"FOR MARY'S SAKE."
His Excellency's face fell. He was silent for several moments.
The easy-going, well-dressed political adventurer before him was, he
knew, in the secrets of the strong party who were his opponents and who
were ever plotting his downfall. He had, since his return to Rome,
heard rumours through certain quarters in which secret service money was
spent that an agitation had been set afoot by his antagonists, but he
had never dreamed that the prime mover of it all was the very man in
whom he had so implicitly trusted, one of the men who owed everything to
him--Angelo Borselli! The revelation staggered him. He really could
not believe it to be actually true.
"And so he intends to become Minister--eh?" remarked Morini bitterly,
when he at last found tongue.
"He is working for that end," replied Ricci. "I was in Milan and Parma
a week ago, and on every hand I saw how cleverly he was stirring up
ill-feeling against you. He is secretly allied to the Socialists--of
that I am certain."
"Because he sees that through them he can obtain office," replied His
Excellency, his pale face now very serious. "You have done well to tell
me this, _caro mio_," he added. "I shall know now how to deal with the
man who learns my secrets and then seeks to betray me."
"But your position is daily becoming one of graver peril," exclaimed the
wily advocate, placing his hand confidentially upon the Minister's arm.
"The agitation is widespread. The Socialists intend that the Government
shall fall."
"But you will help me, Vito, as before?" Morini urged quickly. "Those
shrieking Socialist maniacs shall not gain the ascendency?" he declared,
clenching his hands and pacing the room quickly.
Vito Ricci, deputy for the town of Asti, shrugged his shoulders, but did
not reply. In the Italian Camera every politician of any prominence had
a small body of adherents, and political ability consisted in so
manipulating a number of these bodies as to form a majority; therefore
for this purpose each Minister secretly bribed one or more of the most
unscrupulous deputies to juggle with the party. A group might to-day be
on the side of the Government, and to-morrow with the Opposition. There
were no real political principles at stake in the policy of these
groups, and the only important question was that of party management and
judicious bribery.
Vito Ricci was a professional politician, with whom politics was a
regular trade. The Government granted him a free railway pass--as it
did all the other deputies at Montecitorio--and he made money wherever
he could. His position enabled him to obtain many favours for himself
and his friends. The system of recommendations and parliamentary
influence was one of the worst features of Italian political life, for
it was generally regarded as one of the deputy's chief duties that, for
a consideration, he should help his friends and constituents to procure
favours, promotions, decorations, and concessions of contracts which
would not be otherwise obtainable. Political jobbery was regarded as
inevitable.
Indeed, Vito Ricci lived upon the bribes he received--and lived well.
"You are silent," remarked His Excellency, looking him straight in his
face. "Why?"
"Because I have nothing to say."
"You don't promise to assist me!" he exclaimed. "You don't declare your
readiness to unite the groups again in our favour!"
"Because I fear it would be a useless task," responded the other in a
calm, mechanical voice.
"A useless task!" gasped the elder man, whose face was blanched. "What
do you mean?"
"I mean that matters have assumed an ugly appearance," replied the
deputy. "Even the journals who have received so much money from you are
silent when they ought to be loudest in your eulogy. They are evidently
awaiting the advent of their new masters."
"Then you actually anticipate a catastrophe?" exclaimed Morini hoarsely,
halting before the man who had rendered him so many valuable services--
the clever, unscrupulous adventurer who had several times turned the
parliamentary tide in his favour.
Vito nodded slowly, his bearded face grave and hard set.
"If what you say is really true regarding Angelo, then I am fully aware
of the great peril in which I stand," the Minister exclaimed at last,
his voice faltering in his agitation. "Borselli will hesitate at
nothing in order to gain power."
"Ah, I told you so a year ago, my dear Camillo," was the deputy's reply.
"But you would not listen. He was your friend, you said--as though
there was such a thing as friendship in any of the ministries."
"I have been deceived," admitted the other in a low voice.
A silence fell between the pair, until the deputy suddenly said
hesitatingly--
"I suppose Angelo could make some rather awkward revelations--eh?"
The Minister slowly nodded.
"H'm. I thought as much from what I gathered in Milan. He would
denounce you, and by reason of his big Socialist following he would come
out with clean hands. He has laid his plans well, without a doubt.
Sirena, the Socialist deputy for Pesaro, told me, in confidence, all
that is intended."
"They mean to strike a blow at me?"
"Yes, by criticising the army, and by bringing forward some curious
story about the plans of the fortress of Tresenta in the Alps being sold
to France. Do you know anything about it?"
"Yes. The plans have unfortunately been given to France by a captain
named Solaro, who has been dismissed the army and sent to prison. So
they intend to make political capital out of that, do they?"
"It seems so," was the other's answer.
Morini slowly repaced the room, his chin upon his breast, deep in
thought, the dead silence being broken only by his footsteps upon the
marble floor.
"Borselli has formed a plot against me--a deep, dastardly plot!" he
exclaimed in a desperate tone, halting again suddenly, a determined look
upon his grey features. "He intends that I shall fall. But you, Vito,
can save me, if you will--you know you can. With a little of this," and
he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, "you can unite the groups
as you did before, and show the country that the Minister of War still
possesses the confidence of the kingdom."
"I doubt it," answered Ricci dubiously.
"But you will not desert me now?" implored His Excellency, laying his
hand firmly upon the deputy's shoulder. "Recollect the past, Vito.
Remember the day when you, a lieutenant, prevented my horse throwing me
at the manoeuvres in the Chianti. That was long ago, but both of us
have had cause to congratulate ourselves upon that meeting."
Ricci nodded. He recollected well how the Minister, then only a few
months in office, had allowed him to resign from the army and complete
his studies as an advocate, and how, by a clever stroke of political
jobbery, he had been elected deputy for Asti, in order that he should
serve the Minister as his secret agent in the Camera. He had become
rich in a few years, owing to the various grants and concessions His
Excellency had made to him, yet somehow his personal extravagance kept
him always poor, always in want of money. He feared to calculate how
much of the secret service funds had already found its way into his
pocket, and yet with wily ingenuity he was there again for a grant, not
from the secret service fund--for he knew well that the sum voted for
the present year was already exhausted--but from Camillo Morini's own
private purse.
Vito Ricci, with all the outward appearance of a gentleman, was utterly
unscrupulous. He worked in the Camera for the master who paid him
best--a fact which Morini knew too well. If the Socialists were
prepared to pay his price, then the man whom he had trained so cleverly
and promoted to place and power would calmly throw him over, and hound
him down with just as great an enthusiasm as he now supported him.
"I suppose," he went on at last, "it is, as usual, a matter of price
with you--eh, Vito?"
"Well, I must live, just as you must," responded the other with a faint
smile as he discerned how terrified the Minister had become at the
information he had just given him. "I have no private income, and
therefore must make money somehow."
"You have made plenty of it," the other remarked. "Only three months
ago you had fifty thousand lire out of the secret service fund."
"And I am now badly in want of an exactly similar amount," the deputy
declared.
"Ah! so that is the price--eh? Fifty thousand?"
"Yes. But of course I cannot guarantee success for that sum. It may
cost more. I have to bribe the leaders of each of the groups in the
Chamber, and I flatter myself that I am the only man who can work them
in favour of the Ministry."
"I admit that, my dear Vito. You are a marvel of tact and cunning.
What a pity you did not enter the Diplomatic service! But the price.
It is too high. I can't really afford to pay so much. Ah! if you knew
how heavy my personal expenses are, and how--"
"Of course," the other cried, interrupting. "You made the same excuse
last time, but you paid these screaming hounds all the same. It is
surely useless to waste breath upon argument. The facts are quite
plain, as I've already told you. If you pay for triumph you will
probably receive it; if you don't, you must fall, and Angelo Borselli
will be given your portfolio. Pardon me for saying it, Camillo, but of
late you have lived with your eyes shut. I have watched, and I have
observed certain things. Recently you have held me aloof from you, just
at a moment when I could be of greatest service. This, I confess, has
hurt me. I believed you reposed confidence in me, but it seems that you
mistrust me."
"I mistrust all blackmailers," was the Minister's quick reply, his dark
eyes flashing at the speaker.
"Because you are one yourself," the other retorted quickly, with a grin.
"You yourself taught me the gentle art of blackmailing. But no! do not
let us revile each other. Rather let us face the critical situation. I
tell you that you are blind--otherwise you would realise how cleverly
and with what devilish ingenuity your power is being undermined. You
must bribe the groups--you must pay the sum I ask. It is your duty, not
only for your own sake, but for that of your family--the signora and the
Signorina Mary."
The Minister of War stood undecided. Mention of his family brought home
to him the terrible responsibility upon him. Ruin, exposure,
condemnation, disgrace, all stared him in the face. Yet by paying what
his creature demanded he could once again steer clear of the shoals of
the stormy parliamentary waters, and the country would have renewed
confidence in Camillo Morini.
He knew that he was--as indeed he had been for years--entirely at the
mercy of this man whom he had trained as his secret agent both in the
Camera and out of it.
"Well," he answered at last in a deep, hoarse, broken voice, "and
suppose I pay? What then?"
"Then I shall do my best," was Vito's response. "I can't, of course, be
certain that I shall succeed, but as the groups require my influence in
another quarter, they will probably render me assistance in this."
Morini was pacing the room again. His appearance was that of a man
filled with apprehension. He saw that the situation was most critical,
and recognised that ruin was before him. He glanced across at his
writing-table, when his lips compressed and a strange, half-triumphant
smile overspread his grey countenance.
"Very well," he exclaimed, and his sigh ran through the great old
chamber. "I suppose you must have the money to throw to those howling
dogs. Call at the Ministry to-morrow and you shall have a draft."
"For sixty thousand," said the deputy quickly. "Better be on the safe
side. I shall have to distribute money freely this time, you know."
But the Minister refused, knowing that the extra ten thousand lire would
go into Vito's pocket. Then they argued, long and hotly, Ricci, the
accomplished blackmailer, refusing openly to lend his influence for any
less sum, until at length the man who was so completely in his power was
reluctantly compelled to yield--for the sake of his wife and Mary, he
said in sheer desperation.
"And now that you are again reposing confidence in me, my dear friend,"
said the deputy, "let me give you a word of warning."
"Speak. I am all attention."
"Last season there was here in Rome a man named Dubard. You introduced
us one night when I dined here. I have since heard that he is aspiring
to your daughter's hand."
"Well?"
"Watch him, and you will discover something that will surprise you. I
shall say no more. The future is in your own hands."