The Prince and Betty Part 9

John was in no mood to postpone the event.

"As early as ever you like," he roared.

"At about ten, then. Good-night, Mr. Maude."

John had reached the bay at half-past eight, and had been on guard there ever since. It was now past ten, but still there were no signs of Betty. His depression increased. He told himself that she had forgotten. Then, that she had remembered, but had changed her mind.

Then, that she had never meant to come at all. He could not decide which of the three theories was the most distressing.

His mood became morbidly introspective. He was weighed down by a sense of his own unworthiness. He submitted himself to a thorough examination, and the conclusion to which he came was that, as an aspirant to the regard, of a girl like Betty, he did not score a single point. No wonder she had ignored the appointment.

A cold sweat broke out on him. This was the snub! She had not administered it in the Casino simply in order that, by being delayed, its force might be the more overwhelming.

He looked at his watch again, and the world grew black. It was twelve minutes after ten.

John, in his time, had thought and read a good deal about love. Ever since he had grown up, he had wanted to fall in love. He had imagined love as a perpetual exhilaration, something that flooded life with a golden glow as if by the pressing of a b.u.t.ton or the pulling of a switch, and automatically removed from it everything mean and hard and uncomfortable; a something that made a man feel grand and G.o.d-like, looking down (benevolently, of course) on his fellow men as from some lofty mountain.

That it should make him feel a worm-like humility had not entered his calculations. He was beginning to see something of the possibilities of love. His tentative excursions into the unknown emotion, while at college, had never really deceived him; even at the time a sort of second self had looked on and sneered at the poor imitation.

This was different. This had nothing to do with moonlight and soft music. It was raw and hard. It hurt. It was a thing sharp and jagged, tearing at the roots of his soul.

He turned his head, and looked up the path for the hundredth time, and this time he sprang to his feet. Between the pines on the hillside his eye had caught the flutter of a white dress.

CHAPTER VII

MR. SCOBELL IS FRANK

Much may happen in these rapid times in the course of an hour and a half. While John was keeping his vigil on the sandstone rock, Betty was having an interview with Mr. Scobell which was to produce far-reaching results, and which, incidentally, was to leave her angrier and more at war with the whole of her world than she could remember to have been in the entire course of her life.

The interview began, shortly after breakfast, in a gentle and tactful manner, with Aunt Marion at the helm. But Mr. Scobell was not the man to stand by silently while persons were being tactful. At the end of the second minute he had plunged through his sister's mild monologue like a rhinoceros through a cobweb, and had stated definitely, with an economy of words, the exact part which Betty was to play in Mervian affairs.

"You say you want to know why you were cabled for. I'll tell you.

There's no use talking for half a day before you get to the point. I guess you've heard that there's a prince here instead of a republic now? Well, that's where you come in."

"Do you mean--?" she hesitated.

"Yes, I do," said Mr. Scobell. There was a touch of doggedness in his voice. He was not going to stand any nonsense, by Heck, but there was no doubt that Betty's wide-open eyes were not very easy to meet. He went on rapidly. "Cut out any fool notions about romance." Miss Scobell, who was knitting a sock, checked her needles for a moment in order to sigh. Her brother eyed her morosely, then resumed his remarks.

"This is a matter of state. That's it. You gotta cut out fool notions and act for good of state. You gotta look at it in the proper spirit.

Great honor--see what I mean? Princess and all that. Chance of a lifetime--dynasty--you gotta look at it that way."

Miss Scobell heaved another sigh, and dropped a st.i.tch.

"For the love of Mike," said her brother, irritably, "don't snort like that, Marion."

"Very well, dear."

Betty had not taken her eyes off him from his first word. An unbiased observer would have said that she made a pretty picture, standing there, in her white dress, but in the matter of pictures, still life was evidently what Mr. Scobell preferred for his gaze never wandered from the cigar stump which he had removed from his mouth in order to knock off the ash.

Betty continued to regard him steadfastly. The shock of his words had to some extent numbed her. At this moment she was merely thinking, quite dispa.s.sionately, what a singularly nasty little man he looked, and wondering--not for the first time--what strange quality, invisible to everybody else, it had been in him that had made her mother his adoring slave during the whole of their married life.

Then her mind began to work actively once more. She was a Western girl, and an insistence on freedom was the first article in her creed. A great rush of anger filled her, that this man should set himself up to dictate to her.

"Do you mean that you want me to marry this Prince?" she said.

"That's right."

"I won't do anything of the sort."

"Pshaw! Don't be foolish. You make me tired."

Betty's eye shone mutinously. Her cheeks were flushed, and her slim, boyish figure quivered. Her chin, always determined, became a silent Declaration of Independence.

"I won't," she said.

Aunt Marion, suspending operations on the sock, went on with tact at the point where her brother's interruption had forced her to leave off.

"I'm sure he's a very nice young man. I have not seen him, but everybody says so. You like him, Bennie, don't you?"

"Sure, I like him. He's a corker. Wait till you see him, Betty.

n.o.body's asking you to marry him before lunch. You'll have plenty of time to get acquainted. It beats me what you're kicking at. You give me a pain in the neck. Be reasonable."

Betty sought for arguments to clinch her refusal.

"It's ridiculous," she said. "You talk as if you had just to wave your hand. Why should your prince want to marry a girl he has never seen?"

"He will," said Mr. Scobell confidently.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know he's a sensible young skeesicks. That's how. See here, Betty, you've gotten hold of wrong ideas about this place. You don't understand the position of affairs. Your aunt didn't till I put her wise."

"He bit my head off, my dear," murmured Miss Scobell, knitting placidly.

"You're thinking that Mervo is an ordinary state, and that the Prince is one of those independent, all-wool, off-with-his-darned-head rulers like you read about in the best sellers. Well, you've got another guess coming. If you want to know who's the big noise here, it's me--me! This Prince guy is my hired man. See? Who sent for him? I did. Who put him on the throne? I did. Who pays him his salary? I do, from the profits of the Casino. Now do you understand? He knows his job. He knows which side his bread's b.u.t.tered. When I tell him about this marriage, do you know what he'll say? He'll say 'Thank you, sir!' That's how things are in this island."

Betty shuddered. Her face was white with humiliation. She half-raised her hands with an impulsive movement to hide it.

"I won't. I won't. I won't!" she gasped.

Mr. Scobell was pacing the room in an ecstasy of triumphant rhetoric.

"There's another thing," he said, swinging round suddenly and causing his sister to drop another st.i.tch. "Maybe you think he's some kind of a Dago, this guy? Maybe that's what's biting you. Let me tell you that he's an American--pretty near as much an American as you are yourself."