THE SHADOWS THAT GO BEFORE
Wolfenden forgot his anger at once. He hesitated for a moment, then he
crossed the street and stood side by side with Felix upon the pavement.
"I am glad to see that you are looking a sane man again," Wolfenden
said, after they had exchanged the usual greetings. "You might have been
in a much more uncomfortable place, after your last night's escapade."
Felix shrugged his shoulders.
"I think," he said, "that if I had succeeded a little discomfort would
only have amused me. It is not pleasant to fail."
Wolfenden stood squarely upon his feet, and laid his hand lightly upon
the other's shoulder.
"Look here," he said, "it won't do for you to go following a man
about London like this, watching for an opportunity to murder him. I
don't like interfering in other people's business, but willingly or
unwillingly I seem to have got mixed up in this, and I have a word or
two to say about it. Unless you give me your promise, upon your honour,
to make no further attempt upon that man's life, I shall go to the
police, tell them what I know, and have you watched."
"You shall have," Felix said quietly, "my promise. A greater power than
the threat of your English police has tied my hands; for the present I
have abandoned my purpose."
"I am bound to believe you," Wolfenden said, "and you look as though you
were speaking the truth; yet you must forgive my asking why, in that
case, you are following the man about? You must have a motive."
Felix shook his head.
"As it happened," he said, "I am here by the merest accident. It may
seem strange to you, but it is perfectly true. I have just come out of
Waldorf's, above there, and I saw you all three upon the pavement."
"I am glad to hear it," Wolfenden said.
"More glad," Felix said, "than I was to see you with them. Can you not
believe what I tell you? shall I give you proof? will you be convinced
then? Every moment you spend with that man is an evil one for you. You
may have thought me inclined to be melodramatic last night. Perhaps I
was! All the same the man is a fiend. Will you not be warned? I tell you
that he is a fiend."
"Perhaps he is," Wolfenden said indifferently. "I am not interested in
him."
"But you are interested--in his companion."
Wolfenden frowned.
"I think," he said, "that we will leave the lady out of the
conversation."
Felix sighed.
"You are a good fellow," he said; "but, forgive me, like all your
countrymen, you carry chivalry just a thought too far--even to
simplicity. You do not understand such people and their ways."
Wolfenden was getting angry, but he held himself in check.
"You know nothing against her," he said slowly.
"It is true," Felix answered. "I know nothing against her. It is not
necessary. She is his creature. That is apparent. The shadow of his
wickedness is enough."
Wolfenden checked himself in the middle of a hot reply. He was suddenly
conscious of the absurdity of losing his temper in the open street with
a man so obviously ill-balanced--possessed, too, of such strange and
wild impulses.
"Let us talk," he said, "of something else, or say good-morning. Which
way were you going?"
"To the Russian Embassy," Felix said, "I have some work to do this
afternoon."
Wolfenden looked at him curiously.
"Our ways, then, are the same for a short distance," he said. "Let us
walk together. Forgive me, but you are really, then, attached to the
Embassy?"
Felix nodded, and glanced at his companion with a smile.
"I am not what you call a fraud altogether," he said. "I am junior
secretary to Prince Lobenski. You, I think, are not a politician, are
you?"
Wolfenden shook his head.
"I take no interest in politics," he said. "I shall probably have to sit
in the House of Lords some day, but I shall be sorry indeed when the
time comes."
Felix sighed, and was silent for a moment.
"You are perhaps fortunate," he said. "The ways of the politician are
not exactly rose-strewn. You represent a class which in my country does
not exist. There we are all either in the army, or interested in
statecraft. Perhaps the secure position of your country does not require
such ardent service?"
"You are--of what nationality, may I ask?" Wolfenden inquired.
Felix hesitated.
"Perhaps," he said, "you had better not know. The less you know of me
the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be
ignorant."
Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.
"It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country," he
remarked. "We are not in Russia or in South America. I can assure you
that we scarcely know the meaning of the word 'intrigue' here. We are
the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the
world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us
you must perforce fall to our level."
"I, too, must become commonplace," Felix said, smiling. "Is that what
you mean?"
"In a certain sense, yes," Wolfenden answered. "You will not be able to
help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own
country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person
jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note
of; your intrigues--I take it for granted that you are concerned in
some--the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there
is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is
nothing to intrigue about."
They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until
they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden's arm,
and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear--
"You speak," he said, "what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet
you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring
great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other
great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is
never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the
smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world's
history. Yet if you tell me that your's is a nation free from intrigue,
I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know--that is all! That very
man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment
deeply involved in an intrigue against your country."
"Mr. Sabin!" Wolfenden exclaimed.
"Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned
one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed
for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield
implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my
enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should
have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps--who
can tell--he is a man who succeeds--I might even have saved England from
conquest and ruin."
They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the
Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages.
Wolfenden, on whom his companion's words, charged as they were with
an almost passionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some
impression, was silent for a moment.
"Do you really believe," he said, "that ours is a country which could
possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental
alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple
alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?"
"I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe," Felix
said. "There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers
as England."
Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.
"Russia," he remarked, "is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but----"
"Russia," Felix interrupted, "of all the countries in the world, except
perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you."
Wolfenden laughed.
"Come," he said, "you forget Germany."
"Germany!" Felix exclaimed scornfully. "Believe it or not as you choose,
but Germany detests you. I will tell you a thing which you can think of
when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you
to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter
of time--of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at
Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with
France."
"You take my breath away," Wolfenden exclaimed, laughing.
Felix was very much in earnest.
"In the little world of diplomacy," he said, "in the innermost councils
these things are known. The outside public knows nothing of the awful
responsibilities of those who govern. Two, at least, of your ministers
have realised the position. You read this morning in the papers of more
warships and strengthened fortifications--already there have been
whispers of the conscription. It is not against Russia or against France
that you are slowly arming yourselves, it is against Germany!"
"Germany would be mad to fight us," Wolfenden declared.
"Under certain conditions," Felix said slowly. "Don't be angry--Germany
must beat you."
Wolfenden, looking across the street, saw Harcutt on the steps of his
club, and beckoned to him.
"There is Harcutt," he exclaimed, pointing him out to Felix. "He is a
journalist, you know, and in search of a sensation. Let us hear what he
has to say about these things."
But Felix unlinked his arm from Wolfenden's hastily.
"You must excuse me," he said. "Harcutt would recognise me, and I do not
wish to be pointed out everywhere as a would-be assassin. Remember what
I have said, and avoid Sabin and his parasites as you would the devil."
Felix hurried away. Wolfenden remained for a moment standing in the
middle of the pavement looking blankly along Piccadilly. Harcutt crossed
over to him.
"You look," he remarked to Wolfenden, "like a man who needs a drink."
Wolfenden turned with him into the club.
"I believe that I do," he said. "I have had rather an eventful hour."