THE PRINCESS BACHEFFSKI--BEAUTIFULLY
DRESSED
Lord Flanborough gave a dinner party. He was a methodical man and
invariably made his arrangements a long time in advance, and he was
not unnaturally annoyed, when, at the eleventh hour, his daughter
suggested a change in the plans.
“My dear Moya,” he said testily, “don’t be absurd. Surely after what
has passed--after his extraordinary attitude--”
“Oh, daddy, what nonsense!” said the girl. “Michael is really a good
sort and he will be amusing. I really cannot sit out a dinner with all
those boring people, and if you don’t invite him, I shall have a
headache.”
“But, my dear,” protested her father, “Sir Ralph will be quite
entertainment enough, surely?”
“Sir Ralph is the biggest bore of all,” she said calmly. “Please let
me have my way.”
So to his surprise and amusement Michael received an invitation to
dinner, couched in such gracious terms that he formed the wholly
incorrect impression that some other guest had failed Moya and that he
was being called in to relieve her of the responsibility for thirteen
people sitting at table.
It was even a more dreary dinner-party than Moya had imagined.
Sir Ralph Sapson was amusing in his own way, but his own way was not
Moya’s way. He was a stout, handsome, young man on the right side of
thirty, immensely wealthy and, according to her father, immensely
capable. Though there had been no definite arrangement it was
understood, mainly by Lord Flanborough, that Sir Ralph desired a
closer association with the Flanborough family than his directorships
gave him.
The remainder of the guests were even less entertaining than Sir
Ralph. There were three other members of the peerage. Old Lord
Katstock who was a political lord who had once occupied a position as
under-secretary in some forgotten administration, the Marquis of
Cheddar who was a sporting lord and had theories on the Bruce Low
system of breeding, Lord Dumburton who was a soldier lord, very poor
and very wicked, unless rumour lied, and an assortment of directors
which included Mr. Reginald Boltover who recognized Michael with a
guilty start and took no interest whatever in his dinner but waited
with bated breath for Michael to reveal his guilty secret. There were
two or three ladies who gave Michael the impression that they had been
dipped in diamonds by their herculean maids, there was a thin, dowdily
dressed lady with a hooked nose.
(“Has the Duchess borrowed anything, Moya?” said Michael under his
breath.
“Not from me,” said the girl significantly, “but father is rather
susceptible. She’s an awfully good sort really, but I do wish she
wouldn’t take snuff.”)
Michael knew, or was known to, them all.
“It’s a rum idea of yours, going into the police, Pretherston,” said
Sir Ralph with that air of patronage which he reserved for people
poorer than himself.
“It’s just as rum an idea as your going into trade and keeping shops,”
said Michael.
Sir Ralph smiled indulgently.
“We have to do something to make an honest living,” he said. “I
suppose the reference to the shops is my association with the Colonial
Retail Stores. That makes a hundred thousand a year, Pretherston.”
“Then you have a hundred thousand reasons for selling bad jam,” said
Michael; “I’ve given up buying things at your shops.”
“That is a tragedy,” said Sir Ralph with heavy humor. “Try us again
and we will endeavour to merit your patronage.”
“I have another bone to pick with you,” said Michael.
He did not like Sir Ralph Sapson.
“I came up the other day from Seahampton, the railway carriage was
beastly, hadn’t been cleaned for a month, and the train was fifty
minutes late. The London and Seahampton is another of your profitable
ventures isn’t it?”
“I am told that I have an interest in it,” said Sir Ralph, with a
smile at the girl, “but, really, my dear Pretherston, when you find a
railway so badly conducted you ought to complain to the police.”
This amused him so much that he laughed without restraint and was, as
a result, compelled to explain his joke to fourteen people who were
anxious to share it.
Michael had to leave early.
“I should dearly love to stay and play bridge with you,” he said.
“Michael, you are a little horrid, aren’t you?” asked the girl.
“Horrid?” he asked, puzzled.
“You are so practical, you weren’t always like that.”
“And you weren’t always unpractical,” he laughed.
She had hoped--she did not know exactly what she had hoped, but the
new Michael was so unlike the old that she could almost have cried
with vexation. Gone was the old recklessness, the old extravagance
(save in directions annoying to her guests) and the old adoration
which shone in his eyes. There was an unpleasant feeling that he was
laughing at her all the time and that did not add to her happiness.
“I don’t think you’re nice, anyway,” she said; “won’t you come more
often to see us?”
“When you lose a pearl necklace, or find the hired lady
surreptitiously carrying off your provisions, drop a line to Inspector
Michael Pretherston, Room 26, Scotland House and I will be with you in
a jiffy.”
“By which I understand you don’t want to see us at all,” she said
petulantly; “I am sorry I asked you to-night.”
“I, for my part, am very glad,” he said.
Later, when Michael had left, Sir Ralph was to find her a very
unamusing companion, though why she should be annoyed with her
sometime suitor only a woman can understand. She did not love him. In
some ways she rather disliked him, and possibly the underlying reason
for her inviting him at all, was in order to confirm and seal her
indifference. If Michael had been in the least way attentive, had
shown the slightest desire to recover the lost ground and to resume
the old romance, she would have found an intense satisfaction in
checking him and would have gone to bed that night happy in the
knowledge that she had permanently attached to her one for whom she
had not the slightest tenderness.
This is the way of women who, when offered a dish, a dress, a colour,
a material or a man, invariably say, “I would like to see something
else.”
Her abstraction was so marked that Sir Ralph thought she was ill,
which instantly produced that headache which it is every woman’s
privilege to adopt at a moment’s notice.
“You ought to take care of Moya, Flanborough,” he said to his host at
parting, “she’s not at all well.”
“I have noticed it,” said the dutiful parent who had noticed nothing
of the kind and had inwardly remarked that Moya was sulking about
something. “You have an extraordinary eye for things of that kind, Sir
Ralph.”
“I understand human beings,” admitted Sir Ralph, “it has been my one
engrossing study in life. It is almost a vice with me. When a man
comes into my office I can generally sum up his character, his
business and his capabilities before he has opened his mouth.”
“It’s a great gift,” said Lord Flanborough solemnly.
Sir Ralph Sapson was in a particularly cheerful mood that night. In
the brief interview which he had had with his future father-in-law he
had not only secured a tacit agreement of his right to be admitted to
the family and an expression of Lord Flanborough’s approval, but he
had clinched a very excellent business arrangement which had been
hanging fire for twelve months--an arrangement which may be briefly
summarized:
Lord Flanborough was the chairman of the Austral-African Steamship
Company which carried merchandise and passengers between Cape Town and
Plymouth. Sir Ralph was the chairman of the London and Seahampton
Railway and was also chairman and a large shareholder in the
Seahampton Dock Improvement Company. The docks had improved much more
rapidly than had the trade which could justify their existence and the
deal which was really a side-line to the more romantic business of a
matrimonial alliance, was that the ships of the A-A line should
shamelessly abandon Plymouth and Liverpool and should have their
headquarters at Seahampton, an arrangement which offered advantages on
both sides, since Lord Flanborough was not without interest in the
Seahampton docks.
The night was chilly, a full moon rode serenely in the skies; there
was a touch of frost in the air and more than a suspicion of frost on
the sidewalk. Sir Ralph Sapson’s car was waiting, but he ordered the
chauffeur to drive home, saying that he would prefer to walk. Sir
Ralph lived in Park Lane so that he had nearly a mile to cover, but he
was in that mood which made light of so unusual an exercise. He
reached the door of his imposing residence and his hand was on the
bell when he heard his name called. He had noticed as he walked up to
his door that a little distance along the road was a big motor car,
its head lamps gleaming and a chauffeur busy tinkering with the
engine.
“I am afraid you don’t know me,” said a sweet voice.
Sir Ralph raised his hat.
The girl who stood on the sidewalk was obviously a lady. She was as
obviously beautifully dressed, and Sir Ralph who had an appraising eye
valued the ermine cloak she wore at something not far short of a
thousand pounds. A single broad collar of diamonds about her slender
throat was all the jewellery she wore.
“I am afraid I don’t,” he said.
“I only met you once,” said the girl timidly, “in Paris. You were
introduced to me in the foyer of--”
“Oh, yes, at the Opera, of course,” said Sir Ralph who, amongst other
things, was a patron of the Arts.
She nodded and seemed pleased that he had remembered her, a compliment
which Sir Ralph did not fail to observe.
“My car has broken down,” she said, “and I was wondering if I could
beg your hospitality. It is so horribly shivery here.”
She drew her cloak tighter around her.
“With all the pleasure in life,” said Sir Ralph heartily, “but I have
only a bachelor’s establishment, you know,” he laughed.
He rang the bell and the door was opened instantly.
“Put some lights in the drawing room,” he said to the servant. “Is
there a fire there?”
“Yes, Sir Ralph,” said the man.
“Can I get you some coffee or a little wine?”
She had pulled a big chair up before the blaze and was resting her
little white slippers upon the silver fender. Her shapely hands were
outspread to the fire and Sir Ralph noted that on her fingers there
was no sign of the plain gold circle of bondage.
“You will think it awfully rude in me, but I cannot recall your name,”
he said, when the servant had gone.
“I don’t suppose you do, my name is rather a barbarous one,” she
laughed. “I am the Princess Bacheffski.”
“Why, of course!” said Sir Ralph heartily, “I remember distinctly
now.”
To do him justice, Russian princesses are not unusual phenomena in
Paris and he had a very bad memory for foreign names.
“I suppose I am being very unconventional,” she said with a little
grimace, and for the first time he noticed that she spoke with the
slightest accent, “but needs must when the devil drives, and I had
either to sit in that cold car or grasp the good fortune which fate
threw in my way. And you, Sir Ralph, are looking just the same as when
I saw you last. You are one of the big business men in London, aren’t
you?”
“I have a few interests,” admitted Sir Ralph modestly.
They talked of Paris which Sir Ralph knew, and of Russia through which
he had travelled on one occasion, and of London, and then the coffee
came and a few minutes later, her chauffeur, to tell her that the
repairs had been effected.
“Before I go I want to ask you one favour, Sir Ralph,” she said.
She was a little embarrassed and nervously twisted a ring on her
finger. Sir Ralph saw this and wondered.
“You have only to ask anything, Princess, and it is granted,” he said
gallantly.
She hesitated a moment and bit her lip in thought.
“I am going to take you into my confidence, and I know as a man of
honour” (Sir Ralph bowed) “you will not betray me. I am in London, but
I am not supposed to be in London.”
She looked at him anxiously as she made this confession.
“I understand,” said Sir Ralph, which was not true.
“You have probably noticed--you were so quick at seeing those
things--that I am not wearing my wedding ring. Well,” she hesitated,
“Dimitri and I have quarrelled, and I do not want him to find me. I
haven’t been to the Embassy or to call on any of my old friends.”
“You may be sure,” said Sir Ralph, “that your secret is safe. I may
say,” he added, “that this is not the first time I have been entrusted
with a confidence as delicate.”
“I know I can trust you,” she said, warmly gripping his hand.
“I am staying in a little furnished flat which I have taken in
Half Moon Street. I have a duenna with me for the sake of the
proprieties--Dimitri is so funny about those things--so if a busy man
can spare the time, I am always in between four and five--”
“It will give me the greatest happiness to renew the acquaintance,”
said Sir Ralph and raised her hand to his lips.
Sir Ralph retired to rest that night more pleased with himself than
ever.