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The Master Mummer, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 3 - Chapter 7 |
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_ BOOK III CHAPTER VII I examined the tickets carefully and placed them in my pocket-book. Then I paused to light a cigarette on my way out of the office, and almost immediately felt a hand upon my arm. I looked at first at the hand. It was feminine and delicately gloved. Then I looked upwards into the blue eyes of Lady Delahaye. "Abominable!" she murmured. "You are not glad to see me!" I raised my hat. "The Boulevard des Italiennes," I said, "has never seemed to me to be a place peculiarly suitable for the display of emotion." "Come and try the Rue Strelitz," she answered, smiling. I glanced down at her. She was gowned even more perfectly than usual--Parisienne to the finger-tips. She had too all the delightful confidence of a woman who knows that she is looking her best. I smiled back at her. It was impossible to take her seriously. "Your invitation," I said, "sounds most attractive. But I am curious to know what would happen to me in the Rue Strelitz. Should I be offered poison in a jewelled cup, or disposed of in a cruder fashion? Let me make my will first, and I will come. I am really curious!" "Arnold," she said, looking up at me with very bright eyes, "you are brutal." "Not quite that, I hope," I protested. "Let me tell you something," she continued. We were in rather a conspicuous position. Lady Delahaye seemed suddenly to realize it. "May I beg for your escort a little way?" she said. "I am not comfortable upon the Boulevard alone." "You could scarcely fail," I remarked, throwing away my cigarette, "to be an object of attention from the Frenchman, who is above all things a judge of your sex. I will accompany you a little way with pleasure. Shall we take a fiacre?" "I would rather walk," she answered. "Do you mind coming this way? I will not take you far." "I have two whole unoccupied hours," I assured her, "which are very much at your service." "Where, then," she asked, "is Isobel?" "Shopping with Tobain," I answered. "Are you not afraid," she asked with a smile, "to send her out alone with Tobain?" "Not in the least," I answered. "Monsieur Feurgeres' only friend in Paris was the chief commissioner of police, and he has been good enough to take great interest in us. Isobel is well watched." "I wonder," she said, after a moment's pause, "whether you have still any faith in me!" "My dear lady!" "I wish I could make you believe me. The--her Highness--she prefers us here to call her Madame--has relinquished altogether her designs against you. She desires an alliance." "Is this," I asked, "an invitation to me to join in the spoils? Am I to become murderer, or poisoner, or abductor, or what?" Lady Delahaye bit her lip. "You are altogether too severe," she said. "Madame simply realizes that she has been mistaken. She is willing for Isobel to be restored to her grandfather. It will mean a million or so less dowry for Adelaide, but that must be faced. Madame desires to make peace with you." "I am charmed," I answered. "May I ask exactly what this means?" Lady Delahaye smiled up at me. "The Archduchess will explain to you herself," she said. "I am taking you to her." I slackened my pace. "I think not," I said. "To tell you the truth, the Archduchess terrifies me. I see myself inveigled into a room with a trap-door, or knocked on the head by hired bullies, and all manner of disagreeable things. No, Lady Delahaye, I think that I will not run the risk." She laughed softly. "I know that you will come," she said softly. "And why?" I asked. "Because you are a man, and you do not know fear!" I raised my hat and proceeded. "My head is turned," I said. "Nothing flatters a coward so much as the imputation of bravery. I think that I shall go with you anywhere." "Even--to the Rue Strelitz?" "My courage may fail me at the last moment," I answered. "At present it feels equal even to the Rue Strelitz." Again she laughed. "You are a fraud, Arnold," she declared. "As if we did not know--I and Madame and all of us, that in Paris, even throughout France, you could walk safely into any den of thieves you choose. Your courage isn't worth a snap of the fingers. Any man can be brave who has the archangels of Dotant at his elbows." "What an easily pricked reputation," I answered regretfully. "Well, it is true. Dotant was Feurgeres' greatest friend, and even Isobel might walk the streets of Paris alone and in safety. Hence, I presume, the amiable desire of the Archduchess for an alliance." Lady Delahaye shrugged her lace-clad shoulders. "My dear Arnold," she said, "for myself I adore candour, and why should I try and deceive you? Madame has played a losing game, and knows it. She has the courage to admit defeat. She can still offer enough to make an alliance desirable. For instance, those tickets in your pocket for Illghera will take you there, it is true, but they will not take you into the presence of the King." "The King," I remarked pensively, "leads a retired life." "He does," Lady Delahaye answered. "He has the greatest objection to visitors, and for a stranger to obtain an audience is almost an impossibility. He never leaves the grounds of the villa, and his secretary, who opens all his letters, is--a friend of Madame's." "You have put your case admirably," I remarked. "If Madame is sincere, I should at least like to hear what she has to say." Lady Delahaye drew a little sigh of content. "At last," she exclaimed, "I do believe that you are going to behave like a reasonable person." I could not refrain from the natural retort. "I have an idea," I said, "that up to now my actions have been fairly well justified." We were mounting the steps of her house. She looked round and raised her eyebrows. "We must let bygones be bygones!" she said. "Madame has declared that henceforth she adjures all intrigue." A footman took my hat and stick in the hall. Lady Delahaye led me into a small boudoir leading out of a larger room. She herself only opened the door and closed it, remaining outside. I was alone with the Archduchess. She rose slowly to her feet, a very graceful and majestic-looking person, with a suggestion of Isobel in her thin neck and the pose of her head. She did not hold out her hand, and she surveyed me very critically. I ventured to bestow something of the same attention upon her. She was certainly a very beautiful woman, and her expression by no means displeasing. She had Isobel's dark blue eyes, and there was a humorous line about her mouth which astonished me. "I am not offering you my hand, Mr. Greatson," she said, "because I presume that until we understand each other better it would be a mere matter of form. Still, I am glad that you have come to see me." "I am very glad too, Madame," I answered, "especially if my visit leads to a cessation of the somewhat remarkable proceedings of the last few weeks." The Archduchess smiled. "Well," she said, "I am forced to admit myself beaten. I have been ill-served, it is true, but I suppose my methods are antiquated." "They belong properly," I admitted, "to a few centuries ago." Madame smiled a little queerly. "A few centuries ago," she said, "I fancy that if our family history is true, the affair would have been more simple." "I can well believe it," I answered. Madame relapsed into her chair, from which I judged that the preliminary skirmishing was over. "You will please to be seated, Mr. Greatson!" I obeyed. "I am not going to play the hypocrite with you, sir," she said quietly. "It is not worth while, is it? The object of the struggle between us has been, on my part, to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart. You have doubtless correctly gauged my motive. Isobel's mother was my father's favourite child. If he had an idea that her child was alive, he would receive her without a word. She would completely usurp the place of Adelaide, my own daughter, in his affection--and in his will." "In his will!" I repeated quietly. "Yes, I understand." Madame nodded. "It is quite simple," she said. "For myself I am willing to admit that I am an ambitious woman. Money for its own sake I take no heed of, but it remains always one of the great levers of the world, and it is the only lever by means of which I can gain what I desire. I never forget that the country over which my father rules was once an absolute kingdom, and semi-Royalty does not appeal to me. The betrothal of my daughter Adelaide to Ferdinand of Saxonia was of my planning entirely. The dowry required by the Council of Saxonia is so large that it could not possibly be paid if any portion of my father's fortune, great though it is, is diverted towards Isobel. Hence my desire to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart." "Madame," I said, "you are candour itself. I can only regret that it is my hard fate to oppose such admirable plans." "I have been given to understand," the Archduchess said, "that it is now your intention to take Isobel yourself to Illghera!" "The tickets," I murmured, "are in my pocket." Madame bowed. "Well," she said, "I have seen and heard enough of you to make no further effort to thwart or even to influence you. Yet I have a proposition to make. First of all, consider these things. If we come to no arrangement with each other I shall use every means I can to prevent your obtaining an interview with my father. Everything is in my favour. He is very old, he has a hatred of strangers, he grants audiences to no one. He never passes outside the grounds of the villa, and all the gates are guarded by sentries, who admit no one save those who have the entree. Then, if you attempt to approach him by correspondence, his private secretary, who opens every letter, is one of my own appointing. I have exaggerated none of these things. It will be difficult for you to approach the King. You may succeed--you seem to have the knack of success--but it will take time. Isobel's re-appearance will be without dignity, and open to many remarks for various reasons. You may even fail to convince my father, and if you failed the first time there would be no second opportunity." "What you say, Madame," I admitted, "is reasonable. I have never assumed that as yet my task is completed. I recognize fully the difficulties that are still before me." "You have common-sense, Mr. Greatson, I am glad to see," she continued. "I am the more inclined to hope that you will accede to my proposition. Briefly, it is this! Let me have the credit of bringing Isobel to her grandfather. Her year in London would at all times, in these days of scandal, be a somewhat delicate matter to publish. What you have done, you have done, as I very well know, from no hope of or desire for reward. Efface yourself. It will be for Isobel's good. I myself shall stand sponsor for her to the world. I shall have discovered her in the convent here, and I shall take her back to her rightful place with triumph. All your difficulties then will vanish, your end will have been creditably and adequately attained. For myself the advantage is obvious. A difference to Adelaide it must make, but it will inevitably be less if the credit of her discovery remains with me. Have I made myself clear, Mr. Greatson?" "Perfectly," I answered. "But you forget there is Isobel herself to be considered. She is no longer a child. She has opinions and a will of her own." "She owes too much to you," Madame replied quietly, "to disregard your wishes." I believed from the first that the woman was in earnest, and her proposal an honest one. And yet I hesitated. The past was a little recent. She showed that she read my thoughts. "Come," she said, "I will prove to you that I mean what I say. To-night I will give a dinner-party--informal, it is true, but the Prince of Cleves, my cousin the Cardinal, and your own ambassador, shall come. I will introduce Isobel as my niece. The affair will then be established. Do you consent?" For one moment I hesitated. I knew very well what my answer meant. Absolute effacement, the tearing out of my life for ever of what had become the sweetest part of it. In that single moment it seemed to me that I realized with something like complete despair the barrenness of the days to come. "Madame, if Isobel is to be persuaded," I answered, "I consent." _ |
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