"I don"t intend to marry anybody until I"m thirty at least, so that ends it, daddy,--I mean, your poor old highness."
"Naturally we do not expect you to be married before you are out of short frocks, my dear," said Prince Dantan stiffly. "But a betrothal is quite another thing. It is customary to arrange these marriages years before--"
"Is Prince Robin in love with me?"
"I--ahem!--that"s a very silly question. He hasn"t seen you since you were a baby. But he _will_ be in love with you, never fear."
"He may be in love with some one else, for all we know, so where do I come in?"
"Come in?" gasped her father.
"She"s part American, dear," explained the mother, with her prettiest smile.
"Besides," said the Crown Princess, with finality, "I"m not even going to be engaged to a man I"ve never seen. And if you insist, I"ll run away as sure as anything."
And so the matter rested. Five years have pa.s.sed since the initial overtures were made by the two courts, and although several sly attempts were made to bring the young people to a proper understanding of their case, they aroused nothing more than scornful laughter on the part of the belligerents, as the venerable Baron Dangloss was wont to call them, not without pride in his sharp old voice.
"It all comes from mixing the blood," said the Prime Minister gloomily.
"Or improving it," said the Baron, and was frowned upon.
And no one saw the portentous shadow cast by the slim daughter of William W. Blithers, for the simple reason that neither Graustark nor Dawsbergen knew that it existed. They lived in serene ignorance of the fact that G.o.d, while he was about it, put Maud Applegate Blithers into the world on precisely the same day that the Crown Princess of Dawsbergen first saw the light of day.
On the twenty-second anniversary of his birth, Prince Robin fared forth in quest of love and romance, not without hope of adventure, for he was a valorous chap with the heritage of warriors in his veins. Said he to himself in dreamy contemplation of the long journey ahead of him: "I will traverse the great highways that my mother trod and I will look for the Golden Girl sitting by the wayside. She must be there, and though it is a wide world, I am young and my eyes are sharp. I will find her sitting at the roadside eager for me to come, not housed in a gloomy; castle surrounded by the spooks of a hundred ancestors. They who live in castles wed to hate and they who wed at the roadside live to love. Fortune attend me! If love lies at the roadside waiting, do not let me pa.s.s it by. All the princesses are not inside the castles. Some sit outside the gates and laugh with glee, for love is their companion. So away I go, la, la! looking for the princess with the happy heart and the smiling lips! It is a wide world but my eyes are sharp. I shall find my princess."
But, alas, for his fine young dream, he found no Golden Girl at the roadside nor anything that suggested romance. There were happy hearts and smiling lips--and all for him, it would appear--but he pa.s.sed them by, for his eyes were _sharp_ and his wits awake. And so, at last, he came to Gotham, his heart as free as the air he breathed, confessing that his quest had been in vain. History failed to repeat itself. His mother"s romance would stand alone and shine without a flicker to the end of time. There could be no counterpart.
"Well, I had the fun of looking," he philosophised (to himself, for no man knew of his secret project) and grinned with a sort of amused tolerance for the sentimental side of his nature. "I"m a silly a.s.s to have even dreamed of finding her as I pa.s.sed along, and if I had found her what the deuce could I have done about it anyway? This isn"t the day for mediaeval lady-s.n.a.t.c.hing. I dare say I"m just as well off for not having found her. I still have the zest for hunting farther, and there"s a lot in that." Then aloud: "Hobbs, are we on time?"
"We are, sir," said Hobbs, without even glancing at his watch. The train was pa.s.sing 125th Street. "To the minute, sir. We will be in in ten minutes, if nothing happens. Mr. King will be at the station to meet you, sir. Any orders, sir?"
"Yes, pinch me, Hobbs."
"Pinch your Highness?" in amazement. "My word, sir, wot--"
"I just want to be sure that the dream is over, Hobbs. Never mind.
You needn"t pinch me. I"m awake," and to prove it he stretched his fine young body in the ecstasy of realisation.
That night he slept soundly in the Catskills.
CHAPTER III
MR. BLITHERS GOES VISITING
I repeat: Prince Robin was as handsome a chap as you"ll see in a week"s journey. He was just under six feet, slender, erect and strong in the way that a fine blade is strong. His hair was dark and straight, his eyes blue-black, his cheek brown and ruddy with the health of a life well-ordered. Nose, mouth and chin were clean-cut and indicative of power, while his brow was broad and smooth, with a surface so serene that it might have belonged to a woman. At first glance you would have taken him for a healthy, eager American athlete, just out of college, but that aforementioned seriousness in his deep-set, thoughtful eyes would have caused you to think twice before p.r.o.nouncing him a fledgling. He had enjoyed life, he had made the most of his play-days, but always there had hung over his young head the shadow of the cross that would have to be supported to the end of his reign, through thick and thin, through joy and sorrow, through peace and strife.
He saw the shadow when he was little more than a baby; it was like a figure striding beside him always; it never left him. He could not be like other boys, for he was a prince, and it was a serious business being a prince! A thousand times, as a lad, he had wished that he could have a few "weeks off" from being what he was and be just a common, ordinary, harum scarum boy, like the "kids" of Petrove, the head stableman. He would even have put up with the thrashings they got from their father, just for the sake of enjoying the mischief that purchased the punishment. But alas! no one would ever dream of giving him the lovely "tannings" that other boys got when they were naughty. Such joys were not for him; he was mildly reproved and that was all. But his valiant spirit found release in many a glorious though secret encounter with boys both large and small, and not infrequently he sustained severe pummelings at the hands of plebeians who never were quite sure that they wouldn"t be beheaded for obliging him in the matter of a "sc.r.a.p," but who fought like little wild-cats while they were about it. They were always fair fights, for he fought as a boy and not as a prince. He took his lickings like a prince, however, and his victories like a boy. The one thing he wanted to do above all others was to play foot-ball. But they taught him fencing, riding, shooting and tennis instead, for, said they, foot-ball is only to be looked-at, not played,--fine argument, said Robin!
Be that as it may, he was physically intact and bodily perfect. He had no broken nose, smashed ribs, stiff shoulder joints or weak ankles, nor was he toothless. In all his ambitious young life he had never achieved anything more enduring than a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, a cracked lip or a purple eye, and he had been compelled to struggle pretty hard for even those blessings. And to him the pity of it all was that he was as hard as nails and as strong as a bullock--a sad waste, if one were to believe him in his bitter lamentations.
Toward the end of his first week at Red Roof, the summer home of the Truxton Kings, he might have been found on the broad lawn late one afternoon, playing tennis with his hostess, the lovely and vivacious "Aunt Loraine." To him, Mrs. King would always be "Aunt Loraine,"
even as he would never be anything but Bobby to her.
She was several years under forty and as light and active as a young girl. Her smooth cheek glowed with the happiness and thrill of the sport, and he was hard put to hold his own against her, even though she insisted that he play his level best.
Truxton King, stalwart and lazy, lounged on the turf, umpiring the game, attended by two pretty young girls, a lieutenant in flannels and the ceremonious Count Quinnox, iron grey and gaunt-faced battleman with the sabre scars on his cheek and the bullet wound in his side.
"Good work, Rainie," shouted the umpire as his wife safely placed the ball far out of her opponent"s reach.
"Hi!" shouted Robin, turning on him with a scowl. "You"re not supposed to cheer anybody, d" you understand? You"re only an umpire."
"Outburst of excitement, Kid," apologised the umpire complacently.
"Couldn"t help it. Forty thirty. Get busy."
"He called him "kid,"" whispered one of the young girls to the other.
"Well I heard the Prince call Mr. King "Truck" a little while ago,"
whispered the other.
"Isn"t he good-looking?" sighed the first one.
They were sisters, very young, and lived in the cottage across the road with their widowed mother. Their existence was quite unknown to Mr. and Mrs. Blithers, although the amiable Maud was rather nice to them. She had once picked them up in her automobile when she encountered them walking to the station. After that she called them by their Christian names and generously asked them to call her Maud.
It might appear from this that Maud suffered somewhat from loneliness in the great house on the hill. The Felton girls had known Robin a scant three-quarters of an hour and were deeply in love with him.
Fannie was eighteen and Nellie but little more than sixteen. He was their first Prince.
"Whee-ee!" shrilled Mrs. King, going madly after a return that her opponent had lobbed over the net. She missed.
"Deuce," said her husband laconically. A servant was crossing the lawn with a tray of iced drinks. As he neared the rec.u.mbent group he paused irresolutely and allowed his gaze to shift toward the road below. Then he came on and as he drew alongside the interested umpire he leaned over and spoke in a low tone of voice.
"What?" demanded King, squinting.
"Just coming in the gate, sir," said the footman.
King shot a glance over his shoulder and then sat up in astonishment.
"Good Lord! Blithers! What the deuce can he be doing here? I say, Loraine! Hi!"
"Vantage in," cried his pretty wife, dashing a stray lock from her eyes.
Mr. King"s astonishment was genuine. It might better have been p.r.o.nounced bewilderment. Mr. Blithers was paying his first visit to Red Roof. Up to this minute it is doubtful if he ever had accorded it so much as a glance of interest in pa.s.sing. He bowed to King occasionally at the station, but that was all.
But now his manner was exceedingly friendly as he advanced upon the group. One might have been pardoned for believing him to be a most intimate friend of the family and given to constantly dropping in at any and all hours of the day.
The game was promptly interrupted. It would not be far from wrong to say that Mrs. King"s pretty mouth was open not entirely as an aid to breathing. She couldn"t believe her eyes as she slowly abandoned her court and came forward to meet their advancing visitor.