"That is quite easy," Fenn promised. "I will do it without delay. But in the meantime," he added, moistening his dry lips, "can"t you possibly get to know what this man--this neutral--is driving at?"
"I fear not," she replied, "but I shall try. I have invited him to dine to-night."
"If you discover anything, when shall you let us know?"
"Immediately," she promised. "I shall telephone for Mr. Orden."
For a moment he lost control of himself.
"Why Mr. Orden?" he demanded pa.s.sionately. "He is the youngest member of the Council. He knows nothing of our negotiations with Freistner. Surely I am the person with whom you should communicate?"
"It will be very late to-night," she reminded him, "and Mr. Orden is my personal friend--outside the Council."
"And am I not?" he asked fiercely. "I want to be. I have tried to be."
She appeared to find his agitation disconcerting, and she withdrew a little from the yellow-stained fingers which had crept out towards hers.
"We are all friends," she said evasively. "Perhaps--if there is anything important, then--I will come, or send for you."
He rose to his feet, less, it seemed, as an act of courtesy in view of her departure, than with the intention of some further movement. He suddenly reseated himself, however, his fingers grasped at the air, he became ghastly pale.
"Are you ill, Mr. Fenn?" she exclaimed.
He poured himself out a gla.s.s of water with trembling fingers and drank it unsteadily.
"Nerves, I suppose," he said. "I"ve had to carry the whole burden of these negotiations upon my shoulders, with very little help from any one, with none of the sympathy that counts."
A momentary impulse of kindness did battle with her invincible dislike of the man.
"You must remember," she urged, "that yours is a glorious work; that our thoughts and grat.i.tude are with you."
"But are they?" he demanded, with another little burst of pa.s.sion.
"Grat.i.tude, indeed! If the Council feel that, why was I not selected to approach the Prime Minister instead of Julian Orden? Sympathy! If you, the one person from whom I desire it, have any to offer, why can you not be kinder? Why can you not respond, ever so little, to what I feel for you?"
She hesitated for a moment, seeking for the words which would hurt him least. Tactless as ever, he misunderstood her.
"I may have had one small check in my career," he continued eagerly, "but the game is not finished. Believe me, I have still great cards up my sleeve. I know that you have been used to wealth and luxury. Miss Abbeway," he went on, his voice dropping to a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "I was not boasting the other night. I have saved money, I have speculated fortunately--I--"
The look in her eyes stifled his eloquence. He broke off in his speech--became dumb and voiceless.
"Mr. Fenn," she said, "once and for all this sort of conversation is distasteful to me. A great deal of what you say I do not understand.
What I do understand, I dislike."
She left him, with an inscrutable look. He made no effort to open the door for her. He simply stood listening to her departing footsteps, listened to the shrill summons of the lift-bell, listened to the lift itself go clanging downwards. Then he resumed his seat at his desk. With his hands clasped nervously together, an ink smear upon his cheek, his mouth slightly open, disclosing his irregular and discoloured teeth, he was not by any means a pleasant looking object.
He blew down a tube by his side and gave a muttered order. In a few minutes Bright presented himself.
"I am busy," the latter observed curtly, as he closed the door behind him.
"You"ve got to be busier in a few minutes," was the harsh reply.
"There"s a screw loose somewhere."
Bright stood motionless.
"Any one been disagreeable?" he asked, after a moment"s pause.
"Get down to your office at once," Fenn directed briefly. "Have Miss Abbeway followed. I want reports of her movements every hour. I shall be here all night."
Bright grinned unpleasantly.
"Another Samson, eh?"
"Go to h.e.l.l, and do as you"re told!" was the fierce reply. "Put your best men on the job. I must know, for all our sakes, the name of the neutral whom Miss Abbeway sees to-night and with whom she is exchanging confidences."
Bright left the room with a shrug of the shoulders. Nicholas Fenn turned up the electric light, pulled out a bank book from the drawer of his desk, and, throwing it on to the fire, watched it until it was consumed.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Baron h.e.l.lman, comfortably seated at the brilliantly decorated round dining table, between Catherine, on one side, and a lady to whom he had not been introduced, contemplated the menu through his immovable eyegla.s.s with satisfaction, unfolded his napkin, and continued the conversation with his hostess, a few places away, which the announcement of dinner had interrupted.
"You are quite right, Princess," he admitted.
"The position of neutrals, especially in the diplomatic world, becomes, in the case of a war like this, most difficult and sometimes embarra.s.sing. To preserve a correct att.i.tude is often a severe strain upon one"s self-restraint."
The Princess nodded sympathetically.
"A very charming young man, the Baron," she confided to the General who had taken her in to dinner. "I knew his father and his uncle quite well, in those happy days before the war, when one used to move from country to country."
"Diplomatic type of features," the General remarked, who hated all foreigners. "It"s rather bad luck on them," he went on, with bland insularity, "that the men of the European neutrals--Dutch, Danish, Norwegians or Swedes--all resemble Germans so much more than Englishmen."
The Baron turned towards Catherine and ventured upon a whispered compliment. She was wearing a wonderful pre-war dress of black velvet, close-fitting yet nowhere cramping her naturally delightful figure. A rope of pearls hung from her neck--her only ornament.
"It is permitted, Countess, to express one"s appreciation of your toilette?" he ventured.
"In England it is not usual," she reminded him, with a smile, "but as you are such an old friend of the family, we will call it permissible.
It is, as a matter of fact, the last gown I had from Paris. Nowadays, one thinks of other things."
"You are one of the few women," he observed, "who mix in the great affairs and yet remain intensely feminine."
"Just now," she sighed, "the great affairs do not please me."
"Yet they are interesting," he replied. "The atmosphere at the present moment is electric, charged with all manner of strange possibilities.
But we talk too seriously. Will you not let me know the names of some of your guests? With General Crossley I am already acquainted."
"They really don"t count for very much," she said, a little carelessly.