The unannounced visitor was a man of about thirty, tall and sinewy, with curly auburn hair and jocular blue eyes. He was smartly dressed in excellently fitted brown tweeds. There was something engagingly droll in his brisk assurance and the sharp contour of his clean-shaven face. He stood holding the empty glass and pursed his lips with the thoughtful air of one critically considering some mooted nicety of degustation. Then he nodded approvingly and his severity relaxed. He smiled, bowed to Guadeloupe and Nyla, and brought forward a chair with practised grace.
"Be seated, Fräulein, I implore you," he said. "Young women have to be on their feet so much after they are married, I always urge them to take their ease while they can."
Nyla had a strong inclination to laugh, but conquered it. Romsteck, not less startled than the others, began to speak, but the stranger held up his hand with a commanding gesture.
"A thousand and one apologies, Herr President, for this lack of ceremony. Permit me." He took the bottle, chose a fresh glass, filled it and offered it with a charming obeisance. "I should, of course, have been here before your arrival. You were earlier than I expected."
Guadeloupe had a sagacious instinct of silence in perplexing situations. He contented himself by taking off the postponed dram.
"My name is Cointreau, from the Department of Public Safety. My credentials."
He took a card from his pocket.
"I am authorized to ask a few moments' private interview with you—and with the Fräulein, of course. Butler, remove this debris and the Herr President and I can talk without interruption."
Romsteck, to his own surprise, found himself helping the footmen to clear away tea. He had not been spoken to in that voice of calm authority since the Grand Duke flitted.
"Heavenly old place, isn't it," said Cointreau to Nyla, in the casual tone of an old friend. "I hope you are going to be very happy here. I shall make it my business to see that you are. What a pretty frock. The printed chiffons are delightful, especially on the slender figures. Have a gasper?"
"Why—thank you," said Nyla. "I'd love one, but I didn't know whether—in the palace"
"Bosh!" cried the surprising young man. "Palaces are made to do what you like in." With skillful legerdemain he snapped a match into flame on his thumbnail, a trick new to her, and gave her a light.
"You have no objection to a pipe?" he asked, taking out a well-glossed briar. "Isn't that a beauty," he said, holding it out to the President. Guadeloupe, with the habit of the seasoned smoker, took it, sniffed the fragrant char in the bowl, and then produced his own.
"Now to business," proceeded the visitor. "Herr President, you'll forgive my abrupt entrance when I explain. The Department of Public Safety realizes that hitherto insufficient precautions have been taken to safeguard the persons of high officials. Particularly at the present time, in this new phase of our political life, it is essential that no accident of any sort should mar the success of the Illyrian Republic. You know what unfortunate repercussion it would have among the Great Powers if any unpleasantness arose in our affairs. I am acting as a special agent for the Department of Public Safety, but I may as well add, entirely in confidence, that I have authority from certain people at Geneva—I feel sure I need not be uncomfortably explicit."
Geneva never had to be mentioned more than once to secure Herr Guadeloupe's anxious attention.
Cointreau resumed his winning gayety of manner.
"Please do not feel under any constraint, Herr President. My affair is to see that you—and Fräulein Nyla also—are completely comfortable and at home, free to give all your attention to those political problems that confront our country. You are aware that there are those—I need not specify—who would be happy to see the new republic embarrassed. You must have perfect confidence. Consider me, if you wish, not as a mere Secret Service officer, but as a kind of social secretary."
"Why, Daddy," cried Nyla. "Hew wonderful! Just what you wanted!"
"An imperfect instrument, Fräulein," said the special agent modestly, "but at your service. I need hardly say, Herr President, that for the success of my mission it must be entirely confidential. Nothing further need be said than that I am here on private business from the League. For your own sake, aad to guard against any possible emergencies, it will be advisable to institute certain unobtrusive inspections of minor routine. We cannot afford to run any risks. It was for that reason that—too unceremoniously, I fear—I felt it wise to make certain of the brandy. It was excellent," he added.
"It was my own," said Guadeloupe. "But indeed, dear sir, you lift an anxiety from my mind. This is a difficult position in which I find myself, and a little intimate assistance, properly authorized of course"
"Be quite at your ease!" exclaimed the special agent. "The last thing Ramsay Macdonald said to me at Geneva—you know Mac, I dare say; charming fellow—was, Do everything you can for Guadeloupe. It's very important be should make a go of it in Illyria, he and his lovely daughter."
Herr Guadeloupe, who had had hitherto much sterner monitions from the high contracting parties of Europe, was greatly pleased.
"That's very encouraging," he said. "Come, Herr Cointreau, since you approve the brandy, drink to the success of our young Republic."
They pledged it standing, with due formality.
"Herr President," said Cointreau, "if we play our cards carefully, you shall go down in history as the man who put Illyria on the map."
"Oh, I know he will," cried Nyla, enchanted. "Daddy's wonderful, Herr Cointreau, and if only that awful American debt can be paid"
"Don't you worry a bit about the debt. That'll work out all right.—Perhaps I can help a bit there: I visited in America once, I know how to handle them. Now the first thing is to make sure that all the more intimate matters are comfortable. Everything quite O.K.?"
There was something infectiously reassuring in the special agent's clear jovial gaze, and Herr Guadeloupe, blowing a cloud of comforting tobacco smoke, began to feel that there might be some fun in being President after all.
"Well," he said cautiously, "do you suppose there would be unfortunate repercussions at Geneva if I did not dress for dinner every evening? As you know, I am a plain man, Herr Cointreau, and too much formality"
"Quite right, quite right," said Cointreau. "When Herriot was premier in France the same problem arose. You remember what excellent political capital he made of his pipe and his shirtsleeves. Geneva will understand perfectly. In fact, Herr President, I was about to say, I think that if anything your present outfit is even a little unnecessarily conventional. Also, I was observing your trousers—perhaps you would do me the favour of standing a moment."
The President rose, and Cointreau diligently examined the garments in various perspectives.
"They have their virtues, I can quite see," he said judicially. "The cut is eminently republican. No one, I think, would suspect you of royalist ambitions so long as you wear them. Allow me, without being too intimate—the seat may be said to be roomy, meritorious in a sedentary garment."
Nyla broke into a delightful gust of laughter.
"Daddy thought that by tightening his suspenders a bit he could buck them up. Let's have a try."
"I'm afraid it's hopeless," said Cointreau. "No, we'll tackle the stabilization of the florin first. That presents fewer complexities. For the Herr President I suggest perfect informality—knickerbockers or whatever you please. You must not agitate yourself about niceties of deportment. I'll take care of all that. Fräulein Nyla, I think, should dress for dinner, because youth and beauty are so well set off by decolleté."
"I had not supposed," said the President, "that the League would be so attentive to detail."
"What the League desires is gaiety. After these painful years a little guileless merriment will be the best possible tonic for business. The last thing Ramsay Macdonald said to me was, Tell them to be sprightly. It will reassure the foreign investors who are going to buy the Illyrian bonds."
"That must have been the next-to-the-last thing he said," observed Nyla.
"They have said so many things at Geneva, possibly I get the exact order confused.—I think you remarked, Herr President, that that was your own brandy? In that case it would be wise, before we go any further, to be sure that the refreshment provided by the State is equally correct. You will understand that in the work of the Department we cannot afford to neglect any possibilities, however trifling.—Is there a bell? Oh, no matter"
He tapped vigorously with his pipestem against his empty glass.
"If you will kindly explain to your butler, we can make a beginning in our necessary inspections."
"This is Herr Cointreau, from Geneva," said Guadeloupe when Romsteck had been summoned. "He is here on diplomatic business of a private nature."
"I shall have to make a few precautionary examinations of the household routine," said Cointreau. "We will begin by interviewing the cellar-man. Send him in, and tell him to bring his inventory."