“She’s uncommonly pretty,” his Highness declared presently. “But dare I speak to her, Charles? You know what these Americans are.”
“By all means speak to her. The mother and daughter would be company for you for a few days. You could invite them to go motoring, and they’d no doubt accept,” the man suggested.
“I don’t want the same experience that we had in Vichy, you know.”
“Oh, never fear. These people are quite possible. Their wealth hasn’t spoilt them—as far as I can hear.”
“Very well, Charles.” The Prince laughed, tossing his cigarette-end into the grate, and rising. “I’ll make some excuse to speak with them.”
And Charles, on his part, entertained shrewd suspicions that his master, confirmed bachelor that he was, had, at last, been attracted by a girl’s fresh, fair beauty, and that girl an American.
Time hung heavily upon the Prince’s hands. That afternoon he ran over in his car to Worthing, where he dined at Warne’s, and the evening he spent in lonely state in a box at the Brighton Alhambra. Truth to tell, he found himself thinking always of the sweet-faced, rather saucy American girl, whose waist was so neat, whose tiny shoes were so pointed, and whose fair hair was always drawn straight back from her intelligent brow.
Yes. He felt he must know her. The morrow came, and with it an opportunity occurred to speak with her mother.
They were sitting, as it is usual to sit, at the door of the hotel, when a mishap to a dog-cart driven by a well-known actress gave him the desired opportunity, and ten minutes later he had the satisfaction of bowing before Mary Jesup herself.
He strolled with them on to the Pier, chatting so very affably that both mother and daughter could hardly believe that he was the cousin of an Emperor. Then, at his request to be allowed to join them at their table at luncheon, they had their midday meal together.