Cyril himself was unable to spare time for the picnic, which caused Prince Mirkovics a secret guilty satisfaction, but he had generously given Mansfield a day’s holiday, which had so far failed to bring the secretary the pleasure he had expected. Philippa’s society was unattainable, and in despair Mansfield attached himself to another disconsolate young Englishman, who knew no one but the friends with whom he had come. Together they forsook the beaten track in favour of a torrent-bed, which afforded them a good deal of scrambling and a certain amount of risk, arousing thereby the longing envy of Usk, who had been delivered over to the tender mercies of Princess Lida’s lady-in-waiting. Countess Birnsdorf was stiff, elderly, and unappreciative of rural delights, and she subjected Usk to a severe cross-examination, with the view of discovering whether he was really “born,” in the German sense of the word. His light-hearted confession that he really could not answer half her questions without looking up his family history in the ‘Peerage’ shocked and startled her, and he detected a perceptible shrinking from his society until she had satisfied herself as to the length of time the Mortimers had reigned at Llandiarmid, and the arms they had borne at different epochs. Early study of the carvings and stained glass in the Castle hall had rendered Usk well versed in these, and before the hill-top was reached, the Countess had come to look upon him almost with friendliness. The feeling was not reciprocated, however, and Usk was base enough to turn his charge over to Mansfield’s unhappy friend, who had in some way contrived to lose his companion in the wood, and approached to ask whether Usk had seen him. Quieting his conscience with the excuse that it would be quite a novel and exciting sensation for the Countess to tall for the first time to some one who was not “born,” Usk slipped away to find Mansfield, whom he discovered engaged in a solitary search for adventures in the miniature cavern where the stream took its rise. In this Usk joined him, and they wasted all the vestas they had with them, made themselves decidedly wet, and tore their clothes a little, enjoying themselves thoroughly the while. When the want of matches rendered further exploration impracticable, they remembered reluctantly their duty to the rest of the party, and were retracing their steps to the summit of the hill, when there was a flash of blue and white through the trees, and the two young men were suddenly confronted by Philippa, who burst upon them, flushed and panting.
“Usk,” she cried fiercely, “if you let that odious little cad come near me again, I’ll never speak another word to you in my life!”
“Which I wish to remark, that your language is strong, Phil,” observed Usk mildly.
Mansfield’s eyes blazed as he turned upon him. “For shame, Usk! Doesn’t it matter to you that your sister has been insulted? Who is it, Lady Phil? that Scythian fellow?”
“No, no,” panted Philippa, “it’s the King. But Usk is quite right. It was silly of me to be so excited. Oh, please, Mr Mansfield, don’t go. I—I want you to hear how it was. Please stay here.”
She caught his hand and held it, and Mansfield, before whose eyes had floated a vision in which his stick made closer acquaintance with King Michael’s sacred person than the monarch would be likely to consider agreeable, allowed himself to be persuaded to remain, more especially since Usk gave him a warning look behind Philippa’s back. “This is my affair. You have no right to interfere,” the look meant, and Mansfield was forced to submit.
“I suppose they must have arranged it beforehand,” Philippa went on, “for you know, Usk, I was walking with Captain Roburoff. He talked so nicely about Uncle Cyril, and told me such interesting things about the Jews in Scythia, that I never thought about the path until he stopped suddenly, and said, ‘A thousand pardons, mademoiselle! What a fool I am! I have lost the way,’ and then I found that none of the others were in sight, and I could not hear their voices either. Captain Roburoff seemed dreadfully sorry, and asked me to sit down on a fallen tree while he went on a little farther to see where the path led to. I said I was not tired, but he persisted I must be, and I thought he would fancy that I was afraid to stay in the wood alone, so I sat down. He was out of sight among the trees almost at once, and it really was rather lonely, so that I was quite glad when I heard him coming back, as I thought. But it wasn’t Captain Roburoff at all, it was the King, and he said he had flown to the relief of the distressed damsel, and talked a lot of nonsense about wood-nymphs, and tried to pay me compliments about—about my hair, you know, and that sort of thing. I nearly laughed, but I thought it might be his way of being polite, so I walked on with him. Then we came to a rather steep place, and he would insist on helping me up it (though I believe I could have helped him much better), and he squeezed my hand. I pulled it away at once, and he said, in the most idiotic way, ‘Would that I might call that fair hand mine for ever!’ I thought that was going rather far, even for a foreigner, so I made some remark about Princess Lida, just to recall her to his mind. Then he flew out and said that he hated Princess Lida, that his mother and the Princess of Dardania had arranged the marriage when he was a baby, and had brought him up to look upon it as a settled thing, and that Princess Lida had no soul, and not a thought in common with him, and he was tired of her very name, and he would be graciously pleased to marry me instead. Fancy—a boy years younger than I am! He had got sentimental again by that time, but I was so angry that I gave him a good talking-to, and told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Princess Lida was perfectly lovely, and would make him a far better queen than he had any right to expect, and then he went into such a passion! I think he must have expected me to regard his offer as a sort of command, to be obeyed without question, for he said that the Princess of Dardania and her daughter were the curse of Thracia, and that it would be my fault if the kingdom was ruined and he went to the bad. I wanted to box his ears, and at last I was really afraid I should, for he was just like a little boy who ought to be put in a corner, so I came away. Usk, do you think he was mad—or drunk?” Philippa ended the story of her wrongs in an awestruck whisper.
“Don’t know, I am sure. I shall speak to him and see.”
“No, Usk, you’d better not. You know father told us to be sure to consult Uncle Cyril at once if the slightest attempt was made to entangle us in politics while we were abroad, and I suppose this must be the sort of thing he meant.”
“Would you like me to tell Count Mortimer when I see him to-night, Lady Phil?” asked Mansfield. A horrible suspicion had seized him that Cyril might have some hand in the affair. He hated himself for the thought, but his short intercourse with his employer had served to assure him that over-scrupulousness was not one of Cyril’s failings. If he was indeed in King Michael’s confidence, and Philippa discovered the fact, the enthusiastic love she cherished for her uncle would be destroyed for ever, and Mansfield made up his mind to spare her the pain of such a disillusionment.