Chapter Thirty One. In which a Double Game is Played.

“I do not quite follow you, general,” faltered Mary after a brief pause, regarding him with a puzzled air.

“Then let us find a quiet corner where we can be alone, and I will explain,” said Borselli, rising and offering the girl his arm. Both were well acquainted with all the ramifications of the splendid state apartments, the ante-chambers, the winter garden, and the corridors, therefore he led her through the Throne Room to a small apartment at the rear of the Hall of the Princess, an elegant little room hung with pale green silk and the gilt furniture of which bore embroidered on the backs of the chairs the royal crown with the black eagle and white cross of Savoy.

So cleverly did Angelo Borselli conceal his schemes and his hatreds that through years he had deceived so shrewd and far-seeing a man as his chief Morini. His insinuating address and rather handsome exterior rendered him, if not welcome in Roman society, at least tolerated, more especially as through him recommendations could be made to Morini, whose word was law on every point concerning the army of Italy. A certain degree of suspicion and some feeling of awe attended him, though it was rather in his absence than his presence, for his ready wit and fluent conversation were not calculated to inspire other than agreeable thoughts.

It was only as he cast himself into a chair at her side, hesitating how to put the matter before her, that in the glance of his dark, sparkling, deeply set eyes might have been detected a sinister motive and a searching and eager expression at variance with the frank and joyous manner of a moment before.

That glance betrayed the depth of the man’s cunning.

“You have no love for Dubard,” he remarked slowly. “I have watched, and I have seen it plainly. Yet you are engaged to him because he has compelled you to accept him as your husband. He holds a certain power over you—when he orders you dare not disobey! Am I not correct?” he asked, looking straight into her brown, wide-open eyes.

She nodded in the affirmative, and a slight sigh escaped her. She was suspicious of him, but did not recognise the trend of his argument.

“Then let us advance a step further,” he said, in the same quiet, serious manner. “It is but natural you desire to escape from him. He is repugnant to you; perhaps you loathe him, and yet you wear a mask of pretended happiness! Surely you cannot take up life beside a husband whom you secretly despise! You are a woman who desires to love and be loved, a woman who should marry a man worthy your reverence and self-sacrifice,” he added, in a voice which seemed to her full of a genuine solicitude for her future.

His attitude was full of mystery. The sudden interest which he—her father’s bitterest enemy—betrayed on her behalf was inexplicable.

“Well,” she faltered at last, “and if I really desire to break off my engagement with the count? What course do you suggest?”

“You must break your engagement, signorina,” he exclaimed quickly. “For several weeks I have desired to speak plainly and frankly to you, but I feared that certain distorted facts having perhaps come to your ears, you might treat me as your enemy rather than your friend. But to-night, finding you alone, I resolved to speak, and, if possible, to save you from sacrificing yourself to a man so unworthy of you.”

“But I always thought he was your friend!” she exclaimed in surprise, looking straight at the man before her and toying with her big feathered fan.

“We are friends. We have been guests together under your father’s roof in England, you will remember,” he admitted. “Yet I entertain too much respect for your father and his family to stand by and see you become the victim of such a man as Jules Dubard.”

“You are his friend, and yet you speak evil of him behind his back!” she remarked.

“No, I do not speak evil in the least. You misunderstand my motive. It is in the interests of your own well-being and future happiness. We must not allow that man to force you into an odious union. He is clever, but you must outwit him. Your duty to yourself is to do so.”

“But how can I?” she asked, with a desperation in her voice that came involuntarily, but which revealed to Borselli her eagerness to escape from the web which Dubard had weaved about her.

The future of that beautiful girl, the most admired of all that brilliant throng at court, was the future of Italy. Angelo Borselli knew it, and recognised what an important part that handsome daughter of the Minister was destined to play.

“There is one way—only one way,” he answered, bending towards her, speaking confidentially, and keeping his deep-set eyes fixed upon hers. “The man Dubard has very cleverly succeeded in forcing you to accept him as husband. But you must escape from your present peril by revealing the truth.”

“The truth of what?”

“The truth of that man’s motives.”

“But they are all a mystery. How can I ascertain the truth?”

“There is one man who knows—one man who, if he chose to speak, could at once give you freedom.”

“But who is he?” she inquired eagerly.

“Felice Solaro—your friend.”

“Solaro!” she gasped. “But he is in prison in Turin, condemned for fifteen years for treason!”

“For an offence of which he is not guilty,” declared the Under-Secretary quickly.

“Ah! And that is your opinion, as mine, general!” she cried eagerly. “I know he is innocent.”

“Then secure his release. Persuade your father to sign a decree reversing the finding of the court-martial, and he, in turn, can save you from falling victim to this man to whom you are giving yourself in marriage.”

Angelo Borselli met her piercing glance unmoved. She seemed to be trying to divine the schemer’s secret thoughts.

“You will do this—for your own sake,” he whispered earnestly. “It is unjust that the poor captain should be kept in prison for a crime of which he is innocent.”

“But if you know that he is not guilty, why have you not already used your own influence as Under-Secretary to secure his release?” she asked, with distinct suspicion, a thousand uneasy thoughts agitating her bosom.

“Because I am powerless. It is only His Excellency, your father, who can sign decrees,” was his reply, adding, “I have more than once directed his attention to the act of gross injustice, but his reply has in each case been the same—namely, that he had examined the evidence, and that he could discover no doubt about the captain’s culpability in selling the secrets of Tresenta and of our mobilisation scheme for the protection of the French frontier. Both secrets actually reached the Intelligence Department of the French Ministry of War, for that has been proved beyond doubt by our secret agents in Paris; and, further, they passed through the hands of a lady friend of Solaro’s—Filoména Nodari.”

“Where is that woman now? Still in Bologna?”

“No, I think not,” was his reply, without, however, telling her how he had taken the woman into his service and sent her to England. “I learned a short time ago that she had left, and gone abroad.”

“It was through her false evidence that Felice was convicted. She told foul untruths concerning him,” his companion cried angrily.

“I know. Perhaps it is owing to fear of the truth being exposed that she has left Bologna. But in any case, it is only common justice that poor Solaro should be released. He has never had a chance of a proper appeal—your father refused it to him.”

“But why? Has my father any reason why the poor fellow should be kept in prison?”

Angelo Borselli raised his shoulders and exhibited his palms in a gesture more forcible than mere words.

“And if he has, then how can I hope to succeed in turning his favour towards the accused man?”

“Try. Do your utmost, signorina,” he urged, with perhaps more eagerness than was really warrantable in such circumstances. “Appeal to your father’s sense of justice, to his honour, to his reputation as one always ready to redress wrongs. You, as his daughter, can accomplish everything if you wish—even the freedom of Felice Solaro.”

“And if I do?”

“Then he will speak the truth, and you need have no fear of the man who has so cleverly entrapped you into this engagement. When the truth is out he will at once relinquish his claim to your hand.”

She hesitated. She was wondering whether the crafty statesman who had risen by her father’s favours was really aware of the secret compact she had made with Dubard; whether he knew that she had given her hand to him in exchange for his protection of her father’s honour.

Jules had seen her a few days after the curious scene in the Chamber of Deputies. He had come to her to receive the payment he had demanded in the shape of a formal engagement of marriage. But he had told her nothing concerning the manner in which he had managed to avert the crisis, and she only knew the story of the letter to Montebruno through Vito Ricci, her father’s spy. She was unaware of Jules’ visit to the man now before her, or of his threat to make revelations if the fatal question were asked in the Chamber.

Women of Mary Morini’s type rise to higher heights of sacrifice and, when determined, act with a courage rare among men. She is herself in a thousand ways men never dare to be, and a fine woman is worth a hundred of the finest men.

“But if you are really speaking in my own interests as my friend, general, why cannot you furnish me with the weapon by which I can defend myself from him?” she suggested at last.

“For two reasons. First, your parents, ignorant of the real facts, are delighted at the prospect of your marriage; secondly, Solaro alone holds the truth. He can speak and prove his facts.”

“Regarding what?”

“Regarding Jules Dubard.”

“Regarding the man whom you still allege is your friend? Really, general, the manner in which you exhibit friendship towards others is a rather curious one, if this is an example of it?”

He was unprepared for such a remark from her. But it showed him, nevertheless, how frank and fearless she had become.

“I merely offer you my advice, signorina,” he answered, shifting slightly in his chair and settling his sword. “It is surely a thousand pities that you should become the victim of a man of Dubard’s stamp when, by a little clever manoeuvring, you may not only do an act of justice by freeing poor Solaro, but also free yourself from the engagement into which you have entered against your will.”

“But you tell me that my father has already refused to release the captain?” she remarked, regarding him with a puzzled air. “If this is so, then what can I do further?”

“Persuade him. You alone can induce him to act as you desire. Recollect that upon that man’s liberty your own future depends.”

The Sicilian, careful student of the human character as he was, knew well that a generous, magnanimous woman, like the one before him, is more ingenious and confident in well-doing than any man. He had carefully watched her, and by means of his secret agents knew that she entertained no love for the man to whom she had become engaged. Therefore, with his unequalled cunning, he had devised a fresh means of making his coup and attaining his end in spite of Jules Dubard.

He watched her beautiful countenance, and saw that his words had created an impression. A grave injustice had been done in degrading and imprisoning the handsome young captain who had once admired her so, and he knew that she would seek to remedy it. He had given her a strong and direct motive for securing Solaro’s release—her own liberty.

“Very well,” she sighed at last. “I thank you, general, for speaking to me so frankly. I will see what I can do in order to obtain a pardon for him. But if I do, will you promise to assist me in the matter which concerns me personally?”

“I promise you that Solaro shall tell the truth; that on the day following his release you shall be placed in a position to defy this man who believes that you have fallen his victim. Do you agree?”

She was silent for a moment, still distrustful of the man who had so narrowly encompassed her father’s downfall. Yet she recollected that the face of politics changes quickly, and in a low voice and with sudden resolution answered—

“I do.”

He stretched forth his white gloved hand, and without further word she took it in pledge of good faith. She had in her desperation made terms with the enemy, and as the Under-Secretary rose to escort her back through the gay assembly in the state-rooms, a faint, good-humoured smile flitted across his sallow features.

He felt confident that his craft and cunning must succeed—that she would obtain Solaro’s release, and then the triumph for which he had so long and patiently waited would be his.

True, the fate of men’s lives and nations’ destinies was often juggled with in those great gilded halls where the air was heavy with perfume, the ear charmed with delightful music, and the eye dazzled by the glitter of that brilliant court, every member of which, man or woman, schemed, struggled, and intrigued to satisfy their own vices or their own ambitions.