CHAPTER VI
JOAN GOES INTO SOCIETY
Joan did not telegraph to Alec. She destroyed each of half a dozenattempts, and ended by taking refuge in silence. It was impossible tosay what she had to say in the bald language of a telegram. Merely toannounce her departure from Paris would put her in the false position ofhaving accepted Alec's proposal apparently without reserve, which wasexactly what she meant not to do, and any other explanation of thejourney would bewilder him.
Her friend Leontine, housemaid at the Chope de la Sorbonne, did not failto tell her of Alec's call the day she left Paris for Barbizon. Therewas no mistaking Leontine's description, which was impressionist to adegree. It was evident, then, that he not only possessed her address, asshown by the letter, but knew of her absence. So she reasoned that if hedid not hear from her within forty-eight hours he would assume that shewas still away from home. By that time she would be in Delgratz, and,although she felt some uneasiness at the prospect, she was brave enoughnot to shirk meeting him.
They were not children that they should be afraid of speaking theirthoughts, nor lovesick romanticists, apt to be swayed wholly bysentiment, and she could trust Alec to see the folly of rushing into aunion that might imperil his career. In the depths of her heart sheconfessed herself proud and happy at the prospect of becoming his wife;but she would never consent to a marriage that was not commended byprudence. Better, far better, they should part forever than that thelapse of a few months should prove how irretrievably she had ruined him.
This might be sound commonsense, but it was not love, yet all this, andmore, Joan said to Felix Poluski, and the little man had nodded his headwith grins of approval. Meanwhile, he sang and was busy.
Count Julius, posted now in the Pole's mottled history, had demandedabsolute anonymity before he carried the negotiations for the pictureany further. Felix gave the pledge readily, since Joan could not be inDelgratz a day ere she suspected the truth. At any rate, Marulitch wassatisfied; he introduced Felix to a well-known dealer in the Rue St.Honore, and thenceforth disappeared from the transaction. Joan herselfentered into the necessary business arrangements, about which there wasnothing hidden or contraband. The terms proposed were liberal,considering her poor status in the art world; but they were quitestraightforward. She was given return tickets to Delgratz for herselfand her maid; Felix was similarly provided for; five hundred dollars waspaid in advance, and a written guaranty was handed to her that asimilar sum, together with hotel expenses, would be forthcoming inexchange for a copy of the Byzantine Saint Peter.
Of course, reviewing matters calmly in the train, she hardly expectedthat the second portion of the contract would be fulfilled. She knewquite well that the conspirators hoped to turn her presence in theKosnovian capital to their own account, and when their scheme was balkedthey would devise some means of wriggling out of the bargain. But shelaughed at the notion that she, an unknown student, should have suddenlybecome a pawn in the game of empire. There was an element of daring,almost of peril, in the adventure that fascinated her. It savored ofthose outlandish incidents recorded in novels of a sensational type,wherein fur coated, sallow faced, cigarette smoking scoundrels plottedthe destruction of dynasties, and used fair maidens as decoys forsusceptible Kings. Certainly, Felix Poluski, judged by his past, was nobad prototype of a character in that class of fiction; regarded in hispresent guise, as he sat opposite her in the dining car of the OrientExpress, he looked the most harmless desperado that ever preyed on aquivering world.
His face seemed to be smaller and more wrinkled than usual. From Joan'ssuperior height his hump was accentuated till it showed above the top ofhis head, and the girl was conscious, though she resolutely closed hereyes to the fact, that the admiring glances with which she was favoredby some of her fellow passengers were somewhat modified by the humorousincongruity of Poluski's appearance.
At first, they tacitly avoided any reference to Alec or Delgratz. Theirtalk dealt with art and artists, and Joan had a good deal to say aboutthe delights of painting in the open air.
Felix blinked at her sagely. "Behold, then, the beginning of the end!"he cackled.
"The end of what?" she asked, with some kindling of suspicion, since herqueer little friend's tricks of conversation were not new to her.
"Of your career as an artist. Barbizon is fatal to true emotion. Itinduces a fine sense of the beauty of sunsets, of diffused light insylvan solitudes, of blues that are greens and browns that are reds. Ina word, the study of nature inclines one toward truth, whereas art isessentially a gracious lie. That is why the Greeks were the greatestartists: because they were most pleasing liars. They understood thecrassness of humanity. Long before Browning wrote _Fra Lippo Lippi_ theyrealized that
"We're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see; And so they are better painted--better to us, Which is the same thing."
Joan laughed, and the cheery sound of her mirth seemed to startle thestaid folk in the car.
At a neighboring table a middle aged couple were dining, the womandignified and matronly, the man small, slight, with a curiously bloatedaspect which, on analysis, seemed to arise from puffy cheeks and thick,sensual lips. He said something that caused his companion to turn andlook at Joan; for the woman is yet unborn who will hear another womandescribed as pretty and not want to decide for herself how far thestatement is justified.
So the eyes of the two met, and Joan saw a worn, kindly face, endowedwith a quiet charm of expression and delicacy of contour that offered amarked contrast to the man's unprepossessing features. Both women weretoo well bred to stare, and Joan instantly brought her wits to bear onPoluski's quip; but that fleeting glimpse had thrilled her with subtlerecognition of something grasped yet elusive, of a knowledge thattrembled on the lip of discovery, like a half remembered word murmuringin the brain but unable to make itself heard.
"Do you ever say what you really mean, Felix?" she asked.
"Far too often, my belle. That is why I am only a copyist.
"I am a painter who cannot paint; In my life, a devil rather than saint.
"Believe me, we artists err ridiculously when we depart from the Greekstandard. Your Whistler never achieved fame until he stopped reproducingbits of nature and devoted his superb talent to caricature."
"Caricature! Whistler!" she repeated.
"Name of a good little gray man! what else? Not portraits, surely? Wisethat he was, he left those to the snapshot photographer; for even thecamera can be given the artistic kink by the toucher-up. Have youforgotten, then, the rage of a stolid Englishman when he saw his wife asWhistler painted her? Oh, yes, art lies outrageously and lives long,like other fables."
"But Whistler might have been bluntly accurate, a thing that is notalways pleasing. For instance," and here her voice sank a little, "itmight not be altogether gratifying to my pride if some one was toanalyze mercilessly the precise reasons of my present journey."
"_Tiens!_ Let us do it. It will serve to pass the time."
She laughed and blushed. "Wait a little. We have many hours before us."
"You will never have a more appreciative audience, if only you couldmake your voice heard above this din."
"What are you driving at? Please tell me."
"You have seen the two people sitting over there?" and he twistedeyebrows and mouth awry, with a whimsical leer of caution.
"Yes; what of them?"
"Do you know them?"
"No."
"Not even the lady?"
"She reminds me of some one--why do you ask?"
"I am surprised at you, Joan. Those charming eyes of yours should bekeener. True, there is nothing feminine about Alec, and he has notsuffered, like his mother. Still, there is a resemblance."
"Felix, are you in earnest?"
"Absolutely. I, at least, have not the Greek temperament. Our friendsacross the gangwa
y are none other than Prince and Princess MichaelDelgrado. You will discover no prophecy of Alec in his father; but he ishis mother's own son, despite her weak chin and air of resignation."
Joan was dismayed, utterly astonished; the color ebbed from her cheeks."Are they going to Delgratz?" she almost whispered.
"I suppose so. It is one of the oddest things about our lives how theyrun in grooves. Just now all the tiny furrows of our separate existencesare converging on the Danube. We are like ships foredoomed to collision,that hurry remorselessly from the ends of the earth to the preordainedcrash."
"Oh, Felix, if you knew of this why did you bring me here?"
"Who am I to resist when the gods beckon? I love you, Joan, and I hateKings; but it is decreed that you shall be a Queen, so I fold my armsand bow my head like the meekest of mortals."
"I shall quit the train at the next stopping place."
"But why? If Alec and you are to wed, it is only fit and proper thathis parents should grace the ceremony."
"You harp on marriage when there may be no marriage. If Alec was not aKing, it might be different; but the world will scoff when it hears thathis chosen bride came to him from lodgings in the Place de la Sorbonne.What will Princess Delgrado think, now that she has seen me here,rushing off to Delgratz the instant I was summoned? Felix, I must returnto Paris. Happily, I have some two thousand francs due within a week,and I can then refund the cost of our tickets, and perhaps the railwaypeople will allow something for the incompleted journey."
"Calm yourself, _ma petite!_ You count like the proprietress of myfavorite cafe! And to what purpose? It would be a pity to act in thatfoolish way. There is no compulsion on you to marry Alec, and theByzantine Saint Peter still hangs in the cathedral. Let any one so muchas hint that you are throwing yourself at Alec's head, and I shall havethe hinter dynamited. No, no, my Joan, we may yield to higher powers;but we do not abandon our pilgrimage because it is shared by an oldscamp of a father whose sole anxiety is to fleece his son. Come, now,finish your dinner in peace, and let me explain to you why it is thatAlexis III. and not Michael V. reigns in Delgratz. You don't glean manyfacts about monarchs from newspapers. If I brought you to a certainwineshop in the Rue Taitbout any evening after dinner you would hearmore truth about royalty in half an hour than you will read in half ayear."
Joan, conscious of a telltale pallor, was leaning forward with an elbowon the table and shielding her face with widespread fingers proppedagainst cheek and forehead. In the noise and flurry of the train it waseasy to tune the voice to such a note that it must be inaudible to thoseat the adjacent tables; but Poluski seemed to be careless whether or nothe was overheard, and the girl fancied that Princess Delgrado had caughtthe words "Alexis," "Michael," "Delgratz." Certainly the Princess turnedagain and looked at her, while she did not fail to glance swiftly at themisshapen figure visible only in profile.
"Not so loud, Felix," murmured Joan. "Come to my compartment when youhave smoked a cigarette. By that time I shall have recovered my wits,and I may be able to decide what to do for the best."
"Wrong again!" he laughed. "Obey your heart, not your brain,_mignonne_." (He bent nearer, and his extraordinarily bright gray eyespeered up into hers.) "That is how Alec won his throne. He is all heart.Those who paved the way for him were all brain. They plotted, andcontrived, and spun their web with the murderous zeal of a spider; but,poof! in buzzes bluebottle Alec, and where are the schemers? Ah, myangel, if you knew everything you would be cheery as I and marry yourKing with a light conscience."
The two persons who were the unwitting cause of Joan's sudden misgivingsrose and quitted the dining car. No one seemed to be aware of theiridentity. Even the brown-liveried attendants did not give them any moreattention than was bestowed on the other passengers, and the girlrealized that the parents of a King, even such a newly fledged King asAlec, did not usually travel with this pronounced lack of state.
"Are you quite sure they are the Prince and Princess?" she asked,scanning Poluski's wrinkled face to learn if he had not been playingsome sorry jest.
"Quite sure," said he.
"But----"
"You wonder why they condescend to mix with the common horde? Learnthen, my Joan, that a French booking clerk is a skeptic who can beconvinced only by the sight of money. Consider the number of brokendownroyalties in Paris, and picture, if you can, the scowl of disbelief thatwould cloud the official features of the Gare de l'Est if Prince Michaelasked for a special train to Delgratz; booked it on the nod, so tospeak. It could not be done, Joan, not if one substituted 'Archangel'for 'Prince.' As it is, the senior Delgrado has probably touched afriend for the money to buy the tickets."
"Yet their names would be recognized."
Felix called an attendant. "The lady and gentleman who sat at theopposite table were the Count and Countess Polina?"
"I cannot say, monsieur. Shall I inquire?"
"No need, thank you. To be precise, since you demand it," went onPoluski when the man had gone, "I asked who they were the moment we leftParis. I saw them on the platform, and the absence of any display showedthat they were traveling incognito. I doubt very much if Alec knows oftheir journey. Can you guess why I think that?"
Joan shook her head wearily. "I am living in a land of dreams," shesighed. "I do not understand the why or wherefore of anything?"
"Listen, then, and you will see that your dreamland is a prosaic place,after all. There is a man in Paris who receives letters daily fromKosnovia, and they tell of events that are not printed for themultitude. Last night, when I was certain we should go to Delgratz, Isought him and heard the latest news. Your Alec means to economize. Hehas promulgated the absurd theory that the people's taxes should bespent for the people's benefit, and he says that no King is worth morethan five thousand pounds a year, while many of his contemporaries wouldbe dear at the price. He has also set up this ridiculous maximum as astandard, and intends to reduce the official salary list to about halfits present dimensions.
"This fantasy has reached his father's ears, and the old gentleman ishurrying to Delgratz to check the madness ere it is too late. It is asimple bit of arithmetic: if a King, who works like a horse, is toreceive only five thousand a year, what is the annual value of hisfather, who does nothing but lounge about the boulevards? No wonder oldMichael is off hotfoot to the White City!"
Despite her perplexities, Joan had to laugh, and Felix bent nearer toclinch his argument.
"You and I must stand by Alec, my dear. I too am breathing a newatmosphere. I fought against Kings because they were tyrants; but I amready to fight for one who is a deliverer. What do you fear, you? Theworld? Has the world ever done anything for you that its opinion shouldbe considered? It will fawn or snarl as it thinks best fitted to its ownends; but help or pity? Never! Its votaries in Delgratz will strive torend Alec when they realize that their interests are threatened. We mustbe there, you and I, you to aid him in winning the fickle mob, and I towatch those secret burrowings more dangerous to thrones than openrevolt. It is a sacred mission, my Joan! They who named you were wiserthan they knew. You were christened a King's helpmate, while I, FelixPoluski, am fated to be the most amazing product of moderncivilization,--an anarchist devoted to a monarchy.
"It came on me yesterday morning in the Louvre. I saw my principlescrucified for the good of humanity. Through the eyes of the Virgin Ilooked into a heaven of achievement, and I care not what the means solong as good results. One honest King is worth a millionrevolutionaries, and God, who made Alec a King, also made him honest."
Excited, exuberant, bubbling over with that very emotionalism at whichhe had scoffed a few minutes earlier, Felix leaned back in his chair andsang a quatrain in his singularly sweet and penetrating tenor.
Instantly every head was turned and necks were craned. A waiter, servingcoffee, was so electrified that he poured no small quantity into the lapof an indignant German. Joan, too wrathful for mere words, dared notrush away instantly to her compartment, though she would ha
ve given agood deal at that moment to be safe in its kindly obscurity. And theworst thing was that she saw the coffeepot incident, and was forced tolaugh till the tears came.
Cries of "Bravo!" "Again!" mingled with the iron-clamped syllables ofTeutonic protest, and she distinctly heard a well bred English voicesay:
"Foreign music hall artists! I told you so, though the girl looks anAmerican. But, by gad! can't that humpbacked johnny sing!"
"Felix, how could you?" she managed to gasp at last.
"I'm sorry. I forgot we were not in Paris. But there are some here whoappreciate good music. If you don't mind, I'll give them Beranger's'Adieu to Mary Stuart.' You remember, it goes this way--"
Joan fled, making play with her handkerchief. The fast speeding trainthrew her from side to side of the corridor during a hurried transit;but the exquisite lines followed her clearly.
Felix sang like a robin till the mood exhausted itself. Then, deaf toenthusiastic plaudits and cries for "More!" he lit a long thin cigar andsmoked furiously. Passing Joan's berth later, he knocked.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"I, the Humming Bee."
"Leave me to-night, Felix. I must think."
"Better sleep. Thinking creates wrinkles. Look on me as a horribleexample."
He went away, bassooning some lively melody, but grinning the while, andif his thoughts took shape they would run:
"The struggle has ended ere it began, sweet maid. You are in love; buthave not yet waked up to that astonishing fact. Now, why did the goodGod give me a big heart and a small head and a twisted spine? Why nothave made me either a man or an imp?"
Joan could not face strangers in the dining car after Poluski's strangeoutburst. She remained in her own cramped quarters all next day, atesome meals there as best she could, and kept Felix at arm's length sofar as confidence or counsel was concerned. On the platform at Vienna,where the train was made up afresh, she encountered Princess Delgrado.To her consternation, the older woman stopped and spoke.
"I am sorry I missed the delightful little concert your friend providedin the dining car last night," she said in French, and her voice hadthat touch of condescension with which a society leader knows how todilute her friendliness when addressing a singer or musician. "Myhusband and I retired early, to our great loss, I hear. Are youtraveling beyond Vienna? If so, and you give us another musical thisevening----"
"There is some mistake," faltered Joan, unconsciously answering inEnglish. "People who do not know Monsieur Poluski often take him for anoperatic artiste. He is a painter. He sings only to amuse himself, andseldom waits to consider whether the time and place are well chosen."
"But, gracious me!" cried the Princess, amazed to find that Joan spokeEnglish as to the manner born. "Some one said you were Polish. I doubtedmy eyes when I looked at you; but your companion--well, he might beanything."
"Both he and I earn our bread by painting pictures," said Joan. "Indeed,we are now bound for Delgratz to carry out a commission."
"Delgratz! How extraordinary! I too am going there. It is so disturbedat present that it is the last place in the world I should havesuspected of artistic longings. May I ask who has sent for you?"
Luckily, in the bustle and semiobscurity of the station, PrincessDelgrado did not pay much heed to the furious blushing of the prettygirl who had aroused her interest. It was impossible to regard one whomshe now believed to be an American like herself as being in any wayconcerned with the intrigues that centered in the capital of Kosnovia,and she attributed Joan's confusion to the pardonable error that arosefrom the talk Prince Michael brought from the smoking car.
But what was Joan to answer? She could not blurt out to Alec's motherthe contents of that exceedingly plainspoken epistle now reposing in herpocket. For one mad instant she wondered what would happen if she said:
"I am being sent to Delgratz by people who wish to drive Alec out of thekingdom, and I am really considering whether or not I ought to marryhim."
Then she lifted her head valiantly, with just that wood-nymph flingingback of rebellious hair that Alec was thinking of while riding to hisCastle of Care after a long day in the saddle.
"There is nothing unusual in my being chosen to copy a picture," shesaid. "Art connoisseurs care little for politics. To them a new Giottois vastly more important than a new King, and I am told that both are tobe found in Delgratz nowadays."
Prince Michael strolled up. He was pleased that his wife had made theacquaintance of the charming unknown, whom he had looked for in vainduring the day.
"Ah," he said, with polite hat flourish, "I feared we had lost thepleasant company of which I heard----"
"You were misinformed," broke in his wife hastily in English. "Thisyoung lady is visiting Delgratz for art purposes. The gentleman who sanglast night is the celebrated painter, Monsieur--Monsieur----"
"Felix Poluski," said Joan.
Prince Michael started as though a scorpion had found a crack in hispatent boots.
"Poluski--Felix Poluski!" he cried. "I know that name; but he was fondof using strange colors on his palette if I remember rightly."
Felix, owing to his small stature, was compelled to dodge among thecrowd on the platform like a child. He appeared now unexpectedly, andMichael's exclamation was not lost on him.
"Excellent, Monseigneur!" he said. "You always had a turn for epigram. Iam glad to find that you have not forgotten the brave days of old whenyou and I used to spout treason together, you because you hungered aftera dynasty, and I because I preferred dynamite. Odd thing, both wordsmean power, strength, sovereignty; the difference lies only in themethod of application. But that was in our hot youth, Michael----"
"Imbecile!" hissed the Prince, his red face blanching, as once beforewhen a man spoke of the perils that hedge a throne in the Balkans. "Thisis Vienna. I shall be recognized!"
Felix snapped his fingers. "They don't care that for you,Monseigneur--never did! You could have come and gone as you pleased anytime during these thirty years. If any one is feared here, it is I. But,my veteran, why this display of wrath? You know me well enough. Didn'tyou see me last night?"
"No--that is, I did not recollect. Your face was hidden."
"Ah, you had something better to look at. Well, who goes to Delgratz?Get aboard, all!"
During this brief but illuminating conversation the Princess and Joancould do nothing else but gaze from one man to the other in mutesurprise, and Joan was grieved beyond measure that Felix should treatAlec's father with such scant courtesy. Even while they were making forthe steps of the sleeping cars, she managed to whisper tremulously tothe Princess:
"Please don't be angry with Monsieur Poluski. His brusk manner oftengets him into trouble. Forgive me for saying it, but your son knows himwell, and is very fond of him, and I am sure Felix would do anythingthat lay in his power to help--to help King Alexis III."
"My son! Do you also know him?"
"Yes."
"Have you met him in Paris?"
"Yes."
"But I have never seen you at the Rue Boissiere."
"No. We met at Rudin's, and sometimes in the Louvre."
"And does he know that you are coming to Delgratz?"
"No. I assure you----"
The Princess hesitated. It was not in her kind heart to think evil ofthis singularly frank looking and attractive girl. "Will you tell meyour name?" she said, turning with one foot on the step; for they wereabout to enter separate carriages.
"Joan Vernon."
"I suppose it is idle to ask, but you are not married?"
"No, nor likely to be for a very long time."
"Aboard!" cried a guard, marveling that women could find so much to sayat the very last moment.
"Well," said the Princess, "I hope to see you at dinner. If not, inDelgratz."
Joan took good care that no one except her maid and an attendant saw heragain that evening. She felt bruised and buffeted as though she had beencarried among rocks by some irresistible current
. Even her mind refusedto act. The why and the wherefore of events were dim and not to begrasped. Over and over again she regretted the impulse that led her totake this journey. Felix, as friend and artistic tutor, was invaluable;but in the guise of mentor for a young woman who had her own way to makein the world, and nothing more to depend on than her artistic facultiesand a small income from a trust fund, he was a distinct failure. Whatwould Alec think of it all? And what would Alec's mother say when herson told her that Joan Vernon was the woman he meant to marry?
So Joan grew miserable, and developed a headache, and wept a little overperplexities that were very real though she could not define them. AndFelix dined alone, and smoked in dumb reverie, and when Prince Michael,warmed with wine and cheered by the knowledge that a wearisome journeywas drawing to a close, unbent so far as to ask him to sing, the littleman shook his head.
"You'll hear me singing in Delgratz, Monseigneur," he said. "I shallhave something to think about then, and I sing to think, just as youlive to eat. At present, there isn't a note in the box. Now, if madamecan spare you, just sit down there, and you and I will talk of oldtimes. For instance, poor Amelie Constant--she died the other day----"
"Ah, bah!" growled Michael. "That is not interesting. Old times of thatsort generally mean times one would rather forget. _Au 'voir_, M'sieurPoluski. We shall meet across the Danube. If your principles permit,come and see me at court."
"My principles carry me into strange company, Monseigneur," said Felixgravely.