Knights of Industry.
After Kaye had left, I sat for a long time pondering over his words. The assertion that Edith was a spy helping Paolo Bertini staggered me. At first I could not believe it, but what he had told me left no room for doubt. I recalled the man’s face as he had passed down the inn passage and out into the village street, and with the clue that Kaye had furnished recognised him. Without doubt all that the chief of the secret service had told me was true, for had not Edith herself refused to disclose the man’s name or the character of their friendship? Had she not at the same time acknowledged that he held power over her, invisible but complete, and that the betrayal of her secret would mean her ruin—perhaps even her death?
I saw it all now, as I sat deep in doubt and perplexity. Edith was staying at the Grand. Should I call upon her aunt, and dine with them? My first impulse was to do this, for I felt anxious to obtain from her some further proof of her actual association with this adventurer; but, on reflection, I saw that such a course was not commendable, inasmuch as by calling I should perhaps arouse Aunt Hetty’s suspicion that her niece had visited me. Therefore, I resolved to send a petit bleu to Miss Foskett, stating that I had seen her name in the visitors’ list and hoped to do myself the pleasure of calling on the following day after déjeuner. This formality, which I at once proceeded to put in operation, would, I knew, greatly please the punctilious old spinster.
That evening I dined at the Brasserie Nationale, in the Avenue de l’Opéra, an establishment German in style, but one widely patronised of late. Among other things, it is famous for its wonderful hors d’oeuvres; the wines, too, are always excellent and the cuisine not expensive. Below is a beer-hall, always crowded during afternoon and evening; but above, in a salon decorated in the ancient German style, one finds a crowd of gaily dressed diners, Parisian in all respects. The foreign tourist happily never goes there, for he patronises the Gazal, a little farther along the avenue, where the dinner is prix-fixe, “two francs fifty, vin compris.”
At the tables sat several persons whom I knew, for it chanced to be a première at the Opéra, and all Paris was dining in the vicinity.
Mariani, a well-known journalist on the staff of the Figaro, lounged in and took a seat with me. He was a thin-faced, middle-aged man of typical Parisian appearance. He had only that afternoon returned from Brussels, and presently, when we began to speak of the political situation, he paused with his wine-glass in his hand, saying, in that precise manner which was his chief characteristic:
“The Patrie, the Libre Parole, the Gaulois, the Petit Journal, and the Autorité repeat that war with England is inevitable; that it is always there, ready to break out at any hour of any day. Their object is clear: it is revenge for the High Court trials. They have realised that, despite all its efforts, they cannot overthrow the Republic in times of peace. They must, then, have war. And these misérables are preparing it in order to overthrow the Republic! They prepare war with England not only because they hate England, as a free country, but because they know that war with England would be a naval Sedan. Unless the Republicans abandon their blindness and their torpor, they will let the Republic and France be lost by means of these misérables.”
I agreed with him, but breathed a trifle more freely, for the Figaro was the organ of the French Government, and he was always well-informed. Nevertheless, it appeared that he had no idea of the exact direction of the political wind.
Near midnight, having attended a reception given by a smart Englishwoman, the wife of a peer resident in Paris, I was strolling along the Avenue de Neuilly on my way home. The night was cold but bright, and there were many people still about. A garde-de-ville, in his short cape, stood like a statue on the kerb at the Porte Maillott; the electric globes illuminated the Rond Point brightly, and a couple of harmless roysterers of the lower class lurched past me, singing the latest patriotic jingle of the cafés, a song inspired by the prevalent Anglophobia in Paris. They were singing the last verse:
Sous les éclats de la foudre
On vit tomber, noir de poudre,
Le dernier de ces vaillants,
Il cria: Vive la France!
Et l’écho répondit: France!...
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