Having reassured myself of Yolande's recovery, I was compelled to rush
off, slip into uniform, and attend a dinner at the Elysee. The function
was a brilliant affair, as are all the official junketings of the French
President. At the right of the head of the Republic, who was
distinguishable by his crimson sash, sat the Countess Tornelli, with the
wife of the United States Ambassador on his left. The President's
wife--who wore a superb gown of corn-coloured miroir velvet, richly
embroidered and inlaid with Venetian lace, a veritable triumph of the
Rue de la Paix--had on her right the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Lerenzelli,
the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, while on her left was my Chief, Lord
Barmouth.
The seat next me was allotted to his daughter Sibyl, who looked charming
in rose chiffon. During dinner she chatted merrily, describing a
charity bazaar which she had attended that afternoon accompanied by her
mother. On the other side of her sat Count Berchtold, the secretary of
the Austrian Embassy, who was, I shrewdly suspected, one of her most
devoted admirers. She was charming--a typical, smart English girl; and
I think that I was proved to be an exception among men by reason of the
fact that I did not flirt with her. Indeed, we were excellent friends,
and my long acquaintance with her gave me a prescriptive right to a kind
of brotherly solicitude for her welfare. Times without number I had
chaffed her about her little affairs of the heart, and as many times she
had turned my criticisms against myself by her witty repartee. She
could be exceedingly sarcastic when occasion required; but there had
always been a perfect understanding between us, and no remark was ever
distorted into an insult.
Dinner was followed by a brilliant reception. The great Salon des
Fetes, which only a year before was hung with funeral wreaths, owing to
the death of the previous President, resounded with that peculiar hum
made up of all the intonations of conversation and discreet laughter
rolled together against the sustained buzzing of the orchestra a short
distance away. The scene was one of glittering magnificence. Everyone
knew everyone else. Through the crowd of uniforms--which always give an
official reception at the Elysee the appearance of a bal travesti--I
passed Monsieur Casimir Perrier, former President of the Republic;
Monsieur Paul Deschanel, the lion of the hour; Monsieur
Benjamin-Constant, always a prominent figure; Prince Roland Bonaparte,
smiling and bowing; the Duchess d'Auerstadt, with her magnificent
jewels; and Damat, the dapper Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour.
All diplomatic Paris was there, chattering, laughing, whispering, and
plotting. Around me sounded a veritable babel of tongues, but no part
of the function interested me.
From time to time I saluted a man I knew, or bent over a woman's hand;
but my thoughts were of the one woman who had so suddenly and so
forcibly returned into my life. The representatives of the Powers of
Europe were all present, and as they passed me by, each in his bright
uniform, his orders flashing on his breast and a woman on his arm, I
asked myself which of them was actually the employer of my well-beloved.
The startling events of the day had upset me. Had it been possible I
would have left and returned to my rooms for a quiet smoke and for calm
reflection. But my duty required my presence there; hence I remained,
strolling slowly around the great crowded salon with its myriad lights
and profuse floral decorations, until I suddenly encountered the
wizen-faced, toothless old Baronne de Chalencon, whose salon was one of
the most popular in Paris, and with whom I was on excellent terms.
"Ah! my dear M'sieur Ingram!" she cried, holding forth her thin, bony
hand laden with jewels. "You look tired. Why? No one here to-night
who interests you--eh?"
"No one save yourself, Baronne," I responded, bending over her hand.
"Flatterer!" she laughed. "If I were forty years younger I might accept
that as a compliment. But at my age--well, it is really cruel of you."
"Intelligence is more interesting to a diplomat than a pretty face," I
responded quickly. "And there is certainly no more intelligent woman in
all Paris than the Baronne de Chalencon."
She bowed stiffly, and her wrinkled face, which bore visible traces of
poudre orchidee and touches of the hare's-foot, puckered up into a
simpering smile.
"Well, and what else?" she asked. "These speeches you have apparently
prepared for some pretty woman you expected to meet here to-night, but,
since she has not kept the appointment, you are practising them upon
me."
"No," I said, "I really protest against that, Baronne. A woman is never
too old for a man to pay her compliments."
We had strolled into a cool ante-room, and were sitting together upon
one of the many seats placed beneath clumps of palms and flowers, the
only light being from a hundred tiny electric lamps hung overhead in the
trees. The perfect arrangement of those ante-rooms of the Salle des
Fetes on the nights of the official receptions is always noteworthy, and
after the heat, music, and babel of tongues in the grand salon it was
cool, quiet, and refreshing there.
By holding her regular salon, where everybody who was anybody made it a
point to be seen, the Baronne had acquired in Paris a unique position.
Her fine house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees was the centre of a
smart and fashionable set, and she herself made a point of being versed
in all the latest gossip and scandal of the French capital. She
scandalised nobody, nor did she seek to throw mud at her enemies. She
merely repeated what was whispered to her; hence a chat with her was
always interesting to one who, like myself, was paid to keep his ears
open and report from time to time the direction of the political wind.
Tournier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife were her
most intimate friends; hence she was frequently aware of facts which
were of considerable importance to us. Indeed, once or twice her
friendliness for myself had caused her to drop hints which had been of
the greatest use to Lord Barmouth in the conduct of his difficult
diplomacy at that time when the boulevard journals were screaming
against England and the filthy prints were caricaturing Her Majesty,
with intent to insult. Even the _Figaro_--the moderate organ of the
French Foreign Office--had lost its self-control in the storm of abuse
following the Fashoda incident, and had libelled and maligned "les
English." I therefore seized the opportunity for a chat with the
wizen-faced old lady, who seemed in a particularly good-humour, and
deftly turned the conversation into the political channel.
"Now, tell me, Baronne," I said, after we had been chatting some little
time, and I had learnt more than one important fact regarding the
intentions of Tournier, "what is your opinion regarding the occupation
of Ceuta?"
She glanced at me quickly, as though surprised that I should be aware of
what she had believed to be an entire secret.
"Of Ceuta?" she echoed. "And what do you at your Embassy know regarding
it?"
"We've heard a good deal," I laughed.
"No doubt you've heard a good deal that is untrue," the clever old lady
replied, her powdered face again puckering into a smile. "Do you want
to know my honest opinion?" she added.
"Yes, I do."
"Well," she went on, "I attach very little importance to the rumours of
a projected sale or lease of Ceuta to us. I might tell you in
confidence," she went on, dropping her voice, "that from some words I
overheard at the garden-party at de Wolkenstein's I have come to a firm
conclusion that, although during the next few years important changes
will be made upon the map of the world, Ceuta will remain Spanish. My
country will never menace yours in the Mediterranean at that point. A
Ministry might be found in Madrid to consider the question of its
disposal, but the Spanish people would rise in revolution before they
would consent. Spain is very poor, but very proud. Having lost so many
of her foreign possessions, she will hold more strongly than ever to
Ceuta. There you have the whole situation in a nutshell."
"Then the report that it is actually sold to France is untrue?" I asked
eagerly.
"A mere report I believe it to be."
"But Spain's financial indebtedness to France might prove an element of
danger when Europe justifies Lord Beaconsfield's prediction and rushes
into war over Morocco?"
"Ah, my dear M'sieur Ingram, I do not agree with the prediction of your
great statesman," the old lady said vehemently. "It is not in that
direction in which lies the danger of war, but at the other end of the
Mediterranean."
Somehow I suspected her of a deliberate intention to mislead me in this
matter. She was a shrewd woman, who only disclosed her secrets when it
was to her own interests or the interests of her friends at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs to do so. In Paris there is a vast network of French
intrigue, and it behoves the diplomatist always to be wary lest he
should fall into the pitfalls so cunningly prepared for him. The
dividing line between truth and untruth is always so very difficult to
define in modern diplomacy. It is when the European situation seems
most secure that the match is sufficiently near to fire the mine.
Fortunate it is that the public, quick to accept anything that appears
in the daily journals, can be placed in a sense of false security by
articles inspired by one or other of the embassies interested. If it
were not so, European panics would certainly be of frequent occurrence.
My Chief sauntered by, chatting with his close personal friend, Prince
Olsoufieff, the Russian Ambassador, who looked a truly striking figure
in his white uniform, with the Cross of St. Andrew glittering at his
throat. The latter, as he passed, exclaimed confidentially in Russian
to my Chief, who understood that language, having been first Secretary
of Embassy in Petersburg earlier in his career:
"Da, ya po-ni-mai-u. Ya sam napishu." ("Yes, I understand. I will
write for you myself.")
Keen antagonists in diplomacy though they very often were, yet in
private life a firm friendship existed between the pair--a friendship
dating from the days when the one had been British Attache in Petersburg
and the other had occupied a position in the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs--that large grey building facing the Winter Palace.
"The lion and the bear strolling together," laughed the toothless old
Baronne, after they had passed. "Olsoufieff is a charming man, but he
never accepts my invitations. I cannot tell why. I don't fancy he
considers me his friend."
"Sibyl was at your reception the other evening," I remarked suddenly.
"She told me she met a man who was a stranger in Paris. His name, I
think she said, was Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf. Who is he?"
"He was introduced by de Wolkenstein, the Austrian Ambassador," she
replied quickly. "I did not know him."
"Have you never met him before?" I asked, looking sharply into her
eyes.
"Once, I think, but I am not certain," she said, with a palpable effort
to evade my question.