The Chargé’s face cleared. “Delighted,” he answered, somewhat ambiguously. “I’ll send for the minister at once. He lives just around the corner. Meanwhile, hadn’t you better—er—send out for some clothes for Miss Fitzhugh? Mr. Forbes is very high church, and I’m not sure that he would consent to marry her under——”
But Caruth interrupted. “Sure!” he laughed. “I had forgotten. If you’ll let me get at the ’phone, I’ll ask Mrs. Bristow to get what is needed and hurry it around. Besides, I’d like to have the Bristows here. It will seem more like home.”
The Chargé rose. “The telephone is in the next room,” he said. “The messenger will show you. Is there anything else I can do?” The thought of getting rid of the Sea Spume affair made him positively affable.
“Nothing, thank you.”
As the two went out, a card was brought to the Chargé. He scanned it and his face grew grave. For a moment he hesitated; then, “Ask Baron Demidroff to come in,” he directed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BARON DEMIDROFF entered the office of the Embassy jauntily. Things were coming his way. He had found the Princess and gotten her on his side, and he would soon recover the Orkney’s gold. With such a potent recommendation, he could reëstablish himself in favor, wrest the control of the Princess’s fortune from Count Strogoff, and put that gentleman where he could do no more harm. There was not a cloud on his horizon.
But there were a good many on that of the Chargé. Ignorant of the true reason of the Baron’s errand he could put but one construction on it: the Baron was coming in person to demand the surrender of Caruth’s bride. He foresaw various unpleasantnesses before the matter was settled.
Nevertheless, he rose to greet the Baron warmly. He knew him very well indeed, having, in fact, taught him to play poker at the club only the night before.
On this intimacy he based almost his sole hope of a satisfactory outcome to the affair. Those people who assert that the functions of an ambassador have been superseded by the cable and the long-distance telephone, and argue that those highly ornate offices should be abolished forthwith, fail to take into account the mellowing effects of personal intercourse. Men who have met daily on friendly terms can usually smooth over causes of irritation as they arise and prevent them from developing into crises, and can often even suppress a crisis itself after it has developed—unless, of course, one or the other country is determined to quarrel. The Chargé believed that the Baron would not quarrel with him unless it could not be avoided.