Prince or Chauffeur? Part 27

It was like the working out of a problem in dynamics. Nearer they came. Anne could now make out the great shape of the battleship; the dull funnels belching black clouds of smoke, which, merging with the night, were immediately absorbed; the shadowy, basket-like masts, from which the search-light rays went forth; the long, vaguely protruding twelve-inch guns. A whistle, tremulous and piercing, shrilled along the battleship's deck; dull white figures were clambering into the port life boats. Still closer now! Anne could hear the heavy swish of waters under the _Arizona's_ bows. Her nerves were tight strung, prepared for the crash of steel against steel and the shock of the submersion. There was no sound from the _Arizona_ now. Her bridge had echoed with shouts of warning. The time for that had pa.s.sed. Armitage had not uttered a sound. Straight he stood by the telegraph, tense and rigid, his hand clutching the lever.

Around came the stern with fearful momentum, so close--but clear of the giant hull--that the gunner's mate at the stern torpedo tube took his chew of tobacco and, as he afterwards put it, "torpedoed the battleship with his eyes shut." Now the stern was pointed directly toward the _Arizona_, hardly five yards away. Armitage, bending over the telegraph, jerked sharply upon the lever, throwing the port engine full speed ahead again. He stood up and glanced quickly astern. Like a live thing, the _D'Estang_ jumped clear. Sara leaned heavily on Anne's shoulder with little tearless sobs. But Anne, crouching in the position she had maintained since the search-light had blinded the bridge, still watched Jack with eyes that seemed to transfix him.

A figure leaped to the end of the battleship's bridge.

"The Admiral's compliments, _D'Estang_!"

The engines were stopped now and Armitage and Johnson and a group of men were working at the helm. Sara raised her head.

"Anne," she said solemnly. "I never wanted to kiss a man until this minute." Mischievously she made a move as though to arise. The girl's hand clenched upon her arm.

"Don't be an idiot," she said. "Can't you see how busy they are?

Besides, Sara, no man likes to be kissed by two girls--at the same time."

As Jack, once more a chauffeur, drove under the _porte cochere_ at The Crags, shortly before one o'clock, Anne sat for a moment in her seat after her friend had alighted. Sara looked back with a little smile and then walked toward the door, which a footman had opened.

"Mr. Armitage," said Anne in a low voice, "I want to thank you for many things to-night--for one thing above all. I cannot tell you what it is, for I hardly know myself." She paused, and Jack, who was toying with the switch lever, looked at her curiously. "It's a new viewpoint, I fancy. Somehow--I have a feeling that there is more to this country, my country, than Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Tuxedo, Long Island, and Newport--something bigger and finer than railroads. I am glad to feel that, and I thank you."

CHAPTER XVIII

ANNE WELLINGTON HAS HER FIRST TEST

Sara was waiting for Anne in the hall. She had taken off her hat and stood idly swinging it. A single globe was lighted in the chandelier overhead and the extremities of the great apartment were lost in gloom.

"Well, dear," Sara yawned broadly, "I fancy we shall sleep to-night."

Anne had thrown her arm over Sara's shoulders and they were walking toward the stairs when Koltsoff appeared from the shadow, confronting them.

"Oh! Prince Koltsoff! How you frightened me," said Anne in a low voice, drawing back.

"A thousand pardons. It would have grieved me had I thought of doing that."

Sara observed him with irritation. There was, however, so much of the exotic about the man, as to render him attractive, even to her. Tall, well--if slimly--built; in manner graceful--"silken" was the designation that occurred to her--there could be no question as to the potency of his personality: a potency, by the way, from whose spell, she had learned in various ways throughout the evening, Anne was not entirely aloof. It was perfectly clear to Sara, that with Armitage, strong and clever in a wholesome masculine way, Anne was the light-hearted, mischievous, pure-minded girl--his ideal of American young womanhood. But now she caught the other note of her character--an untrue note, but none the less positive--and the other look in her eyes. Her voice was deeper, more womanly, more surcharged with underlying things, as she spoke to the Russian, and Sara could see she was breathing more rapidly.

"I have been waiting to see you, Miss Wellington," he was saying. "I have waited so long." There was a note of pathos in his voice.

"Is it important--now?" asked Anne, and her friend tugged at her sleeve. "I am very tired and sleepy."

"For a few moments, that is all," persisted the Prince gently. "Is it too much?"

Sara, inwardly raging, detected the subtle appeal which this man, so versed apparently in the emotions of womanhood, was making to the inherent maternal, protective, sympathetic instincts of the girl, who, now they were aroused, was smiling patiently.

"Very well, Prince Koltsoff. Don't bother to wait, Sara. Good-night."

"Such a day of weariness, Miss Wellington,", said the Prince, as he followed Anne to a bench running along the foot of the staircase. "One of my men,--calf-head,--was arrested in Boston."

"Arrested! Really! What had he been doing?"

"Nothing, I a.s.sure you, save trying to leave this b.e.s.t.i.a.l country. He had been of service to me in Newport and elsewhere. I was worried. I am worried. He was allowed to go. But they took valuable papers concerning Austria from him. How can I get them? Am I undone?"

Koltsoff raised his eyes. "How can I say? Steinberg at Boston is in Maine. And so--" Koltsoff tossed his hand in the air--"I have spent,"

he at last continued, "more than twenty thousand roubles on the matter.

I have spent five thousand roubles on the dumbhead, Yeasky, who has not the brains or courage of a mouse. I am discouraged." He caught her hand, pressed it to his forehead, and released it. "But I oppress you with my diplomatic cares," he murmured. "It has been the first time I ever burdened a woman with them. You--you are different, because you are of the few gifted to bear, to solve them."

Anne made no reply.

"You hold safely that which I placed in your keeping?" he asked after a pause.

His hand felt its way to hers, lying inert on the cushion, his fingers closing softly upon it. She did not withdraw it, but lowered her head.

"Was it in connection with that your man was arrested in Boston?"

Koltsoff laughed.

"They thought to connect him with it. But--" he pressed Anne's fingers, "the connecting link happened to be in your--jewelry safe."

Anne, thrilled at the part she was playing in the mysterious diplomatic episode, laughed softly. Somehow it all appeared bigger even than dodging under battleships' bows,--certainly more subtle. Koltsoff gazed at her admiringly.

"My dear Miss Wellington," he said, "do you realize more and more, that of which I spoke to-day--your fitness for the international sphere?

Your beauty--your coolness--the temper of your spirit--your ability to sway strong men, as you have swayed me--do you appreciate all? Are you proud that you have swayed me?"

"Prince Koltsoff!" Anne's voice rang with doubt and anguish and yet--pride.

She was tired and spent with the day and as his arm stole, almost snake-like, about her waist, she raised a nerveless hand, plucked feebly to remove the fingers pressing into her side, and then let her hand fall to the cushion.

His head was bending over her, his face was very close. Some vivid instinct told her that he must not kiss her. She tried to struggle but she could not. The next instant she was living that epoch which innocence may only know ere it perishes--a man's lips making free with eyes and mouth and cheeks. She lay now, half in his arms, looking at him with wide, startled eyes, her lips parched.

"Anne," he bent forward to kiss her again, but she turned her head away and then, again, her unchanging eyes sought his face. "What I have done--what I have meant, I shall make clear to your parents to-morrow.

To you I can say nothing now. You--ah, of course know the European custom."

"Please let me go." There was a tired sob in Anne's voice.

"But I have not yet told you that which I wish to say." Anne tore from his arm and started up.

"You haven't! Oh, very well. I am listening."

"You were out with the torpedo boats tonight. You were upon the boat with Lieutenant Armitage."

"I--" Anne paused. Armitage, without attempting to obtain promises of secrecy as to the mission of the flotilla, had pointed out that all information of the sort was absolutely confidential and that above all the ability of a torpedo boat destroyer to get within two hundred yards of a battleship was not news that the Government would care to have disseminated, even though it were the exception rather than the rule.

This thought shot through Anne's mind.

"You quite surprise me," she said finally.

"Oh, I really do not," smiled Koltsoff. "As I have informed you, we diplomats are omnipresent. Therefore I do not surprise you when I say that you and your friend were on the _D'Estang_; that the _Jefferson_ had an accident and sent two scalded men to the hospital. All that--pouf!" Koltsoff snapped his fingers. "That is immaterial--who cares about such manoeuvres as the Navy of the United States indulge in! But," and Koltsoff bent toward her with unwinking eyes, "this is important: the _D'Estang_ became separated from the rest of the fleet and there are reports that she discharged a new sort of torpedo at the battleship. That is interesting--important to me. I feared I could not ascertain until I learned that my skilled coadjutor, my fellow diplomat," he nodded at her, "was present on the _D'Estang_."

"Why do you ask me? Why don't you apply to Mr. Armitage?"