



Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders









THE MISCHIEF-MAKER

BY

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

AUTHOR OF "THE LIGHTED WAY," "THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE," "HAVOC," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HANSON BOOTH

1913






CONTENTS



BOOK ONE



CHAPTER


    I SYMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS

   II AN INDISCREET LETTER

  III A RUINED CAREER

   IV A BUNCH OF VIOLETS

    V A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE

   VI AT THE CAFE L'ATHENEE

  VII COFFEE FOR THREE

 VIII IN PARIS

   IX MADAME CHRISTOPHOR

    X BETTER ACQUAINTANCE

   XI THE TOYMAKER FROM LEIPZIG

  XII AT THE RAT MORT

 XIII POLITICS AND PATRIOTISM

  XIV THE MORNING AFTER

   XV BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

  XVI "HAVE YOU EVER LOVED?"

 XVII KENDRICKS IS HOST

XVIII A MEETING OF SOCIALISTS

  XIX AN OFFER

   XX FALKENBERG ACTS




BOOK TWO



CHAPTER



    I THE FLIGHT OF LADY ANNE

   II "TO OUR NEW SELVES"

  III WORK FOR JULIEN

   IV A STARTLING DISCLOSURE

    V THE FIRST ARTICLE

   VI FALKENBERG FAILS

  VII LADY ANNE DECLINES

 VIII A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

   IX FOOLHARDY JULIEN

    X THE SECOND ATTEMPT

   XI BY THE PRINCE'S ORDERS

  XII DISTRESSING NEWS

 XIII ESTERMEN'S DEATH WARRANT

  XIV SANCTUARY

   XV NEARING A CRISIS

  XVI FALKENBERG'S LAST REPORT

 XVII DEFEAT FOR FALKENBERG

XVIII THE ONE WAY OUT

  XIX ALL ENDS WELL




ILLUSTRATIONS

"Really," he said, "I thought better of Herr Freudenberg"

"At least," she reminded him, "you are going to see Madame
Christophor?"

"Splendid!" he muttered, rising to his feet. "If only I can do it!"

"Let me present to you Monsieur Bourgan of the French Detective
Service"





BOOK ONE




CHAPTER I


SYMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS


The girl who was dying lay in an invalid chair piled up with cushions
in a sheltered corner of the lawn. The woman who had come to visit her
had deliberately turned away her head with a murmured word about the
sunshine and the field of buttercups. Behind them was the little
sanitarium, a gray stone villa built in the style of a chateau,
overgrown with creepers, and with terraced lawns stretching down to the
sunny corner to which the girl had been carried earlier in the day.
There were flowers everywhere--beds of hyacinths, and borders of purple
and yellow crocuses. A lilac tree was bursting into blossom, the breeze
was soft and full of life. Below, beyond the yellow-starred field of
which the woman had spoken, flowed the Seine, and in the distance one
could see the outskirts of Paris.

"The doctor says I am better," the girl whispered plaintively. "This
morning he was quite cheerful. I suppose he knows, but it is strange
that I should feel so weak--weaker even day by day. And my cough--it
tears me to pieces all the time."

The woman who was bending over her gulped something down in her throat
and turned her head. Although older than the invalid whom she had come
to visit, she was young and very beautiful. Her cheeks were a trifle
pale, but even without the tears her eyes were almost the color of
violets.

"The doctor must know, dear Lucie," she declared. "Our own feelings so
often mean nothing at all."

The girl moved a little uneasily in her chair. She, also, had once been
pretty. Her hair was still an exquisite shade of red-gold, but her
cheeks were thin and pinched, her complexion had gone, her clothes fell
about her. She seemed somehow shapeless.

"Yes," she agreed, "the doctor knows--he must know. I see it in his
manner every time he comes to visit me. In his heart," she added,
dropping her voice, "he must know that I am going to die."

Her eyes seemed to have stiffened in their sockets, to have become
dilated. Her lips trembled, but her eyes remained steadfast.

"Oh! madame," she sobbed, "is it not cruel that one should die like
this! I am so young. I have seen so little of life. It is not just,
madame--it is not just!"

The woman who sat by her side was shaking. Her heart was torn with
pity. Everywhere in the soft, sunlit air, wherever she looked, she
seemed to read in letters of fire the history of this girl, the history
of so many others.

"We will not talk of death, dear," she said. "Doctors are so wonderful,
nowadays. There are so few diseases which they cannot cure. They seem
to snatch one back even from the grave. Besides, you are so young. One
does not die at nineteen. Tell me about this man--Eugene, you called
him. He has never once been to see you--not even when you were in the
hospital?"

The girl began to tremble.

"Not once," she murmured.

"You are sure that he had your letters? He knows that you are out here
and alone?"

"Yes, he knows!"

There was a short silence. The woman found it hard to know what to say.
Somewhere down along the white, dusty road a man was grinding the music
of a threadbare waltz from an ancient barrel-organ. The girl closed her
eyes.

"We used to hear that sometimes," she whispered, "at the cafes. At one
where we went often they used to know that I liked it and they always
played it when we came. It is queer to hear it again--like this....
Oh, when I close my eyes," she muttered, "I am afraid! It is like
shutting out life for always."

The woman by her side got up. Lucie caught at her skirt.

"Madame, you are not going yet?" she pleaded. "Am I selfish? Yet you
have not stayed with me so long as yesterday, and I am so lonely."

The woman's face had hardened a little.

"I am going to find that man," she replied. "I have his address. I want
to bring him to you."

The girl's hold upon her skirt tightened.

"Sit down," she begged. "Do not leave me. Indeed it is useless. He
knows. He does not choose to come. Men are like that. Oh! madame, I
have learned my lesson. I know now that love is a vain thing. Men do
not often really feel it. They come to us when we please them, but
afterwards that does not count. I suppose we were meant to be
sacrificed. I have given up thinking of Eugene. He is afraid, perhaps,
of the infection. I think that I would sooner go out of life as I lie
here, cold and unloved, than have him come to me unwillingly."

The woman could not hide her tears any longer. There was something so
exquisitely fragile, so strangely pathetic, in that prostrate