My Friend Prospero Part 31

She put forth her right hand.

"No--your left hand, please," he said. He dropped upon one knee before her, and when the delicate white hand was surrendered, I imagine he made of getting the ring upon the alliance finger a longer business by a good deal than was necessary. "There," he said in the end, "you see. It looks as if it had grown there. Of course it belongs to you." He still held her hand, warm and firm and velvet-soft. I think in another second he would have touched it with his lips. But she drew it away.

She gazed into the depths of the heart-shaped ruby, tremulous with liquid light, and smiled as at secret thoughts.

"But I don't see," said John, getting to his feet, "how any man can ask a Princess of the House of Zelt to marry him and live on six hundred pounds a year."

"She would have to modify her habits a good deal, that is very certain,"

said Maria Dolores.

"She would have to modify them utterly," said John. "Six hundred a year is poverty even for a single man. For a married couple it would be beggary. She would have to live like the wife of a petty employe. She would have to travel second cla.s.s and stay at fourth-rate hotels. She would have to turn her old dresses and trim her own bonnets. She would have to do without a maid. And all this means that she would have virtually to renounce her caste, to give up the society of her equals, who demand a certain scale of appearances, and to live among pariahs or to live in isolation. Don't you think a man would be a monster of selfishness to exact such sacrifices?"

"Oh, some men have excessively far-fetched and morbid notions of honour," said she.

"Do you think the Princess, with all this brought to her attention, would ever dream of consenting?"

"Women in love are weak--they will consent to almost anything," said she, her dark eyes smiling for an instant into his.

Why didn't he take her in his arms? Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but to defer the consummation of a joy a.s.sured (observes the Persian poet) giveth the heart a peculiar sweet excitement.

"Well," said John. "I'm glad to think she is weak; but I'll never ask my wife to consent to anything so unpleasant. A Princess and a future peeress, living on six hundred pounds a year! It's unheard of."

She looked at him, puzzled, incredulous.

"Oh--? Can you possibly mean--that you will--take back your condition?"

"Yes," said he, humbly. "Who am I to make conditions?"

"You will let her spend as much of her own money as she likes?" she wondered, wide-eyed.

"As a lover of thrift, I shall deprecate extravagance," said John. "But as a submissive husband, I shall let her do in all things as her fancy dictates."

"Well," marvelled she, "here is a surprise--here is a volte-face indeed."

And she looked at the city in the sky, and appeared to turn things over.

John was mysteriously chuckling.

"Haven't you your opinion," he asked, "of men who eat their words and put their scruples in their pockets?"

"I don't understand," said she, looking wild. "There is, of course, some joke."

"There is a joke, indeed," said he; "the joke is that I'm ten times richer than I told you I was."

She started back, and fixed him with a glance.

"Then all that about your being poor was only humbug?" There was reproach in her voice, I'm not sure there wasn't disappointment.

"No," said he, "it was the exact and literal truth. But I have come into a modest competency over-night."

"I don't understand," said she.

"My own part in the story is a sufficiently inglorious one," said he.

"I'm the benefactee. Lady Blanchemain and my uncle have put their heads together, and endowed me. I feel rather small at letting them, but it enables me to look my affianced boldly in the money-eye."

"Oh? You are affianced? Already?" she asked gaily.

"No--not unless you are," gaily answered John.

She looked down at her ring.

VII

The quiet-coloured end of evening smiled fainter, fainter. The aerial city, its cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, had crumbled into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath of dew-wet roses.

The clock struck eight.

"There--you must go," said Maria Dolores.

"Go? Where to?" asked John, feigning vagueness.

"This is no subject for jest," said she, feigning severity.

"I can't go yet--I can't leave you yet," said he. "Besides, it is an education in aesthetics to watch the moonlight on these marble columns, and the pale shadows of the vine-leaves."

"Well, then," said she, "stay you here and pursue your education. I will go in your place. For Marcella Cuciniera must be relieved." She rose, and moved towards the darkling front of the Castle.

"Hang education! I'll go with you," said John, following.

"I shall only stop a moment, to see how she is," said Maria Dolores.

"Then I must hurry home, to get my packing begun."

"Your packing?" faltered John.

"To-morrow morning Frau Brandt and I are leaving for Austria--for Schloss Mischenau, where my brother lives."

"Good Lord!" said John. "Ah, well, I suppose it is what they would call the proper course," he admitted with gloomy resignation. "But think how dreadfully you'll be missed--by Annunziata."

"Annunziata is so much better, I can easily be spared," said Maria Dolores; "and anyhow--'tis needs must. I think you will probably soon receive a letter from my brother, asking you to visit him. Mischenau is a place worth seeing, in its northern style. And, in his northern style, my brother is a man worth meeting. I counsel you to go."

"I shall certainly go," said John. "I shall linger here at Sant'

Alessina like a soul in durance, counting the hours till my release. I shall be particularly glad to meet your brother, as I have matters of importance to arrange with him."

"Until then," said she, smiling, "I think we must do with those--matters of importance"--her voice quavered on the word--"what is it that the Pope sometimes does with Cardinals?"