Part 58

For P. C. Breagh had picked the little parcel up and restored it to his hand. He took it, returned it to the envelope with the letter, and said with unsmiling gravity, striking a finger on the envelope:

"In the face of this--are you married, Mademoiselle?"

She answered him dauntlessly:

"No, Monseigneur!"

"Th-then," he asked, with his portentous lisp, "wh-why on earth did you--did you pretend to be?"

She answered with surprising quietude:

"To make my place in this house more secure."

"Ah! Might one ask why?"

He put the question with irony. She answered with astonishing composure and dignity:

"Because at that period I desired to gain the opportunity to--kill you, Monseigneur!"

A sound came from Breagh's throat like a curse or a groan or a sob, or all together. Her clear gaze was troubled for a moment, she caught her breath in a fluttering sigh.

"To kill me?..." said the resonant voice of the great figure that upreared its bulk before the dancing hearth-blaze that threw broad lights and shadows upon the ceiling and walls of the darkly-papered drawing-room. It was a bitter, wintry day of sickly white sunshine, and smileless skies of leaden grayness. Freezing sleet-drops rattled on the terrace-windows, outside which the giant ex-porter of the Wilhelm Strasse waited, blowing from time to time upon his chilly knuckles and beating his great arms upon his vast chest to keep them warm, but never removing the sharp little piggish eyes under his low red forehead from the figure of P. C. Breagh....

"To kill me!" said the Chancellor, as a springing hearth-flame threw a giant shadow of him upon the double doors that divided the drawing-room from the billiard-room, where the staff of clerks and decipherers labored from early morning until far into the night.

In the silence that his voice had broken, his keen ear heard a quill pen buck upon a page. He imagined the splash of ink upon the thick creamy Chancellery paper, that had evoked the "Tsch!" of the dismayed clerk, even as he queried: "Might I ask why? It would be interesting to know."

The firelight was full upon Juliette as she answered:

"Because you have made this War;--because through it I have been orphaned and made desolate; but chiefly because you are the merciless enemy of France. These milliards you would wring from her veins ... these groans torn from her heart ... these indignities to all she holds most sacred!... Your scorn and contempt of these great men--Chiefs of her Government--who have stooped to beg from you consideration ... for these things, see you well--you have been accursed in my eyes. I have said to myself a thousand times, that to kill you would be to save my country, and not a sin unpardonable in the eyes of Almighty God!..."

"Your theology is as defective," said the Chancellor, "as your sentiments are patriotic...." He surveyed the small slight figure before him rather ogreishly from under his shaggy brows. "And so," he said, with his wounding irony, "you thought to play the part of a Judith to my Holofernes--a little skip o' my thumb like you.... My good young lady, had you succeeded in murdering me, how was it your intention to evade summary justice? For you could not have escaped detection.... You must be aware of that!"

She said with her quiet dignity, one hand upon her slight bosom, her clear eyes upon the angry, powerful stare that would have crushed another woman down:

"I should not have tried to escape, Monseigneur!"

He commented sarcastically:

"Fanatics are the most dangerous of conspirators. Life has no value--Death has no terrors for them. They believe themselves superior to all laws, both human and Divine. And how, may one ask, would you have done my business? To have dispatched me by poison would have been easiest, for you have assisted our Foreign Office cook. Yes! Possibly it would have been poison?"

She said between her close-set teeth, hissingly:

"It should, Monseigneur, but for one thing!..."

His powerful glance rested on her curiously:

"Ah, Fury!" he said, and with her wild black disheveled locks, her eyes that darted vengeful blue fire, the gloomy brows that frowned over them, the long upper lip pinched down over the little closely-set white teeth, hers was not unlike the mask of a Medusa, wrought in onyx by the hand of some Greek master dead a thousand years ago.

"Ah, Fury!--and what was that one thing? To what fortunate breakage of pots in the kitchen will the Prussian King owe it that he has still a Chancellor, when he is crowned Emperor of Germany in the Palace of Versailles at the beginning of the New Year?"

Here was news. So the recalcitrant States had at last been ringed in. So the sensitive objections of His Majesty the King of Bavaria had been by some means overcome.... P. C. Breagh drew a sharp breath at the hearing. The speaker flashed upon him a cynical look.

"There," he said, "is a tit-bit for some enterprising Editor, were it possible to get a wire through to Fleet Street. You see what comes, Mr. Breagh, of being false to one's principles. A few months ago you said to me--I have an excellent memory for such utterances: '_It would be better to cadge in the dustbins for a living than make money out of information gained by trickery._' Yet you have not scrupled to live in this house disguised as a common servant. Really, to one who is aware of your ambitions, the whole thing has--a kind of stink!"

The prodded victim uttered an incoherent exclamation. Juliette cried indignantly:

"It is not true! How can you wrong him so? If you do not know what you owe to him, I will tell you. It is he who has saved your life!"

She flamed out all at once into a rage and cried, seeming to tower to twice her stature:

"Because you have robbed me of my father, and because you are the great enemy of France I would have killed you. I tried to hide this from him, and he found it out. He stayed here--at what risk you know!--for my sake and for your sake.... How often has he not said to me: 'You shall not do it. He once saved me!... You shall not do it because he has a daughter, by whom he is beloved, perhaps, as your father was by you!... You tell me that her portrait stands by his bedside. Go and look at it, and you will never be able to do this hideous thing!' And I went and looked at her portrait, and it was as he had told me.... That night I threw away the poison and swore an oath upon the Crucifix, that, come what might, I would never seek your life!..."

"Halt, there!" he bade her, in his rough, masterful manner. "Touch that bell upon the table near you!" he said to Breagh. As Breagh obeyed and von Keudell entered by the door leading from the hall, shutting it upon a glimpse of the stalwart Grams and the athletic Engelberg, "Fetch me that bottle," he said, "that was picked up by the sentry in the adjoining garden. I gave it to you to lock away for me."

Von Keudell vanished. In the interval that elapsed before his reëntrance the Minister turned his back upon Mademoiselle and her comrade, rested a hand upon the mantelshelf, and said, as he kicked back a burning billet that had tumbled out of the heart of the red fire:

"All that about my daughter's portrait is _quatsch_!" He suddenly wheeled upon Mademoiselle, thundering: "You were frightened. That is why you seized an opportunity to pitch away your witches' sauce.... Confess! Be candid! Have I not read you? Were not your fine heroic frenzies all assumed to impress--him?" He indicated P. C. Breagh by an overhand thumb-gesture. "Was it not for this spoony fellow's benefit you wrote yourself letters from an imaginary _Franc-tireur_--full of bombastic vaporings and bloodthirsty denunciations borrowed from the columns of Parisian rags?"

"Monseigneur!..."

She was taken aback. She faltered, flushed, whitened, conscious of the reproachful stare of Breagh's honest gray eyes.

"Did I not tell you?--everything is known to me!... Not only have I read those letters you hid in the mouth of that grinning Pan in the garden--but here is the bottle you threw away!..."

He took it from von Keudell and showed it her--a squat, wide-mouthed chemist's ounce vial, half full of whitish powder, and read from the label:

"ARSENIC: (_Poison._)

"_The powder as prescribed, to be diluted with Three Parts of Milk, and applied as directed, for clearing the complexion and freshening the skin._"

Crash!...

A turn of his wrist, and the corked-up vial flew into the fireplace, smashing on the chimney-bricks and raising showers of crimson sparks from the billets blazing there. A rich incense of scorching wool arose from the Brussels carpet. P. C. Breagh stamped out one red-hot cinder, Von Keudell darted in pursuit of a remoter danger. The Minister himself was fain to extinguish another by vigorous stamps of his heavy spurred riding-boots.

"Take warning," he said to Juliette, a little breathed by his exertions, and wiping his high-domed forehead and florid cheeks with a large white handkerchief, carried, in military fashion, in the cuff of his coat. "In this way dangerous, high-flown emotions should be repressed in young girls, by sensible parents. In what a false and perilous position have your hysterical notions placed you...."

He coughed and hawked, and wiped his mouth with the big white handkerchief, put it away and said, as though trying to lash himself into a rage:

"Foolish child! Silly girl!... Little coquette!--pretending to be married to torture a sweetheart; vaporing of murder--acting the heroine--to take a gaby's breath away!... What you want is a decent, sensible mother to administer a good whipping...."

A shudder convulsed her slight body. In the firelight her face looked rigid and drawn.

He might have pursued, had not the gaby to whom he had unceremoniously referred stopped him by crying:

"Be silent! I will not stand by and listen to such language! I will not permit you to speak to her so!"

"_So!_" He surveyed the crop-headed, red-faced young man in the green baize apron, with grim incredulity. "You will not permit me to speak! You will silence me?... How?"

P. C. Breagh said desperately:

"I do not know how--but I will somehow silence you!... Perhaps by reminding you that Mademoiselle de Bayard is helpless and unprotected. That she has no stronger champion and no better advocate than a gaby like myself."

"Retire to your room, then!" he said to her grimly. "Henceforth you do not meddle in the kitchen, Mademoiselle. You cook capitally, your _beignets_ are worth a bellyache, but just at this moment I am indispensable to Germany.... Observe! You will remain entirely in your room upstairs, until I decide what is to be done with you!" He added, less roughly: "Madame Potier will attend on you and bring you your meals. And--in compliment to your unflinching candor--I will ask you to give me your _parole_ not to attempt to escape!..."

She put up both hands to her eyes, and they were trembling. When she took them away there were tears upon her face.

"Monseigneur, I thank you. I give my _parole_ not to run away."

"So be it!" he said, and slightly acknowledging her deep curtsey, motioned to Von Keudell to open the door.

LXXII

She passed out of the room. Von Keudell held open the door for her. As he did so, he glanced toward his Chief for instructions. The Minister said, answering the interrogation in the look:

"No. I prefer to extend to Mademoiselle the semi-liberty of the _parole_." He added: "Exceptional cases must be treated exceptionally. Upon a different kind of young woman I should promptly turn the key. Tell Grams and Engelberg that they are released from duty outside there. And Niederstedt...."

He whistled, and the great red face and huge unwieldy figure of the East Prussian ex-door porter filled up nearly the whole width of one of the long windows. The red face disappeared as the steam of its owner's breath dimmed the glass, and the effect was so quaint that the Minister laughed irresistibly as he opened the window and relieved the impeccable guard, saying:

"Why, my good Niederstedt, you are frozen--you smoke like a volcano. Go down to the house-steward--tell him to give you some old corn-brandy, hot, with sugar and pepper. That will thaw you inside as well as out!..."

He shut the window, and came back to the fireplace, pushed forward the great green brocade armchair, and threw himself into it, saying as he stretched his long legs out to the glowing billets:

"You may go, Mr. Breagh; there is no cause for detaining you. But while you remain here, revert to your own dress, and leave it to more experienced hands to polish the floor and balusters, to which I adhere like a fly who has walked upon treacle, half-a-dozen times in a day. Remember--I see no reason for denying you reasonable access to the society of Mademoiselle de Bayard--unless she objects to your visits, in which case she will probably notify me!----" He added more genially: "Sit down. Take that chair opposite me.... You need no longer stand in the attitude of a suspected criminal. Indeed, I rather think you have repaid a small service I was enabled to render you in pulling you out of a Berlin crowd, last July. Ah, that reminds me. I must ask you for the return of that paper...." He watched with a slight expression of amusement as P. C. Breagh produced the shabby note-case from a pocket inside his livery waistcoat, commenting:

"Had you been searched, those papers would have betrayed you instantly. One more skilled in the art of disguise would have carried nothing that could afford information. That is a very elementary rule."

P. C. Breagh said, meeting the powerful eyes fully:

"I have already had the honor to explain to Your Excellency that my disguise was not assumed for any purpose but that of remaining near Mademoiselle de Bayard."

He rose and offered the folded half-sheet of Chancellery note to the Minister, who took it, unfolded and glanced at the black upright characters above the signature, then tore the paper to pieces, and, leaning forward, dropped it into the heart of the fire. Then he kicked back a charring log with the toe of his great riding-boot, and said, leaning back in the green armchair:

"Credited--as to your statement about the reason of your impersonation. You should see to it that Mademoiselle rewards such chivalry. As regards the pass I have just cremated--did you find it useful or--otherwise?"

P. C. Breagh said:

"The one and only time I did use it, it proved of service to me. But later----"

"Speak frankly," said the Chancellor. "I have no disrelish for candor, you are aware."

P. C. Breagh said, flushing to the temples:

"Later, the accidental discovery that I possessed it, exposed me to the accusation of being a spy."

"So you chose to do without it?"

"I thought," said P. C. Breagh, "that I would try to do without it. And upon the whole I managed--better than I expected to...."

"To put it baldly," commented the resonant voice of the Minister, "you preferred to travel in blinkers and with hobbles on--for the sake of a scruple of the genteel kind. That is your Celtic blood.... You remind me of the story--I think it hails from Dublin, of the little old spinster lady of high family, who was reduced for a living to hawking pickled pig's-trotters in the streets. She accepted the money to buy the license, with the basket and the first installment of trotters, and went forth into the streets to sell them--but beyond this, as a gentlewoman--her feelings did not permit her to go. So she cried, in a whisper: 'Trotters! who'll buy my trotters! Only a penny! Pickled trotters! Please God, nobody hears me!' ... and nobody did hear her, so that was the end of her...."

He had told his absurd tale with one of those comic changes of face and voice characteristic of him. Now he reverted to gravity, and said, as P. C. Breagh rose to withdraw:

"Go! but remain here as my guest for the present. You are not under _surveillance_. But there is one question I must again put to you. What of this mysterious personage who represented himself to you as M. Charles Tessier? You must now be convinced that Mademoiselle knows nothing of him? Well, then, I will repeat the simple questions which you refused to answer just now. Where did you first see him? how long ago? and how many times have you encountered him?"

P. C. Breagh had been first addressed by the stranger when returning from an errand in the character of Jean Jacques. Putting it roughly, about a fortnight back. Since then, he had been twice spoken to by the same man. Interrogated as to the appearance of the stranger, he ruminated a moment, then answered: "The man was of middle height, but broad and tremendously muscular. He was remarkable to look at, very dark; with great black eyebrows, and a profile like that of an Egyptian hawk-god. No! ... He was more like those curly-bearded man-bird-bulls Layard dug up in the mounds of Babylonia and Assyria."

Said the Minister:

"You have answered all my questions in that simile.... The man is Straz the Roumanian, who is supposed to have married Madame de Bayard. What was it she said to you this morning when I had the ill-manners to break upon the lady's confidences?"

Said Breagh, with a pucker between the broad eyebrows that would be red when he had washed off the soot:

"Whatever she is, she is Mademoiselle de Bayard's mother, and I would ask Your Excellency to remember it too."

"_Quatsch!_" said His Excellency roughly. "Mademoiselle de Bayard--for whom I have a sneaking sort of kindness, in spite of her avowedly bloodthirsty intentions toward myself!--has no worse enemy than that adventuress-mother of hers, and you should be aware of it by this time. In plain words, she visited me in the Wilhelm Strasse upon an occasion you will remember, to offer to sell me Mademoiselle as bait for the better catching of an Imperial fish. I did not take the high horse with her, but refused her simply as declining an unsuitable business proposal." He laughed and added: "These good ladies have conveniently short memories. Imagine her coming to appeal to me to-day, in the character of a bereaved mother with a yearning heart!... Well, now she has asked you to go to see her? Have I not hit it?"

Answered Breagh:

"She told me that I was English, and that she remembered having seen me at Your Excellency's. She asked me where her daughter was, and then--when I pretended stupidity--she laughed, and insisted that I must visit her to-night or to-morrow night. How late did not matter. She seemed certain that I would come."

"Well, you will go to her," said the Minister, "but not to-night, I think! To-morrow night would be preferable!... If you appeared to-night, she would think that you are to be easily got over, and she would not show her hand to you. Go to her late. Twelve o'clock will not be too late for her. Women of her type are usually night-birds--and, besides, most people sit up on Christmas Eve. Report direct to me at whatever hour you may get back. I myself am not likely to turn in before daylight, because the Crown Prince and the three Bavarian Envoys dine here." He added, looking quizzically at the young man: "Now you are saying to yourself, 'That has something to do with the scheme for the accession of the South German States to the North German Confederation.... An agreement has been definitely arrived at. That is why Bismarck let that fat plum drop about the New German Empire just now.'"

He laughed outright as P. C. Breagh reddened, but made no effort to deny the charge, and went on:

"Baden and Würtemburg have come to terms. You cannot use the intelligence before it will be known by everyone in London, so I risk nothing by telling you. Our chief stumbling-block has been the King of Bavaria, who suffers from gumboils, and considers that in turning the Palace of Versailles into a military hospital, we have outraged the shades of Louis XIV., Madame de Montespan, Louis XV., Madame de Pompadour, and Queen Marie Antoinette." He added curtly: "There! be off, and tell Grams to send word to the stable that I am ready for the horses. I ride with Count Hatzfeldt another hour to-day. And change those clothes, if you would have me cease to address you as a footboy.... Clothes cannot make a man, but the lack of them can mar him--if they make him appear a clod."

The horses came, and he rode out with Hatzfeldt. There was a piercing northeast wind and a spatter of freezing sleet, much resented by the Diplomatic Secretary and his thin-skinned thoroughbred, and even displeasing to the Chancellor's great brown mare.

The iron lions of Mont Valérien were growling and spitting shell down into the surrounding valleys, thickly wooded with trees, now stripped--all save the firs and pines--of leaves, and glittering-white with frost. The lakes in the parks were frozen. Hundreds of thrushes drifted like leaves before the icy gale, toward the low-growing coverts of ivy and brushwood. A balloon rose within the Bois de Boulogne, soared, and traveled south-west.

Reaching the Aqueduct of Marly, they dismounted, for the purpose of taking what the Minister termed "a peep at Paris from the platform," and, leaving their horses to the care of the grooms, transferred themselves there.

Behind the Forest of Marly the red sun of December was sinking over the frosty landscape. The Minister glanced casually through his glasses at the ruined houses of Louvéciennes in the foreground, sheltered amidst their clumps of whitened trees; and sweeping over the villages of La Celle and Bougival, looked long toward Fort Mont Valérien, where the great stronghold sat perched on its height with its many windows glowing like furnaces in that fierce reflection from the crimson west.

The line of the Rennes and Brest railway running from Courbevoie through the Park of St. Cloud and Versailles showed strongly held by Prussian outposts. Beyond, between banks dotted with damaged hamlets, and bordered on the north side with fanged ice sheets, the silver-gray Seine wound, flowing sluggishly about her islands, wrinkling her lips in disgust at the jagged buttresses of the bridges that had been blown up. Farther south, over the lopped trees of the Bois de Boulogne, rose the great shining dome of the Invalides, bathed in that ominous ruddiness, looking like a great cabochon ruby studding a shield of silvery-green bronze. For Paris from this point of view is shield-shaped, crossed with the bar-sinister of her historic river; backed with her fortifications as by the enamel-and-silver work of a cunning jeweler; set with points of diamond where the bayonets of a column of marching infantry moved out from the ramparts along the road toward Fort Vanves.

It was frightfully cold. Said Hatzfeldt, stamping to recover the circulation in his numbed feet, and beating his gloved hands vigorously upon his sides:

"How cold!... I can smell more snow. Heaps of it, coming!"

The Chief turned an eye toward the speaker without lowering the glasses through which he was looking. He completed his survey before he said, restoring the binoculars to their case, and speaking with a jarring note of anger in his voice that made the Secretary arch his eyebrows: