“Shall I—” Jonson began, and there was without doubt a murderous gleam in his eye.
His master shook his head.
“Keep him quiet until you hear from us again,” he enjoined. “Entirely out of compliment to you, my dear Mark,” he added, turning away. “My own ideas with regard to vermin are slightly less humane.”
Jonson left the room with his charge, a disappointed man.
Mr. Cheng, whose fastidiousness as to his immediate environment was always specially ruffled by the close proximity of the underworld, threw wide open one of the windows looking across the Place.
“Faugh!” he exclaimed. “If I had been our happily departed friend I should have chosen a more savoury bodyguard.”
“Miserable rat,” Mark agreed. “Better have sent him to rot with his master.”
“All the same, I shall owe him a precious memory,” Cheng observed. “Did you ever realise, my friend, that this city, which seems to have become a little tired of sheltering us, could ever be called beautiful?”
Mark stood by his side at the open window which faced the long, broken line of the Lesser Alps. The vast panorama of lights from the villas on the hill towards Cimiez on one side and Mont Boron on the other was slowly dwindling. Little blurs of darkness in the far distance were creeping into shape—pine trees, broken country wrapped still in a faint dissolving mist. At the back of the hills the sky, from which the stars were only at that moment beginning to fade, was riven by a long thin streak of silver. The transformation of night into morning with all its changes of colour was taking place before their eyes, and the slight breeze which found its way into the room came laden with the perfume from baskets of narcissi, violets and carnations, with which the slowly moving market carts were piled.
“It is not Pekin,” Cheng sighed, “but it has beauty.”
“It is only in this part of the world,” Mark observed, “that the cities can fade away so graciously into the country. In America we cover the ground around them for more miles than one can see with wooden buildings and mushroom-looking tenements.”
He lit a cigarette and glanced at his companion. Cheng, however had relapsed into thought.
“Do you realise, Mark,” he reflected, “that we are very near our crisis?”
“Sure. I’m glad.”
“We have had to wade our way through a great deal that has been distasteful. Now we step into the higher places for a time.”
Both men turned their heads. The screen door which led into Cheng’s private suite had been pushed gently open. Shih-fu was standing upon the threshold. She bowed twice to Mr. Cheng.
“The master will not be angry that I seek him,” she begged. “Hou Hsi has sent me. The hour is late. It is the first time she has slept in the city.”
“I come at once,” was the swift response. “My friend,” Cheng added, turning to Mark, “you see I am no longer monarch of my ways. You will excuse?”
“I had something to say to you,” Mark replied, “but it can wait.”
“Until to-morrow, if you please. My brain is over full to-night with the wonderful result of your labours, and Hou Hsi calls me. Within a few hours we shall build up with words and visions the next chart, the chart of conquest, even if the battle be bloodless. We must speak of the future, Mark.”
“To-morrow then,” Mark assented. “My news will keep till then.”
Cheng looked at him for a moment curiously. There was an expression in his face which puzzled Mark. It was one almost of apprehension. It was as though this grave and dignified young man, who lived always so fearlessly and confidently, had seen before him the shadow of some possible danger. Then they heard Shih-fu’s silvery voice from the doorway.
“Hou Hsi weeps, my lord.”
The indecision, or whatever it may have been, passed. Mr. Cheng shrugged his shoulders lightly.
“You see,” he sighed, as he turned away, “it is a summons which I lack the courage to disobey.”
CHAPTER XXV
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Mark had always been a popular visitor at the American Consulate in Nice and Mr. James Haverley, the acting official, promptly deserted a roomful of tourists at the sound of his voice outside. He gripped his hand and led him into his private sanctum.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed. “I am glad to see you, Mr. Humberstone. About time you came and gave us a call here. Sit down. Will you smoke a cigar or your own paper trash?”
“Paper trash, if you don’t mind,” Mark replied, producing his cigarette case. “Can I get married this morning?”
“Can you what?”
“Get married—bring a young woman in here, borrow a prayer-book, sign some papers and all the rest of it.”
“You’re not pulling my leg, are you?” the Consul asked incredulously.
“Not I. I am perfectly serious. My time is up here. The International Bureau is closing its doors before long. They are dismantling the observatory to-day. As soon as you can do that little trick for me, sir, I’m off.”
“Back to the old country?”
“Not just yet. Will half-past two suit you?”
“Any time you say. Of course, you know that these lightning marriages are altogether a new departure. If you had come to me only a year ago I should have had to tell you that you would have to wait at least a month. However, we need not go into that. A prayer-book, your identification papers and two witnesses are all that are needed nowadays.”
“Fine. We will be here at half-past two prompt.”
“Can’t you tell me a little more about it?” Mr. Haverley invited with a twinkle in his pleasant grey eyes.
“It isn’t a long story,” Mark confided. “I just happened to find the right girl, we are closing the Bureau in a hurry, and that’s about the beginning and the end of it. She has been working with us there since it opened. Her name is Oronoff—Catherine Oronoff.”
“Does she belong to the great family of Oronoffs?” Mark nodded.
“Yes. She has hardly ever mentioned it, but she is a Princess. Now, tell me something else, sir. Is there an American lawyer here or do I have to wait till we get to Paris?”
“When are you going to Paris?”
“Any moment.”
“I should wait till I got there then…Does she know that she is marrying a multi-millionaire?” the Consul asked curiously.
“I shouldn’t think so,” was the doubtful reply. “Money is not a thing one talks about, and I do not think she knows any Americans.”
“Do you know the young lady’s age?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Was she born in Russia?”
“Born at one of their country places there. Came away when she was five years old. Lived in Paris most of the time since.”
“She must bring identification papers or her passport,” Mr. Haverley said, “and so must you. Now, can I have a word with you on my own?”
“Go right ahead,” Mark invited. “Why not?”
“I am not surprised to hear that you are giving up the International Bureau,” the Consul said gravely. “The whole of Nice is talking about your establishment. I had a cable this morning from Washington about half a yard long. I should have been compelled to come and see you anyway to-day.”
“I don’t see what Washington has got to worry about,” Mark observed.
“I don’t think they quite understand your connection with Cheng,” Mr. Haverley confided.
“They don’t need to.”
“Is Mr. Cheng a philanthropic pacifist?”
“He is an idealist and he is just as keen upon the abolition of war as I am,” Mark assured his listener. “But, above all things in the world he is a Chinaman. When Japan made that colossal blunder and tried to seize the Philippines they gave China the first chance she has had for many generations of coming into her own again. Cheng is the one man to help her. There will be some startling news for all the world before long, Mr. Haverley, but we are not talking just at the moment.”
<
br /> “Other people,” the Consul remarked drily, “seem to be doing the talking.”
“Does it matter much?” Mark asked. “We have powerful friends, you know. The French authorities know all about us.”
“Do they?”
“Anyway,” Mark concluded, rising to his feet, “I came here to get married, not to talk politics. However, as we have arrived so far, I will tell you this, sir. We have perhaps gone the limit at the Bureau. We have been obliged to. It will work out all right but we have finished down here. Half my instruments have already been despatched and the other half are being packed, and our staff is melting away. We are transferring our energies to another field.”
“Perhaps you are wise. I am going to be quite frank with you, Mark. For your age you are an important figure in the world and everyone realises that you are one of the Council of Seven who are likely at any time to offer civilisation a great surprise. At the same time, even in Washington you seem to have created a certain feeling of uneasiness. Everyone knows that you are responsible for the presence of a large number of American ex-service men in the Chinese Army and Flying Corps. It is also believed that you have lent China a great deal of money, most of which has been spent upon munitions of war.”
“I shall not deny either of those charges,” Mark said, “but even if I were to admit their whole truth, I should ask you to believe that both Cheng and myself are working for one thing only, and that we are out to avoid bloodshed, rather than to encourage it.”
“I shall continue to speak frankly,” Mr. Haverley went on. “No one doubts your ultimate aims, but there is an idea, not in Washington only, that you have been living with your head too much in the clouds and that Mr. Cheng, a very brilliant man, I understand, is a trifle unscrupulous.”
Mark, who had sat down again, was showing signs of impatience.
“Does this gossip really matter?” he asked a little coldly.
“I am no windbag and you know it,” was the firm rejoinder. “I am leading up to something. The Soviet have sent over one of their own Council and a posse of detectives to look for their missing leader, Retsky. I am breaking a confidence, Mark, and I shall have to make peace with my conscience afterwards. They are coming straight to Nice to start their enquiries.”
Mark folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“Well?”
“A few minutes ago, you said that your ally, Prince Cheng, was an idealist. He is also a pacifist. He wants peace for the world. So do you. We all know that this Russian had different ideas. There is no reason why one should not speak frankly about him. He was a man of doubtful character. He was a hindrance, a menace to any great pacifist movement that could be conceived. You see what I am driving at, Mark?”
“I hear what you say.”
“Now, you have come here this morning to tell me that you are going to marry the Princess Catherine Oronoff. I knew her before you, Mark. Do you ever talk politics with her?”
“Very seldom. The motto of the Bureau is ‘silence.’”
“Catherine Oronoff is the good angel of the whole colony of Russian refugees here,” the Consul continued, “and I can assure you of my own knowledge that there are a great many. She attends their meetings every week, talks to them, shares, I believe, to some extent in their wistful patriotism. They still love Russia, these people. The Princess, as you told me just now, is one of the leading figures in your Bureau.”
“And then?” Mark asked.
He was looking very grim, this tall young man with the thoughtful, but deeply lined face. The freckles seemed to have disappeared. His eyes were hard.
“Nothing more for the present. I leave it at that, Mark. Go away and think it over. All I will say is this: If you are going to marry the Princess Oronoff, the sooner you do it and take her and yourself away from Nice the better.”
Mark rose to his feet. It was a small room in which they had been seated and he seemed for a moment or two to have become dominant, almost threatening, especially as he stood with a frown upon his face looking down at the Consul, a man of small and delicate stature. His momentary anger, however, passed. He held out his hand.
“I am much obliged to you, sir, for the warning,” he said. “I will be seeing you, then, at about two-thirty.”
“I will be waiting for you, Mark,” Mr. Haverley promised.
Mark left the Consulate in a somewhat curious frame of mind. Nothing that he had been told was news to him. He had known from the first that the whole of Catherine’s interest outside the Bureau was devoted to visits upon and the furtherance of various schemes to help the refugees from her country. He appreciated, even admired her attitude. He had only within the last few hours looked forward with delight to the time when he might offer his help. The fact that the Russian Government was deeply concerned at the disappearance of its leader was only natural, and he had even heard a hint of the coming of the Soviet envoys. Yet, for some reason or other, the Consul’s whole attitude had been marked with a sort of nervous anxiety which, although he was by no means hypersensitive, had left him with a vague sense of uneasiness which he found it difficult to shake off…He called in at the bank where he was received with respect, almost with awe, possibly due to the fact that he was by far its largest depositor. He made an appointment for later in the day and afterwards strolled to the flower market and watched the string of lorries issuing all the time from the back gates of the Bureau laden with cases of machinery for the steamers down in the port. He even went as far as the Quay and watched the cranes at work loading. At half-past eleven he returned to the Bureau. There seemed to be a sense of emptiness about the place as he made his way down the spacious corridors. He met a few of the employees, who greeted him respectfully, but the main waiting room contained only a few casual callers. His first real thrill of the morning came when he entered Catherine’s office and found her seated at her desk with a pile of papers before her. She was alone and she welcomed him with a little laugh which sounded like music. Her eyes seemed still filled with the light of the night before, her hands were outstretched towards him.
“You are late,” she complained. “Quick—someone may come in!”
He laid the huge bunch of violets he had been carrying on the desk and held her for a moment in his arms.
“It was getting so hard to work here,” she confided, “because I was hoping all the time that you would come. Nothing has changed?”
“Nothing will ever change,” he assured her. “Except your name,” he added a moment afterwards. “At half-past two this afternoon you will be Catherine Humberstone.”
She gripped at his hands again.
“It is not possible,” she murmured happily.
“Well, the Consul says so. Where is that fellow Cheng? He will have to be a witness.”
“I expect he will be in directly. Sit down and have a cigarette while I finish these letters. Oh!”
The door had opened and Mr. Cheng entered. He made his usual formal bow to Catherine and nodded to Mark. He came across the room to them, light-footed yet deliberate, as usual, in all his movements.
“I was just going to look for you,” Mark told him. “Catherine Oronoff and I have a favour to ask.”
Catherine’s wonderful composure seemed for a moment to have left her. There was a distinct blush upon her cheeks as she glanced across at Mark. Cheng looked from one to the other. Something in the man appeared to be changed. He seemed to have drawn himself aloof.
“What can there be that you and Catherine Oronoff wish to tell me?” he demanded.
“Nothing so very extraordinary,” Mark replied. “We’ve fixed up to get married at half-past two—that’s all. We want you to be a witness.”
There was something about the brief silence that followed which seemed to Mark more sinister, more disconcerting than any spoken words. The aristocrat of gentle speech and gracious manners seemed to have changed into a cold figure of stone. There was an icy finality about his words.
“The ma
rriage,” he pronounced, “is utterly and entirely impossible.”
CHAPTER XXVI
Table of Contents
Perhaps for the first time in his life Mark knew what it was to feel the fire of a furious uncontrollable anger leading him on towards madness. He moved a step nearer to Cheng and there was murder in his eyes. It was because the moment seemed so full of deadly possibilities that Catherine, with an effort, sprang from her chair and stood by his side. She caught hold of his arm and held him tightly. Cheng remained motionless. Not a muscle of his body or, it seemed, of his face had moved. Only his eyes were filled with a sudden sadness.
“Mark!” she begged. “Mark! My dear—he cannot mean it! Mr. Cheng,” she went on, turning towards him, “how can you say anything so terrible? What have you to do with Mark and me?”
Mark’s blind fury was passing. He found he could control his speech.
“Answer that question, Cheng,” he demanded. “What right have you to come between us? How dare you stand there and tell us that our marriage is impossible?”
“I am to blame,” Mr. Cheng admitted. “I owed you my entire confidence, Mark, and I withheld some part of it.”
“There is no situation you could create nor any arguments you could use which would keep Catherine and me apart,” Mark insisted passionately. “What have you to do with it, anyway? Who gave you the right to interfere between us? Have you lost your senses, Cheng?”
Mr. Cheng remained aloof, sphinxlike, as it seemed to both of them in those first few minutes—entirely inhuman.
“I will explain,” he said. “I should have foreseen this, or the possibility of it. I am sorry.”
Mark was rough, almost brutal, in his speech. He felt himself hating the man who had been his close friend for fifteen years. Catherine’s embrace had soothed him only so far that he was able to control his actions.
“It would have been better,” Cheng continued, “if I had taken you both into my confidence. I am, as you know, a somewhat silent person. Some of the schemes I have built up in my mind I have never spoken of to any living creature. I shall now tell you of one of them which has been with me ever since I spent those two years in Russia.”
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