IV
Ten minutes elapsed.
Pontycroft, in silence, smoked and wafted the rings of his cigarette towards Florence. And then Ruth reappeared.
She looked pale in the dusk, agitated. In her hands were a couple of letters, she held out one to Lucilla.
“Read it,”—her voice trembled,—“Tell me what I have done to be so insulted,” she commanded; and then she turned away her face, and suddenly she began to weep. Pontycroft watched her in consternation. He had never, in all the years he had known her, he had never seen Ruth in tears.
Lucilla took the letter, blazoned with a gold crown. She read down the page, she turned over to the next, she read on to the end.
“May I see it?—May I see it, Ruth?” Pontycroft asked gently.
Ruth bowed her head. As Pontycroft read she looked at him, her hands lying idly in her lap; and she saw his face cloud as he read. But he, having finished the communication, fell silent for a moment.
“Poor Bertram!” he let fall at last, dropping the letter upon the table.
“Poor Bertram!” cried Ruth. She dabbed her eyes, she made an immense, unsuccessful effort to control herself, quell the ire in her heart.
“Poor Bertram!” she broke forth scornfully. “What have I done, what can I have done, to be subjected to such an indignity? Did I lead him on? If I had encouraged him! Lucilla, speak, speak the truth. You both know I did nothing of the sort!” And Ruth stamped her foot. “Has the Heir Apparent to that obscure little Principality called Altronde had any encouragement from me of any kind?... Notwithstanding his visits here, notwithstanding the amusement you've had at my expense!” Ruth looked wrathfully at Pontycroft. “And this, this deliberate, this detestable, this cold-blooded proposition. And you can say 'Poor Bertram'!” But then she fell to sobbing violently.
Lucilla flew to her, folded protecting arms about her.
“Ruth, dear, don't feel so.... Darling! I don't wonder, I do not wonder!... But after all, for him, it is an impossible predicament. He is to be pitied. You can do nothing better than to feel sorry for him. He's madly in love with you,—that's too evident. Presently you'll be able to laugh at it,—at him.”
“Laugh at it?” Ruth cried. “Ah, how lightly it hits you! Laugh at it?... I shall never laugh at it, I shall never laugh at it. I can shudder and wonder at the monstrous pride it reveals, the arrogance of a little Princeling called to reign over his obscure little Principality.” She drew herself up.
“Here is that dear old uncle of mine,” said she, tightening her clasp upon the letter she still held in her hand,—“My uncle, who writes to me for the ninetieth time: 'The string is on the latchet of the door, why not come and pay a visit to your old home, have a look at your ancestral acres'?”
“Oh,” exclaimed Ruth rather hysterically, “I will go and have a look at my ancestral acres! And these Wohenhoffens, these Bertrandoni, who are they to fancy themselves privileged to offer me a morganatic marriage with their son? But I execrate them! I execrate everything they represent! I, Ruth Adgate, to have been exposed to it!” And now, again, she began to sob.
Pontycroft looked exceedingly distressed.
“Child, child,” he said, “you may believe that Lucilla and I never remotely dreamed of this dénouement. I'm not in the least surprised at your indignation,—your horror,—but I am not in the least surprised, either, that poor Bertram, in the tangle of his environment, with his tradition, and impelled by a hopeless passion (oh, my prophetic eye), did what he could, has written offering you the only honourable thing he could offer you, a morganatic marriage. Absurd, outrageous though this sounds to you, it is a legal marriage, and remember that the poor chap's in a hole, a dreadful box. Shed rather a pitying tear upon his blighted young affections.... He can't hope to have you, knew probably how you'd take his offer, but he gritted his teeth and made it like the wholly decent chap he is.
“And I would even wax pathetic,” continued Pontycroft, “when I think of him. Could any fate be more depressing than his? You'll never speak to him again! While he, poor fellow, is doomed to marry some sallow Grand Duchess for the sake of the Dynasty. Farewell love, farewell comradry, farewell all the nice, easy-going businesses of life. Buck up and be a Crown Prince! Become a puppet, a puppet on exhibition to your subjects. Whatever you like to do that's gay, that's human, debonair,—you'll have to do it on the sly as though it were a sin, or overcome mountains of public censure. In fact, whether you please yourself or whether you don't—the majority will always find fault with you. Poor Bertram, I say, poor old Bertram.... His proud Wohenhoffen of a mother is the only member of that Royal trio, I fancy, who is thoroughly pleased with the new order of affairs, for Civillo will soon be making matters hot for himself if he doesn't turn over a new leaf.”