Parlous Times Part 5

"I have the greatest respect for Miss Fitzgerald," said the Secretary stiffly.

"Yes, but not of the marriageable quality," said the Lieutenant, speaking _ex cathedra_ as one who had also been in the fair Irish girl's train. "Oh no, my dear fellow, a woman of Madame Darcy's type is the woman for you. The Fitzgerald, believe me, would break a man's heart or his bank account, in no time."

"Look here," said Stanley shortly, "I don't like that sort of thing."

"Don't turn nasty, old chap," said Kingsland. "I'm only speaking for your good. I'd be the last man to run down a woman. I love the whole s.e.x, and the little Fitzgerald is no end jolly, to play with, but to marry--! By the way, have you heard of her latest exploit. The town's ringing with it. She----"

"Thanks, I'd rather not hear it," replied the Secretary, who just now was trying to forget some phases of her nature.

"By Jove!" broke in the Lieutenant--"speaking of angels--there she is now."

"What, down in this section of the city?"

"Yes, in a hansom cab."

"An angel in a hansom!" cried the Secretary, "that's certainly a combination worth seeing," and rising, he stepped to the window, followed by Kingsland. The two men were just in time to see the lady in question dash by along the Embankment, and to note that she was not alone. Indeed, even the fleeting glimpse which they caught of her companion was sufficiently startling to engrave his likeness indelibly on their minds.

He was an oldish man, of say sixty, clad in a nondescript grey suit of no distinguishable style or date, surmounted by a soft felt hat of the type which distinguished Americans are said to affect in London, while his high cheek bones and prominent nose might have given him credit for having Indian blood in his veins, had not his dead white skin belied the charge. He was possessed, moreover, of huge bushy brows, beneath which a ferret's keen eyes peeped out, and were never for an instant still.

"Gad!" exclaimed the Lieutenant, "this promises to be the strangest escapade of all."

"Who the devil is he?" demanded Stanley, facing around, with almost an accusing note in his voice.

The Lieutenant returned his glance squarely.

"Why, he's the man who gave her--I mean, who was talking to her last night at the Hyde Park Club."

"Last night? I don't remember seeing him."

"It was when you were waltzing up and down stairs in search of a chaperon."

"Who is he?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," replied the Lieutenant brusquely, lighting a cigarette, and thrusting his hands in his trousers' pockets.

"But you must have some idea?"

"Never saw him before last night, I a.s.sure you. Must be off now, old chap. Late for my appointment already. Thanks awfully for the lunch. See you at Lady Rainsford's tea this afternoon? Yes. All right. Hansom!"

And he was gone.

CHAPTER IV

A LADY IN DISTRESS

After lunch the Secretary returned to the Legation and made out his report to his Minister, concerning the treaty. He had looked up the word "parlous" in the dictionary, and found that it meant, "whimsical, tricky,"--a sinister interpretation he felt, when connected with anything diplomatic; moreover the Foreign Office was distressingly uninformed on the subject, another reason for suspicion. Yet, as far as he knew--only the mere formalities of settlement remained, the ratification by vote of his home Government--the exchange of protocols--and behold it was accomplished--much to the credit of his Minister and the satisfaction of all concerned. Doubtless the visit was nothing more than a bit of routine work, and his private affairs seeming for the time more important, he dismissed it from his mind as not worthy of serious consideration and compiled an elaborate report of three pages, not forgetting to mention the arrival of the Chief Clerk's lunch, as matter which might legitimately be used to fill up s.p.a.ce. This done, he was about to leave the office in order to meet his appointment with Kent-Lauriston, when John, the genial functionary of the Legation, beamed upon him from the door, presenting him a visiting card, and informing him that a lady was waiting in the ante-room.

"An' she's that 'ansome, sir, it would do your eyes good to see 'er."

The Secretary answered somewhat testily that his eyes were in excellent condition as it was, and that the lady did not deserve to be seen at all for coming so much after office-hours, and delaying him just as he was about to keep an appointment--then his eyes happened to fall on the card and his tone changed at once.

"Madame Darcy!" he exclaimed. "Why, what can have brought her to see me!--John, show the lady in at once, and--say my time is quite at her service."

A glance at his fair chaperon of the night before, as she entered the room, told him that she was in great trouble, and he sprang forward to take both her hands in his, with a warmth of greeting which he would have found it hard to justify, except on an occasion of such evident sorrow.

"Inez--Madame Darcy," he said, leading her to his most comfortable arm-chair--"this is indeed a pleasure--but do not tell me that you are in distress."

"I am in very great trouble."

"Anything that I can do to serve you--I need hardly say," he murmured, and paused, fascinated by this picture of lovely grief.

"I was prompted to come to you," she replied, "by your kindness of last evening, for I knew you had seen and understood, and were still my friend, and also my national representative in a foreign land, to ask your aid for a poor country-woman who is in danger of being deprived of her freedom, if not of her reason."

"But surely you are not speaking of yourself!"

"Yes, of myself."

The young diplomat said nothing for a moment or two, he was arranging his ideas--adjusting them to this new and interesting phase of his experience with Madame Darcy.

As a Secretary of Legation is generally the father confessor of his compatriots--he had ceased to be surprised at anything. People may deceive their physician, their lawyer, or the partner of their joys and sorrows; but to their country's representative in a strange land they unburden their hearts.

"Tell me," he said finally, breaking the silence, "just what your trouble is."

"I need sympathy and help."

"The first you have already," he replied with a special reserve in his manner, for he felt somehow that it was hardly fair that she should bring herself to his notice again, when he had almost made up his mind to marry a lady of whom all his friends disapproved. Indeed, in the last few minutes the force of Kingsland's remarks had made themselves felt very strongly, and he especially exerted himself to be brusque, feeling in an odd kind of way that he owed it to Miss Fitzgerald. So putting on his most official tone he added, "to help you, Madame Darcy, I must understand your case clearly."

"Don't call me by that name--give me my own--as you once did. My husband's a brute."

"Quite so, undoubtedly; but unfortunately that does not change your name."

"Would you mind shutting the door?" she replied somewhat irrelevantly.

They were, as has been said, in the Secretary's private office, a dreary room, its furniture, three chairs, a desk and a bookcase full of forbidding legal volumes, its walls littered with maps, and its one window looking out on the unloveliness of a London business street.

As he returned to his seat, after executing her request, she began abruptly:--

"You're not a South American."

"No, my father was a Northerner, but, as you know, he owned large sugar plantations in your country, and if training and sympathy can make me a South American, I am one."

"You're a Protestant."

"Yes, so are you."

"It is my mother's faith, and though I was brought up in a convent at New Orleans, I've not forsaken it. I feel easier in speaking to you on that account."