for three days. I have to remain here at any rate to collect Anstruther’s check in London. I have in my favor all the facts of Anstruther’s story. I happen also to have Anstruther’s P. P. C. card. I will bring you the picture you want, or a half dozen copies. Will you trust to me? I make no professions!”
“That is right!” sternly said Berthe Louison. “Let our casual association be one of a mere money interest. We can find each other out easily. You have no motive to injure me, your own interest now and always lies the other way. I only wish to have some one at hand when I am ready to face the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone!”
“You are bold!” slowly said Alan Hawke. “If I should denounce you to Johnstone, himself! If he should be warned—”
“I hold him and his long cherished dream, the Baronetcy, in my hand,” the brown-eyed beauty frankly cried. “I should not burn my ships in Europe! Even if I were to be betrayed, the purpose of my life will be carried out. I should leave here behind me the safest of anchors in other well-paid agents. Your rash meddling would only ruin your own money interests and not hurt my plans.”
“Then we are to make an offensive and defensive alliance without trust or faith in each other?” agnostically remarked Hawke.
“Just so!” answered Madame Louison. “I can make it to your interest to serve me well, better than the man whom I wish to face. You know India—you happen to know Delhi. Your possible adversary is an old civilian, rich, retired, and unable to rake up trouble for you in military circles. I will do my work alone, but I shall want your aid, and I will pay you liberally. I will go up to Lausanne. You will find me at the Hotel Faucon. Bring up some route maps of India. We will go out as soon as possible. Do you wish any present money?”
Alan Hawke reddened as he shook his head.
“Then, Major Hawke, if you will take the first passing carriage, we will meet as soon as you have succeeded. Send me a telegram of your coming.” The adventurer’s low bow of silent assent terminated the strange breakfast scene, and at the gate of the vine-clad garden he turned and saw her seated there alone, with her head bowed in a reverie.
“Damme if she is made of flesh and blood!” mused the Major, as he drove back to the Hotel National. That very evening he revenged himself upon the callous-hearted stranger, by a reckless flirtation with the Misses Phenie and Genie Forbes, still of Chicago. It was not a matter of concern to any one but Paterfamilias Forbes that the Major indulged in a stolen moonlight excursion upon the lake in charge of two extremely prononcee Daisy Millers. The Major’s slumbers, however, were of the lightest, for the face of the chance-met directress of his immediate future haunted his uneasy dreams. He was a model of respectable gravity, however, when he presented himself before Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, at her Institute, when the bells clanged ten in the morning. Major Hawke at once impressed the sleek door-opener, Francois, by the ultra refinement of his demeanor, and the suave elegance of his French. “Evidently the one necessary Adam in this Garden of undeveloped young Peris,” thought Hawke, as he gazed around the cheerless room, with its globes, busts of departed sages, topographical maps, and framed samples of the “Execution” of the jeunes personnes, with brush and pencil.
“Looks breachy, that fellow—they all have to sneak out to drink, and for les fetifs plaisirs! He may be made useful. I’ll have a shy at him,” mused the Major, now on his mettle. Francois stood there expectant of a tip, when he announced the regrets of Mademoiselle Delande, that class duties would detain her for a few moments.
“Would Monsieur kindly pardon, etc.?”
“Am I right in inferring that the ladies, are the daughters of the famous Professor Delande?” the Major hazarded, with a wild guess. Before the votary of Minerva finally descended, Francois had artfully “yielded up” much valuable information to the gravely interested visitor. The attendant was the richer by a five-franc piece when he retired to vigorously fall upon the Major’s hat and brush it in an anticipatory manner.
It was but a half an hour later when Alan Hawke had concluded his deftly worded compliments upon the justly famed Institute, and had subjugated the still susceptible spinster by his adroitly veiled flatteries. The easy aplomb with which he introduced the forgotten commission of Captain Anstruther was aided by the presentation of that gentleman’s visiting card, and the charms of an interesting word sketch of Delhi and its surroundings.
The sound of distant girlish voices punctuated the refined murmur of the ensuing conference, which was an exposition of Mademoiselle Delande’s grand manner! Hawke adroitly soothed the natural uneasiness of the cunning Swiss spinster as to her sister’s comfort, safety, and the surety of Hugh Johnstone’s fabulously liberal money inducement to retain Miss Justine in his service for a year. The flattered woman fell easily into Alan Hawke’s net, and she freely dilated upon the singular eccentricities of the Indian magnate as to his daughter’s education.
There was a breaking light now illumining the strange childhood of a girl, nurtured by proxy, and kept in ignorance of her brilliant future and vast monetary inheritance.
“In fact, I have never seen the honored Mr. Hugh Fraser,” concluded Miss Euphrosyne. “Nadine was brought to us a child of three by the wife of Professor Fraser, since deceased! And, by special arrangement, she was taken by us, and her whole girlhood has been passed in our charge. We have never seen her uncle, Professor Fraser, whose duties at Edinburgh University chained him down. It was her own father’s written and positive direction that no one, whomsoever, should be admitted to converse with his child. And so Justine and myself have formed her entirely!”
Hawke’s keen eyes glowed for a moment, in a secret satisfaction. “I have you, my lady! They wished to keep you away from this young Peri, formed upon such heroically antique models.” Major Hawke gazed upon the leather-faced visage of the slaty-eyed woman, whose age none might venture to guess. An artless admiration of the absent Miss Justine’s photographed charms, caused a faint glow to flicker upon the ancient maiden’s cheek. When Alan Hawke drew forth a hideous carbuncle and Indian filigree bracelet (an old relic of bazaar haunting), the thin lips of the preceptress parted in a wintry smile.
With modest urging, he soon overcame the Roman firmness of Mademoiselle Euphrosyne, and, wonder of wonders, was honored by an invitation to dine with the austere Genevan maiden. The happy Major was soon triumphant at all points, and Francois was hastily dispatched to the Photographic Atelier to order a half dozen copies of the card portrait which displayed to Alan Hawke the rosebud face of the Veiled Beauty of Delhi. The adventurer made haste to excuse himself for interrupting the flow of the Parnassian stream, and walked backward from the presence of the poor old woman whom he had duped, as if she were a queen.
It was an easy matter for the Englishman to waylay and intercept the returning man-at-arms of this castle of cosmopolitan beauty. Francois had duly availed himself of his lengthened absence, and his thick tongue and swimming eye spoke of potations of the Kirsch-wasser dear to the Swiss heart. Major Hawke impressed the servitor with the necessity of bringing the pictures down to his rooms upon the morrow, and then the Major judiciously duplicated his five-franc piece. The happy butler winked with an acute divination of the Major’s purpose and went unsteadily back to the whirlpool of learning. The Major cheerfully went on his own way to meet Miss Genie Forbes, with whom he had established a private understanding as to a runaway visit to the Cathedral, to be followed by an impromptu breakfast. “I can stand the old Gorgon’s dinner,” mused the happy adventurer, “after a tete-a-tete with Miss Genie, and as for Francois, I will also waste a bottle of good Cognac on him. I think that I will start into this strange partnership with a better stock of family history than even this remarkably self-possessed young woman, who seems to be the heiress of some old family vendetta.”
The Major laughed as he heard the mills of the gods grinding
