Part 7 (2/2)
”We talk too intimately,” she whispered, as the people began to file in to take their places. ”After luncheon we will take our coffee in my coupe. Then, if you like, we will speak of these matters. I have a headache. Will you order me some champagne? It is a terrible thing, I know, to drink wine in the morning, but when one travels, what can one do? Here come your bodyguard. They look at me as though I had stolen you away. Remember we take our coffee together afterwards. I am bored with so much traveling, and I look to you to amuse me.”
Von Behrling's journey was, after all, marked with sharp contrasts.
The kindness of the woman whom he adored was sufficient in itself to have transported him into a seventh heaven. On the other hand, he had trouble with his friends. Streuss drew him on one side at Ostend, and talked to him plainly.
”Von Behrling,” he said, ”I speak to you on behalf of Kahn and myself. Wine and women and pleasure are good things. We two, we love them, perhaps, as you do, but there is a place and a time for them, and it is not now. Our mission is too serious.”
”Well, well!” Von Behrling exclaimed impatiently, ”what is all this?
What do I do wrong? What have you to say against me? If I talk with Mademoiselle Idiale, it is because it is the natural thing for me to do. Would you have us three--you and Kahn and myself--travel arm in arm and speak never a word to our fellow pa.s.sengers? Would you have us proclaim to all the world that we are on a secret mission, carrying a secret doc.u.ment, to obtain which we have already committed a crime? These are old-fas.h.i.+oned methods, Streuss. It is better that we behave like ordinary mortals. You talk foolishly, Streuss!”
”It is you,” the older man declared, ”who play the fool, and we will not have it! Mademoiselle Idiale is a Servian and a patriot. She is the friend, too, of Bellamy, the Englishman. She and he were together last night.”
”Bellamy is not even on the train,” Von Behrling protested. ”He went north to Berlin. That itself is the proof that they know nothing. If he had had the merest suspicion, do you not think that he would have stayed with us?”
”Bellamy is very clever,” Streuss answered. ”There are too many of us to deal with,--he knew that. Mademoiselle Idiale is clever, too. Remember that half the trouble in life has come about through false women.
”What is it that you want?” Von Behrling demanded.
”That you travel the rest of the way with us, and speak no more with Mademoiselle.”
Von Behrling drew himself up. After all, it was he who was n.o.ble; Streuss was little more than a policeman.
”I refuse!” he exclaimed. ”Let me remind you, Streuss, that I am in charge of this expedition. It was I who planned it. It was I”--he dropped his voice and touched his chest--”who struck the first blow for its success. I think that we need talk no more,” he went on. ”I welcome your companions.h.i.+p. It makes for strength that we travel together. But for the rest, the enterprise has been mine, the success so far has been mine, and the termination of it shall be mine. Watch me, if you like. Stay with me and see that I am not robbed, if you fear that I am not able to take care of myself, but do not ask me to behave like an idiot.”
Von Behrling stepped away quickly. The siren was already blowing from the steamer.
CHAPTER VI
VON BEHRLING IS TEMPTED
The night was dark but fine, and the crossing smooth. Louise, wrapped in furs, abandoned her private cabin directly they had left the harbor, and had a chair placed on the upper deck. Von Behrling found her there, but not before they were nearly half-way across.
She beckoned him to her side. Her eyes glowed at him through the darkness.
”You are not looking after me, my friend,” she declared. ”By myself I had to find this place.”
Von Behrling was ruffled. He was also humbly apologetic.
”It is those idiots who are with me,” he said. ”All the time they worry.”
She laughed and drew him down so that she could whisper in his ear.
”I know what it is,” she said. ”You have secrets which you are taking to London, and they are afraid of me because I am a Servian.
Tell me, is it not so? Perhaps, even, they think that I am a spy.”
Von Behrling hesitated. She drew him closer towards her.
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