The Primadonna Part 20

'I was a born runaway,' said Logotheti meekly, 'but you have cured me.'

In the pause that followed this speech, Mr. Feist leaned forward and spoke to Margaret across the table.

'I think we have a mutual friend, Madame,' he said.

'Indeed?' Margaret spoke coolly; she did not like to be called 'Madame' by people who spoke English.

'Mr. Van Torp,' explained the young man.

'Yes,' Margaret said, after a moment's hesitation, 'I know Mr. Van Torp; he came over on the same steamer.'

The others at the table were suddenly silent, and seemed to be listening. Lady Maud's clear eyes rested on Mr. Feist's face.

'He's quite a wonderful man, I think,' observed the latter.

'Yes,' a.s.sented the Primadonna indifferently.

'Don't you think he is a wonderful man?' insisted Mr. Feist, with his disagreeable drawl.

'I daresay he is,' Margaret answered, 'but I don't know him very well.'

'Really? That's funny!'

'Why?'

'Because I happen to know that he thinks everything of you, Madame Cordova. That's why I supposed, you were intimate friends.'

The others had listened hitherto in a sort of mournful silence, distinctly bored. Lady Maud's eyes now turned to Margaret, but the latter still seemed perfectly indifferent, though she was wis.h.i.+ng that some one else would speak. Griggs turned to Mr. Feist, who was next to him.

'You mean that he is a wonderful man of business, perhaps,' he said.

'Well, we all know he's that, anyway,' returned his neighbour. 'He's not exactly a friend of mine, not exactly!' A meaning smile wrinkled the unhealthy face and suddenly made it look older. 'All the same, I think he's quite wonderful. He's not merely an able man, he's a man of powerful intellect.'

'A Nickel Napoleon,' suggested the barrister, who was bored to death by this time, and could not imagine why Lady Maud followed the conversation with so much interest.

'Your speaking of nickel,' said the peer, at her elbow, 'reminds me of that extraordinary new discovery--let me see--what is it?'

'America?' suggested the barrister viciously.

'No,' said his lords.h.i.+p, with perfect gravity, 'it's not that. Ah yes, I remember! It's a process for making nitric acid out of air.'

Lady Maud nodded and smiled, as if she knew all about it, but her eyes were again scrutinising Mr. Feist's face. Her neighbour, whose hobby was applied science, at once launched upon a long account of the invention. From time to time the beauty nodded and said that she quite understood, which was totally untrue, but well meant.

'That young man has the head of a criminal,' said the barrister on her other side, speaking very low.

She bent her head very slightly, to show that she had heard, and she continued to listen to the description of the new process. By this time every one was talking again. Mr. Feist was in conversation with Griggs, and showed his profile to the barrister, who quietly studied the retreating forehead and the ill-formed jaw, the latter plainly discernible to a practised eye, in spite of the round cheeks. The barrister was a little mad on the subject of degeneracy, and knew that an unnaturally boyish look in a grown man is one of the signs of it.

In the course of a long experience at the bar he had appeared in defence of several 'high-cla.s.s criminals.' By way of comparing Mr.

Feist with a perfectly healthy specimen of humanity, he turned to look at Logotheti beside him. Margaret was talking with the Amba.s.sador, and the Greek was just turning to talk to his neighbour, so that their eyes met, and each waited for the other to speak first.

'Are you a judge of faces?' asked the barrister after a moment.

'Men of business have to be, to some extent,' answered Logotheti.

'So do lawyers. What should you say was the matter with that one?'

It was impossible to doubt that he was speaking of the only abnormal head at the table, and Logotheti looked across the wide table at Mr.

Feist for several seconds before he answered.

'Drink,' he said in an undertone, when he had finished his examination.

'Yes. Anything else?'

'May go mad any day, I should think,' observed Logotheti.

'Do you know anything about him?'

'Never saw him before.'

'And we shall probably never see him again,' said the Englishman.

'That's the worst of it. One sees such heads occasionally, but one very rarely hears what becomes of them.'

The Greek did not care a straw what became of Mr. Feist's head, for he was waiting to renew his conversation with Margaret.

Mustapha Pasha told her that she should go to Constantinople some day and sing to the Sultan, who would give her a pretty decoration in diamonds; and she laughed carelessly and answered that it might be very amusing.

'I shall be very happy to show you the way,' said the Pasha. 'Whenever you have a fancy for the trip, promise to let me know.'

Margaret had no doubt that he was quite in earnest, and would enjoy the holiday vastly. She was used to such kind offers and knew how to laugh at them, though she was very well aware that they were not made in jest.

'I have a pretty little villa on the Bosphorus,' said the Amba.s.sador, 'If you should ever come to Constantinople it is at your disposal, with everything in it, as long as you care to use it.'

'It's too good of you!' she answered. 'But I have a small house of my own here which is very comfortable, and I like London.'

'I know,' answered the Pasha blandly; 'I only meant to suggest a little change.'

He smiled pleasantly, as if he had meant nothing, and there was a pause, of which Logotheti took advantage.

'You are admirable,' he said.

'I have had much more magnificent invitations,' she answered. 'You once wished to give me your yacht as a present if I would only make a trip to Crete--with a party of archaeologists! An archduke once proposed to take me for a drive in a cab!'

'If I remember,' said Logotheti, 'I offered you the owner with the yacht. But I fancy you thought me too "exotic," as Countess Leven calls me.'

'Oh, much!' Margaret laughed again, and then lowered her voice, 'by the bye, who is she?'

'Lady Maud? Didn't you know her? She is Lord Creedmore's daughter, one of seven or eight, I believe. She married a Russian in the diplomatic service, four years ago--Count Leven--but everybody here calls her Lady Maud. She hadn't a penny, for the Creedmores are poor. Leven was supposed to be rich, but there are all sorts of stories about him, and he's often hard up. As for her, she always wears that black velvet gown, and I've been told that she has no other. I fancy she gets a new one every year. But people say--'

Logotheti broke off suddenly.