Part 28 (1/2)
”Well,” he said, ”I concluded that you would be looking for a change of air somewhere, and I really could not see what part of the world you had left open to yourself. America is the only country strong enough to keep you! Besides, I reckoned a little upon that curiosity with regard to undeveloped countries which I have observed to be one of your traits. So far as I am aware, you have never resided long in America.”
”Neither have I even visited Kamtchatka or Greenland,” Mr. Sabin remarked.
”I understand you,” Felix remarked, nodding his head. ”America is certainly one of the last places one would have dreamed of looking for you. You will find it, I am afraid, politically unborn; your own little methods, at any rate, would scarcely achieve popularity there. Further, its sympathies, of course, are with democratic France. I can imagine that you and the President of the United States would represent opposite poles of thought. Yet there were two considerations which weighed with me.”
”This is very interesting,” Mr. Sabin remarked. ”May I know what they were? To be permitted a glimpse into the inward workings of a brain like yours is indeed a privilege!”
Felix bowed with a gratified smile upon his lips. The satire of Mr. Sabin's dry tone was apparently lost upon him.
”You are most perfectly welcome,” he declared. ”In the first place I said to myself that Kamtchatka and Greenland, although equally interesting to you, would be quite unable to afford themselves the luxury of offering you an asylum. You must seek the shelter of a great and powerful country, and one which you had never offended, and save America, there is none such in the world. Secondly, you are a Sybarite, and you do not without very serious reasons place yourself outside the pale of civilisation. Thirdly, America is the only country save those which are barred to you where you could play golf!”
”You are really a remarkable young man,” Sabin declared, softly stroking his little grey imperial. ”You have read me like a book! I am humiliated that the course of my reasoning should have been so transparent. To prove the correctness of your conclusions, see the little volume which I had brought to read on my way to Liverpool.”
He handed it out to Felix. It was ent.i.tled, ”The Golf Courses of the World,” and a leaf was turned down at the chapter headed, ”United States.”
”I wish,” he remarked, ”that you were a golfer! I should like to have asked your opinion about that plan of the Myopia golf links. To me it seems cramped, and the bunkers are artificial.”
Felix looked at him admiringly.
”You are a wonderful man,” he said. ”You do not bear me any ill-will then?”
”None in the least,” Mr. Sabin said quietly. ”I never bear personal grudges. So far as I am concerned, I never have a personal enemy. It is fate itself which vanquished me. You were simply an instrument. You do not figure in my thoughts as a person against whom I bear any ill-will. I am glad, though, that you did not cash my cheque for 20,000!”
Felix smiled. ”You went to see, then?” he asked.
”I took the liberty,” Mr. Sabin answered, ”of stopping payment of it.”
”It will never be presented,” Felix said ”I tore it into pieces directly I left you.”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
”Quixotic,” he murmured.
The express was rus.h.i.+ng on through the night. Mr. Sabin thrust his hand into his bag and took out a handful of cigars. He offered one to Felix, who accepted, and lit it with the air of a man enjoying the reasonable civility of a chance fellow pa.s.senger.
”You had, I presume,” Mr. Sabin remarked, ”some object in coming to see the last of me? I do not wish to seem unduly inquisitive, but I feel a little natural interest, or shall we say curiosity as to the reason for this courtesy on your part?”
”You are quite correct,” Felix answered. ”I am here with a purpose. I am the bearer of a message to you.”
”May I ask, a friendly message, or otherwise?”
His fingers were tightening upon the little hard substance in his pocket, but he was already beginning to doubt whether after all Felix had come as an enemy.
”Friendly,” was the prompt answer. ”I bring you an offer.”
”From Lobenski?”
”From his august master! The Czar himself has plans for you!”
”His serene Majesty,” Mr. Sabin murmured, ”has always been most kind.”
”Since you left the country of the Shah,” Felix continued, ”Russian influence in Central Asia has been gradually upon the wane. All manner of means have been employed to conceal this, but the unfortunate fact remains. You were the only man who ever thoroughly grasped the situation and attained any real influence over the master of western Asia! Your removal from Teheran was the result of an intrigue on the part of the English. It was the greatest misfortune which ever befel Russia!”
”And your offer?” Mr. Sabin asked.
”Is that you return to Teheran not as the secret agent, but as the accredited amba.s.sador of Russia, with an absolutely free hand and unlimited powers.”
”Such an offer,” Mr. Sabin remarked, ”ten years ago would have made Russia mistress of all Asia.”
”The Czar,” Felix said, ”is beginning to appreciate that. But what was possible then is possible now!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head. ”I am ten years older,” he said, ”and the Shah who was my friend is dead.”
”The new Shah,” Felix said, ”has a pa.s.sion for intrigue, and the sands around Teheran are magnificent for golf.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
”Too hard,” he said, ”and too monotonous. I am peculiar perhaps in that respect, but I detest artificial bunkers. Now there is a little valley,” he continued thoughtfully, ”about seven miles north of Teheran, where something might be done! I wonder----”
”You accept,” Felix asked quietly.
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
”No, I decline.”
It was a shock to Felix, but he hid his disappointment.
”Absolutely?”
”And finally.”
”Why?”
”I am ten years too old!”
”That is resentment!”
Mr. Sabin denied it.
”No! Why should I not be frank with you, my friend? What I would have done for Russia ten years ago, I would not do to-day! She has made friends with the French Republic. She has done more than recognise the existence of that iniquitous inst.i.tution--she has pressed her friends.h.i.+p upon the president--she has spoken the word of alliance. Henceforth my feeling for Russia has changed. I have no object to gain in her development. I am richer than the richest of her n.o.bles, and there is no t.i.tle in Europe for which I would exchange my own. You see Russia has absolutely nothing to offer me. On the other hand, what would benefit Russia in Asia would ruin England, and England has given me and many of my kind a shelter, and has even held aloof from France. Of the two countries I would much prefer to aid England. If I had been the means of destroying her Asiatic empire ten years ago it would have been to me to-day a source of lasting regret. There, my friend, I have paid you the compliment of perfect frankness.”
”If,” Felix said slowly, ”the price of your success at Teheran should be the breach of our covenants with France--what then? Remember that it is the country whose friends.h.i.+p is pleasing to us, not the government. You cannot seriously doubt but that an autocrat, such as the Czar, would prefer to extend his hand to an Emperor of France than to soil his fingers with the clasp of a tradesman!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head softly. ”I have told you why I decline,” he said, ”but in my heart there are many other reasons. For one, I am no longer a young man. This last failure of mine has aged me. I have no heart for fresh adventures.”
Felix sighed.