"He has never compromised her," said Sara indignantly. "He has even been ridiculed for his honour. I had no idea, Excellence, that you were so wicked!"
"How else could I know all the news twenty-four hours before the rest of the world? This, however, is no laughing matter. Parflete may ask his wife to return to him. It may suit her purpose to agree."
"What! A woman who loves, or who has loved--Robert Orange? A few things in human nature are still impossible."
Prince d"Alchingen shrugged his shoulders, and continued--
"Parflete has a good back-stairs knowledge of Alberian politics. We never deny this, but we always add that he was dismissed, in disgrace, from the Imperial Household."
"Is there much use in denying the fact that he married the Archduke"s daughter?"
"We meet the case by saying that the Archduke in his youth may not have been exempt from manly follies. And Duboc was irresistible--she drove one mad!"
"Then why all this fuss?"
"To avoid more fuss--on a large scale."
"But I have always heard that Mrs. Parflete has no intention of giving trouble. They say she is an angel."
"You will find that she would far rather be an Archd.u.c.h.ess! Orange may discover that his Beatrice is nearly related to Rahab!"
"Oh, I cannot think you are right."
"Then you should hear Zeuill and General Prim on the subject. The Marquis of Castrillon is in London. Our friend Parflete will soon be labouring with copious materials for a divorce."
"How can you a.s.sume such horrors?" said Sara.
"The imagination," said His Excellency, "is always more struck by likelihoods than the reason convinced by the examination of facts! My dear friend, let us survey the position. Orange does not seem to have the most distant idea of making Mrs. Parflete his--his _belle amie_.
Well and good. But ought he, at his age, so handsome, so brilliant, so much a man, to renounce all other women for the sake of a little adventuress? Can nothing be done? If he could have some convincing proof of her treachery, would he not turn to others more beautiful, more worthy----"
"To Lady Fitz Rewes," said Sara quickly.
"If you like," replied the Prince, in his gentlest voice.
For a second or two each of them looked away. Sara glanced toward her canaries in their cage. Prince d"Alchingen leant forward to inhale the perfume of some violets in a vase near him.
"Delicious!" he murmured, "delicious!"
"Mr. Disraeli," said Sara, still gazing at the birds, "has always wished for the marriage with Lady Fitz Rewes. Yet what can we do? I cannot see the end of it."
"The heroic are plotted against by evil spirits, comforted by good ones, but in no way constrained," observed the Amba.s.sador; "let us then support Mr. Orange, and wait for his own decision. I doubt whether we could drive him to Lady Fitz Rewes."
"To whom else?" asked Sara, fastening some flowers in her belt. They were white camellias sent that morning from the infatuated, still hopeful Duke of Marshire. "To whom else--if not Pensee?"
"I dare not answer such questions yet. Have patience and you shall see what you shall see. Much will hinge on the events of the next few days."
"I will not believe," she insisted, "that Robert Orange has been deceived by that woman."
"You may change your opinion. Come to Hadley Lodge next Sat.u.r.day--I ask no more."
"Really, sir," said Sara, with a mocking smile, "you frighten me. Am I at last to fly through an intrigue on the wings of a conspiracy?"
The Prince smiled also, but he saw that the lady had risen to the occasion and would not prove false to her Asiatic blood.
"Mrs. Parflete and Castrillon are cut out for each other," said he, "but Orange has no business in that _galere_. He is reserved for a greater fate."
"What do you mean?" said Sara.
"All now depends on you."
"On me?"
"Plainly. Reckage wishes Orange to get out of his way and become a Religious. Can this be permitted?"
"It would be outrageous. It would be a crime."
"Ah, worse than that. It might prove a success. We don"t want any more strong men in the Church just now."
Sara agreed. She, too, was opposed to the Church. And she was glad of the excuse this thought offered for the pains she would take to save Orange from the Vatican grasp.
"Then we are allies," said His Excellency. "You will help me."
"Gladly, and what is more, as a duty. But how?"
"Keep the two men apart, and treat both of them--both--with kindness."
His Excellency then rose, kissed her hands once more, and took his departure. Sara, when the door was closed, paced the floor with swift and desperate steps, as though she were encircled by thoughts which, linked together, danced round her way so that whether she retreated or advanced, swayed to the right or to the left, they held her fast.
CHAPTER XIX
Lord Garrow, under his daughter"s command, had issued invitations for a dinner-party that same evening to a few friends, who, it was hoped, would support the Meeting which Reckage was endeavouring to organise as a protest against Dr. Temple"s nomination. The guests included Reckage himself, Orange, Charles Aumerle, the Dowager Countess of Larch, Hartley Penborough, Lady Augusta Hammit, and the Bishop of Calbury"s chaplain,--the Rev. Edwin Pole-Knox.
Sara, arrayed in white satin and opals, sat at the piano playing the _Faust_ of Berlioz, and wondering whether she had really arranged her table to perfection, when the footman brought the following note--dashed off in pencil--from Lord Reckage:--
ALMOUTH HOUSE.
An extraordinary thing has happened. Agnes has run away with David Rennes. She seems quite broken and her letter is too touching, too sacred to show. As for him, it is difficult to say what he could give, or what I would accept, as an excuse. She, however, has my full forgiveness, and perhaps good may come of so much sorrow and duplicity. I must see you after the others have gone to-night. My plan is to leave early--probably with Orange and Aumerle, but I will return later. I need your counsel. B.
Sara, who was always in league with audacity, clapped her hands at the tidings of Miss Carillon"s bold move. She was not surprised, for, as we have seen, she had read the girl"s character truly, and warned Orange that some event of the kind would happen. But the pleasure she took in this confirmation of her own prophetic gifts was alloyed by the fear that Reckage, now at liberty, would prove a masterful, jealous, and embarra.s.sing lover. Nor were her forebodings on this score lessened when he arrived, evidently in a strange mood, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. His eyes travelled over her face with a consuming scrutiny to which she was unaccustomed and for which she found herself unprepared. For a moment she experienced the disadvantages of a guilty conscience, and although she had, so far, merely considered various plans for using his devotion without peril to her own independence, she felt that the moment for deliberation was past, that the duel between them had begun.
"You have my note," he said, "and I would rather not talk about Agnes to-night. On that point I am in a stupor. I can"t realise the disaster at all. I might seem unfeeling, whereas I am insensible, or unconscious, or mentally chloroformed--anything you like to call it."
"I can see that you have received a great blow," answered Sara, looking down.