“I am doing my best, Princess, guiding you through this crowd. It is amazing how generously middle-aged people dance these days, denying their elbows and feet to no one who comes near them.”
“But my lover dies—the door, the door!” cried the Princess Baba.
“And by Heaven, through it!”
“And now your plan?”
“Ah, you may well ask!” laughed our hero.
V
The tall figure of Lord Quorn lay crumpled and inert where he had fallen against the tree-trunk. Only his eyes retained the magic gift of life, and they looked upon the scene with sardonic resignation. Who shall describe what thoughts then passed through the dying gallant’s mind? He was mortally wounded.
Count Rupprecht lay stretched on his back a few yards away, the grass about him soaked with the blood that flowed from his pierced lung. He was dead. Above him stood the Duke, silently. Mr. Woodhouse Adams was on his knees beside his dying friend.
“You got him, anyhow,” said he. “He’ll never know Christmas from Easter again.”
“Fluke,” sighed Lord Quorn. “I always had the luck.”