A Man and His Money

by Frederic Stewart Isham

The woman laughed. How the young man, listening, detested that musical gurgle! "Patience, your Highness!"

The red spark leaped in the air. "What have I been?"

"That depends on the standpoint—yours, or hers," she returned in the same tone.

"It is always the same. She is—" The spark described swift angry motions.

"What would you—at first?" she retorted laughingly. "After all that has taken place? Mon Dieu! You remember I advised you against this madness—I told you in the beginning it might not all be like Watteau's masterpiece—the divine embarkation!"

"Bah!" he returned, as resenting her attitude. "You were ready enough for your part."

She shrugged. "Eh bien? Our little Moscow theatrical company had come to grief. New York—cruel monster!—did not want us. C'en est fait de nous! Your Excellency met and recognized me as one you had once been presented to at a merry party at the Hermitage in our beloved city of churches. Would I play the bon camarade in a little affair of the heart, or should I say une grande passion? The honorarium offered was enormous for a poor ill-treated player whose very soul was ready to sing De Profundis. Did it tempt her—forlorn, downhearted—"

She paused. Close by, the spark brightened, dimmed—brightened, dimmed! Mr. Heatherbloom bent nearer. "At any rate, she was honest enough to attempt to dissuade you—in vain! And then"—her voice changed—"since you willed it so, she yielded. It sounded wild, impossible, the plan you broached. Perhaps because it did seem so impossible it won over poor Sonia Turgeinov—she who had thrown her cap over the windmills. There would be excitement, fascination in playing such a thrilling part in real life. Were you ever hungry, Prince?" She broke off. "What an absurd question! What is more to the point, tell me it was all well done—the device, or excuse, of substituting another motor-car for her own, the mad flight far into the night, down the coast where save for that mishap—But I met all difficulties, did I not? And, believe me, it was not easy—to keep your little American inamorata concealed until the Nevski could be repaired and meet us elsewhere than we had originally planned. Dieu merci! I exclaimed last night when the little spitfire was brought safely aboard." Mr. Heatherbloom breathed quickly. Betty Dalrymple, then, had been with the woman in the big automobile—

"Why don't you praise me?" the woman went on. "Tell me I well earned the douceur? Although"—her accents were faintly scoffing—"I never dreamed you would not afterward be able to—" Her words leaped into a new channel. "What can the child want? Est-ce-qu'elle aime un autre? That might explain—"

An expletive smacking more of Montmartre than of the Boulevard Capucines, fell from the nobleman's lips. He brushed the ash fiercely from his cigar. "It is not so—it won't explain anything," he returned violently. "Didn't I once have it from her own lips that, at least, she was not—" He stopped. "Mon Dieu! That contingency—"