Affairs of State Part 19

"Who is it that is opposed to you in all this?" asked Sue.

"The German Emperor," said the Prince, simply. "He is not always in sympathy with--ah--progress."

"So he is the man with the pistol!" said Susie, thoughtfully.

"The--I beg your pardon," and the Prince looked at her in some surprise.

"It is nothing," said Susie, hastily, colouring under his eyes. "I was merely thinking aloud--thinking of a story. Pardon me. Will you tell me some more?"

"There is not much more to tell. Only, we fear that if we are not given an opportunity to present our claims this time, we may be forgotten the next. Prince George might possibly try to name a successor--we have even understood that he already considers doing so--that this, indeed, is the price he has agreed to pay the Emperor for his support--though this, of course, is strictly entre nous. You see I am trusting you."

"Thank you," answered Susie, simply; but there was that in her voice and glance which told how she would deserve the confidence. And, on the instant, a great yearning leaped warm into her heart. If she could help this people to the ruler they needed most; if she could somehow turn the scale, so delicately balanced! There would be a task worth doing; an achievement to be proud of all her life! And she trembled a little at the thought that to her, Susie Rushford, fate had given such an opportunity!

But Markeld, apparently, had had enough of high politics, or perhaps he found it difficult to keep his mind on them with Susie's dark eyes looking up at him. He was no novice in womankind; he had known many, high and low; but there was in his companion something different, something appealing, something fresh, invigorating, which he had felt from the first, in a vague way, without quite understanding. Princes may be outspoken when they please, and he was so at this moment.

"I was glad of to-day's meeting not only that I might apologise," he said, with a calmness which rather took his companion's breath away, "but because you interested me. I have heard much of American women, but all that I have heretofore been privileged to meet seemed to me to resent being called Americans. You and your sister, on the other hand, appear to be rather proud of it."

"I don't know whether that is intended as a compliment or the reverse,"

said Susie, "but it is undoubtedly true."

"It was that which interested me," he went on. "It indicated such an unspoiled point of view--a freshness which I fear the Old World is losing."

"Thank you," retorted Susie, gasping a little. "You have honoured us, I see, with a very careful study. I can respond by saying that there is in your manner a certain freshness which I do not like," and she shot him a fiery glance. At the moment, he was rather too evidently the Prince.

"I am sorry you find me displeasing," he said, looking at her gravely.

Perhaps she was, at the moment, just the merest shade too evidently the American girl. "I hope the impression is one which will change when you know me better."

"Am I to have that pleasure?"

"I intend to ask your father if I may call upon you."

Susie gasped again. She felt that she was being swept beyond her depth by a current which she was powerless to resist; that she was beating with bare hands against a wall of incredible height and thickness--the wall of Old World convention, of cla.s.s imperturbability. And she felt a little frightened, for almost the first time in her life.

"Do," she said faintly, realising that her companion was waiting for her to speak.

"I think that I shall like him," he added.

"Oh, do you know him?"

"'I was looking at him last night at dinner," he explained, calmly. "He seems a very interesting man. I looked at all of you a great deal--more than was perhaps quite polite. I feared you had perceived it."

"No," murmured Susie, desperately, telling a white lie.

"Tellier told me you were Americans--but I should have known it anyway."

"Tellier!" she repeated, turning upon him fiercely, welcoming the opportunity to create a diversion. "Then he _was_ your emissary! And to think that I defended you!"

"My emissary?" he stammered. "Defended me?"

"Yes, when--when--some one said you had sent him to us--"

"Sent him to you!" he cried, flus.h.i.+ng darkly. "Do you mean to say that he has been annoying you?"

"It was almost that."

"Ah!" he said. "Ah!" and he grasped his stick in a way that boded ill for Monsieur Tellier.

Susie, glancing up at him, thought it very fine. He was such a volcano, and there was such a fearful pleasure in stirring him up--in skipping over the thin crust with a lively consciousness of the boiling lava beneath!

"Then you didn't send him?" she inquired, sweetly.

"Send him! Miss Rushford, do you think for a moment that I would be so rude, so impertinent? Tell me you do not think so!"

"I _didn't_ think so," said Sue, biting her lip, a little fearfully. "I even defended you, as I have said. But now--"

"But now--"

His eyes seemed to burn her; she dared not look up and meet them. She even regretted that she had begun to play with fire.

"But now," he repeated, insistently, imperatively.

"No, I don't think so now," she said, with a little catch of the breath.

Then she glanced up at him, and instantly looked away. He should not act so; every one would notice; it was very embarra.s.sing!

"That is kind of you," he said, in a low voice.

"Though," she added, reprovingly, glad to find a joint in his armour, "I am surprised that you should discuss me in any way whatever with that creature!"

"You are right!" he agreed, flus.h.i.+ng hotly. "You are quite right. But the temptation was very great, and I wanted to know so badly. I beg you to believe that I regretted it an instant later. I do not want that you should think of me as like that!"

"Perhaps I would better not think of you at all," ventured Sue. Ah, what a fascination there is in fire!

"That would be still more unbearable!" he protested; his eyes were very bright and he was bending down a little that he might the better see the face under the broad hat.

"The view from here, I think, is very beautiful," she remarked, incoherently.

"No doubt," agreed the Prince, but he didn't take the trouble to look at it.

"He's a survival of the dark ages," said Susie to herself, "when they just s.n.a.t.c.hed up girls and ran off with them!" Then aloud, "Have you ever been here before?"

"Never before."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, very much!" His eyes would have told her why; but she could guess without looking.

"I suppose you usually go to one of the larger places?"

"It is one of the traditions of our family that at least a month must be spent at Ostend."