"Now indeed I feel that I am in New York," Pamela declared, as she
broke off one of the blossoms of the great cluster of deep red roses by
her side, and gazed downward over her shoulder at the far-flung carpet
of lights. "One sees little bits of America in every country of the
world, but never this."
Fischer, unusually grave and funereal-looking in his dinner clothes and
black tie, followed her gesture with thoughtful eyes. Everything that
was ugly in the stretching arms of the city seemed softened, shrouded
and bejewelled. Even the sounds, the rattle and roar of the overhead
railways, the clanging of the electric car bells, the shrieking of the
sirens upon the river, seemed somehow to have lost their harsh note, to
have become the human cry of the great live city, awaking and
stretching itself for the night.
"I agree with you," he said. "You dine at the Ritz-Carlton and you
might be in Paris. You dine here, and one knows that you are in
America."
"Yet even here we have become increasingly luxurious," Pamela remarked,
looking around. "The glass and linen upon the tables are quite French;
those shaded lights are exquisite. That little band, too, was playing
at the Ritz three years ago. I am sure that the maitre d'hotel who
brought us to our table was once at the Cafe de Paris."
"Money would draw all those things from Europe even to the Sahara,"
Fischer observed, "so long as there were plenty of it. But millions
could not buy our dining table in the clouds."
"A little effort of the imagination, fortunately," Pamela laughed,
looking upwards. "There are stars, but no clouds."
"I guess one of them is going to slip down to the next table before
long," Van Teyl observed, with a little movement of his head.
They all three turned around and looked at the wonderful bank of pink
roses within a few feet of them.
"One of the opera women, I daresay," the young man continued. "They are
rather fond of this place."
Pamela leaned forward. Fischer was watching the streets below; Only a
short distance away was a huge newspaper building, flaring with lights.
The pavements fringing it were thronged with a little stationary crowd.
A row of motor-bicycles was in waiting. A night edition of the paper
was almost due.
"Mr. Fischer," she asked, "what about that news?"
He withdrew his eyes from the street. Almost unconsciously he
straightened himself a little in his place. There was pride in his
tone. Behind his spectacles his eyes flashed.
"I would have told it you before," he said, "but you would not have
believed it. Soon--in a very few moments--the news will be known. You
will see it break away in waves from that building down there, so I
will bear with your incredulity. The German and British fleets have
met, and the victory has remained with us."
"With us?" Pamela repeated.
"With Germany," Fischer corrected himself hastily.
"Is this true?" James Van Teyl almost shouted. "Fischer, are you sure
of what you're saying? Why, it's incredible!"
"It is true," was the proud reply. "The German Navy has been a long
time proving itself. It has done so now. To-day every German citizen is
the proudest creature breathing. He knew before that his armies were
invincible. He knows now that his fleet is destined to make his country
the mistress of the seas. England's day is over. Her ships were badly
handled and foolishly flung into battle. She has lost many of her
finest units. Her Navy is to-day a crippled and maimed force. The
German fleet is out in the North Sea, waiting for an enemy who has
disappeared."
"It is inconceivable," Pamela gasped.
"I do not ask you to believe my word," Fischer exclaimed. "Look!"
As though the flood gates had been suddenly opened, the stream of
patient waiters broke away from the newspaper building below. Like
little fireflies, the motor-bicycles were tearing down the different
thoroughfares. Boys like ants, with their burden of news sheets, were
running in every direction. Motor-trucks had started on their furious
race. Even the distant echoes of their cries came faintly up. Fischer
called a messenger and sent him for a paper.
"I do not know what report you will see," he said, "but from whatever
source it comes it will confirm my story. The news is too great and
sweeping to be contradicted or ignored."
"If it's true," Van Teyl muttered, "you've made a fortune in my office
to-day. It looks like it, too. There was something wrong with
Anglo-French beside your selling for the last hour this afternoon. I
couldn't get buyers to listen for a moment."
"Yes, I shall have made a great deal of money," Fischer admitted,
"money which I shall value because it comes magnificently, but I hope
that this victory may help me to win other things."
He looked fixedly at Pamela, and she moved uneasily in her chair.
Almost unconsciously the man himself seemed somehow associated with his
cause, to be assuming a larger and more tolerant place in her thoughts.
Perhaps there was some measure of greatness about him after all. The
strain of waiting for the papers became almost intolerable. At last the
boy reappeared. The great black headlines were stretched out before
her. She felt the envelopment of Fischer's triumph. The words were
there in solid type, and the paper itself was one of the most reliable.
GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA.
BRITISH ADMIRALTY ADMITS SERIOUS LOSSES.
"QUEEN MARY," "INDEFATIGABLE," AND MANY FINE SHIPS LOST.
Pamela looked up from the sheet.
"It is too wonderful," she whispered, with a note of awe in her tone.
"I don't think that any one ever expected this. We all believed in the
British Navy."
"There is nothing," Fischer declared, "that England can do which
Germany cannot do better."
"And America best of all," Pamela said.
Fischer bowed.
"That is one comparison which will never now be made," he declared,
"for from to-night Germany and America will draw nearer together. The
bubble of British naval omnipotence is pricked."
"Meanwhile," Van Teyl observed, putting his paper away, "we are
neglecting our dinner. Nothing like a good dose of sensationalism for
giving us an appetite."
Fischer was watching his glass being filled with champagne. He seized
it by the stem. His eyes for a moment travelled upwards.
"I am an American citizen," he said, with a strange fervour in his
tone, "but for the moment I am called back. And so I lift my glass and
I drink--I alone, without invitation to you others--to those brave
souls who have made of the North Sea a holy battle-ground."
He drained his glass and set it down empty. Pamela watched him as
though fascinated. For a single moment she was conscious of a queer
sensation of personal pity for some shadowy and absent friend, of
something almost like a lump in her throat, a strange instinct of
antagonism towards the man by her side so enveloped in beatific
satisfaction--then she frowned when she realised that she had been
thinking of Lutchester, that her first impulse had been one of sympathy
for him. The moment passed. The service of dinner was pressed more
insistently upon them. James Van Teyl, who had been leaning back in his
chair, talking to one of the maitres d'hotel, dismissed him with a
little nod and entrusted them with a confidence.
"Say, do you know who's coming to the next table?" he exclaimed.
"Sonia!"
They were all interested.
"You won't mind?" Fischer asked diffidently.
"In a restaurant, how absurd!" Pamela laughed. "Why, I'm dying to see
her. I wonder how it is that some of these greatest singers in the
world lead such extraordinary lives that people can never know anything
of them."
"Society is tolerant enough nowadays," her brother observed, "but Sonia
won't give them even a decent chance to wink at her eccentricities. She
crossed, you know, on the Prince Doronda's yacht, for fear they
wouldn't let her land."
"Here she comes," Pamela whispered.
There was a moment's spellbound silence. Two maitres d'hotel were
hurrying in front. A pathway from the lift had been cleared as though
for a royal personage. Sonia, in white from head to foot, a dream of
white lace and chinchilla, with a Russian crown of pearls in her glossy
black hair, and a rope of pearls around her neck, came like a waxen
figure, with scarlet lips and flashing eyes, towards her table. And
behind her--Lutchester! Pamela felt her fingers gripping the
tablecloth. Her first impulse, curiously enough, was one of wild fury
with herself for that single instant's pity. Her face grew cold and
hard. She felt herself sitting a little more upright. Her eyes remained
fixed upon the newcomers.
Lutchester's behaviour was admirable. His glance swept their little
table without even a shadow of interest. He ignored with passive
unconcern the mistake of Van Teyl's attempted greeting. He looked
through Fischer as though he had been a ghost. He stood by Sonia's side
while she seated herself, and listened with courteous pleasure to her
excited admiration of the flowers and the wonderful vista. Then he took
his own place. In his right hand he was carrying an evening paper with
its flaming headlines.
"That," Fischer pronounced, struggling to keep the joy from his tone,
"is very British and very magnificent!"
* * * * *
Pamela had imperfect recollections of the rest of the evening. She
remembered that she was more than usually gay throughout dinner-time,
but that she was the first to jump at the idea of a hurried departure
and a visit to a cabaret. Every now and then she caught a glimpse of
Sonia's face, saw the challenging light in her brilliant eyes, heard
little scraps of her conversation. The Frenchwoman spoke always in her
own language, with a rather shrill voice, which made Lutchester's
replies sound graver and quieter than usual. More than once Pamela's
eyes rested upon the broad lines of his back. He sat all the time like
a rock, courteous, at times obviously amusing, but underneath it all
she fancied that she saw some signs of the disturbance from which she
herself was suffering. She rose to her feet at last with a little sigh
of relief. It was an ordeal through which she had passed.
Once in the lift, her brother and Fischer discussed Lutchester's
indiscretion volubly.
"I suppose," Van Teyl declared, "that there isn't a man in New York who
wouldn't have jumped at the chance of dining alone with Sonia, but for
an Englishman, on a night like this," he went on, glancing at the
paper, "say, he must have some nerve!"
"Or else," Fischer remarked, "a wonderful indifference. So far as I
have studied the Anglo-Saxon temperament, I should be inclined to vote
for the indifference. That is why I think Germany will win the war.
Every man in that country prays for his country's success, not only in
words, but with his soul. I have not found the same spirit in England."
"The English people," Pamela interposed, "have a genius for concealment
which amounts to stupidity."
"I have a theory," Fischer said, "that to be phlegmatic after a certain
pitch is a sign of low vitality. However, we shall see. Certainly, if
England is to be saved from her present trouble, it will not be the
Lutchesters of the world who will do it, nor, it seems, her Navy."
They found their way to a large cabaret, where Pamela listened to an
indifferent performance a little wearily. The news of what was termed a
naval disaster to Great Britain was flashed upon the screen, and,
generally speaking, the audience was stunned. Fischer behaved
throughout the evening with tact and discretion. He made few references
to the matter, and was careful not to indulge in any undue
exhilaration. Once, when Van Teyl had left the box, however, to speak
to some friends, he turned earnestly to Pamela.
"Will it please you soon," he begged, "to resume our conversation of
the other day? However you may look at it, things have changed, have
they not? An invincible British Navy has been one of the fundamental
principles of beliefs in American politics. Now that it is destroyed,
the outlook is different. I could go myself to the proper quarter in
Washington, or Von Schwerin is here to be my spokesman. I have a fancy,
though, to work with you. You know why."
She moved uneasily in her place.
"I have no idea," she objected, "what it is that you have to propose.
Besides, I am only just a woman who has been entrusted with a few
diplomatic errands."
"You are the niece of Senator Hastings," Fischer reminded her, "and
Hastings is the man through whom I should like my proposal to go to the
President. It is an honest offer which I have to make, and although it
cannot pass through official channels, it is official in the highest
sense of the word, because it comes to me from the one man who is in a
position to make himself responsible for it."
Her brother came back to the box before Pamela could reply, but, as
they parted that night, she gave Fischer her hand.
"Come and see our new quarters," she invited. "I shall be at home any
time to-morrow afternoon."
It was one of the moments of Fischer's life. He bowed low over her
fingers.
"I accept, with great pleasure," he murmured.