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The Great Impersonation, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 22 |
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_ CHAPTER XXII The evening at Dominey hall was practically a repetition of the previous one, with a different set of guests from the outer world. After dinner, Dominey was absent for a few minutes and returned with Rosamund upon his arm. She received the congratulations of her neighbours charmingly, and a little court soon gathered around her. Doctor Harrison, who had been dining, remained upon the outskirts, listening to her light-hearted and at times almost brilliant chatter with grave and watchful interest. Dominey, satisfied that she was being entertained, obeyed Terniloff's gestured behest and strolled with him to a distant corner of the hall. "Let me now, my dear host," the Prince began, with some eagerness in his tone, "continue and, I trust, conclude the conversation to which all that I said this morning was merely the prelude." "I am entirely at your service," murmured his host. "I have tried to make you understand that from my own point of view--and I am in a position to know something--the fear of war between this country and our own has passed. England is willing to make all reasonable sacrifices to ensure peace. She wants peace, she intends peace, therefore there will be peace. Therefore, I maintain, my young friend, it is far better for you to disappear at once from this false position." "I am scarcely my own master," Dominey replied. "You yourself must know that. I am here as a servant under orders." "Join your protests with mine," the Prince suggested. "I will make a report directly I get back to London. To my mind, the matter is urgent. If anything should lead to the discovery of your false position in this country, the friendship between us which has become a real pleasure to me must seriously undermine my own position." Dominey had risen to his feet and was standing on the hearthrug, in front of a fire of blazing logs. The Ambassador was sitting with crossed legs in a comfortable easy-chair, smoking one of the long, thin cigars which were his particular fancy. "Your Excellency," Dominey said, "there is just one fallacy in all that you have said." "A fallacy?" "You have come to the absolute conclusion," Dominey continued, "that because England wants peace there will be peace. I am of Seaman's mind. I believe in the ultimate power of the military party of Germany. I believe that in time they will thrust their will upon the Kaiser, if he is not at the present moment secretly in league with them. Therefore, I believe that there will be war." "If I shared that belief with you, my friend," the Ambassador said quietly, "I should consider my position here one of dishonour. My mandate is for peace, and my charge is from the Kaiser's lips." Stephanie, with the air of one a little weary of the conversation, broke away from a distant group and came towards them. Her beautiful eyes seemed tired, she moved listlessly, and she even spoke with less than her usual assurance. "Am I disturbing a serious conversation?" she asked. "Send me away if I am." "His Excellency and I," Dominey observed, "have reached a cul-de-sac in our argument,--the blank wall of good-natured but fundamental disagreement." "Then I shall claim you for a while," Stephanie declared, taking Dominey's arm. "Lady Dominey has attracted all the men to her circle, and I am lonely." The Prince bowed. "I deny the cul-de-sac," he said, "but I yield our host! I shall seek my opponent at billiards." He turned away and Stephanie sank into his vacant place. "So you and my cousin," she remarked, as she made room for Dominey to sit by her side, "have come to a disagreement." "Not an unfriendly one," her host assured her. "That I am sure of. Maurice seems, indeed, to have taken a wonderful liking to you. I cannot remember that you ever met before, except for that day or two in Saxony?" "That is so. The first time I exchanged any intimate conversation with the Prince was in London. I have the utmost respect and regard for him, but I cannot help feeling that the pleasant intimacy to which he has admitted me is to a large extent owing to the desire of our friends in Berlin. So far as I am concerned I have never met any one, of any nation, whose character I admire more." "Maurice lives his life loftily. He is one of the few great aristocrats I have met who carries his nobility of birth into his simplest thought and action. There is just one thing," she added, "which would break his heart." "And that?" "The subject upon which you two disagree--a war between Germany and this country." "The Prince is an idealist," Dominey said. "Sometimes I wonder why he was sent here, why they did not send some one of a more intriguing character." She shrugged her shoulders. "You agree with that great Frenchman," she observed, "that no ambassador can remain a gentleman--politically." "Well, I have never been a diplomat, so I cannot say," Dominey replied. "You have many qualifications, I should think," she observed cuttingly. "Such as?" "You are absolutely callous, absolutely without heart or sympathy where your work is concerned." "I do not admit it," he protested. "I go back to London to-morrow," she continued, "a very miserable and unhappy woman. I take with me the letter which should have brought me happiness. The love for which I have sacrificed my life has failed me. Not even the whip of a royal command, not even all that I have to offer, can give me even five seconds of happiness." "All that I have pleaded for," Dominey reminded her earnestly, "is delay." "And what delay do you think," she asked, with a sudden note of passion in her tone, "would the Leopold Von Ragastein of six years ago have pleaded for? Delay! He found words then which would have melted an iceberg. He found words the memory of which comes to me sometimes in the night and which mock me. He had no country then save the paradise where lovers walk, no ruler but a queen, and I was she. And now--" Dominey felt a strange pang of distress. She saw the unusual softening in his face, and her eyes lit up. "Just for a moment," she broke off, "you were like Leopold. As a rule, you know, you are not like him. I think that you left him somewhere in Africa and came home in his likeness." "Believe that for a little time," Dominey begged earnestly. "What if it were true?" she asked abruptly. "There are times when I do not recognise you. There are words Leopold used to use which I have never heard from your lips. Is not West Africa the sorcerer's paradise? Perhaps you are an imposter, and the man I love is there still, in trouble--perhaps ill. You play the part of Everard Dominey like a very king of actors. Perhaps before you came here you played the part of Leopold. You are not my Leopold. Love cannot die as you would have me believe." "Now," he said coolly, "you are coming round to my way of thinking. I have been assuring you, from the very first moment we met at the Carlton, that I was not your Leopold--that I was Everard Dominey." "I shall put you to the test," she exclaimed suddenly, rising to her feet. "Your arm, if you please." She led him across the hall to where little groups of people were gossiping, playing bridge, and Seaman, the center of a little group of gullible amateur speculators, was lecturing on mines. They stopped to say a word or two here and there, but Stephanie's fingers never left her companion's arm. They passed down a corridor hung with a collection of wonderful sporting prints in which she affected some interest, into a small gallery which led into the ballroom. Here they were alone. She laid her hands upon his shoulders and looked up into his eyes. Her lips drew nearer to his. "Kiss me--upon the lips, Leopold," she ordered. "There is no Leopold here," he replied; "you yourself have said it." She came a little nearer. "Upon the lips," she whispered. He held her, stooped down, and their lips met. Then she stood apart from him. Her eyes were for a moment closed, her hands were extended as though to prevent any chance of his approaching her again. "Now I know the truth," she muttered. Dominey found an opportunity to draw Seaman away from his little group of investment-seeking friends. "My friend," he said, "trouble grows." "Anything more from Schmidt's supposed emissary?" Seaman asked quickly. "No. I am going to keep away from him this evening, and I advise you to do the same. The trouble is with the Princess." "With the Princess," declared Seaman. "I think you have blundered. I quite appreciate your general principles of behaving internally and externally as though you were the person whom you pretend to be. It is the very essence of all successful espionage. But you should know when to make exceptions. I see grave objections myself to your obeying the Kaiser's behest. On the other hand, I see no objection whatever to your treating the Princess in a more human manner, to your visiting her in London, and giving her more ardent proofs of your continued affection." "If I once begin--" "Look here," Seaman interrupted, "the Princess is a woman of the world. She knows what she is doing, and there is a definite tie between you. I tell you frankly that I could not bear to see you playing the idiot for a moment with Lady Dominey, but with the Princess, scruples don't enter into the question at all. You should by no means make an enemy of her." "Well, I have done it," Dominey acknowledged. "She has gone off to bed now, and she is leaving early to-morrow morning. She thinks I have borrowed some West African magic, that I have left her lover's soul out there and come home in his body." "Well, if she does," Seaman declared, "you are out of your troubles." "Am I!" Dominey replied gloomily. "First of all, she may do a lot of mischief before she goes. And then, supposing by any thousand to one chance the story of this cousin of Schmidt's should be true, and she should find Dominey out there, still alive? The Princess is not of German birth, you know. She cares nothing for Germany's future. As a matter of fact, I think, like a great many Hungarians, she prefers England. They say that an Englishman has as many lives as a cat. Supposing that chap Dominey did come to life again and she brings him home? You say yourself that you do not mean to make much use of me until after the war has started. In the parlance of this country of idioms, that will rather upset the apple cart, will it not?" "Has the Princess a suite of rooms here?" Seaman enquired. "Over in the west wing. Good idea! You go and see what you can do with her. She will not think of going to bed at this time of night." Seaman nodded. "Leave it to me," he directed. "You go out and play the host." Dominey played the host first and then the husband. Rosamund welcomed him with a little cry of pleasure. "I have been enjoying myself so much, Everard!" she exclaimed. "Everybody has been so kind, and Mr. Mangan has taught me a new Patience." "And now, I think," Doctor Harrison intervened a little gruffly, "it's time to knock off for the evening." She turned very sweetly to Everard. "Will you take me upstairs?" she begged. "I have been hoping so much that you would come before Doctor Harrison sent me off." "I should have been very disappointed if I had been too late," Dominey assured her. "Now say good night to everybody." "Why, you talk to me as though I were a child," she laughed. "Well, good-bye, everybody, then. You see, my stern husband is taking me off. When are you coming to see me, Doctor Harrison?" "Nothing to see you for," was the gruff reply. "You are as well as any woman here." "Just a little unsympathetic, isn't he?" she complained to Dominey. "Please take me through the hall, so that I can say good-bye to every one else. Is the Princess Eiderstrom there?" "I am afraid that she has gone to bed," Dominey answered, as they passed out of the room. "She said something about a headache." "She is very beautiful," Rosamund said wistfully. "I wish she looked as though she liked me a little more. Is she very fond of you, Everard?" "I think that I am rather in her bad books just at present," Dominey confessed. "I wonder! I am very observant, and I have seen her looking at you sometimes--Of course," Rosamund went on, "as I am not really your wife and you are not really my husband, it is very stupid of me to feel jealous, isn't it, Everard?" "Not a bit," he answered. "If I am not your husband, I will not be anybody else's." "I love you to say that," she admitted, with a little sigh, "but it seems wrong somewhere. Look how cross the Duchess looks! Some one must have played the wrong card." Rosamund's farewells were not easily made; Terniloff especially seemed reluctant to let her go. She excused herself gracefully, however, promising to sit up a little later the next evening. Dominey led the way upstairs, curiously gratified at her lingering progress. He took her to the door of her room and looked in. The nurse was sitting in an easy-chair, reading, and the maid was sewing in the background. "Well, you look very comfortable here," he declared cheerfully. "Pray do not move, nurse." Rosamund held his hands, as though reluctant to let him go. Then she drew his face down and kissed him. "Yes," she said a little plaintively, "it's very comfortable.--Everard?" "Yes, dear?" She drew his head down and whispered in his ear. "May I come in and say good night for two minutes?" He smiled--a wonderfully kind smile--but shook his head. "Not to-night, dear," he replied. "The Prince loves to sit up late, and I shall be downstairs with him. Besides, that bully of a doctor of yours insists upon ten hours' sleep." She sighed like a disappointed child. "Very well." She paused for a moment to listen. "Wasn't that a car?" she asked. "Some of our guests going early, I dare say," he replied, as he turned away. _ |
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