How did he ever do it? Why, those two scamps pretended, just to amuse each other and everybody else, to have a mock engagement--Checkers called it a "trial hitch." He says it worked like magic and they're onto it for all time and that you must give him "the glad hand." But oh, how unexpected for the rest of us--they've known each other for years. Seeing them so happy together makes me very lonely, A. D. I am glad to hear the new secretary has started over.
The house where we are staying is quite beautiful--of gray stone built in the château style, surrounded by formal gardens and terraces with fountains and statues. Mrs. Courtney serves mint juleps every afternoon in the gallery where superb tapestries hang on the walls, and the enormous stone fireplace has logs as big as trees burning in it. The German Ambassador, an old friend of Boris', by the way, is here, and also some racing swells.
Boris and I took a walk in the garden today and he pretended to tell me the story of his life, how his father was a Russian, his mother a German countess,--how he had lived in St. Petersburg till his father died,--how (and then he became vague), he wandered from place to place, but perhaps you know all this. He is passionately fond of horses, "me much Cossack" he said, whereupon I proposed a ride.
My mare pulled a good deal and Boris tightened the bit, but as we galloped along, both our mounts became excited and went faster and faster. Nearing a sharp corner, I sang out a warning to the Prince who was just behind. Then, suddenly his horse stumbled and fell. My mare stopped for I turned off the road into a brook. Looking back, I saw Boris lying on the ground very still, the horse standing by.
The terrifying thought swept over me that he had been killed and it was my fault, but he was only stunned and his face considerably cut and scratched. Though pretty well knocked out, Boris was game enough to mount again, so back we rode. He is going to wear a scar, but says it is nothing to the wound I have made on a more vital organ. Rather neat, don't you think so? Of course I have to be extra sweet to him on account of the accident.
We had great fun at dinner, just a series of jokes and laughs. Afterwards Mrs. Courtney went to the piano and we danced and danced till the clock struck twelve. The whole house is like fairyland, it is so wonderful, and oh, there's a winding secret stairway that is very mysterious. I can't make out where it comes from or where it goes, but in one place Mrs. Courtney can suddenly emerge into the library by slipping back a concealed panel. The Prince is greatly intrigued with it; I surprised him as he was trying to make a diagram of its wanderings.