There! Now you have heard what I followed you out especially to say. I hoped that this would be a chance to establish a confidential relationship between us. _Voulez-vous, ma chere pet.i.te?_"
"What kind of a relationship shall we establish, exactly?" I asked. "You say you don"t want to be my Papa."
"If I were your Papa, I should be dead."
"If you were my brother, and the age you are now, Mamma might as well be dead."
"Ah, I would not be your brother on any consideration. Not even your step-brother; though some step-relationships are delightful. But your Mamma is too charming--you are _all_ too charming, for my peace of mind.
I do not know how I lived before I met you."
I thought that the money-lenders perhaps knew; but there are some things even little Beechy can"t say.
"Your Mamma must have great responsibilities for so young a woman," he went on, while I pruned and prismed. "With her great fortune, and no one to guard her, she must often feel the weight of her burden too heavy for one pair of shoulders."
"One can always spend one"s fortune, and so get rid of the burden, if it"s too big," said I.
The Prince looked horrified. "Surely she is more wise than that?" he exclaimed.
"She hasn"t spent it all yet, anyhow," I said.
"Are you not anxious lest, if your Mamma is extravagant, she may throw away your fortune as well as her own; or did your Papa think of that danger, and make you quite secure?"
"I guess I shall have a little something left, no matter what happens,"
I admitted.
"Then your Papa was thoughtful for you. But was he also jealous for himself? Had I been the husband of so fascinating a woman as your Mamma, I would have put into my will a clause that, if she married again, she must forfeit everything. But it may be that Americans do not hug their jealousy in the grave."
"I can"t imagine poor Papa hugging anything," I said. "I never heard that he objected to Mamma marrying again. Anyhow, she"s had several offers already."
"She should choose a man of t.i.tle for her second husband," said the Prince, very pleased with the way the pump was working.
"Maybe she will," I answered.
He started slightly.
"It should be a t.i.tle worth having," he said, "and a man fitted to bear it, not a paltry upstart whose father was perhaps a tradesman. You, Miss Beechy, must watch over your dear Mamma and rescue her from fortune hunters. I will help. And I will protect _you_, also. As for Miss Destrey, beautiful as she is, I feel that she is safe from unworthy persons who seek a woman only for her money. Her face is her fortune, _n"est-ce pas_?"
"Well, it"s fortune enough for any girl," said I, thinking again of Job and all the other really solemn characters in the Old Testament as hard as ever I could.
The Prince sighed, genuinely this time, as if my answer had confirmed his worst suspicions. "He will be nice to Mamma, now," said little Beechy to big Beechy. "No more vacillating. He"ll come straight to business." And promising myself some fun, I got up from the bench so cautiously that the poor river was cheated of a victim. "Now I _must_ go in," I exclaimed. "_Good_-bye, Prince. Let me see; what are we to each other?"
"Confidants," he informed me. "You are to come to me with every difficulty. But one more word before we part, dear child. Be on your guard, and warn your Mamma to be on hers, with those two adventurers.
Perhaps, also, you had better warn Miss Destrey. Who knows how unscrupulous the pair might be? And unfortunately, owing to the regrettable arrangements at present existing, I cannot always be at hand to watch over you all."
"Owing a little to your automobile too, maybe," said I. "By the way, what is its state of health?"
"There has been no room for the automobile in my thoughts," said the Prince, with a cooled-down step-fatherly smile. "But I have no doubt it will be in good marching order by the time it is wanted, as my chauffeur was to rise at four, knock up a mechanic at some shop in the village, and make the new change-speed lever which was broken yesterday. If you are determined to leave me so soon, I will console myself by finding Joseph and seeing how he is getting on."
We walked together towards the house, which had opened several of its green eyelids now, and at the mouth of a sort of stucco tunnel which led to the door there was Joseph himself--a piteous, dishevelled Joseph, looking as if birds had built nests on him and spiders had woven webs round him for years.
"Well," exclaimed the Prince with the air of one warding off a blow.
"What has happened? Have you burnt my automobile, or are you always like this when you get up early?"
"I am not an incendiary, Your Highness," said Joseph, in his precise French, which it"s easy to understand, because when he wishes to be dignified he speaks slowly. "I do not know what I am like, unless it is a wreck, in which case I resemble your automobile. As you left her last night, so she is now, and so she is likely to remain, unless the gentlemen of the other car will have the beneficence to pull her up a still further and more violent hill to the village of Tenda. There finds himself the only mechanic within fifty miles."
"I engaged _you_ as a mechanic!" cried the Prince.
"But not as a workshop, Your Highness. That I am not and shall not be this side of Paradise. And it is a workshop that we must have."
"Do not let me keep you, Miss Beechy," said the Prince, "if you wish to go to your Mamma. This little difficulty will arrange itself."
I adore rows, and I should have liked to stay; but I couldn"t think of any excuse, so I skipped into the house, and almost telescoped (as they say of railroad trains) with the nice monk, who was talking to Maida in the hall.
I supposed she was telling him about the Sisters, but she was quite indignant at the suggestion, and said she had been asking if we could have breakfast in the garden. The monk had given his consent, and she had intended to have everything arranged out doors, as a surprise, by the time we all came down.
"Aunt Kathryn is up; I"ve been doing her hair," explained Maida, "but we didn"t hear a sound from your room, so we decided not to disturb you.
What _have_ you been about, you weird child?"
"Playing dolls," said I, and ran off to help Mamma put on her complexion.
But it was on already, all except the icing. I confessed the Prince to her, and she looked at me sharply. "Don"t forget that you"re a little girl now, Beechy," she reminded me. "What were you talking about?"
"You and my other dolls, Mamma," said I. "Even when I was seventeen I never flirted fasting."
"What did you say about me, dearest?"
"Oh, it was the Prince who said things about you. You can have him to play with, if you want to."
"Darling, you shouldn"t talk of playing. This is a very serious consideration," said Mamma. "I never heard much about Austrians at home.
Most foreigners there were Germans, which made one think of beer and sausages. I do wonder what standing an Austrian Prince would have in Denver? Should you suppose he would be preferred to--to persons of less exalted rank who were--who were not quite so _foreign_?"
"Do the Prince and Sir Ralph Moray intend to go over as samples?" I asked sweetly, but Mamma only simpered, and as a self-respecting child I cannot approve of a parent"s simpering.
"I wish you wouldn"t be silly, Beechy," she said. "It is a step, being a Countess, but it is not enough."
"You mean, the more crowns you have, the more crowns you want."
"I mean nothing of the sort," snapped Mamma, "but I have some ambition, otherwise what would have been the good of coming to Europe? And if one gets opportunities, it would be sinful to neglect them. Only--one wants to be sure that one has taken the best."
"There they all three are, in the yard," I remarked, pointing out of the window at the Opportunities, who were discoursing earnestly with Joseph.
"Of course, I"m too young _now_ to judge of such matters, but if it was _I_ who had to choose--"
"Well?"
"I"d toss up a penny, and whichever side came, I"d take--"
"Yes?"
"Mr. Barrymore."