A voice broke in upon her blissful musings, in a strain both
matter-of-fact and gently reproachful.
“You never gave me any jelly. I found one out there; it was delicious.
Also a truly amazing cake. I think I may deduce from the state of my
appetite that I forgot to eat a dinner to-night. Yes, I remember now. I
wrote a poem instead. All but the last verse. That didn’t seem to come.
So I wound up with coffee and cheese.”
The Incognito sauntered in from the dining room with a comforted look
on his countenance.
“That farther compartment of your museum, the kitchen, seemed
familiar. I was led to explore it. I do not despise kitchens--nor
pantries. I have a fancy for them. Nothing delights me like entering a
pantry--unobserved.”
Noting Mrs. Mearely’s absorbed gaze, he became self-conscious. He
looked at her; then endeavoured, by looking directly from her eyes to
his own person, to discern what it was that had inspired her fixed
stare.
“Is anything the matter with me? I mean, anything more than usual?”
“Oh no, Your Hi----” She checked the reverent utterance quickly.
“Oh--oh--no!”
“I thought, perhaps.... Never mind. What I was about to tell you is,
that I explored your pantry with better success than _you_ did when you
prepared my supper. You overlooked a cake fit for a prince--Eh? What?
Oh, merely an exclamation? It is a miracle of beauty to look at--and,
to eat! Who made it? I ask, because the cooker of that cake has the
soul of an artist. I wish to spend my days in the shadow of her wing.”
“I made it.” She blushed, happily, under the royal praise.
“You? Put a raisin in your diadem, as its central jewel!”
“You will not mock at the ‘museum’ any more when I tell you that I
found the recipe for that cake in an old parchment. The Countess of
Mountjoye invented the cake first in 1715 for the Prince of Paradis:
and history says she was the only one of his sweethearts who never lost
his affection. So, you see, it was always a ...” (she paused, changed
the phrase she was about to use, namely, “a prince’s cake” into) “a
cake fit for a prince.”
“And she never lost his affection? I can well believe it! For I feel
tender toward her, even two hundred years later. But, since I cannot
lay _my_ royal heart at _her_ feet, I consign it to that spot on the
rug just between your two silver-toed slippers. Ah!” he sighed.
“Are you feeling any pain now?” respectfully. He was vaguely conscious
of a change in her manner but, being ignorant of the cause, attached no
importance to it, as yet.
“From the cake? By no means!”
“From your wound.” Her manner reproached him for his flippancy. Then
she remembered that he did not know how close his would-be captor lay;
and that, even if he were not wounded, it would be almost impossible
for him to slip away from Villa Rose, to pursue his glad, free
wanderings, unless perhaps she could devise some subtle disguise to
aid him--even as the medieval ladies, in Hibbert Mearely’s old books,
passed their gentlemen, royal and otherwise, out of compromising
situations.
“Oh none,--none” he answered. “I’ve forgotten I was ever at the wrong
end of a gun.”
She pushed the big chair toward him.
“Will you not sit down?”
“By no means. Allow me to place the chair for _you_.” He laid hold of
its other arm to push it toward her, and she resisted with all the
etiquette at her command.
“Oh no!” she was shocked. “You must allow _me_ to place it for _you_.”
He, in his turn, resisted as firmly.
“Because I am a poor, sick, helpless creature? Is that why you insist
on waiting on me?” He had a sturdy masculine objection to this view of
him. She blushed.
“Oh, no! That is not the reason.”
The expression in her shining eyes contented him. He sank among the
cushions; and, closing his hand over hers, drew her to the broad,
square stool beside his chair.
“There! I will sit; and you shall sit beside me and tell me wherefore
you have changed your ways with me--holding chairs for me and so forth.”
The whimsical air left him. His black eyes grew grave. He was touched
by the look of awe and wonder she turned up to him, and his feeling for
her was deepening and taking possession of him.
“One waits on--princes,” she said, with a little catch of her breath.
He laughed softly.
“Oh, Madam Make-Believe! Will you crown the vagabond now and make a
prince of him--thou cooker of prince’s cakes? If I were a prince, do
you know what my name would be? I’d be Prince Run-Away.”
“Yes!” she cried. “Prince Run-Away!”
“There are several kinds of vagabonds, my dear; and neither palace nor
cottage walls can hold them! Nor catch and cage them again, once they
have escaped.” Even as he said it, he knew that it was less true, at
that moment, than it had been before he entered the strange house and
encountered the fairy princess in the museum.
“If he knew that his own Secret Service is lurking just outside, to
snatch him back into his palace-prison!” she thought. Aloud she said,
timidly:
“But there’s the law.”
“What law is there that can’t be broken?” he demanded.
“Don’t you know,” she answered, “that there _is_ a law that can’t be
broken? It was made for us, by something stronger than we are; and it
says that human beings must live together, in families and groups.
Because the need of brotherhood is the strongest thing in them. And
that _need_ is the _law_. Have you never felt it, Prince Run-Away?”
He looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said, seriously:
“There is always need of love--true love. But there is so much
counterfeit love in the world, Rosamond. To pass all the little waving
false hands safely--losing no grain of faith, nor drop of tenderness by
the way--and come, at last, and fold your heart’s wings softly in two
tender, loyal hands, which will never weary and never unclasp----”
She surrendered her hands, willingly. It would be something sweet to
remember all her life, how a prince had held them tenderly.
“Do you know--in the twilight, as I came along through the rushes of
the river-path--I made a little poem to you? I did not know it was to
you.”
He drew a small note book from one of his pockets, and turned its pages.
“There it is, you see--all zigzagged across the paper--like the little
zigzag path in the dusk. But both came straight to you.”
“Oh! is this your book of poems?” eagerly.
“It is _one_ of them. I have others. Six, to be exact. Two are with
a friend in St. Petersburg. He is translating them. One is in my
hut. Another is in London, where it will soon be published. And the
best--the first, the youngest, and dearest--the one I’m proudest of--is
buried in a biscuit tin in Idaho.”
“Oh!” she cried, thrilled. “To think you’ve wandered through all those
places--Prince Run-Away.”
“To come at last to _you_--Madam Make-Believe.”
He looked at her so long that her lashes drooped and her colour came
and went.
“Read it to me--my poem”--she said softly, and leaned over the
manuscript. Her hair touched his cheek, as he also leaned over to
descry the words he had pencilled in the dark.
“If I were a ship on the deep seas flowing,
If I were a ship on the waters blue,
I’d go sailing round the world of women
To the harbour lights and the ports of You.
“If I were a cloud in the high air blowing,
If I were a cloud in the sapphire skies,
Oh, I’d break my rest in the orbs of heaven,
To be the mist in your young, blue eyes.
“If I were the grass in the green earth growing,
If I were the grass where the wild flowers meet,
I would leave my peace in the morning meadows,
To deck life’s road for your eager feet.”
He ceased, and she looked up, wistfully.
“Isn’t there any more? Oh, make it up!” she pleaded. “Make it up, now!”
The book dropped back into the big pocket.
“Make it up now?” he echoed. He put his arm gently about her shoulders,
as if he meant to say that he would not hold her against her wish.
Then, hesitating, here and there, for the words, he went on:
“Oh, would I were Love--Love’s true art knowing:
Would I were Love--I would wrap you round!
My faith for your home, and my songs for your wending,
And my heart, my heart, for your garden-ground.”
Then, since love and youth must have their way, he kissed her; and
found, with her, that her lips had waited for his. In that instant
principalities and powers--his kingdom and her village--melted into
mist. There were no countries, no degrees, no secret service nor
scandal-mongers, no differences of race and place: love had met with
love.
They were recalled to Roseborough by the noise of wheels on the gravel
drive. Rosamond sprang up in alarm.
“Someone coming here?” he queried. She stopped him.
“Don’t go to the verandah. If you should be seen! Oh, hide!” She ran
to the door. “Oh-h.” It was a gasp of relief. “Of course; it is the
doctor.” She smiled. Her smile faded, however, instantly; and she
interjected again.
“What’s the matter now?” the prince asked.
“You can’t tell Dr. Wells you are my chauffeur. He knows I haven’t one!”
The doctor’s footsteps were coming along the porch.
“Leave it to me,” hastily. “I’ll tell him something.”
Dr. Wells, entering hurriedly, with his little black bag in his hand
and neighbourly anxiety in his heart, encountered Mrs. Mearely on her
threshold, and saw no farther. He was astounded.
“Mrs. Mearely!” he exclaimed. “You are able to be up?”
Rosamond was taken aback by this greeting, not understanding for the
moment that the doctor had come to her home under the impression that
she herself was ill.
“Yes, certainly.--Oh, I see. But it is not I who need your services.”
“Well, I _am glad_ of that! My boy, Peter, who answered the telephone,
said I must come to you at once. I feared you had been taken seriously
ill. So I hastened, as fast as possible--considering that my own
indigestion was acute. I delayed only to awaken Mrs. Wells, and tell
her that I had received an urgent call to your home. Dear, dear! she
was greatly alarmed. Indeed, she almost insisted on coming with me,
knowing that you are alone. But I couldn’t permit it. She was seized
with such a fit of hiccoughs and heart-burn, poor thing, that I
prevailed upon her to remain warmly in bed.”
Even his capacious lungs needed refilling with air at times, so that
his philippics must eventually come to a period. Rosamond had made
several useless efforts to interrupt him; now she said quickly, to
prevent him from launching another fleet of parentheses:
“How kind. But, as you see, I am perfectly well. It is this gentleman
who requires your services.” She led the way to the big chair, where
the vagabond had settled again, perhaps because he thought that a
wounded man should not appear too brisk, considering the hour and
place.
“The accident ...” she began.
“Accident?” Dr. Wells repeated. “Dear, dear. We have so few accidents,
fortunately. Is it a fracture?”
“Accidental shooting, doctor,” the prince informed him. “The wound
is in the shoulder.” He must have removed her bowknot bandage in the
dining room, because it was no longer there when he slipped his coat
off. Dr. Wells produced a huge pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, which he
put on over his small gold-rimmed ones.
“Tst--tst--tst,” he muttered, peering, first from one side, then from
the other; “dear, dear. Yes, yes. It might very well have caused your
death, if it had been in some other part of the body. Yes, indeed, not
so slight as it appears, Mr.--” He paused, looking from one to the
other, inquiringly. Thinking his tentative query had not been heard he
repeated it, loudly, “Mr. ----?”
“Er--Mr. ----” Rosamond stammered, quickly. “Dr. Wells didn’t quite
catch your name.”
“My name? Er--Mills. Yes. _Mr._ Mills. With _two_ l’s,” he added;
as though to prove the name his own, by showing that he could spell
it; or, as inept liars always overdo matters, by adding a second fib
to throw suspicion on the first. “I was passing along the road from
Trenton. Some constables were out hunting a tramp who had alarmed the
neighbourhood. Some one shouted ‘halt.’ I supposed it was an attempted
hold-up. So I spurred on; and got a bullet in my shoulder.”
In the pleasant relief of this plausible tale, Mrs. Mearely embarked
upon prevaricating ventures of her own.
“I--I had been sitting here reading, and just as I was--er--about to
retire--I heard voices--and a shot. So--so--I ran out. And when I saw
what had happened--er--I had Mr. Woods....”
“Mills,” he corrected her, quickly, “with two l’s.”
“Mr. Mills--with two l’s. Thank you. I had Mr. Mills brought here. Then
I sent for you.”
The vagabond prince added another touch of realism to the fiction. He
bowed formally, as if he had only now perceived that there was a lady
present, and said:
“I shall never forget your kindness, Mrs. ----?”
“Mrs. Mearely.” She took the cue promptly and, imitating his method,
painstakingly spelled the name out: “M-e-a-r-e-l-y.”
“Mrs. Mearely,” he repeated, and bowed again.
Even innocent-hearted Dr. Wells might have questioned the wherefore of
this spelling bee, if he had not been wholly occupied with the contents
of his bag.
“Now, if Dr. Wells will kindly patch me up so that I can set out on my
way....”
“No, no! You daren’t go on now.” In spite of herself, her glance went
to the verandah. Had the Secret Service come creeping up from the road
again, to see that His Highness did not escape in the doctor’s trap?
“Go on? To-night?” Dr. Wells shook his head. He never approved of rapid
convalescence. “Oh, dear no. I couldn’t advise it. Bed and rest, my
dear sir; bed and rest, till the shock is abated. Yes.”
“My sister’s room is ready,” Mrs. Mearely urged.
“Mrs. Mearely is kindness itself.” The vagabond bowed again. “But I
dare not lose the time. I am obliged to keep an appointment to-morrow.
Important business.”
“At least let me dress the wound properly--if we may use your sister’s
room for that purpose?”
“Certainly,” Rosamond said quickly, silencing the protest she saw
coming. “You must submit Mr. Wood--er--Mills. You know the way, doctor?”
She opened the door, at the right of the music room, where the stairs
began their windings to the upper stories. The patient, supported by
the doctor, and still protesting about his appointment elsewhere the
next morning, mounted slowly. Rosamond waited to gather up her bowl,
linen and sponges; then she closed the door behind her and ran up the
stairs, to render aid in the bandaging, if necessary.