The Kingmakers

WELL, it was done, Selden reflected rather grimly next morning, over his coffee.

A telegram from the foreign editor of the Times had been brought him with his breakfast congratulating him warmly on his exclusive story and praying him to follow it up.

The Times, for all its drum-and-trumpet democracy, was, as he knew quite well, aristocratic and capitalistic at heart, and so was its American namesake with which his services were shared—indeed the latter journal made no especial effort to conceal the fact—and so the kind of stuff he had sent in the night before was exceptionally welcome. It was a sort of oasis in the desert. Presently there would be a ponderous editorial to the effect that staunch and sturdy Britain, with its traditional love of sportsmanship and fair play, was prepared to give even kings a chance!

Nevertheless he realized that his judgment had been considerably clouded the night before. Doubtless on his own quarterdeck, even Captain Kidd might seem a picturesque and downright character, who could cite injustices done him, and could point to atrocities committed by civilized society far more horrible than any of his own; he might even attain a certain merit because of his bold directness, his straight speaking, his scorn of littleness. He was probably fond of children and a sentimentalist at bottom.

So the king face to face was more impressive than in retrospect; yet, Selden reminded himself, there was a lot to be said for him. The trouble was that there was so little to be said for his grandson.

Though, Selden added to himself, even here he might be unjust. He did not really know Danilo. One thing in his favour was that he did not pose—people could take him or leave him. He was not a coward, and undoubtedly he had his code. Many crown princes had sown abundant wild oats, and yet made excellent kings.

But Selden knew it was none of these things that really troubled him; it was the uneasy feeling that he had been responsible for that quick nod of the head which Myra Davis had given her mother. And that, he told himself, was something he could not be responsible for—not, at least, until he was sure she understood exactly everything that nod let her in for. After that, if she wished to keep on nodding, it would be nobody’s affair but her own.

Therefore it was his duty to see that she did understand. He must go to her and tell her—tell her very plainly and directly, without palliating phrases. He squirmed a little at the prospect, but there was no other way he could square himself with his conscience. She would probably resent it, and her mother of course would be vastly outraged. But he must risk it.

He had the feeling that the baron had been a little lacking in candour the night before; his opinions had been asked without any hint of their implications. Yet, as he cast his mind back over what he had said, he did not see where he would have altered it, even if he had known. Nevertheless it was up to him to enlighten Miss Davis very thoroughly on the morals and manners of princes.

He was staring moodily out of the window, turning all this over in his mind, and keeping resolutely submerged a very, very sore spot in his consciousness whose existence he would not even admit, when a knock at the door announced a boy with a salver, on which lay a tiny note.

“I will be on the terrace at eleven,” it said, and it was signed “Vera de Rémond.”

“There is no answer,” he said to the boy, tipped him, and went back to the window. What did he care where the countess would be at eleven! He had not forgotten that moment of revelation the night before when she had looked at Myra Davis like a beast of prey sure of its quarry. There had been in her face a kind of gloating, as though she were revenging herself in some way upon the girl. But that was nonsense. Yet why had she seemed so triumphant? Could the quarry be some one else—Jeneski, Madame Ghita?

The name was uttered at last; he had not been able to keep it back. Yes, there was the sore spot; it was for her he was uneasy, it was she for whom his heart reproached him, it was she whom he wished to protect....

He suddenly made up his mind that he would see the countess. If she really had a secret, he would drag it out of her.

So he arrayed himself rapidly, glad to have something definite to do, and sallied forth into the bright, cool morning.

He had not noticed the time, but as he left the hotel, the big clock over the casino entrance told him that he was early, so he strolled about the camembert, as the little round park just in front of the casino is derisively called, and looked at the people and tried to arrange his thoughts.

The crowd here is astonishingly different from that on the terrace, for these are the people who haunt the public rooms—derelicts, for the most part, poised as it were before the mouth of the dragon, searching for an inspiration before plunging in to stake their last louis; or perhaps with their last louis lost and nothing to do but watch the feverish procession which continually ascends and descends the casino steps, and wonder where another louis could be borrowed or begged or stolen.

It is a motley and sordid crowd, lolling on the benches or loitering uncertainly about: ridiculous old women, wonderfully arrayed in the fabrics of 1860, fondly misinterpreting the astonished glances cast at them; frizzled old men struggling to conceal a bankrupt interior behind a pompous front; cocottes endeavouring to pretend they are not for everybody and at the same time to appear not too difficult; impecunious gamblers trying to pose as men of affairs, but always betrayed by a loose end somewhere; dowdy old couples to whom the tables have become a habit more devastating than any drug—a new Comédie Humaine waiting for another Balzac.

Selden, regarding these people for the hundredth time with an appreciative eye, wished that he were the Balzac, and sighing a little because he was not, he turned away to the gayer life of the terrace—gayer at least on the surface, fascinating as a whirlpool is fascinating, tempting the onlooker to jump in and be swallowed up, and seductive, as things dangerous and forbidden have been seductive since the days of Eve.

The Countess Rémond possessed those qualities of fascination and intrigue, too—superlatively. He realized it anew as he saw her coming toward him down the steps, her lithe uncorseted body faultlessly clad in a grey tailleur, which, conventional and subdued as it was, seemed somehow exotic as she wore it. Selden thanked his stars that he had gained immunity the night before by that glimpse he had had of her soul; it was very pleasant to know himself out of danger.

“How good of you to come,” she said, as he took her hand. And then she looked at him more closely, for her instinct felt the change in him. “Are you annoyed at something? Did it disarrange you to meet me here?”

“No; not at all.”

“I shall keep you but a moment. But I felt that I must have a little talk with you before....”

“Before....” he prompted, as she hesitated.

“Before I begin my day’s work. And since the safest place for a confidential conversation is in the midst of a crowd....”

“So we are going to have a confidential conversation?” queried Selden, falling into step beside her.

“Yes; on my part, at least. Like the baron, I am going to place all my cards on the table.”

“It is what I had been hoping,” said Selden, quietly.

She looked at him quickly, smiling a little.

“Yes; I saw in your eyes last night that you were not pleased with me. Perhaps I had had too much champagne. But I am quite recovered from that!”

“So am I,” said Selden, grimly. “In fact, I am very sober—I have even some twinges of remorse.”

“I was afraid you would have. That is one reason I wanted to see you. We must talk it out.”

“Yes, we must,” he assented.

She led the way to a seat at the end of the terrace facing the harbour, where they could talk undisturbed.

“Now,” she said, “why remorse?”

“Well,” began Selden slowly, “you know as well as I do that, while this flood of American money may be a sort of short-cut to prosperity for your little country, in the end it will be disastrous for it, since it brings the old dynasty back.”

“No,” she said, “I know nothing of the sort.”

He looked at her.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“How long do you think the old king has to live?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, not long. He has already had two heart attacks.”

“Ah, I see what you mean,” he murmured; “and after him the republic again?”

“Certainly. My country would never endure Danilo, nor permit itself to be governed by an American.”

“But in that case,” he pointed out, “this whole affair is nothing but a piece of sharp practice.”

“Against whom?”

“Against the Davises.”

“Oh,” she said negligently; “they deserve it. I am not concerned about them.”

“But I am,” he said. “At least I am concerned for Miss Davis.”

“You need not be,” she assured him, with a flash of the eyes. “She is by no means the ingénue you seem to suppose; she can take care of herself. And she can afford to lose a few millions.”

“It isn’t the money—I think the country should have some of it; but she ought to know exactly what she is letting herself in for.”

“You mean Madame Ghita?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why do you not tell her?” she asked mockingly.

“I’ve about made up my mind that I shall have to,” he said dismally. “You see I sort of pushed her into it last night.”

She was smiling again as she looked at him.

“And this is the real cause of the remorse?”

“I suppose so.”

“How did you push her into it?”

“I was silly enough to say that I really thought she could do a lot of good out there.”

“Well—do you not believe it?”

“Of course I believe it. But that isn’t the question. Dash it all, you know as well as I do what I mean. These women are absolutely ignorant of European ideas—of the ideas of such fellows as Danilo. Mrs. Davis poses as worldly-wise, thoroughly initiated, but she is really as ignorant as a child. She has heard that men have mistresses, that husbands are sometimes unfaithful, and so has her daughter, I suppose. But it is all outside their personal experience. It is always some other woman’s husband. It would never occur to either of them that their own husbands could be, or that in this particular instance the husband-to-be is not only unfaithful now, but hasn’t the slightest intention of being faithful in the future—that he would laugh at such an idea—that at this moment he is living here with his mistress....”

“But she is not his mistress,” put in the countess quietly.

Selden, halted in mid-career, could only stare. A dozen conjectures flashed through his mind.

“Not his mistress?” he stammered.

“It is Madame Ghita you are talking about, I suppose?”

“Of course.”

“She is his wife—she has a right to the name; I have even the idea that he is faithful to her.”

“His wife!” Selden gasped. “But....”

“Married quite regularly in Paris—morganatically, of course. I do not know whether you will think that better or worse.”

Selden, his head in a whirl, did not know himself. But of one thing he was sure—the wrong to Madame Ghita would be far worse than he had fancied. He tried to explain this to the countess, who listened with an amused smile.

“You remind me of those silly old knights,” she said, “who were always riding out to rescue some damsel, without waiting to find out whether she really wanted to be rescued. Don’t worry about Madame Ghita. In the first place, she knew perfectly well when she married the prince that he would have to marry again some day for the sake of the dynasty. In the second place, I suspect that the prince is much more in love with her than she is with him. At least, the baron tells me that she is an unusually clever woman, while, as you know, the prince is quite stupid.”

“So she can hold him if she wants to?”

“Undoubtedly. And if she wants to, she will stop at nothing.”

“Do you know her?” Selden asked.

“No.”

“So you don’t know....”

“Whether she will want to? No—but I am going to find out. I have asked her to lunch with me to-day. That is the first part of my day’s work.”

“Does Miss Davis know about her?”

“Not yet—at least, I do not think so. But she is going to know.”

“You mean you are going to tell her?”

“Yes,” said the countess, with a little grimace. “That is the second part of my day’s work. I have tea with her and her mother this afternoon.”

Selden took off his hat and drew a deep breath of relief.

“Then that lets me out,” he said. “I think it’s rather sporting of you.”

“Do not idealize me nor my motives,” protested the countess. “It is a matter of business. Lappo asked me to. We are going to tell her because she is certain now to learn it anyway, and it is far better that she learn it from us than from some malicious newspaper or anonymous letter. It will not be difficult; as the baron puts it, it will be almost as though she were marrying a divorced man. That will not shock her so much.”

“No, I suppose not,” Selden agreed. “Of course you will swing it!”

“Yes, I think so,” agreed the countess with a little smile. “But before I started to try to swing it, I wanted to have this talk with you, so that everything would be quite clear between us. I must know where you stand.”

“All right. Cards on the table. Go ahead,” and he settled back to listen.

“If Miss Davis has the situation explained to her, so that she knows what she is letting herself in for, as you put it, and still chooses to go ahead with it, you will have no further compunctions on that score, I hope?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well,” said the countess quietly, “I shall be very much surprised if she does not go on with it. She is neither a child nor a fool—and there is a compelling impulse driving her on.”

“Yes—she sees herself the benefactress of an impoverished people.”

“The country will have a new saint!” said the countess with a mocking little laugh. “But perhaps there is still another reason.”

“You think the prince attracts her?”

“Oh, no—though she may get to like him. At present, he is just a necessary evil, since for children there must be a father! He has one quality which will appeal to her more and more—he knows how to be discreet.”

“Which reminds me,” Selden remarked, “that the explosion you expected last night did not take place.”

“No—the prince prevented it. It was that made him late.”

“He was with her?”

“Yes. He must have promised her something.”

“She knows, then?”

“Of course. Lappo has already had a talk with her.”

“What did she say to him?”

The countess smiled at remembrance of the baron’s face.

“I do not know exactly—except that she spoke of love.”

“Ah, you see!”

“But that does not discourage me,” went on the countess cheerfully. “On the contrary. Women really in love rarely speak of it. My own impression is that she is determined to make the best bargain she can—and she is right. But I shall have it out with her at lunch—that is, if she comes. She has not yet accepted, but I think she will, if only out of curiosity. There may be some fireworks, but in the end she will agree. I am sure of it.”

“Agree to what?” asked Selden.

“Agree to exchange the prince for the annuity which the king is now, for the first time, able to offer her.”

Selden made a grimace of distaste. All this was a little too cynical—especially as it touched Madame Ghita.

The countess looked at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement, not entirely free from malice.

“You do not like it?”

“No.”

“But if she does agree, you will have no compunctions about her either?”

“No—if she really does.”

“You do not believe she will?” she asked, looking at him with a gaze suddenly intent, as though for the first time she saw something in his face she had not before suspected. “Well, come to lunch, too, and see for yourself.”

Selden stared.

“It is my lunch,” she explained. “I may ask whom I please. You will enjoy it.”

“I’m not so sure of that!”

“Besides, I shall need your moral support,” she added, laughingly. “Please come.”

“Will Lappo be there?”

“No—he has gone to Paris to arrange the marriage settlement with the Davis solicitor. There will be just us three. If she does not come, we shall be tête-à-tête.”

Selden was distinctly conscious that he had no ardour for a tête-à-tête with the Countess Rémond, and, though he did his best to keep it out of his face, she instantly perceived it.

“How American you are!” she said, looking at him with laughing eyes. “No; I am not offended. But do not be afraid. She will come.”

“But if she resents my presence....”

“She will not. If she does, you can leave before the real discussion begins.”

“All right,” said Selden, “I’ll come. But I don’t promise to give you any moral support. You may find me fighting on the other side.”

“Then I shall be sure to win!” said the countess, and looked at him with a strange smile. “Now I must be going. The luncheon is at one, in my apartment.” She glanced at her watch and sprang to her feet in a sudden panic. “Juste ciel! I must fly! No, you are not to come with me. I am in earnest. Please do not!”

He watched her as she hurried away through the crowd and up the steps toward the casino.

At the top of the steps a burly man was standing, as though keeping an appointment, his eyes on the entrance to the hotel just across the street. The countess approached him swiftly and touched his arm.

As he started round upon her, Selden caught a glimpse of his face. It was Halsey, of the Journal.