She lost her scant foothold, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the rockShe lost her scant foothold, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the rock
All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of green felt adorned with the beard of achamois, was the face she had seen in dreams. A dark, austere young face it was, with more of Mars than Apollo in its lines, yet to her more desirable than all the ideals of all the sculptors since the world began. He was dressed as a chamois hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn, almost shabby clothes to distinguish the wearer from the type he chose to represent. But as easily might the eagle to whom in her heart she likened him, try to pass for a barnyard fowl, as this man for a peasant, so thought the Princess.
So she had gone on her knees to him after all—or almost! She was glad her mother did not know. And she hoped that he did not feel the pulsing of the blood in her fingers, as he took her hand and lifted her to her feet. There was shame in this tempest that swept through her veins, because he did not share it; for to her, though this meeting was an epoch, to him it was no more than a trivial incident. She would have keyed his emotions to hers, if she could, but since she had had years of preparation, he a single moment, perhaps she might have been consoled for the disparity, could she have read his eyes. They said, if she had known: “Is the sky raining goddesses to-day?”
Now, what were to be her first words to him? Dimly she felt, that if she were to profit by this wonderful chance to know the man and not the Emperor—thischance which might be lost in a few moments, unless her wit befriended her—those words should be beyond the common. She should be able to marshal her sentences, as a general marshals his battalions, with a plan of campaign for each.
A spirit monitor—a match-making monitor—whispered these wise advices in her ear; yet she was powerless to profit by them. Like a school-girl about to be examined for a scholarship, knowing that all the future might depend upon an hour of the present, the dire need to be resourceful, to be brilliant, left her dumb.
How many times had she not thought of her first conversation with Leopold of Rhaetia, planning the first words, the first looks, which must make him know that she was different from any other girl he had ever met! Yet here she stood, speechless, epigrams turning tail and racing away from her like a troop of playful colts refusing to be caught.
And so it was the Emperor who spoke before Virginia’ssavoir fairecame back.
“I hope you’re not hurt?” asked the chamois hunter, in thepatoisdear to the heart of Rhaetian mountain folk.
She had been glad before, now she was thankful that she had spent many weeks and months in loving study of the tongue which was Leopold’s. It was not themétierof a chamois hunter to speak English, though the Emperor was said to know the language well, and she rejoiced in her ability to answer the chamois hunter as he would be answered, keeping up the play.
“I am hurt only in the pride that comes before a fall,” she replied, forcing a laugh. “Thank you many times for saving me.”
“I feared that I frightened you, and made you lose your footing,” the chamois hunter answered.
“I think on the contrary, if it hadn’t been for you I should have lost my life,” said Virginia. “There should be a sign put up on that tempting plateau, ‘All except suicides beware.’”
“The necessity never occurred to us, my mates and me,” returned the man in the gray coat, passemoiled with green. “Until you came, gna’ Fräulein, no tourist that I know of, has found it tempting.”
Virginia’s eyes lit with a sudden spark. The spirit monitor—that match-making monitor—came back and dared her to a frolic, such a frolic, she thought,as no girl on earth had ever had, or would have, after her. And she could show this grave, soldier-hero of hers, something new in life—something quite new, which it would not harm him to know. Then, let come what would out of this adventure, at worst she should always have an Olympian episode to remember.
“UntilIcame?” she caught up his words, standing carefully on the spot where he had placed her. “But I am no tourist; I am an explorer.”
He lifted level, dark eyebrows, smiling faintly. And when he smiled, half his austerity was gone.
So beautiful a girl as this need not rise beyond agreeable commonplaceness of mind and speech to please a man; indeed, this particular chamois hunter expected no more than good looks, a good heart and a nice manner, from women. Yet this beauty bade fair, it seemed, to hold surprises in reserve.
“I have brought down noble game to-day,” he said to himself; and aloud; “I know the Schneehorn well, and love it well. Still I can’t see what rewards it has for the explorer. Unless, gna’ Fräulein, you are a climber or a geologist.”
“I’m neither; yet I think I have seen something,a most rare thing, I’ve wanted all my life to see.”
The young man’s face confessed curiosity. “Indeed? A rare thing that lives here on the mountain?”
“I am not sure if it lives here. I should like to find out,” replied the girl.
“Might one inquire the name of this rare thing?” asked the chamois hunter. “Perhaps, if I knew, it might turn out that I could help you in the search. But first, if you’d let me lead you to the plateau, where I think you were going? Here, your head might still grow a little giddy, and it’s not well to keep you standing, gna’ Fräulein, on such a spot. You’ve passed all the worst now. The rest is easy.”
She gave him her hand, pleasing herself by fancying the act a kind of allegory, as she let him lead her to safe and pleasant places, on a higher, sunnier level.
“Perhaps the rare thing grows here,” the chamois hunter went on, looking about the green plateau with a new interest.
“I think not,” Virginia answered, shaking her head. “It would thrive better nearer the mountain top, in a more hidden place than this. It does not love tourists.”
“Nor do I, in truth,” smiled the chamois hunter.
“You took me for one.”
“Pardon, gna’ Fräulein. Not the kind of tourist we both mean.”
“Thank you.”
“But you have not said if I might help you in your search. This is a wild region for a young lady to be exploring in, alone.”
“I feel sure,” responded the Princess, graciously, “that if you really would, you could help me as well as any one in Rhaetia.”
“You are kind indeed to say so, though I don’t know how I have deserved the compliment.”
“Did it sound like a compliment? Well, leave it so. I meant, because you are at home in these high altitudes; and the rare thing I speak of is a plant that grows in high places. It is said to be found only in Rhaetian mountains, though I have never heard of any one who has been able to track it down.”
“Is it our pink Rhaetian edelweiss of which we are so proud? Because if it is, and you will trust me, I know exactly where to take you, to find it. With my help, you could climb there from here in a few moments.”
She shook her head again, smiling inscrutably. “Thank you, it’s not the pink edelweiss. The scientific, the esoteric name, I’ve promised that I’ll tell to no one; but the common people in my native country, who have heard of it, would call the plantEdelmann.”
“You have already seen it on the mountain, but not growing?”
“Some chamois hunter, like yourself, had dropped it, perhaps, not knowing what its value was. It’s a great deal to have had one glimpse—worth running into danger for.”
“Perhaps, gna’ Fräulein, you don’t realize to the full the danger you did run. No chance was worth it, believe me.”
“You—a chamois hunter—say that.”
“But I’m a man. You are a woman; and women should keep to beaten paths and safety.”
The Princess laughed. “I shouldn’t wonder,” said she, “if that’s a Rhaetian theory—a Rhaetianman’stheory. I’ve heard, your Emperor holds it.”
“Who told you that, gna’ Fräulein?” He gave her a sharp glance, but her gray eyes looked innocent of guile, and were therefore at their most dangerous.
“Oh, many people have told me. Cats may look atkings, and the most insignificant persons may talk of Emperors. I’ve heard many things of yours.”
“Good things or bad?”
“No doubt such things as he truly deserves. Now can you guess which? But perhaps I would tell you without your guessing, if I were not so very, very hungry.” She glanced at the pocket of his coat, from which protruded a generous hunch of black bread and ham—thrust in probably, at the instant when she had called for help. “I can’t help seeing that you have your luncheon with you. Do you want it all,” (she carefully ignored the contents of her rücksack, which she could not well have forgotten) “or—would you share it?”
The chamois hunter looked surprised, though not displeased. But then, this was his first experience of a feminine explorer, and he quickly rose to the occasion.
“There is more, much more bread and bacon where this came from,” he replied. “Will you be graciously pleased to accept something of our best?”
“Ifyouplease, then I too shall be pleased,” she said. Guiltily, she remembered Miss Portman. But the dear Letitia could not be considered now. If she were alarmed, she should be well consoled later.
“I and some friends of mine have a—a sort of hut round the corner from this plateau, and a short distance on,” announced the chamois hunter, with a gesture that gave the direction. “No woman has ever been our guest, but I invite you to visit it and lunch there. Or, if you prefer, remain here and in a few minutes I will bring such food as we can offer. At best it’s not much to boast of. We chamois hunters are poor men, living roughly.”
The Princess smiled, imprisoning each new thought of mischief which flew into her mind, like a trapped bird. “I’ve heard you’re rich in hospitality,” she said. “I’ll go with you to your hut, for it will be a chance to prove the saying.”
The eyes of the hunter—dark, brilliant and keen as the eagle’s to which she compared him—pierced hers. “You have no fear?” he asked. “You are a young girl, alone, save for me, in a desolate place. For all you know, my mates and I may be a band of brigands.”
“Baedeker doesn’t mention the existence of brigands in these days, among the Rhaetian Alps,” replied Virginia, with quaint dryness. “I’ve always found him trustworthy. Besides, I’ve great faith inthe chivalry of Rhaetian men; and if you knew how hungry I am, you wouldn’t keep me waiting for talk of brigands. Bread and butter are far more to the point.”
“Even search for the rare Edelmann may wait?”
“Yes. The Edelmann may wait—on me.” The last two words she dared but to whisper.
“You must pardon my going first,” said the man with the bare brown knees. “The way is too narrow for politeness.”
“Yet I wish that the peasants at home had such courteous manners as yours,” Virginia patronized him, prettily. “You Rhaetians need not go to court, I see, for lessons in behavior.”
“The mountains teach us something, maybe.”
“Something of their greatness, which we should all do well to learn. But have you never lived in a town?”
“A man of my sortexistsin a town. He lives in the mountains.” With this diplomatic response, the tall figure swung round a corner formed by a boulder of rock, and Virginia gave a little cry of surprise. The “hut” of which the chamois hunter had spoken was revealed by the turn, and it was of an unexpectedand striking description. Instead of the humble erection of stones and wood which she had counted on, the rocky side of the mountain itself had been coaxed to give her sons a shelter.
A doorway, and large square openings for windows, had been cut in the red-veined, purplish-brown porphyry; while a heavy slab of oak, and wooden frames filled full of glittering bottle-glass, protected such rooms as might have been hollowed out within, from storm or cold.
Even had Virginia been ignorant of her host’s identity, she would have been wise enough to guess that here was no Sennhütte, or ordinary abode of common peasants, who hunt the chamois for a precarious livelihood. The work of hewing out in the solid rock a habitation such as this must have cost more than most Rhaetian chamois hunters would save in many a year. But her wisdom also counseled her to express no further surprise after her first exclamation.
“My mates are away for the time, though they may come back by and by,” the man explained, holding the heavy oaken door that she might pass into the room within; and though she was not invited tofurther exploration, she was able to see by the several doorways cut in the rock walls, that this was not the sole accommodation the strange house could boast.
On the rock floor, rugs of deer and chamois skin were spread; in a rack of oak, ornamented with splendid antlers and studded with the sharp, pointed horns of the chamois, were suspended guns of modern make, and brightly polished, formidable hunting knives. The table in the center of the room had been carved with admirable skill; and the half-dozen chairs were oddly fashioned of stags’ antlers, shaped to hold fur-cushioned, wooden seats. A carved dresser of black oak held a store of the coarse blue, red and green china made by peasants in the valley below, through which Virginia had driven yesterday; and these bright colored dishes were eked out with platters and great tankards of old pewter, while in the deep fireplace a gipsy kettle swung over a bed of fragrant pinewood embers.
“This is a delightful place—fit for a king, or even for an Emperor,” said Virginia, when the bare-kneed chamois hunter had offered her a chair near the fire, and crossed the room to open the closed cupboard under the dresser shelves.
He was stooping as she spoke, but at her last words looked round over his shoulder.
“We mountain men aren’t afraid of a little work—when it’s for our own comfort,” he replied. “And most of the things you see here are home-made, during the long winters.”
“Then you are all very clever indeed. But this place is interesting; tell me, has the Emperor ever been your guest here? I’ve read—let me see, could it have been in a guide-book or in some paper?—that he comes occasionally to this northern range of mountains.”
“Oh yes, the Emperor has been at our hut several times. He’s good enough to approve it.” Her host answered calmly, laying a loaf of black bread, a fine seeded cheese, and a knuckle of ham on the table. He then glanced at his guest, expecting her to come forward; but she sat still on her throne of antlers, her small feet in their sensible mountain boots, daintily crossed under the short tweed skirt.
“I hear he also is a good chamois hunter,” she carelessly went on. “But that, perhaps, is only the flattery which makes the atmosphere of Royalty. No doubt you, for instance,could really give him many points in chamois hunting?”
The young man smiled. “The Emperor’s not a bad shot.”
“For an amateur. But you’re a professional. I wager now, that you wouldn’t for the world change places with the Emperor?”
How the chamois hunter laughed at this, and showed his white teeth! There were those, in the towns he scorned, who would have been astonished at his light-hearted mirth.
“Change places with the Emperor! Not—unless I were obliged, gna’ Fräulein. Not now, at all events,” with a complimentary bow and glance.
“Thank you. You’re quite a courtier. And that reminds me of another thing they say of him in my country. The story is, that he dislikes the society of women. But perhaps it is that he doesn’t understand them.”
“It is possible, lady. But I never heard that they were so difficult of comprehension.”
“Ah, that shows how little you chamois hunters have had time to learn. Why, we can’t even understand ourselves, or know what we’re most likely to donext. And yet—a very odd thing—we have no difficulty in reading one another, and knowing all each other’s weaknesses.”
“That would seem to say that a man should get a woman to choose his wife for him.”
“I’m not so sure it would be wise. Yet your Emperor, we hear, will let the Chancellor choose his.”
“Ah! were you told this also in your country?”
“Yes. For the gossip is that she’s an English Princess. Now, what’s the good of being a powerful Emperor, if he can’t even pick out a wife to please his own taste?”
“I know nothing about such high matters, gna’ Fräulein. But I fancied that Royal folk took wives to please their people rather than themselves. It’s their duty to marry, you know. And if the lady be of Royal blood, virtuous, of the right religion, not too sharp-tempered, and pleasant to look at, why—those are the principal things to consider, I should suppose.”
“So should Inotsuppose, if I were a man, and—Emperor. I should want the pleasure of falling in love.”
“Safer not, gna’ Fräulein. He might fall in love with the wrong woman.” And the chamois hunterlooked with half shamed intentness into his guest’s sweet eyes.
She blushed under his gaze, and was so conscious of the hot color, that she retorted at random. “I doubt if hecouldfall in love. A man who would let his Chancellor choose for him! He can have no warm blood in his veins.”
“There I think you wrong him, lady,” the answer came quickly. “The Emperor is—a man. But it may be he has found other interests in his life more important than woman.”
“Bringing down chamois, for instance. You would sympathize there.”
“Chamois give good sport. They’re hard to find. Harder still to hit when you have found them.”
“So are the best types of women. Those who, like the chamois (and the plant I spoke of) live only in high places. Oh, for the sake of my sex, I do hope that some day your Emperor will change his mind—that a woman willmakehim change it.”
“Perhaps a woman has—already.”
Virginia grew pale. Was she too late? Or was this a concealed compliment which the chamois hunter did not guess she had the clue to find? She could notanswer. The silence between the two became electrical, and the young man broke it, at last, with some slight signs of confusion.
“It’s a pity,” said he, “that our Emperor can’t hear you. He might be converted to your views.”
“Or he might clap me into prison forlèse majesté.”
“He wouldn’t do that, gna’ Fräulein—if he’s anything like me.”
“Anything like you? Why, now you put me in mind of it, he’s not unlike you—in appearance, I mean, judging by his portraits.”
“You have seen his portraits?”
“Yes, I’ve seen some. I really think you must be a little like him, only browner and taller, perhaps. Yet I’m glad that you’re a chamois hunter and not an Emperor—almost as glad asyoucan be.”
“Will you tell me why, lady?”
“Oh, for one reason, because I couldn’t possibly ask him, if he were here in your place, what I’m going to ask of you. You’ve very kindly laid the bread and ham ready, but you forgot to cut them.”
“A thousand pardons. Our talk has set my wits wool-gathering. My mind should have been on mymanners, instead of on such far off things as Emperors and their love affairs.”
He began hewing at the big loaf as if it were an enemy to be conquered. And there were few in Rhaetia who had ever seen those dark eyes so bright.
“I like ham and bread cut thin, please,” said the Princess. “There—that’s better. I’ll sit here if you’ll bring the things to me, for I find that I’m tired; and you are very kind.”
“A draught of our Rhaetian beer will do you more good than anything,” suggested the hunter, taking up the plate of bread and ham he had tried hard to cut according to her taste, placing it in her lap and going back to draw a tankard of foaming amber liquid from a quaint hogshead in a corner.
But Virginia waved the froth-crowned pewter away with a smile and a pretty gesture. “My head has already proved not strong enough for your mountains. I’m sure it isn’t strong enough for your beer. Have you some nice cold water?”
The young man laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Our water here is fit only for the outside of the body,” he explained. “To us, that’s no great deprivation,as we’re all true Rhaetians for our beer. But now, on your account, I’m sorry.”
“Perhaps you have some milk?” suggested Virginia. “I love milk. And I could scarcely count the cows, they were so many, as I came up the mountain from Alleheiligen.”
“It’s true there are plenty of cows about,” replied her host, “and I could easily catch one. But if I fetch the beast here, can you milk it?”
“Dear me, no; surely you, a great strong man, would never stand by and let a weak girl do that? Oh, I almost wish I hadn’t thought of the milk, if I’m not to have it. I long for it so much.”
“You shall have the milk, lady,” returned the chamois hunter. “I—”
“How good you are!” exclaimed the Princess. “It will be more than nice of you. But—I don’t want you to think that I’m giving you all this trouble for nothing. Here’s something just to show that I appreciate it; and—to remember me by.”
She would not look up, though she longed to see what expression the dark face wore, but kept her eyes upon her hand, from which she slowly withdrew a ring. It fitted tightly, for she had had it made yearsago, before her slender fingers had finished growing. When at last she had pulled off the jeweled circlet of gold, she held it up, temptingly.
“What I have done, and anything I may yet do, is a pleasure,” said the hunter. “But after all you have learned little of Rhaetia, if you think that we mountain men ever take payment from those to whom we’ve been able to show hospitality.”
“Ah, but I’m not talking of payment,” pleaded the Princess. “I wish only to be sure that you mayn’t forget the first woman who, you tell me, has ever entered this door.”
The young man looked at the door, not at the girl. “It is impossible that I should forget,” said he, almost stiffly.
“Still, it will hurt me if you refuse my ring,” went on Virginia. “Please at least come and see what it’s like.”
He obeyed, and as she still held up the ring, he took it from her that he might examine it more closely.
“The crest of Rhaetia!” he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon a shield of black and green enamel, set with small, but exceedingly brilliant white diamonds. “Howcurious. I’ve been wondering that you should speak our language so well—”
“It’s not curious at all, really, but very simple,” said Virginia. “Now”—with a faint tremor in her voice—“press the spring on the left side of the shield, and when you’ve seen what’s underneath, I think you’ll feel that you can’t loyally refuse to accept my little offering.”
The bronze forefinger found a pin’s point protuberance of gold, and pressing sharply, the shield flew up to reveal a tiny but exquisitely painted miniature of Leopold the First of Rhaetia.
The chamois hunter stared at it, and did not speak, but the blood came up to his brown forehead.
“You’re surprised?” asked Virginia.
“I am surprised because I’d been led to suppose that you thought poorly of our Emperor.”
“Poorly!Now what could have given you that impression?”
“Why, you—made fun of his opinion of women.”
“Who am I, pray, to ‘make fun’ of an Emperor’s opinion, even in a matter he would consider so unimportant? On the contrary, I confess that I, like most other girls I know, am deeply interested in your greatLeopold, if only because I—we—would be charitably minded and teach him better. As for the ring, they sell things more or less of this sort, in several of the Rhaetian cities I’ve passed through on my way here. Didn’t you know that?”
“No, lady, I have never seen one like it.”
“And as for my knowledge of Rhaetian, I’ve always been interested in the study of languages. Languages are fascinating to conquer; and then, the literature of your country is so splendid, one must be able to read it at first hand. Now, you’ll have to say ‘yes’ to the ring, won’t you, and keep it for your Emperor’s sake, if not for mine?”
“May I not keep it for yours as well?”
“Yes, if you please. And—about the milk?”
The chamois hunter caught up a gaudy jug, and without further words, went out. When he had gone, the Princess rose and, taking the knife he had used to cut the bread and ham, she kissed the handle on the place where his fingers had grasped it. “You’re a very silly girl, Virginia, my dear,” she said. “But oh, how you do love him. How he isworthloving, and—what a glorious hour you’re having!”
For ten minutes she sat alone, perhaps more; thenthe door was flung open and her host flung himself in, no longer with the gay air which had sat like a cloak upon him, but hot and sulky, the jug in his hand as empty as when he had gone out.
“I have failed,” he said gloomily. “I have failed, though I promised you the milk.”
“Couldn’t you find a cow?” asked Virginia.
“Oh yes, I found one, more than one, and caught them too. I even forced them to stand still, and grasped them by their udders, but not a drop of milk would come down. Abominable brutes! I would gladly have killed them, but that would have given you no milk.”
For her life, the Princess could not help laughing, his air was so desperate. If only those cows could have known who he was, and appreciated the honor!
“Pray, pray don’t mind,” she begged. “You have done more than most men could have done. After all, I’ll have a glass of Rhaetian beer with you, to drink your health and that of your Emperor. I wonder by the by if he, who prides himself on doing all things well, can milk a cow?”
“If not, he should learn,” said the chamois hunter,viciously. “There’s no knowing, it seems, when one may need the strangest accomplishments, and be humiliated for lack of them.”
“No, not humiliated,” Virginia assured him. “It’s always instructive to find out one’s limitations. And you have been most good to me. See, while you were gone, I ate the slice of bread and ham you cut, and never did a meal taste better. Now, you must have many things to do, which I’ve made you leave undone. I’ve trespassed on you too long.”
“Indeed, lady, it seems scarcely a moment since you came, and I have no work to do,” the chamois hunter insisted.
“But I’ve a friend waiting for me, on the mountain,” the Princess confessed. “Luckily, she had her lunch and will have eaten it, and her guide-book must have kept her happy for a while; but by this time I’m afraid she’s anxious, and would be coming in search of me, if she dared to stir. I must go. Will you tell me by what name I shall remember my—rescuer, when I recall this day?”
“They named me—for the Emperor.”
“They were wise. It suits you. Then I shall think of you as Leopold. Leopold—what? But no, don’ttell me the other name. Itcan’tbe good enough to match the first; for do you know, I admire the name of Leopold more than any other I’ve ever heard? So, Leopold, will you shake hands for good-by?”
The strong hand came out eagerly, and pressed hers. “Thank you, gna’ Fräulein; but it’s not good-by yet. You must let me help you back by the way you came, and down the mountain.”
“Will you really? I dared not ask as much, for fear, in spite of your kind hospitality, you were—like your noble namesake—a hater of women.”
“That’s too hard a word, even for an Emperor, lady. While as for me, if I ever said to myself, ‘no woman can be of much good to a man as a real companion,’ I’m ready to unsay it.”
“I’m glad! Then you shall come with me, and help me; and you shall help my friend, who is so good and so strong-minded that perhaps she may make you think even better of our sex. If you will, you shall be our guide down to Alleheiligen, where we’ve been staying at the inn since last night. Besides all that, if you wish to beverygood, you may carry our cloaks and rücksacks, which seem so heavy to us, but will be nothing for your strong shoulders.”
The face of the chamois hunter changed and changed again with such amused appreciation of her demands, that Virginia turned her head away, lest she should laugh, and thus let him guess that she held the key to the inner situation.
His willingness to become a cowherd, and now a beast of burden for the foreign lady he had seen, and her friend whom he had not seen, was indubitably genuine. He was pleased with the adventure—if not as pleased as his initiated companion. For the next few hours the hunter was free, it seemed. He said that he had been out since early dawn, and had had good luck. Later, he had returned to the hut for a meal and a rest, while his friends went down to the village on business which concerned them all. As they had not come back, they were probably amusing themselves, and when he had given the ladies all the assistance in his power, he would join them.
The way down was easy to Virginia, with his hand to help her when it was needed, and she had never been so happy in her twenty years. But, after all, she asked herself, as they neared the place where she had left Miss Portman, what had she accomplished? What impression was she leaving? Would this radiantmorning of adventure do her good or harm with Leopold when Miss Mowbray should meet him later, in some conventional way, through letters of introduction to Court dignitaries at Kronburg?
While she wondered, his voice broke into her questionings.
“I hope, gna’ Fräulein,” the chamois hunter was saying, almost shyly and as if by an effort, “that you won’t go away from our country thinking that we Rhaetians are so cold of heart and blood as you’ve seemed to fancy. We men of the mountains may be different from others you have seen, but we’re not more cold. The torrent of our blood may sleep for a season under ice, but when the spring comes—as it must—and the ice melts, then the torrent gushes forth the more hotly because it has not spent its strength before.”
“I shall remember your words,” said the Princess, “for—my journal of Rhaetia. And now, here’s my poor friend. I shall have to make her a thousand excuses.”
For her journal of Rhaetia! For a moment the man looked wistful, as if it were a pain to him that hewould have no other place in her thoughts, nor time to win it, since there sat a lady in a tourist’s hat, and eye-glasses, and the episode was practically closed. He looked too, as if there was something he would add to his last words if he could; but Miss Portman saw the two advancing figures, and shrieked a shrill cry of thanksgiving.
“Oh, I have been sodreadfullyanxious!” she groaned, “Whathaskept you? Have you had an accident? Thank heaven you’re here. I began to give up hope of ever seeing you again alive.”
“Perhaps you never would, if it hadn’t been for the help of this good and brave new friend of mine,” said Virginia, hurrying into explanations. “I got into dreadful difficulties up there; it was much worse than I thought, but Leopold—” (Miss Portman started, stared with her near-sighted eyes at the tall, brown man with bare knees; colored, gasped, and swallowed hard after a quick glance at her Princess.) “Leopold happened to be near, came to my help and saved me. Wasn’t it providential? Oh, I assure you, Leopold is a monarch—of chamois hunters. Give him your cloak and rücksack to carry with mine, dear Miss Manchester. He’s kind enough to say that he’ll guideus all the way down to Alleheiligen, and I’m glad to accept his service.”
Miss Portman—a devout Royalist, and firm believer in the right of kings—grew crimson, her nose especially, as it invariably did at moments of strong emotion.
The Emperor of Rhaetia, here, caught and trapped, like Pegasus bound to the plow, and forced to carry luggage as if he were a common porter—worst of all,herinsignificant, twice wretched luggage!
She would have protested if she had dared; but she did not dare, and was obliged to see that imperial form—unmistakably imperial, it seemed to her, though masquerading in humble guise—loaded down with her rücksack and her large golf cape, with goloshes in the pocket.
Crushed under the magnitude of her discovery, dazzled by the surprising brilliance of the Princess’s capture, stupefied by the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and ruining her idol’s bizarre triumph, poor Miss Portman staggered as Virginia helped her to her feet.
“Why, you’re cramped with sitting so long!” cried the Princess. “Be careful! But Leopold willgive you his arm. Leopold will take you down, won’t you, Leopold?”
And the Imperial Eagle, who had hoped for better things, meekly allowed another link to be added to his chain.
“
Ach, Himmel!” exclaimed Frau Yorvan; and “Ach Himmel!” she exclaimed again, her voice rising to a wail, with a frantic uplifting of the hands.
The Grand Duchess grew pale, for the apple-cheeked lady suddenly exhibited these alarming signs of emotion while passing a window of the private dining-room. Evidently some scene of horror was being enacted outside; and—Virginia and Miss Portman had been away for many hours.
It was the time for tea in England, for coffee in Rhaetia; Frau Yorvan had just brought in coffee for one, with heart-shaped, sugared cakes, which would have appealed more poignantly to the Grand Duchess’s appetite, if the absent ones had been with her to share them. Naturally, at the good woman’s outburst,her imagination instantly pictured disaster to the one she loved.
“What—oh, what is it you see?” she implored, her heart leaping, then falling. But for once, the courtesy due to an honored guest was forgotten, and the distracted Frau Yorvan fled from the room without giving an answer.
Half paralyzed with dread of what she might have to see, the Grand Duchess tottered to the window. Was there—yes, there was a procession, coming down the hilly street that led to town from the mountain. Oh, horror upon horror! They were perhaps bringing Virginia down, injured or dead, her beautiful face crushed out of recognition. Yet no—there was Virginia herself, the central figure in the procession. Thank Heaven, it could be nothing worse than an accident to poor, dear Miss Portman—But there was Miss Portman too; and a very tall, bronzed peasant man, loaded with cloaks and rücksacks, headed the band, while the girl and her ex-governess followed after.
Unspeakably relieved, yet still puzzled and vaguely alarmed, the Grand Duchess threw up the window overlooking the little village square. But as she stroveto attract the truants’ attention by waving her hand and crying out a welcome or a question, whichever should come first, the words were arrested on her lips. What could be the matter with Frau Yorvan?
The stout old landlady popped out through the door like a Jack out of his box, on a very stiff spring, flew to the overloaded peasant, and almost rudely elbowing Miss Portman aside, began distractedly bobbing up and down, tearing at the bundle of rücksacks and cloaks. Her inarticulate cries ascended like incense to the Grand Duchess at the open window, adding much to the lady’s intense bewilderment.
“What has that man been doing?” demanded the Grand Duchess in a loud, firm voice; but nobody answered, for the very good reason that nobody heard. The attention of all those below was entirely taken up with their own concerns.
“Pray, mein frau, let him carry our things indoors,” Virginia was insisting, while the tall man stood among the three women, motionless, but apparently a prey to conflicting emotions. If the Grand Duchess had not been obsessed with a certain idea, which was growing in her mind, she must have seen that his dark face betrayed a mingling of amusement,impatience, annoyance, and boyish mischief. He looked like a man who had somehow stumbled into a false position from which it would be difficult to escape with dignity, yet which he half enjoyed. Torn between a desire to laugh, and fly into a rage with the officious landlady, he frowned warningly at Frau Yorvan, smiled at the Princess, and divided his energies between quick, secret gestures intended for the eyes of the Rhaetian woman, and endeavors to unburden himself in his own time and way, of the load he carried.
With each instant the perturbation of the Grand Duchess grew. Why did the man not speak out what he had to say? Why did the landlady first strive to seize the things from his back, then suddenly shrink as if in fear, leaving the tall fellow to his own devices? Ah, but that was a terrible look he gave her at last—the poor, good woman! Perhaps he was a brigand! And the Grand Duchess remembered tales she had read—tales of fearful deeds, even in these modern days, done in wild, mountain fastnesses, and remote villages such as Alleheiligen. Not in Rhaetia, perhaps; but then, there was no reason why they should not happen in Rhaetia, at a place like this.And if there were not something evil, something to be dreaded about this big, dark-browed fellow, why had Frau Yorvan uttered that exclamation of frantic dismay at sight of him, and rushed like a madwoman out of the house?
It occurred to the Grand Duchess that the man must be some notorious desperado of the mountains, who had obtained her daughter’s confidence, or got her and Miss Portman into his power. But, she remembered, fortunately some or all of the mysterious gentlemen stopping at the inn, had returned and were at this moment assembled in the room adjoining hers. The Grand Duchess resolved that, at the first sign of insolent behavior or threatening on the part of the luggage carrier, these noblemen should be promptly summoned by her to the rescue of her daughter.
Her anxiety was even slightly allayed at this point in her reflections, by the thought (for she had not quite outgrown an innate love of romance) that the Emperor himself might go to Virginia’s assistance. His friends were in the next room, having come down from the mountain about noon, and there seemed little doubt that he was among them. If he had not already looked out of his window, drawn by the landlady’sexcited voice, the Grand Duchess resolved that, in the circumstances, it was her part as a mother to make him look out. She had promised to help Virginia, and she would help her by promoting a romantic first encounter.
In a penetrating voice, which could not fail to reach the ears of the men next door, or the actors in the scene below, she adjured her daughter in English.
This language was the safest to employ, she decided hastily, because the brigand with the rücksacks would not understand, while the flower of Rhaetian chivalry in the adjoining room were doubtless acquainted with all modern languages.
“Helen!” she screamed, loyally remembering in her excitement, the part she was playing, “Helen, where did you come across that ferocious-looking ruffian? Can’t you see he intends to steal your rücksacks, or—or blackmail you, or something? Is there no man-servant about the place whom the landlady can call to help her?”
All four of the actors on the little stage glanced up, aware for the first time of an audience; and had the Grand Duchess’s eyes been younger, she might havebeen still further puzzled by the varying and vivid expressions of their faces. But she saw only that the dark-browed peasant man, who had glared so haughtily at poor Frau Yorvan, was throwing off his burden with haste and roughness.
“I do hope he hasn’t already stolen anything of value,” cried the Grand Duchess. “Better not let him go until you’ve looked into your rücksacks. Remember that silver drinking cup youwouldtake with you—”
She paused, not so much in deference to Virginia’s quick reply, as in amazement at Frau Yorvan’s renewed gesticulations. Was it possible that the woman understood more English than her guests supposed, and feared lest the brigand—perhaps equally well instructed—might seek immediate revenge? His bare knees alone were evidence against his character in the eyes of the Grand Duchess. They gave him a brazen, abandoned air; and a young man who cultivated so long a space between stockings and trousers might be capable of any crime.
“Oh, Mother, you’re very much mistaken,” Virginia was protesting. “This man is a great friend of mine, and has saved my life. You must thank him.If it were not for him, I might never have come back to you.”
At last the meaning of her words penetrated to the intelligence of the Grand Duchess, through an armor of misapprehension.
“He saved your life?” she echoed. “Oh, then you have been in danger! Heaven be thanked for your safety—and also that the man’s not likely to know English, or I should never forgive myself for what I’ve said. Here is my purse, dearest. Catch it as I throw, and give it to him just as it is. There are at least twenty pounds in it, and I only wish I could afford more. But what is the matter, my child? You look ready to faint.”
As she began to speak, she snatched from a desk at which she had been writing, a netted silver purse. But while she paused, waiting for Virginia to hold out her hands, the girl forbade the contemplated act of generosity with an imploring gesture.
“He will accept no reward for what he has done, except our thanks; and those I give him once again,” the girl answered. She then turned to the chamois hunter, and made him a present of her hand, over which he bowed with the air of a courtier rather thanthe rough manner of a peasant. And the Grand Duchess still hoped that the Emperor might be at the window, as really it was a pretty picture, and, it seemed to her, presented a pleasing phase of Virginia’s character.
She eagerly awaited her daughter’s coming, and having lingered at the window to watch with impatience the rather ceremonious leave-taking, she hastened to the door of the improvised sitting-room to welcome the mountaineers, as they returned to tell their adventures.
“My darling, who do you think was listening and looking from the window next ours?” she breathlessly inquired, when she had embraced her newly-restored treasure—for the secret of the adjoining room was too good to keep until questions had been put. “Can’t you guess? I’m surprised at that, since you were so sure last night of a certain person’s presence not far away. Why, who but your Emperor himself!”
The Princess laughed happily, and kissed her mother’s pink cheek. “Then he must have an astral body,” said she, “since one or the other has been with me all day; and it was to him—or his Doppelgänger—thatyou offered your purse to make up for accusing him of stealing!”
The Grand Duchess sat down; not so much because she wished to assume a sitting position, as because she experienced a sudden, uncontrollable weakness of the knees. For a moment she was unable to speak, or even to speculate; but one vague thought did trail dimly across her brain. “Heavens! what have I done to him? And maybe some day he will be my son-in-law.”
Meanwhile, Frau Yorvan—a strangely subdued Frau Yorvan—had droopingly followed the chamois hunter into the inn.
“My dear old friend, you must learn not to lose that well-meaning head of yours,” said he in the hall.
“Oh, but, your Majesty—”
“Now, now, must I remind you again that his Majesty is at Kronburg, or Petersbrück, or some other of his residences, when I am at Alleheiligen? This time I believe he’s at the Baths of Melina. If you can’t remember these things, I fear I shall be driven away from here, to look for chamois elsewhere than on the Schneehorn.”
“Indeed, I will not be so stupid again, your—Imean, I will do my very best not to forget. But never before have I been so tried. To see your high-born, imperial shoulders loaded down as if—as if you had been a common Gepäckträger for tourists, instead of—”
“A chamois hunter. Don’t distress yourself, good friend. I’ve had a day of excellent sport.”
“For that I am thankful. But to see your—to see you coming back in such an unsuitable way, has given me a weakness of the heart. How can I order myself civilly to those ladies, who have—”
“Who have given peasant Leopold some hours of amusement. Be more civil than ever, for my sake. And by the way, can you tell me the names of the ladies? That one of them—a companion, I judge—is a Miss Manchester, I have heard in conversation; but the others—”
“They are mother and daughter—sir. The elder, who in her ignorance, cried out such treasonable abominations from the window (as I could tell even with the little English I have picked up) is Lady Mowbray. I have seen the name written down; and I know how to speak it because I have heard it pronounced by the companion, the Mees Manchester.The younger—the beautiful one—is also a Mees—and the mother calls her Hélène. They talk together in English, also in French, and though I have so few words of either language, I could tell that London was mentioned between them more than once, while I waited on the table. Besides, it is painted in black letters on their traveling boxes.”
“You did not expect their arrival?”
“Oh, no, sir. Had they written beforehand, at this season, when I generally expect to be honored by your presence, I should have answered that the house was full—or closed—or any excuse which occurred to me, to keep strangers away. But none have ever before arrived so late in the year, and I was taken all unawares when my son Alois drove them up last night. He did not know you had arrived, as the papers spoke so positively of your visit to the Baths; and I could not send travelers away; you have bidden me not to do so, once they are in the house. But these ladies are here but for a day or two more, on their way to Kronburg for a visit; and I thought—”
“You did quite right, Frau Yorvan. Has my messenger come up with letters?”
“Yes, your—yes, sir. Just now also a telegramwas brought by another messenger, who came and left in a great hurry.”
The chamois hunter shrugged his shoulders, and sighed an impatient sigh. “It’s too much to expect that I should be left in peace for a single day, even here,” he muttered, as he went toward the stairs.
To reach Frau Yorvan’s best sitting-room (selfishly occupied, according to one opinion, by four men absent all day on a mountain), he was obliged to pass by a door through which issued unusual sounds. So unusual were they, that the Emperor paused.
Some one was striking the preliminary chords of a volkslied on his favorite instrument, a Rhaetian variation of the zither. As he lingered, listening, a voice began to sing—ah, but a voice!
Softly seductive it was as the cooing of a dove in the spring, to its mate; pure as the purling of a brook among meadow flowers; rich as the deep notes of a nightingale in his passion for the moon. And for the song, it was the heart-breaking cry of a young Rhaetian peasant who, lying near death in a strange land, longs for one ray of sunrise light on the bare mountain tops of the homeland, more earnestly than for his first sight of an unknown Heaven.
The man outside the door did not move until the voice was still. He knew well, though he could not see, who the singer had been. It was impossible for the plump lady at the window, or the thin lady with the glasses, to own a voice like that. It was the girl’s. She only, of the trio, could so exhale her soul in the very perfume of sound. For to his fancy, it was like hearing the fragrance of a rose breathed aloud. “I have heard an angel,” he said to himself. But in reality he had heard Princess Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe, showing off her very prettiest accomplishment, in the childish hope that the man she loved might hear.
Leopold of Rhaetia had heard many golden voices—golden in more senses of the word than one—but never before, it seemed to him, a voice which so stirred his spirit with pain that was bitter-sweet, pleasure as blinding as pain, and a vague yearning for something beautiful which he had never known.
If he had been asked what that something was, he could not, if he would, have told; for a man cannot explain that part of himself which he has never even tried to understand.
Before he had moved many paces from the door, the lovely voice, no longer plaintive, but swelling tobrilliant triumph, broke into the national anthem of Rhaetia—warlike, inspiring as the Marseillaise, but wilder, calling her sons to face death singing, in the defense.
“She’s an English girl, yet she sings our Rhaetian music as no Rhaetian woman I have ever heard, can sing it,” he told himself, slowly passing on to his own door. “She is a new type to me. I don’t think there can be many like her. A pity that she is not a Princess, or else—that Leopold the Emperor and Leo the chamois hunter are not two men. Still, the chamois hunter of Rhaetia would be no match for Miss Mowbray of London, so the weights would balance in the scales as unevenly as now.”
He gave a sigh, and a smile that lifted his eyebrows. Then he opened the door of his sitting-room, to forget among certain documents which urged the importance of an immediate return to duty, the difference between Leopold and Leo, the difference between women and a Woman.
“Good-by to our mountains, to-morrow morning,” he said to his three chosen companions. “Hey for work and Kronburg.”
Shewas going to Kronburg in a few days, accordingto Frau Yorvan. But Kronburg was not Alleheiligen; and Leopold, the Emperor, was not, at his palace, in the way of meeting tourists—or even “explorers.”
“She’ll never know to whom she gave her ring,” he thought with the dense innocence of a man who has studied all books save women’s looks. “And I’ll never know who gives her a plain gold one for the finger on which she once wore this.”
But in the next room, divided from him by a single wall, sat Princess Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe.
“When we meet again at Kronburg, he mustn’t dream that I knew all the time,” she was saying to herself. “That would spoil everything—just at first. Yet oh, some day how I should love to confess all—all! Only I couldn’t possibly confess except to a man who would excuse, or perhaps even approve, because he had learned to love me—well. And what shall I do, how shall I bear my life now I’ve seen him, if that day should never come?”
Letters of introduction for Lady Mowbray and her daughter to influential and interesting persons attached to the Rhaetian Court, were necessarily a part of the wonderful plan connected in the English garden, though they were among the details thought out afterwards.
The widow of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baumenburg-Drippe was reported in the journals of various countries, to be traveling with the Princess Virginia and a small suite, through Canada and the United States; and fortunately for the success of the innocent plot, the Grand Duchess had spent so many years of seclusion in England, and had, even in her youth, met so few Rhaetians, that there was little fear of detection. Her objections to Virginia’s scheme for winning a lover instead of thanking Heaven quietly for a mere husband, were based on other grounds,but Virginia had overcome them, and eventually the Grand Duchess had proved not only docile, but positively fertile in expedient.
The choosing of the borrowed flag under which to sail had at first been a difficulty. It was pointed out by a friend taken into their confidence (a lady whose husband had been ambassador to Rhaetia), that a real name, and a name of some dignity, must be adopted, if proper introductions were to be given. And it was the Grand Duchess who suggested the name of Mowbray, on the plea that she had, in a way, the right to annex it.
The mother of the late Duke of Northmoreland had been a Miss Mowbray, and there were still several eminently respectable, inconspicuous Mowbray cousins. Among these cousins was a certain Lady Mowbray, widow of a baron of that ilk, and possessing a daughter some years older and innumerable degrees plainer than the Princess Virginia.
To this Lady Mowbray the Grand Duchess had gone out of her way to be kind in Germany, long years ago, when she was a very grand personage indeed, and Lady Mowbray comparatively a nobody. The humble connection had expressed herself as unspeakablygrateful, and the two had kept up a friendship ever since. Therefore, when the difficulty of realism in a name presented itself, the Grand Duchess thought of Lady Mowbray and Miss Helen Mowbray. They were about to leave England for India, but had not yet left; and the widow of the Baron was flattered as well as amused by the romantic confidence reposed in her by the widow of the Grand Duke. She was delighted to lend her name, and her daughter’s name; and who could blame the lady if her mind rushed forward to the time when she should have earned gratitude from the young Empress of Rhaetia? for of course she had no doubt of the way in which the adventure would end.
As for the wife of the late British Ambassador to the Rhaetian Court, she was not sentimental and therefore was not quite as comfortably sure of the sequel. As far as concerned her own part in the plot, however, she felt safe enough; for though she was, after a fashion, deceiving her old acquaintances at Kronburg, she was not foisting adventuresses upon them; on the contrary, she was giving them a chance of entertaining angels unawares, by sending them letters to ladies who were in reality the GrandDuchess of Baumenburg-Drippe and the Princess Virginia.
The four mysterious gentlemen left Alleheiligen the day after Virginia’s encounter with the chamois hunter; but the Mowbrays lingered on. The adventure had begun so gloriously that the girl feared an anti-climax for the next step. Though she longed for the second meeting, she dreaded it as well, and put off the chance of it from day to day. The stay of the Mowbrays at Alleheiligen lengthened into a week, and when they left at last, it was only just in time for the great festivities at Kronburg, which were to celebrate the Emperor’s thirty-first birthday, an event enhanced in national importance by the fact that the eighth anniversary of his coronation would fall on the same date.
On the morning of the journey, the Grand Duchess had neuralgia and was frankly cross.
“I don’t see after all, what you’ve accomplished so far by this mad freak which has dragged us across Europe,” she said, fretfully, in the train which they had taken at a town twenty miles from Alleheiligen. “We’ve perched on a mountain top, like the Ark on Ararat, for a week, freezing; the adventure you hadthere is only a complication. What have we to show for our trouble—unless incipient rheumatism?”
Virginia had nothing to show for it; at least, nothing that she meant to show, even to her mother; but in a little scented bag of silk which lay next her heart, was folded a bit of blotting-paper. If you looked at its reflection in a mirror, you saw, written twice over in a firm, individual hand, the name “Helen Mowbray.”
The Princess had found it on a table in the best sitting-room, after Frau Yorvan had made that room ready for its new occupants. Therefore she loved Alleheiligen: therefore she thought with redoubled satisfaction of her visit there.
To learn her full name, he must have thought it worth while to make inquiries. It had lingered in his thoughts, or he would not have scrawled it twice on some bit of paper—since destroyed no doubt—in a moment of idle dreaming.
Through most of her life, Virginia had known the lack of money; but she would not have exchanged a thousand pounds for the contents of that little bag.
Hohenlangenwald is the name of the House from which the rulers of Rhaetia sprang; therefore everything in the beautiful city of Kronburg which cantake the name of Hohenlangenwald, has taken it; and it was at the Hohenlangenwald Hotel that a suite of rooms had been engaged for Lady Mowbray.
The travelers broke the long journey at Melinabad; and Virginia’s study of trains had timed their arrival in Kronburg for the morning of the birthday eve, early enough for the first ceremony of the festivities; the unveiling by the Emperor of a statue of Rhaetia in the Leopoldplatz, directly in front of the Hohenlangenwald Hotel.
Virginia looked forward to seeing the Emperor from her own windows; as according to her calculation, there was an hour to spare; but at the station they were told by the driver of the carriage sent to meet them, that the crowd in the streets being already very great, he feared it would be a tedious undertaking to get through. Some of the thoroughfares were closed for traffic; he would have to go by a roundabout way; and in any case could not reach the main entrance of the hotel. At best, he would have to deposit his passengers and their luggage at a side entrance, in a narrow street.
As the carriage started, from far away came a burst of martial music; a military band playing thenational air which the chamois hunter had heard a girl sing, behind a closed door at Alleheiligen.
The shops were all shut—would be shut until the day after to-morrow, but their windows were unshuttered and gaily decorated, to add to the brightness of the scene. Strange old shops displayed the marvelous, chased silver, the jeweled weapons and gorgeous embroideries from the far eastern provinces of Rhaetia; splendid new shops rivaled the best of the Rue de la Paix in Paris. Gray medieval buildings made wonderful backgrounds for drapery of crimson and blue, and garlands of blazing flowers. Modern buildings of purple-red porphyry and the famous honey-yellow marble of Rhaetia, fluttered with flags; and above all, in the heart of the town, between old and new, rose the Castle Rock. Virginia’s pulses beat, as she saw the home of Leopold for the first time, and she was proud of its picturesqueness, its riches and grandeur, as if she had some right in it, too.
Ancient, narrow streets, and wide new streets, were alike arbors of evergreen and brilliant blossoms. Prosperous citizens in their best, inhabitants of the poorer quarters, and stalwart peasants from the country, elbowed and pushed each other good-naturedly,as they streamed toward the Leopoldplatz. Handsome people they were, the girl thought, her heart warming to them; and to her it seemed that the very air tingled with expectation. She believed that she could feel the magnetic thrill in it, even if she were blind and deaf, and could hear or see nothing of the excitement.
“We must be in time—we shall be in time!” she said to herself. “I shall lean out from my window and see him.”
But at the hotel, which they did finally reach, the girl had to bear a keen disappointment. With many apologies the landlord explained that he had done his very best for Lady Mowbray’s party when he received their letter a fortnight before, and that he had allotted them a good suite, with balconies overlooking the river at the back of the house—quite a venetian effect, as her ladyship would find. But, as to rooms at the front, impossible! All had been engaged fully six weeks in advance. One American millionaire was paying a thousand gulden solely for an hour’s use of a small balcony, to-day for the unveiling and again to-morrow for the street procession. Virginia was pale with disappointment. “Then I’ll go down intothe crowd and take my chance of seeing something,” she said to her mother, when they had been shown into handsome rooms, satisfactory in everything but situation. “I must hurry, or there’ll be no hope.”
“My dear child, impossible for you to do such a thing!” exclaimed the Grand Duchess. “I can’t think of allowing it. Fancy what a crush there will be. All sorts of creatures trampling on each other for places. Besides, you could see nothing.”
“Oh, Mother,” pleaded the Princess, in her softest, sweetest voice—the voice she kept for extreme emergencies of cajoling. “I couldn’tbearto stay shut up here while that music plays and the crowds shout themselves hoarse formyEmperor. Besides, it’s the most curious thing—I feel as if a voice kept calling to me that I must be there. Miss Portman and I’ll take care of each other. Youwilllet me go, won’t you?”
Of course the Grand Duchess yielded, her one stipulation being that the two should keep close to the hotel; and the Princess urged her reluctant companion away without waiting to hear her mother’s last counsels.
Their rooms were on the first floor, and the girlhurried eagerly down the broad flight of marble stairs, Miss Portman following dutifully upon her heels.
They could not get out by way of the front door, for people had paid for standing room there, and would not yield an inch, even for an instant; while the two or three steps below, and the broad pavement in front were as closely blocked.
Matters began to look hopeless, but Virginia would not be daunted. They tried the side entrance and found it free, the street into which it led being comparatively empty; but just beyond, where it ran into the great open square of the Leopoldplatz, there was a solid wall of sight-seers.
“We might as well go back,” said Miss Portman, who had none of the Princess’s keenness for the undertaking. She was tired after the journey, and for herself, would rather have had a cup of tea than see fifty emperors unveil as many statues by celebrated sculptors.
“Oh no!” cried Virginia. “We’ll get to the front, somehow, sooner or later, even if we’re taken off our feet. Look at that man just ahead of us.Hedoesn’t mean to turn back. He’s not a nice man, but he’s terribly determined. Let’s keep close to him, and seewhat he means to do; then, maybe, we shall be able to do it as well.”
Miss Portman glanced at the person indicated by a nod of the Princess’s head. Undismayed by the mass of human beings that blocked the Leopoldplatz a few yards ahead, he walked rapidly along without the least hesitation. He had the air of knowing exactly what he wanted to do, and how to do it. Even Miss Portman, who had no imagination, saw this by his back. The set of the head on the shoulders was singularly determined, and the walk revealed a consciousness of importance accounted for, perhaps, by the gray and crimson uniform which might be that of some official order. On the sleek, black head was a large cocked hat, adorned with an eagle’s feather, fastened in place by a gaudy jewel, and this hat was pulled down very far over the face.