"Come, Leopold, I must have my jest," laughed Steinbock.
"Within certain bounds," returned the old man phlegmatically. "It is high time you were off. You are foolhardy to match your chances with justice. Prison stares you in the face."
"Bah! Do you believe it?"
"It is a positive fact," added the princess.
"But to leave like this has the pang of death!" Steinbock remonstrated, "What! shall I be off without having even kissed the bride?"
"The bargain is concluded on all sides; you have your thousand crowns."
"But not love"s tribute. I must have that. It is worth a thousand crowns. Besides," with a perceptible change in his manner, "shall I forget the contempt with which you have always looked upon me, even in the old days that were fair and prosperous? Scarcely! Opportunity is a thing that can not be permitted to pa.s.s thus lightly." Then I observed his nose wrinkle; he was sniffing. "Tobacco! I did not know that you smoked, Leopold."
"Begone!" cried the old fellow, his hands opening and shutting.
"Presently!" With a laugh he sprang toward her Highness, but Leopold was too quick for him.
There was a short struggle, and I saw the valiant old man reel, fall and strike his head on the stone of the hearth. He lay perfectly motionless. So unexpected was this scene to my eyes that for a time I was without any particular sense of movement. I stood like stone.
With an evil laugh Steinbock sprang toward her Highness again. Quick as light she s.n.a.t.c.hed up my crop, which lay on the table, and struck the rascal full across the eyes, again and again and again, following him as he stepped backward. Her defense was magnificent. But, as fate determined to have it, Steinbock finally succeeded in wresting the stick from her grasp. He was wild with pain and chagrin. It was then I awoke to the fact that I was needed.
I rushed out, hot with anger. I caught Steinbock by the collar just in time to prevent his lips from touching her cheek. I flung him to the floor, and knelt upon his chest. I am ashamed to confess it, but I recollect slapping the fellow"s face as he struggled under me.
"You scoundrel!" I cried, breathing hard.
"Kill him!" whispered her Highness. She was furious; the blood of her marauding ancestors swept over her cheeks, and if ever I saw murder in a woman"s eyes it was at that moment.
"Hush, Hildegarde, hush!" The English girl caught the princess in her arms and drew her back. "Don"t let me hear you talk like that. It is all over."
"Get up," I said to Steinbock, as I set him free.
He crawled to his feet. He was very much disordered, and there were livid welts on his face. He shook himself, eying me evilly. There was murder in his eyes, too.
"Empty your pockets of those thousand crowns!"--peremptorily.
"I was certain that I smelled tobacco," he sneered. "It would seem that there are other bridegrooms than myself."
"Those crowns, or I"ll break every bone in your body!" I balled my fists. Nothing would have pleased me better at that moment than to pummel the life out of him.
Slowly he drew out the purse. It was one of those limp silk affairs so much affected by our ancestors. He balanced it on his hand. Its ends bulged with gold and bank-notes. Before I was aware of his intention, he swung one end of it in so deft a manner that it struck me squarely between the eyes. With a crash of gla.s.s he 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 hara.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.ses 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 cla.s.s-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 a.s.sumed as his own, it being as good as any. n.o.body 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.body fights a duel in this little history, and n.o.body 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.