The Prophet's Mantle. Эдит НесбитЧитать онлайн книгу.
asked me so frankly to-night, I will answer as frankly—Yes, I wrote it.'
An approving murmur ran through the room, and the foreigner rose again. He was sorry again to trouble Citizen Litvinoff, but was he right in supposing (it had been so reported) that the discovery of this pamphlet by the Russian Government had occasioned Count Litvinoff's exile?
Litvinoff was very pale as he answered,—
'Yes; it was that unhappy pamphlet which deprived me of the chance of serving my country on the scene of action, and which lost me a life I valued above my own—that of a fellow-countryman of the audience which I have the pleasure of addressing to-night—my secretary and friend, whom I loved more than a brother.' His voice trembled as he ended.
There was another round of applause, and, no more questions being forthcoming, the meeting broke up, and people stood talking together in little groups. Richard was discussing a knotty economic point with a sturdy carpenter and trades unionist, and Roland, close by, was earnestly questioning a French Communist to whom Litvinoff had introduced him, and was receiving an account of the so-called murder of the hostages very different from any which had appeared in the daily papers of the period, when the Count came up to them.
'Excuse me,' he said, 'I am désolé; but I shall be unable to stay longer. You will be able, doubtless, to pilot yourselves back to civilisation, and will pardon my abrupt departure. I have just seen someone going out of the door whom I've been trying to catch for the last three months, and I'm off in pursuit.'
And he was off. As he passed a small knot of youths outside the door they looked after him, and one of them said with a laugh, 'Blest if I don't believe he's after that handsome gal. What chaps these foreigners are for the ladies.'
The discerning youth was right. He was after that girl—but though he followed her and watched her into the house where she lived, he did not speak to her.
'Think twice before you speak once is a good rule,' he said to himself, as he turned westwards, 'and I know where she lives, at any rate.'
Even discussions on political economy, and historical revelations by those who helped to make the history, must come to an end at last, and the Ferriers came away, after Dick had received a pressing invitation from the chairman to address the club, and to choose his own subject, and Roland, who had suddenly conceived a passion for foreigners of a revolutionary character, had made an appointment with his Communist acquaintance for an evening in the week.
As they passed down the street, two men standing under a lamp looked at them with interest. One was the man who had put the questions regarding the pamphlet. The other was a foreigner too, though he was clean in his attire and had not a scrubby chin, but a long, light silky beard. He wore the slouch hat so much affected by the High Church Clergy, and which is popularly supposed to mark any non-clerical wearer as a man of revolutionary views. He was tall, and pale, and thin, and had very deeply-set hollow eyes, which he kept fixed on the retreating millowners till they turned the corner and went out of sight. Then he said, in a Hungarian dialect,—
'Our pamphlet-writing friend doesn't seem to choose his friends solely among the poor and needy; and that is politic to say the least of it.'
'Money seeks money,' growled the other, 'and he has plenty.'
'Not so much as you'd suppose. The greater part of the Litvinoff property is quite out of his reach. Our "little father" takes good care of that.'
'That which he has he takes care to keep,' said the other.
'I'm not so sure; at anyrate, he uses his tongue, which is a good one, in our cause. Speeches like that are good. A man who can speak so is not to be sneered at, and I'm certain he could not speak like that unless he felt some of it at least. He has done us good service before, and he will again. The Mantle of the Prophet fits him uncommonly well.'
CHAPTER VIII.
'YOU LIE!'
EAR MR FERRIER,—You were so full of Russia yesterday afternoon that you made me forget to say to you what might have saved you the trouble of answering this by post. Will you and your brother dine with us (papa says) to-morrow evening at seven? I hope you enjoyed yourselves last night. I am sure I should have done if I had been there. With papa's and my kind regards to you and Mr Roland,—I am, dear Mr Ferrier, yours very truly,
'P.S.—Count Litvinoff, your interesting Russian friend, will be here.'
Miss Stanley smiled to herself rather wickedly as she folded this note. She had noticed that her interest in the Russian acquaintance did not seem to enhance theirs, and she thought to herself that whatever the dinner might be at which those three assisted, it certainly would not be dull for her.
In Derbyshire, where her amusements were very limited, she would have thought twice before permitting herself to risk offending the masters of Thornsett, but here that risk only seemed to offer a new form of amusement. But experimenting on the feelings of these gentlemen was an entertainment which was somehow not quite so enthralling as it had been, and she now longed, not for a fresh world to conquer—here was one ready to her hand—but for the power to conquer it. She would have given something to be able to believe that she had anything like the same power over this hero of romance, whom fate had thrown in her way, as she had over the excellent but commonplace admirers with whom she had amused herself for the last year.
Litvinoff had distinctly told her that the goddess of his idolatry, the one mistress of his heart, was Liberty, and though this statement was modified in her mind by her recollection of certain glances cast at herself, she yet believed in it enough to feel a not unnatural desire to enter into competition with that goddess. Her classical studies taught her that women had competed successfully with such rivals, and she was not morbidly self-distrustful, especially when a looking-glass was near her.
With the letter in her hand she glanced at the mirror over the mantelpiece, and the fair vision of dark-brown lashes, gold-brown waving hair, delicate oval face, and well-shaped if rather large mouth, might have reassured her had she felt any doubts of her own attractions. But the glance she cast at herself over her shoulder was one of saucy triumph, and the smile with which she sealed her letter one of conscious power.
Would she have been gratified if she could have seen the effect of her note? It was not at all with the sort of expression you would expect to see on the face of a man who had just received a dinner invitation transmitted through the lady of his heart from that lady's papa, that Richard Ferrier passed the note over to his brother next morning.
'Here you are,' he said. 'Bouquet de Nihilist, trebly distilled.'
'Well, don't let's go, then.'
'Why, I thought you were so fond of the Count. I wonder you don't jump at it. I thought it would please you.'
'So I do like him—he's a splendid speaker; but I didn't come to London to spend all my days and nights with him, any more than you did. Besides, I'm engaged for to-night.'
'Oh, are you? Well, I think I shall go.'
'You'd better leave it alone. You won't stand much chance beside a man with such a moustache as that. Besides, he sings, don't you know? and with all your solid and admirable qualities, Richard, you're not a nightingale.'
'Nor yet a runaway rebel.'
'I say, you'd better look a little bit after your epithets. Litvinoff doesn't look much of the running-away sort. According to what I heard last night, he can use a revolver with effect on occasion. By the way, Richard,' he went on, more seriously, 'I believe I saw a face at that club I knew, but it was only for a minute, and I lost sight of it, and I couldn't be sure.'
'Who did you think it was?'
'Little Alice.'
'Think—you think!' said his brother, turning fiercely on him. 'Do you mean to say you didn't know?'
'Know? Of course not, or I should say so. What the deuce do you mean?'
'I should like to ask you what the deuce you mean by even debating whether or no to accept