He laughed, looking down into her serious upturned face. A brief smile of understanding flitted across her lips as she broke away from him and threw herself into the arms of tall, excited Uncle Caspar. The conductor, several trainmen and a few eager passengers came up, the former crusty and snappish.
“Well, get aboard!” he growled. “We can't wait all night.”
The young lady looked up quickly, her sensitive face cringing beneath the rough command. Lorry stepped instantly to the conductor's side, shook his finger vigorously under his nose, and exclaimed in no uncertain tones:
“Now, that's enough from you! If I hear another word out of you, I'll make you sweat blood before tomorrow morning. Understand, my friend.”
“Aw, who are you?” demanded the conductor, belligerently.
“You'll learn that soon enough. After this you'll have sense enough to find out whom you are talking to before you open that mouth of yours. Not another word!” Mr. Grenfall Lorry was not president of the road, nor was he in any way connected with it, but his well assumed air of authority caused the trainman's ire to dissolve at once.
“Excuse me, sir. I've been worried to death on this run. I meant no offence. That old gentleman has threatened to kill me. Just now he took out his watch and said if I did not run back for his niece in two minutes he'd call me out and run me through. I've been nearly crazy here. For the life of me, I don't see how you happened to be—”
“Oh, that's all right. Let's be off,” cried Lorry, who had fallen some distance behind his late companion and her uncle. Hurrying after them, he reached her side in time to assist her in mounting the car steps.
“Thank you,” smiling down upon him bewitchingly. At the top of the steps she was met by her aunt, behind whom stood the anxious man-servant and the maid. Into the coach she was drawn by the relieved old lady, who was critically inspecting her personal appearance when Lorry and the foreigner entered.
“Ach, it was so wild and exhilarating, Aunt Yvonne,” the girl was saying, her eyes sparkling. She stood straight and firm, her chin in the air, her hands in those of her aunt. The little traveling cap was on the side of her head, her hair was loose and very much awry, strands straying here, curls blowing there in utter confusion. Lorry fairly gasped with admiration for the loveliness that would not be vanquished.
“We came like the wind! I shall never, never forget it,” she said.
“But how could you have remained there, child? Tell me how it happened. We have been frantic,” said her aunt, half in English, half in German.
“Not now, dear Aunt Yvonne. See my hair! What a fright I must be! Fortunate man, your hair cannot be so unruly as mine. Oh!” The exclamation was one of alarm. In an instant she was at his side, peering with terrified eyes at the bloodstains on his neck and face. “It is blood! You are hurt! Uncle Caspar, Hedrick—quick! Attend him! Come to my room at once. You are suffering. Minna, find bandages!”
She dragged him to the door of her section before he could interpose a remonstrance.
“It is nothing—a mere scratch. Bumped my head against the side of the coach. Please don't worry about it; I can care for myself. Really, it doesn't—”
“But it does! It has bled terribly. Sit there! Now, Hedrick, some water.”
Hedrick rushed off and was back in a moment with a basin of water, a sponge and a towel, and before Grenfall fully knew what was happening, the man-servant was bathing his head, the others looking on anxiously, the young lady apprehensively, her hands clasped before her as she bent over to inspect the wound above his ear.
“It is quite an ugly cut,” said Uncle Caspar, critically. “Does it pain you, sir?”
“Oh, not a great deal,” answered Lorry, closing his eyes comfortably. It was all very pleasant, he thought.
“Should it not have stitches, Uncle Caspar?” asked the sweet, eager voice.
“I think not. The flow is staunched. If the gentleman will allow Hedrick to trim the hair away for a plaster and then bandage it I think the wound will give him no trouble.” The old man spoke slowly and in very good English.
“Really, Uncle, is it not serious?”
“No, no,” interposed Grenfall Lorry. “I knew it was a trifle. You cannot break an American's head. Let me go to my own section and I'll be ready to present myself, as good as new, in ten minutes.”
“You must let Hedrick bandage your head,” she insisted. “Go with him, Hedrick.”
Grenfall arose and started toward his section, followed by Hedrick.
“I trust you were not hurt during that reckless ride,” he said, more as a question, stopping in the aisle to look back at her.
“I should have been a mass of bruises, gashes and lumps had it not been for one thing,” she said, a faint flush coming to her cheek, although her eyes looked unfalteringly into his. “Will you join us in the dining car? I will have a place prepared for you at our table.”
“Thank you. You are very good. I shall join you as soon as I am presentable.”
“We are to be honored, sir,” said the old gentleman, but in such a way that Grenfall had a distinct feeling that it was he who was to be honored. Aunt Yvonne smiled graciously, and he took his departure. While Hedrick was dressing the jagged little cut, Grenfall complacently surveyed the patient in the mirror opposite, and said to himself a hundred times: “You lucky dog! It was worth forty gashes like this. By Jove, she's divine!”
In a fever of eager haste he bathed and attired himself for dinner, the imperturbable Hedrick assisting. One query filled the American's mind: “I wonder if I am to sit beside her.” And then: “I have sat beside her! There can never again be such delight!”
It was seven o'clock before his rather unusual toilet was completed. “See if they have gone to the diner, Hedrick,” he said to the man-servant, who departed ceremoniously.
“I don't know why he should be so damned polite,” observed Lorry, gazing wonderingly after him. “I'm not a king. That reminds me. I must introduce myself. She doesn't know me from Adam.”
Hedrick returned and announced that they had just gone to the dining car and were awaiting him there. He hurried to the diner and made his way to their table. Uncle Caspar and his niece were facing him as he came up between the tables, and he saw, with no little regret, that he was to sit beside the aunt—directly opposite the girl, however. She smiled up at him as he stood before them, bowing. He saw the expression of inquiry in those deep, liquid eyes of violet as their gaze wandered over his hair.
“Your head? I see no bandage,” she said, reproachfully.
“There is a small plaster and that is all. Only heroes may have dangerous wounds,” he said, laughingly.
“Is heroism in America measured by the number of stitches or the size of the plaster?” she asked, pointedly. “In my country it is a joy, and not a calamity. Wounds are the misfortune of valor. Pray, be seated, Mr. Lorry is it not?” she said, pronouncing it quaintly.
He sat down rather suddenly on hearing her utter his name. How had she learned it? Not a soul on the train knew it, he was sure.
“I am Caspar Guggenslocker. Permit me, Mr. Lorry, to present my wife and my niece, Miss Guggenslocker,” said the uncle, more gracefully than he had ever heard such a thing uttered before.
In a daze, stunned by the name,—Guggenslocker, mystified over their acquaintance with his own when he had been foiled at every fair attempt to learn theirs, Lorry could only mumble his acknowledgments. In all his life he had never lost command of himself as at this moment. Guggenslocker! He could feel the dank sweat of disappointment starting on his brow. A butcher,—a beer maker,—a cobbler,—a gardener,—all synonyms of Guggenslocker. A sausage manufacturer's niece—Miss Guggenslocker! He tried to glance unconcernedly at her as he took up his napkin, but his eyes wavered helplessly. She was looking serenely at him, yet he fancied he saw a shadow of mockery in her blue eyes.
“If you were a novel writer, Mr. Lorry, what manner of heroine would you choose?” she asked, with a smile so tantalizing that he understood instinctively why she was reviving a topic once abandoned. His confusion was increased. Her uncle and aunt were regarding him calmly,—expectantly, he imagined.
“I—I have no ambition to be a novel writer,” he said, “so I have not made a study of heroines.”
“But you would have an ideal,” she persisted.
“I'm sure I—I don't—that is, she would not necessarily be a heroine. Unless, of course, it would require heroism to pose as an ideal for such a prosaic fellow as I.”
“To begin with, you would call her Clarabel Montrose or something equally as impossible. You know the name of a heroine in a novel must be euphonious. That is an exacting rule.” It was an open taunt, and he could see that she was enjoying his discomfiture. It aroused his indignation and his wits.
“I would first give my hero a distinguished name. No matter what the heroine's name might be—pretty or otherwise—I could easily change it to his in the last chapter.” She flushed beneath his now bright, keen eyes and the ready, though unexpected retort. Uncle Caspar placed his napkin to his lips and coughed. Aunt Yvonne studiously inspected her bill of fare. “No matter what you call a rose, it is always sweet,” he added, meaningly.
At this she laughed good-naturedly. He marveled at her white teeth and red lips. A rose, after all. Guggenslocker, rose; rose, not Guggenslocker. No, no! A rose only! He fancied he caught a sly look of triumph in her uncle's swift glance toward her. But Uncle Caspar was not a rose—he was Guggenslocker. Guggenslocker—butcher! Still, he did not look the part—no, indeed. That extraordinary man a butcher, a gardener, a—and Aunt Yvonne? Yet they were Guggenslockers.
“Here is the waiter,” the girl observed, to his relief. “I am famished after my pleasant drive. It was so bracing, was it not Mr. Grenfall Lorry?”
“Give me a mountain ride always as an appetizer,” he said, obligingly, and so ended the jest about a name.
The orders for the dinner were given and the quartette sat back in their chairs to await the coming of the soup. Grenfall was still wondering how she had learned his name, and was on the point of asking several times during the conventional discussion of the weather, the train and the mountains. He considerately refrained, however, unwilling to embarrass her.
“Aunt Yvonne tells me she never expected to see me alive after the station agent telegraphed that we were coming overland in that awful old carriage. The agent at P—— says it is a dangerous road, at the very edge of the mountain. He also increased the composure of my uncle and aunt by telling them that a wagon rolled off yesterday, killing a man, two women and two horses. Dear Aunt Yvonne, how troubled you must have been.”
“I'll confess there were times when I thought we were rolling down the mountain,” said Lorry, with a relieved shake of the head.
“Sometimes I thought we were soaring through space, whether upward or downwards I could not tell. We never failed to come to earth, though, did we?” she laughingly asked.
“Emphatically! Earth and a little grief,” he said, putting his hand to his head.
“Does it pain you?” she asked, quickly.
“Not in the least. I was merely feeling to see if the cut were still there. Mr—Mr. Guggenslocker, did the conductor object to holding the train?” he asked, remembering what the conductor had told him of the old gentleman's actions.
“At first, but I soon convinced him that it should be held,” said the other, quietly.
“My husband spoke very harshly to the poor man,” added Aunt Yvonne. “But, I am afraid, Caspar, he did not understand a word you said. You were very much excited.” The sweet old lady's attempts at English were much more laborious than her husband's.
“If he did not understand my English, he was very good at guessing,” said her husband, grimly.
“He told me you had threatened to call him out,” ventured the young man.
“Call him out? Ach, a railroad conductor!” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, in fine scorn.
“Caspar, I heard you say that you would call him out,” interposed his wife, with reproving eyes.
“Ach, God! God! I have made a mistake! I see it all! It was the other word I meant—down not out! I intended to call him down, as you Americans say. I hope he will not think I challenged him.” He was very much perturbed.
“I think he was afraid you would,” said Lorry.
“He should have no fear. I could not meet a railroad conductor. Will you please tell him I could not so condescend? Besides, dueling is murder in your country, I am told.”
“It usually is, sir. Much more so than in Europe.” The others looked at him inquiringly. “I mean that in America when two men pull their revolvers and go to shooting at each other, some one is killed—frequently both. In Europe, as I understand it, a scratch with a sword ends the combat.”
“You have been misinformed,” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, his eyebrows elevated.
“Why, Uncle Caspar has fought more duels than he can count,” cried the girl, proudly.
“And has he slain his man every time?” asked Grenfall, smilingly, glancing from one to the other. Aunt Yvonne shot a reproving look at the girl, whose face paled instantly, her eyes going quickly in affright to the face of her uncle.
“God!” Lorry heard the old gentleman mutter. He was looking at his bill of fare, but his eyes were fixed and staring. The card was crumpling between the long, bony fingers. The American realized that a forbidden topic had been touched upon.
“He has fought and he has slain,” he thought as quick as a flash, “He is no butcher, no gardener, no cobbler. That's certain!”
“Tell us, Uncle Caspar, what you said to the conductor,” cried the young lady, nervously.
“Tell them, Caspar, how alarmed we were,” added soft-voiced Aunt Yvonne. Grenfall was a silent, interested spectator. He somehow felt as if a scene from some tragedy had been reproduced in that briefest of moments. Calmly and composedly, a half smile now in his face, the soldierly Caspar narrated the story of the train's run from one station to the other.
“We did not miss you until we had almost reached the other station. Then your Aunt Yvonne asked me where you had gone. I told her I had not seen you, but went into the coach ahead to search. You were not there. Then I went on to the dining car. Ach, you were not there. In alarm I returned to our car. Your aunt and I looked everywhere. You were not anywhere. I shall never forget your aunt's face when she sank into a chair, nor shall I feel again so near like dying as when she suggested that you might have fallen from the train. I sent Hedrick ahead to summon the conductor, but he had hardly left us when the engine whistled sharply and the train began to slow up in a jerky fashion. We were very pale as we looked at each other, for something told us that the stop was unusual. I rushed to the platform meeting Hedrick, who was as much alarmed as I. He said the train had been flagged, and that there must be something wrong. Your aunt came out and told me that she had made a strange discovery.”
Grenfall observed that he was addressing himself exclusively to the young lady.
“She had found that the gentleman in the next section was also missing. While we were standing there in doubt and perplexity, the train came to a standstill, and soon there was shouting on the outside. I climbed down from the car and saw that we were at a little station. The conductor came running toward me excitedly.
“'Is the young lady in the car?' he asked.
“'No. For Heaven's sake, what have you heard?' I cried.
“'Then she has been left at O——,'' he exclaimed, and used some very extraordinary American words.
“I then informed him that he should run back for you, first learning that you were alive and well. He said he would be damned if he would—pardon the word, ladies. He was very angry, and said he would give orders to go ahead, but I told him I would demand restitution of his government. He laughed in my face, and then I became shamelessly angry. I said to him:
“'Sir, I shall call you down—not out, as you have said—and I shall run you through the mill.'
“That was good American talk, sir, was it not, Mr. Lorry? I wanted him to understand me, so I tried to use your very best language. Some gentlemen who are traveling on this train and some very excellent ladies also joined in the demand that the train be held. His despatch from O—— said that you, Mr. Lorry, insisted on having it held for twenty minutes. The conductor insulted you, sir, by saying that you had more—ah, what is it?—gall than any idiot he had ever seen. When he said that, although I did not fully understand that it was a reflection on you, so ignorant am I of your language, I took occasion to tell him that you were a gentleman and a friend of mine. He asked me your name, but, as I did not know it, I could only tell him that he would learn it soon enough. Then he said something which has puzzled me ever since. He told me to close my face. What did he mean by that, Mr. Lorry?”
“Well, Mr. Guggenslocker, that means, in refined American, 'stop talking,'” said Lorry, controlling a desire to shout.
“Ach, that accounts for his surprise when I talked louder and faster than ever. I did not know what he meant. He said positively he would not wait, but just then a second message came from the other station. I did not know what it was then, but a gentleman told me that it instructed him to hold the train if he wanted to hold his job. Job is situation, is it not? Well, when he read that message he said he would wait just twenty minutes. I asked him to tell me how you were coming to us, but he refused to answer. Your aunt and I went at once to the telegraph man and implored him to tell us the truth, and he said you were coming in a carriage over a very dangerous road. Imagine our feelings when he said some people had been killed yesterday on that very road.
“He said you would have to drive like the—the very devil if you got here in twenty minutes.”
“We did, Uncle Caspar,” interrupted Miss Guggenslocker, naively. “Our driver followed Mr. Lorry's instructions.”
Mr. Grenfall Lorry blushed and laughed awkwardly. He had been admiring her eager face and expressive eyes during Uncle Caspar's recital. How sweet her voice when it pronounced his name, how charming the foreign flavor to the words.
“He would not have understood if I had said other things,” he explained, hastily.
“When your aunt and I returned to the train we saw the conductor holding his watch. He said to me: 'In just three minutes we pull out. If they are not here by that time they can get on the best they know how. I've done all I can: I did not say a word, but went to my section and had Hedrick get out my pistols. If the train left before you arrived it would be without its conductor. In the meantime, your Aunt Yvonne was pleading with the wretch. I hastened back to his side with my pistols in my pocket. It was then that I told him to start his train if he dared. That man will never know how close he was to death. One minute passed, and he coolly announced that but one minute was left. I had made up my mind to give him one of my pistols when the time was up, and to tell him to defend himself. It was not to be a duel, for there was nothing regular about it. It was only a question as to whether the train should move. Then came the sound of carriage wheels and galloping horses. Almost before we knew it you were with us. I am so happy that you were not a minute later.”
There was something so cool and grim in the quiet voice, something so determined in those brilliant eyes, that Grenfall felt like looking up the conductor to congratulate him. The dinner was served, and while it was being discussed his fair companion of the drive graphically described the experience of twenty strange minutes in a shackle-down mountain coach. He was surprised to find that she omitted no part, not even the hand clasp or the manner in which she clung to him. His ears burned as he listened to this frank confession, for he expected to hear words of disapproval from the uncle and aunt. His astonishment was increased by their utter disregard of these rather peculiar details. It was then that he realized how trusting she had been, how serenely unconscious of his tender and sudden passion. And had she told her relatives that she had kissed him, he firmly believed they would have smiled approvingly. Somehow the real flavor of romance was stricken from the ride by her candid admissions. What he had considered a romantic treasure was being calmly robbed of its glitter, leaving for his memory the blurr of an adventure in which he had played the part of a gallant gentleman and she a grateful lady. He was beginning to feel ashamed of the conceit that had misled him. Down in his heart he was saying: “I might have known it. I did know it. She is not like other women.” The perfect confidence that dwelt in the rapt faces of the others forced into his wondering mind the impression that this girl could do no wrong.
“And, Aunt Yvonne,” she said, in conclusion, “the luck which you say is mine as birthright asserted itself. I escaped unhurt, while Mr. Lorry alone possesses the pain and unpleasantness of our ride.”
“I possess neither,” he objected. “The pain that you refer to is a pleasure.”
“The pain that a man endures for a woman should always be a pleasure,” said Uncle Caspar smilingly.
“But it could not be a pleasure to him unless the woman considered it a pain,” reasoned Miss Guggenslocker. “He could not feel happy if she did not respect the pain.”
“And encourage it,” supplemented Lorry, drily. “If you do not remind me occasionally that I am hurt, Miss Guggenslocker, I am liable to forget it.” To himself he added: “I'll never learn how to say it in one breath.”
“If I were not so soon to part from you I should be your physician, and, like all physicians, prolong your ailment interminably,” she said, prettily.
“To my deepest satisfaction,” he said, warmly, not lightly. There was nothing further from his mind than servile flattery, as his rejoinder might imply. “Alas!” he went on, “we no sooner meet than we part. May I ask when you are to sail?”
“On Thursday,” replied Mr. Guggenslocker.
“On the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” added his niece, a faraway look coming into her eyes.
“We are to stop off one day, to-morrow, in Washington,” said Aunt Yvonne, and the jump that Lorry's heart gave was so mighty that he was afraid they could see it in his face.
“My uncle has some business to transact in your city, Mr. Lorry. We are to spend tomorrow there and Wednesday in New York. Then we sail. Ach, how I long for Thursday!” His heart sank like lead to the depths from which it had sprung. It required no effort on his part to see that he was alone in his infatuation. Thursday was more to her than his existence; she could forget him and think of Thursday, and when she thought of Thursday, the future, he was but a thing of the past, not even of the present.
“Have you always lived in Washington, Mr. Lorry?” asked Mrs. Guggenslocker.
“All my life,” he replied wishing at that moment that he was homeless and free to choose for himself.
“You Americans live in one city and then in another,” she said. “Now, in our country generation after generation lives and dies in one town. We are not migratory.”
“Mr. Lorry has offended us by not knowing where Graustark is located on the map,” cried the young lady, and he could see the flash of resentment in her eyes.
“Why, my dear sir, Graustark is in—” began Uncle Caspar, but she checked him instantly.
“Uncle Caspar, you are not to tell him. I have recommended that he study geography and discover us for himself. He should be ashamed of his ignorance.”
He was not ashamed, but he mentally vowed that before he was a day older he would find Graustark on the map and would stock his negligent brain with all that history and the encyclopedia had to say of the unknown land. Her uncle laughed, and, to Lorry's disappointment, obeyed the young lady's command.
“Shall I study the map of Europe, Asia or Africa?” asked he, and they laughed.
“Study the map of the world,” said Miss Guggenslocker, proudly.
“Edelweiss is the capital?”
“Yes, our home city,—the queen of the crags,” cried she. “You should see Edelweiss, Mr. Lorry. It is of the mountain, the plain and the sky. There are homes in the valley, homes on the mountain side and homes in the clouds.”
“And yours? From what you say it must be above the clouds—in heaven.”
“We are farthest from the clouds, for we live in the green valley, shaded by the white topped mountains. We may, in Edelweiss, have what climate we will. Doctors do not send us on long journeys for our health. They tell us to move up or down the mountain. We have balmy spring, glorious summer, refreshing autumn and chilly winter, just as we like.”
“Ideal! I think you must be pretty well toward the south. You could not have July and January if you were far north.”
“True; yet we have January in July. Study your map. We are discernible to the naked eye,” she said, half ironically.
“I care not if there are but three inhabitants Graustark, all told, it is certainly worthy of a position on any map,” said Lorry, gallantly; and his listeners applauded with patriotic appreciation. “By the way, Mr. Gug—Guggenslocker, you say the conductor asked you for my name and you did not know it. May I ask how you learned it later on?” His curiosity got the better of him, and his courage was increased by the champagne the old gentleman had ordered.
“I did not know your name until my niece told it to me after your arrival in the carriage,” said Uncle Caspar.
“I don't remember giving it to Miss Guggenslocker at any time,” said Lorry.
“You were not my informant,” she said, demurely.
“Surely you did not guess it.”
“Oh, no, indeed. I am no mind reader.”
“My own name was the last thing you could have read in my mind, in that event, for I have not thought of it in three days.”
She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, a dreamy look in her blue eyes.
“You say you obtained that coin from the porter on the Denver train?”
“Within two hours after I got aboard.”
“Well, that coin purchased your name for me,” she said, calmly, candidly. He gasped.
“You—you don't mean that you—” he stammered.
“You see, Mr. Lorry, I wanted to know the name of a man who came nearest my ideal of what an American should be. As soon as I saw you I knew that you were the American as I had grown to know him through the books,—big, strong, bold and comely. That is why I bought your name of the porter. I shall always say that I know the name of an ideal American,—Grenfall Lorry.”
The ideal American was not unmoved. He was in a fever of fear and happiness,—fear because he thought she was jesting, happiness because he hoped she was not. He laughed awkwardly, absolutely unable to express himself in words. Her frank statement staggered him almost beyond the power of recovery.
There was joy in the knowledge that she had been attracted to him at first sight, but there was bitterness in the thought that he had come to her notice as a sort of specimen, the name of which she had sought as a botanist would look for the name of an unknown flower.
“I—I am honored,” he at last managed to say, his eyes gleaming with embarrassment. “I trust you have not found your first judgment a faulty one.” He felt very foolish after this flat remark.
“I have remembered your name,” she said, graciously. His heart swelled.
“There are a great many better Americans than I,” he said. “You forget our president and our statesmen.”
“I thought they were mere politicians.”
Grenfall Lorry, idealized, retired to his berth that night, his head whirling with the emotions inspired by this strange, beautiful woman. How lovely, how charming, how naive, how queenly, how indifferent, how warm, how cold—how everything that puzzled him was she. His last waking thought was:
“Guggenslocker! An angel with a name like that!”
They were called by the porter early the next morning. The train was pulling into Washington, five hours late. Grenfall wondered, as he dressed, whether fortune would permit him to see much of her during her brief day in the capital. He dreamed of a drive over the avenues, a trip to the monument, a visit to the halls of congress, an inspection of public buildings, a dinner at his mother's home, luncheon at the Ebbitt, and other attentions which might give to him every moment of her day in Washington. But even as he dreamed, he was certain that his hopes could not be gratified.
After the train had come to a standstill he could hear the rustle of her garments in the next compartment. Then he heard her sweep into the passage, greet her uncle and aunt, utter a few commands to the maid, and, while he was adjusting his collar and necktie, pass from the car. No man ever made quicker time in dressing than did Lorry. She could hardly have believed him ideal had she seen his scowling face or heard the words that hissed through his impatient teeth.
“She'll get away, and that'll be the end of it,” he growled, seizing his traps and rushing from the train two minutes after her departure. The porter attempted to relieve him of his bags on the platform, but he brushed him aside and was off toward the station.
“Nice time for you, to call a man, you idiot,” was his parting shot for the porter, forgetting of course, that the foreigners had been called at the same time. With eyes intent on the crowd ahead, he plunged along, seeing nobody in his disappointed flight. “I'll never forgive myself if I miss her,” he was wailing to himself. She was not to be seen in the waiting rooms, so he rushed to the sidewalk.
“Baggage transferred?”
“Cab, sir?”
“Go to the devil—yes, here! Take these traps and these checks and rush my stuff to No.——, W—— Avenue. Trunks just in on B.& O.,” he cried, tossing his burdens to a transfer man and giving him the checks so quickly that the fellow's sleepy eyes opened wider than they had been for a month. Relieved of his impedimenta, he returned to the station.
“Good morning, Mr. Lorry. Are you in too much of a hurry to see your friends?” cried a clear, musical voice, and he stopped as if shot. The anxious frown flew from his brow and was succeeded instantaneously by a glad smile. He wheeled and beheld her, with Aunt Yvonne, standing near the main entrance to the station. “Why, good morning,” he exclaimed, extending his hand gladly. To his amazement she drew herself up haughtily and ignored the proffered hand. Only for a brief second did this strange and uncalled—for hauteur obtain. A bright smile swept over her face, and her repentant fingers sought his timidly, even awkwardly. Something told him that she was not accustomed to handshaking; that same something impelled him to bend low and touch the gloved fingers with his lips. He straightened, with face flushed, half fearful lest his act had been observed by curious loungers, and he had taken a liberty in a public place which could not be condoned. But she smiled serenely, approvingly. There was not the faintest sign of embarrassment or confusion in the lovely face. Any other girl in the world, he thought, would have jerked her hand away and giggled furiously. Aunt Yvonne inclined her head slightly, but did not proffer her hand. He wisely refrained from extending his own. “I thought you had left the station,” he said.
“We are waiting for Uncle Caspar, who is giving Hedrick instructions. Hedrick, you know, is to go on to New York with our boxes. He will have them aboard ship when we arrive there. All that we have with us is hand luggage. We leave Washington to-night.”
“I had hoped you might stay over for a few days.”
“It is urgent business that compels us to leave so hastily, Mr. Lorry. Of all the cities in the world, I have most desired to see the capital of your country. Perhaps I may return some day. But do not let us detain you, if you are in a hurry.”
He started, looked guilty, stammered something about baggage, said he would return in a moment, and rushed aimlessly away, his ears fiery.
“I'm all kinds of a fool,” he muttered, as he raced around the baggage-room and then back to where he had left the two ladies. Mr. Guggenslocker had joined them and they were preparing to depart. Miss Guggenslocker's face expressed pleasure at seeing him.
“We thought you would never return, so long were you gone,” she cried, gaily. He had been gone just two minutes by the watch! The old gentleman greeted him warmly, and Lorry asked them to what hotel they were going. On being informed that they expected to spend the day at the Ebbitt, he volunteered to accompany them, saying that he intended to breakfast there. Quicker than a flash a glance, unfathomable as it was brief, passed between the three, not quickly enough, however, to escape his keen, watchful eyes, on the alert since the beginning of his acquaintance with them, in conjunction with his ears, to catch something that might satisfy, in a measure, his burning curiosity. What was the meaning of that glance? It half angered him, for in it he thought he could distinguish annoyance, apprehension, dismay or something equally disquieting. Before he could stiffen his long frame and give vent to the dignified reconsideration that flew to his mind, the young lady dispelled all pain and displeasure, sending him into raptures, by saying:
“How good of you! We shall be so delighted to have you breakfast with us, Mr. Lorry, if it is convenient for you. You can talk to us of your wonderful city. Now, say that you will be good to us; stay your hunger and neglect your personal affairs long enough to give us these early morning hours. I am sure we cannot trouble you much longer.”
He expostulated gallantly and delightedly, and then hurried forth to call a cab. At eight o'clock he breakfasted with them, his infatuation growing deeper and stronger as he sat for the hour beneath the spell of those eyes, the glorious face, the sweet, imperial air that was a part of her, strange and unaffected. As they were leaving the dining-room he asked her if she would not drive with him.
His ardent gallantry met with a surprising rebuke. The conversation up to that moment had been bright and cheery, her face had been the constant reflector of his own good spirits, and he had every reason in the world to feel that his suggestion would be received with pleasure. It was a shock to him, therefore, to see the friendly smile fade from her eyes and a disdainful gleam succeed it. Her voice, a moment ago sweet and affable, changed its tone instantly to one so proud and arrogant that he could scarcely believe his ears.
“I shall be engaged during the entire day, Mr. Lorry,” she said, slowly, looking him fairly in the eyes with cruel positiveness. Those eyes of his were wide with surprise and the glowing gleam of injured pride. His lips closed tightly; little red spots flew to his cheeks and then disappeared, leaving his face white and cold; his heart throbbed painfully with the mingled emotions of shame and anger. For a moment he dared not speak.
“I have reason to feel thankful that you are to be engaged,” he said at last, calmly, without taking his eyes from hers. “I am forced to believe, much to my regret, that I have offended when I intended to please. You will pardon my temerity.”
There was no mistaking the resentment in his voice or the glitter in his eyes. Impulsively her little hand was stretched forth, falling upon his arm, while into her eyes came again the soft glow and to her lips the most pathetic, appealing smile, the forerunner of a pretty plea for forgiveness. The change startled and puzzled him more than ever. In one moment she was unreasonably rude and imperious, in the next gracious and imploring.
“Forgive me,” she cried, the blue eyes battling bravely against the steel in the grey ones above. “I was so uncivil! Perhaps I cannot make you understand why I spoke as I did, but, let me say, I richly deserved the rebuke. Pray forgive me and forget that I have been disagreeable. Do not ask me to tell you why I was so rude to you just now, but overlook my unkind treatment of your invitation. Please, Mr. Lorry, I beg of you—I beg for the first time in my life. You have been so good to me; be good to me still.”
His wrath melted away like snow before the sunshine. How could he resist such an appeal? “I beg for the first time in my life,” whirled in his brain. What did she mean by that?
“I absolve the penitent,” he said, gravely.
“I thank you. You are still my ideal American—courteous, bold and gentle. I do not wonder that Americans can be masterful men. And now I thank you for your invitation, and ask you to let me withdraw my implied refusal. If you will take me for the drive, I shall be delighted and more than grateful.”
“You make me happy again,” he said, softly, as they drew near the elder members of the party, who had paused to wait for them. “I shall ask your uncle and aunt to accompany us.”
“Uncle Caspar will be busy all day, but I am sure my aunt will be charmed. Aunt Yvonne, Mr. Lorry has asked us to drive with him over the city, and I have accepted for you. When are we to start, Mr. Lorry?”
Mr. and Mrs. Guggenslocker stared in a bewildered sort of manner at their niece. Then Aunt Yvonne turned questioning eyes toward her husband, who promptly bowed low before the tall American and said:
“Your kind offices shall never be forgotten, sir. When are the ladies to be ready?”
Lorry was weighing in his mind the advisability of asking them to dine in the evening with his mother, but two objections presented themselves readily. First, he was afraid of this perverse maid; second, he had not seen his mother. In fact, he did not know that she was in town.
“At two o'clock, I fancy. That will give us the afternoon. You leave at nine to-night, do you not?”
“Yes. And will you dine with us this evening?” Her invitation was so unexpected, in view of all that had happened, that he looked askance. “Ach, you must not treat my invitation as I did yours!” she cried, merrily, although he could detect the blush that returns with the recollection of a reprimand. “You should profit by what I have been taught.” The girl abruptly threw her arm about her aunt and cried, as she drew away in the direction of her room: “At two, then, and at dinner this evening. I bid you good morning, Mr. Lorry.”
The young man, delighted with the turn of affairs, but dismayed by what seemed a summary dismissal, bowed low. He waited until the strange trio entered the elevator and then sauntered downstairs, his hands in his pockets, his heart as light as air. Unconsciously he jingled the coins. A broad smile came over his face as he drew forth a certain piece. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger he said:
“You are what it cost her to learn my name, are you? Well, my good fellow, you may be very small, but you bought something that looks better than Guggenslocker on a hotel register. Your mistress is an odd bit of humanity, a most whimsical bit, I must say. First, she's no and then she's yes. You're lucky, my coin, to have fallen into the custody of one who will not give you over to the mercy of strangers for the sake of a whim. You are now retired on a pension, well deserved after valiant service in the cause of a most capricious queen.”
In an hour he was at home and relating to his mother the story of his wanderings, neglecting, for reasons best known to himself, the events which occurred after Denver had been left behind, except for a casual allusion to “a party of foreigners.” At one o'clock, faultlessly attired, he descended to the brougham, telling Mrs. Lorry that he had invited some strangers to see the city. On the way downtown he remembered that he was in business, the law business—and that it would be well to drop in and let his uncle know he was in the city. On second thought, however, he concluded it was too near two o'clock to waste any time on business, so the office did not know that he was in town until the next day, and then to no great extent.
For several hours he reveled in her society, sitting beside her in that roomy brougham, Aunt Yvonne opposite, explaining to her the many places of interest as they passed. They entered the Capitol; they saw the White House, and, as they were driving back to the hotel, passed the President of the United States.
Miss Guggenslocker, when informed that the President's carriage was approaching, relaxed gracefully from the stately reserve that had been puzzling him, and revealed an eager curiosity. Her eyes fastened themselves upon the President, Lorry finding entertainment in the changes that came over her unconscious face. Instead of noting the veneration he had expected, he was astonished and somewhat provoked to see a slight curl of disgust at the corners of her mouth, a pronounced disappointment in her eyes. Her face expressed ridicule, pure and simple, and, he was shocked to observe, the exposure was unconscious, therefore sincere.
“You do not like our ruler?” he said, as the carriage whirled by. He was returning his hat to his head as he spoke.
“I cannot say. I do not know him,” she replied, a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. “You Americans have one consolation; when you tire of a ruler you can put another in his place. Is it not wise to do so quite often?”
“I don't think wise is the word. Expedient is better. I am to infer that you have no politics.”
“One house has ruled our land for centuries. Since I came to your land I have not once seen a man wave his hat with mad adulation and cry from his heart: 'Long live the President!' For centuries, in my country, every child has been born with the words: 'Long live the Prince!' in his heart, and he learns to say them next after the dear parental words are mastered. 'Long live the Prince!' 'Long live the Princess!' are tributes of love and honor that greet our rulers from birth to death. We are not fickle, and we have no politics.”
“Do your rulers hear tin horns, brass bands, campaign yells, firecrackers and stump speeches every four years? Do they know what it means to be the voluntary choice of a whole nation? Do they know what it is to rule because they have won the right and not because they were born to it? Has there ever been a homage-surfeited ruler in your land who has known the joy that comes with the knowledge that he has earned the right to be cheered from one end of the country to the other? Is there not a difference between your hereditary 'Long live the Prince' and our wild, enthusiastic, spontaneous 'Hurrah for Cleveland!' Miss Guggenslocker? All men are equal at the beginning in our land. The man who wins the highest gift that can be bestowed by seventy millions of people is the man who had brains and not title as a birthright.” He was a bit exasperated.
“There! I have displeased you again. You must pardon my antiquated ideas. We, as true and loyal subjects of a good sovereign, cannot forget that our rulers are born, not made. Perhaps we are afflicted at times with brainless monarchs and are to be pitied. You are generous in your selection of potentates, be generous, then, with me, a benighted royalist, who craves leniency of one who may some day be President of the United States.”
“Granted, without discussion. As possible, though not probable, President of the United States, I am magnanimous to an unfortunate who can never hope to be princess, no matter how well she might grace the gilded throne.”
She greeted this glowing remark with a smile so intoxicating that he felt himself the most favored of men. He saw that smile in his mind's eye for months afterward, that maddening sparkle of joy, which flashed from her eyes to the very bottom of his heart, there to snuggle forever with Memory's most priceless treasures. Their dinner was but one more phase of this fascinating dream. More than once he feared that he was about to awake to find bleak unhappiness where exquisite joy had reigned so gloriously. As it drew to an end a sense of depression came over him. An hour at most was all that he could have with her. Nine o'clock was drawing nigh with its regrets, its longings, its desolation. He determined to retain the pleasures of the present until, amid the clanging of bells and the roll of car wheels, the dismal future began. His intention to accompany them to the station was expressed as they were leaving the table. She had begun to say good-by to him when he interrupted, self-consciousness forcing the words hurriedly and disjointedly from his lips:
“You will let me go to the station with you. I shall—er—deem it a pleasure.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly, but thanked him and said she would consider it an honor. His face grew hot and his heart cold with the fancy that there was in her eyes a gleam which said: “I pity you, poor fellow.”
Notwithstanding his strange misgiving and the fact that his pride had sustained quite a perceptible shock, he drove with them to the station. They went to the sleeping car a few minutes before the time set for the train's departure, and stood at the bottom of the steps, uttering the good-bys, the God-speeds and the sincere hope that they might meet again. Then came the sharp activity of the trainmen, the hurry of belated passengers. He glanced soberly at his watch.
“It is nine o'clock. Perhaps you would better get aboard,” he said, and proceeded to assist Aunt Yvonne up the steps. She turned and pressed his hand gently before passing into the car.
“Adieu, good friend. You have made it so very pleasant for us,” she said, earnestly.
The tall, soldierly old gentleman was waiting to assist his niece into the coach.
“Go first, Uncle Caspar,” the girl made Lorry happy by saying. “I can easily come up unaided.”
“Or I can assist her,” Lorry hastened to add, giving her a grateful look which she could not misunderstand. The uncle shook hands warmly with the young man and passed up the steps. She was following when Lorry cried,
“Will you not allow me?”
She laughingly turned to him from the steps and stretched forth her hand.
“And now it is good-by forever. I am so sorry that I have not seen more of you,” she said. He took her hand and held it tightly for a moment.
“I shall never forget the past few days,” he said, a thrill in his voice. “You have put something into my life that can never be taken away. You will forget me before you are out of Washington, but I—I shall always see you as you are now.”
She drew her hand away gently, but did not take her eyes from his upturned face.
“You are mistaken. Why should I forget you—ever? Are you not the ideal American whose name I bought? I shall always remember you as I saw you—at Denver.”
“Not as I have been since?” he cried.
“Have you changed since first I saw you?” she asked, quaintly.
“I have, indeed, for you saw me before I saw you. I am glad I have not changed for the worse in your eyes.”
“As I first knew you with my eyes I will say that they are trustworthy,” she said tantalizingly.
“I do not mean that I have changed externally.”
“In any other case my eyes would not serve,” she cried, with mock disappointment. “Still,” she added, sweepingly, “you are my ideal American. Good-by! The man has called 'all aboard!'”
“Good-by!” he cried, swinging up on the narrow step beside her. Again he clasped her hand as she drew back in surprise. “You are going out of my land, but not out of my mind. If you wish your eyes to see the change in me, you have only to look at them in a mirror. They are the change—they themselves! Goodby! I hope that I may see you again.”
She hesitated an instant, her eyes wavering beneath his. The train was moving slowly now.
“I pray that we may meet,” she said, softly, at last,—so softly that he barely heard the words. Had she uttered no sound he could have been sure of her response, for it was in her telltale eyes. His blood leaped madly. “You will be hurt if you wait till the train is running at full speed,” she cried, suddenly returning to the abandoned merry mood. She pushed him gently in her excitement. “Don't you see how rapidly we are moving? Please go!” There was a terror in her eyes that pleased him.
“Good-by, then,” he cried.
“Adieu, my American,” she cried quickly.
As he swung out, ready to drop to the ground, she said, her eyes sparkling with something that suggested mischief, her face more bewitching than ever under the flicker of the great arc lights:
“You must come to Edelweiss to see me. I shall expect you!” He thought there was a challenge in the tones. Or was it mockery?
“I will, by heaven, I will!” he exclaimed.
A startled expression flashed across her face, and her lips parted as if in protestation. As she leaned forward, holding stoutly to the hand-rail, there was no smile on her countenance.
A white hand fluttered before his eyes, and she was gone. He stood, hat in hand, watching the two red lights at the end of the train until they were lost in the night.