“I don’t know,” retorted Scott; “women do strange things sometimes. Why not ask her?”
And he threw away his cigar and called for the bill.
CHAPTER XX
A PHILOSOPHER DISCOURSES
IT was not merely, or even principally, to arrange the articles of settlement that the Baron Lappo had gone so hastily to Paris. The terms of the articles had already been agreed upon, after exhaustive debates with Mrs. Davis’s solicitor, tentative drafts had been exchanged, and the final one was even then in the baron’s hands, with but a minor detail or two needing correction—trivial matters, easily arranged by post.
But the royal exchequer was low—empty, as a matter of fact; and the need of replenishment was so urgent that the baron had excused himself a few minutes after Selden’s departure from the betrothal dinner, changed hurriedly into travelling clothes while his valet packed his bag, and had managed to catch the Paris express.
He had reached Paris early the following afternoon, had driven straight to the rooms of a private banker in Rue Lafitte, who, forewarned by wire, was awaiting him, and had at once, as was his habit, placed all his cards on the table. These cards had been examined carefully by a fat gentleman with a black curly beard and a type of countenance unmistakably Hebraic, and had proved so satisfactory that the baron was able to get away at the end of an hour, and to catch Mrs. Davis’s solicitor upon his return from a leisurely lunch. The final details of the settlement were soon agreed upon and arrangements made to have the official copies prepared at once.
He had then spent an hour at the Quai d’Orsay, and another half-hour at the British Embassy in Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré; had gone back to Rue Lafitte for a final talk with his banker, and then to the offices of the solicitor in the Avenue de l’Opéra, where the official copies of the agreement were awaiting him, and had arrived at the Gare de Lyon in time to catch the train for Marseilles leaving at 8:50, very tired but triumphant.
It was about the middle of the next afternoon that he stepped out again upon the platform at Nice, entered the car which was awaiting him, and was whirled away to the Villa Gloria, where he found the king recovering from the heart attack of the previous day.
It had been a severe one, brought on, as always, by over-eating. The king was a gourmet, not to say a glutton, with not always the strength to resist temptation. It was one of Baron Lappo’s duties to supply this strength. In his absence, the task usually devolved upon the Princess Anna; but she had been ill the day before, and the chef had been so ill-advised as to prepare a rich pillaff of which the king was very fond—with the consequence that for a time he had been very ill indeed.
The baron uttered no reproaches, but there was that in his look which would have made the king blush, if he had not already been so rubicund.