Luncheon at the Ritz was an almost unexpectedly pleasant meal. The two
men sat at a table near the door and exchanged greetings with many
acquaintances. Karschoff, who was in an unusually loquacious frame of
mind, pointed out many of the habitués of the place to his companion.
"I am become a club and restaurant lounger in my old age," he declared,
a little bitterly. "Almost a boulevardier. Still, what else is there for
a man without a country to do?"
"You know everybody," Nigel replied, without reference to his
companion's lament. "Tell me who the woman is who has just entered?"
Karschoff glanced in the direction indicated, and for a moment his
somewhat saturnine expression changed. A smile played upon his lips, his
eyes seemed to rest upon the figure of the girl half turned away from
them with interest, almost with pleasure. She was of an unusual type,
tall and dark, dressed in black with the simplicity of a nun, with only
a little gleam of white at her throat. Her hair--so much of it as showed
under her flower-garlanded hat--was as black as jet, and yet, where she
stood in the full glare of the sunlight, the burnish of it was almost
wine-coloured. Her cheeks were pale, her expression thoughtful. Her
eyes, rather heavily lidded, were a deep shade of violet. Her mouth was
unexpectedly soft and red.
"Ah, my friend, no wonder you ask!" Karschoff declared with enthusiasm.
"That is a woman whom you must know."
"Tell me her name," Nigel persisted with growing impatience.
"Her name," Karschoff replied, "is Naida Karetsky. She is the daughter
of the man who will probably be the next President of the Russian
Republic. You see, I can speak those words without a tremor. Her father
at present represents the shipping interests of Russia and England. He
is one of the authorised consuls."
"Is he of the party?"
Karschoff scrutinised the approaching figures through his eyeglass and
nodded.
"Her father is the dark, broad-shouldered man with the square beard," he
indicated. "Immelan, as you can see, is the third. They are coming this
way. We will speak of them afterwards."
Naida, with her father and Oscar Immelan, left some acquaintances with
whom they had been talking and, preceded by a _maître d'hôtel_, moved in
the direction of the two men. The girl recognised the Prince with a
charming little bow and was on the point of passing on when she
appeared to notice his companion. For a moment she hesitated. The
Prince, anticipating her desire to speak, rose at once to his feet.
"Mademoiselle," he said, bending over her hand, "welcome back to
England! You bring with you the first sunshine we have seen for many
days."
"Are you being meteorological or complimentary?" she asked, smiling.
"Will you present your companion? I have heard of Mr. Kingley."
"With the utmost pleasure," the Prince replied. "Mr. Kingley, through
the unfortunate death of a relative, is now the Earl of
Dorminster--Mademoiselle Karetsky."
Nigel, as he made his bow, was conscious of an expression of something
more than ordinary curiosity in the face of the girl who had herself
aroused his interest.
"You are the son, then," she enquired, "of Lord Dorminster who died
about a month ago?"
"His nephew," Nigel explained. "My uncle was unfortunately childless."
"I met your uncle once in Paris," she said. "It will give me great
pleasure to make your better acquaintance. Will you and my dear friend
here," she added, turning to the Prince, "take coffee with us
afterwards? I shall then introduce you to my father. Oscar Immelan you
both know, of course."
They murmured their delighted assent, and she passed on. Nigel watched
her until she took her place at the table.
"Surely that girl is well-born?" he observed. "I have never seen a more
delightful carriage."
"You are right," Karschoff told him. "Karetsky is a well-to-do man of
commerce, but her mother was a Baroness Kolchekoff, a distant relative
of my own. The Kolchekoffs lived on their estates, and as a matter of
fact we never met. Naida has gone over to the people, though, body and
soul."
"She is extraordinarily beautiful," Nigel remarked.
His companion was swinging his eyeglass back and forth by its cord.
"Many men have thought so," he replied. "For myself, there is antagonism
in my blood against her. I wonder whether I have done well or ill in
making you two acquainted."
Nigel felt a sudden desire to break through a certain seriousness which
had come over his own thoughts and which was reflected in the other's
tone. He shrugged his shoulders slightly and filled his glass with wine.
"Every man in the world is the better," he propounded, "for adding to
the circle of his acquaintances a beautiful woman."
"Sententious and a trifle inaccurate," the Prince objected, with a
sudden flash of his white teeth. "The beauty which is not for him has
been many a man's undoing. But seriously, my quarrel with Naida is one
of prejudice only. She is the confidante and the inspiration of
Matinsky, and though one realises, of course, that so long as there is a
Russian Republic there must be a Russian President, I suppose I should
scarcely be human if I did not hate him."
"Surely," Nigel queried, "she must be very much his junior?"
"Matinsky is forty-four," Karschoff said. "Naida is twenty-six or
twenty-seven. The disparity of years, you see, is not so great.
Matinsky, however, is married to an invalid wife, and concerning Naida I
have never heard one word of scandal. But this much is certain. Matinsky
has the blandest confidence in her judgment and discretion. She has
already been his unofficial ambassador in several capitals of Europe. I
am convinced that she is here with a purpose. But enough of my
country-people. We came here to be gay. Let us drink another bottle of
wine."
The joy of living seemed for a moment to reassert itself in Karschoff's
face. His momentary fierceness, reminiscent of his Tartar ancestry, had
passed, but it had left a shadow behind.
"At least one should be grateful," he conceded a moment later, "for the
distinction such a woman as Naida Karetsky brings into a room like this.
Our Bond Street lament finds its proof here. Except for their
clothes--so ill-worn, too, most of them--the women here remind one of
Blackpool, and their men of Huddersfield. I am inclined to wish that I
had taken you to Soho."
Nigel shook his head. His eyes had strayed to a distant corner of the
room, where Naida and her two companions were seated.
"We cannot escape anywhere," he declared, "from this overmastering wave
of mediocrity. A couple of generations and a little intermarriage may
put things right. A Chancellor of the Exchequer with genius, fifteen
years ago, might even have prevented it."
"You can claim, at any rate, a bloodless and unapparent revolution," the
Prince observed. "You chivied your aristocracy of birth out of existence
with yellow papers, your aristocracy of mind with a devastating income
tax. This is the class whom you left to gorge,--the war profiteers. I
hope that whoever writes the history of these times will see that it is
properly illustrated."
In the lounge, they had barely seated themselves before Naida, with her
father and Immelan, appeared. The little party at once joined up, and
Naida seated herself next to Nigel. She talked very slowly, but her
accent amounted to little more than a prolongation of certain syllables,
which had the effect of a rather musical drawl. Her father, after the
few words of introduction had been spoken, strolled away to speak to
some acquaintances, and Immelan and the Prince discussed with measured
politeness one of the commonplace subjects of the moment. Naida and her
companion became almost isolated.
"I met your uncle once," Naida said, "at a dinner party in Paris. I
remember that he attracted me. He represented a class of Englishman of
whom I had met very few, the thinking aristocrat with a sense for
foreign affairs. It was some years ago, that. He remained outside
politics, did he not, until his death?"
"Outside all practical politics," Nigel assented. "He had his interests,
though."
She looked at him thoughtfully.
"Have you inherited them?" she asked.
He declined the challenge of her eyes. After all, she belonged to the
Russia whose growing strength was the greatest menace to European peace,
and whose attitude towards England was entirely uncertain.
"My uncle and I were scarcely intimate," he said. "I was never really in
his confidence."
"Not so much so as Lady Maggie Trent? She would be your cousin?"
"It is not a relationship of blood," Nigel replied. "Lady Maggie was the
daughter of my uncle's second wife."
"She is very charming," Naida murmured.
"I find her delightful," Nigel agreed.
"She is not only charming, but she has intelligence," Naida continued.
"I think that Lord Dorminster was very fond of her, that he trusted her
with many of his secrets."
"Had he secrets?" Nigel asked.
She remained for a moment very thoughtful, smoking a thin cigarette
through a long holder and watching the little rings of smoke.
"You are right," she said at last. "I find your attitude the only
correct one. Did you know that Maggie was a friend of mine, Lord
Dorminster?"
"I can very well believe it," he answered, "but I have never heard her
speak of you."
"Ah! But she has been away for some months. You have not seen much of
her, perhaps, since her return?"
"Very little," he acquiesced. "She only arrived in London just before my
uncle's death, and since then I have had to spend some time at
Dorminster."
"As a matter of curiosity," Naida enquired, "when do you expect to see
her again?"
"This afternoon, I hope," he replied,--"directly I leave here, in fact."
"Then you will give her a little message for me, please?"
"With great pleasure!"
"Tell her from me--mind she understands this, if you please--that she
is not to leave England again until we have met."
"Is this a warning?" he asked.
She looked at him searchingly.
"I wonder," she reflected, "how much of you is Lord Dorminster's
nephew."
"And I, in my turn," he rejoined, with sudden boldness, "wonder how much
of you is Matinsky's envoy."
She began to laugh softly.
"We shall perhaps be friends, Lord Dorminster," she said. "I should like
to see more of you."
"You will permit me to call upon you," he begged eagerly.
"Will you come? We are at the Milan Court for a little time. My father
is trying to get a house. My sister is coming over to look after him. I
am unfortunately only a bird of passage."
"Then I shall not run the risk of missing you," he declared. "I shall
call very soon."
Immelan intervened,--grim, suspicious, a little disturbed. For some
reason or other, the meeting between these two young people seemed to
have made him uneasy.
"Your father has desired me to present his excuses to Lord Dorminster,"
he announced, "and to escort you back to the Milan. He has been
telephoned for from the Consulate."
Naida rose to her feet with some apparent reluctance.
"You will not delay your call too long, Lord Dorminster?" she enjoined,
as she gave him her hand. "I shall expect you the first afternoon you
are free."
"I shall not delay giving myself the pleasure," he assured her.
She nodded and made her adieux to the Prince. The two men stood together
and watched her depart with her companion.
"Really, one gains much through being an onlooker," the Prince
reflected. "There go the spirit of Russia and the spirit of Germany. You
dabble in these things, my friend Dorminster. Can you guess what they
are met for--for whom they wait?"
"I might guess," Nigel replied, "but I would rather be told."
"They wait for the master spirit," Karschoff declared, taking his arm.
"They wait for the great Prince Shan."