The Moonlit Way Part 49

"It was Gerhardt's money, I am sure, that bought the _Mot d'Ordre_ from d'Eblis for Ferez--that is, for Berlin," she said.

"Do you mean," asked Westmore, "the New York banker, Adolf Gerhardt, of Gerhardt, Klein & Schwartzmeyer, who has that big show place at Northbrook?"

Barres smiled at him significantly:

"What do you know about that, Jim! If we go to Foreland we're certain to be asked to the Gerhardt's! They're part of the Northbrook set; they're received everywhere. They entertain the personnel of the German and Austrian Emba.s.sies. Probably their place, Hohenlinden, is a hotbed of German intrigue and propaganda! Thessa, how about you? Would you care to risk recognition in Gerhardt's drawing-room, and see what information you could pick up?"

Thessalie's cheeks grew bright pink, and her dark eyes were full of dancing light:

"Garry, I'd adore it! I told you I had never been a spy. And that is absolutely true. But if you think I am sufficiently intelligent to do anything to help my country, I'll try. And I don't care how I do it,"

she added, with her sweet, reckless little laugh, and squeezed Dulcie's hand tightly between her fingers.

"Do you suppose Gerhardt would remember you?" asked Westmore.

"I don't think so. I don't believe anybody would recollect me. If anybody there ever saw Nihla Quellen, it wouldn't worry me, because Nihla Quellen is merely a memory if anything, and only Ferez and d'Eblis know I am alive and here----"

"And their hired agents," added Westmore.

"Yes. But such people would not be guests of Adolf Gerhardt at Northbrook."

"Ferez Bey might be his guest."

"What of it!" she laughed. "I was never afraid of Ferez--never! He is a jackal always. A threatening gesture and he flees! No, I do not fear Ferez Bey, but I think he is horribly afraid of me.... I think, perhaps, he has orders to do me very serious harm--and dares not. No, Ferez Bey comes sniffing around after the fight is over. He does no fighting, not Ferez! He slinks outside the smoke. When it clears away and night comes he ventures forth to feed furtively on what is left. That is Ferez--my Ferez on whom I would not use a dog-whip--no!--merely a slight gesture--and he is gone like a swift shadow in the dark!"

Fascinated by the transformation in her, the other three sat gazing at Thessalie in silence. Her colour was high, her dark eyes sparkled, her lips glowed. And the superb young figure so celebrated in Europe, so straight and virile, seemed instinct with the reckless gaity and courage which rang out in her full-throated laughter as she ended with a gesture and a snap of her white fingers.

"For my country--for France, whose generous mind has been poisoned against me--I would do anything--anything!" she said. "If you think, Garry, that I have wit enough to balk d'Eblis, check Ferez, confuse the plotters in Berlin--well, then!--I shall try. If you say it is right, then I shall become what I never have been--a spy!"

She sat for a moment smiling in her flushed excitement. n.o.body spoke.

Then her expression altered, subtlely, and her dark eyes grew pensive.

"Perhaps," she said wistfully, "if I could serve my country in some little way, France might believe me loyal.... I have sometimes wished I might have a chance to prove it. There is nothing I would not risk if only France would come to believe in me.... But there seemed to be no chance for me. It is death for me to go there now, with that dossier in the secret archives and a Senator of France to swear my life away----"

"If you like," said Westmore, very red again, "I'll go into the business, too, and help you nail some of these Hun plotters. I've nothing better to do; I'd be delighted to help you land a Hun or two."

"I'm with you both, heart and soul!" said Barres. "The whole country is rotten with Boche intrigue. Who knows what we may uncover at Northbrook?"

Dulcie rose and came over to where Barres sat, and he reached up without turning around, and gave her hand a friendly little squeeze.

She bent over beside him:

"Could I help?" she asked in a low voice.

"You bet, Sweetness! Did you think you were being left out?" And he drew her closer and pa.s.sed one arm absently around her as he began speaking again to Westmore:

"It seems to me that we ought to stumble on something at Northbrook worth following up, if we go about it circ.u.mspectly, Jim--with all that Austrian and German Emba.s.sy gang coming and going during the summer, and this picturesque fellow, Murtagh Skeel, being lionised by----"

Dulcie's sudden start checked him and he looked up at her.

"Murtagh Skeel, the Irish poet and patriot," he repeated, "who wants to lead a Clan-na-Gael raid into Canada or head a death-battalion to free Ireland. You've read about him in the papers, Dulcie?"

"Yes ... I want to talk to you alone----" She blushed and dropped a confused little curtsey to Thessalie: "Would you please pardon my rudeness----"

"You darling!" said Thessalie, blowing her a swift, gay kiss. "Go and talk to your best friend in peace!"

Barres rose and walked away slowly beside Dulcie. They stood still when out of earshot. She said:

"I have a few of my mother's letters.... She knew a young man whose name was Murtagh Skeel.... He was her dear friend. But only in secret.

Because I think her father and mother disliked him.... It would seem so from her letters and his.... And she was--in love with him.... And he with mother.... Then--I don't know.... But she came to America with father. That is all I know. Do you believe he can be the same man?"

"Murtagh Skeel," repeated Barres. "It's an unusual name. Possibly he is the same man whom your mother knew. I should say he might have been about your mother's age, Dulcie. He is a romantic figure now--one of those dreamy, graceful, impractical patriots--an enthusiast with one idea and that an impossible one!--the freedom of Ireland wrenched by force from the traditional tyrant, England."

He thought a moment, then:

"Whatever the fault, and wherever lies the blame for Ireland's unrest to-day, this is no time to start rebellion. Who strikes at England now strikes at all Freedom in the world. Who conspires against England to-day conspires with barbarism against civilisation.

"My outspoken sympathy of yesterday must remain unspoken to-day. And if it be insisted on, then it will surely change and become hostility.

No, Dulcie; the line of cleavage is clean: it is Light against Darkness, Right against Might, Truth against Falsehood, and Christ against Baal!

"This man, Murtagh Skeel, is a dreamer, a monomaniac, and a dangerous fanatic, for all his winning and cultivated personality and the personal purity of his character.... It is an odd coincidence if he was once your mother's friend--and her suitor, too."

Dulcie stood before him, her head a trifle lowered, listening to what he said. When he ended, she looked up at him, then across the studio where Westmore had taken her place on the sofa beside Thessalie. They both seemed to be absorbed in a conversation which interested them immensely.

Dulcie hesitated, then ventured to take possession of Barres' arm:

"Could you and I sit down over here by ourselves?" she asked.

He smiled, always amused by her increasing confidence and affection, and always a little touched by it, so plainly she revealed herself, so quaintly--sometimes very quietly and shyly, sometimes with an ardent impulse too swift for self-conscious second thoughts which might have checked her.

So they seated themselves in the carved compartments of an ancient choir-stall and she rested one elbow on the part.i.tion between them and set her rounded chin in her palm.

"You pretty thing," he said lightly.

At that she blushed and smiled in the confused way she had when teased. And at such times she never looked at him--never even pretended to sustain his laughing gaze or brave out her own embarra.s.sment.

"I won't torment you, Sweetness," he said. "Only you ought not to let me, you know. It's a temptation to make you blush; you do it so prettily."

"Please----" she said, still smiling but vividly disconcerted again.

"There, dear! I won't. I'm a brute and a bully. But honestly, you ought not to let me."

"I don't know how to stop you," she admitted, laughing. "I could kill myself for being so silly. Why is it, do you suppose, that I blu----"

She checked herself, scarlet now, and sat motionless with her head bent over her clenched palm, and her lip bitten till it quivered.

Perhaps a flash of sudden insight had answered her own question before she had even finished asking it. And the answer had left her silent, rigid, as though not daring to move. But her bitten lip trembled, and her breath, which had stopped, came swiftly now, desperately controlled. But there seemed to be no control for her violent little heart, which was racing away and setting every pulse a faster pace.

Barres, more uneasy than amused, now, and having before this very unwillingly suspected Dulcie of an exaggerated sentiment concerning him, inspected her furtively and sideways.

"I won't tease you any more," he repeated. "I'm sorry. But you understand, Sweetness; it's just a friendly tease--just because we're such good friends."