She had me as completely at her mercy in this detestable shop as if I had been in a witness-box.
"Feigned!" I exclaimed.
"That is no answer. And pray remember where you are."
"No, the illness was not feigned."
"And you have not made the most of it?"
"What an extraordinary thing to say!"
"That is no answer. And please do not imagine yourself under the necessity of acting every sentiment of your heart before these people."
She favoured a shopman with half-a-dozen directions.
"My answer is, then, that I have not made the most of it," I said.
"Not even by proxy?"
"Once more I"m adrift."
"You are certainly energetic. I must address you as a brother, or it will be supposed we are quarrelling. Harry, do you like that pattern?"
"Yes. What"s the meaning of proxy?"
"With the accent you give it, heaven only knows what it means. I would rather you did not talk here like a Frenchman relating his last love-affair in company.
Must your voice escape control exactly at the indicatory words? Do you think your father made the most of it?"
"Of my illness? Oh! yes; the utmost. I should undoubtedly think so.
That"s his way."
"Why did you permit it?"
"I was what they call "wandering" half the time. Besides, who could keep him in check? I rarely know what he is doing."
"You don"t know what he wrote?"
"Wrote?"
"That you were dying."
"Of me? To whom?"
She scrutinized me, and rose from her chair. "I must try some other shop. How is it, that if these English people cannot make a "berthe"
fit to wear, they do not conceive the idea of importing such things from Paris? I will take your arm, Harry."
"You have bought nothing," I remarked.
"I have as much as I went for," she replied, and gravely thanked the a.s.sistant leaning on his thumbs across the counter; after which, dropping the graceless play of an enigma, she inquired whether I had forgotten the Frau von Dittmarsch.
I had, utterly; but not her maiden name of Sibley.
"Miss Goodwin, is she one of those who are coming to the island?"
"Frau von Dittmarsch? Yes. She takes an interest in you. She and I have been in correspondence ever since my visit to Sarkeld. It reminds me, you may vary my maiden name with the Christian, if you like. Harry, I believe you are truthful as ever, in spite--"
"Don"t be unjust," said I.
"I wish I could think I was!" she rejoined. "Frau von Dittmarsch was at Sarkeld, and received terrible news of you. She called on me, at my father"s residence over the water yonder, yesterday afternoon, desiring greatly to know--she is as cautious as one with a jewel in her custody--how it fared with you, whether you were actually in a dying state. I came here to learn; I have friends here: you were not alone, or I should have called on you. The rumour was that you were very ill; so I hired a furnished place for Frau von Dittmarsch at once. But when I saw you and him together, and the parting between you, I began to have fears; I should have countermanded the despatch I sent by the boat, had it been possible."
"It has gone! And tell me the name of the other."
"Frau von Dittmarsch has a husband."
"Not with her now. Oh! cruel! speak: her name?"
"Her name, Harry?" Her t.i.tle is Countess von Delzenburg."
"Not princess?"
"Not in England."
Then Ottilia was here!
My father was indeed a magician!
CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED
"Not princess in England," could betoken but one thing--an incredible act of devotion, so great that it stunned my senses, and I thought of it, and of all it involved, before the vision of Ottilia crossing seas took possession of me.
"The Princess Ottilia, Miss Goodwin?"
"The Countess of Delzenburg, Harry."
"To see me? She has come!"
"Harry, you talk like the boy you were when we met before you knew her.
Yes and yes to everything you have to say, but I think you should spare her name."
"She comes thinking me ill?"
"Dying."
"I"m as strong as ever I was."