My father rushed up to me after dark. Embracing me and holding me by the
hand, he congratulated me with his whole heart. The desire of his life
was accomplished; the thing he had plotted for ages had come to pass. He
praised me infinitely. My glorious future, he said, was to carry a
princess to England and sit among the, highest there, the husband of a
lady peerless in beauty and in birth, who, in addition to what she was
able to do for me by way of elevation in my country, could ennoble in her
own territory. I had the option of being the father of English nobles or
of German princes; so forth. I did not like the strain; yet I clung to
him. I was compelled to ask whether he had news of any sort worth
hearing.

'None,' said he calmly; 'none. I have everything to hear, nothing to
relate; and, happily, I can hardly speak for joy.' He wept.

He guaranteed to have the margravine at the chateau within a week, which
seemed to me a sufficient miracle. The prince, he said, might require
three months of discretionary treatment. Three further months to bring
the family round, and the princess would be mine. 'But she is yours! she
is yours already!' he cried authoritatively. 'She is the reigning
intellect there. I dreaded her very intellect would give us all the
trouble, and behold, it is our ally! The prince lives with an elbow out
of his income. But for me it would be other parts of his person as well,
I assure you, and the world would see such a princely tatterdemalion as
would astonish it. Money to him is important. He must carry on his mine.
He can carry on nothing without my help. By the way, we have to deal out
cheques?'

I assented.

In spite of myself, I caught the contagion of his exuberant happiness and
faith in his genius. The prince had applauded his energetic management of
the affairs of the mine two or three times in my hearing. It struck me
that he had really found his vocation, and would turn the sneer on those
who had called him volatile and reckless. This led me to a luxurious
sense of dependence on him, and I was willing to live on dreaming and
amused, though all around me seemed phantoms, especially the French
troupe, the flower of the Parisian stage: Regnault, Carigny, Desbarolles,
Mesdames Blanche Bignet and Dupertuy, and Mdlle. Jenny Chassediane, the
most spirituelle of Frenchwomen. 'They are a part of our enginery,
Richie,' my father said. They proved to be an irresistible attraction to
the margravine.