Prince or Chauffeur? Part 7

It was a fine entry, as circus folks say. First came Mrs. Wellington in a simple but wonderfully effective embroidered linen gown, then her two sons, likely enough boys, and then Anne Wellington with Prince Koltsoff. She almost touched Armitage as she pa.s.sed; the skirt of her lingerie frock swished against his ankles and behind she left, not perfume, but an intangible essence suggestive, somehow, of the very personality of the cool, beautiful, lithe young woman. As Armitage turned in response to Thornton's prod in the ribs, he met her eyes in full. But she gave no sign of recognition, and of course Armitage did not.

The Wellingtons had two pews, according to the diagram on the rear seats, and as Armitage followed the party with his eyes, he saw the mother, her daughter, and the Prince enter one, the boys seating themselves in the stall ahead.

In the meantime the congregation had a.s.sembled in large numbers and the body of the church as well as the side aisles were comfortably filled.

From time to time the ushers, with machine-like precision, took one or two persons from the patiently waiting line of non-pew-holders and escorted them to seats, a proceeding which began to irritate Armitage, seeing which Thornton grinned and observed, _sotto voce_, that one might worship here only at the price of patience.

"It's the sheep and the goats, Jack," he whispered.

"I don't know about the sheep, but we 're the goats, all right,"

replied Armitage, "and I for one am going to beat it right now."

He had started for the door and Thornton was following when an usher hurrying up touched him on the shoulder, bowing unctuously.

"Miss Wellington," he said, "asked to have you gentlemen shown into the Wellington pew."

His voice clearly indicated that he felt he had been neglecting angels unawares, to say nothing of a desire to atone for his indiscretion.

The young men nodded as indifferently as the situation seemed to require and followed the man to the stall in which the boys were seated, who pushed in hospitably enough and then returned to their prayer books.

It must be said that two handsomer men, or men better constructed physically, never sat together in old Trinity; Thornton a perfect, brawny, rangy blonde; Armitage, shorter, better knit, perhaps, with shoulders just as broad, and short crinkling brown hair surmounting his squarely defined, sun-browned features.

The sermon was somewhat revolutionary, but Anne Wellington paid but slight attention. While the good clergyman warned his hearers of the terrible reckoning which must eventually come from neglect by the upper cla.s.ses of the thousands born month after month in squalor and reared amid sordid, vicious surroundings, the girl's eyes rarely wandered from the two men in front of her. It was uplifting, conducive to healthful, normal emotions to look at them, and such emotions were exactly what she needed.

Radiating, as it were, from Prince Koltsoff was an influence she did not like. On the contrary, feeling its power, she had begun to fear it. He attracted her peculiarly. She could not quite explain the sensation; it was indefinable, vague, but palpable nevertheless. Then he was high in the Russian n.o.bility, upon terms of friendship with the Czar, a prominent figure in the highest society of European capitals.

His wife would at once take a position which any girl might covet.

True, she would probably be unhappy with him after the first bloom of his devotion, but then she might not. She might be able to hold him.

Miss Wellington flattered herself that she could. And if not--well, she would not be the first American girl to pocket that loss philosophically and be content with the contractual profits that remained. A Russian princess of the highest patent of n.o.bility--there was a thrill in that thought, which, while it did not dominate her, might eventually have that effect.

At all events, she found it not at all objectionable that Prince Koltsoff was apparently enamoured of her. Of this she was quite certain. He had a way of looking his devotion. His luminous blue eyes were wonderful in their expressiveness. They could convey almost any impression in the gamut of human emotions, save perhaps kindliness, and among other things they had told her he loved her.

That was flattering, but the trouble was that so often his eyes made her blush confusedly without any reason more tangible than that he was looking at her.

Anne Wellington was as thoroughly feminine as any girl that ever lived, and had always gloried in her s.e.x. She had never wished she were a man. Still there is a happy mean for every normal American girl, and already she had begun to wonder if the Prince was ever going to forget that she was a woman and treat her as an ordinary human being, with the question of s.e.x in the abstract at least.

Yet on the other hand there was that thrill which she could not deny.

She felt as though she were living through an experience and was curious as to the outcome. With her, curiosity was a challenge.

Withal, for the first time in her life, she was afraid of herself. And so she found her study of the two young men in front of her wholesome and antiseptic, as Kipling says.

As the preacher suddenly paused and then demanded in ringing tones what those of the upper cla.s.ses intended to do about the situation which he had been eloquently portraying, a portly old gentleman whose breath would have proclaimed that he had had a c.o.c.ktail at the Reading Room before service, heaved a loud, hopeless sigh. She saw Thornton nudge Armitage with his shoulder and the replying grin wrinkle Jack's face.

Swiftly her eyes turned sideways to the Prince. He was sitting half turned in the seat regarding her with worshipping gaze. She thrilled under the contrast; compared to the men in front of her, Koltsoff was a mere--yes, a mere monkey. What did he take her for, a school girl?

Filled with her emotions, she impulsively opened a little gold pencil with which she had been toying and wrote rapidly upon one of the blank pages of her hymnal, which later she surrept.i.tiously tore out. When the service was ended and Armitage and Thornton with slight bows of acknowledgment pa.s.sed into the aisle, the girl leaned toward the younger of her two brothers.

"Muck," she said, "be a good chap and give this note to the dark-haired man who sat next to you. Do it nicely, now, Muck, so no one will see you. I'll pay you back for it. Hurry."

Muck, who adored his sister, nodded and worked his way through the departing worshippers until he came up with Armitage. He pushed the note into the young officer's hand and as Armitage started in surprise the boy nodded his head knowingly.

"Say nothing," he warned.

So well had the boy carried it through that not even Thornton observed the incident. Armitage said nothing to enlighten him, but spread the page open in his hand as though he had taken a memorandum from his pocket.

It was as follows:

MY DEAR MR. PRIZE FIGHTER--

I was really serious the other day about your applying for the position of physical instructor. My small brothers were mauled by sailors the other day and mother is keen for some one who will teach them how to obtain their revenge some day. You might see mother or her secretary any morning after eleven. I have spoken to both about you.

A. V. D. W.

Twice Armitage read it and then he folded it carefully and placed it in his breast pocket, a curious smile playing over his face.

"We think," he said, addressing himself under his breath, as was his wont upon occasion, "we think we shall keep this for future reference.

For we never know how soon we may need a job."

It has been observed ere this how many truths are sometimes spoken in jest.

CHAPTER VI

AN ENCOUNTER WITH A SPY

At the door of the church, Thornton met a retired rear admiral and his wife, whose daughter he knew. So he paused and was affably solicitous whether they found the glorious August weather conducive to their general well-being. Armitage bowed and drew to one side, just as the Wellington party pa.s.sed out into the churchyard and walked down the path to their motor panting at the curb.

The Prince helped Mrs. Wellington and her daughter into the tonneau with easy grace and then motioned the two boys to precede him. He was not at all bad looking, Armitage decided. Tall and rather wasp-waisted he was, nevertheless well set up, and his tailor easily might have left a pound or so of padding out of the blue jacket and still have avoided the impression that the Prince was narrow-backed. His manner certainly bore every impress of courtly breeding and the insolence of rank was by no means lacking, as Armitage learned the next instant, when a man whose back was strangely familiar, suddenly appeared at Koltsoff's side and, with hat in hand, essayed to address him.

Armitage, watching eagerly, saw the Russian's form stiffen, saw his eyes, as cold and steady as steel discs, fix themselves unseeingly over the man's head, who bowed awkwardly and turning hurriedly with a flushed face, stumbled against a horse post.

A low exclamation leaped from Armitage's lips. He hesitated just an instant and then fairly ran out of the doorway and down the path to the street. He caught up with the fellow before he had gone a hundred feet. Looking back to see that the Wellington car had gone, he touched him on the arm.

"Look here, Yeasky," he said, as the man wheeled in nervous haste, "who was that chap you spoke to at that motor car?"

Yeasky hesitated a moment and then looked the officer full in the eyes.

"I do not know," he said; "I thought it was Commander Harris. I was going to ask him about those coils which have not come yet. When I found I mistook, I was ashamed."

Armitage returned the electrician's gaze for a second. He was at a loss. There was a slight resemblance between Harris and the Prince, to be sure. Then, suddenly, as he recalled the incident at the Grand Central Station and his fears of the previous evening, a wave of anger swept over him and he thrust his face belligerently toward the workman, the muscles of his right shoulder calling nervously for action.

"Yeasky," he said, "you are lying. Who do you think you are up against,--a child?" He shook his finger in the man's face. "Now quick; tell me what business you had with that man." Yeasky drew himself up with an air of offended dignity not altogether compatible with his putative station in life. Armitage noticed it and pressed on.

"Do you hear?" he said in a low tense voice. He was already past saving; he had never been a diplomat. "Hurry up, speak, or I 'll knock your Polack head off."

Before the man could reply, Thornton, who had hurried up, interposed.

"What's the matter, Jack? Did this gentleman have the misfortune to demand all of the sidewalk?"