A Fascinating Traitor

C >> Col. Richard Henry Savage >> A Fascinating Traitor

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"A devilish pleasant fellow and a right stunning hand at ecarte."
Anstruther prudently walked for a couple of squares, and then hailed
a passing voiture, directing him to the very cosiest restaurant in
the snug city of Bonnivard.

Major Hawke, far away now, entertained a slight resentment toward
the man who had so coolly aspired to les bonnes fortunes, and
ignored his own possible interference with the Lady of the Lake.
It was with a grim satisfaction, however, that he saw on the boat
the Misses Phenie and Genie Forbes, of Chicago, the bright particular
stars of the traveling upper tendom. "Popper" and "Mommer" were
deep in certain red-bound Baedeker's and busied in delving for
"historic facts," while the artful Alan Hawke glided into a fast
and familiar flirtation with the two bright-eyed, sharp-voiced
damsels. Both the heiresses were dressed as if for a reception,
with judiciously selected jewelry samples, evidencing the wondrous
success of machine conducted pig demolition. They glittered in the
sun as Fortune's bediamonded favorites.

And, so, while Madame Berthe Louison and Captain Anstruther lingered
au cabinet particulier, over their Chablis and Ostend oysters,
the recouped gambler extended his store of mental acquirement, by
tender converse with the two sprightly belles of the Windy City. In
fact, the whistle of the steamer was heard long before Alan Hawke
could extricate himself from the clinging tentacles of the audacious
beauties. He was somewhat repaid for his social exertions, however,
as he sped back to keep his tryst at Geneva, by the acquisition of
a large steel-engraved business card inscribed, "Forbes, Haygood
& Co., Chicago," loftily tendered him by "Popper." He smiled at
the whispered assurances of the Misses Phenie and Genie that they
"should soon meet again."

"Bring your friend--that other Lord," cried the departing Miss
Genie, waving a thousand-franc lace fan, as she sagely observed,
"Two's company--three's none. We'll have a jolly lark--us four.
Don't forget, now!" The polite Major laid his hand upon his heart
and played the amiable tiger, although burning inwardly now, in a
fierce personal jealousy of Anstruther as he wandered alone around
the cold gray halls of the museum, and gazed upon the pinched
features of the permanently eclipsed shining lights of the "Bulwark
of Civil and Religious Liberty." There was no charm for him in the
bigoted ferocity of Calvin's lean, dark face, smacking his thin
lips over the roasted Servetus. He abhorred the departed heroes
of the golden evolution from Eidegenossen into Higuerios and later
Huguenots. They interested him not, neither did he love Professor
Calame's scratchy pictures, nor the jumbled bric-a-brac of art and
history. None of these charmed him. He waited only for the gliding
step, the clasp of a burning hand, and the flash of the lustrous
dark-brown eyes. It was his own innings now.

He had referred to his watch for the fiftieth time, when, from a
closed carriage, the object of his mental vituperations gracefully
alighted at last. It was with the very coldest of bows that the
irritated man received the graceful, self-possessed woman, whose
lovely face was but partially hidden by her coquettishly dotted
veil.

"She dresses like a Parisienne, walks like an Andalu-sian, and
has all the seductiveness of a Polish countess!" the quick-witted
rascal thought, as they strolled into the museum, which the departed
General Rath knew not would be the scene of many a hidden love
intrigue, when he endowed it with a benevolent vanity. The two wary
strangers strolled along until they found a retired corner. Madame
Louison seated herself, waving her lace parasol with the impatient
gesture of one accustomed to command.

Alan Hawke was in no gentle humor, and his cheeks reddened as he
felt the calm scrutiny of the woman's searching glances. He was
now determined to take the whip hand, and to keep it. His accents
were staccato as he said, "Tell me now who you are, and what
you wish of me!" A clock, hung high over them on the dreary, drab
walls, ticked away brusquely, as the angered woman gazed steadily
into his face.

"And so your little windfall of last night has already made you
impudent? If you cannot find another tone at once, I will find
another agent! The man whom you plucked has told me the story of
your wonderful skill at cards!" The sneer cut the renegade like a
whip lash, and Alan Hawke sprang up in anger. Madame Berthe Louison
coolly settled herself down into the red cushions.

"The way to India is before you, but five hundred pounds is not
a fortune for Major Alan Hawke! Listen! I watched you carefully
yesterday, in your vigil upon Rousseau's Island. Your telltale face
betrayed you. You were left stranded here in Geneva. An accident
has brought us together. You cannot divine my motives. I can fathom
yours easily. Tell me now, of yourself, of your past in India--of
your present standing there. If you are frank, I may contribute to
your fortune; if not--our ways part here!"

"And, if I warn Anson Anstruther that you are a mere adventuress,
if I notify my old friend Hugh Fraser (soon to be Sir Hugh Johnstone),
then your little game will be spoiled, Madame Louison!" defiantly
said Hawke. The woman leaned back and laughed merrily in his face.

"You are like all professional lady killers, a mere fool in the
hands of the first woman of wit. I dare you to cross my path! I
will then join Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther, in Paris, at
the Hotel Binda! I will also see that you are excluded from every
club in India! Your occupation will be gone, my Knight of Ecarte.
Anstruther waits for me." She tossed him a card. "See for yourself.
He was kind enough at breakfast, and, he will help me, if I ask
him."

"And why do you not fly to his arms?" sneered Alan Hawke, who had
quickly resigned the bullying tone of his abordage.

"Because he is a nice boy and a gentleman," the woman said, with
a cutting emphasis. "Now, let me read you, Monsieur le Major, a
lesson in manners. Never be rough with a woman! That is the road
which always leads on to failure. I wish you a good appetite for
your breakfast, which I have delayed, and for which I beg your
pardon!" She rose and swept along with her Juno strides, and had
reached the second Hall of Antiquities before Alan Hawke overtook
her. It had flashed across his mind that he had for once in his
life met a woman who was not afraid of the future, whatever had
been her past. A single malicious letter from Anstruther would ruin
him in India, for there was an ominous cloud, no bigger than a man's
hand, lingering in that hiatus between his old rank of Lieutenant
of Bengal Artillery, and the shadowy tenure of his self-dubbed
Majority. This Aspasia hid none of her methods. She had boldly
captivated the passing Pericles, and, evidently, she was the desired
one.

"Let me explain," he began, as the woman looked calmly into his
face.

"We are only losing time, Major," Madame Louison remarked, as she
sought a corner. "I see that you have already repented. Do you know
any one in Geneva?"

"Not one of the seventy-five thousand here," frankly answered Hawke.
"The only man I came here to see, the English Consul, is away on
leave."

"Then I can use you safely," answered the stranger. "Now,
I owe you a breakfast. Will you put me in my carriage? I know the
town thoroughly. Remember that it is only business that brings us
together, and yet we may become better friends." In a half an hour
they were seated in an arbor by the lake, where a homely German
restaurant offered good cheer.

The Lady of the Lake did the honors ceremoniously, and Major Alan
Hawke was permitted a cigar after the lake trout, filet, pears,
cheese, Chambertin, and black coffee had been discussed. He was both
conquered and repentant, and had adroitly atoned for his mauvais
debut by a respectful demeanor, which was not feigned. He answered
the running fire of questions which had led him from Cape Comorin
to the Himalayas, and from Chittagong to the Khyber Pass.

"You are sure that no one in Geneva knows your face?" Berthe Louison
asked at last.

"I have been here only two days, and it is twenty years since I
first roved over Switzerland on schoolboy leave," was the truthful
answer.

"Then I can use you if you will decide to aid me, after you have
heard me. I know, already, all that young Anstruther knows of the
whole Johnstone matter. I do not intend to meet him at Paris," she
demurely said. "I am absolutely untrammeled in this world. I am
free to act as a woman's moods sway her. I have plenty of money,
a fact which lifts me above the degradation of man's chase, and
I indulge in no illusions. I am a soldier's daughter, and my dead
father was the son of one of Napoleon's heroes of La Grande Armee.
My whole life has been most unconventional; and I am free to dispose
of myself, body and soul, and will, but for one thing." She was
pleased with Alan Hawke's mute glance of inquiry. "Only the business
which brought me to Geneva! We are all the slaves of circumstance!
The veriest fools of fortune! I do not blame you for your surmises!
I had vainly sought, for two years, the very information which I
gained last night by chance at a Geneva table d'hote. It was from
Anstruther that I discovered the changed name under which Hugh
Fraser's daughter has been hidden from me for years. For I owe this
all to chance, to Anstruther's susceptibility, and to my playing
the risqu'e part which you saw fit me so well." The woman's eyes
were now flashing ominously.

"But you led me on--you deceived me!" stammered Alan Hawke.

"I had nothing to risk!" the resolute beauty replied. "My name
is not Berthe Louison, as you may well imagine! As for the little
amourette de voyage, I will leave the laurels to your handsome young
friend and yourself. I do not play with boys, and, as for you, I
should always guard myself against you!

"Now, I will be practical! I know Europe; I do not know India!
I need a man brave, cool, and unscrupulous; I need a resolute man
to aid me in the one purpose of my life! I wish to go out to India
to face this Hugh Fraser, to lift up the curtain of the dead past,
and I need a protector--a paid champion--a man who values the only
thing which is concrete power in life; a man who knows the power
of money! For, gold is irresistible!" Her bright face hardened.

"My duties are, then, not to be of a tender nature," lightly hazarded
Hawke.

"I can soon judge of your value by your adroitness, and you can make
your own record!" smiled the strange woman waif. "Let me see how
you would do this! I do not care to personally approach Mademoiselle
Euphrosyne Delande, I would have a picture of the woman whom I
seek--the lonely child whom I have hungered for long years to see!
I do not care to expose myself here--"

"The Preceptress might telegraph out to India and the girl be
spirited away!" broke in Alan Hawke.

"Very good! Precisely so!" said Berthe Louison, gravely. "I will
tell you now that I have played perfectly fair with Anstruther! I
have enabled him to assure himself of Nadine Johnstone's regular
standing as the legal and only heiress of the would-be Baronet! I do
not fear Anstruther! He is a gallant boy, worthy to wear a sword,
and, he does not work for hire! He tells me that Euphrosyne Delande
showed him the last pictures of the girl which were sent on before
Hugh Fraser suddenly telegraphed to have his child 'personally
conducted' on carte blanche terms out to join him."

Major Hawke buried his head in his hands and slowly said: "I can
do it easily! We must not be seen together here! Go up to the Hotel
Faucon, at Lausanne, and wait for me there 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 out a
golden grist of the future. But lifted up beyond the impulses of
his itching palm the sight of the delicate, girlish face of the
Rosebud of Delhi had caused him to dream the strangest dreams. "Why
not?" he murmured as he wandered back to the hotel and privately
indulged in a petit verre before his rendezvous with Miss Genie,
the belle of the West Side. Major Alan Hawke was in "great form"
as he piloted the bright-eyed, willful Chicago girl through the dim
religious light of the Cathedral. His mocking history of the gay
life and racy adventures of Bonnivard, when posing as the rollicking
Prior of St. Victor in the wild days of his youth, greatly amused
the nervous American heiress.

"I should say that he was a holy terror," laughed Miss Genie, "and I
don't blame the Bishop of Geneva and the Duke of Savoy for making
him do his six years in that dark old hole at Chillon! He was
a gay boy, you bet, and with his three wives and his lively ways,
I reckon the Genevans were blamed sorry they ever let him out. He
seems to have been a free thinker, a free liver, and a free lover!"

"And yet," mused Alan Hawke, "his writings to-day are the pride
of Genevan scholars; his library was the nucleus of the Geneva
University; his defiant spirit broke the chains of Calvin's narrowness,
and his resistant, spiritual example caught up has made Geneva the
home of the oppressed, the central, radiant point of mental light
and liberty for the world! Geneva since 1536 has harbored the
brightest wandering Spanish, French, English, and Irish youth! Even
grim Russia cannot reclaim from the free city its wayward exiles.
France, in her distress, has found an asylum here for its helpless
nobles and expelled philosophers. I willingly take my hat off to
brave little Switzerland, where Royal Duke, proscribed patriot,
mad enthusiast, bold agnostic, and tired worldling can all find an
inviolate asylum under the majestic shadows of its mountains--by
the shores of its dreaming lakes!" Alan Hawke dropped suddenly from
the clouds as the practical Miss Genie led the way to the breakfast
rendezvous, cheerfully demonstrating her own bold ideas of social
freedom by remarking:

"Say! what's the matter with a little day's run up to Chillon?
Phenie is game for anything! You just get that other English Lord
and we will dodge Popper and Mommer."

"I am sorry to say that my friend has left suddenly, bound for
London," laughed the Major, gazing admiringly at this pretty feminine
Bonnivard.

"That's awful bad luck!" gloomily remarked Miss Genie. "He was a
regular dandy, and I liked him--but," she said, with a thirsty peck
at a glass of champagne, as they waited for the breakfast, "Phenie
will then have to give that long-legged Italian fellow the tip. The
Marquis of Santa Marina! He's not much, but better than nothing at
all. We'll have a jolly day!"

Major Hawke was mystified at the daring personal independence of
the sprightly young heiress. She was a social revelation to him,
and the sunny afternoon was not altogether thrown away, for they
carelessly rambled over the proud old town together, doing all
the sights. They visited the stately National Monument, the Jardin
Anglais, the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal, the Muse'e Foy, the
Botanic Gardens, and the Athende. He gazed upon the fresh face of
the rebellious young American social mutineer with an increasing
wonder as they wandered alone on the Promenade des Bastions, and
was simply astounded when he vainly tried to take advantage of a
shady corner in the Musee Ariana to steal a kiss from the wayward
girl's rosy lips. Miss Genie "formed herself into a hollow square"
and calmly, but energetically, repulsed him.

"See here! Major Hawke!" she coolly said, "get off the perch! I
don't care for any soft sawder! I'm a pretty good fellow in my way,
but I know how to take care of myself!"

In fact, Major Alan Hawke at last recognized the existence of
a species of womanhood which he had never before met. Miss Genie
was frankly unconventional, and yet she was both hard-headed and
hardhearted. When he carefully dressed himself for the intellectual
feast of Mademoiselle Delande's "refined collation," he dimly
became aware that the role of unpaid bear leader to the Chicago
girl simply amounted to being an unsalaried valet de place! "As for
compromising that devil of a girl," he growled, "she could have
given the snake in the Garden of Eden long odds and beaten him
hollow, in subtlety." This view of the impeccability of the Chicago
epidermis was confirmed later when Hawke returned from the "Institute"
at the decorous hour of ten that evening. He was thoroughly happy,
for the sly Francois was ready to meet him at the door, whispering:

"I will be at your rooms at ten, and bring you the photographs. I
have a couple of hours of freedom then."

Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's pale, anemic nature had bloomed out under
the graceful attentions of the gallant officer, and gradually she
expanded, little by little unfolding the desiccated leaves of her
tranquil past, and, yielding, as of old, to the charm of youth and
good looks, the faded spinster told him all.

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