VII
IT was no use telling me—as the Rector had told me more than once—that the same sort of thing had happened before in history, that a French marquis of the old régime was at least as good as a Boravian princess, and that if the one had taught dancing as an émigré the other might teach French verbs in her banishment. The consideration was no doubt just, and even assuaged to some degree the absurdity of the situation—since absurd things that have happened before seem rather less absurd somehow—but it did not console my feelings, nor reconcile my imagination to Mrs Perkyns of Maida Hill, “nice and high” though Maida Hill might be. On the morning of Fräulein’s departure I rose out of temper with the world.
Then I opened the morning paper, and there it was! In a moment it seemed neither strange nor unexpected. It was bound to be there some morning. It chanced to be there this morning by happy fortune, because this was the last morning in which I could help, the last morning when I could see her eyes. But it was glorious. I am afraid it sent me half mad; yet I was very practical. In a minute I had made up my mind what she would want to do and what I could do. In another five minutes I was on my bicycle, “scorching” to Beechington with that paper in one pocket, and a cheque on the local branch of the London and County Bank in the other. And humming in my ears was “Rising in Boravia!” “Rumoured Abdication of the King!” “An Appeal to the Pretender!” Then, in smaller print: “Something about Princess Vera of Friedenburg.”
I hoped she would get away before the Thistletons knew! Very likely she would, for by now Thistleton was in the train for town, and he picked up his Times at the station; the family waited for it till the evening.
From the bank I raced to the station, and reached it ten minutes before her train was due to leave Beechington. There she was, sitting on a bench, all alone. She was dressed in plain black and looked very small and forlorn. She seemed deep in thought, and she did not see me till I was close to her. Then she looked up with a start. I suppose she read my face, for she smiled, held out her hand, and said—
“Yes, I had a telegram late last night.”
“You’ve told them?” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the Manor.
“No,” she said rather brusquely.
“You’re going, of course?”
“To Mrs Perkyns’,” she answered, smiling still. “What else can I do?”