Therefore he slipped out along the corridor, and two hours later was on his way to Culoz, to catch the train-de-luxe from Paris to Rome.
During that night as the express roared through the mountains he lay in his narrow sleeping-berth watching the green-shaded lamp above, and full of conflicting thoughts.
The attempt upon his life showed plainly that the thief was aware of the strenuous efforts he was making to fathom the mystery. But who was the thief! Was it this unscrupulous, much-decorated General who took secret commission of contractors, the man who allowed the army to be fed on discarded tin food, and go shod in cheap German boots which wore in holes on the first march, in order to enrich himself?
Long and deeply he thought, and still the conviction clung to him that the person mainly responsible for the sale of the plans to Austria was His Excellency himself.
Thoughts of Her Highness rose within him. He sighed. Yes, he loved her with all his body and soul. Yet that barrier of birth could never be bridged. After all, they could be only good friends, therefore he had never dared to declare his love. She was a Princess of the blood-royal and might marry a reigning Sovereign, but he was a mere diplomat, a secretary of Embassy, a man whom the Court regarded as the necessary adjunct of a practically defunct institution, for, however much one may cling in these days to the old usages and customs, yet the glaring fact must be faced that kings themselves are the ambassadors, and royal visits from one Court to another tend to cement more international friendships than ten years of that narrow little squabbling and intriguing world which exists in every capital under the name of the corps diplomatique.
The public have been long enough gulled by the false tinsel and glamour of the diplomatic world, and in these ultra-modern days they see the inutility of it all. Often an obscure Vice-Consul in an obscure port is of greater use to the nation than the whole of the red-taped, ceremonious Embassy, with its splendid house, its dinners and dances, its flunkeys and furbelows, and its flabby, do-nothing policy directed from Downing Street.
Hubert Waldron, born and bred in the diplomatic atmosphere and nurtured upon the squabbles and petty jealousies of international politics, could not close his eyes to the fact that the public of Europe were being gulled daily by the Press, and that at an hour when all would seem quietest and most peaceful, the great and terrible European war would suddenly break out.
Though at the Embassies you will be told that the peace of Europe is quite assured nowadays, and though your penny papers with their “advertised actual sales” will print reassuring leaders for the sake of the particular party who supports them, yet there is not a diplomat in all Europe who does not, in his own heart, fear a violent and bloody explosion and that brought about by the Dual Monarchy.
Though this view may appear pessimistic, it is nevertheless a hard fact that the Powers of the Triple Alliance have not signed any agreements relating to the Mediterranean, and more than one European throne is to-day tottering to its fall, nay, more than one nation may, at any moment, be erased from the map.
But the whole object of diplomacy is to reassure, not to alarm. The days when the greatest international tension exists are those when the outlook seems the most serene and unruffled.