Part 18 (1/2)

Lucille started round eagerly.

”What do you mean?” she cried.

”Your husband is in London,” the d.u.c.h.ess answered.

Lucille laughed with the gaiety of a child. Like magic the lines from beneath her eyes seemed to have vanished. Lady Carey watched her with pale cheeks and malevolent expression.

”Come, Prince,” she cried mockingly, ”it was only a week ago that you a.s.sured me that my husband could not leave America. Already he is in London. I must go to see him. Oh, I insist upon it.”

Saxe Leinitzer glanced towards the d.u.c.h.ess. She laid down her knitting.

”My dear Countess,” she said firmly, ”I beg that you will listen to me carefully. I speak to you for your own good, and I believe I may add, Prince, that I speak with authority.”

”With authority!” the Prince echoed.

”We all,” the d.u.c.h.ess continued, ”look upon your husband's arrival as inopportune and unfortunate. We are all agreed that you must be kept apart. Certain obligations have been laid upon you. You could not possibly fulfil them with a husband at your elbow. The matter will be put plainly before your husband, as I am now putting it before you. He will be warned not to attempt to see or communicate with you as your husband. If he or you disobey the consequences will be serious.”

Lucille shrugged her shoulders.

”It is easy to talk,” she said, ”but you will not find it easy to keep Victor away when he has found out where I am.”

The Prince intervened.

”We have no objection to your meeting,” he said, ”but it must be as acquaintances. There must be no intermission or slackening in your task, and that can only be properly carried out by the Countess Radantz and from Dorset House.”

Lucille smothered her disappointment.

”Dear me,” she said. ”You will find Victor a little hard to persuade.”

There was a moment's silence. Then the Prince spoke slowly, and watching carefully the effect of his words upon Lucille.

”Countess,” he said, ”it has been our pleasure to make of your task so far as possible a holiday. Yet perhaps it is wiser to remind you that underneath the glove is an iron hand. We do not often threaten, but we brook no interference. We have the means to thwart it. I bear no ill-will to your husband, but to you I say this. If he should be so mad as to defy us, to incite you to disobedience, he must pay the penalty.”

A servant entered.

”Mr. Reginald Brott is in the small drawing-room, your Grace,” he announced. ”He enquired for the Countess Radantz.”

Lucille rose. When the servant had disappeared she turned round for a moment, and faced the Prince. A spot of colour burned in her cheeks, her eyes were bright with anger.

”I shall remember your words, Prince,” she said. ”So far from mine being, however, a holiday task, it is one of the most wearisome and unpleasant I ever undertook. And in return for your warnings let me tell you this. If you should bring any harm upon my husband you shall answer for it all your days to me. I will do my duty. Be careful that you do not exceed yours.”

She swept out of the room. Lady Carey laughed mockingly at the Prince.

”Poor Ferdinand!” she exclaimed.

CHAPTER XIII

He had been kept waiting longer than usual, and he had somehow the feeling that his visit was ill-timed, when at last she came to him. He looked up eagerly as she entered the little reception room which he had grown to know so well during the last few weeks, and it struck him for the first time that her welcome was a little forced, her eyes a little weary.

”I haven't,” he said apologetically, ”the least right to be here.”