AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.

AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.

I.

It was the season when our beloved motherland undergoes a quadrennial Cæsarian operation and presents a new president to a pardonably hysterical people.

Installed in the several departments of the national incubator, newly hatched cabinet officers, destitute of the Roman Augur’s sense of humour, met around the “Oracle,” and parted, without the shadow of a smile; brand-new heads of departments gazed solemnly at each other, government clerks cast owlish eyes on brand-new chiefs, gloomily alert for new cues.

The Ambassador to England was named, and sent forth; at parting the President intimated to him that he was a statesman; they shook hands and looked into each other’s eyes; neither relaxed a muscle. The Ambassador to Germany departed; the Ambassador to Russia followed. Other statesmen-patriots expatriated themselves with serious alacrity; a Minister descended on Brazil, another on Spain, another on Belgium; no guilty land escaped.

When His Excellency the United States Ambassador to France presented his credentials to the President of the French Republic, the guard at the Elysée presented arms, a nurse-maid wheeling a baby-carriage stopped to look, and there was a paragraph in the Figaro several days later.

In the Latin Quarter the American students discussed the new Ambassador.

Selby said to Severn: “There’s a new Ambassador, you know; I hear he’s red-headed.”

Severn said to Rowden: “There’s a new Ambassador, you know. I understand his family have red hair.”

Rowden observed to Lambert: “I am told that the new Ambassador’s daughter has red hair.”

That morning the pale April sunshine, slanting through the glass-roofed studio in the rue Notre Dame, awoke Richard Osborne Elliott from refreshing slumbers. That young man, in turn, aroused Foxhall Clifford from a lethargy incident on a nuit blanche and a green table.

“Black can’t turn up every time; red is bound to assist the lowly,” muttered Clifford on his pillow.

At that moment Elliott, reading the Figaro, encountered the paragraph concerning the new Ambassador.

“Red is going to assist us,” he remarked; “they say he has red hair.”

“Who?” yawned Clifford.

An hour later Elliott, swathed in a blue crash bath-robe, sat in the studio sipping his morning coffee and perusing the feuilleton in the Figaro.

His comrade entered a moment later carrying a pair of shoes, and sat down on the floor.

“New Ambassador,” repeated Clifford, lacing his patent leathers; “what do I care for Ambassadors!”

“They’re good to know,” observed Elliott, “they give receptions.”

“Yes,” sneered Clifford, “fourth of July receptions, where everybody waves little flags at everybody else. I’ve seen trained birds do that.”

“Ambassadors,” insisted Elliott, “can get you out of scrapes. If you’re broke they can send you home. You’re not much of a patriot anyway.”

“Yes, I am,” snapped Clifford, “I’m loyal to the spinal marrow, but I draw the line at our diplomats.”

He laced the other shoe, tied it, straightened up and rose, kicking out gently first with one leg then with the other until his trousers fell over each instep with satisfying symmetry.

“Patriot?” he went on, “I am too patriotic to countenance the status quo at our consulate, where the United States Consul sits in his shirt-sleeves and practises at a cuspidor, and where you can’t get a consular certificate without being bullied by an insolent roustabout! So your new Ambassador,” he continued reflectively, “can go to the devil!”

“Now you’re too hasty,” said Elliott; “Ambassadors are not consuls.” He added dreamily, “His Excellency has a daughter—I understand.”

Clifford, loitering before the mirror, unconsciously gave a smarter twist to his tie, and buttoned the snowy waistcoat in silence. When he was ready, gloved, hatted, and faultlessly groomed, he selected a blossom from a pot of fragrant pinks on the window and drew it through the lapel of his morning coat.

“Going to see Jacquette?” asked Elliott, pouring out more coffee.

“No,” replied Clifford. He hummed a bar of a wedding march, strolled to the great glass window, mused a moment, sighed, whistled softly, and sighed again. There was a cock-sparrow out in the garden, hopping around, chirping and trailing his dusty wings through the gravel. A lady sparrow pecked him at intervals. The innocent courtship of the little things stirred Clifford with amorous wistfulness. He flattened his nose against the window glass and watched them, gently humming:

Elliott listened scornfully.

“Why,” said Clifford, twisting suddenly around, “should I go to school and paint Italian models—on a day like this?”

“You haven’t been to the atelier in a week,” said Elliott morosely. “Oh, I know what you’re going to say!”

“No, I’m not,” retorted Clifford.

“You are! You’re going to tell me that you’ve seen the most wonderful girl in the Luxembourg, who must be some foreign countess! Don’t I know! Haven’t I heard it a thousand times? And hasn’t the countess always turned up with you at some cheap restaurant?”

Clifford sat down on a camp-stool and pointed his cane toward the floor. Squinting along it at a spot of sunlight on the velvety Eastern rug, he listened in silence to Elliott’s reproaches.

“Have you finished?” he asked.

Elliott girded up his bath-robe and moved off.

“Because,” continued Clifford, “I have a proposition to make.”

“Make it then,” said Elliott, scowling.

“Well, sit down.”

Elliott squatted Turk fashion on a divan, saying bitterly, “Last week you moaned and protested that you had been wasting your time. Now go on with your proposition,—but I’ll not be a party to any new infatuation, let me tell you—”

Clifford began to walk up and down the studio, gloved hands clasped behind his back, head thoughtfully bent as far as his collar permitted. As he walked he twiddled his cane.

“Well?” inquired Elliott sarcastically.

Clifford came up to him and stood a moment in silence. Then he said: “Elliott, suppose we get married to twins?”

“Married!” bawled Elliott in angry astonishment.

“Irretrievably,” continued Clifford gently, “suppose we go into the thing thoroughly. Suppose we become respectable!”

“I am,” broke out Elliott, but the other held up five expostulating gloved fingers.

“In a way—yes, in a way. But do you know what I think? I think no man is absolutely and hopelessly respectable unless he has a wife!—Elliott, a wife—a little wifey—”

“Rubbish!” replied Elliott, rising from the divan. “And let me inform you I don’t want a wife. I’m well enough as I am—if anybody should ask you. Let go of my bath-robe; I’m going to paint.”

“Think,” urged Clifford,—“think of being really and legally married—think of the joyful anguish—no more suppers, no more Bullier, no more tzing! la! la!—”

He removed his silk hat, skipped playfully, and pretended to kick it.

“But,” he continued, with sudden soberness, “a wife—a little wifey—is recompense for all pleasure—”

“Antidote, you mean—”

“No, I don’t! Joy is born from the nuptial blessing. I desire to wed—”

“Who? What?”

“A lovely, spirituelle, delicate vision—unworldly and—er—passably provided for—”

“By you?”

“Partly by me—partly by an adoring father,—a fine silvery-haired old patrician, borne down by the weighty cares of his millions—do you know any of that kind, Elliott?”

“I know some silvery-haired patricians.”

“Tottering under the weight of millions?”

“Yes.”

“With daughters?”

“Never asked ’em.”

“What about the new Ambassador? You said his daughter—”

Elliott laughed:

“Oh, he’s tottering under millions, but his hair is red and I think that hers—”

“You annoy me,” said Clifford, and left the studio. He paused in the garden, sniffed at the lilacs, eyes raised in contemplation of the firmament.

“Nevertheless,” he said to himself, “red hair or silver hair—I’m not bigoted on the silver question. And,” he added with sprightly humour, “it’s 16 to 1 I call on his Excellency before the week is out.”

II.

His Excellency the United States Ambassador was a sheep-faced old gentleman who became hopelessly mixed up in some railroads and escaped with impaired health and most of the stock. Wheat hit him hard a year later, and oil nearly ended him, but he became entangled in trolley wires and put them underground to save future annoyance to his legs. This naturally set him on his feet again; and he went to Washington where there is honour among—financiers, and where they practise statesmanship as she is taught. When his wife died and his daughter Amyce began to go to school, his future Excellency bobbed up and down in Congress with the caprice and abruptness of a bottled imp. The see-saw continued year after year; sometimes he had a bill passed, sometimes he blocked a bill; now and then he got other people’s money, now and then other people got his money; but it evened up in the end like dominoes—if you play long enough.

Then came the new administration, the stampede for office. Before his future Excellency made up his own mind, fate shoved him into the front rank, and he asked for the French mission and the odds were against him. The President weighed him—the scales of the mint are exquisitely adjusted—and, separating the dross from the pure metal, the mind from the material, the President found him available for the diplomatic mission and told him he might have it. So he took it and went.

His Excellency’s income permitted him to keep up his establishment in the rue de Sfax. Two neat attachés, military and naval, played croquet with him; his first secretary read Ollendorf to him, his daughter played hostess on national holidays, and Massenet every morning from ten to twelve. From three to four she swung in a hammock in the garden, and read Henry James.

It was at that hour and under those circumstances that Clifford first met Amyce. He was permitting his Excellency to beat him at croquet on the lawn; he loathed the game with a loathing untranslatable. He sat on the butt-end of his mallet, watching his Excellency pattering about from stake to stake, adjusting the balls with a chuckle, stooping to peer through wickets, calculating angles and split-shots.

His Excellency’s heavy, sheep-like face with its silvery tuft of side-whiskers was ruddy and minutely shaved. Always scrupulously dressed, he had the air of having been neatly attired by a doll’s costumer, then varnished. There was something about the old gentleman that recalled the irresponsible inertia of a manikin,—something, when he moved that resembled the automatic trot of a marionnette. He left an impression of not being responsible for either his clothes or his movements, but mutely referred you to his maker for guarantees that both were O. K. His hair was the glossy white that red hair frequently changes to; his eyes were pale hazel, lambent and vitreous as the eyes of a middle-aged sheep. His upper lip, also, seemed as though it were intended for cropping short grass.

He had taken to Clifford at once; he introduced him to the naval attaché and to the military attaché, to the first, second, and third secretaries of the Embassy. He did this partly because Clifford came armed with three good letters of introduction, partly because the United Service began to fight shy of the croquet-ground, and a substitute was necessary.

He did not, however, present him to his daughter; in fact Clifford had never even caught a glimpse of her, although on two occasions he had been bidden to dine at the Embassy. Stanley of the cavalry, the military attaché, had been pumped by Clifford without result. All he learned was that the young lady sometimes dined by herself.

However, that afternoon in early May, as Clifford sat glum and impatient on his mallet, and the Ambassador trotted about mauling the lawn, a young lady suddenly appeared under the trees by the hammock, glanced nonchalantly at his Excellency, languidly surveyed Clifford, and then, placing a hammock-pillow where it would do the most good, sat down in the hammock. It was gracefully done; she appeared to dissolve among a cloud of delicate draperies; her head indented the feather cushion; one small patent-leather toe glistened in the sunlight.

“She is red-haired,” was Clifford’s first thought; the next was: “She is a beauty,—oh, my conscience!”

She was. Her eyes were those great tender grey eyes that must have been forgotten when Saint Anthony was tortured; her skin was snow and roses. But her hair, her splendid, glistening hair, heavy and red gold!—dazzling as sunlight on floss-silk!

“It’s your shot,” said his Excellency for the third time.

The Ambassador won the game; he proposed another and Clifford assented with a sickly smile. Inwardly he swore that he would be presented, willy-nilly, even though he had to drag his Excellency to the hammock.

“Confound him,” he thought; “have rumours of my reputation in the Quarter penetrated my country’s Embassy?”

They had not; yet, it was exactly because Clifford was an artist and inhabited the Latin Quarter that the Ambassador avoided taking him to the bosom of his family. Vague and dreadful stories had been afloat in the Embassy concerning the Quarter. His Excellency had read Trilby too. This may have weighed with him; he had that distrust of art and artists prevalent among Anglo-Saxons. He also had the Anglo-Saxon desire to explore the Quarter for him self, one day,—if all was true as rumour had it. Therefore Clifford was doubly welcome, for his croquet, and for what the future promised when his Excellency needed a companion to the veiled mysteries of the Rive Gauche. So, on the whole, Clifford was a good man to amuse him, but not at all the kind of man to amuse Amyce.

But Fate, busy, as usual, with other people’s business, began to meddle with the hammock cords where Amyce swung serenely reading Henry James.

Amyce rose just in time; there came a rapid unravelling of cords, and the collapsed hammock fell with a flop.

Flushed at the nearness of undignified disaster, Amyce shook out her fluffy skirts, Henry James tightly clasped in one hand, and looked appealingly at his Excellency.

The Ambassador started to rehang the hammock; Clifford said: “Permit me—”

“Not at all,” returned the Ambassador,—but that was where he collided with Fate.

Amyce smiled and looked relieved; Clifford rehung the hammock; Amyce thanked him. Then there was a pause during which both looked expectantly at his Excellency.

The Ambassador sullenly did his duty and took Clifford back to the lawn and beat him five games of croquet. But even this triumph was wet-blanketed, for Amyce, holding Henry James to her chin, came out to the lawn to “watch papa” and encourage “papa,” and condole with Clifford for his bad fortune. Only he knew how good that fortune had been—and, perhaps, she suspected it.

Amyce suggested tea on the lawn; his Excellency began to object, but Fate was there and took another fall out of his Excellency, for Amyce had already ordered it, and a servant appeared with tables and trays on the porch.

The Ambassador cropped thin slices of bread-and-butter; Amyce poured tea; Clifford, in a daze of love, saw everything through pink haze. From this dream he was abruptly roused by the advent of Captain Stanley of the cavalry. He saw Amyce feed the brute with tea; he heard her laugh softly when the Captain told some imbecile story or imitated Count Fantozzi. He measured the Captain, he accorded him six feet two, a pair of superb legs, and a cavalry moustache.

“Granted him cards and spades,” thought Clifford, “I’ll beat him yet. I know I can.”

He was an honest youth with no more vanity than you or I.

III.

In the Quarter, Clifford’s attitude became unbearable. Rumours were afloat that he had outgrown the Quarter and its simple lurid pleasures; that he had put away childish things; that he consorted exclusively with the ostentatious great. When garden parties were given at the English Embassy, Clifford’s name figured among the guests,—and the Quarter read it in the Figaro and chafed.

Elliott, incredulous at first, observed the absence of Clifford from all Quarter rites with astonishment and grief. The studio grew lonelier and lonelier. Elliott drank cocktails and brooded.

“See here,” he blurted out, one day, “how long are you going to keep this up?”

“What?” replied Clifford, placing violets in his buttonhole.

“This confounded pose of yours—this tolerating the Quarter—this Embassy nonsense!”

“I prefer it to Bullier,” said Clifford—“or,” he added maliciously, “to the ‘Bal à l’Hôtel-de-Ville.’”

Then he put on his gloves, humming:

Elliott arose in fury.

“Very well,” he said, “go and eat thin bread-and-butter and talk to fat princesses!—go and learn baccarat from that yellow mummy Fantozzi!—go and play imbecile croquet games with his Excellency and marry his daughter and live in the Parc Monçeaux. But you’ll regret it! oh yes, you’ll be sorry. And you’ll think of the Luxembourg and of Jacquette and the old studio, and you’ll hear a nursery full of babies squawling and you’ll see Fantozzi leering at your wife and—”

Clifford looked around with gently raised eyebrows.

“I won’t be back to dinner,” he said amiably.

“Where are you going—dressed like that!” burst out Elliott with new violence.

“Going to shoot pigeons in the Bois.”

They stood for a while in silence. Presently Elliott arose, went over to his manikin, and began to dress it; the manikin at present was doing duty as a French fireman for Elliott’s great picture, “Saved!”

He mechanically placed the brass pot-helmet on the manikin’s papier-maché head, twisted the neck viciously, straightened out a sawdust stuffed arm, placed a rope in the hand, and closed the jointed fingers. Then he hauled out his easel, opened his colour box, and clattered the brushes.

Clifford watched him.

Elliott set his palette rainbow fashion, touched the canvas with the tip of his third finger, rolled a badger brush in rose-dorée, and began to glaze.

“Don’t glaze yet,” said Clifford.

“Why?” snapped Elliott without turning.

“Because you make the flames too pink.”

“What do you know about flames or pictures or glazing?” said Elliott bitterly. “Go and shoot pigeons and get married.”

Clifford went out haughtily; yet there was an unaccustomed pang in his breast. He suddenly realised how utterly out of it he was; he began to comprehend that he was afloat on the Rubicon in a very leaky boat. There was nothing to warrant his hopes of Amyce except a superb self-confidence. He saw he was alienating the Quarter;—he noticed it now, as he walked, when Selby passed with a constrained smile, when Lambert bowed to him with unaccustomed rigidity, when, as he crossed the Luxembourg, Jacquette, passing with Marianne Dupoix, averted her pretty eyes.

He knew that an announcement of his engagement would be followed by excommunication from the Quarter. He had intended, in the event of betrothal, to confine his Quarter visits to Elliott and Selby and Rowden, but the prospect of involuntary exclusion had small attraction for him. He thought of Jacquette; the odour of violets from a street flower-stand recalled her.

He was in a bad humour when he reached the Tir aux Pigeons. Before he entered he saw Captain Stanley laughing on the lawn with Amyce. That, and the apparition of Fantozzi, completed his irritation and his score at the traps was ridiculous.

“You play croquet better,” observed his Excellency, at his elbow.

That was the last straw, and Clifford forced a smile and went across the lawn.

“What was your score?” asked Amyce, looking up at him from the shade of her white parasol.

He was compelled to confess it.

Fantozzi, interrupted in the recountal of recent personal experience with an electric tram-car, raised his eyebrows superciliously.

“Pooh,” said Captain Stanley, “everybody gets out of form at times.”

Clifford looked gratefully at his generous rival; Amyce also raised her eyes to the well-knit military figure. Generosity is sometimes its own reward—sometimes it even receives perquisites.

Fantozzi continued his dramatic recital of the discourteous tram-car.

“I would come in a tram electrique—Mademoiselle—behold me on the corner street!—the tram approach!—I nod my head!—he do not hear me—”

“Couldn’t hear you nod your head?” inquired Stanley sympathetically.

“Wonder his brains didn’t rattle,” muttered Clifford to himself.

“I nod! I nod!” repeated Fantozzi with mercurial passion; “I permit myself to make observation to stop! Cease! arrest ze tram! He regard me insolent! the tram vanishes itself! I am left on the corner street! The miserable laugh!”

“Are you sure you called to the motor-man to stop?” asked Stanley gravely.

“Parbleu! I did say stop! I said it! I did hear myself say it!”

“Mr. Clifford,” said Amyce, “who is shooting?” She raised her lorgnettes: “Oh, Count Routier! Do you know I am not pleased to see little birds shot. Captain Stanley, it is your turn next. Have you no pity for those poor pigeons?”

“Monsieur Clifford had,” said Count Fantozzi.

Amyce frowned a little; Fantozzi, prepared to laugh at his own wit, winced at the silence.

“Well,” said Stanley, “I must go and perform. Shall I miss every bird—is it your pleasure?” he added, looking at Amyce.

Amyce smiled, her face was an enigma.

“Do as you please, I wish you good fortune in any event,” she said.

Fantozzi pretended to shudder for the pigeon victims; Stanley walked thoughtfully across the lawn; Clifford, on fire with mixed emotions of jealousy and love, pretended to be absorbed in the shooting. He glanced indifferently at the gaily-dressed groups on the green, recognised some people and bowed, returned the salutes of other people who recognised him, and finally sat down on a camp-stool near Amyce.

Others were joining the group; a lieutenant of hussars, in sky-blue and silver, a brilliant-eyed diplomatic group from Brazil, one or two tall Englishmen, scrubbed pink, and finally his Excellency the United States Ambassador.

Clifford loathed them all; yet, Amyce was very kind to him. While Captain Stanley stood shooting, she scarcely glanced at the traps, and when that sober-faced young cavalryman sauntered back and confessed he had killed every bird, she scarcely raised her eyebrows. Was it displeasure?

“It is but a sport brutal,” whispered Fantozzi close behind her.

“Like your bull-fights,” said Clifford, seriously. He and Stanley were quits. It was war with Fantozzi.

The Spanish attaché with the Italian name glared blankly at Clifford who returned his glance wickedly.

“Croquet is better sport,” bleated his Excellency, accepting a glass of champagne and a thin slice of bread-and-butter.

Clifford’s turn came again at the traps; he missed right and left. He heard Fantozzi laugh. When he came back Amyce had gone away with his Excellency and Captain Stanley. However, Fantozzi was there and Clifford succeeded in picking a quarrel with him and followed it with a smile and the slightest touch on the Count’s shirt front.

Fantozzi turned a delicate green, then crimson. Then he went away to the club-house and called for a cab, and drove to his Embassy at a speed that interested pedestrians along the Champs Elysée.

Clifford withdrew a little later to the Café Anglais where he sullenly brooded and dined too freely. About nine o’clock, he went to see Stanley; at half-past ten a handsome young Spaniard called to pay his respects and bring courteous greetings from Fantozzi.

Clifford left the Spaniard and Stanley deeply interested in each other’s society, and took a cab to the United States Embassy, where, as an artist, he was to oversee the decorative preparations for next evening’s garden-party. His Excellency had requested it; Amyce appeared pleasantly cordial; so Clifford went to direct the hanging of lanterns and gaily-coloured scarfs, and, incidentally to propose marriage to his Excellency’s only daughter.

His Excellency was smoking a cigar on the lawn as Clifford entered, mentally thanking all the saints that it was too late to play croquet. Servants moved through the shrubbery; a few lanterns threw an orange light among the chestnut branches.

His Excellency was in good humour; he pattered about, as though driven by improved mechanism; he chuckled at times that irritating chuckle incident to victory at croquet.

“We’ll have electric lights next week,” he said; “ever play croquet by moonlight?”

“There is no moon to-night,” said Clifford, triumphantly.

“I know it,” sighed his Excellency.

Presently the Ambassador exhibited a desire to interfere with Clifford’s directions to the servants; he insisted on mounting a ladder and fussing with a string of crimson lanterns. The first, second, and third Secretaries of the Embassy were summoned to steady the ladder; Clifford saw an opportunity and seized it.

Amyce, who had been standing on the porch, observed Clifford’s advance with mixed sentiments.

“Are all the lanterns hung?” she asked.

“No,” said Clifford, “his Excellency has proposed modifications.”

“Man proposes—” began Amyce, gaily, then stopped.

The silence was startling.

Presently Amyce picked a rose from the vine at her elbow.

“Is it mine?” asked Clifford.

“Yours? I—I don’t know.”

She held it a moment, then he took it.

“And the giver?” he whispered.

“I—I don’t know,” said Amyce.

“Then,” said Clifford, “I shall take her—as I took the rose;” and he moved toward her up the steps.

At that moment Fate, who had been listening as usual, somewhere among the shadows, took a hand in the proceedings; there was a crunch of footsteps on the gravel walk, the dim glimmer of a cigar, and Captain Stanley entered the house, bowing pleasantly to Amyce and casting a look at Clifford that meant, “Follow me.”

Before Clifford could move, Amyce passed him with a pale smile and crossed the lawn toward the lantern-hangers.

His emotions were indescribable; he damned Stanley, then, buoyed with the intoxicating thought that Amyce had not refused him, he went into the house and found Stanley waiting in the smoking-room.

“Well,” said Clifford ungraciously.

Stanley appeared a trifle surprised but said: “I’m sorry you are in this mess, old fellow. Fantozzi naturally wants a shot at you.”

An unpleasant sensation passed through Clifford; Fantozzi and his shot were repulsive at the moment.

“When?” asked Clifford.

“To-morrow at sunrise. I’ve notified Bull.”

Clifford grew angry: “Then he can have his shot,” he said savagely, and sat down for a conference, interrupted about eleven o’clock by his Excellency.

The Ambassador was in no mood for bed. Perhaps something in the lighted lanterns had roused the long smouldering spark of revelry, dormant in every masculine bosom. Being an Anglo-Saxon he knew of no lighter gaiety than heavy drinking. He began to tell stories—quite pointless tales—and he would not let Clifford go, and he spoke vaguely of wonderful brands of whisky past and whisky to come. He sat there, his limpid hazel eyes meeker than any lambkin’s, a carefully dressed lay-figure, irresponsible to God and man, and for whom nobody was responsible except his Constructor.

About midnight he became entirely automatic; his eyes seemed to plead for somebody to wind him up and set him going again.

“When he gets this way he has a tendency to wander,” whispered Stanley; “I usually lock him in his room; if I didn’t he’d be all over town—like an escaped toy.”

Clifford went out on the porch; Stanley followed.

“At sunrise,” said Clifford soberly. “Will you call for me in a carriage?”

“At sunrise,” replied Stanley offering his hand.

Then Clifford went away, and Stanley, lingering to watch him to the gate, walked slowly back to the smoking-room.

To his horror his Excellency had disappeared. The west porch door swung wide open.

“He’ll be all over Paris!” groaned Stanley smiting his head with both hands.

IV.

Clifford did not go back to the studio; he took a long drive in a cab to steady his nerves. He alternately thought of Amyce, of Fantozzi, of his Excellency’s incoherent stories, of Elliott and the studio,—and, perhaps, of Jacquette. Two hours before dawn he found himself standing in front of Sylvain’s; and, wondering why he had wandered there, he went in and upstairs. The long glittering room reeked with cigar smoke; voices rose harshly from the disordered tables; a piano tinkled faintly on the floor above. He looked at his watch; it lacked an hour of the appointed time when he was to meet Stanley with the carriage at the studio. He turned toward the portal impatiently; somebody entered as he opened the leather doors; he glanced up and met his Excellency face to face.

His Excellency began a mechanical trot into the room; Clifford involuntarily detained him and the Ambassador stopped obediently as though somebody had arrested his running-gear. He examined Clifford with mild vitreous eyes as though he had never before seen him. He was perfectly docile, perfectly contented to be started again in any new direction. He needed a few repairs; Clifford saw that at once. It would never do to send his Excellency home with such a hat and collar and tie; the personnel at the Embassy must never see his Excellency in such disorder.

“Come,” said Clifford gently. There was a cab at the door; he stowed his Excellency away in one corner and followed, ordering the cabby to hasten to the studio in the rue Notre Dame. There was not much time to lose when they reached the studio. Clifford attempted to adorn his Excellency with clean linen, but found that it might take some hours as the machinery had run down and the Ambassador evinced an unmistakable inclination to slumber. He seated his Excellency in an arm-chair, and hurriedly changed his own evening dress for morning clothes. Then he went up to Elliott’s bed-room, but that young man’s bed was untenanted and undisturbed. The Ambassador slept peacefully in the studio; after a moment’s thought Clifford scribbled a note:

“Dear Elliott:—

“When you come in please give this gentleman clean linen and a new hat and brush his clothes and send him to the United States Embassy p. d. q.

“Yours,

“Clifford.”

As he finished he heard carriage-wheels in the street outside and he thrust the note into his Excellency’s hat-band, jammed the hat on the slumbering diplomat’s head, and hurried out to the street where Stanley and Bull were waiting in the dim grey of the coming dawn.

“Not had coffee!” exclaimed Bull; “nonsense, it’s traditional!”

“We’ll take it at St. Cloud,” said Stanley. “Are you ready, old fellow?”

The carriage door slammed, the wheels rattled faster and faster.

“By the way,” said Clifford, “his Excellency paid me a visit this morning. I’ll see he gets home in good shape.”

“Thank heaven!” cried Stanley; “I’ve been hunting him all night!”

A moment later he looked earnestly at Clifford: “Is your hand steady?”

“Yes,” said Clifford pleasantly.

“You’d better shoot closer than you did at the pigeons,” suggested Bull.

“Why? Is Fantozzi a good shot?”

“Rotten,” said Stanley.

“He’s the more to be feared then,” observed Bull cynically.

“Why, you know,” confessed Clifford with a frank smile, “I feel certain that I’m not going to be hit. I was nervous last night, but not on that account.”

And he smiled confidently, thinking of Amyce.

“But,” insisted Bull, “are you going to hit your man?”

“Perhaps. What bosh it all is, anyway,” laughed Clifford.

V.

It was not yet sunrise when Elliott, entering the studio with Selby, lighted the gas and started to prepare for bed. As Elliott turned up the gas Selby encountered the owl-like eyes of his Excellency, blinking, limpid, vacant.

“What’s that?” he said nervously. But when he saw the evening dress, the disordered tie, the hat, he approached the Ambassador curiously. Presently he reached up, slipped the note from his Excellency’s hat-band, opened it, read it in silence, then passed it to Elliott without a word.

“May I ask who you are?” said Elliott. His Excellency bleated and waited for somebody to set him in motion, with placid confidence. Elliott frowned. This then was one of those who had lured Clifford from the fold!—this wicked old creature, apparently paralysed by depravity, planted in an arm-chair! His ruffled hat accused him! His crumpled tie, coyly peeping from behind one ear, convicted him!

“Call a cab,” said Elliott thickly.

His Excellency betrayed no emotion; his round eyes followed Elliott’s movements with trustful tranquillity. When Selby returned, saying the cab was there, Elliott assisted the Ambassador to his feet; but, what was his surprise and indignation to see that his Excellency was entirely capable of movement. For, once set in motion, the Ambassador began trotting all about the room with perfect solemnity and, apparently with keen satisfaction.

“I beg your pardon,” said Elliott coldly, “your cab is waiting.” He might as well have talked to the statues in the Louvre. Then he lost his self-control and, taking his Excellency by one sleeve he led him to the arm-chair and seated him.

“Aged man,” he said, “are you not mortified? You have dragged my comrade into your depraved society! You’ve taken him away from the Latin Quarter, you’ve stuffed his head full of marriage nonsense, of ambition, of desire for wealth and position. How dare you come here and ask for a hat and a collar!”

“Do you intend to ruin Clifford at baccarat?” demanded Selby.

“Or marry him to anybody?” added Elliott hoarsely.

“Who are you?” cried Selby; “are you a corrupt diplomat? Or are you merely a wicked old man on a spree?”

“He can’t wear that hat; it won’t stay on,” observed Elliott. Selby took a woman’s bonnet from the manikin, placed it on his Excellency’s head and tied the strings under his chin. Elliott threw Clifford’s covert-coat over his Excellency’s shoulders.

“That bonnet will keep him from catching cold,” he said, “it may teach him a lesson, too, when his wife sees it.”

His Excellency unmoved, serene, surveyed Elliott from under his bonnet.

“Come,” said Selby, and they set the Ambassador in motion again, out the door, along the garden to the street where the cab stood. The cabby stared a little, but Elliott said grimly: “Take him to the United States Embassy with Mr. Clifford’s compliments. And leave word that he can keep the bonnet for future use.”

About that time, several miles away in the forest of St. Cloud, Clifford was taking careful aim at Fantozzi’s anatomy, and Fantozzi was returning the attention. A moment later two insignificant reports broke the silence; both men, very pale, stood motionless; two tiny shreds of smoke floated upward through the tender foliage above.

Captain Stanley turned to Fantozzi’s second, they conferred for a moment, then Stanley turned away to avoid a smile and went hastily up to Clifford.

“He says he doesn’t want another shot; he says honour is satisfied; look out, I believe he’s preparing to embrace you!”

In vain Clifford attempted to shun the fervid reconciliation, in vain he dodged Fantozzi’s tears and hugs. Fantozzi would not leave him, not he! Clifford dexterously escaped a kiss aimed at his cheek.

There were compliments from seconds, from the surgeon, from the principals. Undismayed, Stanley tackled the procés-verbal. Bull locked up his instruments, the carriages were summoned by handkerchief signal; the duel was at an end. Gaily they drove back to breakfast—a red-hot Spanish breakfast at Fantozzi’s apartments. They toasted each other, they toasted the two nations, Spain and the United States.

Stanley, obliged to report at his Embassy, excused himself and promised to return. The breakfast continued; Fantozzi played exquisite Spanish airs on the guitar between courses; his handsome attaché accompanied him on the piano.

Bull, tactless to the back-bone, sang “Cuba Libre,” but nobody cared and everybody laughed. Afternoon came; they still breakfasted. Fantozzi insisted on a bout with the foils; Clifford accepted; they broke a handsome vase and some saucers.

About four o’clock, while Bull was singing “Cuba Libre” for the eleventh time by special request, Stanley entered, glanced gravely around, and motioned Clifford to come outside. Clifford went, closing the door behind him, troubled by the stony solemnity of Stanley’s visage.

“What’s up?” he inquired.

“This,” said Stanley with inscrutable eyes. “His Excellency was sent home in a cab this morning, wearing a woman’s bonnet and your covert-coat!”

“What!” gasped Clifford.

“Also with your compliments and a request that his Excellency keep the bonnet for future use.”

Cold sweat broke out on Clifford’s brow.

“It’s Elliott!” he moaned. “It’s Elliott’s work! Oh, Heaven, he didn’t know what he was doing!”

Stanley was silent.

“I’ll go to the Embassy,” cried Clifford, “I’ll go now.”

“Better not,” said Stanley kindly.

There was a pause.

“Does—does she know?” faltered Clifford.

“Yes,” said Stanley.

“And—and she—she believed I did it!”

“No—I told her you were incapable of such a thing. But she is perhaps a little prejudiced—that is—I mean—you understand, I found her much distressed.”

Clifford raised his eyes, searching the handsome young face before him. Something in that face made his heart turn to water.

“Stanley!” he blurted out, “it isn’t you, is it, she has promised to marry—”

“Yes,” said Stanley slowly.

Clifford went and leaned over the banisters. After a long time he straightened up, mopped his brow with his handkerchief, smiled, and came up to Stanley holding out his hand.

“Before I take it I want to say that this incident had nothing to do with it,” said Stanley; “I proposed and was accepted at the pigeon match.”

Clifford was staggered for a moment; then he recovered and held out his hand again.

“She is one in a million,” he said cordially, thinking to himself, “and the rest of the millions are just like her, oh, Lord! just like her!”

Stanley grasped his hand; they stood looking at each other with kindly eyes. Fantozzi’s voice came through the closed door:

Somewhere in there Bull still chanted “Cuba Libre!” Presently they bowed to each other, shook hands again, and parted.

“My compliments to His Excellency and to Miss Amyce,” said Clifford. Then he went in and took leave of Fantozzi and the others despite their united protests. An hour later he entered the studio, fell upon Elliott and beat him madly. They fought like schoolboys until tired; perspiring and breathless, they retreated to separate sofas and panted.

“Confound you!” gasped Elliott, “what do you mean by it?”

“I mean that I forgive you,” said Clifford grimly; “go to the devil!”

They smiled at each other across the studio.

“Was that the Ambassador, then?” asked Elliott.

“It was,—Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.”

“He isn’t red-headed,” suggested Elliott, “your Ambassador Extraordinary.”

“Nevertheless,” said Clifford “he is a most extraordinary Ambassador. Where shall we dine?”

“In the Quarter?”

“In the Quarter.”

“With me?”

“With you.”

“And Colette and Jacquette?”

“And Colette and Jacquette.”

Elliott, choking with emotion, nodded, and picked up a ruffled silk hat from the floor.

“His Excellency’s,” said Clifford softly, and hung it over an easel.