The Princess Aline Part 2

"The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!"

"No?" shouted Carlton.

"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone. "Listen. 'The Queen's Drawing-room'--em--e--m--'on her right was the Princess of Wales'--em--m. Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here it is. 'Next to her stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald. She wore a dress of white silk, with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur. Ornaments--emeralds and diamonds; orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal, Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Gra.s.se.'"

"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly. "I say, is that really there?

Let me see it, please, for myself."

Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the paragraph, and picking up another, began a search down its columns.

"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure enough.

And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't know it?"

Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had discovered a vein of gold.

"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 'The Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few violet ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her mother's side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by Princess Ena's accident. Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a light brown jacket and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary touch to a picture which Londoners would be glad to look upon more often.'"

Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and with his eyes open wide from excitement. He presented so unusual an appearance of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her niece for some explanation. "The young lady seems to interest you,"

said she, tentatively.

"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs," cried Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Gra.s.se to see her, and now it turns out that she is here in England, within a few miles of us." He turned and waved his hands at the pa.s.sing landscape. "Every minute brings us nearer together."

"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris, laughing.

"You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you where to find the woman you love."

Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and frowned intently. "Now I have got to begin all over again and readjust things," he said. "We might have guessed she would be in London, on account of this royal wedding. It is a great pity it isn't later in the season, when there would be more things going on and more chances of meeting her. Now they will all be interested in themselves, and, being extremely exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom or an Emperor would have any chance at all. Still, I can see her! I can look at her, and that's something."

"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.

"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or they will stop at Brown's," said Carlton. "All royalties go to Brown's. I don't know why, unless it is because it is so expensive; or maybe it is expensive because royalties go there; but, in any event, if they are not at the palace, that is where they will be, and that is where I shall have to go too."

When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed Nolan to take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload them until he had arrived. Then he drove with the ladies to c.o.x's, and saw them settled there. He promised to return at once to dine, and to tell them what he had discovered in his absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss Morris," he said, nervously. "I am beginning to feel that I am not worthy of her."

"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that 'it's not the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of wooing,' and that 'faint heart'--and the rest of it."

"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit sudden, isn't it?"

"Oh, I am ashamed of you! You are frightened."

"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter. "I think it's just natural emotion."

As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across the sidewalk to a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently a.s.sisting several gentlemen to get into it. This and another carriage and Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man to its side.

"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked. The bareheaded man answered that he was.

"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton. "They can take in the trunks."

Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight.

"That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said, pointing to three m.u.f.fled figures who were stepping into a second carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."

Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the air.

"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began, eagerly, and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the hansom.

He broke into the little dining-room at c.o.x's in so excited a state that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed in astonished disapproval. Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come down stairs.

"I have seen her!" Carlton cried, ecstatically; "only half an hour in the town, and I've seen her already!"

"No, really?" exclaimed Miss Morris. "And how did she look? Is she as beautiful as you expected?"

"Well, I can't tell yet," Carlton answered.

"There were three of them, and they were all m.u.f.fled up, and which one of the three she was I don't know. She wasn't labelled, as in the picture, but she was there, and I saw her. The woman I love was one of that three, and I have engaged rooms at the hotel, and this very night the same roof shelters us both."

II

"The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you," said Miss Morris, as they seated themselves at the table. "What is your next move? What do you mean to do now?"

"The rest is very simple," said Carlton. "To-morrow morning I will go to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who knows all about them--where they are going, and who they are seeing, and what engagements they may have. Then it will only be a matter of looking up some friend in the Household or in one of the emba.s.sies who can present me."

"Oh," said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment, "but that is such a commonplace ending! You started out so romantically.

Couldn't you manage to meet her in a less conventional way?"

"I am afraid not," said Carlton. "You see, I want to meet her very much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of meeting her, whether it's romantic or not, isn't a bit too quick for me. There will be romance enough after I am presented, if I have my way."

But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the fact that it requires as many to make an introduction as a bargain, and he had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his considerations. He met many people he knew in the Row the next morning; they asked him to lunch, and brought their horses up to the rail, and he patted the horses'

heads, and led the conversation around to the royal wedding, and through it to the Hohenwalds. He learned that they had attended a reception at the German Emba.s.sy on the previous night, and it was one of the secretaries of that emba.s.sy who informed him of their intended departure that morning on the eleven o'clock train to Paris.

"To Paris!" cried Carlton, in consternation. "What! all of them?"

"Yes, all of them, of course. Why?" asked the young German. But Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to Piccadilly and waving his stick at a hansom.

Nolan met him at the door of Brown's Hotel with an anxious countenance.

"Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir," he said. "But I've packed your trunks and sent them to the station. Shall I follow them, sir?"

"Yes," said Carlton. "Follow the trunks and follow the Hohenwalds. I will come over on the Club train at four. Meet me at the station, and tell me to what hotel they have gone. Wait; if I miss you, you can find me at the Hotel Continental; but if they go straight on through Paris, you go with them, and telegraph me here and to the Continental.

Telegraph at every station, so I can keep track of you. Have you enough money?"

"I have, sir--enough for a long trip, sir."

"Well, you'll need it," said Carlton, grimly. "This is going to be a long trip. It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you will have to hurry.

Have you paid my bill here?"

"I have, sir," said Nolan.