Adventure stories; Imaginary places -- Fiction; Kings and rulers -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Love stories
"Of course I am," said Molly a little impatiently. "Don't you see
how easily it could be done? According to what you all tell me, this
girl and I are as like each other as two peas: but no one would guess
that if they'd only seen me in this rig-out. Well, if I could get a
quarter of an hour alone with her, all we should have to do would be
to swap clothes, and then she could just walk out of the place
instead of me." She swept a triumphant glance at the others. "It's
a hundred to one nobody would notice the difference: not if she's got
the pluck and sense to carry it off properly."
"I can guarantee the pluck and the sense," said Tony. "They are two
things in which Isabel happens to specialize rather deeply."
"But do you mean you are ready to stop behind in her place?"
It was Jimmy who put the question.
"Certainly I am," replied Molly. "That's what I have come out here
for."
He gazed at her for a moment in voiceless admiration.
"My Lord, you've got some nerve," he said. "What do you think will
happen to you?"
Molly smiled pleasantly. "I think," she answered, "that I shall be
respectably and properly married to Peter in the Portriga Cathedral.
I don't see what the devil else they can afford to do. They have got
to have a wedding, and as I'm quite ready to pretend that I'm the
Princess, and nobody's ever likely to contradict it, it seems to me
they'll jolly well have to make the best of it."
Tony laid down his cigarette and leaned back in his chair.
"Molly," he said, "you are as brilliant as you are beautiful. I
don't believe there is any one else alive who could have thought of a
notion like that when they were full of eggs and bacon."
"It's a terrific idea," admitted Jimmy, still gazing respectfully at
the author. "The one great difficulty will be to fix up this
interview between you and the Princess."
Molly nodded. "I know," she said. "I haven't got that part of it
clear yet. You see the whole thing only came into my head quite
suddenly."
"That part of it," remarked Tony in his tranquil voice, "seems to me
delightfully simple and easy."
They all three turned towards him.
"We are personal friends of Peter's," he went on; "at least I am. I
think I shall call myself Lord Haverstock. It's a very nice title
and no one's taken it yet. Do you think it suits me, Guy?"
"Oh, go on," exclaimed Guy impatiently.
"At Peter's suggestion," continued Tony, "I have accompanied him from
England in my own yacht, in order to be in at the death, so to speak.
Molly here is my chaplain. All really respectable English peers
travel with a private chaplain."
He paused as if for confirmation.
"I've no doubt you're right," said Jimmy gravely, "but how does that
interesting fact help us?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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