Читать книгу Gabriel Samara - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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Samara, though a great statesman and undoubtedly a great ruler, was a man of unsuspicious temperament and had more than once committed what might have turned out to be diplomatic blunders. He was also, however, at all times a man of action. He locked the door behind him, drew a chair in front of the telephone and sat facing the young lady whom he had engaged to be his secretary for the day.

"I think," he said, "we will have an explanation."

She smiled graciously.

"As I now know exactly the arrangements you have made with the Government of this country," she remarked, "I am perfectly willing to tell you anything you want to know."

"In the first place then," he asked, "are you a spy, and, if you are, in whose interests are you working?"

"I am nothing of the sort," she assured him. "I am in effect exactly what I seem to be. I am a young lady of New York City, of scanty means, earning a living by typewriting and secretarial work."

"But you are Russian?"

"My father and mother were both Russians," she acknowledged. "I recognise it as my country. I have lived here all my life, however."

"We are getting on," he said. "Is Borans your real name?"

"A sufficient portion of it," she answered. "The rest of it is not important."

"Will you explain to me," he went on, "why you first saved my life and then behaved so strangely with regard to my would-be murderer?"

"Now that I have read this document," she said, touching it with her fingers, "I am disposed to explain to you. I am not a spy in any sense of the word, but I am a patriotic Russian. I belong to a little circle of Russians living here, who are filled with one idea as regards our country. We have not even the dignity of being a secret society. Everyone knows everything about us and everyone laughs at us. We look upon you with respect but as a very obstructive person."

"Upon me?" he exclaimed. "And you call yourself a patriot! Don't dare to tell me that you are a Bolshevist!"

"I am not," she replied indignantly. "I am free to confess that you have wiped Russia clean of a great curse. You have done a splendid work, but you have not done it our way."

"What, in God's name, are you then?" he asked impatiently. "What party do you represent? I have dragged Russia out of the slough. I have re-established her institutions, her economic position. Already she is lifting her head amongst the nations of the world."

"I admit that freely," she acknowledged. "It is because I realise what Russia owes you that you are alive. I do not wish, however, to tell you any more at present about myself and my political views. I saved your life because I believe that you are still necessary to Russia, but in a certain sense, I and your would-be assassin are alike. We share one great grievance against you. We resent—or perhaps some might say fear—your great scheme of demilitarisation."

Samara laughed a little harshly.

"Really," he said, "I never imagined that life in New York could be so interesting. The atmosphere of this room, however, is getting on my nerves. I have been through all I can stand for one morning. I can hear the click of that wicked-looking pistol even now. Young lady, where are your friends? Why do I not know them? I thought most of the Russians in New York who had aims or views had been to see me."

She shook her head. "Not all," she told him. "There are still a few of us who hold aloof."

"Miss Borans," he invited, "will you please do me the honour of taking lunch with me?"

She rose to her feet with alacrity.

"Not in the hotel," she begged. "It isn't allowed. Anywhere else with great pleasure. I warn you, though, that my morning's work has given me an absurd appetite."

"I shall be proud to minister to it," he assured her.

They lunched at a secluded table in the balcony of the Ritz Carlton. Gabriel Samara, like many another man whose life is immersed in his work, and who finds himself committed to an unusual action in his everyday routine, was conscious of a curious light-heartedness. He felt as if he were a schoolboy at play. He, Gabriel Samara, taking his companion of a morning to luncheon in a restaurant!

"It intrigues me," she remarked, "to think that notwithstanding all your diplomats here and Mr. Bromley Pride of the New York Comet—who, by the way, telephoned to say that he is on his way back from Philadelphia and will see you this afternoon—I am the only person in the world with whom you can discuss the result of your mission to Washington."

"What I shall do with you, I can't imagine," he groaned. "Everything will come out in due course, naturally, but premature disclosure before I get back might do an enormous amount of harm. I have a very strenuous opposition to face, as you may realise."

"You need not be afraid," she assured him. "If you are really going to give me lobster newburg I shall keep your secret! I warn you that if I thought that disclosure would aid our own cause, not all the precious stones in your mines could keep me silent, nor all the gold which will soon be flowing into your banks. As it is you are safe."

"That is something to be thankful for, at any rate," he declared. "Miss Borans, treat me with confidence. You interest me. Let us talk frankly. If indeed you are a patriotic Russian, and have studied in any way the history of our times, you will know that I, too, am one. Wherein does my policy of reconstruction differ from yours? Why don't you approve of demilitarisation? Why should I consent to my country keeping under arms the greatest war machine in Europe to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for another nation?"

"There I agree," she admitted. "There must be no more wars."

"But for my errand here," he continued, "there would have been war within a few years. You cannot keep four million men under arms indefinitely without trouble. If you knew the tension at the present moment, the stream of proposals, the envoys who have been continually sent to me!"

She nodded.

"Don't tell me too much about them," she warned him. "You might find that I am not so much on your side as you think."

"But this demilitarisation," he persisted. "You must approve of that. We have three perfectly trained armies, of a million men each, ready to fight at a moment's notice? Why? You know why, and so do I. Isn't it a sane thing to disband a million according to my arrangements, now that I have been able to obtain a credit in Washington for the reconstruction of the industries for which we can use their labour? Think! In six month's time, not a man of that million will be bearing arms. They will be miners, or on the land, working in factories, on the railways, or road making, just according to their natural bent. Why, it's blood and bone in the country; a million productive toilers instead of a million wastrels!"

"Theoretically I agree," she acknowledged. "It is because I agree that I saved your life."

"Then why did you take his side?" he demanded bluntly.

"Because, although our point of view and ultimate aim are entirely different," she replied, "your would-be assassin stands, in a sense, for the same things that we do."

Samara gave the waiter an order and leaned back in his place.

"Explain," he insisted. "In as few words as possible, please. I am weary of not understanding."

"Why should I explain?" she murmured. "It is all very simple. We grant you that you have lifted Russia out of the slough, but we do not believe that your methods, that your system of government will place her back where she has a right to be."

The light broke in upon him then.

"I see!" he exclaimed. "Who are your friends here? Can I meet them?"

A sudden deepening of the little lines at the corners of her eyes and the twitching of her lips betrayed a genuine amusement.

"What a sensation I should cause if I took you to see them!" she laughed. "I see their faces when I present you! It would be amazing!"

"Risk it," he begged. "Why not? I am proud to look any Russian patriot in the face and tell him who I am."

She was interested.

"Yes, I suppose you do feel like that," she observed, after a moment's pause. "Why shouldn't you? Sometimes I, myself, make almost a hero of you. I'm quite sure that I shall always be proud to think that I have lunched with the great Samara. I shall be grateful, too, for other reasons. Do you find me very greedy?"

"Delightfully so," he admitted. "All healthy people are greedy. The vice of it only creeps in with the lack of self-restraint."

"I suppose," she remarked, "my manners are good, but if you only knew how I longed to see whether he has remembered the olives with the chicken. Hold tight to your chair now, please, and prepare for a shock. I am going to ask you a sickeningly obvious question. Tell me how you like America?"

Gabriel Samara looked around him thoughtfully. He answered the spirit which prompted the question rather than the question itself.

"I venerate America," he declared. "Why shouldn't I? In a sense I am the champion of modern democracy. America is a shining light to all other nations, yet I maintain that Russia, with its unified population, has a better chance of reaching the supreme heights."

"I sometimes wonder," she sighed, "whether the true spirit of a republic can flourish in a land which knows such terrible extremes of wealth and poverty?"

"It is a drawback," he agreed. "That is where we in Russia have an advantage. We are framing a new constitution. Our laws are adapted to meet existing circumstances. Communism is dead, but we shall never tolerate the multi-millionaire."

"Do you think," she asked, "that Germany will ever let you become really powerful?"

"Not willingly," he replied, "but the monarchical sentiment in Germany is not strong enough yet to upset the government of the country. Germany, of course, will bitterly resent the success of my mission over here, but she will have to get rid of her republic before we need take the war scare seriously."

She looked at him across the table.

"Do you think that the monarchist party in Germany is gaining ground?" she asked.

"I know nothing about German internal affairs," he answered evasively. "I have more than enough to do to keep in touch with the trend of opinion in my own country."

The thread of conversation appeared to be suddenly broken. Samara began to ask questions about the people by whom they were surrounded. The restaurant on this fine spring morning seemed like a great nosegay of brilliant flowers. Three-quarters of the guests were women and it was a season of abandonment in colour, with yellow and pink predominating. New York, too, no less than Paris, was a city of subtle perfumes, cunningly distilled and exotic. Samara, smoking his cigarette with the air of an epicure, found much to interest him in his environment.

"These people are like Russians in one way," he remarked. "They spend their money."

"I have a German friend here," she confided, "who argues that there is always more extravagance under a republic. His point is that the bourgeoisie make money easily and spend it readily. The aristocrat who has to keep up a great appearance is compelled to be more miserly, apart even from the question of good taste."

"Is this the prelude to a discussion upon the ethics of government?" he suggested, smiling.

"Indeed, no," she replied. "I am not so presumptuous. My principles are matters of instinct with me. I do not argue about them. I accept them."

She helped herself to one of his proffered cigarettes, and he paid the bill.

"Quite the monarchical touch," he observed. "If you are postponing your return to your native land, however, until there is a Tzar upon the throne, I am afraid you are doomed to a very long spell of homesickness."

"Who knows?" she exclaimed carelessly. "Revolutions are rather the fashion just now. I may return to find you in chains and the knout cracking once more."

She had spoken lightly enough, but he chose to take her seriously.

"As a matter of fact," he confided, "there is a certain amount of very disquieting truth in what you say. I have stamped out Bolshevism in Russia for ever. The spirit of anarchistic communism, at any rate, is dead, but I honestly believe that, especially amongst the peasantry, there is an unwholesome sort of craving for the burdens of Tzardom."

"That is almost the most interesting thing that you have said," she remarked, as they rose to go. "Thanks very much for my wonderful luncheon. Do you really require my services this afternoon?"

"Without a doubt," he insisted. "I am going on from here to pay a call. At four o'clock I shall be back in my rooms. Let me find you there, if you please."

They were about to part in the hallway of the restaurant, when Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington intervened. She sailed down upon them with the air of taking both into custody; ample, fashionably dressed, a triumph of artificiality, forty—or perhaps fifty—lisping with the ingenuousness of childhood.

"Why, if this isn't our little working girl!" she exclaimed, gripping the none too willing hand of Samara's companion. "Well, well, is this where you young women who earn your livings lunch as a rule? The number of times I've asked you to make one of our little luncheon parties here, Catherine, and you have always told me 'nothing doing in working hours.'"

Catherine presented the appearance of a young person of good breeding, striving to be polite whilst in bodily pain.

"To-day is an exception," she said. "I am lunching with a fellow- countryman."

Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington smiled graciously. She had just sufficient discernment, born of her social craving, to appreciate distinction even when it did not conform to type.

"Present your friend," she suggested.

Catherine, with a deprecating glance at her companion, murmured his name. Samara bowed—a little lower perhaps than was usual in a city where handshaking is almost sacramental. He did not seem to notice, however, the pearl-gloved hand so frankly extended.

"You're not Mr. Gabriel Samara, who has come over from Russia to see our President?" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"My name," he replied, "is Gabriel Samara. I know of no other. I have just come from Washington where your President was good enough to receive me."

Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington simply quivered with excitement. It was without a doubt a most thrilling meeting.

"I want to tell you, Mr. Samara, right now," she declared, "that you've met the one woman in New York who has read every line that's been written about you since you landed and who has been just crazy to meet you. This is going to be wonderful. Catherine's bringing you to-night, of course?"

"I beg your pardon," he observed, genuinely perplexed. "I have not the honour—"

"Catherine? Miss Borans, of course—you will come to-night with her? It's the meeting, you know. Why, it will be great! Prince Nicholas is coming, General Orenburg, Colonel Kirdorff, the dear Grand Duchess—all of them! It's most opportune!"

Samara turned to his companion. He was guilty of a gross breach of manners. He addressed her in Russian.

"What is this woman talking about?" he demanded.

Mrs. Bossington was delighted. She rippled on before Catherine had a chance to reply.

"Such a wonderful language!" she exclaimed. "Sometimes they talk it in conclave, and I can assure you, Mr. Samara, it just thrills me. Some people call it harsh. I love it. Don't you think, Catherine dear," she went on, her tone becoming almost wheedling, "that you could persuade Mr. Samara to come a little earlier and dine with us first to-night—just a very small affair— twenty covers or so? Joseph would be tickled to death."

Catherine laid her hand upon the arm of her loquacious acquaintance.

"Mrs. Bossington," she said, "I am afraid you don't quite understand. Mr. Samara is a Russian, of course, and a very distinguished one, but his aims are scarcely the aims of our friends. I do not think we should agree. It never even occurred to me to bring Mr. Samara to the meeting."

Mrs. Bossington was horrified.

"My dear," she cried, "you're crazy! There you are, a dozen of you, all Russians, out of a home and out of a country and longing to get back again. Why, here's a man who can help you. Get together and talk it over. I'm only thankful it's my turn to entertain you. I should be the proudest woman in New York to think that Mr. Samara had paid me a visit. If we could only fix up that dinner!"

Gabriel Samara was a little weary. His glance was straying through the windows to the sunlit streets. The close atmosphere of the lounge, the heavy perfumes, the din of conversation were beginning to nauseate him.

"I have a call to make in the hotel, Miss Borans," he reminded her. "If you and Mrs.—Mrs. Bossington, I believe—will excuse me, I will take my leave. The Ambassador from my country is expecting me at half-past two."

His would-be hostess gripped him by the arm.

"Not one step do you move from here," she insisted, "until you have promised to come and see these good people to-night."

"So far as that is concerned," he replied, "I am in Miss Borans' hands. If it is her wish—if they are country-people of mine who desire to meet me—I shall be charmed."

Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington had attained her object. She saw some friends to whom it was necessary that she should immediately communicate the fact that she had been discussing Russian politics with Mr. Gabriel Samara. With a little shower of farewells she departed. Catherine glanced up at her companion. There was something of mutual comprehension in their smile.

"It appears to be our fate to spend the evening together," he remarked.

"We shall see," she murmured. "Shall I expect you about four?"

"I shall not be later," he promised.

Samara watched his departing companion as she passed through the little throng of gossiping women on her way to the street. Amongst all this flamboyant elegance, these vivid splashes of colour, and elaborate toilettes, there was something almost aloof in her still drabness—her disdain of all those freely displayed arts. Yet, so far as sheer femininity was concerned, Samara felt the spell of her so strongly that not one of the many attractive women by whom he was surrounded, several of whom looked at him with friendly curiosity, seemed in any way comparable to her. He watched her disappear and turned back into the hotel to keep an appointment with the Ambassador of his country, who had followed him from Washington the night before. His eagerness for the approaching discussion, however, had suddenly evaporated.

"I am, after all, a pagan," he muttered, as he stepped into the lift to make his call. "For the moment I had forgotten Russia."