The Kingmakers

Selden, entering from the dining-room, saw that the lounge was crowded, and he paused for a moment to look about him. It was the half-hour between dinner and the Sporting Club, and he was pleasantly aware of the odours of good coffee and super-excellent tobacco, mingled with the delicate and very expensive perfumes rising from the clothes, the hair, the shoulders of the women lying indolently back in the deep chairs.

It was the women who dominated the scene. There were men present, to be sure, but they were as unobtrusive to the eye, as strictly utilitarian, as the donor kneeling humbly in the corner of the picture before the madonna he had paid to have painted.

These men were donors, too, of many things besides paint--but the resemblance ended there. For there was nothing madonna-like about the women. They differed in being blonde or brune, of various contours, and of all ages, but some subtle quality of spirit bound them together in a common sisterhood. Their gowns ran the gamut of the rainbow and were of every material and degree of eccentricity, but a common purpose underlay them all. Every neck bore its rope of pearls, every hand its clustered diamonds.

Tributes to beauty, one might suppose--but not at all. The treasures of the Rue de la Paix, the choicest creations of Cartier, had been showered upon beauty and ugliness alike--if there was any difference, beauty had the worst of it. Indeed most of these women were anything but beautiful. There were some who were still slim, who still had youth and a certain charm; there were two or three of an incredible seductiveness, more dazzling than the brilliants on their fingers; but for the most part they were fat, raddled, unspeakably vulgar, gazing out at the world from between darkened lashes with eyes unutterably weary and disillusioned.

They were not all courtesans. The trophies so lavishly displayed were, in part at least, the spoils of marriage; but, virtuous or vicious, their worlds moved in the same orbit, with the same purpose, toward the same end.

Was it one of these women, Selden wondered, who had summoned him to a rendezvous? He told himself that he was foolish to have come, that he should have known better, and he had an impulse to pass on without stopping. Yet something about the note which had been handed in to him as he was dressing for dinner had piqued his curiosity, and piqued it still:

If Mr. Selden will be in the lounge at 9:45 this evening, he will not only give one of his debtors an opportunity to express her gratitude, but will learn something that may prove of interest.

The writing was unusually firm and characteristic. He was quite sure that he had never seen it before. And it was not in the least sentimental, but decidedly of the world. It was this which persuaded him to come. It is pleasant to have one’s services acknowledged, and he was always willing to be interested. More than once he had been started on a profitable trail in some such unusual fashion. On the other hand, should it prove merely an attempt at intrigue, an advance on the part of some impecunious lady who had secured his name from the chasseur, it would be easy enough to withdraw--he had only to explain the state of his finances! So here he was.

He saw that the divan to the right of the fireplace was unoccupied, threaded his way to it among the chairs and tables and over outstretched feet, and asked the waiter for coffee. He lighted a cigarette and glanced at his watch. It was 9:40.

The fire had a welcome warmth, for he had still in his bones the chill of unheated Austria, from which he had arrived only that morning, and he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stretched out his hands to it. Indeed it was principally to get warm again that he had come to Monte Carlo.

But the chill was in his heart, too; and he shivered a little at thought of the pinched, blue faces, the hopeless eyes....

He was suddenly conscious that some one was standing beside him.

“Mr. Selden?” said a voice.

In an instant he was on his feet, bowing above the hand that was held out to him.

His first impression was of that hand, long, nervous, but giving the assurance of strength in reserve--just the hand to have produced the writing of the note. His next was of the eyes, extraordinarily vivid under level brows; with iris so distended that they seemed quite black, though he was afterwards to see that they were a dark green shot with yellow.

“How happy I am to see you again!” she said in a clear voice, for the benefit of the idly-observant room, withdrew her hand and sank into a corner of the seat. “Please get me some coffee,” she added, “and give me a cigarette.”

Her eyes met his, as he held the match for her, and a twinkle of amusement sprang into them.

“Your sister is well, I hope?” she asked. “Let me see--it has been two years, almost, since I last saw her.”

“She is quite well, thank you,” answered Selden, who by this time had pulled himself together, and was quite ready to accept a hypothetical sister. “She is to be married next month,” he added, as a slight contribution to the game.

“How interesting! To an American? But of course. Tell me about it!” And then, as the waiter served the coffee and passed on, she moved closer to him and dropped her voice. “I do not wonder that you are astonished! Confess that I am not in the least what you expected!”

“I never expected to be so fortunate,” countered Selden, and permitted himself to appraise her.

There could be no question that she was most unusual--she would be striking anywhere with her coal-black hair, her long pale face, her vivid eyes and lips; striking too in the way she was dressed, without ornament, in a narrow Lanvin gown of black which seemed to be part of her, to be moulded to her as a snake’s skin is moulded. Then, at second glance, Selden saw there was one ornament--a queer stone of greenish-yellow, matching her eyes, catching her gown together across the curve of her breasts. But there were no pearls, no brilliants, not a single ring on her long fingers. Selden wondered if there were also no donor.

She took the coffee that he offered her and leaned back again in her corner. As she sipped it slowly, she looked across at him with level eyes, and Selden realized that she was also appraising him. He had known at once, of course, that he had never seen her before, and her glance seemed to indicate that he was equally unknown to her. A dozen questions sprang to his lips, but he held them back. It was for her to begin. And he was not quite sure of her status. A woman of position, evidently; but as he looked at her he wondered whether the vividness of eyes and lips, the even pallor of the face, owed something--a very tiny something!--to art. If so, it was consummate art, such as one meets nowhere outside of France. As for her age,--but he hesitated even to venture a guess.

“I have wanted to know you for a long time, Mr. Selden,” she said softly at last.

“You honour me!”

“The historian of the war, the interpreter of the peace conference, the champion of the League of Nations, the saviour of Central Europe!” she went on.

Selden stiffened a little, on guard against this irony. There was upon her lips the merest shadow of a smile which might mean anything.

“You seem extraordinarily well informed,” he said.

“Oh, I hear people talk, and you would be surprised, I think, to know how often your name is mentioned. I have even read some of your articles. You write rather well.”

“Thank you,” said Selden. “I am always striving to improve.”

“Besides,” she added, “you are, in a way, a curiosity.”

“Oh, in many ways!” he protested.

“You are the only man I know,” she went on, leaning toward him, “who has not lost hope. Every one else sees only shipwreck and disaster, but you do not seem to see that at all.”

“No,” agreed Selden, “I don’t. I see three hundred million people freed of century-old shackles and struggling toward the light.”

She was silent a moment--then she glanced around the room.

“You can see that even here?” she asked.

“It is rather difficult,” he admitted, following her glance. “But after all, these people are of no importance--they are just wasters, slackers, headed for death. Just the same,” he added, and stopped.

She laughed a little at the way he shut his jaws.

“Swear if you wish to!”

“I was thinking of some things I saw in Vienna and southern Poland not long ago.”