The Princess Elopes - Harlod MacGrath (trending books to read txt) 📗

fine thing it was to fly. She was young.

"Oh!"

"What is it?" she said, turning.

"I have something of yours," answered Max, fumbling in his pocket, grateful for some excuse to break the silence. "You dropped your purse this morning. Permit me to return it to you. I hadn't the remotest idea how I was going to return it. In truth, I had just made up my mind to keep it as a souvenir."

She literally snatched it from his extended hand.

"My purse! My purse! And I thought it was gone for ever!" hugging it hysterically to her heart. She feverishly tried to unlatch the clasps.

"You need not open it," he said quietly, even proudly, "I had not thought of looking into it, even to prove your identity."

"Pardon! I did not think. I was so crazy to see it again." She laid the purse beside her. "You see," with an hysterical catch in her voice, "all the money I had in the world was in that purse, and I was running away without any money, and only Heaven knows what misfortunes were about to befall me. There were, and are, a thousand crowns in the purse."

"A thousand crowns?"

"In bank-notes. Thank you, thank you! I am so happy!"-clasping her hands. Then, with a smile as warm as the summer's sun, she added: "You may-come and sit close beside me. You may even smoke."

Max grew light-headed. This was as near Heaven as he ever expected to get.

"Open your purse and look into it," he said. "I'm a brute; you are dying to do so."

"May I?"-shyly.

Then it came into Max's mind, with all the brilliancy of a dynamo spark, that this was the one girl in all the world, the ideal he had been searching for; and he wanted to fall at her feet and tell her so.

"Look!" she cried gleefully, holding up the packet of bank-notes.

"I wish," he said boyishly, "that you didn't have any money at all, so I could help you and feel that you depended upon me."

She smiled. How a woman loves this simple kind of flattery! It tells her better what she may wish to know than a thousand hymns sung in praise of her beauty.

But even as he spoke a chill of horror went over Max. He put his hand hurriedly into his vest-pocket. Fool! Ass! How like a man! In changing his clothes at the consulate he had left his money, and all he had with him was some pocket change.

The girl saw his action and read the sequence in the look of dismay which spread over his face.

"You have no money either?" she cried. She separated the packet of notes into two equal parts. "Here!"

He smiled weakly.

"Take them!"

"No, a thousand times, no! I have a watch, and there's always a pawnbroker handy, even in Europe."

"You offered to help me," she insisted.

"It is not quite the same."

"Take quarter of it."

"No. Don't you understand? I really couldn't."

"One, just one, then!" she pleaded.

An idea came to him. "Very well; I will take one." And when she gave it to him he folded it reverently and put it away.

"I understand!" she cried. "You are just going to keep it; you don't intend to spend it at all. Don't be foolish!"

"I shall notify my friend, when we reach Doppelkinn, that I am without funds, and he will telegraph to Dresden."

"Your friends were very wise in sending you away as they did. Aren't you always getting into trouble?"

"Yes. But I doubt the wisdom of my friends in sending me away as they did,"-with a frank glance into her eyes. How beautiful they were, now that the sparkle of mischief had left them!

She looked away. If only Doppelkinn were young like this! She sighed.

"Can they force one to marry in this country?" he asked abruptly.

"When one is in my circumstances."

He wanted to ask what those circumstances were, but what he said was: "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"You are even more helpless than I am,"-softly. "If you are caught you will be imprisoned. I shall only suffer a temporary loss of liberty; my room will be my dungeon-keep." How big and handsome and strong he looked! What a terrible thing it was to be born in purple! "Tell me about yourself."

His hand strayed absently toward his upper vest-pocket, and then fell to his side. He licked his lips.

"Smoke!" she commanded intuitively. "I said that you might."

"I can talk better when I smoke," he advanced rather lamely. "May I, then?"-gratefully.

"I command it!"

Wasn't it fine to be ordered about in this fashion? If only the train might go on and on and on, thousands of miles! He applied a match to the end of his cigar and leaned back against the cushion.

"Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning. I'm not one of those novel readers who open a book at random. I do not appreciate effects till I have found out the causes. I want to know everything about you, for you interest me."

He began. He told her that he was a German by birth and blood. He had been born either in Germany or in Austria, he did not know which. He had been found in Tyrol, in a railway station. A guard had first picked him up, then a kind-hearted man named Scharfenstein had taken him in charge, advertised for his parents and, hearing nothing, had taken him to America with him.

"If they catch you," she interrupted, "do not under any consideration let them know that you were not born in the United States. Your friend the American consul could do nothing for you then."

"Trust me to keep silent, then." He continued: "I have lived a part of my life on the great plains; have ridden horses for days and days at a time. As a deputy sheriff I have arrested desperadoes, have shot and been shot at. Then I went East and entered a great college; went in for athletics, and wore my first dress-suit. Then my foster-parent died, leaving me his fortune. And as I am frugal, possibly because of my German origin, I have more money than I know what to do with." He ceased.

"Go on," she urged.

"When the Spanish War broke out I entered a cavalry regiment as a trooper. I won rank, but surrendered it after the battle of Santiago. And now there are but two things in the world I desire to complete my happiness. I want to know who I am."

"And the other thing?"

"The other thing? I can't tell you that!"-hurriedly.

"Ah, I believe I know. You have left some sweetheart back in America." All her interest In his narrative took a strange and unaccountable slump.

"No; I have often admired women, but I have left no sweetheart back in America. If I had I should now feel very uncomfortable."

Somehow she couldn't meet his eyes. She recognized, with vague anger, that she was glad that he had no sweetheart. Ah, well, nobody could rob her of her right to dream, and this was a very pleasant dream.

"The train is slowing down," he said suddenly.

"We are approaching the frontier." She shaded her eyes and searched the speeding blackness outside.

"How far is it to the capital?" he asked.

"It lies two miles beyond the frontier."

Silence fell upon them, and at length the train stopped with a jerk. In what seemed to them an incredibly short time a guard unlocked the door.

He peered in.

"Here they are, sure enough, your Excellency!" addressing some one in the dark beyond.

An officer from the military household of the Prince of Doppelkinn was instantly framed in the doorway. The girl tried to lower her veil; too late.

"I am sorry to annoy your Highness," he began, "but the grand duke's orders are that you shall follow me to the castle. Lieutenant, bring two men to tie this fellow's hands,"-nodding toward Scharfenstein.

Max stared dumbly at the girl. All the world seemed to have slipped from under his feet.

"Forgive me!" she said, low but impulsively.

"What does it mean?" His heart was very heavy.

"I am the Princess Hildegarde of Barscheit, and your entering this carriage has proved the greatest possible misfortune to you."

He stared helplessly-And everything had been going along so nicely-the dinner he had planned in Dresden, and all that!

"And they believe," the girl went on, "that I have eloped with you to avoid marrying the prince." She turned to the officer in the doorway. "Colonel, on the word of a princess, this gentleman is in no wise concerned. I ran away alone."

Max breathed easier.

"I should be most happy to believe your Highness, but you will honor my strict observance of orders." He passed a telegram to her.


Search train for Doppelkinn. Princess has eloped. Arrest and hold pair till I arrive on special engine.

Barscheit.


The telegraph is the true arm of the police. The princess sighed pathetically. It was all over.

"Your passports," said the colonel to Max.

Max surrendered his papers. "You need not tie my hands," he said calmly. "I will come peaceably."

The colonel looked inquiringly at the princess.

"He will do as he says."

"Very good. I should regret to shoot him upon so short an acquaintance." The colonel beckoned for them to step forth. "Everything is prepared. There is a carriage for the convenience of your Highness; Herr Ellis shall ride horseback with the troop."

Max often wondered why he did not make a dash for it, or a running fight. What he had gone through that night was worth a good fight.

"Good-by," said the princess, holding out her hand.

Scharfenstein gravely bent his head and kissed it.

"Good-by, Prince Charming!" she whispered, so softly that Max scarcely heard her.

Then she entered the closed carriage and was driven up the dark, tree-enshrouded road that led to the Castle of Doppelkinn.

"What are you going to do with me?" Max asked, as he gathered up the reins of his mount.

"That we shall discuss later. Like as not something very unpleasant. For one thing you are passing under a forged passport. You are not an American, no matter how well you may speak that language. You are a German."

"There are Germans in the United States, born and bred there, who speak German tolerably well," replied Max easily. He was wondering if it would not be a good scheme to tell a straightforward story and ask to be returned to Barscheit. But that would probably appeal to the officer that he was a coward