“Yes.” Leslie raised his head triumphantly, and glowered at Phyllis. “My father is in heaven with the angels. I knew he wasn’t down a nasty hole in the ground!”
Phyllis, still unconvinced, stalked away to rejoin her governess, and the Countess was spared the necessity of entering further into the problem. She wondered what Leslie would have to say if she were to provide him with a new father, and how he and Phyllis would agree. The letter which she had dashed off in Patricia’s boudoir had never been sent, for she had thought better of it before she reached home. She had not yet given a definite answer to her illustrious wooer, although a month had passed, but she knew that he was coming to Brighton expressly to hear what she had to say.
When the nurse came for her boy, she went to rejoin the sister with whom she was staying—the Princess Charles von Felsen-Schvoenig. She felt unusually nervous, and could not settle down anywhere. The bravado she had shown in her conversation with Patricia had gradually evaporated until there was little left. The nearer it came to meeting the Premier the less courageous did she feel. She was not at all sure now that she considered it worth while to become the defender of the Jews.
The Princess was very much like her sister in appearance, but possessed stronger features and a firmer will. She considered Mamie foolish to wish to encumber herself with another husband, and to give up her widowed freedom. Her own husband—with whom she was not in love—was suffering with a disease of the spine; and as he allowed himself to be relegated to the castle in Felsen-Schvoenig whenever his presence was undesired by his wife, the Princess enjoyed life in her own way as a woman of independence. She was fond of travelling, and journeyed from one place to another as she felt inclined. Perhaps there was scarcely a wife in the whole of Europe so little troubled by domestic affairs.
“So the hour approaches!” she exclaimed, as her sister appeared in her boudoir. “Whence the pale cheeks and troubled brow?”
“Am I pale?” The Countess glanced at herself in the mirror. “I shall have plenty of colour when the lights are lit. I feel real stupid to-day; I don’t know why. When Moore begins rolling off his words to me in that curious manner of his, I know I shall have nothing to say for myself in return. I might be a girl in her first season instead of a widow and a woman of the world. And I just wanted to be especially brilliant to-night. It’s very annoying, isn’t it?”
The Princess regarded her contemplatively. “I believe you are afraid of Moore,” she said.
“Afraid? What nonsense. As if I could be frightened of a little man scarcely a head taller than myself!”
“A little man certainly, but he has a great personality. It is said that the man or woman does not exist who can oppose Moore’s iron will. It is true enough that when he determines on a thing, that thing always comes to pass. Therefore, my dear Mamie, you will know what to expect.”
“Qui vivra verra,” returned her sister, as the dressing-bell resounded through the hotel; and then, with a careless nod, she left the room.