Howard cleared his throat.
“I had not expected the—announcement. It is a great honour—er—doubly so—er—under the circumstances.”
Corinne embraced her cousin ecstatically.
“Oh, Mabel! Oh—I’m so glad! Oh, Your Highness, it must be wonderful to do such lovely things for people. Perhaps that’s why you are called Prince Adam—because you make all things lovely, like the Garden of Eden.”
“Dear young lady,” he responded; “it is my fondest aim to make this world once more an Eden for everyone.” He bowed to Mrs. Witherby, and amended. “Of course, with certain restrictions—chiefly in the matter of drapery.”
Corinne sighed with extreme joy.
“Oh, it does change everything when a Prince comes!”
“For a wedding gift to my dear cousin,” Rosamond said, “I am adding to his future wife’s dower. As Corinne says, it does change everything when a prince comes. I never thought before how much I might give. Come here, Wilton and sit beside her—and thank your lucky stars. She wants you,” she muttered, as he passed her, “well, she shall own you.”
“I do thank my lucky stars, cousin Rosamond,” he answered as he took Mabel’s hand. His face was dark with the flush of his own contempt. “I am the gainer in every way. I am utterly unworthy of her.” Then, as her cold fingers clung tightly to his, he added—speaking to her only, as if he were determined to put behind him everything else that had been said and thought in that room during the night—“perhaps the coming of the prince may change that, too.”
“Oh, dear!” Corinne sighed again, “Mr. Howard, I think you’re perfectly nice. But that part doesn’t matter. Everybody will be so glad to see Mabel get what she wants.”