CHAPTER II
Angela Elphinspoon stood with Perriton Powers among the begonias of the conservatory. The same news which had so agitated Sir John lay heavy on both their hearts.
"Will the Wazoo rise?" asked Angela, clasping her hands before her, while her great eyes sought the young man's face and found it. "Oh, Mr. Powers! Tell me, will they rise? It seems too dreadful to contemplate. Do you think the Wazoo will rise?"
"It is only too likely," said Powers. They stood looking into one another's eyes, their thoughts all on the Wazoo.
Angelina Elphinspoon, as she stood there against the background of the begonias, made a picture that a painter, or even a plumber, would have loved. Tall and typically English in her fair beauty, her features, in repose, had something of the hauteur and distinction of her mother, and when in motion they recalled her father.
Perriton Powers was even taller than Angela. The splendid frame and stern features of Sir John's secretary made him a striking figure. Yet he was, quite frankly, sprung from the people, and made no secret of it. His father had been simply a well-to-do London surgeon, who had been knighted for some mere discoveries in science. His grandfather, so it was whispered, had been nothing more than a successful banker who had amassed a fortune simply by successful banking. Yet at Oxford young Powers had carried all before him. He had occupied a seat, a front seat, in one of the boats, had got his blue and his pink, and had taken a double final in Sanscrit and Arithmetic.
He had already travelled widely in the East, spoke Urdu and Hoodoo with facility, while as secretary to Sir John Elphinspoon, with a seat in the House in prospect, he had his foot upon the ladder of success.
"Yes," repeated Powers thoughtfully, "they may rise. Our confidential despatches tell us that for some time they have been secretly passing round packets of yeast. The whole tribe is in a ferment."
"But our sphere of influence is at stake," exclaimed Angela.
"It is," said Powers. "As a matter of fact, for over a year we have been living on a mere modus vivendi."
"Oh, Mr. Powers," cried Angela, "what a way to live."
"We have tried everything," said the secretary. "We offered the Wazoo a condominium over the desert of El Skrub. They refused it."
"But it's our desert," said Angela proudly.
"It is. But what can we do? The best we can hope is that El Boob will acquiesce in the status quo."
At that moment a manservant appeared in the doorway of the conservatory.
"Mr. Powers, sir," he said, "Sir John desires your attendance, sir, in the library, sir."
Powers turned to Angela, a new seriousness upon his face.
"Miss Elphinspoon," he said, "I think I know what is coming. Will you wait for me here? I shall be back in half an hour."
"I will wait," said the girl. She sat down and waited among the begonias, her mind still on the Wazoo, her whole intense nature strung to the highest pitch. "Can the modus vivendi hold?" she murmured.
In half an hour Powers returned. He was wearing now his hat and light overcoat, and carried on a strap round his neck a tin box with a white painted label, "British Foreign Office. Confidential Despatches. This Side Up With Care."
"Miss Elphinspoon," he said, and there was a new note in his voice, "Angela, I leave England to-night——"
"To-night!" gasped Angela.
"On a confidential mission."
"To Wazuchistan!" exclaimed the girl.
Powers paused a moment. "To Wazuchistan," he said, "yes. But it must not be known. I shall return in a month—or never. If I fail"—he spoke with an assumed lightness—"it is only one more grave among the hills. If I succeed, the Cabinet is saved, and with it the destiny of England."
"Oh, Mr. Powers," cried Angela, rising and advancing towards him, "how splendid! How noble! No reward will be too great for you."
"My reward," said Powers, and as he spoke he reached out and clasped both of the girl's hands in his own, "yes, my reward. May I come and claim it here?"
For a moment he looked straight into her eyes. In the next he was gone, and Angela was alone.
"His reward!" she murmured. "What could he have meant? His reward that he is to claim. What can it be?"
But she could not divine it. She admitted to herself that she had not the faintest idea.