The Prince of Graustark | Page 2

But she had sojourned with him long
enough, at odd times, to realise that, so long as he lived, he would
never run away from an argument--unless, by some dreadful hook or
crook, he should be so unfortunate as to be deprived of the use of both
hands. She found room to gloat, of course, in the fact that he was
obliged to stop up his ears in order to shut out the incontrovertible.
Moreover, when he called her "my dear" instead of the customary Lou,
it was a sign of supreme obstinacy on his part and could not, by any
stretch of the imagination, be regarded as an indication of placid
affection. He always said "my dear" at the top of his voice and with a
great deal of irascibility.
Mr. William W. Blithers was a self-made man who had begun his
career by shouting lustily at a team of mules in a railway construction
camp. Other drivers had tried to improve on his vocabulary but even
the mules were able to appreciate the futility of such an ambition, and
later on, when he came to own two or three railroads, to say nothing of
a few mines and a steam yacht, his ability to drive men was even more
noteworthy than his power over the jackasses had been. But driving
mules and men was one thing, driving a wife another. What incentive
has a man, said he, when after he gets through bullying a creature that
very creature turns in and caresses him? No self- respecting mule ever

did such a thing as that, and no man would think of it except with
horror. There is absolutely no defence against a creature who will rub
your head with loving, gentle fingers after she has worked you up to the
point where you could kill her with pleasure--or at least so said Mr.
Blithers with rueful frequency.
Mr. and Mrs. Blithers had been discussing royalty. Up to the previous
week they had restricted themselves to the nobility, but as an event of
unexampled importance had transpired in the interim, they now felt that
it would be the rankest stupidity to consider any one short of a Prince
Royal in picking out a suitable husband--or, more properly speaking,
consort--for their only daughter, Maud Applegate Blithers, aged
twenty.
Mrs. Blithers long ago had convinced her husband that no ordinary
human being of the male persuasion was worthy of their daughter's
hand, and had set her heart on having nothing meaner than a Duke on
the family roll,--(Blithers alluded to it for a while as the pay- roll)--,
with the choice lying between England and Italy. At first, Blithers,
being an honest soul, insisted that a good American gentleman was all
that anybody could ask for in the way of a son-in- law, and that when it
came to a grandchild it would be perfectly proper to christen him
Duke--lots of people did!--and that was about all that a title amounted
to anyway. She met this with the retort that Maud might marry a man
named Jones, and how would Duke Jones sound? He weakly suggested
that they could christen him Marmaduke and--but she reminded him of
his oft-repeated boast that there was nothing in the world too good for
Maud and instituted a pictorial campaign against his prejudices by
painting in the most alluring colours the picture of a ducal palace in
which the name of Jones would never be uttered except when employed
in directing the fifth footman or the third stable-boy--or perhaps a
scullery maid--to do this, that or the other thing at the behest of her
Grace, the daughter of William W. Blithers. This eventually worked on
his imagination to such an extent that he forgot his natural pride and
admitted that perhaps she was right.
But now, just as they were on the point of accepting, in lieu of a Duke,

an exceptionally promising Count, the aforesaid event conspired to
completely upset all of their plans--or notions, so to speak. It was
nothing less than the arrival in America of an eligible Prince of the
royal blood, a ruling Prince at that. As a matter of fact he had not only
arrived in America but upon the vast estate adjoining their own in the
Catskills.
Fortunately nothing definite had been arranged with the Count. Mrs.
Blithers now advised waiting a while before giving a definite answer to
his somewhat eager proposal, especially as he was reputed to have
sufficient means of his own to defend the chateau against any
immediate peril of profligacy. She counselled Mr. Blithers to notify
him that he deemed it wise to take the matter under advisement for a
couple of weeks at least, but not to commit himself to anything
positively negative.
Mr. Blithers