"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
good in the way of a lover as you."
The man swore in German under his breath.
"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _dévouement_, no patriotism....
Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
information--and then I shall take you back again."
A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
Boleski's desires!
She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.
It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the rôle of a
lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
required from Stanislass she should return to him!
"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"
For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.
"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
neck, and thine also, if need be!"
"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."
Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.
"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"
Hans examined it:
"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
men let thee lie."
Harietta pouted.
"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
a good time."
"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"
Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.
"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."
The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.
"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"
Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
when menaced with a stick?
She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
of humour.
Hans crushed her in his arms.
"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"
Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
clever like they!
"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."
She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.
"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
too wide hips.
Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
conquered him.
"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
clearing his throat.
"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."
Hans growled, he hated to realise this.
"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"
Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.
"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
and she stood and laughed in his face.
He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.
After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.
"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
he hates the English--there is a slur on him."
"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"
"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."
"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
mean something annoyingly important.
Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.
Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.
"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.
When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elysées, she looked at her diamond
wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
she intended to visit for a few minutes.
"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-cochère_ gave no evidence of
the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Ministère_.
Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
among the tree tops.
Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.
Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.
"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stépan,
you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."
"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.
Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.
"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
amazed!"
Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.
She nodded, and that was all.
Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
eyes full of a mocking light.
"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
might be yours."
Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.
"You perfect angel, Stépan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
caresses at all, but just ordered:
"Now talk."
She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.
"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."
He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
meant to communicate was exposed.
"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
always pay lavishly for--love."
"Indeed, you know that I adore you, Stépan--and that brooch is just what
I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
tired of all my other things."
"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
shall be there by eleven for a few moments."
She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
_obstiné_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.
"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"
"She has."
"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"
"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
completely keep your hands full."
She laughed delightedly.
"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."
"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."
Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
towards the door.
"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
for me--to-night."
And when she had gone he took up his letter again
and looked at the address,
_To_
Lady Ardayre,
_Ardayre Chase,
North Somerset,
Angleterre_.
"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
sickens me--even for that!"