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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Princess Aline
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2008 [EBook #327]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS ALINE ***
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+
+I
+
+
+H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the life of Morton
+Carlton--or "Morney" Carlton, as men called him--of New York city, when
+that young gentleman's affairs and affections were best suited to
+receive her.  Had she made her appearance three years sooner or three
+years later, it is quite probable that she would have passed on out of
+his life with no more recognition from him than would have been
+expressed in a look of admiring curiosity.
+
+But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both unoccupied,
+she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which led him into doing
+several wise and many foolish things, and which remained with him
+always.  Carlton had reached a point in his life, and very early in his
+life, when he could afford to sit at ease and look back with modest
+satisfaction to what he had forced himself to do, and forward with
+pleasurable anticipations to whatsoever he might choose to do in the
+future.  The world had appreciated what he had done, and had put much
+to his credit, and he was prepared to draw upon this grandly.
+
+At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
+excellent family connections, but with no family, his only relative
+being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the point of view of
+the Union Club's windows, and who objected to his nephew's leaving
+Harvard to take up the study of art in Paris.  In that city (where at
+Julian's he was nicknamed the junior Carlton, for the obvious reason
+that he was the older of the two Carltons in the class, and because he
+was well dressed) he had shown himself a harder worker than others who
+were less careful of their appearance and of their manners.  His work,
+of which he did not talk, and his ambitions, of which he also did not
+talk, bore fruit early, and at twenty-six he had become a
+portrait-painter of international reputation.  Then the French
+government purchased one of his paintings at an absurdly small figure,
+and placed it in the Luxembourg, from whence it would in time depart to
+be buried in the hall of some provincial city; and American
+millionaires, and English Lord Mayors, members of Parliament, and
+members of the Institute, masters of hounds in pink coats, and
+ambassadors in gold lace, and beautiful women of all nationalities and
+conditions sat before his easel.  And so when he returned to New York
+he was welcomed with an enthusiasm which showed that his countrymen had
+feared that the artistic atmosphere of the Old World had stolen him
+from them forever.  He was particularly silent, even at this date,
+about his work, and listened to what others had to say of it with much
+awe, not unmixed with some amusement, that it should be he who was
+capable of producing anything worthy of such praise.  We have been told
+what the mother duck felt when her ugly duckling turned into a swan,
+but we have never considered how much the ugly duckling must have
+marvelled also.
+
+"Carlton is probably the only living artist," a brother artist had said
+of him, "who fails to appreciate how great his work is."  And on this
+being repeated to Carlton by a good-natured friend, he had replied
+cheerfully, "Well, I'm sorry, but it is certainly better to be the only
+one who doesn't appreciate it than to be the only one who does."
+
+He had never understood why such a responsibility had been intrusted to
+him.  It was, as he expressed it, not at all in his line, and young
+girls who sought to sit at the feet of the master found him making love
+to them in the most charming manner in the world, as though he were not
+entitled to all the rapturous admiration of their very young hearts,
+but had to sue for it like any ordinary mortal.  Carlton always felt as
+though some day some one would surely come along and say: "Look here,
+young man, this talent doesn't belong to you; it's mine.  What do you
+mean by pretending that such an idle good-natured youth as yourself is
+entitled to such a gift of genius?"  He felt that he was keeping it in
+trust, as it were; that it had been changed at birth, and that the
+proper guardian would eventually relieve him of his treasure.
+
+Personally Carlton was of the opinion that he should have been born in
+the active days of knights-errant--to have had nothing more serious to
+do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon fastened to the point of his
+lance, and with the spirit to unhorse any one who objected to its
+color, or to the claims of superiority of the noble lady who had tied
+it there.  There was not, in his opinion, at the present day any
+sufficiently pronounced method of declaring admiration for the many
+lovely women this world contained.  A proposal of marriage he
+considered to be a mean and clumsy substitute for the older way, and
+was uncomplimentary to the many other women left unasked, and marriage
+itself required much more constancy than he could give.  He had a most
+romantic and old-fashioned ideal of women as a class, and from the age
+of fourteen had been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and
+though in that time his ideal had received several severe shocks, he
+still believed that the "not impossible she" existed somewhere, and his
+conscientious efforts to find out whether every women he met might not
+be that one had led him not unnaturally into many difficulties.
+
+"The trouble with me is," he said, "that I care too much to make
+Platonic friendship possible, and don't care enough to marry any
+particular woman--that is, of course, supposing that any particular one
+would be so little particular as to be willing to marry me.  How
+embarrassing it would be, now," he argued, "if, when you were turning
+away from the chancel after the ceremony, you should look at one of the
+bridesmaids and see the woman whom you really should have married!  How
+distressing that would be!  You couldn't very well stop and say: 'I am
+very sorry, my dear, but it seems I have made a mistake.  That young
+woman on the right has a most interesting and beautiful face.  I am
+very much afraid that she is the one.'  It would be too late then;
+while now, in my free state, I can continue my search without any
+sense of responsibility."
+
+"Why"--he would exclaim--"I have walked miles to get a glimpse of a
+beautiful woman in a suburban window, and time and time again when I
+have seen a face in a passing brougham I have pursued it in a hansom,
+and learned where the owner of the face lived, and spent weeks in
+finding some one to present me, only to discover that she was
+self-conscious or uninteresting or engaged.  Still I had assured myself
+that she was not the one.  I am very conscientious, and I consider that
+it is my duty to go so far with every woman I meet as to be able to
+learn whether she is or is not the one, and the sad result is that I am
+like a man who follows the hounds but is never in at the death."
+
+"Well," some married woman would say, grimly, "I hope you will get your
+deserts some day; and you WILL, too.  Some day some girl will make you
+suffer for this."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Carlton would answer, meekly.  "Lots of women
+have made me suffer, if that's what you think I need."
+
+"Some day," the married woman would prophesy, "you will care for a
+woman so much that you will have no eyes for any one else.  That's the
+way it is when one is married."
+
+"Well, when that's the way it is with ME," Carlton would reply, "I
+certainly hope to get married; but until it is, I think it is safer for
+all concerned that I should not."
+
+Then Carlton would go to the club and complain bitterly to one of his
+friends.
+
+"How unfair married women are!" he would say.  "The idea of thinking a
+man could have no eyes but for one woman!  Suppose I had never heard a
+note of music until I was twenty-five years of age, and was then given
+my hearing.  Do you suppose my pleasure in music would make me lose my
+pleasure in everything else?  Suppose I met and married a girl at
+twenty-five.  Is that going to make me forget all the women I knew
+before I met her?  I think not.  As a matter of fact, I really deserve
+a great deal of credit for remaining single, for I am naturally very
+affectionate; but when I see what poor husbands my friends make, I
+prefer to stay as I am until I am sure that I will make a better one.
+It is only fair to the woman."
+
+Carlton was sitting in the club alone.  He had that sense of
+superiority over his fellows and of irresponsibility to the world about
+him that comes to a man when he knows that his trunks are being packed
+and that his state-room is engaged.  He was leaving New York long
+before most of his friends could get away.  He did not know just where
+he was going, and preferred not to know.  He wished to have a complete
+holiday, and to see Europe as an idle tourist, and not as an artist
+with an eye to his own improvement.  He had plenty of time and money;
+he was sure to run across friends in the big cities, and acquaintances
+he could make or not, as he pleased, en route.  He was not sorry to go.
+His going would serve to put an end to what gossip there might be of
+his engagement to numerous young women whose admiration for him as an
+artist, he was beginning to fear, had taken on a more personal tinge.
+"I wish," he said, gloomily, "I didn't like people so well.  It seems
+to cause them and me such a lot of trouble."
+
+He sighed, and stretched out his hand for a copy of one of the English
+illustrated papers.  It had a fresher interest to him because the next
+number of it that he would see would be in the city in which it was
+printed.  The paper in his hands was the St. James Budget, and it
+contained much fashionable intelligence concerning the preparations for
+a royal wedding which was soon to take place between members of two of
+the reigning families of Europe.  There was on one page a half-tone
+reproduction of a photograph, which showed a group of young people
+belonging to several of these reigning families, with their names and
+titles printed above and below the picture.  They were princesses,
+archdukes, or grand-dukes, and they were dressed like young English men
+and women, and with no sign about them of their possible military or
+social rank.
+
+One of the young princesses in the photograph was looking out of it and
+smiling in a tolerant, amused way, as though she had thought of
+something which she could not wait to enjoy until after the picture was
+taken.  She was not posing consciously, as were some of the others, but
+was sitting in a natural attitude, with one arm over the back of her
+chair, and with her hands clasped before her.  Her face was full of a
+fine intelligence and humor, and though one of the other princesses in
+the group was far more beautiful, this particular one had a much more
+high-bred air, and there was something of a challenge in her smile that
+made any one who looked at the picture smile also.  Carlton studied the
+face for some time, and mentally approved of its beauty; the others
+seemed in comparison wooden and unindividual, but this one looked like
+a person he might have known, and whom he would certainly have liked.
+He turned the page and surveyed the features of the Oxford crew with
+lesser interest, and then turned the page again and gazed critically
+and severely at the face of the princess with the high-bred smile.  He
+had hoped that he would find it less interesting at a second glance,
+but it did not prove to be so.
+
+"'The Princess Aline of Hohenwald,'" he read.  "She's probably engaged
+to one of those Johnnies beside her, and the Grand-Duke of Hohenwald
+behind her must be her brother."  He put the paper down and went into
+luncheon, and diverted himself by mixing a salad dressing; but after a
+few moments he stopped in the midst of this employment, and told the
+waiter, with some unnecessary sharpness, to bring him the last copy of
+the St. James Budget.
+
+"Confound it!" he added, to himself.
+
+He opened the paper with a touch of impatience and gazed long and
+earnestly at the face of the Princess Aline, who continued to return
+his look with the same smile of amused tolerance.  Carlton noted every
+detail of her tailor-made gown, of her high mannish collar, of her tie,
+and even the rings on her hand.  There was nothing about her of which
+he could fairly disapprove.  He wondered why it was that she could not
+have been born an approachable New York girl instead of a princess of a
+little German duchy, hedged in throughout her single life, and to be
+traded off eventually in marriage with as much consideration as though
+she were a princess of a real kingdom.
+
+"She looks jolly too," he mused, in an injured tone; "and so very
+clever; and of course she has a beautiful complexion.  All those German
+girls have.  Your Royal Highness is more than pretty," he said, bowing
+his head gravely.  "You look as a princess should look.  I am sure it
+was one of your ancestors who discovered the dried pea under a dozen
+mattresses."  He closed the paper, and sat for a moment with a
+perplexed smile of consideration.  "Waiter," he exclaimed, suddenly,
+"send a messenger-boy to Brentano's for a copy of the St. James Budget,
+and bring me the Almanach de Gotha from the library.  It is a little
+fat red book on the table near the window." Then Carlton opened the
+paper again and propped it up against a carafe, and continued his
+critical survey of the Princess Aline.  He seized the Almanach, when it
+came, with some eagerness.
+
+"Hohenwald (Maison de Grasse)," he read, and in small type below it:
+
+
+"1. Ligne cadette (regnante) grand-ducale: Hohenwald et de Grasse.
+
+"Guillaume-Albert-Frederick-Charles-Louis, Grand-Duc de Hohenwald et de
+Grasse, etc., etc., etc."
+
+
+"That's the brother, right enough," muttered Carlton.
+
+And under the heading "Soeurs" he read:
+
+
+"4. Psse Aline.--Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene, Alt.  Gr.-Duc. Nee a
+Grasse, Juin, 1872."
+
+
+"Twenty-two years old," exclaimed Carlton.  "What a perfect age! I
+could not have invented a better one."  He looked from the book to the
+face before him.  "Now, my dear young lady," he said, "I know all about
+YOU.  You live at Grasse, and you are connected, to judge by your
+names, with all the English royalties; and very pretty names they are,
+too--Aline, Helene, Victoria, Beatrix.  You must be much more English
+than you are German; and I suppose you live in a little old castle, and
+your brother has a standing army of twelve men, and some day you are to
+marry a Russian Grand-Duke, or whoever your brother's Prime Minister--if
+he has a Prime Minister--decides is best for the politics of your little
+toy kingdom.  Ah! to think," exclaimed Carlton, softly, "that such a
+lovely and glorious creature as that should be sacrificed for so
+insignificant a thing as the peace of Europe when she might make some
+young man happy?"
+
+He carried a copy of the paper to his room, and cut the picture of the
+group out of the page and pasted it carefully on a stiff piece of
+card-board.  Then he placed it on his dressing-table, in front of a
+photograph of a young woman in a large silver frame--which was a sign,
+had the young woman but known it, that her reign for the time being was
+over.
+
+Nolan, the young Irishman who "did for" Carlton, knew better than to
+move it when he found it there.  He had learned to study his master
+since he had joined him in London, and understood that one photograph
+in the silver frame was entitled to more consideration than three
+others on the writing-desk or half a dozen on the mantel-piece.  Nolan
+had seen them come and go; he had watched them rise and fall; he had
+carried notes to them, and books and flowers; and had helped to dispose
+them from the silver frame and move them on by degrees down the line,
+until they went ingloriously into the big brass bowl on the side table.
+Nolan approved highly of this last choice.  He did not know which one
+of the three in the group it might be; but they were all pretty, and
+their social standing was certainly distinguished.
+
+Guido, the Italian model who ruled over the studio, and Nolan were
+busily packing when Carlton entered.  He always said that Guido
+represented him in his professional and Nolan in his social capacity.
+Guido cleaned the brushes and purchased the artists' materials; Nolan
+cleaned his riding-boots and bought his theatre and railroad tickets.
+
+"Guido," said Carlton, "there are two sketches I made in Germany last
+year, one of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig the actor; get them
+out for me, will you, and pack them for shipping.  Nolan," he went on,
+"here is a telegram to send."
+
+Nolan would not have read a letter, but he looked upon telegrams as
+public documents, the reading of them as part of his perquisites.  This
+one was addressed to Oscar Von Holtz, First Secretary, German Embassy,
+Washington, D.C., and the message read:
+
+
+"Please telegraph me full title and address Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald.  Where would a letter reach her?
+
+"MORTON CARLTON."
+
+
+The next morning Nolan carried to the express office a box containing
+two oil-paintings on small canvases.  They were addressed to the man in
+London who attended to the shipping and forwarding of Carlton's
+pictures in that town.
+
+
+There was a tremendous crowd on the New York.  She sailed at the
+obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people, in
+consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the way of their
+breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say goodbye.  Carlton, for
+his part, did not notice them; he knew by experience that the
+attractive-looking people always leave a steamer when the whistle
+blows, and that the next most attractive-looking, who remain on board,
+are ill all the way over.  A man that he knew seized him by the arm as
+he was entering his cabin, and asked if he were crossing or just seeing
+people off.
+
+"Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her aunt, Mrs.
+Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if you would be nice
+to them.  But you know her, I guess?" he asked, over his shoulder, as
+Carlton pushed his way after him down the deck.
+
+"I know who she is," he said.
+
+Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of admiring
+friends, and seemed to be holding her own.  They all stopped when
+Carlton came up, and looked at him rather closely, and those whom he
+knew seemed to mark the fact by a particularly hearty greeting.  The
+man who had brought him up acted as though he had successfully
+accomplished a somewhat difficult and creditable feat.  Carlton bowed
+himself away, leaving Miss Morris to her friends, and saying that she
+would probably have to see him later, whether she wished it or not.  He
+then went to meet the aunt, who received him kindly, for there were
+very few people on the passenger list, and she was glad they were to
+have his company.  Before he left she introduced him to a young man
+named Abbey, who was hovering around her most anxiously, and whose
+interest, she seemed to think it necessary to explain, was due to the
+fact that he was engaged to Miss Morris.  Mr. Abbey left the steamer
+when the whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully.  He
+always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as it left
+him no choice in the matter, and excused him from finding out whether
+or not that particular young woman was the one.
+
+Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and faced
+the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy Hook with
+unconcern.  Carlton joined them, and they stood together leaning with
+their backs to the rail, and trying to fit the people who flitted past
+them to the names on the passenger list.
+
+"The young lady in the sailor suit," said Miss Morris, gazing at the
+top of the smoke-stack, "is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand Rapids.  This is
+her first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is something like a yacht,
+and dresses for the part accordingly.  She does not know that it is
+merely a moving hotel."
+
+"I am afraid," said Carlton, "to judge from her agitation, that hers is
+going to be what the professionals call a 'dressing-room' part.  Why is
+it," he asked, "that the girls on a steamer who wear gold anchors and
+the men in yachting-caps are always the first to disappear?  That man
+with the sombrero," he went on, "is James M. Pollock, United States
+Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to his post.  I know he is the
+consul, because he comes from Fort Worth, Texas, and is therefore
+admirably fitted to speak either French or the native language of the
+island."
+
+"Oh, we don't send consuls to Mauritius," laughed Miss Morris.
+"Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps, but no one
+really lives or goes there."
+
+"Where are you going, may I ask?" inquired Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris said that they were making their way to Constantinople and
+Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had not had the time to take the
+southern route, they purposed to journey across the Continent direct
+from Paris to the Turkish capital by the Orient Express.
+
+"We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long enough for
+some clothes," she replied.
+
+"The trousseau," thought Carlton.  "Weeks is what she should have said."
+
+The three sat together at the captain's table, and as the sea continued
+rough, saw little of either the captain or his other guests, and were
+thrown much upon the society of each other.  They had innumerable
+friends and interests in common; and Mrs. Downs, who had been
+everywhere, and for long seasons at a time, proved as alive as her
+niece, and Carlton conceived a great liking for her.  She seemed to be
+just and kindly minded, and, owing to her age, to combine the wider
+judgment of a man with the sympathetic interest of a woman.  Sometimes
+they sat together in a row and read, and gossiped over what they read,
+or struggled up the deck as it rose and fell and buffeted with the
+wind; and later they gathered in a corner of the saloon and ate late
+suppers of Carlton's devising, or drank tea in the captain's cabin,
+which he had thrown open to them.  They had started knowing much about
+one another, and this and the necessary proximity of the ship hastened
+their acquaintance.
+
+The sea grew calmer the third day out, and the sun came forth and
+showed the decks as clean as bread-boards.  Miss Morris and Carlton
+seated themselves on the huge iron riding-bits in the bow, and with
+their elbows on the rail looked down at the whirling blue water, and
+rejoiced silently in the steady rush of the great vessel, and in the
+uncertain warmth of the March sun.  Carlton was sitting to leeward of
+Miss Morris, with a pipe between his teeth.  He was warm, and at peace
+with the world.  He had found his new acquaintance more than
+entertaining.  She was even friendly, and treated him as though he were
+much her junior, as is the habit of young women lately married or who
+are about to be married.  Carlton did not resent it; on the contrary,
+it made him more at his ease with her, and as she herself chose to
+treat him as a youth, he permitted himself to be as foolish as he
+pleased.
+
+"I don't know why it is," he complained, peering over the rail, "but
+whenever I look over the side to watch the waves a man in a greasy cap
+always sticks his head out of a hole below me and scatters a barrelful
+of ashes or potato peelings all over the ocean.  It spoils the effect
+for one.  Next time he does it I am going to knock out the ashes of my
+pipe on the back of his neck."  Miss Morris did not consider this
+worthy of comment, and there was a long lazy pause.
+
+"You haven't told us where you go after London," she said; and then,
+without waiting for him to reply, she asked, "Is it your professional
+or your social side that you are treating to a trip this time?"
+
+"Who told you that?" asked Carlton, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some man.  He said you were a Jekyll and Hyde.
+Which is Jekyll?  You see, I only know your professional side."
+
+"You must try to find out for yourself by deduction," he said, "as you
+picked out the other passengers.  I am going to Grasse," he continued.
+"It's the capital of Hohenwald.  Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes," she said; "we were there once for a few days.  We went to see
+the pictures.  I suppose you know that the old Duke, the father of the
+present one, ruined himself almost by buying pictures for the Grasse
+gallery.  We were there at a bad time, though, when the palace was
+closed to visitors, and the gallery too.  I suppose that is what is
+taking you there?"
+
+"No," Carlton said, shaking his head.  "No, it is not the pictures.  I
+am going to Grasse," he said, gravely, "to see the young woman with
+whom I am in love."
+
+Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled consciously, with a
+natural feminine interest in an affair of love, and one which was a
+secret as well.
+
+"Oh," she said, "I beg your pardon; we--I had not heard of it."
+
+"No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly," said Carlton; "it
+is rather in an embryo state as yet--in fact, I have not met the young
+lady so far, but I mean to meet her.  That's why I am going abroad."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling, but he
+was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the horizon-line, and
+puffing meditatively on his pipe.  He was apparently in earnest, and
+waiting for her to make some comment.
+
+"How very interesting!" was all she could think to say.
+
+"Yes, when you know the details, it is,----VERY interesting," he
+answered.  "She is the Princess Aline of Hohenwald," he explained,
+bowing his head as though he were making the two young ladies known to
+one another.  "She has several other names, six in all, and her age is
+twenty-two.  That is all I know about her.  I saw her picture in an
+illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up my mind I would
+meet her, and here I am.  If she is not in Grasse, I intend to follow
+her to wherever she may be."  He waved his pipe at the ocean before him,
+and recited, with mock seriousness:
+
+    "'Across the hills and far away,
+               Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+     And deep into the dying day,
+               The happy Princess followed him.'
+
+
+"Only in this case, you see," said Carlton, "I am following the happy
+Princess."
+
+"No; but seriously, though," said Miss Morris, "what is it you mean?
+Are you going to paint her portrait?"
+
+"I never thought of that," exclaimed Carlton.  "I don't know but what
+your idea is a good one.  Miss Morris, that's a great idea."  He shook
+his head approvingly.  "I did not do wrong to confide in you," he said.
+"It was perhaps taking a liberty; but as you have not considered it as
+such, I am glad I spoke."
+
+"But you don't really mean to tell me," exclaimed the girl, facing
+about, and nodding her head at him, "that you are going abroad after a
+woman whom you have never seen, and because you like a picture of her
+in a paper?"
+
+"I do," said Carlton.  "Because I like her picture, and because she is
+a Princess."
+
+"Well, upon my word," said Miss Morris, gazing at him with evident
+admiration, "that's what my younger brother would call a distinctly
+sporting proposition.  Only I don't see," she added, "what her being a
+Princess has to do with it."
+
+"You don't?" laughed Carlton, easily.  "That's the best part of
+it--that's the plot.  The beauty of being in love with a Princess, Miss
+Morris," he said, "lies in the fact that you can't marry her; that you
+can love her deeply and forever, and nobody will ever come to you and
+ask your intentions, or hint that after such a display of affection you
+ought to do something.  Now, with a girl who is not a Princess, even if
+she understands the situation herself, and wouldn't marry you to save
+her life, still there is always some one--a father, or a mother, or one
+of your friends--who makes it his business to interfere, and talks
+about it, and bothers you both.  But with a Princess, you see, that is
+all eliminated.  You can't marry a Princess, because they won't let
+you.  A Princess has got to marry a real royal chap, and so you are
+perfectly ineligible and free to sigh for her, and make pretty speeches
+to her, and see her as often as you can, and revel in your devotion and
+unrequited affection."
+
+Miss Morris regarded him doubtfully.  She did not wish to prove herself
+too credulous.  "And you honestly want me, Mr. Carlton, to believe that
+you are going abroad just for this?"
+
+"You see," Carlton answered her, "if you only knew me better you would
+have no doubt on the subject at all.  It isn't the thing some men would
+do, I admit, but it is exactly what any one who knows me would expect
+of me.  I should describe it, having had acquaintance with the young
+man for some time, as being eminently characteristic.  And besides,
+think what a good story it makes!  Every other man who goes abroad this
+summer will try to tell about his travels when he gets back to New
+York, and, as usual, no one will listen to him.  But they will HAVE to
+listen to me.  'You've been across since I saw you last.  What did you
+do?' they'll ask, politely.  And then, instead of simply telling them
+that I have been in Paris or London, I can say, 'Oh, I've been chasing
+around the globe after the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.'  That sounds
+interesting, doesn't it?  When you come to think of it," Carlton
+continued, meditatively, "it is not so very remarkable.  Men go all the
+way to Cuba and Mexico, and even to India, after orchids, after a nasty
+flower that grows in an absurd way on the top of a tree.  Why shouldn't
+a young man go as far as Germany after a beautiful Princess, who walks
+on the ground, and who can talk and think and feel?  She is much more
+worth while than an orchid."
+
+Miss Morris laughed indulgently.  "Well, I didn't know such devotion
+existed at this end of the century," she said; "it's quite nice and
+encouraging.  I hope you will succeed, I am sure.  I only wish we were
+going to be near enough to see how you get on. I have never been a
+confidante when there was a real Princess concerned," she said; "it
+makes it so much more amusing.  May one ask what your plans are?"
+
+Carlton doubted if he had any plans as yet.  "I have to reach the
+ground first," he said, "and after that I must reconnoitre.  I may
+possibly adopt your idea, and ask to paint her portrait, only I dislike
+confusing my social and professional sides.  As a matter of fact,
+though," he said, after a pause, laughing guiltily, "I have done a
+little of that already.  I prepared her, as it were, for my coming.  I
+sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin.  One of
+the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the Court
+Theatre.  I sent them to her through my London agent, so that she would
+think they had come from some one of her English friends, and I told
+the dealer not to let any one know who had forwarded them.  My idea was
+that it might help me, perhaps, if she knew something about me before I
+appeared in person.  It was a sort of letter of introduction written by
+myself."
+
+"Well, really," expostulated Miss Morris, "you certainly woo in a royal
+way.  Are you in the habit of giving away your pictures to any one
+whose photograph you happen to like?  That seems to me to be giving new
+lamps for old to a degree.  I must see if I haven't some of my sister's
+photographs in my trunk.  She is considered very beautiful."
+
+"Well, you wait until you see this particular portrait, and--you will
+understand it better," said Carlton.
+
+The steamer reached Southampton early in the afternoon, and Carlton
+secured a special compartment on the express to London for Mrs. Downs
+and her niece and himself, with one adjoining for their maid and Nolan.
+It was a beautiful day, and Carlton sat with his eyes fixed upon the
+passing fields and villages, exclaiming with pleasure from time to time
+at the white roads and the feathery trees and hedges, and the red roofs
+of the inns and square towers of the village churches.
+
+"Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren't they?" he said.
+"You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of them?  She looks
+just as though she were posing for a picture for an illustrated paper.
+She couldn't pick flowers from a barbed-wire fence, could she?  And
+there would probably be a tramp along the road somewhere to frighten
+her; and see--the chap in knickerbockers farther down the road leaning
+on the stile.  I am sure he is waiting for her; and here comes a
+coach," he ran on.  "Don't the red wheels look well against the hedges?
+It's a pretty little country, England, isn't it?--like a private park
+or a model village.  I am glad to get back to it--I am glad to see the
+three-and-six signs with the little slanting dash between the shillings
+and pennies.  Yes, even the steam-rollers and the man with the red flag
+in front are welcome."
+
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Downs, "it's because one has been so long on the
+ocean that the ride to London seems so interesting.  It always pays me
+for the entire trip.  Yes," she said, with a sigh, "in spite of the
+patent-medicine signs they have taken to putting up all along the road.
+It seems a pity they should adopt our bad habits instead of our good
+ones."
+
+"They are a bit slow at adopting anything," commented Carlton.  "Did
+you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as scarce in
+London as they are in Timbuctoo?  Why, I saw an electric-light plant
+put up in a Western town in three days once; there were over a hundred
+burners in one saloon, and the engineer who put them up told me in
+confidence that--"
+
+What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never disclosed, for
+at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a sudden sharp
+exclamation.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Carlton," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "listen to this!"  She
+had been reading one of the dozen papers which Carlton had purchased at
+the station, and was now shaking one of them at him, with her eyes
+fixed on the open page.
+
+"My dear Edith," remonstrated her aunt, "Mr. Carlton was telling us--"
+
+"Yes, I know," exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, "but this interests him
+much more than electric lights.  Who do you think is in London?" she
+cried, raising her eyes to his, and pausing for proper dramatic effect.
+"The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!"
+
+"No?" shouted Carlton.
+
+"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone.  "Listen.  'The Queen's
+Drawing-room'--em--e--m--'on her right was the Princess of
+Wales'--em--m.  Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here it is.  'Next to her
+stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.  She wore a dress of white silk,
+with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur.  Ornaments--emeralds and
+diamonds; orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal,
+Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Grasse.'"
+
+"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly.  "I say, is that really there?
+Let me see it, please, for myself."
+
+Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the paragraph, and
+picking up another, began a search down its columns.
+
+"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure enough.
+And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't know it?"
+
+Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had discovered a
+vein of gold.
+
+"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 'The
+Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few violet
+ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her mother's
+side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by Princess Ena's
+accident.  Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a light brown jacket
+and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary touch to a picture which
+Londoners would be glad to look upon more often.'"
+
+Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and with his
+eyes open wide from excitement.  He presented so unusual an appearance
+of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her
+niece for some explanation.  "The young lady seems to interest you,"
+said she, tentatively.
+
+"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs," cried
+Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Grasse to see her, and now it
+turns out that she is here in England, within a few miles of us."  He
+turned and waved his hands at the passing landscape.  "Every minute
+brings us nearer together."
+
+"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris, laughing.
+"You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you where to
+find the woman you love."
+
+Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and frowned
+intently.  "Now I have got to begin all over again and readjust
+things," he said.  "We might have guessed she would be in London, on
+account of this royal wedding.  It is a great pity it isn't later in
+the season, when there would be more things going on and more chances
+of meeting her.  Now they will all be interested in themselves, and,
+being extremely exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom
+or an Emperor would have any chance at all.  Still, I can see her!  I
+can look at her, and that's something."
+
+"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.
+
+"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or they will
+stop at Brown's," said Carlton.  "All royalties go to Brown's.  I don't
+know why, unless it is because it is so expensive; or maybe it is
+expensive because royalties go there; but, in any event, if they are
+not at the palace, that is where they will be, and that is where I
+shall have to go too."
+
+When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed Nolan to
+take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload them until he had
+arrived.  Then he drove with the ladies to Cox's, and saw them settled
+there.  He promised to return at once to dine, and to tell them what he
+had discovered in his absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss
+Morris," he said, nervously.  "I am beginning to feel that I am not
+worthy of her."
+
+"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that 'it's not
+the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of wooing,' and that
+'faint heart'--and the rest of it."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit sudden, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh, I am ashamed of you!  You are frightened."
+
+"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter.  "I think it's just
+natural emotion."
+
+As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet
+stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across the sidewalk to
+a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently assisting
+several gentlemen to get into it.  This and another carriage and
+Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to
+move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man
+to its side.
+
+"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked.  The
+bareheaded man answered that he was.
+
+"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton.  "They can take in the trunks."
+
+Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight.
+"That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said,
+pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second
+carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."
+
+Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the
+air.
+
+"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began, eagerly,
+and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the
+hansom.
+
+He broke into the little dining-room at Cox's in so excited a state
+that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed
+in astonished disapproval.  Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come
+down stairs.
+
+"I have seen her!" Carlton cried, ecstatically; "only half an hour in
+the town, and I've seen her already!"
+
+"No, really?" exclaimed Miss Morris.  "And how did she look?  Is she as
+beautiful as you expected?"
+
+"Well, I can't tell yet," Carlton answered.
+
+"There were three of them, and they were all muffled up, and which one
+of the three she was I don't know.  She wasn't labelled, as in the
+picture, but she was there, and I saw her.  The woman I love was one of
+that three, and I have engaged rooms at the hotel, and this very night
+the same roof shelters us both."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you," said Miss
+Morris, as they seated themselves at the table.  "What is your next
+move?  What do you mean to do now?"
+
+"The rest is very simple," said Carlton.  "To-morrow morning I will go
+to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who knows all about
+them--where they are going, and who they are seeing, and what
+engagements they may have.  Then it will only be a matter of looking up
+some friend in the Household or in one of the embassies who can present
+me."
+
+"Oh," said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment, "but
+that is such a commonplace ending!  You started out so romantically.
+Couldn't you manage to meet her in a less conventional way?"
+
+"I am afraid not," said Carlton.  "You see, I want to meet her very
+much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of meeting her,
+whether it's romantic or not, isn't a bit too quick for me.  There will
+be romance enough after I am presented, if I have my way."
+
+But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the fact
+that it requires as many to make an introduction as a bargain, and he
+had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his considerations.  He met many
+people he knew in the Row the next morning; they asked him to lunch,
+and brought their horses up to the rail, and he patted the horses'
+heads, and led the conversation around to the royal wedding, and
+through it to the Hohenwalds.  He learned that they had attended a
+reception at the German Embassy on the previous night, and it was one
+of the secretaries of that embassy who informed him of their intended
+departure that morning on the eleven o'clock train to Paris.
+
+"To Paris!" cried Carlton, in consternation.  "What! all of them?"
+
+"Yes, all of them, of course.  Why?" asked the young German.  But
+Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to Piccadilly and
+waving his stick at a hansom.
+
+Nolan met him at the door of Brown's Hotel with an anxious countenance.
+
+"Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir," he said.  "But I've packed
+your trunks and sent them to the station.  Shall I follow them, sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton.  "Follow the trunks and follow the Hohenwalds.  I
+will come over on the Club train at four.  Meet me at the station, and
+tell me to what hotel they have gone.  Wait; if I miss you, you can
+find me at the Hotel Continental; but if they go straight on through
+Paris, you go with them, and telegraph me here and to the Continental.
+Telegraph at every station, so I can keep track of you.  Have you
+enough money?"
+
+"I have, sir--enough for a long trip, sir."
+
+"Well, you'll need it," said Carlton, grimly.  "This is going to be a
+long trip.  It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you will have to hurry.
+Have you paid my bill here?"
+
+"I have, sir," said Nolan.
+
+"Then get off, and don't lose sight of those people again."
+
+Carlton attended to several matters of business, and then lunched with
+Mrs. Downs and her niece.  He had grown to like them very much, and was
+sorry to lose sight of them, but consoled himself by thinking he would
+see them a few days at least in Paris.  He judged that he would be
+there for some time, as he did not think the Princess Aline and her
+sisters would pass through that city without stopping to visit the
+shops on the Rue de la Paix.
+
+"All women are not princesses," he argued, "but all princesses are
+women."
+
+"We will be in Paris on Wednesday," Mrs. Downs told him.  "The Orient
+Express leaves there twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and we
+have taken an apartment for next Thursday, and will go right on to
+Constantinople."
+
+"But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes there?" Carlton
+expostulated.
+
+Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.
+
+Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had followed the
+Hohenwalds to the Hotel Meurice.  "There is the Duke, sir, and the
+three Princesses," Nolan said, "and there are two German gentlemen
+acting as equerries, and an English captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the
+Duke, and two elderly ladies, and eight servants.  They travel very
+simple, sir, and their people are in undress livery.  Brown and red,
+sir."
+
+Carlton pretended not to listen to this.  He had begun to doubt but
+that Nolan's zeal would lead him into some indiscretion, and would end
+disastrously to himself.  He spent the evening alone in front of the
+Cafe de la Paix, pleasantly occupied in watching the life and movement
+of that great meeting of the highways.  It did not seem possible that
+he had ever been away.  It was as though he had picked up a book and
+opened it at the page and place at which he had left off reading it a
+moment before.  There was the same type, the same plot, and the same
+characters, who were doing the same characteristic things.  Even the
+waiter who tipped out his coffee knew him; and he knew, or felt as
+though he knew, half of those who passed, or who shared with him the
+half of the sidewalk.  The women at the next table considered the slim,
+good-looking young American with friendly curiosity, and the men with
+them discussed him in French, until a well-known Parisian recognized
+Carlton in passing, and hailed him joyously in the same language, at
+which the women laughed and the men looked sheepishly conscious.
+
+On the following morning Carlton took up his post in the open court of
+the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to excuse his loitering
+there.  He had not been occupied with these over-long before Nolan
+approached him, in some excitement, with the information that their
+Royal Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
+"coming down the lift."
+
+Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the corner
+and see them; it was for this chance he had been waiting; but he could
+not afford to act in so undignified a manner before Nolan, so he merely
+crossed his legs nervously, and told the servant to go back to the
+rooms.
+
+"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my own affairs
+in my own way.  If I don't stop him, he'll carry the Princess Aline off
+by force and send me word where he has hidden her."
+
+The Hohenwalds had evidently departed for a day's outing, as up to five
+o'clock they had not returned; and Carlton, after loitering all the
+afternoon, gave up waiting for them, and went out to dine at Laurent's,
+in the Champs Elysees.  He had finished his dinner, and was leaning
+luxuriously forward, with his elbows on the table, and knocking the
+cigar ashes into his coffee-cup.  He was pleasantly content.  The trees
+hung heavy with leaves over his head, a fountain played and overflowed
+at his elbow, and the lamps of the fiacres passing and repassing on the
+Avenue of the Champs Elysees shone like giant fire-flies through the
+foliage.  The touch of the gravel beneath his feet emphasized the free,
+out-of-door charm of the place, and the faces of the others around him
+looked more than usually cheerful in the light of the candles
+flickering under the clouded shades.  His mind had gone back to his
+earlier student days in Paris, when life always looked as it did now in
+the brief half-hour of satisfaction which followed a cold bath or a
+good dinner, and he had forgotten himself and his surroundings.  It was
+the voices of the people at the table behind him that brought him back
+to the present moment.  A man was talking; he spoke in English, with an
+accent.
+
+"I should like to go again through the Luxembourg," he said; "but you
+need not be bound by what I do."
+
+"I think it would be pleasanter if we all keep together," said a girl's
+voice, quietly.  She also spoke in English, and with the same accent.
+
+The people whose voices had interrupted him were sitting and standing
+around a long table, which the waiters had made large enough for their
+party by placing three of the smaller ones side by side; they had
+finished their dinner, and the women, who sat with their backs towards
+Carlton, were pulling on their gloves.
+
+"Which is it to be, then?" said the gentleman, smiling.  "The pictures
+or the dressmakers?"
+
+The girl who had first spoken turned to the one next to her.
+
+"Which would you rather do, Aline?" she asked.
+
+Carlton moved so suddenly that the men behind him looked at him
+curiously; but he turned, nevertheless, in his chair and faced them,
+and in order to excuse his doing so beckoned to one of the waiters.  He
+was within two feet of the girl who had been called "Aline."  She
+raised her head to speak, and saw Carlton staring open-eyed at her.
+She glanced at him for an instant, as if to assure herself that she did
+not know him, and then, turning to her brother, smiled in the same
+tolerant, amused way in which she had so often smiled upon Carlton from
+the picture.
+
+"I am afraid I had rather go to the Bon March," she said.
+
+One of the waiters stepped in between them, and Carlton asked him for
+his bill; but when it came he left it lying on the plate, and sat
+staring out into the night between the candles, puffing sharply on his
+cigar, and recalling to his memory his first sight of the Princess
+Aline of Hohenwald.
+
+That night, as he turned into bed, he gave a comfortable sigh of
+content.  "I am glad she chose the dressmakers instead of the
+pictures," he said.
+
+Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris arrived in Paris on Wednesday, and expressed
+their anxiety to have Carlton lunch with them, and to hear him tell of
+the progress of his love-affair.  There was not much to tell; the
+Hohenwalds had come and gone from the hotel as freely as any other
+tourists in Paris, but the very lack of ceremony about their movements
+was in itself a difficulty.  The manner of acquaintance he could make
+in the court of the Hotel Meurice with one of the men over a cup of
+coffee or a glass of bock would be as readily discontinued as begun,
+and for his purpose it would have been much better if the Hohenwalds
+had been living in state with a visitors' book and a chamberlain.
+
+On Wednesday evening Carlton took the ladies to the opera, where the
+Hohenwalds occupied a box immediately opposite them.  Carlton pretended
+to be surprised at this fact, but Mrs. Downs doubted his sincerity.
+
+"I saw Nolan talking to their courier to-day," she said, "and I fancy
+he asked a few leading questions."
+
+"Well, he didn't learn much if he did," he said.  "The fellow only
+talks German."
+
+"Ah, then he has been asking questions!" said Miss Morris.
+
+"Well, he does it on his own responsibility," said Carlton, "for I told
+him to have nothing to do with servants.  He has too much zeal, has
+Nolan; I'm afraid of him."
+
+"If you were only half as interested as he is," said Miss Morris, "you
+would have known her long ago."
+
+"Long ago?" exclaimed Carlton.  "I only saw her four days since."
+
+"She is certainly very beautiful," said Miss Morris, looking across the
+auditorium.
+
+"But she isn't there," said Carlton.
+
+"That's the eldest sister; the two other sisters went out on the coach
+this morning to Versailles, and were too tired to come tonight.  At
+least, so Nolan says.  He seems to have established a friendship for
+their English maid, but whether it's on my account or his own I don't
+know.  I doubt his unselfishness."
+
+"How disappointing of her!" said Miss Morris.  "And after you had
+selected a box just across the way, too.  It is such a pity to waste it
+on us."  Carlton smiled, and looked up at her impudently, as though he
+meant to say something; but remembering that she was engaged to be
+married, changed his mind, and lowered his eyes to his programme.
+
+"Why didn't you say it?" asked Miss Morris, calmly, turning her glass
+to the stage.  "Wasn't it pretty?"
+
+"No," said Carlton--"not pretty enough."
+
+The ladies left the hotel the next day to take the Orient Express,
+which left Paris at six o'clock.  They had bidden Carlton goodbye at
+four the same afternoon, and as he had come to their rooms for that
+purpose, they were in consequence a little surprised to see him at the
+station, running wildly along the platform, followed by Nolan and a
+porter.  He came into their compartment after the train had started,
+and shook his head sadly at them from the door.
+
+"Well, what do you think of this?" he said.  "You can't get rid of me,
+you see.  I'm going with you."
+
+"Going with us?" asked Mrs. Downs.  "How far?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and, coming inside, dropped onto the cushions with a
+sigh.  "I don't know," he said, dejectedly.  "All the way, I'm afraid.
+That is, I mean, I'm very glad I am to have your society for a few days
+more; but really I didn't bargain for this."
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that THEY are on this train?" said Miss
+Morris.
+
+"They are," said Carlton.  "They have a car to themselves at the rear.
+They only made up their minds to go this morning, and they nearly
+succeeded in giving me the slip again; but it seems that their English
+maid stopped Nolan in the hall to bid him good-bye, and so he found out
+their plans.  They are going direct to Constantinople, and then to
+Athens.  They had meant to stay in Paris two weeks longer, it seems,
+but they changed their minds last night.  It was a very close shave for
+me.  I only got back to the hotel in time to hear from the concierge
+that Nolan had flown with all of my things, and left word for me to
+follow.  Just fancy!  Suppose I had missed the train, and had had to
+chase him clear across the continent of Europe with not even a razor--"
+
+"I am glad," said Miss Morris, "that Nolan has not taken a fancy to ME.
+I doubt if I could resist such impetuosity."
+
+The Orient Express, in which Carlton and the mistress of his heart and
+fancy were speeding towards the horizon's utmost purple rim, was made
+up of six cars, one dining-car with a smoking-apartment attached, and
+five sleeping-cars, including the one reserved for the Duke of
+Hohenwald and his suite.  These cars were lightly built, and rocked in
+consequence, and the dust raised by the rapid movement of the train
+swept through cracks and open windows, and sprinkled the passengers
+with a fine and irritating coating of soot and earth.  There was one
+servant to the entire twenty-two passengers.  He spoke eight languages,
+and never slept; but as his services were in demand by several people
+in as many different cars at the same moment he satisfied no one, and
+the complaint-box in the smoking-car was stuffed full to the slot in
+consequence before they had crossed the borders of France.
+
+Carlton and Miss Morris went out upon one of the platforms and sat down
+upon a tool-box.  "It's isn't as comfortable here as in an
+observation-car at home," said Carlton, "but it's just as noisy."
+
+He pointed out to her from time to time the peasants gathering twigs,
+and the blue-bloused gendarmes guarding the woods and the fences
+skirting them.  "Nothing is allowed to go to waste in this country," he
+said.  "It looks as though they went over it once a month with a
+lawn-mower and a pruning-knife.  I believe they number the trees as we
+number the houses."
+
+"And did you notice the great fortifications covered with grass?" she
+said.  "We have passed such a lot of them."
+
+Carlton nodded.
+
+"And did you notice that they all faced only one way?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and nodded again.  "Towards Germany," he said.
+
+By the next day they had left the tall poplars and white roads behind
+them, and were crossing the land of low shiny black helmets and brass
+spikes.  They had come into a country of low mountains and black
+forests, with old fortified castles topping the hills, and with
+red-roofed villages scattered around the base.
+
+"How very military it all is!" Mrs. Downs said.  "Even the men at the
+lonely little stations in the forests wear uniforms; and do you notice
+how each of them rolls up his red flag and holds it like a sword, and
+salutes the train as it passes?"
+
+They spent the hour during which the train shifted from one station in
+Vienna to the other driving about in an open carriage, and stopped for
+a few moments in front of a cafe to drink beer and to feel solid earth
+under them again, returning to the train with a feeling which was
+almost that of getting back to their own rooms.  Then they came to
+great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with
+little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this
+grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing
+sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons.  In one
+place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass,
+with the friends of the bride and groom in their best clothes, the
+women with silver breastplates, and boots to their knees.  It seemed
+hardly possible that only two days before they had seen another wedding
+party in the Champs Elysees, where the men wore evening dress, and the
+women were bareheaded and with long trains.  In forty-eight hours they
+had passed through republics, principalities, empires, and kingdoms,
+and from spring to winter.  It was like walking rapidly over a painted
+panorama of Europe.
+
+On the second evening Carlton went off into the smoking-car alone.  The
+Duke of Hohenwald and two of his friends had finished a late supper,
+and were seated in the apartment adjoining it.  The Duke was a young
+man with a heavy beard and eyeglasses.  He was looking over an
+illustrated catalogue of the Salon, and as Carlton dropped on the sofa
+opposite the Duke raised his head and looked at him curiously, and then
+turned over several pages of the catalogue and studied one of them, and
+then back at Carlton, as though he were comparing him with something on
+the page before him.  Carlton was looking out at the night, but he
+could follow what was going forward, as it was reflected in the glass
+of the car window.  He saw the Duke hand the catalogue to one of the
+equerries, who raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in assent.
+Carlton wondered what this might mean, until he remembered that there
+was a portrait of himself by a French artist in the Salon, and
+concluded it had been reproduced in the catalogue.  He could think of
+nothing else which would explain the interest the two men showed in
+him.  On the morning following he sent Nolan out to purchase a
+catalogue at the first station at which they stopped, and found that
+his guess was a correct one.  A portrait of himself had been reproduced
+in black and white, with his name below it.
+
+"Well, they know who I am now," he said to Miss Morris, "even if they
+don't know me.  That honor is still in store for them."
+
+"I wish they did not lock themselves up so tightly," said Miss Morris.
+"I want to see her very much.  Cannot we walk up and down the platform
+at the next station?  She may be at the window."
+
+"Of course," said Carlton.  "You could have seen her at Buda-Pesth if
+you had spoken of it.  She was walking up and down then.  The next time
+the train stops we will prowl up and down and feast our eyes upon her."
+
+But Miss Morris had her wish gratified without that exertion.  The
+Hohenwalds were served in the dining-car after the other passengers had
+finished, and were in consequence only to be seen when they passed by
+the doors of the other compartments.  But this same morning, after
+luncheon, the three Princesses, instead of returning to their own car,
+seated themselves in the compartment adjoining the dining-car, while
+the men of their party lit their cigars and sat in a circle around them.
+
+"I was wondering how long they could stand three men smoking in one of
+the boxes they call cars," said Mrs. Downs.  She was seated between
+Miss Morris and Carlton, directly opposite the Hohenwalds, and so near
+them that she had to speak in a whisper.  To avoid doing this Miss
+Morris asked Carlton for a pencil, and scribbled with it in the novel
+she held on her lap.  Then she passed them both back to him, and said,
+aloud: "Have you read this?  It has such a pretty dedication."  The
+dedication read, "Which is Aline?"  And Carlton, taking the pencil in
+his turn, made a rapid sketch of her on the fly-leaf, and wrote beneath
+it:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+
+Miss Morris took the book again, and glanced at the sketch, and then at
+the three Princesses, and nodded her head.  "It is very beautiful," she
+said, gravely, looking out at the passing landscape.
+
+"Well, not beautiful exactly," answered Carlton, surveying the hills
+critically, "but certainly very attractive.  It is worth travelling a
+long way to see, and I should think one would grow very fond of it."
+
+Miss Morris tore the fly-leaf out of the book, and slipped it between
+the pages.  "May I keep it?" she said.  Carlton nodded.  "And
+will you sign it?" she asked, smiling.  Carlton shrugged his shoulders,
+and laughed.  "If you wish it," he answered.
+
+The Princess wore a gray cheviot travelling dress, as did her sisters,
+and a gray Alpine hat.  She was leaning back, talking to the English
+captain who accompanied them, and laughing.  Carlton thought he had
+never seen a woman who appealed so strongly to every taste of which he
+was possessed.  She seemed so sure of herself, so alert, and yet so
+gracious, so easily entertained, and yet, when she turned her eyes
+towards the strange, dismal landscape, so seriously intent upon its sad
+beauty.  The English captain dropped his head, and with the pretence of
+pulling at his mustache, covered his mouth as he spoke to her.  When he
+had finished he gazed consciously at the roof of the car, and she kept
+her eyes fixed steadily at the object towards which they had turned
+when he had ceased speaking, and then, after a decent pause, turned her
+eyes, as Carlton knew she would, towards him.
+
+"He was telling her who I am," he thought, "and about the picture in
+the catalogue."
+
+In a few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her, pointing
+out at something in the scenery, and the same pantomime was repeated,
+and again with the third sister.
+
+"Did you see those girls talking about you, Mr. Carlton?" Miss Morris
+asked, after they had left the car.
+
+Carlton said it looked as though they were.
+
+"Of course they were," said Miss Morris.
+
+"That Englishman told the Princess Aline something about you, and then
+she told her sister, and she told the eldest one.  It would be nice if
+they inherit their father's interest in painting, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I would rather have it degenerate into an interest in painters
+myself," said Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris discovered, after she had returned to her own car, that she
+had left the novel where she had been sitting, and Carlton sent Nolan
+back for it.  It had slipped to the floor, and the fly-leaf upon which
+Carlton had sketched the Princess Aline was lying face down beside it.
+Nolan picked up the leaf, and saw the picture, and read the inscription
+below: "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+
+He handed the book to Miss Morris, and was backing out of the
+compartment, when she stopped him.
+
+"There was a loose page in this, Nolan," she said.  "It's gone; did you
+see it?"
+
+"A loose page, miss?" said Nolan, with some concern.  "Oh, yes, miss; I
+was going to tell you; there was a scrap of paper blew away when I was
+passing between the carriages.  Was it something you wanted, miss?"
+
+"Something I wanted!" exclaimed Miss Morris, in dismay.
+
+Carlton laughed easily.  "It is just as well I didn't sign it, after
+all," he said.  "I don't want to proclaim my devotion to any Hungarian
+gypsy who happens to read English."
+
+"You must draw me another, as a souvenir," Miss Morris said.
+
+Nolan continued on through the length of the car until he had reached
+the one occupied by the Hohenwalds, where he waited on the platform
+until the English maidservant saw him and came to the door of the
+carriage.
+
+"What hotel are your people going to stop at in Constantinople?" Nolan
+asked.
+
+"The Grande-Bretagne, I think," she answered.
+
+"That's right," said Nolan, approvingly.  "That's the one we are going
+to.  I thought I would come and tell you about it.  And, by-the-way,"
+he said, "here's a picture somebody's made of your Princess Aline.  She
+dropped it, and I picked it up.  You had better give it back to her.
+Well," he added, politely, "I'm glad you are coming to our hotel in
+Constantinople; it's pleasant having some one to talk to who can speak
+your own tongue."
+
+The girl returned to the car, and left Nolan alone upon the platform.
+He exhaled a long breath of suppressed excitement, and then gazed
+around nervously upon the empty landscape.
+
+"I fancy that's going to hurry things up a bit," he murmured, with an
+anxious smile; "he'd never get along at all if it wasn't for me."
+
+For reasons possibly best understood by the German ambassador, the
+state of the Hohenwalds at Constantinople differed greatly from that
+which had obtained at the French capital.  They no longer came and went
+as they wished, or wandered through the show-places of the city like
+ordinary tourists.  There was, on the contrary, not only a change in
+their manner towards others, but there was an insistence on their part
+of a difference in the attitude of others towards themselves.  This
+showed itself in the reserving of the half of the hotel for their use,
+and in the haughty bearing of the equerries, who appeared unexpectedly
+in magnificent uniforms.  The visitors' book was covered with the
+autographs of all of the important people in the Turkish capital, and
+the Sultan's carriages stood constantly before the door of the hotel,
+awaiting their pleasure, until they became as familiar a sight as the
+street dogs, or as cabs in a hansom-cab rank.
+
+And in following out the programme which had been laid down for her,
+the Princess Aline became even less accessible to Carlton than before,
+and he grew desperate and despondent.
+
+"If the worst comes," he said to Miss Morris, "I shall tell Nolan to
+give an alarm of fire some night, and then I will run in and rescue her
+before they find out there is no fire.  Or he might frighten the horses
+some day, and give me a chance to stop them.  We might even wait until
+we reach Greece, and have her carried off by brigands, who would only
+give her up to me."
+
+"There are no more brigands in Greece," said Miss Morris; "and besides,
+why do you suppose they would only give her up to you?"
+
+"Because they would be imitation brigands," said Carlton, "and would be
+paid to give her up to no one else."
+
+"Oh, you plan very well," scoffed Miss Morris, "but you don't DO
+anything."
+
+Carlton was saved the necessity of doing anything that same morning,
+when the English captain in attendance on the Duke sent his card to
+Carlton's room.  He came, he explained, to present the Prince's
+compliments, and would it be convenient for Mr. Carlton to meet the
+Duke that afternoon?  Mr. Carlton suppressed an unseemly desire to
+shout, and said, after a moment's consideration, that it would.  He
+then took the English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and
+rewarded him for his agreeable message.
+
+The Duke received Carlton in the afternoon, and greeted him most
+cordially, and with as much ease of manner as it is possible for a man
+to possess who has never enjoyed the benefits of meeting other men on
+an equal footing.  He expressed his pleasure in knowing an artist with
+whose work he was so familiar, and congratulated himself on the happy
+accident which had brought them both to the same hotel.
+
+"I have more than a natural interest in meeting you," said the Prince,
+"and for a reason which you may or may not know.  I thought possibly
+you could help me somewhat.  I have within the past few days come into
+the possession of two of your paintings; they are studies, rather, but
+to me they are even more desirable than the finished work; and I am not
+correct in saying that they have come to me exactly, but to my sister,
+the Princess Aline."
+
+Carlton could not withhold a certain start of surprise.  He had not
+expected that his gift would so soon have arrived, but his face showed
+only polite attention.
+
+"The studies were delivered to us in London," continued the Duke.
+"They are of Ludwig the tragedian, and of the German Prime Minister,
+two most valuable works, and especially interesting to us.  They came
+without any note or message which would inform us who had sent them,
+and when my people made inquiries, the dealer refused to tell them from
+whom they had come.  He had been ordered to forward them to Grasse,
+but, on learning of our presence in London, sent them direct to our
+hotel there.  Of course it is embarrassing to have so valuable a
+present from an anonymous friend, especially so for my sister, to whom
+they were addressed, and I thought that, besides the pleasure of
+meeting one of whose genius I am so warm an admirer, I might also learn
+something which would enable me to discover who our friend may be."  He
+paused, but as Carlton said nothing, continued:  "As it is now, I do
+not feel that I can accept the pictures; and yet I know no one to whom
+they can be returned, unless I send them to the dealer."
+
+"It sounds very mysterious," said Carlton smiling; "and I am afraid I
+cannot help you.  What work I did in Germany was sold in Berlin before
+I left, and in a year may have changed hands several times.  The
+studies of which you speak are unimportant, and merely studies, and
+could pass from hand to hand without much record having been kept of
+them; but personally I am not able to give you any information which
+would assist you in tracing them."
+
+"Yes," said the Duke.  "Well, then, I shall keep them until I can learn
+more; and if we can learn nothing, I shall return them to the dealer."
+
+Carlton met Miss Morris that afternoon in a state of great excitement.
+"It's come!" he cried--"it's come!  I am to meet her this week.  I have
+met her brother, and he has asked me to dine with them on Thursday
+night; that's the day before they leave for Athens; and he particularly
+mentioned that his sisters would be at the dinner, and that it would be
+a pleasure to present me.  It seems that the eldest paints, and all of
+them love art for art's sake, as their father taught them to do; and,
+for all we know, he may make me court painter, and I shall spend the
+rest of my life at Grasse painting portraits of the Princess Aline, at
+the age of twenty-two, and at all future ages.  And if he does give me
+a commission to paint her, I can tell you now in confidence that that
+picture will require more sittings than any other picture ever painted
+by man.  Her hair will have turned white by the time it is finished,
+and the gown she started to pose in will have become forty years behind
+the fashion!"
+
+On the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her niece, with
+all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by
+their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see
+the Sultan's treasures.  Those of them who had waited two weeks for
+this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the
+eleventh hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these
+latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort.  The
+ministers of the different legations--as is the harmless custom of such
+gentlemen--had impressed every one for whom they had obtained
+permission to see the treasures with the great importance of the
+service rendered, and had succeeded in making every one feel either
+especially honored or especially uncomfortable at having given them so
+much trouble.  This sense of obligation, and the fact that the
+dragomans had assured the tourists that they were for the time being
+the guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors to
+such an extent that their manner in the long procession of carriages
+suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in front, escorted by
+Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners.  The procession halted at the
+palace, and the guests of the Sultan were received by numerous effendis
+in single-button frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them
+with glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of which
+every one was supposed to take a spoonful.  There was at first a
+general fear among the Cook's tourists that there would not be enough
+of this to go round, which was succeeded by a greater anxiety lest they
+should be served twice.  Some of the tourists put the sweet stuff in
+their mouths direct and licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the
+spoon into the glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it,
+and no one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who
+happened to have done it.  Carlton and Miss Morris went out on to the
+terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and looked out over the
+great panorama of waters, with the Sea of Marmora on one side, the
+Golden Horn on the other, and the Bosporus at their feet.  The sun was
+shining mildly, and the waters were stirred by great and little
+vessels; before them on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses
+which marked the grim cemetery of England's dead, and behind them were
+the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minarets of the two
+cities, and close at hand the mosaic walls and beautiful gardens of
+Constantine.
+
+"Your friends the Hohenwalds don't seem to know you this morning," she
+said.
+
+"Oh yes; he spoke to me as we left the hotel," Carlton answered.  "But
+they are on parade at present.  There are a lot of their countrymen
+among the tourists."
+
+"I feel rather sorry for them," Miss Morris said, looking at the group
+with an amused smile.  "Etiquette cuts them off from so much innocent
+amusement.  Now, you are a gentleman, and the Duke presumably is, and
+why should you not go over and say, 'Your Highness, I wish you would
+present me to your sister, whom I am to meet at dinner to-morrow night.
+I admire her very much,' and then you could point out the historical
+features to her, and show her where they have finished off a blue and
+green tiled wall with a rusty tin roof, and make pretty speeches to
+her.  It wouldn't hurt her, and it would do you a lot of good.  The
+simplest way is always the best way, it seems to me."
+
+"Oh yes, of course," said Carlton.  "Suppose he came over here and
+said:  'Carlton, I wish you would present me to your young American
+friend.  I admire her very much,' I would probably say:  'Do you?
+Well, you will have to wait until she expresses some desire to meet
+you.'  No; etiquette is all right in itself, only some people don't
+know its laws, and that is the one instance to my mind where ignorance
+of the law is no excuse."
+
+Carlton left Miss Morris talking with the Secretary of the American
+Legation, and went to look for Mrs. Downs.  When he returned he found
+that the young Secretary had apparently asked and obtained permission
+to present the Duke's equerries and some of his diplomatic confreres,
+who were standing now about her in an attentive semicircle, and
+pointing out the different palaces and points of interest.  Carlton was
+somewhat disturbed at the sight, and reproached himself with not having
+presented any one to her before.  He was sure now that she must have
+had a dull time of it; but he wished, nevertheless, that if she was to
+meet other men, the Secretary had allowed him to act as master of
+ceremonies.
+
+"I suppose you know," that gentleman was saying as Carlton came up,
+"that when you pass by Abydos, on the way to Athens, you will see where
+Leander swam the Hellespont to meet Hero.  That little white
+light-house is called Leander in honor of him.  It makes rather an
+interesting contrast--does it not?--to think of that chap swimming
+along in the dark, and then to find that his monument to-day is a
+lighthouse, with revolving lamps and electric appliances, and with
+ocean tramps and bridges and men-of-war around it.  We have improved in
+our mechanism since then," he said, with an air, "but I am afraid the
+men of to-day don't do that sort of thing for the women of to-day."
+
+"Then it is the men who have deteriorated," said one of the equerries,
+bowing to Miss Morris; "it is certainly not the women."
+
+The two Americans looked at Miss Morris to see how she received this,
+but she smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"I know a man who did more than that for a woman," said Carlton,
+innocently.  "He crossed an ocean and several countries to meet her,
+and he hasn't met her yet."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him and laughed, in the safety that no one
+understood him but herself.
+
+"But he ran no danger," she answered.
+
+"He didn't, didn't he?" said Carlton, looking at her closely and
+laughing.  "I think he was in very great danger all the time."
+
+"Shocking!" said Miss Morris, reprovingly; "and in her very presence,
+too."  She knitted her brows and frowned at him.  "I really believe if
+you were in prison you would make pretty speeches to the jailer's
+daughter."
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, boldly, "or even to a woman who was a prisoner
+herself."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said, turning away from him to the
+others.  "How far was it that Leander swam?" she asked.
+
+The English captain pointed out two spots on either bank, and said that
+the shores of Abydos were a little over that distance apart.
+
+"As far as that?" said Miss Morris.  "How much he must have cared for
+her!"  She turned to Carlton for an answer.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.  He was measuring the distance between
+the two points with his eyes.
+
+"I said how much he must have cared for her!  You wouldn't swim that
+far for a girl."
+
+"For a girl!" laughed Carlton, quickly.  "I was just thinking I would
+do it for fifty dollars."
+
+The English captain gave a hasty glance at the distance he had pointed
+out, and then turned to Carlton.  "I'll take you," he said, seriously.
+"I'll bet you twenty pounds you can't do it."  There was an easy laugh
+at Carlton's expense, but he only shook his head and smiled.
+
+"Leave him alone, captain," said the American Secretary.  "It seems to
+me I remember a story of Mr. Carlton's swimming out from Navesink to
+meet an ocean liner.  It was about three miles, and the ocean was
+rather rough, and when they slowed up he asked them if it was raining
+in London when they left.  They thought he was mad."
+
+"Is that true, Carlton?" asked the  Englishman.
+
+"Something like it," said the American, "except that I didn't ask them
+if it was raining in London.  I asked them for a drink, and it was they
+who were mad.  They thought I was drowning, and slowed up to lower a
+boat, and when they found out I was just swimming around they were
+naturally angry.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you didn't bet with me," said the captain, with a
+relieved laugh.
+
+That evening, as the Englishman was leaving the smoking-room, and after
+he had bidden Carlton good-night, he turned back and said:  "I didn't
+like to ask you before those men this morning, but there was something
+about your swimming adventure I wanted to know: Did you get that drink?"
+
+"I did," said Carlton--"in a bottle.  They nearly broke my shoulder."
+
+As Carlton came into the breakfast-room on the morning of the day he
+was to meet the Princess Aline at dinner, Miss Morris was there alone,
+and he sat down at the same table, opposite to her.  She looked at him
+critically, and smiled with evident amusement.
+
+"'To-day,'" she quoted, solemnly, "'the birthday of my life has come.'"
+
+Carlton poured out his coffee, with a shake of his head, and frowned.
+"Oh, you can laugh," he said, "but I didn't sleep at all last night.  I
+lay awake making speeches to her.  I know they are going to put me
+between the wrong sisters," he complained, "or next to one of those old
+ladies-in-waiting, or whatever they are."
+
+"How are you going to begin?" said Miss Morris.  "Will you tell her you
+have followed her from London--or from New York, rather--that you are
+young Lochinvar, who came out of the West, and--"
+
+"I don't know," said Carlton, meditatively, "just how I shall begin;
+but I know the curtain is going to rise promptly at eight
+o'clock--about the time the soup comes on, I think.  I don't see how
+she can help but be impressed a little bit.  It isn't every day a man
+hurries around the globe on account of a girl's photograph; and she IS
+beautiful, isn't she?"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head encouragingly.
+
+"Do you know, sometimes," said Carlton, glancing over his shoulders to
+see if the waiters were out of hearing, "I fancy she has noticed me.
+Once or twice I have turned my head in her direction without meaning
+to, and found her looking--well, looking my way, at least.  Don't you
+think that is a good sign?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"It depends on what you call a 'good sign,'" said Miss Morris,
+judicially.  "It is a sign you're good to look at, if that's what you
+want.  But you probably know that already, and it's nothing to your
+credit.  It certainly isn't a sign that a person cares for you because
+she prefers to look at your profile rather than at what the dragomans
+are trying to show her."
+
+Carlton drew himself up stiffly.  "If you knew your ALICE better," he
+said, with severity, "you would understand that it is not polite to
+make personal remarks.  I ask you, as my confidante, if you think she
+has noticed me, and you make fun of my looks!  That's not the part of a
+confidante."
+
+"Noticed you!" laughed Miss Morris, scornfully.  "How could she help
+it?  You are always in the way.  You are at the door whenever they go
+out or come in, and when we are visiting mosques and palaces you are
+invariably looking at her instead of the tombs and things, with a
+wistful far-away look, as though you saw a vision.  The first time you
+did it, after you had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was
+all right.  You quite embarrassed her."
+
+"I didn't--I don't!" stammered Carlton, indignantly.  "I wouldn't be so
+rude.  Oh, I see I'll have to get another confidante; you are most
+unsympathetic and unkind."  But Miss Morris showed her sympathy later in
+the day, when Carlton needed it sorely; for the dinner towards which he
+had looked with such pleasurable anticipations and lover-like
+misgivings did not take place.  The Sultan, so the equerry informed
+him, had, with Oriental unexpectedness, invited the Duke to dine that
+night at the Palace, and the Duke, much to his expressed regret, had
+been forced to accept what was in the nature of a command.  He sent
+word by his equerry, however, that the dinner to Mr. Carlton was only a
+pleasure deferred, and that at Athens, where he understood Carlton was
+also going, he hoped to have the pleasure of entertaining him and
+making him known to his sisters.
+
+"He is a selfish young egoist," said Carlton to Mrs. Downs.  "As if I
+cared whether he was at the dinner or not!  Why couldn't he have fixed
+it so I might have dined with his sisters alone?  We would never have
+missed him.  I'll never meet her now.  I know it; I feel it.  Fate is
+against me.  Now I will have to follow them on to Athens, and something
+will turn up there to keep me away from her.  You'll see; you'll see.
+I wonder where they go from Athens?"
+
+The Hohenwalds departed the next morning, and as their party had
+engaged all the state-rooms in the little Italian steamer, Carlton was
+forced to wait over for the next.  He was very gloomy over his
+disappointment, and Miss Morris did her best to amuse him.  She and her
+aunt were never idle now, and spent the last few days of their stay in
+Constantinople in the bazars or in excursions up and down the river.
+
+"These are my last days of freedom," Miss Morris said to him once, "and
+I mean to make the most of them.  After this there will be no more
+travelling for me.  And I love it so!" she added, wistfully.
+
+Carlton made no comment, but he felt a certain contemptuous pity for
+the young man in America who had required such a sacrifice.  "She is
+too nice a girl to let him know she is making a sacrifice," he thought,
+"or giving up anything for him, but SHE won't forget it."  And Carlton
+again commended himself for not having asked any woman to make any
+sacrifices for him.
+
+They left Constantinople for Athens one moonlight night, three days
+after the Hohenwalds had taken their departure, and as the evening and
+the air were warm, they remained upon the upper deck until the boat had
+entered the Dardanelles.  There were few passengers, and Mrs. Downs
+went below early, leaving Miss Morris and Carlton hanging over the
+rail, and looking down upon a band of Hungarian gypsies, who were
+playing the weird music of their country on the deck beneath them.  The
+low receding hills lay close on either hand, and ran back so sharply
+from the narrow waterway that they seemed to shut in the boat from the
+world beyond.  The moonlight showed a little mud fort or a thatched
+cottage on the bank fantastically, as through a mist, and from time to
+time as they sped forward they saw the camp-fire of a sentry, and his
+shadow as he passed between it and them, or stopped to cover it with
+wood.  The night was so still that they could hear the waves in the
+steamer's wake washing up over the stones on either shore, and the
+muffled beat of the engines echoed back from either side of the valley
+through which they passed.  There was a great lantern hanging midway
+from the mast, and shining down upon the lower deck.  It showed a group
+of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in strange costumes, sleeping, huddled
+together in picturesque confusion over the bare boards, or wide-awake
+and voluble, smoking and chatting together in happy company.  The music
+of the tizanes rose in notes of passionate ecstasy and sharp,
+unexpected bursts of melody.  It ceased and began again, as though the
+musicians were feeling their way, and then burst out once more into
+shrill defiance.  It stirred Carlton with a strange turbulent unrest.
+From the banks the night wind brought soft odors of fresh earth and of
+heavy foliage.
+
+"The music of different countries," Carlton said at last, "means many
+different things.  But it seems to me that the music of Hungary is the
+music of love."
+
+Miss Morris crossed her arms comfortably on the rail, and he heard her
+laugh softly.  "Oh no, it is not," she said, undisturbed.  "It is a
+passionate, gusty, heady sort of love, if you like, but it's no more
+like the real thing than burgundy is like clear, cold, good water.
+It's not the real thing at all."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton, meekly.  "Of course I don't know
+anything about it."  He had been waked out of the spell which the night
+and the tizanes had placed upon him as completely as though some one had
+shaken him sharply by the shoulder.  "I bow," he said, "to your superior
+knowledge.  I know nothing about it."
+
+"No; you are quite right.  I don't believe you do know anything about
+it," said the girl, "or you wouldn't have made such a comparison."
+
+"Do you know, Miss Morris," said Carlton, seriously, "that I believe
+I'm not able to care for a woman as other men do--at least as some men
+do; it's just lacking in me, and always will be lacking.  It's like an
+ear for music; if you haven't got it, if it isn't born in you, you'll
+never have it.  It's not a thing you can cultivate, and I feel that
+it's not only a misfortune, but a fault.  Now I honestly believe that I
+care more for the Princess Aline, whom I have never met, than many
+other men could care for her if they knew her well; but what they feel
+would last, and I have doubts from past experience that what I feel
+would.  I don't doubt it while it exists, but it never does exist long,
+and so I am afraid it is going to be with me to the end of the
+chapter."  He paused for a moment, but the girl did not answer.  "I am
+speaking in earnest now," he added, with a rueful laugh.
+
+"I see you are," she replied, briefly.  She seemed to be considering
+his condition as he had described it to her, and he did not interrupt
+her.  From below them came the notes of the waltz the gypsies played.
+It was full of the undercurrent of sadness that a waltz should have,
+and filled out what Carlton said as the music from the orchestra in a
+theatre heightens the effect without interrupting the words of the
+actor on the stage.
+
+"It is strange," said Miss Morris.  "I should have thought you were a
+man who would care very much and in just the right way.  But I don't
+believe really--I'm sorry, but I don't believe you do know what love
+means at all."
+
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," said Carlton.  "I think I know what it
+is, and what it means to other people, but I can't feel it myself.  The
+best idea I ever got of it--the thing that made it clear to me--was a
+line in a play.  It seemed to express it better than any of the
+love-poems I ever read.  It was in Shenandoah."
+
+Miss Morris laughed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton.
+
+"I beg yours," she said.  "It was only the incongruity that struck me.
+It seemed so odd to be quoting Shenandoah here in the Dardanelles, with
+these queer people below us and ancient Troy on one hand--it took me by
+surprise, that's all.  Please go on.  What was it impressed you?"
+
+"Well, the hero in the play," said Carlton, "is an officer in the
+Northern army, and he is lying wounded in a house near the Shenandoah
+Valley.  The girl he loves lives in this house, and is nursing him; but
+she doesn't love him,  because she sympathizes with the South.  At
+least she says she doesn't love him.  Both armies are forming in the
+valley below to begin the battle, and he sees his own regiment
+hurrying past to join them, So he gets up and staggers out on the
+stage, which is set to show the yard in front of the farm-house, and he
+calls for his horse to follow his men.  Then the girl runs out and begs
+him not to go; and he asks why, what does it matter to her whether he
+goes or not?  And she says, 'But I cannot let you go; you may be
+killed.'  And he says again, 'What is that to you?'  And she says:  'It
+is everything to me.  I love you.'  And he makes a grab at her with his
+wounded arm, and at that instant both armies open fire in the valley
+below, and the whole earth and sky seem to open and shut, and the house
+rocks.  The girl rushes at him and crowds up against his breast, and
+cries:  'What is that?  Oh, what is that?' and he holds her tight to
+him and laughs, and says:  'THAT?  That's only a battle--you love me.'"
+
+Miss Morris looked steadfastly over the side of the boat at the waters
+rushing by beneath, smiling to herself.  Then she turned her face
+towards Carlton, and nodded her head at him.  "I think," she said,
+dryly, "that you have a fair idea of what it means; a rough
+working-plan at least--enough to begin on."
+
+"I said that I knew what it meant to others.  I am complaining that I
+cannot feel it myself."
+
+"That will come in time, no doubt," she said, encouragingly, with the
+air of a connoisseur; "and let me tell you," she added, "that it will
+be all the better for the woman that you have doubted yourself so long."
+
+"You think so?" said Carlton, eagerly.
+
+Miss Morris laughed at his earnestness, and left him to go below to ask
+her aunt to join them, but Mrs. Downs preferred to read in the saloon,
+and Miss Morris returned alone.  She had taken off her Eton jacket and
+pulled on a heavy blue football sweater, and over this a reefer.  The
+jersey clung to her and showed the lines of her figure, and emphasized
+the freedom and grace with which she made every movement.  She looked,
+as she walked at his side with her hands in the pockets of her coat and
+with a flat sailor hat on her head, like a tall, handsome boy; but when
+they stopped and stood where the light fell full on her hair and the
+exquisite coloring of her skin, Carlton thought her face had never
+seemed so delicate or fair as it did then, rising from the collar of
+the rough jersey, and contrasted with the hat and coat of a man's
+attire.  They paced the deck for an hour later, until every one else
+had left it, and at midnight were still loath to give up the beautiful
+night and the charm of their strange surroundings.  There were long
+silent places in their talk, during which Carlton tramped beside her
+with his head half turned, looking at her and noting with an artist's
+eye the free light step, the erect carriage, and the unconscious beauty
+of her face.  The captain of the steamer joined them after midnight,
+and falling into step, pointed out to Miss Morris where great cities
+had stood, where others lay buried, and where beyond the hills were the
+almost inaccessible monasteries of the Greek Church.  The moonlight
+turned the banks into shadowy substances, in which the ghosts of former
+days seemed to make a part; and spurred by the young girl's interest,
+the Italian, to entertain her, called up all the legends of mythology
+and the stories of Roman explorers and Turkish conquerors.
+
+"I turn in now," he said, after Miss Morris had left them.  "A most
+charming young lady.  Is it not so?" he added, waving his cigarette in
+a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of the adjective.
+
+"Yes, very," said Carlton.  "Good-night, sir."
+
+He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at
+the misty banks, puffing at his cigar.  Then he dropped it hissing into
+the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the
+deserted deck.  It seemed particularly bare and empty.
+
+"What a pity she's engaged!" Carlton said.  "She loses so much by it."
+
+They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early hour the
+next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled with shrieking
+porters and hotel-runners at the sides.  These men tossed their
+painters to the crew, and crawled up them like a boarding crew of
+pirates, running wildly about the deck, and laying violent hands on any
+piece of baggage they saw unclaimed.  The passengers' trunks had been
+thrown out in a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering
+over them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood
+below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself, and
+pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her.  As she stood
+there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy Levantine in pursuit of
+a possible victim, shouldered her intentionally and roughly out of the
+way.  He shoved her so sharply that she lost her balance and fell back
+against the rail.  Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying
+leap from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in
+time to seize the escaping offender by the collar.  He jerked him back
+off his feet.
+
+"How dare you--" he began.
+
+But he did not finish.  He felt the tips of Miss Morris's fingers laid
+upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone:  "Don't;
+please don't."  And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on
+the man's shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to
+flow calmly again through his veins.  Carlton was aware that he had a
+very quick temper.  He was always engaging in street rows, as he called
+them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else,
+and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never
+been satisfied without a blow or an apology.  Women had also touched
+him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had
+stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on
+him had had them beaten down for their pains.  But this girl had merely
+touched him gently, and he had been made helpless.  It was most
+perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing his
+luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as though it were
+numb, and looking down at it with an amused smile.  He did not comment
+on the incident, although he smiled at the recollection of his prompt
+obedience several times during the day.  But as he was stepping into
+the cab to drive to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping
+with water, and muttering bitter curses.  When he saw Carlton he
+disappeared instantly in the crowd.  Carlton stepped over to where
+Nolan sat beside the driver on the box.  "Nolan," he said, in a low
+voice, "isn't that the fellow who--"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nolan, touching his hat gravely.  "He was pulling a
+valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it
+the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over
+backwards off the pier."
+
+Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.
+
+"Nolan," he said, "you're not telling the truth.  You did it yourself."
+Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously.  There had been no
+detaining fingers on Nolan's arm.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+"You are coming now, Miss Morris," exclaimed Carlton from the front of
+the carriage in which they were moving along the sunny road to Athens,
+"into a land where one restores his lost illusions.  Anybody who wishes
+to get back his belief in beautiful things should come here to do it,
+just as he would go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or
+his appetite.  You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you are
+cured.  I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege of cable-cars
+and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of Robert Elsmeres and the
+Heavenly Twins.  Wait until you see the statues of the young athletes
+in the Museum," he cried, enthusiastically, "and get a glimpse of the
+blue sky back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the
+Acropolis, and you'll be convinced that nothing counts for much in this
+world but health and straight limbs, and tall marble pillars, and eyes
+trained to see only what is beautiful.  Give people a love for beauty
+and a respect for health, Miss Morris, and the result is going to be,
+what they once had here, the best art and the greatest writers and
+satirists and poets.  The same audience that applauded Euripides and
+Sophocles in the open theatre used to cross the road the same day to
+applaud the athletes who ran naked in the Olympian games, and gave them
+as great honor.  I came here once on a walking tour with a chap who
+wasn't making as much of himself as he should have done, and he went
+away a changed man, and became a personage in the world, and you would
+never guess what it was that did it.  He saw a statue of one of the
+Greek gods in the Museum which showed certain muscles that he couldn't
+find in his own body, and he told me he was going to train down until
+they did show; and he stopped drinking and loafing to do it, and took
+to exercising and working; and by the time the muscles showed out clear
+and strong he was so keen over life that he wanted to make the most of
+it, and, as I said, he has done it.  That's what a respect for his own
+body did for him."
+
+The carriage stopped at the hotel on one side of the public square of
+Athens, with the palace and its gardens blocking one end, and yellow
+houses with red roofs, and gay awnings over the cafes, surrounding it.
+It was a bright sunny day, and the city was clean and cool and pretty.
+
+"Breakfast?" exclaimed Miss Morris, in answer to Carlton's inquiry;
+"yes, I suppose so, but I won't feel safe until I have my feet on that
+rock."  She was standing on the steps of the hotel, looking up with
+expectant, eager eyes at the great Acropolis above the city.
+
+"It has been there for a long time now," suggested Carlton, "and I
+think you can risk its being there for a half-hour longer."
+
+"Well," she said, reluctantly, "but I don't wish to lose this chance.
+There might be an earthquake, for instance."
+
+
+"We are likely to see THEM this morning," said Carlton, as he left the
+hotel with the ladies and drove towards the Acropolis.  "Nolan has been
+interviewing the English maid, and she tells him they spend the greater
+part of their time up there on the rock.  They are living very simply
+here, as they did in Paris; that is, for the present.  On Wednesday the
+King gives a dinner and a reception in their honor."
+
+"When does your dinner come off?" asked Miss Morris.
+
+"Never," said Carlton, grimly.
+
+"One of the reasons why I like to come back to Athens so much," said
+Mrs. Downs, "is because there are so few other tourists here to spoil
+the local color for you, and there are almost as few guides as
+tourists, so that you can wander around undisturbed and discover things
+for yourself.  They don't label every fallen column, and place fences
+around the temples.  They seem to put you on your good behavior.  Then
+I always like to go to a place where you are as much of a curiosity to
+the people as they are to you.  It seems to excuse your staring about
+you."
+
+"A curiosity!" exclaimed Carlton; "I should say so!  The last time I
+was here I tried to wear a pair of knickerbockers around the city, and
+the people stared so that I had to go back to the hotel and change
+them.  I shouldn't have minded it so much in any other country, but I
+thought men who wore Jaeger underclothing and women's petticoats for a
+national costume might have excused so slight an eccentricity as
+knickerbockers.  THEY had no right to throw the first stone."
+
+The rock upon which the temples of the Acropolis are built is more of a
+hill than a rock.  It is much steeper upon one side than the other,
+with a sheer fall a hundred yards broad; on the opposite side there are
+the rooms of the Hospital of Aesculapius and the theatres of Dionysus
+and Herodes Atticus.  The top of the rock holds the Parthenon and the
+other smaller temples, or what yet remains of them, and its surface is
+littered with broken marble and stones and pieces of rock.  The top is
+so closely built over that the few tourists who visit it can imagine
+themselves its sole occupants for a half-hour at a time.  When Carlton
+and his friends arrived, the place appeared quite deserted.  They left
+the carriage at the base of the rock, and climbed up to the entrance on
+foot.
+
+"Now, before I go on to the Parthenon," said Miss Morris, "I want to
+walk around the sides, and see what is there.  I shall begin with that
+theatre to the left, and I warn you that I mean to take my time about
+it.  So you people who have been here before can run along by
+yourselves, but I mean to enjoy it leisurely.  I am safe by myself
+here, am I not?" she asked.
+
+"As safe as though you were in the Metropolitan Museum," said Carlton,
+as he and Mrs. Downs followed Miss Morris along the side of the hill
+towards the ruined theatre of Herodes, and stood at its top, looking
+down into the basin below.  From their feet ran a great semicircle of
+marble seats, descending tier below tier to a marble pavement, and
+facing a great ruined wall of pillars and arches which in the past had
+formed the background for the actors.  From the height on which they
+stood above the city they could see the green country stretching out
+for miles on every side and swimming in the warm sunlight, the dark
+groves of myrtle on the hills, the silver ribbon of the inland water,
+and the dark blue AEgean Sea.  The bleating of sheep and the tinkling
+of the bells came up to them from the pastures below, and they imagined
+they could hear the shepherds piping to their flocks from one little
+hill-top to another.
+
+"The country is not much changed," said Carlton.  "And when you stand
+where we are now, you can imagine that you see the procession winding
+its way over the road to the Eleusinian Mysteries, with the gilded
+chariots, and the children carrying garlands, and the priestesses
+leading the bulls for the sacrifice."
+
+"What can we imagine is going on here?" said Miss Morris, pointing with
+her parasol to the theatre below.
+
+"Oh, this is much later," said Carlton.  "This was built by the Romans.
+They used to act and to hold their public meetings here.  This
+corresponds to the top row of our gallery, and you can imagine that you
+are looking down on the bent backs of hundreds of bald-headed men in
+white robes, listening to the speakers strutting about below there."
+
+"I wonder how much they could hear from this height?" said Mrs. Downs.
+
+"Well, they had that big wall for a sounding-board, and the air is so
+soft here that their voices should have carried easily, and I believe
+they wore masks with mouth-pieces, that conveyed the sound like a
+fireman's trumpet.  If you like, I will run down there and call up to
+you, and you can hear how it sounded.  I will speak in my natural voice
+first, and if that doesn't reach you, wave your parasol, and I will try
+it a little louder."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Miss Morris.  "It will be very good of you.  I should
+like to hear a real speech in the theatre of Herodes," she said, as she
+seated herself on the edge of the marble crater.
+
+"I'll have to speak in English," said Carlton, as he disappeared; "my
+Greek isn't good enough to carry that far."
+
+Mrs. Downs seated herself beside her niece, and Carlton began
+scrambling down the side of the amphitheatre.  The marble benches were
+broken in parts, and where they were perfect were covered with a fine
+layer of moss as smooth and soft as green velvet, so that Carlton, when
+he was not laboriously feeling for his next foothold with the toe of
+his boot, was engaged in picking spring flowers from the beds of moss
+and sticking them, for safe-keeping, in his button-hole.  He was
+several minutes in making the descent, and so busily occupied in doing
+it that he did not look up until he had reached the level of the
+ground, and jumped lightly from the first row of seats to the stage,
+covered with moss, which lay like a heavy rug over the marble pavement.
+When he did look up he saw a tableau that made his heart, which was
+beating quickly from the exertion of the descent, stand still with
+consternation.  The Hohenwalds had, in his short absence, descended
+from the entrance of the Acropolis, and had stopped on their way to the
+road below to look into the cool green and white basin of the theatre.
+At the moment Carlton looked up the Duke was standing in front of Mrs.
+Downs and Miss Morris, and all of the men had their hats off.  Then, in
+pantomime, and silhouetted against the blue sky behind them, Carlton
+saw the Princesses advance beside their brother, and Mrs. Downs and her
+niece courtesied three times, and then the whole party faced about in a
+line and looked down at him.  The meaning of the tableau was only too
+plain.
+
+"Good heavens!" gasped Carlton.  "Everybody's getting introduced to
+everybody else, and I've missed the whole thing!  If they think I'm
+going to stay down here and amuse them, and miss all the fun myself,
+they are greatly mistaken."  He made a mad rush for the front first row
+of seats; but there was a cry of remonstrance from above, and, looking
+up, he saw all of the men waving him back.
+
+"Speech!" cried the young English Captain, applauding loudly, as though
+welcoming an actor on his first entrance.  "Hats off!" he cried.  "Down
+in front!  Speech!"
+
+"Confound that ass!" said Carlton, dropping back to the marble pavement
+again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures outlined against
+the sky.  "I must look like a bear in the bear-pit at the Zoo," he
+growled.  "They'll be throwing buns to me next."  He could see the two
+elder sisters talking to Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his
+purpose in going down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the
+Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol, and
+smiling.  The captain made a trumpet of his hands, and asked why he
+didn't begin.
+
+"Hello! how are you?" Carlton called back, waving his hat at him in
+some embarrassment.  "I wonder if I look as much like a fool as I
+feel?" he muttered.
+
+"What did you say?  We can't hear you," answered the captain.
+
+"Louder! louder!" called the equerries.  Carlton swore at them under
+his breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which he was penned
+in order to make them believe that he had given up the idea of making a
+speech, or had ever intended doing so.  He tried to think of something
+clever to shout back at them, and rejected "Ye men of Athens" as being
+too flippant, and "Friends, Countrymen, Romans," as requiring too much
+effort.  When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their
+way, and as he started once more to scale the side of the theatre the
+Duke waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave another hand to his
+sisters, who disappeared with him behind the edge of the upper row of
+seats.  Carlton turned at once and dropped into one of the marble
+chairs and bowed his head.  When he did reach the top Miss Morris held
+out a sympathetic hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could
+see that she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, it's all very funny for you," he said, refusing her hand.  "I
+don't believe you are in love with anybody.  You don't know what it
+means."
+
+They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after, and then
+left Athens for an inland excursion to stay overnight.  Miss Morris
+returned from it with the sense of having done her duty once, and by so
+doing having earned the right  to act as she pleased in the future.
+What she best pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of
+the Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical
+values, but rather, as she explained it, for the simple satisfaction of
+feeling that she was there.  She liked to stand on the edge of the low
+wall along its top and look out over the picture of sea and plain and
+mountains that lay below her.  The sun shone brightly, and the wind
+swept by them as though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer,
+and there was the added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us
+when we stand on a great height.  Carlton was sitting at her feet,
+shielded from the wind by a fallen column, and gazing up at her with
+critical approval.
+
+"You look like a sort of a 'Winged Victory' up there," he said, "with
+the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair coming down."
+
+"I don't remember that the 'Winged Victory' has any hair to blow
+about," suggested Miss Morris.
+
+"I'd like to paint you," continued Carlton, "just as you are standing
+now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you could stand a Greek
+dress better than almost any one I know.  I would paint you with your
+head up and one hand shielding your eyes, and the other pressed against
+your breast.  It would be stunning."  He spoke enthusiastically, but in
+quite an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of a
+model.
+
+Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had been
+standing, and said, simply, "Of course I should like to have you paint
+me very much."
+
+Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.
+
+"When?" said Carlton, vaguely.  "Oh, I don't know.  Of course this is
+entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home soon, and then
+when I do get back to the States you will--you will have other things
+to do."
+
+"Yes," repeated Miss Morris, "I shall have something else to do besides
+gazing out at the AEgean Sea."  She raised her head and looked across
+the rock for a moment with some interest.  Her eyes, which had grown
+wistful, lighted again with amusement.  "Here are your friends," she
+said, smiling.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Carlton, scrambling to his feet.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Morris.  "The Duke has seen us, and is coming over
+here."
+
+When Carlton had gained his feet and turned to look, his friends had
+separated in different directions, and were strolling about alone or in
+pairs among the great columns of the Parthenon.  But the Duke came
+directly towards them, and seated himself on a low block of marble in
+front of the two ladies.  After a word or two about the beauties of the
+place, he asked if they would go to the reception which the King gave
+to him on the day following.  They answered that they should like to
+come very much, and the Prince expressed his satisfaction, and said
+that he would see that the chamberlain sent them invitations.  "And
+you, Mr. Carlton, you will come also, I hope.  I wish you to be
+presented to my sisters.  They are only amateurs in art, but they are
+great admirers of your work, and they have rebuked me for not having
+already presented you.  We were all disappointed," he continued,
+courteously, "at not having you to dine with us that night in
+Constantinople, but now I trust I shall see something of you here.  You
+must tell us what we are to admire."
+
+"That is very easy," said Carlton.  "Everything."
+
+"You are quite right," said the Prince, bowing to the ladies as he
+moved away.  "It is all very beautiful."
+
+"Well, now you certainly will meet her," said Miss Morris.
+
+"Oh no, I won't," said Carlton, with resignation.  "I have had two
+chances and lost them, and I'll miss this one too."
+
+"Well, there is a chance you shouldn't miss," said Miss Morris,
+pointing and nodding her head.  "There she is now, and all alone.
+She's sketching, isn't she, or taking notes?  What is she doing?"
+
+Carlton looked eagerly in the direction Miss Morris had signified, and
+saw the Princess Aline sitting at some distance from them, with a book
+on her lap.  She glanced up from this now and again to look at
+something ahead of her, and was apparently deeply absorbed in her
+occupation.
+
+"There is your opportunity," said Mrs. Downs; "and we are going back to
+the hotel.  Shall we see you at luncheon?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "unless I get a position as drawing-master; in
+that case I shall be here teaching the three amateurs in art.  Do you
+think I can do it?" he asked Miss Morris.
+
+"Decidedly," she answered.  "I have found you a most educational young
+person."
+
+They went away together, and Carlton moved cautiously towards the spot
+where the Princess was sitting.  He made a long and roundabout detour
+as he did so, in order to keep himself behind her.  He did not mean to
+come so near that she would see him, but he took a certain satisfaction
+in looking at her when she was alone, though her loneliness was only a
+matter of the moment, and though he knew that her people were within a
+hundred yards of her.  He was in consequence somewhat annoyed and
+surprised to see another young man dodging in and out among the pillars
+of the Parthenon immediately ahead of him, and to find that this young
+man also had his attention centred on the young girl, who sat
+unconsciously sketching in the foreground.
+
+"Now what the devil can he want?" muttered Carlton, his imagination
+taking alarm at once.  "If it would only prove to be some one who meant
+harm to her," he thought--"a brigand, or a beggar, who might be
+obligingly insolent, or even a tipsy man, what a chance it would afford
+for heroic action!"
+
+With this hope he moved forward quickly but silently, hoping that the
+stranger might prove even to be an anarchist with a grudge against
+royalty.  And as he advanced he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+Princess glance over her shoulder, and, observing the man, rise and
+walk quickly away towards the edge of the rock.  There she seated
+herself with her face towards the city, and with her back firmly set
+against her pursuer.
+
+"He is annoying her!" exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried
+forward.  "It looks as though my chance had come at last."  But as he
+approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he
+had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international
+army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a
+hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a
+prominent politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish
+that came within the focus of his camera.  A helpless statue and an
+equally helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his mercy.
+He was bending over, with an anxious expression of countenance, and
+focussing his camera on the back of the Princess Aline, when Carlton
+approached from the rear.  As the young man put his finger on the
+button of the camera, Carlton jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed
+the enthusiastic tourist to one side.
+
+"Say," exclaimed that individual, "look where you're going, will you?
+You spoiled that plate."
+
+"I'll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any longer," said
+Carlton, in a low voice.
+
+The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire of
+pursuit was still in his eye.
+
+"She's a Princess," he explained, in an excited whisper.
+
+"Well," said Carlton, "even a Princess is entitled to some
+consideration.  Besides," he said, in a more amicable tone, "you
+haven't a permit to photograph on the Acropolis.  You know you
+haven't."  Carlton was quite sure of this, because there were no such
+permits.
+
+The amateur looked up in some dismay.  "I didn't know you had to have
+them," he said.  "Where can I get one?"
+
+"The King may give you one," said Carlton.  "He lives at the palace.
+If they catch you up here without a license, they will confiscate your
+camera and lock you up.  You had better vanish before they see you."
+
+"Thank you.  I will," said the tourist, anxiously.
+
+"Now," thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, "when he goes to the palace
+with that box and asks for a permit, they'll think he is either a
+dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest
+in photography will have sustained a severe shock."
+
+As Carlton turned from watching the rapid flight of the photographer,
+he observed that the Princess had remarked it also, as she had no doubt
+been a witness of what had passed, even if she had not overheard all
+that had been said.  She rose from her enforced position of refuge with
+a look of relief, and came directly towards Carlton along the rough
+path that led through the debris on the top of the Acropolis.  Carlton
+had thought, as he watched her sitting on the wall, with her chin
+resting on her hand, that she would make a beautiful companion picture
+to the one he had wished to paint of Miss Morris--the one girl standing
+upright, looking fearlessly out to sea, on the top of the low wall,
+with the wind blowing her skirts about her, and her hair tumbled in the
+breeze, and the other seated, bending intently forward, as though
+watching for the return of a long-delayed vessel; a beautifully sad
+face, fine and delicate and noble, the face of a girl on the figure of
+a woman.  And when she rose he made no effort to move away, or, indeed,
+to pretend not to have seen her, but stood looking at her as though he
+had the right to do so, and as though she must know he had that right.
+As she came towards him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even
+shorten her steps; but as she passed opposite to him she bowed her
+thanks with a sweet impersonal smile and a dropping of the eyes, and
+continued steadily on her way.
+
+Carlton stood for some short time looking after her, with his hat still
+at his side.  She seemed farther from him at that moment than she had
+ever been before, although she had for the first time recognized him.
+But he knew that it was only as a human being that she had recognized
+him.  He put on his hat, and sat down on a rock with his elbows on his
+knees, and filled his pipe.
+
+"If that had been any other girl," he thought, "I would have gone up to
+her and said, 'Was that man annoying you?' and she would have said,
+'Yes; thank you,' or something; and I would have walked along with her
+until we had come up to her friends, and she would have told them I had
+been of some slight service to her, and they would have introduced us,
+and all would have gone well.  But because she is a Princess she cannot
+be approached in that way.  At least she does not think so, and I have
+to act as she has been told I should act, and not as I think I should.
+After all, she is only a very beautiful girl, and she must be very
+tired of her cousins and grandmothers, and of not being allowed to see
+any one else.  These royalties make a very picturesque show for the
+rest of us, but indeed it seems rather hard on them.  A hundred years
+from now there will be no more kings and queens, and the writers of
+that day will envy us, just as the writers of this day envy the men who
+wrote of chivalry and tournaments, and they will have to choose their
+heroes from bank presidents, and their heroines from lady lawyers and
+girl politicians and type-writers.  What a stupid world it will be
+then!"
+
+The next day brought the reception to the Hohenwalds; and Carlton,
+entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same afternoon, found
+Miss Morris and her aunt there together taking tea.  They both looked
+at him with expressions of such genuine commiseration that he stopped
+just as he was going to seat himself and eyed them defiantly.
+
+"Don't tell me," he exclaimed, "that this has fallen through too!"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head silently.
+
+Carlton dropped into the chair beside them, and folded his arms with a
+frown of grim resignation.  "What is it?" he asked.  "Have they
+postponed the reception?"
+
+"No," Miss Morris said; "but the Princess Aline will not be there."
+
+"Of course not," said Carlton, calmly, "of course not.  May I ask why?
+I knew that she wouldn't be there, but I may possibly be allowed to
+express some curiosity."
+
+"She turned her ankle on one of the loose stones on the Acropolis this
+afternoon," said Miss Morris, "and sprained it so badly that they had
+to carry her--"
+
+"Who carried her?" Carlton demanded, fiercely.
+
+"Some of her servants."
+
+"Of course, of course!" cried Carlton.  "That's the way it always will
+be.  I was there the whole afternoon, and I didn't see her.  I wasn't
+there to help her.  It's Fate, that's what it is--Fate!  There's no use
+in my trying to fight against Fate.  Still," he added, anxiously, with
+a sudden access of hope, "she may be well by this evening."
+
+"I hardly think she will," said Miss Morris, "but we will trust so."
+
+The King's palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park,
+and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds
+and the Americans were staying.  As the hotel was the first building on
+the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the
+illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and
+departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering
+through the iron rails into the King's garden.  It was a warm night,
+and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in
+silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the
+yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town.  Every window in the
+broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors
+came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall
+servants in the King's blue and white livery, and the men of his guard
+in their white petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.
+Carlton pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an
+agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street and entered
+the palace.  The line of royalties had broken by the time he reached
+the ballroom, and the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left
+him free, after a bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move
+about as he pleased.  His most earnest desire was to learn whether or
+not the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the
+English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked
+eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her accident.
+
+"No," said the officer; "she's able to walk about, but not to stand,
+and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing.  Too bad,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "very bad."  He released his hand from the other's
+arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway.  His
+disappointment was very keen.  Indeed, he had not known how much this
+meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this
+disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and
+have her sympathize and laugh with him.  He became conscious, as he
+searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and
+repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for
+sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him.  He
+wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and
+whether he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she
+not been there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew
+fainthearted.
+
+But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and for an
+instant doubted if it were she.  The girl he saw seemed to be a more
+beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew--a taller, fairer, and more
+radiant personage; and he feared that it was not she, until he
+remembered that this was the first time he had ever seen her with her
+hair dressed high upon her head, and in the more distinguished
+accessories of a décolleté gown and train.  Miss Morris had her hand on
+the arm of one of the equerries, who was battling good-naturedly with
+the crowd, and trying to draw her away from two persistent youths in
+diplomatic uniform who were laughing and pressing forward in close
+pursuit on the other side.  Carlton approached her with a certain
+feeling of diffidence, which was most unusual to him, and asked if she
+were dancing.
+
+"Mr. Carlton shall decide for me," Miss Morris said, dropping the
+equerry's arm and standing beside the American.  "I have promised all
+of these gentlemen," she explained, "to dance with them, and now they
+won't agree as to which is to dance first.  They've wasted half this
+waltz already in discussing it, and they make it much more difficult by
+saying that no matter how I decide, they will fight duels with the one
+I choose, which is most unpleasant for me."
+
+"Most unpleasant for the gentleman you choose, too," suggested Carlton.
+
+"So," continued Miss Morris, "I have decided to leave it to you."
+
+"Well, if I am to arbitrate between the powers," said Carlton, with a
+glance at the three uniforms, "my decision is that as they insist on
+fighting duels in any event, you had better dance with me until they
+have settled it between them, and then the survivor can have the next
+dance."
+
+"That's a very good idea," said Miss Morris; and taking Carlton's arm,
+she bowed to the three men and drew away.
+
+"Mr. Carlton," said the equerry, with a bow, "has added another
+argument in favor of maintaining standing armies, and of not submitting
+questions to arbitration."
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Carlton.  "You don't want to dance, do
+you?  Let us go where it's cool."
+
+He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace.  They did not
+speak again until they had left it, and were walking under the trees in
+the Queen's garden.  He had noticed as they made their way through the
+crowd how the men and women turned to look at her and made way for her,
+and how utterly unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
+unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such discrimination,
+and Carlton himself held his head a little higher with the pride and
+pleasure the thought gave him that he was in such friendly sympathy
+with so beautiful a creature.  He stopped before a low stone bench that
+stood on the edge of the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical
+trees, and guarded by a marble statue.  They were in deep shadow
+themselves, but the moonlight fell on the path at their feet, and
+through the trees on the other side of the path they could see the open
+terrace of the palace, with the dancers moving in and out of the
+lighted windows.  The splash of a fountain came from some short
+distance behind them, and from time to time they heard the strains of a
+regimental band alternating with the softer strains of a waltz played
+by a group of Hungarian musicians.  For a moment neither of them spoke,
+but sat watching the white dresses of the women and the uniforms of the
+men moving in and out among the trees, lighted by the lanterns hanging
+from the branches, and the white mist of the moon.
+
+"Do you know," said Carlton, "I'm rather afraid of you to-night!"  He
+paused, and watched her for a little time as she sat upright, with her
+hands folded on her lap.
+
+"You are so very resplendent and queenly and altogether different," he
+added.  The girl moved her bare shoulders slightly and leaned back
+against the bench.
+
+"The Princess did not come," she said.
+
+"No," Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at having
+forgotten that fact.  "That's one of the reasons I took you away from
+those men," he explained.  "I wanted you to sympathize with me."
+
+Miss Morris did not answer him at once.  She did not seem to be in a
+sympathetic mood.  Her manner suggested rather that she was tired and
+troubled.
+
+"I need sympathy myself to-night," she said.  "We received a letter
+after dinner that brought bad news for us.  We must go home at once."
+
+"Bad news!" exclaimed Carlton, with much concern.  "From home?"
+
+"Yes, from home," she replied; "but there is nothing wrong there; it is
+only bad news for us.  My sister has decided to be married in June
+instead of July, and that cuts us out of a month on the Continent.
+That's all.  We shall have to leave immediately--tomorrow.  It seems
+that Mr. Abbey is able to go away sooner than he had hoped, and they
+are to be married on the first."
+
+"Mr. Abbey!" exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name.  "But your sister
+isn't going to marry him, is she?"
+
+Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise.  "Yes--why not?" she said.
+
+"But I say!" cried Carlton, "I thought your aunt told me that YOU were
+going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on the steamer when he
+came to see you off."
+
+"I marry him--my aunt told you--impossible!" said Miss Morris, smiling.
+"She probably said that 'her niece' was going to marry him; she meant
+my sister.  They had been engaged some time."
+
+"Then who are YOU going to marry?" stammered Carlton.
+
+"I am not going to marry any one," said Miss Morris.
+
+Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement.  "Well, that's most
+absurd!" he exclaimed.
+
+He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly adequate, but he
+could not readjust his mind so suddenly to the new idea, and he
+remained looking at her with many confused memories rushing through his
+brain.  A dozen questions were on his tongue.  He remembered afterwards
+how he had noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the
+orange-colored lanterns, and that he had watched him as he disappeared
+among the palms.
+
+The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
+significance in itself which Carlton recognized.  He pulled himself up
+with a short laugh.  "Well," he remonstrated, mirthlessly, "I don't
+think you've treated ME very well."
+
+"How, not treated you very well?" Miss Morris asked, settling herself
+more easily.  She had been sitting during the pause which followed
+Carlton's discovery with a certain rigidity, as if she was on a strain
+of attention.  But her tone was now as friendly as always, and held its
+customary suggestion of amusement.  Carlton took his tone from it,
+although his mind was still busily occupied with incidents and words of
+hers that she had spoken in their past intercourse.
+
+"Not fair in letting me think you were engaged," he said.  "I've wasted
+so much time: I'm not half civil enough to engaged girls," he
+explained.
+
+"You've been quite civil enough to us," said Miss Morris, "as a
+courier, philosopher, and friend.  I'm very sorry we have to part
+company."
+
+"Part company!" exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm.  "But, I say, we
+mustn't do that."
+
+"But we must, you see," said Miss Morris. "We must go back for the
+wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline."
+
+"Yes, of course," Carlton heard his own voice say.  "I had forgotten
+the Princess Aline."  But he was not thinking of what he was saying,
+nor of the Princess Aline.  He was thinking of the many hours Miss
+Morris and he had been together, of the way she had looked at certain
+times, and of how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he
+had pictured the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over the
+same route, and without a chaperon, sitting close at her side or
+holding her hand, and telling her just how pretty she was whenever he
+wished to do so, and without any fear of the consequences.  He
+remembered how ready she had been to understand what he was going to
+say before he had finished saying it, and how she had always made him
+show the best of himself, and had caused him to leave unsaid many
+things that became common and unworthy when considered in the light of
+her judgment.  He recalled how impatient he had been when she was late
+at dinner, and how cross he was throughout one whole day when she had
+kept her room.  He felt with a sudden shock of delightful fear that he
+had grown to depend upon her, that she was the best companion he had
+ever known; and he remembered moments when they had been alone together
+at the table, or in some old palace, or during a long walk, when they
+had seemed to have the whole world entirely to themselves, and how he
+had consoled himself at such times with the thought that no matter how
+long she might be Abbey's wife, there had been these moments in her
+life which were his, with which Abbey had had nothing to do.
+
+Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes, as though
+he saw her for the first time.  He felt so sure of himself and of his
+love for her that the happiness of it made him tremble, and the thought
+that if he spoke she might answer him in the old, friendly, mocking
+tone of good-fellowship filled him with alarm.  At that moment it
+seemed to Carlton that the most natural thing in the world for them to
+do would be to go back again together over the road they had come,
+seeing everything in the new light of his love for her, and so travel
+on and on for ever over the world, learning to love each other more and
+more each succeeding day, and leaving the rest of the universe to move
+along without them.
+
+He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench, and bent
+his face towards hers.  Her hand lay at her side, and his own closed
+over it, but the shock that the touch of her fingers gave him stopped
+and confused the words upon his tongue.  He looked strangely at her,
+and could not find the speech he needed.
+
+Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and drew her
+own away, as if he had taken hers only in an exuberance of good feeling.
+
+"You have been very nice to us," she said, with an effort to make her
+tone sound kindly and approving.  "And we--"
+
+"You mustn't go; I can't let you go," said Carlton, hoarsely.  There
+was no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now.  "IF you go," he went
+on, breathlessly, "I must go with you."
+
+The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her breath
+with a slight, nervous tremor.  Then she turned and faced him, almost
+as though she were afraid of him or of herself, and they sat so for an
+instant in silence.  The air seemed to have grown close and heavy, and
+Carlton saw her dimly.  In the silence he heard the splash of the
+fountain behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
+and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.
+
+He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight that he was
+smiling.  It was as though he wished to delay any answer she might make
+to his last words.
+
+"That is the waltz," he said, still speaking in a whisper, "that the
+gypsies played that night--"  He stopped, and Miss Morris answered him
+by bending her head slowly in assent.  It seemed to be an effort for
+her to even make that slight gesture.
+
+"YOU don't remember it," said Carlton.  "It meant nothing to you.  I
+mean that night on the steamer when I told you what love meant to other
+people.  What a fool I was!" he said, with an uncertain laugh.
+
+"Yes, I remember it," she said--"last Thursday night, on the steamer."
+
+"Thursday night!" exclaimed Carlton, indignantly.  "Wednesday night,
+Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week it was?  It was
+the night of my life to me.  That night I knew that I loved you as I
+had never hoped to care for any one in this world.  When I told you
+that I did not know what love meant I felt all the time that I was
+lying.  I knew that I loved you, and that I could never love any one
+else,  and that I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought
+then you could care for me, your engagement or your promises would
+never have stopped my telling you so.  You said that night that I would
+learn to love all the better, and more truly, for having doubted myself
+so long, and, oh, Edith," he cried, taking both her hands and holding
+them close in his own, "I cannot let you go now!  I love you so!  Don't
+laugh at me; don't mock at me.  All the rest of my life depends on you."
+
+And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her not to
+do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came so gently and
+sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that though he let go of her
+hands with one of his, it was only that he might draw her to him, until
+her face touched his, and she felt the strength of his arm as he held
+her against his breast.
+
+
+The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor of the
+hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony that reached out
+from it over the front entrance.  And at the time when Mrs. Downs and
+Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to the hotel from the ball, the
+Princess Aline was leaning over the balcony and watching the lights go
+out in the upper part of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the
+trees and statues in the public park below.  Her foot was still in
+bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from the
+cold.  Inside of the open windows that led out on to the balcony her
+sisters were taking off their ornaments, and discussing the incidents
+of the night just over.
+
+The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help Mrs.
+Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand to another
+muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs. Downs was ascending
+the steps, and before the second muffled figure had left the shadow of
+the carriage and stepped into the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw
+Carlton draw her suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the cheek, and
+heard a protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her
+head and run up the steps.  Then she saw Carlton shake hands with them,
+and stand for a moment after they had disappeared, gazing up at the
+moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat.  He drew out a cigar-case
+and leisurely selected a cigar, and with much apparent content lighted
+it, and then, with his head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as
+though he were challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
+disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.
+
+The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood there
+leaning against the side.  "That young Mr. Carlton, the artist," she
+said to her sisters, "is engaged to that beautiful American girl we met
+the other day."
+
+"Really!" said the elder sister.  "I thought it was probable.  Who told
+you?"
+
+"I saw him kiss her good-night," said the Princess, stepping into the
+window, "as they got out of their carriage just now."
+
+The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the
+floor, and then walked across the room to a little writing-desk.  She
+unlocked a drawer in this and took from it two slips of paper, which
+she folded in her hand.  Then she returned slowly across the room, and
+stepped out again on to the balcony.
+
+One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn of her,
+and under which he had written:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I
+travelled four thousand miles to see her?"  And the other was the
+picture of Carlton himself, which she had cut out of the catalogue of
+the Salon.
+
+From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she could see the
+glimmer of Carlton's white linen and the red glow of his cigar as he
+strode proudly up and down the path of the public park, like a sentry
+keeping watch.  She folded the pieces of paper together and tore them
+slowly into tiny fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into
+the street below.  Then she returned again to the room, and stood
+looking at her sisters.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "I think I am a little tired of travelling so
+much.  I want to go back to Grasse."  She put her hand to her, forehead
+and held it there for a moment.  "I think I am a little homesick," said
+the Princess Aline.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
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+<HTML>
+<HEAD>
+
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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+<TITLE>
+The Princess Aline
+</TITLE>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Princess Aline
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2008 [EBook #327]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS ALINE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H2>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="30%">
+<A HREF="#chap01">PART I</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="30%">
+<A HREF="#chap02">PART II</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="30%">
+<A HREF="#chap03">PART III</A>
+</TD>
+</TR>
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the life of Morton
+Carlton--or "Morney" Carlton, as men called him--of New York city, when
+that young gentleman's affairs and affections were best suited to
+receive her.  Had she made her appearance three years sooner or three
+years later, it is quite probable that she would have passed on out of
+his life with no more recognition from him than would have been
+expressed in a look of admiring curiosity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both unoccupied,
+she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which led him into doing
+several wise and many foolish things, and which remained with him
+always.  Carlton had reached a point in his life, and very early in his
+life, when he could afford to sit at ease and look back with modest
+satisfaction to what he had forced himself to do, and forward with
+pleasurable anticipations to whatsoever he might choose to do in the
+future.  The world had appreciated what he had done, and had put much
+to his credit, and he was prepared to draw upon this grandly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
+excellent family connections, but with no family, his only relative
+being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the point of view of
+the Union Club's windows, and who objected to his nephew's leaving
+Harvard to take up the study of art in Paris.  In that city (where at
+Julian's he was nicknamed the junior Carlton, for the obvious reason
+that he was the older of the two Carltons in the class, and because he
+was well dressed) he had shown himself a harder worker than others who
+were less careful of their appearance and of their manners.  His work,
+of which he did not talk, and his ambitions, of which he also did not
+talk, bore fruit early, and at twenty-six he had become a
+portrait-painter of international reputation.  Then the French
+government purchased one of his paintings at an absurdly small figure,
+and placed it in the Luxembourg, from whence it would in time depart to
+be buried in the hall of some provincial city; and American
+millionaires, and English Lord Mayors, members of Parliament, and
+members of the Institute, masters of hounds in pink coats, and
+ambassadors in gold lace, and beautiful women of all nationalities and
+conditions sat before his easel.  And so when he returned to New York
+he was welcomed with an enthusiasm which showed that his countrymen had
+feared that the artistic atmosphere of the Old World had stolen him
+from them forever.  He was particularly silent, even at this date,
+about his work, and listened to what others had to say of it with much
+awe, not unmixed with some amusement, that it should be he who was
+capable of producing anything worthy of such praise.  We have been told
+what the mother duck felt when her ugly duckling turned into a swan,
+but we have never considered how much the ugly duckling must have
+marvelled also.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Carlton is probably the only living artist," a brother artist had said
+of him, "who fails to appreciate how great his work is."  And on this
+being repeated to Carlton by a good-natured friend, he had replied
+cheerfully, "Well, I'm sorry, but it is certainly better to be the only
+one who doesn't appreciate it than to be the only one who does."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had never understood why such a responsibility had been intrusted to
+him.  It was, as he expressed it, not at all in his line, and young
+girls who sought to sit at the feet of the master found him making love
+to them in the most charming manner in the world, as though he were not
+entitled to all the rapturous admiration of their very young hearts,
+but had to sue for it like any ordinary mortal.  Carlton always felt as
+though some day some one would surely come along and say: "Look here,
+young man, this talent doesn't belong to you; it's mine.  What do you
+mean by pretending that such an idle good-natured youth as yourself is
+entitled to such a gift of genius?"  He felt that he was keeping it in
+trust, as it were; that it had been changed at birth, and that the
+proper guardian would eventually relieve him of his treasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Personally Carlton was of the opinion that he should have been born in
+the active days of knights-errant--to have had nothing more serious to
+do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon fastened to the point of his
+lance, and with the spirit to unhorse any one who objected to its
+color, or to the claims of superiority of the noble lady who had tied
+it there.  There was not, in his opinion, at the present day any
+sufficiently pronounced method of declaring admiration for the many
+lovely women this world contained.  A proposal of marriage he
+considered to be a mean and clumsy substitute for the older way, and
+was uncomplimentary to the many other women left unasked, and marriage
+itself required much more constancy than he could give.  He had a most
+romantic and old-fashioned ideal of women as a class, and from the age
+of fourteen had been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and
+though in that time his ideal had received several severe shocks, he
+still believed that the "not impossible she" existed somewhere, and his
+conscientious efforts to find out whether every women he met might not
+be that one had led him not unnaturally into many difficulties.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The trouble with me is," he said, "that I care too much to make
+Platonic friendship possible, and don't care enough to marry any
+particular woman--that is, of course, supposing that any particular one
+would be so little particular as to be willing to marry me.  How
+embarrassing it would be, now," he argued, "if, when you were turning
+away from the chancel after the ceremony, you should look at one of the
+bridesmaids and see the woman whom you really should have married!  How
+distressing that would be!  You couldn't very well stop and say: 'I am
+very sorry, my dear, but it seems I have made a mistake.  That young
+woman on the right has a most interesting and beautiful face.  I am
+very much afraid that she is the one.'  It would be too late then;
+while now, in my free state, I can continue my search without any
+sense of responsibility."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why"--he would exclaim--"I have walked miles to get a glimpse of a
+beautiful woman in a suburban window, and time and time again when I
+have seen a face in a passing brougham I have pursued it in a hansom,
+and learned where the owner of the face lived, and spent weeks in
+finding some one to present me, only to discover that she was
+self-conscious or uninteresting or engaged.  Still I had assured myself
+that she was not the one.  I am very conscientious, and I consider that
+it is my duty to go so far with every woman I meet as to be able to
+learn whether she is or is not the one, and the sad result is that I am
+like a man who follows the hounds but is never in at the death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," some married woman would say, grimly, "I hope you will get your
+deserts some day; and you WILL, too.  Some day some girl will make you
+suffer for this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that's all right," Carlton would answer, meekly.  "Lots of women
+have made me suffer, if that's what you think I need."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some day," the married woman would prophesy, "you will care for a
+woman so much that you will have no eyes for any one else.  That's the
+way it is when one is married."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, when that's the way it is with ME," Carlton would reply, "I
+certainly hope to get married; but until it is, I think it is safer for
+all concerned that I should not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Carlton would go to the club and complain bitterly to one of his
+friends.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How unfair married women are!" he would say.  "The idea of thinking a
+man could have no eyes but for one woman!  Suppose I had never heard a
+note of music until I was twenty-five years of age, and was then given
+my hearing.  Do you suppose my pleasure in music would make me lose my
+pleasure in everything else?  Suppose I met and married a girl at
+twenty-five.  Is that going to make me forget all the women I knew
+before I met her?  I think not.  As a matter of fact, I really deserve
+a great deal of credit for remaining single, for I am naturally very
+affectionate; but when I see what poor husbands my friends make, I
+prefer to stay as I am until I am sure that I will make a better one.
+It is only fair to the woman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton was sitting in the club alone.  He had that sense of
+superiority over his fellows and of irresponsibility to the world about
+him that comes to a man when he knows that his trunks are being packed
+and that his state-room is engaged.  He was leaving New York long
+before most of his friends could get away.  He did not know just where
+he was going, and preferred not to know.  He wished to have a complete
+holiday, and to see Europe as an idle tourist, and not as an artist
+with an eye to his own improvement.  He had plenty of time and money;
+he was sure to run across friends in the big cities, and acquaintances
+he could make or not, as he pleased, en route.  He was not sorry to go.
+His going would serve to put an end to what gossip there might be of
+his engagement to numerous young women whose admiration for him as an
+artist, he was beginning to fear, had taken on a more personal tinge.
+"I wish," he said, gloomily, "I didn't like people so well.  It seems
+to cause them and me such a lot of trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sighed, and stretched out his hand for a copy of one of the English
+illustrated papers.  It had a fresher interest to him because the next
+number of it that he would see would be in the city in which it was
+printed.  The paper in his hands was the St. James Budget, and it
+contained much fashionable intelligence concerning the preparations for
+a royal wedding which was soon to take place between members of two of
+the reigning families of Europe.  There was on one page a half-tone
+reproduction of a photograph, which showed a group of young people
+belonging to several of these reigning families, with their names and
+titles printed above and below the picture.  They were princesses,
+archdukes, or grand-dukes, and they were dressed like young English men
+and women, and with no sign about them of their possible military or
+social rank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the young princesses in the photograph was looking out of it and
+smiling in a tolerant, amused way, as though she had thought of
+something which she could not wait to enjoy until after the picture was
+taken.  She was not posing consciously, as were some of the others, but
+was sitting in a natural attitude, with one arm over the back of her
+chair, and with her hands clasped before her.  Her face was full of a
+fine intelligence and humor, and though one of the other princesses in
+the group was far more beautiful, this particular one had a much more
+high-bred air, and there was something of a challenge in her smile that
+made any one who looked at the picture smile also.  Carlton studied the
+face for some time, and mentally approved of its beauty; the others
+seemed in comparison wooden and unindividual, but this one looked like
+a person he might have known, and whom he would certainly have liked.
+He turned the page and surveyed the features of the Oxford crew with
+lesser interest, and then turned the page again and gazed critically
+and severely at the face of the princess with the high-bred smile.  He
+had hoped that he would find it less interesting at a second glance,
+but it did not prove to be so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'The Princess Aline of Hohenwald,'" he read.  "She's probably engaged
+to one of those Johnnies beside her, and the Grand-Duke of Hohenwald
+behind her must be her brother."  He put the paper down and went into
+luncheon, and diverted himself by mixing a salad dressing; but after a
+few moments he stopped in the midst of this employment, and told the
+waiter, with some unnecessary sharpness, to bring him the last copy of
+the St. James Budget.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Confound it!" he added, to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He opened the paper with a touch of impatience and gazed long and
+earnestly at the face of the Princess Aline, who continued to return
+his look with the same smile of amused tolerance.  Carlton noted every
+detail of her tailor-made gown, of her high mannish collar, of her tie,
+and even the rings on her hand.  There was nothing about her of which
+he could fairly disapprove.  He wondered why it was that she could not
+have been born an approachable New York girl instead of a princess of a
+little German duchy, hedged in throughout her single life, and to be
+traded off eventually in marriage with as much consideration as though
+she were a princess of a real kingdom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She looks jolly too," he mused, in an injured tone; "and so very
+clever; and of course she has a beautiful complexion.  All those German
+girls have.  Your Royal Highness is more than pretty," he said, bowing
+his head gravely.  "You look as a princess should look.  I am sure it
+was one of your ancestors who discovered the dried pea under a dozen
+mattresses."  He closed the paper, and sat for a moment with a
+perplexed smile of consideration.  "Waiter," he exclaimed, suddenly,
+"send a messenger-boy to Brentano's for a copy of the St. James Budget,
+and bring me the Almanach de Gotha from the library.  It is a little
+fat red book on the table near the window." Then Carlton opened the
+paper again and propped it up against a carafe, and continued his
+critical survey of the Princess Aline.  He seized the Almanach, when it
+came, with some eagerness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hohenwald (Maison de Grasse)," he read, and in small type below it:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"1. Ligne cadette (regnante) grand-ducale: Hohenwald et de Grasse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guillaume-Albert-Frederick-Charles-Louis, Grand-Duc de Hohenwald et de
+Grasse, etc., etc., etc."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"That's the brother, right enough," muttered Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And under the heading "Soeurs" he read:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"4. Psse Aline.--Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene, Alt.  Gr.-Duc. Nee a
+Grasse, Juin, 1872."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Twenty-two years old," exclaimed Carlton.  "What a perfect age! I
+could not have invented a better one."  He looked from the book to the
+face before him.  "Now, my dear young lady," he said, "I know all about
+YOU.  You live at Grasse, and you are connected, to judge by your
+names, with all the English royalties; and very pretty names they are,
+too--Aline, Helene, Victoria, Beatrix.  You must be much more English
+than you are German; and I suppose you live in a little old castle, and
+your brother has a standing army of twelve men, and some day you are to
+marry a Russian Grand-Duke, or whoever your brother's Prime Minister--if
+he has a Prime Minister--decides is best for the politics of your little
+toy kingdom.  Ah! to think," exclaimed Carlton, softly, "that such a
+lovely and glorious creature as that should be sacrificed for so
+insignificant a thing as the peace of Europe when she might make some
+young man happy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He carried a copy of the paper to his room, and cut the picture of the
+group out of the page and pasted it carefully on a stiff piece of
+card-board.  Then he placed it on his dressing-table, in front of a
+photograph of a young woman in a large silver frame--which was a sign,
+had the young woman but known it, that her reign for the time being was
+over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nolan, the young Irishman who "did for" Carlton, knew better than to
+move it when he found it there.  He had learned to study his master
+since he had joined him in London, and understood that one photograph
+in the silver frame was entitled to more consideration than three
+others on the writing-desk or half a dozen on the mantel-piece.  Nolan
+had seen them come and go; he had watched them rise and fall; he had
+carried notes to them, and books and flowers; and had helped to dispose
+them from the silver frame and move them on by degrees down the line,
+until they went ingloriously into the big brass bowl on the side table.
+Nolan approved highly of this last choice.  He did not know which one
+of the three in the group it might be; but they were all pretty, and
+their social standing was certainly distinguished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guido, the Italian model who ruled over the studio, and Nolan were
+busily packing when Carlton entered.  He always said that Guido
+represented him in his professional and Nolan in his social capacity.
+Guido cleaned the brushes and purchased the artists' materials; Nolan
+cleaned his riding-boots and bought his theatre and railroad tickets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guido," said Carlton, "there are two sketches I made in Germany last
+year, one of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig the actor; get them
+out for me, will you, and pack them for shipping.  Nolan," he went on,
+"here is a telegram to send."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nolan would not have read a letter, but he looked upon telegrams as
+public documents, the reading of them as part of his perquisites.  This
+one was addressed to Oscar Von Holtz, First Secretary, German Embassy,
+Washington, D.C., and the message read:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="letter">
+"Please telegraph me full title and address Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald.  Where would a letter reach her?
+<BR><BR>
+"MORTON CARLTON."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The next morning Nolan carried to the express office a box containing
+two oil-paintings on small canvases.  They were addressed to the man in
+London who attended to the shipping and forwarding of Carlton's
+pictures in that town.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+There was a tremendous crowd on the New York.  She sailed at the
+obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people, in
+consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the way of their
+breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say goodbye.  Carlton, for
+his part, did not notice them; he knew by experience that the
+attractive-looking people always leave a steamer when the whistle
+blows, and that the next most attractive-looking, who remain on board,
+are ill all the way over.  A man that he knew seized him by the arm as
+he was entering his cabin, and asked if he were crossing or just seeing
+people off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her aunt, Mrs.
+Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if you would be nice
+to them.  But you know her, I guess?" he asked, over his shoulder, as
+Carlton pushed his way after him down the deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know who she is," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of admiring
+friends, and seemed to be holding her own.  They all stopped when
+Carlton came up, and looked at him rather closely, and those whom he
+knew seemed to mark the fact by a particularly hearty greeting.  The
+man who had brought him up acted as though he had successfully
+accomplished a somewhat difficult and creditable feat.  Carlton bowed
+himself away, leaving Miss Morris to her friends, and saying that she
+would probably have to see him later, whether she wished it or not.  He
+then went to meet the aunt, who received him kindly, for there were
+very few people on the passenger list, and she was glad they were to
+have his company.  Before he left she introduced him to a young man
+named Abbey, who was hovering around her most anxiously, and whose
+interest, she seemed to think it necessary to explain, was due to the
+fact that he was engaged to Miss Morris.  Mr. Abbey left the steamer
+when the whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully.  He
+always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as it left
+him no choice in the matter, and excused him from finding out whether
+or not that particular young woman was the one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and faced
+the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy Hook with
+unconcern.  Carlton joined them, and they stood together leaning with
+their backs to the rail, and trying to fit the people who flitted past
+them to the names on the passenger list.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The young lady in the sailor suit," said Miss Morris, gazing at the
+top of the smoke-stack, "is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand Rapids.  This is
+her first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is something like a yacht,
+and dresses for the part accordingly.  She does not know that it is
+merely a moving hotel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am afraid," said Carlton, "to judge from her agitation, that hers is
+going to be what the professionals call a 'dressing-room' part.  Why is
+it," he asked, "that the girls on a steamer who wear gold anchors and
+the men in yachting-caps are always the first to disappear?  That man
+with the sombrero," he went on, "is James M. Pollock, United States
+Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to his post.  I know he is the
+consul, because he comes from Fort Worth, Texas, and is therefore
+admirably fitted to speak either French or the native language of the
+island."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, we don't send consuls to Mauritius," laughed Miss Morris.
+"Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps, but no one
+really lives or goes there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where are you going, may I ask?" inquired Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris said that they were making their way to Constantinople and
+Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had not had the time to take the
+southern route, they purposed to journey across the Continent direct
+from Paris to the Turkish capital by the Orient Express.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long enough for
+some clothes," she replied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The trousseau," thought Carlton.  "Weeks is what she should have said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The three sat together at the captain's table, and as the sea continued
+rough, saw little of either the captain or his other guests, and were
+thrown much upon the society of each other.  They had innumerable
+friends and interests in common; and Mrs. Downs, who had been
+everywhere, and for long seasons at a time, proved as alive as her
+niece, and Carlton conceived a great liking for her.  She seemed to be
+just and kindly minded, and, owing to her age, to combine the wider
+judgment of a man with the sympathetic interest of a woman.  Sometimes
+they sat together in a row and read, and gossiped over what they read,
+or struggled up the deck as it rose and fell and buffeted with the
+wind; and later they gathered in a corner of the saloon and ate late
+suppers of Carlton's devising, or drank tea in the captain's cabin,
+which he had thrown open to them.  They had started knowing much about
+one another, and this and the necessary proximity of the ship hastened
+their acquaintance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sea grew calmer the third day out, and the sun came forth and
+showed the decks as clean as bread-boards.  Miss Morris and Carlton
+seated themselves on the huge iron riding-bits in the bow, and with
+their elbows on the rail looked down at the whirling blue water, and
+rejoiced silently in the steady rush of the great vessel, and in the
+uncertain warmth of the March sun.  Carlton was sitting to leeward of
+Miss Morris, with a pipe between his teeth.  He was warm, and at peace
+with the world.  He had found his new acquaintance more than
+entertaining.  She was even friendly, and treated him as though he were
+much her junior, as is the habit of young women lately married or who
+are about to be married.  Carlton did not resent it; on the contrary,
+it made him more at his ease with her, and as she herself chose to
+treat him as a youth, he permitted himself to be as foolish as he
+pleased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know why it is," he complained, peering over the rail, "but
+whenever I look over the side to watch the waves a man in a greasy cap
+always sticks his head out of a hole below me and scatters a barrelful
+of ashes or potato peelings all over the ocean.  It spoils the effect
+for one.  Next time he does it I am going to knock out the ashes of my
+pipe on the back of his neck."  Miss Morris did not consider this
+worthy of comment, and there was a long lazy pause.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You haven't told us where you go after London," she said; and then,
+without waiting for him to reply, she asked, "Is it your professional
+or your social side that you are treating to a trip this time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who told you that?" asked Carlton, smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some man.  He said you were a Jekyll and Hyde.
+Which is Jekyll?  You see, I only know your professional side."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must try to find out for yourself by deduction," he said, "as you
+picked out the other passengers.  I am going to Grasse," he continued.
+"It's the capital of Hohenwald.  Do you know it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she said; "we were there once for a few days.  We went to see
+the pictures.  I suppose you know that the old Duke, the father of the
+present one, ruined himself almost by buying pictures for the Grasse
+gallery.  We were there at a bad time, though, when the palace was
+closed to visitors, and the gallery too.  I suppose that is what is
+taking you there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Carlton said, shaking his head.  "No, it is not the pictures.  I
+am going to Grasse," he said, gravely, "to see the young woman with
+whom I am in love."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled consciously, with a
+natural feminine interest in an affair of love, and one which was a
+secret as well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," she said, "I beg your pardon; we--I had not heard of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly," said Carlton; "it
+is rather in an embryo state as yet--in fact, I have not met the young
+lady so far, but I mean to meet her.  That's why I am going abroad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling, but he
+was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the horizon-line, and
+puffing meditatively on his pipe.  He was apparently in earnest, and
+waiting for her to make some comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How very interesting!" was all she could think to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, when you know the details, it is,----VERY interesting," he
+answered.  "She is the Princess Aline of Hohenwald," he explained,
+bowing his head as though he were making the two young ladies known to
+one another.  "She has several other names, six in all, and her age is
+twenty-two.  That is all I know about her.  I saw her picture in an
+illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up my mind I would
+meet her, and here I am.  If she is not in Grasse, I intend to follow
+her to wherever she may be."  He waved his pipe at the ocean before him,
+and recited, with mock seriousness:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    "'Across the hills and far away,<BR>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Beyond their utmost purple rim,<BR>
+    And deep into the dying day,<BR>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The happy Princess followed him.'<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Only in this case, you see," said Carlton, "I am following the happy
+Princess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; but seriously, though," said Miss Morris, "what is it you mean?
+Are you going to paint her portrait?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never thought of that," exclaimed Carlton.  "I don't know but what
+your idea is a good one.  Miss Morris, that's a great idea."  He shook
+his head approvingly.  "I did not do wrong to confide in you," he said.
+"It was perhaps taking a liberty; but as you have not considered it as
+such, I am glad I spoke."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you don't really mean to tell me," exclaimed the girl, facing
+about, and nodding her head at him, "that you are going abroad after a
+woman whom you have never seen, and because you like a picture of her
+in a paper?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do," said Carlton.  "Because I like her picture, and because she is
+a Princess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, upon my word," said Miss Morris, gazing at him with evident
+admiration, "that's what my younger brother would call a distinctly
+sporting proposition.  Only I don't see," she added, "what her being a
+Princess has to do with it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't?" laughed Carlton, easily.  "That's the best part of
+it--that's the plot.  The beauty of being in love with a Princess, Miss
+Morris," he said, "lies in the fact that you can't marry her; that you
+can love her deeply and forever, and nobody will ever come to you and
+ask your intentions, or hint that after such a display of affection you
+ought to do something.  Now, with a girl who is not a Princess, even if
+she understands the situation herself, and wouldn't marry you to save
+her life, still there is always some one--a father, or a mother, or one
+of your friends--who makes it his business to interfere, and talks
+about it, and bothers you both.  But with a Princess, you see, that is
+all eliminated.  You can't marry a Princess, because they won't let
+you.  A Princess has got to marry a real royal chap, and so you are
+perfectly ineligible and free to sigh for her, and make pretty speeches
+to her, and see her as often as you can, and revel in your devotion and
+unrequited affection."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris regarded him doubtfully.  She did not wish to prove herself
+too credulous.  "And you honestly want me, Mr. Carlton, to believe that
+you are going abroad just for this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see," Carlton answered her, "if you only knew me better you would
+have no doubt on the subject at all.  It isn't the thing some men would
+do, I admit, but it is exactly what any one who knows me would expect
+of me.  I should describe it, having had acquaintance with the young
+man for some time, as being eminently characteristic.  And besides,
+think what a good story it makes!  Every other man who goes abroad this
+summer will try to tell about his travels when he gets back to New
+York, and, as usual, no one will listen to him.  But they will HAVE to
+listen to me.  'You've been across since I saw you last.  What did you
+do?' they'll ask, politely.  And then, instead of simply telling them
+that I have been in Paris or London, I can say, 'Oh, I've been chasing
+around the globe after the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.'  That sounds
+interesting, doesn't it?  When you come to think of it," Carlton
+continued, meditatively, "it is not so very remarkable.  Men go all the
+way to Cuba and Mexico, and even to India, after orchids, after a nasty
+flower that grows in an absurd way on the top of a tree.  Why shouldn't
+a young man go as far as Germany after a beautiful Princess, who walks
+on the ground, and who can talk and think and feel?  She is much more
+worth while than an orchid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris laughed indulgently.  "Well, I didn't know such devotion
+existed at this end of the century," she said; "it's quite nice and
+encouraging.  I hope you will succeed, I am sure.  I only wish we were
+going to be near enough to see how you get on. I have never been a
+confidante when there was a real Princess concerned," she said; "it
+makes it so much more amusing.  May one ask what your plans are?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton doubted if he had any plans as yet.  "I have to reach the
+ground first," he said, "and after that I must reconnoitre.  I may
+possibly adopt your idea, and ask to paint her portrait, only I dislike
+confusing my social and professional sides.  As a matter of fact,
+though," he said, after a pause, laughing guiltily, "I have done a
+little of that already.  I prepared her, as it were, for my coming.  I
+sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin.  One of
+the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the Court
+Theatre.  I sent them to her through my London agent, so that she would
+think they had come from some one of her English friends, and I told
+the dealer not to let any one know who had forwarded them.  My idea was
+that it might help me, perhaps, if she knew something about me before I
+appeared in person.  It was a sort of letter of introduction written by
+myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, really," expostulated Miss Morris, "you certainly woo in a royal
+way.  Are you in the habit of giving away your pictures to any one
+whose photograph you happen to like?  That seems to me to be giving new
+lamps for old to a degree.  I must see if I haven't some of my sister's
+photographs in my trunk.  She is considered very beautiful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you wait until you see this particular portrait, and--you will
+understand it better," said Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The steamer reached Southampton early in the afternoon, and Carlton
+secured a special compartment on the express to London for Mrs. Downs
+and her niece and himself, with one adjoining for their maid and Nolan.
+It was a beautiful day, and Carlton sat with his eyes fixed upon the
+passing fields and villages, exclaiming with pleasure from time to time
+at the white roads and the feathery trees and hedges, and the red roofs
+of the inns and square towers of the village churches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren't they?" he said.
+"You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of them?  She looks
+just as though she were posing for a picture for an illustrated paper.
+She couldn't pick flowers from a barbed-wire fence, could she?  And
+there would probably be a tramp along the road somewhere to frighten
+her; and see--the chap in knickerbockers farther down the road leaning
+on the stile.  I am sure he is waiting for her; and here comes a
+coach," he ran on.  "Don't the red wheels look well against the hedges?
+It's a pretty little country, England, isn't it?--like a private park
+or a model village.  I am glad to get back to it--I am glad to see the
+three-and-six signs with the little slanting dash between the shillings
+and pennies.  Yes, even the steam-rollers and the man with the red flag
+in front are welcome."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Downs, "it's because one has been so long on the
+ocean that the ride to London seems so interesting.  It always pays me
+for the entire trip.  Yes," she said, with a sigh, "in spite of the
+patent-medicine signs they have taken to putting up all along the road.
+It seems a pity they should adopt our bad habits instead of our good
+ones."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are a bit slow at adopting anything," commented Carlton.  "Did
+you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as scarce in
+London as they are in Timbuctoo?  Why, I saw an electric-light plant
+put up in a Western town in three days once; there were over a hundred
+burners in one saloon, and the engineer who put them up told me in
+confidence that--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never disclosed, for
+at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a sudden sharp
+exclamation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Mr. Carlton," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "listen to this!"  She
+had been reading one of the dozen papers which Carlton had purchased at
+the station, and was now shaking one of them at him, with her eyes
+fixed on the open page.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear Edith," remonstrated her aunt, "Mr. Carlton was telling us--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know," exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, "but this interests him
+much more than electric lights.  Who do you think is in London?" she
+cried, raising her eyes to his, and pausing for proper dramatic effect.
+"The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No?" shouted Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone.  "Listen.  'The Queen's
+Drawing-room'--em--e--m--'on her right was the Princess of
+Wales'--em--m.  Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here it is.  'Next to her
+stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.  She wore a dress of white silk,
+with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur.  Ornaments--emeralds and
+diamonds; orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal,
+Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Grasse.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly.  "I say, is that really there?
+Let me see it, please, for myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the paragraph, and
+picking up another, began a search down its columns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure enough.
+And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't know it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had discovered a
+vein of gold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 'The
+Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few violet
+ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her mother's
+side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by Princess Ena's
+accident.  Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a light brown jacket
+and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary touch to a picture which
+Londoners would be glad to look upon more often.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and with his
+eyes open wide from excitement.  He presented so unusual an appearance
+of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her
+niece for some explanation.  "The young lady seems to interest you,"
+said she, tentatively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs," cried
+Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Grasse to see her, and now it
+turns out that she is here in England, within a few miles of us."  He
+turned and waved his hands at the passing landscape.  "Every minute
+brings us nearer together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris, laughing.
+"You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you where to
+find the woman you love."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and frowned
+intently.  "Now I have got to begin all over again and readjust
+things," he said.  "We might have guessed she would be in London, on
+account of this royal wedding.  It is a great pity it isn't later in
+the season, when there would be more things going on and more chances
+of meeting her.  Now they will all be interested in themselves, and,
+being extremely exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom
+or an Emperor would have any chance at all.  Still, I can see her!  I
+can look at her, and that's something."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or they will
+stop at Brown's," said Carlton.  "All royalties go to Brown's.  I don't
+know why, unless it is because it is so expensive; or maybe it is
+expensive because royalties go there; but, in any event, if they are
+not at the palace, that is where they will be, and that is where I
+shall have to go too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed Nolan to
+take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload them until he had
+arrived.  Then he drove with the ladies to Cox's, and saw them settled
+there.  He promised to return at once to dine, and to tell them what he
+had discovered in his absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss
+Morris," he said, nervously.  "I am beginning to feel that I am not
+worthy of her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that 'it's not
+the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of wooing,' and that
+'faint heart'--and the rest of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit sudden, isn't
+it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I am ashamed of you!  You are frightened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter.  "I think it's just
+natural emotion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet
+stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across the sidewalk to
+a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently assisting
+several gentlemen to get into it.  This and another carriage and
+Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to
+move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man
+to its side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked.  The
+bareheaded man answered that he was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton.  "They can take in the trunks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight.
+"That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said,
+pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second
+carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the
+air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began, eagerly,
+and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the
+hansom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He broke into the little dining-room at Cox's in so excited a state
+that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed
+in astonished disapproval.  Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come
+down stairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have seen her!" Carlton cried, ecstatically; "only half an hour in
+the town, and I've seen her already!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, really?" exclaimed Miss Morris.  "And how did she look?  Is she as
+beautiful as you expected?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I can't tell yet," Carlton answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There were three of them, and they were all muffled up, and which one
+of the three she was I don't know.  She wasn't labelled, as in the
+picture, but she was there, and I saw her.  The woman I love was one of
+that three, and I have engaged rooms at the hotel, and this very night
+the same roof shelters us both."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you," said Miss
+Morris, as they seated themselves at the table.  "What is your next
+move?  What do you mean to do now?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The rest is very simple," said Carlton.  "To-morrow morning I will go
+to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who knows all about
+them--where they are going, and who they are seeing, and what
+engagements they may have.  Then it will only be a matter of looking up
+some friend in the Household or in one of the embassies who can present
+me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment, "but
+that is such a commonplace ending!  You started out so romantically.
+Couldn't you manage to meet her in a less conventional way?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am afraid not," said Carlton.  "You see, I want to meet her very
+much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of meeting her,
+whether it's romantic or not, isn't a bit too quick for me.  There will
+be romance enough after I am presented, if I have my way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the fact
+that it requires as many to make an introduction as a bargain, and he
+had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his considerations.  He met many
+people he knew in the Row the next morning; they asked him to lunch,
+and brought their horses up to the rail, and he patted the horses'
+heads, and led the conversation around to the royal wedding, and
+through it to the Hohenwalds.  He learned that they had attended a
+reception at the German Embassy on the previous night, and it was one
+of the secretaries of that embassy who informed him of their intended
+departure that morning on the eleven o'clock train to Paris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To Paris!" cried Carlton, in consternation.  "What! all of them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, all of them, of course.  Why?" asked the young German.  But
+Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to Piccadilly and
+waving his stick at a hansom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nolan met him at the door of Brown's Hotel with an anxious countenance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir," he said.  "But I've packed
+your trunks and sent them to the station.  Shall I follow them, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Carlton.  "Follow the trunks and follow the Hohenwalds.  I
+will come over on the Club train at four.  Meet me at the station, and
+tell me to what hotel they have gone.  Wait; if I miss you, you can
+find me at the Hotel Continental; but if they go straight on through
+Paris, you go with them, and telegraph me here and to the Continental.
+Telegraph at every station, so I can keep track of you.  Have you
+enough money?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have, sir--enough for a long trip, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you'll need it," said Carlton, grimly.  "This is going to be a
+long trip.  It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you will have to hurry.
+Have you paid my bill here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have, sir," said Nolan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then get off, and don't lose sight of those people again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton attended to several matters of business, and then lunched with
+Mrs. Downs and her niece.  He had grown to like them very much, and was
+sorry to lose sight of them, but consoled himself by thinking he would
+see them a few days at least in Paris.  He judged that he would be
+there for some time, as he did not think the Princess Aline and her
+sisters would pass through that city without stopping to visit the
+shops on the Rue de la Paix.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All women are not princesses," he argued, "but all princesses are
+women."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will be in Paris on Wednesday," Mrs. Downs told him.  "The Orient
+Express leaves there twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and we
+have taken an apartment for next Thursday, and will go right on to
+Constantinople."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes there?" Carlton
+expostulated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had followed the
+Hohenwalds to the Hotel Meurice.  "There is the Duke, sir, and the
+three Princesses," Nolan said, "and there are two German gentlemen
+acting as equerries, and an English captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the
+Duke, and two elderly ladies, and eight servants.  They travel very
+simple, sir, and their people are in undress livery.  Brown and red,
+sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton pretended not to listen to this.  He had begun to doubt but
+that Nolan's zeal would lead him into some indiscretion, and would end
+disastrously to himself.  He spent the evening alone in front of the
+Cafe de la Paix, pleasantly occupied in watching the life and movement
+of that great meeting of the highways.  It did not seem possible that
+he had ever been away.  It was as though he had picked up a book and
+opened it at the page and place at which he had left off reading it a
+moment before.  There was the same type, the same plot, and the same
+characters, who were doing the same characteristic things.  Even the
+waiter who tipped out his coffee knew him; and he knew, or felt as
+though he knew, half of those who passed, or who shared with him the
+half of the sidewalk.  The women at the next table considered the slim,
+good-looking young American with friendly curiosity, and the men with
+them discussed him in French, until a well-known Parisian recognized
+Carlton in passing, and hailed him joyously in the same language, at
+which the women laughed and the men looked sheepishly conscious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the following morning Carlton took up his post in the open court of
+the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to excuse his loitering
+there.  He had not been occupied with these over-long before Nolan
+approached him, in some excitement, with the information that their
+Royal Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
+"coming down the lift."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the corner
+and see them; it was for this chance he had been waiting; but he could
+not afford to act in so undignified a manner before Nolan, so he merely
+crossed his legs nervously, and told the servant to go back to the
+rooms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my own affairs
+in my own way.  If I don't stop him, he'll carry the Princess Aline off
+by force and send me word where he has hidden her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hohenwalds had evidently departed for a day's outing, as up to five
+o'clock they had not returned; and Carlton, after loitering all the
+afternoon, gave up waiting for them, and went out to dine at Laurent's,
+in the Champs Elysees.  He had finished his dinner, and was leaning
+luxuriously forward, with his elbows on the table, and knocking the
+cigar ashes into his coffee-cup.  He was pleasantly content.  The trees
+hung heavy with leaves over his head, a fountain played and overflowed
+at his elbow, and the lamps of the fiacres passing and repassing on the
+Avenue of the Champs Elysees shone like giant fire-flies through the
+foliage.  The touch of the gravel beneath his feet emphasized the free,
+out-of-door charm of the place, and the faces of the others around him
+looked more than usually cheerful in the light of the candles
+flickering under the clouded shades.  His mind had gone back to his
+earlier student days in Paris, when life always looked as it did now in
+the brief half-hour of satisfaction which followed a cold bath or a
+good dinner, and he had forgotten himself and his surroundings.  It was
+the voices of the people at the table behind him that brought him back
+to the present moment.  A man was talking; he spoke in English, with an
+accent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should like to go again through the Luxembourg," he said; "but you
+need not be bound by what I do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think it would be pleasanter if we all keep together," said a girl's
+voice, quietly.  She also spoke in English, and with the same accent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people whose voices had interrupted him were sitting and standing
+around a long table, which the waiters had made large enough for their
+party by placing three of the smaller ones side by side; they had
+finished their dinner, and the women, who sat with their backs towards
+Carlton, were pulling on their gloves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which is it to be, then?" said the gentleman, smiling.  "The pictures
+or the dressmakers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl who had first spoken turned to the one next to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which would you rather do, Aline?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton moved so suddenly that the men behind him looked at him
+curiously; but he turned, nevertheless, in his chair and faced them,
+and in order to excuse his doing so beckoned to one of the waiters.  He
+was within two feet of the girl who had been called "Aline."  She
+raised her head to speak, and saw Carlton staring open-eyed at her.
+She glanced at him for an instant, as if to assure herself that she did
+not know him, and then, turning to her brother, smiled in the same
+tolerant, amused way in which she had so often smiled upon Carlton from
+the picture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am afraid I had rather go to the Bon March," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the waiters stepped in between them, and Carlton asked him for
+his bill; but when it came he left it lying on the plate, and sat
+staring out into the night between the candles, puffing sharply on his
+cigar, and recalling to his memory his first sight of the Princess
+Aline of Hohenwald.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That night, as he turned into bed, he gave a comfortable sigh of
+content.  "I am glad she chose the dressmakers instead of the
+pictures," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris arrived in Paris on Wednesday, and expressed
+their anxiety to have Carlton lunch with them, and to hear him tell of
+the progress of his love-affair.  There was not much to tell; the
+Hohenwalds had come and gone from the hotel as freely as any other
+tourists in Paris, but the very lack of ceremony about their movements
+was in itself a difficulty.  The manner of acquaintance he could make
+in the court of the Hotel Meurice with one of the men over a cup of
+coffee or a glass of bock would be as readily discontinued as begun,
+and for his purpose it would have been much better if the Hohenwalds
+had been living in state with a visitors' book and a chamberlain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On Wednesday evening Carlton took the ladies to the opera, where the
+Hohenwalds occupied a box immediately opposite them.  Carlton pretended
+to be surprised at this fact, but Mrs. Downs doubted his sincerity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw Nolan talking to their courier to-day," she said, "and I fancy
+he asked a few leading questions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, he didn't learn much if he did," he said.  "The fellow only
+talks German."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, then he has been asking questions!" said Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, he does it on his own responsibility," said Carlton, "for I told
+him to have nothing to do with servants.  He has too much zeal, has
+Nolan; I'm afraid of him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you were only half as interested as he is," said Miss Morris, "you
+would have known her long ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Long ago?" exclaimed Carlton.  "I only saw her four days since."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She is certainly very beautiful," said Miss Morris, looking across the
+auditorium.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But she isn't there," said Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the eldest sister; the two other sisters went out on the coach
+this morning to Versailles, and were too tired to come tonight.  At
+least, so Nolan says.  He seems to have established a friendship for
+their English maid, but whether it's on my account or his own I don't
+know.  I doubt his unselfishness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How disappointing of her!" said Miss Morris.  "And after you had
+selected a box just across the way, too.  It is such a pity to waste it
+on us."  Carlton smiled, and looked up at her impudently, as though he
+meant to say something; but remembering that she was engaged to be
+married, changed his mind, and lowered his eyes to his programme.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why didn't you say it?" asked Miss Morris, calmly, turning her glass
+to the stage.  "Wasn't it pretty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said Carlton--"not pretty enough."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ladies left the hotel the next day to take the Orient Express,
+which left Paris at six o'clock.  They had bidden Carlton goodbye at
+four the same afternoon, and as he had come to their rooms for that
+purpose, they were in consequence a little surprised to see him at the
+station, running wildly along the platform, followed by Nolan and a
+porter.  He came into their compartment after the train had started,
+and shook his head sadly at them from the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what do you think of this?" he said.  "You can't get rid of me,
+you see.  I'm going with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Going with us?" asked Mrs. Downs.  "How far?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton laughed, and, coming inside, dropped onto the cushions with a
+sigh.  "I don't know," he said, dejectedly.  "All the way, I'm afraid.
+That is, I mean, I'm very glad I am to have your society for a few days
+more; but really I didn't bargain for this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't mean to tell me that THEY are on this train?" said Miss
+Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are," said Carlton.  "They have a car to themselves at the rear.
+They only made up their minds to go this morning, and they nearly
+succeeded in giving me the slip again; but it seems that their English
+maid stopped Nolan in the hall to bid him good-bye, and so he found out
+their plans.  They are going direct to Constantinople, and then to
+Athens.  They had meant to stay in Paris two weeks longer, it seems,
+but they changed their minds last night.  It was a very close shave for
+me.  I only got back to the hotel in time to hear from the concierge
+that Nolan had flown with all of my things, and left word for me to
+follow.  Just fancy!  Suppose I had missed the train, and had had to
+chase him clear across the continent of Europe with not even a razor--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am glad," said Miss Morris, "that Nolan has not taken a fancy to ME.
+I doubt if I could resist such impetuosity."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Orient Express, in which Carlton and the mistress of his heart and
+fancy were speeding towards the horizon's utmost purple rim, was made
+up of six cars, one dining-car with a smoking-apartment attached, and
+five sleeping-cars, including the one reserved for the Duke of
+Hohenwald and his suite.  These cars were lightly built, and rocked in
+consequence, and the dust raised by the rapid movement of the train
+swept through cracks and open windows, and sprinkled the passengers
+with a fine and irritating coating of soot and earth.  There was one
+servant to the entire twenty-two passengers.  He spoke eight languages,
+and never slept; but as his services were in demand by several people
+in as many different cars at the same moment he satisfied no one, and
+the complaint-box in the smoking-car was stuffed full to the slot in
+consequence before they had crossed the borders of France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton and Miss Morris went out upon one of the platforms and sat down
+upon a tool-box.  "It's isn't as comfortable here as in an
+observation-car at home," said Carlton, "but it's just as noisy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He pointed out to her from time to time the peasants gathering twigs,
+and the blue-bloused gendarmes guarding the woods and the fences
+skirting them.  "Nothing is allowed to go to waste in this country," he
+said.  "It looks as though they went over it once a month with a
+lawn-mower and a pruning-knife.  I believe they number the trees as we
+number the houses."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And did you notice the great fortifications covered with grass?" she
+said.  "We have passed such a lot of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And did you notice that they all faced only one way?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton laughed, and nodded again.  "Towards Germany," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By the next day they had left the tall poplars and white roads behind
+them, and were crossing the land of low shiny black helmets and brass
+spikes.  They had come into a country of low mountains and black
+forests, with old fortified castles topping the hills, and with
+red-roofed villages scattered around the base.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How very military it all is!" Mrs. Downs said.  "Even the men at the
+lonely little stations in the forests wear uniforms; and do you notice
+how each of them rolls up his red flag and holds it like a sword, and
+salutes the train as it passes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They spent the hour during which the train shifted from one station in
+Vienna to the other driving about in an open carriage, and stopped for
+a few moments in front of a cafe to drink beer and to feel solid earth
+under them again, returning to the train with a feeling which was
+almost that of getting back to their own rooms.  Then they came to
+great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with
+little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this
+grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing
+sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons.  In one
+place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass,
+with the friends of the bride and groom in their best clothes, the
+women with silver breastplates, and boots to their knees.  It seemed
+hardly possible that only two days before they had seen another wedding
+party in the Champs Elysees, where the men wore evening dress, and the
+women were bareheaded and with long trains.  In forty-eight hours they
+had passed through republics, principalities, empires, and kingdoms,
+and from spring to winter.  It was like walking rapidly over a painted
+panorama of Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the second evening Carlton went off into the smoking-car alone.  The
+Duke of Hohenwald and two of his friends had finished a late supper,
+and were seated in the apartment adjoining it.  The Duke was a young
+man with a heavy beard and eyeglasses.  He was looking over an
+illustrated catalogue of the Salon, and as Carlton dropped on the sofa
+opposite the Duke raised his head and looked at him curiously, and then
+turned over several pages of the catalogue and studied one of them, and
+then back at Carlton, as though he were comparing him with something on
+the page before him.  Carlton was looking out at the night, but he
+could follow what was going forward, as it was reflected in the glass
+of the car window.  He saw the Duke hand the catalogue to one of the
+equerries, who raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in assent.
+Carlton wondered what this might mean, until he remembered that there
+was a portrait of himself by a French artist in the Salon, and
+concluded it had been reproduced in the catalogue.  He could think of
+nothing else which would explain the interest the two men showed in
+him.  On the morning following he sent Nolan out to purchase a
+catalogue at the first station at which they stopped, and found that
+his guess was a correct one.  A portrait of himself had been reproduced
+in black and white, with his name below it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, they know who I am now," he said to Miss Morris, "even if they
+don't know me.  That honor is still in store for them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish they did not lock themselves up so tightly," said Miss Morris.
+"I want to see her very much.  Cannot we walk up and down the platform
+at the next station?  She may be at the window."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course," said Carlton.  "You could have seen her at Buda-Pesth if
+you had spoken of it.  She was walking up and down then.  The next time
+the train stops we will prowl up and down and feast our eyes upon her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Miss Morris had her wish gratified without that exertion.  The
+Hohenwalds were served in the dining-car after the other passengers had
+finished, and were in consequence only to be seen when they passed by
+the doors of the other compartments.  But this same morning, after
+luncheon, the three Princesses, instead of returning to their own car,
+seated themselves in the compartment adjoining the dining-car, while
+the men of their party lit their cigars and sat in a circle around them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was wondering how long they could stand three men smoking in one of
+the boxes they call cars," said Mrs. Downs.  She was seated between
+Miss Morris and Carlton, directly opposite the Hohenwalds, and so near
+them that she had to speak in a whisper.  To avoid doing this Miss
+Morris asked Carlton for a pencil, and scribbled with it in the novel
+she held on her lap.  Then she passed them both back to him, and said,
+aloud: "Have you read this?  It has such a pretty dedication."  The
+dedication read, "Which is Aline?"  And Carlton, taking the pencil in
+his turn, made a rapid sketch of her on the fly-leaf, and wrote beneath
+it:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris took the book again, and glanced at the sketch, and then at
+the three Princesses, and nodded her head.  "It is very beautiful," she
+said, gravely, looking out at the passing landscape.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, not beautiful exactly," answered Carlton, surveying the hills
+critically, "but certainly very attractive.  It is worth travelling a
+long way to see, and I should think one would grow very fond of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris tore the fly-leaf out of the book, and slipped it between
+the pages.  "May I keep it?" she said.  Carlton nodded.  "And
+will you sign it?" she asked, smiling.  Carlton shrugged his shoulders,
+and laughed.  "If you wish it," he answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Princess wore a gray cheviot travelling dress, as did her sisters,
+and a gray Alpine hat.  She was leaning back, talking to the English
+captain who accompanied them, and laughing.  Carlton thought he had
+never seen a woman who appealed so strongly to every taste of which he
+was possessed.  She seemed so sure of herself, so alert, and yet so
+gracious, so easily entertained, and yet, when she turned her eyes
+towards the strange, dismal landscape, so seriously intent upon its sad
+beauty.  The English captain dropped his head, and with the pretence of
+pulling at his mustache, covered his mouth as he spoke to her.  When he
+had finished he gazed consciously at the roof of the car, and she kept
+her eyes fixed steadily at the object towards which they had turned
+when he had ceased speaking, and then, after a decent pause, turned her
+eyes, as Carlton knew she would, towards him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He was telling her who I am," he thought, "and about the picture in
+the catalogue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her, pointing
+out at something in the scenery, and the same pantomime was repeated,
+and again with the third sister.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you see those girls talking about you, Mr. Carlton?" Miss Morris
+asked, after they had left the car.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton said it looked as though they were.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course they were," said Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That Englishman told the Princess Aline something about you, and then
+she told her sister, and she told the eldest one.  It would be nice if
+they inherit their father's interest in painting, wouldn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would rather have it degenerate into an interest in painters
+myself," said Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris discovered, after she had returned to her own car, that she
+had left the novel where she had been sitting, and Carlton sent Nolan
+back for it.  It had slipped to the floor, and the fly-leaf upon which
+Carlton had sketched the Princess Aline was lying face down beside it.
+Nolan picked up the leaf, and saw the picture, and read the inscription
+below: "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He handed the book to Miss Morris, and was backing out of the
+compartment, when she stopped him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was a loose page in this, Nolan," she said.  "It's gone; did you
+see it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A loose page, miss?" said Nolan, with some concern.  "Oh, yes, miss; I
+was going to tell you; there was a scrap of paper blew away when I was
+passing between the carriages.  Was it something you wanted, miss?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something I wanted!" exclaimed Miss Morris, in dismay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton laughed easily.  "It is just as well I didn't sign it, after
+all," he said.  "I don't want to proclaim my devotion to any Hungarian
+gypsy who happens to read English."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must draw me another, as a souvenir," Miss Morris said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nolan continued on through the length of the car until he had reached
+the one occupied by the Hohenwalds, where he waited on the platform
+until the English maidservant saw him and came to the door of the
+carriage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What hotel are your people going to stop at in Constantinople?" Nolan
+asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Grande-Bretagne, I think," she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's right," said Nolan, approvingly.  "That's the one we are going
+to.  I thought I would come and tell you about it.  And, by-the-way,"
+he said, "here's a picture somebody's made of your Princess Aline.  She
+dropped it, and I picked it up.  You had better give it back to her.
+Well," he added, politely, "I'm glad you are coming to our hotel in
+Constantinople; it's pleasant having some one to talk to who can speak
+your own tongue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl returned to the car, and left Nolan alone upon the platform.
+He exhaled a long breath of suppressed excitement, and then gazed
+around nervously upon the empty landscape.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fancy that's going to hurry things up a bit," he murmured, with an
+anxious smile; "he'd never get along at all if it wasn't for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For reasons possibly best understood by the German ambassador, the
+state of the Hohenwalds at Constantinople differed greatly from that
+which had obtained at the French capital.  They no longer came and went
+as they wished, or wandered through the show-places of the city like
+ordinary tourists.  There was, on the contrary, not only a change in
+their manner towards others, but there was an insistence on their part
+of a difference in the attitude of others towards themselves.  This
+showed itself in the reserving of the half of the hotel for their use,
+and in the haughty bearing of the equerries, who appeared unexpectedly
+in magnificent uniforms.  The visitors' book was covered with the
+autographs of all of the important people in the Turkish capital, and
+the Sultan's carriages stood constantly before the door of the hotel,
+awaiting their pleasure, until they became as familiar a sight as the
+street dogs, or as cabs in a hansom-cab rank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And in following out the programme which had been laid down for her,
+the Princess Aline became even less accessible to Carlton than before,
+and he grew desperate and despondent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If the worst comes," he said to Miss Morris, "I shall tell Nolan to
+give an alarm of fire some night, and then I will run in and rescue her
+before they find out there is no fire.  Or he might frighten the horses
+some day, and give me a chance to stop them.  We might even wait until
+we reach Greece, and have her carried off by brigands, who would only
+give her up to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are no more brigands in Greece," said Miss Morris; "and besides,
+why do you suppose they would only give her up to you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because they would be imitation brigands," said Carlton, "and would be
+paid to give her up to no one else."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you plan very well," scoffed Miss Morris, "but you don't DO
+anything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton was saved the necessity of doing anything that same morning,
+when the English captain in attendance on the Duke sent his card to
+Carlton's room.  He came, he explained, to present the Prince's
+compliments, and would it be convenient for Mr. Carlton to meet the
+Duke that afternoon?  Mr. Carlton suppressed an unseemly desire to
+shout, and said, after a moment's consideration, that it would.  He
+then took the English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and
+rewarded him for his agreeable message.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke received Carlton in the afternoon, and greeted him most
+cordially, and with as much ease of manner as it is possible for a man
+to possess who has never enjoyed the benefits of meeting other men on
+an equal footing.  He expressed his pleasure in knowing an artist with
+whose work he was so familiar, and congratulated himself on the happy
+accident which had brought them both to the same hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have more than a natural interest in meeting you," said the Prince,
+"and for a reason which you may or may not know.  I thought possibly
+you could help me somewhat.  I have within the past few days come into
+the possession of two of your paintings; they are studies, rather, but
+to me they are even more desirable than the finished work; and I am not
+correct in saying that they have come to me exactly, but to my sister,
+the Princess Aline."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton could not withhold a certain start of surprise.  He had not
+expected that his gift would so soon have arrived, but his face showed
+only polite attention.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The studies were delivered to us in London," continued the Duke.
+"They are of Ludwig the tragedian, and of the German Prime Minister,
+two most valuable works, and especially interesting to us.  They came
+without any note or message which would inform us who had sent them,
+and when my people made inquiries, the dealer refused to tell them from
+whom they had come.  He had been ordered to forward them to Grasse,
+but, on learning of our presence in London, sent them direct to our
+hotel there.  Of course it is embarrassing to have so valuable a
+present from an anonymous friend, especially so for my sister, to whom
+they were addressed, and I thought that, besides the pleasure of
+meeting one of whose genius I am so warm an admirer, I might also learn
+something which would enable me to discover who our friend may be."  He
+paused, but as Carlton said nothing, continued:  "As it is now, I do
+not feel that I can accept the pictures; and yet I know no one to whom
+they can be returned, unless I send them to the dealer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It sounds very mysterious," said Carlton smiling; "and I am afraid I
+cannot help you.  What work I did in Germany was sold in Berlin before
+I left, and in a year may have changed hands several times.  The
+studies of which you speak are unimportant, and merely studies, and
+could pass from hand to hand without much record having been kept of
+them; but personally I am not able to give you any information which
+would assist you in tracing them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the Duke.  "Well, then, I shall keep them until I can learn
+more; and if we can learn nothing, I shall return them to the dealer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton met Miss Morris that afternoon in a state of great excitement.
+"It's come!" he cried--"it's come!  I am to meet her this week.  I have
+met her brother, and he has asked me to dine with them on Thursday
+night; that's the day before they leave for Athens; and he particularly
+mentioned that his sisters would be at the dinner, and that it would be
+a pleasure to present me.  It seems that the eldest paints, and all of
+them love art for art's sake, as their father taught them to do; and,
+for all we know, he may make me court painter, and I shall spend the
+rest of my life at Grasse painting portraits of the Princess Aline, at
+the age of twenty-two, and at all future ages.  And if he does give me
+a commission to paint her, I can tell you now in confidence that that
+picture will require more sittings than any other picture ever painted
+by man.  Her hair will have turned white by the time it is finished,
+and the gown she started to pose in will have become forty years behind
+the fashion!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her niece, with
+all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by
+their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see
+the Sultan's treasures.  Those of them who had waited two weeks for
+this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the
+eleventh hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these
+latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort.  The
+ministers of the different legations--as is the harmless custom of such
+gentlemen--had impressed every one for whom they had obtained
+permission to see the treasures with the great importance of the
+service rendered, and had succeeded in making every one feel either
+especially honored or especially uncomfortable at having given them so
+much trouble.  This sense of obligation, and the fact that the
+dragomans had assured the tourists that they were for the time being
+the guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors to
+such an extent that their manner in the long procession of carriages
+suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in front, escorted by
+Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners.  The procession halted at the
+palace, and the guests of the Sultan were received by numerous effendis
+in single-button frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them
+with glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of which
+every one was supposed to take a spoonful.  There was at first a
+general fear among the Cook's tourists that there would not be enough
+of this to go round, which was succeeded by a greater anxiety lest they
+should be served twice.  Some of the tourists put the sweet stuff in
+their mouths direct and licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the
+spoon into the glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it,
+and no one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who
+happened to have done it.  Carlton and Miss Morris went out on to the
+terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and looked out over the
+great panorama of waters, with the Sea of Marmora on one side, the
+Golden Horn on the other, and the Bosporus at their feet.  The sun was
+shining mildly, and the waters were stirred by great and little
+vessels; before them on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses
+which marked the grim cemetery of England's dead, and behind them were
+the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minarets of the two
+cities, and close at hand the mosaic walls and beautiful gardens of
+Constantine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your friends the Hohenwalds don't seem to know you this morning," she
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh yes; he spoke to me as we left the hotel," Carlton answered.  "But
+they are on parade at present.  There are a lot of their countrymen
+among the tourists."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel rather sorry for them," Miss Morris said, looking at the group
+with an amused smile.  "Etiquette cuts them off from so much innocent
+amusement.  Now, you are a gentleman, and the Duke presumably is, and
+why should you not go over and say, 'Your Highness, I wish you would
+present me to your sister, whom I am to meet at dinner to-morrow night.
+I admire her very much,' and then you could point out the historical
+features to her, and show her where they have finished off a blue and
+green tiled wall with a rusty tin roof, and make pretty speeches to
+her.  It wouldn't hurt her, and it would do you a lot of good.  The
+simplest way is always the best way, it seems to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh yes, of course," said Carlton.  "Suppose he came over here and
+said:  'Carlton, I wish you would present me to your young American
+friend.  I admire her very much,' I would probably say:  'Do you?
+Well, you will have to wait until she expresses some desire to meet
+you.'  No; etiquette is all right in itself, only some people don't
+know its laws, and that is the one instance to my mind where ignorance
+of the law is no excuse."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton left Miss Morris talking with the Secretary of the American
+Legation, and went to look for Mrs. Downs.  When he returned he found
+that the young Secretary had apparently asked and obtained permission
+to present the Duke's equerries and some of his diplomatic confreres,
+who were standing now about her in an attentive semicircle, and
+pointing out the different palaces and points of interest.  Carlton was
+somewhat disturbed at the sight, and reproached himself with not having
+presented any one to her before.  He was sure now that she must have
+had a dull time of it; but he wished, nevertheless, that if she was to
+meet other men, the Secretary had allowed him to act as master of
+ceremonies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you know," that gentleman was saying as Carlton came up,
+"that when you pass by Abydos, on the way to Athens, you will see where
+Leander swam the Hellespont to meet Hero.  That little white
+light-house is called Leander in honor of him.  It makes rather an
+interesting contrast--does it not?--to think of that chap swimming
+along in the dark, and then to find that his monument to-day is a
+lighthouse, with revolving lamps and electric appliances, and with
+ocean tramps and bridges and men-of-war around it.  We have improved in
+our mechanism since then," he said, with an air, "but I am afraid the
+men of to-day don't do that sort of thing for the women of to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then it is the men who have deteriorated," said one of the equerries,
+bowing to Miss Morris; "it is certainly not the women."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two Americans looked at Miss Morris to see how she received this,
+but she smiled good-naturedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know a man who did more than that for a woman," said Carlton,
+innocently.  "He crossed an ocean and several countries to meet her,
+and he hasn't met her yet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris looked at him and laughed, in the safety that no one
+understood him but herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But he ran no danger," she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He didn't, didn't he?" said Carlton, looking at her closely and
+laughing.  "I think he was in very great danger all the time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shocking!" said Miss Morris, reprovingly; "and in her very presence,
+too."  She knitted her brows and frowned at him.  "I really believe if
+you were in prison you would make pretty speeches to the jailer's
+daughter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Carlton, boldly, "or even to a woman who was a prisoner
+herself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know what you mean," she said, turning away from him to the
+others.  "How far was it that Leander swam?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The English captain pointed out two spots on either bank, and said that
+the shores of Abydos were a little over that distance apart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As far as that?" said Miss Morris.  "How much he must have cared for
+her!"  She turned to Carlton for an answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon," he said.  He was measuring the distance between
+the two points with his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said how much he must have cared for her!  You wouldn't swim that
+far for a girl."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For a girl!" laughed Carlton, quickly.  "I was just thinking I would
+do it for fifty dollars."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The English captain gave a hasty glance at the distance he had pointed
+out, and then turned to Carlton.  "I'll take you," he said, seriously.
+"I'll bet you twenty pounds you can't do it."  There was an easy laugh
+at Carlton's expense, but he only shook his head and smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Leave him alone, captain," said the American Secretary.  "It seems to
+me I remember a story of Mr. Carlton's swimming out from Navesink to
+meet an ocean liner.  It was about three miles, and the ocean was
+rather rough, and when they slowed up he asked them if it was raining
+in London when they left.  They thought he was mad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that true, Carlton?" asked the  Englishman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something like it," said the American, "except that I didn't ask them
+if it was raining in London.  I asked them for a drink, and it was they
+who were mad.  They thought I was drowning, and slowed up to lower a
+boat, and when they found out I was just swimming around they were
+naturally angry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I'm glad you didn't bet with me," said the captain, with a
+relieved laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening, as the Englishman was leaving the smoking-room, and after
+he had bidden Carlton good-night, he turned back and said:  "I didn't
+like to ask you before those men this morning, but there was something
+about your swimming adventure I wanted to know: Did you get that drink?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did," said Carlton--"in a bottle.  They nearly broke my shoulder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Carlton came into the breakfast-room on the morning of the day he
+was to meet the Princess Aline at dinner, Miss Morris was there alone,
+and he sat down at the same table, opposite to her.  She looked at him
+critically, and smiled with evident amusement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'To-day,'" she quoted, solemnly, "'the birthday of my life has come.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton poured out his coffee, with a shake of his head, and frowned.
+"Oh, you can laugh," he said, "but I didn't sleep at all last night.  I
+lay awake making speeches to her.  I know they are going to put me
+between the wrong sisters," he complained, "or next to one of those old
+ladies-in-waiting, or whatever they are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How are you going to begin?" said Miss Morris.  "Will you tell her you
+have followed her from London--or from New York, rather--that you are
+young Lochinvar, who came out of the West, and--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," said Carlton, meditatively, "just how I shall begin;
+but I know the curtain is going to rise promptly at eight
+o'clock--about the time the soup comes on, I think.  I don't see how
+she can help but be impressed a little bit.  It isn't every day a man
+hurries around the globe on account of a girl's photograph; and she IS
+beautiful, isn't she?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris nodded her head encouragingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know, sometimes," said Carlton, glancing over his shoulders to
+see if the waiters were out of hearing, "I fancy she has noticed me.
+Once or twice I have turned my head in her direction without meaning
+to, and found her looking--well, looking my way, at least.  Don't you
+think that is a good sign?" he asked, eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It depends on what you call a 'good sign,'" said Miss Morris,
+judicially.  "It is a sign you're good to look at, if that's what you
+want.  But you probably know that already, and it's nothing to your
+credit.  It certainly isn't a sign that a person cares for you because
+she prefers to look at your profile rather than at what the dragomans
+are trying to show her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton drew himself up stiffly.  "If you knew your ALICE better," he
+said, with severity, "you would understand that it is not polite to
+make personal remarks.  I ask you, as my confidante, if you think she
+has noticed me, and you make fun of my looks!  That's not the part of a
+confidante."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Noticed you!" laughed Miss Morris, scornfully.  "How could she help
+it?  You are always in the way.  You are at the door whenever they go
+out or come in, and when we are visiting mosques and palaces you are
+invariably looking at her instead of the tombs and things, with a
+wistful far-away look, as though you saw a vision.  The first time you
+did it, after you had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was
+all right.  You quite embarrassed her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't--I don't!" stammered Carlton, indignantly.  "I wouldn't be so
+rude.  Oh, I see I'll have to get another confidante; you are most
+unsympathetic and unkind."  But Miss Morris showed her sympathy later in
+the day, when Carlton needed it sorely; for the dinner towards which he
+had looked with such pleasurable anticipations and lover-like
+misgivings did not take place.  The Sultan, so the equerry informed
+him, had, with Oriental unexpectedness, invited the Duke to dine that
+night at the Palace, and the Duke, much to his expressed regret, had
+been forced to accept what was in the nature of a command.  He sent
+word by his equerry, however, that the dinner to Mr. Carlton was only a
+pleasure deferred, and that at Athens, where he understood Carlton was
+also going, he hoped to have the pleasure of entertaining him and
+making him known to his sisters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a selfish young egoist," said Carlton to Mrs. Downs.  "As if I
+cared whether he was at the dinner or not!  Why couldn't he have fixed
+it so I might have dined with his sisters alone?  We would never have
+missed him.  I'll never meet her now.  I know it; I feel it.  Fate is
+against me.  Now I will have to follow them on to Athens, and something
+will turn up there to keep me away from her.  You'll see; you'll see.
+I wonder where they go from Athens?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hohenwalds departed the next morning, and as their party had
+engaged all the state-rooms in the little Italian steamer, Carlton was
+forced to wait over for the next.  He was very gloomy over his
+disappointment, and Miss Morris did her best to amuse him.  She and her
+aunt were never idle now, and spent the last few days of their stay in
+Constantinople in the bazars or in excursions up and down the river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These are my last days of freedom," Miss Morris said to him once, "and
+I mean to make the most of them.  After this there will be no more
+travelling for me.  And I love it so!" she added, wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton made no comment, but he felt a certain contemptuous pity for
+the young man in America who had required such a sacrifice.  "She is
+too nice a girl to let him know she is making a sacrifice," he thought,
+"or giving up anything for him, but SHE won't forget it."  And Carlton
+again commended himself for not having asked any woman to make any
+sacrifices for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They left Constantinople for Athens one moonlight night, three days
+after the Hohenwalds had taken their departure, and as the evening and
+the air were warm, they remained upon the upper deck until the boat had
+entered the Dardanelles.  There were few passengers, and Mrs. Downs
+went below early, leaving Miss Morris and Carlton hanging over the
+rail, and looking down upon a band of Hungarian gypsies, who were
+playing the weird music of their country on the deck beneath them.  The
+low receding hills lay close on either hand, and ran back so sharply
+from the narrow waterway that they seemed to shut in the boat from the
+world beyond.  The moonlight showed a little mud fort or a thatched
+cottage on the bank fantastically, as through a mist, and from time to
+time as they sped forward they saw the camp-fire of a sentry, and his
+shadow as he passed between it and them, or stopped to cover it with
+wood.  The night was so still that they could hear the waves in the
+steamer's wake washing up over the stones on either shore, and the
+muffled beat of the engines echoed back from either side of the valley
+through which they passed.  There was a great lantern hanging midway
+from the mast, and shining down upon the lower deck.  It showed a group
+of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in strange costumes, sleeping, huddled
+together in picturesque confusion over the bare boards, or wide-awake
+and voluble, smoking and chatting together in happy company.  The music
+of the tizanes rose in notes of passionate ecstasy and sharp,
+unexpected bursts of melody.  It ceased and began again, as though the
+musicians were feeling their way, and then burst out once more into
+shrill defiance.  It stirred Carlton with a strange turbulent unrest.
+From the banks the night wind brought soft odors of fresh earth and of
+heavy foliage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The music of different countries," Carlton said at last, "means many
+different things.  But it seems to me that the music of Hungary is the
+music of love."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris crossed her arms comfortably on the rail, and he heard her
+laugh softly.  "Oh no, it is not," she said, undisturbed.  "It is a
+passionate, gusty, heady sort of love, if you like, but it's no more
+like the real thing than burgundy is like clear, cold, good water.
+It's not the real thing at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton, meekly.  "Of course I don't know
+anything about it."  He had been waked out of the spell which the night
+and the tizanes had placed upon him as completely as though some one had
+shaken him sharply by the shoulder.  "I bow," he said, "to your superior
+knowledge.  I know nothing about it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; you are quite right.  I don't believe you do know anything about
+it," said the girl, "or you wouldn't have made such a comparison."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know, Miss Morris," said Carlton, seriously, "that I believe
+I'm not able to care for a woman as other men do--at least as some men
+do; it's just lacking in me, and always will be lacking.  It's like an
+ear for music; if you haven't got it, if it isn't born in you, you'll
+never have it.  It's not a thing you can cultivate, and I feel that
+it's not only a misfortune, but a fault.  Now I honestly believe that I
+care more for the Princess Aline, whom I have never met, than many
+other men could care for her if they knew her well; but what they feel
+would last, and I have doubts from past experience that what I feel
+would.  I don't doubt it while it exists, but it never does exist long,
+and so I am afraid it is going to be with me to the end of the
+chapter."  He paused for a moment, but the girl did not answer.  "I am
+speaking in earnest now," he added, with a rueful laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see you are," she replied, briefly.  She seemed to be considering
+his condition as he had described it to her, and he did not interrupt
+her.  From below them came the notes of the waltz the gypsies played.
+It was full of the undercurrent of sadness that a waltz should have,
+and filled out what Carlton said as the music from the orchestra in a
+theatre heightens the effect without interrupting the words of the
+actor on the stage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is strange," said Miss Morris.  "I should have thought you were a
+man who would care very much and in just the right way.  But I don't
+believe really--I'm sorry, but I don't believe you do know what love
+means at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," said Carlton.  "I think I know what it
+is, and what it means to other people, but I can't feel it myself.  The
+best idea I ever got of it--the thing that made it clear to me--was a
+line in a play.  It seemed to express it better than any of the
+love-poems I ever read.  It was in Shenandoah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg yours," she said.  "It was only the incongruity that struck me.
+It seemed so odd to be quoting Shenandoah here in the Dardanelles, with
+these queer people below us and ancient Troy on one hand--it took me by
+surprise, that's all.  Please go on.  What was it impressed you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, the hero in the play," said Carlton, "is an officer in the
+Northern army, and he is lying wounded in a house near the Shenandoah
+Valley.  The girl he loves lives in this house, and is nursing him; but
+she doesn't love him,  because she sympathizes with the South.  At
+least she says she doesn't love him.  Both armies are forming in the
+valley below to begin the battle, and he sees his own regiment
+hurrying past to join them, So he gets up and staggers out on the
+stage, which is set to show the yard in front of the farm-house, and he
+calls for his horse to follow his men.  Then the girl runs out and begs
+him not to go; and he asks why, what does it matter to her whether he
+goes or not?  And she says, 'But I cannot let you go; you may be
+killed.'  And he says again, 'What is that to you?'  And she says:  'It
+is everything to me.  I love you.'  And he makes a grab at her with his
+wounded arm, and at that instant both armies open fire in the valley
+below, and the whole earth and sky seem to open and shut, and the house
+rocks.  The girl rushes at him and crowds up against his breast, and
+cries:  'What is that?  Oh, what is that?' and he holds her tight to
+him and laughs, and says:  'THAT?  That's only a battle--you love me.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris looked steadfastly over the side of the boat at the waters
+rushing by beneath, smiling to herself.  Then she turned her face
+towards Carlton, and nodded her head at him.  "I think," she said,
+dryly, "that you have a fair idea of what it means; a rough
+working-plan at least--enough to begin on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said that I knew what it meant to others.  I am complaining that I
+cannot feel it myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That will come in time, no doubt," she said, encouragingly, with the
+air of a connoisseur; "and let me tell you," she added, "that it will
+be all the better for the woman that you have doubted yourself so long."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You think so?" said Carlton, eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris laughed at his earnestness, and left him to go below to ask
+her aunt to join them, but Mrs. Downs preferred to read in the saloon,
+and Miss Morris returned alone.  She had taken off her Eton jacket and
+pulled on a heavy blue football sweater, and over this a reefer.  The
+jersey clung to her and showed the lines of her figure, and emphasized
+the freedom and grace with which she made every movement.  She looked,
+as she walked at his side with her hands in the pockets of her coat and
+with a flat sailor hat on her head, like a tall, handsome boy; but when
+they stopped and stood where the light fell full on her hair and the
+exquisite coloring of her skin, Carlton thought her face had never
+seemed so delicate or fair as it did then, rising from the collar of
+the rough jersey, and contrasted with the hat and coat of a man's
+attire.  They paced the deck for an hour later, until every one else
+had left it, and at midnight were still loath to give up the beautiful
+night and the charm of their strange surroundings.  There were long
+silent places in their talk, during which Carlton tramped beside her
+with his head half turned, looking at her and noting with an artist's
+eye the free light step, the erect carriage, and the unconscious beauty
+of her face.  The captain of the steamer joined them after midnight,
+and falling into step, pointed out to Miss Morris where great cities
+had stood, where others lay buried, and where beyond the hills were the
+almost inaccessible monasteries of the Greek Church.  The moonlight
+turned the banks into shadowy substances, in which the ghosts of former
+days seemed to make a part; and spurred by the young girl's interest,
+the Italian, to entertain her, called up all the legends of mythology
+and the stories of Roman explorers and Turkish conquerors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I turn in now," he said, after Miss Morris had left them.  "A most
+charming young lady.  Is it not so?" he added, waving his cigarette in
+a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of the adjective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, very," said Carlton.  "Good-night, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at
+the misty banks, puffing at his cigar.  Then he dropped it hissing into
+the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the
+deserted deck.  It seemed particularly bare and empty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What a pity she's engaged!" Carlton said.  "She loses so much by it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early hour the
+next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled with shrieking
+porters and hotel-runners at the sides.  These men tossed their
+painters to the crew, and crawled up them like a boarding crew of
+pirates, running wildly about the deck, and laying violent hands on any
+piece of baggage they saw unclaimed.  The passengers' trunks had been
+thrown out in a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering
+over them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood
+below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself, and
+pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her.  As she stood
+there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy Levantine in pursuit of
+a possible victim, shouldered her intentionally and roughly out of the
+way.  He shoved her so sharply that she lost her balance and fell back
+against the rail.  Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying
+leap from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in
+time to seize the escaping offender by the collar.  He jerked him back
+off his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How dare you--" he began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he did not finish.  He felt the tips of Miss Morris's fingers laid
+upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone:  "Don't;
+please don't."  And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on
+the man's shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to
+flow calmly again through his veins.  Carlton was aware that he had a
+very quick temper.  He was always engaging in street rows, as he called
+them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else,
+and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never
+been satisfied without a blow or an apology.  Women had also touched
+him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had
+stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on
+him had had them beaten down for their pains.  But this girl had merely
+touched him gently, and he had been made helpless.  It was most
+perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing his
+luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as though it were
+numb, and looking down at it with an amused smile.  He did not comment
+on the incident, although he smiled at the recollection of his prompt
+obedience several times during the day.  But as he was stepping into
+the cab to drive to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping
+with water, and muttering bitter curses.  When he saw Carlton he
+disappeared instantly in the crowd.  Carlton stepped over to where
+Nolan sat beside the driver on the box.  "Nolan," he said, in a low
+voice, "isn't that the fellow who--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir," said Nolan, touching his hat gravely.  "He was pulling a
+valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it
+the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over
+backwards off the pier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nolan," he said, "you're not telling the truth.  You did it yourself."
+Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously.  There had been no
+detaining fingers on Nolan's arm.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"You are coming now, Miss Morris," exclaimed Carlton from the front of
+the carriage in which they were moving along the sunny road to Athens,
+"into a land where one restores his lost illusions.  Anybody who wishes
+to get back his belief in beautiful things should come here to do it,
+just as he would go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or
+his appetite.  You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you are
+cured.  I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege of cable-cars
+and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of Robert Elsmeres and the
+Heavenly Twins.  Wait until you see the statues of the young athletes
+in the Museum," he cried, enthusiastically, "and get a glimpse of the
+blue sky back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the
+Acropolis, and you'll be convinced that nothing counts for much in this
+world but health and straight limbs, and tall marble pillars, and eyes
+trained to see only what is beautiful.  Give people a love for beauty
+and a respect for health, Miss Morris, and the result is going to be,
+what they once had here, the best art and the greatest writers and
+satirists and poets.  The same audience that applauded Euripides and
+Sophocles in the open theatre used to cross the road the same day to
+applaud the athletes who ran naked in the Olympian games, and gave them
+as great honor.  I came here once on a walking tour with a chap who
+wasn't making as much of himself as he should have done, and he went
+away a changed man, and became a personage in the world, and you would
+never guess what it was that did it.  He saw a statue of one of the
+Greek gods in the Museum which showed certain muscles that he couldn't
+find in his own body, and he told me he was going to train down until
+they did show; and he stopped drinking and loafing to do it, and took
+to exercising and working; and by the time the muscles showed out clear
+and strong he was so keen over life that he wanted to make the most of
+it, and, as I said, he has done it.  That's what a respect for his own
+body did for him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The carriage stopped at the hotel on one side of the public square of
+Athens, with the palace and its gardens blocking one end, and yellow
+houses with red roofs, and gay awnings over the cafes, surrounding it.
+It was a bright sunny day, and the city was clean and cool and pretty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Breakfast?" exclaimed Miss Morris, in answer to Carlton's inquiry;
+"yes, I suppose so, but I won't feel safe until I have my feet on that
+rock."  She was standing on the steps of the hotel, looking up with
+expectant, eager eyes at the great Acropolis above the city.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It has been there for a long time now," suggested Carlton, "and I
+think you can risk its being there for a half-hour longer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," she said, reluctantly, "but I don't wish to lose this chance.
+There might be an earthquake, for instance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are likely to see THEM this morning," said Carlton, as he left the
+hotel with the ladies and drove towards the Acropolis.  "Nolan has been
+interviewing the English maid, and she tells him they spend the greater
+part of their time up there on the rock.  They are living very simply
+here, as they did in Paris; that is, for the present.  On Wednesday the
+King gives a dinner and a reception in their honor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When does your dinner come off?" asked Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never," said Carlton, grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of the reasons why I like to come back to Athens so much," said
+Mrs. Downs, "is because there are so few other tourists here to spoil
+the local color for you, and there are almost as few guides as
+tourists, so that you can wander around undisturbed and discover things
+for yourself.  They don't label every fallen column, and place fences
+around the temples.  They seem to put you on your good behavior.  Then
+I always like to go to a place where you are as much of a curiosity to
+the people as they are to you.  It seems to excuse your staring about
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A curiosity!" exclaimed Carlton; "I should say so!  The last time I
+was here I tried to wear a pair of knickerbockers around the city, and
+the people stared so that I had to go back to the hotel and change
+them.  I shouldn't have minded it so much in any other country, but I
+thought men who wore Jaeger underclothing and women's petticoats for a
+national costume might have excused so slight an eccentricity as
+knickerbockers.  THEY had no right to throw the first stone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rock upon which the temples of the Acropolis are built is more of a
+hill than a rock.  It is much steeper upon one side than the other,
+with a sheer fall a hundred yards broad; on the opposite side there are
+the rooms of the Hospital of Aesculapius and the theatres of Dionysus
+and Herodes Atticus.  The top of the rock holds the Parthenon and the
+other smaller temples, or what yet remains of them, and its surface is
+littered with broken marble and stones and pieces of rock.  The top is
+so closely built over that the few tourists who visit it can imagine
+themselves its sole occupants for a half-hour at a time.  When Carlton
+and his friends arrived, the place appeared quite deserted.  They left
+the carriage at the base of the rock, and climbed up to the entrance on
+foot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, before I go on to the Parthenon," said Miss Morris, "I want to
+walk around the sides, and see what is there.  I shall begin with that
+theatre to the left, and I warn you that I mean to take my time about
+it.  So you people who have been here before can run along by
+yourselves, but I mean to enjoy it leisurely.  I am safe by myself
+here, am I not?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As safe as though you were in the Metropolitan Museum," said Carlton,
+as he and Mrs. Downs followed Miss Morris along the side of the hill
+towards the ruined theatre of Herodes, and stood at its top, looking
+down into the basin below.  From their feet ran a great semicircle of
+marble seats, descending tier below tier to a marble pavement, and
+facing a great ruined wall of pillars and arches which in the past had
+formed the background for the actors.  From the height on which they
+stood above the city they could see the green country stretching out
+for miles on every side and swimming in the warm sunlight, the dark
+groves of myrtle on the hills, the silver ribbon of the inland water,
+and the dark blue AEgean Sea.  The bleating of sheep and the tinkling
+of the bells came up to them from the pastures below, and they imagined
+they could hear the shepherds piping to their flocks from one little
+hill-top to another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The country is not much changed," said Carlton.  "And when you stand
+where we are now, you can imagine that you see the procession winding
+its way over the road to the Eleusinian Mysteries, with the gilded
+chariots, and the children carrying garlands, and the priestesses
+leading the bulls for the sacrifice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What can we imagine is going on here?" said Miss Morris, pointing with
+her parasol to the theatre below.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, this is much later," said Carlton.  "This was built by the Romans.
+They used to act and to hold their public meetings here.  This
+corresponds to the top row of our gallery, and you can imagine that you
+are looking down on the bent backs of hundreds of bald-headed men in
+white robes, listening to the speakers strutting about below there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder how much they could hear from this height?" said Mrs. Downs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, they had that big wall for a sounding-board, and the air is so
+soft here that their voices should have carried easily, and I believe
+they wore masks with mouth-pieces, that conveyed the sound like a
+fireman's trumpet.  If you like, I will run down there and call up to
+you, and you can hear how it sounded.  I will speak in my natural voice
+first, and if that doesn't reach you, wave your parasol, and I will try
+it a little louder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, do!" said Miss Morris.  "It will be very good of you.  I should
+like to hear a real speech in the theatre of Herodes," she said, as she
+seated herself on the edge of the marble crater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll have to speak in English," said Carlton, as he disappeared; "my
+Greek isn't good enough to carry that far."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Downs seated herself beside her niece, and Carlton began
+scrambling down the side of the amphitheatre.  The marble benches were
+broken in parts, and where they were perfect were covered with a fine
+layer of moss as smooth and soft as green velvet, so that Carlton, when
+he was not laboriously feeling for his next foothold with the toe of
+his boot, was engaged in picking spring flowers from the beds of moss
+and sticking them, for safe-keeping, in his button-hole.  He was
+several minutes in making the descent, and so busily occupied in doing
+it that he did not look up until he had reached the level of the
+ground, and jumped lightly from the first row of seats to the stage,
+covered with moss, which lay like a heavy rug over the marble pavement.
+When he did look up he saw a tableau that made his heart, which was
+beating quickly from the exertion of the descent, stand still with
+consternation.  The Hohenwalds had, in his short absence, descended
+from the entrance of the Acropolis, and had stopped on their way to the
+road below to look into the cool green and white basin of the theatre.
+At the moment Carlton looked up the Duke was standing in front of Mrs.
+Downs and Miss Morris, and all of the men had their hats off.  Then, in
+pantomime, and silhouetted against the blue sky behind them, Carlton
+saw the Princesses advance beside their brother, and Mrs. Downs and her
+niece courtesied three times, and then the whole party faced about in a
+line and looked down at him.  The meaning of the tableau was only too
+plain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good heavens!" gasped Carlton.  "Everybody's getting introduced to
+everybody else, and I've missed the whole thing!  If they think I'm
+going to stay down here and amuse them, and miss all the fun myself,
+they are greatly mistaken."  He made a mad rush for the front first row
+of seats; but there was a cry of remonstrance from above, and, looking
+up, he saw all of the men waving him back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Speech!" cried the young English Captain, applauding loudly, as though
+welcoming an actor on his first entrance.  "Hats off!" he cried.  "Down
+in front!  Speech!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Confound that ass!" said Carlton, dropping back to the marble pavement
+again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures outlined against
+the sky.  "I must look like a bear in the bear-pit at the Zoo," he
+growled.  "They'll be throwing buns to me next."  He could see the two
+elder sisters talking to Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his
+purpose in going down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the
+Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol, and
+smiling.  The captain made a trumpet of his hands, and asked why he
+didn't begin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello! how are you?" Carlton called back, waving his hat at him in
+some embarrassment.  "I wonder if I look as much like a fool as I
+feel?" he muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did you say?  We can't hear you," answered the captain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Louder! louder!" called the equerries.  Carlton swore at them under
+his breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which he was penned
+in order to make them believe that he had given up the idea of making a
+speech, or had ever intended doing so.  He tried to think of something
+clever to shout back at them, and rejected "Ye men of Athens" as being
+too flippant, and "Friends, Countrymen, Romans," as requiring too much
+effort.  When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their
+way, and as he started once more to scale the side of the theatre the
+Duke waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave another hand to his
+sisters, who disappeared with him behind the edge of the upper row of
+seats.  Carlton turned at once and dropped into one of the marble
+chairs and bowed his head.  When he did reach the top Miss Morris held
+out a sympathetic hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could
+see that she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from
+smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it's all very funny for you," he said, refusing her hand.  "I
+don't believe you are in love with anybody.  You don't know what it
+means."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after, and then
+left Athens for an inland excursion to stay overnight.  Miss Morris
+returned from it with the sense of having done her duty once, and by so
+doing having earned the right  to act as she pleased in the future.
+What she best pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of
+the Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical
+values, but rather, as she explained it, for the simple satisfaction of
+feeling that she was there.  She liked to stand on the edge of the low
+wall along its top and look out over the picture of sea and plain and
+mountains that lay below her.  The sun shone brightly, and the wind
+swept by them as though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer,
+and there was the added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us
+when we stand on a great height.  Carlton was sitting at her feet,
+shielded from the wind by a fallen column, and gazing up at her with
+critical approval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You look like a sort of a 'Winged Victory' up there," he said, "with
+the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair coming down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't remember that the 'Winged Victory' has any hair to blow
+about," suggested Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd like to paint you," continued Carlton, "just as you are standing
+now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you could stand a Greek
+dress better than almost any one I know.  I would paint you with your
+head up and one hand shielding your eyes, and the other pressed against
+your breast.  It would be stunning."  He spoke enthusiastically, but in
+quite an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of a
+model.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had been
+standing, and said, simply, "Of course I should like to have you paint
+me very much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When?" said Carlton, vaguely.  "Oh, I don't know.  Of course this is
+entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home soon, and then
+when I do get back to the States you will--you will have other things
+to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," repeated Miss Morris, "I shall have something else to do besides
+gazing out at the AEgean Sea."  She raised her head and looked across
+the rock for a moment with some interest.  Her eyes, which had grown
+wistful, lighted again with amusement.  "Here are your friends," she
+said, smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" exclaimed Carlton, scrambling to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Miss Morris.  "The Duke has seen us, and is coming over
+here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Carlton had gained his feet and turned to look, his friends had
+separated in different directions, and were strolling about alone or in
+pairs among the great columns of the Parthenon.  But the Duke came
+directly towards them, and seated himself on a low block of marble in
+front of the two ladies.  After a word or two about the beauties of the
+place, he asked if they would go to the reception which the King gave
+to him on the day following.  They answered that they should like to
+come very much, and the Prince expressed his satisfaction, and said
+that he would see that the chamberlain sent them invitations.  "And
+you, Mr. Carlton, you will come also, I hope.  I wish you to be
+presented to my sisters.  They are only amateurs in art, but they are
+great admirers of your work, and they have rebuked me for not having
+already presented you.  We were all disappointed," he continued,
+courteously, "at not having you to dine with us that night in
+Constantinople, but now I trust I shall see something of you here.  You
+must tell us what we are to admire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is very easy," said Carlton.  "Everything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are quite right," said the Prince, bowing to the ladies as he
+moved away.  "It is all very beautiful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, now you certainly will meet her," said Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh no, I won't," said Carlton, with resignation.  "I have had two
+chances and lost them, and I'll miss this one too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, there is a chance you shouldn't miss," said Miss Morris,
+pointing and nodding her head.  "There she is now, and all alone.
+She's sketching, isn't she, or taking notes?  What is she doing?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton looked eagerly in the direction Miss Morris had signified, and
+saw the Princess Aline sitting at some distance from them, with a book
+on her lap.  She glanced up from this now and again to look at
+something ahead of her, and was apparently deeply absorbed in her
+occupation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is your opportunity," said Mrs. Downs; "and we are going back to
+the hotel.  Shall we see you at luncheon?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Carlton, "unless I get a position as drawing-master; in
+that case I shall be here teaching the three amateurs in art.  Do you
+think I can do it?" he asked Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Decidedly," she answered.  "I have found you a most educational young
+person."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went away together, and Carlton moved cautiously towards the spot
+where the Princess was sitting.  He made a long and roundabout detour
+as he did so, in order to keep himself behind her.  He did not mean to
+come so near that she would see him, but he took a certain satisfaction
+in looking at her when she was alone, though her loneliness was only a
+matter of the moment, and though he knew that her people were within a
+hundred yards of her.  He was in consequence somewhat annoyed and
+surprised to see another young man dodging in and out among the pillars
+of the Parthenon immediately ahead of him, and to find that this young
+man also had his attention centred on the young girl, who sat
+unconsciously sketching in the foreground.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now what the devil can he want?" muttered Carlton, his imagination
+taking alarm at once.  "If it would only prove to be some one who meant
+harm to her," he thought--"a brigand, or a beggar, who might be
+obligingly insolent, or even a tipsy man, what a chance it would afford
+for heroic action!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With this hope he moved forward quickly but silently, hoping that the
+stranger might prove even to be an anarchist with a grudge against
+royalty.  And as he advanced he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+Princess glance over her shoulder, and, observing the man, rise and
+walk quickly away towards the edge of the rock.  There she seated
+herself with her face towards the city, and with her back firmly set
+against her pursuer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is annoying her!" exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried
+forward.  "It looks as though my chance had come at last."  But as he
+approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he
+had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international
+army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a
+hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a
+prominent politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish
+that came within the focus of his camera.  A helpless statue and an
+equally helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his mercy.
+He was bending over, with an anxious expression of countenance, and
+focussing his camera on the back of the Princess Aline, when Carlton
+approached from the rear.  As the young man put his finger on the
+button of the camera, Carlton jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed
+the enthusiastic tourist to one side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Say," exclaimed that individual, "look where you're going, will you?
+You spoiled that plate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any longer," said
+Carlton, in a low voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire of
+pursuit was still in his eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's a Princess," he explained, in an excited whisper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Carlton, "even a Princess is entitled to some
+consideration.  Besides," he said, in a more amicable tone, "you
+haven't a permit to photograph on the Acropolis.  You know you
+haven't."  Carlton was quite sure of this, because there were no such
+permits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The amateur looked up in some dismay.  "I didn't know you had to have
+them," he said.  "Where can I get one?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The King may give you one," said Carlton.  "He lives at the palace.
+If they catch you up here without a license, they will confiscate your
+camera and lock you up.  You had better vanish before they see you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you.  I will," said the tourist, anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, "when he goes to the palace
+with that box and asks for a permit, they'll think he is either a
+dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest
+in photography will have sustained a severe shock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Carlton turned from watching the rapid flight of the photographer,
+he observed that the Princess had remarked it also, as she had no doubt
+been a witness of what had passed, even if she had not overheard all
+that had been said.  She rose from her enforced position of refuge with
+a look of relief, and came directly towards Carlton along the rough
+path that led through the debris on the top of the Acropolis.  Carlton
+had thought, as he watched her sitting on the wall, with her chin
+resting on her hand, that she would make a beautiful companion picture
+to the one he had wished to paint of Miss Morris--the one girl standing
+upright, looking fearlessly out to sea, on the top of the low wall,
+with the wind blowing her skirts about her, and her hair tumbled in the
+breeze, and the other seated, bending intently forward, as though
+watching for the return of a long-delayed vessel; a beautifully sad
+face, fine and delicate and noble, the face of a girl on the figure of
+a woman.  And when she rose he made no effort to move away, or, indeed,
+to pretend not to have seen her, but stood looking at her as though he
+had the right to do so, and as though she must know he had that right.
+As she came towards him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even
+shorten her steps; but as she passed opposite to him she bowed her
+thanks with a sweet impersonal smile and a dropping of the eyes, and
+continued steadily on her way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton stood for some short time looking after her, with his hat still
+at his side.  She seemed farther from him at that moment than she had
+ever been before, although she had for the first time recognized him.
+But he knew that it was only as a human being that she had recognized
+him.  He put on his hat, and sat down on a rock with his elbows on his
+knees, and filled his pipe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If that had been any other girl," he thought, "I would have gone up to
+her and said, 'Was that man annoying you?' and she would have said,
+'Yes; thank you,' or something; and I would have walked along with her
+until we had come up to her friends, and she would have told them I had
+been of some slight service to her, and they would have introduced us,
+and all would have gone well.  But because she is a Princess she cannot
+be approached in that way.  At least she does not think so, and I have
+to act as she has been told I should act, and not as I think I should.
+After all, she is only a very beautiful girl, and she must be very
+tired of her cousins and grandmothers, and of not being allowed to see
+any one else.  These royalties make a very picturesque show for the
+rest of us, but indeed it seems rather hard on them.  A hundred years
+from now there will be no more kings and queens, and the writers of
+that day will envy us, just as the writers of this day envy the men who
+wrote of chivalry and tournaments, and they will have to choose their
+heroes from bank presidents, and their heroines from lady lawyers and
+girl politicians and type-writers.  What a stupid world it will be
+then!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day brought the reception to the Hohenwalds; and Carlton,
+entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same afternoon, found
+Miss Morris and her aunt there together taking tea.  They both looked
+at him with expressions of such genuine commiseration that he stopped
+just as he was going to seat himself and eyed them defiantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't tell me," he exclaimed, "that this has fallen through too!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris nodded her head silently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton dropped into the chair beside them, and folded his arms with a
+frown of grim resignation.  "What is it?" he asked.  "Have they
+postponed the reception?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Miss Morris said; "but the Princess Aline will not be there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course not," said Carlton, calmly, "of course not.  May I ask why?
+I knew that she wouldn't be there, but I may possibly be allowed to
+express some curiosity."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She turned her ankle on one of the loose stones on the Acropolis this
+afternoon," said Miss Morris, "and sprained it so badly that they had
+to carry her--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who carried her?" Carlton demanded, fiercely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some of her servants."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, of course!" cried Carlton.  "That's the way it always will
+be.  I was there the whole afternoon, and I didn't see her.  I wasn't
+there to help her.  It's Fate, that's what it is--Fate!  There's no use
+in my trying to fight against Fate.  Still," he added, anxiously, with
+a sudden access of hope, "she may be well by this evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hardly think she will," said Miss Morris, "but we will trust so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King's palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park,
+and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds
+and the Americans were staying.  As the hotel was the first building on
+the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the
+illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and
+departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering
+through the iron rails into the King's garden.  It was a warm night,
+and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in
+silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the
+yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town.  Every window in the
+broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors
+came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall
+servants in the King's blue and white livery, and the men of his guard
+in their white petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.
+Carlton pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an
+agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street and entered
+the palace.  The line of royalties had broken by the time he reached
+the ballroom, and the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left
+him free, after a bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move
+about as he pleased.  His most earnest desire was to learn whether or
+not the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the
+English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked
+eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her accident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said the officer; "she's able to walk about, but not to stand,
+and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing.  Too bad,
+wasn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Carlton, "very bad."  He released his hand from the other's
+arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway.  His
+disappointment was very keen.  Indeed, he had not known how much this
+meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this
+disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and
+have her sympathize and laugh with him.  He became conscious, as he
+searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and
+repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for
+sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him.  He
+wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and
+whether he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she
+not been there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew
+fainthearted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and for an
+instant doubted if it were she.  The girl he saw seemed to be a more
+beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew--a taller, fairer, and more
+radiant personage; and he feared that it was not she, until he
+remembered that this was the first time he had ever seen her with her
+hair dressed high upon her head, and in the more distinguished
+accessories of a décolleté gown and train.  Miss Morris had her hand on
+the arm of one of the equerries, who was battling good-naturedly with
+the crowd, and trying to draw her away from two persistent youths in
+diplomatic uniform who were laughing and pressing forward in close
+pursuit on the other side.  Carlton approached her with a certain
+feeling of diffidence, which was most unusual to him, and asked if she
+were dancing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Carlton shall decide for me," Miss Morris said, dropping the
+equerry's arm and standing beside the American.  "I have promised all
+of these gentlemen," she explained, "to dance with them, and now they
+won't agree as to which is to dance first.  They've wasted half this
+waltz already in discussing it, and they make it much more difficult by
+saying that no matter how I decide, they will fight duels with the one
+I choose, which is most unpleasant for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Most unpleasant for the gentleman you choose, too," suggested Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So," continued Miss Morris, "I have decided to leave it to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, if I am to arbitrate between the powers," said Carlton, with a
+glance at the three uniforms, "my decision is that as they insist on
+fighting duels in any event, you had better dance with me until they
+have settled it between them, and then the survivor can have the next
+dance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a very good idea," said Miss Morris; and taking Carlton's arm,
+she bowed to the three men and drew away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Carlton," said the equerry, with a bow, "has added another
+argument in favor of maintaining standing armies, and of not submitting
+questions to arbitration."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's get out of this," said Carlton.  "You don't want to dance, do
+you?  Let us go where it's cool."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace.  They did not
+speak again until they had left it, and were walking under the trees in
+the Queen's garden.  He had noticed as they made their way through the
+crowd how the men and women turned to look at her and made way for her,
+and how utterly unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
+unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such discrimination,
+and Carlton himself held his head a little higher with the pride and
+pleasure the thought gave him that he was in such friendly sympathy
+with so beautiful a creature.  He stopped before a low stone bench that
+stood on the edge of the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical
+trees, and guarded by a marble statue.  They were in deep shadow
+themselves, but the moonlight fell on the path at their feet, and
+through the trees on the other side of the path they could see the open
+terrace of the palace, with the dancers moving in and out of the
+lighted windows.  The splash of a fountain came from some short
+distance behind them, and from time to time they heard the strains of a
+regimental band alternating with the softer strains of a waltz played
+by a group of Hungarian musicians.  For a moment neither of them spoke,
+but sat watching the white dresses of the women and the uniforms of the
+men moving in and out among the trees, lighted by the lanterns hanging
+from the branches, and the white mist of the moon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know," said Carlton, "I'm rather afraid of you to-night!"  He
+paused, and watched her for a little time as she sat upright, with her
+hands folded on her lap.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are so very resplendent and queenly and altogether different," he
+added.  The girl moved her bare shoulders slightly and leaned back
+against the bench.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Princess did not come," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at having
+forgotten that fact.  "That's one of the reasons I took you away from
+those men," he explained.  "I wanted you to sympathize with me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris did not answer him at once.  She did not seem to be in a
+sympathetic mood.  Her manner suggested rather that she was tired and
+troubled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I need sympathy myself to-night," she said.  "We received a letter
+after dinner that brought bad news for us.  We must go home at once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bad news!" exclaimed Carlton, with much concern.  "From home?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, from home," she replied; "but there is nothing wrong there; it is
+only bad news for us.  My sister has decided to be married in June
+instead of July, and that cuts us out of a month on the Continent.
+That's all.  We shall have to leave immediately--tomorrow.  It seems
+that Mr. Abbey is able to go away sooner than he had hoped, and they
+are to be married on the first."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Abbey!" exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name.  "But your sister
+isn't going to marry him, is she?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise.  "Yes--why not?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I say!" cried Carlton, "I thought your aunt told me that YOU were
+going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on the steamer when he
+came to see you off."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I marry him--my aunt told you--impossible!" said Miss Morris, smiling.
+"She probably said that 'her niece' was going to marry him; she meant
+my sister.  They had been engaged some time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then who are YOU going to marry?" stammered Carlton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not going to marry any one," said Miss Morris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement.  "Well, that's most
+absurd!" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly adequate, but he
+could not readjust his mind so suddenly to the new idea, and he
+remained looking at her with many confused memories rushing through his
+brain.  A dozen questions were on his tongue.  He remembered afterwards
+how he had noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the
+orange-colored lanterns, and that he had watched him as he disappeared
+among the palms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
+significance in itself which Carlton recognized.  He pulled himself up
+with a short laugh.  "Well," he remonstrated, mirthlessly, "I don't
+think you've treated ME very well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How, not treated you very well?" Miss Morris asked, settling herself
+more easily.  She had been sitting during the pause which followed
+Carlton's discovery with a certain rigidity, as if she was on a strain
+of attention.  But her tone was now as friendly as always, and held its
+customary suggestion of amusement.  Carlton took his tone from it,
+although his mind was still busily occupied with incidents and words of
+hers that she had spoken in their past intercourse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not fair in letting me think you were engaged," he said.  "I've wasted
+so much time: I'm not half civil enough to engaged girls," he
+explained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've been quite civil enough to us," said Miss Morris, "as a
+courier, philosopher, and friend.  I'm very sorry we have to part
+company."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Part company!" exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm.  "But, I say, we
+mustn't do that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But we must, you see," said Miss Morris. "We must go back for the
+wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, of course," Carlton heard his own voice say.  "I had forgotten
+the Princess Aline."  But he was not thinking of what he was saying,
+nor of the Princess Aline.  He was thinking of the many hours Miss
+Morris and he had been together, of the way she had looked at certain
+times, and of how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he
+had pictured the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over the
+same route, and without a chaperon, sitting close at her side or
+holding her hand, and telling her just how pretty she was whenever he
+wished to do so, and without any fear of the consequences.  He
+remembered how ready she had been to understand what he was going to
+say before he had finished saying it, and how she had always made him
+show the best of himself, and had caused him to leave unsaid many
+things that became common and unworthy when considered in the light of
+her judgment.  He recalled how impatient he had been when she was late
+at dinner, and how cross he was throughout one whole day when she had
+kept her room.  He felt with a sudden shock of delightful fear that he
+had grown to depend upon her, that she was the best companion he had
+ever known; and he remembered moments when they had been alone together
+at the table, or in some old palace, or during a long walk, when they
+had seemed to have the whole world entirely to themselves, and how he
+had consoled himself at such times with the thought that no matter how
+long she might be Abbey's wife, there had been these moments in her
+life which were his, with which Abbey had had nothing to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes, as though
+he saw her for the first time.  He felt so sure of himself and of his
+love for her that the happiness of it made him tremble, and the thought
+that if he spoke she might answer him in the old, friendly, mocking
+tone of good-fellowship filled him with alarm.  At that moment it
+seemed to Carlton that the most natural thing in the world for them to
+do would be to go back again together over the road they had come,
+seeing everything in the new light of his love for her, and so travel
+on and on for ever over the world, learning to love each other more and
+more each succeeding day, and leaving the rest of the universe to move
+along without them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench, and bent
+his face towards hers.  Her hand lay at her side, and his own closed
+over it, but the shock that the touch of her fingers gave him stopped
+and confused the words upon his tongue.  He looked strangely at her,
+and could not find the speech he needed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and drew her
+own away, as if he had taken hers only in an exuberance of good feeling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have been very nice to us," she said, with an effort to make her
+tone sound kindly and approving.  "And we--"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You mustn't go; I can't let you go," said Carlton, hoarsely.  There
+was no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now.  "IF you go," he went
+on, breathlessly, "I must go with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her breath
+with a slight, nervous tremor.  Then she turned and faced him, almost
+as though she were afraid of him or of herself, and they sat so for an
+instant in silence.  The air seemed to have grown close and heavy, and
+Carlton saw her dimly.  In the silence he heard the splash of the
+fountain behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
+and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight that he was
+smiling.  It was as though he wished to delay any answer she might make
+to his last words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is the waltz," he said, still speaking in a whisper, "that the
+gypsies played that night--"  He stopped, and Miss Morris answered him
+by bending her head slowly in assent.  It seemed to be an effort for
+her to even make that slight gesture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"YOU don't remember it," said Carlton.  "It meant nothing to you.  I
+mean that night on the steamer when I told you what love meant to other
+people.  What a fool I was!" he said, with an uncertain laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I remember it," she said--"last Thursday night, on the steamer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thursday night!" exclaimed Carlton, indignantly.  "Wednesday night,
+Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week it was?  It was
+the night of my life to me.  That night I knew that I loved you as I
+had never hoped to care for any one in this world.  When I told you
+that I did not know what love meant I felt all the time that I was
+lying.  I knew that I loved you, and that I could never love any one
+else,  and that I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought
+then you could care for me, your engagement or your promises would
+never have stopped my telling you so.  You said that night that I would
+learn to love all the better, and more truly, for having doubted myself
+so long, and, oh, Edith," he cried, taking both her hands and holding
+them close in his own, "I cannot let you go now!  I love you so!  Don't
+laugh at me; don't mock at me.  All the rest of my life depends on you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her not to
+do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came so gently and
+sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that though he let go of her
+hands with one of his, it was only that he might draw her to him, until
+her face touched his, and she felt the strength of his arm as he held
+her against his breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor of the
+hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony that reached out
+from it over the front entrance.  And at the time when Mrs. Downs and
+Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to the hotel from the ball, the
+Princess Aline was leaning over the balcony and watching the lights go
+out in the upper part of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the
+trees and statues in the public park below.  Her foot was still in
+bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from the
+cold.  Inside of the open windows that led out on to the balcony her
+sisters were taking off their ornaments, and discussing the incidents
+of the night just over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help Mrs.
+Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand to another
+muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs. Downs was ascending
+the steps, and before the second muffled figure had left the shadow of
+the carriage and stepped into the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw
+Carlton draw her suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the cheek, and
+heard a protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her
+head and run up the steps.  Then she saw Carlton shake hands with them,
+and stand for a moment after they had disappeared, gazing up at the
+moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat.  He drew out a cigar-case
+and leisurely selected a cigar, and with much apparent content lighted
+it, and then, with his head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as
+though he were challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
+disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood there
+leaning against the side.  "That young Mr. Carlton, the artist," she
+said to her sisters, "is engaged to that beautiful American girl we met
+the other day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really!" said the elder sister.  "I thought it was probable.  Who told
+you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw him kiss her good-night," said the Princess, stepping into the
+window, "as they got out of their carriage just now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the
+floor, and then walked across the room to a little writing-desk.  She
+unlocked a drawer in this and took from it two slips of paper, which
+she folded in her hand.  Then she returned slowly across the room, and
+stepped out again on to the balcony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn of her,
+and under which he had written:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I
+travelled four thousand miles to see her?"  And the other was the
+picture of Carlton himself, which she had cut out of the catalogue of
+the Salon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she could see the
+glimmer of Carlton's white linen and the red glow of his cigar as he
+strode proudly up and down the path of the public park, like a sentry
+keeping watch.  She folded the pieces of paper together and tore them
+slowly into tiny fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into
+the street below.  Then she returned again to the room, and stood
+looking at her sisters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know," she said, "I think I am a little tired of travelling so
+much.  I want to go back to Grasse."  She put her hand to her, forehead
+and held it there for a moment.  "I think I am a little homesick," said
+the Princess Aline.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Princess Aline
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2008 [EBook #327]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS ALINE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+
+I
+
+
+H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the life of Morton
+Carlton--or "Morney" Carlton, as men called him--of New York city, when
+that young gentleman's affairs and affections were best suited to
+receive her.  Had she made her appearance three years sooner or three
+years later, it is quite probable that she would have passed on out of
+his life with no more recognition from him than would have been
+expressed in a look of admiring curiosity.
+
+But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both unoccupied,
+she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which led him into doing
+several wise and many foolish things, and which remained with him
+always.  Carlton had reached a point in his life, and very early in his
+life, when he could afford to sit at ease and look back with modest
+satisfaction to what he had forced himself to do, and forward with
+pleasurable anticipations to whatsoever he might choose to do in the
+future.  The world had appreciated what he had done, and had put much
+to his credit, and he was prepared to draw upon this grandly.
+
+At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
+excellent family connections, but with no family, his only relative
+being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the point of view of
+the Union Club's windows, and who objected to his nephew's leaving
+Harvard to take up the study of art in Paris.  In that city (where at
+Julian's he was nicknamed the junior Carlton, for the obvious reason
+that he was the older of the two Carltons in the class, and because he
+was well dressed) he had shown himself a harder worker than others who
+were less careful of their appearance and of their manners.  His work,
+of which he did not talk, and his ambitions, of which he also did not
+talk, bore fruit early, and at twenty-six he had become a
+portrait-painter of international reputation.  Then the French
+government purchased one of his paintings at an absurdly small figure,
+and placed it in the Luxembourg, from whence it would in time depart to
+be buried in the hall of some provincial city; and American
+millionaires, and English Lord Mayors, members of Parliament, and
+members of the Institute, masters of hounds in pink coats, and
+ambassadors in gold lace, and beautiful women of all nationalities and
+conditions sat before his easel.  And so when he returned to New York
+he was welcomed with an enthusiasm which showed that his countrymen had
+feared that the artistic atmosphere of the Old World had stolen him
+from them forever.  He was particularly silent, even at this date,
+about his work, and listened to what others had to say of it with much
+awe, not unmixed with some amusement, that it should be he who was
+capable of producing anything worthy of such praise.  We have been told
+what the mother duck felt when her ugly duckling turned into a swan,
+but we have never considered how much the ugly duckling must have
+marvelled also.
+
+"Carlton is probably the only living artist," a brother artist had said
+of him, "who fails to appreciate how great his work is."  And on this
+being repeated to Carlton by a good-natured friend, he had replied
+cheerfully, "Well, I'm sorry, but it is certainly better to be the only
+one who doesn't appreciate it than to be the only one who does."
+
+He had never understood why such a responsibility had been intrusted to
+him.  It was, as he expressed it, not at all in his line, and young
+girls who sought to sit at the feet of the master found him making love
+to them in the most charming manner in the world, as though he were not
+entitled to all the rapturous admiration of their very young hearts,
+but had to sue for it like any ordinary mortal.  Carlton always felt as
+though some day some one would surely come along and say: "Look here,
+young man, this talent doesn't belong to you; it's mine.  What do you
+mean by pretending that such an idle good-natured youth as yourself is
+entitled to such a gift of genius?"  He felt that he was keeping it in
+trust, as it were; that it had been changed at birth, and that the
+proper guardian would eventually relieve him of his treasure.
+
+Personally Carlton was of the opinion that he should have been born in
+the active days of knights-errant--to have had nothing more serious to
+do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon fastened to the point of his
+lance, and with the spirit to unhorse any one who objected to its
+color, or to the claims of superiority of the noble lady who had tied
+it there.  There was not, in his opinion, at the present day any
+sufficiently pronounced method of declaring admiration for the many
+lovely women this world contained.  A proposal of marriage he
+considered to be a mean and clumsy substitute for the older way, and
+was uncomplimentary to the many other women left unasked, and marriage
+itself required much more constancy than he could give.  He had a most
+romantic and old-fashioned ideal of women as a class, and from the age
+of fourteen had been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and
+though in that time his ideal had received several severe shocks, he
+still believed that the "not impossible she" existed somewhere, and his
+conscientious efforts to find out whether every women he met might not
+be that one had led him not unnaturally into many difficulties.
+
+"The trouble with me is," he said, "that I care too much to make
+Platonic friendship possible, and don't care enough to marry any
+particular woman--that is, of course, supposing that any particular one
+would be so little particular as to be willing to marry me.  How
+embarrassing it would be, now," he argued, "if, when you were turning
+away from the chancel after the ceremony, you should look at one of the
+bridesmaids and see the woman whom you really should have married!  How
+distressing that would be!  You couldn't very well stop and say: 'I am
+very sorry, my dear, but it seems I have made a mistake.  That young
+woman on the right has a most interesting and beautiful face.  I am
+very much afraid that she is the one.'  It would be too late then;
+while now, in my free state, I can continue my search without any
+sense of responsibility."
+
+"Why"--he would exclaim--"I have walked miles to get a glimpse of a
+beautiful woman in a suburban window, and time and time again when I
+have seen a face in a passing brougham I have pursued it in a hansom,
+and learned where the owner of the face lived, and spent weeks in
+finding some one to present me, only to discover that she was
+self-conscious or uninteresting or engaged.  Still I had assured myself
+that she was not the one.  I am very conscientious, and I consider that
+it is my duty to go so far with every woman I meet as to be able to
+learn whether she is or is not the one, and the sad result is that I am
+like a man who follows the hounds but is never in at the death."
+
+"Well," some married woman would say, grimly, "I hope you will get your
+deserts some day; and you WILL, too.  Some day some girl will make you
+suffer for this."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Carlton would answer, meekly.  "Lots of women
+have made me suffer, if that's what you think I need."
+
+"Some day," the married woman would prophesy, "you will care for a
+woman so much that you will have no eyes for any one else.  That's the
+way it is when one is married."
+
+"Well, when that's the way it is with ME," Carlton would reply, "I
+certainly hope to get married; but until it is, I think it is safer for
+all concerned that I should not."
+
+Then Carlton would go to the club and complain bitterly to one of his
+friends.
+
+"How unfair married women are!" he would say.  "The idea of thinking a
+man could have no eyes but for one woman!  Suppose I had never heard a
+note of music until I was twenty-five years of age, and was then given
+my hearing.  Do you suppose my pleasure in music would make me lose my
+pleasure in everything else?  Suppose I met and married a girl at
+twenty-five.  Is that going to make me forget all the women I knew
+before I met her?  I think not.  As a matter of fact, I really deserve
+a great deal of credit for remaining single, for I am naturally very
+affectionate; but when I see what poor husbands my friends make, I
+prefer to stay as I am until I am sure that I will make a better one.
+It is only fair to the woman."
+
+Carlton was sitting in the club alone.  He had that sense of
+superiority over his fellows and of irresponsibility to the world about
+him that comes to a man when he knows that his trunks are being packed
+and that his state-room is engaged.  He was leaving New York long
+before most of his friends could get away.  He did not know just where
+he was going, and preferred not to know.  He wished to have a complete
+holiday, and to see Europe as an idle tourist, and not as an artist
+with an eye to his own improvement.  He had plenty of time and money;
+he was sure to run across friends in the big cities, and acquaintances
+he could make or not, as he pleased, en route.  He was not sorry to go.
+His going would serve to put an end to what gossip there might be of
+his engagement to numerous young women whose admiration for him as an
+artist, he was beginning to fear, had taken on a more personal tinge.
+"I wish," he said, gloomily, "I didn't like people so well.  It seems
+to cause them and me such a lot of trouble."
+
+He sighed, and stretched out his hand for a copy of one of the English
+illustrated papers.  It had a fresher interest to him because the next
+number of it that he would see would be in the city in which it was
+printed.  The paper in his hands was the St. James Budget, and it
+contained much fashionable intelligence concerning the preparations for
+a royal wedding which was soon to take place between members of two of
+the reigning families of Europe.  There was on one page a half-tone
+reproduction of a photograph, which showed a group of young people
+belonging to several of these reigning families, with their names and
+titles printed above and below the picture.  They were princesses,
+archdukes, or grand-dukes, and they were dressed like young English men
+and women, and with no sign about them of their possible military or
+social rank.
+
+One of the young princesses in the photograph was looking out of it and
+smiling in a tolerant, amused way, as though she had thought of
+something which she could not wait to enjoy until after the picture was
+taken.  She was not posing consciously, as were some of the others, but
+was sitting in a natural attitude, with one arm over the back of her
+chair, and with her hands clasped before her.  Her face was full of a
+fine intelligence and humor, and though one of the other princesses in
+the group was far more beautiful, this particular one had a much more
+high-bred air, and there was something of a challenge in her smile that
+made any one who looked at the picture smile also.  Carlton studied the
+face for some time, and mentally approved of its beauty; the others
+seemed in comparison wooden and unindividual, but this one looked like
+a person he might have known, and whom he would certainly have liked.
+He turned the page and surveyed the features of the Oxford crew with
+lesser interest, and then turned the page again and gazed critically
+and severely at the face of the princess with the high-bred smile.  He
+had hoped that he would find it less interesting at a second glance,
+but it did not prove to be so.
+
+"'The Princess Aline of Hohenwald,'" he read.  "She's probably engaged
+to one of those Johnnies beside her, and the Grand-Duke of Hohenwald
+behind her must be her brother."  He put the paper down and went into
+luncheon, and diverted himself by mixing a salad dressing; but after a
+few moments he stopped in the midst of this employment, and told the
+waiter, with some unnecessary sharpness, to bring him the last copy of
+the St. James Budget.
+
+"Confound it!" he added, to himself.
+
+He opened the paper with a touch of impatience and gazed long and
+earnestly at the face of the Princess Aline, who continued to return
+his look with the same smile of amused tolerance.  Carlton noted every
+detail of her tailor-made gown, of her high mannish collar, of her tie,
+and even the rings on her hand.  There was nothing about her of which
+he could fairly disapprove.  He wondered why it was that she could not
+have been born an approachable New York girl instead of a princess of a
+little German duchy, hedged in throughout her single life, and to be
+traded off eventually in marriage with as much consideration as though
+she were a princess of a real kingdom.
+
+"She looks jolly too," he mused, in an injured tone; "and so very
+clever; and of course she has a beautiful complexion.  All those German
+girls have.  Your Royal Highness is more than pretty," he said, bowing
+his head gravely.  "You look as a princess should look.  I am sure it
+was one of your ancestors who discovered the dried pea under a dozen
+mattresses."  He closed the paper, and sat for a moment with a
+perplexed smile of consideration.  "Waiter," he exclaimed, suddenly,
+"send a messenger-boy to Brentano's for a copy of the St. James Budget,
+and bring me the Almanach de Gotha from the library.  It is a little
+fat red book on the table near the window." Then Carlton opened the
+paper again and propped it up against a carafe, and continued his
+critical survey of the Princess Aline.  He seized the Almanach, when it
+came, with some eagerness.
+
+"Hohenwald (Maison de Grasse)," he read, and in small type below it:
+
+
+"1. Ligne cadette (regnante) grand-ducale: Hohenwald et de Grasse.
+
+"Guillaume-Albert-Frederick-Charles-Louis, Grand-Duc de Hohenwald et de
+Grasse, etc., etc., etc."
+
+
+"That's the brother, right enough," muttered Carlton.
+
+And under the heading "Soeurs" he read:
+
+
+"4. Psse Aline.--Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene, Alt.  Gr.-Duc. Nee a
+Grasse, Juin, 1872."
+
+
+"Twenty-two years old," exclaimed Carlton.  "What a perfect age! I
+could not have invented a better one."  He looked from the book to the
+face before him.  "Now, my dear young lady," he said, "I know all about
+YOU.  You live at Grasse, and you are connected, to judge by your
+names, with all the English royalties; and very pretty names they are,
+too--Aline, Helene, Victoria, Beatrix.  You must be much more English
+than you are German; and I suppose you live in a little old castle, and
+your brother has a standing army of twelve men, and some day you are to
+marry a Russian Grand-Duke, or whoever your brother's Prime Minister--if
+he has a Prime Minister--decides is best for the politics of your little
+toy kingdom.  Ah! to think," exclaimed Carlton, softly, "that such a
+lovely and glorious creature as that should be sacrificed for so
+insignificant a thing as the peace of Europe when she might make some
+young man happy?"
+
+He carried a copy of the paper to his room, and cut the picture of the
+group out of the page and pasted it carefully on a stiff piece of
+card-board.  Then he placed it on his dressing-table, in front of a
+photograph of a young woman in a large silver frame--which was a sign,
+had the young woman but known it, that her reign for the time being was
+over.
+
+Nolan, the young Irishman who "did for" Carlton, knew better than to
+move it when he found it there.  He had learned to study his master
+since he had joined him in London, and understood that one photograph
+in the silver frame was entitled to more consideration than three
+others on the writing-desk or half a dozen on the mantel-piece.  Nolan
+had seen them come and go; he had watched them rise and fall; he had
+carried notes to them, and books and flowers; and had helped to dispose
+them from the silver frame and move them on by degrees down the line,
+until they went ingloriously into the big brass bowl on the side table.
+Nolan approved highly of this last choice.  He did not know which one
+of the three in the group it might be; but they were all pretty, and
+their social standing was certainly distinguished.
+
+Guido, the Italian model who ruled over the studio, and Nolan were
+busily packing when Carlton entered.  He always said that Guido
+represented him in his professional and Nolan in his social capacity.
+Guido cleaned the brushes and purchased the artists' materials; Nolan
+cleaned his riding-boots and bought his theatre and railroad tickets.
+
+"Guido," said Carlton, "there are two sketches I made in Germany last
+year, one of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig the actor; get them
+out for me, will you, and pack them for shipping.  Nolan," he went on,
+"here is a telegram to send."
+
+Nolan would not have read a letter, but he looked upon telegrams as
+public documents, the reading of them as part of his perquisites.  This
+one was addressed to Oscar Von Holtz, First Secretary, German Embassy,
+Washington, D.C., and the message read:
+
+
+"Please telegraph me full title and address Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald.  Where would a letter reach her?
+
+"MORTON CARLTON."
+
+
+The next morning Nolan carried to the express office a box containing
+two oil-paintings on small canvases.  They were addressed to the man in
+London who attended to the shipping and forwarding of Carlton's
+pictures in that town.
+
+
+There was a tremendous crowd on the New York.  She sailed at the
+obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people, in
+consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the way of their
+breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say goodbye.  Carlton, for
+his part, did not notice them; he knew by experience that the
+attractive-looking people always leave a steamer when the whistle
+blows, and that the next most attractive-looking, who remain on board,
+are ill all the way over.  A man that he knew seized him by the arm as
+he was entering his cabin, and asked if he were crossing or just seeing
+people off.
+
+"Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her aunt, Mrs.
+Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if you would be nice
+to them.  But you know her, I guess?" he asked, over his shoulder, as
+Carlton pushed his way after him down the deck.
+
+"I know who she is," he said.
+
+Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of admiring
+friends, and seemed to be holding her own.  They all stopped when
+Carlton came up, and looked at him rather closely, and those whom he
+knew seemed to mark the fact by a particularly hearty greeting.  The
+man who had brought him up acted as though he had successfully
+accomplished a somewhat difficult and creditable feat.  Carlton bowed
+himself away, leaving Miss Morris to her friends, and saying that she
+would probably have to see him later, whether she wished it or not.  He
+then went to meet the aunt, who received him kindly, for there were
+very few people on the passenger list, and she was glad they were to
+have his company.  Before he left she introduced him to a young man
+named Abbey, who was hovering around her most anxiously, and whose
+interest, she seemed to think it necessary to explain, was due to the
+fact that he was engaged to Miss Morris.  Mr. Abbey left the steamer
+when the whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully.  He
+always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as it left
+him no choice in the matter, and excused him from finding out whether
+or not that particular young woman was the one.
+
+Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and faced
+the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy Hook with
+unconcern.  Carlton joined them, and they stood together leaning with
+their backs to the rail, and trying to fit the people who flitted past
+them to the names on the passenger list.
+
+"The young lady in the sailor suit," said Miss Morris, gazing at the
+top of the smoke-stack, "is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand Rapids.  This is
+her first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is something like a yacht,
+and dresses for the part accordingly.  She does not know that it is
+merely a moving hotel."
+
+"I am afraid," said Carlton, "to judge from her agitation, that hers is
+going to be what the professionals call a 'dressing-room' part.  Why is
+it," he asked, "that the girls on a steamer who wear gold anchors and
+the men in yachting-caps are always the first to disappear?  That man
+with the sombrero," he went on, "is James M. Pollock, United States
+Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to his post.  I know he is the
+consul, because he comes from Fort Worth, Texas, and is therefore
+admirably fitted to speak either French or the native language of the
+island."
+
+"Oh, we don't send consuls to Mauritius," laughed Miss Morris.
+"Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps, but no one
+really lives or goes there."
+
+"Where are you going, may I ask?" inquired Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris said that they were making their way to Constantinople and
+Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had not had the time to take the
+southern route, they purposed to journey across the Continent direct
+from Paris to the Turkish capital by the Orient Express.
+
+"We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long enough for
+some clothes," she replied.
+
+"The trousseau," thought Carlton.  "Weeks is what she should have said."
+
+The three sat together at the captain's table, and as the sea continued
+rough, saw little of either the captain or his other guests, and were
+thrown much upon the society of each other.  They had innumerable
+friends and interests in common; and Mrs. Downs, who had been
+everywhere, and for long seasons at a time, proved as alive as her
+niece, and Carlton conceived a great liking for her.  She seemed to be
+just and kindly minded, and, owing to her age, to combine the wider
+judgment of a man with the sympathetic interest of a woman.  Sometimes
+they sat together in a row and read, and gossiped over what they read,
+or struggled up the deck as it rose and fell and buffeted with the
+wind; and later they gathered in a corner of the saloon and ate late
+suppers of Carlton's devising, or drank tea in the captain's cabin,
+which he had thrown open to them.  They had started knowing much about
+one another, and this and the necessary proximity of the ship hastened
+their acquaintance.
+
+The sea grew calmer the third day out, and the sun came forth and
+showed the decks as clean as bread-boards.  Miss Morris and Carlton
+seated themselves on the huge iron riding-bits in the bow, and with
+their elbows on the rail looked down at the whirling blue water, and
+rejoiced silently in the steady rush of the great vessel, and in the
+uncertain warmth of the March sun.  Carlton was sitting to leeward of
+Miss Morris, with a pipe between his teeth.  He was warm, and at peace
+with the world.  He had found his new acquaintance more than
+entertaining.  She was even friendly, and treated him as though he were
+much her junior, as is the habit of young women lately married or who
+are about to be married.  Carlton did not resent it; on the contrary,
+it made him more at his ease with her, and as she herself chose to
+treat him as a youth, he permitted himself to be as foolish as he
+pleased.
+
+"I don't know why it is," he complained, peering over the rail, "but
+whenever I look over the side to watch the waves a man in a greasy cap
+always sticks his head out of a hole below me and scatters a barrelful
+of ashes or potato peelings all over the ocean.  It spoils the effect
+for one.  Next time he does it I am going to knock out the ashes of my
+pipe on the back of his neck."  Miss Morris did not consider this
+worthy of comment, and there was a long lazy pause.
+
+"You haven't told us where you go after London," she said; and then,
+without waiting for him to reply, she asked, "Is it your professional
+or your social side that you are treating to a trip this time?"
+
+"Who told you that?" asked Carlton, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some man.  He said you were a Jekyll and Hyde.
+Which is Jekyll?  You see, I only know your professional side."
+
+"You must try to find out for yourself by deduction," he said, "as you
+picked out the other passengers.  I am going to Grasse," he continued.
+"It's the capital of Hohenwald.  Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes," she said; "we were there once for a few days.  We went to see
+the pictures.  I suppose you know that the old Duke, the father of the
+present one, ruined himself almost by buying pictures for the Grasse
+gallery.  We were there at a bad time, though, when the palace was
+closed to visitors, and the gallery too.  I suppose that is what is
+taking you there?"
+
+"No," Carlton said, shaking his head.  "No, it is not the pictures.  I
+am going to Grasse," he said, gravely, "to see the young woman with
+whom I am in love."
+
+Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled consciously, with a
+natural feminine interest in an affair of love, and one which was a
+secret as well.
+
+"Oh," she said, "I beg your pardon; we--I had not heard of it."
+
+"No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly," said Carlton; "it
+is rather in an embryo state as yet--in fact, I have not met the young
+lady so far, but I mean to meet her.  That's why I am going abroad."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling, but he
+was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the horizon-line, and
+puffing meditatively on his pipe.  He was apparently in earnest, and
+waiting for her to make some comment.
+
+"How very interesting!" was all she could think to say.
+
+"Yes, when you know the details, it is,----VERY interesting," he
+answered.  "She is the Princess Aline of Hohenwald," he explained,
+bowing his head as though he were making the two young ladies known to
+one another.  "She has several other names, six in all, and her age is
+twenty-two.  That is all I know about her.  I saw her picture in an
+illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up my mind I would
+meet her, and here I am.  If she is not in Grasse, I intend to follow
+her to wherever she may be."  He waved his pipe at the ocean before him,
+and recited, with mock seriousness:
+
+    "'Across the hills and far away,
+               Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+     And deep into the dying day,
+               The happy Princess followed him.'
+
+
+"Only in this case, you see," said Carlton, "I am following the happy
+Princess."
+
+"No; but seriously, though," said Miss Morris, "what is it you mean?
+Are you going to paint her portrait?"
+
+"I never thought of that," exclaimed Carlton.  "I don't know but what
+your idea is a good one.  Miss Morris, that's a great idea."  He shook
+his head approvingly.  "I did not do wrong to confide in you," he said.
+"It was perhaps taking a liberty; but as you have not considered it as
+such, I am glad I spoke."
+
+"But you don't really mean to tell me," exclaimed the girl, facing
+about, and nodding her head at him, "that you are going abroad after a
+woman whom you have never seen, and because you like a picture of her
+in a paper?"
+
+"I do," said Carlton.  "Because I like her picture, and because she is
+a Princess."
+
+"Well, upon my word," said Miss Morris, gazing at him with evident
+admiration, "that's what my younger brother would call a distinctly
+sporting proposition.  Only I don't see," she added, "what her being a
+Princess has to do with it."
+
+"You don't?" laughed Carlton, easily.  "That's the best part of
+it--that's the plot.  The beauty of being in love with a Princess, Miss
+Morris," he said, "lies in the fact that you can't marry her; that you
+can love her deeply and forever, and nobody will ever come to you and
+ask your intentions, or hint that after such a display of affection you
+ought to do something.  Now, with a girl who is not a Princess, even if
+she understands the situation herself, and wouldn't marry you to save
+her life, still there is always some one--a father, or a mother, or one
+of your friends--who makes it his business to interfere, and talks
+about it, and bothers you both.  But with a Princess, you see, that is
+all eliminated.  You can't marry a Princess, because they won't let
+you.  A Princess has got to marry a real royal chap, and so you are
+perfectly ineligible and free to sigh for her, and make pretty speeches
+to her, and see her as often as you can, and revel in your devotion and
+unrequited affection."
+
+Miss Morris regarded him doubtfully.  She did not wish to prove herself
+too credulous.  "And you honestly want me, Mr. Carlton, to believe that
+you are going abroad just for this?"
+
+"You see," Carlton answered her, "if you only knew me better you would
+have no doubt on the subject at all.  It isn't the thing some men would
+do, I admit, but it is exactly what any one who knows me would expect
+of me.  I should describe it, having had acquaintance with the young
+man for some time, as being eminently characteristic.  And besides,
+think what a good story it makes!  Every other man who goes abroad this
+summer will try to tell about his travels when he gets back to New
+York, and, as usual, no one will listen to him.  But they will HAVE to
+listen to me.  'You've been across since I saw you last.  What did you
+do?' they'll ask, politely.  And then, instead of simply telling them
+that I have been in Paris or London, I can say, 'Oh, I've been chasing
+around the globe after the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.'  That sounds
+interesting, doesn't it?  When you come to think of it," Carlton
+continued, meditatively, "it is not so very remarkable.  Men go all the
+way to Cuba and Mexico, and even to India, after orchids, after a nasty
+flower that grows in an absurd way on the top of a tree.  Why shouldn't
+a young man go as far as Germany after a beautiful Princess, who walks
+on the ground, and who can talk and think and feel?  She is much more
+worth while than an orchid."
+
+Miss Morris laughed indulgently.  "Well, I didn't know such devotion
+existed at this end of the century," she said; "it's quite nice and
+encouraging.  I hope you will succeed, I am sure.  I only wish we were
+going to be near enough to see how you get on. I have never been a
+confidante when there was a real Princess concerned," she said; "it
+makes it so much more amusing.  May one ask what your plans are?"
+
+Carlton doubted if he had any plans as yet.  "I have to reach the
+ground first," he said, "and after that I must reconnoitre.  I may
+possibly adopt your idea, and ask to paint her portrait, only I dislike
+confusing my social and professional sides.  As a matter of fact,
+though," he said, after a pause, laughing guiltily, "I have done a
+little of that already.  I prepared her, as it were, for my coming.  I
+sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin.  One of
+the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the Court
+Theatre.  I sent them to her through my London agent, so that she would
+think they had come from some one of her English friends, and I told
+the dealer not to let any one know who had forwarded them.  My idea was
+that it might help me, perhaps, if she knew something about me before I
+appeared in person.  It was a sort of letter of introduction written by
+myself."
+
+"Well, really," expostulated Miss Morris, "you certainly woo in a royal
+way.  Are you in the habit of giving away your pictures to any one
+whose photograph you happen to like?  That seems to me to be giving new
+lamps for old to a degree.  I must see if I haven't some of my sister's
+photographs in my trunk.  She is considered very beautiful."
+
+"Well, you wait until you see this particular portrait, and--you will
+understand it better," said Carlton.
+
+The steamer reached Southampton early in the afternoon, and Carlton
+secured a special compartment on the express to London for Mrs. Downs
+and her niece and himself, with one adjoining for their maid and Nolan.
+It was a beautiful day, and Carlton sat with his eyes fixed upon the
+passing fields and villages, exclaiming with pleasure from time to time
+at the white roads and the feathery trees and hedges, and the red roofs
+of the inns and square towers of the village churches.
+
+"Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren't they?" he said.
+"You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of them?  She looks
+just as though she were posing for a picture for an illustrated paper.
+She couldn't pick flowers from a barbed-wire fence, could she?  And
+there would probably be a tramp along the road somewhere to frighten
+her; and see--the chap in knickerbockers farther down the road leaning
+on the stile.  I am sure he is waiting for her; and here comes a
+coach," he ran on.  "Don't the red wheels look well against the hedges?
+It's a pretty little country, England, isn't it?--like a private park
+or a model village.  I am glad to get back to it--I am glad to see the
+three-and-six signs with the little slanting dash between the shillings
+and pennies.  Yes, even the steam-rollers and the man with the red flag
+in front are welcome."
+
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Downs, "it's because one has been so long on the
+ocean that the ride to London seems so interesting.  It always pays me
+for the entire trip.  Yes," she said, with a sigh, "in spite of the
+patent-medicine signs they have taken to putting up all along the road.
+It seems a pity they should adopt our bad habits instead of our good
+ones."
+
+"They are a bit slow at adopting anything," commented Carlton.  "Did
+you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as scarce in
+London as they are in Timbuctoo?  Why, I saw an electric-light plant
+put up in a Western town in three days once; there were over a hundred
+burners in one saloon, and the engineer who put them up told me in
+confidence that--"
+
+What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never disclosed, for
+at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a sudden sharp
+exclamation.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Carlton," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "listen to this!"  She
+had been reading one of the dozen papers which Carlton had purchased at
+the station, and was now shaking one of them at him, with her eyes
+fixed on the open page.
+
+"My dear Edith," remonstrated her aunt, "Mr. Carlton was telling us--"
+
+"Yes, I know," exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, "but this interests him
+much more than electric lights.  Who do you think is in London?" she
+cried, raising her eyes to his, and pausing for proper dramatic effect.
+"The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!"
+
+"No?" shouted Carlton.
+
+"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone.  "Listen.  'The Queen's
+Drawing-room'--em--e--m--'on her right was the Princess of
+Wales'--em--m.  Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here it is.  'Next to her
+stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.  She wore a dress of white silk,
+with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur.  Ornaments--emeralds and
+diamonds; orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal,
+Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Grasse.'"
+
+"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly.  "I say, is that really there?
+Let me see it, please, for myself."
+
+Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the paragraph, and
+picking up another, began a search down its columns.
+
+"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure enough.
+And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't know it?"
+
+Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had discovered a
+vein of gold.
+
+"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 'The
+Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few violet
+ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her mother's
+side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by Princess Ena's
+accident.  Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a light brown jacket
+and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary touch to a picture which
+Londoners would be glad to look upon more often.'"
+
+Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and with his
+eyes open wide from excitement.  He presented so unusual an appearance
+of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her
+niece for some explanation.  "The young lady seems to interest you,"
+said she, tentatively.
+
+"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs," cried
+Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Grasse to see her, and now it
+turns out that she is here in England, within a few miles of us."  He
+turned and waved his hands at the passing landscape.  "Every minute
+brings us nearer together."
+
+"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris, laughing.
+"You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you where to
+find the woman you love."
+
+Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and frowned
+intently.  "Now I have got to begin all over again and readjust
+things," he said.  "We might have guessed she would be in London, on
+account of this royal wedding.  It is a great pity it isn't later in
+the season, when there would be more things going on and more chances
+of meeting her.  Now they will all be interested in themselves, and,
+being extremely exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom
+or an Emperor would have any chance at all.  Still, I can see her!  I
+can look at her, and that's something."
+
+"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.
+
+"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or they will
+stop at Brown's," said Carlton.  "All royalties go to Brown's.  I don't
+know why, unless it is because it is so expensive; or maybe it is
+expensive because royalties go there; but, in any event, if they are
+not at the palace, that is where they will be, and that is where I
+shall have to go too."
+
+When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed Nolan to
+take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload them until he had
+arrived.  Then he drove with the ladies to Cox's, and saw them settled
+there.  He promised to return at once to dine, and to tell them what he
+had discovered in his absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss
+Morris," he said, nervously.  "I am beginning to feel that I am not
+worthy of her."
+
+"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that 'it's not
+the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of wooing,' and that
+'faint heart'--and the rest of it."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit sudden, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh, I am ashamed of you!  You are frightened."
+
+"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter.  "I think it's just
+natural emotion."
+
+As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet
+stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across the sidewalk to
+a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently assisting
+several gentlemen to get into it.  This and another carriage and
+Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to
+move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man
+to its side.
+
+"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked.  The
+bareheaded man answered that he was.
+
+"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton.  "They can take in the trunks."
+
+Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight.
+"That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said,
+pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second
+carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."
+
+Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the
+air.
+
+"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began, eagerly,
+and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the
+hansom.
+
+He broke into the little dining-room at Cox's in so excited a state
+that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed
+in astonished disapproval.  Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come
+down stairs.
+
+"I have seen her!" Carlton cried, ecstatically; "only half an hour in
+the town, and I've seen her already!"
+
+"No, really?" exclaimed Miss Morris.  "And how did she look?  Is she as
+beautiful as you expected?"
+
+"Well, I can't tell yet," Carlton answered.
+
+"There were three of them, and they were all muffled up, and which one
+of the three she was I don't know.  She wasn't labelled, as in the
+picture, but she was there, and I saw her.  The woman I love was one of
+that three, and I have engaged rooms at the hotel, and this very night
+the same roof shelters us both."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you," said Miss
+Morris, as they seated themselves at the table.  "What is your next
+move?  What do you mean to do now?"
+
+"The rest is very simple," said Carlton.  "To-morrow morning I will go
+to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who knows all about
+them--where they are going, and who they are seeing, and what
+engagements they may have.  Then it will only be a matter of looking up
+some friend in the Household or in one of the embassies who can present
+me."
+
+"Oh," said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment, "but
+that is such a commonplace ending!  You started out so romantically.
+Couldn't you manage to meet her in a less conventional way?"
+
+"I am afraid not," said Carlton.  "You see, I want to meet her very
+much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of meeting her,
+whether it's romantic or not, isn't a bit too quick for me.  There will
+be romance enough after I am presented, if I have my way."
+
+But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the fact
+that it requires as many to make an introduction as a bargain, and he
+had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his considerations.  He met many
+people he knew in the Row the next morning; they asked him to lunch,
+and brought their horses up to the rail, and he patted the horses'
+heads, and led the conversation around to the royal wedding, and
+through it to the Hohenwalds.  He learned that they had attended a
+reception at the German Embassy on the previous night, and it was one
+of the secretaries of that embassy who informed him of their intended
+departure that morning on the eleven o'clock train to Paris.
+
+"To Paris!" cried Carlton, in consternation.  "What! all of them?"
+
+"Yes, all of them, of course.  Why?" asked the young German.  But
+Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to Piccadilly and
+waving his stick at a hansom.
+
+Nolan met him at the door of Brown's Hotel with an anxious countenance.
+
+"Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir," he said.  "But I've packed
+your trunks and sent them to the station.  Shall I follow them, sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton.  "Follow the trunks and follow the Hohenwalds.  I
+will come over on the Club train at four.  Meet me at the station, and
+tell me to what hotel they have gone.  Wait; if I miss you, you can
+find me at the Hotel Continental; but if they go straight on through
+Paris, you go with them, and telegraph me here and to the Continental.
+Telegraph at every station, so I can keep track of you.  Have you
+enough money?"
+
+"I have, sir--enough for a long trip, sir."
+
+"Well, you'll need it," said Carlton, grimly.  "This is going to be a
+long trip.  It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you will have to hurry.
+Have you paid my bill here?"
+
+"I have, sir," said Nolan.
+
+"Then get off, and don't lose sight of those people again."
+
+Carlton attended to several matters of business, and then lunched with
+Mrs. Downs and her niece.  He had grown to like them very much, and was
+sorry to lose sight of them, but consoled himself by thinking he would
+see them a few days at least in Paris.  He judged that he would be
+there for some time, as he did not think the Princess Aline and her
+sisters would pass through that city without stopping to visit the
+shops on the Rue de la Paix.
+
+"All women are not princesses," he argued, "but all princesses are
+women."
+
+"We will be in Paris on Wednesday," Mrs. Downs told him.  "The Orient
+Express leaves there twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and we
+have taken an apartment for next Thursday, and will go right on to
+Constantinople."
+
+"But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes there?" Carlton
+expostulated.
+
+Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.
+
+Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had followed the
+Hohenwalds to the Hotel Meurice.  "There is the Duke, sir, and the
+three Princesses," Nolan said, "and there are two German gentlemen
+acting as equerries, and an English captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the
+Duke, and two elderly ladies, and eight servants.  They travel very
+simple, sir, and their people are in undress livery.  Brown and red,
+sir."
+
+Carlton pretended not to listen to this.  He had begun to doubt but
+that Nolan's zeal would lead him into some indiscretion, and would end
+disastrously to himself.  He spent the evening alone in front of the
+Cafe de la Paix, pleasantly occupied in watching the life and movement
+of that great meeting of the highways.  It did not seem possible that
+he had ever been away.  It was as though he had picked up a book and
+opened it at the page and place at which he had left off reading it a
+moment before.  There was the same type, the same plot, and the same
+characters, who were doing the same characteristic things.  Even the
+waiter who tipped out his coffee knew him; and he knew, or felt as
+though he knew, half of those who passed, or who shared with him the
+half of the sidewalk.  The women at the next table considered the slim,
+good-looking young American with friendly curiosity, and the men with
+them discussed him in French, until a well-known Parisian recognized
+Carlton in passing, and hailed him joyously in the same language, at
+which the women laughed and the men looked sheepishly conscious.
+
+On the following morning Carlton took up his post in the open court of
+the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to excuse his loitering
+there.  He had not been occupied with these over-long before Nolan
+approached him, in some excitement, with the information that their
+Royal Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
+"coming down the lift."
+
+Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the corner
+and see them; it was for this chance he had been waiting; but he could
+not afford to act in so undignified a manner before Nolan, so he merely
+crossed his legs nervously, and told the servant to go back to the
+rooms.
+
+"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my own affairs
+in my own way.  If I don't stop him, he'll carry the Princess Aline off
+by force and send me word where he has hidden her."
+
+The Hohenwalds had evidently departed for a day's outing, as up to five
+o'clock they had not returned; and Carlton, after loitering all the
+afternoon, gave up waiting for them, and went out to dine at Laurent's,
+in the Champs Elysees.  He had finished his dinner, and was leaning
+luxuriously forward, with his elbows on the table, and knocking the
+cigar ashes into his coffee-cup.  He was pleasantly content.  The trees
+hung heavy with leaves over his head, a fountain played and overflowed
+at his elbow, and the lamps of the fiacres passing and repassing on the
+Avenue of the Champs Elysees shone like giant fire-flies through the
+foliage.  The touch of the gravel beneath his feet emphasized the free,
+out-of-door charm of the place, and the faces of the others around him
+looked more than usually cheerful in the light of the candles
+flickering under the clouded shades.  His mind had gone back to his
+earlier student days in Paris, when life always looked as it did now in
+the brief half-hour of satisfaction which followed a cold bath or a
+good dinner, and he had forgotten himself and his surroundings.  It was
+the voices of the people at the table behind him that brought him back
+to the present moment.  A man was talking; he spoke in English, with an
+accent.
+
+"I should like to go again through the Luxembourg," he said; "but you
+need not be bound by what I do."
+
+"I think it would be pleasanter if we all keep together," said a girl's
+voice, quietly.  She also spoke in English, and with the same accent.
+
+The people whose voices had interrupted him were sitting and standing
+around a long table, which the waiters had made large enough for their
+party by placing three of the smaller ones side by side; they had
+finished their dinner, and the women, who sat with their backs towards
+Carlton, were pulling on their gloves.
+
+"Which is it to be, then?" said the gentleman, smiling.  "The pictures
+or the dressmakers?"
+
+The girl who had first spoken turned to the one next to her.
+
+"Which would you rather do, Aline?" she asked.
+
+Carlton moved so suddenly that the men behind him looked at him
+curiously; but he turned, nevertheless, in his chair and faced them,
+and in order to excuse his doing so beckoned to one of the waiters.  He
+was within two feet of the girl who had been called "Aline."  She
+raised her head to speak, and saw Carlton staring open-eyed at her.
+She glanced at him for an instant, as if to assure herself that she did
+not know him, and then, turning to her brother, smiled in the same
+tolerant, amused way in which she had so often smiled upon Carlton from
+the picture.
+
+"I am afraid I had rather go to the Bon March," she said.
+
+One of the waiters stepped in between them, and Carlton asked him for
+his bill; but when it came he left it lying on the plate, and sat
+staring out into the night between the candles, puffing sharply on his
+cigar, and recalling to his memory his first sight of the Princess
+Aline of Hohenwald.
+
+That night, as he turned into bed, he gave a comfortable sigh of
+content.  "I am glad she chose the dressmakers instead of the
+pictures," he said.
+
+Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris arrived in Paris on Wednesday, and expressed
+their anxiety to have Carlton lunch with them, and to hear him tell of
+the progress of his love-affair.  There was not much to tell; the
+Hohenwalds had come and gone from the hotel as freely as any other
+tourists in Paris, but the very lack of ceremony about their movements
+was in itself a difficulty.  The manner of acquaintance he could make
+in the court of the Hotel Meurice with one of the men over a cup of
+coffee or a glass of bock would be as readily discontinued as begun,
+and for his purpose it would have been much better if the Hohenwalds
+had been living in state with a visitors' book and a chamberlain.
+
+On Wednesday evening Carlton took the ladies to the opera, where the
+Hohenwalds occupied a box immediately opposite them.  Carlton pretended
+to be surprised at this fact, but Mrs. Downs doubted his sincerity.
+
+"I saw Nolan talking to their courier to-day," she said, "and I fancy
+he asked a few leading questions."
+
+"Well, he didn't learn much if he did," he said.  "The fellow only
+talks German."
+
+"Ah, then he has been asking questions!" said Miss Morris.
+
+"Well, he does it on his own responsibility," said Carlton, "for I told
+him to have nothing to do with servants.  He has too much zeal, has
+Nolan; I'm afraid of him."
+
+"If you were only half as interested as he is," said Miss Morris, "you
+would have known her long ago."
+
+"Long ago?" exclaimed Carlton.  "I only saw her four days since."
+
+"She is certainly very beautiful," said Miss Morris, looking across the
+auditorium.
+
+"But she isn't there," said Carlton.
+
+"That's the eldest sister; the two other sisters went out on the coach
+this morning to Versailles, and were too tired to come tonight.  At
+least, so Nolan says.  He seems to have established a friendship for
+their English maid, but whether it's on my account or his own I don't
+know.  I doubt his unselfishness."
+
+"How disappointing of her!" said Miss Morris.  "And after you had
+selected a box just across the way, too.  It is such a pity to waste it
+on us."  Carlton smiled, and looked up at her impudently, as though he
+meant to say something; but remembering that she was engaged to be
+married, changed his mind, and lowered his eyes to his programme.
+
+"Why didn't you say it?" asked Miss Morris, calmly, turning her glass
+to the stage.  "Wasn't it pretty?"
+
+"No," said Carlton--"not pretty enough."
+
+The ladies left the hotel the next day to take the Orient Express,
+which left Paris at six o'clock.  They had bidden Carlton goodbye at
+four the same afternoon, and as he had come to their rooms for that
+purpose, they were in consequence a little surprised to see him at the
+station, running wildly along the platform, followed by Nolan and a
+porter.  He came into their compartment after the train had started,
+and shook his head sadly at them from the door.
+
+"Well, what do you think of this?" he said.  "You can't get rid of me,
+you see.  I'm going with you."
+
+"Going with us?" asked Mrs. Downs.  "How far?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and, coming inside, dropped onto the cushions with a
+sigh.  "I don't know," he said, dejectedly.  "All the way, I'm afraid.
+That is, I mean, I'm very glad I am to have your society for a few days
+more; but really I didn't bargain for this."
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that THEY are on this train?" said Miss
+Morris.
+
+"They are," said Carlton.  "They have a car to themselves at the rear.
+They only made up their minds to go this morning, and they nearly
+succeeded in giving me the slip again; but it seems that their English
+maid stopped Nolan in the hall to bid him good-bye, and so he found out
+their plans.  They are going direct to Constantinople, and then to
+Athens.  They had meant to stay in Paris two weeks longer, it seems,
+but they changed their minds last night.  It was a very close shave for
+me.  I only got back to the hotel in time to hear from the concierge
+that Nolan had flown with all of my things, and left word for me to
+follow.  Just fancy!  Suppose I had missed the train, and had had to
+chase him clear across the continent of Europe with not even a razor--"
+
+"I am glad," said Miss Morris, "that Nolan has not taken a fancy to ME.
+I doubt if I could resist such impetuosity."
+
+The Orient Express, in which Carlton and the mistress of his heart and
+fancy were speeding towards the horizon's utmost purple rim, was made
+up of six cars, one dining-car with a smoking-apartment attached, and
+five sleeping-cars, including the one reserved for the Duke of
+Hohenwald and his suite.  These cars were lightly built, and rocked in
+consequence, and the dust raised by the rapid movement of the train
+swept through cracks and open windows, and sprinkled the passengers
+with a fine and irritating coating of soot and earth.  There was one
+servant to the entire twenty-two passengers.  He spoke eight languages,
+and never slept; but as his services were in demand by several people
+in as many different cars at the same moment he satisfied no one, and
+the complaint-box in the smoking-car was stuffed full to the slot in
+consequence before they had crossed the borders of France.
+
+Carlton and Miss Morris went out upon one of the platforms and sat down
+upon a tool-box.  "It's isn't as comfortable here as in an
+observation-car at home," said Carlton, "but it's just as noisy."
+
+He pointed out to her from time to time the peasants gathering twigs,
+and the blue-bloused gendarmes guarding the woods and the fences
+skirting them.  "Nothing is allowed to go to waste in this country," he
+said.  "It looks as though they went over it once a month with a
+lawn-mower and a pruning-knife.  I believe they number the trees as we
+number the houses."
+
+"And did you notice the great fortifications covered with grass?" she
+said.  "We have passed such a lot of them."
+
+Carlton nodded.
+
+"And did you notice that they all faced only one way?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and nodded again.  "Towards Germany," he said.
+
+By the next day they had left the tall poplars and white roads behind
+them, and were crossing the land of low shiny black helmets and brass
+spikes.  They had come into a country of low mountains and black
+forests, with old fortified castles topping the hills, and with
+red-roofed villages scattered around the base.
+
+"How very military it all is!" Mrs. Downs said.  "Even the men at the
+lonely little stations in the forests wear uniforms; and do you notice
+how each of them rolls up his red flag and holds it like a sword, and
+salutes the train as it passes?"
+
+They spent the hour during which the train shifted from one station in
+Vienna to the other driving about in an open carriage, and stopped for
+a few moments in front of a cafe to drink beer and to feel solid earth
+under them again, returning to the train with a feeling which was
+almost that of getting back to their own rooms.  Then they came to
+great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with
+little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this
+grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing
+sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons.  In one
+place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass,
+with the friends of the bride and groom in their best clothes, the
+women with silver breastplates, and boots to their knees.  It seemed
+hardly possible that only two days before they had seen another wedding
+party in the Champs Elysees, where the men wore evening dress, and the
+women were bareheaded and with long trains.  In forty-eight hours they
+had passed through republics, principalities, empires, and kingdoms,
+and from spring to winter.  It was like walking rapidly over a painted
+panorama of Europe.
+
+On the second evening Carlton went off into the smoking-car alone.  The
+Duke of Hohenwald and two of his friends had finished a late supper,
+and were seated in the apartment adjoining it.  The Duke was a young
+man with a heavy beard and eyeglasses.  He was looking over an
+illustrated catalogue of the Salon, and as Carlton dropped on the sofa
+opposite the Duke raised his head and looked at him curiously, and then
+turned over several pages of the catalogue and studied one of them, and
+then back at Carlton, as though he were comparing him with something on
+the page before him.  Carlton was looking out at the night, but he
+could follow what was going forward, as it was reflected in the glass
+of the car window.  He saw the Duke hand the catalogue to one of the
+equerries, who raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in assent.
+Carlton wondered what this might mean, until he remembered that there
+was a portrait of himself by a French artist in the Salon, and
+concluded it had been reproduced in the catalogue.  He could think of
+nothing else which would explain the interest the two men showed in
+him.  On the morning following he sent Nolan out to purchase a
+catalogue at the first station at which they stopped, and found that
+his guess was a correct one.  A portrait of himself had been reproduced
+in black and white, with his name below it.
+
+"Well, they know who I am now," he said to Miss Morris, "even if they
+don't know me.  That honor is still in store for them."
+
+"I wish they did not lock themselves up so tightly," said Miss Morris.
+"I want to see her very much.  Cannot we walk up and down the platform
+at the next station?  She may be at the window."
+
+"Of course," said Carlton.  "You could have seen her at Buda-Pesth if
+you had spoken of it.  She was walking up and down then.  The next time
+the train stops we will prowl up and down and feast our eyes upon her."
+
+But Miss Morris had her wish gratified without that exertion.  The
+Hohenwalds were served in the dining-car after the other passengers had
+finished, and were in consequence only to be seen when they passed by
+the doors of the other compartments.  But this same morning, after
+luncheon, the three Princesses, instead of returning to their own car,
+seated themselves in the compartment adjoining the dining-car, while
+the men of their party lit their cigars and sat in a circle around them.
+
+"I was wondering how long they could stand three men smoking in one of
+the boxes they call cars," said Mrs. Downs.  She was seated between
+Miss Morris and Carlton, directly opposite the Hohenwalds, and so near
+them that she had to speak in a whisper.  To avoid doing this Miss
+Morris asked Carlton for a pencil, and scribbled with it in the novel
+she held on her lap.  Then she passed them both back to him, and said,
+aloud: "Have you read this?  It has such a pretty dedication."  The
+dedication read, "Which is Aline?"  And Carlton, taking the pencil in
+his turn, made a rapid sketch of her on the fly-leaf, and wrote beneath
+it:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+
+Miss Morris took the book again, and glanced at the sketch, and then at
+the three Princesses, and nodded her head.  "It is very beautiful," she
+said, gravely, looking out at the passing landscape.
+
+"Well, not beautiful exactly," answered Carlton, surveying the hills
+critically, "but certainly very attractive.  It is worth travelling a
+long way to see, and I should think one would grow very fond of it."
+
+Miss Morris tore the fly-leaf out of the book, and slipped it between
+the pages.  "May I keep it?" she said.  Carlton nodded.  "And
+will you sign it?" she asked, smiling.  Carlton shrugged his shoulders,
+and laughed.  "If you wish it," he answered.
+
+The Princess wore a gray cheviot travelling dress, as did her sisters,
+and a gray Alpine hat.  She was leaning back, talking to the English
+captain who accompanied them, and laughing.  Carlton thought he had
+never seen a woman who appealed so strongly to every taste of which he
+was possessed.  She seemed so sure of herself, so alert, and yet so
+gracious, so easily entertained, and yet, when she turned her eyes
+towards the strange, dismal landscape, so seriously intent upon its sad
+beauty.  The English captain dropped his head, and with the pretence of
+pulling at his mustache, covered his mouth as he spoke to her.  When he
+had finished he gazed consciously at the roof of the car, and she kept
+her eyes fixed steadily at the object towards which they had turned
+when he had ceased speaking, and then, after a decent pause, turned her
+eyes, as Carlton knew she would, towards him.
+
+"He was telling her who I am," he thought, "and about the picture in
+the catalogue."
+
+In a few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her, pointing
+out at something in the scenery, and the same pantomime was repeated,
+and again with the third sister.
+
+"Did you see those girls talking about you, Mr. Carlton?" Miss Morris
+asked, after they had left the car.
+
+Carlton said it looked as though they were.
+
+"Of course they were," said Miss Morris.
+
+"That Englishman told the Princess Aline something about you, and then
+she told her sister, and she told the eldest one.  It would be nice if
+they inherit their father's interest in painting, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I would rather have it degenerate into an interest in painters
+myself," said Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris discovered, after she had returned to her own car, that she
+had left the novel where she had been sitting, and Carlton sent Nolan
+back for it.  It had slipped to the floor, and the fly-leaf upon which
+Carlton had sketched the Princess Aline was lying face down beside it.
+Nolan picked up the leaf, and saw the picture, and read the inscription
+below: "This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
+see her?"
+
+He handed the book to Miss Morris, and was backing out of the
+compartment, when she stopped him.
+
+"There was a loose page in this, Nolan," she said.  "It's gone; did you
+see it?"
+
+"A loose page, miss?" said Nolan, with some concern.  "Oh, yes, miss; I
+was going to tell you; there was a scrap of paper blew away when I was
+passing between the carriages.  Was it something you wanted, miss?"
+
+"Something I wanted!" exclaimed Miss Morris, in dismay.
+
+Carlton laughed easily.  "It is just as well I didn't sign it, after
+all," he said.  "I don't want to proclaim my devotion to any Hungarian
+gypsy who happens to read English."
+
+"You must draw me another, as a souvenir," Miss Morris said.
+
+Nolan continued on through the length of the car until he had reached
+the one occupied by the Hohenwalds, where he waited on the platform
+until the English maidservant saw him and came to the door of the
+carriage.
+
+"What hotel are your people going to stop at in Constantinople?" Nolan
+asked.
+
+"The Grande-Bretagne, I think," she answered.
+
+"That's right," said Nolan, approvingly.  "That's the one we are going
+to.  I thought I would come and tell you about it.  And, by-the-way,"
+he said, "here's a picture somebody's made of your Princess Aline.  She
+dropped it, and I picked it up.  You had better give it back to her.
+Well," he added, politely, "I'm glad you are coming to our hotel in
+Constantinople; it's pleasant having some one to talk to who can speak
+your own tongue."
+
+The girl returned to the car, and left Nolan alone upon the platform.
+He exhaled a long breath of suppressed excitement, and then gazed
+around nervously upon the empty landscape.
+
+"I fancy that's going to hurry things up a bit," he murmured, with an
+anxious smile; "he'd never get along at all if it wasn't for me."
+
+For reasons possibly best understood by the German ambassador, the
+state of the Hohenwalds at Constantinople differed greatly from that
+which had obtained at the French capital.  They no longer came and went
+as they wished, or wandered through the show-places of the city like
+ordinary tourists.  There was, on the contrary, not only a change in
+their manner towards others, but there was an insistence on their part
+of a difference in the attitude of others towards themselves.  This
+showed itself in the reserving of the half of the hotel for their use,
+and in the haughty bearing of the equerries, who appeared unexpectedly
+in magnificent uniforms.  The visitors' book was covered with the
+autographs of all of the important people in the Turkish capital, and
+the Sultan's carriages stood constantly before the door of the hotel,
+awaiting their pleasure, until they became as familiar a sight as the
+street dogs, or as cabs in a hansom-cab rank.
+
+And in following out the programme which had been laid down for her,
+the Princess Aline became even less accessible to Carlton than before,
+and he grew desperate and despondent.
+
+"If the worst comes," he said to Miss Morris, "I shall tell Nolan to
+give an alarm of fire some night, and then I will run in and rescue her
+before they find out there is no fire.  Or he might frighten the horses
+some day, and give me a chance to stop them.  We might even wait until
+we reach Greece, and have her carried off by brigands, who would only
+give her up to me."
+
+"There are no more brigands in Greece," said Miss Morris; "and besides,
+why do you suppose they would only give her up to you?"
+
+"Because they would be imitation brigands," said Carlton, "and would be
+paid to give her up to no one else."
+
+"Oh, you plan very well," scoffed Miss Morris, "but you don't DO
+anything."
+
+Carlton was saved the necessity of doing anything that same morning,
+when the English captain in attendance on the Duke sent his card to
+Carlton's room.  He came, he explained, to present the Prince's
+compliments, and would it be convenient for Mr. Carlton to meet the
+Duke that afternoon?  Mr. Carlton suppressed an unseemly desire to
+shout, and said, after a moment's consideration, that it would.  He
+then took the English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and
+rewarded him for his agreeable message.
+
+The Duke received Carlton in the afternoon, and greeted him most
+cordially, and with as much ease of manner as it is possible for a man
+to possess who has never enjoyed the benefits of meeting other men on
+an equal footing.  He expressed his pleasure in knowing an artist with
+whose work he was so familiar, and congratulated himself on the happy
+accident which had brought them both to the same hotel.
+
+"I have more than a natural interest in meeting you," said the Prince,
+"and for a reason which you may or may not know.  I thought possibly
+you could help me somewhat.  I have within the past few days come into
+the possession of two of your paintings; they are studies, rather, but
+to me they are even more desirable than the finished work; and I am not
+correct in saying that they have come to me exactly, but to my sister,
+the Princess Aline."
+
+Carlton could not withhold a certain start of surprise.  He had not
+expected that his gift would so soon have arrived, but his face showed
+only polite attention.
+
+"The studies were delivered to us in London," continued the Duke.
+"They are of Ludwig the tragedian, and of the German Prime Minister,
+two most valuable works, and especially interesting to us.  They came
+without any note or message which would inform us who had sent them,
+and when my people made inquiries, the dealer refused to tell them from
+whom they had come.  He had been ordered to forward them to Grasse,
+but, on learning of our presence in London, sent them direct to our
+hotel there.  Of course it is embarrassing to have so valuable a
+present from an anonymous friend, especially so for my sister, to whom
+they were addressed, and I thought that, besides the pleasure of
+meeting one of whose genius I am so warm an admirer, I might also learn
+something which would enable me to discover who our friend may be."  He
+paused, but as Carlton said nothing, continued:  "As it is now, I do
+not feel that I can accept the pictures; and yet I know no one to whom
+they can be returned, unless I send them to the dealer."
+
+"It sounds very mysterious," said Carlton smiling; "and I am afraid I
+cannot help you.  What work I did in Germany was sold in Berlin before
+I left, and in a year may have changed hands several times.  The
+studies of which you speak are unimportant, and merely studies, and
+could pass from hand to hand without much record having been kept of
+them; but personally I am not able to give you any information which
+would assist you in tracing them."
+
+"Yes," said the Duke.  "Well, then, I shall keep them until I can learn
+more; and if we can learn nothing, I shall return them to the dealer."
+
+Carlton met Miss Morris that afternoon in a state of great excitement.
+"It's come!" he cried--"it's come!  I am to meet her this week.  I have
+met her brother, and he has asked me to dine with them on Thursday
+night; that's the day before they leave for Athens; and he particularly
+mentioned that his sisters would be at the dinner, and that it would be
+a pleasure to present me.  It seems that the eldest paints, and all of
+them love art for art's sake, as their father taught them to do; and,
+for all we know, he may make me court painter, and I shall spend the
+rest of my life at Grasse painting portraits of the Princess Aline, at
+the age of twenty-two, and at all future ages.  And if he does give me
+a commission to paint her, I can tell you now in confidence that that
+picture will require more sittings than any other picture ever painted
+by man.  Her hair will have turned white by the time it is finished,
+and the gown she started to pose in will have become forty years behind
+the fashion!"
+
+On the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her niece, with
+all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by
+their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see
+the Sultan's treasures.  Those of them who had waited two weeks for
+this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the
+eleventh hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these
+latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort.  The
+ministers of the different legations--as is the harmless custom of such
+gentlemen--had impressed every one for whom they had obtained
+permission to see the treasures with the great importance of the
+service rendered, and had succeeded in making every one feel either
+especially honored or especially uncomfortable at having given them so
+much trouble.  This sense of obligation, and the fact that the
+dragomans had assured the tourists that they were for the time being
+the guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors to
+such an extent that their manner in the long procession of carriages
+suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in front, escorted by
+Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners.  The procession halted at the
+palace, and the guests of the Sultan were received by numerous effendis
+in single-button frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them
+with glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of which
+every one was supposed to take a spoonful.  There was at first a
+general fear among the Cook's tourists that there would not be enough
+of this to go round, which was succeeded by a greater anxiety lest they
+should be served twice.  Some of the tourists put the sweet stuff in
+their mouths direct and licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the
+spoon into the glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it,
+and no one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who
+happened to have done it.  Carlton and Miss Morris went out on to the
+terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and looked out over the
+great panorama of waters, with the Sea of Marmora on one side, the
+Golden Horn on the other, and the Bosporus at their feet.  The sun was
+shining mildly, and the waters were stirred by great and little
+vessels; before them on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses
+which marked the grim cemetery of England's dead, and behind them were
+the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minarets of the two
+cities, and close at hand the mosaic walls and beautiful gardens of
+Constantine.
+
+"Your friends the Hohenwalds don't seem to know you this morning," she
+said.
+
+"Oh yes; he spoke to me as we left the hotel," Carlton answered.  "But
+they are on parade at present.  There are a lot of their countrymen
+among the tourists."
+
+"I feel rather sorry for them," Miss Morris said, looking at the group
+with an amused smile.  "Etiquette cuts them off from so much innocent
+amusement.  Now, you are a gentleman, and the Duke presumably is, and
+why should you not go over and say, 'Your Highness, I wish you would
+present me to your sister, whom I am to meet at dinner to-morrow night.
+I admire her very much,' and then you could point out the historical
+features to her, and show her where they have finished off a blue and
+green tiled wall with a rusty tin roof, and make pretty speeches to
+her.  It wouldn't hurt her, and it would do you a lot of good.  The
+simplest way is always the best way, it seems to me."
+
+"Oh yes, of course," said Carlton.  "Suppose he came over here and
+said:  'Carlton, I wish you would present me to your young American
+friend.  I admire her very much,' I would probably say:  'Do you?
+Well, you will have to wait until she expresses some desire to meet
+you.'  No; etiquette is all right in itself, only some people don't
+know its laws, and that is the one instance to my mind where ignorance
+of the law is no excuse."
+
+Carlton left Miss Morris talking with the Secretary of the American
+Legation, and went to look for Mrs. Downs.  When he returned he found
+that the young Secretary had apparently asked and obtained permission
+to present the Duke's equerries and some of his diplomatic confreres,
+who were standing now about her in an attentive semicircle, and
+pointing out the different palaces and points of interest.  Carlton was
+somewhat disturbed at the sight, and reproached himself with not having
+presented any one to her before.  He was sure now that she must have
+had a dull time of it; but he wished, nevertheless, that if she was to
+meet other men, the Secretary had allowed him to act as master of
+ceremonies.
+
+"I suppose you know," that gentleman was saying as Carlton came up,
+"that when you pass by Abydos, on the way to Athens, you will see where
+Leander swam the Hellespont to meet Hero.  That little white
+light-house is called Leander in honor of him.  It makes rather an
+interesting contrast--does it not?--to think of that chap swimming
+along in the dark, and then to find that his monument to-day is a
+lighthouse, with revolving lamps and electric appliances, and with
+ocean tramps and bridges and men-of-war around it.  We have improved in
+our mechanism since then," he said, with an air, "but I am afraid the
+men of to-day don't do that sort of thing for the women of to-day."
+
+"Then it is the men who have deteriorated," said one of the equerries,
+bowing to Miss Morris; "it is certainly not the women."
+
+The two Americans looked at Miss Morris to see how she received this,
+but she smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"I know a man who did more than that for a woman," said Carlton,
+innocently.  "He crossed an ocean and several countries to meet her,
+and he hasn't met her yet."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him and laughed, in the safety that no one
+understood him but herself.
+
+"But he ran no danger," she answered.
+
+"He didn't, didn't he?" said Carlton, looking at her closely and
+laughing.  "I think he was in very great danger all the time."
+
+"Shocking!" said Miss Morris, reprovingly; "and in her very presence,
+too."  She knitted her brows and frowned at him.  "I really believe if
+you were in prison you would make pretty speeches to the jailer's
+daughter."
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, boldly, "or even to a woman who was a prisoner
+herself."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said, turning away from him to the
+others.  "How far was it that Leander swam?" she asked.
+
+The English captain pointed out two spots on either bank, and said that
+the shores of Abydos were a little over that distance apart.
+
+"As far as that?" said Miss Morris.  "How much he must have cared for
+her!"  She turned to Carlton for an answer.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.  He was measuring the distance between
+the two points with his eyes.
+
+"I said how much he must have cared for her!  You wouldn't swim that
+far for a girl."
+
+"For a girl!" laughed Carlton, quickly.  "I was just thinking I would
+do it for fifty dollars."
+
+The English captain gave a hasty glance at the distance he had pointed
+out, and then turned to Carlton.  "I'll take you," he said, seriously.
+"I'll bet you twenty pounds you can't do it."  There was an easy laugh
+at Carlton's expense, but he only shook his head and smiled.
+
+"Leave him alone, captain," said the American Secretary.  "It seems to
+me I remember a story of Mr. Carlton's swimming out from Navesink to
+meet an ocean liner.  It was about three miles, and the ocean was
+rather rough, and when they slowed up he asked them if it was raining
+in London when they left.  They thought he was mad."
+
+"Is that true, Carlton?" asked the  Englishman.
+
+"Something like it," said the American, "except that I didn't ask them
+if it was raining in London.  I asked them for a drink, and it was they
+who were mad.  They thought I was drowning, and slowed up to lower a
+boat, and when they found out I was just swimming around they were
+naturally angry.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you didn't bet with me," said the captain, with a
+relieved laugh.
+
+That evening, as the Englishman was leaving the smoking-room, and after
+he had bidden Carlton good-night, he turned back and said:  "I didn't
+like to ask you before those men this morning, but there was something
+about your swimming adventure I wanted to know: Did you get that drink?"
+
+"I did," said Carlton--"in a bottle.  They nearly broke my shoulder."
+
+As Carlton came into the breakfast-room on the morning of the day he
+was to meet the Princess Aline at dinner, Miss Morris was there alone,
+and he sat down at the same table, opposite to her.  She looked at him
+critically, and smiled with evident amusement.
+
+"'To-day,'" she quoted, solemnly, "'the birthday of my life has come.'"
+
+Carlton poured out his coffee, with a shake of his head, and frowned.
+"Oh, you can laugh," he said, "but I didn't sleep at all last night.  I
+lay awake making speeches to her.  I know they are going to put me
+between the wrong sisters," he complained, "or next to one of those old
+ladies-in-waiting, or whatever they are."
+
+"How are you going to begin?" said Miss Morris.  "Will you tell her you
+have followed her from London--or from New York, rather--that you are
+young Lochinvar, who came out of the West, and--"
+
+"I don't know," said Carlton, meditatively, "just how I shall begin;
+but I know the curtain is going to rise promptly at eight
+o'clock--about the time the soup comes on, I think.  I don't see how
+she can help but be impressed a little bit.  It isn't every day a man
+hurries around the globe on account of a girl's photograph; and she IS
+beautiful, isn't she?"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head encouragingly.
+
+"Do you know, sometimes," said Carlton, glancing over his shoulders to
+see if the waiters were out of hearing, "I fancy she has noticed me.
+Once or twice I have turned my head in her direction without meaning
+to, and found her looking--well, looking my way, at least.  Don't you
+think that is a good sign?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"It depends on what you call a 'good sign,'" said Miss Morris,
+judicially.  "It is a sign you're good to look at, if that's what you
+want.  But you probably know that already, and it's nothing to your
+credit.  It certainly isn't a sign that a person cares for you because
+she prefers to look at your profile rather than at what the dragomans
+are trying to show her."
+
+Carlton drew himself up stiffly.  "If you knew your ALICE better," he
+said, with severity, "you would understand that it is not polite to
+make personal remarks.  I ask you, as my confidante, if you think she
+has noticed me, and you make fun of my looks!  That's not the part of a
+confidante."
+
+"Noticed you!" laughed Miss Morris, scornfully.  "How could she help
+it?  You are always in the way.  You are at the door whenever they go
+out or come in, and when we are visiting mosques and palaces you are
+invariably looking at her instead of the tombs and things, with a
+wistful far-away look, as though you saw a vision.  The first time you
+did it, after you had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was
+all right.  You quite embarrassed her."
+
+"I didn't--I don't!" stammered Carlton, indignantly.  "I wouldn't be so
+rude.  Oh, I see I'll have to get another confidante; you are most
+unsympathetic and unkind."  But Miss Morris showed her sympathy later in
+the day, when Carlton needed it sorely; for the dinner towards which he
+had looked with such pleasurable anticipations and lover-like
+misgivings did not take place.  The Sultan, so the equerry informed
+him, had, with Oriental unexpectedness, invited the Duke to dine that
+night at the Palace, and the Duke, much to his expressed regret, had
+been forced to accept what was in the nature of a command.  He sent
+word by his equerry, however, that the dinner to Mr. Carlton was only a
+pleasure deferred, and that at Athens, where he understood Carlton was
+also going, he hoped to have the pleasure of entertaining him and
+making him known to his sisters.
+
+"He is a selfish young egoist," said Carlton to Mrs. Downs.  "As if I
+cared whether he was at the dinner or not!  Why couldn't he have fixed
+it so I might have dined with his sisters alone?  We would never have
+missed him.  I'll never meet her now.  I know it; I feel it.  Fate is
+against me.  Now I will have to follow them on to Athens, and something
+will turn up there to keep me away from her.  You'll see; you'll see.
+I wonder where they go from Athens?"
+
+The Hohenwalds departed the next morning, and as their party had
+engaged all the state-rooms in the little Italian steamer, Carlton was
+forced to wait over for the next.  He was very gloomy over his
+disappointment, and Miss Morris did her best to amuse him.  She and her
+aunt were never idle now, and spent the last few days of their stay in
+Constantinople in the bazars or in excursions up and down the river.
+
+"These are my last days of freedom," Miss Morris said to him once, "and
+I mean to make the most of them.  After this there will be no more
+travelling for me.  And I love it so!" she added, wistfully.
+
+Carlton made no comment, but he felt a certain contemptuous pity for
+the young man in America who had required such a sacrifice.  "She is
+too nice a girl to let him know she is making a sacrifice," he thought,
+"or giving up anything for him, but SHE won't forget it."  And Carlton
+again commended himself for not having asked any woman to make any
+sacrifices for him.
+
+They left Constantinople for Athens one moonlight night, three days
+after the Hohenwalds had taken their departure, and as the evening and
+the air were warm, they remained upon the upper deck until the boat had
+entered the Dardanelles.  There were few passengers, and Mrs. Downs
+went below early, leaving Miss Morris and Carlton hanging over the
+rail, and looking down upon a band of Hungarian gypsies, who were
+playing the weird music of their country on the deck beneath them.  The
+low receding hills lay close on either hand, and ran back so sharply
+from the narrow waterway that they seemed to shut in the boat from the
+world beyond.  The moonlight showed a little mud fort or a thatched
+cottage on the bank fantastically, as through a mist, and from time to
+time as they sped forward they saw the camp-fire of a sentry, and his
+shadow as he passed between it and them, or stopped to cover it with
+wood.  The night was so still that they could hear the waves in the
+steamer's wake washing up over the stones on either shore, and the
+muffled beat of the engines echoed back from either side of the valley
+through which they passed.  There was a great lantern hanging midway
+from the mast, and shining down upon the lower deck.  It showed a group
+of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in strange costumes, sleeping, huddled
+together in picturesque confusion over the bare boards, or wide-awake
+and voluble, smoking and chatting together in happy company.  The music
+of the tizanes rose in notes of passionate ecstasy and sharp,
+unexpected bursts of melody.  It ceased and began again, as though the
+musicians were feeling their way, and then burst out once more into
+shrill defiance.  It stirred Carlton with a strange turbulent unrest.
+From the banks the night wind brought soft odors of fresh earth and of
+heavy foliage.
+
+"The music of different countries," Carlton said at last, "means many
+different things.  But it seems to me that the music of Hungary is the
+music of love."
+
+Miss Morris crossed her arms comfortably on the rail, and he heard her
+laugh softly.  "Oh no, it is not," she said, undisturbed.  "It is a
+passionate, gusty, heady sort of love, if you like, but it's no more
+like the real thing than burgundy is like clear, cold, good water.
+It's not the real thing at all."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton, meekly.  "Of course I don't know
+anything about it."  He had been waked out of the spell which the night
+and the tizanes had placed upon him as completely as though some one had
+shaken him sharply by the shoulder.  "I bow," he said, "to your superior
+knowledge.  I know nothing about it."
+
+"No; you are quite right.  I don't believe you do know anything about
+it," said the girl, "or you wouldn't have made such a comparison."
+
+"Do you know, Miss Morris," said Carlton, seriously, "that I believe
+I'm not able to care for a woman as other men do--at least as some men
+do; it's just lacking in me, and always will be lacking.  It's like an
+ear for music; if you haven't got it, if it isn't born in you, you'll
+never have it.  It's not a thing you can cultivate, and I feel that
+it's not only a misfortune, but a fault.  Now I honestly believe that I
+care more for the Princess Aline, whom I have never met, than many
+other men could care for her if they knew her well; but what they feel
+would last, and I have doubts from past experience that what I feel
+would.  I don't doubt it while it exists, but it never does exist long,
+and so I am afraid it is going to be with me to the end of the
+chapter."  He paused for a moment, but the girl did not answer.  "I am
+speaking in earnest now," he added, with a rueful laugh.
+
+"I see you are," she replied, briefly.  She seemed to be considering
+his condition as he had described it to her, and he did not interrupt
+her.  From below them came the notes of the waltz the gypsies played.
+It was full of the undercurrent of sadness that a waltz should have,
+and filled out what Carlton said as the music from the orchestra in a
+theatre heightens the effect without interrupting the words of the
+actor on the stage.
+
+"It is strange," said Miss Morris.  "I should have thought you were a
+man who would care very much and in just the right way.  But I don't
+believe really--I'm sorry, but I don't believe you do know what love
+means at all."
+
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," said Carlton.  "I think I know what it
+is, and what it means to other people, but I can't feel it myself.  The
+best idea I ever got of it--the thing that made it clear to me--was a
+line in a play.  It seemed to express it better than any of the
+love-poems I ever read.  It was in Shenandoah."
+
+Miss Morris laughed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton.
+
+"I beg yours," she said.  "It was only the incongruity that struck me.
+It seemed so odd to be quoting Shenandoah here in the Dardanelles, with
+these queer people below us and ancient Troy on one hand--it took me by
+surprise, that's all.  Please go on.  What was it impressed you?"
+
+"Well, the hero in the play," said Carlton, "is an officer in the
+Northern army, and he is lying wounded in a house near the Shenandoah
+Valley.  The girl he loves lives in this house, and is nursing him; but
+she doesn't love him,  because she sympathizes with the South.  At
+least she says she doesn't love him.  Both armies are forming in the
+valley below to begin the battle, and he sees his own regiment
+hurrying past to join them, So he gets up and staggers out on the
+stage, which is set to show the yard in front of the farm-house, and he
+calls for his horse to follow his men.  Then the girl runs out and begs
+him not to go; and he asks why, what does it matter to her whether he
+goes or not?  And she says, 'But I cannot let you go; you may be
+killed.'  And he says again, 'What is that to you?'  And she says:  'It
+is everything to me.  I love you.'  And he makes a grab at her with his
+wounded arm, and at that instant both armies open fire in the valley
+below, and the whole earth and sky seem to open and shut, and the house
+rocks.  The girl rushes at him and crowds up against his breast, and
+cries:  'What is that?  Oh, what is that?' and he holds her tight to
+him and laughs, and says:  'THAT?  That's only a battle--you love me.'"
+
+Miss Morris looked steadfastly over the side of the boat at the waters
+rushing by beneath, smiling to herself.  Then she turned her face
+towards Carlton, and nodded her head at him.  "I think," she said,
+dryly, "that you have a fair idea of what it means; a rough
+working-plan at least--enough to begin on."
+
+"I said that I knew what it meant to others.  I am complaining that I
+cannot feel it myself."
+
+"That will come in time, no doubt," she said, encouragingly, with the
+air of a connoisseur; "and let me tell you," she added, "that it will
+be all the better for the woman that you have doubted yourself so long."
+
+"You think so?" said Carlton, eagerly.
+
+Miss Morris laughed at his earnestness, and left him to go below to ask
+her aunt to join them, but Mrs. Downs preferred to read in the saloon,
+and Miss Morris returned alone.  She had taken off her Eton jacket and
+pulled on a heavy blue football sweater, and over this a reefer.  The
+jersey clung to her and showed the lines of her figure, and emphasized
+the freedom and grace with which she made every movement.  She looked,
+as she walked at his side with her hands in the pockets of her coat and
+with a flat sailor hat on her head, like a tall, handsome boy; but when
+they stopped and stood where the light fell full on her hair and the
+exquisite coloring of her skin, Carlton thought her face had never
+seemed so delicate or fair as it did then, rising from the collar of
+the rough jersey, and contrasted with the hat and coat of a man's
+attire.  They paced the deck for an hour later, until every one else
+had left it, and at midnight were still loath to give up the beautiful
+night and the charm of their strange surroundings.  There were long
+silent places in their talk, during which Carlton tramped beside her
+with his head half turned, looking at her and noting with an artist's
+eye the free light step, the erect carriage, and the unconscious beauty
+of her face.  The captain of the steamer joined them after midnight,
+and falling into step, pointed out to Miss Morris where great cities
+had stood, where others lay buried, and where beyond the hills were the
+almost inaccessible monasteries of the Greek Church.  The moonlight
+turned the banks into shadowy substances, in which the ghosts of former
+days seemed to make a part; and spurred by the young girl's interest,
+the Italian, to entertain her, called up all the legends of mythology
+and the stories of Roman explorers and Turkish conquerors.
+
+"I turn in now," he said, after Miss Morris had left them.  "A most
+charming young lady.  Is it not so?" he added, waving his cigarette in
+a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of the adjective.
+
+"Yes, very," said Carlton.  "Good-night, sir."
+
+He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at
+the misty banks, puffing at his cigar.  Then he dropped it hissing into
+the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the
+deserted deck.  It seemed particularly bare and empty.
+
+"What a pity she's engaged!" Carlton said.  "She loses so much by it."
+
+They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early hour the
+next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled with shrieking
+porters and hotel-runners at the sides.  These men tossed their
+painters to the crew, and crawled up them like a boarding crew of
+pirates, running wildly about the deck, and laying violent hands on any
+piece of baggage they saw unclaimed.  The passengers' trunks had been
+thrown out in a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering
+over them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood
+below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself, and
+pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her.  As she stood
+there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy Levantine in pursuit of
+a possible victim, shouldered her intentionally and roughly out of the
+way.  He shoved her so sharply that she lost her balance and fell back
+against the rail.  Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying
+leap from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in
+time to seize the escaping offender by the collar.  He jerked him back
+off his feet.
+
+"How dare you--" he began.
+
+But he did not finish.  He felt the tips of Miss Morris's fingers laid
+upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone:  "Don't;
+please don't."  And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on
+the man's shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to
+flow calmly again through his veins.  Carlton was aware that he had a
+very quick temper.  He was always engaging in street rows, as he called
+them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else,
+and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never
+been satisfied without a blow or an apology.  Women had also touched
+him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had
+stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on
+him had had them beaten down for their pains.  But this girl had merely
+touched him gently, and he had been made helpless.  It was most
+perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing his
+luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as though it were
+numb, and looking down at it with an amused smile.  He did not comment
+on the incident, although he smiled at the recollection of his prompt
+obedience several times during the day.  But as he was stepping into
+the cab to drive to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping
+with water, and muttering bitter curses.  When he saw Carlton he
+disappeared instantly in the crowd.  Carlton stepped over to where
+Nolan sat beside the driver on the box.  "Nolan," he said, in a low
+voice, "isn't that the fellow who--"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nolan, touching his hat gravely.  "He was pulling a
+valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it
+the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over
+backwards off the pier."
+
+Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.
+
+"Nolan," he said, "you're not telling the truth.  You did it yourself."
+Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously.  There had been no
+detaining fingers on Nolan's arm.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+"You are coming now, Miss Morris," exclaimed Carlton from the front of
+the carriage in which they were moving along the sunny road to Athens,
+"into a land where one restores his lost illusions.  Anybody who wishes
+to get back his belief in beautiful things should come here to do it,
+just as he would go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or
+his appetite.  You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you are
+cured.  I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege of cable-cars
+and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of Robert Elsmeres and the
+Heavenly Twins.  Wait until you see the statues of the young athletes
+in the Museum," he cried, enthusiastically, "and get a glimpse of the
+blue sky back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the
+Acropolis, and you'll be convinced that nothing counts for much in this
+world but health and straight limbs, and tall marble pillars, and eyes
+trained to see only what is beautiful.  Give people a love for beauty
+and a respect for health, Miss Morris, and the result is going to be,
+what they once had here, the best art and the greatest writers and
+satirists and poets.  The same audience that applauded Euripides and
+Sophocles in the open theatre used to cross the road the same day to
+applaud the athletes who ran naked in the Olympian games, and gave them
+as great honor.  I came here once on a walking tour with a chap who
+wasn't making as much of himself as he should have done, and he went
+away a changed man, and became a personage in the world, and you would
+never guess what it was that did it.  He saw a statue of one of the
+Greek gods in the Museum which showed certain muscles that he couldn't
+find in his own body, and he told me he was going to train down until
+they did show; and he stopped drinking and loafing to do it, and took
+to exercising and working; and by the time the muscles showed out clear
+and strong he was so keen over life that he wanted to make the most of
+it, and, as I said, he has done it.  That's what a respect for his own
+body did for him."
+
+The carriage stopped at the hotel on one side of the public square of
+Athens, with the palace and its gardens blocking one end, and yellow
+houses with red roofs, and gay awnings over the cafes, surrounding it.
+It was a bright sunny day, and the city was clean and cool and pretty.
+
+"Breakfast?" exclaimed Miss Morris, in answer to Carlton's inquiry;
+"yes, I suppose so, but I won't feel safe until I have my feet on that
+rock."  She was standing on the steps of the hotel, looking up with
+expectant, eager eyes at the great Acropolis above the city.
+
+"It has been there for a long time now," suggested Carlton, "and I
+think you can risk its being there for a half-hour longer."
+
+"Well," she said, reluctantly, "but I don't wish to lose this chance.
+There might be an earthquake, for instance."
+
+
+"We are likely to see THEM this morning," said Carlton, as he left the
+hotel with the ladies and drove towards the Acropolis.  "Nolan has been
+interviewing the English maid, and she tells him they spend the greater
+part of their time up there on the rock.  They are living very simply
+here, as they did in Paris; that is, for the present.  On Wednesday the
+King gives a dinner and a reception in their honor."
+
+"When does your dinner come off?" asked Miss Morris.
+
+"Never," said Carlton, grimly.
+
+"One of the reasons why I like to come back to Athens so much," said
+Mrs. Downs, "is because there are so few other tourists here to spoil
+the local color for you, and there are almost as few guides as
+tourists, so that you can wander around undisturbed and discover things
+for yourself.  They don't label every fallen column, and place fences
+around the temples.  They seem to put you on your good behavior.  Then
+I always like to go to a place where you are as much of a curiosity to
+the people as they are to you.  It seems to excuse your staring about
+you."
+
+"A curiosity!" exclaimed Carlton; "I should say so!  The last time I
+was here I tried to wear a pair of knickerbockers around the city, and
+the people stared so that I had to go back to the hotel and change
+them.  I shouldn't have minded it so much in any other country, but I
+thought men who wore Jaeger underclothing and women's petticoats for a
+national costume might have excused so slight an eccentricity as
+knickerbockers.  THEY had no right to throw the first stone."
+
+The rock upon which the temples of the Acropolis are built is more of a
+hill than a rock.  It is much steeper upon one side than the other,
+with a sheer fall a hundred yards broad; on the opposite side there are
+the rooms of the Hospital of Aesculapius and the theatres of Dionysus
+and Herodes Atticus.  The top of the rock holds the Parthenon and the
+other smaller temples, or what yet remains of them, and its surface is
+littered with broken marble and stones and pieces of rock.  The top is
+so closely built over that the few tourists who visit it can imagine
+themselves its sole occupants for a half-hour at a time.  When Carlton
+and his friends arrived, the place appeared quite deserted.  They left
+the carriage at the base of the rock, and climbed up to the entrance on
+foot.
+
+"Now, before I go on to the Parthenon," said Miss Morris, "I want to
+walk around the sides, and see what is there.  I shall begin with that
+theatre to the left, and I warn you that I mean to take my time about
+it.  So you people who have been here before can run along by
+yourselves, but I mean to enjoy it leisurely.  I am safe by myself
+here, am I not?" she asked.
+
+"As safe as though you were in the Metropolitan Museum," said Carlton,
+as he and Mrs. Downs followed Miss Morris along the side of the hill
+towards the ruined theatre of Herodes, and stood at its top, looking
+down into the basin below.  From their feet ran a great semicircle of
+marble seats, descending tier below tier to a marble pavement, and
+facing a great ruined wall of pillars and arches which in the past had
+formed the background for the actors.  From the height on which they
+stood above the city they could see the green country stretching out
+for miles on every side and swimming in the warm sunlight, the dark
+groves of myrtle on the hills, the silver ribbon of the inland water,
+and the dark blue AEgean Sea.  The bleating of sheep and the tinkling
+of the bells came up to them from the pastures below, and they imagined
+they could hear the shepherds piping to their flocks from one little
+hill-top to another.
+
+"The country is not much changed," said Carlton.  "And when you stand
+where we are now, you can imagine that you see the procession winding
+its way over the road to the Eleusinian Mysteries, with the gilded
+chariots, and the children carrying garlands, and the priestesses
+leading the bulls for the sacrifice."
+
+"What can we imagine is going on here?" said Miss Morris, pointing with
+her parasol to the theatre below.
+
+"Oh, this is much later," said Carlton.  "This was built by the Romans.
+They used to act and to hold their public meetings here.  This
+corresponds to the top row of our gallery, and you can imagine that you
+are looking down on the bent backs of hundreds of bald-headed men in
+white robes, listening to the speakers strutting about below there."
+
+"I wonder how much they could hear from this height?" said Mrs. Downs.
+
+"Well, they had that big wall for a sounding-board, and the air is so
+soft here that their voices should have carried easily, and I believe
+they wore masks with mouth-pieces, that conveyed the sound like a
+fireman's trumpet.  If you like, I will run down there and call up to
+you, and you can hear how it sounded.  I will speak in my natural voice
+first, and if that doesn't reach you, wave your parasol, and I will try
+it a little louder."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Miss Morris.  "It will be very good of you.  I should
+like to hear a real speech in the theatre of Herodes," she said, as she
+seated herself on the edge of the marble crater.
+
+"I'll have to speak in English," said Carlton, as he disappeared; "my
+Greek isn't good enough to carry that far."
+
+Mrs. Downs seated herself beside her niece, and Carlton began
+scrambling down the side of the amphitheatre.  The marble benches were
+broken in parts, and where they were perfect were covered with a fine
+layer of moss as smooth and soft as green velvet, so that Carlton, when
+he was not laboriously feeling for his next foothold with the toe of
+his boot, was engaged in picking spring flowers from the beds of moss
+and sticking them, for safe-keeping, in his button-hole.  He was
+several minutes in making the descent, and so busily occupied in doing
+it that he did not look up until he had reached the level of the
+ground, and jumped lightly from the first row of seats to the stage,
+covered with moss, which lay like a heavy rug over the marble pavement.
+When he did look up he saw a tableau that made his heart, which was
+beating quickly from the exertion of the descent, stand still with
+consternation.  The Hohenwalds had, in his short absence, descended
+from the entrance of the Acropolis, and had stopped on their way to the
+road below to look into the cool green and white basin of the theatre.
+At the moment Carlton looked up the Duke was standing in front of Mrs.
+Downs and Miss Morris, and all of the men had their hats off.  Then, in
+pantomime, and silhouetted against the blue sky behind them, Carlton
+saw the Princesses advance beside their brother, and Mrs. Downs and her
+niece courtesied three times, and then the whole party faced about in a
+line and looked down at him.  The meaning of the tableau was only too
+plain.
+
+"Good heavens!" gasped Carlton.  "Everybody's getting introduced to
+everybody else, and I've missed the whole thing!  If they think I'm
+going to stay down here and amuse them, and miss all the fun myself,
+they are greatly mistaken."  He made a mad rush for the front first row
+of seats; but there was a cry of remonstrance from above, and, looking
+up, he saw all of the men waving him back.
+
+"Speech!" cried the young English Captain, applauding loudly, as though
+welcoming an actor on his first entrance.  "Hats off!" he cried.  "Down
+in front!  Speech!"
+
+"Confound that ass!" said Carlton, dropping back to the marble pavement
+again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures outlined against
+the sky.  "I must look like a bear in the bear-pit at the Zoo," he
+growled.  "They'll be throwing buns to me next."  He could see the two
+elder sisters talking to Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his
+purpose in going down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the
+Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol, and
+smiling.  The captain made a trumpet of his hands, and asked why he
+didn't begin.
+
+"Hello! how are you?" Carlton called back, waving his hat at him in
+some embarrassment.  "I wonder if I look as much like a fool as I
+feel?" he muttered.
+
+"What did you say?  We can't hear you," answered the captain.
+
+"Louder! louder!" called the equerries.  Carlton swore at them under
+his breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which he was penned
+in order to make them believe that he had given up the idea of making a
+speech, or had ever intended doing so.  He tried to think of something
+clever to shout back at them, and rejected "Ye men of Athens" as being
+too flippant, and "Friends, Countrymen, Romans," as requiring too much
+effort.  When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their
+way, and as he started once more to scale the side of the theatre the
+Duke waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave another hand to his
+sisters, who disappeared with him behind the edge of the upper row of
+seats.  Carlton turned at once and dropped into one of the marble
+chairs and bowed his head.  When he did reach the top Miss Morris held
+out a sympathetic hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could
+see that she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, it's all very funny for you," he said, refusing her hand.  "I
+don't believe you are in love with anybody.  You don't know what it
+means."
+
+They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after, and then
+left Athens for an inland excursion to stay overnight.  Miss Morris
+returned from it with the sense of having done her duty once, and by so
+doing having earned the right  to act as she pleased in the future.
+What she best pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of
+the Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical
+values, but rather, as she explained it, for the simple satisfaction of
+feeling that she was there.  She liked to stand on the edge of the low
+wall along its top and look out over the picture of sea and plain and
+mountains that lay below her.  The sun shone brightly, and the wind
+swept by them as though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer,
+and there was the added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us
+when we stand on a great height.  Carlton was sitting at her feet,
+shielded from the wind by a fallen column, and gazing up at her with
+critical approval.
+
+"You look like a sort of a 'Winged Victory' up there," he said, "with
+the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair coming down."
+
+"I don't remember that the 'Winged Victory' has any hair to blow
+about," suggested Miss Morris.
+
+"I'd like to paint you," continued Carlton, "just as you are standing
+now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you could stand a Greek
+dress better than almost any one I know.  I would paint you with your
+head up and one hand shielding your eyes, and the other pressed against
+your breast.  It would be stunning."  He spoke enthusiastically, but in
+quite an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of a
+model.
+
+Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had been
+standing, and said, simply, "Of course I should like to have you paint
+me very much."
+
+Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.
+
+"When?" said Carlton, vaguely.  "Oh, I don't know.  Of course this is
+entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home soon, and then
+when I do get back to the States you will--you will have other things
+to do."
+
+"Yes," repeated Miss Morris, "I shall have something else to do besides
+gazing out at the AEgean Sea."  She raised her head and looked across
+the rock for a moment with some interest.  Her eyes, which had grown
+wistful, lighted again with amusement.  "Here are your friends," she
+said, smiling.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Carlton, scrambling to his feet.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Morris.  "The Duke has seen us, and is coming over
+here."
+
+When Carlton had gained his feet and turned to look, his friends had
+separated in different directions, and were strolling about alone or in
+pairs among the great columns of the Parthenon.  But the Duke came
+directly towards them, and seated himself on a low block of marble in
+front of the two ladies.  After a word or two about the beauties of the
+place, he asked if they would go to the reception which the King gave
+to him on the day following.  They answered that they should like to
+come very much, and the Prince expressed his satisfaction, and said
+that he would see that the chamberlain sent them invitations.  "And
+you, Mr. Carlton, you will come also, I hope.  I wish you to be
+presented to my sisters.  They are only amateurs in art, but they are
+great admirers of your work, and they have rebuked me for not having
+already presented you.  We were all disappointed," he continued,
+courteously, "at not having you to dine with us that night in
+Constantinople, but now I trust I shall see something of you here.  You
+must tell us what we are to admire."
+
+"That is very easy," said Carlton.  "Everything."
+
+"You are quite right," said the Prince, bowing to the ladies as he
+moved away.  "It is all very beautiful."
+
+"Well, now you certainly will meet her," said Miss Morris.
+
+"Oh no, I won't," said Carlton, with resignation.  "I have had two
+chances and lost them, and I'll miss this one too."
+
+"Well, there is a chance you shouldn't miss," said Miss Morris,
+pointing and nodding her head.  "There she is now, and all alone.
+She's sketching, isn't she, or taking notes?  What is she doing?"
+
+Carlton looked eagerly in the direction Miss Morris had signified, and
+saw the Princess Aline sitting at some distance from them, with a book
+on her lap.  She glanced up from this now and again to look at
+something ahead of her, and was apparently deeply absorbed in her
+occupation.
+
+"There is your opportunity," said Mrs. Downs; "and we are going back to
+the hotel.  Shall we see you at luncheon?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "unless I get a position as drawing-master; in
+that case I shall be here teaching the three amateurs in art.  Do you
+think I can do it?" he asked Miss Morris.
+
+"Decidedly," she answered.  "I have found you a most educational young
+person."
+
+They went away together, and Carlton moved cautiously towards the spot
+where the Princess was sitting.  He made a long and roundabout detour
+as he did so, in order to keep himself behind her.  He did not mean to
+come so near that she would see him, but he took a certain satisfaction
+in looking at her when she was alone, though her loneliness was only a
+matter of the moment, and though he knew that her people were within a
+hundred yards of her.  He was in consequence somewhat annoyed and
+surprised to see another young man dodging in and out among the pillars
+of the Parthenon immediately ahead of him, and to find that this young
+man also had his attention centred on the young girl, who sat
+unconsciously sketching in the foreground.
+
+"Now what the devil can he want?" muttered Carlton, his imagination
+taking alarm at once.  "If it would only prove to be some one who meant
+harm to her," he thought--"a brigand, or a beggar, who might be
+obligingly insolent, or even a tipsy man, what a chance it would afford
+for heroic action!"
+
+With this hope he moved forward quickly but silently, hoping that the
+stranger might prove even to be an anarchist with a grudge against
+royalty.  And as he advanced he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+Princess glance over her shoulder, and, observing the man, rise and
+walk quickly away towards the edge of the rock.  There she seated
+herself with her face towards the city, and with her back firmly set
+against her pursuer.
+
+"He is annoying her!" exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried
+forward.  "It looks as though my chance had come at last."  But as he
+approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he
+had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international
+army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a
+hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a
+prominent politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish
+that came within the focus of his camera.  A helpless statue and an
+equally helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his mercy.
+He was bending over, with an anxious expression of countenance, and
+focussing his camera on the back of the Princess Aline, when Carlton
+approached from the rear.  As the young man put his finger on the
+button of the camera, Carlton jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed
+the enthusiastic tourist to one side.
+
+"Say," exclaimed that individual, "look where you're going, will you?
+You spoiled that plate."
+
+"I'll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any longer," said
+Carlton, in a low voice.
+
+The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire of
+pursuit was still in his eye.
+
+"She's a Princess," he explained, in an excited whisper.
+
+"Well," said Carlton, "even a Princess is entitled to some
+consideration.  Besides," he said, in a more amicable tone, "you
+haven't a permit to photograph on the Acropolis.  You know you
+haven't."  Carlton was quite sure of this, because there were no such
+permits.
+
+The amateur looked up in some dismay.  "I didn't know you had to have
+them," he said.  "Where can I get one?"
+
+"The King may give you one," said Carlton.  "He lives at the palace.
+If they catch you up here without a license, they will confiscate your
+camera and lock you up.  You had better vanish before they see you."
+
+"Thank you.  I will," said the tourist, anxiously.
+
+"Now," thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, "when he goes to the palace
+with that box and asks for a permit, they'll think he is either a
+dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest
+in photography will have sustained a severe shock."
+
+As Carlton turned from watching the rapid flight of the photographer,
+he observed that the Princess had remarked it also, as she had no doubt
+been a witness of what had passed, even if she had not overheard all
+that had been said.  She rose from her enforced position of refuge with
+a look of relief, and came directly towards Carlton along the rough
+path that led through the debris on the top of the Acropolis.  Carlton
+had thought, as he watched her sitting on the wall, with her chin
+resting on her hand, that she would make a beautiful companion picture
+to the one he had wished to paint of Miss Morris--the one girl standing
+upright, looking fearlessly out to sea, on the top of the low wall,
+with the wind blowing her skirts about her, and her hair tumbled in the
+breeze, and the other seated, bending intently forward, as though
+watching for the return of a long-delayed vessel; a beautifully sad
+face, fine and delicate and noble, the face of a girl on the figure of
+a woman.  And when she rose he made no effort to move away, or, indeed,
+to pretend not to have seen her, but stood looking at her as though he
+had the right to do so, and as though she must know he had that right.
+As she came towards him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even
+shorten her steps; but as she passed opposite to him she bowed her
+thanks with a sweet impersonal smile and a dropping of the eyes, and
+continued steadily on her way.
+
+Carlton stood for some short time looking after her, with his hat still
+at his side.  She seemed farther from him at that moment than she had
+ever been before, although she had for the first time recognized him.
+But he knew that it was only as a human being that she had recognized
+him.  He put on his hat, and sat down on a rock with his elbows on his
+knees, and filled his pipe.
+
+"If that had been any other girl," he thought, "I would have gone up to
+her and said, 'Was that man annoying you?' and she would have said,
+'Yes; thank you,' or something; and I would have walked along with her
+until we had come up to her friends, and she would have told them I had
+been of some slight service to her, and they would have introduced us,
+and all would have gone well.  But because she is a Princess she cannot
+be approached in that way.  At least she does not think so, and I have
+to act as she has been told I should act, and not as I think I should.
+After all, she is only a very beautiful girl, and she must be very
+tired of her cousins and grandmothers, and of not being allowed to see
+any one else.  These royalties make a very picturesque show for the
+rest of us, but indeed it seems rather hard on them.  A hundred years
+from now there will be no more kings and queens, and the writers of
+that day will envy us, just as the writers of this day envy the men who
+wrote of chivalry and tournaments, and they will have to choose their
+heroes from bank presidents, and their heroines from lady lawyers and
+girl politicians and type-writers.  What a stupid world it will be
+then!"
+
+The next day brought the reception to the Hohenwalds; and Carlton,
+entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same afternoon, found
+Miss Morris and her aunt there together taking tea.  They both looked
+at him with expressions of such genuine commiseration that he stopped
+just as he was going to seat himself and eyed them defiantly.
+
+"Don't tell me," he exclaimed, "that this has fallen through too!"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head silently.
+
+Carlton dropped into the chair beside them, and folded his arms with a
+frown of grim resignation.  "What is it?" he asked.  "Have they
+postponed the reception?"
+
+"No," Miss Morris said; "but the Princess Aline will not be there."
+
+"Of course not," said Carlton, calmly, "of course not.  May I ask why?
+I knew that she wouldn't be there, but I may possibly be allowed to
+express some curiosity."
+
+"She turned her ankle on one of the loose stones on the Acropolis this
+afternoon," said Miss Morris, "and sprained it so badly that they had
+to carry her--"
+
+"Who carried her?" Carlton demanded, fiercely.
+
+"Some of her servants."
+
+"Of course, of course!" cried Carlton.  "That's the way it always will
+be.  I was there the whole afternoon, and I didn't see her.  I wasn't
+there to help her.  It's Fate, that's what it is--Fate!  There's no use
+in my trying to fight against Fate.  Still," he added, anxiously, with
+a sudden access of hope, "she may be well by this evening."
+
+"I hardly think she will," said Miss Morris, "but we will trust so."
+
+The King's palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park,
+and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds
+and the Americans were staying.  As the hotel was the first building on
+the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the
+illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and
+departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering
+through the iron rails into the King's garden.  It was a warm night,
+and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in
+silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the
+yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town.  Every window in the
+broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors
+came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall
+servants in the King's blue and white livery, and the men of his guard
+in their white petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.
+Carlton pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an
+agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street and entered
+the palace.  The line of royalties had broken by the time he reached
+the ballroom, and the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left
+him free, after a bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move
+about as he pleased.  His most earnest desire was to learn whether or
+not the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the
+English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked
+eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her accident.
+
+"No," said the officer; "she's able to walk about, but not to stand,
+and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing.  Too bad,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "very bad."  He released his hand from the other's
+arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway.  His
+disappointment was very keen.  Indeed, he had not known how much this
+meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this
+disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and
+have her sympathize and laugh with him.  He became conscious, as he
+searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and
+repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for
+sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him.  He
+wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and
+whether he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she
+not been there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew
+fainthearted.
+
+But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and for an
+instant doubted if it were she.  The girl he saw seemed to be a more
+beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew--a taller, fairer, and more
+radiant personage; and he feared that it was not she, until he
+remembered that this was the first time he had ever seen her with her
+hair dressed high upon her head, and in the more distinguished
+accessories of a decollete gown and train.  Miss Morris had her hand on
+the arm of one of the equerries, who was battling good-naturedly with
+the crowd, and trying to draw her away from two persistent youths in
+diplomatic uniform who were laughing and pressing forward in close
+pursuit on the other side.  Carlton approached her with a certain
+feeling of diffidence, which was most unusual to him, and asked if she
+were dancing.
+
+"Mr. Carlton shall decide for me," Miss Morris said, dropping the
+equerry's arm and standing beside the American.  "I have promised all
+of these gentlemen," she explained, "to dance with them, and now they
+won't agree as to which is to dance first.  They've wasted half this
+waltz already in discussing it, and they make it much more difficult by
+saying that no matter how I decide, they will fight duels with the one
+I choose, which is most unpleasant for me."
+
+"Most unpleasant for the gentleman you choose, too," suggested Carlton.
+
+"So," continued Miss Morris, "I have decided to leave it to you."
+
+"Well, if I am to arbitrate between the powers," said Carlton, with a
+glance at the three uniforms, "my decision is that as they insist on
+fighting duels in any event, you had better dance with me until they
+have settled it between them, and then the survivor can have the next
+dance."
+
+"That's a very good idea," said Miss Morris; and taking Carlton's arm,
+she bowed to the three men and drew away.
+
+"Mr. Carlton," said the equerry, with a bow, "has added another
+argument in favor of maintaining standing armies, and of not submitting
+questions to arbitration."
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Carlton.  "You don't want to dance, do
+you?  Let us go where it's cool."
+
+He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace.  They did not
+speak again until they had left it, and were walking under the trees in
+the Queen's garden.  He had noticed as they made their way through the
+crowd how the men and women turned to look at her and made way for her,
+and how utterly unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
+unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such discrimination,
+and Carlton himself held his head a little higher with the pride and
+pleasure the thought gave him that he was in such friendly sympathy
+with so beautiful a creature.  He stopped before a low stone bench that
+stood on the edge of the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical
+trees, and guarded by a marble statue.  They were in deep shadow
+themselves, but the moonlight fell on the path at their feet, and
+through the trees on the other side of the path they could see the open
+terrace of the palace, with the dancers moving in and out of the
+lighted windows.  The splash of a fountain came from some short
+distance behind them, and from time to time they heard the strains of a
+regimental band alternating with the softer strains of a waltz played
+by a group of Hungarian musicians.  For a moment neither of them spoke,
+but sat watching the white dresses of the women and the uniforms of the
+men moving in and out among the trees, lighted by the lanterns hanging
+from the branches, and the white mist of the moon.
+
+"Do you know," said Carlton, "I'm rather afraid of you to-night!"  He
+paused, and watched her for a little time as she sat upright, with her
+hands folded on her lap.
+
+"You are so very resplendent and queenly and altogether different," he
+added.  The girl moved her bare shoulders slightly and leaned back
+against the bench.
+
+"The Princess did not come," she said.
+
+"No," Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at having
+forgotten that fact.  "That's one of the reasons I took you away from
+those men," he explained.  "I wanted you to sympathize with me."
+
+Miss Morris did not answer him at once.  She did not seem to be in a
+sympathetic mood.  Her manner suggested rather that she was tired and
+troubled.
+
+"I need sympathy myself to-night," she said.  "We received a letter
+after dinner that brought bad news for us.  We must go home at once."
+
+"Bad news!" exclaimed Carlton, with much concern.  "From home?"
+
+"Yes, from home," she replied; "but there is nothing wrong there; it is
+only bad news for us.  My sister has decided to be married in June
+instead of July, and that cuts us out of a month on the Continent.
+That's all.  We shall have to leave immediately--tomorrow.  It seems
+that Mr. Abbey is able to go away sooner than he had hoped, and they
+are to be married on the first."
+
+"Mr. Abbey!" exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name.  "But your sister
+isn't going to marry him, is she?"
+
+Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise.  "Yes--why not?" she said.
+
+"But I say!" cried Carlton, "I thought your aunt told me that YOU were
+going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on the steamer when he
+came to see you off."
+
+"I marry him--my aunt told you--impossible!" said Miss Morris, smiling.
+"She probably said that 'her niece' was going to marry him; she meant
+my sister.  They had been engaged some time."
+
+"Then who are YOU going to marry?" stammered Carlton.
+
+"I am not going to marry any one," said Miss Morris.
+
+Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement.  "Well, that's most
+absurd!" he exclaimed.
+
+He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly adequate, but he
+could not readjust his mind so suddenly to the new idea, and he
+remained looking at her with many confused memories rushing through his
+brain.  A dozen questions were on his tongue.  He remembered afterwards
+how he had noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the
+orange-colored lanterns, and that he had watched him as he disappeared
+among the palms.
+
+The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
+significance in itself which Carlton recognized.  He pulled himself up
+with a short laugh.  "Well," he remonstrated, mirthlessly, "I don't
+think you've treated ME very well."
+
+"How, not treated you very well?" Miss Morris asked, settling herself
+more easily.  She had been sitting during the pause which followed
+Carlton's discovery with a certain rigidity, as if she was on a strain
+of attention.  But her tone was now as friendly as always, and held its
+customary suggestion of amusement.  Carlton took his tone from it,
+although his mind was still busily occupied with incidents and words of
+hers that she had spoken in their past intercourse.
+
+"Not fair in letting me think you were engaged," he said.  "I've wasted
+so much time: I'm not half civil enough to engaged girls," he
+explained.
+
+"You've been quite civil enough to us," said Miss Morris, "as a
+courier, philosopher, and friend.  I'm very sorry we have to part
+company."
+
+"Part company!" exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm.  "But, I say, we
+mustn't do that."
+
+"But we must, you see," said Miss Morris. "We must go back for the
+wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline."
+
+"Yes, of course," Carlton heard his own voice say.  "I had forgotten
+the Princess Aline."  But he was not thinking of what he was saying,
+nor of the Princess Aline.  He was thinking of the many hours Miss
+Morris and he had been together, of the way she had looked at certain
+times, and of how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he
+had pictured the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over the
+same route, and without a chaperon, sitting close at her side or
+holding her hand, and telling her just how pretty she was whenever he
+wished to do so, and without any fear of the consequences.  He
+remembered how ready she had been to understand what he was going to
+say before he had finished saying it, and how she had always made him
+show the best of himself, and had caused him to leave unsaid many
+things that became common and unworthy when considered in the light of
+her judgment.  He recalled how impatient he had been when she was late
+at dinner, and how cross he was throughout one whole day when she had
+kept her room.  He felt with a sudden shock of delightful fear that he
+had grown to depend upon her, that she was the best companion he had
+ever known; and he remembered moments when they had been alone together
+at the table, or in some old palace, or during a long walk, when they
+had seemed to have the whole world entirely to themselves, and how he
+had consoled himself at such times with the thought that no matter how
+long she might be Abbey's wife, there had been these moments in her
+life which were his, with which Abbey had had nothing to do.
+
+Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes, as though
+he saw her for the first time.  He felt so sure of himself and of his
+love for her that the happiness of it made him tremble, and the thought
+that if he spoke she might answer him in the old, friendly, mocking
+tone of good-fellowship filled him with alarm.  At that moment it
+seemed to Carlton that the most natural thing in the world for them to
+do would be to go back again together over the road they had come,
+seeing everything in the new light of his love for her, and so travel
+on and on for ever over the world, learning to love each other more and
+more each succeeding day, and leaving the rest of the universe to move
+along without them.
+
+He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench, and bent
+his face towards hers.  Her hand lay at her side, and his own closed
+over it, but the shock that the touch of her fingers gave him stopped
+and confused the words upon his tongue.  He looked strangely at her,
+and could not find the speech he needed.
+
+Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and drew her
+own away, as if he had taken hers only in an exuberance of good feeling.
+
+"You have been very nice to us," she said, with an effort to make her
+tone sound kindly and approving.  "And we--"
+
+"You mustn't go; I can't let you go," said Carlton, hoarsely.  There
+was no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now.  "IF you go," he went
+on, breathlessly, "I must go with you."
+
+The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her breath
+with a slight, nervous tremor.  Then she turned and faced him, almost
+as though she were afraid of him or of herself, and they sat so for an
+instant in silence.  The air seemed to have grown close and heavy, and
+Carlton saw her dimly.  In the silence he heard the splash of the
+fountain behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
+and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.
+
+He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight that he was
+smiling.  It was as though he wished to delay any answer she might make
+to his last words.
+
+"That is the waltz," he said, still speaking in a whisper, "that the
+gypsies played that night--"  He stopped, and Miss Morris answered him
+by bending her head slowly in assent.  It seemed to be an effort for
+her to even make that slight gesture.
+
+"YOU don't remember it," said Carlton.  "It meant nothing to you.  I
+mean that night on the steamer when I told you what love meant to other
+people.  What a fool I was!" he said, with an uncertain laugh.
+
+"Yes, I remember it," she said--"last Thursday night, on the steamer."
+
+"Thursday night!" exclaimed Carlton, indignantly.  "Wednesday night,
+Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week it was?  It was
+the night of my life to me.  That night I knew that I loved you as I
+had never hoped to care for any one in this world.  When I told you
+that I did not know what love meant I felt all the time that I was
+lying.  I knew that I loved you, and that I could never love any one
+else,  and that I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought
+then you could care for me, your engagement or your promises would
+never have stopped my telling you so.  You said that night that I would
+learn to love all the better, and more truly, for having doubted myself
+so long, and, oh, Edith," he cried, taking both her hands and holding
+them close in his own, "I cannot let you go now!  I love you so!  Don't
+laugh at me; don't mock at me.  All the rest of my life depends on you."
+
+And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her not to
+do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came so gently and
+sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that though he let go of her
+hands with one of his, it was only that he might draw her to him, until
+her face touched his, and she felt the strength of his arm as he held
+her against his breast.
+
+
+The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor of the
+hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony that reached out
+from it over the front entrance.  And at the time when Mrs. Downs and
+Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to the hotel from the ball, the
+Princess Aline was leaning over the balcony and watching the lights go
+out in the upper part of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the
+trees and statues in the public park below.  Her foot was still in
+bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from the
+cold.  Inside of the open windows that led out on to the balcony her
+sisters were taking off their ornaments, and discussing the incidents
+of the night just over.
+
+The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help Mrs.
+Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand to another
+muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs. Downs was ascending
+the steps, and before the second muffled figure had left the shadow of
+the carriage and stepped into the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw
+Carlton draw her suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the cheek, and
+heard a protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her
+head and run up the steps.  Then she saw Carlton shake hands with them,
+and stand for a moment after they had disappeared, gazing up at the
+moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat.  He drew out a cigar-case
+and leisurely selected a cigar, and with much apparent content lighted
+it, and then, with his head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as
+though he were challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
+disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.
+
+The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood there
+leaning against the side.  "That young Mr. Carlton, the artist," she
+said to her sisters, "is engaged to that beautiful American girl we met
+the other day."
+
+"Really!" said the elder sister.  "I thought it was probable.  Who told
+you?"
+
+"I saw him kiss her good-night," said the Princess, stepping into the
+window, "as they got out of their carriage just now."
+
+The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the
+floor, and then walked across the room to a little writing-desk.  She
+unlocked a drawer in this and took from it two slips of paper, which
+she folded in her hand.  Then she returned slowly across the room, and
+stepped out again on to the balcony.
+
+One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn of her,
+and under which he had written:  "This is she.  Do you wonder I
+travelled four thousand miles to see her?"  And the other was the
+picture of Carlton himself, which she had cut out of the catalogue of
+the Salon.
+
+From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she could see the
+glimmer of Carlton's white linen and the red glow of his cigar as he
+strode proudly up and down the path of the public park, like a sentry
+keeping watch.  She folded the pieces of paper together and tore them
+slowly into tiny fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into
+the street below.  Then she returned again to the room, and stood
+looking at her sisters.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "I think I am a little tired of travelling so
+much.  I want to go back to Grasse."  She put her hand to her, forehead
+and held it there for a moment.  "I think I am a little homesick," said
+the Princess Aline.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext Princess Aline by Richard Harding Davis
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+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS ALINE
+
+I
+
+
+
+
+H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the
+life of Morton Carlton--or "Morney" Carlton, as men called
+him--of New York city, when that young gentleman's affairs and
+affections were best suited to receive her.  Had she made her
+appearance three years sooner or three years later, it is
+quite probable that she would have passed on out of his life
+with no more recognition from him than would have been
+expressed in a look of admiring curiosity.
+
+But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both
+unoccupied, she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which
+led him into doing several wise and many foolish things, and
+which remained with him always.  Carlton had reached a point
+in his life, and very early in his life, when he could afford
+to sit at ease and look back with modest satisfaction to what
+he had forced himself to do, and forward with pleasurable
+anticipations to whatsoever he might choose to do in the
+future.  The world had appreciated what he had done, and had
+put much to his credit, and he was prepared to draw upon this
+grandly.
+
+At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
+excellent family connections, but with no family, his only
+relative being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the
+point of view of the Union Club's windows, and who objected to
+his nephew's leaving Harvard to take up the study of art in
+Paris.  In that city (where at Julian's he was nicknamed the
+junior Carlton, for the obvious reason that he was the older
+of the two Carltons in the class, and because he was well
+dressed) he had shown himself a harder worker than others who
+were less careful of their appearance and of their manners. 
+His work, of which he did not talk, and his ambitions, of
+which he also did not talk, bore fruit early, and at
+twenty-six he had become a portrait-painter of international
+reputation.  Then the French government purchased one of his
+paintings at an absurdly small figure, and placed it in the
+Luxembourg, from whence it would in time depart to be buried
+in the hall of some provincial city; and American
+millionaires, and English Lord Mayors, members of Parliament,
+and members of the Institute, masters of hounds in pink coats,
+and ambassadors in gold lace, and beautiful women of all
+nationalities and conditions sat before his easel.  And so
+when he returned to New York he was welcomed with an
+enthusiasm which showed that his countrymen had feared that
+the artistic atmosphere of the Old World had stolen him from
+them forever.  He was particularly silent, even at this date,
+about his work, and listened to what others had to say of it
+with much awe, not unmixed with some amusement, that it should
+be he who was capable of producing anything worthy of such
+praise.  We have been told what the mother duck felt when her
+ugly duckling turned into a swan, but we have never considered
+how much the ugly duckling must have marvelled also.
+
+"Carlton is probably the only living artist," a brother artist
+had said of him, "who fails to appreciate how great his work
+is."  And on this being repeated to Carlton by a good-natured
+friend, he had replied cheerfully, "Well, I'm sorry, but it is
+certainly better to be the only one who doesn't appreciate it
+than to be the only one who does."
+
+He had never understood why such a responsibility had been
+intrusted to him.  It was, as he expressed it, not at all in
+his line, and young girls who sought to sit at the feet of the
+master found him making love to them in the most charming
+manner in the world, as though he were not entitled to all the
+rapturous admiration of their very young hearts, but had to
+sue for it like any ordinary mortal.  Carlton always felt as
+though some day some one would surely come along and say: 
+"Look here, young man, this talent doesn't belong to you; it's
+mine.  What do you mean by pretending that such an idle
+good-natured youth as yourself is entitled to such a gift of
+genius?"  He felt that he was keeping it in trust, as it were;
+that it had been changed at birth, and that the proper
+guardian would eventually relieve him of his treasure.
+
+Personally Carlton was of the opinion that he should have been
+born in the active days of knights-errant--to have had nothing
+more serious to do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon
+fastened to the point of his lance, and with the spirit to
+unhorse any one who objected to its color, or to the claims of
+superiority of the noble lady who had tied it there.  There
+was not, in his opinion, at the present day any sufficiently
+pronounced method of declaring admiration for the many lovely
+women this world contained.  A proposal of marriage he
+considered to be a mean and clumsy substitute for the older
+way, and was uncomplimentary to the many other women left
+unasked, and marriage itself required much more constancy than
+he could give.  He had a most romantic and old-fashioned ideal
+of women as a class, and from the age of fourteen had been a
+devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and though in that
+time his ideal had received several severe shocks, he still
+believed that the "not impossible she" existed somewhere, and
+his conscientious efforts to find out whether every women he
+met might not be that one had led him not unnaturally into
+many difficulties.
+
+"The trouble with me is," he said, "that I care too much to
+make Platonic friendship possible, and don't care enough to
+marry any particular woman--that is, of course, supposing that
+any particular one would be so little particular as to be
+willing to marry me.  How embarrassing it would be, now," he
+argued, "if, when you were turning away from the chancel after
+the ceremony, you should look at one of the bridesmaids and
+see the woman whom you really should have married!  How
+distressing that would be!  You couldn't very well stop and
+say:  `I am very sorry, my dear, but it seems I have made a
+mistake.  That young woman on the right has a most interesting
+and beautiful face.  I am very much afraid that she is the
+one.'  It would be too late then; while now, in my free state,
+I can continue my, search without any sense of
+responsibility."
+
+"Why"--he would exclaim--"I have walked miles to get a glimpse
+of a beautiful woman in a suburban window, and time and time
+again when I have seen a face in a passing brougham I have
+pursued it in a hansom, and learned where the owner of the
+face lived, and spent weeks in finding some one to present me,
+only to discover that she was self-conscious or uninteresting
+or engaged.  Still I had assured myself that she was not the
+one.  I am very conscientious, and I consider that it is my
+duty to go so far with every woman I meet as to be able to
+learn whether she is or is not the one, and the sad result is
+that I am like a man who follows the hounds but is never in at
+the death."
+
+"Well," some married woman would say, grimly, "I hope you will
+get your deserts some day; and you WILL, too.  Some day some
+girl will make you suffer for this."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Carlton would answer, meekly.  "Lots
+of women have made me suffer, if that's what you think I need."
+
+"Some day," the married woman would prophesy, "you will care
+for a woman so much that you will have no eyes for any one
+else.  That's the way it is when one is married."
+
+"Well, when that's the way it is with ME," Carlton would
+reply, "I certainly hope to get married; but until it is, I
+think it is safer for all concerned that I should not."
+
+Then Carlton would go to the club and complain bitterly to one
+of his friends.
+
+"How unfair married women are!" he would say.  "The idea of
+thinking a man could have no eyes but for one woman!  Suppose
+I had never heard a note of music until I was twenty-five
+years of age, and was then given my hearing.  Do you suppose
+my pleasure in music would make me lose my pleasure in
+everything else?  Suppose I met and married a girl at
+twenty-five.  Is that going to make me forget all the women I
+knew before I met her?  I think not.  As a matter of fact, I
+really deserve a great deal of credit for remaining single,
+for I am naturally very affectionate; but when I see what poor
+husbands my friends make, I prefer to stay as I am until I am
+sure that I will make a better one.  It is only fair to the
+woman."
+
+Carlton was sitting in the club alone.  He had that sense of
+superiority over his fellows and of irresponsibility to the
+world about him that comes to a man when he knows that his
+trunks are being packed and that his state-room is engaged. 
+He was leaving New York long before most of his friends could
+get away.  He did not know just where he was going, and
+preferred not to know.  He wished to have a complete holiday,
+and to see Europe as an idle tourist, and not as an artist
+with an eye to his own improvement.  He had plenty of time and
+money; he was sure to run across friends in the big cities,
+and acquaintances he could make or not, as he pleased, en
+route.  He was not sorry to go.  His going would serve to put
+an end to what gossip there might be of his engagement to
+numerous young women whose admiration for him as an artist, he
+was beginning to fear, had taken on a more personal tinge.  "I
+wish," he said, gloomily, "I didn't like people so well.  It
+seems to cause them and me such a lot of trouble."
+
+He sighed, and stretched out his hand for a copy of one of the
+English illustrated papers.  It had a fresher interest to him
+because the next number of it that he would see would be in
+the city in which it was printed.  The paper in his hands was
+the St. James Budget, and it contained much fashionable
+intelligence concerning the preparations for a royal wedding
+which was soon to take place between members of two of the
+reigning families of Europe.  There was on one page a
+half-tone reproduction of a photograph, which showed a group
+of young people belonging to several of these reigning
+families, with their names and titles printed above and below
+the picture.  They were princesses, archdukes, or grand-dukes,
+and they were dressed like young English men and women, and
+with no sign about them of their possible military or social rank.
+
+One of the young princesses in the photograph was looking out
+of it and smiling in a tolerant, amused way, as though she had
+thought of something which she could not wait to enjoy until
+after the picture was taken.  She was not posing consciously,
+as were some of the others, but was sitting in a natural
+attitude, with one arm over the back of her chair, and with
+her hands clasped before her.  Her face was full of a fine
+intelligence and humor, and though one of the other princesses
+in the group was far more beautiful, this particular one had a
+much more high-bred air, and there was something of a
+challenge in her smile that made any one who looked at the
+picture smile also.  Carlton studied the face for some time,
+and mentally approved of its beauty; the others seemed in
+comparison wooden and unindividual, but this one looked like a
+person he might have known, and whom he would certainly have
+liked.  He turned the page and surveyed the features of the
+Oxford crew with lesser interest, and then turned the page
+again and gazed critically and severely at the face of the
+princess with the high-bred smile.  He had hoped that he would
+find it less interesting at a second glance, but it did not
+prove to be so.
+
+"`The Princess Aline of Hohenwald,'" he read.  "She's probably
+engaged to one of those Johnnies beside her, and the
+Grand-Duke of Hohenwald behind her must be her brother."  He
+put the paper down and went into luncheon, and diverted
+himself by mixing a salad dressing; but after a few moments he
+stopped in the midst of this employment, and told the waiter,
+with some unnecessary sharpness, to bring him the last copy of
+the St. James Budget.
+
+"Confound it!" he added, to himself.
+
+He opened the paper with a touch of impatience and gazed long
+and earnestly at the face of the Princess Aline, who continued
+to return his look with the same smile of amused tolerance. 
+Carlton noted every detail of her tailor-made gown, of her
+high mannish collar, of her tie, and even the rings on her
+hand.  There was nothing about her of which he could fairly
+disapprove.  He wondered why it was that she could not have
+been born an approachable New York girl instead of a princess
+of a little German duchy, hedged in throughout her single
+life, and to be traded off eventually in marriage with as much
+consideration as though she were a princess of a real kingdom.
+
+"She looks jolly too," he mused, in an injured tone; "and so
+very clever; and of course she has a beautiful complexion. 
+All those German girls have.  Your Royal Highness is more than
+pretty," he said, bowing his head gravely.  "You look as a
+princess should look.  I am sure it was one of your ancestors
+who discovered the dried pea under a dozen mattresses."  He
+closed the paper, and sat for a moment with a perplexed smile
+of consideration.  "Waiter," he exclaimed, suddenly, "send a
+messenger-boy to Brentano's for a copy of the St. James
+Budget, and bring me the Almanach de Gotha from the library. 
+It is a little fat red book on the table near the window." 
+Then Carlton opened the paper again and propped it up against
+a carafe, and continued his critical survey of the Princess
+Aline.  He seized the Almanach, when it came, with some
+eagerness.
+
+"Hohenwald (Maison de Grasse)," he read, and in small type
+below it:
+
+
+"1. Ligne cadette (regnante) grand-ducale: Hohenwald et de
+Grasse.
+
+"Guillaume-Albert-Frederick-Charles-Louis, Grand-Duc de
+Hohenwald et de Grasse, etc., etc., etc."
+
+
+"That's the brother, right enough," muttered Carlton.
+
+And under the heading "Soeurs" he read:
+
+
+"4. Psse Aline.--Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene, Alt.
+Gr.-Duc. Nee a Grasse, Juin, 1872."
+
+
+"Twenty-two years old," exclaimed Carlton.  "What a perfect
+age! I could not have invented a better one."  He looked from
+the book to the face before him.  "Now, my dear young lady,"
+he said, "I know all about YOU.  You live at Grasse, and you
+are connected, to judge by your names, with all the English
+royalties; and very pretty names they are, too--Aline, Helene,
+Victoria, Beatrix.  You must be much more English than you are
+German; and I suppose you live in a little old castle, and
+your brother has a standing army of twelve men, and some day
+you are to marry a Russian Grand-Duke, or whoever your
+brother's Prime Minister if he has a Prime Minister-decides is
+best for the politics of your little toy kingdom.  Ah! to
+think," exclaimed Carlton, softly, "that such a lovely and
+glorious creature as that should be sacrificed for so
+insignificant a thing as the peace of Europe when she might
+make some young man happy?"
+
+He carried a copy of the paper to his room, and cut the
+picture of the group out of the page and pasted it carefully
+on a stiff piece of card-board.  Then he placed it on his
+dressing-table, in front of a photograph of a young woman in a
+large silver frame-which was a sign, had the young woman but
+known it, that her reign for the time being was over.
+
+Nolan, the young Irishman who "did for" Carlton, knew better
+than to move it when he found it there.  He had learned to
+study his master since he had joined him in London, and
+understood that one photograph in the silver frame was
+entitled to more consideration than three others on the
+writing-desk or half a dozen on the mantel-piece.  Nolan had
+seen them come and go; he had watched them rise and fall; he
+had carried notes to them, and books and flowers; and had
+helped to dispose them from the silver frame and move them on
+by degrees down the line, until they went ingloriously into
+the big brass bowl on the side table.  Nolan approved highly
+of this last choice.  He did not know which one of the three
+in the group it might be; but they were all pretty, and their
+social standing was certainly distinguished.
+
+Guido, the Italian model who ruled over the studio, and Nolan
+were busily packing when Carlton entered.  He always said that
+Guido represented him in his professional and Nolan in his
+social capacity.  Guido cleaned the brushes and purchased the
+artists' materials; Nolan cleaned his riding-boots and bought
+his theatre and railroad tickets.
+
+"Guido," said Carlton, "there are two sketches I made in
+Germany last year, one of the Prime Minister, and one of
+Ludwig the actor; get them out for me, will you, and pack them
+for shipping.  Nolan," he went on, "here is a telegram to send."
+
+Nolan would not have read a letter, but he looked upon
+telegrams as public documents, the reading of them as part of
+his perquisites.  This one was addressed to Oscar Von Holtz,
+First Secretary, German Embassy, Washington, D.C., and the
+message read:
+
+
+"Please telegraph me full title and address Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald.  Where would a letter reach her?
+
+"MORTON CARLTON."
+
+
+The next morning Nolan carried to the express office a box
+containing two oil-paintings on small canvases.  They were
+addressed to the man in London who attended to the shipping
+and forwarding of Carlton's pictures in that town.
+
+
+There was a tremendous crowd on the New York.  She sailed at
+the obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people,
+in consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the
+way of their breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say
+goodbye.  Carlton, for his part, did not notice them; he knew
+by experience that the attractive-looking people always leave
+a steamer when the whistle blows, and that the next most
+attractive-looking, who remain on board, are ill all the way
+over.  A man that he knew seized him by the arm as he was
+entering his cabin, and asked if he were crossing or just
+seeing people off.
+
+"Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her
+aunt, Mrs. Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if
+you would be nice to them.  But you know her, I guess?" he
+asked, over his shoulder, as Carlton pushed his way after him
+down the deck.
+
+"I know who she is," he said.
+
+Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of
+admiring friends, and seemed to be holding her own.  They all
+stopped when Carlton came up, and looked at him rather
+closely, and those whom he knew seemed to mark the fact by a
+particularly hearty greeting.  The man who had brought him up
+acted as though he had successfully accomplished a somewhat
+difficult and creditable feat.  Carlton bowed himself away,
+leaving Miss  Morris to her friends, and saying that she would
+probably have to see him later, whether she wished it or not. 
+He then went to meet the aunt, who received him kindly, for
+there were very few people on the passenger list, and she was
+glad they were to have his company.  Before he left she
+introduced him to a young man named Abbey, who was hovering
+around her most anxiously, and whose interest, she seemed to
+think it necessary to explain, was due to the fact that he was
+engaged to Miss Morris.  Mr. Abbey left the steamer when the
+whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully.  He
+always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as
+it left him no choice in the matter, and excused him from
+finding out whether or not that particular young woman was the one.
+
+Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and
+faced the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy
+Hook with unconcern.  Carlton joined them, and they stood
+together leaning with their backs to the rail, and trying to
+fit the people who flitted past them to the names on the
+passenger list.
+
+"The young lady in the sailor suit," said Miss Morris, gazing
+at the top of the smoke-stack, "is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand
+Rapids.  This is her first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is
+something like a yacht, and dresses for the part accordingly. 
+She does not know that it is merely a moving hotel."
+
+"I am afraid," said Carlton, "to judge from her agitation,
+that hers is going to be what the professionals call
+a`dressing-room' part.  Why is it," he asked, "that the girls
+on a steamer who wear gold anchors and the men in
+yachting-caps are always the first to disappear?  That man
+with the sombrero," he went on, "is James M. Pollock, United
+States Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to his post.  I
+know he is the consul, because he comes from Fort Worth,
+Texas, and is therefore admirably fitted to speak either
+French or the native language of the island."
+
+"Oh, we don't send consuls to Mauritius," laughed Miss Morris. 
+"Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps,
+but no one really lives or goes there."
+
+"Where are you going, may I ask?" inquired Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris said that they were making their way to
+Constantinople and Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had
+not had the time to take the southern route, they purposed to
+journey across the Continent direct from Paris to the Turkish
+capital by the Orient Express.
+
+"We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long
+enough for some clothes," she replied.
+
+"The trousseau," thought Carlton.  "Weeks is what she should
+have said."
+
+The three sat together at the captain's table, and as the sea
+continued rough, saw little of either the captain or his other
+guests, and were thrown much upon the society of each other. 
+They had innumerable friends and interests in common; and Mrs.
+Downs, who had been everywhere, and for long seasons at a
+time, proved as alive as her niece, and Carlton conceived a
+great liking for her.  She seemed to be just and kindly
+minded, and, owing to her age, to combine the wider judgment
+of a man with the sympathetic interest of a woman.  Sometimes
+they sat together in a row and read, and gossiped over what
+they read, or struggled up the deck as it rose and fell and
+buffeted with the wind; and later they gathered in a corner of
+the saloon and ate late suppers of Carlton's devising, or
+drank tea in the captain's cabin, which he had thrown open to
+them.  They had started knowing much about one another, and
+this and the necessary proximity of the ship hastened their
+acquaintance.
+
+The sea grew calmer the third day out, and the sun came forth
+and showed the decks as clean as bread-boards.  Miss Morris
+and Carlton seated themselves on the huge iron riding-bits in
+the bow, and with their elbows on the rail looked down at the
+whirlin-blue water, and rejoiced silently in the steady rush
+of the great vessel, and in the uncertain warmth of the March
+sun.  Carlton was sitting to leeward of Miss Morris, with a
+pipe between his teeth.  He was warm, and at peace with the
+world.  He had found his new acquaintance more than
+entertaining.  She was even friendly, and treated him as
+though he were much her junior, as is the habit of young women
+lately married or who are about to be married.  Carlton did
+not resent it; on the contrary, it made him more at his ease
+with her, and as she herself chose to treat him as a youth, he
+permitted himself to be as foolish as he pleased.
+
+"I don't know why it is," he complained, peering over the
+rail, "but whenever I look over the side to watch the waves a
+man in a greasy cap always sticks his head out of a hole below
+me and scatters a barrelful of ashes or potato peelings all
+over the ocean.  It spoils the effect for one.  Next time he
+does it I am going to knock out the ashes of my pipe on the
+back of his neck."  Miss Morris did not consider this worthy
+of comment, and there was a long lazy pause.
+
+"You haven't told us where you go after London," she said; and
+then, without waiting for him to reply, she asked, "Is it your
+professional or your social side that you are treating to a
+trip this time?"
+
+"Who told you that?" asked Carlton, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some man.  He said you were a Jekyll and
+Hyde.  Which is Jekyll?  You see, I only know your
+professional side."
+
+"You must try to find out for yourself by deduction," he said,
+"as you picked out the other passengers.  I am going to
+Grasse," he continued.  "It's the capital of Hohenwald.  Do
+you know it?"
+
+"Yes," she said; "we were there once for a few days.  We went
+to see the pictures.  I suppose you know that the old Duke,
+the father of the present one, ruined himself almost by buying
+pictures for the Grasse gallery.  We were there at a bad time,
+though, when the palace was closed to visitors, and the
+gallery too.  I suppose that is what is taking you there?"
+
+"No," Carlton said, shaking his head.  "No, it is not the
+pictures.  I am going to Grasse," he said, gravely, "to see
+the young woman with whom I am in love."
+
+Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled
+consciously, with a natural feminine interest in an affair of
+love, and one which was a secret as well.
+
+"Oh," she said, "I beg your pardon; we--I had not heard of it."
+
+"No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly," said
+Carlton; "it is rather in an embryo state as yet--in fact, I
+have not met the young lady so far, but I mean to meet her. 
+That's why I am going abroad."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling,
+but he was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the
+horizon-line, and puffing meditatively on his pipe.  He was
+apparently in earnest, and waiting for her to make some
+comment.
+
+"How very interesting!" was all she could think to say.
+
+"Yes, when you know the details, it is,----VERY
+interesting," he answered.  "She is the Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald," he explained, bowing his head as though he were
+making the two young ladies known to one another.  "She has
+several other names, six in all, and her age is twenty-two. 
+That is all I know about her.  I saw her picture in an
+illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up my mind
+I would meet her, and here I am.  If she is not in Grasse, I
+intend to follow her to wherever she may be." He waved his
+pipe at the ocean before him, and recited, with mock
+seriousness:
+
+    "`Across the hills and far away,
+               Beyond their utmost purple rim,
+
+     And deep into the dying day,
+               The happy Princess followed him.'
+
+
+"Only in this case, you see," said Carlton, "I am following
+the happy Princess."
+
+"No; but seriously, though," said Miss Morris, "what is it you
+mean?  Are you going to paint her portrait?"
+
+"I never thought of that," exclaimed Carlton.  "I don't know
+but what your idea is a good one.  Miss Morris, that's a great
+idea."  He shook his head approvingly.  "I did not do wrong to
+confide in you," he said.  "It was perhaps taking a liberty;
+but as you have not considered it as such, I am glad I spoke."
+
+"But you don't really mean to tell me," exclaimed the girl,
+facing about, and nodding her head at him, "that you are going
+abroad after a woman whom you have never seen, and because you
+like a picture of her in a paper?"
+
+"I do," said Carlton.  "Because I like her picture, and
+because she is a Princess."
+
+"Well, upon my word," said Miss Morris, gazing at him with
+evident admiration, "that's what my younger brother would call
+a distinctly sporting proposition.  Only I don't see," she
+added, "what her being a Princess has to do with it."
+
+"You don't?" laughed Carlton, easily.  "That's the best part
+of it--that's the plot.  The beauty of being in love with a
+Princess, Miss Morris," he said, "lies in the fact that you
+can't marry her; that you can love her deeply and forever, and
+nobody will ever come to you and ask your intentions, or hint
+that after such a display of affection you ought to do
+something.  Now, with a girl who is not a Princess, even if
+she understands the situation herself, and wouldn't marry you
+to save her life, still there is always some one--a father, or
+a mother, or one of your friends--who makes it his business to
+interfere, and talks about it, and bothers you both.  But with
+a Princess, you see, that is all eliminated.  You can't marry
+a Princess, because they won't let you.  A Princess has got to
+marry a real royal chap, and so you are perfectly ineligible
+and free to sigh for her, and make pretty speeches to her, and
+see her as often as you can, and revel in your devotion and
+unrequited affection."
+
+Miss Morris regarded him doubtfully.  She did not wish to
+prove herself too credulous.  "And you honestly want me, Mr.
+Carlton, to believe that you are going abroad just for this?"
+
+"You see," Carlton answered her, "if you only knew me better
+you would have no doubt on the subject at all.  It isn't the
+thing some men would do, I admit, but it is exactly what any
+one who knows me would expect of me.  I should describe it,
+having had acquaintance with the young man for some time, as
+being eminently characteristic.  And besides, think what a
+good story it makes!  Every other man who goes abroad this
+summer will try to tell about his travels when he gets back to
+New York, and, as usual, no one will listen to him.  But they
+will HAVE to listen to me.  `You've been across since I saw
+you last.  What did you do?' they'll ask, politely.  And then,
+instead of simply telling them that I have been in Paris or
+London, I can say, `Oh, I've been chasing around the globe
+after the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.'  That sounds
+interesting, doesn't it?  When you come to think of it,"
+Carlton continued, meditatively, "it is not so very remarkable.
+Men go all the way to Cuba and Mexico, and even to India,
+after orchids, after a nasty flower that grows in an
+absurd way on the top of a tree.  Why shouldn't a young man go
+as far as Germany after a beautiful Princess, who walks on the
+ground, and who can talk and think and feel?  She is much more
+worth while than an orchid."
+
+Miss Morris laughed indulgently.  "Well, I didn't know such
+devotion existed at this end of the century," she said; "it's
+quite nice and encouraging.  I hope you will succeed, I am
+sure.  I only wish we were going to be near enough to see how
+you get on. I have never been a confidante when there was a
+real Princess concerned," she said; "it makes it so much more
+amusing.  May one ask what your plans are?"
+
+Carlton doubted if he had any plans as yet.  "I have to reach
+the ground first," he said, "and after that I must
+reconnoitre.  I may possibly adopt your idea, and ask to paint
+her portrait, only I dislike confusing my social and
+professional sides.  As a matter of fact, though," he said,
+after a pause, laughing guiltily, "I have done a little of
+that already.  I prepared her, as it were, for my coming.  I
+sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin. 
+One of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at
+the Court Theatre.  I sent them to her through my London
+agent, so that she would think they had come from some one of
+her English friends, and I told the dealer not to let any one
+know who had forwarded them.  My idea was that it might help
+me, perhaps, if she knew something about me before I appeared
+in person.  It was a sort of letter of introduction written by
+myself."
+
+"Well, really," expostulated Miss Morris, you certainly woo in
+a royal way.  "Are you in the habit of giving away your
+pictures to any one whose photograph you happen to like?  That
+seems to me to be giving new lamps for old to a degree.  I
+must see if I haven't some of my sister's photographs in my
+trunk.  She is considered very beautiful."
+
+"Well, you wait until you see this particular portrait,
+and--you will understand it better," said Carlton.
+
+The steamer reached Southampton early in the afternoon, and
+Carlton secured a special compartment on the express to London
+for Mrs. Downs and her niece and himself, with one adjoining
+for their maid and Nolan.  It was a beautiful day, and Carlton
+sat with his eyes fixed upon the passing fields and villages,
+exclaiming with pleasure from time to time at the white roads
+and the feathery trees and hedges, and the red roofs of the
+inns and square towers of the village churches.
+
+"Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren't they?" he
+said.  "You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of
+them? She looks just as though she were posing for a picture
+for an illustrated paper.  She couldn't pick flowers from a
+barbed-wire fence, could she?  And there would probably be a
+tramp along the road somewhere to frighten her; and see--the
+chap in knickerbockers farther down the road leaning on the
+stile.  I am sure he is waiting for her; and here comes a
+coach," he ran on.  "Don't the red wheels look well against
+the hedges?  It's a pretty little country, England, isn't
+it?--like a private park or a model village.  I am glad to get
+back to it--I am glad to see the three-and-six signs with the
+little slanting dash between the shillings and pennies.  Yes,
+even the steam-rollers and the man with the red flag in front
+are welcome."
+
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Downs, "it's because one has been so
+long on the ocean that the ride to London seems so
+interesting.  It always pays me for the entire trip.  Yes,"
+she said, with a sigh, "in spite of the patent-medicine signs
+they have taken to putting up all along the road.  It seems a
+pity they should adopt our bad habits instead of our good
+ones."
+
+"They are a bit slow at adopting anything," commented Carlton. 
+"Did you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as
+scarce in London as they are in Timbuctoo?  Why, I saw an
+electric-light plant put up in a Western town in three days
+once; there were over a hundred burners in one saloon, and the
+engineer who put them up told me in confidence that--"
+
+What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never
+disclosed, for at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with
+a sudden sharp exclamation.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Carlton," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "listen to
+this!"  She had been reading one of the dozen papers which
+Carlton had purchased at the station, and was now shaking one
+of them at him, with her eyes fixed on the open page.
+
+"My dear Edith," remonstrated her aunt, "Mr. Carlton was
+telling us--"
+
+"Yes, I know," exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, "but this
+interests him much more than electric lights.  Who do you
+think is in London?" she cried, raising her eyes to his, and
+pausing for proper dramatic effect.  "The Princess Aline of
+Hohenwald!"
+
+"No?" shouted Carlton.
+
+"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone.  "Listen.  `The
+Queen's Drawing-room'--em--e--m--`on her right was the
+Princess of Wales'--em--m.  Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here
+it is.  `Next to her stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald. 
+She wore a dress of white silk, with train of silver brocade
+trimmed with fur.  Ornaments--emeralds and diamonds;
+orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal,
+Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Grasse.'"
+
+"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly.  "I say, is that really
+there?  Let me see it, please, for myself."
+
+Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the
+paragraph, and picking up another, began a search down its
+columns.
+
+"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure
+enough.  And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't
+know it?"
+
+Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had
+discovered a vein of gold.
+
+"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 
+`The Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a
+few violet ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who
+sat by her mother's side, showed but little trace of the
+anxiety caused by Princess Ena's accident.  Princess Aline, on
+the front seat, in a light brown jacket and a becoming bonnet,
+gave the necessary touch to a picture which Londoners would be
+glad to look upon more often.'"
+
+Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and
+with his eyes open wide from excitement.  He presented so
+unusual an appearance of bewilderment and delight that Mrs.
+Downs looked at him and at her niece for some explanation. 
+"The young lady seems to interest you," said she, tentatively.
+
+"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs,"
+cried Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Grasse to see
+her, and now it turns out that she is here in England, within
+a few miles of us."  He turned and waved his hands at the
+passing landscape.  "Every minute brings us nearer together."
+
+"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris,
+laughing.  "You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl
+tell you where to find the woman you love."
+
+Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and
+frowned intently.  "Now I have got to begin all over again and
+readjust things," he said.  "We might have guessed she would
+be in London, on account of this royal wedding.  It is a great
+pity it isn't later in the season, when there would be more
+things going on and more chances of meeting her.  Now they
+will all be interested in themselves, and, being extremely
+exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom or an
+Emperor would have any chance at all.  Still, I can see her! 
+I can look at her, and that's something."
+
+"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.
+
+"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or
+they will stop at Brown's," said Carlton.  "All royalties go
+to Brown's.  I don't know why, unless it is because it is so
+expensive; or maybe it is expensive because royalties go
+there; but, in any event, if they are not at the palace, that
+is where they will be, and that is where I shall have to go too."
+
+When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed
+Nolan to take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload
+them until he had arrived.  Then he drove with the ladies to
+Cox's, and saw them settled there.  He promised to return at
+once to dine, and to tell them what he had discovered in his
+absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss Morris," he
+said, nervously.  "I am beginning to feel that I am not worthy
+of her."
+
+"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that
+`it's not the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of
+wooing,' and that `faint heart'--and the rest of it."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit
+sudden, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, I am ashamed of you!  You are frightened."
+
+"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter.  "I think
+it's just natural emotion."
+
+As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red
+carpet stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across
+the sidewalk to a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling
+about apparently assisting several gentlemen to get into it. 
+This and another carriage and Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the
+way; but without waiting for them to move up, Carlton leaned
+out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man to its side.
+
+"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked. 
+The bareheaded man answered that he was.
+
+"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton.  "They can take in the trunks."
+
+Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to
+alight.  "That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and
+those," he said, pointing to three muffled figures who were
+stepping into a second carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."
+
+Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the
+other in the air.
+
+"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began,
+eagerly, and then remembering himself, dropped back on the
+cushions of the hansom.
+
+He broke into the little dining-room at Cox's in so excited a
+state that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there
+sat open-mouthed in astonished disapproval.  Mrs. Downs and
+Miss Morris had just come down stairs.
+
+"I have seen her!" Carlton cried, ecstatically; "only half an
+hour in the town, and I've seen her already!"
+
+"No, really?" exclaimed Miss Morris.  "And how did she look? 
+Is she as beautiful as you expected?"
+
+"Well, I can't tell yet," Carlton  answered.
+
+"There were three of them, and they were all muffled up, and
+which one of the three she was I don't know.  She wasn't
+labelled, as in the picture, but she was there, and I saw her. 
+The woman I love was one of that three, and I have engaged
+rooms at the hotel, and this very night the same roof shelters
+us both."
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you,"
+said Miss Morris, as they seated themselves at the table. 
+"What is your next move?  What do you mean to do now?"
+
+"The rest is very simple," said Carlton.  "To-morrow morning I
+will go to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who
+knows all about them--where they are going, and who they are
+seeing, and what engagements they may have.  Then it will only
+be a matter of looking up some friend in the Household or in
+one of the embassies who can present me."
+
+"Oh," said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment,
+"but that is such a commonplace ending!  You started out so
+romantically.  Couldn't you manage to meet her in a less
+conventional way?"
+
+"I am afraid not," said Carlton.  "You see, I want to meet her
+very much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of
+meeting her, whether it's romantic or not, isn't a bit too
+quick for me.  There will be romance enough after I am
+presented, if I have my way."
+
+But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the
+fact that it requires as many to make an introduction as a
+bargain, and he had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his
+considerations.  He met many people he knew in the Row the
+next morning; they asked him to lunch, and brought their
+horses up to the rail, and he patted the horses' heads, and
+led the conversation around to the royal wedding, and through
+it to the Hohenwalds.  He learned that they had attended a
+reception at the German Embassy on the previous night, and it
+was one of the secretaries of that embassy who informed him of
+their intended departure that morning on the eleven o'clock
+train to Paris.
+
+"To Paris!" cried Carlton, in consternation.  "What! all of them?"
+
+"Yes, all of them, of course.  Why?" asked the young German. 
+But Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to
+Piccadilly and waving his stick at a hansom.
+
+Nolan met him at the door of Brown's Hotel with an
+anxious countenance.
+
+"Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir," he said.  "But I've
+packed your trunks and sent them to the station.  Shall I
+follow them sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton.  "Follow the trunks and follow the
+Hohenwalds.  I will come over on the Club train at four.  Meet
+me at the station, and tell me to what hotel they have gone. 
+Wait; if I miss you, you can find me at the Hotel Continental;
+but if they go straight on through Paris, you go with them,
+and telegraph me here and to the Continental.  Telegraph at
+every station, so I can keep track of you.  Have you enough money?"
+
+"I have, sir--enough for a long trip, sir."
+
+"Well, you'll need it," said Carlton, grimly.  "This is going
+to be a long trip.  It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you
+will have to hurry.  Have you paid my bill here?"
+
+"I have, sir," said Nolan.
+
+"Then get off, and don't lose sight of those people again."
+
+Carlton attended to several matters of business, and then
+lunched with Mrs. Downs and her niece.  He had grown to like
+them very much, and was sorry to lose sight of them, but
+consoled himself by thinking he would see them a few days at
+least in Paris.  He judged that he would be there for some
+time, as he did not think the Princess Aline and her sisters
+would pass through that city without stopping to visit the
+shops on the Rue de la Paix.
+
+"All women are not princesses," he argued, "but all princesses
+are women."
+
+"We will be in Paris on Wednesday," Mrs. Downs told him.  "The
+Orient Express leaves there twice a week, on Mondays and
+Thursdays, and we have taken an apartment for next Thursday,
+and will go right on to Constantinople."
+
+"But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes
+there?" Carlton expostulated.
+
+Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.
+
+Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had
+followed the Hohenwalds to the Hotel Meurice.  "There is the
+Duke, sir, and the three Princesses," Nolan said, "and there
+are two German gentlemen acting as equerries, and an English
+captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the Duke, and two elderly ladies,
+and eight servants.  They travel very simple, sir, and their
+people are in undress livery.  Brown and red, sir."
+
+Carlton pretended not to listen to this.  He had begun to
+doubt but that Nolan's zeal would lead him into some
+indiscretion, and would end disastrously to himself.  He spent
+the evening alone in front of the Cafe de la Paix, pleasantly
+occupied in watching the life and movement of that great
+meeting of the highways.  It did not seem possible that he had
+ever been away.  It was as though he had picked up a book and
+opened it at the page and place at which he had left off
+reading it a moment before.  There was the same type, the same
+plot, and the same characters, who were doing the same
+characteristic things.  Even the waiter who tipped out his
+coffee knew him; and he knew, or felt as though he knew, half
+of those who passed, or who shared with him the half of the
+sidewalk.  The women at the next table considered the slim,
+good-looking young American with friendly curiosity, and the
+men with them discussed him in French, until a well-known
+Parisian recognized Carlton in passing, and hailed him
+joyously in the same language, at which the women laughed and
+the men looked sheepishly conscious.
+
+On the following morning Carlton took up his post in the open
+court of the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to
+excuse his loitering there.  He had not been occupied with
+these over-long before Nolan approached him, in some
+excitement, with the information that their Royal
+Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
+"coming down the lift."
+
+Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the
+corner and see them; it was for this chance he had been
+waiting; but he could not afford to act in so undignified a
+manner before Nolan, so he merely crossed his legs nervously,
+and told the servant to go back to the rooms.
+
+"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my
+own affairs in my own way.  If I don't stop him, he'll carry
+the Princess Aline off by force and send me word where he has
+hidden her."
+
+The Hohenwalds had evidently departed for a day's outing, as
+up to five o'clock they had not returned; and Carlton, after
+loitering all the afternoon, gave up waiting for them, and
+went out to dine at Laurent's, in the Champs Elysees.  He had
+finished his dinner, and was leaning luxuriously forward, with
+his elbows on the table, and knocking the cigar ashes into his
+coffee-cup.  He was pleasantly content.  The trees hung heavy
+with leaves over his head, a fountain played and overflowed at
+his elbow, and the lamps of the fiacres passing and repassing
+on the Avenue of the Champs Elysees shone like giant
+fire-flies through the foliage.  The touch of the gravel
+beneath his feet emphasized the free, out-of-door charm of the
+place, and the faces of the others around him looked more than
+usually cheerful in the light of the candles flickering under
+the clouded shades.  His mind had gone back to his earlier
+student days in Paris, when life always looked as it did now
+in the brief half-hour of satisfaction which followed a cold
+bath or a good dinner, and he had forgotten himself and his
+surroundings.  It was the voices of the people at the table
+behind him that brought him back to the present moment.  A man
+was talking; he spoke in English, with an accent.
+
+"I should like to go again through the Luxembourg," he said;
+"but you need not be bound by what I do."
+
+"I think it would be pleasanter if we all keep together," said
+a girl's voice, quietly.  She also spoke in English, and with
+the same accent.
+
+The people whose voices had interrupted him were sitting and
+standing around a long table, which the waiters had made large
+enough for their party by placing three of the smaller ones
+side by side; they had finished their dinner, and the women,
+who sat with their backs towards Carlton, were pulling on
+their gloves.
+
+"Which is it to be, then?" said the gentleman, smiling.  "The
+pictures or the dressmakers?"
+
+The girl who had first spoken turned to the one next to her.
+
+"Which would you rather do, Aline?" she asked.
+
+Carlton moved so suddenly that the men behind him looked at
+him curiously; but he turned, nevertheless, in his chair and
+faced them, and in order to excuse his doing so beckoned to
+one of the waiters.  He was within two feet of the girl who
+had been called "Aline."  She raised her head to speak, and
+saw Carlton staring open-eyed at her.  She glanced at him for
+an instant, as if to assure herself that she did not know him,
+and then, turning to her brother, smiled in the same tolerant,
+amused way in which she had so often smiled upon Carlton from
+the picture.
+
+"I am afraid I had rather go to the Bon March," she said.
+
+One of the waiters stepped in between them, and Carlton asked
+him for his bill; but when it came he left it lying on the
+plate, and sat staring out into the night between the candles,
+puffing sharply on his cigar, and recalling to his memory his
+first sight of the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.
+
+That night, as he turned into bed, he gave a comfortable sigh
+of content.  "I am glad she chose the dressmakers instead of
+the pictures," he said.
+
+Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris arrived in Paris on Wednesday, and
+expressed their anxiety to have Carlton lunch with them, and
+to hear him tell of the progress of his love-affair.  There
+was not much to tell; the Hohenwalds had come and gone from
+the hotel as freely as any other tourists in Paris, but the
+very lack of ceremony about their movements was in itself a
+difficulty.  The manner of acquaintance he could make in the
+court of the Hotel Meurice with one of the men over a cup of
+coffee or a glass of bock would be as readily discontinued as
+begun, and for his purpose it would have been much better if
+the Hohenwalds had been living in state with a visitors' book
+and a chamberlain.
+
+On Wednesday evening Carlton took the ladies to the opera,
+where the Hohenwalds occupied a box immediately opposite them. 
+Carlton pretended to be surprised at this fact, but Mrs. Downs
+doubted his sincerity.
+
+"I saw Nolan talking to their courier to-day," she said, "and
+I fancy he asked a few leading questions."
+
+"Well, he didn't learn much if he did," he said.  "The fellow
+only talks German."
+
+"Ah, then he has been asking questions!" said Miss Morris.
+
+"Well, he does it on his own responsibility," said Carlton,
+"for I told him to have nothing to do with servants.  He has
+too much zeal, has Nolan; I'm afraid of him."
+
+"If you were only half as interested as he is," said Miss
+Morris, "you would have known her long ago."
+
+"Long ago?" exclaimed Carlton.  "I only saw her four days
+since."
+
+"She is certainly very beautiful," said Miss Morris, looking
+across the auditorium.
+
+"But she isn't there," said Carlton.
+
+"That's the eldest sister; the two other sisters went out on
+the coach this morning to Versailles, and were too tired to
+come tonight.  At least, so Nolan says.  He seems to have
+established a friendship for their English maid, but whether
+it's on my account or his own I don't know.  I doubt his
+unselfishness."
+
+"How disappointing of her!" said Miss Morris.  "And after you
+had selected a box just across the way, too.  It is such a
+pity to waste it on us."  Carlton smiled, and looked up at her
+impudently, as though he meant to say something; but
+remembering that she was engaged to be married, changed his
+mind, and lowered his eyes to his programme.
+
+"Why didn't you say it?" asked Miss Morris, calmly, turning
+her glass to the stage.  "Wasn't it pretty?"
+
+"No," said Carlton--"not pretty enough."
+
+The ladies left the hotel the next day to take the Orient
+Express, which left Paris at six o'clock.  They had bidden
+Carlton goodbye at four the same afternoon, and as he had come
+to their rooms for that purpose, they were in consequence a
+little surprised to see him at the station, running wildly
+along the platform, followed by Nolan and a porter.  He came
+into their compartment after the train had started, and shook
+his head sadly at them from the door.
+
+"Well, what do you think of this?" he said.  "You can't get
+rid of me, you see.  I'm going with you."
+
+"Going with us?" asked Mrs. Downs.  "How far?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and, coming inside, dropped onto the cushions
+with a sigh.  "I don't know," he said, dejectedly.  "All the
+way, I'm afraid.  That is, I mean, I'm very glad I am to have
+your society for a few days more; but really I didn't bargain
+for this."
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that THEY are on this train?"
+said Miss Morris.
+
+"They are," said Carlton.  "They have a car to themselves at
+the rear.  They only made up their minds to go this morning,
+and they nearly succeeded in giving me the slip again; but it
+seems that their English maid stopped Nolan in the hall to bid
+him good-bye, and so he found out their plans.  They are going
+direct to Constantinople, and then to Athens.  They had meant
+to stay in Paris two weeks longer, it seems, but they changed
+their minds last night.  It was a very close shave for me.  I
+only got back to the hotel in time to hear from the concierge
+that Nolan had flown with all of my things, and left word for
+me to follow.  Just fancy!  Suppose I had missed the train,
+and had had to chase him clear across the continent of Europe
+with not even a razor--"
+
+"I am glad," said Miss Morris, "that Nolan has not taken a
+fancy to ME.  I doubt if I could resist such impetuosity."
+
+The Orient Express, in which Carlton and the mistress of his
+heart and fancy were speeding towards the horizon's utmost
+purple rim, was made up of six cars, one dining-car with a
+smoking-apartment attached, and five sleeping-cars, including
+the one reserved for the Duke of Hohenwald and his suite. 
+These cars were lightly built, and rocked in consequence, and
+the dust raised by the rapid movement of the train swept
+through cracks and open windows, and sprinkled the passengers
+with a fine and irritating coating of soot and earth.  There
+was one servant to the entire twenty-two passengers.  He spoke
+eight languages, and never slept; but as his services were in
+demand by several people in as many different cars at the same
+moment he satisfied no one, and the complaint-box in the
+smoking-car was stuffed full to the slot in consequence before
+they had crossed the borders of France.
+
+Carlton and Miss Morris went out upon one of the platforms and
+sat down upon a tool-box.  "It's isn't as comfortable here as
+in an observation-car at home," said Carlton, "but it's just
+as noisy."
+
+He pointed out to her from time to time the peasants gathering
+twigs, and the blue-bloused gendarmes guarding the woods and
+the fences skirting them.  "Nothing is allowed to go to waste
+in this country," he said.  "It looks as though they went over
+it once a month with a lawn-mower and a pruning-knife.
+I believe they number the trees as we number the houses."
+
+
+"And did you notice the great fortifications covered with grass?"
+she said.  "We have passed such a lot of them."
+
+Carlton nodded.
+
+"And did you notice that they all faced only one way?"
+
+Carlton laughed, and nodded again.  "Towards Germany," he said.
+
+By the next day they had left the tall poplars and white roads
+behind them, and were crossing the land of low shiny black
+helmets and brass spikes.  They had come into a country of low
+mountains and black forests, with old fortified castles
+topping the hills, and with red-roofed villages scattered
+around the base.
+
+"How very military it all is!" Mrs. Downs said.  "Even the men
+at the lonely little stations in the forests wear uniforms;
+and do you notice how each of them rolls up his red flag and
+holds it like a sword, and salutes the train as it passes?"
+
+They spent the hour during which the train shifted from one
+station in Vienna to the other driving about in an open
+carriage, and stopped for a few moments in front of a cafe to
+drink beer and to feel solid earth under them again, returning
+to the train with a feeling which was almost that of getting
+back to their own rooms.  Then they came to great steppes
+covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with
+little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood
+knee-deep in this grass, and at the villages and way-stations
+were people wearing sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered
+with silver buttons.  In one place there was a wedding
+procession waiting for the train to pass, with the friends of
+the bride and groom in their best clothes, the women with
+silver breastplates, and boots to their knees.  It seemed
+hardly possible that only two days before they had seen
+another wedding party in the Champs Elysees, where the men
+wore evening dress, and the women were bareheaded and with
+long trains.  In forty-eight hours they had passed through
+republics, principalities, empires, and kingdoms, and from
+spring to winter.  It was like walking rapidly over a painted
+panorama of Europe.
+
+On the second evening Carlton went off into the smoking-car
+alone.  The Duke of Hohenwald and two of his friends had
+finished a late supper, and were seated in the apartment
+adjoining it.  The Duke was a young man with a heavy beard and
+eyeglasses.  He was looking over an illustrated catalogue of
+the Salon, and as Carlton dropped on the sofa opposite the
+Duke raised his head and looked at him curiously, and then
+turned over several pages of the catalogue and studied one of
+them, and then back at Carlton, as though he were comparing
+him with something on the page before him.  Carlton was
+looking out at the night, but he could follow what was going
+forward, as it was reflected in the glass of the car window. 
+He saw the Duke hand the catalogue to one of the equerries,
+who raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in assent. 
+Carlton wondered what this might mean, until he remembered
+that there was a portrait of himself by a French artist in the
+Salon, and concluded it had been reproduced in the catalogue. 
+He could think of nothing else which would explain the
+interest the two men showed in him.  On the morning following
+he sent Nolan out to purchase a catalogue at the first station
+at which they stopped, and found that his guess was a correct
+one.  A portrait of himself had been reproduced in black and
+white, with his name below it.
+
+"Well, they know who I am now," he said to Miss Morris, "even,
+if they don't know me.  That honor is still in store for them."
+
+"I wish they did not lock themselves up so tightly," said Miss
+Morris.  "I want to see her very much.  Cannot we walk up and
+down the platform at the next station?  She may be at the window."
+
+"Of course," said Carlton.  "You could have seen her at
+Buda-Pesth if you had spoken of it.  She was walking up and
+down then.  The next time the train stops we will prowl up and
+down and feast our eyes upon her."
+
+But Miss Morris had her wish gratified without that exertion. 
+The Hohenwalds were served in the dining-car after the other
+passengers had finished, and were in consequence only to be
+seen when they passed by the doors of the other compartments. 
+But this same morning, after luncheon, the three Princesses,
+instead of returning to their own car, seated themselves in
+the compartment adjoining the dining-car, while the men of
+their party lit their cigars and sat in a circle around them.
+
+"I was wondering how long they could stand three men smoking
+in one of the boxes they call cars," said Mrs. Downs.  She was
+seated between Miss Morris and Carlton, directly opposite the
+Hohenwalds, and so near them that she had to speak in a
+whisper.  To avoid doing this Miss Morris asked Carlton for a
+pencil, and scribbled with it in the novel she held on her
+lap.  Then she passed them both back to him, and said, aloud: 
+"Have you read this?  It has such a pretty dedication."  The
+dedication read, "Which is Aline?"  And Carlton, taking the
+pencil in his turn, made a rapid sketch of her on the
+fly-leaf, and wrote beneath it:  "This is she.  Do you wonder
+I travelled four thousand miles to see her?"
+
+Miss Morris took the book again, and glanced at the sketch,
+and then at the three Princesses, and nodded her head.
+"It is very beautiful," she said, gravely, looking out at the 
+passing landscape.
+
+"Well, not beautiful exactly," answered Carlton, surveying the
+hills critically, "but certainly very attractive.  It is worth
+travelling a long way to see, and I should think one would
+grow very fond of it."
+
+Miss Morris tore the fly-leaf out of the book, and slipped it
+between the pages.  "May I keep it?" she said.  Carlton nodded.
+nodded.  "And will you sign it?" she asked, smiling.  Carlton shrugged
+his shoulders, and laughed.  "If you wish it," he answered.
+
+The Princess wore a gray cheviot travelling dress, as did her
+sisters, and a gray Alpine hat.  She was leaning back, talking
+to the English captain who accompanied them, and laughing. 
+Carlton thought he had never seen a woman who appealed so
+strongly to every taste of which he was possessed.  She seemed
+so sure of herself, so alert, and yet so gracious, so easily
+entertained, and yet, when she turned her eyes towards the
+strange, dismal landscape, so seriously intent upon its sad
+beauty.  The English captain dropped his head, and with the
+pretence of pulling at his mustache, covered his mouth as he
+spoke to her.  When he had finished he gazed consciously at
+the roof of the car, and she kept her eyes fixed steadily at
+the object towards which they had turned when he had ceased
+speaking, and then, after a decent pause, turned her eyes, as
+Carlton knew she would, towards him.
+
+"He was telling her who I am," he thought, "and about the
+picture in the catalogue."
+
+In a few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her,
+pointing out at something in the scenery, and the same
+pantomime was repeated, and again with the third sister.
+
+"Did you see those girls talking about you, Mr. Carlton?" Miss
+Morris asked, after they had left the car.
+
+Carlton said it looked as though they were.
+
+"Of course they were," said Miss Morris.
+
+"That Englishman told the Princess Aline something about you,
+and then she told her sister, and she told the eldest one.  It
+would be nice if they inherit their father's interest in
+painting, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I would rather have it degenerate into an interest in
+painters myself," said Carlton.
+
+Miss Morris discovered, after she had returned to her own car,
+that she had left the novel where she had been sitting, and
+Carlton sent Nolan back for it.  It had slipped to the floor,
+and the fly-leaf upon which Carlton had sketched the Princess
+Aline was lying face down beside it.  Nolan picked up the
+leaf, and saw the picture, and read the inscription below: 
+"This is she.  Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles
+to see her?"
+
+He handed the book to Miss Morris, and was backing out of the
+compartment, when she stopped him.
+
+"There was a loose page in this, Nolan," she said.  "It's
+gone; did you see it?"
+
+"A loose page, miss?" said Nolan, with some concern.  "Oh,
+yes, miss; I was going to tell you; there was a scrap of paper
+blew away when I was passing between the carriages.  Was it
+something you wanted, miss?"
+
+"Something I wanted!" exclaimed Miss Morris, in dismay.
+
+Carlton laughed easily.  "It is just as well I didn't sign it,
+after all," he said.  "I don't want to proclaim my devotion to
+any Hungarian gypsy who happens to read English."
+
+"You must draw me another, as a souvenir," Miss Morris said.
+
+Nolan continued on through the length of the car until he had
+reached the one occupied by the Hohenwalds, where he waited on
+the platform until the English maidservant saw him and came to
+the door of the carriage.
+
+"What hotel are your people going to stop at in
+Constantinople?" Nolan asked.
+
+"The Grande-Bretagne, I think," she answered.
+
+"That's right," said Nolan, approvingly.  "That's the one we
+are going to.  I thought I would come and tell you about it. 
+And, by-the-way," he said, "here's a picture somebody's made
+of your Princess Aline.  She dropped it, and I picked it up. 
+You had better give it back to her.  Well," he added,
+politely, "I'm glad you are coming to our hotel in
+Constantinople; it's pleasant having some one to talk to who
+can speak your own tongue."
+
+The girl returned to the car, and left Nolan alone upon the
+platform.  He exhaled a long breath of suppressed excitement,
+and then gazed around nervously upon the empty landscape.
+
+"I fancy that's going to hurry things up a bit," he murmured,
+with an anxious smile; "he'd never get along at all if it
+wasn't for me."
+
+For reasons possibly best understood by the German ambassador,
+the state of the Hohenwalds at Constantinople differed greatly
+from that which had obtained at the French capital.  They no
+longer came and went as they wished, or wandered through the
+show-places of the city like ordinary tourists.  There was, on
+the contrary, not only a change in their manner towards
+others, but there was an insistence on their part of a
+difference in the attitude of others towards themselves.  This
+showed itself in the reserving of the half of the hotel for
+their use, and in the haughty bearing of the equerries, who
+appeared unexpectedly in magnificent uniforms.  The visitors'
+book was covered with the autographs of all of the important
+people in the Turkish capital, and the Sultan's carriages
+stood constantly before the door of the hotel, awaiting their
+pleasure, until they became as familiar a sight as the street
+dogs, or as cabs in a hansom-cab rank.
+
+And in following out the programme which had been laid down
+for her, the Princess Aline became even less accessible to
+Carlton than before, and he grew desperate and despondent.
+
+"If the worst comes," he said to Miss Morris, "I shall tell
+Nolan to give an alarm of fire some night, and then I will run
+in and rescue her before they find out there is no fire.  Or
+he might frighten the horses some day, and give me a chance to
+stop them.  We might even wait until we reach Greece, and have
+her carried off by brigands, who would only give her up to me."
+
+"There are no more brigands in Greece," said Miss Morris; "and
+besides, why do you suppose they would only give her up to you?"
+
+"Because they would be imitation brigands," said Carlton, "and
+would be paid to give her up to no one else."
+
+"Oh, you plan very well," scoffed Miss Morris, "but you don't
+DO anything."
+
+Carlton was saved the necessity of doing anything that same
+morning, when the English captain in attendance on the Duke
+sent his card to Carlton's room.  He came, he explained, to
+present the Prince's compliments, and would it be convenient
+for Mr. Carlton to meet the Duke that afternoon?  Mr. Carlton
+suppressed an unseemly desire to shout, and said, after a
+moment's consideration, that it would.  He then took the
+English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and rewarded
+him for his agreeable message.
+
+The Duke received Carlton in the afternoon, and greeted him
+most cordially, and with as much ease of manner as it is
+possible for a man to possess who has never enjoyed the
+benefits of meeting other men on an equal footing.  He
+expressed his pleasure in knowing an artist with whose work he
+was so familiar, and congratulated himself on the happy
+accident which had brought them both to the same hotel.
+
+"I have more than a natural interest in meeting you," said the
+Prince, "and for a reason which you may or may not know.  I
+thought possibly you could help me somewhat.  I have within
+the past few days come into the possession of two of your
+paintings; they are studies, rather, but to me they are even
+more desirable than the finished work; and I am not correct in
+saying that they have come to me exactly, but to my sister,
+the Princess Aline."
+
+Carlton could not withhold a certain start of surprise.  He
+had not expected that his gift would so soon have arrived, but
+his face showed only polite attention.
+
+"The studies were delivered to us in London," continued the
+Duke.  "They are of Ludwig the tragedian, and of the German
+Prime Minister, two most valuable works, and especially
+interesting to us.  They came without any note or message
+which would inform us who had sent them, and when my people
+made inquiries, the dealer refused to tell them from whom they
+had come.  He had been ordered to forward them to Grasse, but,
+on learning of our presence in London, sent them direct to our
+hotel there.  Of course it is embarrassing to have so valuable
+a present from an anonymous friend, especially so for my
+sister, to whom they were addressed, and I thought that,
+besides the pleasure of meeting one of whose genius I am so
+warm an admirer, I might also learn something which would
+enable me to discover who our friend may be."  He paused, but
+as Carlton said nothing, continued:  "As it is now, I do not
+feel that I can accept the pictures; and yet I know no one to
+whom they can be returned, unless I send them to the dealer."
+
+"It sounds very mysterious," said Carlton smiling; "and I am
+afraid I cannot help you.  What work I did in Germany was sold
+in Berlin before I left, and in a year may have changed hands
+several times.  The studies of which you speak are
+unimportant, and merely studies, and could pass from hand to
+hand without much record having been kept of them; but
+personally I am not able to give you any information which
+would assist you in tracing them."
+
+"Yes," said the Duke.  "Well, then, I shall keep them until I
+can learn more; and if we can learn nothing, I shall return
+them to the dealer."
+
+Carlton met Miss Morris that afternoon in a state of great
+excitement.  "It's come!" he cried--"it's come!  I am to meet
+her this week.  I have met her brother, and he has asked me to
+dine with them on Thursday night; that's the day before they
+leave for Athens; and he particularly mentioned that his
+sisters would be at the dinner, and that it would be a
+pleasure to present me.  It seems that the eldest paints, and
+all of them love art for art's sake, as their father taught
+them to do; and, for all we know, he may make me court
+painter, and I shall spend the rest of my life at Grasse
+painting portraits of the Princess Aline, at the age of
+twenty-two, and at all future ages.  And if he does give me a
+commission to paint her, I can tell you now in confidence that
+that picture will require more sittings than any other picture
+ever painted by man.  Her hair will have turned white by the
+time it is finished, and the gown she started to pose in will
+have become forty years behind the fashion!"
+
+On the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her
+niece, with all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in
+open carriages by their dragomans, and driven in a long
+procession to the Seraglio to see the Sultan's treasures. 
+Those of them who had waited two weeks for this chance looked
+aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the eleventh
+hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these
+latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort. 
+The ministers of the different legations--as is the harmless
+custom of such gentlemen--had impressed every one for whom
+they had obtained permission to see the treasures with the
+great importance of the service rendered, and had succeeded in
+making every one feel either especially honored or especially
+uncomfortable at having given them so much trouble.  This
+sense of obligation, and the fact that the dragomans had
+assured the tourists that they were for the time being the
+guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors
+to such an extent that their manner in the long procession of
+carriages suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in
+front, escorted by Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners.  The
+procession halted at the palace, and the guests of the Sultan
+were received by numerous effendis in single-button
+frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them with
+glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of
+which every one was supposed to take a spoonful.  There was at
+first a general fear among the Cook's tourists that there
+would not be enough of this to go round, which was succeeded
+by a greater anxiety lest they should be served twice.  Some
+of the tourists put the sweet stuff in their mouths direct and
+licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the spoon into the
+glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it, and no
+one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who
+happened to have done it.  Carlton and Miss Morris went out on
+to the terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and
+looked out over the great panorama of waters, with the Sea of
+Marmora on one side, the Golden Horn on the other, and the
+Bosporus at their feet.  The sun was shining mildly, and the
+waters were stirred by great and little vessels; before them
+on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses which
+marked the grim cemetery of England's dead, and behind them
+were the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minarets
+of the two cities, and close at hand the mosaic walls and
+beautiful gardens of Constantine.
+
+"Your friends the Hohenwalds don't seem to know you this
+morning," she said.
+
+"Oh yes; he spoke to me as we left the hotel," Carlton
+answered.  "But they are on parade at present.  There are a
+lot of their countrymen among the tourists."
+
+"I feel rather sorry for them," Miss Morris said, looking at
+the group with an amused smile.  "Etiquette cuts them off from
+so much innocent amusement.  Now, you are a gentleman, and the
+Duke presumably is, and why should you not go over and say,
+`Your Highness, I wish you would present me to your sister,
+whom I am to meet at dinner to-morrow night.  I admire her
+very much,' and then you could point out the historical
+features to her, and show her where they have finished off a
+blue and green tiled wall with a rusty tin roof, and make
+pretty speeches to her.  It wouldn't hurt her, and it would do
+you a lot of good.  The simplest way is always the best way,
+it seems to me."
+
+"Oh yes, of course," said Carlton.  "Suppose he came over here
+and said:  `Carlton, I wish you would present me to your young
+American friend.  I admire her very much,' I would probably
+say:  `Do you?  Well, you will have to wait until she
+expresses some desire to meet you.'  No; etiquette is all
+right in itself, only some people don't know its laws, and
+that is the one instance to my mind where ignorance of the law
+is no excuse."
+
+Carlton left Miss Morris talking with the Secretary of the
+American Legation, and went to look for Mrs. Downs.  When he
+returned he found that the young Secretary had apparently
+asked and obtained permission to present the Duke's equerries
+and some of his diplomatic confreres, who were standing now
+about her in an attentive semicircle, and pointing out the
+different palaces and points of interest.  Carlton was
+somewhat disturbed at the sight, and reproached himself with
+not having presented any one to her before.  He was sure now
+that she must have had a dull time of it; but he wished,
+nevertheless, that if she was to meet other men, the Secretary
+had allowed him to act as master of ceremonies.
+
+"I suppose you know," that gentleman was saying as Carlton
+came up, "that when you pass by Abydos, on the way to Athens,
+you will see where Leander swam the Hellespont to meet Hero. 
+That little white light-house is called Leander in honor of
+him.  It makes rather an interesting contrast--does it
+not?--to think of that chap swimming along in the dark, and
+then to find that his monument to-day is a lighthouse, with
+revolving lamps and electric appliances, and with ocean tramps
+and bridges and men-of-war around it.  We have improved in our
+mechanism since then," he said, with an air, "but I am afraid
+the men of to-day don't do that sort of thing for the women of
+to-day."
+
+"Then it is the men who have deteriorated," said one of the
+equerries, bowing to Miss Morris; "it is certainly not the
+women."
+
+The two Americans looked at Miss Morris to see how she
+received this, but she smiled good-naturedly.
+
+"I know a man who did more than that for a woman," said
+Carlton, innocently.  "He crossed an ocean and several
+countries to meet her, and he hasn't met her yet."
+
+Miss Morris looked at him and laughed, in the safety that no
+one understood him but herself.
+
+"But he ran no danger," she answered.
+
+"He didn't, didn't he?" said Carlton, looking at her closely
+and laughing.  "I think he was in very great danger all the time."
+
+"Shocking!" said Miss Morris, reprovingly; "and in her very
+presence, too."  She knitted her brows and frowned at him.  "I
+really believe if you were in prison you would make pretty
+speeches to the jailer's daughter."
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, boldly, "or even to a woman who was a
+prisoner herself."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said, turning away from him
+to the others.  "How far was it that Leander swam?" she asked.
+
+The English captain pointed out two spots on either bank, and
+said that the shores of Abydos were a little over that
+distance apart.
+"As far as that?" said Miss Morris.  "How much he must have
+cared for her!"  She turned to Carlton for an answer.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.  He was measuring the distance
+between the two points with his eyes.
+
+"I said how much he must have cared for her!  You wouldn't
+swim that far for a girl."
+
+"For a girl!" laughed Carlton, quickly.  "I was just thinking I
+would do it for fifty dollars."
+
+The English captain gave a hasty glance at the distance he had
+pointed out, and then turned to Carlton.  "I'll take you," he
+said, seriously.  "I'll bet you twenty pounds you can't do
+it." There was an easy laugh at Carlton's expense, but he only
+shook his head and smiled.
+
+"Leave him alone, captain," said the American Secretary.  "It
+seems to me I remember a story of Mr. Carlton's swimming out
+from Navesink to meet an ocean liner.  It was about three
+miles, and the ocean was rather rough, and when they slowed up
+he asked them if it was raining in London when they left. 
+They thought he was mad."
+
+"Is that true, Carlton?" asked the  Englishman.
+
+"Something like it," said the American, except that I didn't
+ask them if it was raining in London.  I asked them for a
+drink, and it was they who were mad.  They thought I was
+drowning, and slowed up to lower a boat, and when they found
+out I was just swimming around they were naturally angry.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you didn't bet with me," said the captain,
+with a relieved laugh.
+
+That evening, as the Englishman was leaving the smoking-room,
+and after he had bidden Carlton good-night, he turned back and
+said:  "I didn't like to ask you before those men this
+morning, but there was something about your swimming adventure
+I wanted to know: Did you get that drink?"
+
+"I did," said Carlton--"in a bottle.  They nearly broke my
+shoulder."
+
+As Carlton came into the breakfast-room on the morning of the
+day he was to meet the Princess Aline at dinner, Miss Morris
+was there alone, and he sat down at the same table, opposite
+to her.  She looked at him critically, and smiled with evident
+amusement.
+
+"`To-day,'" she quoted, solemnly, "`the birthday of my life has come.'"
+
+Carlton poured out his coffee, with a shake of his head, and
+frowned.  "Oh, you can laugh," he said, "but I didn't sleep at
+all last night.  I lay awake making speeches to her.  I know
+they are going to put me between the wrong sisters," he
+complained, "or next to one of those old ladies-in-waiting, or
+whatever they are."
+
+"How are you going to begin?" said Miss Morris.  "Will you tell
+her you have followed her from London--or from New York,
+rather--that you are young Lochinvar, who came out of the
+West, and--"
+
+"I don't know," said Carlton, meditatively, "just how I shall
+begin; but I know the curtain is going to rise promptly at
+eight o'clock--about the time the soup comes on, I think.  I
+don't see how she can help but be impressed a little bit.  It
+isn't every day a man hurries around the globe on account of a
+girl's photograph; and she IS beautiful, isn't she?"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head encouragingly.
+
+"Do you know, sometimes," said Carlton, glancing over his
+shoulders to see if the waiters were out of hearing, "I fancy
+she has noticed me.  Once or twice I have turned my head in
+her direction without meaning to, and found her looking--well,
+looking my way, at least.  Don't you think that is a good
+sign?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"It depends on what you call a `good sign,`" said Miss Morris,
+judicially.  "It is a sign you're good to look at, if that's
+what you want.  But you probably know that already, and it's
+nothing to your credit.  It certainly isn't a sign that a
+person cares for you because she prefers to look at your
+profile rather than at what the dragomans are trying to show her."
+
+Carlton drew himself up stiffly.  "If you knew your ALICE
+better," he said, with severity, "you would understand that it
+is not polite to make personal remarks.  I ask you, as my
+confidante, if you think she has noticed me, and you make fun
+of my looks!  That's not the part of a confidante."
+
+"Noticed you!" laughed Miss Morris, scornfully.  "How could
+she help it?  You are always in the way.  You are at the door
+whenever they go out or come in, and when we are visiting
+mosques and palaces you are invariably looking at her instead
+of the tombs and things, with a wistful far-away look,
+as though you saw a vision.  The first time you did it, after you
+had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was all right
+You quite embarrassed her."
+
+"I didn't--I don't!" stammered Carlton, indignantly.  "I
+wouldn't be so rude.  Oh, I see I'll have to get another
+confidante; you are most unsympathetic and unkind."
+But Miss Morris showed her sympathy later in the day, when
+Carlton needed it sorely; for the dinner towards which he had
+looked with such pleasurable anticipations and lover-like
+misgivings did not take place.  The Sultan, so the equerry
+informed him, had, with Oriental unexpectedness, invited the
+Duke to dine that night at the Palace, and the Duke, much to
+his expressed regret, had been forced to accept what was in
+the nature of a command.  He sent word by his equerry,
+however, that the dinner to Mr. Carlton was only a pleasure
+deferred, and that at Athens, where he understood Carlton was
+also going, he hoped to have the pleasure of entertaining him
+and making him known to his sisters.
+
+"He is a selfish young egoist," said Carlton to Mrs. Downs. 
+"As if I cared whether he was at the dinner or not!  Why
+couldn't he have fixed it so I might have dined with his
+sisters alone?  We would never have missed him.  I'll never
+meet her now.  I know it; I feel it.  Fate is against me.  Now
+I will have to follow them on to Athens, and something will
+turn up there to keep me away from her.  You'll see; you'll
+see.  I wonder where they go from Athens?"
+
+The Hohenwalds departed the next morning, and as their party
+had engaged all the state-rooms in the little Italian steamer,
+Carlton was forced to wait over for the next.  He was very
+gloomy over his disappointment, and Miss Morris did her best
+to amuse him.  She and her aunt were never idle now, and spent
+the last few days of their stay in Constantinople in the
+bazars or in excursions up and down the river.
+
+"These are my last days of freedom," Miss Morris said to him
+once, "and I mean to make the most of them.  After this there
+will be no more travelling for me.  And I love it so!" she
+added, wistfully.
+
+Carlton made no comment, but he felt a certain contemptuous
+pity for the young man in America who had required such a
+sacrifice.  "She is too nice a girl to let him know she is
+making a sacrifice," he thought, "or giving up anything for
+him, but SHE won't forget it."  And Carlton again commended
+himself for not having asked any woman to make any sacrifices
+for him.
+
+They left Constantinople for Athens one moonlight night, three
+days after the Hohenwalds had taken their departure, and as
+the evening and the air were warm, they remained upon the
+upper deck until the boat had entered the Dardanelles.  There
+were few passengers, and Mrs. Downs went below early, leaving
+Miss Morris and Carlton hanging over the rail, and looking
+down upon a band of Hungarian gypsies, who were playing the
+weird music of their country on the deck beneath them.  The
+low receding hills lay close on either hand, and ran back so
+sharply from the narrow waterway that they seemed to shut in
+the boat from the world beyond.  The moonlight showed a little
+mud fort or a thatched cottage on the bank fantastically, as
+through a mist, and from time to time as they sped forward
+they saw the camp-fire of a sentry, and his shadow as he
+passed between it and them, or stopped to cover it with wood. 
+The night was so still that they could hear the waves in the
+steamer's wake washing up over the stones on either shore, and
+the muffled beat of the engines echoed back from either side
+of the valley through which they passed.  There was a great
+lantern hanging midway from the mast, and shining down upon
+the lower deck.  It showed a group of Greeks, Turks, and
+Armenians, in strange costumes, sleeping, huddled together in
+picturesque confusion over the bare boards, or wide-awake and
+voluble, smoking and chatting together in happy company.  The
+music of the tizanes rose in notes of passionate ecstasy and
+sharp, unexpected bursts of melody.  It ceased and be-an
+again, as though the musicians were feeling their way, and
+then burst out once more into shrill defiance.  It stirred
+Carlton with a strange turbulent unrest.  From the banks the
+night wind brought soft odors of fresh earth and of heavy
+foliage.
+
+"The music of different countries," Carlton said at last,
+"means many different things.  But it seems to me that the
+music of Hungary is the music of love."
+
+Miss Morris crossed her arms comfortably on the rail, and he
+heard her laugh softly.  "Oh no, it is not," she said,
+undisturbed. "It is a passionate, gusty, heady sort of love,
+if you like, but it's no more like the real thing than
+burgundy is like clear, cold, good water.  It's not the real
+thing at all."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton, meekly.
+
+"Of course I don't know anything about it."  He had been waked
+out of the spell which the night and the tizanes had placed
+upon him as completely as though some one had shaken him
+sharply by the shoulder.  "I bow," he said, "to your superior
+knowledge.  I know nothing about it."
+
+"No; you are quite right.  I don't believe you do know
+anything about it," said the girl, "or you wouldn't have made
+such a comparison."
+
+"Do you know, Miss Morris," said Carlton, seriously, "that I
+believe I'm not able to care for a woman as other men do--at
+least as some men do; it's just lacking in me, and always will
+be lacking.  It's like an ear for music; if you haven't got
+it, if it isn't born in you, you'll never have it.  It's not a
+thing you can cultivate, and I feel that it's not only a
+misfortune, but a fault.  Now I honestly believe that I care
+more for the Princess Aline, whom I have never met, than many
+other men could care for her if they knew her well; but what
+they feel would last, and I have doubts from past experience
+that what I feel would.  I don't doubt it while it exists, but
+it never does exist long, and so I am afraid it is going to be
+with me to the end of the chapter."  He paused for a moment,
+but the girl did not answer.  "I am speaking in earnest now,"
+he added, with a rueful laugh.
+
+"I see you are," she replied, briefly.  She seemed to be
+considering his condition as he had described it to her, and
+he did not interrupt her.  From below them came the notes of
+the waltz the gypsies played.  It was full of the undercurrent
+of sadness that a waltz should have, and filled out what
+Carlton said as the music from the orchestra in a theatre
+heightens the effect without interrupting the words of the
+actor on the stage.
+
+"It is strange," said Miss Morris.  "I should have thought you
+were a man who would care very much and in just the right way. 
+But I don't believe really--I'm sorry, but I don't believe you
+do know what love means at all."
+
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," said Carlton.  "I think I know
+what it is, and what it means to other people, but I can't
+feel it myself.  The best idea I ever got of it--the thing
+that made it clear to me--was a line in a play.  It seemed to
+express it better than any of the love-poems I ever read.  It
+was in Shenandoah."
+
+Miss Morris laughed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carlton.
+
+"I beg yours," she said.  "It was only the incongruity that
+struck me.  It seemed so odd to be quoting Shenandoah here
+in the Dardanelles, with these queer people below us and
+ancient Troy on one hand--it took me by surprise, that's all. 
+Please go on.  What was it impressed you?"
+
+"Well, the hero in the play," said Carlton, "is an officer in
+the Northern army, and he is lying wounded in a house near the
+Shenandoah Valley.  The girl he loves lives in this house, and
+is nursing him; but she doesn't love him,  because she
+sympathizes with the South.  At least she says she doesn't
+love him.  Both armies are forming in the valley below  to
+begin the battle, and he sees his own regiment hurrying past
+to join them, So he gets up and staggers out on the stage,
+which is set to show the yard in front of the farm-house, and
+he calls for his horse to follow his men.  Then the girl runs
+out and begs him not to go; and he asks why, what does it
+matter to her whether he goes or not?  And she says, `But I
+cannot let you go; you may be killed.'  And he says again,
+`What is that to you?'  And she says:  `It is everything to
+me.  I love you.'  And he makes a grab at her with his wounded
+arm, and at that instant both armies open fire in the valley
+below, and the whole earth and sky seem to open and shut, and
+the house rocks.  The girl rushes at him and crowds up against
+his breast, and cries:  `What is that?  Oh, what is that?' and
+he holds her tight to him and laughs, and says:  `THAT? 
+That's only a battle--you love me.'"
+
+Miss Morris looked steadfastly over the side of the boat at
+the waters rushing by beneath, smiling to herself.  Then she
+turned her face towards Carlton, and nodded her head at him. 
+"I think," she said, dryly, "that you have a fair idea of what
+it means; a rough working-plan at least--enough to begin on."
+
+"I said that I knew what it meant to others.  I am complaining
+that I cannot feel it myself."
+
+"That will come in time, no doubt," she said, encouragingly,
+with the air of a connoisseur; "and let me tell you," she
+added, "that it will be all the better for the woman that you
+have doubted yourself so long."
+
+"You think so?" said Carlton, eagerly.
+
+Miss Morris laughed at his earnestness, and left him to go
+below to ask her aunt to join them, but Mrs. Downs preferred
+to read in the saloon, and Miss Morris returned alone.  She
+had taken off her Eton jacket and  pulled on a heavy blue
+football sweater, and over this a reefer.  The jersey clung to
+her and showed the lines of her figure, and emphasized the
+freedom and grace with which she made every movement.  She
+looked, as she walked at his side with her hands in the
+pockets of her coat and with a flat sailor hat on her head,
+like a tall, handsome boy; but when they stopped and stood
+where the light fell full on her hair and the exquisite
+coloring of her skin, Carlton thought her face had never
+seemed so delicate or fair as it did then, rising from the
+collar of the rough jersey, and contrasted with the hat and
+coat of a man's attire.  They paced the deck for an hour
+later, until every one else had left it, and at midnight were
+still loath to give up the beautiful night and the charm of
+their strange surroundings.  There were long silent places in
+their talk, during which Carlton tramped beside her with his
+head half turned, looking at her and noting with an artist's
+eye the free light step, the erect carriage, and the
+unconscious beauty of her face.  The captain of the steamer
+joined them  after midnight, and falling into step, pointed
+out to Miss Morris where great cities had stood, where others
+lay buried, and where beyond the hills were the almost
+inaccessible monasteries of the Greek Church.  The moonlight
+turned the banks into shadowy substances, in which the ghosts
+of former days seemed to make a part; and spurred by the young
+girl's interest, the Italian, to entertain her, called up all
+the legends of mythology and the stories of Roman explorers
+and Turkish conquerors.
+
+"I turn in now," he said, after Miss Morris had left them.  "A
+most charming young lady.  Is it not so?" he added, waving his
+cigarette in a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of
+the adjective.
+
+"Yes, very," said Carlton.  "Good-night, sir."
+
+He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked
+out at the misty banks, puffing at his cigar.  Then he dropped
+it hissing into the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and
+down the length of the deserted deck.  It seemed particularly
+bare and empty.
+
+"What a pity she's engaged!" Carlton said.  "She loses so much
+by it."
+
+They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early
+hour the next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled
+with shrieking porters and hotel-runners at the sides.  These
+men tossed their painters to the crew, and crawled up them
+like a boarding crew of pirates, running wildly about the
+deck, and laying violent hands on any piece of baggage they
+saw unclaimed.  The passengers' trunks had been thrown out in
+a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering over
+them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood
+below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself,
+and pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her.  As
+she stood there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy
+Levantine in pursuit of a possible victim, shouldered her
+intentionally and roughly out of the way.  He shoved her so
+sharply that she lost her balance and fell back against the
+rail.  Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying leap
+from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in
+time to seize the escaping offender by the collar.  He jerked
+him back off his feet.
+
+"How dare you--" he began.
+
+But he did not finish.  He felt the tips of Miss Morris's
+fingers laid upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an
+annoyed tone:  "Don't; please don't."  And, to his surprise,
+his fingers lost their grip on the man's shirt, his arms
+dropped at his side, and his blood began to flow calmly again
+through his veins.  Carlton was aware that he had a very quick
+temper.  He was always engaging in street rows, as he called
+them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some
+one else, and though he was always ashamed of himself later,
+his temper had never been satisfied without a blow or an
+apology.  Women had also touched him before, and possibly with
+a greater familiarity; but these had stirred him, not quieted
+him; and men who had laid detaining hands on him had had them
+beaten down for their pains.  But this girl had merely touched
+him gently, and he had been made helpless.  It was most
+perplexing; and while the custom-house officials were passing
+his luggage, he found himself rubbing his arm curiously, as
+though it were numb, and looking down at it with an amused
+smile.  He did not comment on the incident, although he smiled
+at the recollection of his prompt obedience several times
+during the day.  But as he was stepping into the cab to drive
+to Athens, he saw the offending ruffian pass, dripping with
+water, and muttering bitter curses.  When he saw Carlton he
+disappeared instantly in the crowd.  Carlton stepped over to
+where Nolan sat  beside the driver on the box.  "Nolan," he
+said, in a low voice, "isn't that the fellow who--"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nolan, touching his hat gravely.  "He was
+pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it,
+sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go
+sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off the pier."
+
+Carlton smiled grimly with secret satisfaction.
+
+"Nolan," he said, "you're not telling the truth.  You did it
+yourself."  Nolan touched his cap and coughed consciously. 
+There had been no detaining fingers on Nolan's arm.
+
+"You are coming now, Miss Morris," exclaimed Carlton from the
+front of the carriage in which they were moving along the
+sunny road to Athens, "into a land where one restores his lost
+illusions.  Anybody who wishes to get back his belief in
+beautiful things should come here to do it, just as he would
+go to a German sanitarium to build up his nerves or his
+appetite.  You have only to drink in the atmosphere and you
+are cured.  I know no better antidote than Athens for a siege
+of cable-cars and muddy asphalt pavements and a course of
+Robert Elsmeres and the Heavenly Twins.  Wait until you
+see the statues of the young athletes in the Museum," he
+cried, enthusiastically, "and get a glimpse of the blue sky
+back of Mount Hymettus, and the moonlight some evening on the
+Acropolis, and you'll be convinced that nothing counts for
+much in this world but health and straight limbs, and tall
+marble pillars, and eyes trained to see only what is
+beautiful.  Give people a love for beauty and a respect for
+health, Miss Morris, and the result is going to be, what they
+once had here, the best art and the greatest writers and
+satirists and poets.  The same audience that applauded
+Euripides and Sophocles in the open theatre used to cross the
+road the same day to applaud the athletes who ran naked in the
+Olympian games, and gave them as great honor.  I came here
+once on a walking tour with a chap who wasn't making as much
+of himself as he should have done, and he went away a changed
+man, and became a personage in the world, and you would never
+guess what it was that did it.  He saw a statue of one of the
+Greek gods in the Museum which showed certain muscles that he
+couldn't find in his own body, and he told me he was going to
+train down until they did show; and he stopped drinking and
+loafing to do it, and took to exercising and working; and by
+the time the muscles showed out clear and strong he was so
+keen over life that he wanted to make the most of it, and, as
+I said, he has done it.  That's what a respect for his own
+body did for him."
+
+The carriage stopped at the hotel on one side of the public
+square of Athens, with the palace and its gardens blocking one
+end, and yellow houses with red roofs, and gay awnings over
+the cafes, surrounding it.  It was a bright sunny day, and the
+city was clean and cool and pretty.
+
+"Breakfast?" exclaimed Miss Morris, in answer to Carlton's
+inquiry; "yes, I suppose so, but I won't feel safe until I
+have my feet on that rock."  She was standing on the steps of
+the hotel, looking up with expectant, eager eyes at the great
+Acropolis above the city.
+
+"It has been there for a long time now," suggested Carlton,
+"and I think you can risk its being there for a half-hour
+longer."
+
+"Well," she said, reluctantly, "but I don't wish to lose this
+chance.  There might be an earthquake, for instance."
+
+
+"We are likely to see THEM this morning," said Carlton, as
+he left the hotel with the ladies and drove towards the
+Acropolis.  "Nolan has been interviewing the English maid, and
+she tells him they spend the greater part of their time up
+there on the rock.  They are living very simply here, as they
+did in Paris; that is, for the present.  On Wednesday the King
+gives a dinner and a reception in their honor."
+
+"When does your dinner come off?" asked Miss Morris.
+
+"Never," said Carlton, grimly.
+
+"One of the reasons why I like to come back to Athens so
+much," said Mrs. Downs, "is because there are so few other
+tourists here to spoil the local color for you, and there are
+almost as few guides as tourists, so that you can wander
+around undisturbed and discover things for yourself.  They
+don't label every fallen column, and place fences around the
+temples.  They seem to put you on your good behavior.  Then I
+always like to go to a place where you are as much of a
+curiosity to the people as they are to you.  It seems to
+excuse your staring about you."
+
+"A curiosity!" exclaimed Carlton; "I should say so!  The last
+time I was here I tried to wear a pair of knickerbockers
+around the city, and the people stared so that I had to go
+back to the hotel and change them.  I shouldn't have minded it
+so much in any other country, but I thought men who wore
+Jaeger underclothing and women's petticoats for a national
+costume might have excused so slight an eccentricity as
+knickerbockers.  THEY had no right to throw the first stone."
+
+The rock upon which the temples of the Acropolis are built is
+more of a hill than a rock.  It is much steeper upon one side
+than the other, with a sheer fall a hundred yards broad; on
+the opposite side there are the rooms of the Hospital of
+Aesculapius and the theatres of Dionysus and Herodes Atticus. 
+The top of the rock holds the Parthenon and the other smaller
+temples, or what yet remains of them, and its surface is
+littered with broken marble and stones and pieces of rock. 
+The top is so closely built over that the few tourists who
+visit it can imagine themselves its sole occupants for a half-
+hour at a time.  When Carlton and his friends arrived, the
+place appeared quite deserted.  They left the carriage at the
+base of the rock, and climbed up to the entrance on foot.
+
+"Now, before I go on to the Parthenon," said Miss Morris, "I
+want to walk around the sides, and see what is there.  I shall
+begin with that theatre to the left, and I warn you that I
+mean to take my time about it.  So you people who have been
+here before can run along by yourselves, but I mean to enjoy
+it leisurely.  I am safe by myself here, am I not?" she asked.
+
+"As safe as though you were in the Metropolitan Museum," said
+Carlton, as he and Mrs. Downs followed Miss Morris along the
+side of the hill towards the ruined theatre of Herodes, and
+stood at its top, looking down into the basin below.  From
+their feet ran a great semicircle of marble seats, descending
+tier below tier to a marble pavement, and facing a great
+ruined wall of pillars and arches which in the past had formed
+the background for the actors.  From the height on which they
+stood above the city they could see the green country
+stretching out for miles on every side and swimming in the
+warm sunlight, the dark groves of myrtle on the hills, the
+silver ribbon of the inland water, and the dark blue AEgean
+Sea.  The bleating of sheep and the tinkling of the bells came
+up to them from the pastures below, and they imagined they
+could hear the shepherds piping to their flocks from one
+little hill-top to another.
+
+"The country is not much changed," said Carlton, "And when you
+stand where we are now, you can imagine that you see the
+procession winding its way over the road to the Eleusinian
+Mysteries, with the gilded chariots, and the children carrying
+garlands, and the priestesses leading the bulls for the sacrifice."
+
+"What can we imagine is going on here?" said Miss Morris,
+pointing with her parasol to the theatre below.
+
+"Oh, this is much later," said Carlton.  "This was built by
+the Romans.  They used to act and to hold their public
+meetings here.  This corresponds to the top row of our
+gallery, and you can imagine that you are looking down on the
+bent backs of hundreds of bald-headed men in white robes,
+listening to the speakers strutting about below there."
+
+"I wonder how much they could hear from this height?"
+said Mrs. Downs.
+
+"Well, they had that big wall for a sounding-board, and the
+air is so soft here that their voices should have carried
+easily, and I believe they wore masks with mouth-pieces, that
+conveyed the sound like a fireman's trumpet.  If you like, I
+will run down there and call up to you, and you can hear how
+it sounded.  I will speak in my natural voice first, and if
+that doesn't reach you, wave your parasol, and I will try it a
+little louder."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Miss Morris.  "It will be very good of you.  I
+should like to hear a real speech in the theatre of Herodes,"
+she said, as she seated herself on the edge of the marble
+crater.
+
+"I'll have to speak in English," said Carlton, as he
+disappeared; "my Greek isn't good enough to carry that far."
+
+Mrs. Downs seated herself beside her niece, and Carlton began
+scrambling down the side of the amphitheatre.  The marble
+benches were broken in parts, and where they were perfect were
+covered with a fine layer of moss as smooth and soft as green
+velvet, so that Carlton, when he was not laboriously feeling
+for his next foothold with the toe of his boot, was engaged in
+picking spring flowers from the beds of moss and sticking
+them, for safe-keeping, in his button-hole.  He was several
+minutes in making the descent, and so busily occupied in doing
+it that he did not look up until he had reached the level of
+the ground, and jumped lightly from the first row of seats to
+the stage, covered with moss, which lay like a heavy rug over
+the marble pavement.  When he did look up he saw a tableau
+that made his heart, which was beating quickly from the
+exertion of the descent, stand still with consternation.  The
+Hohenwalds had, in his short absence, descended from the
+entrance of the Acropolis, and had stopped on their way to the
+road below to look into the cool green and white basin of the
+theatre.  At the moment Carlton looked up the Duke was
+standing in front of Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris, and all of
+the men had their hats off.  Then, in pantomime, and
+silhouetted against the blue sky behind them, Carlton saw the
+Princesses advance beside their brother, and Mrs. Downs and
+her niece courtesied three times, and then the whole party
+faced about in a line and looked down at him.  The meaning of
+the tableau was only too plain.
+
+"Good heavens!" gasped Carlton.  "Everybody's getting
+introduced to everybody else, and I've missed the whole thing! 
+If they think I'm going to stay down here and amuse them, and
+miss all the fun myself, they are greatly mistaken."  He made
+a mad rush for the front first row of seats; but there was a
+cry of remonstrance from above, and, looking up, he saw all of
+the men waving him back.
+
+"Speech!" cried the young English Captain, applauding loudly,
+as though welcoming an actor on his first entrance.  "Hats off!"
+he cried.  "Down in front!  Speech!"
+
+"Confound that ass!" said Carlton, dropping back to the marble
+pavement again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures
+outlined against the sky.  "I must look like a bear in the
+bear-pit at the Zoo," he growled.  "They'll be throwing buns
+to me next."  He could see the two elder sisters talking to
+Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his purpose in going
+down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the
+Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol,
+and smiling.  The captain made a trumpet of his hands,
+and asked why he didn't begin.
+
+"Hello! how are you?" Carlton called back, waving his hat at
+him in some embarrassment.  "I wonder if I look as much like a
+fool as I feel?" he muttered.
+
+"What did you say?  We can't hear you," answered the captain.
+
+"Louder! louder!" called the equerries.  Carlton swore at them
+under his breath, and turned and gazed round the hole in which
+he was penned in order to make them believe that he had given
+up the idea of making a speech, or had ever intended doing so. 
+He tried to think of something clever to shout back at them,
+and rejected "Ye men of Athens" as being too flippant, and
+"Friends, Countrymen, Romans," as requiring too much effort. 
+When he looked up again the Hohenwalds were moving on their
+way, and as he started once more to scale the side of the
+theatre the Duke waved his hand at him in farewell, and gave
+another hand to his sisters, who disappeared with him behind
+the edge of the upper row of seats.  Carlton turned at once
+and dropped into one of the marble chairs and bowed his head. 
+When he did reach the top Miss Morris held out a sympathetic
+hand to him and shook her head sadly, but he could see that
+she was pressing her lips tightly together to keep from
+smiling.
+
+"Oh, it's all very funny for you," he said, refusing her hand. 
+"I don't believe you are in love with anybody.  You don't know
+what it means."
+
+They revisited the rock on the next day and on the day after,
+and then left Athens for an inland excursion to stay
+overnight.  Miss Morris returned from it with the sense of
+having done her duty once, and by so doing having earned the
+right  to act as she pleased in the future.  What she best
+pleased to do was to wander about over the broad top of the
+Acropolis, with no serious intent of studying its historical
+values, but rather, as she explained it, for the simple
+satisfaction of feeling that she was there.  She liked to
+stand on the edge of the low wall along its top and look out
+over the picture of sea and plain and mountains that lay below
+her.  The sun shone brightly, and the wind swept by them as
+though they were on the bridge of an ocean steamer, and there
+was the added invigorating sense of pleasure that comes to us
+when we stand on a great height.  Carlton was sitting at her
+feet, shielded from the wind by a fallen column, and gazing up
+at her with critical approval.
+
+"You look like a sort of a `Winged Victory' up there," he
+said, "with the wind blowing your skirts about and your hair
+coming down."
+
+"I don't remember that the `Winged Victory' has any hair to
+blow about," suggested Miss Morris.
+
+"I'd like to paint you," continued Carlton, "just as you are
+standing now, only I would put you in a Greek dress; and you
+could stand a Greek dress better than almost any one I know. 
+I would paint you with your head up and one hand shielding
+your eyes, and the other pressed against your breast.  It
+would be stunning."  He spoke enthusiastically, but in quite
+an impersonal tone, as though he were discussing the posing of
+a model.
+
+Miss Morris jumped down from the low wall on which she had
+been standing, and said, simply, "Of course I should like to
+have you paint me very much."
+
+Mrs. Downs looked up with interest to see if Mr. Carlton was serious.
+
+"When?" said Carlton, vaguely.  "Oh, I don't know.  Of course
+this is entirely too nice to last, and you will be going home
+soon, and then when I do get back to the States you will--you
+will have other things to do."
+
+"Yes," repeated Miss Morris, "I shall have something else to
+do besides gazing out at the AEgean Sea."  She raised her head
+and looked across the rock for a moment with some interest. 
+Her eyes, which had grown wistful, lighted again with
+amusement.  "Here are your friends," she said, smiling.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Carlton, scrambling to his feet.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Morris.  "The Duke has seen us, and is coming
+over here."
+
+When Carlton had gained his feet and turned to look, his
+friends had separated in different directions, and were
+strolling about alone or in pairs among the great columns of
+the Parthenon.  But the Duke came directly towards them, and
+seated himself on a low block of marble in front of the two
+ladies.  After a word or two about the beauties of the place,
+he asked if they would go to the reception which the King gave
+to him on the day following.  They answered that they should
+like to come very much, and the Prince expressed his
+satisfaction, and said that he would see that the chamberlain
+sent them invitations.  "And you, Mr. Carlton, you will come
+also, I hope.  I wish you to be presented to my sisters.  They
+are only amateurs in art, but they are great admirers of your
+work, and they have rebuked me for not having already
+presented you.  We were all disappointed," he continued,
+courteously, "at not having you to dine with us that night in
+Constantinople, but now I trust I shall see something of you
+here.  You must tell us what we are to admire."
+
+"That is very easy," said Carlton.  "Everything."
+
+"You are quite right," said the Prince, bowing to the ladies
+as he moved away.  "It is all very beautiful."
+
+"Well, now you certainly will meet her," said Miss Morris.
+
+"Oh no, I won't," said Carlton, with resignation.  "I have had
+two chances and lost them, and I'll miss this one too."
+
+"Well, there is a chance you shouldn't miss," said Miss
+Morris, pointing and nodding her head.  "There she is now, and
+all alone.  She's sketching, isn't she, or taking notes?  What
+is she doing?"
+
+Carlton looked eagerly in the direction Miss Morris had
+signified, and saw the Princess Aline sitting at some distance
+from them, with a book on her lap.  She glanced up from this
+now and again to look at something ahead of her, and was
+apparently deeply absorbed in her occupation.
+
+"There is your opportunity," said Mrs. Downs; "and we are
+going back to the hotel.  Shall we see you at luncheon?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "unless I get a position as
+drawing-master; in that case I shall be here teaching the
+three amateurs in art.  Do you think I can do it?" he asked
+Miss Morris.
+
+"Decidedly," she answered.  "I have found you a most
+educational young person."
+
+They went away together, and Carlton moved cautiously towards
+the spot where the Princess was sitting.  He made a long and
+roundabout detour as he did so, in order to keep himself
+behind her.  He did not mean to come so near that she would
+see him, but he took a certain satisfaction in looking at her
+when she was alone, though her loneliness was only a matter of
+the moment, and though he knew that her people were within a
+hundred yards of her.  He was in consequence somewhat annoyed
+and surprised to see another young man dodging in and out
+among the pillars of the Parthenon immediately ahead of him,
+and to find that this young man also had his attention centred
+on the young girl, who sat unconsciously sketching in the foreground.
+
+"Now what the devil can he want?" muttered Carlton, his
+imagination taking alarm at once.  "If it would only prove to
+be some one who meant harm to her," he thought--"a brigand, or
+a beggar, who might be obligingly insolent, or even a tipsy
+man, what a chance it would afford for heroic action!"
+
+With this hope he moved forward quickly but silently, hoping
+that the stranger might prove even to be an anarchist with a
+grudge against royalty.  And as he advanced he had the
+satisfaction of seeing the Princess glance over her shoulder,
+and, observing the man, rise and walk quickly away towards the
+edge of the rock.  There she seated herself with her face
+towards the city, and with her back firmly set against her
+pursuer.
+
+"He is annoying her!" exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he
+hurried forward.  "It looks as though my chance had come at
+last."  But as he approached the stranger he saw, to his great
+disappointment, that he had nothing more serious to deal with
+than one of the international army of amateur photographers,
+who had been stalking the Princess as a hunter follows an elk,
+or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a prominent
+politician, or a Lord Mayor's show, everything being fish that
+came within the focus of his camera.  A helpless statue and an
+equally helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his
+mercy.  He was bending over, with an anxious expression of
+countenance, and focussing his camera on the back of the
+Princess Aline, when Carlton approached from the rear.  As the
+young man put his finger on the button of the camera, Carlton
+jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed the enthusiastic
+tourist to one side.
+
+"Say," exclaimed that individual, "look where you're going,
+will you?  You spoiled that plate."
+
+"I'll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any
+longer," said Carlton, in a low voice.
+
+The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire
+of pursuit was still in his eye.
+
+"She's a Princess," he explained, in an excited whisper.
+
+"Well," said Carlton, "even a Princess is entitled to some
+consideration.  Besides," he said, in a more amicable tone,
+"you haven't a permit to photograph on the Acropolis.  You
+know you haven't."  Carlton was quite sure of this, because
+there were no such permits.
+
+The amateur looked up in some dismay.  "I didn't know you had
+to have them," he said.  "Where can I get one?"
+
+"The King may give you one," said Carlton.  "He lives at the
+palace.  If they catch you up here without a license, they
+will confiscate your camera and lock you up.  You had better
+vanish before they see you."
+
+"Thank you.  I will," said the tourist, anxiously.
+
+"Now," thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, "when he goes to
+the palace with that box and asks for a permit, they'll think
+he is either a dynamiter or a crank, and before they are
+through with him his interest in photography will have
+sustained a severe shock."
+
+As Carlton turned from watching the rapid flight of the
+photographer, he observed that the Princess had remarked it
+also, as she had no doubt been a witness of what had passed,
+even if she had not overheard all that had been said.  She
+rose from her enforced position of refuge with a look of
+relief, and came directly towards Carlton along the rough path
+that led through the debris on the top of the Acropolis. 
+Carlton had thought, as he watched her sitting on the wall,
+with her chin resting on her hand, that she would make a
+beautiful companion picture to the one he had wished to paint
+of Miss Morris--the one girl standing upright, looking
+fearlessly out to sea, on the top of the low wall, with the
+wind blowing her skirts about her, and her hair tumbled in the
+breeze, and the other seated, bending intently forward, as
+though watching for the return of a long-delayed vessel; a
+beautifully sad face, fine and delicate and noble, the face of
+a girl on the figure of a woman.  And when she rose he made no
+effort to move away, or, indeed, to pretend not to have seen
+her, but stood looking at her as though he had the right to do
+so, and as though she must know he had that right.  As she
+came towards him the Princess Aline did not stop, nor even
+shorten her steps; but as she passed opposite to him she bowed
+her thanks with a sweet impersonal smile and a dropping of the
+eyes, and continued steadily on her way.
+
+Carlton stood for some short time looking after her, with his
+hat still at his side.  She seemed farther from him at that
+moment than she had ever been before, although she had for the
+first time recognized him.  But he knew that it was only as a
+human being that she had recognized him.  He put on his hat,
+and sat down on a rock with his elbows on his knees, and
+filled his pipe.
+
+"If that had been any other girl," he thought, "I would have
+gone up to her and said, `Was that man annoying you?' and she
+would have said, `Yes; thank you,' or something; and I would
+have walked along with her until we had come up to her
+friends, and she would have told them I had been of some
+slight service to her, and they would have introduced us, and
+all would have gone well.  But because she is a Princess she
+cannot be approached in that way.  At least she does not think
+so, and I have to act as she has been told I should act, and
+not as I think I should.  After all, she is only a very
+beautiful girl, and she must be very tired of her cousins and
+grandmothers, and of not being allowed to see any one else. 
+These royalties make a very picturesque show for the rest of
+us, but indeed it seems rather hard on them.  A hundred years
+from now there will be no more kings and queens, and the
+writers of that day will envy us, just as the writers of this
+day envy the men who wrote of chivalry and tournaments, and
+they will have to choose their heroes from bank presidents,
+and their heroines from lady lawyers and girl politicians and
+type-writers.  What a stupid world it will be then!"
+
+The next day brought the reception to the Hohenwalds; and
+Carlton, entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same
+afternoon, found Miss Morris and her aunt there together
+taking tea.  They both looked at him with expressions of such
+genuine commiseration that he stopped just as he was going to
+seat himself and eyed them defiantly.
+
+"Don't tell me," he exclaimed, "that this has fallen through too!"
+
+Miss Morris nodded her head silently.
+
+Carlton dropped into the chair beside them, and folded his
+arms with a frown of grim resignation.  "What is it?" he
+asked.  "Have they postponed the reception?"
+
+"No," Miss Morris said; "but the Princess Aline will not be there."
+
+"Of course not," said Carlton, calmly, "of course not.  May I
+ask why?  I knew that she wouldn't be there, but I may
+possibly be allowed to express some curiosity."
+
+"She turned her ankle on one of the loose stones on the
+Acropolis this afternoon," said Miss Morris, "and sprained it
+so badly that they had to carry her--"
+
+"Who carried her?" Carlton demanded, fiercely.
+
+"Some of her servants."
+
+"Of course, of course!" cried Carlton.
+
+"That's the way it always will be.  I was there the whole
+afternoon, and I didn't see her.  I wasn't there to help her. 
+It's Fate, that's what it is--Fate!  There's no use in my
+trying to fight against Fate.  Still," he added, anxiously,
+with a sudden access of hope, "she may be well by this evening."
+
+"I hardly think she will," said Miss Morris, "but we will
+trust so."
+
+The King's palace and gardens stretch along one end of the
+public park, and are but just across the street from the hotel
+where the Hohenwalds and the Americans were staying.  As the
+hotel was the first building on the left of the square,
+Carlton could see from his windows the illuminations, and the
+guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and departing, and
+the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering through
+the iron rails into the King's garden.  It was a warm night,
+and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis
+in silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical
+look to the yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town. 
+Every window in the broad front of the palace was illuminated,
+and through the open doors came the sound of music, and one
+without could see rows of tall servants in the King's blue and
+white livery, and the men of his guard in their white
+petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.  Carlton
+pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an
+agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street
+and entered the palace.  The line of royalties had broken by
+the time he reached the ballroom, and the not over-severe
+etiquette of the Greek court left him free, after a bow to
+those who still waited to receive it, to move about as he
+pleased.  His most earnest desire was to learn whether or not
+the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched
+the English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him,
+and asked eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her
+accident.
+
+"No," said the officer; "she's able to walk about, but not to
+stand, and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of
+thing.  Too bad, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Carlton, "very bad."  He released his hand from
+the other's arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about
+the doorway.  His disappointment was very keen.  Indeed, he
+had not known how much this meeting with the Princess had
+meant to him until he experienced this disappointment, which
+was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and have her
+sympathize and laugh with him.  He became conscious, as he
+searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing
+and repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to
+Miss Morris for sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown
+of late upon him.  He wondered what he would have done in his
+travels without her, and whether he should have had the
+interest to carry on his pursuit had she not been there to
+urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew fainthearted.
+
+But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and
+for an instant doubted if it were she.  The girl he saw seemed
+to be a more beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew--a
+taller, fairer, and more radiant personage; and he feared that
+it was not she, until he remembered that this was the first
+time he had ever seen her with her hair dressed high upon her
+head, and in the more distinguished accessories of a décolleté
+gown and train.  Miss Morris had her hand on the arm of one of
+the equerries, who was battling good-naturedly with the crowd,
+and trying to draw her away from two persistent youths in
+diplomatic uniform who were laughing and pressing forward in
+close pursuit on the other side.  Carlton approached her with
+a certain feeling of diffidence, which was most unusual to
+him, and asked if she were dancing.
+
+"Mr. Carlton shall decide for me," Miss Morris said, dropping
+the equerry's arm and standing beside the American.  "I have
+promised all of these gentlemen," she explained, "to dance
+with them, and now they won't agree as to which is to dance
+first.  They've wasted half this waltz already in discussing
+it, and they make it much more difficult by saying that no
+matter how I decide, they will fight duels with the one I
+choose, which is most unpleasant for me."
+
+"Most unpleasant for the gentleman you choose, too," suggested
+Carlton.
+
+"So," continued Miss Morris, "I have decided to leave it to you."
+
+"Well, if I am to arbitrate between the powers," said Carlton,
+with a glance at the three uniforms, "my decision is that as
+they insist on fighting duels in any event, you had better
+dance with me until they have settled it between them, and
+then the survivor can have the next dance."
+
+"That's a very good idea," said Miss Morris; and taking
+Carlton's arm, she bowed to the three men and drew away.
+
+"Mr. Carlton," said the equerry, with a bow, "has added
+another argument in favor of maintaining standing armies,
+and of not submitting questions to arbitration."
+
+"Let's get out of this," said Carlton.  "You don't want to
+dance, do you?  Let us go where it's cool."
+
+He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace.  They
+did not speak again until they had left it, and were walking
+under the trees in the Queen's garden.  He had noticed as they
+made their way through the crowd how the men and women turned
+to look at her and made way for her, and how utterly
+unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
+unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such
+discrimination, and Carlton himself held his head a little
+higher with the pride and pleasure the thought gave him that
+he was in such friendly sympathy with so beautiful a creature. 
+He stopped before a low stone bench that stood on the edge of
+the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical trees, and
+guarded by a marble statue.  They were in deep shadow
+themselves, but the moonlight fell on the path at their feet,
+and through the trees on the other side of the path they could
+see the open terrace of the palace, with the dancers moving in
+and out of the lighted windows.  The splash of a fountain came
+from some short distance behind them, and from time to time
+they heard the strains of a regimental band alternating with
+the softer strains of a waltz played by a group of Hungarian
+musicians.  For a moment neither of them spoke, but sat
+watching the white dresses of the women and the uniforms of
+the men moving in and out among the trees, lighted by the
+lanterns hanging from the branches, and the white mist of the moon.
+
+"Do you know," said Carlton, "I'm rather afraid of you to-
+night!" He paused, and watched her for a little time as she
+sat upright, with her hands folded on her lap.
+
+"You are so very resplendent and queenly and altogether
+different," he added.  The girl moved her bare shoulders
+slightly and leaned back against the bench.
+
+"The Princess did not come," she said.
+
+"No," Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at
+having forgotten that fact.  "That's one of the reasons I took
+you away from those men," he explained.  "I wanted you to
+sympathize with me."
+
+Miss Morris did not answer him at once.  She did not seem to
+be in a sympathetic mood.  Her manner suggested rather that
+she was tired and troubled.
+
+"I need sympathy myself to-night," she said.  "We received a
+letter after dinner that brought bad news for us.  We must go
+home at once."
+
+"Bad news!" exclaimed Carlton, with much concern.  "From home?"
+
+"Yes, from home," she replied; "but there is nothing wrong
+there; it is only bad news for us.  My sister has decided to
+be married in June instead of July, and that cuts us out of a
+month on the Continent.  That's all.  We shall have to leave
+immediately--tomorrow.  It seems that Mr. Abbey is able to go
+away sooner than he had hoped, and they are to be married on
+the first."
+
+"Mr. Abbey!" exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name.  "But
+your sister isn't going to marry him, is she?"
+
+Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise.  "Yes--why not?"
+she said.
+
+"But I say!" cried Carlton, "I thought your aunt told me that
+YOU were going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on
+the steamer when he came to see you off."
+
+"I marry him--my aunt told you--impossible!" said Miss Morris,
+smiling.  "She probably said that `her niece' was going to
+marry him; she meant my sister.  They had been engaged some time."
+
+"Then who are YOU going to marry?" stammered Carlton.
+
+"I am not going to marry any one," said Miss Morris.
+
+Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement.  "Well, that's
+most absurd!" he exclaimed.
+
+He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly
+adequate, but he could not readjust his mind so suddenly to
+the new idea, and he remained looking at her with many
+confused memories rushing through his brain.  A dozen
+questions were on his tongue.  He remembered afterwards how he
+had noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the
+orange-colored lanterns, and that he had watched him as he
+disappeared among the palms.
+
+The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
+significance in itself which Carlton recognized.  He pulled
+himself up with a short laugh.  "Well," he remonstrated,
+mirthlessly, "I don't think you've treated ME very well."
+
+"How, not treated you very well?" Miss Morris asked, settling
+herself more easily.  She had been sitting during the pause
+which followed Carlton's discovery with a certain rigidity, as
+if she was on a strain of attention.  But her tone was now as
+friendly as always, and held its customary suggestion of
+amusement.  Carlton took his tone from it, although his mind
+was still busily occupied with incidents and words of hers
+that she had spoken in their past intercourse.
+
+"Not fair in letting me think you were engaged," he said. 
+"I've wasted so much time:  I'm not half civil enough to
+engaged girls," he explained.
+
+"You've been quite civil enough to us," said Miss Morris, "as
+a courier, philosopher, and friend.  I'm very sorry we have to
+part company."
+
+"Part company!" exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm.  "But, I
+say, we mustn't do that."
+
+"But we must, you see," said Miss Morris. "We must go back for
+the wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline."
+
+"Yes, of course," Carlton heard his own voice say.  "I had
+forgotten the Princess Aline."  But he was not thinking of
+what he was saying, nor of the Princess Aline.  He was
+thinking of the many hours Miss Morris and he had been
+together, of the way she had looked at certain times, and of
+how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he had
+pictured the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over
+the same route, and without a chaperon, sitting close at her
+side or holding her hand, and telling her just how pretty she
+was whenever he wished to do so, and without any fear of the
+consequences.  He remembered how ready she had been to
+understand what he was going to say before he had finished
+saying it, and how she had always made him show the best of
+himself, and had caused, him to leave unsaid many things that
+became common and unworthy when considered in the light of her
+judgment.  He recalled how impatient he had been when she was
+late at dinner, and how cross he was throughout one whole day
+when she had kept her room.  He felt with a sudden shock of
+delightful fear that he had grown to depend upon her, that she
+was the best companion he had ever known; and he remembered
+moments when they had been alone together at the table, or in
+some old palace, or during a long walk, when they had seemed
+to have the whole world entirely to themselves, and how he had
+consoled himself at such times with the thought that no matter
+how long she might be Abbey's wife, there had been these
+moments in her life which were his, with which Abbey had had
+nothing to do.
+
+Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes,
+as though he saw her for the first time.  He felt so sure of
+himself and of his love for her that the happiness of it made
+him tremble, and the thought that if he spoke she might answer
+him in the old, friendly, mocking tone of good-fellowship
+filled him with alarm.  At that moment it seemed to Carlton
+that the most natural thing in the world for them to do would
+be to go back again together over the road they had come,
+seeing everything in the new light of his love for her, and so
+travel on and on for ever over the world, learning to love
+each other more and more each succeeding day, and leaving the
+rest of the universe to move along without them.
+
+He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench,
+and bent his face towards hers.  Her hand lay at her side, and
+his own closed over it, but the shock that the touch of her
+fingers gave him stopped and confused the words upon his
+tongue.  He looked strangely at her, and could not find the
+speech he needed.
+
+Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and
+drew her own away, as if he had taken hers only in an
+exuberance of good feeling.
+
+"You have been very nice to us," she said, with an effort to
+make her tone sound kindly and approving.  "And we--"
+
+"You mustn't go; I can't let you go," said Carlton, hoarsely. 
+There was no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now.  "IF
+you go," he went on, breathlessly, "I must go with you."
+
+The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her
+breath with a slight, nervous tremor.  Then she turned and
+faced him, almost as though she were afraid of him or of
+herself, and they sat so for an instant in silence.  The air
+seemed to have grown close and heavy, and Carlton saw her
+dimly.  In the silence he heard the splash of the fountain
+behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
+and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.
+
+He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight
+that he was smiling.  It was as though he wished to delay any
+answer she might make to his last words.
+
+"That is the waltz," he said, still speaking in a whisper,
+"that the gypsies played that night--"  He stopped, and Miss
+Morris answered him by bending her head slowly in assent.  It
+seemed to be an effort for her to even make that slight
+gesture.
+
+"YOU don't remember it," said Carlton.  "It meant nothing to
+you.  I mean that night on the steamer when I told you what
+love meant to other people.  What a fool I was!" he said, with
+an uncertain laugh.
+
+"Yes, I remember it," she said--"last Thursday night, on the steamer."
+
+"Thursday night!" exclaimed Carlton, indignantly.  "Wednesday
+night, Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week
+it was?  It was the night of my life to me.  That night I knew
+that I loved you as I had never hoped to care for any one in
+this world.  When I told you that I did not know what love
+meant I felt all the time that I was lying.  I knew that I
+loved you, and that I could never love any one else,  and that
+I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought then
+you could care for me, your engagement or your promises would
+never have stopped my telling you so.  You said that night
+that I would learn to love all the better, and more truly, for
+having doubted myself so long, and, oh, Edith," he cried,
+taking both her hands and holding them close in his own, "I
+cannot let you go now!  I love you so!  Don't laugh at me;
+don't mock at me.  All the rest of my life depends on you."
+
+And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her
+not to do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came
+so gently and sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that
+though he let go of her hands with one of his, it was only
+that he might draw her to him, until her face touched his, and
+she felt the strength of his arm as he held her against his breast.
+
+
+The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor
+of the hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony
+that reached out from it over the front entrance.  And at the
+time when Mrs. Downs and Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to
+the hotel from the ball, the Princess Aline was leaning over
+the balcony and watching the lights go out in the upper part
+of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the trees and
+statues in the public park below.  Her foot was still in
+bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from
+the cold.  Inside of the open windows that led out on to the
+balcony her sisters were taking off their ornaments, and
+discussing the incidents of the night just over.
+
+The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help
+Mrs. Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand
+to another muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs.
+Downs was ascending the steps, and before the second muffled
+figure had left the shadow of the carriage and stepped into
+the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw Carlton draw her
+suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the check, and heard a
+protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her
+head and run up the steps.  Then she saw Carlton shake hands
+with them, and stand for a moment after they had disappeared,
+gazing up at the moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat. 
+He drew out a cigar-case and leisurely selected a cigar, and
+with much apparent content lighted it, and then, with his
+head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as though he were
+challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
+disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.
+
+The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood
+there leaning against the side.  "That young Mr. Carlton, the
+artist," she said to her sisters, "is engaged to that
+beautiful American girl we met the other day."
+
+"Really!" said the elder sister.  "I thought it was probable. 
+Who told you?"
+
+"I saw him kiss her good-night," said the Princess, stepping
+into the window, "as they got out of their carriage just now."
+
+The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at
+the floor, and then walked across the room to a little
+writing-desk.  She unlocked a drawer in this and took from it
+two slips of paper, which she folded in her hand.  Then she
+returned slowly across the room, and stepped out again on to
+the balcony.
+
+One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn
+of her, and under which he had written:  "This is she.  Do you
+wonder I travelled four thousand miles to see her?"  And the
+other was the picture of Carlton himself, which she had cut
+out of the catalogue of the Salon.
+
+From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she
+could see the glimmer of Carlton's white linen and the red
+glow of his cigar as he strode proudly up and down the path of
+the public park, like a sentry keeping watch.  She folded the
+pieces of paper together and tore them slowly into tiny
+fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into the
+street below.  Then she returned again to the room, and stood
+looking at her sisters.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "I think I am a little tired of
+travelling so much.  I want to go back to Grasse."  She put
+her hand to her, forehead and held it there for a moment.
+"I think I am a little homesick," said the Princess Aline.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+The end of Project Gutenberg etext of "The Princess Aline"
+
+
+
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