The Vultures Part 44

"The mail is in," he then observed, in his usual lugubrious tone, as if the post had brought him his death-warrant.

"Ah!" answered Netty, glancing up at him. She was sure that something had happened. "Have you had important news?"

"Had nothing by the mail," he answered, looking straight in front of him. And Netty asked no more questions.

"Your aunt Jooly," he said, after a pause, "has had an interesting mail.

She has been offered the presidency--"

"Of the United States?" asked Netty, with a little laugh, seeing that Joseph paused.

"Not yet," he answered, with deep gravity. "Of the Ma.s.sachusetts Women Bachelors' Federation."

"Oh!"

"She'll accept," opined Joseph P. Mangles, lugubriously.

"Is it a great honor?"

"There are different sorts of greatness," Joseph replied.

"What is the Ma.s.sachusetts Women Bachelors' Federation?"

Joseph Mangles did not reply immediately. He stepped out into the road to allow a lady to pa.s.s. He was an American gentleman of the old school, and still offered to the stronger s.e.x that which they intend to take for themselves in the future.

"Think it is like the blue-ribbon army," he said, when he returned to Netty's side. "The sight of the ribbon induces the curious to offer the abstainer drink. The Ma.s.sachusetts Bachelor Women advertise their membership of the Federation, just to see if there is any man around who will induce 'em to resign."

"Is Aunt Julie pleased?" asked Netty.

"Almighty," was the brief reply. "And she will accept it. She will marry the paid secretary. They have a paid secretary. President usually marries him. He is not a bachelor-woman. They're mostly worms--the men that help women to make fools of themselves."

This was very strong language for Uncle Joseph, who usually seemed to have a latent admiration for his gifted sister's greatness. Netty suspected that he was angry, or put out by something else, and made the Ma.s.sachusetts Women Bachelors bear the brunt of his displeasure.

"She is a masterful woman is Aunt Jooly," he said; "she'll give him his choice between dismissal and--and earthly paradise."

Netty laughed soothingly, and glanced up at him again. He was walking along with huge, lanky strides, much more hurriedly than he was aware of. His head was thrust forward, and his chin went first as if to push a way through a crowded world.

And it was borne in upon Netty that Uncle Joseph had received some order; that he was pluming his ragged old wings for flight.

x.x.xIII

THIN ICE

It was not yet mid-day when Paul Deulin called at the Bukaty Palace.

"Is the prince in?" he asked. "Is he busy?" he added, when the servant had stood back with a gesture inviting him to enter. But the man only shrugged his shoulders with a smile. The prince, it appeared, was never busy. Deulin found him, in fact, in an arm-chair in his study, reading a German newspaper.

The prince looked at him over the folded sheet. They had known each other since boyhood, and could read perhaps more in each other's wrinkled and drawn faces than the eyes of a younger generation were able to perceive. The prince pointed to the vacant arm-chair at the other side of the fireplace. Deulin took the chair with that leisureliness of movement and demeanor of which Lady Orlay, and Cartoner, and others who were intimate with him, knew the inner meaning. His eyes were oddly bright.

They waited until the servant had closed the door behind him, and even then they did not speak at once, but sat looking at each other in the glow of the wood-fire. Then Deulin shrugged his shoulders, and made, with both hands outspread, a gesture indicative of infinite pity.

"Do you know?" said the prince, grimly.

"I knew at eight o'clock this morning. Cartoner advised me of it by a cipher telegram."

"Cartoner?" said the prince, interrogatively.

"Cartoner is in Petersburg. He went there presumably to attend this--pleasing denouement."

The prince gave a short laugh.

"How well," he said, folding his newspaper, and laying it aside reflectively--"how well that man knows his business. But why did he telegraph to you?"

"We sometimes do each other a good turn," explained Deulin, rather curtly. "It must have happened yesterday afternoon. One can only hope that--it was soon over."

The prince laughed, and looked across at the Frenchman with a glitter beneath his s.h.a.ggy brows.

"My friend," he said, "you must not ask me to get up any sentiment on this occasion. Do not let us attempt to be anything but what G.o.d made us--plain men, with a few friends, whom one would regret; and a number of enemies, of whose death one naturally learns with equanimity. The man was a thief. He was a great man and in a great position, which only made him the greater thief."

The prince moved his crippled legs with an effort and contemplated the fire.

"He is dead," he went on, after a pause, "and there is an end to it. I do not pray that he may go to eternal punishment. I only want him to be dead; and he is dead. Voila! It is a matter of rejoicing."

"You are a ruffian; I always said you were a ruffian," said Deulin, gravely.

"I am a man, my friend, who has an object in life. An object, moreover, which cannot take into consideration a human life here or there, a human happiness more or less. You see, I do not even ask you to agree with me or to approve of me."

"My friend, in the course of a long life I have learned only one effective lesson--to judge no man," put in Deulin.

"Remember," continued the prince, "I deplore the method. I understand it was a bomb. I take no part in such proceedings. They are bad policy.

You will see--we shall both see, if we live long enough--that this is a mistake. It will alienate all sympathies from the party. They have not even dared to approach me with any suggestion of co-operation. They have approached others of the Polish party and have been sent about their business. But--well, one would be a fool not to take advantage of every mishap to one's enemy."

Deulin help up one hand in a gesture imploring silence.

"Thin ice!" he said, warningly.

"Bah!" laughed the other. "You and your thin ice! I am no diplomatist--a man who is afraid to look over a wall."

"No. Only a man who prefers to find out what is on the other side by less obvious means," corrected the Frenchman. "One must not be seen looking over one's neighbor's wall--that is the first commandment of diplomacy."

"Then why are you here?" asked the prince, abruptly, with his rough laugh.

And Paul Deulin suddenly lost his temper. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and banged his two hands down on the arms of it so that the dust flew out. He glared across at the prince with a fierceness in his eyes that had not glittered there for twenty years.

"You think I came here to pry into your affairs--to turn our friendship into a means for my own aggrandizement? You think that I report to my government that which you and I may say to each other, or leave unsaid, before your study fire? Was it not I who cried 'Thin ice'?"