A Man of Means Part 12

He held open the door of the box. The possibility of refusal did not appear to occur to him. Behind the scenes at that theater, it was generally recognized that when the Peerless One wanted a thing, she got it--quick.

They were alone.

With no protective footlights between himself and her, Roland came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake. It was not that she was any less beautiful at the very close quarters imposed by the limits of the dressing-room; but he felt that in falling in love with her he had undertaken a contract a little too large for one of his quiet, diffident nature. It crossed his mind that the sort of woman he really liked was the rather small, drooping type. Dynamite would not have made Maraquita droop.

For perhaps a minute and a half Maraquita fixed her compelling eyes on his without uttering a word. Then she broke a painful silence with this leading question:

"You love me, _hein_?"

Roland nodded feebly.

"When men make love to me, I send them away--so."

She waved her hand toward the door, and Roland began to feel almost cheerful again. He was to be dismissed with a caution, after all. The woman had a fine, forgiving nature.

"But not you."

"Not me?"

"No, not you. You are the man I have been waiting for. I read about you in the paper, Senor Bleke. I see your picture in the 'Daily Mirror!' I say to myself, 'What a man!'"

"Those picture-paper photographs always make one look rather weird,"

mumbled Roland.

"I see you night after night in your box. Poof! I love you."

"Thanks awfully," bleated Roland.

"You would do anything for my sake, _hein_? I knew you were that kind of man directly I see you. No," she added, as Roland writhed uneasily in his chair, "do not embrace me. Later, yes, but now, no. Not till the Great Day."

What the Great Day might be Roland could not even faintly conjecture. He could only hope that it would also be a remote one.

"And now," said the Senorita, throwing a cloak about her shoulders, "you come away with me to my house. My friends are there awaiting us. They will be glad and proud to meet you."

After his first inspection of the house and the friends, Roland came to the conclusion that he preferred Maraquita's room to her company. The former was large and airy, the latter, with one exception, small and hairy.

The exception Maraquita addressed as Bombito. He was a conspicuous figure. He was one of those out-size, hasty-looking men. One suspected him of carrying lethal weapons.

Maraquita presented Roland to the company. The native speech of Paranoya sounded like shorthand, with a blend of Spanish. An expert could evidently squeeze a good deal of it into a minute. Its effect on the company was good. They were manifestly soothed. Even Bombito.

Introductions in detail then took place. This time, for Roland's benefit, Maraquita spoke in English, and he learned that most of those present were marquises. Before him, so he gathered from Maraquita, stood the very flower of Paranoya's aristocracy, driven from their native land by the Infamy of 1905. Roland was too polite to inquire what on earth the Infamy of 1905 might be, but its mention had a marked effect on the company. Some scowled, others uttered deep-throated oaths. Bombito did both. Before supper, to which they presently sat down, was over, however, Roland knew a good deal about Paranoya and its history. The conversation conducted by Maraquita--to a ceaseless _bouche pleine_ accompaniment from her friends--bore exclusively upon the subject.

Paranoya had, it appeared, existed fairly peacefully for centuries under the rule of the Alejandro dynasty. Then, in the reign of Alejandro the Thirteenth, disaffection had begun to spread, culminating in the Infamy of 1905, which, Roland had at last discovered, was nothing less than the abolition of the monarchy and the installation of a republic.

Since 1905 the one thing for which they had lived, besides the caoutchouc, was to see the monarchy restored and their beloved Alejandro the Thirteenth back on his throne. Their efforts toward this end had been untiring, and were at last showing signs of bearing fruit.

Paranoya, Maraquita a.s.sured Roland, was honeycombed with intrigue. The army was disaffected, the people anxious for a return to the old order of things.

A more propitious moment for striking the decisive blow was never likely to arrive. The question was purely one of funds.

At the mention of the word "funds," Roland, who had become thoroughly bored with the lecture on Paranoyan history, sat up and took notice.

He had an instinctive feeling that he was about to be called upon for a subscription to the cause of the distressful country's freedom.

Especially by Bombito.

He was right. A moment later Maraquita began to make a speech.

She spoke in Paranoyan, and Roland could not follow her, but he gathered that it somehow had reference to himself.

As, at the end of it, the entire company rose to their feet and extended their gla.s.ses toward him with a mighty shout, he a.s.sumed that Maraquita had been proposing his health.

"They say 'To the liberator of Paranoya!'" kindly translated the Peerless One. "You must excuse," said Maraquita tolerantly, as a bevy of patriots surrounded Roland and kissed him on the cheek. "They are so grateful to the savior of our country. I myself would kiss you, were it not that I have sworn that no man's lips shall touch mine till the royal standard floats once more above the palace of Paranoya. But that will be soon, very soon," she went on. "With you on our side we can not fail."

What did the woman mean? Roland asked himself wildly. Did she labor under the distressing delusion that he proposed to shed his blood on behalf of a deposed monarch to whom he had never been introduced?

Maraquita's next remarks made the matter clear.

"I have told them," she said, "that you love me, that you are willing to risk everything for my sake. I have promised them that you, the rich Senor Bleke, will supply the funds for the revolution. Once more, comrades. To the Savior of Paranoya!"

Roland tried his hardest to catch the infection of this patriotic enthusiasm, but somehow he could not do it. Base, sordid, mercenary speculations would intrude themselves. About how much was a good, well-furnished revolution likely to cost? As delicately as he could, he put the question to Maraquita.

She said, "Poof! The cost? La, la!" Which was all very well, but hardly satisfactory as a business chat. However, that was all Roland could get out of her.

The next few days pa.s.sed for Roland in a sort of dream. It was the kind of dream which it is not easy to distinguish from a nightmare.

Maraquita's reticence at the supper-party on the subject of details connected with the financial side of revolutions entirely disappeared.

She now talked nothing but figures, and from the confused ma.s.s which she presented to him Roland was able to gather that, in financing the restoration of royalty in Paranoya, he would indeed be risking everything for her sake.

In the matter of revolutions Maraquita was no n.i.g.g.ard. She knew how the thing should be done--well, or not at all. There would be so much for rifles, machine-guns, and what not: and there would be so much for the expense of smuggling them into the country. Then there would be so much to be laid out in corrupting the republican army. Roland brightened a little when they came to this item. As the standing army of Paranoya amounted to twenty thousand men, and as it seemed possible to corrupt it thoroughly at a cost of about thirty s.h.i.+llings a head, the obvious course, to Roland's way of thinking was to concentrate on this side of the question and avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

It appeared, however, that Maraquita did not want to avoid bloodshed, that she rather liked bloodshed, that the leaders of the revolution would be disappointed if there were no bloodshed. Especially Bombito.

Unless, she pointed out, there was a certain amount of carnage, looting, and so on, the revolution would not achieve a popular success. True, the beloved Alejandro might be restored; but he would sit upon a throne that was insecure, unless the coronation festivities took a bloodthirsty turn. By all means, said Maraquita, corrupt the army, but not at the risk of making the affair tame and unpopular. Paranoya was an emotional country, and liked its revolutions with a bit of zip to them.

It was about ten days after he had definitely cast in his lot with the revolutionary party that Roland was made aware that these things were a little more complex than he had imagined. He had reconciled himself to the financial outlay. It had been difficult, but he had done it. That his person as well as his purse would be placed in peril he had not foreseen.

The fact was borne in upon him at the end of the second week by the arrival of the deputation.

It blew in from the street just as he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar.

It consisted of three men, one long and suave, the other two short, stout, and silent. They all had the sallow complexion and undue hairiness which he had come by this time to a.s.sociate with the native of Paranoya.

For a moment he mistook them for a drove of exiled n.o.blemen whom he had not had the pleasure of meeting at the supper-party; and he waited resignedly for them to make night hideous with the royal anthem. He poised himself on his toes, the more readily to spring aside if they should try to kiss him on the cheek.

"Mr. Bleke?" said the long man.

His companions drifted toward the cigar-box which stood open on the table, and looked at it wistfully.