Part 11 (1/2)
”How?”
”In December I'm going to Nice for the season,” Zertho explained. ”We shall have plenty of fun there, so at my expense you'll come.”
”I think not,” was the brief reply.
”My dear fellow, why not,” he cried. ”Surely you can have no qualms about accepting my hospitality. You will remember that when I was laid up with typhoid in Ostend I lived for months on your generosity. And heaven knows, you had then but little to spare! It is my intention now to recompense you.”
”And to endeavour to win Liane's love,” added the Captain, curtly.
Zertho's brows narrowed slightly. He paused, gazing at the fine diamond glittering upon his white finger.
”Well, yes,” he answered at last. ”I don't see why there should be anything underhand between us.”
”I gave you my answer when you came down to Stratfield Mortimer,” the other responded in a harsh, dry tone, rising slowly. ”I still adhere to my decision.”
”Why?” protested his whilom partner, looking up at him intently, and sticking his hands into his pockets in lazy, indolent att.i.tude.
”Because I'm confident she will never marry you.”
”Has she a lover?”
His companion gave an affirmative nod. Zertho frowned and bit his lip.
”Who is he?” he asked. ”Some uncouth countryman or other, I'll be bound.”
”The son of Sir John Stratfield.”
The prince sprang to his feet, and faced his visitor with a look of amazement.
”Sir John's son! Never!” he gasped.
”Yes. Strange how such unexpected events occur, isn't it?” Brooker observed, slowly, with emphasis.
”But, my dear fellow, you can't allow it. You must not!” he cried wildly.
”I've already told her that marriage is entirely out of the question.
Yet she will not heed me,” her father observed, twirling the moustaches which he kept as well trained now as in the days when he rode at the head of his troop on Hounslow Heath, and was the pet of certain London drawing-rooms.
”Then take her abroad, so that they cannot meet. Come to Nice in December.”
”I am to bring her, so that you may endeavour to take George Stratfield's place in her heart--eh?” observed the Captain shrewdly.
”Marriage with George Stratfield is agreed between us both to be impossible, whereas marriage with me is not improbable,” was the reply.
Erle Brooker shrugged his shoulders as he again puffed vigorously at his cigar. He now saw plainly Zertho's object in asking him to call.
”Well,” continued his friend, ”even I, with all my faults, am preferable to any Stratfield as Liane's husband, am I not?”
”I don't see why we need discuss it further,” said Brooker quietly.
”Liane will never become Princess d'Auzac.”