That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was _the voice_!
He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he was, she was yet swifter and was far down the street before he was fairly started in pursuit. His one desire of the moment was to catch and conquer the sprite that tempted him.
Her veil fluttered out behind her on the breeze, like a signal of no-surrender, and once--only once--she looked back over her shoulder. She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint of her eye, but he heard the echo of that laugh--that voice--and it spurred him on and on.
Suddenly, by some turn known only to herself, she eluded him and escaped beyond his vision--and beyond his reach. He halted his panting horse at the crossing of several streets, and swore again. But though he looked searchingly in every possible direction, there was no trace of the fugitive to be seen. It was as though the earth had opened and swallowed horse and rider in one greedy gulp.
Baffled and more disappointed than he cared to own, Paul rode slowly back to Berkeley Square, his heart bounding with the excitement of the chase and yet thoroughly vexed over his failure, at himself, his horse, the girl.
At the house he found letters from the Regent awaiting him, recalling to him his position and its unwelcome responsibilities. One of them enclosed a full-length photograph of his future bride.
Fate had certainly been kind to him by granting his one expressed wish. The Princess Elodie was what he had desired, "quite six-foot tall." Yet he pushed the portrait aside with an impatient gesture, and before his mental vision rose a little figure tripping up the steps, with a backward glance that still seemed to pierce his very soul.
He was not thinking, as he certainly should have been, of the Princess Elodie! And he had not even noticed whether she had any eyes or not!
He looked again at the picture of the Austrian princess, lying face upward upon the pile of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept the offending portrait into a drawer, and summoning Vasili, began to make a hasty toilet.
Vasili had never seen his young master in such bad humor. He was unpardonably late for luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surely not to such an extent as this!