Draconmeyer asked, with an acid smile.
"Certainly not--my guests," Richard replied, with a bow. "I can a.s.sure you that it will only be a matter of a few hours."
Monsieur Douaille hammered the table with his fist.
"Young man," he exclaimed, "I leave with you! I insist upon it that I am permitted to leave. I am not a party to this conference. I am merely a guest, a listener, here wholly in my private capacity. I will not be a.s.sociated with whatever political scandal may arise from this affair. I demand permission to leave at once."
"Seems to me there"s something in what you say," Richard admitted. "Very well, you can come along. I dare say Hunterleys will be glad to have a chat with you. As for the rest of you," he concluded, as Monsieur Douaille rose promptly to his feet, "I have a little business to arrange on land which I think I could manage better whilst you are at sea. I shall therefore, gentlemen, wish you good evening. Pray consider my yacht entirely at your disposal. My stewards will be only too happy to execute any orders--supper, breakfast, or dinner. You have merely to say the word."
He turned towards the door, closely followed by Douaille, who, in a state of great excitement, refused to listen to Selingman"s entreaties.
"No, no!" the former objected, shaking his head. "I will not stay. I will not be a.s.sociated with this meeting. You are bunglers, all of you.
I came only to listen, on your solemn a.s.surance of entire secrecy. We are spied upon at the Villa Mimosa, we are made fools of on board this yacht. No more unofficial meetings for me!"
"Quite right, old fellow," Richard declared, as they pa.s.sed out and on to the deck. "Set of wrong "uns, those chaps, even though Mr. Grex is a Grand Duke. You know Sir Henry Hunterleys, don"t you?"
Hunterleys came forward from the gangway, at the foot of which the pinnace was waiting.
"We are taking Monsieur Douaille ash.o.r.e," Richard explained, as the two men shook hands. "He really doesn"t belong to that gang and he wants to cut adrift. You understand my orders exactly, captain?" he asked, as they stepped down the iron gangway.
"Perfectly, sir," was the prompt reply. "You may rely upon me. I am afraid they are beginning to make a noise downstairs already!"
The little pinnace shot out a stream of light across the dark, placid sea. Douaille was talking earnestly to Hunterleys.
"Pleasantest few minutes I ever spent in my life," Richard murmured, as he took out his cigarette case.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
AN AMAZING ELOPEMENT
The sun was shining brilliantly and the sky was cloudless as Richard turned his automobile into the grounds of the Villa Mimosa, soon after nine o"clock on the following morning. The yellow-blossomed trees, slightly stirred by the west wind, formed a golden arch across the winding avenue. The air was sweet, almost faint with perfume. On the terrace, holding a pair of field-gla.s.ses in her hand and gazing intently out to sea, was Fedora. At the sound of the motor-horn she turned quickly. She looked at the visitor in surprise. A shade of pink was in her face. Lane brought the car to a standstill, jumped out and climbed the steps of the terrace.
"What has brought you here?" she asked, in surprise.
"I have just come to pay you a little visit," he remarked easily. "I was only afraid you mightn"t be up so early."
She bit her lip.
"You have no right to come here at all," she said severely, "and to present yourself at this hour is unheard of."
"I came early entirely out of consideration for your father," he a.s.sured her.
She frowned.
"My father?" she repeated. "Please explain at once what you mean. My father is on that yacht and I cannot imagine why he does not return."
"I can tell you," he answered, standing by her side and looking out seawards. "They are waiting for my orders before they let him off."
She turned her head and looked at him incredulously.
"Explain yourself, please," she insisted.
"With pleasure," he a.s.sented. "You see, I just had to make sure of being allowed to have a few minutes" conversation with you, free from any interruption. Somehow or other," he added thoughtfully, "I don"t believe your father likes me."
"I do not think," she replied coldly, "that my father has any feelings about you at all, except that he thinks you are abominably presumptuous."
"Because I want to marry you?"
She stamped with her foot upon the ground.
"Please do not say such absurd things! Explain to me at once what you mean by saying that my father is being kept there by your orders."
"I"ll try," Lane answered. "He boarded that yacht last night in mistake.
He thought that it was a hired one, but it isn"t. It"s mine. I found him there last night, entertaining a little party of his friends in the saloon. They seemed quite comfortable, so I begged them to remain on as my guests for a short time."
"To remain?" she murmured, bewildered. "For how long?"
"Until you"ve just read this through and thought it over."
He pa.s.sed her a doc.u.ment which he had drawn from his pocket. She took it from him wonderingly. When she had read a few lines, the colour came streaming into her cheeks. She threw it to the ground. He picked it up and replaced it in his pocket.
"But it is preposterous!" she cried. "That is a marriage license!"
"That"s precisely what it is," he admitted. "I thought we"d be married at Nice. My sister is waiting to go along with us. I said we"d pick her up at the Hotel de Paris."
Severe critics of her undoubted beauty had ventured at times to say that Fedora"s face lacked expression. There was, at that moment, no room for any such criticism. Amazement struggled with indignation in her eyes.
Her lips were quivering, her breath was coming quickly.
"Do you mean--have you given her or any one to understand that there was any likelihood of my consenting to such an absurd scheme?"
"I only told her what I hoped," he said quietly. "That is all I dared say even to myself. But I want you to listen to me."
His voice had grown softer. She turned her head and looked at him. He was much taller than she was, and in his grey tweed suit, his head a little thrown back, his straw hat clasped in his hands behind him, his clear grey eyes full of serious purpose, he was certainly not an unattractive figure to look upon. Unconsciously she found herself comparing him once more with the men of her world, found herself realising, even against her will, the charm of his nave and dogged honesty, his youth, his tenacity of purpose. She had never been made love to like this before.
"Please listen," he begged. "I am afraid that your father must be in a tearing rage by now, but it can"t be helped. He is out there and he hasn"t got an earthly chance of getting back until I give the word.
We"ve got plenty of time to reach Nice before he can land. I just want you to realise, Fedora, that you are your own mistress. You can make or spoil your own life. No one else has any right to interfere. Have you ever seen any one yet, back in your own country, amongst your own people, whom you really felt that you cared for--who you really believed would be willing to lay down his life to make you happy?"
"No," she confessed simply, "I do not know that I have. Our men are not like that."
"It is because," he went on, "there is no one back there who cares as I do. I have spent some years of my life looking--quite unconsciously, but looking all the same--for some one like you. Now I have found you I am glad I have waited. There couldn"t be any one else. There never could be, Fedora. I love you just in the way a man does love once in his life, if he"s lucky. It"s a queer sort of feeling, you know," he continued, leaning a little towards her. "It makes me quite sure that I could make you happy. It makes me quite sure that if you"ll give me your hand and trust me, and leave everything to me, you"ll have just the things in life that women want. Won"t you be brave, Fedora? There are some things to break through, I know, but they don"t amount to much--they don"t, really. And I love you, you know. You can"t imagine yet what a wonderful difference that makes. You"ll find out and you"ll be glad."
She stood quite still. Her eyes were still fixed seawards, but she was looking beyond the yacht, now, to the dim line where sky and sea seemed to meet. The vision of her past days seemed to be drawn out before her, a little monotonous, a little wearisome even in their splendour, more than a little empty. And underneath it all she was listening to the new music, and her heart was telling her the truth.
"You don"t need to make any plans," he said softly. "Go and put on your hat and something to wear motoring. Bring a dressing-bag, if you like.
Flossie is waiting for us and she is rather a dear. You can leave everything else to me."