Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During
the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in
the trains or on the coaches.
"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "I often forget
that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of
George's scrapes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such
stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."
Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and,
oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's search for amusement led him in the
same direction. They met him and his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at
Oban, and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, and the very day
that they arrived in Edinburgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary's
chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling his mustache before her
mirror.
Mr. Perry fell into the background with Miss Hassard. "His Highness is
becoming monotonous!" he grumbled. "These foreigners never know when
they are superfluous in society."
"Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the corner where the prince and
Lucy were eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon the steps.
"Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to show you and Miss Dunbar a live
prince, and I did it. That is done and over with. He has been seen
and heard. There is no reason why he should pop up here and there all
over Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He's becoming a bore."
"You suspect him to be an impostor?" said Jean quickly.
"No. He's genuine enough. But we don't want any foreigners in our
caravan," stroking his red beard complacently.
"No. What do you suppose is his object?" asked Jean, with one of her
quick, furtive glances.
Mr. Perry's jaws grew red as his beard. "How can I tell?" he said
gruffly. He went on irritably, a moment later: "Of course you see it.
The fellow has no delicacy. He makes no more secret of his plans than
if he were going to run down a rabbit. Last night at Stirling, over
his beer, he held forth upon the dimples on Miss Dunbar's pink elbows,
and asked me if her hair were all her own. I said, at last, that
American men did not value women like sheep by their flesh and fleece
and the money they were rated at in the market. I hit him square that
time, prince or no prince!"
"Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. Her keen eyes followed Lucy
and the prince, who were loitering through the gallery, pausing before
the faded portraits. "You think it is only her money that draws him
after us?"
"Why, of course! A fellow like that could not appreciate Miss Dunbar's
beauty and wit."
"You think Lucy witty?" said Jean dryly. "And you think she would not
marry for a title?"
"I don't believe any pure American girl would sell herself, like a
sheep in the shambles! And she is pure! A lamb, a lily! cried Perry,
growing incoherent in his heat.
"She would not if her heart were preoccupied," said Jean thoughtfully.
"And you think----" he said breathlessly.
But Jean only laughed, and said no more.
The guide had been paying profound deference to Prince Wolfburgh,
keeping close to his heels. Now he swung open a door. "If your
Highnesses will come this way?" he said, bowing profoundly to Lucy.
The little girl started and hurried back to Miss Vance. Her face was
scarlet, and she laughed nervously. Prince Wolfburgh also laughed,
loudly and meaningly. He swore at the old man and went out into the
cloister where his cousin stood smoking.
"Had enough of the old barracks?" said the captain.
"I found I was making too fast running in there," said the prince
uneasily; "I'll waken up and find that girl married to me some day."
"Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.
"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no matter where I
go, I'll find an American old woman with a girl to marry. They all
carry the Hof Kalender in their pockets, and know every bachelor in
Germany."
The captain watched him attentively. "I don't believe those women
inside mean to drive any marriage bargain with you, Hugo," he said
gruffly. "I doubt whether the little mees would marry you if you asked
her. Her dot, I hear, is e-normous!" waving his hand upward as if to
mountain heights. "And as for beauty, she is a wild rose!"
Now, there were reasons why the captain should rejoice when Hugo allied
himself to the little mees. On the day when he would take these hills
of gold and wild rose to himself, the captain would become the head of
the house of Wolfburgh. It was, perhaps, a mean, ungilded throne, but
by German law no nameless Yankee woman could sit upon it.
The prince looked at Captain Odo. "You cannot put me into a gallop
when I choose to walk," he said. "She's a pretty girl, and a good
girl, and some time I may marry her, but not now."
Odo laughed good-humoredly, and they sauntered down the path together.
The prince had offered to dine with Miss Vance that evening, but sent a
note to say that he was summoned to the Highlands unexpectedly.
"It is adieu, not auf wiedersehen, I fear, with his Highness," Miss
Vance said, folding the note pensively. She had not meant to drive a
marriage bargain, and yet--to have placed a pupil upon even such a
bric-a-brac throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at
Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The man was not objectionable in
himself, either--a kindly, overgrown boy. "He told me," said Jean,
"that he was going to a house party at Inverary Castle."
"Whose house is that, Jean?" asked Lucy.
"It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll."
"Oh!" Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince Hugo was undeniably fat and very
slow to catch a joke, but there was certainly a different flavor in
this talk of dukes and ancestral seats to the gossip about the Whites
and Greens at home.
Indeed, the whole party, including even Mr. Perry, experienced a
sensation of sudden vacancy and flatness when his Highness left them.
It was as though they had been sheltering a royal eagle that was used
to dwelling in sunlit heights unknown to them, and now they were left
on flat ground to consort with common poultry.