"My father was the Baron Szathmar-Vasarhely," replied Veronica. "I was what would be called in English Lady Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhely."
"Lady--what?" asked Hinpoha in comical bewilderment.
Veronica laughed.
"Do you wonder why I changed my name when I came to America and took the simple, sensible name of Lehar? Imagine going to school here under the name of Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhely! You can just hear the teachers p.r.o.nouncing it, can"t you? Why, I"d never have any friends at all, because people would rather avoid me than attempt to introduce me to anybody! Besides, it"s extravagant to have such a name, it takes so much ink to sign it! Lehar is ever so much more convenient. You can"t tell how light and airy I feel since I threw away that long name!"
"But Veronica, why didn"t you tell us before about this?" asked Hinpoha.
"We never _dreamed_ your name had ever been anything else but Lehar!"
"Because I was afraid you wouldn"t take me into your group and treat me as one of yourselves," said Veronica simply. "I did so want to be an American like the rest of you. I was afraid you might object to having a t.i.tle in your midst. But now you really love me and won"t let it make any difference?" she pleaded wistfully.
"Of course not, you goose," said Sahwah emphatically. "We love you for yourself and it wouldn"t make any difference to us if you had a t.i.tle as long as a kite tail! Now do you believe it?" and she bestowed a convincing hug on Veronica that nearly took her breath away.
"But Veronica," said Nyoda, both amused and perplexed, "is it possible to throw away a t.i.tle like that? If you were born Lady Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhely can you deliberately say you "won"t be it"? I thought t.i.tles either had to be kept or formally transferred to someone else. Until this is done you are still the rightful owner of the t.i.tle under the law of your country and no one else can claim it."
"They can"t make me go back, can they?" cried Veronica, starting up in alarm.
"Why, no," replied Nyoda rea.s.suringly, "and I suppose if you want to give up your claim to the t.i.tle n.o.body will stop you. I was simply amused at the way you announced that you had "thrown away" your t.i.tle and proposed to have nothing further to do with it."
"I won"t go back!" declared Veronica with kindling eyes, springing to her feet and clenching her little fists. "I won"t! I won"t! I"m going to be an American, so there! I won"t be a baroness!" Her great black eyes flashed lightnings at the girls, who looked at her in consternation.
Veronica, in a pa.s.sion, was something to strike awe into the breast of the beholder.
"There aren"t any estates left, thank goodness!" she declared. "They were all destroyed in the sh.e.l.ling of the town. For all they know over there, I"m dead, too, killed along with dozens of others. How do they know that I escaped on horseback to the Carpathian Mountains and with other refugees traveled across Roumania to the Black Sea and finally found friends who sent me to my uncle in America? n.o.body will ever know where all the people of our village went to. Many of them perished in the mountains, many are in other countries. How do they know but what I perished, too? How will they ever know that I am here in America when I go by the name of Lehar? Besides, who would ever take the trouble to look for me when our estates have been swept away by the Russians? I _will_ be an American!" she finished stormily, and stood looking defiantly at the girls, her head thrown back, her breast heaving, her whole body quivering with pa.s.sion.
Hinpoha broke up the tension with her usual chatter. "Tell us about some of the people you knew in Hungary, I mean important ones," she asked curiously. Her romantic imagination saw Veronica hob-n.o.bbing with royalty and surrounded by splendors. "Did you ever see a real prince?"
she asked in a hushed tone.
"Lots of times," replied Veronica in a matter-of-fact way. "I have often seen royalty riding through the streets in Budapest and Debreczin.
Everybody bows while the royal carriage is pa.s.sing, but I don"t believe many people fall in love with princes at first sight! They"re hardly ever handsome, not at all like the princes in the fairy tales. They"re generally fat and stupid looking.
"I have met and talked to two princes, both occasions being when I had played at a private musicale at the home of Countess Mariska Esterhazy in Budapest, where I studied in the Conservatory."
There was a curious silence among the Winnebagos at these words, which fell so lightly, so conversationally from Veronica"s lips. It suddenly seemed to them that although they had known her two years they really did not know her at all! How carelessly she spoke of playing in the home of a countess! And of meeting royalty!
"Did you really play before the king?" asked Hinpoha in an awestricken whisper.
Veronica laughed, a jolly, chummy laugh that swept away their momentary feeling of constraint and made her one of themselves again. "Gracious, no!" she replied, highly amused. "I never could play well enough for that! The Countess Mariska was quite a democratic person, and had a great many pupils from the Conservatory as her proteges. Anybody who could play at all stood a good chance of playing at one of her musicales; you didn"t need to be a genius at all."
Sahwah"s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Although she could play no musical instrument herself and knew less about music than any of the others, she realized, probably better than all the rest, the quality of Veronica"s performance on the violin. Sahwah had a mysterious inner perception which made her sense things without knowing why or how. So she knew, although Veronica modestly laid no claim to distinction, that she must have won fame and favor by her playing to a much greater extent than she had ever divulged.
"Tell us about the princes you met," said Hinpoha eagerly, and the Winnebagos leaned forward in an expectant circle.
Veronica"s eyes danced as though at some amusing recollection.
"The first prince I ever met," she began, dropping down on the floor beside the spinning wheel in the corner and leaning her head against it, "was Prince Ferdinand of Negol, which is one of the small Eastern provinces of Hungary. He was an old man, seventy years of age, and he had both the gout and the asthma. He sat with one foot on a cushion on a footstool and when it hurt him he made the awfullest faces. Not a bit like a story book prince, Hinpoha. He was at the Countess Mariska"s one afternoon when I played and when I was through he requested that I be presented to him."
"Oh-h-h-h-h!" exclaimed Hinpoha under her breath in a thrilled tone.
"The Countess presented me," went on Veronica, "and the prince conversed with me for a few minutes in a wheezy voice. He didn"t say anything wonderful, just remarked that I was a good child and had played well and should make the most of my opportunities, and so on. Then his foot gave him a twinge and he made a dreadful face, and the Countess took me by the arm and marched me away."
Veronica laughed at the recollection, and the Winnebagos laughed, too, at the picture of the gouty old prince wheezing out paternal advice to the lively Veronica.
"Go on, tell us about the other one," said Hinpoha, plainly disappointed that royalty had turned out to be so ordinary.
"The other one was a German prince," said Veronica, and then laughingly added, "I don"t suppose you care to hear about _him_?"
"Oh, come on, tell us about him," coaxed the Winnebagos.
"He was Prince Karl Augustus of Hohenburg," replied Veronica. "He was traveling in Hungary for his health, or rather, for his wife"s, and he came to one of the Countess"s musicales. He wasn"t an ideal prince, either, although he was quite young. He was fat and red-faced and had little beady eyes that made you nervous when he looked at you. After the musicale was over Countess Mariska came to me in a great state of satisfaction and informed me that the prince had enjoyed one piece that I had played so much that he desired me to play it for his wife, who was ill in the hotel. The Countess packed me into her carriage and drove over to the hotel where the prince was staying informally, giving me minute instructions all the way over as to my conduct while there. I played for the princess, who was a thin, melancholy looking woman, and she seemed to enjoy it and thanked me quite graciously. A day or two afterward I received a package by messenger, and it was this little finger ring, a present from the prince and princess. I didn"t like the prince, but the ring was very pretty and I have kept it, because the princess probably picked it out and it gave her pleasure to do so. His wife was a Hungarian."
She stretched out her hand to the Winnebagos, who crowded eagerly around to examine the small but brilliantly glowing ruby set in a dainty gold band. They had seen it hundreds of times before, but had never guessed it was the gift of a prince. Truly, Veronica was full of surprises!
"It seems to me, Veronica," said Nyoda, "that you were quite an honored little person in your country, and must have been greatly envied by your friends. How does it come that you are willing to throw away the precedence which you formerly enjoyed on account of your rank and station to become a plain citizen of another country where you have to carve out your place single handed? Don"t you really ever have any regrets over it?"
Veronica shook her head resolutely. "Not at all," she replied in a firm voice. "After once living in America I could never long to go back to the old life. Since I have become a Camp Fire Girl I have learned that the true n.o.bility is not of birth but of worth, and there should be no other in any country. I promised, you know, when I became a Fire Maker, to tend
"The fire that is called the love of man for man,"
and one cannot do that and live luxuriously on money that one has wrung from the poor instead of earning honestly. No, thank you, I would rather be a democratic American girl and call everyone friend! It"s lots more fun, even than being the protege of a countess! I"d rather be a Torch Bearer than a princess!"
Veronica"s eyes shone with sincerity and fervor, and the Winnebagos were tremendously impressed.
"Of course you"re going to be an American," said Sahwah, drawing Veronica to her feet and encircling her with her arm, "and you"re going to be just as honored and distinguished here as you were over there, because you"re so wonderful that people can"t help making a fuss over you. You"re going to become the most wonderful violinist in the country, and people are going to go just wild over you!"
Sahwah would have poured out more brilliant prophecies, but she was cut short by the sound of a great disturbance without. There was a violent clatter on the brick walk outside, followed by a crashing thump, which was accompanied by the sound of splintering wood.
The Winnebagos started and looked at each other apprehensively. Nyoda sprang to her feet and ran for the door.
"The Kaiser is out!" she exclaimed, and seizing an umbrella from the rack in the hall, she disappeared into outer darkness.
CHAPTER V
ENTER THE KAISER
The Winnebagos streamed out after her, and in the moonlight they could see her running around the side of the house, brandishing the umbrella at a large white goat which was prancing before her on his hind legs.
Sahwah picked up a good-sized stone from the driveway and rushed to Nyoda"s side, ready to hurl it at the creature, under the impression that Nyoda was on the verge of being killed, but at that instant Nyoda suddenly opened the umbrella and the rampant Capricorn dropped to all fours and fled hastily in the direction of the stable.
Nyoda, flushed and laughing, returned to the girls, who were picking up the broken pieces of the white wooden trellis which had supported the rose vine over the front door. "Is there anything left?" she inquired, ruefully regarding the heap of kindling wood to which the slender laths had been reduced by the battering ram force of the Kaiser"s onslaught.
"What was it?" asked Migwan, peering fearfully into the shadows behind the house. Migwan had not caught a clear glimpse of the creature and was still uncertain whether the house had been bombed or a wild elephant had broken loose.
"That," announced Nyoda in a tone both humorous and tragic, and flinging out her hands in a helpless gesture, "is Bill the Kaiser."