'What is that little light—that spark?' she asked. 'Is it a star?'

'Oh, no,' the Dictator said gravely, 'it is only an ordinary gas-lamp—nothing more.'

'A gas-lamp? Oh, come, that is quite impossible. I mean that star, there in the sky.'

'It is only a gas-lamp all the same,' he said. 'You will see in a moment. It is on the brow of the road—probably the first gas-lamp on the way into the town. Against that clear sky, with its tender tones, the light in the street-lamp shows not orange or red, but a sparkling white.'

'Come nearer and let us see,' she said, impatiently. 'Come, by all means.'

So they went nearer, and the illusion was gone. It was, as he had said, a common street-lamp.

'I am quite disappointed,' Helena said, after a moment of silence.

'But why?' he asked. 'Might not one extract a moral out of that?'

'Oh, I don't see how you could.'

'Well, let us try. The common street-lamp got its opportunity, and it shone like a star. Isn't there a good deal of human life very like that?'

'But what is the good of showing for once like a star when it is not a star?'

'Ah, well, I am afraid a good deal of life's ambition would be baffled if everyone were to take that view of things.'

'But isn't it the right view?'

'To the higher sense, yes—but the ambition of most men is to be taken for the star, at all events.'

'That is, mistaken for the star,' she said.

'Yes, if you will—mistaken for the star.'

'I am sure that is not your ambition,' she said warmly. 'I am sure you would rather be the star mistaken at a distance by some stupid creature for a gas-lamp, than the gas-lamp mistaken even by me'—she spoke this smilingly—'for a star.'

'I should not like to be mistaken by you for anything,' he said.

'You know I could not mistake you.'

'I think you are mistaking me now—I am afraid so.

'Oh, no; please do not think anything like that. I never could mistake you—I always understand you. Tell me what you mean.'

'Well; you think me a man of courage, I dare say.'

'Of course I do. Everyone does.'

'Yet I feel rather cowardly at this moment.'

'Cowardly! About what?'

'About you,' he answered blankly.

'About me? Am I in any danger?'

'No, not in that sense.' He did not say in what sense.

She promptly asked him: 'In what sense then?'

'Well, then,' said the Dictator, 'there is something I ought to tell you, something disagreeable—I am sure it will be disagreeable, and I don't know how to tell it. I seem to want the courage.'

'Talk to me as if I were a man,' she said hotly.

'That would not mend matters, I am afraid.'

They were now walking back towards the Park.

'Call me Dick Langley,' she said, 'and talk to me as if I were a boy, and then perhaps you can tell me all you mean and all you want to do. I am tired of this perpetual difficulty.'

'It wouldn't help in the least,' the Dictator said, 'if I were to call you Dick Langley. You would still be Helena Langley.'

The girl, usually so fearless and unconstrained—so unconventional, those said who liked her—so reckless, they said who did not like her—this girl felt for the first time in her life the meaning of the conventional—the all-pervading meaning of the difference of sex. For the mere sound of her own name, 'Helena,' pronounced by Ericson, sent such a thrill of delight through her that it made her cheek flush. It did a great deal more than that—it made her feel that she could not long conceal her emotion towards the Dictator, could not long pretend that it was nothing more than that which the most enthusiastic devotee feels for a political leader. A shock of fear came over her, something compounded of exquisite pleasure and bewildering pain. That one word 'Helena,' spoken perhaps carelessly by the man who walked beside her, broke in upon her soul and sense with the awakening touch of a revelation. She awoke, and she knew that she must soon betray herself. She knew that never again could she have the careless freedom of heart which she owned but yesterday. She was afraid. She felt tears coming into her eyes. She stopped suddenly, and put her hand to her side and gasped as if for breath.

'What is the matter?' Ericson asked. 'Are you unwell?'

'No, no!' she said hastily. 'I felt just a little faintish for a moment—but it's nothing. I am not a bit of a fainting girl, Mr. Ericson, I can assure you—never fainted in all my life. I have the nerves of a bull-dog and the digestion of an ostrich.'

'You don't quite look like that now,' he said, in an almost compassionate tone. He was puzzled. Something had undoubtedly happened to make her start and pause like that. But he could only think of something physical; it never occurred to him to suppose that anything he had said could have caused it.

'Shall we go back to what we were talking about?' he asked.

'What we were talking about?' Already her new discovery had taken away some of her sincerity, and inspired her with the sense of a necessity for self-defence. Already, and for the first time in her life, she was having recourse to one of the commonest, and, surely, one of the least culpable, of the crafts and tricks of womanhood, she was trying not to betray her love to the man who, so far as she knew, had not thought of love for her.

'Well, you were accusing me of a want of frankness with you, and were urging me to be more open?'

'Was I? Yes, of course I was; but I don't suppose I meant anything in particular—and, then, I have no right.'

The Dictator grew more puzzled than ever.

'No right?' he asked. 'Yes—but I gave you the right when I told you I was proud of your friendship, and I asked you to tell me of anything you wanted to know. But I wanted to speak to you very frankly too.'

She looked at him in surprise and a sort of alarm.

'Yes, I did. I want to tell you why I can't treat you as if you were Dick Langley. I want to tell you why I can't forget that you are Helena Langley.'

This time the sound of the name was absolutely sweet in her ears. The mere terror had gone already, and she would gladly have had him call her 'Helena,' 'Helena,' ever so many times over without the intermission of a moment. 'Only perhaps I should get used to it then, and I shouldn't feel it so much,' she thought, with a sudden correcting influence on a first passionate desire. She steadied her nerves and asked him:

'Why can you not speak to me as if I were Dick Langley, and why can you never forget that I am—Helena Langley?'

'Because you are Helena Langley for one thing, and not Dick,' he said with a smile. 'Because you are not a young man, but a very charming and beautiful young woman.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, with an almost angry movement of her hand.

'I am not paying compliments,' he said gently. 'Between us let there be truth, as you said yourself in your quotation from Goethe the other day. I am setting out the facts before you. Even if I could forget that you are Helena Langley, there are others who could not forget it either for you or for me.'

'I don't understand what you mean,' she said wonderingly.

'You would not understand, of course. I am afraid I must explain to you. You will forgive me?'

'I have not the least idea,' she said impetuously, 'what I am to understand, or what I am to forgive. Mr. Ericson, do for pity's sake be plain with me.'

'I have resolved to be,' he said gloomily.

'What on earth has been happening? Why have you changed in this way to me?'

'I have not changed.'

'Well, tell me the whole story,' she said impatiently, 'if there is a story.'

'There is a story,' he said, with a melancholy smile, 'a very silly story—but still a story. Look here, Miss Langley: even if you do not know that you are beautiful and charming and noble-hearted and good—as I well know that you are all this and ever so much more—you must know that you are very rich.'

'Yes, I do know that, and I am glad of it sometimes, and I hate it sometimes. I don't know yet whether I am going to be glad of it or to hate it now. Go on, Mr. Ericson, please, and tell me what is to follow this prologue about my disputed charms and virtues—for I assure you there are many people, some women among the rest, who think me neither good-looking nor even good—and my undisputed riches.' She was plucking up a spirit now, and was much more like her usual self. She felt herself tied to the stake, and was determined to fight the course.

'Do you know,' he asked, 'that people say I am coming here after you?'

She blushed crimson, but quickly pulled herself together. She was equal to anything now.

'Is that all?' she asked carelessly. 'I should have thought they said a great deal more and a great deal worse than that.'

He looked at her in some surprise.

'What else do you suppose they could have said?'

'I fancied,' she answered with a laugh, 'that they were saying I went everywhere after you.'

'Come, come,' he said, after a moment's pause, during which the Dictator seemed almost as much bewildered as if she had thrown her fan in his face. 'You mustn't talk nonsense. I am speaking quite seriously.'

'So am I, I can assure you.'

'Well, well, to come to the point of what I had to say. People are talking, and they tell each other that I am coming after you, to marry you, for the sake of your money.'

'Oh!' She recoiled under the pain of these words. 'Oh, for shame,' she exclaimed, 'they cannot say that—of you—of you?'

'Yes, they do. They say that I am a mere broken-down and penniless political adventurer—that I am trying to recover my lost position in Gloria—which I am, and by God's good help I shall recover it too.'

'Yes, with God's good help you shall recover it,' the girl exclaimed fervently, and she put out her hand in a sudden impulse for him to take it in his. The Dictator smiled sadly and did not touch the proffered hand, and she let it fall, and felt chilled.

'Well, they say that I propose to make use of your money to start me on my political enterprise. They talked of this in private, the society papers talk of it now.'

'Well?' she asked, with a curious contracting of the eyebrows.

'Well, but that is painful—it is hurtful.'

'To you?'

'Oh, no,' he replied almost angrily, 'not to me. How could it be painful and hurtful to me? At least, what do you suppose I should care about it? What harm could it do me?'

'None whatever,' she calmly replied. She was now entirely mistress of herself and her feelings again. 'No one who knows you would believe anything of the kind—and for those who do not know you, you would say, "Let them believe what they will."'

'Yes, they might believe anything they liked so far as I am concerned,' he said scornfully. 'But then we must think of you. Good heaven!' he suddenly broke off, 'how the journalism of England—at all events of London—has changed since I used to be a Londoner! Fancy apparently respectable journals, edited, I suppose, by men who call themselves gentlemen—and who no doubt want to be received and regarded as gentlemen—publishing paragraphs to give to all the world conjectures about a young woman's fortune—a young woman whom they name, and about the adventurers who are pursuing her in the hope of getting her fortune.'

'You have been a long time out of London,' Helena said composedly. She was quite happy now. If this was all, she need not care. She was afraid at first that the Dictator meant to tell her that he was leaving England for ever. Of course, if he were going to rescue and recover Gloria, she would have felt proud and glad. At least she would certainly have felt proud, and she would have tried to make herself think that she felt glad, but it would have been a terrible shock to her to hear that he was going away; and, this shock being averted, she seemed to think no other trouble an affair of much account. Therefore, she was quite equal to any embarrassment coming out of what the society papers, or any other papers, or any persons whatever, might say about her. If she could have spoken out the full truth she would have said: 'Mr. Ericson, so long as my father and you are content with what I do, I don't care three rows of pins what all the rest of the world is saying or thinking of me.' But she could not quite venture to say this, and so she merely offered the qualifying remark about his having been a long time out of London.

'Yes, I have,' he said with some bitterness. 'I don't understand the new ways. In my time—you know I once wrote for newspapers myself, and very proud I was of it, too, and very proud I am of it—a man would have been kicked who dragged the name of a young woman into a paper coupled with conjectures as to the scoundrels who were running after her for her money.'

'You take it too seriously,' said Helena sweetly. She adored him for his generous anger, but she only wanted to bring him back to calmness. 'In London we are used to all that. Why, Mr. Ericson, I have been married in the newspapers over and over again—I mean I have been engaged to be married. I don't believe the wedding ceremonial has ever been described, but I have been engaged times out of mind. Why, I don't believe papa and I ever have gone abroad, since I came out, without some paragraph appearing in the society papers announcing my engagement to some foreign Duke or Count or Marquis. I have been engaged to men I never saw.'

'How does your father like that sort of thing?' the Dictator asked fiercely.

'My father? Oh, well, of course he doesn't quite like it.'

'I should think not,' Ericson growled—and he made a flourish of his cane as if he meant to illustrate the sort of action he should like to take with the publishers of these paragraphs, if he only knew them and had an opportunity of arguing out the case with them.

'But, then, I think he has got used to it; and of course as a public man he is helpless, and he can't resent it.' She said this with obvious reference to the flourish of the Dictator's cane; and it must be owned that a very pretty flash of light came into her eyes which signified that if she had quite her own way the offence might be resented after all.

'No, of course he can't resent it,' the Dictator said, in a tone which unmistakably conveyed the idea, 'and more's the pity.'

'Then what is the good of thinking about it?' Helena pleaded. 'Please, Mr. Ericson, don't trouble yourself in the least about it. These things will appear in those papers. If it were not you it would be somebody else. After all we must remember that there are two sides to this question as well as to others. I do not owe my publicity in the society papers to any merits or even to any demerits of my own. I am known to be the heiress to a large fortune, and the daughter of a Secretary of State.'

'That is no reason why you should be insulted.'

'No, certainly. But do you not think that in this over-worked and over-miserable England of ours there are thousands and thousands of poor girls ever so much better than I, who would be only too delighted to exchange with me—to put up with the paragraphs in the society papers for the sake of the riches and the father—and to abandon to me without a sigh the thimble and the sewing machine, and the daily slavery in the factory or behind the counter? Why, Mr. Ericson, only think of it. I can sit down whenever I like, and there are thousands and thousands of poor girls in England who dare not sit down during all their working hours.'

She spoke with increasing animation.

The Dictator looked at her with a genuine admiration. He knew that all she said was the true outcome of her nature and her feelings. Her sparkling eyes proclaimed the truth.

'You look at it rightly,' the Dictator said at last, 'and I feel almost ashamed of my scruples. Almost—but not quite—for they were scruples on your account and not upon my own.'

'Of course I know that,' she interrupted hastily. 'But please, Mr. Ericson, don't mind me. I don't care, and I know my father won't care. Do not—please do not—let this interfere in the least with your friendship; I cannot lose your friendship for this sort of thing. After all, you see, they can't force you to marry me if you don't want to;' and then she stopped, and was afraid, perhaps, that she had spoken too lightly and saucily, and that he might think her wanting in feeling. He did not think her wanting in feeling. He thought her nobly considerate, generous and kind. He thought she wanted to save him from embarrassment on her account, and to let him know that they were to continue good friends, true friends, in spite of what anybody might choose to say about them; and that there was to be no thought of anything but friendship. This was Helena's meaning in one sense, but not in another sense. She took it for granted that he was not in love with her, and she wished to make it clear to him that there was not the slightest reason for him to cease to be her friend because he could not be her lover. That was her meaning. Up to a certain point it was the meaning that he ascribed to her, but in her secret heart there was still a feeling which she did not express and which he could not divine.

'Then we are still to be friends?' he said. 'I am not to feel bound to cut myself off from seeing you because of all this talk?'

'Not unless you wish it.'

'Oh, wish it!' and he made an energetic gesture.

'I have talked very boldly to you,' Helena said—'cheekily, I fancy some people would call it; but I do so hate misunderstandings, and having others and myself made uncomfortable, and I do so prefer my happiness to my dignity! You see, I hadn't much of a mother's care, and I am a sort of wild-growth, and you must make allowance for me and forgive me, and take me for what I am.'

'Yes, I take you cordially for what you are,' the Dictator exclaimed, 'the noblest and the dearest girl in the world—to me.'

Helena flushed a little. But she was determined that the meaning of the flush was not to be known.

'Come,' she said, with a wholly affected coquetry of manner, 'I wonder if you have said that to any other girls—and if so, how many?'

The Dictator was not skilled in the wiles of coquetry. He fell innocently into the snare.

'The truth is,' he said simply, 'I hardly know any girl but you.'

Surely the Dictator had spoken out one of the things we ought to wish not to have said. It amused Helena, however, and greatly relieved her—in her present mood.

'Come,' she exclaimed, with a little spurt of laughter which was a relief to the tension of her feelings; 'the compliment, thank heaven, is all gone! I must be the dearest girl in the world to you—I can't help it, whatever my faults—if you do not happen to know any other girl!'

'Oh, I didn't meant that.'

'Didn't mean even that? Didn't even mean that I had attained, for lack of any rival, to that lonely and that inevitable eminence?'

'Come, you are only laughing at me. I know what I meant myself.'

'Oh, but please don't explain. It is quite delightful as it is.'

They were now under the lights of the windows in Seagate Hall, and only just in time to dress for dinner.



CHAPTER XXI

MORGIANA

Sir Rupert took the Duchess of Deptford in to dinner. The Duke was expected in a day or two, but just at present was looking after racing schooners at Ryde and Cowes. Ericson had the great satisfaction of having Helena Langley, as the hostess, assigned to him. An exiled Dictator takes almost the rank of an exiled king, and Ericson was delighted with his rank and its one particular privilege just now. He was not in a mood to talk to anybody else, or to be happy with anybody but Helena. To him now all was dross that was not Helena, as to Faust in Marlowe's play. Soame Rivers had charge of Mrs. Sarrasin. Professor Flick was permitted to escort Miss Paulo. Hamilton and Mr. Andrew J. Copping went in without companionship of woman. The dinner was but a small one, and without much of ceremonial.

'One thing I miss here,' the Dictator said to Helena as they sat down, 'I miss To-to.'

'I generally bring him down with me,' Helena said. 'But this time I haven't done so. Be comforted, however; he comes down to-morrow.'

'I never quite know how he understands his position in this household. He conducts himself as if he were your personal property. But he is actually Sir Rupert's dog, is he not?'

'Yes,' Helena answered; 'but it is all quite clear. To-to knows that he belongs to Sir Rupert, but he is satisfied in his own mind that I belong to him.'

'I see,' the Dictator said with a smile. 'I quite understand the situation now. There is no divided duty.'

'Oh, no, not in the least. All our positions are marked out.'

'Is it true, Sir Rupert,' asked the Duchess, 'that our friend,' and she nodded towards Ericson, 'is going to make an attempt to recover his Republic?'

'I should rather be inclined to put it,' Sir Rupert said, 'that if there is any truth in the rumours one reads about, he is going to try to save his Republic. But why not ask him, Duchess?'

'He might think it so rude and presuming,' the pretty Duchess objected.

'No, no; he is much too gallant a gentleman to think anything you do could be rude and presuming.'

'Then I'll ask him right away,' the Duchess said encouraged. 'Only I can't catch his eye—he is absorbed in your daughter, and a very odd sort of man he would be if he were not absorbed in her.'

'You look at him long enough and keenly enough, and he will be sure very soon to feel that your eyes are on him.'

'You believe in that theory of eyes commanding eyes?'

'Well, I have noticed that it generally works out correctly.'

'But Miss Langley has such divine eyes, and she is commanding him now. I fear I may as well give up. Oh!' For at that moment Ericson, at a word from Helena, who saw that the Duchess was gazing at them, suddenly looked up and caught the beaming eyes of the pretty and sprightly young American woman who had become the wife of a great English Duke.

'The Duchess wants to ask you a question,' Sir Rupert said to Ericson, 'and she hopes you won't think her rude or presuming. I have ventured to say that I am sure you will not think her anything of the kind.'

'You can always speak for me, Sir Rupert, and never with more certainty than just now, and to the Duchess.'

'Well,' the Duchess said with a pretty little blush, as she found all the eyes at the table fixed on her, including those that were covered by Professor Flick's moony spectacles, 'I have been reading all sorts of rumours about you, Mr. Ericson.'

Ericson quailed for a moment. 'She can't mean that,' he thought. 'She can't mean to bring up the marriage question here at Sir Rupert's own table, and in the ears of Sir Rupert's daughter! No,' he suddenly consoled himself, 'she is too kind and sweet—she would never do that'—and he did the Duchess only justice. She had no such thought in her mind.

'Are you really going to risk your life by trying to recover your Republic? Are you going to be so rash?'

Ericson was not embarrassed in the least.

'I am not ambitious to recover the Republic, Duchess,' he answered calmly—'if the Republic can get on without me. But if the Republic should be in danger—then, of course, I know where my place ought to be.'

'Just what I told you, Duchess,' Sir Rupert said, rather triumphant with himself.

Helena sent a devoted glance at her hero, and then let her eyes droop.

'Well, I must not ask any indiscreet questions,' the Duchess said; 'and besides, I know that if I did ask them you would not answer them. But are you prepared for events? Is that indiscreet!'

'Oh, no; not in the least. I am perfectly prepared.'

'I wish he would not talk out so openly as that,' Hamilton said to himself. 'How do we know who some of these people are?'

'Rather an indiscreet person, your friend the Dictator,' Soame Rivers said to Mrs. Sarrasin. 'How can he know that some of these people here may not be in sympathy with Orizaba, and may not send out a telegram to let people know there that he has arranged for a descent upon the shores of Gloria? Gad! I don't wonder that the Gloria people kicked him out, if that is his notion of statesmanship.

'The Gloria people, as a people, adore him, sir,' Mrs. Sarrasin sternly observed.

'Odd way they have of showing it,' Rivers replied.

'We, in this country, have driven out kings,' Mrs. Sarrasin said, 'and have taken them back and set them on their thrones again.'

'Some of them we have not taken back, Mrs. Sarrasin.'

'We may yet—or some of their descendants.'

Mrs. Sarrasin became, for the moment, and out of a pure spirit of contradiction, a devoted adherent of the Stuarts and a wearer of the Rebel Rose.

'Oh, I say, this is becoming treasonable, Mrs. Sarrasin. Do have some consideration for me—the private secretary of a Minister of State.'

'I have great consideration for you, Mr. Rivers; I bear in mind that you do not mean half what you say.'

'But don't you really think,' he asked in a low tone, 'that your Dictator was just a little indiscreet when he talked so openly about his plans?'

'He is very well able to judge of his own affairs, I should think, and probably he feels sure'—and she made this a sort of direct stab at Rivers—'that in the house of Sir Rupert Langley he is among friends.'

Rivers was only amused, not in the least disconcerted.

'But these Americans, now—who knows anything about them? Don't all Americans write for newspapers? and why might not these fellows telegraph the news to the New York Herald or the New York Tribune, or some such paper, and so spread it all over the world, and send an Orizaba ironclad or two to look out for the returning Dictator?'

'I don't know them,' Mrs. Sarrasin answered, 'but my brother-in-law does, and I believe they are merely scientific men, and don't know or care anything about politics—even in their own country.'

Miss Paulo talked a good deal with Professor Flick. Mr. Copping sat on her other side, and she had tried to exchange a word or two now and then with him, but she failed in drawing out any ready response, and so she devoted all her energies to Professor Flick. She asked him all the questions she could think of concerning folk-lore. The Professor was benignant in his explanations. He was, she assumed, quite compassionate over her ignorance on the subject. She was greatly interested in his American accent. How strong it was, and yet what curiously soft and Southern tones one sometimes caught in it! Dolores had never been in the United States, but she had met a great many Americans.

'Do you come from the Southern States, Professor?' she asked, innocently seeking for an explanation of her wonder.

'Southern States, Miss Paulo? No, madam. I am from the Wild West—I have nothing to do with the South. Why did you ask?'

'Because I thought there was a tone of the Spanish in your accent, and I fancied you might have come from New Orleans. I am a sort of Spaniard, you know.'

'I have nothing to do with New Orleans,' he said—'I have never even been there.'

'But, of course, you speak Spanish?' Miss Paulo said suddenly in Spanish. 'A man with your studies must know ever so many languages.'

As it so happened, she glanced quite casually and innocently up into the eyes of Professor Flick. She caught his eye, in fact, right under the moony spectacles; and if those eyes under the moony spectacles did not understand Spanish, then Dolores had lost faith in her own bright eyes and her own very keen and lively perceptions.

But the moony spectacles were soon let down over the eyes of the Professor of Folk-Lore, and hung there like shutters or blinkers.

'No, madam,' spoke the Professor; 'I am sorry to say that I do not understand Spanish, for I presume you have been addressing me in Spanish,' he added hastily. 'It is a noble tongue, of course, but I have not had time to make myself acquainted with it.'

'I thought there was a great amount of folk-lore in Spanish,' the pertinacious Dolores went on.

'So there is, dear young lady, so there is. But one cannot know every language—one must have recourse to translations sometimes.'

'Could I help you,' she asked sweetly, 'with any work of translating from the Spanish? I should be delighted if I could—and I really do know Spanish pretty well.'

'Dear young lady, how kind that would be of you! And what a pleasure to me!'

'It would be both a pride and a pleasure to me to lend any helping hand towards the development of the study of folk-lore.'

The Professor looked at her in somewhat puzzled fashion, not through but from beneath the moony spectacles. Dolores felt perfectly satisfied that he was studying her. All the better reason, she thought, for her studying him.

What had Dolores got upon her mind? She did not know. She had not the least glimmering of a clear idea. It was not a very surprising thing that an American Professor addicted mainly to the study of folk-lore should not know Spanish. Dolores had a vague impression of having heard that, as a rule, Americans were not good linguists. But that was not what troubled and perplexed her. She felt convinced, in this case, that the professed American did understand Spanish, and that his ordinary accent had something Spanish in it, although he had declared that he had never been even in New Orleans.

We all remember the story of Morgiana in 'The Forty Thieves.' The faculties of the handsome and clever Morgiana were strained to their fullest tension with one particular object. She looked at everything, studied everything—with regard to that object. If she saw a chalk-mark on a door she instantly went and made a like chalk-mark on various doors in the neighbourhood. Dolores found her present business in life to be somewhat like that of Morgiana. A chalk-mark was enough to fill her with suspicion; an unexpected accent was enough to fill her with suspicion; an American Professor who knew Spanish, but had no confidence in his Spanish, might possibly be the Captain of the Forty Immortals—thieves, of course, and not Academicians. Dolores had as vague an idea about the Spanish question as Morgiana had about the chalk-mark on the door, but she was quite clear that some account ought to be taken of it.

At this moment, much to the relief of the perplexed Dolores, Helena caught the eye of the pretty Duchess, and the Duchess arose, and Mrs. Sarrasin arose, and Hamilton held the door open, and the ladies floated through and went upstairs. Now came the critical moment for Dolores. Had she discovered anything? Even if she had discovered anything, was it anything that concerned her or anyone she cared for? Should she keep her discovery—or her fancied discovery—to herself?

The Duchess settled down beside Helena, and appeared to be made up for a good talk with her. Mrs. Sarrasin was beginning to turn over the leaves of a photographic album. 'Now is my time,' Dolores thought, 'and this is the woman to talk to and to trust myself to. If she laughs at me, then I shall feel pretty sure that mine was all a false alarm.' So she sat beside Mrs. Sarrasin, who looked up at once with a beaming smile.

'Mrs. Sarrasin,' Dolores said in a low, quiet voice, 'should you think it odd if a man who knows Spanish were to pretend that he did not understand a word of it?'

'That would depend a good deal on who the man was, my dear, and where he was, and what he was doing. I should not be surprised if a Carlist spy, for instance, captured some years ago by the Royalists, were to pretend that he did not speak Spanish, and try to pass off for a commercial traveller from Bordeaux.'

'Yes. But where there was no war—and no capture—and no need of concealing one's acquirements——'

Mrs. Sarrasin saw that something was really disturbing the girl. She became wonderfully composed and gentle. She thought a moment, and then said:

'I heard Mr. Soame Rivers say to-night that he didn't understand Spanish. Was that only his modesty—and does he understand it?'

'Oh, Mrs. Sarrasin, I wasn't thinking about him. What does it matter whether he understands it or not?'

'Nothing whatever, I should say. So it was not he?'

'Oh, no, indeed.'

'Then whom were you thinking about?'

Dolores dropped her voice to its lowest tone and whispered:

'Professor Flick!' Then she glanced in some alarm towards Helena, fearing lest Miss Langley might have heard. The good girl's heart was set on sparing Miss Langley any distress of mind which could possibly be avoided. Dolores saw in a moment how her words had impressed Mrs. Sarrasin. Mrs. Sarrasin turned on Dolores a face of the deepest interest. But she had all the composure of her many campaigns.

'This is a very different business,' she said, 'from Mr. Rivers and his profession of ignorance. Do you really mean to say, Miss Paulo—you are a clever girl, I know, with sound nerve and good judgment—do you mean to say that Professor Flick really does know Spanish, although he says he does not understand it?'

'I spoke to him a few words of Spanish, and, as it so happened, I looked up at him, and quite accidentally caught his eye under his big spectacles, and I saw that he understood me. Mrs. Sarrasin, I could not be mistaken—I know he understood me. And then he recovered himself, and said that he knew nothing of Spanish. Why, there was so much of the Spanish in his accent—it isn't very much, of course—that I assumed at first that he must have come from New Orleans or from Texas.'

'I have had very little talk with him,' Mrs. Sarrasin said; 'but I never noticed any Spanish peculiarity in his accent.'

'But you wouldn't; you are not Spanish; and, anyhow, it's only a mere little shade—just barely suggests. Do you think there is anything in all this? I may be mistaken, but—no—no—I am not mistaken. That man knows Spanish as surely as I know English.'

'Then it is a matter of the very highest importance,' said Mrs. Sarrasin decidedly. 'If a man comes here professing not to speak Spanish, and yet does speak Spanish, it is as clear as light that he has some motive for concealing the fact that he is a Spaniard—or a South American. Of course he is not a Spaniard—Spain does not come into this business. He is a South American, and he is either a spy——'

'Yes—either a spy——.' Dolores waited anxiously.

'Or an assassin.'

'Yes—I thought so;' and Dolores shuddered. 'But a spy,' she whispered, 'has nothing to find out. Everything about—about his Excellency—is known to all the world here.'

'You are quite right, dear young lady,' Mrs. Sarrasin said. 'We are driven to the other conclusion. If you are right—and I am sure you are right—that that man knows Spanish and professes not to know it, we are face to face with a plot for an assassination. Hush!—the gentlemen are coming. Don't lose your head, my dear—whatever may happen. You may be sure I shall not lose mine. Go and talk to Mr. Hamilton—you might find a chance of giving him a word, or a great many words, of warning. I must have a talk with Sarrasin as soon as I can. But no outward show of commotion, mind!'

'It may be a question of a day,' Dolores whispered.

'If the man thinks he is half-discovered, it may be a question of an hour,' Mrs. Sarrasin replied, as composedly as if she were thinking of the possible spoiling of a dinner. Dolores shuddered. Mrs. Sarrasin felt none the less, but she had been in so many a crisis that danger for those she loved came to her as a matter of course.

Then the door was thrown open, and the gentlemen came in. Sir Rupert made for Dolores. He was anxious to pay her all the attention in his power, because he feared, in his chivalrous way, that if she were not followed with even a marked attention, she might think that as the daughter of Paulo's Hotel she was not regarded as quite the equal of all the other guests. The Dictator thought he was bound to address himself to the Duchess of Deptford, and fancied that it might look a little too marked if he were at once to take possession of Helena. The good-natured Duchess saw through his embarrassment in a moment. The light of kindliness and sympathy guided her; and just as Ericson was approaching her she feigned to be wholly unconscious of his propinquity, and leaning forward in her chair she called out in her clear voice:

'Now, look here, Professor Flick, I want you to sit right down here and talk to me. You are a countryman of mine, and I haven't yet had a chance of saying anything much to you, so you come and talk to me.'

The Professor declared himself delighted, honoured, all the rest, and came and seated himself, according to the familiar modern phrase, in the pretty Duchess's pocket.

'We haven't met in America, Professor, I think?' the Duchess said.

'No, Duchess; I have never had that high honour.'

'But your name is quite familiar to me. You have a great observatory, haven't you—out West somewhere—the Flick Observatory, is it not?'

'No, Duchess. Pardon me. You are thinking of the Lick Observatory.'

'Oh, am I? Yes, I dare say. Lick and Flick are so much alike. And I don't know one little bit about sciences. I don't know one of them from another. They are all the same to me. I only define science as something that I can't understand. I had a notion that you were mixed up with astronomy. That's why I got thinking of the Lick Observatory.'

'No, your Grace, my department is very modest—folk-lore.'

'Oh, yes, nursery rhymes of all nations, and making out that every country has got just the same old stories—that's the sort of thing, as far as I can make out—ain't it?'

'Well,' the Professor said, somewhat constrainedly, 'that is a more or less humorous condensed description of a very important study.'

'I think I should like folk-lore,' the lively Duchess went on. 'I do hope, Professor, that you will come to me some afternoon, and talk folk-lore to me. I could understand it so much better than astronomy, or chemistry, or these things; and I don't care about history, and I do hate recitations.'

Just then Soame Rivers entered the room, and saw that Ericson was talking with Helena. His eyebrows contracted. Rivers was the last man to go upstairs to the drawing-room. He had a pretty clear idea that something was going on. During the time while the men were having their cigars and cigarettes, telegrams came in for almost everyone at the table; the Dictator opened his and glanced at it and handed it over to Hamilton, who, for his part, had had a telegram all to himself. Rivers studied Ericson's face, and felt convinced that the very imperturbability of its expression was put on in order that no one might suppose he had learned anything of importance. It was quite different with Hamilton—a light of excitement flashed across him for a moment and was then suddenly extinguished. 'News from Gloria, no doubt,' Rivers thought to himself. 'Bad news, I hope.'

'Does anyone want to reply to his telegrams?' Sir Rupert courteously asked. 'They are kind enough to keep the telegraph office open for my benefit until midnight.'

No one seemed to think there was any necessity for troubling the telegraph office just then.

'Shall we go upstairs?' Sir Rupert asked. So the gentlemen went upstairs, and on their appearance the conversation between Dolores and Mrs. Sarrasin came to an end, as we know.

Soame Rivers went into his own little study, which was kept always for him, and there he opened his despatch. It was from a man in the Foreign Office who was in the innermost councils of Sir Rupert and himself.

'Tell Hamilton look quietly after Ericson. Certain information of dangerous plot against Ericson's life. Danger where least expected. Do not know any more. No need as yet alarm Sir Rupert.'

Soame Rivers read the despatch over and over again. It was in cypher—a cypher with which he was perfectly familiar. He grumbled and growled over it. It vexed him. For various reasons he had come to the conclusion that a great deal too much work was made over the ex-Dictator, and his projects, and his personal safety.

'All stuff and nonsense!' he said to himself. 'It's absurd to make such a fuss about this fellow. Nobody can think him important enough to get up any plot for killing him; as far as I am concerned I don't see why they shouldn't kill him if they feel at all like it—personally, I am sure I wish they would kill him.'

Soame Rivers thought to himself, although he hardly put the thought into words even to himself and for his own benefit, that he might have had a good chance of winning Helena Langley to be his wife—of having her and her fortune—only for this so-called Dictator, whom, as a Briton, he heartily despised.

'I'll think it over,' he said to himself; 'I need not show this danger-signal to Hamilton just yet. Hamilton is a hero-worshipper and an alarmist—and a fool.'

So, looking very green of complexion and grim of countenance, Soame Rivers crushed the despatch and thrust it into his pocket, and then went upstairs to the ladies.



CHAPTER XXII

THE EXPEDITION

Every room in every house has its mystery by day and by night. But at night the mystery becomes more involved and a darker veil gathers round the secret. Each inmate goes off to bed with a smiling good-night to each other, and what could be more unlike than the hopes and plans and schemes for the morrow which each in silence is forming? All this of course is obvious and commonplace. But there would be a certain novelty of illustration if we were to take the fall of night upon Seagate Hall and try to make out what secrets it covered.

Ericson had found a means of letting Helena know by a few whispered words that he had heard news which would probably cut short his visit to Seagate Hall and hurry his departure from London. The girl had listened with breath kept resolutely in and bosom throbbing, and she dared not question further at such a moment. Only she said, 'You will tell me all?' and he said, 'Yes, to-morrow'; and she subsided and was content to wait and to take her secret to sleep with her, or rather take her secret with her to keep her from sleeping. Mrs. Sarrasin had found means to tell her husband what Dolores had told her—and Sarrasin agreed with his wife in thinking that, although the discovery might appear trivial in itself, it had possibilities in it the stretch of which it would be madness to underrate. Ericson and Hamilton had common thoughts concerning the expedition to Gloria; but Hamilton had not confided to the Dictator any hint of what Mrs. Sarrasin had told him, and what Dolores had told Mrs. Sarrasin. On the other hand, Ericson did not think it at all necessary to communicate to Hamilton the feelings with which the prospect of a speedy leaving of Seagate Hall had inspired him. Soame Rivers, we may be sure, took no one into the secret of the cyphered despatch which he had received, and which as yet he had kept in his own exclusive possession. If the gifted Professor Flick and his devoted friend Mr. Copping had secrets—as no doubt they had—they could hardly be expected to proclaim them on the house-tops of Seagate Hall—a place on the shores of a foreign country. The common feeling cannot be described better than by saying that everybody wanted everybody else to get to bed.

The ladies soon dispersed. But no sooner had Mrs. Sarrasin got into her room than she hastily mounted a dressing-gown and sought out Dolores, and the two settled down to low-toned earnest talk as though they were a pair of conspirators—which for a noble purpose they were.

The gentlemen, as usual, went to the billiard-room for cigars and whisky-and-soda. The two Americans soon professed themselves rather tired, and took their candles and went off to bed. But even they would seem not to be quite so sleepy and tired as they may have fancied; for they both entered the room of Professor Flick and began to talk. It was a very charming 'apartment' in the French sense. The Professor had a sitting-room very tastefully furnished and strewn around with various books on folk-lore; and he had a capacious bedroom. Copping flung himself impatiently on the sofa.

'Look here,' Copping whispered, 'this business must be done to-night. Do you hear?—this very night.'

'I know it,' the Professor said almost meekly.

'What have you heard?' Copping asked fiercely. 'Do you know anything more about Gloria than I know—than I got to know to-night?'

'Nothing more about Gloria, but I know that I am on the straight way to being found out.' And the Professor drooped.

'Found out? What do you mean? Found out for what?'

'Well, found out for a South American professing to be a Yankee.'

'But who has found you out?'

'That Spanish-London girl—that she-devil—Miss Paulo. She suddenly talked to me in Spanish—and I was thrown off my guard.'

'You fool!—and you answered her in Spanish?'

'No I didn't—I didn't say a word—but I saw by her look that she knew I understood her—and you'll see if they don't suspect something.'

'Of course they will suspect something. South Americans passing off as North Americans! here, here—with him in the house! Why, the light shines through it! Good heavens, what a fool you are! I never heard of anything like it!'

'I am always a failure,' the downcast Professor admitted, 'where women come into the work—or the play.'

The places of the two men appeared to have completely changed. The Professor was no longer the leader but the led. The silent and devoted Mr. Andrew J. Copping was now taking the place of leader.

'Well,' Copping said contemptuously, 'you have got your chance just as I have. If you manage this successfully we shall get our pardon—and if we don't we shan't.'

'If we fail,' the learned Professor said, 'I shan't return to Gloria.'

'No, I dare say not. The English police will take good care of that, especially if Ericson should marry Sir Rupert's daughter. No—and do you fancy that even if the police failed to find us, those that sent us out would fail to find us? Do you think they would let us carry their secrets about with us? Why, what a fool you are!'

'I suppose I am,' the distressed student of folk-lore murmured.

'Many days would not pass before there was a dagger in both our hearts. It is of no use trying to avoid the danger now. Rally all your nerves—get together all your courage and coolness. This thing must be done to-night—we have no time to lose—and according to what you tell me we are being already found out. Mind—if you show the least flinching when I give you the word—I'll put a dagger into you! Hush—put your light out—I'll come at the right time.'

'You are too impetuous,' the Professor murmured with a sort of groan, and he took off his moony spectacles in a petulant way and put them on the table. Behold what a change! Instead of a moon-like beneficence of the spectacles, there was seen the quick shifting light of two dark, fierce, cruel, treacherous, cowardly eyes. They were eyes that might have looked out of the head of some ferocious and withal cowardly wild beast in a jungle or a forest. One who saw the change would have understood the axiom of a famous detective, 'No disguise for some men half so effective as a pair of large spectacles.'

'Put on your spectacles,' Copping said sternly.

'What's the matter? We are here among friends.'

'But it is so stupid a trick! How can you tell the moment when someone may come in?'

'Very good,' the Professor said, veiling his identity once again in the moony spectacles; 'only I can tell you I am getting sick of the dulness of all this, and I shall be glad of anything for a change.'

'You'll have a change soon enough,' Copping said contemptuously. 'I hope you will be equal to it when it comes.'

'How long shall I have to wait?'

'Until I come for you.'

'With the dagger, perhaps?' Professor Flick said sarcastically.

'With the dagger certainly, but I hope with no occasion for using it.'

'I hope so too; you might cut your fingers with it.'

'Are you threatening me?' Copping asked fiercely, standing up. He spoke, however, in the lowest of tones.

'I almost think I am. You see you have been threatening me—and I don't like it. I never professed to have as much courage as you have—I mean as you say you have; but I'm like a woman, when I'm driven into a corner I don't much care what I do—ah! then I am dangerous! It's not courage, I know, it's fear; but a man afraid and driven to bay is an ugly creature to deal with. And then it strikes me that I get all the dullest and also the most dangerous part of the work put on me, and I don't like that.'

Copping glanced for a moment at his colleague with eyes from which, according to Carlyle's phrase, 'hell-fire flashed for an instant.' Probably he would have very much liked to employ the dagger there and then. But he knew that that was not exactly the time or place for a quarrel, and he knew too that he had been talking too long with his friend already, and that he might on coming out of Professor Flick's room encounter some guest in the corridor. So by an effort he took off from his face the fierce expression, as one might take off a mask.

'We can't quarrel now, we two,' he said. 'When we come safe out of this business——'

'If we come safe out of this business,' the Professor interposed, with a punctuating emphasis on the 'if.'

Copping answered all unconsciously in the words of Lady Macbeth.

'Keep your courage up, and we shall do what we want to do.'

Then he left the room, and cautiously closed the door behind him, and crept stealthily away.

Ericson, Hamilton, and Sarrasin remained with Sir Rupert after the distinguished Americans had gone. There was an evident sense of relief running through the company when these had gone. Sir Rupert could see with half an eye that some news of importance had come.

'Well?' he asked; and that was all he asked.

'Well,' the Dictator replied, 'we have had some telegrams. At least Hamilton and I have. Have you heard anything, Sarrasin?'

'Something merely personal, merely personal,' Sarrasin answered with a somewhat constrained manner—the manner of one who means to convey the idea that the tortures of the Inquisition should not wrench that secret from him. Sarrasin was good at most things, but he was not happy at concealing secrets from his friends. Even as it was he blinked his eyes at Hamilton in a way that, if the others were observing him just then, must have made it apparent that he was in possession of some portentous communication which could be divulged to Hamilton alone. Sir Rupert, however, was not thinking much of Sarrasin.

'I mustn't ask about your projects,' Sir Rupert said; 'in fact, I suppose I had better know nothing about them. But, as a host, I may ask whether you have to leave England soon. As a mere matter of social duty I am entitled to ask that much. My daughter will be so sorry——'

'We shall have to leave for South America very soon, Sir Rupert,' the Dictator said—'within a very few days. We must leave for London to-morrow by the afternoon train at the latest.'

'How do you propose to enter Gloria?' Sir Rupert asked hesitatingly. What he really would have liked to ask was—'What men, what armament, have you got to back you when you land in your port?'

The Dictator divined the meaning.

'I go alone,' he said quietly.

'Alone!'

'Yes, except for the two or three personal friends who wish to accompany me—as friends, and not as a body-guard. I dare say the boy there,' and he nodded at Hamilton, 'will be wanting to step ashore with me.'

'Oh, yes, I shall step ashore at the same moment, or perhaps half a second later,' Hamilton said joyously. 'I'm a great steppist.'

'Bear in mind that I am going too,' Sarrasin interposed.

'We shall not go without you, Captain Sarrasin,' Ericson answered with a smile. For he felt well assured that when Captain Sarrasin stepped ashore, Mrs. Sarrasin would be in step with him.

'Do you go unarmed?' Sir Rupert asked.

'Absolutely unarmed. I am not a despot coming to recapture a rebel kingdom—I am going to offer my people what help I can to save their Republic for them. If they will have me, I believe I can save the Republic; if they will not——' He threw out his hands with the air of one who would say, 'Then, come what will, it is no fault of mine.'

'Suppose they actually turn against you?'

'I don't believe they will. But if they do, it will no less have been an experiment well worth the trying, and it will only be a life lost.'

'Two lives lost,' Hamilton pleaded mildly.

'Excuse me, three lives lost, if you please,' Sarrasin interposed, 'or perhaps four.' For he was thinking of his heroic wife, and of the general understanding between them that it would be much more satisfactory that they should die together than that one should remain behind.

Sir Rupert smiled and sighed also. He was thinking of his romantic and adventurous youth.

'By Jove!' he said, 'I almost envy you fellows your expedition and your enthusiasm. There was a time—and not so very long ago—when I should have loved nothing better than to go with you and take your risks. But office-holding takes the enthusiasm out of us. One can never do anything after he has been a Secretary of State.'

'But, look here,' Hamilton said, 'here is a man who has been a Dictator——'

'Quite a different thing, my dear Hamilton,' Sir Rupert replied. 'A Dictator is a heroic, informal, unconventional sort of creature. There are no rules and precedents to bind him. He has no permanent officials. No one knows what he might or might not turn out. But a Secretary of State is pledged to respectability and conventionality. St. George might have gone forth to slay the dragon even though he had several times been a Dictator; never, never, if he had even once been Secretary of State.'

Captain Sarrasin took all this quite seriously, and promised himself in his own mind that nothing on earth should ever induce him to accept the office of Secretary of State. The Dictator quite understood Sir Rupert. He had learned long since to recognise the fact that Sir Rupert had set out in life full of glorious romantic dreams and with much good outfit to carry him on his way—but not quite outfit enough for all he meant to do. So, after much struggle to be a hero of romance, he had quietly settled down in time to be a Secretary of State. But the Dictator greatly admired him. He knew that Sir Rupert had just barely missed a great career. There is a genuine truth contained in the Spanish proverb quoted by Dr. Johnson, that if a man would bring home the wealth of the Indies he must take out the wealth of the Indies with him. If you will bring home a great career, you must take out with you the capacity to find a great career.

'You see, I had better not ask you too much about your plans,' Sir Rupert said hastily; 'although, of course it relieves me from all responsibility to know that you are only making a peaceful landing.'

'Like any ordinary travellers,' Hamilton said.

'Ah, well, no—I don't quite see that, and I rather fancy Ericson would not quite see it either. Of course you are going with a certain political purpose—very natural and very noble and patriotic; but still you are not like ordinary travellers—not like Cook's tourists, for example.'

'No-o-o,' Captain Sarrasin almost roared. The idea of his being like a Cook's tourist!

'Well, that's what I say. But what I was coming to is this. Your purposes are absolutely peaceful, as you assure me—peaceful, I mean, as regards the country on whose shores you are landing.'

'We shall land in Gloria,' the Dictator said, 'for the sake of Gloria, for the love of Gloria.'

'Yes, I know that well. But men might do that in the sincerest belief that for the sake of Gloria and for the love of Gloria they were bound to overthrow by force of arms some bad Government. Now that I understand distinctly is not your purpose.'

'That,' the Dictator said, 'is certainly not our primary purpose. We are going out unarmed and unaccompanied. If the existing Government are approved of by the people—well, then our lives are in their hands. But if the people are with us——'

'Yes—and if the existing Government should refuse to recognise the fact?'

'Then, of course, the people will put them aside.

'Ah! and so there may be civil war?'

'If I understand the situation rightly, the people will by the time we land see through the whole thing, and will thrust aside anyone who endeavours to prevent them from resisting the invader on the frontier. I only hope that we may be there in time to prevent any act of violence. What Gloria has to do now is to defend and to maintain her national existence; we have no time for the trial or the punishment of worthless or traitorous ministers and officials.'

'Well, well,' Sir Rupert said, 'I suppose I had better ask no questions nor know too much of your plans. They are honourable and patriotic, I am sure; and indeed it does not much become a part of our business here, for we have never been in very cordial relations with the new Government of Gloria, and I suppose now we shall never have any occasion to trouble ourselves much about it. So I wish you from my heart all good-fortune; but of course I wish it as the personal friend, and not as the Secretary of State. That officer has no wish but that satisfactory relations may be obtained with everybody under the sun.'

Ericson smiled, half sadly. He was thinking that there was even more of an official fossilisation of Sir Rupert's earlier nature than Sir Rupert himself had suspected or described. Hamilton assumed that it was all the natural sort of thing—that everybody in office became like that in time. Sarrasin again told himself that at no appeal less strong than that of a personal and imploring request from her gracious Majesty herself would he ever consent to become a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Sir Rupert had come to have a very strong feeling of friendship and even of affection for the Dictator. He thought him far too good a man to be thrown away on a pitiful South American Republic. But of late he accepted the situation. He understood—at all events, he recognised—the almost fanatical Quixotism that was at the base of Ericson's character, and he admired it and was also provoked by it, for it made him see that remonstrance was in vain.

Sir Rupert felt himself disappointed, although only in a vague sort of way. Half-unconsciously he had lately been forming a wish for the future of his daughter, and now he was dimly conscious that that wish was not to be realised. He had been thinking that Helena was much drawn towards the Dictator, and he did not see where he could have found a more suitable husband. Ericson did not come of a great family, to be sure, but Sir Rupert saw more and more every day that the old-fashioned social distinctions were not merely crumbling but positively breaking down, and he knew that any of the duchesses with whom he was acquainted would gladly encourage her daughter to marry a millionaire from Oil City, Pennsylvania. He had seen and he saw that Ericson was made welcome into the best society of London, and, what with his fame and Helena's money, he thought they might have a pleasant way in life together. Now that dream had come to an end. Ericson, of course, would naturally desire to recover his position in South America; but even if he were to succeed he could hardly expect Helena to settle down to a life in an obscure and foetid South American town. Sir Rupert took this for granted. He did not argue it out. It came to his eyes as a certain, unarguable fact. He knew that his daughter was unconventional, but he construed that only as being unconventional within conventional limits. Some of her ways might be unconventional; he did not believe it possible that her life could be. It did not even occur to him to ask himself whether, if Helena really wished to go to South America and settle there, he could be expected to give his consent to such a project.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE PANGS OF THE SUPPRESSED MESSAGE

'By Jove, I thought they would never go!' Hamilton said to Captain Sarrasin as they moved towards their bedrooms.

'So did I,' Sarrasin declared with a sigh of relief. 'They' whose absence was so much desired were Sir Rupert Langley and the Dictator.

'Come into my room,' Hamilton said in a low tone. They entered Hamilton's room, speaking quietly, as if they were burglars. Sarrasin was lodged on the same corridor a little farther off. The soft electric light was sending out its pale amber radiance on the corridor and in the bedroom. Hamilton closed his door.

'Please take a seat, Sarrasin,' he said with elaborate politeness; and Sarrasin obeyed him and sat down in a luxurious armchair, and then Hamilton sat down too. This apparently was pure ceremonial, and the ceremonial was over, for in a moment they both rose to their feet. They had something to talk about that passed ceremonial.

'What do you think of all this?' Hamilton asked. 'Do you think there is anything in it?'

'Yes, I'm sure there is. That's a very clever girl, Miss Paulo——'

'Yes, she's very clever,' Hamilton said in an embarrassed sort of way—'a very clever girl, a splendid girl. But we haven't much to go on, have we? She can only suspect that this fellow knows Spanish—she can't be quite sure of it.'

'Many a pretty plot has been found out with no better evidence to start the discovery. The end of a clue is often the almost invisible tail of a piece of string. But we have other evidence too.'

'Out with it!' Hamilton said impatiently. In all his various anxieties he was conscious of one strong anxiety—that Dolores might be justified in her conjecture and proved not to have made a wild mistake.

'I got a telegram from across the Atlantic to-night,' Sarrasin said, 'that time in the dining-room.'

'Yes—well—I saw you had got something.'

'It came from Denver City.'

'Oh!'

'The home of Professor Flick. See?'

'Yes, yes, to be sure. Well?'

'Well, it tells me that Professor Flick is now in China, and that he will return home by way of London.'

'By Jove!' Hamilton exclaimed, and he turned pale with excitement. This was indeed a confirmation of the very worst suspicion that the discovery of Dolores could possibly have suggested. The man passing himself off as Professor Flick was not Professor Flick, but undoubtedly a South American. And he and his accomplice had been for days and nights domiciled with the Dictator!

'Is your telegram trustworthy?' he asked.

'Perfectly; my message was addressed yesterday to my old friend Professor Clinton, who is now settled in Denver City, but who used to be at the University of New Padua, Michigan.'

'What put it into your head to send the message? Had you any suspicion?'

'No, not the least in the world; but somehow my wife began to have a kind of idea of her own that all was not right. Do you know, Hamilton, the intuitions of that woman are something marvellous—marvellous, sir! Her perceptions are something outside herself, something transcendental, sir. So I telegraphed to my friend Clinton, and here we are, don't you see?'

'Yes, I see,' Hamilton said, his attention wandering a little from the transcendental perceptions of Mrs. Sarrasin. 'Why, I wonder, did this fellow, whoever he is, take the name of a real man?'

'Oh, don't you see? Why, that's plain enough. How else could he ever have got introductions—introductions that would satisfy anybody? You see the folk-lore dodge commended itself to my poor simple brother, who knew the name and reputation of the real Professor Flick, and naturally thought it was all right. Then there seemed no immediate connection between my brother and the Dictator; and finally, the real Professor Flick was in China, and would not be likely to hear about what was going on until these chaps had done the trick; whereas, if anyone in the States not in constant communication with the real Flick heard of his being in London it would seem all right enough—they would assume that he had taken London first, and not last. I must say, Hamilton, it was a very pretty plot, and it was devilish near being made a success.'

'We'll foil it now,' Hamilton said, with his teeth clenched.

'Oh, of course we'll foil it now,' Sarrasin said carelessly. 'We should be pretty simpletons if we couldn't foil the plot now that we have the threads in our hands.'

'What do you make of it—murder?' Hamilton lowered his voice and almost shuddered at his own suggestion.

'Murder, of course—the murder of the Dictator, and of everyone who comes in the way of that murder. If the Dictator gets to Gloria the game of the ruffians is up—that we know by our advices—and if he is murdered in England he certainly can't get to Gloria. There you are!'

Nobody, however jealous for the Dictator, could doubt the sympathy and devotion of Captain Sarrasin to the Dictator and his cause. Yet his cool and business-like way of discussing the question grated on Hamilton's ears. Hamilton, perhaps, did not make quite enough of allowance for a man who had been in so many enterprises as Captain Sarrasin, and who had got into the way of thinking that his own life and the life of every other such man is something for which a game is played by the Fates every day, and which he must be ready to forfeit at any moment.

'The question is, what are we to do?' Hamilton asked sharply.

'Well, these fellows are sure to know that his Excellency leaves to-morrow, and so the attempt will be made to-night.'

'Suppose we rouse up Sir Rupert—indeed, he is probably not in bed yet—and send for the local police, and have these ruffians arrested? We could arrest them ourselves without waiting for the police.'

Sarrasin thought for a little. 'Wouldn't do,' he said. 'We have no evidence at all against them, except a telegram from an American unknown to anyone here, and who might be mistaken. Besides, I fancy that if they are very desperate they have got accomplices who will take good care that the work is carried out somehow. You see, what they have set their hearts on is to prevent the Dictator from getting back to Gloria, and that so simplifies their business for them. I have no doubt that there is someone hanging about who would manage to do the trick if these two fellows were put under arrest—all the easier because of the uproar caused by their arrest. No, we must give the fellows rope enough. We must let them show what their little game is, and then come down upon them. After all, we are all right, don't you see?'

Hamilton did not quite see, but he was beginning already to be taken a good deal with the cool and calculating ways of the stout old Paladin, for whom life could not possibly devise a new form of danger.

'I fancy you are right,' Hamilton said after a moment of silence.

'Yes, I think I am right,' Sarrasin answered confidently. 'You see, we have the pull on them, for if their game is simple, ours is simple too. They want Ericson to die—we mean to keep him alive. You and I don't care two straws what becomes of our own lives in the row.'

'Not I, by Jove!' Hamilton exclaimed fervently.

'All right; then you see how easy it all is. Well, do you think we ought to wake up the Dictator? It seems unfair to rattle him up on mere speculation, but the business is serious.'

'Serious?—yes, I should think it was! Life or death—more than that, the ruin or the failure of a real cause!'

Hamilton knew that the Dictator had by nature a splendid gift of sleep, which had stood him in good stead during many an adventure and many a crisis. But it was qualified by a peculiarity which had to be recognised and taken into account. If his sleep were once broken in upon, it could not be put together again for that night. Therefore, his trusty henchman and valet took good care that his Excellency's slumbers should not if possible be disturbed. It should be said that mere noise never disturbed him. He would waken if actually called, but otherwise could sleep in spite of thunder. Now that he was in quiet civic life, it was easy enough for him to get as much unbroken sleep as he needed. The directions which his valet always gave at Paulo's Hotel were, that his Excellency was to be roused from his sleep if the house were on fire—not otherwise. Of course all this was perfectly understood by everybody in Seagate Hall.

'Must we waken him?' Sarrasin asked doubtfully.

'Oh, yes,' Hamilton answered decisively. 'I'll take that responsibility upon myself.'

'What I was thinking of,' Sarrasin whispered, 'was that if you and I were to keep close watch he might have his sleep out and no harm could happen to him.'

'But then we shouldn't get to know, for to-night at least, what the harm was meant to be, or whose the hand it was to come from. If there really is any attempt to be made, it will not be made while there is any suspicion that somebody is on the watch.'

'True,' said Sarrasin, quite convinced and prepared for anything.

'My idea is,' Hamilton said, 'a very simple old chestnut sort of idea, but it may serve a good turn yet—get his Excellency out of his room, and one of us get into it. Nothing will be done, of course, until all the lights are out, and then we shall soon find out whether all this is a false alarm or not.'

'A capital idea! I'll take his Excellency's place,' Sarrasin said eagerly.

Hamilton shook his head. 'I have the better claim,' he said.

'Tisn't a question of claim, my dear Hamilton. Of course, if it were, I should have no claim at all. It is a question of effect—of result—of a thing to be done, don't you see?'

'Well, what has that to do with the question? I fancy I could see it through as well as most people,' Hamilton said, flushing a little and beginning to feel angry. The idea of thinking that there was anybody alive who could watch over the safety of the Dictator better than he could! Sarrasin was really carrying things rather too far.

'My dear boy,' the kind old warrior said soothingly, 'I never meant that. But you know I am an old and trained adventurer, and I have been in all sorts of dangers and tight places, and I have a notion, my dear chap, that I am physically a good deal stronger than you, or than most men, for that matter, and this may come to be a question of strength, and of disarming and holding on to a fellow when once you have caught him.'

'You are right,' Hamilton said submissively but disappointed. 'Of course, I ought to have thought of that. I have plenty of nerve, but I know I am not half as strong as you. All right, Sarrasin, you shall do the trick this time.'

'It will very likely turn out to be nothing at all,' Sarrasin said, by way of soothing the young man's sensibilities; 'but even if we have to look a little foolish in Ericson's eyes to-morrow we shan't much mind.'

'I'll go and rouse him up. I'll bring him along here. He won't enjoy being disturbed, but we can't help that.'

'Better be disturbed by you than by—some other,' Sarrasin said grimly.

The tone in which he answered, and the words and the grimness of his face, impressed Hamilton somehow with a new and keener sense of the seriousness of the occasion.

'Tread lightly,' Sarrasin said, 'speak in low tones, but for your life not in a whisper—a whisper travels far. Keep your eyes about you, and find out, if you can, who are stirring. I am going to look in on Mrs. Sarrasin's room for a moment, and I shall keep my eyes about me, I can tell you. The more people we have awake and on the alert, the better—always provided that they are people whose nerves we can trust. As I tell you, Hamilton, I can trust the nerves of Mrs. Sarrasin. I have told her to be on the watch—and she will be.'

'I am sure—I am sure,' said Hamilton; and he cut short the encomium by hurrying on his way to the Dictator's room.

Sarrasin left Hamilton's room and went for a moment or two to let Mrs. Sarrasin know how things were going. He had left Hamilton's room door half open. When he was coming out of his wife's room he heard the slow, cautious step of a man in the corridor on which Hamilton's room opened, and which was at right angles with that on which Mrs. Sarrasin was lodged. Could it be Hamilton coming back without having roused the Dictator? Just as he turned into that corridor he saw someone look into Hamilton's doorway, push the door farther apart, and then enter the room. Sarrasin quickly glided into the room after him; the man turned round—and Sarrasin found himself confronted by Soame Rivers.

'Hello!' Rivers said, with his usual artificiality of careless ease, 'I thought Hamilton was here. This is his room, ain't it?'

'Yes, certainly, this is his room; he has just gone to look up the Dictator.'

'Has he gone to waken him up?' Rivers asked, with a shade of alarm passing over him. For Rivers had been meditating during the last two hours over his suppressed, telegram, and thinking what a fix he should have got himself into if any danger really were to threaten the Dictator and it became known that he, the private secretary of Sir Rupert Langley, had in Sir Rupert's own house deliberately suppressed the warning sent to him from the Foreign Office—a warning sent for the protection of the man who was then Sir Rupert's guest. If anything were to happen, diplomacy would certainly never further avail itself of the services of Soame Rivers. Nor would Helena Langley be likely to turn a favourable eye on Soame Rivers. So, after much consideration, Rivers thought his best course was to get at Hamilton and let him know of the warning. Of course he need not exactly say when he had received it, and Hamilton was such a fool that he could easily be put off, and in any case the whole thing was probably some absurd scare; but still Rivers wanted to be out of all responsibility, and was already cursing the sudden impulse that made him crumple up the telegram and keep it back. Now, he could not tell why, his mind misgave him when he found Sarrasin coming into Hamilton's room and heard that Hamilton had gone to arouse the Dictator.

'We have thought it necessary to waken his Excellency' Sarrasin said emphatically; and he did not fail to notice the look of alarm that came over Rivers's face. 'Something wrong here,' Sarrasin thought.

'You don't really suppose there is any danger; isn't it all alarmist nonsense, don't you think?'

'I hadn't said anything about danger, Mr. Rivers.'

'No. But the truth is, I wanted to see Hamilton about a private message I got from the Foreign Office, telling me to advise him to look after the—the—the ex-Dictator—that there was some plot against him; and I'm sure it's all rubbish—people don't do these things in England, don't you know?—but I thought I would come round and tell Hamilton all the same.'

'Hamilton will be here in a moment or two with his Excellency. Hadn't you better wait and see them?'

'Oh—thanks—no—it will do as well if you will kindly give my message.'

'May I ask what time you got your message?'

'Oh—a little time ago. I feel sure it's all nonsense; but still I thought I had better tell Hamilton about it all the same.'

'I hope it's all nonsense,' Sarrasin said gravely. 'But we have thought it right to arouse his Excellency.'

'Oh!' Rivers said anxiously, and slackened in his departure, 'you have got some news of your own?'

'We have got some news of our own, Mr. Rivers, and we have got some suspicions of our own. Some of us have our eyes, others of us have our ears. Others of us get telegrams—and act on them at once.' This was a thrash deeper even than its author intended.

'You don't really expect that anything is going to happen to-night?'

'I am too old a soldier to expect anything. I keep awake and wait until it comes.'

'But, Mr. Sarrasin—I beg pardon, Colonel Sarrasin——'

'Captain Sarrasin, if you please.'

'I beg your pardon, Captain Sarrasin. Do you really think there is any plot against—against—his Excellency?' Rivers had hesitated for a moment. He hated to call Ericson either 'his Excellency' or 'the Dictator.' But just now he wanted above all other things to conciliate Sarrasin, and if possible get him on his side, in case there should come to be a question concerning the time of the delayed warning.

'I believe it is pretty likely, sir.'

'In this house?'

'In this very house.'

'But, good God! that can't be. Why don't we tell Sir Rupert?'

'Why didn't you tell Sir Rupert?'

'Because I was told not to alarm him for nothing.'

'Exactly; we don't want to alarm him for nothing. We think that we three—the Dictator, Hamilton, and I—we can manage this little business for ourselves. Not one of the three of us that hasn't been in many a worse corner alone before, and now there are three of us—don't you see?'

'Can't I help?'

'Well, I think if I were you I'd just keep awake,' Sarrasin said. 'Odd sorts of things may happen. One never knows. Hush! I think I hear our friends. Will you stay and talk with them?'

'No,' said Rivers emphatically; and he left the room straightway, going in the opposite direction from the Dictator's room, and turning into the other corridor before he could have been seen by anyone coming into the corridor where the Dictator and Hamilton and Sarrasin were lodged.

Soame Rivers went back to his room, and sat there and waited and watched. His thoughts were far from enviable. He was in the mood of a man who, from being an utter sceptic, or at least Agnostic, is suddenly shaken up into a recognition of something supernatural, and does not as yet know how to make the other fashions of his life fit in with this new revelation. Selfish as he was, he would not have put off taking action on the warning he had received from the Foreign Office if he had at the time believed in the least that there was any possibility of a plot for political assassination being carried on in an English country-house. Soame Rivers reasoned, like a realistic novelist, from his own experiences only. He regarded the notion of such things taking place in an English country-house as no less an anachronism than the moving helmet in the 'Castle of Otranto' or the robber-castle in the 'Mysteries of Udolpho.' Not that we mean to convey the idea that Rivers had read either of these elaborate masterpieces of old-fashioned fiction—for he most certainly had not read either of them, and very likely had not even heard of either. But if he had studied them he would probably have considered them as quite as much an appurtenance of real life as any story of a plot for political assassination carried on in an English country-house. Now, however, it was plain that a warning had been given which did not come from the fossilised officials of the Foreign Office, and which impressed so cool an old soldier as Captain Sarrasin with a sense of serious danger. As far as regarded all the ordinary affairs of life, Rivers looked down on Sarrasin with a quite unutterable contempt. Sarrasin was not a man to get in the ordinary way into Soame Rivers's set; and Rivers despised alike anyone who was not in his set, and anyone who was pushed, or who pushed himself, into it. He detested eccentricities of all sorts. He would have instinctively disliked and dreaded any man whose wife occasionally wore man's clothes and rode astride. He considered all that sort of thing bad form. He chafed and groaned and found his pain sometimes almost more than he could bear under the audacious unconventionalities of Helena Langley. But he knew that he had to put up with Helena Langley; he knew that she would consider herself in no way responsible to him for anything she said or did; and he only dreaded the chance of some hinted, hardly repressible remonstrance from him provoking her to tell him bluntly that she cared nothing about his opinion of her conduct. Now, however, as he thought of Sarrasin, he found that he could not deny Sarrasin's coolness and courage and judgment, and it comforted him to think that Sarrasin must always say he had a warning from him, Soame Rivers, before anything had occurred—if anything was to occur. If anything should occur, the actual hour of the warning given would hardly be recalled amid so many circumstances more important. Soame sat in his room and watched with heavy heart. He felt that he had been playing the part of a traitor, and, more than that, that he was likely to be found out. Could he retrieve himself even yet? He knew he was not a coward.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE EXPLOSION

Meanwhile Hamilton came back to his room with the Dictator. The Dictator looked fresh, bright, wide-awake, and ready for anything. He had grumbled a little on being roused, and was at first inclined rather peevishly to 'pooh-pooh' all suggestion of conspiracies and personal danger.

He even went so far as to say that, on the whole, he would rather prefer to be allowed to have his sleep out, even though it were to be concisely rounded off by his death. But he soon pulled himself together and got out of that perverse and sleepy mood, and by the time he and Hamilton had found Sarrasin, the Dictator was well up to all the duties of a commander-in-chief. He had a rapid review of the situation with Sarrasin.

'What I don't see,' he quietly said—he knew too well to try whispering—'is why I should not keep to my own room. If anything is going to happen I am well forewarned, and shall be well fore-armed, and I shall be pretty well able to take care of myself; and why should anyone else run any risk on my account?'

'It isn't on your account,' Sarrasin answered, a little bluntly.

'No? Well, I am glad to hear that. On whose account, then, may I ask?'

'On account of Gloria,' Sarrasin answered decisively. 'If Hamilton here is killed, or I am killed, it does not matter a straw so far as Gloria is concerned. But if you got killed, who, I want to know, is to go out to Gloria? Gloria would not rise for Hamilton or me.'

The Dictator could say nothing. He could only clasp in silence the hand of either man.

'They are putting out the lights downstairs,' Sarrasin said in a low tone. 'I had better get to my lair.'

'Have you got a revolver?' Hamilton asked.

'Never go without one, dear boy.' Then Sarrasin stole away with the noiseless tread of the Red Indian, whose comrade and whose enemy he had been so often.

Hamilton closed his door, but did not fasten it. The electric light still burned softly there.

'Will you smoke?' Hamilton asked. 'I smoke here every night, and Sarrasin too, mostly. It won't arouse any suspicion if the smoke gets about the corridor. I am often up much later than this. You need not answer, and then your voice can't be heard. Just take a cigar.'

The Dictator quietly nodded, and took two cigars, which he selected very carefully, and began to smoke.

'Do you know,' Ericson said, 'that to-morrow is my birthday? No—I mean it is already my birthday.'

'As if I didn't know,' Hamilton replied.

'Odd, if anything should happen.'

Then there was absolute silence in the room. Each man kept his thoughts to himself, and yet each knew well enough what the other was thinking of. Ericson was thinking, among other things, how, if there should really be some assassin-plot, what a trouble and a scandal and even a serious danger he should have brought upon the Langleys, who were so kind and sweet to him. He was thinking of Sarrasin, and of the danger the gallant veteran was running for a cause which, after all, was no cause of his. He could hardly as yet believe in the existence of the murder-plot; and still, with his own knowledge of the practices of former Governments in Gloria, he could not look upon the positive evidence of Sarrasin's telegram from across the Atlantic and the sudden suspicions of Dolores as insignificant. He knew well that one of the practices of former Governments in Gloria had been, when they wanted a dangerous enemy removed, to employ some educated and clever criminal already under conviction and sentence of death, and release him for the time with the promise that, if he should succeed in doing their work, means should be found to relieve him from his penalty altogether. When he became Dictator he had himself ordered the re-arrest of two such men who had had the audacity to return to the capital to claim their reward, under the impression that they should find their old friends still in power. He commuted the death punishment in their case, bad as they were, on the principle that they were the victims of a loathsome system, and that they were tempted into the new crime. But he left them to imprisonment for life. Ericson had a strong general objection to the infliction of capital punishment—to the punishment that is irreparable, that cannot be recalled. He was not actually an uncompromising opponent on moral grounds of the principle of capital punishment, but he would think long before sanctioning its infliction.

He was wondering, in an idle sort of way, whether he could remember the appearance or the name of either of these two men. He might perhaps remember the names; he did not believe he could recall the faces. Clearly the Dictator wanted that great gift which, according to popular tradition or belief, always belonged to the true leaders of men—the gift of remembering every face one ever has seen, and every name one has ever heard. Alexander had it, we are told, and Julius Caesar, and Oliver Cromwell, and Claverhouse, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and Brigham Young. Napoleon, to be sure, worked it up, as we have lately come to know, by collusion with some of his officers; and it may be that Brigham Young was occasionally coached by devoted Elders at Salt Lake City. At all events, it would not appear that the Dictator either had the gift, or at present the means of being provided with any substitute for it. He could not remember the appearance of the men he had saved from execution. It is curious, however, how much of his time and his thoughts they had occupied or wasted while he was waiting for the first sound that might be expected to give the alarm.

Hamilton looked at his watch. The Dictator motioned to him, and Hamilton turned the face of the watch towards him. Half-past one o'clock Ericson saw. He looked tired. Hamilton made a motion towards his own bed which clearly signified, 'would you like to lie down for a little?' Ericson replied by a sign of assent, and presently he stretched himself half on the bed and half off—on the coverlet of the bed as to his head and shoulders, with his legs hanging over the side and his feet on the floor—and he thought again, about his birthday, and so he fell asleep.