"Her Highness has a party?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. A very large dinner party."
Paul pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead. What did it mean? "This is Friday, isn"t it?"
"Of course, sir."
Paul grew angry. It was a woman"s trap to force him on society. For a moment he struggled with the temptation to walk away after telling the servant that it was a mistake and that he had not been invited. At once, however, came realization of social outrage. He surrendered hat and coat and let himself be announced. The noise of thirty voices struck his ear as he entered the great drawing-room. He was confusedly aware of a glitter of jewels, and bare arms and shoulders and the black and white of men. But radiant in the middle of the room stood his Princess, with a tiara of diamonds on her head, and beside her stood a youngish man whose face seemed oddly familiar.
Paul advanced, kissed her hand.
She laughed gaily. "You are late, Paul."
"You said half-past, Princess. I am here to the minute."
"Je te dirai apres," she said, and the daring of the intimate speech took his breath away.
"Your Royal Highness," she turned to the young man beside her--and then Paul suddenly recognized a prince of the blood royal of England--"may I present Mr. Savelli."
"I"m very pleased to meet you," said the Prince graciously. "Your Young England League has interested me greatly. We must have a talk about it one of these days, if you can spare the time. And I must congratulate you on your speech the other night."
"You are far too kind, sir," said Paul.
They chatted for a minute or two. Then the Princess said: "You"ll take in the Countess of Danesborough. I don"t think you"ve met her; but you"ll find she"s an old friend."
"Old friend?" echoed Paul.
She smiled and turned to a pretty and buxom woman of forty standing near. "My dear Lady Danesborough. Here is Mr. Savelli, whom you are so anxious to meet."
Paul bowed politely. His head being full of his Princess, he was vaguely puzzled as to the reasons for which Lady Danesborough desired his acquaintance.
"You don"t remember me," she said.
He looked at her squarely for the first time; then started back. "Good G.o.d!" he cried involuntarily. "Good G.o.d! I"ve been wanting to find you all my life. I never knew your name. But here"s the proof."
And he whipped out the cornelian heart from his waistcoat pocket. She took it in her hand, examined it, handed it back to him with a smile, a very sweet and womanly smile, with just the suspicion of mist veiling her eyes.
"I know. The Princess has told me."
"But how did she find you out--I mean as my first patroness?"
"She wrote to the vicar, Mr. Merewether--he is still at Bludston--asking who his visitor was that year and what had become of her. So she found out it was I. I"ve known her off and on ever since my marriage."
"You were wonderfully good to me," said Paul. "I must have been a funny little wretch."
"You"ve travelled far since then."
"It was you that gave me my inspiration," said he.
The announcement of dinner broke the thread of the talk. Paul looked around him and saw that the room was filled with very great people indeed. There were chiefs of his party and other exalted personages.
There was Lord Francis Ayres. Also the Winwoods. The procession was formed.
"I"ve often wondered about you," said Lady Danesborough, as they were walking down the wide staircase. "Several things happened to mark that day. For one, I had spilled a bottle of awful scent all over my dress and I was in a state of odoriferous misery."
Paul laughed boyishly. "The mystery of my life is solved at last." He explained, to her frank delight. "You"ve not changed a bit," said he.
"And oh! I can"t tell you how good it is to meet you after all these years."
"I"m very, very glad you feel so," she said significantly. "More than glad. I was wondering ... but our dear Princess was right."
"It seems to me that the Princess has been playing conspirator," said Paul.
They entered the great dining-room, very majestic with its long, glittering table, its service of plate, its stately pictures, its double row of powdered and liveried footmen, and Paul learned, to his amazement, that in violation of protocols and tables of precedence, his seat was on the right hand of the Princess. Conspiracy again. Hitherto at her parties he had occupied his proper place. Never before had she publicly given him especial mark of her favour.
"Do you think she"s right in doing this?" he murmured to Lady Danesborough.
It seemed so natural that he should ask her--as though she were fully aware of all his secrets.
"I think so," she smiled--as though she too were in the conspiracy.
They halted at their places, and there, at the centre of the long table, on the right of the young Prince stood the Princess, with flushed face and shining eyes, looking very beautiful and radiantly defiant.
"Mechante," Paul whispered, as they sat down. "This is a trap."
"Je le sais. Tu est bien prise, pet.i.te souris."
It pleased her to be gay. She confessed unblushingly. Her little mouse was well caught. The little mouse grew rather stern, and when the great company had settled down, and the hum of talk arisen, he deliberately scanned the table. He met some friendly glances--a Cabinet Minister nodded pleasantly. He also met some that were hostile. His Sophie had tried a dangerous experiment. In Lady Danesborough, the Maisie Shepherd of his urchindom, whose name he had never known, she had a.s.sured him a sympathetic and influential partner. Also, although he had tactfully not taken up that lady"s remark, he felt proud of his Princess"s glorious certainty that he would have no false and contemptible shame in the encounter. She had known that it would be a joy to him; and it was. The truest of the man was stirred. They talked and laughed about the far-off day. Incidents flaming in his mind had faded from hers. He recalled forgotten things. Now and then she said: "Yes, I know that.
The Princess has told me." Evidently his Sophie was a conspirator of deepest dye.
"And now you"re the great Paul Savelli," she said.
"Great?" He laughed. "In what way?"
"Before this election you were a personage. I"ve never run across you because we"ve been abroad so much, you know--my husband has a depraved taste for governing places--but a year or two ago we were asked to the Chudleys, and you were held out as an inducement."
"Good Lord!" said Paul, astonished.
"And now, of course, you"re the most-discussed young man in London. Is he d.a.m.ned or isn"t he? You know what I refer to."
"Well, am I?" he asked pleasantly.
"I"m glad to see you take it like that. It"s not the way of the little people. Personally, I"ve stuck up for you, not knowing in the least who you were. I thought you did the big, s.p.a.cious thing. It gave me a thrill when I read about it. Your speech in the House has helped you a lot. Altogether--and now considering our early acquaintance--I think I"m justified in calling you "the great Paul Savelli.""
Then came the shifting of talk. The Prince turned to his left-hand neighbour; Lady Danesborough to her right. Paul and the Princess had their conventional opportunity for conversation. She spoke in French, daringly using the intimate "tu"; but of all sorts of things--books, theatres, picture shows. Then tactfully she drew the Prince and his neighbour and Lady Danesborough into their circle, and, pulling the strings, she at last brought Paul and the Prince into a discussion over the pictures of the Doges in the Ducal Palace in Venice. The young Prince was gracious. Paul, encouraged to talk and stimulated by precious memories, grew interesting. The Princess managed to secure a set of listeners at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as if carrying on the theme, she said in a deliberately loud voice, compelling attention: "Your Royal Highness, I am in a dilemma."
"What is it?"
She paused, looked round and widened her circle. "For the past year I have been wanting Mr. Savelli to ask me to marry him, and he obstinately refuses to do so. Will you tell me, sir, what a poor woman is to do?"
She addressed herself exclusively to the young Prince; but her voice, with its adorable French intonation, rang high and clear. Paul, suddenly white and rigid, clenched the hand of the Princess which happened to lie within immediate reach. A wave of curiosity, arresting talk, spread swiftly down. There was an uncanny, dead silence, broken only by a raucous voice proceeding from a very fat Lord of Appeal some distance away: