She did not answer.
"Your High--Miss Carstow,"--Von Ritz spoke with a deferential
finality--"believe me, some things are inevitable."
Suddenly the car stopped.
The girl made a movement as though she would rise, but the man's arm
quietly stretched itself across before her, not touching her, but
forming an effective barrier.
She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly. For the first time
he was able to return her gaze directly, and as she looked into the
unflinching gray pupils, under the level brows, there was a momentary
combat, then her own dropped. He sat for a space with his arm
outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.
"Your Highness"--he spoke as impersonally as a judge ruling from the
bench--"I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in
order that someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need not now
say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him. It is hardly
necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not
easy, but it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself with his
movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even
counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car. There are bigger things
at stake than individual wishes. I stand for the throne. Mr. Benton has
played a daring game--and lost."
He paused, and she found herself watching with a strange fascination the
face almost marble-like in its steadiness.
"Some day--perhaps soon," he went on, the arm unmoved, "you will be
Queen of Galavia." She shuddered. "You can then strip away my epaulets
if you choose. For the moment, however, I must regard you as a prisoner
of war and ask your parole, as a gentleman and an officer, not to leave
the car while I investigate the trouble with the motor. Otherwise--" he
added composedly, "we shall have to remain as we are."
She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blazing; then, with a
glance at the unmoving arm, she bowed reluctant assent.
"All I promise is to remain in the car," she said. "May I go back into
the tonneau?"
Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily dead, he responded,
with a half-smile, "That promise I think is sufficient."
He bent to his task of diagnosis. After much futile spinning of the
crank, he rose and contemplated the stalled engine.
"Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, and I have no matches
in this garb, I must go to that farmhouse up the hillside--where the
light shines through the trees--. Will Your Highness regard your parole
as effective until my return, not to leave the car? Yes? I thank Your
Highness; I shall not be long."
The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud blasts, and he
stopped with a murmured apology to silence it by tearing off the bulb
and throwing it to one side.