"Very good, sir. Shall I get the bags down for the porters, sir? I beg pardon, sir,--" to one of the three surly gentlemen who sat facing the travellers from Graustark,--"my fault entirely. I don"t believe it is damaged, sir. Allow me to--"
"Thank you," growled the stranger. "I can put it on myself," and he jerked his hat out of Hobbs" hand and set it at a rather forbidding angle above a lowering brow. "Look what you"re doing after this, will you?"
"Certainly, sir," said Hobbs agreeably. "It"s almost impossible to see without eyes in the back of one"s head, don"t you know. I "ope--"
"All right, _all_ right!" snapped the man, glaring balefully. "And let me tell you something else, my man. Don"t go about knocking Americans without first taking a look. Just bear that in mind, will you?"
"The surest way is to listen," began Hobbs loftily, but, catching a look from his royal master, desisted. He proceeded to get down the hand luggage.
At the Gare St. Lazare, Robin had a brief glimpse of Miss Guile as she hurried with the crowd down to the cab enclosure, where her escort, the alert young stranger, put her into a waiting limousine, bundled Mrs. Gaston and Marie in after her, and then dashed away, obviously to see their luggage through the _douane_.
She espied the tall figure of her fellow voyager near the steps and leaned forward to wave a perfunctory farewell to him. The car was creeping out toward the packed thoroughfare. It is possible that she expected him to dash among the chortling machines, at risk of life or limb, for a word or two at parting. If so, she was disappointed. He remained perfectly still, with uplifted hat, a faint smile on his lips and not the slightest sign of annoyance in his face. She smiled securely to herself as she leaned back in the seat, and was satisfied! Curiosity set its demand upon her an instant later, however, and she peered slyly through the little window in the back.
He lifted his hat once more and she flushed to her throat as she quickly drew back into the corner. How in the world could he have seen her through that abominable slit in the limousine? And why was he now grinning so broadly?
Count Quinnox found him standing there a few minutes later, twirling his stick and smiling with his eyes. Accompanying the old soldier was a slight, sharp-featured man with keen black eyes and a thin, pointed moustache of grey.
This man was Gourou, Chief of Police and Commander of the Tower in Edelweiss, successor to the celebrated Baron Dangloss. After he had greeted his prince, the quiet little man announced that he had reserved for him an apartment at the Bristol.
"I am instructed by the Prime Minister, your highness, to urge your immediate return to Edelweiss," he went on, lowering his voice. "The people are disturbed by the reports that have reached us during the past week or two, and Baron Romano is convinced that nothing will serve to subdue the feeling of uneasiness that prevails except your own declaration--in person--that these reports arc untrue."
"I shall telegraph at once to Baron Romano that it is all poppy- c.o.c.k," said Robin easily. "I refer, of course, to the reported engagement. I am not going to marry Miss Blithers and that"s all there is to be said. You may see to it, baron, that a statement is issued to all of the Paris newspapers to-day, and to the correspondents for all the great papers in Europe and America. I have prepared this statement, under my own signature, and it is to be the last word in the matter. It is in my pocket at this instant. You shall have it when we reach the hotel--And that reminds me of another thing. I"m sorry that I shall have to ask you to countermand the reservation for rooms at the hotel you mention. I have already reserved rooms at the Ritz,--by wireless. We shall stop there. Where is Dank?"
"The Ritz is hardly the place for--"
But Robin clapped him on the back and favoured him with the good- natured, boyish smile that mastered even the fiercest of his counsellors, and the Minister of Police, being an astute man, heaved a deep sigh of resignation.
"Dank is looking after the trunks, highness, and Hobbs is coming along with the hand luggage," he said. "The Ritz, you say? Then I shall have to instruct Lieutenant Dank to send the luggage there instead of to the Bristol. Pardon, your highness." He was off like a flash.
Count Quinnox was gnawing his moustache. "See here, Robin," he said, laying his hand on the young man"s shoulder, "you are in Paris now and not on board a ship at sea. Miss Guile is a beautiful, charming, highly estimable young woman, and, I might as well say it straight out to your face, you ought not to subject her to the notoriety that is bound to follow if the newspapers learn that she is playing around Paris, no matter how innocently, with a prince whom--"
"Just a moment, Count," interrupted Robin, a cold light in his now unsmiling eyes. "You are getting a little ahead of the game. Miss Guile is not going to the Ritz, nor do I expect her to play around Paris with me. As a matter of fact, she refused to tell me where she is to stop while here, and I am uncomfortably certain that I shall not see her unless by chance. On the other hand, I may as well be perfectly frank with you and say it straight out to _your_ face that I am going to try to find her if possible, but I am not mean enough to employ the methods common to such enterprises. I could have followed her car in another when she left here a few minutes ago; I could manage in a dozen ways to run her to earth, as the detectives do in the books, but I"d be ashamed to look her in the face if I did any of these things. I shall take a gentleman"s chance, my dear Count, and trust to luck and the generosity of fate. You may be sure that I shall not annoy Miss Guile, and you may be equally sure that she--"
"I beg your pardon, Robin, but I did not employ the word annoy,"
protested the Count.
"--that she takes me for a gentleman if not for a prince," went on Robin, deliberately completing the sentence before he smiled his forgiveness upon the old man. "I selected the Ritz because all rich Americans go there, I"m told. I"m taking a chance."
Quinnox had an obstinate strain in his make-up. He continued: "There is another side to the case, my boy. As a gentleman, you cannot allow this lovely girl to--er--well, to fall in love with you. That would be cruel, wantonly cruel. And it is just the thing that is bound to happen if you go on with--"
"My dear Count, you forget that I am only R. Schmidt to her and but one of perhaps a hundred young men who have placed her in the same perilous position. Moreover, it"s the other way "round, sir. It is I who take the risk, not Miss Guile. I regret to say, sir, that if there is to be any falling in love, I am the one who is most likely to fall, and to fall hard. You a.s.sume that Miss Guile is heart-whole and fancy free. "Gad, I wish that I could be sure of it!" He spoke with such fervour that the Count was indeed dismayed.
"Robin, my lad, I beg of you to consider the consequences that--"
"There"s no use discussing it, old friend. Trust to luck. There is a bully good chance that she will send me about my business when the time comes and then the salvation of Graustark will be a.s.sured." He said it lightly but there was a dark look in his eyes that belied the jaunty words.
"Am I to understand that you intend to--to ask her to marry you?"
demanded the Count, profoundly troubled. "Remember, boy, that you are the Prince of Graustark, that you--"
"But I"m not going to ask her to marry the Prince of Graustark. I"m going to ask her to marry R. Schmidt," said Robin composedly.
"G.o.d defend us, Robin, I--I--"
"G.o.d has all he can do to defend us from William W. Blithers, Count.
Don"t ask too much of him. What kind of a nation are we if we can"t get along without asking G.o.d to defend us every time we see trouble ahead? And do you suppose he is going to defend us against a slip of a girl--"
"Enough! Enough!" cried the Count, compressing his lips and glaring straight ahead.
"That"s the way to talk," cried Robin enthusiastically. "By the way, I hope Dank is clever enough to find out who that young fellow is while they are clearing the luggage in there. I had a good look at him just now. He is all that Hobbs describes and a little more. He is a hustler."
CHAPTER XIII
THE RED LETTER B
In the Baron"s room at the Ritz late that night there was held a secret conference. Two shadowy figures stole down the corridor at midnight and were admitted to the room, while Prince Robin slept soundly in his remote four-poster and dreamed of something that brought a gentle smile to his lips.
The three conspirators were of the same mind: it was clear that something must be done. But what? That was the question. Gourou declared that the people were very much disturbed over the trick the great capitalist had played upon the cabinet; there were sullen threats of a revolt if the government insisted on the deposit of bonds as required by the agreement. More than that, there were open declarations that the daughter of Mr. Blithers would never be permitted to occupy the throne of Graustark. Deeply as his subjects loved the young Prince, they would force him to abdicate rather than submit to the desecration of a throne that had never been dishonoured. They would accept William W. Blithers" money, but they would have none of William W. Blithers" daughter. That was more than could be expected of any self-respecting people! According to the Minister of Police, the name of Blithers was already a common synonym for affliction--and frequently employed in supposing a malediction.
It signified all that was mean, treacherous, scurrilous. He was spoken of through clenched teeth as "the blood sucker." Children were ominously reproved by the threatening use of the word Blithers.
"Blithers will get you if you don"t wash your face," and all that sort of thing.
There was talk in some circles of demanding the resignation of the cabinet, but even the pessimistic Gourou admitted that it was idle talk and would come to nothing if the menacing shadow of Maud Applegate Blithers could be banished from the vicinity of the throne.
Graustarkians would abide by the compact made by their leading men and would be content to regard Mr. Blithers as a bona fide creditor.
They would pay him in full when the loan matured, even though they were compelled to sacrifice their houses in order to accomplish that end. But, like all the rest of the world, they saw through the rich American"s scheme.
The world knew, and Graustark knew, just what Mr. Blithers was after, and the worst of it all was that Mr. Blithers also knew, which was more to the point. But, said Baron Gourou, Graustark knew something that neither the world nor Mr. Blithers knew, and that was its own mind. Never, said he, would Maud Applegate be recognised as the Princess of Graustark, not if she lived for a thousand years and married Robin as many times as she had hairs on her head. At least, he amended, that was the way every one felt about it at present.
The afternoon papers had published the brief statement prepared by Robin in the seclusion of his stateroom on board the _Jupiter_ immediately after a most enjoyable hour with Miss Guile. It was a curt and extremely positive denial of the rumoured engagement, with the additional information that he never had seen Miss Blithers and was more or less certain that she never had set eyes on him.
A rather staggering co-incidence appeared with the published report that Miss Blithers herself was supposed to be somewhere in Europe, word having been received that day from sources in London that she had sailed from New York under an a.s.sumed name. The imaginative French journals put two and two together and dwelt upon the possibility that the two young people who had never seen each other might have crossed the Atlantic on the same steamer, seeing each other frequently and yet remaining entirely in the dark, so to speak.
Inspired writers began to weave a romance out of the probabilities.
On one point Robin was adamantine. He refused positively to have his ident.i.ty disclosed at this time, and Gourou had to say to the newspapers that the Prince was even then on his way to Vienna, hurrying homeward as fast as steel cars could carry him. He admitted that the young man had arrived on the _Jupiter_ that morning, having remained in the closest seclusion all the way across the Atlantic.
This equivocation necessitated the most cautious rearrangement of plans on the part of the Baron. He was required to act as though he had no acquaintance with either of the three travellers stopping at the Ritz, although for obvious reasons he took up a temporary abode there himself. Moreover, he had to telegraph the Prime Minister in Edelweiss that the Prince was not to be budged, and would in all likelihood postpone his return to the capitol. All of which stamped the honest Baron as a most prodigious liar, if one stops to think of what he said to the reporters.
The newspapers also printed a definite bit of news in the shape of a despatch from New York to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. William W.
Blithers were sailing for Europe on the ensuing day, bound for Graustark!
However, the chief and present concern of the three loyal gentlemen in midnight conclave was not centred in the trouble that Mr. Blithers had started, but in the more desperate situation created by Miss Guile. She was the peril that now confronted them, and she was indeed a peril. Quinnox and Dank explained the situation to the Minister of Police, and the Minister of Police admitted that the deuce was to pay.
"There is but one way out of it," said he, speaking officially, "and that is the simplest one I know of."
"a.s.sa.s.sination, I suppose," said Dank scornfully.
"It rests with me, gentlemen," said the Baron, ignoring the lieutenant"s remark, "to find Miss Guile and take her into my confidence in respect--"