“Don’t let us discuss the past, your Highness,” he said, somewhat confused by her kindly words; “let’s think of the future—your own future, I mean. You can trust Leucha implicitly, and as the police, fortunately, have no suspicion of her, she will be perfectly free to serve you. Hitherto she has always obtained employment with an ulterior motive, but this fact, I hope, will not prejudice her in your eyes. I can only assure you that for her father’s sake she will do anything, and that for his sake she will serve you both loyally and well.” He halted beneath a street lamp, and tearing a leaf from a small notebook, wrote an address in Granville Gardens, Shepherd’s Bush, which he gave to her, saying: “This is in case you miss her at Charing Cross. Send her a letter, and she will at once come to you.”
Again she thanked him, and they walked to the corner of the Boulevard Saint Germain, where they halted to part.
“Remember, Princess, command me in any way,” said the old man, raising his hat politely. “I am always at your service. I have not concealed anything from you. Take me as I am, your servant.”
“Thank you, Mr Redmayne. I assure you I deeply appreciate and am much touched by your kindness to a defenceless woman. Au revoir.” And giving him her hand again, she mounted into a fiacre and drove straight back to her hotel.
Her friendship with this gang of adventurers was surely giving a curious turn to the current of strange events. She, a woman of imperial birth, had at last found friends, and among the class where one would hesitate to look for them—the outcasts of society! The more she reflected upon the situation, the more utterly bewildering it was to her. She was unused as a child to the ways of the world. Her life had always been spent within the narrow confines of the glittering Courts of Europe, and she had only known of “the people” vaguely. Every hour she now lived more deeply impressed her that “the people” possessed a great and loving heart for the ill-judged and the oppressed.
At the hotel she counted the notes Roddy had given her, and found the sum that he had named. The calm, smiling old fellow was actually an honest thief!
The following day she occupied herself in making some purchases, and in the evening a police agent called in order to inform her that up to the present nothing had been ascertained regarding her stolen jewels. They had knowledge of a gang of expert English jewel-thieves being in Paris, and were endeavouring to discover them.
The Princess heard what the man said, but, keeping her own counsel, thanked him for his endeavours and dismissed him. She congratulated herself that Roddy and his two associates were already out of France.
On the following afternoon, about half-past four, when the Continental express drew slowly into Charing Cross Station, where a knot of eager persons as usual awaited its arrival, the Princess, leading little Ignatia and wearing the ladybird as a brooch, descended from a first-class compartment and looked about her in the bustling crowd of arrivals. A porter took her wraps and placed them in a four-wheeled cab for her, and then taking her baggage ticket said,—
“You’ll meet me yonder at the Custom ’ouse, mum,” leaving her standing by the cab, gazing around for the woman in black who was to be her maid. For fully ten minutes, while the baggage was being taken out of the train, she saw no one answering to Roddy’s description of his daughter; but at last from out of the crowd came a tall, slim, dark-haired, rather handsome young woman, with black eyes and refined, regular features, neatly dressed in black, wearing a sailor hat, a white lace cravat, and black kid gloves.