Prince or Chauffeur? Part 3

"No, I was not," said her mother. "I have been thinking, planning."

"Oh, Prince Koltsoff!"

"Yes." Mrs. Wellington raised her hand languidly to her face. "He wrote he was coming to us this afternoon, direct from the Russian amba.s.sador's at Bar Harbor. Did he not?"

"Yes, unless Miss Hatch was mistaken in what she said the other day."

"Miss Hatch," said the elder woman, "is one of the few secretaries I ever had who does not make mistakes. However, that is neither here nor there. Prince Koltsoff has been in Newport for a week."

"A week! The idea! Where? Not with the Van Antwerps?" Miss Wellington's eyes blazed with interest.

"No, not with any one that I was able to discover. But Clarie Pembroke, of the British legation, was driving from the Reading Room to the yacht club with your father the other day. He told me he was certain he saw Koltsoff standing on a side street near the Aquidneck."

"Why on earth did n't you tell me before?" cried the daughter. "What a delightful mystery!" She smiled with mischief. "Do you suppose after all he is some no-account? You know Russian princes are as numerous as Russian bears; they can be as great bounders and as indigent as Italian counts--"

"All of which you have heard me say quite frequently," interrupted Mrs.

Wellington placidly. "Koltsoff is not pinchbeck. The Koltsoffs are an ill.u.s.trious Russian family, and have been for years. I think I know my Almanach de Gotha. Why, Koltsoff is _aide-de-camp_ to the Czar and has, I believe, estates in southern Russia. His father fought brilliantly in the Russo-Turkish War and gained the Cross of St. Anne; his great, or great-great-grandfather, I don't recall which, was a general of note of Catherine the Great's, and if certain intimate histories of that time are not wholly false, her rewards for his services were scandalously bestowed."

"No doubt," said the girl carelessly. "And Koltsoff?"

"A genuinely distinguished fellow. He was educated, of course, at the cadet school in St. Petersburg and during the j.a.panese War was with the Czar. I met him in London, last May, at Lord McEncroe's, as I have already told you, I think, and when he spoke of coming to America this summer I engaged him for August."

"It was rather farsighted of you," said the girl admiringly. "Newport needs some excitement this season. If he 's anything like that last Russian who came here on a warship two years ago, you will shine as a benefactor, especially in the eyes of reporters."

Mrs. Wellington smiled grimly.

"The Grand Duke Ivan?"

"Yes; what a great bearded beast he was! I remember father bemoaning, when Ivan the Terrible departed, that there was no more of his favorite Planet brandy left in the Reading Room cellars."

Mrs. Wellington did not smile. She was eying her daughter curiously.

"I want you and the Prince to become good friends," she said.

"That will depend upon whether he can gracefully explain his mysterious presence in Newport the past week," replied the girl laughingly.

Suddenly her face grew grave. "What do you mean, mother?"

"Merely that I expect--that Prince Koltsoff hopes"--and under her daughter's steady gaze, she did something she had done but once or twice in her life--floundered and then paused.

The girl's lip curled, not mirthfully.

"Ah, I begin to understand," she said. "Prince Koltsoff's visit was conceived hardly in the nature of ordinary social emprise."

"Now, please don't go on, Anne," said the mother. "I have expressed nothing but a wish, have I? Wait until you know him."

"But you said Koltsoff had expressed a--a--"

"A hope, naturally. He saw Sargent's portrait of you in London."

"How romantic! I do not wonder you couldn't sleep, mother."

"Perhaps there were other reasons. Who was the man you ensnared outside?"

Miss Wellington laughed.

"Trust you, mother. He was very decent. He took me below and fed me hot biscuits and coffee. He said he was a prize fighter."

"A prize fighter!"

"He said so. But he was not telling the truth. He was awfully good looking and had a manner that one does not acquire. I am rather curious concerning him. You don't imagine he was Koltsoff, incog?"

Mrs. Wellington glanced witheringly at her.

"I imagine he may have been a reporter, Anne. Why are n't you more careful! There may come a time when your efforts to uphold your reputation for eccentricity and for doing the cleverly unexpected will react disagreeably."

It was the first time her mother had given her reason to believe that she shared in any way in the views concerning her which were prevalent among the younger set at least. The girl was not flattered.

"Mother, don't be so absurd," she said. "The only efforts I have ever made have been to lead a normal, human life and not a sn.o.bbish, affected one. Eccentric! The conditions under which we live are eccentric. My only desire is to be normal."

"Life is relative, you know," said Mrs. Wellington. "If you--" she glanced out the window and saw the Torpedo Station slipping past.

"Why, we are almost in," she said. "Morgan, go out, please, and see if they have sent a motor for us."

The handful of pa.s.sengers were filing down to the main deck and Mrs.

Wellington, her daughter, and Emilia followed, where Morgan presently joined them with the announcement that she had not seen a Wellington car.

"_Peste!_" murmured Mrs. Wellington. "This is the last of Dawson if he has n't sent a car. I telegraphed last night."

"Telegrams have been known to go astray," suggested her daughter.

"Rot! So has Dawson," observed Mrs. Wellington.

It was only too plain when they crossed the gang plank that something or somebody had gone wrong. No automobile or horse-drawn vehicle bearing the Wellington insignia was at the landing. Having adjusted herself to the situation upon receiving her maid's report, Mrs.

Wellington immediately signalled two of the less dingy hacks, entered one with her daughter, leaving the other for the maids.

"The Crags," she said, designating her villa to the hackman, who, touching his hat with the first sign of respect shown, picked up the reins. The driver, half turned in his seat to catch any conversation of an interesting nature, guided his horse to Thames Street and thence along that quaint, narrow thoroughfare toward Harbor Road.

Miss Wellington glanced at the driver and then looked at her mother solemnly.

"Do you suppose they will be up yet, mamma?" she said, with a sort of tw.a.n.ging nasal cadence.

Mrs. Wellington turned her head composedly toward the show windows of a store.

"I don't see why you won't say what you think, mamma," resumed the girl. "You know some of these Newporters, so the papers say, do not breakfast before eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock!" There was an explosion of derisive mirth on the seat above them. "Ladies," the driver looked down with red cheeks and watery eyes, "if you expect to see 'Rome' Wellington's people, you 'd better drive round 'till eleven o'clock. And at that they won't have the sleep out of their eyes."

"Do these society people really sleep as late as that?" asked the girl.

The driver glanced at her a second.