“Not to-day, your Excellency. I dine with Grammont at eight.”
“Then I'll not detain you. Come back here to-morrow about eleven or a little later. Come to breakfast if you like.”
“At what hour?”
“I don't know,—at any hour,” sighed Upton, as he opened one of his letters and began to read; and Stevins bowed and withdrew, totally unnoticed and unrecognized as he slipped from the room.
One after another Upton threw down, after reading half a dozen lines, muttering some indistinct syllables over the dreary stupidity of letter-writers in general. Occasionally he came upon some pressing appeal for money,—some urgent request for even a small remittance by the next post; and these he only smiled at, while he refolded them with a studious care and neatness. “Why will you not help me with this chaos, dear Princess?” said he, at last.
“I am only waiting to be asked,” said she; “but I feared that there might be secrets—”
“From you?” said he, with a voice of deep tenderness, while his eyes sparkled with an expression far more like raillery than affection. The Princess, however, had either not seen or not heeded it, for she was already deep in the correspondence.
“This is strictly private. Am I to read it?” said she.
“Of course,” said he, bowing courteously. And she read:—
“Dear Upton,—Let us have a respite from tariffs and trade-talk for a month or two, and tell me rather what the world is doing around you. We have never got the right end of that story about the Princess Celestine as yet. Who was he? Not Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K—— insists it was Roseville, and I hope you may be able to assure me that he is mistaken. He is worse tempered than ever. That Glencore business has exasperated him greatly. Could n't your Princess,—the world calls her yours [“How good of the world, and how delicate of your friend!” said she, smiling superciliously. “Let us see who the writer is. Oh! a great man,—the Lord Adderley,” and went on with her reading:] couldn't your Princess find out something of real consequence to us about the Q——”