Abduction -- Fiction; Americans -- Europe -- Fiction; Love stories
“America for the Americans, Brussels for the Americans, England for
the Americans, everything and everybody for the Americans, but
nothing at all for these confounded foreigners. Let the Italian
marry anybody he pleases, just so long as he doesn't interfere with
an American. Let the American marry anybody he pleases, and to
perdition with all interference. I'm for America against the world
in love or in war.”
“Don't forget, Mr. Savage, that you are a foreigner when on British
soil,” remonstrated the Lady Jane, vigorously.
“My dear Lady Jane, an American is at home anywhere in this world.
If you could see some of the foreigners that land at Castle Garden
you wouldn't blame an American for absolutely, irrevocably and
eternally refusing to be called a foreigner, even on the shores of
Madagascar. We are willing to be most anything, but I'll be hanged
if we'll be foreigners.”
A week later Quentin was in Paris. Savage was to join him in
Brussels about the middle of August, and Lord and Lady Saxondale
promised faithfully to come to that city at a moment's notice. He
went blithely away with the firm conviction in his heart that it was
not to be a fool's errand. But he was reckoning without the woman in
the case.
“If you do marry her, Quentin, I've got just the place for you to
live in, for a while at least. I bought an old castle in Luxemburg a
couple of years ago, just because the man who owned it was a friend
and needed a few thousand pounds. Frances calls it Castle
Craneycrow. It's a romantic place, and would be a great deal better
than a cottage for love. You may have it whenever the time comes.
Nobody lives there now but the caretaker and a lot of deuced
traditions. We can discharge the caretaker and you can make fresh
traditions. Think it over, my boy, while you are dispatching the
prince, the mamma and the fair victim's ambition to become a real
live princess.”
“Don't be sarcastic, Bob,” exclaimed Quentin. “I'll not need your
castle. We're going to live in the clouds.”
“Beware of the prince,” said Lady Frances. “He is pretty high
himself, you know.”
“Let the prince beware,” laughed back the departing guest. “We can't
both live in the same cloud, you know. I'll push him off.”
On the day Quentin left Paris for Brussels he came face to face with
Prince Ugo on one of the Parisian boulevards. The handsome Italian
was driving with Count Sallaconi and two very attractive ladies.
That the meeting was unexpected and undesired was made manifest by
the anxious look which the prince shot over his shoulder after the
carriage had passed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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