Part 5 (1/2)
He laid down his hand.
”But you have played a trump when I had played the ace,” he said.
”Dearest, I have said it was a mistake,” said she.
”But it is to take five s.h.i.+llings from my pocket, that you should trump my ace. It is ridiculous that you should do that. If you do that, you shew you cannot play cards at all. It was my ace.”
The rubber came to an end over this hand, and Dodo swiftly added up the score.
”Put it down, Nadine,” she said. ”We shall play to-morrow. We each of us owe eighty-two s.h.i.+llings.”
The Prince adopted the more c.u.mbrous system of adding up on his fingers, half-aloud, in German, but he agreed with the total.
”But I will be paid to-night,” he said. ”When I lose, I pay, when I am losed I am paid. And it should have been more. The Princess trumped my ace.”
The entrance of a tray of refreshments luckily distracted his mind from this tragedy, and he rose.
”So I will eat,” he said, ”and then I will be paid eighty-two marks. I should be rich if every evening I won eighty-two marks. I should give the Princess more pin-money. But I will fly to eat, Lady Chesterford.
That was your joke: that I shall tell Willie, but not about his music.”
Dodo took the Princess up to her room, followed by her maid who carried a tray with some cold soup and strawberries on it.
”Such a pleasant evening, dear,” she said. ”Ah, there is some cold soup: so good, so nouris.h.i.+ng. This year I think we shall stop in England till the review at Kiel, when we go with Willie. So glorious! The Cherman fleet so glorious, and the English fleet so glorious. What do you say, Marie? A little box? How did the little box come here? What does it say?
Vane's patent soap-box.”
Dodo looked at the little box.
”Oh, that's my father,” she said. ”Really, ma'am, I'm ashamed of him.
His manufacture, you know. I expect he has put one in each of our rooms.”
”But how kind! A present for me! Soap! So convenient. So screaming! I must thank him in the morning.”
Then came a tap from the Prince's room next door, and he entered.
”Also, I have found a little box,” he said. ”Why is there a little iron box? I do not want a little iron box.”
”Dearest, a present from Mr. Vane,” said his wife. ”So kind! So convenient for your soap.”
”Ach! So! Then I will take my soap also away inside the box. I will have eighty-two marks and my soap in a box. That is good for one evening.
Also, I wish it was a gold box.”
Dodo went downstairs again, and found her father in a sort of stupor of satisfaction.
”A marvellous brain,” he said. ”I consider that the Prince has a marvellous brain. Such tenacity! Such firmness of grasp! Eh, when he gets hold of an idea, he isn't one of your fly-aways that let it go again. He nabs it.”
His emotion gained on him, and he dropped into a broader p.r.o.nunciation.
”And the Princess!” he said. ”She speaking of Wullie, just like that.