Nevertheless, Captain Haig had some brief visions of Miss Chandos; for instance, at the Elisabeth Well of a morning, at the opera, or at church, now and then they exchanged a few sentences.
At the annual Battle of Flowers—which was attended by all Homburg and Frankfort—the carriage of Madame de Godez was accorded a coveted banner, and first prize. The landau was entirely covered with pink roses, the very wheels had been transformed into colossal wreaths. Four milk-white horses, caparisoned with roses and silver, were led by grooms wearing pink and silver livery and white wigs. It was the chariot of a Fairy Queen, and was received with shouts of admiration and pelted with a hurricane of flowers.
Enthroned in the vehicle reclined Madame de Godez, arrayed (despite her maid) in a gorgeous pink and silver pelisse, with feathered headgear of the most imposing assumption. ("The blot on the escutcheon," Sir Horace dubbed the lady.) Beside her was seated the Princess, clad in white, her hat crowned with roses; on the coach box was perched Dog Darling, decorated en suite, with an enormous pink bow—glowering at all the world and shivering with shame!
The carriage was crammed with flowers of the most costly varieties, which the two ladies tossed to the crowd with liberal hands.
As the splendid equipage rolled majestically between dense masses of admiring spectators it seemed to represent the triumphal car of Beauty and Mammon.
Captain Haig, posted in a coign of vantage, pelted the occupants with the best of his assortment. He had no eyes, or flowers, for others, not even for the cart laden with sheaves of corn and pretty girls and drawn by oxen, nor for the gorgeous yellow coach, or yet the charming Japanese; his flowers were only for Verona. Once he had the good fortune to catch her eye, and as she passed she smiled and tossed him a rose. This he kissed with fervour and stowed away as if it were some holy relic, for Malcolm Haig was really in love. So much in love, that he actually attended a charity bazaar in the extravagant and foolish hope of finding her within; but unfortunately Miss Chandos was elsewhere, playing golf, and his temerity cost him three sovereigns. His leave was ebbing hourly—his luck was dead out. Sir Horace, too, was selfishly absorbed in his own affairs and the progress of his cure, and had never given his unhappy nephew a helping hand since that first notable morning. At last Fortune smiled! Captain Haig was returning from a sad and solitary ramble in the woods, when to his surprise, and, needless to add, joy, he came upon Miss Chandos and Dog Darling. She was seated on the trunk of a fallen tree with the enviable animal in her lap.
"Oh, this is fortunate!" she exclaimed, "I am in rather a quandary, like the ferryman with the fox and goose and corn. Dog Darling has cut his foot, and I don't know how I am to get him home. I dare not leave him; he might stray, or be stolen, and, much as I love him—I cannot carry him!"
"No, indeed," agreed the delighted lover. "Pray how do you happen to be here all alone?"
"I was driving with Auntie from Nauheim, I got out to walk back the rest of the way, and give Dog Darling a run. He has cut his foot on a broken bottle, poor dear; so wicked of people to leave their picnics loose."
"I see, his poor paw is badly cut," said Malcolm; "shall I bandage it up?"