A Fascinating Traitor Part 10

"A diplomatic tiffin, I will warrant! The old fox is sly." He wandered idly about the Commissioner's sanctum, admiring the precious loot of years, displayed with an artfully artless confusion. On the walls, a series of beautiful Highland scenes recalled the Land o' Lakes. Pausing before a sketch of a stern old Scottish keep of the moyen age, Major Alan Hawke softly sneered: "Oatmeal Castle! The family stronghold of the old line of the Sandy Johnstone's, nee Fraser." And, picking up the last number of the Anglo-Indian Times, he then affected a composure which he was far from feeling.

"d.a.m.n this sly Scotsman! Why does he not show up?" was the chafing soliloquy of the Major, now anxious to seal his re-entree into Delhi society with the open friendship of the most powerful European civilian within the battered walls of the wicked city. He needed all his nerve now, for Hugh Fraser Johnstone was a past master of the arts of dissimulation.

In fact, the mauvais quart d'heure was really due to the innate womanly weakness of Mademoiselle Justine Delande. This guileless Swiss maiden had been carried off her feet by the romantic episode of the morning.

Her cool palm still tingled with the meaning pressure of the handsome Major's hand! She had hastened away to her own apartment, as a wounded tigress seeks its cave for a last stand! The concealment of the diamond bracelet was a matter of necessity, and, with a beating heart, she buried it deep under the poor harvest of paltry Delhi trinkets which she had already gathered, with a mere magpie acquisitiveness.

Alan Hawke had builded better than he knew, when he selected this same bauble. He had been guided by a chance remark of Ram Lal's. "Give her that," said the crafty old jeweler. "She has priced it a dozen times since her first coming here." It was the Ultima Thule of personal decoration to her. The Swiss governess reserved the secret delight of donning the glittering ornament until she was positive that no tell-tale spy had observed her innocent a.s.signation with her sister's chivalric friend. "He must be rich and powerful," she murmured as she fled from her room to play the safety game of being found with the heiress when her Prince Charming should arrive. Miss Nadine Johnstone failed not to observe the unusual color mantling her sedate friend's cheeks.

"You look as if you had received some good news. Is the mail in?"

queried Miss Johnstone.

"Not yet. I hastened back, for I forgot to take my watch and was belated. I fear I am late, even now, for tiffin," demurely replied the Swiss maiden, dropping for the first time in her life into the baleful arts of the other daughters of Eve. She had broken the ice of propriety in which her past life had been congealed and an insidious pleasure now thrilled her quickened veins, as she felt herself possessed of a secret, one linking her to an attractive member of the dangerous s.e.x, and a hero of romance, a very Don Juan in seductive softness. Her knees trembled at a sudden summons to report to the Master of the marble house, forthwith.

Her bosom heaved with a vague alarm as she timidly descended the grand stair, and was conducted to the private snuggery of the Commissioner adjoining his own apartments. "Does he know aught of the meeting?" she questioned herself, in the throes of a sudden fright. She was somewhat rea.s.sured as she observed the carriage drawn up in the compound and, by hazard, caught a glance of Alan Hawke's graceful martial figure, as he stood regarding her intently from the safe shelter of the darkened reception-room. Her heart bounded with delight as her Prince Charming smilingly placed his finger on his lip.

A sense of manly protection, never felt before, gave her the strength of ten as she then glided along boldly to face her gray-headed master. For now she knew that she had a champion at her side, a man professionally brave, both resolute and charming. Her promise to meet Alan Hawke again at the jeweler's now took on a roseate hue.

"I must surely keep my plighted word at all risks," she murmured to herself. For the sage reflection that she owed a sacred duty to her sister's friend, now came to comfort her, in her heart of hearts. It was almost a pious duty which lay before her now. And so she became brave in the knowledge of the innocent secret shared between herself and the handsome official visitor.

To her delight and relief she found it an easy task to face Hugh Johnstone, after that one rea.s.suring glance. Her stern employer failed to pierce the muslin fortifications of her guilty bosom and discern the moral turpitude lurking there. She stole a last anxious glance at her still plump wrist where the diamond bracelet had softly clasped her flesh, and then softly sighed in relief as the master calmly said:

"Miss Justine, I have a gentleman of some distinction to entertain to-day at tiffin. An official visitor. I would be thankful if you would do the honors. Will you kindly join us in the reception room in half an hour, and I will present Major Hawke, my old friend. He has just returned from England."

"And Miss Nadine?" meekly demanded the happy woman. The old Commissioner's brow darkened, as he shortly said: "My daughter will be served in her rooms, as usual on such formal occasions. These interlopers are no part of her life. We may soon leave for Europe, and she is therefore better off to remain a stranger to these merely local acquaintances. It is very unlikely that we shall ever re-visit India!

Will you see her and say that I purpose driving out with her later?"

No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone's wrath, ever ready, lurking under his bushy, white eyebrows. It was the work of a moment for her to fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this done, she burned to hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for certain new-born ideas of personal decoration were crystallizing in her excited brain. For the first time in her life, she would be fair to man's views; so as to justify the partner of her momentous secret in the complimentary remarks which, even now, made her ears tingle in delight.

"Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?" wearily, said the listless girl. "Some one of these red-faced old relics of my father's early life, I suppose!" The Rose of Delhi was gazing wistfully out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens, sweeping far out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare and flying dust of the Chandnee Chouk.

"Certainly not, Nadine!" softly said the governess. "This is only a peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with a sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the neck of her startled companion.

"I am so unhappy here--so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense in her stormy sobs.

"We are soon going home, Darling!" cried the affrighted Swiss. "Just now your father told me that we were all to leave India forever, and at once." And so, gently soothing the unhappy girl, orphaned in her heart, Justine Delande escaped to the first essay of her life in high decorative art. "There is some strange mystery of the past in all this!

He has a heart of flint, this old tyrant!" murmured Justine, as with fingers trembling in haste she completed a toilet, which later caused even old Hugh Johnstone to growl "By Gad! This Swiss woman's not half bad looking!" A last pang, caused by the keen secret sorrow of not daring to wear her diamond bracelet, was effaced by the rising tide of indignation in Justine Delande's awakened heart. There were strange emotional currents fitfully thrilling through her usually placid veins as she stole a last glance at herself in the mirror. "A tyrant to the daughter. I warrant that in the old days he broke the mother's heart! He never mentions her! Not a picture is here--nothing--not even a memento, not a reference to the woman who gave him this lovely child! Her life, her death, even her resting place, are all wrapped in the selfish and brutal silence of a selfish tyrant! He should have been only a drill sergeant to knock about the half-crazed brutes who stagger under a soldier's pack over these burning plains!" It suddenly occurred to her that in some mysterious way Major Alan Hawke's coming would contribute to the rescue of the captive Princess.

Justine Delande really loved her beautiful charge with all the fond attachment of a mature woman for the one rose blossoming in her lonely heart. Their gray pa.s.sionless lives had run on together since Nadine's childhood, as brooks quietly mingle, seeking the unknown sea! She now felt the wine of life stirring within her, and, seizing upon another justification for her dangerous secret a.s.sociation with Alan Hawke, she murmured: "I will tell him of all this. He has high influence with the Home Government. This Captain Anstruther on the Viceroy's staff is certainly his firm friend. We must leave here and return to dear old Switzerland. Perhaps the Major himself knows the secret of the family history!"

And there was a meaning light in her eyes as she stole back to Nadine's room when the silver gong sounded, and throwing her arms around the girl, whispered: "We are going home soon, darling! Be brave and trust to me! I will find out the story of the past and tell you all, my darling!"

Justine Delande unwound the girl's arms from round her neck, while honest tears trembled in her eyes.

The low cry: "My mother! My darling mother! He never even breathes the name!" had loosened all the tide of repressed feeling long pent up in Justine Delande's heart.

"Trust to me! You shall know all, dearest! I am sure that Euphrosyne knows, and we shall see her soon!" So with an added reason for their second meeting, Miss Justine descended the grand marble stair, murmuring: "He shall tell me all he knows; he can search the past here!

He can help me, and he must--for Nadine's sake!"

And as he bowed low before her in courteous acknowledgment of the master's presentation, Alan Hawke caught the lambent gleam of the newly awakened fires in Justine Delande's eyes. "She is another woman," he mused. With one silent glance of veiled recognition, Alan Hawke returned to his diplomatic fence with the wary old nabob who sat at the head of the glittering table. He was in no doubt now as to the second meeting at Ram Lal Singh's shop, for Justine Delande's eyes promised him more than even his habitual hardihood would have dared to ask. "What the devil's up now?" he mused, "Something about the girl, I warrant. I suppose that the old brute has exiled her here for safety." And then and there, Alan Hawke swore to reach the side of the Veiled Rose of Delhi, though the cold gray eyes of the host never caught him off his guard a moment in the two hours of the pompously drawn-out feast. Both the men were keenly watching each other now.

It had been no mere accidental slip of the tongue which guided Alan Hawke in his greeting of the old ex-Commissioner when Hugh Johnstone entered the reception-room, a study in gray and white, with only the three priceless pigeon-blood rubies lending a color to his snowy linen.

"Upon my word, Sir Hugh, you are looking younger than I ever saw you,"

said the visitor gracefully advancing.

"You're a bit premature, are you not, Hawke?" dryly said the civilian, opening a silver cheroot box, once the property of a Royal Prince of Oude. Hugh Johnstone motioned his visitor to be seated, and keenly watched the younger man.

"I am on the inside of the matter," soberly said Alan Hawke. "It was an open secret when I left London, and I've heard more since. A brief delay only,--a matter of a few months--no more."

"Take a weed! They serve in half an hour!" abruptly said Hugh Johnstone, as if anxious to change the subject. The old man then strode forward and closed the door. Then, turning sharply upon his visitor, frankly demanded, "Now, tell me why you are here?"

"That depends partly upon your affairs," said Hawke, meeting his questioner's gaze unflinchingly. "I may have something to say to you about the Baronetcy, by and bye." He paused to notice the keen old Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell, and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said the renegade soldier, with caution.

Before the silver tray loaded with ante-prandial beverages was produced, Hugh Johnstone quietly turned to his guest. "Did you see Anstruther in London?" he demanded, with a scarcely veiled eagerness.

"We were together some days," very neatly rejoined the now confident Major. "In fact, I'm to operate partly under his personal directions. We are old friends."

"I wonder when he will return?" dreamily said Johnstone, as if the subject was growing annoying in its bold directness.

"I believe that he has a long leave--a furlough of a year," lightly answered the Major. "In fact, I am to carry on some official matters for him in his absence, but he is wary and non-committal."

"What is his English address?" abruptly said Johnstone, as they bowed formally over their gla.s.ses.

"I do not know," frankly returned Hawke. "I am to send all reports to headquarters in Calcutta."

"Are you going down there soon?" asked the old nabob, with a growing uneasiness.

"Not unless I am sent for by the Viceroy," quietly said the Major, with a listless air, gazing around admiringly on the magnificence of the apartment.

"I will give you a letter to my nephew, Douglas Fraser, when you do go,"

said Johnstone. "He is a fine youngster, and he will have charge of all my Indian affairs, if I go home. He is in the P. and O. office. I would like you to know him."

"I did not know that you had any family connection here," replied the Major with a start of innocent surprise.

"Only this boy," hastily replied the incipient baronet, "and my daughter. She is, however, a mere child--a mere child. I have seen the leaves of the family tree wither and drop off one by one." The host then stiffly rose, and formally said, "Let us go in!"

"You are good for a score of years yet," jovially remarked Major Hawke, as he gazed at the well-preserved outer man of his uneasy entertainer.

"The harpoon is deeply fixed in the old whale," mused Hawke, as he followed Hugh Johnstone. "He begins to flounder now."

Conscious of the mental alarm which Hugh Johnstone could not altogether conceal, Major Hawke had simply bowed, in his grand manner, when the host presented his guest to Mademoiselle Delande. "I will let the old beggar lead out," mused Hawke. "This royal spread is an excuse for any amount of silence." And the Anglo-Indian renegade gazed admiringly at the thousand and one adjuncts of a blended English comfort and Indian luxury.

"Ever been in Geneva?" suddenly demanded Hugh Johnstone, with a glance at his two companions.

"He's an uneasy old devil. He is trying to trap me now," thought Hawke, who innocently replied: "Long years ago, when I was a mere lad. I'm told the town has been vastly improved by the Duke of Brunswick's legacy.

I've not seen it in later years."

"Miss Delande is a Genevese," remarked the host.

"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle," politely said the Major. "It is a famous city to date from."