Adulation, long awaited success had transformed the man into a god. His pale face was lighted up, inspired; the dark eyes reminded her of hot velvet. His habitual stoop was tonight discarded. He stood upright, commanding, triumphant. She looked now not upon the secretary of the late Harvey Bragg, but upon Caesar.
“Paul!” She took a step forward. “This is triumph. Nothing can stop you.”
“Nothing,” he replied; and even in speaking that one word the music of his voice thrilled her. “Nothing!”
“Salvaletti for the South!” A cry rose above the uproar below.
A wild outburst of cheering followed. Then came a series of concerted calls:
“Salvaletti! Salvaletti!”
The man plucked out of complete obscurity to be thrust upon a cloudy pinnacle, smiled.
“Lola,” he said, “this was worth waiting for!”
She moved towards him, her graceful bare arms extended, and with a low cry of almost savage delight he clasped her. The world was at his feet—fame, riches, beauty. In silence he held her while, more and more insistent, the demand rose up from the terraces:
“Salvaletti! Salvaletti! America for every man. Every man for America!”
The phone bell rang.
“Answer, Lola,” Salvaletti directed. “I shall speak to no one to-night but to you.”
Lola Dumas glanced at him sharply. The heady wine of success had somewhat intoxicated him. He spoke with an arrogance the very existence of which hitherto he had successfully concealed. She crossed the room and took up the telephone.
A moment she listened; her attitude grew tense; and, ever increasing in volume, the cry “Salvaletti!” swelled up from below. Lola placed the receiver on the table and turned.
“The President,” she said.
Those two words wrought a swift change in Salvaletti.
“What!” he whispered.
For a second he hesitated, then crossing with his characteristic catlike tread, he took up the phone.
“Paul Salvaletti here.”
“I am watching you closely,” came the imperious, guttural voice. “At this stage, you must not make one mistake. Listen now to my orders. Go out upon the balcony of the room in which you stand. Do not speak, but acknowledge the people. Then bring Lola Dumas out on to the balcony, that all may see her. Move in this matter.”
The line was disconnected.
For three, five, ten seconds, as he hung up, Salvaletti’s sensitive nostrils remained distended. He had heard the crack of the whip, had resented it.
“What?” Lola asked.
“An order,” Salvaletti replied, smiling composedly, “which I must obey.”
He crossed, drew the curtains widely apart, and stepped out to the balcony. A roar of excited voices acclaimed him, and for a while he stood there, a pale, impressive figure in the moonlight. He bowed, raised his hand and, turning, beckoned to Lola Dumas.
“You are to join me,” he said. “Please come.”
He drew her on to the balcony beside him; and the woman associated for so long with Harvey Bragg, founder of the League of Good Americans, potential saviour of his country, received an almost hysterical ovation. . . .
Back in the room, the curtains drawn, Lola Dumas sank down on a cushioned settee, beckoning to Salvaletti with her eyes and with her lips. He stood beside her looking down.
“Paul,” she said, “did the President give those orders?”
“He did.”
“You see, Paul,” she said very softly, “he has chosen for you. Are you content?”
Chapter 29
GREEN MIRAGE
Mark Hepburn awoke; sat up. He found himself to be clammy with nervous perspiration, and the dream which had occasioned it was still vivid in his mind. It was this:
He had found himself in an apparently interminable tunnel (which he could trace to Nayland Smnith’s account of the attempt to explore the East River water-gate). For a period which seemed to span many hours he walked along this tunnel. His only light was a fragment of thick, wax candle, resembling an altar candle. There were twists and turns in the tunnel, and always in his dream he had hoped to see daylight beyond. Always he had been disappointed.
Some great expediency drove him on. At all costs he must reach the end of this subterranean passage. A stake greater than his life was at hazard. And now, gaping blackly, cross-ways appeared in the tunnel; it became a labyrinth. Every passage revealed by the flickering light of the candle resembled another. In desperation he plunged into one which opened on his right. It proved to be interminable. An opening offered on the left. He entered it. Another endless tunnel stretched before him.
The candle was burning very low; his fingers were covered with hot grease. Unless he could win freedom before that fragment of wick and wax gave up the ghost and plunged him into darkness, he ws doomed to wander
