The Man from Brodney's Part 16

"You are very good, but I believe my place is here," he said, with a swift, sardonic glance toward his herd of followers. Lady Deppingham raised her delicate eyebrows and gave him the cool, intimate smile of comprehension. He flushed. "I am one of the lowly and the despised," he explained humbly.

"The Princess is to be with me for a month. We expect more sunshine than ever at the chateau," ventured her ladyship.

"I sincerely hope you may be disappointed," said he commiseratingly, fanning himself with his hat. She laughed and understood, but Deppingham was half way out to the yacht before it became clear to him that the Enemy hoped literally, not figuratively.

The Enemy sauntered back toward the town, past and through the staring crowd of women. Here and there in the curious throng the face of a Persian or an Egyptian stared at him from among the brown Arabians.

There was no sign of love in the glittering eyes of these trafficked women of j.a.pat. One by one they lifted their veils to their eyes and slowly faded into the side streets, each seeking the home she despised, each filled with a hatred for the man who would not feast upon her beauty.

The man, all unconscious of the new force that was to oppose him from that hour, saw the English people go aboard. He waited until the owner's launch was ready to return to the pier with its merry company, and then slowly wended his way to the "American bar," lonelier than ever before in his life. He now knew what it was that he had missed more than all else--Woman!

Britt and Saunders were waiting for him under the awning outside. They were never permitted to enter, except by the order or invitation of the Enemy. Selim stood guard and Selim loved the tall American, who could be and was kind to him.

"h.e.l.lo," called Britt. "We saw you down there, but couldn't get near. By ginger, old man, I had no idea your Persians were so beautiful. They are Oriental gems of--"

"My Persians? What the devil do you mean, Britt? Come in and sit down; I want to talk to you fellows. See here, this talk about these women has got to be stopped. It's dangerous for you and it's dangerous for me. It is so full of peril that I don't care to look at them, handsome as you say they are. Do you know what I was thinking of as I came over here, after leaving one of the most charming of women?--your Lady Deppingham.

I was thinking what a wretched famine there is in women. I'm speaking of women like Lady Deppingham and Mrs. Browne--neither of whom I know and yet I've known them all my life. The kind of women we love--not the kind we despise or pity. Don't you see? I'm hungry for the very sight of a woman."

"You see Miss Pelham often enough," said Saunders surlily. The Enemy was making a pitcher of lemonade.

"My dear Saunders, you are quite right. I _do_ see Miss Pelham often enough. In my present frame of mind I'd fall desperately in love with her if I saw her oftener." Saunders blinked and glared at him through his pale eyes.

"My word," he said. Then he got up abruptly and stalked out of the room.

Britt laughed immoderately.

"He's a lucky dog," reflected the Enemy. "You see, he loves her, Britt--he loves little Miss Pelham. Do you know what that means? It means everything is worth while. h.e.l.lo! Here he is back! Come in, Saunders. Here's your lemo!"

Saunders was excited. He stopped in the doorway, but looked over his shoulder into the street.

"Come along," he exclaimed. "They're going up to the chateau--the Princess and her party. My word, she's ripping!" He was off again, followed more leisurely by the two Americans.

At the corner they stopped to await the procession of palanquins and jinrikshas, which had started from the pier. The smart English victoria from the chateau, drawn by Wyckholme's thoroughbreds, was coming on in advance of the foot brigade. Half a dozen officers from the yacht, as many men in civilian flannels, and a small army of servants were being borne in the palanquins. In the rear seat of the victoria sat Lady Deppingham and one who evidently was the Princess. Opposite to them sat two older but no less smart-looking women.

Britt and the Enemy moved over to the open s.p.a.ce in front of the mosque.

They stood at the edge of and apart from the crowd of curious Moslems, who had moved up in advance of the procession.

"A gala day in Aratat," observed the stubby Mr. Britt. "We are to have the whole party over night up at the chateau. Perhaps the advent of strangers may heal the new breach between Mrs. Browne and Lady Deppingham. They haven't been on speaking terms since day before yesterday. Did Miss Pelham tell you about it? Well, it seems that Mrs.

Browne thinks that Lady Agnes is carrying on a flirtation with Browne--h.e.l.lo! By thunder, old man, she's--she's speaking to you!" He turned in astonishment to look at his companion's face.

The Enemy was staring, transfixed, at the young woman in white who sat beside Lady Deppingham. He seemed paralysed for the moment. Then his helmet came off with a rush; a dazed smile of recognition lighted his face. The very pretty young woman in the wide hat was leaning forward and smiling at him, a startled, uncertain look in her eyes. Lady Deppingham was glancing open-mouthed from one to the other. The Enemy stood there in the sun, bareheaded, dazed, unbelieving, while the carriage whirled past and up the street. Both women turned to look back at him as they rounded the corner into the avenue; both were smiling.

"I must be dreaming," murmured the Enemy.

Britt took him by the arm. "Do you know her?" he asked. The Enemy turned upon him with a radiant gleam in his once sombre disconsolate eyes.

"Do you think I'd be grinning at her like a d.a.m.ned fool if I didn't? Why the d.i.c.kens didn't you tell me that it was the Princess Genevra of Rapp-Thorberg who was coming?"

"Never thought of it. I didn't know you were interested in princesses, Chase."

CHAPTER XIII

CHASE PERFORMS A MIRACLE

Hollingsworth Chase now felt that he was on neutral ground with the Princess Genevra. He could hardly credit his senses. When he left Rapp-Thorberg in disgrace some months before, his susceptibilities were in a most thoroughly chastened condition; a cat might look at a king, but he had forsworn peeping into the secret affairs of princesses.

His strange connection with the Skaggs will case is easily explained.

After leaving Thorberg he went directly to Paris; thence, after ten days, to London, where he hoped to get on as a staff correspondent for one of the big dailies. One day at the Savage Club, he listened to a recital of the amazing conditions which attended the execution of Skaggs's will. He had shot wild game in South Africa with Sir John Brodney, chief counsellor for the islanders, and, as luck would have it, was to lunch with him on the following day at the Savoy.

His soul hungered for excitement, novelty. The next day, when Sir John suddenly proposed that he go out to j.a.pat as the firm's representative, he leaped at the chance. There would be no difficulty about certain little irregularities, such as his nationality and the fact that he was not a member of the London bar: Sir John stood sponsor for him, and the islanders would take him on faith.

In truth, Rasula was more than glad to have the services of an American.

He had heard Wyckholme talk of the manner in which civil causes were conducted and tried in the United States, and he felt that one Yankee on the scene was worth ten Englishmen at home. Doubtless he got his impressions of the genus Englishman by observation of the devoted Bowles.

The good-looking Mr. Chase, writhing under the dread of exposure as an international jacka.s.s, welcomed the opportunity to get as far away from civilisation as possible. He knew that the Prince Karl story would not lie dormant. It would be just as well for him if he were where the lash of ridicule could not reach him, for he was thin-skinned.

We know how and when he came to the island and we have renewed our short acquaintance with him under peculiar circ.u.mstances. It would be sadly remiss, however, to suppress the information that he could not banish the fair face of the Princess Genevra from his thoughts during the long voyage; nor would it be stretching the point to say that his day dreams were of her as he sat and smoked in his bungalow porch.

Before Chase left London, Sir John Brodney bluntly cautioned him against the dangers that lurked in Lady Deppingham's eyes.

"She won't leave you a peg to stand on, Chase, if you seek an encounter," he said. "She's pretty and she's clever, and she's made fools of better men than you, my boy. I don't say she's a bad lot, because she's too smart for that. But I will say that a dozen men are in love with her to-day. I suppose you'll say that she can't help that. I'm only warning you on the presumption that they don't seem to be able to help it, either. Remember, my boy, you are going out there to offset, not to beset, Lady Deppingham."

Chase learned more of the attractive Lady Agnes and her court before he left England. Common report credited her with being dangerously pretty, scandalously unwise, eminently virtuous, distractingly adventurous in the search for pleasure, charmingly unscrupulous in her treatment of men's hearts, but withal, sufficiently clever to dodge the consequences of her widespread though gentle iniquities. He was quite prepared to admire her, and yet equally resolved to avoid her. Something told him that he was not of the age and valor of St. Anthony. He went out to j.a.pat with a stern resolution to lead himself not into temptation; to steer clear of the highway of roses and stick close to the th.o.r.n.y paths below. Besides, he felt that he deserved some sort of punishment for looking so high in the Duchy of Rapp-Thorberg.

Not that he was in love with the proud Princess Genevra; he denied that to himself a hundred times a day as he sat in his bungalow and smoked the situation over.

He had proved to himself, quite beyond a doubt, that he was not in love, when, like a bolt from a clear sky, she stepped out of the oblivion into which he had cast her, to smile upon him without warning. It was most unfair. Her smile had been one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome in the effort to return a fair and final verdict.

As he sat in the shade of his bungalow porch on the afternoon of her arrival, he lamented that every argument he had presented in the cause of common sense had been knocked into a c.o.c.ked hat by that electric smile. Could anything be more miraculous than that she should come to the unheard-of island of j.a.pat--unless, possibly, that he should be there when she came? She was there for him to look upon and love and lose, just as he had dreamed all these months. It mattered little that she was now the wife of Prince Karl of Brabetz; to him she was still the Princess Genevra of Rapp-Thorberg.

If he had ever hoped that she might be more to him than an unattainable divinity, he was not fool enough to imagine that such a hope could be realised. She was a princess royal, he the slave who stood afar off and worshipped beyond the barrier of her disdain. In his leather pocketbook lay the ever-present reminder that she could be no more than a dream to him. It was the clipping from a Paris newspaper, announcing that the Princess Genevra was to wed Prince Karl during the Christmas holidays.

He had seen the Christmas holidays come and go with the certain knowledge in his heart that they had given her to Brabetz as the most glorious present that man had ever received. If he was tormented by this thought at the happiest season of the year, his crustiness was attributed by others to the loneliness of his life on the island. If he grew leaner and more morose, no one knew that it was due to the pa.s.sing of a woman.

Now she was come to the island and, so far as he had been able to see, there was no sign of the Prince of Brabetz in attendance. The absence of the little musician set Chase to thinking, then to speculating and, in the end, to rejoicing. Her uncle by marriage, an English n.o.bleman of high degree, in gathering his friends for the long cruise, evidently had left the Prince out of his party, for what reason Chase could not imagine. To say that the omission was gratifying to the tall American would be too simple a statement. There is no telling to what heights his thoughts might have carried him on that sultry afternoon if they had not been harshly checked by the arrival of a messenger from the chateau. His blood leaped with antic.i.p.ation. Selim brought word that the messenger was waiting to deliver a note. The Enemy, who shall be called by his true name hereafter, steadied himself and commanded that the man be brought forthwith.

Could it be possible--but no! _She_ would not be writing to him. What a ridiculous thought! Lady Deppingham? Ah, there was the solution! She was acting as the go-between, she was the intermediary! She and the Princess had put their cunning heads together--but, alas! His hopes fell flat as the note was put into his eager hand. It was from Britt.

Still he broke the seal with considerable eagerness. As he perused the somewhat lengthy message, his disappointment gave way to a no uncertain form of excitement; with its conclusion, he was on his feet, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.

"By George!" he exclaimed. "What luck! Things are coming my way with a vengeance. I'll do it this very night, thanks to Britt. And I must not forget Browne. Ah, what a consolation it is to know that there are Americans wherever one goes. Selim! Selim!" He was standing as straight as a corporal and his eyes were glistening with the fire of battle when Selim came up and forgot to salute, so great was his wonder at the transformation. "Get word to the men that I want every mother's son of 'em to attend a meeting in the market-place to-night at nine. Very important, tell 'em. Tell Von Blitz that he's _got_ to be there. I'm going to show him and my picturesque friend, Rasula, that I am here to stay. And, Selim, tell that messenger to wait. There's an answer."

Long before nine o'clock the men of j.a.pat began to gather in the market and trading place. It was evident that they expected and were prepared for the crisis. Von Blitz and Rasula, who had played second fiddle until he could stand it no longer, were surprised and somewhat staggered by the peremptory tone of the call, but could see no chance for the American to shift his troublesome burden. The subdued, sullen air of the men who filled the torchlighted market-place brooded ill for any attempt Chase might make to reconcile them to his peculiar views, no matter how thoroughly they may have been misunderstood by the people. Explanations were easy to make, but difficult to establish. Chase could convince them, no doubt, that he was not guilty of double dealing, but it would be next to impossible to extinguish the blaze of jealousy that was consuming the reason of the head men of j.a.pat, skilfully fed by the tortured Von Blitz and blown upon ceaselessly by the breath of scandal.

Five hundred dark, sinister men were gathered in knots about the square.

They talked in subdued tones and looked from fiery eyes that belied their outward calm.