Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in the trains or on the coaches.
"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "Ioften forget that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of George's scrapes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and, oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's search for amusement led him in the same direction. They met him and his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at Oban, and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, and the very day that they arrived in Edinburgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary's chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling his mustache before her mirror.
Mr. Perry fell into the background with Miss Hassard.
"His Highness is becoming monotonous!" he grumbled.
"These foreigners never know when they are superfluous in society.""Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the corner where the prince and Lucy were eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon the steps.
"Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to show you and Miss Dunbar a live prince, and I did it. That is done and over with. He has been seen and heard. There is no reason why he should pop up here and there all over Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He's becoming a bore.""You suspect him to be an impostor?" said Jean quickly.
"No. He's genuine enough. But we don't want any foreigners in our caravan," stroking his red beard complacently.
"No. What do you suppose is his object?" asked Jean, with one of her quick, furtive glances.
Mr. Perry's jaws grew red as his beard. "How can Itell?" he said gruffly. He went on irritably, a moment later: "Of course you see it. The fellow has no delicacy. He makes no more secret of his plans than if he were going to run down a rabbit. Last night at Stirling, over his beer, he held forth upon the dimples on Miss Dunbar's pink elbows, and asked me if her hair were all her own. I said, at last, that American men did not value women like sheep by their flesh and fleece and the money they were rated at in the market. I hit him square that time, prince or no prince!""Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. Her keen eyes followed Lucy and the prince, who were loitering through the gallery, pausing before the faded portraits. "You think it is only her money that draws him after us?""Why, of course! A fellow like that could not appreciate Miss Dunbar's beauty and wit.""You think Lucy witty?" said Jean dryly. "And you think she would not marry for a title?""I don't believe any pure American girl would sell herself, like a sheep in the shambles! And she is pure! A lamb, a lily! cried Perry, growing incoherent in his heat.
"She would not if her heart were preoccupied," said Jean thoughtfully.
"And you think----" he said breathlessly.
But Jean only laughed, and said no more.
The guide had been paying profound deference to Prince Wolfburgh, keeping close to his heels. Now he swung open a door. "If your Highnesses will come this way?" he said, bowing profoundly to Lucy.
The little girl started and hurried back to Miss Vance.
Her face was scarlet, and she laughed nervously. Prince Wolfburgh also laughed, loudly and meaningly. He swore at the old man and went out into the cloister where his cousin stood smoking.
"Had enough of the old barracks?" said the captain.
"I found I was making too fast running in there," said the prince uneasily; "I'll waken up and find that girl married to me some day.""Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.
"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no matter where I go, I'll find an American old woman with a girl to marry. They all carry the Hof Kalender in their pockets, and know every bachelor in Germany."The captain watched him attentively. "I don't believe those women inside mean to drive any marriage bargain with you, Hugo," he said gruffly. "I doubt whether the little mees would marry you if you asked her. Her dot, I hear, is e-normous!" waving his hand upward as if to mountain heights. "And as for beauty, she is a wild rose!"Now, there were reasons why the captain should rejoice when Hugo allied himself to the little mees. On the day when he would take these hills of gold and wild rose to himself, the captain would become the head of the house of Wolfburgh. It was, perhaps, a mean, ungilded throne, but by German law no nameless Yankee woman could sit upon it.
The prince looked at Captain Odo. "You cannot put me into a gallop when I choose to walk," he said. "She's a pretty girl, and a good girl, and some time I may marry her, but not now."Odo laughed good-humoredly, and they sauntered down the path together.
The prince had offered to dine with Miss Vance that evening, but sent a note to say that he was summoned to the Highlands unexpectedly.
"It is adieu, not auf wiedersehen, I fear, with his Highness," Miss Vance said, folding the note pensively.
She had not meant to drive a marriage bargain, and yet--to have placed a pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The man was not objectionable in himself, either--a kindly, overgrown boy.
"He told me," said Jean, "that he was going to a house party at Inverary Castle.""Whose house is that, Jean?" asked Lucy.
"It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll.""Oh!" Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince Hugo was undeniably fat and very slow to catch a joke, but there was certainly a different flavor in this talk of dukes and ancestral seats to the gossip about the Whites and Greens at home.
Indeed, the whole party, including even Mr. Perry, experienced a sensation of sudden vacancy and flatness when his Highness left them. It was as though they had been sheltering a royal eagle that was used to dwelling in sunlit heights unknown to them, and now they were left on flat ground to consort with common poultry.
