Soon after eight o'clock Hubert descended from a rickety _vettura_
outside the great dark Pantheon, and passing across the piazza, plunged
into a maze of narrow, obscure, ill-lit streets until he came to a small
quiet restaurant--a place hidden away in the back thoroughfares of the
Eternal City, and known only to the populace.
The place which he entered was long and bare, with whitewashed walls and
red plush settees--an unpretentious little place devoid of decoration or
of comfort.
Upon the empty tables stood vases of paper flowers, big serviettes, and
a single knife and fork lay in each place, for the Italian, though he is
fond of good food and is usually a gourmet, takes no notice of his
surroundings so long as the fare is well-cooked and palatable.
Upon each table stood the big rush-covered _fiasco_ of Tuscan red wine
in its silver-plated stand, and as Hubert entered, the _padrone_, a
short, stout man, came forward to greet him. Dinner was long since
over, and the proprietor believed his visitor to be one of those stray
foreigners who sometimes drifted in at odd hours because his
establishment was a noted one in Rome.
He was surprised when Hubert, speaking in excellent Italian, explained
that he was expecting a lady, and that he wished to dine _tete-a-tete_.
"Egisto," he called to the elderly, under-sized waiter, "a private room
for the signore. A lady will call at half-past eight."
"_Si, signore_," was the man's prompt reply, and at once he conducted
the Englishman upstairs to a small stuffy room on the first floor
overlooking the little piazza, where he began setting out the table for
two.
Egisto in his black cotton coat and long white apron was surprised when
his visitor, in reply to a question as to what he wished to eat, said:
"Please yourself. Something which is a speciality of the house. What
is it?"
"Well, signore, our _zuppa alla Marinara_ is supposed to be the best in
Rome," he replied. "And of fish, we have red mullet cooked in the
Livornese fashion--and _carciofi alla guidea_."
"Good," the visitor answered, for Hubert knew Italian cooking and knew
what to order. "A dozen _tartufi della mare_, the _ztappa, triglie_ and
a _risotto_ with _fegatini_ of chicken."
Egisto bowed. From that moment he held the stranger, though a
foreigner, in great esteem, for he realised that he knew a good dinner.
And every waiter from Liverpool to Luxor or from Tunis to Trondhjem bows
to the man who can discriminate on a menu. In what contempt, alas! are
our own dear Cookites our Lunnites and our other various couponists held
by the man in the black tie and white apron. I have heard a tourist
order a boiled haddock in Florence, another whom I overheard demanded
"fish and chips" in the Grand Rue in Constantinople, and I recollect
quite well a man from Oldham--evidently a cotton operative--loudly call
in broad Lancashire for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the Grand
Hotel at Christiania.
Waldron descended the stairs and waited outside for some ten minutes or
so until a taxi drove up and Her Highness, in the same shabby navy blue
costume, and worn furs, descended and greeted him eagerly.
When alone together in the small bare room--for only a table and two
rush-covered chairs were set upon the uncarpeted floor, with a cheap
sideboard against the wall--he assisted her off with her jacket, and
when she was seated, Hubert said:
"Now we shall be able to resume our little confidential chat that was so
unfortunately interrupted the other night. This place is quite quiet,
and the waiter cannot understand a single word of English."
"Yes," she sighed apprehensively. "I--I really hardly know what to tell
you, Mr Waldron," she faltered, her big, expressive eyes fixed upon
his. "I only know that you are my very good friend, and that I have
been foolish--ah! terribly foolish."
The waiter at that moment entered with the _zuppa_, and after it was
served, discreetly withdrew.
"You hinted something about blackmail. I hope Your Highness will tell
me everything. No doubt I can assist you," he said in a low, intense
voice when the door had closed.
"Not Highness, please--Lola," she protested, with a faint smile.
"I'm sorry," he exclaimed with an apologetic laugh. Then he added: "I
suppose we must eat some of this in order to keep up appearances--eh?"
"I suppose so," she agreed, and they both commenced to eat.
"Of course," Waldron went on earnestly, "I don't ask you in any spirit
of mere inquisitiveness to tell me anything. I simply make the request
because you have admitted that you are worried, and I believe that it
may be in my power to assist you."
"Ah, Mr Waldron," she sighed, "I know I have been horribly indiscreet,
and have greatly annoyed Their Majesties. Old Ghelardi has orders to
watch me daily, but fortunately he is, after all, my friend. It is true
that an agent of secret police is told off to follow me wherever I go,
for my own personal protection, and because the anarchists have lately
again threatened the Royal House. But our crafty old friend, whom you
know as Jules Gigleux, is good enough to allow me much latitude, so that
I know when the secret agent will be off duty, and can then escape his
unwelcome attentions."
"With Ghelardi's connivance?" Hubert suggested with a laugh. "Then he
is not exactly your enemy?"
She nodded in the affirmative, a sweet and mischievous smile playing
about her full red lips.
"True," she went on bitterly, a hard, haunted look in her eyes, "I am a
Princess of Savoia, yet after all, am I not a girl like all the others
about me? At home, at my mother's castle at Mantova, I was always
allowed my freedom to ride, to motor, to do whatever I liked. But
since, alas! I've been compelled to live at the Palace my life has been
so horribly circumscribed. I'm tired to death of the narrowness, the
pomp, the tiresome etiquette, and the eternal best behaviour one has to
put on. It's all horrible. Only in the evenings when, with Ghelardi's
connivance, can I go out for an hour or so, do I breathe and enjoy the
freedom to which ever since a child I have been accustomed. In Society,
people declare that I outrage all the conventionalities, and they hold
up their hands at exaggerated stories of my motor trips, or because I go
incognita to a theatre or make visits to my friends. But they do not
know, Mr Waldron, all that I have suffered. They cannot realise that
the heart of a princess of the blood-royal is just the same as that of a
girl of the people; that every woman loves to live, to enjoy herself,
and to have her own freedom even though she may live in the eternal
limelight and glitter of a brilliant Court like ours."
"But permit me to say that if half what I hear be true you are--well,
shall we say just slightly injudicious in the way you go about
incognita," he remarked.
"Ah! Yes, I know," she replied impatiently. "But I really can't help
it. Oh, how heartily I wish that I had never been a princess! The very
title grates upon my nerves."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because of the utter emptiness of it all--because," and her voice
changed--"because of the tragedy of it all."
"Tragedy! What do you mean?" he echoed quickly, staring at her.
The waiter again entered interrupting, yet Waldron saw from the change
in her countenance that there was something hidden in her heart which
she desired to confide to him, but for some reason she dare not speak
the truth.
As the man busied himself with the plates, recollections of that young
Frenchman, Henri Pujalet, arose before the Englishman. He remembered
the passionate meeting beneath the palms, and her strict injunctions to
exert every precaution so that Gigleux should suspect nothing.
Where was Pujalet? he wondered. Had their affection now cooled, and the
secret lover, in ignorance of her real identity and believing her to be
poor and dependent upon her uncle, had with a Frenchman's proverbial
inconstancy returned to his own beloved boulevards?
From the Princess's attitude he felt convinced that it was so, and he
had, in consequence, become much relieved.
When Egisto had bowed low and again disappeared, having changed the
dishes, Waldron looked across at his pretty companion, and in a voice of
deeper earnestness, said:
"May I not be permitted to know the nature of this tragedy? Remember,
you alone know the tragedy of my own love. Is yours, I wonder, of a
similar nature?"
She bit her lip, her wide-open eyes fixed upon his. He saw that her
breath came and went in short quick gasps and that in her strained eyes
was the light of unshed tears.
"Yes," she managed to respond.
There was silence for a few moments. She looked a sweet, pathetic
little figure, for her countenance was very pale and apprehensive.
Then he bent across the table where she sat with her elbows upon it, her
chin resting upon her hands, her plate untouched.
"And will you not confide in me? You know my secret and gave me certain
advice which I heeded," he said.
"Ah! Then you have broken with your Spanish dancer--eh?" she asked
quickly in a voice which surprised him. She laid a bitter accent upon
the word "dancer."
"I have."
"Because she has, of course proved false to you--as I knew she would,"
declared Her Highness. "Yes, Mr Waldron, you have acted wisely, as one
day you will most certainly be convinced. I heard all about it when I
was visiting the Queen of Spain. The woman would have led you to ruin,
as so many women have led the men who are the most honest and best in
the world. It seems by the contrariness of Fate that the life of a good
man should so often be linked with that of a bad woman--and vice versa?"
He nodded in acquiescence.
"Will you tell me nothing concerning yourself--your own difficulties and
sorrows?" he asked, earnestly looking into her face. "I have been
perfectly frank with you, and surely you know how proud I am to believe
myself your friend."
"You are proud of my friendship merely because I happen to be a
princess," she remarked sharply, glancing straight at him, her dark,
well-marked brows slightly contracted.
"No, not for that, Your Highness," he protested. "When we first met you
led me to believe that you were poor and dependent upon your uncle. Was
my attitude in any way different towards you then than it is now?"
"No. Ah, forgive me!" she replied quickly, stretching her little hand
across to him in appeal. "I am, I know, too impetuous. It was foolish
of me to utter such words, knowing them to be untrue! No, Mr Waldron,
you have always shown yourself my friend, ever since that sunny morning
when we first met on the deck of the _Arabia_. I deceived you, but
under sheer compulsion, I assure you."
"I have forgiven that long, long ago," was his reply. "We are still
friends and I, unfortunately, find you in distress. Yet you will not
confide in me. That is what annoys me."
"I regret if my silence irritates you in the least," was her low reply,
her face growing very grave. "But have you not, in your own heart,
certain secrets which you do not desire divulged to anyone--certain
private matters which concern your own life--perhaps your own honour?"
"Well, if you put it to me in that fashion, I cannot deny it," he said.
"I suppose we all have, more or less."
"Then pray do not let my hesitation annoy you, Mr Waldron," was her
quiet, serious answer. "I know you are my friend, and I highly
appreciate your friendship,--but I--I--"
And she broke off short, again biting her lip.
Then, without another word she took up her knife and fork and commenced
to eat, as though to divert her thoughts from some subject intensely
distasteful to her.
Waldron sat sorely puzzled.
Time after time he tried to induce her to explain further her strange
hint as to blackmail, but without avail.
The meal, which proved so dismal and unenjoyable, at last ended and
Egisto disappeared for the last time. Both felt relieved.
Then Waldron bent to the Princess Luisa, asking frankly:
"Now tell me what may I do to prove to you my friendship?"
"There is no necessity to prove a fact of which I am already aware," was
her reply after a few seconds' reflection.
"Truth to tell, Princess," he remarked, "I cannot quite make you out.
Why are you so silent, and yet so distressed? As a man of the world--a
freelance--I could, I am sure, extricate you from what I fear may be a
pitfall in which you to-night find yourself. You have been indiscreet,
perhaps. Yet all of us, in every station of life, have committed
regrettable indiscretions."
"Indiscretions!" she echoed hoarsely. "Yes, you are right, Mr Waldron.
Quite right! Ah!" she cried, after a slight pause. "I only wish I
were permitted to reveal to you the whole of the strange, tragic
circumstances. They would amaze you, I know--but, alas! I can't."
"Why not?" he protested.
"For the sake of my own honour," she faltered, and her eyes, he saw,
were filled with tears.
He sprang up and took her small white hand warmly within his own,
saying:
"Let me be your friend, Princess. Do, I implore you."
"Princess!" she cried bitterly. "Will you never learn to drop that
title when you speak to me."
He apologised, still holding her hand in his strong grip as pledge of
his great friendship, and of his deep admiration for her. Love was
entirely out of the question, he knew. He had realised that hard fact
ever since the startling discovery of that photograph in the
drawing-room of the Embassy.
At last, after a long silence, she spoke in a hard, intense voice, quite
unusual to her, for she was full of suppressed emotion.
"If you really are my friend I--I wonder," she hesitated, "if you would
do something for me--something to assist me?"
"Most willingly," he cried. "What is it?"
"I--I hardly like to ask it, but I have no other true and confidential
friend in Rome except Renata. And as a maid she cannot help me in this
matter without arousing suspicion in a certain quarter."
"What can I do? I'm ready to assist you in any way in my power," he
answered her quickly.
"Even though it necessitates a journey to Brussels?"
"To Brussels!" echoed Hubert in surprise. Then he added: "Of course--
anywhere that may be necessary."
"Then I want this letter delivered by hand. It is most secret and
important, and I would only trust it to you, Mr Waldron, because I know
that you would never betray my confidence whatever may happen." And she
drew forth with nervous fingers from within her blouse a letter sealed
with a large black seal bearing the single letter "L." Waldron took it
and saw that the address read:
"Private--To Monsieur S. Petrovitch, Bruxelles."
"See here," she went on, showing him a small scrap of paper upon which
she had written: "Slavo Petrovitch, Box 463 Bureau de Poste, Bruxelles."
"On arrival in Brussels send word to this address that you are there,
and you will be met if you make an appointment in the Cafe Metropole."
"But if this letter is in such strict secrecy how am I to establish the
identity of the Monsieur Petrovitch?" Waldron queried after a second's
thought.
For answer she opened the small circular golden locket she wore
suspended by a thin platinum chain and exhibited to him a photograph
within.
He held his breath as his eyes fell upon it. The picture was that of
Henri Pujalet!
She smiled mysteriously in his face, saying:
"You recognise him, I see, as one of our fellow-travellers on the Nile?"
"Yes I do," was Waldron's brief response.
"And you will do this for me as my friend--and ask no questions?"
"I have already promised," he replied, bowing before her very gravely.
"Ah, Mr Waldron!" she cried, bursting into a sudden torrent of tears,
quite unable further to repress her emotion. "Yes, I know you are my
real true friend! And if you will do this for me you can never know how
great a service you are rendering me--a service the magnitude of which
you will perhaps one day know when--when I dare to tell you the tragic
and astounding truth!" And before he could be aware of it, she had
raised his hand in a sudden outburst of frantic gratitude and kissed it.