But the widow’s brain was already active. Though possessing a deep religious feeling, and subscribing liberally to all sorts of charities just as her late husband had done, she was nevertheless a snob, and was already wondering whether, with the assistance of the pleasant-faced cleric, she could not induce the Prince to be her guest at Milnthorpe. She knew that his presence there would give to her house a cachet which had always been lacking, and would raise her social position in the select county of Yorks a hundred per cent.
“Most delightful man!” she repeated as they went forth into the grounds. “I hope I shall have the pleasure of a long chat with him.”
“Oh, that won’t be very difficult, my dear Mrs Edmondson,” her companion replied. “Any one introduced by me will, I feel assured, be received most cordially by him. He does me the honour of reposing the most implicit trust in myself.”
“A trust which certainly is not misplaced,” declared the stout widow in her self-satisfied way, as she strutted along in a new grey cotton gown of latest mode, a large hat to match, a big golden chatelaine at her side, and a blue silk sunshade.
“You are very flattering,” replied Clayton. “I—I fear I do not deserve such kind words, I only do my duty to my bishop and my parish, and prosecute the line of life which Providence has laid out for me.”
“There are clergymen—and clergymen,” the woman said with affected wisdom. “I have known more than one who has been utterly worthless. It is, therefore, very gratifying to meet a man with such a high mind, and such a keen sense of responsibility towards his poor backsliding fellow creatures as yourself.”
He was silent, for he was biting his nether lip. What would this estimable widow think if she knew the truth that he had no parish, no wife, no little children, and that he had no right to the sombre garb of religion in which he stood before her?
A moment later he succeeded in changing the subject.
The Prince lunched alone in his private room, as he always did in hotels in order to impress both management and guests. It was another habit of his, in order to cause servants to talk, to have a big bottle of eau de Cologne placed in his bath each morning. The chatter of servants as to his generosity, and his careless extravagance, was often most useful to him. While the Parson was always parsimonious—which, by the way, was rather belied by his rubicund complexion—the Prince was ever open-handed.
The good-looking, well-dressed young man’s slight foreign accent entirely disappeared whenever he became Tremlett or Lord Nassington, or Drummond, or any other imaginary person whose identity he from time to time assumed. At present, however, he spoke with just sufficient error of grammar and speech to betray his foreign birth, and as he rose, and stood looking out of the window he presented, in his cool, grey flannels, the ideal young foreign prince of English tastes and English education.