The World Masters Part 6

Their friendship had begun by a chance acquaintance some six years before at Aix-les-Bains. Both of them aristocrats to their finger-tips, it was not long before they struck a note of common sympathy. The once splendid name which the prince bore appealed instantly to the Englishman, who could trace his descent back to the days of the first Plantagenet, and it was not long before they found a closer bond than that of ancient ancestry.

One night, when the beach at Trouville was lit up by just such a moon as was now floating high over the pines on the hills round Elsenau, he had told the prince the story of his life--the story of an elder scion of an ancient line devoted rather to literature and the byways of science than to the political and social duties of his position, and, moreover, a man who had never found a woman whom his heart could call to his side to share it with him. He had devoted his after-college days to study and travel. His younger brother, a splendid specimen of English chivalry, had found his mate in the daughter of his father's oldest friend. He was a soldier, and when the Franco-German war broke out, nothing, not even the longing, half-reproachful looks of his betrothed, could keep him from volunteering in the French service. He had fought through the war with brilliant distinction, a private at Saarbruck and a captain during the Siege of Paris. Then, captured, badly wounded, by the Germans after a brilliant sortie, he was cured and released, only to be murdered by the communards on the eve of his return to England. A year or two after, the Earl abjured his vows of celibacy under the fascinations of a brilliant American beauty, and so had accepted the responsibility of perpetuating his race.

So these two men had met on common ground, and nothing was more natural than that they should have become such friends as they were.

To a very great extent they stood apart from the traditions of their times. They were aristocrats in an age of almost universal democracy.

Both of them firmly believed that democracy spelt degeneration, national and individual. Both of them were, in fact, incarnations of an age that was past, and which might or might not be renewed.

This was, indeed, the subject of their conversation as they strolled up and down the smoothly-shaven lawn under the sheltering pines, chatting easily and comparing in well-selected phrases the things of their own youth with those of the present swiftly moving and even a trifle blatant generations of to-day.

"I quite agree with you, my dear Lord Orrel," said the prince, as they turned at the end of their walk. "Democracy is tending now, just as it did in the days of Greece and Carthage and Rome, and to-day in my own unhappy France, to degeneration, and the worst of it is that there is no visible possibility of salvation. Our rulers have armed the mob with a weapon more potent than the thunders of Jove. The loafer of the cafe and the pot-house has a vote, and, therefore, the same voice in choosing the rulers of nations as the student and the man of science, or the traveller who is familiar with many lands and many races. I often think that it is a pity that some means cannot be found for placing--well, I will call it a despotic power--in the hands of a few men--men, for instance, if I may say so without flattery or vanity, like ourselves--men of wide experience and broad sympathies, and yet possessing what you and I know to be the essentials of despotism--that something that can only be inherited, not acquired."

"My dear prince, I agree with you entirely," replied Lord Orrel. "Our present civilisation is suffering from a sort of dry-rot. Sentiment has degenerated into sentimentalism, courage into a reckless gambling for honours, statesmanship into politics, oratory into verbosity. In short, the nineteenth century has degenerated into the twentieth.

Everything seems going wrong. The world is ruled by the big man who shots his quotations on the Stock Exchange and the little one who serves behind his counter. It is all buying and selling. Honour and faith, and the old social creed which we used to call n.o.blesse oblige, are getting quite out of date."

"Not that yet, my friend, surely," the prince interrupted, quickly gripping his companion's arm; "not that, at least, for us. I confess that we and those like us are, as one might say, derelicts on the ocean of society--we, who one day were stately admirals, to use the old phrase. And yet, as you said just now, if only some power could be placed in the hands of a few like ourselves, a power which would over-ride the blind, irresponsible, shifting will of the mutable mob which changes its vote and its opinions with the seasons, the world might be brought again into order, and the proletariat might be saved from its own suicide.

"And," he went on, turning at the other end of their promenade, "perhaps you will not believe me, but only a few weeks ago there was such a power in the hands of a Frenchman--of an Alsatian, perhaps I should say, but a man who had preserved his loyalty to France--a scientist of European reputation--a man who had discovered that this earth had a spirit, a living soul, and who could gain control of it--so complete a control, that he could draw it out and leave the earth dead--a man who--But there, I am wearying you; I am sure you must think that I am telling you some fairy tale."

"By no means, my dear prince," said Lord Orrel, doing his best to keep his voice steady, and not quite succeeding. "In the first place, I am quite sure that you would not speak so seriously on a subject that was not serious; and, in the second place, I can a.s.sure you that I am most deeply interested."

"A thousand pardons, my lord," said the prince. "Of course you would not think that of me. We have both of us lived too long to indulge in romance, and yet, if I could tell you the whole story, you would say that you have never heard such a romance as this."

"And, if it is not trespa.s.sing too far upon your confidence, my dear prince, I should be only too happy to hear you tell the whole story,"

said his lordship, with an unmistakable note of curiosity in his tone.

"I can tell you part of the story," replied the prince; "but not here.

It is so strange, and it might have meant so much, not only to France, but to the world, that I can only tell it to you where no other ears than ours can hear it, and even then only under your solemn pledge of secrecy."

"As for the first condition, my dear prince," replied Lord Orrel, "I will ask you to take a gla.s.s of wine with me in my sitting-room. As for the second, you have my word."

"And, therefore, both conditions are amply satisfied. Let us go, and I will tell you the strangest story you have ever heard."

CHAPTER VIII

By the time the prince had ceased speaking there was not the slightest doubt in Lord Orrel's mind that, in some most mysterious manner, he was connected with the discovery which Hardress had made when he took the mutilated body out of the waters of the Channel. Perhaps even the unknown dead might have been someone near and dear to him. It seemed to him utterly impossible either to doubt the prince's word or to believe that two such discoveries could have been made by two men at the same time, or even that there could exist at the same time on earth two men whose genius, once put into practice, could make them rival masters of the world.

And supposing that he knew part of the story which the prince was going to tell him--the sequel, and, from a practical point of view, the all-important portion--ought he to tell him what he knew too? He was under no actual pledge of secrecy to his a.s.sociates in the great Trust, but still he felt that he was under an honourable obligation to keep the story of the discovery to himself. On the other hand, granted that the prince knew the first half, would it be right--would it be honourable, according to his own exact code of honour, to keep the sequel from him? Perhaps the prince even had a definite personal interest in the scheme; and, in that case, to keep silence would be to rob him of his prior rights. What was he to do?

He had been a Minister of the Crown for a short term of office, and by the time they reached his sitting-room, and he had locked the door, after the wine had been placed on the table, diplomacy had come to his aid, and he had made up his mind. When he had filled the gla.s.ses he took out his cigar-case, selected the best it contained, and said:

"Prince, I'm going to ask you to allow me to take a very great liberty."

"My dear Lord Orrel, there is nothing that you could do that I should consider a liberty. Thank you, I will; I know that your cigars are always most excellent, and now we will make ourselves comfortable, and you shall take your liberty."

He took the proffered cigar as he spoke, snipped the end, and lit it.

Lord Orrel did the same, and when they had saluted each other over their wine, in the old-fashioned, courtly style, he began:

"My dear prince, the liberty that I am going to ask your permission to take is a very great one, because it is a liberty of antic.i.p.ation; and few men, even the most chivalrous, care to be antic.i.p.ated, especially when they have an interesting story to tell. In other words, I, too, have a very strange story to tell you. In fact, the strangest that ever came within my experience. And there are reasons, which I will explain to you afterwards, why I am asking the favour of your permission to tell it before yours."

The prince looked puzzled, and his dark brows approached each other for just the fraction of a second. He took a sip at his wine, leant back in his chair, and blew a long whiff of smoke up towards the gaudily-painted ceiling. Then he said, with a barely perceptible shrug of his shoulders:

"My dear Lord Orrel, you are not asking me any favour. On the contrary, you are merely requesting that you shall entertain me before I try to do the same by you. Moreover, as it is quite impossible that there can be any connection between our stories, there can be no question of antic.i.p.ation; so, pray, proceed. I am all attention."

"As I said," began Lord Orrel, settling himself in his chair, and taking a long pull at his cigar, "the story is a very strange one, and it is also one which could not well be told from the housetops, because it involves--well, what may be something almost as wonderful as what you hinted at in the garden just now."

"Ah," interrupted the prince, with a visible start and a sudden lifting of the eyebrows, "then, in truth, it must be strange indeed; and so I am more than ever anxious to hear it; and if, as I divine, you wish me to treat it in confidence, you, of course, have my word, as a gentleman of France, that no detail of it shall ever pa.s.s my lips."

His host felt not a little relieved at being released from the necessity of binding him to secrecy, as, for the sake of his colleagues, he would have felt obliged to do; so he said:

"That, my dear prince, it would be quite impossible to imagine; and now, as it is getting a little late, I will get to my story."

He began with the finding of the mutilated body by the _Nadine_, and the discovery of the tin box containing the momentous papers, and had just given a sketch of their contents and the use that was about to be made of the dead man's discovery when the prince, whose face had been growing greyer and greyer during the recital, at length lost his hold upon the stern control under which he had just placed himself. He sprang to his feet, flung his arms apart, and cried, in a high-pitched, half-choked voice:

"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! It is the same!--what miracle has happened? My lord, you have been telling me the end of the story of which I was going to tell you the beginning. And so France, poor France, through the stupidity of the ministerial puppets that the mob has placed in the seats of their ancient rulers, has refused the sceptre of the world; and I--I, the heir of her ancient royal house, have lost not only the throne of my ancestors, but the power to make her the mistress of the nations. Truly, the mills of G.o.d grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. Her kings misruled her, and she took other rulers, who have cheated and swindled her, and humbled her before those who once did her bidding; and now, when the hand of Fate holds out the means of regaining all that she has lost, and more, infinitely more, she puts it aside with the sneering laugh of contemptuous ignorance. Truly it is a judgment that judges even unto the third and fourth generation. Ah, yes; and on me, too!--I, who am innocent! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, it is cruel!"

As the last words came from his trembling lips his hands came together on his forehead, and he dropped back into his chair.

For a moment of speechless astonishment Lord Orrel stared across the room at him. Then, dropping his cigar on the tray, he got up and went and laid his hand on the prince's shoulder.

"My dear prince, my dear friend," he said, in a voice moved by emotion, "I am most deeply distressed that my story should have affected you so painfully. Believe me, I had no intention, no thought even----"

The prince dropped his hands from his head, and stood and faced him, his face white and set and his eyes burning; but with a perfectly steady voice, he said:

"My lord, I thank you. So much emotion, though perhaps it was natural, ought not to have been shown. I should not have permitted it to myself, save in solitude. It was impossible that I should know that your lordship's story was the same as mine, and so, naturally, the shock was greater. And now, may I ask your lordship one question?"

"I will answer it, prince, before you ask it," interrupted Lord Orrel.

"But first, let me beg of you to drink your wine; really, you do not look well."

The prince took the gla.s.s from him and drained it in silence, his hand shaking ever so little as he held it to his lips, and the other went on:

"Knowing what I did, I felt certain that two such miracles could not have happened at the same time; moreover, some inspiration told me that the discovery you spoke of in the garden was the same that my son made under such terrible circ.u.mstances in the Channel. Now, sit down, pray, do, and let us talk this matter over as men of the world."

"Men of the world!" echoed the prince, sadly, as he sat down again; "nay, of two worlds. I of the old, you and your son and your great business syndicate of the new; I of the past, you of the present and the future; I who would have revived the glories of an ancient race, the despotism, if you will, of a bygone dynasty, you who would found a new one--despotism a thousand times harder, a dynasty of money, not of blood, the most soulless and brutal of all dynasties. Ah, well, it is fate, and who shall question that? No; if you will pardon me, my dear Orrel, we will not talk further upon this subject, to-night, at any rate. I confess that what you have told me has affected me deeply. If you will permit me, I will go to bed. The Russians, you know, have a saying, 'Take thy thoughts to bed with thee, for the morning is wiser than the evening.' To-morrow, perhaps, I shall be able to converse with you on this momentous matter more calmly than I could do to-night."

"By all means, my dear prince," was the reply; "and, no doubt, such a course would be better for me too, for I admit that this extraordinary coincidence has upset me not a little as well. And so, good-night, and sound sleep."

"Ah, yes," replied the prince, as they shook hands at the door; "sound sleep. I hope so. Good-night, my lord, and pleasant dreams of the world-empire."

He turned away to his bedroom, which was the next but two to his daughter's. The intervening rooms were occupied by his valet and her maid. The valet's door was ajar, and there was a light in the room. He stopped, and said:

"I shall not want anything to-night, Felix, so you may go to bed. If I require you in the night I will knock on the wall, as usual."

"Bien, monseigneur," replied the valet, opening the door and bowing.

"J'ai l'honneur de vous sous haiter le bon soir, monseigneur."