Her Majesty's Minister Part 32

he said in a harsh voice. "We have to thank that interesting young lady for rendering all our diplomacy in that direction abortive."

"You had suspicion of her the other day?" I exclaimed. "What caused you to suspect her?"

"Drummond knew her in Brussels, and mentioned her."

"As a secret agent?"

"Yes, as a secret agent. He warned me to be wary of her."

"Well," I said, "I, who knew her most intimately years ago, never suspected it for one single instant."

"Ah, Ingram," the Amba.s.sador answered, a smile crossing his serious, hard-set face, "you were in love with her. A man in love never believes that his idol is of mere clay."

A sigh escaped me. His words were indeed true. A thought of Edith flashed across my mind. The face of that woman who was false to me rose before my vision, but I swept it aside. All was over between us.

Diplomacy and flirtation are sister arts, but diplomacy and love never run hand-in-hand. I had quaffed the cup of life, with all its infinite joys and agonies, in one intoxicating draught.

Kaye rose at last and departed, promising to leave no stone unturned in his efforts to discover how the contents of the secret despatch had been obtained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and then, at the Amba.s.sador's dictation, I wrote a despatch to London explaining to the Marquess the reason why his instructions could not be acted upon. Thus were we compelled to acknowledge our defeat.

Below, in the hall, I met Sibyl dressed smartly, ready to go out.

"What!" she exclaimed, laughing, "you are back again! Why, I thought you would be at least a week in London. Did you bring that lace for me?"

"Yes," I answered, "I have it round at my rooms. I'll send it you this afternoon."

"Why are you back so soon?" she inquired, holding out her hand, so that I might b.u.t.ton her glove. "Was London too hot?"

"The heat was insufferable. Besides, we have much to attend to just now."

"Poor father!" she exclaimed, looking up at me. "He seems terribly worried. Tell me, Mr. Ingram, what has happened? I feel sure that some catastrophe has taken place."

"Oh, nothing," I rea.s.sured her. "Your father is a little anxious regarding some negotiations, that is all."

"But you will go to the Elysee to-night, won't you?"

"To-night! What is it to-night?"

"Why, the grand ball," she answered.

"Which means a new frock for you--eh?" I laughed.

"Of course," she replied. "You will come, won't you?"

"I fear I'm ever so much too tired for dancing," I responded, feeling in no humour for the crowded gaiety of the President's ball.

"But you must," she declared--"to please me. I want you to dance with me."

"Well," I said with reluctance, "I suppose I dare not be so ungallant as to refuse you."

"That's good," she laughed. "Now, as a reward, I'll drive you down to the boulevard. The victoria is outside. Where will you go?"

I reflected a moment, then told her I was on my way to my chambers.

"Very well," she replied, "I'll drop you there. I have to go down to the Rue de la Paix."

"To the couturiere, of course?"

"Yes," she said, with that merry twinkle in her dark eyes, "you've guessed it the first time. It's a charming gown; but I know father will pull a wry face when he finds the bill on his table."

"But you can stand any amount of wry faces as long as you get pretty dresses, can't you?" I laughed, handing her into the carriage and taking a seat beside her.

Then she opened her sunshade and lolled back with an air of indolence and luxury as we drove along together.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

PERFUME AND POLITICS.

Upon my table a letter was lying. The handwriting I recognised instantly as Edith's, and not without a feeling of anger and impatience I tore it open in expectation. Long and rambling, it upbraided me for leaving her without a single rea.s.suring word, and declared that my refusal to kiss her at parting had filled her heart with a bitter and uncontrollable grief. As I read, memories of those midnight hours, of my walk to that distant village, and of my meeting with that shabby lover crowded upon me, and the impa.s.sioned words she had written made no impression upon me. I had steeled my heart against her. She had played me false, and I could never forgive.

"_I know I have been foolish, Gerald_," she wrote, "_but you misjudge me because of an indiscretion. You believe that the man with whom you saw me last night was my lover; yet you left me without allowing me to make any explanation. Is this right? Is it just? You know how well I love you, and that without you my life is but a hopeless blank. Can you, knowing that I love you thus, believe me capable of such duplicity as you suspect? I feel that you cannot. I feel that when you come to consider calmly all the circ.u.mstances you will find in your own honest heart one grain of pity and sympathy for the one woman who loves you so dearly. Write to me, for I cannot live without a word from you, because I love no other man but you_?"

I crushed the letter in my hand, then slowly tore it into fragments. I had no confidence in her protestations--none. My dream of love was over.

We often hear it remarked that those who are themselves perfectly true and artless are in this world the more easily and frequently deceived.

I have always held this to be a commonplace fallacy, for we shall ever find that truth is as undeceived as it is undeceiving, and that those who are true to themselves and others may now and then be mistaken, or, in particular instances, duped by the intervention of some other affection or quality of the mind; but that they are generally free from illusion, and are seldom imposed upon in the long run by the show of things and by the superficies of any character.

There was a curious contradiction in Edith's character, arising from the contrast between her natural disposition and the situation in which she was placed, which corroborated my doubts. Her simplicity of language, her admission of an "indiscretion," the inflexible resolution with which she a.s.serted her right, her soft resignation to unkindness and wrong, and her warmth of temper breaking through the meekness of a spirit subdued by a deep sense of religion,--all these qualities, opposed yet harmonising, helped to increase my distrust of her. To me that letter seemed full of a dexterous sophistry exerted in order to ward off my accusations. Her remorse was without repentance; it arose from the pang of a wounded conscience, the recoil of the violated feelings of nature, the torture of self-condemnation.

The fragments of the letter I tossed into the waste-paper basket, and, putting on my hat, went down to the Grand Cafe to idle away an hour among friends accustomed to make the place a rendezvous in the afternoon.

On entering, I found Deane sitting at a table alone, his carriage awaiting him at the door. He was having a hasty drink during his round of visits, and hailed me l.u.s.tily.

"Sit down a moment, Ingram," he cried. "I want to see you."

"What about?" I inquired, lighting the cigarette he handed me.

"About that curious incident in the Rue de Courcelles--Mademoiselle de Foville's strange attack."

"Well, what of it?" I asked eagerly.

"Strangely enough a man, who proved to be an Englishman giving himself the name of Payne, was brought to the Hotel Dieu three nights ago in what appeared to be a cataleptic state. He had, it seemed, been found by the police lying on the pavement in the Boulevard St. Germain, and was at first believed to be dead. Some letters in English being found upon him, I was called, and upon examination discovered exactly the same symptoms as those which mademoiselle your friend had displayed. I was enabled, therefore, to administer an antidote, and within twelve hours the man had sufficiently recovered to take his discharge. The case has excited the greatest possible interest at the hospital, for I had previously submitted a portion of the solution obtained from the envelope which mademoiselle had used to Professor Ferrari, of Florence, the greatest authority on toxicology in the world, and he had declared it to be an entirely unknown, but most potent, poison."

"Who was the Englishman? Did he tell you nothing?"

"No. Unfortunately the hospital authorities allowed him to leave before I deemed it wise to question him. I read the letters found upon him, however; but they conveyed nothing, except that he had been recently living somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hackney."

"Then you have no idea of the manner in which the poison was administered?" I said, disappointed.

"His right hand was rather swollen, from which I concluded that he had accidentally touched some object impregnated with the fatal compound."