Part 32 (1/2)
The royal pair pa.s.sed on at a gallop up the Corso, and Mary sighed to herself as the carriage disappeared. It recalled to her that she was compelled to attend the state ball at the Quirinale that night, much as she hated all those glittering official functions. Her dress, a marvellous creation in yellow, had arrived from Paris the day before; but when Teresa had taken it from its long box and shaken out the magnificent skirt, she had scarcely glanced at it. She wore those gorgeous gowns which were so admired at court only because it gratified her father. Personally, she delighted in a short, tailor-made skirt and a blouse like those she could wear at Orton. The vagaries of the _mode_ never interested her in the least. Paquin had her model, and made her dresses as he liked. She simply wore them, annoyed at those long and difficult trains he gave her--that was all.
The gay world around the throne believed that she studied the fas.h.i.+ons and wore those costly gowns because she delighted in them. But such was not a fact. Her tastes were of the simplest, and her ideal always was a life in the rural quiet of Orton Court, with an occasional shopping visit to London as a dissipation. The very atmosphere of Rome, with its false appearances, its bartering of a girl's bright youth, loveliness, and purity for t.i.tles, its gambling and its drug habits, stifled her.
She loathed it all, and longed to enjoy life's good gifts in rural England. Yet, alas! such an ideal was to her but a dream. It was her fate to be drawn into that maelstrom where each man and woman must be seen, must be known, and must be notorious in some way or other, no matter how.
And because she was born in the official world, she was bound, for her father's sake, to act her part in it.
Through all that day she reflected upon the words which the young Englishman had uttered regarding Sazarac--that unusual name she had once overheard spoken, and which she recollected so well. She remarked how her father had distinctly betrayed fear at mention of it, and therefore the reason had ever since been a puzzling mystery to her.
For months she had wondered at what Borselli meant when he had threatened her father. The latter had reproached him of his intention to betray him, whereupon the Under-Secretary had said--
”I am in earnest. You act as I have suggested--or you take the consequences!”
That in itself showed plainly that the Sicilian still held power over her father on account of what had been mentioned between them as ”the Sazarac affair.”
After luncheon she casually mentioned to her father her meeting with George Macbean, whereupon he said--
”Oh, I quite thought I had told you of his appointment. I wanted an English secretary, and he was the very man to fill the post. You recollect that he visited us once or twice at Orton, but I had previously met him when he came to interpret for his employer Morgan-Mason regarding an army contract for Abyssinia.”
”Did you offer him the appointment?” she asked.
”No; Angelo did. He apparently knew of him.”
His Excellency's reply surprised Mary. Why, she wondered, had her father's enemy appointed the young Englishman to a post in order to transfer him to her father's cabinet as private secretary? She was suspicious of Borselli, and discerned in this some hidden motive.
And yet was it not more than strange that the young Englishman was Dubard's friend, while Dubard himself was in the secrets of Angelo Borselli! The more she pondered over the problem the more bewildering did it become.
At midnight she alighted with her mother from the brougham in the great courtyard of the Quirinale, and gathering up her train, pa.s.sed through the long flower-decked corridors, up the great staircase of marble and porphyry, where stood the tall, statuesque guards, and on into the magnificent Hall of the Amba.s.sadors, where the guests at the court ball were a.s.sembling.
As she let down her train and entered the magnificent salon with its gilt ceiling and myriad electric lights her appearance caused a murmur of approbation as every eye was turned upon her. The a.s.sembly was perhaps the most brilliant of any that could be gathered in any European capital. The men were in uniforms of every colour, with the crosses and ribbons of the various orders of chivalry. The amba.s.sadors and their staffs were all there, from the Chinese representatives in their national dress to the cunning old gentleman from St Petersburg in his white uniform tunic with the blue ribbon of St Andrew at his throat.
Lord Elton, the British Amba.s.sador, a dark-bearded, elderly man, wearing the star of Knight Commander of the Bath, came forward to greet the War Minister's wife and daughter, and there came up also to salute the amba.s.sador Morini himself in his gorgeous uniform with the cerise and white ribbon of the Order of the Crown of Italy and the green and white cross of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, as well as a number of minor foreign orders across his breast.
In uniform Camillo Morini always looked his best, tall, refined, distinguished, a man who would be marked out anywhere as a leader among men. He was pale and haggard, however, having risen from his bed to come there and be seen because it was policy--always policy.
Around on every side were high Italian officers in their gala uniform with golden epaulettes, women dressed exquisitely, and aged diplomatists and politicians bent beneath the weight of their gold-laced coats and many decorations. The room was a bewildering blaze of colour, diamonds gleaming in the tiaras of the women and in the crosses of the men, while on every hand was the loud, excited chatter of the gay, laughing crowd bidden there by royal command.
Lord Elton was chatting in English with Mary and her mother, explaining that only yesterday he had returned from London, where he had been on leave, when of a sudden three loud, distinct knocks were heard, and in an instant there was silence. Then, a moment later, at the farther end of the apartment two long white doors were thrown open by the royal flunkeys bearing white wands in their hands, and through them flowed the crowd into the magnificent ballroom, one of the finest both in proportions and in decoration of any palace in the world. And here and in the suite of huge gilded reception-rooms beyond the gay court of Italy commenced its revels as the splendid orchestra in the balcony struck up the first dance upon the programme.
From the ballroom there opened out through the open doors a vista of magnificent salons unequalled in grandeur even in that city of ancient palaces, and the elderly folk who did not care for dancing strolled away, greeting their friends at every step, and forming little groups for gossip.
Mary, who had quickly become separated from her mother, found herself, almost before she was aware of it, in the arms of her friend Captain Fred Houghton, the British naval attache, dancing over the magnificent floor and receiving his compliments, while in a corner of the room, apart from the others, stood Angelo Borselli in his general's uniform, watching her with a strange smile upon his thin lips.
And all around was in progress that drama of intrigue, of statecraft and duplicity, of diplomacy, of unscrupulous scheming for office and power which is inseparable from the vicinity of every European throne.
In that gold and white room, while the orchestra played waltz-music, the prosperity of the gallant Italian nation often trembled in the balance, for those polished floors formed the stage whereon some of the strangest of modern dramas were enacted.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
THE PATH OF THE TEMPTER.