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The Princess Virginia
The Princess Virginia
CHAPTER I
WHEN THE NEWS CAME
“No,” said the Princess. “No. I’m —dashed if I do.”
“My darling child!” exclaimed the Grand Duchess. “You’re impossible. If any one should hear you!”
“It’s he who’s impossible,” the Princess amended. “I’m just trying to show you – ”
“Or to shock me. You are so like your grandmother.”
“That’s the best compliment any one can give me, which is lucky, as it’s given so often,” laughed the Princess. “Dear, adorable Virginia!” She cuddled into the pink hollow of her hand the pearl-framed ivory miniature of a beautiful, smiling girl, which always hung from a thin gold chain around her neck. “They shouldn’t have named me after you, should they, if they hadn’t wanted me to be like you?”
“It was partly a question of money, dear,” sighed the Grand Duchess. “If my mother hadn’t left a legacy to my first daughter only on consideration that her own extremely American name of Virginia should be perpetuated – ”
“It was a delicious way of being patriotic. I’m glad she did it. I love being the only Royal Princess with American blood in my veins and an American name on my handkerchiefs. Do you believe for an instant that if Grandmother Virginia were alive, she would let Granddaughter Virginia marry Prince Henri de Touraine?”
“I don’t see why not,” said the Grand Duchess. “She wasn’t too patriotic to marry an English Duke, and startle London as the first American Duchess. Heavens, the things she used to do, if one could believe half the wild stories my father’s sister told me in warning! And as for my father, though a most charming man, of course, he could not – er – have been called precisely estimable, while Prince Henri certainly is, and an exceedingly good match even for you – in present circumstances.”
“Call him a match, if you like, Mother. He’s undoubtedly a stick. But no, he’s not a match for me. There’s only one on earth.” And Virginia’s eyes were lifted to the sky as if, instead of existing on earth, the person in her thoughts were placed as high as the sun that shone above her.
“I should have preferred an Englishman – for you,” said the Grand Duchess, “if only there were one of suitable rank, free to – ”