“Like that?” Princess Naji’s face was pale. “Does this woman have some strange hold on you, Mr. Walker?”
The Phantom took a deep breath. “Girls, please,” he said, backing away. “If I’d known you were going to be at each other’s throats this way, I never would have brought you together.”
Diana turned on the Phantom. “Just why did you bring us together?”
Princess Naji frowned and turned on the Phantom. “I also await your answer.”
The Phantom paled. “I thought you’d like each other. Two beautiful women, smart, sophisticated, intelligent—”
Simultaneously Princess Naji and Diana Palmer burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter?” the Phantom asked innocently.
Diana Palmer struggled to stop laughing. “The great Phantom can do anything—except handle women.”
“Especially beautiful women!” gasped Princess Naji with fits of mirth.
The Phantom flushed. “I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted you to like each other.”
The laughter ceased abruptly.
Princess Naji spoke softly. “Leave us alone for a few moments, Mr. Walker.”
Diana Palmer nodded. “Yes. We’ll settle this. It’s really none of your business.”
The Phantom protested. “But I don’t know if you’ll be safe with each other—”
They pushed him out of the room. The Phantom held his ear to the door panels, pondering the inscrutability and incomprehensibility of woman.
Two days later, the Phantom sat in the Cave of Skulls, still shaken by the encounter between Diana Palmer and Princess Naji.
Guran, the leader of the pygmies, sat at his feet, grinning with encouragement as he listened to the Phantom’s narration.
“And whom did you choose?”
The Phantom blinked. “I chose neither, fool! I simply listened outside the door, wondering when I should rush in to separate them. After all, I was intelligent enough to realize that they were going to fight each other—over me!”
Guran nodded. “Yes. Go on.”
“I couldn’t hear a thing. I waited around. I cooled my heels at the Princess’s door.” The Phantom shook his head ruefully. “Nothing.”
“But where is Diana Palmer now?” Guran asked.
“In Paris.”
“And where is the Princess?”
“In Paris.”
Guran half stood, his whole body shaking with anxiety. “O Ghost Who Walks, where is the bride of the Phantom?”
“There is no bride of the Phantom,” said the Phantom with a suddenly relaxed grin. “The Princess and Diana developed such an excellent friendship—I knew they would like one another—that they’re on a shopping spree in Paris and London.”
“But—but—when is the Phantom bringing his bride to the Cave of Skulls?” sputtered Guran.
The Phantom leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and grinned at the ceiling.
“When the shopping money runs out,” he answered. “And those two are the richest women in the world, I’m told.”
Guran looked stricken.
The Phantom chuckled, softly at first, and then with increasingly less restraint.
Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 14] Page 15