Chapter XIII The Rivals
He is a fool who thinks by force or skill,
To turn the current of a woman’s will.
—Tuke: Five Hours.
The winding of the hunting horn and the barking of dogs upon Castle Framkor’s lawns the next morning told me that Solonika had kept her word. We were at breakfast. Looking through the long low windows of the dining room, I saw the Prince, in all the gaiety of a red hunting costume and high-top, varnished boots, dismount among his pack.
What argument Solonika had used with her father to procure his permission to go abroad in the character of the Prince four days before the coronation, I could not imagine. I had told her of the coming and going of the black-cloaked men; the Red Fox knew that some plot was in the wind and shrewdly suspected that it was directed against the Prince. For that reason Solonika had left off going abroad as the Prince for the past ten days. It was easy for her to pass the time with me in the summer-house. Once, while riding out in my company and Nick’s, she met the cloaked men. They recognized Solonika and let us pass with scarcely a glance in our direction.
All this, I say, the Red Fox knew; but I suppose he found it impossible to control the girl. He indeed is “a fool who thinks by force or skill to turn the current of a woman’s will.” When Solonika made up her mind to do a thing she generally did it. But the Duke had recorded his protest in the number of men he sent with her. Twenty-five well-mounted retainers from the Red Fox’s retinue surrounded the Prince, holding the dogs in leashes of four, and twenty-five more, I soon learned, had preceded us to the hunting grounds.
Solonika turned her horse over to one of her men and entered the breakfast room. Both Nick and the General stood upon their feet to their Prince as he entered. They urged the Prince to join them at table, but the Prince insisted that he had already partaken of food and could eat nothing. He, however, took the chair which the General courteously drew up for him and accepted a cup of coffee.
I was glad that Solonika did not look in my direction for my agitation would have made it hard for her. It was the first time I was present when she was under the fire of the General’s sharp eyes, and I trembled for her. I felt myself grow hot and cold by turns, overcome by the fear that she would betray herself. Although she was attired in the Prince’s hunting raiment, how different she looked to me now. It seemed impossible that the astute General could not tell that Solonika and not the Prince sat before him.
But the daring girl had the confidence born of years of success. As I became accustomed to the novelty of the situation, I began to take pleasure in watching her superb acting. She carried it off with so much relish and in such a high-handed manner. Never once did she forget the quaint little burr in her English speech. Knowing how perfectly she could speak it, I marvelled she did not sometimes forget. But I also realized why she elected to make the Prince talk brokenly; it gave the Prince a difference in character which disarmed suspicion and kept the individuality of Solonika and the Prince apart, not only in the minds of her hearers, but also in her own mind; for the difference in dialect acted as a constant reminder that she was no longer a woman but a man.
“I am deeply sensible of the honour which you have bestowed upon Castle Framkor by your presence to-day,” said the General, humbly. “Bharbazonia has seen but little of her future king.”
“I have been taking my ease against the great day not far distant,” replied the Prince. “It will be a long time before I may again enjoy the pleasure of a hunt.”
“I wish to apologize, Your Highness, for my seeming discourtesy in not accepting your invitation two weeks ago,” said Nick. “The truth of the matter is that I did accept with pleasure, but my messenger failed to mention the matter when he arrived at your castle. He is not usually forgetful, so I imagine he was well entertained.”
Nick’s remark brought back the remembrance of the day when I left the automobile and discovered the secret of Dhalmatia. The Prince also remembered the occasion but did not betray the slightest emotion.
“You refer to Dr. Wharton as your messenger,” said the Prince. “I have not seen him except on the single occasion when he visited my father and me. But I understand that he and my sister Solonika have become great friends.”
“Ah, ha,” laughed Nick, “and so the cat is out of the bag. He and I are now rivals.”
The General permitted his fork to fall heavily upon his plate as he stared at Nick, remembering that young man’s flirtation with Princess Teskla, and something akin to a groan escaped him. But Nick only laughed.
“I know nothing of any cat,” said the Prince, gravely, with well acted simplicity.
“It is an idiom,” explained the General, “which means that you have betrayed your sister’s secret.”
I straightened up in my chair at the old man’s solemn words. Had he purposely touched upon the thing which was making me miserable, or did he do it unconsciously? The Prince’s nerve was of iron. He sipped his coffee unmoved, but his eyes never wavered from the General’s face as he asked innocently:
“What secret, General Palmora?”
“The secret that Dale, here, is much interested in Solonika.”
“Is he?” he asked, sweeping me with his half closed eyes. I was forced to drop mine while I felt the colour rise to my cheeks.
“I do not know,” said the General. “Nicholas has just said so.”
“A man is beginning to fall in love when he shows signs of forgetfulness,” said Nick. “He is most forgetful of late.”
“I warn you, Dale,” he continued turning to me, “that a woman will come between us yet. If I am not mistaken the Princess Solonika will be that woman.”
“The Princess can never be anything to me,” I replied.
“She is the brightest woman I have ever met,” said Nick to the Prince. “Why don’t you travel, Your Highness, and acquire her gift of languages. Your English, for example, is not as good as hers.”
“No?” smiled the Prince through his nose, like a Frenchman’s “Non.” “Wherein is my English not perfect?”
“It is good enough for Bharbazonia, Your Highness,” said the General, pushing back his chair. “After you become king you will never speak such a useless language. Your French is all you need at court and you speak that perfectly.”
“Thank you, General Palmora,” said he. Then, turning again to Nicholas, he added: “Are you serious in saying you admire Solonika? Pray, what do you find to admire in her? To me she seems like an ordinary girl.”
Oh, Solonika, deliberately fishing for a compliment, the eternal feminine being ever present! I could scarcely believe my ears; but this was my first day under fire and I lacked her confidence.
“Ordinary girl?” echoed Nick. “She is in the first place extraordinarily handsome. I have travelled all over the world, and seen all kinds of women; some were beautiful and some were clever, but few were both handsome and bright, as she is. I mean to become better acquainted with her when you are king.”
“But my sister thinks of going away after I am crowned,” he said.
“Going away?” Nick returned. “Very good; the world is small; I can readily find her. I trust that you will speak well of me to her.”
“But you haven’t told me wherein lies her wonderful charm which seems to have captivated both you and Dale—Wharton, I think you said your friend’s name was?”
“How about it, Dale?” cried Nick, “has she bound you to her chariot wheels, too?”
“To me she is the most wonderful woman in the world,” I made answer, looking straight into her eyes. Solonika flushed a little and gave me a quick sign of camaraderie that made me very happy.
“A woman has come between David and Jonathan,” said Nick.
“The woman has come,” I replied, and for the first time I realized as I gazed in his face that Nick was not joking. I, who knew him, could read there plainly the intensity of his feeling, and I suppose he could read my heart as well. The spirit of contest was lit in our eyes. We looked at each other like two young animals meeting face to face in the spring-time. Yet there was a note of regret in Nick’s voice when he slowly repeated:
“The woman has come.”
“But, wherein is her charm? You have not told me,” reiterated the Prince.
“Your Highness has never been in love, it is plain to see,” said Nick, “else you would not ask such a question. Her particular charm is that she is she. A man goes through the world meeting many women. Although he may not know it, he carries an ideal within his heart. How his ideal is formed, who can tell? But it is there, nevertheless. Unconsciously, he measures all women by this ideal; one after another falls before it, until as time goes by he loses hope of ever finding her. But one day he meets the woman. He may not recognize her immediately, but after the meeting his thoughts follow her. They meet again and after her departure comes loneliness which is a part of him except when she is near. One cannot put it into words; it lies below, too deep for utterance. Why she is she I cannot tell. I only know the Princess Solonika affects me so.”
“I cannot sit here and listen to his fool talk any longer,” exclaimed the General, rising from the table in some heat. “If you boys are going to stir up the game it is time you were about it. Princess Teskla would be delighted to hear your definition of love, Nick.”
“Life’s fires burn low in the aged,” smiled Nick, looking at me.
“So?” said the Prince, whom nothing escaped, “why should Teskla be interested?”
“We have reason to believe that the King’s daughter is suffering from loneliness, such as young Nicholas describes,” said the General grimly.
“Why should she?” said the Prince. “She is surrounded by the court at Nischon. If any one is lonely I should think it would be my sister. She has often complained of living in the country, seeing no one. How can one be lonely in the city? Teskla has all the gentlemen of the world’s consulates to help her while away the time; she may travel at will; while my sister must always be by my father’s side; she may not travel; she may not see any one.”
The Prince either purposely refused, or actually failed, to see the import of the General’s words and the General was too loyal to make them clearer. So, drifting from one subject to another, we followed the old man to the castle door where the hunters and their dogs were idling away their time.
While waiting for their young master, the large army of hunters had been amusing themselves at their own discretion. They were dark-eyed, handsome Bharbazonians, the finest horsemen in the world, riding with all the ease and abandon of their Cossack brethren. For the saying in Bharbazonia is, “Scratch a Russian and you will find a Cossack; scratch a Cossack and you will find a Bharbazonian.” They were all dressed alike in the favourite green cloth of the country, and all carried clusters of long-handled spears or pikes, by which the wild boar was to be killed as he broke cover and charged the horse and rider.
The Prince, unaided, mounted the black which had thrown him at sight of our automobile. He waited for Nick and me to mount the animals which the groom had saddled while we breakfasted. Our horses were apart from the rest and Nick and I were out of ear-shot of the Prince when we met.
“What chance have you with Solonika?” he said, in a low voice. “She is a Princess and you are only an American.”
“None whatever, Nick,” I said. “You are right; Princesses of reigning houses do not wed Americans.”
“But you have not given up hope?”
“I never had any.”
“Dale, old chum,” said Nick, “you have beaten me at chess; I have beaten you at billiards. It’s a draw with the gloves. But, after every defeat or victory, we have always shaken hands. It was always a fair game. I know you, Dale. You never give up without a struggle. Therefore there will be a battle. We are older now and we strike harder. But, here’s my hand on it—that no matter which way this may end it will make no difference between us. As far as I am concerned a woman can never come between David and Jonathan.”
“As far as I am concerned she never can either, Nick,” I said.
The grip of friendship we exchanged was sincere. Whatever of disappointment the future has in store for me, Nick’s place in my heart would always remain as fixed as Polaris. And I know that nothing could alter his feeling for me.
It was plain that his position in his own country was such as would enable him some day to aspire to the hand of a Princess, a privilege denied to me, a plain American. By the accident of birth, then, he had an advantage over me; but in one thing I had the advantage over him.
When we mounted to follow the pack, he rode after the Prince while I rode after the Princess.