and the foot rests on the cushion, it is much more comfortable, much more. Thank you, thank you. If you had not been passing I might have had a dangerous fall.”
“I am very glad to have been able to help you,” Marco answered, with an air of relief. “Now I must go, if you think you will be all right.”
“Don’t go yet,” she said, holding out her hand. “I should like to know you a little better, if I may. I am so grateful. I should like to talk to you. You have such beautiful manners for a boy,” she ended, with a pretty, kind laugh, “and I believe I know where you got them from.”
“You are very kind to me,” Marco answered, wondering if he did not redden a little. “But I must go because my father will—”
“Your father would let you stay and talk to me,” she said, with even a prettier kindliness than before. “It is from him you have inherited your beautiful manner. He was once a friend of mine. I hope he is my friend still, though perhaps he has forgotten me.”
All that Marco had ever learned and all that he had ever trained himself to remember, quickly rushed back upon him now, because he had a clear and rapidly working brain, and had not lived the ordinary boy’s life. Here was a beautiful lady of whom he knew nothing at all but that she had twisted her foot in the street and he had helped her back into her house. If silence was still the order, it was not for him to know things or ask questions or answer them. She might be the loveliest lady in the world and his father her dearest friend, but, even if this were so, he could best serve them both by obeying her friend’s commands with all courtesy, and forgetting no instruction he had given.
“I do not think my father ever forgets any one,” he answered.
“No, I am sure he does not,” she said softly. “Has he been to Samavia during the last three years?”
Marco paused a moment.
“Perhaps I am not the boy you think I am,” he said. “My father has never been to Samavia.”
“He has not? But—you are Marco Loristan?”
“Yes. That is my name.”
Suddenly she leaned forward and her long lovely eyes filled with fire.
“Then you are a Samavian, and you know of the disasters overwhelming us. You know all the hideousness and barbarity of what is being done. Your father’s son must know it all!”
“Every one knows it,” said Marco.
“But it is your country—your own! Your blood must burn in your veins!”
Marco stood quite still and looked at her. His eyes told whether his blood burned or not, but he did not speak. His look was answer enough, since he did not wish to say anything.
“What does your father think? I am a Samavian myself, and I think night and day. What does he think of the rumor about the descendant of the Lost Prince? Does he believe it?”
Marco was thinking very rapidly. Her beautiful face was glowing with emotion, her beautiful voice trembled. That she should be a Samavian, and love Samavia, and pour her feeling forth even to a boy, was deeply moving to him. But howsoever one was moved, one must remember that silence was still the order. When one was very young, one must remember orders first of all.
“It might be only a newspaper story,” he said. “He says one cannot trust such things. If you know him, you know he is very calm.”
“Has he taught you to be calm too?” she said pathetically. “You are only a boy. Boys are not calm. Neither are women when their hearts are wrung. Oh, my Samavia! Oh, my poor little country! My brave, tortured country!” and with a sudden sob she covered her face with her hands.
A great lump mounted to Marco’s throat. Boys could not cry, but he knew what she meant when he said her heart was wrung.
When she lifted her head, the tears in her eyes made them softer than ever.
“If I were a million Samavians instead of one woman, I should know what to do!” she cried. “If your father were a million Samavians, he would know, too. He would find Ivor’s descendant, if he is on the earth, and he would end all this horror!”
“Who would not end it if they could?” cried Marco, quite fiercely.
“But men like your father, men who are Samavians, must think night and day about it as I do,” she impetuously insisted. “You see, I cannot help pouring my thoughts out even to a boy—because he is a Samavian. Only Samavians care. Samavia seems so little and unimportant to other people. They don’t even seem to know that the blood she is pouring forth pours from human veins and beating human hearts. Men like your father must think, and plan, and feel that they must—must find a way. Even a woman feels it. Even a boy must. Stefan Loristan cannot be sitting quietly at home, knowing that Samavian hearts are being shot through and Samavian blood poured forth. He cannot think and say NOTHING!”
Marco started in spite of himself. He felt as if his father had been struck in the face. How dare she say such words! Big as he was, suddenly he looked bigger, and the beautiful lady saw that he did.
“He is my father,” he said slowly.
She was a clever, beautiful person, and saw that she had made a great mistake.
“You must forgive me,” she exclaimed. “I used the wrong words because I was excited. That is the way with women. You must see that I meant that I knew he was giving his heart and strength, his whole being, to Samavia, even though he must stay in London.”
She started and turned her head to listen to the sound of some one using the latchkey and opening the front door. The some one came in with the heavy step of a man.
“It is one of the lodgers,” she said. “I think it is the one who lives in the third floor sitting-room.”
“Then you won’t be alone when I go,” said Marco. “I am glad some one has come. I will say good-morning. May I tell my father your name?”
“Tell me that you are not angry with me for expressing myself so awkwardly,” she said.
“You couldn’t have meant it. I know that,” Marco answered boyishly. “You couldn’t.”
“No, I couldn’t,” she repeated, with the same emphasis on the words.
She took a card from a silver case on the table and gave it to him.
“Your father will remember my name,” she said. “I hope he will let me see him and tell him how you took care of me.”
She shook his hand warmly and let him go. But just as he reached the door she spoke again.
“Oh, may I ask you to do one thing more before you leave me?” she said suddenly. “I hope you won’t mind. Will you run upstairs into the drawing-room and bring me the purple book from the small table? I shall not mind being alone if I have something to read.”
“A purple book? On a small table?” said Marco.
“Between the two long windows,” she smiled back at him.
The drawing-room of such houses as these is always to be reached by one short flight of stairs.
Marco ran up lightly.
XIV
MARCO DOES NOT ANSWER
By the time he turned the corner of the stairs, the beautiful lady had risen from her seat in the back room and walked into the dining-room at the front. A heavily-built, dark-bearded man was standing inside the door as if waiting for her.
“I could do nothing with him,” she said at once, in her soft voice, speaking quite prettily and gently, as if what she said was the most natural thing in the world. “I managed the little trick of the sprained foot really well, and got him