"It was, my dear. He was very restive. You've no notion of all the
things he wanted to do. It wanted a pretty strong hand, and a light
one too, I can tell you. But I was determined you should have your
head. That woman Disthal--"
Priscilla started.
"You don't like her?" inquired the Prince sympathetically.
"No."
"I was afraid you couldn't. But I didn't know how to manage that part.
She's in London."
Priscilla started again. "I thought--I thought she was in bed," she
said.
"She was, but she got out again. Your--departure cured her."
"Didn't you tell me nobody was round the corner?"
"Well, you don't call London round the corner? I wouldn't let her come
any nearer to you. She's waiting there quite quietly."
"What is she waiting for?" asked Priscilla quickly.
"Come now, she's your lady in waiting you know. It seems natural
enough she should wait, don't it?"
"No," said Priscilla, knitting her eyebrows.
"Don't frown. She had to come too. She's brought some of your women
and a whole lot"--he glanced at the blue serge suit and put his hand
up to his moustache--"a whole lot of clothes."
"Clothes?" A wave of colour flooded her face. She could not help it at
the moment any more than a starving man can help looking eager when
food is set before him. "Oh," she said, "I hope they're the ones I was
expecting from Paris?"
"I should think it very likely. There seem to be a great many. I never
saw so many boxes for one little cousin."
Priscilla made a sudden movement with her hands. "You can't think,"
she said, "how tired I am of this dress."
"Yes I can," the Prince assured her.
"I've worn it every day."
"You must have."
"Every single day since the day I--I--"
"The day you ran away from me."
She blushed. "I didn't run away from you. At least, not exactly. You
were only the last straw."
"A nice thing for a man to be."
"I ran because--because--oh, it's a long story, and I'm afraid a very
foolish one."
A gleam came into the Prince's eyes. He took a step nearer her, but
immediately thinking better of it took it back again. "Perhaps," he
said pleasantly, "only the beginning was foolish, and you'll settle
down after a bit and get quite fond of Creeper Cottage."
She looked at him startled.
"You see my dear it was rather tremendous what you did. You must have
been most fearfully sick of things at Kunitz. I can well understand
it. You couldn't be expected to like me all at once. And if I had to
have that Disthal woman at my heels wherever I went I'd shoot myself.
What you've done is much braver really than shooting one's self. But
the question is do you like it as much as you thought you would?"
Priscilla gave him a swift look, and said nothing.
"If you don't, there's the Disthal waiting for you with all those
charming frocks, and all you've got to do is to put them on and go
home."
"But I can't go home. How can I? I am disgraced. My father would never
let me in."
"Oh I'd arrange all that. I don't think you'd find him angry if you
followed my advice very carefully. On the other hand, if you like
this and want to stay on there's nothing more to be said. I'll say
good-bye, and promise you shall be left in peace. You shall be left to
be happy entirely in your own way."
Priscilla was silent.
"You don't--look happy," he said, scrutinizing her face.
She was silent.
"You've got very thin. How did you manage that in such a little
while?"
"We've muddled things rather," she said with an ashamed sort of smile.
"On the days when I was hungry there wasn't anything to eat, and then
when there were things I wasn't hungry."
The Prince looked puzzled. "Didn't that old scamp--I mean didn't the
excellent Fritzing bring enough money?"
"He thought he did, but it wasn't enough."
"Is it all gone?"
"We're in debt."
Again he put his hand up to his moustache. "Well I'll see to all that,
of course," he said gravely. "And when that has been set right you're
sure you'll like staying on here?"
She summoned all her courage, and looked at him for an instant
straight in the face. "No," she said.
"No?"
"No."
There was another silence. He was standing on the hearthrug, she on
the other side of the table; but the room was so small that by putting
out his hand he could have touched her. A queer expression was in his
eyes as he looked at her, an expression entirely at variance with his
calm and good-natured talk, the exceedingly anxious expression of a
man who knows his whole happiness is quivering in the balance. She did
not see it, for she preferred to look at the table-cloth.
"Dreadful things have happened here," she said in a low voice.
"What sort?"
"Horrid sorts. Appalling sorts."
"Tell me."
"I couldn't bear to."
"But I think I know."
She looked at him astonished.
"Mrs. Pearce--"
"She told you?"
"What she knew she told me. Perhaps there's something she doesn't
know."
Priscilla remembered Robin, and blushed.
"Yes, she told me about that," said the Prince nodding.
"About what?" asked Priscilla, startled.
"About the squire intending to marry you."
"Oh," said Priscilla.
"It seems hard on him, don't it? Has it struck you that such things
are likely to occur pretty often to Miss Maria-Theresa Ethel
Neumann-Schultz?"
"I'm afraid you really have come only to laugh," said Priscilla, her
lips quivering.
"I swear it's only to see if you are happy."
"Well, see then." And throwing back her head with a great defiance she
looked at him while her eyes filled with tears; and though they
presently brimmed over, and began to drop down pitifully one by one,
she would not flinch but went on looking.
"I see," said the Prince quietly. "And I'm convinced. Of course, then,
I shall suggest your leaving this."
"I want to."
"And putting yourself in the care of the Disthal."
Priscilla winced.
"Only her temporary care. Quite temporary. And letting her take you
back to Kunitz."
Priscilla winced again.
"Only temporarily," said the Prince.
"But my father would never--"
"Yes my dear, he will. He'll be delighted to see you. He'll rejoice."
"Rejoice?"
"I assure you he will. You've only got to do what I tell you."
"Shall you--come too?"
"If you'll let me."
"But then--but then--"
"Then what, my dear?"
She looked at him, and her face changed slowly from white to red and
red to white again. Fritzing's words crossed her mind--"If you marry
him you will be undoubtedly eternally lost," and her very soul cried
out that they were folly. Why should she be eternally lost? What
cobwebs were these, cobwebs of an old brain preoccupied with shadows,
dusty things to be swept away at the first touch of Nature's vigorous
broom? Indeed she thought it far more likely that she would be
eternally found. But she was ashamed of herself, ashamed of all she
had done, ashamed of the disgraceful way she had treated this man,
terribly disillusioned, terribly out of conceit with herself, and she
stood there changing colour, hanging her head, humbled, penitent,
every shred of the dignity she had been trained to gone, simply
somebody who has been very silly and is very sorry.
The Prince put out his hand.
She pretended not to see it.
The Prince came round the table. "You know," he said, "our engagement
hasn't been broken off yet?"
Her instinct was to edge away, but she would not stoop to edging. "Was
it ever made?" she asked, not able to induce her voice to rise above a
whisper.
"Practically."
There was another silence.
"Why, then--" began Priscilla, for the silence had come to be more
throbbing, more intolerably expressive than any speech.
"Yes?" encouraged the Prince, coming very close.
She turned her head slowly. "Why, then--" said Priscilla again, her
face breaking into a smile, half touched, half mischievous, wholly
adorable.
"I think so too," said the Prince; and he shut her mouth with a kiss.
* * * * *
"And now," said the Prince some time afterwards, "let us go to that
old sinner Fritzing."
Priscilla hung back, reluctant to deal this final blow to the heart
that had endured so many. "He'll be terribly shocked," she said.
But the Prince declared it had to be done; and hand in hand they went
out into the street, and opening Fritzing's door stood before him.
He was still absorbed in his Æschylus, had been sitting absorbed in
the deeds of the dead and departed, of the long dead Xerxes, the long
dead Darius, the very fish, voiceless but voracious, long since as
dead as the most shredded of the sailors,--he had been sitting
absorbed in these various corpses all the while that in the next room,
on the other side of a few inches of plaster and paper, so close you
would have thought his heart must have burned within him, so close you
would have thought he must be scorched, the living present had been
pulsing and glowing, beating against the bright bars of the future,
stirring up into alertness a whole row of little red-headed souls till
then asleep, souls with golden eyelashes, souls eager to come and be
princes and princesses of--I had almost revealed the mighty nation's
name. A shadow fell across his book, and looking up he saw the two
standing before him hand in hand.
Priscilla caught her breath: what white anguish was going to flash
into his face when he grasped the situation? Judge then of her
amazement, her hesitation whether to be pleased or vexed, to laugh or
cry, when, grasping it, he leaped to his feet and in tones of a most
limitless, a most unutterable relief, shouted three times running
"_Gott sei Dank_!"