The Maids of Paradise Part 63

"Never heard of her being at the Odeon," he said.

"You heard of her as one of that group at La Trappe?"

"Yes."

"Well, when I was looking for Buckhurst in Morsbronn, Jarras telegraphed me descriptions of the people I was to arrest at La Trappe, and he mentioned her as Mademoiselle Sylvia Elven, lately of the Odeon."

"That was a mistake," said Speed. "What he meant to say was that she was lately a resident of the Odeonsplatz. He knew that. It must have been a telegraphic error."

"How do you know?" I asked, surprised.

"Because I furnished Jarras with the data. It's in her dossier."

"Odeon--Odeonsplatz," I muttered, trying to understand. "What is the Odeonsplatz? A square in some German city, isn't it?"

"It's a square in the capital of Bavaria--Munich."

"But--but she isn't a German, is she? _Is she_?" I repeated, staring at Speed, who was looking keenly at me, with eyes partly closed.

There was a long silence.

"Well, upon my soul!" I said, slowly, emphasizing every word with a noiseless blow on the table.

"Didn't you know it? Wait! Hold on," he said, "let's go slowly--let's go very slowly. She is partly German by birth. That proves nothing. Granted that Jarras suspected her, not as a social agitator, but as a German agent. Granted he did not tell you what he suspected, but merely ordered her arrest with the others--perhaps under cover of Buckhurst's arrest--you know what a secret man, the Emperor was--how, if he wanted a man, he'd never chase him, but run in the opposite direction and head him off half-way around the world. So, granted all this, I say, what's to prove Jarras was right?"

"Does her dossier prove it? You have read it."

"Well, her dossier was rather incomplete. We knew that she went about a good deal in Paris--went to the Tuileries, too. She was married once. Didn't you know even _that_?"

"Married!" I exclaimed.

"To a Russian brute--I've forgotten his name, but I've seen him--one of the kind with high cheek-bones and black eyes. She got her divorce in England; that's on record, and we have it in her dossier. Then, going back still further, we know that her father was a Bavarian, a petty n.o.ble of some sort--baron, I believe. Her mother's name was Elven, a Breton peasant; it was a mesalliance--trouble of all sorts--I forget, but I believe her uncle brought her up. Her uncle was military attache of the German emba.s.sy to Paris.... You see how she slipped into society--and you know what society under the Empire was."

"Speed," I said, "why on earth didn't you tell me all this before?"

"My dear fellow, I supposed Jarras had told you; or that, if you didn't know it, it did not concern us at all."

"But it does concern--a person I know," I said, quickly, thinking of poor Kelly Eyre. "And it explains a lot of things--or, rather, places them under a new light."

"What light?"

"Well, for one thing, she has consistently lied to me. For another, I believe her to be hand-in-glove with Karl Marx and the French leaders--not Buckhurst, but the real leaders of the social revolt; _not as a genuine disciple, but as a German agent_, with orders to foment disorder of any kind which might tend to embarra.s.s and weaken the French government in this crisis."

"You're inclined to believe that?" he asked, much interested.

"Yes, I am. France is full of German agents; the Tuileries was not exempt--you know it as well as I. Paris swarmed with spies of every kind, high and low in the social scale. The emba.s.sies were nests of spies; every salon a breeding spot of intrigue; the foreign governments employed the grande dame as well as the grisette. Do you remember the military-balloon scandal?"

"Indistinctly.... Some poor devil gave a woman government papers."

"Technically they were government papers, but he considered them his own. Well, the woman who received those papers is down-stairs."

He gave a short whistle of astonishment.

"You are sure, Scarlett?"

"Perfectly certain."

"Then, if you are certain, that settles the question of Mademoiselle Elven's present occupation."

I rose and began to move around the room restlessly.

"But, after all," I said, "that concerns us no longer."

"How can it concern two Americans out of a job?" he observed, with a shrug. "The whole fabric of French politics is rotten to the foundation. It's tottering; a shake will bring it down. Let it tumble.

I tell you this nation needs the purification of fire. Our own country has just gone through it; France can do it, too. She's got to, or she's lost!"

He looked at me earnestly. "I love the country," he said; "it's fed me and harbored me. But I wouldn't lift a finger to put a single patch on this makeshift of a government; I wouldn't stave off the crash if I could. And it's coming! You and I have seen something of the rottenness of the underpinning which props up empires. You and I, Scarlett, have learned a few of the shameful secrets which even an enemy to France would not drag out into the daylight."

I had never seen him so deeply moved.

"Is there hope--is there a glimmer of hope to incite anybody while these conditions endure?" he continued, bitterly.

"No. France must suffer, France must stand alone in terrible humiliation, France must offer the self-sacrifice of fire and mount the altar herself!

"Then, and only then, shall the nation, purified, reborn, rise and live, and build again, setting a beacon of civilized freedom high as the beacon we Americans are raising,... slowly yet surely raising, to the glory of G.o.d, Scarlett--to the glory of G.o.d. No other dedication can be justified in this world."

XIX

TReCOURT GARDEN

About nine o'clock we were summoned by a Breton maid to the pretty breakfast-room below, and I was ashamed to go with my shabby clothes, bandaged head, and face the color of clay.

The young countess was not present; Sylvia Elven offered us a supercilious welcome to a breakfast the counterpart of which I had not seen in years--one of those American breakfasts which even we, since the Paris Exposition, are beginning to discard for the simpler French breakfast of coffee and rolls.

"This is all in your honor," observed Sylvia, turning up her nose at the array of poached eggs, fragrant sausages, crisp potatoes, piles of b.u.t.tered toast, m.u.f.fins, marmalade, and fruit.

"It was very kind of you to think of it," said Speed.

"It is Madame de Va.s.sart's idea, not mine," she observed, looking across the table at me. "Will the gentleman with nine lives have coffee or chocolate?"

The fruit consisted of grapes and those winy Breton cider-apples from Bannalec. We began with these in decorous silence.

Speed ventured a few comments on the cultivation of fruit, of which he knew nothing; neither he nor his subject was encouraged.