A Son of the Immortals, Louis Tracy [mobi ebook reader txt] 📗

Wait till he reduces the staff of the army and the secretaries. I know Delgratz and Kosnovia, and he does not. He will win the people, it is true; but he will alienate the men who can twist the people this way and that to suit their own purposes. Before a month is out he will be wrangling with the Assembly. See if I am not a prophet. Oh, yes, Julius, you and I must go to Delgratz. No hurry; slow but sure. I'll break the journey at Vienna. We must sound Stampoff too. But before I go, I should like to be sure that the girl has gone there."

"The artist girl to Delgratz!"

Julius was bitter and skeptical; but he reposed such confidence in Beliani's judgment that he choked his doubts. "Yes. Can it be managed?"

Le beau Comte leered, and the satyr grin was highly expressive. It seemed to show the man's real nature. In repose his face was insipid; now for an instant he resembled the god Pan.

"You called Alec a Bayard just now. Not a bad title for him. He has that kind of repute among his friends. Perhaps the girl is built on the same lines, and we don't want to send a pretty saint to Delgratz merely to inspire him to fresh efforts."

The Greek inhaled a deep breath of the aromatic smoke. "You'll be an average sort of King, Julius; but you are not a philosopher," said he thoughtfully. "I tell you we are safer than ever if we can bring him and the girl together. He will marry her, you short sighted one—marry her, and thus alienate every Slav in the Balkans. I have turned this thing in my mind constantly since I recovered from the first shock of his achievement, and I am fairly certain of my ground. Mark you, Princess Mirabel of Montenegro will be reported to-morrow as out of the running. If that is so, you will begin to believe me and stop clawing your hair and injuring your fine complexion by scowling."

Next morning's "Matin" announced that King Alexis was greatly annoyed by the mischievous and utterly unfounded canard that bracketed his name with that of a woman he had never seen. Count Julius read, and made a hasty toilet. Beliani and he had laid their plans overnight, and he lost no time in opening the new campaign.

It was a difficult and delicate task he had undertaken. Paris, big in many respects, is small in its society, which, because of its well marked limits, makes a noise in the world quite incommensurate with its importance; whereas London, close neighbor and rival, contains a dozen definite circles that seldom overlap. The woman Julius had seen with Alec in the Louvre was not on Princess Michael's visiting list, of that he had no manner of doubt. Therefore, from his point of view, the only possible solution of their apparent friendship would prove to be something underhanded and clandestine, an affair of secret meetings, and letters signed in initials, and a tacit agreement to move unhindered in different orbits.

Being of the nature of dogs and aboriginal trackers, Marulitch made straight for the Louvre. There he had quitted the trail, and there must he pick it up again. But the hunt demanded the utmost wariness. If he startled the quarry, he might fail at the outset, and, supposing his talking was successful, both he and Beliani must still beware of a King's vengeance if their project miscarried.

Neither man had the slightest belief in Alec's innate nobility of character. Beliani likened him to Bayard, it is true, and Marulitch had scoffingly adopted the simile; but that was because each thought Bayard not admirable, but a fool. The somber history of the Kosnovian monarchy, a record of crass stupidity made lurid at times by a lightning gleam of passion, justified the belief that Alexis would follow the path that led Theodore, and Ferdinand, and Ivan, and Milosch to their ruin. Each of these rulers began to reign under favorable auspices, yet each succumbed to the siren's spell, and there was no reason at all, according to such reckoning, why the handsome and impulsive Alexis should escape. That a pretty Parisienne who was also an artist should fail to offer herself as a willing bait did not enter at all into the calculation.

"Be suave, spend money, and keep in the background," said the Greek.

Julius entered the Grande Galerie prepared to apply these instructions through the medium of his own subtle wit. At the outset, luck favored him. Somehow, it is always easier to do evil than good, and the longevity of evil is notorious, whereas the short lived existence of good would horrify an insurance agent.

Joan was not present; but Felix Poluski was preparing a canvas for his twenty-seventh copy of the famous Murillo. Two of his "Immaculate Conceptions" were in private collections; one had been sold to a South American millionaire as the Spanish artist's own duplicate of the picture, though Poluski was unaware of the fraud; and twenty-three adorned the high altars of various continental churches, where they edified multitudes happily ignorant of the irreverent conditions under which the cheery souled anarchist hunchback droned his snatches of song and extracted from a few tubes of paint some glimpse of heaven, and rays of sunlight, and hints of divine love and divine maternity.

The crooked little Pole's genius and character were alike unknown to Count Julius. He saw only a quaintly artistic personage who might possibly be acquainted with such a remarkable looking habitué of the gallery as Joan. Instead, therefore, of appealing to one of the officials, he approached Poluski, and the two exchanged greetings with the politeness that Paris quickly teaches to those who dwell within her gates.

"You work in this gallery most days, monsieur?" said Julius.

"But yes, monsieur," said Felix.

"About a fortnight ago, monsieur," explained Marulitch, "I happened to be here at this hour, and I noticed a young lady copying one of the pictures on the opposite wall. Can you tell me who she was?"

"Can you tell me which picture she was copying?" said Poluski.

"I am not sure; this one, I think," and Julius pointed to "The Fortune Teller."

"Ah! Describe her, monsieur."

"She was tall, elegant, charming in manner and appearance."

Poluski appeared to reflect. "The vision sounds entrancing, monsieur," he said; "but that sort of girl doesn't usually earn her crusts by daubing canvas in the Louvre at so much a square foot."

"Yet I saw her, without a doubt. She was not alone that morning. In fact, a friend of mine was with her."

Poluski turned to his easel. He was in no mind to discuss Joan with this inquiring dandy.

"That simplifies your search, monsieur," said he carelessly. "All that is necessary is to go to your friend."

"I cannot. He is not in Paris."

"Where is he?"

"Far enough away to render it impossible that he should solve my dilemma to-day. And the thing is urgent. I have a commission to offer, a good one. If you help, you will be doing the young lady a turn—and yourself, too, perhaps."

"Kindly explain, monsieur."

"I mean that I will gladly pay for any information."

"How much? Five, ten francs, a louis?"

The Pole's sarcasm was not to be mistaken. Julius was warned and drew back hurriedly.

"I really beg your pardon," he said; "but I am so anxious to carry out my undertaking that I have expressed myself awkwardly, and I see now that you are misinterpreting my motives. Let me speak quite candidly. I have no desire to meet the lady in person. An art connoisseur, who admires her work, wishes to send her to a cathedral in a distant city to copy a painting. He will pay well. He offers traveling expenses, hotel bill, and five thousand francs. The picture is not a large one, and the work easy, a Byzantine study of Saint Peter, I believe. If you tell me, monsieur, that you can arrange the matter, I shall be pleased to leave it entirely in your hands."

"Since when did Alec become a connoisseur?" demanded Poluski, grinning.

Marulitch was startled; but he smiled with a ready self possession that did him credit. "It was in Monsieur Delgrado's company I saw the fair unknown," he admitted; "but this affair does not rest with him. It is genuine, absolutely."

"Nevertheless, this Byzantine Saint Peter hangs in Delgratz, I suppose?"

"I—I think so."

"Five thousand francs, you said, and expenses. Not bad. I'm a pretty good hand myself. Will I do?"

The Pole was enjoying the stupid little plot; for it could wear no other guise to him, and Count Julius was mortified by the knowledge that he had blundered egregiously at the first step in the negotiation. What would Beliani say? This wizened elf of a man had seen clear through their precious scheme in an instant, and, worst of all, it had not advanced an inch. Julius made a virtue of necessity, and placed all his cards on the table.

"I want you to credit my statements," he said emphatically. "This proposal is quite straightforward. My principal is prepared to pay half the money down before the lady leaves Paris, and the balance when the picture is delivered. Further, he will bear the expenses of any one who accompanies her,—a relative, or a friend, such as yourself, for instance. I don't figure in the matter at all. I am a mere go-between, and if you think otherwise you are utterly mistaken."

Felix began to whistle softly between his teeth, and the action annoyed Julius so greatly that he decided to try a new line.

"I seem to have amused you by my sincerity, monsieur!" he snapped. "Pray forget that I have troubled you——"

"But why, my paragon? Que diable! one does not spurn five thousand francs like that! I hum or whistle when I am thinking, and just now I am wondering how this business can be arranged. Who is your client?"

"Who is yours?" retorted Julius.

"She exists, at any rate."

"So does the other."

"Well, then, let us meet to-morrow——"

"But time is all important."

"There can't be such a mortal hurry, seeing that Saint Peter has hung so long undisturbed in Delgratz," said Felix dryly. "Moreover, it will clear the air if I tell you that the lady is not in Paris, so I cannot possibly give you her answer before to-morrow morning."

"How can I be sure that she is the person actually intended for this commission?"

"There won't be the least doubt about it when King Alexis III. sets eyes on her."

Julius was certainly not himself that day. His pink face grew crimson with amazement. "If you tell her that you will defeat my friend's object in sending her to Delgratz!" he blurted out.

"Eh, what are you saying? What, then, becomes of that poor Saint Peter?"

"Exactly. She is going there to copy it, not to philander with Alec."

Poluski screwed his eyes up until he was peering at Julius's excited features as if endeavoring to catch some transient color effect. "Frankly, you puzzle me," he said after a pause; "but come again to-morrow. And no tricks, no spying or that sort of thing! I am the wrong man for it. If you doubt me, ask some one who has heard of Felix Poluski. You see, Count Julius Marulitch, I am far more open than you. I knew you all the time, and as to your motives, I can guess a good deal that I don't actually know. Still, there is nothing positively dishonest about a Byzantine Saint Peter. It is not art, but five thousand francs sounds like business. Half the cash down, you said; anything by way of preliminary expenses?"

"Meaning?"

"Say, one per cent., fifty francs. Otherwise, I must paint all day and trust to the post—the least eloquent of ambassadors."

"Oh, as to that," and Julius produced a hundred-franc note from his pocketbook.

The Pole