"The King? What the devil has he to do with anything but his women and his amus.e.m.e.nts?"
A very close observer might have seen a curious expression flicker over Pasquin Leroy"s face at these words,--an expression half of laughter, half of scorn,--but it was slight and evanescent, and his reply was frigidly courteous.
"I really cannot inform you; but I am afraid his Majesty is departing somewhat from his customary routine! He is, in fact, taking an active, instead of a pa.s.sive part in national affairs."
"Then he must be warned off the ground!" said Jost irritably; "He is a Const.i.tutional monarch, and must obey the laws of the Const.i.tution."
"Precisely!" And Leroy looked carefully at the end of his cigar; "But at present he appears to have an idea that the laws of the Const.i.tution are being tampered with by certain other kings;--for example,--the kings of finance!"
Jost muttered a half-inaudible oath.
"Come this way," he said impatiently;--"Bad news is best soon over!"
Leroy gave a careless nod of acquiescence,--then glancing round the room, up at the clock, and down again to Jost"s desk, strewn with letters and doc.u.ments of every description, he smiled a little to himself, and followed the all-powerful editor into the smaller adjoining apartment. The door closed behind them both, and Jost turned the key in the lock from within.
For a long time all was very silent. Jost"s valet and confidential servant, sleepy and tired, waited in the hall to let his master"s visitor out,--and hearing no sound, ventured to look into the study now and then,--but to no purpose. He knew the sanct.i.ty of that inner chamber beyond; he knew that when the Premier came to see the great Jost,--as he often did,--it was in that mysterious further room that business was transacted, and that it was as much as his place was worth to venture even to knock at the door. So, yawning heavily, he dozed on his bench in the hall,--woke with a start and dozed again,--while the clock slowly ticked away the minutes till with a dull clang the hour struck One. Then on again went the steady and wearisome tick-tick of the pendulum, for a quarter of an hour, half an hour,--and three-quarters,--till the utterly fatigued valet was about to knock down a few walking-sticks and umbrellas, and make a general noise of reminder to his master as to how the time was going, when, to his great relief, he heard the inner door open at last, and the voice of the mysterious visitor ring out in clear, precise accents.
"Nothing will be done publicly, of course,--unless Parliament insists on an enquiry!" The speaker came towards the hall, and the valet sprang up from his bench, and stood ready to show the stranger out.
Jost replied, and his accents were thick and unsteady.
"Enquiry cannot be forced! The Marquis himself can burk any such attempt."
"But--if the King should insist?"
"He would be breaking all the rules of custom and precedent," said Jost,--"And he would deserve to be dethroned!"
Pasquin Leroy laughed.
"True! Good-night, Mr. Jost! Can I do anything for you in Moscow?" The two men now came into the full light shed by the great lamp in the hall.
Jost looked darkly red in the face--almost apoplectic; Leroy was as cool, imperturbable and easy of manner as a practised detective or professional spy.
"In Moscow," Jost repeated--"You are going straight to Russia?"
"I think so."
"I suppose you are in the secret service?"
"Exactly! A curious line of business, too, which the outside world knows very little of. Ah!--if the excellent people--the ma.s.ses as we call them--knew what rogues had the ruling of their affairs in some countries--not in this country, of course!" he added with a quizzical smile,--"but in some others, not very far away, I wonder how many revolutions would break out within six months! Good-night, Mr. Jost!"
"Good-night!" responded Jost briefly. "You will let me know any further developments?"
"Most a.s.suredly!"
The servant opened the door, and Pasquin Leroy slipped a gold coin worth a sovereign into his hand, whereupon, of course, the worthy domestic considered him to be a "real gentleman." As soon as he had pa.s.sed into the street, and the door was shut and barred for the night, Jost bade his man go to bed, a command which was gladly obeyed; and re-entering his study, pa.s.sed all the time till the breaking of dawn in rummaging out letters and doc.u.ments from various desks, drawers and despatch-boxes, and burning them carefully one by one in the open grate.
While thus employed, he had a truly villainous aspect,--each flame he kindled with each paper seemed to show up a more unpleasing expression on his countenance, till at last,--when such matter was destroyed as he had at present determined on,--he drew himself up and stood for a moment surveying the pile of light black ashes, which was all that was left of about a hundred or more incriminating paper witnesses to certain matters in which he had more than a lawful interest.
"It will be difficult now to trace my hand in the scheme!" he said to himself, frowning heavily, as he considered various uncomfortable contingencies arising out of his conversation with his late visitor.
"If the thunderbolt falls, it will crush Carl Perousse--not me. Yes! It means ruin for him--ruin and disgrace--but for me--well! I shall find it as easy to d.a.m.n Perousse as it has been to support him, for he cannot involve me without adding tenfold to his own disaster! I think it will be safe enough for me--possibly not so safe for the Premier. However, I will write to him to-morrow, just to let him know I received his messenger."
In the meantime, while David Jost was thus cogitating unpleasant and even dangerous possibilities, which were perhaps on the eve of occurring to himself and certain of his a.s.sociates in politics and journalism, Pasquin Leroy was hurrying along the city streets under the light of a clear, though pallid and waning moon. Few wanderers were abroad; the police walked their various rounds, and one or two miserable women pa.s.sed him, like flying ghosts in the thin air of night. His mind was in a turmoil of agitation; and the thoughts that were tossing rapidly through his brain one upon the other, were such as he had never known before. He had fathomed a depth of rascality and deception, which but a short month ago, he could scarcely have believed capable of existence.
The cruel injury and loss preparing for thousands of innocent persons through the self-interested plotting of a few men, was almost incalculable,--and his blood burned with pa.s.sionate indignation as he realized on what a verge of misery, bloodshed, disaster and crime the unthinking people of the country stood, pushed to the very edge of a fall by the shameless and unscrupulous designs of a few financiers, playing their gambling game with the public confidence,--and cheating nations as callously as they would have cheated their partners at cards.
"Thank G.o.d, it is not too late!" he murmured; "Not quite too late to save the situation!--to rescue the people from long years of undeserved taxation, loss of trade and general distress! It is a supreme task that has been given me to accomplish!--but if there is any truth and right in the laws of the Universe, I shall surely not be misjudged while accomplishing it!"
He quickened his pace;--and to avoid going up one of the longer thoroughfares which led to the citadel and palace, he decided to cross one of the many picturesque bridges, arched over certain inlets from the sea, and forming ca.n.a.ls, where barges and other vessels might be towed up to the very doors of the warehouses which received their cargoes.
But just as he was about to turn in the necessary direction, he halted abruptly at sight of two men, standing at the first corner in the way of his advance, talking earnestly. He recognized them at once as Sergius Thord and the half-inebriated poet, Paul Zouche. With noiseless step he moved cautiously into the broad stretch of black shadow cast by the great facade of a block of buildings which occupied half the length of the street in which he stood, and so managing to slip into the denser darkness of a doorway, was able to hear what they were saying. The full, mellow, and persuasive tone of Thord"s voice had something in it of reproach.
"You shame yourself, Zouche!" he said; "You shame me; you shame us all!
Man, did G.o.d put a light of Genius in your soul merely to be quenched by the cravings of a b.e.s.t.i.a.l body? What a.s.sociate are you for us? How can you help us in the fulfilment of our ideal dream? By day you mingle with litterateurs, scientists, and philosophers,--report has it that you have even managed to stumble your way into my lady"s boudoir;--but by night you wander like this,--insensate, furious, warped in soul, muddled in brain, and only the heart of you alive,--the poor unsatisfied heart--hungering and crying for what itself makes impossible!"
Zouche broke into a harsh laugh. Turning up his head to the sky, he thrust back his wild hair, and showed his thin eager face and glittering eyes, outlined cameo-like by the paling radiance of the moon.
"Well spoken, my Sergius!" he exclaimed. "You always speak well! Your thoughts are of flame--your speech is of gold; the fire melts the ore! And then again you have a conscience! That is a strange possession!--quite useless in these days, like the remains of the tail we had when we were all happy apes in the primeval forest, pelting the Megatherium or other such remarkable beasts with cocoanuts! It was a much better life, Sergius, believe me! A Conscience is merely a mental Appendicitis! There should be a psychical surgeon with an airy lancet to cut it out. Not for me!--I was born perfect--without it!"
He laughed again, then with an abrupt change of manner he caught Thord violently by the arm.
"How can you speak of shame?" he said--"What shame is left in either man or woman nowadays? Naked to the very skin of foulness, they flaunt a nudity of vice in every public thoroughfare! Your sentiments, my grand Sergius, are those of an old world long pa.s.sed away! You are a reformer, a lover of truth--a hater of shams--and in the days when the people loved truth,--and wanted justice,--and fought for both, you would have been great! But greatness is nowadays judged as "madness"--truth as "want of tact"--desire for justice is "clamour for notoriety." Shame?
There is no shame in anything, Sergius, but honesty! That is a disgrace to the century; for an honest man is always poor, and poverty is the worst of crimes." He threw up his arms with a wild gesture,--"The worst of crimes! Do I not know it!"
Thord took him gently by the shoulder.
"You talk, Zouche, as you always talk, at random, scarcely knowing, and certainly not half meaning what you say. There is no real reason in your rages against fate and fortune. Leave the accursed drink, and you may still win the prize you covet--Fame."
"Not I!" said Zouche scornfully,--"Fame in its original sense belonged also to the growing-time of the world--when, proud of youth and the glow of life, the full-fledged man judged himself immortal. Fame now is adjudged to the biped-machine who drives a motor-car best,--or to the fortunate soap-boiler who dines with a king! Poetry is understood to be the useful rhyme which announces the virtues of pills and boot-blacking!
Mark you, Sergius!--my latest volume was "graciously accepted by the King"! Do you know what that means?"
"No," replied Thord, a trifle coldly; "And if it were not that I know your strange vagaries, I should say you wronged your election as one of us, to send any of your work to a crowned fool!"
Zouche laughed discordantly.
"You would? No, you would not, my Sergius, if you knew the spirit in which I sent it! A spirit as wild, as reckless, as ranting, as defiant as ever devil indulged in! The humility of my presentation letter to his Majesty was beautiful! The reply of the flunkey-secretary was equally beautiful in smug courtesy: "Sir, I am commanded by the King to thank you for the book of poems you have kindly sent for his acceptance!" I say again, Thord, do you know what it means?"
"No; I only wish that instead of talking here, you would let me see you safely home."
"Home! I have no home! Since _she_ died--" He paused, and a grey shadow crossed his face like the hue of approaching sickness or death.
"I killed her, poor child! Of course you know that! I neglected her,--deserted her--left her to die! Well! She is only one more added to the list of countless women martyrs who have been tortured out of an unjust world--and now--now I write verses to her memory!" He shivered as with cold, still clinging to Thord"s arm. "But I did not tell you what great good comes of sending a book to the King! It means less to a writer than to a boot-maker. For the boot-maker can put up a sign: "Special Fitter for the ease of His Majesty"s Corns"--but if a poet should say his verse is "accepted" by a monarch, the shrewd public take it at once to be bad verse, and will have none of it! That is the case with my book to-day!"
"Why did you send it?" asked Thord, with grave patience. "Your business with kings is to warn, not to flatter!"
"Just so!" cried Zouche; "And if His Most Gracious and Glorious had been pleased to look inside the volume, he would have seen enough to startle him! It was sent in hate, my Sergius,--not in humility,--just as the flunkey-secretary"s answer was penned in derision, aping courtesy! How you look, under this wan sky of night! Reproachful, yet pitying, as the eyes of Buddha are your eyes, my Sergius! You are a fine fellow--your brain is a dome decorated with glorious ideals!--and yet you are like all of us, weak in one point, as Achilles in the heel. One thing could turn you from man into beast--and that would be if Lotys loved--not you--she never will love you--but another!"--Thord started back as though suddenly stabbed, and angrily shook off his companion, who only laughed again,--a shrill, echoing laugh in which there was a note of madness and desolation. "Bah!" he exclaimed; "You are a fool after all!
You work for a woman as I did--once! But mark you!--do not kill her--as I did--once! Be patient! Watch the light shine, even though it does not illumine your path; be glad that the rose blooms for itself, if not for you! It will be difficult!--meanwhile you can live on hope--a bitter fruit to eat; but gnaw it to the last rind, my Sergius! Hope that Lotys may melt in your fire, as a snowflake in the sun! Come! Now take the poor poet home,--the drunken child of inspiration--take him home to his garret in the slums--the poet whose book has been accepted by the King!"
Pulling himself up from his semi-crouching position, he seized Thord"s arm again more tightly, and began to walk along unsteadily. Presently he paused, smiling vacantly up at the gradually vanishing stars.
"Lotys speaks to our followers on Sat.u.r.day," he said; "You know that?"
Thord bent his head in acquiescence.