The Day of Temptation

“You thought to escape me – eh?” her companion exclaimed when at last they halted at one of the seats near the water. He was well acquainted with that quarter of London, for he had served as attaché at the Court of St. James twenty years ago.

“I had no object in so doing,” she answered boldly. In their drive she had decided upon a definite plan, and now spoke fearlessly.

“Why, then, have you not answered my letters?”

“I never answer letters that are either reproachful or abusive,” she replied, “even though they may be from the Marquis Montelupo, His Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

“If you had deigned to do so, it would have obviated the necessity of me coming from Rome to see you at all this personal risk.”

“It’s well that you risk something, as well as myself. I’ve risked enough, Heaven knows!” she answered.

“And you’ve found at last a confounded idiot of a lover who will prove our ruin.”

“My love is no concern of yours,” she cried quickly. “He may be left entirely out of the question. He knows nothing; and further, I’ve parted from him.”

“Because he has ascertained who you really are,” the great statesman said.

“For that I have to thank you,” she retorted quickly. “If you had been a trifle more considerate and had not allowed the police of Livorno to act as they did, he would still have been in ignorance.”

“I acted as I thought fit,” her companion said in an authoritative tone, lighting another cigarette from the still burning end of the one he had just consumed.

“You’ve brought me here to abuse me!” she cried, her eyes flashing fiercely upon him.

“Because you played me false,” he answered bitterly. “You thought it possible to conceal your identity, marry this young fool of an Englishman, and get away somewhere where you would not be discovered. For that reason you’ve played this double game.” Then he added meaningly, “It’s only what I ought to have expected of a woman with such a reputation as yours.”

“Charles Armytage is no fool,” she protested. “If he found you here, speaking like this to me, he’d strangle you.”

The Marquis, whose dark eyes seemed to flash with a fierce light, laughed sarcastically.

“No doubt by this time he’s heard lots of stories concerning you,” he said. “A man of his stamp never marries an adventuress.”

“Adventuress!” she echoed, starting up with clenched hands. “You call me an adventuress – you, whose past is blacker than my own – you who owe to me your present position as Minister!”

He glanced at her surprised; he had not been prepared for this fierce, defiant retort.

Again he laughed, a laugh low and strangely hollow.

“You forget,” he said, “that a word from me would result in your arrest, imprisonment, and disgrace.”

She held her breath and her brows contracted. That fact, she knew, was only too true. In an instant she perceived that for the present she must conciliate this man, who was one of the rulers of Europe. The game she was now playing was, indeed, the most desperate in all her career, but the stake was the highest, the most valuable to her in all the world, her own love, peace, and happiness.

“And suppose you took this step,” she suggested, finding tongue with difficulty at last. “Don’t you think you would imperil yourself? A Foreign Minister, especially in our country, surrounded as he is by a myriad political foes, can scarcely afford to court scandal. I should have thought the examples of Crispi, Rudini, and Brin were sufficient to cause a wary man like yourself to hesitate.”

“I never act without due consideration,” the Marquis replied. The voice in which he spoke was the dry, business-like tone he used towards Ambassadors of the Powers when discussing the political situation, as he was almost daily compelled to do. In Rome, no man was better dressed than the Marquis Montelupo; no man had greater tact in directing matters of State; and in no man did his Sovereign place greater faith. As he sat beside her in slovenly attire, his grey moustaches uncurled, his chin bearing two or three days’ growth of grey beard, it was hard to realise that this was the same man who, glittering with orders, so often ascended the great marble and gold staircase of the Quirinal, to seek audience with King Humbert; whose reputation as a statesman was world-wide, and whose winter receptions at his great old palazzo in the Via Nazionale were among the most brilliant diplomatic gatherings in Europe.

“I have carefully considered the whole matter,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “I arrived in London yesterday, and from what I have learnt I have decided to take certain steps without delay.”

“Then you have been to the Embassy!” she exclaimed breathless. “You’ve denounced me to Castellani!”

“There was no necessity for that,” he answered coldly. “He already knows that you are his enemy.”

“I his enemy!” she echoed. “I have never done him an evil turn. He has heard some libellous story, I suppose, and, like all the world, believes me to be without conscience and without remorse.”

“That’s a pretty good estimate of yourself,” the Marquis observed. “If you had any conscience whatever you would have replied to my letters, and not maintained a dogged silence through all these months.”

“I had an object in view,” she answered in a chilling tone. She, quiet and stubborn, was resolved, insolent, like a creature to whom men had never been able to refuse anything.

“What was it?”

She shrugged her shoulders, and, laughing again, replied —

“You have threatened me with arrest, therefore I will maintain silence until it pleases you to endeavour to ruin me. Then together we will provide a little sensationalism for the Farfalla, the Tribuna, the Secolo, and one or two other journals who will only be too ready to see a change of Ministry.”

He hesitated, seeming to digest her words laboriously. She glanced quickly at his dark face, which the distant rays of a lamp illumined, and in that instant knew she had triumphed.

“You would try and ruin me, eh?” he cried in a hoarse menace.

“To upset the whole political situation in Rome is quite easy of accomplishment, I assure you, my dear Marquis,” she declared, smiling. “The Opposition will be ready to hound out of office you and all your rabble of bank-thieves, blackmailers, adventurers, and others who are so ingeniously feathering their nests at the expense of Italy. Ah, what a herd!”

Montelupo frowned. He knew quite well that she spoke the truth, yet with diplomatic instinct he still maintained a bold front.

“Bah!” he cried defiantly. “You cannot injure me. When you are in prison you’ll have little opportunity for uttering any of your wild denunciations. The people, too, are getting a little tired of the various mare’s-nest scandals started almost daily by the irresponsible journals. They’ve ceased to believe in them.”

“Yes, without proofs,” she observed.

“You have no proof. You and I are not strangers,” Montelupo said.

“First, recollect we are in England, and you cannot order my immediate arrest. Days must elapse before your application reaches London from Rome. In the meantime I am free to act.” Then, with a tinge of bitter sarcasm in her voice, she added, “No, Excellency, your plan does not do you credit. I always thought you far more shrewd.”

“Whatever so-called proofs you possess, no one will for an instant believe you,” he laughed with fine composure. “Recollect I am Minister for Foreign Affairs; then recollect who you are.”

“I am your dupe, your victim,” she cried in a fierce paroxysm of anger. “My name stinks in the nostrils of every one in Italy – and why? Because you, the man who now denounces me, wove about me a network of pitfalls which it was impossible for me to avoid. You saw that, because I moved in smart society, because I had good looks and hosts of friends, I was the person to become your catspaw – your stepping-stone into office. You – ”

“Silence, curse you!” Montelupo cried fiercely, his hands clenched. “I’m too busy with the present to have any time for recollecting the past. It was a fair and business-like arrangement. You’ve been paid.”

“Yes, with coin stolen from the Treasury by your rogues and swindlers who pose before Italy as patriots and politicians.”

“It matters not to such a woman as you whence comes the money you require to keep up your fine appearance,” he said angrily, for this reference to his political party had raised his blood to fever-heat.

“Even though I have this unenviable reputation which you have been pleased to give me throughout Italy, I am at least honest,” she cried.

“Towards your lovers – eh?”

Standing before him, in a violent outburst of anger, she shook both her gloved hands in his face, saying —

“Enough – enough of your insults! For the sake of the land I love, for the sake of Italy’s power and prestige, and for your reputation I have suffered. But remember that the bond which fetters me to you will snap if stretched too far; that instead of assisting you, I can ruin you.”

“You speak plainly certainly,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.

“I do. Through your evil machinations I have no reputation to lose. With artful ingenuity you compromised me, you spread scandals about me in Florence, in Venice, in Rome, scandals that were the vilest libels man ever uttered. In your club you told men that there was something more between us than mere friendship, that I was extravagant, and that I cost you as much in diamonds at Fasoli’s in the Corso, on a single afternoon, as the Government paid you in a whole year. Such were the lies you spread in order to ruin me,” she cried bitterly. “Never have I had a soldo from your private purse, never a single ornament, and never have your foul lips touched mine. You, who boldly announced yourself my lover, I have ever held in scorn and hatred as I do now. The money I received was from the Treasury – part of that sum yearly filched from the Government funds to keep up your rickety old castle outside Empoli; but bound as I was by my oath of secrecy I could utter no word in self-defence, nor prosecute the journals which spread their highly-spiced libels. You held me beneath your thrall, and I, although an honest woman, have remained crushed and powerless.” Then she paused.

“Proceed,” he observed with sarcasm. “I am all attention.”

“No more need be said,” she answered. “I will now leave you, and wish you a pleasant journey back to Rome,” and she bowed and turned away.

“Come,” he cried, dragging her by force back to the seat. “Don’t be an idiot, Gemma, but listen. I brought you here,” he commenced, “not to fence with you, as we have been doing, but to make a proposal; one that I think you will seriously consider.”

“Some further shady trick, I suppose. Well, explain your latest scheme. It is sure to be interesting!”

“As you rightly suggest, it is a trick, Contessa,” he said, in a tone rather more conciliatory, and for the first time speaking without any show of politeness. “Within the past ten days the situation in Rome has undergone an entire change, although the journals know nothing; and in consequence I find Castellani, who has for years been my friend and supporter, is now one of my bitterest opponents. If there is a change of government he would no doubt be appointed Foreign Minister in my place.”

“Well, you don’t fear him, surely?” she said. “You are Minister, and can recall him at any moment.”

“No. Castellani holds a certain document which, if produced, must cause the overthrow of the Government, and perhaps the ruin of our country,” he answered in deep earnestness. “Before long, in order to clear himself and place himself in favour, he must produce this paper, and if so the revelations will startle Europe.”

“Well, that is nothing to me,” she said coldly. “It is entirely your affair.”

“Listen!” he exclaimed eagerly. He was now confiding to her one of the deepest secrets of the political undercurrent. “This document is in a sealed blue envelope, across the face of which a large cross has been drawn in blue pencil. Remember that. It is in the top left-hand drawer in the Ambassador’s writing-table in his private room. You know the room; the small one looking out into Grosvenor Square. You no doubt recollect it when you were visiting there two years ago.”

“Certainly,” she contented herself with replying, still puzzled at the strangeness of his manner. The wind moaned mournfully through the bare branches above them.

“You are friendly with Castellani’s daughter,” he went on earnestly. “Call to-morrow with the object of visiting her, and then you must make some excuse to enter that room alone.”

“You mean that I must steal that incriminating paper?” she said.

He nodded.

“Impossible!” she replied decisively. “First, I don’t intend to run any risk, and, secondly, I know quite well that nobody is allowed in that room alone. The door is always kept locked.”

“There are two keys,” he interrupted. “Here is one of them. I secured it yesterday.”

“And in return for this service, what am I to receive?” she inquired coldly, sitting erect, without stirring a muscle.

“In return for this service” – he answered gravely, his dark eyes riveted upon hers – “in return for this service you shall name your own price.”

Chapter Twenty Four

By Stealth

Before she had parted from the Marquis she had made a demand boldly and fearlessly, to which, not without the most vehement protest, he had been compelled to accede. She knew him well, and was aware that, in order to gain his own ends, he would betray and denounce his nearest relative; that, although a shrewd, clever statesman, he had won universal popularity and esteem in Italy by reason of certain shady transactions by which he had posed as the saviour of his country. The revelations she could make regarding the undercurrent of affairs in Rome would astound Europe. For that reason he had been forced to grant her what she asked in return for the incriminating paper from the archives of the Embassy.

For over an hour they sat together in the darkness engaged in a strange discussion, when at last they rose and together walked on, still deep in conversation. The Marquis had an appointment, and was about to take leave of her when, as they crossed the wide deserted space between the Admiralty and the Horse Guards, a man in a heavy fur-trimmed overcoat and felt hat, in hurrying past, gazed full into the faces of both. At that moment they were beneath one of the lamps flickering in the gusty wind, and he had full view of them.

Gemma’s eyes met his, and instantly the recognition was mutual.

It was the man who had attempted to take her life – Frank Tristram. He had evidently arrived from the Continent by the day express from Paris, left his despatches at the Foreign Office, and was walking to his chambers in St. James’s Street by the nearest way across the Park. He usually preferred to walk home in order to stretch his legs, cramped as they were by many tedious hours in railway carriages.

When he had passed he turned quickly as if to reassure himself, then, with some muttered words, he strode forward with his hands deep in his pockets and his head bent towards the cold boisterous wind.

“Did you notice that man who has just passed?” Gemma gasped, in a low voice betraying alarm.

“No; who was he?” asked the Marquis, turning back to glance at the retreating figure.

“A man you know; Tristram, the English Foreign Office messenger.”

“Tristram!” ejaculated Montelupo quickly. “He’s never recognised me?”

“I think so,” she replied. “He looked straight into your face.”

The Minister ejaculated a fierce Italian oath. “Then the fact that I’m in London will be at once made known,” he said.

“That is not of much importance, is it? Castellani already knows, for you’ve been to the Embassy.”

“But he will be silent. I’m here incognito,” the Marquis cried quickly, in a changed voice. “I have several matters with regard to Abyssinia and our foreign policy to settle with the British Government, but am procrastinating with an object. If they know yonder at the Foreign Office that I am in London, and have not called upon their Minister, it will be considered an insult, and may strain our relations with England. This we can’t afford to do. These English are useful to us. Italy has nothing to fear from the alliance of France and Russia, but nevertheless her only safe policy consists in a firm union with England. The Anglo-Italian naval alliance preserves the peace of Europe by throwing its weight into the scale against any disturber of tranquillity. We shall want English ships to fight and protect us in the Mediterranean when France invades us on the Tuscan shore.” Then, after a moment’s reflection, he glanced at the illuminated clock-face of Big Ben, and added, “No, I must leave London at once, for in this direction I see a pressing danger. It’s now nearly seven. I’ll dine and get away by the night-mail for Paris. I must be back in Rome again at the earliest possible moment.”

“Am I still to go to the Embassy?” she asked.

“Of course,” he answered quickly. “Don’t delay an instant. It is imperative that we should obtain that document, and you are the only person who can successfully accomplish the task. When you have done so bring it to me in Rome. Our safety lies in the expeditious way in which you effect this coup.”

“In Rome?” she echoed. “That’s impossible.”

“Why? With us everything is possible.”

“You forget that, owing to your absurd and foolish action a few months ago, I shall find myself arrested the moment I cross the frontier,” she answered.

“Ah, yes, I quite forgot,” he replied. “But that’s easily remedied.”

They were passing through the square of the Horse Guards at that moment, and halting beneath a lamp where stood a cavalry sentry motionless and statuesque, he took from his bulky wallet a visiting-card and scribbled a few words upon its back. Then, handing it to her, said – “This is your passport. If there is any difficulty in reaching me, present this.”

She took it, glanced at the scribbled words, and thrust it into her glove. Then, upon the wide pavement in Parliament Street, a few moments later, he lifted his hat politely, and they parted.

At noon next day Gemma called at the Embassy, and was shown into the waiting-room. She had not remained there five minutes when suddenly the Ambassador’s daughter burst into the room with a loud cry of welcome, and kissed her visitor enthusiastically on both cheeks in Italian fashion. Slight, and strange rather than pretty, she had a delicate face, dark eyes, a small quivering nose, a rather large, ever-ruddy mouth, and curling, straggling black locks, which ever waved as in a perpetual breeze.

“I’m so glad, so very glad you’ve called, dear,” Carmenilla said enthusiastically. “Father mentioned the other day that you were in England, and I’ve wondered so often why you’ve never been to see us.”

“I’ve been staying with friends in the country,” Gemma explained. “I suppose you speak English quite well now.”

“A little. But oh! it is so difficult,” she laughed. “And it is so different here to Firenze or Rome. The people are so strange.”

“Yes,” Gemma sighed. “I have also found it so.”

In their girlhood days they had been close friends through five years at the grey old convent of San Paolo della Croce in the Via della Chiesa at Firenze, and afterwards at Rome, where Carmenilla had lived with a rather eccentric old aunt, the Marchesa Tassino, while her father had been absent fulfilling the post of Ambassador at Vienna.

“I’m so very glad you’ve called,” Castellani’s daughter repeated. “Come to my room; take off your things and stay to luncheon. Father is out, and I’m quite alone.”

“The Count is out,” repeated her visitor in a feigned tone of regret. Truth to tell, however, it was intelligence most welcome to her. “I’m sorry he’s not at home. We haven’t met for so long.”

“Oh, he’s dreadfully worried just now!” his daughter answered. “The work at this Embassy is terrible. He seems writing and interviewing people from morning until night. He works much harder now than any of the staff; while at Brussels it was all so different. He had absolutely nothing to do.”

“But this England is such a great and wonderful country, while Belgium is such a tiny one,” Gemma observed. “The whole diplomatic world revolves around London.”

“Yes, of course,” she resumed. “But to sustain Italy’s prestige we are compelled to do such lots of entertaining. I’m terribly sick of it all. The situation in Rome began to change almost as soon as father was appointed here, and now it has become extremely grave and critical. The men who were once his friends are now his bitterest foes. He has adjusted several most difficult matters recently, but no single word of commendation has he received from the Marquis Montelupo.”

“Perhaps the Marquis is not his friend,” Gemma hazarded, for the purpose of ascertaining the extent of her knowledge.

“No. He is his enemy; of that I’m absolutely confident,” the girl replied. “I hate him. He’s never straightforward. Once, in Rome, he tried to worm from me a secret of my father’s, and because I would not speak he has never forgiven me.”

“Was it some very deep secret?” Gemma inquired. “Yes. It concerned the prestige of Italy and my father’s reputation for probity,” she replied. “Why the King trusts him so implicitly, I can never understand.”

“If there are serious political complications in Rome, as you seem to think, then the days of his power are numbered,” observed her visitor, now master of herself again. “The Ministry will be thrown out.”

“Ah! that would be the best thing that could happen to Italy,” she declared with a look of wisdom. “Montelupo is my father’s enemy; he seeks to fetter him in every action, in order that his reputation as a diplomat may be ruined, so that the King may be forced to send him his letters of recall. Truly the post of Ambassador in London is no sinecure.”

Gemma was silent. She hesitated and shuddered, Carmenilla noticed it, and asked her if she were cold.

“No, no,” she answered quickly. “It is quite warm and cosy here.” The light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in her excited face.

At luncheon, served with that stateliness which characterised the whole of the Ambassador’s household, they chatted on, as women will chat, of dress, of books, of plays, and of the latest gossip from Florence and Rome, the two centres of Italian society. They were eating their dessert, when the hall-porter entered bearing a card upon the salver. Carmenilla glanced at it, smiled, and rose to excuse herself.

“A visitor!” Gemma exclaimed. “Who is it?”

Her friend hesitated, blushing ever so faintly.

“An Englishman,” she answered. “I won’t be more than ten minutes. Try and amuse yourself, won’t you, dear? Go back to the boudoir and play. I know you love music.” And she left the room hurriedly.

The card was still lying beside her plate, and Gemma, in curiosity reached forward and took it up. In an instant, however, she cast it from her.

The man who had called was Frank Tristram.

In order not to attract the undue attention of the grave-faced man who stood silent and immovable before the great carved oak buffet, she finished her apple leisurely, sipped the tiny cup of coffee, dipped the tips of her fingers in the silver-rimmed bowl of rose-scented water, and rising, passed out along the corridor back to the warm, cosy little room where they had passed such a pleasant hour.

She had detected Carmenilla’s flushed cheeks, and had suspicion that this caller was no ordinary friend. This man, whose murderous fingers had not long ago clutched themselves around her own throat, was a friend of this smart, slim girl who was so admired in London society. She stood silent in the centre of the little room, her heart beating wildly, wondering whether she might, without arousing suspicion, retrace her steps along that long, thickly carpeted corridor and secure the document which Montelupo required. The voices of servants sounded outside, and she knew that at present to approach and unlock the door unobserved was impossible.

Therefore she advanced to the grate, and spreading out her chilly, nervous hands to the fire, waited, determined to possess herself in patience. Even now she felt inclined to draw back because of the enormous risk she ran. Castellani was not her friend. If he knew, he might give her over to the English police as a common thief. Her face was of deathlike pallor at that moment of indecision. Again she shuddered.