The Mischief-Maker Part 37

"Your remarks," he declared, "are actuated by jealousy. You haven't the stomach for a man's smoke. Now listen. There's the very devil of a mischief abroad and Falkenberg's at the bottom of it. Do you know what he's doing?"

"I know nothing."

"You remember the night that we were up at the Rat Mort? He was talking with a dirty-looking man in a red tie and pince-nez."

"I remember it quite well," Julien admitted.

"Well, he was the leader writer in _Le Jour_,--Jesen--a brilliant man, an absolutely wonderful writer, but shiftless. Do you know what Falkenberg has done? The paper was in the market, the controlling share of it, and he bought it, or rather he put the money into Jesen's hands to buy it with. The whole tone of the paper with regard to foreign affairs has turned completely round. Every other day there is a scathing article in it attacking the _entente_ with England.

You've read them, of course?"

"So has every one," Julien replied gravely. "The people here talk of little else."

"It is known," Kendricks continued, "that Falkenberg has made every use of his frequent visits to this city to ingratiate himself with certain members of the French Cabinet, and to impress them with his views. To some extent there is no doubt that he has succeeded. The German Press--the inspired portion of it, at any rate--is backing all this up by articles extremely friendly towards France and deriding her friendship with England."

"This, too, I have noticed," Julien admitted.

"Carraby is in hot water already," Kendricks went on. "He had a chance on Monday in the House, when he was asked a question about the German gunboat which is reported to have gone to Agdar. The fool muddled it.

He gave the sort of suave, methodist reply one expected, and the German Press jeered at him openly. Julien, it's serious. The French people are honest enough, but they are impressionable. A Liberal Government was never popular with them. You were the only Liberal Foreign Minister in whom they believed. This man Carraby they despise. Besides, he has Jewish blood in his veins and you know what that means over here.

Jesen's articles come thundering out and already other papers are beginning to follow suit. The poison has been at work for months. You remember monsieur and madame and mademoiselle, with whom I talked so earnestly? Well, they were but types. I talked to them because I wanted to find out their point of view. There are many others like them. They look upon the _entente_ with good-natured tolerance. They doubt the real ability of Britain to afford practical aid to France, should she be attacked. This good-natured tolerance is being changed into irritation. Falkenberg's efforts are ceaseless. The moment he has the two countries really estranged, he will strike."

"Against which?" Julien asked quickly.

"Heaven only knows!" Kendricks answered. "For my part, I have always believed that it would be against England. There is no strategic reason for a war between France and Germany. Germany needs more than France can give her. She does not need money, she needs territory. Falkenberg is a rabid imperialist, a dreamer of splendid dreams, a real genius. He is fighting to-day with the subtlest weapons the mind of man ever conceived. Now, Julien, listen. I am here with a direct proposition to you."

"But what can I do?" Julien exclaimed.

"This," Kendricks replied. "It is my idea. I saw Lord Southwold this morning and he agreed. We want you to write for our paper a series of articles, dated from Paris and signed in your own name, and we want you to attack Falkenberg and the game he is playing. We will arrange for them to appear simultaneously in one of the leading journals here. We want you to write openly of these German spies who infest Paris. We want you first to hint and then to speak openly of the purchase of _Le Jour_ by means of German gold. We want you to combat the popular opinion here that our army is a wooden box affair, and that we as a nation are too cra.s.sly selfish to risk our fleet for the benefit of France. We want you to strike a great note and tell the truth.

Julien, those articles signed by you and dated from Paris may do a magnificent work."

Julien's eyes were already agleam.

"Splendid!" he muttered, rising to his feet. "If only I can do it!"

"Of course you can do it," Kendricks insisted firmly. "Before you spoke so often you used to write for the _Nineteenth Century_ every month. You haven't forgotten the trick. Some of your sentences I remember even now. I tell you, Julien, they helped me to appreciate you. I liked you better when you took up the pen sometimes than I liked you in those perfect clothes and perfect manner in your office at Downing Street. Your tongue had the politician's trick of gliding over the surface of things. Your pen scratched and spluttered its way into the heart of affairs. Get back to it, Julien. I want your first article before I leave Paris to-night."

"I'll do my best," Julien promised. "It's a great scheme. I'm going to commence now."

"I hoped you would," Kendricks replied. "You've got the atmosphere here. You're sitting in the heart of the France that belongs to the French. It isn't for nothing that I've taken you round a little with me since we were here. Chance was kind, too, when it brought us up against Freudenberg. Remember, Julien, journalism isn't the gentlemanly art it was ten or twenty years ago. You can take up your pen and stab. That's what we want."

"It's fine," Julien declared. "It is war!"

Kendricks rose to his feet.

"I'm going to bed," he announced. "The last month has been exciting and there's plenty more to come. I need sleep. Julien, just a word of caution."

"Fire away," Julien sighed. He was already gazing steadfastly out of the window, already the sentences were framing themselves in his mind.

"The day upon which your first article appears," Kendricks said, "Freudenberg will strike. Your life here will never be wholly safe. You will be encompa.s.sed with spies and enemies. Why, this wild-cat scheme of his of sending you off on some expedition was solely because you are the one man of whom he is afraid. He feared lest Carraby might make some hideous blunder in a crisis and that the country might demand you back. That is why he wanted you out of the way."

"You may be right," Julien admitted. "What's that striking--one o'clock? Till to-night, David!"

Kendricks nodded and left the room. Julien sat for a moment before the open window. It was rather an impressive view of the city with its millions of lights, the fine buildings of the Place de la Concorde in clear relief against the deep sky, the Eiffel Tower glittering in the distance, the subtle perfume of pleasure in the air. Julien stood there and raised his eyes to the skies. Already his brain was moving to the grim music of his thoughts. He looked away from the city to the fertile country. Some faint memory of those once blackened fields and desolate villages stole into his mind. He turned to his desk, drew the paper towards him and wrote.

CHAPTER IV

A STARTLING DISCLOSURE

Julien was driving, a few afternoons later, with Madame Christophor.

She had picked him up in the Bois, where he had gone for a solitary walk. In her luxurious automobile they pa.s.sed smoothly beyond the confines of the Park and out into the country. After her brief summons and the few words of invitation, they relapsed into a somewhat curious silence.

"My friend," Madame Christophor remarked at length, glancing thoughtfully towards him, "I find a change in you. You are pale and tired and silent. It is your duty to amuse me, but you make no effort to do so. Yet you have lost that look of complete dejection. You have, indeed, the appearance of a man who has accomplished something, who has found a new purpose in life."

Julien to some extent recovered himself.

"Dear Madame Christophor," he exclaimed, "it is true! My manners are shocking. Yet, in a way, I have an excuse. I have been hard at work for the last few days. I was writing all night until quite late this morning. It was because I could not sleep that I came out to sit under the trees--where you found me, in fact."

"Writing," she repeated. "So you are changing your weapons, are you?

You are going to make a new bid for power?"

Julien shook his head.

"It is not that," he answered. "I have no personal ambitions connected with my present work. It was an idea--a great idea--but it was not my own. Yet the work has been an immense relief."

She looked away, relapsing once more into silence. He glanced towards her. The weariness of her expression was more than ever evident to-day, the weariness that was not fretful, that seemed, indeed, to give an added sweetness to her face. Yet its pathos was always there. Her eyes, which looked steadily down the road in front of them, were full of the fatigue of unwelcome days.

"You men so easily escape," she murmured. "We women never."

Julien was conscious of a certain selfishness in all his thoughts connected with his companion. He had been so ready always to accept her society, to accept and profit by the stimulus of her intellect. Yet he himself had given so little, had shown so little interest in her or her personal affairs. He sat a trifle more upright in his place.

"Dear Madame Christophor," he said earnestly, "you have been so kind to me, you have shown so much interest always in my doings and my troubles. Why not tell me something of your own life? I have felt so much the benefit of your sympathy. Is there nothing in the world I could do for you?"

She sighed.

"No person in the world," she declared, "could help me; certainly not one of your s.e.x. I start with an instinctive and unchanging hatred towards every one of them."

"But, madame," Julien protested, "is that reasonable?"

"It is the truth," she replied. "I do my best when we are together to forget it so far as you are concerned. I succeed because you do not use with me any of the miserable devices of your s.e.x to provoke an interest whether they really desire it or not. You treat me, Sir Julien, as it pleases me to be treated. It is for that reason, I am sure--it must be for that reason--that I find some pleasure in being with you, whereas the society of any other man is a constant irritation to me."

Julien hesitated.

"You know," he began, "I am not naturally a curious person. I have never asked a question of you or about you from the few people with whom I have come in contact over here. At the same time,--"