The young man smiled, and lolling back again in the big easy-chair, answered with admirable coolness, considering the bewildering truth that had at that moment flashed upon him —
“I am only surprised that Miss Morini should become engaged to a Frenchman. She told me to-day that her greatest regret is that they cannot live in England always.”
“Ah, my boy, she’s a thorough-going cosmopolitan,” replied the rector, his pipe still between his teeth. “Such women always marry foreigners. I daresay her father would object if she wanted to marry an Englishman. He’s a man who evidently means his daughter to marry a title.”
“In Italy it is rather a claim to distinction not to possess a title,” laughed his nephew, recollecting how many penniless counts and marquises he had come across during those happy years when he lived with his Uncle Pietro in the white, half-deserted old city of Pisa.
“Morini is Italian to the backbone, with all the Italian’s admiration for England and yet with all the Italian’s prejudices. You’ll say so when you know him.”
“But this count?” exclaimed Macbean. “Tell me what you know about him.”
“You know more than I do, my dear George,” declared Sinclair, with a sly smile, “only you don’t choose to tell me. You hold an opinion that he is not a fit and proper person to become the husband of Morini’s daughter. Admit it.”
“I don’t yet know who Morini really is,” responded his nephew, with a clever diplomacy. “You have not yet told me the general impression in the neighbourhood regarding the family.”
“As I have already said, they’re looked upon with distinct suspicion.”
“Because they are foreigners – eh?”
“Possibly. We are very insular here in Leicestershire, notwithstanding the increasing foreign element in the hunting-field.”
George slowly knocked the ashes from his pipe, saying —
“We English hold the foreigner in too great contempt. We are apt to forget that there are other Powers constantly conspiring to undermine our strength and to overthrow our sovereignty. The rural stay-at-home entertains a belief in England’s security that is really childish in its simplicity, and if we have not a wise king, a strong Cabinet, and shrewd men in our diplomatic service, the mine must explode some day, depend upon it.”
“Ah,” laughed the rector, “I suppose it’s your parliamentary associations that make you talk like that. You told me you sometimes prepare speeches for Morgan-Mason to deliver to his constituents. Is that one of his texts?”
“No, not exactly,” replied the other, with a good-humoured smile. “I only speak what I think. The ignorance of the public regarding foreigners is simply appalling. They are in utter ignorance of the state of advancement of certain foreign nations as compared with our own. We are always slow and conservative, while they are quick to adopt new inventions, new ideas, and new schemes of progress.”
“Mostly gingerbread,” remarked the rector.
“Argument upon that point is unnecessary,” said Macbean, growing serious. “I only emphasise the fact that a foreign family in England is at a far greater disadvantage than an English family on the Continent. The former is held in suspicion or shunned, while the latter is fêted and welcomed. Ah, my dear uncle, society, with all its sins and vices, is full of amazing prejudices.”
“But of course there is another side to the question of the Morinis,” his uncle said. “It got abroad last year that Morini held some very high position in Rome. Young Barton, the schoolmaster at Kilworth, went with one of Lunn’s tours to Italy, and when he came back he told an extraordinary story of how the party were being shown the outside of one of the public offices when a gentleman descended from a carriage which drove into the courtyard, and as he entered the sentries saluted. To his surprise he recognised him as Mr Morini, and on inquiry understood from one of the doorkeepers that he was His Excellency the Minister of War. Of course nobody believed him. But I’ve looked in ‘Whitaker,’ and, strangely enough, it gives Signor Camillo Morini as Minister of War!”
“Ah, my dear uncle,” laughed Macbean, “of course regard it as entirely confidential, but what Barton discovered is the truth. Signor Morini is a member of the Italian Cabinet, and one of the most prominent personages in Italy – and they actually believe him here to be an adventurer!” he laughed. “But,” he added, “you haven’t told me about Dubard.”
“I know practically nothing, except that he stayed at Orton for a month last summer, and was very attentive to Mary. And as he’s here again this season, the gossips say they are engaged. He is a rich man, I hear, with estates in the Pyrenees.”
George Macbean’s lip curled slightly, and he gave vent to a distinct sniff of dissatisfaction. He had recognised him as they had passed on the highroad, and yet, until his uncle had mentioned the name of Dubard, he had been puzzled as to the man’s actual identity.
To him, the fact that the Frenchman was guest at Orton, and engaged to the Minister’s daughter, was utterly staggering. Yet rumour did not say there was really an engagement – or at least it had not been formally announced.
The young man relit his pipe and smoked on in silence, his brows knit, his mind full of a certain scene of the past – a scene conjured up in his memory by sight of that pale, narrow face with the brown moustache – a scene that caused his hands to clench themselves and his teeth to close together firmly.
“Do tell me what you know about the Frenchman,” urged the rector.
“No, thank you, my dear uncle,” responded the other. “I know too well these gossiping villages, and I hold the law of slander in too great a dread. The count is all right,” he laughed. “A very nice fellow, you said.”
His uncle saw that he had no intention of saying a word against the visitor at Orton, and yet at the same time it was apparent that he held him in distinct mistrust. Yet, after all, reflected the rector, it was curious that George had not recognised him at once.
Macbean sat back watching the smoke curl slowly up, plunged in deep reflection. That man of all others was to marry Mary Morini! What a cruel vagary of Fate! Did she really love the fellow? he wondered. Had his elegant airs and graces, his stiff poses, and French effeminacy really attracted her? To him it seemed impossible. She was too sweet and womanly, too modest and full of the higher ideals of life, to allow that veneer of polish to deceive her. It might be, of course, that the marriage was to be one of convenience – that the Minister wished his daughter to become a French countess with an ancient title like that of Dubard – yet he could not conceive that she would of her own free will marry such a man.
Evidently His Excellency Camillo Morini was in blind ignorance of the character of his guest, or he would never for a moment entertain him in the bosom of his family.
If they were really engaged, then her future was at stake. He alone knew the truth – that ghastly, amazing truth – and it was therefore his bounden duty to go to her and frankly tell her all that he knew – or better, to seek an interview with the Minister and place the facts before him.
When he had bidden his uncle good-night and mounted to the small old-fashioned bedroom, he blew out the candle and sat at the open window gazing out upon the wide stretch of pasture land white in the moonbeams, reviewing the whole situation and endeavouring to decide upon the best course of action.
Mary Morini had charmed him with her sweet face and piquante cosmopolitan manner, yet at that same moment he had made a discovery that held him dumb in amazement. He recognised that she was in deadly peril – how deadly she little dreamed, and that to save her – to save the honour of her family – he must tell the truth.
He saw before him the tragedy of silence, and yet, alas! his lips were sealed.
To utter one single word of what he knew would be to bring upon himself opprobrium, disgrace, ruin!
Chapter