The Great Prince Shan by E. Phillips Oppenheim (red seas under red skies .TXT) 📕

Naida, early one afternoon, a few days after the dinner at Belgrave Square, raised herself on one elbow from the sofa on which she was resting, glanced at the roses and the card which the maid had presented for her inspection, and waved them impatiently away.

"The gentleman waits," the woman reminded her.

Naida glanced out of the window across a dull and apparently uninviting prospect of roofs and chimneys, to where in the background a faint line of silver and a wheeling flock of sea gulls became dimly visible through the branches of the distant trees. The window itself was flung wide open, but the slowly moving air had little of freshness in it. Sparrows twittered around the window-sill, and a little patch of green shone out from the Embankment Gardens. The radiance of spring here found few opportunities.

"The gentleman waits," the serving woman repeated stolidly, speaking in her native Russian.

"You can show him up," her mistress replied a little wearily.

Immelan entered, a few moments later, spruce and neat in a well-fitting grey suit, and carrying a grey Homburg hat. He was redolent of soaps and perfumes. His step was buoyant, almost jaunty, yet in his blue eyes, as he bent over the hand of the woman upon whom he had come to call, lurked something of the disquietude which, notwithstanding his most strenuous efforts, was beginning to assert itself.

"You make me very happy, my dear Naida," he began, "that you receive me thus so informally. Your good father is smoking in the lounge. He bade me come up."

She beckoned him to a seat.

"A thousand thanks for your flowers, my friend," she said. "Now tell me why you are possessed to see me at this untimely hour. I always rest for a time after luncheon, and I am only here because the sunshine filled my room and made me restless."

"There is a little matter of news," he announced slowly. "I thought it might interest you. I hoped it would."

She turned her head and looked at him.

"News?" she repeated. "News from you means only one thing. Is it good or bad?"

"It is good," he replied, "because it saves me a long and tedious journey, because it saves me also from a separation which I should have found detestable."

"Your journey to China, then, is abandoned?"

"It is rendered unnecessary. Prince Shan has decided after all to adhere to his original plan and come to Europe."

"You are sure?"

"I have an official intimation," he replied. "I may probably have to go to Paris, but no farther. It is even possible that I might leave to-night."

She was genuinely interested.

"There is no one in the whole world," she declared, "whom I have wanted to meet so much as Prince Shan."

"You will not be disappointed," he promised her. "There is no one like him. When he enters the room, you know that you are in the presence of a great man. The three of us together! Naida, we will remake the map of the world."

She frowned a little uneasily.

"Do not take too much for granted, Oscar," she enjoined. "Remember that I am here to watch and to report. It is not for me to make decisions."

"Then for whom else?" he demanded. "Paul Matinsky himself wrote me that you had his entire confidence—that you possessed full powers for action. You will not be faint-hearted, Naida?"

"I shall never be false to my convictions," she replied.

There was a brief silence. He was not altogether satisfied, but he judged the moment unpropitious for any further reference to the coming of Prince Shan.

"My plans, as you see, are changed," he said at last, "and for that reason a promise which I made to myself will not now be kept."

She rose to her feet a little uneasily, shook out her fluffy morning gown, and retreated towards the door leading to the apartments beyond. He watched her without movement. She picked up a pile of letters from a table in the middle of the room, glanced at them, and threw them down.

"It is as well," she warned him, "to keep all promises."

"As for this one," he replied, "I have no responsibility save to myself. I absolve myself. I give myself permission to speak. Your father is even wishful that I should do so. I crave from you, Naida, the happiness which only you can bring into my life. I ask you to become my wife."

She looked at him without visible change of expression. Her lips, however, were a little parted. The air of aloofness with which she moved through the world seemed suddenly more marked. He would have been a brave man, or one entirely without perceptions, who would have advanced towards her at that moment.

"That is quite impossible," she pronounced.

"I do not admit it," he contended. "No, I will never admit that. The fates brought us together. It will take something stronger than fate to drive us apart. I had not meant to speak yet. I had meant to wait until the great pact was sealed and the glory to come assured, but during these last few days I have suffered. A strange fancy has come to me. I seem to feel something between us, so I speak before it can grow. I speak because without you life for me would be a thing not worth having. You are my life and my soul. You will not send me away?"

Naida was troubled but unhesitating. It was perhaps at that moment that a hidden characteristic of her features showed itself. Her mouth, sometimes almost too voluptuous in its softness, had straightened into a firm line of scarlet. The deeper violet of her eyes had gone. So a woman might have looked who watched suffering unmoved, the woman of the bull or prize fight.

"I am glad that you have spoken, Oscar," she said. "I know a thing now which has been a source of doubt and anxiety to me. What you ask is impossible. I do not love you. I shall never love you. A few days ago, I asked myself the very question you have just asked me, and I could not answer it. Now I know."

Pain and anger struggled in his face. He was suffering, without a doubt, but for a moment it seemed as though the anger would predominate. His great shoulders heaved, his hands were clenched until the signet ring on his left finger cut into the flesh, his eyes were like glittering points of fire.

"It is the old dream concerning Paul?" he demanded.

"It has nothing to do with Paul," she assured him. "Concerning him I will admit that I have had my weak moments. I think that those have passed. It was such a wonderful dream," she went on reflectively, "the dream of ruling the mightiest nation in the world, a nation that even now, after many years of travail, is only just finding its way through to the light. It seemed such a small thing that stood in the way. Since then I have met Paul's wife. She does not understand, but at least she loves."

"She is a poor fool, no helpmate for any man," Immelan declared. "Yet it is not his cause I plead, but mine. I, too, can minister to your ambitions. Be my wife, and I swear to you that before five years have passed I will be President of the German Republic. Germany is no strange country to you," he went on passionately. "It is you who have helped in the great rapprochement. At times when Paul has been difficult, you have smoothed the way. I would not speak against your country, I would not speak against anything which lies close to your heart, but let me tell you that when the day of purification comes, the day when God gives us leave to pour out the vials of vengeance, there will be no prouder, no more glorious people than ours. Our triumph will be yours, Naida. You yourself will help to cement the great alliance of these years."

She shook her head.

"I am a woman," she said simply. "Incidentally, I am a politician and something of an altruist, but when it comes to marriage, I am a woman. I do not love you, Oscar, and I will not marry you."

There was a darker shade upon his face now. Unconsciously he had drawn a little nearer to her.

"Listen," he begged; "it is perhaps possible that I have not been mistaken—that a certain change has crept up in you even within the last few days? Tell me, is there any one else who has found his way into your heart? No, I will not say heart! It could not be your heart in so short a time. Into your fancy? Is there any one else, Naida, of whom you are thinking?"

"That is my concern, Oscar, and mine only," she answered haughtily.

A weaker woman he would have bullied. His veins were filled with anger. His tongue ached to spend itself. Naida's bearing cowed him. She remained a dominating figure. The unnatural restraint imposed upon himself, however, made his voice sound hard and unfamiliar. There were little patches of white around his mouth; his teeth showed, when he spoke, more than usual.

"If there were any one else," he declared, "and that some one else should chance to be an Englishman, I would find a new hell for him."

"There is no one else," she answered calmly, "but if there ever should be, Oscar Immelan, and if you ever interfered with him, either in this country or any other, my arm would follow you around the world. Remember that."

She turned away for a moment, eager to gain a brief respite from his darkening face. When she looked around, he was gone. She heard his footsteps passing down the corridor, the bell ringing for the lift, the clank of the gates as he stepped in. Once more she gazed out over the uninspiring prospect. There was a little more sunshine upon the river; more of the dusty chimney-pots seemed bathed in its silvery radiance. As she stood there, she felt herself growing calmer. The tension passed from her nerves. Her eyes grew soft again. Then an impulse came to her. She stretched out her hand for the telephone book, turned over the pages restlessly, looked through the "D's" until she found the name for which she was searching. For a long time she hesitated. When at last she took up the receiver and asked for a number, she was conscious of a slight thrill, a sense of excitement which in moments of more complete self-control would at least have served as a warning to her.

The curtain fell upon the first act of "Louise." The lights were turned up, the tenseness relaxed, men made dives for their hats, and the unmusical murmured the usual platitudes. Naida leaned forward from the corner of her box to the man who was her sole companion.

"Father," she said, "I am expecting a caller with whom I wish to speak—Lord Dorminster. If he comes, will you leave us alone? And if any one else should be here, please take them away."

"More mysteries," her father muttered, not unkindly. "Who is this man Dorminster?"

Naida leaned back in her chair and fanned herself slowly.

"No one I know very much about," she acknowledged. "I have selected him in my mind, however as being a typical Englishman of his class. I wish to talk to him, to appreciate his point of view. You know what Paul said when he gave you the appointment and sent us over here: 'Find out for me what sort of men these Englishmen are.'"

"Matinsky should know," her father observed. "He was here twelve years ago. He came over with the first commission which established regular relations with the British Government."

"No doubt," she said equably, "he was able to gauge the official outlook, but this country, during the last ten years, has gone through great vicissitudes. Besides, it is not only the official outlook in