The Place of Honeymoons - Page 51/123

"Nora, you are behaving abominably!" whispered her mother, pale with

indignation.

"Well, I am having a good time ... Your dance? Thank you."

And a tender young American led her through the mazes of the waltz, as

some poet who knew what he was about phrased it.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there was not a woman in the

ballroom to compare with her, and some of them were marvelously gowned and

complexioned, too. She overshadowed them not only by sheer beauty, but by

exuberance of spirit. And they followed her with hating eyes and whispered

scandalous things behind their fans and wondered what had possessed the

Marchesa to invite the bold thing: so does mediocrity pay homage to beauty

and genius. As for the men, though madness lay that way, eagerly as of old

they sought it.

By way of parenthesis: Herr Rosen marched up the hill and down again,

something after the manner of a certain warrior king celebrated in verse.

The object of his visit had gone to the ball at Cadenabbia. At the hotel

he demanded a motor-boat. There was none to be had. In a furious state of

mind he engaged two oarsmen to row him across the lake.

And so it came to pass that when Nora, suddenly grown weary of the play,

full of bitterness and distaste, hating herself and every one else in the

world, stole out to the quay to commune with the moon, she saw him jump

from the boat to the landing, scorning the steps. Instantly she drew her

lace mantle closely about her face. It was useless. In the man the

hunter's instinct was much too keen.

"So I have found you!"

"One would say that I had been in hiding?" coldly.

"From me, always. I have left everything--duty, obligations--to seek

you."

"From any other man that might be a compliment."

"I am a prince," he said proudly.

She faced him with that quick resolution, that swift forming of purpose,

which has made the Irish so difficult in argument and persuasion. "Will

you marry me? Will you make me your wife legally? Before all the world?

Will you surrender, for the sake of this love you profess, your right to a

great inheritance? Will you risk the anger and the iron hand of your

father for my sake?"

"Herr Gott! I am mad!" He covered his eyes.

"That expression proves that your Highness is sane again. Have you

realized the annoyances, the embarrassments, you have thrust upon me by

your pursuit? Have you not read the scandalous innuendoes in the

newspapers? Your Highness, I was not born on the Continent, so I look upon

my work from a point of view not common to those of your caste. I am proud

of it, and I look upon it with honor, honor. I am a woman, but I am not

wholly defenseless. There was a time when I thought I might number among

my friends a prince; but you have made that impossible."