"Oh," said the princess with pleasure, for, after all, this was the
purpose of the long excursion.
"How unexpected!"
Her son gave a short laugh. "I believe you," he said. "Unexpected is
just the word. It sometimes seems as if, in spite of all that has been
written on the subject, husbands would never learn the tactlessness of
the unexpected return."
"Raimundo, what do you mean?" asked his mother with a sinking heart.
The boy hesitated. "The lovely Charlotte," he said, "is all that you
told me she was--cool and virtuous--so much so that it never occurs to
her that others may be different. Tonight I brought her home from a
dull party. We got talking; we sat down in the drawing-room. The back
of a lovely white neck bent over a table was so near my lips--and the
husband enters."
"Was there a scene?"
"Oh, no. It was worse. We chatted _à trois_ for a time."
The princess drew a long breath. "Perhaps he did not see; but really,
Raimundo--"
"Oh, he saw," said the prince. "He maneuvered the suspicious Charlotte
off to bed, and then he suggested without a trace of anger or criticism
that I should leave the house in the morning; and really, my dear
mother, I'm afraid I shall have to do it. I'm so sorry, I know you'll
feel annoyed with me, but it is hard to remember that no woman means
anything here. I just manage to remember it with the girls; but the
married women--well, one can't always be so sure; not so sure, at least
as one is with Charlotte. There was no excuse for me--none."
"You're an awkward, ungrateful boy," said his mother, with an absence
of temper that made her pronouncement more severe. "I think I shall go
downstairs now myself and have a talk with Mr. Haines."
"You'll do the talking," answered her son. "He isn't exactly a chatty
man."
But the princess was not discouraged. She could not see that she could
do any harm to Raimundo's prospects, since evidently all was now lost,
and she felt she owed it to Charlotte to repair, if she could, any
damage the boy's folly had occasioned.
The lights on the stairs and corridors were all going; they were
controlled by switches working, to the princess' continual surprise,
from all sorts of unexpected places. She had no difficulty in finding
her way to the drawing-room, on the second story, where Raimundo told
her the interview had taken place.
As she opened the door she saw that a tall thin man in gray morning
clothes was standing alone in the middle of the room, with his hands
in his pockets and a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, quite in
the American manner. He was pale, pale as his blond smooth hair, now
beginning to be gray, and everything about him was long--his hands, his
jaw, his legs like a cavalryman's. He was turned three-quarters toward
the door, and he moved nothing but his eyes as the princess entered.
There was always something neat and finished about the way Lisa moved,
and the way she held herself, the way she put her small steady feet on
the ground; and this was particularly evident now in the way she opened
the door, moved the train of her long tea gown out of the way and shut
the door again. She did all this in silence, for it was her theory to
let the other person speak first. It was a theory that she had had no
difficulty in putting into practice during her stay in America, but it
was now forced upon her attention that Haines had the same theory, for
he remained perfectly silent, and something told her that he was likely
to continue so. The fate of interviews is often decided thus in the
first few seconds.
She spoke first. "I am the Princess di Sangatano," she said.
He nodded.
"My son has just told me about the incident of this evening."