The Prince of Graustark Part 31

"Obviously."

"If you had taken the trouble to look, you would have found an equally resplendent G on the opposite end of each and every trunk, Mr. Schmidt," she said quietly.

"I did not examine your luggage, Miss Guile," said he stiffly. She hadn't left much for him to stand upon. "Rather unique way to put one's initials on a trunk, isn't it?"

"It possesses the virtue of originality," she admitted, "and it never fails to excite curiosity. I am sorry you were misled. Nothing could be more distressing than to be mistaken for the heroine of a story and then turn out to be a mere n.o.body in the end. I've no doubt that if the amiable Miss Blithers were to hear of it, she'd rush into print and belabour me with the largest type that money could buy."

"Oh, come now, Miss Guile," he protested, "it really isn't fair to Miss Blithers. She was justified in following an ill.u.s.trious example.

You forget that the Prince of Graustark was the first to rush into print with a flat denial. What else could the poor girl do?"

"Oh, I am not defending the Prince of Graustark. He behaved abominably, rus.h.i.+ng into print as you say. Extremely bad taste, I should call it."

Robin's ears burned. He could not defend himself. There was nothing left for him to do but to say that it "served him jolly well right, the way Miss Blithers came back at him."

"Still," she said, "I would be willing to make a small wager that the well-advertised match comes off in spite of all the denials. Given a determined father, an ambitious mother, a purse-filled daughter and an empty-pursed n.o.bleman, and I don't see how the inevitable can be avoided."

His face was flaming. It was with difficulty that he restrained the impulse to put her right in the matter without further ado.

"Are you sure that the Prince is so empty of purse as all that?" he managed to say, without betraying himself irretrievably.

"There doesn't seem to be any doubt that he borrowed extensively of Mr. Blithers," she said scornfully. "He is under some obligations to his would-be-father-in-law, I submit, now isn't he?"

"I suppose so, Miss Guile," he admitted uncomfortably.

"And therefore owes him something more than a card in the newspapers, don't you think?"

"Really, Miss Guile, I--I--"

"I beg your pardon. The Prince's affairs are of no importance to you, so why should I expect you to stand up for him?"

"I confess that I am a great deal more interested in Miss Blithers than I am in the Prince. By the way, what would you have done had you been placed in her position?"

"I think I should have acted quite as independently as she."

"If your father were to pick out a husband for you, whether or no, you would refuse to obey the paternal command?"

"Most a.s.suredly. As a matter of fact, Mr. Schmidt, my father has expressed a wish that I should marry a man who doesn't appeal to me at all."

"And you refuse?"

"Absolutely."

"More or less as Miss Blithers has done," he said pointedly.

"Miss Blithers, I understand, has the advantage of me in one respect.

I am told that she wants to marry another man and is very much in love with him."

"A chap named Scoville," said Robin, unguardedly.

"You know him, Mr. Schmidt?"

"No. I've merely heard of him. I take it from your remark that you don't want to marry anybody--at present."

"Quite right. Not at present. Now let us talk of something else. _A bas_ Blithers! Down with the plutocrats! Stamp out the vulgarians!

Is there anything else you can suggest?" she cried gaily.

"Long live the Princess Maud!" said he, and doffed his hat. The satirical note in his voice was not lost on her. She started perceptibly, and caught her breath. Then she sank back into the corner with a nervous, strained little laugh.

"You think she will marry him?"

"I think as you do about it, Miss Guile," said he, and she was silenced.

CHAPTER XV

THE MICE IN A TRAP

They had a table in a cool, shady corner of the broad porch overlooking the Place d'Armes and the Seine and its vociferous ferries. To the right runs the gleaming roadway that leads to the hills and glades through which pomp and pride once strode with such fatal arrogance. Blue coated servitors attended them on their arrival, and watched over them during their stay. It was as if Miss Guile were the fairy princess who had but to wish and her slightest desire was gratified. Her guest, a real prince, marvelled not a little at the complete sway she exercised over this somewhat autocratic army of menials. They bowed and sc.r.a.ped, and fetched, and carried, and were not Swiss but slaves in Bagdad during the reign of its most ill.u.s.trious Caliph, Al-haroun Raschid the great. The magic of Araby could have been no more potent than the spell this beautiful girl cast over the house of Mammon. She laid her finger upon a purse of gold and wished, and lo! the wonders of the magic carpet were repeated.

Robin remembered that Maud Applegate Blithers had spent the greater part of her life in Paris, and it was therefore not unreasonable to suppose that she had spent something else as well. At any rate, the Pavilion Bleu was a place where it _had_ to be spent if one wanted the attention accorded the few.

She had removed her veil, but he was not slow to perceive that she sat with her back to the long stretch of porch.

"Do you prefer this place to Armenonville or the Paillard at Pre Catelan, Miss Guile?" he inquired, quite casually, but with a secret purpose.

"No, it is stupid here, as a rule, and common. Still every one goes to the other places in the afternoon and I particularly wanted to be as naughty as possible, so I came here to-day."

"It doesn't strike me as especially naughty," he remarked.

"But it was very, very naughty before you and I were born, Mr.

Schmidt. The atmosphere still remains, if one possesses a comprehensive imagination."

"I daresay," said he, "but the imagination doesn't thrive on tea.

Those were the days of burgundy and a lot of other red things."

"One doesn't need to be in shackles, to expatiate on the terrors of the Bridge of Sighs," she said.

"Are you going to take me up to the park?"

"Yes. Into the Shadows."

"Oh, that's good! I'm sure my imagination will work beautifully when it isn't subdued by all these blue devils. I--_Que voulez vous?_" The question was directed rather sharply to a particularly deferential "blue devil" who stood at his elbow.

"Monsieur Schmidt?"

"Yes. What's this? A letter! 'Pon my soul, how the deuce could any one--" He got no farther, for Miss Guile's action in pulling down her veil and the subsequent spasmodic glance over her shoulder betrayed such an agitated state of mind on her part that his own sensations were checked at the outset.