As for Sir Charles, he had not lost the knowing twinkle of the eye.
Moreover, he knew far better than his wife how real was the claim their young guest had upon their son. And he bade them go with a hearty grasp of the hand and a bluff G.o.dspeed.
So it was settled that Verdayne and the Boy, attended only by Vasili, were to sail for America on the third of July, and pa.s.sage was immediately secured on the Lusitania.
On the morning of the day appointed, Paul Zalenska from an upper deck watched the party he had been awaiting, as they mounted the gang-plank.
Gilbert Ledoux he scarcely noticed. The Count de Roannes, too, interested him no longer when, with a hasty glance, he had a.s.sured himself that the Frenchman was as old as Ledoux and not the gay young dandy in Opal"s train that he had feared to find him.
He had eyes alone for the girl, and he watched her closely as she tripped up the gang-plank, clinging to her father"s arm and chattering gayly in that voice he so well remembered.
She was not so small at close range as she had appeared at a distance, but possessed an exquisite roundness of figure and softness of outline well in proportion to the shortness of her stature.
He had been proud of his kingship--very proud of his royal blood and his mission to his little kingdom. But of late he had known some rebellious thoughts, quite foreign to his mental habit.
And to-day, as he looked at Opal Ledoux, he thought, "After all, how much of a real man can I ever be? What am I but a petty p.a.w.n on the chessboard of the world, moved hither and yon, to gain or to lose, by the finger of Fate!"
As Opal Ledoux pa.s.sed him, she met his glance, and slightly flushed by the _rencontre_, looked back over her shoulder at him and--smiled! And _such_ a smile! She pa.s.sed on, leaving him tingling in every fibre with the thrill of it.
It was Fate. He had felt it from the very first, and now he was sure of it.
How would it end? How _could_ it end?
Paul Zalenska was very young--oh, very young, indeed!
CHAPTER VII
The next day Verdayne and his young companion were introduced to Mr.
Ledoux and his guest.
Gilbert Ledoux, a reserved man evidently descended from generations of thinking people, was apparently worried, for his face bore unmistakable signs of some mental disturbance. Paul Zalenska was struck by the haunted expression of what must naturally have been a grave countenance.
It was not guilt, for he had not the face of a man pursued by conscience, but it certainly was fear--a real fear. And Paul wondered.
As for the Count de Roannes, the Boy dismissed him at once as unworthy of further consideration. He was brilliantly, even artificially polished--glaringly ultra-fashionable, ostentatiously polite and suave.
In the lines of his b.e.s.t.i.a.l face he bore the records of a lifetime"s profligacy and the black tales of habitual self-indulgence. Paul hated him instinctively and wondered how a man of Ledoux"s unmistakable refinement could tolerate him for a moment.
It was not until the middle of the following afternoon that Opal Ledoux appeared on deck, when her father, with an air of pride, mingled with a certain curious element of timidity, presented to her in due form both the Englishman and his friend.
The eyes of the two young people flashed a recognition that the lips of each tacitly denied as they responded conventionally to the introduction.
Paul noticed that the shadow of her father"s uneasiness was reflected upon her in a somewhat lesser but all too evident degree. And again he wondered.
A few moments of desultory conversation that was of no interest to Paul--and then the Count proposed a game of _ecarte_, to which Verdayne and Ledoux a.s.sented readily enough.
But not so our Boy!
_Ecarte!_ Bah! When did a boy of twenty ever want to play cards within sound of the rustle of a petticoat?--and _such_ a petticoat!
When the elderly gallant noted the att.i.tude of the young fellow he cast a quick glance of suspicion at Opal. He would have withdrawn his proposal had he been able to find any plausible excuse. But it was too late. And with an inward invective on his own blundering, he followed the other gentlemen to the smoking-room.
And Paul and Opal were at last face to face--and alone!
He turned as the sound of the retreating steps died away and looked long and searchingly into her face. If the girl intended to ignore their former meeting, he thought, he would at once put that idea beyond all question. She bore his scrutiny with no apparent embarra.s.sment. She was an American girl, and as she would have expressed it, she was "game!"
"Well?" she said at last, questioningly.
"Yes," he responded, "well--well, indeed, _at last_!"
She bowed mockingly.
"And," he went on, "I have been searching for you a long time, Opal!"
He had not intended to say that, but having said it, he would not take it back.
Then she remembered that she had said that she would call him "Paul" the first time she met him, and she smiled.
"Searching for me? I don"t understand."
"Of course not! Neither do I! Why should we? The best things in life are the things we don"t--and can"t--understand. Is it not so?"
"Perhaps!" doubtfully. She had never thought of it in just that light before, but it might be true. It was human nature to be attracted by mystery. "But you have been looking for me, you say! Since when?--our race?" And her laugh rang out on the air with its old mocking rhythm.
And the Boy felt his blood tingle again at the memory of it.
"But what did you say, Monsieur Zalenska--pardon me--Paul, I mean," and she laughed again, "what did you say as you rode home again?"
The Boy shook his head with affected contrition.
"Unfit to tell a lady!" he said.
And the girl laughed again, pleased by his frankness.
"Vowed eternal vengeance upon my luckless head, I suppose!"
"Oh, not so bad as that, I think," said Paul, pretending to reflect upon the matter--"I am sure it was not quite so bad as that!"
"It would hardly have done, would it, to vow what you were not at all sure you would ever be able to fulfil? Take my advice, and never bank a _sou_ upon the move of any woman!"
"You"re not a woman," he laughed in her eyes; "you"re just an abbreviation!"
But Opal was not one whit sensitive upon the subject of her height. Not she!
"Well, some abbreviations are more effective than the words they stand for," she retorted. "I shall cling to the flattering hope that such may be my attraction to the reader whose "only books are woman"s looks!""