At Her Highness's side I had strolled through the smaller salon and
along the several great corridors to the splendid winter garden, on the
opposite side of the palace. It was one of the smaller courtyards which
had been covered in with glass and filled with high palms and tropical
flowers ablaze with bloom. There, in that northern latitude, Asiatic
and African plants flourished and flowered, with little electric lights
cunningly concealed amid the leaves.
Several other couples were seated there, away from the whirl and glitter
of the Court; but taking no notice, we halted at two wicker chairs set
invitingly in a corner. Into one of these she flung herself with a
little sigh, and, bowing, I took the other.
I sat and watched her. Her beauty was, indeed, exquisite. She had the
long, tender, fluent lines of body and limb, the round waist, the deep
chest and small bust, the sturdy throat of those ancient virgins that
the greatest sculptors of the world worshipped and wrought into
imperishable stone. She was not very tall, though she appeared so. It
was something in pose and movement that did it. A beautiful soul looked
from Her Highness's beautiful eyes whenever she smiled upon me.
I found myself examining every line and turn and contour of the
prettily-poised head. She was dark, with that lovely complexion like
pure alabaster tinted with rose sometimes seen in Russian women. Her
eyes, under the sweeping lashes, seemed capable of untold depths of
tenderness. Hers was the perfect oval of a young face across whose
innocent girlishness experience had written no line, passion cast no
shadow.
"One thing I've heard to-day has greatly pained me," I said presently to
my dainty little companion. "You'll forgive me for speaking quite
frankly--won't you?"
"Certainly, Uncle Colin," she replied, opening her big eyes in surprise.
"But I thought you had brought me here to flirt with me--not to talk
seriously."
"I must talk seriously for a moment," I said apologetically. "It is in
Your Highness's interests. Listen. I heard something to-day at which I
know that you yourself will be greatly annoyed. I heard it whispered
that Geoffrey Hamborough had killed himself because of you."
"Geoffrey dead!" she gasped, starting up and staring at me, her face
blanched in an instant.
"No. He is not dead," I replied calmly, "for as soon as I heard the
report I sent him a wire to Yorkshire and to the Travellers', in London.
He replied from the club half an hour before I came here."
"But who could have spread such a report?" the girl asked. "It could
only be done to cast opprobrium upon me--to show that because--because
we parted--he had taken his life. It's really too cruel," she declared,
and I saw hot tears welling in her beautiful eyes.
"I agree. But you must deny the report."
"Who told you?"
"I regret that I must not say. It was, however, a friend of yours."
"A man?"