Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Islands -- Fiction; Love stories; Nobility -- Fiction
Chase thought of the small, nervous, excitable prince and in his mind
there arose a great doubt. They might pronounce him cured, but would it
be true? "I hope he may be fully recovered, for your sake," he managed
to say.
"Thank you." After a long pause, she turned to him again and said: "We
are to live in Paris for a year or two at least."
Then Chase understood. Prince Karl would not be entirely recovered in
June. He did not ask, but he knew in some strange way that his
physicians were there and that it would be necessary for him to be near
them.
"He is in Paris now?"
"No," she answered, and that was all. He waited, but she did not expand
her confidence.
"So it is to be in June?" he mused.
"In June," she said quietly. He sighed.
"I am more than sorry that you are a princess," he said boldly.
"I am quite sure of that," she said, so pointedly that he almost gasped.
She was laughing comfortably, a mischievous gleam in her dark eyes. His
laugh was as awkward as hers was charming.
"You _do_ like to be flattered," he exclaimed at random. "And I shall
take it upon myself to add to to-day's measure." He again drew forth his
pocketbook. She looked on curiously. "Permit me to restore the lace
handkerchief which you dropped some time ago. I've been keeping it for
myself, but----"
"My handkerchief?" she gasped, her thoughts going at once to that
ridiculous incident of the balcony. "It must belong to Lady Deppingham."
"Oh, it isn't the one you used on the balcony," he protested coolly. "It
antedates that adventure."
"Balcony? I don't understand you," she contested.
"Then you are exceedingly obtuse."
"I never dreamed that you could see," she confessed pathetically.
"It was extremely nice in you and very presumptuous in me. But, your
highness, this is the handkerchief you dropped in the Castle garden six
months ago. Do you recognise the perfume?"
She took it from his fingers gingerly, a soft flush of interest
suffusing her cheek. Before she replied, she held the dainty bit of lace
to her straight little nose.
"You are very sentimental," she said at last. "Would you care to keep
it? It is of no value to me."
"Thanks, I will keep it."
"I've changed my mind," she said inconsequently, stuffing the fabric in
her gauntlet. "You have something else in that pocketbook that I should
very much like to possess."
"It can't be that Bank of England--"
"No, no! You wrapped it in a bit of paper last week and placed it there
for safe keeping."
"You mean the bullet?"
"Yes. I should like it. To show to my friends, you know, when I tell
them how near you were to being shot." Without a word he gave her the
bullet that had dropped at his feet on that first day at the château.
"Thank you. Oh, isn't it a horrid thing! Just to think, it might have
struck you!" She shuddered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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