A week later, when Euphrosyne Delande laid down the pen and abandoned her unfinished “Lecture Upon the Influence of the Allobroges, Romans, Provencal Franks, Burgundians, and Germans Upon the Intellectual Development of Geneva,” she read Alan Hawke’s letter with a thrill of secret pride.
The smooth adventurer had written: “If I have the future pleasure of meeting Mademoiselle Justine Delande I only hope to find a resemblance to her charming and distinguished sister. As my movements are necessarily secret, pray write only in the utmost confidence to Mademoiselle Justine. I hope to soon return and enjoy once more the hospitalities of your intellectual circle.” The address given for India was “Bombay Club.” Miss Euphrosyne gazed up at the stony lineaments of Professor Delande, her marble-browed and flinty-hearted sire, locked in the cold chill of a steel engraving. He was as neutral as the busts of Buffon, Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, and Pestalozzi, which coldly furnished forth her sanctum. She thought of the eloquent eyed young Major and sadly sighed. She proceeded to enshrine him in her withered heart, and then wrote a crossed letter of many tender underlinings to her distant sister. And thus the pathway was made very smooth for the artful wanderer, who had already stepped upon the decks of the Sepoy.
Major Hawke had dispatched an excellent breakfast before he stepped into the carriage to be whirled away to Montreux. His bridges were burned behind him. There was not a vestige of Madame Berthe Louison left to give the needy Pole a clue. “They are separated, and Anstruther and the Swiss schoolmistress are harmless. I have only my play to make upon the lovely Justine, and to retake up my old friendship with Hugh Fraser. Then I am ready to bit by bit unravel the story of Valerie Delavigne’s child—the Veiled Rose of Delhi.”
“Between a father with a secret to keep, and this strange woman with a purpose, there is a pretty girl and a vast fortune at issue, besides the prospective pickings of Madame Berthe Louison.” These musings of the Major led him up to the question of his employer’s false name, as he swept down to the nearby Montreux station. “She evidently had traced the child to Switzerland, and was upon a still hunt to find out the home of the growing heiress, and,—for what purpose? Ah! One day after another,” he pleasantly exclaimed, as he saw the artist awaiting him. “Peu apeu I’oiseau fait son nid.” He had already evolved a scheme to permanently separate Casimir Wieniawski from his own beautiful employer, who was now dashing along well on her way toward Munich. Alan Hawke was startled at the distinguished appearance of the musician. An aristocratic pallor refined his face, he was neatly booted and gloved, the elegant lines of the Pole’s supple figure were displayed in a morning frock coat, and his chapeau de soie was virginal in its gloss.
“Some of my own twenty pounds,” mused Alan Hawke, as he gayly sprang out and saluted his dupe. “Ah! There you are. You look to-day the old Casimir. Let us have a few last words before the boat arrives.”
Hardened as he was, Alan Hawke was surprised at the childlike lightness of the Pole’s manner when they encountered the fresh young beauties who were already the cynosure of all eyes upon the morning boat. The storm of emotion had spent itself, and while Alan Hawke squired, the aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most hospitable of old horrors, Chillon Castle.
It was a day of days, and the artful Hawke laughed as he smoked his cigar upon a rustic bench in the castle Garden. Miss Genie was at his side, pouting, petulant, provokingly pretty and duly agnostic as to the Polish prince.
A week later, Alan Hawke stood on the deck of the Sepoy, as that reliable vessel steamed out of Brindisi harbor for Bombay. He was watching a lace handkerchief, waved by a graceful woman, standing alone upon the pier. The adventurer drew a silver rupee from his pocket, and then gayly tossed it into the waves, crying, “Here’s for luck!” as he watched the slender, distant, womanly figure move up the pier. There lay the Empress of India with steam now curling from her stacks, ready to follow on to Calcutta. “I have not broken her lines yet,” murmured Major Hawke as he paced the deck, “but I have her pretty well surrounded, cunning as she is!” and so he complacently ordered his first bottle of pale ale.