Rebellious thoughts were flitting through the brain of Paul Zalenska as
he rode forth the next morning, tender and fanciful ones, too, as he
watched the sun's kisses fall on leaf and flower and tree, drying with
their soft, insistent warmth the tears left by the dew of night, and
wooing all Nature to awake--to look up with glorious smiles, for the
world, after all, is beautiful and full of love and laughter.
Why should _not_ Paul be happy? Was he not twenty, and handsome, and
rich, and popular, and destined for great things? Was there a want in
the world that he could not easily have satisfied, had he so desired?
And was he not officially betrothed to the Princess Elodie of Austria--
"Damn the Princess Elodie!" he thought, with more emphasis than
reverence, and he rode along silently, slowly, a frown clouding his
fresh, boyish brow, face to face with the prose of the existence he
would fain have had all romance and poetry.
It had all been arranged for him by well-meaning minds--minds that could
never see how the blessing they had intended to bestow might by any
chance become a curse.
The Boy came of age in February next--February nineteenth--but it had
been the strongly expressed wish of his mother that his coronation
should not take place until May.
For was it not in May that she had met her Paul?
She had felt, from the birth of the young Prince, a presentiment of her
own early death, and had formed many plans and voiced many preferences
for his future. No one knew what personal reasons the Imperatorskoye had
for the wish, but she had so definitely and unmistakably made the desire
known to all her councillors that none dreamed of disobeying the mandate
of their deceased and ever-to-be-lamented Queen. Her slightest wish had
always been to them an Unassailable law.
So the coronation ceremonies were to take place in the May following the
Prince's birthday, and the Regent had arranged that the marriage should
also be celebrated at that time. Of course, the Boy had acquiesced. He
saw no reason to put it off any longer. It was always best to swallow
your bitterest pill first, he thought, and get the worst over and the
taste out of your mouth as soon as possible.
Until that eventful time, the Prince was free to go where he pleased,
and to do whatever he wished. He had insisted upon this liberty, and the
Regent, finding him in all other respects so amenable to his leading,
gladly made the concession. This left him a year--that is, nearly a
year, for it was June now--of care-free bachelorhood; a year for one,
who was yet only a dreamy boy, to acquire the proper spirit for a happy
bridegroom; a year of Father Paul!
He rode along aimlessly for a short distance, scarcely guiding his
horse, and only responding to the greetings of acquaintances he chanced
to meet with absent-minded, though still irreproachable, courtesy. He
was hardly thinking at all, now--at least consciously. He was simply
glad to be alive, as Youth is glad--in spite of any possible, or
impossible, environment.
Suddenly his eyes fell upon a feminine rider some paces in advance, who
seemed to attract much attention, of which she was--apparently
--delightfully unconscious. Paul marked the faultless proportions of her
horse.
"What a magnificent animal!" he thought. Then, under his breath, he
added, "and what a stunning rider!"
She was only a girl--about eighteen or nineteen, he should judge by her
figure and the girlish poise of her small head--but she certainly knew
how to ride. She sat her horse as though a part of him, and controlled
his every motion as she would her own.
"Just that way might she manage a man," Paul thought, and then laughed
aloud at the absurdity of the thought. For he had never seen the girl
before.
Paul admired a good horsewoman--they are so pitifully few. And he
followed her, at a safe distance, with an interest unaccountable, even
to him. Finally she drew rein before one of the houses facing the Row,
dismounted, and throwing the train of her habit gracefully over her arm,
walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul instantly likened her to a
bird, so lightly tripping over the walk that her feet scarcely seemed to
touch the ground. She was a wee thing--certainly not more than five foot
tall--and _petite_, almost to an extreme. The Boy had expressed a
preference, only a few days before, for tall, magnificent women. Now he
suddenly discovered that the woman for a man to love should by all means
be short and small. He wondered why it had never occurred to him in that
light before, and thought of Jacques' question about Rosalind, "What
stature is she of?" and Orlando's reply, "As high as my heart!"
The girl who had aroused this train of thought had reached the big stone
steps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her shoulder, just
as he passed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what eyes those
were!--full of mystery and magnetism, and--possibilities!
For an instant their eyes clung together in that strange mingling of
glances that sometimes holds even utter strangers spell-bound by its
compelling force.
Then she turned and entered the house, and Paul rode on.
But that glance went with him. It tormented him, troubled him, perplexed
him. He felt a mad desire to turn back, to follow her into that house,
and compel her to meet his eyes again. Did she know the power of her own
eyes? Did she know a look like that had almost the force of a caress?
He told himself that they were the most beautiful eyes that he had ever
seen--and yet he could not have told the color of them to save his soul.
He began to wonder about that. It vexed him that he could not remember.
"Eyes!" he thought, "those are not eyes! They are living magnets,
drawing a fellow on and on, and he never stops to think what color they
are--nor _care!_"
And then he pulled himself up sharply, and declared himself a madman
for raving on the street in broad daylight over the mere accidental
meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He--the uncrowned king of a
to-be-glorious throne! He--the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie
of--Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and the
Park trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that should
have made them hide in shame over the depravity of youth.
But the strangest thing of all was that the Boy, for the nonce, was not
thinking of--nor listening for--the voice!
He turned as he reached the end of the Row and rode slowly back. But the
horses and groom had already gone from the gate. And inwardly cursing
his slowness, he started on a trot for Berkeley Square.
He was not very far from the Verdayne house, when, turning a sudden
corner, he came upon the girl again, riding at a leisurely pace in the
opposite direction. Startled by his unexpected appearance, she glanced
back over her shoulder as she passed, surprising him--and perhaps
herself, too, for girls do that sometimes--by a ringing and tantalizing
laugh!
That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was _the voice_!
It was she--Opal!
He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he was, she was yet swifter
and was far down the street before he was fairly started in pursuit. His
one desire of the moment was to catch and conquer the sprite that
tempted him.
Her veil fluttered out behind her on the breeze, like a signal of
no-surrender, and once--only once--she looked back over her shoulder.
She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint of her eye, but he
heard the echo of that laugh--that voice--and it spurred him on and on.
Suddenly, by some turn known only to herself, she eluded him and escaped
beyond his vision--and beyond his reach. He halted his panting horse at
the crossing of several streets, and swore again. But though he looked
searchingly in every possible direction, there was no trace of the
fugitive to be seen. It was as though the earth had opened and
swallowed horse and rider in one greedy gulp.
Baffled and more disappointed than he cared to own, Paul rode slowly
back to Berkeley Square, his heart bounding with the excitement of the
chase and yet thoroughly vexed over his failure, at himself, his horse,
the girl.
At the house he found letters from the Regent awaiting him, recalling to
him his position and its unwelcome responsibilities. One of them
enclosed a full-length photograph of his future bride.
Fate had certainly been kind to him by granting his one expressed wish.
The Princess Elodie was what he had desired, "quite six-foot tall." Yet
he pushed the portrait aside with an impatient gesture, and before his
mental vision rose a little figure tripping up the steps, with a
backward glance that still seemed to pierce his very soul.
He was not thinking, as he certainly should have been, of the Princess
Elodie! And he had not even noticed whether she had any eyes or not!
He looked again at the picture of the Austrian princess, lying face
upward upon the pile of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept the
offending portrait into a drawer, and summoning Vasili, began to make a
hasty toilet.
Vasili had never seen his young master in such bad humor. He was
unpardonably late for luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surely
not to such an extent as this!
He was greatly disturbed by something. There was no denying that.
He had found the voice, but--