The world is the book of women.—Rousseau.
I needed not to be advised that presently there would be a meeting of some of the leading men of the Hudson Bay Company at the little gray stone, dormer-windowed building on Notre Dame Street. In this old building—in whose vaults at one time of emergency was stored the entire currency of the Canadian treasury—there still remained some government records, and now under the steep-pitched roof affairs were to be transacted somewhat larger than the dimensions of the building might have suggested. The keeper of my inn freely made me a list of those who would be present—a list embracing so many scores of prominent men whom he then swore to be in the city of Montreal that, had the old Chateau Ramezay afforded twice its room, they could not all have been accommodated. For myself, it was out of the question to gain admittance.
In those days all Montreal was iron-shuttered after nightfall, resembling a series of jails; and to-night it seemed doubly screened and guarded. None the less, late in the evening, I allowed seeming accident to lead me in a certain direction. Passing as often as I might up and down Notre Dame Street without attracting attention, I saw more than one figure in the semi-darkness enter the low chateau door. Occasionally a tiny gleam showed at the edge of a shutter or at the top of some little window not fully screened. As to what went on within I could only guess.
I passed the chateau, up and down, at different times from nine o'clock until midnight. The streets of Montreal at that time made brave pretense of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals flickering and wholly incompetent lights serving to make the gloom more visible. None the less, as I passed for the last time, I plainly saw a shaft of light fall upon the half darkness from a little side door. There emerged upon the street the figure of a woman. I do not know what led me to cast a second glance, for certainly my business was not with ladies, any more than I would have supposed ladies had business there; but, victim of some impulse of curiosity, I walked a step or two in the same direction as that taken by the cloaked figure.
Careless as I endeavored to make my movements, the veiled lady seemed to take suspicion or fright. She quickened her steps. Accident favored me. Even as she fled, she caught her skirt on some object which lay hidden in the shadows and fell almost at full length. This I conceived to be opportunity warranting my approach. I raised my hat and assured her that her flight was needless.
She made no direct reply to me, but as she rose gave utterance to an expression of annoyance. "Mon Dieu!" I heard her say.
I stood for a moment trying to recall where I had heard this same voice! She turned her face in such a way that the light illuminated it. Then indeed surprise smote me.
"Madam Baroness," said I, laughing, "it is wholly impossible for you to be here, yet you are here! Never again will I say there is no such thing as chance, no such thing as fate, no such thing as a miracle!"
She looked at me one brief moment; then her courage returned.
"Ah, then, my idiot," she said, "since it is to be our fortune always to meet of dark nights and in impossible ways, give me your arm."
I laughed. "We may as well make treaty. If you run again, I shall only follow you."
"Then I am again your prisoner?"
"Madam, I again am yours!"
"At least, you improve!" said she. "Then come."
"Shall I not call a calèche?—the night is dark."
"No, no!" hurriedly.
We began a midnight course that took us quite across the old French quarter of Montreal. At last she turned into a small, dark street of modest one-story residences, iron-shuttered, dark and cheerless. Here she paused in front of a narrow iron gate.
"Madam," I said, "you represent to me one of the problems of my life. Why does your taste run to such quarters as these? This might be that same back street in Washington!"
She chuckled to herself, at length laughed aloud. "But wait! If you entered my abode once," she said, "why not again? Come."
Her hand was at the heavy knocker as she spoke. In a moment the door slowly opened, just as it had done that night before in Washington. My companion passed before me swiftly. As she entered I saw standing at the opening the same brown and wrinkled old dame who had served that night before in Washington!
For an instant the light dazzled my eyes, but, determined now to see this adventure through, I stepped within. Then, indeed, I found it difficult to stifle the exclamation of surprise which came to my lips. Believe it or not, as you like, we were again in Washington!
I say that I was confronted by the identical arrangement, the identical objects of furnishing, which had marked the luxurious boudoir of Helena von Ritz in Washington! The tables were the same, the chairs, the mirrors, the consoles. On the mantel stood the same girandoles with glittering crystals. The pictures upon the walls, so far as I could remember their themes, did not deviate in any particular of detail or arrangement. The oval-backed chairs were duplicates of those I had seen that other night at midnight. Beyond these same amber satin curtains stood the tall bed with its canopy, as I could see; and here at the right was the same low Napoleon bed with its rolled ends. The figures of the carpets were the same, their deep-piled richness, soft under foot, the same. The flowered cups of the sconces were identical with those I had seen before. To my eye, even as it grew more studious, there appeared no divergence, no difference, between these apartments and those I had so singularly visited—and yet under circumstances so strangely akin to these—in the capital of my own country!
"You are good enough to admire my modest place," said a laughing voice at my shoulder. Then indeed I waked and looked about me, and saw that this, stranger than any mirage of the brain, was but a fact and must later be explained by the laborious processes of the feeble reason.
I turned to her then, pulling myself together as best I could. Yes, she too was the same, although in this case costumed somewhat differently. The wide ball gown of satin was gone, and in its place was a less pretentious robing of some darker silk. I remembered distinctly that the flowers upon the white satin gown I first had seen were pink roses. Here were flowers of the crocus, cunningly woven into the web of the gown itself. The slippers which I now saw peeping out as she passed were not of white satin, but better foot covering for the street. She cast over the back of a chair, as she had done that other evening, her light shoulder covering, a dark mantle, not of lace now, but of some thin cloth. Her jewels were gone, and the splendor of her dark hair was free of decoration. No pale blue fires shone at her white throat, and her hands were ringless. But the light, firm poise of her figure could not be changed; the mockery of her glance remained the same, half laughing and half wistful. The strong curve of her lips remained, and I recalled this arch of brow, the curve of neck and chin, the droop of the dark locks above her even forehead. Yes, it was she. It could be no one else.
She clapped her hands and laughed like a child as she turned to me. "Bravo!" she said. "My judgment, then, was quite correct."
"In regard to what?"
"Yourself!"
"Pardon me?"
"You do not show curiosity! You do not ask me questions! Good! I think I shall ask you to wait. I say to you frankly that I am alone here. It pleases me to live—as pleases me! You are alone in Montreal. Why should we not please ourselves?"
In some way which I did not pause to analyze, I felt perfectly sure that this strange woman could, if she cared to do so, tell me some of the things I ought to know. She might be here on some errand identical with my own. Calhoun had sent for her once before. Whose agent was she now? I found chairs for us both.
An instant later, summoned in what way I do not know, the old serving-woman again reappeared. "Wine, Threlka," said the baroness; "service for two—you may use this little table. Monsieur," she added, turning to me, "I am most happy to make even some slight return for the very gracious entertainment offered me that morning by Mr. Calhoun at his residence. Such a droll man! Oh, la! la!"
"Are you his friend, Madam?" I asked bluntly.
"Why should I not be?"
I could frame neither offensive nor defensive art with her. She mocked me.
In a few moments the weazened old woman was back with cold fowl, wine, napery, silver.
"Will Monsieur carve?" At her nod the old woman filled my glass, after my hostess had tasted of her own. We had seated ourselves at the table as she spoke.
"Not so bad for a black midnight, eh?" she went on, "—in a strange town—and on a strange errand? And again let me express my approbation of your conduct."
"If it pleases you, 'tis more than I can say of it for myself," I began. "But why?"
"Because you ask no questions. You take things as they come. I did not expect you would come to Montreal."
"Then you know—but of course, I told you."
"Have you then no question?" she went on at last. Her glass stood half full; her wrists rested gently on the table edge, as she leaned back, looking at me with that on her face which he had needed to be wiser than myself, who could have read.
"May I, then?"
"Yes, now you may go on."
"I thank you. First, of course, for what reason do you carry the secrets of my government into the stronghold of another government? Are you the friend of America, or are you a spy upon America? Are you my friend, or are we to be enemies to-night?"
She flung back her head and laughed delightedly. "That is a good beginning," she commented.
"You must, at a guess, have come up by way of the lakes, and by batteau from La Prairie?" I ventured.
She nodded again. "Of course. I have been here six days."
"Indeed?—you have badly beaten me in our little race."
She flashed on me a sudden glance. "Why do you not ask me outright why I am here?"
"Well, then, I do! I do ask you that. I ask you how you got access to that meeting to-night—for I doubt not you were there?"
She gazed at me deliberately again, parting her red lips, again smiling at me. "What would you have given to have been there yourself?"
"All the treasures those vaults ever held."
"So much? What will you give me, then, to tell you what I know?"
"More than all that treasure, Madam. A place—"
"Ah! a 'place in the heart of a people!' I prefer a locality more restricted."
"In my own heart, then; yes, of course!"
She helped herself daintily to a portion of the white meat of the fowl. "Yes," she went on, as though speaking to herself, "on the whole, I rather like him. Yet what a fool! Ah, such a droll idiot!"
"How so, Madam?" I expostulated. "I thought I was doing very well."
"Yet you can not guess how to persuade me?"
"No; how could that be?"
"Always one gains by offering some equivalent, value for value—especially with women, Monsieur."
She went on as though to herself. "Come, now, I fancy him! He is handsome, he is discreet, he has courage, he is not usual, he is not curious; but ah, mon Dieu, what a fool!"
"Admit me to be a fool, Madam, since it is true; but tell me in my folly what equivalent I can offer one who has everything in the world—wealth, taste, culture, education, wit, learning, beauty?"
"Go on! Excellent!"
"Who has everything as against my nothing! What value, Madam?"
"Why, gentle idiot, to get an answer ask a question, always."
"I have asked it."
"But you can not guess that I might ask one? So, then, one answer for another, we might do—what you Americans call some business—eh? Will you answer my question?"
"Ask it, then."
"Were you married—that other night?"
So, then, she was woman after all, and curious! Her sudden speech came like a stab; but fortunately my dull nerves had not had time to change my face before a thought flashed into my mind. Could I not make merchandise of my sorrow? I pulled myself into control and looked her fair in the face.
"Madam," I said, "look at my face and read your own answer."
She looked, searching me, while every nerve of me tingled; but at last she shook her head. "No," she sighed. "I can not yet say." She did not see the sweat s............