“How like the man! The icy, phlegmatic islander! Two thousand pounds! A
nothing! A bagatelle!”
The little gentleman removed his polished boots from the chased
silver-gilt fender. He was strongly tempted to throw the check into
the fire. But money is money, and he restrained himself. He folded the
oblong slip of pink paper stamped with the magic name of Coutts and
slipped it into his pocket note-case, gnawing, as was his wont, at the
ends of his heavy brown mustache and breathing through his nose. He
got up and looked upon his merry men with an ugly, livid smile, and
said, still smiling:
“So be it! We take my Lord’s charity and we repay it. Without doubt--it
shall be repaid by-and-by--with other debts owed by me to England. Her
grudging shelter, her insulting tolerance, her heavy, insolent, insular
contempt.”
Something in the speaker’s short thick throat rattled oddly. His eyes,
that were usually like the faded negatives of eyes, glittered with a
dull, retrospective hate. The white hand shook as it stroked the brown
chin-tuft, and a grayish shiny sweat stood upon his face.
“I am to be upheld and supported by Great Britain if I accomplish
miracles--but I am to accomplish them unaided. Two thousand pounds! We
are infinitely indebted to my Lord Walmerston’s generosity!”
St. Arnaud, who had got off the sofa, remarked with a full-flavored
oath:
“It is rating the Army cheap, by----!”
De Morny said, shrugging one shoulder and toying with his watch-chain:
“Two regiments of Russian Guards made an Empress of the Grand Duchess
Catherine. Will not a couple of brigades do your little job for you?
For my life, I cannot see why not?”
The tallow-candle-locked little man on the hearthrug retorted as he
warmed himself:
“Catherine only strangled her husband Peter. I have the Assembly to
throttle--a very different thing. To carry out my plan successfully
I must subsidize the whole Army--cram the pockets of every officer
according to his grade--with thousand-franc billets--descend upon the
rank-and-file in a shower of wine and gold.”
De Fleury agreed.
“_Sapristi!_ it is as plain as a pikestaff. Those attempts of
Strasbourg and Boulogne failed because enough drink--sufficient
money--was not lavished upon the soldiers. This time there will have to
be enough of both.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” said de Morny, still in the tongue of
barbarous Britain, as he dried the wet ink carefully, and glanced
towards St. Arnaud, whose sallow face betrayed suspicion and growing
ill-humor, at the continuance of this dialogue that he could not
understand, “that, like Herr Frankenstein of the German legend, you
may create out of the Army a monster that will one day prove dangerous
to you?”
Persigny and de Fleury exchanged a glance unseen by their master. He
said, throwing the half-finished cigarette upon the hearth:
“Frankenstein killed his monster when he found it inconvenient. That
was a mistake; such a brute-force is always of use. He should have bled
the creature into weakness and submission. Then he could have kept it
until wanted in a cage.”
“A sublime idea,” said de Morny, with the shadow of a grin upon his
well-bred, dissipated countenance. “But permit me to suggest that if
you attempt to act upon it, you will find your work cut out.”
“You have a biting vein of humor,” said Monseigneur, turning his
blinking regard upon the speaker. “Pursue it if it pleases you--it
does not disturb me. I belong to the race of the lymphatics--the
Imperturbables, whom nothing annoys.”
Though he boasted, his quickened breathing betokened some degree of
disturbance. His white hand was not steady as he took a handful of
cigarettes from a jeweled box that stood upon the mantelshelf, selected
one, and tossed the remainder of the handful into the maw of the
red-hot fire, that swallowed the little paper tubes at a gulp. But his
tone was mellifluous as he added, striking a match:
“Pray do not speak English so much.... M. de St. Arnaud is not familiar
with the language.”
“His vocabulary being limited to ‘Goddam!’ ‘All right!’ and
‘How-do-you-do?’--phrases sufficient to equip a second-class actor for
the part of stage Englishman in a vaudeville, but not,” said de Morny,
still in the prohibited tongue, and smiling pleasantly at the lanky
figure in the gorgeous uniform topped by the made-up face with the dyed
mustaches and the hyacinthine locks that were false in patches--“not to
guide the War Minister of a great Continental Power through the rocks
and shoals of diplomatic conferences with representatives of other
Powers. One will not fail to remember M. de St. Arnaud’s limitations.
It will be well, my brother, if you will also. As for this decree, it
may be necessary, but the moment is not ripe for it. It will do you
injury, take my word for that!”
“My brother,” though inwardly nauseated by the unwelcome counsel, took
it smilingly. He assumed his favorite pose, borrowed from the great
Napoleon, his short right leg advanced, his chin turned at an acute
angle, his left hand thrust behind the broad red ribbon, a finger
hitched between two buttons of his tight-waisted general’s coat, and
said with his most pompous air:
“M. de Morny, in answer to your objections to my proposed course of
policy, I reply by dictating a Proclamation addressed by the President
of the Republic to the French People. Be good enough to take your seat
at the writing-table.”
De Morny obeyed. Monseigneur cleared his throat, and reeled off:
“_Our country is upon the horns of a dilemma, in the throes of a crisis
of the gravest. As her sworn protector, guardian and defender, I take
the step necessary to her rescue and salvation--I withdraw from the
Bank twenty-five millions of francs wrung from her veins by the masters
who have betrayed her--I apply them as golden ointment to stanch her
bleeding wounds._”
Said de Morny, with imperturbable gravity, speaking in the English
language, as he selected a sheet of paper and dipped his pen in the ink:
“Article I. will provide that hereafter stealing is no robbery. Article
II. should ordain that henceforth it is not murder to kill!”
The coldly-spoken words dropped one by one into a silence of
consternation. St. Arnaud sat up; de Fleury dropped his cocked hat upon
the carpet. Persigny grew pale underneath his rouge. Monseigneur alone
maintained his urbane coolness, looking down his nose as he stroked
his heavy brown mustache with the well-kept hand that, with all its
feminine beauty, was so pitiless. Thus his blinking glance was arrested
by the letter on the hearthrug. And a postscript that he had overlooked
now caught his eye. He stooped, lifted the letter, and read, written in
Walewski’s fine Italian script:
“_Walmerston is cooling; there is no doubt about the change in him.
Better strike whilst the iron is hot, or decide to abandon the idea._”
“And risk all ... or give up all. Very well, my friend!” he said,
apostrophising the absent writer as though he could hear him, “I will
risk all. I wait for nothing but the cable now.”
Even as he said the words the privileged elderly aide-de-camp entered
with the thin blue envelope that held the cablegram. He tore it open,
and read:
“_Town--Dover--congratulates--Prince-President--on--establishment--
submarine--telegraphic--communication--between--France--and--England.
William--John--Tomlinson.--Mayor._”