IV

After his first twenty-four hours in the hills the Professor was ready

to swear that this final refuge was all he had hoped for. The situation

(though he had hardly looked out on it) seemed high yet sheltered; he

had a vague impression of sunshine in his room; and when he went down on

the first morning, after a deep and curative sleep, he at once found

himself in a congenial atmosphere. No effusive compatriots; no bowing

and scraping French; only four or five English people, as much in dread

of being spoken to as he was of their speaking to him. He consumed the

necessary number of square inches of proteins and carbohydrates and

withdrew to his room, as stubbornly ignored as if the other guests had

all thought he was trying to catch their eyes. An hour later he was lost

in his work.

If only life could ever remain on an even keel! But something had made

him suspect it from the first: _there was a baby in the house_. Of

course everybody denied it: the cook said the bowl of pap left by

accident on the stairs was for the cat; the landlady said she had been a

widow twenty years, and did he suppose—? And the _bonne_ denied that

there was a smell of paregoric on the landing, and said that was the way

the scent of mimosa sometimes affected people.

That night, after a constitutional in the garden (ear-pads on), the

Professor went up to his room to resume his writing. For two hours he

wrote uninterruptedly; then he was disturbed by a faint wail. He clapped

on the pads, and continued; but the wail, low as it was, pierced them

like a corkscrew. Finally he laid down his pen and listened, furiously.

Every five minutes the sound came again. “I suppose they’ll say it’s a

kitten!” he growled. No such pretence could deceive him for a moment; he

remembered now that at the moment of entering the house he had noticed a

smell of nursery. If only he had turned straight around and gone

elsewhere! But where?

The idea of a fresh plunge into the unknown made him feel as weak as in

the first stages of convalescence. And then his book had already sunk

such talons into him; he could feel it sucking at his brain like some

hungry animal. And all those people downstairs had been as cold and

stony at dinner as they had at lunch. After two such encounters he was

sure they would never bother him. A Paradise indeed, but for that

serpent!

The wail continued, and he turned in his chair and looked slowly and

desperately about him. The room was small and bare, and had only one

door, the one leading into the passage. He vaguely recalled that, two

nights before, at Monte Carlo, he had been disturbed in much the same

way, and had found means to end the disturbance. What had he done? If

only he could remember!

His eye went back to the door. There was a light under it now; no doubt

someone was up with the child. Slowly his mind dropped from the empyrean

to the level of the crack under the door.

“A couple of towels.... Ah, but, there are no towels!” Almost as the

words formed themselves, his glance lit on a well-garnished rack. What

had made him think there were no towels? Why, he had been reliving the

night at Monte Carlo, where in fact, he now remembered, he could find

none, and to protect himself from the noise next door had had to....

“Oh, my God!” shouted the Professor. His pen clattered to the floor. He

jumped up, and his chair crashed after it. The baby, terror-struck,

ceased to cry. There was an awful silence.

“Oh, my God!” shouted the Professor.

Slowly the vision of that other room came back: he saw himself jumping

up just as wildly, dashing for towels and finding none, and then seizing

a pile of papers and cramming them into the crack under the door.

Papers, indeed! “Oh, my God....”

It was money that he had seized that other night: hundreds of hundred

franc bills; or hundreds of thousands, were they? How furiously he had

crushed and crumpled them in his haste to cram enough stuffing into the

crack! Money—an unbelievable amount of it. But how in the world had it

got there, to whom on earth did it belong?

The Professor sat down on the edge of the bed and took his bursting head

between his hands.

Daylight found him still labouring to reconstitute the succession of

incredible episodes leading up to his mad act. Of all the piles of notes

he had stuffed under the door not one franc had belonged to him. Of that

he was now sure. He recalled also, but less clearly, that some one had

given him a banknote—a hundred francs, he thought; was it on the steamer

at Marseilles, or in the train?—given it with some mysterious injunction

about gambling ... that was as far as he could go at present.... His

mind had come down from the empyrean with a crash, and was still dazed

from its abrupt contact with reality. At any rate, not a penny of the

money was his, and he had left it all under the door in his hotel

bedroom at Monte Carlo. And that was two days ago....

The baby was again crying, but the rest of the house still slept when,

unkempt, unshorn, and with as many loose ends to his raiment as Hamlet,

Professor Hibbart dashed out past an affrighted _bonne_, who cried after

him that he might still catch the _autobus_ if he took the short cut to

the village.

To the Professor any abrupt emergence from his work was like coming to

after a severe operation. He floated in a world as empty of ideas as of

facts, and hemmed with slippery perpendicular walls. All the way to

Monte Carlo those walls were made of the faces in the motorbus, blank

inscrutable faces, smooth secret surfaces up which his mind struggled to

clamber back to the actual. Only one definite emotion survived: hatred

of the being—a woman, was it?—who had given him that fatal hundred franc

note. He clung to that feeling as to a life-belt, waiting doggedly till

it should lift him back to reality. If only he could have recalled his

enemy’s name!

Arrived at Monte Carlo he hailed a taxi and pronounced the one name he

did recall: _Arcadie_! But what chance was there that the first

chauffeur he met would know the title, or remember the site, of that

undistinguished family hotel?

“_Arcadie?_ But, of course! It’s the place they’re all asking for!”

cried the chauffeur, turning without a moment’s hesitation in what

seemed to his fare to be the right direction. Yet how could that obscure

pension be the place “they” were all asking for, and who in the name of

madness were “they”?

“Are you sure—?” the Professor faltered.

“Of finding the way? _Allons donc_; we have only to follow the crowd!”

This was a slight exaggeration, for at that early hour the residential

quarter of Monte Carlo was hardly more populous than when the Professor

had last seen it; but if he had doubted being on the right road his

doubt was presently dispelled by the sight of a well-set-up young man in

tennis flannels, with a bright conversational eye, who came swinging

along from the opposite direction.

“Taber Tring!” cried a voice from the depths of the Professor’s

sub-consciousness; and the Professor nearly flung himself over the side

of the taxi in the effort to attract his friend’s notice.

Apparently he had been mistaken; for the young man, arrested by his

signals, gave back a blank stare from eyes grown suddenly speechless,

and then, turning on his heels, disappeared double-quick down a

side-street. The Professor, thrown back into his habitual uncertainty,

wavered over the question of pursuit; but the taxi was still moving

forward, and before he could decide what to do it had worked its way

through a throng of gaping people and drawn up before a gate surmounted

by the well-remembered _Arcadie_.

“There you are!” the chauffeur gestured, with the air of a parent

humouring a spoilt child.

_There he was!_ The Professor started to jump out, and pushing through

the crowd was confronted with a smoking ruin. The garden gate, under its

lying inscription, led straight into chaos; and behind where _Arcadie_

had stood, other houses, blank unknown houses, were also shouldering up

to gape at the disaster.

“But this is not the place!” remonstrated the Professor. “This is a

house that has burnt down!”

“_Parbleu_,” replied the chauffeur, still humouring him.

The Professor’s temples were bursting.

“But was it—_was_ it—was _this_ the Hotel _Arcadie_?”

The chauffeur shrugged again and pointed to the name.

“When—did it burn?”

“Early yesterday.”

“And the landlady—the person who kept it?”

“_Ah, ça...._”

“But how, in the name of pity, can I find out?”

The chauffeur seemed moved by his distress. “Let Monsieur reassure

himself. There was no loss of life. If Monsieur had friends or

relations....”

The Professor waved away the suggestion.

“We could, of course, address ourselves to the police,” the chauffeur

continued.

The police! The mere sound of the word filled his hearer with dismay.

Explain to the police about that money? How could he—and in his French?

He turned cold at the idea, and in his dread of seeing himself

transported to the _commissariat_ by the too-sympathetic driver, he

hurriedly paid the latter off, and remained alone gazing through the

gate at the drenched and smoking monument of his folly.

The money—try to get back the money? It had seemed almost hopeless

before; now the attempt could only expose him to all the mysterious

perils of an alien law. He saw himself interrogated, investigated, his

passport seized, his manuscript confiscated, and every hope of rational

repose and work annihilated for months to come. He felt himself

curiously eyed by the policeman who was guarding the ruins, and turned

from the scene of the disaster almost as hurriedly as the young man whom

he had taken—no doubt erroneously—for Taber Tring.

Having reached another quarter of the town, he sat down on a bench to

take stock of his situation.

It was exactly what he had done two days before when, on arriving at

Monte Carlo, he had found that he had missed the motorbus; and the

associations of ideas once more came to his rescue.

Gradually there arose in his mind a faint wavering vision of a young

woman, pearled and furred and scented, precipitately descending from his

compartment, and, as she did so, cramming a banknote into his hand.

“The Princess ... the Princess ... _they call me Betsy at the

dressmaker’s_....” That was as far as the clue went; but presently the

Professor remembered that his companion had got out of the train at

Cannes, and it became certain to him that his only hope of clearing his

overburdened conscience would be to take the train to that place, and

there prosecute his almost hopeless search.

V

Not until he found himself seated in the train, and on the point of

starting for Cannes, did the full horror of his situation break on the

Professor. Then, for an hour, he contemplated it in all its intricate

enormity, saw himself as a man dishonoured, ruined (for he now

remembered the full amount of the sum he had to account for), and, worse

still, severed from his best-loved work for a period incalculably long.

For after he had struggled through the preliminary difficulties he would

have to settle down to the slow task of reimbursement, and he knew that,

to earn enough money to repay what he had lost, he must abandon serious

scientific work such as he was now engaged in, and probably

stoop—abominable thought!—to writing popular “science” articles in one

of the illustrated magazines. Such a job had once been offered him on

very handsome terms, and contemptuously rejected; and the best he could

now hope was that there was still an opening for him somewhere between

the Etiquette Column and the notes on Rachel powder and bathing tights.

Arrived at Cannes, he found his way to what appeared to be the

fashionable shopping-street, and exteriorising his attention by an

extreme effort of the will he began to go the rounds of the dressmaking

establishments.

At every one he was received with distinguished politeness, and every

one, by some curious coincidence, had a Betsy to offer him. As the

Betsies were all young, fluffy and rosy, considerable offence was caused

by his rapid rejection of them, and it was in vain that he tried to

close his ears to the crude and disobliging comments which on each

occasion attended his retreat. But he had by this time regained a

sufficiently clear vision of the Princess to be sure that she was not

concealed behind any of the youthful substitutes proposed to him. In

despair he issued from the last shop, and again sat himself down to

consider.

As he did so, his mind gave a queer click, and the doors of his inner

consciousness again swung open. But this time it was only to draw him

back into the creative world from which he had been so violently

ejected. He had suddenly seen a point to be made in the Einstein

controversy, and he began to fumble for a paper on which to jot it down.

He found only one, the closely-scribbled flap of a torn envelope on

which, during the journey to Cannes, he had calculated and re-calculated

the extent of the sum he would have to raise to reimburse the Princess;

but possibly there might be a clear space on the other side. He turned

it over, and there read, in a tall slanting hand:

Princesse Balalatinsky,

Villa _Mon Caprice_, Route de Californie.

He started to his feet, and glanced about him frantically for a taxi. He

had no idea where the Route de Californie was, but in his desperate

circumstances, it seemed as easy to hire a taxi for a five minutes’

transit as for a long expedition. Besides, it was the only way he knew

of being sure of reaching his destination; and to do so as soon as

possible was now a fixed idea.

The taxi carried him a long way; back through the whole length of the

town, out on a flat white dusty road, and then up and up between walls

overhung with luxuriant verdure till, at a turn, it stood still with a

violent jerk.

The Professor looked out, and saw himself confronted by the expressive

countenance of Mr. Taber Tring.

“Oh, my God—you again!” shrieked the young man, turning suddenly white

with fury—or was it rather with fear?

“Why do you say _again_?” questioned the Professor; but his

interlocutor, taking to his heels with unaccountable velocity, had

already disappeared down a verdant by-way.

The Professor leaned back in the taxi in speechless amazement. He was

sure now that the “again” referred to their previous encounter that

morning at Monte Carlo, and he could only conclude that it had become a

fixed habit of Taber Tring’s to run away whenever they met, and that he

ran a great deal too fast for the Professor ever to hope to overtake

him.

“Well,” said the driver, “there’s a gentleman who isn’t pleased. He

thought I had no fare, and expected to get a lift up to the top of this

mountain.”

“I should have been happy to give him a lift,” said the Professor rather

wistfully; to which the driver replied: “He must be a mile off by this

time. He didn’t seem to fancy your looks.”

There was no controverting this statement, mortifying as it was, and

they continued their ascent till a gateway impressively crowned by

heraldic lions admitted them to terraced gardens above which a villa of

ample proportions looked forth upon the landscape.

The Professor was by this time so steeled to the unexpected that he

hardly paused to consider the strange incongruity between the Princess’s

account of her fortunes and the setting in which she lived. He had read

_Mon Caprice_ on the gate, and that was the name on the envelope he had

found in his pocket. With a resolute hand he rang the bell and asked a

resplendent footman if the Princess Balalatinsky were at home.

He was shown through a long succession of drawing-rooms, in the last of

which the Princess rose from the depths of a broad divan. She was

dressed in black draperies, half-transparent—no, half-translucent; and

she stood before the Professor in all the formidable completeness of her

beauty.

Instantly his mind clicked again, and a voice shrilled up at him from

the depths: “You always _knew_ you could still recognize a beautiful

woman when you saw one”; but he closed his ears to the suggestion and

advanced toward the lady.

Before he could take more than three steps she was at his side, almost

at his feet; her burning clasp was on his wrists, and her eyes were

consuming him like coals of fire.

“Master! _Maestro!_ Disguise is useless! You choose to come to me

unannounced; but I was sure you would answer my appeal, and I should

have recognized you anywhere, and among any number of people.” She

lifted his astonished hand to her lips. “It is the penalty of genius,”

she breathed.

“But—” gasped the Professor.

A scented finger was laid across his lips. “Hush: not yet. Let me tell

you first why I ventured to write to you.” She drew him gently down to

an arm-chair beside the divan, and herself sank orientally into its

pillows. “I thought I had exhausted all the emotions of life. At _my_

age—is it not a tragedy? But I was mistaken. It is true that I had tried

philosophy, marriage, mathematics, divorce, sculpture and love; but I

had never attempted the stage. How long it sometimes takes to discover

one’s real vocation! No doubt you may have gone through the same

uncertainties yourself. At any rate, my gift for the drama did not

reveal itself till three months ago, and I have only just completed my

play, ‘The Scarlet Cataract,’ a picture of my life, as the title

suggests—and which, my friends tell me, is not without dramatic merit.

In fact, if I were to listen to them....”

The Professor struggled from his seat. His old fear of her madness had

returned. He began very mildly: “It is quite natural that you should

mistake me for some one else—”

With an inimitable gesture she waved the interruption aside. “But what I

want to explain is that, of course, the leading rôle can have but one

interpreter—Myself. The things happened to _Me_: who else could possibly

know how to act them? Therefore, if I appeal to you—on my knees,

Illustrious Impresario!—it is in my double character as dramatist and

tragédienne; for in spite of appearances my life _has_ been a tragedy,

as you will acknowledge if you will let me outline its principal events

in a few words....”

But here she had to pause a second for breath, and the Professor, on his

feet, actually shouted his protest. “Madam, I cannot let you go on

another moment, first because I’ve heard the story of your life already,

and secondly because I’m not the man you suppose.”

The Princess turned deadly pale. “Impostor!” she hissed, and reached for

an embroidered bell-rope.

Her agitation had the curious effect of calming the Professor. “You had

better not send me away,” he said, “till you learn why I am here. I am

the unhappy man to whom, the day before yesterday, you entrusted a

hundred franc note which you asked him to stake for you at Monte Carlo.

Unfortunately I could not recall your name or address, and I have been

hunting for you through all the dressmakers’ establishments in Cannes.”

The instant lighting-up of her face was a sight so lovely that he almost

forgot his apprehensions and his shame.

“The dressmakers’ shops? Ah—in search of ‘Betsy’! It is true, I was

obliged to act as a _mannequin_ for one day; but since then my fortunes

have miraculously changed—changed thanks to you; for now,” the Princess

continued with enthusiasm, “I do at last recognise my good angel, my

benefactor of the other day, and ask myself how I could have failed to

know you again, how I could have taken you for a vulgar theatrical

manager, you, a man of genius and a Philosopher. Can you ever forgive

me? For I owe you everything—everything—everything!” she sobbed out,

again almost at his knees.

His self-possession continued to increase in proportion to her

agitation. He actually risked laying a hand on her arm and pressing her

mildly back among her cushions.

“Only a change of pronouns,” he said sighing, “is necessary to the

complete accuracy of your last statement.”

But she was off again on a new tack. “That blessed hundred franc note!

From the moment when you took it from me, as I got out of the train, my

luck miraculously and completely changed. I knew you were going to win

some money for me; but how could I have imagined the extent of the

fortune you were to heap at my feet?”

A cold sweat broke out over the Professor. She knew, then—once again her

infernal intuition had pierced his secret! In the train had she not

discovered his name, identified him as the author of “The Elimination of

Phenomena,” and guessed that he was actually engaged in the composition

of another work? At the moment he had fancied that there was a plausible

explanation for each of these discoveries; but he now felt that her

powers of divination were in need of no outward aid. She had risen from

her seat and was once more in possession of his hands.

“You have come to be thanked—and I _do_ thank you!” Her heavy lashes

glittered with tears which threatened to merge with the drops of

moisture rolling down the Professor’s agonized brow.

“Don’t—don’t, I beg!” He freed himself and shrank back. “If you’ll only

let me speak ... let me explain....”

She raised a reproachful finger. “Let you belittle yourself? Let you

reject my gratitude? No—no! Nothing that you can say can make any

difference. The gipsy in the Caucasus told me long ago what you were

going to do for me. And now that you have done it you want to stifle the

thanks on my lips!”

“But you have nothing to thank me for. I have made no money for you—on

the contrary, I—”

“Hush, hush! Such words are blasphemy. Look about you at all this

luxury, this beauty. I expected to have to leave it tomorrow. And thanks

to you, wealth has poured in on me at the moment when I thought I was

face to face with ruin.”

“Madam, you must let me undeceive you. I don’t know who can have brought

you such an erroneous report.” The Professor glanced about him in acute

distress, seeking to escape from her devouring scrutiny. “It is true

that I did make a considerable sum for you, but I—I afterward lost it.

To my shame be it said.”

The Princess hardly appeared to hear him. Tears of gratitude still

rained down her face. “Lost it? A little more, a little less—what does

it matter? In my present pecuniary situation nothing of that sort

counts. I am rich—rich for life! I should, in fact,” she continued with

a gush of candour, “be an absolutely happy woman if I could only find an

impresario who would stage my play.” She lifted her enchanting eyes to

his. “I wonder, by the way, dear friend,” she proposed, “if you would

let me read it to you _now_?”

“Oh, no, no,” the Professor protested; and then, becoming aware of the

offence his words were likely to give, he added precipitately: “Before

we turn to any other subject you must really let me tell you just how

much money I owe you, and what were the unfortunate circumstances in

which....”

But he was conscious that the Princess was no longer listening to him. A

new light had dawned in her face, and the glow of it was already drying

her tears. Slim, palpitating and girlish, she turned toward one of the

tall French windows opening upon the terrace.

“My fiancé—your young compatriot! Here he is! Oh, how happy I am to

bring you together!” she exclaimed.

The Professor followed her glance with a stare of fresh amazement.

Through the half-open window a young man in tennis flannels had strolled

into the room.

“My Taber,” the Princess breathed, “this is my benefactor—_our_

benefactor—this is....”

Taber Tring gently removed the perfect arms which were already

tightening about his neck. “I know who he is,” he said in a hard high

tone. “That’s why I’ve been running away from him ever since early this

morning.”

His good-humoured boyish face was absolutely decomposed by distress.

Without vouchsafing the least attention to the Princess he stood

pallidly but resolutely facing her visitor.

“I’ve been running for all I was worth; at least till a quarter of an

hour ago. Then I suddenly pulled up short and said to myself: ‘Taber

Tring, this won’t do. You were born in the Middle West, but your parents

came from New England, and now’s the time to prove it if you’re ever

going to. Stern and rockbound coast, and _Mayflower_ and all the rest of

it. If there’s anything in it, it ought to come out now.’ And, by George

it _did_; and here I am, ready to make a clean breast of it.”

He drew a silk handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow, which

was as damp with agony as the Professor’s.

But the Professor’s patience had reached its final limit, and he was

determined, whatever happened, to hold all interrupters at bay till he

had made a clean breast of his own.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, “why you avoided my presence this morning

nor why you now seek it; but since you are connected with this lady by

so close a tie, there is no reason why I should not continue in your

presence what I had begun to tell her. I repeat then, Madam, that with

your hundred franc note in my hand, I approached a table and staked the

sum with results so unexpectedly and incredibly favourable that I left

the gaming-rooms just before midnight in possession of—”

“Ninety-nine thousand seven hundred francs and no centimes,” Taber Tring

interposed.

The Professor received this with a gasp of astonishment; but everything

which was happening was so foreign to all the laws of probability as

experienced at Purewater that it did not long arrest his attention.

“You have stated the sum accurately,” he said; “but you do not know that

I am no longer in possession of a penny of it.”

“Oh, don’t I?” groaned Taber Tring, wiping a fresh outbreak of moisture

from his forehead.

The Professor stopped short. “You do know? Ah, but to be sure. You were

yourself a fellow-boarder at _Arcadie_. You were perhaps under its roof

when that disastrous fire broke out and destroyed the whole of the large

sum of money I had so negligently left—”

“Under the door!” shrieked Taber Tring. “Under the door of your room,

which happened to be the one next to mine.”

A light began to dawn on the Professor. “Is it possible that you were

the neighbour whose unseasonable agitation during the small hours of the

night caused me, in the total absence of towels or other available

material, to stuff the money in question under the crack of the door in

order to continue my intellectual labours undisturbed?”

“That’s me,” said Taber Tring sullenly.

But the Princess, who had been listening to the Professor’s disquisition

with a look of lovely bewilderment gradually verging on boredom, here

intervened with a sudden flash of attention.

“What sort of noises proceeded from my Taber’s room at that advanced

hour of the night?” she inquisitorially demanded of the Professor.

“Oh, shucks,” said her betrothed in a weary tone. “Aren’t they all

alike, every one of ’em?” He turned to the Professor. “I daresay I _was_

making a noise. I was about desperate. Stony broke, and didn’t know

which way to turn next. I guess _you_’d have made a noise in my place.”

The Professor felt a stirring of sympathy for the stricken youth. “I’m

sorry for you—very sorry,” he said. “If I had known your situation I

should have tried to master my impatience, and should probably not have

crammed the money under the door; in which case it would not have been

destroyed in the fire....”

(“How like the reflexions of a Chinese sage!” the Princess admiringly

murmured.)

“Destroyed in the fire? It wasn’t,” said Taber Tring.

The Professor reeled back and was obliged to support himself upon the

nearest chair.

“It wasn’t?”

“Trust me,” said the young man. “I was there, and I stole it.”

“You stole it—his money?” The Princess instantly flung herself on his

bosom. “To save your beloved from ruin? Oh, how Christlike—how

Dostoyevskian!” She addressed herself with streaming eyes to the

Professor. “Oh, spare him, sir, for heaven’s sake spare him! What shall

I do to avert your vengeance? Shall I prostitute myself in the streets

of Cannes? I will do anything to atone to you for his heroic gesture in

stealing your money—”

Taber Tring again put her gently aside. “Do drop it, Betsy. This is not

a woman’s job. I stole that money in order to gamble with it, and I’ve

got to pay it back, and all that I won with it too.” He paused and faced

about on the Professor. “Isn’t that so, sir?” he questioned. “I’ve been

puzzling over it day and night for the last two days, and I can’t figure

it out any other way. Hard on you, Betsy, just as we thought our fortune

was made; but my firm conviction, Professor Hibbart, as a man of New

England stock, is that at this moment I owe you the sum of one million

seven hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

“My God,” screamed the Professor, “what system did you play?”

Mr. Tring’s open countenance snapped shut like a steel trap. “That’s my

secret,” he said politely; and the Professor had to acknowledge that it

was.

“I must ask you,” the young man pursued, “to be good enough either to

disprove or to confirm my estimate of my indebtedness to you. How much

should you consider that you owed if you had stolen anybody’s money and

made a lot more with it? Only the sum stolen or the whole amount?

There’s my point.”

“But I did! I have!” cried the Professor.

“Did what?”

“Exactly what you have done. Stole—that is, gambled with a sum of money

entrusted to me for the purpose, and won the large amount you have

correctly stated. It is true,” the Professor continued, “that I had no

intention of appropriating a penny of it; but, believing that my

culpable negligence had caused the whole sum to be destroyed by fire, I

considered myself—”

“Well?” panted Taber Tring.

“As indebted for the entire amount to this lady here—”

Taber Tring’s face became illuminated with sudden comprehension.

“Holy Moses! You don’t mean to say all that money under the door

belonged to Betsy?”

“Every cent of it, in my opinion,” said the Professor firmly; and the

two men stood and stared at each other.

“But, good gracious,” the Princess intervened, “then nobody has stolen

anything!”

The load which had crushed the Professor to earth rolled from his

shoulders, and he lifted the head of a free man. “So it would seem.”

But Taber Tring could only ejaculate once again: “Holy Moses!”

“Then we are rich once more—is it not so, my Taber?” The Princess leaned

a thoughtful head upon her hand. “Do you know, I could almost regret it?

Yes, I regret, dear friends, that you are both blameless, and that no

sacrifice will be demanded of me. It would have been so beautiful if you

had both sinned, and I had also had to sin to save you. But, on the

other hand,” she reflected, with lifted eyes and a smile like heaven, “I

shall now be able to have my play brought out at my own expense. And for

that,” she cried, again possessing herself of Professor Hibbart’s hands,

“for that too I have to thank you! And this is the only way I know of

doing it.”

She flung her arms around his neck and lifted her lips to his; and the

exonerated and emancipated Professor took what she offered like a man.

“And now,” she cried, “for my other hero!” and caught her betrothed to

her heart.

These effusions were interrupted by the entrance of the resplendent

footman, who surveyed them without surprise or disapproval.

“There is at the door,” he announced, “a young lady of the name of Betsy

who is asking for Monsieur.” He indicated the Professor. “She would give

no other name; she said that was enough. She knows Monsieur has been

seeking her everywhere in Cannes, and she is in despair at having missed

him; but at the time she was engaged with another client.”

The Professor turned pale, and Taber Tring’s left lid sketched a

tentative wink.

But the Princess intervened in her most princely manner. “Of course! My

name is Betsy, and you were seeking for _me_ at all the dressmakers’!”

She turned to the footman with her smile of benediction. “Tell the young

lady,” she said, “that Monsieur in his turn is engaged with another

client, who begs her to accept this slight compensation for her

trouble.” She slipped from her wrist a hoop of jade and brilliants, and

the footman withdrew with the token.

“And now,” said the Princess, “as it is past three o’clock, we ought

really to be thinking of _zakouska_.”