"Has anything gone wrong?" I asked.
"'One more unfortunate. . . . Make no deep scrutiny!'" he quoted. "Jack, she wouldn't think of it, not for a moment. Perhaps I was a trifle too soon. Yes, she is a Princess, indeed. As for me, I shall go back to elephants and tigers; it's safer."
"'The Bridge of Sighs,'" said I. "Let us cross it for good and all."
"And let it now read 'Sighs Abridged.'"
He asked me no questions, and I silently thanked him. Once in our rooms, he drank a little more brandy than I thought good for one "who may or may not live the year out." I told him so. He laughed. And then I laughed. Both of us did it theatrically; it was laughter, but it was not mirth.
"Cousin," said I, "that's the idea; let us laugh. Love may sit on the windowsill and shiver to death."
"That fellow Anacreon was a fool," said Pembroke. "If the child of Venus had been left then and there, what a lot of trouble might have been averted! What do you say to this proposition; the north, the bears and the wolves? I've a friend who owns a shooting box a few miles across the border. There's bears and gray wolves galore. Eh?"
"I must get back to work," said I, but half-heartedly.
"To the devil with your work! Throw it over. You've got money; your book is gaining you fame. What's a hundred dollars a week to you, and jumping from one end of the continent to the other with only an hour's notice?"
"I'll sleep on it."