“Long ago, I seem to remember,” Ruth said, slowly, “long ago, I seem to hear myself saying in a garden in Florence, that the Royal Incident was closed. It is closed. I haven't changed my mind, on the contrary. If you must of your will leave my hill at this perfect hour and—and be sending messages to the other side of the world—then, you needs must! But—pray remember your own favourite saw, that 'opportunity comes once in a lifetime.' Jobias goes home at noon, can't he take your message? If Prince, I beg his pardon, King,—if Bertram has to live in suspense for a few hours, let that be my little revenge. 'If it feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge,'” laughed Ruth.
Having given expression to this heartless sentiment, she began to tread, cautiously, among the flowers—the saxifrage, the violets, the little green-golden buttercups between,—her light steps responding with love to what she was pleased to think was their caress. From the plain and from the woods mounted gentle homely sounds, the hautbois of the New England Spring—the blows of a distant axe, the felling of trees, a carpenter's hammer taptapping,—and children's cries resounding as they romped at play; all mounted together, in a joyous choiring, with birds' songs and twitterings which fell about them from every tree far and near; the earth, the sky—musical, alive with carols and thanksgiving.
“I bring a garland for your head of flowers fresh and fair,” Ruth hummed, pacing a little ahead of Pontycroft, and her foot rhythmically touched ground at each stress of the song.
“'I had, once, a double double grandmother,' my friend Jack Enderfield is fond of saying,” said Ruth, as she continued her walk to the measure of the verse. “A great, great, so great Meregrand! She was French. Her name was Priscilla. Priscilla Mulline. She's rather a person in New England History—you'll forgive my mentioning her. When the man she cared for came, as emissary from the man she didn't care for, to ask her to marry him—do you remember what she answered?” Ruth kept her eyes fixed upon the tips of her toes, and they, like little mice, little white mice, went in and out, below the flounces of her gown.
Pontycroft gasped,—took a step towards her. But his lean and bony face, which for a moment had betrayed him, assumed again the look of disillusion.
“Oh,” he rejoined, “the foolish girl made hash of her future, perpetrated a mot which, no doubt, she lived to repent. A mot which one of your American poets has quite suitably recorded. By it, Miss Priscilla Mulline lost her chance of making a very good match. She lost her golden opportunity. She cut off her chances of having a jolly good time in a big, jolly world.”
“You're abominable,” Ruth said, and permitted herself two actions very much at variance,—she stamped her foot and she smiled obliquely at the object of her wrath. “You're abominable. I want you to tell me what she answered.”
“Oh, you've forgotten it?” said he. “I've well-nigh forgotten it myself.... I believe, though, she did ask the chap Alden why the deuce (pardon the expletive) he didn't speak for himself. Am I right?”
“Well, why didn't he?” enquired Ruth, impatiently.
“Because he was a duffer, I suppose,” said Ponty, with a fine effect of ending the discussion. “But now, my dear young one, be serious. Here's your chance....” Pontycroft's voice became argumentative. “I've crossed the ocean to lay a crown at your feet. A crown from which you may get considerable fun and splendour. Bertram's rich, you're rich. You are, both of you, handsome, virtuous, clever, and at the mating age. You can make of your little Principality, your Kingdom, the centre of the enlightenment and art of Europe. Find me a philosopher, an artist, or a man of wit who doesn't appreciate a King! Under your wise encouragement Art, at last, will come into her own.... Oh, think of the poor devils of hangers-on of Genius you'll be able to lift from Purgatories of obscurity into the light!”