“He’s got a blacksmith shop, with two rooms above, and I’m going to stop with him for a few months as soon as I get my leave. When the cruiser reaches England we pay off, and I expect to have nothing to do for six months, so Jack and I will make for St. Petersburg.”
“Why do you call him Lamont? Is it taken from his real name of what-d’ye-call-it-off?”
“Lermontoff? Yes. The Czar Demetrius, some time about the beginning of the seventeenth century, established a Scottish Guard, just as Louis XI did in France two hundred years before, and there came over from Scotland Lamonts, Carmichaels, Buchanans and others, on whom were bestowed titles and estates. Prince Ivan Lermontoff is a descendant of the original Lamont, who was an officer in the Scottish Guard of Russia.
“That’s what I tell him when he annoys me, as I am by way of being a Scotchman myself. Ah, the waltz is ended. Will you excuse me a moment while I fetch his Highness?”
Dorothy inclined her head, and Katherine fairly beamed permission.
“Oh, Dorothy,” she exclaimed, when the Lieutenant was out of hearing, “think of it! A real prince, and my ambition has never risen higher than a paltry count, or some plebeian of that sort. He’s mine, Dorothy; I found him first.”
“I thought you had appropriated the Lieutenant?”
“What are lieutenants to me? The proud daughter of a captain (retired) cannot stoop to a mere lieutenant.”
“You wouldn’t have to stoop far, Kate, with so tall a man as Mr. Drummond.”
“You are beginning to take notice, aren’t you, Dot? But I bestow the Lieutenant freely upon you, because I’m going to dance with the Prince, even if I have to ask him myself.
She’ll toddle away, as all aver, With the Lord High Executioner.
Ah, here they come. Isn’t he perfectly splendid? Look at his beard! Just the color of a brand-new twenty-dollar gold piece. See that broad ribbon diagonally across him. I wonder what it means. And gaze at those scintillating orders on his breast. Good gracious me, isn’t he splendid?”
“Yes, for a blacksmith. I wonder if he beat those stars out on his anvil. He isn’t nearly so tall as Lieutenant Drummond.”
“Dorothy, I’ll not allow you to disparage my Prince. How can you be so disagreeable? I thought from the very first that the Lieutenant was too tall. If the Prince expects me to call him ‘your Highness,’ he’ll be disappointed.”