"My young friend," Herr Selingman declared impressively, "if there is one thing in the world I envy you, it is that capacity for sleep. You all have it, you English. Your heads touch the pillow, and off you go. Do you know that the man is waiting for you to take your coffee?"
Norgate lay quite still for several moments. Beyond a slight headache, he was feeling as usual. He leaned over the side of the bunk.
"How many whiskies and soda did I have last night?" he asked.
Herr Selingman smiled.
"But one only," he announced. "There was only one to be had. I found a little whisky in my flask. I remembered that I had an English travelling companion, and I sent for some soda-water. You drank yours, and you did sleep. I go now and sit in the corridor while you dress."
Norgate swung round in his bunk and slipped to the floor.
"Jolly good of you," he muttered sleepily, "but it was very strong whisky."
CHAPTER V
There was a babel of voices as the long train came to a stand-still in the harbour station at Ostend. Selingman, with characteristic forcefulness, pushed his way down the narrow corridor, driving before him pa.s.sengers of less weight and pertinacity, until finally he descended on to the platform itself. Norgate, who had followed meekly in his wake, stood listening for a moment to the confused stream of explanations. He understood well enough what had happened, but with Selingman at his elbow he a.s.sumed an air of non-comprehension.
"It is extraordinary!" the latter exclaimed. "Never do I choose this route but I am visited with some mishap. You hear what has happened?"
"Fellow"s trying to tell me," Norgate replied, "but his Flemish is worse to understand than German."
"The steamer," Selingman announced, "has met with an accident entering the harbour. There will be a delay of at least six hours--possibly more.
It is most annoying. My appointments in London have been fixed for days."
"Bad luck!" Norgate murmured.
"You do not seem much distressed."
"Why should I be? I really came this way because I was not sure whether I would not stay here for a few days."
"That is all very well for you," Selingman declared, as they followed their porters into the shed. "For me, I am a man of affairs. It is different. My business goes by clockwork. All is regulated by rule, with precision, with punctuality. Now I shall be many hours behind my schedule. I shall be compelled to alter my appointments--I, who pride myself always upon altering nothing. But behold! One must make the best of things. What a sunshine! What a sea! We shall meet, without a doubt, upon the Plage. I have friends here. I must seek them. Au revoir, my young travelling companion. To the good fortune!"
They drifted apart, and Norgate, having made arrangements about his luggage, strolled through the town and on to the promenade. It was early for the full season at Ostend, but the sands were already crowded with an immense throng of children and holiday-makers. The hotels were all open, and streams of people were pa.s.sing back and forth along the front, Norgate, who had no wish to meet acquaintances, pa.s.sed the first period of his enforced wait a little wearily. He took a taxicab and drove as far as Knocke. Here he strolled across the links and threw himself down finally amongst a little wave of sandy hillocks close to the sea. The silence, and some remains of the sleepiness of the previous night, soon began to have their natural effect. He closed his eyes and began to doze.
When he awoke, curiously enough, it was a familiar voice which first fell upon his ears. He turned his head cautiously. Seated not a dozen yards away from him was a tall, thin man with a bag of golf clubs by his side.
He was listening with an air of engrossed attention to his companion"s impressive remarks. Norgate, raising himself upon his elbow, no longer had any doubts. The man stretched upon his back on the sand, partly hidden from sight by a little gra.s.s-grown undulation, was his late travelling companion.
"You do well, my dear Marquis, believe me!" the latter exclaimed.
"Property in Belgium is valuable to-day. Take my advice. Sell. There are so many places where one may live, where the climate is better for a man of your const.i.tution."
"That is all very well," his companion replied querulously, "but remember that Belgium, after all, is my country. My chateau and estates came to me by inheritance. Notwithstanding the frequent intermarriages of my family with the aristocracy of your country, I am still a Belgian."
"Ah! but, my dear friend," Selingman protested, "you are more than a Belgian, more than a man of local nationality. You are a citizen of the world of intelligence. You are able to see the truth. The days are coming when small states may exist no longer without the all-protecting arm of a more powerful country. I say no more than this. The position of Belgium is artificial. Of her own will, or of necessity, she must soon become merged in the onward flow of mightier nations."
"What about Holland, then?"
"Holland, too," Selingman continued, "knows the truth. She knows very well that the limit of her days as an independent kingdom is almost reached. The Power which has absorbed the states of Prussia into one mighty empire, pauses only to take breath. There are many signs--"
"But, my worthy friend," the other man interrupted irritably, "you must take into consideration the fact that Belgium is in a different position.
Our existence as a separate kingdom might certainly be threatened by Germany, but all that has been foreseen. Our neutrality is guaranteed.
Your country has pledged its honour to maintain it, side by side with France and England. What have we to fear, then?"
"You have to fear, Marquis," Selingman replied ponderously, "the inevitable laws which direct the progress of nations. Treaties solemnly subscribed to in one generation become worthless as time pa.s.ses and conditions change."
"But I do not understand you there!" the other man exclaimed. "What you say sounds to me like a reflection upon the honour of your country. Do you mean to insinuate that she would possibly--that she would ever for a moment contemplate breaking her pledged and sealed word?"
"My friend," Selingman p.r.o.nounced drily, "the path of honour and glory, the onward progress of a mighty, struggling nation, carrying in its hand culture and civilisation, might demand even such a sacrifice. Germany recognises, is profoundly imbued with the splendour of her own ideals, the matchlessness of her own culture. She feels justified in spreading herself out wherever she can find an outlet--at any cost, mind, because the end must be good."
There was a moment"s silence. Then the tall man stood upright.
"If you came out to find me, my friend Selingman, to bring me this warning, I suppose I should consider myself your debtor. As a matter of fact, I do not. You have inspired me with nameless misgivings. Your voice sounds in my ears like the voice of an ugly fate. I am, as you have often reminded me, half German, and I have shown my friendship for Germany many times. Unlike most of the aristocracy of my country, I look more often northwards than towards the south. But I tell you frankly that there are limits to my Germanism. I will play no more golf. I will walk with you to the club-house."
"All that I have to say," Selingman went on, "is not yet said. This opportunity of meeting you is too precious to be wasted. Come. As we walk there are certain questions I wish to put to you."
They pa.s.sed within a few feet of where Norgate was lying. He closed his eyes and held his breath. It was not until their figures were almost specks in the distance that he rose cautiously to his feet. He made his way back to the club-house by another angle, gained his taxicab un.o.bserved, and drove back to Ostend.
Towards evening Norgate strolled into one of the cosmopolitan bars at the back of the Casino. The first person he saw as he handed over his hat to a waiter, was Selingman, spread out upon a cushioned seat with a young lady upon either side of him. He at once summoned Norgate to his table.
"An _aperitif_," he insisted. "Come, you must not refuse me. In two hours we start. We tear ourselves away from this wonderful atmosphere. In atmosphere, mademoiselle," he added, bowing to the right and the left, "all is included."
"It is not," Norgate admitted, "an invitation to be disregarded. On the other hand, I have already an appet.i.te."
Selingman thundered out an order.
"Here," he remarked, "we dwell for a few brief moments in Bohemia. I do not introduce you. You sit down and join us. You are one of us. That you speak only English counts for nothing. Mademoiselle Alice here is American. Now tell us at once, how have you spent this afternoon? You have bathed, perhaps, or walked upon the sands?"
Norgate was on the point of speaking of his excursion to Knocke but was conscious of Selingman"s curiously intent gaze. The spirit of duplicity seemed to grow upon him.
"I walked for a little way," he said. "Afterwards I lay upon the sands and slept. When I found that the steamer was still further delayed, I had a bath. That was half an hour ago. I asked a man whom I met on the promenade where one might dine in travelling clothes, lightly but well, and he sent me here--the Bar de Londres--and here, for my good fortune, I am."
"It is a pity that monsieur does not speak French," one of Selingman"s companions murmured.
"But, mademoiselle," Norgate protested, "I have spoken French all my life. Herr Selingman here has misunderstood me. It is German of which I am ignorant."
The young lady, who immediately introduced herself as Mademoiselle Henriette, pa.s.sed her arm through Selingman"s.
"We dine here all together, my friend, is it not so?" she begged. "He will not be in the way, and for myself, I am _triste_. You talk all the time to Mademoiselle l"Americaine, perhaps because she is the friend of some one in whom you are interested. But for me, it is dull. Monsieur l"Anglais shall talk with me, and you may hear all the secrets that Alice has to tell. We," she murmured, looking up at Norgate, "will speak of other things, is it not so?"
For a moment Selingman hesitated. Norgate would have moved on with a little farewell nod, but Selingman"s companions were insistent.
"It shall be a _partie carree_," they both declared, almost in unison.
"You need have no fear," Mademoiselle Henriette continued. "I will talk all the time to monsieur. He shall tell me his name, and we shall be very great friends. I am not interested in the things of which they talk, those others. You shall tell me of London, monsieur, and how you live there."