"So much the worse for the world," said I. "Your questions?"
"Ah! Who was that remarkably beautiful woman under your distinguished
care Thursday evening?"
"I see that our conversation is to be of the shortest duration. Who
she was is none of your business," rudely. I unfolded my paper and
began reading.
"Perhaps, after all," not the least perturbed by my insolence, "it were
best to state on paper what I have to say. I can readily appreciate
that the encounter is disagreeable. To meet one who has made a thing
impossible to you sets the nerves on edge." He caught up his opera
hat, his cane and gloves. He raised the lapel of his coat and sniffed
at the orchid in the buttonhole.
Some occult force bade me say, "Why do you wish to know who she was?"
He sat down again. "I shall be pleased to explain. That I mistook her
for another who I supposed was on the other side of the channel was a
natural mistake, as you will agree. Is it not strange that I should
mistake another to be the woman who is so soon to be my wife? Is there
not something behind this remarkable, unusual likeness? Since when are
two surpassingly beautiful women, born in different lands, of different
parents, the exact likeness of each other?"
Now as this was a thing which had occupied my mind more than once, I
immediately put aside the personal affair. That could wait. I threw
my paper onto the table.
"Do you know, sir," said I, "that thought echoes my own?"
"Let us for the moment put ourselves into the background," said the
Prince. "What do you know about her Serene Highness the Princess
Hildegarde; her history?"
"Very little; proceed."
"But tell me what you know."
"I know that her father was driven to a gambler's grave and that her
mother died of a broken heart, and that the man who caused all this
wishes to break the heart of the daughter, too."
"Scandal, all scandal," said the Prince. "Who ever heard of a broken
heart outside of a romantic novel? I see that the innkeeper has been
holding your ear. Ah, that innkeeper, that innkeeper! Certainly some
day there will come a reckoning."
"Yes, indeed," said I. "Beware of him."
"It was twenty years ago," said the Prince. "It is beyond the recall.
But let me proceed. Not many years ago there was a Prince, a very bad
fellow."