CHAPTER XXIX
EN FAMILLE
The Princess Mistchenka came leisurely and gracefully downstairs alittle before eight that evening, much pleased with her hair,complexion, and gown.
She found Neeland alone in the music-room, standing in the attitude ofthe conventional Englishman with his back to the fireless grate andhis hands clasped loosely behind him, waiting to be led out and fed.
The direct glance of undisguised admiration with which he greeted thePrincess Naia confirmed the impression she herself had received fromher mirror, and brought an additional dash of colour into her delicatebrunette face.
"Is there any doubt that you are quite the prettiest _objet d'art_ inParis?" he enquired anxiously, taking her hand; and her dark eyes werevery friendly as he saluted her finger-tips with the reverent andslightly exaggerated appreciation of a connoisseur in sculpture.
"You hopeless Irishman," she laughed. "It's fortunate for women thatyou're never serious, even with yourself."
"Princess Naia," he remonstrated, "can nothing short of kissing youconvince you of my sincerity and----"
"Impudence?" she interrupted smilingly. "Oh, yes, I'm convinced,James, that, lacking other material, you'd make love to a hitchingpost."
His hurt expression and protesting gesture appealed to the universeagainst misinterpretation, but the Princess Mistchenka laughed againunfeelingly, and seated herself at the piano.
"Some day," she said, striking a lively chord or two, "I hope you'llcatch it, young man. You're altogether too free and easy with yourfeminine friends.... What do you think of Rue Carew?"
"An astounding and enchanting transformation. I haven't yet recoveredmy breath."
"When you do, you'll talk nonsense to the child, I suppose."
"Princess! Have I ever----"
"You talk little else, dear friend, when God sends a pretty fool tolisten!" She looked up at him from the keyboard over which her handswere nervously wandering. "I ought to know," she said; "_I_ also havelistened." She laughed carelessly, but her glance lingered for aninstant on his face, and her mirth did not sound quite spontaneous toeither of them.
Two years ago there had been an April evening after the opera, when,in taking leave of her in her little _salon_, her hand had perhapsretained his a fraction of a second longer than she quite intended;and he had, inadvertently, kissed her.
He had thought of it as a charming and agreeable incident; what thePrincess Naia Mistchenka thought of it she never volunteered. But sheso managed that he never again was presented with a similaropportunity.
Perhaps they both were thinking of this rather ancient episode now,for his face was touched with a mischievously reminiscent smile, andshe had lowered her head a trifle over the keyboard where her slim,ivory-tinted hands still idly searched after elusive harmonies in thesubdued light of the single lamp.
"There's a man dining with us," she remarked, "who has the sameirresponsible and casual views on life and manners which youentertain. No doubt you'll get along very well together."
"Who is he?"
"A Captain Sengoun, one of our attaches. It's likely you'll find acongenial soul in this same Cossack whom we all call Alak." She addedmaliciously: "His only logic is the impulse of the moment, and he isknown as Prince Erlik among his familiars. Erlik was the Devil, youknow----"
He was announced at that moment, and came marching in--a dark,handsome, wiry young man with winning black eyes and a little blackmoustache just shadowing his short upper lip--and a head shaped tocontain the devil himself--the most reckless looking head, Neelandthought, that he ever had beheld in all his life.
But the young fellow's frank smile was utterly irresistible, and hisstraight manner of facing one, and of looking directly into the eyesof the person he addressed in his almost too perfect English, won anylistener immediately.
He bowed formally over Princess Naia's hand, turned squarely onNeeland when he was named to the American, and exchanged a firm claspwith him. Then, to the Princess:
"I am late? No? Fancy, Princess--that great booby, Izzet Bey, muststop me at the club, and I exceedingly pressed to dress and entirelyout of humour with all Turks. '_Eh bien, mon vieux!_' said he in hismincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming up the Balkanboilers with Austrian pine. But I hear they're full of snow.' And Isaid to him: 'Snow boils very nicely if the fire is sufficientlypersistent!' And I think Izzet Bey will find it so!"--with a quicklaugh of explanation to Neeland: "He meant Russian snow, you see; andthat boils beautifully if they keep on stoking the boiler withAustrian fuel."
The Princess shrugged:
"What schoolboy repartee! Why did you answer him at all, Alak?"
"Well," explained the attache, "as I was due here at eight I hadn'ttime to take him by the nose, had I?"
Rue Carew entered and went to the Princess to make amends:
"I'm so sorry to be late!"--turned to smile at Neeland, then offeredher hand to the Russian. "How do you do, Prince Erlik?" she said withthe careless and gay cordiality of old acquaintance. "I heard you saysomething about Colonel Izzet Bey's nose as I came in."
Captain Sengoun bowed over her slender white hand:
"The Mohammedan nose of Izzet Bey is an admirable bit of Orientalarchitecture, Miss Carew. Why should it surprise you to hear me extolits bizarre beauty?"
"Anyway," said the girl, "I'm contented that you left devilry forrevelry." And, Marotte announcing dinner, she took the arm of CaptainSengoun as the Princess took Neeland's.
* * * * *
Like all Russians and some Cossacks, Prince Alak ate and drank asthough it were the most delightful experience in life; and he did itwith a whole-souled heartiness and satisfaction that was flattering toany hostess and almost fascinating to anybody observing him.
His teeth were even and very white; his appetite splendid: when hedid his goblet the honour of noticing it at all, it was to drain it;when he resumed knife and fork he used them as gaily, as gracefully,and as thoroughly as he used his sabre on various occasions.
He had taken an instant liking to Neeland, who seemed entirelyinclined to return it; and he talked a great deal to the American butwith a nice division of attention for the two ladies on either side.
"You know, Alak," said the Princess, "you need not torture yourself bytrying to converse with discretion; because Mr. Neeland knows aboutmany matters which concern us all."
"Ah! That is delightful! And indeed I was already quite assured of Mr.Neeland's intelligent sympathy in the present state of Europeanaffairs."
"He's done a little more than express sympathy," remarked thePrincess; and she gave a humorous outline of Neeland's part in theaffair of the olive-wood box.
"Fancy!" exclaimed Captain Sengoun. "That impudent _canaille_! Yes; Iheard at the Embassy what happened to that accursed box this morning.Of course it is a misfortune, but as for me, personally, I don'tcare----"
"It doesn't happen to concern you personally, Prince Erlik," saidPrincess Naia dryly.
"No," he admitted, unabashed by the snub, "it does not touch me.Cavalry cannot operate on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Therefore, God bethanked, I shall be elsewhere when the snow boils."
Rue tuned to Neeland:
"His one idea of diplomacy and war is a thousand Kuban Cossacks atfull speed."
"And that is an excellent idea, is it not, Kazatchka?" he said,smiling impudently at the Princess, who only laughed at thefamiliarity.
"I hope," added Captain Sengoun, "that I may live to gallop through afew miles of diplomacy at full speed before they consign me to theOpolchina." Turning to Neeland, "The reserve--the old man's home, youknow. God forbid!" And he drained his goblet and looked defiantly atRue Carew.
"A Cossack is a Cossack," said the Princess, "be he Terek or Kuban,Don or Astrachan, and they all know as much about diplomacy as PrinceErlik--or Izzet Bey's nose.... James, you are unusually silent, dearfriend. Are you regretting those papers?"
"It's a pity," he
said. But he had not been thinking of the lostpapers; Rue Carew's beauty preoccupied him. The girl was in black,which made her skin dazzling, and reddened the chestnut colour of herhair.
Her superb young figure revealed an unsuspected loveliness where thesnowy symmetry of neck and shoulders and arms was delicately accentedby the filmy black of her gown.
He had never seen such a beautiful girl; she seemed more wonderful,more strange, more aloof than ever. And this was what preoccupied andentirely engaged his mind, and troubled it, so that his smile had atendency to become indefinite and his conversation mechanical attimes.
Captain Sengoun drained one more of numerous goblets; gazedsentimentally at the Princess, then with equal sentiment at RueCarew.
"As for me," he said, with a carelessly happy gesture toward theinfinite, "plans are plans, and if they're stolen, _tant pis_! Butthere are always Tartars in Tartary and Turks in Turkey. And, whilethere are, there's hope for a poor devil of a Cossack who wants tosay a prayer in St. Sophia before he's gathered to his ancestors."
"Have any measures been taken at your Embassy to trace the plans?"asked Neeland of the Princess.
"Of course," she said simply.
"Plans," remarked Sengoun, "are not worth the _tcherkeske_ of anhonest Caucasian! A Khirgize pony knows more than any diplomat; and my_magaika_ is better than both!"
"All the same," said Rue Carew, "with those stolen plans in yourEmbassy, Prince Erlik, you might even gallop a _sotnia_ of yourCossacks to the top of Achi-Baba."
"By heaven! I'd like to try!" he exclaimed, his black eyes ablaze.
"There are _dongas_," observed the Princess dryly.
"I know it. There are _dongas_ every twenty yards; and Turkish gorsethat would stop a charging bull! My answer is, mount! trot! gallop!and hurrah for Achi-Baba!"
"Very picturesque, Alak. But wouldn't it be nicer to be able to comeback again and tell us all about it?"
"As for that," he said with his full-throated, engaging laugh, "noneed to worry, Princess, for the newspapers would tell the story. Whatis this Gallipoli country, anyway, that makes our Chancellery wag itsrespected head and frown and whisper in corners and take little noteson its newly laundered cuffs?
"I know the European and Asiatic shores with their forts--Kilid Bahr,Chimilik, Kum Kale, Dardanos. I know what those Germans have beenabout with their barbed wire and mobile mortar batteries. What do wewant of their plans, then----"
"Nothing, Prince Erlik!" said Rue, laughing. "It suffices that you beappointed adviser in general to his majesty the Czar."
Sengoun laughed with all his might.
"And an excellent thing that would be, Miss Carew. What we need inRussia," he added with a bow to the Princess, "are, first of all, moreKazatchkee, then myself to execute any commands with which myincomparable Princess might deign to honour me."
"Then I command you to go and smoke cigarettes in the music-room andplay some of your Cossack songs on the piano for Mr. Neeland untilMiss Carew and I rejoin you," said the Princess, rising.
At the door there was a moment of ceremony; then Sengoun, passing hisarm through Neeland's with boyish confidence that his quickly givenfriendship was welcome, sauntered off to the music-room wherepresently he was playing the piano and singing some of the entrancingsongs of his own people in a voice that, cultivated, might have made afortune for him:
"We are but horsemen, And God is great. We hunt on hill and fen The fierce Kerait, Naiman and Eighur, Tartar and Khiounnou, Leopard and Tiger Flee at our view-halloo; We are but horsemen Cleansing the hill and fen Where wild men hide-- Wild beasts abide, Mongol and Baiaghod, Turkoman, Taidjigod, Each in his den. The skies are blue, The plains are wide, Over the fens the horsemen ride!"
Still echoing the wild air, and playing with both hands in spite ofthe lighted cigarette between his fingers, he glanced over hisshoulder at Neeland:
"A very old, old song," he explained, "made in the days of the greatinvasion when all the world was fighting anybody who would fight back.I made it into English. It's quite nice, I think."
His naive pleasure in his own translation amused Neeland immensely,and he said that he considered it a fine piece of verse.
"Yes," said Sengoun, "but you ought to hear a love song I made out ofodd fragments I picked up here and there. I call it '_Samarcand_'; orrather '_Samarcand Mahfouzeh_,' which means, 'Samarcand the WellGuarded':
"'Outside my guarded door Whose voice repeats my name?' 'The voice thou hast heard before Under the white moon's flame! And thy name is my song; and my song is ever the same!'
"'How many warriors, dead, Have sung the song you sing? Some by an arrow were sped; Some by a dagger's sting.' 'Like a bird in the night is my song--a bird on the wing!'
"'Ahmed and Yucouf bled! A dead king blocks my door!' 'If thy halls and walls be red, Shall Samarcand ask more? Or my song shall cleanse thy house or my heart's blood foul thy floor!'
"'Now hast thou conquered me! Humbly thy captive, I. My soul escapes to thee; My body here must lie; Ride!--with thy song, and my soul in thy arms; and let me die.'"
Sengoun, still playing, flung over his shoulder:
"A Tartar song from the Turcoman. I borrowed it and put new clothes onit. Nice, isn't it?"
"Enchanting!" replied Neeland, laughing in spite of himself.
Rue Carew, with her snowy shoulders and red-gold hair, came driftingin, consigning them to their seats with a gesture, and giving them tounderstand that she had come to hear the singing.
So Sengoun continued his sketchy, haphazard recital, waving hiscigarette now and then for emphasis, and conversing frequently overhis shoulder while Rue Carew leaned on the piano and gravely watchedhis nimble fingers alternately punish and caress the keyboard.
After a little while the Princess Mistchenka came in saying that shehad letters to write. They conversed, however, for nearly an hourbefore she rose, and Captain Sengoun gracefully accepted his _conge_.
"I'll walk with you, if you like," suggested Neeland.
"With pleasure, my dear fellow! The night is beautiful, and I am justbeginning to wake up."
"Ask Marotte to give you a key, then," suggested the Princess, going.At the foot of the stairs, however, she paused to exchange a few wordswith Captain Sengoun in a low voice; and Neeland, returning with hislatchkey, went over to where Rue stood by the lamplit table absentlylooking over an evening paper.
As he came up beside her, the girl lifted her beautiful, golden-greyeyes.
"Are you going out?"
"Yes, I thought I'd walk a bit with Captain Sengoun."
"It's rather a long distance to the Russian Embassy. Besides----" Shehesitated, and he waited. She glanced absently over the paper for amoment, then, not raising her eyes: "I'm--I--the theft of that boxtoday--perhaps my nerves have suffered a little--but do you think itquite prudent for you to go out alone at night?"
"Why, I am going out with Captain Sengoun!" he said, surprised at hertroubled face.
"But you will have to return alone."
He laughed, but they both had flushed a little.
Had it been any other woman in the world, he had not hesitated gailyto challenge the shy and charming solicitude expressed in hisbehalf--make of it his capital, his argument to force that pretty duelto which one day, all youth is destined.
He found himself now without a word to say, nor daring to entertainany assumption concerning the words she had uttered.
Dumb, awkward, afraid, he became conscious that something in thisyoung girl had silenced within him any inclination to gay effrontery,any talent for casual gallantry. Her lifted eyes, with their clear,half shy regard, had killed all fluency of tongue in him--slainutterly that light good-humour with which he had encountered womenheretofore.
He said:
"I hadn't thought myself in any danger whatever. Is there any reasonfor me to expect further trouble?"
Rue raised her troubled eyes:
"Has it occurred to
you that _they_ might think you capable ofredrawing parts of the stolen plans from memory?"
"It had never occurred to me," he admitted, surprised. "But I believeI could remember a little about one or two of the more general maps."
"The Princess means to ask you, tomorrow, to draw for her what you canremember. And that made me think about you now--whether the _others_might not suspect you capable of remembering enough to do themharm.... And so--do you think it prudent to go out tonight?"
"Yes," he replied, quite sincerely, "it is all right. You see I knowParis very well."
She did not look convinced, but Sengoun came up and she bade them bothgood night and went away with the Princess Mistchenka.
As, arm in arm, the two young men sauntered around the corner of therue Soleil d'Or, two men who had been sitting on a marble bench besidethe sun-dial fountain rose and strolled after them.