Within a week after the funeral Adelaide and Madame de Conde returned
to the late prince's hotel on the Ringstrasse in Vienna. They had
taken most cordial leave of Lord Orrel and his son and daughter, and,
in spite of all their prejudices of race and nation, Adelaide de Conde
had brought something more away with her than the memory of a great
sorrow tempered by the kindness of those whom a strange freak of
fortune had made friends as well as enemies.
Even the two or three days that she had spent in his society had
sufficed to show her that Shafto Hardress possessed in an infinitely
greater degree those qualities which go to make the rulers of humanity
than her big handsome Alsatian, whose utmost ambition was the command
of an army corps. He had the hard, keen, unemotional common-sense
which enabled him to see even the tremendous possibilities of Emil
Fargeau's discovery in a purely practical and even commercial light,
but at the same time he possessed sufficient imagination to enable him
to see how far-reaching the moral and social effects of the
working-out of the scheme would be on the peoples of the world.
She had herself said nothing of what had passed during that terrible
night. For all they knew, the prince had taken the secret with him to
the grave. Once Lord Orrel had very delicately led the conversation up
as near to the edge of this supremely important subject as his
instincts would let him go, but he had learnt nothing, and an hour or
so later he said to his son:
"My dear Shafto, it is perfectly certain that my dear old friend the
prince died without giving her any inkling of the great secret which
he took to the grave with him."
"Either that, dad," he replied, "or she is the most perfect
diplomatist in Europe. I think I have heard you say that the first
essential of diplomacy is the ability to assume a perfect counterfeit
of innocence and ignorance--in other words, to convey the impression
that you know nothing when you know everything."
"Well, if that is so in this case," replied his father, "the mask
which mam'selle wears is as impenetrable as it is beautiful. Really,
Shafto, I think that rumour did not exaggerate when it called her the
most beautiful woman in Europe."
"Yes," said Hardress, slowly; "she certainly is very lovely, and, from
the little I've seen of her, she seems as gifted as she is beautiful."
"Then, my dear boy, if you really think that," said Lord Orrel, "how
would it be if you were to repair this involuntary injustice which the
Fates have wrought upon her? The most beautiful woman in Europe, and
perhaps the most nobly born, and you one of the masters of the world!
Why not? There is the realisation of a dream even greater than the
prince's; and if I have any skill in reading a woman's face or woman's
eyes, it is a dream not very difficult for you to realise."
Hardress laughed, and shook his head, and said:
"No, dad; I'm afraid that's not difficult. It's impossible."
The earl looked up sharply, and said:
"Oh, then, of course, there is someone else in the case; and that can
hardly be anyone but----"
"You're quite right, dad; it's Chrysie Vandel. I meant to tell you
before, but such a lot of things have happened since I got here, and
I didn't really think it was of very much consequence for the
present--because, after all, she's only accepted me conditionally--but,
lovely and all as the marquise is, I think I would rather rule over
the Orrel estates with Chrysie than over the world with her."
"Then that, of course, settles it," said the earl, with a certain note
of displeasure in his voice. "Miss Vandel is a most charming and
fascinating girl, but you will perhaps pardon me, Shafto, if I say
that she no more compares with the daughter of the royal line of
France than----"
"You needn't go on, dad," said Hardress, interrupting him with a
laugh; "comparisons are always more or less unpleasant; and then, you
see, you're not in love with either of them, and I'm pretty badly in
love with one."
"Well, well," said his father, "of course, if that's the case, there's
an end of it, and there's nothing more to be said. Still, for more
reasons than one, I must say that I wish you had met the marquise
first. The Plantagenets and the Bourbons would have made a splendid
stock."
On the same day that this conversation took place in the gardens of
the Hotel Wilhelmshof in Elsenau, a very different one was taking
place in the prince's hotel at Vienna between Adelaide de Conde and
Victor Fargeau, who, on receipt of the news of the prince's death, had
obtained a few days' leave, and travelled post-haste from Petersburg
to Vienna.
It was after dinner, and Madame de Conde had retired to her own room
with a slight attack of nerves. The marquise and Victor Fargeau were
sitting on either side of the open fireplace, with a little table,
holding coffee and liqueurs, between them. Adelaide had accepted a
cigarette from his case, and he had lit one too. For several minutes
after her aunt had left the room she puffed daintily at her cigarette,
and looked across at him with intricately-mingled feelings. At length
Victor broke the silence by saying, with a note of impatience in his
tone:
"And now, Mam'selle la Marquise, or, if you like it better, my most
beautiful Adelaide, I have possessed my soul in patience for nearly
two hours. When are you going to tell me this wonderful news of
yours?"
"Wonderful, my dear Victor? Alas, it is not only that; it is most
sorrowful as well." Then, bracing herself with a visible effort, she
threw her half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace, and, gripping the
arms of the big chair in which she was sitting, she went on, staring
straight into his eyes: "It is nothing less than the story of how your
father met his end, and what became of his great secret."
"Nom de Dieu!" he cried, springing to his feet; "you know that, and
from whom?"
"From these English and Americans--or Anglo-Americans, as I suppose I
ought to call them," she replied; "the people to whom the Fates gave
the secret with your father's dead and mutilated body; the people who
buried him--the man who might have been the saviour of France--in a
nameless English grave."
She kept her voice as steady as she could while she was saying this;
she even tried to speak coldly and pitilessly, for she had made up her
mind that the reasons of state for her betrothal to this man no longer
existed. She had an even higher stake to play for now, and, in spite
of all her pride of blood and racial prejudice, this would not be a
sacrifice; on the contrary, it would be rather a victory--and so she
hardened her voice, as she had done her heart.
"Dead! mutilated!" he exclaimed again. "Yes; I knew he was dead, for
he told me in his letter from Paris that he would not, and could not,
survive the failure of all his hopes. There were reasons why he should
not, but they are of no consequence now. He staked everything, and
lost everything, and that is enough. It is not for me to be his judge,
now that he has gone to the presence of the highest Judge of all."
"That was said like a good son and a true man, Victor," replied the
marquise, with a swift glance of something like admiration at his
flushed and handsome face. "But there is something more serious than
even the death of one whom you have loved and I have most deeply
respected. I heard enough from my own father, during the night he
died, to convince me that these people have not only got the secret,
but that they are already devoting millions to convert your father's
theory into a terrible reality.
"This Viscount Branston, Lord Orrel's son, has already been across to
America, and has leased the land about the Magnetic Pole from the
Canadian Government. A syndicate has been formed, and even at this
very moment the preliminaries of the work are being pushed forward as
rapidly as possible. Within a few months they will have begun the
storage station itself, and then nothing can save the world from the
irresistible power which will be theirs."
While she was speaking, Victor was striding up and down the
dining-room, his hands clasped behind his back, and his frowning eyes
bent on the thick carpet. Suddenly he stopped and faced her, and said,
in sharp, almost passionate accents:
"Perhaps it is not too late after all. My father left me those papers
in duplicate. I am weary--sick to death of playing this double game.
In a few months war between France and Germany will be inevitable.
Russia will side with us, and the prize of the victors will be--for
France, the restoration of the Lost Provinces, and a good fat slice of
China, and for Russia the whole of Northern China and Korea. Germany
hasn't a friend on earth. The English hate her because she is beating
them in trade rivalry; Austria has no more forgotten Sadowa than we
have forgotten Sedan. Italy is crippled for lack of money, and so is
Spain. The rest don't matter; and England and America will be only too
glad to stand aside and see Europe tear itself to pieces. So France
and Russia will win, and we shall crush our conqueror into the dust."
"But how can that be?" she interrupted, "if your father's calculations
were correct--as these people have evidently found them to be--for if
they had not done so they would not have risked their millions on
them. From what you and he have told me of his discovery, once these
works are set in operation round the Magnetic Pole, fighting will be
impossible, save with the permission of those who own them. Metals, as
he proved in his last experiment, will become brittle as glass,
cannons and rifles will burst at the first shot, even swords and
bayonets will be no more use than icicles; steam-engines will cease to
work, and the world will go back to the age of wood and stone.
"Picture to yourself, my dear Victor, the armed millions of Europe
facing each other, unable to fire a shot, or even to make a bayonet
charge. Fancy the fleets of Russia and France and Germany laid up like
so many worn-out hulks. No, no, my friend; there can be no talk of
serious war while these people possess the power of preventing it at
their will."
"But war there must and shall be!" he exclaimed. "I have not been a
traitor to my country even in appearance, I have not worn this German
uniform--this livery of slavery--for nothing. I have not wormed my way
into the confidence of my superiors, I have not risked something worse
than death to discover the details of Germany's next campaign against
France, to have all my work brought to nothing at the eleventh hour by
these English-Americans. No, there may be time even yet; I have risked
much, and I will risk more; and you, Adelaide, will you help me? Will
you keep the compact which your father made with mine?"
She had been growing paler all the time he had been speaking, knowing
instinctively what was coming. She rose slowly from her chair, and
said, almost falteringly:
"What do you mean, Victor? How can I help you, when these people
already have the secret in their hands, and have been spending their
millions for weeks? What can we do against them?"
"We can do this," he replied, stopping again in his walk; "my father
pledged his honour as well as everything else he had in the world to
insure the success of this scheme. I, his son, can do no less; I will
pledge mine in the same cause. I am on leave, and I can wear plain
clothes. To-morrow I will start for Paris and see if I cannot bring
that pig-headed Minister of War to something like reason. I think I
have a suggestion which he will find worth working out, and certainly
he will be interested in other things that I shall put before him.
Germany I have done with. I have worn the livery of shame too long.
Henceforth I am what I was born--a Frenchman. I will resign my
commission to-morrow, even if France lets me starve for it. I can
easily do that, for the son of a disgraced man cannot remain in the
German army, and my poor father disgraced himself to make France the
mistress of the world. A miserable Jew in Strassburg holds the honour
of our family in his hand. I have no money to redeem it, and so it
must go."
She had almost said, "Victor, I am rich; let me redeem it," when she
remembered that she was no longer more loyal to him than he was to
Germany. All the while that he had been talking she had been thinking,
almost against her will, of Shafto Hardress, and comparing him only
too favourably with this man, who, however honourable his motives
might seem to himself, was still a traitor and a spy. Instead of this,
she said, rising and holding out her hand, "Well, Victor, so far as I
can help you I will. We are going to Paris ourselves in a few days,
and, by the way, that reminds me I had a letter from Sophie Valdemar
only this morning, telling me that she and the count are going there
too."
"Ah yes," replied Victor; "a mixture of diplomacy and pleasure, I've
no doubt. I wonder what the fair Sophie would give to know what you
and I know, Adelaide?"
"A good deal, no doubt," smiled Adelaide, as they shook hands. "Of one
thing I'm quite certain; if Russia had the knowledge that you are
going to give to France, Russia would find some means of making those
storage works an impossibility."
"And that is exactly what I propose to persuade France to do, if
possible; but we can talk that over better when we meet in Paris. And
now, my Adelaide, good-night."
He clasped her hand and drew her towards him; for the fraction of a
second she drew back, and then she yielded and submitted to his kiss;
but when the door had closed behind him, she drew the palm of her hand
across her lips with a gesture almost of disgust, and said:
"No, my Victor; that must be the last. You cannot afford a Princess of
Bourbon now. I sold myself for statecraft which is craft no longer;
and, besides, there is another now. Ah, well, I wonder what will
happen in Paris? And Sophie Valdemar, too, and the count! Altogether,
I think we shall make quite an interesting little party when we meet
in la Ville Lumiere."