The Prisoner of Zenda | Page 4

no man should pass through
Paris without spending four-and-twenty hours there. My uncle spoke
out of a ripe experience of the world, and I honoured his advice by
putting up for a day and a night at "The Continental" on my way to--the
Tyrol. I called on George Featherly at the Embassy, and we had a bit of
dinner together at Durand's, and afterwards dropped in to the Opera;
and after that we had a little supper, and after that we called on Bertram
Bertrand, a versifier of some repute and Paris correspondent to The
Critic. He had a very comfortable suite of rooms, and we found some
pleasant fellows smoking and talking. It struck me, however, that
Bertram himself was absent and in low spirits, and when everybody
except ourselves had gone, I rallied him on his moping preoccupation.
He fenced with me for a while, but at last, flinging himself on a sofa, he
exclaimed:
"Very well; have it your own way. I am in love--infernally in love!"
"Oh, you'll write the better poetry," said I, by way of consolation.
He ruffled his hair with his hand and smoked furiously. George
Featherly, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, smiled unkindly.
"If it's the old affair," said he, "you may as well throw it up, Bert. She's
leaving Paris tomorrow."
"I know that," snapped Bertram.
"Not that it would make any difference if she stayed," pursued the
relentless George. "She flies higher than the paper trade, my boy!"
"Hang her!" said Bertram.
"It would make it more interesting for me," I ventured to observe, "if I
knew who you were talking about."
"Antoinette Mauban," said George.
"De Mauban," growled Bertram.

"Oho!" said I, passing by the question of the `de'. "You don't mean to
say, Bert--?"
"Can't you let me alone?"
"Where's she going to?" I asked, for the lady was something of a
celebrity.
George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and
answered pleasantly:
"Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the
other night--at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him--the
Duke of Strelsau?"
"Yes, I did," growled Bertram.
"An extremely accomplished man, I thought him."
It was not hard to see that George's references to the duke were
intended to aggravate poor Bertram's sufferings, so that I drew the
inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his
attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute,
ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying as
high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying
strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of
Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the
new King. He had been his father's favourite, and it had occasioned
some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a
title derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had
been of good, but not exalted, birth.
"He's not in Paris now, is he?" I asked.
"Oh no! He's gone back to be present at the King's coronation; a
ceremony which, I should say, he'll not enjoy much. But, Bert, old man,
don't despair! He won't marry the fair Antoinette--at least, not unless
another plan comes to nothing. Still perhaps she--" He paused and

added, with a laugh: "Royal attentions are hard to resist--you know that,
don't you, Rudolf?"
"Confound you!" said I; and rising, I left the hapless Bertram in
George's hands and went home to bed.
The next day George Featherly went with me to the station, where I
took a ticket for Dresden.
"Going to see the pictures?" asked George, with a grin.
George is an inveterate gossip, and had I told him that I was off to
Ruritania, the news would have been in London in three days and in
Park Lane in a week. I was, therefore, about to return an evasive
answer, when he saved my conscience by leaving me suddenly and
darting across the platform. Following him with my eyes, I saw him lift
his hat and accost a graceful, fashionably dressed woman who had just
appeared from the booking-office. She was, perhaps, a year or two over
thirty, tall, dark, and of rather full figure. As George talked, I saw her
glance at me, and my vanity was hurt by the thought that, muffled in a
fur coat and a neck-wrapper (for it was a chilly April day) and wearing
a soft travelling hat pulled down to my ears, I must be looking very far
from my best. A moment later, George rejoined me.
"You've got a charming travelling companion," he said. "That's poor
Bert Bertrand's goddess,