"Why, you want them bad enough," her father admitted. "I don"t suppose we"ve a town of half the size in the States where we haven"t both, and this a capital city too."
"Mr. Van Decht is quite right," Ughtred said, gravely, "only one has always to remember that this is a very poor country, and we can"t afford to pay for luxuries."
"I guess those cars would pay for themselves before long, sir," Mr.
Van Decht declared.
"It is very likely," Ughtred answered. "I"m sure that if any capitalist were disposed to undertake the commercial part of it, there would be very little difficulty about the concession."
Mr. Van Decht rose up briskly.
"If you"ll excuse me, sir," he said, "I guess I"ll hail that bobby hutch and go the round."
The King laughed.
"You are a man of business, Mr. Van Decht," he said. "Certainly, go and help yourself to all the information you can. Sara, if you will come up with me I will show you the palace. I am afraid there is nothing there to interest your father, but he will have many opportunities of seeing it. Reist, will you see if the carriage has come?"
For a moment they were alone.
They looked into one another"s eyes, and Sara laughed softly.
"Why, this is just the queerest thing in the world," she murmured.
"What will happen to me at the palace if I forget to say "your Majesty," and ought I to curtsey when I speak to you?"
Ughtred smiled back at her.
"I believe," he said, "that you ought to kiss--my hand."
"Then I guess I won"t," she answered. "I believe I"m democrat enough to expect----"
"What?"
He leaned over towards her, but the sentence was never finished. Reist stood before them, and the look on his face was a forecast of coming trouble.
"The carriage is here, your Majesty!" he announced.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""I BELIEVE," HE SAID, "THAT YOU OUGHT TO KISS--MY HAND.""]
CHAPTER XXIII
"What do I think of Theos?" Sara repeated. "I think it must be the lost paradise of the lotus-eaters. It does not seem possible for anything ever to happen here."
Ughtred laughed.
"We share the primitive pa.s.sions with the rest of mankind," he a.s.sured her. "We know what it is to be excited, even to be rowdy. The wear and tear of life perhaps touches us more lightly than in your Western cities. You see we are a rural people."
"Miss Van Decht," Reist remarked dryly, "misses perhaps the clang of the electric cars and the factory sirens."
"It is the proverbial peace of the city amongst the mountains,"
Ughtred said. "Yet if you listen you can hear the murmur of voices in the _cafes_, and there is a band playing in the square."
"It is all--delightful," Sara declared. "Only I wonder that you find it possible to take life seriously here."
They were sitting out on the great stone balcony behind the palace--Ughtred, Reist, and Marie, Mr. Van Decht and Sara. A servant in spotless white livery had silently arranged coffee and liqueur in strange-looking bottles upon a table already laden with fruit. Below them were the terraced lawns leading to the river, dotted with dark fir-trees and flowering shrubs--beyond the red roofs and white fronts of many villas, in the distance the blue mountains. The King and Sara Van Decht were sitting side by side. Marie, unusually taciturn, leaned back in her chair, listening and watching with half-closed eyes.
Ughtred lit a fresh cigarette, and smoked for a moment thoughtfully.
"I can a.s.sure you," he said, "that life is, in its way, as complex a thing here as in the greater cities. The people are very poor, and how to raise money enough to develop the country and pay our way without undue taxation is a very serious problem indeed. Then you must not forget that we live always in the shadow of a great danger."
Sara looked at him inquiringly. He pointed southwards to the mountains.
"Beyond there," he said, "is Turkey, and Turkey is our eternal enemy.
Even now there are strained relations between us. Night and day our watchmen guard the pa.s.ses. There have been rumours lately of an impending raid upon our frontier villages."
Sara listened with rapt attention.
"How fascinating. It really sounds quite mediaeval."
"We are mediaeval in more ways than one," he continued. "Our standing army consists of barely one thousand men, but in case of war the whole of our male population would take up arms. Every man must fight himself for his home and his native land. If you can spare the time here we will go to some of the more distant villages, and you will see the Sat.u.r.day drill. I am rather proud of my military system."
She looked across at her father.
"He is so restless," she said. "I can never tell how long he will stand any one place. Just at present he talks as though he were disposed to settle down here for the rest of his life."
Marie leaned forward. Her face gleamed pale in the twilight, her tone was almost openly contemptuous.
"Away from the electric cars, and sirens, and all the delights of your Western cities?"
Sara nodded gravely.
"Yes! Away even from the Paris edition of the _New York Herald_. But then, my father, you know, is terribly mercenary. I believe he thinks that there is scope for the capitalist here."
"Your father is quite right then," Ughtred answered, smiling. "Try and persuade him to give the place a trial. It is supposed, you know, to be the healthiest spot in Europe."
"Why, I"m in no hurry to leave, and that"s a fact," Mr. Van Decht admitted. "I"ve an appointment with the manager of your cars here to-morrow, and if we do business I guess I"ll have to stop."
Sara laughed softly.
"That"s just like father!" she exclaimed. "Wherever he goes and finds horse-cars he wants to either buy the company out or put in his own system of electric cars. I"m afraid you think we"re very commercial, don"t you, Countess?"
"Oh, no," Marie answered, coldly. "One rather expects that, you know, from your nation. It is very interesting. I must confess, though, that I do not wish to see electric cars in the streets of Theos."
"And why not, young lady?" Mr. Van Decht inquired.
"Because I love my old city too well to wish to see her modernized and made hideous," Marie answered. "It is scarcely a feeling with which one could expect strangers to sympathize; but there are many others besides myself who would feel the same way."