"Ah! my dear M"sieur Ingram!" she cried, holding forth her thin, bony hand laden with jewels. "You look tired. Why? No one here to-night who interests you--eh?"
"No one save yourself, Baronne," I responded, bending over her hand.
"Flatterer!" she laughed. "If I were forty years younger I might accept that as a compliment. But at my age--well, it is really cruel of you."
"Intelligence is more interesting to a diplomat than a pretty face," I responded quickly. "And there is certainly no more intelligent woman in all Paris than the Baronne de Chalencon."
She bowed stiffly, and her wrinkled face, which bore visible traces of poudre orchidee and touches of the hare"s-foot, puckered up into a simpering smile.
"Well, and what else?" she asked. "These speeches you have apparently prepared for some pretty woman you expected to meet here to-night, but, since she has not kept the appointment, you are practising them upon me."
"No," I said, "I really protest against that, Baronne. A woman is never too old for a man to pay her compliments."
We had strolled into a cool ante-room, and were sitting together upon one of the many seats placed beneath clumps of palms and flowers, the only light being from a hundred tiny electric lamps hung overhead in the trees. The perfect arrangement of those ante-rooms of the Salle des Fetes on the nights of the official receptions is always noteworthy, and after the heat, music, and babel of tongues in the grand salon it was cool, quiet, and refreshing there.
By holding her regular salon, where everybody who was anybody made it a point to be seen, the Baronne had acquired in Paris a unique position.
Her fine house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees was the centre of a smart and fashionable set, and she herself made a point of being versed in all the latest gossip and scandal of the French capital. She scandalised n.o.body, nor did she seek to throw mud at her enemies. She merely repeated what was whispered to her; hence a chat with her was always interesting to one who, like myself, was paid to keep his ears open and report from time to time the direction of the political wind.
Tournier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife were her most intimate friends; hence she was frequently aware of facts which were of considerable importance to us. Indeed, once or twice her friendliness for myself had caused her to drop hints which had been of the greatest use to Lord Barmouth in the conduct of his difficult diplomacy at that time when the boulevard journals were screaming against England and the filthy prints were caricaturing Her Majesty, with intent to insult. Even the _Figaro_--the moderate organ of the French Foreign Office--had lost its self-control in the storm of abuse following the Fashoda incident, and had libelled and maligned "les English." I therefore seized the opportunity for a chat with the wizen-faced old lady, who seemed in a particularly good-humour, and deftly turned the conversation into the political channel.
"Now, tell me, Baronne," I said, after we had been chatting some little time, and I had learnt more than one important fact regarding the intentions of Tournier, "what is your opinion regarding the occupation of Ceuta?"
She glanced at me quickly, as though surprised that I should be aware of what she had believed to be an entire secret.
"Of Ceuta?" she echoed. "And what do you at your Emba.s.sy know regarding it?"
"We"ve heard a good deal," I laughed.
"No doubt you"ve heard a good deal that is untrue," the clever old lady replied, her powdered face again puckering into a smile. "Do you want to know my honest opinion?" she added.
"Yes, I do."
"Well," she went on, "I attach very little importance to the rumours of a projected sale or lease of Ceuta to us. I might tell you in confidence," she went on, dropping her voice, "that from some words I overheard at the garden-party at de Wolkenstein"s I have come to a firm conclusion that, although during the next few years important changes will be made upon the map of the world, Ceuta will remain Spanish. My country will never menace yours in the Mediterranean at that point. A Ministry might be found in Madrid to consider the question of its disposal, but the Spanish people would rise in revolution before they would consent. Spain is very poor, but very proud. Having lost so many of her foreign possessions, she will hold more strongly than ever to Ceuta. There you have the whole situation in a nutsh.e.l.l."
"Then the report that it is actually sold to France is untrue?" I asked eagerly.
"A mere report I believe it to be."
"But Spain"s financial indebtedness to France might prove an element of danger when Europe justifies Lord Beaconsfield"s prediction and rushes into war over Morocco?"
"Ah, my dear M"sieur Ingram, I do not agree with the prediction of your great statesman," the old lady said vehemently. "It is not in that direction in which lies the danger of war, but at the other end of the Mediterranean."
Somehow I suspected her of a deliberate intention to mislead me in this matter. She was a shrewd woman, who only disclosed her secrets when it was to her own interests or the interests of her friends at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to do so. In Paris there is a vast network of French intrigue, and it behoves the diplomatist always to be wary lest he should fall into the pitfalls so cunningly prepared for him. The dividing line between truth and untruth is always so very difficult to define in modern diplomacy. It is when the European situation seems most secure that the match is sufficiently near to fire the mine.
Fortunate it is that the public, quick to accept anything that appears in the daily journals, can be placed in a sense of false security by articles inspired by one or other of the emba.s.sies interested. If it were not so, European panics would certainly be of frequent occurrence.
My Chief sauntered by, chatting with his close personal friend, Prince Olsoufieff, the Russian Amba.s.sador, who looked a truly striking figure in his white uniform, with the Cross of St. Andrew glittering at his throat. The latter, as he pa.s.sed, exclaimed confidentially in Russian to my Chief, who understood that language, having been first Secretary of Emba.s.sy in Petersburg earlier in his career:
"Da, ya po-ni-mai-u. Ya sam napishu." ("Yes, I understand. I will write for you myself.")
Keen antagonists in diplomacy though they very often were, yet in private life a firm friendship existed between the pair--a friendship dating from the days when the one had been British Attache in Petersburg and the other had occupied a position in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs--that large grey building facing the Winter Palace.
"The lion and the bear strolling together," laughed the toothless old Baronne, after they had pa.s.sed. "Olsoufieff is a charming man, but he never accepts my invitations. I cannot tell why. I don"t fancy he considers me his friend."
"Sibyl was at your reception the other evening," I remarked suddenly.
"She told me she met a man who was a stranger in Paris. His name, I think she said, was Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf. Who is he?"
"He was introduced by de Wolkenstein, the Austrian Amba.s.sador," she replied quickly. "I did not know him."
"Have you never met him before?" I asked, looking sharply into her eyes.
"Once, I think, but I am not certain," she said, with a palpable effort to evade my question.
I smiled.
"Come, madame," I said good-humouredly, "you know Rodolphe Wolf quite as well as I do. When you last met, his name was not Wolf. Is not that so?"
"Well," she answered, "now that you put it in that manner I may as well admit that your suggestion is correct."
"And what is the object of his sudden visit to Paris?"
"I cannot make out," she replied in a more confidential tone. "As I tell you, de Wolkenstein introduced him, but, as m"sieur knows, I am very quick to detect a face that I have once seen, and I recognised him in an instant."
"Sibyl told me that he had a long chat with her, and she described him as a most charming fellow."
"Ah, no doubt! I suspected him and watched. It was evident that he came to my salon in order to meet her."
"To meet Sibyl! Why?"
"That I cannot tell."
"But I think, Baronne, we may be both agreed upon one point."
"And that is?"
"That the man who now calls himself Rodolphe Wolf is here in Paris with some secret motive."
"I am entirely in accord, m"sieur--quite. Some steps must at once be taken to ascertain that man"s motives."
"It seems curious that he should have been introduced for the purpose of meeting Sibyl. What information did he want from her?"
"How can we tell? You know better than myself whether she ever knows any secrets of the Emba.s.sy."
"She knows nothing,--of that I am absolutely convinced," I responded.
"Her father is devoted to her; but, nevertheless, he is one of those strict diplomatists who do not believe in trusting women with secrets."
"Yet Wolf had a distinct object in making a good impression upon her,"
she said reflectively.
"No doubt. As soon as she returned she began to talk of him."