“I had much sooner talk to you. Who knows when I shall find you in this angelic frame of mind again?”
“I knew you could not depend upon me,” and the tears began to rise once more in Nadia’s eyes. “You can never feel certain that I shall behave properly.”
“Oh, what a doubly distilled ass I am!” cried Caerleon. “I wonder whether there ever was a worse fellow for putting his foot in it than I am. My darling, it was a joke. Please do try to expect jokes sometimes, and don’t take all I say in earnest. I won’t joke more than I can help.”
“You must teach me,” said Nadia. “If you will explain your jokes at first, I shall soon learn to understand them; and I will try not to be so silly.”
To which the infatuated Caerleon replied by declaring that on no account would he have her in the slightest degree different from what she was, and they went down the hill together in great peace and contentment, to find the Princess and Cyril waiting for them at the waterside. Once on board the yacht, Cyril was accommodating enough to occupy himself with his letters, while Caerleon sought an interview with the Princess, and received her warm approval of the engagement. There was no lonely prowl on deck this evening for the two brothers. Muffled in shawls, the Princess and Nadia joined them, and under the lee of the deckhouse they discussed plans for the future.
“I have heard from Mrs Sadleir,” said Caerleon, “in answer to a letter I wrote asking her what she thought about my returning home. She advises me not to come back just yet, since the Thracian question is very much in people’s minds at present; but after a few months she thinks I may count upon escaping notice. ‘Of course,’ she says, ‘you will not expect to find yourself a persona gratissima in exalted circles, nor to receive the offer of the Pavelsburg Embassy when it falls vacant, but I think there is little doubt that you will probably be allowed to grow mangel-wurzels (whatever they may be) on your ancestral acres in peace, and even to vote in the House of Lords now and then if you do not make yourself too conspicuous.’ The next sentence is slightly personal, but I hope you won’t mind, Nadia. ‘I am all anxiety to know how the romance of the beautiful Scythian girl has ended. If you succeed in winning her and bringing her back with you, give me a week’s notice, and I will guarantee that she shall be the greatest social success of these twenty years.’ Mrs Sadleir means you to come, be seen, and conquer, Nadia.”
“That will not be until some time hence,” said the Princess, seeing Nadia look alarmed. “But since you are not to return home for three or four months, Lord Caerleon, I hope we may count upon your society for the rest of our tour. We have still all the coasts of the Ægean and Cyprus to see, and I thought of spending Easter at Jerusalem.”
“There is nothing on earth I should like better,” said Caerleon, with enthusiasm.
“And you, Lord Cyril?” asked the Princess. “I hope you will come too?”
“You are very kind,” said Cyril, speaking with an evident excitement unusual with him, “and I should be most delighted to accept your invitation; but as soon as I am strong again I must set to work. You won’t be surprised to hear that this Thracian business has about done for me in the diplomatic service. Of course, if we arranged things nowadays in a common-sense, Elizabethan kind of way, I should be made British agent at Bellaviste immediately, on the score of my intimate acquaintance with the country and the people; but we don’t, and I’m afraid there are not many chiefs that would care to have me under them now. I never have felt exactly drawn towards settling down and cultivating mangel-wurzels, and after the experiences of the last three months such a prospect looks less enticing than ever. This letter here is from King Otto Georg. He wants me to go back to Thracia as his private secretary—the post I held under you, Caerleon. He finds himself horribly lonely, he says—by the bye, Drakovics is said to be looking out for a wife for him, so that oughtn’t to last long—and I can see that he wants me to act as a sort of under-study for him as well. Drakovics is too important, both in view of the possibility of his being assassinated, and of his influence in the country. The King thinks that I might be useful in two ways, first, in getting some idea of the manner in which things are done, so that Drakovics’s removal might not necessarily mean the collapse of the whole system of government; and secondly, in keeping Drakovics himself from going too far. Of course Otto Georg, poor old fellow! can’t very well do that sort of thing for himself, but I think that I, as a friend of both parties, might be able to manage it.”