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diff --git a/old/palin10.txt b/old/palin10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86f4fe1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/palin10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3218 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext Princess Aline by Richard Harding Davis + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared with the use of Calera WordScan Plus 2.0 + +The original book seems to have been very difficult to scan. + +The raw OCR output had: +lots of e --> c errors some missing open quotes " too. +(some may have been missed during proofing) + +I also noted some quoted paragraphs unseparated from the previous +paragraphs, and fixed what I could find. In addition, vi reports +there are some extra binary characters, but I didn't see them. +Please advise if you find any errors. Thanks, hart@pobox.com + + + + + + +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" + + + diff --git a/old/palin10.zip b/old/palin10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a48ed31 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/palin10.zip |