Salutations were exchanged; the gyro-car ran smoothly out of the lock, and the boat followed slowly, watched with a quizzical eye by the keeper.
“General Count Slavianski,” read George from the card. “Russian, Maurice?”
“Or Polish. You will not call on the man?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Oh, well, do as you please, but don’t drag me with you. I am fed up with continentals.”
George called next day on Count Slavianski at the hotel, and was charmed with his new acquaintance, and also with Major Rostopchin, his secretary. He would have liked to return their hospitality, but Mrs. Courtenay-Greene refused to have anything to do with them, so that the budding friendship did not develop. One of the Count’s servants scraped acquaintance with the under-gardener at the Acacias, who told his fellow-servants that the foreigner was a decent chap, and a dab at billiards, as he had discovered at the Old King’s Head.
Three weeks went by. One Monday morning Maurice received a letter from the Foreign Office requesting him to call that afternoon on important business. He took the 2.10 train to Waterloo, carrying a black official bag in which he had a few unimportant papers that he intended to leave at the office. Just as the train was on the point of starting, two of the Count Slavianski’s servants rushed through the gate and sprang into the nearest third-class compartment. Maurice congratulated himself that they were not the Count himself and his secretary; he was a little tired of the too-frequent company of those gentlemen.
At Waterloo he entered a taxi-cab, which landed him within a few minutes at the door of the Foreign Office in Whitehall. He was somewhat surprised when he learnt that his interview was to be, not with one of the principal clerks, but with the Foreign Secretary himself, and still more surprised at the communication which that great man made to him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Buckland,” he said. “I am sorry to cut short your leave, but you must return to Sofia at once. I have a despatch of the highest importance for your chief, and you must start to-morrow. I wanted to see you myself, for this reason: it will be better for you to go by some route that does not pass through Austrian or German territory. That is unfortunate on the score of time, for the quickest way is undoubtedly by Vienna; but you will remember that during the last crisis a Montenegrin Minister was stopped and searched by the Austrians—a flagrant violation of the etiquette of civilised nations, but one that Montenegro was not strong enough to resent.”
“I understand, sir,” said Buckland.