"Doubtless you have also heard of my determination not to marry him?"
she went on.
Again I nodded.
"Well, I am not going to marry him."
I was seized with the desire to laugh, but dared not. What had all
this to do with my detention in the castle?
"Betty," said the princess, turning imploringly to her companion (what
a change!), "_you_ tell him."
"I?" The Honorable Betty drew back.
(Had they kidnapped old Doppelkinn? I wondered.)
"I can not tell him," cried her Highness miserably, "I simply can not.
You must do it, Betty. It is now absolutely necessary that he should
know everything; it is absolutely vital that he be present. Perhaps
Heaven has sent him. Do you understand? Now, tell him!"
And, wonders to behold! she who but a few minutes gone had been a
princess in everything, cold, seeing, tranquil, she fled from the room.
(Decidedly this was growing interesting. What had they done?) Thus,
the Honorable Betty Moore and his Excellency, the American consul at
Barscheit, were left staring into each other's eyes fully a minute.
"You will, of course, pledge me your word of honor?" She who had
recently been timid now became cool and even-pulsed.
"If in pledging it I am asked to do nothing to discredit my office. I
am not an independent individual,"--smiling to put her more at ease.
(I haven't the least doubt that I would have committed any sort of
folly had she required it of me.)
"You have my word, sir, that you will be asked to do nothing
dishonorable. On the other hand, you will confer a great favor upon
her Highness, who is in deep trouble and is seeking a way to escape it."
"Command me," said I promptly.
"Her Highness is being forced into marriage with a man who is old
enough to be her grandfather. She holds him in horror, and will go to
any length to make this marriage an impossibility. For my part, I have
tried to convince her of the futility of resisting her royal uncle's
will." (Sensible little Britisher!) "What she is about to do will be
known only to four persons, one of whom is a downright rascal."
"A rascal?" slipped my lips, half-unconsciously. "I trust that I
haven't given you that impression," I added eagerly. (A rascal? The
plot was thickening to formidable opaqueness.)
"No, no!" she cried hastily, with a flash of summer on her lips. (What
is more charming than an English woman with a clear sense of the
humorous?) "You haven't given me that impression at all."
"Thank you." My vanity expanded under the genial warmth of this
knowledge. It was quite possible that she looked upon me favorably.
"To proceed. There is to be a kind of mock marriage here to-night, and
you are to witness it." She watched me sharply.