Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/257

Rh Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time—but surely not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like this about here."

And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.

"No," he said, "unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you both change. It's quite early.&hellip;"

"Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock."

"No," he cried, "to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!&hellip; May I?&hellip;" And he went to the table and took up the notebook.

What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches' sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal inteligence, and conveyed no more to the reader than an incantation.