IV

Ten minutes elapsed.

Pontycroft, in silence, smoked and wafted the rings of his cigarette

towards Florence. And then Ruth reappeared.

She looked pale in the dusk, agitated. In her hands were a couple of

letters, she held out one to Lucilla.

“Read it,”--her voice trembled,--“Tell me what I have done to be

so insulted,” she commanded; and then she turned away her face, and

suddenly she began to weep. Pontycroft watched her in consternation. He

had never, in all the years he had known her, he had never seen Ruth in

tears.

Lucilla took the letter, blazoned with a gold crown. She read down the

page, she turned over to the next, she read on to the end.

“May I see it?--May I see it, Ruth?” Pontycroft asked gently.

Ruth bowed her head. As Pontycroft read she looked at him, her hands

lying idly in her lap; and she saw his face cloud as he read. But he,

having finished the communication, fell silent for a moment.

“Poor Bertram!” he let fall at last, dropping the letter upon the table.

“_Poor_ Bertram!” cried Ruth. She dabbed her eyes, she made an immense,

unsuccessful effort to control herself, quell the ire in her heart.

“Poor Bertram!” she broke forth scornfully. “What have I done, _what can

I have done_, to be subjected to such an indignity? Did I lead him on?

If I had encouraged him! Lucilla, speak, speak the truth. You both know

I did nothing of the sort!” And Ruth stamped her foot. “Has the Heir

Apparent to that obscure little Principality called Altronde had any

encouragement from me of any kind?... Notwithstanding his visits here,

notwithstanding the amusement you've had at my expense!” Ruth looked

wrathfully at Pontycroft. “And this, this deliberate, this detestable,

this cold-blooded proposition. And you can say '_Poor_ Bertram'!” But

then she fell to sobbing violently.

Lucilla flew to her, folded protecting arms about her.

“Ruth, dear, don't feel so.... Darling! I don't wonder, I do not

wonder!... But after all, for him, it is an impossible predicament. He

is to be pitied. You can do nothing better than to feel sorry for him.

He's madly in love with you,--that's too evident. Presently you'll be

able to laugh at it,--at him.”

“_Laugh_ at it?” Ruth cried. “Ah, how lightly it hits you! Laugh at

it?... I shall never laugh at it, I shall never laugh at it. I can

shudder and wonder at the monstrous pride it reveals, the arrogance of a

little Princeling called to reign over his obscure little Principality.”

She drew herself up.

“Here is that dear old uncle of mine,” said she, tightening her clasp

upon the letter she still held in her hand,--“My uncle, who writes to me

for the ninetieth time: 'The string is on the latchet of the door, why

not come and pay a visit to your old home, have a look at your ancestral

acres'?”

“Oh,” exclaimed Ruth rather hysterically, “I _will_ go and have a look

at my ancestral acres! And these Wohenhoffens, these Bertrandoni,

who are they to fancy themselves privileged to offer me a morganatic

marriage with their son? But I execrate them! I execrate everything they

represent! I, Ruth Adgate, to have been exposed to it!” And now, again,

she began to sob.

Pontycroft looked exceedingly distressed.

“Child, child,” he said, “you may believe that Lucilla and I never

remotely dreamed of this dénouement. I'm not in the least surprised at

your indignation,--your horror,--but I am not in the least surprised,

either, that poor Bertram, in the tangle of his environment, with his

tradition, and impelled by a hopeless passion (oh, my prophetic eye),

did what he could, has written offering you the only honourable thing he

could offer you, a morganatic marriage. Absurd, outrageous though this

sounds to you, it is a legal marriage, and remember that the poor chap's

in a hole, a dreadful box. Shed rather a pitying tear upon his blighted

young affections.... He can't hope to have you, knew probably how you'd

take his offer, but he gritted his teeth and made it like the wholly

decent chap he is.

“And I would even wax pathetic,” continued Pontycroft, “when I think of

him. Could any fate be more depressing than his? _You'll_ never speak to

him again! While he, poor fellow, is doomed to marry some sallow

Grand Duchess for the sake of the Dynasty. Farewell love, farewell

comradry, farewell all the nice, easy-going businesses of life. Buck up

and be a Crown Prince! Become a puppet, a puppet on exhibition to

your subjects. Whatever you like to do that's gay, that's human,

debonair,--you'll have to do it on the sly as though it were a sin,

or overcome mountains of public censure. In fact, whether you please

yourself or whether you don't--the majority will always find fault with

you. Poor Bertram, I say, poor old Bertram.... His proud Wohenhoffen

of a mother is the only member of that Royal trio, I fancy, who is

thoroughly pleased with the new order of affairs, for Civillo will soon

be making matters hot for himself if he doesn't turn over a new leaf.”

V

Ruth dried her eyes.

“You were quite right when you talked of wintering in the North, Harry,”

she said at length, still somewhat tremulous. “It doesn't seem as though

in the North this could possibly have happened. I think you know,” she

took Lucilla's hand, “I think I shall try wintering in the North--I'll

accept my uncle's invitation; I'll pull the string on the latchet, I'll

go and have a look at the old man and at my bleak New England acres.

After all,” added Ruth, with rather a wan smile, “I suppose it's

something to have acres, though one has never realised the fact or

thought of it before. I haven't an idea what mine are like, but it will

be good to walk on them, to feel I've got them. Here I'm always made to

feel such a plebeian.--Yes, I'm _made_ to feel such a plebeian. Oh no,

not by you,” Ruth clasped Lucilla's hand and looked affectionately, a

trifle, too, defiantly towards Pontycroft, “but they all seem to think,

even the rather ordinary ones, like Mrs. Wilberton and Stuart Seton, an

American exists to be patronised. No pedigree. An American! Well, who

knows, perhaps I have a pedigree. I'll go at least where I can't be

patronised, where they know about me.”

Pontycroft gave a laugh, which rang not altogether gaily.

“In other words, Miss Adgate must have her experience,” he said.

“Miss Adgate's had all she wants of the old world.--She must be on with

the new. Besides, her pride's been wounded.... A prince has offered her

matrimony, morganatic but honourable marriage. That won't do for her.

She's wounded in her feelings, outraged by the suggestion, and she

includes the whole of Europe in her resentment. _Oh, my dear young

lady_” said Pontycroft after another moment's silence, “don't talk to

me of pride! You Americans are the devil for pride. Ruth, you've been

toadied to and you fancy you've been patronised.... Well, well, have

your experience. What great results from little causes flow! Prove to us

that you're not only as good but a great deal better than any of us.

We poor humble folk, we'll submit to anything, if when you've had your

experience and are satisfied, you'll come back to us. But you don't mean

it, you don't mean it! Or, if you go you'll return, you'll not forsake

your adopted country, your father's friends, your's.”

Ruth's eyes darkened.

“Haven't you always, both of you, been too good to me?” she cried,

reproachfully. “Ever since I was a little child, you and Lucilla, you

know that you two have been, ever shall be, in my heart of hearts. But

I must get away from all this; I must do something!... I must find

myself!” she cried. “Say what you will, think what you like, this

proposition is too loathsome. It has opened my eyes to so many things I

had only felt, before! It may be all a question of wounded pride, as

you say, but I know it's the proper sort of pride. I've seen it now, the

whole, whole, unfriendly situation, in a flash. Lucilla,” she pleaded,

“you'll sympathise with me; you won't condemn me if I go, you'll never

think I love you an ounce the less?”

Lucilla stroked Ruth's hand.

“My dear,” said she, “the thing's a sheer incredible bolt out of the

blue, incredible! I believe,” she said, rounding upon her brother, “I

believe it's the outcome of Pontycroft's foolish talk,--the result of

his passion for being paradoxical or perish. Here we were--having

our teas quite innocently in the garden, like the dear nice people we

are,--perfectly happy, absolutely content,--as why shouldn't we be in

this paradise?” Lucilla opened her blue eyes wide upon the landscape

and glanced accusingly at Pontycroft. “But you've precipitated us into

a mess,” she said to him, “with your ribald talk about wintering in our

water-soaked British Islands. Then comes this ridiculous letter,--and,

of course, Ruth can't sit still under it. Yes, it is perhaps after all,

a wholesome notion of yours, Ruth, a visit to your own country. It's

the best bath you can take to wash out the taste left by Bertram's

well-meant but preposterous letter. Besides,” she laughed, “you'll come

back to us! America can't gobble you up for ever. But what shall we do

without you!--And as for Harry, I feel sorry for him. He'll find no one

to give him the change when he's in the mood for teasing, no one to keep

him in his proper place. He'll become unbearable.”

“Oh,” fleered Pontycroft, “if Ruth forsakes us I will go back to _my_

native land! I'll go where I can toast my shins before my fireside and

experience the solid comforts of a British Winter.... I'll go home to

my duties, go where I can worry my tenants, read Mudie the livelong day;

feel that I, too, am somebody!”

Ruth smiled, rather forlornly.

“I want you to observe,” Pontycroft with mock contrition enlarged, “how

one evil deed begets a quantity of others--a congeries of miseries out

of which, at last, good springeth like the flowering beanstalk. In idle

hour (mark the magic potency of words), I speak of wintering in the

North. Now as you've been told more than once,--idleness is the parent

of wickedness. Lucilla assures me that in my paradoxical idleness I am

a parent to a quite unexpected degree. Now observe,--the offer of a

morganatic marriage follows speedily on the heels of my sin, the sin of

an idle paradox. Then Ruth becomes guilty of the sin of anger--tossing

her pretty head and stamping her pretty foot, she declares she won't

play in our yard any longer. She stamps her pretty foot and announces

she's going back to her own New England apple orchard. The rudiments

of her Nonconformist, New England conscience, thoroughly roused,--her

thoughts fly towards home and her aged uncle. In my remorse, I, in

virtue not to be outdone, decide to go back to my duties. Lucilla,

conventionalised British matron that _au fond_ she is, spite of her

protests, already, because she must, assembles to her soul her list of

social obligations at Dublin, the frocks to plan, and the dinner parties

to give prior to the coming out and Presentation at Court of her eldest

child. Home, home, home,” murmured Pontycroft, “sweet home is the tune

we'll all be whistling within a month. Lucilla will carol it from her

bog because it isn't considered polite to whistle in Ireland; but

I, from my Saxon heath and Ruth from God's country will imitate the

blackbirds. Could any tune be more acceptable to the Nonconformist

conscience? Ruth, you perceive, already begins to dominate! Columbia,

Ruler of the sea and wave--see how she sends us about our neglected

and obvious affairs. High-ho for Winter in the North,” said Ponty. “But

meantime I'm going to array myself for dinner and here comes Pietro.”

“Thank Heaven for the trivialities of life,” Lucilla put in with

fervour. “Ruth, shall we don our best gowns in honour of the unexpected?

Harry may dub this the call to duty; I know it's never anything so dull.

I know that the spirit of adventure he's hailed has seized upon both of

you, is lifting us all, will-he nill-he, out of our beautiful _dolce

far niente_ into something restless, violent, and tiresome. As for

me--there's nothing, naught left for me, poor me! to do but to follow

your lead.”

“Yes, by all means,” Ruth lightly acquiesced.

“We'll put our best frocks on; and let us hope the call to duty decked

in purple and fine linen, masquerading as the spirit of adventure, may

lead us up to consummations....” She broke off. “Devoutly to be wished

for,” she whispered to herself under her breath.