Lady Carey looked for a moment across at the Prince,
and her eyes were full of venom.
“If you knew,” she murmured, “how
I loathe that man. Friends! That is all
long since past. Nothing would give me so much
pleasure as never to see his face again.”
“Nevertheless,” Mr. Sabin reminded her,
“whatever your private feelings may be, he has
claims upon you which you cannot resist.”
“There is one thing in the world,” she
said in a low tone, “for which I would risk
even the abnegation of those claims.”
“You would perjure your honour?”
“Yes—if it came to that.”
Mr. Sabin moved uneasily in his chair. The woman
was in earnest. She offered him an invaluable
alliance; she could show him the way to hold his own
against even the inimical combination by which he
was surrounded. If only he could compromise.
But her eyes were seeking his eagerly, even fiercely.
“You doubt me still,” she whispered.
“And I thought that you had genius. Listen,
I will prove myself. The Prince has one of his
foolish passions for Lucille. You know that.
So far she has shown herself able to resist his fascinations.
He is trying other means. Lucille is in danger!
Duson! —but after all, I was never really
in danger, except the time when I carried the despatches
for the colonel and rode straight into a Boer ambush.”
Mr. Sabin saw nothing, but he did not move a muscle
of his face. A moment later they heard the Prince’s
voice from behind them.
“I am very sorry,” he said, “to
interrupt these interesting reminiscences, but you
see that every one is going. Lucille is already
in the cloak-room.”
Lady Carey rose at once, but the glance she threw
at the Prince was a singularly malicious one.
They walked down the carpeted way together, and Lady
Carey left them without a word. In the vestibule
Mr. Sabin and Reginald Brott came face to face.
The greeting between the two men was cold, and the
Prince almost immediately stepped between them.
Nevertheless, Brott seemed to have a fancy to talk
with Mr. Sabin.
“I was at Camperdown House yesterday,”
he remarked. “Her Ladyship was regretting
that she saw you so seldom.”
“I have been a little remiss,” Mr. Sabin
answered. “I hope to lunch there to-morrow.”
“You have seen the evening paper, Brott?”
the Prince asked.
“I saw the early editions,” Brott answered.
“Is there anything fresh?”
The Prince dropped his voice a little. He drew
Brott on one side.
“The Westminster declared that you had left
for Windsor by an early train this afternoon, and
gives a list of your Cabinet. The Pall Mall,
on the other hand, declares that Letheringham will
assuredly be sent for to-morrow.”
Brott shrugged his shoulders.
“There are bound to be a crop of such reports
at a time like this,” he remarked.
