He raced up the path, calling her name. No answer came to his cries.

Above him lay the hillside, dozing in the noonday sun; below, the Mediterranean, sleek and blue, without a ripple. He stood alone in a land of silence and sleep.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ULTIMATUM FROM THE THRONE

At half-past twelve that morning business took Mr. Benjamin Scobell to the royal Palace. He was not a man who believed in letting the gra.s.s grow under his feet. He prided himself on his briskness of attack.

Every now and then Mr. Crump, searching the newspapers, would discover and hand to him a paragraph alluding to his "hustling methods." When this happened, he would preserve the clipping and carry it about in his vest-pocket with his cigars till time and friction wore it away. He liked to think of himself as swift and sudden--the Human Thunderbolt.

In this matter of the royal alliance, it was his intention to have at it and clear it up at once. Having put his views clearly before Betty, he now proposed to lay them with equal clarity before the Prince. There was no sense in putting the thing off. The sooner all parties concerned understood the position of affairs, the sooner the business would be settled.

That Betty had not received his information with joy did not distress him. He had a poor opinion of the feminine intelligence. Girls got their minds full of nonsense from reading novels and seeing plays--like Betty.

Betty objected to those who were wiser than herself providing a perfectly good prince for her to marry. Some fool notion of romance, of course. Not that he was angry. He did not blame her any more than the surgeon blames a patient for the possession of an unsuitable appendix. There was no animus in the matter. Her mind was suffering from foolish ideas, and he was the surgeon whose task it was to operate upon it. That was all. One had to expect foolishness in women. It was their nature. The only thing to do was to tie a rope to them and let them run around till they were tired of it, then pull them in. He saw his way to managing Betty.

Nor did he antic.i.p.ate trouble with John. He had taken an estimate of John"s character, and it did not seem to him likely that it contained unsuspected depths. He set John down, as he had told Betty, as a young man acute enough to know when he had a good job and sufficiently sensible to make concessions in order to retain it. Betty, after the manner of woman, might make a fuss before yielding to the inevitable, but from level-headed John he looked for placid acquiescence.

His mood, as the automobile whirred its way down the hill toward the town, was sunny. He looked on life benevolently and found it good. The view appealed to him more than it had managed to do on other days. As a rule, he was the man of blood and iron who had no time for admiring scenery, but to-day he vouchsafed it a not unkindly glance. It was certainly a dandy little place, this island of his. A vineyard on the right caught his eye. He made a mental note to uproot it and run up a hotel in its place. Further down the hill, he selected a site for a villa, where the mimosa blazed, and another where at present there were a number of utterly useless violets. A certain practical element was apt, perhaps, to color Mr. Scobell"s half-hours with nature.

The sight of the steamboat leaving the harbor on its journey to Ma.r.s.eilles gave him another idea. Now that Mervo was a going concern, a real live proposition, it was high time that it should have an adequate service of boats. The present system of one a day was absurd. He made a note to look into the matter. These people wanted waking up.

Arriving at the Palace, he was informed that His Highness had gone out shortly after breakfast, and had not returned. The majordomo gave the information with a tinkle of disapproval in his voice. Before taking up his duties at Mervo, he had held a similar position in the household of a German prince, where rigid ceremonial obtained, and John"s cheerful disregard of the formalities frankly shocked him. To take the present case for instance: When His Highness of Swartzheim had felt inclined to enjoy the air of a morning, it had been a domestic event full of stir and pomp. He had not merely crammed a soft hat over his eyes and strolled out with his hands in his pockets, but without a word to his household staff as to where he was going or when he might be expected to return.

Mr. Scobell received the news equably, and directed his chauffeur to return to the villa. He could not have done better, for, on his arrival, he was met with the information that His Highness had called to see him shortly after he had left, and was now waiting in the morning-room.

The sound of footsteps came to Mr. Scobell"s ears as he approached the room. His Highness appeared to be pacing the floor like a caged animal at the luncheon hour. The resemblance was heightened by the expression in the royal eye as His Highness swung round at the opening of the door and faced the financier.

"Why, say, Prince," said Mr. Scobell, "this is lucky. I been looking for you. I just been to the Palace, and the main guy there told me you had gone out."

"I did. And I met your stepdaughter."

Mr. Scobell was astonished. Fate was certainly smoothing his way if it arranged meetings between Betty and the Prince before he had time to do it himself. There might be no need for the iron hand after all.

"You did?" he said. "Say, how the Heck did you come to do that? What did you know about Betty?"

"Miss Silver and I had met before, in America, when I was in college."

Mr. Scobell slapped his thigh joyously.

"Gee, it"s all working out like a fiction story in the magazines!"

"Is it?" said John. "How? And, for the matter of that, what?"

Mr. Scobell answered question with question. "Say, Prince, you and Betty were pretty good friends in the old days, I guess?"

John looked at him coldly.

"We won"t discuss that, if you don"t mind," he said.

His tone annoyed Mr. Scobell. Off came the velvet glove, and the iron hand displayed itself. His green eyes glowed dully and the tip of his nose wriggled, as was its habit in times of emotion.

"Is that so?" he cried, regarding John with disfavor. "Well, I guess!

Won"t discuss it! You gotta discuss it, Your Royal Texas League Highness! You want making a head shorter, my bucko. You--"

John"s demeanor had become so dangerous that he broke off abruptly, and with an unostentatious movement, as of a man strolling carelessly about his private sanctum, put himself within easy reach of the door handle.

He then became satirical.

"Maybe Your Serene, Imperial Two-by-Fourness would care to suggest a subject we can discuss?"

John took a step forward.

"Yes, I will," he said between his teeth. "You were talking to Miss Silver about me this morning. She told me one or two of the things you said, and they opened my eyes. Until I heard them, I had not quite understood my position. I do now. You said, among other things, that I was your hired man."

"It wasn"t intended for you to hear," said Mr. Scobell, slightly mollified, "and Betty shouldn"t oughter have handed it to you. I don"t wonder you feel raw. I wouldn"t say that sort of thing to a guy"s face.

Sure, no. Tact"s my middle name. But, since you have heard it, well--!"

"Don"t apologize. You were quite right. I was a fool not to see it before. No description could have been fairer. You might have said much more. You might have added that I was nothing more than a steerer for a gambling h.e.l.l."

"Oh, come, Prince!"

There was a knock at the door. A footman entered, bearing, with a detached air, as if he disclaimed all responsibility, a letter on a silver tray.

Mr. Scobell slit the envelope, and began to read. As he did so his eyes grew round, and his mouth slowly opened till his cigar stump, after hanging for a moment from his lower lip, dropped off like an exhausted bivalve and rolled along the carpet.

"Prince," he gasped, "she"s gone. Betty!"

"Gone! What do you mean?"

"She"s beaten it. She"s half-way to Ma.r.s.eilles by now. Gee, and I saw the darned boat going out!"

"She"s gone!"

"This is from her. Listen what she says:

"_By the time you read this I shall be gone. I am going back to America as quickly as I can. I am giving this to a boy to take to you directly the boat has started. Please do not try to bring me back. I would sooner die than marry the Prince._"

John started violently.

"What!" he cried.

Mr. Scobell nodded sympathy.

"That"s what she says. She sure has it in bad for you. What does she mean? Seeing you and she are old friends--"