'Just what I say. If a million pounds will save Prince Eugen's life, it is at his disposal.'
'But how - how have you managed it? By what miracle?'
'My father,' she replied softly, 'will do anything that I ask him. Do not let us waste time. Go and tell Eugen it is arranged, that all will be well.
Go!'
'But we cannot accept this - this enormous, this incredible favour.
It is impossible.'
'Aribert,' she said quickly, 'remember you are not in Posen holding a Court reception. You are in England and you are talking to an American girl who has always been in the habit of having her own way.'
The Prince threw up his hands and went back in to the bedroom.
The doctor was at a table writing out a prescription. Aribert approached the bedside, his heart beating furiously. Eugen greeted him with a faint, fatigued smile.
'Eugen,' he whispered, 'listen carefully to me. I have news. With the assistance of friends I have arranged to borrow that million for you. It is quite settled, and you may rely on it. But you must get better. Do you hear me?'
Eugen almost sat up in bed. 'Tell me I am not delirious,' he exclaimed.
'Of course you aren't,' Aribert replied. 'But you mustn't sit up. You must take care of yourself.'
'Who will lend the money?' Eugen asked in a feeble, happy whisper.
'Never mind. You shall hear later. Devote yourself now to getting better.'
The change in the patient's face was extraordinary. His mind Chapter seemed to have put on an entirely different aspect. The doctor was startled to hear him murmur a request for food. As for Aribert, he sat down, overcome by the turmoil of his own thoughts. Till that moment he felt that he had never appreciated the value and the marvellous power of mere money, of the lucre which philosophers pretend to despise and men sell their souls for. His heart almost burst in its admiration for that extraordinary Nella, who by mere personal force had raised two men out of the deepest slough of despair to the blissful heights of hope and happiness. 'These Anglo-Saxons,' he said to himself, 'what a race!'
By the afternoon Eugen was noticeably and distinctly better. The physicians, puzzled for the third time by the progress of the case, announced now that all danger was past. The tone of the announcement seemed to Aribert to imply that the fortunate issue was due wholly to unrivalled medical skill, but perhaps Aribert was mistaken. Anyhow, he was in a most charitable mood, and prepared to forgive anything.
'Nella,' he said a little later, when they were by themselves again in the ante-chamber, 'what am I to say to you? How can I thank you?
How can I thank your father?'
'You had better not thank my father,' she said. 'Dad will affect to regard the thing as a purely business transaction, as, of course, it is. As for me, you can - you can - '
'Well?'
'Kiss me,' she said. 'There! Are you sure you've formally proposed to me, mon prince?'
'Ah! Nell!' he exclaimed, putting his arms round her again. 'Be mine! That is all I want!'
'You'll find,' she said, 'that you'll want Dad's consent too!'
'Will he make difficulties? He could not, Nell - not with you!'
'Better ask him,' she said sweetly.
A moment later Racksole himself entered the room. 'Going on all right?' he enquired, pointing to the bedroom. 'Excellently,' the lovers answered together, and they both blushed.
'Ah!' said Racksole. 'Then, if that's so, and you can spare a minute, I've something to show you, Prince.'
