"No," he said quietly, "no, I am an American, nothing more than a friend and guest of the Duke of Westboro'. I tried over and over again to tell you this, but you would not hear me and I finally accepted the rôle you gave me with the firm intention of taking you with me to Westboro' Castle. My name is James Thatcher Bulstrode, I am from Boston, in the United States." Bulstrode thus tardily introduced himself.
And Jimmy, not pretending ever to have counted greatly on the favor of princes, was nevertheless taken aback. Not that he had any preconceived notion of what Carmen-Magda would do—when she eventually knew. He had been too absorbed in his mission, its entanglements, and his climax. He may have been prepared for some exhibition of scorn, but he more than likely looked for a social and commonplace ending to their ride, but for what Carmen-Magda did he was entirely unprepared.
As if in his declaration of himself and his identity he had taken a sponge and quite wiped himself off the slate, the Queen, after speechlessly staring at him for a few moments, quietly removed her attention from him altogether. She took from a little bag at her wrist a rouge stick with which she carefully touched her lips; from a tiny gold box she lightly dusted her cheeks with powder; she adjusted her tulle bow and her veil and then sat serenely back waiting until the train should arrive at her forced destination.
Although, one might say, unused to the manners of royalty, Jimmy was dumbfounded; the beautiful woman in forest-brown clothes picked out with hunting green had become as strange to him as in the first moment when she attracted his attention some few miles beyond London. That she should be angry at his interference he could admit, but that she should not be grateful to be saved from her husband's wrath he did not understand. Was he too plebeian for her to notice? He, of course, did not speak to her again, nor did she break the singular silence, and for some reason he did not even care to ask her forgiveness. Finally, he decided that she was thinking solely of Gela, the man at the other end of the route who would wait for her in vain, and when this sentimental view of the case occurred to him, he would have felt de trop had he not seen how completely he was ignored.
They flashed past the last miles of wooded valley and hillside. Westboro' was very soft in line and very mellow in the evening light. The landscape, through a half-mist, was as brown and green as the dress of the beautiful silent woman in the opposite corner of the travelling carriage.
Bulstrode, looking at her rather timidly, felt as if he were in a dream.
At Westboro' Abbey the guard unlocked the compartment door and Bulstrode, who got out first, helped the Queen of Poltavia to descend. As she put foot to the ground she said, half leaning on the arm he gave: "I thank you—very much indeed."
He caught the few words eagerly, and was fatuous enough to fancy that she meant something more than the common courteous acknowledgment of a man's help from a travelling carriage.
The station was deserted. The express having arrived some half hour before without them, there had evidently been no preparation made to meet this train.
Surrounded by her luggage, her brand new luggage, the Queen waited on the side of the station that faced the open country, whilst Bulstrode made inquiries about telephoning or getting word to the castle.