Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
have been staying at San Remo and Bordighera."
Mr. Draconmeyer was much interested.
"So that is where you have been burying yourself," he remarked. "I saw from the papers that you had accepted a six months' pair. Surely, though, you don't find the Italian Riviera very amusing?"
"I am abroad for a rest," Hunterleys replied.
Mr. Draconmeyer smiled curiously.
"A rest?" he repeated. "That rather belies your reputation, you know. They say that you are tireless, even when you are out of office."
Hunterleys turned from the speaker towards his wife.
"I have not tempted fortune myself yet," he observed. "I think that I shall have a look into the baccarat room. Do you care to stroll that way?"
Lady Hunterleys rose at once to her feet. Mr. Draconmeyer, however, intervened. He laid his fingers upon Hunterleys' arm.
"Sir Henry," he begged, "our meeting has been quite unexpected, but in a sense it is opportune. Will you be good enough to give me five minutes' conversation?"
"With pleasure," Hunterleys replied. "My time is quite at your disposal, if you have anything to say."
Draconmeyer led the way out of the crowded room, along the passage and into the little bar. They found a quiet corner and two easy-chairs. Draconmeyer gave an order to a waiter. For a few moments their conversation was conventional.
"I trust that you think your wife looking better for the change?" Draconmeyer began. "Her companionship is a source of great pleasure and relief to my poor wife."
"Does the conversation you wish to have with me refer to Lady Hunterleys?" her husband asked quietly. "If so, I should like to say a few preliminary words which would, I hope, place the matter at once beyond the possibility of any misunderstanding."
Draconmeyer moved a little uneasily in his place.
"I have other things to say," he declared, "yet I would gladly hear what is in your mind at the present moment. You do not, I fear, approve of this friendship between my wife and Lady Hunterleys."
Hunterleys was uncompromising, almost curt.
"I do not," he agreed. "It is probably no secret to you that my wife and I are temporarily estranged," he continued. "The chief reason for that estrangement is that I forbade her your house or your acquaintance."
Draconmeyer was a little taken back. Such extreme directness of speech was difficult to deal with.
"My dear Sir Henry," he protested, "you distress me. I do not understand your attitude in this matter at all."
"There is no necessity for you to understand it," Hunterleys retorted coolly. "I claim the right to regulate my wife's visiting list. She denies that right."
"Apart from the question of marital control," Mr. Draconmeyer persisted, "will you tell me why you consider my wife and myself unfit persons to find a place amongst Lady Hunterleys' acquaintances?"
"No man is bound to give the reason for his dislikes," Hunterleys replied. "Of your wife I know nothing. Nobody does. I have every sympathy with her unfortunate condition, and that is all. You personally I dislike. I dislike my wife to be seen with you, I dislike having her name associated with yours in any manner whatsoever. I dislike sitting with you here myself. I only hope that the five minutes' conversation which you have asked for will not be exceeded."
Mr. Draconmeyer had the air of a benevolent person who is deeply pained.
"Sir Henry," he sighed, "it is not possible for me to disregard such plain speaking. Forgive me if I am a little taken aback by it. You are known to be a very skilful diplomatist and you have many weapons in your armoury. One scarcely expected, however—one's breath is a little taken away by such candour."
"I am not aware," Hunterleys said calmly, "that the question of diplomacy need come in when one's only idea is to regulate the personal acquaintances of oneself and one's wife."
Mr. Draconmeyer sat quite still for a moment, stroking his black beard. His eyes were fixed upon the carpet. He seemed to be struggling with a problem.
"You have taken the ground from beneath my feet," he declared. "Your opinion of me is such that I hesitate to proceed at all in the matter which I desired to discuss with you."
"That," Hunterleys replied, "is entirely for you to decide. I am perfectly willing to listen to anything you have to say—all the more ready because now there can be no possibility of any misunderstanding between us."
"Very well," Mr. Draconmeyer assented, "I will proceed. After all, I am not sure that the personal element enters into what I was about to say. I was going to propose not exactly an alliance—that, of course, would not be possible—but I was certainly going to suggest that you and I might be of some service to one another."
"In what way?"
"I call myself an Englishman," Mr. Draconmeyer went on. "I have made large sums of money in England, I have grown to love England and English ways. Yet I came, as you know, from Berlin. The position which I hold in your city is still the position of president of the greatest German bank in the world. It is German finance which I have directed, and with German money I have made my fortune. To be frank with you, however, after these many years in London I have grown to feel myself very much of an Englishman."
Hunterleys was sitting perfectly still. His face was rigid but expressionless. He was listening intently.
"On the other hand," Mr. Draconmeyer proceeded slowly, "I wish to be wholly frank with you. At heart I must remain always a German. The interests of my country must always be paramount. But listen. In Germany there are, as you know, two parties, and year by year they are drawing further apart. I will not allude to factions. I will speak broadly. There is the war party and there is the peace party. I belong to the peace party. I belong to it as a German, and I belong to it as a devoted friend of England, and if the threatened conflict between the two should come, I should take my stand as a peace-loving German-cum-Englishman against the war party even of my own country."
Hunterleys still made no sign. Yet for one who knew him it was easy to realise that he was listening and thinking with absorbed interest.
"So far," Draconmeyer pointed out, "I have laid my cards on the table. I have told you the solemn truth. I regret that it did not occur to me to do so many months ago in London. Now to proceed. I ask you to emulate my frankness, and in return I will give you information which should enable us to work hand in hand for the peace which we both desire."
"You ask me," Hunterleys said thoughtfully, "to be perfectly frank with you. In what respect? What is it that you wish from me?"
"Not political information," Mr. Draconmeyer declared, his eyes blinking behind his glasses. "For that I certainly should not come to you. I only wish to ask you a question, and I must ask it so that we may meet on a common ground of confidence. Are you here in Monte Carlo to look after your wife, or in search of change of air and scene? Is that your honest motive for being here? Or is there any other reason in the world which has prompted you to come to Monte Carlo during this particular month—I might almost say this particular week?"
Hunterleys' attitude was that of a man who holds in his hand a puzzle and is doubtful where to commence in his efforts to solve it.
"Are you not a little mysterious this afternoon, Mr. Draconmeyer?" he asked coldly. "Or are you trying to incite a supposititious curiosity? I really cannot see the drift of your question."
"Answer it," Mr. Draconmeyer insisted.
Hunterleys took a cigarette from his case, tapped it upon the table and lit it in leisurely fashion.
"If you have any idea," he said, "that I came here to confront my wife, or to interfere in any way with her movements, let me assure you that you are mistaken. I had no idea that Lady Hunterleys was in Monte Carlo. I am here because I have a six months' holiday,