A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
It is questionable if the announcement of the death of their CrownPrince, Hilary, upon the verge of his accession to the throne, arousedmore than genteel regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg. Itis indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this horribleoccurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to smack of a directintervention of Providence. For to consider all the havoc dead PrinceFribble--such had been his sobriquet--would have created, _Dei gratia_,through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with an area of noless than eighty-nine square miles) was less discomfortable nowprediction was an academic matter.
And so the editors of divers papers were the victims of a decorousanguish, court-mourning was decreed, and that wreckage which passed forthe mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every appropriatehonor. Within the week most people had forgotten him, for everybodywas discussing the execution of the Duc d'Enghein. And the agedunvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in the same March;and afterward his other grandson, Prince Augustus, reigned in the merryold debauchee's stead.
Prince Hilary was vastly pleased. His scheme for evading the tediousresponsibilities of sovereignty had been executed without a hitch; hewas officially dead; and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between amiller and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to beunimpeachably conducted. He assumed the name of Paul Vanderhoffen,selected at random from the novel he was reading when his postchaiseconveyed him past the frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg. Freed, penniless,and thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself--having a world tofrisk in--and incidentally about the furnishing of his new friend PaulVanderhoffen with life's necessaries.
It was a little more than two years later that the good-natured Earl ofBrudenel suggested to Lady John Claridge that she could nowhere find amore eligible tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen.
"Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most popular men in London.His poetry book was subscribed for by the Prince Regent and half thenotables of the kingdom. Capital company at a dinner-table--stutters,begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps everybody in a roar--andwhen he's had his whack of claret, he sings his own songs to the piano,you know, and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy Moore'snose out of joint. Nobody knows much about him, but that don't matterwith these literary chaps, does it now? Goes everywhere, ma'am--quitea favorite at Carlton House--a highly agreeable, well-informed man, Ican assure you--and probably hasn't a shilling to pay the cabman.Deuced odd, ain't it? But Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him aplace--spoke to me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keepVanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other falls vacant.Now, I ain't clever and that sort of thing, but I quite agree withLansdowne that we practical men ought to look out for these cleverfellows--see that they don't starve in a garret, like poorWhat's-his-name, don't you know?"
Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son-in-law. So it befellthat shortly after this conversation Paul Vanderhoffen came toLeamington Manor, and through an entire summer goaded young PercivalClaridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but pedagogicallybranded as "deficient in mathematics," through many elaboratecombinations of x and y and cosines and hyperbolas.
Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved of the new tutor.True, he talked much and wildishly; but literary men had a name foreccentricity, and, besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with theopinions of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance. Thisbaronet's lady, in short, was in these days vouchsafing to the universeat large a fine and new benevolence, now that her daughter was safelyengaged to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, wascertainly a peer of England and very rich. It seems irrelevant, andyet for the tale's sake is noteworthy, that any room which harboredLady John Claridge was through this fact converted into an absolutemonarchy.
And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny, the tutor stayed atLeamington Manor all summer.
There was nothing in either the appearance or demeanor of the fianceeof Lord Brudenel's title and superabundant wealth which any honestgentleman could, hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive.
It may not be denied the tutor noted this. In fine, he fell in lovewith Mildred Claridge after a thorough-going fashion such as PrinceFribble would have found amusing. Prince Fribble would have smiled,shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome and deplorablycold-blooded!" Paul Vanderhoffen said, "I am not fit to live in thesame world with her," and wrote many verses in the prevailing Orientalstyle rich in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and peris,and minarets--which he sold rather profitably.
Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg had beenunwise enough to quarrel with his Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, aninvaluable man whose only faults were dishonesty and a too intimateacquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's demise. Asfruit of this indiscretion, an inconsiderable tutor at LeamingtonManor--whom Lady John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant wastalking with a visitor.
The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the former Chancellor ofSaxe-Kesselberg in the middle of an open field. The time wasafternoon, the season September, and the west was vaingloriouslyjustifying the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish omelette.Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a high-pitched pleasant voice,wherein there was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.
"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no consideration will evermake a grand-duke of me excepting over my dead body. Why don't yourecommend some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making papyrus, orwriting an interesting novel, or teaching people how to dance asaraband? For after all, what is a monarch nowadays--oh, even amonarch of the first class?" he argued, with what came near being asqueak of indignation. "The poor man is a rather pitiable andperfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has opened oureyes; and his main business in life is to ride in open carriages andbow to an applauding public who are applauding at so much per head. Hemust expect to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while withbullets. He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an innovation inevening dress,--the Prince Regent, for instance, has invented a reallyvery creditable shoe-buckle. Tradition obligates him to devote hisunofficial hours to sheer depravity----"
Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.
"Why, there you are! another obstacle! I have in an inquiring spiritand without prejudice sampled all the Seven Deadly Sins, and the commonincrement was an inability to enjoy my breakfast. A grand-duke I takeit, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his position, willpiously remember the adage about the voice of the people and hasten tobe steeped in vice--and thus conform to every popular notion concerninga grand-duke. Why, common intelligence demands that a grand-dukeshould brazenly misbehave himself upon the more conspicuous high-placesof Chemosh! and personally, I have no talents such as would qualify mefor a life of cynical and brutal immorality. I lack the necessaryaptitude, I would not ever afford any spicy gossip concerning the Dukeof Saxe-Kesselberg, and the editors of the society papers wouldunanimously conspire to dethrone me----"
Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein therewas, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter. And here theother interrupted.
"There is no need of names, your highness." Georges Desmarets wasdiminutive, black-haired and corpulent. He was of dapper appearance,point-device in everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.
The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to you that, thank heaven, Iam not anybody's highness any longer. I am Paul Vanderhoffen."
"He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"--the little man addressed thezenith--"as if any other person ever succeeded in talking a half-hourwithout being betrayed into at least one sensible remark. Oh, how doyou manage without fail to be so consistently and stupendously idiotic?"
"It is, like all other desirable traits, either innate or else justunattainable," the other
answered. "I am so hopelessly light-mindedthat I cannot refrain from being rational even in matters which concernme personally--and this, of course, no normal being ever thinks ofdoing. I really cannot help it."
The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly.
"But we were speaking--well, of foreign countries. Now, PaulVanderhoffen has read that in one of these countries there was once aprince who very narrowly escaped figuring as a self-consciousabsurdity, as an anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette.However, with the assistance of his cousin--who, incidentally, was alsohis heir--the prince most opportunely died. Oh, pedant that you are!in any event he was interred. And so, the prince was gathered to hisfathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his stead. Until a certainpolitician who had been privy to this pious fraud----" The tutorshrugged. "How can I word it without seeming hypercritical?"
Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands. "But, I protest, itwas the narrow-mindedness of that pernicious prig, your cousin--whofirmly believes himself to be an improved and augmented edition of theFour Evangelists----"
"Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that birds of a feathermake strange bedfellows. There was a dispute concerning some petitlarceny--some slight discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this ispure romance, in the politician's accounts----"
"Now you belie me----" said the black-haired man, and warmly.
"Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever! Let us say, then, of grandlarceny. In any event, the politician was dismissed. And what, mydears, do you suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelliwent and did? Why, he made straight for the father of the princess theusurping duke was going to marry, and surprised everybody by showingthat, at a pinch, even this Guy Fawkes--who was stuffed with all mannerof guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would ordinarilyincline to straw--was capable of telling the truth. And so the fatherbroke off the match. And the enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterlyand tore his hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his besttoupet. And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the presence of theexiled duke and prated of a restoration to ancestral dignities. And hewas spurned by a certain highly intelligent person who considered itboth tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of a backyard.And then--I really don't recall what happened. But there was a generaland unqualified deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfyingtemperature."
The stouter man said quietly: "It is a thrilling tale which younarrate. Only, I do recall what happened then. The usurping duke wasvery much in earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, andparticularly desirous of the woman whom he loved. In consequence, hehad Monsieur the Runaway obliterated while the latter was talkingnonsense----"
The tutor's brows had mounted.
"I scorn to think it even of anybody who is controlled in every actionby a sense of duty," Georges Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustuswould cause you to be murdered in your sleep."
"A hit!" The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated like one who hasbeen touched in sword-play. "Behold now, as the populace in theirblunt way would phrase it, I am squelched."
"And so the usurping duke was married and lived happily everafterward." Georges Desmarets continued: "I repeat to you there is onlythe choice between declaring yourself and being--we will say, removed.Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia, and thanks tome, has now no chance of marrying her until his title has been securedby your--removal. Do not deceive yourself. High interests areinvolved. You are the grain of sand between big wheels. I iteratethat the footpad who attacked you last night was merely a prologue. Ihappen to know your cousin has entrusted the affair to HeinrichObendorf, his foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is notparticularly squeamish."
Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while. "Desmarets," he said at last, "itis no use. I scorn your pribbles and your prabbles. I bargained withAugustus. I traded a duchy for my personal liberty. Frankly, I wouldbe sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault of yesterday.To be unpardonably candid, I have not ever found that your assertion ofan event quite proved it had gone through the formality of occurring.And so I shall hold to my bargain."
"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned. "It hardly needs anight, I think, to demonstrate that all I say is true."
And so they parted.
Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft and the well-being ofempires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned toward consideration of the onereally serious subject in the universe, which was of course the bright,miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.
"I wonder what you think of me? I wonder if you ever think of me?" Thethought careered like a caged squirrel, now that he walked throughautumn woods toward her home.
"I wish that you were not so sensible. I wish your mother were noteven more so. The woman reeks with common-sense, and knows that to becommon is to be unanswerable. I wish that a dispute with her were notupon a par with remonstrance against an earthquake."
He lighted a fresh cheroot. "And so you are to marry the Brudeneltitle and bank account, with this particular Heleigh thrown in as adividend. And why not? the estate is considerable; the man whoencumbers it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of all,Lady John Claridge has decreed it. And your decision in any matter hasalways lain between the claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, bysome miracle, is your mother. Oh, what a universe! were I of hastytemperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"
This was the moment which the man hid in the thicket selected as mostfit for intervention through the assistance of a dueling pistol. PaulVanderhoffen reeled, his face bewilderment. His hands clutched towardthe sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some invisible support, and hecoughed once or twice. It was rather horrible. Then Vanderhoffenshivered as though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in theparched roadway.
A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not refrain fromtwitching came toward the limp heap. "So----!" said the man. One ofhis hands went to the tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled asecond dueling pistol. He had thrown away the other after firing it.
"And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen. Afterward there was amomentary tussle. Now Paul Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished theloaded pistol. "If you go on this way," he said, with some severity,"you will presently be neither loved nor respected. There was a time,though, when you were an excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf."
"I had my orders, highness," said the other stolidly.
"Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered. "You had yourorders--from Augustus!" He seemed to think of something very far away.He smiled, with quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see inRaeburn's portrait of the man. "I was remembering, oddly enough, thatelm just back of the Canova Pavilion--as it was twenty years ago. Imanaged to scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me because hehad such short fat little legs. He was so proud of what I had donethat he insisted on telling everybody--and afterward we had oranges forluncheon, I remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar. It is notfair that you must always remember and always love that boy who playedwith you when you were little--after he has grown up to be anotherperson. Eh no! youth passes, but all its memories of unimportantthings remain with you and are less kind than any self-respecting viperwould be. Decidedly, it is not fair, and some earnest-minded personought to write to his morning paper about it. . . . I think that isthe reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul Vanderhoffen explained.
Then his teeth clicked. "Get on, my man," he said. "Do not remain toonear to me, because there was a time when I loved your employer quiteas much as you do. This fact is urging me to dangerous ends. Yes, itis prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give you a lesson inmarksmanship, my inconveniently faithful Heinrich."
He shrugged. He lighted a cheroot with hands whose tremblings, hedevoutly hoped, were not apparent, for Prince Fribble had been ashamedto manifest a sincere emotion of any sort, and Paul Vander
hoffen sharedas yet this foible.
"Oh Brutus! Ravaillac! Damiens!" he drawled. "O general compendiumof misguided aspirations! do be a duck and get along with you. And Iwould run as hard as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and youand I are not on the same side."
Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from this to shake hishead. "Come, come! I have lost so much that I cannot afford to throwmy good temper into the bargain. To endure with a grave face thisperfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has locked me isundoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle about it like a caged canary,and not ever to falter in your hilarity, is heroic. Let us, by allmeans, not consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather thelettuce and the cuttle-bone. I have my choice between becoming acorpse or a convict--a convict? ah, undoubtedly a convict, sentenced toserve out a life-term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions."
He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage. "Since the situation istragic, let us approach it in an appropriate spirit of frivolity. Mycircumstances bully me. And I succumb to irrationality, as rationalpersons invariably end by doing. But, oh, dear me! oh, Osiris,Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at least a dozen otherne'er-do-wells alive who would prefer to make a mess of living as agrand-duke rather than as a scribbler in Grub Street! Well, well! thejest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a sane man willnever yield the universe is that of considering it seriously."
And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to the last.
"Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through which a civilizedperson views the only world he has to live in. For, otherwise, hecould not presume to look upon such coruscations of insanity and remainunblinded."
This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the best of us. Butby-and-bye,
"Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask incompetence clapson when haled before a mirror."
And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon the lawn. It wasan ordered, lovely scene, steeped now in the tranquillity of evening.Above, the stars were losing diffidence. Below, and within arms'reach, Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which hefidgeted and stuttered.
Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-string, and he wasentirely aware of this circumstance. As to her eyes, teeth, coloring,complexion, brows, height and hair, it is needless to expatiate. Themost painstaking inventory of these chattels would necessarily bemisleading, because the impression which they conveyed to him was thatof a bewildering, but not distasteful, transfiguration of the universe,apt as a fanfare at the entrance of a queen.
But he would be Prince Fribble to the last. And so, "Wait just amoment, please," he said, "I want to harrow up your soul and freezeyour blood."
Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul Vanderhoffen'sorigin and the alternatives now offered him, and she listened withoutcomment.
"Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the situation is complete. Ihave not the least desire to be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg. It istoo abominably tedious. But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, whohas the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must inevitablybe--removed, as the knave phrases it. For as long as I live, I will bean insuperable barrier between Augustus and his Sophia. Otototoi!" hewailed, with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible achievement inmy life has always been to convince anybody that it was mine to disposeof as I elected!"
"Oh, man proposes----" she began, cryptically. Then he deliberated,and sulkily submitted: "But I may not even propose to abdicate.Augustus has put himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of myhideous death. And in consequence I might keep on abdicating from nowto the crack of doom, and the only course left open to him would be totreat me as an impostor."
She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is a beast!"
"Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded. "You should not judgepoor masculinity in such a state by any ordinary standards. Oh really,you don't know the Princess Sophia. She is, in sober truth, the nicestperson who was ever born a princess. Why, she had actually made a mockof even that handicap, for ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminineappearance as writing books. And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying herto me, if Desmarets and I win out." Thus he forlornly ended.
"The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, distinctly.
"Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and grant that when menare in love they are not any more encumbered by abstract notions abouthonor than if they had been womanly from birth. Come, let's be lyricaland open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either you are in loveor else you are not in love. And nothing else will matter either way.You see, if men and women had been primarily designed to be rationalcreatures, there would be no explanation for their being permitted tocontinue in existence," he lucidly explained. "And to have graspedthis fact is the pith of all wisdom."
"Oh, I am very wise." A glint of laughter shone in her eyes. "I wouldclaim to be another Pythoness if only it did not sound so snaky andwriggling. So, from my trident--or was it a Triton they used to standon?--I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying yourselvesgray-headed over an idiotically simple problem. Now, I disposed of itoffhand when I said, 'Man proposes.'"
He seemed to be aware of some one who from a considerable distance wasinquiring her reasons for this statement.
"Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German states, when aprince of the reigning house marries outside of the mediatized nobilityhe thereby forfeits his right of succession. It has been done anynumber of times. Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen? Conceding youever do such a thing, your cousin Augustus would become at once thelegal heir. So you must marry. It is the only way, I think, to saveyou from regal incarceration and at the same time to reassure thePrince of Lueminster--that creature's father--that you have not, andnever can have, any claim which would hold good in law. Then DukeAugustus could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning---- And,by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if that is what you callbeauty----" Miss Claridge did not speak this last at least with any airof pointing out the self-evident.
And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is actually happening. Imight have known fate meant to glut her taste for irony."
"But don't you see? You have only to marry anybody outside of thehigher nobility--and just as a makeshift----" She had drawn closer inthe urgency of her desire to help him. An infinite despair and mirthas well was kindled by her nearness. And the man was insane and dimlyknew as much.
And so, "I see," he answered. "But, as it happens, I cannot marry anywoman, because I love a particular woman. At least, I suppose sheisn't anything but just a woman. That statement," he announced, "is aformal tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the vulgar callthe probabilities. The rest of me has no patience whatever with suchidiotic blasphemy."
She said, "I think I understand." And this surprised him, coming as itdid from her whom he had always supposed to be the fiancee of LordBrudenel's title and bank-account.
"And, well!"--he waved his hands--"either as tutor or as grand-duke,this woman is unattainable, because she has been far too carefullyreared"--and here he frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom,as you know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile--"either tomarry a pauper or to be contented with a left-handed alliance. And Ilove her. And so"--he shrugged--"there is positively nothing left todo save sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths ofkings."
She said, "Oh, and you mean it! You are speaking the plain truth!" Achange had come into her lovely face which would have made him think iteven lovelier had not that contingency been beyond conception.
And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for dreamers such as you tolet a woman know just how he loves her. That is not wooing. It isbullying."
His lips were making a variety of irrational noises. And he was nearto her. Also he realized that he had never known how close akin werefear and joy, so close the t
wo could mingle thus, and be quiteundistinguishable. And then repentance smote him.
"I am contemptible!" he groaned. "I had no right to trouble you withmy insanities. Indeed I had not ever meant to let you guess how mad Iwas. But always I have evaded my responsibilities. So I remain PrinceFribble to the last."
"Oh, but I knew, I have always known." She held her eyes away fromhim. "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel only yesterday releasing him fromhis engagement."
And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Vanderhoffen touched hercheek and raised her face, so that he saw it plainly in the risingtwilight, and all its wealth of tenderness newborn. And what he sawthere frightened him.
For the girl loved him! He felt himself to be, as most men do, aswindler when he comprehended this preposterous fact; and, in addition,he thought of divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts andearthquakes, which might conceivably have appalled him, and understoodthat he would never in his life face any sense of terror as huge as wasthis present sweet and illimitable awe.
And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for is impossible.There are so many little things, like common-sense, to be considered.For this is just a matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen--aliterary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do-well, with anacquired knack for scribbling verses that are feeble-minded enough forAnnuals and Keepsake Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea.For, my dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not sufficientlygenteel to be vended in Paternoster Row; they smack too dangerously ofhuman intelligence. So I am compelled, perforce, to scribble suchjingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write_something_. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tonesmore animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead,there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in everynewspaper--quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with afootman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel'sfine house when your only title is--well, Princess of Grub Street, andyour realm is a garret. And for a while even to-morrow's breakfastwill be a problematical affair. It is true Lord Lansdowne has promisedme a registrarship in the Admiralty Court, and I do not think he willfail me. But that will give us barely enough to live on--with stricteconomy, which is a virtue that neither of us knows anything about. Ibeg you to remember that--you who have been used to every luxury! youwho really were devised that you might stand beside an emperor and settasks for him. In fine, you know----"
And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I observed, manproposes--when he has been sufficiently prodded by some one who,because she is an idiot--And that is why I am not blushing--verymuch----"
"Your coloring is not--repellent." His high-pitched pleasant voice, inspite of him, shook now with more than its habitual suggestion of astutter. "What have you done to me, my dear?" he said. "Why can't Ijest at this . . . as I have always done at everything----?"
"Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent. And wisdom too isexcellent. Only I think that you have laughed too much, and I havebeen too shrewd--But now I know that it is better to be a princess inGrub Street than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's latestpurchase. For Lord Brudenel is really very good-natured," she argued,"and I did like him, and mother was so set upon it--and he wasrich--and I honestly thought----"
"And now?" he said.
"And now I know," she answered happily.
They looked at each other for a little while. Then he took her hand,prepared in turn for self-denial.
"The _Household Review_ wants me to 'do' a series on famous Englishbishops," he reported, humbly. "I had meant to refuse, because itwould all have to be dull High-Church twaddle. And the _EnglishGentleman_ wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of theCorn Laws. You would not despise me too much--would you, Mildred?--ifI undertook it now. I really have no choice. And there is plenty ofhackwork of that sort available to keep us going until more solventdays, when I shall have opportunity to write something quite worthy ofyou."
"For the present, dear, it would be much more sensible, I think, to'do' the bishops and the Corn Laws. You see, that kind of thing paysvery well, and is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of course--But you can always come back to the verse-making, you know----"
"If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of prescience. "And Idon't believe you mean to let me. You are your mother's daughter,after all! Nefarious woman, you are planning, already, to make aresponsible member of society out of me! and you will do it,ruthlessly! Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual burial--in his ownprivate carriage, with a receipted tax-bill in his pocket!"
"What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed. But to him,forebodingly, that familiar statement seemed to lack presentapplication.