The Mischief-Maker Part 50

"Am I cruel?" he asked. "Forgive me, mademoiselle--forgive me, Marguerite."

She held out her delicately gloved hand towards him; her face she turned a little away and one gathered that there were tears in her eyes which she did not wish him to see.

"Take off my glove, please," she whispered. "I did not think you would be so cruel even for a moment."

He took her fingers in his, fingers which promptly returned his pressure. His right arm stole around her.

"Monsieur Sir Julien," she continued very softly, "please promise that you will speak to me no more now of Herr Freudenberg. Tell me that you are glad I have come. Say some more of those pretty things that you whispered to me in the Rat Mort."

His arm tightened about her. She was powerless.

"Julien!" she murmured.

He laughed quietly. Suddenly she struggled to escape from him.

"Let me go!" she cried. "Sir Julien, but you are rough. Monsieur!"

He flung her from him back into the chair. In his left hand he held the pistol he had taken from the bosom of her gown--a dainty little affair of ivory and silver. He turned it over curiously. She lay back in the chair where he had thrown her, gripping its sides with tremulous fingers, her eyes deep-set, distended, staring at him. He thrust the weapon into his pocket.

"Really," he said, "I thought better of Herr Freudenberg. Why doesn't he come himself?"

"Oh, he will come!" she answered.

"Will he?" Julien replied. "I should have thought better of him if he had come first, instead of sending a woman to do his work."

She sat up in the chair. Julien had known well how to rouse her.

"You do not think that he is afraid?" she cried. "Afraid of you? Bah!

For the rest, it was I who insisted on coming. He was troubled. I knew why. I said to myself, 'It is a risk I will take. I will go to Sir Julien's rooms. I will shoot him. I will pretend that it was a love affair. I will go into court all with tears, I will wear my prettiest clothes, nothing indeed will happen. An affair of jealousy--a moment of madness. One takes account of these things. Then Herr Freudenberg himself has great friends here, friends in high places. He will see that nothing happens.'"

"A very pretty scheme," Julien remarked sarcastically. "Supposing, however, I turn the tables upon you, mademoiselle. You are here and I have taken away this little plaything. Would Herr Freudenberg be jealous if he knew, I wonder?"

She glanced at the door.

"Locked," Julien continued grimly. "Do you still wish me to come and make pretty speeches to you?" he added. "You are certainly looking very charming, mademoiselle. Your gown is exquisite. What can I do more than echo what all Paris has said--that there is no one of her daughters more bewitching? Can you wonder if I lose my head a little when I find you here with me in my rooms--a visit, too, of pure affection?"

She rose to her feet. The patch of color upon her cheeks had become more vivid.

"You will let me go?" she faltered.

Julien unlocked the door.

"Mademoiselle," he answered, "I shall most certainly let you go. Permit me to thank you for the pleasure which your brief visit has afforded me."

The door was opened before her. Julien stood on one side. The smile with which he dismissed her was half contemptuous, half kindly. Upon the threshold she hesitated.

"Sir Julien!"

"Mademoiselle Ixe?"

"If there were no Herr Freudenberg," she whispered, "if it were not my evil fortune, Monsieur Sir Julien, to love him so foolishly, so absolutely, so that every moment of separation is full of pain, every other man like a figure in a dream--if it were not for this, Monsieur Sir Julien, I do not think that I should like to leave you so easily!"

Julien made no reply. She pa.s.sed out with a little sigh. He heard the flutter of her laces and draperies as she crossed the pa.s.sage and commenced the descent of the stairs. Julien was closing the door when he heard a familiar voice and a heavy footstep. Kendricks, with a Gladstone bag in his hand, came bustling up.

"Julien, you dog," he exclaimed savagely, "you're at it again! Why the devil can't you keep these women at arm's length? What has that pretty little creature of Herr Freudenberg's been doing here?"

Julien laughed as he closed the door.

"Don't be a fool, David! She wasn't here at my invitation."

"Tears in her eyes!" Kendricks muttered. "Sobbing to herself as she went down the steps! Crocodile's tears, I know. These d--d women, Julien! Out with it. What did she come for?"

Julien produced the pistol from his pocket.

"It was," he explained, "her amiable intention to please her lord and master at the slight expense of my life. Fortunately, the game was a new one to her and she kept on feeling the bosom of her gown to see whether the pistol was there still."

"What did you do?" Kendricks demanded.

"What was there for me to do?" Julien replied. "I took her little toy away and told her to run off. This is the second time, David. Estermen and Freudenberg have had a shy at me here themselves, and they'd have gotten me all right but for an accident. I won't tell you what the accident was, for the moment, owing to your peculiar prejudices. How are things in London?"

Kendricks threw himself into an easy-chair and began to fill his pipe.

"Julien," he declared, "you've done the trick! I'm proud of my advice, proud of the result. There isn't a club or an omnibus or a tube or a public-house where that letter of yours isn't being talked about. They tell me it's the same here. Have you seen the German papers?"

"Not one."

"Never was such a thunderbolt launched," Kendricks continued. "They are all either stupefied or hysterical. Freudenberg left Berlin an hour after he saw the article. You tell me you've met him already?"

"Yes, he's been here," Julien replied. "He offered to make me a Croesus if I'd stop the letters. When I refused, well, we had a scuffle, and by Jove, they nearly got me! He means to wipe me out."

"We'll see about that!" Kendricks muttered. "I'm not going to leave your side till we're through with this little job."

"Madame Christophor suggested that I should go there and finish,"

Julien said. "What do you think of that?"

"Madame Fiddlesticks!" Kendricks retorted angrily. "The wife of Falkenberg! Do you want to walk into the lion's jaws?"

"She is separated from her husband," Julien reminded him. "My own impression is that she hates him."

"I'd never believe it," Kendricks insisted. "The fellow has the devil's own way with these women. Look at that little wretch I met on the stairs. A harmless, flirting little opera singer a year ago. Now she'd come here and murder a man against whom she hasn't the slightest grudge, for his sake. I tell you the fellow's got an unwholesome influence over every one with whom he comes in contact."

"Have you read to-day's letter?" Julien asked abruptly.

"Read it! Man alive, it made the heart jump inside me! I tell you it's set the war music dancing wherever a dozen men have come together. I always thought you had a pretty gift as a maker of phrases, Julien, but I never knew you dipped your pen in the ink of the immortals. I tell you no one doubts anything you have written. That's the genius of it.

No one denies it, no one attempts arguments, every one in England and France whose feelings have been ruffled is already wanting to shake hands all over again. One sees that giant figure, the world's mischief-maker, suddenly caught at his job. It's gorgeous! How about number four?"

"Half written," Julien declared, pointing to his table.