Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

‘Yes, yes! I do.’ Logotheti smiled pleasantly. ‘It was very stupid of me, wasn’t it? I’m always doing things like that!’

  As indeed financiers are, for arithmetical obliquity about money is caused by having too much or too little of it, and the people who lose to both sides are generally the comparatively honest ones who have enough. It certainly did not occur to Logotheti that he had tried to do Margaret Donne out of four thousand pounds; he would have been only too delighted to give her ten times the sum if she would have accepted it, and so far as profit went the whole transaction was for her benefit, and he might lose heavily by it. But in actual dealing he was constitutionally unable to resist the impulse to get the better of the person with whom he dealt. And on her side, Mrs. Rushmore, though generous to a fault, was by nature incapable of allowing money to slip through her fingers without reason. So the two were well matched, being both born financiers, and Logotheti respected Mrs. Rushmore for detecting his little ‘mistake,’ and she recognised in him a real ‘man of business’ because he had made it.

  ‘Let us call it a half million dollars, then,’ he said, with a smile. ‘At four-eighty-four, that is’ — again he looked at the ceiling for ten seconds— ‘that is one hundred and three thousand three hundred and five pounds fifteen shillings fivepence halfpenny, nearly. Is that it? Shall we say that, Mrs. Rushmore.’

  ‘How quickly you do it!’ exclaimed the lady in admiration. ‘I wish I could do that! Oh yes, I have no doubt it is quite correct. You couldn’t do it on paper, could you? You see it doesn’t matter so much about the halfpenny, but if there were a little slip in the thousands, you know — it would make quite a difference — —’

  She paused significantly. Logotheti quietly pulled his cuff over his hand, produced a pencil instead of his fountain pen, and proceeded to divide five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three places of decimals.

  ‘Fifteen and fivepence halfpenny,’ he said, when he had turned the fraction into shillings and pence, ‘and the pounds are just what I said.’

  ‘Do you mean to say that you did all that in your head in ten seconds?’ asked Mrs. Rushmore, with renewed admiration.

  ‘Oh no,’ he answered. ‘We have much shorter ways of reckoning money in the East, but you could not understand that. You are quite satisfied that this is right?’

  ‘Oh, certainly!’

  Mrs. Rushmore could no more have divided five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three places of decimals than she could have composed Parsifal, but her doubts were satisfied by its having been done ‘on paper.’

  Logotheti put away his jewelled pencil, took out his jewelled fountain pen again, spread the cheque on the seat of the bench beside him and filled it in for the amount, including the halfpenny. He handed it to her, holding it by the corner.

  ‘It’s wet,’ he observed. ‘It’s drawn on the Bank of England. It will be necessary for you to sign a statement to the effect that you withdraw the suit and that Miss Donne’s claim is fully satisfied. She will have to sign that too. I’ll send you the paper. If you have any doubts,’ he smiled, ‘you need not return it until the cheque has been cashed.’

  That was precisely what Mrs. Rushmore intended to do, but she protested politely that she had no doubt whatever on the score of the cheque, looking all the time at the big figures written out in Logotheti’s remarkably clear handwriting. Only the signature was perfectly illegible. He noticed her curiosity about it.

  ‘I always sign my cheques in Greek,’ he observed ‘It is not so easy to imitate.’

  He rose and held out his hand.

  ‘I suppose I ought to thank you on Margaret’s behalf,’ said Mrs. Rushmore, as she took it. ‘She will be so sorry not to have seen you.’

  ‘It was much easier to do business without her. And as for that, there is no reason for telling her anything about the transaction. You need only say that a syndicate has bought out Alvah Moon and has compromised the old suit by a cash payment. I am not at all anxious to have her know that I have had a hand in the matter — in fact, I had rather that she shouldn’t, if you don’t object.’

  Mrs. Rushmore looked hard at him. She had not even thought of refusing his offer, which would save Margaret a considerable fortune by a stroke of a pen; but she had taken it for granted that what might easily be made to pass for an act of magnificent liberality was intended to produce a profound impression on Margaret’s feelings. The elder woman was shrewd enough to guess that the Greek would not lose money in the end, but she went much too far in suspecting him of anything so vulgar as playing on the girl’s gratitude. She looked at him keenly.

  ‘Do you mean that?’ she asked, almost incredulously.

  His quiet almond eyes gazed into hers with the trustful simplicity of a child’s.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘This is purely a matter of business, in which I am consulting nothing but my own interests. I should have acted precisely in the same way if I had never had the pleasure of knowing either of you. If it chances that I have been of service to Miss Donne, so much the better, but there is no reason why she should ever know it, so far as I am concerned. I would rather she should not. She might fancy that I had acted from other motives.’

  ‘Very well,’ Mrs. Rushmore answered; ‘then I shall not tell her.’

  Nevertheless, when the motor car had tooted and puffed itself away to Paris and Mrs. Rushmore still sat in her straight-backed garden chair holding the cheque in her hand, she thought it all very strange and unaccountable; and the only explanation that occurred to her was that the invention must be worth far more than she had supposed. This was not altogether a pleasant reflection either, as it made her inclined to reproach herself for not having driven a hard bargain with Logotheti.

  ‘But after all,’ she said to herself, ‘if half a million is not a fortune, it’s a competence, even nowadays, and I suppose the man isn’t an adventurer after all — at least, not if his cheque is good.’

  In her complicated frame of mind she felt a distinct sense of disappointment at the thought that her judgment had been at fault, and that the Greek was not a blackleg, as she had decided that he ought to be.

  CHAPTER X

  LOGOTHETI’S MOTOR CAR was built to combine the greatest comfort and the greatest speed which can be made compatible. It was not meant for sport, though it could easily beat most things on the road, for though the Greek lived a good deal among sporting men and often did what they did, he was not one himself. It was not in his nature to regard any sport as an object to be pursued for its own sake. Only the English take that view naturally, and, of late years, some Frenchmen. All other Europeans look upon sport as pastime which is very well when there is nothing else to do, but not at all comparable with love-making, or gambling, for the amusement it affords. They take the view of the late Shah of Persia, who explained why he would not go to the Derby by saying that he had always known that one horse could run faster than another, but that it was a matter of perfect indifference to him which that one horse might be. In the same way Logotheti did not care to possess the fastest motor car in Europe, provided that he could be comfortable in one which was a great deal faster than the majority. Moreover, though he was by no means timid, he never went in search of danger merely for the sake of its pleasant excitement. Possibly he was too natural and too primitive to think useless danger attractive; but if danger stood between him and anything he wanted very much, he could be as reckless as an Irishman or a Cossack — which is saying all there is to be said.

  The motor tooted and whizzed itself from Mrs. Rushmore’s gate to the stage entrance of the Opéra in something like thirty minutes without the slightest strain, and could have covered the distance in much less time if necessary.

  Logotheti found Schreiermeyer sitting alone in the dusk, in the stalls. Half the footlights and one row of border lights illuminated the stage, and a fat man in very light grey clothes, a vast white waistcoat and a pot hat was singing ‘Salut demeure’ in a nasal half-v
oice to the tail of the Commendatore’s white horse, from Don Juan. The monumental animal had apparently stopped to investigate an Egyptian palm tree which happened to grow near the spot usually occupied by Marguerite’s cottage. The tenor had his hands in his pockets, his hat was rather on the back of his head, and he looked extremely bored.

  So did Schreiermeyer when Logotheti sat down beside him. He turned his round glasses to the newcomer with a slight expression of recognition which was not perceptible at all in the gloom, and then he looked at the stage again, without a word. The tenor had heard somebody moving in the house, and he stuck a single glass in his eye and peered over the footlights into the abyss, thinking the last comer might be a woman, in which case he would perhaps have condescended to sing a little louder and better. A number of people were loafing on the stage, standing up or sitting on the wooden steps of somebody’s enchanted palace, but Logotheti could not see Margaret amongst them.

  The conductor of the orchestra rapped sharply on his desk, the music ceased suddenly and he glared down at an unseen offender.

  ‘D sharp!’ he said, as if he were swearing at the man.

  ‘I believe they hire their band from the deaf and dumb asylum,’ observed the tenor very audibly, but looking vaguely at the plaster tail of the horse.

  Some of the young women at the back of the stage giggled obsequiously at this piece of graceful wit, but the orchestra manifested its indignation by hissing. Thereupon the director rapped on his desk more noisily than ever.

  ‘Da capo,’ he said, and the bows began to scrape and quiver again.

  The tenor only hummed his part now, picking bits of straw out of the plaster tail and examining them with evident interest.

  ‘Is Miss Donne here?’ Logotheti inquired of Schreiermeyer.

  The impresario nodded indifferently, without looking round.

  ‘I wish you had chosen Rigoletto for her début,’ said the Greek. ‘The part of Gilda is much better suited to her voice, take my word for it.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ asked Schreiermeyer, smiling faintly, just enough to save the rude question from being almost insulting.

  ‘When Gounod began Faust he was in love with a lady with a deep voice,’ answered Logotheti, ‘but when he was near the end he was in love with one who had a high voice. The consequence is that Marguerite’s part ranges over nearly three octaves, and is frightfully trying, particularly for a beginner.’

  ‘Bosh!’ ejaculated the impresario, though he knew it was quite true.

  He looked at the stage again, as if Logotheti did not exist.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said the latter carelessly. ‘It probably won’t matter much, as they say that Miss Donne is going to throw up her engagement, and give up going on the stage.’

  He had produced an effect at last, for Schreiermeyer’s jaw dropped as he turned quickly.

  ‘Eh? What? Who says she is not going to sing? What?’

  ‘I dare say it is nothing but gossip,’ Logotheti answered coolly. ‘You seem excited.’

  ‘Excited? Eh? Some one has heard her sing and has offered her more! You shall tell me who it is!’ He gripped Logotheti’s arm with fingers that felt like talons. ‘Tell me quickly!’ he cried. ‘I will offer her more, more than anybody can! Tell me quickly.’

  ‘Take care, you are spoiling my cuff,’ said Logotheti. ‘I know nothing about it, beyond that piece of gossip. Of course you are aware that she is a lady. Somebody may have left her a fortune, you know. Her only reason for singing was that she was poor.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ cried Schreiermeyer, with a sort of suppressed yell. ‘It is all bosh! Somebody has offered her more money, and you know who it is! You shall tell me!’ He was in a violent passion by this time, or seemed to be. ‘You come here, suggesting and interfering with my prima donnas! You are in league, damn you! Damn you, you are a conspiracy!’

  His face was as white as paper, his queer eyes blazed through his glasses, and his features were disfigured with rage. He showed his teeth and hissed like a wildcat; his nervous fingers fastened themselves upon Logotheti’s arm.

  But Logotheti gazed at him with a look of amusement in his quiet eyes, and laughed softly.

  ‘If I were conspiring against you, you would not guess it, my friend,’ he observed in a gentle tone. ‘And you will never get anything out of me by threatening, you know.’

  Schreiermeyer’s face relaxed instantly into an expression of disappointment, and he looked wearily at the stage again.

  ‘No, it is of no use,’ he answered in a melancholy tone. ‘You are phlegmatic.’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Logotheti assented. ‘If I were you, I would put her on in Rigoletto.’

  ‘Does she know the part?’ Schreiermeyer asked, as calmly as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Ask Madame De Rosa,’ suggested the Greek. ‘I see her on the stage.’

  ‘I will. There is truth in what you say about Faust. The part is trying.’

  ‘You told me it was bosh,’ Logotheti observed with a smile.

  ‘I had forgotten that you are such a phlegmatic man, when I said that,’ answered Schreiermeyer with the frankness of a conjurer who admits that his trick has been guessed.

  They had been talking as if nothing were going on, but now the conductor turned to them, and gave a signal for silence, which was taken up by all the people on the stage.

  ‘Sh — sh — sh — sh—’ it came from all directions.

  ‘Here comes Cordova,’ observed Schreiermeyer in a low tone.

  Margaret appeared, wearing an extremely becoming hat, and poked her head round the white horse’s tail, which represented the door of her cottage as to position.

  The tenor, who had nothing to do and was supposed to be off, at once turned himself into a stage Faust, so far as expression went, but his white waistcoat and pot hat hindered the illusion so much that Margaret smiled.

  She sang the ‘King of Thule,’ and every one listened in profound silence. When she had finished, Schreiermeyer and Logotheti turned their heads slowly, by a common instinct, looked at each other a moment and nodded gravely. Then Logotheti rose rather suddenly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked the impresario.

  But the Greek had disappeared in the gloom of the house and Schreiermeyer merely shrugged his shoulders when he saw that his question had not been heard. It would have been perfectly impossible for him to understand that Logotheti, who was so ‘phlegmatic,’ could not bear the disturbing sight of the white waistcoat and the hat while Margaret was singing the lovely music and looking, Logotheti thought, as she had never looked before.

  He went behind, and sat down in a corner where he could hear without seeing what was going on; he lent himself altogether to the delight of Margaret’s voice, and dreamt that she was singing only for him in some vast and remote place where they were quite alone together.

  The rehearsal went on by fits and starts; some scenes were repeated, others were left out; at intervals the conductor rapped his desk nervously and abused somebody, or spoke with great affability to Margaret, or with the familiarity of long acquaintance to one of the other singers. Logotheti did not notice these interruptions, for his sensitiveness was not of the sort that suffers by anything which must be and therefore should be; it was only the unnecessary that disturbed him — the tenor’s white waistcoat and dangling gold chain. While Margaret was singing, the illusion was perfect; the rest was a blank, provided that nothing offended his eyes.

  The end was almost reached at last. There was a pause.

  ‘Will you try the trio to-day?’ inquired the conductor of Margaret. ‘Or are you tired?’

  ‘Tired?’ Margaret laughed. ‘Go on, please.’

  Now Marguerite’s part in the trio, where she sings ‘Anges pures,’ repeating the refrain three times and each time in a higher key, is one of the most sustained high pieces ever written for a woman’s voice; and Logotheti, listening, suddenly shut out his illusions and turned himself into a musical critic,
or at least into a judge of singing.

  Not a note quavered, from first to last; there was not one sound that was not as true as pure gold, to the very end, not one tone that was forced, either, in spite of the almost fantastic pitch of the last passage.

  It is not often that everybody applauds a singer at a rehearsal of Faust, which has been sung to death for five-and-forty years; but as the trio ended, and the drums rolled the long knell, there was a shout of genuine enthusiasm from the little company on the stage.

  ‘Vive la Cordova! Vive la Diva!’ yelled the tenor, and he threw up his pot hat almost to the border lights, quite forgetting to be indifferent.

  ‘Brava, la Cordova!’ boomed the bass, with a tremendous roar.

  ‘Brava, brava, brava!’ shouted all the lesser people at the back of the stage.

  Little Madame De Rosa was in hysterics of joy, and embraced everybody and everything in her way till she came to Margaret and reached the climax of embracing in a perfect storm of tears. By this time the tenor and bass were kissing Margaret’s gloved hands with fervour and every one was pressing round her.

  Logotheti had come forward and stood a little aloof, waiting for the excitement to subside. Margaret, surrounded as she was, did not see him at once, and he watched her quietly. She was the least bit pale and her eyes were very bright indeed. She was smiling rather vaguely, he thought, though she was trying to thank everybody for being so pleased, and Logotheti fancied she was looking for somebody who was not there, probably for the mysterious ‘some one else,’ whose existence she had confessed a few days earlier.

  Presently she seemed to feel that he was looking at her, for she turned her head to him and met his eyes. He came forward at once, and the others made way for him a little, for most of them knew him by sight as the famous financier, though he rarely condescended to come behind the scenes at a rehearsal, or indeed at any other time.

  Margaret held out her hand, and Logotheti had just begun to say a few rather conventional words of congratulation when Schreiermeyer rushed up with his hat on, pushing everybody aside without ceremony till he seized Margaret’s wrist and would apparently have dragged her away by main force if she had not gone with him willingly.