A depressed party gathered round the luncheon table; Miss Lambart alone was cheerful. The archduke had been much shaken by his terrors and disappointments of the morning. Count Zerbst had acquired a deep respect for the intelligence of the young friends of the princess; and he had learned from Mrs. Dangerfield, who had discussed the matter with Sir Maurice, that since her stay at the knoll was doing the princess good, and was certainly better for her than life with the crimson baroness at the Grange, she was not going to annoy and discourage her charitable offspring by interfering in their good work for trivial social reasons. The baroness was bitterly angry at their failure to recover her lost charge.
They discussed the further measures to be taken, the archduke and the baroness with asperity, Count Zerbst gloomily. He made no secret of the fact that he believed that, if he dressed for the chase and took to the woods, he would in the end find and capture the princess, but it might take a week or ten days. The archduke cried shame upon a strategist of his ability that he should be baffled by children for a week or ten days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the children who would baffle him, but the caves and the woods they were using. At last they began to discuss the measure of summoning to their aid the local police; and for some time debated whether it was worth the risk of the ridicule it might bring upon them.
Miss Lambart had listened to them with distrait ears since she had something more pleasant to give her mind to. But at last she said with some impatience: “Why can’t the princess stay where she is? That open-air life, day and night, is doing her a world of good. She is eating lots of good food and taking ten times as much exercise as ever she took in her life before.”
“Eembossible! Shall I live in a cave?” cried the baroness.
“It doesn’t matter at all where you live. It is the princess we are considering,” said Miss Lambart unkindly, for she had come quite to the end of her patience with the baroness.
“Drue!” said the archduke quickly.
“Shall eet zen be zat ze princess live ze life of a beast in a gave?” cried the baroness.
“She isn’t,” said Miss Lambart shortly. “In fact she’s leading a far better and healthier and more intelligent life than she does here. The doctor’s orders were never properly carried out.”
“Ees zat zo?” said the archduke, frowning at the baroness.
“Eengleesh doctors! What zey know? Modern!” cried the baroness scornfully.