"Your Highness," I called, using the title which applied to both, but the singing went on uninterrupted.
Surely the youth was playing with me, and, for aught I knew, might even now be laughing behind a curtain. I was positive that the voice came more particularly from behind a portière in front of me. Possibly it screened a door. I pulled it aside and came upon nothing but the panelled woodwork which formed the walls. The singer in the room beyond seemed now to be at my very elbow. I was not long in determining the cause—the centre panel of the wall was on a hinge; the automatic lock had failed to catch, and the perfectly fitting secret door was partly ajar.
I stood on the borderland of a great discovery, hesitating to continue my search. What right had I, a foreigner, to inquire into the secrets of these Bharbazonians? With Byron, I, too, "loathed that low vice, curiosity." Trouble walks hand in hand with those unfortunates who have not acquired the art of minding their own business. Besides, I owed something to the clear-eyed girl by whose favour I had been received as a friend within the castle. At the remembrance of her trust in me I formed my resolution. Dropping the curtain I retired to the outer room and again seated myself in the Prince's chair to wait until he found me.
Can you go back to the time when you were a child playing the game of hide and seek with other children of your age? Do you recall how difficult it was for you to refrain from "peeping" through your little fingers when you were "hiding your eyes," being that important individual known as "it?" How you blindly faced the wall, your ears alert to catch the direction of the sound when one of your playmates should shrilly pipe "all out?" So it was with me. With a recurrence of those childish feelings I sat holding the arms of the chair, listening to the voice as it came faintly to my ears. Truly men are but children of a larger growth. I found it difficult to maintain my place. Except for the singer the castle seemed deserted. My desire to know what lay behind that curtain grew and grew.
Like the mariners who steer their boat upon the hidden rocks, charmed into carelessness of their danger by a siren voice, I was irresistibly drawn again toward the secret door. It was so tantalizingly near; the singer surely was Solonika. An invisible power unloosed my grip upon the chair, I threw diffidence to the winds, crossed the room with swift strides, pulled the curtain aside, opened the inviting panel and stepped through.
But once inside I regretted my rashness and would have given all I possessed to be back in the Prince's chair. The unexpected sight that met my astonished eyes brought me to an abrupt standstill. One swift glance around the room was sufficient to tell me that I had come into Solonika's little boudoir, where the day before I found her engaged in fancy needlework. There were the familiar gobelin tapestries, the pendent chandeliers, the red satin hand-painted chairs. Beside the window was the same easy chair in which she sat while entertaining me, and in front of it on the window sill was the very piece of embroidery upon which she had been working. I recognized it by the centre piece, held tightly as the head of a drum with the little wooden ring beneath.
On the couch against the wall in front of the portières lay Solonika's large French hat and red parasol; beside them was the long tailor-made coat she wore in the summer-house. In the centre of the floor was the skirt crumpled in a circular heap just as she had stepped out of it.
In front of the dressing table, close to the window, with her back toward me stood Solonika herself!
Or was it the Prince?
For a moment I was puzzled as to the identity of the figure before the mirror. There were the same black silk stockings and black satin knee breeches which I recognized as belonging to the Prince. Tucked into the trousers was the white shirt with cuffs attached which Solonika wore under her tailor-made coat. Her white collar and smoke-coloured four-in-hand necktie completed the nondescript costume.