Julien laughed.

"My dear David!" he protested,—

"To tell you the truth, Julien," Kendricks interrupted, "there's some hidden trouble, some mysterious influence at work which seems to be upsetting the relations just now between France and England. To be frank with you, I know that Carraby, at a Cabinet meeting yesterday, suggested that you were at the bottom of it."

Julien's eyes suddenly flashed fire.

"D—n that fellow!" he muttered. "Does anybody believe it?"

Kendricks shrugged his shoulders.

"Scarcely. And yet, Julien, it pays to be careful. You can't afford to be seen in public places with the enemies of your country."

"Is Carl Freudenberg an enemy of my country?"

Kendricks leaned back in his seat and laughed scornfully.

"Julien," he exclaimed, "there are times when you are very simple! Do you indeed mean that you would try to deceive even me? You would pretend that I, David Kendricks, of the Post, don't know that Herr Freudenberg and the Prince von Falkenberg, ruler of Germany, are one and the same person? Maker of toys, he calls himself! Maker of fools' palaces, if you like, builder of prison houses, if you will. No man was ever born with less of a conscience, more solely and wholly ambitious both for his country and for himself, than the man with whom you talked to-night. You knew him?"

"Naturally," Julien answered. "We met at Berlin."

"The man is a great genius," Kendricks continued. "No one will deny him that. They speak of his weaknesses. They talk of his drinking bouts, of his plunges into French dissipation. The man hasn't a single dissipated thought in his mind. He moves through this world—this little Paris world—with one idea only. He gets behind the scenes. He comes here secretly, drops hints here and there as a private person, lets himself be considered a Parisian of Parisians. All the time he listens and he drops his cunning words of poison and he works. What are his ambitions? Do you know, Julien?"

"Do you?" Julien asked.

"It seems to me that I have some idea," Kendricks answered. "This is your hotel, isn't it?"

Julien nodded.

"Are you going to stay here?"

Kendricks shook his head.

"I stay at a little hotel in the Rue Taitbout. I stay there because it is full of the weirdest set of foreigners you ever knew. This morning we breakfast together?"

"Come and see me when you will," Julien invited, "or I will come to you; not to breakfast, though—I am engaged."

"To Herr Freudenberg?" Kendricks asked quickly.

"To the lady whom your little friend, the manicurist, sent me to visit," Julien replied. "Perhaps now you will tell me that she is an ambassadress in disguise?"

"I'll tell you nothing about her this morning," Kendricks said. "I'll tell you nothing which you ought not to find out for yourself."

"Do you think I may breakfast with her safely?" Julien inquired.

"Heaven knows—I don't!" Kendricks replied. "No man is safe with such a woman as Madame Christophor. But let it go. We dine together to-night. I'll tell you some news then. I'm going to unroll a plan of campaign. There's work for you, if you like it;—nothing formulated as yet, but it's coming—perhaps hope—who knows?"

The sun rose higher in the heavens, the mauve light faded from the sky. Morning had arrived in earnest and Paris settled herself down to the commencement of another day. Julien, for the first time since he had left England, was asleep five minutes after his head had touched the pillow. Herr Freudenberg, on the contrary, made no attempt at all to retire. In the sitting-room of his apartments in the Boulevard Maupassant he sat in his dressing-gown, carefully studying some letters which had arrived by the night mail. Opposite to him was a secretary; by his side Estermen, who appeared to be there for the purpose of making a report.

"Not a document," Estermen was saying, "not a line of writing of any sort in his trunk, his bureau, or anywhere about his room."

Herr Freudenberg nodded thoughtfully.

"But these Englishmen are the devil to deal with!" he said. "The luncheon is ordered to-day in the private room at the Armenonville?"

"Everything has been attended to," Estermen replied.

Herr Freudenberg was thoughtful for several moments. Then with a wave of his hand he dismissed Estermen.

"You, too, can go, Fritz," he said to his secretary. "You have had a long night's work."

"You yourself, Excellency, should sleep for a while," his secretary advised.

Herr Freudenberg shook his head.

"Sleep," he declared, "is a waste of time. I need no sleep. As you go, you can tell my servant to prepare a warm bath. I will rest then for an hour and walk in the Champs Elysees."

The secretary withdrew and Herr Freudenberg was alone. He picked up a crumpled rose that lay upon the table and twirled it for a moment or two in his fingers. The action seemed to be wholly unconscious. His eyes were set in a fixed stare, his thoughts were busy weaving out his plans for the day. It was not until he was summoned to his bath that he rose and glanced at the withered flower. Then he smiled.

"Poor little Marguerite!" he murmured. "What a pity!"

He touched the rose with his lips, abandoned his first intention, which seemed to have been to throw it into the fireplace, and put it back carefully upon the table, side by side with an odd white glove.

"Queer little record of the froth of life," he said softly to himself. "One soiled evening glove, a faded rose, a woman's tears,—they pass. What can one do—we poor others who have to drive the wheels of life?"

He sighed, shrugged his high shoulders, and passed out.



CHAPTER XV

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Very soon after mid-day on the same morning, Herr Carl Freudenberg was the host at a small luncheon party given in a private room of the most famous restaurant in the Bois. His morning attire was a model of correctness, his eyes were clear, his manner blithe, almost joyous. There was no possible indication in his appearance of his misspent hours. He was at once a genial and courteous host. Monsieur Decheles sat at his right hand; Monsieur Felix Brant on his left; Monsieur Pelleman opposite to him. The three men had arrived in an automobile together and had entered the restaurant by the private way, but that they were guests of some distinction was obvious from their reception by the manager himself.

The luncheon was worthy of the great reputation of the place. It was swiftly and well served. With the coffee and liqueurs the waiters withdrew. Herr Freudenberg, with a smile, rose up and tried the door. Then he returned to his place, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair.

"My dear friends," he announced, "now we can talk."

Monsieur Pelleman smiled.

"Yes," he admitted, "we can talk. In this excellent brandy, Monsieur Carl Freudenberg, I drink your very good health. Long may these little visits of yours continue."

Herr Freudenberg smiled his thanks.

"Monsieur Pelleman," he said, "and you, too, my dear friends, let me assure you that there is nothing in the world which I enjoy so much as these brief visits of mine to your delightful capital. No more I think of the pressures and cares of office. I let myself go, and on these occasions, as you know, I speak to you not in the language of diplomacy, but as good friends who meet together to enjoy an hour or two of one another's company, and who, because there is no harm to be done by it, but much good, open their hearts and speak true words with one another."

Monsieur Decheles smiled.

"It is a pleasure which we all share," he declared. "It is more agreeable, without a doubt, to take lunch with Monsieur Carl Freudenberg, and to speak openly, than to exchange long-winded interviews, the true meaning of which is too much concealed by diplomatic verbiage, with the excellent gentleman to whose good offices are intrusted the destinies of Herr Freudenberg's great nation."

"Monsieur," Herr Freudenberg said, "to-day shall be no exception. To-day I speak to you, perhaps, more openly than ever before. To-day I perhaps risk much—yet why not speak the things which are in my heart?"

Monsieur Felix Brant took a cigarette from the box by his elbow, but he felt for it only. His eyes never left the face of his host. Of the three men, he seemed the one least in sympathy with the state of affairs to which Herr Freudenberg had alluded so cheerfully. He watched the man at the head of the table all the time as though every energy of which he was possessed was devoted to the task of reading underneath that suave but impenetrable face.

"Gentlemen," Herr Freudenberg continued, "there have been many misapprehensions between your country and mine. Ten years ago we seemed indeed on the highroad to friendship. It was then—I speak frankly, mind—that your country made the one fatal mistake of recent years. Great Britain, isolated, left behind in the race for power, a weakened and decaying nation, having searched the world over for allies, held out the timorous hand of friendship to you. What evil genius was with your statesmen that day! When the history of these times comes to be written, it is my firm belief that it will be then acknowledged that the genius of the man who reigned over Great Britain at that time was alone responsible for the commencement of what has become a veritable alliance."

Herr Freudenberg paused.

"There is no doubt," Monsieur Decheles asserted calmly, "that the influence of the late king was immense among the people of France. He appealed somehow to their imaginations, a great monarch who was also a bon viveur, who had lived his days in Paris as the others."

Herr Freudenberg nodded thoughtfully.

"He is dead," he said, "and history will write him down as a great king. Do you know that it is one of my theories that morals have nothing to do with government? I doubt whether a more sagacious monarch has ever reigned over that unfortunate country than the one we speak of. So sagacious was he that he even saw the beginning of the end, he saw the things that must come when he looked across the North Sea; and notwithstanding his descent, notwithstanding all the ties which should have allied him with Germany, he hated our people and he hated our country with a prophetic hatred. But we gossip a little, gentlemen. Let me proceed. I want you to realize that the policy of Germany for the last five years has been wholly directed towards securing the friendship of your country. I want you to realize that but for the continual interference of Great Britain you would even now be in a far more favorable position with us than you are to-day. Germany wants nothing in Morocco. Germany's first and greatest wish is for a rich and prosperous France. On the other hand, Germany is loyal to her friendships, and fervent in her hatreds. The country whose humiliation is a solemn charge upon my people is Great Britain and not France."

Monsieur Decheles leaned back in his chair. Monsieur Felix Brant never moved.

"I want," Herr Freudenberg continued, "to have you think and consider and weigh this matter. Why do you, a great and prosperous country, link yourselves with a decaying power, against whom, before very long, Germany is pledged to strike? These are the plainest words that have ever been spoken by a citizen of one country to three citizens of another. Herr Freudenberg, the maker of toys, speaks to his three French friends as a thoughtful merchant of his country who has had unusual facilities for imbibing the spirit of her politicians. Gentlemen, you do not misunderstand me?"

"It is impossible, Herr Freudenberg," Monsieur Decheles said, "to misunderstand you for a single moment. Your hand is too clear and your methods too sagacious."

"Then let me repeat," Herr Freudenberg declared, "that before many years are passed—perhaps, indeed, before many months—it is the intention of my country either to inflict a scathing diplomatic humiliation upon Great Britain, or to engage in this war the fear of which has kept her in a state of panic for the last ten years. Keep that in your minds, my friends. Friendship is a great thing, honor is a great thing, generosity is a great thing, but I would speak to you three citizens of France to-day as I would speak to her rulers had I access to them, and I would say, 'Do you dare, for the sake of an alliance out of which you have procured no single benefit, do you dare to drag your country into unnecessary, fruitless and bloody war?' You have nothing to gain by it, you have everything to lose. Let Germany deal with her traditional enemy in her own way. And as for France, let France believe what is, without doubt, the truth—that she has nothing whatever to fear from Germany. I will not speak of the past, but the greatest thinkers in Germany to-day regret nothing so much in the history of her splendid rise as that unfortunate campaign of Bismarck's. It is the one blot upon her magnificent history. Let that go—let that go and be buried. I bring you timely warning. I come to the city I love, for her own sake, for the sake of her people whom I also love. I beg you to listen to these words of mine, to adjust your policy so that little by little you weaken the joints which bind you to England, so that when the time comes you yourself may not be dragged into a hopeless and pitiless struggle."

There was a moment's silence. Then Monsieur Decheles spoke.

"Herr Freudenberg," he began, "what you have said we have been in some measure prepared for. The more amicable tone of all the correspondence between our two countries has been marked of late. Yet there have been times, and not long ago, when your country has shown wonderful readiness to treat with a rough hand the claims of France in many quarters of the world. The more powerful your country, the greater she is to be feared. Supposing France stood on one side while Great Britain fell before your arms, what then would be the relations between France and Germany?"

Monsieur Brant spoke for the first time.

"Herr Freudenberg, you remind me of the fable of the Persian who had two men to fight, both as strong as himself. To the one he sent ambassadors, with the key of his favorite gardens; the other he fought. It is a great policy to deal with your enemies one at a time."

Herr Freudenberg stretched out his arms across the table.

"My friend," he pronounced, "without faith there is no genius. Without genius there is no government. I only ask you to believe this one thing. Germany is not and never has been the traditional enemy of France. I ask you to study the whole question for but one single half-hour, I ask you to read the commercial records of these days. Help yourself to all the statistics that throw light upon this question, and I swear that you will find that whereas Great Britain and Germany stand opposed to one another under every condition and in every quarter of the world, there is no single bone of contention anywhere between France and Germany. Their aims are different, their destinies are written. I ask you to apply only a reasonable measure of philosophy and common sense, a reasonable measure of faith, to the things I say."

There was a cautious tap at the door, a whispered message. Monsieur Pelleman rose.

"It is my secretary," he announced. "I fear, gentlemen, that we are due elsewhere."

"Herr Freudenberg, your luncheon has been delightful," Monsieur Decheles declared, holding out his hand. "You have given us, as usual, something to think of. These informal meetings between citizens of two great countries will do, I am sure, more than anything else in the world, to ripen our budding friendship."

"Your words," Herr Freudenberg replied, grasping the hand which had been offered to him, "are a happy augury. When we meet again, I shall be able to prove the coming of the things of which I have spoken."

They left him on the threshold of the room. The giver of the feast was alone. Very slowly he retraced his steps and stood for a moment with folded arms, looking down on the table at which they had lunched. His natural urbanity, the smile half persuasive, half humorous, which had parted his lips, had gone. His face seemed to have resolved itself into lines of iron. As he stood there, one seemed suddenly to realize the presence of a great man—a greater, even, than Carl Freudenberg, maker of toys!



CHAPTER XVI

"HAVE YOU EVER LOVED?"

Nothing which he had heard or imagined of Madame Christophor had prepared Julien for the subdued yet manifest magnificence of her dwelling. He passed through that small postern gate beneath the watch of a butler who relieved him of his stick and gloves and handed him over to a sort of major-domo. Afterwards he was conducted across a beautiful round hall, lit with quaint fragments of stained-glass window, through a picture gallery which almost took Julien's breath away, and into a small room, very daintily furnished, entirely and characteristically French of the Louis Seize period. A round table was laid for two in front of an open window, which looked out upon a lawn smooth and velvety, with here and there little flower-beds, and in the middle a gray stone fountain. Madame Christophor came in almost at the same moment from the garden. She was wearing a long lace coat over the thinnest of muslin skirts, and a hat with some violets in it which seemed to match exactly the color of her eyes.

"So you have come, my friend of a few hours," she said, smiling at him. "The fear has not seized you yet? You are not afraid that over my simple luncheon table I shall ask you compromising questions?"

"I am neither afraid of your asking questions, madame," he assured her, "nor of my being tempted to reply to them."

"That," she murmured, "is ungallant. Meanwhile, we lunch."

Such a meal as he might have expected from such surroundings was swiftly and daintily served. There was cantaloup, cut in halves, with the faintest suspicion of liqueur, and a great globule of ice; an omelette, even for Paris a wonderful omelette,—a mousse of chicken, some asparagus, a bowl of peaches, and coffee. After the latter had been served, madame, with a little wave of her hand, dismissed the servants from the room.

"Sir Julien," she said, "I am not pleased with you."

He sighed.

"I regret your displeasure the more," he declared, "because I find myself indebted to you for a new gastronomic ideal."

"You are really beginning to wake up," she laughed. "When you first arrived here, less than twenty-four hours ago, you thought yourself a broken-spirited and broken-hearted man. You were very dull. Soon you will begin to realize that life is a matter of epochs, that no blow is severe enough to kill life itself. It is only the end of an epoch. But I am displeased with you, as I said, because you have told me nothing. This morning I have letters from London. I learn that through a single indiscretion not only were you forced to relinquish a great political career, but that you were forced also to give up the lady for whom you cared."

"You have ingenious correspondents," he remarked.

"Truthful ones, are they not?"

"I was engaged to marry Lady Anne Clonarty," he admitted. "It was, if I may venture to say so, an alliance."

Madame Christophor's eyes twinkled.

"Once," she declared, "I met the Duke of Clonarty. I also met the Duchess, I also saw Lady Anne. They were traveling in great state through Italy. It was in Rome that I came across them. The Duchess was very affable to me. I think you have rightly expressed your affair of the heart, my friend. It was to have been an alliance!"

Julien was thoughtful. Madame Christophor in a moment continued.

"You know, my friend," she said, tapping the ash from her cigarette into her saucer, "your misfortune came just in time to save you from becoming what in English you call a great, a colossal prig."

His eyebrows went up. Suddenly he smiled.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "To be a successful politician one must of necessity be a prig."

"Not in the least," she reminded him swiftly. "There is the Prince von Falkenberg."

"The maker of toys," he murmured.

"The maker, alas! of toys which the world were better without," she replied. "But never mind that. For the sake of your ambitions you were content, were you not, to marry a young woman with whom you had not the slightest sympathy, in order that she might receive your guests, might add the lustre of her name to the expansion of her husband's genius?"

"Madame," he said, "we live a very short time. We live only one life. Only certain things are possible to us. The man who tries to crowd everything into that life fails. He is a dilettante. He may find pleasure but he reaches no end. He strikes no long sustained note. In the eyes of those who come after him, he is a failure."

"This," she murmured, "is interesting. Please go on."

"The man who means to succeed," he continued, "to succeed in any one position, must sacrifice everything else—temperament, if necessary character—for that one thing. When I left college, the study of politics was almost chosen for me. It became a part of my life. As my interest developed, it is true that my outlook upon life was narrowed. I was content to forget, perhaps, that I was a man, I strove fervently and desperately to develop into the perfect political machine. From that point of view, nobody in England would have made me a better wife than Lady Anne Clonarty."

She nodded.

"What a blessing that you wrote that letter!"

"I don't know," he replied. "I still think it was a great misfortune. Frankly, I have no idea what to make of my life. I don't know how to start again, to deal with the pieces in any intelligent fashion. Now that I am outside the thing, I see the narrowness of it all, I see that I was giving up many things which are interesting and beautiful, many friendships that might have been delightful, but on the other hand there was always the pressing on, the big, vital side, the great throb of life. I miss it. I feel to myself as a great factory sounds on Sundays and holidays, when the engine that drives all the machinery of the place is silent. I wander among the empty, quiet places, and I am lonely."

"Have you ever loved a woman?" she asked.

Her voice had suddenly dropped. He looked across the table. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes fixed upon his. There was something shining out of them which he did not wholly understand. He only knew that the question seemed to have stirred him in some new way. An intense sense of pleasurable content, a feeling as though he were listening to music, stole through his senses. This was a new thing. He was bewildered. He leaned a little further across the table. He found himself watching the faint blue veins of her delicate fingers, noticing the curious perfume of roses that seemed to come to him from the flutter of the lace around her neck.

"You are a man, Sir Julien. You must be thirty-five—perhaps older. Yet somehow you have the look to me of one who has never cared at all."

"It is true," he admitted.

"Life," she declared, "is a strange place. A few months ago your whole career was one of ambition. Misfortune came, or what you counted a misfortune. You reckoned yourself ruined. It is simply a change of poise. You turn now naturally to the other things in life. Do you know that you will find them greater?"

He shook his head.

"It is too early for me to believe that," he said. "I will admit that now and then in my forced solitude I have sometimes realized that one may become too engrossed in a career of ambition. One may shut out many things in life that are sweet and wholesome. But it is too early yet for me to look back upon what has happened with equanimity and say that I am glad to be a wanderer on the face of the earth, a homeless man, a waif."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You know that people are talking about you in London?" she asked abruptly.

He looked a little startled.

"I know nothing of the sort," he replied. "I have scarcely looked at a newspaper for weeks. Kendricks is over here with some story—"

"Who is Kendricks?" she interrupted.

"A journalist, an old friend of mine. What he told me, though, I looked upon as simply a little more malice from my friend Carraby."

"Tell me exactly his news?"

"He told me," Julien continued, "that there is a good deal of unrest over in London concerning our relations with France. The absolute candor and completely good understanding which existed a short time ago seems to have become clouded. Carraby is trying to suggest in English circles that I have been using my influence over here against the present government. The absurd part of it is that although I have been in France for a month, I arrived in Paris only yesterday."

"I was not alluding to that at all," she said. "It is in the country places, at the by-elections, and twice in the House itself lately, that things have been said which point to a certain impatience at your having been dropped so completely. You know Brentwood?"

"A strong, firm man," Julien replied, "but scarcely a friend of mine."

"Well, in your House of Parliament, the night before last," she continued, "he said that your country needed men at the Foreign Office who, however great might be their love of peace, still were not afraid of war, and your name was mentioned."

Julien smiled.

"They used to call me the fire-brand. I suppose I am in a great minority. I have never been able to see that a wholesome war, in defense of one's territory and one's honor, is an unmixed curse. It is the natural blood-letting of a strong country."

"No wonder you are unpopular in radical circles," she remarked, raising her eyebrows; "but anyhow, what I really want to say to you is this. Don't do anything rash. You have made the acquaintance of the most dangerous man in Europe. Don't let him control your actions, don't let him influence you. I want you always, whatever you do, to leave the way open for your return."

He shook his head.

"I do not think that my return is ever possible."

"Have you talked with your friend Kendricks?" she asked.

"Not yet," he replied.

"Hear what he has to say," she continued. "Bring him to see me if you will."

"I will try," he promised.

They were silent for a moment, listening to the splashing of the fountain outside and the distant hum of the city.

"Do you know that you are very kind to me?" he said.

"You were very much afraid of me yesterday," she reminded him.

"Had I any cause?"

She smiled.

"I shall not tell you my secrets. You must find them out. I have dabbled in politics, I have dabbled in diplomacy. I have not as a rule very much sympathy with your sex, as I think you know. It has never interested me before even to give good advice to a man. If I were you, Sir Julien, beyond a certain point I would not trust Madame Christophor, for when the time comes I have always the feeling that if a man's career lay within my power, I would sooner wreck it than help him."

"Of course you are talking nonsense," he declared.

"Am I?" she replied. "Well, I don't know. I can look back now to a half-hour of my life when I loathed every creature that could call itself a man."

"But it was a single person," he reminded her, "who sinned."

"His crime was too great to be the crime of a single man," she asserted, with a quiver of passion in her tone. "It was the culmination of the whole abominable selfishness of his sex. One man's life is too light a price to pay for the tragedy of that half-hour. I have never spared one of your sex since. I never shall."

"So far you have been kind to me," he persisted.

"Up to a certain point. Beyond that, I warn you, I should have no pity. If you were a wise man, I think even now that you would thank me for my luncheon and take my hand and bid me farewell."

"Instead of which," he answered, smiling, "I am waiting only to know when you will do me the honor to come and dine with me?"

She shook her head.

"I will make no appointment," she said. "Send me your telephone number directly you move into your rooms. If I am weary of myself I may call for you, but I tell you frankly that you must not expect it. If I see a way of making use of you, that will be different."

"May I come and see you again?" he begged. "You are dismissing me rather abruptly."

She shrugged her shoulders. She was looking weary, as though the heat of the day had tried her.

"I care very little, after all," she answered, "whether I ever see you again. I wish I could care, although if I did the result would be the same."

"You asked me a question a short time ago," he remarked. "Let me ask you the same. Have you never cared for any one?"

"I cared once for my husband."

"You have been married?"

"Most certainly. I lived with my husband for two years."

"And now?" he persisted.

"We are separated. You really do not know my other name?"

"I have never heard you called anything but Madame Christophor."

"Well, you will hear it in time," she assured him. "You will probably think you have made a great discovery. In the meantime, farewell."

She gave him her hands. He held them in his perhaps a little longer than was necessary. She raised her eyes questioningly. He drew them a little closer. Very quietly she removed the right one and touched a bell by her side.

"If my automobile is of any service to you, Sir Julien," she said, "pray use it. It waits outside and I shall not be ready to go out for an hour at least."

"Thank you," he replied. "Your automobile, empty, has no attractions."

The butler was already in the room.

"See that Sir Julien makes use of my automobile if he cares to," she ordered. "This has been a very pleasant visit. I hope we may soon meet again."

She avoided his eyes. He had an instinctive feeling that she was either displeased or disappointed with him. He followed the butler out into the hall filled with a vague sense of self-dissatisfaction.



CHAPTER XVII

KENDRICKS IS HOST

"You are going to spend," Kendricks declared, "a democratic evening. You are going to mix with common folk. To-night we shall drink no champagne at forty francs the bottle. On the other hand, we shall probably drink a great deal more beer than is good for us. How do you find the atmosphere here?"

"Filthy!"

"I was afraid you might notice it," Kendricks remarked. "Never mind, presently you will forget it. You have never been here before, I presume?"

"I have not," Julien agreed. "I daresay I shall find it interesting. You wouldn't describe it as quiet, would you?"

"One does not eat quietly here," Kendricks replied. "Four hundred people, mostly Germans, when they eat are never silent. The service of four hundred dinners continues at the same time. Listen to them. Close your eyes and you will appreciate the true music of crockery."

"If that infernal little band would keep quiet," Julien grumbled, "one might hear oneself talk!"

"Let us have no more criticisms," Kendricks begged. "To-night you are of the working class. You may perhaps be a small manufacturer, the agent of a manufacturing firm in the country, a clerk with a moderate salary, or a mechanic in his best clothes. Remember that and do not complain of the music. You do not hear it every day. Let us hear no more blase speeches, if you please.... Good! The dinner arrives. We dine here, my friend, for two francs. You will probably require another meal before the evening is concluded. On the other hand, you may feel that you never require another meal as long as you live. That is a matter of luck. In any case, you had better squeeze a little further up. Madame and her two daughters are going to sit next to you, and opposite there will be monsieur, and I judge the fiance of one of the young ladies. It will be a family party. If there is anything in that dish of hors d'oeuvres which you fancy particularly, help yourself quickly. In a moment or two there will be no opportunity."

The two men were seated opposite one another at a long table in a huge popular restaurant in the heart of the city. It was Kendricks' plan—Kendricks, in fact, had insisted upon it.

"You know, my dear Julien," he continued, "a certain education is necessary for you. If only I had a little more time I should be invaluable. You have taken all your life too narrow a view. That wretched Eton training! You would have been better off at a board-school. We all should."

"You were at Winchester yourself," Julien reminded him, trying some of the bread and approving of it.

"For a short time only," Kendricks admitted, "and then you forget the years after which I spent in the byways. Oh, I know my people! I know the common people of America and England and France and Germany. I know them and love them. I love the middle classes, too, the honestly vulgar, honestly snobbish, foolishly ambitious, yet over-cautious middle class. The extreme types of every nation lose their racial individuality. You find the true thing only among the bourgeoisie. Oh, if I only knew whether these people," he added, "understood English!"

"You must not risk it," Julien warned him. "Madame has already her eye upon you."

"As a possible suitor for that unmated daughter on her right, I suspect," Kendricks declared. "The young lady has looked at me twice and down at her plate. Julien, you must change places."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," Julien retorted.

"If I ingratiate myself with this family and trouble comes of it," Kendricks continued, "the fault will be yours. Madame," he added, standing up and bowing, "will you permit me?"

Madame had been looking at the bread. Kendricks gallantly offered it. Madame's bows and smiles were a thing delightful to behold. Mademoiselle, too, would take bread, if monsieur was so kind. When Kendricks sat down again, the way was paved for general conversation. Julien, however, practically buttonholed his friend.

"Kendricks," he said, "you have told me nothing about England."

"There is little to tell," Kendricks replied. "The little there is will filter from me during the evening. We are spending a long evening together, you know, Julien."

"Heavens alive!" Julien groaned. "I am not sure that I am strong enough."

"Eat that soup," Kendricks advised him. "That, at least, is sustaining. Never mind stirring it up to see what vegetables are at the bottom. Take my word for it, it is good. And leave the pepper-pot alone. How the people crowd in! You perceive the commercial traveler with a customer? How they talk about that last order! The fat man facing you puzzles me. I wish I could know the occupation of our neighbors. I am curious."

"I should ask them," Julien suggested dryly.

"An idea!" Kendricks assented approvingly. "Let us wait until they have drunk the free wine. You understand, my dear Julien, that you pay nothing for that flask which stands by your side? It comes with the dinner. It is free."

Julien helped himself, and sipped it thoughtfully.

"At least," he murmured, as he set his glass down, "one is thankful that we do not pay for it!"

"There are some," Kendricks remarked, "who prefer beer. Personally, I like to preserve my local color. Vin ordinaire in Paris, beer in Germany. Madame!"

Kendricks had caught madame's eye with the glass at his lips. He rose at once and bowed. Madame acknowledged his graciousness with a huge smile, which spread even to her double chin. Monsieur leaned forward and joined in the ceremony. Mademoiselle, after a timid glance at her mother, also responded. Kendricks' character as an Englishman of gallantry was thoroughly established.

"I am doing our national character good," he declared to Julien, as he set down his glass empty. "As to my own constitution—but let that pass. We will drown this stuff in honest beer, later on. How are you getting on with the fish?"

"It is excellent—really excellent," Julien proclaimed. "Do you mean to say seriously that you are going to pay only two francs each for this repast?"

"Not a centime more," Kendricks assured him. "Do you know why I brought you here?"

"Part of my education, I suppose," Julien replied resignedly.

"Quite true. Further than that, I am here on business for my paper. I am here to study the effect of the German invasion of Paris. This place is being spoken of as being the haunt of Germans. It still seems to me that I find plenty of the real French people."

"Do we pursue your investigations elsewhere during the course of the evening?" Julien inquired.

"The whole of our evening," Kendricks told him, "is devoted to that purpose, and incidentally," he added, "to your education. We are going for red-blooded pleasure to-night, for the real thing,—for the hearty laughs, for the wholesome appetites; no caviare sandwiches, over-dry champagne, rouged lips and Rue de la Paix hats for us. If we make love, we make love honestly. Mademoiselle may permit a clasp of her hand—no more."

"So far," Julien remarked, "mademoiselle—"

"That is for later," Kendricks interrupted briskly. "We shall go to a singing-hall—a German singing-hall. The mademoiselles whom we meet will probably have their own sweethearts. Somehow, to-night I fancy that we shall be lookers-on. What does it matter? We shall at least see life. We shall catch the shadows of other people's happinesses. It is, I believe, the sincerest form. The chicken, dear Julien,—what of the chicken?"

Julien hesitated.

"There is little to be said against it," he confessed. "The only trouble is that it fails to arrive."

Kendricks summoned a waiter, a task of no inconsiderable difficulty, for the service was automatic—the dishes were set upon the table and the waiter disappeared for the next lot. Anything intervening was almost impossible. Monsieur, Kendricks declared, pointing indignantly across the table, had not been served with chicken! The waiter shook his head. It was unheard of! Monsieur had probably had his chicken and forgotten it. The chicken had been brought, two portions. There was no doubt about it. But where then had the chicken been hidden? Kendricks became fluent. He looked under the table. He pointed to his friend's empty plate. The waiter, only half convinced, departed with a vague promise. Kendricks sipped his wine.

"It is a regrettable incident," he declared, "but in the excitement of conversation, Julien, I ate both portions of chicken."

He had lapsed into French, the language in which he had argued with the waiter. Madame was overcome with the humor of the affair. Mademoiselle tittered as she leaned across and told her fiance. The unattached mademoiselle looked her sympathy with Julien. Monsieur saw the joke and laughed heartily. They looked reproachfully at Kendricks. To them it was indeed a tragedy!

"Madame," Kendricks explained, "it is not my custom to be so greedy. The waiter set both portions before me, meaning, without doubt, that I should pass one to my friend. Alas! in the pleasure of conversation in these delightful surroundings,"—he bowed low to mademoiselle—"something, I don't know what it was, carried me away, and I ate and ate until both portions were vanished. Ah!" he exclaimed. "Triumph! The waiter returns. He brings chicken, too, for my friend. Garcon, you have done well. You shall be rewarded. It is excellent."

The waiter, still with a protesting air, passed up the chicken. The little party was convulsed with merriment. They all watched Julien eat his tardy course. Kendricks, with an air of recklessness, sipped more wine.

"I flatter myself," he said, "that before very long I shall have taught you to forget that you were ever a Cabinet Minister, that you were ever at Eton, that you were ever at Oxford. One does not live in those places, you know, Julien. One shrivels instead of expands.... My friend, we have dined."

"Is there nothing more?" Julien asked.

"There is fruit," Kendricks admitted. "It was in my mind to spare you the fruit. I see it to right and left of us being handed around—nuts, a banana, apples whose exterior I trust is misleading. Never mind, you have desired fruit and you shall have it. Waiter, monsieur desires his fruit."

The waiter disappeared and in a moment or two Julien was served.

"Coffee, if you will?"

"No coffee, thanks," Julien decided. "If we are really going to spend the evening visiting places of entertainment of a similar class, let us reserve our coffee. A large cigar, I think."

Kendricks sighed.

"I hate to go. Mademoiselle opposite is pleased with me. I have made a good impression upon madame. Monsieur is ready to extend to me the right hand of fellowship. One of those pleasing little romances one dreams about might here find a commencement. In a week's time I might be accepted as a son-in-law of the house. I see all the signs of assent already beaming in madame's eye. Perhaps we had better go, Julien!"

They took their leave, not without the exchange of many smiles and bows with the little family party they left behind. They walked slowly down the room, arm in arm.

"We were fortunate, you see, in our neighbors," Kendricks declared. "There are Germans everywhere here. One is curious about these people. One wonders how far they have imbibed the manners and customs of the people among whom they live. Are they still absolutely and entirely Teutons, do you suppose? Do they intermarry here, make friends, or do they remain an alien element?"

"To judge by appearances," Julien remarked, "they remain an alien element. It is astonishing how seldom you see mixed parties of French people and Germans here."

"It is exactly to make observations upon that point that I am in Paris," Kendricks asserted. "My people are curious. They want me to watch and write about it. Do you know that there is a feeling in London, Julien, that we are reaching the climax?"

Julien nodded.

"I can quite believe it," he replied. "Falkenberg seems to show every desire to force our hand."

"May the Lord deliver us from a Germanized Paris!" Kendricks prayed. "They may have the Ritz, if they will, and the Elysees Palace. They may have all the halls of fashion and gilt and wealth. They may swamp the Pre Catelan and the Armenonville, so long as they leave us the real Paris. Come, we take our coffee here. This is a German cafe, if you like. Never mind, let us see if by chance any French people have wandered in."

They drank coffee at a little table in a huge building, hung with tobacco smoke, with the inevitable band at one end, and crowded with people. Kendricks smiled as the waiter brought them sugared cakes with their coffee.

"It is Germany," he declared. "Look! An odd Frenchman or two, perhaps; no French women. Look at the hats, the women's faces. The hats looked well enough in the shop-windows here. What an ignoble end for them! From an aesthetic point of view, Julien, nothing is more terrible than the domesticity of the German. If only he could be persuaded to leave his wife at home! Think how much more attractive it would make these places. He would have more money to spend upon himself, upon his own beer and his own pretzels, and in time, no doubt, a lonely feeling, a feeling of sentiment, would overpower him, and the vacant chair would be filled by one of these vivacious little women who might teach him in time that blood was meant to flow, not to ooze like mud."

"I shall begin to think," Julien remarked, "that you don't like Germans."

"There you are wrong," Kendricks replied. "In their own country I like them. They have all the good qualities. Germany for the Germans, I should say always, and me for any other country. We have drunk our coffee. Let us go."

They passed on to a music-hall, where they listened to a mixed performance and drank beer out of long glasses, served to them by a distinctly Teutonic waiter. Greatly to Kendricks' annoyance, however, they were surrounded by English and Americans, and were too tightly packed in to change their seats. On the way out, however, he suddenly beamed.

"Behold!" he exclaimed.

He swept his hat from his head. It was their companions at the dinner table. Madame was pleased to remember him, also mademoiselle.

"I shall invite them to supper," Kendricks declared.

"If you do," Julien retorted, "I shall go home."

Kendricks heaved a long sigh as he regretfully let them pass by.

"It's just a touch of Oxford left in you," he complained. "For myself, I know that madame would be excellent company, and I am perfectly certain that mademoiselle would let me whisper—discreetly—in her ear. Alas! it is a lost opportunity, and from here we go—to who knows what?"

He was suddenly serious. Julien looked at him in surprise. They were standing on the pavement outside. Kendricks consulted his watch.

"You have courage, I know, my friend," he said. "That is one reason why I choose you for my companion to-night. I have two tickets for a German socialist gathering here. The tickets were obtained with extraordinary difficulty. I know that your German is pure and I can trust to my own. From this minute, not a word in any other language, if you please."

"I am really not sure," Julien objected, "that I want to go to a German socialist meeting. In any case, I am hungry."

"Hungry!" Kendricks exclaimed. "Hungry! What ingratitude! But be calm, my friend," he added, taking Julien's arm, "there will be sausages and beer where we are going."

"In that case," Julien agreed, "I am with you. Which way?"

"Almost opposite us," Kendricks declared. "Come along."

They paused outside a brilliantly lit cafe with a German name. Julien looked at it doubtfully.

"Surely they don't hold meetings in a place like this?" he muttered.

Kendricks lowered his voice.

"We go into the cafe first," he said. "The meeting is in a private room. Come."

They pushed open the swinging doors and entered the place.



CHAPTER XVIII

A MEETING OF SOCIALISTS

The brasserie into which the two men pushed their way was smaller and less ornate than the one which they had last visited. Many of the tables, too, were laid for supper. The tone of the place was still entirely Teutonic. Kendricks and his companion seated themselves at a table.

"You will eat sausage?" Kendricks asked.

"I will eat anything," Julien replied.

"It is better," Kendricks remarked. "Here from the first we may be watched. We are certainly observed. Be sure that you do not let fall a single word of English. It might be awkward afterwards."

"It's a beastly language," Julien declared, "but the beer and sausages help. How many of the people here will be at the meeting?"

"Not a hundredth part of them," Kendricks answered. "It was a terrible job to get these tickets and I wouldn't like to guarantee now that we have them that we get there. Remember, if any questions are asked, you're an American, the editor or envoy of The Coming Age."

"The dickens I am!" Julien exclaimed. "Where am I published?"

"In New York; you're a new issue."

Julien ate sausages and bread and butter steadily for several minutes.

"To me," he announced, "there is something more satisfying about a meal of this description than that two-franc dinner where you stole my chicken."

"You have Teutonic instincts, without a doubt," Kendricks declared, "but after all, why not a light dinner and an appetite for supper? Better for the digestion, better for the pocket, better for passing the time. What are you staring at?"

Julien was looking across the room with fixed eyes.

"I was watching a man who has been sitting at a small table over there," he remarked. "He has just gone out through that inner door. For a moment I could have sworn that it was Carl Freudenberg."

Kendricks shook his head.

"Mr. Carl Freudenberg takes many risks, but I do not think he would care to show himself here."

"It is no crime that he is in Paris," Julien objected.

"In a sense it is," Kendricks said. "These incognito visits of his must soon cease if they were talked too much about. Then there is another thing. This cafe is the headquarters of German socialism in Paris, and Herr Freudenberg is the sworn enemy of socialists. He fights them with an iron hand, wherever he comes into contact with them. This is a law-abiding place, without a doubt, and the Germans as a rule are a law-abiding people, but I would not feel quite sure that he would leave unmolested if he were recognized here at this minute."

"You think he knows that?" Julien asked.

"Knows it!" Kendricks replied scornfully. "There is nothing goes on in Paris that he does not know. He peers into every nook and corner of the city. He knows the feelings of the aristocrats, of the bourgeoisie, of the official classes. Not only that, he knows their feelings towards England, towards the Triple Alliance, towards Russia. He never seems to ask questions, he never forgets an answer. He is a wonderful man, in short; but I do not think that you will see him here to-night."

The long hand of the clock pointed toward midnight. Kendricks called for the bill and paid it.

"We go this way," he announced, "through the billiard rooms."

They left the cafe by the swing-door to which Julien had pointed, passed through a crowded billiard room, every table of which was in use, down a narrow corridor till they came face to face with a closed door, on which was inscribed "Number 12." Kendricks knocked softly and it was at once opened. There was another door a few yards further on, and between the two a very tall doorkeeper and a small man in spectacles.

"Who are you?" the doorkeeper demanded gruffly.

Kendricks produced his tickets. The tall man, however, did not move. He scrutinized them, word for word. Then he scrutinized the faces of the two men. Kendricks he seemed inclined to pass, but he looked at Julien for long, and in a puzzled manner.

"Of what nationality is your friend?" he asked Kendricks.

"I am an American," Julien replied.

"And your profession?"

"A newspaper editor. I edit The Coming Age."

"This is not altogether in order," the tall man declared. "The meeting which we are holding to-night is not one in which the Press is interested. We are here to discuss one man, and one man only. I do not think that you would hear anything you could print, and as you do not belong to our direct association here I think it would be better if you did not enter."

Kendricks stood his ground, however.

"I must appeal," he said, "to your secretary."

The little man in spectacles came forward. Kendricks stated his case with much indignation.

"Here am I," he announced, "editor of the only socialist paper in London worthy of the title. I come over because I hear of this meeting. I bring with me my American friend, the editor of The Coming Age. For no other reason have we visited Paris than for this. If you refuse us admission to this meeting, the whole of the English branch will consider it an insult."

"And the American," Julien put in firmly.

The two men whispered together. The taller one, still grumbling, stood on one side.

"Pass in," he directed. "It is not strictly in order, but our secretary permits."

The two men passed on. The room in which they found themselves was a small one and there were not more than fifty people present. It was very dimly lit and they could barely make out the forms of the row of men who were sitting upon chairs upon the platform. They contented themselves with seats quite close to the door. No drinks were being served here. Although one or two men were smoking, the general aspect seemed to be one of stern and serious intensity. A man upon the platform was just finishing speaking as they entered, and he apparently called upon some one else. A large and heavy German stood up on the centre of the slightly raised stage. He wore shapeless clothes and horn-rimmed spectacles. His face was benevolent. He had a double chin and a soft voice.

"My brothers," he said, "at these our meetings we have many things to discuss. We have little time to waste. Why beat about the bush? I am here to speak to you of the greatest enemy our cause has in the world—Prince Adolf Rudolf von Falkenberg."

He paused. There was an ugly little murmur through the room. It was very easy indeed to understand that the man whose name had been mentioned was unpopular.

"The cause of socialism," the speaker continued, "is the one cause we all have at heart. In our Fatherland it flourishes, but it flourishes slowly. The reason that we are denied our just and legitimate triumphs is simply owing to the vigorous opposition, the brutal enmity, of Prince Adolf Rudolf von Falkenberg. My brothers, this man has been warned. His only answer has been a fresh and more diabolical measure. He fights us everywhere with the fierceness of a man who hates his enemy. It is our duty, brethren, that we do not see our cause retarded by the enmity of any one man. Therefore, it is my business to say to you to-night that that man should be removed."

There was a murmur of voices, one clearer than the others.

"But how?"

The man on the platform adjusted his spectacles.

"My brother asks how? I will tell him. Falkenberg loves war. We others hate it. We work always to infuse throughout the army our own principles and theories. Falkenberg falls upon them with all his might and main. There are orders posted in every barracks in Germany. Our literature is confiscated. Any man preaching our doctrines is drummed out upon the streets. I say that these things cannot last. I say that Falkenberg must go. A friend in the audience has asked how. I will answer you. There is a body of men whose beliefs are somewhat similar to ours, but who go further. It is possible they see the truth. But for us at present it is not possible to accept their general principles. This case is an exception. The anarchists of Berlin, one of whom, Franz Kuzman, is here to-night, will dispose of Falkenberg for us if we provide sufficient funds to make an escape possible, and an annuity for the executioner should he live, or for his wife should he die."

There was a slow, ominous murmur of voices. The fat man on the platform beamed at everybody.

"Kuzman is here upon the platform," he announced. "Does any one wish to hear him?"

Kuzman stood up—an awkward, rawboned, dark-featured man. In a coat that was too short for him, he stood rather like a puppet upon the platform.

"If you delegates of the socialist societies decide that it is just," he said, in a hoarse, unpleasant tone, "I am willing to see that Falkenberg meets his reward. I can say no more. I do not fail. I move against no one save those who deserve death and against whom the death sentence has been pronounced. But when I do move, that man dies."

He resumed his seat. The fat man went on.

"Is it your wish," he asked, "that Kuzman be authorized by you to arrange this affair?"

The murmur of voices was scarcely intelligible.

"Into the hands of every one of you," the fat man continued, "will be placed a strip of paper. You will write upon it 'Yes' or 'No.' Kuzman will be instructed according to your verdict."

Some one on the platform bustled around. Kendricks and Julien were both supplied with the long strips. In a few minutes these were collected. The man upon the platform turned up the lights a little higher. He drew a small table towards him and began sorting out the papers into two heaps. One was obviously much larger than the other. Towards the end he came across a slip, however, at which he paused. He read it with knitted brows, half rose to his feet and stopped. Then he went on with his counting. Presently he got up.

"My brothers," he said, "there are forty-two papers here. Of these, thirty-five agree to the appointment of Kuzman for the purpose we have spoken of. Six are against it. One paper I will read to you. The writer has not troubled to put 'Yes' or 'No.' This is what I find:

"Falkenberg has served his Emperor and his country to the whole extent of his will and his capacity. He has given his life to make his country great. If he has been stern upon the cause of socialism, it is because he does not believe that socialism, as it is at present preached, is good for Germany. I vote, therefore, that Falkenberg live.

"We desire to know," the speaker continued, "who wrote those words. They do not sound like the words of one of our delegates. Johann and Hesler, stand by the door. Turn up the lights. Let us see exactly who there is here to-night, unknown to us."

There was a little murmur. A man who sat only three or four places off from Kendricks and Julien rose silently to his feet and moved towards the door. It was as yet locked, however. From the other end of the room the lights were suddenly heightened. The faces of the men were now distinctly visible. A light in the body of the hall flared up. A man was discovered with his hand upon the door handle. There was a hoarse murmur of voices.

"Who is he? Hold fast of the door! Let no one pass out!"

The man turned quickly round. The light flashed upon his face. Julien was the first to recognize him and he gripped Kendricks by the arm.

"My God!" he muttered, "it's Falkenberg himself! Who is the man with the key?"

Kendricks pointed to him. They crept closer. Then that hoarse murmur of voices turned suddenly into a low, passionate cry.

"Falkenberg! Falkenberg himself!"

The toymaker made no further attempt at concealment. He drew himself up and faced them. They were creeping towards him now from all corners of the room—an ugly-looking set of men, men with an ugly purpose in their faces.

"Yes, I am Falkenberg!" he cried. "I am here to spy upon you, if you will. Why not? Kill me, if you choose, but I warn you that if you do the whole of Germany will rise against you and your cause."

"Don't let him escape!" some one shouted from the platform.

"Gag him!"

"It is fate!"

"He is ours!"

"A rope!"

There was no mistaking the feeling of the men. Julien whispered swiftly in Kendricks' ear. Simultaneously his right arm shot out. The man who guarded the door felt his neck suddenly twisted back. Kendricks snatched the key from his hand and thrust it in the lock. Some one struck him a violent blow on the head. He reeled, but was still able to turn the key. They came then with a howl from all parts of the room. Julien felt a storm of blows. Falkenberg, with one swoop of his long arm, disposed of their nearest assailant.

"Get off, man," Kendricks ordered. "You first!"

The door was wide open now. They half stumbled, half fell into the outer cafe. The orchestra stopped playing, people rose to their feet. Before they well knew what was happening, Falkenberg had slipped through their midst and passed out of the door. One of the pursuers, with a howl of rage, sprang after him, but he tripped against an abutting marble table and fell. Kendricks and Julien stepped quietly to one side, threading their way among the throng of customers in the cafe. Loud voices shouted for an explanation.

"It was a pickpocket," some one called out from among those who came streaming from the room,—"a tall man with a wound on the forehead. Did no one see him?"

They all looked towards the door.

"He passed out so swiftly," they murmured.

Several of them had already reached the door of the cafe and were rushing down the street in the direction which Falkenberg had taken.

"There were two others," a grim voice shouted from behind.

A waiter, who had seen the two men sit down, looked doubtfully towards them. Kendricks pushed a note into his hand.

"Serve us with something quickly," he begged.

The man pocketed the note and set before them the beer which he was carrying. Kendricks, whose knuckles were bleeding, laid his hand under the table. Julien took a long drink of the beer and began to recover his breath.

"So far," he declared, "I have found your evening with the masses a little boisterous."

Kendricks laughed.

"Wait till my hand has stopped bleeding," he said, "and we will slip out. That was a narrow escape for Falkenberg. What a pluck the fellow must have!"

"It seems almost like a foolhardy risk," Julien muttered. "If those fellows could have got at him, they'd have killed him. Have they gone back to their room, I wonder? Let us hear what the people say about the affair."

"What was the disturbance?" he asked.

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a meeting in one of the private rooms of the cafe," he declared, "a meeting of some society. They were taking a vote when they discovered a pickpocket. He bolted out of the room. They say that he has got away."

"Did he steal much?" Julien inquired.

The man shook his head.

"A watch and chain, or something of the sort," he told them. "The excitement is all over now. The gentlemen have gone back to their meeting."

Julien smiled and finished his beer.

"Is our evening at an end, Kendricks?" he asked.

Kendricks shook his head.

"Not quite," he replied, binding his handkerchief around his knuckles. "If you are ready, there is just one other call we might make."

"More German brasseries?"

Kendricks smiled grimly.

"Not to-night. We climb once more the hill. We pay our respects to Monsieur Albert."

"The Rat Mort?"

"Exactly!"



CHAPTER XIX

AN OFFER

Kendricks, as they entered the cafe, recognized his friends with joy openly expressed.

"It is fate!" he exclaimed, striking a dramatic attitude.

"It is the gentleman who ate both portions of chicken!" mademoiselle cried.

"It is the gallant Englishman of the Cafe Helder," madame laughed, her double chin becoming more and more evident.

"And yonder, in the corner, sits Mademoiselle Ixe," Kendricks whispered to Julien. "For whom does she wait, I wonder?".

"For Herr Freudenberg?" suggested Julien.

"For Herr Freudenberg, let us pray," Kendricks replied.

The husband of madame, the father of mademoiselle, the rightly conceived future papa-in-law-to-be of the attendant young man, rose to his feet in response to a kick from his wife.

"If monsieur is looking for a table," he suggested, "there is room here adjoining ours. It will incommode us not in the slightest."

"Of all places in the room," Kendricks declared, with a bow, "the most desirable, the most charming. Madame indeed permits—and mademoiselle?"

There were more bows, more pleasant speeches. A small additional table was quickly brought. Kendricks ignored the more comfortable seat by Julien's side and took a chair with his back to the room. From here he leaned over and conversed with his new friends. He started flirting with mademoiselle, he paid compliments to madame, he suddenly plunged into politics with monsieur. Julien listened, half in amusement, half in admiration. For Kendricks was not talking idly.

"A man of affairs, monsieur," Kendricks proclaimed himself to be. "My interest in both countries, madame," he continued, knowing well that she, too, loved to talk of the affairs, "is great. I am one of those, indeed, who have benefited largely by this delightful alliance."

Alliance! Monsieur smiled at the word. Kendricks protested.

"But what else shall we call it, dear friends?" he argued. "Are we not allied against a common foe? The exact terms of the entente, what does it matter? Is it credible that England would remain idle while the legions of Germany overran this country?"

Monsieur was becoming interested. So was madame. It was madame who spoke—one gathered that it was usual!

"What, then," she demanded, "would England do?"

"She would come to the aid of your charming country, madame."

"But how?" madame persisted pertinently.

Kendricks was immediately fluent. He talked in ornate phrases of the resources of the British Empire, the perfection of her fleet, the wonder of her new guns. Julien, who knew him well, was amazed not only at his apparent earnestness, but at his insincerity. He was speaking well and with a wealth of detail which was impressive enough. His little company of new friends were listening to him with marked attention; Julien alone seemed conscious that they were listening to a man who was speaking against his own convictions.

"Monsieur! Monsieur Julien!"

It was the voice of Mademoiselle Ixe. She was leaning slightly forward in her place. Julien turned quickly around and she motioned him to a seat by her side. He rose at once and accepted her invitation.

"I do not disturb you?" she asked. "It seemed to me that your friend was talking with those strange people there and that you were not very much interested. It is dull when one sits here alone."

"Naturally," Julien agreed. "My friend talks politics, and for my part it is very certain that I would sooner talk of other things with mademoiselle."

She was a born flirt—a matter of nationality as well as temperament, and not to be escaped—and her eyes flashed the correct reply. But a moment later she was gazing wistfully at the door.

"You expect Herr Freudenberg?" Julien inquired.

"I cannot tell," she replied. "I must not say that I am expecting him because he did not ask me to meet him here. But I thought, perhaps, that he might come—so I risked it. I was restless to-night. I do not sing this week because Herr Freudenberg is in Paris, and without any occupation it is hard to control the thoughts. I sat at home until I could bear it no longer. Eh bien! I sent for a little carriage and I ventured here. There is a chance that he may come."

"Mademoiselle permits that I offer her some supper?" Julien suggested.

She hesitated and glanced at the clock.

"You are very kind, Sir Julien," she answered. "I have waited because I have thought that there was a chance that he might come, and to sup alone is a drear thing. If monsieur really—Ah! Behold! After all, it is he! It is he who comes. What happiness!"

It was indeed Herr Freudenberg who had mounted the stairs and was yielding now his coat to the attentive vestiaire—Herr Freudenberg, unruffled and precisely attired in evening clothes. He showed not the slightest signs of his recent adventure. He chatted gayly to Albert and waved his hand to mademoiselle. He came towards them with a smile upon his face, walking lightly and with the footsteps of a young man. Yet mademoiselle shivered, her lip drooped.

"He is not pleased," she murmured. "I have done wrong."

There was nothing apparent to others in Herr Freudenberg's manner to justify her conviction. He raised her fingers to his lips with charming gayety.

"Dear Marguerite," he exclaimed, "this is indeed a delightful surprise! And Sir Julien, too! I am enchanted. Once more let us celebrate. Let us sup. I am in time, eh?"

"With me, if you please," Julien insisted, taking up the menu.

Herr Freudenberg smiled genially.

"Host or guest, who cares so long as we are joyous?" he cried, sitting on mademoiselle's other side. "Although to-night," he added, with a humorous glance at Julien, "it should surely be I who entertains! Dear Marguerite!"

He patted her hand. She looked at him pathetically and he smiled back again.

"Be happy, my child," he begged. "It is gone, that little twinge. It was perhaps jealousy," he whispered in her ear. "Sir Julien has captured many hearts."

She drew a sigh of content. She raised his hand to her lips. Then she dabbed at her eyes with the few inches of perfumed lace which she called a handkerchief. It was passing, that evil moment.

"There is no man in the world," she told him softly, "who should be able to make you jealous. In your heart you know."

He laughed lightly.

"You will make me vain, dear one. Give me your little fingers to hold for a moment. There—it is finished."

He looked around the room with the light yet cheerful curiosity of the pleasure-seeker. Then he leaned over towards Julien.

"What does our shock-headed friend the journalist do in that company?" he asked, with a backward motion of his head.

Julien smiled.

"He is devoted to madame with the double chin. He is apparently also devoted to mademoiselle, the daughter of madame with the double chin. He is contemplating, I believe, an alliance with the bourgeoisie."

Herr Freudenberg watched the group for a moment with a slight frown.

"They are types," he said under his breath, "absolute types. Kendricks is studying them, without a doubt."

He continued his scrutiny of the room. Then he leaned towards mademoiselle.

"Dear Marguerite!"

"Yes?"

"There is Mademoiselle Soupelles there," he pointed out, "sitting with an untidy-looking man in a morning coat and a red tie. You see them?"

"But certainly," mademoiselle agreed. "They are together always. It is an alliance, that."

"It would please me," Herr Freudenberg continued, still speaking almost under his breath, "to converse with the companion of Mademoiselle Soupelles. From you, dear Marguerite, I conceal nothing. I made no appointment with you to-night because it was my intention to speak with that person, and I could not tell where he would be. All has happened fortunately. We spend our evening together, after all. See what you can do to help me. Go and talk to your friend, Mademoiselle Soupelles. Bring them here if you can. Sir Julien thinks he is ordering the supper, but he is too late; I ordered it from Albert as I entered."

Mademoiselle rose at once and shook out her skirts. She kissed her hand across the room to her friend.

"I go to speak to her," she promised. "What I can do I will. You know that, dear one. But he is a strange-looking man, this companion of hers. You know who he is? His name is Jesen. If I were Susanne, I would see to it that he was more comme-il-faut."

Herr Freudenberg laughed.

"Never mind his appearance," he said. "He can drive the truth into the hearts of this people as swiftly and as surely as any man who ever took up a pen. Bring him here, little sweetheart, and to-morrow we visit Cartier together."

She glanced at him almost reproachfully.

"As if that mattered!" she murmured, as she glided away.

Julien turned discontentedly to his companion.

"This fellow will take no order from me," he objected. "Do you own this place, Herr Freudenberg, that you must always be obeyed here?"

"By no means," Herr Freudenberg replied. "To-night is an exception. I ordered supper as I entered. You see, there are others whom I may ask to join. You shall have your turn when you will and I will be a very submissive guest, but to-night—well, I have even at this moment charged mademoiselle with a message to her friend and her friend's companion. I have begged them to join us. On these nights I like company—plenty of company!"

"In that case, perhaps," Julien suggested, "I may be de trop."

Freudenberg laid his hand upon his companion's shoulder.

"My friend," he said earnestly, "it is not for you to talk like that, to-night of all nights. If I say little, it is because we are both men of few words, and I think that we understand. You know very well what you and your shock-headed friend have done for me. Not that I believe," he went on, "that it would ever come to me to be hounded to death by such a gang. I am too fervent a believer in my own star for that. But one never knows. It is well, anyhow, to escape with a sound skin."

"Why did you run such a risk?" Julien asked him.

"Partly," Freudenberg answered, "because I was really curious to know what those fellows were driving at; and partly," he added, "because, alas! I am possessed of that restless spirit, that everlasting craving for adventures, which drives one on into any place where life stirs. I knew that these people were plotting something against me. I wanted to hear it with my own ears, to understand exactly what it was against which I must be prepared. But now, Sir Julien, I question you. As for me, my presence there was reasonable enough; but what were you doing in such a place? What interests have you in German socialism?"

Julien shrugged his shoulders.

"I cannot say that I have any," he admitted. "It was Kendricks who took me. He is showing me Paris—Paris from his own point of view. He took me first to a restaurant, where we dined for two francs and sat at the same table with those people to whom he is now making himself so agreeable. Kendricks has democratic instincts. His latest fad is to try and instil them into me."

Herr Freudenberg looked thoughtfully across at the journalist, still deep in argument with his friends.

"I am not sure that I understand that man," he declared. "In a sense he impresses me. I should have put him down as one of those who do nothing without a set and fixed purpose. But enough of other people. Listen. I wish to speak with you—of yourself. I am glad that we have met to-night. I have another and altogether a different proposition to make to you."

Julien remained silent for several moments. Herr Freudenberg watched him.

"A proposition to make to me," Julien repeated at last. "Well, let me hear it?"

Herr Freudenberg leaned towards him.

"Sir Julien," he said, "there has happened to you, as to many of us, a little slip in your life. It is a wise thing if for a few months you pass off the stage of European affairs. You are of an adventurous spirit. Will you undertake a commission for me? Listen. I will guarantee that it is something which does not, and could not ever, by any chance, affect in the slightest degree the interests of your country. It is a commission which will take you a year to execute, and it will lead you into a new land. It will require tact, diplomacy and some courage. If you succeed, your reward will be an income for life. If you fail, the worst that can happen to you is that you will have passed a year of your life without effective result. Still, you will at least have traveled, you will at least have seen new phases of life."

Julien was puzzled.

"You cannot seriously propose to me," he protested, "to undertake a diplomatic errand for a country which has absolutely no claims upon me—to which I am not even attracted?" he added.

Herr Freudenberg tapped with his forefinger upon the table. Upon his lips was a genial and tolerant smile. He had the air of a preceptor devoting special pains upon the most backward member of his kindergarten class.

"My friend," he said, "there is no political question involved whatever. The mission which I ask you to undertake would lead you into a remote part of Africa, where neither your country nor mine has at present any interests. More than this I cannot tell you unless you show signs of accepting my invitation. The negotiations which you would have to conduct are simply these. Four years ago a distinguished German scientist who was in command of a somewhat rash expedition, was captured by the ruler of the country to which I wish you to travel. For some time the question of a mission to ascertain his fate has been upon the carpet. It is true that we have received letters from him. He professes to be happy and contented, to have been kindly treated, and to have accepted a post in the army of his captor. We wish to know whether these letters are genuine or not. If they are genuine, all is well, but a suspicion still remains among some of us that the person in question is being held in torture as an example to other white men who might penetrate so far. This is the first object in the journey which I propose to you. There is nothing political about it at all, as you perceive. It is purely a matter of humanity.... Ah! I see that our party is to be increased. Here are some new friends who arrive."

Mademoiselle Ixe had succeeded. She returned now to her place, followed by the girl with the chestnut-colored hair and her companion. At close quarters the latter, at any rate, was scarcely prepossessing. He was a man of middle age, untidily dressed, whose clothes were covered with cigar ash and recent wine stains, whose linen was none of the cleanest, and whose eyes behind his pince-nez were already bloodshot. Herr Freudenberg, however, seemed to notice none of these unpleasant defects. He grasped him vigorously by the hand.

"It is Monsieur Jesen!" he exclaimed. "Often you have been pointed out to me, and I have long wished to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. Sit down and join us, monsieur. Your little friend, too,—ah, mademoiselle!"

He bent low over the girl's hand and placed a seat for her. The party was now arranged. Their host beamed upon them all.

"Come," he continued, "this is perhaps my last night in Paris for some time! We have had adventures, too, within these few hours. You find us celebrating. My English friend here is one of us. I will not introduce him by name. Why should we trouble about names? We are all friends, all good fellows, here to pass the time agreeably, to drink good wine, to look into beautiful eyes, mademoiselle, to amuse ourselves. It is the science of life, that. Monsieur Jesen, mademoiselle, dear Marguerite, my English friend here, let me be sure that your glasses are filled. To the very brim, garcon—to the very brim! Let us drink together to the joyous evenings of the past, to the joyous evenings of the future, to these few present hours that lie before us when we shall sit here and taste further this very admirable vintage. To the wine we drink, to the lips we love, to this hour of life!"

For the moment there was no more serious conversation. Herr Freudenberg had started a vein of frivolity to which every one there was quick to respond. Only every now and then he himself, the giver of the feast, had suddenly the look of a different man as he sat and whispered in the ear of Monsieur Jesen.



CHAPTER XX

FALKENBERG ACTS

At two o'clock, with obvious reluctance, Kendricks' new friends departed. Their leave-taking was long and ceremonious. Kendricks, indeed, insisted upon escorting mademoiselle to the door. Madame left the place with the assured conviction that a prospective son-in-law was soon to present himself—it could be for no other reason that the English gentleman had so sedulously attached himself to their party. Monsieur, having less sentiment, was not so sure. Mademoiselle had both hopes and fears. They discussed the matter fully on their homeward drive.

Kendricks strolled over to the table where Julien was and touched him on the shoulder.

"Is this to be another all-night sitting?" he asked.

Herr Freudenberg was deep in conversation with Monsieur Jesen—the friend of mademoiselle's friend. He glanced up, but his greeting was almost perfunctory. Kendricks looked keenly at the man who was leaning back in his padded seat. The eyes of Monsieur Jesen were a little more bloodshot now. He had spilt wine down the front of his waistcoat, cigar ash upon his coat-sleeve. He was by no means an inviting person to look at. Yet about his forehead and mouth there was an expression of power. Herr Freudenberg, with obvious regret, abandoned his conversation for a moment.

"You are taking your friend away?" he remarked suavely. "We shall part from him with regret. Sir Julien," he added, whispering in his ear, "I must have your answer to my proposition. I will put it into absolutely definite shape, if you like, within the next few days."

"I move into my old rooms—number 17, Rue de Montpelier—to-morrow morning, or rather this morning," Julien replied. "You might telephone or call there at any time."

"Tell me, is what I have proposed in any way attractive to you?" Herr Freudenberg asked, still speaking in an undertone.

"In a sense it is," Julien answered. "It needs further consideration, of course. I must also consult my friend."

Herr Freudenberg glanced at Kendricks and shrugged his shoulders. He had the air of one slightly annoyed. Kendricks was bending over Mademoiselle Ixe. Herr Freudenberg whispered in Julien's ear.

"You take too much advice from your boisterous friend, dear Sir Julien," he asserted. "Mark my words, he will try to keep you here, cooling your heels upon the mat. He will prevent you from raising your hand to knock upon the door of destiny. These men who write are like that. They do not understand action."

Kendricks turned from mademoiselle.

"You are ready, Julien?" he asked.

"Quite," Julien answered.

They made their adieux. Herr Freudenberg watched them leave the room. The man by his side—Monsieur Jesen—also watched a little curiously.

"An English journalist," Herr Freudenberg remarked, "some say a man of ability. I find him a trifle boisterous and uncouth. Monsieur Jesen, our conversation interests me immensely. I feel sure—"

Jesen looked suspiciously around.

"We have talked enough of business," he declared. "It is an idea, this of yours. For the rest, I cannot tell. A wonderful idea!" he continued. "And as for me, am I not the man to embrace it?"

"You have but to say a single word," Herr Freudenberg reminded him softly, "and all is arranged."

Monsieur Jesen puffed furiously at a cigarette. The fingers which had held the match to it were shaking. The man himself seemed unsteady on his seat. Yet it was obvious that his brain was working.

"Herr Freudenberg," he said, "there is but one weak point in all your chain of arguments. To do as you ask, it will be necessary that I—I, Paul Jesen, so well-known, whose opinions are followed by millions of my country people—it would be necessary for me to abandon my convictions, to turn a right-about-face. Ask yourself, is it not like selling one's honor when one writes the things one does not believe?"

Herr Freudenberg smiled.

"My friend, you ask me a question the reply to which is already spoken. I tell you that behind, at the back of your brain, you know and realize the truth of all these things. Think, man! Call to mind the arguments I have used. Remember, I have lifted the curtain, I have shown you the things that arrive, the things that are inevitable."

Mademoiselle, the companion of Monsieur Jesen, had had enough of this. It was her weekly holiday. She yawned and tapped her friend upon the arm.

"My dear Paul," she protested, "while you and Herr Freudenberg talk as two men who have immense affairs, Marguerite and I we weary ourselves. If I am to be alone like this, very good. I speak to my friends. There is Monsieur de Chaussin there. He throws me a kiss. Do you wish that I sit with him? He looks, indeed, as though he had plenty to say! Or there is the melancholy Italian gentleman, who raises his glass always when I look. And the two Americans—"

"You have reason, little one," Monsieur Jesen interrupted. "Herr Freudenberg, this is no place for such a discussion."

"Agreed!" Herr Freudenberg exclaimed. "We owe our apologies to mademoiselle, your charming friend, and mademoiselle, my adored companion," he added, turning to Marguerite. "Come, let us drink more wine. Let us talk together. What is your pleasure, mademoiselle, the friend of my good friend, Monsieur Jesen? Will you have them dance to us? Is there music to which you would listen? Or shall we pray Marguerite here that she sings? Let us, at any rate, be gay. And for the rest, Monsieur Jesen, time has no count for us who live our lives. When we leave here, you and I will talk more."

It was daylight before they left. The whole party got into Herr Freudenberg's motor.

"I drive you first to your rooms, Monsieur Jesen," he said. "I take then the liberty of entering with you. The little conversation which we have begun is best concluded within the shelter of four walls."

Monsieur Jesen was excited yet nervous.

"It is too late," he muttered, "to talk business."

Herr Freudenberg smiled.

"Ah!" he cried, "you jest, my friend. Look out of that window. You see the sunshine in the streets, you breathe the fresh, clear air? Too late, indeed! It is morning, and the brain is keenest then. Don't you feel the fumes of the hot room, of the wine, of the tobacco smoke, all pass away with the touch of that soft wind?"