My Friend Prospero Part 4

"And in such a romantic environment, and not on account of a woman! It's downright unnatural," she declared. "It's flat treason against the kingly state of youth."

"I'm awfully sorry," said John. "Yet, after all, what's the good of repining? Nothing could happen even if there were a woman."

Lady Blanchemain looked alarmed.

"Nothing could happen? What do you mean? You're not _married_? If you are, it must be secretly, for you're put down as single in Burke."

"To the best of my knowledge," John rea.s.sured her, laughing, "Burke is right. And I prayerfully trust he may never have occasion to revise his statement."

"For mercy's sake," cried she, "don't tell me you're a woman-hater!"

"That's just the point," said he. "I'm an adorer of the s.e.x."

"Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wish to remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of the succession?"

"That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there are plenty of cousins."

"Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's just the point? Just the point that you aren't a woman-hater?--just the point that you're heir to a peerage? You talk like Tom o' Bedlam."

"Well, you see," expounded John, unruffled, "as an adorer of the s.e.x, and heir to a peerage, I shouldn't want to marry a woman unless I could support her in what they call a manner becoming her rank--and I couldn't."

"Couldn't?" the lady scoffed. "I should like to know why not?"

"I'm too--if you will allow me to clothe my thought in somewhat homely language--too beastly poor."

"_You--poor?_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Blanchemain, falling back.

"Ay--but honest," a.s.severated John, to calm her fears.

She couldn't help smiling, though she resolutely frowned.

"Be serious," she enjoined him. "Doesn't your uncle make you a suitable allowance?"

"I should deceive you," answered John, "if I said he made me an _un_suitable one. He makes me, to put it in round numbers, exactly no allowance whatsoever."

"The--old--curmudgeon!" cried Lady Blanchemain, astounded, and fiercely scanning her words.

"No," returned John, soothingly, "he isn't a curmudgeon. But he's a very peculiar man. He's a Spartan, and he lacks imagination. It has simply never entered his head that I could _need_ an allowance. And, if you come to that, I can't say that I positively do. I have a tiny patrimony--threepence a week, or so--enough for my humble necessities, though scarcely perhaps enough to support the state of a future peeress.

No, my uncle isn't a curmudgeon; he's a very fine old boy, of whom I'm immensely proud, and though I've yet to see the colour of his money, we're quite the best of friends. At any rate, you'll agree that it would be the deuce to pay if I were to fall in love.

"Ffff," breathed Lady Blanchemain, fanning. "What did I say of an age of prose and prudence? Yet you don't _look_ cold-blooded. What does money matter? _Dominus providebit_. Go read Browning. What's 'the true end, sole and single' that we're here for? Besides, have you never heard that there are such things as marriageable heiresses in the world?"

"Oh, yes, I've heard that," John cheerfully a.s.sented. "But don't they almost always squint or something? I've heard, too, that there are such things as tufted fortune-hunters, but theirs is a career that requires a special vocation, and I'm afraid I haven't got it."

"Then you're no true Marquis of Carabas," the lady took him smartly up.

"You've found me out--I'm only a _faux-marquis_," he laughed.

"Thrrr!" breathed Lady Blanchemain, and for a little while appeared lost in thought. By-and-by she got up and went to the window, and stood looking out. "I never saw a lovelier landscape," she said, musingly.

"With the grey hills, and the snow-peaks, and the brilliant sky, with the golden light and the purple shadows, and the cypresses and olives, with the river gleaming below there amongst the peach-blossoms, and--isn't that a blackcap singing in the mimosa? It only needs a pair of lovers to be perfect--it _cries_ for a pair of lovers. And instead of them, I find--what? A hermit and celibate. Look here. Make a clean breast of it. _Are_ you cold-blooded?" she asked from over her shoulder.

John merely giggled.

"It would serve you right," said she, truculently, "if some one were to rub your eyes with love-in-idleness, to make you dote upon the next live creature that you see."

John merely chuckled.

"I'll tell you what," she proceeded, "I'm a bit of an old witch, and I'll risk a soothword. As there isn't already a woman, there'll shortly be one--my thumbs p.r.i.c.k. The stage is set, the scene is too appropriate, the play's inevitable. It was never in the will of Providence that a youth of your complexion should pa.s.s the springtime in a spot all teeming with romance like this, and miss a love adventure. A castle in a garden, a flowering valley, and the Italian sky--the Italian sun and moon! Your portraits of these smiling dead women too, if you like, to keep your imagination working. And blackcaps singing in the mimosa. No, no. The lady of the piece is waiting in the wings--my thumbs p.r.i.c.k. Give her but the least excuse, she'll enter, and ... Good Heavens, my prophetic soul!" she suddenly, with a sort of catch in her throat, broke off.

She turned and faced him, cheeks flushed, eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

"Oh, you hypocrite! You monstrous fibber!" she cried, on a tone of jubilation, looking daggers.

"Why? What's up? What's the matter?" asked John, at fault.

"How _could_ you have humbugged me so?" she wailed, in delight, reverting to the window. "Anyhow, she's charming. She's made for the part. I couldn't pray for a more promising heroine."

"She? Who?" asked he, crossing to her side.

"Who? Fie, you slyboots!" she crowed with glee.

"Ah, I see," said John.

For, below them, in the garden, just beyond the mimosa (all powdered with fresh gold) where the blackcap was singing, stood a woman.

IX

She stood in the path, beside a sun-dial, from which she appeared to be taking the time of day, a crumbling ancient thing of grey stone, green and brown with mosses; and she was smiling pleasantly to herself the while, all unaware of the couple who watched her from above. She wore a light-coloured garden-frock, and was bare-headed, as one belonging to the place. She was young--two or three and twenty, by her aspect: young, slender, of an excellent height, and, I hope you would have agreed, a beautiful countenance. She studied the sun-dial, and smiled; and what with her dark eyes and softly chiselled features, the pale rose in her cheeks and the deeper rose of her mouth, with her hair too, almost black in shadow, but where the sun touched it turning to sombre red,--yes, I think you would have agreed that she was beautiful. Lady Blanchemain, at any rate, found her so.

"She's quite lovely," she declared. "Her face is exquisite--so sensitive, so spiritual; so distinguished, so aristocratic. And so _clever_," she added, after a suspension.

"Mm!" said John, his forehead wrinkled, as if something were puzzling him.

"She has a figure--she holds herself well," said Lady Blanchemain.

"Mm!" said John.

"I suppose," said she, "you're too much a mere man to be able to appreciate her frock? It's the work of a dressmaker who knows her business. And that lilac muslin (that's so fas.h.i.+onable now) really does, in the open air, with the country for background, show to immense advantage. Come--out with it. Tell me all about her. Who _is_ she?"

"That's just what I'm up a tree to think," said John. "I can't imagine.

How long has she been there? From what direction did she come?"

"Don't try to hoodwink me any longer," remonstrated the lady, unbelieving.