The Man on the Box Part 25

"Count, take care that I do not warn my country of Russia's purpose.

You are telling me very strange things." The American eyed his companion sharply.

"Warn the United States? I tell you, it will not matter. All Russia would need would be a dissatisfied clerk. What could he not do with half a million francs?" The diplomat blew a cloud of smoke through his nostrils and filliped the end of his cigarette.

"A hundred thousand dollars?"

The diplomat glanced amusedly at his American friend. "I suppose that sounds small enough to you rich Americans. But to a clerk it reads wealth."

The American was silent. A terrible thought flashed through his brain, a thought that he repulsed almost immediately.

"Of course, I am only speculating; nothing has been done as yet."

"Then something _is_ going to be done?" asked the American, clearing his voice.

"One day or another. If we can not find the clerk, we shall look higher. We should consider a million francs well invested. America is rapidly becoming a great power. But let us drop the subject and turn to something more agreeable to us both. Your daughter is charming. I honestly confess to you that I have not met her equal in any country.

Pardon my presumption, but may I ask if she is engaged to be married?"

"Not to my knowledge,"--vastly surprised and at the same time pleased.

"Are you averse to foreign alliances?" The diplomat dipped the end of a fresh-lighted cigar into his coffee.

"My dear Count, I am not averse to foreign alliances, but I rather suspect that my daughter is. This aversion might be overcome, however."

What a vista was opened to this wretched father! If only she might marry riches, how easily he might confess what he had done, how easily all this despair and terror might be dispersed! And here was a man who was known in the great world, rich, young and handsome.

The other gazed dreamily at the ceiling; from there his gaze traveled about the coffee-room, with its gathering of coffee-drinkers, and at length came back to his _vis-a-vis_.

"You will return to Washington?" he asked.

"I shall live there for the winter; that is, I expect to."

"Doubtless we shall see each other this winter, then,"--and the count threw away his cigar, bade his companion good night, and went to his room.

How adroitly he had sown the seed! At that period he had no positive idea upon what kind of ground he had cast it. But he took that chance which all far-sighted men take, and then waited. There was little he had not learned about this handsome American with the beautiful daughter. How he had learned will always remain dark to me. My own opinion is that he had been studying him during his tenure of office in Washington, and, with that patience which is making Russia so formidable, waited for this opportunity.

I shall give the Russian all the justice of impartiality. When he saw the girl, he rather shrank from the affair. But he had gone too far, he had promised too much; to withdraw now meant his own defeat, his government's anger, his political oblivion. And there was a zest in this life of his. He could no more resist the call of intrigue than a gambler can resist the croupier's, "Make your game, gentlemen!" I believe that he loved the girl the moment he set eyes upon her. Her beauty and bearing distinguished her from the other women he had met, and her personality was so engaging that her conquest of him was complete and spontaneous. How to win this girl and at the same time ruin her father was an embarra.s.sing problem. The plan which finally came to him he repelled again and again, but at length he surrendered.

To get the parent in his power and then to coerce the girl in case she refused him! To my knowledge this affair was the first dishonorable act of a very honorable man. But love makes fools and rogues of us all.

You will question my right to call this diplomat an honest man. As I have said elsewhere, honor is comparative. Besides, a diplomat generally falls into the habit of lying successfully to himself.

When the American returned to the world, his cigar was out and his coffee was stale and cold.

"A million francs!" he murmured. "Two hundred thousand!"

The seed had fallen on fruitful ground.

XVI

THE PREVIOUS AFFAIR

Mrs. Chadwick had completed her toilet and now stood smiling in a most friendly fashion at the reflection in the long oval mirror. She addressed this reflection in melodious tones.

"Madam, you are really handsome; and let no false modesty whisper in your ear that you are not. Few women in Washington have such clear skin, such firm flesh, such color. Thirty-eight? It is nothing. It is but the half-way post; one has left youth behind, but one has not reached old age. Time must be very tolerant, for he has given you a careful selection. There were no years of storm and poverty, of violent pa.s.sions; and if I have truly loved, it has been you, only you. You are too wise and worldly to love any one but yourself. And yet, once you stood on the precipice of dark eyes, pale skin, and melancholy wrinkles. And even now, if he were to speak... Enough! Enough of this folly. I have something to accomplish to-night." She glided from the boudoir into the small but luxurious drawing-room which had often been graced by the most notable men and women in the country.

Karloff threw aside the book of poems by De Banville, rose, and went forward to meet her.

"Madam,"--bending and brushing her hand with his lips, "Madam, you grow handsomer every day. If I were forty, now, I should fear for your single blessedness."

"Or, if I were two-and-twenty, instead of eight-and-thirty,"--beginning to draw on her long white gloves. There was a challenge in her smile.

"Well, yes; if you were two-and-twenty."

"There was a time, not so long ago," she said, drawing his gaze as a magnet draws a needle, "when the disparity in years was of no matter."

The count laughed. "That was three years ago; and, if my memory serves me, you smiled."

"Perhaps I was first to smile; that is all."

"I observe a mental reservation,"--owlishly.

"I will put it plainly, then. I preferred to smile over your protestations rather than see you laugh over the possibility and the folly of my loving you."

"Then it was possible?"--with interest.

"Everything is possible ... and often absurd."

"How do you know that I was not truly in love with you?"--narrowing his eyes.

"It is not explanatory; it can be given only one name--instinct, which in women and animals is more fully developed than in man. Besides, at that time you had not learned all about Colonel Annesley, whose guests we are to be this evening. Whoever would have imagined a Karloff accepting the hospitalities of an Annesley? Count, hath not thy rose a canker?"

"Madam!" Karloff was frowning.

"Count, you look like a paladin when you scowl; but scowling never induces anything but wrinkles. That is why we women frown so seldom. We smile. But let us return to your query. Supposing I had accepted your declarations seriously; supposing you had offered me marriage in that burst of grat.i.tude; supposing I _had_ committed the folly of becoming a countess: what a position I should be in to-day!"

"I do not understand,"--perplexedly.

"No?"--shrugging. She held forth a gloved arm. "Have you forgotten how gallantly you used to b.u.t.ton my gloves?"

"A thousand pardons! My mind was occupied with the mystery of your long supposition." He took the arm gracefully and proceeded to slip the pearl b.u.t.tons through their holes. (Have you ever b.u.t.toned the gloves of a handsome woman? I have. And there is a subtile thrill about the proceeding which I can not quite define. Perhaps it is the nearness of physical beauty; perhaps it is the delicate scent of flowers; perhaps it is the touch of the cool, firm flesh; perhaps it is just romance.) The gaze which she bent upon his dark head was emotional; yet there was not the slightest tremor of arm or fingers. It is possible that she desired him to observe the steadiness of her nerves. "What did you mean?" he asked.

"What did I mean?"--vaguely. Her thought had been elsewhere.

"By that supposition."

"Oh! I mean that my position, had I married you, would have been rather anomalous to-day." She extended the other arm. "You are in love."