The Green Mouse Part 32

"Oh, no, no! I--that would make me--comparatively--happy!"

"To be married to me, and to know you would never again see me?"

"Yes. Will you?"

"Yes," he said soothingly. And yet a curious little throb of pain flickered in his heart for a moment, that, mad as she undoubtedly was, she should be so happy to be rid of him forever.

He came slowly across the room to the table on which she was sitting. She drew back instinctively, but an ominous ripping held her.

"Are you going for a license and a--a clergyman?" she asked.

"Oh, no," he said gently, "that is not necessary. All we have to do is to take each other's hands--so----"

She shrank back.

"You will have to let me take your hand," he explained.

She hesitated, looked at him fearfully, then, crimson, laid her slim fingers in his.

The contact sent a quiver straight through him; he squared his shoulders and looked at her.... Very, very far away it seemed as though he heard his heart awaking heavily.

What an uncanny situation! Strange--strange--his standing here to humor the mad whim of this stricken maid--this wonderfully sweet young stranger, looking out of eyes so lovely that he almost believed the dead intelligence behind them was quickening into life again.

"What must we do to be married?" she whispered.

"Say so; that is all," he answered gently. "Do you take me for your husband?"

"Yes.... Do you t-take me for your--wife?"

"Yes, dear----"

"Don't say _that_!... Is it--over?"

"All over," he said, forcing a gayety that rang hollow in the pathos of the mockery and farce.... But he smiled to be kind to her; and, to make the poor, clouded mind a little happier still, he took her hand again and said very gently:

"Will it surprise you to know that you are now a princess?"

"A--_what?_" she asked sharply.

"A princess." He smiled benignly on her, and, still beaming, struck a not ungraceful att.i.tude.

"I," he said, "am the Crown Prince of Rumtifoo."

She stared at him without a word; gradually he lost countenance; a vague misgiving stirred within him that he had rather overdone the thing.

"Of course," he began cheerfully, "I am an exile in disguise--er-- disinherited and all that, you know."

She continued to stare at him.

"Matters of state--er--revolution--and that sort of thing," he mumbled, eying her; "but I thought it might gratify you to know that I am Prince George of Rumtifoo----"

"_What!_"

The silence was deadly.

"Do you know," she said deliberately, "that I believe you think I am mentally unsound. _Do_ you?"

"I--you--" he began to stutter fearfully.

"_Do_ you?"

"W-well, either you or I----"

"Nonsense! I _thought_ that marriage ceremony was a miserably inadequate affair!... And I am hurt--grieved--amazed that you should do such a--a cowardly----"

"What!" he exclaimed, stung to the quick.

"Yes, it is cowardly to deceive a woman."

"I meant it kindly--supposing----"

"That I am mentally unsound? Why do you suppose that?"

"Because--Good Heavens--because in this century, and in this city, people who never before saw one another don't begin to talk of marrying----"

"I explained to you"--she was half crying now, and her voice broke deliciously--"I told you what I'd done, didn't I?"

"You said you had got a spark," he admitted, utterly bewildered by her tears. "Don't cry--please don't. Something is all wrong here--there is some terrible misunderstanding. If you will only explain it to me----"

She dried her eyes mechanically: "Come here," she said. "I don't believe I did explain it clearly."

And, very carefully, very minutely, she began to tell him about the psychic waves, and the instrument, and the new company formed to exploit it on a commercial basis.

She told him what had happened that morning to her; how her disobedience had cost her so much misery. She informed him about her father, and that florid and rotund gentleman's choleric character.

"If you are here when I tell him I'm married," she said, "he will probably frighten you to death; and that's one of the reasons why I wish to get it over and get you safely away before he returns. As for me, now that I know the worst, I want to get the worst over and--and live out my life quietly somewhere.... So now you see why I am in such a hurry, don't you?"

He nodded as though stunned, leaning there on the table, hands folded, head bent.

"I am so very sorry--for you," she said. "I know how you must feel about it. But if we are obliged to marry some time had we not better get it over and then--never--see--one another----"

He lifted his head, then stood upright.

Her soft lips were mute, but the question still remained in her eyes.

So, for a long while, they looked at each other; and the color under his cheekbones deepened, and the pink in her cheeks slowly became pinker.

"Suppose," he said, under his breath, "that I--wish--to return--to you?"