Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure · Chapter 5 (2/2)

Maida had heard, and with the hearing there had come to her an enveloping dread. She felt that, did she see him, the love which she had tried to banish would return unfettered from its exile. Strength was not yet hers; with time, she knew, she could have sworn it would come; but, for the moment, she was helpless, and into the dread a longing mingled. At once, as though in search of a protection that should guard her against herself, she turned to her husband. To him, the Russians, Brazilians, and other gentry had been part of the landscape. He had little taste for music, and Blydenburg had bored him as that amiable gentleman was accustomed to bore everyone with whom he conversed, yet, nevertheless, through that spirit of paradox which is common to us all, Mr. Incoul liked the man, and for old association’s sake took to the boredom in a kindlier fashion than had it come from a newer and more vivacious acquaintance. Blydenburg had been explaining the value of recent excavations in Tirynth, a subject which Mr. Incoul understood better than the informist, but he noticed Maida’s movement and stopped short.

“Come, Milly,” he said to his daughter, “let’s be going.”

Milly had sat by his side the entire evening, in stealthy enjoyment of secular music, performed for the first time in her hearing on the Lord’s day. She was a pale, freckled girl, with hair of the shade of Bavarian beer. She was not beautiful, but then she was good⁠—a sort of angel bound in calf.

When Milly and her father had disappeared, Maida turned to her husband again. “Do you mind leaving Baden?” she asked.

Mr. Incoul eyed her a moment. “Why?” he asked. He had a trick of answering one question with another, yet for the moment she wondered whether he too had heard the conversation behind them, and then comforted by the thought that in any case the name of Lenox Leigh could convey but little to him, she shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said; “I don’t like it; it’s hot and crowded. I think I would like the seashore better.”

“Very good,” he answered; “whatever you prefer. I will speak to Karl tonight.” (Karl was the courier.) “I don’t suppose,” he added, reflectively, “that you would care for Trouville⁠—I know I should not.”

He had risen, and Maida, who had risen with him, was looking down at the gravel, which she toyed nervously with her foot. The opera that had been given that evening was evidently over. A stream of people were coming from the direction of the theatre, and among them was the Prince. He was chatting with his companions, but his trained eye had marked Mrs. Incoul, and when he reached the place where she stood he stopped again.

“You didn’t go in tonight,” he said, collectively. “It was rather good, too.” And then, without waiting for an answer, he continued: “Won’t you both dine with us tomorrow?”

“Oh, we can’t,” Maida answered. She was tormented with the thought that at any moment Lenox might appear. “We can’t; we are going away.”

The Prince smiled in his brown beard. Americans were popular with him. He liked their freedom. There was, he knew, barely one woman in Baden, not utterly bedridden, who would have taken his invitation so lightly. “I am sorry,” he said, and he spoke sincerely. Like any other sensible man, he liked beauty and he liked it near him. He knew that Mrs. Incoul had been recently married, and in his own sagacious way, il posait des jalons. “You are to be at Ballaster in the autumn, I hear.” Ballaster was a commodious shooting-box in Scotland, the possession of an hospitable peer.

“Yes, I believe we are,” Maida answered.

“I hope to see you there,” and with these historic words, Prince Charming departed.