A Son of the Immortals Part 3

"I hope that flourish of mine did not come too close, Beaumanoir," said Alec.

"Don't give a tuppenny now," laughed Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir. "The match is over, and you've won it, and if you play till Doomsday you'll never score a better notch."

"It was lucky, a sheer fluke."

"Oh, that be jiggered for a yarn! A fellow flukes with his eyes shut.

You meant it!"

"Yes, that is right. So would you, Berty, if it was your last knock."

"Well, time's up, anyhow," said Beaumanoir, not comprehending.

They trotted off to the group of waiting grooms. Delgrado ran the gauntlet of congratulations, for Paris likes to see Chantilly's flag lowered, and escaped to the dressing room. He gave a letter, already written and sealed, to an attendant, and drove away in his dogcart.

Bowling quickly along the broad Allee de Longchamps, he turned into the Route de l'Etoile, and so to the fine avenue where all Paris takes the summer air.

He found himself eying the parade of fashion in a curiously detached mood. Yesterday he thought himself part and parcel of that gay throng.

To-day he was a different being. All that had gone before was merged in "yesterday's seven thousand years."

His cob's pace did not slacken until he drew rein at the giant doorway of a block of flats in the Rue Boissiere. It was then about five o'clock, and he meant to appear at his mother's tea table. He was far from looking the "limp rag" of his phrase to Joan. Indeed, it might have taxed the resources of any crack regiment in Paris that day to produce his equal in condition. Twenty-four years old, nearly six feet in height, lean and wiry, square wristed, broad shouldered, and straight as a spear, he met the physical requirements, at least, of those cla.s.sic youths beloved of Joan's favorite G.o.ddess.

Usually his clean cut face, typically American in its high cheekbones, firm chin, mobile mouth, and thoughtful eyes, wore a happy-go-lucky expression that was the despair of matchmaking mamas; but to-day Alec was serious. He was thinking of the promise that to the souls of fire would be given more fire, to the manful a might more than man's.

If he had not been so preoccupied, he would certainly have heard the raucous shouts of newsboys running frantically along the boulevards.

That is to say, he heard, but did not heed, else some shadow of a strange destiny must have dimmed his bright dreams.

Their nature might be guessed from his words to Joan. The question he addressed to the concierge proved that his intent was fixed.

"Is Monseigneur at home?" he asked.

"_Oui, m'sieur._ His Excellency has mounted a little half-hour ago,"

said the man.

Alec nodded. "Now for it!" he said to himself.

His father, a born fop, a boulevardier by adoption, cultivated habits that seemed to follow the mechanical laws of those clockwork manikins that ingenious horologists contrive for the amus.e.m.e.nt of children, big and little. Whether eating, sleeping, driving, strolling, chatting or card playing, the whereabouts and occupation of Prince Michael Delgrado could be correctly diagnosed at any given hour of the day and night.

Fortune delights at times in tormenting such men with great opportunities. Prince Michael, standing now with his back to the fireplace in his wife's boudoir, was fated to be an early recipient of that boon for which so many sigh in vain.

Of course he knew nothing of that. His round, plump, rosy face, at first sight absurdly disproportionate to his dapper and effeminate body, wore a frown of annoyance. In fact, he had been obliged to think, and the effort invariably distressed him. Apparently he had a big head, and big headed men of diminutive frame usually possess brains and enjoy using them. But closer inspection revealed that his Highness' skull resembled an egg, with the narrow end uppermost.

Thus, according to Lavater, he was richly endowed with all the baser qualities that pander to self, and markedly deficient in the higher attributes of humanity. The traits of the gourmand, the cynic, the egoist, were there; but the physiognomist would look in vain for any sign of genius or true n.o.bility. Recognition of his undoubted rank had, of course, given him the grand manner. That was unavoidable, and it was his chief a.s.set. He liked to be addressed as "Monseigneur"; he had a certain reputation for wit; he carried himself with the ease that marks his caste; and he had shown excellent taste in choosing a wife.

The Princess did indeed look the great lady. Her undoubted beauty, aided by a touch of Western piquancy, had captivated the Paris salons of an earlier generation, and those same salons repaid their debt by conferring the repose, the dignity, the subtle aura of distinction, that const.i.tute the aristocrat in outward bearing. For this reason, Princess Delgrado was received in poverty stricken apartments where her husband would be looked at askance, since the frayed Boulevard Saint Germain still shelters the most exclusive circle in France.

Here, then, was an amazing instance of a one-sided heredity. Alexis Delgrado evidently owed both mind and body to his mother. Looking at the Princess, one saw that such a son of such a father did not become sheerly impossible.

To-day, unhappily, neither Prince Michael nor his wife was in tune for a family conclave. Monseigneur was ruffled, distinctly so, and Madame was on the verge of tears.

When Alec entered the room he was aware of a sudden silence, accentuated by a half-repressed sob from his mother. Instantly he took the blame on his own shoulders. He expected difficulties; but he was not prepared for a scene.

"Why, mother dear," he said, bending over her with a tenderness that contrasted strongly with Prince Michael's affected indifference, "what is the matter? Surely you and dad have not been worrying about me! You can't keep me in the nest always, you know. And I only want to earn the wherewithal to live. That is not so very terrible, is it?"

The distressed woman looked up at him with a wan smile. She seemed to have aged since the morning. There was a pathetic weakness in her mouth and chin that was noticeably absent from her son's strong lineaments, and it occurred to Alec with a pang that he had never before seen his mother so deeply moved.

"I suppose one must endure the world's changes," she murmured. "It was foolish on my part to imagine that things could continue forever on the same lines; but I shall not grieve, Alec, if no cloud comes between you and me. It would break my heart----"

"Oh, come now!" he cried, simulating a lively good humor he was far from feeling. "What has dad been saying? Clouds! Where are they? Not around my head, at any rate. I have dispelled the only one that existed, the silly halo of cla.s.s that stops a fellow from working because he happens to be born a Prince. It was different for dad, of course. My respected grandfather, Ferdinand VII., was really a King, and dad was a grown man when the pair of them were slung out of Kosnovia. Sorry, sir; but that is the way they talk history nowadays. It has ceased to be decorous. I am afraid Paris is largely responsible. You see, we have an Emperor in the next block, two Kings in the Avenue Victor Hugo, and a fugitive ex-President in the Hotel Metropole. I have seen the whole lot, even our n.o.ble selves, burlesqued in a Montmartre review. And I laughed! That is the worst part of it. I roared! We looked such a funny crew. And we were all jolly hard up, borrowing five-franc pieces from one another, and offering to sell scepters at a ridiculous sacrifice. That came rather near home. We haven't got what the storybooks calls an embarra.s.sment of riches, have we? So, a cup of tea, please, mother, and I'll hear the Czar's edict. It is pending. I can see it in his eye."

Usually Prince Michael responded to that sort of airy nonsense. When sure of his audience, he had spoken much more disrespectfully of the Parisian band of Kings in exile. But to-day his chubby cheeks refused to crease in a grin. He remained morose, oracular, heavy jowled. In fact, he had set himself a very difficult task. Now that the moment had arrived for its fulfilment, he shirked it.

"May I ask, Alec, if you have any scheme in view?" he said, strutting on the hearthrug in front of a grate filled with ferns. He always stood there,--in winter because it was warm, and he was a martyr to chilblains; in summer because of the habit contracted in winter.

"Well, sir, candidly speaking, I have not. But I saw in a newspaper the other day a paragraph of advice to a young man. 'No matter how small your income may be, live within it: that is the beginning of wealth,' it said. How profound! I applied it to myself. My income is nil. There I encountered a serious obstacle at the very start of the Great Money Stakes. But----"

"This is a grave discussion, Alec. I have that to say which may pain you. Pray be serious."

"Oh, I am--quite serious. My ponies and the dogcart are in Dumont's catalogue for the next sale. I resigned my membership of the polo club to-day. To-morrow, or eke to-night, I look for a job. As you, mother o'

mine, have heard men say in your beloved west, I'm going to b.u.t.t in."

"I--er--suppose you--er--look to me for some a.s.sistance?" coughed Prince Michael.

His wife rose. Her face was gray-white, her eyes blazed. "Alec knows we are poor. Why torture him--and me? I refuse to allow it. I refuse!" Her voice took a tragic note, thin and shrill; there was a pitiful quivering of her lips that wrung her son's heart, and he was utterly at a loss to understand why a discussion as to his future should lead to this display of pa.s.sion.

"But, mother darling," he cried, "why are you grieving so? You and dad must maintain a certain state,--one begins by a.s.suming that,--and it is no secret that the Delgrado side of the family was not blessed with wealth. Very well. Let me try to adjust the balance--the bank balance, eh? Really, why weep?"

Alec's gallant attempt to avert the storm failed again. His Serene Highness muttered words in a foreign tongue that sounded anything but serene. The Princess did not understand; but her son did. His brows wrinkled, and the good humored gleam died out of his eyes.

"Perhaps, sir," he said stiffly, "this subject had better be discussed when my mother is not present."

Prince Michael looked at him fixedly. For some reason the little man was very angry, and he seemed to resent the implied slur on his good taste.

"I am determined to end this farce once and for all," he vowed. "Before you joined us, I told the Princess----"

The door was flung open. The young man who had followed Joan and Alec into the Louvre that morning rushed in. His pink and white face was crimson now, and his manner that of unmeasured, almost uncontrollable excitement. He gazed at them with a wildness that bordered on frenzy, yet it was clear that their own marked agitation was only what he expected to find.

"Ah, you have heard?" he snapped, biting at each syllable.

"Heard what, Julius?" demanded Monseigneur, with an instant lowering of the princely mask, since Julius dabbled in stocks and was reputed well to do.

"The news! The news from Kosnovia!"

Prince Michael affected to yawn. "Oh, is that all?" he asked.

"All! _Grand Dieu_, what more would you have? It means--everything."

"My good Julius, it is long since I was so disturbed. What, then, has happened? The Danube in flood is no new thing."

"The Danube!" and the newcomer's voice cracked. "So you do not know--sire?"

The little word seemed to have the explosive force of nitroglycerine.