to make it German marks, not francs, but it was useless. I have brought with me the acceptance of the contract,” he added. “The decree only requires your endorsement,” and he drew from his pocket a paper which he opened and spread upon the big old-fashioned writing-table of the library.
The Minister, however, still hesitated, while his companion smiled within himself at what he regarded as a sudden and utterly unnecessary pang of conscience.
“This cheap contracting is simply sacrificing the lives of our poor men,” declared Morini suddenly, turning at last from the window and facing the man who was so constantly his tempter.
“Bah! There are cheap contracts and secret commissions in all the departments – marine, public-works – even at the Ministry of Justice.”
“I know, I know,” groaned the Minister. “The whole system is rotten at the core. I’ve tried to be honest, and have failed.”
“Your Excellency must admit that our department does not stand alone. It is to be regretted that our poor conscripts are half starved, and our soldiers armed with faulty ammunition, but surely we must live as well as those in the other ministries!”
“At the sacrifice of Italy?” remarked the Minister in a hard tone. “I really do not believe, Angelo, that you possess any conscience,” he added bitterly.
“I possess, I think, about the same quantity as your Excellency,” was the other’s satirical reply, as he twisted his dark moustache. “Conscience and memory are the two most dangerous operations of the politician’s intellect. Happy the man who indulges in neither.”
“Then you must be very happy indeed,” remarked His Excellency, with a dry laugh. “But,” he added, sighing, “I suppose I must fall in with your suggestion for this, the very last time. You say that the money will be placed to my account at the Credit Lyonnais next Monday – eh?”
The Under-Secretary nodded in the affirmative, and then the Minister took up a pen and with a quick flourish scribbled his signature at the head of the document which gave slop-made uniforms and brown-paper boots to fifteen regiments of Italian infantry.
Chapter Two
Friends of her Excellency
Her Excellency Signora Morini was an Englishwoman, and for that reason the Minister rented Orton Court, that picturesque old Queen Anne house in Leicestershire, where, with their daughter Mary, they each year spent August and September, the two blazing months of the Italian summer.
Standing back amid wide level lawns, high box-hedges, quaint old flower-gardens, and spreading cedars, about four miles out of Rugby on the Leicester road, it dominated a wide stretch of rich, undulating pastures of bright fresh green, so pleasing to the eye after the sun-baked, thirsty land of Italy. The house, a quaint, rambling old place full of odd nooks and corners, was of time-mellowed red brick, partly ivy-covered, with a wide stone portico, spacious hall, and fine oak staircase. One wing, that which faced the tennis-lawn, was covered with roses, while around the lawn itself were iron arches over which trailing roses also grew in abundant profusion.
The Morinis kept but little company when in England. They came there for rest after the mad whirl of the Roman season, and so careful was His Excellency to keep his true position a secret, and thus avoid being compelled to make complimentary calls upon the English Ministers and officials in London, that very few persons, if indeed anyone in the neighbourhood, were really aware that the tall, courteous foreigner who came there for a few weeks each year – Mr Morini, as they called him – was actually one of the most powerful Ministers in Europe.
They were civil to their neighbours in a mild, informal way, of course. Foreigners are always regarded with suspicion in England. Madame Morini made calls which were returned, and they usually played tennis and croquet in the afternoon; for Mary, on account of her bright, cosmopolitan vivacity, was a particular favourite with everyone.
The local clergy, headed by the rural dean and his wife, were fond of drinking tea on the pretty lawn of Orton Court, and on this afternoon among the guests were several rectors and their curates, together with their women-folk. The wife of the Minister of War had been the daughter of a poor Yorkshire clergyman. She had, while acting as English governess in the family of a Roman prince, met her husband, then only a struggling advocate in the Florence courts, and, notwithstanding that she was a Protestant, they had married, and she had never for one moment repented her choice. Husband and wife, after those years of strange ups and downs, were still entirely devoted to each other; while Mary, their only child, they mutually idolised.
The scene upon that sunny lawn was picturesque and purely English.
Madame Morini, a dark-haired, well-preserved woman in pale mauve, was seated at a bamboo table in the shade serving tea and gossiping with her friends – for the game had been suspended, and cake and biscuits were being handed round by the men in flannels.
An elderly woman, wife of a retired colonel, inquired for “Mr Morini,” whereupon madame answered —
“He is in the house, detained on business, I think. A gentleman has come down from London to see him.” And thus was her husband’s presence excused.
Ten minutes later, however, when Mary, watching her opportunity, saw her mother alone, she ran up to her, whispering in her ear —
“That man Borselli has come from Rome, mother! I saw his face at the study window. Why can’t he leave father alone when we are here on holiday?”
“I suppose it is some affair of state, my dear,” was her mother’s calm reply. “Your father told me he was to arrive this afternoon. He is to remain the night.”
“I hate the man!” declared the pretty, dark-haired girl with emphasis. “I watched him through the window just now, and saw him look so black at father behind his back. I believe they have quarrelled.”
“I think not, my dear. Your father and General Borselli are very old friends, remember.”
“Of course. But he’s a Sicilian, and you know what you’ve always told me about the Livornese and the Sicilians.”
“Don’t be silly, Mary,” exclaimed the Minister’s wife, laughing. “Matters of state do not concern us women. Go and continue your game.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders with the queer little foreign gesture due to her cosmopolitan upbringing, and turned away to rejoin the young man in grey flannels who stood awaiting her on the other side of the court.
She was twenty-one, with perfect, regular features, a pointed chin, dark chestnut hair, and a pair of large, lustrous eyes in which gleamed all the fire and passion of the sunny South. Her figure, neat-waisted and well-proportioned, was always admired in the salons of Rome and Florence, and she had for the past couple of years been the reigning beauty in the official and diplomatic world of the Eternal City.
Possessed of an easy grace, a natural modesty, with a sweet, pleasant expression, she had, soon after returning from school at Broadstairs, been chaperoned into Roman society by her mother, and had now, at twenty-one, become essentially a woman of the world, well-dressed, chic, and full of vivacity. A remarkable linguist – for she spoke English, Italian, French, and Spanish with equal fluency – she had quickly made her mark in that very difficult circle, Italian society, a fact which pleased her parents, and induced her father to increase her allowance until she was enabled to have her ball dresses from Paris and her tailor-made gowns from London.
Morini, compelled, for the sake of his prominent position, to make
