago, and has only just returned.”
“A censor, was he not?”
“Something of the sort,” Catherine assented. “He went out to France, though, and did extremely well. He lost his foot there.”
“I have noticed that he uses a stick,” the Baron remarked. “I always find him a young man of pleasant and distinguished appearance.”
“Well,” Catherine continued, “that is Mr. Braithwaiter the playwright, a little to the left—the man, with the smooth grey hair and eyeglass. Mrs. Hamilton Beardsmore you know, of course; her husband is commanding his regiment in Egypt.”
“The lady on my left?”
“Lady Grayson. She comes up from the country once a month to buy food. You needn’t mind her. She is stone deaf and prefers dining to talking.”
“I am relieved,” the Baron confessed, with a little sigh. “I addressed her as we sat down, and she made no reply. I began to wonder if I had offended.”
“The man next me,” she went on, “is Mr. Millson Gray. He is an American millionaire, over here to study our Y.M.C.A. methods. He can talk of nothing else in the world but Y.M.C.A. huts and American investments, and he is very hungry.”
“The conditions,” the Baron observed, “seem favourable for a tete-a-tete.”
Catherine smiled up into his imperturbable face. The wine had brought a faint colour to her cheeks, and the young man sighed regretfully at the idea of her prospective engagement. He had always been one of Catherine’s most pronounced admirers.
“But what are we to talk about?” she asked. “On the really interesting subjects your lips are always closed. You are a marvel of discretion, you know, Baron—even to me.”
“That is perhaps because you hide your real personality under so many aliases.”
“I must think that over,” she murmured.
“You,” he continued, “are an aristocrat of the aristocrats. I can quite conceive that you found your position in Russia incompatible with modern ideas. The Russian aristocracy, if you will forgive my saying so, is in for a bad time which it has done its best to thoroughly deserve. But in England your position is scarcely so comprehensible. Here you come to a sanely governed country, which is, to all effects and purposes, a country governed by the people for the people. Yet here, within two years, you have made yourself one of the champions of democracy. Why? The people are not ill-treated. On the contrary, I should call them pampered.”
“You do not understand,” she explained earnestly. “In Russia it was the aristocracy who oppressed the people, shamefully and malevolently. In England it is the bourgeoisie who rule the country and stand in the light of Labour. It is the middleman, the profiteer, the new capitalist here who has become an ugly and a dominant power. Labour has the means by which to assert itself and to claim its rights, but has never possessed the leaders or the training. That has been the subject of my lectures over here from the beginning. I want to teach the people how to crush the middleman. I want to show them how to discover and to utilise their strength.”
“Is not that a little dangerous?” he enquired. “You might easily produce a state of chaos.”
“For a time, perhaps,” she admitted, “but never for long. You see, the British have one transcendental quality; they possess common sense. They are not idealists like the Russians. The men with whom I mix neither walk with their heads turned to the clouds nor do they grope about amongst the mud. They just look straight ahead of them, and they ask for what they see in the path.”
“I see,” he murmured. “And now, having reached just this stage in our conversation, let me ask you this. You read the newspapers?”
“Diligently,” she assured him.
“Are you aware of a very curious note of unrest during the last few days—hints at a crisis in the war which nothing in the military situation seems to justify—vague but rather gloomy suggestions of an early peace?”
“Every one is talking about it,” she agreed. “I think that you and I have some idea as to what it means.”
“Have we?” he asked quietly.
“And somehow,” she went on, dropping her voice a little, “I believe that your knowledge goes farther than mine.”
He gave no sign, made no answer. Some question from across the table, with reference to the action of one of his country’s Ministers, was referred to him. He replied to it and drifted quite naturally into a general conversation. Without any evident effort, he seemed to desire to bring his tete-a-tete with Catherine to a close. She showed no sign of disappointment; indeed she fell into his humour and made vigorous efforts to attack the subject of Y.M.C.A. huts with her neighbour on the right. The rest of the meal passed in this manner, and it was not until they met, an hour later, in the Princess’ famous reception room, that they exchanged more than a casual word. The Princess liked to entertain her guests in a fashion of her own. The long apartment, with its many recesses and deep windows, an apartment which took up the whole of one side of the large house, had all the dignity and even splendour of a drawing-room, and yet, with its little palm court, its cosy divans, its bridge tables and roulette board, encouraged an air of freedom which made it eminently habitable.
“I wonder, Baron,” she asked, “what time you are leaving, and whether I could rely upon your escort to the Lawsons’ dance? Don’t hesitate to say if you have an engagement, as it only means my telephoning to some friends.”
“I am entirely at your service, Countess,” he answered promptly. “As a matter of fact, I have already promised to appear there myself for an hour.”
“You would like to play bridge now, perhaps?” she asked.
“The Princess was kind enough to invite me,” he replied, “but I ventured to excuse myself. I saw that the numbers were even without me, and I hoped for a little more conversation with you.”
They seated themselves in an exceedingly comfortable corner. A footman brought them coffee, and a butler offered strange liqueurs. Catherine leaned back with a little sigh of relief.
“Every one calls this room of my aunt’s the hotel lounge,” she remarked. “Personally, I love it.”
“To me, also, it is the ideal apartment,” he confessed. “Here we are alone, and I may ask you a question which was on my lips when we had tea together at the Carlton, and which, but for our environment, I should certainly have asked you at dinner time.”
“You may ask me anything,” she assured him, with a little smile. “I am feeling happy and loquacious. Don’t tempt me to talk, or I shall give away all my life’s secrets.”
“I will only ask you for one just now,” he promised. “Is it true that you have to-day had some disagreement with—shall I say a small congress of men who have their meetings down at Westminster, and with whom you have been in close touch for some time?”
Her start was unmistakable.
“How on earth do you know anything about that?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“These are the days,” he said, “when, if one is to succeed in my profession, one must know everything.”
She did not speak for a moment. His question had been rather a shock to her. In a moment or two, however, she found herself wondering how to use it for her own advantage.
He looked intently at the point of his patent shoe.
“Is this not a case, Countess,” he ventured, “in which you and I might perhaps come a little closer together?”
“If you have anything to suggest, I am ready to listen,” she said.
“I wonder,” he went on, “if I am right in some of my ideas? I shall test them. You have taken up your abode in England. That was natural, for domestic reasons. You have shown a great interest in a certain section of the British public. It is my theory that your interest in England is for that section only; that as a country, you are no more an admirer of her characteristics than I am.”
“You are perfectly right,” she answered coolly.
“Your interest,” he proceeded, “is in the men and women toilers of the world, the people who carry on their shoulders the whole burden of life, and whose position you are continually desiring to ameliorate. I take it that your sympathy is international?”
“It is,” she assented
“People of this order in—say—Germany, excite your sympathy in the same degree?”
“Absolutely!”
“Therefore,” he propounded, “you are working for the betterment of the least considered class, whether it be German, Austrian, British, or French?”
“That also is true,” she agreed.
“I pursue my theory, then. The issue of this war leaves you indifferent, so long as the people come to their own?”
“My work for the last few weeks amongst those men of whom you have been speaking,” she pointed out, “should prove that.”
“We are through the wood and in the open, then,” he declared, with a little sigh of relief. “Now I am prepared to trade secrets with you. I am not a friend of this country. Neither my Chief nor my Government have the slightest desire to see England win the war.”
“That I knew,” she acknowledged.
“Now I ask you for information,” he continued. “Tell me this? Your pseudo-friends have presented the supposed German terms of peace to Mr. Stenson. What was the result?”
“He is taking twenty-four hours to consider them.”
“And what will happen if he refuses?” the Baron asked, leaning a little towards her. “Will they use their mighty weapon? Will they really go the whole way, or will they compromise?”
“They will not compromise,” she assured him. “The telegrams to the secretaries of the various Trades Unions are already written out. They will be despatched five minutes after Mr. Stenson’s refusal to sue for an armistice has been announced.”
“You know that?” he persisted.
“I know it beyond any shadow of doubt.”
He nodded slowly.
“Your information,” he admitted, “is valuable to me. Well though I am served, I cannot penetrate into the inner circles of the Council itself. Your news is good.”
“And now,” she said, “I expect the most amazing revelations from you.”
“You shall have them, with pleasure,” he replied. “Freistner has been in a German fortress for some weeks and may be shot at any moment. The supposed strength of the Socialist Party in Germany is an utter sham. The signatures attached to the document which was handed to your Council some days ago will be repudiated. The whole scheme of coming into touch with your Labour classes has been fostered and developed by the German War Cabinet. England will be placed in the most humiliating and ridiculous position. It will mean the end of the war.”
“And Germany?” she gasped.
“Germany,” the Baron pronounced calmly, “will have taken the first great step up the ladder in her climb towards the dominance of the world.”
CHAPTER XIX
Table of Contents
There were one or two amongst those present in the Council room at Westminster that evening, who noted and never forgot a certain indefinable dignity which seemed to come to Stenson’s aid and enabled him to face what must have been an unwelcome and anxious ordeal without discomposure or disquiet. He entered the room accompanied by Julian and Phineas Cross, and he had very much the air of a man who has come to pay a business visit, concerning the final issue of which there could be no possible doubt. He shook hands with the Bishop gravely but courteously, nodded to the others with whom he was acquainted, asked the names of the few strangers present, and made a careful mental note of what industries and districts they represented. He then accepted a chair by the side of the Bishop, who immediately opened the proceedings.
“My friends,” the latter began, “as I sent word to you a little time ago, Mr. Stenson has preferred to bring you his answer himself. Our ambassador—Mr. Julian Orden—waited upon him at Downing Street at the hour arranged upon, and, in accordance with his wish to meet you all, Mr. Stenson is paying us this visit.”
The Bishop hesitated, and the Prime Minister promptly drew his chair a little farther into the circle.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the issue which you have raised is so tremendous, and its results may well be so catastrophic, that I thought it my duty to beg Mr. Orden to arrange for me to come and speak to you all, to explain to you face to face why, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I cannot do your bidding.”
“You don’t want peace, then?” one of the delegates from the other side of the table asked bluntly.
“We do not,” was the quiet reply. “We are not ready for it.”
“The country is,” Fenn declared firmly. “We are.”
“So your ambassador has told me,” was the calm reply. “In point of numbers you may be said, perhaps, to represent the nation. In point of intellect, of knowledge—of inner knowledge, mind—I claim that I represent it. I tell you that a peace now, even on the terms which your Socialist allies in Germany have suggested, would be for us a peace of dishonour.”
“Will you tell us why?” the Bishop begged.
“Because it is not the peace we promised our dead or our living heroes,” Mr. Stenson said slowly. “We set out to fight for democracy—your cause. That fight would be a failure if we allowed the proudest, the most autocratic, the most conscienceless despot who ever sat upon a throne to remain in his place.”
“But that is just what we shall not do,” Fenn interrupted. “Freistner has assured us of that. The peace is not the Kaiser’s peace. It is the peace of the Socialist Party in Germany, and the day the terms are proclaimed, democracy there will score its first triumph.”
“I find neither in the European Press nor in the reports of our secret service agents the slightest warrant for any such supposition,” Mr. Stenson pronounced with emphasis.
“You have read Freistner’s letter?” Fenn asked.
“Every word of it,” the Prime Minister replied. “I believe that Freistner is an honest man, as honest as any of you, but I think that he is mistaken. I do not believe that the German people are with him. I am content to believe that those signatures are genuine. I will even believe that Germany would welcome those terms of peace, although she would never allow them to proceed from her own Cabinet. But I do not believe that the clash and turmoil which would follow their publication would lead to the overthrow of the German dynasty. You give me no proof of it, gentlemen. You have none yourselves. And therefore I say that you propose to work in the dark, and it seems to me that your work may lead to an evil end. I want you to listen to me for one moment,” he went on, his face lighting up with a flash of terrible earnestness. “I am not going to cast about in my mind for flowery phrases or epigrams. We are plain men here together, with our country’s fate in the balance. For God’s sake, realise your responsibilities. I want peace. I ache for it. But there will be no peace for Europe while Germany remains an undefeated autocracy. We’ve promised our dead and our living to oust that corrupt monster from his throne. We’ve promised it to France our glorious Allies. We’ve shaken hands about it with America, whose ships are already crowding the seas, and whose young manhood has taken the oath which ours has taken. This isn’t th
e time for peace. I am not speaking in the dark when I tell you that we have a great movement pending in the West which may completely alter the whole military situation. Give us a chance. If you carry out your threat, you plunge this country into revolution, you dishonour us in the face of our Allies; you will go through the rest of your lives, every one of you, with a guilt upon your souls, a stain upon your consciences, which nothing will ever obliterate. You see, I have kept my word—I haven’t said much. I cannot ask for the armistice you suggest. If you take this step you threaten—I do not deny its significance you will probably stop the war. One of you will come in and take my place. There will be turmoil, confusion, very likely bloodshed. I know what the issue will be, and yet I know my duty. There is not one member of my Cabinet who is not with me. We refuse your appeal.”
Every one at the table seemed to be talking at the same time to every one else. Then Cross’s voice rose above the others. He rose to his feet to ensure attention.
“Bishop,” he said, “there is one point in what Mr. Stenson has been saying which I think we might and ought to consider a little more fully, and that is, what guarantees have we that Freistner really has the people at the back of him, that he’ll be able to cleanse that rat pit at Berlin of the Hohenzollern and his clan of junkers—the most accursed type of politician who ever breathed? We ought to be very sure about this. Fenn’s our man. What about it, Fenn?”
“Freistner’s letters for weeks,” Fenn answered, “have spoken of the wonderful wave of socialistic feeling throughout the country. He is an honest man, and he does not exaggerate. He assures us that half the nation is pledged.”
“One man,” David Sands remarked thoughtfully. “If, there is a weak point about this business, which I am not prepared wholly to admit, it is that the entire job on that side seems to be run by one man. There’s a score of us. I should like to hear of more on the other side.”
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