“An accidental resemblance, doubtless.”
“No, it isn’t an accidental resemblance,” she affirmed.
“Oh, then you think it’s intentional?” he quizzed.
“Don’t be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one or two odd little circumstances. Primo, Victor Field is a guest at the Wohenhoffens’ ball.”
“Oh, he is a guest here?”
“Yes, he is,” she said. “You are wondering how I know. Nothing simpler. The same costumier who made my domino, supplied his Chinese dress. I noticed it at his shop. It struck me as rather nice, and I asked whom it was for. The costumier said, for an Englishman at the Hôtel de Bade. Then he looked in his book, and told me the Englishman’s name. It was Victor Field. So, when I saw the same Chinese dress here to-night, I knew it covered the person of one of my favourite authors. But I own, like you, I was a good deal surprised. What on earth should a little London literary man be doing at the Countess Wohenhoffen’s? And then I remembered the astonishing resemblance between Victor Field and Louis Leczinski; and I remembered that to Louis Leczinski the Countess Wohenhoffen had been a second mother; and I reflected that though he chose to be as one dead and buried for the rest of the world, Louis Leczinski might very probably keep up private relations with the Countess. He might very probably come to her ball, incognito, and safely masked. I observed also that the Countess’s rooms were decorated throughout with white lilac. But the white lilac is the emblematic flower of the Leczinskis; green and white are their family colours. Wasn’t the choice of white lilac on this occasion perhaps designed as a secret compliment to the Prince? I was taught in the schoolroom that two and two make four.”
“Oh, one can see that you’ve enjoyed a liberal education,” he apprised her. “But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You do it with a grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make four; but first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there couldn’t be more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, during carnival week! Dear, good, sweet lady, it’s of all disguises the disguise they’re driving hardest, this particular season. And then to build up an elaborate theory of identities upon the mere chance resemblance of a pair of photographs! Photographs indeed! Photographs don’t give the complexion. Say that your Invisible Prince is dark, what’s to prevent your literary man from being fair or sandy? Or vice versa? And then, how is a little German Polish princeling to write poems and things in English? No, no, no; your reasoning hasn’t a leg to stand on.”
“Oh, I don’t mind its not having legs,” she laughed, “so long as it convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you yourself said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. German princes are especially so. They all learn English, as a second mother-tongue. You see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred up for the marriage market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good sound remunerative English marriage, than a knowledge of the language. However, don’t be frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor Field would prefer not to let the world know who he is. I happen to have discovered his secret. He may trust to my discretion.”
“You still persist in imagining that I’m Victor Field?” he murmured sadly.
“I should have to be extremely simple-minded,” she announced, “to imagine anything else. You wouldn’t be a male human being if you had sat here for half an hour patiently talking about another man.”