“Yes, with a look of breeding. At the same time she is penniless and dependent, teaching English in a kind of charity school, cheek by jowl with a princess!”
“God bless my soul!” cried the lawyer, astonished at last. “A princess!”
“Who is a good creature as women go, but as likely as not to send her adrift to-morrow.”
“Tut-tut-tut!” muttered the other.
“However, I’ll tell you the story,” Audley concluded. And he did so.
When he had done, “Well,” Stubbs exclaimed, “for a coincidence——”
“Ah, there,” the young man broke in, “I fancy, all’s not said. I take it the Princess noted the name, but was too polite to question me. Anyway, the girl is there. She is dependent, friendless; attractive, and well-bred. For a moment it did occur to me—she is John Audley’s heiress—that I might make all safe by——” His voice dropped. His last words were inaudible.
“The chance is so very remote,” said the lawyer, aware that he was on delicate ground, and that the other was rather following out his own thoughts than consulting him.
“It is. The idea crossed my mind only for a moment—of course it’s absurd for a man as poor as I am. There is hardly a poorer peer out of Ireland—you know that. Fourteenth baron without a roof to my house or a pane of glass in my windows! And a rent-roll when all is told of——”
“A little short of three thousand,” the lawyer muttered.