Her Royal Highness Part 26

In white, with her hair beautifully dressed, she presented a sweet, charming picture of youthful patrician beauty, of exquisite refinement.

From where he stood he could see the black watered ribbon of one of the Imperial German Orders peeping over the edge of her low-cut corsage, and from it was suspended the cross of the Order in brilliants.

She was looking unusually pale and worn. Her eyes seemed to have black rings around them which told of anxiety, perhaps of sleepless nights-- different, indeed, to her appearance in those sunny, careless winter days up the Nile.

As the British diplomat made his way through the throng--for the waltz had just concluded--he bowed over the hands of a dozen pretty women, dames of high degree in the Eternal City, wives of Roman princes, of marquises, of great signori, and of diplomats. With many men, politicians, financiers, Court sycophants, and those struggling for distinction--that crowd of place-seekers and unscrupulous officials with which every European Court is surrounded--he nodded acquaintance, until suddenly espying Sir Francis Cathcart, he made his way to him.

"Hallo, Waldron--back?" exclaimed his Chief sharply.

"Yes, only an hour ago," was the other's reply.

"Come out into the conservatory. I want to have a word with you," said the Amba.s.sador, and the pair strolled together to the end of the room, where, cunningly concealed, lights showed beneath the feathery foliage of the palms of the great winter-garden.

"Well?" asked Sir Francis, when they were alone together; "I've heard nothing more concerning that alarming report from Vienna. Have you learnt anything?"

"Nothing," was Hubert's reply, "except one fact--that the rumour was also afloat in Brussels."

"Ah! Some Bourse conspiracy, then!" was the Amba.s.sador's quick remark, for he was a shrewd and well-seasoned diplomat, who knew all the subtle moves in the game of international politics.

"I cannot quite determine."

"Then you've been in Brussels?"

"Yes. In the interests of the matter which we were discussing."

"Curious that what is a secret here should be rumoured there!" remarked the British Amba.s.sador. "But a week has now gone, Waldron, therefore we can only hope the storm-cloud has blown over."

And at that moment the Russian Amba.s.sador, in his brilliant uniform, pa.s.sed, and Sir Francis joined him, leaving the secretary again alone.

As he returned to the ballroom he met the old yellow-toothed Marchesa Genazzano face to face, and though he endeavoured to avoid her--for she was such a terrible gossip and bore--he was compelled to bend over her hand and stop to chat.

She was full of the latest t.i.tbit of scandal concerning a young and pretty French Baronne, well-known in Roman Society, and her good-looking chauffeur. It was being whispered that the lady had gone away on a motor tour with him a fortnight ago and had not returned, while the irate husband was searching frantically for the driver with a revolver.

"They were last seen in Brescia," the Marchesa said. "Probably they are on their way back to France. I hear, too, that the Baronne, though always supposed to be of the _haut monde_, was, before her marriage, a variety artiste at Olympia in Paris. And"--she lowered her voice behind her fan--"and there are all sorts of queer stories going about."

Waldron was bored. The scandals of Rome--and, alas! Florence and the Eternal City are the two most scandal-mongering centres in the whole of Europe--were frequent. There seemed to be a fresh one daily, and n.o.body's reputation was sacred from the venomous tongues of the old women, of whom the Marchesa Genazzano was one.

Her Majesty had done all she could to put a stop to such gossip at Court, but, alas! only six months before, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, a pretty woman moving in the best Society, had kept a secret tryst at an obscure restaurant down near the Tiber and had been shot dead by her lover, a common soldier.

After that unfortunate scandal in her own entourage Her Majesty had been powerless to prevent uncharitable chatter concerning others.

That night the whole of the great Quirinale Palace was ablaze with light. Music and gaiety were everywhere, for through the great suite of rooms the Sala of the Amba.s.sadors, the Sala Regia, and the others, supper was being served with all that pomp and ceremony characteristic of the Italian Court.

Presently Hubert managed to escape the old lady, and offering his arm to a young, dark-haired girl, the daughter of the Minister of the Interior, made his way across the ballroom.

There was another waltz, and this he danced with his pretty little companion, afterwards taking her back to her mother, a rather obese, Hebrew-looking woman with more than a suspicion of dark hair upon her upper lip.

He had bowed and withdrawn when, pa.s.sing through the crowd, he suddenly heard a low female voice utter his name, and saw at his side the Princess Luisa.

"I must see you," she whispered, as he halted and bowed. "Go to the small door of the Capella Paolina. I will meet you outside it in five minutes."

And next instant she moved onward towards the raised dais where His Majesty was standing chatting with Sir Francis Cathcart.

In obedience Hubert made his way by a circuitous route, first through the great winter-garden, where many couples were sitting out, and then through that long suite of heavily gilded State apartments comprising fourteen magnificent chambers, each ornamented with wonderful tapestries and paintings, and full of historic a.s.sociations from the days of Gregory XIII. Generations of courtiers had paced those oaken floors until now, in our twentieth century, those who trod them were the embodiment of selfishness, of avarice, and of vain glorification.

Ah! what a brilliant, glittering, tinselled world of sham and subterfuge, of resplendent plutocracy, and adventurous politics, is each of the European Courts of to-day--that of our own St James's not excepted. The shameful traffic in t.i.tles goes on unchecked everywhere, and many a man who struts about with a piece of gilded ironmongery upon his breast and a handle to his name ought if he obtained his deserved merits, to have more strongly forged ironmongery upon his wrists and eat the bread of a felon's cell. Their Excellencies who are Ministers, too, are many of them hypocrites and adventurers, who swell the purses from the public funds, or, by means of their previous knowledge of legislation, make coups upon the Bourse. Corruption is rife everywhere, the public are gulled by the Press, and the religion of to-day is, alas!

the wors.h.i.+p of the great G.o.d, Gold.

Beyond the blue drawing-room, with its many portraits of Sovereigns and Princes, where only a few of the more elderly people were chattering, Hubert pa.s.sed down two long corridors, quite deserted save for the sentries, and at length approached a small side door which led to the Paolina Chapel--the private chapel of the Quirinale.

He was quite alone, and stood listening in expectation. From the courtyard below came up the sounds of motor-cars and the tramp of the Palace guard, while in the faint distance he could hear the strains of music.

Suddenly, however, he saw a figure in white approaching, and a moment later Lola was at his side.

"Follow me," she said hastily. "Follow me at a distance--to Villanova's room. No one will be there."

General Villanova was Minister of the Royal Household.

And she went on, he lounging leisurely after her at a distance.

A couple of minutes afterwards he found himself with her in a small room where a coal fire burned brightly--the private office of the Controller of the Household.

"Well," she echoed eagerly. "You have seen him--eh? When did you return?"

"To-night," Waldron replied. "He has sent you this," and from the breast of his uniform coat he drew the letter from her lover, Henri Pujalet.

With eager fingers she carried the note across to the shaded reading-lamp upon the table, and tearing it open, read the message it contained.

Hugh stood watching the expression of her pale, anxious face. It went instantly white as the dress she wore; her pale lips slowly parted, and in her splendid eyes was an expression of such horror that he had never seen in any person's eyes before.

For a second she seemed transfixed by the words written there.

Next second, with an almost superhuman effort, she summoned all her self-composure. Her slim, nervous fingers crushed the letter, and with a quick movement she crossed to the fire near which Hubert was standing and cast the message into the flames.

Hubert Waldron had acted as Cupid's messenger, but whatever the Princess's secret lover had written, it apparently gave her grave concern.

She stood, her left hand pressed to her heaving chest, a strangely pathetic little figure in her Court dress and glittering diamond cross upon her corsage. Her great, wonderful eyes were fixed upon the moss-green carpet, and he saw that she was trembling as though in fear.

"Your Highness is distressed," he remarked in a low voice full of sympathy. "Cannot I a.s.sist you further?"

"Distressed!" she cried, turning quickly upon him with her eyes flas.h.i.+ng suddenly. "Distressed!" she echoed. "Ah, Mr Waldron, you do not know how crus.h.i.+ng is this blow that has fallen upon me! I have done--my-- very best--what I believed to be for the best, but--ah, _Dio_!--all is lost--lost--ah!--I--I--" And reeling suddenly, she clutched wildly at air and would have fallen forward had he not sprung up to prevent her.

He took her in his strong arms and carried her insensible form to the high couch near the window, whereon he laid her tenderly.

Then he looked around bewildered, not knowing how next to act.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

REVEALS HUBERT'S SECRET.