My Friend Prospero | Page 6

you insist upon it, that she ought to be ashamed of herself. Come--let's make it up."
She rose, a great soft glowing vision of benignancy, and held out her hand, now gloveless, her pretty little smooth plump right hand, with its twinkling rings.
"Oh!" cried the astonished young man, the astonished, amused, moved, wondering, and entirely won young man, his sea-blue eyes wide open, and a hundred lights of pleasure and surprise dancing in them.
The benignant vision floated towards him, and he took the little white hand in his long lean brown one.

VIII
When the first stress of their emotion had in some degree spent itself Lady Blanchemain, returning to her place on the ottoman, bade John sit down beside her.
"Now," she said, genially imperative, whilst all manner of kindly and admiring interest shone in her face, "there are exactly nine million and ninety-nine questions that you'll be obliged to answer before I've done with you. But to begin, you must clear up at once a mystery that's been troubling me ever since you dashed to my rescue at the gate. What in the name of Reason is the cause of your residence in this ultramundane stronghold?"
John--convict me of damnable iteration if you must: Heaven has sent me a laughing hero--John laughed.
"Oh," he said, "there are several causes--there are exactly nine million and ninety-eight."
"Name," commanded Lady Blanchemain, "the first and the last."
"Well," obeyed he, pondering, "I should think the first, the last, and perhaps the chief intermediate, would be--the whole blessed thing." And his arm described a circle which comprehended the castle and all within it, and the countryside without.
"It has a pleasant site, I'll not deny," said Lady Blanchemain. "But don't you find it a trifle far away? And a bit up-hill? I'm staying at the Victoria at Roccadoro, and it took me an hour and a half to drive here."
"But since," said John, with a flattering glance, "since you are here, I have no further reason to deplore its farawayness. So few places are far away, in these times and climes," he added, on a note of melancholy, as one to whom all climes and times were known.
"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, matter-of-fact. "Have you been here long?"
"Let me see," John answered. "To-day is the 23rd of April. I arrived here--I offer the fact for what it may be worth--on the Feast of All Fools."
"Absit omen," cried she. "And you intend to stay?"
"Oh, I'm at least wise enough not to fetter myself with intentions," answered John.
She looked about, calculating, estimating.
"I suppose it costs you the very eyes of your head?" she asked.
John giggled.
"Guess what it costs--I give it to you in a thousand."
She continued her survey, brought it to a period.
"A billion a week," she said, with finality. John exulted.
"It costs me," he told her, "six francs fifty a day--wine included."
"What!" cried she, mistrusting her ears.
"Yes," said he.
"Fudge!" said she, not to be caught with chaff.
"It sounds like a traveller's tale, I know; but that's so often the bother with the truth," said he. "Truth is under no obligation to be vraisemblable. I'm here en pension."
Lady Blanchemain sniffed.
"Does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster take in boarders?" she inquired, her nose in the air.
"Not exactly," said John. "But the Parroco of Sant' Alessina does. I board at the presbytery."
"Oh," said Lady Blanchemain, beginning to see light, while her eyebrows went up, went down. "You board at the presbytery?"
"For six francs fifty a day--wine included," chuckled John.
"Wine, and apparently the unhindered enjoyment of--the whole blessed thing," supplemented she, with a reminder of his comprehensive gesture.
"Yes--the run of the house and garden, the freedom of the hills and valley."
"I understand," she said, and was mute for a space, readjusting her impressions. "I had supposed," she went on at last, "from the handsome way in which you snubbed that creature in shoulder-knots, and proceeded to do the honours of the place, that you were little less than its proprietor."
"Well, and so I could almost feel I am," laughed John. "I'm alone here--there's none my sway to dispute. And as for the creature in shoulder-knots, what becomes of the rights of man or the bases of civil society, if you can't snub a creature whom you regularly tip? For five francs a week the creature in shoulder-knots cleans my boots (indifferent well), brushes my clothes, runs my errands (indifferent slow),--and swallows my snubs as if they were polenta."
"And tries to shoo intrusive trippers from your threshold--and gets an extra plateful for his pains," laughed the lady. "Where," she asked, "does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster keep himself?"
"In Vienna, I believe. Anyhow, at a respectful distance. The parroco, who is also his sort of intendant, tells me he practically never comes to Sant' Alessina."
"Good easy man," quoth she. "Yes, I certainly supposed you were his tenant-in-fee, at the least. You