Chapter Nine. At Downing Street.

Hubert Waldron mounted the great staircase of the Foreign Office in Downing Street full of trepidation.

The Earl of Westmere, His Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, desired to see him.

On New Year’s night, an hour after his conversation with Jack Jerningham, he had found in his room at the Savoy an urgent telegram from the Embassy recalling him home at once. He had, therefore, left Port Said by the Indian mail next day, and had travelled post-haste to London.

He had arrived at Charing Cross at four o’clock, driven to the St. James’s Club, and after a wash, had taken a taxi to Downing Street.

The uniformed messenger who conducted him up the great staircase halted before a big mahogany door, tapped upon it, and next second Hubert found himself in that big, old-fashioned, rather severe room wherein, at a great littered writing-table, sat his white-haired Chief.

“Good afternoon, Waldron,” exclaimed the tall, thin-faced statesman rising briskly and putting out his hand affably, an action which at once set the diplomat at his ease. He had feared that gossip regarding the opera-dancer had reached his ears, and that his reception might be a very cool one.

“I didn’t expect you until to-morrow. You’ve come from Cairo, haven’t you?”

“I came straight through by Brindisi,” was the other’s reply, seating himself in the padded chair which his Chief indicated.

“A gay season there, I hear—eh?”

“Quite. But I’ve been on leave in Upper Egypt.”

“And a most excellent spot during this horrible weather we’re having in London. Wish I were there now.”

And the Earl, a rather spare, refined man whose clean-shaven features were strongly marked, and who wore the regulation morning coat and grey striped trousers, crossed to the big fireplace and flung into it a shovelful of coals.

That room in which Hubert had only been once before he well-remembered. Its sombre walls that had listened to so many international secrets were painted dark green; upon one side was an old painting of Palmerston who had once occupied that selfsame room, while over the black marble mantelshelf hung a fine modern portrait of His Majesty, King George V.

The old Turkey carpet was dingy and worn, and about the place where the director of Great Britain’s foreign policy so often interviewed the ambassadors of the Powers, was an air of sombre, yet dignified gloom.

“I’ve called you home, Waldron,” said the Earl deliberately as he re-seated himself at his great table, piled as it was with State papers and dispatches from England’s representatives abroad, “because I want to have a chat with you.”

He was interrupted by a tap upon the door, and a man in uniform announced:

“Captain Rayne, m’lord.”

“Oh, come in, Rayne,” exclaimed the Minister for Foreign Affairs, as a smart, well-dressed, middle-aged man entered, nodding acquaintance with Waldron. “Let’s see! You’re taking the turn to Berlin and Petersburg?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the King’s Foreign Service messenger.

The Earl took from a drawer a letter he had already written and sealed in an official envelope bearing a blue cross, and handed it to him saying:

“This is for Petersburg—most urgent. I have nothing for Berlin, but Sir Charles has, I believe. You will bring me back an answer to this dispatch with all haste, please.”

“To-day is Tuesday, sir; I shall be back next Tuesday if Sir Henry is in Petersburg,” replied the King’s messenger with an air as unconcerned as though he were going to Hampstead.

“Yes, he is.”

“Then nothing else, sir?”

“Nothing, Rayne—except what Sir Charles may have. Good afternoon.”

And the King’s messenger, who spent his days travelling to and fro across the face of Europe, placed the confidential dispatch addressed to the British Ambassador to the Court of the Tzar in his pocket, bowed, and went forth on his weary seven days’ journey to the Russian capital and back.

“As I was saying, Waldron,” the Earl continued when the door had again closed, “I asked you to come home because I consider the time has now come when you should have promotion. As a friend of your late, respected father, I have naturally watched your career in the Service with greatest interest, and have been much gratified at the shrewd qualities you have shown, therefore I am giving you promotion, and have appointed you as second secretary to Rome.”

“To Rome!” echoed Waldron, his eyes opening widely. “I—I’m sure, Lord Westmere, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your appreciation of my services, or for sending me to the one post I wished for most of all.”

“I know, Waldron,” laughed his lordship pleasantly. “You know Rome, for you lived there for some years. You were honorary attaché there under your father, and I think you speak Italian very well indeed, if I remember aright.”

“I have a fair knowledge of the language,” was the diplomat’s modest response.

“Then go to Rome and continue the career you have followed with such success. Your father’s most brilliant work was accomplished in Italy, and I hope his mantle will fall upon you, Waldron.”

“Your words are most encouraging, Lord Westmere,” declared the younger man who, on entering there, had feared a reprimand for his friendship with the Spanish dancer. “You may rely on me to do my best.”

“Of that I am quite certain. The Waldrons have been diplomats for over a century, and you will never disgrace their reputation,” said the strongest man of the British Cabinet, the man who had learned diplomacy under Salisbury and to whom the nation now entrusted its good relations with the Powers. “But,” his lordship added, “will you, quite unofficially, allow me to give you a word of friendly advice?” And he looked the secretary of the Embassy full in the face.

“Most willingly. Any advice from my Chief I will be most certain to follow,” was the other’s earnest reply.

“Well, perhaps it is a rather delicate matter, and one to which I, in my official position, ought not to refer, but as one who takes a very keen interest in your future, I feel that I must speak.”

Waldron grew paler. He knew what was coming. “It is within my knowledge,” went on his lordship, “that towards a certain lady in Madrid you have been unduly friendly—a lady whose name is not exactly free from scandal.”

“That is so,” he admitted.

“Then, Waldron, why do you not recollect Palmerston’s advice to the young man newly appointed to a post abroad?” he asked gravely. “Palmerston said that the necessary qualifications of a diplomat on being attached to an Embassy was that he should be able to lie artistically, to flirt elegantly, to dress smartly, to be polite to every woman, be she princess or laundress, but never on any account to commit the fatal error of falling in love. Remember that with the diplomat love at once puts an end to all his sphere of usefulness. Do not let this happen in your case, I beg of you.” Hubert did not reply for some seconds. At last he said in a rather a husky, confused voice:

“It is most kind of you to speak to me in such terms, Lord Westmere, and I fully appreciate the great interest which you have always shown me. Will it be sufficient to promise you that I will not repeat the folly of which I fear I have been guilty?”

“Excellent, my dear Waldron, excellent?” cried the white-haired Cabinet Minister, rising and shaking his hand warmly. “I’m glad you’ve seen the folly of it all. That dancing-girl is an unfit associate for you, that’s certain; so forget her. Take up your post at Rome as early as you can, and fulfil your promise to me to do your best.”

The Earl had risen as a sign that the interview was over. He was usually a sharp-speaking, brusque and busy man. To interviewers he was brief, and had earned for himself the reputation of the most hard and unapproachable man in the Service which he controlled. But Hubert Waldron had certainly not found him so, and as he descended the great handsome staircase and went out into the falling fog in Downing Street, he could not help a feeling of joy that he had been promoted over the heads of a dozen others to the second secretaryship of His Majesty’s Embassy to the Quirinale.

Next day the Morning Post told the world that the Honourable Hubert Waldron, M.V.O., was in London, and that same afternoon he received at his club a note from Beatriz, urging him to call at the Carlton.

Throughout the whole evening he debated within himself whether he should see her in order to wish her farewell. If he did not then she would regard him as brutal and impolite. He remembered those letters of hers, so full of passionate outpourings, and while he ate his dinner alone in a corner of the club dining-room they decided him.

He sent her a reply by hand that he would call at the hotel at half-past eleven, after she had finished her performance at the theatre.

Punctually at that hour a page-boy took him up in the lift, and passing along a corridor they halted at a door.

The page rapped, whereupon it opened, and next second the tall, handsome Spanish woman in a wonderful evening gown flew into Hubert’s arms crying in Spanish in wild glee:

“Ah! At last, my own dear Hubert—at last! What pleasure!”

But he only took her hand, and bowing low with grave courtliness, kissed it.

“Come, sit down,” she urged, pulling him towards a soft settee. “Tell me, when did you arrive from Egypt? The Duke saw the arrival in the paper this morning, and told me.”

“Then the Duke is still here,” he asked with affected unconcern.

“Of course. Why? He knows your English quite well, and, alas! I do not. Oh, it is so difficult! What I should do without him, I don’t know,” she went on volubly with much gesticulation. Those great dark eyes of hers and her raven-black hair gave a wonderful vivacity to her handsome Andalusian countenance. Her portraits were in all the illustrated papers, and during the day he had learnt how, by her wonderful dancing, she had taken London by storm.

“And what kind of reception have you had?” he asked gravely in Spanish, as he seated himself upon the settee before her.

“Superb!” she declared, her great eyes brightening. “Your English audiences are so intensely sympathetic. I love London. I think I dance better here in your cold, foggy city than in Madrid. Why, I do not know. Perhaps it is because I feel somehow at home with the English—because you, Hubert, are my dear friend.” And then she chattered on with hands and arms thrown about in quick gesticulation, describing to him her life during the past three weeks, and how full of gaiety and enjoyment had every moment been.

“Photographers and interviewers have pestered me to death. Ah! Your London journalists are so pressing. They are not lazy and open to bribery, as ours in Madrid. Twice I have danced at private parties and received large fees. Yes—you in London pay well—better even than Petersburg. At the Palace they want me to return for a month next September.”

“And you will accept, of course?”

She hesitated. She was standing at the table, her slim white fingers idly toying with a huge bunch of lilies-of-the-valley which had been thrown to her that night by some unknown admirer.

“Perhaps,” she replied. “At present I do not exactly know. I have also danced twice for charity—some hospital, I think. My manager, Cohen, arranged it. He is simply splendid—better even than he was in Russia.”

“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, Beatriz,” Hubert said. “I was sorry I could not get back from Egypt. But I was nearly a thousand miles from Cairo when I got your telegram.”

“Oh, it really did not matter,” she declared. “The Duke has been most kind to me.”

“Yes—the Duke—always the Duke,” he said in a hard, changed voice.

She turned and looked at him in quick surprise.

“What—then are you jealous, you dear old Hubert?” she asked with a laugh.

“Not in the least,” was his quick reply. “But while you have the Duke you surely do not require my assistance. You have, it seems, got on in London excellently without me.”

“Because you were unable to come. Have I offended you?” she asked. “Come, forgive me if I have,” she urged, crossing to him, placing her hand upon his coat sleeve and looking up into his face. “I return to Madrid next Monday. You shall travel with me—eh?”

“I am not going back to Madrid,” was his slow reply, his eyes fixed upon hers.

“Not going back!” she echoed. “Why not?”

“I have been transferred to the Embassy in Rome. I leave for Italy the day after to-morrow.”

“To Italy,” she whispered blankly. “Then—then you will no longer be in Spain?”

“No. My term in Madrid has ended,” he answered in a hard, strained voice, for even then he found it hard to bid her farewell.

“Ah!” she cried suddenly. “I see—I see it in your manner! You are tired of me—you are displeased with the Duke. You are jealous of him—jealous that men should flatter me. You, my dear friend, in whom I held such high respect, will not desert me.”

“Alas, Beatriz, I am not my own master. If I were, I should not leave Madrid,” he said earnestly, for that was, after all, the truth.

“And yet, knowing how fondly I love you, Hubert, you will really leave me thus!” she cried, suddenly catching his hand and carrying it to her full red lips. “No,” she went on, tears welling in her wonderful eyes, “you cannot do this. You, too, love me—you know well that you do. Come, do not let us part. I—I know I am foolish—I—ah! no! I love you, Hubert—only you!” And full of her hot Spanish passion she threw her arms about him and burst into a flood of hot tears.

Hubert Waldron bit his lip. He recollected at that moment all the stories concerning her—of the blackmail levied, with her connivance, by the drunken cab-driver whom he himself had once seen in the Puerta del Sol. He remembered his promise to his Chief, and the plain, outspoken words of his friend, Jack Jerningham.

They hardened his heart.

He shook his head and slowly but resolutely, disengaged himself from her passionate embrace.

“No, Beatriz,” he said. “Let us end this. It will, surely, be best for both our sakes. True, I have known you for a long time before you became world-famous as a dancer, but your profession and your interests, like mine, now lie apart. Let us say farewell, and in doing so, let us still remain good friends, with tender memories of one another.”

“Memories!” she cried fiercely, looking into his face with flashing eyes. “They can only be bitter ones for me.”

“And perhaps just as bitter for myself,” he added, still holding her by the wrist and looking into those great black eyes of hers.

“You are very cruel, Hubert!” she declared, her chest beneath its chiffon rising and falling in quick emotion. “You are cruel to a woman!” she repeated in reproach.

“No. It will be best for us in the end—best for both of us. You have your future before you—so have I. In my profession as diplomat I have to bow to the inevitable whenever I am transferred. You are a great dancer—a dancer who has won the applause of Europe. May I not still remain your humble and devoted friend?”

For answer Beatriz, the idol of London at that moment, fell upon his shoulder and shed tears of poignant, bitter regret, while he, with knit brows, held his breath for a moment, and then tenderly bent and kissed her upon the cheek.