The Puppet Crown - Harlod MacGrath (nice books to read TXT) 📗

young women of sixteen or seventeen. Women such as Madame have long since passed the uniform fever."

"Not when it has lace, my friend, court lace. Well, forward to the dining hall."

Both were rather disappointed to find that Madame would be absent until dinner. Fitzgerald could not tell exactly why he was disappointed, and he was angry with himself for the vague regret. Maurice, however, found consolation in the demure French maid who served them. Every time he smiled she made a courtesy, and every time she left the room Maurice nudged Fitzgerald.

"Smile, confound you, smile!" he whispered. "There's never a maid but has her store of gossip, and gossip is information."

"Pshaw!" said Fitzgerald, helping himself to cold ham and chicken.

"Wine, Messieurs?" asked the maid.

"Ah, then Madame offers the cellars?" said Maurice.

"Yes, Messieurs. There is chambertin, champagne, chablis, tokayer and sherry."

"Bring us some chambertin, then."

"Oui, Messieurs."

"Hurry along, my Hebe," said Maurice.

The maid was not on familiar terms with the classics, but she told the butler in the pantry that the smooth-faced one made a charming Captain.

"Keep your eyes open," grumbled the butler; "he'll be kissing you next."

"He might do worse," was the retort. Even maids have their mirrors, and hers told a pretty story. When she returned with the wine she asked: "And shall I pour it, Messieurs?"

"No one else shall," declared Maurice. "When is the duchess to arrive?"

"I do not know, Monsieur," stepping in between the chairs and filling the glasses with the ruby liquid.

"Who is Madame Sylvia Amerbach?"

"Madame Sylvia Amerbach," placing the bottle on the table and going to the sideboard. She returned with a box of "Khedives."

Fitzgerald laughed at Maurice's disconcertion.

"Where has Madame gone?"

"To the summer home of Countess Herzberg, who is to return with Madame."

"Oho!" cried Maurice, in English. "A countess! What do you say to that, my Englishman?"

"She is probably old and plain. Madame desires a chaperon."

"You forget that Madame desires nothing but those certificates. And the chaperon does not live who could keep an eye on Madame Sylvia Amerbach."

The mention of the certificates brought back all the Englishman's discomfort, and he emptied his glass of wine not as a lover of good wine should. Soon they rose from the table. The maid ran to the door and held it open. Fitzgerald hurried through, but Maurice lingered a moment. He put his hand under the porcelain chin and looked into the china-blue eyes. Fitzgerald turned.

"What was that noise?" he asked, as Maurice shouldered him along the hall.

"What noise?"

Madame came back to the chateau at five, and dinner was announced at eight. The Countess Herzberg was young and pretty, the possessor of a beautiful mouth and a charming smile. The Colonel did the honors at the table. Maurice almost fancied himself in Vienna, the setting of the dining room was so perfect. The entire room was paneled in walnut. On the mantel over the great fireplace stood silver candlesticks with wax tapers. The candlestick in the center of the table was composed of twelve branches. The cuisine was delectable, the wines delicious. Madame and the countess were in evening dress. The Colonel was brimming with anecdote, the countess was witty, Madame was a sister to Aspasia.

Maurice, while he enjoyed this strange feast, was puzzled. It was very irregular, and the Colonel's gray hairs did not serve to alter this fact. What was the meaning of it? What lay underneath?

Sometimes he caught Fitzgerald in the act of staring at Madame when her attention was otherwise engaged; at other times he saw that Madame was returning this cursory investigation. There was, however, altogether a different meaning in these surreptitious glances. In the one there were interest, doubt, admiration; in the other, cold calculation. At no time did the conversation touch politics, and the crown was a thousand miles away-if surface indications went for aught.

Finally the Colonel rose. "A toast-to Madame the duchess, since this is her very best wine!"

Maurice emptied his glass fast enough; but Fitzgerald lowered his eyes and made no movement to raise his glass. The pupils in Madame's eyes grew small.

"That is scarcely polite, Monsieur," she said.

"Madame," he replied gently, "my parole did not include toasts to her Highness. My friend loves wine for its own sake, and seldom bothers his head about the toast as long as the wine is good. Permit me to withdraw the duchess and substitute yourself."

"Do so, if it will please you. In truth, it was bad taste in you, count, to suggest it."

"It's all the same to me;" and the Colonel refilled his glass and nodded.

The countess smiled behind her fan, while Maurice felt the edge of the mild reproach which had been administered to him.

"I plead guilty to the impeachment. It was very wrong. Far from it that I should drink to the health of the Philistines. Madame the countess was beating me down with her eyes, and I did not think."

"I was not even looking at you!" declared the countess, blushing.

The incident was soon forgotten; and at length Madame and the countess rose.

Said the first: "We will leave you gentlemen to your cigars; and when they have ceased to interest you, you will find us in the music room."

"And you will sing?" said Maurice to the countess.

"If you wish." She was almost beautiful when she smiled, and she smiled on Maurice.

"I confess," said he, "that being a prisoner, under certain circumstances, is a fine life."

"What wicked eyes he has," said the countess, as she and Madame entered the music room.

"Do not look into them too often, my dear," was the rejoinder. "I have asked not other sacrifice than that you should occupy his attention and make him fall in love with you."

"Ah, Madame, that will be easy enough. But what is to prevent me from falling in love with him? He is very handsome."

"You are laughing!"

"Yes, I am laughing. It will be such an amusing adventure, a souvenir for my old age-and may my old age forget me."

The men lit their cigars and smoked in silence.

"Colonel," said Maurice at last, "will you kindly tell me what all this means?"

"Never ask your host how old his wine is. If he is proud of it, he will tell you." He blew the smoke under the candle shades and watched it as it darted upward. "Don't you find it comfortable? I should."

"Conscience will not lie down at one's bidding."

"I understood that you were a diplomat?" The Colonel turned to Fitzgerald. "I hope that, when you are liberated, you will forget the manner in which you were brought here."

"I shall forget nothing," curtly.

"The devil! I can not fight you; I am too old."

Fitzgerald said nothing, and continued to play with his emptied wine-glass.

"The Princess Alexia," went on the Colonel, "has a bulldog. I have always wondered till now what the nationality of the dog was. The bulldog neither forsakes nor forgives; he is an Englishman."

This declaration was succeeded by another interval of silence. The Englishman was thinking of his father; the thoughts of Maurice were anywhere but at the chateau; the Colonel was contemplating them both, shrewdly.

"Well, to the ladies, gentlemen; it is half after nine."

The countess was seated at the piano, improvising. Madame stood before the fireplace, arranging the pieces on a chess board. In the center of the room was a table littered with books, magazines and illustrated weeklies.

"Do you play chess, Monsieur?" said Madame to Fitzgerald.

"I do not."

"Well, Colonel, we will play a game and show him how it is done."

Fitzgerald drew up a chair and sat down at Madame's elbow. He followed every move she made because he had never seen till now so round and shapely an arm, hands so small and white, tipped with pink filbert nails. He did not learn the game so quickly as might be. He, like Maurice, was pondering over the unusual position in which he found himself; but analysis of any sort was not his forte; so he soon forgot all save the delicate curve of Madame's chin and throat, the soft ripple of her laughter, the abysmal gray of her eyes.

"Monsieur le Capitaine," said the countess, "what shall I sing to you?"

"To me?" said Maurice. "Something from Abt."

Her fingers ran lightly over the keys, and presently her voice rose in song, a song low, sweet, and sad. Maurice peered out of the window into the shades of night. Visions passed and repassed the curtain of darkness. Once or twice the countess turned her head and looked at him. It was not only a handsome face she saw, but one that carried the mark of refinement. . . . Maurice was thinking of the lonely princess and her grave dark eyes. He possessed none of that power from which princes derive benefits; what could he do? And why should he interest himself in a woman who, in any event, could never be anything to him, scarcely even a friend? He smiled.

If Fitzgerald was not adept at analysis, he was. Nothing ever entered his mind or heart that he could not separate and define. It was strange; it was almost laughable; to have fenced as long and adroitly as he had fenced, and then to be disarmed by one who did not even understand the foils! Surrender? Why not? . . . By and by his gaze traveled to the chess players. There was another game than chess being played there, though kings and queens and knights and bishops were still the sum of it.

"Are you so very far away, then?" The song had ceased; the countess was looking at him curiously.

"Thank you," he said; "indeed, you had taken me out of myself."

"Do you like chestnuts?" she asked suddenly.

"I am very fond of them."

"Then I shall fetch some." It occurred to her that the room was very warm; she wanted a breath of air-alone.

"Checkmate!" cried the Colonel, joyfully.

"Do you begin to understand?" asked Madame.

"A little," admitted Fitzgerald, who did not wish to learn too quickly. "I like to watch the game."

"So do I," said Maurice, who had approached the table. "I should like to know what the game is, too."

Both Madame and the Colonel appeared to accept the statement and not the innuendo. Madame placed the figures on the board.

Maurice strolled over to the table and aimlessly glanced through the Vienna illustrated weeklies. He saw Franz Josef in characteristic poses, full-page engravings of the military maneuvers and reproductions of the notable paintings. He picked up an issue dated June. A portrait of the new Austrian ambassador to France attracted his attention. He turned the leaf. What he saw on the following page caused him to widen his eyes and let slip an ejaculation loud enough to be heard by the chess players. Madame seemed on the point of rising. Maurice did not lower his eyes nor Madame hers.

"Checkmate in three moves, Madame!" exclaimed the Colonel; "it is wonderful."

"What's the matter, Maurice?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Jack, I am a ruined man."

"How? What?" nearly upsetting the board.

"I just this moment remember that I left my gas burning at