The Cardinal Moth. White Fred Merrick

"All right, Sir James. I won't question you too far. So white is not going to mate in three moves this evening, Lefroy?"

      Lefroy shrugged his shoulders carelessly. The Shan of Koordstan was safe for the present. He had seen to that. Manfred had dropped quietly into a chair with just the suggestion of pain on his face. A smooth-voiced butler announced that dinner was served.

      "Where does Frobisher get his servants from, Jessop?" Sir James Brownsmith asked the judge, as the two strolled across the hall together. "Now there's a model of a butler for you. His voice has a flavour of old, nutty sherry about it. By Jove, what are those flowers?"

      There were flowers everywhere, mostly arranged by Frobisher himself. In the centre was a rough handful of green twigs bound together with a silver cord, and the whole surmounted by a coil of the pinky-white orchid with its fringe of trembling red moths.

      "Orchids," said the politician. "Something fresh, Frobisher? What do you call it?"

      "The specimen is not named at present," Lefroy said meaningly.

      Frobisher glanced at the speaker and smiled.

      "Lefroy is quite right," he said. "The specimen lacks a name. It came in the first place from Koordstan, and there were three spines of the original plant. It is a freak, there never was anything like it before, and there will probably never be one like it again. That self-same orchid was very near to being the price of a kingdom once upon a time."

      "Only it is unfortunately impossible to tell the story," Lefroy remarked.

      Once again Frobisher glanced at the speaker and smiled. Most of the guests by this time were busy over their soup. They were not the class of men to waste valuable sentiment over flowers. It was only Frobisher who glanced from time to time lovingly at the Cardinal Moth. Manfred seemed to avoid it altogether. He sat at the table eating nothing and obviously out of sorts with his food.

      "I've a bilious headache, Sir Clement," he explained. "The mere sight of food and smell of cooking makes me sick to the soul. Would you mind if I sat in the drawing-room in the dark for a little time? I am confident that the attack will pass off presently."

      "Anything you please, my dear fellow," Frobisher cried hospitably. "A strong cup of tea! A glass of champagne and a dry biscuit? No? If you ring the bell Hafid will attend to you."

      Hafid salaamed as he dexterously caught a meaning glance from Frobisher. Lefroy brutally proclaimed aloud that a good dinner was utterly wasted upon Manfred. Brownsmith with his mouth full of aspic was understood to say something anent the virtues of bromide. So the dinner proceeded with pink lakes of light on the table, the flowers and the cut glass and quaint silver. And there were blossoms, blossoms everywhere, thousands of them. Frobisher might have been a great scoundrel – that he was a man of exquisite taste was beyond question. The elaborate dinner dragged smoothly along, two hours passed, a silver chime proclaimed eleven o'clock.

      The cloth was drawn at length, as the host's whim was, the decanters and glittering glass stood on a brown glistening lake of polished oak, with here and there a dash of fruit to give a more vivid touch of colour. Hafid handed round a silver cigarette-box, a cedar cigar cabinette on wheels was pushed along the table. Over the shaded electric lights a blue wrack of smoke hung. The silver chime struck twelve.

      "Hafid; you have made Mr. Manfred comfortable?" Frobisher asked.

      Hafid replied that he had done all that a man could do. Mr. Manfred was reclining in the dark near an open window. All the other servants but himself had retired. The butler had seen that everything necessary was laid out in the smoking-room.

      "Always send the servants to bed as soon as possible," Frobisher explained. "What with the spread of modern journalism, I find it necessary. You never know nowadays how far one's butler is interested in the same stock that you are deeply dipped in. And a long-eared footman has changed the course of diplomacy before now."

      "If everybody pursued the same policy, George," Baron Jessop murmured, "I and my learned friends of the Bench would have more or less of a sinecure."

      "And Lord Saltaur, yonder would not have lost a beautiful wife," Lefroy said loudly.

      A sudden hush seemed to smite the table. Lord Saltaur whitened to his lips under his tan; his long, lean hands gripped the edge of the table passionately. His own domestic scandal had been so new, so painful, that the whole party stood aghast at the brutality of the insult.

      "Frobisher," Saltaur said, hoarsely. "It is not pleasant to be insulted by a blackguard – "

      "What was that word?" Lefroy asked quite sweetly. "My hearing may be a trifle deficient, but I fancied his lordship said something about a blackguard."

      Frobisher interfered as in duty bound. As a matter of fact he was enjoying the situation. Lefroy had drunk deeply, but then he had seen Lefroy's amazing prowess in that direction too many times for any fears as to his ultimate equilibrium. No, Lefroy was playing some deep game. As yet only the first card had been laid upon the table.

      "I think that the apology lies with you, Count," Frobisher said tentatively.

      "A mere jest," Lefroy said, airily. "A jeu d'esprit. Lord Saltaur's wife."

      "You hound!" Saltaur cried passionately. "Whatever I have been, you might leave the name of a pure woman out of your filthy conversation. If you don't apologise at once, I'll thrust your words down your throat for you."

      A contemptuous reply came from Lefroy. There was a flash of crystal and a glass shattered on the Count's dark face, leaving a star-shaped wound on his cheek. A moment later and he and Saltaur were struggling together like wild animals. Frobisher had so far forgotten himself as to lean back in his chair as if this were a mere exhibition got up for his entertainment.

      "Is this part of the evening's amusement, Sir Clement?" the judge asked coldly.

      Frobisher realised his responsibilities with a sigh for his interrupted pleasure. His civilisation was the thinnest possible veneer, a shoddy thing like Tottenham Court Road furniture.

      "Come, you chaps must drop it," he cried. "I can't have you fighting over my Smyrna carpet. Saltaur, you shall have your apology. Lefroy, do you hear me?"

      Strong arms interfered, and the two men were dragged apart. Lefroy's teeth glistened in a ghastly grin; there was a speck of blood on his white shirt front. Saltaur's laboured breathing could be heard all over the room.

      "I take you all to witness that it was no seeking of mine," he cried. "I was foully insulted. In a few days all the world will know that I have been made the victim of a discharged servant's perjury. Frobisher, I am still waiting for my apology."

      Lefroy paused and passed his handkerchief across his face. He seemed to have wiped the leering expression from it. He looked a perfect picture of puzzled bewilderment.

      "What have I done?" he asked. "What on earth have I said?"

      "Beautiful," Frobisher murmured. "Artistic to a fault. What is he driving at?"

      Baron Jessop explained clearly and judiciously. He was glad to have an opportunity of doing so. Viewing the thing dispassionately, he was bound to say that Count Lefroy had been guilty of a grave breach of good taste. But he was quite sure that under the circumstances —

      "On my honour, I haven't the slightest recollection of it," Lefroy cried. "If there is one lady of my acquaintance I honour and respect it is Lady – the charming woman whom Lord Saltaur calls his wife. A sudden fit of mental aberration, my lord. An old wound in the head followed by a spell in the sunshine. This is the third time the thing has happened. The last time in Serbia nearly cost me my life. My dear Saltaur, I am sorry from the bottom of my heart."

      "Funniest case I ever heard of," the puzzled Saltaur murmured. "All the same, I'm deuced sorry I threw that wine glass at you."

      "Oh, so you chucked a wine glass at me! Laid my cheek open, too. Well, I should have done exactly the same thing under the same circumstances. From this night I touch nothing stronger than claret. If I'd stuck to that, this wouldn't have happened."

      The good-humoured Saltaur muttered something in reply, the threads of the dropped conversation were taken up again. Hafid, who had