CHAPTER LI

AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT

The morning was sultry with the first rising of the sun. I knew that

Ottilia and Janet would be out. For myself, I dared not leave the house.

I sat in my room, harried by the most penetrating snore which can ever

have afflicted wakeful ears. It proclaimed so deep-seated a peacefulness

in the bosom of the disturber, and was so arrogant, so ludicrous, and

inaccessible to remonstrance, that it sounded like a renewal of our

midnight altercation on the sleeper's part. Prolonged now and then beyond

all bounds, it ended in the crashing blare whereof utter wakefulness

cannot imagine honest sleep to be capable, but a playful melody twirled

back to the regular note. He was fast asleep on the sitting-room sofa,

while I walked fretting and panting. To this twinship I seemed condemned.

In my heart nevertheless there was a reserve of wonderment at his

apparent astuteness and resolution, and my old love for him whispered

disbelief in his having disgraced me. Perhaps it was wilful

self-deception. It helped me to meet him with a better face.

We both avoided the subject of our difference for some time: he would

evidently have done so altogether, and used his best and sweetest manner

to divert me: but when I struck on it, asking him if he had indeed told

me the truth last night, his features clouded as though with an effort of

patience. To my consternation, he suddenly broke away, with his arms up,

puffing and stammering, stamping his feet. He would have a truce--he

insisted on a truce, I understood him to exclaim, and that I was like a

woman, who would and would not, and wanted a master. He raved of the

gallant down-rightedness of the young bloods of his day, and how

splendidly this one and that had compassed their ends by winning great

ladies, lawfully, or otherwise. For several minutes he was in a state of

frenzy, appealing to his pattern youths of a bygone generation, as to

moral principles--stuttering, and of a dark red hue from the neck to the

temples. I refrained from a scuffle of tongues. Nor did he excuse himself

after he had cooled. His hand touched instinctively for his pulse, and,

with a glance at the ceiling, he exclaimed, 'Good Lord!' and brought me

to his side. 'These wigwam houses check my circulation,' said he. 'Let us

go out-let us breakfast on board.'

The open air restored him, and he told me that he had been merely

oppressed by the architect of the inferior classes, whose ceiling sat on

his head. My nerves, he remarked to me, were very exciteable. 'You should

take your wine, Richie,--you require it. Your dear mother had a low-toned

nervous system.' I was silent, and followed him, at once a captive and a

keeper.

This day of slackened sails and a bright sleeping water kept the

yachtsmen on land; there was a crowd to meet the morning boat. Foremost

among those who stepped out of it was the yellow-haired Eckart, little

suspecting what the sight of him signalled to me. I could scarcely greet

him at all, for in him I perceived that my father had fully committed

himself to his plot, and left me nothing to hope. Eckart said something

of Prince Hermann. As we were walking off the pier, I saw Janet

conversing with Prince Ernest, and the next minute Hermann himself was

one of the group. I turned to Eckart for an explanation.

'Didn't I tell you he called at your house in London and travelled down

with me this morning!' said Eckart.

My father looked in the direction of the princes, but his face was for

the moment no index. They bowed to Janet, and began talking hurriedly in

the triangle of road between her hotel, the pier, and the way to the

villas: passing on, and coming to a full halt, like men who are not

reserving their minds. My father stept out toward them. He was met by

Prince Ernest. Hermann turned his back.

It being the hour of the appointment, I delivered Eckart over to Temple's

safe-keeping, and went up to Janet. 'Don't be late, Harry,' she said.

I asked her if she knew the object of the meeting appointed by my

grandfather.

She answered impatiently, 'Do get him away from the prince.' And then: 'I

ought to tell you the princess is well, and so on--pardon me just now:

Grandada is kept waiting, and I don't like it.'

Her actual dislike was to see Prince Ernest in dialogue with my father,

it seemed to me; and the manner of both, which was, one would have said,

intimate, anything but the manner of adversaries. Prince Ernest appeared

to affect a pleasant humour; he twice, after shaking my father's hand,

stepped back to him, as if to renew some impression. Their attitude

declared them to be on the best of terms. Janet withdrew her attentive

eyes from observing them, and threw a world of meaning into her

abstracted gaze at me. My father's advance put her to flight.

Yet she gave him the welcome of a high-bred young woman when he entered

the drawing-room of my grandfather's hotel-suite. She was alone, and she

obliged herself to accept conversation graciously. He recommended her to

try the German Baths for the squire's gout, and evidently amused her with

his specific probations for English persons designing to travel in

company, that they should previously live together in a house with a

collection of undisciplined chambermaids, a musical footman, and a mad

cook: to learn to accommodate their tempers. 'I would add a touch of

earthquake, Miss Ilchester, just to make sure that all the party know one

another's edges before starting.' This was too far a shot of nonsense for

Janet, whose native disposition was to refer to lunacy or stupidity, or

trickery, whatsoever was novel to her understanding. 'I, for my part,'

said he, 'stipulate to have for comrade no man who fancies himself a born

and stamped chieftain, no inveterate student of maps, and no dog with a

turn for feeling himself pulled by the collar. And that reminds me you

are amateur of dogs. Have you a Pomeranian boar-hound?'

'No,' said Janet; 'I have never even seen one'

'That high.' My father raised his hand flat.

'Bigger than our Newfoundlands!'

'Without exaggeration, big as a pony. You will permit me to send you one,

warranted to have passed his distemper, which can rarely be done for our

human species, though here and there I venture to guarantee my man as

well as my dog.'

Janet interposed her thanks, declining to take the dog, but he dwelt on

the dog's charms, his youth, stature, appearance, fitness, and grandeur,

earnestly. I had to relieve her apprehensions by questioning where the

dog was.

'In Germany,' he said.

It was not improbable, nor less so that the dog was in Pomerania

likewise.

The entry of my aunt Dorothy, followed by my grandfather, was silent.

'Be seated,' the old man addressed us in a body, to cut short particular

salutations.

My father overshadowed him with drooping shoulders.

Janet wished to know whether she was to remain.

'I like you by me always,' he answered, bluff and sharp.

'We have some shopping to do,' my aunt Dorothy murmured, showing she was

there against her will.

'Do you shop out of London?' said my father; and for some time he

succeeded in making us sit for the delusive picture of a comfortable

family meeting.

My grandfather sat quite still, Janet next to him. 'When you've finished,

Mr. Richmond,' he remarked.

'Mr. Beltham, I was telling Miss Beltham that I join in the abuse of

London exactly because I love it. A paradox! she says. But we seem to be

effecting a kind of insurance on the life of the things we love best by

crying them down violently. You have observed it? Denounce them--they

endure for ever! So I join any soul on earth in decrying our dear London.

The naughty old City can bear it.'

There was a clearing of throats. My aunt Dorothy's foot tapped the floor.

'But I presume you have done me the honour to invite me to this

conference on a point of business, Mr. Beltham?' said my father,

admonished by the hint.

'I have, sir,' the squire replied.

'And I also have a point. And, in fact, it is urgent, and with your

permission, Mr. Beltham, I will lead the way.'

'No, sir, if you please.

I'm a short speaker, and go to it at once, and I won't detain you a

second after you've answered me.'

My father nodded to this, with the conciliatory comment that it was

business-like.

The old man drew out his pocket-book.

'You paid a debt,' he said deliberately, 'amounting to twenty-one

thousand pounds to my grandson's account.'

'Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts!

. . . but use your own terms, I pray you.'

'I don't ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where you

got it from.'

'You speak bluntly, my dear sir.'

'You won't answer, then?'

'You ask the question as a family matter? I reply with alacrity, to the

best of my ability: and with my hand on my heart, Mr. Beltham, let me

assure you, I very heartily desire the information to be furnished to me.

Or rather--why should I conceal it? The sources are irregular, but a

child could toddle its way to them--you take my indication. Say that I

obtained it from my friends. My friends, Mr. Beltham, are of the kind

requiring squeezing. Government, as my chum and good comrade, Jorian

DeWitt, is fond of saying, is a sponge--a thing that when you dive deep

enough to catch it gives liberal supplies, but will assuredly otherwise

reverse the process by acting the part of an absorbent. I get what I get

by force of arms, or I might have perished long since.'

'Then you don't know where you got it from, sir?'

'Technically, you are correct, sir.'

'A bird didn't bring it, and you didn't find it in the belly of a fish.'

'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to

believe; they did not happen to me.'

'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave

you that sum?'

'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary

circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at

nothing.'

'You suppose you got it from some fool?'

'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?'

'You pretend you got it from Government?'

'I am termed a Pretender by some, Mr. Beltham. The facts are these: I

promised to refund the money, and I fulfilled the promise. There you have

the only answer I can make to you. Now to my own affair. I come to

request you to demand the hand of the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld on

behalf of my son Harry, your grandson; and I possess the assurance of the

prince, her father, that it will be granted. Doubtless you, sir, are of

as old a blood as the prince himself. You will acknowledge that the

honour brought to the family by an hereditary princess is considerable:

it is something. I am prepared to accompany you to his Highness, or not,

as you please. It is but a question of dotation, and a selection from one

or two monosyllables.'

Janet shook her dress.

The squire replied: 'We 'll take that up presently. I haven't quite done.

Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?'

'The usual agent--a solicitor, Mr. Beltham; a gentleman whose business

lay amongst the aristocracy; he is defunct; and a very worthy old

gentleman he was, with a remarkable store of anecdotes of his patrons,

very discreetly told: for you never heard a name from him.'

'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?'

'To condense a long story, sir, the kernel of the matter is, that almost

from the hour I began to stir for the purpose of claiming my

rights--which are transparent enough this old gentleman--certainly from

no sinister motive, I may presume--commenced the payment of an annuity;

not sufficient for my necessities, possibly, but warrant of an agreeable

sort for encouraging my expectations; although oddly, this excellent old

Mr. Bannerbridge invariably served up the dish in a sauce that did not

agree with it, by advising me of the wish of the donator that I should

abandon my Case. I consequently, in common with my friends, performed a

little early lesson in arithmetic, and we came to the one conclusion open

to reflective minds--namely, that I was feared.'

My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time.

'Janet and I have some purchases to make,' she said.

The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was.

'I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night,' said

Janet.

I suggested that, as my presence did not seem to be required, I could

take her on my arm for a walk to the pier-head.

Her face was burning; she would gladly have gone out, but the squire

refused to permit it, and she nodded over her crossed hands, saying that

she was in no hurry.

'Ha! I am,' quoth he.

'Dear Miss Beltham!' my father ejaculated solicitously. 'Here, sir,

oblige me by attending to me,' cried the squire, fuming and blinking. 'I

sent for you on a piece of business. You got this money through a

gentleman, a solicitor, named Bannerbridge, did you?'

'His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham.'

'Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?'

She faltered: 'I knew him .... Harry was lost in the streets of London

when he was a little fellow, and the Mr. Bannerbridge I knew found him

and took him to his house, and was very kind to him.'

'What was his Christian name?'

I gave them: 'Charles Adolphus.'

'The identical person!' exclaimed my father.

'Oh! you admit it,' said the squire. 'Ever seen him since the time Harry

was lost, Dorothy?'

'Yes,' she answered. 'I have heard he is dead:

'Did you see him shortly before his death?'

'I happened to see him a short time before!

'He was your man of business, was he?'

'For such little business as I had to do.'

'You were sure you could trust him, eh?'

'Yes.'

My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply.

'By God, ma'am, you're a truthful woman!'

The old man gave her a glare of admiration.

It was now my turn to undergo examination, and summoned by his apostrophe

to meet his eyes, I could appreciate the hardness of the head I had to

deal with.

'Harry, I beg your pardon beforehand; I want to get at facts; I must ask

you what you know about where the money came from?'

I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it.

'Government? eh?' he sneered.

'I really can't judge whether it came from that quarter,' said I.

'What do you think?--think it likely?'

I thought it unlikely, and yet likelier than that it should have come

from an individual.

'Then you don't suspect any particular person of having sent it in the

nick of time, Harry Richmond?'

I replied: 'No, sir; unless you force me to suspect you.'

He jumped in his chair, astounded and wrathful, confounded me for

insinuating that he was a Bedlamite, and demanded the impudent reason of

my suspecting him to have been guilty of the infernal folly.

I had but the reason to instance that he was rich and kind at heart.

'Rich! kind!' he bellowed. 'Just excuse me--I must ask for the purpose of

my inquiry;--there, tell me, how much do you believe you 've got of that

money remaining? None o' that Peterborough style of counting in the back

of your pate. Say!'

There was a dreadful silence.

My father leaned persuasively forward.

'Mr. Beltham, I crave permission to take up the word. Allow me to remind

you of the prize Harry has won. The prince awaits you to bestow on him

the hand of his daughter--'

'Out with it, Harry,' shouted the squire.

'Not to mention Harry's seat in Parliament,' my father resumed, 'he has a

princess to wife, indubitably one of the most enviable positions in the

country! It is unnecessary to count on future honours; they may be

alluded to. In truth, sir, we make him the first man in the country. Not

necessarily Premier: you take my meaning: he possesses the combination of

social influence and standing with political achievements, and rank and

riches in addition--'

'I 'm speaking to my grandson, sir,' the squire rejoined, shaking himself

like a man rained on. 'I 'm waiting for a plain answer, and no lie.

You've already confessed as much as that the money you told me on your

honour you put out to interest; psh!--for my grandson was smoke. Now

let's hear him.'

My father called out: 'I claim a hearing! The money you speak of was put

out to the very highest interest. You have your grandson in Parliament,

largely acquainted with the principal members of society, husband of an

hereditary princess! You have only at this moment to propose for her

hand. I guarantee it to you. With that money I have won him everything.

Not that I would intimate to you that princesses are purchaseable. The

point is, I knew how to employ it.'

'In two months' time, the money in the Funds in the boy's name--you told

me that.'

'You had it in the Funds in Harry Richmond's name, sir.'

'Well, sir, I'm asking him whether it's in the Funds now.'

'Oh! Mr. Beltham.'

'What answer's that?'

The squire was really confused by my father's interruption, and lost

sight of me.

'I ask where it came from: I ask whether it's squandered?' he continued.

'Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so

immediately.'

'What 's he saying?' cried the baffled old man.

'I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.'

'Is the money there?'

'The lady is here.'

'I said money, sir.'

'A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.' My grandfather's

brows and mouth were gathering for storm. Janet touched his knee.

'Where the devil your understanding truckles, if you have any, I don't

know,' he muttered. 'What the deuce--lady got to do with money!'

'Oh!' my father laughed lightly, 'customarily the alliance is, they say,

as close as matrimony. Pardon me. To speak with becoming seriousness, Mr.

Beltham, it was duly imperative that our son should be known in society,

should be, you will apprehend me, advanced in station, which I had to do

through the ordinary political channel. There could not but be a

considerable expenditure for such a purpose.'

'In Balls, and dinners!'

'In everything that builds a young gentleman's repute.'

'You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry

Richmond's sake?'

'On my veracity, I did, sir!'

'Please don't talk like a mountebank. I don't want any of your roundabout

words for truth; we're not writing a Bible essay. I try my best to be

civil.'

My father beamed on him.

'I guarantee you succeed, sir. Nothing on earth can a man be so

absolutely sure of as to succeed in civility, if he honestly tries at it.

Jorian DeWitt,--by the way, you may not know him--an esteemed old friend

of mine, says--that is, he said once--to a tolerably impudent fellow whom

he had disconcerted with a capital retort, "You may try to be a

gentleman, and blunder at it, but if you will only try to be his humble

servant, we are certain to establish a common footing." Jorian, let me

tell you, is a wit worthy of our glorious old days.'

My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath.

'Well, sir, I didn't ask you here for your opinion or your friend's, and

I don't care for modern wit.'

'Nor I, Mr. Beltham, nor I! It has the reek of stable straw. We are of

one mind on that subject. The thing slouches, it sprawls. It--to quote

Jorian once more--is like a dirty, idle, little stupid boy who cannot

learn his lesson and plays the fool with the alphabet. You smile, Miss

Ilchester: you would appreciate Jorian. Modern wit is emphatically

degenerate. It has no scintillation, neither thrust nor parry. I compare

it to boxing, as opposed to the more beautiful science of fencing.'

'Well, sir, I don't want to hear your comparisons,' growled the squire,

much oppressed. 'Stop a minute . . .'

'Half a minute to me, sir,' said my father, with a glowing reminiscence

of Jorian DeWitt, which was almost too much for the combustible old man,

even under Janet's admonition.

My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the

floor, and he at once drew in.

'Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.'

'You do? Then tell me what brought this princess to England?'

'The conviction that Harry had accomplished his oath to mount to an

eminence in his country, and had made the step she is about to take less,

I will say, precipitous: though I personally decline to admit a pointed

inferiority.'

'You wrote her a letter.'

'That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate

illness, was the finishing touch to the noble lady's passion.'

'Attack? I know nothing about an attack. You wrote her a letter and wrote

her a lie. You said he was dying.'

'I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.'

'You said he had only a few days to live.'

'So in my affliction I feared.'

'Will you swear you didn't write that letter with the intention of

drawing her over here to have her in your power, so that you might

threaten you'd blow on her reputation if she or her father held out

against you and all didn't go as you fished for it?'

My father raised his head proudly.

'I divide your query into two parts. I wrote, sir, to bring her to his

side. I did not write with any intention to threaten.'

'You've done it, though.'

'I have done this,' said my father, toweringly: 'I have used the power

placed in my hands by Providence to overcome the hesitations of a

gentleman whose illustrious rank predisposes him to sacrifice his

daughter's happiness to his pride of birth and station. Can any one

confute me when I assert that the princess loves Harry Richmond?'

I walked abruptly to one of the windows, hearing a pitiable wrangling on

the theme. My grandfather vowed she had grown wiser, my father protested

that she was willing and anxious; Janet was appealed to. In a

strangely-sounding underbreath, she said, 'The princess does not wish

it.'

'You hear that, Mr. Richmond?' cried the squire.

He returned: 'Can Miss Ilchester say that the Princess Ottilia does not

passionately love my son Harry Richmond? The circumstances warrant me in

beseeching a direct answer.'

She uttered: 'No.'

I looked at her; she at me.

'You can conduct a case, Richmond,' the squire remarked.

My father rose to his feet. 'I can conduct my son to happiness and

greatness, my dear sir; but to some extent I require your grandfatherly

assistance; and I urge you now to present your respects to the prince and

princess, and judge yourself of his Highness's disposition for the match.

I assure you in advance that he welcomes the proposal.'

'I do not believe it,' said Janet, rising.

My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying: 'In justice to Harry the

proposal should be made. At least it will settle this dispute.'

Janet stared at her, and the squire threw his head back with an amazed

interjection.

'What! You're for it now? Why, at breakfast you were all t' other way!

You didn't want this meeting because you pooh-poohed the match.'

'I do think you should go,' she answered. 'You have given Harry your

promise, and if he empowers you, it is right to make the proposal, and

immediately, I think.'

She spoke feverishly, with an unsweet expression of face, that seemed to

me to indicate vexedness at the squire's treatment of my father.

'Harry,' she asked me in a very earnest fashion, 'is it your desire? Tell

your grandfather that it is, and that you want to know your fate. Why

should there be any dispute on a fact that can be ascertained by crossing

a street? Surely it is trifling.'

Janet stooped to whisper in the squire's ear.

He caught the shock of unexpected intelligence apparently; faced about,

gazed up, and cried: 'You too! But I haven't done here. I 've got to

cross-examine . . . Pretend, do you mean? Pretend I'm ready to go? I can

release this prince just as well here as there.'

Janet laughed faintly.

'I should advise your going, grandada.'

'You a weathercock woman!' he reproached her, quite mystified, and fell

to rubbing his head. 'Suppose I go to be snubbed?'

'The prince is a gentleman, grandada. Come with me. We will go alone. You

can relieve the prince, and protect him.'

My father nodded: 'I approve.'

'And grandada--but it will not so much matter if we are alone, though,'

Janet said.

'Speak out.'

'See the princess as well; she must be present.'

'I leave it to you,' he said, crestfallen.

Janet pressed my aunt Dorothy's hand.

'Aunty, you were right, you are always right. This state of suspense is

bad all round, and it is infinitely worse for the prince and princess.'

My aunt Dorothy accepted the eulogy with a singular trembling wrinkle of

the forehead.

She evidently understood that Janet had seen her wish to get released.

For my part, I shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their

unaccountable changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them

over to baffle him. The old man tried to insist on their sitting down

again, but Janet perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She

spoke to him softly. He was one black frown; displeased with her;

obedient, however.

Too soon after, I had the key to the enigmatical scene. At the moment I

was contemptuous of riddles, and heard with idle ears Janet's promptings

to him and his replies. 'It would be so much better to settle it here,'

he said. She urged that it could not be settled here without the whole

burden and responsibility falling upon him.

'Exactly,' interposed my father, triumphing.

Dorothy Beltham came to my side, and said, as if speaking to herself,

while she gazed out of window, 'If a refusal, it should come from the

prince.' She dropped her voice: 'The money has not been spent? Has it?

Has any part of it been spent? Are you sure you have more than three

parts of it?'

Now, that she should be possessed by the spirit of parsimony on my behalf

at such a time as this, was to my conception insanely comical, and her

manner of expressing it was too much for me. I kept my laughter under to

hear her continue: 'What numbers are flocking on the pier! and there is

no music yet. Tell me, Harry, that the money is all safe; nearly all; it

is important to know; you promised economy.'

'Music did you speak of, Miss Beltham?' My father bowed to her gallantly.

'I chanced to overhear you. My private band performs to the public at

midday.'

She was obliged to smile to excuse his interruption.

'What's that? whose band?' said the squire, bursting out of Janet's hand.

'A private band?'

Janet had a difficulty in resuming her command of him. The mention of the

private band made him very restive.

'I 'm not acting on my own judgement at all in going to these foreign

people,' he said to Janet. 'Why go? I can have it out here and an end to

it, without bothering them and their interpreters.'

He sang out to me: 'Harry, do you want me to go through this form for

you?--mn'd unpleasant!'

My aunt Dorothy whispered in my ear: 'Yes! yes!'

'I feel tricked!' he muttered, and did not wait for me to reply before he

was again questioning my aunt Dorothy concerning Mr. Bannerbridge, and my

father as to 'that sum of money.' But his method of interrogation was

confused and pointless. The drift of it was totally obscure.

'I'm off my head to-day,' he said to Janet, with a sideshot of his eye at

my father.

'You waste time and trouble, grandada,' said she.

He vowed that he was being bewildered, bothered by us all; and I thought

I had never seen him so far below his level of energy; but I had not seen

him condescend to put himself upon a moderately fair footing with my

father. The truth was, that Janet had rigorously schooled him to bridle

his temper, and he was no match for the voluble easy man without the

freest play of his tongue.

'This prince!' he kept ejaculating.

'Won't you understand, grandada, that you relieve him, and make things

clear by going?' Janet said.

He begged her fretfully not to be impatient, and hinted that she and he

might be acting the part of dupes, and was for pursuing his inauspicious

cross-examination in spite of his blundering, and the 'Where am I now?'

which pulled him up. My father, either talking to my aunt Dorothy, to

Janet, or to me, on ephemeral topics, scarcely noticed him, except when

he was questioned, and looked secure of success in the highest degree

consistent with perfect calmness.

'So you say you tell me to go, do you?' the squire called to me. 'Be good

enough to stay here and wait. I don't see that anything's gained by my

going: it's damned hard on me, having to go to a man whose language I

don't know, and he don't know mine, on a business we're all of us in a

muddle about. I'll do it if it's right. You're sure?'

He glanced at Janet. She nodded.

I was looking for this quaint and, to me, incomprehensible interlude to

commence with the departure of the squire and Janet, when a card was

handed in by one of the hotel-waiters.

'Another prince!' cried the squire. 'These Germans seem to grow princes

like potatoes--dozens to a root! Who's the card for? Ask him to walk up.

Show him into a quiet room. Does he speak English?'

'Does Prince Hermann of--I can't pronounce the name of the place--speak

English, Harry?' Janet asked me.

'As well as you or I,' said I, losing my inattention all at once with a

mad leap of the heart.

Hermann's presence gave light, fire, and colour to the scene in which my

destiny had been wavering from hand to hand without much more than

amusedly interesting me, for I was sure that I had lost Ottilia; I knew

that too well, and worse could not happen. I had besides lost other

things that used to sustain me, and being reckless, I was contemptuous,

and listened to the talk about money with sublime indifference to the

subject: with an attitude, too, I daresay. But Hermann's name revived my

torment. Why had he come? to persuade the squire to control my father?

Nothing but that would suffer itself to be suggested, though conjectures

lying in shadow underneath pressed ominously on my mind.

My father had no doubts.

'A word to you, Mr. Beltham, before you go to Prince Hermann. He is an

emissary, we treat him with courtesy, and if he comes to diplomatize we,

of course, give a patient hearing. I have only to observe in the most

emphatic manner possible that I do not retract one step. I will have this

marriage: I have spoken! It rests with Prince Ernest.'

The squire threw a hasty glare of his eyes back as he was hobbling on

Janet's arm. She stopped short, and replied for him.

'Mr. Beltham will speak for himself, in his own name. We are not

concerned in any unworthy treatment of Prince Ernest. We protest against

it.'

'Dear young lady!' said my father, graciously. 'I meet you frankly. Now

tell me. I know you a gallant horsewoman: if you had lassoed the noble

horse of the desert would you let him run loose because of his

remonstrating? Side with me, I entreat you! My son is my first thought.

The pride of princes and wild horses you will find wonderfully similar,

especially in the way they take their taming when once they feel they are

positively caught. We show him we have him fast--he falls into our paces

on the spot! For Harry's sake--for the princess's, I beg you exert your

universally--deservedly acknowledged influence. Even now--and you frown

on me!--I cannot find it in my heart to wish you the sweet and admirable

woman of the world you are destined to be, though you would comprehend me

and applaud me, for I could not--no, not to win your favourable

opinion!--consent that you should be robbed of a single ray of your fresh

maidenly youth. If you must misjudge me, I submit. It is the price I pay

for seeing you young and lovely. Prince Ernest is, credit me, not

unworthily treated by me, if life is a battle, and the prize of it to the

General's head. I implore you'--he lured her with the dimple of a lurking

smile--'do not seriously blame your afflicted senior, if we are to

differ. I am vastly your elder: you instil the doubt whether I am by as

much the wiser of the two; but the father of Harry Richmond claims to

know best what will ensure his boy's felicity. Is he rash? Pronounce me

guilty of an excessive anxiety for my son's welfare; say that I am too

old to read the world with the accuracy of a youthful intelligence: call

me indiscreet: stigmatize me unlucky; the severest sentence a judge'--he

bowed to her deferentially--'can utter; only do not cast a gaze of rebuke

on me because my labour is for my son--my utmost devotion. And we know,

Miss Ilchester, that the princess honours him with her love. I protest in

all candour, I treat love as love; not as a weight in the scale; it is

the heavenly power which dispenses with weighing! its ascendancy . . .'

The squire could endure no more, and happily so, for my father was losing

his remarkably moderated tone, and threatening polysyllables. He had

followed Janet, step for step, at a measured distance, drooping toward

her with his winningest air, while the old man pulled at her arm to get

her out of hearing of the obnoxious flatterer. She kept her long head in

profile, trying creditably not to appear discourteous to one who

addressed her by showing an open ear, until the final bolt made by the

frenzied old man dragged her through the doorway. His neck was shortened

behind his collar as though he shrugged from the blast of a bad wind. I

believe that, on the whole, Janet was pleased. I will wager that, left to

herself, she would have been drawn into an answer, if not an argument.

Nothing would have made her resolution swerve, I admit.

They had not been out of the room three seconds when my aunt Dorothy was

called to join them. She had found time to say that she hoped the money

was intact.