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

disappeared through the window. The blow dazed me only for a moment, and I was hot to be on his tracks. The Honorable Betty stopped me.

"He may shoot you!" she cried. "Don't go!"

Although half through the window, I crawled back, brushing my sleeves. Something warm trickled down my nose.

"You have been cut!" exclaimed her Highness.

"It is nothing. I beg of you to let me follow. It will be all over with that fellow at large."

"Not at all." Her Highness' eyes sparkled wickedly. "He will make for the nearest frontier. He knows now that I shall not hesitate a moment to put his affairs in the hands of the police."

"He will boast of what he has done."

"Not till he has spent those thousand crowns." She crossed the room and knelt at the side of Leopold, dashing some water into his face. Presently he opened his eyes. "He is only stunned. Poor Leopold!"

I helped the old man to his feet, and he rubbed the back of his head grimly. He drew a revolver from his pocket.

"I had forgotten all about it," he said contritely. "Shall I follow him, your Highness?"

"Let him go. It doesn't matter now. Betty, you were right, as you always are. I have played the part of a silly fool. I would have my own way in the matter. Well, I have this worthless paper. At least I can frighten the duke, and that is something."

"Oh, my dear, if only you would have listened to my advice!" the other girl said. There was deep discouragement in her tones. "I warned you so often that it would come to this end."

"Let us drop the matter entirely," said her Highness.

I gazed admiringly at her-to see her sink suddenly into a chair and weep abandonedly! Leopold eyed her mournfully, while the English girl rushed to her side and flung her arms around her soothingly.

"I am very unhappy," said the princess, lifting her head and shaking the tears from her eyes. "I am harassed on all sides; I am not allowed any will of my own. I wish I were a peasant!-Thank you, thank you! But for you that wretch would have kissed me." She held out her hand to me, and I bent to one knee as I kissed it. She was worthy to be the wife of the finest fellow in all the world. I was very sorry for her, and thought many uncomplimentary things of the duke.

"I shall not ask you to forget my weakness," she said.

"It is already forgotten, your Highness."


Under such circumstances I met the Princess Hildegarde of Barscheit; and I never betrayed her confidence until this writing, when I have her express permission.

Of Hermann Steinbock I never saw anything more. Thus the only villain passes from the scene. As I have repeatedly remarked, doubtless to your weariness, this is not my story at all; but in parenthesis I may add that between the Honorable Betty Moore and myself there sprang up a friendship which later ripened into something infinitely stronger.

This, then, was the state of affairs when, one month later, Max Scharfenstein poked his handsome blond head over the frontier of Barscheit; cue (as the dramatist would say), enter hero.


IV

He came straight to the consulate, and I was so glad to see him that I sat him down in front of the sideboard and left orders that I was at home to no one. We had been class-mates and room-mates at college, and two better friends never lived. We spent the whole night in recounting the good old days, sighed a little over the departed ones, and praised or criticized the living. Hadn't they been times, though? The nights we had stolen up to Philadelphia to see the shows, the great Thanksgiving games in New York, the commencements, and all that!

Max had come out of the far West. He was a foundling who had been adopted by a wealthy German ranchman named Scharfenstein, which name Max assumed as his own, it being as good as any. Nobody knew anything about Max's antecedents, but he was so big and handsome and jolly that no one cared a hang. For all that he did not know his parentage, he was a gentleman, something that has to be bred in the bone. Once or twice I remember seeing him angry; in anger he was arrogant, deadly, but calm. He was a god in track-linen, for he was what few big men are, quick and agile. The big fellow who is cat-like in his movements is the most formidable of athletes. One thing that invariably amused me was his inordinate love of uniforms. He would always stop when he saw a soldier or the picture of one, and his love of arms was little short of a mania. He was an expert fencer and a dead shot besides. (Pardon the parenthesis, but I feel it my duty to warn you that nobody fights a duel in this little history, and nobody gets killed.)

On leaving college he went in for medicine, and his appearance in the capital city of Barscheit was due obviously to the great medical college, famous the world over for its nerve specialists. This was Max's first adventure in the land of gutturals. I explained to him, and partly unraveled, the tangle of laws; as to the language, he spoke that, not like a native, but as one.

Max was very fond of the society of women, and at college we used to twit him about it, for he was always eager to meet a new face, trusting that the new one might be the ideal for which he was searching.

"Well, you old Dutchman," said I, "have you ever found that ideal woman of yours?"

"Bah!"-lighting a pipe. "She will never be found. A horse and a trusty dog for me; those two you may eventually grow to understand. Of course I don't say, if the woman came along-the right one-I mightn't go under, I'm philosopher enough to admit that possibility. I want her tall, hair like corn-silk, eyes like the cornflower, of brilliant intellect, reserved, and dignified, and patient. I want a woman, not humorous, but who understands humor, and I have never heard of one. So, you see, it's all smoke; and I never talk woman these times unless I'm smoking,"-with a gesture which explained that he had given up the idea altogether. "A doctor sees so much of women that he finally sees nothing of woman."

"Oh, if you resort to epigrams, I can see that it's all over."

"All over. I'm so used to being alone that I shouldn't know what to do with a wife." He puffed seriously.

Ah! the futility of our desires, of our castles, of our dreams! The complacency with which we jog along in what we deem to be our own particular groove! I recall a girl friend of my youth who was going to be a celibate, a great reformer, and toward that end was studying for the pulpit. She is now the mother of several children, the most peaceful and unorative woman I know. You see, humanity goes whirring over various side-tracks, thinking them to be the main line, till fate puts its peculiar but happy hand to the switch. Scharfenstein had been plugging away over rusty rails and grass-grown ties-till he came to Barscheit.

"Hope is the wings of the heart," said I, when I thought the pause had grown long enough. "You still hope?"

"In a way. If I recollect, you had an affair once,"-shrewdly.

I smoked on. I wasn't quite ready to speak.

"You were always on the hunt for ideals, too, as I remember; hope you'll find her."

"Max, my boy, I am solemnly convinced that I have."

"Good Lord, you don't mean to tell me that you are hooked ?" he cried.

"I see no reason why you should use that particular tone," I answered stiffly.

"Oh, come now; tell me all about it. Who is she, and when's the wedding?"

"I don't know when the wedding's going to be, but I'm mighty sure that I have met the one girl. Max, there never was a girl like her. Witty she is, and wise; as beautiful as a summer's dawn; merry and brave; rides, drives, plays the 'cello, dances like a moon-shadow; and all that,"-with a wave of the hand.

"You've got it bad. Remember how you used to write poetry at college? Who is she, if I may ask?"

"The Honorable Betty Moore, at present the guest of her Highness, the Princess Hildegarde,"-with pardonable pride.

Max whistled. "You're a lucky beggar. One by one we turn traitor to our native land. A Britisher! I never should have believed it of you, of the man whose class declamation was on the fiery subject of patriotism. But is it all on one side?"

"I don't know, Max; sometimes I think so, and then I don't."

"How long have you known her?"

"Little more than a month."

"A month? Everything moves swiftly these days, except European railway cars."

"There's a romance, Max, but another besides her is concerned, and I can not tell you. Some day, when everything quiets down, I'll get you into a corner with a bottle, and you will find it worth while."

"The bottle?"

"Both."

"From rumors I've heard, this princess is a great one for larks; rides bicycles and automobiles, and generally raises the deuce. What sort is she?"

"If you are going to remain in Barscheit, my boy, take a friendly warning. Do not make any foolish attempt to see her. She is more fascinating than a roulette table."

This was a sly dig. Max smiled. A recent letter from him had told of an encounter with the goddess of Monte Carlo. Fortune had been all things but favorable.

"I'm not afraid of your princess; besides, I came here to study."

"And study hard, my boy, study hard. Her Highness is not the only pretty woman in Barscheit. There's a raft of them."

"I'll paddle close to the shore," with a smile.

"By the way, I'll wake you up Thursday."

"How?"-lazily.

"A bout at Müller's Rathskeller. Half a dozen American lads, one of whom is called home. Just fixed up his passports for him. You'll be as welcome as the flowers in the spring. Some of the lads will be in your classes."

"Put me down. It will be like old times. I went to the reunion last June. Everything was in its place but you. Hang it, why can't time always go on as it did then?"

"Time, unlike our watches, never has to go to the jeweler's for repairs," said I owlishly.

Max leaned over, took my bull-terrier by the neck and deposited him on his lap.

"Good pup, Artie-if he's anything like his master. Three years, my boy, since I saw you. And here you are, doing