Havoc

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"Well, you see," the latter exclaimed, "we kept our word! That
dear plucky little friend of yours turned the scale, but in any
case I think that there would not have been much trouble about the
matter. The magistrate had received a communication direct from
the Home Secretary concerning your case."

"I am very grateful indeed," Laverick declared. "I tell you I
think I am very lucky. I wish I knew what had become of Miss
Leneveu. The usher told me she left the court before we came out."

"I asked her to go straight back to her rooms," Bellamy said. "You
must excuse me for interfering, Laverick, but I found her almost in
a state of collapse last night in Jermyn Street. I was having
Morrison watched, and my man reported to me that he had left his
rooms in a state of great excitement, and that a young lady was
there who appeared to be seriously injured."

"D-d scamp!" Laverick muttered.

"I did everything I could," Bellamy continued. "I fetched her at
once and sent her back to her house with a hospital nurse and some
one to look after her. The wound wasn't serious, but the fellow
must have been a brute indeed to have lifted his hand against such
a child. I wonder whether he'll get away."

"I should doubt it," Laverick remarked. "He hasn't the nerve.
He'll probably get drunk and blow his brains out. He's a
broken-spirited cur, after all."

"You'll have some lunch?" Bellamy asked.

Laverick shook his head.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to go on and see Miss Leneveu."

"Put me down at the club, then, and take my car on, if you will."

Laverick walked up and down the pavement outside Zoe's little
house for nearly half-an-hour. He had found the door closed and
locked, and a neighbor had informed him that Miss Leneveu had
gone out in a cab with the nurse, some time ago, and had not
returned. Laverick sent Bellamy's car back and waited. Presently
a four-wheel cab came round the corner and stopped in front of
her house. Laverick opened the door and helped Zoe out. She was
as white as death, and the nurse who was with her was looking
anxious.

"You are safe, then?" she murmured, holding out her hands.

"Quite," he answered. "You dear little girl!"

Zoe had fainted, however, and Laverick hurried out for the doctor.
Curiously enough, it was the same man who only a week or so ago
had come to see Arthur Morrison.

"She has had a bad scalp wound," he declared, "and her nervous
system is very much run down. There is nothing serious. She
seems to have just escaped concussion. The nurse had better stay
with her for another day, at any rate."

"You are sure that it isn't serious?" Laverick asked eagerly.

"Not in the least," the doctor answered dryly. "I see worse
wounds every day of my life. I'll come again to-morrow, if you like,
but it really isn't necessary with the nurse on the spot."

His natural pessimism was for a moment lightened by the fee which
Laverick pressed upon him, and he departed with a few more
encouraging words. Laverick stayed and talked for a short time
with the nurse.

"She has gone off to sleep now, sir," the latter announced. "There
isn't anything to worry about. She seems as though she had been
having a hard time, though. There was scarcely a thing in the house
but half a packet of tea - and these."

She held up a packet of pawn tickets.

"I found these in a drawer when I came," she said. "I had to look
round, because there was no money and nothing whatever in the house."

Laverick was suddenly conscious of an absurd mistiness before his
eyes.

"Poor little woman!" he murmured. "I think she'd sooner have starved
than ask for help."

The nurse smiled.

"I thought at first that she was rather a vain young lady," she
remarked. "An empty larder and a pile of pawn tickets, and a new
hat with a receipted bill for thirty shillings," she added, pointing
to the sofa.

Laverick placed some notes in her hands.

"Please keep these," he begged, "and see that she has everything she
wants. I shall be here again later in the day. There is not the
slightest need for all this. She will be quite well off for the rest
of her life. Will you try and engage some one for a day or two to
come in until she is able to be moved?"

"I'll look after her," the nurse promised.

Laverick went reluctantly away. The events of the last few days were
becoming more and more like a dream to him. He went to his club
almost from habit. Presently the excitement which all London seemed
to be sharing drove his own personal feelings a little into the
background. The air was full of rumors. The Prime Minister and the
Foreign Secretary were spoken of as one speaks of heroes. Nothing
was definitely known, but there was a splendid feeling of confidence
that for once in her history England was preparing to justify her
existence as a great Power.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE PLOT THAT FAILED

The progress of the Czar from Buckingham Palace to the Mansion
House, where he had, after all, consented to lunch with the Lord
Mayor, witnessed a popular outburst of enthusiasm absolutely
inexplicable to the general public. It was known that affairs in
Central Europe were in a dangerously precarious state, and it was
felt that the Czar's visit here, and the urgent summons which had
brought from St. Petersburg his Foreign Minister, were indications
that the long wished-for entente between Russia and this country
was now actually at hand. There was in the Press a curious
reticence with regard to the development of the political situation.
One felt everywhere that it was the calm before the storm - that at
any moment the great black headlines might tell of some startling
stroke of diplomacy, some dangerous peril averted or defied. The
circumstances themselves of the Czar's visit had been a little
peculiar. On his arrival it was announced that, for reasons of
health, the original period of his stay, namely a week, was to be
cut down to two days. No sooner had he arrived at Windsor, however,
than a change was announced. The Czar had so far recovered as to
be able even to extend the period at first fixed for his visit.
Simultaneously with this, the German and Austrian Press were full
of bitter and barely veiled articles, whose meaning was unmistakable.
The Czar had thrown in his lot at first with Austria and Germany.
That he was going deliberately to break away from that arrangement
there seemed now scarcely any manner of doubt.

Bellamy and Louise, from a window in Fleet Street, watched him go
by. Prince Rosmaran had been specially bidden to the luncheon, but
he, too, had been with them earlier in the morning. Afterwards
they turned their backs upon the city, and as soon as the crowd had
thinned made their way to one of the west-end restaurants.

"It seems too good to be true," declared Louise. Bellamy nodded.

"Nevertheless I am convinced that it is true. The humor of the
whole thing is that it was our friends in Germany themselves who
pressed the Czar not to altogether cancel his visit for fear of
exciting suspicion. That, of course, was when there seemed to be
no question of the news of the Vienna compact leaking out. They
would never have dared to expose a man to such a trial as the
Czar must have faced when the resume of the Vienna proceedings, in
the Chancellor's own handwriting, was read to him at Windsor."

"You saw the telegram from Paris?" Louise interposed. "The
special mission from St. Petersburg has been recalled."

Bellamy smiled.

"It all goes to prove what I say," he went on. "Any morning you
may expect to hear that Austria and Germany have received an
ultimatum."

"I wonder," she remarked, "what became of Streuss."

"He is hiding somewhere in London, without a doubt," Bellamy
answered. "There's always plenty of work for spies."

"Don't use that word," she begged.

He made a little grimace.

"You are thinking of my own connection with the profession, are you
not?" he asked. "Well, that counts for nothing now. I hope I may
still serve my country for many years, but it must be in a different
way."

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"I heard from my uncle's solicitors this morning," Bellamy continued,
"that he is very feeble and cannot live more than a few months.
When he dies, of course, I must take my place in the House of Lords.
It is his wish that I should not leave England again now, so I
suppose there is nothing left for me but to give it up. I have done
my share of traveling and work, after all," he concluded,
thoughtfully.

"Your share, indeed," she murmured. "Remember that but for that
document which was read to the Czar at Windsor, Servia must have
gone down, and England would have had to take a place among the
second-class Powers. There may be war now, it is true, but it
will be a glorious war."

"Louise, very soon we shall know. Until then I will say nothing.
But I do not want you altogether to forget that there has been
something in my life dearer to me even than my career for these
last few years."

Her blue eyes were suddenly soft. She looked across towards him
wistfully.

"Dear," she whispered, "things will be altered with you now. I am
not fit to be the wife of an English peer - I am not noble."

He laughed.

"I am afraid," he assured her, "that I am democrat enough to think
you one of the noblest women on earth. Why should I not? Your
life itself has been a study in devotion. The modern virtues seem
almost to ignore patriotism, yet the love of one's country is a
splendid thing. But don't you think, Louise, that we have done
our work that it is time to think of ourselves?"

She gave him her hand.

"Let us see," she said. "Let us wait for a little time and see what
comes."

That night another proof of the popular feeling, absolutely
spontaneous, broke out in one of the least expected places. Louise
was encored for her wonderful solo in a modern opera of bellicose
trend, and instead of repeating it she came alone on the stage after
a few minutes' absence, dressed in Servian national dress. For a
short time the costume was not recognized. Then the music - the
national hymn of Servia, and the recollection of her parentage,
brought the thing home to the audience. They did not even wait for
her to finish. In the middle of her song the applause broke like a
crash of thunder. From the packed gallery to the stalls they cheered
her wildly, madly. A dozen times she came before the curtain. It
seemed impossible that they would ever let her go. Directly she
turned to leave the stage, the uproar broke out again. The manager
at last insisted upon it that she should speak a few words. She
stood in the centre of the stage amid a silence as complete as the
previous applause had been unanimous. Her voice reached easily to
every place in the House.

"I thank you all very much," she said. "I am very happy indeed to
be in London, because it is the capital city of the most generous
country in the world - the country that is always ready to protect
and help her weaker neighbors. I am a Servian, and I love my
country, and therefore," she added, with a little break in her
voice, - "therefore I love you all."

It was nearly midnight before the audience was got rid of, and the
streets of London had not been so impassable for years. Crowds
made their way to the front of Buckingham Palace and on to the War
Office, where men were working late. Everything seemed to denote
that the spirit of the country was roused: The papers next morning
made immense capital of the incident, and for the following
twenty-four hours suspense throughout the country was almost at
fever height. It was known that the Cabinet Council had been
sitting for six hours. It was known, too, that without the least
commotion, with scarcely any movements of ships that could be
called directly threatening, the greatest naval force which the
world had ever known was assembling off Dover. The stock markets
were wildly excited. Laverick, back again in his office, found
that his return to his accustomed haunts occasioned scarcely any
comment. More startling events were shaping themselves. His own
remarkable adventure remained, curiously enough, almost undiscussed.

He left the office shortly before his usual time, notwithstanding
the rush of business, and drove at once to the little house in
Theobald Square. Zoe was lying on the sofa, still white, but
eager to declare that the pain had gone and that she was no longer
suffering.

"It is too absurd," she declared, smiling, "my having this nurse
here. Really, there is nothing whatever the matter with me. I
should have gone to the theatre, but you see it is no use."

She passed him the letter which she had been reading, and which
contained her somewhat curt dismissal. He laughed as he tore it
into pieces.

"Are you so sorry, Zoe? Is the stage so wonderful a place that
you could not bear to think of leaving it?"
She shook her head.

"It is not that," she whispered. "You know that it is not that."

He smiled as he took her confidently into his arms.

"There is a much more arduous life in front of you, dear," he said.
"You have to come and look after me for the rest of your days. A
bachelor who marries as late in life as I do, you know, is a trying
sort of person."

She shrank away a little.

"You don't mean it," she murmured.

"You know very well that I mean it," he answered, kissing her. "I
think you knew from the very first that sooner or later you were
doomed to become my wife."

She sighed faintly and half-closed her eyes. For the moment she
had forgotten everything. She was absolutely and completely happy.

Later on he made her dress and come out to dinner, and afterwards,
as they sat talking, he laid an evening paper before her.

"Zoe," he declared, "the best thing that could has happened. You
will not be foolish, dear, about it, I know. Remember the
alternative - and read that."

She glanced at the few lines which announced the finding of Arthur
Morrison in a house in Bloomsbury Square. The police had apparently
tracked him down, and he had shot himself at the final moment. The
details of his last few hours were indescribable. Zoe shuddered,
and her eyes filled with tears. She smiled bravely in his face,
however.

"It is terrible," she whispered simply, "but, after all, he was no
relation of mine, and he tried to do you a frightful injury. When
I think of that, I find it hard even to be sorry.

There was indeed almost a pitiless look in her face as she folded
up the paper, as though she felt something of that common instinct
of her sex which transforms a gentle woman so quickly into a hard,
merciless creature when the being whom she loves is threatened.

Laverick smiled.

"Let us go out into the streets," he said, "and hear what all this
excitement is about."

They bought a late edition, and there it was at last in black and
white. An ultimatum had been presented at Berlin and Vienna.
Certain treaty rights which had been broken with regard to Austria's
action in the East were insisted upon by Great Britain. It was
demanded that Austria should cease the mobilization of her troops
upon the Servian frontier, and renounce all rights to a protectorate
over that country, whose independence Great Britain felt called upon,
from that time forward, to guarantee. It was further announced that
England, France, and Russia were acting in this matter in complete
concert, and that the neutrality of Italy was assured. Further, it
was known that the great English fleet had left for the North Sea
with sealed orders.

Laverick took Zoe home early and called later at Bellamy's rooms.
Bellamy greeted him heartily. He was on the point of going out,
and the two men drove off together in the latter's car.

"See, my dear friend," Bellamy exclaimed, "what great things come
from small means! The document which you preserved for us, and
for which we had to fight so hard, has done all this."

"It is marvelous!" Laverick murmured.

"It is very simple," Bellamy declared. "That meeting in Vienna was
meant to force our hands. It is all a question of the balance of
strength. Germany and Austria together, with Russia friendly, -
even with Russia neutral, - could have defied Europe. Germany could
have spread out her army westwards while Austria seized upon her
prey. It was a splendid plot, and it was going very well until the
Czar himself was suddenly confronted by our King and his Ministers
with a revelation of the whole affair. At Windsor the thing seemed
different to him. The French Government behaved splendidly, and the
Czar behaved like a man. Germany and Austria are left plante la.
If they fight, well, it will be no one-sided affair. They have no
fleet, or rather they will have none in a fortnight's time. They
have no means of landing an army here. Austria, perhaps, can hold
Russia, but with a French army in better shape than it has been for
years, and the English landing as many men as they care to do, with
ease, anywhere on the north coast of Germany, the entire scheme
proved abortive. Come into the club and have a drink, Laverick.
To-day great things have happened to me."

"And to me," Laverick interposed.

"You can guess my news, perhaps," Bellamy said, as they seated
themselves in easy-chairs. "Mademoiselle Idiale has promised to
be my wife."

Laverick held out his hand.

"I congratulate you heartily!" he exclaimed. "I have been an
engaged man myself for something like half-an-hour."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

A FAREWELL APPEARANCE

"One thing, at least, these recent adventures should teach whoever
may be responsible for the government of this country," Bellamy
remarked to his wife, as he laid down the morning paper. "For the
first time in many years we have taken the aggressive against Powers
of equal standing. We were always rather good at bullying smaller
countries, but the bare idea of an ultimatum to Germany would have
made our late Premier go lightheaded."

"And yet it succeeded," Louise reminded him.

"Absolutely," he affirmed. "To-day's news makes peace a certainty.
If your country knew everything, Louise, they'd give us a royal
welcome next month."

"You really mean that we are to go there, then?" she asked.

"It isn't exactly one of my privileges," he declared, "to fix upon
the spot where we shall take our belated honeymoon, but I haven't
been in Belgrade for years, and I know you'd like to see your
people."

"It will be more happiness than I ever dreamed of," she murmured.
"Do you think we shall be safe in passing through Vienna?"

Bellamy laughed.

"Remember," he said, "that I am no longer David Bellamy, with a
silver greyhound attached to my watch-chain and an obnoxious
reputation in foreign countries. I am Lord Denchester of
Denchester, a harmless English peer traveling on his honeymoon.
By the way, I hope you like the title."

"I shall love it when I get used to it," she declared. "To be an
English Countess is dazzling, but I do think that I ought not to
go on singing at Covent Garden."

"To-morrow will be your last night," he reminded her. "I have asked
Laverick and the dear little girl he is going to marry to come with
me. Afterwards we must all have supper together."

"How nice of you!" she exclaimed.

"I don't know about that," Bellamy said, smiling. "I really like
Laverick. He is a decent fellow and a good sort. Incidentally, he
was thundering useful to us, and pretty plucky about it. He
interests me, too, in another way. He is a man who, face to face
with a moral problem, acted exactly as I should have done myself!"

"You mean about the twenty thousand pounds?" she asked.

Bellamy assented.

"He was practically dishonest," he pointed out. "He had no right
to use that money and he ought to have taken the pocket-book to the
police-station. If he had done so - that is to say, if he had
waited there for the police, if he had been seen to hold out that
pocket-book, to have discussed it with any one, it is ten to one
that there would have been another tragedy that night. At any
rate, the document would never have come to us."

She smiled.

"My moral judgment is warped," she asserted, "from the fact that
Laverick's decision brought us the document."

He nodded.

"Perhaps so," he agreed, "and yet, there was the man face to face
with ruin. The use of that money for a few hours did no one any
harm, and saved him. I say that such a deed is always a matter of
calculation, and in this case that he was justified."

"I wonder what he really thinks about it himself," she remarked.

"Perhaps I'll ask him."

But when the time came, and he sat in the box with Laverick and Zoe,
he forgot everything else in the joy of watching the woman whom he
had loved so long. She moved about the stage that night as though
her feet indeed fell upon the air. She appeared to be singing
always with restraint, yet with some new power in her voice, a
quality which even in her simpler notes left the great audience
thrilled. Already there was a rumor that it was her last appearance.
Her marriage to Bellamy had been that day announced in the Morning
Post. When, in the last act, she sang alone on the stage the famous
love song, it seemed to them all that although her voice trembled
more than once, it was a new thing to which they listened. Zoe
found herself clasping Laverick's hand in tremulous excitement.
Bellamy sat like a statue, a little back in the box, his clean-cut
face thrown into powerful relief by the shadows beyond. Yet, as
he listened, his eyes, too, were marvelously soft. The song grew
and grew till, with the last notes, the whole story of an exquisite
and expectant passion seemed trembling in her voice. The last note
came from her lips almost as though unwillingly, and was prolonged
for an extraordinary period. When it died away, its passing seemed
something almost unrealizable. It quivered away into a silence
which lasted for many seconds before the gathering roar of applause
swept the house. And in those last few seconds she had turned and
faced Bellamy. Their eyes met, and the light which flashed from
his seemed answered by the quivering of her throat. It was her
good-bye. She was singing a new love-song, singing her way into
the life of the man whom she loved, singing her way into love
itself. Once more the great house, packed to the ceiling, was worked
up to a state of frenzied excitement. Bellamy was recognized, and
the significance of her song sent a wave of sentiment through the
house whose only possible form of expression took to itself shape in
the frantic greetings which called her to the front again and again.
But the three in the box were silent. Bellamy stood back in the
shadows. Laverick and Zoe seemed suddenly to become immersed in
themselves. Bellamy threw open the door of the box and pointed
outside.

"At Luigi's in half-an-hour," said he softly. "You will excuse me
for a few minutes? I am going to Louise."

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