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The Mischief Maker, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 9. Foolhardy Julien |
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_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER IX. FOOLHARDY JULIEN The luncheon in the beautiful restaurant of the Ritz was a meal after the Duchess's own heart. She was at home here and received the proper amount of attention. Not only that, but many acquaintances--mostly foreign, but a few English--paused at her table to pay their respects. To every one of these she carefully introduced her daughter and Sir Julien. The situation was not without its embarrassments. Lady Anne, however, dissipated them by an unaffected fit of laughter. "Mother thinks she is putting everything quite right by lending us the sanctity of her presence," she declared. "We have been seen lunching at the Ritz. After this, who shall say that I ran away from home to meet a riding master in Paris, or some other disreputable person? I may perhaps be pitied as the victim of a hopeless infatuation for you, Julien, but for the rest, if we only sit here long enough I shall be whitewashed." The Duchess was a little uneasy. "I must say, Anne," she protested, "that you seem to have developed a great deal of levity during the last few days. It's not a subject to be alluded to so lightly. Ah! now let me tell you who this is. A wonderfully interesting person, I can assure you. She was born in Paris of American parents, very wealthy indeed, married when quite young to Prince Falkenberg, and separated from him within two years. They say that she lives a queer, half Bohemian sort of life now, but she is still a great person when she chooses. My dear Princess!" Madame Christophor, who had entered the room on her way to a luncheon party, paused for a moment and shook hands. Then she recognized Julien. "Really," she murmured, "this is most unexpected. My dear Duchess, you have quite deserted Paris. Is this your daughter--Lady Anne? I scarcely remember her. And yet--" "We met yesterday," Lady Anne interrupted promptly. "You know, I want to be your secretary, Madame Christophor, if you will let me. My mother has entirely cast me off, so it doesn't matter." The Duchess made a most piquant gesture. It was really an insufferable position, but she was determined to remain graceful. "My dear Madame Christophor," she said, "you have no grown-up children, of course, so I cannot ask for your sympathy. But I have a daughter here who is giving me a great deal of trouble. I flatter myself that I have modern views of life, but Anne--well, I won't discuss her." Madame Christophor smiled. "Young people are different nowadays, Duchess," she remarked. "If Lady Anne really wants to come into life on her own, why not? She can be my secretary if she chooses. I shall pay her just as much as I should any one else, and I shall send her away if she is not satisfactory. There are a great many young people nowadays, Duchess," she continued, "in very much your daughter's position, who do these odd things. I always think that it is better not to stand in their way. Sir Julien, I want to speak to you before you leave this restaurant. I have something important to say." The Duchess was a little taken aback. To her it seemed a social cataclysm, something unheard of, that her daughter should propose to be any one's secretary. Yet this woman, who was certainly of her own order, had accepted the thing as entirely natural--had dismissed it, even, with a few casual remarks. Julien, who since Madame Christophor's arrival had been standing in his place, was somewhat perplexed. "You are lunching here?" he asked. "With the Servian Minister's wife. I shall excuse myself early. It is a vital necessity that we talk for a few minutes before you leave here. Five minutes ago I sent a note to your rooms." "I shall be at your service," Julien replied slowly. "I shall expect you in the morning," Madame Christophor said, smiling at Lady Anne. "Don't be later than ten o'clock. I am always at home after four, Duchess, if you are spending any time in Paris," she added. They watched her as she passed to the little group who were awaiting her arrival. She was certainly one of the most elegant women in the room. Lady Anne looked after her with a faint frown. "I wonder," she murmured, "if I shall like Madame Christophor?" "I had no idea, Julien," the Duchess remarked, "that you were friendly with her." Julien evaded the question. "At any rate," he said, turning to Anne, "this will be better for you than making bows." "I suppose so," she assented. "All the same, I am very much my own mistress in that dusty little workshop. If Madame Christophor--isn't that the name she chooses to be called by?--becomes exacting, I am not even sure that I shan't regret my bow-making." "Tell me exactly how long you have known her, Julien!" the Duchess persisted. "Since my arrival in Paris this time," Julien answered. "I had--well, a sort of introduction to her." "She is received everywhere," the Duchess continued, "because I know she visits at the house of the Comtesse Deschelles, who is one of the few women in Paris of the old faction who are entirely exclusive. At the same time, I am told that she leads a very retired life now, and is more seen in Bohemia than anywhere. I am not at all sure that it is a desirable association for Anne." "Well, you can leave off troubling about that," Anne said. "Remember, however much we make believe, I have really shaken the dust of respectability off my feet. Hamilton Place knows me no longer. I am a dweller in the byways. Even if I come back, it will be as a stranger. People will be interested in me, perhaps, as some one outside their lives. 'That strange daughter of the poor dear Duchess, you know,' they will say, 'who ran away to Paris! Some terrible affair. No one knows the rights of it.' Can't you hear it all? They will be kind to me, of course, but I shan't belong. Alas!" The Duchess was studying her bill and wondering how much to tip the waiter. She only answered absently. "My dear Anne, you are talking quite foolishly. I wish I knew," she added plaintively, a few minutes later, "what you have been reading or whom you have been meeting lately." "Don't bother about me," Anne begged. "What you want to do now is to tell Parkins to pack up your things and I'll come and see you off by the four o'clock train. Julien must wait outside for my future employer. What I really think is going to happen is that she's going to ask for my character. Julien, be merciful to me! Remember that above all things I have always been respectable. Remind her that if I were too intelligent I should probably rob her of her secrets or money or something. I am really a most machine-like person. Nature meant me to be secretary to a clever woman, and my handwriting--don't forget my handwriting. Nothing so clear or so rapid has ever been seen." The Duchess signed her bill, slightly undertipped the waiter and accepted his subdued thanks with a gracious smile. "I can see," she said, as they left the room, "that I shall have to wash my hands of you. Nevertheless, I shall not lose hope." She shook hands solemnly with Julien, and he performed a like ceremony with Lady Anne. "When shall I see you again?" he asked the latter. "You had better question Madame Christophor concerning my evenings out," she replied. "It is not a matter I know much about. I am sure you are quite welcome to any of them." Julien found a seat in the broad passageway. Several acquaintances passed to and fro whom so far as possible he avoided. Madame Christophor came at last. She was the centre of the little party who were on their way into the lounge. When she neared Julien, however, she paused and made her adieux. He rose and waited for her expectantly. "We are to talk here?" he asked. She nodded. "In that corner." She pointed to a more retired spot. He followed her there. "Order some coffee," she directed. He obeyed her and they were promptly served. She waited, chatting idly of their luncheon party, of the coincidence of meeting with the Duchess, until they were entirely freed from observation. Then she leaned towards him. "Sir Julien," she said, "I have read your articles, the first and the second. You are a brave man." He smiled. "Are you going to warn me once more against Herr Freudenberg?" he asked. She shook her head. "If you do not know your danger," she continued, "you would be too great a fool to be worth warning. Remember that Freudenberg came from Berlin as fast as express trains and his racing-car could bring him, the moment he read the first." "I have already had a brief but somewhat unpleasant interview with him," Julien remarked. "I congratulate you," she went on. "Unpleasant interviews with Herr Freudenberg generally end differently. Now listen to me. I have a proposition to make. There is one house in Paris where you will be safe--mine. I offer you its shelter. Come there and finish your work." Julien made no reply. He sipped his coffee for a moment. Then he turned slowly round. "Madame Christophor," he said, "once you told me that you disliked and distrusted all men. Why, then, should I trust you?" She winced a little, but her tone when she answered him was free of offense. "Why should you, indeed?" she replied. "Yet you should remember that the man against whose cherished schemes your articles are directed is the man whom I have more cause to hate than any other in the world." "Herr Freudenberg," he murmured. "Prince Adolf Rudolf von Falkenberg," she corrected him. "Do you know the story of my married life?" "I have never heard it," he told her. "I will spare you the details," she continued. "My husband married me with the sole idea of using my house, my friends, my social position here for the furtherance of his schemes. Under my roof I discovered meetings of spies, spies paid to suborn the different services in this country--the navy, the army, the railway works. When I protested, he laughed at me. He made no secret of his ambitions. He is the sworn and inveterate enemy of your country. His feeling against France is a slight thing in comparison with his hatred of England. For the last ten years he has done nothing but scheme to humiliate her. When I discovered to what purpose my house was being put, I bade him leave it. I bade him choose another hotel, and when he saw that I was in earnest, he obeyed. It is one of the conditions of our separation that he does not cross my threshold. That is why I say, Sir Julien, that you have nothing to fear in accepting the shelter of my roof." "Madame Christophor," Julien said earnestly, "I am most grateful for your offer. At the same time, I honestly do not believe that I have anything to fear anywhere. Herr Freudenberg has made one attempt upon me and has failed. I do not think that he is likely to risk everything by any open assaults. In these civilized days of the police, the telephone and the law courts, one is not so much at the mercy of a strong man as in the old days. I do not fear Herr Freudenberg." Madame Christophor shrugged her shoulders. "My friend," she admitted, "I admire your courage, but listen. You say that one attempt has already been made to silence you. For every letter you write, there will be another made. At each fresh one, these creatures of Herr Freudenberg's will have learned more cunning. In the end they are bound to succeed. Why risk your life? I offer my house as a sanctuary. There is no need for you to pass outside it. You could take the exercise you require in my garden, which is bounded by four of the highest walls in Paris. You can sit in a room apart from the rest of the house, with three locked doors between you and the others. You may write there freely and without fear." Julien smiled. "I am afraid it is my stupidity," he said, "but I cannot possibly bring myself to believe in the existence of any danger. I will promise you this, if I may. If any further attempt should be made upon me, any attempt which came in the least near being successful, I will remember your offer. For the present my mind is made up. I shall remain where I am." She shrugged her shoulders. "Ingrate!" "Not that, by any means," he assured her heartily. "You know that I am grateful. You know that if I refuse for the moment your offer it is not because I mistrust you. I simply feel that I should be taking elaborate precautions which are quite unnecessary." "I might even spare you," she remarked, smiling, "Lady Anne for your secretary." "Even that inducement," he answered steadily, "does not move me." She sighed. "You will have your own way," she said, "and yet there is something rather sad about it. I know so much more of this Paris than you. I know so much more of Herr Freudenberg. Remember that there are a quarter of a million Germans in this city, and of that quarter of a million at least twenty thousand belong to one or the other of the secret societies with which the city abounds. All of them are different in tone, but they all have at the end of their programme the cause of the Fatherland. By this time you will have been named to them as its enemy. Twenty thousand of them, my friend, and not a scruple amongst the lot!" He moved in his place a little restlessly. "One does not fight in these ways nowadays," he protested. "Pig-headed Englishman!" she murmured. "You to say that, too!" His thoughts flashed back to those few moments of vivid life in his own rooms. He thought of Freudenberg's calm perseverance. An uncomfortable feeling seized him. "I do not know," she went on, leaning a little towards him, "why I should interest myself in you at all." "Why do you, then?" he asked, looking at her suddenly. She played with the trifles that hung from her chatelaine. He watched for the raising of her eyes, but he watched in vain. She did not return his inquiring look. "Never mind," she said, "I have warned you. It is for you to act as you think best. If you change your mind, come to me. I will give you sanctuary at any time. Take me to my automobile, please." He obeyed her and watched her drive off. Then he went slowly and unmolested back to his rooms. _ |
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