William Le Queux - Behind the Throne

George Macbean recognised all this, and more. He saw that she was at heart a thoroughly English girl, fond of tennis, hockey, and a country life, who had been transplanted into an artificial world of glare and glitter, of empty etiquette and false friendships, and yet who, at the same time, seemed to be held transfixed by some secret upon her conscience.

What was it? he wondered. Was he, after all, mistaken?

The longer he remained in her company, the more mystified did he become. He knew too well the character of Jules Dubard; he knew that she was marked down a victim, and he intended to stand as her friend – her champion if need be – even at peril to himself.

As she leaned over the old wooden rail at the river brink, gazing across the calm, unruffled waters, she chatted with gay vivacity about their mutual friends in the neighbourhood, and related her failure at a tennis tournament held on the previous day by a colonel’s wife on the other side of Rugby.

“I suppose you often see Count Dubard in Rome,” he said at last, with some attempt at indifference. “He is in Italy a great deal nowadays, I have heard.”

“He was in Rome this winter,” she answered. “He often came to my mother’s receptions.”

“He has a very wide circle of acquaintances, has he not?”

“Yes, mostly military men. He seems to know half of the officers in Rome. I thought I knew a good many, for crowds come to us every Thursday, but he knows far more.”

“And of course your father sends him cards for the official receptions at the Ministry of War?”

“Certainly – why?” she asked, glancing quickly at her companion with some surprise.

“Oh, nothing,” he laughed uneasily. “I was only reflecting that he must have a very pleasant time in Italy, that’s all.”

“I believe he enjoys himself,” she said. “But every foreigner who has money and is recognised by his Embassy can have a pleasant time in Rome if he likes.”

“But not every foreigner enjoys the friendship of the Minister of War,” he remarked – “nor of his daughter,” he added, with a smile.

Her cheeks flushed slightly.

“Ah!” she protested, with one of those quaint little foreign gestures. “There you are again, Mr Macbean! Teasing me because these ignorant people here say that I’m engaged to the count. It is really too bad of you! Did I not assure you the other day that it is quite untrue?”

“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, raising his panama hat, bowing as though she were an entire stranger, and yet laughing the while. “I had no intention of giving offence. Envy is permitted, however – is it not?”

“Oh, it hasn’t given me offence at all?” she laughed frankly. “You see, there’s no truth in the rumour, therefore I can afford to laugh.”

Her words struck him as very strange. They seemed to convey that if the engagement were really a fact it would cause her regret and annoyance.

“I wanted to meet Dubard so much,” he remarked in a tone of regret. “I suppose there is no chance he will return to Orton?”

“Not this summer, I think. He left us to go direct to Paris, and then I believe he goes to his estate in the Pyrenees.”

“But he came here intending to spend a week or so at Orton, did he not?”

“Yes; but he received a letter recalling him to France,” she said. “Father says he didn’t receive any letter. If he really didn’t, he surely could have left without telling us a lie.”

Macbean smiled. How little she knew of the real character of Jules Dubard, the plausible élégant who was such a prominent character at the Jockey Club and in the Bois.

“Very soon,” she added, in a tone of regret, “we shall have to return. My father is due back at the Ministry on the fourth of next month, and while he is there we shall go up to San Donato, our villa above Florence, and stay for the vintage, which, to me, is the best time in Italy in all the year.”

“Ah yes,” he sighed. “I have always heard so. Myself I love Italy – I only wish I could escape from this country with its long dismal winters and live in sunshine always.”

“You would very soon tire of it,” she assured him, looking him straight in the face with her fine eyes. “Even our bright sun gives one fever, and our blue sky becomes so monotonous that one longs for the calm of a grey English day.”

“I would like to try it for a year or two,” he declared wistfully.

“Then why don’t you?”

He was silent, and their eyes met again.

“Because I am not my own master, Miss Morini,” was his low response. “My living, such as it is, lies here in England. I am the factotum of a man who has elevated money to be his god, and I am compelled to serve him in silence and without complaint because it happens to be my lot in life.”

“A rather unhappy and uncomfortable one, I should imagine,” she remarked, suddenly growing grave.

“At times, yes,” was his brief reply. He did not wish to burden her with his own disappointments and misfortunes. She knew what was his position, a mere secretary, and that was sufficient. What hope could he ever have of daring to aspire to her hand? He might stand as her friend, but become her lover, never!

And when, a week later, he called at Orton to wish her farewell, as his vacation was at an end and he was compelled to return to his chambers in the Temple, and to that room in Mr Morgan-Mason’s flat in Queen Anne’s Mansions, he looked in vain in her eyes for some sign of genuine regret. There was none. No, she too had realised that on account of his position love was forbidden him.

“We shall meet here again, I hope, Mr Macbean – next summer,” she exclaimed, laughing airily, as she gave him her small white hand.

“I hope so,” was his fervent reply in a low, meaning voice, as their hands clasped.

And then, with sinking heart and full of grave apprehensions regarding her future, he bowed and left her, left her, alas! to Jules Dubard – Jules Dubard of all men!

Camillo Morini stood at the big window of his private cabinet in the Ministry of War at Rome, gazing down upon the silent courtyard, white in the glaring heat of afternoon.

He was dressed in a cool suit of clean white linen, as is the summer mode in the South, and as he stood gazing out at the sentry standing in his box motionless as a statue, he calmly smoked his after-luncheon cigar – a good Havanna he had brought from England. The man who was so constantly juggling with a nation’s future pressed his lips together, and afterwards heaved a big sigh – a sigh that echoed through the big, lofty room.

The Minister’s cabinet, like all the rooms in the new War Office, was big and bare, with a marble floor for summer, and a high stove of white terra-cotta with broad brass bands for winter. Upon the ceiling were fine modern frescoes; the walls, however, unlike those of the other rooms, which were mostly colour-washed, were papered dark red, and the heavy furniture was covered with thick red plush; while in one corner was a handsome marble bust of Victor Emmanuel upon a pedestal, and above hung a large framed portrait of King Umberto, the reigning sovereign, and a huge shield bearing the arms of Italy. In the centre stood a huge writing-table of carved walnut, with a great high-backed chair, the seat of the man who ruled the army of Italy.

The doors were double, with a wide space between, so that the messenger in uniform who lounged outside should overhear nothing, while so hemmed in by secretaries was the Minister that he was as difficult of approach as the very sovereign himself.

That huge square block of new stuccoed buildings, with long corridors, enormous clerks’ room, and big courtyard, the echoes of which were awakened day and night by the regular tramp of the sentries and the clank of arms, was at that moment a veritable hive of industry – for of all the government departments in Rome, the War Office, with its tremendous responsibilities, is the best conducted.