The Pawns Count Part 36

"Or else," Fischer remarked, "a wonderful indifference. So far as I have studied the Anglo-Saxon temperament, I should be inclined to vote for the indifference. That is why I think Germany will win the war.

Every man in that country prays for his country's success, not only in words, but with his soul. I have not found the same spirit in England."

"The English people," Pamela interposed, "have a genius for concealment which amounts to stupidity."

"I have a theory," Fischer said, "that to be phlegmatic after a certain pitch is a sign of low vitality. However, we shall see. Certainly, if England is to be saved from her present trouble, it will not be the Lutchesters of the world who will do it, nor, it seems, her Navy."

They found their way to a large cabaret, where Pamela listened to an indifferent performance a little wearily. The news of what was termed a naval disaster to Great Britain was flashed upon the screen, and, generally speaking, the audience was stunned. Fischer behaved throughout the evening with tact and discretion. He made few references to the matter, and was careful not to indulge in any undue exhilaration. Once, when Van Teyl had left the box, however, to speak to some friends, he turned earnestly to Pamela.

"Will it please you soon," he begged, "to resume our conversation of the other day? However you may look at it, things have changed, have they not? An invincible British Navy has been one of the fundamental principles of beliefs in American politics. Now that it is destroyed, the outlook is different. I could go myself to the proper quarter in Was.h.i.+ngton, or Von Schwerin is here to be my spokesman. I have a fancy, though, to work with you. You know why."

She moved uneasily in her place.

"I have no idea," she objected, "what it is that you have to propose.

Besides, I am only just a woman who has been entrusted with a few diplomatic errands."

"You are the niece of Senator Hastings," Fischer reminded her, "and Hastings is the man through whom I should like my proposal to go to the President. It is an honest offer which I have to make, and although it cannot pa.s.s through official channels, it is official in the highest sense of the word, because it comes to me from the one man who is in a position to make himself responsible for it."

Her brother came back to the box before Pamela could reply, but, as they parted that night, she gave Fischer her hand.

"Come and see our new quarters," she invited. "I shall be at home any time to-morrow afternoon."

It was one of the moments of Fischer's life. He bowed low over her fingers.

"I accept, with great pleasure," he murmured.

CHAPTER XXV

Sonia had the air of one steeped in an almost ecstatic content. On her return from the roof garden she had exchanged her wonderful gown for a white silk negligee, and her headdress of pearls for a quaint little cap. She was stretched upon a sofa drawn before the wide-flung French windows of her little sitting-room at the Ritz-Carlton, a salon decorated in pink and white, and filled almost to overflowing with the roses which she loved. By her side, in an easy chair which she had pressed him to draw up to her couch, sat Lutchester.

"This," she murmured, "is one of the evenings which I adore. I have no work, no engagements--just one friend with whom to talk. My fine clothes have done. I am myself," she added, stretching out her arms. "I have my cigarettes, my iced sherbet, and the lights and murmur of the city there below to soothe me. And you to talk with me, my friend. What are you thinking of me--that I am a little animal who loves comfort too much, eh?"

Lutchester smiled.

"We all love comfort," he replied. "Some of us are franker than others about it."

She made a little grimace.

"Comfort! It is my own word, but what a word! It is luxury I wors.h.i.+p--luxury--and a friend. Is that, perhaps, another word too slight, eh?"

He met the provocative gleam of her eyes with a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You are just the same child, Sonia," he remarked. "Neither climate nor country, nor the few pa.s.sing years, can change you."

"It is you who have grown older and sterner," she pouted. "It is you who have lost the gift of living to-day as though to-morrow were not. There was a time, was there not, John, when you did not care to sit always so far away?"

She laid her hand--ringless, over-manicured, but delicately white---- upon his. He smoothed it gently.

"You see, Sonia," he sighed, "troubles have come that harden the hearts even of the gayest of us."

She frowned.

"You are not going to remind me--" she began.

"If I reminded you of anything, Sonia," he interrupted, "I would remind you that you are a Frenchwoman."

She stretched out her hand restlessly and took one of the Russian cigarettes from a bowl by her side.

"You are not, by any chance, going to talk seriously, dear John?"

"I am," he a.s.sured her, "very seriously."

"Oh, la, la!" she laughed. "You, my dear, gay companion, you who have shaken the bells all your life, you are going to talk seriously! And to-night, when we meet again after so long. Ah, well, why should I be surprised?" she went on, with a pout.

"You have changed. When one looks into your face, one sees the difference. But to me, of all people in the world! Why talk seriously to me! I am just Sonia, the gipsy nightingale. I know nothing of serious things."

"You carry one very serious secret in your heart," he told her gravely, "one little pain which must sometimes stab you. You are a Frenchwoman, and yet--"

Lutchester paused for a moment. Sonia, too, seemed suddenly to have awakened into a state of tense and vivid emotion. The cigarette burned away between her fingers. Her great eyes were fixed upon Lutchester.

There was something almost like fear in their questioning depths.

"Finis.h.!.+ Finis.h.!.+" she insisted. "Continue!"

"And yet," he went on, "your very dear friend, the friend for whose sake you are here in America, is your country's enemy."

She raised herself a little upon the couch.

"That is not true," she declared furiously. "Maurice loves France. His heart aches for the misery that has come upon her. It is your country only which he hates. If France had but possessed the courage to stand by herself, to resist when England forced her friends.h.i.+p upon her, none of this tragedy would ever have happened. Maurice has told me so himself. France could have peace today, peace at her own price."

"There is no peace which would leave France with a soul, save the peace which follows victory," Lutchester replied sternly.

She crushed her cigarette nervously in her fingers, threw it away, and lit another.

"I will not talk of these things with you," she cried. "It was not for this that you sought me out, eh? Tell me at once? Were these the thoughts you had in your mind when you sent your little note?--when you chose to show yourself once more in my life?"

For the first time of his own accord, he drew his chair a little nearer to hers. He took her hand. She gave him both unresistingly.

"Listen, dear Sonia," he said, "it is true that I am a changed man. I am older than when we met last, and there are the other things. You remember the Chateau d'Albert?"

"Of course!" she murmured. "And the young Duc d'Albert's wonderful house party. We all motored there from Paris. You and I were together!

You have forgotten that, eh?"

"I lay in that orchard for two days," he went on grimly, "with a hole in my side and one leg pretty nearly done for. I saw things I can never forget, in those days, Sonia. D'Albert himself was killed. It was in that first mad rush. Of the Chateau there remains but four blackened walls."

"_Pauvre enfant_!" she murmured. "But you are well and strong again now, is it not so? You will not fight again, eh? You were never a soldier, dear friend."