of domesticity. It is the music of the cafés, the light laughter of the women, the flavour of his apéritif which appeal to him with the coming of the twilight. Mildenhall yielded to the general spirit. After an hour’s promenade he entered one of the most attractive of the famous cafés, purchased an evening paper and installed himself at a comfortable table. He ordered a drink and lit a cigarette. His Thursday evening rendezvous pleased him. It was a great thing to have met Leopold Benjamin so entirely by accident and to have received so interesting an invitation. The Viennese cafés are not made for isolation. Mildenhall was seated in the corner place of the long settee which stretched down one side of the room. The table in front of him was sufficiently large to accommodate several customers. There were two chairs unoccupied. Mildenhall shook out his newspaper and turned it so that he could read the leading article. His attention, however, was suddenly distracted.
“I do not disturb you, sir, if I take this chair?” a friendly voice asked in excellent English.
Mildenhall glanced up and recognized the man who had been Mr. Benjamin’s companion in the bank a short time before.
“By no means,” he answered courteously. “Why not the settee? It is more comfortable and, after all, I don’t take up much room.”
With a bow the newcomer seated himself, handed his coat and hat to a waiter and gave an order. He glanced at the paper in Mildenhall’s hands.
“One wastes much time nowadays,” he remarked, “with these fugitive journals. It seems to me that much is written which is not worth the ink.”
“I gather that you are not a journalist!”
“I am not,” was the quiet reply. “Clever men, no doubt, but what they are responsible for! Half the wars in the world are caused by the Press. Every grievance of mankind is nurtured by their pens. News itself is good, but news is the last thing one finds—in the evening papers, at any rate. The one you have there is engaged in an unholy crusade. It is doing great harm in the city. It is stirring up bad feeling in this place of beautiful things and kindly people.”
“Did I not see you an hour ago in Benjamin’s bank?” Mildenhall asked.
“You did indeed, sir. Mr. Leopold Benjamin is one of the men I admire most in the world. He is a great philanthropist, a great artist, a lover of the human race, a good man. But life for him at the present moment is poisoned by the campaign in a certain section of the Press.”
Mildenhall nodded sympathetically.
“This crusade against the Jews.” he murmured.
“It is a wicked and outrageous crusade,” his companion said almost under his breath and after a careful glance around. “I should not, perhaps, speak like this in a public place, but I know who you are. I heard your introduction to Leopold Benjamin. I know, too, that you are an Englishman, and the English have always been the protectors of any persecuted race.”
“Isn’t ‘persecuted’ rather a harsh term?” Mildenhall asked. “The Austrian is such a kindly person—at least, so I have fancied from the little I have seen of him.”
“The Austrian by himself is well enough,” the other acknowledged. “It is what there is behind him, driving him on, that is dangerous. You permit?”
He drew a small case from his pocket and handed a card to his companion.
“I myself am not a Jew,” he went on, “although my name, which you see there, rather suggests it. I have a profession which keeps me wandering all over the world. There are few countries, well-populated countries, which I have not visited. The empty places do not interest me. I like work, and my work is amongst human beings. My name, as you see, is Marius Blute and I am a naturalized Finn.”
“From your speech,” Mildenhall remarked, “I should have taken you to be English. From your appearance I should have thought that you were perhaps a Scandinavian.”
“I was really born,” Blute confided, “in Finland. My mother was a Finn and my father, a Russian.”
“And your profession?” Mildenhall asked pleasantly.
“Ah, perhaps you will guess that before long,” the other replied. “I understand that we are to meet again at dinner on Thursday.”
“Delighted to hear it,” Mildenhall assured him. “Tell me, do you think our host will show us any of his treasures? I have always been told that I should find choicer pictures in his rooms than in any European gallery.”
“That is easily the truth,” Blute acquiesced. “As to whether he will open up the galleries for you, I have my doubts. These are dangerous times for a man who has such possessions.”
“He has dangerous neighbours?”
“Of that we will not speak here. Vienna, alas, is greatly changed. We have a perfect affliction of the Gestapo here amongst us. The Viennese themselves, the townspeople, have lost the control of their city. It is sad but it is true. One by one the men who have made Vienna a great and joyous place have been obliged to leave it. Those who have added most to its riches and its beauty are the very ones who are now the most persecuted. What the world of tomorrow may be, one sometimes wonders! I could take you to the house of one great Austrian aristocrat at this moment, Mr. Mildenhall. It is not far from here. You would find him sitting in one small room. At the further end is a curtain and behind that curtain, which is, I might tell you, of priceless Chinese silk, there is a bed, and on that bed he sleeps. At the other end there is a table surrounded by screens the beauty of which no words could describe, and there he dines. There is a great window hung with curtains which once adorned a Doge’s palace. When they are drawn aside he has one of the most beautiful views in Vienna. That room and its little antechamber, Mr. Mildenhall, he has not left for twenty years, and in that room he will die. But if one of the experts, from any part of the world, who belonged to Benjamin’s race and had a sense of financial values as well as appreciation saw that room, he would tell you that millions of your English pounds would not buy the contents of that one chamber. There he sits. He is content so long as he is undisturbed. He gave his life to beauty and he fears to lose his treasures. He fears so much that he has concentrated them, weeded them out, kept everything that was a little more beautiful than anything else of its sort. ‘It is too small a room,’ he says sometimes, ‘to rob.’ But there is fear in his heart at the thought. Some day he will lose everything. I passed his house not three days ago. I saw one of those loathed spies watching it. They begin to know where to find what their masters are craving for—anything, anything they can turn into gold. One more was added to the list that afternoon.”
Blute’s story had been so simply told, was so obviously the result of the man’s own observation, that his companion felt a sudden surge of interest in the princely hermit guarding his treasures.
“Can’t you warn him?” he asked. “Can’t he be told that they have marked him down?”
The other shook his head slowly.
“What would be the good? He is too old to escape, he is too old and tired to leave his treasures. He will sit there with them all around him until the day comes that the Gestapo cross his threshold and he hears their fateful summons. When that time comes it is my belief that he will kill himself.”
Mildenhall sighed. The orchestra was playing gay music, the place was filled with chattering and laughing groups of people who had been able for an hour or two to put all cares behind them.
“What about
