CHAPTER XVII.
THE QUEEN’S ADVOCATE.
The reception was outwardly a very brilliant affair indeed, with multitudes of flashing lights, clever colour effects, lavish decoration, and a prodigal wealth of flowers, as the setting for the showy uniforms of handsome men and the magnificent dresses and jewels of pretty women.
One’s first impression was an irresistible tribute to the perfect æsthetic triumph which had been achieved. But that impression was only momentary. Knowing as I did the cloud of peril which encircled the whole court, the scene soon appeared to me to be rather a ghastly mockery of Fate than a bit of beautiful realism; and I caught myself wondering how men could caper and jest and women smile and frivol in pretended unconsciousness of everything but the pleasure of the hour.
I recalled the chamberlain’s words of the day before—that the whole thing was arranged in my honour. My honour indeed! To kow-tow to the man with the dollars! To bow the knee to mammon! To fool and weedle me and dazzle me with a beautiful farce gorgeously mounted, until I would loose the strings of my own and my friend’s money bags, and pour out the golden stream to enable this kind of burlesque to be continued.
Then I caught sight of Gatrina and fell into a condition of troubled anxiety and delicious anticipation from which someone recalled me in order to present me to their Majesties—the young King and that most remarkable of women, Queen Draga.
I am not likely to forget that moment. The King who, in obedience to one of those impulses of his overpowering self-will had had courage to choose his wife from among the people and was by nature, I believe, a capable, clever and strong man, was overshadowed by his magnificent Queen. Beautiful she was not; the face was too strong, too powerful, too imperious; and although she was grace personified, in every movement and gesture of her perfectly-framed figure, it was by the wonderful magnetism of her personality that she dominated all who once yielded to the magic influence she exercised.
The few words of greeting which she spoke to me, welcoming me to Belgrade, and expressing the hope that I liked the capital, were uttered with a charm that made the merest commonplace phrase beautiful, and endowed it with the point of significant meaning of rare eloquence. At least so it all appeared to me while my own words sounded awkward, clumsy and crude in contrast.
I was replying to a question in this way when Gatrina approached the Queen, and I saw her look at me and start in intense surprise; flushing first and then turning white as the gauze dress she wore, her eyes unable to leave my face.
A few seconds passed while I went on with my reply, rambling almost at random in my confusion as I fought my way back to self-possession.
The Queen noticed something in my manner, and I saw the expression of her wonderful eyes change for a fleeting instant until she dropped them and appeared not to observe my confusion.
What I said I know not; but she smiled graciously and saying that we should have another opportunity of discussing the matter, turned to Gatrina.
“I must present you to one of my favourites, Mr. Bergwyn, the Princess Gatrina. She is most kindly disposed to all Americans, and will tell you all about Belgrade.”
The next moment I was bowing to Gatrina and the King and Queen, and their circle moved away leaving us together. I mumbled some commonplace about being charmed to have such a guide. This was for the benefit of those within earshot about us; and before she could reply an interruption came.
Elma swept up, superbly dressed and full of confidence, and held out her hand to me.
“How do you do, Mr. Bergwyn? I am glad to see an old friend here. How pale you look, Gatrina. Are you ill?”
“No, thank you. The room is hot.”
“That is so often the cause, isn’t it?” she replied, with flagrant and almost insolent disbelief in the excuse. “You must be careful, dear. You are not strong since your terrible experience recently. Do you know of the princess’s adventure and escape, Mr. Bergwyn?”
“I have but just been presented to her, Baroness.”
“Oh, I thought you had met before,” she exclaimed. “Of course, I don’t know why—but then one never does know why one makes such mistakes, does one? Let us go and sit down. You are such an object of attention, Mr. Bergwyn, that you’ll be positively mobbed if we stand here. It isn’t every day we see an American millionaire in Belgrade where we’re all as poor as mice in churches.”
She led the way to some seats, and not knowing what else to do, we followed. She played with admirable confidence. What she knew or guessed about that time in the Bosnian hills, I could not tell, any more than I could see her motive. But she seemed to understand that she had us at a disadvantage and made the most of it adroitly. She was resolved to pose before Gatrina as an old friend of mine, and I did not see how to stop her, although every word had its barb for me.
“You would be surprised, Mr. Bergwyn, and I think you ought to be flattered, at the number of people who wish to know you,” she said as soon as we were seated. “The moment I said you were an old friend of mine, I was pestered, literally pestered, by people wanting to be introduced.”
“I am here on business only, Baroness.”
“Here, to-night you mean. Oh, yes, of course, I know that. But you used to have a keen liking for pleasure you know;” and she smiled as though she knew a hundred secrets about me all elaborately dissipated and disgraceful.
“I did not mean to-night,” I corrected. “I meant my visit to Belgrade.”
“Of course, how very stupid of me. Why, it might have sounded as if I meant that in speaking to Gatrina you would be thinking of business.” She laughed with a sort of malicious gaiety. “How very stupid I am. But then, we do call you the Queen’s Advocate, don’t we, Gatrina?”
“Mr. Bergwyn may misunderstand you, Baroness.”
“Oh, no, not the least fear of that. We understand one another perfectly, do we not, Mr. Bergwyn?”
“In what way do you mean, Baroness?” I asked, pointedly.
She took up the challenge readily and laughed, quite joyously. “Why as old friends, old and intimate friends ought to understand one another, of course. What else should I mean?” Deny that old friendship to Gatrina, if you dare, was in the look she gave me.
“The seven years which have passed since we last met, Baroness, have been the stern years of my life,” I answered, for Gatrina’s benefit. “And in them I have forgotten the follies of my childhood in the real life of the world.”
“What a sage you must have become!” she laughed; but the laugh was more palpably forced than before. “Do you know,” she added, “I am just dying to tell you of this adventure of Gatrina’s among the brigands. May I, Gatrina?”
“No. It would not interest Mr. Bergwyn, nor amuse me.”
“That was the adventure in which the dog, Chris, played a part; as I told you yesterday, Mr. Bergwyn. Isn’t it an extraordinary coincidence, Gatrina, that Mr. Bergwyn should have an immense dog, positively an immense creature of the same name, Chris? I declare I’ve been thinking about it ever since I left your house;” and she turned to me with a glance. Her audacity increased with every fresh thrust she made.
“There are many big dogs in the world, Baroness, and not nearly enough names to go round. Thousands of them must bear the same; and a dog is not like us, you see, and cannot change its name.”
“Yours is such a splendid creature, too,” she said, ignoring this. “Huge, almost black, smooth-coated; just the kind of dog you would love, Gatrina.”
“You make me curious. I must have an opportunity of seeing it, Mr. Bergwyn,” said Gatrina, steadily, looking at me for the first time since I had spoken to her. She was quite calm and self-collected now, and Elma’s interposition had served one good purpose. It had given us both time to get over the surprise and confusion of the meeting.
“It will give me great pleasure, Princess,” I answered gravely. I understood, of course, that she did not intend Elma to know the truth about the hill business.
“You are feeling better again now, dear?” said Elma, solicitously. “I am so glad. I wonder what upset you. However, you have got over it, and that’s the great thing. I suppose it must have been the heat unless”—with a pause and a mischievous shrug of the shoulders—“unless it was the shock of meeting Mr. Bergwyn so unexpectedly.”
“I am obliged to you for the implied compliment, Baroness. Do you think the Princess expected an American citizen to wear a cowboy’s dress or a red man’s war paint?” I laughed, and Gatrina joined me.
“I assure you, Mr. Bergwyn, the Baroness can make the most wonderful mistakes,” she said. “I did not understand for the moment what she meant about your dog; but I believe I see it now. I do, indeed.” She was a better actress than Elma after all, and her merry laugh now was a most natural one.
“I must plead my complete mystification, I fear.”
“Of course, you can both misunderstand,” said Elma, spitefully.
“I really must tell you now, Mr. Bergwyn,” declared Gatrina; “although I said just now it would not interest you. Elma has made it interesting and quite amusing, although the adventure she speaks of was very far from being amusing. You know there are still some brigands left in the Bosnian and Herzogovinian hills.”
“Brigands?” I exclaimed in a tone of astonishment.
“I am afraid we must admit it. Well, some of them conceived the idea that if they carried me off they would get a good ransom; and they did it. But they did not get the ransom, for I escaped. After a most exciting ride I was saved by a peasant with a big dog, called Chris; and because you have a dog of the same name, I really believe the baroness thinks you must be a peasant in disguise of an American millionaire. Isn’t it ingenious and clever of her?”
“I did not say anything of the kind,” snapped Elma, viciously.
“Of course, we have tried to let as little as possible get known of the matter, Mr. Bergwyn, but this delicious theory of the baroness’s has made such a joke of it, that really I think I must tell everybody now. Would you mind if I were to say plainly that you are not an American gentleman but a Bosnian peasant, and that I know that to be true because you have a big dog called Chris? It’s such a convincing reason, you see.”
“Anything that would associate me with you, Princess, would be a pleasure,” I returned, with a bow and a smile, as if I were paying her a mere conventional compliment.
“You are trying to make me appear very ridiculous, Gatrina,” exclaimed Elma, angrily.
“I declare I shall tell the Queen and get her to let us have a tableau in which I should be the maiden in distress, and you the peasant rescuer, Mr. Bergwyn. You could get a very picturesque dress, you know; and I am sure you could play the part. But to make it complete we ought to have the baroness in, because it’s her idea; and yet I don’t see what part to give her,” and Gatrina laughed.
“I think I can offer a suggestion,” said I, deliberately. “We could reverse the thing; and instead of the Baroness being the one to discover the truth, let her have planned your abduction.”
Elma started, her eyes flashed with sudden anger at me, and she changed colour.
“What is the matter, Baroness? You are not well,” said Gatrina with a startled glance at me, followed by a searching look at Elma’s white confusion.
“It is my turn to feel the heat,” she replied, trying to force a laugh. “Really, Mr. Bergwyn, I shall begin to be afraid you have some effect on the atmosphere. First it upset Gatrina, and now me.”
“You did not like my suggestion, I see. I will withdraw it,” I answered, quietly. “Pray pardon me.” Gatrina sat thinking hard; and I guessed I had started the line of thought. “It is a curious thing,” I went on, as if merely to cover the pause; “but I have had more than one experience of the kind. I mean where I have been in conversation with people and suddenly, without any palpable cause, they have been overcome—by the atmosphere.”
“You must be a dangerous man,” laughed Elma, who was quickly recovering herself.
“Not dangerous, I trust, to—my friends”; and I bowed and smiled, and gave her a look which she understood.
We were interrupted then by someone who came from the Queen.
“Her Majesty desires me to remind your Highness that the dancing is about to commence,” he said to Gatrina, and added to Elma, “Her Majesty desires to speak with you at once, Baroness.”
Elma rose. “I suppose I am interfering with your business and so am ordered away,” she said with a sneer.
“Will you give me a dance, Princess?” I asked. The moment we were alone the feeling of restraint was revived.
“It is by the Queen’s desire,” she answered, with a shrug as she put the tips of her fingers on my arm and I led her away. It was a waltz and we danced it in silence. At the close I did not know what she would wish to do, and as I hesitated, she said suddenly:
“I suppose we must keep up the pretence. We are to go through into the further conservatory.” The place was empty save for a couple of chairs making a sort of cosy corner; and as I guessed the arrangement was of the Queen’s making, I blessed her for her unwitting thoughtfulness.
Gatrina was very pale, and as she sat down she exclaimed impulsively:
“It is almost maddening. You might have spared me this.”
“What is maddening?”
“Please not to pretend you don’t understand. That can only make matters worse than they are.”
“I understand that I wish very urgently to speak to you; but if you would prefer another time, I will go;” and I got up.
“And so force me to give some false explanation to the Queen of what I cannot explain truly. Thank you.”
I sat down again. “Can’t we clear the air a bit?” I asked.
“Having done this miserable thing you pretend not to know what it is. I suppose you can see that all this is arranged. That I was to dance with you, make myself agreeable to you, bring you here where we could be undisturbed, and then talk you into carrying out this miserable loan. You can see that surely, as clearly as you can see how successful you have been in humiliating me. You must be very glad and proud of your success.”
“Thank you.”
“Then if you didn’t plan it, why didn’t you let me know why you were coming to Belgrade? Why not tell me who you were really? Why not give me time and means to avoid you? Oh, it is intolerable! You knew I was to play jackal for the Queen with the American money-man. Elma herself told you I was what she calls the Queen’s advocate. Ugh!”
“I don’t like to hear you speak of the Baroness von Tulken by her Christian name, as if she were your friend.”
“Is it one of the conditions of your financial business that you control the friendships of the Court of Belgrade?”
She was unreasonably angry, and, of course, abominably unjust.
“I don’t see why you do me that injustice? I could not possibly know that the Queen would intentionally throw us together, and as for humiliation——”
“You knew it yesterday. The Baroness—Elma, told you so.” I smiled at the aggressive way in which she paused and threw up her head as she made the correction in the name; and the smile irritated her to still further anger. “I dislike evasion and pretence, Mr. Bergwyn.”
I winced a bit under the lash of her words, and paused; and just at that moment my memory played me a prank. That scene at the camp when we had our first sharp will contest leapt suddenly into my thoughts, and when her face had worn pretty much the same resolute angry expression. Then I leaned back in my chair and replied very deliberately:
“That’s just where you’re wrong, I think. If you knew anything about me you’d know I like evasion and pretence and falsehood. The man who can do a dirty unmanly trick in the dirtiest and most selfish way is just my type; and if he can do it to a woman—in the way I’ve done it to you, for instance—he’s my hero. Of course, he must be a big sort of brute; cunning, despicable, and mean; a clever beast at getting women into a false position so that he can enjoy a laugh to himself by making them suffer—and the more they suffer the more he hugs himself. You know the kind of man; you must, because from what you’ve said about me——”
“I don’t wish to hear any more about your ideals, thank you.”
“I was only filling in the details to your rough outline. But what I want you to understand is, your outline is right and that you have just such a brute to deal with in me.”
She did not answer for quite a time and sat tearing to pieces nervously a leaf she had plucked from a plant near.
“I did not say anything of the kind.”
“You see it’s this way,” I said, not heeding her words. “I came to Belgrade to humiliate you, to insult you, to trample——”
“Don’t, Mr. Bergwyn,” she cried, quickly.
I threw up my hands as one who is aggrieved. “You won’t let me tell you the truth, you see. I think it’s a little hard on me, anyway. A man doesn’t get many chances of complete self-revelation; and I was just enjoying——”
She was looking straight out in front of her and turned her head with one swift glance that stopped my banter. I broke off and said very earnestly:
“If I did not come for that purpose then I came to serve you.”
“You should not have come at all. You cannot serve me.”
“On the contrary I have already done so. I know what you do not—the reason behind your—behind the supposed brigand business.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard what part I suggested for the Baroness von Tulken in the tableau. She would know how to play the part to the life.”
She sat up suddenly and faced me, her features flushed and her eyes eager.
“How do you think you know this?”
“I don’t think. I know. The scheme was laid here in Belgrade, and the men who carried it out were hired and paid by the Duke Barinski. I can produce the men who will identify him.”
“It can’t be. How did you learn it?”
“Money; and the aid of a staunch friend of yours.”
“A friend of mine?”
“Karasch.”
“Karasch? Karasch.” She repeated the name in a tone of reminiscence, very gentle and low, and putting her hand to her eyes sat back as if in dismay or pleasure at the associations connected with it. But a moment afterwards the emotion, whether pleasure or pain, passed, and her face, as she took her hand from it and sat up again, was colder and sterner than I had ever seen it.
“And you connect the Baroness with this?”
“I do, and can prove it.” Her eyes hardened and her lip curled.
“I congratulate you upon your manliness, Mr. Bergwyn. I know the real reason for your presence in Belgrade; the Baroness told me that: your old and intimate friend whom you are now maligning in this chivalrous way.”
And then I knew that Elma had, indeed, been talking about that old time; and I understood many things; amongst them the mess of mischief she had brewed for me.