Sylvia & Michael Part 25

"I wonder what is the fundamental reason for spy-mania," said Sylvia.

"Is it due to cheap romanticism or a universal sense of guilt? Or is it the opportunity for the first time to give effect to vulgar gossip? I think it's the last, probably. It must be very unpleasant to glorify the meanest vice with the inspiration of a patriotic impulse."

"I said that justice was subordinated to military efficiency."

"Yes, and even slander has a temporary commission and is dressed up in a romantic uniform and armed with anonymous letters. Bullets are not the only things with long noses."

"I suppose you can get away? You have money?" Philidor asked.

"Oh, I'm rich," she declared.

"And your little friend, how is she?"

"She's waiting for me at Avereshti."

Sylvia gave an account of her adventures, and Philidor shook his head.

"But it has all ended satisfactorily," he said.

"I hope so."

"It only shows how right I was to warn you of the spy danger--the double danger of being made the victim of a genuine agent and the risk of a frivolous accusation. You may be sure that now, when you go back to the hotel with money, you will be accused everywhere of being a spy. If you have any trouble telegraph to me at Bralatz. Here's my address."

"And here's Avereshti," Sylvia said. "Good-by and good luck. _Et vive la Roumanie!_"

She waved her hand to him and walked quickly from the station to the hotel. It was good to see the waiter on the threshold and to be conscious of being able to rule him with the prospect of a tip. How second-rate the hotel looked, with money in one's pocket! How obsequiously it seemed to beg one's patronage! There was not a single window that did not have the air of cringing to the new arrival.

"Lunch for two at once," Sylvia cried, flinging him a twenty-franc note.

"For two?" the waiter repeated.

"For myself and Mademoiselle Walters--my friend up-stairs," she added, when the waiter stared first at her and then at the money. "What's the matter? Is she ill? _Cretin_, if she's ill you and your master shall pay."

"The lady who was staying here with _madame_ left this morning with a gentleman."

"_c.r.a.pule, tu mens!_"

"Madame may look for herself. The room is empty."

Sylvia caught the waiter by the throat and shook him.

"You lie! You lie! Confess that you are lying. She was starved by you.

She has died, and you are pretending that she has gone away."

She threw the waiter from her and ran up-stairs. Her own luggage was still in the room; of Queenie's nothing remained except a few pieces of pink tissue-paper trembling faintly in the draught. Sylvia rang the bell, but before any one could answer her summons she had fainted.

When she came to herself her first action--an action that seemed, when afterward she thought about it, to mark well the depths of her disillusionment--was to feel for her money lest she might have been robbed during her unconsciousness. The wad of notes had not shrunk; the waiter was looking at her with all the sympathy that could be bought for twenty francs; a blowsy chambermaid, dragged for the operation from a coal-cellar, to judge by her appearance, was sprinkling water over her.

"What was the man like?" she murmured.

The waiter bustled forward.

"A tall gentleman. He left no name. He said he brought a message. He paid a few little items on the bill that were not paid by _madame_. They took the train for Bucharest. _Mademoiselle_ was looking ill."

Sylvia mustered all that will of hers, which lately had been tried hardly enough, to obliterate Queenie and everything that concerned Queenie from her consciousness. She fought down each superst.i.tious reproach for not having kept her word by drinking the coffee in Bucharest: she drove forth from her mind every speculation about Queenie's future: she dried up every regret for any carelessness in the past.

"Clear away all this paper, please," she told the chambermaid; then she asked the waiter for the menu.

He dusted the grimy card and handed it to her.

"_J'ai tellement faim_," said Sylvia, "_que je saurais manger meme toi sans beurre_."

The waiter inclined his head respectfully, as if he would intimate his willingness to be eaten; but he tempered his a.s.sent with a smile to show that he was sensible that the sacrifice would not be exacted.

"And the wine?" he asked.

She chose half a bottle of the best native wine; and the waiter hurried away like a lame rook.

After lunch Sylvia carefully packed her things and put all her professional dresses away at the bottom of her large trunk. In the course of packing, the golden shawl that contained the records of her ancestry was left out of the trunk by accident, and she put it in the valise, which so far on her journeys she had always managed to keep with her. Philidor's solemn warning about the political situation in the Balkans had made an impression, and, thinking it was possible that she might have to abandon her trunk at any moment, she was glad of the oversight that had led her to making this change; though if she had been asked to give a reason for paying any heed to the shawl now she would have found it difficult. When she had finished her packing she sat down and wrote a letter to Olive.

HOTEL MOLDAVIA, AVERESHTI, _September 27, 1915_.

MY DARLING OLIVE,--This is not a communication from the other world, as you might very well think. It's Sylvia herself writing to you from Rumania with a good deal of penitence, but still very much the same Sylvia. I'm not going to ask you for your news, because by the time you get this you may quite easily have got me with it. At any rate, you can expect me almost on top. I shall telegraph when I reach France, if telegrams haven't been made a capital offense by that time. I've wondered dreadfully about you and Jack. I've a feeling the dear old boy is in Flanders or likely soon to go there.

Dearest thing, I need not tell you that, though I've not written, I've thought terribly about you both during all this ghastly time.

And the dear babies! I'm longing to see them. If I started to tell you my adventures I shouldn't know where to stop, so I won't begin.

But I'm very well. Give my love to anybody you see who remembers your long-lost Sylvia.

How colorless the letter was, she thought, on reading it through. It gave as little indication of herself as an electric bell gives of the character of a guest when he is waiting on the door-step. But it would serve its purpose, like the bell, to secure attention.

Sylvia intended to leave Avereshti that evening, but, feeling tired, she lay down upon her bed and fell fast asleep. She was woken up three hours later by the waiter, who announced with an air of excitement that Mr.

Porter had arrived at the hotel and was intending to spend the night.

"What of it?" she said, coldly. "I'm leaving by the nine-o'clock train for Bucharest."

"Oh, but Mr. Porter will invite you to dinner."

"Who is Mr. Porter?"

"He's one of the richest men in Rumania. He is the head of many big petroleum companies. I told him that there was an English lady staying with us, and he was delighted. You can't leave to-night. Mr. Porter will never forgive us."

"Look here. Is this Florilor the Second?"

The waiter held up his hands in protest.

"Ah, no, _madame_! This is an Englishman. He could buy up M. Florilor ten times over. Shall I say that _madame_ will be delighted to drink a c.o.c.katail with him?"

"Get out," said Sylvia, pointing to the door.

But afterward she felt disinclined to make a journey that night, and, notwithstanding Philidor's urgency, she decided to waste one more night in Avereshti. Moreover, the notion of meeting an Englishman was not so dull, after all. Ten minutes later she strolled down-stairs to have a look at him.