My niece was very much pleased, I could see, but she sent back word that she regretted that her work had piled up so that she couldn’t take advantage of Mr. Edwardes’ kind offer, but that her aunt would be delighted to accept. I was provoked with her. but then . . . how were other people to know that the marriage between herself and Howard Differdale was nothing but a business partnership? At least, she owed him the respect of not entertaining the attentions of another suitor for a few months.
Owen (he would have it that I must call him that) had the diplomacy to make me feel that my presence was what he had particularly desired. He tucked me in warmly and we went rolling along up the boulevard. We didn’t talk much, for there was really very little to say, but he had the faculty of making you think that he was all the time considering your comfort. If I had married, I should have liked a husband like Owen. I thought to myself, that if this attitude was sincere. he ought to make a mighty agreeable husband for someone, and couldn't help wondering just what Portia was going to do with him, for that he was at her disposal I hadn’t the slightest doubt.
At a point where the boulevard turned into Bayside Avenue, he stopped the car, so that I could enjoy the sight of the sun glittering on the waters of the bay. I leaned back, drinking in deep drafts of the balmy air with its promise of spring. A limousine with a fur-swathed chauffeur drew up alongside and Owen took off his hat, smiling that irresistible smile of his. The occupant of the other car pressed a button, and then leaned across the opening made by the dropped window-glass.
It was a woman, swathed in rich furs so completely that at first sight I could hardly distinguish more than the warm glitter of her eyes. At sight of them, I recalled Portia’s description of the Russian princess, for those eyes glowed with a ruddy gleam that certainly made them seem garnets in the deep shadow of the enveloping sables.
“Ah. Ow-een, how charming, this so-spring day!” trilled the woman’s voice blithely, with a little thrilling undernote of rich meaning that made my backbone stiffen involuntarily. . . That woman called him “Owen!” And with what an intonation!
“Aunt Sophie,” at once exclaimed Owen, with a possessive air as he indicated me to the occupant of the limousine, “permit me to present the Princess Tchernova. My adopted aunt, Miss Sophie Delorme.”
The princess pushed out slender, taper-tipped fingers with pretty impulsiveness. She appeared to take it for granted that she must be very much persona grata with anybody whom she chose to honor with her friendship.
“Ah, now I begin to feel myself so happy, with Ow-een’s dear Aunt Sophie for a friend!” she exclaimed with what in any other woman would have been called gush, but was only delightfully friendly coming from her. “In my new home, I shall not be lonely, for I have the good friends about me, already, is it not? Yes, Ow-een?”
“Right, princess,” my escort said heartily.
She thrust that slender white arm yet farther from the protecting furs and laid her outstretched fingers possessively on Owen’s sleeve. My eyes followed the motion, as I thought to myself that the princess was either much interested in the young man or was a finished coquette. And then I ascertained an interesting fact, one that I felt would prove highly entertaining for Portia; the third finger of that patrician hand was so much longer than the middle and index fin-
