The Great Secret Part 35

"I am going to Lenox," he continued, "to meet there a few American friends, with whom I have certain affairs of importance to discuss. You, also, have been invited to Lenox. My request is that you defer your visit there until after my departure."

I raised my eyebrows at this. It seemed to me that Mr. de Valentin was going a little too far.

"May I inquire," I asked politely, "in what respect you find my presence there undesirable? We are not bound, I presume, to come much into contact with one another."

"You misunderstand me," Mr. de Valentin declared. "It is not a personal matter at all. My visit to Lenox has been arranged solely to discuss a certain matter with certain people. The presence of those who are not interested in it would be an embarra.s.sment to all of us. Further, to recur to a matter which we have already spoken of, I cannot divest myself of certain suspicions concerning your servant."

I considered my reply for a moment or two.

"As regards the latter," I said after a pause, "I can not take you seriously. Besides, it is very unlikely that my servant would accompany me to Lenox. If my presence there would be an embarra.s.sment, I really do not see why Mrs. Van Reinberg asked me."

"She did so thoughtlessly," Mr. de Valentin answered. "Her reasons were tolerably clear to me, perhaps to you. With regard to them, I have nothing to say, except that your visit could be paid just as well, say in a fortnight after we land."

"Unfortunately," I answered, "that would not suit me. To be frank with you, Miss Van Hoyt would have left."

"If I can arrange," Mr. de Valentin continued, with some eagerness, "that she should not have left!"

I hesitated for a moment.

"Mr. de Valentin," I said, "I cannot conceive what cause for embarra.s.sment could arise from my presence in Lenox at the same time as yourself. I do not ask you to tell me your secrets; but, in the absence of some more valid reason for staying away, I shall certainly not break my present engagement."

There was a silence between us for several moments. Mr. de Valentin was fingering his cigarette case nervously.

"I am perhaps asking too much of a stranger, Mr. Courage," he said. "The matter is of the deepest importance to me, or I would not have troubled you. Supposing Miss Van Hoyt should herself fix the date of your visit, and engage to be there?"

"That," I answered, "would, of course, be sufficient for me."

Mr. de Valentin rose from his seat.

"We will leave it like that then," he said. "I must apologize, Mr.

Courage, for having troubled you with my private affairs, and wish you good-night!"

We separated a few moments later, and I went down to my state-room. I found Guest busy writing in a pocket-book, seated on the edge of his bunk. I told him of my conversation with Mr. de Valentin.

"I knew it was risky," he remarked when I had finished, "but it was an opportunity which I dared not miss."

"You might have told me about it," I protested. "I was altogether unprepared."

"The less you know," he answered, "the better. If you like, I will show you tracings of some letters which I discovered in Mr. de Valentin's portfolio. They were quite worth the journey to America, apart from anything else. Personally, I should advise you not to see them until our return to England."

"Very well," I answered. "Don't show them to me. But I shouldn't try it again. Mr. de Valentin is on his guard."

Guest smiled a little wearily.

"I am not likely to make such a mistake as that," he answered. "Besides, I have been through all his papers. His secrets are ours now, only we must know what is decided upon at Lenox. Then we can return to England, and the first part of our task will be done!"

CHAPTER XXIV

A PRACTICAL WOMAN

Mrs. Van Reinberg on the steamer was a somewhat formidable person; Mrs.

Van Reinberg in her own house was despotism personified. Her word was law, her rule was absolute. Consequently, when she swept out on to the sunny piazza, where a little party of us were busy discussing our plans for the day, we all turned towards her expectantly. We might propose, but Mrs. Van Reinberg would surely dispose. We waited to hear what she might have to say.

"I want to talk to Mr. Courage," she declared. "All the rest of you go away!"

They obeyed her at once. We were alone in less than a minute. Mrs. Van Reinberg established herself in a low wicker chair, and I took up my position within a few feet of her, leaning against the wooden rail.

"I am entirely at your service, Mrs. Van Reinberg," I declared. "What is it to be about--Adele?"

"No! not Adele," she answered. "I leave you and Adele to arrange your own affairs. You can manage that without any interference from me."

I smiled and waited for her to proceed. She was evidently thinking out her way. Her brows were knitted, her eyes were fixed upon a distant spot in the forest landscape of orange and red. Yet I was very sure that at that moment, the wonderful autumnal tints, which she seemed to be so steadily regarding, held no place in her thoughts.

"Mr. Courage," she said at last, "you are a sensible man, and a man of honor. I should like to talk to you confidentially."

I murmured something about being flattered, but I do not think that she heard me.

"I should like," she continued, "to have you understand certain things which are in my mind just now, and which concern also--Mr. de Valentin."

I nodded. The Prince's ident.i.ty was an open secret, but his incognito was jealously observed.

"I wonder," she said slowly, looking for the first time directly towards me, "whether you have ever seriously considered the question of the American woman--such as myself, for instance!"

I was a little puzzled, and no doubt I looked it. Mrs. Van Reinberg proceeded calmly. It was made clear to me that, for the present, at any rate, my role was to be simply that of listener.

"My own case," she said, "is typical. At least I suppose so! I speak for myself; and there are others in the house, at the present moment, who profess to feel as I do, and suffer--as I have done. In this country, we are taught that wealth is power. We, or rather our husbands, acquire or inherit it; afterwards we set ourselves to test the truth of that little maxim. We begin at home. In about three years, more or less, we reach our limitations. Then it begins to dawn upon us that, whatever else America is good for, it's no place for a woman with ambitions. We're on the top too soon, and when we're there it doesn't amount to anything."

"Which accounts," I remarked, "for the invasion of Europe!"

Mrs. Van Reinberg leaned her fair, little head upon her white be-ringed fingers, and looked steadily at me. I had never for a moment under-estimated her, but she had probably never so much impressed me.

There was something Napoleonic about this slow unfolding of her carefully thought-out plans.

"Naturally," she answered. "What, however, so few of us are able to realize is our utter and miserable failure in what you are pleased to call that invasion."

"Failure!" I repeated incredulously. "I do not understand that. One hears everywhere of the social triumphs of the American woman."

Mrs. Van Reinberg's eyes shone straight into mine. Her face expressed the most unmitigated contempt.

"Social triumphs!" she repeated scornfully. "What clap-trap! I tell you that a season in London or Paris, much more Vienna, is enough to drive a real American woman crazy. Success, indeed! What does it amount to?"

She paused for a moment to take breath. I realized then that the woman whom I had known was something of a fraud, a puppet hung out with the rags of a European manner, according to the study and observation of the shrewd, little lady who pulled the strings. It was Mrs. Van Reinberg of London and Paris whom I had met upon the steamer; it was Mrs. Van Reinberg of New York who was talking to me now, and she was speaking in her own language.

"Look here, Mr. Courage," she said, leaning towards me with her elbows upon her knees, and nothing left of that elegant pose which she had at first a.s.sumed. "I suppose I've got my full share of the American spirit, and I tell you I'm a bad hand at taking a back seat anywhere, or even a front one on sufferance. And yet, wherever we go in Europe, that's what we've got to put up with! You think we're mad on t.i.tles over here! We aren't, but we are keen on what a t.i.tle brings over your side. Take your Debrett--there are I don't know how many baronets and lords and marquises and earls, and all the rest of it. Do you realize that whatever public place I'm in, or even at a friend's dinner-party, the homely, stupid wives of those men have got to go in before me, and if they don't--why I know all the time it's a matter of courtesy? That's what makes me mad!

Don't you dare to smile at me now. I'm in deadly earnest. In this country, so far as society goes, I'm at the top. You may say it doesn't amount to much, and you're right. But it makes it all the worse when I'm in Europe, and see the sort of women I have to give place to. Say, don't you sit there, Mr. Courage, and look at me as though I were a woman with some cranky grievance to talk about. It's got beyond that, let me tell you!"