Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

“And Karl Breslau?” inquired the Princess coolly.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “No. I think he got away across the roofs of the houses,” replied Neeland.

  Ilse Dumont, bent over the cat in her lap, stared absently into its green eyes where it lay playfully patting the rags that hung from her torn bodice.

  Perhaps she was thinking of the dead man where he lay in the crowded café — the dead man who had confronted her with bloodshot eyes and lifted pistol — whose voice, thick with rage, had denounced her — whose stammering, untaught tongue stumbled over the foreign words with which he meant to send her to her death — this dead man who once had been her man — long ago — very, very long ago when there was no bitterness in life, no pain, no treachery — when life was young in the Western World, and Fate gaily beckoned her, wearing a smiling mask and crowned with flowers.

  “I hope,” remarked the Princess Mistchenka, “that it is sufficiently early in the morning for you to escape observation, James.”

  “I’m a scandal; I know it,” he admitted, as the car swung into the rue Soleil d’Or.

  The Princess turned to the drooping girl beside her and laid a gloved hand lightly on her shoulder.

  “My dear,” she said gently, “there is only one chance for you, and if we let it pass it will not come again — under military law.”

  Ilse lifted her head, held it high, even tilted back a little.

  The Princess said:

  “Twenty-four hours will be given for all Germans to leave France. But — you took your nationality from the man you married. You are American.”

  The girl flushed painfully:

  “I do not care to take shelter under his name,” she said.

  “It is the only way. And you must get to the coast in my car. There is no time to lose. Every vehicle, private and public, will be seized for military uses this morning. Every train will be crowded; every foot of room occupied on the Channel boats. There is only one thing for you to do — travel with me to Havre as my American maid.”

  “Madame — would you do that — for me?”

  “Why, I’ve got to,” said the Princess Mistchenka with a shrug. “I am not a barbarian to leave you to a firing squad, I hope.”

  The car had stopped; the chauffeur descended and came around to open the door.

  “Caron,” said the Princess, “no servants are stirring yet. Take my key, find a cloak and bring it out — and a coat for Monsieur Neeland — the one that Captain Sengoun left the other evening. Have you plenty of gasoline?”

  “Plenty, madame.”

  “Good. We leave for Havre in five minutes. Bring the cloak and coat quickly.”

  The chauffeur hastened to the door, unlocked it, disappeared, then came out carrying a voluminous wrap and a man’s opera cloak. The Princess threw the one over Ilse Dumont; Neeland enveloped himself in the other.

  “Now,” murmured the Princess Naïa, “it will look more like a late automobile party than an ambulance after a free fight — if any early servants are watching us.”

  She descended from the car; Ilse Dumont followed, still clasping the cat under her cloak; and Neeland followed her.

  “Be very quiet,” whispered the Princess. “There is no necessity for servants to observe what we do — —”

  A small and tremulous voice from the head of the stairs interrupted her:

  “Naïa! Is it you?”

  “Hush, Ruhannah! Yes, darling, it is I. Everything is all right and you may go back to bed — —”

  “Naïa! Where is Mr. Neeland?” continued the voice, fearfully.

  “He is here, Rue! He is all right. Go back to your room, dear. I have a reason for asking you.”

  Listening, she heard a door close above; then she touched Ilse on the shoulder and motioned her to follow up the stairs. Halfway up the Princess halted, bent swiftly over the banisters:

  “James!” she called softly.

  “Yes?”

  “Go into the pantry and find a fruit basket and fill it with whatever food you can find. Hurry, please.”

  He discovered the pantry presently, and a basket of fruit there. Poking about he contrived to disinter from various tins and ice-boxes some cold chicken and biscuits and a bottle of claret. These he wrapped hastily in a napkin which he found there, placed them in the basket of fruit, and came out into the hall just as Ilse Dumont, in the collar and cuffs and travelling coat of a servant, descended, carrying a satchel and a suitcase.

  “Good business!” he whispered, delighted. “You’re all right now, Scheherazade! And for heaven’s sake, keep out of France hereafter. Do you promise?”

  He had taken the satchel and bag from her and handed both, and the fruit basket, to Caron, who stood outside the door.

  In the shadowy hall those two confronted each other now, probably for the last time. He took both her hands in his.

  “Good-bye, Scheherazade dear,” he said, with a new seriousness in his voice which made the tone of it almost tender.

  “G-good-bye — —” The girl’s voice choked; she bent her head and rested her face on the hands he held clasped in his.

  He felt her hot tears falling, felt the slender fingers within his own tighten convulsively; felt her lips against his hand — an instant only; then she turned and slipped through the open door.

  A moment later the Princess Naïa appeared on the stairs, descending lightly and swiftly, her motor coat over her arm.

  “Jim,” she said in a low voice, “it’s the wretched girl’s only chance. They know about her; they’re looking for her now. But I am trusted by my Ambassador; I shall have what papers I ask for; I shall get her through to an American steamer.”

  “Princess Naïa, you are splendid!”

  “You don’t think so, Jim; you never did.... Be nice to Rue. The child has been dreadfully frightened about you.... And,” added the Princess Mistchenka with a gaily forced smile, resting her hand on Neeland’s shoulder for an instant, “don’t ever kiss Rue Carew unless you mean it with every atom of your heart and soul.... I know the child.... And I know you. Be generous to her, James. All women need it, I think, from such men as you — such men as you,” she added laughingly, “who know not what they do.”

  If there was a subtle constraint in her pretty laughter, if her gay gesture lacked spontaneity, he did not perceive it. His face had flushed a trifle under her sudden badinage.

  “Good-bye,” he said. “You are splendid, and I do think so. I know you’ll win through.”

  “I shall. I always do — except with you,” she added audaciously. And “Look for me tomorrow!” she called back to him through the open door; and slammed it behind her, leaving him standing there alone in the dark and curtained house.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  THE FIRST DAY

  Neeland had undressed, bathed his somewhat battered body, and had then thrown himself on the bed, fully intending to rise in a few moments and await breakfast.

  But it was a very weary young man who stretched himself out for ten minutes’ repose. And, when again he unclosed his eyes, the austere clock on the mantel informed him that it was five — not five in the morning either.

  He had slept through the first day of general mobilisation.

  Across the lowered latticed blinds late afternoon sunshine struck red. The crests of the chestnut trees in the rue Soleil d’Or had turned rosy; and a delicate mauve sky, so characteristic of Paris in early autumn, already stretched above the city like a frail tent of silk from which fragile cobweb clouds hung, tinted with saffron and palest rose.

  Hoisting the latteen shades, he looked out through lace curtains into the most silent city he had ever beheld. Not that the streets and avenues were deserted: they swarmed with hurrying, silent people and with taxicabs.

  Never had he seen so many taxicabs; they streamed by everywhere, rushing at high speed. They passed through the rue Soleil d’Or; the rue de la Lune fairly whizzed with them; the splendid avenue was merely a vista of flyin
g taxis; and in every one of them there was a soldier.

  Otherwise, except for cyclists, there seemed to be very few soldiers in Paris — an odd fact immediately noticeable.

  Also there were no omnibuses to be seen, no private automobiles, no electric vehicles of any sort except great grey army trucks trundling by with a sapper at the wheel.

  And, except for the whiz and rush of the motors and the melancholy siren blasts from their horns, an immense silence reigned in the streets.

  There was no laughter to be heard, no loud calling, no gay and animated badinage. People who met and stopped conversed in undertones; gestures were sober and rare.

  And everywhere, in the intense stillness, Red Cross flags hung motionless in the late afternoon sunshine; everywhere were posted notices warning the Republic of general mobilisation — on dead walls, on tree-boxes, on kiosques, on bulletin boards, on the façades of public and ecclesiastical buildings.

  Another ordinance which Neeland could read from where he stood at the window warned all citizens from the streets after eight o’clock in the evening; and on the closed iron shutters of every shop in sight of his window were pasted white strips of paper bearing, in black letters, the same explanation:

  “Fermé à cause de la mobilisation.”

  Nowhere could he see the word “war” printed or otherwise displayed. The conspiracy of silence concerning it seemed the more ominous.

  Nor, listening, could he hear the sinister voices of men and boys calling extra editions of the papers. There seemed to be no need for the raising of hoarse and threatening voices in the soundless capital. Men and youths of all ages traversed the avenues and streets with sheafs of fresh, damp newspapers over their ragged arms, but it was the populace who crowded after and importuned them, not they the people; and no sooner did a paper-seller appear than he was stripped of his wares and was counting his coppers under the trees before hurrying away for a fresh supply.

  Neeland dressed himself in sections, always returning to the window to look out; and in this manner he achieved his toilet.

  Marotte, the old butler, was on the floor below, carrying a tea tray into the wide, sunny sitting-room as Neeland descended.

  “I overslept,” explained the young American, “and I’m nearly starved. Is Mademoiselle Carew having tea?”

  “Mademoiselle requested tea for two, sir, in case you should awake,” said the old man solemnly.

  Neeland watched him fussing about with cloth and table and silver.

  “Have you any news?” he asked after a moment.

  “Very little, Monsieur Neeland. The police have ordered all Germans into detention camps — men, women, and children. It is said that there are to be twelve great camps for these unfortunates who are to assemble in the Lycée Condorcet for immediate transportation.”

  Neeland thought of Ilse Dumont. Presently he asked whether any message had been received from the Princess Mistchenka.

  “Madame the Princess telephoned from Havre at four o’clock this afternoon. Mademoiselle Carew has the message.”

  Neeland, reassured, nodded:

  “No other news, Marotte?”

  “The military have taken our automobiles from the garage, and have requisitioned the car which Madame la Princess is now using, ordering us to place it at their disposal as soon as it returns from Havre. Also, Monsieur le Capitaine Sengoun has telephoned from the Russian Embassy, but Mademoiselle Carew would not permit Monsieur to be awakened.”

  “What did Captain Sengoun say?”

  “Mademoiselle Carew received the message.”

  “And did anyone else call me up?” asked Neeland, smiling.

  “Il y avait une fe — une espèce de dame,” replied the old man doubtfully, “ — who named herself Fifi la Tzigane. I permitted myself to observe to her,” added the butler with dignity, “that she had the liberty of writing to you what she thought necessary to communicate.”

  He had arranged the tea-table. Now he retired, but returned almost immediately to decorate the table with Cloth of Gold roses.

  Fussing and pottering about until the mass of lovely blossoms suited him, he finally presented himself to Neeland for further orders, and, learning that there were none, started to retire with a self-respecting dignity that was not at all impaired by the tears which kept welling up in his aged eyes, and which he always winked away with a demi-tour and a discreet cough correctly stifled by his dry and wrinkled hand.

  As he passed out the door Neeland said:

  “Are you in trouble, Marotte?”

  The old man straightened up, and a fierce pride blazed for a moment from his faded eyes:

  “Not trouble, monsieur; but — when one has three sons departing for the front — dame! — that makes one reflect a little — —”

  He bowed with the unconscious dignity of a wider liberty, a subtler equality which, for a moment, left such as he indifferent to circumstances of station.

  Neeland stepped forward extending his hand:

  “Bonne chance! God be with France — and with us all who love our liberty. Luck to your three sons!”

  “I thank monsieur — —” He steadied his voice, bowed in the faultless garments which were his badge of service, and went his way through the silence in the house.

  Neeland had walked to the long windows giving on the pretty balcony with its delicate, wrought-iron rails and its brilliant masses of geraniums.

  Outside, along the Avenue, in absolute silence, a regiment of cuirassiers was passing, the level sun blazing like sheets of crimson fire across their helmets and breastplates. And now, listening, the far clatter of their horses came to his ears in an immense, unbroken, rattling resonance.

  Their gold-fringed standard passed, and the sunlight on the naked sabres ran from point to hilt like liquid blood. Sons of the Cuirassiers of Morsbronn, grandsons of the Cuirassiers of Waterloo — what was their magnificent fate to be? — For splendid it could not fail to be, whether tragic or fortunate.

  The American’s heart began to hammer in his breast and throb in his throat, closing it with a sudden spasm that seemed to confuse his vision for a moment and turn the distant passing regiment to a glittering stream of steel and flame.

  Then it had passed; the darkly speeding torrent of motor cars alone possessed the Avenue; and Neeland turned away into the room again.

  And there, before him, stood Rue Carew.

  A confused sense of unreasoning, immeasurable happiness rushed over him, and, in that sudden, astounding instant of self-revelation, self-amazement left him dumb.

  She had given him both her slim white hands, and he held to them as though to find his bearings. Both were a trifle irrelevant and fragmentary.

  “Do you c-care for tea, Jim?... What a night! What a fright you gave us.... There are croissants, too, and caviar.... I would not permit anybody to awaken you; and I was dying to see you — —”

  “I am so sorry you were anxious about me. And I’m tremendously hungry.... You see, Sengoun and I did not mean to remain out all night.... I’ll help you with that tea; shall I?...”

  He still retained her hands in his; she smiled and flushed in a breathless sort of way, and looked sometimes at the tea-kettle as though she never before had seen such an object; and looked up at him as though she had never until that moment beheld any man like him.

  “The Princess Naïa has left us quite alone,” she said, “so I must give you some tea.” She was nervous and smiling and a little frightened and confused with the sense of their contact.

  “So — I shall give you your tea, now,” she repeated.

  She did not mention her manual inability to perform her promise, but presently it occurred to him to release her hands, and she slid gracefully into her chair and took hold of the silver kettle with fingers that trembled.

  He ate everything offered him, and then took the initiative. And he talked — Oh, heaven! How he talked! Everything that had happened to him and to Sengoun from the moment they left the rue Sole
il d’Or the night before, this garrulous young man detailed with a relish for humorous circumstance and a disregard for anything approaching the tragic, which left her with an impression that it had all been a tremendous lark — indiscreet, certainly, and probably reprehensible — but a lark, for all that.

  Fireworks, shooting, noise, and architectural destruction he admitted, but casualties he skimmed over, and of death he never said a word. Why should he? The dead were dead. None concerned this young girl now — and, save one, no death that any man had died there in the shambles of the Café des Bulgars could ever mean anything to Rue Carew.

  Some day, perhaps, he might tell her that Brandes was dead — not where or how he had died — but merely the dry detail. And she might docket it, if she cared to, and lay it away among the old, scarcely remembered, painful things that had been lived, and now were to be forgotten forever.

  The silence of intensest interest, shy or excited questions, and the grey eyes never leaving his — this was her tribute.

  Grey eyes tinged with golden lights, now clear with suspense, now brilliant at a crisis, now gentle, wondering, troubled, as he spoke of Ilse Dumont and the Russian girl, now charmingly vague as her mind outstripped his tongue and she divined something of the sturdy part he had played — golden-grey eyes that grew exquisite with her pride in him, tender with solicitude for him in dangers already passed away — this was her tribute

  Engaging grey eyes of a girl with the splendour and mystery of womanhood possessing her — attracting him, too, fascinating him, threatening, conquering, possessing him — this, the Greek gift of Rue Carew, her tribute.

  And he took all, forgetting that the Greeks bore gifts; or, perhaps, remembering, rejoicing, happy in his servitude, he took into his heart and soul the tribute this young girl offered, a grateful, thankful captive.

  The terrible cataclysm impending, menacing the world, they seemed powerless, yet, to grasp and comprehend and understand.

  Outside, the street rippled and roared with the interminable clatter of passing cavalry: the girl looked into the eyes of the boy across the tea-table, and her young eyes, half fearful yet enchanted, scarce dared divine what his eyes were telling her while his hurrying tongue chattered irrelevancies.