"Ah, Miss Dalrymple!"
Her face changed. "An unexpected pleasure, Prince," she said with almost an excess of gaiety.
He answered in kind; she came down the steps quickly, offering him her hand. And as he gallantly raised the small perfumed fingers to his lips, Mr. Heatherbloom seemed to fade away into the dark subterranean entrance.
CHAPTER IV
FATE AT THE DOOR
Although Mr. Heatherbloom waited expectantly that day for his dismissal, it did not come. This surprised him somewhat; then he reflected that Miss Elizabeth Dalrymple was probably so absorbed in the prince--remembering her rather effusive greeting of that fortunate individual--she had forgotten such a small matter as having the dog valet ejected from the premises. She would remember on the morrow, of course.
But she didn"t! The hours pa.s.sed, and he was suffered to go about the even, or uneven, tenor of his way. This he did mechanically; he scrubbed and combed Beauty beautifully. With a dire sense of fate knocking at the door, he pa.s.sed her on to Miss Van Rolsen, to be freshly be-ribboned by that lady"s own particular hand. The thin bony finger he thought would be pointed accusingly at him, busied itself solely with the knots and bows of a new ribbon; after which the grim lady dismissed him--from her presence, not the house--curtly.
Several days went by; still no one accused him; he was still suffered to remain. Why? He could not understand. At the end of a long--seemingly interminable week--he put himself deliberately in the way of finding out. Coming to, or going from the house, he lingered around the area entrance, purposely to encounter her whom he had heretofore, above all others, wished to avoid. A feverish desire possessed him to meet the worst, and then go about his way, no matter where it might lead him. He was past solicitude in that regard. He did at length manage to meet her--not as before in the full daylight but toward dusk, as she returned, this time on foot, to the house.
"Miss Dalrymple, may I speak to you?" he said to the indistinctly seen, slender figure that started lightly up the front steps.
She did not even stop, although she must have heard him; a moment he saw her like a shadow; then the front door opened. He heard a crisp metallic click; the door closed. Slowly with head a little downbent he walked out, up the way she had come; then around the corner a short distance to the stables over which he had his room.
It was a nice room, he had at first thought, probably because he liked horses. They--four or five thoroughbreds--whinnied as he opened the door. He had started up the dark narrow stairs to his chamber, but stopped at that sound and groped about from stall to stall pa.s.sing around the expected lumps of sugar. After which all seemed well as far as he and they were concerned.
Only that other problem!--he could not shake it from him. To resign now?--under fire? How he wished he might! But to remain?--his situation was intolerable. He went up to his room feeling like a ghost; his mind was full of dark presences, as if he had lived a thousand times before and had been surrounded only by hostile influences that now came back in the still watches of the night to haunt him.
He dreaded going to the house the next day, but he went. Perhaps, he reflected, she was only allowing him to retain his present position under a kind of espionage; to trap him and put him beyond the pale of respectable society. He remembered the cruel lips, the pa.s.sionate dislike--contempt--even hatred--in her eyes. Yes; that might be it--the reason for her temporary silence; the house was full of valuable things; sooner or later--
"Are you quite satisfied, Madam, with my services?" said Mr.
Heatherbloom that afternoon to Miss Van Rolsen.
"You seem to do well enough," she answered shortly.
He brightened. "Perhaps some one else would do better."
"Perhaps," she returned dryly. "But I"m not going to try."
"But," he said desperately, "I--I don"t think they--the dogs, like me quite so much as they did. Naughty, in particular," he added quickly.
"I--I thought yesterday he would have liked to--growl and nip at me."
"Did he," she asked, studying him with disconcerting keenness, "actually do that?"
"No. But--"
"Do I understand you wish to give me notice?" she interrupted sharply.
"Not at all." In an alarmed tone. "I couldn"t--I mean I wouldn"t do that. Only I thought you might have felt dissatisfied--people usually do with me," he added impressively. "So if you would like to give me--"
She made a gesture. "That will do. I am very busy this morning. The begging list, though smaller than usual--only three hundred and seventy-six letters--has to be attended to."
Thus the matter of Mr. Heatherbloom"s staying or going continued, much to that person"s discomfiture, _in statu quo_. It is true he found, later, a compromising course; a way out of the difficulty--as he thought, little knowing the extraordinary new web he was weaving!--but before that time came, several things happened. In the first place he discovered that Miss Dalrymple was not entirely pleased at the publication of the story of her engagement to the prince; her position--her family"s and that of Miss Van Rolsen, was such that newspaper advertising or notoriety could not but be distasteful.
"I hope people won"t think I keep a social secretary," Mr. Heatherbloom heard her say.
Yes, heard her. He was in the dogs" "boudoir"; the conservatory adjoined. He could not help being where he was; he belonged there at the time. Nor could he help hearing; he didn"t try to listen; he certainly didn"t wish to, though she had a very sweet voice--that soothed one to a species of lotus dream--forgetfulness of soap-suds, or the odor of canine disinfectant permeating the white foam--
"Why should they think you have a social secretary?" the voice of a man--the prince--inquired.
He had deep fine tones; truly Russian tones, with a subtle vibration in them.
"Because when such things are published about people their secretaries usually put them in," returned the girl.
He was silent a moment; Mr. Heatherbloom thought he heard the breaking of the stem of a flower.
"You were very much irritated--angry?" observed the prince at length, quietly.
"Weren"t you?" she asked.
"I? No. It is a bourgeois confession, perhaps."
Mr. Heatherbloom sat up straighter; the water dripped from his fingers.
"I was pleased," went on the sonorous low voice. "I wished--it were so!"
There was a sudden movement in the conservatory; a rustling of leaves, or of a gown; then--Mr. Heatherbloom relaxed in surprise--a peal of merry laughter filled the air.
"How apropos! How well you said that!"
"Miss Dalrymple!" There was a slightly rising inflection in the man"s tones. "You doubt my sincerity?"
"The sincerity of a Russian prince? No, indeed!" she returned gaily.
"I am in earnest," he said simply.
"Don"t be!" Mr. Heatherbloom could, in fancy, see the flash of a white hand amid red flowers; eyes dancing like violets in the wind. He could perceive, also, as plainly as if he were in that other room, the deep ardent eyes of the prince downbent upon the blither ones, the commanding figure of the man near that other slender, almost illusive presence. A flower to be grasped only by a bold wooer, like the prince!
"Don"t be," she repeated. "You are so much more charming when you are not. I think I heard that line in a play once. One of the Robertson kind; it was given by a stock company in San Francisco. That"s where I came from, you know. Have you ever been there?"
"No," said the prince slowly.
Dark eyes trying to beat down the merriment in the blue ones! Mr.
Heatherbloom could, in imagination, "fill in" all the stage details. If it only were "stage" dialogue; "stage" talk; not "playing with love", in earnest!
"Playing with love!" He had read a book of that name once; somewhere.
In Italy?--yes. It sounded like an Italian t.i.tle. Something very disagreeable happened to the heroine. A woman, or a girl, can not lightly "play with love" with a Sicilian. But, of course, the prince wasn"t a Sicilian.
"No," he was saying now with admirable poise, in answer to her question, "I haven"t visited your wonderful Golden Gate, but I hope to go there some day--with you!" he added. His words were simple; the accent alone made them sound formidable; it seemed to convey an impregnable purpose, one not to be shaken or disturbed.