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Let us move together and made sure that he does not evade us." "Is it an alliance which you are proposing?" De Grost asked, with a quiet smile. "Why not? Enemies have united before to-day against a common foe." De Grost looked across the palm court to where the two people who formed the subject of their discussion were sitting in a corner, both smoking, both sipping some red-colored liqueur.
"I was beginning to wonder," he remarked, "whether you would not soon arrive at that decision?" "Having arrived at it," Bernadine continued, looking intently at his companion, "the logical sequence naturally occurs to you." "Precisely, my dear Bernadine," de Grost assented. "You say to yourself, no doubt, 'One of us two must go! Being yourself, you would naturally conclude that it must be me.
"I suppose I ought to be looking after him," she admitted, rising reluctantly to her feet. "He is a soldier just back from India a General Noseworthy, with all sorts of letters after his name. If Mademoiselle Celaire is generous, perhaps we may have a few minutes' conversation later on," she added, with a parting smile. "Say, rather, if Mademoiselle Korust is kind," De Grost replied, bowing.
I mean to have a talk with the boy afterwards, and if I am satisfied with what he says, the money will be all right." Courtledge raised his eyebrows. "You know, of course, that he has a very small income and no expectations?" "I know that," Baron de Grost answered. "At the same time, it is hard to forget that he really is a member of the royal house, even though the kingdom is a small one."
He had made a little progress; but, after all, was it worth while? Supposing that the man with whom her husband was even at this moment closeted was the Baron de Grost! He called a taxi-cab and drove at once to the Embassy of his country. Even at this moment de Grost and the Russian Paul Hagon he called himself were standing face to face in the latter's sitting-room.
Close to it, in an easy-chair, his evening coat changed for a smoking-jacket, with a neatly tied black tie replacing his crumpled white cravat, the Baron de Grost sat awaiting his guest. A fierce oath broke from Bernadine's lips. He turned toward the door only in time to hear the key turn. Violet tossed it lightly in the air across to her husband.
Do you think that he is a man likely to forgive?" "I do not," de Grost answered grimly. "It is a battle, of course a battle all the time. Yet, Violet, between you and me, if Bernadine were to go, half the savour of life for me would depart with him." Then there came a serious and wholly unexpected interruption.
"If I may be pardoned for alluding to a purely personal matter," De Grost continued, "what is to become of me?" "You will be bound and gagged in the same manner as your manager and his clerk," Bernadine replied, smoothly. "I regret the necessity, but you see, I can afford to run no risks. At four o'clock in the morning, you will be released.
There was not even pity in his face. "You will not tell my husband?" she gasped. "Your husband already knows, Madame," was the quiet reply. "Only a few hours ago I proved to him whence had come the leakage of so many of our secrets lately." She swayed upon her feet. "He will never forgive me," she cried. "There are others," De Grost declared, "who forgive more rarely, even, than husbands."
There are times when I am afraid." De Grost flicked the ash from his cigarette. "The days are passing," he remarked, "when men point revolvers at one another, and hire assassins to gain their ends. Now, it is more a battle of wits. We play chess on the board of Life still, but we play with ivory pieces instead of steel and poison. Our brains direct and not our muscles." She sighed.
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