One Day Part 6

It had all been arranged for him by well-meaning minds--minds that could never see how the blessing they had intended to bestow might by any chance become a curse.

The Boy came of age in February next--February nineteenth--but it had been the strongly expressed wish of his mother that his coronation should not take place until May.

For was it not in May that she had met her Paul?

She had felt, from the birth of the young Prince, a presentiment of her own early death, and had formed many plans and voiced many preferences for his future. No one knew what personal reasons the Imperatorskoye had for the wish, but she had so definitely and unmistakably made the desire known to all her councillors that none dreamed of disobeying the mandate of their deceased and ever-to-be-lamented Queen. Her slightest wish had always been to them an Una.s.sailable law.

So the coronation ceremonies were to take place in the May following the Prince's birthday, and the Regent had arranged that the marriage should also be celebrated at that time. Of course, the Boy had acquiesced. He saw no reason to put it off any longer. It was always best to swallow your bitterest pill first, he thought, and get the worst over and the taste out of your mouth as soon as possible.

Until that eventful time, the Prince was free to go where he pleased, and to do whatever he wished. He had insisted upon this liberty, and the Regent, finding him in all other respects so amenable to his leading, gladly made the concession. This left him a year--that is, nearly a year, for it was June now--of care-free bachelorhood; a year for one, who was yet only a dreamy boy, to acquire the proper spirit for a happy bridegroom; a year of Father Paul!

He rode along aimlessly for a short distance, scarcely guiding his horse, and only responding to the greetings of acquaintances he chanced to meet with absent-minded, though still irreproachable, courtesy. He was hardly thinking at all, now--at least consciously. He was simply glad to be alive, as Youth is glad--in spite of any possible, or impossible, environment.

Suddenly his eyes fell upon a feminine rider some paces in advance, who seemed to attract much attention, of which she was--apparently --delightfully unconscious. Paul marked the faultless proportions of her horse.

"What a magnificent animal!" he thought. Then, under his breath, he added, "and what a stunning rider!"

She was only a girl--about eighteen or nineteen, he should judge by her figure and the girlish poise of her small head--but she certainly knew how to ride. She sat her horse as though a part of him, and controlled his every motion as she would her own.

"Just that way might she manage a man," Paul thought, and then laughed aloud at the absurdity of the thought. For he had never seen the girl before.

Paul admired a good horsewoman--they are so pitifully few. And he followed her, at a safe distance, with an interest unaccountable, even to him. Finally she drew rein before one of the houses facing the Row, dismounted, and throwing the train of her habit gracefully over her arm, walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul instantly likened her to a bird, so lightly tripping over the walk that her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground. She was a wee thing--certainly not more than five foot tall--and _pet.i.te_, almost to an extreme. The Boy had expressed a preference, only a few days before, for tall, magnificent women. Now he suddenly discovered that the woman for a man to love should by all means be short and small. He wondered why it had never occurred to him in that light before, and thought of Jacques' question about Rosalind, "What stature is she of?" and Orlando's reply, "As high as my heart!"

The girl who had aroused this train of thought had reached the big stone steps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her shoulder, just as he pa.s.sed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what eyes those were!--full of mystery and magnetism, and--possibilities!

For an instant their eyes clung together in that strange mingling of glances that sometimes holds even utter strangers spell-bound by its compelling force.

Then she turned and entered the house, and Paul rode on.

But that glance went with him. It tormented him, troubled him, perplexed him. He felt a mad desire to turn back, to follow her into that house, and compel her to meet his eyes again. Did she know the power of her own eyes? Did she know a look like that had almost the force of a caress?

He told himself that they were the most beautiful eyes that he had ever seen--and yet he could not have told the color of them to save his soul.

He began to wonder about that. It vexed him that he could not remember.

"Eyes!" he thought, "those are not eyes! They are living magnets, drawing a fellow on and on, and he never stops to think what color they are--nor _care!_"

And then he pulled himself up sharply, and declared himself a madman for raving on the street in broad daylight over the mere accidental meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He--the uncrowned king of a to-be-glorious throne! He--the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie of--h.e.l.l! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and the Park trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that should have made them hide in shame over the depravity of youth.

But the strangest thing of all was that the Boy, for the nonce, was not thinking of--nor listening for--the voice!

He turned as he reached the end of the Row and rode slowly back. But the horses and groom had already gone from the gate. And inwardly cursing his slowness, he started on a trot for Berkeley Square.

He was not very far from the Verdayne house, when, turning a sudden corner, he came upon the girl again, riding at a leisurely pace in the opposite direction. Startled by his unexpected appearance, she glanced back over her shoulder as she pa.s.sed, surprising him--and perhaps herself, too, for girls do that sometimes--by a ringing and tantalizing laugh!

That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was _the voice_!

It was she--Opal!

He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he was, she was yet swifter and was far down the street before he was fairly started in pursuit. His one desire of the moment was to catch and conquer the sprite that tempted him.

Her veil fluttered out behind her on the breeze, like a signal of no-surrender, and once--only once--she looked back over her shoulder.

She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint of her eye, but he heard the echo of that laugh--that voice--and it spurred him on and on.

Suddenly, by some turn known only to herself, she eluded him and escaped beyond his vision--and beyond his reach. He halted his panting horse at the crossing of several streets, and swore again. But though he looked searchingly in every possible direction, there was no trace of the fugitive to be seen. It was as though the earth had opened and swallowed horse and rider in one greedy gulp.

Baffled and more disappointed than he cared to own, Paul rode slowly back to Berkeley Square, his heart bounding with the excitement of the chase and yet thoroughly vexed over his failure, at himself, his horse, the girl.

At the house he found letters from the Regent awaiting him, recalling to him his position and its unwelcome responsibilities. One of them enclosed a full-length photograph of his future bride.

Fate had certainly been kind to him by granting his one expressed wish.

The Princess Elodie was what he had desired, "quite six-foot tall." Yet he pushed the portrait aside with an impatient gesture, and before his mental vision rose a little figure tripping up the steps, with a backward glance that still seemed to pierce his very soul.

He was not thinking, as he certainly should have been, of the Princess Elodie! And he had not even noticed whether she had any eyes or not!

He looked again at the picture of the Austrian princess, lying face upward upon the pile of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept the offending portrait into a drawer, and summoning Vasili, began to make a hasty toilet.

Vasili had never seen his young master in such bad humor. He was unpardonably late for luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surely not to such an extent as this!

He was greatly disturbed by something. There was no denying that.

He had found the voice, but--

CHAPTER VI

It was the next morning at the breakfast table that Paul Zalenska, listlessly looking over the "Society Notes" in the _Times_, came upon this significant notice:

"Mr. Gilbert Ledoux and daughter, Miss Opal Ledoux, of New Orleans, accompanied by Henri, Count de Roannes, of Paris, have taken pa.s.sage on the Lusitania, which sails for New York on July 3rd."

It was _she_, of course!--who else could it be? Surely there could not be more than one Opal in America!

"Father Paul, I notice that the Lusitania is to sail for America on the third of July. Can't we make it?"

Verdayne smiled quietly at the suddenness of the proposal, but was not unduly surprised. He remembered many unaccountable impulses of his own when his life was young and his blood was hot. He remembered too with a tender grat.i.tude how his father had humored him and--was he not "Father Paul"?

"I see no reason why not, Boy."

"You see, I have already lost a whole month out of my one free year. I am unwilling to waste a single hour of it, Father Paul--wouldn't you be?

And we _must_ see America together, you and I, before I go back to--prison!"

"Certainly, Boy, certainly. My time is yours--when you want it, and where you want it, the whole year through!"

"I know that, Father Paul, and--I thank you!"

It was more difficult to arrange matters with Lady Henrietta. She was not so young as she once was and she still adored her son, as only the mother of but one child can adore, and could not bear the idea of having him away from her. Old and steady as he had now become, he was still her boy, the idol of her heart. Yet she felt, as her son did, that the Boy was ent.i.tled to the few months of liberty left him, and she did not greatly object, though there was a wistful look in her eyes as they rested on her son that told how keenly she felt every separation from him.