The Great Prince Shan Part 5

"Many men have thought so," he replied. "For myself, there is antagonism in my blood against her. I wonder whether I have done well or ill in making you two acquainted."

Nigel felt a sudden desire to break through a certain seriousness which had come over his own thoughts and which was reflected in the other's tone. He shrugged his shoulders slightly and filled his gla.s.s with wine.

"Every man in the world is the better," he propounded, "for adding to the circle of his acquaintances a beautiful woman."

"Sententious and a trifle inaccurate," the Prince objected, with a sudden flash of his white teeth. "The beauty which is not for him has been many a man's undoing. But seriously, my quarrel with Naida is one of prejudice only. She is the confidante and the inspiration of Matinsky, and though one realises, of course, that so long as there is a Russian Republic there must be a Russian President, I suppose I should scarcely be human if I did not hate him."

"Surely," Nigel queried, "she must be very much his junior?"

"Matinsky is forty-four," Karschoff said. "Naida is twenty-six or twenty-seven. The disparity of years, you see, is not so great.

Matinsky, however, is married to an invalid wife, and concerning Naida I have never heard one word of scandal. But this much is certain. Matinsky has the blandest confidence in her judgment and discretion. She has already been his unofficial amba.s.sador in several capitals of Europe. I am convinced that she is here with a purpose. But enough of my country-people. We came here to be gay. Let us drink another bottle of wine."

The joy of living seemed for a moment to rea.s.sert itself in Karschoff's face. His momentary fierceness, reminiscent of his Tartar ancestry, had pa.s.sed, but it had left a shadow behind.

"At least one should be grateful," he conceded a moment later, "for the distinction such a woman as Naida Karetsky brings into a room like this.

Our Bond Street lament finds its proof here. Except for their clothes--so ill-worn, too, most of them--the women here remind one of Blackpool, and their men of Huddersfield. I am inclined to wish that I had taken you to Soho."

Nigel shook his head. His eyes had strayed to a distant corner of the room, where Naida and her two companions were seated.

"We cannot escape anywhere," he declared, "from this overmastering wave of mediocrity. A couple of generations and a little intermarriage may put things right. A Chancellor of the Exchequer with genius, fifteen years ago, might even have prevented it."

"You can claim, at any rate, a bloodless and unapparent revolution," the Prince observed. "You chivied your aristocracy of birth out of existence with yellow papers, your aristocracy of mind with a devastating income tax. This is the cla.s.s whom you left to gorge,--the war profiteers. I hope that whoever writes the history of these times will see that it is properly ill.u.s.trated."

In the lounge, they had barely seated themselves before Naida, with her father and Immelan, appeared. The little party at once joined up, and Naida seated herself next to Nigel. She talked very slowly, but her accent amounted to little more than a prolongation of certain syllables, which had the effect of a rather musical drawl. Her father, after the few words of introduction had been spoken, strolled away to speak to some acquaintances, and Immelan and the Prince discussed with measured politeness one of the commonplace subjects of the moment. Naida and her companion became almost isolated.

"I met your uncle once," Naida said, "at a dinner party in Paris. I remember that he attracted me. He represented a cla.s.s of Englishman of whom I had met very few, the thinking aristocrat with a sense for foreign affairs. It was some years ago, that. He remained outside politics, did he not, until his death?"

"Outside all practical politics," Nigel a.s.sented. "He had his interests, though."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Have you inherited them?" she asked.

He declined the challenge of her eyes. After all, she belonged to the Russia whose growing strength was the greatest menace to European peace, and whose att.i.tude towards England was entirely uncertain.

"My uncle and I were scarcely intimate," he said. "I was never really in his confidence."

"Not so much so as Lady Maggie Trent? She would be your cousin?"

"It is not a relationship of blood," Nigel replied. "Lady Maggie was the daughter of my uncle's second wife."

"She is very charming," Naida murmured.

"I find her delightful," Nigel agreed.

"She is not only charming, but she has intelligence," Naida continued.

"I think that Lord Dorminster was very fond of her, that he trusted her with many of his secrets."

"Had he secrets?" Nigel asked.

She remained for a moment very thoughtful, smoking a thin cigarette through a long holder and watching the little rings of smoke.

"You are right," she said at last. "I find your att.i.tude the only correct one. Did you know that Maggie was a friend of mine, Lord Dorminster?"

"I can very well believe it," he answered, "but I have never heard her speak of you."

"Ah! But she has been away for some months. You have not seen much of her, perhaps, since her return?"

"Very little," he acquiesced. "She only arrived in London just before my uncle's death, and since then I have had to spend some time at Dorminster."

"As a matter of curiosity," Naida enquired, "when do you expect to see her again?"

"This afternoon, I hope," he replied,--"directly I leave here, in fact."

"Then you will give her a little message for me, please?"

"With great pleasure!"

"Tell her from me--mind she understands this, if you please--that she is not to leave England again until we have met."

"Is this a warning?" he asked.

She looked at him searchingly.

"I wonder," she reflected, "how much of you is Lord Dorminster's nephew."

"And I, in my turn," he rejoined, with sudden boldness, "wonder how much of you is Matinsky's envoy."

She began to laugh softly.

"We shall perhaps be friends, Lord Dorminster," she said. "I should like to see more of you."

"You will permit me to call upon you," he begged eagerly.

"Will you come? We are at the Milan Court for a little time. My father is trying to get a house. My sister is coming over to look after him. I am unfortunately only a bird of pa.s.sage."

"Then I shall not run the risk of missing you," he declared. "I shall call very soon."

Immelan intervened,--grim, suspicious, a little disturbed. For some reason or other, the meeting between these two young people seemed to have made him uneasy.

"Your father has desired me to present his excuses to Lord Dorminster,"

he announced, "and to escort you back to the Milan. He has been telephoned for from the Consulate."

Naida rose to her feet with some apparent reluctance.

"You will not delay your call too long, Lord Dorminster?" she enjoined, as she gave him her hand. "I shall expect you the first afternoon you are free."

"I shall not delay giving myself the pleasure," he a.s.sured her.