PRINCESS PROXY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20621, 21 July 1930, Page 16

PRINCESS PROXY.

BY RUSSELL WARREN

A BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN SERIAL, FULL OF THRILLS.

(COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XV. 'JHE PIUNCESS' LETTERS. Princo Bori3 upset his pinto of peach kernels with a crash. "Good!" ho ejaculated, and there was moro admiration than surprise in his tone. "Devilish good! Why shouldn't you ?" But Iho chancellor stroked his forefinger and looked doubtful. This was rather more than ho had expected. He appreciated with a grudging admiration Sylvia's acuteness and intelligence, her vigour of mind and independence of thought. So far these qualities had helped in his schemes, they had enabled her to carry out the impersonation even better than he had expected. But what was this that, she wanted now? Remain ; n her extraordinary position sho must, but it. was to lie as his tool. lie dared not give her a free hand to do as she chose. W itli much liberty she might wreck his carefully-laid plans. He had already experienced in his dealings with the princess the, difficulty of keeping control over a sell-willed woman. Sylvia, with the bit in her teeth, might b'o a moro harassing problem still. He was not ono to despise an opponent, and he, had a genuine and wholesome respect for the powerful character of the English girl. Sylvia read his thoughts. She had decided quickly that, it, would be better to leave tho chancellor for a littlo to adjust his mind to I his new aspect of tho position before sho went into tho details of her plans. " I will leave you to your cigars," she said graciously. "if you will come up to my boudoir afterwards, Radtzkoff, I will explain exactly what I want to do."

The chancellor Lowed. Piince. Boris, who had risen to open die door for her. looked back with a. request in his eyes that was quite pathetically humble. " Yes, prince," said the girl impulsively. "After all, you ought to be interested in the state, you ought to know what is going on. You may come, too," and sho swept briskly out of the room.

Back in her boudoir, she. stood by the window and gazed down on to tho smooth lawns, Ihe glowing flower beds, and the neat statue of Mercury, m the garden court, cut across by the fretted purple shadow of the bat demented wall on the further side. In the dim archway beyond sho could see a sentry, his pa!oblue uniform a bright spot, against, the purple and brown shadows behind him, marching to and fro with the precision of a clockwork figure. She realised, as sho had not quite realised befoie, that for the time being the soldier was there to guard her, the, troops in tho barracks down the liiii existed, in some part, to defend her. The ladies-in-waiting, the officials of tho court, the servants, grooms, gardeners, pageboys, were at her beck and call. This romantic old rattle, with its massive towers and tapering turrets, its sunlit, courtyards and cavernous gateways, its mullioned windows and ornate rooms and galleiies, was hers. Tho country was hers, the people were hers, if she ruled them wisely and rightly, for the next few months. She. only held them on trust, so to speak, but they were hers to rnnimand, to rule, to use. to mould into the £h;ipe she desired, if she. were strong enough to mould them. A week ago she had been littlo Miss Sylvia Savile, tapping tho keys of a typewriter every day from nine till six, bullied by a half educated clerk, going about in deadly fear of what, office, tradition called " the sack," lunching on milk and buns in a tea.shop, dressed in cheap clothes bought ready-made lo run up herself in the. evenings, living in a dingy, stuffy, cheap boarding-house, travelling lo and fro with a jostling, steaming, mannerless crowd in h smelling Tube, spoken to in the street by strange young men in cheap and ghastly clothes.

.And now—she had ;ill flic luxuries Karolia could furnish round her. She was playing tho part of n princess, and—others said so, and she knew ii herself—playing it, well: and she had bullied a prince of fho l'oya 1 Blood of Transtarpathia till he was ready (o eat out. of her hand, and she had snubbed a i hancellor of the lvoyal Household and graciously ordered him to come and go as slie chose. It was really all a. little- incredibly. Sho had really hardly had lime to grasp if. all before. Now. when she realised what llio had actually done, she marvelled.

She nulled herself together with a jerk. " Sylvia, my dear," she. warned herself, " you're gettjng t no cock a hoop. "\nuve got into this amazing position. You've, made the most of it, by the instinct the royal blood in your veins gives you, and by good, sound linglish common sense. For heaven's sake bang rn to your common-sense, ami don't let,"your successes turn your silly little head, or you II come a cropper." She turned away and looked round tho room with quick, alert eyes. '' Now, what can I do to amuse myself while I'm waiting for these men?" She was possessed with an eager restlessness that urged her all the time fo do something. The feeling that rhe had so much to do, and so little tune to do it in, obsessed her.

Her eyes, fell on the writing-table l,y the window, and her mind tkw bark to the bundle of letters she had, earlier in the morning, dropped into the tabic drawer.

" Ah," sho said, " tho princess's let ters."

Opening the drawer she took the packet out and balanced it irresolutely on the palm of her hand. "Even now," she said, thoughtfully, "I don't, like doing if. And yet I suppose I rnuwt." She sat, down in the chair, and picking .up a delicate paper knife, she slit, open the first envelope. It was an appeal rf some .sort for money or help. She laid if aside to bo put before Radtzkoff. Tho next was in the same strain. Several more were polite notes from, apparently, Karolian nobilil ies congratulating flic princess 011 tho success of the State Hall, according to some local etiquette, which she did not understand. And then she opened .1 letter on thick, ragged-edged nolepapcr, impressed with nit elaborate! coat-of-arins that sho did not recognise, surmounted by a crown, The letter was, the signature, informed her, from Princess Sophie's affectionate cousin Margaret la. Tho English girl bad no idea whom Sophie's affectionate cousin Margaretta might, be, but sho gathered that sho was a Royal personage of some, other State. Sophie's affectionate cousin Margaretta expressed—apparently in reiteration of a remark of some kind in another letter—her sorrow that her illness had prevented her from being at dear Sophie's wedding. Margaretta hoped everything had gone oil well. Dear Sophie must write, at once, (heavily underlined) and tell her affectionate cousin "Margaretla all about it, and what her husband Prince Boris was like, and And at tho end: "What does your clear little M. Paresco think about if ? Isn't, he desolated ? Poor, devoted little man! ITo is romantic-looking enough to drown himself, or do something tragically stupid liko that." Sylvia sat with this missive in her hand, and stared blankly out of (he window. The sentry, pacing up and down in his blue tunic, tho'glowing flowers, the impossibly-poised Mercury, seemed to parade in front of her in mockery. What on earth was she. to do about this? Sho could not. answer this letter. She did not know what the. princess's writing Mas like, but there was not the slightest doubt that it was very different from her own (inn, round band. Sophie',": affpctir.oate cousin Margaretta would see tlie ' difference at a glance. And on the other ho rid it was impossible to leave it unanswered for mnnihs 'i\l;:rca"ftfa would be clamouring to knov vly Let dear Sophie did not answer. Eventually she wrr.ld be alarmed, she would begin lo mako inquiries.

Sylvia could think of no way out of flic impasse. Utterly ignorant as sho whs of the thousand-and-ono things that made up (lir. Ufa of a Royal personage, it was only I.it by bit that the overwhelming difficulties of the task she had undertaken were coming homo to her. She could not have forseen them all at the beginning. The whole thing had looked impossible to her at first, but Radtzkoff, in Ins desperation to carry out what seemed to him to be the only scheme to save the extraordinary situation in which he found himself, had been so plausible, and she had succeeded so well thus far., that she had begun to believe that sho could carry out the impersonation indefinitely. Radtzkoff, of course, would find some ingenious exit from the difficulty. He had always a solution—plausible if not altogether convincing.. But sho could not show him the letter. Those few fatal words at iho end made it. impossible. Sho dared not let him read that hint of an intrigue. —however innocent it nn>, it he—between the princess and M. Sho dared not let him see them. And the fat-il, illuminating words were not even on the second leaf of the notcpaper, so that she could tear them off. On die other hand she must show the letter to him or to somebody, and find out who it' was from. 'J ho coat-of-arms convovorl nothing to her.. She might perhaps find some book in which she could trace its origin. With that and an Almanac dc Oothn she might be able lo discover the identity of Sophie s affectionate cousin Margarctta. J. hen she could put hun a hypothetical question about letters of that description, and ask him what sho should do.

Dut to ask him point blank who Margarctta was would be risky. Ho would erasp at once that she had had a lettei, and might, ask to see it. She could icfus.e | 0 j,|,ow it, lo him, of course; she could destroy it. But all that would lookstrange, ;iud arouse ins suspicions in ono wav or .mother.

She was not afraid of Radtzkoff herself. But she was genuinely afraid of his detective-liko powers of investigation and deduction, and she dreaded putting the poor princess into his power. * No. She. must ask his advice oil how to deal with tho princess's letters in some roundabout wav. Whatever happened, ho must know nothing of that damning missive from cousin Margarctta.

Her thoughts strayed to those last words of tho letter. Pareseo! That funny liUlo rabbit! Tho idea of the princess being involved in any kind of an intrigue with him was preposterous, ludicrous. But she could read 110 other meaning in tho words. Of course, the princess was capricious, pi'obab'v had queer tastes. After allthought Sylvia with British insularity, none of dice foreign men would appeal lo a healthy English girl. A foreigner like the. princess would have tastes different from her own.

This secret, sho supposed, accounted for little J'aresco's embarrassment in her presence. Whether he took her for the real princess, or whether ho knew of her impersonation, sho did not, know. But even in Iho lalter case Sylvia's resemblance, to Sophie, and her appearance in her place, would naturally discompose the. nervous littlo man, and might even inspire in him a vicarious affection. She, siniled at herself at Ihe idea. How queer it' all v.as! Pareseo, the furthest thing she could imagine from her idea ofthe romantic lover of a princess; Pareseo with his flat hair, his exquisite clothes, his slim figure and his quick, shy, nervous bunny-like movement ; . Tt would have htXTi fnnnv, l>'if sh r ; lV'lt* I bo. fh«jt lav beneath it. all.

Her mind vent Id. k to tlir problem j |of answering the letter. 'I Ins, she I thought, von id l>e a poser for Radtzkoffs I ingenious brain. It was curious that, he I had not foreseen (he situation. But after all Hie hnni/m miml is very limited; the most astute intriguer nt. some- time or olher overlooks .some important point in his schemes. It il,iv,ned upon hn\ now. that this! band-writing difficulty affected far more; thun the mere problem of answering the! letter. There would he plenty of other j letters (hut the proxy-princess would have ■ 10 answer. And not only that, she. had j plumed, in lier mind, to givo a hand- • some cheque to the. Sister of Mercy. She j had no scruples in using the princess private fund:; in a good cause. She was ! perfectly willing to accept the respotist-j hilitv for such a course, to explain to j Sophie Inter on, and to defend her action, ; to defend nil she meant to do, in giving 1 orders, making laws, miming the. country j for her in her name, But she could not j sign tilings for Sophie, even if she would. She was sure her signature, was nothing like the princess'. It would not, pass fori it.! even at >i casual glance. She could j not draw a diecpie.either for her own j purposes or to l.e',tow the princess' money j on others. With all this wealth and j luxury around her, villi no scruples j against using the Royal purse, so long j as she was tilling the throne, there was, j apparently, not a. penny she could touch, i Not only that. She hnd resolved to, malic fresh laws—to enforce, fair wages j for men and women: to institute State re- i lief for them, so that when they were ill ■ or injured through no fault of their own j they should not starve; tu arrange bin- j plovineiit for tho ; -e, who could not find | work; to sweep away Ihe horrible slums j and replace I hem with houses fit, fori human beings to live in; (•> impose taxes | on luxuries of the rich, and lessen the j heavy imposts that existed on the rieeessi- j tics of the poor. i But if she made they laws they, would t have to be signed. She could not sign; them in Sophie's name. And littlo as she knew of procedure, she was sure that, autocrat as she was, her signature would have, to pass a. council of some sort. She ! knew what solution Badtzkoff would sug- j gesl • and she knew that his aolution would lie impossible to her. She sat, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, gazing at an airy turret that glowed in the sunlight on the outer wall. " No." she said firmly, " I can't do that. li's forgery. I suppose- Count I'adl zkolf will say it's inconsistent, illogical. 1 can't ljelp il. I have some, scruples left after all, and (hat's one thing 1 won't do " A tap on the d»n>r disturbed lire thoughts. She turned in her chair to face it and called " Open." The. door swung slowly open. Radlzkoff I and the prince stood there, and as she caught sight of their faces, Sylvia rose to her feet and stood staring, her breath ( coming in little gasps, her bosom heaving, I So-in.' intuition revealed-what they had I (o tell her even before they spoke. She j felt it descending upon her like a black j cloud, like a swooping, dark, sinister, I winged fate. She opened her lips, but no | sound came. li.idtzkoff closed the door carefully behind him. " Mademoiselle," he began, his voice hoarse and trembling, " there is bad news f " Yon mean—she —" He bowed gravely. " Yes, mademoiselle; tho princess is dead." (To bo continued daily.) REI'TJSE TO CATCH COLD. GUARD MOUTH AND NOSE WITH FLI'ENZOL. Germs of winter ailments can eider the body only through month or nose. Guard these passages willi Flenzol and keep out disease. Refuse to catch cold this winter. ! Sniff up, gargle or swallow a little | I'lnenzol daily. Fluenzol possesses won- ' derfnl antiseptic and healing properties. I'set 1 regularly, it is a sure prever u'vt of erLfbh Colo's sore throat nnc inf'nerzii Ven "v'l.ir.p k all ir.fn.cr? n.p'iTranc? - an ideal ne'nllnw;h. Gel yoni Fiurnzo' tu-i'ur., Advt,