Mrs. Carson and her daughter came from the hotel to the terrace through
the hallway which divided the King's apartments. Baron Barrat preceded
them and they followed in single file, Miss Carson walking first. It
was a position her mother always forced upon her, and after people grew
to know them they accepted it as illustrating Mrs. Carson's confidence
in her daughter's ability to care for herself, as well as her own wish
to remain in the background.
Patricia Carson, as she was named after her patron saint, or "Patty"
Carson, as she was called more frequently, was an exceedingly pretty
girl. She was tall and fair, with a smile that showed such confidence
in everyone she met that few could find the courage to undeceive her by
being themselves, and it was easier, in the face of such an appeal as
her eyes made to the best in every one, for each to act a part while he
was with her. She was young, impressionable, and absolutely
inexperienced. As a little girl she had lived on a great ranch, where
she could gallop from sunrise to sunset over her own prairie land, and
later her life had been spent in a convent outside of Paris. She had
but two great emotions, her love for her father and for the Church
which had nursed her. Her father's death had sanctified him and given
him a place in her heart that her mother could not hold, and when she
found herself at twenty-one the mistress of a great fortune, her one
idea as to the disposal of it was to do with it what would best please
him and the Church which had been the ruling power in the life of both
of them. She was quite unconscious of her beauty, and her mode of
speaking was simple and eager.
She halted as she came near the King, and resting her two hands on the
top of her lace parasol, nodded pleasantly to him and to the others.
She neither courtesied nor offered him her hand, but seemed to prefer
this middle course, leaving them to decide whether she acted as she did
from ignorance or from choice.
As the King stepped forward to greet her mother, Miss Carson passed him
and moved on to where the Father Superior stood apart from the others,
talking earnestly with the Prince. What he was saying was of an
unwelcome nature, for Kalonay's face wore an expression of boredom and
polite protest which changed instantly to one of delight when he saw
Miss Carson. The girl hesitated and made a deep obeisance to the
priest.
"I am afraid I interrupt you," she said.
"Not at all," Kalonay assured her, laughing. "It is a most welcome
interruption. The good father has been finding fault with me, as
usual, and I am quite willing to change the subject."
The priest smiled kindly on the girl, and while he exchanged some words
of welcome with her, Kalonay brought up one of the huge wicker chairs,
and she seated herself with her back to the others, facing the two men,
who stood leaning against the broad balustrade. They had been
fellow-conspirators sufficiently long for them to have grown to know
each other well, and the priest, so far from regarding her as an
intruder, hailed her at once as a probable ally, and endeavored to
begin again where he had ceased speaking.
"Do you not agree with me, Miss Carson?" he asked. "I am telling the
Prince that zeal is not enough, and that high ideals, unless they are
accompanied by good conduct, are futile. I want him to change, to be
more sober, more strict----"
"Oh, you must not ask me," Miss Carson said, hurriedly, smiling and
shaking her head. "We are working for only one thing, are we not?
Beyond that you know nothing of me, and I know nothing of you. I came
to hear of your visit," she continued; "am I to be told anything?" she
asked, eagerly, looking from one to the other. "It has been such an
anxious two weeks. We imagined all manner of things had happened to
you."
Kalonay laughed happily. "The Father was probably never safer in his
life," he said. "They took us to their hearts like brothers. They
might have suffocated us with kindness, but we were in no other danger."
"Then you are encouraged, Father?" she asked, turning to the priest.
"You found them loyal? Your visit was all you hoped, you can depend
upon them?"
"We can count upon them absolutely," the monk assured her. "We shall
start on our return voyage at once, in a day, as soon as his Majesty
gives the word."
"There are so many things I want to know," the girl said; "but I have
no right to ask," she added, looking up at him doubtfully.
"You have every right," the monk answered. "You have certainly earned
it. Without the help you gave us we could not have moved. You have
been more than generous----"
Miss Carson interrupted him with an impatient lifting of her head.
"That sort of generosity is nothing," she said. "With you men it is
different. You are all risking something. You are actually helping,
while I must sit still and wait. I hope, Father," she said, smiling,
"it is not wrong for me to wish I were a man."
"Wrong!" exclaimed Kalonay, in a tone of mock dismay; "of course it's
wrong. It's wicked."
The monk turned and looked coldly over his shoulder at Kalonay, and the
Prince laughed.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but we are told to be contented with our
lot," he argued, impenitently. "`He only is a slave who complains,'
and that is true even if a heretic did say it."
The monk shook his head and turned again to Miss Carson with a tolerant
smile.
"He is very young," he said, as though Kalonay did not hear him, "and
wild and foolish--and yet," he added, doubtfully, "I find I love the
boy." He regarded the young man with a kind but impersonal scrutiny,
as though he were a picture or a statue. "Sometimes I imagine he is
all I might have been," he said, "had not God given me the strength to
overcome myself. He has never denied himself in anything; he is as
wilful and capricious as a girl. He makes a noble friend, Miss Carson,
and a generous enemy; but he is spoiled irretrievably by good fortune
and good living and good health." The priest looked at the young man
with a certain sad severity. "`Unstable as water, thou shalt not
excel,'" he said.
The girl, in great embarrassment, turned her head away, glancing from
the ocean to the sky; but Kalonay seated himself coolly on the broad
balustrade of the terrace with his hands on his hips, and his heels
resting on the marble tiling, and clicked the soles of his boots
together.
"Oh, I have had my bad days, too, Father," he said. He turned his head
on one side, and pressed his lips together, looking down.
"Unstable as water--that is quite possible," he said, with an air of
consideration; "but spoiled by good fortune--oh, no, that is not fair.
Do you call it good fortune, sir," he laughed, "to be an exile at
twenty-eight? Is it good fortune to be too poor to pay your debts, and
too lazy to work; to be the last of a great name, and to have no chance
to add to the glory of it, and no means to keep its dignity fresh and
secure? Do you fancy I like to see myself drifting farther and farther
away from the old standards and the old traditions; to have English
brewers and German Jew bankers taking the place I should have, buying
titles with their earnings and snubbing me because I can only hunt when
someone gives me a mount, and because I choose to take a purse instead
of a cup when we shoot at Monte Carlo?"
"What child's talk is this?" interrupted the priest, angrily. "A
thousand horses cannot make a man noble, nor was poverty ever ignoble.
You talk like a weak boy. Every word you say is your own condemnation.
Why should you complain? Your bed is of your own making. The other
prodigal was forced to herd with the swine--you have chosen to herd
with them."
The girl straightened herself and half rose from her chair.
"You are boring Miss Carson with my delinquencies," said the Prince,
sternly. His face was flushed, and he did not look either at the girl
or at the priest.
"But the prodigal's father?" said Miss Carson, smiling at the older
man. "Did he stand over him and upbraid him? You remember, he went to
meet him when he was yet a great way off. That was it, was it not,
Father?"
"Of course he did," cried Kalonay, laughing like a boy, and slipping
lightly to the terrace. "He met him half way and gave him the best he
had." He stepped to Miss Carson's side and the two young people moved
away smiling, and the priest, seeing that they were about to escape
him, cried eagerly, "But that prodigal had repented. This one----"
"Let's run," cried the Prince. "He will get the best of us if we stay.
He always gets the best of me. He has been abusing me that way for two
weeks now, and he is always sorry afterward. Let us leave him alone to
his sorrow and remorse."
Kalonay walked across the terrace with Miss Carson, bending above her
with what would have seemed to an outsider almost a proprietary right.
She did not appear to notice it, but looked at him frankly and listened
to what he had to say with interest. He was speaking rapidly, and as
he spoke he glanced shyly at her as though seeking her approbation, and
not boldly, as he was accustomed to do when he talked with either men
or women. To look at her with admiration was such a cheap form of
appreciation, and one so distasteful to her, that had he known it,
Kalonay's averted eyes were more of a compliment than any words he
could have spoken. His companions who had seen him with other women
knew that his manner to her was not his usual manner, and that he gave
her something he did not give to the others; that he was more discreet
and less ready, and less at ease.
The Prince Kalonay had first met Miss Carson and her mother by chance
in Paris, at the rooms of Father Paul, where they had each gone on the
same errand, and since that meeting his whole manner toward the two
worlds in which he lived had altered so strangely that mere
acquaintances noticed the change.
Before he had met her, the little the priest had said concerning her
and her zeal for their common desire had piqued his curiosity, and his
imagination had been aroused by the picture of a romantic young woman
giving her fortune to save the souls of the people of Messina; his
people whom he regarded and who regarded him less as a feudal lord than
as a father and a comrade. He had pictured her as a nervous, angular
woman with a pale, ascetic face, and with the restless eyes of an
enthusiast, dressed in black and badly dressed, and with a severe and
narrow intelligence. But he had prepared himself to forgive her
personality, for the sake of the high and generous impulse that
inspired her. And when he was presented to her as she really was, and
found her young, lovable, and nobly fair, the shock of wonder and
delight had held him silent during the whole course of her interview
with the priest, and when she had left them his brain was in a tumult
and was filled with memories of her words and gestures, and of the
sweet fearlessness of her manner. Beautiful women he had known before
as beautiful women, but the saving grace in his nature had never before
been so deeply roused by what was fine as well as beautiful. It seemed
as though it were too complete and perfect. For he assured himself
that she possessed everything--those qualities which he had never
valued before because he believed them to be unattainable, and those
others which he had made his idols. She was with him, mind and heart
and soul, in the one desire of his life that he took seriously; she was
of his religion, she was more noble than his noble sisters, and she was
more beautiful than the day. In the first glow of the meeting it
seemed to him as though fate had called them to do this work
together,--she from the far shore of the Pacific, and he from his rocky
island in the Middle Sea. And he saw with cruel distinctness, that if
there were one thing wanting, it was himself. He worshipped her before
he had bowed his first good-by to her, and that night he walked for
miles up and down the long lengths of the avenue of the Champs-Elysees,
facing the great change that she had brought into his life, but knowing
himself to be utterly unfit for her coming. He felt like an unworthy
steward caught at his master's return unprepared, with ungirt loins,
and unlighted lamp. Nothing he had done since he was a child gave him
the right to consider himself her equal. He was not blinded by the
approaches which other daughters and the mothers of daughters had made
him. He knew that what was enough to excuse many things in their eyes
might find no apology in hers. He looked back with the awakening of a
child at the irrevocable acts in his life that could not be altered nor
dug up nor hidden away. They marked the road he had trodden like heavy
milestones, telling his story to every passer-by. She could read them,
as everyone else could read them. He had wasted his substance, he had
bartered his birthright for a moment's pleasure; there was no one so
low and despicable who could not call him comrade, to whom he had not
given himself without reserve. There was nothing left, and now the one
thing he had ever wanted had come, and had found him like a bankrupt,
his credit wasted and his coffers empty. He had placed himself at the
beck and call of every idle man and woman in Paris, and he was as
common as the great clock-face that hangs above the boulevards.
Miss Carson's feelings toward Kalonay were not of her own choosing, and
had passed through several stages. When they had first met she had
thought it most sad that so careless and unprincipled a person should
chance to hold so important a part in the task she had set herself to
do. She knew his class only by hearsay, but she placed him in it, and,
accordingly, at once dismissed him as a person from her mind. Kalonay
had never shown her that he loved her, except by those signs which any
woman can read and which no man can conceal; but he did not make love
to her, and it was that which first prepossessed her in his favor. One
or two other men who knew of her fortune, and to whom she had given as
little encouragement as she had to Kalonay, had been less considerate.
But his attitude toward her was always that of a fellow-worker in the
common cause. He treated her with a gratitude for the help she meant
to give his people which much embarrassed her. His seriousness pleased
her with him, seeing, as she did, that it was not his nature to be
serious, and his enthusiasm and love for his half-civilized countrymen
increased her interest in them, and her liking for him. She could not
help but admire the way in which he accepted, without forcing her to
make it any plainer, the fact that he held no place in her thoughts.
And then she found that he began to hold more of a place in her
thoughts than she had supposed any man could hold of whom she knew so
little, and of whom the little she knew was so ill. She missed him
when she went to the priest's and found that he had not sent for
Kalonay to bear his part in their councils; and at times she felt an
unworthy wish to hear Kalonay speak the very words she had admired him
for keeping from her. And at last she learned the truth that she did
love him, and it frightened her, and made her miserable and happy.
They had not seen each other since he had left Paris for Messina, and
though they spoke now only of his mission to the island, there was back
of what they said the joy for each of them of being together again and
of finding that it meant so much. What it might mean to the other,
neither knew.
For some little time the King followed the two young people with his
eyes, and then joined them, making signs to Kalonay that he wished him
to leave them together; but Kalonay remained blind to his signals, and
Barrat, seeing that it was not a tete-a-tete, joined them also. When
he did so Kalonay asked the King for a word, and laying his hand upon
his arm walked with him down the terrace, pointing ostensibly to where
the yacht lay in the harbor. Louis answered his pantomime with an
appropriate gesture, and then asked, sharply, "Well, what is it? Why
did you bring me here? And what do you mean by staying on when you see
you are not wanted?"
They were some distance from the others. Kalonay smiled and made a
slight bow. "Your Majesty," he began, with polite emphasis. The King
looked at him curiously.
"In the old days under similar circumstances," the Prince continued,
with the air of a courtier rather than that of an equal, "had I thought
of forming an alliance by marriage, I should have come to your Majesty
first and asked your gracious approval. But those days are past, and
we are living at the end of the century; and we do such things
differently." He straightened himself and returned the King's look of
amused interest with one as cynical as his own. "What I wanted to tell
you, Louis," he said, quietly, "is that I mean to ask Miss Carson to
become the Princess Kalonay."
The King raised his head quickly and stared at the younger man with a
look of distaste and surprise. He gave an incredulous laugh.
"Indeed?" he said at last. "There was always something about rich
women you could never resist."
The Prince made his acknowledgment with a shrug of his shoulders and
smiled indifferently.
"I didn't expect you to understand," he said. "It does seem odd; it's
quite as difficult for me to understand as for you. I have been
through it a great many times, and I thought I knew all there was of
it. But now it seems different. No, it does not seem different," he
corrected himself; "it is different, and I love the lady and I mean to
ask her to do me the honor to marry me. I didn't expect you to
understand, I don't care if you do. I only wanted to warn you."
"Warn me?" interrupted the King, with an unpleasant smile. "Indeed!
against what? Your tone is a trifle peremptory--but you are
interesting, most interesting! Kalonay in a new role, Kalonay in love!
Most interesting! Warn me against what?" he repeated sharply.
"Your Majesty has a certain manner," the Prince began, with a pretence
of hesitation, "a charm of manner, I might say, which is proverbial.
It is, we know, attractive to women. Every woman acknowledges it. But
your Majesty is sometimes too gracious. He permits himself to
condescend to many women, to any woman, to women of all classes----"
"That will do," said the King; "what do you mean?"
"What I mean is this," said Kalonay, lowering his voice and looking
into the King's half-closed eyes. "You can have all of Miss Carson's
money you want--all you can get. I don't want it. If I am to--marry
her at all, I am not marrying her for her money. You can't believe
that. It isn't essential that you should. But I want you to leave the
woman I hope to make my wife alone. I will allow no pretty speeches,
nor royal attentions. She can give her money where she pleases, now
and always; but I'll not have her eyes opened to--as you can open them.
I will not have her annoyed. And if she is----"
"Ah, and if she is?" challenged the King. His eyes were wide apart now
and his lips were parted and drawn back from his teeth, like a snarling
cat----
"I shall hold whoever annoys her responsible," Kalonay concluded,
impersonally.
There was a moment's pause, during which the two men stood regarding
each other warily.
Then the King stiffened his shoulders and placed his hands slowly
behind his back. "That sounds, my dear Kalonay," he said, "almost like
a threat."
The younger man laughed insolently. "I meant it, too, your Majesty,"
he answered, bowing mockingly and backing away.
As the King's guests seated themselves at his breakfast-table Louis
smiled upon them with a gracious glance of welcome and approval. His
manner was charmingly condescending, and in his appearance there was
nothing more serious than an anxiety for their better entertainment and
a certain animal satisfaction in the food upon his plate.
In reality his eyes were distributing the people at the table before
him into elements favorable or unfavorable to his plans, and in his
mind he shuffled them and their values for him or against him as a
gambler arranges and rearranges the cards in his hand. He saw himself
plainly as his own highest card, and Barrat and Erhaupt as willing but
mediocre accomplices. In Father Paul and Kalonay he recognized his
most powerful allies or most dangerous foes. Miss Carson meant nothing
to him but a source from which he could draw the sinews of war. What
would become of her after the farce was ended, he did not consider. He
was not capable of comprehending either her or her motives, and had he
concerned himself about her at all, he would have probably thought that
she was more of a fool than the saint she pretended to be, and that she
had come to their assistance more because she wished to be near a
Prince and a King than because she cared for the souls of sixty
thousand peasants. That she would surely lose her money, and could
hardly hope to escape from them without losing her good name, did not
concern him. It was not his duty to look after the reputation of any
American heiress who thought she could afford to be unconventional.
She had a mother to do that for her, and she was pretty enough, he
concluded, to excuse many things,--so pretty that he wondered if he
might brave the Countess Zara and offer Miss Carson the attentions to
which Kalonay had made such arrogant objections. The King smiled at
the thought, and let his little eyes fall for a moment on the tall
figure of the girl with its crown of heavy golden hair, and on her
clever, earnest eyes. She was certainly worth waiting for, and in the
meanwhile she was virtually unprotected and surrounded by his own
people. According to his translation of her acts, she had already
offered him every encouragement, and had placed herself in a position
which to his understanding of the world could have but one
interpretation. What Kalonay's sudden infatuation might mean he could
not foresee; whether it promised good or threatened evil, he could only
guess, but he decided that the young man's unwonted show of
independence of the morning must be punished. His claim to exclusive
proprietorship in the young girl struck the King as amusing, but
impertinent. It would be easy sailing in spite of all, he decided; for
somewhere up above them in the hotel sat the unbidden guest, the woman
against whom Father Paul had raised the ban of expulsion, but who had,
nevertheless, tricked both him and the faithful Jackal.
The breakfast was drawing to an end and the faithful Niccolas was the
only servant remaining in the room. The talk had grown intimate and
touched openly upon the successful visit of the two ambassadors to the
island, and of Barrat's mission to Paris. Of Madame Zara's visit to
the northern half of the island, which was supposed to have been less
successful, no mention was made.
Louis felt as he listened to them like a man at a play, who knows that
at a word from him the complications would cease, and that were he to
rise in the stalls and explain them away, and point out the real hero
and denounce the villain, the curtain would have to ring down on the
instant. He gave a little purr of satisfaction, and again marshalled
his chances before him and smiled to find them good. He was grandly at
peace with himself and with the world. Whatever happened, he was
already richer by some 300,000 francs, and in a day, if he could keep
the American girl to her expedition had been played he would be
free,--free to return to his clubs and to his boulevards and boudoirs,
with money enough to silence the most insolent among his creditors, and
with renewed credit; with even a certain glamour about him of one who
had dared to do, even though he had failed in the doing, who had shaken
off the slothfulness of ease and had chosen to risk his life for his
throne with a smoking rifle in his hand, until a traitor had turned
fortune against him.
The King was amused to find that this prospect pleased him vastly. He
was surprised to discover that, careless as he thought himself to be to
public opinion, he was still capable of caring for its approbation; but
he consoled himself for this weakness by arguing that it was only
because the approbation would be his by a trick that it pleased him to
think of. Perhaps some of his royal cousins, in the light of his bold
intent, might take him under their protection instead of neglecting him
shamefully, as they had done in the past. His armed expedition might
open certain doors to him; his name--and he smiled grimly as he
imagined it--would ring throughout Europe as the Soldier King, as the
modern disciple of the divine right of kings. He saw, in his mind's
eye, even the possibility of a royal alliance and a pension from one of
the great Powers. No matter where he looked he could see nothing but
gain to himself, more power for pleasure, more chances of greater
fortune in the future, and while his lips assented to what the others
said, and his eyes thanked them for some expression of loyalty or
confidence, he saw himself in dreams as bright as an absinthe
drinker's, back in his beloved Paris: in the Champs-Elysees behind fine
horses, lolling from a silk box at the opera, dealing baccarat at the
jockey Club, or playing host to some beautiful woman of the hour, in
the new home he would establish for her in the discreet and leafy
borders of the Bois.
He had forgotten his guests and the moment. He had forgotten that
there were difficulties yet to overcome, and with a short, indrawn sigh
of pleasure, he threw back his head and smiled arrogantly upon the
sunny terrace and the green palms and the brilliant blue sea, as though
he challenged the whole beautiful world before him to do aught but
minister to his success and contribute to his pleasures.
And at once, as though in answer to his challenge, a tall, slim young
man sprang lightly up the steps of the terrace, passed the bewildered
guards with a cheery nod, and, striding before the open windows,
knocked with his fist upon the portals of the door, as sharply and as
confidently as though the King's shield had hung there, and he had
struck it with a lance.
The King's dream shattered and faded away at the sound, and he moved
uneasily in his chair. He had the gambler's superstitious regard for
trifles, and this invasion of his privacy by a confident stranger
filled him with sudden disquiet.
He saw Kalonay staring at the open windows with an expression of
astonishment and dismay.
"Who is it?" the King asked, peevishly. "What are you staring at? How
did he get in?"
Kalonay turned on Barrat, sitting at his right. "Did you see him?" he
asked. Barrat nodded gloomily.
"The devil!" exclaimed the Prince, as though Barrat had confirmed his
guess. "I beg your pardon," he said, nodding his head toward the
women. He pushed back his chair and stood irresolutely with his napkin
in his hand. "Tell him we are not in, Niccolas," he commanded.
"He saw us as he passed the window," the Baron objected.
"Say we are at breakfast then. I will see him myself in a moment.
What shall I tell him?" he asked, turning to Barrat. "Do you think he
knows? He must know, they have told him in Paris."
"You are keeping us waiting," said the King. "What is it? Who is this
man?"
"An American named Gordon. He is a correspondent," Kalonay answered,
without turning his head. His eyes were still fixed on the terrace as
though he had seen a ghost.
The King slapped his hand on the arm of the chair. "You promised me,"
he said, "that we should be free from that sort of thing. That is why
I agreed to come here instead of going to Algiers. Go out, Barrat, and
send him away."
Barrat pressed his lips together and shook his head.
"You can't send him away like that," he said. "He is a very important
young man."
"Find out how much he will take, then," exclaimed the King, angrily,
"and give it to him. I can better afford to pay blackmail to any
amount than have my plans spoiled now by the newspapers. Give him what
he wants--a fur coat--they always wear fur coats--or five thousand
francs, or something--anything--but get rid of him."
Barrat stirred uneasily in his chair and shrugged his shoulders. "He
is not a boulevard journalist," he replied, sulkily.
"Your Majesty is thinking of the Hungarian Jews at Vienna," explained
Kalonay, "who live on chantage and the Monte Carlo propaganda fund.
This man is not in their class; he is not to be bought. I said he was
an American."
"An American!" exclaimed Mrs. Carson and her daughter, exchanging rapid
glances. "Is it Archie Gordon you mean?" the girl asked. "I thought
he was in China."
"That is the man--Archie Gordon. He writes books and explores places,"
Kalonay answered.
"I know him. He wrote a book on the slave trade in the Congo,"
contributed Colonel Erhaupt. "I met him at Zanzibar. What does he
want with us?"
"He was in Yokohama when the Japanese-Chinese war broke out," said
Kalonay, turning to the King, "and he cabled a London paper he would
follow the war for it if they paid him a hundred a week. He meant
American dollars, but they thought he meant pounds, so they cabled back
that they'd pay one-half that sum. He answered, `One hundred or
nothing,' and they finally assented to that, and he started; and when
the first week's remittance arrived, and he received five hundred
dollars instead of the one hundred he expected, he sent back the
difference."
"What a remarkable young man!" exclaimed the King. "He is much too
good for daily wear. We don't want anyone like that around here, do
we?"
"I know Mr. Gordon very well," said Miss Carson. "He lived in San
Francisco before he came East. He was always at our house, and was a
great friend of the family; wasn't he, mother? We haven't seen him for
two years now, but I know he wouldn't spoil our plans for the sake of
his paper, if he knew we were in earnest, if he understood that
everything depended upon its being kept a secret."
"We are not certain that he knows anything," the King urged. "He may
not have come here to see us. I think Father Paul should talk with him
first."
"I was going to suggest," said Miss Carson, with some hesitation, "that
if I spoke to him I might be able to put it to him in such a way that
he would see how necessary it----"
"Oh, excellent!" exclaimed the King, eagerly, and rising to his feet;
"if you only would be so kind, Miss Carson."
Kalonay, misunderstanding the situation altogether, fastened his eyes
upon the table and did not speak.
"He has not come to see you, Patricia," said Mrs. Carson, quietly.
"He does not know that I am here," Miss Carson answered; "but I'm sure
if he did he would be very glad to see us again. And if we do see him
we can make him promise not to do anything that might interfere with
our plans. Won't you let me speak to him, mother?"
Mrs. Carson turned uncertainly to the priest for direction, and his
glance apparently reassured her, for she rose, though still with a
troubled countenance, and the two women left the room together, the men
standing regarding each other anxiously across the table. When they
had gone the King lit a cigarette and, turning his back on his
companions, puffed at it nervously in silence. Kalonay sat moodily
studying the pattern on the plate before him, and the others whispered
together at the farther end of the table.
When Miss Carson and her mother stepped out upon the terrace, the
American was standing with his back toward them and was speaking to the
guards who sat cross-legged at the top of the steps. They showed no
sign of surprise at the fact of his addressing them in their own tongue
further than that they answered him with a show of respect which they
had not exhibited toward those they protected. The American turned as
he heard the footsteps behind him, and, after a startled look of
astonishment, hurried toward the two women, exclaiming, with every
expression of pleasure.
"I had no idea you were stopping here," he said, after the first
greetings were over. "I thought you were somewhere on the Continent.
I am so glad I caught you. It seems centuries since I saw you last.
You're looking very well, Mrs. Carson--and as for Patty--I am almost
afraid of her--I've been hearing all sorts of things about you lately,
Patty," he went on, turning a smiling countenance toward the girl.
"About your engagements to princes and dukes--all sorts of disturbing
rumors. What a terrible swell you've grown to be. I hardly recognize
you at all, Mrs. Carson. It isn't possible this is the same young girl
I used to take buggy riding on Sunday evenings?"
"Indeed, it is not. I wish it were," said Mrs. Carson, plaintively,
sinking into a chair. "I'm glad to see you're not changed, Archie,"
she added, with a sigh.
"Why, he's very much changed, mother," the girl said. "He's taller,
and, in comparison with what he was, he's almost wasted away, and so
sunburned I hardly knew him. Except round the forehead," she added,
mockingly, "and I suppose the sun couldn't burn there because of the
laurel-wreaths. I hear they bring them to you fresh every morning."
"They're better than coronets, at any rate," Gordon answered, with a
nod. "They're not so common. And if I'm wasted away, can you wonder?
How long has it been since I saw you, Patty?"
"No, I'm wrong, he's not changed," Miss Carson said dryly, as she
seated herself beside her mother.
"How do you two come to be stopping here?" the young man asked. "I
thought this hotel had been turned over to King Louis?"
"It has," Mrs. Carson answered. "We are staying at the Continental, on
the hill there. We are only here for breakfast. He asked us to
breakfast."
"He?" repeated Gordon, with an incredulous smile. "Who? Not the
King--not that blackguard?"
Miss Carson raised her head, and stared at him in silence, and her
mother gave a little gasp, apparently of relief and satisfaction.
"Yes," Miss Carson answered at last, coldly. "We are breakfasting with
him. What do you know against him?"
Gordon stared at her with such genuine astonishment that the girl
lowered her eyes, and, bending forward in her chair, twirled her
parasol nervously between her fingers.
"What do I know against him? Why, Patty!" he exclaimed. "How did you
meet him, in Heaven's name?" he asked, roughly. "Have you been seen
with him? Have you known him long? Who had the impudence to present
him?"
Mrs. Carson looked up, now thoroughly alarmed. Her lower lip was
trembling, and she twisted her gloved hands together in her lap.
"What do you know against him?" Miss Carson repeated, meeting Gordon's
look with one as full of surprise as his own.
The young man regarded her steadily for a few moments, and then, with a
change of manner, as though he now saw the situation was much more
serious than he had at first supposed, drew up a chair in front of the
two women and seated himself deliberately.
"Has he borrowed any money from you yet?" he asked. Miss Carson's face
flushed crimson and she straightened her shoulders and turned her eyes
away from Gordon with every sign of indignation and disapproval. The
young man gave an exclamation of relief.
"No? That's good. You cannot have known him so very long. I am
greatly relieved."
"Louis of Messina," he began more gently, "is the most unscrupulous
rascal in Europe. Since they turned him out of his kingdom he has
lived by selling his title to men who are promoting new brands of
champagne or floating queer mining shares. The greater part of his
income is dependent on the generosity of the old nobility of Messina,
and when they don't pay him readily enough, he levies blackmail on
them. He owes money to every tailor and horse-dealer and hotel-keeper
in Europe, and no one who can tell one card from another will play with
him. That is his reputation. And to help him live up to it he has
surrounded himself with a parcel of adventurers as rascally as himself:
a Colonel Erhaupt who was dropped from a German regiment, and who is a
Colonel only by the favor of the Queen of Madagascar; a retired
croupier named Barrat; and a fallen angel called Kalonay, a fellow of
the very best blood in Europe and with the very worst morals. They
call him the King's jackal, and he is one of the most delightful
blackguards I ever met. So is the King for that matter, a most
entertaining individual if you keep him in his place, but a man no
woman can know. In fact, Mrs. Carson," Gordon went on, addressing
himself to the mother, "when you have to say that a woman has
absolutely no reputation whatever you can best express it by explaining
that she has a title from Louis of Messina. That is his Majesty's way
of treating his feminine friends when they bore him and he wants to get
rid of them. He gives them a title.
"The only thing the man ever did that was to his credit and that could
be discussed in polite society is what he is doing now at this place,
at this moment. For it seems," Gordon whispered, drawing his chair
closer, "that he is about to show himself something of a man after all,
and that he is engaged in fitting out an armed expedition with which he
hopes to recover his kingdom. That's what brought me here, and I must
say I rather admire him for attempting such a thing. Of course, it was
Kalonay who put him up to it; he would never have stirred from the
boulevards if that young man had not made him. But he is here,
nevertheless, waiting for a favorable opportunity to sail, and he has
ten thousand rifles and three Maxim guns lying in his yacht out there
in the harbor. That's how I came to learn about it. I was getting an
estimate on an outfit I was thinking of taking into Yucatan from my old
gunsmith in the Rue Scribe, and he dropped a hint that he had shipped
ten thousand rifles to Tangier, to Colonel Erhaupt. I have met Erhaupt
in Zanzibar, and knew he was the King's right-hand man, so I put two
and two together and decided I would follow them up, and----"
"Yes, and now," interrupted Miss Carson, sharply--"and now that you
have followed them up, what do you mean to do?"
Gordon looked his surprise at her earnestness, but answered that he did
not know what he would do; he thought he would either ask them to give
him a commission in their expedition, and let him help them fight, and
write an account of their adventures later, or he would telegraph the
story at once to his paper. It was with him, he said, entirely a
question as to which course would be of the greater news value. If he
told what he now knew, his paper would be the first of all others to,
inform the world of the expedition and the proposed revolution; while
if he volunteered for the expedition and waited until it had failed or
succeeded, he would be able to tell more eventually, but would have to
share it with other correspondents.
Miss Carson regarded him with an expression in which indignation and
entreaty were curiously blended.
"Archie," she said, in a low voice, "you do not know what you are doing
or saying. You are threatening to spoil the one thing in my life on
which I have set my heart. The return of this man to his throne,
whether he is worthy or not, means the restoration of the Catholic
Church on that island; it means the return of the monks and the
rebuilding of the monasteries, and the salvation of sixty thousand
souls. I know all that they mean to do. I am the one who paid for
those rifles that brought you here; you have told me only what I have
known for months, and for which I have been earnestly working and
praying. I am not blinded by these men. They are not the creatures
you describe; but no matter what they may be, it is only through them,
and through them alone, that I can do what I have set out to do."
Gordon silenced her with a sweep of his hand. "Do you mean to tell
me," he demanded, "that you are mixed up in this--with these--that they
have taken money from you, and told you they meant to use it to
re-establish the Church? Mrs. Carson," he exclaimed, bitterly, turning
upon her, "why have you allowed this--what have you been doing while
this was going on? Do you suppose those scoundrels care for the
Church--the Church, indeed! Wait until I see them--any of
them--Erhaupt by choice, and I'll make them give up every franc you've
lent them, or I'll horsewhip and expose them for the gang of welshers
and thimble-riggers they are; or if they prefer their own methods, I'll
call them out in rotation and shoot their arms and legs off." He
stopped and drew a long breath, either of content that he had
discovered the situation in time to take some part in it, or at the
prospect of a fight.
"The idea of you two helpless females wandering into this den of
wolves!" he exclaimed, indignantly. "It's about time you had a man to
look after you! You go back to your hotel now, and let me have a chat
with Louis of Messina. He's kept me waiting some twenty minutes as it
is, and that's a little longer than I can give him. I'm not a
creditor." He rose from his chair; but Miss Carson put out her hand
and motioned him to be seated.
"Archie," she said, "I like the way you take this, even though you are
all wrong about it, because it's just like you to fly into a passion
and want to fight someone for somebody. If your conclusions were
anywhere near the truth, you would be acting very well. But they are
not. The King is not handling my money, nor the Prince Kalonay. It is
in the keeping of Father Paul, the Father Superior of the Dominican
monks, who is the only one of these people I know or who knows me. He
is not a swindler, too, is he, or a retired croupier? Listen to me
now, and do not fly out like that at me, or at mother. It is not her
fault. Last summer mother and I went to Messina as tourists, and one
day, when passing through a seaport town, we saw a crowd of people on
the shore, standing or kneeling by the hundreds in a great semicircle
close to the water's edge. There was a priest preaching to them from
an open boat. It was like a scene from the New Testament, and the man,
this Father Paul, made me think of one of the disciples. I asked them
why he did not preach on the land, and they told me that he and all of
the priests had been banished from the island six years before, and
that they could only return by stealth and dared not land except by
night. When the priest had finished speaking, I had myself rowed out
to his boat, and I talked a long time with him, and he told me of this
plan to re-establish himself and his order. I offered to help him with
my money, and he promised me a letter to Cardinal Napoli. It reached
me on my return to Rome, and through the influence of the Cardinal I
was given an audience with the Pope, and I was encouraged to aid Father
Paul as far as I could. I had meant to build a memorial church for
father, but they urged me to give the money instead to this cause. All
my dealings until to-day have been with Father Paul alone. I have seen
a little of the Prince Kalonay because they are always together; but he
has always treated me in a way to which no one could take exception,
and he is certainly very much in earnest. When Father Paul left Paris
mother and I came on here in order to be near him, and that is how you
find me at Tangier. And now that you understand how much this means to
me, I know you will not do anything to stand in our way. Those men
inside are afraid that you came here for just the reason that
apparently has brought you, and when they saw you a little while ago
through the windows they were greatly disturbed. Let me tell them that
you mean to volunteer for the campaign. The King cannot refuse the
services of a man who has done the things you are always doing. And I
promise you that for a reward you shall be the only one to tell the
story of our attempt. I promise you," she repeated earnestly, "that
the day we enter the capital, you can cable whatever you please and
tell our story to the whole of Europe."
"The story be hanged!" replied Gordon. "You have made this a much more
serious business than a newspaper story. You misunderstand me utterly,
Patty. I am here now because I am not going to have you compromised
and robbed."
The girl stood up and looked down at the young man indignantly.
"You have no right whatever to use that tone to me," she said. "I am
of age and my own adviser. I am acting for the good of a great number
of people, and according to what my conscience and common sense tell me
is right. I shall hate you if you attempt to interfere. You can do
one of two things, Archie. I give you your choice: you can either go
with them as a volunteer, and promise to keep our secret; or you can
cable what you know now, what you know only by accident, but if you do,
you will lose your best friend, and you will defeat a good and a noble
effort."
Gordon leaned back in his chair, and looked up at her steadily for a
brief moment, and then rose with a smile, and bowed to the two women in
silence. He crossed the terrace quickly with an amused and puzzled
countenance, and walked into the breakfast-room, from the windows of
which, as he rightly guessed, the five conspirators had for some time
observed him. He looked from one to the other of the men about the
table, until his eyes finally met those of the King.
"I believe, sir, you are leading an expedition against the Republic of
Messina?" Gordon said. "I am afraid it can't start unless you take me
with you."