Part 38 (1/2)
”If I once begin--”
”Look here,” Seaman interrupted, ”the Princess is a woman of the world.
She knows what she is doing, and there is a definite tie between you. I tell you frankly that I could not bear to see you playing the idiot for a moment with Lady Dominey, but with the Princess, scruples don't enter into the question at all. You should by no means make an enemy of her.”
”Well, I have done it,” Dominey acknowledged. ”She has gone off to bed now, and she is leaving early to-morrow morning. She thinks I have borrowed some West African magic, that I have left her lover's soul out there and come home in his body.”
”Well, if she does,” Seaman declared, ”you are out of your troubles.”
”Am I!” Dominey replied gloomily. ”First of all, she may do a lot of mischief before she goes. And then, supposing by any thousand to one chance the story of this cousin of Schmidt's should be true, and she should find Dominey out there, still alive? The Princess is not of German birth, you know. She cares nothing for Germany's future. As a matter of fact, I think, like a great many Hungarians, she prefers England. They say that an Englishman has as many lives as a cat.
Supposing that chap Dominey did come to life again and she brings him home? You say yourself that you do not mean to make much use of me until after the war has started. In the parlance of this country of idioms, that will rather upset the apple cart, will it not?”
”Has the Princess a suite of rooms here?” Seaman enquired.
”Over in the west wing. Good idea! You go and see what you can do with her. She will not think of going to bed at this time of night.”
Seaman nodded.
”Leave it to me,” he directed. ”You go out and play the host.”
Dominey played the host first and then the husband. Rosamund welcomed him with a little cry of pleasure.
”I have been enjoying myself so much, Everard!” she exclaimed.
”Everybody has been so kind, and Mr. Mangan has taught me a new Patience.”
”And now, I think,” Doctor Harrison intervened a little gruffly, ”it's time to knock off for the evening.”
She turned very sweetly to Everard.
”Will you take me upstairs?” she begged. ”I have been hoping so much that you would come before Doctor Harrison sent me off.”
”I should have been very disappointed if I had been too late,” Dominey a.s.sured her. ”Now say good night to everybody.”
”Why, you talk to me as though I were a child,” she laughed. ”Well, good-bye, everybody, then. You see, my stern husband is taking me off.
When are you coming to see me, Doctor Harrison?”
”Nothing to see you for,” was the gruff reply. ”You are as well as any woman here.”
”Just a little unsympathetic, isn't he?” she complained to Dominey.
”Please take me through the hall, so that I can say good-bye to every one else. Is the Princess Eiderstrom there?”
”I am afraid that she has gone to bed,” Dominey answered, as they pa.s.sed out of the room. ”She said something about a headache.”
”She is very beautiful,” Rosamund said wistfully. ”I wish she looked as though she liked me a little more. Is she very fond of you, Everard?”
”I think that I am rather in her bad books just at present,” Dominey confessed.
”I wonder! I am very observant, and I have seen her looking at you sometimes--Of course,” Rosamund went on, ”as I am not really your wife and you are not really my husband, it is very stupid of me to feel jealous, isn't it, Everard?”