Chapter Twenty Eight. “Was Sazarac your Friend?”

It was a bright morning in Rome.

“You will recollect, Miss Mary, that when I congratulated you at Orton upon your engagement to Dubard, you declared that you had no thought of any such thing,” exclaimed George Macbean, with a smile. “I suppose I may now be permitted to repeat my congratulations?”

“If you wish,” was the girl’s mechanical reply. “And I thank you very much,” she added, her face quite serious.

They were standing together one morning in one of the smaller reception-rooms of her father’s palace. He had called on the Minister on official business, and they had met quite accidentally in the great mediaeval courtyard, where the plashing of the old marble fountain broke the quiet, playing on as it had done for nearly four hundred years; that courtyard that was so full of stirring memories of the long past ages, and the stones of which had echoed to the tramp of the armed retainers of the great prince whose ancestral home it once was.

Since his arrival in Rome two months ago fortune had certainly smiled upon George Macbean General Borselli had given him a lucrative appointment in the Ministry at a salary which enabled him to rent a comfortable little bachelor apartment in the Via Sistina. The work was very different from the drudgery from Morgan-Mason’s correspondence, and he had quickly found that his position at once gave him the entrée to the official society of the Italian capital. The Under-Secretary was kindness itself, and he soon found that his office was one of those sinecures with fat emoluments which are found more or less in every Government department.

For three weeks or so after his arrival he had no occasion to meet His Excellency the Minister, but when he one day entered Morini’s private cabinet, he took the opportunity of thanking him for the appointment. The Minister thereupon, as though suddenly recollecting their previous acquaintanceship, made a number of inquiries as to what office he was filling in the Ministry and the nature of his work, the outcome of which was that within six weeks of his arrival in the Eternal City he found himself appointed private secretary to the Minister himself.

This displeased Borselli, he thought; for when he informed him of the Minister’s order, he remained silent and his sallow face assumed an expression of distinct disapproval. The general had not expected that Morini would take the young man into his service, or he would probably have hesitated to call him from London. Nevertheless, the Under-Secretary was too clever to openly exhibit any annoyance at the chief’s decision. Indeed, he was always humble and obedient, bowing to every decree of his superior, even though in his heart he was ever plotting against him. And so George Macbean had become one of His Excellency’s private secretaries, and very soon enjoyed a good deal of the confidence of his principal.

Hitherto, however, his work lying always at the Ministry, he had never had occasion to go to the palace. From the first moment of his arrival in Rome his mind had been full of recollections of Mary. He had seen her driving on the Pincio on the bright winter afternoons; he had passed her in the Corso, and had seen her, exquisitely gowned, seated with her mother in a box at the Constanzi. But she had never once noticed him, and on that morning, when he had been compelled to call at the palace to receive instructions from his chief, who was unwell, they had come suddenly face to face for the first time.

The meeting gave them mutual satisfaction. There was no doubt upon that point. She had looked hard at him ere she recognised him, for, like all the corridors in those mediaeval palaces, it was not very light, and she would have passed him without acknowledgment had he not uttered her name.

While standing there in that painted room with the tarnished gold furniture and mosaic floor, so different from the country drawing-room at Orton, with its bright chintzes and flowers, he had briefly told her of the unexpected offer that had reached him in England, of his acceptance, and of his ultimate appointment to be one of her father’s private secretaries.

“Only fancy!” she laughed. “The world is really very small, is it not? I never thought, when we played tennis together at your uncle’s tournament at Thornby, that you would be given an office in the Ministry of War. But I remember now how well you spoke Italian, and that you told me how fond you were of Italy.”

“I owe all my good fortune to your father, Miss Morini. Believe me, it has lifted me out of a world of drudgery and insult—for, as I think I told you, I have been secretary to a Member of Parliament named Morgan-Mason.”

“Ah! of course!” she exclaimed quickly, regarding him with a curious, fixed look. “You were secretary to Mr Morgan-Mason.”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Not personally,” she faltered, with some confusion. “I—well, I’ve heard of him. Some English friends of mine know him very well, and through them I have heard of the fellow’s pompous egotism.”

“Then you can well understand how very deeply I thank your father for his kindnesses towards me.” And then he spoke of her engagement, about which everyone in Rome was at that moment talking.

He noticed her disinclination to speak of the man whom she was to marry—that man whom he knew so well.

“The count is in Paris,” she answered briefly, when he inquired about him. “Have you not met him yet? I recollect when in England he was very anxious to meet you.”

“No. I have not seen him to congratulate him upon his good fortune,” replied George, with a touch of bitterness; “but no doubt he will soon return, and we shall come across each other.”

“He is due back in a week in order to go to the royal reception at the Quirinale on the nineteenth,” she said. “When I write to-morrow I will tell him that you are now in Rome.”

“No,” exclaimed Macbean quickly. “Don’t tell him. I like giving old friends pleasant surprises. When he returns I will call on him unexpectedly.”

His was a good excuse, and he was gratified to see that she accepted it. It would, he knew, never do for her to write and inform her lover of his presence in Rome. If she did, he certainly would not dare to return to the Eternal City. George had resolved to conceal his presence from the Frenchman and to carefully watch his movements. Therefore he induced the Minister’s daughter to make no mention of him.

He found her somewhat more wan and pale than she had been in England. She seemed preoccupied, distraite, with a touch of sadness in her deep, liquid eyes that was scarcely in keeping with the passion and ecstasy of an engagement. She was not her old self, bright, lighthearted, and careless, as she had been in those summer days in England. Something had occurred, but what it was he had no means of ascertaining.

The one thought that held him spellbound was the reflection that she was actually to marry Jules Dubard.

She was about to sacrifice herself, and yet he dare not tell her the terrible truth. He stood gazing into her great brown eyes, speechless before that calm and wondrous beauty that had for months arisen constantly before his eyes amid the whirl of London life. Yes, he loved her—he had fallen to worship at her shrine ever since those warm afternoons when they had played tennis on the level English lawns, and now this re-encounter had awakened within him all the wild passion of his yearning heart.

During those days in Rome he had heard much of her, for she was popular everywhere, a reigning beauty in the gay, exclusive circle which surrounded the royal throne, and one of the most courted of all the unmarried girls in the capital. The season was at its height, therefore she was seen everywhere, mostly in company with Dubard. If the truth were told, however, it was much against her own inclination. She was in no mood for gaiety. All the life and gaiety had been crushed from her heart, and she only attended the various functions because it was her duty towards her father to do so. Many a sleepless night she spent in prayer and in tears.

Long ago she had become nauseated by all the glare and glitter, the chatter and music of those gilded salons where smart Rome amused themselves each evening. Whenever she could, she made excuses to stay at home in the quiet and silence of her own room; but as it was part of her father’s statecraft that she should be seen and congratulated, she was compelled very often to put on her magnificent gowns with a sigh, dance when her heart was leaden, and smile even though she was bursting with grief.

Yet she rigorously kept the secret of her self-sacrifice, and none suspected that the young French élégant had compelled her to accept him as husband. Indeed, Dubard was already very popular in Rome. He was possessed of means, belonged to the most exclusive Italian club, and drove a smart phaeton and pair each afternoon, frequently with Mary at his side.

The men and women who were Dubard’s friends were among the highest in society, yet none knew the truth save Borselli and George Macbean, neither of whom dare, for their own sakes, utter one single word in denunciation.

“You told me at Orton that the count was an old friend, Mr Macbean,” exclaimed Mary, after a brief pause. She had met his gaze unflinchingly, and then lowered her eyes to the ground. She looked fresh and neat in her plain black tailor-made gown, for she was dressed ready to go out for her morning walk in the Corso.

“Yes. We met several years ago,” was Macbean’s reply.

“Where?”

“In London.”

“You must have been close friends,” she remarked, “for he has on several occasions asked whether I had heard of you.”

George smiled, for his reflections were bitter ones. “Yes,” he said, “I knew him quite well; but we drifted apart, as friends so often do.”

“Then you will, of course, be glad to meet him again.”

“For one reason, very glad. Because I want to inquire of him what has become of one who was our mutual friend, and who mysteriously disappeared—a very curious affair.”

“Was it a man?” asked Mary, suddenly interested.

“Yes—a French army officer—a General Felix Sazarac.”

“Sazarac!” she gasped, with open mouth and cheeks suddenly blanched as the name recalled to her the strange conversation between Borselli and her father. “Was Sazarac your friend?”