Part 72 (1/2)

”Perhaps more, even, than you, d.u.c.h.esse,” he replied. ”I should like to be your friend. You need one--you know that.”

She rose abruptly to her feet.

”For to-night it is enough,” she declared, wrapping her fur cloak around her. ”You may talk to me to-morrow, Baron. I must think. If you desire really to be my friend, there is, perhaps, one service which I may require of you. But to-night, no!”

Peter stood aside and allowed her to step past him. He was perfectly content with the progress he had made. Her farewell salute was by no means ungracious. As soon as she was out of sight, he returned to the couch where she had been sitting. She had taken away the marconigrams, but she had left upon the floor several copies of the New York Herald.

He took them up and read them carefully through. The last one he found particularly interesting, so much so that he folded it up, placed it in his coat pocket, and went off to look for Sogrange, whom he found at last in the saloon, watching a noisy game of ”Up Jenkins!” Peter sank upon the cus.h.i.+oned seat by his side.

”You were right,” he remarked. ”Bernadine has been busy.”

Sogrange smiled.

”I trust,” he said, ”that the d.u.c.h.esse is not proving faithless?”

”So far,” Peter replied, ”I have kept my end up. Tomorrow will be the test. Bernadine had filled her with caution. She thinks that I know everything--whatever everything may be. Unless I can discover a little more than I do now, to-morrow is going to be an exceedingly awkward day for me.”

”There is every prospect of your acquiring a great deal of valuable information before then,” Sogrange declared. ”Sit tight, my friend.

Something is going to happen.”

On the threshold of the saloon, ushered in by one of the stewards, a tall, powerful-looking man, with a square, well-trimmed black beard, was standing looking around as though in search of some one. The steward pointed out, with an unmistakable movement of his head, Peter and Sogrange. The man approached and took the next table.

”Steward,” he directed, ”bring me a gla.s.s of Vermouth and some dominoes.”

Peter's eyes were suddenly bright. Sogrange touched his foot under the table and whispered a word of warning. The dominoes were brought. The newcomer arranged them as though for a game. Then he calmly withdrew the double-four and laid it before Sogrange.

”It has been my misfortune, Marquis,” he said, ”never to have made your acquaintance, although our mutual friends are many, and I think I may say that I have the right to claim a certain amount of consideration from you and your a.s.sociates. You know me?”

”Certainly, Prince,” Sogrange replied. ”I am charmed. Permit me to present my friend, the Baron de Grost.”

The newcomer bowed and glanced a little nervously around.

”You will permit me,” he begged. ”I travel incognito. I have lived so long in England that I have permitted myself the name of an Englishman.

I am traveling under the name of Mr. James Fanshawe.”

”Mr. Fanshawe, by all means,” Sogrange agreed. ”In the meantime--”

”I claim my rights as a corresponding member of the Double-Four,” the newcomer declared. ”My friend the Count von Hern finds menace to certain plans of ours in your presence upon this steamer. Unknown to him, I come to you openly. I claim your aid, not your enmity.”

”Let us understand one another clearly,” Sogrange said. ”You claim our aid in what?”

Mr. Fanshawe glanced around the saloon and lowered his voice.

”I claim your aid towards the overthrowing of the usurping House of Brangaza and the restoration to power in Spain of my own line.”

Sogrange was silent for several moments. Peter was leaning forward in his place, deeply interested. Decidedly, this American trip seemed destined to lead towards events!

”Our active aid towards such an end,” Sogrange said at last, ”is impossible. The Society of the Double-Four does not interfere in the domestic policy of other nations for the sake of individual members.”

”Then let me ask you why I find you upon this steamer?” Mr. Fanshawe demanded, in a tone of suppressed excitement. ”Is it for the sea voyage that you and your friend the Baron de Grost cross the Atlantic this particular week, on the same steamer as myself, as Mr. Sirdeller, and--and the d.u.c.h.esse? One does not believe in such coincidences! One is driven to conclude that it is your intention to interfere.”