"Was the princess like Christina?" Baba all at once pulled herself into an upright position on his knee, and looked earnestly into his face. "Tell Baba if that princess was like mine own pretty lady."

The eyes of the two elders met, and Christina laughed confusedly.

"Baba sees the people she loves through very rosy spectacles," she said, and Rupert smiled, whilst Baba's insistent voice repeated--

"Tell if the princess in the white frock was like Christina."

"No, no--not at all like her," Rupert began, his eyes glancing at the bent dark head opposite to him, at the clear whiteness of the cheeks, into which the colour was flushing so becomingly; at the deep green of her eyes, the red line of her lips; "no, the princess was--at least,"

he broke off suddenly, and looked more narrowly at the girl. "How absurd!" he exclaimed, "and what an extraordinary hallucination. It shows what a power of imagination the least imaginative of us may possess; but at that moment, your princess and mine, little Baba, had a queer fantastic likeness to one another."

Christina looked up at him sharply, surprise the predominating expression on her face. But before she could speak, Baba's clear tones again made themselves heard.

"Just tell Baba 'zackly--'_zackly_ what the princess in the white frock was like; Baba wants to know."

Again Rupert felt impelled to speak, almost against his own inclination, and his words came with a readiness, which, if he had considered the matter, would greatly have surprised him.

"She was tall," he answered; "very tall and very stately, as stately as one of the palm-trees under which she stood; and her face was white like her gown, only, it was not white as sick people are white, but like the whiteness of a rose, very clear and pure. And her hair was black--black as a raven's wing"--his voice grew dreamy, he seemed to have forgotten his listeners, and merely to be thinking aloud, whilst he watched the leaping flames of the fire--"and her eyes were deep and dark, fathomless wells of colour, and very sad." Christina drew in her breath quickly, and leant forward, an eager look on her face.

"I--never saw any eyes like those," the man's voice continued; "they held so much--they had seen so much, they were so beautiful--and so sad. The princess"--he started, and tried to resume a lighter tone--"was the most beautiful lady in the world, little Baba."

"She is just like----" Christina began impetuously, then stopped short, remembering the secrecy enjoined upon her, by the woman whom she knew only as "Margaret,"--the woman of the lonely valley house.

"Just like--who?" Rupert turned to her with the sharp question, a sudden gleam in his eyes. "Do you know anybody answering to the description I have just given? Have you ever seen someone like--like my princess?" The eagerness of his tones, the gleam in his eyes, showed Christina the necessity for caution, and she answered quietly--

"I think the lady you describe, is something like a lady I once saw; at least, she was beautiful, with dark eyes and hair," the girl ended confusedly.

"It could not be the same person," Rupert said with decision. "The princess I am describing--was unique. You would not speak of her in those terms of lukewarm praise. Her beauty was something beyond and above anything ordinary or everyday."

"So," Christina was on the point of saying almost indignantly, "so was the beauty of my lovely lady," but she checked her words just in time; prudence demanded that she should say nothing, rather than that by saying a word too much, she should betray another woman's trust.

"I should like--to have seen her under the palm-tree," she said, wondering in her girlish heart, whether it was the beautiful princess in the white gown, who had brought the lines of pain about this man's face, and into his grey eyes; wishing, too, with girlish innocent fervour, that it might be given to her to take away some of his pain.

"I wish you could have seen her," he answered her speech. "I think you and she would understand one another, but"--again the words seemed forced from him--"at this moment, I don't even know where she is." The concentrated bitterness of the tone, the haggard misery of the look that accompanied the words, stabbed at Christina's tender heart.

"Oh! I am sorry," she exclaimed. "I wish--I could help you," she spoke with a child's impulsive eagerness, but it was the tender pity of a womanly woman, that looked out of her eyes, and the look gave Rupert a sense of having been touched with some healing balm.

Baba was no longer taking any conscious part in the conversation; the warmth of the fire, combined with the consumption of a plentiful supply of Mrs. Nairne's toast and cake, had induced profound drowsiness, and the sounds of her elders' voices having acted as a final soporific, the little maid now slept peacefully, her dimpled hand against Rupert's neck, her golden curls upon his shoulder. The man and girl were, to all intents and purposes, alone, and Rupert looked across at Christina, with the smile that gave such extraordinary charm to his face.

"No wonder this small girl looks at you with rosy spectacles," he said; "you are one of the born helpers of this world. What makes you say you would like to help me? Do you think I need help?"

"I am sure you do," came the prompt reply; "your eyes--" she broke off, startled by her own audacity, her glance wavering from his face to the fire.

"Your eyes----" he repeated after her. "What do you find in my eyes that makes you think I want help?" He spoke with the same caressing kindliness he might have bestowed on a child; he felt an odd desire to confide in her, as a grown-up person does sometimes feel oddly constrained to confide in a little child, whose sympathy, whilst lacking comprehension, is still full of comfort.

"Your eyes are so sad," she answered frankly, when he paused for her reply; "you seem as if you were looking always for something you have lost, something which is very precious to you."

"So I am," he replied, pillowing Baba more closely in his arms, and leaning nearer to Christina. "I don't know by what wonderful gift you discovered all that in my eyes--but it is true. I am looking for something I have lost, or perhaps--something I have never had," he added bitterly, under his breath.

"Some day--surely--you will find it?" she said gently, her heart aching, because of the sudden hardening of his mouth and eyes.

"Find what I have never had?" he laughed, and his laugh hurt the girl who listened. "I may find the--person who has gone out of my ken; that is possible. I never forget to look for what I have lost, wherever I go, and I go to many places in my car. But, even if I found the human being I have lost, will everything be less elusive, less hopeless than before?"

"Of course you know you are talking in riddles," Christina answered gravely, her brows drawn together in a frown; "you don't want to let me understand what you really mean, and that is very natural," she added with a practical common sense that sat quaintly upon her; "but I should have liked to help you."

"You do help me," he said quickly; "it sounds absurd to say so, even to myself it seems absurd, because it is not my way to take anybody into my confidence. But--I can trust you."

The simply spoken words set Christina's heart beating with innocent pride; her eyes looked at him gratefully.

"Thank you for saying that," she answered. "I think it is true. You can trust me, and I am glad, so very glad, if there is anything I can do to help you. If--if I might understand a little better?" she added falteringly.

"The story I told Baba just now was a true one," he answered abruptly; "the beautiful lady really walked under the palm-trees, and I--well--these stories all have the same plot. I wanted her for my princess. But she--had a prince of her own already." The half-bitter, half-jesting way in which he spoke, sent all the child in the girl into the background, brought all the woman in her into prominence; she put out her hand with a little pitiful gesture.

"Oh!" she whispered softly; "oh! but that was hard."

"It seemed hard to me," his tone was grim; "it seemed an irony of fate beyond my poor powers of comprehension, more especially when I found--no, not found--I don't know for certain even now. I know nothing, less than nothing"--again came that bitterness that hurt his listener--"but when I guessed that the prince was not worthy of her, that it was my lot to stand aside and be a friend only, whilst someone not worthy to touch the hem of her gown, had the place of honour, then I knew what sorry tricks Fate can play!"

"And the poor princess?" Christina asked gently. A light flashed over Rupert's face.

"There is the wonder of it all, the wonder of womanhood," he exclaimed; "mind, I don't know any facts for certain. I only guess that the--rightful prince is not worthy to tie the strings of her shoes, and yet--he is all the world to her. The rest of us are nothing. No, that isn't true either," he corrected himself hurriedly. "I have her friendship. I have the unspeakable honour of being her friend, but the best of her is given to someone who is not worthy. Not that the best man among us is worthy to touch her hand," he added, with an impetuosity that made him seem all at once oddly young and boyish.

"And she--your friend--is it she you have lost now?" Christina questioned softly, when he paused. He nodded.

"Yes, she left town suddenly, giving me no reason for going. I have been able to do many things for her; things a friend could do. She is very fragile; she has been very ill, and now--I do not even know where she is. I can only surmise that the man, who is not worthy--needed her help--and she has done his bidding. Worthy or unworthy, her soul is wrapped up in him. Woman's love is a wonderful thing--almost incomprehensible to men!"

Unbidden, before Christina's mind, there rose a half-darkened room, a bed piled high with pillows, and lying back amongst the pillows, a woman with a beautiful, stricken face, and deep eyes of haunting sadness. Unbidden there came to her memory words spoken in a low pa.s.sionate voice:

"You don't know what it means to care so much for a man, that, no matter what he is, or does, he is your world, your whole world."

And with the memory, came an illuminating flash of thought. Could it be possible--that the beautiful lady of the lonely valley, and the princess in the white gown, of whom this man spoke, were one and the same person? Her preoccupation with this thought made her silent for so long after Rupert's last speech, that presently he said quietly:

"I don't know why I am inflicting all this upon you, or why I have been egotistical enough to think my confidence could be in the smallest degree interesting, to somebody who is almost a stranger."

"A stranger?" Christina echoed the words blankly, then laughed a little tremulously.

"I had--forgotten---we had only met so seldom," she said; "it--doesn't feel as if you were a stranger; and I am so glad, so proud, that you have trusted me. Some people from the very beginning don't seem like strangers, do they?" she asked, with a smile.

"That's quite true," he answered. "I am not a subtle person, I don't profess to be able to explain these things, but some people do seem to jump directly into one's friendship, whilst other people jog along beside us all our lives, and we get no nearer to them at last, than we were at first. You have been a friend to me to-day."

"Have I? I am glad," the colour rushed into her face, "and I wish I could help more." He smiled at her again. He still had the feeling that he was talking to a charming child, one of rarely sympathetic and understanding nature; and yet, through all the mist of masculine density in which he was wrapped, he was conscious of the womanly tenderness that had looked out of Christina's eyes, and spoken in her voice. That maternal instinct which is innately part of every good woman's nature, was largely developed in Christina, and, involuntarily, Rupert had made an appeal to that instinct. He would have laughed to scorn the bare idea that he, a strong and self-reliant man of the world, could ever lean, or need to lean, upon a slip of a girl, whose youthfulness was written in every line of her face, and of her slight form. And yet, unwittingly he had put out his hands to her for help, much as a little child puts out hands to its mother, for comfort and guidance.

Children all, these men-folk of the world! Children all, they have been from days immemorial, and presumably will be still the same in the days to come. And their womenkind love them, and comfort them, guide them and tend them, learning, with the sure instinct of womanhood, that they are just little boys, to be taken care of, and watched over, and "mothered" all the time. Christina knew this truth instinctively, if she could not have put it into definite words; Christina knew it; each daughter of Eve knows it by experience bitter or sweet--it is the truth that "every woman knows"!

CHAPTER XIV.

"I AM QUITE SURE YOU NEED NOT BE AFRAID."

"You are sure I need not be alarmed? You are quite, quite sure? She is all my world." Denis Fergusson looked down at the small trembling creature, his eyes full of grave kindliness.