Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/354

 "My dear Victoria, what things you suggest!"

Victoria returned to her point.

"I see no reason why you should rush off there all in a minute," she persisted.

Nevertheless I went, paying the tribute of a laugh to the picture of Victoria flying with the news to Princess Heinrich. But the Princess' eye could tell a real danger from an imaginary one; she would not mind my seeing the Countess now.

I went quite privately, without notice, and was not expected. Thus it happened that I was ushered into the drawing-room when the Countess was not there to receive me. There I found Toté undeniably long-legged and regrettably shy. The world had begun to set its mark on her, and she had discovered that she did not know how to behave to me. I was sorry not to be pleasant company for Toté; but, perceiving the fact too plainly to resist it I sent her off to hasten her mother. She had not been gone a moment before the Countess came in hurriedly with apologies on her lips.

Not a day older! O my dear Max! Shall we pray for this blindness, or shall we not? She was older than she had been, older than by now she should be. Yet her charm hung round her like a fine stuff that defies time, and a gentle kindness graced her manner. We began to talk about anything and nothing. She showed fretful dread of a pause; when she spoke she did not look me in the face. I could not avoid the idea that she did not want me, and would gladly see me take my leave. But such a feeling was, as it seemed to me, inhuman a falseness to our true selves, born of some convention, or of a scruple overstrained, or of a fear not warranted.