The Lost Ambassador | Page 7

some way different from the butterfly crowd who haunt the night cafes in Paris. Monsieur Carvin himself led us to a small table against the wall, and not far inside the room. The vestiaire relieved us of our coats and hats. A suave maitre d'hotel bent over us with suggestions for supper, and an attendant sommelier waited by his side. Monsieur Carvin waved them away.
"The gentlemen have probably supped," he remarked. "A bottle of the Pommery, Gout Anglais, and some biscuits. Is that right, Louis?"
We both hastened to express our approval. Monsieur Carvin was called by some one at the other end of the room and hurried away. Louis turned to me. There was a curious expression in his eyes.
"You are disappointed?" he asked. "You see nothing here different? It is all the same to you."
"Not in the least," I answered. "For one thing, it seems strange to find a restaurant de luxe up here, when below there is only a cafe of the worst. Are they of the same management?"
"Up here," he said, "come the masters, and down there the servants. Look around at these people, monsieur. Look around carefully. Tell me whether you do not see something different here from the other places."
I followed Louis' advice. I looked around at the people with an interest which grew rather than abated, and for which I could not at first account. Soon, however, I began to realize that although this was, at first appearance, merely a crowd of fashionably dressed men and women, yet they differed from the ordinary restaurant crowd in that there was something a little out of the common in the faces of nearly every one of them. The loiterers through life seemed absent. These people were relaxing freely enough,--laughing, talking, and making love,--but behind it all there seemed a note of seriousness, an intentness in their faces which seemed to speak of a career, of things to be done in the future, or something accomplished in the past. The woman who sat at the opposite table to me--tall, with yellow hair, and face as pale as alabaster--was a striking personality anywhere. Her blue eyes were deep-set, and she seemed to have made no effort to conceal the dark rings underneath, which only increased their luminosity. A magnificent string of turquoises hung from her bare neck, a curious star shone in her hair. Her dress was of the newest mode. Her voice, languid but elegant, had in it that hidden quality which makes it one of a woman's most attractive gifts. By her side was a great black-moustached giant, a pale-faced man, with little puffs of flesh underneath his eyes, whose dress was a little too perfect and his jewelry a little too obvious.
"Tell me," I asked, "who is that man?"
Louis leaned towards me, and his voice sunk to the merest whisper.
"That, monsieur," said he, "is one of the most important persons in the room. He is the man whom they call the uncrowned king. He was a saddler once by profession. Look at him now."
"How has he made his money?" I asked.
Louis smiled--a queer little contraction of his thin lips.
"It is not wise," he said, "to ask that question of any whom you meet here. Henri Bartot was one of the wildest youths in Paris. It was he who started the first band of thieves, from which developed the present hoard of apaches."
"And now?" I asked.
"He is their unrecognized, unspoken-of leader," Louis whispered. "The man who offends him to-night would be lucky to find himself alive to-morrow."
I looked across the room curiously. There was not a single redeeming feature in the man's face except, perhaps, the suggestion of brute, passionate force which still lingered about his thick, straight lips and heavy jaw. The woman by his side seemed incomprehensible. I saw now that she had eyes of turquoise blue and a complexion almost waxenlike. She lifted her arms, and I saw that they, too, were covered with bracelets of light-blue stones. Louis, following my eyes, touched me on the arm.
"Don't look at her," he said warningly. "She belongs to him--Bartot. It is not safe to flirt with her even at this distance."
I laughed softly and sipped my wine.
"Louis," I said, "it is time you got back to London. You are living here in too imaginative an atmosphere."
"I speak the truth, monsieur," he answered grimly. "She, too,--she is not safe. She finds pleasure in making fools of men. The suffering which comes to them appeals to her vanity. There was a young Englishman once, he sent a note to her--not here, but at the Cafe de Paris--at luncheon time one morning. He was to have left Paris the next day. He did not leave. He has never been heard of since!"
There was no doubt that Louis himself,