"I admit nothing. Who told you?"
"Theodore Racksole, the millionaire. These rich men have no secrets from each other. They form a coterie, closer than any coterie of ours. Eugen, and far more powerful. They talk, and in talking they rule the world, these millionaires. They are the real monarchs."
"Curse them!" said Eugen.
"Yes, perhaps so. But let me return to your case. Imagine my shame, my disgust, when I found that Racksole could tell me more about your affairs than I knew myself. Happily, he is a good fellow; one can trust him; otherwise I should have been tempted to do something desperate when I discovered that all your private history was in his hands. Eugen, let us come to the point; why do you want that million? Is it actually true that you are so deeply in debt? I have no desire to improve the occasion. I merely ask."
"And what if I do owe a million?" said Prince Eugen with a.s.sumed valour.
"Oh, nothing, my dear Eugen, nothing. Only it is rather a large sum to have scattered in ten years, is it not? How did you manage it?"
"Don"t ask me, Aribert. I"ve been a fool. But I swear to you that the woman whom you call "the lady in the red hat" is the last of my follies.
I am about to take a wife, and become a respectable Prince."
"Then the engagement with Princess Anna is an accomplished fact?"
"Practically so. As soon as I have settled with Levi, all will be smooth.
Aribert, I wouldn"t lose Anna for the Imperial throne. She is a good and pure woman, and I love her as a man might love an angel."
"And yet you would deceive her as to your debts, Eugen?"
"Not her, but her absurd parents, and perhaps the Emperor. They have heard rumours, and I must set those rumours at rest by presenting to them a clean sheet."
"I am glad you have been frank with me, Eugen," said Prince Aribert, "but I will be plain with you. You will never marry the Princess Anna."
"And why?" said Eugen, supercilious again.
"Because her parents will not permit it. Because you will not be able to present a clean sheet to them. Because this Sampson Levi will never lend you a million."
"Explain yourself."
"I propose to do so. You were kidnapped--it is a horrid word, but we must use it--in Ostend."
"True."
"Do you know why?"
"I suppose because that vile old red-hatted woman and her accomplices wanted to get some money out of me. Fortunately, thanks to you, they didn"t."
"Not at all," said Aribert. "They wanted no money from you. They knew well enough that you had no money. They knew you were the naughty schoolboy among European Princes, with no sense of responsibility or of duty towards your kingdom. Shall I tell you why they kidnapped you?"
"When you have done abusing me, my dear uncle."
"They kidnapped you merely to keep you out of England for a few days, merely to compel you to fail in your appointment with Sampson Levi. And it appears to me that they succeeded. a.s.suming that you don"t obtain the money from Levi, is there another financier in all Europe from whom you can get it--on such strange security as you have to offer?"
"Possibly there is not," said Prince Eugen calmly. "But, you see, I shall get it from Sampson Levi. Levi promised it, and I know from other sources that he is a man of his word. He said that the money, subject to certain formalities, would be available till--"
"Till?"
"Till the end of June."
"And it is now the end of July."
"Well, what is a month? He is only too glad to lend the money. He will get excellent interest. How on earth have you got into your sage old head this notion of a plot against me? The idea is ridiculous. A plot against me? What for?"
"Have you ever thought of Bosnia?" asked Aribert coldly.
"What of Bosnia?"
"I need not tell you that the King of Bosnia is naturally under obligations to Austria, to whom he owes his crown. Austria is anxious for him to make a good influential marriage."
"Well, let him."
"He is going to. He is going to marry the Princess Anna."
"Not while I live. He made overtures there a year ago, and was rebuffed."
"Yes; but he will make overtures again, and this time he will not be rebuffed. Oh, Eugen! can"t you see that this plot against you is being engineered by some persons who know all about your affairs, and whose desire is to prevent your marriage with Princess Anna? Only one man in Europe can have any motive for wishing to prevent your marriage with Princess Anna, and that is the man who means to marry her himself."
Eugen went very pale.
"Then, Aribert, do you mean to convey to me that my detention in Ostend was contrived by the agents of the King of Bosnia?"
"I do."
"With a view to stopping my negotiations with Sampson Levi, and so putting an end to the possibility of my marriage with Anna?"
Aribert nodded.
"You are a good friend to me, Aribert. You mean well. But you are mistaken.
You have been worrying about nothing."
"Have you forgotten about Reginald Dimmock?"
"I remember you said that he had died."
"I said nothing of the sort. I said that he had been a.s.sa.s.sinated. That was part of it, my poor Eugen."
"Pooh!" said Eugen. "I don"t believe he was a.s.sa.s.sinated. And as for Sampson Levi, I will bet you a thousand marks that he and I come to terms this morning, and that the million is in my hands before I leave London." Aribert shook his head.
"You seem to be pretty sure of Mr Levi"s character. Have you had much to do with him before?"
"Well," Eugen hesitated a second, "a little. What young man in my position hasn"t had something to do with Mr Sampson Levi at one time or another?"
"I haven"t," said Aribert.
"You! You are a fossil." He rang a silver bell. "Hans! I will receive Mr Sampson Levi."