“It is enough for you to know I have proved far-sighted and unfailing

in my fidelity to our common cause.”

“So _you_ say ...”

Though the Irishman winced and fell silent under the cold glare of the

other’s eyes, the voice that answered him was level and passionless.

“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one

of you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under

any conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts

my power to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the

night is ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held

over from our last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes”—a

nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a

note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider overtures made by

the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation toward

accelerating the social revolution in England.”

“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.”

“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair

criterion,” Number One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our

decision. Speaking for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject

the overtures of the Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why.”

He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze

downcast:

“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from

the war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains

for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion

or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it

will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now

sweeping Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France

and Spain. Our power in England is great; even so, we could hope to do

no more than delay the soviet movement were we to set ourselves against

it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, then,

self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our

own hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now

held by an antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to

England what the Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end,

we must be crushed.”

“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this

hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work

in the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in

the hands of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet

Russia itself must bow to our dictation.”

He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent

faces.

“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.”

He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a

smile of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips.

“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the

negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and

pledge our cooperation in every way?”

This time there was no mistaking the accuracy with which he had gauged

the minds of his associates.

“One thing remains to be decided: a plan of action, something which

will demand all that we have of imagination, ingenuity, common sense,

and far prevision. We can afford to waste not a single ounce of

strength: the blow, when we strike, must be sudden, sharp,

merciless—irresistible. But if Thirteen is not over-confident of the

discovery which he says he has to-day perfected, the means to deal just

such a blow is ready to our hands.... Thirteen?”

A nod and gracious smile invited that one to speak. He rose, trembling

a little with excitement, bowed to Number One and, delving into

capacious pockets, produced a number of small tin canisters together

with three sealed bottles of brown glass. Surveying these, as he

arranged them on the teakwood table before him, he smiled a little to

himself: the stars, it seemed to him, were warring in their courses in

his behalf; this was to prove his hour of hours.

He began to speak in a quivering voice which soon grew more steady.

“It is true, Excellency—it is true, comrades—I have perfected a

discovery which I offer as a free gift to the cause, and by means of

which, intelligently employed, we can, if we will, make all London a

graveyard. Put the resources of this organization at my command, give

me a week to make the essential preparations, select a time of national

crisis when the Houses of Parliament are sitting and the Cabinet meets

in Downing Street with the King attending or in Buckingham Palace ...”

He paused and held the pause with a keen feeling for dramatic effect,

his eyes seeking in turn the faces of his fellow conspirators, an

insuppressible grin of malicious exultation twisting his scornful and

mutinous mouth.

“Let this be done,” he concluded, “and by means of these few tins and

bottles which you see before you, in one brief hour the ruling classes

will have perished almost to a man, there will be no more government of

a tyrannical bourgeoisie to grind down the proletariat, a bloodless

revolution will have made England the cradle of the new liberty!”

“Bloodless?” the man on the dais repeated; and even he was seen

perceptibly to shudder at the prospect unfolded to the vision of his

mind. “Yes—but more terrible than the massacre of the Huguenots, more

savage than the French Revolution!”

“But I believe,” the inventor commented, “your Excellency said we

required the means to deal a ‘blow sudden, sharp,

merciless—irresistible’.”

“Surely now,” the Irishman suggested, mockingly—where a wiser man would

have held his tongue—“you’ll not be sticking at a small matter like

wholesale murder if it’s to make us masters of England?”

“Of England?” the German echoed. “Herr Gott! Of the world!”

“And you, Excellency, our master,” the inventor added, shrewdly.

A sign at once impatient and imperative demanded silence, and for a few

minutes it obtained unbroken, while the gathering, keyed to high

tension, studied closely the face of their leader and found it

altogether illegible.

On his part he seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but

himself, forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great

chair, his body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black

magic, his far gaze probing unfathomable remotenesses of thought.

Slowly he recalled himself to his surroundings; with a suggestion of

weariness he sat up and reviewed the little company that hung so

breathlessly upon the issue of his judgment. The shadow of that satiric

smile returned.

“If the thing be feasible,” he promised, “it shall be done. It remains

for Thirteen to be more explicit.”

With an extravagant flourish the inventor whipped from his breastpocket

a folded paper, and spread it out face uppermost on the table.

“A map of London,” he announced, “based on the latest Ordnance Survey

and coloured to show the districts supplied by the mains of each

individual gas depot. Thus you will observe”—what his long, bony finger

indicated—“the district supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas

works, comprising Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the War

Office, and the Admiralty, Downing Street, the homes of hundreds of the

aristocracy. All these we can at will turn into the deadliest of death

traps.”

A tense voice interrupted with the demand: “How?”

“Quite easily, comrade: with the ramifications of our power throughout

London, all under the control of his Excellency”—the inventor bowed to

Number One—“it should be an easy matter to place a few trustworthy men

with the Westminster gas works.”

“It can readily be done,” Number One affirmed. “And then—?”

“While this is being done means must be found to smuggle other men, in

the guise of servants, into the various buildings selected, or to

corrupt those already so employed therein. At the designated hour—”

The words dried upon his lips as somewhere a hidden bell stabbed the

quiet with short, sharp thrills of sound, a code that spelled a message

of terrifying significance. The inventor started violently, but no more

so than every man about the table. Even Number One, shocked out of his

lounging pose, grasped the arms of his throne with convulsive hands.

Quietly and without a hint of hurry, the Chinese, Shaik Tsin, moved

back into the shadows and, unnoticed, disappeared behind a screen.

For a moment, when the bell had ceased, nobody spoke; but pallid face

consulted face and eyes grown wide with dread sought eyes that winced

in terror.

Then the Bengali leaped from his chair, jabbering with bloodless lips.

“Police! Raid! We are betrayed!”

He made an uncertain turn, as if thinking to seek safety in flight but

doubting which way to choose; and the movement struck panic into the

minds and hearts of his fellows. In a twinkling all were on their feet.

But before one could move a step the lamp in the ceiling winked out,

the room was left in darkness unrelieved, and the accents of Number One

were heard, coldly imperative.

“Gentlemen! be good enough to resume your places—let no one move before

there is light again. We are in no immediate danger: Shaik Tsin will

show you out by a secret way long before the police can hope to find

and break into this chamber. In the meantime—”

The infuriated voice of the Englishman interrupted:

“And ’oo’re you to give us orders?—you ’oo talked so big about ’avin’

tied the ’ands of the Lone Wolf and Scotland Yard! You blarsted

blow’ard! Bli’me if I don’t believe it’s you ’oo—”

“Quietly, Seven! Have you forgotten you have a bad heart?—that

excitement may mean your sudden death?”

The rage of the Englishman ran out in a gasp and a whisper.

“In the meantime,” Number One resumed as if there had been no break, “I

promised that, before the night was out, you should have proof of my

ability to enforce my will.”

A groan of agony answered him, followed by an oath of witless fear.

From a distance the voice, now thin but still sonorous, added:

“Thirteen will hold himself ready to wait on me when I send for him

to-morrow. Gentlemen of the Council, I bow to you all.”

Again silence held for a long minute during which no man stirred or

spoke. Then overhead the lamp burned bright again, discovering six

frightened men upon their feet and one who, still seated, did not stir,

and never would again.

His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert

arms dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the

Englishman sat quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had

come to him.

Number One had disappeared.

There was a remote rumour of cries and shouts, the muffled sound of

axes crashing into woodwork....

IX

MRS. WARING

Late in the forenoon a pencil of golden light found a chink in

jealously drawn draperies, and groped the rich dusk of the bedchamber

till it came to rest, as if happy that its search had found so lovely a

reward, upon the face of a young girl who lay sleeping in a bed whose

exquisite adornment must have flattered even the exalted person of a

princess.

With a swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting

patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of

the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the

delicately modelled cheeks of the sleeper.

A gentle sigh brushed parting lips; the sweet body stirred luxuriously;

unclouded by any shadow of misgiving, the blue eyes of the Princess

Sofia looked out upon the first day of her new world.

Then they grew wide with wonder, comprehending the sleek, pretty face

of a Chinese girl of about her own age who, with eyes downcast, demure

mouth and folded hands, submissively awaited recognition.

“Who are you?” Sofia demanded in a breath.

A bob of courtesy, wholly charming, prefaced a reply pattered in

English of quaintest accent:

“You’ handmaiden—Chou Nu is my name.”

“My handmaiden!”

“Les, Plincess Sofia.”

“But I don’t understand. How—when—?”

“Las’ night Numbe’ One he send for me, but when I come you go-sleep.”

“Number One?”

Surprise coloured faintly the explanation: “Plince Victo’, honol’ble

fathe’ of Plincess Sofia. You like get up now, take bath, have

blekfuss?”

The smile was irresistibly ingratiating: Sofia could not but return it.

Delighted, Chou Nu ran to the windows, threw wide their draperies, and

darted into the bathroom.

Autumnal sunlight kindled to burning beauty the golden-bronze tresses

coiled upon the pillows where Sofia lay unstirring, like a princess

enchanted—as indeed she was. Surely nothing less potent than magic had

wrought this metamorphosis in the fabric of her life! And whether the

magic were white or black—what matter? Its work was good.

No more the Café des Exiles, no more the deadly tedium of daily service

at the desk of the caisse, no more the shrewish tongue of Mama Thérèse,

the odious oglings of Papa Dupont, the ceaseless cark of discontent....

Incredible!

As one who moves in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then,

robed in a ravishing negligée of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon,

tea, and toast from a service of eggshell china.

In a long mirror she saw and watched but did not know herself. Like

Goody Twoshoes of nursery fame she could have cried: Lawkamercy! this

is never I!

The presence of Chou Nu served merely to stress the sense of unreality:

for, obviously, only the heroine of a true fairy tale could have broken

from a chrysalis stage of sordid Soho to the brilliant butterfly

existence of a Russian princess domiciled in the most aristocratic

quarter of London and attended by a Chinese maid!

And Chou Nu proved a delight. Once satisfied she need fear neither

ill-temper nor arrogance from her new mistress, she indulged an even

and constant flow of artless high spirits, her amusing, clipped English

affording Sofia considerable entertainment together with not a little

food for thought.

Thus one learned that the main body of the service staff was Chinese

under a major domo named Shaik Tsin—Chou Nu’s “second-uncle”—who

enjoyed Prince Victor’s completest confidence and was, second to the

latter only, the real head of the establishment, its presiding genius.

The front of the house alone was dressed with a handful of English

servants nominally under the man Nogam, but actually, like him,

answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin.

Why this should be Chou Nu couldn’t say. Sofia supposed it was because

Prince Victor thought his Occidental guests would feel more at ease

with English servants; or perhaps he himself preferred them, when it

came to the question of personal attendance.

No success rewarded efforts to extract from Chou Nu her reason for

referring to Victor as “Number One.” She stated simply that all

Chinamans in London called him that; and being pressed further added,

with as near an approach to impatience as her gentle nature could

muster, that it was obviously because Plince Victo’ _was_ Numbe’ One:

ev’-body knew _that_.

A knock at the door interrupted Sofia’s questioning. Answering, Chou

brought back word that the honourable father of Princess Sofia

submitted his august felicitations and solicited the immediate favour

of her serene attendance in his study.

Hasty search failed to locate the garments discarded on going to bed

and, in the indifference of depression and fatigue, left in a tumble on

the floor. All had vanished while Sofia slept; Chou Nu professed blank

ignorance of their fate; and apparently nothing had been provided in

their stead but Chinese robes, of sumptuous vestments well suited to

one of high estate. With these, then, and with Chou Nu’s guidance as to

choice and ceremonious arrangement, Sofia was obliged to make shift;

and anything but unbecoming she found them—or truly it was a shape of

dream that looked out from her mirror.

Yet it was with reluctant feet that she left her room, descended the

broad staircase to the entrance hall, and addressed herself to the

study door. It had been so beautiful, that waking dream the sequel to

her night of dreamless sleep, too beautiful to be foregone without

regret.

For Sofia had not forgotten, she could never forget, she had merely

been successful temporarily in banishing from mind that bitter

disillusionment which had poisoned what should have been her time of

greatest joy.

To be told, by the father of whose dear existence one had only learned

within the hour, that one was the child of a notorious thief and an

adventuress ...

It needed more than common fortitude to face renewed reminder of that

shame.

Oddly enough, it seemed to help a bit, somehow to lend her courage and

assurance, to pass the man Nogam in the hall and acknowledge his bow

and smile. Sofia wondered vaguely what it was that made his smile seem

so kind; it was entirely respectful, there was nothing more in it that

she could fix on; and yet ...

She was able to offer Victor a composed, almost a happy countenance,

and to return cheerful assurances to punctilious enquiries after her

well-being and her comfort overnight. To the real affection in which he

held her, the warmth of his embrace, and the lingering pressure of his

lips gave convincing testimony; and in time, no doubt, as she grew to

know him better, her response would become more spontaneous and true.

Indeed, she insisted, it must; she would school herself, if need be, to

remember that this strange man was the author of her being, the natural

object of her affections—deserving all her love if only because of that

nobility which had enabled him to renounce those evil ways of years

long dead.

But to-day—and this, of course, she couldn’t understand—a slight but

invincible shiver, perceptible to herself alone, attended her

submission to paternal caresses; and the eyes were too dispassionate

with which she saw Prince Victor. Still, they found little to which

fair exception might be taken. If Life had thus far been callously

frank with Sofia as to its broader aspects, the niceties of its

technique remained measurably a mystery, she was insufficiently

instructed to perceive that Victor’s morning coat (for example) had

been cut a shade too cleverly, or that the ensemble of his raiment was

a trace ornate; and where a mind more mondain would have marked

ponderable constraint in his manner, she saw only dignity and reserve.

But for all that she recognized intuitively a lack of something in the

man, the sum of this second impression of him was formless

disappointment, she felt somehow cheated, disheartened, chilled.

That she was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations

was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she

overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while

the other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of a window.

Directly, however, that Victor half turned away, saying “I have found a

friend for you, my dear,” Sofia, following his glance, discovered a

woman whose every detail of dress and deportment was unmistakably of

the fashionable world and whose face carried souvenirs of loveliness as

unmistakable.

Smiling and offering her hands, she approached, while Victor’s voice of

heavy modulations uttered formally:

“Sybil, permit me to present my daughter. Sofia, Mrs. Waring has

graciously offered to sponsor your introduction to Society, to guide

and instruct you and be in every way your mentor.”

“My dear!” the woman exclaimed, holding Sofia’s hands and kissing her

cheek. And then, looking aside to Victor, “But how very like!” she

added with the air of tender reminiscence.

“Oh!” Sofia cried, “you knew my mother?”

“Indeed—and loved her.” Sofia never dreamed to question the woman’s

sincerity; and her charm of manner was irresistible. “You must try to

like me a little for her sake—”

“As if one could help liking you for your own, Mrs. Waring!”

“Prettily said, my dear. You have inherited more from your mother than

your good looks alone. Is it not so, mon prince?”

“Much more.” Victor’s enigmatic smile gave place to a look of regret

and uneasiness. “Let us hope, however, not too much. Heredity,” he

mused in sombre mood, “is a force of such fatality in our lives....”

He gave a gesture of solicitude and continued with characteristic

deliberation, and that preciseness of diction which he seemed never

able to forget, even though deeply moved.

“More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the

past other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap

less cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her

parents—”

“Please!” Sofia begged, piteous. “Oh, please!”

“I am sorry, my dear.” Victor closed tender hands over those which the

girl had lifted in appeal. “It is for your own good only I give myself

this pain of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the

self that is so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please

remember always that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be

led into transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you,

on the contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic

understanding. Never forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and

fought myself—and in the end won at a cost I am not yet finished

paying, nor will be, I fear, this side my grave.”

He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose

himself in disconsolate reverie—but not so far as to suffer the

interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an

eloquent hand.

“You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no

reason why Sybil—Mrs. Waring—should not hear. She is a dear friend of

long years, she understands.”

With a quiet murmur—“Oh, quite!”—Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm

round Sofia’s shoulders and gently held the girl to her.

“When I determined to forsake the bad old ways,” Victor pursued—“this

you must know, my dear—I had friends—of a sort—who resented my

defection, set themselves against my will and, when they found they

could not swerve me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long

ago, but to this day some of them persist in their enmity—I have to be

constantly on my guard.”

“You mean there is danger?” Sofia asked in quick anxiety. “Your life—?”

“Always,” Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: “It is

nothing; for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for

you—that is another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my

child. That, indeed, is why I never tried to find you till

yesterday—believing, as I mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well

cared for, happy—lest my enemies seek to strike at me through you. But

when I saw that unfortunate advertisement I dared delay not another

hour about bringing you within the compass of my protection. Even now,

untiring as my care for you shall ever be, I know my enemies will be as

tireless in endeavours to rob me of you. You will be followed, hounded,

importuned, lied to, threatened—all without rest. If they cannot take

you from me bodily, they will seek to poison your mind against me.

Therefore, rather than keep you practically a prisoner in your home, I

feel obliged to require a promise of you.”

Deeply stirred by the melancholy gravity that informed his pose, the

girl protested earnestly: “Anything—I will promise anything, rather

than be an anxiety to one who is so kind.”

“Kind? To my own daughter?” Victor smiled sadly. “But I love you,

little Sofia. Nor is it much that I must ask of you: merely that you

never go out alone, but only in the company of Mrs. Waring or Mr.

Karslake or, preferably, both.”

“Oh, I promise that—”

“But there is more: If by any accident you should ever find yourself

left alone in public, do not let strangers speak to you, refuse to

listen to them.”

“I promise.”

“And finally: If anybody should ever seek to turn you against me, come

to me instantly and tell me about it.”

“But naturally I would do that, father.”

“Good. I rely upon your discretion and loyalty. At another time I will

explain matters in more detail. For the present—enough of an unpleasant

subject. You have a busy day before you. At my request Mrs. Waring has

arranged to have various tradespeople wait upon you this morning to

take your orders for the beginnings of a wardrobe. If you can find

something ready-made to wear you will want, no doubt, to spend the

afternoon shopping. A car will be at your disposal, and I give you

carte blanche. I wish you never to know an unsatisfied need or desire.

Still, I am selfish enough to reserve for myself the happiness of

selecting your jewels.”

“Oh!” Sofia cried, breathlessly. Victor was holding his arms open; and

how should she deny him? “You are too good to me,” she murmured. “How

can I ever show my gratitude?”

Holding her close, Victor smiled a singular smile.

“Some day I may tell you. But to-day—no more. I am much preoccupied

with affairs; but Mrs. Waring will take care of you till evening, when

I promise myself the pleasure of dining with you both.”

At the sound of a knock he put Sofia gently from him, and said in a

strong voice:

“Enter.”

The door opened, Nogam announced:

“Mr. Sturm.”

Hard on the echo of his name a man swung into the room with an air at

once nervous and aggressive—a tall man shabbily dressed, holding his

head high—and at sight of Sofia and Mrs. Waring, where he had doubtless

thought to find Prince Victor alone, stopped short, betraying

disconcertion in the way he instinctively assumed the stand of a

soldier at attention, bringing his heels together with an undeniable

click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both arms to rigidity at

his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost wildly in

their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with mechanical

precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep respect to the women.

Victor smothered an exclamation of annoyance.

Unbidden, a word shaped in Sofia’s consciousness, a French monosyllable

into which the war had packed every shade and gradation of hatred and

contempt, the epithet _Boche_.

Immediately erasing every sign of irritation, Victor greeted the man

with casual suavity. “Oh, there you are, eh, Sturm?” Then, as Sofia and

Mrs. Waring turned to go, he added quickly: “A moment, please. Since

Mr. Sturm to-day becomes a member of the household, acting as my

assistant in some research work which I am undertaking, I may as well

present him now. Mrs. Waring, permit me: Mr. Sturm. And the Princess

Sofia Vassilyevski, my daughter ...”

Mumbling their names after Victor, the man Sturm executed two more

bows. At the same time he seemed to remind himself that his soldierly

carriage was perhaps injudicious, and forthwith abandoned it for a

studied slouch which, in Sofia’s sight, was little less than insolent.

And unmistakably there was something nearly resembling insolence in the

eyes that boldly sought hers: a look equivocal at best and,

intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if the fellow were

asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as if he

knew something by no means to Sofia’s credit....

Her acknowledgment of his salute was accordingly cool, and she was glad

when a nod from Prince Victor gave her leave to go.

X

VICTOR ET AL

Those first few weeks of emancipation from the ennui of existence at

the Café des Exiles were so replete with wonders that Sofia lived

largely in a beatific state of breathless excitement, devoting the best

part of her days to thoughtless flying from delight to new delight, and

going nightly to her bed so healthily tired that she slept like a top

and never once awakened to memories of disturbing dreams.

Perhaps her pleasure burned the brighter for its dark, ambiguous

background—those many questions which Prince Victor persisted in

leaving unanswered. Sofia knew bad times of perplexity and depression,

when the price of translation from drudge to princess seemed a sore

price to pay.

And yet, required to state the cost to her in terms explicit, she must

have hesitated lest she appear ungrateful in complaining, who hardly

needed to express a wish to have it granted, who indeed knew many a

wish realized in fact before she was fully aware of its inception in

her private thoughts.

All those lovely material things of life which her famished girlhood

had ached for so hopelessly now were hers in abundant measure, and all

the less tangible things, too, so requisite to the happiness of women

in a worldly world—or nearly all. Frocks she had, with furs and

furbelows no end; flowers and flattery and frivolities; freedom within

limitations as yet not irksome; jewels that would have graced an

imperial diadem—everything but the single essential without which

everything is hollow nothing and life itself only the dreaming of a

dream.

The one lack known to the Sofia of those days was the lack of Love.

She had gone so long longing to love, questing blindly and vainly for

some human being to whom her affection would mean something vital and

dear—it seemed cruel that her longing must be still denied. As it had

been with Mama Thérèse, it was now with the romantic father so newly

self-declared. She wanted desperately and tried her best to love Victor

as his daughter should; and that he cared for her profoundly she knew

and never questioned; yet when she searched her secret heart Sofia

discovered no feeling for the man other than a singular form of fear.

His look, his tone, his manner, his presence altogether, inspired a

nameless sort of shrinking, inarticulate apprehensions, and mistrust

which the girl found at once utterly unaccountable and dismally

disappointing; so that, with every wish and will to do otherwise, she

found herself involuntarily making excuse of trivial interests to keep

out of Victor’s way and, when there was no escaping, sitting silent and

ill at ease in his society, or seizing on some slender pretext, it

didn’t matter what, to inveigle into their company a third somebody, it

didn’t matter whom—Mrs. Waring, Karslake, even the unspeakable Sturm.

Nevertheless, there were times, far too many of them, too, when of a

sudden Victor would forsake his occult preoccupations and,

unceremoniously upsetting whatever arrangements Sofia might have made

with Mrs. Waring or Karslake, would find other pleasures of his own

invention for her to share with him alone: long motor jaunts through

the English countryside, apparently his favourite recreation; a box all

to themselves at a theatre, where Victor would sit watching the girl

with a fascination only rivalled by her fascination with the traffic of

the boards; curiously constrained little dinners à deux in fashionable

restaurants; morning rides in Rotten Row, where it oddly appeared that

Victor knew everybody, whereas not one in five hundred seemed to know

him—or to care to know him.

Sofia, indeed, was often puzzled to account for what to her appeared to

be an almost pathetic eagerness on the part of Victor, in strange

accord with his lofty pretensions, to claim acquaintanceship with and

win the recognition even of persons of the utmost inconsequence. And

she remarked, too, that his temper was apt to be raw in sequel to their

excursions into the haunts of the well-known. But it was for other

reasons altogether that she came to dread them most.

For one thing, Victor’s conversation was ordinarily rather dull; at

best, the reverse of exhilarating. And in spite of her unquestioning

acceptance of him as her father, he remained to Sofia actually a new

acquaintance; in effect, a strange man. And from strangers, more than

from relatives with whose minds one is presumably on terms of close

intimacy, one is warranted in expecting something in the way of mutual

stimulation through the opening of new perspectives of experience,

thought, and feeling. Whereas—with Sofia, at least—Victor seemed unable

to talk on more than two subjects, one or the other of which was

constantly uppermost in his thoughts.

He never wearied of warning Sofia against the dangers of those moral

infirmities which he asserted were hers by legitimate inheritance; and

which, if Victor were right in his contentions, she could hardly hope

to overcome without a desperate struggle. She would have to be forever

on guard, he insisted, lest the temptation of some moment, not to be

foreseen, prove too strong for her latent weakness of character, and

commit her, through some unpremeditated act of defiance to the law—most

probably an act of theft—to the life of a social outcast.

To do her justice, the girl was consciously not much impressed by this

alleged peril. She had never been aware of any failing such as Victor

would have endowed her with; so far as she could remember she had never

been tempted to commit more venial sins than inhered in lying to Mama

Thérèse now and then in order to escape unmerited disciplining at the

heavy hands of that industrious virago; and as for thieving, the very

thought of anything of that sort was detestable to Sofia.

But unconsciously, no doubt, the everlasting iteration of Victor’s

admonitions had its purposed effect upon that sensitive and

impressionable spirit.

Then, too, by degrees, but all too soon, it became manifest that the

memory of his passionate attachment for her mother possessed Victor to

the point of monomania. It was only with an effort that he could force

himself to talk to Sofia on other subjects. He thought of nothing else

while with her; if she read his eyes aright, often glimpses of weird

light flickering in their opaque depths, like heat lightning of a murky

summer’s night, fairly frightened her, and she knew a shuddering

perception of the possibility that Victor was at times in danger of

confusing the daughter with the mother.

“Never was there such resemblance,” he once uttered, in a stare. “You

are more like her than she herself!”

Sofia was pardonably puzzled, and looked it.

“I mean, you re-create my vision of the woman I loved and lost—the

woman I saw in her, not the woman she was.”

“Lost?” the girl murmured.

The gray countenance took on an added shade of sombre passion. “She

never understood me, she treated me badly. Once, in a fit of pique, she

ran away. I did everything—everything, I tell you!—to win her back,

but—”

He choked on bitter recollections—and Sofia was painfully reminded of

the Chinese devil-masks in Victor’s study. But the likeness faded even

as she saw it, under her gaze the twisted features were ironed back

into their accustomed cast of austerity.

“Before I could persuade her, you were born.... Then she died.”

Sensible though she was of the ellipsis, and afraid it would never be

filled in if she interrupted, Sofia could not help uttering a sound of

regret and pity for the lot of the mother she had never seen, whose

untimely death had ended a life accounted unendurable as Victor’s wife,

for reasons unknown but none the less, to the daughter, vaguely and

lamentably understandable.

For Sofia by now had passed the stage of pretending to herself that she

was not happier away from her father.

Victor mistook the nature of the feeling that swayed the girl—took to

himself the sympathy excited by his revelations.

“But do not grieve on my account. Is not that which was lost restored

again to me? In you my old love lives once more ... little Sofia!”

He caught and pressed a hand that rested on the cloth between them.

(They happened that night to be dining at the Ritz.) And Sofia

re-experienced that inevitable, hateful flinching with which she was

growing too familiar.

She dropped her head that her eyes might not betray her.

“People will see ...”

“What if they do? Those who know us will hardly see any wrong in my

squeezing the hand of my own daughter; and the others—not that they

matter—will only think me the luckiest dog alive—as I am!”

Chuckle and smirk both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of

the creature Sturm; _he_ had a laugh like that for her, on the rare

occasion when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of

his uncouth essays in flirtation.

Sturm’s attitude, in truth, perplexed Sofia to exasperation; that is to

say, as much as it offended her. For Victor the man seemed to entertain

an exaggerated yet deeply rooted respect, approaching actual awe, which

he tried his best to carry off with a swagger; for to hold anybody in

any degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even

shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in Victor’s presence the fellow’s

bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and

crawl like a dog currying the favour of a harsh master.

Nevertheless, Victor’s daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in

Sturm’s understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but

thinly veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs

of a Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque.

Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or

look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision. In the

absence of Victor, Sturm’s eyes were ever ironic, his bows and leers

mocking, his speeches flavoured with clumsy sarcasm; from which it

resulted that the girl never quite forgot the impression which he had

managed to convey in those few moments of their first encounter, that

Sturm knew something she ought to know but didn’t, and was meanly

jeering at her in his sleeve.

What virtues Victor Vassilyevski perceived in the man passed

comprehension. But so did most of Victor’s whims and ways. What riddle

more obscure than that portentous business which permeated the

atmosphere of the establishment with the taint of stealth and

terror?—the famous “research work” that kept Victor closeted with Sturm

in his study daily for hours at a time, often in confabulation with

others of like ilk, men of furtive and unprepossessing cast who came

and went by appointment at all hours, but as a rule late at night!

Into these conferences, Sofia observed, Karslake was never summoned.

She wondered why. He was, as she saw him, so unquestionably the better

man, everything that Sturm was not, open of countenance, fair of temper

and tongue, well-bred and well-mannered, light of heart and high

spirited, and at the same time dependable, with metal of sincerity and

earnestness like tempered steel in his character—or Sofia misread him

woefully.

She had been quick to see the man behind the misleading little

moustache. And already she was beginning to count that amusement tame

which Karslake did not share.

Mrs. Waring was undeniably a dear. Sofia could hardly be grateful

enough to the happy chance which had cast that lady for the rôle of her

chaperone; lacking her guidance the girl must have been innocently

guilty of many a gaucherie in ways new and strange to untried,

faltering feet. And it was to her alone that Sofia owed the slow but

constant widening of her social horizon. For Sybil Waring, it seemed,

quite literally “knew everybody”; and Sofia soon learned to count it an

off day when Sybil failed to present her protégée to the notice of

somebody of position and influence.

Most of these persons were women with sounding names and the solid

backing of much money conspicuously in evidence—matrons of the younger

and more giddy generation which was just then so busily engaged in

providing material for the most hectic chapters of London’s post-war

social history. But Sofia was scarcely qualified to be critical or to

guess that they were climbers equally with herself, and that if their

footing had been of older establishment the name of Vassilyevski would

have rung sinister echoes in their memories, deafening them to the rich

allure inherent in the title of princess.

So she was fain to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought

most of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as

yet to progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and

informal little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting

vistas of better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski

would have not only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour,

and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the country houses of the

people with whom she contracted the stronger friendships.

But for the immediate present, and especially in the paramount business

of having a good time, Karslake was fairly a necessity. He thought of

everything and forgot nothing, was ever fertile of fresh expedient if

the pastime of a moment began to pall, and was capable of sustained

fits of irresponsible gaiety which enchanted Sofia, so well did they

chime with her own eagerness for sheer fun.

Decidedly she would have been lost without Sybil Waring; but without

Karslake she would have been forlorn.

XI

HEARTBREAK

Not yet prepared to admit it even to herself, in her heart Sofia knew

she prized the companionship of Karslake for something more than the

mere amusement it afforded her: there was a deeper feeling she would

not name. For all that, her times of solitude knew dreams quick and

warm with the thought of Karslake, his words and ways, the gracious

little attentions he had accustomed her to expect of him and which his

manner subtly invested with a personal flavour inexpressibly

delightful, indispensably sweet.

Nor did she ever quite forget how long he had worshipped with

unostentatious devotion at her lowly shrine of the caisse in the Café

des Exiles, and how shabbily she had rewarded his admiration—never

once, in those many months, with so much as a smile—and how unresentful

had been his acceptance of her half-feigned, half-real indifference to

his existence.

But whenever her reflections took that back-turning she would recall

the man who had talked to Karslake in the café, that day so long ago,

of his own humble past as a ’bus-boy in Troyon’s in Paris, and who on

leaving had given Sofia herself that odd look of half-recognition

tempered by bewilderment.

She tried once to draw Karslake about this acquaintance of his, but

Karslake’s memory proved unusually sluggish.

“No-o,” he drawled after a tolerably long pause for thought—“can’t say

I place the chap you mean, can’t seem somehow to think back that far,

you know. One meets such a lot of people, first and last, they talk

such a lot of tosh—”

“But it couldn’t have been only tosh you were talking,” the girl

persisted, “because—_I_ remember—you were so keen about keeping what

you said secret, you spoke the strangest language together most of the

time. I could hear every word”—she had already explained about the

freak acoustics of the Café des Exiles—“and not one meant anything to

me.”

“Stupid of me, but I simply can’t think what it could have been.”

“I can—now.”

Karslake looked askance at Sofia.

“Since I’ve heard so much Chinese spoken by the servants—now I come to

think of it”—Sofia’s eyes grew bright with triumph—“I’m sure it must

have been Chinese you were speaking to the man I mean.”

“Impossible,” Karslake pronounced calmly.

“But you do know Chinese, don’t you?”

“Not a syllable.”

Sofia opened her lips to protest, but delayed to study Karslake’s face

intently. He didn’t try to escape her scrutiny, he even seemed to court

it; but there was a curious, quizzical look in his eyes, those

half-smiling lips had a whimsical droop.

“Mr. Karslake!” Sofia announced, severely, “you’re fibbing.”

“Nice thing to say to me.”

“You do speak Chinese—confess.”

“My dear Princess Sofia,” Karslake protested: “if I had known one word

of Chinese I could never have landed my job with your father.”

“Why not?”

“He expressly stipulated that I should be ignorant of that language.”

“What a silly condition to make!”

“Still, I daresay Prince Victor had his reasons.”

“I can’t imagine what ...”

“Possibly preferred a secretary who couldn’t understand everything he

said to the servants. I’ve never pretended to know all Prince Victor’s

secrets, you know.”

After a little pause Sofia asked gently: “Did you really need the job

so badly, Mr. Karslake?”

“To get it meant more to me than I can tell you—almost as much as to

hold on to it does to-day.”

Sofia turned her eyes away at this, and for the rest of the ride—they

were homeward bound from a matinée, having dropped Sybil Waring at her

flat in Mayfair—kept her thoughts to herself.

Only the most perfunctory civilities passed between them, in fact,

until they had been ushered into the study by Nogam, who advised them

that Prince Victor had ordered tea to be served there and had promised

to be home in good time for it.

The tea service was already set out on a little table beside the

fireplace in that room of secrets, whose normal atmosphere of brooding

gloom was now the darker for the deepening dusk. Only the tea itself

remained to be served, a special rite never performed in that household

by hands more profane than those of the major-domo, Shaik Tsin himself.

And this last could be counted upon not to put in appearance until

Nogam took him word that Victor was waiting.

So, having laid aside her furs and satisfied herself, by a seemingly

aimless but in fact exacting survey, that the abominable Sturm was not

skulking anywhere in the shadows, Sofia established herself on a lounge

that faced the fireplace, while Karslake stood before the fire, looking

down with an expectant smile of which she was but half aware.

“Aren’t you going to forgive me?” he asked, quietly, after a time.

Sofia withdrew a pensive gaze from the ruddy bed of coals.

“For what?”

“You were kind enough to call it merely fibbing.”

“I’m still thinking about that.”

In fact, she had been thinking of nothing else. There was so much to be

considered. Imprimis, that Karslake had been guilty of practising a

deception upon her father. Deceit in itself was one form of treachery.

And how often had Victor stressed to her the dangers of his position,

surrounded by nameless but implacable enemies who would stick at no

infamy to compass his ruin!

But if she told him that Karslake understood Chinese she would lose her

friend forever—no question about that. Victor would not hesitate an

instant—indeed, Sofia felt sure he was only waiting for some such

pretext to get rid of his secretary. She was anything but unobserving,

this child of Soho, whose wits had been sharpened in the sophisticated

atmosphere of a French restaurant; and more than once she had seen

Victor’s face duplicate the expression Papa Dupont’s had so often

assumed on his discovering that some patron of the café was taking too

personal an interest in the pretty young dame du comptoir. A look of

insensate jealousy ...

To risk forfeiting the comradeship that had grown to be so dear? Or to

be constructively derelict in her duty as a daughter?

A difficult choice to make; but Sofia made it honestly. In point of

fact, she assured herself, coldly, there was no choice, there was only

one thing she could do under the circumstances. And she hardened her

heart and eyes as she rose to face Karslake on more equal terms.

But when she saw him waiting patiently, with that friendly smile of his

she knew so well, she hesitated long enough to permit his anticipating

her with a quiet question:

“Well, Princess Sofia?”

And then, amazingly, her tongue betrayed her, the phrases she had

framed so carefully vanished utterly from out her mind; and she heard

herself saying in rather tremulous accents:

“It’s all right. I shan’t tell.”

“About my understanding Chinese?”

“Yes—about that.”

“Then you do care—?”

She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to

slip their moorings and get beyond her handling. It didn’t help or mend

matters much to hear her own voice stammering:

“Yes, of course, I—I don’t want you to—to have to go away—”

Oh, the vanity of trying to hoodwink him who knew so well what she was

now for the first time realizing!

“Because you like me a little, Princess Sofia?”

“Why—yes—of course I do—”

“Because you know I love you, dear.”

And then she found herself clinging to Karslake; and his lips were warm

upon her hands ...

So suddenly and at long last it came to Sofia, that Love for which all

her days had been one long weariness of waiting, Love that brimmed with

raptures what had been only aching emptiness and made the desert places

to blossom as the rose. And the joy of it proved overmastering,

sweeping her off her feet and dazing her, leaving her breathless and

thoughtless but for the all-obscuring thought—at length she loved, and

the one whom she loved loved her!

And for a space she existed in an iridescent dream of happiness,

without sense of relation to a material world, forgetful of the flight

of time, lost to everything but her lover’s arms and voice and lips.

It might have been five minutes, it might have been sixty, before she

became aware that Karslake was gently disengaging her hands. “Dearest,

dearest!” she heard him say. “We must be sensible. That was the front

door, I’m afraid.”

The meaning in his insistence presently began to penetrate, if vaguely,

and she suffered him to go from her a pace or two. But, still a little

blind with the beauty of the revelation that had been granted unto her,

nothing that met her gaze seemed to be in true focus except her lover’s

face: even the countenance of Victor swam into her ken as if blurred by

veils of mist, its dour, forbidding look had no significance to her

intelligence. Victor himself, for that matter, was a figure without

real consequence other than as a symbol of the old order, the tedious

old ways of the world from which she had magically escaped.

A ring of sarcastic apology provided the only clue she got to the

import of Victor’s words. Sobered a trifle, her mental processes

somewhat less incoherent, still she knew she would hardly regain her

poise until she was alone. And breathing an excuse, she left the room

with such dignity as she could muster.

In the hall, with the closed door behind her, she paused to collect

herself. Then she missed furs and gloves and handbag and, remembering

that she had left them in the study, for some obscure reason imagined

she must have them before proceeding to her room.

Much more mistress of herself by now, it never occurred to Sofia that

there could be any reason why she should hesitate about returning or

feel embarrassed before Victor. True, he had surprised them, Sofia was

not at all sure he hadn’t actually seen her in Karslake’s arms. But

what of that? Love like hers was nothing to be ashamed of; and that

Victor could reasonably object to her giving her heart to one of his

secretaries was something far from her thought just then.

She put a hand to the knob, turned it, and swung the door open—all on

impulse—then faltered, transfixed by the tableau before the fireplace.

The door was silent on its hinges, and Karslake’s back was to her.

Victor, on the other hand, facing both Karslake and the door,

unquestionably saw Sofia, but pretended not to, and had his say out

with Karslake in a manner bitterly cynical.

“... sadly in error if you flatter yourself I pay you a wage to make

love to Sofia behind my back.”

“Sorry, sir.” Karslake’s tone was level, respectful but firm. “Your

instructions were, I believe, to win her confidence. Well—I have always

found love the one sure key to a woman’s confidence. Of course, if I

had understood you cared one way or the other—”

Sofia heard no more: unconsciously she had closed the door, at one and

the same time shutting from her sight Victor’s exultant sneer and from

her hearing the words with which the man whom she loved had damned

himself irretrievably and dashed her spirit from radiant pinnacles of

ecstasy into the profoundest black abyss of shame and despair.

Primitive instinct bade the stricken girl seek her room and hide her

suffering there; but the shock had stunned her to the point of physical

weakness. Already a hand was pressed above her heart, that ached

cruelly; and as she moved to cross to the foot of the staircase her

knees gave under her. She clutched the newel-post for support, waiting

to find strength for the ascent.

From the shadowed back part of the hall the man Nogam moved hastily

into view, his features twisted in a grimace of concern as he

recognized the bleak misery of Sofia’s face. His voice sounded

strangely thin and remote.

“Is there anything the matter, miss?—anything I can do?”

She contrived to shake her head slightly and utter an inarticulate

sound of negation, then began slowly to mount the stairs.

Below, Nogam stood watching, in a pose of indecision, as if tempted to

follow and offer the support of an arm lest she fall, restrained only

by fear of a rebuff. But Sofia’s leaden limbs carried her safely to the

upper landing, then on to the blessed shelter of her room, where she

collapsed upon a chaise-longue and there lay in a stirless huddle, dry

of eye but deaf to the plaintive entreaties of Chou Nu and numb to all

sensation but the anguish of her humiliated heart.

XII

SUSPECT

Toward mid-evening the man Victor Vassilyevski and his creature Sturm

sat where the lamp of hand-wrought brass made the top of the teakwood

table an oasis of light amid a waste of shadows, their heads together

over a vast glut of books and papers—maps printed and sketched, curious

diagrams, works of reference, documents all dark with columns of

figures and cabalistic writings intelligible only to initiated eyes.

They had the study all to themselves. Nevertheless, when they spoke it

was in the discreet pitch of those who deal in fatal secrets. At a

distance of two paces only a lip-reader could have caught the substance

of their communications, and even such a one must have failed unless

equally at home in German and in English.

Aside from these occasional and circumspect voices, and the busy rustle

of a steel pen in the hand of Sturm, the quiet of the room had a

tolerably constant background of sound in a subdued whisper punctuated

by muffled clicks, emanating from the bronze casket that housed the

telautographic apparatus.

From time to time, as this noise temporarily suspended, Victor would

get up, read what the mechanical stylus had inscribed, tear off the

paper, and return to his chair.

Some of the messages thus received he made known to Sturm, who

invariably acknowledged this courtesy with effusive gratitude,

sometimes adding a few words of contented comment. Other messages

Victor chose to keep to himself, silently setting fire to them and

adding their brittle ashes to those of their predecessors on the brazen

tray provided for the purpose. At such times Sturm would bend lower

over his work. But Victor was well able to guess what resentment

glimmered in the eyes so studiously averted; and his cold, sardonic

smile more than once commented, unknown to Sturm, upon the accuracy

with which he read the mean workings of his “secretary’s” mind.

The buzz of a muted bell presently interrupted the even tenor of their

industry, causing Sturm to start sharply, drop his pen, and slue round

in his chair, turning to Victor a livid face in which his dark eyes of

a fanatic were live embers of excitement.

Without a sign to show he shared or even was aware of Sturm’s emotion,

Victor deliberately fished from beneath the table a telephone

instrument, unhooked the receiver, and pronounced a conventional phrase

of greeting. To this he added a short “Yes,” and after listening

quietly for some seconds, “Very good—in twenty minutes, then.” Wasting

no more time on the author of the call, he hung up, returned the

telephone to its place of concealment, and helped himself to a

cigarette before deigning to acknowledge Sturm’s persistent stare.

Then, elevating his eyebrows in mild impatience, he made the laconic

announcement:

“Eleven.”

Sturm’s mouth twitched nervously, his eyes burned with a keener fire.

“Coming here? To-night?”

“Yes.”

“Then”—a gaunt hand described a gesture of agitation—“the hour

strikes!”

Victor looked bored.

“Who knows?” he replied, as who should say: “Does it matter?”

“But—Gott in Himmel—!”

“Sturm,” Victor interposed, critically, “if you Bolsheviki were a

trifle more consistent, one might repose greater faith in your

sincerity. But when one hears you deny the Deity in one breath and call

on him by name in the next—!”

“A mere mode of speech,” Sturm muttered.

“If you must invoke a spiritual patron, why not Satan? Or don’t you

believe in the Powers of Darkness, either?”

“I believe in you.”

“As temporal viceroy of Lucifer? Many thanks! But you were about to

say—?”

“Nothing. That is—I was envying your poise, Excellency. You take things

so coolly.”

“Why not?”

“With Eleven coming here to tell us when we are to strike?”

“Why not?” Victor repeated. “We are prepared to strike at any hour.

What matters whether to-night or a week from to-night—since we cannot

fail?”

“If that were only certain!”

“It rests with you.”

“That’s just it,” Sturm doubted moodily. “Suppose _I_ fail?”

“Why, then—I suppose—you will die.”

“I know. And so will all of us, Excellency.”

“Oh, no. Undeceive yourself, my friend. I shall survive. You will

surely die, and perhaps many others with you; but I would not be Number

One if I had turned my hand to this scheme without discounting failure

first of all. My way of escape is sure.”

“I believe you,” Sturm grumbled.

With a languid hand Victor found and pressed a button embedded in the

table near the edge.

“You have reason. Whatever my shortcomings, my good Sturm, they do not

include hypocrisy; I do not pretend, like your noble Bolsheviki, I am

in this business for the sake of humanity or anything but my own

selfish ends—power, plunder”—a slight wait prefaced one final word,

spoken in a key of sombre passion—“revenge.”

“Revenge?” Sturm echoed, staring.

“I have more than one score to pay out before I can cry even with life

... one above all!”

Studying intently that darkened face, and misled by its look of

abstraction, Sturm was guilty of the indiscretion of his malicious

smile.

“The Lone Wolf?”

Victor turned weary eyes his way, and under their black and lustreless

regard the smile merged swiftly into a grin of nervous apology.

“You are shrewd,” Victor observed, thoughtfully. “Be careful: it is a

dangerous gift.”

The man Nogam gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping

just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But

since Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam

resigned himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a

servant tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers’

whims; efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to speak,

long-suffering.

Victor addressed him suddenly, in a sharp voice that drew from Sturm a

glitter of eager spite.

“Nogam!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Where is the Princess Sofia?”

“In ’er apartment, sir.”

“And Mr. Karslake?”

“In ’is.”

“Then be good enough to send Shaik Tsin to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Nogam!”—the servant checked in the act of turning—“I shan’t need

you again to-night.”

“’Nk you, sir.”

When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that

knitted Victor’s brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of

respectful enquiry:

“Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?”

“You think so?”

“He is too perfect, if you ask me—never makes a false move.”

“Either he is what he seems, in which event a false move would be

against nature; or he is not, and knows one slip would mean his death.”

“Still, I maintain you trust him too much.”

“With what?”

“The freedom of your house, the opportunity to spy, to get to know who

comes to see you and when, to listen at doors.”

“You have caught him listening at doors?”

“Not yet. But in time—”

“I think not. I don’t think he has to.”

“You mean,” Sturm stammered, perturbed, “you think he knows—suspects?”

“I think he is one thing or the other: merely Nogam, or one of the

greatest of living actors. In either case he is flawless—thus far. But

if not merely Nogam, he will have a subtler means of eavesdropping than

by listening at doors.”

“The dictograph?”

“Make your mind easy about that. This room is searched regularly by

Shaik Tsin. So is Nogam’s. It is certain there is neither a dictograph

installed here nor any means at Nogam’s disposal for connecting with a

dictograph installation. Indeed, so closely is Nogam watched, and by

more cunning eyes than mine—sometimes I begin to be afraid he is simply

what he seems.”

“Then you do suspect him!”

“My good Sturm, I suspect everybody.”

Sturm pondered this before pressing his point again.

“Karslake found the fellow for you,” he suggested at length.

“True.”

“And Karslake—”

“Has been guilty of nothing more treacherous than falling in love with

Sofia.”

“Your daughter, Excellency!”

“The young woman seems content to call herself that.... Can’t say I

blame Karslake.”

“But do you forgive him?”

“Ah, that is another matter. Mine is not a forgiving nature, Sturm—not

even toward excessive shrewdness.”

Victor took up a docket of papers, and Sturm, mumbling an apology, gave

himself up to jealous brooding till he forgot the broad hint he had

received.

“If I can satisfy you that Nogam is untrustworthy—” he began, meaning

to continue: _Karslake will stand his proved accomplice_.

But Victor would not let him finish. “Nothing could please me more,” he

interrupted. “Do so, by all means—if you can—and earn my everlasting

gratitude.”

Sturm questioned him with puzzled eyes.

“I ask no greater service of any man,” Victor elucidated with a smile

that made Sturm shiver, “than proof that Nogam is what I suspect him of

being.” A hand extended upon the table unclosed and closed slowly, with

fingers tensed, like a murderous claw. “I want no greater favour of

Heaven or Hell—!”

He broke off abruptly. Having entered noiselessly in his padded shoes,

Shaik Tsin now stood before Victor, offering a low obeisance.

“You took your time,” Victor grumbled. And Shaik Tsin smiled serenely.

“I want you to tend the door to-night,” Victor pursued. “Eleven is

expected at any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in.”

“Hearing is obedience.”

“Wait”—as the Chinaman began to bow himself out—“Karslake is still in

his room, I suppose?”

“Yes, master.”

“And Nogam?”

“Has just gone to his.”

“When did you last search their quarters?”

“During dinner.”

“And of course found nothing?” Shaik Tsin bowed. “Make sure neither

leaves his room to-night. Set a watch outside each door.”

“I have done so.”

Victor gave a sign of dismissal.

XIII

THE TURNIP

In a spacious chamber beneath the eaves, hideously papered and

furnished with cheerless, massive relics of the early Victorian era,

the man Nogam pursued methodical preparations for bed.

Spying eyes, had there been any—and for all Nogam knew, there

were—would have seen him follow step by step a programme from whose

order he had departed by scarcely as much as a single gesture on any

night since his first installation in the house near Queen Anne’s Gate.

Loosening the waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy

silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an

old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the

portable timepiece its nickname of “turnip,” and opening its back

inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding was

a laborious process, prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the

back with a loud click, and reverently deposited the watch on the

marble slab of the black walnut bureau.

Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood

between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed

selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam’s first night in the

room; whether or no, it was not in character that, having established

this precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the

coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the

room.

Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the

same deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as

before. One never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls.

His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then

he pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers,

put on a pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set

them outside, closed the door, and turned the key in its lock.

If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he

had fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no

uneasiness in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve

tonics.

Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with

which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way

different from the unthinking creature of habit who performed

belowstairs the prescribed functions of his office.

Having donned a nightshirt of coarse cotton, he knelt for several

minutes in a devout attitude by the side of his bed, then rising opened

the window, took the turnip from the bureau, and snuggled it beneath

his pillow, inserted his bare shanks between the sheets, and opened at

a marked place a Bible bound in black cloth.

On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed

cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to

spell out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily,

and switched out the lamp.

Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the

light-struck sky beyond the windows. And in this grateful obscurity

Nogam permitted himself the luxury of ceasing to be Nogam. A light

suddenly flashed upon his face would have discovered a keen and alert

intelligence transfiguring the apathetic mask of every day. Also, it

would have rendered Nogam’s probable duration of life an interesting

speculation.

Under cover of the darkness, furthermore, he did a number of things

which Nogam, qua Nogam, would never have dreamed of doing.

His first act was to withdraw from under his pillow the turnip, his

next to re-open the back of its silver case and then the inner

lid—something which a deft thumbnail accomplished without a sound.

From the roomy interior of the case—whose bulky ancient works had been

replaced by a wafer-thin modern movement, leaving much useful space

back of the dial—sensitive fingers extracted a metal disk about the

size and thickness of a silver dollar. One face of this disk was

generously perforated, the other, solid, boasted a short blunt post

round which several feet of extremely fine wire had been coiled.

Unwinding the wire and bending the free end into the form of a rude

hook, the man attached this last to the cord of his bedside lamp at a

point, located by sense of touch, where a minute section of electric

light wire had been left naked by defective insulation.

Direct connection now being established with a microphone secreted in

the base of the brass lamp on the study table, three floors below, and

the perforated side of the microphone detector serving as an earpiece,

one could hear every word uttered by the conspirators.

The man in bed contributed a broad smile to the kind darkness—sheer

luxury to facial muscles cramped and constrained to the cast of Nogam

for eighteen hours a day. He was now at last to reap the reward of

three months of preparation and three weeks of ingenious, but

necessarily spasmodic, and at all times desperately dangerous,

tampering with the house wiring system.

He lay very still for a long time, listening ...

XIV

CONFERENCE OF THE DAMNED

An Irish voice was making the hush of the study musical with mellow

cadences.

“This week-end sure, your Excellency—within the next three nights—the

little Welshman will be after summoning the Cabinet to sit in secret in

Downing Street, with His Most Gracious Majesty attending in person; the

emergency extraordinary being thoughtfully provided by this shindig me

amiable but spirited fellow-countrymen are kicking up across the

Channel—God bless the work!”

The speaker laughed lightly, flashing white teeth at Prince Victor

across the width of the paper-strewn table.

“In more Parliamentary language, by the Irish Question. But we’ll hear

no more of that, I’m thinking, once we’ve proclaimed the Soviet

Government of England.”

Victor bowed in grave assent.

“You have my word as to that,” he said; and after a moment of

thoughtful consideration: “You speak, no doubt, from the facts?”

“I do that. It’s straight I’ve come from the House of Commons to bring

you the news without an hour’s delay. There’s more than one advantage

in being an Irish Member these days.”

“On the other hand, Eleven”—Victor stressed the numeral as if to remind

the Irishman that even a Member of Parliament for Ireland held no

higher standing in his esteem than any other underling in his

association of anonymous conspirators—“even so, it appears you are

uncertain as to the night.”

“I’m after telling you it’ll be to-morrow night or more likely

Saturday—Sunday at the latest.” A mildly impatient accent alone

betrayed resentment of the snub. “I’ll know in good time, long before

the hour appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part

are prepared.”

“An hour’s notice will be ample,” Victor agreed. “We have been ready

for days, needing only the knowledge you bring us—or will, when you

have it definitely.”

The Irishman chuckled.

“It’s hard to believe. Not that I’d dream of doubting your statement,

sir—but yourself won’t be denying you must have worked fast to organize

England for revolution in less than three weeks.”

“I have been busy,” Victor admitted. “But the work was not so difficult

... Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by

forces of discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the

figure: England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and

established habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary

government has ever since the war been struggling desperately to

preserve. The blow we shall strike within three days will shatter that

crust in a hundred places.”

“And let Hell loose!” the Irishman added with a nervous laugh.

In a dry voice Victor commented: “Precisely.”

“Omelettes,” Sturm interjected, assertively, “are not made without

breaking eggs.”

“And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr

Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you’ve picked

out for your very own, after the explosion comes off—if it’s a fair

question?”

“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about

laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to

me, while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and

Ireland free.”

“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius

I had to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise

Ireland to be a good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s

hand and live off England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black

business but himself—Number One.”

“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm

reminded him, angrily.

“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I

don’t mind telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me

soul me own, I’ll be after asking himself first for a license.”

Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave,

gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the

danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to

say, except in the open air?”

“Can’t say I do, altogether.”

“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the

Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of

Thirteen has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the

district entirely.”

“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?”

“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not

too far away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was

briefly visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my

stricken country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the

essentials for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be

sent out to all who can be trusted.”

“And the others—?”

“With them it must be as Fate wills.”

“Women and children, potential sympathizers and supporters of all

classes?” the Irishman persisted in incredulous horror—“all?”

“All,” Victor affirmed, coldly. “We who deal in the elemental passions

that make revolutions, that is to say, in Life and Death, cannot afford

qualms and scruples. What are a few lives more or less in London? These

British breed like rabbits.”

“I see,” said Eleven, indistinctly. He stared a moment and swallowed

hard, then glanced hastily at his watch. “I’ll be after bidding you

good-night,” he said, “and pleasant dreams. For meself, I’m a fool if I

go to bed this night sober enough to dream at all, at all!”

Victor rang for Shaik Tsin to show him out.

“One question more, if you won’t take it amiss,” Eleven suggested,

lingering. And Victor inclined a gracious head. “Have you thought of

failure?”

“I have thought of everything.”

“Well, and if we do fail—?”

“How, for example?”

“How do I know what hellish accident may kick our plans into a cocked

hat? Anything might happen. There’s your friend, the Lone Wolf, for

instance ...”

“Have you not forgotten him yet?” Victor enquired in simulated

surprise. “Have you neglected to remark that since the blunderer failed

to find the Council Chamber that night, when his raid at the Red Moon

netted him only a handful of coolie gamblers and drug-addicts, he has

left us to our own devices?”

“That’s what makes me wonder what the divvle’s up to. His sort are

never so dangerous as when apparently discouraged.” “Be reassured. I

promised you three weeks ago his interference would not continue beyond

that night. It has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any

blow aimed at me must first strike her.”

“Doubtless yourself knows best....”

With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm.

“You will want a good night’s sleep,” he suggested with pointed

solicitude. “Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of

nights, my friend?”

He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent

to the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless.

Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter

of papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off.

Shaik Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring

the reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a

massive safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed

himself before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable

placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a

suggestion of familiarity.

Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash,

Victor spoke in Chinese:

“To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with

the girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days—perhaps. I will leave a

telephone number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I

have left, you will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter’s

wage in advance in lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money.”

“He does not accompany you?”

“No.”

“And the man Nogam?”

Victor appeared to hesitate. “What do you think?” he enquired at

length.

“What I have always thought.”

“That he is a spy?”

“Yes.”

“But with no tangible support for your suspicions?”

“None.”

“You have not failed to watch him closely?”

“As a cat watches a mouse.”

“But—nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery.”

“And I.”

“Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep

an eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the

girl Sofia. In my absence you will be guided by such further

instructions as I may leave with you. These failing, consider the man

Sturm, my personal representative. In the contingency you know of,

Sturm will warn you in time to clear the house.”

“Of everybody?”

“Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man

Karslake. These and yourself will be provided with means of

self-protection by Sturm.”

“And Karslake?”

“I have not yet made up my mind.”

“Hearing is obedience.”

Victor relapsed into another reverie which lasted so long that even the

patience of Shaik Tsin bade fair to fail. In the end the silence was

broken by two words:

“The crystal.”

From a cabinet at the end of the room Shaik Tsin brought a crystal ball

supported on the backs of three golden dragons standing tail to tail,

superbly wrought examples of Chinese goldsmithing. This he placed

carefully on the black teakwood surface at Victor’s elbow.

“And now, inform the girl Sofia I wish to see her.”

“And if she again sends her excuses?”

“Say, in that event, I shall be obliged to come to her room.”

XV

INTUITION

She had not thought, of course, of going down to dinner; she had,

instead, sent Victor word simply that she begged to be excused from

joining him for that meal. Then, unable longer to endure Chou Nu’s

efforts to comfort or distract her, Sofia had stepped out of her street

frock and into a négligée and, dismissing the maid, returned to the

chaise-longue upon which, in vain hope of being able to cry out the

wretchedness of her heart, she had thrown herself on first gaining the

sanctuary of her room.

For hours, she did not guess how many, she scarcely stirred. Neither

was the blessed boon of tears granted unto her. Alone with her immense

and immitigable misery, she lay in darkness tempered only by the dim

skyshine that filtered through the window draperies; hating life, that

had no mercy; hating the duplicity that had led Karslake into making

untrue love to her, but inexplicably not hating Karslake himself, or

the enshrined image that wore his name; hating herself for her facile

readiness to give love where all but the guise of love was lacking, and

for knowing this deep hurt where she should have felt only scorn and

anger; but hating, most of all, or rather for the first time

discovering how well she hated, him to whom unerring intuition told her

she owed this brimming measure of heartbreak and humiliation, the man

who called himself her father.

For if Karslake had done her a cruel wrong in winning her avowal of the

love that had been growing in her heart these many weeks, while he was

merely amusing himself or serving a secret purpose—whose was the

initial blame for that?

Who had egged Karslake on, as he had asserted, “to win her confidence,”

leaving to him the choice of means to that end?

And—_why_?

The formulation of this question marked the turning point in Sofia’s

descent toward the nadir of shame and anguish; from the moment its

significance was clearly apprehended (but it took her long to reach

this stage) the complexion of her thoughts took on another colour, and

the smart of chagrin was soothed even as the irritation excited by

critical examination of Victor’s conduct grew more acute.

Why should the self-styled author of her being have thought it

necessary, or even wise or kind, to commission a paid employee to win

his daughter’s confidence?

What had rendered the conquest of her confidence so needful in his

sight?

What had made him think Sofia would prove loath to resign it to him, or

more likely to give it to another?

Why had Victor hesitated to bid for her confidence with his own tongue,

on his own merits?

One would think that, if he were her father—

If!

_Was_ he?

Sofia sat up sharply, her young body as taut as her temper. Pulses and

breathing quickened, intent eyes probed the shadows as if she thought

to wrest from them a clue to the mystery of her status in the household

of Victor Vassilyevski.

What proof had she that he was her father?

None but his word.... Well, and Karslake’s.... None that would stand

the test of skepticism, none that either sentiment or reason could

offer and support. Certainly she resembled Prince Victor in no respect

that she could think of, not in person, not in mould of character, not

in ways of thought. From the very first she had been perplexed, and

indeed saddened, by her failure, her sheer inability, to react

emotionally to their alleged relationship. And surely there must exist

between parent and child some sort of spiritual bond or affinity,

something to draw them together—even if neither had never known the

other. Whereas she on her part had never been conscious of any sense of

sympathy with Victor, but only of timidity and reluctance which had

latterly manifested in unquestionable aversion. And then there was his

attitude toward her, raising a question so repugnant to her

understanding that never before to-night had Sofia admitted its

existence and given it the freedom of her thoughts.

She had seen men, in the Café des Exiles, toast their mistresses with

such looks as Victor Vassilyevski reserved for the girl whom he claimed

as his child.

What, then, if he were not her father?

What if he had only pretended to paternal rights in furtherance of some

deep scheme of his?—perhaps thinking to use her as a pawn in that dark

plot which he was forever brewing in his study (with canaille like

Sturm for collaborators!) that mysterious “research work” that

flavoured the atmosphere of the house with a miasmatic reek of

intrigue, stealth, and fear—perhaps (more simply and terribly)

designing in his own time and way to avenge himself upon the daughter

for the admitted slights he had suffered at the hands of the mother,

that poor dead woman whose fame he never ceased to blacken while still

her memory was potent to kindle fires in those eyes otherwise so

opaque, impenetrable, and lightless!

Now Sofia found herself unable to sit still; only through action of

some sort could she hope to win any measure of ease for brain and

nerves. A thought was shaping, claiming precedence over all others, the

thought of flight; bred of the feeling that, as long as she remained in

ignorance of the exact truth concerning their relationship, it was

impossible for her to remain longer under Victor’s roof, eating his

bread and salt, schooling herself to suffer his endearments whose good

faith she could not help challenging, who inspired in her only

antipathy, fear, and distrust.

It seemed clear beyond dispute that she must leave his protection, this

very night, before he could guess her mind and move to check her.

Sofia swung her feet down to the floor. One of her silken mules had

fallen off. Semi-consciously she groped for it with stockinged toes. As

the inanimate will, the mule eluded recapture with impish ease. But

beneath her foot something rustled and crackled lightly. She bent over

and picked it up: a square white envelope, sealed.

Switching on a lamp near by, she examined her find. It carried no

address. How it could have got there she could not imagine ... unless

Chou Nu had dropped it by inadvertence, which seemed as far-fetched as

to suppose she had left it there by design; for that would mean Chou Nu

had been bribed to convey a surreptitious note to her mistress; and

Sofia knew that the Chinese girl was at once too loyal to her

“second-uncle,” and too much in awe of “Number One,” to be corruptible.

None the less, there the envelope was; and nobody but Chou Nu had

entered the room since Sofia had come straight from the study to it,

late in the afternoon.

It was just possible, however—Sofia’s eyes measured the distance—that a

deft hand and a strong wrist might have slipped the envelope under the

door and sent it skimming across the floor to the foot of the

chaise-longue.

But nobody would have dared do that without a powerful motive for

wishing to communicate secretly with Sofia.

She tore the flap and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper penned in a

hand she knew too well. Her heart leapt....

I implore you, of your charity, do not condemn me without a hearing

because of anything you may have overheard me say. After you left us in

the study I saw his eyes watching the door while we talked, and knew

from his look that something to please him had happened behind my back.

And in the temper he was in only one thing could possibly have pleased

him.

I said what I said to him, dear, because I had to—or lose the right,

dearer to me than life, to be near you, to serve and protect you. I

lied to him because I loved you. But I have never lied to you about my

love—and only once, through necessity, about anything else. Perhaps you

can guess what that lie was, somehow I rather think you do; at least, I

am sure, you are beginning to wonder if I told the truth—or knew it,

then.

If this sound cryptic, I can only beg you to be patient and charitable

until I find opportunity to clear away this one lie which stands

between us—and which is, by comparison, almost immaterial, since all

that matters is the one great truth in my life, that I love you beyond

all telling.

R.K.

If questions trouble your mind, I beg you do not let him know it. Your

only safety now lies in his continuing to believe that you are

unsuspicious. Above all, do your best to seem to fall in with his

wishes, however strange or unreasonable they may seem. It will be only

a few days more before I can claim you for my own, and laugh at his

pretensions.

A curious love-letter; yet it was Sofia’s first. If it made her

thoughtful, it made her illogically happy as well. If it put the issue

to her squarely, of loyalty to Prince Victor or loyalty to Karslake,

she was unaware that she had any choice of courses. When Shaik Tsin

thumped the panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of

her négligée before answering.

When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the

benefit of a doubt.

XVI

THE CRYSTAL

Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted

chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped

through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the

soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the

welcome that was for a time withheld.

For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing

moved but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent

censer of beaten gold.

The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a

solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal

ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow

baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment.

Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his

forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze

was steadfast to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious

shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility.

Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the

spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her

new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with

an equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister

figure at the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere—what

did he see there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in

black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he

brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What

spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his

rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to do with

the man’s mind concerning herself?

Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread....

And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to

knowledge of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh

passed a hand across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its

habitual look for Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary

smile.

“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept

you waiting long?”

“Only a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.”

But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s

rotund and measured intonations.

“Forgive me.” Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal. “I

have been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh. “You

have heard of crystal-gazing? A fascinating art that languishes in

undeserved neglect. The ancients were more wise, they knew there was

more in Heaven and Earth.... You are incredulous? But I assure you, I

myself, though far from proficient, have caught strange glimpses of

unborn events in the heart of that transparent enigma.”

He took her hands and cuddled them in his own.

She quivered irrepressibly to his touch.

“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into

her face—“you are wan and sad, my dear. Tell me you are not ill.”

“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—again in that faint, stifled voice. She

added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk

to essentials: “You sent for me—I am here.”

“I am so sorry. If I had guessed ...” Enlightenment seemed to dawn all

at once. “But surely it isn’t because of that stupid business with

Karslake? Surely you didn’t take him seriously?”

“How should I—?”

“It is too absurd. The poor fool misconstrued my instructions to make

himself agreeable—I am so taken up with the gravest matters at present,

I didn’t want you to feel lonely or neglected—and, it appears, felt it

incumbent upon him to flirt with you as a matter of duty. I am out of

temper with him, but not unreasonable; I shan’t dispense with his

services altogether, without more provocation, but will find other work

to keep him busy and out of your way. You need fear no more annoyance

from that quarter.”

“I was not annoyed,” Sofia found heart to contend. “I—like him.”

“Nonsense!” Victor’s laugh was rich with derision. “Don’t ask me to

believe you were actually touched by the fellow’s play-acting. You—my

daughter—wasting emotion on a mere commoner! The thing is too

ridiculous. Oblige me by thinking no more about it. I have better

things in store for you.”

“Better than—love?” the girl questioned with grave eyes.

“When the time comes for that, you shall find a worthier parti than

poor Karslake, well-meaning though he may be. Moreover, you

heard—forgive me for reminding you—there was not an ounce of sincerity

in all his philandering for you to hold in sentimental recollection.

So—forget Karslake, please. It is a duty you owe your own pride and my

dignity; it is, furthermore, my wish.”

She bowed her head, that he might not see the reflection in her face of

the glow that warmed her bosom, where Karslake’s letter nestled. But

Victor took the nod for the word of submission, and patted her shoulder

with an indulgent hand, guiding her to a chair close by his.

“Sit down, my dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at

this late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so

overwrought.... You quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to

be upset by such a trifling matter, don’t you?”

“Oh, quite,” Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers

in her lap.

“That is sensible.” Offering her shoulder one last accolade of

approbation, Victor moved toward his own chair. “And now that you are

here, we may as well have our little talk out,” he continued, but broke

off to stipulate: “If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?”

“Yes,” Sofia assented, but without moving.

“I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good.”

“Oh, no!” the girl protested—“I don’t need it, really.”

But Victor wouldn’t listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances,

returned presently with a brimming goblet.

“Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again.”

Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips.

“You have never tasted a wine like that,” Victor insisted, smiling down

at her.

It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of

character of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing

richness, a fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste

and fragrance, elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never

to be analyzed by the most experienced palate.

“What is it?” Sofia asked after her first sip.

“You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe.”

Victor gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese.

“Outside my cellars, I’ll wager there’s not another bottle of it this

side of Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good.”

He seated himself. “And now my reason for wishing to talk with you

to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West.

You met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She

was apparently much taken with you.”

“She is very kind.”

Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was

searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes.

“‘Too lovely,’ she calls you—and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it

is: ‘Too lovely for words.’ And she wants me to bring my ‘charming

daughter’ down to Frampton Court for this week-end.”

Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had

done her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more

alert, and at the same time curiously soothed.

Victor refolded the note and tapped the table with it, holding Sofia

with speculative eyes.

“It should be amusing,” he said, thoughtfully, “a new experience for

you. Elaine—I mean Lady Randolph West, of course—is a charming hostess,

and never fails to fill Frampton Court with delightful people.”

“I’m sure I should love it.”

“I am sure you would. And yet ... I may have been a little premature,

since I have already written accepting the invitation.” He indicated an

addressed envelope face up on the table. “But on second thoughts, it

seemed perhaps wiser to consult you first.”

“But if it is your wish, I must go,” Sofia replied, mindful of

Karslake’s injunction not to oppose Victor. “What have I to say—?”

“Everything about whether we accept or do not—or if not everything, at

least the final word. I must abide by your decision.”

“But I shall be only too glad—”

“Think a moment. It might be wiser not to go. You alone can say.”

“I don’t quite understand ...”

Victor sighed. “It is a painful subject,” he said, slowly—“one I

hesitate to reopen. But we can never profit by closing our minds to

facts; I mean, to the reality of the danger which is always with us,

since it is within us.”

“What danger?” Sofia enquired, sullenly, knowing the answer too well

before it was spoken.

“The danger of sudden temptation to indulge the lawless appetites with

which heredity has endued us—me from the nameless forebears whom I

never knew, you directly from parents both of whom boasted criminal

records.”

“I don’t believe it!” Sofia declared, passionately—“I can’t believe it,

I won’t! Even if you are—”