He had entirely eclipsed the Parson.
First their conversation was all of affection; then it turned upon something akin, money. Upon the latter point the Prince was utter careless. He had sufficient, he declared. But the widow was persistent in telling him the state of her own finances. Besides the estate of Milnthorpe, which produced quite a comfortable income, she enjoyed half the revenue from the great firm her husband had founded, and at that moment, besides other securities, she had a matter of seventy thousand pounds lying idle at her bank, over which she had complete control.
She expected this would interest him, but, on the contrary, he merely lit a fresh cigarette, and having done so, said:
“My dear Mrs Edmondson, this marriage of ours is not for monetary interest. My own estates are more than sufficient for me. I do not desire to touch one single penny of your money. I wish you to enjoy your separate estate, and remain just as independent as you are to-day.”
And so they chatted on until the chimes of the stable clock warned them it was two in the morning. Then having given him a slobbery good-night kiss, they separated.
Before his Highness turned in, he took from his steel despatch-box a small black-covered book, and with its aid he constructed two cipher telegrams, which he put aside to be despatched by Charles from the Whitby post office in the morning.
The calm, warm summer days went slowly by. Each afternoon the widow—now perfectly satisfied with herself—accompanied her two guests on runs on the Prince’s “forty”—one day to Scarborough, the next over the Cleveland Hills to Guisborough, to Helmsley on to the ruins of Rievaulx, and to other places.
One afternoon the Parson made an excuse to remain at home, and the widow took the Prince in to York in her own Mercédès. Arrived there, they took tea in the coffee-room of the Station Hotel, then, calling at a solicitor’s office in Coney Street, appended their joint names to a document which, at the widow’s instigation, had already been prepared.
A quarter of an hour later they pulled up before the West Riding Bank in Stonegate, and though the offices were already closed, a clerk on duty handed to the widow a box about eighteen inches square, tied with string, and sealed with four imposing red seals. For this she scribbled her name to a receipt, and placing it in the car between them, drove back by way of Malton, Pickering, and Levisham.
“This is the first time I’ve had my tiara out, my dear Albert, since the burglars tried to get in,” she remarked when they had gone some distance, and the Mercédès was tearing along that level open stretch towards Malton.