Of his business, the Prince seldom, if ever, spoke. Even from his most intimate associate, the Rev. Thomas Clayton, he usually concealed his ulterior object until it was attained. The Parson, Garrett, and Charles acted in blind obedience. They were paid to obey, not to reason, he often told them.
And so it was that although we had been together a week in King Peter’s capital, I was in entire ignorance of the reason of his presence there.
As we had brought the big car slowly along the boulevard, a dark-eyed peasant-girl, with a face full of wondrous beauty, had nodded saucily to him, and this had caused me to notice and admire her. Belgrade is full of pretty women, but not one was half so handsome. She was about twenty, I judged, and the manner in which her hair was dressed with the gay-coloured handkerchief upon it was in the style of unmarried women.
“I want to speak to her, to ask her a question,” the Prince said suddenly, after we had gone some distance. And driving the car down into the square we turned back in order to overtake her.
“An old friend of yours?” I inquired.
“Yes, my dear Diprose,” he laughed as he touched the button of the electric horn. “And a girl with a very remarkable past. Her story would make a good novel—by Jove it would.”
Five minutes later we had overtaken her, and pulled up at the kerb. The girl blushed and appeared confused as my companion, stopping the car, got down and stood at her side with his motor-cap raised. He spoke to her in his best Servian, for he knew a smattering of that difficult language, and appeared to be inviting her to enter the car and come for a run.
At first she was disinclined to accept the invitation, because of the crowd of smart promenaders. She was probably shy at being seen in the company of two foreigners. At last her curiosity as to what conveyance by automobile might be got the better of her, and she reluctantly entered the door held open for her.
Then Reggie introduced us, and got back to his seat at the wheel, I mounting again to my place beside him.
In a few minutes we were out on the broad Semendria road, a fine well-kept military highway, and on getting clear of the town, put on a “move” until the speedometer before me registered fifty miles an hour.