CHAPTER III
IT will be remembered that Stellamaris was a young person of bountiful fortune. She had stocks and shares and mortgages and landed property faithfully administered under a deed of trust. The Channel House and all that therein was, except Sir Oliver and Lady Blount's grievances, belonged to her. She knew it; she had known it almost since infancy. The sense of ownership in which she had grown up had its effect on her character, giving her the equipoise of a young reigning princess, calm and serene in her undisputed position. In her childish days her material kingdom was limited to the walls of her sea-chamber but as the child expanded into the young girl, so expanded her conception of the limits of her kingdom. And with this widening view came gradually and curiously the consciousness that though her uncle and aunt were exquisitely honoured and beloved agents who looked to the welfare of her realm, yet they could not relieve her of certain gracious responsibilities. Instinctively, and with imperceptible gradations, she began to make her influence felt in the house itself. But it was an influence in the spiritual and not material sense of the word; the hovering presence and not the controlling hand.
When, shortly after the arrival of the two men, Walter Herold went up to his room, he found a great vase of daffodils on his dressing-table and a pencilled note from Stella in her unformed handwriting, for one cannot learn to write copper-plate when one lies forever on the flat of one's back.
Great High Favourite: Here are some daffodils, because they laugh and dance like you. Stellamaris.
And on his dressing-table John Risca found a mass of snowdrops and a note:
Great High Belovedest: A beautiful white silver cloud came to my window to-day, and I wished I could tear it in half and save you a bit for the palace. But snowdrops are the nearest things I could think of instead. Your telegram was a joy. Love. S.
Beside the bowl of flowers was another note:
I heard the wheels of your chariot, but Her Serene High-and-Mightiness [her trained nurse] says I am tucked up for the night and can have no receptions, levees, or interviews. I tell her she will lose her title and become the Kommon Kat; but she does n't seem to mind. Oh, it's just lovely to feel that you 're in the house again. S.