Chapter I

"My dear Charles," observed the Honorable Virginia Lauriston in her very clear voice, "you simply must realize that a girl isn't necessarily a fool just because she _is_ a girl."

The great drawing-room at Wynwood disposes its noble proportions like a graceful woman. The furniture was looted at the sack of a continental palace, and upon its south wall hangs Titian's celebrated _Pink Lady_. The French windows of the great drawing-room at Wynwood give upon the first of sweeping tiers of terraces constructed in the days when every one had plenty of money. Sir Charles Gillespie liked to sit there in the summer when the cost of heating need not worry him, thus combining spaciousness with economy.

Virginia, swathed in the softest old-rose, poised herself delicately on a carved and gilded armchair, its silk tapestry frayed by the limbs of distinguished generations. Her white shoulders, the most perfect among society, quivered in the faintest shrug. The light from a solitary chandelier high in the painted ceiling caressed her beautifully waved hair; she turned her admirable profile, glanced at her companion out of calm eyes neither gray nor green and went on reproachfully:

"You don't seriously mean to be a beast to little Vingie, do you, Charles?"

Sir Charles smiled at her a smile enriched by almost sixty years of joyous bachelorhood. The ingredients of that smile are lost and irreplaceable. Eton, two years in the Guards and then Embassy after Embassy had gone to its making; the esteem of every head waiter in Europe, the genuine interest of more than thirty reigning beauties had mellowed it. Innumerable tight corners had steadied it. Vingie, aged twenty, could see through it like glass.

"No woman with your looks is ever a fool. Sometimes, however, she's a little ill-advised."

Vingie enlaced her slender fingers round one knee, exhibiting two of the purest ankles in the world, never shifting her level glance.

"You've had your good time, Charles, and now you've got into the stuffy stage and want to water down everybody else's. I should hate you to drive me into deceit."

"The man is not born who could drive a woman into anything," replied Sir Charles, making, however, a mental reservation in favor of himself.

"You're so impossibly reasonable, Charles, dear. A lot of very pretty women must have worked frightfully hard over you. It's very difficult being a girl. You see, I want a career."

"Oh, my God!" murmured Sir Charles, staring out over the umbrageousness of the park.

Vingie fluttered weightlessly across the deep-piled carpet and set herself gently on his knee. One arm stole around his neck, and her irreproachably waved hair just crushed his cheek. Sir Charles suffered a desperate internal revolution. He knew she was his ward, and the situation might not be exploited; he knew the powder from that moonbeam arm would never really leave his dress coat, unless it went to the cleaners.

Vingie, stroking the gray head with devilish fingers, proceeded to intensify the torture.

"Lovely thick hair," she murmured. "Thank heaven you'll never go bald, Charles. You're awf'ly young in some ways--but then fifty-five's nothing for a man. I loathe boys--they're so shallow and pig-headed. I don't mean a career in your sense of the word, you old silly--not a typist nor a sanitary inspectress nor a she-doctor, nor even a membress of Parliament. They wear simply odious clothes, and men hate them. But I've only a thousand a year of my own and that hardly buys stockings nowadays. Why, even these were four guineas."

She extended one pure ankle. Sir Charles could see with his own eyes just what one gets in the way of half a pair of stockings at four guineas the pair.

"I want a career like Helen of Troy's or Cleopatra's, Charles--something tremendous that lets a woman be a woman. I should like to toy with statesmen and drive foreign offices mad."

Sir Charles removed the arm from about his neck and achieved a deprecating smile.

"Marriage is the only career for a girl in our set, Virginia: wife of a coming man, one of the great political hostesses; Rupert's for instance."

Vingie slid lingeringly from his knee.

"I don't think little Vingie wants to be married," she said at last. "My wild oats aren't sown--not one teeny little oat. Besides, Rupert fatigues me. He dances rottenly, and he doesn't understand the first thing about women. Where would you be if you hadn't understood women to the very depths, Charles?"

"Probably among the ten richest men in the country, instead of scraping to raise the interest on the mortgage. Rupert will go far, Virginia. He's a worker; a damn' sound, plodding, ambitious fellow, with the sort of face anybody's husband would trust and the instincts of a gentleman. I should give my daughter to him without a pang, if I had a daughter and he wanted to marry her and there were nobody in a position to get up and forbid the banns."

The door opened casually and there entered Rupert Frack of the Foreign Office, with knitted brow. He propelled his tall lank figure into the family circle; his dark hair lay protestingly where it had been put, his trousers hung in depressing folds, and his hands, thrust into his jacket pockets, made the garment sag slantwise. He had never really grasped the essential spirituality of tying a dress tie.

Flinging a mechanical smile at Virginia like a bone to a dog, he said gloomily to Sir Charles:

"I've had a wire from the Foreign Minister in code fourteen. Begins:

"J arrives by air on the tenth and goes to D. Very hush-hush. Please arrange. Practically no servants and the telephone disconnected. Radio set to be installed. Local supplies out of the question; the whole show to be entirely self-supporting. Suitable amusement essential. Ends."

Sir Charles raised his eyebrows and spread out his hands.

"The tenth," he murmured sorrowfully. "That's the opening day of the Hampshire Summer Meeting. Bill Derringham was taking me down in his Rolls. The Lovelace filly is practically a certainty for the three-thirty race, and I've got a hatful on her at a very tempting price. I shall go and ring up Fordingbridge and tell him what I think of him."

Sir Charles went out jauntily, and if souls wore hats, the hat of Sir Charles' soul would have been slightly on one side. Rupert Frack dropped into a chair and stared fixedly before him. Vingie regarded him with kind eyes, and said:

"Rupert, who is she? You can tell me because I'm frightfully sympathetic--almost psychic, in fact. Does she wear black undies and sniff cocaine, or is she one of those innocent-faced little cats with the temperament of a fiend? Poor boy, you look simply worried to death."

Rupert glanced up palely and smote her.

"I am not in love, if that's what you mean. I haven't time. My mind is occupied with more important matters. When every day brings an international crisis or two, one's private feelings must go by the board."

Vingie seated herself before him.

"Then you ought to be thrown out of the Foreign Office. The whole world is a wangle, Rupert, and nobody can wangle like a woman. I can't think how you dare say you're not in love. It isn't safe. Some day a Hungarian adventuress with cloth-topped boots and moldy furs and a Shaftesbury Avenue hat will put it across you and you'll have to go out and plant rubber in Ceylon to hide your disgrace. You see, you might even fall in love with me one day. I'm considered awfully pretty, Rupert. P'r'aps you've never noticed? Look!"

His mind working in its trivial rut, stumbled on an idea.

"By jove," he exclaimed, "there's that phrase in the telegram. You might provide the essential amusement."

Vingie left him because some situations are beyond words. She went up-stairs to her bedroom, undressed, curled herself in an armchair and picked up a book. The night breeze kissed her bare throat and stirred restlessly in her hair.

"Although Angela had dismissed Richard," said the book, "his image remained graven immovably on her heart. She missed his strength, his delicate courtesy, though behind it lurked ever the ruthlessness of the male. She sensed the misery of loneliness. She had ceased to belong to any one----"

Vingie threw the book peevishly across the room.

"Tosh!" she muttered, yawning shamelessly. She spent a deft half-hour cold-creaming her face, dabbed a little powder here and there, slid out of her cobwebby wrap and climbed slowly into bed. As she switched off the light a faint giggle parted her lips. She was thinking of Rupert.

At six A.M. Rupert Frack, looking longer and limper than ever in pajamas and dressing-gown, entered Sir Charles' room quietly but firmly, carrying a black leather portfolio. He coughed, drew an armchair to the bedside, and sat waiting. Sir Charles merely opened his eyes, saw Rupert Frack and closed them again.

"Are you just getting up or just going to bed, Rupert?" he murmured without the least trace of ill-temper. "In either case I'm sure they've given you a room of your own. P'r'aps you've mistaken the door. One door looks very like another."

The visitor opened his portfolio and began arranging papers methodically.

"The chief will be here at ten," he explained, "and I'd just like to get everything cut and dried before he comes, Uncle Charles. This Janowicz affair is going to be frightfully delicate. I want to have all the ground clear for the chief."

Sir Charles opened his eyes again, experienced, patient, rather heavy-lidded eyes.

"If the Angel of Death were calling for me at ten I should still have my cup of tea and biscuit at eight," he complained. "I never attempt anything whatever before my early cup of tea, Rupert. As for Fordingbridge's getting here by ten, the idea is nonsense. He'll arrive just in time for luncheon, if he comes at all."

"Still the matter is very complicated, and it will take one some time to explain clearly," asserted Rupert. "I will begin with our note dated April twenty-sixth."

Sir Charles' eyes glinted.

"Go away, you idiot boy," he commanded. "No wonder you look older than I do, Rupert. No wonder you earn people's undying hatred by your poisonous efficiency. No great man is ever efficient. He leaves that to people like you, and then in the nick of time he comes down wallop and settles the whole thing. Get out of my room. You can say your piece after breakfast."

"It throws out my entire day, but of course if you insist----" grumbled Rupert. He gathered his effects and departed. In his own chamber he lighted a long black cigar, having an iron digestion, and began to pore over a large-scale map of Bessarabia.

At half past seven the laughing feet of sunbeams running races over her adorable face awoke Vingie. She too opened her eyes, and gazed inquiringly round the room. Fortunately she did not find Rupert Frack sitting beside her bed with a portfolio. Instead she dwelt lovingly on the sycamore-wood furniture, the silk hangings and upholstery, and cream Persian carpet, the dressing-table fittings--ivory-backed brushes, and the table top swung back to reveal rows and rows of tiny pots and bottles containing Beauty at fabulous prices.

"How good Charles is to his little lamb!" she murmured contentedly. "Dear, nice, wicked old thing. It takes a long and ill-spent life to teach a man how to look after a girl properly. That's why Rupert's so hopeless. He hasn't a mind above his wretched work. Could I marry Rupert? No, not yet, anyhow. He's too clever and too respectable. I adore a clever man, but he mustn't despise me. Rupert does. He thinks I'm a fluffy empty-headed little nuisance. He must be taught till he goes sick in the tummy when he hears my footstep in the distance. That's what I call love in a man. A girl goes sick in the tummy if she doesn't hear his footstep in the distance, in case some other girl does."

A smile played round Vingie's delightful mouth, a mouth not too small for kisses and not too large for beauty.

A knock fell on the door. There entered a pretty maid bearing a morning tea set of egg-shell china. Virginia poured herself a cup, drank thirstily and began to nibble a wafer of bread spread with golden butter.

"'Morning, Mary," she said. The pretty maid smiled. She was folding Vingie's clothes with caressing fingers. "Give me a hand glass," continued Vingie, and began to examine her face with the ruthless scrutiny of a specialist exploring a possibly inflamed appendix.

"You'd better massage my skin with that Circassian cream," she announced after deep thought. "I don't want to look a hag to-day."

Remote in the bachelors' wing, Rupert Frack's morning toilet afforded no such charm. He stood moodily before the glass, his mind far away in the Middle East, and the _kriss kriss_ of the razor against his beard fell on deaf ears.

A sad-faced, silent valet struggled despondently with Rupert's clothes. As fast as Grimes pressed them into shape, Rupert, like all really clever men--genius as distinct from mere talent--dragged them out again; and Grimes it "give 'im the fair 'ump, so it did--nothing but h'iron, h'iron all day long."

Exactly at twelve-thirty the tires of Lord Fordingbridge's car crunched fatly on the gravel outside the main entrance. That jaunty and rubicund old gentleman sprang out with boyish abandon, removed his gray tall hat, and danced over the smooth lawn to greet Vingie.

Exercising the privilege of an old friend he folded her willowy figure against his double-breasted holland waistcoat and kissed her in the manner of a connoisseur. They moved slowly side by side into the house. Rupert received them solemnly on the threshold.

"Good morning, sir," he began with his excessive competence. "Since receiving your code telegram I have worked out the whole matter in great detail. No doubt you will wish to discuss it with Sir Charles at once."

"Hey!" retorted Lord Fordingbridge genially, "not before luncheon, young man, not before luncheon! God bless me, unheard of, absolutely unheard of! Good morning, Charles! I have captured a young damsel. She is the captive of my bow and spear. Let's toast her in a glass of something. The dust on these roads is a perfect plague. My throat's like sand-paper."

"Well," intoned Sir Charles absently, "here's jolly good luck." He made a face at Rupert and drank.

"A little luncheon I think, if you please, Charles," said Lord Fordingbridge at last. "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and Virginia sitting beside me. Even at my age there are consolations."

"And the older one gets the more they cost," murmured Sir Charles with gentle melancholy.

For an hour Vingie played skilfully with them all. Then she wandered away on dreaming feet. Lord Fordingbridge watched her go, his eyes a thought less innocent. Sir Charles lighted a cigar and said resignedly: "Well, George, you bird of ill-omen, would you like to come into my study and get it over? Rupert has the entire archives of the Foreign Office in a medium-sized portfolio."

In oak and leather sanctuary Rupert unlocked certain dispatch cases and glanced inquiringly at his chief.

"Go on, my boy," said that great man, closing his eyes and settling deeper in his armchair.

Through many golden minutes the voice of Rupert Frack cut pitilessly, reading documents of state. Lord Fordingbridge slept like a tired child; Sir Charles, gazing out of the window, wondered wistfully if the Lovelace filly had really been heard coughing in her stable. At length the voice of Rupert ceased and Lord Fordingbridge woke instantly.

"Good lad, good lad!" he exclaimed admiringly, and addressed himself to his host.

"Y' see, Charles, Janowicz, the Prime Minister of Jugo-Czechia wants a loan of thirty thousand million kronen. It's got to be hushed up because if the rest of Europe knew, about ten States 'ud invade Janowicz's country to get hold of the loot. He's coming over by air, and I'd like him to go to your cottage in Dorset where nobody'll see him. The money's safe because he's willing to lease us an oil-field as security. It's a good oil-field; I've had a man go all over it; but we'd rather not lend him quite so much on it--'tisn't safe. He might double the army and start fighting. The thing is to get him down in Dorset with just you and Rupert and me, and settle everything comfortably. I'd like Virginia to be hostess if she will. Does it rather well, I consider. You got my wire about the details. Hope I'm not putting you out."

"It seems a lot of fuss. How much are all these kronen worth--about fourpence?" asked Sir Charles. "All right, George, I'll arrange everything except Vingie. You'd better do that yourself. Rupert, old thing, if you've locked up all your murky past, why not come and help me find her?"

They found her in a deep cane lounge within the shadow of the terrace, a copy of Baudelaire's poems in her lap, a box of chocolates by her side. She looked up at them with the supreme tolerance of a girl for men, and they delivered their message.

Vingie rose delicately to her feet and passed into the house. Lord Fordingbridge received her magnificently, bowing her into a chair. For three minutes he outlined the position.

"I am very poor, m'lud," she announced at last. "You want me to use such looks and such wits as I have for your benefit entirely free of charge. It doesn't seem quite fair."

"My dear Virginia, what can I offer you? You wouldn't take money, and my heart is sixty-five years old!"

"It's dreadful to be offered money; it's worse not to have any. Why not call it my expenses? Clothes are frightfully important on these occasions. Suppose we say a year's credit at my dressmaker's?"

"It sounds very terrible--very terrible indeed," murmured Lord Fordingbridge dismally. "Of course there are ways and means. It needn't come up on the estimates, or be debated in the House, but still----"

"The very nicest stockings cost four guineas, and you can see what one gets for the money," she complained.

His lordship glanced critically at two slender ankles. It did indeed seem a pity that they should ever be unsuitably clad.

"Well, well," said he--so little does it take to turn the scale--"and how much would you suggest for this annual credit?"

"Oh, about two thousand pounds. You see, if I'm to have any effect on the negotiations I shall need to dress the part. I'm simply in rags at the moment." She stood up and smiled, and Lord Fordingbridge held the door for her respectfully.

"If I may say so, you display a positive genius for finance," he observed. "You take a great weight off my aged shoulders."

Sir Charles' Dorset cottage stands on the slope of a hill declining to the cliff edge. The grounds, some forty acres in extent, are surrounded on the landward side by a high brick wall built when bricks and bricklayers cost relatively nothing. From these reasons it seemed ideal for a secret conference; nothing remained to be done but erect a marquee for the detectives and import a few old servants who had been bred up in the family from boy to man.

In the beginning of twilight Vingie from her rose-embowered casement peeped down to watch the distinguished visitors arrive. Behind her the housekeeper from Wynwood, sixty years old and completely out of touch with modern feminine garments, struggled stonily with the duties of a lady's maid. Sir Charles had proclaimed Mary on diplomatic grounds.

A nondescript hired car, driven by a police chauffeur, a detective beside him, drew up, and there descended two gentlemen in frock coats and silk hats, having the appearance of an undertaker and his chief of staff.

The taller she took to be Mr. Janowicz. Even the funereal garb could not altogether obscure a certain charm, a breadth of shoulder and narrowness of hip, a faint suggestion of swagger. He had a pale thin face, a little black mustache and ironic eyes.

The smaller, Mr. Misch, was doubtless his secretary. Having regard to Mr. Misch's prominent nose, his thin beard, his rotund presence and a mannerism of washing his hands with invisible soap and water, Vingie discovered his Christian name to be Lazarus without surprise.

Rupert Frack received them with distant courtesy. The featureless car rolled fitfully away. Vingie turned back to her dressing.

"I have changed my mind, Vokes. Please give me the black frock and my pearls," she said languidly.

She met him first at dinner. Sir Charles displayed his perfect polished courtesy. Lord Fordingbridge wore his invariable dress clothes of eighteenth-century cut with ruffled shirt and lace stock, and Mr. Misch looked like a rather deplorable waiter. But Mr. Janowicz bowed over her hand with a kind of passionate boredom yet gracefully withal, and his eyes swept her in sardonic admiration.

He observed in French that he was enchanted. They spoke French for the benefit of Mr. Misch, since no foreigner can grasp the Jugo-Czechian tongue, and Mr. Misch knew no English.

On her left at the round dinner table in a bow window, scents of roses and new-mown grass stealing beneath the raised sashes, and the far-off sighing of the sea in the distance, Vingie felt his personality react to hers as a rider feels his horse take hold of the bit. Rupert was saying very correct things in very correct French, Sir Charles and Lord Fordingbridge chatted impersonally, Mr. Misch fawned. Vingie turned and said in English so that Mr. Misch might not understand:

"Do you like my frock, Mr. Janowicz? I chose it specially for you when I saw you get out of the car, because I thought you looked rather difficult."

"I can not tell. I do not know you. When I know you I shall tell you. We shall know each other very well very soon. It is so, is it not?" he answered. "For three days I stay. In three days we shall live a lifetime. In my heart I feel it. The heart is never wrong."

"It sounds topping!" drawled Vingie. She stared at him under half-closed lids, giving him insolence for insolence, but he only said:

"I do not mean to be rude. One can not help but know these things."

Vingie, a faint color stealing into her cheeks, heard the voice of Rupert Frack say emphatically:

"I do not think we should trust too much to the League of Nations, Mr. Janowicz."

"Personally," retorted Mr. Janowicz, raising his fine eyebrows, "I do not trust anybody. In love, in war, in diplomacy, it is not safe.

"There is always one who interrupts, is there not?" he went on to Vingie. "You who are beautiful have doubtless noticed it. Presently we shall go where no one interrupts. For me there is no one but you in this house. For such as these----" his glance indicated Sir Charles, Rupert, Lord Fordingbridge--"I have provided Misch. There are always such people and there is always a Misch. It is the elementary justice of Providence."

"Mr. Janowicz," answered Vingie slowly, "I think you have very simple and beautiful ideas. Perhaps after dinner I will show you the rose-garden by moonlight. It isn't everybody who would understand or appreciate the rose-garden by moonlight, but you're different. Your soul isn't commonplace. As a rule men are deaf and dumb and blind to the finer things of life. Don't you agree?"

"It is exactly what I would have said myself," declared Mr. Janowicz, gazing scornfully at Sir Charles, Rupert, Lord Fordingbridge and Mr. Misch.

When eventually Vingie left the table, Mr. Janowicz escorted her to the door with the suppressed splendor of a well-trained equerry. Returning to his place he made no attempt to conceal profound boredom, treating the rest of the party like dirt. At the earliest opportunity he sought Vingie's side. She smiled up at him with grace, wisdom and understanding.

"In here we stifle," he said abruptly. "Let us, if you please, seek the rose-garden. We shall find it more congenial."

She stood for one moment, surveying the scene: Rupert and Mr. Misch, deep in diplomatic commonplaces, Sir Charles and Lord Fordingbridge absorbed in a game of piquet. Then, on the arm of Mr. Janowicz, she passed joyfully amid surroundings of roses and romance.

"For a one-time senior major in the Hussars of the Guard mine is a dog's life," he complained. "But since the war all things are changed. There are no Hussars and no Guard. Still a gentleman is always a gentleman. Our prime minister, a worthy blacksmith, realizes his shortcomings. He would be at a loss with our friends indoors. Hence, against his will, he appoints me foreign minister. You see, really I am Count Oscar Janowicz, but we do not talk of that now. As for this quarreling over money, I shall leave it to Misch. He is the sort of person who enjoys it."

"Poor Count Oscar!" murmured Vingie very sweetly. Her satin-shod feet glided silently across the velvet lawn in a little romantic dream. The tall figure on her left moved with slow and stately stride. On his heels tinkled ghostly spurs, at his side trailed an invisible sword.

"Ah! not poor Count Oscar to-night," he exclaimed. "To-night I am the servant of beauty. There were never such roses as these roses around us, and this moon, which has looked down on a myriad lovers, never shone so brightly, and the infinite sweetness of this garden was never so sweet before. There are moments in life, Virginia--is it not so? If they endured longer than a moment we could not bear them; we should die of ecstasy."

Virginia, standing beneath an arch of pink ramblers, pulled down a spray and laid it against her cheek. Undoubtedly there was magic abroad. Suddenly from a dark mass of trees one crystal note pealed out. "Hush!" she exclaimed. "Listen!"

The bird sang on and on. He may have been sobbing out the bitterness of a broken heart, or voicing that ecstasy more than a moment of which is intolerable. In any case he achieved a desperate result.

Mr. Janowicz stretched out his sword arm, clasped Virginia's hand that still enclosed the spray of pink beauty, and brushed lightly with his lips the curve of her bare arm.

"It is beautiful, that music--yes, but you are the most beautiful thing in the world!" he said.

As Virginia crossed the hall on her way to bed, Rupert Frack came out of the smoking-room, saw her and frowned. He stood in front of her, barring the path.

"Do you," he inquired, "altogether approve of your behavior with Janowicz this evening?"

She raised to him the accusing eyes of a hurt child and replied gently:

"He understands me better in one evening than you've done in a lifetime, Rupert."

"How do you know that?"

"He told me I'm the most beautiful thing in the world, and that's more than you ever did."

"If you think that a sufficient reward for a moonlight flirtation with a stranger----" snarled Rupert, but she lifted a restraining hand.

"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and you can't be an essential amusement without breaking hearts," she explained, and passed on trailing clouds of glory.