Part 32 (1/2)
”How can I tell?” the Prince rejoined carelessly. ”Why should any one desire my death? These things are riddles. Ah! Here comes my friend Immelan!” he went on. ”Immelan, help us in this discussion. You are not one of those who place the gift of life above all other things in the world!”
”My own or another's?” Immelan asked, with blunt cynicism.
”I trust,” was the bland reply, ”that you are, as I have always esteemed you, an altruist.”
”And why?”
Prince Shan shrugged his shoulders. He was a very agreeable figure in the centre of the little group of men, the hands which held his malacca cane behind his back, the smile which parted his lips benign yet cryptic.
”Because,” he explained, ”it is a great thing to have more regard for the lives of others than for one's own, and there are times,” he added, ”when it is certainly one's own life which is in the more precarious state.”
There was a little dispersal of the crowd, a chorus of congratulations and farewells. Immelan and Prince Shan were left alone. The former seemed to have turned paler. The sun was warm, and yet he s.h.i.+vered.
”Just what do you mean by that, Prince?” he asked.
”You shall walk with me to my house, and I will tell you,” was the quiet reply.
CHAPTER XXV
”I suppose,” Immelan suggested, as the two men reached the house in Curzon Street, ”it would be useless to ask you to break your custom and lunch with me at the Ritz or at the club?”
His companion smiled deprecatingly.
”I have adopted so many of your western customs,” he said apologetically. ”To this lunching or dining in public, however, I shall never accustom myself.”
Immelan laughed good-naturedly. The conversation of the two men on their way from the Park had been without significance, and some part of his earlier nervousness seemed to be leaving him.
”We all have our foibles,” he admitted. ”One of mine is to have a pretty woman opposite me when I lunch or dine, music somewhere in the distance, a little sentiment, a little promise, perhaps.”
”It is not artistic,” Prince Shan p.r.o.nounced calmly. ”It is not when the wine mounts to the head, and the sense of feeding fills the body, that men speak best of the things that lie near their hearts. Still, we will let that pa.s.s. Each of us is made differently. There is another thing, Immelan, which I have to say to you.”
They pa.s.sed into the reception room, with its s.h.i.+ning floor, its marvellous rugs, its silken hangings, and its great vases of flowers.
Prince Shan led his companion into a recess, where the light failed to penetrate so completely as into the rest of the apartment. A wide settee, piled with cus.h.i.+ons, protruded from the wall in semicircular shape. In front of it was a round ebony table, upon which stood a great yellow bowl filled with lilies. Prince Shan gave an order to one of the servants who had followed them into the room and threw himself at full length among the cus.h.i.+ons, his head resting upon his hand, his face turned towards his guest.
”They will bring you the aperitif of which you are so fond,” he said, ”also cigarettes. Mine, I know, are too strong for you.”
”They taste too much of opium,” Immelan remarked.
Prince Shan's eyes grew dreamy as he gazed through a little cloud of odorous smoke.
”There is opium in them,” he admitted. ”Believe me, they are very wonderful, but I agree with you that they are not for the ordinary person.”
The soft-footed butler presented a silver tray, upon which reposed a gla.s.sful of amber liquid. Immelan took it, sipped it appreciatively, and lit a cigarette.
”Your man, Prince,” he acknowledged, ”mixes his vermouths wonderfully.”
”I am glad that what he does meets with your approval,” was the courteous reply. ”He came to me from one of your royal palaces. I simply told him that I wished my guests to have of the best.”