Part 2

“I may add, Lord Quorn, that his engagement to the Princess Baba will be formally announced immediately after your interment, which will take place in a corner of the garden. That is already arranged. Also your death will be accounted for to the authorities in a satisfactory way. Mr. Woodhouse Eves will, no doubt, act as your second. I will now leave you until such time as the ball is at its height, when there will be little chance of any of my guests being distracted by the ring of steel in the garden. _Au revoir_, milord. You will yet find that to deflower a maid is a dangerous sport. Count Rupprecht, your arm to the ball-room!”

“_Altesse!_” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

“And what a mess!” sighed Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“I’ll have to kill that boy,” said Lord Quorn thoughtfully.

IV

The dance was not yet at its most furious: the dowagers had scarcely begun nudging each other the better to point their _risqué_ tales of the days of good King Edward: Cabinet Ministers had not long been exchanging doubtful Limericks with jaded dexterity: when the following events happened:

Anyone penetrating to a secluded conservatory leading from a corner of the ball-room might have espied a young lady sitting at her ease on a bench of cedarwood beneath the dusty and unbalanced-looking growth which is sold in civilised countries as a palm-tree. The languid young lady’s air was that of one who is forlorn, of one who is sad, of one who is so bored, yet decidedly that of one who would not for worlds have her dolour interrupted by the general run of humanity, such as perspire without suavity and go poking their tedious noses into corners of ball-rooms, saying: “I say, will you dance? I say, do dance!” Woe and woe to such youths, for they shall instantly be answered by the magical words “Missing three” and their persons shall be enveloped in forgetfulness forever.

Secure in her solitude behind a screen of plants and flowers, our young lady had quite evaded the eye of even the most relentless dancer but for the whisper of her white dress through the leaves. It should further be noted that not one among all the flowers in that flaming conservatory was more beautiful than the flowers of Cartier, Lacloche, Boucheron, and Janesich, which graced the young lady’s slender forearm in the guise of bracelets of diamonds, emeralds, black onyx, pink pearls and sapphires, all wrought upon platinum in divers tender designs. Her throat was unadorned but for a double rope of pearls, while two captive emeralds wept from the tips of her ears. Her hair was tawny, and it glittered like a swarm of bees. As for her eyes, they were more than adequate to every occasion, men being what they are.

But no sudden intruder could have been more surprised to see the Princess Baba sitting alone--for it was she--than was the Princess Baba herself to see, by the merest hazard of a glance over her shoulder, the curious phenomenon of the hands, the feet and the person of a young gentleman forcing himself into the premises through one of the conservatory windows.

She said, sighed, cried: “Oh!”

The intruder said something denoting astonishment, confusion, and grief; while his appearance was notably devoid of that air of calm which is the mark of your perfect rogue or practising philosopher.

“_Well!_” said the Princess Baba. “To come in by the roof!”

“Sorry,” said the young gentleman. “Sorry.”

“Sir, what _can_ this mean! It is not by saying ‘sorry’ that one is excused for housebreaking!”

“Madam,” begged the youth, “won’t you please allow me to explain?”

“And he calls me ‘madam’!” sighed the Princess Baba with vexation. “Now I ask you, young man, do I look like a ‘madam’?”

He said: “You look divine. You are beautiful.”

“Attractive I may be,” said the young Princess, “but beautiful, no. For, look at it which way you like, I’ve got a turned-up nose.”

“We are all as God made us,” sighed the young gentleman.

“By no means,” said the Princess Baba, “for some people are charming and some are not, and what does God know of charm? It is dreadful to lie awake at nights thinking that God lacks charm. Yet the word is never so much as mentioned in the Bible.”

“As for the Bible,” said the young gentleman, “it is nowadays the fashion among rich men to say that it makes the most delightful reading in the world. Perhaps one day I shall have the time to read it too. In the meanwhile, may I sit down?”

“But this is most unusual!” cried the young Princess. “To come to a ball through a window! May I ask, are you a burglar? You certainly do not look like a burglar. Explain yourself, sir!”

“I am a poor writer,” quoth our young friend. We, of course, knew that. But the Princess Baba was surprised, protesting: “Oh, come, that _must_ be nonsense! For, firstly, you are rather a dear, and so you can’t be poor; and, secondly, you are quite well-dressed, and so you can’t be a writer.”

“Your nonsense suits my nonsense,” said the young gentleman. “Thank you.”

“Know, Sir Author, that I am the Princess Baba of Valeria.”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess! What have I done!”

“Rise, my friend. Men no longer need to kneel to Royalty.”

“Princess, what shall I say! Oh, what have I done! How can I apologise for this intrusion!”

The young Princess cried: “Why, here is an idea! You might begin by kissing my hand. I assure you that that is quite usual. But oh, my friend, you must please not kiss my hand while you are kneeling! That will never, never do, for a man who is kneeling before a woman has her at a great disadvantage. Provided, of course, that the woman has a temperament. I am, unfortunately, full of temperament. My father is very worried about me.”

“Princess, this is not the first time I have kissed your hand.”

“Oh!” sighed the Princess Baba, and the young writer did his part like a man and a cavalier, whereupon she said: “You have a very pretty way of kissing a lady’s hand, Sir Author. And I had been told it was a lost art in England!”

“All the arts were lost in England by our fathers, Princess. Youth is just rediscovering them.”

“Young man,” said the Princess severely, “do you think it quite wise to be so full of self-confidence as all that?”

“Princess, forgive me! But I am so poor that I have to be full of what costs me least.”

“And may I ask what was that idiotic remark you just made about this not being the first time you have kissed my hand? Why, you had never so much as set eyes on me until a moment ago!”

“I have kissed your hand in a dream,” said the young writer gravely, and then he told how one afternoon he had seen her hand and in her hand a flower, and how he had woven such a web of romance about that hand and flower that he had never a wink of sleep from night to night.

“But you _must_ sleep!” cried the young Princess. “Oh, dear, and so you are miserable, too! Ah, the misery of vain desire, and oh, the misery of delight cut short! But you certainly must get some sleep to-night. You can’t be allowed to go about kissing women’s hands as prettily as you do and getting no sleep for your pains. Now wait here a few moments while I go and get you some aspirin.”

But the youth dissuaded her, asking her how she could have the heart to put an aspirin between them when he had dared all the legal penalties for trespass for the sake of speech with her, nay, even for sight of her.

“Well, I think you are very bold,” sighed she, but he humbly protested that never was a man less bold than he by ordinary, but that the fires of chivalry had burned high in him at sight of her hand at the window, for, said he, could any but an unhappy heart sit with a hand drooping out of a window on the only sunny afternoon of an English summer?

“There is certainly something in that,” said the young Princess, and then she told him how miserable she was and how miserable she must always be, for her heart was engaged in a battle with superior odds. And she made him sit beside her on the bench of cedarwood, telling him of her father and mother and the gay Court of Valeria, “which is so gay,” she said, “that some of the most respectable ladies of the Court are goaded into getting themselves divorced just for the sake of the peace and quiet of being _déclassée_.”

And she told how it was to this Court that one fine day there came an English lord with the very best introductions and such very excellent white waist-coats for evening wear as were the envy of every cavalier in Valeria.

“Like this one of mine?” asked the young gentleman, for is he a proper man who will not belittle another by claiming an equal degree of eminence in the sartorial abyss?

“That is not the point,” said the Princess Baba, “but the point is that my Lord Quorn, for such was my lover’s name, was the handsomest man I ever saw, and I loved him and he loved me and I lost him and he lost me. That may seem a very reasonable combination of events to you, who are young and cynical, but to me it was a matter of the utmost wretchedness. My friend, know that this English lord had to fly for his life, for a jealous lady of the Court had gone to my parents saying he had seduced me.”

“The liar!” cried our hero.

“Oh, it was quite true!” sighed the Princess Baba.

“The cad!” cried our hero.

“I can’t agree with you,” said the Princess Baba. “I adore him. I adore him. I adore him. And, oh, I am so very unhappy!”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess, mayn’t I be of some use? Can’t I help you? Please command me, for I would die for you.”

“At this very moment,” she sobbed, “he is very probably either dead or dying, for how can he hope to survive a duel with the best swordsman of Valeria, Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen?”

“It certainly does sound rather improbable,” said the youth dismally.

“And when it is all over and my lover lies dead--ah, how can I even say it!--my betrothal to his murderer will be formally announced.”

“What, you are actually to marry a man with a name like that!”

“Yes, isn’t it dreadful!” sobbed the Princess Baba, whereupon the young gentleman rose and stood before her with respectful determination, saying that he for one could not bear the idea of her marrying Captain Count Rupprecht God-knöws-what von Whät-not, and would therefore do all in his power to preserve life in the person of Lord Quorn, since the same was so delightful to her.

“For even at the risk of your grave displeasure,” said our hero, “I must tell you, Princess, that I like you frightfully and shall never again know delight but in your presence.”

“Now you are making love to a breaking heart!” pitifully cried the Princess Baba. “So this is chivalry!”

“Princess,” said he firmly, “I do but owe it to myself to ask you to make a note of the fact that I love you. And it is because I love you that I will do all in my power to save Lord Quorn.”

“But, my friend,” said she with very wide eyes, “however will you manage that?”

“I am just thinking, Princess. But shall we, while I am thinking, dance?”

“What, you would have me dance while my love lies bleeding? I had thought my confidence was placed in a more understanding mind. Ah listen, oh look!”

And with a cry the Princess tore aside the flowers that screened the conservatory windows and both looked down with eyes of horror on the figures grouped in the garden below. Within, the rout was at its height and the saxophone ever raised its frightful cry to the glory of the gods of Africa. Without, was silence and the ring of steel.

“Oh, I can’t bear it, but I _can’t_ bear it!” sobbed the young Princess, holding a cry to her lips with a handkerchief plaintive with scent. The antagonists in the dark garden were plain to see, the whiteness of their vests moving dimly in the darkness; and the tall figure of Lord Quorn was seen to be forced back against a tree-trunk, so that there could be no doubt but that he must presently be run through.

“Oh, have I to watch him die!” cried the young Princess, and was suddenly made to stare incredulously at the youth beside her, for he had whispered in accents of triumph:

“By Heaven, I’ve got an idea, a marvellous idea! You want to be happy, Princess? Then come with me! Come, we will dance through the crowd to the door and then we will see about my plan.”

“But what is it, what is it, why do you keep me in such suspense? Ah; you are cruel!” sighed the Princess Baba. “But you certainly do dance very well. Oh, how I love dancing! When I was very young I used to dream that I would like to be loved by a fairy prince with finger-nails of lapis-lazuli, but lately I have dreamed that I would like to be an exhibition-dancer in a night-club. But are you sure this is the nearest way to the door? It is so very crowded that I can’t see it, but how well you guide, almost as well as you kiss a lady’s hand! But quick, quick, to the door!”

“I am doing my best, Princess, guiding you through this crowd. It is amazing how generously middle-aged people dance these days, denying their elbows and feet to no one who comes near them.”

“But my lover dies--the door, the door!” cried the Princess Baba.

“And by Heaven, through it!”

“And now your plan?”

“Ah, you may well ask!” laughed our hero.

V

The tall figure of Lord Quorn lay crumpled and inert where he had fallen against the tree-trunk. Only his eyes retained the magic gift of life, and they looked upon the scene with sardonic resignation. Who shall describe what thoughts then passed through the dying gallant’s mind? He was mortally wounded.

Count Rupprecht lay stretched on his back a few yards away, the grass about him soaked with the blood that flowed from his pierced lung. He was dead. Above him stood the Duke, silently. Mr. Woodhouse Adams was on his knees beside his dying friend.

“You got him, anyhow,” said he. “He’ll never know Christmas from Easter again.”

“Fluke,” sighed Lord Quorn. “I always had the luck.”

“Luck, do you call it,” cried his friend, “to be killed!”

“It is better to be killed than to die,” said Lord Quorn faintly.

His Highness called grimly: “Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“_Altesse!_”

“Boy, go call my chaplain instantly.”

“Pester me with no priests, sir, I beg you!” cried the wicked Lord Quorn. “I was born without one, I have lived without one, I have loved without one, and I can damn well die without one.”

“Then has death no terrors for you, Lord Quorn?”

“Why, sir, I go to meet my Maker with the best heart in the world! I have lived a perfectly delightful life in the best possible way. Can Paradise show a more consummate achievement! Or must one have been bored to death in this world to win eternal life in the next?”

“Then, page,” grimly said His Highness, “go tell the Princess Baba the issue of the duel. Do not spare the truth. Count Rupprecht lies dead in defence of her honour and the honour of Valeria; and Lord Quorn will shortly be answering to God for his sins. And further tell the Princess that she is permitted to say farewell to her lover. Begone!”

“Thank you very much,” sighed Lord Quorn.

But the page was not gone above a moment before he was returned, saying breathlessly:

“_Altesse_, I bear this message from the Platinum-Stick-in-Waiting. The Princess Baba was seen leaving the house a few minutes ago in a hired vehicle, and with her was a young gentleman with an unknown face and utterly devoid of decorations. Her Highness left word behind her with the attendant of the Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the effect that she could so little bear to await the issue of a duel in which her heart was so deeply engaged that she had eloped with one who would understand her grief.”

“Good!” sighed Lord Quorn into the livid silence.

“What’s that you say!” snapped the Duke.

“I was merely thanking my God, sir, that I die at last convinced of the truth of what I have always suspected, that nothing in this world means anything at all.”

“Except, of course, dogs and horses,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams, and that will do well enough for the end of the tale of the hand and the flower, which is called _Prologue_ because nobody ever reads a Prologue and how can it be to anyone’s advantage to sit out so improbable a tale without the accompaniment of a Viennese waltz?

As for our hero and his darling, there are, naturally, no words to describe the happiness they had in each other. It was not long, however, before the young writer ceased to be a writer, for there was no money in it; but with what his young wife made by selling the story of her elopement for to make a musical-comedy they opened a night-club in Golden Square called _Delight is my Middle Name_ and lived happily ever after, the whilom Princess Baba making a great name for herself as a dancer, for she was all legs and no hips and her step was as light as her laughter and her laughter was as light as the breath of Eros.

In conclusion, may he who is still young enough and silly enough to have told this tale be some day found worthy to be vouchsafed that which will make him, too, live happily ever after in peace and good-will with his heart, his lady and his fellows; and may the like good fortune also befall such youths and maidens as, turning aside for a moment from the realities of life, shall read this book.

I: A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY

I

Talking of dogs, no one will deny that dogs make the best, the dearest, and the most faithful companions in the world. No one will deny that even very small dogs have very large hearts. No one will deny that human beings are as but dirt beside dogs, even very small dogs. No one will deny that all dogs, large or small, are more acceptable to the Lord than foxes, rats or Dagoes. That is, if the Lord is a gentleman. No one can deny that. No one, anyhow, dares deny that. Let us be quite candid. A man who does not glory in the companionship of dogs is no fit mate for any woman. That is what Valerest said. A woman who glories in nothing else but the companionship of a dratted little beast with two unblinking black eyes is certainly no fit mate for any man. That is what Valentine thought.

Valentine and Valerest were sat at dinner. Valerest was the name of Valentine’s wife, and she was a nice girl. A pretty maid waited on them. Valentine and Valerest were silent. The pretty maid left them.

Valerest said: “Any man who does not like dogs is no fit mate for a woman.”

Valentine thought as above.

“I really don’t see,” said Valerest bitterly, “why you are so sulky this evening.”

Sulky! Ye gods and little fishes, to be moved by a profound and sorrowful anger--and to be called ‘sulky’! O God of words and phrases, O Arbiter of tempers and distempers, to sit in silent dignity and resignation--and to be called ‘sulky’! Verily, what a petty thing one word can make of martyrdom! Wherefore Valentine raised his voice and said: “I am not sulky.”

“Well,” said Valerest, “you needn’t shout.”

Valentine said: “I never shout.”

A situation was thus created. The pretty maid came in with the sweet in the middle of it. Valentine and Valerest were silent. Mr. Tuppy was not. Mr. Tuppy said “Yap!” Mr. Tuppy lay on a mouldy old cushion, and the mouldy old cushion lay on a chair, and the chair was beside Valerest. Dear Mr. Tuppy, sweet Mr. Tuppy! Tuppy was a Chinaman, Tuppy was a dog.

“The pretty darling, the mother’s tiny tot!” sighed Valerest. “And does he want his dinner then, the mother’s rabbit?”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Isn’t he a darling!” cried Valerest.

“Charming,” said Valentine.

“Well,” said Valerest, “you aren’t very gay to-night, I do think!”

It could be asked, need Valerest have said that? Again, it could be asked, need Valerest have said that brightly? Valentine, at that moment, appeared to be engaged in spearing a boiled cherry, which formed part of a fruit-salad. It would not appear, therefore, that Valentine was engaged on anything very important. Indeed, there will not be wanting those to say that Valentine’s attention might well have been diverted to something more “worth while” (an American phrase meaning money) than even the most notable fruit-salad. They will be wrong. For there is a time in everyone’s life when even the most homely fruit-salad, even one unspiced with Kirsch or liqueur, can be of such moment that everything else must, for that time, go by the board. Therefore it must at once be apparent to even the most impatient reader that _The Romance in Old Brandy_ must be delayed for at least another paragraph while impartial enquiry is made into the fruit-salad of Valentine Vernon Chambers.

Ever since he was so high Valentine would always eat a fruit-salad according to certain laws of precedence. Not for worlds would he have admitted it, but that is how it was. He liked the chunks of pineapple best, so he kept the chunks of pineapple to the last. Strawberries he liked next best, if they weren’t too sloppy, so they came one but last. As for grapes in a fruit salad, they are slippery and sour, and Valentine thought it was no fit place for them. After strawberries, he was partial to cherries. While first of all he would demolish the inevitable bits of banana. Cream he never took with a fruit-salad.

It will therefore be seen that, as he was then only at the beginning of the cherry stratum, the fruit-salad future of Valentine Vernon Chambers was one of exceptional promise. But it was not to be. Even as Valerest spoke, brightly, he couldn’t help but cast one furtive look at the chunks of pineapple. Nor were the strawberries sloppy. But queer depths were moving in him that evening. From the chunks of pineapple he looked across the table at his wife, and Valerest saw that his blue eyes were dark, and she was afraid, but did she look afraid? Valerest, Oh, Valerest!

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“There, there!” said Valerest, and she kissed Mr. Tuppy, and Mr. Tuppy loved it.

“By Heaven, that dog!” snapped Valentine.

Valerest said: “That’s it! Vent your bad-temper on poor little Mr. Tuppy!”

Valentine looked at Valerest.

“I see,” said Valentine quietly. Very quietly. “Oh, I see!”

And worse. Much worse. Very quietly.

“I suppose you think,” said Valerest, “that because I’m your wife you can say anything you like to me. You’re wrong.”

“I think,” said Valentine, “that because you’re my wife you ought to behave like my wife. And I’m right.”

And then he left the room. And then he left the house. And then the house was very still.

Valerest, sitting very straight in her chair, heard the front-door slam. She listened. Through the open window behind her came the sound of manly footsteps marching away down South Street. She listened. Away the footsteps marched, away. Then a taxi screamed, and the incident of the manly footsteps was closed forever.

“Well, that’s that!” said Valerest.

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Mother’s rabbit!” said Valerest absently.

“Mr. Tuppy,” said Valerest suddenly, “this can’t go on. You know, this can’t go on.”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“I’m not a chattel,” said Valerest. “To be used just as a man likes. I will not be a chattel.”

The pretty maid came in.

Valerest said: “Come along, Mr. Tuppy. I’ve got a headache. Bed.”

II

Valentine walked. When he had been walking for some time he realised that he was achieving the impossible in combining an excess of motive power with a minimum of progress, for he found himself walking in a direction exactly opposed to that in which his destination lay. He corrected this, and presently stood before a house in Cadogan Gardens. The houses in Cadogan Gardens wear a gentle and sorrowful air, and Valentine grew more depressed than ever.

Now, years before, his guardian had said: “There may come a time, Valentine, when something happens to you about which you will think it impossible that anyone can advise you. But you may be wrong in thinking that. Try me then, if you care to.”