The Grand Babylon Hotel - Arnold Bennett (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“And you were to rejoin him here?”

“Just so, Highness. And I did rejoin him here, although, to tell the truth, I had begun to fear that I might never see my master again.”

“The Prince has been very ill in Ostend, Hans.”

“So I have gathered,” Hans responded drily, slowly rubbing his hands together. “And his Highness is not yet perfectly recovered.”

“Not yet. We despaired of his life, Hans, at one time, but thanks to an excellent constitution, he came safely through the ordeal.”

“We must take care of him, your Highness.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Aribert solemnly, “his life is very precious to Posen.”

At that moment, Eugen, Hereditary Prince of Posen, entered the audience chamber. He was pale and languid, and his uniform seemed to be a trouble to him. His hair had been slightly ruffled, and there was a look of uneasiness, almost of alarmed unrest, in his fine dark eyes. He was like a man who is afraid to look behind him lest he should see something there which ought not to be there. But at the same time, here beyond doubt was Royalty. Nothing could have been more striking than the contrast between Eugen, a sick man in the shabby house at Ostend, and this Prince Eugen in the Royal apartments of the Grand Babylon Hotel, surrounded by the luxury and pomp which modern civilization can offer to those born in high places. All the desperate episode of Ostend was now hidden, passed over. It was supposed never to have occurred. It existed only like a secret shame in the hearts of those who had witnessed it. Prince Eugen had recovered; at any rate, he was convalescent, and he had been removed to London, where he took up again the dropped thread of his princely life. The lady with the red hat, the incorruptible and savage Miss Spencer, the unscrupulous and brilliant Jules, the dark, damp cellar, the horrible little bedroom⁠—these things were over. Thanks to Prince Aribert and the Racksoles, he had emerged from them in safety. He was able to resume his public and official career. The Emperor had been informed of his safe arrival in London, after an unavoidable delay in Ostend; his name once more figured in the Court chronicle of the newspapers. In short, everything was smothered over. Only⁠—only Jules, Rocco, and Miss Spencer were still at large; and the body of Reginald Dimmock lay buried in the domestic mausoleum of the palace at Posen; and Prince Eugen had still to interview Mr. Sampson Levi.

That various matters lay heavy on the mind of Prince Eugen was beyond question. He seemed to have withdrawn within himself. Despite the extraordinary experiences through which he had recently passed, events which called aloud for explanations and confidence between the nephew and the uncle, he would say scarcely a word to Prince Aribert. Any allusion, however direct, to the days at Ostend, was ignored by him with more or less ingenuity, and Prince Aribert was really no nearer a full solution of the mystery of Jules’ plot than he had been on the night when he and Racksole visited the gaming tables at Ostend. Eugen was well aware that he had been kidnapped through the agency of the woman in the red hat, but, doubtless ashamed at having been her dupe, he would not proceed in any way with the clearing-up of the matter.

“You will receive in this room, Eugen?” Aribert questioned him.

“Yes,” was the answer, given pettishly. “Why not? Even if I have no proper retinue here, surely that is no reason why I should not hold audience in a proper manner?⁠ ⁠… Hans, you can go.” The old valet promptly disappeared.

“Aribert,” the Hereditary Prince continued, when they were alone in the chamber, “you think I am mad.”

“My dear Eugen,” said Prince Aribert, startled in spite of himself. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I say you think I am mad. You think that that attack of brain fever has left its permanent mark on me. Well, perhaps I am mad. Who can tell? God knows that I have been through enough lately to drive me mad.”

Aribert made no reply. As a matter of strict fact, the thought had crossed his mind that Eugen’s brain had not yet recovered its normal tone and activity. This speech of his nephew’s, however, had the effect of immediately restoring his belief in the latter’s entire sanity. He felt convinced that if only he could regain his nephew’s confidence, the old brotherly confidence which had existed between them since the years when they played together as boys, all might yet be well. But at present there appeared to be no sign that Eugen meant to give his confidence to anyone.

The young Prince had come up out of the valley of the shadow of death, but some of the valley’s shadow had clung to him, and it seemed he was unable to dissipate it.

“By the way,” said Eugen suddenly, “I must reward these Racksoles, I suppose. I am indeed grateful to them. If I gave the girl a bracelet, and the father a thousand guineas⁠—how would that meet the case?”

“My dear Eugen!” exclaimed Aribert aghast. “A thousand guineas! Do you know that Theodore Racksole could buy up all Posen from end to end without making himself a pauper. A thousand guineas! You might as well offer him sixpence.”

“Then what must I offer?”

“Nothing, except your thanks. Anything else would be an insult. These are no ordinary hotel people.”

“Can’t I give the little girl a bracelet?” Prince Eugen gave a sinister laugh.

Aribert looked at him steadily. “No,” he said.

“Why did you kiss her⁠—that night?” asked Prince Eugen carelessly.

“Kiss whom?” said Aribert, blushing and angry, despite his most determined efforts to keep calm and unconcerned.

“The Racksole girl.”

“When do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Prince Eugen, “that night in Ostend when I was ill. You thought I was in a delirium. Perhaps I was. But somehow I remember that with extraordinary distinctness. I remember raising my head for a fraction of an