One fine September morning in a year the date of which is of no particular importance, a man stepped out of a second-class carriage on to the canopied platform of the railway terminus in the ancient and picturesque city of Bleiberg. He yawned, shook himself, and stretched his arms and legs, relieved to find that the tedious journey from Vienna had not cramped those appendages beyond recovery.
He stood some inches above the average height, and was built up in a manner that suggested the handiwork of a British drill-master, his figure being both muscular and symmetrical. Besides, there was on his skin that rich brown shadow which is the result only of the forces of the sun and wind, a life in the open air. This color gave peculiar emphasis to the yellow hair and mustache. His face was not handsome, if one accept the Greek profile as a model of manly beauty, but it was cleanly and boldly cut, healthful, strong and purposeful, based on determined jaws and a chin which would have been obstinate but for the presence of a kindly mouth.
A guard deposited at his feet a new hatbox, a battered traveling bag and two gun cases which also gave evidence of rough usage. The luggage was literally covered with mutilated square and oblong slips of paper of many colors, on which were printed the advertisements of far-sighted hotel keepers all the way from Bombay to London and half-way back across the continent.
There was nothing to be seen, however, indicative of the traveler's name. He surveyed his surroundings with lively interest shining in his gray eyes, one of which peered through a monocle encircled by a thin rim of tortoise shell. He watched the fussy customs officials, who, by some strange mischance, overlooked his belongings. Finally he made an impatient gesture.
“Find me a cab,” he said to the attentive guard, who, with an eye to the main chance, had waved off the approach of a station porter. “If the inspectors are in no hurry, I am.”
“At once, my lord;” and the guard, as he stooped and lifted the luggage, did not see the start which this appellation caused the stranger to make, but who, after a moment, was convinced that the guard had given him the title merely out of politeness. The guard placed the traps inside of one of the many vehicles stationed at the street exit of the terminus. He was an intelligent and deductive servant.
The traveler was some noted English lord who had come to Bleiberg to shoot the famed golden pheasant, and had secured a second-class compartment in order to demonstrate his incognito. Persons who traveled second-class usually did so to save money; yet this tall Englishman, since the train departed from Vienna, had almost doubled in gratuities the sum paid for his ticket. The guard stood respectfully at the door of the cab, doffed his cap, into which a memento was dropped, and went along about his business.
The Englishman slammed the door, the jehu cracked his whip, and a moment later the hoarse breathings of the motionless engines became lost in the sharper noises of the city carts. The unknown leaned against the faded cushions, curled his mustache, and smiled as if well satisfied with events. It is quite certain that his sense of ease and security would have been somewhat disturbed had he known that another cab was close on the track of his, and that its occupant, an officer of the city gendarmerie, alternately smiled and frowned as one does who floats between conviction and uncertainty. At length the two vehicles turned into the Konigstrasse, the principal thoroughfare of the capital, and here the Englishman's cab came to a stand. The jehu climbed down and opened the door.
“Did Herr say the Continental?” he asked.
“No; the Grand.”
The driver shrugged, remounted his box, and drove on. The Grand Hotel was clean enough and respectable, but that was all that could be said in its favor. He wondered if the Englishman would haggle over the fare. Englishmen generally did. He was agreeably disappointed, however, when, on arriving at the mean hostelry, his passenger plunged a hand into a pocket and produced three Franz-Josef florins.
“You may have these,” he said, “for the trouble of having them exchanged into crowns.”
As he whipped up, the philosophical cabman mused that these tourists were beyond the pale of his understanding. With a pocket full of money, and to put up at the Grand! Why not the Continental, which lay close to the Werter See, the palaces, the royal and public gardens? It was at the Continental that the fine ladies and gentlemen from Vienna, and Innsbruck, and Munich, and Belgrade, resided during the autumn months. But the Grand—ach! it was in the heart of the shops and markets, and within a stone's throw of that gloomy pile of granite designated in the various guide books as the University of Bleiberg.
The Englishman had some difficulty in finding a pen that would write, and the ink was oily, and the guest-book was not at the proper angle. At last he managed to form the letters of his name, which was John Hamilton. After some deliberation, he followed this with “England.” The proprietor, who acted as his own clerk, drew the book toward him, and after some time, deciphered the cabalistic signs.
“Ah, Herr John Hamilton of England; is that right?”
“Yes; I am here for a few days' shooting. Can you find me a man to act as guide?”
“This very morning, Herr.”
“Thanks.”
Then he proceeded up the stairs to the room assigned to him. The smell of garlic which pervaded the air caused him to make a grimace. Once alone in the room, he looked about. There was neither soap nor towel, but there was a card which stated that the same could be purchased at the office. He laughed. A pitcher of water and a bowl stood on a small table, which, by the presence of a mirror (that could not in truth reflect anything but light and darkness), served as a dresser. These he used to good advantage, drying his face and hands on the white counterpane of the bed, and laughing quietly as he did so. Next he lit a pipe, whose capacity for tobacco was rather less than that of a lady's thimble, sat in a chair by the window, smoked quietly, and gazed down on the busy street.
It was yet early in the morning; sellers of vegetables, men and women peasants, with bare legs and wooden shoes, driving shaggy Servian ponies attached to low, cumbersome carts, passed and repassed, to and from the markets. A gendarme, leaning the weight of his shoulder on the guard of a police saber, rested against the corner of a wine shop across the way. Students, wearing squat caps with vizors, sauntered indolently along, twirling canes and ogling all who wore petticoats. Occasionally the bright uniform of a royal cuirassier flashed by; and the Englishman would lean over the sill and gaze after him, nodding his head in approval whenever the cuirassier sat his horse well.
In the meantime the gendarme, who followed him from the station, had entered the hotel, hastily glanced at the freshly written name, and made off toward the palace.
“Well, here we are,” mused the Englishman, pressing his thumb into the bowl of his pipe. “The affair promises some excitement. To-morrow will be the sixth; on the twentieth it will be a closed incident, as the diplomats would say. I don't know what brought me here so far ahead of time. I suppose I must look out for a crack on the head from some one I don't know, but who knows me so deuced well that he has hunted me in India and England, first with fine bribes, then with threats.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the gun cases. “It was a capital idea, otherwise a certain ubiquitous customs official, who lies in wait for the unwary at the frontier, would now be an inmate of a hospital. To have lived thirty-five years, and to have ground out thirteen of them in her Majesty's, is to have acquired a certain disdain for danger, even when it is masked. I am curious to see how far these threats will go. It will take a clever man to trap me. The incognito is a fort. By the way, I wonder how the inspectors at the station came to overlook my traps? Strange, considering what I have gone through.”
At this moment the knuckles of a hand beat against the door.
“Come in!” answered the Englishman, wheeling his chair, but making no effort to rise. “Come in!”
The door swung in, and there entered a short, spectacled man in dark gray clothes which fairly bristled with brass buttons. He was the chief inspector of customs. He bowed.
The Englishman, consternation widening his eyes, lowered his pipe.
“Monsieur Hamilton's pardon,” the inspector began, speaking in French, “but with your permission I shall inspect your luggage and glance at your passports.” He bowed again.
“Now do you know, mon ami,” replied the Englishman, “that Monsieur Hamilton will not permit you to gaze even into yonder washbowl?” He rose lazily.
“But, Monsieur,” cried the astonished official, to whom non-complaisance in the matter of inspection was unprecedented, “you certainly will not put any obstacle in the path of my duty!”
“Your duty, Monsieur the Spectacles, is to inspect at the station. There your assistants refused to award me their attention. You are trespassing.”
“Monsieur forgets,” sternly; “it is the law. Is it possible that I shall be forced to call in the gendarmes to assist me? This is extraordinary!”
“I dare say it is, on your part,” admitted the Englishman, polishing the bowl of his pipe against the side of his nose. “You had best go at once. If you do not, I shall take you by the nape of your Bleibergian neck and kick you down the stairs. I have every assurance of my privileges. The law here, unless it has changed within the past hour, requires inspection at the frontier, and at the capital; but your jurisdiction does not extend beyond the stations. Bon jour, Monsieur the Spectacles; bon jour!”
“O, Monsieur!”
“Good day!”
“Monsieur, it is my duty; I must!”
“Good day! How will you go, by the stairs or by the window? I—but wait!” an idea coming to him which caused him to reflect on the possible outcome of violence done to a government official, who, perhaps, was discharging his peculiar duty at the orders of superiors. He walked swiftly to the door and slid the bolt, to the terror of the inspector, on whose brow drops of perspiration began to gather. “Now,” opening the hat box and taking out a silk hat, “this is a hat, purchased in Paris at Cook's. There is nothing in the lining but felt. Look into the box; nothing. Take out your book and follow me closely,” he continued, dividing the traveling bag into halves, and he began to enumerate the contents.
“But, Monsieur!” remonstrated the inspector, who did not enjoy this infringement of his prerogatives; his was the part to overhaul. “This is—”
“Be still and follow me,” and the Englishman went on with the inventory. “There!” when he had done, “not a dutiable thing except this German-Scotch whisky, and that is so bad that I give it to you rather than pay duty. What next? My passports? Here they are, absolutely flawless, vised by the authorities in Vienna.”
The slips crackled in the fluttering fingers of the inspector. “They are as you say, Monsieur,” he said, returning the permits. Then he added timidly, “And the gun cases?”
“The gun cases!” The pipe spilled its coal to the floor. “The gun cases!”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“And why do you wish to look into them?” with agitation.
“Smugglers sometimes fill them with cigars.”
“Ah!” The Englishman selected two loaded shells, drew a gun from the case, threw up the breech and rammed in the shells. Then he extended the weapon to within an inch of the terrified inspector's nose. “Now, Monsieur the Spectacles, look in there and tell me what you see.”
The fellow sank half-fainting into a chair. “Mon Dieu, Monsieur, would you kill me who have a family?”
“What's a customs inspector, more or less?” asked the terrible islander, laughing. “I advise you not to ask me to let you look into the other gun, out of consideration for your family. It has hair triggers, and my fingers tremble.”
“Monsieur, Monsieur, you do wrong to trifle with the law. I shall be obliged to report you. You will be arrested.”
“Nothing of the kind,” was the retort. “I have only to inform the British minister how remiss you were in your obligations. I should go free, whereas you would be discharged. But what I demand to know is, what the devil is the meaning of this farce.”
“I am simply obeying orders,” answered the inspector, wiping his forehead. “It is not a farce, as Monsieur will find.” Then, as if to excuse this implied threat: “Will Monsieur please point the gun the other way?”
The Englishman unloaded the gun and tossed it on the bed.
“Thanks. In coming here I simply obeyed the orders of the minister of police.”
“And what in the world did you expect to find?”
“We are looking—that is, they are looking—O, Monsieur, it is impossible for me to disclose to you my government's purposes.”
“What and whom were you expecting?” demanded the Englishman. “You shall not leave this room till you have fully explained this remarkable intrusion.”
“We were expecting the Lord and Baronet Fitzgerald.”
“The lord!” laughing. “Does the lord visit Bleiberg often, then, that you prepare this sort of a reception? And the Baronet Fitzgerald?”
“They are the same and the one person.”
“And who the deuce is he; a spy, a smuggler, a villain, or what?”
“As to that, Monsieur,” with a wonder why this man laughed, “I know no more than you. But I do know that for the past month every Englishman has been subjected to this surveillance, and has submitted with more grace than you,” with an oblique glance.
“What! Examined his luggage at the hotel?”
“Yes, Monsieur. It is the order of the minister of police. I know not why.” The natural color was returning to his cheeks.
“This is a fine country, I must say. At least the king should acquaint his visitors with the true cause of this treatment.” In his turn the Englishman resorted to oblique glances.
“The king?” The inspector raised a shoulder and spread his hands. “The king is a paralytic, Monsieur, and has little to say these days.”
“A paralytic? I thought he was called `the handsome monarch'?”
“That was years ago, Monsieur. For three years he has been helpless and bedridden. The archbishop is the real king nowadays. But he meddles not with the police.”
“This is very sad. I suppose it would be impossible for strangers to see him now.”
“An audience?” a sparkle behind the spectacles. “Is your business with the king, Monsieur?”
“My business is mine,” shortly. “I am only a tourist, and should have liked to see the king from mere curiosity. However, had you explained all this to me, I should not have caused you so many gray hairs.”
“Monsieur did not give me the chance,” simply.
“True,” the Englishman replied soberly. He began to think that he had been over hasty in asserting his privileges. “But all this has nothing to do with me. My name is John Hamilton. See, it is engraved on the stock of the gun,” catching it up and holding it under the spectacled eyes, which still observed it with some trepidation. “That is the name in my passports, in the book down stairs, in the lining of my hat. I am sorry, since you were only obeying orders, that my rough play has caused you alarm.” He unbolted the door. “Good morning.”
The inspector left the room as swiftly as his short legs could carry him, ignoring the ethics of common politeness. As he stumbled down the stairs he cursed the minister of police for requiring this spy work of him, and not informing him why it was done. Ah, these cursed Anglais from Angleterre! They were all alike, and this one was the worst he had ever encountered. And those ugly black orifices in the gun! Peste! He would resign! Yes, certainly he would resign.
As to the Englishman, he stood in the center of the room and scratched his head. “Hang it, I've made an ass of myself. That blockhead will have the gendarmes about my ears. If they arrest me there will be the devil to pay. The Lord and the Baronet Fitzgerald!” he repeated. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and fell to laughing again. “Confound these picture-book kingdoms! They always take themselves so seriously. Well, if the gendarmes call this afternoon I'll not be at home. No, thank you. I shall be hunting pheasants.”
And thereat he set to work cleaning the gun which had all but prostrated the inspector. Soon the room smelled of oiled rags and tobacco. Some-times the worker whistled softly. Sometimes he let the gun fall against his knee, and stared dreamily through the window at the flight of the ragged clouds. Again, he would shake his head, as if there were something which he failed to understand. Half an hour passed, when again some one knocked on the door.
“Come in!” Under his breath he added: “The gendarmes, likely.”
But it was only the proprietor of the hotel. “Asking Herr's pardon,” he said, “for this intrusion, but I have secured a man for you. I have the honor to recommend Johann Kopf as a good guide and hunter.”
“Send him up. If he pleases me, I'll use him.”
The proprietor withdrew.
Johann Kopf proved to be a young German with a round, ruddy face, which was so innocent of guile as to be out of harmony with the shrewd, piercing black eyes looking out of it. The Englishman eyed him inquisitively, even suspiciously.
“Are you a good hunter?” he asked.
“There is none better hereabout,” answered Johann, twirling his cap with noticeably white fingers. It was only in after days that the Englishman appreciated the full significance of this answer.
“Speak English?”
“No. Herr's German is excellent, however.”
“Humph!” The Englishman gave a final glance into the shining tubes of the gun, snapped the breach, and slipped it into the case. “You'll do. Return to the office; I'll be down presently.”
“Will Herr hunt this morning?”
“No; what I wish this morning is to see the city of Bleiberg.”
“That is simple,” said Johann. The fleeting, imperceptible smile did not convict his eyes of false keenness.
He bowed out. When the door closed the Englishman waited until the sound of retreating steps failed. Then he took the gun case which he had not yet opened, and thrust it under the mattress of the bed.
“Johann,” he said, as he put on a soft hat and drew a cane from the straps of the traveling bag, “you will certainly precede me in our hunting expeditions. I do not like your eyes; they are not at home in your boyish face. Humph! what a country. Every one speaks a different tongue.”
The city of Bleiberg lay on a hill and in the valleys which fell away to the east and west. It was divided into two towns, the upper and the lower. The upper town and that part which lay on the shores of the Werter See was the modern and fashionable district. It was here that the king and the archbishop had their palaces and the wealthy their brick and stone. The public park skirted the lake, and was patterned after those fine gardens which add so much to the picturesqueness of Vienna and Berlin. There were wide gravel paths and long avenues of lofty chestnuts and lindens, iron benches, fountains and winding flower beds. The park, the palaces, and the Continental Hotel enclosed a public square, paved with asphalt, called the Hohenstaufenplatz, in the center of which rose a large marble fountain of several streams, guarded by huge bronze wolves. Here, too, were iron benches which were, for the most part, the meeting-place of the nursemaids. Carriages were allowed to make the circuit, but not to obstruct the way.
The Konigstrasse began at the Platz, divided the city, and wound away southward, merging into the highway which continued to the Thalian Alps, some thirty miles distant. The palaces were at the southeast corner of the Platz, first the king's, then the archbishop's. The private gardens of each ran into the lake. Directly across from the palaces stood the cathedral, a relic of five centuries gone. On the northwest corner stood the Continental Hotel, with terrace and parapet at the water's edge, and a delightful open-air cafe facing the Platz. September and October were prosperous months in Bleiberg. Fashionable people who desired quiet made Bleiberg an objective point. The pheasants were plump, there were boars, gray wolves, and not infrequently Monsieur Fourpaws of the shaggy coat wandered across from the Carpathians.
As to the lower town, it was given over to the shops and markets, the barracks, the university, and the Rathhaus, which served as the house of the Diet. It was full of narrow streets and quaint dwellings.
Up the Konigstrasse the guide led the Englishman, who nodded whenever the voluble chatter of the German pleased him. When they began the descent of the hill, the vista which opened before them drew from the Englishman an ejaculation of delight. There lay the lake, like a bright new coin in a green purse; the light of the sun broke on the white buildings and flashed from the windows; and the lawns twinkled like emeralds.
“It makes Vienna look to her laurels, eh, Herr?” said Johann.
“But it must have cost a pretty penny.”
“Aye, that it did; and the king is being impressed with that fact every day. There are few such fine palaces outside of first-class kingdoms. The cathedral there was erected at the desire of a pope, born five hundred years ago. It is full of romance. There is to be a grand wedding there on the twentieth of this month. That is why there are so many fashionable people at the hotels. The crown prince of Carnavia, which is the large kingdom just east of us, is to wed the Princess Alexia, the daughter of the king.”
“On the twentieth? That is strange.”
“Strange?”
“I meant nothing,” said the Englishman, jerking back his shoulders; “I had in mind another affair.”
There was a flash in Johann's eyes, but he subdued it before the Englishman was aware of its presence. “However,” said Johann, “there is something strange. The prince was to have arrived a week ago to complete the final arrangements for the wedding. His suite has been here a week, but no sign of his Highness. He stopped over a train at Ehrenstein to visit for a few hours a friend of the king, his father. Since then nothing has been heard from him. The king, it is said, fears that some accident has happened to him. Carnavia is also disturbed over this disappearance. Some whisper of a beautiful peasant girl. Who can say?”
“Any political significance in this marriage?”
“Leopold expects to strengthen his throne by the alliance. But—” Johann's mouth closed and his tongue pushed out his cheek. “There will be some fine doings in the good city of Bleiberg before the month is gone. The minister from the duchy has been given his passports. Every one concedes that trouble is likely to ensue. Baron von Rumpf—”
“Baron von Rumpf,” repeated the Englishman thoughtfully.
“Yes; he is not a man to submit to accusations without making a disagreeable defense.”
“What does the duke say?”
“The duke?”
“Yes.”
“His Highness has been dead these four years.”
“Dead four years? So much for man and his futile dreams. Dead four years,” absently.
“What did you say, Herr?”
“I? Nothing. How did he die?”
“He was thrown from his horse and killed. But the duchess lives, and she is worthy of her sire. Eh, Herr, there is a woman for you! She should sit on this throne; it is hers by right. These Osians are aliens and were forced on us.”
“It seems to me, young man, that you are talking treason.”
“That is my business, Herr.” Johann laughed. “I am a socialist, and occasionally harangue for the reds. And sometimes, when I am in need of money, I find myself in the employ of the police.”
The muscles of the Englishman's jaws hardened, then they relaxed. The expression on the face of his guide was free from anything but bonhomie.
“One must live,” Johann added deprecatingly.
“Yes, one must live,” replied the Englishman.
“O! but I could sell some fine secrets to the Osians had they money to pay. Ach! but what is the use? The king has no money; he is on the verge of bankruptcy, and this pretty bit of scenery is the cause of it.”
“So you are a socialist?” said the Englishman, passing over Johann's declamatory confidences.
“Yes, Herr. All men are brothers.”
“Go to!” laughed the Englishman, “you aren't even a second cousin to me. But stay, what place is this we are passing?” indicating with his cane a red-brick mansion which was fronted by broad English lawns and protected from intrusion by a high iron fence.
“That is the British legation, Herr.”
The Englishman stopped and stared, unconscious of the close scrutiny of the guide. His eyes traveled up the wide flags leading to the veranda, and he drew a picture of a square-shouldered old man tramping backward and forward, the wind tangling his thin white hair, his hands behind his back, his chin in his collar and at his heels a white bulldog. Rapidly another picture came. It was an English scene. And the echo of a voice fell on his ears. “My way and the freedom of the house and the key to the purse; your way and a closed door while I live. You can go, but you can not come back. You have decided? Yes? Then good morning.” Thirteen years, thirteen years! He had sacrificed the freedom of the house and the key to the purse, the kind eyes and the warm pressure of that old hand. And for what? Starvation in the deserts, plenty of scars and little of thanks, ingratitude and forgetfulness.
And now the kind eyes were closed and the warm hand cold. O, to recall the vanished face, the silent voice, the misspent years, the April days and their illusions! The Englishman took the monocle from his eye and looked at it, wondering what had caused the sudden blur.
“There was a fine old man there in the bygone days,” said Johann.
“And who was he?”
“Lord Fitzgerald, the British minister. He and Leopold were close friends.” Johann's investigating gaze went unrewarded. The Englishman's face had resumed its expression of mild curiosity.
“Ah; a compatriot of mine,” he said. Inwardly he mused: “This guide is watching me; let him catch me if he can. His duchess? I know far too much of her!”
“He was a millionaire, too,” went on Johann.
“Well, we can't all be rich. Come.”
They crossed the Strasse and traversed the walk at the side of the palace enclosures. The Englishman aimlessly trailed his cane along the green pickets of the fence till they ended in a stone arch which rose high over the driveway. The gates were open, and coming toward the two wanderers as they stood at the curb rolled the royal barouche, on each side of which rode a mounted cuirassier, sashed and helmeted. The Englishman, however, had observed nothing; he was lost in some dream.
“Look, Herr!” cried Johann, rousing the other by a pull at the sleeve. “Look!” Socialist though he claimed to be, Johann touched his cap.
In the barouche, leaning back among the black velvet cushions, her face mellowed by the shade of a small parasol, was a young woman of nineteen or twenty, as beautiful as a da Vinci freshly conceived. The Englishman saw a pair of grave dark eyes which, in the passing, met his and held them. He caught his breath.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“That is her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Alexia.”
Afterward the Englishman remembered seeing a white dog lying on the opposite seat.
Maurice Carewe, attached to the American legation in Vienna, leaned against the stone parapet which separated the terraced promenade of the Continental Hotel from the Werter See, and wondered what had induced him to come to Bleiberg.
He had left behind him the glory of September in Vienna, a city second only to Paris in fashion and gaiety; Vienna, with its inimitable bands, its incomparable gardens, its military maneuvers, its salons, its charming women; and all for a fool's errand. His Excellency was to blame. He had casually dropped the remark that the duchy's minister, Baron von Rumpf, had been given his passports as a persona non grata by the chancellor of the kingdom, and that a declaration of war was likely to follow. Maurice's dormant love of journalistic inquiry had become aroused, and he had asked permission to investigate the affair, a favor readily granted to him.
But here he was, on the scene, and nobody knew anything, and nobody could tell anything. The duchess had remained silent. Not unnaturally he wished himself back in Vienna. There were no court fetes in the city of Bleiberg. The king's condition was too grave to permit them. And, besides, there had been no real court in Bleiberg for the space of ten years, so he was told. Those solemn affairs of the archbishop's, given once the week for the benefit of the corps diplomatique, were dull and spiritless. Her Royal Highness was seldom seen, save when she drove through the streets. Persons who remembered the reign before told what a mad, gay court it had been. Now it was funereal. The youth and beauty of Bleiberg held a court of its own. Royalty was not included, nor did it ask to be.
A strange capital, indeed, Maurice reflected, as he gazed down into the cool, brown water. He regretted his caprice. There were pretty women in Vienna. Some of them belonged to the American colony. They danced well, they sang and played and rode. He had taught some of them how to fence, and he could not remember the times he had been “buttoned” while paying too much attention to their lips and eyes. For Maurice loved a thing of beauty, were it a woman, a horse or a Mediterranean sunset. What a difference between these two years in Vienna and that year in Calcutta! He never would forget the dingy office, with its tarnished sign, “U. S. Consul,” tacked insecurely on the door, and the utter loneliness.
He cast a pebble into the lake, and watched the ripples roll away and disappear, and ruminated on a life full of color and vicissitude. He remembered the Arizona days, the endless burning sand, the dull routine of a cavalry trooper, the lithe brown bodies of the Apaches, the first skirmish and the last. From a soldier he had turned journalist, tramped the streets of Washington in rain and shine, living as a man lived who must.
One day his star had shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend of the father, offered the son a berth in the diplomatic corps. A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary crisis, where he had shown consummate skill in avoiding political complications (and where, by a shrewd speculation in gold, he had feathered his nest for his declining years), proved that the continual incertitude of a journalistic career is a fine basis for diplomatic work. From South America he had gone to Calcutta, thence to Austria.
He was only twenty-nine, which age in some is youth. He possessed an old man's wisdom and a boy's exuberance of spirits. He laughed whenever he could; to him life was a panorama of vivid pictures, the world a vast theater to which somehow he had gained admission. His beardless countenance had deceived more than one finished diplomat, for it was difficult to believe that behind it lay an earnest purpose and a daring courage. If he bragged a little, quizzed graybeards, sought strange places, sported with convention, and eluded women, it was due to his restlessness. Yet, he had the secretiveness of sand; he absorbed, but he revealed nothing. He knew his friends; they thought they knew him. It was his delight to have women think him a butterfly, men write him down a fool; it covered up his real desires and left him free.
What cynicism he had was mellowed by a fanciful humor. Whether with steel or with words, he was a master of fence; and if at times some one got under his guard, that some one knew it not. To let your enemy see that he has hit you is to give him confidence. He saw humor where no one else saw it, and tragedy where it was not suspected. He was one of those rare individuals who, when the opportunity of chance refuses to come, makes one.
“Germany and Austria are great countries,” he mused, lighting a cigar. “Every hundredth man is a king, one in fifty is a duke, every tenth man is a prince, and one can not take a corner without bumping into a count or a baron. Even the hotel waiters are disquieting; there is that embarrassing atmosphere about them which suggests nobility in durance vile. As for me, I prefer Kentucky, where every man is a colonel, and you never make a mistake. And these kingdoms!” He indulged in subdued laughter. “They are always like comic operas. I find myself looking around every moment for the merry villagers so happy and so gay (at fifteen dollars the week), the eternal innkeeper and the perennial soubrette his daughter, the low comedian and the self-conscious tenor. Heigho! and not a soul in Bleiberg knows me, nor cares.
“I'd rather talk five minutes to a pretty woman than eat stuffed pheasants the year around, and the stuffed pheasant is about all Bleiberg can boast of. Well, here goes for a voyage of discovery;” and he passed down the stone steps to the pier, quite unconscious of the admiring glances of the women who fluttered back and forth on the wide balconies above.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon; a fresh wind redolent of pine and resin blew across the lake. Maurice climbed into a boat and pulled away with a strong, swift stroke, enjoying the liberation of his muscles. A quarter of a mile out he let the oars drift and took his bearings. He saw the private gardens of the king and the archbishop, and, convinced that a closer view would afford him entertainment, he caught up the oars again and moved inland.
The royal gardens ran directly into the water, while those of the archbishop were protected by a wall of brick five or six feet in height, in the center of which was a gate opening on the water. Behind the gate was a small boat dock. Maurice plied the oars vigorously. He skirted the royal gardens, and the smell of newly mown lawns filled the air. Soon he was gliding along the sides of the moss-grown walls. A bird chirped in the overhanging boughs. He was about to cast loose the oars again, when the boat was brought to a violent stop. A few yards waterward from the gate there lay, hidden in the shadowed water, a sunken pier. On one of the iron piles the boat had become impaled.
Maurice was tumbled into the bow of the boat, which began rapidly to fill. First he swore, then he laughed, for he was possessed of infinite good humor. The only thing left for him to do was to swim for the gate. With a rueful glance at his thin clothes, he dropped himself over the side of the wreck and struck out toward the gate. The water, having its source from the snowclad mountains, was icy. He was glad enough to grasp the lower bars of the gate and draw himself up. He was on the point of climbing over, when a picture presented itself to his streaming eyes.
Seated on a bench made of twisted vine was a young girl. She held in her hand a book, but she was not reading it. She was scanning the unwritten pages of some reverie; her eyes, dark, large and wistful, were holding communion with the god of dreams. A wisp of hair, glossy as coal, trembled against a cheek white as the gown she wore.
At her side, blinking in the last rays of the warm sun, sat a bulldog, toothless and old. Now and then a sear leaf, falling in a zig-zag course, rustled past his ears, and he would shake his head as if he, too, were dreaming and the leaves disturbed him. All at once he sniffed, his ears stood forward, and a low growl broke the enchantment. The girl, on discovering Maurice, closed the book and rose. The dog, still growling, jumped down and trotted to the gate. Maurice thought that it was time to speak.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “pardon this intrusion, but my boat has met with an accident.”
The girl came to the gate. “Why, Monsieur,” she exclaimed, “you are wet!”
“That is true,” replied Maurice, his teeth beginning to knock together. “I was forced to swim. If you will kindly open the gate and guide me to the street, I shall be much obliged to you.”
The gate swung outward, and in a moment Maurice was on dry land, or the next thing to it, which was the boat-dock.
“Thank you,” he said.
“O! And you might have been drowned,” compassion lighting her beautiful eyes. “Sit down on the bench, Monsieur, for you must be weak. And it was that sunken pier? I shall speak to Monseigneur; he must have it removed. Bull, stop growling; you are very impolite; the gentleman is in distress.”
Maurice sat down, not because he was weak, but because the desire to gain the street had suddenly subsided. Who was this girl who could say “must” to the formidable prelate? His quick eye noticed that she showed no sign of embarrassment. Indeed, she impressed him as one who was superior to that petty disturbance of collected thought. Somehow it seemed to him, as she stood there looking down at him, that he, too, should be standing. But she put forth a hand with gentle insistence when he made as though to rise. What an exquisite face, he thought. Against the whiteness of her skin her lips burned like poppy petals. Innocent, inquisitive eyes smiled gently, eyes in whose tranquil depths lay the glory of the world, asleep. Presently a color, faint and fugitive, dimmed the whiteness of her cheeks. Maurice, conscious of his rudeness and of a warmth in his own cheeks, instinctively lowered his gaze.
“Pardon my rudeness,” he said.
“What is your name, Monsieur,” she asked calmly.
“It is Maurice Carewe. I am living in Vienna. I came to Bleiberg for pleasure, but the first day has not been propitious,” with an apologetic glance at his dripping clothes.
“Maurice Carewe,” slowly repeating the full name as if to imprint it on her memory. “You are English?”
He said: “No; I am one of those dreadful Yankees you have possibly read about.”
Her teeth gleamed. “Yes, I have heard of them. But you do not appear so very dreadful; though at present you are truly not at your best. What is this—this Yankeeland like?”
“It would take me ever so long to tell you about it, it is such a great country.”
“You are a patriot!” clapping her hands. “No other country is so fine and large and great as your own. But tell me, is it as large as Austria?”
“Austria? You will not be offended if I tell you?”
“No.”
“Well,” with fun in his eyes, “it is my opinion that I could hide Austria in my country so thoroughly that nobody would ever be able to find it again.” He wondered how she would accept this statement.
She lifted her chin and laughed, and the bulldog wagged his tail, as he always did when mirth touched her. He jumped up beside Maurice and looked into his face. Maurice patted his broad head, and he submitted. The girl looked rather surprised.
“Are you a magician?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Bull never makes friends.”
“But I do,” said Maurice; “perhaps he understands that, and comes half-way. But it is rather strange to see a bulldog in this part of the country.”
“He was given to me, years ago, by an Englishman.”
“That accounts for it.” He was experiencing a deal of cold, but he dared not mention it. “And may I ask your name?”
“Ah, Monsieur,” shyly, “to tell you my name would be to frighten you away.”
“I am sure nothing could do that,” he declared earnestly. Had he been thinking of aught but her eyes he might have caught the significance of her words. But, then, the cold was numbing.
She surveyed him with critical eyes. She saw a clean-shaven face, brown, handsome and eager, merry blue eyes, a chin firm and aggressive, a mischievous mouth, a forehead which showed the man of thought, a slim athletic form which showed the man of action—all of which combined to produce that indescribable air which attaches itself to the gentleman.
“It is Alexia,” she said, after some hesitation, watching him closely to observe the effect.
But he was as far away as ever. “Alexia what?”
“Only Alexia,” a faint coquetry stealing into her glance.
“O, then you are probably a maid?”
“Y—es. But you are disappointed?”
“No, indeed. You have put me more at ease. I suppose you serve the princess?”
“Whenever I can,” demurely.
He could not keep his eyes from hers. “They say that she is a very lonely princess.”
“So lonely.” And the coquetry faded from her eyes as her glance wandered waterward and became fixed on some object invisible and far away. “Poor lonely princess!”
Maurice was growing colder and colder, but he did not mind. He had wished for some woman to talk to; his wish had been granted. “I feel sorry for her, if what they say is true,” having no other words.
“And what do they say, Monsieur?”
“That she and her father have been socially ostracized. I should be proud to be her friend.” Once the words were gone from him, he saw their silliness. “A presumptuous statement,” he added; “I am an obscure foreigner.”
“Friendship, Monsieur, is a thing we all should prize, all the more so when it is disinterested.”
He said rapidly, for fear she might hear his teeth chatter: “They say she is very beautiful. Tell me what she is like.”
“I am no judge of what men call beauty. As to her character, I believe I may recommend that. She is good.”
He was sure that merriment twitched the corners of her lips, and he grew thoughtful. “Alexia. Is that not her Highness's name also?”
“Yes, Monsieur; we have the same names.” Her eyes fell, and she began to finger the pages of the book.
“I am rested now,” he said, with a sudden distrust. “I thank you.”
“Come, then, and I will show you the way to the gate.”
“I am sorry to have troubled you,” he said.
She did not reply, and together they walked up the path. The plants were dying, and the odor of decay hovered about them. Splashes of rich vermilion crowned the treetops, leaves of gold, russet and faded green rustled on the ground. The sun was gone behind the hills, the lake was tinted with salmon and dun, and Maurice (who honestly would have liked to run) was turning purple, not from atmospheric effect, but from the partly congealed state of his blood. Already he was thinking that his adventure had turned out rather well. It was but a simple task for a man of his imagination to construct a pretty romance, with a kingdom for a background. A maid of honor, perhaps; no matter, he would find means for future communication. A glamour had fallen upon him.
As to the girl, who had scarce spoken to a dozen young men in her life, she was comparing four faces; one of a visionary character of which she had dreamed for ten years, and three which had recently entered into the small circle of her affairs. It was little pleasure to her to talk to those bald diplomats, who were always saying what they did not mean, and meaning what they did not say. And the young officers in the palace never presumed to address her unless spoken to.
What a monotonous life it was! She was like a bird in a cage, ever longing for freedom, not of the air, but of impulse. To be permitted to yield to the impulses of the heart! What a delightful thought that was! But she, she seemed apart from all which was desirable to youth. Women courtesied to her, men touched their hats; but homage was not what she wanted. To be free, that was all; to come and go at will; to laugh and to sing. But ever the specter of royal dignity walked beside her and held her captive.
She was to wed a man on whom she looked with indifference, but wed him she must; it was written. A toy of ambition, she was neither more nor less. Ah, to be as her maids, not royal, but free. Of the three new faces one belonged to the man whom she was to wed; another was a tall, light-haired man whom she had seen from her carriage; the last walked by her side. And somehow, the visionary face, the faces of the man whom she was to wed and the light-haired man suddenly grew indistinct. She glanced from the corner of her eyes at Maurice, but meeting his glance, in which lay something that caused her uneasiness, her gaze dropped to the path.
“I shall be pleased to tell her Highness that a stranger, who has not met her, who does not even suspect her rebel spirit, desires to be her friend.”
“O, Mademoiselle,” he cried in alarm, “that desire was expressed in confidence.”
“I know it. It is for that very reason I wish her to know. Have no fear, Monsieur;” and she laughed without mirth. “Her Highness will not send you to prison.”
Close at hand Maurice discovered a cuirassier, who, on seeing them, saluted and stood attention. Maurice was puzzled.
“Lieutenant,” said the girl, “Monsieur—Carewe?” turning to Maurice.
“Yes, that is the name.”
“Well, then, Monsieur Carewe has met with an accident; please escort him to the gate. I trust you will not suffer any inconvenience from the cold. Good evening, Monsieur Carewe.”
She retraced her steps down the path. The bulldog followed. Once he looked back at Maurice, and stopped as if undecided, then went on. Maurice stared at the figure of the girl until it vanished behind a clump of rose bushes.
“Well, Monsieur Carewe!” said the Lieutenant, a broad smile under his mustache.
“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. May I ask you who she is?”
“What! You do not know?”
Maurice suddenly saw light. “Her Royal Highness?” blankly.
“Her Royal Highness, God bless her!” cried the Lieutenant heartily.
“Amen to that,” replied Maurice, his agitation visible even to the officer.
They arrived at the gate in silence. The cuirassier raised the bar, touched his helmet, and said, with something like an amused twinkle in his eyes: “Would Monsieur like to borrow my helmet for a space?”
Maurice put up a hand to his water-soaked hair, and gave an ejaculation of dismay. He had forgotten all about his hat, which was by now, in-all probabilities, at the bottom of the lake.
“Curse the luck!” he said, in English.
“Curse the want of it, I should say!” was the merry rejoinder, also in English.
Maurice threw back his head and laughed, and the cuirassier caught the infection.
“However, there is some compensation for the hat,” said the cuirassier, straightening his helmet. “You are the first stranger who has spoken to her Highness this many a day. Did the dog take to your calves? Well, never mind; he has no teeth. It was only day before yesterday that the Marshal swore he'd have the dog shot. Poor dog! He is growing blind, too, or he'd never have risked his gums on the Marshal, who is all shins. If you will wait I will fetch you one of the archbishop's skull caps.”
“Don't trouble yourself,” laughed Maurice. “What I need is not a hat, but a towel, and I'll get that at the hotel. George! I feel so like an ass. What is your name, Lieutenant?”
“Von Mitter, Carl von Mitter, at your service. And you are Monsieur Carewe.”
“Of the American legation in Vienna. Thanks for your trouble.”
“None at all. You had better hurry along; your nails are growing black.”
Maurice passed into the street. “Her Royal Highness!” he muttered. “The crown princess, and I never suspected. Her name is Alexia, and she serves the princess whenever she can! Maurice, you are an ass!”
Having arrived at this conclusion, and brushing the dank hair from his eyes, he thrust his hands into his oozing pockets, and proceeded across the square toward the Continental, wondering if there was a rear entrance. Happily the adventure absorbed all his thoughts. He was quite unobservant of the marked attention bestowed on him. Carriages filled the Strasse, and many persons moved along the walks. It was the promenade hour. The water, which still dripped from his clothes and trickled from his shoes, left a conspicuous trail behind; and this alone, without the absence of a hat, would have made him the object of amused and wondering smiles.
A gendarme stared at him, but seeing that he walked straight, said nothing. Maurice, however, was serenely unaware of what was passing around him. He did not notice even the tall, broad-shouldered man who, with a gun under his arm, brushed past him, followed by a round-faced German over whose back was slung a game-bag. The man with the gun was also oblivious of his surroundings. He bumped into several persons, who scowled at him, but offered no remonstrance after having taken his measure. The German put his pipe into his pocket and advanced a step.
“The other gun, Herr,” he said, “would have meant the boar.”
“So it would, perhaps,” was the reply.
“We've done pretty good work these two days,” went on the German; but as the other appeared not to have heard he fell to the rear again, a sardonic smile flitting over his oily face.
When Maurice reached the hotel cafe he left an order for a cognac to be sent to his room, whither he repaired at once. As he got into dry clothes he mused.
“I wonder what sort of a man that crown prince is? Now, if I were he, an army could not keep me away from Bleiberg. Either he is no judge of beauty, or the peasant girls hereabout are something extraordinary. Pshaw! a man always makes an ass of himself on his wedding eve; the crown prince is simply starting in early. I believe I'll hang on here till the wedding day; a royal marriage is one of those things which I have yet to see. I have a fortnight or more to knock around in. I should like to know what the duchess will eventually do.”
He sipped the last drop of the cognac and went down the stairs.