LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Monsieur kindly pardon, etc.?”

      “Am I right in inferring that the ladies, are the daughters of the famous Professor Delande?” the Major hazarded, with a wild guess. Before the votary of Minerva finally descended, Francois had artfully “yielded up” much valuable information to the gravely interested visitor. The attendant was the richer by a five-franc piece when he retired to vigorously fall upon the Major’s hat and brush it in an anticipatory manner.

      It was but a half an hour later when Alan Hawke had concluded his deftly worded compliments upon the justly famed Institute, and had subjugated the still susceptible spinster by his adroitly veiled flatteries. The easy aplomb with which he introduced the forgotten commission of Captain Anstruther was aided by the presentation of that gentleman’s visiting card, and the charms of an interesting word sketch of Delhi and its surroundings.

      The sound of distant girlish voices punctuated the refined murmur of the ensuing conference, which was an exposition of Mademoiselle Delande’s grand manner! Hawke adroitly soothed the natural uneasiness of the cunning Swiss spinster as to her sister’s comfort, safety, and the surety of Hugh Johnstone’s fabulously liberal money inducement to retain Miss Justine in his service for a year. The flattered woman fell easily into Alan Hawke’s net, and she freely dilated upon the singular eccentricities of the Indian magnate as to his daughter’s education.

      There was a breaking light now illumining the strange childhood of a girl, nurtured by proxy, and kept in ignorance of her brilliant future and vast monetary inheritance.

      “In fact, I have never seen the honored Mr. Hugh Fraser,” concluded Miss Euphrosyne. “Nadine was brought to us a child of three by the wife of Professor Fraser, since deceased! And, by special arrangement, she was taken by us, and her whole girlhood has been passed in our charge. We have never seen her uncle, Professor Fraser, whose duties at Edinburgh University chained him down. It was her own father’s written and positive direction that no one, whomsoever, should be admitted to converse with his child. And so Justine and myself have formed her entirely!”

      Hawke’s keen eyes glowed for a moment, in a secret satisfaction. “I have you, my lady! They wished to keep you away from this young Peri, formed upon such heroically antique models.” Major Hawke gazed upon the leather-faced visage of the slaty-eyed woman, whose age none might venture to guess. An artless admiration of the absent Miss Justine’s photographed charms, caused a faint glow to flicker upon the ancient maiden’s cheek. When Alan Hawke drew forth a hideous carbuncle and Indian filigree bracelet (an old relic of bazaar haunting), the thin lips of the preceptress parted in a wintry smile.

      With modest urging, he soon overcame the Roman firmness of Mademoiselle Euphrosyne, and, wonder of wonders, was honored by an invitation to dine with the austere Genevan maiden. The happy Major was soon triumphant at all points, and Francois was hastily dispatched to the Photographic Atelier to order a half dozen copies of the card portrait which displayed to Alan Hawke the rosebud face of the Veiled Beauty of Delhi. The adventurer made haste to excuse himself for interrupting the flow of the Parnassian stream, and walked backward from the presence of the poor old woman whom he had duped, as if she were a queen.

      It was an easy matter for the Englishman to waylay and intercept the returning man-at-arms of this castle of cosmopolitan beauty. Francois had duly availed himself of his lengthened absence, and his thick tongue and swimming eye spoke of potations of the Kirsch-wasser dear to the Swiss heart. Major Hawke impressed the servitor with the necessity of bringing the pictures down to his rooms upon the morrow, and then the Major judiciously duplicated his five-franc piece. The happy butler winked with an acute divination of the Major’s purpose and went unsteadily back to the whirlpool of learning. The Major cheerfully went on his own way to meet Miss Genie Forbes, with whom he had established a private understanding as to a runaway visit to the Cathedral, to be followed by an impromptu breakfast. “I can stand the old Gorgon’s dinner,” mused the happy adventurer, “after a tete-a-tete with Miss Genie, and as for Francois, I will also waste a bottle of good Cognac on him. I think that I will start into this strange partnership with a better stock of family history than even this remarkably self-possessed young woman, who seems to be the heiress of some old family vendetta.”

      The Major laughed as he heard the mills of the gods grinding out a golden grist of the future. But lifted up beyond the impulses of his itching palm the sight of the delicate, girlish face of the Rosebud of Delhi had caused him to dream the strangest dreams. “Why not?” he murmured as he wandered back to the hotel and privately indulged in a petit verre before his rendezvous with Miss Genie, the belle of the West Side. Major Alan Hawke was in “great form” as he piloted the bright-eyed, willful Chicago girl through the dim religious light of the Cathedral. His mocking history of the gay life and racy adventures of Bonnivard, when posing as the rollicking Prior of St. Victor in the wild days of his youth, greatly amused the nervous American heiress.

      “I should say that he was a holy terror,” laughed Miss Genie, “and I don’t blame the Bishop of Geneva and the Duke of Savoy for making him do his six years in that dark old hole at Chillon! He was a gay boy, you bet, and with his three wives and his lively ways, I reckon the Genevans were blamed sorry they ever let him out. He seems to have been a free thinker, a free liver, and a free lover!”

      “And yet,” mused Alan Hawke, “his writings to-day are the pride of Genevan scholars; his library was the nucleus of the Geneva University; his defiant spirit broke the chains of Calvin’s narrowness, and his resistant, spiritual example caught up has made Geneva the home of the oppressed, the central, radiant point of mental light and liberty for the world! Geneva since 1536 has harbored the brightest wandering Spanish, French, English, and Irish youth! Even grim Russia cannot reclaim from the free city its wayward exiles. France, in her distress, has found an asylum here for its helpless nobles and expelled philosophers. I willingly take my hat off to brave little Switzerland, where Royal Duke, proscribed patriot, mad enthusiast, bold agnostic, and tired worldling can all find an inviolate asylum under the majestic shadows of its mountains—by the shores of its dreaming lakes!” Alan Hawke dropped suddenly from the clouds as the practical Miss Genie led the way to the breakfast rendezvous, cheerfully demonstrating her own bold ideas of social freedom by remarking:

      “Say! what’s the matter with a little day’s run up to Chillon? Phenie is game for anything! You just get that other English Lord and we will dodge Popper and Mommer.”

      “I am sorry to say that my friend has left suddenly, bound for London,” laughed the Major, gazing admiringly at this pretty feminine Bonnivard.

      “That’s awful bad luck!” gloomily remarked Miss Genie. “He was a regular dandy, and I liked him—but,” she said, with a thirsty peck at a glass of champagne, as they waited for the breakfast, “Phenie will then have to give that long-legged Italian fellow the tip. The Marquis of Santa Marina! He’s not much, but better than nothing at all. We’ll have a jolly day!”

      Major Hawke was mystified at the daring personal independence of the sprightly young heiress. She was a social revelation to him, and the sunny afternoon was not altogether thrown away, for they carelessly rambled over the proud old town together, doing all the sights. They visited the stately National Monument, the Jardin Anglais, the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal, the Muse’e Foy, the Botanic Gardens, and the Athende. He gazed upon the fresh face of the rebellious young American social mutineer with an increasing wonder as they wandered alone on the Promenade des Bastions, and was simply astounded when he vainly tried to take advantage of a shady corner in the Musee Ariana to steal a kiss from the wayward girl’s rosy lips. Miss Genie “formed herself into a hollow square” and calmly, but energetically, repulsed him.

      “See here! Major Hawke!” she coolly said, “get off the perch! I don’t care for any soft sawder! I’m a pretty good fellow in my way, but I know how to take care of myself!”

      In fact, Major Alan Hawke at last recognized the existence of a species of womanhood which he had never before met. Miss Genie was frankly unconventional, and yet she was both hard-headed and hardhearted. When he carefully dressed himself for the intellectual feast of Mademoiselle Delande’s “refined collation,” he dimly became aware that the role of

Скачать книгу