Lucy was silent and dejected for a day or two, being filled with pity for Mr. Perry's ruined life. But when she saw his name in a list of outgoing passengers on the Paris her heart gave a bound of relief. Nothing more could now be done. That chapter was closed. There had been no other chapter of moment in her life, she told herself sternly. Now, all the clouds had cleared away. It was a new day. She would begin again.
So she put on new clothes, none of which she had ever worn before, and tied back her curly hair with a fresh white ribbon, and came down to breakfast singing gayly.
Miss Vance gave her her roll and milk in silence, and frowning importantly, drew out a letter.
"Lucy, I have just received a communication from Prince Wolfburgh. He is in Bozen."
"Here!" Lucy started up, glancing around like a chased hare.
Then she sat down again and waited. There was no other chapter, and the book was so blank!
"His coming is very opportune," she said presently, gently.
"Oh! do YOU think so, my dear? Really! Well, I always have liked the young man. So simple. So secure of his social position. The Wolfburghs, I find, go back to the eleventh century. Mr. Perry had noble traits, but one never felt quite safe as to his nails or his grammar."
"But the prince—the prince?" cried Jean.
"Oh, yes. Well, he writes—most deferentially. He begs for the honor of an interview with me this afternoon upon a subject of the most vital importance. He says, 'regarding you, as I do, in loco parentis to the hochgeboren Fraulein Dunbar.'" "Hochgeboren!" said Lucy. "My grandfather was a saddler. Tell him so, Miss Vance. Tell him the exact facts. I want no disclosures after——"
"After marriage?" said Jean, rising suddenly. "Then you have decided?"
"I have not said that I had decided," replied Lucy calmly.
Jean laughed. "He will not be scared by the saddler. Europeans of his order take no account of our American class distinctions. They look upon us as low-born parvenues, all alike. They weigh and value us by other standards than birth."
"I have money, if you mean that, Jean," said Lucy cheerfully.
"I think you had better go away, girls, if you have finished your dejeuner. He may be here at any moment now," said Clara, looking anxiously at her watch.
Lucy went to her little chamber and sat down to work at a monstrous caricature which she was painting of the church. Jean paced up and down the stone corridor, looking out of the window into the Platz.
"He has come," she said excitedly, appearing at Lucy's door. "He went into the church first, to say an ave for help, poor little man! His fat face is quite pale and stern. It is a matter of life and death to him. And it's no more to you than the choosing of a new coat."
Lucy smiled and sketched in a priest on the church steps. Her hand shook, but Jean could not see that. She went to the window again with something like an inward oath at the dolts of commonplace women who had all the best chances, but was back in a moment, laughing nervously.
"Do you know he has on that old brown suit?" She leaned against the jamb of the door. "If I were a prince, and came a-wooing, I would have troops of my Jagers, and trumpets and banners with the arms of my House, and I'd wear all my decorations. Of course we Americans are bound to say that rank and royalty are dead things. But if I had them, I'd galvanize the corpses! If they are useful as shows, I'd make the show worth seeing. I'd cover myself with jewels like the old Romanoffs. You would never see Queen Jean in a slouchy alpaca and pork-pie hat like Victoria." While her tongue chattered, her eyes watched Lucy keenly. "You don't hear me! You are deciding what to do. Why on earth should you hesitate? He is a gentleman—he loves you!" and then to Lucy's relief she suddenly threw on her hat and rushed off for a walk.
Miss Dunbar painted the priest's robe yellow, in her agitation. But the agitation was not deep. There really seemed no reason why she should hesitate. He would be kind; he was well-bred and agreeable. A princess? She had a vague idea of a glorified region of ancestral castles and palaces in which dukes and royalties dwelt apart and discoursed of high matters. She would be one of them.
The other day there seemed to be no reason why she should not marry Mr. Perry. In marriage then one must only consider the suitability of the man? There was nothing else to consider——
With a queer, hunted look in her soft eyes she worked on, daubing on paint liberally.
Meanwhile, in the little salle below, Miss Vance sat stiffly erect, while the prince talked in his shrill falsetto. Although he set forth his affection for the engelreine Madchen as simply as the little German baker in Weir (whom he certainly did resemble) might have done, she could find, in her agitation, no fitting words in which to answer him. That she, Clara Vance, should be the arbiter in a princely alliance! At last she managed to ask whether Miss Dunbar had given him any encouragement on which to found his claim.
"Ah, Fraulein Vance!" he cried, laughing. "The hare does not call to the hounds! But I have no fear. She speaks to me in other ways than by words.
"'Mein Herz und seine AugenVerstehen sich gar so gut!'
You know the old song. Ah, ja! I understand what she would say—here!" touching his heart.
He paced up and down, smiling to himself. Suddenly he drew up before her, tossing his hands out as if to throw away some pleasant dream. "I have come to you, gracious lady, as I would to the mother of Miss Dunbar. I show to you the heart! But before I address her it is necessary that I shall consult her guardian with regard to business."
It was precisely, Clara said afterward, as if the baker from Weir had stopped singing, and presented his bill.
"Business?" she gasped. "Oh, I see! Settlements. We don't have such things in the States. But I quite understand all those European social traits. I have lived abroad for years. I——"
"Who is Miss Dunbar's guardian?" the prince demanded alertly. He sat down by the table and took out a notebook and papers.
"But—settlements? Is not that a little premature?" she ventured. "She has not accepted you."
"HE may not accept my financial proposals. It is business, you see. The gentle ladies, even die Amerikaner, do not comprehend business. It is not, you perceive, dear lady, the same when the head of the House of Wolfburgh allies himself with a hochgeboren Fraulein as when the tailors marry——"
"Nor bakers. I see," stammered Clara.
"Miss Dunbar's properties are valuable. Her estate in Del-aware," glancing at his notebook, "is larger than some of our German kingdoms. Her investments in railway and mining securities, if put on the market, should be worth a million of florins. These are solid matters, and must be dealt with carefully."
"But, good gracious, Prince Wolfburgh!" cried Miss Vance, "how did you find out about Lucy's investments?"
He looked at her in amazement. "Meine gnadigste Fraulein! It is not possible that you supposed that in such a matter as this men leap into the dark—the men of rank, princes, counts, English barons, who marry the American mees? That they do not know for what they exchange their—all that they give? I will tell you," with a condescending smile. "There are agents in the States—in New York—in Chicago—in—how do you name it? St. Sanata. They furnish exact information as to the dot of the lady who will, perhaps, marry here. Oh, no! We do not leap into the dark!"
"So I perceive," said Clara dryly. "And may I inquire, your Highness, what financial arrangement you propose, in case she becomes your wife?"
"Assuredly." He hastily unfolded a large paper. "This must be accepted by her guardian before the betrothal can take place. I will translate, in brief. The whole estate passes to me, and is secured to me in case of my wife's death without issue. I inserted that clause," he said, looking up, smiling, for approval, "because American Frauleins are so fragile—not like our women. I will, of course, if we have issue, try to preserve the real estate for my heir, and the remaining property for my other children."
"It seems to me that a good deal is taken for granted there," said Clara, whose cheeks were very hot. "And where does Miss Dunbar come into this arrangement? Is she not to have any money at all?"
"My widow, should I die first, will be paid an annuity from my estate. But while Mees Lucy is my wife,Iwill buy all that she needs. I will delight to dress her, to feed her well. With discretion, of course. For there are many channels into which my income must flow. But I will not be a niggardly husband to her! No, no!" cried the little man in a glow.
"That is very kind of you. But she will not have any of her own money to spend? In her own purse? To fling into the gutter if she chooses?"
The prince laughed gayly. "How American you are, gracious lady! A German wife does not ask for her 'own purse.' My wife will cease to be American; she will be German," patting his soft hands ecstatically. "But you have not told me the name of her guardian?"
"Lucy," said Miss Vance reluctantly, "is of age. She has full control of her property. A Trust Company manages it for her, but they have no authority to stop her if she chooses to—throw it into the gutter."
The prince looked up sharply. Could this be a trick? But if it were, the agent would find out for him. He rose.
"To have the sole disposal of her own hand and of her fortune? That seems strange to us," he said, smiling. "But I have your consent, most dear lady, to win both, if I can?"
"Oh, yes, prince. If you can."
He took her hand and bowed profoundly over it, but no courtly grace nor words could bring back Clara's awe of him. She had a vague impression that the Weir baker had been wrangling with her about his bill.
"Your Highness has asked a good many questions," she said. "May I put one to you? Did you inquire concerning Miss Hassard's dot, also?" "Ah, certainly! Why not? It is very large. I have spoken of it to my cousin Count Odo. But the drawback—her father still lives. He may marry again. Her dot depends upon his good pleasure. Whereas Miss Dunbar is an orphan; and besides that, she is so dear to me!" clasping his hands, his face red with fervor. "So truly dear!"
And she knew that he honestly meant it.
When Miss Vance came into the corridor after she had reported this interview to Lucy, Jean swept her into her room and dragged the whole story from her. In fact the poor anxious lady was glad to submit it to the girl's shrewd hard sense.
"You told him that she was the uncontrolled mistress of her money!"
"It is the truth. I had to tell him the truth, my dear."
"Yes, I suppose so, for he would have found it out anyhow."
"I do feel," panted Clara, "as if I had put a dove into the claws of a vulture."
"Not at all," said Jean promptly. "The little man has a heart, but an empty pocket. Was Lucy interested most in his love or his bargaining?"
"In neither, I think. She just went on painting, and said nothing."
"Oh, she will decide the matter in time! She will bring her little intellect to bear on it as if it were a picnic for her Sunday-school class!" Jean stood silent a while. "Miss Vance," she said suddenly, "let me engineer this affair for a few days. I can help you."
"What do you propose to do, Jean?"
"To leave Bozen to-morrow. For Munich."
"But the Wolfburghs have a palace or—something in Munich. Is it quite delicate for us——"
"It is quite rational. Let us see what the something is. So far in our dealings with principalities and powers, we have had a stout little man—with no background." The prince was startled when he was told of this sudden journey, but declared that he would follow them to-morrow.
Lucy, as usual, asked no questions, but calmly packed her satchel.
As the little train, the next day, lumbered through the valley of the Eisach, she sat in her corner, reading a newspaper. Miss Vance dozed, or woke with a start to lecture on points of historic interest.
"Why don't you look, Lucy? That monastery was a Roman fortress in the third century. And you are missing the color effects of the vineyards."
"I can look now. I have finished my paper." Lucy folded it neatly and replaced it in her bag. "I have read the Delaware State Sun," she said triumphantly, "regularly, every week since we left home. When I go back I shall be only seven days behind with the Wilmington news."
Jean glanced at her contemptuously. "Look at that great castle on yonder mountain," she said. "You could lodge a village inside of the ramparts. Do you think Wolfburgh Schloss is like that? The prince told us last night," turning to Miss Vance, "the old legends about his castle. The first Wolfburgh was a Titan about the time of Noah, and married a human wife, and with his hands tore open the mountain for rocks to lay the foundation of his house. According to his story there were no end of giants and trolls and kings concerned in the building of it," she went on, furtively watching the deepening pink in Lucy's cheek. "The Wolfburgh of Charlemagne's day was besieged by him, and another entertained St. Louis and all his crusaders within the walls." Jean's voice rose shrilly and her eyes glowed. She leaned forward, looking eagerly across the fields. "The prince told us that the Schloss of his race had for centuries been one of the great fortresses of Christendom. And here it is! Now we shall see—we shall see!"
The car stopped. The guard opened the door and Miss Vance and Lucy suddenly found themselves swept by Jean on to the platform, while the little train rumbled on down the valley. Miss Vance cried out in dismay.
"Never mind. There will be another train in a half hour," said Jean. "Here is the Schloss," pointing to a pepper-box tower neatly whitewashed, which rose out of a huge mass of broken stone. "And here, I suppose, is the capital of the kingdom over which the Wolfburghs now reign feudal lords?"
Clara found herself against her will looking curiously at the forge, the dirty shop, the tiny bier-halle, and a half a dozen huts, out of which swarmed a few old women and children.
"Where are the men of this village?" Jean demanded of the station master, a stout old man with a pipe in his mouth.
"Gone to America, for the most part," he said, with a shrug.
Lucy came up hastily, an angry glitter in her soft eyes. "You have no right to make me play the spy in this way!" she said haughtily, and going into the little station sat down with her back to the door.
"You? It is I—I——" muttered Jean breathlessly. "And who lives in the tower, my good man? It is not big enough for a dozen hens." She slipped a florin into his hand.
"Four of the noble ladies live there. The princesses. The gracious sisters of Furst Hugo. There come two of them now."
A couple of lean, wrinkled women dressed in soiled merino gowns and huge black aprons, their hair bristling in curl papers, crossed the road, peering curiously at the strangers.
"They came to look at you, Fraulein," said the man, chuckling. "Strangers do not stop at Wolfburgh twice in the year."
"And what do the noble ladies do all the year?"
"Jean, Jean!" remonstrated Clara.
"Oh, Miss Vance! This is life and death to some of us! What do they do?"
"Do?" said the man, staring. "What shall any gracious lady do? They cook and brew, and crochet lace and——"
"Are there any more princesses—sisters of Furst Hugo?"
"Two more. They live in Munich. No, none of them are married. Because," he added zealously, "there are no men as high-born as our gracious ladies, so they cannot marry."
"No doubt that accounts for it," said Jean. "Six. These are 'the channels into which the income will flow,' hey?" She gave him more money, and marching into the station caught Lucy by the shoulder, shaking her passionately. "Do you think any American girl could stand that? How would YOU like to be caged up in that ridiculous tower to cook and crochet and brew beer and watch the train go by for recreation? The year round—the year round?"
Lucy rose quietly. "The train is coming now," she said. "Calm yourself, Jean. YOU will not have to live in the tower."
Jean laughed. When they were seated in the car again, she looked wistfully out at the heaps of ruins.
"It must have been a mighty fortress once," she said. "Those stones were hewed before Charlemagne's time. And a great castle could easily be built with them now," she added thoughtfully.
The travellers entered Munich at noon. The great generous city lay tranquil and smiling in the frosty sunlight.
"I have secured apartments," said Miss Vance, "used hitherto by royalties or American millionaires. My girl must be properly framed when a prince comes a-wooing."
Lucy smiled. But her usual warm color faded as they drove through the streets. Jean, however, was gay and eager.
"Ah, the dear splendid town!" she cried. "It always seems to give us a royal welcome. Nothing is changed! There is the music in the Kellers, and there go the same Bavarian officers with their swagger and saucy blue eyes. They are the handsomest men in Europe! And here is the Munchen-kindl laughing at us, and the same crowds are going to the Pinakothek! What do you want more? Beer and splendor and fun and art! What a home it will be for you, Lucy!"
Lucy's cold silence did not check Jean's affectionate zeal. She anxiously searched among the stately old buildings, which they passed, for the Wolfburgh palace. "It will not be in these commonplace Haussmannized streets," she said. "It is in some old corner; it has a vast, mysterious, feudal air, I fancy. You will hold a little court in it, and sometimes let a poor American artist from Pond City in to hang on the edge of the crowd and stare at the haute noblesse."
"Don't be absurd, Jean," said Miss Vance.
"I am quite serious. I think an American girl like Lucy, with her beauty and her money, will be welcomed by these German nobles as a white swan among ducks. She ought to take her place and hold it." Jean's black eyes snapped and the blood flamed up her cheeks. "If I were she I'd make my money tell! I'd buy poor King Ludwig's residence at Binderhof, with the cascades and jewelled peacocks and fairy grottos, for my country seat. The Bavarian nobility are a beggarly lot. If they knew that Lucy and her millions were coming to town in this cab, they'd blow their trumpets for joy. 'Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave!'" Lucy's impatient shrug silenced her, but she was preoccupied and excited throughout the day. Miss Vance watched her curiously. Could it be that she had heard of the prince's plan of marrying her to his cousin, and that she was building these air castles for herself?
A day or two sufficed to make Miss Vance's cheery apartments the rendezvous of troops of Americans of all kinds: from the rich lounger, bored by the sight of pictures, which he did not understand, and courts which he could not enter, to the half-starved, eager-eyed art students, who smoked, and drank beer, and chattered in gutturals, hoping to pass for Germans.
There were plenty of idle young New Yorkers and Bostonians too, hovering round Lucy and Jean, overweighted by their faultless London coats and trousers and fluent French. But they deceived nobody; they all had that nimble brain, and that unconscious swagger of importance and success which stamps the American in every country. Prince Hugo, in his old brown suit, came and went quietly among them.
"The genuine article!" Jean declared loudly. "There is something royal in his hospitality! He lays all Munich at Lucy's feet, as if it were his own estate, and the museums and palaces were the furniture of his house. That homely simplicity of his is tremendously fine, if she could understand it!"
The homely genuineness had its effect even upon Lucy. The carriage which he brought to drive them to Isar-anen was scaly with age, but the crest upon it was the noblest in Bavaria; in the cabinet of portraits of ancient beauties in the royal palace he showed her indifferently two or three of his aunts and grandmothers, and in the historical picture of the anointing of the great Charlemagne, one of his ancestors, stout and good-humored as Hugo himself, supported the emperor.
"The pudgy little man," said Jean one day, "somehow belongs to the old world of knights and crusaders—Sintram and his companions. He will make it all real to Lucy when she marries him. He is like Ali Baba, standing at the shut door of the cave full of jewels and treasures with the key in his hand."
"Those Arabian Night stories are simply silly," said Lucy severely. "I am astonished that any woman in this age of the world should read that kind of trash."
"But the prince's cave?" persisted Jean. "When are we to look into it? I want to be sure of the treasures inside. When are we to go to his palace? When will his sisters ask us to dinner?"
Miss Vance looked anxious. "That is a question of great importance," she said. "The princesses have invited me through their brother to call. It is of course etiquette here for the stranger to call first, but I don't wish to compromise Lucy by making advances."
There was a moment's silence, then Lucy said, blushing and faltering a little, "It would be better perhaps to call, and not prejudice them, by any discourtesy, against us. The prince is very kind."
"So! The wind is in that quarter?" Jean said, with a harsh laugh.
She jumped up and went to her own room. She was in a rage at herself. Why had she not run away to Paris months ago and begun her great picture of the World's mother, Eve? There was a career for her! And thinking—perhaps of Eve—she cried hot salt tears.
A week passed, but the question of the first call was not yet settled. It required as much diplomacy as an international difficulty. Furst Hugo represented the princesses as "burning with impatience to behold the engelreine Madchen whom they hoped to embrace as a sister," but no visible sign of their ardor reached Miss Vance.
On Monday Jean went to spend the day with some of her artist friends, but at noon she dashed into the room where Clara and Lucy sat sewing, her dark face blotched red, and her voice stuttering with excitement.
"I have seen into the cave!" she shouted. "I have got at the truth! It's a rather stagy throne, the Wolfburghs! Plated, cheap!"
"What is the matter with you?" said Miss Vance.
"Nothing is the matter with ME. It is Lucy's tragedy. I've seen the magnificent ancient palace of the Wolfburghs. It is a flat! In the very house where I went to-day. The third story flat just under the attics where the poor Joneses daub portraits. I passed the open doors and I saw the shabby old tables and chairs and the princesses—two fat old women in frowzy wrappers, and their hair in papers, eating that soup of pork and cabbages and raisins—the air was thick with the smell! And that is not the worst!"
"Take breath, Jean," said Lucy calmly.
"The prince himself—the Joneses told me, there can be no doubt—the prince makes soap for a living! No wonder you turn pale, Miss Vance. Soap! He is the silent partner in the firm of Woertz und Zimmer, and it is not a paying business either."
Jean did not wait for an answer, but walked up and down the room, laughing angrily to herself. "Yes, soap! He cannot sneer at Lucy's ancestral saddles, now. Nor my father's saws! His rank is the only thing he has to give for Lucy's millions, and now she knows what it is worth!"
Lucy rose and, picking up her work basket, walked quietly out of the room. Jean flashed an indignant glance after her.
"She might have told me that he gave himself! Surely the man counts for something! Anyhow, rank like his is not smirched by poverty or trade. Bismarck himself brews beer."
"Your temper is contradictory to-day," said Clara coldly. "Did you know," she said presently, "that the princesses will be at the Countess von Amte's to-morrow?"
"Then we shall meet them!" cried Jean. "Then something will be settled."
Lucy locked the door of her chamber after her. She found much comfort in the tiny bare room with its white walls and blue stove, and the table where lay her worn Bible and a picture of her old home. The room seemed a warm home to her now. Above the wall she had hung photographs of the great Madonnas, and lately she had placed one of Frances Waldeaux among them. That was the face on which she looked last at night. When Clara had noticed it, Lucy had said, "I am as fond of the dear lady as if she were my own mother."
She sat down before it now, and taking out her sewing began to work, glancing up at it, half smiling as to a friend who talked to her. She thought of Furst Hugo boiling soap, with a gentle pity, and of Jean with hot disdain. What had Jean to do with it? The prince was her own lover, as her gloves were her own.
But indeed, the prince and love were but shadows on the far sky line to the little girl; the real things were her work and her Bible, and George's mother talking to her. She often traced remembered expressions on Mrs. Waldeaux's face; the gayety, the sympathy, a strange foreboding in the eyes. Finer meanings, surely, than any in the features of these immortal insipid Madonnas!
Sometimes Lucy could not decide whether she had seen these meanings on Frances Waldeaux's face, or on her son's.
She sewed until late in the afternoon. There came a tap at the door. She opened it, and there stood Mrs. Waldeaux, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Lucy jumped at her, trembling, and hugged her.
"Oh, come in! Come in!" she cried shrilly. "I have just been thinking of you and talking to you!"
Frances laughed, bewildered. "Oh, it is Miss Dunbar? The man sent me here by mistake to wait. Miss Vance is out, he said."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I—I am here." Lucy threw her arms around her again, laying her head down on her shoulder. She felt as if something that she had waited for a long time was coming to her. "Sit by the stove. Your hands are like ice," she said.
"Yes, I am usually cold now; I don't know why."
Lucy then saw a curious change in her face. The fine meanings were not in it now. It was fatter—coarser; the hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass eyes of a doll.
"You are always cold? Your blood is thin, perhaps. You are overtired, dear. Have you travelled much?"
"Oh, yes! all of the time. I have seen whole tracts of pictures, and no end of palaces and hotels—hotels—hotels!" Frances said, awakening to the necessity of being talkative and vivacious with the young girl. She threw off her cloak. There was a rip in the fur, and the dirty lining hung out. Lucy shuddered. Mrs. Waldeaux's blood must have turned to water, or she would never have permitted that!
"You must rest now. I will take care of you," she said, with a little nod of authority. Frances looked at her perplexed. Why should this pretty creature mother her with such tenderness?
Oh! It was the girl that George should have married!
She glanced at the white room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that never could come to her!
"I am glad you are here, my child. You can tell me what I want to know. I have not an hour to spare. I am going to my son—to George. Do you know where he is?"
"At Vannes, in Brittany."
"Brittany—that is a long way." Frances rose uncertainly. "I hoped he was near. I was in a Russian village, and Clara's letter was long in finding me. When I got it, I travelled night and day. I somehow thought I should meet him on the way. I fancied he would come to meet me."
Lucy's blue eyes watched her keenly a moment. Then she rang the bell.
"You must eat, first of all," she said.
"No, I am not hungry. Vannes, you said? I must go now. I haven't an hour."
"You have two, exactly. You'll take the express at eight. Oh, I'm never mistaken about a train. Here is the coffee. Now, I'll make you a nice sandwich."
Frances was faint with hunger. As she ate, she watched the pretty matter-of-fact little girl, and laughed with delight. When had she found any thing so wholesome? It was a year, too, since she had seen any one who knew George. Naturally, she began to empty her heart, which was full of him, to Lucy.
"I have not spoken English for months," she said, smiling over her coffee. "It is a relief! And you are a friend of my son's, too?"
"No. A mere acquaintance," said Lucy, with reserve.
"No one could even see George and not understand how different he is from other men."
"Oh! altogether different!" said Lucy. "Yes, you understand. And there was that future before him—when his trouble came. Oh, I've thought of it, and thought of it, until my head is tired! He fell under that woman's influence, you see. It was like mesmerism, or the voodoo curse that the negroes talk of. It came on me too. Why, there was a time when I despised him. George!" Her eyes grew full of horror. "I left him, to live my own life. He has staggered under his burden alone, and I could have rid him of it. Now there are two of them."
"Two of them?" said Lucy curiously.
"There is a baby—Pauline Felix's grandson. I beg your pardon, my child, I ought not to have named her. She is not a person whom you should ever hear of. He has them both,—George. He has that weight to carry." She stood up. "That is why I am going to him. It must be taken from him."
"You mean—a divorce?"
"I don't know—I can't think clearly. But God does such queer things! There are millions of men in the world, and this curse falls on—George!"
Lucy put her hands on the older woman's arms and seated her. "Mrs. Waldeaux," she said, with decision, "you need sleep, or you would not talk in that way. Lisa is not a curse. Nor a voodoo witch. She came to your son instead of to any other man—because he chose her out from all other women. He had seen them." She held her curly head erect. "As he did choose her, he should make the best of her."
Frances looked at her as one awakened out of a dream. "You talk sensibly, child. Perhaps you are right. But I must go. Ring for a cab, please. No, I will wait in the station. Clara would argue and lecture. I could not stand that to-night," with her old comical shrug.
Lucy's entreaties were vain.
But as the train rushed through the valley of the Isar that night, Frances looked forward into the darkness with a nameless terror. "That child was so healthy and sane," she said, "I wish I had stayed with her longer."
Prince Hugo had made no secret of his intentions with regard to Miss Dunbar, so that when it was known that his sisters and the rich American Mees would at last meet at the Countess von Amte's there was a flutter of curiosity in the exclusive circle of Munich. The countess herself called twice on Clara that day, so great was her triumph that this social event would occur at her house.
She asked boldly "Which of Miss Dunbar's marvellous Parisian confections will she wear? It is so important for her future happiness that the princesses should be favorably impressed! Aber, lieber Gott!" she shrieked, "don't let her speak French! Not a word! That would be ruin! They are all patriotism!" She hurried away, and ran back to say that the sun was shining as it had not done for days.
"She thinks nature itself is agog to see how the princesses receive Lucy," said Miss Vance indignantly. "One would suppose that the child was on trial."
"So she is. Me, too," said Jean, wistfully regarding the bebe waist of the gown which Doucet had just sent her. "I must go as an ingenue. I don't play the part well!"
"No, you do not," said Clara.
Miss Vance tapped at Lucy's door as she went down, and found her working at her embroidery. "You must lie down for an hour, my dear," she said, "and be fresh and rosy for this evening."
"I am not going. I must finish these pinks. I have just sent a note of apology to the countess."
"Not going!" Clara gasped, dismayed. Then she laughed with triumph. "The princesses and all the Herrschaft of Munich will be there to pass judgment on the bride, and the bride will be sitting at home finishing her pinks! Good!"
"I am no bride!" Lucy rose, stuck her needle carefully in its place, and came closer to Miss Vance. "I have made up my mind," she said earnestly. "I shall never marry. My life now is quiet and clean. I'm not at all sure that it would be either if I were the Princess Wolfburgh."
Clara stroked her hair fondly. "Your decision is sudden, my dear," she faltered, at last.
"Yes. There was something last night. It showed me what I was doing. To marry a man just because he is good and kind, that is—vile!" The tears rushed to her eyes. There was a short silence.
"Don't look so aghast, dear Miss Vance," said Lucy cheerfully. "Go now and dress to meet the Herrschaft."
"And what will you do, child?"
"I really must finish these pinks to-night." She took up her work. Her chin trembled a little. "We won't speak of this again, please," she said. "I never shall be a bride or a wife or mother. I will have a quiet, independent life—like yours."
The sunshine fell on the girl's grave, uplifted face, on the white walls, the blue stove, and the calm, watching Madonnas. Clara, as Mrs. Waldeaux had done, thought of a nun in her cell to whom love could only be a sacred dream.
She smiled back at Lucy, bade her goodnight, and closed the door.
"Like mine?" she said, as she went down the corridor. "Well, it is a comfortable, quiet life. But empty——" And she laid her hand suddenly across her thin breast.
Jean listened in silence when Clara told her briefly that Lucy was not going.
"She is very shrewd," she said presently. "She means to treat them de haut en bas from the outset. It is capital policy."
Jean, when she entered the countess's salon, with downcast eyes, draped in filmy lace without a jewel or flower, was shy innocence in person. Furst Hugo stood near the hostess, with two stout women in shabby gowns and magnificent jewels.
"The frocks they made themselves, and the emeralds are heirlooms," Jean muttered to Clara, without lifting her timid eyes.
"Miss Dunbar is not coming?" exclaimed the prince.
"No," said Miss Vance.
"The Fraulein is ill?" demanded one of his sisters.
"No," Clara said, again smiling. "WE expected to meet her," the younger princess said. "It is most singular——"
"She has sent her apology to the countess," said Clara gently, and passed on.
But her little triumph was short lived.
A famous professional soprano appeared in a white-ribboned enclosure at the end of the salon, and the guests were rapidly arranged according to their rank to listen. Clara and Jean stood until every man and woman were comfortably seated, when they were placed in the back row.
When the music was over supper was announced, and the same ceremony was observed. The Highnessess, the hochwohlgeboren privy councillors, the hochgeboren secretaries, even the untitled Herren who held some petty office, were ushered with profound deference to their seats at the long table, while Clara stood waiting. Jean's eyes still drooped meekly, but even her lips were pale.
"How can you look so placid?" she whispered. "It is a deliberate insult to your gray hairs."
"No. It is the custom of the country. It does not hurt me."
They were led at the moment to the lowest seats. Jean shot one vindictive glance around the table.
"You have more wit and breeding than any of them!" she said. "And as for me, this lace I wear would buy any of their rickety old palaces."
"They have something which we cannot buy," said Miss Vance gravely. "I never understood before how actual a thing rank is here."
"Cannot it be bought? I am going to look into that when this huge feed is over," Miss Hassard said to herself.
Late in the evening she danced with Count Odo, and prattled to him in a childish, frank fashion which he found very charming.
"Your rules of precedence are very disagreeable!" she pouted. "Especially when one sits at the foot of the table and is served last."
"They must seem queer to you," he said, laughing, "but they are inflexible as iron."
"But they will bend for Miss Dunbar, if she makes up her mind to marry your cousin?" she asked, looking up into his face like an innocent child.
"No. Hugo makes a serious sacrifice in marrying a woman of no birth," he said. "He must give up his place and title as head of the family. She will not be received at court nor in certain houses; she must always remain outside of much of his social life."
He led her back to Miss Vance. She seemed to be struck dumb, and even forgot to smile when he bowed low and thanked her for the dance.
"Let us go home," she whispered to Clara. "The American girl is a fool who marries one of these men!"
When Miss Vance's carriage reached her hotel, she found Prince Hugo's coupe before the door.
"He has come to see Lucy, alone!" she said indignantly, as she hurried up the steps. "He has no right to annoy her!"
She met him coming out of the long salle. The little man walked nervously, fingering his sword hilt. He could not control his voice when he tried to speak naturally.
"Yes, gracious lady, I am guilty. It was unpardonable to come when I knew the chaperone was gone. But—ach! I could not wait!" throwing out both hands to her. "I have waited so long! I knew when she did not come to meet my sisters to-night she had resolved against me, but I could not sleep uncertain. So I break all the laws, and come!"
"You have seen her, then? She has told you?"
He nodded without speaking. His round face was red, and something like tears stood in his eyes.
He waited irresolute a moment, and then threw up his head.
"Soh! It is over! I shall not whine! You have been very good to me," he said earnestly, taking Clara's hand. "This is the first great trouble in my life. I have loved her very dearly. I decided to make great sacrifices for her. But I am not to have her—never."
"I am so sorry for you, prince." Clara squeezed his hand energetically. "Nor her dot. That would have been so comfortable for me," he said simply.
Clara hid a smile, and bade him an affectionate good-night.
As he passed into the outer salle a childish figure in creamy lace rose before him, and a soft hand was held out. "I know what has happened!" she whispered passionately. "She has treated you scandalously! She cannot appreciate YOU!"
Prince Hugo stuttered and coughed and almost kissed the little hand which lay so trustingly in his. He found himself safely outside at last, and drove away, wretched to the soul.
But below his wretchedness something whispered: "SHE appreciates me, and her dot is quite as large."