A Fascinating Traitor. Richard Savage

in a stage aside: “Say, Genie, look at those two English fellows! They are something like—I bet you that they are two Lords!” The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon the chance-met acquaintances. “I must get back to India, by hook or crook,” mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther’s reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially stratified deposits at “Coutts” and Glyn, Carr and Glyn’s, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at “Grind-lay’s,” a fortune for any less fortunate man.

      He was already interested in the remarkably fetching looking young woman at Alan Hawke’s left, being a squire of dames par excellence, while Major Alan Hawke himself wondered how Anstruther had drifted so far away from the direct line of travel to London.

      Thawing visibly under the influence of Hawke’s gracefully modulated camaraderie, the susceptible Anstruther was attentively examining his fair neighbor in silence, while he tried vaguely to recall some story which he had once heard, quite detrimental to the cosmopolitan Major.

      He gave it up as a bad job! “Hang it!” he thought. “It may have been some other chap. Very likely!” It was the strange story of a sharp encounter with the hostile Kookies, in which a couple of English mountain guns, long before abandoned by a British expeditionary force, had been served with due professional skill and most desperate dash by a reckless man, easily recognized as an English refugee artillerist. The wounded escaped British soldier, who had died after denouncing the deserting adventurer, had left his parting advice to the Royal Artillery to burn the fearless renegade, should he ever be captured. It was the Story of a nameless traitor!

      But, the vague distrust of the curled darling of Fortune soon faded away under Hawke’s measured social leading. A silver wine cooler stood behind their chairs, and the old yarn of a British officer playing Olivier Pain became very misty under the subtle influence of the Pommery Sec. Alan Hawke guarded the expected story of his own wanderings, waiting craftily until Bacchus and Venus had sufficiently mollified Anstruther.

      He duplicated the champagne, knowing well the warming influence of “t’other bottle.” The Major of a shadowy rank had early learned the graceful art of effacing himself, and on this occasion, it stood greatly to his credit. Anstruther was now quite sure that the graceful head of the beautiful neighbor swayed in an unconscious recognition of his witty sallies. A true son of Mars—ardent, headlong, and gallant as regarded le beau sexe—he talked brilliantly and well, aiming his boomerang remarks at a woman whom he knew to be young and graceful, and whose beauty he was gayly taking upon trust; an old, old interlude, played many a time and oft.

      “What is going on here in this beastly slow old town? Nothing much for to-night, I fancy,” said the aid-de-camp, wondering if a promenade au clair de la lune or a carriage ride to Ferney would be possible! He already had noted the purity of the French accent of the fair unknown. No guttural Swiss patois there, but that crisp elegance of tone which promised him a flirtation en vraie Parisienne.

      “Only Philemon and Baucis, an antique opera, at the Grand Opera House, and sung by a band of relics of better days, wandering over here!” said Hawke.

      And then it finally dawned upon the blase young staff officer that he had met Alan Hawke in certain circles where plunging had chased away the tedium of Indian club life with the delightful sensations of raking in other people’s money.

      “Better come up to my rooms then, and have a weed and a bit of ecarte!” slowly said Anstruther. “We may manage a ride afterward!” Alan Hawke nodded, and a thirsty gleam lit up his crafty eyes. He instinctively felt for the little card case containing that solitary twenty-pound note; it was a gentleman’s stake after all. And the would-be suicide silently invoked the fickle goddess Fortuna!

      Captain Anstruther, however, furtively murmured a few words to the solemn head steward and then leaned back contentedly in his chair. His ostensible orders for cafe noir and cards, as well as the least murderous of the obtainable cigars, covered the plan of using a five-pound note in an adroit personal inquiry. For, the Honorable Anson Anstruther proposed to ride that very evening, and he did not wish to bore Major Hawke with his company. He nursed a little scheme of his own. “Do you make a long stay?” carelessly said the wary Major.

      “I intend to leave to-morrow night,” gayly answered the other. “I came over here on a very strange errand. I’ve got to see an eminent Gorgon of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person bien clevee,” said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown.

      “Hardly in your line, Anstruther!” laughed Hawke, casting his eyes around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharply echoing comment. The noisy Teutons had devoured their seven francs worth, and the fair bird of passage on their left was left alone, woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi bouteille with true French deliberation. “It’s a case of the wolf and the sheep-fold!”

      “Not that; not at all!” gayly answered Anstruther. “I have a long leave, and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency.” He spoke with all the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life—the habitual disregard of the Briton for his inferior surroundings. “By Jove! you may help me out yourself! You’re an old Delhi man!” He gazed earnestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said:

      “You know I’ve been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line.”

      “Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy commissioner of Oude?” Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground.

      “I fail to recall the name, Johnstone—Johnstone,” murmured Hawke.

      “Why, everyone knows old Johnstone; he is an old mutiny man. You surely do! He was Hugh Fraser until he took the name of Johnstone, ten years or so ago, on a Scotch relative leaving him a handsome Highland estate!” There was a warning rustle at Hawke’s left, as the fair stranger prepared for her flitting.

      “I was very intimate with Hugh Fraser in my griffin days. But I thought he had retired and gone back home. He is enormously rich, and an old bachelor! I know him very well; he was a good friend of mine in the old days, too!”

      Anstruther leaned toward Hawke, as he signed to the waiter to refill his hearer’s glass. “Well, I can surprise even you! He has turned up with a beautiful daughter—at Delhi—just about the prettiest girl I ever—”

      “Je demande mills pardons, Madame!” politely cried Major Hawke, as his fair neighbor’s wineglass went shivering down in a crystalline wreck.

      “Pas de quoi, Monsieur,” suavely replied the woman whom till now he had hardly noticed. A moment later the slight damage was repaired, and then Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther had his little innings.

      With courtly hospitality he offered the creamy champagne as a remplacement for the lost vin du pays.

      A charming smile rewarded the gallant youth, while Major Hawke turned with interest to the renewal of the interrupted narrative. He had caught a glance of burning intensity from the dark brown eyes of the lady a la Houbigant, which set every nerve in his body tingling. It was a challenge to a companionship, and, as he led on the triumphant Anstruther, he deeply regretted the absence of that most necessary organ—an eye in the back of the head. He was dimly aware that his beautiful neighbor was very leisurely drinking the peace offering of the susceptible son of Mars. “I will bet hundreds to ha’pennies she speaks English!” quickly reflected the now aroused Major.

      “You astound me, Anstruther,” the Major said. “Not a lawful child! Some Eurasian legacy—a relic of the old days of the Pagoda Tree! Why,