‘Potts,’ Margaret said, facing round upon her, ‘I’ve been in a rage, but I’m only angry now. Do I look like a human being again?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ answered the maid, inspecting her gravely. ‘You are still a bit pale, ma’am, and your eye is a trifle wild, I may say. A motor veil, perhaps, if you are thinking of going out, ma’am.’
‘I haven’t got such a thing, have I? I never motor now.’
Potts smiled the smile of the very superior maid, and moved towards a perfectly new leather hat-box that stood in the corner.
‘I always put in two for sea, ma’am,’ she said. ‘You wore one when we crossed the Channel the last time, if you remember.’
‘Potts, you’re a treasure!’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Potts answered vaguely in her meek voice, as she dived into one of the curious secret pockets of the hat-box. ‘That is, ma’am,’ she said, correcting herself, ‘I mean, it’s very kind of you to say so.’
Without further consulting Margaret, who had seated herself before the dressing-table, Potts proceeded to fasten a broad-brimmed black straw hat on the thick brown hair; she then spread an immense white veil over it, drew it under her mistress’s chin and knotted in a way that would have amazed a seaman.
When Margaret was putting on her gloves, Mrs. Rushmore herself came to the door, knocked and opened discreetly before there was any answer.
‘My dear child,’ she asked, ‘what in the world is the matter? Nothing serious, I trust?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Margaret answered, going forward to meet her, and finding her natural voice. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.’
‘It’s so unlike you, my dear,’ Mrs. Rushmore said, with emphasis; ‘and Potts looked quite grave when she brought me your message half an hour ago.’
‘You would have been more surprised if she had burst out laughing,’ Margaret said viciously.
‘My dear,’ Mrs. Rushmore answered, ‘I’m astonished at you! I know something has happened. I know it. You are not yourself this morning.’
This was a statement so evidently absurd that it could not be answered except by a flat contradiction; so Margaret said nothing, and went on working her hand into a perfectly new glove.
‘I see that you have not even opened your letters,’ Mrs. Rushmore continued severely. ‘Except that,’ she added, noticing the loose sheets of Lady Maud’s letter on the toilet-table.
Margaret gathered them up hastily, folded them into a crumpled package and thrust them into the empty envelope. For once, she had forgotten her caution, but she retrieved herself by pushing the thick letter into her long glove, much to Potts’ distress, for it made an ugly lump. She made it worse by forcing in the second envelope, which contained the newspaper cutting.
‘I’m ready now,’ she said.
Mrs. Rushmore turned and led the way with stately steps; she was always imposing, but when she was offended she was monumental. The two went out in silence, opened their parasols, the one black, the other scarlet, and walked slowly down the straight, dull street side by side. Mrs. Rushmore spoke first, after they had gone some distance.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘that something has happened. It was in that letter. You cannot deny it, Margaret. It was in the letter you folded in that hurried manner.’
‘The news was,’ answered the Primadonna, still vicious.
‘I told you so. My dear child, it’s not of the slightest use to try to deceive me. I’ve known you since you were a child.’
‘I’m not trying to deceive you.’
‘When I asked what had happened, you answered, “Nothing.” I do not call that very frank, do you?’
‘Potts was there, to begin with,’ explained Margaret rather crossly.
But Mrs. Rushmore no longer heard. Her head was up, her parasol lay back upon her shoulder, her faded eyes were brighter than before, and the beginning of a social smile wreathed her hitherto grave lips. There was game about, and she was pointing; there were lions to windward.
‘There’s Mr. Van Torp, my dear,’ she said in quite another tone, and very low, ‘and unless I’m much mistaken — yes, I knew it! He’s with Count Kralinsky. I saw the Count from the window yesterday when he arrived. I hope our friend will present him.’
‘I daresay,’ Margaret answered indifferently, but surveying the two men through the white mist of her thick veil.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Rushmore with delight, and almost whispering in her excitement. ‘He has seen us, and now he’s telling the Count who we are.’
Margaret was used to her excellent old friend’s ways on such occasions, and gave no more heed to them than she would have given to a kitten scampering after a ball of string. The kitten would certainly catch the ball in the end, and Mrs. Rushmore would as surely capture the lion.
Mr. Van Torp raised his hat when he was within four or five paces of the ladies, and his companion, who was a head and shoulders taller than he, slackened his pace and stopped a little way behind him as Mrs. Rushmore shook hands and Margaret nodded pleasantly.
‘May I present Count Kralinsky?’ asked the American. ‘I’ve met him before, and we’ve just renewed our acquaintance.’
Mr. Van Torp looked from Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, and tried to see her expression through her veil. She answered his look by a very slight inclination of the head.
‘We shall be delighted,’ said the elder lady, speaking for both.
Mr. Van Torp introduced the Count to Mrs. Rushmore and then to Margaret, calling her ‘Miss Donne,’ and she saw that the man was handsome as well as tall and strong. He had a magnificent golden beard, a clear complexion, and rather uncertain blue eyes, in one of which he wore a single eyeglass without a string. He was quietly dressed and wore no jewellery, excepting one ring, in which blazed a large ‘tallow-topped’ ruby. He had the unmistakable air of a man of the world, and was perfectly at his ease. When he raised his straw hat he disclosed a very white forehead, and short, thick fair hair. There was no sign of approaching middle age in his face or figure, but Margaret felt, or guessed, that he was older than he looked.
In her stiffly correct French, Mrs. Rushmore said that she was enchanted to make his acquaintance, and Margaret murmured sweetly but unintelligibly.
‘The Count speaks English perfectly,’ observed Mr. Van Torp.
He ranged himself beside Margaret, leaving the foreigner to Mrs. Rushmore, much to her gratification.
‘We were going to walk,’ she said. ‘Will you join us?’ And she moved on.
‘It is a great pleasure to meet you,’ Kralinsky said by way of opening the conversation. ‘I have often heard of you from friends in Paris. Your little dinners at Versailles are famous all over Europe. I am sure we have many mutual friends, though you may never have heard my name.’
Mrs. Rushmore was visibly pleased, and as the way was not very wide, Margaret and Van Torp dropped behind. They soon heard the other two enumerating their acquaintances. Kralinsky was surprised at the number of Mrs. Rushmore’s friends, but the Count seemed to know everybody, from all the Grand Dukes and Archdukes in Russia, Germany, and Austria, to the author of the latest successful play in Paris, and the man of science who had discovered how to cure gout by radium. Kralinsky had done the cure, seen the play, and dined with the royalties within the last few weeks. Mrs. Rushmore thought him one of the most charming men she had ever met.
In the rear Mr. Van Torp and the Primadonna were not talking; but he looked at her, she looked at him, they both looked at Kralinsky’s back, and then they once more looked at each other and nodded; which meant that Van Torp had recognised the man he had met selling rubies in New York, and that Margaret understood this.
‘I’ll tell you something else that’s quite funny, if you don’t mind dropping a little further behind,’ he said.
Margaret walked still more slowly till a dozen paces separated them from the other two.
‘What is it?’ she asked in a low tone.
‘I believe he’s my o
ld friend from whom I learned to whistle Parsifal,’ answered the American. ‘I’m pretty sure of it, in spite of a good many years and a beard — two things that change a man. See his walk? See how he turns his toes in? Most cow-boys walk like that.’
‘How very odd that you should meet again!’ Margaret was surprised, but not deeply interested by this new development.
‘Well,’ said Van Torp thoughtfully, ‘if I’d known I was going to meet him somewhere, I’d have said this was as likely a place as any to find him in, now that I know what it was he whistled. But I admit that the other matter has more in it. I wonder what would happen if I asked him about Miss Barrack?’
‘Nothing,’ Margaret answered confidently. ‘Nothing would happen. He has never heard of her.’
Van Torp’s sharp eyes tried in vain to penetrate the veil.
‘That’s not quite clear,’ he observed. ‘Or else this isn’t my good day.’
‘The girl fooled you,’ said Margaret in a low voice. ‘Did she mention his name to you?’
‘Well, no — —’
‘She never saw him in her life, or if she ever did, it was she who robbed him of rubies; and it was not the other way, as you supposed. Men are generally inclined to believe what a nice-looking girl tells them!’
‘That’s true,’ Van Torp admitted. ‘But all the same, I don’t quite understand you. There’s a meaning in your voice that’s not in the words. Excuse me if I’m not quick enough this morning, please. I’m doing my best.’
‘Your friend Baraka has been arrested and sent to prison in London for stealing a very valuable ruby from the counter in Pinney’s,’ Margaret explained. ‘The stone had just been taken there by Monsieur Logotheti to be cut. The girl must have followed him without his knowing it, and watched her chance, though how old Pinney can have left such a thing lying on the counter where any one could take it is simply incomprehensible. That’s what you heard in my voice when I said that men are credulous.’
Mr. Van Torp thought he had heard even more in her accent when she had pronounced Logotheti’s name. Besides, she generally called him ‘Logo,’ as all his friends did. The American said nothing for a moment, but he glanced repeatedly at the white veil, through which he saw her handsome features without their expression.
‘Well,’ he said at last, almost to himself, for he hardly expected her to understand the language of his surprise, ‘that beats the band!’
‘It really is rather odd, you know,’ responded Margaret, who understood perfectly. ‘If you think I’ve adorned the truth I’ll give you the Police Court report. I have it in my glove. Lady Maud sent it to me with a letter.’ She added, after an instant’s hesitation, ‘I’m not sure that I shall not give you that to read too, for there’s something about you in it, and she is your best friend, isn’t she?’
‘Out and out. I daresay you’d smile if I told you that I asked her to help me to get you to change your mind.’
‘No,’ Margaret answered, turning slowly to look at him. ‘She tells me so in this letter.’
‘Does she really?’ Van Torp had guessed as much, and had wished to undermine the surprise he supposed that Margaret had in store for him. ‘That’s just like her straightforward way of doing things. She told me frankly that she wouldn’t lift a finger to influence you. However, it can’t be helped, I suppose.’
The conclusion of the speech seemed to be out of the logical sequence.
‘She has done more than lift a finger now,’ Margaret said.
‘Has she offended you?’ Van Torp ventured to ask, for he did not understand the constant subtone of anger he heard in her voice. ‘I know she would not mean to do that.’
‘No. You don’t understand. I’ve telegraphed to ask her to join us here.’
Van Torp was really surprised now, and his face showed it.
‘I wish we were somewhere alone,’ Margaret continued. ‘I mean, out of the way of Mrs. Rushmore. She knows nothing about all this, but she saw me cramming the letters into my glove, and I cannot possibly let her see me giving them to you.’
‘Oh, well, let me think,’ said the millionaire. ‘I guess I want to buy some photographs of Bayreuth and the Parsifal characters in that shop, there on the right. Suppose you wait outside the door, so that Mrs. Rushmore can see you if she turns around. She’ll understand that I’m inside. If you drop your parasol towards her you can get the letters out, can’t you? Then as I come out you can just pass them to me behind the parasol, and we’ll go on. How’s that? It won’t take one second, anyhow. You can make-believe your glove’s uncomfortable, and you’re fixing it, if anybody you know comes out of the shop. Will that do? Here we are. Shall I go in?’
‘Yes. Don’t be long! I’ll cough when I’m ready.’
The operation succeeded, and the more easily as Mrs. Rushmore went quietly on without turning her head, being absorbed and charmed by Kralinsky’s conversation.
‘You may as well read the newspaper cutting now,’ Margaret said when they had begun to walk again. ‘That cannot attract attention, even if she does look round, and it explains a good many things. It’s in the thinner envelope, of course.’
Van Torp fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, and brought out the slip of newspaper without the envelope, a precaution which Margaret noticed and approved. If she had been able to forget for a moment her anger against Logotheti she would have been amazed at the strides her intimacy with Van Torp was making. He himself was astounded, and did not yet understand, but he had played the great game for fortune against adversaries of vast strength and skill, and had won by his qualities rather than his luck, and they did not desert him at the most important crisis of his life. The main difference between his present state of mind and his mental view, when he had been fighting men for money, was that he now felt scruples wholly new to him. Things that had looked square enough when millions were at stake appeared to him ‘low down’ where Margaret was the prize.
She watched him intently while he read the printed report, but his face did not change in the least. At that short distance she could see every shade of his expression through the white veiling, though he could not see hers at all. He finished reading, folded the slip carefully, and put it into his pocket-book instead of returning it to the envelope.
“She watched him intently while he read the printed report.”
‘It does look queer,’ he said slowly. ‘Now let me ask you one thing, but don’t answer me unless you like. It’s not mere inquisitiveness on my part.’ As Margaret said nothing, though he waited a moment for her answer, he went on. ‘That ruby, now — I suppose it’s to be cut for you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. He gave it to me in Versailles, and I kept it some days. Then he asked me to let him have it to take to London when I came here.’
‘Just so. Thank you. One more question, if I may. That stone I gave you, I swear I don’t know that it’s not glass — anyhow, that stone, does it look at all like the one that was stolen?’
‘Oh, no! It’s quite another shape and size. Why do you ask? I don’t quite see.’
‘What I mean is, if these people are around selling rubies, there may be two very much alike, that’s all.’
‘Well, if there were? What of it?’
‘Suppose — I’m only supposing, mind, that the girl really had another stone about her a good deal like the one that was stolen, and that somebody else was the thief. Queer things like that have happened before.’
‘Yes. But old Pinney is one of the first experts in the world, and he swore to the ruby.’
‘That’s so,’ said Van Torp thoughtfully. ‘I forgot that.’
‘And if she had the other stone, she had stolen it from Monsieur Logotheti, I have not the least doubt.’
‘I daresay,’ replied the millionaire. ‘I’m not her attorney. I’m not trying to defend her. I was only thinking.’
‘She was at his house in Paris,’ Margaret said, quite unable to keep her own counsel now. ‘It was when I was at Versaill
es.’
‘You don’t say so! Are you sure of that?’
‘He admitted it when I was talking to him through the telephone, and I heard her speaking to him in a language I did not understand.’
‘Did you really? Well, well!’ Mr. Van Torp was beginning to be puzzled again. ‘Nice voice, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes. He tried to make me think he wasn’t sure whether the creature was a boy or a girl.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t sure himself,’ suggested the American, but the tone in which she had spoken the word ‘creature’ had not escaped him.
He was really trying to put the case in a fair light, and was not at all manœuvring to ascertain her state of mind. That was clear enough now. How far she might go he could not tell, but what she had just said, coupled with the way in which she spoke of the man to whom she was engaged as ‘Monsieur Logotheti,’ made it quite evident that she was profoundly incensed against him, and Van Torp became more than ever anxious not to do anything underhand.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m going to tell you something. I took a sort of interest in that Tartar girl the only time I saw her. I don’t know why. I daresay I was taken in by her — just ordinary “taken in,” like a tenderfoot. I gave her that fellow’s address in New York.’ He nodded towards Kralinsky. ‘When I found he was here, I wired Logotheti to tell her, since she’s after him. I suppose I thought Logotheti would go right away and find her, and get more mixed up with her than ever. It was mean of me, wasn’t it? That’s why I’ve told you. You see, I didn’t know anything about all this, and that makes it meaner still, doesn’t it?’
Possibly if he had told her these facts forty-eight hours earlier she might have been annoyed, but at present they seemed to be rather in his favour. At all events he was frank, she thought. He declared war on his rival, and meant fight according to the law of nations. Lady Maud would not be his friend if he were playing any double game, but she had stuck to him throughout his trouble in the spring, he had emerged victorious and reinstated in public opinion, and she had been right. Lady Maud knew him better than any one else, and she was a good woman, if there ever was one.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1243