“Ah! I fear not,” replied the widow with a slight sigh. “I dare say the diamonds which poor Tubby gave me are as good as any worn by the other women, but as for smartness—well, Prince, a woman’s mirror does not lie,” and she sighed again. “Youth is but fleeting, and a woman’s life is, alas! a long old age.”
“Oh, come!” he laughed, lounging back in his chair. “You haven’t yet arrived at the regretful age. Life is surely still full of youth for you!”
She was much gratified at that little speech of his, and showed it.
He continued to flatter her, and with that cunning innate within him he slowly drew from her the fact that she would not be averse to a second marriage. He was fooling her, yet with such cleverness that she, shrewd woman that she was, never dreamed that he was laughing at her in his sleeve.
So earnest, so sensible, so perfectly frank and straightforward was he, that when after half an hour’s tête-à-tête she found him holding her hand and asking her to become Princess, she became utterly bewildered. What she replied she hardly knew, until suddenly, with an old-fashioned courtliness, he raised her fat, bejewelled hand gallantly to his lips and said:
“Very well. Let it be so, Mrs Edmondson. We are kindred spirits, and our souls have affinity. You shall be my princess.”
“And then the old crow started blubbering,” as he forcibly described the scene afterwards to the Parson.
For a few moments he held her in his embrace, fearful every moment that the ferret-eyed Italian should enter. Indeed, his every movement seemed to be watched suspiciously by that grave, silent servant.
They mutually promised, for the present, to keep their secret. He kissed her upon the lips, which, as he declared to the Parson, were “sticky with some confounded face-cream or other.” Then Ferrini suddenly appeared, and his mistress dismissed him for the night. The Prince, however, knew that he would not retire, but lurk somewhere in the corridor outside.
He stood before the old Jacobean fireplace, with its high overmantel of carved stone and emblazoned arms, a handsome man who would prove attractive to any woman. Was it therefore any wonder that the ambitious widow of the shipbuilder should have angled after him?