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VOL. I.
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BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE. By Waltkk
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THE BELL-RINGER OF ANGEL'S. I'.y Bkei' Haktk.
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RENSHAWFANNING'S QUEST. By Bektkam Mitkoku.
I vol.
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I \ol.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.
UNDER SEALED ORDERS
a Hovel
BY
GRANT ALLEN
AUTHOR OK
'the TKNTS ok SHEM,' 'the OL'CIIKSS ok I'OWYSLANU,
' THE SCALLYWAG,' ICTC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. L
H II tl U
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1895
HocH
V, I
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PAfi V
CUAFIEH
I. THE ItKD COTTAdK - - - - 1
II. A MYSTERIOUS VlSITOll - " - 15
III. GUAEDIAX ANT) WAUD - - - uJ
IV. DIPLOMATIC DISCII'LINE
V. ' CHEKCHEZ LA FEMME '
VI. A CllITICAL lOVKNING
VII. A PHOTOGKAPHIC STUDY
VIII. DANGEK AHEAD
IX. FAMILY BUSINESS
XI. MAN PROPOSES
XIL FINE ART
50
63
80
97
114
133
X. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER - - 151
167
182
vi CONTENTS
(MAI'lKIl I'AtiK
Xlll. THE mOHKll KDUCATIOX OF WOMKN - 1 9G
XIV. lONft IN ENGLAND - - - - 211
XV. AN INVITATION .... 229
XVI. AT LADY HEA'JMONT's - - - 242
UNDER SEALED ORDERS
CHAPTEIl I.
THE RED COTTAGE.
All these fine things were to be seen in
Sacha's studio.
Now, Sacha's studio was allowed to be the
prettiest room in all the house. Sacha said
so herself, indeed, and she was an authority
on decoration. And she said the truth.
Such a queer little lop-sided, five-cornered,
irregular nook of a room you never saw in all
your life. It was built out from one angle
of the external wall, and lighted up from the
VOL. I. 1
3 UNDKK si:alki) orders
iKH'th side by a \n^ scjuare bay - window,
wbicb proji^ctcul conujrwise, aiiybow, into the
lawn and orchard. It was (juaint because it
never aimed at qiiaintness; it achieved it
unconsciously. And the outlook was charm-
ing, too, over the brook and tlie hillside ; no
more satisfying view, Sacha held, among the
Surrey hills than the larches above, and the
pear-ti'ees below as seen across the fore-
ground of lavender and poppies fi'om her
studio window-seat at the Tied C^ottage.
Throw in an easel or two, carelessly posed, a
few soft Liberty draperies, a Lewis Day wall-
paper, an Oriental rug, a great Japanese
screen, and Aunt Julia's black silk irown
(with Aunt Julia inside it) to give dignity to
the foreground, and there, as well as this
poor hand can draw it, you have a fair rough
sketch of Sacha Cazalet's sanctum.
' For my part,' said Owen, straightening
his arm and then bending it so as to display
the biceps, * I shouldn't mind a little rain.
THE RED COTTAGE 3
Tlio heavier tlic tj;'r()iiiKl Is, tii(^ better my
chances.'
Sacha lookcfl up at hiin in his hecoinins;'
ruiinint; suit ; he'd \)v,en sittiiitj^, or I'ather
posing', for lier as joint winner at the tape in
her spirited picture of 'A Dead Heat — the
Finish,' and slie thou^^lit to herself as ^he
looked, though he was her own brother, that
a handsomer or finer-built or stronger-looking^
yc»ung man wasn't to be found that day in
the leuii-th and breadth of Entifland. She
drew a deep breath, and added a delicate
touch to the stiffened muscle of the straining-
forearm. ' But it'd be a pity,' she said,
stepping back a pace and surveying her own
work critically, ' if it rained wliile we're
actually on the ground to-morrow. You
men have no thouglit. Consider our nice
new gowns, and hats, and feathers.'
' It's a dreadful waste of time,' Aunt Julia
interposed, smoothing her immaculate white
hair behind her blameless lace head-dress.
4 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
' I shall be glad when it's all over, I'm sure,
and you get back to your books again, Owen.
Young men of twenty ought to have some-
thing else to busy themselves about in the
world, it seems to me, besides high jumps,
and hundred yards, and half- miles, and
hurdle races.' Aunt Julia mentioned the
very names of those offensive exercises Avith
a certain high-sniffing dislike, and as if
between unwilling quotation marks. A model
district visitor, Aunt Julia, if ever there was
one ; a distributor of tracts and g-ood counsel
gratis ; a pillar of orthodoxy ; a prop of the
University Central African Mission.
' Mr. Hayward approves of them,' Owen
answered with the air of a man who stiHes
opposition by citing a crushing authority.
' I suppose you don't want me to neglect Mr.
Hayward's wishes. He says what he desires
above all things is to see me a typical
English gentleman. Now, there's nothing
more English than athletics, you'll admit,
THE RED COlTACxE 5
Aunt Julia. He's always delighted when he
finds me going in hot and strong for cricket
and football and boating. " Be cosmopolitan
in your ideas," he says to me always — " as
cosmopolitan as you can make yourself; but
be Englisli in your pursuits, your costume,
your iiai)its.
'I don't think he need be much afraid of
that,' Sacha put in with a smile, washing her
brush out in chloroform. ' You're English to
the backbone, Ow^en ; I could tell by the
very build and set of your limbs you had
true English blood in you.'
' Well, if it rains to-night,' Owen went on,
releasing himself from his fatiguing pose, and
flinging himself down like a young giant on
the capacious window-seat, ' I shall pull ofl'
the mile, and, after all, that's the only event
of the whole lot I really care twopence
about.'
Aunt Julia's curiosity was so fully aroused
by this unexpected avowal that she deigned
6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
for a moment to display a passing interest
in athletics. ' Why, 1 thought,' she cried,
astonished, 'you were certain of the long
jump, and the half-mile, and the cricket ball."
' That's just it,' Owen replied, stretching
his left arm in turn and then retracting it
suddenly. ' I'm safe as houses for those, and
so I don't mind a bit about 'em. But I'm
no vrood at all for the mile unless the round's
heavy. On light ground, Charlie Skene's
sure to beat me. If it rains there'll be a
good race — like Sacha's picture there — and
that's just what I love : won by a neck at
the finish.' And he glanced at his own
shapely limbs on his sister's canvas with not
unnatural approbation of her handicraft or
her model.
• Better go and put on your other clothes
now,' Aunt Julia remarked with an under-
current of doubt. She was never quite sure
in her own mind whether it was exactly
right for Sacha to paint even her own
THE RED COTTAGE 7
brother, let alone the professional model, in
so light and airy a costume ; besides which,
those short sleeves nmst be conducive to
rheumatism. Aunt Julia pinned her faith
on the protective virtues of red flannel. If
she'd had her own way, she'd have cased
Owen from head to foot in that triple armour
aL^ainst assailino- chills. But there ! what
can one do ? Young people nowadays are so
self-willed and obstinate !
Owen rose from the window-seat and
shook himself like a big dog just released
from the kennel. 'Well, they are rather
chilly to sit in,' he admitted, reading Aunt
Julia's mind, which, for the rest, was an open
book with very few pages in it. ' I don't
mind if I do go and put on my toggeries ;
but I'll just take a sharp trot first round the
meadows to warm me.'
He stood with his hand on he door, on
the point of starting, when a timid knock
outside made him open it suddenly. Martha
8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
was standing there with an envelope on the
salver. A well-trained servant, Martha.
She knew it was as much as her place was
worth to burst into the studio without leave
while Miss Sacha was painting there. If
there's anything on earth that's destructive
to a work of art, in pigments or words, it's
continual interruption in the midst of your
working hours. And to disturb a model's
pose, Sacha often remarked, is nothing short
of criminal.
' What is it V Owen asked, taking the
envelope from the salver.
' Telegram, sir,' Martha replied. ' Boy's
waitinpf below in the 'all for the answer.'
Owen read it, and bit his lips. ' Well,
this is just annoying !' he cried. ' Who do
you think's coming down ? Mr. Hayward
himself — and at twelve o'clock to-morrow.'
A sudden silence fell all at once upon the
little listening group. They looked at one
another and bit their liT)s in embarrassment.
THE RED COTTAGE 9
Clearly, some unexpected damper had been
put at once upon all Owen's plans. Sacha
was the first to break the awkward pause.
' At twelve,' she said musingly. ' And the
sports, I think, begin at ten, don't they V
' Nominally ten,' Ov^en answered, still
regarding the telegram with a very rueful
face; 'but that always means practically half-
past ten or thereabouts. Punctuality's a
virtue that hasn't been yet evolved. They
take such a precious long time clearing the
course and so forth.'
Sacha consulted the card of the sports and
then the local time-table.
'You'd have time, if you liked, for the
hundred yards, and perhaps the long jump,
too, before his train gets in,' she said, with as
deep an interest as if thousands were at stake ;
•and even then you could go down to the
train in your flannels to meet him. But
you'd miss the mile, and that you say's the
only event of the lot you care about.'
lo UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Sacha had lived loiiix enou<i'h in an athlete's
family, you see, to know that ' event ' was
the proper word to apply to tliese particular
engagements.
Aunt Julia beamed horror through her
scandalized spectacles.
* Why, you don't mean to say, Sacha,' she
cried with what breath she could muster up
from the depths of her outraged bosom, ' you
thought Owen might go down to meet Mr.
Hayward at the Moor Hill Station in those
dreadful racing things.'
Sacha gazed up at her blandly.
' Yes I did, auntie,' she answered in that
calm, soft voice of hers. ' That was exactly
my idea. Why not ? They're so becoming.'
The want of reverence for their elders in
young people nowadays is positively some-
thing little short of appalling.
Aunt Julia gasped.
' Go . . . down ... to the station ... in
those clothes ?' she repeated, feebly gazing
THE RED COTTAGE n
at Owen, open-mouthed. ' Oh ! Sacha, how
can you ^
Owen watched his sister's face askance to
see what she'd answer. But that imperturb-
able young lady had made up her mind by
this time.
' No, you had better not go, my dear,'
she said promptly, after a short pause
for consideration. ' Don't be at the station
at all. Ilun your races exactly as if nothing
had happened. Mr. Hayward '11 be pleased
that you've trained and gone in for so many
prizes. There's nothing he likes better than
seeing you a thorough Englishman. Never
mind about him. I'll run down to meet him
myself, and bring him up to the field to
you.'
' Sacha !' Aunt Julia ejaculated once
more. It was all she could say. The situa-
tion was too dreadful. Words failed her to
express herself
But her niece was not a young woman to
i
12 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
be turned from her purpose hy the inter-
jectional application of her own Christian
name. She knew it ah'eady. She was three
years older than Owen, and lier character
was more formed ; besides, slie was a pro-
fessional artist and earned her own living.
Your independent woman is a feature of this
age. She has acquired initiative. She
thinks and acts for herself, without the need
for a father, a husband, or a brother to lean
upon.
' Martha,' the independent woman said
briskly, turning round to the maid, ' bring
me a telegrapli form from the dining-room.'
And Martha flew down for it like one who
knew that Miss Sacha at least would not be
kept waiting.
The mistress of the studio sat down at her
desk and filled it in :
' Delighted to see you to-morrow. Owen
busy athletics. Will meet you at station
THE RED COTTAGE 13
myself, unless rain. Wire hiiok if you wish
Owen to stop away.
' Sacha Cazalet.
She handed it across to her hrother.
' Will tliat do V she said quietly.
( )wen stepped nearer and kissed her.
'You arc a hrick, Sacha,' he said, 'and
no mistake! How splendidly you manage
things ! That's just the way to do it.'
' For my part,' Aunt Julia ohserved, glauc-
ino- over his shoulder through her spectacles
with the disapproving eye before which many
a beer-absorbing labourer in the village had
quailed in his shoes, 'I call it exceedingly
disrespectful from a boy like Owen to a man
in Mr. Hayward's position.'
' Oh, he won't mind,' Sacha answered, like
one who knows her ground. ' He's a very
odd man, of course. And he demands
obedience. But he goes in above everything
for making Owen athletic. It's the spirit,
'4 UNDER SKALED ORDERS
not the letter, Mr. Haywurd cares al)out.
He'll ]m delighted to come up to the grounds
and see him run. Don't yon be afraid,
auntie. I'll make things all right with him,'
I promise you, at the station.'
(CHAPTER IT.
A MYSTEUIOUS VISITOR.
As the 12.4 train steamed into Moor Hill
Station next morning Saclia was there, to
her word, in good time to meet it. A hand-
some, upstanding, self-contained sort of a
girl, Sacha Cazalet, not unworthy in physique
to be a crack athlete's sister. As she stood
there on the platform, in her soft artistic
dress and her wide-brimmed Bubens hat,
with the calm, strong face beneath it, she
looked as if, she might have stepped that
moment straight out of one of her own
graceful and earnest pictures.
The train pulled up with a jerk. ' Mer-ill,
Mer-ill, Mer-ill !' cried the porters in chorus
i6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
ill tluMi' accustomed shortliaiid, and .'i ])a8-
seiig'cr or two, divining- by pxxl cliaiice that
these ca})aliHtic sounds r('[)reseiited Moor TTill
in the vernacular tongue, descended slowly
from the carriages witli bags, rugs, and
bundles. Ainoni»st them was one noticeable
man in a rough tweed suit, tall, thin, and
time-worn, but a typical aristocrat as to mien
and features, with a clear-cut, statuescjue,
intellectual face, clean-shaven all over but
for its heavy black moustaches. He came
down, it is true, in a third-class carriage, and
he had notbini>' in his hand but a stout
untrimmed stick, which he had evidently cut
for himself on some blackthorn-covered
C(mimon ; but he was none the less a gentle-
man confessed for all that : blue blood shone
clear in his face, his walk, his tone, his
gestures.
The noticeable man took Sacha's hand
cordially, with a certain stately condescension,
yet as one who liked her.
A MYSIKRIOUS VISITOR 17
' So you came to meet ine, Alexjiiidrji !*' lie
Siiid, siniHiit»'. 'That was awfullv m)0(l of
you. Vovr plan, of* course. You did ([uite
rii^ht to let ( )\ven t^^o off to his sjioits un-
molested. I appreciated your telegram. But
there ! that's your way — you can always be
depended upon.'
' 1 wish you wouldn't call nie Alexandra,'
the iiirl answered with a little shudder, vet
taking- his hand as cordially as he t^'ave it.
'You know 1 hate the name. I always so
much prefer to be known as Sacha.'
Mr. Hayward turned towards the gate and
gave up his ticket.
'Alexandra's so nmcli better, though,' he
said slowly, in his soft, musical voice. ' It's
good English now, since a princess brought it
over. All Entrlish names come across to us
in the last resort with a prince or princess.
We haven't got a native one. William and
Henry and John and Robert came over with
the Conqueror ; Ernest and Augustus and
VOL. I. 2
i8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Caroline and Sophia came over witli the
Georges ; Alexandra and Olga and Christian
and Dagmar came over with the very latest
royal importations. But English snobbery
seizes on them and adopts them at once.
That's the English fasliion. Whereas Sacha
carries date, as you say about your gowns.
People are sure to inquire when they hear it
in what country of Europe Sacha's short for
Alexandra. And that,' he paused a second,
' would interfere with my views for Owen's
future.'
' I prefer the name I've always been called
by myself,' Sacha interposed quietly, and
then closed her lips short.
It was diamond against diamond with
those two, both firm as a rock in their own
fixed opinions.
Mr. Hay ward answered nothing — at least,
not directly.
' Owen Cazalet,' he murmured with a sigh,
as if half to himself, rolling it over on his
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 19
^Qj^o'ue — ' Owen C'azalet, Owen Cazalet.
(Vmldn't liave anytliing that would sound
much more Britisli than that, I Hatter
myself. Though Owen's Welsh, to be sure,
when one goes to the l)ottom of things, and
(Jazalet's Huguenot. But British enough as
times go nowadays— British enough, Owen
Oazalet.'
' For myself, I confess, if it weren't for
business purposes,' Sacha replied obliquely,
* I should much prefer in many ways my own
fam.ily name. I hate disguises. But of
course, as I've got to be known now as Sacha
Cazalet to picture-buyers and publishers, I
must stick to it for tlie future. As an
illustrator my i)ractice depends largely on
tlie name. It's a good trade-mark for the
purpose, thank Heaven ! distinctive and
striking. And I can't change it now unless
some amiable vountj man chooses to offer me
his, which doesn't seem likely in the present
state of society.'
•^
20 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
* Well, I'm glad you can't change it, my
child,' Mr. Haywaid said, not unkindly,
looking down at her with eyes of unfeigned
admiration. He was old enough to be her
father, and he spoke to her alwaj's with a
certain old-fashioned paternal courtesy, much
as a Louis Quinze marquis of the stately
type might have spoken before the Court to
mademoiselle his daughter. ' It would be a
pity if any such suggestion of un-English
antecedents were to stand in the way of
my plans for your brother's advancement.'
' It would,' Sacha replied. ' I adiiiit it.
I acquiesce in it.'
Thev walked on together to the cricket-
field, where the sports were to be lield, Mr.
Hayward stopping every now and then with
genuine delight in the country to admire
some pretty spray of young bramble or
cluster of hart's-tono-ue in the hedirerow.
He had an artist's eye for nature, like
Sacha's own. The tangled richness of the
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 21
stitch worts and red-robins by the wayside
seemed to charm and impress liim.
' It's sweet country,' he said at last, paus-
uio' and g-azing deep into the recesses of the
l)Ush-grown bank. ' What exquisite depths
of sliade ! What hiscious richness of fohage !'
' Yes,' Sacha rephed, in the same tone ;
' such a struggle for life, too, isn't it ? Each
Huhtino- for his own hand ; each craning
and straining to overtop the other. Like
the world we live in.'
' As it stands now,' Mr. Hay ward assented
LTravelv — 'a tanoled maze, a mere un-
organized thicket. Yet some day it might
become an ordered and orderly garden.'
' That would be so much less picturesque,
though,' Sacha suggested, sighing.
'Less picturesque? Yes, perhaps,' Mr.
Hay ward cried, like one who sees some vision
of deliu-ht. ' But, oh ! Sacha, what of that ?
More useful and more hopeful !'
As they reached the cricket-field, Sacha
22 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
glanced aroniul foi' a moment to see when^
among the crowd of spectators Aunt Julia
was seated. Her ([uick eye soon picked out
the immaculate wliite liair among a little
group of local dignitai'ies near the centre l)y
the ])avilion. Mr. Hay ward advanced and
lifted his hat to Miss Cazalet with that
indescribable air of courtly chivalry that was
well-m'gh inse])arable from his smallest
action. Aunt Juli<i received the bow with
mingled respect and distant disap])robation.
A strange sort of man, Mr. Hay ward, not to
be counted upon in some things ; quite a
gentleman in every sense of the word, of
course ; but somehow, to Aunt Julia's
district -visiting type of mind, extremely
awe-inspiring and not a little uncanny.
She was never quite sure, if the truth must
be told, as to Mr. Hayward's principles.
And principles were to Aunt Julia, as to the
British matron in general, objects of a
distinct and almost idolatrous reverence.
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 23
Mr. Haywavd joined the group, and fell
into the conversation at once with the
practised skill of a man of the world. They
were discussing 'that dangerous l)ook/ 'A
Kural Idyii; hy Margaret Forl)es, which
Aunt Julia considered ' undermined the very
oToundwork of our social morality.'
Lady Beaumont, the county member's
wife, lolling back on lier chair, gave a
lan^mid assent ; she'd read the story herself,
and only remembered now she'd found it
interesting ; but as Miss Cazalet disapproved
of it, why, of course, as politeness demanded
she disapproved in concert.
It was Miss Forbes they were talking
about ? Mr. Hayward asked, smiling
curiously. Ah, yes, a very clever woman,
too, and a bishop's daughter! What an
irony of fate ! He'd heard one or two good
stories in town about her. Mrs. Forbes, the
bishopess, was quite proud of the book's
success ; but, as her daughter remarked, ' If
24 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
I hadn't written it, nuunnia wouldn't have
touched it witli a pair of ton^s, you know.'
He knew her then, Lady Beaumont
suggested, with a careless interest, " )m the
chair beside Aunt Julia's.
Mr. Hay ward waved a graceful and half-
deprecatory negative. No, he didn't exactly
know her — that's to say, not as on visiting
terms — but from time to time he ran up
against her in London drawing-rooms.
Sooner or later, in fact, one ran up against
almost everybody worth knowing in any
way. London's so small, you see ; and the
world's so shrunken nowadays.
Lady Beaumont glanced the mute inquiry
w^ith her languishing eyes :
' And, pray, who's your fine friend V
Aunt Julia introduced him with a rather
awkward consciousness :
' Lady Beaumont — my nephew's guardian
— you've heard me speak of him — Mr.
Hay ward.'
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 25
The county member's wife put up her
long-handled tortoiseshell quizzing-glass,
' the aristocratic outrage ' Saclia always
called it, and surveyed Mr. Hay ward for full
fifty seconds with such a keen, searcliing
glance as only your hardened woman of
society dare ever bestow on a fellow-creature.
A plain Mister, then ! She'd imagined him
a general at least, if not a baronet or an
honourable.
Mr. Hayward stood it out calmly,
unmoved and unconscious, with that im-
perturbable smile of his. Then he drew over
a vacant chair with one well-bred hand, sat
down upon it just behind them, and, as if on
purpose to overcome some initial prejudice,
began a delightful flow of tlie most amusing
gossip. Even Lady Beaumont smiled often.
He handled small-talk like a master. And
how he knew his world, too I — Paris, Vienna,
Berlin, Constantinople, the little German
spas, the Norwegian fiords, the Dutch and
26 UNDER SEAT.ET) ORDERS
Daiiis]) kiirhiiuses, tlie Pyreneaii watering-
])l{ices. Who was there at Cannes whose
whole domestic history lie hadn't at his
finger-ends ? Who was there at Florence
whose flirtations with tlie Marcliese This or
the Contessa That, as case and sex might
])e, he couldn't chronicle fluently ? What
family skeleton lurked secure in its native
cuphoard from his piercing scrutiny ? And
it wasn't all mere scandal and gossip, either.
There was history in it as well ; profound
gras}) of national life, profound knowledge of
the twists and turns of human nature. For
Mr. Hayward was a psychologist, and while
he fitted his conversation to his hearers'
intellects, he always let you feel through it
all that he himself was something" hig-her and
bigger than the world he described — that he
laughed in his sleeve all the while at its
foibles and its follies.
As for Sacha, sitting beside him and
listening silently, as was her wont — for she
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 27
WHS restrained of iiiiture and little given to
speech — to his hrilliant flow of witty society
talk, she coiddn't help wondering to lierself
now and again liow a man so intelligent and
HO ahle as Mr. Hayward could j^ossibly lower
himself to so feeble a level, could waste him-
self contentedly on sucli an mi worthy flow of
pure human tittle-tattle. And Mr. Hayward
on his side, too, seemed to be conscious of
her feeling, for wnth infinite tact he managed
to turn to her now and again, and add, as it
were for her special benefit, a little aside
containing some profounder reflection or some
more interesting detail. Was it Madrid he
was talking of? After he'd rattled on to
Aunt Julia and Lady Beaumont of that
famous bull-fight where the Duke of Medini-
Coeli irot his collar-bone broken, he went ofl*
at a tangent for ten minutes with a word or
two to Sacha about the blaze of colour in the
streets, or the Murillos in the Prado. Was
it to Venice he'd got now ? After describing
28
UXDl'R SKALICI) ORDERS
for tlie listening group in front bis jidventure
in u gondola with the editor of the Fanjvlla
and a Neapolitan prima donna, he diverged
into a httle private dis([uisition behind on
the mosaics of St. Mark's and the Athenian
lion at the gate of the Arsenal. Altogether,
'a most well-informed man of the world,'
Lady Beaumont thought to herself ' (.^juite
an accpiisitlon for tlie day in our society at
Moor Hill, in sj)ite of his principles,' Aunt
Julia reflected inwardly ; and ' What a pity
he wastes his talents so !' Sacha meditated
with regret. But she was wrong, for all that.
He wasn't A\'astina* them — not a bit of it.
That was his role in life. To be all things to
all men — and all women, too, bettering even
the comprehensive Apostolic injunction — was
the secret of his profession.
At last there came a pause, a sudden break
in the flowing current. The mile was now
on, and Sacha saw for herself that all the
while, amid his gossip, though Mr. Hayward
A MYSTEKIOUS VISITOR 29
was so fiueut of viiiu;d exi)eriences in .'ill
corners of Kiu'()})e, his eyes luul none the less
followed Owen peri)etu;illy round the field
with (piite as much eagerness and constancy
as her own had done. At the finish lie hent
his head forward for a moment in anxiety,
then sprang from his chair in his joy.
'Bravo! hravo !' he cried, cla[)pino- his
hands witli imafiecttMl delight as the tape
fell forward. ' Owen wins ! Owen wins !
Well done, my boy ! Well done ! You nmst
be proud of him, Miss Cazalet. A splendid
race, and just carried by a fine spurt. I
never saw anything better in my life than
the magnificent way he did those last ten
yards in !'
He sat down again, quite flushed with
vicarious pride in his ward's success. His
face was beaming.
' I wish rd brought my little snap camera
with me,' he cried, ' to take an instantaneous
of that final dash-in. It was so beautiful, so
30
unm)i:r s kali: I) ori)i:rs
perfect. Tlu' action ot* tlwit boy's liiui)s, like
a thoi'oii»^hl)red racer's — ^vl^y, it's a picture to
look at.'
At the words Ladv Beaumont raised tli(^
class outra^^e once more, a!id took a second
louM- stony stare at the well-informed stranger.
Could it be ? No, im})ossible ! But, yes, she
was sure of it. She couldn't be mistaken
now. She'd suspected it fnun the very tirst,
and in those words tlu^ man himself as good
xis admitted it.
No colonel ! No baronet ! But a conunon
man from a shop in London I
' I think,' she said very deliberately, in
that glassy, cold voice of hers, ' I've seen you
before, Mr. Hayward. You say one knocks
u}) against almost everybody in town, and
I've knocked up against you somewhere.
Haven't we met — at a photographer's shop,
I think — in Bond Street V
Aunt Julia quailed. Sacha leant forward
curiously. Lady Beaumont tapped her
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 3'
<|ui//i!i^-glaKs on lier knee with the air ut" a
detective wlio unmasks a clever discj^tiifie.
Ml". I layward himself alone smiled on blandly
as ever.
'Yes, 1 remember it pej'fectly,' he said,
with, if })()ssil)le, a still more self-i)ossessed
and hiuh-hred air and manner than before.
' At Mortimer and Co.'s in Bond Street. I
had the j)leasure of a sitting from you for the
(jalU'vy of Fashion. I edit the series. My
name's Lambert Hayward ; but in Bond
Street I'm known under the style and title
of Mortimer and Co., photographers.'
There was an awkward pause, though
only an infinitesimal one. Lady Beaumont
flushed crimson. But Mr. Hayward wi^s too
perfect a conversationahst to let even such a
point-blank thrust from a very clumsy hand
mar the efifect of his causerie. He went on
with the subject at issue as unconcernedly as
though Lady Beaumont were in the habit of
dining every evening with her photographer.
32 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
* And instantaneous views are a perfect
passion of mine,' he continued carelessly. ' I
love to get a good subject, like Owen in that
last spurt, or a yacht at the turning-point,
to catch a really graceful movement and
record it in a litrhtnin<^ flash. You'd hardlv
believe, Lady Beaumont, how much skill and
knowledge it requires to choose the exact
instant w^hen a figure in motion is at its pic-
turesque best. But Sacha here knows it
well. Even the most exquisite dancing has
a great many intermediate points or passing
attitudes that ai-e artistically impossible.
Only a few select poses are really useful for
art, and those few must be discriminated and
registered with incredible rapidity.'
' So I should think,' Sacha interposed, not
unappreciative of the gracious tact of his
tribute to her artistic taste, as well as the
unusual concession implied in calling her by
her pet name of Sacha ; ' and I've often
noticed, indeed, how much all instantaneous
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 33
photographs, except yours, Mr. Hayward,
are wanting for that very reason in spirit
and vigour. The others look wooden, and
unreal,''and angular-yours alone are instinct
with actual life and motion.'
' Ah, you look at them with an artist's eye,
you see,' Mr. Hayward responded quietly ;
' the more we understand the difficulties to
be encountered and overcome in any art,
however mechanical, the more do we learn to
appreciate it and to respect its producers.'
Lady Beaumont leant back in her rough
rush-bottomed chair, and knit her brows
abstractedly. The problem was not yet
solved, it was only intensified. Who on
earth could he be, then, this strange high-
bred-looking man, with the manners of a
diplomatist and the acquirements of a savant,
who yet turned out to be nothing more,
when one came to look into it, than a photo-
grapher in Bond Street ? She remembered
now she'd been struck when he 'took' her
VOL. I.
34 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
by his gentlemanly address and his evident
knowledge. But she certainly never credited
him then with the close familiarity with
men and things whicli he'd shown in his
rambling and amusing conversation that
morning in the cricket-field.
CHAPTER HI.
GUARDIAN AND WARD.
After a few minutes' more talk it struck
Miss Cazalet suddenly that Mr. Hayward
had only just come down from town, and
would not improbably approve of a little
refreshment. Sacha and Lady Beaumont,
however, refused his courtly offer of an
escort to the luncheon tent, and were left
behind on their seats as he strolled ofP care-
lessly across the grounds with Aunt Julia
beside him.
' My dear Saclia,' Lady Beaumont began,
as soon as he was well out of earshot, still
following him through the quizzing-glass,
' what an extraordinary man ! and what an
36 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
extraordinary trade — or ouglit one to say
profession ? Why, till 1 recognised who he
was, do you know, 1 took him for a gentle-
man.'
' So he is,' Sacha responded quietly, but
with crushing force—' a gentleman all over.
1 never met anybody who deserved the name
better than our Mr. Hay ward.'
She spoke with proprietary pride, as if the
man belonged to her.
Lady Beaumont let drop the outrage,
scanned her close with the naked eye, and
then hedged prudently, as became a county
member'^, wife, who must conciliate everv-
body. ^ Oh, of course,' she said with a slight
drawl. ' A perfect gentleman — in voice and
manners; one can see that at a glance, if
only by the way he walks across the lawn.
But 1 meant, I took him [at first sight for
somebody really distinguished — not con-
nected with trade, don't you know : a gentle-
man by birth and education and position. A
GUARDIAN AND WARD 37
military man, I fancied. You could have
knocked me down with a leather, my dear,
when he said right out he was a photo-
crrapher in Bond Street.'
' Yon said it, you mean, not he,' Sacha
answered sturdily. 'He wouldn't have
obtruded his own affliirs without due cause
upon anybody. Though he's gentleman
enough, it it comes to that, to be rather
proud than ashamed of his business. But
as to his being a gentleman by birth and
position, so he is, too. I don't know much
about his history— he's an awfully reticent
man -but I know he's a person of very good
family, and all that sort of thing, and has
taken to photography partly from love of it,
and partly because he'd lost by an unex-
pected reverse the greater part of his
fortune.'
Lady Beaumont nmsed, and toyed ner-
vously with the quizzing-glass.
'Well, of course, these are topsy-turvy
MM
J
8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
times,' slie said, nodding, ^vitb a candid air
of acquiescence. ' One nevei* knows what
odd trade a gentleman loom may take to
nowadays. Lord Archibald Macnab's in a
tea-broker's in the City, I'm told ; Lady
Browne keeps a bonnet-sliop ; and I went
into an upholsterer's in Oxford Street the
other day, and only learnt afterwards that
the person who owns it, and sells pots and
pans and wall-papers, is an Oxford man and
a poet. . . . Still, I took Mr. Hayward, I
must sav, for sometliing* more than that —
something really distinguished, don't you
know. He has the manners of an Austrian
count or an Italian prince. I should have
thought him a foreigner, almost — though he
speaks English perfectly — but a foreigner
accustomed to the very highest society.'
' So he is/ Sacha retorted once more, as
stoutly as ever. No country baronet's wife
should shake her allegiance to the Bond
Street photographer. ' Not a foreigner, I
GUARDIAN AND WARD 39
don't mean, for he's an Englishman born, he
tells me, but accustomed to mixing with the
best people everywhere.'
'Not a foreigner?' Lady Beaumont re-
peated, rolling the words on her tongue
with an interrogative quiver. ' Such state y
manners as his are so rare in England. M e
should think them too empr,'>!sh. And how
he trills his r's, too ! Have you noticed
that trick of his ? He says B'rome, per'rhaps,
Sor'r'ento, char'rming.'
' He lived a good deal abroad as a boy, 1
believe,' Sacha answered, in the tone of one
not anxious to continue the subject. ' He
was partly brought up in Sweden, li I re-
member right ; and he caught the trille^d r
there, and has never got over it since. But
his English in all other ways is as good as
yours and mine is.' She might truthfully
have added, as far as Lady Beaumont was
concerned, ' and a great deal better, too ;
but she was prudent, and restrained herself.
40 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
When a man sees there's any subject you
don't want to talk about, he avoids it instinc-
tively, as a natural point of good manners.
When a woman sees the same thing her
curiosity's aroused at once, and she compels
you to go on with it exactly in proportion as
she finds you desire to evade her questions.
Lady Beaumont saw Sacha didn't want to
talk about Mr. Hayward, so, of course,
she pressed her hard with more direct
inquiries. That's what's known as feminine
tact.
' He's your brother's guardian,' she said
musingly, after a moment's pause. ' I sup-
pose, then, he was a very great friend of your
poor father's V
Sacha winced almost imperceptibly, but
Lady Beaumont was aware of it.
' Not exactly his guardian,' the girl
answered, after a short internal conflict.
' Not by my father's will, that is to say.
He felt an interest in Owen, on poor papa's
GUARDIAN AND WARD 4i
account, and he's done what he could tor hmi
ever since, so we call him his guardian.'
' Oh, indeed ! Is he rich V Point-blank
at Sacha's head, as only a woman of good
society would dare to pose the question.
' I don't know ; he never showed me his
income-tax return. I should say that was
a question entirely between himself and the
Commissioners of Inland Eevenue.'
It was straight from the shoulder, as Sacha
knew how to hit. But Lady Beaumont sat
still and took it smiling, not being quick
enough or agile enough, indeed, to dodge it
lightly.
' Well, does he seem rich, then V she per-
sisted, as unperturbed as if Sacha were
charmed with her conversation. ' Does he
spend money freely ? Does he live well and
handsomely V
' He spends very little on himself, I should
say,' Sacha answered somewhat curtly, ' and
a great deal upon other people. But he's
4a UNDER SEALED ORDERS
not a coininunicative man. If you want to
know all alxuit liini, why not ask him direct ?
You did, you know, about the photographer's
shoj) in Bond Street.'
Lady Beaumont looked up at her with a
face of impassive scrutiny. For so young a
woman, this painting girl was really most
self-possessed. But the county member's
wife was not to be sat upon by an artist,
however large and well built.
' Owen's going into the diplomatic service,
I think Miss Cazalet told me,' she began
again after a strategic pause.
' Into the diplomatic service. Yes. If he
can get in,' Sacha admitted grudgingly, for
she hated to let out any further information.
Lady Beaumont poked her parasol into
the turf at her feet, and egged out a root
of grass or two in a meditative fashion.
' It's a curious service for a young man
to go in for, unless he's really rich, or at the
very least has expectations in the future,' she
GUARDIAN AND WARD 43
remarked iu tU- uir, abstruotedly. ' They
get no pay at all, y<>« know, for the first
two or three years, and they nmst spend
more as attac/w.'< than their salary amounts
'So I believe,' Sacha replied, without
moving a muscle of that handsome roui>d
face of hers. ' It's a service for vicli young
men I've always been given to understand.
A career, not a livelihood. Honour and
glory, not filthy lucre.'
" 'Then, why does Owen go in for '* •'
Lady Beaumont asked, straight out, with
that persistent Inquisitiveness which some
women of the world think so perfectly be-
coming.
' I don't know,' Sacha replied. ' He is
of age. Ask him. Perhaps^ it may be
because Mr. Hayward wishes it."
' Oh !' Lady Beaumont said shortly.
She'd got what she wanted now. A rich
relation, no doubt, of whom they were all
iBBiC
44 UNDLR SEALED ORDERS
ashameJ, and whose money they expected
to get, while disownhig his business.
The talk glided ofK by degrees into other
cliannels. By-and-by Ainit Julia and Mr.
Hay ward retui-ned. They brought with
them a third person — that Brazilian from
Bahia witli the very curly hair, who was
stopping with the Fergussons at Asliley
Towers. Mr, Hay ward was discoursing with
him in very fluent French. At that Lady
Beaumont pricked her ears up to hear what
he said. She couldn't follow it all — her ear
for spoken French was still a trifle un-
trained ; but she heard a good deal, and
took the rest in instinctively (which is why
women learn languages so much quicker
than men). ' Perfectly, monsieur,' the mys-
terious photographer was remarking in that
clear, bell-like voice of his. ' This is an
age of trains de luxe. To live in the world
to-day you must follow the world as it flits
across four flying continents. It's a common
GUARDIAN AND WARD 45
Hritisli mlstiike of ours to su|)))<).st» the
universe st()i)S short at the Kiii^'hsh Chainiel.
Rrror, error, error I It even extends beyond
I'ai-Is and Switzerland. Most Knjilishnien
fancy they know the world if they know
London, Bri(j;hton, Ascot, Scarl)orou«;h, and
Newmarket. For my part, M. le Conte,
early acquaintance with the (continent saved
me, haj)[)ily, from that inexact idea. I
know that if you Avant to keep up with
the movement you must march with it as
it marches at Vichy to-day, at Baden-
Baden to-morrow, at Nice, Monte Carlo,
Pau, Carlsbad, the next day. So I took
the hint and followed up your ex-Emperor
from Cannes to Algiers, till 1 caught him
at last on the slope of Mustaj)ha Superieur.'
The rest she couldn't hear. It was but a
passing snatch as he strolled by her chair.
But it was enough, at least, to impress
Lady Beaumont profoundly with a sense of
Mr. Hayward's prodigious mastery of col-
46 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
loquial French, and astonishing ease in
framing: his thouti^hts into words in all lan-
es o
guages equally.
Was he a Frenchman, then, she wondered,
and was that why liis ^''s had that peculiar
trill in them ?
To be sure, an acute Parisian ear (like
yours and mine, dear reader) might have
noticed at once that, as in English Mr.
Hayward trilled his r's, so in French his
em's, his ens, and his ons, were very ill
distinguished. But, then. Lady Beaumont
hadn't had our educational advantages. To
her dull English ear his spoken French was
exactly a Frenchman's.
As she sat and pondered, Owen strolled
up to the group, looking glorious in his
running clothes — a young Greek god, hot
and flushed from his victories. Even on
Sacha's placid face a ruddy spot of pleasure
glowed bright as her brother drew near,
like a statue come to life ; while, as for
GUARDIAN AND WARD 47
Mr. Haywarcl, he stepped forward to meet
the hero of the day with such graceful
cordiahty as a prince might show to one of
his nohlest subjects.
' My dear boy,' he said, laying his hand
on the young man's shoulder with a half-
caressing movement, ' you won that mile
splendidly. 'Twas a magnificent spurt. I
was proud of you as I looked at you, Owen
—very proud of you as I looked at you.'
Lady Beaumont's steely eyes were turned
on the pair, watching warily.
'Thank you, Mr. Hay ward,' the young
man answered in a modest tone, but with
genuine pleasure, as an affectionate boy
might answer his father. ' If you're pleased,
that's all I want; but I hope you didn't
mind my not meeting you at the station ?'
'Mindl' Mr. Hay ward repeated quickly.
'Mind! Why, I should have been most
grieved, my boy, if you'd missed one fraction
of these sports on my account. But Sacha
48 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
knew best. One can always trust Sacha ;
she explained to me when we met, and I
agreed with her entirely. To see you win
such a magnificent lot of prizes as this is all
I ask of you.'
' But his work V Aunt Julia suggested,
aghast — ' his books, his reading, Mr. Hay-
ward ? Don't you think these things tend
to unsettle, a young man for examinations V
Mr. Hayward turned round and gazed
blandly and benignly at her.
' I should have read Owen's character
very ill indeed,' he said with a curious
smile, ' if I thought anything could unsettle
him from a resolve once made. He's true
as steel, is Owen. If you want men to do
well, first begin by trusting them. That's
the freeman's way. The other is both the
curse and the Nemesis of despotism.'
' What a very odd man !' Lady Beaumont
thought to herself ; ' and how sententiously
he spoke ! What a bore, too, if you saw
GUARDIAN AND WARD 49
much of him !' For women of Lady Beau-
mont's type invariably think anybody a
dreadful bore who makes a generalized re-
mark, or who talks about anything else in
heaven or earth but the gossip of the narrow
little set they mix in.
VOL. I.
CHAPTER IV.
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE.
An hour or two later they were taking tea
together in Sacha's sacred studio, at the
round table made out of the Cairene wood-
work stand, surmounted by the old Moorish
chased brass tray that Mr. Hayward had
brought hesr on one of his voyages to
Tunis.
The treasures of the household, indeed,
had been ransacked to do honour to Mr.
Hayward. Aunt Julia had brought out the
best silver teapot with the Cazalet arms on
it, and the George III. apostle spoons that
belonged to her grandmother fifty years ago
in Devonshire. Cook had produced some of
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 5»
her famous brown rolls, and had surpassed
her well-known skill In the home-made rusks
and buttered Canadian tea-cake. Martha's
little French cap was crimped and starched
with unwonted care, and her apron with the
white lace was even more spotless than
usual. Sacha herself had put the very
daintiest of her sketches on the easel by the
square bay-window, and festooned fresh
sprays of trailing clematis and long stems of
wild bryony from the Venetian bowl m
hammered copper that hung by a wrought-
iron chain from a staple in the corner. The
studio, in short, was as picturesque as Sacha
knew how to make it ; for Mr. Hayward's
visits were few and far between, and all the
household made the more of them for the
rarity of their occurrence.
Yet a certain visible constraint brooded
over the whole party none the less while
they drank their tea out of Sacha's Satsuma
cups ; for it was -an understood thing that
52 UNDER SEALEO ORDERS
Mr. Hayward never came down to Moor Hill
except for some good and suiBcient reason ;
and what that reason might be nobody Hked
to ask him, though, till he chose to disclose it
himself, they sat on tenterhooks of painful
expectation.
At last, however, Mr. Hayward laid down
his cup, and turned for a moment to Owen.
' And now, my boy,' he said quietly, as
though everybody knew beforehand the
plan he was going to propose, ' will you
be ready to set out with me to-morrow
morning V
' Certainly,' Owen answered at once, with
a great air of alacrity. 'To-night, if you
like. I can go and pack my portmanteau
this minute, if necessary, or start with-
out it.'
Mr. Hayward smiled approval.
' That's right,' he said, nodding assent.
' Quite right, as far as it goes, and shows
promptitude in some ways. I'd half a mind
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 53
to telegraph to you yesterday to come up
then and there, just to test your obedience.
But I'm glad now I didn't. It would have
grieved me to have done you out of this
morning's triumphs. This is all so good for
you.'
* If you had; Owen said simply, ' I'd have
come straight up, of course, though it ^vould
have been a wrench, I don't deny. But it's
wrenches, after all, that are the true test of
discipline.'
Mr. Hayward smiled once more.
'Quite so,' he answered, with evident
pleasure. ' You're a good boy, Owen-a boy
after my own heart. And in most things I
approve of you. But remember, point de zele.
Zeal often spoils everything. That was^ un-
necessary that you said just now, " to-night,
if you like"; nobody asked you to go to-
night. I said to-morrow morning. A well-
trained subordinate answers, "Certainly; at
what hour?" but never suggests to-night.
54 UNDER SEALED ORDERS •
That's no part of his province.' He paused
for a moment, and gazed hard with searching
eyes at Sacha. ' These thhigs are important,'
he added, musing, ' as discipHnary preparation
for the diplomatic service.'
' I'll remember it, Mr. Hay ward,' Owen
answered submissively.
' For the diplomatic service,' Mr. Hay ward
went on, * a man needs for the most part not
zeal, but discretion. Zealous subordinates
you can find any day in the streets by the
dozen ; a discreet one you may search for
over two-thirds of Europe. Obedience you've
learnt already, my boy ; discretion you've
got to learn now. No offering to go and pack
your portmanteau at once — it isn't demanded
of you — still less, protestations of willingness
to start without one.'
He spoke austerely, but kindly, with a
tender, fatherly ring in his voice, like one
who would correct a fault without giving
needless pain to the pupil.
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 55
' I see ' Oweu answered, abashed. ' I was
wrong, of course. I ought to have gone
without a portmanteau at once, if you sum-
moned me ; but not have effusively offered to
go without one when I wasn't called upon to
do so.'
Mr Hayward's eyes sparkled with sup-
pressed pride and pleasure. A very apt pupil,
this quick to accept reproof where he saw
it was deserved, and to mend his ways
accordingly.
He laid that friendly hand upon the young
man's shoulder again.
' Quite right, Owen,' he said. 'You 11 make
a diplomat yet ! ... We shall see him am-
bassador at Constantinople before we die
Miss Cazalet. ... But you haven't asked
yet where you're to go to, my boy. Dont
you want to know about it V
Owen hesitated a moment.
' I thought discretion dictated that I should
wait till I was told,' he answered, after a long
mmgssS
S6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
pause, during which Sacha's eyes were fixed
firmly upon him.
The Bond Street photographer smiled that
strange smile of success and satisfaction once
more.
' Right again, my boy,' he said, well pleased.
* You answer as you ought to do. Then you
shall know your destination to-morrow even-
ing.'
Aunt Julia gave a little start of surprise
and regret.
' But aren't we to know where he's going,
Mr. Hay ward V she cried. ' Aren't we to
know where we can write to him V
Mr. Hayward turned round upon her with
a coldly contemptuous look in his keen brown
eyes. His manner towards Aunt Julia was
always markedly different from his manner
to Owen and Sacha. Its stately courtesy
never quite succeeded in concealing the
undercurrent of contempt for the district
visitor within her.
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 57
* It was in our bargain,' he said, * Miss
Cazalet — which Owen, at least, has always
loyally kept — that I might take him for a
month at a time, twice a year, when I chose,
to live with me, or travel with me wherever
I liked, in order to retain such a hold as I
desired both over his education and over his
character and affections. It was never speci-
fied that I should tell you beforehand when
or where it suited me he should pass those
two months with me. It was only arranged
that at the end of each such holiday I should
restore him once more to your own safe keep-
ing. Two months out of twelve is surely not
excessive for me to ask for myself, especially
as Owen is happiest when he's away on his
trips with me.'
The tears came up into Aunt Julia's eyes.
Long since she had repented of that most
doubtful bargain. She even wondered at
times whether Mr. Hayward was some
modern embodiment of Mephistopheles, and
58 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
whether she had sold Owen's soul to Inm, as
Esau sold his hirthright for a mess of pot-
tage. It frightened her when she heard him
talk so nmch of running about Europe in
trains de luxe. It reminded her always of
the Book of Job, and of the high personage
who presented himself at the court of heaven
' from going to and fro in the earth, and from
walking up and down in it.'
* I should certainly have liked to know
where Owen was likely to be,' Aunt Julia
murmured, struggling hai'd with her voice
and her tears. * It's a pull to give him up
without even knowing where he's gone to.'
Owen turned to her tenderly.
* Well, but, auntie,' he said in his manly
voice, always full of English cheer iness, ' you
know I won't get into any harm with Mr.
Hayward ; and for myself, I really like best
the element of adventure and surprise — the
never knowing till I get there where it is
I'm going to.'
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 59
The love of adventure and surprise, how-
ever, Is poorly developed in the British old
maid or in the Britisli matron. But Mr.
Hayward had carried his point, and could
afford to relent now.
' Go upstairs, (3wen,' he said, * and put
your things together at once. I'm not sure,
after all, I won't start off this evening.'
' And we've got dinner for you, and every-
thing !' Aunt Julia exclaimed appealingly.
She'd made a cream pudding. Her house-
wifely heart was stirred to its depth by this
bitter disappointment.
But Owen ran upstairs with cheerful
promptitude. It was clear Mr. Hayward
had a very firm hold over him — a hold
gained not so much by command as by affec-
tion. As soon as he was gone their visiior
closed the door behind him.
* Miss Cazalet,' he said in that clear and
very musical voice of his, ' I've never been
unreasonable. I made a bargain with you
6o UNDER SEALED ORDERS
and Owen for Owen's clear advantage, but
I've never abused it. While he was at
school I took care not to break in upon his
terms ; I even allowed his schooling to take
precedence of his education ; I only claimed
him in the holidays, and then he learned
more from me in those two short months
than in the other ten from his books and
his masters. Since he left school I've been
more irregular, but always for a good reason.
I've a good reason now, though I don't choose
to communicate it. However, I don't mind
telling you privately where I'm going, if you
and Alexandra — I beg your pardon, my child,
Sacha I mean — won't mention it to Owen
before we start. . . . I'm contemplating a
month's tour in the mountains of Morocco.'
Aunt Julia drew a deep breath of relief.
She knew nothing about Morocco, to be sure,
except the bare name ; and she had a vague
idea that the majority of its inhabitants
were engaged in the book-binding trade and
DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINE 6i
the exportation of leather ; but it was a com-
fort to her, all the same, to know exactly on
the map where Owen was going to.
■Morocco,' she reflected, much consoled.
■Morocco. Morocco. And shall we be able
to write to him while he's gone ? Will you
give us your address there V
' There will be m address,' Mr. Hayward
answered curtly. 'No addresses of any
sort.' i T V
' Not even paste restante f Aunt Juha
interposed.
Mr. Hayward smiled, a broad smile.
' Not even poste restante; he replied, un-
bending at the bare idea. ' We shall be up
in the mountains all the time, among pathless
wilds and in small native villages. Posts
are unknown, and inns of any sort unheard
of I want to do some photography of the
untouched Moorish world, so I shall make at
once for the remotest interior.'
' Owen will like that !' Saccha put m, well
63 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
pleased. 'It'll exactly suit him. There'll
be mountain-climbing, of course, and, as he
says, an element of excitement and adven-
ture V
' Precisely,' Mr. Hay ward answered ; ' just
why I'm taking him there. I want to train
his body and mind to flimiliarity with danger.
Your father was a brave man, Sacha. I want
Owen to be like him.'
' Owen is,' Sacha said proudly. ' As brave
as they're made. He takes after his father
in that. Or else your training's been suc-
cessful.'
'Well, it's a comfort to think, anyhow,
that if anything goes wrong in Morocco
while he's there,' Aunt Julia said with a
sigh, 'we shall know at least that dear
Owen's in the midst of it.' Which is a
feminine form of delight, but a very common
one.
CHAPTER V.
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMMB.
Guardian and ward stood on the deck of a
Cunard Mediterranean liner before Owen
had an inkling of their real destmation.
This uncertainty, indeed, exactly suited his
adventurous athlete mind. He liked to set
out not knowing whither he was bound, and
to wake up some fine morning m a new
world of wonders. Overflowing with hfe
and youth and health and spirits, he found
in such a tourist surprise party an irresistible
attraction. He was wafted to his Bagdad
as on some enchanted cai-pet. It would
have spoilt half the fun for him if he knew
beforehand where he was going, or why ;
64 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
and, besides, with Mr. Hayward he was
always happy. He preferred this saiHng
under sealed orders.
Oh, the change to him, since boyhood
upwards, from Aunt Julia's petticoat regime
and perpetual old-maidish restraint at the
Eed Cottage to the freedom and breeziness
of Mr. Hayward s holiday ! For Mr. Hay-
ward had designed it so, and had succeeded
admirably. A boy hates to live under a
woman's restrictions, and loves to have a
man in authority over him. Mr. Hayward
took advantage of that natural instinct of
boy psychology to bind Owen to himself by
strong ties of affection and gratitude. With
Aunt Julia, education was one long cate-
gorical ' Don't ' ; her sole part of speech was
the imperative negative. Don't try to climb
trees ; don't speak in that voice ; don't play
with those rude boys ; don't wear out your
shoes, or the knees of your knickerbockers.
With Mr. Hayward, on the contrary,
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME ' 65
education consisted in a constant endeavour
to find out and encourage every native
instinct. If that pleases you, my boy, why,
do it by all means ; if that irks you, never
mind: you can get on in the end very well
without it. From Mr. Hayward, or with
Mr. Hayward, Owen had learnt French at
odd times without being conscious of learn-
ing it; he had learnt history and politics,
and knowledge of common things ; optics
and photography, and all the allied arts and
sciences ; geography in action ; a mass of
general information taken in at the pores,
and all the more valuable because acquired
con amove. That was what Mr. Hayward
meant by 'not allowing his schooling to
interfere with his education.' The boy had
learnt most and learnt best in his holidays.
Obedience, if you will ; yes, Mr. Hayward
desired the promptest obedience. But it
was the willing obedience the disciple
renders of his own accord to the master
VOL. I. 5
66 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
he adores, not the slavish obedience a
broken spirit tenders to a despotic martinet.
Liberty first, order afterwards. Mr. Hay-
ward would rather ten thousand times see
Owen rebel than see him give in \yithout a
struggle to unreasonable authority. As a
matter of ftict, Owen often rebelled against
Aunt Julia's strict rules ; and when he did
so Mr. Hay ward upheld him in it stoutly.
On this particular journey, even after they
got outside the bar of the Mersey, Owen
had still no idea whither on earth they were
bound, save that their destination was some-
where in the Mediterranean. He learnt the
exact place by accident. A fellow-passenger,
leaning over the taifrail, asked Mr. Hay-
ward carelessly, ' Alexandria ?'
' No, Tangier,' the mysterious man
answered. 'My friend and I are going on
a tour in the Morocco mountains. I want
to do a little photography there — take un-
hackneyed Islam.'
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' $7
Owen's heart leapt up at the sound, but
he gave no overt token. Mountaineering in
Morocco ! How delightful ! How romantic!
Arabs, Atlas, adventure ! The very thing
to suit him.
'Dangerous work,' the fellow - passenger
observed with a languid yawn — ' sketching
and photographing. Shock these fellows'
religious prejudices ; and Jedburgh justice is
the rule. " Off with his head," says the
Cadi.'
* So I hear,' Mr. Hay ward answered
calmly. ' They tell me you mustn't try to
take a snap at a mosque, in particular,
unless you can do it unobserved. If the
natives catch you at it, they're pretty sure
to resent the insult to their religion, and cut
your throat as a work of unobtrusive piety.'
'What larks!' Owen thought to himself.
' This is just what I love. A spice of danger
thrown in! And I've always heard the
Morocco people are fanatical Mohammedans.'
68 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
And, indeed, he enjoyed his first week or
two on African soil immensely. From the
moment he set foot in Tangier — that tangled
Tangier — he found himself at once in a fairy-
land of marvels. More Eastern than the
East, Morocco still remains free from the
vulgarizing admixture of a foreign element,
which spoils Algiers and Cairo and Con-
stantinople. But Owen had never touched
on Islam at all before ; and this sudden dij)
into pure Orient at one plunge was to him a
uni(|ue and glorious experience. He was
sorry to tear himself away from the pictur-
esque narrow alleys and turbaned Moors of
Tangier even for the promised delights of
the wild interior. But Mr. Hayward's
arranp'ements for his tour in the Atlas were
soon completed ; the protection of the
Shereefian umbrella was granted in due
form, and they set out, after three days, for
the mountains of the back country.
Owen was not at all surprised to find, as
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 69
they journeyed iiilciiid, that Mr. Hayward
spoke Arabic fluently. On the contrary, it
would have astonished him much more if his
guardian had proved ignorant of any known
language, Oriental or Western. Mr. Hay-
ward chatted easily with their Moorish
escort, a soldier of the Sultan's, as they
marched along single file, each mounted on
a good native saddle-horse, through the
narrow bridle-paths which constitute the
sole roads in Morocco. The British Consul
at Tangier had procured them the services
of an official escort, and had further supplied
them with a firman from his Shereefian
Majesty, enjoining on all and sundry to
show them on their way every respect and
kindness. Travelling was safe in the in-
terior just now, the escort assured them ; for,
Allah be praised 1 the Sultan's health was
excellent. When the Sultan was ill, of course
it was very different ; things got unsettled
up country then, and it was dangerous
70 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
for forelirners to venture too far from the
coast and tlieir consuls. In Ramadan, too,
durino- tlie montli of fasting, Europeans
found it risky to travel about freely. The
faithful of the town got crusty with their
enforced abstinence, and their religious feel-
ings were deeply stirred at that time ; they
let them loose, the escort remarked witli
engaging frankness, on the passing infidels.
Up country, you see, the people are so little
accustomed to foreign eftendis. At Tangier
we are more civilized ; we have learned to
make trade with them.
It had been hot at Tangier, for it was
full summer in England ; but U}) on the
high mountains of the interior they found
the season cool, with a spring-like freshness.
Owen never enjoyed anything better than
that free, wild life, climbing crags through
the long day, camping out in quaint Berber
huts through the short nights, with none
but natives and their cattle for society.
♦CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 7^
And the danger gave it zest, for, in spite
of the Sultan's firman, they could only
photograph by stealth or inider constant
peril of angry and hostile expostulation.
About their fifth evening out from Tangier,
[in hour before sunset, as they were sitting
in the courtyard of a rude native inn at a
place called Ain-Essa, where they proposed
to pass the night as guests of the village,
they were surprised by the approach of a
pair of travellers in the costume of the
country. One was a handsome young man
in an embroidered Moorish jacket and loose
white trousers, wearing a fez on his head,
around which protruded great flufty masses
of luxuriant chestnut hair, reminding one
somewhat of the cinque-cento Florentines.
Though not more than the middle height,
the stranger yet looked tall and well made,
and Owen remarked at once with a pro-
fessional eye that he had in him the makings
of a very tolerable athlete. The other, who
72 UNDER SHALKI) ORUKRS
seemed his servant, was an older and
heavily-bearded man, clad in the common
irreen coat and dirty white turban of the
Moorisli ^aoom or stable-boy.
The younger traveller of the two jumped
from his horse very lit^htly ; he rode well,
and s[)rang with ease, like an accomplished
gynniast. As he flung his reins to his
servant, he said in decent French :
* Tiens, take my horse, Ali ; I'll go into
the aub(ii(j(\ and see if they can give us
acconnnodation this evening.'
The sound of a Euro})ean tongue in that
remote mountain village took Mr. Hayward
aback. He rose from the divan where he
sat, and, lifting his hat to the young man,
crossed over to the servant, while the new-
comer, with easy assurance, strolled into the
front-room of the native inn.
' Monsieur est Fran9ais ?' he asked the man
who had been addressed as Ali.
The Arab shook his head.
•CHERCHKZ LA FEMME' 73
' Non, An^^ljiise,' he answered curtly.
' Anglais V Mr. Hay ward corrected, think-
ing Ali's command of French didn't extend
as far as genders, and that he had sub-
stituted the feminine for the masculine in
error.
But Ali was not to be shaken so lightly
from his first true report.
' Non, non,' he repeated, ' Anglaise, vous
dis-je ; Anglaise, Anglaise, Anglaise. It's a
woman, not a man. It pleases her to ride
about through the interior that way.'
Owen looked up quite crestfallen.
* You don't mean to say she travels alone,
without an escort, with nobody to take care
of her except you ?' he asked the man in
French.
The Algerian — for he was one — nodded a
quiet assent.
• 'Tis mademoiselle's fancy,' he said ; ' she
likes to go her own way. And she goes it,
I can tell you. Nobody would ever get
74 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
mademoiselle to do anything she didn't
want to.'
Owen gazed appealingly at his guardian.
' This is too bad, Mr. Havward !' he cried.
'AVe've a soldier to protect us, and a girl
goes alone. We must dismiss our escort.
It's a shame for us to be beaten like that
by a woman.'
' You're quite right,' Mr. Hay ward an-
swered. 'If she can go alone, why, so can
we. I'll dismiss our man to-morrow, and
I'm glad you took it so.'
In a few minutes more the stranger strolled
out casually into the courtyard again. She
had a frank, free face, yet not really
masculine, when one came to look into it,
and the great crop of loose chestnut hair,
blowing about it in the breeze, gave it a
very marked air of loose grace and care-
lessness.
' I beg your pardon,' she said in pure
English, her voice betraying at once the
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 75
open secret of her sex, 'but I hear from
the man who keeps this place you've got
his only two rooms. I'm sorry to interfere
with you, but would you mind occupying
one together, just this evening, to let me
have the other? It's a long pull at this
hour of night to Taourist, the next station.'
She spoke as calmly and familiarly as if
she were in an English hotel, and as if a
lady got up in male Arab costume were
everywhere a common object of the country.
Mr. Hayward glanced at her and smiled,
raisincr his hat the while with his usual
stately courtesy.
'With pleasure,' he said, motioning her
to a seat on the divan by the door. 'If
there's anything at all we can do for you
we shall be only too happy. You're English,
of course, as I gather from your accent.'
The problematical young person took a
seat on the divan in the shade, and removed
her fez for coolness, displaying as she did
76 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
SO all the wealth of chestnut hair that had
before been but vaguely suspected by the
fringe that escaped from it.
' More English than anything else, I
suppose/ she said brightly, leaning back as
she spoke and loosening her native slippers,
* though I haven't a drop of English blood
in my body, if it comes to that ; but I'm a
British subject, any way, and my native
tongue's Englisli. I'm a little bit of every-
thing, I believe — except Turk, thank heaven!
— but my name's mostly Greek ; it's lone
Dracopoli.'
' A very pretty name, too,' Owen put hi,
half abashed. ' My friend's is Hayward,
and mine's Owen Cazalet.'
' Why, then, you must be Sacha's brother!'
Miss Dracopoli cried, enchanted. ' You are ?
How delightful ! Sacha and I used to go
to the School of Art together. You never
heard her speak of me, did you — lone
Dracopoli ?'
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 77
' No, never,' Owen answered. * But she
knows so many girls in London, of course,'
he added apologetically. 'You don't mean
to say you're travelling alone in Morocco like
this ? You've come all the way from Tangier
with nobody but this servant ?'
' Not from Tangier,' Miss lone answered,
enjoying his amazement immensely ; * much
further than that. All the way from Oran,
in French Algeria. Yes, I've ridden across
the mountains on my own hired horse, just
with Ali to take care of me. The French
people at Oran talked a pack of nonsense
about its being impossible for anybody to get
along beyond the frontier without an escort.
" Very well, then," said I to che sous-prefet
or somebody — a fat, smiling old gentleman
with a red ribbon in his button-hole and a
perfect genius for shrugging his shoulders
and saying, " Mais, non, mademoiselle ; im-
possible"— "I never care to attempt any-
thing myself unless it's impossible. What's
78 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
possible's easy. What's impossible's amus-
ing." He shruggfid his shoulders again, and
said, " Another of these mad English. Thank
heaven, if she's killed it'll be beyond tlie
frontier." But he let me go, all the same.'
And lone smiled, triumphant at the memory
of the encounter.
' And you've had no difficulties by the
way V Mr. Hay ward asked, astonished.
lone threw her head back and showed a
very pretty neck. Her face was daintily
rounded, and her teeth, when she smiled,
were two rows of pure ivory. '
' Difficulties ?' she echoed. ' Difficulties ?
Dear me, yes ; thank goodness I've had
nothing but difficulties. Why, what else do
you expect ? Where'd be the fun of coming
so far and facing so much discomfort, I should
like to know, if it were all plain sailing, like
a canter across the Brighton downs ? It was
the difficulties that drew me, and I've not
been disappointed.'
'CHERCHEZ LA FEMME' 79
Owen stared hard at her, and listened with
profound interest and admiration. Mr. Hay-
ward, gazing alarmed, noted the sparkle in
his eye. This was indeed a girl after Owen's
own heart, he felt sure. So he registered a
solemn resolution in his own mind to find out
that night which way Miss Dracopoli was
going on the morrow, and to start himself on
the opposite one. For there's nothing more
likely to turn a man from any fixed resolve
in life than that first stumbling-block of our
race, from Adam downward— a woman. And
Mr. Hayward had far other designs in his
head for Owen Cazalet than to let him fall a
victim betimes to any lone Dracopoli.
CHAPTER YI.
A CRITICAL EVENING.
They sat there some time and talked, the
pretty stranger in the Moorish costume de-
taihng to them meanwhile in further outline
her chief adventures by the way — how she'd
been refused at every native hut in the village
here, and made to sleep in the open air, under
the fig-trees, there, and turned away alto-
gether from whole tribal lands elsewhere.
It was a curious eventful tale, and once or
twice it grew exciting ; but Miss lone her-
self, overflowing with youthful spirits, told it
all, from the humorous side, as a capital joke,
and now and again made them laugh heartily
by the quaint drollness of her comments.
A CRITICAL EVENING 8i
At the end of it all slie rose, (pilte iiiiabaslied
and niitroubhM] by her wide Turkish trousers,
and, with an airy wave of* tlie hand, ol)-
served :
'I nnist go inside now, and see M'liat our
landlord can do for nie in the way of supper.
I'm hot and dusty with my ride. 1 nmst
liave a u'ood wash. There's nothing; on earth
so delicious, after all, when you've got beyond
the Southern limit of tubs, as a big bowl of
cold water at the end of a, long day's
journey.'
As soon as she was gone Mr. Hayward
looked at Owen.
' Well ?' he said slowly.
'Well?' Owen answered, })erusing his
boots.
' What do you think of her (' Mr. Hay-
ward asked, trembling.
' She's certainly pretty,' Owen adnn'tted,
hot and red.
And neither said a word more. But Mr.
VOL. I. 6
83 UNDKK SKAI.KI) ()KI)1:RS
HavANiird felt an unwonted thrill of pre-
monitory discoinfiture.
Half an hour later, Tone enieri;ed again.
She had taken off lier emhroidered jacket
meanwhile, and now displayed underneatii it
a sort of loose white shirt, of some soft silky
material, which mive her a more feminine
air, and showed off to greater advantage
that full, smooth, snowy neck of hers. Her
short but flowing hair rippled gracefully
round her tenn)les. She came out to them,
trilling to herself a few bars of a joyous
French song, ' C'est ya-tarra-larra.'
' Well, this is better,' she cried, looking
aronnd at the pink glow of the Southern sun-
set on the bare wliitewashed walls, and
shaklnu" her locks free from her forehead
on the faint mountain breeze. ' I'm cool
again now. They'll give us something to
eat out here before long, I supj^ose. Better
here than in that stuffy little living-room
inside. I'm not particular as to furniture, or
A CRITICAL EVENING 83
food either, tluink ooodness ! but fVesli air
seems to come rather expensive in Morocco.'
She was like fresli ;iir lier self, Owen felt
instinctively. Something so open and breezy
about her fuce, her voice, her walk, her
manner. The ideal of young Hellas come
to life again by a miracle in our workaday,
modern, iiuhistrial world. She looked as if
no taint of this sordid civilization of ours
had ever stained or sullied her Greek Naiad
nature.
' I've asked tliem to serve us what they
can m the open court,' Mr. Hayward said
dubiously. ' You're used to their fare by
this time, no doubt, so I won't apologize
for it.'
' I should think so !' the girl answered,
pulling her shirt loose as she spoke, witli
another sunny smile. ' Very good fare, too,
in its way, though not luxurious : dried figs
and milk, and olive-oil, and cous-cous. It's
such a comfort to feel one's left fish-knives
e
84 UXDEK SKA LEI) ORDERS
and doilies jilto^ctlicr lu'liind one, and that
there isn't n paii- of asparayus-toni^s any-
where nearei- than ( )ran.'
' IVrhaps,' Owen hegan, rising from his
seat, and looking' timidly towni'ds Mr. Hay-
ward, 'Miss Dracopoli wonld pivfei- '
' I heg your pardon,' their new acquaint-
ance [)ut in (juickly, interrupting him, ' I'm not
Miss Dracopoli. I object to tl ese meaning-
less pure courtesy titles. My name's lone.'
' But I can't say lone to a lady I never met
in my life before to-night,' Owen responded,
almost blushing.
' Why not V the pretty stranger answered,
with most engaging frankness, * especijdly as
you'll most likely never see me again in your
life, after to-morrow.'
Mr. Hayward looked up sharply. He was
glad to hear that welcome suggestion.
But Owen only bowed, and received the
hint in regretful silence.
' Well, if I were a man, you see,' lone went
A CKITICAL KVKNIXri 85
oil, composini;' herself <ni tlie (Hvan In Owen's
place, with her feet under her. Oriental
fashion, ' I'd t^et other men, of eonrse, to call
nie Dracopoli. I^ut a i;irl can't ([viite do that,
it's unfeminine, and women, T think, should
always he womanly ; so the only way (jut of
it is to say, frankly, lone.'
' So universal a privilege is the less likely
to he highly prized,' Mr. Haywai'd said sen-
tentiouslv.
* Exactly,' lone answered, leanin*;- forward,
all alert, and opening- jier palms hefore her
demonstratively. * That's just the point of
it, don't you see ? Tt prevents stupid non-
sense. I'm all for social freedoiu myself ; and
social freedom we girls can only get when
woiuen insist in general society upon heing
accepted as citizens, not as merely women.
What I've always held ahout our future '
But hefore she could get any further in her
voluble harangue the landlord of the little
inn, if one may venture to give the village
86 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
guest-house such a dignified name, appeared
in the court with the single tray which con-
tained their dinner.
He was the (miine, or headman of the
httle mountain conmmnity, and after serving
the meal he and his friends stood by, as
native politeness demands, not to partake of
the food, but to do honour to their guests,
and to enliven them with conversation.
From the talk that ensued, Owen, who, of
course, spoke no Arabic, was wholly cut off ;
but Mr. Hay ward and lone chatted away
complacently. Every now and again, too,
the amine would take up some cous-cous, or
a morsel of roast kid, in his dusky fingers,
and, as a special mark of distinguished con-
sideration, thrust it bodily into their mouths
— the Oriental equivalent for ' Do let me
tempt you with another slice of turkey.'
Owen felt it a hard trial of his courtesy to
gulp down these greasy morsels from those
doubtfully washen hands ; but he noticed
A CRITICAL EVENING 87
witli tidmii'jitioii that loivj Dracopoli received
them all with every outward expression of
appreciation and delight, and he marvelled
much himself at the young- lady's adaptive-
ness.
' What a power of acconnnodating yourself
to circumstances you must have 1' lie cried at
last to her, in an unobtrusive aside. ' I can't
put on a smiling face at those great greasy
boluses of his. How on earth do you manage
it?'
lone laughed lightly.
' Habit, I su])pose,' she answered, with a
sunnv irlance at the amine. ' That's how I
rub alonf^- so well with these half-barbarous
peo})le. I'm accustomed to giving way to
their crude native ideas, and so I seldom get
into anv serious bothers with them ; and
though I travel alone, they never dream of
insulting me, even if they're a bit churlish or
suspicious sometimes. And then, besides, I
dare say, my ancestry counts for a great deal.
88 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
I'lTi not so particiiLiu al)out my food, you see,
MS most regular Engllsli people. Even at my
father's table In London w(^ always had black
olives, and caviare, and all sorts of queer
Greek dishes — nasty sloppy messes our
visitors called them, much like this }>il1a>' ;
but I was brought up on them, and I liked
them.'
' And then you sj)eak Arabic so well,'
Owen went on enthusiastically. ' That's
the Greek in you again, I suppose ? Can
you S})eak many languages ? Most Eastern
Euro})eans have such a natural taste for
them.'
' Oh yes, pretty well,' lone replied, with
the careless air of a person who describes
some unimportant accomplishment. ' English,
and French, and German, of course ; those
come by nature — one hears everybody speak-
ing them ; and then modern Greek — papa's
business friends always spoke that in the
house, and we picked it up unconsciously ;
A CRITICAL l':VENING 89
and ancient Greek — papa liked us to know
enough, you see, to read the New Testament
and follow the service at church. Papa was
orthodox, of coiu'se, and we went to Peters-
hurg Place ; and it was such fun to spell out
Herodotus and Aristophanes and rEschylus.
Men tliink you're clever; tliough, when you
speak modern Greek fluently, you know, it
isn't the least bit liard to pick out the sense
of Thucydides and Plato ; but I'm not learned,
you must understand. I've only skimmed
them through, just as Pd skim Shakespeare,
or a French novel, or Dante's Inferno.'
And she helped lierself to some curds with
her fingers daintily.
' Then you know Italian, too ?' Owen inter-
posed, still more open-mouthed.
' To read, not to talk — that is to say, not
well. But I'd soon joick it uj) if I was a week
in the country. That's how I speak Arabic,
as she is spoke, you know — no better. I took
lessons for a fortnio^ht at Oran before I started
90 UXDHR SEALED ORDERS
from such ii funny old Moor, with a French
wife and three native ones ; they boarded
me in the liarem, and we jib-jabbered to-
gether from morning to niglit, and I get
along splendidly now. So would you if you
took the trouble, and if you've a turn for
lano'uages.'
' I have,' Owen [inswered modestly. ' 1
suppose that runs always with East European
blood.'
He paused and faltered, for, in the midst
of the amines conversation, Mr. Hay ward's
keen eyes liad darted a warning glance at
him. Then he went on more quickly, as if to
cover the slip :
'Your Other's dead, I gather, from what
you say ; but have you a mother living ?'
' Oh dear, yes,' lone replied frankly, with-
out a shade of false reserve. ' A dear old
duck of a mother. She's Norse, my mother
is, but orthodox — Greek Church, I mean, you
know. Papa married her at Bergen, when
A CRITICAL EVENING 91
he was there in business, and she was received
into the Church in London, after he was made
a partner. That's why, though I'm practically
English, I haven't a drop of English blood in
my veins — thank Heaven ! for 1 prefer to be
oritrinal. I'm a cross between Nora Helmer
and the Athenian of the age of Pericles, Sacha
always tells me ; and I'm proud of the mixtuie.
Stay-at-home English people are so conven-
tional — too Philistine, too afraid to trust
their own winp's. Pm not like that. Pm
wild on freedom.'
And she shook her straggling locks again,
standing out wavily on all sides, and let her
full white shirt purse itself out as it would
over her uncorseted bosom.
' So I should think,' Owen answered, with
a slight twinkle in his eye, though he ad-
mired her boldness immensely. ' But does
your mother ' — ' know you're out,' he was half
tempted to add, though he restrained himself
with an effort, and finished the sentence —
92 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
' aj)pr()ve of your coining away all alone l)y
yourself like this to Morocco?'
Tone drew in lier rich red lips with ex-
pression, and wi])ed them internally — since
the feast knew no naj)kins.
' I'm an Individualist,' she said hriskly ;
' above everything, an Individualist. I believe
— it's a simple creed — in personal freedom,
and I'm luckv in liavinijf a mother who's an
Individualist too, and who shares my con-
fession of faith. When I was coming here,
I said to her, " Well, I'm going to Morocco."
''■ All right, dear," she said ; " alone ?" " Yes,
alone, mother." " How '11 you travel — on
foot ?" '' No ; if possible, on horseback."
"When do you start ?" " To-morrow." "Very
well, dear ; take care of yourself" There's
a mother for you, if you like. I think I've
reason to be proud of her. I'm not conceited,
I hope, but I flatter myself I've brought up
my mother splendidly.'
Mr. Hayward, glancing sideways, would
A CRITICAJ. EVKNINC; 93
have given ;iiiyt]iiii<ji" tluit mouieiit to get rid
of the amhic. This coiiveisation was terrihle.
It tlireiitenecl instant ruin to all his hest-laid
plans. Was ever Owen confronted wnth
such a dangerous pitfall? And he could do
nothing-, nothing to stoj) the full How^ of
this strange young- wa)man's too attractive
confidence.
He tried to draw her into conversation
with the cwiinr, hut all to no purpose. lone
was much more interestingly engaged else-
w^iere. She liked this young- athlete with
the great English limhs, who told her so
modestly of his climhs among the mountains
— a man after her own heart, and so hand-
some, too, and so appreciative. She rattled
on with him by the hour, novv narrating her
own adventures, now drawling out his. Long-
after the meal was removed, and the cmiiui'
had withdrawn gracefully to his evening
devotions (with a curse for the infidels), she
kept those two there up talking continuously
94 UNDi: K SEALED ORDERS
with lier. Mr. Haywfird himself, that heart
of adamant, was hardly proof at^^'ainst her
sechictive charm. She was so frank, so
adventurous, so l)old, yet so innocent.
' You nuistn't think ill of me,' she said at
last, ' if I've talked like a woman all evening
— and all ahout myself. I've a right to be
garrulous. I've such arrears to make up —
such arrears ; oh, dreadful ! Just consider, it's
five weeks to-day since I've met a Christian
soul to talk to.'
Mr. Hay ward stroked his chin and roped
his bio- black moustache. The word Christian
attracted him.
' And are you Orthodox, then, yourself,' he
asked, ' like your father and mother ?'
lone laughed at the question.
' Orthodox 1' she cried merrily, with a
girlish toss of her pretty head — it was a true
Greek head, oval, straight-nosed and round-
faced — ' not in any sense of the word. I'm
a Christian, I hope, in essentials, if that's
A CRITICAI. KVKNlXr. 95
wlijit you wiint to ask; l)ut ( )itli()(1ox, no
no! Not iit all my line tliat. I'm just a
concentrated bundle of all tlie heterodoxies.'
And with that tinal Parthl;>ii shot she
nodded gcjod-uight to them both, and tripped
uracefully away into the narrow doorway of
the sleeping- room.
Before they retired for the night to roll
themselves u]) in their own rugs (jn the
smooth, mud -paved floor, Mr. Hay ward
whispered ^br a moment in a low voice to
Owen.
' My boy,' he said, not angrily, but like
one grieved and surprised, laying his hand
on the young man's shoulder with that kindly
paternal air of his, ' what a terrible slip about
your East European blood ! It took my
breath away to hear you. How on earth
did you ever come to do it V
' I'm sure I don't know,' Owen answered,
abashed and penitent. ' It slipped from me
unawares. I suppose I was off my guard,
</) UNDER SKAI.Hl) ORDERS
l)ein^^ so far from T^ji^laiid. Mr. Hayward,
yoii'r(3 too ^-ood I Don't look at me like tliat,
Imt do scold me — do scold me for it. I'd give
worlds if you'd scold me sometimes instead
of taking- tliint;s to heart so. ( )li, liow wrong
of me — how silly ! What can I do to show
you how grieved and ashamed 1 am? . . .
Dear friend, dear guardian, don't look at me
like that. This time will he a warning to
me. As long as I live, I promise you faith-
fully, I'll never do so again— never, never,
never !'
And, to do him justice, he kept his word
faithfully.
CHAPTEll \U.
A PnOTOrJRAPHIC STUDY.
Owen slept that evening nmcli worse than
usual. Not that the externals of his resting-
place at Ain-Essa differed in any essential
particular from those of the other squalid
native huts where he'd spent every pre\'ious
night since leaving Tangier. The dogs
didn't bark louder, the jackals didn't whine
in a more melancholy monotone, the lieas
didn't bite with any livelier persistence, than
in all the otlier sparse Berber villages on the
slopes of Atlas. But Owen slept a great
deal less than his wont, for all that ; and the
reason was — he was thinkinof of lone.
She was separated from him only by a
thin wooden partition ; for these native
VOL. I. 7
98 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
North African guest-houses ai-e far from
luxurious. Indeed, it is the fashion to make
a single building serve the double purpose of
an inn and of the villacro cow-house. At
one end of the guest-chamber rises a broad
wooden platform, under which the mules and
cattle are stabled, their heads projecting
through an opening into the room one sleeps
in. But to this arrangement, which carried
his mind away at first to the inn at Bethle-
hem, Owen had by this time grown perfectly
accustomed ; what he hadn't grown accus-
tomed to was Tone's close proximity. For
the room was divided transversely by a
thin layer of pine planks ; and tiirough the
chinks of the boards, as well as through the
open space at the far end where the cattle
were tethered, he could hear Ione*s deep
breath, long and regular like a child's, rise
and fall with each movement of that invisible
bosom.
He thought much of lond, therefore, and
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY 99
of the chance that had thrown them thus
strangely together.
She'd come there for amusement, she said ;
for amusement alone, and perhaps, when she
o-ot back, to write a book about it. If he'd
read tliat book in London, it would have
been nothing, nothing. But meeting lone
out there, in the fler^h, among the wild hills
of Morocco, in lier masculine attire and with
her free English spirit— for, after all, it was
Endish— she seemed to him more like some
creature from the realms of fairyland : some
Hellenic nymph, Oread or Dryad revived, in
this alien world of woman-enslaving Islam.
Not that lone seemed to think much of
her own exploit herself. It was that that
put the finishing touch to her singular
character. She talked as though it were
quite a matter of course for a girl of nineteen
to be travelling alone in man's clothes
through the mountains of North Africa. A
mere detail of convenience on an out-of-the-
100 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
way route. An accident of caprice. Owen
admired her all tlie more for it.
But she must have money, too. That was
bad. Or else how could she come such trips
as this by herself? Owen didn't dream of
marriage yet — he was only just turned
twenty — but he had a prejudice against
money, esjoecially in a woman. Most whole-
some-minded men Avould prefer to work for
the girl of their choice themselves, and let
hei- ov/e everything to them, rathei- than put
up with a wife who could keep them or help
them, and make them lose their sense of
perfect independence.
At last he dozed off. Even so he slept
but lightly. He was aware of the bite of
each individual flea in all that populous
room, and heard in his dreams the various
droning notes of each responsive jackal.
Earlier than usual next morning Mr.
Hayward waked him up with a gentle touch
on his shoulder.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY loi
* Li've-toi,' he said In Frencli, which
thev talked together oftener than not, for
practice' sake, on these hohday ontings —
thorongli colloquial French is so usefnl for
young men in the diplomatic service. 'We
must get under way pretty early this
morning, or Ave shall sleep a, la helle etoile.
I'm thinking of a long stage. Dress quick,
and come out to me.'
He didn't say why ; hut Ow^en foncied he
knew, for all that. Mr. Hayward was
anxious to p-et well started on the road
before lone was up, and in the opposite
direction from the one she meant to go in.
In that hope, however, the wise guardian
of youth was unex})ectedly frustrated ; for
scarcely had they gone out into the cool
courtyard from the stuffy room where they'd
passed the night in their rugs amid the hot
breath of the cattle, w ' en a lively voice
broke in upon them :
' Good - morning, friends ; good -morning.
102 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Isn't it just stifling in there ! I'm out half
an hour l:)efore you.'
It was lone, sure enough, up and dressed
betimes, in fez and white shirt, even prettier
in the fresh mornincr- air than last niMit after
her journey. Did she always rise so early ?
Owen wondered to himself; or had she got
ujj on purpose — he hardly dared to ask it of
his own soul, for he had the modesty of a
man — well, on pm-pose to say good-bye to
them ?
lone, however, didn't leave them long in
doubt.
' Oh, Mr. Hayward,' she said, after a few
minutes, in the most natural way possible,
' I wanted to see you before I went, just to
ask you a favour. I wonder, now, if you'd
photograph me ? You said last night you'd
a lens and all that sort of thing here with
you, and I thought, if you didn't mind, it 'd
be so nice to be " took," as the servants say,
in all my chiffons like this, got up in costume
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY 103
as a regular Barbary barbarian. Of course,
I coidd have it done, you know, just as well
in London ; only, it tvoiddnt be " just as
well," but quite different altogether. If I
went for it to Elliot and Fry's, or to Morti-
mer's in Bond Street, it 'd be a cut-and-dried
London cabinet portrait of a lady in a fancy
dress — nothing more than that — no surround-
ings, no reality. But if I got it taken here,
with the real live Atlas in the distance for a
background, and the village and the Berbers
for accessories on either side — well, suppose
I should ever happen to make a book of all
this, just think what a lovely idea for a
frontispiece.'
Mr. Hayward laughed and humoured her.
No harm in humouring — just for once— a
pretty girl one'll most likely never see again
as long as one lives.
' I am Mortimer's in Bond Street,' he said,
with a quiet smile. ' In private life I'm
known as Lambert Hayward ; but in busi-
104 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
ness I'm Mortimer and Co., and I live by
takintr photograpliH. However, if you like,
after breakfast, we'll try, thougli I don't
know whetlier these Berbers will care very
much to let us get a shot at their villages.'
' Oil, leave that to mc,^ lonr said confi-
dently. ' I'll soon make it all right. I'll
iret round the amine. He's a dear old
gentleman, I can see, and he'll do anything
one asks him — if only one goes the right way
to work about it.'
And as she said it, she looked so bewitch -
ingly arch and charming, that Mr. Hayward
in his heart agreed with her altogether.
Before such guileless art, even ripe men, he
felt with, a pang, are but as clay in the hands
of the potter.
So after breakfast he got out his camera,
obedient to her wish, w4th less concealment
than was his wont, and proceeded to make
preparations for photographing lone. The
pretty cosmopolitan herself, meanwhile,
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY 105
poured out voluble explanations In very
womanly Arabic to the village chief, at each
sentence of which the old Moslem stroked his
own short beard caressingly, and called Allah
to witness in strange gutturals that he meant
no harm, and gazed hard at the pleading girl,
and reflected to himself with a very puzzled
head that the ways of Allah and these infidels
are truly wonderful. Strange that such fair
women should be wasted on unbelievers.
But at the end of it all he raised his head
and crossed his hands on his breast.
' Allah is great,' he murmured piously.
' You have eyes like the gazelle. Do as you
will, oh lady.'
* We'll have it here, then, Mr. Hayward,'
lone said, motioning him over towards the
little domed tomb of a Mohammedan saint,
surrounded by prickly pears and great spike-
leaved aloes. ' This makes such a pretty
background. It's Africa all over. And those
children there must come across and be
io6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
examining my locket. ' This way, little
ones,' in Arabic. ' Now, just so, then, Mr.
Hay ward.'
The operator hesitated.
' I hardly know if it's (juite safe,' he said,
glancing quickly to either side. ' This tomb
is a Jcoiihha^ you see — the shrine of some
petty saint, almost as holy as a mosque, and
exceedingly sacred. The people may be
angry with us if I try to make a picture
of it.'
lone beamed inquiry with those bright
eyes at the amine. The amine^ overpowered,
nodded ungrudging assent. For those bright
eyes, indeed, what live man would not forego
all the houris in Paradise ?
' Allah is great,' he muttered once more,
'and the tomb is a holy one. It will save the
picture from sin. The bones of the blessed
Sidi Ahmed Ben Moussa within it might
sanctify anything.'
Which is one way of looking at it. Dese-
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY 107
cratloii and wild revenge hy sudden murder
is the otlier one.
' Sliall I stand in line, too, just to balance
the group V Owen suggested, half trembling.
Mr. Hayward, at the camera, raised one
warning hand in solemn deprecation.
' No, no,' he said (piickly. ' That would
never, never do. Your European get-up
would break in u])on the unity of the scene,
Owen. Fetch Miss Dracopoli's Algerian— I
beg your pardon— lono's, I mean. His dress
is so distinctive. He'll be much more appro-
priate.'
'Won't this man here do still better?'
Owen asked, raising his hand to point at
a handsome young native who lounged by
the arched door of a neighbouring hut, in the
picturesque upland garb of the country, one
long cloak folded toga -wise.
But lone dashed down his arm almost
faster than he raised it.
' Don't do that !' she cried, half alarmed.
io8 UNDKK SEALED ORDERS
'Haven't you learnt that yet? You've no
idea what an Insult it is. He niit»-ht rush at
you and stab you for it. In Morocco you
should never venture to point at anybody.
They thiidv it brin^-s down Tipon them the
evil-eye. My old Moor at Oran told me that,
and lots of other good ti})s like It. They're
a ticklish people to deal with, these Berbers,
and you've got to humour them. Pointing's
almost as bad as asking the father of a
household after his wives and family. You
should lii'iiore his womankind. Thev're his
own concern here, you see, and nobody else's.
Wliat a countrv to live in ! It wouldn't suit
me. I'm awfully glad, after all, I was born
in some ways an Englishwoman.'
The pose was quickly completed, and the
picture taken. As soon as it was finished,
Mr. Hayward went oif for a minute to pack
the negative with the rest, leaving Owen and
lone alone by the dome-covered tomb for a
short breathing-space.
A PHOTOGRArillC STUDY 109
The monu'iit lie was gone, Ion*' t;-azed at
the young man, and niurniured in a lununa-
tive voice :
* So he's Mortimer and Co. in ])usiness.
How curious ! How singular I'
'Yes, Mortimer and Co., in l^ond Street,'
Owen answered, somewhat alarmed at the
turn her tlioughts were taking.
' And out of it he calls himself Lambert
Hayward, does he V
' He does. Lambert HayN\'ard.'
' But what's his real name V lone burst
out, turning round with a sudden dart,
and flashing the question on him unex-
pectedly.
Owen was quite taken aback at her light-
ning-like quickness.
' His real name,' he repeated, all discon-
certed. ' Why, I told you — Lambert Hay-
ward.'
' Oh, bosh !' lone answered promptly, with
the saucy confidence of a pretty girl. ' You
no UNDKK SEALED ORDERS
don't really expect lue to .swallow tliat now,
do you C
* Why not V Owen asked, flu.sliinu- hot.
' Why not r loiu'' echoed, brimniino- over
with conscious discovery. * Well, that's really
too absurd of you. Why not Lambert Hay-
ward i Simply because Lambert Hayward's
a i)ure Ent^lish name, and your friend's no
more English than 1 am ; nor half as much
either, if it comes to that. He wasn't even
born in En<^land.'
'You think not?' Owen answered uneasily,
appalled at the girl's hasty intuition.
* Oh dear no !' lone cried with decision,
shaking her pretty flufty hair. ' I knew
that at a glance. I knew it by his r's, and
his 0, ^(;'s, and his s, It's. He's not English
at all, I'm sure ; the man's a Russian.'
There was a deep, long })ause. Owen
could hear bis own heart beat. He wouldn't
tell a lie, and the truth would undo him.
He let his eyes rest nervously on the
A I'lIOTOC.KAPHIC STUDY nr
m'ouiid some secoiHls ; lie (lldii't dare to
niise tlieiii, lest this witch should read every
thoujxht in his reelint!" brain.
* He calls himself an Eiinlishmiin,' he
murnnu'cd at last, ' and says he was born
in En<dand ;' and for one instant he looked
at her.
Their eyes met in a flash, [ones peered
deep into his ; Owen quailed before her
keen scrutiny. Then the girl added calmly :
'Yes, but it isn't true, you know, and
you yourself know it isn't. He's as Russian
as he can be — as Russian as they make
them. His native tongue's Russki. I've
half a mind to try him with a sentence or
tw^o in good Russ, just to see how it con-
fuses him.'
Owen stared at her in mute agony. Oh,
w^hat on earth was he to do ? He clasped
his hands and grew cold ; he felt like a
criminal.
* For Heaven's sake don't f he cried, all
112 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
agluist. ' If you do, what can he thhik,
except that I've betrayed him? — and I'd
sooner die than that ! If you speak a word
to him in Kussian, I'll jump over the nearest
crag and kill myself
He spoke with awful seriousness. lon^
took it in at a glance ; she saAv how alarmed
he was, and nodded a quiet acquiescence.
' Don't be afraid,' she said shortly ; ' I'm
as dark as niffht, and as close as the iirave.
I won't whisper a word to liim. Besides,
to tell you the truth, I don't know any
liuss. I said it for a joke. But you see I
was right. You admit it yourself now. I
was just sure he was a Russian.'
At that moment, as she spoke, Mr. Hay-
ward stalked unconcernedly out of the guest-
house in the rear.
' Daughter of all the Dracopolis,' he said
gaily, for he was too polite to go on calling
her lone outright, even at her own request,
' it's succeeded very well, and is a capital
A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY 113
photograph. To what address in London
may I send you the positives V
But even as he said it he saw what a
mistake he had made. For it was giving
Owen the clue to the pretty Greek's address
—though, after all, if one came to think,
he could have got it, if he was so minded,
from Sacha, any day.
VOL. I.
CHAPTER VIII. j
DANGER AHEAD.
As soon as the photov,aph was finished,
lone prepared to go her own way and con- ^]
tinue her journey. Ali lu'ought round her
horse, ready saddled, and lone, now fully
dressed in her embroidered jacket and fez,
sprang lightly on its back with an easy
vault, man-fashion.
' Well, it's been pleasant to meet a
European face again, and hear a word or |
two of English,' she said, turning towards
them with a sunny smile on those full rich
lips. ' I don't deny that, though I came
here to escape them. It's good of you to
have troubled about my ])hotograph, too.
DANGER AHEAD 115
Thank you ever so much for it. And now
i,^ood-bve. We may meet again some day,
I've no doubt, in London.'
'All fortuitous atoms clash at the centre
at last,' Mr. Hayward answered, in his sen-
tentious way, raising his hat and holding
his head bare with the same stately courtesy
as ever till she was well out of sight.
' What's your next stage to-day ? Where
do you go from here V
lone looked to the strai)ping of the little
bag behind her saddle as she answered gaily :
•Taourist, Taourist ; a very fanatical and
turbulent village, our host here tells me ;
no photographing uKjsques there. They
shoot you for anmsement. And you, Mr.
Hayward ? You'll be sleei)ing at '
' Ouarzin,' Mr. Hayward answered, still
bareheaded by the gateway.
' Good !' lone replied, with that expansive
smile of hers— too expansive, Owen thought
to himself, for it included all humanity.
ii6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
And then she waved them a friendly
adieu with ber plump uiii^loved hand, and
rode off like a sunbeam, rejoicing in ber
strenofth and voutb and beavity.
As sbe rounded the corner out of sigbt,
Mr. Hay ward turned and gave tbe order
to tbeir ow^n servant to start inunediately.
Half an hour later they were threading
once more, single file, tlie narrow bridle-
paths on the volcanic hillside.
The village of Ain-Essa, from which they
had just come, like most other in tbe Berber
uplands of the Atlas, crowned the summit
of a small knoll ; and all roads to all parts
converged and diverged at a spot a few
hundred yards on the slope below it. When
they had reached this Clapham Junction of
the local highway system, Mr. Hay ward
halted a moment in doubt, and pointed
ahead inquiringly to one out of the three
main routes that branched off in various
directions.
DANGER AHEAD 117
' Where Joes it go ?' he asked then- servant
in Arabic.
And the man, bending his head, made
answer, ' Taourist.'
Owen's quick ear, accustomed to rapid
assimilation of foreign languages, caught the
strange sounds at once, and even interpreted
the question aright, for he was beginning
by this time to pick up a, few stray words
of Arabic. Taourist ! That was where
lone had said she was going ! But they
were not to follow her. Mr. Hay ward
looked away quickly, and turned to the
second one.
' And this V he asked, pointing to the
west with his riding-whip.
' EflPendi, to Ouarzin.'
Mr. Hayward sliook his head again. That
surprised Owen not a little. For Ouarzin
was the village they had mapped out to
take next in due course on their route, and
only that very morning, too, Mr. Hayward
ri8 uni)i:k si*:ali:i) ordkks
bad told loiic' he iiieant to n-o there. Now,
Mr. H.'iyward, he kin^w, was hy no iiK^ins
a man to turn lightly aside from any resolve
once made, however unimportant.
' The third one ?' he asked once more,
with demonstrative crop.
The Aral) attendant shrugged liis shoulders
uneasily.
'Ah, Eftendi; lie said, 'a had road— a
very bad road indeed —and a wild set of
villagers. It was np there a Spaniard — a
very rich man — was killed by the dervishes
last year out of hatred of the infidel. I
don't advise you to try there. It's called
Beni-Mengella.'
In spite of tliis adjuration, however, Mr.
Hayward loosened his rein, and took the
last-named path witliout a w(jrd of explana-
tion. Owen followed in silence. The Arab
servant for bis part was too respectful or too
overawed to venture on c^uestioning him.
Thev rode on for some mi mites along the
DANGER AHEAD 119
steep and narrow ivuile-track, a mere ledge
on tlie liillside, mounting up and ever up,
beset with endless loose stones, and overliung
by ragged thickets of prickly cactus. It was
a beautiful scene. To the left rose the
mountains, densely wooded to the top with
rich and luxuriant Southern vegetation; to
the right yawned the ravine, leading down
into a deep valley, tilled in patches with
scanty corn or waving gray with silvery
olive groves. White villages perched here
and there on buttressed si)urs of the moun-
tain - tops, petty mosques or domed toml)S
and whited sepulchres of dead saints, served
to diversify the principal heights with appro-
priate local landmarks. Below lay tangled
gorges of the mountain streams, pink with ^
flowering oleanders or draped by rich fes-
toons of creamy African clematis. Now and
then, near the villages, they just spied for a
second some group of laughing girls, their
faces unveiled, bearing pitchers on their
I20 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
heads, and passing to and fro with loud cries
and merry chatter from the fountain. Mr.
Hayward would liave given much to get a
snap - shot at such a group ; hut, unfor-
tunately, the Berher women were as timid I
as fawns, and, seeing them, fled scared be-
hind the shelter of the trees, or peeped out
at tliem as they passed from behind some
darkling doorway with the mingled curiosity
and fear of a pack of shy children.
After half an hour or more of this silent
ride, Owen broke in suddenly at last :
' I thought, Mr. Hayward, you meant to
go to Ouarzin.'
' So I did,' his friend answered, without
looking back or slackening rein, ' but at the
very last moment I changed my mind. Modi-
fiability of opinion, you know, Owen, as Her-
bert Spencer says, is a fair rough test of the
highest intelligence.'
When Mr. Hayward talked like that Owen
was always overawed. Irrepressible, cheery
DANGER AHEAD 121
English schoolboy that he was at heart, those
short sentences of Mr. Hayward's shut him
up comi)letely.
As he answered nothing of himself, his
friend added, after a pause :
'I wouldn't go toTaourist, because Miss
Dracopoli said she was going there ; and I
wouldn't go to Ouarzin, because I'd told Miss
Dracopoli we should spend the night there
ourselves, and I thought-well, I thought
perhaps she might elect to change her mind,
and go on there, after all, on purpose to meet
us. So now, you see, Owen, I'm always frank
with you. I've told you the whole truth.
You can guess the rest for yourself. Some
men in my place would have concealed it
from you sedulously. That's not my way,
my boy. I tell you the simple truth, and I
tell it outright. ... To put it plainly, I
don't think it's well for you to see too much
of young women of Miss Dracopoli's tempera-
ment.'
122 UXDHK SICALEI) ORDKKS
And Mr. Hjiyw.'ird was (|iiit«* i'ii;lit. Tic
vviis acting", as usual, with all the wisdom of
the serpent and all the iiui()cenc(M)f the dove.
By thus sayino' strain-lit out his inmost mind
to Owen, he A\'ns puttino-Owen on his honour,
as it were, and comju'llin^- acquiescence. For
Owen was En^Tishmnn enouu'h to feel such
ofenerous treatment hound him down in turn
to the iutensest intei^-rity. If Mr, Hay ward
didn't wish him to see more of lone, how in
Sfoodness' name could he ever do enouo-h to
avoid her in future ?
Not tliat he was so very anxious to meet
their new friend air'ain ; thouo^li she took his
fancy immensely at first sight. Her freedom,
her courage, her frankness, her innocence, all
hit him hard on the tenderest points, and he
knew it already. But it was the principle,
above all things, that troubled him sorely.
Did Mr. Hay ward mean to put him thus on
his honour, he wondered, as to lone in par-
ticular, or to all women in general ? If the
I)AN(;kk ahi:ai) 123
last, tliat was suivly a v(My lMr<;(' order.
()NV(M. was just growino- to tl.e i.ge when a
Drettv ^••ii-1 exercises u distinct magnetic in-
tliience on a y<mng man's sold. Did Mr.
Hayward intend that all that sidt; of human
nature should he a hlank pagv to him ? Was
he to lead an anchorite's life? Did the
cause demand even that painl'ul sacrifice of
him?
After a few minutes' pause he spoke.
'Miss Dracopoli in particular?' he asked,
pursuing his own train of thought, as if Mr.
Hayward had heen following it all the time,
as indeed was the case, 'or all women in
general V
Mr. Hayward turned and gazed at him— a
mute, imploring gaze.
' Mv hov,' he said kindly, hut with a sort
of terror in his eye, ' sooner or later I felt
this subject must be discussed between us,
and to-day's as good an occasion for discuss-
ing it as any. On this point, Owen, I feel
■■■■■I
124 UNDHR SKALED ORDERS
exjictly like P;iul — 1 luive no coininaiidnient
fVoni {]]{' Lord iil)oiit it, l)ut I give you my
ju(li;inrnt : " I would luivc you without cjire-
f'ulni'ss." I would have your hands kept
free, if possible, to do the work tliat's set
before you. llenieniber, love affairs are a
very great snare ; they take up a young
man's time and distract his attention 'I'hat's
why I've kei)t single to this day myself.
There are women 1 might have loved, but
I've cherished my celibticy. It allowed me
to direct my inidivided energies to the good
of the cause. " He that is unmarried," says
Paul, " careth for the things that belong to
the Lord, how he may please the Lord ; but
he that is married careth for the thinijfs that
are of the world, how he may })lease his
wife." There you have the question in a
nutshell. And so, like tlie Apostle, I lay no
command upon you. I'm too wise for that.
If you niust fall in love, you must, and no
care or resolution will keep you out of it.
I)AN('.I:R AlIKAI) '25
But, at any rate, you needn't rush Into tlu'
way of It niH'dli'ssly. Ket'i) yoiu- Lead clear
if you can, and hi the cause have the lieart
of you.'
And for the rest of that ride Mr. ITay-
ward talked on with unwonted freedom and
vigour of tlie cause. He talked nnich, too,
of his i)lans for Owen's future life, and of
how the ca\ise was to he henefited by his
iro'unr into the diplomatic service.
' But even if I get an attarhi's place,
Owen said at last, with a glance as he passed
at a green ravine below them, 'how can you
ever ensure my getting sent to Petersburg V
He always spoke of it so, and not as St.
Petersburg. It's the Russian way, and he
had picked up the habit from Mr. Hayward.
The elder man smiled a calm, serene smile
of superior wisdom.
' My dear boy,' he said, looking back at
him, 'you needn't trouble about that. Do
you think Pve laid my schemes in such a
126 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
haphazard way as your (jiiestioii Implies ? — I,
Lambert Hay ward ? You don't know^ me
yet, Owen. But you have no need to nmddle
your head about such trifles. Your phice is
to go wherever you may be sent, and to wait
till the signal for action Is given you. Till
then you can leave all with perfect safety to
me. When the signal comes you nmst strike,
and strike home ; and as long as this world
lasts a grateful country will remember you.'
' I see,' Owen answered, almost blushing
for his indiscretion in asking. ' I might have
guessed it, I know. You do nothing care-
lessly, and I understand how man}'- strings
you hold in your hand at once ; how intricate
to pull, how difficult to co-ordinate. I
realize how you're in touch with every chord
and pulse of this vast organization tlie whole
world over. Don't think, Mr. Hay ward, I
undervalue the privilege of being so trusted
by you, and of living so near you. Don't
think I doubt for a moment your power to
DANGER AHEAD 127
iirrange this, or almost anything else you
seriously set your mind upon. Only, I
wondered, even with all your influence, how
you could so far pull the wires of the Foreign
Oftice in England as to get a particular
attache sent to Petersburg or to Vienna.'
The smile on Mr. Hayward's lips grew
deeper and wiser than ever. He turned his
head once more, and answered in the same
masterful tone as before :
' Owen, you take far too nmch for granted.
You think you fathom me, my boy; you
think you fathom me. Many men and
women have tried to do that in their time,
but not one of them has succeeded. . . . Why,
who told you I ever meant you to go to
Petersburg at all ? Pure inference of your
own, pure human inference ; 1 never said so.'
He paused a moment and reflected. Then he
went on again more confidentially. 'See
here,' he said, dropping his voice by pure
habit even in those unpeopled wilds. ' It's
'
128 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
not in Russia itself* tliat we stand the best
chance of striking a decisive blow at this
hateful autocracy. Quite the contrary ; no-
where else in the world are our opportunities
so small, or the defence so active. There
we're watched, numbered, thwarted, con-
spired against, counter-plotted ; there we're
held in check by endless spies and police and
soldiers ; there the men and women of the
llomanoflP horde are guided night and day
by innumerable precautions. In Ilussia it-
self, I doubt whetlier even an English attache
could ever get near enough the person of the
chief criminal or liis leading accomplices to
effect anything practical. He might, of
course, or he mightn't. But that isn't the
plan I have in view for you, Owen. I mean
to let them send you wherever they like.
And wherever you go, you'll be equally useful
to us.'
' More perhaps elsewhere than at Peters-
burg itself,' Owen suggested, as calmly as if
DANGER AHEAD 129
it were the merest ordinary business. He
liad been brouoht up to regard it so, and it
was so that he, regarded it.
'More perliaps elsewhere,' Mr. Hayward
assented with a nod. ' Much more perhaps
elsewliere. At Petersburg you might pick
up for us some useful information, and benig
an Enidishman and a member of the Embassy,
you'd be the less suspected of having any-
thing to do with us. But elsewhere you
could manage ftir more than that. You
might have access to the llomanofis tliem-
selves, whenever one of them came by.
There's nowliere they mayn't come— they
pervade all Europe— Copenhagen, Athens,
Nice, Florence, Brussels — and even the
jealous care of the most friendly police can't
exclude from tlieir circle members of the
diplomatic body. Why, they're not even safe
in Asia itself; we dogged them through
India. One of them w as wounded the other
VOL. I. ^
'I
,30 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
day in Japan ; another was attacked, thoutrb all k
that was hushed up, at the Taj at Agra. There-
in lies our strength, my boy ; we're ubiquitous
and irrepressible. The criminals never know
from what unexpected point, at what unex-
pected moment, the ministers of justice may
overtake them and pounce down upon them.
And what would terrify them more than the
sudden discovery some day, in the midst of
the festivities of some foreign court, that a
minister of justice stood unnoticed even
there, in the guise of an envoy of some
friendly potentate ? We want to make it
impossible for any man, however brave, to
accept the bad eminence of autocrat and
iraoler-in-chief of All the Kussias. Can you
imagine any plan more likely to accomplish
our end than this plan of striking a blow
where it's least expected by the hand of one
who had always passed for a neutral English-
man, and whose very connection with the
Cause or the People in Russia no one but
DANGER AHEAD 131
ourselves would ever so much as dream of
suspecting V
Owen glanced ahead at him admiringly.
'Mr. Hayward; he said with profound
conviction, 'you're a wonderful man. If
anyone can free Russia, you surely will do
it ! It makes me proud to have sat at such
a patriot's feet. Forgive me if I've asked
you too much to-day. I'm only the very
least of your subordinates, I know, and I
never want to worm out more than the com-
mander-in-chief himself willingly tells me.'
Mr. Hayward gave him a look of true
paternal kindliness.
' Right, my boy,' he said warmly. ' You're
always riglit. I never had anyone I could
trust and be trusted by like you, from the
very beginning. That gives me much hope.
Though things look black ahead now.'
And then, in a voice full of fiery indigna-
tion, he gave way all at once in a very rare
outburst, and began to recount in rapid
132 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
words a whole string of terrible atrocities in
Siberia and elsewhere, detailed to him in
cipher by his last budget from St. Peters-
burg.
Owen listened, and felt his blood boil
within him. Not for nothing liad Mr. Hay-
ward trained up in the faith his Niliilist
neophyte.
!
CHAPTER IX.
FAMILY BUSINESS.
In Morocco, these things. Away over in
St. Petersburg, that self-same day, a lady
was closeted close in a bureau of the Third
Section with that stern military policeman
General Alexis Selistoff.
' And so you Ve obtained some influence
with him, you think, Madame Mirefl"?' the
General said, musing and twirling his bronzed
thumbs.
' Influence V Madame Mireff" repeated, with
a bland feminine smile. 'I can just twist
him round my fingers — so,' and she suited
the action to the word. ' As a statesman, of
course, Lord Caistor's unapproachable and
T34 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
irreproacliable— we all know that ; but as a
inan— well, he's human. I take him on the
human side— and I do what I like with
him.'
The General smiled responsive— a grim
smile and sardonic.
' Politics/ he murmured in a very soft voice,
like a woman's for gentleness— though, to be
sure, it was he who flogged a Polish lady to
death once at Warsaw for some trifling act
of insubordination to the Government orders
' politics have a morality all of their
own.
Madame Mireff assented with a graceful
nod.
' Though you mustn't for a moment sup-
pose,' she said, hesitating, ' that our personal
relations '
The General was a gentleman. (In Russia
that quality is by no means incompatible with
flogging women to death when the morality
peculiar to politics sanctions or even demands
FAMILY BUSINESS ^35
such an extreme act of discipline.) He cut
her short at once with a pohte wave of the
liand.
' My dear Madame Mireff,' he said, in his
most deprecating tone, ' I hope you don't
think I could for one second imagine that a
lady of your character •
One outstretched palm and a half-averted
face completed the sentence.
' Of course you understand me,' Madame
Mireff went on, blushing a trifle even so.
' We are friends, he and I— that's all. The
Earl is an able man and a keen politician ;
but in private life he's a most charming
person. We get on together admirably.
Fvjnrez vans that I go down to stop now and
then with dear Lady Caistor at Sherringham-
on-Sea ; and there I have the Earl to myself
half the day in the garden or the drawing-
room. ... We never talk politics, General,
you must understand. Fas si Mte, I need
hardly tell you. I influence him gently;
r36 UNDKR SEALKD ORDICRS
the (lr()])piii*,^ of water on ;i stone; n constiint
inii)ei'cei)tible side-pressure, If I may say so.
Russia in the abstract; a Russian woman in
the concrete ; tiiat's all I have to play aoninst
his astuteness and his suspicion, (hir sin-
cerity, our devotion, oin* simple, natural
straii:htfor\vardness. our enthusiasm foi"
humanity — those are the chief cliords of my
four-stringed lute. 1 liarp on it always,
though not, I hope, monotonously. It tells
upon him in the end. You can see it telling-
upon him. He says to himself : " The char-
acter of the units determines the character
of the au-trretrate. A nation made up of units
like this must be on the whole a tolerably
decent one." And it influences his policy.
You nmst notice for yourself he's less dis-
trustful of us than formerly.'
The General leaned back in his round office
chair, neatly padded in brown leather, stamped
with the imperial arms, and surveyed her
critically.
FAMIIA' IJUSINKSS i37
No wonder ;i statesman wlu) accei)t«'(l
Madanip MiretV as the typical Russian should
tliink well of the country whose tangible
embodiment and representative she pro-
claimed lierself. For a handsomer ripe
woman of Ibrty-Hve you wouldn't wish to
see anywhere than Olga MirelK Her figure
was full and round, yet not too full or too
round for th(.^ most fastidious taste; her
charms were mature, yet all the richer for
their maturity. An intelligent, earnest, en-
thusiastic face, great childdike eyes, a sweet
and oenerous smile, rare beauty of feature,
rare naivete of expression— all these went to
the making up of a most engaging personality.
Her hands were plump, but soft and white
and dimpled. Her motions were slow, but
they quickened with animation, and grew
positively mercurial under the influence of
enthusiasm.
The very woman. General Selistofl" thought
to himself, to twist round her fingers, as she
138 UNDI'K SEALED ORDERS
mid, }i clever jukI Impresslonal)le Forei^ni
Secretary like Lord Caistor. Alexis Selistotf
liad never had a better made instrument to
work with. Tliis little wedge of feminine
insinuation might enable him in time to
permeate the whole inert mass of English
opinion.
The General paused, and fingered his waxed
moustache.
' And you go back again to-morrow ?'
he said, still surveying her with approba-
tion.
Madame Mireff nodded assent.
' Unless you wish it otherwise,' she
answered ; ' I am yours to command. But
if you see no objection — then to London to-
morrow.'
The man of politics shrugged his shoulders.
They were broad and well set.
' Oh, as for my wishes, chere dame' he
said, with an air of official disclaimer, ' you
know very well they have nothing at all to
' \
FAMILY BUSINESS i39
do with tlu' ivKvtter. You are not, and never
were, an a<;ent of the C;overnnient. If you
(h-op in liere for a chat with me, in a moment
(,f leisure, you ch-op in as a friend- nothing
more, him nitrnthi. Sonu; little relaxation,
some little interlude of the charms of female
society, may surely he allowed us in a life so
monotonous arul so deadly dull as this eternal
routine of ours. I sign my own name on an
average three hundred and seventy -four
times per diem. But as to husiness— husiness
-vou have notliing to do with that. La haute
politique is not a lady's affair. Tape, dockets,
files, pigeon-holes, those are administration,
if you will ; hut a visit to England hy an
unauthorized Russian lady '-he gazed at
her hard-' mere private gadding. Disabuse
your mind as to that, Madame, disabuse
your mind as to that, though I know you
don't even need to be told to disabuse your-
self.'
Madame Mireff's smile as he spoke those
140 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
words was a study In complexity. It con-
tained in itself foin* or five smiles superposed,
in distinct strata, and one of them, perhaps,
would have surprised General SelistofF not a
little, had he known its full import. But
Madame didn't enlighten him on that abstruse
point. She only answered submissively :
' I'm well aware of those facts, General.
My one object in life is to serve my country
and my Czar, unobtrusively and unofficially,
by such simple private influence as a mere
woman can exert in a foreign capital.'
Though Madame knew veiy well in her
own heart that a Russian lady would never
be permitted to exercise influence on English
politics, directly or indirectly, in whatever
capacity, unless it suited the Government
she should unofficially represent it. And so,
too, did General Selistofl'. Had it been other-
wise, no passport at the very least — perhaps
even imprisonment, the mines, Siberia.
They looked at one another and smiled
FAMILY BUSINESS 141
airain, with their tono-ues in their cheeks,
mentally speaking, like the Ilonum augurs
when they met in private. Then the General
spoke again :
' And Prince lluric Crassoff ?' l^e said, with
an uo-ly frown on his high bronzed forehead ;
' still no trace of him anywhere ? You
haven't one hope of a clue ? How that man
eludes us !'
' No,' Madame Mireff answered denmrely,
laying one plump hand with resignation over
the other, and shaking a solemn head. ' He
eludes us still. How can you hope to catch
him ? I feel convinced even his own associates
don't know where he is. I've made every
inquiry. The man works like a mole under-
ground, popping up here and tliere for a
moment to take breath, as it were, or not
even that. He's invisible and incalculable.
Nobody ever sees him, nobody ever talks
with him ; only written messages flutter
down now and again from the sky, or from
142 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
unknown sources, bearing an Egyptian post-
mark, it may be, or a Maltese, or a Nor-
wegian, or a Sicilian. They're not even in
his o\ "> hand, they say — not the bulk of the
document. Only the signature's his ; the
rest's type-written, or copied by an amanuen-
sis, or dictated, or in cipher. His sub-
ordinates have nothing to go upon but those
two mysterious words, " Ruric BrassofF," at
the bottom of an order. But they obey it as
implicitly as if It fell upon them from heaven.
Most of them have never set eyes upon the
man himself in their lives at all ; nobody on
earth has set eyes upon him for ten years
past ; yet there he is still, wrapped in the
clouds as it were, but pulling all the strings
just as clearly as ever. It's a most mysterious
case. Though, after all, as a diplomat, one
can hardly help admiring him.'
General Selistoft* looked up sharply at her
in a surprised sort of way. Born bureaucrat
that he was, he couldn't understand how
FAMILY BUSINESS i43
anyone could admire even the cleverest and
most audacious of rebels.
' Well, that's a matter of opinion,' he said
slowly, pressing his thumb very tight on the
edge of his desk. ' For my part, if I'd Euric
Brassoff's neck under here this minute '
The thumb was raised for one second and
then squeezed down again significantly.
General SelistoflP paused once more. His
eyes looked away into the abysses of space.
' Ruric Brassoif,' he repeated slowly, ' Ruric
Brassoflf, Ruric Brassoff. If only we could
catch that one shigle man, we wouldn't
take long to crush out the whole infernal
conspiracy.'
' You think so V Madame inquired, looking
up.
' He's its head; the bureaucrat answered
impatiently. ' No organization on earth can
possibly go on when it's head's cut off.'
And he had had experience, too, in the
results of decapitation.
144 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
' We L^ot on somehow after our late beloved
Czar was murdered by these wretches,'
Madame put in, very gravely.
The General sat up stiff. He didn't like
this turn. 'Twas beneath him to bandy
words and aro-uments with a woman.
' Well, you'll not relax your efforts, at any
rate,' he said, more coldly, ' to gel some clue
to Prince Iluric Brassoff's whereabouts. Ke-
member, five hundred thousand roubles and
the title of Princess. Ceaseless vigilance is
our only resource. Leave no stone imturned.
Under one or other of them, we know, must
lurk the scorpion that bit us.'
' True,' Madame answered, relapsing into
pure submissiveness, for she saw it was
wisest.
' And there's one other point I want to
suggest to you,' the General went on, some-
what mollified. ' A very painful point ; but
I must bring myself to speak of it. I've
often thought of mentioning it to you, dear
y
FAMILY BUSINESS M5
Madame, before, and when it came to the
point I've always been naturally reluctant.'
He dropped his voice suddenly. 'You'll
understand why,' he went on, ' when I tell
you it relates to my unhappy and misguided
brother, Sergius Selistoff.'
Madame Miretf bowed her head with a
sympathetic inclination. She let a rhetorical
pause of some seconds elapse l)efore she
answered tlie General, whose own eyes fell
abashed, as is natural when one mentions
some disgraceful episode in one's fannly
history. Then she murnmred in a lower
key:
' I understand perfectly. 1 never expected
to hear that name mentioned in this room
au-ain, and unless you had brought it uj)
yourself, you can readily believe. Excellency,
I wouldn't have dared to allude to it.'
' No, no,' the General continued, forcing
himself to speak with difficulty. 'But I'm
anxious to find out something about his
VOL. I. 10
146 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
family and nfVairs, and you're the only person
on earth, dear Madanie, to whose hands I i
could endure to confide the inciuh-y. To no
one else but yourself could I brino- myself
to speak about it. Sergius had a boy, you
know — in fact, two children, a boy and a girl.
Before he was sent to Siberia, after his
treachery became known,' and the old
bureaucrat spoke like one weighed down
with sliame, ' those children were spirited
away somehow out of the country. You
know their history, I suppose ? You know
the circumstances of that unfortunate mar-
0'
riage ':
' Not in full,' Madame answered, all re-
spectful sympathy. 'And when one's en-
o-ao-ed on a matter of the kind it's best,
of course, to know all. I've only heard
that Sergius Selistoff married an English-
woman.'
The General bowed his head once more.
' Yes, an Englishwoman,' he answered.
FAMILY BUSINESS i47
'But that's not all. A public sinorer at
Vienna, wlio, as we have reason to believe,
for her family's sake sang under an assumed
name, and whose relations in England we've
never been able to trace since Sergius . . .
went to the fate reserved for traitors. (Jn
the morning when the administrative order
was issued from this office for my brother's
arrest— I signed it myself— Madame Selistolf
and the children disappeared from Petersburg
as if by magic. My sister-in-law, as you
must have heard, was discovered, raving
mad, a few weeks later, in the streets of
Wilna, though how or why she got there
nobody ever knew, and from that day till her
death, some seven months afterwards, she
did nothing but cry that her children at least
must be saved ; her children at least must
get away safe from that awful place to Eng-
land.'
The old man stroked his moustache.
' It was terrible,' he said slowly—' terrible
,48 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
what suffering Sergius brouolit upon us all,
and on that unhappy woman !'
'It was terrible indeed,' Madame Miretf
answered with a look of genuine liorror.
' Well, what I want just now,' tlie General
continued, rising up in all the height of his
great Russian figure, and going to a little
cui)l)oar(l, from which he brought forth a
small bundle of brown and dusty pai)ers—
' what I want just now is that you should
find out for me in England whether tliose
children are there still, and in wliose keep-
mg.
' Perfectly ,' Madame answered. ' You wish ,
perhaps, to be of service to the boy-— to
brin<»- your brother's son back to llussia
again, give him the rank of a Selistoff, and
make him a loyal subject of our beloved
Emperor.'
The old man brought his fist down on his
desk with a resounding blow.
' No, no r he cried fiercely, his face lighting
FAMILY BUSINESS 149
up witli liidigimtion. ' Ten thousand times
no ! I renounce Sergius SelistoflP and all his
works for ever. . . . The boy's no nephew of
mine — no true-born Selistofi' — an English
half-breed by a rebel father. I'd send him
to the mines, as I sent my brother before
him, if only I could catch him. As Sergius
died, so his son should die in turn. ... A
Selistoff, did you say ? Our blood disowns
the whole brood of the traitor.'
' I see,' Madame answered, with true
Russian impassiveness. Not a muscle of her
face moved. Not a quiver passed over her.
Only the long, black lashes drooped above
the great childlike eyes. ' And you want me
to find out where they're living now ? Well,
if anybody in England can track them, I can
promise it will be I. Names, ages, and de-
scriptions — I see you have them there all pat
in your dossier.'
The General undid the bundle with an un-
wonted trembling in those iron fingers. Then
150 UNDER SKAI-KI) OKDKKS
he stretched out the })apei's before Madiime
Mireff's keen eyes.
' Alexiuuhii, aoed four at the time of her
flight, would now be twenty-five, or there-
abouts,' he said, cjuiverinu-. ' Sergius, a baby
in arms, would be between twenty and
twenty-one. Here, you see, are their de-
scriptions and such details as we could
recover of the mother's family. But it was
a mesalliance, you must understand, for a
Russian nobleman — a complete niesalliance.
She gave her name at the ceremony as
Aurora Montmorency, but we believe it to
have been lalse, and we don't know the real
one. Your business will be only to hunt up
these people ; mine, to crush them, when
found, as one would crush beneath one's heel
a brood of young vipers.'
' Perfectly,' Madame answered, with a
charming smile. ' I understand my mission,
Excellency. I will obey your instructions.'
CHAPTER X.
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
And wliile in St. Petersburg, General Selis-
toff was uttering those words to his trusted
associate, on the mountain path near Bern-
Mengella, in Morocco, Mr. Hayward was ex-
claiming enthusiastically to Owen Cazalet :
' It's a glorious w^ork, my boy, and it's laid
upon you in due course by your glorious in-
heritance.'
' And yet,' Owen murmured, musing, ' it's
a terrible one, too, when one comes to think
of it.'
Mr. Hayward eyed him hard with a quick,
half-startled air.
' Yes, terrible, certainly,' he answered, with
152 UNDKK seaij:i) okdkks
the raj)t air of a j)ro|)lit't, ' l)iit iiu'\ital)l<', for
all that -a stt.'rn duty Imposi'd upon you by
your hirtli and training'. ( 'onsidcr, Owen,
jiot only that unha[)])y country, a brute bulk,
bearing-, lialf loath, upon hor myriad siiouldcrs
the burden of one miserable horror-haunted
man the most wretched of mankind- but
your own ])art in it as well, your own callini;'
and election to avenm' aud assist her. lie-
mtMiiber vour father, sent to sicken and die
by inches in a Siberian mine ; remember your
mother, (biveu mad in the streets of Wiliia
in her frantic endeavours to carry you and
her daughter in safety beyond the Russian
frontier. All these things the Ilonianofis
have done to you and yours in your very own
household. What justice can there be for
them except in the angry vengeance of their
outraged serfs ? On you falls that honoui'.
You are summoned to this great woi'k. You
should accept it Avith pride, with gratitude,
with aspiration.'
AN UNi:\PRCTi:i) i:XCOUNTEK 153
'So I do,' <>NV<^i» answered, 51 ieelini'- of
slmine breaking over him like a wave at even
so tiansieiit aii (^v^pj-essioii of doubt and
hesitancy. 'Trust me, Mr. Hayward, L will
be ready wljen the time comes. Don't fear
for my lid.'lity. 1 won't fail you in the
strui;'<;'le.'
And, indeed, that manly young English-
man, for such in all essentials he was, really
meant it and felt it. Not for nothing had
Mr. Hayward taken charge of his youth, and
slowly, l)y tentative degrees, as he found his
pupil's mind ripe for change, instilled int(»
him all the principles of the fiercest Ilussian
Nihilism. Everything had worked with that
cheery, vigorous, enthusiastic English lad m
the direction of accepting the faith thus
forced upon him. His reverence for Mr.
Hayward, at once the gentlest and most
powerful mind he had ever known ; his
horror at the fiite of his own father and
mother ; his native love of freedom, of indi-
154 UxNDEK SEALED ORDERS
vidiuility, of adventure ; his sterling English
honesty of purpose ; his inherited Russian
fatalistic tendency— all led him alike to em-
brace with fervour the strange career Mr.
Hayward sketched out for his future. Nihi-
lism had become to him a veritable religion.
He had grown up to it from his cradle ; he
had heard of it only from the lips of its ad-
herents ; he had been taught to regard it as
the one remaining resource of an innocent
people ground down to the very earth by an
intolerable tyranny. So it came to pass that
Owen Cazalet, who, from one i)oint of view,
as his friends and companions saw him at
Moor Hill, was nothing more than a strong
and pleasing athletic young Englishman, was,
from another point of view, by Mr. Hayward's
side, a convinced and unflhiching Russian
Nihilist.
All day they rode on across the volcanic
hills; towards evening they reached the
dubious village of Beni-Mengella, whose in-
'I
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER i55
habitants even their tolerant Moorisli ser-
vant had described to them as very devout
and fanatical Mohammedans. At the out-
skirts of the hamlet three Berbers, clad each
in a single loose white robe, not nmcli difter-
ino- from a nightshirt, met them full in the
path.
' Peace be with you,' Mr. Hayward cried
out, accosting them in the usual Moslem
formula.
' Peace be with all true believers,' the men
answered in a surly tone.
The alteration was significant. It meant
that even the protection of the Serene She-
reefian Umbrella didn't entitle such open
rebels against the will of Allah to peace in
that village.
' This is ominous,' Mr. Hayward muttered
quietly to Owen. 'We may have trouble
here. These men refuse to give us peace as
we pass. That always means in Islam more
or less chance of danger.'
1
156 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
'So much the better,' Owen tliought to
himself, reddening visibly with excitement.
They rode on in silence up to the amine' s
house. A handsome young Moor, in an em-
broidered jacket, lounged in a graceful atti-
tude against the richly-carved doorpost. He
started as tliey ai)proached, and then burst
into a merry laugh. But — the laugh was
lone's 1
' Well, this is odd,' the stranger cried
aloud in Englisli, in a very feminine voice.
' You said you were going to Ouarzin. You
changed your minds suddenly. What on
earth brought you on here V
' Well — yes ; we changed our minds,' Mr.
Hayward answered, with a slight stammer,
looking decidedly sheepish ; ' we altered our
route when we reached the fork in the roads.
We heard . . . this village was more likely
to afford us something really good in the
way of adventure. But you? we've fair
reason to question you as well. Didn't you
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 157
tell us this morning you meant to sleep at
Taoui'ist V
I0116 laughed once more that merry nuisical
laugh of hers, and tossed her fluffy hair off*
lier ears at the same time with an easy move-
ment of her head.
' What fun !' she cried, delighted at the
absurd contrctcinps, in spite of herself.
' Why, I came here, if you must know, on
purpose to avoid you. Not out of rudeness,
you understand ; if it were in England, now%
I'd have been most pleased to accept your
kind companionship. But, you see, I've come
out here all this way to do this journey
alone; the whole point of it naturally con-
sists in my ridhig through Morocco by my-
self in native clothes, and perhaps getting
killed on the way— which would be awfully
romantic. So, of course, if I'd allowed you
to come on with me, or to follow me up, it'd
have spoilt the game ; there'd have been no
riding alone; it'd have been a persomdly
Is
158 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
conducted tour, just the same as the Cookies.
Well, that made me turn otf at a tangent to i
Beni-Mengella, for I thouglit perhaps you
two men might he afraid to let me go on by
myself, or might go ahead to Taourist on
purpose to make sure I got into no trouble.
And that, you must see for yourselves,
would have put an end at once to my
independence. The value of this experiment
consists entirely in my going through
Morocco alone on my own hired horse, and
comino- out alive and unhurt at the other
end of it.'
Mr. Hayward gazed at her with a some-
what comical ruefulness.
' It is unfortunate,' he said slowly. ' But
we must put up with it now. I'm sorry
we've incommoded you. It's too late to go
anywhere else at this hour, I'm afraid, even
if there were anywhere else in the neighbour-
hood to go to.'
' Oh, well, now you're here,' lone answered
AN UNFA'PECTEl) ENCOUNTER 159
with o-ood-lminoured condescension, ' you may
as well stay, fbi-, after all, ANe had a very jolly
evening together yesterday at Ain-Essa,
hadn't we? Besides, you know, it's lucky
for you in some ways I'm here ; for I can
tell you these are just ahout the liveliest and
most ac»"t'Tessive Mohammedans I've met anv-
where yet ; they're war to the knife on in-
fidels, and if you'd come among them alone
— without a lady to protect you, I mean — I
helieve they'd have nmrdered you as soon as
look at vou. One or two of them seemed
half hiclined at first to doubt about the i)ro-
priety of murdering even ^nc ; but they've
got over that now ; I've made things all
square wdth them, I've repeated enough
verses from tlie Koran to satisfy the amine
himself as to my perfect orthodoxy ; and I've
Mash-Allah'd till I'm hoarse at every man,
woman, and child in the village. Besides,
I've made up to the mollah of the mosque.
If I say to him, " These are friends of mine,"
i6o UNDER SEALED ORDERS
not a soul ill the place will dare to touch
you;
As for Owen, in spite of Mr. Hayward's
warnin<,^s, he didn't pretend to conceal from
himself the obvious iact that he was very
ulad indeed to come again upon lone. Not
wholly from the point of view of personal
liking, either— he had a better reason than
that, a more serious reason. It was a point
of honour. Tlieir last few words together
at Ain-Essa, where tliey had spent the pre-
vious niglit, had left an abiding sense of
terror on his inmost soul. Nobody but lone
Dracopoli had ever suggested in his hearing
the latal idea that Mr. Hayward was a
Russian. And he hadn't had time to im-
press upon her in full (before lie left) the
profound necessity of keeping that idea a
secret. All day long his conscience had been
pricking him for that unwilling disclosure.
Had he assented too openly? Had he be-
trayed Mr. Hayward's trust by too easy an
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER i6i
acquiescence? He'd been longing every hour
of that tedious march for the chance of see-
ing lono alone once more, to beg her to keep
silence; and now that chance had come he
was profoundly grateful for it. To him the
suspense had in many ways been a terrible
one.
He had never had a secret from Mr. Hay-
ward in his life before. That feeling of itself
gave him a sense of guilt. But he couldn't
pluck up courage to make a clean breast of
it, either. Mr. Hayward would think he
might have parried the thrust better. To
say the truth, he was ashamed to let his
guardian see the painful fact that a girl
had got the best of him in a very brief
encounter.
Mr. Hayward strolled into the guest-house
to arrange about accommodation. While he
was gone Owen was left alone at the door
for one minute with lone. There was no
time to be lost. He must seize the oppor-
VOL. I. ^^
1 02 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
tunlty. Such a chance to spt^ak might not
occur again. Mustering up all liis courage
suddenly (for he was a l)ashful young man),
he turned to her at once, and said, in a very
earnest tone :
* Miss Dracopoli, I thank heaven I've met
you again. 1 wanted — I needed — I required
one word more witli you. 1 daren't tell you
wliy. To do that would he a crime. But 1
want you to promise me as faithfully as you
can you'll never mention to anyhody your
suspicion that Mr. Hay ward's a Russian. It
miirht he death to him if it were known, and
death to me, too. I've no time to explain
more. He mustn't come out and see me
talking to you so. But, for heaven's sake, I
beg of you, promise me — do promise me
you'll never mention the matter as long as
you live to anyone.'
He spoke with concentrated earnestness,
like one who really means most profoundly
what he says. lone glanced at him for a
AN UNEXPKCTF,!) ENCOUNTER 163
minute, lialf in doubt, half in amusenient,
with those big", laughing- eyes of hers. She
didn't quite know whether to take it as a
very good joke or not. Most things in life
were very good jokes to lone. Then she
sobered down suddenly.
< Why--this— is— Nihilism,' she said, word
by word, in a very surprised voice. ' No
wonder you're alarmed. Yes, this is— just—
Nihilism. But you needn't be afraid, Owen
Cazalet. 1 give you my promise. I'll never
say a word of it as long as I live to any-
one. '
She spoke now as seriously as he had
spoken himself. She said it, and she meant
it. In a moment the laughing girl saw the
full magnitude of the issue at stake, and for
once was sobered. Owen glanced at her
timidly, and their eyes met again.
' Thank you,' he said, very low in a very
timid voice. 'Ten thousand times, thank
you.'
i64 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS
* But what's his Kussijin name V lonO
asked after a brief pause, half coaxingly, and
with true feminine curiosity. * You might
tell me that, now. You've as good as
admitted it.'
* Ah, but I don't know it !' Owen answered
very earnestly, without one second's hesita-
tion. * I haven't heard it myself He's
never once told me.'
His voice had a ring of truth in it. lone
felt sure from its tone he meant just what
he said. She gazed at him curiously once
more.
' Never a word of it to anyone,' she re-
peated, with solemn assurance, wringing his
hand in her own. ' I'll cut my tongue out
first, for I see you mean it.'
At that moment, as she spoke, Mr. Hay-
ward's face loomed up at the far end of the
passage from the courtyard inside. lond
saw it and was wise. She let Owen's hand
drop suddenly.
AN UNEXPKCTKI) KNCOUNTKK 1O5
' And such a funny old Moor with a green
turban on Ins hoad,' she went on quite loud,
in her gayest and most natural voice, as if
continuing a conversation on some perfectly
hanal point, 'you never saw in your life.
He was fat and dark, and had a mole oil
his forehead, and he called Allah to witness
at every second word he was letting me
have that horse dirt cheap for my beautiful
eyes, at rather less than half its value.'
' They're dreadful old cheats,' Owen echoed
in the same voice ; but lie felt, all the same,
most horribly ashamed of himself
These petty social deceits sit much heavier
on us men than on the lips of women, where
they spring spontaneous. And it cut him to
the heart to think he was employing such
mean feminine wiles-against Mr. Hayward.
After that night, he thought to himself
bitterly, he'd take very good care never to
meet lone Dracopoli anywhere again.
Though, to be sure, she was the nicest girl
i66
UNDER SEALED ORDERS
he'd ever met in his life, and the fVeeKt in
the true sense of all h«^ suhnired in freedom.
But still — the cause ! the caus(^ ! — for the
Bake of the cause he'd avoid her like poison.
She was a dani^erous woman.
More dangerous even than he knew ; for
of all possihle links to hind a man and a
woman together for life, almost in sj)ite of
themselves, commend me to a secret shared
in common.
(JHAPTEU XI.
MAN niorosEs.
That nit^^lit at Beiii-Mengella was Owen's
last meeting with l(>n6 Dracopoli in Morocco,
and he enjoyed it innnensely. All through
the evening, indeed, lone was as gay, as
conmuniicative, as frankly confidential, as
she had been at Ain-Essa ; Owen even
fancied she was possibly pleased to meet
him again ; but if so, it was a pleasure she
didn't desire to let pall by too freipent
repetition, for next morning, after their
native breakfast of fried cakes and cous-
cous, lone turned one merry forefinger up-
lifted to Mr. Hayward.
'Now, mind; she said imperiously, 'this
1 68 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
time, no reconsiderations. First thoughts are
best. Tell me your tour, and I'll tell you
mine. Let's hold by them rigidly. You
stick to yo\u's, and I'll stick to my own ;
then we won't go running up against one
another, head foremost, like the people in.
a farcv^ — exit Mr. Hay ward and Owen
Cazalet left, enter lono Dracopoli, Il.U.E.,
and all that sort of thing. I want to be
able to say I rode through Morocco alone
" from kiver to kiver." I've almost done
it now. Five or six evenings will bring me
down to Mogador. Look here : this is my
route as far as one can trace it, where
there are no proper maj)S.' And she un-
folded Joseph Thomson's rough chart of
the Atlas range before him, and indicated,
as far as possible, with one plump, white
finger, the general idea of her future stop-
ping-places.
Mr. Haywarti acquiesced, and took the
opposite direction. For his own part, if
MAN PROPOSES 169
lone were anxious to avoid hin\, lie was ten
times more anxious to avoid lone.
Of the two tours, therefore, the indepen-
dent young- lady's was finished first. Mr.
Hayward and ( )wen were still riding slowly
up steep mule-paths of the mountains in
the interior long after Ion6 had changed
her Turkish trousers and her embroidered
Moorish jacket for the tailor-made robe of
Regent Street and Piccadilly. As to Owen's
later feats in the Atlas, I shall say no more
of them here. The untrodden peaks that
he climbed, the steep clifis that he scaled,
the strange insects he discovered, the rare
plants he brought home— how he withstood
the natives at the shi'ine of Sidi Salah of
the High Peak— how he insisted on photo-
graphing the Mosque of Abd-er-Rahman, with
the Two Tombs in the chief seat of Moslem
fanaticism in the far interior— are they not
all written with appropriate photogravures
in Haywards ' Mountaineering in Southern
170 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Morocco ' ? Who lists may read them there.
For the purposes of this present history
they have lio further importance ; enough
to say that at the end of two weeks Owen
Cazalet returned by the Cunard steamer to
London, a travelled man, and an authority
on the vexed points of Atlantic topography.
Immediately on liis return, Sacha met
him at Euston with important news. A
domestic revolution had occurred at Moor
Hill durinof his short absence. Sacha met
him at once with uinisual excitement for
that placid nature.
' You mustn't go down to auntie's to-
night,' she said, as soon as he stepped on
to the platform ; ' you must come to }ny
lodgings and sleep. I want to have a good
long talk with you as soon as possible,
Owen ; I've such lots of things to tell you.'
' Your lodgings !' Owen cried, astonished.
' You're in rooms up in town, then ? Why,
how's that, Sach.t ?'
MAN PROPOSES i?!
•Oh, it's a long story to tell,' Saclia
answered, somewhat flushed herself out of
her wonted composure. ' You see, you're six
weeks in arrears. We haven't been able to
write to you. And ever so many (lueer
things have happened in England meanwhile.
In the first place— that's the beginning of it
all—I've sold my Academy picture.'
'You don't mean to say so!' Owen ex-
claimed, overjoyed. ' But not at your own
price, surely, Sacha. You know you told us
it was quite prohibitive yourself. You put it
so high just for the dignity of art, you said.'
Sacha's not unbecoming blush mantled
deeper Avith conscious success.
'Well not exactly that,' she answered.
'I knew the price was prohibitive— or, at
least, I believed so ; but I reckoned its value
in accordance with what anybody was likely
to crive for it. It was icorfh a hundred and
flfty, so I asked a hundred and fifty for it.
And a great Manchester buyer snapped it up
172 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
like a shot, payln^- the price down without
a word ; and he told me afterwards he'd got
it on the advice of a famous critic — he
wouldn't say who, hut I think I know — and
that if I'd asked for two hundred I should
have had it.'
' You don't mean to say so !' Owen cried,
pleased and proud. 'Well, that's splendid
news ! Tliough you deserve it, Sacha, you
know ; I'm sure you deserve it. I've always
said myself you'd be a very great artist one
of these days — a very, very great artist — like
Madame Lebrun or Ilosa Bonheur.'
Sacha smiled demurely. It was no small
joy to her to get such praise from Owen, for
she believed in her brother.
' Well, then, dear,' she went on, ' you see,
' that made me a rich woman outright all at
once, for he gave me a cheque for the whole
of the money in a lump — a hundred and fifty
pounds at a single go, and all earned by
mvself, too. Isn't it just delightful ? Is this
MAN PROPOSES '73
your bag ? Then put it in a hansom and
come with me to my rooms. I'm in lodgings
close by, while we look after the papering
and furnishing in Victoria Street.'
'The whatf Owen cried, throwing his
portmanteau in front as if it weighed a
pound or two, and taking his seat by her side,
bewildered and astonished.
' Oh, I forgot ; that's part of the history,'
Sacha answered, running on. 'Why, the
foct of it is, Owen, being a rich woman now,
I've left Moor Hill for good, and Aunt Julia
too, and determined to come and live in town
on my own scale in future.'
'And give up the studio!' Owen cried
regretfully.
' Oh, I shall have a studio in our flat, of
course,' Sacha replied, with a slight sigh.
' Though, naturally, it was a wrench— I don't
deny it— to give up the dear old five-cornered
nook at the Bed Cottage. But I felt it was
necessary. For a long time I have realized
174 UNIJER SEAJ.El) OKDKKS
the fact that it was artistic stao^natlon to live
down where we did — in the depths of Surrey.
In art, you know, Owen, one wants constant
encouraireinent, stiniuhition, criticism. One
ought to he dropping perpetually into other
men's rooms ' — Saclia said it as naturally as
if she were a man herself — ' to see how
they're getting on, how tliey're developing
their ideas, and whether tliey're improving
them or spoiling them in the course of the
painting. One ought to have other men
dropping })erpetually into one's own rooms to
look on in return, and praising one or slang-
ing one as the case demands, or, at any rate,
observing, discussing, suggesting, modifying.
I felt 1 was making no progress at all in my
art at Moor Hill. 1 stuck just where I'd got
to when I left Paris. So, when this great
stroke of luck came, I said to myself at once,
" Now I'm a painter launched. I shall be
rich in future. I must do justice to my art,
and live in the very thick of the artistic
MAX PROPOSES 175
woild 1 must move in the swim. 1 must
tro up to London." And that's how we
decided ontiiis Hat in Victoria Street, which
we're now engaged in furnishing and de-
corating.'
' But what does Aunt Juha say ^' Owen
exclaimed, a little taken ahack hy so much
unexpected precipitancy.
Sacha suppressed a slight smile.
' Dear old Aunt Julia !' she said, with a
taint undercurrent of amusement in her
earnest voice. ' Well, you know just what
she'd say, Owen! Aunt Julia can never
understand us modern girls. She thinks the
world's turned topsy-turvy in a lump, and
that everything w^omanly's gone and vanished
clean out of it. She puts it all down,
thou<4i, to dear mother's blood. Aurora, she
says, was always flighty. And no doubt
she's right, too, in her way. It's from
mother, I expect, Owen, that I inherit the
artistic tendency and many other things in
176 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS
my nature. In lier It cmne out In the form
of music ; in me it comes out in the form of
painting. But it's the same impulse at
bottom, you know, whichever turn it takes.
There's nothing of the sort about Aunt JuHa,
certainly.'
' They must have been singularly different
in type, no doubt,' Owen mused, with a sigh.
' Of course I can't remember poor mother
myself, Sacha ; but from all you've told me,
all I've heard from Mr. Hayward, she must
have been the opposite pole from poor dear
Aunt Julia.'
' Well, they were only half-sisters, you see,'
Sacha answered in an apologetic tone. ' And
I fancy ou7' grandmother must have been a
very different person indeed from the first
Mrs. Cazalet. Certainly, you can't imagine
Aunt Julia going off on her own account as a
public singer to Berlin and Vienna, or marry-
ing a Russian like poor father, or trying to
escape with us under a feigned name, or, in
MAN PROPOSES 177
fact, doing iiiiytliiiig else that wasn't [)ei'-
fcctly British and ordinary and commonplace
and uninteresting.'
' Aunt .Juha was ))(>rn to be a decorous
Knglish old maid,' Owen interposed, laughing.
' She'd have missed her vocation in life if
any body 'd ha])})ened to propose to her and
married her.'
' Yes, and when she heard we were iroiuir
to take a flat in town totifether — three i^'irls
alone — and have latchkeys of our own and
nobody to chaperon us — why, 1 thought,
poor dear thing I she'd have fainted on the
spot. But what horrified her most was our
grandest idea of all — -that we're to be inde-
pendent and self-supporting — self-sufficient,
In fact, or at least self-sufficing. We mean
to do our own work and to keep no ser-
vants.'
' That's good !' Owen exclaimed, seized at
once with the idea, in the true vein of tbe
family. ' That's splendid, I declare ! 80
VOL. I. 12
178 UNDER SKALKh DKDKRS
ndvanot'cl ! so SooiMllstic ! Only 1 s;iy, SjicIiji,
you'll wjiiit soineoiic to do tlit' heavy work of
the house. I expect I'll have to come up
to town ns well niid live with you as hall-
port(M*.'
* L don't think so,' Sacha answered, oa/Jn^'
admiringly as always at that fresh strong-
frame of his. ' I'm pretty ahle-hodicd myself,
you know ; the Selistotfs were always a race
of giants, Mr. Haywai'd says; and though
Blackbird's a tiny feeble wee thing — you've
heard me speak of I^lackhird— Hope Braith-
waite, you know, that })oor little girl with
a soul and no body who composes sucli sweet
songs — thougli Blackbird's not up to much,
lone Dracopoli's (piite strong enough, I'm
sure, to do the W(n'k of a household.'
' lonr Dracopoli !' Owen ci'ied, in an ahnost
ironical agony of mingled surprise and despair.
' You don't mean to say lone Dracopoli's
going to live with you ?'
' Oh, didn't I tell you that at first V Sacha
MAN PROPOSES 179
excLiinu'd, suddenly ivnicinbcrliio' liersclf.
' I supj)ose, havlni; lieiird from hvv a lively
aoeount of liow she met yon In lier Turkish
costume on top of some hi_i;h mouiitaiii lu
Morocco sonunvhere. 1 forgot you hadn't
learned all about it from herself already.
She was <piit(^ full of you when shei'eturned ;
she says you're so strong, and so handsome,
and so interesting. But, of course, all this
has turned up since then. Well, let me see ;
this is just how it hapjx^ned. After I sold
mv picture and came up to town to tliese
lodghigs, where I'm taking you now, 1 pro-
posed to Blackbird, who is miserable at home
— all her people are Philistines — that she
should come and take rooms with me as a
social experiment, and we should run a small
flat on mutual terms together. So while we
were still on the hunt, looking at rooms and
rooms, lone Dracopoli turned up in town,
Turkish trousers and all, and was taken up,
of course, as a nine days' wonder. The Old
i8o UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Girls' Club, at college, gave her a breakfast
one day, which I attended, naturally ; and
there she heard of my plan, and fell in with
it heart and soul. She wanted to be one of
us. She says there were always three Graces,
and she must be number three ; and as for
going without a servant, that was the dream
of her existence. We two others were
naturally glad enough to get her, for we'd
been hunting in vain for a flat small enough
and cheap enough to suit our purses; and
lone has money, so that by clubbing together
we can do much better. Well, the end of it
all was we've taken a dear little place behind
Victoria Street, Westminster, and in a week
from to-day we mean to move into it.'
Owen's heart beat fast. This was a terrible
ordeal. He'd fully made up his mind never
to see lone as long as he lived again. But
he couldn't promise to give up paying visits
to Sacha. There was nobody so near him or
so sympathetic as she was. And though she
MAN PROPOSES i8i
didn't know all his relations with Mr. Hay-
ward — including the reasons why he was
going into the diplomatic service — she was
the only living soul on earth, besides his
guardian, with whom he could allude in any
way to the secret of his birth or his Russian
origin. To everybody else he was just Miss
Cazalet's nephew, the son of that half-sister
who married somewhere abroad, and whose
husband was supposed to have died in dis-
grace in Canada or Australia.
For the sake of the Cause, he dreaded the
prospect of seeing much more of lone.
CHAPTER XII.
FINE ART.
At the Academy, those same days, Lady
Beaumont one afternoon strolled vacantly
through the rooms, doing the honours of
English art to her friend, Madame Mireff.
' Yes, Sir Frederick's are charming,' she
said languidly, deigning a glance, as she
passed, through the aristocratic outrage;
' but then Sir Frederick, of course, is alwmjs
charming. Besides,' with a sigh of relief, ' I
saw them all in his studio before they came
here, you know,' which absolved her accord-
ingly from the disagreeable necessity of pre-
tending to look at them now. ' So exquisitely
graceful, aren't they? Such refinement!
FINE ART 1^3
Huch feeling! Well, she answered me
back to my face, my dear, " As good as you
are, my lady." Those were her very words,
1 assure you—" as good as you are, my lady."
So, after that, of course, it was quite impos-
sible for me to dream of keeping her on one
minute longer. My husband went in and
packed her off immediately. Sir Arthur's not
a violent man— for a soldier, that is to say—
and since he went into Parliament, between
you and me, his temper's been like a lamb
compared to what it used to be when we
were out in India ; but that morning, I'll
admit, he flared up like a haycock. He sent
her packing at once, passage paid, by the
lirst train to Calais. So there I was, my
dear— yes, a sweet thing, really; he does
these Venetian scenes so well ; a pleasant
man, too ; he dined with us on Saturday— so
there I was at Grindelwald, left high and
dry, without a maid to my name ; and as
I'm about as incapable as a babe unborn of
i84 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS
dressing my own hair myself, 1 had to go
over to Interlaben next morning early to get
it done up by a coiffeur, and then, if you can
believe me, I was forced to sleep in it for
three nights at a stretch without taking it
down— wasn't it ridiculous "l Jigurez-vona — ^^just
like a South Sea Islander with a neck pro^^ —
till Arthur had got out a new maid for me by
telegraph from London.'
Madame Mireif smiled.
' What a slavery,' she said quietly, ' to be
so dependent on a maid that one can't even
go to bed in comfort without her ! It
reminds me of those slave -making ants
Professor Sergueyeff told me about in Peters-
burg the other day, which can't even feed
themselves unless there's a slave ant by
their sides to put the food into their
mouths, but die of starvation in the midst
of plenty.'
Lady Beaumont stifled a yawn.
' Arthur says in a hundred years there'll
FINK ART 185
be no servants at all,' she drawled out in her
weary way. ' The gh'ls and the men of* the
lower orders will all be too fine and too well
educated to wait upon us. But I tell hmi,
thank heaven ! they'll last my time, and that's
enough for me. I couldn't do without. After
us, the deluge.'
' That's a beautiful thing over there,'
Madame Mireff put in, interrupting her.
' No, not the little girl with the drum ; that's
not my taste at all ; I'm sick of your English
little girls in neat, tight black stockings.
The one beside it, I mean— 827, Greek
Maidens playing Ball. It's so free and
graceful; so much life and movement in
it.'
'It is pretty,' Lady Beaumont assented,
putting up her quizzing-glass once more,
with as much show of interest as she could
muster up in a mere painted picture. ' I
forget who it's by, though. But I've seen
it before, I'm sure. It must have been in
i86 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
one of the studios, T expect, on Show
Sunday.'
Madame Mirelf hunted it up in the cata-
logue — a rare honour at her hands, for her
taste was fastidious.
' Aspasia's School-days,' she read out,
' Alexandra M. Cazalet.'
' Oh dear yes, to be sure !' Lady Beaumont
cried, with a sudden flash of reminiscence.
' How stupid of me to forget ! I ought to
have remembered it. I'm glad Arthur wasn't
here ; he'd be vexed at my having forgotten.
A county member's wife, he says, should
make a point of remembering everybody and
everything in the whole division. And I saw
it till I was sick of it, too, in her studio at
Moor Hill. So it is, I declare, Sacha Cazalet's
picture.'
Madame Mirefl* caught at the name with
true Slavonic quickness.
' Sacha,' she repeated — ' Sacha Cazalet I
Why, she nmst be partly Russian. That's
FINK ART 187
a Russian word, Sacha-it's short for Alex-
andra, too-aud her name's Alexandra. Her
mother must be a Slav And that's no
doubt why I like her work so well. There's
Ilussian feeling throughout, in both subject
and execution ; such intensity, such fervour,
such self-restraint, such deep realism.'
' She lives down our way,' Lady Beaumont
remarked with a casual glance at the in-
tensity. ' She's a queer, reserved girl, self-
restrained, as you say ; a little too much so,
perhaps, for me ; and she has such a dreadful
old woman for an aunt-old maid-you know
the type : shedding tracts as she goes ; red
flannel; Dorcas meetings. Oh, quite too
dreadful for anything in her black silk dress
and her appalling black bonnet, with a bunch
of mauve flowers in it. But there's no avoid-
ing her. In the country, you see, a member
of Parliament's wife must know the most
ghastly people— you can't imagine what a
trial it is. A smile and a kind inquiry-so—
i88 UNDEK SEALKl) ORDERS
after rheumatics or babies — for every old
frump or old bore you meet on the footpath.
Ugh ! It's just too sickening. . . . But I
never heard anybody say Sacha Cazalet was
a Russian.'
' What's the aunt's name V Madame Mireff
asked suddenly, for no reason in particular,
except that 'twas part of her mission to
follow up every clue about every known or
suspected Russian family in England.
' Why, Cazalet, of course,* Lady Beaumont
answered at once, without pretending to any
great interest either in person or picture.
' They're all three of them Cazalets.'
' Then they're her brother's children,, who-
ever they are,' Madame went on rapidly,
' this Miss Sacha and the rest ; or else, of
course, their name couldn't be Cazalet, too.
Who was their mother, I wonder V
Lady Beaumont paused and stood still.
It was too much effort for her to walk and
think at the same time.
FINK ART '8g
• Well, I never thought of that beibre,'
she said, looking puzzled for a moment.
' You see, they're not in our set exactly ; we
only know them as we're obliged to know
everybody in the division - on political
grounds, that is to say— garden-party once a
^ ear— hardly more than what you might call
a bowing acquaintance. Bui it's odd her
name's Cazalet, too, now you suggest it : for
I've always understood Sacha's mother and
the old lady were half-sisters or something.
Perhaps she married a cousin, though.
... But at any rate they're Cazalets, this
girl and her brother Owen, a great giant of a
fellow who gets prizes at sports for jumping
and running.'
' And yet they call her Sacha,' Madame
ruminated, undeterred. ' Well, that's cer-
tainly odd ; for Sacha's real Russian. Though,
to be sure, in England nowadays you call a
girl anything. No language is safe from
you. I've met a dozen Olgas at least since I
I90 UNM)KR SKALKI) ORDERS
came to T.oiulon. . . . And how old's this
SMcha Cazalet ? She i)aints heautifuUy, any-
how.'
' Ahout twenty-five or twenty-six, I should
say,' Lady Beaumont answered at a ^uess.
' And Owen must be twenty or a little over.
Let me see ; he was a haby in arms when he
first came to Moor Hill, the year our Al^y
was born. Algy's twenty in August. The
little ffirl was fom* or five then ; and that's
just twenty years ago.'
Madame Mireff all the while was examining
the picture closely.
' Very Slavonic,' she said at last, drawing
back and posing in front to take it all in ;
' very Slavonic, certainly. . . . Pure Verest-
chagin, that girl there. And you say they
came to Moor Hill twenty years ago now.
Uow? — from where? — with whom? — was
their mother with them V
She spoke so sharply and inquisitively, in
spite of her soft roundness of face and form,
FINK AK r i9»
that Udy Beaumont, witli bor society
languor, was half annoyed at such earnest-
ness.
' I thhik it was from (Canada,' tlie En«;lis]i-
woman answered, with still more evident
unconcern, as if tlie subject hored her. ' But
T never asked the old aunt body nuich about
it I had no interest in the children; they
were nothing to me. T believe their mother
was dead, and something or other unmention-
able had happened to their father. But Miss
Cazalet was never very conununicative on the
point, because T beheve the sister had gone
and disgraced them in some way — went on
the stage, I fancy I've heard -or, at any
rate, didn't come up to the district-visiting
standard of social conduct. I never heard
the rights or the w^rongs of the story myself
Why should I, indeed ? They were not in
our society.'
' Have they any friends— the boy and girl,
I mean ?' Madame Mireff asked once more,
192 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
with the same evident eagerness. ' Who are
th' father's people ? Don't they ever come
across to see these two children — from
(Canada or anywhere V
Lady Beaumont reflected.
' I don't think so,' slie answered, after a
pause. ' There's a guardian of the boy's, to
be sure — or somebody they choose to call a
guardian. But he comes very seldom. I
saw him there this summer, though. A very
odd man, with the manners of a prince, who's
been everywhere in the world, and knows
absolutely everything.'
' A foreigner V Madame asked, adopting
the English phrase and applying it with
tentative caution to her own countrymen.
* Oh, dear no, an Englishman. At least,
so they said. His name's Hayward, anyhow,
and that's English enough for anybody, I
should think. He's nobody in particular,
either — just a photographer in Bond Street.
He calls himself Mortimer and Co. in business.'
FINE ART 193
Madame made a mental note of the name
at once.
' I'll go there and get photographed,' she
said. ' I can ask about them then. Besides,
I'm in want of a new portrait just now. I
haven't got any in stock. Lord Caistor
asked me to give him one yesterday.'
And she subsided into a seat, holding that
plump hand up to her round face coquet-
tishly.
' They say he's quite a conquest of yours,'
Lady Beaumont suggested, with a mis-
chievous look.
' Oh, my dear, they'd say anything. Why,
they say I'm an emissary of the" Czar's, and
an unaccredited agent, and a spy, and an
adventuress, and I'm sure I don't know what
else. They'll be saying I'm a Nihilist next,
or a princess, or a pretender. The fact of it
is, a Russian lady can't show the faintest
patriotic pride or interest in her country in
England without all the newspapers making
VOL. I. ^^
194 UNDKR SEALED ORDERS
their minds up at once she's a creature of the
Government. '
And Madame crossed one white hand re-
signedly over the other.
' That s a lovely bracelet, Olga !' Lady
Beaumont cried, turning with delight at last
to a more congenial topic.
Madame unclasped it and handed it to her.
' Yes, it's pretty,' she answered ; ' and,
what I prize still more, it's through and
through Eussian. The gold is from the Ural
mines on General Selistoff's property. The
sapphires are Siberian, from my uncle's
government. The workmanship's done by a
famous jeweller in Moscow. The inscription's
in old Slavonic — our sacred Paissian tongue.
And the bracelet itself was given me by our
dear good Empress. Hay ward — no Mortimer
and Co. — photographers, Bond Street. I
won't forget the name. Here's her miniature
in this locket. She was a darling, our
Empress !'
FINE ART 195
'You l)elonged to her household ouce, I
think?' Lady Beaumont murmured.
Tlie remotest frhige of royalty hiterested
the county member's wife profoundly.
'I belonged to her household once— yes.
I was a lady-in-waiting. The Imperial
family has always been pleased to be kind to
the Mireffs. Prince liuric Brassott' was there,
too, in my time. Well, it's a beautiful
picture, Sacha Cazalet's. . Let's go away now,
Anastasia. After that dreamy Kussian vision
I don't care to look any more at your stodgy
English middle-class portraits.'
CHAPTEIl XIII.
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
A WEEK later Owen ran up by morning train
from Moor Hill to see Sacha and her friends
installed at their ease in their own new flat a
little behind Victoria Street.
The flat itself, to be sure, with most of its
inorganic contents, he had fully inspected
already. It was daintily pretty in its modern
— its very modern — way, with high white
frieze of lincrusta and delicate yellow wall-
paper ; and Sacha had expended upon it
with loving interest all the taste and care of
an authority on decoration.
But this morning he came with a some-
what trembling heart to view 'the elective
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 197
family/ as Sacha called it— ' the miniature
phalanstery,' Owen christened it liimself—
settled down in its new ahode, and to face
the ordeal of a first meeting with lone
Dracopoli in the ordinary everyday garb of
feminine Christendom.
He touched the electric bell at the outer
door with one timid finger. The door flew
open of itself, after our modern magic fashion ;
and Sacha's voice was heard from a dim dis-
tance down the passage crying out, ' Come m,'
in most audible accents. Owen followed the
direction of the voice towards the drawing-
room at the end, and entered the pretty
white-and-yellow apartment in a flutter of
expectation.
His first feeling on looking round was a
vague consciousness of relief lone wasn't
there. How lucky ! And how provok-
ing !
Sacha jumped up and greeted him with
a sisterly kiss. Then she turned towards
198 UNDRK SEALED ORDERS
a lono- wicker chair witli its back to tlie
dooi'.
' This is Blackbird,' she said simply,
wavinor- her hand in that direction ; and
Owen bowed his most distin<>;uished con-
sideration.
' What a shame, Sacha !' a full rich voice
broke out from the depths of the chair,
where Owen at lirst hadn't iioticed anybody
sitting ; ' fancy introducing one that way !
This is your brother, T suppose ? But please
don't let him think my name's really Black-
bird.'
Owen peered into the long chair whence
the voice proceeded, and saw a frail little
woman stretched out in it lazily — a frail
little woman who ouo'ht to have been
eighteen, to judge by her development, but
who, as Sacha had already informed him, was
really twenty-seven. She was tiny, like a
doll — not short, but small and dainty ; and
as she lounged there at full length with two
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 199
pallid liaiuls clasped loose behind lier shapely
head, and neck thrown back carelessly, she
looked too fragile for this earth— a mere deli-
cate piece of semi-transparent Dresden china.
Blackbird was dark and large-eyed ; her eyes,
indeed, though by no means too prominent,
seemed somehow her most distinct and salient
featm-e. Such eyes Owen had never seen in
his life before. They were black and lustrous,
and liquid like a gazelle's ; and; they turned
upon him plaintively and flooded him with
sad light every time she spoke to him.
Otherwise, the frail little woman was neither
exactly pretty nor yet what one could fau'ly
describe as plain. She was above all tilings
interesting. A profound pity for her evident
feebleness was the first feeling she inspired.
' Poor wee little thing !' one felt inclined to
say as one saw her. A fatherly instinct, in-
deed, would have tempted most men to lay
one hand caressingly on her smooth black
hair, as they took lier pale thin fingers in
200 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
their own with the other. But her smile
was sweet, though very full of penslveness.
A weary little soul, Owen thought to himself
as he gazed, weighed down by the burden of
this age's complexity.
' No, her name's not really Blackbird, of
course,' Sacha responded c|uietly. In her
matter-of-fact tone, looking down with a
motherly glance at the shrinking figure in
the low wicker chair. ' Her name, to be
official, is Hope Merle Bralthwaite. There,
now — is that definite enough ? Mr. Cazalet
— Miss Bralthwaite. You know her songs,
Owen — and so you know herself. She is all
one song. She evaporates In music. That's
why I call her Blackbird, you see ' — and Sacha
smoothed her friend's head lovingly ; ' she's
so tiny and so dark, and she's got so much
voice in her for such a wee little bit of a
thing. When she sings, she always reminds
me of a blackbird on a thorn-bush, pouring
Its full throat in a song a great deal too big
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 201
for it. You know the way their throats seem
to swell and burst with the notes ( Well,
Blackbird's throat does just the same. She
wastes herself in music'
Blackbird unclasped her hands from behind
her neck, and shook her head solemnly.
Owen observed now it was well shaped, and
covered with strait glossy hair, as black and
as shiny as her namesake's plumage.
' Pure poetical fancy, evolved after the
fact,' she said, smiling sadly, with the air of
a woman who shatters against the grain one
more cherished delusion. ' The reality's this :
My parents were good enough to christen
me Merle, after my Swiss relations, the
Merle d'Aubignes ; and I'm called Merle at
home, though I was Hope at Oxford. And
when Sacha heard the name, she thought it
extremely appropriate to my dark hair and
eyes, and she Englished it as Blackbird.
That's the whole truth of the matter. All
this other imaginative nonsense about pour-
202 UNDER SKALi:!) OKDF-RS
iii^ my throat in song came cr j)<)sf farfo.
It has nothincr to do with the name. So
there's how myth orows.*
And she folded tli(^ two pale hands re-
signedly in front of her,
Owen noted that ' ex 2^ost facto ' with
becomino- awe. Not for nothin^r had Black-
bird stndied dead tonaues at Oxford.
' Well, what do you think of the flat V
Sacha asked, with a comj)assionate glance at
the poor weak little pessimist. ' We've got
it up nicely into form now, haven't we ?
Take a good look round the room, and then
come and see my studio.'
' You've done wonders,' Owen answered,
gazing about him, well pleased. ' And it's
charming — charming ! How lovely you've
made that corner there, with those draperies
and pipkins, and my Morocco mud -ware, too ;
so deliciouslv Oriental. That's Miss Braith-
waite's, I suppose, the grand piano in the
corner V
THK HIGHKK F.DUCATIOX OF WOMEN 203
^riic frail ^ii'l looked up at liini with those
iireiit sjicl eves.
' Not Miss Braithwaite,' she said calmly.
And Owen noticed now at once a certain
obvious disparity, as Sacha had suggested,
between the full innsical voice and the
slender frame that pro(hiced it. 'Not Miss
Braithwaite, if you })lease. Sacha's arranged
all that already. She's a s])len(lid hand at
arrano-inu' thing's — Sacha ; she ]x)sses the
show, lone says, and 1 nnist admit she bosses
it beautifully. So nice to have all the
bother of living taken off your hands by a
ca])able, masterful, practical person. That's
what I admive so in Sacha. Well, she's
decided that we're all to be one family here
— a pantisocracy, lone calls It ; no Miss and
no Misters. You're to be Owen, and I'm to
be Blackbird. lone's cook — she's out market-
ing now; and Sacha and I've just washed
up the breakfast things. So, of course, it's
absurd, in such a household as this, to think
204 UNDER SKA LED ORDERS
of callliii: out' aiiotlier Mr. Wluit's-ljlH-iiamei
or Miss S()-jiM(l-S().'
'T don't sec wliy, I'm sure,' Owen answered,
inncli amused. 'A lady's none the less a
lady, sin-ely, because she can do something-
useful about her own house, as our grand-
mothers used to do.'
* But our t^randmothers knew no Greek,'
Blackbird rejHied, t^^oini;* off at a most illo^ncal
tangent. ' It's the combination that kills us,
you know — Greek and household drudgery.'
' Come and see my studio,' Sacha inter-
posed cheerily, leading the way to the next
room.
It was Sacha's business to cut the little
pessimist short whenever possible. And
when the studio had been duly inspected
they went on to the dining-room, and the
bedrooms, and the kitchen, and the pantry,
and the little scullery at the back, and a
stone-floored office behind, full of chemical
apparatus.
THE HI(;HER education of women 205
' Wliy, what's this?' Owen jiskt'd, sur-
prised. * Is Miss Dracopoli scientific, then,
as well as literary ?'
' Oh dear no !' Blackhird answered with a
languid drawl hut always in that same rich
voice ; * lone's nothing on earth. Like
l)u Maurier's Postlethwaite, she's content to
"exist beautifully." This is ;//// laboratory,
this room. But I've promised the girls
never to make any drcddffilhj odorous
stews in it. T couldn't tret alonu' without a
laboratory, you know. I must have some-
where to do my chemical experiments.'
Owen scanned the frail little body from
head to foot, alarmed. Was this what
female education was leading our girls to ?
' Greek — music — chemistry !' he exclaimed,
gazing down upon her five feet two from the
calm height of his own towering masculine
stature. ' You don't mean to say you com-
bine them all in your own sole person !'
* And not much of a person at that !'
2o6 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Blackbird answered, with a faint sigh.
* Yes, that's how I was brought up. It's the
fault of the system. My raw material all
went off in brain and nerves, I'm afraid. I
worked those so hard, there was nothing at
all left to build up blood and bone and
flesh and muscle.'
' But why on earth did you do it i" Owen
couldn't help exclaiming ; for Blackbird's
frank remark was so obviously true. It
might be rude of him to admit it, but he
didn't feel inclined to contradict a lady.
' I did let do it,' Blackbird answered pite-
ously. ' It was my people who educated me.
You see, they thought I was clever — perhaps
I was, to start with ; and they crammed me
with everything on earth a girl could learn.
Latin, Greek, modern languages, mathe-
matics, natural science, nmsic, drawing,
dancing, till I was stuffed to the throat with
them. Je suis jusque la/ and she put her
hand to her chin with some dim attempt at
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 207
feminine playfulness. ' Like Strasbourg
geese,' she added slowly in a melancholy
after- thought; ' it may be good for the brain,
but it's precious bad for the body.'
Owen stretched his big shoulders back,
and expanded his cliest involuntarily. The
mere sight of that weak frame seemed to
make him assert his own physical prowess by
automatic contrast.
' But why do you go ori with it now V he
asked simply. ' Why continue to work at
this chemistry, for example ? In poky
London rooms you want all the fresh air you
can get, surely. How infinitely better, now,
instead of chemistry, to join a lawn-tennis
<iub!'
Blackbird shrank back as if terrified.
' A lawn - tennis club V she cried, all
amazed. ' Oh dear ! they'd be so rough.
They'd knock one about so. I can't bear
being bullied. That's why I like Sacha and
lone so much ; they're strong, but they don't
2o8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
bully you. Oh dear ! oh dear ! / could
never play tennis. I've been brought up to
mix chemicals, and read books, and compose
music : and it's like a reflex action now. I
compose automatically ; I test for acids like a
machine. I've learnt to do these things till
I can't get on without doing them.'
Sacha turned to him quickly, and said
something short in a language vvhich Black-
bird didn't understand, good linguist though
she was. But Owen knew that the Kussian
sentence she uttered so fast meant this in
effect :
' That's just why I took her to live with
us here. She's so frail and frightened ; she
needs somebody bright to put sunshine in
her life — somebody strong and strong-willed
to protect her and encourage her.'
' My own people are strong, you know,'
Blackbird went on in the same plaintive
voice, watching a still as she spoke, ' and
they always bully me. They're Philistines,
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 209
of course ; Imt, do you know, I think Philis-
tines are really the very worst on education.
From the day I was horn, almost, they kept
me constantly at it. Papa's a colonial hroker,
thouo-h I'm sure I don't know what he
brokes, or what broking is ; but he decided
from tlie time I was a baby in arms I was
to be thoroughly well educated. And edu-
cated I was— oh my, it's just dreadful to me
even now to look back ui)on it ! Music from
the time I could hardly finger the piano,
Greek as soon as I knew my English letters,
mathematics when most girls are only begin-
nino- aritlunetic. Strum, strum, strum, from
breakfast to bed- time. And then at seven-
teen I was sent to Lady Margaret. That
was the first happy time I ever knew in my
life. The girls were so nice to me. There
was one girl, I remember '
But at that moment a latchkey turned
sharp in the door, and a light foot entered.
14
VOL. I.
2IO
UNDER SEALED ORDERS
The sunshine liad come. Owen turned round
with 51 beating- heart.
' Is that lone DracopoH ?' he asked, tremb-
ling, of 8acha.
And even as he spoke a tripping figure,
with a basket hekl gaily in one hand, burst
quickly into tlie laboratory.
' Why, here's Owen !' the girl cried, seizing
both his hands like an old friend. ' I thoadit
I heard his voice. Well, I do call this jolly !*
OHAPTEIl XIV.
lONE TN ENGLAND.
Whi<:x Owen had recovered bis breath enough
to take a good look at her, he saw in a
moment for himself lone was simply charming.
In Morocco lie had wondered vaguely more
than once m his own mind how much of her
nameless magic at first sight was due merely
to the oddity and piquancy of her dress and
the quaintness of the circumstances. You
don't expect to meet a stray English girl
every day pervading untrodden Atlas m
male Moorish attire, and astride on her
saddle-horse like a man and a brotner.
'Perhaps,' he had said to himself, trying
to reason down his admiration for Mr.
212 UNDKK SEALED 0RI)1':KS
Hayward's sake and in the interests of the
cause, ' perhaps if one saw her in London in
onUnary Englisli clothi^s one would think
no more of her tlian oi^ the average young-
woman one takes down any day in the week
to dinner.'
Well, lie had the opportunity now c_ test-
intr this half-formed idea, and he found it
break down in practice most conclusively,
lone was beautiful — not a doubt in the world
about that — as bright, as taking, nay, even,
for that matter, as original and as free,
in her loose Liberty dress, as in the em-
broidered jacket and Turkish trousers of lier
North African experiences.
A beautiful girl — fresh, fair, and vivacious;
a perfect contrast to Blackbird, in her Huffy
chestnut hair, her vitality, her strength ; to
Sacha, in her boundless spirits, her quick
ways, her flowing talk, her very boisterous-
ness and cheeririess.
' So here's Owen/ she repeated after a
lONE IN ENGLAND 213
moment, turning- tlie contents of her btisket
out on the scullery table with delicious frank-
iiei^s. ' Well, this is just too nice for any-
thing ! I'm so glad I've not missed you.
Come along, then, Owen, and make yourself
generally useful in the kitchen, like a good
fellow. You may help me, if you like, to
get the lunch things ready !'
There was a fall in Russians. Mr. Hay-
ward and the cause went instantly down to
zero. Owen was conscious at that moment
of only two objects in the whole round
world, lone Dracopoli and a violent palpita-
tion under the left side of his own waistcoat.
Never was luncheon prepared by so many
cooks as that one. This was their first
morning in the flat, so they were new to the
work as yet ; and, besides, flirtation and
cookery went hand-in-hand together. 'Twas
Arcadia in Pimlico. lone, in her soft woollen
terra-cotta gown, with white apron in front,
and man -cook's cap confining her free chest-
I
2 14 UNDER SKAI.El) ORDERS
nut locks above, looked even prettier than
ever in her new capacity. Owen held the
saucepans for her to mix things in, as in the
seventli heavens, or stirred the custard on
the stove with rapturous fingers. Sacha
})repared the meat, and took charge of the
fire and the oven. Blackbird sat by, and
exercised a general critical supervision of a
pessimistic character. She knew the soup
could never turn out right like that, and she
had the gloomiest possible views of her own
as to the success of the lemon cheese-cakes.
But the event didn't justify the Cassandra
of the flat, for lunch, when it arrived, was
most brilliantly successful.
About three o'clock, however, as they
rested from their toil after washing up the
dishes, there came a ring at the bell, and
lone, who had peeped out with intent to
answer it, drew her head back suddenly,
spying strangers through the stained-glass
panels of the outer door.
lONE IN ENGLAND 215
' Goodness gracious, twirls !' she cried, .'dl
au-oo-, dancino^ down at her apron, ' what
shall we ever do ^ I declare, it's visitors !'
' Visiters !' Sacha replied. 'And already !
Impossible !'
lonr seized Owen most unceremoniously by
the arm, and pushed him forward into the
passage.
' You go and answer it, Owen,' she said,
laughing. ' You're the most presentable of
the lot ; and it's men, I think— gentlemen.'
Owen went to the door. Sure enough, two
strangers stood there, in the neatest of frock-
coats and the glossiest of tall hats, with hot-
house flowers in their buttonholes— a couple
of men about town, Owen thought to him-
self, with fine contempt at first sight, if ever
he saw a pair. They were aged about thirty,
and looked as though their collars were their
main object in life. Owen took a prejudice
against them at a glance. These fellows
were too dapper and too well groomed by far
2i6 UNDER SKALKI) ORDERS
for tlu^ l)ii;-liml)e(l athlete's rougli country-
bred fancy.
' ^ ^'^^ your pardon,' the tallest and hand-
somest of the two said, with an a})oloi;etic
air — he wore a g'ardenia in his huttonhole.
' I think we nuist have made a. mistake.
Does Miss Braithwaite live here ;*'
Owen held the door ajar d\d)iously in his
hand, and blocked the entrance with his big
frame, as he answered, in no friendly voice :
' She does. Do you want to see her V
The vounu' man with the ij^ardenia an-
swered, more modestly than Owen ex])ected :
' Well, we'd like to send our cards in, and
if Miss Braithwaite's not engaged we'd be
nmch obliged if she could spare us just a very
few minutes.'
He handed Owen his card as he spoke.
Owen glanced at it and read, ' Mr. Trevor
Gardener.' The gardenia was his mark, as it
were — a sort of annoirics parlantes.
The other man, who was shorter and darker,
lONK IN ENGLAND aiy
;ni(l wore nii orchid in his hutt(^iih()l«% handed
his at the same time. It l)()re the name,
' Henley Stokes, 5, Punip ( ^ourt, Teni})le.'
( )wen couldn't say why, hut the trlossy tall
hats and the neat frockcoats ])ut liis hack u[>
inexpressihly. He retreated down tliepassat^e
with a h()l)l)ledehov's awkwardness, leaviuiT
the two men standi ni^- sheepish at the opeu
door, and said, in a loud voice, more plaiidy
than politely, as he laid down the cards ou
the drawino'-rooni tahle :
' Two fellows outside, come to call upon
Blackhird.'
' Show them in !' Sacha replied, with as
much dignity as if he were her footman
instead of her brotlier ; and Owen ushered
them promptly into the bright little drawing-
room.
Mr. Gardener, with the gardenia, was, like
Paul, the chief speaker. To be sure, he'd
never met Blackbird before, that was clear,
nor had his friend either. They both bowed
2i8 UNDER SKALEI) ORDERS
(llstaiitly witli a certain awed ivspect as tlu^y
took tlicir seats, and as BlacUhiid introduced
tlieni iid'ornially to the remainder ot* the
Company. Iiul for a miinite or two they
talked society small - talk about flats in
general, and this tlat in [)articular, without
explaining the special business that had
brought them there that afternoon. They
b(gan well, indeed, by admiring everything
in the rooui, I'rom floor to ceiling. But Owen
noticed now, somewhat appeased, that in
spite of their fiats and coats they were dis-
tinctly nervous. They seemed to have some-
thing they wanted to say, without being
able to muster up the needful courage for
saying it.
At last the man witli the gardenia ven-
tiu'ed to turn to Blackbird with a point-blank
remark.
' I dare say you're wondering, Miss Braith-
waite, what made us come to call upon
you.'
lOiNK IN KNOLANI) 219
' Well. I cniircHS,' m;ickl)il'(l SJlid lilMi;wi(lly,
ill that rich, clear voice of herw, ' I did nither
ask myself what on enrtb you wanted with
me.'
Mr. Trevor (hardener paused, and looked
straight into her bit;" eyes. He was more
nt'rvous than ever ; but he made a clean
breast of it.
' ['in at the Stock Exchange,' be said at
last, after a long-drawn interval. * In point
of fact, I'm . . . I'm a broker.'
' That's bad I' lone put in, with a twinkling
eve full of mischief.
Mr. Gardener turned full upon her a look
of most obvious relief. His face briti'htened
visibly.
' Why, just so,' be said, more at his ease.
' That's precisely what I always say myself.
That's the reason I've come. A stockbroker's
bad. Most useless excrescence on the com-
munity, a stockbroker.'
' Exactly,' Sacha interposed, with her
220 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
grave, quiet voice. 'A middleman who
performs no good service of any sort.'
Mr. Gardener brightened still more.
'Ah, there it is, you see,' he answered,
rubbing his hands together, well pleased.
' I feel it myself, and so does Stokes, who's
a barrister. He feels tlie Bar's a fraud.
That's what emboldened us to come. We're
weighed down by a sense of our own utter
uselessness.'
'A very hopeful symptom,' Sacha responded,
smiling. ' Conviction of sin comes first, re-
pentance afterwards. But how did you happen
to hear of us ?'
Mr. Gardener pulled up his shirt-collar
and rearranged his cufts to hide his em-
barrassment.
'Well, we've the pleasure of knowing
Mr. Braithwaite,' he answered very tenta-
tively.
' Oh, indeed 1' Blackbird replied, in a tone
which showed clearly that acquaintance with
lONE IN ENGLAND 221
her father was no particular intrcxluction to
her.
'Ill business!' Mr. Gardener interposed
deferentially, as who would deprecate her
criticism. ' And we're musical— very nmsical.
We hoped on tliat g-round, at least— though
perhaps we're intruding.'
And he glanced at Owen, who sat, silent,
on the defensive.
' Not at all,' Owen answered, much mysti-
fied, though with no very good grace. ' We're
pleased, I'm sure, to see you.'
' Well, we were dining at Mr. Braithwaite's
club with liim last night,' the man with the
gardenia went on, looking askance at Black-
bird, who sat hi the long chair toying lan-
guidly with a fan, 'and he happened to
mention this compound household of yours,
and what persons composed it. And it ni-
terested us very much, because we've both
sung your songs, Miss Braithwaite, and l)oth
lovrd your music; and we've read Miss
222 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Dracopoli's delightful tale on Morocco in tlie
Bi-weeklij Review with very great interest ;
and we've admired Miss (Jazalet's Greek
girls at tlie Academy. And though Mr.
Braithwaite gave us, perhaps, a somewhat
unfavourable version of vonr aims and ideas
t/
— indeed, threw cold water upon them — I
may venture to say we sym[)atliized with
your desire for a simj)ler mode of life.' He
glanced down at his spotless shoes witli a
sort of mute deprecation, and grew more
inarticulate still as the subject closed in upon
him. ' In point of fact,' he went on, growing
red and stammeiing worse than ever, ' we
both admired you all for it immensely.'
' And so ?' Sacha said interrogatively.
' And so ' Mr. Gardener went on, look-
ing at his friend for assistance. ' Now then,
you help me out, Henley !'
Mr. Stokes, thus dragged into it, grew red
in the face in turn, and responded in his
place :
lONE IN ENGLAND 223
' Well, Trevor said to me, " It's a slianie, if
these ladies want to start a new household 011
rational princij)les 1^'ke that, they should have
to do all the rougli work of the house them-
selves, isn't it, Henley ?" And I said : '' So
it seems. It's not woman's place to bear tlie
brunt of hard woi'k. I wonder what thev'd
say, now, if you and I were to step round
and assure them of our — well, our sympatliy
with them in this new departure, and ask
'em if tliey'd allow us to call in every morn-
ing — before they got up, don't you know — •
without necessarily meeting them or knowing
them socially at all — -just to light the fires,
and clean the grates, and black the boots,
and polish the knives, and all that sort of
thing." And Trevor said, " Capital !" And
so we decided we'd ask. And now — well,
now, if you please, we've come round to ask
you.'
Sacha looked at lone. lone looked at
Sacha. Blackbird looked at both. And
224 UNDER S1<:ALE1) ORDERS
then all three together burst out laughing
unanimously.
That laugh saved the fort.
Owen joined in, and so did tlie young men,
who really seemed, after all, like very good
fellows. They laughed for twenty seconds
without answering a word.
Then Sacha mustered u]) gravity enough
to say, with a little burst :
' But, you see, we don't know you I'
'Oh, we're very respectable,' Mr. Gardener
put in, gazing down at his gardenia. ' In
fact, that's just it ; we're a great deal too
respectable. This monotony palls. And we
thought it so brave of you to attempt an in-
novation. We can give excellent references,
too, you know — in the City or elsewhere.
My friend's an Oxford man ; I'm a partner
myself in Wilson, Gai'dener, and Isenberger
— very well-known house, Eve's Court, Old
Broad Street.'
lONt IN ENGLAND 225
And he folded one gloved hand somewhat
beseechingly over the other.
' But cracking the coal, you know T lone
suggested, with a merry twinkle. ' You
couldn't do that, now, could you, with those
light kid gloves oi l V
Mr. Gardener began hastily to remove one
of the incriminated articles with little nervous
tugs.
' Oh, they come off, you know/ he answered,
with a still deeper blush. ' They don't grow
there, of course. They're mere separable
accidents. And, besides, we're so anxious to
help. And we know Mr. Braithwaite. We
can get letters of introduction — oh, just
dozens of them, if you want them.'
' But we thought it best,' Mr. Stokes inter-
posed, ' to call at once, and strike while the
iron was hot ; for we were afraid — well, like
the fellow at the pool of Siloam, don't you
know : while we waited, some other might
step in before us.'
VOL. I. 15
226 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
Sacha was practical. She was also not too
afraid of saying what she felt.
' The best thing,' she suggested, after a
moment's reflection, looking the facts in the
face, ' would be for you both to stop to tea and
help us get it. Then we might see how far
you're likely to suit the place, and whether
we can avail ourselves or not of your very
kind offer.'
' That's capital !' Mr. Henley Stokes replied,
looking across at his friend, and peeling his
gloves off instantly. ' If you try us, I'm sure
you'll find we're not such a bad sort, after all
— not such duffers as we look. We're handy
men about a house. And we're tired of
being no use in the world to anybody any-
where.'
And, indeed, before tea was over and
dinner well cooked, the two young men had
succeeded in making themselves so useful, so
agreeable, and so ornamental as well, that
even Owen's first prejudice died away by
lONE IN ENGLAND 227
degrees, and he voted them both very decent
fellows.
lone remarked in an audible aside that
they were bricks ; and Sacha declared with
candour they could do more than she
fancied.
In the end, it was unanim.ously agreed the
community should accept their proffered
services for the })resent, and during good
behaviour, and that they might begin if
they liked ])y lighting the fires and black-
ing the boots at half-past six next morn-
ing.
' Hooray, Trev !' Mr. Stokes exclaimed in a
tone of triumph, looking across at his friend.
' This is something like progress ! This is
better than stockbroking.'
' I'm sure we're very much obliged to you
indeed,' Mr. Gardener added, with a cheerful
glance at a coal mark on his previously
spotless cuff. ' And to show you we've no
o
228 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
intention of intruding upon you in any
way beyond what's strictly necessary in the
way of business ' — he took up his hat as he
spoke — ' we'll now bid you good-evening.'
CHAPTER XV.
AN INVITATION.
In a week or two it was clear to the
members of the phalanstery the young men
with the frock-coats were an unmitigated
success. ' Our Boys,' as lone called, them,
turned out trumps in every way. In spite
of their kid gloves and their buttonhole
bouquets, they weren't afraid of hard work,
but buckled to with a will at the rough
jobs of the household. As a rule, indeed,
the joint mistresses of the flat saw little or
nothing of their amateur manservants. They
went to bed at night, leaving the ashes in
the grates, and their shoes at their doors,
and woke in the morning to find everything
230 UNDER SIiALi:i) 0KI)I:RS
cleared up, the rooms well Wfirined, and the
house swept and garnished as if hy friendly
fairies. To he sure, this arrangement neces-
sitated the entrusting of a latch-key to Mr.
Gardener, the head-servant of the two — -a
ste[) as to the wisdom and desirability of
which Sacha at first somewhat hesitated.
But the young men were so modest, so
good-natured, so unobtrusive, and so kindly
wdthal, that they very soon felt sure they
w^ere perfectly trustworthy. As Blackbird
remarked, they were too simple-hearted to
make it worth while stickintj- at conventions
on their account. Mrs. Grundy was not
evolved for such as they were.
Still, though the girls saw ' Our Boys '
but at rare intervals, when those willing
slaves loitered late over the fires, or when
the locks got out of order, or when the
windows wanted cleaning, common gratitude
compelled them from time to time to ask
their benefactors in to afternoon tea, that
AN INVITATION 231
mildest Jind most t^^eiiial of London (Miter-
tainments. The young men themselves, to
be sure, protested with fervour tliat such
politenesses were unnecessary ; it was for
the sake of the principle they came, they
said, not for the sake of the persons. Yet
from a very early period of their ac(juaint-
ance Sacha fancied she noticed Mr. Henley
Stokes betrayed a distinct liking for Black-
bird's society ; while Mr. Gardener, with
the gardenia (a point of honour to the last),
paid particular attention, she observed, if
not to herself, at least to her pictures. A
nice, honest young man, Mr. Gardener, at
least, and as unlike as possible to Sacha's
preconceived idea of the eternal and absolute
typical stockbroker.
So she said to herself, indeed, one day,
when from the recesses of Mr. Gardener's
light overcoat, hung up in the hall, there
tumbled by accident a small russia leather-
bound volume. Mr. Gardener, with a blush,
232 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
tried to |>ick it up unobservud uiid smut,^^le
it back into its place again ; but Sacha's
eye was too cjuick for him. She read in a
nionii'ut the gilt lettering on the back.
' Why, it's poetry !' she exclaimed in sur-
prise. ' It's Keats ! What do you do with
him ?'
Mr. Gardener stammered like a schoolboy
discovered in the flagrant crime of concealing
a crib.
' I — er — I read him,' he answered, after
a brief pause, with much obvious confusion.
' In the City V Sacha asked, smiling.
Mr. Gardener plucked up courage at her
smile to confess the shameful truth.
' Well, a stockbroker, you know,' he said,
' has so much time hanging idle on his
hands when there's nothing going on in his
office, and it's such an unsatisfactory sort of
trade at the best, and you feel it does you
no good either spiritually or physically, or
anybody else, either, for the matter of that ;
^
AN INVITATION 233
so in tlie Intervals of my work I try — er — I
try to develop, as far as I can, my own
higher nature. And in the mornings I come
here to light the fires and all that ; and in
the evenings I go down to my boys and
,nrls at Stepney.'
' What's tiiat V Sacha asked quickly,
catching the hint at once. ' I haven't heard
about them yet.'
Mr. Gardener looked modest aofain.
* Oh, a fellow must do something, you
know,' he said, 'just to justify his existence.
And as I'm well off, and strong and healthy
and all that, and society does so nmch for
me, 1 feel bound in return to give a helping
hand v»'ith these poor East- End people of
mine, both in the way of organization and
in the way of amusement.'
Sacha looked at him with some admiration.
There was a sturdy honesty of purpose about
this modest young man that touched her
Russian heart to the core. And she liked
234 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
his reading Keats, too; it was a point in
his favour. For he wasn't the least Ht
nam})y-pamhv with it all, in spite of his
blushes and his light kid gloves. She could
see when he talked about his gymnasium at
Stepney, a few days later, that he was a
tolerable athlete ; and he cleaned grates and
split coal like no working man in London.
When he proposed to lone that she and
Sacha and Blackbird should come down to
his hall at Stepney one evening to teach
his lads to dance, they were all delighted ;
and when they went there, and found them-
selves among these rough East-End young
men, lone, at least, thought it as jolly good
fun as any Belgravia ball-room.
' You see, miss,' her first partner explained
to her, in a confidential undertone, * we
chaps learns this sort o' thing a sight better
from a lady than from our own young
women. Ladies doesn't larf at us ; and a
chap don't like to be larfed at. Our own
• AN INVITATION 235
frals, thev calk us " Now then, clumsy,"
and all such sort o' names. But a lady's
more patient-like. You shows us the steps,
and we can pay more attention then, coz we
knows you ain't a-larhng at us.'
' There's nothing to laugli at,' lon^ an-
swered gravely, surveying her stalwart
young costernionger with not unapproving
eyes. ' We all have to begin. T had to
begin myself once. And as for laughing,
you should have seen how the people laughed
at me over yonder in Morocco when first I
dressed up in Moorish costume, like my
picture in the paper there, and tried to
ride as a man does ! I laughed at myself,
for that matter, till I thought I should
never catch my breath again.'
And she smiled at him so sweetly that
that young costermonger went home per-
fectly sober that night, and talked to his
' gal ' about the faces of the angels m heaven,
which naturally made his young woman
236 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
jealous, for she knew at once where the
unwonted suggestion had come from.
So for four or five weeks events at the
flat went on smoothly enough, and Trevor
Gardener and Henley Stokes grew gradually
on the footing of friends of the family.
They even ventured to drop in of an even-
ing, when Sacha's w^ork was done, and lone
had washed up the dinner-things, to accom-
pany Blackbird in one of her own plaintive
songs, or to read Austin Dobson and Lang
to the assembled household. They introduced
Hope indeed to the ' Ballade of Sleep ' ; and
the poor girl spent at least a dozen wake-
ful nights in composing apt music between
the clanging hours for that congenial dirg>^
of dead and buried slumber.
At the end of that time, however, an
event occurred which stirred the deep heart
of the flat to its profoundest recesses. Owen
came up one day from Moor Hill, glad of so
good an excuse, with a letter from Lady
AN INVITATION 237
Beaumont, just received by })()st at the Red
Cottage.
So gracious a letter from the county mem-
ber's wife set them all wondering what on
earth the great lady could want witli them.
' My dear Mr. Cazalet,' it began (' Quite
aflPectionate,' lone said, shaking out her chest-
nut locks round her head) — 'My dear Mr.
Cazalet, Sir Arthur wishes me very particu-
larly to write and ask you whether you could
come up to my At Home on Wednesday
next, for which I enclose a card for you and
your dear sister. We expect Lord Caistor ;
and as I know your desire to enter the diplo-
matic service, it can do no harm to make
his acquaintance beforehand. Several of our
artistic friends are so anxious to meet Sacha,
too ; and that, as you know, may be of use
to her in future. One should always make
friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness
as represented on the Hanging Committee.
238 UNDER SEAT.El) ORDERS
And if you con id persuade her two com-
panions, Miss Dracopoli and Miss Braith-
waite, to come with you hoth, we should be
so vcru much obliged to you. Many of our
young- men want so much to know them.
Apologize for me to Sacha ; I would have
written to her direct, but I don't know the
address of this famous joint-stock "Hat of hers
that everybody's talking about. It's made
quite a sensation among the advanced
woman's rights women. Tliey say it marks
an epoch.
' In breathless haste,
' Yours very sincerely,
' Anastasia Beaumont.'
' She wants to lionize us,' lone cried, look-
int"- up with her very unleonine soft round
face, ' and I refuse to be lionized !'
' I never will sing in houses where I'm
asked on purpose,' little Blackbird said
wearily. ' It's a rudeness to ask one just
AN INVITATION 239
for what they think they can ^^et out of
one.'
' But what a clever woman of the world
she is !' Sacha put in, with a wise smile.
' She doesn't say a word about what she
wants herself, but what she thinks will attract
us on the ground of our own interest. Lord
Caistor for Owen, possible patrons for me,
admiration for you two— it's really very sharp
of her.'
' For my part,' Owen interposed, with a side
glance at lone in her dainty girlish beauty,
' I think what they want is, first, the girl
who rode through Morocco alone, and, second,
to be polite to a possible future constituent.'
' The question is, shall we go V Sacha
asked, always practical. 'Apart altogether
from their motives, is it worth our while to
accept, or isn't it ?'
'Will you go?' lone asked, turning point-
blank to Owen.
Owen felt his heart throb. Oh, Mr. Hay-
240 UNDER SEALED ORDERS
ward, Mr. Hayward, this girl will be too
much for you !
' Yes, I think so,' he said slowly, ' to see
Lord Caistor.'
• Then I think I'll go, too,' lone answered,
with a burst. ' After all, it'll be fun, and I
love these big crushes. You always find
somebody you can shock in them somewhere.
If I was to go in my Moorish costume, now
— ^just fancy what a success ! How Lady
Beaumont would bless me ! It'd be in all
the papers.'
Owen's heart beat higher still. He knew
lone wanted to go because he would take
her. And it made him feel so happy — and
so very, very miserable. What would Mr.
Hayward say if only he knew ? But is this
the metal of which to mould a revolutionist ?
For to Owen the cause was a very real
and a very sacred thing. And he was im-
perilling its future, he knew but too well —
for the sake of a woman.
AN INVITATION 241
They talked nuicli tliat afternoon, and
liazai'ded many guesses as to why Lady
Beaunioat had hidden them all to her At
Home. But not one of* them came anywhere
near the real reason of her invitation. For
the truth was that Madame Mireff had said,
in the most casual w\ay, thouoh with a sudden
macrnetic glance of those great luminous
eyes of hers, ' I wish, Anastasia, you'd ask
that Sacha Somebody when you have me
next at your liouse. Her name puzzles me
so much. I want to hmit lier up. I must
u-et to the bottom of it.'
VOL. I. ^^
CHAPTER XVI.
AT LADY BEAIMONT'w.
• YoLr'\'E heard of Prince lluric Brassofi*,' Sir
Ai'thur was half whisj)eriiig- to a thin Httle
lady by his side as Sacha wedged her ^vay
into an unobtrusive corner, ' the famous
leader of the Nihilists ? You remember ;
five hundred thousand roubles set upon his
head. Well, they say she's in England now
on purpose to ferret him.'
' And if she found him V the thin little
lady suggested in reply ; ' she couldn't do
anything to him here.'
Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders. It
was a foreign trick he'd picked up In Vienna
when he was a military attache.
AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 243
'Not openly,' he answered, with a dry
httle laugh. ' But poison, perhaps ; or a
l^iiify_these Ilussians are so unscrupulous.'
Sacha's calm eyes flashed fire; for she
could remember Petersburg still, and her
martyred ftither. But she followed the di-
rection which both their glances took, and
she saw a large-built woman with very fully-
developed charms, who was talking with great
animation and wide-open eyes to Lord Caistor
by the mantelpiece. Sacha had never seen
the Cabinet Minister before, to be sure, but
she recognised him at once from the carica-
tures in Punch and the photographs in the
shop - windows. Or, at least, if not the
famous man himself, at any rate his still
more famous eyeglass. As for the lady who
was chattering with him, a flash of intuition
told her somehow, by the aid of Sir Arthur's
words, it could be none other than Madame
Mireff, the Russian spy or unaccredited agent,
currently believed to exert so curious an
244 UNDER SEALi:i) ORDERS
infliiencf on Lord Caistor liiinselt', and on
that mysterious entity, liis foreign policy.
* The Prince is very rich, isn't he V the tliin
little lady hy Sir Arthur's side asked
curiously.
' Was !' Sir Arthur corrected. ' He had
millions at one time. But he flung away
half liis fortune on the Cause years and years
ago ; and the other half the Government very
wisely seized and employed in su])pressing
it.'
' And is he known to be in England at all V
the thin little lady went on, looking sideways
at the presumed Madame Mireff.
Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders again.
' How should I know f he answered with
a laugh. ' Quien sabe ( Quien sabe ? Prince
Ruric Brassoff takes jolly good care, you may
be sure, to keep well out of tlie way. He
works like a mole underground. I'm told,
indeed, it's fifteen years since his own Nihi-
list friends even have ever set eyes on him.'
AT LADY BHAUMONT'S 245
'Then, how do they know lie's alive?' the
lady asked with languid interest.
' Ah, that's just the odd part of it,' Sir
Arthur replied, still gazing across at the
stranger with his big speaking eyes. ' They
say, though nobody ever sees him, he's still
the active head of all the party in Western
Europe, and the Russian rTOvernnient has
constantly of late years intercepted letters
and documents signed in his handwriting.
But if he's to be found at all, you may
be perfectly sure Madame Mireff will find
him. She's keen as a bloodhound, persistent
as a beagle. She's clever enough for any-
thing.'
Sacha rose and moved unobtrusively across
the room to Owen, who was standing with
lone near the doorway, in the opposite corner.
She had just time to murmur low to him ni
Russian :
' Owen, beware of the woman who's talking
there to Lord Caistor. She's a spy of the
24'> UNi)KK hi: aim: I) ()Ki)i:ks
Czar's. Slii'S come over here to look tor
some Niliilist refui^ee.'
And even as tliese words escaped her lips,
Ladv Beaumont sidled across to htir.
* Oh, Sacha, my child,' she said, ([uite
afl'ectionately, taking;' her iiand witii much
warmtli, hke a good society hostess, ' I'm so
glad you've come. There's a friend of mine
here wlio's just dying to know you. And you
have brought Miss Dracopoli, too, I see. 1
recognise you, Miss Dracopoli, by your like-
ness in the iJrapJilc. How good of you to
come round to mv little gathering ! T know
you're so nmch engaged — everybody fighting
for you just at present, of course — the tail
end of the season ! Come over this way with
me, and I'll introduce you to Lord Caistor.
And you must come too, Owen. Madame
Mireff — one moment — excuse my interrupting
you. This is the clever young artist whose
picture you admired so much at the Academy
the other day — Miss Cazalet, Mr. Cazalet.'
AT I.ADV liRAUMONl'S 247
Ow.'ii bowtnl low with iin awkward hA\u^
ofnnwoiited n'straint. Never bet'oiv in I.Ih
life had lie stood face to face with an avowed
enemy of the (^Muse— one of the bureaucratic
rincr_and he felt at ouce the novelty aud
difHculty of the position. As for Sacha, she
held herself very erect and proud, hardly
nodding- her head ; hut iier hreath came and
went, and her face flushed crimson.
' I'm o'lad— my work interested you,' she
said, with an evident effort.
She'd have ^iven millions to ^et away;
the strain and stress of it was horrible.
But Madame Mireft' only beamed upon her
with those famous soft eyes, and said, witli
real kindness of tone :
' Yes, it was bejintiful— beautiful. I picked
it out at once from all the pictures in the
room. It had soul in it— soul in it. It went
straight to my Russian he^irt ; for you know,
Miss Cazalet,rm before all things a Russian,
and everything about Russia always thrills
248 UNDKR SEALKI) ORDKRS
me t(. the fin^^er-tips. We Slavs feel the
niao-ic of our common Slavonic ancestry
far more, 1 believe, than anv Western
people. Ilussia holds us by some spell.
C/ela nous entraine. Oela nous fascine.'
Owen opened his eyes wide at this unex-
])ected ])rofession of faith— the enthusiasm
with which Madame spoke i-eminded him so
exactly of Mr. Hay ward's own in his moments
of deepest patriotic fervour. Was it possible,
then, that these bureaucrats even — the
despots, the enemy— shared that same un-
(luenchable Slavonic zeal that burned bricrht
like a fire in the friends of the Cause—the
lovers of their country ?
But Sacha only answered coldly, in her
very driest voice :
' I fail to perceive the connection you draw
between my picture and Russia.'
Madame glanced back at her, all motherli-
ness, with kind melting eyes, in spite of this
fii'st rebuff. Her i^^lance was mesmeric.
AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 249
'Why, siuvly,' sIk- said, exerting every
spell she knew, ' the sph-it at least— tlie spirit
is pure liussian. I cried out to Lady Beau-
mont the moment I saw it, " There's Slav m
that canvas !" and Lady Beaumont answered
me, " Oh, that's Sacha Cazalet's picture."
So when I heard your name was Sacha, of
course I took it for granted at once that your
mother at least must have been more or less
of a Bussian.'
'You're mistaken,' Sacha replied, in the
same hard, dry tone. 'My mother, on the
contrary, was a pure-blooded English-
woman.'
'Your father, then?' Madame suggested
quickly.
Sacha parried the blow at once.
' Beally,' she said, ' I don't admit my genea-
logical tree has anything at all to do with my
pictures.'
Madame left the false track sharply with a
diplomatist's instinct.
250 UXDI'R SEALED ORDERS
' VVel], the })iiiiitiii^r's n lovely one, jit any
nite,' she sjiid sweetly, ' and the qualities in
it that strnck me as Slavonic are at least
(jualities of hi^h idealism and i)rofoiind moral
truth. Wliatever race insi)ires them, one
surely can't lielj) admiring tliose, Miss Cazalet.
There's a freedom, a gracefulness, a vitality,
an unconventional ity, about the lithe figures
of your beautiful classical girls that took my
fancy immensely. And Aspasia herself— in
the centre— what a soulful conception! So
vivid and intense! Like our best Russian
girls nowadays : free as the air, keen as the
wmd, fresh as the morning dew, yet capable,
one could feel, of yielding her life like water
for any good cause that in after-days might
demand it.'
Owen listened astom'shed.
The voice was the same, though the words
were so different. Was this the true Russian
note, then ? La vie pour le Tsar, or Death
Jot Freedom f
AT LADV HliAUMONT'S 251
xMadaiue drew a vacant chair to her side,
and motioned Sacha into it.
Against her will, as if drawn by some spell,
Sacha sat down, burning inwardly.
Owen stood by in his big manlhiess, and
bent over them, listening.
Then Madame began laying herself out as
only a trained diplomatist and woman of the
world could have done to make a conquest of
Sacha. By slow degrees she led round the
conversation to Sacha's art and her friends.
She discussed h)ne with Owen, praising her
beauty enthusiastically ; she discussed Burne-
Jones with Sacha, finding something in
common between the profounder Celtic and
Slavonic temperaments.
Gradually, bit by bit, even Sacha gave
way. She admitted the fiiscination of the
woman who had talked over Lord Caistor
and changed a foreign policy. Her conversa-
tion was so easy, so alluring, so dmpatica.
As for Owen, he bent over her, entranced,
252 UNDHR SKALKI) OKPKKS
feeling the nameless attraction to a lad of a
ripe woman of the world, ready and willing
to deploy all her manifold charms of body
and mind in one serried phalanx for his
momentary captivation.
lone glanced across once or twice from her
artlessly girlish self-revelation to that amused
Lord ( Vistor, and felt her heart give a jum])
of doubt and fear within lier. That horrid
great Russian woman with the big, staring
eyes was surely too much for any lad of
twenty.
What struck Owen more and more, how-
ever, the more freely Madame talked, was
the absolute identity (in fibre) of her Ilussian
enthusiasm with Mr. Hay ward's. Though
the Russia of which she spoke was the
Russia of the tyrants, yet the devotion with
which she spoke of it was the devotion of the
patriots. It was Czar and Empress against
Land and People. For the first time in his
life it dawned upon Owen faintly that what
AT LADY BEAUMONT'S 253
lie had here to deal witw was in essence a
temperament. Madame jMh-eft' and Mr.
Hayward saw the opposite sides of the same
shield, according to their different points of
view, but were both ec^ually vehement and
intense in the idea they formed of it. That's
Ilussia all over. Your Slav is, above all
thinirs, a dreamer and an enthusiast.
At last, after much lono- and cleverly-
guided discourse, Madame had succeeded in
making even Sacha herself admit grudgingly
in her own mind that the Czar's spy, in hei'
private capacity at any rate, was an extremely
agreeable, nay, well-meaning person. She
had a rare gift of insinuating herself into
your confidence, somehow ; of taking such a
deep interest in your mind and your feelings,
that you couldn't help warming up in the
end into some responsive expansiveness.
Then, suddenly, in the midst of her easy-
going talk, Madame turned round to her and
fixed her with her glittering eye.
254 UNDER SKALKI) ORDERS
' In fact,' she said, pouncing- ui)on her with
a strange foreign tongue, 'as our Russian
proverb puts it, "The smooth-worn stone on
the river's bed can never understand whv the
pebbles on the l)ank find the sun's heat un-
pleasant." '
She said it in Russian, as if she expected
to be understood ; and even as she uttered
the words, she fixed her piercing glance, full
of inquiry, on Sacha's face. Owen bent over,
still more attentive, wondering whether, thus
attacked by so unexpected a flank movement,
Sacha — that calm, imperturbable Sacha —
would be taken off her guard or not. But
the phlegmatic Slavonic temperament, almost
Oriental in its passivity, stood her there in
good stead. Sacha never moved a muscle
of her quiet face, or changed colour for a
second.
' What does that mean V she asked lan-
guidly. ' Will you kindly translate for us ?
As yet, thank heaven, Russian isn't added to
AT LADY IJKAUMOXTS 255
Gerniiiii jiiid French as a necessary part of* an
Entrlish iiirl's education.'
Madanie's keen eye still rested on her like
a hawk's. She translated it -wroiii;'.
, ' " The polar bear wonders the orizzly
should think his climate cold," ' she answered,
with a bland smile of child-like innocence.
But, even so, Sacha gave no sign. Just
the faintest tinge of a contemptuous curl at
the corner of her mouth alone betrayed, if at
all, her consciousness of the attem})ted decej)-
tion.
' Verv true,' she said calmiv. ' We can
only sympathize to the full with the troubles
and joys we've ourselves experienced.'
Madame gave it up again for the present.
This girl was too deep for her. It was only
at the end of the evening, after talking to
many of her willing slaves meanwhile, tliat
the unaccredited agent returned to the
Cazalets with a charming smile and an out-
stretched ha^^d.
256 UNDER S1<:ALK1) ()RI)1:KS
' Well, good-night,' she said. ' .Lk reccir,
tliat is — for I must meet you again. You
remind me so of dear friends — dear friends of
mine in Russia. And your brother — when I
saw liim it gave me quite a little start. . . .
He's so extraordinarily like poor Sergius
Selistoff, of Petersbin-g. '
It was a sliar]) hcnne-thrust -their owu
father's name ! — hut Owen h()i)ed he'd
avoided it. He blushed and bowed. A
young mtin may fairly blush when his per-
sonal a])})earance is under discussion.
' Alt irvolr, then,' he said, as frankly and
unconcernedly as he was able. ' It's so kind
of you to put it so.'
As tliey went home to the flat in the cab,
an unwonted silence opi)ressed lone. She
said nothing for a long time ; then at last she
observed, with much seeming insouciance:
' What a talk you had, Owen, with that
fat Madame Mireff! She's handsome, too,
isn't she — even now. Must have been
AT I.ADV BKAUMONT'S 257
beautiful vvlien nhe was yoiin^ ! Am(1 what
eyes she made at you, and liow she stuck to
you Hke a leech ! It's a ^reat thhig to
be six feet two— in llussia — apparently !*
But at that self- same moment, Lady
Beaumont, wearied out with the duties of
her post, was sayino', with a yawn, to her
friend in the em))ty drawing-room :
' Well, Olga, I lu)])e you found out what
you wanted.'
And Madame Miretl' made answer :
' Part, at least ; not (piite all. That is to
say, not for certain. They're Russian, of
course, as Kussian as they can stand ; but
whether they're the particular ])eoj)le I
imagine or not, 1 don't feel quite sure just
yet. I must make further inquiries.'
' You won't u'et them sent to Siberia, I
trust,' Lady Beaumont said, half seriously ;
for she rather liked that big, handsome
Owen.
Msulame drew back a step and surveyed
258 LXDKK si:ai.i:i) ordkks
her fVoin head to foot witli ji sort of Innocent
siu'|)rise.
'Siberia!' she repeated. ' Sil)eria ! Oh
dear, tliat odious ca.hiiiiiiy ! Tliat ridiculous
misconception ! Must I exj)lain it every
day i Will you never understand us ?
Siberia is to llussia what Botany Bay was
once to Knti'land. We send our criminals
there, it's a penal settlement, not a Bastille
nor phice of exile for political ofteiidcrs. But
you Kut^lish will never give us credit for
anythiui;' of that sort - never, never, never!
That's your thick-headed Teuton isn>, my
dear. The French have more (spvit.
They see through all that hlaijuc. 1 assure
you, Anastasia, I might just as well ask you
not to let Lord Caistor send me, without
reason assioned, to Pentonville or to Port-
land.' 2-
KXI) OK vol.. I.
I1II.I.IN(! AND SONS, I'UINTKKS, (.Ul I.DKUIU).