Part 32 (1/2)

”A good many people think so. That's why I'm so sure she wouldn't be the sort of girl you'd care for--you, a man who admires the English rose type or--a Contessa.”

”The Contessa was your affair. For me, a woman of her type could never be dangerous. Whereas, a girl like your sister----”

”Still harping on my sister!”

”I often think of her as 'The Princess.' It's a pretty name. I fancy it suits her. Once or twice, since we've been chums, you have had letters, I know. I hope you've better news of her?”

”She's cured in body and mind. It is--rather a queer coincidence, perhaps, for like you, she has found out, so she tells me--that she wasn't really in love with--the man. She was only in love with love.”

”I'm heartily glad. If she's as true and brave a little soul, as glorious a pal as you are, she will one day make some fellow the happiest man alive.”

The Boy did not answer. Perhaps he was overwhelmed with the indirect praise suddenly heaped upon him; perhaps he thought that I spoke too freely of the Princess his sister. I was not sure, myself, that I had not gone beyond good taste; but calling up the picture of a girl, resembling in character the Little Pal, had stirred me to sudden enthusiasm. Fancy a girl looking at one with such eyes! a girl capable of being such a companion. It would not bear thinking of. There could be no such girl.

I was glad that, at this moment, we arrived at the Grand Port, and the garden restaurant, where my regrets for the light that never was on land or sea--or in a girl's eyes--were temporarily drowned in _cafe au lait_.

The talk was no more of the unseen Princess, but of Paolo. At last I condescended to enter into a detailed account of the night's happenings, where the aeronaut was concerned, and the Boy threw up his chin, showing his little white teeth in a burst of laughter at my manoeuvre. ”But that _isn't_ an American duel,” he objected, still rippling with mirth. ”You commit suicide, you know. The man who draws the short bit of paper agrees to go quietly off and kill himself decently somewhere, before the end of a stipulated time.”

”I'm aware of that, but I gambled on Paolo's ignorance of the custom,”

said I. ”I flattered myself that I'd totted up his character like a sum on a slate, and I acted on the estimate I formed. If I had kept entirely to facts, without giving the rein to my imagination, you might now be doomed to travel at this time next year to Buda-Pesth, and there drown yourself in the largest possible vat of beer. Had Paolo been unlucky in the matter of getting the short bit of paper, a little thing like that wouldn't have bothered him much. He would simply have gone off for a long trip in his newest air-s.h.i.+p, and conveniently forgotten such an obscure engagement. It was the thought of standing up defenceless, to be artistically potted at by you, that turned his heart to water.”

”I believe you're right, and anyway, you are very clever,” said the Boy. ”What does one do for a man who has saved one's life?”

”If you were only a girl, now--a Princess in a fairy story--you would bestow upon me your hand,” I replied gaily. ”As it is--I can't at the moment think of a punishment to fit the crime.”

”Though I can't be a Princess, I might play the Prince, and give you a ring,” he said, pulling at the queer seal ring he always wore.

”But it wouldn't fit the crime--I mean the finger.”

”Mere mortals never argue when the fairy Prince makes them a present.

Do take the ring. I should like you to have it to--remember me by.”

”To remember you by? But such chums as we have got to be don't give memory much pull; they arrange to see each other often.”

”Fairy Princes vanish sometimes, you know.”

”If I take your ring, will you appear if I rub it?”

The Boy was smiling, but his eyes looked grave. ”If when the Fairy Prince has vanished--that is, if he _should_--you want to see him really badly, try rubbing the ring. It might work. But you'll probably lose the ring before that--and the memory.”

I answered by hooking the ring, which was far too small for the least of my fingers, into the spring-loop which held my watch on its chain.

”My watch and I are one,” I said. ”Only burglary or death can separate me from the ring now; and if I'm smashed next time Jack Winston lets me drive his motor car, there will probably be a romantic little paragraph in the papers--perhaps even a pathetic verse--about the ring on the dead man's watch-chain, which will give you every satisfaction.”

”The boat's whistling,” said the Boy. ”We'd better run, if we want to see the Abbey of Hautecombe before lunch.”

We did run, and caught the boat in that uncertain and exciting manner which brings into play a physical appurtenance unrecognised by science, _i.e._, the skin of the teeth. Under the awning which shaded the deck, we took the only two seats not occupied by an abnormally large German family,--abnormally large individually as well as collectively,--and settled ourselves for half an hour's enjoyment of a charming water-panorama.

”What a heavenly place Aix is!” exclaimed the Boy fervently. ”I'm so glad I came.”

”I thought yesterday that you were disappointed in the place.”