EN FAMILLE
The Princess Mistchenka came leisurely and gracefully downstairs a
little before eight that evening, much pleased with her hair,
complexion, and gown.
She found Neeland alone in the music-room, standing in the attitude of
the conventional Englishman with his back to the fireless grate and
his hands clasped loosely behind him, waiting to be led out and fed.
The direct glance of undisguised admiration with which he greeted the
Princess Naïa confirmed the impression she herself had received from
her mirror, and brought an additional dash of colour into her delicate
brunette face.
"Is there any doubt that you are quite the prettiest _objet d'art_ in
Paris?" he enquired anxiously, taking her hand; and her dark eyes were
very friendly as he saluted her finger-tips with the reverent and
slightly exaggerated appreciation of a connoisseur in sculpture.
"You hopeless Irishman," she laughed. "It's fortunate for women that
you're never serious, even with yourself."
"Princess Naïa," he remonstrated, "can nothing short of kissing you
convince you of my sincerity and----"
"Impudence?" she interrupted smilingly. "Oh, yes, I'm convinced,
James, that, lacking other material, you'd make love to a hitching
post."
His hurt expression and protesting gesture appealed to the universe
against misinterpretation, but the Princess Mistchenka laughed again
unfeelingly, and seated herself at the piano.
"Some day," she said, striking a lively chord or two, "I hope you'll
catch it, young man. You're altogether too free and easy with your
feminine friends.... What do you think of Rue Carew?"
"An astounding and enchanting transformation. I haven't yet recovered
my breath."
"When you do, you'll talk nonsense to the child, I suppose."
"Princess! Have I ever----"
"You talk little else, dear friend, when God sends a pretty fool to
listen!" She looked up at him from the keyboard over which her hands
were nervously wandering. "I ought to know," she said; "_I_ also have
listened." She laughed carelessly, but her glance lingered for an
instant on his face, and her mirth did not sound quite spontaneous to
either of them.
Two years ago there had been an April evening after the opera, when,
in taking leave of her in her little _salon_, her hand had perhaps
retained his a fraction of a second longer than she quite intended;
and he had, inadvertently, kissed her.
He had thought of it as a charming and agreeable incident; what the
Princess Naïa Mistchenka thought of it she never volunteered. But she
so managed that he never again was presented with a similar
opportunity.
Perhaps they both were thinking of this rather ancient episode now,
for his face was touched with a mischievously reminiscent smile, and
she had lowered her head a trifle over the keyboard where her slim,
ivory-tinted hands still idly searched after elusive harmonies in the
subdued light of the single lamp.
"There's a man dining with us," she remarked, "who has the same
irresponsible and casual views on life and manners which you
entertain. No doubt you'll get along very well together."
"Who is he?"
"A Captain Sengoun, one of our attachés. It's likely you'll find a
congenial soul in this same Cossack whom we all call Alak." She added
maliciously: "His only logic is the impulse of the moment, and he is
known as Prince Erlik among his familiars. Erlik was the Devil, you
know----"
He was announced at that moment, and came marching in--a dark,
handsome, wiry young man with winning black eyes and a little black
moustache just shadowing his short upper lip--and a head shaped to
contain the devil himself--the most reckless looking head, Neeland
thought, that he ever had beheld in all his life.
But the young fellow's frank smile was utterly irresistible, and his
straight manner of facing one, and of looking directly into the eyes
of the person he addressed in his almost too perfect English, won any
listener immediately.
He bowed formally over Princess Naïa's hand, turned squarely on
Neeland when he was named to the American, and exchanged a firm clasp
with him. Then, to the Princess:
"I am late? No? Fancy, Princess--that great booby, Izzet Bey, must
stop me at the club, and I exceedingly pressed to dress and entirely
out of humour with all Turks. '_Eh bien, mon vieux!_' said he in his
mincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming up the Balkan
boilers with Austrian pine. But I hear they're full of snow.' And I
said to him: 'Snow boils very nicely if the fire is sufficiently
persistent!' And I think Izzet Bey will find it so!"--with a quick
laugh of explanation to Neeland: "He meant Russian snow, you see; and
that boils beautifully if they keep on stoking the boiler with
Austrian fuel."
The Princess shrugged:
"What schoolboy repartée! Why did you answer him at all, Alak?"
"Well," explained the attaché, "as I was due here at eight I hadn't
time to take him by the nose, had I?"
Rue Carew entered and went to the Princess to make amends:
"I'm so sorry to be late!"--turned to smile at Neeland, then offered
her hand to the Russian. "How do you do, Prince Erlik?" she said with
the careless and gay cordiality of old acquaintance. "I heard you say
something about Colonel Izzet Bey's nose as I came in."
Captain Sengoun bowed over her slender white hand:
"The Mohammedan nose of Izzet Bey is an admirable bit of Oriental
architecture, Miss Carew. Why should it surprise you to hear me extol
its bizarre beauty?"
"Anyway," said the girl, "I'm contented that you left devilry for
revelry." And, Marotte announcing dinner, she took the arm of Captain
Sengoun as the Princess took Neeland's.
* * * * *
Like all Russians and some Cossacks, Prince Alak ate and drank as
though it were the most delightful experience in life; and he did it
with a whole-souled heartiness and satisfaction that was flattering to
any hostess and almost fascinating to anybody observing him.
His teeth were even and very white; his appetite splendid: when he
did his goblet the honour of noticing it at all, it was to drain it;
when he resumed knife and fork he used them as gaily, as gracefully,
and as thoroughly as he used his sabre on various occasions.
He had taken an instant liking to Neeland, who seemed entirely
inclined to return it; and he talked a great deal to the American but
with a nice division of attention for the two ladies on either side.
"You know, Alak," said the Princess, "you need not torture yourself by
trying to converse with discretion; because Mr. Neeland knows about
many matters which concern us all."
"Ah! That is delightful! And indeed I was already quite assured of Mr.
Neeland's intelligent sympathy in the present state of European
affairs."
"He's done a little more than express sympathy," remarked the
Princess; and she gave a humorous outline of Neeland's part in the
affair of the olive-wood box.
"Fancy!" exclaimed Captain Sengoun. "That impudent _canaille_! Yes; I
heard at the Embassy what happened to that accursed box this morning.
Of course it is a misfortune, but as for me, personally, I don't
care----"
"It doesn't happen to concern you personally, Prince Erlik," said
Princess Naïa dryly.
"No," he admitted, unabashed by the snub, "it does not touch me.
Cavalry cannot operate on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Therefore, God be
thanked, I shall be elsewhere when the snow boils."
Rue tuned to Neeland:
"His one idea of diplomacy and war is a thousand Kuban Cossacks at
full speed."
"And that is an excellent idea, is it not, Kazatchka?" he said,
smiling impudently at the Princess, who only laughed at the
familiarity.
"I hope," added Captain Sengoun, "that I may live to gallop through a
few miles of diplomacy at full speed before they consign me to the
Opolchina." Turning to Neeland, "The reserve--the old man's home, you
know. God forbid!" And he drained his goblet and looked defiantly at
Rue Carew.
"A Cossack is a Cossack," said the Princess, "be he Terek or Kuban,
Don or Astrachan, and they all know as much about diplomacy as Prince
Erlik--or Izzet Bey's nose.... James, you are unusually silent, dear
friend. Are you regretting those papers?"
"It's a pity," he said. But he had not been thinking of the lost
papers; Rue Carew's beauty preoccupied him. The girl was in black,
which made her skin dazzling, and reddened the chestnut colour of her
hair.
Her superb young figure revealed an unsuspected loveliness where the
snowy symmetry of neck and shoulders and arms was delicately accented
by the filmy black of her gown.
He had never seen such a beautiful girl; she seemed more wonderful,
more strange, more aloof than ever. And this was what preoccupied and
entirely engaged his mind, and troubled it, so that his smile had a
tendency to become indefinite and his conversation mechanical at
times.
Captain Sengoun drained one more of numerous goblets; gazed
sentimentally at the Princess, then with equal sentiment at Rue
Carew.
"As for me," he said, with a carelessly happy gesture toward the
infinite, "plans are plans, and if they're stolen, _tant pis_! But
there are always Tartars in Tartary and Turks in Turkey. And, while
there are, there's hope for a poor devil of a Cossack who wants to
say a prayer in St. Sophia before he's gathered to his ancestors."
"Have any measures been taken at your Embassy to trace the plans?"
asked Neeland of the Princess.
"Of course," she said simply.
"Plans," remarked Sengoun, "are not worth the _tcherkeske_ of an
honest Caucasian! A Khirgize pony knows more than any diplomat; and my
_magaika_ is better than both!"
"All the same," said Rue Carew, "with those stolen plans in your
Embassy, Prince Erlik, you might even gallop a _sotnia_ of your
Cossacks to the top of Achi-Baba."
"By heaven! I'd like to try!" he exclaimed, his black eyes ablaze.
"There are _dongas_," observed the Princess dryly.
"I know it. There are _dongas_ every twenty yards; and Turkish gorse
that would stop a charging bull! My answer is, mount! trot! gallop!
and hurrah for Achi-Baba!"
"Very picturesque, Alak. But wouldn't it be nicer to be able to come
back again and tell us all about it?"
"As for that," he said with his full-throated, engaging laugh, "no
need to worry, Princess, for the newspapers would tell the story. What
is this Gallipoli country, anyway, that makes our Chancellery wag its
respected head and frown and whisper in corners and take little notes
on its newly laundered cuffs?
"I know the European and Asiatic shores with their forts--Kilid Bahr,
Chimilik, Kum Kale, Dardanos. I know what those Germans have been
about with their barbed wire and mobile mortar batteries. What do we
want of their plans, then----"
"Nothing, Prince Erlik!" said Rue, laughing. "It suffices that you be
appointed adviser in general to his majesty the Czar."
Sengoun laughed with all his might.
"And an excellent thing that would be, Miss Carew. What we need in
Russia," he added with a bow to the Princess, "are, first of all, more
Kazatchkee, then myself to execute any commands with which my
incomparable Princess might deign to honour me."
"Then I command you to go and smoke cigarettes in the music-room and
play some of your Cossack songs on the piano for Mr. Neeland until
Miss Carew and I rejoin you," said the Princess, rising.
At the door there was a moment of ceremony; then Sengoun, passing his
arm through Neeland's with boyish confidence that his quickly given
friendship was welcome, sauntered off to the music-room where
presently he was playing the piano and singing some of the entrancing
songs of his own people in a voice that, cultivated, might have made a
fortune for him:
"We are but horsemen,
And God is great.
We hunt on hill and fen
The fierce Kerait,
Naiman and Eighur,
Tartar and Khiounnou,
Leopard and Tiger
Flee at our view-halloo;
We are but horsemen
Cleansing the hill and fen
Where wild men hide--
Wild beasts abide,
Mongol and Baïaghod,
Turkoman, Taïdjigod,
Each in his den.
The skies are blue,
The plains are wide,
Over the fens the horsemen ride!"
Still echoing the wild air, and playing with both hands in spite of
the lighted cigarette between his fingers, he glanced over his
shoulder at Neeland:
"A very old, old song," he explained, "made in the days of the great
invasion when all the world was fighting anybody who would fight back.
I made it into English. It's quite nice, I think."
His naïve pleasure in his own translation amused Neeland immensely,
and he said that he considered it a fine piece of verse.
"Yes," said Sengoun, "but you ought to hear a love song I made out of
odd fragments I picked up here and there. I call it '_Samarcand_'; or
rather '_Samarcand Mahfouzeh_,' which means, 'Samarcand the Well
Guarded':
"'Outside my guarded door
Whose voice repeats my name?'
'The voice thou hast heard before
Under the white moon's flame!
And thy name is my song; and my song is ever the same!'
"'How many warriors, dead,
Have sung the song you sing?
Some by an arrow were sped;
Some by a dagger's sting.'
'Like a bird in the night is my song--a bird on the wing!'
"'Ahmed and Yucouf bled!
A dead king blocks my door!'
'If thy halls and walls be red,
Shall Samarcand ask more?
Or my song shall cleanse thy house or my heart's blood
foul thy floor!'
"'Now hast thou conquered me!
Humbly thy captive, I.
My soul escapes to thee;
My body here must lie;
Ride!--with thy song, and my soul in thy arms; and let me die.'"
Sengoun, still playing, flung over his shoulder:
"A Tartar song from the Turcoman. I borrowed it and put new clothes on
it. Nice, isn't it?"
"Enchanting!" replied Neeland, laughing in spite of himself.
Rue Carew, with her snowy shoulders and red-gold hair, came drifting
in, consigning them to their seats with a gesture, and giving them to
understand that she had come to hear the singing.
So Sengoun continued his sketchy, haphazard recital, waving his
cigarette now and then for emphasis, and conversing frequently over
his shoulder while Rue Carew leaned on the piano and gravely watched
his nimble fingers alternately punish and caress the keyboard.
After a little while the Princess Mistchenka came in saying that she
had letters to write. They conversed, however, for nearly an hour
before she rose, and Captain Sengoun gracefully accepted his _congé_.
"I'll walk with you, if you like," suggested Neeland.
"With pleasure, my dear fellow! The night is beautiful, and I am just
beginning to wake up."
"Ask Marotte to give you a key, then," suggested the Princess, going.
At the foot of the stairs, however, she paused to exchange a few words
with Captain Sengoun in a low voice; and Neeland, returning with his
latchkey, went over to where Rue stood by the lamplit table absently
looking over an evening paper.
As he came up beside her, the girl lifted her beautiful, golden-grey
eyes.
"Are you going out?"
"Yes, I thought I'd walk a bit with Captain Sengoun."
"It's rather a long distance to the Russian Embassy. Besides----" She
hesitated, and he waited. She glanced absently over the paper for a
moment, then, not raising her eyes: "I'm--I--the theft of that box
today--perhaps my nerves have suffered a little--but do you think it
quite prudent for you to go out alone at night?"
"Why, I am going out with Captain Sengoun!" he said, surprised at her
troubled face.
"But you will have to return alone."
He laughed, but they both had flushed a little.
Had it been any other woman in the world, he had not hesitated gaily
to challenge the shy and charming solicitude expressed in his
behalf--make of it his capital, his argument to force that pretty duel
to which one day, all youth is destined.
He found himself now without a word to say, nor daring to entertain
any assumption concerning the words she had uttered.
Dumb, awkward, afraid, he became conscious that something in this
young girl had silenced within him any inclination to gay effrontery,
any talent for casual gallantry. Her lifted eyes, with their clear,
half shy regard, had killed all fluency of tongue in him--slain
utterly that light good-humour with which he had encountered women
heretofore.
He said:
"I hadn't thought myself in any danger whatever. Is there any reason
for me to expect further trouble?"
Rue raised her troubled eyes:
"Has it occurred to you that _they_ might think you capable of
redrawing parts of the stolen plans from memory?"
"It had never occurred to me," he admitted, surprised. "But I believe
I could remember a little about one or two of the more general maps."
"The Princess means to ask you, tomorrow, to draw for her what you can
remember. And that made me think about you now--whether the _others_
might not suspect you capable of remembering enough to do them
harm.... And so--do you think it prudent to go out tonight?"
"Yes," he replied, quite sincerely, "it is all right. You see I know
Paris very well."
She did not look convinced, but Sengoun came up and she bade them both
good night and went away with the Princess Mistchenka.
As, arm in arm, the two young men sauntered around the corner of the
rue Soleil d'Or, two men who had been sitting on a marble bench beside
the sun-dial fountain rose and strolled after them.