Henry C. Rowland

“ Being young myself and by no means unsusceptible, I might have been very keen about her then and there, if it had not been for that repelling expression of intolerance and selfish disregard for everything but her own pampered interests. She gave me the impression of a girl whose greatest care, up to this time, might have been a disappointing gown or a piece of burned toast. ”

“ Just now, as I stood against the heavy, brocaded Florentine curtain, undiscovered by the girl who was practicing cannons on the big English billiard table, my admiration of her beauty was colored by the disapproval which a young American diplomat cannot help but feel at sight of a pretty compatriot, especially a young, unmarried girl, in a décolleté too extreme for one whose position is vouched for by her mere presence as a guest of so exclusive a household as the Mancinis'. ”

“ The count leaned back and his lips writhed in a terrible smile. I felt myself growing cold.
“I believe her, Sep,” said the count. “I have had sad reason to know something of her type—the lovely body incasing a diabolic soul.”
He rose briskly from his chair and stepped to the head of the bed, where he reached for the heavy, braided cord with its huge tassel, and glanced back at the girl, who was watching him in a sort of spellbound terror.
“I think,” said the count softly, “that I shall send for Mustapha.” ”

“ A young girl and a Catholic, with an Italian mother, not only failing to stop playing long enough to respond to the honor of being addressed by such a dignitary, but not even giving him his title and scarcely more than glancing in his direction, with a shade of petulance at the interruption—to judge from the expression of a face which, though fresh and glowing, was utterly lacking in the pleased shyness to be expected of it. ”

“ Here was a girl whose father was no doubt a keen, shrewd, American promoter who had amassed great wealth, and most deservedly, no doubt, as the result of distinct abilities. His daughter, having enjoyed the best advantages that money can buy, schools and luxurious travel, and special courses of an educational sort, and no doubt a good many warm, but transient, friends among people of all sorts—the shrewdness of her Italian mother would have eliminated the undesirables—had got a very good opinion of herself. ”

“ Perhaps at this point I might digress a little to give you a picture of the Count Mancini. I knew him, as did most of his intimate friends, for a jovial southern Italian of impulsive and, no doubt, improvident nature; former diplomat himself, infused with charm and magnetism, and no dearth of acumen when he chose to take the trouble to exert it; a kind landlord, a devoted husband—if not too long absent from the domestic hearth—and an adoring father. ”

“ The desert had swallowed her, perhaps had assimilated her. She had passed out of the plain of Occidental possibilities into the vague, illusive atmosphere of the Orient. I covered my face with my hands.
Being possessed of the power of visualization, I could picture the scene as though gazing into a crystal globe. I could see this cool, contemptuous beauty ushered into the spacious harem, with its Persian tiles and its soft, rich, Oriental hangings, with great blacks guarding the door and slave women fluttering forward to serve her. ”

“ I must say I was rather more than shocked—scandalized, in fact—and I could feel my face getting red with embarrassment at her lack of manners. If the cardinal elect was surprised, he did not show it, but after a few genial compliments he went out again into the other room looking rather thoughtful. No doubt he was wondering if this was a fair sample of the bringing up of American girls. I was thoughtful myself, so thoughtful, in fact, that it put me off my game, so that Francey beat me the string by half a dozen points. ”

“ Now, as a Catholic yourself, and knowing something of ecclesiastic discipline, do you think that an eighteen-year-old girl brought up in the church and just out of a convent school and visiting, probably for the first time in her life, in a home of the old nobility, would lie sprawled across a billiard table and continue to play when addressed by an archbishop and prospective cardinal? ”

“ A striking figure entered, softly closed the door, and drawing himself up before the count, made the graceful Turkish salutation, the hand sweeping downward with a bending of the body then carried to the forehead, the lips, and the breast. The dragoman was a splendid type of the Osmanli Turk of pure race, such as one may see in the fishermen or coast guard on the shore of the Black Sea and which few unfamiliar with the Ottoman race appreciate as being its national type. ”

“ I said, “get a grip on yourself. It may be as you say, but all the anarchists or other scum which the world has ever known have got their eyes on the money side of the business.”
“But I'm impoverished,” groaned Luigi. “I have not told you of the desperate straits we are in. All that you see here is pretense—bluff, as they say in America—to preserve my credit until I am able to get on my feet again. The estate is mortgaged to the ears, Carol's jewels are in pawn. If they asked to-morrow for a hundred thousand lire to ransom Luigi I could no more raise it than I could lift a thousand kilos. ”

“ If it had not been for that one glimpse which I had of Mustapha's face in its passion, I would have enjoyed. the reposeful feeling of a person in a conscious dream when he is being led by his spirit guide.
Looking now into the salon of the little yacht, I saw Estelle curled up very comfortably amongst the cushions, sitting schoolgirl fashion on one leg while the other, quite free of skirt, dangled with calf flattened against the rim of the locker in a way suggestive of an advertisement for hosiery. I had been astonished at the nonchalant way in which this girl accepted her captivity. ”

“ His eyes remained fixed upon her with a sort of dreamy thoughtfulness, as though he might be a judge of the Inquisition devising for some hopelessly incorrigible heretic, as the means of cleansing his soul, some torture so fearful that the possessing devil would make all haste to abandon it.
“If my dear friend had not given you his promise, young woman,” said he, “I would hand you over to my faithful Mustapha, who was my dragoman when I was attaché at Constantinople. Mustapha adores the very ground my little son treads upon. ”

“ I sprang to my feet.
“For God's sake, Luigi,” I said, “what do you mean to do? We are not living in the Middle Ages. This is no time to indulge in the luxury of revenge. You must think of how we are to get back your little boy. Remember Carol.”
The count smiled.
“I have not forgotten her, Sep,” said he, “or my little son. Don't be alarmed. I have no intention of doing as my ancestors would have done in similar circumstances. But I am sure that Mustapha can be of great service to us in this crisis. He is a man of rather uncommon ability. ”

“ And this girl had presented these facets of herself to me.
But from repeated, if sketchy, observation of Estelle I was forced to admit that there was no more sense in trying to deny her sheer physical perfection than there would be in a husband's denying the enhancement of his wife's beauty by a new gown or lingerie or something about the price of which he was excessively disturbed. Beauty is beauty, whether one wants it or approves it or not, and Estelle certainly possessed the doubtful gift from the skin out. ”

“ There was among the guests a very distinguished prelate, the Archbishop Mancini, a distant cousin of Luigi's, who was expected shortly to be elevated to the red robe of cardinal and to take up his residence in the Vatican. He was not only a personality of high ecclesiastical importance, but of charming manner, and though not much past middle age, of a type to inspire veneration even in a Protestant. He strolled in casually to watch our play just as Francey, scorning the bridge, was leaning far across the table to attempt a difficult shot. ”

“ She was not at all afraid of me, because I was so obviously the present-day American of birth and breeding, or rather, training and correct manners, that she could no more associate me in her mind with physical danger to herself than she could keep from thinking of me as a natural, generic protector. I was precisely the sort of man who, in fiction, invariably protects the lovely heroine or villainess, with no especial reference to his heroism or villainy, but merely to fill the eye as a chivalresque figure, which is the first requisite of romance. ”

“ There was the count, with his exaggerated sense of noblesse oblige struggling against his bereaved parenthood; Taggart, the practical, American business man similarly bereaved, but clear headed, alert, strong, and swift of action; Mustapha, viewing the situation with Oriental philosophy and directing his efforts not only to the rescue of the little boy whom he loved, but at the same time with an eye to the fortune of the master to whom he had given his allegiance. ”

“ It seemed to me that I had seen Francey not three quarters of an hour ago, but, of course, she might have been very tired from her long railroad journey and gone to bed without bothering with elaborate preparations.
Then I noticed that the long Venetian blind of her window was ajar. This slight detail impressed me, because nobody ever leaves such blinds ajar without securing them. One either bolts them shut or catches them all the way back or hooks them half open. ”

“ Estelle smiled in the way which had from the first aroused all of the hostility to be found in the nature of a naturally kind and easy-going fellow like myself. There was something about her smile that every man who has knocked about a little would recognize. It is the facial hall-mark of a spoiled, flattered, pampered feminine nature in which selfishness and cruelty are mingled. ”

“ I asked, “that your relations with Taggart have suffered any from this calamity?”
“No,” said the count. “He is too big a man. Almost any European might be ugly or suspicious, but you breed them differently in America. They seem to be able to look straighter and more clearly into the soul of things. We seem, if anything, to be united by a bond of mutual sympathy, and we have each tried to keep up the courage of the other.” ”

“ These visions were interrupted by the practical American millionaire, who, having recovered from the Homeric mirth inspired by Mustapha's act, now desired more detailed information as to the transaction. He wiped his frosty blue eyes.
“But I don't quite get all this, Mustapha,” said he. “Do you mean to tell me that your kinsman would pony up half a million lire for any girl, no matter how good looking?”
“Taggart Effendi,” said Mustapha calmly, “the value of money presents itself to different minds in different ways, especially when there is no lack of it. ”

“ Not content with the honest and kindly employment of the riches with which she's endowed, she must take a little boy from his bed next those who so adore him and deliver him, dewy and drowsy in the deep and innocent sleep of childhood, to a gang of devilish bandits who warn us that, at our first efforts for his rescue, he shall be tied to a pig of ballast and slid into the sea. ”

“ There are many Europeans and Americans who would cheerfully pay such a sum for an old painting or a bit of porcelain or a jewel or some other beautiful object of no actual intrinsic value, but which they might desire for their collection.”
“That is true,” said the count. “I know a man who paid more that that for a little Tintoretto which was not even signed.”
“My kinsman,” said Mustapha, “is such a collector. I have known him always as a connoisseur of woman's beauty. He has his agents in the Caucasus and even as far as Persia. ”

“ No doubt the woman has sense enough to find it far better to be loaded with jewels and supping at the Savoy than to be living by her wits—and never knowing at what moment she might find her pretty wrists in steel instead of gold and platinum studded with gems.”
He gave a short laugh.
“Upon my word,” said he, “this salves my conscience, which has never been right about the business.”
“Were the kidnapers ever caught?” I asked.
“No,” said Sinclair. “I don't believe that Mustapha ever had the faintest hope of catching them, or that his meeting with his kinsman had any such objective. ”

“ When I spoke of Estelle there was something about the bleak aspect of Taggart's face which reminded me of Mustapha.
“I had noticed that girl at our hotel in Genoa,” said he. “She was making a study of Francey, and there is resemblance enough to make a description get by. Francey's a bit spoiled and uppish, but from what the count tells me, this she-devil overplayed her hand. Francey holds herself pretty high, but her mother has brought her up too well for her to be rude. My God! ”

“ They ring true enough to bamboozle Europeans, or even Carol, who has become European in her attitude toward her compatriots, or Darnley, because the British prefer to think of Americans as crude and aggressive. But she can't fool me, because I've seen too many Americans of the sort she tries to depict, and I never yet ran up against one as bad as that. I tell you, Luigi, this girl is not only a crook, but a very raw and clumsy impersonator.”
The count shook his head.
“You are too melodramatic,” said he. “You leap at a fantastic idea and let it get away with you. ”