"That"s not an answer."
"Well, I consider her to be a very good-looking girl."
"Blonde?"
"Mixed. Light brown hair and very dark eyes and lashes. A little taller than I, more graceful and a splendid horse-woman. I"ve seen her riding."
"Astride?"
"No. I"ve seen her in a ball gown, too. Most men think she"s stunning."
"Well, let"s have a game of billiards," said he, dismissing Maud in a way that would have caused the proud Mr. Blithers to reel with indignation.
A little later on, at the billiard table, Mrs. King remarked, apropos of nothing and quite out of a clear sky, so to speak:
"And she"ll do anything her parents command her to do, that"s the worst of it."
"What are you talking about? It"s your shot."
"If they order her to marry a t.i.tle, she"ll do it. That"s the way she"s been brought up, I"m afraid."
"Meaning Maud?"
"Certainly. Who else? Poor thing, she hasn"t a chance in the world, with that mother of hers."
"Shoot, please. Mark up six for me, Dank."
"Wait till you see her, Bobby."
"All right. I"ll wait," said he cheerfully.
The next day Count Quinnox and King returned from the city, coming up in a private car with Mr. Blithers himself.
"I"ll have Maud drive me over this afternoon," said Mr. Blithers, as they parted at the station.
But Maud did not drive him over that afternoon. The pride, joy and hope of the Blithers family flatly refused to be a party of any such arrangement, and set out for a horse-back ride in a direction that took her as far away from Red Roof as possible.
"What"s come over the girl?" demanded Mr. Blithers, completely non- plused. "She"s never acted like this before, Lou."
"Some silly notion about being made a laughingstock, I gather," said his wife. "Heaven knows I"ve talked to her till I"m utterly worn out.
She says she won"t be bullied into even meeting the Prince, much less marrying him. I"ve never known her to be so pig-headed. Usually I can make her see things in a sensible way. She would have married the duke, I"m sure, if--if you hadn"t put a stop to it on account of his so-called habits. She--"
"Well, it"s turned out for the best, hasn"t it? Isn"t a prince better than a duke?"
"You"ve said all that before, Will. I wanted her to run down with me this morning to talk the ball over with Mrs. King, and what do you think happened?"
"She wouldn"t go?"
"Worse than that. She wouldn"t let _me_ go. Now, things are coming to a pretty pa.s.s when--"
"Never mind. I"ll talk to her," said Mr. Blithers, somewhat bleakly despite his confident front. "She loves her old dad. I can do _anything_ with her."
"She"s on a frightfully high horse lately," sighed Mrs. Blithers fretfully. "It--it can"t be that young Scoville, can it?"
"If I thought it was, I"d--I"d--" There is no telling what Mr.
Blithers would have done to young Scoville, at the moment, for he couldn"t think of anything dire enough to inflict upon the suspected meddler.
"In any event, it"s dreadfully upsetting to me, Will. She--she won"t listen to anything. And here"s something else: She declares she won"t stay here for the ball on Friday night."
Mr. Blithers had her repeat it, and then almost missed the chair in sitting down, he was so precipitous about it.
"Won"t stay for her own ball?" he bellowed.
"She says it isn"t her ball," lamented his wife.
"If it isn"t hers, in the name of G.o.d whose is it?"
"Ask her, not me," flared Mrs. Blithers. "And don"t glare at me like that. I"ve had nothing but glares since you went away. I thought I was doing the very nicest thing in the world when I suggested the ball. It would bring them together--"
"The only two it will actually bring together, it seems, are those d.a.m.ned prize-fighters. They"ll get together all right, but what good is it going to do us, if Maud"s going to act like this? See here, Lou, I"ve got things fixed so that the Prince of Groostuck can"t very well do anything but ask Maud to--"
"That"s just it!" she exclaimed. "Maud sees through the whole arrangement, Will. She said last night that she wouldn"t be at all surprised if you offered to a.s.sume Graustark"s debt to Russia in order to--"
"That"s just what I"ve done, old girl," said he in triumph. "I"ll have "em sewed up so tight by next week that they can"t move without asking me to loosen the strings. And you can tell Maud once more for me that I"ll get this Prince for her if--"
"But she doesn"t want him!"
"She doesn"t know what she wants!" he roared. "Where is she going?"
"You saw her start off on Katydid, so why--"
"I mean on the day of the ball."
"To New York."
"By gad, I"ll--I"ll see about _that_," he grated. "I"ll see that she doesn"t leave the grounds if I have to put guards at every gate.
She"s got to be reasonable. What does she think I"m putting sixteen millions into the Gra.s.stork treasury for? She"s got to stay here for the ball. Why, it would be a crime for her to--but what"s the use talking about it? She"ll be here and she"ll lead the grand march with the Prince. I"ve got it all--"
"Well, you"ll have to talk to her. I"ve done all that I can do. She swears she won"t marry a man she"s never seen."
"Ain"t we trying to show him to her?" he snorted. "She won"t have to marry him till she"s seen him, and when she does see him she"ll apologise to me for all the nasty things she"s been saying about me."
For a moment it looked as though Mr. Blithers would dissolve into tears, so suddenly was he afflicted by self-pity. "By the way, didn"t she like the necklace I sent up to her from Tiffany"s?"
"I suppose so. She said you were a dear old foozler."
"Foozler? What"s that mean?" He wasn"t quite sure, but somehow it sounded like a term of opprobrium.
"I haven"t the faintest idea," she said shortly.