"Well?"

John frowned heavily.

"Can't you see," he went on bluntly, "that if any one of those men who were present, and heard what was said about your guest, found out afterward that it was Miss Maurel who came to see you--well, I need not go on, need I? I am sure you understand. The things which were hinted at could not possibly apply to her. Would you mind sending a note to Miss Maurel and asking her to have tea with you some other afternoon?"

"And why the deuce should I do that?" the prince asked, a trifle paler, but entirely self-possessed.

"To oblige me," John replied.

The prince wiped his eye-gla.s.s carefully upon his handkerchief.

"Mr. Strangewey, you are a very amiable young man," he said equably, "to whom I have tried to show some kindness for Miss Maurel's sake. I really do not see, however--pardon my putting it plainly--what business this is of yours."

"It is my business," John declared, "because I have asked Miss Maurel to be my wife, and because I am hoping that some day, before very long, she will consent."

The prince sat quite still in his chair, his eyes fixed upon a certain spot in the carpet. He had not even the appearance of being engaged in thought. He seemed only steeped in a sort of pa.s.sivity. Finally, with a sigh, he rose to his feet.

"My young friend," he decided, "your statement alters the situation. I did not credit you with matrimonial intentions. I must see what can be done!"

His lips had relaxed ever so slightly--so slightly that they showed only a glimpse of his teeth in one straight, hard line. He looked at John mildly, and his words seemed dest.i.tute of all offense; yet John felt that the lightnings were playing around them.

"I shall write a note to Miss Maurel," the prince promised, as he made his way toward the writing-table, "and ask her to visit me upon some other afternoon."

XXIX

Back again to his rooms, and, later on, once more to Louise's little house in Kensington; a few minutes' masterful pleading, and then success. Louise wrapped herself up and descended to the street by his side.

For an hour or more John drove steadily westward, scarcely speaking more than a chance word. It was twilight when he brought the car to a standstill. Louise raised her veil and looked up.

"Well?" she asked inquiringly.

He pushed back the throttle on his steering-wheel and stopped the engine. Then he turned toward her.

"I have something to say to you," he said. "I have brought you here that I may say it in my own way and in my own atmosphere."

She responded instantly to his mood, although she did not yet grasp the full significance of the situation. She leaned forward in the car, and her eyes were lighted with interest. Into their faces a slight, drizzling rain was carried at intervals by a gusty, north wind. The sky was murky gray, except for one black ma.s.s of cloud that seemed bending almost over their heads.

Down at their feet--they had made a circuit and were facing London again--began the long lines of feeble lights which lit the great avenues stretching onward to the city, the lights of suburban thoroughfares, of local railways, and here and there a more brilliant illumination of some picture palace or place of amus.e.m.e.nt. Farther away still, the vast glow from the heart of the city was beginning to flare against the murky sky--here red and threatening, as if from some great conflagration; in other places yellow, with a sicklier light of fog-strangled brilliance.

"This is like you!" Louise murmured. "You had to bring me out to a hilltop, on the dreariest hour of a wet March afternoon, to tell me--what?"

"First of all," John began, "I will answer a question which you have asked me three times since we started out this afternoon. You wanted to know how I found out that you were not going to tea with the prince.

Well, here is the truth. I asked the prince to change the day of your visit to him."

Her fine, silky eyebrows came a little closer together.

"You asked him that?" she repeated.

John nodded.

"And he consented?"

"I will explain," John continued. "It was a most unfortunate circ.u.mstance, but in the club, after lunch, the subject of spending the afternoon came up. The prince spoke of an engagement. He was tied at home, he said, from four to six. Some of the men began to chaff him, and suggested that he was entertaining some lady friend, his latest favorite--well, I dare say you can imagine the rest," John broke off.

"The prince, thoughtlessly, I am sure, and probably to get rid of them, pleaded guilty. Then I came down to see you, and from what you said I discovered that it was you who were to be his visitor."

Her fingers played nervously for a moment with the edge of the rug. She drew it higher up.

"Well, when I left your house the first time this afternoon, I went straight back to the prince. I pointed out to him that after what had been said, as it might become known that you were his guest of to-day, it would be better for him to postpone your visit. He agreed to do so."

"Was that all that pa.s.sed between you?"

"Not quite," John replied. "He asked me what concern it was of mine, and I told him exactly what my concern was. I told him I hoped that some day you would be my wife."

She sat quite still, looking down upon the flaring lights. She was filled with a restless desire to escape, to start the motor herself and rush through the wet air into London and safety. And side by side with that desire she knew that there was nothing in the world she wanted so much as to stay just where she was, and to hear just the words she was going to hear.

"So much for that!" John proceeded. "And now, please listen. I have brought you out here because under these conditions I feel more master of myself and my thoughts, and of the things I want to say to you.

Something takes me by the throat in your little drawing-room, with its shaded lights, its perfume of flowers, and its atmosphere of perfection.

You sit enthroned there like the queen of a world I know nothing of, and all the time letters and flowers and flattering invitations are showered upon you from the greatest men in London. The atmosphere there stifles me, Louise. Out here you are a woman and I a man, and those other things fall away. I have tried my best to come a little way into sympathy with your life. I want you now to make up your mind to come down a little way into mine!"

She shook her head.

"We are still too far apart," she murmured. "Can't you understand that yourself?"

"I have been a pupil for many months," he answered, turning toward her, with one arm at the back of her cushions and the fingers of the other hand suddenly seeking hers. "Can't you understand, if you do care a little, if you have just a little flame of love in your heart for me, that many of these other things which keep us apart are like the lime-light which flashes out to give artificial light in an honest darkness? Don't you believe, at the bottom of your heart, that you can be happier if you will climb with me to the place where we first met, even where the clouds lean over my own hills? You thought me very narrow then. Perhaps I am. But I think you are beginning to understand, dear, that that life is only a type. We can wander about where you will. My hills are only the emblems of the things that are dear to me. There are many countries I want to visit. I don't want to cramp your life. You can't really be afraid of that, because it is the most widening thing in the world that I have to give you--my love, the love of my heart and my soul!"

She felt the sudden snapping of every nerve in her body, the pa.s.sing away of all sense of will or resistance. She was conscious only of the little movement toward him, the involuntary yielding of herself. She lay back in his arms, and the kisses which closed her eyes and lips seemed to be working some strange miracle.

She was in some great empty s.p.a.ce, breathing wonderful things. She was on the hilltops, and from the heights she looked down at herself as she had been--a poor little white-faced puppet, strutting about an overheated stage, in a fetid atmosphere of adulation, with a brain artificially stimulated, and a heart growing cold with selfishness. She pitied herself as she had been. Then she opened her eyes with a start of joy.

"How wonderful it all is!" she murmured. "You brought me here to tell me this?"

"And to hear something!" he insisted.

"I have tried not to, John," she confessed, amazed at the tremble of her sweet, low voice. Her words seemed like the confession of a weeping child. "I cannot help it. I do love you! I have tried not to so hard, but now--now I shall not try any more!"

They drove quietly down the long hill and through the dripping streets.

Not another word pa.s.sed between them till they drew up outside her door.

She felt a new timidity as he handed her out, an immense grat.i.tude for his firm tone and intuitive tact.

"No, I won't come in, thanks," he declared. "You have so little time to rest and get ready for the theater."

"You will be there to-night?" she asked.

He laughed as if there were humor in the suggestion of his absence.