The young prince's looks grew by no means brighter during this singular salutation of his second. The expression of my face, which he now observed more closely, and Arthur's evident embarrassment, showed that there was something wrong here; and at this moment he happened to catch a glance exchanged between Paula and myself, which probably seemed another mesh in the net which was here being drawn over his princely head. But now it seemed to Paula high time to interpose and put an end to this singular scene.
"You would have sooner had the pleasure," she said, turning to Arthur, "of meeting your old schoolmate, if you had found your way to our house earlier during the fortnight that you have been here; George has been in the city three months. This gentleman"--she went on, turning to the prince--"is my oldest and dearest friend, who stood faithfully by me at a time of great trial, and who now devotes a few hours of his valuable time to aid my imperfect invention with his advice. I esteem it an honor to introduce to you Herr George Hartwig."
At hearing my name the prince changed color and bit his lip, though he made a great effort to accost the lady's oldest and dearest friend with a polite phrase. Doubtless he had heard my name too often from Constance and others, and the associations connected with it were of too peculiar a character for more amusing and more agreeable experiences to obliterate it entirely, even from the defective memory of the young prince. A dim recollection of a tall figure before which he had once crouched in a dark forest--and then the circumstance that this man with the broad shoulders and the memorable name stood by the side of the Wild Zehren in the picture by the hand of Paula von Zehren,--all this suddenly fitted into one combination. The prince had to find the meaning of it all, however pleasant it might have been to have been spared the whole riddle.
Just at this disagreeable moment, that is to say just at the right time, the Prince of Prora-Wiek remembered what he owed to himself. The signs of embarrassment vanished from his face and his manner; he looked calmly at the picture and at me, comparing the copy with the original, and said a number of pretty things to Paula, which, if not quite well considered, and possibly not even well meant, sounded as if they were both. He hastily glanced at the drawings on the walls, and turned over the sketches in an open portfolio, declared that the light in the studio was admirable, and the whole arrangement exquisitely original and poetic, then remembered that he had been summoned to an audience of the princess, for which he would be too late if he did not take his leave at once, and went off with his companion.
In half a minute we heard the prince's coupé, which had been standing at the door, drive off, and we looked at each other and laughed, laughed with great apparent enjoyment, and then suddenly became grave.
"This is the great annoyance of our calling," said Paula. "Inquisitive visitors cannot be refused admission; indeed we are expected to be highly gratified if they come, and then chatter everywhere about our skill and the subject of our last picture. But, as I said, it is an annoyance at best; and Arthur might have been more considerate than to present himself in this fashion after staying away so long. His only apology is that he meant kindly, and thought he was bringing me a distinguished and wealthy patron. Certainly, if one may judge by the exterior, this Count Ralow must be both very distinguished and very rich."
"The inference is correct this time, at all events," I said; "and if you want the proof--it was the young Prince Prora."
"Impossible!" said Paula.
"I am sure of it," I replied. "I have seen in the papers that the prince has lately visited England, where Arthur says he made the acquaintance of this Count Ralow. But I should have recognized him without that; and besides, I now remember that the Princes of Prora are also Counts von Ralow."
"I am glad to hear it," said Paula, "though I should have preferred to make the acquaintance of the prince under his proper title."