The World Masters Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  Nearly a year had passed since General Ducros had dined with CountValdemar and Ma'm'selle Sophie in Paris. It was Cowes week, and therewas quite a cosmopolitan party at Orrel Court. Adelaide de Conde andMadame de Bourbon were the best of friends with Count Valdemar andSophie. Clifford Vandel and Miss Chrysie were good friends witheverybody, the latter especially good friends with Hardress, whosework was now rapidly approaching completion. In short, it was ascharming a cosmopolitan party as you could have found on the Hampshireshore, or anywhere else; and none of the other guests of Lord Orrel,and there were several of them not unskilled in diplomacy, ever dreamtthat under the surface of the smooth-flowing conversation, whetherround the dinner-table at the Court, on the _Nadine_, which ran downthe Southampton Water every day that there was a good race on, or atClifford Vandel's bungalow at Cowes, whose smoothly shaven lawn slopeddown almost to the water's edge, lay undercurrents of plot andcounterplot, the issue of which was the question whether the dominionof the world was to be committed to Anglo-Saxon or Franco-Slav hands.

  One night--it was the evening after the great regatta--threeconversations took place under the roof of Orrel Court, which thegreatest newspapers of the two hemispheres would have given any amountof money to be able to report, since each of them was possiblypregnant with the fate of the world.

  When Clifford Vandel came up from the smoking-room a little aftereleven he found Miss Chrysie waiting for him in the sitting-room ofthe suite of apartments that had been given to them in the easternwing of the old mansion.

  "Don't you think you ought to be in bed, Chrysie, instead of sittingthere smoking a cigarette, and--Why, what's the matter with you,girl?"

  He had begun with something like a note of reproach in his voice, butthe last words were spoken in a tone of tender concern.

  She got up from her chair, went to the door, and shut it and lockedit, and then, with her half-smoked cigarette poised between herfingers, her face pale, and her eyes aflame, she faced him and said,in low, quick-flowing tones:

  "Poppa, can't you see what's the matter?--you, who can see thingsmonths before they happen, and make millions by gambling on them?--youwho did up Morgan himself over that wireless telegraphy combine--can'tyou see what's going on right here just under your nose?"

  "My dear Chrysie, what are you talking about? I've not noticedanything particular happening, except what's happened in the rightway. What's the trouble?"

  "The trouble's that Frenchwoman--that second edition of MarieAntoinette. Can't you see what she's doing every hour and day of herlife? Can't you see that she's as beautiful as an angel, and--well, asclever as the other thing, and that she's just playing her hand forall she's worth to get the man I want--the man I half-promised myselfto a year ago!"

  "Perhaps I've been too busy about other matters, and perhaps I neverexpected anything of the sort," replied her father; "and anyhow, menare fools at seeing this kind of thing; but if that's so, and youreally do want him, why not promise yourself altogether and fix thingsup? There's no man I'd sooner have for a son-in-law; and if you wanthim, and he wants you, why----"

  "It's just there, poppa, that I'm feeling bad about it," she said,coming nearer to him, and speaking with a little break in her voice."I'm not so sure that he does want me now--at least, not quite asbadly as he did that time when he asked me first in Buffalo. Don't yousee that Frenchwoman's bewitched him? And who could blame him, afterall? What do all the society papers say about her? The most beautifulwoman in Europe--the great-great-grand-daughter of Louis theMagnificent himself, with the noblest blood of France in her veins!How could any man with eyes in his head and blood in his heart resisther? Why, I could no more compare with her than----"

  "Than a wild rose in one of these beautiful English lanes couldcompare with a special variety of an orchid in a hothouse; and Iguess, Chrysie, that if I haven't made a great mistake about ShaftoHardress--if he does get a bit intoxicated with the scent of theorchid, if it comes to winning and wearing the flower, he'll take thewild rose. If he doesn't--well, I guess you'll do pretty well withouthim."

  "But I just can't do without him, poppa. You are the only one I'd tellit to, but that's so; and before that Frenchwoman gets him I'd haveher out and shoot her. Women in her country fight duels. And there'smore to it than that," she went on, after a little pause.

  "And what might that be, Miss Fire-eater?" said her father,half-laughing, half-seriously.

  "I believe that she and that Russian girl, who goes languishing aroundShafto when the marquise or myself isn't around, know more than theyshould do about this storage scheme. I don't say I've beenlistening--I wouldn't do it--no, not even for them; but sometimes youcan't help hearing; and only the day before yesterday, out in thegrounds there, I heard both of them, not to each other, but atdifferent times to Count Valdemar, mention the name of Victor Fargeau;and you know who he is--son of the man whose remains Shafto picked upat sea--creator of this great scheme of yours--a Frenchman who was anofficer in the German army. Now listen: both these women are friendsof General Ducros, the French War Minister. France is sending out thePolar expedition this year that she has been preparing for months--youknow that; so has Russia. Do you see what I mean now?"

  "I guess you've got me on my own ground there, Chrysie," said herfather, laying his hand across her shoulders, and drawing her towardshim. "You were dead right when you said that a woman's intuition cansometimes see quicker and farther than a man's reason; but on thatkind of ground I guess I can see as well as anyone. I admit that Ihave been wondering a bit why just this particular year France andRussia should be sending two Polar expeditions out; but it's prettywell sure that if you hadn't seen that this French marquise and theRussian countess were after the man you want--and the man you're goingto get, too, if he's the man I think he is--I shouldn't have seen whatI see now."

  "And what's that, poppa?"

  "They're not Polar expeditions at all, Chrysie; those ships are nomore trying to go to the North Pole than they're trying to find thesource of the Amazon. You got the key that opens the whole show whenyou heard them talking about Victor Fargeau. They're going to BoothiaLand, that's where they're going to, and they're not going on what theRussians generally call a voyage of scientific discovery. I'd betevery dollar we've got in the Trust that those ships have guns onthem, and there's going to be a fight for that Magnetic Pole afterall. Anyhow, there's a cable going across to Doctor Lamson the firstthing to-morrow morning. If there's anything like that going on, hecan't be on guard any too soon. And now, little girl," he went on,raising his hand and putting it on her head, "you go to bed, and don'tyou worry about Frenchwomen or Russians. Shafto Hardress comes of goodold English and American stock, and he's just as clever as he can bewithout being altogether American. Don't you worry about him. There'snot going to be any trouble in his mind when he has to choose betweena clean-blooded, healthy American girl and anyone else, even if shehas got all the blood of all the Bourbons in her veins, or even if sheis the daughter of Count Valdemar of Russia, whose ancestors, I guess,were half savages when yours were gentlemen. Don't you worry aboutthat, little girl; you just go to bed, and dream about the time whenyou'll be sitting on a throne that Marie Antoinette's wasn't acircumstance to. Now, I have told you, and that's so. Good-night. I'llhave a talk with Lord Orrel to-morrow morning, and see to the businesspart of the affair."

  As Chrysie crossed the long corridor to her own room she caught aglimpse of a tall, graceful figure which she had come to know only toowell, and the sweep of a long, trailing skirt, vanishing through adoor which she knew led into Count Valdemar's dressing-room.

  "That's Sophie," she said. "I wonder if she saw me. She's been withthe marquise, I suppose; and now she's going to have a talk with herfather, something like mine with poppa. It's mean to listen, and Icouldn't do it if I wanted to, but I'd like to give some of thosedollars that poppa's going to make out of this scheme to hear whatshe's going to say, or what she's been saying to the marquise. Ireckon I
could make some history out of it if I knew; but anyhow,there's going to be trouble with that Frenchwoman. I don't think somuch about the Russian. I believe she wants to marry either Lord Orrelor poppa; she's just about as mean as she is pretty and clever. I'djust like to say that English swear-word about her."

  Miss Chrysie said that, and many other things, in her soul that nightafter she had laid her head on her pillow; and, even after the demandsof physical fatigue upon a perfectly healthy physique had compelledslumber, she dreamt of herself as a modern Juno, usurping the throneof Jove, and wielding his lightnings, with the especial object ofdestroying utterly from the face of the earth two young ladies, withwhom she was living on apparent terms of the most perfect friendship,and who were even then resting their pretty heads on pillows just likehers under the same roof.