Behind the Throne Part 29

A brief silence fell.

Presently, after reflection, the Member of Parliament exclaimed, in a tone more pleasant than he had ever used before--

"Let me speak candidly, Macbean. I would first ask you to forget the words I uttered a few moments ago. I am full of business, you know, and am often out of temper with everything. I was out of temper just now.

Well, you want to leave me and go to Italy, while I desire you to remain. Tell me plainly what salary you will accept and continue in my service."

"I am as perfectly frank as you are," George replied. "No inducement you could offer would keep me in England."

Mr Morgan-Mason bit his lip. He never expected this refusal from the clever man whom he had treated as an underling. It was his habit to purchase any service with his money, and this rebuff on the part of a mere servant filled him with chagrin--he who so easily bought the smiles of a d.u.c.h.ess or the introduction of a marquis into the royal circle itself.

He did not intend that Macbean should enter the service of Angelo Borselli. He had suspicion--a strong suspicion--and for that reason desired to keep the pair apart. His mind was instantly active in an attempt to devise some scheme by which his own ends could be attained.

But if his secretary flatly refused to remain?

"I think you are a consummate fool to your own interests," remarked his employer. "Foreign Governments when they employ an Englishman only work him for their own ends, and throw him aside like a sucked orange."

"English employers often do the same," answered Macbean meaningly.

The millionaire was full of grave reflections, and in order to obtain time to form some plan, he ordered Macbean to despatch the telegram and return.

An hour later, when George entered the splendidly appointed study wherein his employer was lounging, the latter rose, lit a cigar, and turning to him in the dim light--for they were standing beyond the zone of the green-shaded writing-lamp upon the table--said--

"I wish very much, Macbean, that you would listen to reason, and refuse the appointment these Italians offer you. You know as well as I do the insecurity of Governments in Italy; how the man in power to-day may be disgraced to-morrow, and how every few years a clean sweep is made of all officials in the ministries. You have told me that yourself.

Recollect the eye-opener into Italian methods we had when we saw the Minister of War regarding the contracts for Abyssinia. I wonder that you, honest man as you are, actually contemplate a.s.sociating yourself with such a corrupt officialdom." The arrogant moneyed man was clever enough to appeal to Macbean's honour, knowing well that his words must cause him to reflect.

"I shall only be an obscure secretary--an employee. Such men have no opportunity of accepting bribes or of pilfering. Theft is only a virtue in the higher grade."

"Well, since you've been out I've very carefully considered the whole matter. I should be extremely sorry to lose you. You have served me well, although I have shown no appreciation--I never do. When a man does his best, I am silent. But I am prepared to behave handsomely if you will remain. Your salary shall be raised to five hundred a year.

That's handsome enough for you, isn't it?"

Macbean slowly shook his head, and declared that no monetary inducement would be availing. He intended to go to Italy at all hazards.

The millionaire stroked his whiskers, for he was nonplussed. Yet he was shrewd, and gifted with a wonderful foresight. If Macbean really intended to go to Rome, then some other means must be found by which to ingratiate himself with the man he had so long ill-treated and despised.

There might come a day when Macbean would arise against him, and for that day he must certainly be prepared.

He flung himself into his big morocco arm-chair and motioned George to the seat at the writing-table, having first ascertained that the door was closed. Then, with a few preliminary words of regret that the young man preferred service abroad, he said in a low, earnest voice-- confidential for the first time in his life--

"If you go to Rome it is for the purpose of improving your position--of making money. Now, I am desirous of obtaining certain information, for which I am prepared to pay very handsomely, and at the Ministry of War you can, if you go cautiously to work, obtain it."

"You mean some military secret?" remarked Macbean, looking quickly at his master. "I certainly shall never betray my employers."

"No, no, not at all," protested the arrogant man before him, with a dry laugh. "It is a secret which I desire to learn--one for which I will willingly pay you ten thousand pounds in cash, if you can give me proof of the truth--but it is not a military one. You need have no fear that I am asking you to act the traitor to your employers." The two men regarded each other fixedly. Each was suspicious of double-dealing.

The millionaire was searching to discover whether the sum named was sufficiently tempting to induce his secretary to act as his spy, while the latter, scanning the large eyes of the other, endeavoured to read the motive of the mysterious offer.

"You can earn ten thousand pounds easily if you are only wary and act with careful discretion," went on the millionaire, seeing that Macbean had become interested. "It only requires a little tact, a few judicious inquiries, and the examination of a few official doc.u.ments. To the latter you will no doubt have access, and if so it will be easy enough."

"And what is it?" asked George Macbean after a brief pause, s.h.i.+fting in his chair as he spoke. "What is it you desire to know?"

"The truth regarding the exact circ.u.mstances of the death of poor Sazarac."

The other held his breath.

"I desire to avenge his death," went on the millionaire quietly, looking straight into the face of the astonished man, "and I intend to do so.

He was my friend, you know. Discover the truth, and I will willingly pay you the sum I have named--ten thousand pounds." George Macbean sat before his employer utterly bewildered, stupefied.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

VITO IS INQUISITIVE.

Three months had gone by.

The winter season in Florence had commenced in real earnest, and the streets of the grey old city were agog with the crowd of wealthy foreigners who migrate there for blue sky and suns.h.i.+ne. The Via Tornabuoni was bright with smart toilettes, the Lung Arno was crowded with handsome equipages, the Cascine was full of life at the fas.h.i.+onable hour of four, while Vieusseux's and the Floreal tea-shop overflowed, and there was gay laughter and cosmopolitan chatter everywhere.

Florence had awakened from her summer siesta beneath the glare and heat, and with her streets still sun-blanched she had put on that air of irresponsibility which is always so attractive to the leisured foreigner. Florentine hostesses were already beginning to receive, and the ma.s.s of small and jealous cliques, which calls itself English society, had started their five o'clock and teacup scandals.

The Englishman who visits Florence to inspect her art treasures and to bask in the suns.h.i.+ne of the Lung Arno or the heights of Fiesole is entirely ignorant of its curious complex society--of the blood pride of the Florentines, or of the narrow-minded prejudices of those would-be cosmopolitan Britons, mostly with double-barrelled names, who are residents. Probably there is no circle in all the world so select and so conservative as the society of the aristocratic Florentines. The majority of the princes, marquises, or counts are on the verge of bankruptcy, be it said; nevertheless, they still retain all their pride of race, and neither man nor woman is judged by his pocket. Those huge, ponderous cinquecento palaces, with their gloomy cortiles and their closely barred windows, may have been stripped of their pictures, their sculptures, and their antique furniture long ago, yet at the receptions given in those bare skeletons of ancestral homes no one comments upon the pinch of poverty that is so painfully displayed.

Your Florentine aristocrat makes a brave show to the world and to the little English cliques around him. He has a grand carriage with his arms and coronet boldly emblazoned on every panel, he drives fine horses, he has his clothes made in London, and his wife's dresses come from the Rue de la Paix; he gambles at the circolo, and he lounges picturesquely at Giacosa's or Doney's. And yet in his great palace, the doors of which are rigorously closed, he lives frugally in a few huge, barely furnished rooms, and is scarcely able to make both ends meet.

The American invasion has, however, commenced to break down even this barrier of caste, for several men of the bluest Florentine blood have, of necessity, married American wives, in order to save themselves from ruin, and have been loudly condemned for so doing.

In those bright January days all Florence was agog regarding the engagement of Count Jules Dubard with Mary Morini, daughter of the popular War Minister. By reason of her mother's health, they had remained on at the villa all the autumn; for neither had any desire for the wild gaieties and entertaining which residence in Rome entailed upon them, and preferred the quiet life of their ancient hillside home.

Daily through the streets of Florence Mary and Dubard flashed in the Minister's motor-brougham, hither and thither, paying calls or shopping, being greeted and congratulated on every hand. Her father's official position had given Mary the _entree_ to the most exclusive set, and in Florence she was always as popular as she was in the court circle at the Quirinale. She dressed usually in cream flannel, with a large black hat and a huge ostrich boa; while Dubard, smiling and elegant, was ever at her side in the smart conveyance which rushed everywhere with loud trumpeting.

Her family, in ignorance of the tragedy of her young life, were delighted with the engagement, and on every hand had she received heartiest good wishes. For a girl to marry an Englishman or Frenchman is considered the height of _chic_ in Italy, and Mary's social prestige was increased a hundredfold by her prospect of becoming a French countess. The young pair became the most striking and popular figures in the best Florentine society, while the English sets all vainly struggled to get them to their houses. Madame Morini being too unwell to go out at night, Mary was usually chaperoned by the old Princess Piola, a well-known society leader; and solely in order to please her mother, Mary went to all the functions to which she was bidden.

The Minister's wife, however, had never entertained any great affection for the English set in Florence. She had once been an English governess herself, and having known them all well through twenty years, had become thoroughly disgusted with their petty bickerings and constant scandal-mongering. Strange that the English on the Continent always divide into a quant.i.ty of small cliques. The French, the Germans, even the Scots, all join harmoniously and patriotically in a continental tour; but, as the Italians are so fond of saying, "the English is a good but strange nation."

With the exception of the British Consul-General's wife, who was an old friend of her mother's, Mary visited no other English house.

"The Italian law of caste is bad enough, my dear," her mother had said to her one day, "but the English backbiting is infinitely worse."

And so, with the man she was engaged to marry, she was seen night after night at those huge old mediaeval palaces, often dimly lit on account of the penury of their owners, and where the refreshments frequently consisted of home-made lemonade and tarts from the pastrycook's.

One night at a dance at the great Cusani Palace on the Lung Arno, where the old Marchioness Cusani was entertaining her friends, she found herself chatting with Vito Ricci, the deputy, who, wearing on the lapel of his coat the dark green ribbon and white cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, had bowed low over her hand and murmured his congratulations.

The great salon, with its polished floor, faded gilding, and crumbling frescoes, was of the ornate style of three centuries before, but over everything was a faded and neglected aspect. Those empty niches in the wall had once contained statues by Donatello, Niccolo Pisano, and Montorsoli, all of which had been sold and exported from Italy to America years ago; while the two large panels painted white had each contained a Raphael, long since disposed of to the National Gallery in London. And although the supper consisted of sandwiches from Doney's, and in lieu of champagne sweet Asti at two-francs-fifty the bottle, yet the n.o.bility of Florence far preferred gathering there to being patronised by the wealthy Americans or English.

The music was good, and Ricci invited Mary to the waltz which at that moment was just commencing. She had known her father's secret agent ever since she had been a child; therefore, nothing loth, she gave him the favour he requested. Both were excellent dancers. Ricci went into society of necessity, in order to keep in touch with the trend of affairs, and was equally well known in Rome as in Florence, in Turin, or in Naples. His sponsor had been Morini himself, and he was one of the very few of the rank and file of the Camera who moved actually in the best sets.

"I have wanted to meet you for quite a long time, Miss Mary," he said in Italian, after they had finished dancing and were strolling through one of the high old ante-rooms, where two or three cavalry officers were lounging with their partners. At dances in Italy a hostess is always careful to have a sprinkling of the military on account both of the brilliant uniforms and of the fact that they are all dancing men. "I suppose, however," he added, bending to her and speaking in a low tone that could not be overheard, "I suppose that, now you are to marry Jules, any question that concerns him is debarred--eh?"

"What do you mean?" she inquired, looking at him quickly with her fine dark eyes.

"I mean that I hesitate to put a question to you lest you should be offended."

"It all depends upon the nature of the question," she answered, as they turned into a long, dim corridor, where they found themselves alone.