banished Frobisher from her mind. All she required now was a cup of tea
and a cigarette. Most society women would have sacrificed a great deal
to know the secret of Mrs. Benstein's complexion, but the secret was a
simple one--she ate sparingly, and she never touched intoxicating drinks
in her life. The tea was waiting in the drawing-room, the water was
boiling on the spirit-kettle. A slight, dark man rose as Mrs. Benstein
entered.
"I'll take a cup with you, Isa," he said. "Nobody makes such tea as
yours."
"Paul Lopez," the hostess said. "I have not been honoured like this
since the day when you and I----"
"Agreed to part. Who was wise over that business, Isa? No sugar,
please. I loved you too well----"
"Never! You are incapable of loving anybody, Paul. I gave you the
whole of my affection--and a scarlet, flaming plant it was--and you
trampled it down and killed it. Not so much as a cutting remains. And
why? Because you were ambitious and I had no money."
Lopez waved the accusation aside with his Apostle spoon.
"It was the wiser part," he said calmly. "I shall never be rich like
Aaron, for instance, though I have ten times his intellect. My love of
perilous adventure prevents that. And when I look round me, I am quite
pleased with myself. Persian carpets, Romneys, Knellers, Lelys, Louis
Quinze furniture, Cellini silver, even Apostle spoons. Have you got a
complete set?"
"So I understand," Isa Benstein said carelessly.
"And there you have the keynote of this wonderful house. The exquisite
pleasure you must have had in the collecting of all these beautiful
things! And yourself?"
Mrs. Benstein smiled queerly as she bent over the teapot. When the time
came she was going to be even with this man, though, characteristically,
she had no flaming anger against him. She had loved him once, and let
him see it, and he had weighed the possibilities, and coldly told her it
was not good enough, or words to that effect. The secret was theirs
alone.
"You cannot say that you are not happy," Lopez said after a long pause.
"Well, no. Happiness is but a negative quality, after all. I am
probably a great deal happier than if I had married a scoundrel like
yourself, for instance. That is Aaron's voice in the hall. I suppose
you have come to see him on business, or you would not be here at all."
Lopez gravely accepted his dismissal. All this wonderful beauty and
intellect would have been his had he at one time chosen to take it.
Slowly and thoughtfully Mrs. Benstein went up to dress for dinner. She
chose her gown and her jewels and her flowers with the utmost care; she
might have been going to a state concert or dance, from the nicety of
her selection.
"Madame is going out to-night?" the maid suggested.
"Madame is going to do nothing of the kind," Isa said, with one of her
seductive smiles. "I am going to stay at home and dine _tete-a-tete_
with my husband. Always look as nice to your husband, Minon, as to
other people. You will find the trouble an excellent investment."
Benstein was late. He had been detained so long that Isa was in the
dining-room before he arrived breathlessly and full of apologies. With
his fat, fair face, and heavy, pendulous lips, he made an almost
repulsive contrast to his wife. His dress-suit was shabby and
ill-fitting, suggesting that it had been bought second-hand like his
large pumps. The red silk socks bore a pleasing resemblance to the
cyclist's trousers when confined to the leg with those inevitable clips;
they bulged over at the ankles. Benstein wore no diamonds; he had not
even a large stud in his crumpled shirt. It was a great deprivation,
and the financier mourned over the fact in secret. But Isa was
inexorable on that point. The man was hideously common enough, without
jewels. Besides, Isa's interference in the matter was by way of being a
compliment. It showed at least that she took some sort of interest in
the man she had married.
"Kept by business," Benstein wheezed. He raised his dyed eyebrows. He
flattered himself that the dye took from his seventy years, whereas the
deception merely added to them. "Nice you look! Lovely!"
His little eyes appraised her. Despite his many limitations, Benstein
had a keen love of the beautiful--_qua_ beautiful. Isa stood before him
a vision of loveliness in a dress of green touched here and there with
gold. The shaded lights rendered her eyes all the more brilliant.
"Give me a kiss," Benstein said hoarsely. "When you look like that I can
refuse you nothing. I am getting into my dotage, men say. Well,
perhaps. Good thing some of them can't see me now."
The elaborate dinner proceeded in that perfect Tudor dining-room. Not a
single article of furniture was there that lacked historic interest. The
old oak and silver were priceless, and every bit of it had been
collected under Isa Benstein's own eye. No dealer had ever succeeded in
imposing on her.
The silk slips were drawn at length from the polished dark oak with the
wonderful red tints in it, so that the nodding flowers were reflected
from a lake of thin blood. Here and there the decanters gleamed, a
Tudor model of a Spanish galleon mounted on wheels was pushed along the
table, its various compartments filled with all kinds of cigarettes.
"No, a Virginian for me," Isa said, as the servants withdrew. The
drawing-room was a dream of beauty, but she preferred the dining-room.
For restfulness and form and artistic completeness there was no room
like the Tudor hall, she declared. "Give me good, honest tobacco."
"How did you get on to-day?" Benstein asked.
"I didn't. I sat and watched the procession. Sir Clement Frobisher came
and made himself agreeable to me, and so did his wife--under compulsion.
But she asked me to her dance, and I am going."
"Hope that they won't ask me, too," Benstein said uneasily.
"You need not go, in any case; in fact, I'd rather you didn't. I've
been scheming out my dress, Aaron; do you happen to be strong in rubies
just now?"
Benstein nodded his huge head and smiled. More or less, he had the
jewels of the great world in his possession. It was his whim to keep
them at home. He trusted nobody, not even a bank. Besides, nearly every
day brought something neat and ingenious in the way of a jewel fraud.
"I can rig you out in anything," he said. "Yes, I could pretty well
cover you in rubies. They're all on diamonds just for the moment, so
that they bring their emeralds and rubies to redeem the white stones.
Wonder what some of those big swells would say if they knew you had got
their jewels to wear, Isa?"
Isa smiled at some amusing recollection, but she held her peace. Humour
was not Benstein's strong point. He puffed away to the library,
followed by his wife, and once there locked the door. Here was a large
iron sheet that, being opened, disclosed something in the nature of a
strong-room. There were scores of tiny pigeon-holes, each filled with
cases and bags all carefully noted and numbered, for method was
Benstein's strong point.
"More papers," Isa exclaimed. "A fresh lot since yesterday. Is it some
new business, Aaron?"
"Count Lefroy," Benstein wheezed. "Valuable concessions from the Shan
of Koordstan. Shouldn't wonder if those papers don't become worth half a
million. Queer-looking things. Like to see them?"
Isa expressed a proper curiosity on the point. The papers were in
Hindustani and English, with some cramped-looking signature and the
impression of a seal at the bottom.
"Those signatures are both forgeries," Mrs. Benstein said, after careful
examination. "And that seal, I feel quite sure, is a clumsy imitation
of something better."
"Doesn't matter if they are," Benstein said without emotion. "If they
are real, I only get a finger in the pie; if they are forged I bag the
whole of the pastry. Let me once get Lefroy under my thumb like that,
and I'll make a pocket borough of Koordstan. Leave your Aaron alone for
business, my dear. Now let us see what we can do in the way of rubies,
though I am a great fool to----"
"It's too late in the day to think of that," Isa said sharply. "Turn
them out."
The shabby cases began to yield their glittering contents. The
electrics glowed upon the piled-up mass of rubies, bracelets, brooches,
tiaras, armlets--the loot of the East, it seemed to be. Isa's slim
fingers played with the shining strings lovingly.
"This is even better than I expected," she murmured. "I shall be able
to trim my dress with them, I can have them all over my skirt, I can
cover my bodice. I am going simply as 'rubies.' Give me that tiara."
She placed the glittering crown on her head, she draped her neck and
arms with the beautiful stones. Benstein gasped, and his little eyes
watered. Was there ever so lovely a woman before? he wondered. When
Isa looked at him like that he could refuse her nothing. It was
criminally weak, but----
"The thing is almost complete," Isa said. "Now haven't you got something
out of the common, some black swan amongst rubies that I could attach to
the centre of my forehead, something to blaze like the sun? Aaron,
you've got it; you are concealing something from me."
The financier laughed weakly, still dazzled by that show of beauty. In
a dazed way he unlocked a little compartment and took a huge stone from
a leather bag. His hands trembled as he handed it to his wife.
"You can try it," he said hoarsely; "you can see how it goes. But you
can't have that to wear, no, no. If anything happened to it, they would
make an international business of it, my life wouldn't be worth a day's
purchase. You are not to ask me for that, no, no."
He meandered on in a senile kind of way. With a low cry Isa fastened on
the gem. She pressed it to her white forehead, where it blazed and
sparkled. The effect was electric, wonderful. She stood before a mirror
fascinated and entranced by her own beauty.
"I shall have it," she said. "I couldn't go without this, Aaron. You
are going to have it set into the finest of gold wires for me. Come, I
won't even ask you where you got it from. And from what you say, nobody
in England is likely to recognise it. Aaron, do, do."
Her smile was subtle and pleading. Nobody could have withstood it.
Benstein gabbled something, his cheeks shook.
"Oh, Lord," he groaned. "If anything does happen! Well, well, my
darling! Unlock the door and stay here till I come back. What artful
creatures you women are! My dear, my dear. Positively I must go into
the dining-room and treat myself to a liqueur-brandy!"
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*THE QUEEN OF THE RUBIES.*
The faint sobbing of violins sounded from somewhere, giving the artistic
suggestion of being far off, the dominant note of the leader hung high
on the air. Now and then a door opened somewhere, letting in the
splitting crack of Piccadilly, the raucous voices of news-boys more or
less mendaciously. Sir Clement Frobisher stood before the glass in his
smoking-room setting his white tie. Over his shoulder he could see the
dark, smileless face of Lopez looking in.
"What do you want here to-night?" he asked. "What are you thinking about
me?"
"I'd give a good round sum--if I had it--to know what you are thinking
about," Lopez retorted.
"Money isn't worth it. I was wondering if I really looked like a
waiter, after all."
"Well, you don't. There is something too infernally sardonic and
devilish about your head for that. May I take a cigarette? I dare say
you wonder how I got here to-night? I--well, I just walked in. That
kind of audacity always pays. Also you wonder why I came."
"Indeed I don't. You want me to lend you one hundred pounds. What do
you do with your money, friend Lopez? Not that it is any business of
mine."
"That being so, you have answered your own question," Lopez said dryly.
"Every man has his weakness, even the strongest chain has its
breaking-point. Let me have one hundred pounds. And pay yourself ten
times over, as you always do for your accommodation. Did I earn my last
five hundred pounds?"
"Indeed you did," Frobisher said frankly. "A wonderful woman, Mrs.
Benstein."
"About the most wonderful I ever met. None of your dark schemers about
her, none of your flashing eyes and figures drawn up to their full
height. But there is the rare mind in its beautiful setting. You are
going to make use of that woman? We shall see."
Both men smiled meaningly. The plaintive wail of the violins rose and
fell, from the great hall beyond came the murmur of voices. Lady
Frobisher's great function had commenced. Frobisher glanced
significantly at the clock. He was in no fancy-dress himself,
presumedly he was disguised as an honest man, as Lopez suggested. He
laughed heartily at the gibe, and pushed Lopez outside the door with a
cheque in his pocket.
Quite a crowd of cloaked and dominoed women had gathered there. Lady
Frobisher had reverted to the old idea of a masked ball and the
uncovering after the last dance before supper. The masks appeared to be
walking about as they generally did, for Shepherd strolled up to Chloe
and Adonis to Aphrodite in a manner that might have suggested collusion
to the sophisticated mind. One tall woman, closely draped, touched
Frobisher on the arm as he threaded between the silken mysteries.
"I have no flowers," she said. "My man stupidly dropped mine and
somebody trod on them. Take me to your conservatory, Sir Clement, and
give me my choice."
Frobisher offered his arm; he did not need to ask who the speaker was.
Those low, thrilling tones, with the touch of power in them, could only
have belonged to Isa Benstein. There was nobody in the conservatory
which was devoted to orchids, and nobody was likely to be, for that part
of the house was forbidden ground. Mrs. Benstein looked out from under
her cloud--only her eyes and nose could be seen.
"May I not be privileged to see your dress?" Frobisher pleaded.
"Certainly not," Isa Benstein laughed. "Why should you be specially
favoured? Get me two long sprays of orchid. I shall be content with
nothing less than the Cardinal Moth."
It was something in the nature of extracting a tooth, but Frobisher
mounted the steps and tore down the two sprays asked for. Isa Benstein
whipped them under the folds of her cloak. There was a subtle fragrance
about her that a younger man than Frobisher would have found heady.
"I must fly to the dressing-room," she said. "And then to pay my
respects to my hostess. Do you think that she is likely to recognise
me?"
Frobisher thought not. He lingered over his cigarette, making not the
slightest attempt to play the host, though the dance was in full swing
now, and the house echoed to the thud of feet in motion. At the same
time, Frobisher was looking forward to plenty of amusement presently,
before supper, when everybody unmasked. He grew a little tired of his
own company presently and strolled into the ballroom. There the
electrics were festooned and garlanded with ropes of roses, the
plaintive band could not be seen behind a jungle of feathery ferns, a
bewildering kaleidoscope of colour looped and twisted and threaded in a
perfect harmony.
A few of the younger and consequently more _blase_ men lined the walls.
A cavalier of sorts with a long, thin scar on the side of his lean head
was watching the proceedings. Frobisher touched him on the arm.
"Not dancing, Lefroy?" he said. "Are you past all those fleeting joys?"
"It's an old wound in my thigh," Lefroy explained. He was just a little
chagrined to discover that his host had so easily detected him.
Frobisher's superior cleverness always angered him. "It is my amusement
to spot the various women, and I have located most of them. But there
is one! Ciel!"
"One that even meets with your critical approval! Good. She must be a
pearl among women. Point her out to me and let us see if our tastes
agree."
Lefroy's eyes glittered behind their mask as they swept over the reeling
crowd. A moment or two later and he just touched Frobisher on the arm.
"Here she comes," he whispered. "On the arm of General Marriott. No
mistaking his limp, and his white hair like a file of soldiers on
parade. What a costume and what a cost! That scarlet band across her
brow over the mask is wonderfully effective. That woman is an artist,
Frobisher. And she has the most perfect figure in Europe. Who is she?"
Frobisher made no reply; he was studying Isa Benstein's
costume--lustrous black from head to foot, with white seams fairly
covered with rubies. There were rubies all over her corsage, bands of
them up her arm, a serpent necklace round the milky way of her throat.
The whole thing was daring, bizarre, and yet artistic to a point. The
scarlet band across the brows struck a strong and vivid note. The
rubies were not so bright as the woman's eyes. As she came nearer the
tangle of blossom across her bosom showed up clearly. Lefroy gasped.
"A mystery in a mystery," he said. "She is wearing the Cardinal Moth.
Who is she?"
Frobisher laughed, and protested that each must solve the problem for
himself. He liked to puzzle and bewilder Lefroy, and he was doing both
effectively at the present moment. The Count would have liked to take
the little man by the shoulders and shake him heartily.
"I believe you know who she is," he growled. "Come, Frobisher, gratify
my curiosity."
"I will refresh it if you like," Frobisher said with one of his sudden
grins. "I am not positively sure, but I fancy I can give a pretty
shrewd guess as to the identity of Madame Incognita. But would it be
fair to give her secret away before supper-time? Patience, my
fire-eater."
The lady of the rubies passed along leaning on the arm of her companion.
She gave one glance in Frobisher's direction, and Lefroy looked eagerly
for some sign of recognition. But the dark eyes were absolutely blank
so far as the master of the house was concerned.
Lefroy turned and followed the couple in front. As Frobisher lounged
back to the smoking-room for another cigarette, he almost ran into his
wife.
As hostess she was wearing no mask. Her beautiful face was just a
little set and tired.
"Seems to be all right," Frobisher croaked. "They appear to be enjoying
themselves. And yet half of them would like better to come to my
funeral. Some pretty dresses here, but one head and shoulders over the
others.
"You mean the ruby guise," Lady Frobisher exclaimed, with some
animation. "Is it not superb! So daring, and yet in the best of taste.
Everybody is asking who she is and nobody seems to know. I declare I
feel quite proud of my mystery."
"An angel unawares," Frobisher laughed silently. "You never can tell.
And you mean to say that you can't guess who it is that is exciting all
this attention?"
Lady Frobisher looked swiftly down into the face of her husband. The
corrugated grin, the impish mischief told her a story. It seemed very
hard that the woman she most desired to keep in the background was
actually creating the sensation of the evening.
"Mrs. Benstein," she whispered. "Clement, do you really think so?"
"My dear, I am absolutely certain of it. And why not? Isn't Mrs.
Benstein as well-bred as a score of American women here to-night?
Doesn't she carry a long pedigree in that lovely face of hers? Some
folks here to-night suffer from a pedigree so old that even their
grandfathers are lost in the mists of antiquity. What short-sighted
creatures you women are! Can't you see that a creature so rich and
daring and clever as Mrs. Benstein will be riding on the crest of the
wave within a year? And you will gain kudos from the mere fact that
your house saw her debut into 'society'--Heaven save the mark!"
Lady Frobisher had no more to say. There was a great deal of cynical
truth in Frobisher's words. Mrs. Benstein was going to be a brilliant
success as far as the men were concerned, therefore her presence at the
assemblies of the smart set would become almost necessary. Lefroy came
back at the same time, having learnt little or nothing in the
refreshment room. Lady Frobisher might have gratified his curiosity if
he had asked her, only she gave him no opportunity. She detested the
man thoroughly; with her fine instinct she had detected the tiger under
his handsome, swaggering exterior.
"No luck?" Frobisher laughed. "Well, it is nearly twelve o'clock, and
then you will know. Come with me and smoke a cigarette till the clock
strikes. It will soothe your nerves. A small soda and a drop of 1820
brandy, eh? Don't give my general run of guests that liqueur."
Lefroy nodded carelessly. He would have it appear that he had dismissed
the matter from his mind. But he had finished his cigarette and brandy
as the clock chimed the midnight hour, and then, with a fine assumption
of indifference, he returned to the ballroom. The band was playing
something weird from Greig, the guests stopped just where they stood,
and each cast their masks upon the floor.
The swashbuckler was in luck, so it seemed to him, for the lady of the
rubies stood smiling by the side of her military escort just opposite.
The scarlet band had gone with the mask, revealing a fillet of rubies
round the smooth white brow, a fillet with one huge ruby in the middle,
so large and blazing that Lefroy stood aghast. He staggered back, and
something like a stammering oath escaped him. The vulgarism was lost
for the moment, and people congregated round the stranger. That many
people there did not know who Mrs. Benstein was only gave piquancy to
the situation.
"My God!" Lefroy muttered, "who is she? Where did she get it from? It's
the real thing. I would swear to it amongst a million imitations. And I
dare swear that, despite his air of mystery, Frobisher---- But he must
not see it, I must prevent that, anyway."
Lefroy hastened back to the smoking-room. His limbs were trembling under
him now, a little moisture broke out on his forehead and trickled down
his face. He had made a discovery that wrenched even his iron nerves.
And at any cost Frobisher must not know.
He was smoking and sipping brandy as Lefroy entered. If he saw anything
strange or strained about the face of Count Lefroy, he did not betray
the fact. He looked up gaily.
"Come to fetch me?" he asked. "Want me to see the lady of the rubies?
Well, was the face worthy of the setting? Did you recognise her?"
"Never saw her in my life before," Lefroy said hoarsely. He stammered
on, saying anything to gain time, anything to keep Frobisher where he
was. "I've lost interest in the whole thing. Let's stay here and smoke,
and talk about old times. What do you say?"
Frobisher said nothing. He studied Lefroy's white face intently.
Outside was a babel of laughter and chatter and the swish of drapery. A
clear, calm voice announced a late visitor.
"His Highness the Shan of Koordstan," the footman said.
Frobisher glanced at Lefroy's face. In itself it was a tragedy.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*"UNEASY LIES THE HEAD----"*
As a matter of fact, His Highness the Shan of Koordstan had not intended
to go to Lady Frobisher's dance at all, though he had been graciously
pleased to accept the invitation. His present intention was to go to
bed early and be a little more careful for the future. There was a
shakiness about the ruler of Koordstan that told its own tale, a
shakiness that would not have conduced to his popularity with his
subjects in the Far East.
An interview with a recently-arrived minister of his had changed his
plans entirely. In place of bed he had a cold bath and a cup of strong
coffee, and sat down, as far as his aching head would allow him, to
review the situation. The final outcome was a fit of utter despair and
an express letter to Harold Denvers, who fortunately was at home and
ready to respond to the invitation.
The Eastern potentate was smoking moodily as he arrived. Harold
significantly declined the offer of refreshment of a spirituous
description.
"Meaning that I have had enough already," the Shan said moodily. "But
I'm sober as a judge now, had enough to make me. The shocking luck I've
had lately!"
He tossed a cigarette across to Denvers, and lighted a fresh one of his
own.
"So I sent you to give me a leg up if you can. You are the only honest
man of the lot. Denvers, I'm in a fine mess over the Blue Stone. If I
don't produce it at once I'm done for. It would be madness for me to
show my face at home again."
"Somebody has discovered that your Highness has parted with it?"