Chapter I: We Meet the Duke

The character of my friend Bernard O’Hagan is a maze within a maze, a dædalian labyrinth, to the heart whereof I long since have despaired of penetrating. His sense of humour is acute, but peculiar. A man, he declares, who cannot laugh at Mark Twain is a man from whose soul the joy of life has departed. Yet his idea of bliss would seem to be existence in a Persian rose-garden with some few congenial spirits, and, for attendants, only Greek youths and maidens of flawless classic beauty.

Grotesque anomaly! For I defy any philosopher to reconcile the ideals of Petronius Arbiter, Omar, and Samuel Clemens!

“Alas, O’Hagan,” I say, “this world of ours is a grey place.”

But he turns to me in surprise, monocle raised, and studies my face with a certain apprehension.

“How can you say so, Raymond? Have I not repeatedly demonstrated that Romance lurks in hiding amid the most prosaic surroundings? Adventure, my boy, is for the adventurous! It is only the blind who deny the existence of fauns. I will undertake to find you a nymph in any wood. Villains profound as the darkest dreams of Tolstoy regularly take tea in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; heroes loftier than Charlemagne jostle one in the Strand!”

Potential Cleopatras and Trojan Helens, I take it, abound in London. Only lacking is that clash of Circumstance and the Man, which, in history, has cast up such wondrous beings.

As I glance at my picturesque friend, head aloft, purple-lined cloak swung well back, and note the air of smiling defiance wherewith he faces the world, I perceive the _Man_, and with pleasurable anticipation await the Circumstance. I shall always remember one conversation of this kind, for the reason that it directly preceded our meeting with the Grand Duke.

We had just quitted the theatre. My proposal in reference to supper had discovered the interesting circumstance that our joint capital equalled three-and-nine.

“Had _you_ come out without money,” said O’Hagan, “I should not have been surprised. Had _I_ come out without money I should not have been surprised. But for us both, on the same evening, to do so, reveals the finger of Fate.”

O’Hagan, as he stood with one half of his face and figure lighted up by the glare of the theatre lamps, and the other blacked out in contrasting shadow, bore a resemblance rather more marked than usual to the Monarch of merry memory. Withal, he looked strikingly handsome. He is the only man of my acquaintance who can successfully wear a flowing, black dress tie.

Captain Bernard O’Hagan is a figure unforgettable.

“Well?” I said, impatiently watching the theatre-goers driving supperward. “Shall we have something at the club?”

“No, Raymond,” replied my friend, reflectively. “That would be capitulating. Is it possible that two honourable gentlemen, chancing to be without half a sovereign or so, are forced to sup on credit? I recall an episode in the career of my ancestor, Patrick.”

He is fond of recounting episodes in the career of this ancestor, Patrick—some time of the Musketeers of Louis XIII.—a gentleman who would seem to have been chiefly notable for suave ruffianism.

The nature of the episode I was not destined to learn, however, at the time; for as O’Hagan lighted a cigarette, a block in the traffic occurred at the corner of Wellington Street (do not misunderstand me to mean that the incidents were correlative); and a handsome limousine was held up immediately in front of us. The interior was brilliantly illuminated, and a gentleman who lounged upon the fawn-coloured cushions glanced curiously in our direction.

This gentleman, the sole occupant, was distinguished by fiery moustachios and a squarely trimmed beard. My association with what O’Hagan terms “the lower journalism” has familiarised me with the faces of notabilities.

“That is the Grand Duke John of Siresia,” I volunteered, idly.

“So it is,” said O’Hagan with lively interest. “So it is!”

And ere I could say another word he had stepped to the door of the car, opened it, and engaged the distinguished foreigner in conversation!

Whilst I knew O’Hagan’s visiting-list to be extensive and peculiar, I hitherto had been unaware that he was acquainted with the Siresian autocrat. His action took me completely by surprise. Then, just as the policeman ahead released the pent-up traffic, my friend turned and beckoned to me.

Full of a great wonder, I joined him at the open door.

“Get in, Raymond!” he directed briefly, and thrust me, speechless with astonishment, into a seat opposite the great personage.

The chauffeur glanced back. The footman leapt down and came to the step. As in a dream, I heard rapid, guttural instructions. The footman saluted and leapt to his place. The car moved smoothly onward.

O’Hagan raised his monocle, gazing at the bearded nobleman; then waved it gracefully in my direction.

“You may not have met my friend, Mr. Lawrence Raymond,” he said, with the lordly condescension which he, alone, knows how to assume. “Raymond—His Highness the Grand Duke John of Siresia!”

—————