The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 145: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE culminating luxury of the greatest excite- ment known to man. War!’ The newsboys shrilled it as they ran screaming from the Rue Montmartre. There were patriotic allusions to “La Patrie’” in all the cabarets and music-halls. It had become the one thing talked about. The Bourse jumped and fell spasmod- ically. And still, everything was in doubt. It was the very element of doubt which tuned the excitement to concert pitch. Life itself had grown to be a glittering, hypnotic gamble. If Paris had become a vortex, the center of that vortex had been shifting steadily, unperceived by all but the few, to the Faubourg St. Germain; and, within the faubourg itself to the great town-house of the Count du Barry. While the agents of the Third Republic were straining every resource of knowledge and cunning to find out just what was going on in the rival capitals of Europe, the Hotel du Barry listened like a thing alive, secretive, brooding, ready, when the right moment came, to spring into action. For the old house possessed channels of information which even the govern- ment lacked. There was not a court In Europe where some devoted follower of the Royalist cause did not possess op- portunities to observe and overhear. Moreover, not a report came into the French Foreign Office that did not reach the Hotel du Barry as well before the ink was dry. Knowlton felt the thrill of it all as the cab that had brought him from the Gare St. Lazare stopped in front of the porte- cochére of the mansion that had become his new home since leaving the Chateau Lenoir. He was just back from a flying visit to London. In London there had been ex- citement, too, but nothing like the electric atmosphere of Paris. He paid the cabman and touched the bell. Before he withdrew his hand the door had been swung open by a porter in the semi-livery of a concierge. STAR OF ADVENTURE. 135 At sight of Knowlton, the man doffed the tasseled silk cap he wore, bowed low and saluted him with the respectful famil- larity usual to his kind. “Ts his majesty at home?” Chan asked softly, as soon as the door was closed. “Oui, monsteur.” There was a driveway, high-arched, which led back inte the court-yard of the Hotel du Barry. At one side of this was a broad and lofty door giving access to the grand stairway which led to the upper floors of the house. Two flunkeys, gorgeously liveried in pale-blue and white, their heads covered with white wigs, stood guard at the door. They were something else than merely ornamental. The shoulders under the blue velvet coats were like the shoulders of prize-fighters. The legs in the white silk stockings were as solid as those of a couple of farm-hands. They also welcomed the American with a smile and left the way open for him. Quite by accident—so one might have believed—there were a number of other retainers of the master of the house scat- tered along the stairway and about the hall onthe first floor. Not all of them were in the blue and white livery. Some wore the more sober garb of huissiers and chamberlains. There were others who wore no livery at all, yet who bore about them the un- mistakable stamp of long service. A chamberlain on duty at the head of the stairs signaled an official who guarded the door toward the front of the hall, and the official hurried forward. “Good morning, M. Knowlton.” “Good morning, M. Martin. majesty at liberty?” “The ante-room is crowded, monsieur— a score, at least, and all of them impor- tant; but his majesty left word that he was to be informed as soon as you arrived, and suggested that you go around by the private way.” Chan went to the back of the hall, and there another guarded door was opened for him. He passed through a great salon all Is his CORMICLOOOKS (C@