He walked up and down the platform with the smile of a man who is waiting for an interesting situation in a theatrical representation to develop itself. He had no wish to hurry it. The by-play seemed to him to be very suitable, and he bought a morning paper. He glanced through the leaders, and turned to the small society paragraphs. The first that struck his eye was this: "The Marchioness of Chesterford arrived in London yesterday afternoon from the Continent."
He felt it was the most orthodox way of bringing the scene to its climax. Enter a newsboy, who hands paper to Prince, and exit. Prince unfolds paper and reads the news of—well, of what he is expecting.
He snipped the paragraph neatly out from the paper, and put it in his card-case. His valet was standing by the telegraph office, waiting for the message. The Prince beckoned to him.
"There will be no telegram," he said. "We leave by the next train."
The Prince had a carriage reserved for him, and he stepped in with a sense of great satisfaction. He even went so far as to touch his hat in response to the obeisances of the obsequious guard, and told his valet to see that the man got something. He soon determined on his next move—a decided "check," and rather an awkward one; and for the rest of his journey he amused himself by looking out of the window, and admiring the efficient English farming. All the arrangements seemed to him to be very solid and adequate. The hedges were charming. The cart horses were models of sturdy strength, and the hop harvest promised to be very fine. He was surprised when they drew near London. The journey had been shorter than he expected.
He gave a few directions to his valet about luggage, and drove off to Eaton Square.
The door was opened by an impenetrable caretaker.
"Is Lady Chesterford in?" asked the Prince.
"Her ladyship is not in London, sir," replied the man.
The Prince smiled. Dodo was evidently acting up to her refusal to answer his telegram.
"Ah, just so," he remarked. "Please take this to her, and say I am waiting."
He drew from his pocket a card, and the cutting from the Morning Post.
"Her ladyship is not in London," the man repeated.
"Perhaps you would let me have her address," said the Prince, feeling in his pockets.
"A telegram has come to-day, saying that her ladyship's address is uncertain," replied the caretaker.
"Would you be so good as to let me see the telegram?"
Certainly, he would fetch it.
The Prince waited serenely. Everything was going admirably.
The telegram was fetched. It had been handed in at Wokingham station at a quarter to one. "After she had received my telegram," reflected the Prince.
"Do you know with whom she has been staying?" he asked blandly.
"With Miss Staines."
The Prince was very much obliged. He left a large gratuity in the man's hand, and wished him good afternoon.
He drove straight to his house, and sent for his valet, whom he could trust implicitly, and who had often been employed on somewhat delicate affairs.
"Take the first train for Wokingham to-morrow morning," he said. "Find out where a Miss Staines lives. Inquire whether Lady Chesterford left the house to-day."
"Yes, your Highness."
"And hold your tongue about the whole business," said the Prince negligently, turning away and lighting a cigar. "And send me a telegram from Wokingham: 'Left yesterday,' or 'Still here.'"
The Prince was sitting over a late breakfast on the following morning, when a telegram was brought in. He read it, and his eyes twinkled with genuine amusement.
"I think," he said to himself, "I think that's rather neat."
Chapter Twenty
If Dodo had felt some excusable pride in having torn up the Prince's photograph, her refusal to let him know where she was gave her a still more vivid sense of something approaching heroism. She did not blame anyone but herself for the position into which she had drifted during those weeks in Switzerland. She was quite conscious that she might have stopped any intimacy of this sort arising, and consequently the establishment of this power over her. But she felt she was regaining her lost position. Each sensible refusal to admit his influence over her was the sensible tearing asunder of the fibres which enveloped her. It was hard work, she admitted, but she was quite surprised to find how comfortable she was becoming. Jack really made a very satisfactory background to her thoughts. She was very fond of him, and she looked forward to their marriage with an eager expectancy, which, was partly, however, the result of another fear.
She was sitting in the drawing-room next day with Miss Grantham, talking about nothing particular very rapidly.
"Of course, one must be good to begin with," she was saying; "one takes that for granted. The idea of being wicked never comes into my reckoning at all. I should do lots of things if I didn't care what I did, that I shouldn't think of doing at all now. I've got an admirable conscience. It is quite good, without being at all priggish. It isn't exactly what you might call in holy orders, but it is an ecclesiastical layman, and has great sympathy with the Church. A sort of lay-reader, you know."
"I haven't got any conscience at all," said Miss Grantham. "I believe I am fastidious in a way, though, which prevents me doing conspicuously beastly things."
"Oh, get a conscience, Grantie," said Dodo fervently, "it is such a convenience. It's like having someone to make up your mind for you. I like making up other people's minds, but I cannot make up my own; however, my conscience does that for me. It isn't me a bit. I just give it a handful of questions which I want an answer upon, and it gives me them back, neatly docketed, with 'Yes' or 'No' upon them."
"That's no use," said Miss Grantham. "I know the obvious 'Yeses' and 'Noes' myself. What I don't know are the host of things that don't matter much in themselves, which you can't put down either right or wrong."
"Oh, I do all those," said Dodo serenely, "if I want to, and if I don't, I have an excellent reason for not doing them, because I am not sure whether they are right. When I set up my general advice office, which I shall do before I die, I shall make a special point of that for other people. I shall give decided answers in most cases, but I shall reserve a class of things indifferent, which are simply to be settled by inclination."
"What do you call indifferent things?" asked Miss Grantham, pursuing the Socratic method.
"Oh, whether you are to play lawn tennis on Sunday afternoon," said Dodo, "or wear mourning for second cousins, or sing alto in church for the sake of the choir; all that sort of thing."
"Your conscience evidently hasn't taken orders," remarked Miss Grantham.
"That's got nothing to do with my conscience," said Dodo. "My conscience doesn't touch those things at all. It only concerns itself with right and wrong."
"You're
