“No, not frightened, exactly,” said the painter. “I think it’s just natural emotion.”
As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet stretching from the doorway of Brown’s Hotel out across the sidewalk to a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently assisting several gentlemen to get into it. This and another carriage and Nolan’s four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man to its side.
“Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?” he asked. The bareheaded man answered that he was.
“All right, Nolan,” cried Carlton. “They can take in the trunks.”
Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight. “That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those,” he said, pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second carriage, “are his sisters, the Princesses.”
Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the air.
“The deuce they are!” he exclaimed; “and which is—” he began, eagerly, and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the hansom.
He broke into the little dining-room at Cox’s in so excited a state that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed in astonished disapproval. Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come down stairs.
“I have seen her!” Carlton cried, ecstatically; “only half an hour in the town, and I’ve seen her already!”
“No, really?” exclaimed Miss Morris. “And how did she look? Is she as beautiful as you expected?”