“A lover? Whom do you mean?”
“That tall, fair-haired, mysterious man who, during the past week, has been so interested in your movements. Have you not noticed him? He’s staying at the hotel. I’ve seen him twenty times at least, and it is only too apparent that he admires you.”
“I’ve never even seen him,” she exclaimed in surprise. “You must point him out to me. I don’t like mysterious men.”
“I’m not mysterious, am I?” asked the Prince, laughing, and again raising her hand to his lips tenderly. “Will you not answer my question? Do you think you can love me sufficiently—sufficiently to become my wife?”
“But—but all this is so sudden, Prince. I—I—”
“Can you love me?” he interrupted.
For answer she bent her head. Next moment his lips met hers in a hot passionate caress. And thus did their hearts beat in unison.
Before they rose from the seat Mary Jesup had promised to become Princess of Hesse-Holstein.
Next morning, the happy girl told her mother the gratifying news, and when Mrs Jesup entered the Prince’s private salon his Highness asked her, at least for the present, to keep their engagement secret.
That day the Prince was occupied by a quantity of correspondence, but the future Princess, after a tender kiss upon her white brow, went out in the car with her mother as far as Bognor. Two hours later the Prince sent a telegram to the Rev. Thomas Clayton, despatched Charles post-haste to London by the Pullman express, and then went out for a stroll along King’s Road.