CHAPTER XV
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
The Villa Mimosa flamed with lights from the top story to the ground-floor. The entrance gates stood wide-open. All along the drive, lamps flashed from unsuspected places beneath the yellow-flowering trees. One room only seemed shrouded in darkness and mystery, and around that one room was concentrated the tense life of the villa. Thick curtains had been drawn with careful hands. The heavy door had been securely closed. The French-windows which led out on to the balcony had been almost barricaded. The four men who were seated around the oval table had certainly secured for themselves what seemed to be a complete and absolute isolation. Yet there was, nevertheless, a sense of uneasiness, an indescribable air of tension in the atmosphere. The quartette had somehow the appearance of conspirators who had not settled down to their work. It was the last arrival, the man who sat at Mr. Grex's right hand, who was responsible for the general unrest.
Mr. Grex moved a little nervously in the chair which he had just drawn up to the table. He looked towards Draconmeyer as he opened the proceedings.
"Monsieur Douaille," he said, "has come to see us this evening at my own urgent request. Before we commence any sort of discussion, he has asked me to make it distinctly understood to you both—to you, Mr. Draconmeyer, and to you, Herr Selingman—that this is not in any sense of the word a formal meeting or convention. We are all here, as it happens, by accident. Our friend Selingman, for instance, who is a past master in the arts of pleasant living, has not missed a season here for many years. Draconmeyer is also an habitué. I myself, it is true, have spent my winters elsewhere, for various reasons, and am comparatively a stranger, but my visit here was arranged many months ago. You yourself, Monsieur Douaille, are a good Parisian, and no good Parisian should miss his yearly pilgrimages to the Mecca of the pleasure-seeker. We meet together this evening, therefore, purely as friends who have a common interest at heart."
The man from whom this atmosphere of nervousness radiated—a man of medium height, inclined towards corpulence, with small grey imperial, a thin red ribbon in his buttonhole, and slightly prominent features—promptly intervened. He had the air of a man wholly ill-at-ease. All the time Mr. Grex had been speaking, he had been drumming upon the table with his forefinger.
"Precisely! Precisely!" he exclaimed. "Above all things, that must be understood. Ours is a chance meeting. My visit in these parts is in no way connected with the correspondence I have had with one of our friends here. Further," Monsieur Douaille continued impressively, "it must be distinctly understood that any word I may be disposed to utter, either in the way of statement or criticism, is wholly and entirely unofficial. I do not even know what the subject of our discussion is to be. I approach it with the more hesitation because I gather, from some slight hint which has fallen from our friend here, that it deals with a scheme which, if ever it should be carried into effect, is to the disadvantage of a nation with whom we are at present on terms of the greatest friendship. My presence here, except on the terms I have stated," he concluded, his voice shaking a little, "would be an unpardonable offence to that country."
Monsieur Douaille's somewhat laboured explanation did little to lighten the atmosphere. It was the genius of Herr Selingman which intervened. He leaned back in his chair and he patted his waistcoat thoughtfully.
"I have things to say," he declared, "but I cannot say them. I have nothing to smoke—no cigarette, no cigar. I arrive here choked with dust. As yet, the circumstance seems to have escaped our host's notice. Ah! what is that I see?" he added, rising suddenly to his feet. "My host, you are acquitted. I look around the table here at which I am invited to seat myself, and I perceive nothing but a few stumpy pens and unappetising blotting-paper. By chance I lift my eyes. I see the parting of the curtains yonder, and behold!"
He rose and crossed the room, throwing back a curtain at the further end. In the recess stood a sideboard, laden with all manner of liqueurs and wines, glasses of every size and shape, sandwiches, pasties, and fruit. Herr Selingman stood on one side with outstretched hand, in the manner of a showman. He himself was wrapped for a moment in admiration.