The Dark Star Part 74

"Princess Naa," he remonstrated, "can nothing short of kissing you convince you of my sincerity and----"

"Impudence?" she interrupted smilingly. "Oh, yes, I'm convinced, James, that, lacking other material, you'd make love to a hitching post."

His hurt expression and protesting gesture appealed to the universe against misinterpretation, but the Princess Mistchenka laughed again unfeelingly, and seated herself at the piano.

"Some day," she said, striking a lively chord or two, "I hope you'll catch it, young man. You're altogether too free and easy with your feminine friends.... What do you think of Rue Carew?"

"An astounding and enchanting transformation. I haven't yet recovered my breath."

"When you do, you'll talk nonsense to the child, I suppose."

"Princess! Have I ever----"

"You talk little else, dear friend, when G.o.d sends a pretty fool to listen!" She looked up at him from the keyboard over which her hands were nervously wandering. "I ought to know," she said; "_I_ also have listened." She laughed carelessly, but her glance lingered for an instant on his face, and her mirth did not sound quite spontaneous to either of them.

Two years ago there had been an April evening after the opera, when, in taking leave of her in her little _salon_, her hand had perhaps retained his a fraction of a second longer than she quite intended; and he had, inadvertently, kissed her.

He had thought of it as a charming and agreeable incident; what the Princess Naa Mistchenka thought of it she never volunteered. But she so managed that he never again was presented with a similar opportunity.

Perhaps they both were thinking of this rather ancient episode now, for his face was touched with a mischievously reminiscent smile, and she had lowered her head a trifle over the keyboard where her slim, ivory-tinted hands still idly searched after elusive harmonies in the subdued light of the single lamp.

"There's a man dining with us," she remarked, "who has the same irresponsible and casual views on life and manners which you entertain. No doubt you'll get along very well together."

"Who is he?"

"A Captain Sengoun, one of our attaches. It's likely you'll find a congenial soul in this same Cossack whom we all call Alak." She added maliciously: "His only logic is the impulse of the moment, and he is known as Prince Erlik among his familiars. Erlik was the Devil, you know----"

He was announced at that moment, and came marching in--a dark, handsome, wiry young man with winning black eyes and a little black moustache just shadowing his short upper lip--and a head shaped to contain the devil himself--the most reckless looking head, Neeland thought, that he ever had beheld in all his life.

But the young fellow's frank smile was utterly irresistible, and his straight manner of facing one, and of looking directly into the eyes of the person he addressed in his almost too perfect English, won any listener immediately.

He bowed formally over Princess Naa's hand, turned squarely on Neeland when he was named to the American, and exchanged a firm clasp with him. Then, to the Princess:

"I am late? No? Fancy, Princess--that great b.o.o.by, Izzet Bey, must stop me at the club, and I exceedingly pressed to dress and entirely out of humour with all Turks. '_Eh bien, mon vieux!_' said he in his mincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming up the Balkan boilers with Austrian pine. But I hear they're full of snow.' And I said to him: 'Snow boils very nicely if the fire is sufficiently persistent!' And I think Izzet Bey will find it so!"--with a quick laugh of explanation to Neeland: "He meant Russian snow, you see; and that boils beautifully if they keep on stoking the boiler with Austrian fuel."

The Princess shrugged:

"What schoolboy repartee! Why did you answer him at all, Alak?"

"Well," explained the attache, "as I was due here at eight I hadn't time to take him by the nose, had I?"

Rue Carew entered and went to the Princess to make amends:

"I'm so sorry to be late!"--turned to smile at Neeland, then offered her hand to the Russian. "How do you do, Prince Erlik?" she said with the careless and gay cordiality of old acquaintance. "I heard you say something about Colonel Izzet Bey's nose as I came in."

Captain Sengoun bowed over her slender white hand:

"The Mohammedan nose of Izzet Bey is an admirable bit of Oriental architecture, Miss Carew. Why should it surprise you to hear me extol its bizarre beauty?"

"Anyway," said the girl, "I'm contented that you left devilry for revelry." And, Marotte announcing dinner, she took the arm of Captain Sengoun as the Princess took Neeland's.

Like all Russians and some Cossacks, Prince Alak ate and drank as though it were the most delightful experience in life; and he did it with a whole-souled heartiness and satisfaction that was flattering to any hostess and almost fascinating to anybody observing him.

His teeth were even and very white; his appet.i.te splendid: when he did his goblet the honour of noticing it at all, it was to drain it; when he resumed knife and fork he used them as gaily, as gracefully, and as thoroughly as he used his sabre on various occasions.

He had taken an instant liking to Neeland, who seemed entirely inclined to return it; and he talked a great deal to the American but with a nice division of attention for the two ladies on either side.

"You know, Alak," said the Princess, "you need not torture yourself by trying to converse with discretion; because Mr. Neeland knows about many matters which concern us all."

"Ah! That is delightful! And indeed I was already quite a.s.sured of Mr.

Neeland's intelligent sympathy in the present state of European affairs."

"He's done a little more than express sympathy," remarked the Princess; and she gave a humorous outline of Neeland's part in the affair of the olive-wood box.

"Fancy!" exclaimed Captain Sengoun. "That impudent _canaille_! Yes; I heard at the Emba.s.sy what happened to that accursed box this morning.

Of course it is a misfortune, but as for me, personally, I don't care----"

"It doesn't happen to concern you personally, Prince Erlik," said Princess Naa dryly.

"No," he admitted, unabashed by the snub, "it does not touch me.

Cavalry cannot operate on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Therefore, G.o.d be thanked, I shall be elsewhere when the snow boils."

Rue tuned to Neeland:

"His one idea of diplomacy and war is a thousand Kuban Cossacks at full speed."

"And that is an excellent idea, is it not, Kazatchka?" he said, smiling impudently at the Princess, who only laughed at the familiarity.

"I hope," added Captain Sengoun, "that I may live to gallop through a few miles of diplomacy at full speed before they consign me to the Opolchina." Turning to Neeland, "The reserve--the old man's home, you know. G.o.d forbid!" And he drained his goblet and looked defiantly at Rue Carew.

"A Cossack is a Cossack," said the Princess, "be he Terek or Kuban, Don or Astrachan, and they all know as much about diplomacy as Prince Erlik--or Izzet Bey's nose.... James, you are unusually silent, dear friend. Are you regretting those papers?"

"It's a pity," he said. But he had not been thinking of the lost papers; Rue Carew's beauty preoccupied him. The girl was in black, which made her skin dazzling, and reddened the chestnut colour of her hair.

Her superb young figure revealed an unsuspected loveliness where the snowy symmetry of neck and shoulders and arms was delicately accented by the filmy black of her gown.

He had never seen such a beautiful girl; she seemed more wonderful, more strange, more aloof than ever. And this was what preoccupied and entirely engaged his mind, and troubled it, so that his smile had a tendency to become indefinite and his conversation mechanical at times.

Captain Sengoun drained one more of numerous goblets; gazed sentimentally at the Princess, then with equal sentiment at Rue Carew.

"As for me," he said, with a carelessly happy gesture toward the infinite, "plans are plans, and if they're stolen, _tant pis_! But there are always Tartars in Tartary and Turks in Turkey. And, while there are, there's hope for a poor devil of a Cossack who wants to say a prayer in St. Sophia before he's gathered to his ancestors."

"Have any measures been taken at your Emba.s.sy to trace the plans?"

asked Neeland of the Princess.

"Of course," she said simply.