Venetian Masque

'But why not? Surely it is no new thing for a secret agent to appear to be working on both sides. In fact, no secret agent ever succeeded either in serving his side or keeping his life who did not take the pay of both parties. A government so experienced in espionage will recognize this without explanations. I incur one serious danger. At a whisper that I am Camille Lebel, a secret agent of the Directory, and the stiletto and the canal to which I have alluded will probably close a career of some distinction and great utility to France.' He paused there, to cast a glance through the open door at the empty room beyond. Then he added with peculiar emphasis: 'It follows, therefore, that the secret of my identity, which lies at present between you and me, Lallemant, is not to be shared with any other single soul. You understand? Not even your wife is to suspect that I am Lebel.'

Lallemant again betrayed that suspicion of strained patience. 'Oh, very well. As you please.'

'I mean it to be as I please. We touch upon a matter of life and death. My life and my death, pray observe. They are matters about which you will admit my pre-eminent right to dispose.'

'My dear Citizen Lebel . . .'

'Forget that name.' The representative rose, suddenly dramatic. 'It is not to be used again. Not even in private. If we are really private in a house in which spies of the Council of Ten are at large. Here in Venice I am Mr. Melville, a flaneur, an English idler. Mr. Melville. Is that clear?'

'Certainly, Mr. Melville. But if you should get into difficulties . . .'

'If I get into difficulties I shall be beyond any man's assistance. So see that you create none for me by any indiscretion.' His clear eyes were sternly upon the ambassador, who, utterly browbeaten, inclined his large head in submission. 'That, I think, is all at the moment.'

Lallemant was instantly on his feet. 'You'll stay to dine. We shall be alone; just Madame Lallemant and my boy and my secretary Jacob.'

Mr. Melville shook his impeccably dressed head. 'I thank you for the courtesy. But I could not wish to embarrass you. Some other day, perhaps.'

Not even the anxiety to conciliate could lend reality to Lallemant's air of disappointment. His expressions of regret rang so hollow that they almost betrayed his satisfaction in being rid of this overbearing fellow.

Mr. Melville delayed yet a moment to inquire into the progress being made by the French agents charged with Jacobin proselytizing.

'I have nothing,' he was answered, 'to add to my last report to the Citizen Barras. We are well served, especially by the Vicomtesse. She is very diligent, and constantly widening the sphere of her activities. Her latest conquest is that barnabotto patrician Vendramin.'

'Ah!' Mr. Melville was languid. 'He is important, is he?'

The ambassador looked at him in astonishment. 'Do you ask me that?'

Instantly conscious of having taken a false step, Mr. Melville carried it off without a flicker of hesitation.

'Well—do you know?—I sometimes doubt his consequence.'

'After what I have written about him?'

'It is only the Pope who is infallible.'

'It does not need the Pope to know the extent of Vendramin's influence. And the Vicomtesse has all but made him fast. It is only a question of time.' He laughed cynically. 'The Citizen Barras has a great gift of disposing of his discarded mistresses to the nation's profit as well as to his own.'

'I'll not stay to hear scandal.' Mr. Melville took up his hat from the table. 'You shall know what progress I make. Meanwhile, if you want me, I am lodged for the moment at the Inn of the Swords.'

On that he took his leave, and went his ways, wondering who might be the Vicomtesse, and who this Vendramin who was a barnabotto.

CHAPTER V THE AMBASSADOR OF BRITAIN

If the manners of Mr. Melville had ruffled the feelings of the ambassador of the French Republic, One and Indivisible, they were almost as severely to ruffle those of the ambassador of His Britannic Majesty, upon whom he waited that same afternoon. There was, however, a difference. Whilst the overbearing tone assumed with Lallemant had been purely histrionic, convincingly to colour the rôle assumed, that which he employed with Sir Richard Worthington was a genuine expression of his feelings.

Sir Richard, a stocky, sandy, pompous man, hung out those inevitable banners of a poor intellect: self-sufficiency and suspicion. Prone to assume the worst, he was of those who build suspicions into convictions without analyzing their own mental processes. It is a common enough type, readily identified; and within five minutes of being in the ambassador's presence Mr. Melville was aware in dismay that he conformed with it.

He presented to the ambassador a letter from Mr. Pitt which had travelled with him from England in the lining of his boot.

Seated at his writing-table, Sir Richard left his visitor standing, whilst with the aid of a glass he slowly perused the letter.

He looked up at last and his greenish eyes narrowed in scrutiny of the slim straight figure before him.

'You are the person designated here?' he asked in a high-pitched voice that went well with his receding chin and sloping brow.

'That would seem to follow, would it not?'

Sir Richard opened his eyes a little wider at the tone.

'I did not ask you what would seem to follow. I like direct answers. However . . . Mr. Pitt says here that you will state your business.'

'And he requests you, I think, to afford me every assistance in the discharge of it.'

Sir Richard opened his greenish eyes to their utmost. He set the letter down, and sat back in his tall chair. There was an edge to his thin tone. 'What is this business, sir?'

Mr. Melville stated it briefly and calmly. Sir Richard raised his sandy brows. A flush was creeping up to his cheek-bones.

'His Majesty is already quite adequately represented here. I fail to perceive the necessity for such a mission.'

It was Mr. Melville's turn to be annoyed. The man was a pompous idiot. 'That observation is not for me; but for Mr. Pitt. At the same time you may tell him of something else that you fail to perceive.'

'If you please?'

'Something that suggested to him that he should supplement you. Representations of the kind that expediency now suggests should be made to the rulers of the Most Serene Republic, to be effective are not to be made in public.'

'Naturally.' The ambassador was sharp and frosty. 'You will not have travelled all the way from England to state the obvious.'

'It seems that I have. Since the laws of Venice rigidly forbid all private intercourse between any member of the government and the ambassador of a foreign power, you are debarred by your office from steps possible only to an individual visiting Venice in an ostensibly private capacity.'

Sir Richard made a gesture of impatience. 'My dear sir, there are ways of doing these things.'

'If there are, they are ways that do not commend themselves to Mr. Pitt.'

Mr. Melville accounted that he had been standing long enough. He pulled up a chair, and sat down facing the ambassador across his Louis XV writing-table, which was of a piece with the handsome furnishings, the gildings and brocades of that lofty room.

Sir Richard glared, but kept to the subject.

'Yet those ways are so manifest, that I fail, as I have said—utterly fail—to perceive the necessity for the intervention of a . . . a secret agent.' His tone was contemptuous. 'That I suppose is how you are to be described.'

'Unless you would prefer to call me a spy,' said Mr. Melville humbly.

Suspecting sarcasm, Sir Richard ignored the interpolation. 'I fail to see what good can come of it. In fact, at this juncture, I can conceive that harm might follow; great harm; incalculable harm.'