Chapter 11

"Which may mean much or little," he replied.

"Just so.--You may try your diplomatic methods on solving the problem."

"My methods or my mind?" he asked.

"Your mental methods," she replied.

"I pass!" he exclaimed. "You may explain at dinner."

"Meanwhile, I recommend you to your diplomatic mind."

"Until dinner?"

"Certainly--and forever after, Mr. Harleston, be an ordinary man with me, please."

"Do you fancy that a _seeing_ man can be just an ordinary man when _you_ are with him?" he asked.

"I'm not required to fancy you what you're not," she returned.

"In other words, I'm not a seeing man?"

"Not especially, sir.--And there's another problem, for your diplomacy. _À bientôt_, Monsieur Harleston."

He telephoned to the Club for a taxi to be at the door at a quarter to seven; then dressed leisurely and descended.

"Any developments?" he inquired of Miss Williams.

"None," she replied. "Ripples hasn't come down yet."

"All right," said he. "Tell me in the morning--you're on duty then?"

She answered by a nod, the flash was calling her, and he passed on toward the door--just as the elevator shot down and Madeline Spencer stepped out.

"How do you do, Mr. Harleston?" said she, with a broad smile.

"Hello, Mrs. Spencer! I'm glad to see you," he returned. "If you're bound for the Chateau or downtown, won't you let me take you in my car? It's at the door."

"If you think you dare to risk your reputation, I'll be glad to accept," she replied.

"Is it a risk?" he asked.

"That is for you to judge," as he put her in.

"The Chateau?" he inquired;--and when she nodded he leaned forward and gave the order.

"I was surprised to see you--" he began.

"Why pretend you were surprised to see me?" she laughed. "You were not; nor am I to see you. We are too old foes to pretend as to the non-essentials--when each knows them. The cards are on the table, Guy, play them open."

"How many cards are on the table?" he asked.

"All of mine."

"Then it's double dummy--with a blind deck on the side."

"Whose side?" she flashed back.

"Yours!" he returned pleasantly.

"What am I concealing?" she demanded.

"I don't know. If I did--it would be easier for me."

"The one thing I haven't told you, I can't tell you: the precise character of the business that brings me here. I've told you all I know--and broken my oath to do it. I can't well do more, Guy."

"No, you can't well do more," Harleston conceded. "And I can't well do less under all the--admitted circumstances; inferentially and directly admitted."

"Why did you--butt in?" she asked. "Why didn't you let the cab, and the letter, and well enough alone?"

"It was so mysterious; and so full of possibilities," he smiled. "And when I did it, I didn't know that you were interested."

"And it would have made you all the more prying if you had known," she retorted.

"Possibly! I've never yet heard that personal feelings entered into the diplomatic secret service--and no more have you, my lady."

"Personal feelings!" she smiled, and shrugged his answer aside. "When did you first know that I was concerned in this affair?"

"When I saw you in the Chateau," he replied--there was no obligation on him to mention the photograph.

"Which was?" she asked.

"The evening I met you in Peacock Alley. How long then had you been here?"

"Two days!"

"And not a word to me?"

"'Personal feelings do not enter into the diplomatic secret service,'" she quoted mockingly.

"Precisely," he agreed, "We understand each other and the game."

It served his purpose not to notice the mock in her tones. He very well understood what it imported and what prompted it. For the first time the tigress had disclosed her claws. Hitherto it was always the soft caress and the soothing purr--and when she wished, her caress could be very soft and her purr very soothing. He had assumed that there were claws, but she had hidden them from him; and what is ever hidden one after a time forgets. And she had some justification for her resentment. He admitted to himself that his attitude and manner had been such as might cause her to believe that she was more to him than an opponent in a game, that he was about to forgive her past, and to ask her to warrant only for the future. And he had a notion that she was prepared to warrant and to keep the warrant--even as she had done with the Duke of Lotzen. Now it was ended. He knew it.

And she knew it, too. One sight of Mrs. Clephane with him and she realized that he was lost to her: Mrs. Clephane had all her outward grace and beauty, but not her past. Her woman's intuition had told her in the red-room of the Chateau; she knew absolutely when she saw his greeting to Mrs. Clephane in the corridor after her escape. She must go back to her Count de M----, her Cabinet Minister, and her Russian Grand Duke. The only two men she had ever cared for would have none of her, despite her beauty and her fascination. Dalberg ever had scorned her; Harleston had looked with favour, wavered, was about to yield, when another--outwardly her _alter ego_, save only in the colour of her hair--appeared and filched him from her. And whether Dalberg's scorn or Harleston's defection was the more humiliating, she did not know. Together they made a mocking and a desolation of her love and her life. And as she came to hate with a fierce hatred the Princess whom Dalberg loved, so with an even more bitter hatred she hated Mrs. Clephane who had won Harleston from her. For while with Dalberg she never had the slightest chance, and knew it perfectly, with Harleston there was the bitterness of blasted hopes as well as of defeat.

And Harleston, sitting there beside her, the perfume of her hair and garments heavy about him, read much that was in her thoughts; and some remorse smote him--a little of remorse, that is--and he would have said something in mitigation of her judgment. But a look at her--and the excuse was put aside and the subject ended before it was even begun. She was not one to accept excuses or to be proffered them, it were best to let the matter rest. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clephane must be warned of the danger confronting her.

He glanced again at her--and met her subtle smile.

"This Mrs. Clephane," she remarked with quiet derision, "wherein is she different from the rest of us?"

"By 'us' you mean whom?" he asked.

"The women you have known."

"And seen?"

"And seen."

"You're exceedingly catholic!" he smiled.

"You're exceedingly exclusive--and precipitate; and you haven't answered my question. Wherein is Mrs. Clephane different from the rest of us?"

"At the risk of being personal," he replied, "I should say that she is very like you in face and figure and manner. If her hair were black, the resemblance would be positively striking."

"Then, since we're on the personal equation, the difference is where?"

He threw up his hands and laughed to avoid the obvious answer, an answer which she knew, and knew he wished to avoid.

"The difference is where?" she repeated.

"I shall let you judge if there is a difference, and if there is, what it is," he replied.

"I wish to know _your_ mind, Mr. Harleston--I already know my own."

"Good girl!" he applauded.

"Please put me aside and consider Mrs. Clephane," she insisted. "Is she cleverer than--well, than I am?"

"You are the cleverest woman that I have ever known."

"Is she more intellectual?"

"Preserve me from the intellectual woman!" he exclaimed.

"Is she more travelled?"

"I think not."

"Is she superficially more cultured?"

"I should say not."

"Has she a better disposition?"

"No one could have a better disposition than you have ever shown to me."

"Is she more fascinating in manner?"

"She couldn't be!"

"She _is_ younger?" tentatively.

Harleston did not reply.

"But very little--two or three years, maybe?" she added.

Again Harleston did not reply.

"Is her conversation more entertaining?" she resumed.

"Impossible!"

"Or more edifying?"

"Excuse me again!" he exclaimed. "Edifying is in the same class as intellectual."

"Then all Mrs. Clephane has on me is a few years?"

He nodded.

"Other things don't count with you, I assume--when they're of the past, and both have been a trifle tinctured."

She said it with affected carelessness and a ravishing smile; but Harleston was aware that underneath there was bitterness of spirit, and cold hate of the other woman. She had touched the pinch of the matter. Both knew it, and both knew the answer. Yet she was hoping against hope; and he was loath to hurt her needlessly, because Mrs. Clephane would be sure to catch the recoil, and because he himself was very fond of her--despite all and Mrs. Clephane. He had seen his mistake in time, if it was a mistake, but that did not blind him to Madeline Spencer's fascinating manner and beautiful person, and to the fact that she cared for him. However, neither might he let pass the charge she had just made against Mrs. Clephane. Yet he tried to be kind to the woman beside him, while defending the woman who was absent, and, as is often the case under such circumstances he played for time--the hotel was but a block away--and made a mess of it, so far as the woman beside him was concerned.

"Who are a trifle tinctured--and with what?" he asked.

She smiled languidly.

"That is scarcely worthy of you, Guy," she remarked. "You are aiming at--windmills; at least, I think you are not suddenly gone stupid. However, you do not need to answer. Mrs. Clephane, you think, is not tinctured, and you know that I have been--several shades deep. In other words, she surpasses me in your estimation in the petty matter of morals. So be it; you're no fool, and a pretty woman cannot blind you to the facts for long. Then we shall see which you prefer. The woman who is honest about the tincture, or the woman who is not. Now let us drop the matter, and attend strictly to business until such time as the present business is ended,--and Mrs. Clephane appears as she is."

"So be it!" Harleston replied heartily, "We understand each other, Madeline."

"Yes, we understand each other," she said laconically, as the car drew in to the curb.

"So well, indeed," he continued, as he gave her his hand to the sidewalk, "that I have to arrange for you to meet the Secretary of State at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Where?" said she, looking at him narrowly.

"In his office. You would like to meet him, Madeline?"

"I don't know what your play is," she laughed, "but I'll meet him--and take my chances. From all I can learn, the gentleman isn't much but bumptiousness and wind. To either you or me, Guy, he should be easy."

"The play," Harleston explained, "is that the Secretary has heard of you and wishes to see the remarkable woman who--almost upset a throne."

"His wish shall be gratified," she shrugged. "Will you come for me, or am I to go to him--a rendezvous _à deux_?"

"I'll escort you to him--afterward it will depend on you."

"Very good!" she replied--"but all the same I wonder what's the game."

"The Secretary's wish and curiosity is the only game," he replied.

"Far be it from me to balk either--when something may result of advantage to your--"

"--beautiful and fascinating self," he interjected.

She raised her eyebrows and laughed scornfully, as the lift bore her upwards.

XVI

ANOTHER LETTER

Harleston sauntered through Peacock Alley; not finding Mrs. Clephane, he had himself announced and went up to her apartment.

Outwardly he was impassive; inwardly there was the liveliest sensation of eagerness and anticipation. He could not recall a time when he had so much joy in living, and in the expectation of the woman. And when he felt Mrs. Clephane's small hand in his, and heard her bid him welcome, and looked into her eyes, he was well content to be alive--and with her.

"I've quite a lot to tell you," she smiled. "I'm so glad you could dine with me--it will give us much more time."

"Time is not of the essence of this contract," he replied.

"What contract?" she asked, with a fetching little frown of perplexity.

"The contract of the present--and the future."

"Oh, you mean our friendship--and that you won't doubt me ever again?"

"Precisely--and then some," he confided.

"What is the 'some', Mr. Harleston?" frowning again in perplexity.

"Whatever may happen," he said slowly.

"You mean it?" she asked.

"I mean it--and more--when I may."

"The 'more' and the 'may' are in the future," she remarked. "Meanwhile, what have you to report?"

"Very considerable," said he. "Mrs. Spencer was in the Collingwood, this afternoon--in the Chartrands' apartment. And the telephone girl recognized her as the woman who left the building on the night of the--cab."

"That explains a lot to you!" Mrs. Clephane exclaimed.

"The explanation isn't necessary, except to complete the chain of events," he replied. "We know the later and essential facts as to the letter. There is just one earlier circumstance that isn't clear to me; and while, as I say, it's immaterial yet I'm curious. How did the Spencer gang know that I had taken the letter from the cab?"

"Oh!" Mrs. Clephane cried. "I fancy I can explain. You know I saw you at the cab. Well, when they released me, I concluded I'd give them something to think about, and I remarked that Mr. Harleston, of the United States Diplomatic Service, had stopped at the cab, looked inside, and then started the horse out Massachusetts Avenue. I thought I had told you."

"You didn't tell me, but it's very plain now. Madeline Spencer inferred the rest and instructed them how to act. And they came very close to turning the trick."

"You mean to getting the letter?" she cried.

He nodded. "I had gone to bed, when something told me to take precautions; I carried the letter across the corridor and gave it to a friend to keep for me until morning. A short time after, the three men called."

"Good Heavens!" she breathed. "What if they had gotten the letter."

"Unless they knew the key-word, they wouldn't have been any better off than are we--I mean than is the United States."

"I'm France, am I?" she smiled.

"For only this once--and not for long, I trust," he replied.

"Amen!" she exclaimed, "Also for ever more. I'll be so relieved to be out of it and back to my normal ways that I gladly promise never to try it again. I'm committed to seeing this affair through and to aiding the French Embassy in whatever way I can, both because I must keep faith with Madame Durrand, and because my inexperience and credulity lost it the letter. That done, and I'm for--you, Mr. Harleston!" she laughed.

"And I'm for you always--no matter whom you're for, nor what you may do or have done," he replied.

For just an instant she gave him her eyes; then the colour flamed up and she turned hastily away.

"Sit down, sir," she commanded--most adorably he thought; "I had almost forgotten that I have something to tell you."

"You've been telling me a great deal," he confided.

She shrugged her answer over her shoulder, and peremptorily motioned him to a chair.

"Madame Durrand has been located," she began. "The Embassy telephoned me that she is in Passavant Hospital, getting along splendidly; and that she duly wired them of her accident and of my having the letter, with an identifying description of me. The wire was never received."

"It was blocked by a _present_," he remarked. "The wire never left the hospital."

"So the Marquis d'Hausonville said. He also assured me that the letter was of no immediate importance, and that steps were being taken to have it repeated."

"Which may be true," Harleston smiled, "but it is entirely safe to assume that he is acting precisely as though the letter was of the most immediate importance. You may be sure that the moment you left him he dispatched a cable to Paris reciting the facts, so that the Foreign Office could judge whether to cable the letter or to dispatch it by messenger. And he has the reply hours ago."--("Also," he might have added, "our State Department--only it may not be able to translate it.") "I should say, Mrs. Clephane, that your duty is done now, unless the Marquis calls on you for assistance. You have performed your part--"

"Very poorly," she interjected.

"On the contrary, you have performed it exceptionally well. You, a novice at this business, prevented the letter from falling into Spencer's hands, and so you blocked that part of their game. No, no, Mrs. Clephane, I regard you as more than acquitted of blame."

"You're always nice, Mr. Harleston!" she responded.

"Nice expresses very inadequately what I wish to be to you," he said slowly.

Again the flush came--and her glance wavered, and fled away.

"Meanwhile," he went on, "I am quite content to know that you think me nice to you."

She sprang up and moved out of distance, saying as she did so, with a ravishing smile:

"Nice is comprehended in other pleasant--adjectives."

"It is?" said he, advancing slowly toward her.

"But you, Mr. Harleston, are forbidden to guess how pleasant, or the particular adjective, until you're permitted."

"And you'll permit me to guess some day--and soon."

"Maybe so--and maybe not!" she laughed. "It will depend on the both of us--and the business in hand. Diplomats, you are well aware, are given to very disingenuous ways and methods."

"In diplomacy," he appended. "A diplomat, as a rule, is merely a man of a little wider experience and more mature judgment--the American diplomat alone excepted, save in the secret service. Therefore he knows his mind, and what he wants; and he usually can be depended upon to keep after it until he gets it."

"And to want it after he gets it?" she inquired.

"Don't be cynical," he cautioned.

"I'm not. The world looks good to me, and I try to look good to the world."

"You have succeeded!" he exclaimed.

"I've about-faced," she went on. "Now I presume everybody trustworthy until it's proven otherwise. Time was, and not so long ago, when I was more than cynical; and I found it didn't pay in a woman. A man may be cynical and get away with it; a woman only injures her complexion, and makes trouble for herself. Me for the happy spirit, and side-stepping the bumps."

"Good girl!" Harleston applauded--thinking of her unhappy spirit, and the hard bumps she must have endured during the time that the late deceased Clephane was whirling to an aeroplane finish. "You're a wonder, Mrs. Clephane," he ended.

"Aren't you afraid you'll make me vain?" she asked.

"It can't be done," he averred. "You simply can't be spoiled; you're much too sensible."

"La! la!" she trilled. "What a paragon of--"

--"everything," he adjected.

"Everything that I must be, if you so wish it."

"Just so!" he replied.

"Aren't you afraid of a paragon, Mr. Harleston?"

"Generally, yes; specifically, no."

"La! la!" she trilled again. "You're becoming mystic; which means mysterious, which means diplomatic, which means deception--which warns us to get back to the simple life and have dinner. Want dinner, Mr. Harleston?"

"With you, yes; also breakfast and luncheon daily."

"You couldn't do that unless you were my husband," she replied tantalizingly and adorably.

"I'm perfectly aware of it," he responded, leaning forward over the back of the chair that separated them.

"But I'm not ready to take a husband, monsieur," she protested lightly.

"I'm perfectly aware of that also. When you are ready, madame, I am ready too. Until then I'm your good friend--and dinner companion."

He had spoken jestingly--yet the jest was mainly pretence; the real passion was there and ready the instant he let it control. As for Mrs. Clephane, Harleston did not know. Nor did she herself know--more than that she was quite content to be with him, and let him do for her, assured that he would not misunderstand, nor misinterpret, nor presume. So, across the chair's back, she held out her hand to him; and he took it, pressed it lightly, but answered never a word.

"Now you shall hear the special matter I've got bottled up," said she. "Whom do you think was here late this afternoon?"

"The Emperor of Spain!" he guessed.

"A diplomatic answer!" she mocked. "There is no Emperor of Spain; yet it's not absolutely wide of the diplomatic truth, for it was Mrs. Buissard--she of the cab, you'll remember."

"So!" Harleston exclaimed. "What's the move now; I fancy she was not paying a social visit."

"You fancy correctly," Mrs. Clephane replied. "She came to the apartment unannounced; and when I, chancing to be passing the door when she knocked, opened it, and saw who was without, I almost cried out with surprise. I didn't cry out, however. On the contrary, remembering diplomatic ways, I most cordially invited her in. To do her justice, Mrs. Buissard, beyond expressing hope that I had experienced no ill effect from the occurrence of the other night, wasted no time in coming to business."

"'Mrs. Clephane,' she said, sitting on the corner of the table just where you are sitting now, 'I have a proposition to make to you--may I make it?'

"I could see no reason to forbid, so I acquiesced.

"'And if you cannot accept straightway, will you promise to forget that it was made?' she asked.

"Again I acquiesced. I admit, I was curious.

"'We assume,' said she, 'that between France and Germany you are indifferent.'

"'Paris and Berlin have each their good points,' I replied.

"'Quite so,' she acquiesced; 'just now, however, we ask you to favour Berlin and for a consideration.'

"'I don't want a consideration,' I smiled; 'tell me what's the favour you seek?'

"'We ask you,' she replied instantly, 'to take a letter to the French Ambassador and tell him that it is the letter Madame Durrand gave you in New York, and that it has just been returned to you by the American State Department.'

"'Have you the letter with you?' I asked.

"'I have,' she replied, producing it from her bag. 'It may not exactly resemble the original.'

"'It doesn't,' said I.

"'But the French Ambassador won't know it,' she smiled. 'Further, so as to make the matter entirely regular with you, you will receive an appointment in the German Secret Service and five thousand dollars in advance.'

"'Is it usual to--change sides so suddenly?' I asked.

"'You're not changing sides,' she explained. 'You've never had a side, in the diplomatic sense. It is entirely regular in diplomacy for you to take such a course as is proposed; there is nothing unusual about it. And, my dear Mrs. Clephane, a position in the German Foreign Secret Service is a rare plum, I can assure you, even though you may not care to be--active in it.'

"Naturally, I understood. Mrs. Spencer thinking me the same type as herself, without conscience, character, or morals, had evolved this plan either to test me or to ensnare me. To test me, because she is jealous of you; or to ensnare me because she wants to win out diplomatically--or both, it may be. I am a poor hand at pretence; but I played the game, as you would say, to the best of my ability. So I seemed to fall in with her scheme; France was nothing to me; I had been given no option in the matter of accepting the letter and attempting its delivery; I had done all and more than could be expected of a disinterested person; I had lost the letter but through no fault of mine. I was acquitted of further responsibility; was at liberty to choose. And Mrs. Buissard agreed with me in everything. In the end, I accepted the spurious letter for delivery to the French Ambassador."

"Good!" Harleston applauded. "You're learning the method of diplomacy very rapidly; fire with fire, ruse with ruse, deceit with deceit--anything for the object in hand."

"It went against me to do it," she admitted, "but I'll pay them in their own coin--or something to that effect. Of course, I've no intention of delivering the letter to the French Embassy. I'll deliver it to you instead."