Part 2

Whatever was to happen in Biarritz, and I was far enough from guessing then, nothing happened by the way; and we arrived on a morning of blue and gold.

We put up at a private hotel out of the way from fashionable thoroughfares; and, as my childhood and early youth were passed in England, I could use an English name without making myself ridiculous by a foreign accent. As for my brown face and black eyes, many a Cornishman has a face as brown and eyes as black; therefore, I edited the name of Triana into Cornish Trevenna, and changed Cristóbal, my middle name, into Christopher.

We took our first meal in the restaurant, and everyone at the little tables near by, was talking of the King and “Princess Ena”; how pretty she was, how much in love he; how charming their romance. My heart quite warmed to my youthful sovereign, who has had seven fewer years on earth than I. I felt that, if I had had a fair chance, I should have been his loyal subject.

“I’d like to have a look at him,” said I to Waring after lunch. “The lady with the nose who sat on our left said to her husband with the chin, that the King and the two Princesses motor every afternoon. We’ll motor too; and where they go, there we’ll go also.”

“Take care,” said Dick.

“A cat may look at a king. So may Chris Trevenna.”

“No good advising you to be cautious.”

“Of course not. You wouldn’t care a rap for me if there was.”

“Shouldn’t I? Anyhow, Chris Trevenna might as well wear goggles.”

“There’s no dust to-day,” said I. “It rained in the night.”

“I give you up,” said Dick. And if giving me up meant going out with me in my big blue car directly after lunch, then he kept his word. Ropes, my chauffeur, and right-hand man, who sits always in the tonneau, had already heard all about the King’s automobile, and was primed with particulars. He leaned across to describe its appearance, as well as mention the make; and when such a car as he was in the act of picturing passed us, going round a bend of the road which leads to Spain, there was no mistaking it.

“Let’s follow,” said I.

Dick sighed, but naturally I paid no attention to that.

There were five persons in the King’s car. The slim young owner, three ladies, two very slender and young, and the chauffeur, all five masked or goggled, so that it was impossible to see their faces.

“I wish something would happen to them,” I said.

Waring looked shocked.

“Just enough of a something to stop the car, and tempt the ladies to take off their motor-veils. I may never have another chance to see the future Queen of Spain.”

When I was a small lad in England, I used to lie under a favourite apple-tree in the orchard of the old place where we lived, and wish with all my might for the fall of a certain apple on which eyes and heart were fixed. It was extraordinary how often the apple would fall.

In a flash I remembered those wishes and those apples as we began to gain upon the King’s car. Its pace slackened, and then it stopped. The chauffeur jumped out, and two of the ladies were raising their thick veils as we came up.

As we were not supposed to know the King, who was “incog,” the ordinary civilities between motorists were in order. I slowed down, and taking off my hat, inquired in French if there were anything I could do.

The two girls, who had hastily whipped off their veils, turned and glanced at me. Both were more than pretty; blond, violet-eyed, with radiant complexions; but one seemed to me beautiful as the Blessed Damozel looking down from the star-framed window of heaven; and I was suddenly sick with jealousy of the King, because I believed that she was his Princess.

It was he who answered, in French better than mine. He thanked me for my kind offer, and referred me to his chauffeur, who had not yet discovered the cause of the car’s sudden loss of power. But even as he spoke, the mystery was solved. There was a leak in the petrol-tank, near the bottom; the last drop of essence had run away, and, as they had come out for a short spin, there was none in reserve.

An odd chance it seemed that brought me, the son of a banished rebel, to the King’s aid; but life is odd. I rejoiced because it was odd, and more because of the girl.

I had a spare bidon of petrol which, with conventional expressions of pleasure, I gave to my fellow motorist. We exchanged compliments, and as nobody stared at me askance, I had reason to believe that neither words, actions, nor looks were out of the way. Yet what I said and did was said and done with no more guidance of the mind than the gestures and speech of a mechanical doll.

I was conscious only of the girl’s eyes, for I had done that unreasonable, indefinable thing—fallen in love at first sight, and I had fallen very far, and very deep. She did not glance at me often, and after the first I scarcely glanced at her at all, lest my eyes should be indiscreet. It was the most curious thing in the world, and far beyond anything that had ever happened to me; but already I knew that I could not lose her out of my life. Sooner could I lose life itself. If she were the Princess who was to be Queen of Spain, I would follow her to Madrid, come what might, just for the joy of breathing the air she breathed, of seeing her drive past me in her carriage sometimes. I had wondered, knowing the traditions of our family, many of them tragic, when love would come to me. Now it had come quickly, in a moment; but not to go as it had come. It and I would be one, for always. The girl was little more than a child, but I knew she was to be the one woman for me; and that was what I feared my eyes might tell her. So I would not look; yet the air seemed charged with electricity to flash a thousand messages, and my blood tingled with the assurance that she had had my message, that unconsciously she was sending back a message to me.

All this was going on in my inner self, while the outer husk of self delivered itself of conventional things.

A leak was mended, a tank filled, while my life was being remade. Then there were bows, lifting of caps, many politenesses, and the King’s car shot away.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Waring by and by.