Crittenden Marriott

“ Rutile shook his head, doubtfully. “I’m not certain,” he admitted. “You navy people have the best of it, after all. You haven’t got to agitate your supposed brains. All you’ve got to do is to fight, and if you get a chance to distinguish yourself the whole country knows it and the Sunday newspapers call you heroes and clamor for your promotion. We diplomats, on the other hand, are valuable in the inverse ratio that we make it known.”
“Yes?” remarked Topham, languidly.
“Yes! Of course!” returned Rutile, impatiently. “We diplomats are the real defenders of the peace. Suppose we had a war! ”

“ For an hour or more Topham paced the deck hoping in vain for another sight of the girl who had so fascinated him. The wind was blowing strongly, and as the Marlatic approached Sandy Hook, she began to pitch with, the motion of the Atlantic rollers, and her passengers began to disappear. When she crossed the bar all but a handful had deserted the decks. Many seats were vacant when the gong rang for luncheon, and as Miss Ferreira did not appear, Topham began to fear that she was a poor sailor who would keep her cabin all throughout the voyage. ”

“ The navy officer flushed angrily, and the next moment the other launched a blow at his face.
Topham parried and struck back shrewdly. He landed, but before he could follow up his advantage, the other German precipitated himself upon him, and in an instant the carriage became a pandemonium of struggling, kicking, fighting men.
Topham was big and strong, but he had been taken unawares, and found himself pinned down in the seat in the grasp of men stronger than he. Ferreira, though he struggled, did so ineffectively, and both intruders were practically free to concentrate on the American. ”

“ Then, quick as it had come, the stress vanished and her features shaped themselves into a mocking smile.
“So,” she said, bitingly. “So all those pretty things you said to me in Berlin and in Tokio were false. You amused yourself, perhaps?”
Topham shook his head. “They were true,” he affirmed. “They are still true. You know it.”
His directness was disconcerting. An appeal to one against one’s self usually is. But the scorn in the woman’s eyes did not lessen.
“Yet you refuse?”
“Yes! I refuse.” A flash of passion trembled in Topham’s tones. “God!” he cried. ”

“ For a moment the girl did not answer. Then she put out her hand and pushed the chair near her an inch or two farther away. “The chair belongs to the ship and the deck belongs to whomever occupies it,” she replied coldly, though her heart was fluttering.
The smile faded from Ouro Preto’s face. “Oh! but why are you so cruel,” he cried, wildly. “What have I done to anger you? Is it that my love offends you?”
Miss Byrd gasped. “I am not offended at all,” she answered briskly, ignoring the suggestion in the young fellow’s last words. ”

“ I am not the inexperienced girl you think me. I am—”
“You are the one woman for me. You do not love me, senorita. I know it. But I can teach you to love me if you will give me the chance. And I can give you much—much. I do not speak of money—no! no! do not think of it! Money is nothing! I can give you more than money. I can give you position, rank, fame.”
Miss Byrd forced a laugh. “Where?” she demanded. “In Brazil?”
“In Brazil, yes, at first; then where you will. Listen, senorita, my mother is descended from the princely German house of Hochstein, now extinct in the male line. ”

“ Rutile’s fancies had become facts—the facts of a great political conspiracy. It was not merely what Ouro Preto had said; taken alone that might be set down as the vaporings of a dreamer who took wishes and fancies for facts. But dreamers do not receive letters such as his from the Kaiser; and their dreams are not corroborated by a horde of apparently unrelated facts such as Miss Byrd had in her possession. ”

“ As a man, yes! As an officer of the United States, no. It is not for me to believe or disbelieve. It is for me to obey. My orders were to cable what I knew. That means that I am to telegraph any later information. But, pardon me, the ten minutes are up. I must write my dispatch and go!”
He turned away, resolutely enough to all appearances. His tones were even and his manner calm. But the countess guessed that beneath the mask his heart was storming madly. She knew men, did the countess Elsa! She had met Topham’s quiet sort before. ”

“ Once more she saw the swaying deck, flashing waves, the masts and funnels tracing wide arcs across the blue firmament. Ouro Preto was still speaking; he was asking her something—something that she could not understand. With new eyes she looked upon him. All fascination, all liking, all friendship had vanished. She could see only the enemy with whom she must cope. Blindly she struggled to her feet, pushed past the man’s opposing arms and fled away to her stateroom.
That night she sent the long wireless message that McNew showed to the President. ”

“ That such a thing should happen in a German railway carriage, of all places in the world, was to him almost too amazing for belief.
Meanwhile Ferreira had snatched up the cards. “They shall die for this,” he hissed. “Madre de Dios! But they shall die. I have friends here. They will act for you too, Senor Topham! Come! Let us seek them!” He made as if to leave the train. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV
“Say, Topham! I’m mighty glad to see you.” Stites, secretary of legation in Tokio, lifted his wine glass and leaned across the spotless cloth. “Mighty glad to see you. A glass of wine with you, old man.”
Topham lifted his glass and smiled. “Thank you,” he answered. “It makes a fellow feel good to be welcomed like this. You people have been mighty good to me.”
“Oh! Well!” Stites laughed. “We’ll show you the other side of it tomorrow.” ”

“ Obstacles arise out of nothing. There are so many interlocking interests over here. One touches a Frenchman and a Russian suddenly springs up in his way. One whispers a secret to an Italian, and the next day an Englishman greets him with it. You Americans are happy to stand aside from all this. As the great Washington said, you have no entangling alliances. You need no diplomacy. But here—here every man must be a diplomat and must intrigue. It is of a necessity.”
The Brazilian raised his stick and beckoned again to the waiter. ”

“ It seemed to him incredible that it had been only that morning that he had parted from Elsa—he thought of her as Elsa—at the steamer. It seemed weeks even since he had gazed into her eyes across the traffic that thronged the street.
By and by a man came down the stairs. Topham recognized him as his Spanish-American acquaintance of the cigarette episode and grinned. “They’re all in it,” he observed. “But I don’t care. I don’t care a continental damn.” ”

“ With a disgusted grunt, McNew, editor and proprietor of the New York Gazette, flung himself back in his chair. He was impatient by nature, and since he had bought the Gazette and made it the most notorious if not the most famous paper in New York, he had stopped concealing the fact. It is a bad thing for some men to succeed too soon in life. ”

“ Topham knitted his brows. “Of course you are right,” he said didactically, “as to the original meaning of the Monroe doctrine. But the meaning has changed. Today it is analogous to the ‘balance of power’ in Europe, to maintain which so many wars have been fought. Whatever our motives in establishing it, we support it now as a measure of protection to ourselves. If we permit one European country to acquire land over here, others will crowd in and our geographical isolation—an isolation that saves us from the military terrors and burdens of Europe—will be at an end. ”

“ The revolution has two prominent leaders; the Count of Ouro Preto, and his son. In Berlin we somehow got an idea that the old man was dead, but he isn’t. He is very much alive! It is his wife, the daughter of the duke of Hochstein, through whom your friends claim the duchy, who is dead.
“The old count is all sorts of a man. Like Castro of Venezuela he was a cattle-thief in early days—or so his enemies say—and graduated, through a period of banditism, to political prominence and enormous wealth. He has organized the rebellion and has it working like clockwork. ”

“ Then he deals around again and again, card by card, all face up, until each man has a full poker hand. After each round, you bet what you like. All the cards in all the hands except one are exposed. It’s the one secret card that makes the doubt in the game. Only one card, and yet it makes the game more exciting than if all five were hidden. Well! diplomacy is much like that—especially diplomacy as this woman plays it. She has shown all her cards except one—what Germany is to get out of it all. A mighty clever woman, Topham, and as pretty as she is clever. ”

“ If the Windbird should run without lights, as she certainly would if Ouro Preto should suspect pursuit (and as she might in any case) , she would be invisible even at close range, unless betrayed by the glow from her funnels. To find her without further help from Rutile would be like seeking a needle in the darkest sort of a [Pg 253] haystack. Even with Rutile’s aid, Topham felt that he had no right to hope to find her while night lasted. ”

“ Now comes Ouro Preto and his sister, children of this daughter, backed by enormous wealth, and petition the Emperor to revive the duchy in their behalf. You see, her marriage to the duke was proper and religious and all that, and was only morganatic because the duke was chief of a mediatized German house, and couldn’t marry except among his princely beery peers. Now the Ouro Pretos have faked up a royal pedigree for the ballet dancer. If they can make it stick, they establish her moral claim to the duchy, and gain a sort of backstairs standing for themselves. ”

“ Topham was not listening. Rutile’s mention of Brazil had given him the opening he desired.
“That reminds me,” he said, awkwardly, “What do you think of Count Ouro Preto and his sister? Risdon was speaking of them this morning, you know. They’re Brazilians, aren’t they?”
Rutile swallowed. It is not altogether pleasant to be checked so abruptly when talking about one’s self. Then he laughed.
“You’re the directest ever!” he remarked. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to know about the Countess Elsa, and save me telling you a lot of stuff you didn’t listen to? ”

“ Topham took it all in. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful! I’ve never been to Japan before and it—well, it’s overpowering.”
“Of course! Everything is, in this country. We’ve got maids at the embassy—the custom of the country, my boy—that are dreams of loveliness. Madame l’Ambassadrice objected and to please her I tried to get ugly ones. Nothing doing, my boy. There aren’t any in Japan—except those that wear Melican man’s clothes.” ”

“ But what were the Kaiser’s conditions. Shrink as he might from questioning the acts of the woman he loved, he could not forget the role that Stites had ascribed to her. Putting beside this her own assertions that association with her spelled peril to his honor the obvious explanation was that she was engaged in some proceeding inimical to his country—some conspiracy that it was his duty as an officer of the United States to discover and to crush. ”

“ He found himself in the midst of a jolly laughing throng that crowded and pushed and hugged and kissed and wept a little sometimes, but that the most part gave itself up to a perpetual chattering, like a flock of magpies—with more noise but with little more sense. All sorts of people were there, from the brandnew bride on her honeymoon to the gray old lady who was taking her granddaughter abroad ”

“ They seemed to fill the girl’s whole face—to fill it so that Topham thought he did not notice its other features; though later, he found that he could picture its every detail—the great masses of red-black hair; the clear dusky skin with a rose hiding in each cheek; the nose, chin, and teeth in keeping—not regular, not perfect according to canons of art, but compelling; a face for which men die.
Recklessly the navy officer stared—stared till the red flamed in the girl’s cheek, and she stumbled, [Pg 23] her trembling fingers loosing their hold upon the rail. ”

“ Walter! You never did know how to flirt. None of your family ever did. Their directness in love is a tradition in Virginia. You never were in love with me, really. So”—with a sudden change of tone—“so you only ‘really’ met her today, did you? I suppose you’ll ran off with her tomorrow—as your father did. But there! I won’t tease you. Are you going back to God’s country soon?”
Topham drew a breath of relief. Most navy and army officers are professional squires of dames and either flirt, gossip, or drivel whenever they come into touch with a petticoat. ”

“ Topham paused. “Perhaps!” he acquiesced, after an instant. “Perhaps! Murder seems to me no less murder when done by the orders of an Emperor. [Pg 203] But it is not for me to judge. Nor will I try to question you—not even about the murder at the door of the Embassy in Berlin. God knows I shall have enough to tell the President without taking advantage of your confessions. But anything that can bring about such occurrences as I have seen tonight is a thing that no officer can keep from his chief.” ”

“ I made friends with Lady Ellen in England, and she invited me to visit her in Berlin, and here I am. They like me because I am ‘so American’—when I want to be.”
“American! I thought you were very English tonight. You had the accent pat.”
Miss Byrd laughed, a little harshly. “I always was a good mimic, wasn’t I?” she asked. “Of course, it’s hard for Americans to learn English; it’s so much like their own language. But, my word, old chappy, I fawncy I’ve caught the bally idea, don’t you know?”
Topham chuckled. “You surely have!” he declared. “You fooled Ouro Preto completely. ”