My Friend Prospero Part 14

"Is your Winthorpe man a descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers?" asked Lady Blanchemain, dryly.

"Indeed he is," said John. "He's descended from ten separate individuals who made the first voyage in the _Mayflower_. And he holds, by-the-by, intact, the lands that were ceded to his family by the Indians the year after. That ought to recommend him to your Ladys.h.i.+p,--an unbroken tenure of nearly three hundred years."

"Old acres," her ladys.h.i.+p admitted, cautiously, "always make for respectability."

"Besides," John carelessly threw out, "he's a baronet."

Lady Blanchemain sat up. "A baronet?" she said. "An American?"

"Alas, yes," said John, "a mere American. And one of the earliest creations,--by James the First, no less. His patent dates from 1612. But he doesn't use the t.i.tle. He regards it, he pretends, as merged in a higher dignity."

"What higher dignity?" asked the lady, frowning.

"That of an American citizen, he says," chuckled John.

"Brrr!" she breathed, impatient.

"And moreover," John gaily continued, "besides being descended from the Pilgrim Fathers, he's descended in other lines from half the peerage of Seventeenth Century England. And to top up with, if you please, he's descended from Alfred the Great. He's only an American, but he can show a clear descent bang down from Alfred the Great! I think the most exquisite, the most subtle and delicate pleasure I have ever experienced has been to see English people, people of yesterday, cheerfully patronizing him."

"You've enlarged my sphere of knowledge," said Lady Blanchemain, grimly.

"I had never known that there was blood in America. Does this prodigious personage talk through his nose?"

"Worse luck, no," said John. "I wish he did--a little--just enough to smack of his soil, to possess local colour. No, he talks for all the world like you or me,--which exposes him to compliments in England. 'An American? Really?' our tactful people cry, when he avows his nationality 'Upon my word, I should never have suspected it.'"

"I suppose, with all the rest, he's rich?" asked Lady Blanchemain.

"Immensely," a.s.sented John. "Speaking of Fortune and her favours, she's withheld none from him."

"Then he's good-looking, too?"

"He looks like a Man," said John.

"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, moving. "If _I_ had received a wire from a creature of such proportions, I've a feeling I'd answer it."

"I've a very similar feeling myself," laughed John. "When we turn back, if you think your coachman can be persuaded to stop at the telegraph office in the village, I'll give my feeling effect."

"I think we might turn back now," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's getting rather gloomy here." She looked round, with a little shudder, and then gave the necessary order. The valley had narrowed to what was scarcely more than a defile between two dark and rugged hillsides, --pine-covered hillsides that shut out the sun, smiting the air with chill and shadow, and turning the Rampio, whose brawl seemed somehow to increase the chill, turning the sparkling, sportive Rampio to the colour of slate. "It puts one in mind of brigands," she said, with another little shudder. But though the air was chilly, it was wonderfully, keenly fragrant with the incense of the pines.

"Well," she asked, when they were facing homewards, "and your woman?

What of her?"

"Nothing," said John. "Or, anyhow, very little." (It would be extremely pleasant, he felt suddenly, to talk of her; but at the same time he felt an extreme reluctance to let his pleasure be seen.)

"But your private detective?" said Lady Blanchemain. "Weren't her investigations fruitful?"

"Not very," said he. "She learnt little beyond her name and age."

"And what _is_ her name?" asked the lady.

"Her name is Maria Dolores," answered John, (and he experienced a secret joy, strange to him, in p.r.o.nouncing it).

"Maria Dolores?" said Lady Blanchemain, (and he experienced a secret joy in hearing it). "Maria Dolores--what?"

"My detective didn't discover her Pagan name," said John.

"So that you are still in doubt whether she's the daughter of a miller?"

Lady Blanchemain raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, no: I think she's a miller's daughter safely enough," said he. "But she's an elaborately chiselled and highly polished one. Her voice is like ivory and white velvet; and to hear her speak English is a revelation of the hidden beauties of that language."

"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, eyeing him. "So you've advanced to the point of talking with her?"

"Well," answered John, weighing his words, "I don't know whether I can quite say that. But accident threw us together for a minute or two this afternoon, and we could scarcely do less, in civility, than exchange the time of day."

"And are you in love with her?" asked Lady Blanchemain.

"I wonder," said he. "What do _you_ think? Is it possible for a man to be in love with a woman he's seen only half a dozen times all told, and spoken with never longer than a minute or two at a stretch?"

"_Was_ it only a minute or two--_really_?" asked Lady Blanchemain, wooing his confidence with a glance.

"No," said John. "It was probably ten minutes, possibly fifteen. But they pa.s.sed so quickly, it's really nearer the truth to describe them as one or two."

Lady Blanchemain s.h.i.+fted her sunshade, and screwed herself half round, so as to face him, her soft old eyes full of smiling scrutiny and suspicion.

"I never can tell whether or not you're serious," she complained. "If you _are_ serious,--well, _a quand le mariage_?"

"The marriage?" cried John. "How could I marry her? Such a thing's out of all question.

"Why?" asked she.

"A miller's daughter!" said John. "Would you have me marry the daughter of a miller?"

"You said yourself yesterday--" the lady reminded him.

"Ah, yes," said he. "But night brings counsel."

"If she's well educated," said Lady Blanchemain, "if she's well-bred, what does it matter about her father? Though a n.o.body in Austria, where nothing counts but quarterings, he's probably what we'd call a gentleman in England. Suppose he's a barrister? Or the editor of a newspaper?

Or--"

She paused, thoughtful-eyed, to think of respectable professions. At last she gave up the effort.

"Well, anything decent," she concluded, "so long as he had plenty of money."

"Ah," said John, sadly, and with perhaps mock humility. "If he had plenty of money, he'd never consent to his daughter marrying a son of poverty like me."

"Pooh! For a t.i.tle?" cried Lady Blanchemain. "Besides, you have prospects. Isn't your name Prospero?"

"I have precious little faith in oracles," said John.