Nigel played golf at Ranelagh, on the following Sunday morning, with
Jere Chalmers, a young American in the Diplomatic Service, who had just
arrived in London and brought a letter of introduction to him. They had
a pleasant game and strolled off from the eighteenth green to the
dressing rooms on the best of terms with each other.
"Say, Dorminster," his young companion enjoined, "let's get through this
fixing-up business quickly. I've had a kind of feeling for a cocktail,
these last four holes, which I can't exactly put into words. Besides, I
want to have a word or two with you before the others come down."
"I shan't be a minute," Nigel promised. "I'm going to change into
flannels after lunch--that is, if you don't mind playing a set or two at
tennis. My cousin-in-law Maggie Trent, whom you'll meet at luncheon, is
rather keen, and she doesn't care about golf."
"I'm game for anything," the other agreed, lifting his head spluttering
from the basin. "Gee, that's good! Get a move on, there's a good fellow.
I have a fancy for just five minutes with you out on the lawn, with the
ice chinking in our glasses."
Nigel finished smoothing his hair, and the two men strolled through the
hall, gave an order to a red-coated attendant, and found a secluded
table under a marvellous tree in the gardens on the other side. Chalmers
had become a little thoughtful.
"Dorminster," he declared, "yours is a wonderful country."
"Just how is it appealing to you at the moment?" Nigel enquired.
"I'll try and tell you," was the meditative reply. "It's your
extraordinary insouciance. It seems to me, as a budding diplomat, that
you are running the most ghastly risks on earth."
"In what direction?"
The young American shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, you've got a thoroughly democratic Government--not such a bad
Government, I should say, as things go. They've bled your _bourgeoisie_
a bit, and serve 'em right, but with an empire to keep up you're losing
all touch upon international politics. Your ambassadors have been
exchanged for trade consuls, the whole of your secret service staff has
been disbanded, you place your entire faith on this sacred League of
Nations. Say, Dorminster, you're taking risks!"
"You mustn't forget," Dorminster replied, "that it was your country who
started the League of Nations."
"President Wilson did," Chalmers grunted. "You can't say that the
country ever backed him up. That's the worst of us on the other side--we
so seldom really get a common voice."
"The League of Nations was a thundering good idea," Nigel declared, "but
it belongs to Utopia and not to this vulgar planet."
"Just so," Chalmers rejoined, "and yet you are about the only nation who
ever took it into her bosom and suckled it. To be perfectly frank with
you, now, what other nation in the world is there, except yours, which
is obeying the conventions strictly? I tell you frankly, we keep our eye
on Japan, and we build a good many commercial ships which would astonish
you if you examined them thoroughly. Our National Guard, too, know a bit
more about soldiering than their grandfathers. You people, on the other
hand, seem to have become infatuated pacifists. I can't tell tales out
of school, but I don't like the way things are going on eastwards. Asia
means something different now that that amazing fellow, Prince Shan, has
made a great nation of China."
"I am entirely in accord with you," Nigel agreed, "but what is one to do
about it? Our present Government has a big majority, trade at home and
abroad is prosperous, the income tax is down to a shilling in the pound
and looks like being wiped out altogether. Everybody is fat and happy."
"Just as they were in 1914," Chalmers remarked significantly.
"More so," Dorminster asserted. "In those days we had our alarmists.
Nowadays, they too seem to have gone to sleep. My uncle--"
"Your uncle was an uncommonly shrewd man," Chalmers interrupted. "I was
going to talk about him."
"After lunch," Nigel suggested, rising to his feet. "Here come my cousin
and some of her tennis friends. Karschoff is lunching with us, too. You
know him, don't you? Come along and I'll introduce you to the others."
It was a very cheerful party who, after a few minutes under the trees,
strolled into luncheon and took their places at the round table reserved
for them at the end of the room. Maggie at once took possession of
Chalmers.
"I have been so anxious to meet you, Mr. Chalmers," she said. "They tell
me that you represent the modern methods in American diplomacy, and that
therefore you have been made first secretary over the heads of half a
dozen of your seniors. How they must dislike you, and how clever you
must be!"
"I don't know that I'm so much disliked," the young man answered, with a
twinkle in his eyes, "but I flatter myself that I have brought a new
note into diplomacy. I was always taught that there were thirty-seven
different ways of telling a lie, which is to state a diplomatic fact. I
have swept them all away. I tell the truth."
"How daring," Maggie murmured, "and how wonderfully original! What
should you say, now, if I asked you if my nose wanted powdering?"
"I should start by saying that the question was outside the sphere of my
activities," he decided. "I should then proceed to add, as a private
person, that a little dab on the left side would do it no harm."
"I begin to believe," she confessed, "that all I have heard of you is
true."
"Tell me exactly what you have heard," he begged. "Leave out everything
that isn't nice. I thrive on praise and good reports."
"To begin with, then, that you are an extraordinarily shrewd young man,"
she replied, "that you speak seven languages perfectly and know your way
about every capital of Europe, and that you have ideas of your own as to
what is going to happen during the next six or seven years."
"You've been moving in well-informed circles," he admitted. "Now shall I
proceed to turn the tables upon you?"
"You can't possibly know anything about me," she declared confidently.
"I could tell you what I've discovered from personal observation," he
replied.
"That sounds like compliments or candour," she murmured. "I'm terrified
of both."
"Well, I guess I'm not out to frighten you," he assured her. "I'll keep
the secrets of my heart hidden--until after luncheon, at any rate---and
just ask you--how you enjoyed your stay in Berlin?"
Maggie's manner changed. She lowered her voice.
"In Berlin?" she repeated.
"In the household of the erstwhile leather manufacturer, the present
President, Herr Essendorf. I hope you liked those fat children. They
always seemed to me loathsome little brats."
"What do you know about my stay in Berlin?" she demanded.
"Everything there is to be known," he answered. "To tell you the truth,
our people there were a trifle anxious about you. I was the little angel
watching from above."
"You are, without a doubt," Maggie pronounced, "a most interesting young
man. We will talk together presently."
"A hint which sends me back to my mutton," the young man observed.
"Dorminster," he added, turning to his host, "I heard the other day, on
very good authority, that you were thinking of writing a novel. If you
are, study the lady who has just entered. There is a type for you, an
intelligence which might baffle even your attempts at analysis."
Naida, escorted by her father and Immelan, took her place at an
adjacent table. She bowed to Nigel and Karschoff before sitting down,
and her eyes travelled over the rest of the party with interest. Then
she recognised Maggie and waved her hand.
"Immelan is a very constant admirer," Prince Karschoff remarked, a
little uneasily.
"Is that her father?" Maggie asked.
The Prince nodded.
"He is one of the ambassadors of commerce from my country," he said. "In
place of diplomacy, he superintends the exchange of shipping cargoes and
talks freights. I suppose Immelan and he are all the time comparing
notes, but I scarcely see where my dear friend Naida comes in."
"There is still the oldest interest in the world for her to fall back
upon," Chalmers murmured. "One hears that Immelan is devoted."
"Scandalmonger!" the Prince declared severely. "Young man from the New
World," he proceeded, "get on with your lunch and drink your iced water.
Let the vision of those two remind you that it was your people who
foisted the League of Nations upon us, and be humble, even sorrowful,
when you view one of the sad results."
"I can't be responsible, directly or indirectly, for a political
flirtation," Chalmers grumbled. "Besides, why should there be any
politics about it at all? Mademoiselle Karetsky is quite attractive
enough to turn the head even of a seasoned old boulevardier like you,
Prince."
"That young man," Karschoff said deliberately, "will find himself before
long face to face with a blighted career. He has no respect for age, and
he is shockingly lacking in finesse. All the same, on one point I am
agreed. I don't think there is a man breathing who could resist Naida if
she wished to call him to her."
The little party broke up presently and wandered out into the gardens.
They sat for a while upon the lawn, drinking their coffee and exchanging
greetings with acquaintances. In the distance, the orchestra was playing
soft music, with a fine regard for the atmosphere of the pleasant,
almost languorous spring afternoon. Everywhere were signs of
contentment, even gaiety, and here the alien streak of unfamiliar
newcomers was far less pronounced. When the time came for tennis,
Chalmers led the way with Maggie. As soon as they were out of hearing of
the others, she turned towards him a little abruptly.
"Tell me exactly what you know about my stay in Berlin," she demanded.
"Everything," he answered gravely.
"You mean?"
"I mean that the New World to-day has progressed where the Old World
seems to have been stricken with a terrible blindness. Our
secret-service system has never been better, and frankly I hear many
things which I don't like. I am going to talk to Lord Dorminster this
afternoon very seriously, but in the meantime I wanted to speak to you.
I heard a rumour that you thought of going back to Berlin."
"I don't know how you heard it, but the rumour is not altogether
untrue," she admitted. "I have not yet made up my mind."
"Don't go," he begged.
"You think they really do know all about me?"
"I know that they do. I don't mind telling you that you had the shave of
your life on the Dutch frontier last time, and I don't mind telling you,
also, that we had two of our men shadowing you. One of them acted on his
own initiative, or you would never have crossed the frontier."
"I rather wondered why they let me out," she observed. "Perhaps you can
explain why Frau Essendorf keeps on writing to me under my pseudonym of
'Miss Brown' and to my reputed address in Lincolnshire, begging me to
return."
"I could tell you that, too," he replied. "They want you back in
Berlin."
"They really do know, then, that I brought over the dispatch from
Atcheson?" she asked.
"They know it," he assured her. "They know, too, that it was chiefly a
wasted labour. Their London agents saw to that."
"Perhaps," she suggested, "you know who their London agents are?"
"Sooner or later in our conversation," he remarked, "we were bound to
arrive at a point--"
"Come along and let us make up a set then," she intervened.