CHAPTER X

FATE & CO.

The particular department of the well-known firm of Fate & Co., to which had been deputed the difficult task of weaving a train of circumstances that would plunge a nation into war, had been working overtime during the forty or so hours that Donald Fenton had been in Serajoz. The web was being surely and unerringly spun, and already certain skeins that represented human lives had been closely interwoven. Three lives, indexed in the ledgers of Fate perhaps by soul numbers, but distinguished from other mortals on earth by the titles of Donald Fenton, the Grand Duke Miridoff, and Olga of Ironia, were so hopelessly tangled, it was apparent that in the unravelling process one or more might be snapped off. Peering at what was ahead, the grim official saw two men stand face to face with the world-old issue to be settled between them, at the same time that angry mobs stormed palace walls for a cause that a stubborn king had forsworn.

And with this objective in view the minion of Fate first prompted a prudent thought to take possession of the mind of Prince Peter that morning, and then saw to it that a whisper of a restaurant brawl and a duel, impending or already fought, reached the ears of the Princess Olga. Acting on the first, Prince Peter decided that in its upset condition Serajoz was no place for his daughter, and notified her that he had decided she must go to his county estate at Kail Baleski until such time as the trouble blew over, and acting on the second, Olga hurriedly summoned her carriage and set out for a house on the Lodz where resided her very great confidante, the Baroness Draschol. Not content with this, the untiring tangler of human skeins prompted a certain little person of exceptional personal charm and international antecedents to don the garb of a peasant woman, muffling her face in a hood, and to set off on foot by sundry unfrequented streets and alleys bound for the same residence in the Lodz.

When he had seen that the princess entered by the front portal at the very moment that the pseudo-peasant knocked at a rear entrance, and had furthermore satisfied himself that Donald Fenton had risen from the breakfast-table and had strolled aimlessly into the library, there to wait for his host who had been called away, the official of Fate was content to sit back and let events take their course, confident that now his human puppets could not deviate from the lines he had laid down for them.

Baroness Draschol received her royal friend in her own sitting-room, which was just across the hall from the library. There they chatted for some time. Olga soon gleaned such information with reference to the postponed duel as the prudent Varden had seen fit to trust to his wife. In the meantime the peasant woman, who had asked at the rear door first for Mr Varden and then for Mr Fenton, and had been admitted only after the transfer of a gold coin, had been escorted to the library, where she removed the heavy hood, revealing the pleasing features of Anna Petrowa.

Fenton, who was becoming inured to surprises of all descriptions, accepted this transformation with equanimity.

"Good morning, mademoiselle," he said, setting a chair for her. "I am delighted to see you, but not surprised. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened for half an hour or so. I felt that the inactivity wouldn't keep up much longer."

"I am so more than glad that monsieur has come to no harm," said the dancer quite earnestly. "I see it all now. It was a plot to trap you, and I an innocent part playing in it. But monsieur, I see, does not think of me as the double traitor."

She placed a finger on her lips to enjoin silence, and then, tip-toeing over beside him, whispered:

"I had not time before we were interrupted to tell the big news that I have learned, and thus have I risked all by coming here so in the broad daylight. It is this: Many of the army officers are with our cunning Miridoff, and a plot is spreading to force Ironia into war against Russia by the same means that they used with Turkey. A body of Ironian troops, acting without official orders, will cross the line to Russia and burn a village or so. The Russians, of course, they retaliate, and then war is certain to follow. It is all arranged, monsieur. Where or when I do not know. Word, I beseech, must be taken at once to his highness."

Fenton sprang up and paced the floor excitedly. "Of course, it is exactly what they would do," he exclaimed. "Last night has shown them that they cannot win by fair means. Mr Varden is out, mademoiselle, but will be back in a very few minutes. Word shall be taken to Prince Peter as soon as he returns."

In the course of a minute or so Fenton's thoughts, occupied with the important information that she had brought, turned to the consideration of how so vital a piece of news had been obtained. He stood in front of his intrepid companion and regarded her with stimulated interest and quite frank admiration.

"I can't understand it at all," he said. "Try as I may I can't really associate you with plots and counter-plots and secret meetings, and associations with all the rag-tag and bob-tail of Balkan intrigue. You are so fair, so young, so--well, so completely feminine that I can't see how you succeed in work that belongs, by its very nature, to the rougher animal, man."

"You are mistaken, Mistaire Fenton," she protested, "and your mistake is so thoroughly masculine! It should not be difficult for a woman to do the work I am doing. It is the work a woman can do best; it is subtle, it requires keen observation of the little things, it means that always the right word must be used; it needs some personal charm, monsieur, and a thorough knowledge of how to exploit it. Women--and women only--can be depended upon for the more delicate missions of secret service. It is man--direct, blundering, outspoken man, who thinks judgment better than intuition--who does not fit into the picture."

"You put it so well that I am almost convinced," smiled Fenton. "Still, I don't like to think of you having to associate with the likes of Miridoff and his murder crew. There are two spheres in which I like to picture you--on the stage earning the plaudits of the world, and in a cosy chair on the hearth of some lucky man's home."

"You are quite hopeless, _mon ami_," she sighed. "Your view-point--it is so masculine--so one-sided. Man regards woman in but two ways--he wants to possess her and to show her off. If she feels that she must achieve more than man's fatuous approval he frowns, objects, bullies, even uses force to stop her. Is it not so?"

"It is clear that you have travelled over much in America," said Fenton with a laugh. "Are such ideas common among the women of your own country?"

"Advanced thought, it is found everywhere," she replied. The conversation was becoming too abstruse for her scanty English, and she abruptly changed to French, where she was more at home. "In your America the positions have been reversed. There it is the woman who has the complete freedom and the man who is tied. The American--he is too easy. He has but two functions left to him--business and the support of his women-folk."

"Mademoiselle is a sage, I see, as well as so many other things," said Fenton, not a little puzzled at the change that had come over her. From a dainty little person, full of coquettish wiles and sidelong glances, she had suddenly become a serious woman, full of the fire of earnest purpose and determination. Genuinely interested, he asked, "Tell me, mademoiselle, do you really like this life? Can you enjoy it, with all its dangers, its insincerities, its cruelties?"

For a moment she did not answer. Her glance wandered to a window and fixed itself on outer space, while a smile that was at once brave and wistful played at the corners of her mouth.

"Yes, I like it, _mon ami_," she said. "It is hard; it robs one of treasured illusions; it takes the silver finish off life and shows the brass beneath. A woman who plays the great game misses much that women are supposed to want--and do want. It may be that these things will be missed from my life, but--I will not regret them. This life means that I am standing alone, fighting against things, combating circumstances, and shaping them to my own ends, trying to grasp from an unwilling hand the fruit success."

"You are right," said Fenton emphatically. "It is the fight for achievement that makes things worth while. It is seldom though that a woman comes to a realisation of so virile a philosophy of life. There I go again," he said with a laugh. "My purely masculine judgment of women! But tell me of your experiences. I am sure you must have things to tell which would be of great interest. You have seen much of this sort of thing--this--what our statesmen call diplomacy."

Anna was nothing loath. In her inimitably pretty way she told of her life from the time when she first joined the Russian Imperial ballet, relating incidents in her struggles as a dancer, but more of her life as an agent of the secret service. She told of a certain affair at Monte Carlo, when documents had to be abstracted from a personage of royal rank; of the theft and recovery of important naval plans which had been the key to a significant and tense international crisis.

Fenton listened to her with an interest that was all engrossing, but all the time there remained at the back of his mind--despite her earlier admonition--a sense of incongruity. There was something irreconcilable with the accepted order of things in this dainty butterfly doing the work which kept nations from each other's throats, or helped to precipitate them into conflict.

As she talked the aforementioned Grim Official stirred himself up to complete certain complications that he had planned. He caused the Baroness Draschol to leave the Princess Olga for a moment. He impelled the latter to rise and stray into the hall. He then brought the dancer to her feet with a rather incredulous "How I have talked!" while she almost unconsciously put both hands into Fenton's and looked up into his face.

Neither of them heard the soft swish of a skirt in the hall. Neither of them knew that the curtains had parted.

"I have been so interested," said Fenton. "You are really wonderful!"

Then he turned in time to look into the rather startled, rather incredulous, rather angry eyes of Princess Olga. It was but for a moment, then the curtains fell back into place, and the intruder, with a murmured word of apology, had melted away again.

Having thus succeeded in effecting the desired situation, Fate & Co. proceeded briskly with what was to follow. Varden was brought into the library by another door, and into a most solemn conference with Anna. A brief meeting was engineered between Olga, the Baroness and Fenton, during which the Princess, with the coldest of courtesy, expressed her gratitude to Mr Fenton for the part he had played in saving her father's life, while Fenton, abashed and miserable, watched her with adoring eyes and a tongue that refused to attempt the difficult task of explanation. Then a few precious moments were vouchsafed him alone with her. Olga did not appear too well pleased, but accepted the situation with good grace.

"Mr Fenton is staying long in Ironia?" she asked politely.

"I hardly know," replied the Canadian. "It will depend upon circumstances. I thought I might be useful here, but so far my presence has only served to create trouble."

"Perhaps we of Ironia do not understand your ways," she said, looking him very steadily in the eyes. "We may perhaps be too prone to take you seriously in everything you do--and say."

"Your highness, I trust you do not charge me with insincerity," said Fenton earnestly. "I have not been conscious of uttering a word which I have not meant. Let me explain----"

"It will be perhaps well for the simple maids of Ironia if Mr Fenton does not stay too long," went on the princess in even tones. "The strange new ideas that he holds of love, and all pertaining thereto, and the boldness of his address, might perhaps impress too deeply such as did not realise he was bent solely on amusement."

"You do not understand," said Fenton, "and you are unjust. You would understand if I explained everything to you, but unfortunately I am not permitted to do that. Matters of state are involved."

"Explanations are neither necessary nor desirable," said Olga calmly. Then she extended her hand lightly. "We may not meet again, Mr Fenton."

The Canadian touched her hand with his lips, then for a moment held it close in both of his. "We shall meet again, your highness," he declared confidently.