'I don't care if he borrowed the money or not, for he could not have borrowed for a better purpose than to give you--what I have seen.'
Mr. Kelly was pale enough now. What in the wide world had she seen? Certainly not the snuffbox.
'Seen in a dream, my dear; sure the King never gave me anything but my little pension.'
'Then you know other kings, for who else give diamonds? Ah, you are caught! You have the Queen's portrait set with diamonds.'
'The Queen's portrait?' cried Kelly in perplexity. He was comforted as well as perplexed. 'Twas plain that Rose knew nothing of the royal snuffbox, now the spoil of Lady Oxford's spear and bow.
'Yes,' cried Rose. 'Whose portrait but the Queen's should it be that lies on your table? So beautiful a lady and such diamonds!'
Mr. Kelly groaned in spirit. The snuff-box was not near so dangerous as this new trail that Rose had hit. She had seen, in his possession, the miniature of Smilinda, and had guessed that it was a royal gift; the likeness of the Princess Clementina Sobieska, who had but lately married the King.
'I saw it lying on your table the day we brought you home from the seat on the boulevard, when we thought'(here Miss Rose hid her face on her lover's shoulder, and her voice broke) 'that--you--would--die.'
Now was this rose wet with a shower, and when Kelly, like the glorious sun in heaven, had dried these pretty petals, what (Mr. Wogan puts it to the casuists) was the dear man to say? What he thought was to curse Nick for holding his hand when he was about throwing Smilinda's picture into the sea.
What he said was that, under Heaven, but without great personal danger, he had been the blessed means of detecting and defeating a wicked Hanoverian plot to kidnap and carry off from Rome the dear little Prince of Wales, and Mrs. Hughes, his Welsh nurse. This prodigious fable George based on one of the many flying stories of the time. It satisfied Miss Townley's curiosity (as, indeed, it was very apt to do) and George gave her the strictest orders never to breathe a word of the circumstance, which must be reckoned a sacred mystery of the royal family. He also remarked that the portrait flattered her Majesty (as painters will do), and that, though extremely pretty and gay, she had not that air of dignity and command, nor was so dark a beauty. 'In fact, my dear,' said George, 'you might wear that portrait at the Elector's Birth Night rout (if you could fall so low) and few people would be much the wiser. These Roman painters are satisfied with making a sitter pretty enough to please her, or him.'