My Friend Prospero Part 30

She laughed.

"I think I just distantly acknowledged your bow," she said.

"Well, some people's distant acknowledgments are like white roses," said he. "I hope, at least, you remember what a glorious night it was, and how the nightingales were singing?"

"Yes," said she. "I remember that."

"I have a fancy," he declared, "that it will be a more glorious night still to-night, and that the nightingales will sing better than they have ever sung before."

Maria Dolores did not speak.

"Do you happen," John asked, after a long silence, while they gazed at the deepening colours in the west, "do you happen to possess such a thing as a copy of the Almanach de Gotha?"

"Yes," said she.

"Really? I wonder whether you will lend it to me?"

"I am sorry--it is in Vienna." And after an instant's pause, she ventured, "What, if it isn't indiscreet to inquire, do you wish to look up?"

"I wish to look up a lady--a dream lady--a lady who walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes--and whose pocket-handkerchiefs are embroidered with the initials M.D., in a cypher, under a princely crown."

"I should think," said Maria Dolores, considering, "that she would probably be a member of one of the mediatised princely houses. But if you have nothing more than her initials to go by, you would find it difficult to trace her in the Almanach de Gotha."

"No doubt," said John. "But to a man of spirit a difficulty is a challenge."

"Do you make a practice," asked she, "of appropriating people's handkerchiefs?"

"Certain people's--yes," unblus.h.i.+ng, he promptly owned.

"M.D. under a princely crown, I think you said?" she mused. "It occurs to me that Maria Dolores of Zelt-Neuminster's pocket-handkerchiefs might be so embroidered."

"Ah?" said John. "Zelt-Neuminster? That would be a daughter of the man who owns this Castle?"

"No, she is a sister of the man who owns this Castle."

"I understand," said John. "I wonder that the sister of the man who owns this Castle never comes here to see how fine it is."

"She has been here quite recently," said Maria Dolores. "She has been here visiting her foster-mother, who lives in the pavilion beyond the clock. She came to make a sort of retreat--to think something over."

"Yes--?" questioned he.

"Her brother is very anxious to marry her off. He is anxious that she should marry her second cousin, the Prince of Zelt-Zelt. She came here to make up her mind."

"Has she made it up?" he asked.

"I am not sure," said she.

"Yet you seem to be deep in her confidence," said he.

"Yes--but she is not quite sure herself."

"Oh--?" said John.

"She is one of those foolish women who dream of marriage as a high romance."

"Wise men," said John, "dream of it as the highest."

She shook her head.

"A marriage with her cousin would be an end to all romance for ever. She was thinking a little while ago, I believe, of marrying a plain commoner, the nephew of a farmer. That would have been indeed romantic.

Now, I hear, she is considering, a future member of your English House of Lords."

"Wouldn't even that be rather romantic--if a step down const.i.tutes romance?" John suggested.

"Oh, a British peer is scarcely a step down," she returned. "Besides, there are people who don't care--what is the expression?--twopence about rank."

"When I said that," John explained, "I had no inkling that her rank was so exalted."

"Did you think she was the daughter of a cobbler?" Maria Dolores quickly, with some haughtiness, inquired.

"I thought she was a daughter of the stars," John answered.

"And you feared her name was Smitti," she said, haughtiness dissolving in mirth. "I will never tell you what she feared that yours was."

"See," said John, "how they are hanging the heavens with banners. It must be in honour of some great impending event."

Yesterday the west had been a sea. To-day it was a city, a vast grey and violet city, with palaces and battlemented towers, and countless airy spires and pinnacles; and here, there, everywhere, its walls were gay with gold and crimson, as with drooping banners.

"'Tis a city _en fete_," said John. "'Tis the city where marriages are made. They must have one in hand."

"Hark," said she, putting up a finger. "There are your nightingales beginning."

But the raised finger reminded him of something. "Have you a rooted objection to rings?" he asked.

"Why?" asked she.

"I notice that you don't wear any."

"Oh, sometimes I wear many," she said. "Then one has moods in which one leaves them off."

"I have a ring in my pocket which I think belongs to you," said he.

"Really? I don't know that any of my rings are missing."

"Here it is," said he. He produced the little old s.h.a.green case he had received from Lady Blanchemain, opened, and offered it.

"It is a singularly beautiful ring," said she, her eyes admiring. "But it doesn't belong to me."

"I think it does," said he. "May I try it on your finger?"