"With compliments and respectful congratulations,

"We have the honour, dear Sir, to be,

"Your obedient servants,

"FARROW, BERNSCOT, AND TISDALE."

And then there came another tap at the door, and it was the postman who had returned, with a third letter which, like the true Italian postman that he was, he had forgotten,—and I fancy, if it hadn't been for that tip still warm in his pocket, the easy-going fellow would have allowed it to stand over till to-morrow. He made, at any rate, a great virtue of having discovered it and of having retraced his steps.

The letter was written in black, angular, uncompromising characters, that looked rather like sabre-thrusts and bayonets. It read:—

"DEAR JACK:—I have received the enclosure from Linda Lady Blanchemain. She is an exceedingly impertinent and meddlesome old woman. But she is right about the allowance. I don't know why I never thought of it myself. I don't know why you never suggested it. I extremely regret it. As next in succession, you are certainly entitled to an annuity from the estate. I have to-day remitted L500 to your bankers, and am instructing my agents to pay in a like amount quarterly.

"I hope I shall soon be seeing you at Ventmere. We are having a grand lambing season, but there's a nasty spread of swine-fever, and the whole country's papered with handbills. I got a goodish bit of hunting down at Wilsborough during the winter. Now there's nothing to do but play golf. I never could find any fun in shooting rooks.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"B of V."

And the enclosure:—

"Linda Lady Blanchemain presents her compliments to Lord Blanchemain of Ventmere, and begs to apprise him that she has lately had the pleasure of meeting his lordship's nephew John, and has discovered to her amazement that his lordship makes him no allowance. This situation, for the heir to the barony of Blanchemain, is of course absurd, and must, Lady Blanchemain is sure, be due entirely to an oversight on his lordship's part. She ventures, therefore, with all respect, to bring it to his notice."

So! Here sat a young man with plenty to think about; a young man, whose income, yesterday a bare six hundred, had sprung up over night to something near six thousand. Six thousand a year isn't opulence, if you like, but a young man possessing it can hardly look upon himself as quite empty-handed, either. This young man, however, had other things as well to think of. What of that embroidered handkerchief? What of those shrewd suspicions of Lady Blanchemain's? What of his miller's daughter?

And there was another thing still. What of his proud old honest Spartan of an unimaginative uncle? He thought of him, and "Oh, the poor old boy," he cried. "Not for ten times the money would I have had the dear old woman write to him like that. How hard it must have hit him!"

"M, D, and a princely crown," he reflected. "I wish I had an Almanach de Gotha."



VI

"Who was it said of some one that he dearly loved a lord?" Maria Dolores, her chin in the air, asked of Frau Brandt.

"I do not know," Frau Brandt replied, knitting.

"Well, at least, you know whether it would be possible for a man and wife to live luxuriously on sixpence a week. Would it?" pursued her tease.

"You are well aware that it would not," said Frau Brandt.

"How about six hundred pounds a year?"

"Six hundred pounds—?" Frau Brandt computed. "That would be six thousand florins, no? It would depend upon their station in the world."

"Well, suppose their station were about my station—and my lord's?"

"You," said Frau Brandt, with a chuckle of contentment, swaying her white-bonneted head. "You would need twice that for your dress alone."

"One could dress more simply," said Maria Dolores.

"No," said Frau Brandt, her good eyes beaming, "you must always dress in the very finest that can be had."

"But then," Maria Dolores asked with wistfulness, "what am I to do? For six hundred pounds is the total of his income."

"You have, unless I am mistaken, an income of your own," Frau Brandt remarked.

"Yes—but he won't let me use it," said Maria Dolores.

"He? Who?" demanded Frau Brandt, bridling. "Who is there that dares to say let or not let to you?

"My future husband," said Maria Dolores. "He has peculiar ideas of honour. He does not like the notion of marrying a woman who is richer than himself. So he will marry me only on the condition that I send my own fortune to be dropped in the middle of the sea."

"What nonsense is this?" said Frau Brandt, composed.

"No, it is the truth," said Maria Dolores, "the true truth. He is too proud to live in luxury at his wife's expense."

"I like a man making conditions, when it is a question of marrying you," said Frau Brandt, with scorn.

"So do I," said Maria Dolores, with heartiness.

"Well, at any rate, I am glad to see that he is not after you for your money," Frau Brandt reflected.

"I suppose we shall have to dress in sackcloth and dine on lentils," said Maria Dolores.

"Of course you will tell him to take his conditions to the Old One," said Frau Brandt. "It is out of the question for you to change the manner of your life."

"I feel indeed as if it were," admitted Maria Dolores. "But if he insists?"

"Then tell him to go to the Old One himself," was Frau Brandt's blunt advice.

Maria Dolores laughed. "It seems like an impasse," she said. "Who is to break the news to my brother?"

"We will wait until there is some news to break," the old woman amiably grumbled.

Again at the sunset hour Maria Dolores met him in the garden. He was seated on one of their marble benches, amongst marble columns, (rose-tinted by the western light, and casting long purple shadows), in a vine-embowered pergola. He was leaning forward, legs crossed, brow wrinkled, as one deep in thought. But of course at the sound of her footstep he jumped up.

"What mighty problem were you revolving?" she asked. "You looked like Rembrandt's philosophe en meditation."

"I was revolving the problem of human love," he answered. "I was mutilating Browning.

'Was it something said, Something done, Was it touch of hand, Turn of head?'

I was also thinking about you. I was wondering whether it would be my cruel destiny not to see you this evening, and thinking of the first time I ever saw you."

"Oh," said she, lightly, "that morning among the olives,—when you gathered the windflowers for me?"

"No," said he. "That was the second time."

"Indeed?" said she, surprised. She sat down on the marble bench. John stood before her.

"Yes," said he. "The first time was the day before. You were crossing the garden—you were bending over the sun-dial—and I spied upon you from a window of the piano nobile. Lady Blanchemain was there with me, and she made a prediction."

"What did she predict?" asked Maria Dolores, unsuspicious.

"She predicted that I would fall—" But he dropped his sentence in the middle. "She predicted what has happened."

"Oh," murmured Maria Dolores, and looked at the horizon. By-and-by, "That morning among the olives was the first time that I saw you—when you dashed like a paladin to my assistance. I feel that I have never sufficiently thanked you."

"A paladin oddly panoplied," said John. "Tell me honestly, weren't you in two minds whether or not to reward me with largesse? You had silver in your hand."

Maria Dolores laughed. I think she coloured a little.

"Perhaps I was, for half a second," she confessed. "But your grand manner soon put me in one mind."

John also laughed. He took a turn backwards and forwards. "I have waked in the dead of night, and grown hot and cold to remember the figure of fun I was."

"No," said Maria Dolores, to console him. "You weren't a figure of fun. Your costume had the air of being an impromptu, but," she laughed, "your native dignity shone through."

"Thank you," said John, bowing. "The next time I saw you was that same afternoon. You were with Annunziata in the avenue. I carried my vision of you, like a melody, all the way to Roccadoro-and all the way home again."

"I had just made Annunziata's acquaintance," said Maria Dolores.

"You had a white sunshade and a lilac frock," said John. "The next time was that night in the moonlight. You were all in white, with a scarf of white lace over your hair. You threw me a white rose from your balcony—and I have carried that rose with me ever since."

"I threw you a white rose?" doubted Maria Dolores, looking up, at fault.

"Yes," said John. "Have you forgotten it?"

"I certainly have," said she, with emphasis.

"You threw me a smile that was like a white rose," said he.

She laughed.

"I think I just distantly acknowledged your bow," she said.

"Well, some people's distant acknowledgments are like white roses," said he. "I hope, at least, you remember what a glorious night it was, and how the nightingales were singing?"

"Yes," said she. "I remember that."

"I have a fancy," he declared, "that it will be a more glorious night still to-night, and that the nightingales will sing better than they have ever sung before."

Maria Dolores did not speak.

"Do you happen," John asked, after a long silence, while they gazed at the deepening colours in the west, "do you happen to possess such a thing as a copy of the Almanach de Gotha?"

"Yes," said she.

"Really? I wonder whether you will lend it to me?"

"I am sorry—it is in Vienna." And after an instant's pause, she ventured, "What, if it isn't indiscreet to inquire, do you wish to look up?"

"I wish to look up a lady—a dream lady—a lady who walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes—and whose pocket-handkerchiefs are embroidered with the initials M.D., in a cypher, under a princely crown."

"I should think," said Maria Dolores, considering, "that she would probably be a member of one of the mediatised princely houses. But if you have nothing more than her initials to go by, you would find it difficult to trace her in the Almanach de Gotha."

"No doubt," said John. "But to a man of spirit a difficulty is a challenge."

"Do you make a practice," asked she, "of appropriating people's handkerchiefs?"

"Certain people's—yes," unblushing, he promptly owned.

"M.D. under a princely crown, I think you said?" she mused. "It occurs to me that Maria Dolores of Zelt-Neuminster's pocket-handkerchiefs might be so embroidered."

"Ah?" said John. "Zelt-Neuminster? That would be a daughter of the man who owns this Castle?"

"No, she is a sister of the man who owns this Castle."

"I understand," said John. "I wonder that the sister of the man who owns this Castle never comes here to see how fine it is."

"She has been here quite recently," said Maria Dolores. "She has been here visiting her foster-mother, who lives in the pavilion beyond the clock. She came to make a sort of retreat—to think something over."

"Yes—?" questioned he.

"Her brother is very anxious to marry her off. He is anxious that she should marry her second cousin, the Prince of Zelt-Zelt. She came here to make up her mind."

"Has she made it up?" he asked.

"I am not sure," said she.

"Yet you seem to be deep in her confidence," said he.

"Yes—but she is not quite sure herself."

"Oh—?" said John.

"She is one of those foolish women who dream of marriage as a high romance."

"Wise men," said John, "dream of it as the highest."

She shook her head.

"A marriage with her cousin would be an end to all romance for ever. She was thinking a little while ago, I believe, of marrying a plain commoner, the nephew of a farmer. That would have been indeed romantic. Now, I hear, she is considering, a future member of your English House of Lords."

"Wouldn't even that be rather romantic—if a step down constitutes romance?" John suggested.

"Oh, a British peer is scarcely a step down," she returned. "Besides, there are people who don't care—what is the expression?—twopence about rank."

"When I said that," John explained, "I had no inkling that her rank was so exalted."

"Did you think she was the daughter of a cobbler?" Maria Dolores quickly, with some haughtiness, inquired.

"I thought she was a daughter of the stars," John answered.

"And you feared her name was Smitti," she said, haughtiness dissolving in mirth. "I will never tell you what she feared that yours was."

"See," said John, "how they are hanging the heavens with banners. It must be in honour of some great impending event."

Yesterday the west had been a sea. To-day it was a city, a vast grey and violet city, with palaces and battlemented towers, and countless airy spires and pinnacles; and here, there, everywhere, its walls were gay with gold and crimson, as with drooping banners.

"'Tis a city en fete," said John. "'Tis the city where marriages are made. They must have one in hand."

"Hark," said she, putting up a finger. "There are your nightingales beginning."

But the raised finger reminded him of something. "Have you a rooted objection to rings?" he asked.

"Why?" asked she.

"I notice that you don't wear any."

"Oh, sometimes I wear many," she said. "Then one has moods in which one leaves them off."

"I have a ring in my pocket which I think belongs to you," said he.

"Really? I don't know that any of my rings are missing."

"Here it is," said he. He produced the little old shagreen case he had received from Lady Blanchemain, opened, and offered it.

"It is a singularly beautiful ring," said she, her eyes admiring. "But it doesn't belong to me."

"I think it does," said he. "May I try it on your finger?"

She put forth her right hand.

"No—your left hand, please," he said. He dropped upon one knee before her, and when the delicate white hand was surrendered, I imagine he made of getting the ring upon the alliance finger a longer business by a good deal than was necessary. "There," he said in the end, "you see. It looks as if it had grown there. Of course it belongs to you." He still held her hand, warm and firm and velvet-soft. I think in another second he would have touched it with his lips. But she drew it away.

She gazed into the depths of the heart-shaped ruby, tremulous with liquid light, and smiled as at secret thoughts.

"But I don't see," said John, getting to his feet, "how any man can ask a Princess of the House of Zelt to marry him and live on six hundred pounds a year."

"She would have to modify her habits a good deal, that is very certain," said Maria Dolores.

"She would have to modify them utterly," said John. "Six hundred a year is poverty even for a single man. For a married couple it would be beggary. She would have to live like the wife of a petty employe. She would have to travel second class and stay at fourth-rate hotels. She would have to turn her old dresses and trim her own bonnets. She would have to do without a maid. And all this means that she would have virtually to renounce her caste, to give up the society of her equals, who demand a certain scale of appearances, and to live among pariahs or to live in isolation. Don't you think a man would be a monster of selfishness to exact such sacrifices?"

"Oh, some men have excessively far-fetched and morbid notions of honour," said she.

"Do you think the Princess, with all this brought to her attention, would ever dream of consenting?"

"Women in love are weak—they will consent to almost anything," said she, her dark eyes smiling for an instant into his.

Why didn't he take her in his arms? Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but to defer the consummation of a joy assured (observes the Persian poet) giveth the heart a peculiar sweet excitement.

"Well," said John. "I'm glad to think she is weak; but I'll never ask my wife to consent to anything so unpleasant. A Princess and a future peeress, living on six hundred pounds a year! It's unheard of."

She looked at him, puzzled, incredulous.

"Oh—? Can you possibly mean—that you will—take back your condition?"

"Yes," said he, humbly. "Who am I to make conditions?"

"You will let her spend as much of her own money as she likes?" she wondered, wide-eyed.

"As a lover of thrift, I shall deprecate extravagance," said John. "But as a submissive husband, I shall let her do in all things as her fancy dictates."

"Well," marvelled she, "here is a surprise—here is a volte-face indeed."

And she looked at the city in the sky, and appeared to turn things over.

John was mysteriously chuckling.

"Haven't you your opinion," he asked, "of men who eat their words and put their scruples in their pockets?"

"I don't understand," said she, looking wild. "There is, of course, some joke."

"There is a joke, indeed," said he; "the joke is that I'm ten times richer than I told you I was."

She started back, and fixed him with a glance.

"Then all that about your being poor was only humbug?" There was reproach in her voice, I'm not sure there wasn't disappointment.

"No," said he, "it was the exact and literal truth. But I have come into a modest competency over-night."

"I don't understand," said she.

"My own part in the story is a sufficiently inglorious one," said he. "I'm the benefactee. Lady Blanchemain and my uncle have put their heads together, and endowed me. I feel rather small at letting them, but it enables me to look my affianced boldly in the money-eye."

"Oh? You are affianced? Already?" she asked gaily.

"No—not unless you are," gaily answered John.

She looked down at her ring.



VII

The quiet-coloured end of evening smiled fainter, fainter. The aerial city, its cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, had crumbled into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath of dew-wet roses.

The clock struck eight.

"There—you must go," said Maria Dolores.

"Go? Where to?" asked John, feigning vagueness.

"This is no subject for jest," said she, feigning severity.

"I can't go yet—I can't leave you yet," said he. "Besides, it is an education in aesthetics to watch the moonlight on these marble columns, and the pale shadows of the vine-leaves."

"Well, then," said she, "stay you here and pursue your education. I will go in your place. For Marcella Cuciniera must be relieved." She rose, and moved towards the darkling front of the Castle.

"Hang education! I'll go with you," said John, following.

"I shall only stop a moment, to see how she is," said Maria Dolores. "Then I must hurry home, to get my packing begun."

"Your packing?" faltered John.

"To-morrow morning Frau Brandt and I are leaving for Austria—for Schloss Mischenau, where my brother lives."

"Good Lord!" said John. "Ah, well, I suppose it is what they would call the proper course," he admitted with gloomy resignation. "But think how dreadfully you'll be missed—by Annunziata."

"Annunziata is so much better, I can easily be spared," said Maria Dolores; "and anyhow—'tis needs must. I think you will probably soon receive a letter from my brother, asking you to visit him. Mischenau is a place worth seeing, in its northern style. And, in his northern style, my brother is a man worth meeting. I counsel you to go."

"I shall certainly go," said John. "I shall linger here at Sant' Alessina like a soul in durance, counting the hours till my release. I shall be particularly glad to meet your brother, as I have matters of importance to arrange with him."

"Until then," said she, smiling, "I think we must do with those—matters of importance"—her voice quavered on the word—"what is it that the Pope sometimes does with Cardinals?"

"Yes," moodily consented John, "I suppose we must. But oh me, what a dreary, blank, stale, and unprofitable desolation this garden will become,—and at every turn the ghost of some past joy!"

Annunziata looked up with eyes that seemed omniscient.

"I was thinking about you," she greeted them.

"About which of us?" asked John.

"About both of you. I always now, since a long while, think of you both together. I think Maria Dolores is the dark woman whom Prospero is to marry."

John laughed. Maria Dolores looked out of the window.

"And I was thinking," Annunziata went on, "how strange it was that if you hadn't both at the same time just happened to come to Sant' Alessina, you might have lived and died and never have known each other."

"Perish that thought," laughed John. "But I have sometimes thought it myself."

"And then," Annunziata rounded out her tale, "I thought that perhaps you had not just happened—that probably you had been led."

"That is a thing I haven't a doubt of," John with energy affirmed.

"You look as if you were very glad about something—both of you," said Annunziata, those omniscient eyes of hers studying their faces. "What is it that you are both so glad of?"

"We are so glad to find you feeling so well," answered Maria Dolores.

But Annunziata shook her head, as one who knew better. "No—that is not the only thing. You are glad of something else besides."

"There's no taking you in," said John. "But we are under bonds to treat that Something Else as the Pope sometimes treats Princes of the Church."

"He gives them red hats," said Annunziata.

"I shall give this thing a crown of myrtle," said John.

"You sometimes say things that sound as if they hadn't any sense," Annunziata informed him, with patient indulgence, nodding at the ceiling.

Maria Dolores leaned over the bed, and kissed Annunziata's brow. "Good night, carina," she murmured.

Annunziata put up her little white arms, and encircled Maria Dolores' neck. Then she kissed her four times—on the brow, on the chin, on the left cheek, on the right. "That is a cross of kisses," she explained. "It is the way my mother used to kiss me. It means may the four Angels of Peace, Grace, Holiness, and Wisdom watch over your sleep."

But early next morning, John being still on duty, Maria Dolores came back,—booted and spurred for her journey, in tailor-made tweeds, with a little felt toque and a veil: a costume of which Annunziata's eyes were quick to catch the suggestion.

"Why are you dressed like that?" she asked, uneasily. "I never saw you dressed like that before. You look as if you were going away somewhere."

"I have got to go away—I have got to go to my home, in Austria. I have come to bid you good-bye," Maria Dolores answered.

Annunziata's eyes were dark with pain. "Oh," she said, in a voice of deep dismay.

"We shan't be separated long, though," Maria Dolores promised. "I have asked your uncle to lend you to me. As soon as you are strong enough to travel, you are coming to Austria to pay me a long visit. Then I will come back with you to Sant' Alessina. And then—well, wherever I go you will always go with me. For of course I can never live happily again without you."

"One moment, please," put in John. "Here is a small difficulty. I can never live happily without her, either. I also have asked her uncle to lend her to me. And wherever I go, she is always to go with me. How are we to adjust our rival claims?"

Annunziata's eyes lighted up.

"Oh, that will be easy enough," she pointed out. "You will have to go everywhere together."

THE END