Prince or Chauffeur? Part 4

"Aw, stop yer kiddin'," he said. "All I can say now is that if you try to wake 'em up now they 'll set the dogs on you."

"Very well, let them," interposed Mrs. Wellington. "Now drive on as quickly as possible--and no more talking, please."

The driver had a good look at her as she spoke. His round face became red and pale in turn and he clucked asthmatically to his horse.

"Good Lord," he muttered, "it's herself!"

But he had not much farther to go. Just as they turned into the Harbor Road, a Wellington car came up. The _mecanicien_ had been losing no time, but when he caught sight of the Wellingtons he stopped within a distance which he prided himself was five feet less than any other living driver could have made it in, without breaking the car.

The footman was at the side of the hack in an instant and a.s.sisted the mother and daughter into the tonneau, which they entered in silence.

Mrs. Wellington, in fact, did not speak until the car was tearing past the golf grounds. Here she turned to her daughter with a grim face.

"Anne," she said, "I 've about made up my mind that you escaped being really funny with that impossible hackman."

"Yes, mother," said the girl, absently viewing the steadily rising roof of her home. "Our ideas of humor were ever alien. I wonder if Prince Koltsoff has arrived."

The Crags was one of the few Newport villas bordering on the sea, whose owners and architects had been sufficiently temperamental to take advantage of the natural beauties of its site. Upon huge black rocks, rising twenty-five or thirty feet, the house had been built. Windows on either side looked down upon the waters, ever shattering into white foam on half-hidden reefs, or rus.h.i.+ng relentlessly into rocky, weed-hung fissures or black caverns. Sometimes in the autumn storms when the inrus.h.i.+ng waves would bury deep the grim reefs off Bateman's Point and pile themselves on the very bulwarks of the island, the spray rattled against the windows of The Crags and made the place seem a part of the elemental fury.

In front of the house was an immense stretch of sward, bordered with box and relieved by a wonderful _parterre_ and by walks and drives lined with blue hydrangeas. The stable, garage, and gardener's cottage were far to one side, all but their roofs concealed from the house and the roadway by a small grove of poplars.

Supplementing the processes of Nature by artificial means, Ronald Wellington had had a sort of fjord blasted out of the solid rock on the seaward side, as a pa.s.sage for his big steam yacht, with steps leading from the house to the little wharf. Here lay the _Mayfair_ when not in service; from the road you could see her mast tops, as though protruding from the ground. But now the _Mayfair_ was down in a South Brooklyn s.h.i.+pyard; this thought, recurring to Mrs. Wellington, framed in her mind a mental picture of all that she had undergone as a result of that stupid blowing out of steam valves, which, by the way, had seriously scalded several of the engine-room staff and placed the keenest of edges upon her home-coming mood. No subject of nervous irritability, she. Incidents, affairs, persons, or things qualified to set the fibres of the average woman of her age tingling, were, with her, as the heat to steel; they tempered her, made her hard, keen, cold, resilient.

The butler, flanked by two or three men servants, met them at the door.

Breakfast was served, he said. Prince Koltsoff, indeed, had already arrived, and had breakfasted.

"The Prince--" Mrs. Wellington checked herself and hurried into the breakfast room with inscrutable face. Her daughter followed, smiling broadly.

"The Prince seems to have antic.i.p.ated us," she said.

Mrs. Wellington glanced at the alert-faced second man, who had just brought in the coffee, and compressed her lips into a straight line.

There was no conversation in the course of the short light breakfast.

Anne went to her apartments, while Mrs. Wellington, after arising from the table, stood for a minute gazing from the window toward the polo grounds. Then slowly she mounted the stairs and, entering her boudoir, rang for her maid.

An hour and a half later, ma.s.saged, bathed, and robed in a dainty morning gown, Mrs. Wellington stepped into her "office," than which no one of her husband's many offices was more business-like, and seated herself at a large mahogany desk. Miss Hatch, her secretary, arose from a smaller desk with typewriter attachment and laid before her a number of checks for signing, bills rendered, invitations, and two bank books. Then she resumed her seat in silence.

Mrs. Wellington did not glance at the ma.s.s of matter. With a muttered "Thank you," she gazed thoughtfully at the row of white push b.u.t.tons inlaid at her elbow. There were more than a dozen of them and they ranged from the pantry to the kitchen, from the garage to the stable.

By means of them the mistress of The Crags kept in touch with nearly fifty servants. Here at her desk she could plan her campaigns, lay counter mine against mine, plan stratagems, and devise ideas. Her superiority over those who sought, or had sought in the past, to rival her lay in the fact that she could devise, outline, and execute her projects without a.s.sistance. A former secretary with some degree of literary talent had, upon dismissal, written up that office and its genius for a Sunday newspaper, and several hundred thousand good people, upon reading it, had marvelled at the tremendous means employed to such trivial ends.

But after all, who shall say what is trivial in this world and what is not? Let it rest with the a.s.sertion that in any other sphere, business, sociology, charity, Belle Wellington's genius would have carried her as far as in that domain wherein she had set her endeavors.

As to charity, for that matter, she had given a mountain recluse, a physician, five hundred thousand dollars with which to found a tuberculosis sanitarium, and--but those were things which not even her friends knew and concerning which, therefore, we should remain silent.

Slowly she leaned forward and pressed a b.u.t.ton. Mrs. Stetson, the housekeeper, soon appeared.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Stetson," she said. "Prince Koltsoff seems to have antic.i.p.ated us." She suddenly remembered she had utilized her daughter's expression, and bit her lips. "When did he arrive?"

"He came last night in the French amba.s.sador's carriage."

"Last night!" Mrs. Wellington glanced at her secretary. "Will you bring my engagement book, please." This in hand, she turned the pages hastily, then put it down.

"There has been some mistake. He was not to come to us until luncheon to-day. Was M. Renaud with him?"

"Yes, Mrs. Wellington, but he did not stay. The Prince seemed to know he was not expected. He apologized profusely, but said that events had brought him here a day early and trusted there was no inconvenience.

He did not dine, but spent the evening in the smoking-room, writing.

He sent two cable despatches by Parker."

"Um-m, _degage_, even for a Russian," said Mrs. Wellington. "And he arose early?"

"Very early. He asked Mr. Dawson for a car to go to the village at half after six."

Mrs. Wellington almost revealed her intense interest.

"Ah, to the village," she said. "Did he say--did he explain the reasons for his early trip?"

"No, but Parker told Mr. Dawson he stopped at the telegraph office."

"Where is the Prince now?"

"He is in the morning-room, writing."

"Thank you, Mrs. Stetson."

As the housekeeper left, Mrs. Wellington pressed another b.u.t.ton, summoning the superintendent.

"Mr. Dawson," she said, "you received my wire last night that the _Mayfair_ had broken down and that we were taking the midnight train from New York?"

"Yes, Mrs. Wellington."

"And you thought the Prince was going to meet us with that car? That was the reason for your failure to follow my instructions?"

"Yes, madame, thank you. I supposed Prince Koltsoff knew you were coming and that he had ordered the car to meet you. When this proved wrong I sent Rimini. I am glad he was not late."

"He was late. He met us, packed in a miserable hack. Hereafter I must insist upon strict compliance with my wishes. Do not a.s.sume things, please. Am I quite clear? Thank you." Mrs. Wellington turned from him and pressed still another b.u.t.ton. In a moment the tutor of her two sons, Ronald, sixteen years old, and Royal, twelve, stood before her.

He was a Frenchman, whose facial expression did not indicate that his duties had fallen in the pleasantest of places.

"Good-morning, M. Dumois. Where are my sons?" She spoke in French.

"They attended a party at Bailey's Beach and remained the night with Master Van Antwerp."

"How have they been?"

"Very well, thank you, except--"

"Except?"

"I found Master Ronald smoking a cigarette in the smoking-room yesterday."

Mrs. Wellington dashed a note on her pad.