The Masquerader Part 27

His salutation pleased Loder. With a nod of acquiescence he crossed the office to the brisk fire that burned in, the grate.

For a minute or two Lakely worked steadily, occasionally breaking the quiet by an unintelligible remark or a vigorous stroke of his pencil. At last he dropped the paper with a gesture of satisfaction and leaned back in his chair.

"Well," he said, "what d'you think of this? How's this for a complication?"

Loder turned round. "I think," he said, quietly, "that we can't overestimate it."

Lakely laughed and took a long pull at his cigar. "And we mustn't be afraid to let the Sefborough crowd know it, eh?" He waved his hand to the poster of the first edition that hung before his desk.

Loder, following his glance, smiled.

Lakely laughed again. "They might have known it all along, if they'd cared to deduce," he said. "Did they really believe that Russia was going to sit calmly looking across the Heri-Rud while the Shah played at mobilizing? But what became of you last night? We had a regular prophesying of the whole business at Bramfell's; the great Fraide looked in for five minutes. I went on with him to the club afterwards and was there when the news came in. 'Twas a great night!"

Loder's face lighted up. "I can imagine it," he said, with an unusual touch of warmth.

Lakely watched him intently for a moment. Then with a quick action he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.

"It's going to be something more than imagination for you, Chilcote," he said, impressively. "It's going to be solid earnest!" He spoke rapidly and with rather more than his usual shrewd decisiveness; then he paused to see the effect of his announcement.

Loder was still studying the flaring poster. At the other's words he turned sharply. Something in Lakely's voice, something in his manner, arrested him. A tinge of color crossed his face.

"Reality?" he said. "What do you mean?"

For a further s.p.a.ce his companion watched him; then with a rapid movement he tilted back his chair.

"Yes," he said. "Yes; old Fraide's instincts are never far out. He's quite right. You're the man!"

Still quietly, but with a strange underglow of excitement, Loder left the fire, and, coming forward, took a chair at Lakely's desk.

"Do you mind telling me what you're driving at?" he asked, in his old, laconic voice.

Lakely still scrutinized him with an air of brisk satisfaction; then with a gesture of finality he tossed his cigar away.

"My dear chap," he said, "there's going to be a breach somewhere--and Fraide says you're the man to step in and fill it! You see, five years ago, when things looked lively on the Gulf and the Bundar Abbas business came to light, you did some promising work; and a reputation like that sticks to a man--even when he turns slacker! I won't deny that you've slacked abominably," he added, as Loder made an uneasy movement, "but slacking has different effects. Some men run to seed, others mature. I had almost put you down on the black list, but I've altered my mind in the last two months."

Again Loder stirred in his seat. A host of emotions were stirring in his mind. Every word wrung from Lakely was another stimulus to pride, another subtle tribute to the curious force of personality.

"Well?" he said. "Well?"

Lakely smiled. "We all know that Sefborough's ministry is--well, top-heavy," he said. "Sefborough is building his card house just a story too high. It's a toss-up what 'll upset the balance. It might be the army, of course, or it might be education; but it might quite as well be a matter of foreign policy!"

They looked at each other in comprehensive silence.

"You know as well as I that it's not the question of whether Russia comes into Persia, but the question of whether Russia goes out of Persia when these Hazaras are subdued! I'll lay you what you like, Chilcote, that within one week we hear that the risings are suppressed, but that Russia, instead of retiring, has advanced those tempting twenty miles and comfortably ensconced herself at Meshed--as she ensconced herself on the island of Ashurada. Lakely's nervous, energetic figure was braced, his light-blue eyes brightened, by the intensity of his interest.

"If this news comes before the Easter recess," he went on, "the first nail can be hammered in on the motion for adjournment. And if the right man does it in the right way, I'll lay my life 'twill be a nail in Sefborough's coffin."

Loder sat very still. Overwhelming possibilities had suddenly opened before him. In a moment the unreality of the past months had become real; a tangible justification of himself and his imposture was suddenly made possible. In the stress of understanding he, too, leaned forward, and, resting his elbows on the desk, took his face between his hands.

For a s.p.a.ce Lakely made no remark. To him man and man's moods came second in interest to his paper and his party politics. That Chilcote should be conscious of the glories he had opened up seemed only natural; that he should show that consciousness in a becoming gravity seemed only right. For some seconds he made no attempt to disturb him; but at last his own irrepressible activity made silence unendurable. He caught up his pencil and tapped impatiently on the desk.

"Chilcote," he said, quickly and with a gleam of sudden anxiety, "you're not by any chance doubtful of yourself?"

At sound of his voice Loder lifted his face; it was quite pale again, but the energy and resolution that had come into it when Lakely first spoke were still to be seen.

"No, Lakely," he said, very slowly, "it's not the sort of moment in which a man doubts himself."

XIX

And so it came about that Loder was freed from one responsibility to undertake another. From the morning of March 27th, when Lakely had expounded the political programme in the offices of the 'St. George's Gazette', to the afternoon of April 1st he found himself a central figure in the whirlpool of activity that formed itself in Conservative circles.

With the ac.u.men for which he was noted, Lakely had touched the key-stone of the situation on that morning; and succeeding events, each fraught with its own importance, had established the precision of his forecast.

Minutely watchful of Russia's att.i.tude, Fraide quietly organized his forces and strengthened his position with a statesmanlike grasp of opportunity; and to Loder the attributes displayed by his leader during those trying days formed an endless and absorbing study. Setting the thought of Chilcote aside, ignoring his own position and the risks he daily ran, he had fully yielded to the glamour of the moment, and in the first freedom of a loose rein he had given unreservedly all that he possessed of activity, capacity, and determination to the cause that had claimed him.

Singularly privileged in a constant, personal contact with Fraide, he learned many valuable lessons of tact and organization in those five vital days during which the tactics of a whole party hung upon one item of news from a country thousands of miles away. For should Russia subdue the insurgent Hazaras and, laden with the honors of the peacemaker, retire across the frontier, then the political arena would remain undisturbed; but should the all-important movement predicted by Lakely become an accepted fact before Parliament rose for the Easter recess, then the first blow in the fight that would rage during the succeeding session must inevitably be struck. In the mean time it was Fraide's difficult position to wait and watch and yet preserve his dignity.

It was early in the afternoon of March 29th that Loder, in response to a long-standing invitation, lunched quietly with the Fraides. Being delayed by some communications from Wark, he was a few minutes late in keeping his appointment, and on being shown into the drawing-room found the little group of three that was to make up the party already a.s.sembled--Fraide, Lady Sarah--and Eve. As he entered the room they ceased to speak, and all three turned in his direction.

In the first moment he had a vague impression of responding suitably to Lady Sarah's cordial greeting; but he knew that immediately and unconsciously his eyes turned to Eve, while a quick sense of surprise and satisfaction pa.s.sed through him at sight of her. For an instant he wondered how she would mark his avoidance of her since their last eventful interview; then instantly he blamed himself for the pa.s.sing doubt. For, before all things, he knew her to be a woman of the world.

He took Fraide's outstretched hand; and again he looked towards Eve, waiting for her to speak.

She met his glance, but said nothing. Instead of speaking she smiled at him--a smile that was far more rea.s.suring than any words, a smile that in a single second conveyed forgiveness, approbation, and a warm, almost tender sense of sympathy and comprehension. The remembrance of that smile stayed with him long after they were seated at table; and far into the future the remembrance of the lunch itself, with its pleasant private sense of satisfaction, was destined to return to him in retrospective moments. The delightful atmosphere of the Fraides' home life had always been a wonder and an enigma to him; but on this day he seemed to grasp its meaning by a new light, as he watched Eve soften under its influence and felt himself drawn imperceptibly from the position of a speculative outsider to that of an intimate. It was a fresh side to the complex, fascinating life of which Fraide was the master spirit.

These reflections had grown agreeably familiar to his mind; the talk, momentarily diverted into social channels, was quietly drifting back to the inevitable question of the "situation" that in private moments was never far from their lips, when the event that was to mark and separate that day from those that had preceded it was unceremoniously thrust upon them.

Without announcement or apology, the door was suddenly flung open and Lakely entered the room.

His face was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with excitement, and his eyes flashed. In the first haste of the entry he failed to see that there were ladies in the room, And, crossing instantly to Fraide, laid an open telegram before him.

"This is official, sir," he said. Then at last he glanced round the table.

"Lady Sarah!" he exclaimed. "Can you forgive me? But I'd have given a hundred pounds to be the first with this!" He glanced back at Fraide.

Lady Sarah rose and stretched out her hand. "Mr. Lakely," she said, "I more than understand!" There was a thrill in her warm, cordial voice, and her eyes also turned towards her husband.

Of the whole party, Fraide alone was perfectly calm. He sat very still, his small, thin figure erect and dignified, as his eyes scanned the message that meant so much.

Eve, who had sprung from her seat and pa.s.sed round the table at sound of Lakely's news, was leaning over his shoulder, reading the telegram with him. At the last word she lifted her head, her face flushed with excitement.

"How splendid it must be to be a man!" she exclaimed. And without premeditation her eyes and Loder's met.