At the Sign of the Sword: A Story of Love and War in Belgium

“Yes,” she managed to reply at last. “It should secure him a foothold in his profession. The papers say that his speech for the defence was apparently one of the most clever and brilliant ever heard in the Courts.”

“And you, of course, must be justly proud, eh, Mademoiselle?” he remarked, looking straight into her beautiful eyes.

“Well, I suppose so,” she laughed, her fingers toying nervously with the leaves of Bazin’s latest romance.

He sighed deeply. Then, after a pause, said:

“Ah! I only wish that you entertained one little thought for me, Aimée – one kindly reflection regarding myself – I who love you so.”

And, bending, he stretched forth his hand to seize hers. But she swiftly withdrew it.

“Oh, why return to that subject again, m’sieur!” she protested impatiently. “Its discussion only pains us both. I am fully aware that my father is anxious, for business reasons, that we should marry, but I assure you, once and for all, that I will never accept any man whom I do not love.”

“You put it – well, a trifle bluntly, Mademoiselle.”

“I only speak the truth, quite openly and frankly,” she responded, her big serious eyes turned upon his. “Would you have me accept, and afterwards fool you!”

Her question – a somewhat disconcerting one – held him silent for some moments.

“Remember, Aimée,” he said at last, in a deep voice, “I have known you ever since you were a tiny child. I have watched you grow to become a woman, and gradually I have realised that there is no woman in the whole world whom I love – except your own dear self. Can you doubt me?”

And with an earnest expression that was well feigned, he looked straight into her pale, set countenance.

“No, m’sieur, I do not doubt you,” was the girl’s quiet response, and he fancied he saw her trembling slightly. “But when, the other day, you asked if I could ever love you, I told you the bare truth – brutal as it may have appeared. Yet I am not mistress of my own heart, and I tell you that I do not love you – I can never love you —never!”

“I am too old,” he murmured bitterly.

“Not that,” she responded, shaking her well-poised head. “Age matters nothing when a woman really loves.”

“You love that man Edmond Valentin,” he snapped, almost savagely.

She nodded in the affirmative, but no word escaped her lips.

Arnaud Rigaux set his teeth, and his fingers clenched themselves into his palms. But only for a second, and she, with her eyes cast down upon the carpet, did not detect the fire of hatred which shone, for a second, in his crafty, narrow-set eyes.

Next second his manner entirely changed. He was one of those men whose cunning enables them to conceal their feelings so cleverly that, while they smile and hold out the hand of friendship, murder lurks within their heart. This attribute is, alas! one of the elements of success in business in our modern days, and is a habit cultivated by the man whom the world admires as “keen and smart.”

“But, my darling?” he exclaimed, in a voice broken by an emotion which was so cleverly feigned that it deceived even her woman’s sharp observance, “you do not know how very deeply I love you,” he declared, bending to her, and again trying to take her hand, which, however, she again snatched away and placed behind her. “All these years I have watched you grow up, and I have longed and longed for the day when I might beg of you to become my wife. Think of what our marriage would mean to you – to your father, the Baron, and to myself. He and I, united, could rule the whole finances of the nation; we could dictate terms to the Chamber, and we should be the greatest power in Belgium – next to his Majesty himself. Surely your position as my wife would be preferable to that of the wife of a poor struggling lawyer, however estimable he may be.”

She sat listening without interrupting him. She had heard this man’s praises sung daily by her father for so long that at last they now fell upon deaf ears. She listened quite coldly to his outpourings, yet, at the moment, she despised him in her innermost heart.

What Edmond had declared was the bare, naked truth. Arnaud Rigaux was only seeking to gain further personal riches and aggrandisement by doing her the honour of offering her his hand in marriage.

Her anger arose within her as his words fell upon her ears. She had not been blind to his stealthy unscrupulousness, for she remembered how, on one occasion, she had overheard her father upbraid him for participating in some shady financial transaction with some electric tramways in Italy, the details of which she, as a woman, had been unable to follow. But her father’s bitter words of reproach had been, to her, all-sufficient. The Baron had told him, openly and plainly, that he had swindled the Italian company, and she had always remembered his outspoken words.

The man seated before her suddenly rose, and unable to take her hand because she was holding it behind her, placed his sensuous grasp upon her shoulder, and bent in an attempt to kiss her.

She turned her head swiftly from his foetid breath. It was nauseous. It caused her a fierce revulsion of feeling.

She sprang up, her eyes aflame in an instant.

“M’sieur Rigaux! This is intolerable!” she protested, drawing herself up in proud defiance. “I wish you to remember who I am, and further, I wish you to go to my father and tell him, that no matter what may happen, no matter what pressure he may place upon me, no matter if I die unmarried, I will never become the wife of Arnaud Rigaux. You hear!”

He drew back at this obstinate rebuff – he whose money bought women’s smiles from end to aid of Europe.

In a second he became apologetic.

“But, Mademoiselle, I – ”

“Please leave this room,” she ordered, very firmly. “If not, I shall ring for the servants. Go!” and she pointed determinedly to the door. “Go! Describe this scene to my father, and tell him from me, once and for all, that I love Edmond Valentin, and that I intend to marry him.”

The man’s loose lips hardened. He murmured something which the girl could not catch, but she saw in his eyes, for the first time, the light of a fierce and terrible hatred, as he bowed stiffly, and, turning on his heel, took his congé, and with a fierce imprecation upon his lips strode out of the pretty, artistic room, wherein she stood, an imperious and defiant figure, in the centre of the carpet.

Chapter Four.

The Man from Cologne

Two hours later Arnaud Rigaux entered his small, well-furnished den in the big house on the broad Boulevard de Waterloo, close to the medieval Porte de Hal, that medieval castle-like structure, now the fine Musée d’Armes, known to every traveller in Brussds.

Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when his man, a white-haired, ultra respectable-looking valet, ushered in a rather stout, middle-aged man of military bearing, with fair hair and blue-grey eyes. He was wearing a cap and a motor dust-coat.

“Ah! my dear Guillaume! I must apologise,” Rigaux said. “I had no idea you had been waiting for me.”

“Your servant was unaware where you were. We telephoned to a dozen places. I arrived from Cologne just after nine o’clock.”

Rigaux glanced at the closed door rather apprehensively, and then in a low voice asked:

“What does it all mean?”

“War,” replied the other in a whisper. “The Emperor is in Cologne in secret. I had audience with him at three o’clock, and he sent me to you. I have to return at once. I was to tell you that his Majesty wishes for your final report.”

For a moment the financier’s narrow eyes grew serious, and his lips quivered.

“The reply from England has not yet been received,” his visitor went on, speaking in excellent French, though he was undoubtedly German. “But whatever it may be, the result will be the same. Eight Army Corps are moving upon the Luxembourg frontier. They will soon be in Belgium. What a surprise our big howitzers will be for the forts of Namur and Liège – eh?”

And he laughed lightly, chuckling to himself. Captain Wilhelm von Silberfeld, of the famous Death’s Head Hussars, was a trusted messenger of the Kaiser, a man who had performed many a secret mission for his Imperial Master. He was attached to the General Staff in Berlin, and for hours he had sat in the fast two-seated motor-car, travelling swiftly over the hundred and sixty miles or so of long, straight white roads which led from Cologne to the Belgian capital.

“In four days we shall be in Belgium,” the German officer whispered. “The Emperor, as you know, decided upon war three months ago, and ever since we have been steadily and carefully making the final preparations. What is the opinion here?”

“The Cabinet meets to-night. The Government do not, even now, believe that Germany really intends to defy Europe, and I, of course, have endeavoured still to lull them to sleep,” responded the financier. “But I have not been idle these past three days. My reports are all prepared. The last was written at seven o’clock this evening.”

And crossing to a big, heavy book-case, which occupied the whole of one side of the room, he opened one of the glass doors. Then, pulling forward a section of the books which swung round upon a pivot, there was disclosed the green-painted door of a safe, securely built into the wall. This he opened with a key upon his chain, and from a drawer took out a large envelope filled with papers, which he handed to his visitor.

“All are here?” asked the other.

“Yes. According to instructions I received by courier yesterday, I have prepared the list of names of influential persons in Liège and Louvain – the banks, and what cash I believe them to hold. How are you proceeding in Antwerp?”

“Antwerp is practically a German city. We have, outside the city, six concrete platforms ready for our big howitzers. They were put down two years ago by German residents in their gardens – for the English game of tennis,” and he laughed. “Besides, we have three secret wireless installations of wide range communicating with Nauen, as we also have here in Brussels. Is your wireless here in working order?”