Prince or Chauffeur? Part 31

"That was really clever of you. Chief Roberts has informed me that he is a professional, wanted on several other charges. When he sends word I want you to press the charge for me. Of course this will not appear in the newspapers, so please say nothing to any one about it."

As Armitage nodded, she looked at him closely.

"How long do you intend to stay with us, McCall?"

Armitage started.

"Why--I--I--" he paused.

"Oh, no matter. I thought, perhaps, you might be ambitious to join the police force. I think I could help you."

Jack, inwardly raging, flushed and glanced at her uncertainly.

"Thank you," he said, "I 'll consider--I--I 'll let you know."

"Hang her," he said to himself as he walked toward the garage.

"Deliver me from an old woman who thinks she has a sense of humor."

Ronald Wellington was a man past fifty, a man whose stature was as large as his mind. He had a shock of gray hair; brilliant hazel eyes like Anne's, but overshadowed by s.h.a.ggy brows; high cheek bones, and straight lips hidden by a heavy gray mustache. It was said of him that his clothing was only pressed when new and that he purchased a new hat only under the combined pressure of his wife and daughter. He had an immense voice which could be gruff or pleasing, as he willed; in all, a big, strong, wholesome personality, unconventional, but in no sense unrefined. He was in striking contrast to his dapper crony, Robert Marie, who accompanied him from the yacht, a man whose distinction lay in his family, his courtly manners of the old school, and his connoisseurship of wines.

Mrs. Wellington waited on the veranda, but Anne, her brothers, and Sara were at the landing as the gangway of the yacht was lowered. Ronald Wellington seized Anne by the elbows, an old trick of his, and as she stiffened them he lifted her to his face and kissed her. Ronald he slapped on the back, and as for the more st.u.r.dy little Royal, he lifted him high in the air and placed him on his shoulder, smiling and nodding pleasantly to Sara. Sara waited for Robert Marie, and thus the party walked to the house. Mrs. Wellington advanced to the rail, smiling, and her husband, setting Royal on the ground, reached up, seized her hands, and drew her face down to his.

"Well, girl," he said, "glad to see me?"

She withdrew her lips and as Sara looked at her, with perhaps a little pathos in her eyes, she saw, spreading over her face that expression, the beauty and charm and inspiration of which are ever the same, in youth and in age, in the countenances of those in whom love still abides unchanging.

They sat on the porch for a few minutes and then, having breakfasted on the _Mayfair_, Mr. Wellington went to his study off the library, where Mrs. Wellington joined him.

"Well, Ronald," she said, "Prince Koltsoff is here."

"Yes," he said, "so you--and the newspapers have told me. What is he--another Ivan?"

"Not in any way. He and Anne seem to be getting on finely."

Mr. Wellington looked at her.

"My mind was so filled with that Northern Atlantic matter last month when you talked of your prince," he said, "that I don't think I did the question justice. It was too far off--and the railroad mess was so confoundedly near. Now then, let's have it."

"How--what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Wellington, a bit uneasily.

"What have you been trying to do, Belle?"

"Why, I have n't been trying to do anything. The situation has shaped itself without any effort on my part."

"You mean Anne loves the Russian! Bosh! How long has he been here--this is the third day!" The room rang with his laughter.

"I did not say that she loved him. I said they seemed to be getting on."

Mr. Wellington clasped his big hands over his knees and gazed at the floor. "Belle," he said, after a few minutes, "the idea of Anne living away off in a foreign country does n't swallow easily. Life is too short--and, Belle, I don't think you have ever loved Anne quite as I have."

Mrs. Wellington thought for a moment of the adoration which this big man had always held for their daughter--an emotion in no way conflicting with his conjugal devotion and yet equally tremendous, and smiled without a trace of jealousy.

"Yes, I think that is true," she said. "Yet of course you cannot question my love for her. I certainly would be the last to thwart her ambitions."

"Nor I," returned Wellington with a sigh. "And yet, Belle, so far as you are concerned, you don't need such a match. Your position certainly needs no a.s.surance, either here or abroad. We are not in the business of buying foreign t.i.tles, you know. We don't have to.

Besides, we thrashed all that out when Anne was a child. The girl must marry, of course; for years that has hung over me like a bad dream.

But it's natural and right and for the best. But, Belle, since she has grown up and her marriage has become a question of narrowing time--especially since that French n.o.bleman, De Joinville, was buzzing around last year--I have had an ambition for grandchildren that can say 'grandpa' in a language I understand. That is the way I feel about it."

His wife laughed at this characteristic speech and reaching out, patted his hand. He, in turn, seized and held her hand, quite covering it.

"Naturally, Ronald, I feel just as you do about having to purchase foreign t.i.tles. But it has pleased me to have the Prince here, in view of the fact that several others wanted him. It's akin to the satisfaction you feel, I imagine, when you suddenly appear before the public as owner of the controlling interest in a compet.i.tor's railroad."

"I understand," he replied, and gazed at his wife admiringly. "If I had been as good a railroad man as you are a social diplomat, I should be the only railroad man in the country." He laughed his hearty laugh and then glanced at her seriously. "Well, what about Anne?" he asked.

Mrs. Wellington was about to reply when her secretary entered.

"Prince Koltsoff is in the library waiting to pay his respects," said the young woman. "He seemed a little impatient and I told him I would tell you."

"Oh," said Mr. Wellington, as an expression of annoyance crossed his wife's face, "let him come right in."

As he towered over the Prince, seizing his hand with a grip that made the latter wince, Mrs. Wellington could not help noticing a veiled expression of contempt in the n.o.bleman's face. She was aware that to him, her husband represented, of course, the highest plane of existence that Americans attain to, and she could see that the things in him, the things he stood for and had done, which would impress the average American or perhaps the Englishman, carried no appeal to this Russian.

To him, she read, Ronald Wellington, in his great, bagging, ill-fitting clothes, was merely an embodiment of the American pig, whose only t.i.tle to consideration was the daughter he had to give, and his only warrant of respect, his wealth.

"Sit down, Koltsoff," said her husband heartily, but studying him keenly from under his s.h.a.ggy brows.

"Thank you," replied the Prince, seating himself luxuriously in a great leather chair. "As you must know, Mr. Wellington," he said, at the same time inclining his head toward Mrs. Wellington, "time presses for men in my sphere of life--the diplomatic; that is why I felt I must speak to you at once."

"Certainly," said Mr. Wellington, glancing at his wife, "fire away."

"Your daughter," began the Prince, "I am deeply interested in her.

I--" he stopped and smiled.

Mr. Wellington nodded.

"Go on," he said gruffly, now.

"I--I believe I love her."

"You believe?"

"In fact, I do love her. It is about that I wish to speak to you--as to the dower. Naturally the sum you would propose--"

"Wait just a second. Not so fast," said Mr. Wellington. "Does my daughter love--wish to marry you?"

"I have reason to believe she loves me,"--Koltsoff shrugged his shoulders,--"excellent reasons. As to marriage--of course I have no doubt as to her wishes. But first, I must, of course, reach an understanding with you."

"How do you mean?" asked Mr. Wellington, bending forward and impaling the Prince with his eyes. "Did Anne tell you how much she would be willing to have me pay for you?"

"Certainly not," snapped Koltsoff.