Chapter 19

the times. You haven't even got silk shoe-laces. I actually had to use a cloth-of-gold sandal strap to lace my oxfords, and when I lost a cuff-link I was obliged to make shift with two sides of one of Queen Agothonike's ear-rings that I found in the museum at the palace. And that isn't all," went on the lady, wrong kindling wrong, "what do you do for paper and envelopes? There is not a quire to be found in Med. They offered me _wireless blanks_--an ultra form that Mr. Hastings would never have considered in good taste. And how about visiting cards? I tried to have a plate made, and they showed me a wireless apparatus for flashing from the doorstep the name of the visitor--an electrical entrance which Mr. Hastings would have considered most inelegant. Ahead of the times, with your rudderless airships! I have always said that the electric chair is a way to be barbarous and good form at the same time, and that is what I think about Yaque!"

Mr. Frothingham's hands worked forward convulsively on his blue velvet knees.

"My dear Madame," he interposed earnestly, "the history of criminal jurisprudence, not to mention the remarkable essay of the Marquis Beccaria--proves beyond doubt that the extirpation of the offender is the only possible safety for the State--"

Olivia rose and stood before the prince, her eyes meeting his.

"You will permit this sentence?" she asked steadily. "As head of the House of the Litany, you will execute it, Prince Tabnit?"

"Alas!" said the prince humbly, "it is customary on the day of the coronation to set adrift all offenders. I am the servant of the State."

"Then, Prince Tabnit, I can not marry you."

At this Mrs. Hastings looked blindly about for support, and Mr. Frothingham and Antoinette flew to her side. In that moment the lady had seen herself, prophetically, in black samite and her parrot bonnet, set adrift in the penitential airship with her rebellious niece.

For a moment Prince Tabnit hesitated: he looked at Olivia, who was never more beautiful than as she defied him; then he walked slowly toward her, with sweep and fall of his garments embroidered by a thousand needles. Antoinette and her father, ministering to Mrs. Hastings, heard only the new note that had crept into his voice, a thrill, a tremour--

"Olivia!" he said.

Her eyes met his in amazement but no fear.

"In a land more alien to me than the sun," said the prince, "I saw you, and in that moment I loved you. I love you more than the life beyond life upon which I have laid hold. I brought you to this island to make you my wife. Do you understand what it is that I offer you?"

Olivia was silent. She was trembling a little at the sheer enormity of the moment. Suddenly, Prince Tabnit seemed to her like a name that she did not know.

"Will you not understand what I mean?" he besought with passionate earnestness. "Can I make my words mean nothing to you? Do you not see that it is indeed as I say--that I have grasped the secret of life within life, beyond life, transcending life, as his understanding transcends the man? The wonder of the island is but the alphabet of wisdom. The secrets of life and death and being itself are in my grasp. The hidden things that come near to you in beauty, in dream, in inspiration are mine and my people's. All these I can make yours--I offer you life of a fullness such as the people of the world do not dream. I will love you as the gods love, and as the gods we will live and love--it may be for ever. Nothing of high wisdom shall be unrevealed to us. We shall be what the world will be when it nears the close of time. Come to me--trust me--be beside me in all the wonder that I know. But above all, love me, for I love you more than life, and wisdom, and mystery!"

Olivia understood, and she believed. The mystery of life had always been more real to her than its commonplaces, and all her years she had gone half-expecting to meet some one, unheralded, to whom all things would be clear, and who should make her know by some secret sign that this was so, and should share with her. She had no doubt whatever that Prince Tabnit spoke the truth--just as the daughter of the river-god Inachus knew perfectly that she was being wooed by a voice from the air. Indeed, the world over, lovers promise each other infinite things, and are infinitely believed.

"I do understand you, Prince Tabnit," Olivia said simply, "I do understand something of what you offer me. I think that these things were not meant to be hidden from men always, so I can even believe that you have all that you say. But--there is something more."

Olivia paused--and swiftly, as if some little listening spirit had released the picture from the air, came the memory of that night when she had stood with St. George on that airy rampart beside the wall of blossoming vines.

"There is something more," she repeated, "when two love each other very much I think that they have everything that you have said, and more."

He looked at her in silence. The stained light from some high window caught her veil in meshes of rose and violet--fairy colours, witnessing the elusive, fairy, invincible truth of what she said.

"You mean that you do not love me?" said the prince gently.

"I do not love you, your Highness," said Olivia, "and as for the wisdom of which you speak, that is worse than useless to you if you can do as you say with two quite innocent men." She hesitated, searching his face. "Is there no way," she said, "that I, the daughter of your king, can save them? I will appeal to the people!"

The prince met her eyes steadily, adoringly.

"It would avail nothing," he said, "they are at one with the law. Yet there is a way that I can help you. If Mr. St. George returns, as he must, he and his friends shall be set adrift with due ceremony--but in an imperial airship, with a man secretly in control. By night they can escape to their yacht. This I will do--upon one condition."

"Oh--what is that?" she asked, and for all the reticence of her eagerness, her voice was a betrayal.

Prince Tabnit turned to the window. Below, in the palace grounds, and without, in the Eurychôrus, a thousand people awaited the opening of the palace doors. They filled the majestic avenue, poured up the shadowed alleys that taught the necessity of mystery, were grouped beneath the honey-sweet trees; and above their heads, from every dome and column in the fair city, flowed and streamed the joyous, wizard, nameless colours of the pennons blown heavenward against the blue. They were come, this strange, wise, elusive people, to her marriage.

The prince was smiling as he met her eyes; for the world was always the exquisite intaglio, and to-day was its design.

"They know," he said simply, "what was to have been at noon to-day. Do you not understand my condition?"