THE Mortimer Hickses were in Rome; not, as they would in formertimes have been, in one of the antiquated hostelries of thePiazza di Spagna or the Porta del Popolo, where of old they hadso gaily defied fever and nourished themselves on local colour;but spread out, with all the ostentation of philistinemillionaires, under the piano nobile ceilings of one of thehigh-perched "Palaces," where, as Mrs. Hicks shamelesslydeclared, they could "rely on the plumbing," and "have theprivilege of over-looking the Queen Mother's Gardens."It was that speech, uttered with beaming aplomb at a dinner-table surrounded by the cosmopolitan nobility of the EternalCity, that had suddenly revealed to Lansing the profound changein the Hicks point of view.
As he looked back over the four months since he had sounexpectedly joined the Ibis at Genoa, he saw that the change,at first insidious and unperceived, dated from the ill-fated daywhen the Hickses had run across a Reigning Prince on histravels.
Hitherto they had been proof against such perils: both Mr. andMrs. Hicks had often declared that the aristocracy of theintellect was the only one which attracted them. But in thiscase the Prince possessed an intellect, in addition to his fewsquare miles of territory, and to one of the most beautifulField Marshal's uniforms that had ever encased a royal warrior.
The Prince was not a warrior, however; he was stooping, pacificand spectacled, and his possession of the uniform had beenrevealed to Mrs. Hicks only by the gift of a full-lengthphotograph in a Bond Street frame, with Anastasius writtenslantingly across its legs. The Prince--and herein lay theHickses' undoing--the Prince was an archaeologist: an earnestanxious enquiring and scrupulous archaeologist. Delicate health(so his suite hinted) banished him for a part of each year fromhis cold and foggy principality; and in the company of hismother, the active and enthusiastic Dowager Princess, hewandered from one Mediterranean shore to another, now assistingat the exhumation of Ptolemaic mummies, now at the excavation ofDelphic temples or of North African basilicas. The beginning ofwinter usually brought the Prince and his mother to Rome orNice, unless indeed they were summoned by family duties toBerlin, Vienna or Madrid; for an extended connection with theprincipal royal houses of Europe compelled them, as the PrincessMother said, to be always burying or marrying a cousin. Atother moments they were seldom seen in the glacial atmosphere ofcourts, preferring to royal palaces those of the other, and moremodern type, in one of which the Hickses were now lodged.
Yes: the Prince and his mother (they gaily avowed it) revelledin Palace Hotels; and, being unable to afford the luxury ofinhabiting them, they liked, as often as possible, to be invitedto dine there by their friends--"or even to tea, my dear," thePrincess laughingly avowed, "for I'm so awfully fond of butteredscones; and Anastasius gives me so little to eat in the desert."The encounter with these ambulant Highnesses had been fatal--Lansing now perceived it--to Mrs. Hicks's principles. She hadknown a great many archaeologists, but never one as agreeable asthe Prince, and above all never one who had left a throne tocamp in the desert and delve in Libyan tombs. And it seemed toher infinitely pathetic that these two gifted beings, whogrumbled when they had to go to "marry a cousin" at the Palaceof St. James or of Madrid, and hastened back breathlessly to thefar-off point where, metaphorically speaking, pick-axe and spadehad dropped from their royal hands--that these heirs of the agesshould be unable to offer themselves the comforts of up-to-datehotel life, and should enjoy themselves "like babies" when theywere invited to the other kind of "Palace," to feast on butteredscones and watch the tango.
She simply could not bear the thought of their privations; andneither, after a time, could Mr. Hicks, who found the Princemore democratic than anyone he had ever known at Apex City, andwas immensely interested by the fact that their spectacles camefrom the same optician.
But it was, above all, the artistic tendencies of the Prince andhis mother which had conquered the Hickses. There wasfascination in the thought that, among the rabble of vulgaruneducated royalties who overran Europe from Biarritz to theEngadine, gambling, tangoing, and sponging on no less vulgarplebeians, they, the unobtrusive and self-respecting Hickses,should have had the luck to meet this cultivated pair, whojoined them in gentle ridicule of their own frivolous kinsfolk,and whose tastes were exactly those of the eccentric, unreliableand sometimes money-borrowing persons who had hithertorepresented the higher life to the Hickses.
Now at last Mrs. Hicks saw the possibility of being at onceartistic and luxurious, of surrendering herself to the joys ofmodern plumbing and yet keeping the talk on the highest level.
"If the poor dear Princess wants to dine at the Nouveau Luxe whyshouldn't we give her that pleasure?" Mrs. Hicks smilinglyenquired; "and as for enjoying her buttered scones like a baby,as she says, I think it's the sweetest thing about her."Coral Hicks did not join in this chorus; but she accepted, withher curious air of impartiality, the change in her parents'
manner of life, and for the first time (as Nick observed)occupied herself with her mother's toilet, with the result thatMrs. Hicks's outline became firmer, her garments soberer in hueand finer in material; so that, should anyone chance to detectthe daughter's likeness to her mother, the result was lesslikely to be disturbing.
Such precautions were the more needful--Lansing could not butnote because of the different standards of the society in whichthe Hickses now moved. For it was a curious fact that admissionto the intimacy of the Prince and his mother-- who continuallydeclared themselves to be the pariahs, the outlaws, theBohemians among crowned heads nevertheless involved not onlyliving in Palace Hotels but mixing with those who frequentedthem. The Prince's aide-de-camp--an agreeable young man of easymanners--had smilingly hinted that their Serene Highnesses,though so thoroughly democratic and unceremonious, were yetaccustomed to inspecting in advance the names of the personswhom their hosts wished to invite with them; and Lansing noticedthat Mrs. Hicks's lists, having been "submitted," usually cameback lengthened by the addition of numerous wealthy and titledguests. Their Highnesses never struck out a name; they welcomedwith enthusiasm and curiosity the Hickses' oddest and mostinexplicable friends, at most putting off some of them to alater day on the plea that it would be "cosier" to meet them ona more private occasion; but they invariably added to the listany friends of their own, with the gracious hint that theywished these latter (though socially so well-provided for) tohave the "immense privilege" of knowing the Hickses. And thusit happened that when October gales necessitated laying up theIbis, the Hickses, finding again in Rome the august travellersfrom whom they had parted the previous month in Athens, alsofound their visiting-list enlarged by all that the capitalcontained of fashion.
It was true enough, as Lansing had not failed to note, that thePrincess Mother adored prehistoric art, and Russian music, andthe paintings of Gauguin and Matisse; but she also, and with abeaming unconsciousness of perspective, adored large pearls andpowerful motors, caravan tea and modern plumbing, perfumedcigarettes and society scandals; and her son, while apparentlyless sensible to these forms of luxury, adored his mother, andwas charmed to gratify her inclinations without cost tohimself--"Since poor Mamma," as he observed, "is so courageouswhen we are roughing it in the desert."The smiling aide-de-camp, who explained these things to Lansing,added with an intenser smile that the Prince and his mother wereunder obligations, either social or cousinly, to most of thetitled persons whom they begged Mrs. Hicks to invite; "and itseems to their Serene Highnesses," he added, "the mostflattering return they can make for the hospitality of theirfriends to give them such an intellectual opportunity."The dinner-table at which their Highnesses' friends were seatedon the evening in question represented, numerically, one of thegreatest intellectual opportunities yet afforded them. Thirtyguests were grouped about the flower-wreathed board, from whichEldorada and Mr. Beck had been excluded on the plea that thePrincess Mother liked cosy parties and begged her hosts thatthere should never be more than thirty at table. Such, atleast, was the reason given by Mrs. Hicks to her faithfulfollowers; but Lansing had observed that, of late, the sameskilled hand which had refashioned the Hickses' social circleusually managed to exclude from it the timid presences of thetwo secretaries. Their banishment was the more displeasing toLansing from the fact that, for the last three months, he hadfilled Mr. Buttles's place, and was himself their salariedcompanion. But since he had accepted the post, his obvious dutywas to fill it in accordance with his employers' requirements;and it was clear even to Eldorada and Mr. Beck that he had, asEldorada ungrudgingly said, "Something of Mr. Buttles'smarvellous social gifts. "During the cruise his task had not been distasteful to him. Hewas glad of any definite duties, however trivial, he felt moreindependent as the Hickses' secretary than as their pamperedguest, and the large cheque which Mr. Hicks handed over to himon the first of each month refreshed his languishing sense ofself-respect.
He con............