The Fortunate Youth Part 21

"It's true."

"I'm sure of it," she said pleasantly. "Besides, if you didn't leave the nest and make a name for yourself, you wouldn't be able to carry on our work. My brother and I, you see, are of the older generation--you of the younger."

"You're the youngest woman I know," Paul declared.

"I shan't be in a few years, and my brother is a good deal older than I."

"Well, I can't get into Parliament right away," said Paul. "For one thing, I couldn't afford it."

"We must find you a nice girl with plenty of money," she said, half in jest.

"Oh, please don't. I should detest the sight of her. By the way, shall you want me on Sat.u.r.day evening?"

"No--unless it would be to take Miss Durning in to dinner."

Now Miss Durning being an elderly, ugly heiress, it pleased Miss Winwood to be quizzical. He looked at her in mock reproof. "Dearest lady that you are, I don't feel safe in your hands just now. I shall dine with the Princess on Sat.u.r.day."

An enigmatic smile flitted across Ursula Winwood's clear eyes. "What does she want you for?"

"To entertain an Egyptologist," a.s.sured Paul. He waved his hand toward the letter on the table. "There it is in black and white."

"I suppose for the next few days you'll be cramming hard."

"It would be the polite thing to do, wouldn't it?" said Paul blandly.

Miss Winwood shook her head and went away, and Paul happily resumed his work. In very truth she was to him the dearest of ladies.

The Princess Zobraska was standing alone by the fireplace at the end of the long drawing-room when Paul was announced on Sat.u.r.day evening. She was a distinguished-looking woman in the late twenties brown-haired, fresh-complexioned, strongly and at the same time delicately featured.

Her dark blue eyes, veiled by lashes, smiled on him lazily as he approached; and lazily, too, her left arm stretched out, the palm of the hand downward, and she did not move. He kissed her knuckles, in orthodox fashion.

"It is very good of you to come, Mr. Savelli," she said in a sweetly foreign accent, "and leave your interesting company at Drane's Court."

"Any company without you, Princess, is chaos," said Paul.

"Grand flatteur, va,--' said she.

"C'est que vous etes irresistible, Princesse, surlout dans ce costume-la."

She touched his arm with an ostrich feather fan. "When it comes to ma.s.sacring languages, Mr. Savelli, let me be the a.s.sa.s.sin."

"I laid the tribute of my heart at your feet in the most irreproachable grammar," said Paul.

"But with the accent of John Bull. That's the only thing of John Bull you have about you. For the sake of my ears I must give you some lessons."

"You'll find me such a pupil as never teacher had in the world before.

When shall we begin?"

"Aux Kalendes Grecques."

"Ah que vous etes femme!"

She put her hands to her ears. "Listen. Que-vous-etes-femme" she said.

"Que-vous-etes-femme," Paul repeated parrotwise. "Is that better?"

"A little."

"I see the Greek Kalends have begun," said he.

"Mechant, you have caught me in a trap," said she.

And they both laughed.

From which entirely foolish conversation it may be gathered that between our Fortunate Youth and the Princess some genial sun had melted the icy barriers of formality. He had known her for eighteen months, ever since she had bought Chetwood Park and settled down as the great personage of the countryside. He had met her many times, both in London and in Morebury; he had dined in state at her house; he had shot her partridges; he had danced with her; he had sat out dances with her, notably on one recent June night, in a London garden, where they lost themselves for an hour in the discussion of the relative parts that love played in a woman's life and in a man's. The Princess was French, ancien regime, of the blood of the Coligny, and she had married, in the French practical way, the Prince Zobraska, in whose career the only satisfactory incident history has to relate is the mere fact of his early demise. The details are less exhilarating. The poor little Princess, happily widowed at one-and-twenty, had shivered the idea of love out of her system for some years. Then, as is the way of woman, she regained her curiosities. Great lady, of enormous fortune, she could have satisfied them, had she so chosen, with the large cynicism of a Catherine of Russia. She could also, had she so chosen, have married one of a hundred sighing and decorous gentlemen; but with none of them had she fallen ever so little in love, and without love she determined to try no more experiments; her determination, however, did not involve surrender of interest in the subject. Hence the notable discussion on the June night. Hence, perhaps, after a few other meetings of a formal character, the prettily intimate invitation she had sent to Paul.

They were still laughing at the turn of the foolish conversation when the other guests began to enter the drawing-room. First came Edward Doon, the Egyptologist, a good-looking man of forty, having the air of a spruce don, with a pretty young wife, Lady Angela Doon; then Count Lavretsky, of the Russian Emba.s.sy, and Countess Lavretsky; Lord Bantry, a young Irish peer with literary ambitions; and a Mademoiselle de Cressy, a convent intimate of the Princess and her paid companion, completed the small party.

Dinner was served at a round table, and Paul found himself between Lady Angela Doon, whom he took in, and the Countess Lavretsky. Talk was general and amusing. As Doon did not make, and apparently did not expect anyone to make any reference to King Qa or Amenhotep or Rameses--names vaguely floating in Paul's brain--but talked in a sprightly way about the French stage and the beauty of Norwegian fiords, Paul perceived that the Princess's alleged reason for her invitation was but a shallow pretext. Doon did not need any entertainment at all. Lady Angela, however, spoke of her dismay at the prospect of another winter in the desert; and drew a graphic little sketch of the personal discomforts to which Egyptologists were subjected.

"I always thought Egyptologists and suchlike learned folk were stuffy and snuffy with goggles and ragged old beards," laughed Paul. "Your husband is a revelation."

"Yes, he's quite human, isn't he?" she said with an affectionate glance across the table. "He's dead keen on his work, but he realizes--as many of his stuffy and snuffy confreres don't--that there's a jolly, vibrating, fascinating, modern world in which one lives."

"I'm glad to hear you say that about the modern world," said Paul.

"What is Lady Angela saying about the modern world?" asked the Princess, separated from Paul's partner only by Count Lavretsky.

"Singing paeans in praise of it," said Paul.

"What is there in it so much to rejoice at?" asked the diplomatist, in a harsh voice. He was a man prematurely old, and looked at the world from beneath heavy, lizard-like eyelids.

"Not only is it the best world we've got, but it's the best world we've ever had," cried Paul. "I don't know any historical world which would equal the modern, and as for the prehistoric--well, Professor Doon can tell us--"

"As a sphere of amenable existence," said Doon with a smile, "give me Chetwood Park and Piccadilly."

"That is mere hedonism," said Count Lavretsky. "You happen, like us all here, to command the creature comforts of modern wealthy conditions, which I grant are exceedingly superior to those commanded by the great Emperors of ancient times. But we are in a small minority. And even if we were not--is that all?"

"We have a finer appreciation of our individualities," said the Princess. "We lead a wider intellectual life. We are in instant touch, practically, with the thought of the habitable globe."

"And with the emotive force of mankind," said Paul.

"What is that?" asked Lady Angela.

Why Paul, after the first glance of courtesy at the speaker, should exchange a quick glance with the Princess would be difficult to say. It was instinctive; as instinctive as the reciprocal flash of mutual understanding.

"I think I know, but tell us," she said.

Paul, challenged, defined it as the swift wave of sympathy that surged over the earth. A famine in India, a devastating earthquake in Mexico, a bid for freedom on the part of an oppressed population, a deed of heroism at sea--each was felt within practically a few moments, emotionally, in an English, French or German village. Our hearts were throbbing continuously at the end of telegraph wires.