Faber arrived in Berlin three days after the yacht had put into Venice. The cordiality of his reception in the German capital surprised him. Known both as the inventor and the manufacturer of the famous "Faber" magazine rifle, the greatest instrument of war the twentieth century had yet seen, he found himself a celebrity most welcome to the Germans. Rarely had there been so much "hoching" for a comparatively private individual. Remarkable personages in remarkable uniforms overwhelmed him by their hospitality; he was made familiar with superb "vons" in accoutrement more superb. The gay city—by far the gayest in Europe at the present time—delighted him by its capacity for enjoyment and its freedom from social cant. The women flirted with him outrageously. He had never been made so much of since fortune first smiled upon him.
Bertie Morris came from Paris on the fourth day, and brought him all the news in exchange for his own. Bertie was not surprised that Faber's first question should be about little Claudine d'Arny, and what had happened to her since the tragedy of her father's death. He had come to Berlin prepared to give a good account of his stewardship in that affair, and he was very proud of what he had done. They were at dinner when the narration took place, and the restaurant of the Metropole Hotel glowed with light and colour, and the glitter of fine uniforms. There were officers everywhere; women whose gowns neither Paris nor Vienna might shame. They moved in an atmosphere of soft tints; the warmth of crimson carpets and the spotless white of polished walls setting off their "creations" to perfection. The air was heavy with the scent of crimson roses, which were on every table, despite the season.
Faber had a table in the corner of the room, and he allowed hors-d'œuvre and soup to be served before he interrupted the journalist in his occupation of criticising the company with that running and often ironical commentary in which writing people delight. When the prettiest women had been "sized-up," famous people reduced to pulp, and the European situation dismissed in twenty words, Bertie was ready to speak of Claudine. He was too good an actor to bring her on the scene before.
"She arrived at Cannes yesterday," he said at last. "I chose the Riviera Palace because it's the kind of hotel where she'll meet the most people, and forget the quickest. Of course, Issy-Ferrault is going. It was difficult enough to do your business, but I did it bluntly in a business way. 'Marry Claudine d'Arny,' I said, 'and she'll have a guaranteed income of one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs a year.' His own douceur was to be another hundred and twenty-five thousand paid on the day the contract was signed. I put it to him as plainly as if I had a picture to sell. In the end, he bought her with no more scruple than if she had been a horse."
"Blustering first; I suppose, and talking of his ancestry."
"I don't think—there was about an hour and a half of it. Issy-Ferrault came out of the history box like pepper out of a pot. You'd have thought they made France and that Charlemagne was a bagman. When he was through with his talking, I just put the cinch on him with the remark that he wasn't writing history books but contracts. He pumped me like a tax-gatherer to learn the why and wherefore of it all; but the most I could tell him was that an old friend of Claudine's was determined to see her through and that good hard dollars expressed the measure of his determination. There I left it, and that's what he signed upon. He'll go to Cannes and marry her directly public opinion will let him do it. They are to live in London, I understand. He's a good sportsman and is out after the English shooting and fishing, so I told him to get a house in the shires, and he promised to do so. Claudine's money will tie him up all right—and as for that, I should think a girl with those eyes could hold most men. You may take it, Faber, that the matter is settled—as, of course, it was bound to be—after your generosity."
Faber brushed the suggestion aside as one which hardly concerned him. He was pleased by the news and his pride stirred at the suggestion of power, the reality of which he began to understand. Who but a man of vast fortune could have repaired such a tragedy as that? He looked Destiny full in the face and laughed at its omens.
"I've bought most things," he said, "but this is my first deal in husbands. Well, I'm glad the little girl is on the road again. Isn't this Issy-Ferrault rather a hustler in his way? I heard him well spoken of when I was in Paris; they say he's an aeroplane on the road or in the air. Do you know of it?"
"Oh, there's some talk. He was with Blériot a month or two back. The French army does not sleep much nowadays—a pretty wide-awake lot without any whiskers on their ideas. Issy-Ferrault is one of the aviation detachment. I suppose he'll be flying on his own account now if he can keep out of the arms of that black-eyed little girl. But he won't, if I'm any judge of women. She'll stick like the best glue; she's just the sort."
"Then you haven't altered your opinion of her since we left Paris?"