THE PRINCE OF
THE CAPTIVITY
The Epilogue to a Romance
BY
SYDNEY C. GRIER
AUTHOR OF
‘AN UNCROWNED KING,’ ‘ THE WARDEN OF THE MARCHES,’
ETC., ETC.
(_Fourth in the Balkan Series_)
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMII
CONTENTS.
I. BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
II. BORN IN THE PURPLE
III. THE BURDEN OF A SECRET
IV. HIT AND MISS
V. MANŒUVRES
VI. _TOTÂ QUOD MENTE PETISTI_
VII. A FAMILY LIKENESS
VIII. LOVE IN IDLENESS
IX. A CHANGE OF VENUE
X. A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
XI. KNOWN TOO LATE
XII. MURDERED FAITH
XIII. _MALA SORTE_
XIV. FOR PITY’S SAKE
XV. NOT LONG A-DOING
XVI. BEYOND RECALL
XVII. MISSING
XVIII. WANDERING FIRES
XIX. A CHANCE WORD
XX. FOILED
XXI. QUEEN AND KING
XXII. OPENING THE PRISON DOORS
XXIII. THE PRICE TO BE PAID
XXIV. _RISORGIMENTO_
THE PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY.
CHAPTER I.
BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION.
There were only a few passengers by the South Wales Express, and to
one young man in a first-class carriage the fact was very welcome. He
had bought a paper almost unconsciously from the boy who came to the
window, but it did him good service as a shield, from behind which he
could cast suspicious and hostile glances, after the manner of the
travelling Briton, at any one who seemed inclined to disturb his
solitude, as long as the train was in the station. But when once the
dreary and dirty buff brick surroundings of the terminus had been left
behind, the paper fell to the floor, and Lord Usk gazed out of the
window with an expression which seemed too ecstatic to be evoked even
by the busy harvest-fields and the nursery-gardens full of asters and
late roses on which his bodily eyes were resting. And indeed the scene
before him might still have been a brick-and-mortar desert for all
that he saw of it. His mental gaze was fixed upon the face of Miss
Félicia J. Steinherz, the sight of which had changed the whole course
of his life.
Could it really be the case, he was wondering, that a month ago he had
never seen Félicia Steinherz? Yes, it was perfectly true, and the
curious thing was that though he now saw clearly that life must have
been a howling wilderness in those days, it had not seemed so at the
time. He had been fairly satisfied with himself and his prospects, and
quite unconscious that the world was in reality empty and out of
joint. It was with a scornful pity that he looked back from his
vantage-point of to-day upon the Usk of a month ago. She was breathing
the same air with him then, and yet he had not so much as guessed at
her existence, nor even been conscious of a blank without her! Ah, but
he had; for was she not the fulfilment of all his dreams, the
realisation of the ideal of womanhood which had haunted him from his
boyish days? Here and there, in one woman or another, he had caught,
as it seemed, glimpses of this ideal, but closer acquaintance
dispelled the illusion. The woman of his dreams still eluded him
tantalisingly--until he met Félicia. He did not ask himself whether
she corresponded in all respects with his mental picture; it was
enough that she was herself.
He could recall at this moment the rapture which had thrilled him when
she first flashed upon his sight. It was the most ordinary and prosaic
of introductions. He had met Hicks, the American newspaper-man,
unexpectedly in Fleet Street, and had accepted without much enthusiasm
his invitation to come and call with him upon J. Bertram Steinherz,
the great Rhode Island shipbuilder, and his daughter, familiarly known
in the States as the Plate Princess. Usk was not keen on meeting
Americans, especially American heiresses who were presumably visiting
England in search of titled bridegrooms, but Hicks was a family
friend, and he accompanied him meekly to the Hotel Bloomsbury, with a
passing wonder at the millionaire’s choosing such a locality. There
was some excuse for the introduction, naturally; what was it? Oh, of
course; Mr Steinherz was interested in a contract for the navigation
of the Euphrates, and Usk had lately voyaged down that river, and
could give him some tips. Blessed Euphrates! had it not floated him
into paradise? He remembered Mr Hicks’s caustic strictures on the
decoration of the hotel as compared with that of similar buildings in
America, and his own shrug of amusement as he wondered what degree of
obtrusive magnificence would be required to satisfy the æsthetic
sense of the representative of the ‘Empire City Crier.’ He had entered
the over-decorated room without receiving the slightest warning that
it contained the one woman in the world, and his recollections came to
a sudden stop at the point when the great discovery burst upon him. Mr
Steinherz was there, of course, gentlemanly and well set-up, with a
pointed grey beard and drooping moustache, which gave him the look of
a retired naval officer; and there was a Miss Logan, who was
introduced by Mr Steinherz as “my adopted daughter,” a thin,
eager-looking girl, smartly dressed, and noticeable for a high,
penetrating voice. Lastly, there was Miss Steinherz. She sat in her
great carved oak chair like a princess receiving her court,--if ever a
princess had such tiny hands and feet and such wonderful eyes,--and
the draperies which floated round her were like nothing in heaven or
earth but clouds. In cold blood Usk would probably have surmised that
Miss Steinherz was wearing a tea-gown, although her dress had little
in common with the loose and comfortable garment which his sister
Philippa had been wont to don after a hard day’s hunting. There was
lace about it that a queen might have worn--indeed Usk gathered later
that the precious fabric, only half revealed, had been forced by the
pinch of poverty from the hoarded stores of a queen in exile--there
was the gleam of tiny diamond buckles, but the effect of the whole was
that of clouds, clouds which were neither pink nor lavender nor grey
nor blue, but which in some mysterious manner were all these at once.
A woman would have hinted at the dexterous mingling and
superimposition of chiffon of various tints, but to Usk all was
mystic, wonderful. He was not even aware that his eyes and thoughts
were alike fixed upon Miss Steinherz until he found himself assuring
her father that at certain points in the voyage down the Euphrates it
was usual to drag the steamer a mile or two overland.
After all, no harm was done--or at least Mr Steinherz did not appear
to be astonished by this remarkable piece of information. Miss
Steinherz it was who pounced upon the slip like a cat upon a mouse,
and made merry at Usk’s expense for the rest of the visit. He could
not have imagined an English girl’s engrossing the conversation as she
did, and few Englishmen would have followed her lead as meekly as did
her father and Mr Hicks; but how delightful it was to hear her talk,
even when he himself was her butt! Now she was leaning back languidly
in her chair, playing with a peacock-feather fan, while the words
flowed forth slowly in a delicious lingering drawl; anon she was
sitting erect, with every faculty on the alert, and rattling forth in
quick succession the raciest, the most daring remarks. Not for one
moment was Usk allowed to forget the foolish thing he had said, and
yet while he was half-wounded, he was also half-pleased, and wholly
fascinated. Miss Steinherz might say what she liked, if only she would
say it in such an original and delightful way, and exhibit a new and
more exquisite expression of face or pose of head with each sentence.
That night Usk paced his rooms until dawn. New impressions and
sensations had so thronged upon him in the hour spent at the Hotel
Bloomsbury that to be still was impossible, far more so to sleep. Now
that he was removed from the witchery of her presence, it was borne in
upon him what a pitiful figure he must have cut in her eyes. What
could he do to convince her that he was not such a fool as he had
appeared? To remain under such a stigma, to feel that he had deserved,
not merely incurred, her contempt, was unbearable. An inspiration came
to him, and day found him rummaging among the relics of his Eastern
journey. Maps, photographs, scraps of his journals, geological
specimens--everything that bore even remotely on the subject in which
Mr Steinherz was interested--all these were looked out with the object
of turning them to account. Usk was gazing at a most promising heap,
when another inspiration came to him. He had made himself look a fool,
there was no getting over the fact, and had deserved the raillery Miss
Steinherz had poured upon him, but he would turn this defeat into a
victory. These relics of travel, judiciously produced one by one,
should procure him admission to the Hotel Bloomsbury not for one brief
visit, but on many successive days. Perhaps he might succeed in
rehabilitating himself in Miss Steinherz’s eyes by his eagerness to
help her father, perhaps not; at any rate he would see her.
There was no shooting for Usk that August, and the man whose party he
was to have joined on the moors found himself thrown over. September
came, but the Marquis of Caerleon tramped the Llandiarmid
stubble-fields alone, for Usk was still, as his father remarked
ruefully, glued to London. Miss Steinherz was more beautiful and
adorable and generally goddess-like than ever. Her turns of speech
were nothing less than exquisite; even the way that she said “Pap-pa”
and “Eu-rope” had a subtle charm of its own, and the little
affectation of the accent on the first syllable raised her somewhat
colourless Christian name into something unutterably sweet and
strange. Her tongue was as ready as ever, but Usk had begun to fancy
that she was not quite so inexorable in making fun of him as she had
been. She had actually allowed him once or twice to finish a sentence
without instantly turning it into ridicule, and on this slight
foundation Usk was joyfully ready to erect a hopeful superstructure.
He knew her outward appearance so well--the perfect figure, the small
head poised on the slender neck, the delicate nose, the little mouth,
the masses of dark hair which curled in rings on the white forehead
and were piled above it in the most marvellous waves and twists; could
it be possible that he was beginning to know Félicia herself--the
mind, heart, soul, which must naturally be equally faultless? Those
wonderful eyes, so large and dark and clear,--not the eyes of a girl,
looking out wistfully on life half in hope and half in fear, but of a
woman who feels that happiness is her right and intends to have
it,--were they beginning to soften for him--for him? Oh, the bliss of
the thought, that those frank eyes might one day fall before his, that
Félicia might own that she loved him!
There was the sound of a footstep in the corridor of the railway
carriage, and Usk snatched at his paper hurriedly, and began to study
it with all his might, holding it up so as to hide his face. When he
thought the intruder had passed on, he ventured to lower his screen,
only to meet the mocking, not unkindly gaze of a tall lank man who was
leaning against the inner doorway, evidently waiting for him to look
up.
“I would bet my bottom dollar that I could state right now what you
are thinking of,” said the newcomer slowly.
“Oh, it’s you, Hicks! Didn’t know you were a thought-reader.”
“I don’t begin to be one, sir. You gave yourself away, you see.” Mr
Hicks’s gaze rested on the paper, and Usk flushed quickly as he
perceived that it was upside-down. But there was no use in being
dignified with Hicks, and he yielded the position with a laugh.
“I suppose you’re on your way home by the new route?” he said lightly,
seeking safety in flight from the original subject. “I’m just running
down to Llandiarmid for a day or two to see my people.”
“Is that so?” drawled Mr Hicks. “A rare and beautiful thing is family
affection, any way! But I guess London licks the country this fall,
doesn’t it?”
“It has been a good deal pleasanter this year than usual,” agreed Usk.
“I admire to see a young man open and candid, sir. Have you got any
more acquainted with the Steinherzes yet?”
“You are nothing whatever but a good Inquisitor spoilt! I have seen a
certain amount of them.”
“And so far as one of the party is concerned, it’s pretty generally
concluded that to see her is to--you know how it goes along? But maybe
you are an exception?”
“Really, a man can’t call his innermost feelings his own when you’re
anywhere about, Hicks.” Mr Hicks nodded approvingly. “But after all,
it was you that introduced me to her, and I’ll make you a present of
the information, which you have probably guessed already, that I am
going home to have a business talk with my father.”
Mr Hicks nodded again, and Usk, whose tongue seemed to have been
loosed by his first admission, went on--
“There are times, you know, when a man feels he has to pay rather dear
for the virtues of his family. It’s quite delightful, of course, to
know that no landowner in South Wales does more for his tenants than
my father, but the worst part of it is that it leaves so awfully
little for us to live upon.”
“Don’t go around worrying over that,” said Mr Hicks soothingly. “The
good American girl regards it as her mission these days to shore up
the tottering British coronet with her dollars.”
“It’s her father I’m thinking of,” lamented Usk. “How can one go to a
man and say, ‘Mr Steinherz, I love your daughter, and if you are
prepared to hand her over rather more millions than I have hundreds a
year, I daresay we shall get on very comfortably’?” Miss Steinherz’s
prospective fortune was understood, be it remarked, to be of such
satisfactory dimensions as to suffer no appreciable diminution even by
reduction to English figures.
“If that’s all,” was the dry reply, “you can just go right away to J.
Bertram Steinherz, and say those identical words. Why, sir, your
request is real moderate. I guess an ordinary French or German count
would have his father-in-law hand over that same pile of dollars, and
rebuild his family castle, and take his crown out of pawn as well,
before he would conclude to make a trade. Then he would invite the
bride to embrace his religion, and when everything was fixed up
according to his notions, he would intimate to the father-in-law that,
much as he respected him as a dollar-grinding machine, he guessed he
would be conscious of more real, whole-souled pleasure in the
partnership if he could regard him as a fixture in the States for the
future.”
“I can’t fancy Mr Steinherz standing that sort of thing. He’s
not--not----”
“Don’t quite look the part of the ordinary heavy father from the
States?” said Mr Hicks quickly, as Usk hesitated. “That is so, sir. He
doesn’t incline to play it, either.” He stopped abruptly.
“That’s it. He is so awfully dignified and polite that I feel as if I
should sink into the ground when I think of going to him with an offer
that must strike him as such arrant cheek. Do you know, Hicks, that he
and Miss Steinherz came to the Duchess of Old Sarum’s reception after
all? I got them a card, but Mr Steinherz was so high and mighty about
accepting that I felt horribly small.”
“J. B. Steinherz was always real high-toned in his notions. At home he
lays himself out to snub his fellow-citizens, and the smart set are
ready to kiss his boots because he is ‘so charmingly exclusive.’ Here
in England he doesn’t hold with thrusting himself into intimacy with
the British nobility, so he puts in his time at a down-town hotel, and
scorns ducal invitations.”
“Well, I got him to Sarum House, at any rate, and every one was asking
who he was. There was one very old lady there, Mrs Sadleir, a great
friend of my people’s--knew my grandfather--who was quite smitten with
him, and wanted me to tell her who was the elderly man with the _grand
air_. When I said he was an American, she was really snappish, and
said he reminded her of some one she had known long ago. I brought him
up and introduced him, and they flirted solemnly for nearly an hour.
Afterwards Mrs Sadleir said she couldn’t place him exactly, but she
was pretty sure he must be a Southerner, for he had just the fine
manners of the men who used to come over here before the war.”
“J. B. S. is a real white man,” said Mr Hicks emphatically. “And you
don’t need to be afraid of sailing right in, sir, so far as he is
concerned. You’ll scarcely tell me he hasn’t known why you were
loafing around all the time at his hotel. No, you may bet your boots
that it’s Miss Maimie that’s your rock ahead--honest Injun.”
“Miss Logan? But why in the world should she have anything to do with
it?”
“Women with a real consuming ambition on behalf of another woman are
not plenty anywhere,” said Mr Hicks slowly, “and maybe least of all in
America, but that’s how it is with Miss Maimie. She would sell her
very soul to see Félicia Steinherz make a great marriage. Why, a year
or so back she all but engineered her into marrying Prince Timoleon
Malasorte.”
“The Neustrian Pretender?”
“The same, sir. He was an attaché in the Scythian Embassy at
Washington those days, but you bet he meant to be emperor, same’s he
does now, and with Félicia’s dollars and her smartness back of him I
calculate he’d have got there. But J. B. S. put his foot down, and the
Embassy found itself bereaved of its brightest ornament. That’s why I
say, Watch out for Miss Maimie. Félicia won’t marry any one below a
duke if she can help it.”
“You mean that the son of a very poor marquis hasn’t much chance,
then? But Mr Steinherz will feel that even more strongly than you do,
don’t you see?”
“No, sir, he will not. Mushroom coronets he has no use for, but he
knows there’s nothing shoddy about you. And don’t have your natural
modesty blind you to the show side of your family record. It’s not
every poor marquis that has taken his seat on a European throne, even
for three months, or has seen his brother the wonder of four
continents and the husband of a queen.”
“You are getting positively epic,” said Usk, his tone becoming
unconsciously more cheerful.
“I guess my subject inspires me, sir. Any news of your uncle these
days, by the way? Not worrying himself sick, I hope?”
“He seems well enough, but his brain-power doesn’t return.”
“Does he incline to plunge into politics again, or has he concluded to
stick to his snug estate way back there?”
“He is as happy there as he would be anywhere, I think. Nothing has
been said about his coming to Europe.”
“Now it’s a curious thing,” remarked Mr Hicks meditatively, “but a
whole crowd of the Jews have their eyes fixed upon him yet. They see
that while he was boss, things went ahead, but when he dropped out,
the outfit went to smash right away. Well, they suspicion that he was
intrigued off the stage by the millionaires, so they just incline to
intrigue him back there. They are plotting to fix things so’s they can
invite him along again. The Prince of the Captivity, they call him,
after some old cuss that hung out his sign in those parts sometime,
and they have passwords and ciphers, and every requisite of a properly
equipped plot on the largest scale.”
“I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed. He won’t let them thrust him into
a position that he could not fill with satisfaction to himself.”
“They’ll just have to invite you to operate the scheme instead of
him.”
“Ah, I might have thought of it once,” said Usk, with a seriousness
which tickled Mr Hicks extremely, “but of course things will be
different now, if----” he laughed, not unhappily. “A year or two ago I
was mad to get out into the world and do something big. I often wish I
had gone into the army, even now.”
“Well, now, I thought you gave that up nobly because your mother was
breaking her heart over it? But maybe you’ve been busy taking the
shine off the sacrifice ever since--sort of ‘If I mayn’t do what I
like, I won’t do anything’?”
“Every one isn’t a born social reformer, like my mother,” said Usk,
somewhat coldly. Then his face cleared. “But very likely I shall go
into Parliament now, and that will please her tremendously.”
“And you think it will please another person as well, maybe?”
“Yes, I’m sure it will. She made me feel awfully ashamed one day when
she said how she envied people of our class in England, who could find
any number of followers any day if only they cared to lead. She
couldn’t make out how we could throw away our opportunities and not
lead, she said.”
“Félicia Steinherz among the prophets!” said Mr Hicks drily. “And you
have hoarded the remark to repeat it to Lady Caerleon, because you
calculate that will please her tremendously too? Well, go ahead and
get there! Ask me to the wedding. If you cable right away when you get
things fixed, I’ll find it waiting for me when I arrive home.”
He rose to continue his exploration of the train, and Usk fished a
scrap of paper out of his pocket, and devoted himself once more to the
abstruse calculations with which it was covered. It was his earnest
desire to be able to prove to Mr Steinherz that if he married
Félicia, her fortune might be entirely reserved for her own use, but
the facts were against him. Even if the family house in town, which
had until lately been let on a long lease, were made over to him, it
would be utterly beyond his father’s power to give him enough to keep
it up, even with the most rigorous carefulness. The family at
Llandiarmid were accustomed to save--to pinch, Usk called it--but he
was conscious of sudden disgust for his own selfishness when he
pictured the further economies that would be necessary if his
allowance was to be increased. And for what? To allow him to live in
luxury without wounding his pride by touching Félicia’s money! There
would be no rigid economy in Félicia’s household, he knew that well
enough. If she wished for a thing, she ordered it, regardless of the
cost, although a curious strain of shrewdness sometimes showed itself
in the ardour with which she would pursue a discount of a few pence on
a bill of many pounds. He had vivid recollections of the boxes which
had accompanied her and Miss Logan on their return from a flying visit
to Paris about a fortnight ago, and the calm way in which they had
mentioned what seemed to him the fabulous sums paid for a single gown
or toque. Decidedly, a household which included Félicia would be an
expensive outfit to run, as Mr Hicks had once put it.
Usk had learnt something of this by personal experience. From the day
when he first made the delightful discovery that Transatlantic
etiquette permitted him to give expression to his feelings by
presenting offerings at the shrine of his goddess, he had taken full
advantage of his privileges. Félicia accepted the offerings with
perfect calmness, but Usk felt a thrill of pride, which to an outside
observer might have had something pathetic in it, in the fact that he
was obliged to cut down his personal expenses in order to provide
them. It was very foolish, no doubt; the sensible course would have
been to obtain his gifts on credit, but with a touch of quixotry he
chose rather to deny himself that he might keep his love supplied with
the marvellous candies and rare flowers which she regarded as
necessaries of life. She possessed a cultured palate and the eye of a
wealthy connoisseur, and Usk went so far as to give up smoking when he
was alone, and had even cherished thoughts of travelling third class.
But in that case he could not have enjoyed in peace the delight of
thinking about Félicia, and his heroism failed him when it came to
the point.
It was not unnatural that Miss Steinherz should also be thinking of
him this evening, for the floor of her bedroom was strewn with the
leaves and stalks and petals of the last roses he had sent her. They
were the very newest roses, the blossoms of a curious coppery-pink
tinge, and Usk had paid a fabulous price for them on his way to the
station. Miss Logan remarked slightingly on them when the maid had put
them in water, and Félicia threw one at her. She returned it, and the
mimic battle was continued until not a single rose remained on its
stalk. Flushed and laughing, the girls desisted, and presently
Félicia sent away the maid and allowed her friend to brush her hair,
while she herself performed certain mysterious operations on her
finger-nails, with the aid of the contents of a dainty gold-mounted
morocco case.
“Is it Monday or Tuesday that we dine Lord Usk?” she asked lightly,
with a sudden upward glance.
“It’s Usk--Usk--all the time!” was the impatient answer.
“Not just all the time,” said Félicia sweetly, “but I guess it soon
will be.”
“Félicia Steinherz, you make me tired!”
“Now don’t get mad, Maimie. If a duke had come along, I’d have married
him, as I’ve stated times and times, but, you see, that duke hasn’t
materialised, and Lord Usk is right here.”
“I’d have had you marry an emperor,” said Maimie Logan, through her
teeth.
“And I’m real grateful to you, but the emperor didn’t rise to the
occasion either, did he? I admired to see his affections just wilt
when pappa said he wouldn’t give me a red cent if I married him. I was
done with him then, but if he’d had the grace to stick to me, you bet
pappa would have weakened at last. It was a pity, for I feel I have it
in me to care more for an emperor than any other man, because he’d
really have given me something to be grateful for.”
“Well, don’t accept Lord Usk in such a tearing hurry. There are dukes
left yet, and princes too.”
“Why, certainly, but you haven’t looked all around this thing, Maimie.
You had better make up your mind that pappa isn’t going to give me any
more chances of meeting those dukes and princes than he can help.”
“I want to know! Why not?”
“Just listen to me, and ask yourself. Since I was ’most a baby, I’ve
known that some way my folks were different from other girls’ fathers
and mothers. I guess it was pappa’s high-toned manners, and mamma’s
never having more than half a voice in her own house; and you know as
well as I do, though we don’t have other people see it, what an icy
terror pappa can be yet when he likes. Why, we wouldn’t be here if he
could have helped it.” Maimie smiled grimly at this allusion to the
circumstances attending their departure for England. Mr Steinherz,
summoned suddenly to London on the business of his Euphrates
Syndicate, had telegraphed to his daughter that he was leaving New
York by the next day’s boat. Félicia, who had for years demanded a
visit to Europe in vain, was touched in her tenderest point. Telegrams
flashed backwards and forwards, and when Mr Steinherz went on board,
the first person he saw was his daughter, holding a farewell reception
of her fashionable friends, with Maimie and a maid and a marvellous
pile of luggage in the background.
“Yes, we fixed things pretty smartly that time,” pursued Félicia;
“but he has played it awfully low down on us since, Maimie. I think
it’s real mean of him to bring us along to this hotel, where there are
only dowdy English people, and not let us go to the Continent at all,
except that two days in Paris. And to have us decline all of those
invitations that Lord Usk would have got us!”
“But he hasn’t been ugly, Fay, as he might have been. And when you
think of some girls’ folks----”
“Oh, I know. Why, there’s Sadie van Zyl, in the smartest set here and
the very toniest society everywhere--what she must suffer when she has
to produce either her husband or her father! I don’t wonder she has a
nerve-attack most times, and goes off to some cure or other.”
“Well, now, you need never feel badly like that, you know.”
“That’s so, but then I never have the chance of exhibiting pappa. I
should admire to have him go with us to all sorts of places, but he
won’t. Now, Maimie, if those Van Rensselaer girls knew just this, what
would they say? Why, that there was some reason why he didn’t care to
show himself in Europe. That may be so, or it may not; I don’t choose
to inquire, but I incline to think that he settled in the States
because he had taken a hand in some political game, and it didn’t
eventuate just the way he hoped it would. Whatever the mystery was,
your mother was in it, but not your father.” Maimie nodded. “Then
we’ll take that as understood, and you’ll see I have to hoe my own
row. Now Lord Usk is real nice to pappa, and from all we hear I don’t
see but pappa will think his folks just lovely. So I’m on.”
“Wait, just wait!” entreated Maimie. “Don’t go ahead so fast.”
“Now, Maimie, you’re going to give up all of this foolishness--see?
I’m watching out for an investment in real estate, and here’s Lord Usk
just hungering to be developed. I shall have him run for
Parliament--it’s quite a toney thing to do here--and then I’ll push
him up step by step.”
“He’ll turn ugly,” prophesied Maimie. “He just loves the country----”
“Maimie Logan, are you going to tell me I don’t know how to fix things
any way I want them? He will stay in town when I choose, and take me
abroad when I choose, and go way down into the country when I let him.
Say, Maimie, don’t yank all of my hair right out!”
“You are forgetting his folks. I don’t see but you’ll have trouble
with them.”
“They won’t trouble me any. The old lord and lady won’t be encouraged
to come around much in town. I guess their influence wouldn’t be
helpful.”
“Why, Fay Steinherz, I’m sure they’re real good, from what he
says--church members and all that.”
“I’m not running him for church elder, Maimie. Lord Caerleon is just a
Temperance crank, and the old lady never put on a Paris gown nor
attended a smart function in her life. And they’re not smiled upon in
the really good set because of those Eastern adventures they have on
hand all the time. I have some use for the uncle Mr Hicks talks about,
that married some queen or other, but that’s different. Of course I’ll
visit at the Castle, and ask people there for shooting-parties and
that. One must be in the country some time, I suppose. I wonder if
there’s a dower-house, or whatever they call it in books? If there is,
I guess the old folks might be brought to see the propriety of
retiring to it, and leaving the Castle to us.”
“You seem to have got everything fixed up pretty nicely.”
“That is so. This outfit will be run on strict business lines, you’ll
see. Pappa has me start under a disadvantage by his unfatherly
conduct, but I wipe that out by marrying Usk. Then all depends on
myself, and I can’t afford to have sentiment spoil my plans. I’ll see
myself a duchess or _vicereine_ of India yet.”