2

"A stunner.

Α Pity we can't find out more about her. virtuous yet suggestive leader would be just the thing for to-morrow. There's nothing in the telegrams except war rumours, and our readers much prefer a scandal.”

What if you could have followed the

Ah, Mr. Thornleigh! mysterious party to the Red House?

It was not As Mr. Carington escorted Paulovna down the staircase of the theatre to her carriage, they attracted everybody's gaze. only that Lily Page, the Incognita of the moment, had found a cavalier, but that he himself, looking young, through the power of spirit and style, and health of body and mind, was clearly a man of distinction. As they plodded downwards he was talking to her very seriously, still in Romaic: and when he placed her in the brougham, he said,

"My friend and I will be with you in an hour. Demetrius time to prepare. The Prince must join

That will give us, you know : and according to the temper in which I find him, will be the advice I give you. Adieu for an hour."

and Paulovna drove away. Mr. Carington took Conyers's arm, strolled with him into Bow Street, having ordered his brougham to wait for them. The night, though cold, was starlit and pleasant. "Well, Conyers," he asked, when they got beyond the bustle of carriages and cabs, "what do you think of Lily Page?"

'Very charming, and very odd. How came you to be so intimate with her? Is she-well—what people say she is?"

"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Carington. "It is my belief, Conyers,
that if I, in the immediate neighbourhood of that lighted police
office, were to tell you all I know about Lily Page, and how I know
it, you would give me into custody, and telegraph the F. S. to come
to London at once, lest it should be blown to imperceptible
atoms."

"Ah," said Conyers, "then don't, please. I should like a quiet
Besides, you promised me an introduction to some con-

supper.

spirators."

"We'll have a quiet supper with some conspirators; the real thing. Did you notice that black-bearded fellow at the box door? He's a Free Brother."

"The deuce! He looked like Agamemnon when he had made up
his mind to kill Iphigeneia."

"He's not a bad fellow, in some respects, but his ambition is to
assassinate an Emperor. I don't think he much cares which."
"Pleasant man to know," said Conyers.

with this amazing Lily Page?"

"She's a Silent Sister."

66

"What's his connexion

By Jove, she talked enough to you to-night."

"Well, she shall talk to you presently. We are going to sup

with her. Meanwhile, let us lounge into the Albion for a cigar. Perhaps we may see Prince Oistravieff."

They did not, as may be supposed, but they were marked down by Thornleigh and Deseret, who had come in to console each other for the impossibility of getting a leader out of the Lily. Thornleigh, a man of promptitude, thought he saw his opportunity, and came up to Conyers, whom he had often bored at Downing Street. Your Under-Secretary cannot afford to snub the editor of a daily paper, so the two got into a conversation apart. Mr. Carington, who was cooling himself with a pint of claret, guessed what was up, and was quietly amused by his friend's misadventure. But Conyers could take care of himself. Thornleigh's whispered remark, when he came back to his friend Roderick the Roamer, was

"No go."

"Who's your friend?" asked Mr. Carington, as they entered the brougham to drive to the Red House.

"O, don't ask. He's an editor. He wanted to know something about Lily Page in the interest of morality, and to be introduced to you in the interest of society. If there had been time I'd have invented for him a history of the Lily that would rather have astonished his readers to-morrow."

"He ought to be with us to-night," said Mr. Carington. "I am going to sup in a house of conspirators. You will meet Oistravieff, who has been their victim."

He briefly told Conyers the story.

"I met the Prince, and some of these people, in Russia, a good many years ago. I accidentally saved the life of one of them, at a wolf hunt. That was Demetrius, to whom poor Paulovna was to have been married. She is a marvellously clever woman, you can see; she is a great linguist and quite a brilliant little actress: but I think she has made a great mistake in marrying that rascal of a Prince. Demetrius would have married her at any moment. He is a very quiet fellow, but I doubt him. He will hardly forgive her."

"What do you mean to advise?"

"I shall endeavour to judge this evening. I want to get them all out of the country, so that they may get into no difficulty."

"The best plan. Fools of that sort are a great nuisance in England. They fancy themselves dangerous, when they are only contemptible."

They reached the Red House, and were by Demetrius shown to a well-lighted room, where supper was prepared for four. The Prince and Princess Oistravieff entered: the tall Russian had a sort of sulky civility about him. Coward always, he had been on this occasion frightened to the uttermost but when he found Mr. Carington and another Englishman in the house, his sanguine

slyness revived, and he began to think the game not quite lost, and thought he would try to outwit his enemies. Once he could get out of their power, he would place himself under the protection of the Russian Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, repudiating a marriage which he considered doubly void, as it was celebrated under compulsion, and as the woman was a mere serf. He had a peculiarly difficult part to play, especially in the presence of a man of Mr. Carington's discernment: but he played it well. Savage as he felt, he never showed his teeth. He behaved to Paulovna in a deferential apologetic way, as if really sorry for a crime which he could not expect her to forgive: he was courteous and subdued, and took a very small share in the conversation. The others were somewhat lively, Conyers being extremely amused at the notion of a conspirators' supper party. Demetrius and Ivan waited at table.

When supper was finished these last left the room. Then Mr. Carington said to Paulovna

"Princess, this I understand is a supper of business.

You wish

to decide as to future arrangements between yourself and the Prince?"

"I do," she said.

"I have been told what has occurred, Prince Oistravieff," he went on: "I think there should be a present settlement of affairs. The situation is dangerous. Conspiracies cannot exist in England. What do you propose?"

"I think," said Oistravieff, speaking slowly, "that there should be a second marriage, in public, so that my wife may be recognized. I would willingly persuade her to live with me: if that cannot be I should wish her to live in the position that belongs to the Princess Oistravieff, choosing her own place of residence. That is what I propose."

Paulovna was perplexed by the Prince's mild tone, and liberal way of putting it. Mr. Carington was not at all disposed to think him sincere, but he saw that something must be done.

“Paulovna,” he said, "you had better go and consult Ivan and Demetrius on this matter. It is important, tell them, that your association should leave the Red House as soon as possible. The police are sure to find you out. Ask them if you shall accept the Prince's offer ask yourself if you can live with him or not."

She obeyed.

"Romance in Wandsworth," said Conyers tersely. "This is Wandsworth, I think. The yellow fog we drove through, which made our cigars splutter, smelt of the Wandle; in which stream, I am told, Lord Nelson caught trout."

"You really would like the Princess to live with you?" said Mr. Carington to the Prince. "She is very handsome and very clever, and would do credit to the highest society."

"I do not know what the Emperor will say, but I should wish to make her amends. Do you think they will consent?" He could not conceal his intense anxiety. As he spoke, entered the Princess, her usually pale face flushed ruddily—she could hardly force herself to speak-the words rose in her fair white throat and seemed to stop there, throbbing to escape. At last she cried,

"Ivan and Demetrius say that if I am to be Princess Oistravieff I must live with Prince Michael and be his wife-else it will be a shame to me. Shall I do it, Mr. Carington?"

"If you and the Prince," he said, rising, "can live together, it will be well for you both-the best thing possible."

"It shall be so, Paulovna," said the Prince in Russian, taking her hand. At that moment she almost fainted, but Mr. Carington gave her some wine.

Demetrius and Ivan entered.

"What is done is right, I hope," said Ivan. "You wish my sister to live with you, Prince Michael?"

"Yes," he said. "There shall be another wedding at the Embassy. You will be there. Then we will travel together. I am glad to think we are friends at last."

"You had better come back to the Clarendon Hotel with us," said Mr. Carington to the Prince. "But a place should be provided for the Princess early to-morrow; she ought not to remain here."

"I think I know exactly the sort of place," said Conyers. "An old servant of our family has just furnished a house in Brook Street, intending to receive lodgers. She has none yet. I can arrange it quite early in the morning, if you think that would suit the Princess, Carington ?"

"Nothing could be better. You must go under your own name, Paulovna. A little diplomacy will be requisite, but you can manage all that, Prince Oistravieff, I am sure."

"I will try," he said.

Mr. Carington gave Ivan and Demetrius a sign to come with him out of the room. They passed into another, a sordid bed-chamber. "You wish her to live with him, really?" he said to them.

"It is the right thing," said Ivan.

"And you believe he will keep faith?"

"He dare not break it," said Ivan.

"He will if he can," muttered Demetrius.

66

'Well, let your sister go as early as convenient to this house in Brook Street. Everybody ought to leave this place to-morrow. Ivan, you had better go with your sister, as if you were a courier or attendant. What shall you do, Demetrius ?"

"I shall follow Prince Michael."

While this conversation was in progress, Conyers had discreetly strolled into the wide passage to smoke a cigarette, of which he is the

best maker out of Asia. He thought the Prince and Princess would like to be alone. They both wished he had stayed. Oistravieff found it more difficult to be affectionate to Paulovna when they were by themselves, while she, poor girl, was full of doubt as to whether she ought to have obeyed her brother and Demetrius.

It was morning when the party separated. Guess how the Prince felt when the fast trotters from Quartermaine's took him really out of reach of that detested Red House toward the happy purlieus of Bond Street. Guess how Paulovna felt when she threw herself on her bed and wondered what would come of it all. The Prince shuddered at the past he had escaped, the Princess shuddered at the future to which she had bound herself. Neither knew how great a

mistake each had made.

Arrived at the Clarendon, the Prince went to bed. Not so Mr. Carington and his friend. It was bright daylight, though so early in the year. Supplies were reaching the hotel. Conyers beheld some lobsters just fresh from the fishmonger's.

"After cigarettes and epigrams," he said, "my greatest achievement is a lobster-salad. Let me make you one, Carington, then we shall have an appetite for bed."

To this dissipation Mr. Carington agreed. All his life he had been ready for a pleasant caprice. As they thus ended the night or began the day, London was just awaking. A half-dressed housemaid came into the room with sweeping apparatus, and recoiled hastily when she saw it occupied.

"What a despatch you'll have for the F.S., Conyers," said Mr. Carington. "You'll be able to tell him who Lily Page is, now."

"Nice wigging I should get, if the Chief found I'd been supping with Silent Sisters. However, I can tell him Oistravieff's returned, that's a blessing."

"You won't have to sacrifice Gibraltar this time. Indeed, you ought to make the Russian Ambassador apologize for troubling you. Can't they look after their own scamps?"

"I suppose they've got too many," said Conyers. "Do you think this particular scamp will keep his promises?"

If

"The only safeguard is that he will be afraid to break them. he plays any trick, his life won't be worth an hour's purchase. It is just a cast of the dice."

Well," says Conyers, "I must go. That old lady in Brook Street will be just visible, and I can prepare her for the Princess. What do you mean to do?"

"I shall go to bed for an hour or two, then I shall look in upon Paulovna to see how matters stand. And then, if there is nothing to keep me, I shall go back to Delamere."

"O yes, you have been with the Earl. Will he recover? Our people want to know, because of his borough interest."