Red Masquerade | Page 6

a sign of fury. "Going--going--gone!
Sold to Monsieur Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred
guineas!"

And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain
effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head,
and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor
accord with the dignity of his exalted station.
But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a
questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn't in the
humour, now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess
Sofia for promise of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty
of such impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for very shame.
After all (he told himself) he hadn't figured very creditably, permitting
petty prejudice to sway him as it had. He felt singularly sure he had
played the gratuitous ass in this affair, and he didn't in the least desire
to see the reflection of a like conviction in the eyes of a pretty young
woman with a flair for the ridiculous.
He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully,
as he proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer's clerk, filled in a cheque
for the amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery.
Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the
auction room by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and
just outside the entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air
of a gentleman impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out
of the drizzle.
But in view of the fact that he made no overtures to a passing hansom,
which swerved in to the curb in response to a signal of Lanyard's cane,
this last concluded that the prince was up to his reputedly favourite
game of waylaying his rebel wife.
If such were the case, Lanyard had no wish to witness a public wrangle
between the two. So he stepped briskly up on the carriage-block, and
only hesitated when he saw that the prince, utterly ignoring the
presence of the princess and Lady Diantha, was edging forward and
cocking an alert ear to catch the address which Lanyard was on the
point of giving the cabby.
Hugely diverted, the adventurer looked round with a quirk of his brows,
and amiably commented:
"Monsieur's interest is so flattering! If he really must know, I'm going
home now, to my rooms in Halfmoon Street. Au revoir, monsieur le
prince!"

He beamed benignly upon that convulsed countenance, and saw
crestfallen Prince Victor slink away, to the music of smothered laughter
from the ladies in the doorway--toward which Lanyard was careful not
to look.
Then, in high feather with himself, he chirped to the driver and hopped
into the hansom.

V
IMPOSTOR
As Lanyard's cab swung away, the carriage wheeled in to take up the
Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring. Observing this, Lanyard
poked his stick through the little trap in the roof of the hansom and
suggested that the driver pull up, climb down, adjust some imaginary
fault with the harness and, when the carriage had passed, follow it with
discretion.
Enchanted by sight of a half-sovereign in the palm of his fare, the
cabby executed this manoeuvre to admiration; with the upshot that
Lanyard got home half an hour later than he would have had he
proceeded to his rooms direct, but with information of value to
recompense him.
It wasn't his habit to lose time in those days of his youth. And lest his
character be misconstrued (which would be deplorable) it may as well
be stated now that he had not laid down upward of twenty thousand
good golden guineas for a colourable Corot without having a tolerably
clear notion of how he meant to reimburse himself if it should turn out
that he had paid too dear for his whistle.
The hint imparted by his garrulous acquaintance of the auction
room--to the effect that the Princess Sofia was famous, among other
things, for the magnificence of her personal jewellery--had found a
good home where it wasn't in danger of suffering for want of doting
interest.
And now one knew where their owner lived, and in what state ...
Alighting at his own door, the adventurer surprised Prince Victor,
morosely ambling by, in his vast fatuity no doubt imagining that his
passage through Halfmoon Street would go unremarked in the dusk of
that early winter evening. He wasn't at all pleased to find himself
mistaken; and though Lanyard did his best with his blandest smile to

make amends for having discomfited the prince by getting home later
than he had promised to, his good-natured effort was repaid only by a
spiteful scowl.
So he