Prince Charlie Part 3

"You also," he said, "seem to have a taste for fiction of a p.r.o.nounced type. I see you are reading one of my books."

"Your books?" Her query was uttered in a tone of surprise. "Oh, no! This came down from Mudie's with other volumes yesterday."

"Oh, I don't doubt that."

He laughed openly at her concern--a hearty, resounding laugh, a trifle loud, but with a pleasant honest ring in it; continued:

"I don't doubt that the library people acquired it honestly. My claim was not made in a possessory sense. I meant that my name figures on the t.i.tle page."

She looked at him blankly for a moment, so great was her surprise. Then, the truth dawning on her, she said:

"You! You--are the author?"

CHAPTER IV

THE DANGER SIGNAL

That she should meet a real live author, the writer of the book she was reading, was a coincidence strange enough to take Miss Mivvins' breath away. Masters saw her wonderment, smiled at it.

"Is the fact," he asked, "so difficult a thing to reconcile with my appearance?"

"Oh, no, no! How awfully rude you must think me! I meant--I mean--that I expected the author of this book to be----"

Then she paused. Did not quite know what she expected or how to express herself; added lamely:

"To be much older."

"Really! I am sorry I don't come up to your age standard. Age has its privileges, but wisdom is not always its perquisite. Why should an author be necessarily old? Surely youth is pardonable?"

She--a woman famous in her own particular circle for the coolness of her tongue--could have kicked herself. Was saying, in her unwonted nervousness, all the things she would rather have left unsaid. Angry with herself, she blurted out:

"There is not, of course, any earthly reason why. It was purely my utter stupidity."

He smiled at the flush on her cheek; a smile conjured up by his admiration of it; said merrily:

"Here have I been peac.o.c.king around, with a sort of metaphorical feather in my cap. Pampering my vanity, applying the flattering unction to my soul--rubbing it in several times per diem--that no author of my age has turned out so many volumes. Lo! with one breath you blow that feather clean away."

She could not resist laughing at his mock despair. Became at her ease once more; said:

"Indeed not! I don't know what prompted me to say what I did. As to this book----"

"No! Don't! Please don't give me your opinion of it!"

His interruption was a continuance of his burlesque melodramatic style.

She did not quite know how to take him; said:

"You mean you would not value my opinion?"

That was disconcerting. Sobered him in a minute. He knew quite well the kind of value he would be likely to put on any opinion of hers--concerning himself.

"Oh, no!" His answer was spoken earnestly. "I do not mea----"

But she interrupted him. In her nervousness felt that whilst her tongue was in action it would help to keep the helm the right way; said:

"Why should you? A stranger's opinion would necessarily be valueless.

You know nothing of me."

The deafness of those who will not hear is proverbial. The underlying earnestness in the tone of his reply should have warned her.

"Aren't you going just a trifle too far?" he asked. "We are not quite strangers. True, I know nothing of you--except that you are Miss Mivvins."

An irresistible smile accompanied his words. His smile--and his laugh too--were capable of creating many friends. But he did not allow them to. His views on the subject of friends.h.i.+p were cynical in the extreme.

His smile was infectious. Once more those alluring dimples which he had noticed at their first meeting deepened in her face.

"It is distinctly more my misfortune than my fault," he continued, "that I know so little of you. May I say--with an absence of fear of your thinking me impertinent--that I should like, much like, to know more of you?"

The flush, that becoming flush, on her cheek again. The eyes were fringed over by those long lashes of hers as she cast them groundwards.

Just a blend of trouble in her look as she queried:

"Really?"

He liked the pink showing on the white. Colours inspire some men.

Perhaps the combination in her face inspired him. Anyway, there was more vigour and determination in his voice as he answered:

"Yes."

She, dallying, as a woman will, quite well knew that there was a spark.

That it would burst into flame, chose she to fan it; gained time by asking:

"Why?"

He vaulted on to his hobby horse. The question was a stirrup helping him to the saddle.

"Because I--may I say it?--hail you in a measure as a kindred soul."

She lifted her eyes; he could not fail to read the astonishment filling them; continued:

"You are here in October, and you don't look bored; don't look as if life held no further charm for you. You do not follow the fas.h.i.+onable decrying of the place simply because it is out of fas.h.i.+on--_because_ it is October."

She smiled. Encouraged by it, he continued, in the same strain:

"You are always alone, yet you create the impression that you are happy.

You don't seem to sigh for bands of music, to hanker after a crowded promenade. You find existence possible without a shoal of people to help you pa.s.s your time."