The Prince and Betty | Page 8

passion of his life. He had loved his sister, and her married life had
been one long torture to him, a torture rendered keener by the fact that
he was powerless to protect either her happiness or her money. Her
money was her own, to use as she pleased, and the use which pleased
her most was to give it to her husband, who could always find a way of
spending it. As to her happiness, that was equally out of his control. It
was bound up in her Prince, who, unfortunately, was a bad custodian
for it. At last, an automobile accident put an end to His Highness's
hectic career (and, incidentally, to that of a blonde lady from the
_Folies Bergeres_), and the Princess had returned to her brother's home,

where, a year later, she died, leaving him in charge of her infant son.
Mr. Westley's desire from the first had been to eliminate as far as
possible all memory of the late Prince. He gave John his sister's name,
Maude, and brought him up as an American, in total ignorance of his
father's identity. During all the years they had spent together, he had
never mentioned the Prince's name.
He disliked John intensely. He fed him, clothed him, sent him to
college, and gave him a place in his office, but he never for a moment
relaxed his bleakness of front toward him. John was not unlike his
father in appearance, though built on a larger scale, and, as time went
on, little mannerisms, too, began to show themselves, that reminded Mr.
Westley of the dead man, and killed any beginnings of affection.
John, for his part, had the philosophy which goes with perfect health.
He fitted his uncle into the scheme of things, or, rather, set him outside
them as an irreconcilable element, and went on his way enjoying life in
his own good-humored fashion.
It was only lately, since he had joined the firm, that he had been
conscious of any great strain. College had given him a glimpse of a
larger life, and the office cramped him. He felt vaguely that there were
bigger things in the world which he might be doing. His best friends, of
whom he now saw little, were all men of adventure and enterprise, who
had tried their hand at many things; men like Jimmy Pitt, who had done
nearly everything that could be done before coming into an unexpected
half-million; men like Rupert Smith, who had been at Harvard with him
and was now a reporter on the _News_; men like Baker, Faraday,
Williams--he could name half-a-dozen, all men who were doing
something, who were out on the firing line.
He was not a man who worried. He had not that temperament. But
sometimes he would wonder in rather a vague way whether he was not
allowing life to slip by him a little too placidly. An occasional yearning
for something larger would attack him. There seemed to be something
in him that made for inaction. His soul was sleepy.

If he had been told of the identity of his father, it is possible that he
might have understood. The Princes of Mervo had never taken readily
to action and enterprise. For generations back, if they had varied at all,
son from father, it had been in the color of hair or eyes, not in
character--a weak, shiftless procession, with nothing to distinguish
them from the common run of men except good looks and a talent for
wasting money.
John was the first of the line who had in him the seeds of better things.
The Westley blood and the bracing nature of his education had done
much to counteract the Mervo strain. He did not know it, but the
American in him was winning. The desire for action was growing
steadily every day.
It had been Mervo that had sent him to the polo grounds on the
previous day. That impulse had been purely Mervian. No prince of that
island had ever resisted a temptation. But it was America that was
sending him now to meet his uncle with a quiet unconcern as to the
outcome of the interview. The spirit of adventure was in him. It was
more than possible that Mr. Westley would sink the uncle in the
employer and dismiss him as summarily as he would have dismissed
any other clerk in similar circumstances. If so, he was prepared to
welcome dismissal. Other men fought an unsheltered fight with the
world, so why not he?
He moved towards the door of the inner office with a certain
exhilaration.
As he approached, it flew open, disclosing Mr. Westley himself, a tall,
thin man, at the sight of whom Spiller shot into his seat like a rabbit.
John