Отель «Гранд Вавилон» / The Grand Babylon hotel

’

�You envy me—what? My father’s wealth?’

�No,’ he said; �your freedom and your responsibilities.’

�I have no responsibilities,’ she remarked.

�Pardon me,’ he said; �you have, and the time is coming when you will feel them.’

�I’m only a girl,’ she murmured with sudden simplicity. �As for you, Count, surely you have sufficient responsibilities of your own?’

�I?’ he said sadly. �I have no responsibilities. I am a nobody—a Serene Highness who has to pretend to be very important, always taking immense care never to do anything that a Serene Highness ought not to do.

�But if your nephew, Prince Eugen, were to die, would you not come to the throne, and would you not then have these responsibilities which you so much desire?’

�Eugen die?’ said Prince Aribert, in a curious tone. �Impossible. He is the perfection of health. In three months he will be married. No, I shall never be anything but a Serene Highness, the most despicable of God’s creatures.

�But what about the State secret which you mentioned? Is not that a responsibility?’

�Ah!’ he said. �That is over. That belongs to the past. It was an accident in my dull career. I shall never be Count Steenbock again.’

�Who knows?’ she said. �By the way, is not Prince Eugen coming here to-day? Mr Dimmock told us so.’

�See!’ answered the Prince, standing up and bending over her.

�Don’t betray State secrets,’ she warned him, smiling into his face.

But just then the door of the room was unceremoniously opened.

�Go right in,’ said a voice sharply. It was Theodore Racksole’s. Two men entered, bearing a prone form on a stretcher, and Racksole followed them.

Nella sprang up. Racksole stared to see his daughter.

�I didn’t know you were in here, Nell.

�Why!’ exclaimed Nella, gazing fearfully at the form on the stretcher, �it’s Mr Dimmock!’

�It is,’ her father acquiesced. �He’s dead,’ he added laconically. �I’d have broken it to you more gently had I known. Your pardon, Prince.’ There was a pause.

�Dimmock dead!’ Prince Aribert whispered under his breath, and he kneeled down by the side of the stretcher.