“We Americans are never sticklers for forms. We’ll go with a laugh, dear, whatever we are destined to find there.”
“You are so good and so strong,” she whispered.
“No, I am just discovering how much better and stronger I shall be with—with my wife, Helga,” I whispered back.
She came to me then, with a sigh and a laugh and lots of blushes which she hid on my shoulder from my eyes as well as from the musty dingy old prison walls. Musty and dingy? Well, no. They will never be that in my memory. For the sake of that minute they will always have a halo in my thoughts; for after all it was the prison which did so much to hasten our happiness.
And so it was settled, and for the time we just lost ourselves and babbled and laughed and sighed and held hands and kissed and laughed again; for love will have his way even in a prison with all sorts of vague troubles gibbering and pranking from the other side of the bars.
And when I glanced at my watch I found we had used up the whole hour save some ten minutes.
The problem which the Prince had left us was a big one to solve in ten minutes; but we only smiled at it, for Helga had come round to my view—to meet everything with a laugh. And in that spirit we faced the prospect of the long journey to Siberia.
When the Prince came back I had no formal answer ready for him, of course. Helga was to be my wife; and I could not get any further than that. I was certainly in no fit mood to cope with him.
I suppose he saw the chaotic state of my mind; he must have been very blind if he did not; for the thought of Helga as my wife got in my way and tripped me up every moment, so that my answers to his first questions were given almost at random.
“You have my word of honour that the moment we find matters are as you say in regard to Prince Lavalski in Siberia, the whole of these papers will be returned to you. I suppose that will satisfy you.”