“My dear Usk, you will allow me to say that you are talking very great and very youthful nonsense. But I will remember your partiality for arranged marriages, and possibly I may be able to gratify you at some future time. And don’t make sweeping statements about women, because that only shows how young you are. You are prejudiced just now.”
“Prejudiced? I should think I was!” laughed Usk fiercely. “Why, as I came home just now, I couldn’t see a fellow walking with a girl without wanting to call out to him that she was making a fool of him.”
“You had better go back to London, certainly, and forswear female society for the present. It would be brutal to inflict you on any unfortunate girl while you are in this state of mind. Your aunt will agree with me, though we shall miss you.”
“Oh, but there’s another thing!” cried Usk, with sudden recollection. “Don’t you think you had better come home too? The Princess of Dardania came and spoke to me this afternoon, and gave me a message for you. She wants the King to marry the girl she’s got staying with her, you know, and she says if you don’t let him do it, she’ll tell Prince Soudaroff all your plans.”
“Well, she ought to know by this time that Michael will marry to please himself, and not either her or me.”
“Yes; but she thinks you can keep him from marrying Félicia, at any rate.”
“I see; you were to warn me and have Félicia back? But you went to her first.”
“It didn’t seem to strike the Princess that I might prefer her to marry Michael if she wanted him. I didn’t need a bribe to warn you. She says that all your arrangements are known to her as soon as they are made, and that she has agents at all your meetings, and that your life is in danger.”
“And you remembered what I told you at Llandiarmid, and wisely concluded that the matter was not pressing? Quite right. The Princess knows only of the sham plot, not of the real one. At all the headquarters it is arranged who is to act as her tool, and provide her with carefully edited reports—a sort of bogus information-bureau for her special benefit. She has not the faintest idea that the plot to establish me in Palestine is really one to establish Malasorte in Neustria. To make things safe, in case any genuine spies should be present, he is always spoken of as Mortimer, and Neustria as Palestine, and so on—in fact, there is a regular code. So you see she is quite at fault.”
“But you’re only thinking of your schemes, and I’m thinking of you. If she and Prince Soudaroff believe in the bogus plot, it’s just as dangerous for you as if it was genuine. I don’t believe you’re safe anywhere but in England or at Sitt Zeynab.”