Her face clouded. "Oh, I'd much rather have it in my hallway, if you don't mind. You see, I can't very well go downstairs every time I want to use the 'phone, and it will be a nuisance sending for me when I'm wanted."
This was rather high-handed, I thought.
"But if no one knows you're here, it seems to me you're not likely to be called."
"You never can tell," she said mysteriously.
I promised to put the instrument in her hall, and not to have an extension to my rooms for fear of creating suspicion. Also the electric bell system was to be put in just as she wanted it to be. And a lot of other things that do not seem to come to mind at this moment.
I left in a daze at half-past three, to send Britton up with all the late novels and magazines, and a big box of my special cigarettes.
CHAPTER VI — I DISCUSS MATRIMONY
Poopendyke and I tried to do a little work that evening, but neither of us seemed quite capable of concentration. We said "I beg pardon" to each other a dozen times or more, following mental lapses, and then gave it up. My ideas failed in consecutiveness, and when I did succeed in hitching two intelligent thoughts together he invariably destroyed the sequence by compelling me to repeat myself, with the result that I became irascible.
We had gone over the events of the day very thoroughly. If anything, he was more alarmed over our predicament than I. He seemed to sense the danger that attended my decision to shelter and protect this cool-headed, rather self-centred young woman at the top of my castle. To me, it was something of a lark; to him, a tragedy. He takes everything seriously, so much so in fact that he gets on my nerves. I wish he were not always looking at things through the little end of the telescope. I like a change, and it is a novelty to sometimes see things through the big end, especially peril.
"They will yank us all up for aiding and abetting," he proclaimed, trying to focus his eyes on the shorthand book he was fumbling.
"You wouldn't have me turn her over to the law, would you?" I demanded crossly. "Please don't forget that we are Americans."
"I don't," said he. "That's what worries me most of all."
"Well," said I loftily, "we'll see."
We were silent for a long time.
"It must be horribly lonely and spooky away up there where she is," I said at last, inadvertently betraying my thoughts. He sniffed.
"Have you a cold?" I demanded, glaring at him.
"No," he said gloomily; "a presentiment."
"Umph!"
Another period of silence. Then: "I wonder if Max—" I stopped short.
"Yes, sir," he said, with wonderful divination. "He did."
"Any message?"
"She sent down word that the new cook is a jewel, but I think she must have been jesting. I've never cared for a man cook myself. I don't like to appear hypercritical, but what did you think of the dinner tonight, sir?"
"I've never tasted better broiled ham in my life, Mr. Poopendyke."
"Ham! That's it, Mr. Smart. But what I'd like to know is this: What became of the grouse you ordered for dinner, sir? I happen to know that it was put over the fire at seven—"
"I sent it up to the countess, with our compliments," said I, peevishly. I think that remark silenced him. At any rate, he got up and left the room.
I laid awake half the night morbidly berating the American father who is so afraid of his wife that he lets her bully him into sacrificing their joint flesh and blood upon the altar of social ambition. She had said that her father was opposed to the match from the beginning. Then why, in the name of heaven, wasn't he man enough to put a stop to it? Why—But what use is there in applying whys to a man who doesn't know what God meant when He fashioned two sexes? I put him down as neutral and tried my best to forget him.
But I couldn't forget the daughter of this browbeaten American father. There was something singularly familiar about her exquisite face, a conviction on my part that is easily accounted for. Her portrait, of course, had been published far and wide at the time of the wedding; she must have been pictured from every conceivable angle, with illimitable gowns, hats, veils and parasols, and I certainly could not have missed seeing her, even with half an eye. But for the life of me, I couldn't connect her with any of the much-talked-of international marriages that came to mind as I lay there going over the meagre assortment I was able to recall. I went to sleep wondering whether Poopendyke's memory was any better than mine. He is tremendously interested in the financial doings of our country, being the possessor of a flourishing savings' account, and as he also possesses a lively sense of the ridiculous, it was not unreasonable to suspect that he might remember all the details of this particular transaction in stocks and bonds.
The next morning I set my labourers to work putting guest-rooms into shape for the coming of the Hazzards and the four friends who were to be with them for the week as my guests. They were to arrive on the next day but one, which gave me ample time to consult a furniture dealer. I would have to buy at least six new beds and everything else with which to comfortably equip as many bed-chambers, it being a foregone conclusion that not even the husbands and wives would condescend to "double up" to oblige me. The expensiveness of this ill-timed visit had not occurred to me at the outset. Still there was some prospect of getting the wholesale price. On one point I was determined; the workmen should not be laid off for a single hour, not even if my guests went off in a huff.
At twelve I climbed the tortuous stairs leading to the Countess's apartments. She opened the door herself in response to my rapping.
"I neglected to mention yesterday that I am expecting a houseful of guests in a day or two," I said, after she had given me a very cordial greeting.
"Guests?" she cried in dismay. "Oh, dear! Can't you put them off?"
"I have hopes that they won't be able to stand the workmen banging around all day," I confessed, somewhat guiltily.
"Women in the party?"
"Two, I believe. Both married and qualified to express opinions."
"They will be sure to nose me out," she said ruefully. "Women are dreadful nosers."
"Don't worry," I said. "We'll get a lot of new padlocks for the doors downstairs and you'll be as safe as can be, if you'll only keep quiet."
"But I don't see why I should be made to mope here all day and all night like a sick cat, holding my hand over Rosemary's mouth when she wants to cry, and muzzling poor Jinko so that he—"
"My dear Countess," I interrupted sternly, "you should not forget that these other guests of mine are invited here."
"But I was here first," she argued. "It is most annoying."
"I believe you said yesterday that you are in the habit of having your own way." She nodded her head. "Well, I am afraid you'll have to come down from your high horse—at least temporarily."
"Oh, I see. You—you mean to be very firm and domineering with me."
"You must try to see things from my point of—"
"Please don't say that!" she flared. "I'm so tired of hearing those words. For the last three years I've been commanded to see things from some one else's point of view, and I'm sick of the expression."
"For heaven's sake, don't put me in the same boat with your husband!"
She regarded me somewhat frigidly for a moment longer, and then a slow, witching smile crept into her eyes.
"I sha'n't," she promised, and laughed outright.
"Do forgive me, Mr. Smart. I am such a piggy thing. I'll try to be nice and sensible, and I will be as still as a mouse all the time they're here. But you must promise to come up every day and give me the gossip. You can steal up, can't you? Surreptitiously?"
"Clandestinely," I said, gravely.
"I really ought to warn you once more about getting yourself involved," she said pointedly.
"Oh, I'm quite a safe old party," I assured her. "They couldn't make capital of me."
"The grouse was delicious," she said, deliberately changing the subject. Nice divorcees are always doing that.
We fell into a discussion of present and future needs; of ways and means for keeping my friends utterly in the dark concerning her presence in the abandoned east wing; and of what we were pleased to allude to as "separate maintenance," employing a phrase that might have been considered distasteful and even banal under ordinary conditions.
"I've been trying to recall all of the notable marriages we had in New York three years ago," said I, after she had most engagingly reduced me to a state of subjection in the matter of three or four moot questions that came up for settlement. "You don't seem to fit in with any of the international affairs I can bring to mind."
"You promised you wouldn't bother about that, Mr. Smart," she said severely.
"Of course you were married in New York?"
"In a very nice church just off Fifth Avenue, if that will help you any," she said. "The usual crowd inside the church, and the usual mob outside, all fighting for a glimpse of me in my wedding shroud, and for a chance to see a real Hungarian nobleman. It really was a very magnificent wedding, Mr. Smart." She seemed to be unduly proud of the spectacular sacrifice.
A knitted brow revealed the obfuscated condition of my brain. I was thinking very intently, not to say remotely.
"The whole world talked about it," she went on dreamily. "We had a real prince for the best man, and two of the ushers couldn't speak a word of English. Don't you remember that the police closed the streets in the neighbourhood of the church and wouldn't let people spoil everything by going about their business as they were in the habit of doing? Some of the shops sold window space to sight-seers, just as they do at a coronation."
"I daresay all this should let in light, but it doesn't."
"Don't you read the newspapers?" she cried impatiently. She actually resented my ignorance.
"Religiously," I said, stung to revolt. "But I make it a point never to read the criminal news."
"Criminal news?" she gasped, a spot of red leaping to her cheek. "What do you mean?"
"It is merely my way of saying that I put marriages of that character in the category of crime."
"Oh!" she cried, staring at me with unbelieving eyes.
"Every time a sweet, lovely American girl is delivered into the hands of a foreign bounder who happens to possess a title that needs fixing, I call the transaction a crime that puts white slavery in a class with the most trifling misdemeanours. You did not love this pusillanimous Count, nor did he care a hang for you. You were too young in the ways of the world to have any feeling for him, and he was too old to have any for you. The whole hateful business therefore resolved itself into a case of give and take—and he took everything. He took you and your father's millions and now you are both back where you began. Some one deliberately committed a crime, and as it wasn't you or the Count, who levied his legitimate toll,—it must have been the person who planned the conspiracy. I take it, of course, that the whole affair was arranged behind your back, so to speak. To make it a perfectly fashionable and up-to-date delivery it would have been entirely out of place to consult the unsophisticated girl who was thrown in to make the title good. You were not sold to this bounder. It was the other way round. By the gods, madam, he was actually paid to take you!"
Her face was quite pale. Her eyes did not leave mine during the long and crazy diatribe,—of which I was already beginning to feel heartily ashamed,—and there was a dark, ominous fire in them that should have warned me.
She arose from her chair. It seemed to me she was taller than before.
"If nothing else came to me out of this transaction," she said levelly, "at least a certain amount of dignity was acquired. Pray remember that I am no longer the unsophisticated girl you so graciously describe. I am a woman, Mr. Smart."
"True," said I, senselessly dogged; "a woman with the power to think for yourself. That is my point. If the same situation arose at your present age, I fancy you'd be able to select a husband without assistance, and I venture to say you wouldn't pick up the first dissolute nobleman that came your way. No, my dear countess, you were not to blame. You thought, as your parents did, that marriage with a count would make a real countess of you. What rot! You are a simple, lovable American girl and that's all there ever can be to it. To the end of your days you will be an American. It is not within the powers of a scape-grace count to put you or any other American girl on a plane with the women who are born countesses, or duchesses, or anything of the sort. I don't say that you suffer by comparison with these noble ladies. As a matter of fact you are surpassingly finer in every way than ninety-nine per cent. of them,—poor things! Marrying an English duke doesn't make a genuine duchess out of an American girl, not by a long shot. She merely becomes a figure of speech. Your own experience should tell you that. Well, it's the same with all of them. They acquire a title, but not the homage that should go with it."
We were both standing now. She was still measuring me with somewhat incredulous eyes, rather more tolerant than resentful.
"Do you expect me to agree with you, Mr. Smart?" she asked.
"I do," said I, promptly. "You, of all people, should be able to testify that my views are absolutely right."
"They are right," she said, simply. "Still you are pretty much of a brute to insult me with them."
"I most sincerely crave your pardon, if it isn't too late," I cried, abject once more. (I don't know what gets into me once in a while.)
"The safest way, I should say, is for neither of us to express an opinion so long as we are thrown into contact with each other. If you choose to tell the world what you think of me, all well and good. But please don't tell me."
"I can't convince the world what I think of you for the simple reason that I'd be speaking at random. I don't know who you are."
"Oh, you will know some day," she said, and her shoulders drooped a little.
"I've—I've done a most cowardly, despicable thing in hunting you—"
"Please! Please don't say anything more about it. I dare say you've done me a lot of good. Perhaps I shall see things a little more clearly. To be perfectly honest with you, I went into this marriage with my you his queen? You'll find it better than being a countess, believe me."
"I shall never marry, Mr. Smart," she said with decision. "Never, never again will I get into a mess that is so hard to get out of. I can say this to you because I've heard you are a bachelor. You can't take offence."
"I fondly hope to die a bachelor," said I with humility.
"God bless you!" she cried, bursting into a merry laugh, and I knew that a truce had been declared for the time being at least. "And now let us talk sense. Have you carefully considered the consequences if you are found out, Mr. Smart?"
"Found out?"
"If you are caught shielding a fugitive from justice. I couldn't go to sleep for hours last night thinking of what might happen to you if—"
"Nonsense!" I cried, but for the life of me I couldn't help feeling elated. She had a soul above self, after all!
"You see, I am a thief and a robber and a very terrible malefactor, according to the reports Max brings over from the city. The fight for poor little Rosemary is destined to fill columns and columns in the newspapers of the two continents for months to come. You, Mr. Smart, may find yourself in the thick of it. If I were in your place, I should keep out of it."
"While I am not overjoyed by the prospect of being dragged into it, Countess, I certainly refuse to back out at this stage of the game. Moreover, you may rest assured that I shall not turn you out."
"It occurred to me last night that the safest thing for you to do, Mr. Smart, is to—to get out yourself."
I stared. She went on hurriedly: "Can't you go away for a month's visit or—"
"Well, upon my soul!" I gasped. "Would you turn me out of my own house? This beats anything I've—"
"I was only thinking of your peace of mind and your—your safety," she cried unhappily. "Truly, truly I was."
"Well, I prefer to stay here and do what little I can to shield you and Rosemary," said I sullenly.
"I'll not say anything horrid again, Mr. Smart," she said quite meekly. (I take this occasion to repeat that I've never seen any one in all my life so pretty as she!) Her moist red lip trembled slightly, like a censured child's.
At that instant there came a rapping on the door. I started apprehensively.
"It is only Max with the coal," she explained, with obvious relief. "We keep a fire going in the grate all day long. You've no idea how cold it is up here even on the hottest days. Come in!"
Max came near to dropping the scuttle when he saw me. He stood as one petrified.
"Don't mind Mr. Smart, Max," said she serenely. "He won't bite your head off."
The poor clumsy fellow spilled quantities of coal over the hearth when he attempted to replenish the fire at her command, and moved with greater celerity in making his escape from the room than I had ever known him to exercise before. Somehow I began to regain a lost feeling of confidence in myself. The confounded Schmicks, big and little, were afraid of me, after all.
"By the way," she said, after we had lighted our cigarettes, "I am nearly out of these." I liked the way she held the match for me, and then flicked it snappily into the centre of a pile of cushions six feet from the fireplace.
I made a mental note of the shortage and then admiringly said that I didn't see how any man, even a count could help adoring a woman who held a cigarette to her lips as she did.
"Oh," said she coolly, "his friends were willing worshippers, all of them. There wasn't a man among them who failed to make violent love to me, and with the Count's permission at that. You must not look so shocked. I managed to keep them at a safe distance. My unreasonable attitude toward them used to annoy my husband intensely."
"Good Lord!"
"Pooh! He didn't care what became of me. There was one particular man whom he favoured the most. A dreadful man! We quarrelled bitterly when I declared that either he or I would have to leave the house—forever. I don't mind confessing to you that the man I speak of is your friend, the gentle Count Hohendahl, some time ogre of this castle."
I shuddered. A feeling of utter loathing for all these unprincipled scoundrels came over me, and I mildly took the name of the Lord in vain.
With an abrupt change of manner, she arose from her chair and began to pace the floor, distractedly beating her clinched hands against her bosom. Twice I heard her murmur: "Oh, God!"
This startling exposition of feeling gave me a most uncanny shock. It came out of a clear sky, so to say, at a moment when I was beginning to regard her as cold-blooded, callous, and utterly without the emotions supposed to exist in the breast of every high-minded woman. And now I was witness to the pain she suffered, now I heard her cry out against the thing that had hurt her so pitilessly. I turned my head away, vastly moved. Presently she moved over to the window. A covert glance revealed her standing there, looking not down at the Danube that seemed so far away but up at the blue sky that seemed so near.
I sat very still and repressed, trying to remember the harsh, unkind things I had said to her, and berating myself fiercely for all of them. What a stupid, vainglorious ass I was, not to have divined something of the inward fight she was making to conquer the emotions that filled her heart unto the bursting point.
The sound of dry, suppressed sobs came to my ears. It was too much for me. I stealthily quit my position by the mantel-piece and tip-toed toward the door, bent on leaving her alone. Half-way there I hesitated, stopped and then deliberately returned to the fireplace, where I noisily shuffled a fresh supply of coals into the grate. It would be heartless, even unmannerly, to leave her without letting her know that I was heartily ashamed of myself and completely in sympathy with her. Wisely, however, I resolved to let her have her cry out. Some one a great deal more far-seeing than I let the world into a most important secret when he advised man to take that course when in doubt.
For a long while I waited for her to regain control of herself, rather dreading the apology she would feel called upon to make for her abrupt reversion to the first principles of her sex. The sobs ceased entirely. I experienced the sharp joy of relaxation. Her dainty lace handkerchief found employment. First she would dab it cautiously in one eye, then the other, after which she would scrutinise its crumpled surface with most extraordinary interest. At least a dozen times she repeated this puzzling operation. What in the world was she looking for? To this day, that strange, sly peeking on her part remains a mystery to me.
She turned swiftly upon me and beckoned with her little forefinger. Greatly concerned, I sprang toward her. Was she preparing to swoon? What in heaven's name was I to do if she took it into her pretty head to do such a thing as that? Involuntarily I shot a quick look at her blouse. To my horror it was buttoned down the back. It would be a bachelor's luck to—But she was smiling radiantly. Saved!
"Look!" she cried, pointing upward through the window. "Isn't she lovely?"
I stopped short in my tracks and stared at her in blank amazement. What a stupefying creature she was!
She beckoned again, impatiently. I obeyed with alacrity. Obtaining a rather clear view of her eyes, I was considerably surprised to find no trace of departed tears. Her cheek was as smooth and creamy white as it had been before the deluge. Her eyelids were dry and orderly and her nose had not been blown once to my recollection. Truly, it was a marvellous recovery. I still wonder.
The cause of her excitement was visible at a glance. A trim nurse-maid stood in the small gallery which circled the top of the turret, just above and to the right of us. She held in her arms the pink-hooded, pink-coated Rosemary, made snug against the chill winds of her lofty parade ground. Her yellow curls peeped out from beneath the lace of the hood, and her round little cheeks were the colour of the peach's bloom.
"Now, isn't she lovely?" cried my eager companion.
"Even a crusty bachelor can see that she is adorable."
"I am not a crusty bachelor," I protested indignantly, "and what's more, I am positive I should like to kiss those red little cheeks, which is saying a great deal for me. I've never voluntarily kissed a baby in my life."
"I do not approve of the baby-kissing custom," she said severely. "It is extremely unhealthy and—middle-class. Still," seeing my expression change, "I sha'n't mind your kissing her once."
"Thanks," said I humbly.
It was plain to be seen that she did not intend to refer to the recent outburst. Superb exposition of tact!
Catching the nurse's eye, she signalled for her to bring the child down to us. Rosemary took to me at once. A most embarrassing thing happened. On seeing me she held out her chubby arms and shouted "da-da!" at the top of her infantile lungs. That had never happened to me before.
I flushed and the Countess shrieked with laughter. It wouldn't have been so bad if the nurse had known her place. If there is one thing in this world that I hate with fervour, it is an ill-mannered, poorly-trained servant. A grinning nurse-maid is the worst of all. I may be super-sensitive and crotchety about such things, but I can see no excuse for keeping a servant—especially a nurse-maid—who laughs at everything that's said by her superiors, even though the quip may be no more side-splitting than a two syllabled "da-da."
"Ha, ha!" I laughed bravely. "She—she evidently thinks I look like the Count. He is very handsome, you say."
"Oh, that isn't it," cried the Countess, taking Rosemary in her arms and directing me to a spot on her rosy cheek. "Kiss right there, Mr. Smart. There! Wasn't it a nice kiss, honey-bunch? If you are a very, very nice little girl the kind gentleman will kiss you on the other cheek some day. She calls every man she meets da-da," explained the radiant young mother. "She's awfully European in her habits, you see. You need not feel flattered. She calls Conrad and Rudolph and Max da-da, and this morning in the back window she applied the same handsome compliment to your Mr. Poopendyke."
"Oh," said I, rather more crestfallen than relieved.
"Would you like to hold her, Mr. Smart? She's such a darling to hold."
"No—no, thank you," I cried, backing off.
"Oh, you will come to it, never fear," she said gaily, as she restored Rosemary to the nurse's arms. "Won't he, Blake?"
"He will, my lady," said Blake with conviction. I noticed this time that Blake's smile wasn't half bad.
At that instant Jinko, the chow, pushed the door open with his black nose and strolled imposingly into the room. He proceeded to treat me in the most cavalier fashion by bristling and growling.
The Countess opened her eyes very wide.
"Dear me," she sighed, "you must be very like the Count, after all. Jinko never growls at any one but him."
At dinner that evening I asked Poopendyke point blank if he could call to mind a marriage in New York society that might fit the principals in this puzzling case.
He hemmed and hawed and appeared to be greatly confused.
"Really, sir, I—I—really, I—"
"You make it a point to read all of the society news," I explained; "and you are a great hand for remembering names and faces. Think hard."
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Smart, I do remember this particular marriage very clearly," said he, looking down at his plate.
"You do?" I shouted eagerly. The new footman stared. "Splendid! Tell me, who is she—or was she?"
My secretary looked me steadily in the eye.
"I'm sorry, sir, but—but I can't do it. I promised her this morning I wouldn't let it be dragged out of me with red hot tongs."
CHAPTER VII — I RECEIVE VISITORS
She was indeed attended by faithful slaves.
The east wing of the castle was as still as a mouse on the day my house party arrived. Grim old doors took on new padlocks, keyholes were carefully stopped up; creaking floors were calked; windows were picketed by uncompromising articles of furniture deployed to keep my ruthless refugee from adventuring too close to the danger zone; and adamantine instructions were served out to all of my vassals. Everything appeared to be in tip-top shape for the experiment in stealth.
And yet I trembled. My secret seemed to be safely planted, but what would the harvest be? I knew I should watch those upper windows with hypnotic zeal, and listen with straining ears for the inevitable squall of a child or the bark of a dog. My brain ran riot with incipient subterfuges, excuses, apologies and lies with which my position was to be sustained.
There would not be a minute during the week to come when I would be perfectly free to call my soul my own, and as for nerves! well, with good luck they might endure the strain. Popping up in bed out of a sound sleep at the slightest disturbance, with ears wide open and nerves tingling, was to be a nightly occupation at uncertain intervals; that was plain to be seen. All day long I would be shivering with anxiety and praying for night to come so that I might lie awake and pray for the sun to rise, and in this way pass the time as quickly as possible. There would be difficulty in getting my visitors to bed early, another thing to test my power at conniving. They were bridge players, of course, and as such would be up till all hours of the morning overdoing themselves in the effort to read each other's thoughts.
I thanked the Lord that my electric lighting system would not be installed until after they had departed. Ordinarily the Lord isn't thanked when an electric light company fails to perform its work on schedule time, but in this case delay was courted.
We were all somewhat surprised and not a little disorganised by the appearance of four unexpected servants in the train of my party. We hadn't counted on anything quite so elaborate. There were two lady's maids, not on friendly terms with each other; a French valet who had the air of one used to being served on a tray outside the servants' quarters; and a German attendant with hands constructed especially for the purpose of kneading and gouging the innermost muscles of his master, who it appears had to be kneaded and gouged three times a day by a masseur in order to stave off paralysis, locomotor ataxia or something equally unwelcome to a high liver.
We had ample room for all this physical increase, but no beds. I transferred the problem to Poopendyke. How he solved it I do not know, but from the woe-be-gone expression on his face the morning after the first night, and the fact that Britton was unnecessarily rough in shaving me, I gathered that the two of them had slept on a pile of rugs in the lower hall.
Elsie Hazzard presented me to her friends and, with lordly generosity, I presented the castle to them. Her husband, Dr. George, thanked me for saving all their lives and then, feeling a draft, turned up his coat collar and informed me that we'd all die if I didn't have the cracks stopped up. He seemed unnecessarily testy about it.
There was a Russian baron (the man who had to be kneaded) the last syllable of whose name was vitch, the first five evading me in a perpetual chase up and down the alphabet. For brevity's sake, I'll call him Umovitch. The French valet's master was a Viennese gentleman of twenty-six or eight (I heard), but who looked forty. I found myself wondering how dear, puritanic, little Elsie Hazzard could have fallen in with two such unamiable wrecks as these fellows appeared to be at first sight.
The Austrian's name was Pless. He was a plain mister. The more I saw of him the first afternoon the more I wondered at George Hazzard's carelessness. Then there were two very bright and charming Americans, the Billy Smiths. He was connected with the American Embassy at Vienna, and I liked him from the start. You could tell that he was the sort of a chap who is bound to get on in the world by simply looking at his wife. The man who could win the love and support of such an attractive creature must of necessity have qualifications to spare. She was very beautiful and very clever. Somehow the unforgetable resplendency of my erstwhile typist (who married the jeweller's clerk) faded into a pale, ineffective drab when opposed to the charms of Mrs. Betty Billy Smith. (They all called her Betty Billy.)
After luncheon I got Elsie off in a corner and plied her with questions concerning her friends. The Billy Smiths were easily accounted for. They belonged to the most exclusive set in New York and Newport. He had an incomprehensible lot of money and a taste for the diplomatic service. Some day he would be an Ambassador. The Baron was in the Russian Embassy and was really a very nice boy.
"Boy?" I exclaimed.
"He is not more than thirty," said she. "You wouldn't call that old." There was nothing I could say to that and still be a perfect host. But to you I declare that he wasn't a day under fifty. How blind women can be! Or is silly the word?
From where we sat the figure of Mr. Pless was plainly visible in the loggia. He was alone, leaning against the low wall and looking down upon the river. He puffed idly at a cigarette. His coal black hair grew very sleek on his smallish head and his shoulders were rather high, as if pinched upward by a tendency to defy a weak spine.
"And this Mr. Pless, who is he?"
Elsie was looking at the rakish young man with a pitying expression in her tender blue eyes.
"Poor fellow," she sighed. "He is in great trouble, John. We hoped that if we got him off here where it is quiet he might be able to forget—Oh, but I am not supposed to tell you a word of the story! We are all sworn to secrecy. It was only on that condition that he consented to come with us."
"Indeed!"
She hesitated, uncomfortably placed between two duties. She owed one to him and one to me.
"It is only fair, John, that you should know that Pless is not his real name," she said, lowering her voice. "But, of course, we stand sponsor for him, so it is all right."
"Your word is sufficient, Elsie."
She seemed to be debating some inward question. The next I knew she moved a little closer to me.
"His life is a—a tragedy," she whispered. "His heart is broken, I firmly believe. Oh!"
The Billy Smiths came up. Elsie proceeded to withdraw into herself.
"We were speaking of Mr. Pless," said I. "He has a broken heart."
The newcomers looked hard at poor Elsie.
"Broken fiddle-sticks," said Billy Smith, nudging Elsie until she made room for him beside her on the long couch. I promptly made room for Betty Billy.
"We ought to tell John just a little about him," said Elsie defensively. "It is due him, Billy."
"But don't tell him the fellow's heart is broken. That's rot."
"It isn't rot," said his wife. "Wouldn't your heart be broken?"
He crossed his legs comfortably.
"Wouldn't it?" repeated Betty Billy.
"Not if it were as porous as his. You can't break a sponge, my dear."
"What happened to it?" I inquired, mildly interested.
"Women," said Billy impressively.
"Then it's easily patched," said I. "Like cures like."
"You don't understand, John," said Elsie gravely. "He was married to a beautiful—"
"Now, Elsie, you're telling," cautioned Betty Billy.
"Well," said Elsie doggedly, "I'm determined to tell this much: his name isn't Pless, his wife got a divorce from him, and now she has taken their child and run off with it and they can't find—what's the matter?"
My eyes were almost popping from my head.
"Is—is he a count?" I cried, so loudly that they all said "sh!" and shot apprehensive glances toward the pseudo Mr. Pless.
"Goodness!" said Elsie in alarm. "Don't shout, John."
Billy Smith regarded me speculatively. "I dare say Mr. Smart has read all about the affair in the newspapers. They've had nothing else lately. I won't say he is a count, and I won't say he isn't. We're bound by a deep, dark, sinister oath, sealed with blood."
"I haven't seen anything about it in the papers," said I, trying to recover my self-possession which had sustained a most tremendous shock.
"Thank heaven!" cried Elsie devoutly.
"Do you mean to say you won't tell me his name?" I demanded.
Elsie eyed me suspiciously. "Why did you ask if he is a count?"
"I have a vague recollection of hearing some one speak of a count having trouble with his young American wife, divorce, or something of the sort. A very prominent New York girl, if I'm not mistaken. All very hazy, however. What is his name?"
"John," said Mrs. Hazzard firmly, "you must not ask us to tell you. Won't you please understand?"
"The poor fellow is almost distracted. Really, Mr. Smart, we planned this little visit here simply in order to—to take him out of himself for a while. It has been such a tragedy for him. He worshipped the child." It was Mrs. Billy who spoke.
"And the mother made way with him?" I queried, resorting to a suddenly acquired cunning.
"It is a girl," said Elsie in a loud whisper. "The loveliest girl. The mother appeared in Vienna about three weeks or a month ago and—whiff! Off goes the child. Abducted—kidnapped! And the court had granted him the custody of the child. That's what makes it so terrible. If she is caught anywhere in Europe—well, I don't know what may happen to her. It is just such silly acts as this that make American girls the laughing stocks of the whole world. I give you my word I am almost ashamed to have people point me out and say: 'There goes an American. Pooh!'"
By this time I had myself pretty well in hand.
"I daresay the mother loved the child, which ought to condone one among her multitude of sins. I take it, of course, that she was entirely to blame for everything that happened."
They at once proceeded to tear the poor little mother to shreds, delicately and with finesse, to be sure, but none the less completely. No doubt they meant to be charitable.
"This is what a silly American nobody gets for trying to be somebody over here just because her father has a trunkful of millions," said Elsie, concluding a rather peevish estimate of the conjugal effrontery laid at the door of Mr. Pless's late wife.
"Or just because one of these spendthrift foreigners has a title for sale," said Billy Smith sarcastically.
"He was deeply in love with her when they were married," said his wife. "I don't believe it was his fault that they didn't get along well together."
"The truth of the matter is," said Elsie with finality, "she couldn't live up to her estate. She was a drag, a stone about his neck. It was like putting one's waitress at the head of the table and expecting her to make good as a hostess."
"What was her social standing in New York?" I enquired.
"Oh, good enough," said Betty Billy. "She was in the smartest set, if that is a recommendation."
"Then you admit, both of you, that the best of our American girls fall short of being all that is required over here. In other words, they can't hold a candle to the Europeans."
"Not at all," they both said in a flash.
"That's the way it sounds to me."
Elsie seemed repentant. "I suppose we are a little hard on the poor thing. She was very young, you see."
"What you mean to say, then, is that she wasn't good enough for Mr. Pless and his coterie."
"No, not just precisely that," admitted Betty Billy Smith. "She made a bid for him and got him, and my contention is that she should have lived up to the bargain."
"Wasn't he paid in full?" I asked, with a slight sneer.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't he get his money?"
"I am sure I don't see what money has to do with the case," said Elsie, with dignity. "Mr. Pless is a poor man I've heard. There could not have been very much of a marriage settlement."
"A mere million to start with," remarked Billy Smith ironically. "It's all gone, my dear Elsie, and I gather that father-in-law locked the trunk you speak of and hid the key. You don't know women as well as I do, Mr. Smart. Both of these charming ladies professed to adore Mr. Pless's wife up to the time the trial for divorce came up. Now they've got their hammers and hat-pins out for her and—"
"That isn't true, Billy Smith," cried Elsie in a fierce whisper. "We stood by her until she disobeyed the mandate—or whatever you call it—of the court. She did steal the child, and you can't deny it."
"Poor little kiddie," said he, and from his tone I gathered that all was not rosy in the life of the infant in this game of battledore and shuttlecock.
To my disgust, the three of them refused to enlighten me further as to the history, identity or character of either Mr. or Mrs. Pless, but of course I knew that I was entertaining under my roof, by the most extraordinary coincidence, the Count and Countess of Something-or-other, who were at war, and the child they were fighting for with motives of an entirely opposite nature.
Right or wrong, my sympathies were with the refugee in the lonely east wing. I was all the more determined now to shield her as far as it lay in my power to do so, and to defend her if the worst were to happen.
Mr. Pless tossed his cigarette over the railing and sauntered over to join us.
"I suppose you've been discussing the view," he said as he came up. There was a mean smile on his—yes, it was a rather handsome face—and the two ladies started guiltily. The attack on his part was particularly direct when one stops to consider that there wasn't any view to be had from where we were sitting, unless one could call a three-decked plasterer's scaffolding a view.
"We've been discussing the recent improvements about the castle, Mr. Pless," said I with so much directness that I felt Mrs. Billy Smith's arm stiffen and suspected a general tension of nerves from head to foot.
"You shouldn't spoil the place, Mr. Smart," said he, with a careless glance about him.
"Don't ruin the ruins," added Billy Smith, of the diplomatic corps.
"What time do we dine?" asked Mr. Pless, with a suppressed yawn.
"At eight," said Elsie promptly.
We were in the habit of dining at seven-thirty, but I was growing accustomed to the over-riding process, so allowed my dinner hour to be changed without a word.
"I think I'll take a nap," said he. With a languid smile and a little flaunt of his hand as if dismissing us, he moved languidly off, but stopped after a few steps to say to me: "We'll explore the castle to-morrow, Mr. Smart, if it's just the same to you." He spoke with a very slight accent and in a peculiarly attractive manner. There was charm to the man, I was bound to admit. "I know Schloss Rothhoefen very well. It is an old stamping ground of mine."
"Indeed," said I, affecting surprise.
"I spent a very joyous season here not so many years ago. Hohendahl is a bosom friend."
When he was quite out of hearing, Billy Smith leaned over and said to me: "He spent his honeymoon here, old man. It was the girls' idea to bring him here to assuage the present with memories of the past. Quite a pretty sentiment, eh?"
"It depends on how he spent it," I said significantly. Smith grinned approvingly. Being a diplomat he sensed my meaning at once.
"It was a lot of money," he said.
At dinner the Russian baron, who examined every particle of food he ate with great care and discrimination, evidently looking for poison, embarrassed me in the usual fashion by asking how I write my books, where I get my plots, and all the rest of the questions that have become so hatefully unanswerable, ending up by blandly enquiring what I had written. This was made especially humiliating by the prefatory remark that he had lived in Washington for five years and had read everything that was worth reading.
If Elsie had been a man I should have kicked her for further confounding me by mentioning the titles of all my books and saying that he surely must have read them, as everybody did, thereby supplying him with the chance to triumphantly say that he'd be hanged if he'd ever heard of any one of them. I shall always console myself with the joyful thought that I couldn't remember his infernal name and would now make it a point never to do so.
Mr. Pless openly made love to Elsie and the Baron openly made love to Betty Billy. Being a sort of noncommittal bachelor, I ranged myself with the two abandoned husbands and we had quite a reckless time of it, talking with uninterrupted devilishness about the growth of American dentistry in European capitals, the way one has his nails manicured in Germany, the upset price of hot-house strawberries, the relative merit of French and English bulls, the continued progress of the weather and sundry other topics of similar piquancy. Elsie invited all of us to a welsh rarebit party she was giving at eleven-thirty, and then they got to work at the bridge table, poor George Hazzard cutting in occasionally. This left Billy Smith and me free to make up a somewhat somnolent two-some.
I was eager to steal away to the east wing with the news, but how to dispose of Billy without appearing rude was more than I could work out. It was absolutely necessary for the Countess to know that her ex-husband was in the castle. I would have to manage in some way to see her before the evening was over. The least carelessness, the smallest slip might prove the undoing of both of us.
I wondered how she would take the dismal news. Would she become hysterical and go all to pieces? Would the prospect of a week of propinquity be too much for her, even though thick walls intervened to put them into separate worlds? Or, worst of all, would she reveal an uncomfortable spirit of bravado, rashly casting discretion to the winds in order to show him that she was not the timid, beaten coward he might suspect her of being? She had once said to me that she loathed a coward. I have always wondered how it felt to be in a "pretty kettle of fish," or a "pickle," or any of the synonymous predicaments. Now I knew. Nothing could have been more synchronous than the plural howdy-do that confronted me.
My nervousness must have been outrageously pronounced. Pacing the floor, looking at one's watch, sighing profoundly, putting one's hands in the pockets and taking them out again almost immediately, letting questions go by unanswered, and all such, are actions or conditions that usually produce the impression that one is nervous. A discerning observer seldom fails to note the symptoms.
Mr. Smith said to me at nine-sixteen (I know it was exactly nine-sixteen to the second) with polite conviction in his smile: "You seem to have something on your mind, old chap."
Now no one but a true diplomat recognises the psychological moment for calling an almost total stranger "old chap."
"I have, old fellow," said I, immensely relieved by his perspicuity. "I ought to get off five or six very important letters to—"
He interrupted me with a genial wave of his hand. "Run along and get 'em off," he said. "Don't mind me. I'll look over the magazines."
Ten minutes later I was sneaking up the interminable stairways in the sepulchral east wing, lighting and relighting a tallow candle with grim patience at every other landing and luridly berating the drafts that swept the passages. Mr. Poopendyke stood guard below at the padlocked doors, holding the keys. He was to await my signal to reopen them, but he was not to release me under any circumstance if snoopers were abroad.
My secretary was vastly disturbed by the news I imparted. He was so startled that he forgot to tell me that he wouldn't spend another night on a pile of rugs with Britton as a bed-fellow, an omission which gave Britton the opportunity to anticipate him by almost giving notice that very night. (The upshot of it was the hasty acquisition of two brand new iron beds the next day, and the restoration of peace in my domestic realm.)
Somewhat timorously I knocked at the Countess's door. I realised that it was a most unseemly hour for calling on a young, beautiful and unprotected lady, but the exigencies of the moment lent moral support to my invasion.
After waiting five minutes and then knocking again so loudly that the sound reverberated through the empty halls with a sickening clatter, I heard some one fumbling with the bolts. The door opened an inch OF two.
The Countess's French maid peered out at me.
"Tell your mistress that I must see her at once."
"Madame is not at home, m'sieur," said the young woman.
"Not at home?" I gasped. "Where is she?"
"Madame has gone to bed."
"Oh," I said, blinking. "Then she is at home. Present my compliments and ask her to get up. Something very exasperating has hap—"
"Madame has request me to inform m'sieur that she knows the Count is here, and will you be so good as to call to-morrow morning."
"What! She knows he's here? Who brought the information?"
"The bountiful Max, m'sieur. He bring it with dejeuner, again with diner, and but now with the hot water, m'sieur."
"Oh, I see," said I profoundly. "In that case, I—I sha'n't disturb her. How—er—how did she take it?"
She gave me a severely reproachful look.
"She took it as usual, m'sieur. In that dreadful little tin tub old Conrad—"
"Good heavens, girl! I mean the news—the news about the Count."
"Mon dieu! I thought m'sieur refer to—But yes! She take it beautifully. I too mean the news. Madame is not afraid. Has she not the good, brave m'sieur to—what you call it—to shoulder all the worry, no? She is not alarm. She reads m'sieur's latest book in bed, smoke the cigarette, and she say what the divil do she care."
"What!"
"Non, non! I, Helene Marie Louise Antoinette, say it for Madame. Pardon! Pardon, m'sieur! It is I who am wicked."
Very stiffly and ceremoniously I advised caution for the next twelve hours, and saying good night to Helene Marie Louise Antoinette in an unintentionally complimentary whisper, took myself off down the stairs, pursued by an equally subdued bon soir which made me feel like a soft-stepping Lothario.
Now it may occur to you that any self-respecting gentleman in possession of a castle and a grain of common sense would have set about to find out the true names of the guests beneath his roof. The task would have been a simple one, there is no doubt of that. A peremptory command with a rigid alternative would have brought out the truth in a jiffy.
But it so happens that I rather enjoyed the mystery. The situation was unique, the comedy most exhilarating. Of course, there was a tragic side to the whole matter, but now that I was in for it, why minimise the novelty by adopting arbitrary measures? Three minutes of stern conversation with Elsie Hazzard would enlighten me on all the essential points; perhaps half an hour would bring Poopendyke to terms; a half a day might be required in the brow-beating of the frail Countess. With the Schmicks, there was no hope. But why not allow myself the pleasure of enjoying the romantic feast that had been set before me by the gods of chance? Chance ordered the tangle; let chance unravel it. Somewhat gleefully I decided that it would be good fun to keep myself in the dark as long as possible!
"Mr. Poopendyke," said I, after that nervous factotum had let me into my side of the castle with gratifying stealthiness, "you will oblige me by not mentioning that fair lady's name in my presence."
"You did not stay very long, sir," said he in a sad whisper, and for the life of me I couldn't determine what construction to put upon the singularly unresponsive remark.
When I reached the room where my guests were assembled, I found Mr. Pless and the Baron Umovitch engaged in an acrimonious dispute over a question of bridge etiquette. The former had resented a sharp criticism coming from the latter, and they were waging a verbal battle in what I took to be five or six different tongues, none of which appeared to bear the slightest relationship to the English language. Suddenly Mr. Pless threw his cards down and left the table, without a word of apology to the two ladies, who looked more hurt than appalled.
He said he was going to bed, but I noticed that he took himself off in the direction of the moonlit loggia. We were still discussing his defection in subdued tones—with the exception of the irate baron—when he re-entered the room. The expression on his face was mocking, even accusing. Directing his words to me, he uttered a lazy indictment.
"Are there real spirits in your castle, Mr. Smart, or have you flesh and blood mediums here who roam about in white night dresses to study the moods of the moon from the dizziest ramparts?"
I started. What indiscretion had the Countess been up to?
"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Pless," I said, with a politely blank stare.
Confound his insolence! He winked at me!