.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 53249
   :PG.Title: The Laughing Girl
   :PG.Released: 2016-10-10
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Robert \W. Chambers
   :MARCREL.ill: Henry Hutt
   :DC.Title: The Laughing Girl
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1918
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

=================
THE LAUGHING GIRL
=================

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   .. _`"I don't like men, I never did." (Page 100)`:

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      :alt: "I don't like men, I never did." (Page 100)

      "I don't like men, I never did." (Page `100`_)

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      The
      Laughing Girl

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      By ROBERT \W. CHAMBERS

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      AUTHOR OF
      "The Restless Sex,"
      "The Dark Star,"
      "The Business of Life," Etc.

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      With Frontispiece
      By HENRY HUTT

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      A. L. BURT COMPANY
      Publishers New York

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      Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY

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      Copyright, 1918, by
      ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

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      Printed in the United States of America

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      TO
      MY SON
      BOB
      AT PLATTSBURGH BARRACKS

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   FOREWORD

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..

   |  I
   |
   |  Here's a pretty tale to tell
   |  All about the beastly boche—
   |  How the Bolsheviki fell
   |  Out of grace and in the wash!
   |  —How all valiant lovers love,
   |  How all villains go to hell,
   |  Started thither by a shove
   |  From the youth who loved so well,
   |  Virtue mirrored in the glass
   |  Held by his beloved lass.
   |
   |
   |  II
   |
   |  *He who grins in clown's disguise*
   |  *Often hides an aching heart—*
   |  *Sadness, sometimes worldly-wise,*
   |  *Dresses for a motley part—*
   |  *Cap, and bells to cheat the ears,*
   |  *Chalk and paint to hide the tears*
   |  *Lest the world, divining pain,*
   |  *Turn to gape and stare again.*
   |
   |
   |  III
   |
   |  You who read but may not run
   |  Where the bugles summon youth,
   |  You who when the day is done
   |  Ponder God's eternal Truth
   |  Ere you fold your hands to rest,
   |  Sheltered from the fierce huns' ruth,
   |  Here within the guarded West
   |  Safe from swinish tusk and tooth
   |  Laugh in God's name, if you can!—
   |  Serving so the Son of Man.
   |
   |
   |  IV
   |
   |  *Gorse is growing, poppies bloom*
   |  *Where our bravest greeted Christ.*
   |  *Is His dwelling, then, the tomb?*
   |  *Has the sacrifice sufficed?*
   |  *What is all we have then worth*
   |  *In Thy sight, Lord, in Thy sight?*
   |  *Take our offered heart-sick mirth—*
   |  *Let our laughter fight Thy fight.*
   |
   |  R. W. C.

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   TABLE OF CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `An Inheritance`_
II.  `Al Fresco`_
III.  `In the Cellar`_
IV.  `Modus Vivendi`_
V.  `An Odd Song`_
VI.  `Master and Maid`_
VII.  `Conservation and Conversation`_
VIII.  `The Knees of the Gods`_
IX.  `Rex, Regis`_
X.  `Clelia`_
XI.  `A Pyjama Party`_
XII.  `Royalty`_
XIII.  `In the Rain`_
XIV.  `The Mysterious Mr. Smith`_
XV.  `A Traveling Circus`_
XVI.  `The Countess`_
XVII.  `More Mystery`_
XVIII.  `The Gangsters`_
XIX.  `Confidences`_
XX.  `A Local Storm`_
XXI.  `Sus Scrofa`_
XXII.  `Particeps Criminis`_
XXIII.  `Thusis`_
XXIV.  `Raoul`_
XXV.  `The Duchess of Naxos`_

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.. _`AN INHERITANCE`:

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   THE LAUGHING GIRL

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   \I

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   AN INHERITANCE

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There was a red-headed slattern sweeping
the veranda—nobody else visible about
the house.  All the shutters of the stone and
timber chalet were closed; cow-barn, stable,
springhouse and bottling house appeared to be deserted.
Weeds smothered the garden where a fountain played
above a brimming basin of gray stone; cat-grass
grew rank on the oval lawn around the white-washed
flag-pole from which no banner flapped.  An intense
and heated silence possessed the place.  Tall
mountains circled it, cloud-high, enormous, gathered
around the little valley as though met in solemn
council there under the vast pavilion of sky.

From the zenith of the azure-tinted tent hung
that Olympian lantern called the sun, flooding every
crested snow-peak with a nimbus of pallid fire.

In these terms of belles-lettres I called Smith's
attention to the majesty of the scene.

"Very impressive," remarked Smith, lighting a
cigarette and getting out of the Flivver;—"I trust
that our luncheon may impress us as favorably."  And
he looked across the weedy drive at the
red-headed slattern who was now grooming the veranda
with a slopping mop.

"Her ankles might be far less ornamental," he
observed.  I did not look.  Ankles had long ceased
to mean anything to me.

After another moment's hesitation I handed Smith
his suit-case, picked up my own, and descended from
the Flivver.  The Swiss officer at the wheel, Captain
Schey, and the Swiss officer of Gendarmerie beside
him, Major Schoot, remained heavily uninterested in
the proceedings.  To think of nothing is bovine; to
think of nothing at all, and do that thinking in
German, is porcine.  I inspected their stolid features:
no glimmer of human intelligence illuminated them.
Their complexions reminded me of that moist pink
hue which characterizes a freshly cut boiled ham.

Smith leisurely examined the buildings and their
surroundings, including the red-headed girl, and I
saw him shrug his shoulders.  He was right; it was
a silly situation and a ridiculous property for a New
Yorker to inherit.  And the longer I surveyed my
new property the more worried I became.

I said in English to Major Schoot, one of the
ample, pig-pink gentlemen in eye-glasses and the
uniform of the Swiss Gendarmerie: "So this is
Schwindlewald, is it?"

He blinked his pale little eyes without interest at
the low chalet and out-buildings; then his vague,
weak gaze flickered up at the terrific mountains
around us.

"Yes," he replied, "this is now your property, Mr. O'Ryan."

"Well, I don't want it," I said irritably.  "I've
told you that several times."

"Quite right," remarked Smith; "what is Mr. O'Ryan
going to do with a Swiss hotel, a cow-barn,
a bottling factory, one red-headed girl, and several
large mountains?  I ask you that, Major?"

I was growing madder and madder; and Smith's
flippancy offended me.

"I'm an interior decorator," I said to Major
Schoot.  "I've told you that a dozen times, too.  I
don't wish to conduct a hotel in Switzerland or
Greenland or Coney Island or any other land!  I do not
desire either to possess kine or to deprive them of
their milk.  Moreover, I do not wish to bottle spring
water.  Why then am I not permitted to sell this
bunch of Swiss scenery and go home?  What about
my perfectly harmless business?"

Major Schoot rolled his solemn fish-blue eyes:
"The laws of the canton and of the Federal Government,"
he began in his weak tenor voice, "require that
any alien inheriting property in the Swiss Republic,
shall reside upon that property and administer it for
the period of not less than one year before offering
the said property for sale or rent——"

He already had told me that a dozen times; and a
dozen times I had resisted, insisting that there must
be some way to circumvent such a ridiculous Swiss
law.  Of what use are laws unless one can
circumvent them, as we do?

I now gazed at him with increasing animosity.  In
his uniform of Major of Swiss Gendarmes he appeared
the personification of everything officially and
Teutonically obtuse.

"Do you realize," I said, "that my treatment by
the Swiss Confederation and by the Federal police has
been most extraordinary?  A year ago when my
uncle's will was probated, and that German attorney
in Berne notified me in New York that I had inherited
this meaningless mess of house and landscape, he
also wrote that upon coming here and complying
with the Swiss law, I could immediately dispose of
the property if I so desired?  Why the devil did he
write that?"

"That was a year ago," nodded Major Schoot.
Captain Schey regarded me owlishly.  "A new law,"
he remarked, "has been since enacted."

"I have suspected," said I fiercely, "that this
brand new law enacted in such a hellofa hurry
was enacted expressly to cover this case of mine.
Why?  Why does your government occupy itself
with me and my absurd property up here in these
picture-book Alps?  What difference does it make to
Switzerland whether I sell it or try to run it?  And
another thing!—" I continued, madder than ever at
the memory of recent wrongs—"Why do your police
keep visiting me, inspecting me and my papers,
trailing me around?  Why do large, moon-faced
gentlemen seat themselves beside me in restaurants and
cafés and turn furtive eyes upon me?  Why do they
open newspapers and punch holes in them to scrutinize
me?  Why do they try to listen to my conversation
addressed to other people?  Why do strange
ladies lurk at my elbow when hotel clerks hand me
my mail?  Dammit, why?"

Major Schoot and Captain Schey regarded me in
tweedle-dum-and-tweedle-dee-like silence: then the
Major said: "Under extraordinary conditions
extraordinary precautions are necessary."  And the
Captain added: "These are war times and Switzerland
must observe an impartial neutrality."

"You mean a German neutrality," I thought to
myself, already unpleasantly aware that all the banks
and all the business of Switzerland are owned by
Teutons and that ninety per cent of the Swiss are
German-Swiss, and speak German habitually.

And still at the same time I realized that, unless
brutally menaced and secretly coerced by the boche
the Swiss were first of all passionately and patriotically
Swiss, even if they might be German after that
fact.  They wished to be let alone and to remain a
free people.  And the Hun was blackmailing them.

Smith had now roamed away through the uncut
grass, smoking a cigarette and probably cursing me
out—a hungry, disconsolate figure against the
background of deserted buildings.

I turned to Major Schoot and Captain Schey:

"Very well, gentlemen; if there's no immediate way
of selling this property I'll live here until your law
permits me to sell it.  But in the meanwhile it's mine.
I own it.  I insist on my right of privacy.  I shall
live here in indignant solitude.  And if any stranger
ever sets a profane foot upon this property I shall
call in the Swiss police and institute legal proceedings
which——"

"Pardon," interrupted Major Schoot mildly, "but
the law of Switzerland provides for Government
regulation of all inns, rest-houses, chalets, and hotels.
All such public resorts must remain open and receive
guests."

"I won't open my chalet!" I said.  "I'd rather
fortify it and die fighting!  I hereby formally refuse
to open it to the public!"

"It is open," remarked Captain Schey, "theoretically."

"Theoretically," added Major Schoot, "it never
has been closed.  The law says it must not be closed.
Therefore it has not been closed.  Therefore it is
open.  Therefore you are expected to entertain
guests at a reasonable rate——"

"What if I don't?" I demanded.

"Unhappily, in such a case, the Federal Government
regretfully confiscates the property involved
and administers it according to law."

"But I wish to reside here privately until such
time as I am permitted to sell the place!  Can't I
do that?  Am I not even permitted privacy in this
third-rate musical comedy country?"

"Monsieur, the Chalet of Schwindlewald has always
been a public 'Cure,' not a private estate.  The
tourist public is always at liberty to come here to
drink the waters and enjoy the climate and the view.
Monsieur, your late Uncle, purchased the property
on that understanding."

"My late Uncle," said I, "was slightly eccentric.
Why in God's name he should have purchased a Swiss
hotel and bottling works in the Alps he can perhaps
explain to his Maker.  None of his family know.
And all I have ever heard is that somebody interested
him in a plan to drench Europe with bottled spring-water
at a franc a quart; and that a further fortune
was to be extracted from this property by trapping a
number of Swiss chamois and introducing the species
into the Andes.  Did anybody ever hear of such
nonsense?"

The Swiss officers gaped at me.  "Very
remarkable," said Major Schoot without any inflection in
his voice or any expression upon his face.

Smith, weary of prowling about the place, came
over and said in a low voice: "Cut it out, old chap,
and start that red-headed girl to cooking.  Aren't
you hungry?"

I was hungry, but I was also irritated and worried.

I stood still considering the situation for a few
moments, one eye on my restless comrade, the other
reverting now and then to the totally emotionless
military countenances in front of me.

"Very well," I said.  "My inheritance appears to
be valuable, according to the Swiss appraisal.  I
shall, therefore, pay my taxes, observe the laws of
Switzerland, and reside here until I am at liberty
to dispose of the property.  And I'll entertain guests
if I must.  But I don't think I'm likely to be annoyed
by tourists while this war lasts.  Do you?"

"Tourists tour," observed Major Schoot solemnly.

"It's a fixed habit," added Captain Schey,—"war
or no war.  Tourists invariably tour or," he added
earnestly, "they would not be tourists."

"Also," remarked Schoot, "the wealthy amateur
chamois hunter is always with us.  Like the goitre, he
is to be expected in the Alps."

"Am I obliged to let strangers hunt on my property?"
I asked, aghast.

"The revenue to an estate is always considerable,"
explained Schoot.  "With your inn, your 'Cure,'
your bottling works, and your hunting fees your
income should be enviable, Mr. O'Ryan."

I gazed angrily up at the mountains.  Probably
every hunter would break his neck.  Then a softer
mood invaded my wrath, and I thought of my late
uncle and of his crazy scheme to stock the Andes
with chamois—a project which, while personally
pursuing it, and an infant chamois, presently put an end
to his dashing career upon earth.  He was some
uncle, General Juan O'Ryan, but too credulous, and
too much of a sport.

"Which mountain did he fall off?" I inquired in a
subdued voice, gazing up at the ring of terrific peaks
above us.

"That one—the *Bec de l'Empereur*," said Captain
Schey, in the funereal voice which decency requires
when chronicling necrology.

I looked seriously at the peak known as "The
Emperor's Nose."  No wonder my uncle broke his neck.

"Which Emperor?" I inquired absently.

"The Kaiser."

"You don't mean William of Hohenzollern!"

"The All-Highest of Germany," he replied in a
respectful voice.  "But the name is in French.  That
is good politics.  We offend nobody."

"Oh.  Well, *why* all the same?"

"Why what?"

"Why celebrate the All-Highest's Imperial nose?"

"Why not?" retorted the Swiss mildly; "he suggested it."

"The Kaiser suggested that the mountain be
named after his own nose?"

"He did.  Moreover it was from that peak that
the All-Highest declared he could smell the Rhine.
Tears were in his eyes when he said it.  Such
sentiment ought to be respected."

"May I be permitted to advise the All-Highest to
return there and continue his sentimental sniffing?"

"For what purpose, Monsieur?"

"Because," I suggested pleasantly, "if he sniffs
very earnestly he may scent something still farther
away than the Rhine."

"The Seine?" nodded Captain Schey with a pasty,
neutral smile.

"I meant the United States," said I carelessly.
"If William sniffs hard enough he may smell the
highly seasoned stew that they say is brewing over
there.  It reeks of pep, I hear."

The two neutral officers exchanged very grave
glances.  Except for my papers, which were most
perfectly in order and revealed me as a Chilean of
Irish descent, nothing could have convinced them or,
indeed, anybody else that I was not a Yankee.
Because, although my great grandfather was that
celebrated Chilean Admiral O'Ryan and I had been born
in Santiago and had lived there during early
boyhood, I looked like a typical American and had
resided in New York for twenty years.  And there also
I practiced my innocent profession.  There were worse
interior decorators than I in New York and I was,
perhaps, no worse than any of them—if you get
what I am trying not to say.

"Gentlemen," I continued politely, "I haven't as
yet any lavish hospitality to offer you unless that
red-headed girl yonder has something to cook and
knows how to cook it.  But such as I have I offer
to you in honor of the Swiss army and out of respect
to the Swiss Confederation.  Gentlemen, pray descend
and banquet with me.  Join our revels.  I ask it."

They said they were much impressed by my impulsive
courtesy but were obliged to go back to barracks
in their flivver.

"Before you go, then," said I, "you are invited to
witness the ceremony of my taking over this
impossible domain."  And I took a small Chilean flag
from the breast pocket of my coat, attached it to
the halyards of the white-washed flag pole, and ran
it up, whistling the Chilean national anthem.

Then I saluted the flag with my hat off.  My bit
of bunting looked very gay up there aloft against
the intense vault of blue.

Smith, although now made mean by hunger, was
decent enough to notice and salute my flag.  The
flag of Chili is a pretty one; it carries a single
white star on a blue field, and a white and a red
stripe.

One has only to add a galaxy of stars and a lot
more stripes to have the flag I had lived under so
many years.

And now that this flag was flying over millions of
embattled Americans—well, it looked very beautiful
to me.  And was looking more beautiful every time I
inspected it.  But the Chilean O'Ryans had no
business with the Star Spangled Banner as long as
Chili remained neutral.  I said this, at times to
Smith, to which he invariably remarked: "Flap-doodle!
No Irishman can keep out of this shindy
long.  Watch your step, O'Ryan."

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Now, as I walked toward Smith, carrying my
suitcase, he observed my advent with hopeful
hunger-stricken eyes.

"If yonder maid with yonder mop can cook, and
has the makings of a civilized meal in this joint of
yours, for heaven's sake tell her to get on the job,"
he said.  "What do you usually call her—if not
Katie?"

"How do I know?  I've never before laid eyes on her."

"You don't know the name of your own cook?"

"How should I?  Did you think she was part of
the estate?  That boche attorney, Schmitz, at Berne,
promised to send up somebody to look after the
place until I made up my mind what I was going to
do.  That's the lady, I suppose.  And Smith—did
you ever see such very red hair on any human
woman?"

I may have spoken louder than I meant to; evidently
my voice carried, for the girl looked over her
shabby shoulder and greeted us with a clear, fresh,
unfeigned, untroubled peal of laughter.  I felt myself
growing red.  However, I approached her.  She wore
a very dirty dress—but her face and hands were
dirtier.

"Did Schmitz engage you and are you to look out
for us?" I inquired in German.

"If you please," she replied in French, leaning on
her mop and surveying us out of two large gray
eyes set symmetrically under the burnished tangle of
her very remarkable hair.

"My child," I said in French, "why are you so
dirty?  Have you by chance been exploring the chimney?"

"I have been cleaning fireplaces and pots and
pans, Monsieur.  But I will make my toilet and put
on a fresh apron for luncheon."

"That's a good girl," I said kindly.  "And hasten,
please; my friend, Mr. Smith, is hungry; and he is
not very amiable at such times."

We went into the empty house; she showed us
our rooms.

"Luncheon will be served in half an hour,
Messieurs," she said in her cheerful and surprisingly
agreeable voice, through which a hidden vein of
laughter seemed to run.

After she had gone Smith came through the
connecting door into my room, drying his sunburned
countenance on a towel.

"I didn't suppose she was so young," he said.
"She's very young, isn't she?"

"Do you mean she's too young to cook decently?"

"No.  I mean—I mean that she just seems rather
young.  I merely noticed it."

"Oh," said I without interest.  But he lingered
about, buttoning his collar.

"You know," he remarked, "she wouldn't be so
bad looking if you'd take her and scrub her."

"I've no intention of doing it," I retorted.

"Of course," he explained, peevishly, "I didn't
mean that you, personally, should perform ablutions
upon her.  I merely meant——"

"Sure," said I frivolously; "take this cake of soap
and chase her into the fountain out there."

"All the same," he added, "if she'd wash her face
and fix her hair and stand up straight she'd
have—er—elements."

"Elements of what?" I asked, continuing to
unpack my suitcase and arrange the contents upon
my dresser.  Comb and brushes I laid on the left;
other toilet articles upon the right; in the drawers
I placed my underwear and linen and private papers.

Then I took the photograph which I had
purchased in Berne and stood it up against the mirror
over my dresser.  Smith came over and looked at it
with more interest than he had usually displayed.

It was the first photograph of any woman I had
ever purchased.  Copies were sold all over Europe.
It seemed to be very popular and cost two francs
fifty unframed.  I had resisted it in every shop
window between London and Paris.  I nearly fell for it
in Geneva.  I did fall in Berne.  It was called "The
Laughing Girl," and I saw it in a shop window the
day of my arrival in Berne.  And I could no more
get it out of my mind than I could forget an unknown
charming face in a crowded street that met my gaze
with a shy, faint smile of provocation.  I went back
to that shop and bought the photograph labeled
"The Laughing Girl."  It traveled with me.  It had
become as necessary to me as my razor or toothbrush.

As I placed it on the center of my dresser tilted
back against the looking-glass, for the first time since
it had been in my possession an odd and totally new
sense of having seen the original of the picture
somewhere—or having seen somebody who resembled
it—came into my mind.

"As a matter of fact," remarked Smith, tying his
tie before my mirror, "that red-haired girl of yours
downstairs bears a curious resemblance to your
lady-love's photograph."

"Good Lord!" I exclaimed, intensely annoyed.
Because the same distasteful idea had also occurred
to me.





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.. _`AL FRESCO`:

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   \II


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   AL FRESCO

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Our luncheon was a delicious surprise.  It was
served to us on a rustic table and upon a
fresh white cloth, out by the fountain.  We
had a fragrant omelette, a cool light wine, some
seductive bread and butter, a big wooden bowlful
of mountain strawberries, a pitcher of cream, and
a bit of dreamy cheese with our coffee.  The old
gods feasted no more luxuriously.

Smith, fed to repletion, gazed sleepily but
sentimentally at the vanishing skirts of my red-headed
Hebe who had perpetrated this miracle in our behalf.

"Didn't I tell you she'd prove to be pretty under
all that soot?" he said.  "I like that girl.  She's a
peach."

In point of fact her transfiguration had mildly
amazed me.  She had scrubbed herself and twisted up
her hair, revealing an unsuspected whiteness of neck.
She wore a spotless cotton dress and a white apron
over it; the slouch of the slattern had disappeared
and in its place was the rather indolent, unhurried,
and supple grace of a lazy young thing who has
never been obliged to hustle for a living.

"I wonder what her name is?" mused Smith.  "She
deserves a pretty name like Amaryllis——"

"Don't try to get gay and call her that," said I,
setting fire to a cigarette.  "Mind your business,
anyway."

"But we ought to know what she calls herself.
Suppose we wanted her in a hurry?  Suppose the
house caught fire!  Suppose she fell into the
fountain!  Shall I go to the pantry and ask her what
her name is?  It will save you the trouble," he added,
rising.

"*I'll* attend to all the business details of this
establishment," said I, coldly.  Which discouraged
him; and he re-seated himself in silence.

To mitigate the snub, I offered him a cigar which
he took without apparent gratitude.  But Shandon
Smith never nursed his wrath; and presently he
affably reverted to the subject:

"O'Ryan," he remarked, leaning back in his chair
and expelling successive smoke rings at the Bec de
l'Empereur across the valley, "that red-haired girl
of yours is a mystery to me.  I find no explanation
for her.  I can not reconcile her extreme youth with
her miraculous virtuosity as a cook.  I cannot
coordinate the elements of perfect symmetry which
characterize her person with the bench show points
of a useful peasant.  She's not formed like a 'grade';
she reveals pedigree.  Now I dare say you look upon
her as an ordinary every-day, wage-earning
pot-wrestler.  Don't you?"

"I do."

"You don't consider her symmetrical?"

"I am," said I, "scarcely likely to notice pulchritude
below stairs."

Smith laughed:

"For that matter she dwells upstairs in the garret,
I believe.  I saw her going up.  I'm astonished that
you don't think her pretty because she looks like
that photograph on your dresser."

What he said again annoyed me,—the more so because,
since her ablutions, the girl did somehow or
other remind me even more than before of that lovely,
beguiling creature in my photograph.  And why on
earth there should be any resemblance at all between
that laughing young aristocrat in her jewels and
silken negligée and my slatternly maid-of-all-work—why
the one should even remotely suggest to us the
other—was to me inexplicable and unpleasant.

"Smith," I said, "you are a sentimental and
romantic young man.  You shyly fall in love several
times a day when material is plenty.  You have the
valuable gift of creative imagination.  Why not
employ it commercially to augment your income?"

"You mean by writing best sellers?"

"I do.  You are fitted for the job."

"O'Ryan," he said, "it would be wasted time.
Newspapers are to-day the best sellers.  Reality has
knocked romance clean over the ropes.  Look at this
war?  Look at the plain, unvarnished facts which
history has been recording during the last four years.
Has Romance ever dared appropriate such astounding
material for any volume of fiction ever written?"

I admitted that fiction had become a back number
in the glare of daily facts.

"It certainly has," he said.  "Every day that we
live—every hour—yes, every minute that your watch
ticks off—events are happening such as the
wildest imagination of a genius could not create.  You
can prove it for yourself, O'Ryan.  Try to read the
most exciting work of fiction, or the cleverest, the
most realistic, the most subtle romance ever written.
And when you've yawned your bally head off over
the mockery of things actual, just pick up the daily
paper."

He was quite right.

"I tell you," he went on, "there's more romance,
more excitement, more mystery, more tragedy, more
comedy, more humanity, more truth in any single
edition of any French, English, Italian, or American
daily paper published in these times than there
is in all the fiction ever produced."

"Very true," I said.  "Romance is dead to-day.
Reality reigns alone."

"Then why snub me when I say that your red-headed
maid is a real enigma and an actual mystery?
She might be anything in such times as these.  She
might be a great lady; she might be a scullion.  Have
you noticed how white and fine and slim her hands
are?"

"I notice they're clean," said I cautiously.

He laughed at me in frank derision, obstinately
interested and intent upon building up a real romance
around my maid-of-all-work.  His gayety and his
youth amused me.  I was a year his senior and I
felt my age.  The world was hollow; I had learned
that much.

"Her whole make-up seems to me suspiciously like
camouflage," he said, "her flat-heeled slippers, for
example!  She has a distractingly pretty ankle, and
have you happened to notice her eyes, O'Ryan?"

In point of fact I had noticed them.  They were
gray and had black lashes.  But I was not going to
give Smith the satisfaction of admitting that I had
noticed my housemaid's eyes.

"Her eyes," continued Smith, "are like those wide
young eyes in that pretty photograph of yours.  So
is her mouth with its charmingly full width and the
hint of laughter in its upcurled childish corners——"

"Nonsense!——"

"Not at all.  Not at all!  And all you've got to do
is to put a bunch of jewels on her fingers and a thin,
shimmery silk thing showing her slender throat and
shoulders, and then some; and then you can fix her
hair like the girl's hair in your photograph, and
hand her a guitar, and drop one of her knees over
the other, and hang a slipper to the little naked
foot that swings above its shadow on the floor——"

"I shall do none of those things," said I.  "And
I'll tell you some more, Smith: I believe it's your
devilish and irresponsible chatter which has put the
unpleasant idea into my head that my red-headed
domestic resembles that photograph upstairs.  I
don't like the idea.  And I'd be much obliged if you
wouldn't mention it again."

"All right," he said cheerfully.

But what he had said about this resemblance left
me not only vaguely uncomfortable, but also troubled
by a sort of indefinite curiosity concerning my cook.
I desired to take another look at her immediately.

After a while I threw aside my cigarette: "I'm
going into the pantry," said I, "to discuss business
with my housekeeper.  Here's the key to the wine-cellar.
There's more of that Moselle there, I understand."

And I started toward the house, leaving him to
twiddle his thumbs and stare at the Bec de
l'Empereur.  Or he could vary this program by smoking
his head off if he chose.  Or investigate the
wine-cellar.  But my cook he could not flirt with as long
as I was on the job.

He seemed to be a very nice fellow in his way, but
he had put a lot of nonsense into my head by his
random talk.

Yet he was certainly an agreeable young man.  I
had first met him in Berne—that hot-bed of
international intrigue, where every other person is a
conspirator and every other a boche.

Now Smith's papers and passport revealed him as
a Norwegian; his reason for being in Switzerland
a purely commercial one.  He had arrived in Berne,
he told me, with a proposition to lay before the
Federal Government.  This was a colossal scheme to
reforest parts of Switzerland with millions and
millions of Norway pines and hardwoods—a stupendous
enterprise, but apparently feasible and financially
attractive.

So far, however, he had made little headway.  But
somewhere in the back of my head I had a lively
suspicion that Shandon Smith was no more a
Norwegian than was I; and that he could tell a very
interesting story about those papers and passports of
his if he cared to.  I had lived too long in New York
not to recognize a New Yorker no matter what his
papers showed.

Anyway we seemed to attract each other and
during my enforced and bothersome sojourn in Berne
we became companionable to the edge of friendship.

And when I told him about my ridiculous inheritance
and the trouble I was having in trying to get rid
of it, he offered to come up here with me and keep
me company while the Swiss Government was making
up its composite mind about his offer to reforest
such cantons as required it.

That is how we came to be here in Schwindlewald
together.  I was to stay until the prescribed time
elapsed when I should be allowed by law to sell the
place: he was willing to remain with me until his offer
to the Swiss Government had been either accepted or
rejected.

I had begun to like Smith very much.  We were
on those terms of easy and insulting badinage
which marks the frontier between acquaintances and
friends.

.. vspace:: 2

Now as I entered the house I turned on the
threshold and glanced back to see what Smith was doing.
His hat was off; the Alpine breeze was ruffling his
crisp, blond hair.  He sat at ease beside the fountain,
a fresh cigar balanced between his fingers, a
cork-screw in the other hand.  Beside him on the grass
stood a row of bottles of light Moselle.  He had
investigated the cellar.  And as I watched what
appeared to me a perfectly characteristic type of
American from Manhattan Island, his voice came
across the grass to me, lifted in careless song:—

   |  —"My girl's a corker,
   |    She's a New Yorker,
   |    She plays the races,
   |    Knows the sporty places
   |    Uptown, downtown,
   |    Always wears a nifty gown."—
   |

"Yes," said I to myself, "you're a Norwegian—aye
don' t'ank!" which is good Norwegian for "I
don't think."

And I smiled subtly upon Smith as he drew the
first cork from the first bottle of that liquid
sunshine called Château Varenn, and with which one
may spend a long and intimate afternoon without
fear of consequences.

As I entered the house his careless song came to
me on the summer wind:

   |  "My girl's a corker,
   |  She's a New Yorker——"
   |

"Such a saga," said I to myself, "could be sung
only by that sort of Viking.  Now why the deuce
is that young man in Switzerland?"

But it didn't matter to me, so I continued along
the wide hallway toward the kitchen in the rear.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN THE CELLAR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \III


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE CELLAR

.. vspace:: 2

She was peeling potatoes in the kitchen when I
entered;—she did it as daintily, as leisurely
as though she were a young princess preparing
pomegranates—But this sort of simile wouldn't
do and I promptly pulled myself together, frowning.

Hearing me she looked up with a rather sweet
confused little smile as though aroused from thoughts
intimate but remote.  Doubtless she was thinking of
some peasant suitor somewhere—some strapping,
yodling, ham-fisted, bull-necked mountaineer——

"I have come to confer with you on business," said
I, forestalling with a courteous gesture any
intention she might have had to arise out of deference to
my presence.  I admit I observed no such intention.
On the contrary she remained undisturbed, continuing
leisurely her culinary occupation, and regarding
me with that engaging little half-smile which seemed
to be a permanent part of her expression—I pulled
myself together.

"My child," said I pleasantly, "what is your name?"

"Thusis," she replied.

"Thusis?  Quite unusual,—hum-hum—quite
exotic.  And then—hum-hum!—what is the
remainder of your name, Thusis?"

"There isn't any more, Monsieur."

"Only Thusis?"

"Only Thusis."

"You're—hum-hum!—very young, aren't you, Thusis?"

"Yes, I am."

"You cook very well."

"Thank you."

"Well, Thusis," I said, "I suppose when Mr. Schmitz
engaged you to come up here, he told you
what are the conditions and what vexatious
problems confront me."

"Yes, he did tell me."

"Very well; that saves explanations.  It is evident,
of course, that if I am expected to board and
feed any riff-raff tourist who comes to Schwindlewald
I must engage more servants."

"Oh, yes, you'll have to."

"Well, where the deuce am I to find them?  Haven't
you any friends who would perhaps like to work here?"

"I have a sister," she said.

"Can you get her to come?"

"Yes."

"That's fine.  She can do the rooms.  Could you
get another girl to wait on table?"

"I have a friend who is a very good cook——"

"You're good enough!——"

"Oh, no!" she demurred, with her enchanting smile,
"but my friend, Josephine Vannis, is an excellent
cook.  Besides I had rather wait on table—with
Monsieur's permission."

I said regretfully, remembering the omelette,
"Very well, Thusis.  Now I also need a farmer."

"I know a young man.  His name is Raoul
Despres."

"Fine!  And I want to buy some cows and goats
and chickens——"

"Raoul will cheerfully purchase what stock
Monsieur requires."

"Thusis, you are quite wonderful."

"Thank you," she said, lifting her dark-fringed
gray eyes, the odd little half-smile in the curling
corners of her lips.  It was extraordinary how the
girl made me think of my photograph upstairs.

"What is your sister's name?" I inquired—hoping
I was not consciously making conversation as an
excuse to linger in my cook's kitchen.

"Her name is Clelia."

"Clelia?  Thusis?  Very unusual names—hum-hum!—and
nothing else—no family name.  Well—well!"

"Oh, there was a family name of sorts.  It doesn't
matter; we never use it."  And she laughed.

It was not what she said—not the sudden charm
of her fresh young laughter that surprised me; it
was her effortless slipping from French into
English—and English more perfect than one expects
from even the philologetically versatile Swiss.

"Are you?" I asked curiously.

"What, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"Swiss?"

Thusis laughed and considered me out of her dark-fringed
eyes.

"We are Venetians—very far back.  In those
remote days, I believe, my family had many servants.
That, perhaps, is why my sister and I make such
good ones—if I may venture to say so.  You see
we know by inheritance what a good servant ought
to be."

The subtle charm of this young girl began to
trouble me; her soft, white symmetry, the indolent
and youthful grace of her, and the disturbing
resemblance between her and my photograph all were
making me vaguely uneasy.

"Thusis," I said, "you understand of course that
if I am short of servants you'll have to pitch in and
help the others."

"Of course," she replied simply.

"What do you know how to do?"

"I understand horses and cattle."

"Can you milk?"

"Yes.  I can also make butter and cheese, pitch
hay, cultivate the garden, preserve vegetables, wash,
iron, do plain and fancy sewing——"

I suppose the expression of my face checked her.
We both laughed.

"Doubtless," I said, "you also play the piano and sing."

"Yes, I—believe so."

"You speak French, German, English—and what else?"

"Italian," she admitted.

"In other words you have not only an education
but several accomplishments."

"Yes.  But in adversity one must work at whatever
offers.  Necessitas non habet legem," she added
demurely.  That was too much for my curiosity.

"Who are you, Thusis?" I exclaimed.

"Your maid-of-all-work," she said gravely—a
reproof that made me redden in the realization of my
own inquisitiveness.  And I resolved never again to
pry into her affairs which were none of my bally
business as long as she made a good servant.

"I'm sorry," said I.  "I'll respect your privacy
hereafter.  So get your sister and the other girl and
the man you say is a good farmer——"

"I told them in Berne that you'd need them.  They
ought to arrive this evening."

"Thusis," I said warmly, "you're a wonder.  Go
ahead and run my establishment if you are willing.
You know how things are done in this country.  You
also know that I don't care a rap about this place
and that I'm only here marking time until the Swiss
Government permits me to sell out and get out."

"Do you wish to leave the entire responsibility of
this place to me, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"You bet I do!  How about it, Thusis?  Will you
run this joint and look out for any stray tourists
and keep the accounts and wait on table?  And play
the piano between times, and sing, and converse in
four languages——"

We both were laughing now.  I asked her to name
her monthly compensation and she mentioned such
a modest salary that I was ashamed to offer it.  But
she refused more, explaining that the Swiss law
regulated such things.

So that subject being settled and her potatoes
pared and set to soak, she picked up a youthful onion
with the careless grace of a queen selecting a favorite
pearl.

"I hope you will like my soup to-night," said this
paragon of servants.

I was for a moment conscious of a naïve desire
to sit there in the kitchen and converse with
her—perhaps even read aloud to her to relieve the tedium
of her routine.  Then waking up to the fact that I
had no further business in that kitchen, I arose and
got myself out.

Smith, lolling in his chair by the fountain with half
a dozen empty Moselle bottles in a row on the grass
beside his chair, was finishing another Norse Saga as
I approached:

   |  —The farmer then to that young man did say:
   |  "O treat my daughter kindly,
   |  Don't you do her any harm,
   |  And I will leave you in my will
   |  My house and barn and farm;—
   |  My hay in mows,
   |  My pigs and cows,
   |  My wood-lot on the hill,
   |  And all the little chick-uns in the ga-arden!"
   |
   |  The city guy he laffed to scorn
   |    What that old man did say:
   |  "Before I bump you on the bean
   |    Go chase yourself away.
   |  Beat it! you bum blackmailing yap!
   |  I never kissed your daughter's map
   |  Nor thought of getting gay!
   |  I'm here on my vacation
   |  And I ain't done any harm,
   |  I do not want your daughter, Bill,
   |  Nor house and barn and farm,
   |  Nor hay in mows
   |  Nor pigs and cows
   |  Nor wood-lot on the hill.
   |  Nor all them little chick-uns in the ga-arden!"
   |
   |  Them crool words no sooner said
   |  Than Jessie fetched a sob:
   |  "I'll shoot you up unless we're wed!"
   |  Sez she—"You prune-fed slob!
   |  Get busy with the parson——"
   |

Here Smith caught sight of me and ceased his saga.

"Yes," I said, "you're a Norwegian all right.
Three cheers for King Haakon!"

"You speak in parables, O'Ryan."

"You behave in parabolics.  I don't care.  I like
you.  I shall call you Shan."

"Your companionship also is very agreeable to
me, Michael.  Sit down and have one on yourself."

We exchanged bows and I seated myself.

"By the way," I remarked carelessly, "her name
is Thusis."  And I filled my glass and took a squint
at its color.  Not that I knew anything about Moselle.

"What else is her name?" he inquired.

"She declines to answer further.  Thusis seems to
be her limit."

"I told you she was a mystery!" he exclaimed with
lively interest.  "What else did she say to you,
Michael?"

"Her sister is coming to-night.  Also a lady-friend
named Josephine Vannis; and a farmer of sorts called
Raoul Despres."

"Take it from me," said Smith, "that if truth is
stranger than fiction in these days, this red-haired
girl called Thusis is no more Swiss than you are!"

"No more of a peasant than you are a Norwegian,"
I nodded.

"And whoinhell," he inquired, keeping his
countenance, "ever heard of a South American named
O'Ryan?"

"It's a matter of Chilean history, old top."

"Oh, yes, I know.  But the essence of the affair is
that an Irish family named O'Ryan have, for several
generations, merely been visiting in Chili.  Now
one of 'em's in Switzerland as close to the big shindy
as he can get without getting into it.  And, the
question is this: how long before he pulls a brick and
starts in?"

"Chili is neutral——"

"Ireland isn't.  Sinn Fein or Fusiliers—which,
Michael?"

"Don't talk nonsense," said I, virtuously.  "I'm
no fighter.  There's no violence in me.  If I saw a
fight I'd walk the other way.  There's none of that
kind of Irish blood in me."

"No.  And all your family in the army or navy.
And you practically a Yankee——"

I stared at him and whistled the Chilean anthem.

"That's my reply," said I.  "Yours is:

   |  "My girl's a corker,
   |  She's a New Yorker——"
   |

"What piffle you talk, you poor prune," said this
typical Norwegian.

So we filled our glasses to our respective
countries, and another round to that jolly flag which
bears more stars and stripes than the Chilean
ensign.

It being my turn to investigate the cellar I went.
Down there in one of the alleys between bins and
casks I saw Thusis moving with a lighted candle—a
startling and charming apparition.

What she might be doing down there I could not
guess, and she was so disturbingly pretty that I
didn't think it best to go over and inquire.  Maybe
she was counting the bottles of Moselle to keep
reproachful tabs on us; maybe she was after vinegar.
No; I realized then for the first time that the girl
was far too pretty for any man to encounter her by
candle-light with impunity.

She did not see me—wouldn't have noticed me at
all in the dim light had not my bunch of bottles
clinked—both hands being loaded, and a couple of
extra ones under each arm.

The sound startled her apparently; she turned
quite white in the candle-light and stood rigid,
listening, one hand pressing her breast.

"It is I, Thusis," I said.  "Did I frighten you?"

She denied it rather faintly.  She was distractingly
pretty in her breathless attitude of a scared
child.

I ought to have said something cheerful and matter
of fact, and gone out of the cellar with my
cargo of bottles.  Instead I went over to her and
looked at her—a silly, dangerous proceeding.
"Thusis," I said, "I would not frighten you for one
million dollars!"

Realizing suddenly the magnitude of the sum I
mentioned I pulled myself together, conscious that I
could easily make an ass of myself.

So, resolutely expelling from voice and manner
any trace of sex consciousness, I said in the spirit
of our best American novelists: "Permit me, Thusis,
to recommend a small glass of this very excellent
Moselle.  Sipped judiciously and in moderation the
tonic qualities are considered valuable as a
nourishment to the tissues and nerves."

"Thank you," she said, slightly bewildered.

So I knocked off the neck of the bottle in medieval
fashion—which wasted its contents because she was
afraid of swallowing glass, and said so decidedly.  I
then noticed a row of corkscrews hanging on a
beam, and she, at the same moment, discovered a
tasting porringer of antique silver under one of the
casks.

She picked it up naïvely and polished it with a
corner of her apron.  Then she looked inquiringly
at me.

So I drew the cork and filled her porringer.

"It is delicious Moselle," she said.  "Is it Château
Varenn?"

"It is.  How did you guess?"

"I once tasted some."

"Another of your accomplishments," said I, laughing.
She laughed too, but blushed a little at her
expert knowledge of Moselle.

"I have rather a keen sense of taste and a good
memory," she explained lightly; and she sipped her
Moselle looking at me over the rim of the silver
porringer—a perilous proceeding for me.

"Thusis," said I.

"Yes, Monsieur O'Ryan."

"Did you ever, by chance, see that photograph
they sell all over Europe called 'The Laughing
Girl'?"

Her dark-fringed eyes regarded me steadily over
the cup's silver edge:

"Yes," she said, "I've seen it."

"Do you think that b-b-beautiful c-creature
resembles you?"

"Do you?" she inquired coolly, and lowered the
cup.  There ensued a little silence during which I
became vaguely aware of my danger.  I kept
repeating to myself: "Try to recollect that your
grandfather was an Admiral."

After a moment she smiled: "Thank you for the
tonic, Monsieur.  I feel better; but I am afraid it
was a presumption for me to drink in your presence....
And no cup to offer you."

"I'll use yours," said I, taking it.  She was still
smiling.  I began to feel that I ought to pull myself
together and invoke the Admiral more earnestly.
But when I remembered him he bored me.  And yet,
could it be possible that an O'Ryan was drinking
Moselle in his own cellar with his cook?  In no
extravagance of nightmare had I ever evoked such
a cataclysmic scene.  I have dreamed awful dreams
in the course of my life:—such grotesqueries as, for
example, finding myself on Fifth Avenue clothed only
in a too brief undershirt.  I have dreamed that I
was wedded to a large Ethiopian who persisted in
embracing me passionately in public.  Other horrors
I have dreamed after dining incautiously, but never,
never, had I dreamed of reveling in cellars with my
own cook!

A slight perspiration bedewed my brow;—I said
in a strained and tenor voice not my own, but
over-modulated and quite sexless: "Thusis, I am gratified
that the slight medicinal tonic of which you have
partaken in moderation has restored you to your
normal condition of mental and bodily vigor.  I
trust that the natural alarm you experienced at
encountering me in the dark, has now sufficiently
subsided to enable you to return to your culinary duties.
Allow me to suggest an omelette for luncheon....
I thank you."

The girl's bewildered eyes rested on me so sweetly,
so inquiringly, that I knew I must pull myself
together at once or never.  But when I evoked the
image of that damned Admiral he was grinning.

"Thusis," I said hoarsely, "you do look like that
girl in my photograph.  I—I can't help it—b-but
you do!"

At that her perplexed expression altered swiftly
and that bewitching smile flashed in her gray eyes.

"Good heavens," I exclaimed, "you look more like
her than ever when you smile!  Don't you know you do?"

Instantly the hidden laughter lurking in the curled
corners of her mouth rippled prettily into music.

"Oh, Lord," I said, "you *are* 'The Laughing Girl'
or her twin sister!"

"And you," she laughed, "are so much funnier
than you realize,—so delightfully young to be so in
earnest!  You consider the world a very, very serious
place of residence,—don't you, Mr. O'Ryan?  And
life a most sober affair.  And I am afraid that you
also consider yourself quite the most ponderous
proposition upon this tottering old planet.  Don't you?"

Horrified at her levity I tried to grasp the amazing
fact that my cook was poking fun at me.  I could
not compass the idea.  All I seemed to realize was
that I stood in my cellar confronting a slender
laughing stranger by candle-light—an amazingly
pretty girl who threatened most utterly to bewitch me.

"I'm sorry!—are you offended?" she asked, still
laughing, and her dark-fringed eyes very brilliant
with mischief.—"Are you very angry at me, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"Why do you think so?" I asked, wincing at her mirth.

"Because I suppose I know what you are thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"You're very, very angry with me and with yourself.
You are saying to yourself in pained amazement
that you have no business in a cellar exchanging
persiflage with a presumptuous servant!  You
are chagrined, mortified!  You are astonished at
yourself—astounded that the solemn, dignified,
distinguished Cabalero Don Michael O'Ryan y
Santiago de Chile y Manhattanos——"

I turned red with surprise and wrath—and then
slightly dizzy with the delicious effrontery of her
beauty which daring had suddenly made dazzling in
the candle-light.

For a minute my brain resembled a pin-wheel;
then I pulled myself together, but not with the aid
of the Admiral.  No!  The Admiral made me sick.
In my sudden rush of exhilaration I derided him.

"Thusis," said I, when I recovered power of
speech, "there's just one thing to do with you, and
that is to kiss you for your impudence."

"Your own *cook*!  Oh, shocking!  Oh, Señor!  Oh
Don Michael——"

—"And I'm going to do it!——" said I solemnly.

"Remember the seriousness of life!" she warned me,
retreating a step or two as I set all my bottles upon
the ground.  "Remember the life-long degradation
entailed by such an undignified proceeding, Don
Michael."

That was too much.  She saw trouble coming,
turned to escape what she had unloosed: and I caught
her near the cellar stairs.

Then, under the lifted candle, I saw her face pale
a little, change, then a flush stain the white skin to
her throat.

"Don't do that," she said, still smiling, but in a
quiet and very different voice.  "I invited it by my
silly attitude;—I know it perfectly well.  But you
won't do it—will you, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"You deserve it, Thusis."

"I know I do.  But don't."

My arms slipped from her.  I released her.  She
was still smiling faintly.

"Thank you," she said.  "I'm sorry I offered you
provocation.  I don't know why you seem to tempt
me to—to laugh at you a little—not unkindly.  But
you *are* so very young to be so solemn——"

"I tell you I *will* kiss you if you repeat that
remark again!"

It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that I
dared not: I saw defiance in her brilliant eyes.
Something in mine, perhaps, made her prudent; for she
suddenly slipped past me and fled up the stairs.

Half way up she turned and looked back.  There
was an odd silence for a full minute.  Then she
lifted the candle in mocking salute:

"I defy you," she said, "to tell Mr. Smith what
you've been about down here in the cellar with your
cook!"  I said nothing.  She mounted the stairs, her
head turned toward me, watching me.  And, on the
top step:

"Try always to remember," she called back softly,
"that the world is a very, very solemn and serious
planet for a ponderous young man to live in!"

.. vspace:: 2

I don't remember how long after that it was before
I picked up my bottles and went out to the fountain
where Smith sat awaiting me.  I don't know what he
saw in my face to arouse his suspicion.

"You've been in the kitchen again!" he exclaimed.

I placed the bottles on the grass without noticing
the accusation.

"What was it this time—business as usual?" he
inquired sarcastically.

"I have not been in the kitchen," said I, "although
I did transact a little business with my cook."  I
did not add:—"business of making an outrageous
ass of myself."

As I drew the first cork I was conscious of Smith's
silent and offensive scrutiny.  And very gradually
my ears revealed my burning guilt under his delighted
gaze.

Calm, but exasperated, I lifted my brimming glass
and bowed politely to Smith.

"Go to the devil," said I.

"A rendezvous," said he.

And we drank that friendly toast together.





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.. _`MODUS VIVENDI`:

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   \IV


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   MODUS VIVENDI

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Smith's luggage and mine, and my other
effects—trunks, boxes, and crates—arrived very
early the next morning: and several large,
sweating Swiss staggered up the stairs with the
impedimenta until both they and their job were finished.

When I left New York, not knowing how long this
business of my ridiculous inheritance might detain
me in Switzerland, I packed several trunks with
clothing and several crates with those familiar and
useful—or useless—objets-d'art which for many
years had formed a harmless and agreeable background
for my more or less blameless domestic career
in New York.

Rugs, curtains, furniture, sofa-pillows, books, a
clock mantel set, framed and unframed pictures and
photographs including the O'Ryan coat-of-arms—all
this was the sort of bachelor stuff that Smith and
I disinterred from the depths of trunks, crates, and
boxes, and lugged about from corner to corner
trying effects and combinations.

Before we had concluded our task I think he had
no opinion at all of me as an interior decorator.
Which revealed considerable insight on his part.
And although I explained to him that interior
decorators became so fed up on gorgeous and sumptuous
effects that they themselves preferred to live amid
simpler surroundings reminiscent of the Five and
Ten Cent Store, he remained unconvinced.

"It's like a lady-clerk in a candy shop," I insisted.
"She never eats the stuff she sells.  It's the same
with me.  I am surfeited with magnificence.  I crave
the humble what-not.  I long for the Victorian.  I
need it."

He gazed in horror at a framed picture of my
grandfather the Admiral.

"Oh God," he said, "what are we to do with this
old bird?"

Intensely annoyed I took it from him and hung it
over my mantel.  It wasn't a Van Dyck, I admit, but
it demanded no mental effort on my part.  One can
live in peace with such pictures.

"Some day, Smith," said I, "you'll understand that
the constant contemplation of true Art is exhausting.
A man can't sleep in a room full of Rubens.
When I put on my dressing gown and slippers and
light a cigarette what I want is relaxation, not
Raphael.  And these things that I own permit me to
relax.  Why," I added earnestly, "they might as
well not be there at all so little do they distract my
attention.  That's the part of art suitable for
domestic purposes,—something that you never look at,
or, if you do, you don't want to look at it again."

He said: "I couldn't sleep here.  I couldn't get
away from that old bird over the mantel.  However,
it's your room."

"It is."

"Doubtless you like it."

"Doubtless."

"On me," he remarked, "it has the effect of a Jazz
band."  And he went into his own apartment.  For
half an hour or so I fussed and pottered about,
nailing up bunches of photographs fanwise on the walls,
arranging knickknacks, placing brackets for
curtain-poles and shoving the poles through the brass
rings supporting the curtains.  They had once
belonged to the Admiral.  They were green and blue
with yellow birds on them.

After I finished draping them, I discovered that I
had hung one pair upside down.  But the effect was
not so bad.  In domestic art one doesn't want everything
exactly balanced.  Reiteration is exasperating;
repetition aggravating to the nerves.  A chef-d'oeuvre
is a priceless anæsthetic: duplicated it loses one
hundred per cent of its soporific value.  I was glad I
had hung one pair of curtains upside down.  I
went into Smith's room.  He was shaving and I had
him at my mercy.

"The principal element of art," said I to Smith,
"is beauty—or rather, perhaps, the principal
element of beauty is art—I am not very clear at this
moment which it is.  But I do know that beauty is
never noisy.  Calm and serenity reign where there
is no chattering repetition of effects.  Therefore, as
an interior decorator, I always take liberties with
the stereotyped rules of decoration.  I jumble
periods.  I introduce bold innovations.  For example:
Old blue plates, tea-pots and sugar-bowls I do
not relegate to the pantry or the china-closet where
they belong.  No.  I place them upon a Louis XV
commode or a Victorian cabinet, or on a mantel.  A
clock calms the irritating monotony of a side-board.
A book-case in the bath-room produces a surprisingly
calm effect amid towels and tooth-mugs.  A
piano in the dining room gives tone ... if played.
And so, in my profession, Smith, I am always searching
for the calm harmony of the inharmonious, the
unity of the unconventional, and the silence of the
inexplicable.  And, if I may venture to say so, I
usually attain it.  This is not a business card."

And having sufficiently punished Smith, I returned
to my own room.

Lovingly, and with that unerring knowledge born
of instinct, I worked away quite happily all the
morning decorating my room, and keeping one eye on
Smith to see that he didn't drift toward the kitchen.
He betrayed a tendency that way once or twice
but desisted.  I think he was afraid I might
decorate his room in his absence.  He need not have
worried: I wanted all my things in my own room.

While I was busy hanging some red and pink curtains
in my dressing-room and tacking a yellowish
carpet to the floor—a definitely advanced scheme of
color originating with me—I heard voices in the rear
court and, going to the window, beheld my consignment
of brand new servants arriving from Berne by diligence.

Smith, who had come up beside me to peer out
through the blinds, uttered an exclamation.

"That girl in Swiss peasant dress!—she looks like
the twin sister to your cook!"

"She is her sister.  But she isn't nearly as
pretty."

"She's infinitely prettier!" he asserted excitedly.
"She's a real beauty!—for a peasant."

I corrected him in my most forbearing manner:
"What you are trying to convey to me," said I,
kindly, "is that the girl is flamboyantly picturesque,
but scarcely to be compared to Thusis for unusual or
genuine beauty.  That's what you really mean,
Smith; but you lack vocabulary."

"Whatever I lack," he retorted warmly, "I mean
exactly what I said!  For a peasant, that girl is
beautiful to an emphatic degree,—far more so than
her sister Thusis.  Be kind enough to get that."

I smiled patiently and pointed out to him that the
hair of the newcomer was merely light golden, not
that magnificent Venetian gold-red of Thusis' hair;
and that her eyes were that rather commonplace
violet hue so much admired by cheap novelists.  I don't
know why he should have become so animated about
what I was striving to explain to him: he said with
unnecessary heat: "That's what I'm trying to drive
into your Irish head!  That girl is beautiful, and
her red-headed sister is merely good-looking.  Is my
vocabulary plain?"

I began to lose my temper: "Smith," said I, "you
fell for Thusis before I noticed her at all——"

"I merely called your attention to the resemblance
between her and your photograph of 'The Laughing
Girl.' And I did *not* 'fall for her'—as you put it
with truly American elegance——"

"Confound it!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean
by 'American elegance'?  Don't hand me that,
Smith—you and your 'My girl's a corker!'  Of the two
of us you'd be picked for a Yankee before I'd be.
And I have my own ideas on that subject, too—you
and your Sagas about—

   |  "'She plays the races'——"
   |

"In my travels," he said, looking me straight in
the eye, "it has happened that I have picked up a
few foreign folk-songs.  You understand me, of
course."

"Yes," I replied amiably.  "I think I get you,
Smith.  Whatever you say goes; and you're a Viking
as far as I'm concerned."

The slightest shadow of a grin lurked on his lips.
"Good old Michael," he said, patting me on the
shoulder.  And, reconciled, we looked out of the
window again in brotherly accord.  Just in time to see
the golden-haired sister of Thusis rise and jump
lightly from the wagon to the grass.

"Did you see that!" he demanded excitedly.  "Did
you ever see such grace in a human being?  Did you,
Michael?"

What was the use?  I saw nothing supernaturally
extraordinary in that girl or in her flying leap.  Of
course she was attractive in her trim, supple, dainty,
soubrette-like way.  But as for comparing her to
Thusis!——

"Her name's Clelia," I remarked, avoiding further
discussion.  "She's to do the rooms; Thusis waits on
table and runs our establishment; and that other girl
down there—her name is Josephine Vannis, I believe—she
is to cook for us.  You know," I added, "she
also is very handsome in her own way...."

He nodded without interest.  She seemed to be of
the Juno type, tall, dark-haired, with velvet eyes
and intensely white skin,—too overwhelmingly
classical to awaken my artistic enthusiasm.  In fact she
rather scared me.

"And to think that six-foot goddess is my new
cook," said I, rather awed.  I took another intent
survey of the big, healthy, vigorous, handsome girl;
and I determined to keep out of her kitchen and avoid
all culinary criticism.

"She'd not hesitate to hand us a few with a
rolling-pin," I remarked.  "Juno was celebrated for her
quick temper, Shan, so don't find fault with your
victuals."

"No," he said very earnestly, "I won't."

My new gardener was now carrying in the assorted
luggage,—bundles and boxes of sorts done up
in true peasant fashion with cords.

He seemed to be a sturdy, bright, good-looking
young fellow with keen black eyes and a lively
cock-sure manner.

"He'll raise jealousies below stairs," remarked
Smith.  "That young fellow is the beau ideal of all
peasant girls.  He'll be likely to raise the deuce
below stairs with Thusis and Juno."

Somehow or other the idea of such rustic gallantry
did not entirely please me.  Nor did Smith's
reference to Thusis and his cool exclusion of Clelia.

"I don't believe Thusis would care for his type,"
said I carelessly.  "And if he gets too—too——"  I
hesitated, not exactly knowing what I had meant
to say.

"Sure," nodded Smith; "fire him if he bothers Clelia."

I dimly realized then that I didn't care whether
he cut up with Clelia or not.  In fact, I almost
hoped he would.

A little later when I was in my room, alone, and
agreeably busy, there sounded a low and very
discreet knocking at my door.  Instantly my pulse, for
some unexplained reason, became loud and irregular.

"Come in," said I, laying aside my work—some
verses I had been composing—trifles—trifles.

Thusis came in.

As the hostile Trojans rose unanimously to their
feet when Helen entered—rose in spite of their
disapproval—so I got up instinctively and placed a
chair for her.  She merely dropped me a curtsy
and remained standing.

"Please be seated," said I, looking at her with
uneasy suspicion.

"Monsieur O'Ryan forgets himself," she protested
in the softest and most winningly demure of voices.
But I saw the very devil laughing at me out of her
gray eyes.

"I don't know why a man should receive his servants
standing," said I.  "Sit down," I added coldly,
seating myself.

"Pardon, but I could not venture to seat myself
in Monsieur's presence——"

Perfectly conscious of the subtle mockery in her
voice and manner, I told her sharply to be seated
and explain her errand.  She curtsied again—a most
devilishly impudent little curtsey—and seated herself
with the air of a saint on the loose.

"My thisther Clelia, and my friend Jothephine
Vannith, and Raoul Dethpreth requetht the honor of
rethpectfully prethenting themthelves to Monsieur's
graciouth conthideration," she said with an
intentional lisp that enraged me.

"Very well," I replied briefly.  "You may go back
and get rid of your lisp, and then explain to them
that you are to be waitress and general housekeeper
here, and that they are to take their orders from me
through you."

"Yes, Monsieur."

I don't think she relished my dry bluntness for I
saw a slight color gather in her cheeks.

I thought to myself that I'd come very close to
spoiling the girl by my silliness in the cellar.  I'd
made a fool of myself, but I'd do it no more in
spite of her heavenly resemblance to my photograph.

"That will be all at present, Thusis," I said coldly.
"Come back in half an hour for orders.  And see
that you wear a clean apron."

Her lovely face was quite red as she passed out,
forgetting to curtsey.  As for my own emotions they
were mixed.

One thing was certain; there was going to be a
show-down between Thusis and me before very long.

If she were indeed the peasant girl she pretended
to be, she'd recover her balance when I did, and learn
her proper place.  If she were, perhaps, a child of
the bourgeoisie—some educated and superior young
girl compelled to take service through family
misfortune—and I now entertained no further doubt
that this was really the case—she had nobody but
herself to blame for my present attitude.

But!—but if, by any inexplicable chance, her
social circumstances were, or had once been, even
better than bourgeoise, then the girl was a political
agent in masquerade.  But, whoever she was, she had
no business to presume on her wit and insolent beauty
to amuse herself at my expense.  And if she had
really been sent by the Swiss police into my
household to keep an eye on me she was going about it in
a silly and stupid manner.

For such surveillance I didn't care a pewter
penny.  Spies had lagged after me ever since I
entered Switzerland.  It was rather amusing than
otherwise.

But, as far as Thusis was concerned, I now
decided that, no matter what she was or had been,
she had voluntarily become my servant; and I
intended that she should not again forget that fact.

As I sat there at my desk, grimly planning
discipline for Thusis, I chanced to look up at the
photograph of "The Laughing Girl"; and stern thoughts
melted like frost at sunrise.

How amazingly, how disturbingly the lovely pictured
features reminded me of Thusis!

The resemblance, of course, must be pure accident,
but what an astonishing coincidence!

Musing there at my desk, possessed by dreamy
and pleasing thoughts, I gradually succumbed to the
spell which my treasured photograph invariably wove
for me.

And I unlocked my desk and took out my verses.

They had been entitled "To Thusis."  This I had
scratched out and under the canceled dedication I
had written: "To a Photograph."

I had quite forgotten that I had told Thusis to
report for orders in half an hour: I was deeply,
sentimentally absorbed in my poem.  Then there came
a low knocking; and at the mere prospect of again
encountering my exceedingly impudent housekeeper I
experienced a little shock of emotion which started
my heart thumping about in a most silly and
exasperating manner.

"Come in!" I said angrily.

She entered.  I kept my seat with an effort.

"Well," said I in an impatient voice, "what is it now?"

Thusis looked at me intently for a moment, then
the little devils that hid in her gray eyes suddenly
laughed at me, totally discrediting the girl's
respectful and almost serious face with its red mouth
slightly drooping.

"Monsieur has orders for the household?" she
inquired in her sweet, grave voice of a child.

That floored me.  I had spoken about giving my
orders through her.  I didn't know what orders to
give.

"Certainly," said I,—"hum-hum!  Let me
see.—Let—me—see," I repeated.  "Yes—certainly—the
orders must be given—hum-hum!——"

But what the devil I was to order I hadn't the
vaguest idea.

"We'll have luncheon at one," I said, desperately.
She made no observation.  I grew redder.

"We'll dine, too," I added.  Her gray eyes mocked
me but her mouth drooped respectfully.

"For further orders," said I, "c-come b-back in
half an hour.  No, don't do that!  Wait a moment.
I—I really don't know what sort of an establishment
I have here.  Hadn't I better make a tour of inspection?"

"Monsieur will please himself."

"I think I'd better inspect things."

"What things, Monsieur?"

"The—the linen press—er—the *batterie-de-cuisine*—all
that sort of thing.  Do you think I'd better do
it, Thusis?"

"Would Monsieur know any more about them if
he inspects these things?" she inquired so guilelessly,
so smilingly, that I surrendered then and there.

"Thusis," I said, "I don't know anything about
such matters.  They bore me.  Be a nice child and
give what orders are necessary.  Will you?"

"If Monsieur wishes."

"I do wish it.  Please—take full charge and run
this ranch for me and bring me the bills.  You see I
trust you, Thusis, although you have not been very
respectful to me."

"I am sorry, Monsieur," she said with a tragic
droop of her lovely mouth.  But her eyes belied her.

"Thusis?"

"Monsieur?"

"I won't ask you who you are——"

"Merci, M'sieu."

"Don't interrupt me.  What I am going to ask
you, is, why do you continually and secretly make fun
of me——"

"M'sieu!"

"You do!"

"I, M'sieu?"

"Yes, you, Thusis.  Always there is a hint of
mockery in your smile,—always the hidden amusement
as though, in me, you find something ridiculous——"

"Please!——"

"—Something secretly and delightfully absurd——"

"But you know you *are* funny," she said, looking
a trifle scared at her own temerity.

"What!" I demanded angrily.

"Please be just, Mr. O'Ryan.  I minded my own
business until you tempted me."

That was perfectly true but I denied it.

"You know," she said, "when a man finds a girl
attractive the girl always knows it, even when she's
a servant....  And certain circumstances made it
much more amusing than you realize....  I mean
to be respectful.  I am your servant....  But you
know very well that it is funny."

"What is funny?"

"The circumstances.  You found me attractive.
It mortified you.  And the way you took it was
intensely amusing to me."

"Why?"

"Because you are you; and I am I.  Because the
fact that you found your cook attractive horrified
you.  That was intensely funny to me.  And when,
waiving the degradation, you actually attempted to
kiss your own cook——"

Laughter burst from her lips in a silvery shower
of rippling notes which enchanted and infuriated me
at the same time.

I waited, very red, to control my voice; then I got
up and set a chair for her.  And she dropped onto it
without protest.

"What are you doing in my household?" I asked drily.

At that her laughter ceased and she gave me a
straight sweet look.

"Don't you really know?"

"Of course not.  You're an agent of some sort.
That's evident.  Are you here to watch me?"

"Dear Mr. O'Ryan," she said lightly, "have I been
at any pains to deceive you?  I'm not really a
servant; you learned that very easily.  And I let you
learn it—"  She laughed:—"and it was a very pretty
compliment I paid you when I let you learn it."

"I don't understand you," I said.

"It's very simple.  My name really is Thusis; I
wish to remain in your employment.  So do my
friends.  We will prove good servants.  You shall
be most comfortable,—you and your amusing friend,
Mr. Smith—*the Norwegian*."

I smiled in spite of my suspicion and perplexity,
and Thusis smiled too, such a gay little confidential
smile that I could not resist the occult offer of
confidence that it very plainly implied.

"You are *not* here to keep tabs on me?" I demanded.

"You very nice young man, of course not!"

"Do you really think I'm nice, Thusis?"

"I think you're adorable!"

The rush of emotion to the head made me red and
dizzy.  I had never been talked to that way by a
young girl.  I didn't know it was done.

And another curious thing about this perfectly
gay and unembarrassed eulogy of hers, she said it
as frankly and spontaneously as she might have
spoken to another girl or to an attractive child:
there was absolutely no sex consciousness about her.

"Are you going to let us remain and be your
very faithful and diligent servants?" she asked,
mischievously amused at the shock she had administered.

"Thusis," I said, "it's going to be rather difficult
for me to treat you as a servant.  And if your friends
are of the same quality——"

"It's perfectly easy," she insisted.  "If we presume,
correct us.  If we are slack, punish us.  Be
masculine and exacting; be bad tempered about your
food—"  She laughed delightfully—"Raise the
devil with us if we misbehave."

I didn't believe I could do that and said so; and
she turned on me that bewildering smile and sat looking
at me very intently, with her white hands clasped
in her lap.

"You don't think we're a band of robbers
conspiring to chloroform you and Mr. Smith some
night and make off with your effects?" she inquired.

We both laughed.

"You're very much puzzled, aren't you, Mr. O'Ryan,"
she continued.

"I am, indeed."

"But you're so nice—so straight and clean
yourself—that you'd give me the benefit of any doubt,
wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"That's because you're a sportsman.  That's because
you play all games squarely."  Her face became
serious; her gray eyes met mine and seemed to
look far into them.

"Your country is neutral, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes."

"You are not."

"I have my ideas."

"And ideals," she added.

"Yes, I have them still, Thusis."

"So have I," she said.  "I am trying to live up to
them.  If you will let me."

"I'll even help you——"

"No!  Just let me alone.  That is all I ask of
you."  Her youthful face grew graver.  "But that
is quite enough to ask of you.  Because by letting
me alone you are incurring danger to yourself.

"Why do you tell me?"

"Because I wish to be honest with you.  If you
retain me as your servant and accept me and my
friends as such,—even if you live here quietly and
blamelessly, obeying the local and Federal laws and
making no inquiries concerning me or my three
friends,—yet, nevertheless, you may find yourself in
very serious trouble before many days."

"Political trouble?"

"All kinds of trouble, Mr. O'Ryan."

There was a silence; she sat there with slender
fingers tightly interlocked as though under some sort
of nervous tension, but the faint hint of a smile in the
corners of her mouth—which seemed to be part of
her natural expression—remained.

She said: "And more than that: if you let us
remain as your servants, we shall trust to you and to
Mr. Smith that neither one of you by look or word
or gesture would ever convey to anybody the slightest
hint that I and my friends are not exactly what
we appear to be—your household servants."

"Thusis," said I, "what the deuce are you up to?"

"What am I up to?" She laughed outright:—"Let
me see!  First—" counting on her fingers, "I
am trying to find a way to live up to my ideals;
second, I am going to try to bring happiness to many,
many people; third, I am prepared to sacrifice myself,
my friends, my nearest and dearest." ... She
lifted her clear eyes: "I am quite ready to sacrifice
you, too," she said.

I smiled: "That would cost you very little," I said.

There was another short silence.  The girl looked
at me with a curious intentness as though mentally
appraising me—trying to establish in her mind any
value I might represent to her—if any.

"It's like an innocent bystander being hit by a
bullet in a revolution," she murmured: "it's a pity:
but it is unavoidable, sometimes."

"I represent this theoretical and innocent bystander?"

"I'm afraid you do, Mr. O'Ryan; the chances are
that you'll get hurt."

A perfectly inexplicable but agreeable tingling
sensation began to invade me, amounting almost to
exhilaration.  Was it the Irish in me, subtly stirred,
by the chance of a riot?  Was it a possible opportunity
to heave a brick, impartially and with Milesian
enthusiasm?

"Thusis," said I, "there is only one question I
must ask you to answer."

"I know what it is."

"What?"

"You are going to remind me that, to-day, the
whole world is divided into two parts; that the greatest
war of all times is being waged between the forces
of light and of darkness.  And you are going to ask
me where I stand."

"I am."

The girl rose; so did I.  Then she stepped forward,
took my right hand and rested her other upon it.

"I stand for light, for the world's freedom, for
the liberties of the weaker, for the self-determination
of all peoples.  I stand for their right to the pursuit
of happiness.  I stand for the downfall of all
tyranny—the tyranny of the mob as well as the tyranny of
all autocrats.  That is where I stand, Mr. O'Ryan....
Where do you stand?"

"Beside you."

She dropped my hand with an excited little laugh:

"I was certain of that.  In Berne I learned all
about you.  I took no chances in coming here.  I
took none in being frank with you."  She began to
laugh again, mischievously: "Perhaps I took
chances in being impertinent to you.  There is a
dreadful and common vein of frivolity in me.  I'm a
little reckless, too.  I adore absurd situations, and
the circumstances—when you unwillingly discovered
that I was attractive—appealed to me irresistibly.
And I am afraid I was silly enough—common
enough—malicious enough to thoroughly enjoy it....
But," she added naïvely, "you gave me rather a good
scare when you threatened to kiss me."

"I'm glad of that," said I with satisfaction.

"Of course," she remarked, "that would have been
the climax of absurdity."

"Would it?"

"Certainly."

"Why?"

"Fancy such a nice young man kissing his cook in
the cellar."

"That isn't what you meant."

"Isn't it?" she asked airily.

"No."

"What did I mean then, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"I don't know," said I thoughtfully.

She gave me one of her smiling but searching looks,
in which there seemed a hint of apprehension.  Then,
apparently satisfied by her scrutiny, she favored me
with a bewitching smile in which I thought to detect
a slight trace of relief.

"You will keep me, then?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Thank you!"

She stretched out her beautiful hand impulsively:
I took it.

"Thanks—and good-by," she said a trifle gravely,
Then, with a shadow of the smile still lingering:
"Good-by: because, from now on, it is to be master
and servant.  We must both remember that."

I was silent.

"You will remember, won't you?" she said—the
laughter flashed in her eyes:—"especially if we ever
happen to be in the cellar together?"

I said, forcing a smile and my voice not quite
steady: "Suppose we finish that scene, now,
Thusis?"

"Good heavens!" she said:—"and the Admiral
watching us!"  She drew her hand from mine and
pointed at the picture over my mantel.

"I'm afraid of that man," she said.  "The cellar is
less terrifying——"

"Thusis!"

But she laughed and slipped through the door.
"Good-by, Don Michael!" she called back softly
from the stairs.

I walked back slowly to the center of my room and
for a long time I stood there quite motionless,
staring fixedly at the Admiral.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN ODD SONG`:

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   \V


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN ODD SONG

.. vspace:: 2

"There's one thing certain," thought I; "my
household personnel is altogether too
pulchritudinous for a man like Smith, and it
begins to worry me."

Considerably disturbed in my mind I reconnoitered
Smith's rooms, and found him, as I suspected,
loitering there on pretense of re-arranging the
contents of his bureau-drawers.

Now Smith had no legitimate business there; it
was Clelia's hour to do his rooms.  But, as I say, I
already had noticed his artless way of hanging about
at that hour, and several times during the last two
weeks I had encountered him conversing with the
girl while she, her blonde hair bound up in a
beguiling dust-cap, and otherwise undeniably fetching,
leaned at ease on her broom and appeared quite
willing to be cornered and conversed with.

My advent always galvanized this situation;
Clelia instantly became busy with her broom and
duster, and Smith usually pretended he had been
inquiring of Clelia where I might be found.

He attempted the same dishonesty now, and, with
every symptom of delight, cordially hailed me and
inquired where I'd been keeping myself since breakfast.

"I've been out doors," said I coldly, "where I
hoped—if I did not really expect—to find you."

This sarcasm put a slight crimp in his assurance,
and he accompanied me out with docile alacrity,
which touched me.

"It's too good a household to spoil," said I.  "A
little innocent gaiety—a bit of persiflage en
passant—that doesn't interfere with discipline.  But
this loitering about the vicinity of little Clelia's too
brief skirts is almost becoming a habit with you."

"She's a nice girl," returned Smith, vaguely.

"Surely.  And you're a very nice young man; but
you know as well as I do that we can't arrange our
social life to include the circle below stairs."

"You mean, in the event of travelers arriving,
they might misconstrue such a democracy?"

"Certainly, they'd misjudge it.  We couldn't
explain why our cook was playing the piano in the
living-room or why Clelia laid aside her dust-pan
for a cup of tea with us at five, could we?"

"Or why Thusis and you went trout fishing
together," he added pleasantly.

A violent blush possessed my countenance.  So he
was aware of that incident!  He had gone to Zurich
that day.  I hadn't mentioned it.

"Smith," said I, "these are war times.  To catch
fish is to conserve food.  Under no other
circumstances——"

"I understand, of course!  Two can catch more
fish than one.  Which caught it?"

"Thusis," I admitted.  "Thusis happened to
know where these Swiss trout hide and how to catch
them.  Naturally I was glad to avail myself of
her knowledge."

"Very interesting.  You need no further instruction,
I fancy."

"To become proficient," said I, "another lesson
or two—possibly——"  I paused out near the
fountain to stoop over and break off a daisy.  From
which innocent blossom, absent-mindedly, I plucked
the snowy petals one by one as I sauntered along
beside Smith.

Presently he began to mutter to himself.  At first
I remained sublimely unconscious of what he was
murmuring, then I caught the outrageous words:
"Elle m'aime—un peu—beaucoup—passablement—pas-du-tout——"

"What's that?" I demanded, glaring at him.
"What are you gabbling about?"

He seemed surprised at my warmth.  I hurled
the daisy from me; we turned and strode back in
hostile silence toward the bottling house.

My farmer, Raoul Despres, was inside and the
door stood open.  We could hear the humming of
the dynamo.  Evidently, obeying my orders of
yesterday, he had gone in to look over and report upon
the condition of the plant with a view to resuming
business where my recent uncle had left off.

We could see his curly black head, and athletic
figure inside the low building.  As he prowled hither
and thither investigating the machinery he was singing
blithely to himself:

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm
   |  You have done a heap of harm—
   |  You and yours and all your friends!
   |  Now you'll have to make amends."
   |

Smith and I looked at each other in blank perplexity.

"That's a remarkable song," I said at last.

"Very," said Smith.  We halted.  The dynamo
droned on like a giant bee.

Raoul continued to sing as he moved around in
the bottling house, and the words he sang came to
us quite plainly:

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm
   |  Sacking city, town and farm!
   |  You, your children and your friends,
   |  All will come to rotten ends!"
   |

"Smith," said I, "who on earth do you suppose
he means by 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm'?"

"Surely," mused Smith, "he could not be referring
to the All-highest of Hunland....  Could he?"

"Impossible," said I.  We went into the bottling
house.  And the song of Raoul ceased.

It struck me, as he turned and came toward us
with his frank, quick smile and his gay and slightly
jaunty bearing, that he had about him something of
that nameless allure of a soldier of France.

"But of course you are Swiss," I said to him with
a trace of a grin twitching at my lips.

"Of course, Monsieur," he replied innocently.

"Certainly....  And, how about that machinery, Raoul?"

"It functions, Monsieur.  A little rust—nothing
serious.  The torrent from the Bec de l'Empereur
runs the dynamo; the spring flows full.  Listen!"

We listened.  Through the purring of the dynamo
the bubbling melody of the famous mineral
spring was perfectly audible.

"How many bottles have we?" I asked.

"In the unopened cases a hundred thousand.  In
odd lots, quart size, twenty thousand more."

"Corks?  Boxes?"

"Plenty."

"Labels?  Straw?"

"Bales, Monsieur."

"And all the machinery works?"

For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed
it in a porcelain cylinder.  Then he threw a switch;
the bottle was filled automatically, corked, labeled,
sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.

"Fine!" I said.  "When you have a few moments
to spare from the farm you can fill a few dozen
cases.  And you, too, Smith, when time hangs heavy
on your hands, it might amuse you to drop in and
start bottling spring water for me—instead of
rearranging your bureau drawers."

The suggestion did not seem to attract him.  He
said he'd enjoy doing it but that he did not
comprehend machinery.

I smiled at him and made up my mind that he'd
not spend his spare time in Clelia's neighborhood.

"Raoul," said I, "that was an interesting song
you were singing when we came in."

"What song, Monsieur?"

"The one about 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm.'"

He gazed at me so stupidly that I hesitated.

"I thought I heard you humming a song," said I.

"Maybe it was the dynamo, Monsieur."

"Maybe," I said gravely.

Smith and I walked out and across toward the
cow-stables.

There was nothing to see there except chickens;
the little brown Swiss cattle being in pasture on the
Bec de l'Empereur.

"If time hangs heavy with you, Smith," I ventured,
"why not drive the cows home and milk them
in the evenings?"

He told me, profanely, that he had plenty to do
to amuse himself.

"What, for example, did he tell you?"

"Write letters," he said,—"for example."

"To friends in dear old Norway, I suppose," said
I flippantly.

"To whomever I darn well please," he rejoined drily.

That, of course, precluded further playful inquiry.
Baffled, I walked on beside him.  But I sullenly
decided to stick to him until Clelia had done
the chamber-work and had safely retired to regions
below stairs.

Several times he remarked he'd forgotten
something and ought to go to his rooms to look for the
missing objects.  I pretended not to hear him and
he hadn't the effrontery to attempt it.

The words of Raoul's song kept running in my mind.

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm
   |  You have done a heap of harm—"
   |

And I found myself humming the catchy air as
I strolled over my domain with my unwilling companion.

"I like that song," I remarked.

"Of course *you* would," he said.

"Why?"

"Because you're so bally neutral," he replied
ironically.

"I *am* neutral.  All Chileans are.  I'm neutral
because my country is."

"You're neutral as hell," he retorted with a
shrug—"you camouflaged Yankee."

"If I weren't neutral," said I, "I'd not be afraid
of admitting it to a New York Viking."

That put him out on first.  I enjoyed his silence
for a while, then I said: "Come on, old top, sing us
some more Norse sagas about 'My girl's a corker.'"

"Can it!" retorted that typical product of Christiania.

So with quip and retort and persiflage veiled and
more or less merry, we strolled about in the
beautiful early summer weather.

"Why the devil don't you find Thusis and take
another lesson in angling?" he suggested.

"Because, dear friend, Thusis hitched up our horse
and went to Zurich this morning."

"What?  When?"

"Ere the earliest dicky-bird had caroled—ere
Aurora had wiped night's messy cobwebs from the
skies with rosy fingers."

"What did she go for?—that is, what did she say
she was going for?"

"To purchase various household necessaries.  Why?"

"She's a funny girl," he remarked evasively.

"Yes?"

"Rather."

"In what humorous particular do you hand it so
generously to Thusis?" I inquired.

"Oh, you know well enough she's odd.  You can't
explain her.  She's no peasant, and you know it.
She's not Swiss, either.  I don't know what she is.  I
don't know quite what she's doing here.  Sometimes
she reminds me of a runaway school girl: sometimes
of the humorless, pep-less prude who usually figures
as heroine in a best seller.  And sometimes she acts
like a vixen! ... I didn't tell you," he added, "but
I was amiable enough to try to kiss her that first
evening.  I don't know where you were—but you
can take it from me, O'Ryan, I thought I'd caught
hold of the original vestal virgin and that my hour
had come for the lions!"

"You beast," said I, not recollecting my own
behavior in the cellar.  "What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything.  She merely looked it.
I've been horribly afraid she'd tell her sister," he
added naïvely.

"Smith," I said, laying an earnest hand on his
arm, "you mustn't frivol with my household.  I
won't stand for it.  I admit that my household is an
unusual one.  Frankly, I have no more idea than
you have that Thusis and Clelia are real servants, or
why they choose to take service here with me.
Probably they're political agents.  I don't care.  But
you and I mustn't interfere with them, first, because
it disorganizes my ménage; second, because I
believe they're really nice girls."

"I think so, too," he said.

"Well, then, if they are, we don't want to forget
it.  And also we must remember that probably they
are political agents of some country now engaged
in this war, and it won't do for us to become involved."

"How involved?"

"Well, suppose I took Thusis more or less seriously?"

"*Do* you?"

"I didn't say I did.  I said suppose I do?  Who is
she?  With all her dainty personality and undoubted
marks of birth and breeding—with the irrefutable
evidence of manner and speech and presence—with
all these ear-marks by which both she and Clelia
seem plainly labeled—*who* is Thusis?"

"I don't know," he said soberly.

"Nor I.  And yet it is apparent that she has
taken no pains to play the part of a peasant or
of a servant for our benefit.  Evidently she doesn't
care—for I venture to believe she's a good actress
in addition to the rest of her ungodly cleverness.

"But she seems to think it immaterial as to
whether or not you and I wonder who she may be.
Mentally, Thusis snaps her fingers at us, Smith.  So
does Clelia."

"Clelia is gentler—more girlish and immature,"
he said, "but she makes no bones about having been
in better circumstances.  She's sweet but she's no
weakling.  My curiosity amuses her and she pokes
a lot of fun at me."

"Doesn't she tell you anything?  Doesn't she
give you any hint?"

"No, she doesn't.  She's friendly—willing to stop
dusting and exchange a little innocent banter with
me....  Do you know, O'Ryan, I never before saw
such a pretty girl.  She's only eighteen.  Did you
know it?"

"No, I didn't."

"And Thusis is twenty."

I thought deeply for a while, then:

"We'd better keep away from them except when
business requires an interview," I concluded.

"Why," he pointed out in annoyance, "that leaves
*me* out entirely."

"Of course.  I shall not think of Thusis at all
except on terms of business.  That's the safe idea,
Smith, business,—strictly business.  It neutralizes
everything; it's a wet blanket on folly; it paralyzes
friskiness; it slays sentiment in its tracks.  Become
a business man.  Engage in some useful occupation.
Suppose, for example, I pay you a franc a
week to feed my chickens."

"I've plenty to do, I tell you."

"Then do it, old top, and steer shy of that little
blue-eyed parlor maid of mine."

He made no answer.  We prowled about until
nearly lunch-time.  But the odd thing was that I
had lost my appetite.  It may have happened
because I'd begun to worry a little about Thusis.

What the deuce had that girl been doing in Zurich
all this while?  She was too attractive to go about
that seething city alone with market-cart and horse.
Some fresh young officer—

"Smith?"

He looked up, mildly surprised at my vehemence.

"Where the devil do you suppose Thusis is?" I asked.

"In Zurich, isn't she?"

"Yes, but she's been gone a long time and she
ought to be back."

"Probably," he said, "she's gallivanting with some
handsome young fellow along the Lake promenade.
Possibly she's lunching at the Baur-au-Lac with
some fascinating lieutenant.  Or maybe they've
strolled over to the Café de la Terrasse or to Rupps;
or," he went on as though interested in his irritating
speculations, "it may be that Thusis has gone
out in a motor launch with some sprightly cavalier;
or she may be at the Tonhalle, or at Belvoir Park."

"No doubt," said I, exasperated.  "You needn't
speculate further."

"Business over, why shouldn't Thusis kick up her
pretty heels a bit?" he inquired.

"Because Thusis isn't that sort."

"How do *you* know that she isn't that sort?"

I didn't, and his question made me the madder.

"Luncheon ought to be ready," he reminded me
presently.  I could actually hear the grin in his
voice.

"All right," said I.  "I'm hungry."  Which was a
lie.  Then, as we turned toward the house, Thusis
drove into the yard.

Blue ribbons fluttered from her whip, from the
fat horse's head-stall, from his braided tail.  There
were bows of blue ribbon on her peasant's apron,
too, which danced saucily in the wind.  I went over
to aid her descend from the cart, but she laughed
and jumped out with a flash of white stockings and
blue garters.

"I've been wondering," said I, "why you were so long."

"Were you worried?"

The demurely malicious glance she flung at me
became a laugh.  She turned to Smith:

"Did he think somebody might kidnap his young
and silly housekeeper?" she inquired.  "Pas de
chance!  I am horridly wise!"—she touched her
forehead with the tip of one finger—"and a thousand
years old!"—she laid one hand lightly over her
heart.  And turned to me.  "I am a thousand years
of age," she repeated, smiling.  "Such as I are not
kidnapped, Monsieur O'Ryan.  Au contraire.  I
myself am far more likely to kidnap——"

She looked Smith gaily in the eye "—some agreeable
young man—some day."  And very slowly
her gray eyes included me.

Then she tossed the reins to Raoul who had come
up beside the cart:

"A protean moment," she said to me, "and I shall
reappear as a very presentable waitress to wait
upon you at luncheon."

And off went this amazing housekeeper of mine
dancing lightly away across the grass with the
buckles on her little peasant slippers twinkling and
every blue ribbon a-flutter.

I turned and looked at Raoul.  He returned my
gaze with an odd smile.

"Of what," said I, "are you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he replied seriously, "that the
world is a very droll place,—agreeable for the gay,
but hell for those born without a sense of humor."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MASTER AND MAID`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   MASTER AND MAID

.. vspace:: 2

I had become tired of following Smith about
and of trying to keep an eye on Clelia.  The
little minx was so demure that it seemed difficult
to believe she deliberately offered Smith opportunities
for philandering.  Otherwise my household
caused me no anxiety; everything went smoothly.
Thusis waited on table and ran the place, Josephine
Vannis cooked to perfection, Raoul had started
a garden and the bottling works; and no tourists
had bothered us by interrupting the régime and
demanding food and shelter.

Outwardly ours was a serene and emotionless life,
undisturbed by that bloody frenzy which agitated
the greater surface of the globe.

Here in the sunny silence of our little valley ringed
by snow peaks, the soft thunder of some far
avalanche or the distant tinkle of cow-bells were the
loudest interruptions that startled us from the
peaceful inertia consequent upon good food and idle
hours.

Outwardly as I say, calm brooded all about us.
True the Zurich and Berne newspapers stirred me
up, and the weekly packages of New York papers
which Smith and I received caused a tense silence in
our rooms whither we always retired to read them.

Smith once remarked that it was odd I never
received any Chilean papers.  To which I replied that
it seemed queer no Norwegian newspapers came to him.

We let it rest there.  As for my household I never
saw Josephine Vannis at all except by accident in
the early evening when I sometimes noticed her in
the distance strolling with Raoul.

On Clelia, I kept an unquiet eye as I have said.
Thusis I saw only on strictly business interviews.
And Smith thought it strange that there was so
much business to be discussed between us.  But
every day I felt it my duty to go over my household
accounts with Thusis, checking up every item.
In these daily conferences there were, of course, all
sorts of matters to consider, such as the farm and
dairy reports from Raoul, the bottling reports, daily
sales of eggs, butter, and bottled spring-water—a
cart arriving from Zurich every morning to take
away these surplus items to the Grand Hotel,
Baur-au-Lac, with which Thusis had made a thrifty contract.

This was a very delightful part of the day to
me,—the hour devoted to business with Thusis, while
Smith fumed in his room.  Possibly Clelia fumed
with him—I was afraid of that—and it was the only
rift in the lute.

Every morning I tried to prolong that business
interview with Thusis,—she looked so distractingly
pretty in her peasant garb.  But though her gray
eyes were ever on duty and her winning smile flashed
now and then across the frontier of laughter, always
and almost with malice, she held me to the matter
of business under discussion, discouraging all
diversions I made toward other topics, refusing to
accompany me on gay excursions into personalities,
resisting any approach toward that little spot of
unconventional ground upon which we had once
stood face to face.

For since that time when, for hours afterward, my
hand remained conscious of her soft, cool hand's
light contact—since that curious compact between
us which had settled her status, and my own, here
under this common roof above us, she had permitted
no lighter conversation to interrupt our business
conferences, no other subject to intrude.  Only now
and then I caught a glimpse of tiny devils dancing
in her gray eyes; only at long intervals was the
promise of the upcurled corners of her mouth made
good by the swift, sweet laughter always hidden
there.

There was no use attempting any less impersonal
footing any more; Thusis simply evaded it, remaining
either purposely dull and irresponsive or,
gathering up her accounts, she would rise, curtsey, and
back out with a gravity of features and demeanor
that her mocking eyes denied.

Once, as I have said, I discovered a fishing rod
in the attic, dug some worms, and started out upon
conservation bent.  And encountering Thusis
digging dandelions for salad behind the garden,
explained to her my attire and implements.  As it was
strictly a matter of business she consented to go
with me as far as the brook.  There, by the bridge
in the first pool, she caught the first trout.  And,
having showed me how, retreated, resolutely repelling
all suggestions that she take a morning off, and
defying me with a gaiety that made her eyes brilliant
with delighted malice.

"It was my duty to show you how Swiss trout are
caught," she called back to me, always retreating
down the leafy path—"but when you propose a
pleasure party to your housekeeper—oh, Don
Michael, you betray low tastes and I am amazed at you
and I beg you most earnestly to remember the Admiral."

Whereupon I was stung into action and foolish
enough to suppose I could overtake her.  Where she
vanished I don't know.  There was not a sound in
the wood.  I was ass enough to call—even to appeal
in a voice so sentimental that I blush to remember
it now.

And at last, discomfited and sulky, I went back
to my fishing.  But hers remained the only trout in
my basket.  Smith and I ate it, baked with parsley,
for luncheon, between intermittent inquiries from
Smith regarding the fewness of the catch.

And now, it appeared, somebody had already told
him that Thusis and I had gone fishing together that
day.  Who the devil had revealed that fact?  Clelia,
no doubt,—having been informed by Thusis.  And no
doubt Thusis had held me up to ridicule.

So now, at the hour when our daily business
conference approached, instead of seating myself as
usual at the table in my sitting-room, I took my
fishing-rod, creel, a musty and water-warped leather
fly-book, and went into Smith's room.

"Suppose we go fishing," I suggested, knowing
he'd refuse on the chance of a tête-à-tête with Clelia
the minute I was out of sight.

He began to explain that he had letters to write,
and I laughed in derision and sent my regards to all
the folks in dear old Norway.

"Go to the deuce," said I.  "Flirt with my
chamber-maid if you want to, but Thusis will take your
head off—"

"Isn't she going with *you*?"

"—When she returns," I continued, vexed and red
at his impudent conclusion.  It was perfectly true
that I meant to take Thusis fishing, but it was not
Smith's business to guess my intentions.

"You annoy me," I added, passing him with a
scowl.  At which he merely grinned.

In the hallway I encountered Clelia in cap and
apron, very diligent with her duster.

"Clelia," said I pleasantly, "has Raoul brought
the mail?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Where is it?"

"There was only a bill from the Grand Hotel for
cartage."

"What!" said I in pretense of dismay, "no letter
yet from Mr. Smith's wife?  And seven of his
children down with whooping-cough!"

"W-wife!" stammered Clelia, her blue eyes
becoming enormous.  "S-seven children!"

"Seven in Christiania," I explained sadly, "the
other eleven at school near Bergen.  Poor fellow.
His suspense must be dreadful."

I'm no actor; I saw immediately in Clelia's face
that I had overplayed my part as well as the total
of Smith's progeny, for the color came swiftly back
and she shot at me a glance anything but demure.

"The other eleven," I explained, "were by his first
three wives."

Clelia, dusting furiously, looked around at me over
her shoulder.

"At least," she said, "he's done his duty by his
country."

"W-what!" I stammered.

"The population of Norway is so very small," she
added gaily.  And went on with her dusting.

"Minx," thought I to myself as I marched down
stairs and out toward the fountain where, from the
servants' wing of the chalet Thusis could not fail to
observe me.  And she did.  She appeared, presently,
account books under one arm.  Out of the subtle
corner of my subtlest eye—the left one—I observed
her.  And with surpassing cunning I selected a
yellow fly from the battered book and tied it on my
leader.

"Monsieur!"

"Good-morning, Thusis.  We're going fishing.  So
if you'll ask Josephine to put up some war lunch for
us—"

"Has Monsieur forgotten his daily business
interview?" she inquired smilingly.

"Not at all.  But we're going to conserve time as
well as food, Thusis.  We can fish and consult at
the same time."

"But—"

"All waste must cease," I said firmly.  "We mustn't
waste even a minute in the day.  And if we can do
two things at the same time it is our economic duty
to do them."  I smiled at her.  "I shall dig worms,"
said I, "for two, while you prepare lunch for two.
That is a wonderful way of economizing time and
labor, isn't it, Thusis?"

She smiled, bit her lip, as though regretting an
indiscretion, looked up at the cloudless sky, let her
gray eyes wander from one snowy peak to the next,
glanced almost insolently at me, then smiled with
that delicious impulse characteristic of her.

"You know you have no business to take me fishing,"
she said.  "Your cleverness is not Machiavellian;
it is Michael-valian.  It doesn't deceive me for
one moment, Señor Michael!"

I laughed, picked up a stable-fork that stood
against the cow-barn:

"Worms for two; luncheon for two," said I.

"I don't *like* that juxtaposition!" she protested.
"Do you really wish me to go with you?  Why
won't you sit here on the edge of the pool and go
over these accounts?"

"Conservation of time and energy forbid doing
one thing when two things can be accomplished at
the——"

"You are absurd!"

I went over to the barnyard and began to dig.

"Hasten, Thusis," I called to her.  "I'll be ready
in ten minutes."

"I've a good mind not to go," she said.

"You've a *good* mind," said I, disinterring a fine
fat worm.

"I have a mind, anyway, and it counsels me not
to go fishing with you, Don Michael."

"Argue with it," said I.  "It's a reasonable mind,
Thusis, and is open to conviction.  Prove to it that
you ought to go fishing."

"Don Michael, you are ridiculous."

"Let it be a modest lunch," said I, "nourishing
and sufficient.  But not a feast, Thusis.  Don't put
in any wreaths of roses, or any tambourines.  But
you can stick a fry-pan into the basket, with a little
lard on the side, and I'll show you how we cook trout
in the woods at home."

"In Chile?"

"In the Adirondacks," said I, smiling.

I went on digging and accumulating that popular
lure for trout not carried in the fly-books of expert
anglers, but known to the neophyte as the
"Barn-yard Hackle."

Once I glanced over my shoulder.  Thusis was not
there.  Presently, and adroitly dissembling my
anxiety by a carefully camouflaged series of sidelong
squints I discovered her near the kitchen-wing of
the chalet talking earnestly to Josephine.

And so it happened that, having garnered a sufficiency
of Barn-yard hackles, I went to the fountain
pool to wash my hands.

And when, with playful abandon, I stood drying
them upon my knickerbockers, I saw Thusis emerge
from the house carrying my pack-basket.

She came up rather slowly.

"Here is your lunch," she said, looking at me
with an inscrutable expression suggesting
amusement and annoyance in an illogical combination.

"You mean *our* lunch," said I.

"I mean *your* lunch."

"Aren't you coming, Thusis?"

I looked into the pack-basket and discovered her
account books in it.

"An oversight," she said, calmly.  "Give them to me."

I started to fish them out and caught sight of the
package of lunch.

"Good heavens!" said I, "there is twice too much
for one!"

She appeared to be greatly disturbed by the
discovery.

"Josephine has made a dreadful mistake," she said.
"She has put up lunch enough for two!"

"It mustn't be wasted," said I, gravely.  "I'm
afraid you'll have to come fishing with me after all,
Thusis."

There appeared to be no other way out of it.  At
least neither of us suggested any other way.

"Oh, dear," she said, looking up at me, and the
very devil was in her gray eyes.

Which discovery preoccupied me when she went
back to the house for her hat and for another rod
which she had, it seemed, discovered in the laundry,
all equipped for business.

The agreeable tingle of subdued excitement
permeated me as she returned with the rod but without
any hat.

"I don't need one," she said, calmly, pulling out
several hair pins.

And then I saw a thick mass of molten gold tumble
down; and the swift white fingers of Thusis dividing
it into two heavy braids—a thrilling sight—and
once, in the thrall of that enchantment where I stood
motionless to watch her at this lovely office, I
became aware of her lifted eyes—two celestial
assassins intent on doing me deep harm.

Then, still busy with her hair, she moved slowly
forward across the grass beside me, silently, almost
stealthily—for, in the slow and supple grace of her
I seemed to divine something almost menacing to me.

.. vspace:: 2

Her account books and rod were in my pack-basket.
She sauntered along the shadow-flecked
path beside me, at first paying me scant attention,
but singing carelessly to herself in a demi-voix
snatches of any vagrant melody that floated through
her mind.

I recognized none of them.  One strange little
refrain seemed to keep on recurring to her at
intervals:

   |  —"And Aphrodite's throat was white
   |  As lilies opening at night
   |        In Naxos,
   |        In Naxos.
   |  And red were Aphrodite's lips—
   |  And blue her eyes and white her hips
   |  As roses, sky, and surf that clips
   |    The golden shore of Tenedos.
   |
   |  O Tenedos, my Tenedos,
   |  Set in the purple sea!
   |  O Naxos, my Naxos,
   |  I hear you calling me!
   |    The old gods have gone away;
   |    I follow them with feet astray,
   |    But in my heart I'll faithful be
   |    To Tenedos and Naxos!"
   |

She strolled on, singing to herself, an absent look
in her starry eyes, switching idly at the leaves with
some dead stalk she had picked up.  And no matter
what other fragments of melody occurred to her
she was ever coming back to her odd little song of
Naxos and of Tenedos, where flowers and sky and
sea matched Aphrodite's charms.

Now and again I was conscious of a leisurely
sideways glance from her as though indifferently
marking my continued but quite uninteresting existence
in the landscape.

When we came to the wooden bridge she rested
both hands on the rail and looked down at the
limpid greenish pool.  But her gaze seemed serious and
remote, and I became quite sure she was not thinking
about trout.

However, I rigged up her rod for her and was
preparing to impale a worm upon her hook when she
noticed what I was about and remarked that she
preferred an artificial fly.

"*That* one," she added, coming up beside me and
looking over my shoulder at the open fly-book in
my hand.

So, that matter settled, we took the leafy path
which ran through ferns along the northern bank
of the stream.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CONSERVATION AND CONVERSATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   CONSERVATION AND CONVERSATION

.. vspace:: 2

Thusis hooked the first trout.  It made a
prodigious swirl in the pool and rushed to
and fro in the shadowy depths—a slim, frantic
phantom lacing the crystalline water with flashes
of pallid fire.

She drew in the trout splashing and spattering in
all its rainbow glory, and I thankfully thumped it
into Nirvana and placed it upon a catafalque of wet
green moss in my basket.  Thusis looked on calmly
while I performed the drudgery of the episode, and
I heard her singing carelessly to herself:

   |  "The old gods have gone away;
   |  I follow them with feet astray,
   |  But in my heart I'll faithful be
   |      To Tenedos and Naxos!"
   |

"There seems to be a dryad or two left," said I,
looking up over my shoulder where I squatted by the
brookside, scrubbing my hands in the under-water
gravel.

"You mean me," she nodded absently, loosening
and freeing her leader and line.

"I sure do, Thusis."

"You're so funny," she said in the same tranquil,
detached voice, as though she were some young
chatelaine and I her gillie.

We went on to the next pool where the green
crystal water gushed in and spread out calmly
through the woodland, reflecting every fern and
tree.

The silken whistle of her cast made a pretty
whispering sound in the mossy silence, and I watched
her where she stood slim and straight as a silvery
sapling searching the far still reaches of the water
with the tiny tuft of tinseled feathers until the
surface of the placid pool was shattered into liquid
splinters by the splash of a trout, and her line
vibrated and hummed like a taut violin string.

Like lightning the convulsive battle was joined
there in the woodland depths and the girl, all fire
and grace, swayed like a willow under the furious
rhythmic rushes of the unseen fish.

Click-click went her reel, and the feathery whirr
of the line accented the silence.  Then that living
opalescent thing sprang quivering out of its
element, and fell back, conquered, in a shower of opal
rain.

.. vspace:: 2

Toward noon we came to a pool into which poured
the stream with a golden sound between two
boulders mantled thick with moss.  And here Thusis
seated herself and laid aside her rod.

"I am hungry," she said, looking over her shoulder
at me with the same aloof composure that all
the morning had reversed our rôles as master and maid.

But even as she spoke she seemed to realize the
actual situation: a delicate color came into her
cheeks and then she laughed.

"Isn't it funny?" she said, springing to her feet.
"Such presumption!  Pray condescend to unsling
the basket and I shall give Don Michael his lunch."

"Don Michael," said I, "will continue to do the
dirty work on this expedition.  Sit down, Thusis."

"Oh, I couldn't permit——"

"Oh, yes, you could.  You've been behaving like a
sporting duchess all this morning.  Continue in that
congenial rôle."

"What did you say?" she demanded, her gray eyes
frosty and intent on me.

"I said you've been behaving like a duchess."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's so."

She sat on her mossy throne, regarding me
intently and unsmilingly.

"Don't say that again,—please," she said, coldly.

"I was merely jesting."

"I know.  But please don't say it in that way.
Don't use that expression."

"Very well," said I, not relishing the snub.  And I
laid out the lunch in silence, during which operation
I could feel Thusis was watching my sulky features
with amusement.

To make sure I looked up at her when I had finished,
and caught the little devils laughing at me out
of both her eyes.

"Luncheon's ready," said I, infuriated by her
mockery.

"Monsieur is served," said Thusis, in a voice so
diabolically meek that I burst out laughing; and the
girl, as though flinging discretion to the summer
breezes, leaped to her feet with a gay little echo
of my laughter and dropped down on the moss beside
the woodland banquet.

"What do I care after all!" she said.  "From the
beginning I've been at no pains to deceive you.
So in the name of the old gods let us break bread
together."

She picked up a bit of bread, sprinkled a pinch of
salt on it, broke it, and offered me half with a
most adorable air.  And we ate together under the
inviolate roof of the high blue sky.

"Now," she said, "you'll never betray me."

"You knew that in the beginning."

"Did I?  I don't know.  I've been perfectly
careless concerning you, Don Michael."

"Was it from instinctive confidence, Thusis, or
out of disdain?"

The girl laughed, not looking up but continuing
to poke for olives with a fork too large for the neck
of the flask:

"Disdain you, Don Michael?  How could I?"

"I sometimes believe you do.  You behave very
often as though I were a detail of the surrounding
landscape and quite as negligible."

"But it's an attractive landscape and not negligible,"
she insisted, still poking for elusive olives.
"Your simile is at fault, Monsieur O'Ryan."

"Thusis," said I, gravely consuming a sandwich,
"you have made fun of me ever since I laid eyes on you."

"You began it."

"How?"

"You made fun of my red hair."

"It is beautiful hair."

"Indeed?"

"You know it.  You know perfectly well how
pretty you are."

"Señor!"

"In fact," said I, offering myself another sandwich,
"you are unusually ornamental.  I concede
it.  I even admit that you resemble *The Laughing Girl*."

"The cherished photograph on Monsieur's dresser!
Oh, that is too much flattery.  What would the
Admiral think to hear you say such things to your
housekeeper!  Don Michael, you are young and you
are headed for trouble.  I beg of you to remember
your ancestors."

"How about yours, Thusis?"

"Mine?  Oh, they were poor Venetians.  Probably
they ran gondolas for the public—the taxis of those
days, Don Michael—and lived on the tips they received."

"Thusis?"

"Monsieur?"

"I'd be grateful for a tip—if you don't mind."

"A tip?"

"Yes.  Just a little one."

The girl held out her glass and I filled it with
cool Moselle.

"You're such a nice boy," she said, and sipped her
wine, looking at me all the while.  She was so pretty
that it hurt.

"A tip," she repeated musingly.  "That is the
Anglo-Saxon slang for information.  Is it then that
you request information?"

"If you are willing."

"About what, pray?"

"About yourself, Thusis."

"That is unworthy curiosity."

"No, it isn't curiosity."

She elevated her delicate nose, very slightly.
"What, then, do you term it, Don Michael?"

"Sympathy."

"Oh la!  Sympathy?  Oh, I know *that* kind.  It
is born out of the idleness of speculation and
developed with an admixture of sentimental curiosity
always latent in men."

She laughed: "It's nothing but emotion, Monsieur.
Men call it budding friendship.  But men
really care for no women."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's true.  Men seek friendship among men.
Men like few or no women, but almost any female.
That is the real truth.  Why dodge it?"

"How old are you, Thusis?"

"Not old—as you mean it."

She had finished her luncheon, and now she leaned
over and bathed her lips and fingers in the icy
stream.  There, like some young woodland thing
out of the golden age of vanished gods she hovered,
playing at the glimmering water's edge, scooping up
handfuls of golden gravel from the bottom and
letting them slide back through her dripping fingers.

.. _`100`:

"I'll tell you this," she said, looking at the water:
"I don't like men.  I never did.  Any I might have
been inclined to like I had already been born to
hate....  You don't understand, do you?"

"No."

She smiled, sat erect, and dried her fingers on her
handkerchief.

"Be flattered," she said.  "No other man before
you has had even a glimpse of my real self.  And I
really don't know why I've given you that much.  I
ask myself.  I don't know....  But,"—and her
sweet, reckless laughter flashed—"the very devil
seemed to possess me when I first saw you, Don
Michael.  I was amazingly careless.  But you were
so funny!  I was indiscreet.  But you were so
solemn and so typically and guilelessly masculine."

"Was I?" said I, getting redder and redder.

"Oh, yes!" she cried, "and you are still!  You are
all man—the most comprehensive type of your sex—the
most logical, and the most delightfully
transparent!  Oh, you are funny, Don Michael.  You
don't know it; you don't suspect it; but you are!
And that is why I read you to the depths of your
nice boyish mind and heart, and felt that I need be
at no pains to play my little rôle with you."

"Then," said I, "if you consider me harmless, why
not trust me further?"

"I do trust you.  You know I'm not born a servant.
You know, also, that nevertheless I'm in service.
So is my sister.  So is my friend, Josephine
Vannis.  So is my friend, Raoul Despres.  Well,
then!  It seems to me that I have trusted you, and
that you know a great deal about us all."

"That is not very much to know," said I, so naïvely
that Thusis showered the woods with her delicious
laughter.

"Of course it isn't much, Don Michael.  But just
think how you can amuse yourself in dull moments
by trying to guess the rest!"

"I can't imagine," said I, "what your object may
be in taking service here in this little lonely valley
in the Swiss Alps.  If, as seems probable, you all
are agents of some power now at war—what on
earth is the use of coming here?"

Thusis smiled at me, then, resting on one arm,
leaned over the cloth on the moss and made me a
little signal to incline one ear toward her.  When I
did so she placed her lips close to my ear:

"You have promised always to treat us like your
servants in the presence of others.  Do you remember?"

I nodded.

"Then I ask no more of you than that, Don
Michael....  *Until your country enters the war*."

Her breath close to my ear—the girl's nearness,
and the sweet, fresh youth of her, all were doing the
business for me.

"Thusis?"

"Yes?"

"Lean nearer.  I want to whisper to you."

She inclined her dainty head: the fragrance of
her hair interfered with my articulation:

"My country," said I, "is not likely to go to war....
But I am."

She said, smilingly: "The fine army of Chile is
organized and disciplined on the German plan.
Doubtless this fact, and the influence of German
drill-masters, prejudices many Chileans in favor of
entering this war."

I placed my lips close to her little ear:

"Don't be silly," I whispered.

At that she straightened up with a breathless
little laugh and sat looking at me.

"You knew where I stood," said I.  "Why
practice deception?"

"Yes," said she, "you are practically Yankee."

"So is that Viking, Smith."

"I know.  And the Yankees are at war."

"They are, God bless them."

"God bless them," she said; and her face grew
very still and serious.

After a silence: "There is a common ground,"
she said, "on which we both may stand.  And that
is no-man's land.  To redeem it I am long since
enlisted in the crusade....  Your heart, Monsieur, is
enlisted too....  I knew that....  Else I had
never trusted you."

"How did you know?"

She shrugged: "Long ago we had all necessary
information concerning you and your Viking friend.
Yet for all that it was not prudent for me to so
carelessly reveal myself to you....  But when I
saw you—" she laughed mischievously—"as I have
admitted, already, you inspired me to indiscreet
behavior.  And I didn't resist—knowing you to be safe."

"Safe?"

"Certainly.  And so I permitted myself to relax—a
little."

"In the cellar?"

"Yes....  And I nearly paid for it, didn't I?"

"I ought to have kissed you," said I with sulky
conviction.

"Do you think so?"

"I'm sorry I didn't."

"I'm sorry, too."  She sprang to her feet,
laughing and scared: "Wait!  Listen.  I'm sorry only
because it was the only moment that ever could have
happened in my life when I might have submitted
to that simple and bourgeoise experience known as
being kissed.  Now it can never happen again, Don
Michael.  And I shall journey, unsaluted, to my
virgin tomb."

She lifted her gray eyes sparkling with malice:

"Because a young man was too timid to offer me
the curious and unique experience of being kissed,
I must expire, eventually, in total ignorance of that
interesting process."

Her face changed subtly as I started to my feet,
and something in the beautiful altered features
halted me.

After a moment's silence: "It's perfectly rotten
of me," she said slowly.  "But you, also, seem to
realize that it can't happen."

"You mean it can't happen without forfeiting
your friendship, Thusis?"

"Without incurring my hatred," she said in a
curiously still voice, her eyes as cold as grayest ice.
"Do it, if you like," she added.  "I deserve it.  But
I shall hate myself and detest you....  Is it worth
it?  Seriously, Mr. O'Ryan, is your revenge worth
my deepest enmity?"

I shrugged.  "Thusis," said I pleasantly, "you
take yourself very seriously.  Don't you?"

"Don't *you*!" she demanded, flushing.

"I'm sorry, but I really can't."  And I lighted a
cigarette and picked up my fishing-rod.

"You ask me," I continued, switching my flies out
over the water, "whether the possibly interesting
operation of kissing you would be worth your
cataclysmic resentment.  How can I guess?  It might
not even be worth the effort involved—on my part.
To be frank, Thusis, I'm not at all convinced that
you'd be worth kissing."

"Is that your opinion?" inquired the girl, nibbling
at her under lip and regarding me out of eyes that
darkled and sparkled with something or other I
could not quite define.

"That is my opinion," said I pleasantly.  "Besides,
I have a photograph on my dresser which if
chastely and respectfully saluted, would, no doubt,
prove quite as responsive to a casual caress as would
you.  And without any disagreeable results."

"Do you do *that*?" she asked, coloring brightly
to the temples, her teeth still busy with her lip.

"I don't always make a practice of doing it."

"Have you *ever* done it?"

"I haven't happened to."

"Do you intend to?"

"What's the matter with you, Thusis?" I retorted
impatiently.  "Does it concern you what I do to
that picture?"

"Yes, it does," she retorted, turning deeply pink.

"In what way?"

"You say the photograph of the Laughing Girl
resembles me.  And if you are under that impression
I do not wish you to take liberties with it.  You
have no right to—to kiss a picture because you
think it looks like—like somebody you don't dare
kiss!"

Her flushed audacity was irritating me.

"Don't dare kiss you?" I repeated, switching my
rod about in my increasing exasperation.  "You'd
better not repeat that, Thusis!"

Her flushed features quivered, then suddenly her
eyes were full of little devils all mocking me.

"I do repeat it," she said.  "You dare not!"

At the same instant my hook caught in a branch;
I gave it a furious jerk; crack!—my rod broke at
the second joint.  And the clear laughter of Thusis
rang out uncontrolled.

"Alas," said she, "this nice young man is violently
offended at something or other."

An unfeigned damn escaped me.

"Mea culpa!" she exclaimed, breathless with
laughter.  "Mea maxima culpa!  This exceedingly nice
young man is dreadfully offended."

Mad all through, I picked up the wreck of my rod
and stood silent, mechanically fitting together the
splintered ends of the second joint.  Presently I was
aware that she had come up behind me.

"I'm a beast," she said in a small, weak voice.

I said nothing.

"Are you *very* angry, Don Michael?"—sorrowful
but subtly persuasive.

"I've ruined this rod," said I.

"You may take mine," humbly sweet.

But I feared her gifts and her contrition.

A light breath—a ghost of a sigh escaped her.

"I'm such a beast," she said....  "But I've never
before taken the trouble to be beastly to a man—if
that flatters you at all, Don Michael."

"It does not," said I, coolly.

"It should," she retorted.

"Do you know what I think?" said I, turning,
after the manner of other worms.

"What?"

"I think you overestimate your own importance.
And that you'd be far more attractive if you were not
too bally busy thinking about yourself every minute."

"If that is your opinion," she said, "we had better
go home at once."

We went, in solemn silence.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE KNEES OF THE GODS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE KNEES OF THE GODS

.. vspace:: 2

The afternoon was growing very warm.  Smith
had stretched himself out on his bed to read
a novel and combat flies.  Occasionally he
called out to me demanding to know how soon we
were going to have tea by the fountain.

Which incessantly reiterated question put me
out of humor—for I was writing another poem—and
presently I got up, cursed him out, and slammed
the door.

Recently something—whatever it was—had driven
me pell-mell toward Parnassus.

As a matter of record, until I had purchased that
photograph of The Laughing Girl, I had never
before written a poem or attempted to write one, or
even considered such an enterprise.

Nor had I most remotely suspected myself capable
of producing poetry.  Neither had I, hitherto,
desired to so express my thoughts and private
emotions.  Of what serious people call the "Urge" I
had, hitherto, been ignorant.

But since the photograph of The Laughing Girl
had come into my possession, hidden springs totally
unsuspected had begun to gush and bubble somewhere
deep within me.  And, to my pleased astonishment,
I suddenly found myself not only endowed with
the desire but also with the ability to rhyme.

And now on this warm, quiet, flyful afternoon,
and still considerably upset over my morning on
the trout stream with Thusis, I found myself at my
table, abandoning myself to an orgy of self-expression
in verse.

Having slammed the door I now returned to my
poem; and first I carefully re-read as much of it
as I had accomplished:

   |  To THUSIS
   |
   |  I
   |
   |    Slender girl with eyes of gray—
   |  Charming mystery called Thusis—
   |    Teach me all your lore, I pray!—
   |  How your loveliness seduces—
   |  How each dimple has its uses
   |    Leading men like me astray!
   |
   |  II
   |
   |    You display in gay array
   |  Deadly charms, without excuses;
   |    Are they fashioned to betray
   |  Hearts unwary, naughty Thusis?
   |  Are your russet hairs but nooses
   |    To ensnare some soul distrait?
   |
   |  III
   |
   |    Love's a tyrant, sages say;
   |  What he chains he never looses,
   |    Making slaves of grave and gay,
   |  Dashing blades and gray recluses,
   |  Snaring with a thousand ruses
   |    One and all, alackaday!
   |
   |  ENVOI
   |
   |    Cupid's sway the very deuce is!
   |    His caprices and abuses
   |      All endure and all obey.
   |    Laugh away my pretty Thusis
   |      He'll get *you* some summer day!
   |

I re-read the Envoi with satisfaction born of the
pride of prophecy.  Also, no doubt, some slight
personal bitterness gave an agreeable tang to the
couplets.

"Clever,—very clever," said I, dotting a few i's
and crossing several t's.  And, feeling better, I laid
away the poem and began to walk up and down the
room exhilarated by my own genius.

"When a man," said I, "can turn out such verses"—I
snapped my fingers—"just like that!—he is in
little danger of any sentimental subjugation."

As I turned, my glance chanced to fall on The
Laughing Girl, and, for the first time, I thought I
noticed a faint and delicate malice in her laughing
eyes.

"Good heavens," said I to myself, "how vividly she
resembles Thusis!"

Oddly enough as I continued to walk to and fro
in my room I began to feel a trifle less gay, less
confident regarding my prophetic poem depicting the
sentimental fate of Thusis.

"She's really very lovely," thought I, "and
three-quarters devil.  She'll do mischief to man, yet.
Probably she's already done a good deal to some
poor young man....  Poor simpleton! ... Unhappy simp!"

I walked over and looked fixedly at The Laughing
Girl.

"Poor simp," I murmured mechanically, not meaning
anybody in particular.  But as I said it I lifted
my absent and troubled eyes, and beheld my own
reflection in the mirror.  It shocked me.  Never had
I believed myself capable of a simper.  And by
heaven I wore one now—a moon-eyed sentimental
simper upon my virgin features.

"Confound it!" said I furiously, "why should I
look like that?  What's the matter with my face?"

Very deep somewhere within me, in a still and
serene obscurity so far unagitated and un-plumbed,
something stirred.

"I—I'm not in d-danger of f-falling in love," said
I in a scared voice.  "Am I?"

Something was the matter with my heart.  It had
become irregular and seemed frightened.

"If for one moment I supposed," said I, "that I
were actually in the slightest danger of—of——"

I looked at the Laughing Girl; looked away.  And
went to a chair and sat down.

After a long interval I gave tongue to my inmost
convictions.  "It isn't done," said I.  "Fancy!  Ha-ha!"

But my laughter was a failure.

I looked up at the Admiral to steady myself.  I
had never before considered his features sardonic.
He seemed to grin.

"W-what the devil's the matter with everything
to-day!" I exclaimed, getting up and beginning to
pace the room.

But there was no use blustering.  I suspected what
the matter was.  I was falling in love with Thusis.

"Good Lord!" said I in unfeigned distress, "an
adventuress camouflaged as a servant!  Has an
O'Ryan come to this?"

Smith opened the door.  He was in his shirt
sleeves and had a pipe in one hand, a book in the
other.

"Whatthehellsthematter?" he asked.  "You're
thumping about in here like an epileptic cat."

I told him I was exercising.

"Well, you'd better exercise your legs down the
stairs," he remarked; "there's a wagonful of
tourists at the front door."

"The deuce there is!"

"Look out of the window and then get a wiggle on."

Sure enough!  From the window I beheld them.
They already were disembarking.

"Where's Thusis!" I exclaimed.  "This is the
limit.  It's—it's a confounded nuisance."

"Better go below, mine host," said Smith, resuming
his recumbent attitude on his bed and opening
his book.  He puffed at his pipe, swatted a fly with
a paper-knife, and looked at me.

"Mine host," he said, "you should greet your
guests on the doorstep wearing a napkin over one
arm."

I turned on my heel and went out, and met Thusis
in the hallway.

"What the dickens is all this?" I demanded.
"Have those tourists the impudence to come here
and ask for accommodations in my house?"

She seemed surprised and also I thought a trifle
excited.

"But, Monsieur, was it not understood?"

"Oh, yes, of course it was understood because the
idiotic Swiss law must be obeyed," said I, gnawing
my lip in vexation.  "What do they want—these
tourists?  Tea?"

"I think," said Thusis, "they intend to stay."

"Over-night?"

"Longer, Monsieur."

"Hang it all!" I blurted out.  "That spoils our
perfectly delightful privacy."

Thusis observed me sideways.  She wore the fine
chemisette of some sheer stuff and the velvet bodice
of the peasantry, both coquettish and cut low.  Her
straight short wool skirt and buckled slippers set
off the fascinating costume of the Canton; but no
peasant ever possessed such slender and thoroughbred
loveliness.

I glanced down at her slim feet, at her hands so
smooth and so prettily fashioned; I looked up into
her gray eyes uneasily.  And I thought to myself
that I'd show the door to any guest who tried any
nonsense with Thusis.

"Where are these tourists?" I asked sulkily.

"In the big lounging room."

As I started to descend the stairs Thusis touched
me on the arm.  A tiny and complex shock went
quite through me at the contact.

"Don Michael?"

"Yes."

"Are you still vexed at me?"

"No."

"Because—I *was* rude to you.  I did provoke you.
I did lay myself open to light treatment from you.
But—I do respect you, Don Michael."

"You are always laughing at me."

"I know.  It's my way—if I like a person....
I plague them a little....  *If* I like them."

"But you not only plague me, you ridicule me!"

"You don't understand.  You couldn't understand.
I myself don't understand why I laugh at
you and torment you....  Because I never before
did that to a man....  To my sister—to my girl
friends, yes.  But never before to any man."

She stood near me, smiling, watching my expression.

"I like you, Don Michael," she said.

"And I you, Thusis."

"I know it.  It won't do, either.  I mean that we
may laugh a little together, now and then.  But it
is safer not to think of each other as—as
socially—equal."

I said magnanimously: "I am beginning to think
of you in that way already."

"Are you really?"  Her smile flashed out,
mischievous, almost mocking.

"A servant?" she added.  "Possibly even an
adventuress?  An agent, anyway, in the service of
some government not yours?  You consider admitting
such a woman on terms of social equality?  Oh,
Don Michael!  If you like me as much as that you
must care a little more for me than mere liking."

"I do."

She began to laugh—a hushed, delicious sort of
laughter, checked suddenly by my quick flush.

"If I take the trouble to be serious with you," said
I, "as much is due me from you, I think."

It was, for me, utterly impossible to define the
series of complex expressions which succeeded one
another in her face.

She seemed inclined to laugh again but bit her
lip and looked at me out of brilliant eyes.  Mirth,
surprise, gay disdain, a fleeting uncertainty, a slight
blush,—then the familiar sweet mockery once
more—these I read and followed as I watched her.

"Such a strange young man," I heard her murmur
to herself.

"And such a strange girl, Thusis."

"I know.  And you and I have no business to play
together.  And we can't unless we're very, very
careful.  We ought not to.  You think so from your
standpoint, and I know it from mine.  And yet—if
you will be very, very careful—I'll risk it—a little
while longer....  Because I—I don't know why—I
like to laugh at you, Don Michael....  And I
laugh at those only whom I like."

"I think," said I, "that I'm rather near to falling
in love with you, Thusis."

"Oh!" she cried with her breathless, bewildering
smile, "I couldn't permit you to do that!"

"Permit me?"

"No.  You mustn't.  That would never do!  No—no
indeed!  Never!  Just find me gay and frivolous
and rather pretty in my way—just attractive
enough to remain good humored when I plague you."

"If I should fall in love with you I couldn't help it."

"But it would be such a mistake.  You mustn't do
it.  I don't wish to think about such things.  It
wouldn't do for me.  Or for you.  I mean as far as
I am concerned."

"You mean you could not respond, Thusis?"

"Oh, no, I couldn't."  In her hurried voice there
was a faint hint of alarm, I thought.

I was falling in love.  I knew it.

"Unless you take me lightly—unless you are willing
that we play together," she said, "I couldn't talk
to you, Don Michael.  I may not take you seriously;
nor you, me.  That is essential."

"I may not p-pay court to you, Thusis?"

"Oh, that?  Yes—in the nice way you have been
doing.  At least I thought you had been doing it,
haven't you?"

"Yes—not realizing it.  Yes—that's what I have
really been doing....  Am I not to make love to
you, Thusis?"

"W-what kind of love?"

"Honest, of course."

"D-demonstrative—love?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no!  No, not that sort.  No, please."  For
I had taken her smooth little hand in mine, and she
withdrew it swiftly.

"You know," she said, "your guests are waiting."

She laughed.  Then she came up to me slowly:

"Don Michael, do you really like me?"

"Yes."

"Then—will you do something for me?"

"Yes."

"It is this.  In the presence of these tourists
remember always that I am your servant and a Swiss
peasant.  Never by word or glance permit them to
believe otherwise.  Do you promise?"

"Yes."

She smiled, laid both her hands frankly in mine.

"I'm going to tell you something," she said.
"Your guests below are the ex-king Constantine
of Greece, his wife, the ex-queen; Ferdinand, King
of Bulgaria—or Tzar of all the Bulgars—as he
loves to call himself;—and their several assorted
shadows."

My eyes were widening at every word.

"Thusis," I said, "what nonsense are you talking?"

"Michael," she said, using my given name for the
first time without some absurd prefix, "I am telling
you the truth.  Those are the people who, dressed
like ordinary tourists, are now seated below drinking
coffee and cognac and eating nice little cakes
prepared by Josephine and served by my sister
Clelia."

"Do you mean to say that the ex-king and queen
of Greece, and King Ferdinand of Bulgaria are in
Switzerland incognito?" I demanded incredulously.

"They are,—that is, Ferdinand is here incognito
for the first time.  You know, of course, that
Constantine and his queen were living in Berne since the
Allies kicked them out of Greece?"

"I have heard so."

"Well, then, here they are, incognito, without
servants or any outward show, dressed like any
tourists, arriving in an ordinary wagon.  Yes, here
they are, evidently desiring to escape observation,
arm in arm with him of Bulgaria.  I thought I'd tell
you, Michael."

There was an odd little glint in her gray eyes; an
odd smile on her lips.

"What the devil are these birds doing here?" I
asked, astonished.

"These allies of Germany?"

"Yes," I said, disgusted; "what do you suppose
these fancy gentlemen are doing here in a little
obscure inn among the Alps while all the world which
they have helped to set on fire is in flames around
them?"

Her firm hands pressed mine, very slightly.

"Do you feel it so keenly, Michael?"

"Feel what?"

"That these kings below have helped set the world afire?"

"Certainly I do."

She stood looking at me, her hands still resting
in mine.

"And now," she mused, "the Americans are in it.
But you are not a Yankee....  Otherwise—"

"Otherwise what?"

"But you are a Chilean."

"I'm a human being, too.  What do you want me
to do, Thusis?"

"Permit me to assign them their rooms."

I said: "You are here to watch these kings.  You
knew they were coming.  You are here to watch
them in the interest of your government."

"Well, Michael?"

"Is it so?"

"Yes."

I looked at her in wonder, dismay, and deep concern.

This young girl—this fresh, sweet, laughing,
slender little thing a spy?  And yet I had vaguely
supposed her to be some sort of political agent
masquerading in my service for purposes occult.

But the sinister agent who lurks at the heels of
suspects—the shadow that haunts marked men—the
unseen, unheard presence that lingers by doors
ajar, by unlighted corridors, in the shade of
trees!—I had not thought of Thusis in such a way.

Something of this I think she read in my eyes
fixed on her, for she flushed slightly and made as
though to withdraw her hands.

But, still looking at her, I lifted her hands tightly
imprisoned between my own, and touched them
lightly with my lips.

"Oh," she said faintly, and I felt her sudden
impulsive clasp.

"You *are* fine, Michael," she whispered.  "I ask
nothing in the way of help, only that you give me
my chance in this affair."

"Take it," said I.  "There are those imbecile
kings!  Raise the devil with them if you like.  And
if you need help——"

"Michael!"

"—You know where to look for it," I ended.
"But for goodness' sake be careful, Thusis.  Not that
I care about myself.  The chances are that I'll enlist
anyway.  But they'd intern you here in Switzerland
if they catch you at anything militant.  And
that would worry me half to death."

"Would it?"

In her laughing voice there was the vaguest hint
of a softness I had never heard there.

"Yes, it would."  I drew her a little toward me,
but she turned grave, immediately, and we stood so
in silence while her gray eyes regarded me.

Then she gently disengaged herself.

"Be nice to me.  Michael, even when I don't deserve
it," she said; "even when"—she laughed almost
maliciously—"even when I seem to court destruction."

"Nevertheless," said I, reddening, "I shall pay
court to you."

"Please do."

"And make love to you, Thusis."

"That," she said, "is not even on the knees of
the gods: it is impossible."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`REX, REGIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   REX, REGIS——

.. vspace:: 2

As I descended the stairs to greet my
unbidden guests, through my noddle ran the
flippant old time sing-song of earliest
schooldays—"Rex, Regis, Regi, Regem, Rex, Rege"—an
ironic declension of the theoretical in contrast to
the actual which I could not very well decline.

Now, as I entered the long lounging room which
Smith and I had used as our living-room, I very
easily recognized God's anointed, thanks to Thusis.
Otherwise it never would have occurred to me that
what I now beheld was a bunch of kings in camouflage.

Constantine, the ex-King of Greece, sat near a
window drinking a pint of impossible Greek wine
and reading one of last month's New York
newspapers.  The ex-Queen of Greece stood with hands
linked behind her well-made back, looking out at
the mountains.  At another little table the Tzar
of all the Bulgars loomed up majestically.  He was
eating coffee-cakes and drinking coffee.  I could
hear him.

As I entered the room they all turned their heads
to look at me.  And I thought I had never gazed
upon anything more subtly disturbing than the
Hohenzollern visage of the ex-queen.  Indeed she
seemed to lack only the celebrated imperial
mustaches to duplicate the sullen physiognomy of her
brother, the Kaiser.  That family countenance of a
balky horse was unmistakable; so were the coarse
features of Constantine, with his face of a typical
non-commissioned officer.  But of all faces I had
ever gazed on the fat, cunning visage of the
Bulgarian Bourbon, Ferdinand, was the most false.  A
long thin nose split its fatness; under a pointed
beard a little cruel and greasy mouth hid close,
while two stealthy eyes of a wild thing watched over
this unpleasant and alarming combination.

Normally these people would not have noticed
me; but now, in their rôles of tourists, they
recollected themselves.

When I quietly introduced myself Constantine got
up, and I went over and welcomed him, bowed to
his wife, and, when Ferdinand, also, concluded to
get up, I greeted him with the same impeccable formality.

"So you are the fortunate Chilean gentleman who
has inherited this valuable property," said the
ex-queen, her hard Prussian eyes fixed intently upon me.

"Yes, madam, I am that unfortunate Mr. O'Ryan,"
said I smilingly.  "The duties of an
inn-keeper are not yet entirely familiar to me but I
trust that my servants can make you comfortable."

The queen remarked indifferently that if she were
not comfortable enough she'd let me know,—and
turned her back, paying me no further attention.
Doubtless her scrutiny of me had satisfied her.
Possibly the Chilean flag flying from the flag-pole in
front of the house also reassured her.  She gazed
out at the Bec de l'Empereur, named from the
august nose of her brother.  Constantine's flickering
glance rested on the rigid back of his spouse, shifted
toward me uncertainly, but always reverted to that
straight, stiff back as though in awe and unwilling
fascination.

I went over to the counter and picked up the guest
ledger: "May I trouble you to register in order
that I may fulfill my obligations toward the Swiss
police?" I said pleasantly.  For none of them had
so far offered me whatever noms-de-guerre had been
decided upon.

At this the queen turned and said something to
Constantine in a surly voice, and he got up with
alacrity and swaggered over to the desk.

"M. Constantine Xenos, wine merchant, Zurich,
and Madame Xenos," he wrote, his tongue in his
cheek.  His shifty eyes flickered toward King
Ferdinand who had again become rather noisy over
his coffee and cakes.  Then, apparently remembering
his instructions, he wrote:

"Monsieur Bugloss Itchenuff.  Investments and
business opportunities.  Zurich."

He handed me the pen with a flourish: "There
you are, Mr. O'Ryan," he said with a misleading
heartiness in his barrack-room voice contradicted
always by restless and furtive eyes and remarkable
royal fingers which were never still—twitching,
wandering, searching, unquiet fingers,—irresolute,
uncertain, timid, prying fingers not to be depended
upon in emergencies, never to be trusted, even in
their own pockets.

"Do you expect to remain over night, Monsieur
Xenos?" I inquired, glancing at the wet signatures
on the ledger, and blotting them.

"Oh, yes," he said.  "This inn looks like a damn
fine place to spend a few weeks in—doesn't it,
Sophy?" appealing to his wife in the loud, familiar,
bluff tone characteristic of him, and which seemed
to me neither genuine nor carelessly frank, but an
assumed manner covering something less confident
and good humored.

The Princess of Prussia, so abruptly addressed,
turned slowly from her contemplation of the Bec de
l'Empereur:

"We shall remain as long as it suits us," she said
coolly.  "And if our suites are ready——"

"Rooms," corrected the King in jocular protest.

"*Suites*," repeated his wife sharply.

Ferdinand, gobbling his slopping coffee, wiped his
wet beard:

"If there are any suites in your chalet," he said
to me, "I'll take one—that is, if it isn't too
expensive.  I can't afford anything very expensive, and
I'll trouble you to remember that."

He got up, continuing to wipe his greasy mouth
with the back of a fat, soft hand, and came toward
us,—a massive man, and bulkily impressive except
that his legs were too short for his heavy body,
which discrepancy gave to his gait a curious
duck-like waddle.

"I like plenty of privacy," he explained, "that's
what I like.  I want to see my rooms and I want
to know in advance exactly how much they are going
to cost me and what extras are not included in
the——"

"Oh, for God's sake don't begin that hard luck
history of yours," interjected Constantine in his
best barrack-room manner.  "Mr. O'Ryan is a
gentleman and he's not going to rob you, Buggy!"

It was instantly evident to me that the Tzar of
all the Bulgars did not like to be called Buggy,—the
familiar, affectionate and diminutive, no doubt,
for his first nom-de-guerre, which was Bugloss, and
was, in the Bulgarian language, pronounced Bew-gloss,
*not* Bugg-loss.

The Queen, paying no attention to her loud-mouthed
husband or to King Ferdinand, crossed the
room with a firm, quick step, and examined the
ledger and the indifferent penmanship of her royal
husband.  Then, to me:

"Be good enough to show me to my suite," she
said.  "My husband will occupy separate but
connecting apartments."

I banged on a large, brass bell.  The door opened.
Thusis appeared.

Her instant and abrupt appearance had an odd
effect upon these three people.  They all started
perceptibly.  The Tzar of all the Bulgars even
jumped.  Then he stared at her with the intentness
of a wild pig in the rutting season.  And King
Constantine also regarded her with a stealthy sort
of pleasure discreetly screened by a mask of bluff
and hearty indifference:

"Now, my good girl," he said loudly, "kindly
show us to our quarters and be quick about it.  And
maybe you'll find a pretty silver franc in your
apron pocket if you step lively!  Such things have
happened—haven't they, Sophy?"

Thusis curtsied, then I saw her beautiful gray
eyes lifted slowly and fix themselves upon the coldly
staring orbs of the Hohenzollern princess.

"Madame will graciously condescend to follow,"
she murmured.  "A thousand reverent excuses that
I precede the gracious lady.  But it is inevitable
when the humble guide the well born."

The Queen's hard, suspicious face never stirred
a muscle.  She leisurely inspected Thusis from head
to toe, from toe to head without approval and
without mercy.

"Are you the chamber maid?" she demanded coldly.

"My house-keeper and waitress, Madame," I
explained.  "Her name is Thusis."

The Queen stared intently at Thusis, then very
insolently at me:

"Your house-keeper?  Really," she said,—"your
*house-keeper*?  Fancy!  One might almost doubt
that such a very young girl could possess sufficient
domestic experience for such an important position."

I turned red; not Thusis, however; and either
the vulgar innuendo had left her quite unconscious,
or she coolly scorned the implication.  And she
merely smiled upon the Hohenzollern and awaited
her Prussian pleasure.

"Come on, Sophy," said King Constantine, with
a covert leer at Thusis's ankles.  And they all
started upstairs, King Ferdinand shuffling in the
rear with the peculiarly ponderous waddle which
characterizes the progress of an elephant's hind
quarters.

King Constantine halted on the stairs to turn
and call back to me in his noisy, unceremonious,
jovial way:

"Wait a bit, O'Ryan!  I forgot to say that we're
expecting some friends of ours.  So fix 'em up in
good shape when they——"

"Go on, Tino!" interrupted the queen impatiently.
"Don't you even know enough to keep on
going when you start?  And God knows," she added
in her disagreeable voice, "it's hard enough to start
you."

"All right, my dear," he exclaimed with his loud
forced laugh.  "I only wanted to rest Buggy's legs
a bit."

And the anointed of the Lord resumed their shuffling
progress upward at the heels of the swift, light
feet of Thusis.

As for me I went out to the court where their
luggage lay piled.  The wagon which had brought
them was gone, but Raoul stood there, his hat on
one side, hands on hips, chewing a wheat-straw and
gazing blandly at the pile of royal luggage.

"These," said I carelessly, "belong upstairs.
Thusis will tell you where to carry them, Raoul."

"Bien, Monsieur!"

We both looked gravely at the luggage, then my
glance rested on his pleasant, reckless face in which
I seemed to notice a gaiety more marked than usual.

For one moment, as he caught my eye, I thought
he was going to wink at me, but, even as his eyelid
quivered, he seemed to recollect himself.  And, with
an absolutely indescribable expression, he seized
upon the luggage, and, both arms full, strode toward
the back stairs.  And, far in the passageway, I
heard him singing under his breath:

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm,
   |  You have done a heap of harm——"

until Josephine Vannis came to the pantry door,
her superb arms all over flour, and said in French:
"Hush, Raoul, or I slay thee with my rolling-pin,
thou imbecile, curly, hot-head!"

"My Josephine adored," he retorted, "thou
slayest me hourly with thy Olympian beauty——"

"Be silent, addlepate, I implore thee!  Is the very
devil in thee, Raoul, to endanger everything with
thy empty-headed audacity?"

"Ruler of hearts," he rejoined, "remain tranquil.
*Nous les aurons!*"

I went upstairs, discovered Smith lying on his
bed and reading, and then and there told him
the whole story.  He did not appear to be very
much surprised over the royal identity of my
guests.

"That sort of king," he remarked, "is likely to
run about under foot.  You'll find them a
nuisance."  And he resumed his novel and his pipe.

I went downstairs again.  Raoul passed with
more luggage.

I stood motionless listening to the retreating
footsteps of Raoul through the stone passageway.  And,
as I lingered, intensely curious and beginning to
feel uneasy, Clelia came out of the kitchen looking
like some flushed, excited school-girl, her golden hair
in two braids, and her blue eyes very brilliant in the
bright sunshine.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CLELIA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \X


.. class:: center medium bold

   CLELIA

.. vspace:: 2

When Clelia saw me a startled expression
came into her face, instantly controlled
and concealed by the lovely smile so
characteristic of her and of Thusis.

"Something," said I, "smells very appetizing in
there."

"Tea-cakes," she nodded.  "Shall I bring you one
from the oven?"

"Bring one for yourself, too, Clelia."

At that she blushed, then with a pretty, abashed
smile, went into the pantry and immediately
reappeared with two delicious tea-cakes.

"We mustn't be caught here doing this," she
whispered, offering me one of the cakes.

"Who'd object?  Raoul?"

"Pouf!" she laughed.

"Who then?  Josephine?  Thusis?"

"Pouf!  Pouf!"

"Smith?"

She blushed a deep pink but shrugged her young
shoulders.

"Pouf!" she said calmly.

"Well then, who is there to object to our taking
tea together?"

"Your guests, Monsieur O'Ryan."

"My guests!" I mimicked her gaily: "Pouf! for
my guests, Clelia.  Do you think you could find
two glasses of fresh milk for yourself and for me?"

"With cream on it?" she inquired naïvely.

"Certainly."

She went back to the pantry.  I heard Josephine
demurring, then they both laughed, and Clelia
reappeared with the milk and two more fresh tea-cakes.

We seated ourselves on the stone milk-bench in
the cool, shadowy passageway.

"The way you behave with your servants," she
remarked, "seems almost scandalous, doesn't it?"

"Outrageous," said I.  "What does Josephine think?"

"Oh, you haven't attempted any familiarities with
her."

"No.  I'd as soon try to pick up Juno and
address that goddess as 'girlie.'"

We both laughed, sitting there side by side
absorbing milk and tea-cakes.

"Now," said I, "the illusion would be complete if
you wipe your mouth on your apron and I do a like
office for myself on my sleeve."

She looked up at me and did it.  So did I.

"What else?" she inquired.

"Now we'll kiss each other, Clelia, and then you'll
go back to your pots and pans and I'll go out and
hoe potatoes."

"Do you think you'd better kiss me?"

"Yes, I do," said I.

"I've never done it."

"What!" I laughed incredulously.

"Why no," she said, surprised.

"Is that true, Clelia?"

"Perfectly."

"And you're willing to begin on *me*?"

"Oh, pour ça—one must *begin*—if only to know
how when necessary."

"You think you ought to know how it's done?"
I inquired, controlling my gaiety with an effort.

"Well"—she hesitated with adorable indecision—"in
an emergency, perhaps, it might be as well that
I know how such things are accomplished."

"It's up to you, Clelia."

"Is it?"  She thought deeply for a moment.
Then: "It's going to be a shock to me, I suppose.
But I've made up my mind that it's likely to happen
to me some day.  And I think I'd better be
prepared....  Don't you?"

"Yes, I do." ...

"Besides, I never was afraid of you."

"Of course not.  Nobody is!" said I, laughing.

"Oh, yes, they are."

"Who?"

"Well, for one, my sister, Thusis, is."

"Thusis!  Afraid of *me*!" I exclaimed.

Clelia nodded: "She's afraid."

"Of me!" I repeated incredulously.

"Well, of herself, too."

"Why?"

"I couldn't tell you why.  You know Thusis and
I differ in some things.  Thusis has her own
ideas—about—the world in general.  And I'm afraid her
ideas are rather old fashioned, and that they are
going to make her unhappy."

"Can't you tell me what her ideas are?" I asked.

"No.  She may tell you if she chooses.  But it
isn't likely that she will.  Anyway they are not my
ideas.  My opinion is that the way to be happy is to
accept the world as it is, not as it was or should be."

"You are quite wonderful, Clelia."

"Oh, no, I'm not.  I'm just a human girl who
desires to be happy and who detests gloom of all
sorts—gloomy ideals, gloomy pride, gloomy conventions
that wrap their shrouds around the living and
stifle them in a winding sheet of tradition."

I was astonished to hear this girl so fluently
express herself.  In her soft, fresh, brilliant beauty
she seemed to have stepped but yesterday across the
frontiers of adolescence.

"So, if you kiss me," she said, "I don't think the
world is going to tumble to pieces.  Do you?"

"I do not."

"However," she added, "if Thusis felt the way I
do about the world, I wouldn't think of letting you
kiss me."

I didn't understand, and I said so.  But she
laughed and refused to explain.

"Life is short and full of sorrow," she said.
"And the world is full of war and we'll all get hurt,
sooner or later, I think.  What a pity!  Because
the world really is lovely.  And when one is young,
and just beginning to fall in love with life, one is
naturally inclined to taste what few delights are
offered between these storms of death—brief glimpses
of sunshine, Monsieur, that gleam for a few
moments between the thunderous clouds that darken
all the world....  So, if you choose to kiss me——"

We sat quite motionless and in silence for a while.
Then:

"How about Smith?" I asked tersely.

"Monsieur Smith?" she repeated, flushing.  "Why
do you ask?"

"I don't know....  I wondered—wondered——"

"*What?*"

"How he'd feel about my kissing you.  He might
not like it, you know."

"You mean to tell him!" she exclaimed in dismay.

"No, of course not!  But suppose he sauntered
around the corner—during the process——"

Clelia laughed: "It might do him infinite good,"
she said, "to see that *somebody* is willing to kiss
me——"

"What!"

"—Because *he* won't.  And he knows, I think,
that he could if he asked to."

"Good heavens!" I said, "I thought Smith had
become sentimental over you, Clelia!"

"He is a very gloomy young man," said the girl
with decision.

"But isn't he very evidently enamored of you?"

"He's too respectful."

I gasped.

"I can't goad him into human behavior," she
went on with lively displeasure.  "He must see that
I am quite willing to be friendly and light-hearted,—that
I am always ready to stop dusting and
sweeping and making beds to converse with him.
But all he does is to follow me about and remind
me of the solemnity of life, and tell me that he is
deeply concerned about my attitude toward the
world.  Fancy!  It is not very gay, you see, my
acquaintance with Monsieur Smith."

I was surprised.  What she said presented Smith
at a new angle.  I had supposed him an idle
philanderer.

"What worries him about you?" I demanded.

"He seems to think I'm an idiot.  I told him I
meant to take life gaily and happily when opportunity
offered, because I, probably, had only a very
short time to live.  I told him that I found the
world beautiful and that I had fallen ardently in
love with life.  I told him that I didn't want to die
without learning a little something about men, and
that my time was short, and I ought to neglect no
opportunity."

"What on earth did he say?"

"He became angry."

"Didn't he say anything?"

She blushed: "Oh, yes.  He said he wouldn't be
used in such a manner.  He said that he desired to
be taken seriously or not at all.  At which solemn
statement I laughed, naturally enough.  Then he
became furious, demanding to be informed whether
I had the soul of a soubrette or of a modest and
properly brought up young girl.

"And I replied that to be modest did not necessitate
deceit and hypocrisy; that I had told him
the truth; that I loved life, adored happiness, was
enamored of the world, knew nothing of men but
wished to: imagined nothing more delightful than
to be made love to, intended to take advantage of
the first opportunity that offered."

"W-what did he say to that, Clelia?" I faltered,
utterly bewildered.

"A lot of nonsense.  He tried to make me believe
that love is a tragic and solemn business—as though
I were not fed up on the solemn and tragic!

"He said I was a fool and didn't know what I was
talking about.  He said, in substance, that the
subject of love was one to be approached on tip-toe,
with awe, formality, prayer, and fasting.  He said
that such a man as he could love only an ideal, not a
human and happy thing in love with life and willing
to prove it with the first young man that passes.
He said that I alarmed and grieved him; that I am
unmoral; that my impulses are purely pagan; that
the formalism of civilization alone can sanction any
impulse attraction between his sex and mine."

"What did you say?" I asked, feebly.

"I said, 'Pouf!'  And I meant it."

Her color was high and her eyes very bright.

"I did like him.  He was the first man I had ever
had a decent chance to talk to alone,—I mean the
first young man of education.  And, knowing I
hadn't much time, I was quite willing to play at
being in love with him.  I told him so."

"Maybe," said I, in a weak voice, "he wanted to
do more than merely play at being in love."

"But my time is too short," she explained.  "I
haven't time to fall in love.  Why doesn't he take
what there is to take?"

"Your time is short—what do you mean, Clelia?"

"It is."

"Are you—ill?"

"No," she said impatiently, "I'm in perfect health."

"Then—what makes you suppose you're going to
die soon?"

"I can't tell you.  Of course I may not die very
soon.  But it's likely I shall....  And if I do I
hope it will teach Mr. Smith a good lesson!"

"W-what lesson?"

"To take what offers and thank the gods!"

She looked up at me and laughed: "You'd better
kiss me," she said: "you'll never have a chance with
Thusis."

I blushed violently.

"Did you think I desired to k-kiss Thusis?"

"I think you are a little in love with Thusis."

"I am."

"How wonderful!  And don't you desire to kiss her?"

I was silent.

"Because," said Clelia, laughing, "I think she'd
like to have you do it.  She'd slay me if she heard
me.  And she'd slay herself before she'd ever let
you....  And yet—it *is* odd!—I'm willing to learn
how it feels to be kissed, but I am not in love; and
Thusis likes you and won't admit it:—you've turned
my sister's head and she's horribly afraid of you;
and never, never will she let you kiss her.  And there
you are!"

After a long silence she looked up at me shyly:

"Shall we?" she asked naïvely.

"I could show you how it's done," said I.

And then, just at the moment when the deed was
about to be accomplished, a shadow fell across the
floor.  I looked up.  Thusis stood there.

Her beautiful face flamed as she met our eyes.

Clelia stood up with a light laugh.  "My first
lesson!" she exclaimed, "and already ended before
I learned a word of it!  Take your young man,
sister!  He's quite as disappointing as his solemn
friend!"

And she went into the pantry taking with her
our empty glasses.

"So *that* is the sort of man you are," said Thusis
calmly.

The utter hopelessness of the situation turned
me flippant.

"Yes," said I, "I am a very dangerous, unprincipled
man.  I'm thoroughly and hopelessly bad,
Thusis.  What do you think about me now?"

"What I have always thought about your
class,—nothing!" she said in an even, smiling voice.

"Class!" I repeated, perplexed by the word, and
the faint contempt in her voice.

"Exactly.  That is most accurately what I mean—your
class in the social scale, Mr. O'Ryan.  And
you live—down to it."

"Will you explain," said I, amazed and angry,
"what you mean to infer?"

"I don't infer.  I am direct and implicit.  You
behave as might be expected.  Quality demands
certain things of itself.  Of you, Mr. O'Ryan, nothing
is demanded.  And nothing involving quality is
expected....  And I have been a great fool," she
added quietly.  And walked out the way she
entered, leaving me perplexed and thoroughly enraged.

And I would not have it left in any such way; and
sprang up and overtook Thusis as she entered the
empty living-room.

"What I want to know," said I, "is what you
mean by implying that any social inequality exists
between you and me?"

"Between you and your servant?" she inquired
mockingly.  And tried to pass me.

"You didn't mean that!  You meant something
entirely different.  Who are you, Thusis?  And I
don't care a sou who you are,—*what* you are!
I am in love with you——"

"—And with my sister?"

"I'm in love with *you*!  You know it!"

"I do *not*!"

"You *do* know it!  And it disturbs you——"

My voice shook.

"It leaves me utterly indifferent," she said
disdainfully; but her gray eyes were lifted slowly
to mine and the color came into her beautiful face.

"What sort of man are you!" she demanded.
"You see how young my sister is—how silly and
inexperienced!  And yet——"

"I'd as soon kiss a healthy kitten," said I.  "She's
attractive because she is your sister.  Anyway
Smith is in love with her——"

"I won't permit it!" cried Thusis.  "I'll not
tolerate such a thing!"

She clenched her hands; there was a glint of
something in her eyes—but if it came from angry tears
they dried before I was sure.

"I've brought this on myself," she said.  "I laid
myself open to it—invited familiarity and
disrespect from you!  The very devil must have been in
me to so utterly forget myself!  Now I've got to
pay for it—pay for it in bitter humiliation—witness
such a scene as I have just witnessed—and then
stand here and hear you tell me that—that you are
in love with me!—endure what you say——"

Suddenly it became clear to me what Clelia had
meant when she said that Thusis was afraid of me.

"Thusis," said I, "you won't have to listen to
any more of that from me.  I shall not tell you
again that I care for you.  And anyway, in a little
while it will no longer be true.  Because I shall get
over it."

She looked up.

"And I want you to know that I am not angry.
And even if I were I want you to understand that
you need not be afraid of my resentment."

"I am not!" she flashed out.

"You are!  You are afraid that I might be the
sort of creature to revenge wounded amour propre
by proving faithless to the confidence you gave me.
Don't worry," I added angrily, "because I'd cut
my tongue out or face a firing squad before I'd utter
one word to anybody concerning what you told me
about your mission here."

There was a silence.  Then Thusis' smile came
back, a trifle tremulously:

"You silly boy!" she said.  "Did you think I was
afraid of *that*!"

"You say that, in my case, noblesse oblige means
nothing to me."

She blushed scarlet: "I was angry—hurt.  I did
not mean that."

"You meant it."

"I did *not*!  I tried to believe I meant it.  I knew
it wasn't true.  I knew it would anger you; that is
why I said it."

"Then why are you afraid of me?"

"I?"

"Yes, you, Thusis."

"I am not.  I am afraid of nobody....  Except ... myself."

She looked up at me again, flushed, lovely, and
her gray eyes seemed distressed.

"It's just myself, Don Michael," she said with a
forced smile.  "I seem changed, different,—and it
alarms me—scares me—to find myself capable of
behaving so—so imprudently—with you."

"Thusis!"

But she had passed me in a flash and I heard her
light feet flying up the stairs.  I followed.  She was
at the top of the staircase, but heard me and turned
on the landing to look down.

"My behavior with you mortifies me!" she repeated
in a hurried whisper.  "Why do you follow
me, Michael?"

"Do you have to ask me, Thusis?"

"You mustn't ever again pursue me," she
repeated in a low, breathless voice.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because—possibly I couldn't run as fast as you
can.  Do you think I would endure it to be
overtaken?  Do you suppose I could tolerate being run
down and caught?  By *you*?  Can't you comprehend
that such a thing is unthinkable?"

Again that slightest hint of contempt in her voice,
not entirely recognized yet vaguely divined.

I said slowly: "If I really understand, Thusis,
then you need not worry.  Because I shall never
again take a single step in the world to follow you."

She seemed to consider this very deeply, standing
on the landing and looking down at me out of her
beautiful and serious eyes.

"Suppose," she said, "that you do follow me—not
very fast—just saunter along—so that I need
not run?"

She did not smile; neither did I.

"Would that be agreeable to you, Michael?"

"Would it be agreeable to you, Thusis?"

"Yes, it would....  *Please* don't come upstairs!
Does it give you any pleasure to scare me and see
me run?"

I had one foot on the stairs; and let it remain
there.

"When I say saunter, I mean it, Michael.  Just
stroll around—in my vicinity—describing a few
leisurely circles—so that I'll not notice your
approach.  Couldn't you do that—and keep within
sight?"

"I'll try."

Suddenly her eyes grew brilliant and she
smothered a laugh with her hands.  Then, as both
palms clung flat to her laughing lips she deliberately
kissed them and, with a pretty gesture, threw
the reckless salute at me.

"Your humble servant, Don Michael!" she whispered,
"your housekeeper salutes you—and runs!"

Which she did, vanishing like a flash of sunlight
in the dusky corridor.

I dropped one hand on the newel-post quite
unbalanced by a complexity of emotions which no
experience in life had so far taught me to analyze and
catalogue.

"It's probably love," said I to myself, calmly
enough.  "And what the devil am I to do about it?"

There was no answer.  Reason, instinct, emotion,
appeared to be paralyzed.

So I climbed the stairs in a blind, mechanical sort
of way, and went into Smith's room.

"Were you ever in love?" I asked wearily.

He laid aside his novel, unhooked the pipe from
his mouth, and considered me very gravely.

"Yes," he said, "I've been in love."

"What did you do about it?"

"The wrong thing, I fancy."

"What was that, Smith?"

"I took the matter too seriously."

"Shouldn't one?"

"Never!"

I nodded, blankly.

"To be too seriously in love, and to show it," said
Smith, "is disastrous to a man.  It won't do,
Michael.  Unless our sex takes it gayly and good
humoredly we're patronized.  Take it from me, the
solemn side, the fasting and prayer, must originate
in the other sex.  It never does if we betray such
symptoms.  They always wait to see whether we'll
break out.  And when we do they treat us as though
we were sick—kindly but condescendingly.  You get me?"

"Vaguely."

"All right.  But here's the other aspect: when we
fall in love, and say so, and then take the object
of our vows gayly, amiably, and with perfect good
humor always—no matter how inwardly we doubt
and fear and rage—*then*, Michael, the girl we
worship becomes very, very serious—even ponderous at
times—and if she's got any brain at all it gets busy
and remains busy.  And what preoccupies her mind
are questions concerning whether or not you really
do love her seriously enough; and, if not, whether
she can make you do it, which state of intellect
causes perpetual anxiety and chronic uncertainty.
And only when these emotions perpetually preoccupy
a girl, can she finally fall in love with you
sufficiently to forget what an ass you really are."

"Smith," said I, "are you in love with Clelia?"

"Yes, damn it," he said serenely.

"Then why don't you practice your theory on her?"

"My theory," he replied, "is the result of my
experience with Clelia.  That is how I came to
evolve it.  I believe in it, too.  But it's too late to
try on Clelia.  Because already she has my number,
Michael, and she knows me for a solemn, single-minded,
and serious ass, very, very deeply in love
with her.  She's on to me, Michael."

I remembered my episode with Clelia and considered
it for a while in silence.  It was apparent to
me that the girl's affections were completely and
healthily disengaged.  Her desire for happiness, her
almost pagan love of gayety, her sheer delight in the
mere joy of living, were not unmoral.  And if, in
her pursuit of pleasure there seemed something
feverish, reckless, that was explained by her odd idea
that she had but a little while to live.

"No use to argue, explain, reason, or preach to
that girl," said I.  "The thing to do is to give her
a jolt."

"A jolt?" he repeated.  "There's nothing left for
me to say or do that could disconcert that girl.
She knows I'm in love with her; she knows that I
have lived a morally decent life, that my high ideals
concerning women have never been lowered, that, to
me, love is a sacred——"

"You tried to kiss her sister."

"That," he said, reddening painfully, "was my
only lapse from the rigid conservatism of a
life-time.  And doubtless I am now suffering from that
moment of relaxation into folly——"

"Doubtless you are not!" I returned.  "I am certain
that Thusis never mentioned it to Clelia.  And
I'm sorry she didn't because it might have furnished
the required jolt."

Smith became gloomily interested.

"A jolt," I repeated, "is what starts things.
Clelia requires one.  All you need is nerve to
administer it."

"How?"

"Why not frivol with Josephine?"

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed.  "A man can't get
gay with a girl like that!  You might as well try
to two-step with the Statue of Liberty!  You might
as well play the Doxology on a jazz band!  You
might as well give a burnt-cork show on the
Acropolis!  You might as——"

"Calm your alarm," said I.  "That girl, Josephine
Vannis, is rather an overwhelming beauty, I
admit.  But it's just those big, handsome, impressive,
monumentally magnificent girls who fall for
some little squirt——"

"Who the devil do you mean!" he demanded, hotly.

"I don't mean you.  But you are shorter than she
is; you don't weigh as much.  Get a move on you!
Inject pep into yourself.  Become witty, gay,
degagé, inconsequential, brilliant, light-hearted,
bristling with quips and epigrams——"

"Who?  I?"

"Certainly.  Pull yourself up short.  Eliminate
every moral instinct.  Drink more Moselle than you
ought to.  Hook arms with that brace of kings
down stairs and pull your hat over one eye!  Then,
after you've been the life of the dinner-party, drop
into the kitchen and bestow a few repartees on
Josephine.  And if Clelia isn't shocked I'm a boche!"

"I can't do all those things," he said uneasily.

"You can try."

So I left him a prey to conflicting emotions, and
entered my own room and sat down on the bed.

"I'm in love," said I to myself, "deeply,
inextricably in love!  And what on earth am I to do
about it!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PYJAMA PARTY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   A PYJAMA PARTY

.. vspace:: 2

About midnight I was awakened from
agreeable slumber by somebody knocking at my
bedroom door.  I leaned out of bed,
switched on the electric light, got up and opened
the door.

King Ferdinand stood there in night-shirt and
bare feet holding a candle that shook like an aspen
leaf in the darkness.

"Somebody's been trying to open my d-door," he
stammered.  "I want you to come in and help me
l-look under the b-bed.  Not that I'm n-nervous
or af-f-fraid, b-b-but I d-d-don't want to be
d-disturbed."

"You say you heard somebody trying your door?"

"Yes, I did.  I never sleep well and when I sleep
at all I sleep lightly.  I heard it p-p-plainly, I tell
you."

I smiled.  "It's a windy night," said I.  "Doors
and windows rattle."

"Yes, but the wind can't turn the knob on your
door!" he insisted, his eyes of a wild pig roving
nervously about my room.  "I don't like such
things, and I want you to come and look under my
bed."

"Very well," said I, "let us go and look under
your bed, Monsieur Itchenuff."

The Tzar of all the Bulgars was not an agreeable
spectacle in his night-shirt and enormous bare feet.
His visage was pasty, his eyes had a frightened,
stealthy restlessness like a wild thing's that hears
and scents an enemy but has not yet perceived him.

So wabbly was the lighted candle in his large fat
hand, that I was afraid he'd set fire to his
night-shirt, and relieved him of it.

"We have our own dynamo here," said I.  "Why
didn't you turn on the electric light by your bed?"

"It wouldn't work," he replied.  "Do you suppose
somebody has c-c-cut the wire?"

"Who?"

"God knows!  Everybody has enemies, I suppose.
You wouldn't believe it, Monsieur, if you
knew me well, but even I am affected by enemies."

"Impossible!" said I, looking at him askance as
he waddled along bare-footed beside me.

"Nevertheless, I assure you," he complained in
a voice unctuous with virtuous self-pity, "I, who
have never harmed a fly, Monsieur, have secret
enemies who would d-destroy me."

Again I glanced sideways at this Bulgarian
assassin—the murderer of Stambouleff, and of God
knows how many others.

We came to the door of his dark bedroom and
I went in with the lighted candle.  First I
examined the electric fixture.

"Nobody's cut your wire," said I.  "The globe's
burnt out."

"Does that seem at all suspicious to you?" he
asked in an agitated voice, coming up behind me.

I smiled.  "That happens daily as you must
know."  I got down on my knees and peered under
his bed.  Of course there was nobody there.  Nevertheless
he got down on all fours and took the candle
to examine every corner.  Then, puffing, he reared
up, shuffled to his flat, splay feet, and went about
peeping into closets, behind curtains and sofas,
moving from room to room in his suite with a stealthy
flapping of his bare feet on the parquet.

Meanwhile I went around trying the several electric
switches.  It *was* odd that all the globes should
have been burnt out at once.  Evidently some fuse
in the cellar had blown out.

There was another candle on his dresser.  I
lighted it.  And, as it flickered into yellow flame,
something on the floor of the dressing-room beyond
caught the light and sparkled.  And I went forward
on tip-toe and picked it up.

The Tzar of all the Bulgars was busy searching
the sitting-room.  Now, satisfied that there was no
intruder concealed about the apartment, he waddled
massively back to where I stood.

"All the same," he said, "I heard the knob of my
door squeak."

"There are no robbers in this region," said I with
a shrug.

"Monsieur O'Ryan," he said solemnly, "you may
not know it but I am a very important personage—person,
I mean—that is," he explained hastily,
"I am important in a business sense.  And I have
many envious business rivals who would not
hesitate to follow me secretly from Berne and attempt
to possess themselves of any—papers I might carry—in
hopes of obtaining business secrets."

I said nothing.  He stood on one leg, rubbing one
shin with his large, fat toes, and his little mean
eyes roaming everywhere.

"You should have brought a servant or two," I
suggested.

"No, no, not this time," he said hurriedly.  "No,
this is just an—an informal little p-pleasure trip
with friends—the Xenoses—quite—er—al fresco—sans
façon, you see.  No, I didn't want servants
about."  He shot a cunning glance at me and
checked himself.

So I shrugged, showed him how to double-lock all
his doors, bade him good night, and went back to
my own room, trying the corridor lights on my way.
None of them worked.

"There's no fuse blown out," thought I to myself,
staring at my own bedroom light which burned
brightly and which was controlled by the same
switch.

Then, locking my door, I took out of my pocket
the small bright object which I had picked up in
Tzar Ferdinand's dressing-room.

It was a silver filigree button from the peasant
costume of Thusis.

Of course she had probably lost it sometime
during the day when airing the suite.  Untidy little
Thusis!

I dropped onto my bed still holding the silver
button in my closed hand.  Presently I touched it,
discreetly, with my lips.  And fell asleep after a
while—to dream that the Bulgarian and the Hohenzollern
had cut off my hands at the wrists and were
nailing them to my front door, as happened, I
believe, to Major Panitza.

About three o'clock I awoke in pitch darkness,
all quivering from my dream, and heard the wind
in the fir-trees and the slam of a heavy shutter.

For a while I lay there hoping the shutter would
stop banging.  But it did not.  Then I tried to
locate it by the sound.  And after a while I decided
that it must be some shutter on one of the windows
overhead.

The servants' quarters were there.  I didn't exactly
like to go up and hunt about.  But the racket
was becoming unbearable; so I rose again, got
into slippers, trousers and dressing gown, and went
out along the corridor.  It was pitch dark, but I
decided not to go back and hunt up a candle
because I could follow the strip of carpet and feel
my way to the service stairs.

And I was doing this in a blind, cautious way,
and was just turning the corridor corner with
groping arms outstretched, when, with a soft and
perfectly silent shock, somebody walked into them.

Such a thing is sufficient to paralyze anybody.
My heart missed like a flivver out of gear, then that
engine started racing, and my arms mechanically
and convulsively closed around that unseen thing
that had collided with me.

"W-who the devil is it!" I said shakily, as a
shocked gasp escaped it and the thing almost
collapsed in my terrified embrace.

Then, as I spoke, my half-stunned wits awoke;
a faint fragrance grew on my senses; the yielding
ghost in my arms came to warm life, and two hands
clutched at my imprisoning arms.

"Michael!" she panted.

"Great heavens!  Thusis!" I faltered.

Freed, she leaned against the corridor wall for
a few moments in palpitating silence.  I also needed
that interval to recover.

"What on earth is the matter, Thusis?" I managed
to whisper at last.

"N-nothing.  There was a shutter blowing——"

"But it's on the floor above!  It's on your floor,
Thusis."

She was silent for a moment, then: "What are
you doing—prowling about the house at this hour?"
she demanded.

"In my case," said I, "it *was* the shutter."

"Very well.  I'll go up and fix it, and you may
go back to bed."

But I had begun to feel a little troubled, and I
made no motion to depart.

"I'll fix it," she repeated.  "Good night."

"Thusis?"

"What?"  In her voice I distinguished the slightest
tone of impatience, perhaps of defiance.  "What
is it?" she repeated.

"Tell me the truth.  What are you really about
in this corridor at three in the morning?"

"I've told you."

"No, you haven't, Thusis."

After a silence I could hear her laughing under
her breath.

"Mind your own business, Michael," she whispered;
"I'm not going to confide in you."

"I want to know what brought you here," said I.

"What if you do wish to know?  I am not obliged
to inform you, am I?"

I heard her retreating, and I followed to the service
stairs.  Here a dim light came through a high
window faintly silvering the stairs; and I saw the
phantom figure of Thusis standing where she had
suddenly arrested her steps on the stair-case,
half-seeing, half-divining, my pursuit.

"Is that you, Michael?"

"Yes."

"Why do you follow me?"

"I want to talk to you."

"What nonsense!  At three in the morning?
Also I am not in conventional attire."

"I'm not, either," said I, "but we'll waive ceremony."

"No, we won't!"

"Yes, we will——"

"No!"

"Why?"

"I've told you why.  Do you suppose I wish
Clelia or Josephine to find me sitting on the stairs
with you under such circumstances?"

She seated herself on the stairs as she spoke and
I came up and leaned on the newel-post.

"I'm a perfect fool," she said.  But she looked
like an angel there in the vague light of the windy
sky, her splendid hair about her face and shoulders,
and her little naked feet drawn close under the hem
of her silvery chamber-robe which she was belting
in with rapid fingers.

"Well?" she said, looking up at me.

"I found something which belongs to you," said
I, quietly.

"What is it?"

"A silver filigree button."

"Oh.  Where did you find it, Michael?"

"In the dressing-room of King Ferdinand."

There was a pause—a second's hesitation.
"Well," she said, smiling, "you've a clean mind,
Michael.  Also you have a sense of humor.  What
do you infer from your very immoral discovery?"

"You might have lost the button this afternoon
while airing his apartment."

"Thank you," she whispered laughingly.

"Or," said I, "you may not have dropped it then."

"What do you mean?" she said bluntly.

"Thusis," said I, "what do you mean by wearing
a pistol under your chamber-robe?"

After a long silence she looked up at me.

"A guess?"

"No.  I felt it when you ran into me in the dark."

She hesitated, then:

"If I should say that I am timid you wouldn't
believe me.  Would you, Michael?"

"No."

"Then—what do you wish me to tell you?"

"Tell me, for example, why no lights work in King
Ferdinand's suite."

Again there was an interval during which I rather
felt than saw her gray eyes fixed intently on my
shadowy face.  Then:

"Has a fuse blown out?"

"No, Thusis."

"Then no doubt the globes are burnt out."

"Do you think it likely that they all burnt out
at the same time?"

"It is possible, isn't it?"

I did not reply.

She waited, then asked me in a mocking voice
whether there was anything further that worried me.

"I was merely wondering," said I, "who it was
that awoke King Ferdinand to-night by trying the
knob on his bedroom door."

"Michael!"

"Well?"

"Do you mean to be insulting?"

I went over to her and coolly seated myself on
the stair upon which her feet rested.

"Thusis," said I, "I'm just worried about you.
That's all."

"Will you give me a single sensible reason,
Michael, why you should be worried about me?"

"Yes.  That fat Bulgarian keeps two big automatic
guns under his pillow.  And he's a physical
poltroon.  And you can never tell what a coward
may do in a panic."

Her eyes were fastened on me all the while I was
speaking but her expression remained inscrutable.

As I ended, however, it changed subtly.

"And—*that* is what worries you," she said in an
altered voice,—a voice so winningly sweet that I
scarcely recognized it for the gay, engaging,
bantering voice I knew so well.

Then Thusis rose, and I stood up on the step
below her.

"You funny boy," she said, "you mustn't worry
about me."

"Does it surprise you?"

She laughed under her breath.

"Nothing surprises me any more, Michael.  I am
past being astonished at anything—at my own
behavior, at yours.  You wouldn't understand me if
I say that, ordinarily, this rather improper costume
of mine wouldn't embarrass me."

"You mean," said I, "that the social difference
between us leaves you indifferent to me as a man?"

She bit her lip, looked at me with a flushed,
distressed little smile.

"Yes, I meant that."

I nodded: "The indifference of a bathing princess
to the slaves who stand beside her litter."

"It was—that way with me—once," she said,
wincing, but still smiling through the color that
surged in her face.  "You would wish me to be
honest with you, wouldn't you, Michael?"

"Certainly.  And tell me, Thusis, who are you
who condescend to converse with a plain republican?
And what democratic whim has possessed you to so
unbend?"

"Michael!"

"Yes?"

"You are mocking me!"

"But at least," said I, "you are a princess in
camouflage—I don't mean a Russian one——"

She turned scarlet with anger and I saw her teeth
busy at her under lip again.

"Piffle," said I.  "You take yourself too
seriously, Thusis.  Whatever else you are you're the
young girl with whom I'm in love—deeply in love.
And I'm going to tell you so, and love you with all
my might, and worry over you, and pursue you with
advice and devotion until you make yourself too
impossible."

"And—then?" she demanded in a voice strangled
with rage.

"Then," said I, "if you really prove to be too
idiotic and impossible, I shall stroll on until I
encounter the next."

"Next—what?"  The fury in her voice scared me,
but I pulled myself together.

"Next girl," said I flippantly.  "You know,
Thusis, there *are* others."

She stood like a statue for a moment.  Then:

"This," she whispered, "is what I ought to have
expected for lowering myself! ... I invited
it—this affront——"

"Piffle," said I, "you know in your heart I'd
sooner blow my bally brains out than affront you.
Why say such things?  Why pretend to yourself?
You know well enough that I'm so head over heels
in love with you that I don't know what I say——"

"*I* do!" she retorted in a white heat.  "And I've
got to listen to it—I'm obliged to listen to—to an
insolent inferior——"

"I'm not your inferior."

"You are!"

"Why, you silly, unhappy little thing," said I,
"what if you are some funny sort of princess—some
pretty highness of the Balkans?  Literature is full
of them, and if you'd read a little fiction you'd learn
that they all marry ordinary, untitled young men
like me."

"Must I listen to such outrageous insults?" she
demanded, standing up very straight and slender
in her offended pride, and forgetting that her bare
feet under her nightie became the more visible the
straighter she drew herself—lovely, snowy little
naked feet as slim and delicate as the pedal
extremities of a perfectly moral and early Victorian
Bacchante.

"Am I to stand here and endure this insolence
from you?" she repeated, her gray eyes ablaze.

"Not at all," said I.  "You can always go
upstairs to bed, Thusis."

Angry tears glittered in her eyes, not quenching
their dangerous brightness, however.  But I was
now as mad as she was.

"Do you suppose," said I, "that this world war,
this overwhelming disaster that is razing hill and
city to one horrible and bloody level—this cataclysm
which is obliterating the very contours of the world
God made—is not also going to level such flimsy
structures as the social structure?—such artificial
protuberances as elevation of rank?  I tell you,
Thusis, that mankind will emerge naked and equal
from this blood-deluge.  You and I, too, are going
to come out of it—if we do come out—not what our
ancestors thought they were, but what we actually
are!  Very possibly, in generations gone with
buried years, some doddering potentate may have
managed to beget some ancestor of yours.

"What of it?  Who cares to-day?—outside of
the Huns and their barbarian allies?  Who cares
what you call yourself, I say?  Who in God's name
will care to-morrow?  Do you imagine that the
peoples who, like Christ, have descended into hell, can
come out of those flames without the tinsel of rank
being burned off?  Do you suppose anything can
remain except pure metal?"

I had let myself loose; and I fairly took away
her breath.

She put out one hand and rested it on the
bannisters in a dazed sort of way, still looking at me
with a kind of fixed fascination.

"Have you any answer to what I have said?" I
added after the silence had been sufficiently
impressive.

She said faintly: "How about the Admiral, Don
Michael?"  And, as I choked and turned crimson,
the girl turned, dropped onto the stairs, and rocked
there convulsively, stifling her helpless, hysterical
laughter with both hands over her lips.

I waited, hot with exasperation.  There was nothing
else for me to do.

Thusis struggled fiercely with her uncontrollable
mirth, evidently terrified lest the indiscretion of her
laughter awake the sleepers in the house.

"Thusis——"

"Wait!  If you speak I shall expire.  Because
you never will know how funny you are, Michael!
Oh——"

I waited until she was able to control herself.

"Thusis," I began, stiffly——

"Oh, don't!  Please don't!  I'm too weak.  I'll
go to bed—really I will, Michael.  And leave you
to wrap yourself in your nightie and stalk back to
the Admiral——"

"Damn it all!" I broke out.  She rocked,
helplessly, her face buried in her hands.

After a while she got up, supporting herself by
one hand on the stair-rail.  The other hand pressed
her heart.

"Michael dear," she said, "you are perfectly
right.  We are what we are.  Nothing alters that.
We are born what we are; we die what we are.  No
cataclysm can change what we really are....  As
for distinction of rank, don't you know, Michael,
that social inequality always has existed and
always will?"

"Not artificial social inequality.  Minds alone
will dominate.  Personality only will count.
Inheritance and tradition will play no part in the
world's future after this war ends."

"You seem to be quite sure, Michael."

"Perfectly."

"But you are so young to be a prophet and a
seer!"

"Good heavens, Thusis, is there nothing serious
in you!" I exclaimed wrathfully.

"Not just at the moment," she retorted, controlling
her laughter.  "And I'd better go to bed
or I'll be suggesting that we start that music-box
down stairs and try a two-step."

I took a step toward her: "It amuses you to be
funny," said I, "but before we take leave of each
other suppose you hand me that pistol."

"Indeed I shall not!"

"If you don't hand it over," said I, "I shall be
obliged to catch you and take it away from you."  And
I started toward her.

At that she flew up the stairs, turned on the
landing and leaned down toward me with an adorable
gesture.

"Go to the devil!" she whispered softly.  And
vanished in the dusk above.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROYALTY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   ROYALTY

.. vspace:: 2

The Queen demanded her breakfast in bed.
Clelia came to the breakfast room to tell me so.

I had heard the furious ringing of her bell and I
said to Smith that something of that sort was likely
to happen.

"You tell her," said I to Clelia, "that no meals
are served in rooms.  What does she expect with
only one waitress?"

Clelia went away and Smith and I resumed coffee,
toast, and a poached egg apiece.  Presently
Clelia returned, her eyes and cheeks brilliant with
suppressed emotion.

"Well," said I, "what's the matter now?"

"Madame Xenos is very, very angry, and she demands
to see the landlord."

"Did she employ that word?"

"Yes, she did."

"You say she wants to see me?" I asked.

"She insists."

"But you tell me she's in bed, Clelia.  How can I
go up?"

Clelia shrugged her pretty shoulders!  "Queens
don't care.  A landlord of an inn has no masculine
meaning to a queen."

"Is that so!" I said.  "Very well"—I finished my
coffee at a gulp—"I'll go and see Madame
Hohenzollern."

"You'd better be careful," said Clelia, smiling.
"She really is a vixen."

I recollected the story of Constantine, and that it
was commonly believed she had once stuck a knife
into Tino when annoyed about something or other.

But I rose from the table determined to settle her
status in my house once for all.

"And, Clelia," I said, "I've heard other bells
tinkling.  Those kings upstairs are no good, and I
wouldn't put it past either of them to demand that
you serve them breakfast in their rooms."

"They have demanded it."

Smith turned an angry red and made as though
to rise, but sat down again.

For a moment I was too mad to speak.  Finally
I said: "Of course you ignored their bells."

"No, I answered them."

"You didn't go into their rooms!"

"No.  I knocked politely.  Monsieur Xenos
flirted with me——"

"What!"

"In a whisper through the keyhole.  So I went
away to see what Monsieur Itchenuff desired."  She
laughed and, lifting the coffee-pot, filled Smith's
cup.  "Monsieur Itchenuff wanted me to bring him
breakfast.  He also said he always breakfasted in
bed——"

"Keep away from that pair!" said Smith violently.

But Clelia's eyebrows went up and so did her nose,
mutely signaling Smith to mind his own affairs.

"Clelia," said he, "I want to talk to you——"

"I'm here to wait on you, not to talk to you!"
she retorted.

"Then at least you must listen——"

"Must?  *Must*?  Monsieur Smith, your bullying
tone does not please me!"

Here was the beginning of a pretty row.  But I
had another on my own hands so I left them and
went upstairs to interview the Queen.

"Come in!" she snapped when I knocked.  Her
voice chilled my courage and I sidled in batting my
eyes ingratiatingly.

The Queen was in bed.  Her hair was done up
like a lady Hottentot's, all screwed into tight
little kinks.  Over her sharp, discontented features
cold cream glistened like oleomargarine on a bun.

"I've ordered breakfast in bed," she said sharply.
"Why am I kept waiting?"

I explained that there was only one waitress.

"But what of that?" she asked in astonishment.
"The other guests can wait."

"Why should they wait?" I inquired, annoyed.

She shot an arrogant glance at me and started
to say something but, evidently recollecting her
incognito as Madame Xenos, merely choked and
finally swallowed her wrath.

"Madame," said I soothingly, for I was really
afraid of her, "I am extremely sorry to inconvenience
you, but the rules of the chalet must be observed
by everybody, otherwise confusion in the
service is certain to result——"

"I am not interested in your domestic problems,"
she said, and turned over in bed.

"Madame," said I, "let me trouble you to remember
that I am not an innkeeper whom you can bully.
I am the grandson of an Admiral!"

At that the Queen sat up and stared at me like
a maverick.

"That's true," she said.  "I had forgotten that
distinction.  I am sorry if I spoke too severely.
Nevertheless it's very annoying."

I said I regretted the necessity of making rules;
she yawned and fiddled with her corkscrew kinks,
but nodded acknowledgment to my perfectly correct
bow.  And so I left the Queen, yawning, stretching,
and rubbing her neck and ears with the sleepy
satisfaction of an awakened cat.

The bell of King Constantino was still ringing at
intervals.  So I continued along the corridor and
knocked very lightly at his door.  Listening, I heard
a shuffle of unshod feet within, a rustle, then through
the key-hole a persuasive voice thick with
suppressed affection:

"Why so cruel, little one?  Bring me my breakfast
on a pretty tray—there's a good little girl.  And
maybe there'll be a big, shiny gold-piece for you if
you're very amiable."

I hesitated, listening to his heavy, irregular
breathing, then opened the door.

The King looked intensely foolish for a moment,
then seized me by the shoulder, drew me into the
room, and shut the door.

"We're a pack of sad dogs, we men!" he said
jovially, smiting me familiarly on the shoulder again.
"We're all up to our little tricks—every one of us,
eh, O'Ryan?  No—no!  Don't pull a smug face
with me—a good looking young fellow like you!
No, no! it won't do, O'Ryan.  We men ought to be
frank with one another.  And that's me—bluff,
rough, frank to a fault!—just a soldier,
O'Ryan——"

"I thought you were a wine-merchant, Monsieur Xenos."

"Oh, certainly.  But I've been a soldier.  I'm
more at home in barracks than I am anywhere
else."  He chuckled, dug me in the ribs with his
thumb:

"Be a good sport, O'Ryan.  You don't want both
of them, do you?  My God, man, you're no Turk,
I hope.  Why can't that very young one—I mean
the yellow haired one—bring me my breakfast
and——"

Probably my features were not under perfect control
for the King stopped short and took an instinctive
step backward.

"Where do you think you are, Monsieur Xenos?"
I asked, striving to keep my voice steady.  "Did you
think you are in a cabaret, or a mastroquet or a
zenana?"

"Oh, come," he began, losing countenance, "you
shouldn't take a bluff old soldier too precisely——"

"You listen to *me*!  Mind your damned business
while you're under my roof or I'll knock your silly
head off!"

I looked him over deliberately, insultingly, from
the tasseled toe of his Algerian bed-room slippers
to his purple pyjamas clasped with a magnificent
ruby at the throat.

"Behave yourself decently," said I slowly, "or I'll
take you out to the barnyard and rub your nose
in it."

And I went out, leaving Tino stupefied in the
center of his bedroom.

The Tzar's bell was ringing again, but I made
no ceremony in his case, merely jerking open his
door and telling him curtly to come down to
breakfast if he wanted any.  Then I closed his door to
cut off argument and continued on.

I met Thusis in apron and dust-cloth, sweeping the
stairs.

She looked up almost shyly as I passed her with
a polite bow.

"Good morning," she said.  "Did you sleep well,
Monsieur?"

"The wind kept me awake," said I drily.

"And me, also."  She glanced out of the stair
window, leaning on her broom.  "It is raining very
hard," she observed.  "The mountains will not be
safe to-day."

"How do you mean?" I inquired coolly, but willing
to linger, heaven help me!

"Avalanches," she explained.

"I see."

We remained silent.  Thusis inspected her broom-handle,
tucked a curl up under her white head-cloth.

I said: "You and Clelia seem to exchange jobs
rather frequently."

"It mitigates the monotony," she remarked, resting
her rounded cheek against the broom-handle.

"Where did you leave that gun?" I demanded in
a low voice.

"Do you remember my reply to you on the stairs
last night, Don Michael?"

"You bade me go to the devil."

"That was rude of me, wasn't it?  And so frightfully
vulgar!  Oh, dear me!  I really don't know
what I am coming to."

She smiled very gaily, however.

"Thusis," said I, "you wouldn't shoot up any of
these kings and queens, would you?"

At that she laughed outright: "Not if they behave
themselves!"

"Seriously——"

"I am quite serious, Don Michael."

"You're bent on searching their luggage," said
I.  "And Ferdinand has two big automatic pistols."

"You're such a funny boy," said Thusis with her
adorable smile.  "But now you must run away and
let me do my dusting."

Her sleeves were rolled to her shoulders.  I had
never seen such perfect arms except in Greek sculpture.
I said so, impulsively.  And Thusis blushed.

"That is the sort of thing I had rather you did
not say," she remarked.

"But if it's quite true, Thusis——"

"Does one blurt out anything merely because one
believes it to be true?  Besides, ill-made or
agreeable, my arms do not concern you, Monsieur
O'Ryan."

"Everything that you are concerns me very
deeply, Thusis——"

"I will not have it so!"

"But you said I might pay my court to you——"

"But you don't pay court!  You make love to me!"

"What is the essential difference?"

"To court a woman is to be polite, empressé,
always ready to serve her, always quick with some
stately compliment, some pretty conceit, some
bon-mot to please her, some trifle of wit, of gossip."  She
cast a deliciously wicked look at me.  "I have no
doubt, Michael, that you could, without effort,
measure up to the standard of a faultless courtier....
If you'd be content to do so."

That was too much for me.  I stepped toward
her and slipped my arm around her pliant waist.
She laughed, resisted, flushed, then lost her color and
clutched my hand at her waist with her own, striving
to unloosen it.

"Don't do that, Michael," she said, breathing
unevenly.

"I love you, Thusis——"

"I don't wish to listen——"

"I'm madly in love with you——"

"Michael!"

"What?"

"*Are* you trying to kiss me?"

That is what I was trying to do.  She twisted
herself free and stepped aside; and I saw the rapid
pulse in her white throat and the irregular flutter
of her bosom.

For a moment the old blaze flamed once more in
her gray eyes and I expected a most terrifying
wigging, but all she said was: "You are very rough
with me," in a small and breathless voice; and,
suddenly, to my astonishment, turned her back and laid
her head on the handle of her broom.

"Thusis——"

"Please d-don't speak to me."

"I only——"

"I ask you to go."

So I went, leaving her standing there with her
clasped hands on the broom supporting her bowed
head.

Smith was sulkily smoking his pipe.  Clelia, beautiful
and indifferent, leaned against the sideboard,
awaiting the advent of royalty in the breakfast-room.

I went on out.  Raoul, standing under the
dripping eaves, was just hoisting an umbrella, and I
took advantage of it and went over to the bottling
works.

"We're making quite a lot of money," said I,
looking over the order book and ledger.

Raoul smiled and ran his well shaped fingers
through his curly hair.

"It's good spring-water," he said, "and God
permits you an innocent income not wrung out of the
poor, not cheated out of the less fortunate, not
gouged out of business rivals whose loss is your
gain."

I also smiled: "It is quite true, Raoul, that I
do harm to nobody by bottling and selling the water
which God has seen fit to send out gushing from these
deep rocks."

"You'd never harm anybody anyway!" he said
coolly.  "One knows a gentleman."

And he went about his work, singing the song he
seemed always to prefer——

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm,
   |  You have done a heap of harm——"
   |

And I began to wonder how the Queen would like
that song if he came carelessly caroling it in her
vicinity.

However, it was not my business to direct the
musical inclinations of my household.  I took the
umbrella and, stepping to the door, spread it.

"It's quite a storm," I remarked.

"There'll be avalanches," said Raoul.  I thought
he spoke uneasily and that there was a hint of
apprehension in the glance he cast up at the Bec de
l'Empereur.

"Of course," said I, "we are safe enough in this
valley."

"Yes, but a bad slide might choke the pass."

"What would that do to us, Raoul?"

"Cut us off from the rest of the world," he said
simply.

"For how long?"

"Days, weeks—longer perhaps.  Who knows what
might happen if a big snow broke loose from the
Bec de l'Empereur?"

"Anyway," said I, "we have sufficient provisions."

"Plenty, Monsieur."

"Then it would mean only a rather dull and
exasperating imprisonment."

He looked at me with an odd smile: "It might
mean the salvation of the world—or its damnation,"
he said.

I was silent but curious.  He smiled again and
shrugged.  "For me," he said, "I pray that no
avalanche falls to block this valley within the
week."  He looked upward into the heavily falling rain,
standing there bare-headed.

"I ask," he said in a low, serious voice, "that God
should be graciously pleased to hold His hand for
one week longer before He lets loose His eternal
snows upon this valley."

.. vspace:: 2

When I returned to the breakfast-room royalty
was feeding.  All acknowledged my greeting with
civility, even Tino who, however, also turned red
and nervously pasted his roll with marmalade.

"For diversion," inquired the Queen, "what does
one do here?"

I enumerated the out-door sports.  Nobody cared
to fish except with a net.  Tino expressed himself
vaguely as in favor of a chamois hunt when he felt
up to it.  The Queen wished to climb the Bec de
l'Empereur, but when I told her there were no guides
nearer than Berne and also that this rain made the
mountains very dangerous, she decided to postpone
the ascent.

As for the Tzar of all the Bulgars he paid strict
attention to his plate and betrayed no inclination for
anything more strenuous than the facial exercise of
chewing.

While the Queen was there neither King ventured
to annoy Clelia, but after her majesty had left the
table they both evinced symptoms of pinching,
furtive leers and smirks.

However, there was a stoniness about my expression
which served to discourage them.  Ferdinand
scrubbed his beard in his finger-bowl with a wallowing
sound, dried it noisily on his napkin, rose, bowed
to me, and waddled back upstairs.

Tino seemed very uncomfortable to find himself
alone with me.  But I conversed with him as good
humoredly as though I had never told him what I
should do to him in the event of his misbehavior
under my roof.  And we got on well enough.

He had mean eyes, however, and a fussy, jerky,
nervous manner, yet furtive for all that.  An odd
monarch with the most false face, except for
Ferdinand's, that I had ever beheld, though at first
encounter one might easily be deceived and take him
for what he pretended to be—a bluff, noisy,
unceremonious, and somewhat coarse soldier with his
tête-de-militaire and his allure and vocabulary of the
Caserne.

"We've some friends arriving to-day," he said.
"Did my wife tell you?"

"Somebody mentioned it yesterday, I believe."

"Well, they'll be here to-day, so fix them up
snugly, O'Ryan."

"The rain may prevent them from starting," I
suggested.

"Rain or no rain they'll be here," he repeated,
lighting a strong cigarette.

He went away presently upstairs.  And I did not
doubt they would all have their noses together in a
few moments discussing whatever crisis had brought
them to this lonely little valley without escort or
servants and carefully camouflaged.

I went into the living-room where Smith sat reading.

"What the devil," said I, "has brought these
Kings here, Smith?  Can you guess?"

"I don't know.  I might," he replied, looking over
his book at me.

"Well, what is your guess?"

"Why, I suppose they're worried.  Things are
going very rottenly for the hun.  British, French and
Yank are kicking them about most brutally from
Arras to the Vosges.  That pasty-faced pervert, the
Crown Prince, has had the very pants kicked off
him.  The U-boats are a fizzle.  The Bolsheviki are
running into cracks like vermin to escape fumigation.
Austria is sick from Italy's kick delivered
into the pit of her stomach.  Enver Pasha, who was
promised the Khediviate of Egypt when the boche
started to carve up the world, is turning ugly and
demanding why the banquet isn't ready."

He made a weary gesture toward the ceiling.

"Up there," he said, "sits the most cowardly,
murderous, and despicable ruler in the world—Ferdinand
of Bulgaria—scared stiff because he's beginning
to believe he's bet on the wrong horse.

"With him sit a King and Queen recently kicked
headlong out of Greece.  They also are becoming
intensely nervous about that promise made by the hun
Kaiser—an oath thundered from Berlin that the
boche sword should restore them to their thrones.

"You see, Michael, they're worried.  They've
sneaked away from Berne incognito to meet here and
lay all their cards on the common table.  They're
here to consult, bargain, cheat if they can, but
anyway they're here to come to some understanding and
arrive at some agreement as to the best means to
avert utter disaster.  That's why they're here.

"They couldn't feel safe in spy-ridden Berne; they
evidently dare not trust their own servants.  It is
plain to me that Switzerland, which is mostly pro-boche,
engineered the affair, willingly or reluctantly,
because the Kaiser's sister is involved and the
Federal Government is horribly afraid of the boche.

"You see how it came about, don't you?  This
bunch of royal crooks desired a safe place for a
get-together party.  Long ago they had planned it.
Then you appeared to take possession of your inheritance.

"What could be safer for them than this lonely
valley and a neutral gentleman from Chili to make
'em comfortable?"

"And a Norse Viking," said I.

"Be careful," he said gravely.

"Of course.  But they believe you are what you
pretend to be, don't they?"

"Absolutely....  And how do you know I am
not?" he inquired smilingly.

We exchanged gay but significant glances.  He
went on speaking:

"That's all there is to it," he said, "a bunch of
dips trying it on each other and still held together
by the 'cohesive power of plunder'—the Prussian
hun, the Austrian hun, the unspeakable Turk, the
bloody Bulgar, the besotted Bolshevik!—a fine mess,
Michael!—and here, under your roof, are three who
have long ago been mugged, and who are known to
the police of civilization everywhere."

"They've got their nerve," said I angrily, "to
come here and discuss their dirty schemes!  I've a
damned good mind to ask them for their rooms.
I've got enough of them already, Smith.  I'm hanged
if I stand for this another day——"

His hand closed on my arm in a leisurely grip of
steel, and I winced and looked up at him in surprise
and protest.

"*Don't—spoil—things*," he said quietly.  His
level glance met mine with a metallic glint, and I
saw in his features something terrible—a fleeting
gleam like the far reflection of lightning across a
thunder cloud.

"Smith!" I exclaimed.

"Don't raise your voice, old chap."

"N-no.  But—can't you tell me just what you
really are?"

"I'm really quite all right," he assured me,
laughingly.

"I assumed that.  But—are you here, also, to
keep an eye on these kings?"

"Well, you know one can't help noticing them——"

"Damn!  Answer me."

"I admit," he said, "that they interest me."

So *that* was what brought Smith here, too!  He
must have known they were coming.  He must have
deliberately scraped acquaintance with me for this
purpose.

"I thought," said I bitterly, "that you really
liked me, Smith."

"I do, confound you!" he said.  "If I didn't both
like and trust you, do you think I'd have been so
careless in concealing my identity?"

Both Thusis and Clelia had said the same thing to me.

"Smith?"

"What?"

"Did you know Thusis and Clelia before you met
them here?"

"No."

"Do you know why they're here?"

"I can guess."

"Do you know who they really are?"

"No," he said honestly, "I don't.  And I can not
seem to find out.  All I know is that their purpose
in coming here does conflict with mine——"

The pretty fanfare of a postilion's horn cut him
short.

"There," said I, "comes the rest of the precious
bunch!"

"'Hail, hail,'" said he gravely, "'the gang's all
here!'"

And we got up and went to the window to inspect
the arriving diligence.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN THE RAIN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE RAIN

.. vspace:: 2

That afternoon I fled the house.  This new
invasion of my privacy had quite upset me.
Bulgarian and Greek royalty had been difficult
enough to endure, but this new wagon-load of
huns and near-huns proved too much for me.

If there were any privacy at all to be had it
seemed that I must seek it in the woods.  And
thither I fled under an umbrella, a book under one
arm, a fishing rod under the other, and my pockets
full of smoking material.

For I preferred to sit on the wet moss in the rain,
and read and smoke and fish under my ancient green
gamp—even if the seat of my trousers did become
soaking wet—rather than listen to the gobbling
gabble of those Teutons and witness their bad manners
and their unpleasant personal habits.

So, as I say, as soon as the new arrivals had
registered and had been assigned to rooms I made
up my mind to inhabit the woods during their
occupation of my property, and invited Smith to share
my indignant seclusion.

He declined, probably because, whoever he really
was and whatever might be his job, the one and the
other very evidently had to do with this bunch of
assorted boches.

He said very politely that he didn't enjoy privacy
when it was sopping wet.  He smiled when he said
it.  We were standing at the desk in the big living-room:
the huns, both royalty and new arrivals, had
gone to their rooms, and Smith was carelessly
examining the register where my guests' signatures
had been inscribed in the pale and watery ink of the
country.

"A pretty kettle of fish," I commented, looking
over his shoulder.  "But this new consignment of
boches doesn't seem to be camouflaged.  These are
their real names, I fancy."

"I happen to know that they are," said Smith.

He began to read the names aloud just as they
were written; and I noticed the lazy amusement in
his pleasant, even voice as he commented upon each
signature:

"'*General Count von Dungheim*'!  Oh, yes; he
belonged to Tino's suite when he was kicked out of
Athens.  They call him 'Droly.'  He did some dirty
work there—instigated the murder of the allied
detachments.  He's a big, thin Prussian with a
capacity for gluttony equal only to the Bulgarian
King's.  He enjoys only one eye.

"'*Baron von Bummelzug*'!  Oh, certainly.  He's
a Bavarian civilian.  He engineered the
treacherous surrender of that Greek army corps.  He also
was in Tino's suite, and still is.

"'*Admiral Lauterlaus*'!  Tino's ex-naval aide.
Tried dirty work on the Allied fleet off Samos.  A
Prussian,—mostly belly and head.

"'*Princess Pudelstoff*'!  She was that enormously
fat woman, Michael, who kissed King Ferdinand on
both cheeks and left two wet spots.  She's one of
those German-Russians from Courland attached to
the Bulgarian court, and related to Ferdinand in
some degree or other,—irregularly.

"'*Countess Manntrapp*'!  The pretty girl.  You
remember her honeyed, cooing voice when you
were presented to her?—and her ecstatic baby
stare, as though acquaintance with a Chilean
gentleman had been the secret ambition of her life, and
the realization overwhelmed her?  Well, old top,
there you have Lila Shezawitch, Countess
Manntrapp—the widow of that brainless old reprobate,
the cavalryman, who disappeared in some Russian
swamp-hole when Hindenburg made his mark among
the lakes.

"'*Adolf Gizzler*'!  Look out for that rat, Michael.
He's a bum school-teacher, Bummelzug's secretary.

"'*Leo Puppsky*'!  What do you know about that
Bolshevik being here in Switzerland?  And

"'*Isidore Wildkatz*,' too!  Here they are with the
huns, this pair of Judases!  Oh, you're quite right,
Michael.  It's a pretty kettle of fish.  I don't blame
you for taking to the woods, rain or no rain."

"You won't come, too?" I asked.  He smiled, and
I understood.

He was *such* a decent sort.  I had become very
fond of him.

"All right," said I; "don't get yourself into
trouble.  That's certainly a sinister bunch of
boches as well as an unpleasant one."

"Good old Michael," he said, patting my shoulder.

So I took to the woods with rod and book, and a
camp-stool I picked up on the veranda.

Heavens, how it rained!  But I stopped at the
barn-yard, found a manure-fork, and disinterred a
tin canful of angle-worms.  Then I marched on in
the teeth of the storm, umbrella over my head, and
entered that pretty woodland path which Thusis and
I had once trodden together on our food-conservation
quest.

The memory inclined me to sentimental reverie,
and, with my dripping gamp over my head, I slopped
along in a sort of trance, my brain a maze of vague
enchantment as images of Thusis or of my photograph
of The Laughing Girl alternately occupied
my thoughts.

For, when alone, these two lovely phantoms always
became inextricably mixed.  I could not seem
to differentiate between them in memory.  And
which was the loveliest I could not decide because the
resemblance was too confusing.

And so, in a sort of delicious daze, I arrived at
the foot-bridge.

Here I spread my camp-stool by the green pool's
edge.  It was a torrent, now, but still as brilliant
and clear as a beryl, and that it lacked its natural
and emerald clarity did not deter me from baiting
my hook with several expostulating worms, and
hurling it forth into the foaming basin.

To hold a fishing rod in one fixed position bores
me, and always did.  So I laid the rod on the bank,
placed a flat stone on the butt, and, sheltered
under my umbrella, lighted a pipe and opened my book.

But the book soon bored me, too.  It was a novel
by one of the myriads of half-educated American
"authors" who resemble a countryman I once knew
who called himself a "natural bone-setter" and
enjoyed a large and furtive practice among neighboring
clodhoppers to the indignation of all the local
physicians.

There are thousands of "authors" in the United
States.  But there are very few writers.

And this novel was by an author, and my attention
wandered.

Through an opening in the forest on a clear day
one might look out upon a world of mountains
eastward.  I realized there could be no view through
the thickly falling rain, but I turned around.  And,
to my surprise, I beheld a cloaked figure poised
upon the chasm's distant edge, peering out into the
storm through a pair of field-glasses.

I knew that figure in spite of the cloak.  Nor could
the thickly slanting rain quench the glorious color
of that burnished hair.

"Thusis!" I shouted.

Slowly the figure turned, glasses still poised; and
I saw her looking in my direction.

"I'm fishing!" I called out joyously.  "Come
under my umbrella!"

She cast a glance behind her toward the blank
void where, on clear days, the bulk of the Bec de
l'Empereur towered aloft in its mantle of dazzling
snow.  Then she slowly walked toward me through
the rain.

When she came near to where I sat, she began to
laugh; and I never saw such an exquisite sight as
Thusis, bare-headed in the rain, laughing.

"What on earth are you up to, Michael?" she said.

"Fishing.  That herd of huns will eat us out of
house and garden if we don't catch something.  Sit
beside me under the umbrella, Thusis.  There's room
if we're careful and don't let the camp-stool collapse."

She gave me an inscrutable glance, stood motionless
for a few moments, then slowly came over.

"Careful now," I cautioned her, rising.  "We
must both seat ourselves at the same instant or this
camp-stool will close up like a jack-knife.  Are you
ready?"

She laughed and inclined her pretty head.

"Then—one! two! three!  Sit!"

We managed to accomplish it without an accident.

"We're too close together," she protested.

"Don't stir," said I.  "Do you feel how it wabbles?"

She tested the camp-stool cautiously, and nodded.

"What an absurd situation," she remarked, glancing
up at the gamp which I held over us.

"I think it's very jolly."  She didn't look at me;
we were too close—so close that we might possibly
have rubbed noses if either turned.  But in her
side-long glance I noted both amusement and irony.

"Have you caught anything, Don Michael?"

"Not a bally thing."

"What are you reading?"

"A book of sorts—a novel by an 'author' who
lacks education, cultivation, experience, vocabulary,
and a working knowledge of English grammar.  In
other words, Thusis, a typical American 'author,'—one
of the Bolsheviki of literature whose unlettered
Bolshevik readers are recruited from the same
audience that understands and roars with laughter
at the German and Jewish jokes which compose the
librettos of our New York musical comedies."

Thusis turned up her pretty nose and shrugged—or
tried to,—but nearly upset me, and desisted.

"It's silly to sit here like two hens on a roost,"
she said.

"It's cozy," said I with a blissful smile that
perhaps approached the idiotic.

"Cozy or not," she insisted, "we resemble a pair
of absurd birds."

"Then," said I, "one of us ought to twitter and
begin to sing."

We both laughed.  "The last time we were here
together," I reminded her, "you were singing all the
while."

"Was I?"

"Yes, and I liked it—although your detachment
was not flattering to me."

"Poor Michael.  Did you feel abused?"

"It's no novel feeling," said I.

"You ungrateful young man!  Do you mean to
insinuate that *I* abuse you?  I—who go fishing with
you, stop my house-work to gossip with you, sit on
the stairs with you at three in the morning—and in
my nightie, too——"

"What an incident for a best-seller!" said I.
"Fancy the fury of the female critic!  Imagine the
rage of the 'good woman'!"

"You are satirical, Don Michael."

"Doesn't satire amuse you?"

"I adore it."

"Nothing," said I, "so angers ignorance as
satire, because it is not understood, and ignorance
becomes suspicious when it does not understand
anything.  Ignorance mistakes dullness for depth.
That is why dull books are so widely read.

"There is, in America, Thusis, a vast desert
inhabited by 'authors' who produce illiterature.

"Similar deserts, though less in area, exist in other
sections of America.  By its ear-marks, however, I
guess that this book was 'authorized' somewhere west
of Chicago.  Don't read it.  Only 'a good woman'
could enjoy it."

Thusis laughed.  "Don't you admire good women
and critics?"

"The American critic," said I, "is usually female
but not necessarily feminine in sex.  It is what is
reverently known as 'a good woman'—and like a
truffle-hound its nose for immorality is so keen that
it can discover a bad smell where there isn't any."

Thusis threw back her head and yielded to laughter
unrestrained.

"So you think there was nothing immoral in sitting
on the stairs with you in my nightie?"

"Was there?"

"Of course not.  Clean minds are independent of
clothes.  As for clothing, I often wish these were
Greek times and I were rid of all my duds except
sandals and a scarf."

"It's all very well for you to wish that, Thusis,
but consider the spectacle of the Princess Pudelstoff,
for example, in Olympian attire——"

And Thusis went off into a gale of laughter,
endangering our mutual stability on the camp-stool.
Which scared her,—an unpremeditated bath in the
pool having been narrowly averted—and she said
again that it was silly of us to sit there like a pair
of imbecile dicky-birds.

"Then tune up, Thusis.  You seem to know a lot
of songs.  I liked that odd, weird, sweet little song
you kept singing about Naxos and Tenedos."

"I didn't suppose you noticed it, Michael."

"I notice everything concerning you."

Looking at her sideways I saw the charming color
deepen in her cheeks.

"Is that paying court to you or making love to
you?" I added.

"I don't know.  Somehow, when you pay court to
me, you make it sound like—the other thing."

"But I *am* in love——"

"Wait," she said hastily.  "I'll sing another
funny song—the same sort of song you found so
amusing—about Naxos and Tenedos.  It is called
'Invocations.'"

As a little bird looks up to heaven after every
sip of water, so Thusis looked up after inspiration
had sufficiently saturated her.  She lifted her pretty
voice as clearly and sweetly as a linnet sings in the
falling rain:

   |  "Wine poured out to Aphrodite,
   |  On thy sacred sands,
   |  In libations to the mighty
   |  Blue-eyed goddess Aphrodite
   |  Perfumes all thy strands,
   |  Scents the meadows and thy woodlands,
   |  Tenedos, my Tenedos!
   |  Every maiden understands
   |  Why each flowering orchard close
   |  Swims with fragrance of the rose.
   |
   |  Votive wine that long ago
   |  Set thy sacred soil aglow
   |  Sweetens still each Grecian nose
   |  In Tenedos, my Tenedos!
   |
   |  II
   |
   |  God-like Bacchus with his flighty
   |  Band of laughing jades,
   |  Drank and sang and every night he
   |  Got so classically tight he
   |  Sought thy sylvan glades.
   |  Snoring where he gaily reveled,
   |  Tenedos, my Tenedos!
   |  Mid his pretty nymphs disheveled
   |  Sleeping off the over-dose,
   |  Waking late to vinous woes!
   |
   |  Votive wine that long ago
   |  Set thy sacred groves aglow,
   |  Still exhilarates each nose
   |  In Tenedos, my Tenedos!"
   |

"Oh, the cunning little song!" I exclaimed
enchanted.  "But what is Tenedos, anyway?  It's an
island, isn't it?"

"It is," said Thusis solemnly.

"Certainly.  I remember.  And so is Naxos—Greek
islands in the Ægean."

"I shall mark you perfect," said Thusis gravely.
And she wrote "perfect" in the air with one slim
forefinger.

"Why," said I curiously, "do you sing songs about
Naxos and Tenedos?"

"Perhaps because I have lived in Naxos and Tenedos."

"I see."

"No, you don't," said Thusis, smiling.

We sat for a while in silence watching the foaming
current swerving my line.  But no fish moved it.

"They must be pretty—those Greek islands," said
I vaguely.

"Do you know their history?"

"No."

"Would you like to hear it?"

"Whatever you say I like to hear," I replied,
beginning to ooze sentiment as well as rain.

"You annoy me," said Thusis.  "Listen sensibly,
if you wish me to tell you about those islands."

Snubbed, I sat silent with an injured expression
that afforded her lively satisfaction, judging from
her vivacious voice and manner:

"You are to know, Michael," she began, "that
Naxos is one of the Cyclades, and from the day of
the old gods it has been famous for its wine.

"In the thirteenth century it was conquered by
Venice.  It was made into a duchy.  So was Tenedos.

"But these two Venetian Duchies were conquered
and annexed by the unspeakable Turk in the
sixteenth century.  Then Greece recovered Naxos."

She looked down pensively at her folded hands.
Presently they became interlocked and I saw the
fingers twisting nervously.

"There are," she said, "some people—descendants
of the old Venetians in Naxos, who believe that
the island ought to belong to Italy ... and that
the duchy ought to be revived and reconstituted."

"Are you one of these people, Thusis?"

"Yes.  I am descended from those Venetians.  I
was born in Naxos."

She remained absorbed in her own reflections for
a few moments, then:

"Tenedos, also, ought to become a duchy again.
The Turk rules it.  He calls it Bogdsha-Adassi.
But it was allied with Greece before Christ lived.
It should be either Grecian or Italian....  And
Clelia and I believe that it rightly belongs to Italy."

"How big an island is it?"

"About seven miles long."

We both laughed.

"Are seven miles worth fighting for?" I asked, amused.

"One's back-yard is worth fighting for, isn't it?"
she asked calmly.

"Of course.  But not for the purpose of establishing
a duchy in it."

Thusis didn't seem to consider that remark very funny.

"I'll freely give anything I have," she said hotly,
"but I'll fight like a wild-cat to resist the robbery
of a single button!"

"I *didn't* steal that button," said I.  "I brought
it back to you—from Ferdie's dressing-room."

"I wish you wouldn't be so flippant, Michael!"

"Am I?"

"Very."

She really seemed vexed and I asked her pardon.

"But you oughtn't to mention theft to a thief,"
I added.  "I'm trying to steal your heart, you
know——"

"Michael, you are insufferable!" she exclaimed
with a movement of impatience that almost sent us
into the pool.  In fact she clutched me and held
fast while I struggled to recover our balance.  And
after I had reëstablished our equilibrium I was low
enough, mean enough, to pretend we were still in
danger, so heavenly sweet it was to me to feel her
little hands close clinging.

Whether or not she discovered my perfidy I was
not certain, for presently she released her grasp
and sat very still and flushed beside me, her eyes
fixed on the frivolous brook.

Which drove me uneasily toward conversation—the
first refuge of the guilty.

"And so," said I, in a casual and pleasant voice,
"you are really a descendant of those ancient
Venetians who once occupied Naxos."

"I don't wish to continue the subject," she said.

Snubbed again I relapsed into mournful inertia.
Which presently she inspected sideways.  And after
a while she laughed.

"You *are* so ridiculous," she said.  "No girl, I
fancy, can remain angry with you very long."

"Thusis?"

"What?"

"I want to court you.  May I?"

"Yes—if you don't make it resemble the other
thing."

"I'll be careful."

"Very well."

And, as I remained buried in reflection: "You
may fire when ready, Michael."

"Have you ever lived in the United States?" I
asked, astonished.

"I was educated there," she replied demurely.

"Oh, Lord!" said I, "that accounts for a lot of
things!  Why on earth I didn't suspect it I can't
imagine——"

"Oh, I'm not typical; I'm international,
Michael—cosmopolitan, inter-urban, anti-insular, so to
speak——"

"You're inter-stellar, you beautiful bright star!——"

"Michael!"

"What?"

"Is that courtship?  Or the other?" she inquired.

"Courtship.  It's a perfectly proper flight of
astronomical fancy.  It's a scientific metaphor, Thusis
dear.  I'll tell you another:

   |  "Some lovers woo the Pleiades
   |  Who shyly flirt from midnight skies,
   |  But all my vows and all my sighs
   |    Are centered in the Cyclades
   |  Where she I love first saw the light
   |  —Thusis divine so slim and white—"
   |

"Michael!"

   |
   |  "I love her noble mind serene,
   |  I love her ruddy tresses bright,
   |  I love her slender neck so white,
   |  I love her heart so young and clean,
   |  In fact I love her, if she please,
   |  My goddess of the Cyclades—"
   |

"*Michael!!!*"

"What?" said I, annoyed at being checked in
my fine frenzy.

"Is—is *that* courtship?"

"Certainly!  Did you never hear of a troubadour?
I'm improvising and for God's sake don't
interrupt me."

At that she relapsed into meek silence.  But I
had lost my momentum.  It was all off; she had
ruined that totally unexpected burst of inspired
fluency which had astonished and intoxicated me,
whatever it had done to her.

"Damnation," I said.

"Forgive me, Michael.  I'm so truly repentant....
And it was very, very beautiful."

"It wasn't so bad," I admitted, mollified.  "I had
no idea I could do it, Thusis."

"It was—agreeable.  I liked it.  Will you forgive
me?  Because when I interrupted I punished
myself most of all."

"You sweet little thing!——"

"I did.  I was worse than Psyche," she went on,
"who blew out the candle—too late—the torch of
inspiration—Oh, dear, that metaphor is very sadly
mixed, Michael, but you understand what I mean.
Do you pardon me?"

To reassure her I touched her hands which lay
clasped in her lap.  She gave a slight start, but as
my hand settled and rested there upon both of hers
she seemed to become unconscious of the contact.

"I had no idea that you could improvise so
cleverly," she said.

"Nor I," said I, frankly.  "It's true, however,
that I've had some little practice in writing
verses—er—recently."

"Have you been writing verses, Michael?"

"Yes."

"About what?"

"About you."

She became interested in my fishing line, and
watched it intently.  But it was only the current
moving it.

"Thusis dear——"

She said hastily: "Remember the difference
between courtship and the other!"

"Won't you let me make love to you?"

"I can't, Michael!"

After a pause: "Would you let me if you could?"

"Yes," she said under her breath.

"Dear——"

"Please don't say that!"

"I want to ask you one thing."

"What?"

"You're not married, are you?"

"No."

"Then——"

"It's a more hopeless barrier than that!" she
interrupted with a sudden catch in her breath.  "I
can't let you make love to me.  I can't let you love
me!  I c-can't love you—let myself—do it——"

Her voice was drowned in a terrific roar.  All the
thunders of the skies seemed to unite in one
tremendous outburst.

Deafened, almost stunned, we sat there partly
stupefied by the mighty concussion which lengthened
into bellowing thunder until the bank of the stream
trembled under our feet, and the umbrella wiggled
in my hand.

"Good Lord!" I whispered; but Thusis sprang up
with a little cry of dismay.

"Don't be afraid, darling!" I cried, preparing to
gather her to my breast.  But she was excitedly
adjusting her field-glasses and focussing them on the
Bec de l'Empereur.

And then I perceived that the rain had ceased;
that the sun was already blazing through the pass
below.

"The devil!" cried Thusis, stamping her pretty
foot.  Then, in a fury of despair, she turned to me
and stretched out one arm, pointing toward the
valley pass.

And I saw that it had been utterly obliterated
by the mighty avalanche, the earth-shaking
thunder of which had petrified us.

Suddenly the gray eyes of Thusis filled with tears
of fury and disappointment.

"Oh, Michael!  Michael!" she faltered, "what shall
we do now!  We had them all in the trap!  We
were ready to spring it to-night!  Oh, Michael!
Michael!  M-my heart is b-broken——"

She walked blindly into my arms—she didn't know
what she was about, I suppose.  I petted and
soothed her; she hid her face on my breast.

"Darling," I said, "I can't bear to see you suffer.
I suppose that you and Clelia and Josephine and
Raoul had some scheme cooked up to kidnap that
bunch of huns at the house and get them over the
frontier into France.  Didn't you, dear?"

"Y-yes.  And just l-look what's happened!  Look
at this act of God!  Why has God let it rain?  Why
has He let loose this avalanche at such a moment!—at
such an agonizing moment when we had all the
rats trapped!  And our own agents on the frontier
to let us through! ... Doesn't God realize that all
civilization—all Christendom is tottering?  Doesn't
He know what hell threatens it?  Why has He done
this thing to us!  Can He not see France bled
white!—England reeling!—Italy agasp!—America only
half ready!—Naxos prostrate under the Greek
tyrant's usurping heel!—Tenedos thrown to the Turk!
I—I have begun to lose my faith in God!" she cried
violently; "the old gods were less cruel—less
indifferent.  And at least they displayed enough interest
to take sides!"

I continued to pet and comfort and soothe her as
I would a half hysterical child.

"God is on duty," I said.  "Who are we to divine
His strategy?  Why take even General Foch.  His
own officers can't penetrate his purpose; much less
can the huns.  But he drives the spirits of evil
before him; he hustles the hellish legions toward
destruction in his own way.  The maddened swine are
stampeding, Thusis!  God's ocean waits."

"Y-yes.  I—shall pull myself together....  I'm
ashamed."

"No, you're all right, Thusis.  Take heart.  And,
if there's any comfort in knowing I'm with you,
always, loyally, through life to death——"

I thought, against my breast, there was the slightest
pressure in response, but concluded that Thusis
had merely braced herself to get away and stand on
her own legs.  Which she now did, resolutely, but
keeping her face averted.

We stood so, gazing down in silence at the snow-choked
pass which now cut us off from the world entire.

"After all," said I, "it pens in the huns as well
as it cages us.  We may get them yet."

The girl straightened up and turned toward me.
Her features were radiant, transfigured.

"Nous les aurons!" she cried, throwing her arm
out toward the valley with the superb gesture of
some young goddess launching thunderbolts.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SMITH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SMITH

.. vspace:: 2

The distinguished company at the chalet had
already gathered on the veranda apparently
to contemplate the flaming sunset when, separating
from Thusis in the woods behind the barn,
I sauntered into view with rod and creel.

Instantly I became a target for Teutonic eyes of
the several sorts peculiar to the hunnish race,—cold
disapproving eyes, narrow bad-tempered eyes, squinting
eyes, gimlet eyes, pale pig-eyes,—all intent on
my approach.

"Hello!" cried King Constantine in his loud, bluff
way, "have you had any luck, O'Ryan?"

The fat Princess Pudelstoff began to pant
cheerfully in anticipation of finny food:

"I hope you've caught some trout," she said in
a thick, good-natured voice which the rolls of fat on
her neck rendered husky and indistinct.  "I like to eat
mine *Meunière* and *Blaue-gesotten*.  I like 'em breaded
and fried in butter.  I like plenty of melted butter."  She
pried open the creel cover as I passed.  "Where are
the fish?" she asked with a gulp of disappointment.

"I'm sorry, Princess——"

"Droly!" she exclaimed in English, turning to
General Count von Dungheim, "he ain't caught a
fish!  And me smackin' my lips like I was eatin' onto
a fat filet!  Oh my God!"

Astonished to hear such east-side accents spurting
from the lips of the Princess Pudelstoff, I politely
explained that the stream was in flood, and
that trout wouldn't take hold in high water.  In
the midst of my apology Baron von Bummelzug
uttered a disagreeable laugh and said something rude
to Admiral Lauterlaus who stared at me insultingly
as he replied: "Skill is not to be expected in a
Yankee.  Instead of a rod he should have used a net.
That's the way our peasants fish for trout."

I turned red and looked hard at the Admiral.
"There's a net in the barn," said I, "if you want
to try your skill!" which infuriated that formidable
sea-warrior whose ancestry was purely peasant.  He
glared at me angrily and his bushy eyebrows worked
up and down like the features of a mechanical toy.

"I said our peasants fish with a net!" he began,
a far, hollow roar audible in his voice like the sound
of the sea in a big shell.

"I heard you," said I.  "You're welcome to use
the net in your own fashion.  Gentlemen fish otherwise."

I think everybody was astounded.  Only the pretty
Countess Manntrapp shot an amused glance at me.

The others were dreadfully shocked.  As for the
Admiral he got to his feet almost dazed with rage;
but before he could expel the bellowing fury which
was congesting his features I lost my own temper
and walked over to him.

"Behave yourself!" I said sharply.  "I tolerate
no bad manners under my roof.  And if you show
me any further disrespect you'll have to leave my
house!"

I think he was too amazed to roar.  King Ferdinand
waddled over to him and plucked him by
the arm, restraining him.  King Constantine burst
into a heavy laugh:

"Here, gentlemen!  This will never do!  It's all
a misunderstanding.  No offense was intended,
Mr. O'Ryan——"

"Monsieur Xenos," said I, "it is difficult, I fancy,
for a Prussian Admiral to avoid taking the
offensive—except at sea."

And I walked into the house amid the most profound
and paralyzed silence that ever assailed my ears.

Smith, in the living-room, having heard it all, was
doubled up with laughter, but I was in no mood
for mirth.

"Did you hear what Admiral Lauterlaus said to
me!" I demanded, still hot.  "Did you hear what
that Prussian had the impudence to say to me
under my own roof?"

"Yes, and I heard what you said to him, Michael!"  And
off he went into another fit of laughter.

"You don't know how funny it is," he said.
"They've all been conspiring and perspiring all day
long shut up in Tino's apartment with those two
smelly Bolsheviks.  And just when they'd come to
some agreement about slicing up the world and
ruling it among themselves, along you come and take
all the joy out of life by sitting on a Prussian admiral!"

"I certainly shall put him out of the house if he's
impudent to me again," said I, wrathfully.  "And
it will be tough on him if I do, because an avalanche
has blocked the pass and we're all sewed up here
together!"

"What!" exclaimed Smith with lively interest.

"It's a fact, Smith.  The entire snow-field on
the south shoulder of the Bec de l'Empereur let go
about an hour since.  Didn't you hear it?"

"I heard what I took to be thunder.  Do you
mean we're blocked from the outside world?"

"Completely."

"We can't dig out?"

"Who's to dig?"

"Good business!" he said, plainly delighted by the
news.  "How long will it last?"

"Thusis says they'll start digging from the other
side, but that it may take weeks."

"Thusis knows about this?"

"She was with me at the time," said I, blushing.

He looked at me absently: "I wonder," he mused,
"what Thusis thinks about the situation now."

"Our sudden isolation here?"

"Exactly."

"She doesn't seem to like it....  Tell me
something, Smith?"

"What?"

"Do you know why Thusis and Clelia and
Josephine Vannis and Raoul Despres are here?"

"I can guess," he replied, coolly.

"They came here," said I, "to nab Tino and that
murderous ass, Ferdinand, and spirit them across
the frontier into France."

"I believe so," he said in a serene but preoccupied
voice.

"Now they can't do it," I added, "because the
only way out of this valley is blocked."

"Quite so."

"Smith?"

"Yes."

"What do you think of their doing such a thing?"

"It's all right but they can't get away with it."

"Would you—help them?"

"They haven't asked me."

"*Would* you?" I persisted.

"Would *you*, Michael?"

"Well, if I do, the Swiss Government would
confiscate my property.  If Thusis and I succeeded in
kidnapping this bunch of Kings, I'd lose this place."

"And if you failed to bag your Kings," remarked
Smith, "the Swiss Government would still confiscate
your estate and lock you up besides."

"And if *you* went into this affair," said I, "the
Swiss would cancel your forestry contract."

"That," said he with a grin, "would be ruinous,
wouldn't it?"

"What are you, anyway, Smith?" I demanded
bluntly.

"A Viking.  What do you think I am?"

"An agent," I replied darkly.

"Timber agent," he nodded.

"Timber nothing.  Much less a Viking.  I'm on
to you, Smith."

"Do you think you are?"

"Well, do you wish to know what I believe you
to be?"

"You probably have guessed.  So don't say it too
loud, Michael.  Besides, I have taken no pains to
conceal my business from you."

"I think you are an agent of the United States
Secret Service," said I.  "And I think you learned,
somehow or other, that this bunch of Kings was
coming here to conspire.  And I think you very
cleverly picked me up in Berne with a view to being
invited here so that you could watch their activities
and keep your government informed.  How near
right am I?"

"You ought to know," he retorted, laughing.

"Well then—if I do know—what are you going
to do about this enterprise of Clelia and Thusis?
Help them collar this royal gang and smuggle them
across the frontier into France?"

He shook his head: "No, I can't do that."

"Your duties do not permit such amusements?"

"No.  I am engaged to fulfill a definite duty.  In
fact I'm pledged to carry out a certain mission.
It's a matter of honor.  I'm sorry."

"It limits you?"

"It does."

"Checks any adventurous or romantic inclination
toward aiding Thusis and Clelia to nab Tino & Co.?"

"I'm afraid it does."

"So you can't do any kidnaping, Smith?"

He laughed.  "Oh, as far as that goes, I may
have to do some."

"Kidnaping?"

"Possibly."

"You're a strange creature, Smith.  And, speaking
of strange creatures, who the devil is that
Princess Pudelstoff?  She talks English like an
east-side Jewess."

"She is."

"W-what!!!"

"Certainly."

"The Princess Pudelstoff!"

"Her name was Leah Puppsky.  She's the sister
of Leo Puppsky, the Bolshevik envoy sent here with
his confrere Isidore Wildkatz by Trotzky and Lenine
to confer with Tino and Ferdie.  She was once
pretty—and she acted in an east-side theatre with
Nazimova.  Prince Pudelstoff was an attaché of the
Russian Embassy at the time.  He saw her act, fell
in love, and married her,—of course with the Czar's
knowledge and consent.  But why the Czar let him do
it is one of those diplomatic mysteries which remain
unfathomed.  Some believe that Rasputin had a
reason for approving such an alliance."  He shrugged.

"What a strange, fat, vulgar, good-natured
woman," said I.  "And what a grotesque company!
Can you beat it?—Bulgar and Bolsheviki, King,
Queen, Countess, Baron, Admiral, all jumbled up in
this little rest-house where I am trying to live in
peace and privacy.  And now comes an act of God
called an avalanche!—and we're all trapped
together—you and I, Thusis and Clelia, and this
beastly Bulgarian with his beak of a bird of prey;
and that vulgar Greek King and his vixen of a
wife,—Oh, Lord!"

"I'm glad God acted," he said cheerfully.

"You're glad that avalanche fell?"

"Yes; I'm very much relieved."

"Why, in the name of Heaven?"

"It simplifies my duties," he said, smiling.  And
that's all I got out of him except that he advised
me to have nothing to do with this enterprise of
Thusis and her sister.

"They'll only get you into mischief," he said.
"It's a perfectly crazy scheme.  Anyway I think
it's nipped in the bud, now."

"If the avalanche hadn't fallen——"

"That makes a difference.  But it couldn't have
been done anyway.  So you'd better not encourage
Thusis by enlisting with her as a recruit, Michael.
Avalanche or no avalanche it can't be done."

"Smith," said I, "if Thusis needs me I am going
to help her bag this brace of kings."

"You are?"

"I am."

"You'll lose your property."

"I can't help that."

Smith glanced up at me curiously: "You are in
love, Michael.

"I think I am."

"Don't be."

"What!"

"Don't be in love," he repeated gently.  "It isn't
any use.  It's no good, Michael."

What he said annoyed me and he perceived it.

"Oh Lord," he said wearily, "this is a mess all
around.  You don't know what a mess it is, Michael.
But all I can tell you is, *don't fall in love with
Thusis*!  Because it won't do you any good."

"What do you mean?  Do you know who Thusis
really is?"

"No, I don't.  But I do know that it will do you
no good to fall in love with her."

"Has it done *you* any good to fall in love with her
sister Clelia?" I retorted sharply.

"Not a particle."

"Then why have you done it?"

He winced but said pleasantly: "I fell in love
with her before I realized it.  Now I'm falling out
of love with her.  I'm curing myself....  Besides,
she cares nothing about me....  It will be easier
for me to cure myself than for you to recover if you
fall in love."

"Thusis will not listen to a serious word from
me," said I with sudden bitterness.  "I ought to try
to cure myself *now*! ... But I don't want to."

"Michael," he said, "the pretty Thusis, also, had
better be very careful, because she already is as close
to caring for you seriously as it is safe for any
young girl to care for a man whom she knows she
never is going to marry."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, although I do not know who Thusis
really is, I do know that she is not going to marry
you.  And I do not believe you will ever see Thusis
again after this herd of conspirators leaves Swiss
soil."

I thought very hard for a while.  Then: "Smith,
I have become firmly convinced that Thusis is the
original of *The Laughing Girl*!  Find out who she
was and you will learn who Thusis is.  I'm certain
of this.  Now who was this Laughing Girl?"

"Nobody knows."

"Have you tried to find out?"

"Yes."

"Did you learn anything at all?"

"Not much."

"What did you learn?"

"That the photographs of The Laughing Girl
are not permitted to be sold in Italy."

I looked at him, perplexed.  He shrugged his
shoulders: "Photographs for sale in European cities,"
he said, "are usually portraits of celebrities—actresses,
demi-mondaines, royalties.  Do you suppose
Thusis to be one of these?"

"Good heavens!"

"One of the three alternatives is, of course,
unthinkable.  Your choice would seem to lie, then,
between royalty and the drama.  *But*—the photographs
of the Italian Royal family are sold everywhere
in Italy.  So are photographs of pretty
actresses.  Why is the sale of The Laughing Girl
forbidden in Italy?"

"*Forbidden*?  You didn't say that."

"Forbidden," he repeated calmly.

"That's very strange," said I.  "What does it
signify, Smith?"

"Well, of course, I have my own theory as to that."

"You don't care to discuss it?"

He shook his head.

"No, Michael.  But it seems to fit in with my
general idea concerning the identity of Thusis."

"And do you, too, believe that Thusis is the
original of The Laughing Girl?" I asked.

"I have come to believe so."

"Then," said I, "I shall marry her!  I've been in
love with that photograph ever since I laid eyes on
it, and now, when I've found the original, do you
suppose I shall let it go at that?  You don't know
the O'Ryans!"

He began to laugh, but my excitement was rising.

"I'm going to make love to her," said I.  "I'm
going to help her bag these kings if she wants them.
And when we tie them neck and heels and smuggle
them into France and turn them over to a pair of
strapping gendarmes I shall enlist with the
American forces in France, whether Thusis accepts me
for her husband or not.  That, Smith, is my
unalterable decision and my inflexible programme!  And
my property in Switzerland can go to the devil!"

"There are," said Smith with a peculiar smile,
"two reasons why you should not remain in love
with Thusis.  One is that she won't marry you."

"What's the other?"

"The other is that she couldn't marry you if she
wished to."

There was a short silence, then he went on: "Also
there are two reasons why you should not help Thusis
to kidnap Tino and Ferdie.  One is that she isn't
able to."

"What's the other?"

"The other is that—*I won't let her*."

I felt myself growing red and angry.

"That sounds almost pro-hun," said I.

"It does sound so," he admitted.

"Of course you're not pro-German," I added
incredulously.

"Of course not," he rejoined calmly.

"Then——"

"I can't explain.  I'm merely warning you not
to aid her in this affair."

"Does Thusis know your attitude?"

"No, but she will."

"You are going to tell her?"

"No; but *you* are."

"I certainly shall," said I, warmly.  "And I'd
like to know why you are interfering with what she
desires to do."

"I can't tell you why, Michael; but I'll tell *her*
why—if she asks me."

"You may be very sure that Thusis will ask you,
Smith," said I, perplexed to the verge of
exasperation by his amazing attitude.

"Suppose *you* tell her," he said, amused.  "All
you need do is to repeat this couplet to her:

   |  "*Grecian gift and Spanish fig*
   |  *Help the fool his grave to dig!*"
   |

"What idiot's jargon is that!" I demanded.

"A jargon that is likely to hold our pretty Thusis
for a while.  It is a word of warning—a signal
of danger used by members of a secret society known
as the Ægean League.  Also it is likely to start her
looking for me.  And when she finds me I think she'll
listen to reason and renounce this silly and useless
attempt to trap royalty wholesale for export
purposes.  Not," he added gaily, "that I shouldn't
expire with laughter to see Raoul and you, for example,
take that pair of kings by the slack of the pants
and run them Spanish into France.  I'd applaud it,
old top.  I'd give frequent cheers during the
process.  But Thusis and Clelia mustn't start any such
shindy.  No!  And if they inquire why, just repeat
that verse to them and refer them to me."

"Then you are *not* here to watch these hun
conspirators?" I asked in astonishment.

"Only incidentally."

"Do you mean to say that you are here, primarily,
to watch Thusis and Clelia?"

"That is exactly why I am here, Michael.  And
I don't mind your telling them so.  I myself was
going to tell them.  I had intended to break the
news to them to-night.  But the avalanche makes
it unnecessary; they can't get out of this valley
with their cartload of kings, now.  However, let me
suggest that you repeat that couplet to Thusis."

"This," said I, "is a most astounding and
disagreeable series of complications.  I don't
understand them.  I don't understand Thusis or you or
that bagful of boches downstairs."

"Don't try to, old chap," he said in his friendly
way.  "And above all, don't break your heart over
Thusis.  For when the snow that blocks the pass
melts, or when somebody digs through, I don't
believe you are ever likely to see Thusis again."

His kindly sincerity scared and angered me.

"Watch me!" said I.  "An O'Ryan never loves
but once.  But when he does love——"

"All right, old fellow.  Go to it and God help you.
They say He has a warm spot in His heart for the
Irish."

I nodded, looking at him very seriously: "It's
quite impossible," said I, "that she's royal.  And
if she's an actress I don't care, because I'm so
deeply in love with her that I don't know whether
I'm afoot or on horseback.  And when an O'Ryan
feels that way the world is his or he continues on
to Heaven."

"Does it really mean Life or Death to you already,
Michael?" he asked gravely.

"Life or death, sink or swim, survive or perish,—as
some Yankee orator said once.  Nothing matters
now except Thusis.  That's my only reason for
living.  Yesterday I wanted wealth, to-day my
estate can go to the deuce.  Yesterday I was a rather
sober, decent citizen, perpetrating interior
decoration in New York, to-day I figuratively kick the
varnish off period furniture, tear down tapestries,
smash Chinese pottery, and wipe my feet on the rags
of Renaissance!  Art is nothing!  Thusis is
everything.  If she wants a few kings to play with, she
shall have them.  I'll bag them for her.  I'll do
anything in the world for her.  And if that's not
enough I'll step off this damned old planet and pull
wires aloft for the honor and glory and happiness
of the noblest, sweetest, loveliest, most beauti——"

A slight exclamation behind me checked my
excited confession.

Slowly turning in my tracks I beheld Thusis at
the door in cap and apron.

There was a terrific silence.

Then Thusis, her fair face deeply flushed, dropped
us a curtsey.

"Dinner is served, sir," she said faintly.  And
was gone like a shadow.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A TRAVELING CIRCUS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A TRAVELING CIRCUS

.. vspace:: 2

The royal traveling circus was already seated
and whetting its appetite with hors d'oeuvres,
when I arrived in the dining-room and, saluting
my guests, took my place as host at the head of
the long table.

Heaven!  What a collection!  Being incognito, I
was not supposed to be aware of the identity of
royalty; but Thusis had seated the ex-queen of Greece
on my right and Tino on my left, and, beyond Queen
Sophia, she had put the Tsar of all the Bulgars,—with
a clean napkin where he had soiled the cover.

The new accessions to this traveling show had,
very evidently, decided among themselves the places
at table to which they were entitled by precedence of
rank.  And these they now occupied.

The two Bolsheviki, Leo Puppsky and Isidore
Wildkatz, had been relegated to the foot of the
table where they sat hunched up and scowling about
them until noodle soup presently preoccupied them.

I do not know which one of my guests was the
noisiest: the Tsar of all the Bulgars sucked up his
soup with the distressingly acute sound of a sick
horse drinking; the Princess Pudelstoff lapped and
slobbered and wheezed in her slopping plate; but the
technique of the Bolsheviki was simple and more
effective, being reduced to a primitive, incessant
gobbling noise, followed by patient and persistent scraping.

Behind my chair stood Raoul as extemporary butler;
Thusis and Clelia in spotless caps and aprons
sped lightly hither and thither; while from the
depths of the kitchen, Josephine Vannis fed us all
with the most delectable dinner which I think I ever
tasted.

Ordinary wine being included on my bill of fare,
the Tsar guzzled it while his sly eye of a wild pig
roved about reading labels on the various bottles
of more expensive wine ordered by the others.

The Bolsheviki, having plenty of the Russian
people's money, demanded "bowcoo tchimpagne"; King
Tino drank goblets of a rather heavy claret; his
wife sipped only bottled water, while her cold, steely
eyes glittered from guest to guest.

I conversed politely when spoken to; otherwise I
made no effort.  The Prussian admiral worked his
bushy eyebrows and his coarse, fan-shaped beard
while munching, but whether in hostility to me or
because he was built that way, I did not know, and
did not care.

He and Baron von Bummelzug sat all hunched up
side by side, gobbling in their whiskers and exchanging
Teutonic grunts which seemed to be their substitute
for human conversation.  Herr Secretary
Gizzler, factotum to the Baron, and seated with the
Bolsheviki, devastated his plate and seized ravenously
upon anything eatable in his vicinity, which presently
elicited a chattering protest from Puppsky; and
a quarrel rapidly developed until squelched by
General Count von Dungheim.

"Silence!" he said angrily: "you make so much
noise that it is impossible to hear oneself eat!"

The Princess Pudelstoff nodded violently, balancing
a knifeful of mashed potato before committing
it to its dreadful destiny:

"They act," she said in English, "like they was
never to a high-toned dinner.  It's them two
Bolsheviks that ain't had a square meal since Hindy
licked the Rooshians at the Missouri Lakes."

Leo Puppsky made a violent gesture at her with
the leg of a chicken:

"Is that the way to speak of us?" he said to his
sister.  "And you a Russian and my own sister!"

"Ain't it true?" she asked with a loud laugh.
"Get sense, Leo.  There won't be nothing to eat in
Rooshia so long as you act ugly to Germany——"

"Princess!" interrupted the queen of Greece, sharply.

"That's right," said Tino in a loud, good humored
voice; "one doesn't discuss politics while
dining.  No!  One pays strict attention to what one
eats and drinks; eh, Sophy?"

The queen ignored him, and he slyly batted one
eye at the pretty Countess Manntrapp, his neighbor,
and tossed off a brimming goblet of deep red
claret.

"Aha!" he said, smacking his lips, "that beats
even the wine of Naxos.  Did you ever drink Naxos
wine, Countess?"

"No," said she; "is it very excellent?"

"Heady, Countess, heady!  After you crack one
bottle you begin to see the old gods of Greece sitting
beside you on pink clouds in their underclothes——"

"Tino!" snapped the Queen.

The Countess laughed.  "I'd like to see them."  She
looked across at me with her fascinating,
audacious smile: "Wouldn't you like to drink Naxos
wine with me, Mr. O'Ryan, and see the old time gods
come down out of the blue sky and sit at table all
about you?"

"It seems to me," said I, bowing, "that Aphrodite
has already arrived among us mortals."

She laughed, acknowledging the raw compliment,
then pursing up her red mouth but uttering no sound
she nevertheless formed her question so that I read
every word on her mobile lips:

"Do—you—know—anybody—who—would—play—Adonis—to—my—Venus?"

And she laughed her daring little laugh and made
me a pretty gesture, intercepted by Ferdinand of
Bulgaria who took it for himself and continued to
ogle her out of passionate, pig-like eyes until
further engrossed in a new relay of food.

It was a dreadful dinner party.  Both the kings
made life wretched for Clelia and Thusis as they
waited on table, slyly pinching them when
unobserved until, from Thusis' burning cheeks and
trembling hands as she served me, I almost feared she
would launch a plate at the royal libertines.

It was a weird company.  The Bolsheviki
chattered and grabbed at food; all the Germans ate
noisily—excepting only the pretty Countess
Manntrapp, who had been Lila Shezawitch, and not a
Teuton by birth.

Constantine had had more claret than was good
for him and now he was pouring into himself
countless little glasses of brandy, and was becoming
loudly and somewhat coarsely talkative, retailing bits
of barrack-room gossip to General Count von
Dungheim and cracking dubious jokes with Baron von
Bummelzug until his wife spoke to him with such
cutting contempt that he winced and relapsed into
a half hazy and giggling exchange of whispers with
the Countess Manntrapp.  As for the Princess
Pudelstoff, she had never for one moment ceased
stuffing herself.  Sweat stood in oily beads on her
forehead and cheeks; her fat hands plied knife and
fork and spoon without interruption save when
she grasped her beer mug in both jeweled hands and
drew mighty and noisy draughts from the heavy
quart receptacle.

The whole performance at my table was becoming
a horrid nightmare to me; I could not see any
signs of satiation among these dreadful people—any
desire to call it off and quit and retire to their
respective sties.

Smith caught my eye and I saw him suppress the
smile that twitched his features.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that I had news
for the traveling circus that might modify their
appetites; and I said, distinctly, and raising my voice
sufficiently to command attention from everybody:

"There is some very serious information which I
regret that it is necessary to share with everybody
here.  I did not wish to spoil your appetites.  But
dinner is over, and I had better speak."

All feeding ceased; everybody stared at me.

"I regret that I am obliged to inform you," I
continued, "that the snow field on the south flank of
the Bec de l'Empereur, loosened by the warm
deluge of rain, has fallen, completely choking the pass
which is our only entrance to and exit from this valley."

"An avalanche!" exclaimed the Queen of Greece sharply.

"Yes, madame, a very bad one."

"We are blocked in," she gasped.

"Absolutely."

At that the Princess Pudelstoff uttered a squeak
of fright: "We're all going to starve!" she squealed
in alarm; "that's what he means!  There isn't enough
food for us and we'll all die the way they are dying
in Rooshia——"

"There's plenty of food," I interrupted.

"Ach, Gott sei dank!  Gott sei dank!" she
shouted, clapping her pudgy hands and seizing knife
and fork again.

But the others were now rising from their seats,
exchanging glances full of anxiety and perplexity;
and, as I left the room with Smith, I saw them all
gathering around the Ex-Queen of Greece as though
general consternation had seized them.  Only the
Princess Pudelstoff remained in her chair, devouring
tartlets, her triple chin agitated by a series of
convulsive shudders as she bolted sections of pastry too
large for her.

Coffee was to be served *al fresco*; Raoul had set
a number of green iron tables and chairs out by the
fountain.

"My heavens, Smith," said I, "we should serve
them coffee in a common trough.  Did you ever
before endure such misery at any table?"

"Oh, yes," he said, "I've lived in Germany."

"Well I haven't, and I'm going to skip the demitasse,"
I rejoined.  And I walked around the house
and entered the back door where two latticed arbors
flanked the stone walk.

Here I seated myself and lighted a cigarette, still
unnerved by the martyrdom of that dinner table.

It was quiet and peaceful in the sunset light under
my roof of curly grape leaves where sun spots glowed
amid the tender green and two little active birds
climbed busily and silently about the foliage in
search of aphids.

I had been sitting there for ten minutes, perhaps,
when the door opened behind me and Thusis appeared
with coffee.  Her lovely features still were
tinged with the rosy glow of recent wrath; her gray
eyes were still brilliant with the same emotion.

"Coffee, if you please, sir?" she said crisply.

I had risen, smiling.

"You need not have taken so much trouble,
Thusis——"

"Pardon.  It is what servants are hired for."

"Why do you keep up this masquerade with me?"
I asked, laughingly, taking the cup from the tray.

But Thusis seemed to be in no pleasant humor,
and she turned to go without answering.

"Thusis!"

She halted.

"I'm sorry those beastly kings annoyed you at
table——"

"They're men," she retorted angrily.  "What can
a woman expect?"

"Do you think that is fair to me, Thusis, to lump
me with men in general?"

"I don't know what's fair to you.  And I'm really
not very particular about it.  Little chance that men
ever suffer too much from being misunderstood in
this world."

"You are amazingly unjust, do you realize it?"

"I'm not sure that I am," she said sullenly.  "You
made your début by trying to kiss your own cook.
Tino is coarser, he pinches; Ferdie the furtive,
pushes one with his knees and rolls wild eyes at
one.  There are three masculine examples.  Take
your choice, Monsieur," she added, going.

"Wait!"

She turned haughtily, her gray eyes suddenly insolent.

"Because you are hurt and offended and humiliated
by a pair of scoundrels," said I, "is no reason
why you should visit your displeasure on me."

"I make no difference in men."

"Not even in the man who is in love with you?"

"Love?  *Love*!"  She laughed, not agreeably.  "I
am not flattered, Monsieur, to have offered to me
the same adoration which you were quite willing to
bestow upon your cook.  I tell you all men *are*
alike!—including the Pharisee."

"Do you mean me?"

"Haven't you practically just thanked God you
are not like other men?"

"What have I done to deserve this, Thusis?  I'm
trying to be patient——"

"You don't need to be.  Heaven deliver me from
a patient man!"

Then I blew up: "You listen to me, you little
idiot," I said in a low, enraged tone; "I'm in love
with you and you can't help it whatever you choose
to do about it.  You came here as a servant and I
fell in love with you as a servant.  You are
probably something else—God knows what—and I'm
more in love than ever with God-knows-what!  I
don't care what you are, servant, bourgeoise,
actress, princess, or demi-mondaine——"

"*What!*"

"I tell you I wouldn't care.  I love you.  I want
to marry you——"

"Marry me if I were—a demi——"

"Yes!" I said violently; "yes! yes! yes!  It's
too late to have whatever you are make any difference
to me.  I'm an O'Ryan and I love only once."

"Do you suppose I'm flattered by what you've
just shouted at me?  You'd marry me—or you'd do
the same for a demi——"

"Confound it!" I exclaimed, "it's you, whatever
you are!  Can't you understand——"

"Certainly I can.  All men are men first, last, all
the time.  That Serbian married Draga; any man
will do as much for any drab if he can't have her
otherwise.  I've seen enough of men, I tell you.
Royal, noble, landed gentry, bourgeoisie, peasantry—all
are men first, last, all the time; and all are
exactly alike!"

She clenched her hand and confronted me with
scornful eyes:

"And why any honest woman should ever fall in
love with one of them is one of those ignoble
mysteries which I have never cared to fathom!"

Her contempt and my own fury almost paralyzed me.

I said, finally, in a very quiet voice, not my own:

"Very well, Thusis, expect nothing more of me
than you expect of any man—including those royal
gentlemen out yonder.  And I'll not disappoint you."

I stepped nearer, forcing a smile:

"You've succeeded in slaying any consideration
I entertained for your sex.  You've enlightened me.
In future I'll take them as I find them, easily, lightly,
good-humoredly, with gaiety, with gratitude to the
old time gods when they send a pretty one my way."

And I smiled at Thusis who looked darkly back at
me with the faintest hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

"It is wonderful," said I, "how a word or two
from a woman sometimes clears up the most serious
situations.  Your revelations concerning my sex in
general have opened my eyes.  I take your word for
it that man is always man, as you explain so
convincingly, and that he is, first, last, and all the
time, merely a jackass endowed with speech."

I emptied my coffee cup and set it upon the tray
which she held in her left hand.

"I had," said I, "something else to tell you—and
which had nothing whatever to do with love.  But,
on second thoughts, I am so certain that a
self-sufficient girl like yourself is amply able to look
out for herself, that I shall not bother to say what
I had intended saying."

Her gray eyes became intently fixed on mine while
her color came and went under the sting of irony.

But I made up my mind to let matters take their
course.  If she tried to body-snatch this Greek and
Bulgarian carrion, let her!  If Smith interfered, let
him!  What was it to me after all?  I was becoming
fed up on love and feminine caprice—on kings
and queens and shocking manners,—on intrigue and
treachery and counter plot.

Suddenly, as I stood there, a wave of disgust
swept over me.  I was sick of Switzerland; sick of
the ridiculous property which was causing me all
this trouble and discomfort; sick of the grotesque
whim of Fate which had yanked me out of an orderly,
unaccented life and a peaceful profession in
Manhattan and had slammed me down here in the
midst of love and Alps and kings!

"I'll chuck the estate and go home!" I exclaimed.
"I'll go now, to-night!"  And then I remembered the
accursed avalanche.

She was watching me intently, curiously, and I
noticed she had lost some of her colour.

"Do you suppose," said I, "that there is any way
of climbing over that mass of snow?—any way of my
getting out of this valley to-night?"

"Would you go if you could?" she asked in a
rather colorless voice.

"Yes, I would," said I savagely.  "I've had enough."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry that I've had enough?" I sneered.

"Sorry you cannot leave the valley to-night," she
said quietly.

"Then it is not possible?"

"I'm afraid not....  If it were, I also would
leave this valley to-night."

"With a bagful of kings," I added.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't," said I with unworthy
satisfaction in my knowledge of Smith's mission.
"And let me tell you a thing or two, Thusis.  You
seem to resemble, more or less, a very naughty
little girl, spoiled but precocious, who has run away
from school and is raising the devil out of bounds,
throwing stones and ringing door-bells and defying
policemen with derisive tongue.  Pretty soon you'll
be caught and led home and soundly spanked.  And,"
I added fervently, "I'd like to be in the vicinity of
that wood-shed when discipline begins."

My laughter was fairly genuine.  I lighted a
cigarette and, gazing at this girl who had so
outrageously maligned me, felt so much better that a
macabre sort of gaiety verging upon frivolity invaded me.

"All women," said I, "are women, first, last, and
all the time."

Thusis flushed.

"I am wondering," said I airily, "whether the rôle
of Adonis might suit me."

"What!" she exclaimed.

"Adonis," I repeated.  "He was that poor fish
of an amateur who played opposite Aphrodite.  And
got the hook.  But the rôle is all right and it's a
no-character part if you play it straight....  I'm
wondering—"  And I smiled at my own thoughts and
blew three rings of smoke up at the sun-lit grape
leaves overhead.

Suddenly Thusis unclosed her soft, fresh lips,
which seemed a trifle tremulous:

"That woman," she said breathlessly, "is notorious
in Vienna!  And if you are—sufficiently
abandoned—to d-degrade yourself by—an affair—with
her——"

"But what do you care, Thusis?"

Her face flamed.  "I care—*that*!" she said,
snapping her white fingers.  And turned swiftly on her
heel.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE COUNTESS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE COUNTESS

.. vspace:: 2

I was very unhappy.  I was not only madly in
love with Thusis but also mad enough to spank
her.  And I sat down in the arbor once more a
prey to mixed emotions.

The two silent little birds had gone to bed.  Soft
mauve shadows lay across the scrubby foreland;
snow peaks assumed the hue of pink pearls; a wavering
light played through the valley so that the world
seemed to quiver in primrose tints.

Then, through the pale yellow glory, a girl came
drifting as though part of the delicate beauty of it
all,—her frail, primrose evening gown and scarf
scarcely outlined—scarcely detached from the
golden clarity about her.  It was as though she
were lost in the monotone of living light the only
accent the dusky symmetry of her head.

I had not realized that the Countess Manntrapp
was so pretty.

I was not sure that she had discovered me at all
until she turned her head en passant and sent me
one of those vague smiles calculated to stir the dead
bones of saints.

"I suppose," she said, "you only look lonely, but
really you are not."

I was lonely and sore at heart.  Possibly she read
in my forced smile something of my state of mind,
for she paused leisurely by the arbor and glanced
about her at the grape leaves.

"Evidently," she said, "this spot is sacred to
Bacchus.  But I was not looking for gods or
half-gods....  Do you prefer your own company, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"No, I don't," said I.  So she entered the arbor
and seated herself.  There was only that one seat.
With strictest economy it could accommodate two;
but I had not thought of attempting it until she
carelessly suggested it.

"How heavenly still it is," she murmured, an absent
expression in her dark eyes.  "Are you fond of
stillness and solitude?"

"Not very," said I.  "Are you, Countess?"

She said, dreamily, that she was, but her side
glance belied her.  Never did the goddess of
mischief look at me out of two human eyes as
audaciously as she was doing now.  And it was so
transparent a challenge, so utterly without disguise, that
we both laughed.

I don't know why I laughed unless the soreness in
mind and heart had provoked their natural reaction.
A listless endurance of suffering is the first
symptom of indifference—that blessed anodyne with
which instinct inoculates unhappy hearts when the
bitterness which was sorrow wears away and leaves
only dull resignation.

"At dinner," she said, "I made up my mind that
you are an interesting man.  I am wondering."

"I came to a similar conclusion concerning you,"
said I.  "But I'm no longer wondering how near right
I am."

"Such a pretty compliment!  Also it dissipates
any doubts regarding you."

"Did you have any, Countess?"

"Well, you know what I asked you at dinner.
You understood?  You read lips, don't you?"

"I read yours."

"I wasn't sure.  You gave me no answer."

We laughed lightly.  "What answer can a mortal
make when Aphrodite commands?" said I.

"Then you are willing to play Adonis?"

"Quite as willing—as was that young gentleman."

"That isn't kind of you, Mr. O'Ryan.  He wasn't
very willing, was he?"

"Not very.  But possibly he had a premonition of
the tragic consequences," said I, laughing.  "One
doesn't frivol with a goddess with impunity."

"Are you afraid?"

She turned in the narrow seat.  She was altogether
too near, but I couldn't help it.  And I was
much disturbed to find our fingers had become very
lightly intertwined.

She was smiling when I kissed her.  But after I had
done it her smile faded, and the gay confidence in
her expression altered.

I had never expected to see in her eyes any hint
of confusion, but it was there, and a sort of shamed
surprise, too—odd emotions for a hardened coquette
with the reputation she enjoyed.

"You proceed too rapidly," she said, the bright
but subtly changed smile still stamped on her lips.
"There seems to be no finesse about Americans—no
leisurely technique that masters the intricacies of
the ante-climax.  Did you not know that hesitation
is an art; that the only perfect happiness is in
suspense?"

"Didn't you want to be kissed?" I asked bluntly.
"I had perhaps surmised that it might not be a
disagreeable sensation.  Was it?"

She seemed to have recovered her careless
audacity, and now she laughed.

"At all events," she said, "I shall not repeat the
experiment ... this evening."  She laid one soft
hand in mine with a gay little smile: "Let us enjoy
our new friendship serenely and without undue
emotion," she said.  "And let me tell you how you have
made me laugh at what you said to those absurd
Prussians!"

We both laughed, but I was now on my guard
with this girl who had come here in such company.

"No Prussian ever born ever knew how to make
a friend," she said.  "To-day they have the whole
world against them—even your country——"

"I am Chilean," said I pleasantly.

"Are you *really*?"

"I think you and your friends are quite sure of
that," said I drily.

"Suppose," she said in a lower voice, "I tell you
that they are not my friends?"

I smiled.

"You wouldn't believe me?" she asked.

"What I believe and do not believe, dear Countess,
should not disturb you in the slightest."

"I thought we were friends."

"Do you *really* think so?"

"I hope so.  I wish it—if you do.  And friendship
does not fear confidences."

"Neutrals have no confidences to make.  My country
is not at war."

"Is not your heart enlisted?" she asked, smilingly.

"Is yours?"

"Yes, it is!  See how my friendship refuses no
confidence when you ask?  *I* do not hesitate."

"On which side," said I, warily, "is your heart
enlisted?"

"Shall I tell you?"

"If you care to."

She sat looking at me intently, her soft hand in
mine.  Then, with a pretty gesture, she placed the
other hand over it, and her shoulder came into
contact with mine.

"I am Russian," she said.  "Is that not an answer?"

"So is Puppsky," I remarked.

For a second an odd expression came over her
face and it turned quite white.  Then she laughed.

"I'll tell you something," she said.  "I have a girl
friend.  I love her dearly.  I have a country.  I
love it still more dearly.  The girl I love is
Adelaide, Grand Duchess of Luxemburg.  Prussia has
practically annexed it.  The country I love is
Russia.  Prussia holds it....  Do you still doubt me?"

"Good Lord," thought I, "how this girl can lie!"  But
I said: "Tell me about Luxemburg, Countess.
Is it true that Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria means to
marry the seventeen-year-old sister of the Grand
Duchess Adelaide?"

"Yes," she said.  And I distinctly heard her teeth
snap.

"What sort of man is Ruprecht?" I inquired, to
steer the conversation toward easier ground.

"Ruprecht!  Did you ever see him?"

"No."

"Well, he has the manners of the barn-yard and
the distinction of a scullion!  Picture to yourself a
man of fifty-seven with a head as square as a
battered bullet and the bodily grace of a new-born
camel.  He is the stupidest, coarsest, commonest
vulgarian in Europe.

"Why, the man is ridiculous!  He once set all
Munich laughing by appearing in the English
Garden on skates wearing his spurs and saber.  And
all his military suite had to do likewise.  Picture the
result—and Ruprecht scarcely knew how to stand
on the ice!  Why their swords got between their
legs and their spurs did the rest, and the entire lake
resounded with the incessant crash of falling warriors."

She threw back her head and laughed; and I
laughed too.

"Such a brute," she said.  "His first wife, daughter
of that kindly and philanthropic oculist, Karl
Theodore of Tegernsee, died of his neglect and ill
treatment.  And now, at fifty-seven, he rolls his
hog's eyes in his freckled face and smirks at a
seventeen-year-old child—God help her!"

I gazed in amazement at the Countess Manntrapp.
This was acting with a vengeance.  Such perfection,
such flawless interpretation of the rôle she was
playing for my benefit, I had never dreamed possible.
No emotion could appear more genuine, no sincerity
more perfectly mimicked.  Here was an actress
without equal in my entire experience.

Suddenly I caught her eye, and turned very red.

"You don't believe me," she said calmly, and
dropped her head.

There was a painful silence between us.  Presently
she looked up at me, flushed, curious, amused:

"You take me for a Hun, don't you?"

"If you are not pro-German," said I, much
embarrassed, "what are you doing with those people?"

"Watching them.  And you don't believe that, either?"

"I'm sorry, Countess."

"Why do you doubt me?"

"Because only a pro-German would confide to a
stranger that she is not one.  Were you really in
the Allied service you'd keep your own council.
Secret agents don't betray themselves to strangers.
You have no means of knowing where my sympathies
lie.  How do you know I am not pro-German?"

"By your letters."

"My letters?"

"I opened several," she said naïvely.

"Where!"

"In Berne."

"You stole my letters?"

"Yes, I had to."

"How did you do it?"

"The postman is in my pay."

"That," said I angrily, "is a most outrageous
confession, Countess."

"But I had to know what your politics are," she
explained gently.  "Besides, if I had not stolen all
your letters the Swiss authorities would have opened
them and found out that you are pro-Ally in
sentiment.  And then you would not have been permitted
to come here and live in this house.  And all these
people would not have come here either.  And I
should have had nobody to help me while keeping
these people under surveillance."

"You count on me to help you?" I demanded, too
astonished to remain angry.

"May I not?" she asked sweetly.

"So that's the reason," said I, "that you let me
kiss you."

"I must be honest, it is."

With every atom of conceit knocked out of me,
wincing, chagrined, I found nothing to say to this
pretty woman who sat so close beside me and looked
at me with a half smile hovering on her lips and out
of sweet, dark eyes that seemed utterly honest—God
help her.

"It is only your vanity that is smarting a little,"
she said, smiling, "not your heart.  I haven't touched
that at all."

"How do you know?" I retorted.

"Because you are in love with somebody else, Mr. O'Ryan."

"With whom?" I demanded defiantly.

"I don't know.  But you are in love.  A woman
can tell."

"I am *not* in love," said I with angry emphasis,
recollecting the treatment meted out to me by
Thusis.  "I'm not in love with anybody."  I caught
her doubting but interested eyes fixed intently on
me—"unless," I added recklessly, "I'm in love with
you."

"But you're not."

We looked at each other curiously, almost searchingly,
not inclined to laugh yet ready, perhaps, for
further mischief.  Why not preoccupy my mind with
this amusing and pretty woman, and slay in my
heart all regard for Thusis?

So I kissed her with that object in view.  She said
nothing—scarcely defended herself—sitting with
pretty head lowered and white jeweled hands tightly
folded in her lap.

"I'll take you trout-fishing," said I, determined
to exterminate and root out all tender memories of
Thusis.

She looked up: "May I ask you a question?"

"What is it?" I returned, suspiciously, instantly
on my guard again.

"Who is Mr. Smith?"

"A Norwegian."  And I explained Smith's business
with the Swiss government.

She nodded absently.  Probably she did not believe
this.  As far as that was concerned, neither
did I.

"Answer me a question, will you, Countess?" said
I in my turn.  She smiled: "What is it?"

"Is your kiss really worth the information you
extract from me?"

In spite of her light laughter she turned quite
pink, and when I bent toward her again, she laid her
arm across her lips, defending them.

Then, as I was preparing for further indiscretion,
the door behind us opened and was closed again
instantly.  I knew it was Thusis.  The certainty
chilled my very bones.

"Who was it?" I asked carelessly.

"Only the waitress," said she.

"The red-haired one?"

"I believe so.  Is she Swiss?"

I did not answer.

The Countess looked up and repeated the
question.  "Where did you find her?" she added.

There was a short silence.  An almost imperceptible
change came over her features.  Then, daintily,
and by degrees, she inclined her head a little nearer.

But it was not in me to betray Thusis for a kiss.
Slowly, however, I became aware that I was betraying
myself.

Presently the Countess rose in the gathering dusk,
and I stood up immediately.

She inspected me steadily for a full minute, then
that almost imperceptible smile edged her lips again
and she gave me my congé with a gentle nod.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MORE MYSTERY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MORE MYSTERY

.. vspace:: 2

I discovered Smith sitting on the rim of the
fountain all alone in the dusk.

"Good heavens!" I blurted out, "was any man
ever so completely entangled in the web of intrigue
as I am?  Plot, counterplot, camouflage, mystery—I'm
in the very middle of the whole mess!

"I don't know who anybody is or what they're up
to!  Who is Thusis?  Who is Clelia?  Who is
Josephine Vannis?  Raoul?  The Countess Manntrapp?
And who are you, for that matter?  I don't know!
I don't pretend to guess."

"What's the trouble?" he asked, amused.

"Trouble!  I don't know.  There's all kinds of
trouble lying around.  I'm in several varieties of it.
Where is the traveling circus?"

"In Tsar Ferdie's apartments."

"Probably conspiring," I added.

"Probably."

"What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, I'm not conspiring," he said, laughing, "I'm
no saint to converse with the fishes in your fountain."

"Where is Clelia?"

He said he didn't know but somehow I gathered
the impression that she was somewhere behind the
lighted kitchen windows and that Smith was hanging
around in hopes she might come out to take the
air by starlight.

"Have you seen Thusis?" I asked guiltily.  And
felt my ears burning in the dark.

"Why, yes," he said.  "She walked down the road
a few moments ago."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Probably she went to take a look at the snow
blockade," said I.

He nodded.

"Perhaps," I added carelessly, "I had better
saunter down that way."

"No," he said, "you'd better not."

"Why?" I asked sharply.

"Starlight and Thusis might go to a young man's
head."

"I'm no longer in love," said I in the most solemn
tones I had ever used.  "I am now able to
contemplate Thusis without the stormy emotions which
once assailed me, Smith.  All that is over.  To me
she is merely an interesting and rather pathetic
woman.  I feel kindly toward Thusis.  I wish her
well.  I would willingly do anything I could to——"

"Piffle."

"What the devil do you mean by that?" I demanded.

"What the devil do you mean by kidding yourself?"

"Haven't I just explained?"

"You've given yourself away.  A man doesn't utter
pious sentiments about a girl he no longer cares
for.  He doesn't bother to explain his regenerated
attitude toward her.  He doesn't trouble himself to
talk about her at all.  Nor does he go roaming
after her by starlight.  If you really care for her
no longer, let her alone.  If you do care you'll get
mad at what I say—as you're doing—and start off
to find her in the starlight—as you're doing——"

But I was too exasperated to listen to such stuff.

.. vspace:: 2

I discovered her, finally, in the starlight just ahead
of me,—a slim shadow on the high-road, outlined
against a stupendous mass of snow which choked the
valley like a glacier.

She heard my steps on the hard stone road,
looked over her shoulder, then turned sharply,
paying me no further attention, even when I came up
beside her.

"Gracious!" said I, attempting an easy tone and
manner; "what a tremendous fall was here!"

"I have known greater falls," she said very quietly.

"Really?"

"Yes; I once had a friend whose fall was greater."

"Poor fellow!  He fell off a precipice, I presume."

"He fell from his high estate, Mr. O'Ryan."

"Oh.  Did he also have an estate in the Alps?"

She said scornfully: "He fell in my esteem—deep,
Mr. O'Ryan—into depths so terrible that, even
if I leaned over to look, I could never again perceive
him."

"Poor fellow," I muttered, chilled to the bone again.

"Yes."  she said calmly, "it was tragic."

"D-did you care for him, Thusis?" I ventured,
scared half to death.

"I trusted him."

"D-don't you trust him any more?"

"He is dead—to me," she said coldly.

There ensued a silence which presently I became
unable to endure.

"You know, Thusis, that man isn't dead——"

"He might better be!"

"You don't understand him!"

"I no longer wish to."

"He loves you!"

"He does *not*!" she cried in tones so fierce that I
almost jumped.

"Thusis," said I in a miserable voice, "you hurt
and wounded that man until he was almost out of
his senses——"

"And he lost no time in consoling himself with
another woman!"

"He didn't know what he was doing——"

"He seemed to! ... So did *she*!"

"Thusis—"

"*Did* you kiss her?"

"I——"

"Did you?"

"Yes."

I was so scared that my teeth chattered when
Thusis turned on me in the starlight.

Her gray eyes were aflame; her little hands were
tightly clenched.  I hoped she would upper-cut me
and mercifully put me to sleep, for this scene was
like a nightmare to me.

Then, of a sudden, the slender figure seemed to
wilt before my eyes,—shrink, bend, stand swaying
with desperate hands covering the face.

"Michael," she whispered.  "Michael!"—and her
voice ended in a sigh.

Scared as I was I took her in my arms.  She rested
her face against my shoulder.

"You—you don't really care," I stammered, "do
you, Thusis?  *Do* you, my darling——"

"Oh, I don't know—I don't know.  You've hurt
me, Michael; I'm all hurt and—and quivering with
your wound.  I don't know!—I don't understand
myself.  My heart is sore—all raw and sore.  So is
my mind—the blow you dealt hurts me there,
too——"

"But, Thusis dear!  *You* wounded me, too——"

"Oh, I know....  I scarcely knew what I said.  I
don't know now what I'm saying—what I'm doing—here
in your arms——"  She tried to release herself,
and, failing, buried her face against my shoulder
with a convulsive little shudder.

"You *must* love me," I whispered unsteadily.  "I
can't live without you, Thusis."

"But I can't love you, Michael."

"Can't you find it in your heart to care for me?"

"In my heart, perhaps....  But not in my mind."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly that....  I can't consult my—my
heart alone....  I must not.  I dare not.  I am
obliged to consult my senses, too.  And—dear
Michael—my senses tell me that I may not care for
you—must not fall in love—with you——"

"Why?"

After a silence she lifted her lovely head and
looked up at me out of beautiful, distressed eyes
that dumbly asked indulgence.

"Well, then, you need not tell me, Thusis."

"You'll know, some day."

"I'll know, some day, why I won you in spite of
everything."

She gently shook her head.

"Yes," said I, "I shall win you, Thusis."

"My heart—perhaps."

"Your mind, too."

We remained so, for a while, not speaking lest the
spell be broken.  And at last she slowly disengaged
herself from my arms, then, confronting me, placed
both her hands in mine with a sudden impulse that
thrilled me.

"Let it remain this way, then," she said.  "Win
my heart, if you care to.  I don't mind going
through life with my heart in your kind keeping,
Michael.  I had rather it were so.  I should be less
unhappy."

"Unhappy?"

"Yes—because I am going to be unhappy anyway.
And if I knew that you once cared, it would
be easier for me—in after years....  Michael——"

"Yes?"

"Would you care for that much of me?"

I drew her nearer.

"You must not kiss me," she whispered.

"I——"

"Please....  It is a sign of troth plighted....
And is desecration else....  Troth plighted is a
holy thing.  And that cannot be between us,
Michael.  That cannot happen....  And so, you
must not touch my lips with yours—dear Michael....
Only my hand—if you do care for me——"

I kissed her hand—then, slowly, each finger and
the fragrant palm, until it seemed to disconcert her
and she withdrew it.

"Now take me back," she said in an uncertain
voice that trembled slightly, "and remain my dear,
frank, boyish friend....  And let me plague you
a little, Michael.  Won't you?  And not be angry?"  She
asked so sweetly that I began to laugh—covered
her hand with kisses—and laughed again.

"You little girl," I exclaimed—"oddly mature in
some ways—a child in others—you may torment me
and laugh at me now to your heart's content.  Isn't
laughter, after all, your heaven born privilege?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, Thusis!  Thusis!  I am more convinced than
ever of what I have half believed.  Before I ever set
eyes on you I had begun to care for you.  Before I
ever heard your voice I had begun to fall in love
with you.  Thusis—my Thusis—loveliest—most
wonderful of God's miracles since Eden
bloomed—*you* are The Laughing Girl!"

"Michael——"

"You *are*!"

Suddenly, as she walked lightly beside me, resting
on my arm, she flung up her head with a reckless,
delicious little laugh: "I am The Laughing Girl!"

A slight yet exquisite shock went clean through
me as I realized that even to the instant of her
avowal I had not been absolutely convinced of her
identity with the picture.

"And I wish to tell you," she went on, her smile
changing, "that when the photograph—which
unhappily has become so notorious—was taken, I never
dreamed that it would be stolen, reproduced in
thousands, and sold in every city of Europe!"

"Stolen!"

"Certainly!  Do you imagine that I would have
permitted its publicity and sale?  Never has such
an exasperating incident occurred in my life!  And
I am helpless.  I can't prevent it."

"Who stole it?"

"I haven't the slightest idea.  It was this way,
Michael; it happened in my own home on the island
of Naxos, and my sister Clelia and I were amusing
ourselves with our cameras, dressing each other up
and posing each other.

"And she dressed me—or rather almost *un*-dressed
me—that way—isn't it enough to make a saint
swear—for when I had developed the plate and had
started to print, somebody stole the plate from the
sill of the open window.  And the next thing we knew
about it was when all Europe was flooded with my
picture under which was printed that dubious
caption—'The Laughing Girl.'  Can you imagine my
astonishment and rage?  Could anything more
utterly horrid happen to a girl?  Had I at least been
fully dressed—but no: there I was in every shop
window among actresses, queens, demi-mondaines,
and dissipated dukes just as Clelia had posed me in
the intimacy of our own rooms, all over jewels, some
of me mercifully veiled in a silk scarf, audaciously
at ease in my apparent effrontery—oh, Michael, it
nearly killed me!"

"Didn't you do anything about it?"

"Indeed I did!  But where these photographs were
being printed we never could find out.  All we were
able to do was to forbid their importation into
Italy."

"How did you manage that?" I asked curiously.

She hesitated, then carelessly: "We had some
slight influence at court——"

"*Influence?*"

"Possibly it amounted to that," she said indifferently.

"You are known at court, Thusis?"

She shrugged: "We are not, I believe, completely
unknown."  She walked on beside me in silence for a
few moments, then:

"I do not wish to convey to you that I am *persona
grata* in Italian court circles."

"But if you are known at court, dear Thusis, how
can you be otherwise than welcome there?"

"I am *not* welcome there."

"That is impossible."

"You adorable boy," she laughed, "I must beg of
you to occupy yourself with your own affairs and
not continue to occupy yourself with mine."

"That's a heartless snub, Thusis."

"I don't mean it so," she said, her hand tightening
impulsively on my arm.  "But, Michael dear, I
don't wish you to speculate about my affairs.  It
does no good.  Besides, the situation in which I find
myself is fearfully complex, and you couldn't help
me out of it."

"Perhaps I can, Thusis."

She laughed: "You are delightfully romantic.
You almost resemble one of the old time cloak-and-sword
lovers of that dear Romance which died so
long ago on the printed page as well as in human
hearts."

"It is not dead in my breast, Thusis."

"It is dead in every breast.  Only its frail ghost
haunts our hearts at moments."

"When I offered you my heart, Thusis, did you
suppose it empty save for a trace of selfish passion?"

"Men are men....  I do not understand their hearts."

"Take mine; tear it apart, look into it,—even if
I die of it.  Will you?"

Her laugh became less genuine and there was no
gaiety in it.

"Tell me what I should find in your heart if I
dissected it?"

"Love—and a sword!"

"You—you offer me your life, Michael?"

"This life—and the next."

She made no answer, walking slowly on beside
me, her arm linked in mine, the starlight glimmering
on her bent head.  Down the road beyond us the
illuminated windows of my house glimmered.  As we
moved toward them along the stony highroad, I said:

"Thusis dear, I know nothing about you or about
your affairs.  I do not even guess your identity.
But that you and your sister are here for the purpose
of taking these miserable kings across the frontier
into France, by violence, I do know.

"And this, also, I have learned, that, if you
attempt to execute this *coup-de-main*, my friend
Shandon Smith will do all he can to prevent it."

The girl stopped as though I had struck her and
stared at me in the silvery lustre of the stars.

"What?" she said slowly.

"I have told you what Smith told me.  He said
that he didn't care whether or not I informed you.
He added that, in case I chose to inform you, I
should also repeat to you the following couplet:

   |  'Grecian gift and Spanish fig
   |  Help the Fool his grave to dig.'"
   |

A bright flush stained her face yet she seemed to
be more astounded than angry.

"Is it possible," she said, "that your friend
Mr. Smith—this Norwegian promoter—repeated that
couplet to you?"

"He certainly did repeat it to me, Thusis."

"Did he—did he tell you what it meant?  Did he
tell you anything more?"

"He mentioned a secret society called the Ægean
League."

"This is amazing," she murmured, looking up the
road at the lights of the house.

"Of all people," she added, "that man Smith, the
last person on earth we could suspect."  She passed
her hand across her eyes—a gesture of perplexity
and consternation:

"I wish to find Mr. Smith, Michael.  I desire to
see him immediately.  Please let us walk faster."

We fell into a quick pace and she released my
arm as the light from the windows fell on us.

"He was sitting by the fountain," I began.

"He is there now, with Clelia," she exclaimed, and
walked directly toward him where he was seated near
Clelia on the stone rim of the pool.

They looked up as we approached, and Smith rose.

"Mr. Smith," said Thusis with a trace of excitement
in her voice, "have you any knowledge concerning
my identity?"

If the blunt question were a shock to him he did
not show it.  He answered in his pleasant, even
voice:

"I don't know who you are, Thusis."

"Have you any idea?"

"None."

"How can that be," she asked, flushing, "when
you send me such a couplet?"

"I've told you the truth," he said simply; "I don't
know who you are, Thusis.  I don't even suspect."  He
turned and looked at Clelia who had risen from
her seat on the fountain's edge.

"You do not like me, Clelia, and now you are
going to like me less.  You resented it when I
preached at you concerning proper behavior for a
young girl.  And now that you learn I am going to
interfere in your political and military maneuvers,
I suppose you hate me."

Nobody moved or spoke for a moment.  Then
Clelia took a step toward Smith, and I saw her
face had become deadly pale.

"No," she said, "I don't hate you.  On the contrary
I am beginning to like you.  Because it takes
a real man to tell the woman he loves that he means
to ruin her."

"Clelia, you and Thusis are ruined only if I hold
my hand."

"We are done for *unless* you hold your hand!"
she said.  She stepped nearer.

"Mr. Smith?" she said sweetly, "you think you are
on your honor.  You are not.  He who has sent you
here to thwart us is deceiving you."

"He who sent *you* here, Clelia,—and *you*, Thusis,
is deceiving you," he rejoined very quietly.

Thusis said: "You know who sent us, and yet
you don't know who we are!  How can this be, Monsieur?"

"It's true.  I *do* know who sent you here.  But
you *don't*!"

Clelia, still very pale, bent her gaze on him.

"Mr. Smith?"

"Yes, I hear you, Clelia."

"Suppose—suppose—I prove kinder to you."

"No," he said, grim and flushed.

Thusis turned sharply on her sister: "Have you
given him your heart?"

Clelia answered, her eyes still fixed on Smith:

"I gave it to him from the first—even when I
thought him a pious dolt.  And was ashamed.  And
now that I know him for a man I'm not ashamed.
Let him know it.  I do care for him."

Smith stood rigid.  Thusis, looking intently at
Clelia, went to her and passed one arm around her
waist.

"This can't be," she said.  Clelia laughed.  "But
it *is*, sister.  It isn't orthodox, it isn't credible, it is
quite unthinkable that I should care for him.  But
I do; and I've told him so.  Now he can ruin us if
he wishes."  And she flung a sweet, fearless glance
at Smith which made him tremble very slightly.

Thusis turned to me an almost frightened face as
though in appeal, then she caught her sister's hands.

"Listen!" she cried, "I also gave my heart as
you gave yours, sister!  I couldn't help it.  I found
myself in love—"  She looked at me—"I was doomed
to love him.

"But for God's sake listen, sister.  It is my *heart*
I give.  My mind and my destiny remain my own."

"My destiny is in God's hands," said Clelia
simply.  "My mind and heart I give—"  She looked
at Smith—"and all else that is myself ... if you
want me, Shan."

"You cannot do it!" exclaimed Thusis in a voice
strangled with emotion.  "You can do it no more
than can I!  You have no more right than have I to
give yourself merely because you care!  Your heart—yes!
There is no choice when love comes; you can
not avoid it.  But you can proudly choose what to
do about it!"

"I have chosen," said Clelia, "if he wants me."

Thusis clenched her hands and stood there twisting
them, dumb, excited, laboring evidently under the
most intense emotion.

And what all this business was about I had not the
remotest notion.

Suddenly Thusis turned fiercely on her sister with
a gesture that left her outflung arm rigid.

"Do you wish to find the irresponsible political
level of those two Bolsheviki in there?" she said with
breathless passion.  "Are you really the iconoclast
you say you are?  I did not believe it!  I can't.  The
world moves only through decent procedure, or it
disintegrates.  Where is your reason, your logic,
your pride?"

"Pride?"  Clelia smiled and looked at Smith: "In
him, I think....  Since he has become my master."

"He is not our master!" retorted Thusis.  "If
what we came here to do is now impossible—thanks
to a meddling and misled gentleman in Rome—is
there not a sharper blow to strike at this treacherous
Greek King and his Prussian wife and that vile,
Imperial Hun who pulls the strings that move them?"

Clelia looked at Smith: "Do you know what my
sister means?"

"Yes."

"Will you stop us even there?"

"I must."

Thusis, white with passion, confronted him:

"It is not you who are bound in honor to check
and thwart us," she said unsteadily, "but your
duped block-head of a master who exasperates me!
Does he know from whom I take my orders?"

"Yes."

"I take them from the greatest, wisest, most fearless,
most generous patriot in the world.  I take my
orders from Monsieur Venizelos!"

I started, but Smith said coolly: "Is that what
you suppose, Thusis?"

"Suppose?  What do you mean?" she demanded
haughtily.

"I mean that you are mistaken if you and Clelia
believe that your orders come from Monsieur Venizelos."

"From whom, then, do you imagine they come?"
retorted Thusis.

"From Tino!"

"You dare——"

"Yes, I dare tell you, Thusis, how you have been
deceived.  Tino himself plotted this.  Your orders
are forgeries.  Monsieur Venizelos never dreamed
of inciting you to the activities in which you are now
concerned——"

"That is incredible," said Thusis hotly.  "I know
who sent you here to check us and spoil it all—as
though we were two silly, headstrong children!
Tell me honestly, now; did not that—that gentleman
in Rome give you some such impression of us?—that
we were two turbulent and mischievous children?"

"I was not told who you were."

"But you were told that we are irresponsible and
headstrong?  Is it not true?"

"Yes."

"And you were sent here to see that we didn't get
into mischief.  Is it true?"

"Yes."

Thusis made a gesture of anger and despair:

"For lack of courage," she said tremulously, "a
timid King refuses the service we try to render!  We
offer to stake our lives cheerfully; it frightens him.
We escape his well meant authority and supervision
and make our way into Switzerland to do him and
Italy a service in spite of his timorous fears and
objections.  He has us followed by—*who* are you
anyway, Mr. Smith?"

"I happen to be," he said pleasantly, "an officer
in a certain branch of the Italian Army."

"Military Intelligence!" exclaimed Clelia.  "And
we were warned by Monsieur Venizelos!"

Thusis flung out her arms in a passionate gesture:
"We offer the King of Italy two royal scoundrels!
And he refuses.  We offer the King of Italy
two islands?  And you tell us he refuses.  When we
were in Rome he laughed at us, teased us as though
we had been two school-girls bringing him some crazy
plan to end the war.  And now when we are
practically ready to prove our plan possible—ready to
consummate the affair and give him the two most
dangerous royal rascals in Europe—restore to Italy
two islands stolen from her centuries ago—the King
of Italy turns timid and sends a gentleman to ruin
everything!"

"Because," said Smith pleasantly, "although King
Constantine and Queen Sophia have been deposed,
yet, were you to seize them and carry them across
this frontier into France, Greece would resent it.
So also would Switzerland.  And the Allies would
merely make two enemies out of an Allied country
and a neutral one for the sake of a few odd kings
and queens.

"And, moreover, if you should proceed, as you had
planned, to the Cyclades; and if you succeed in
fomenting a revolution in Naxos and Tenedos, and
induce these two islands to declare themselves part
of Italy, because seven hundred years ago a
Venetian conquered them, then you turn Greece into a
bitter enemy of Italy and of the Allies.  And that
is what you accomplish in exchange for a couple of
little islands in the Ægean which Italy does not
want."

"Then," retorted Thusis violently, "why did Monsieur
Venizelos suggest that we attempt these things?
Is the greatest patriot on earth a traitor or a fool?"

"No, but Constantine of Greece is.  And the
boche is his tutor.  Oh, Thusis—Thusis!  Can't you
see you have been tricked?  Can't you understand
that Venizelos had no knowledge of these things you
are attempting in all sincerity?—that you have been
deluded by the treachery of the hun—that those
who counseled you to this came secretly from Tino
and the Kaiser, not from Venizelos?"

Thusis gazed at him bewildered.  Clelia, too,
seemed almost stunned.

"Do—do you mean to tell me," stammered Thusis,
"that these kings know that Clelia and I are here to
try to kidnap them?"

"No," said Smith coolly, "because I censored their
mail in Berne.  Their agents in Rome had warned
them, in detail, by letter."

"Had those agents penetrated our identity?"

"They seemed to have no notion of it.  But they
described you both minutely."

Clelia seemed to come out of her trance.  She
turned to Thusis and said in a naïve, bewildered way:

"It's rather extraordinary, Thusis, that nobody
seems to have found out who we really are....  It's
almost as though we are not of as much importance
as we have been brought up to suppose."

Thusis blushed hotly: "Because," she said, "nobody
has discovered our incognito, is no reason for
us to underrate our positions in Europe."

"Still—it is extraordinary that nobody recognizes
us.  And we use our own names, too.  I can't
account for it," she added honestly, "unless we are
of much less importance than we have been
accustomed to consider ourselves——"

Her voice was lost in a fearful scream from the
house.

"Good Heavens!" said I, "what has happened?"

At that moment the door flew open and King
Ferdinand waddled out in his wrapper and slippers.

"Help!" he shouted, "help!  Is there a physician
in the Alps?"

"I'm one," said Smith, coolly, "among other things."

And we all started hastily for the house.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GANGSTERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GANGSTERS

.. vspace:: 2

The Tsar of all the Bulgars, wearing a green
and yellow wrapper, and bright blue slippers
over his enormous flat feet, exhibited
considerable nervousness as we entered the house.

"I wasn't doing anything," he said; "I trust that
nobody will misunderstand me.  Heaven is my witness——"

"What's the matter?" asked Smith tersely.

"The Princess Pudelstoff is screaming.  I don't
know why; I didn't go near her——"

We hurried up stairs.  The door of the Princess'
room was open, the light burning.  The Princess sat
up in bed, tears rolling down her gross, fat face,
screaming at the top of her voice; while beside her, in
Phrygian night-cap and pajamas, stood King Constantine.

He had her by the elbow and was jerking her arm
and shouting at her: "Shut your fool head!  Stop
it!  There's nothing the matter with you.  You've
been dreaming!"

Smith went straight to the bed, shoved
Constantine aside, and laid a soothing hand on the Princess'
shoulder.

"I'm a physician," he said in his pleasant,
reassuring voice.  "What is the trouble, Princess?"

"There's turrible doin's in this here house!" she
bawled.  "I peeked through the key-hole!  Them
there Bolsheviki next door is fixin' to blow us all
up.  I seen the bomb a-sizzlin' and a-fizzlin' on the
floor like it was just ready to bust!  And then I run
and got into bed and I let out a screech——"

"It's all right," said Smith kindly.  "It was just
a bad dream.  There isn't any bomb.  Nobody is
going to harm you——"

"I didn't dream it!  I——"

"Yes, you did.  Calm yourself, Princess.  You have
eaten something which has disagreed with you."

She ceased her screaming at that suggestion and
considered it, the tears still streaming over her
features.  Then she began to blubber again and shook
her head.

"I ain't et hoggish," she insisted.  "If I had et
hoggish I'd think I drempt it.  But I ain't et
hoggish.  That wasn't no dream.  No, sir!  I had went
to bed, but I was fidgety, like I had a load of coal
onto my stummick.  And by and by I heard them
Bolsheviki next door whisperin'.  And by and by I
heard a fizzlin' noise like they was makin' highballs
in there.

"Thinks I to myself that sounds good if true.  So
I gets up and I lights up and I peeks through the
key hole.  And I seen King—I mean Monsieur Xenos,
and Monsieur Itchenuff, and Puppsky and Wildkatz
and a long, black box on the floor in the room next
door, and somethin' sticking out of it which fizzled
without smokin'——"

"It was all a dream, madame," interposed Smith
soothingly.  And to my surprise, he took from his
inner breast-pocket a small, flat medicine case.

"A glass of water and two spoons, please," he
said to Clelia.  And she went away to fetch them.

There was another glass on the wash-stand.  In
this he rinsed a clinical thermometer and inserted it
under the tongue of the sobbing Princess.

Thusis and I stood near him, silent.  King
Constantine and the Bulgarian Tsar appeared to be
unsympathetic and at the same time slightly nervous.

"If she'd stop gorging herself," remarked Tino,
"she'd have no nightmares."

"I seen *you* in there!  Yes I did!" retorted the
Princess in another access of wrath and fright, the
thermometer wagging wildly between her lips.  "And
I seen you too!" she went on, pointing at King
Ferdinand, who stared wildly back at her out of his
eyes of an alarmed pig and wrinkled his enormous
nose at her.

"Don't tell me I was dreamin'," she added scornfully,
"nothing like that."

Clelia came with the two spoons and glass of
water; Smith selected a phial, mixed the dose,
withdrew the thermometer, shook it, examined it, washed
it at the basin, and, returning to his patient,
administered a teaspoonful of medicine.

Then, in the other glass, he dissolved a powder,
gave her three teaspoonfuls of that, and placed the
two glasses on the night table beside her bed.

"If you happen to awake," he said gently, "take
a teaspoonful of each.  But I think you'll sleep,
madame.  And in the morning you'll be all right."

He turned on King Constantine and the Tsar so
suddenly that they both took impulsive steps
backward as though apprehensive of being kicked.

"The Princess needs quiet and rest, gentlemen,"
said Smith.  "Kindly retire."

"Perhaps I'd better sit beside her for a while,"
began Constantine, but Smith interrupted him:

"I'll call you into consultation if I want you,
Monsieur Xenos."  His voice had a very slight ring to
it; the ex-King of Greece looked at him for a
moment, then winced and backed out of the room,
followed by King Ferdinand who seemed to be in a
hurry and crowded on his heels like an agitated
pachyderm.

Clelia, who had remained mute and motionless,
looking at Smith all the while, now came toward him.
And in the girl's altered face I saw, reflected, deeper
emotions than I had supposed her youthful heart
could harbor.

"Do you need me?" she asked.  "I am at your
service."

"Thank you, there is nothing more," said Smith
pleasantly.  He turned to include Thusis in kindly
but unmistakable dismissal.

Clelia gave him a long, slow look of exquisite
submission; Thusis sent an odd, irresolute glance at
me.  As she passed me, following her sister, her lips
formed the message: "I wish to see you to-night."

When they had gone Smith shut and locked the
door, and with a slight motion to me to accompany
him, walked over to the bed, seated himself beside it,
and took the fat hand of the Princess Pudelstoff in
his as though to test her pulse.

The lady rolled her eyes at us but lay still, her
mottled cheeks still glistening with partly dried
tears.

"What's on your mind, Princess?" inquired Smith
in a soft, caressing voice.

"Hey?" she exclaimed in visible alarm, and
evidently preparing to scream again.

"Hush.  Don't excite yourself, madame," he said
in his pleasant, reassuring way.  "There is no
occasion for alarm at all."

"Am I a sick woman?" she demanded anxiously.
"Is that what you're a-goin' to hand me?  *Is* it?"

"No, you're not physically ill.  You have no
temperature except as much as might be due to
sudden shock."

"I got the scare of my young life all right," she
muttered.  "Say, Doc, *was* it a dream?  On the
level now, was it?"

"Probably——"

"Honest to God?" she insisted.

"Why do you think it was not a dream, Princess?"
he asked gently.

"Why?  Well, I've run with Rooshians enough to
know a infernal machine when I see one.  And I
never dream plain, that way.  I can see that darn
thing yet—and hear it!  And I can see them men
in there all a settin' onto chairs in a circle like, and
a-watching that there bomb sizzling.  It made a
blue light but no smoke and no smell.  How could I
have drempt all that so plain, Doc?"

"Princess!  You're not afraid of me, are you?"

She looked up into his clean-cut, pleasant American face.

"No, I ain't," she said.  "You come from God's
country"—she suddenly began to beat her pudgy
fists on the sheets—"and whyinhell I ever was crazy
enough to leave little old Noo York I don't know
excep' I was damfoolenough to do it!"

Smith smiled at her: "You sure were some
peach," he said, dropping gracefully into the
vernacular, "when you played with Nazimova in that
Eastside theater."

The Princess flushed all over, and the radiance of
her smile transfigured her amazingly.

"Did *you* see me in them days, Doc?"

"You betcha!"

"Well-f'r-God's-sake!" she gasped in wonder and
delight.  "Say, you had me fooled, Doc.  I
understood you was a Norsky—a sort of tree-peddlin'
guy.  But, thinks I to myself, he looks like a Yank.
I says so to my brother, Leo Puppsky——"

"Don't say it to him again, Princess.  Or to anybody."

At that the Princess fixed her shrewd little eyes
on Smith, shifted them for an instant to me, then
resumed her scrutiny of his serene and smiling features.

"What's the idea?" she asked at last.

"I'm going to lay all my cards down for you,
Princess,—faces up.  I am an American serving in
the Italian army."

"The-hell-you-say!"  There was a silence that
lasted a full minute.  Then, suddenly, the Princess
began to laugh.  Soft, fat chuckles agitated her
tremendous bosom; a seismic disturbance seemed to
shake her ample bulk beneath the bed-clothes.

"Tabs!" she exclaimed.  "You're keepin' tabs on
these here down-and-outers!  That's what you're a
doin' of!  Am I right?"

"And what are *you* doing here in Switzerland,
Princess?" he inquired smilingly.

"Say!  I'm their goat!  Now, do you get me?"

"Not exactly——"

"Well listen.  Puppsky's my brother.  He was in
the suit and cloak business in Noo York before
the Rooshian revolution.  Then he beat it for
Petrograd—workin' for his own pocket same's
you and me, Doc; and seein' pickin's—Trotzky
bein' a friend of ours, and Lenine a relation.
I was in Stockholm fixin' to go to Noo York,
when that poor fish, Wildkatz, comes in and talks
me into this game.  And look at me now, Doc!
Here I am financin' this here bunch o' homeless kings,
sittin' into a con game, holdin' all the dirty cards
they deal me—busted flushes, nigger straights, and
all like that!  And what," she demanded passionately,
"is there in it for me?  Tino, he says I'll be
a Greek duchess an' rule a island called Naxos!—And,
Gawd help me, I fell fur it.  And wherethehell
is Naxos?  And is it as big as Coney Island?
Wasn't I the big dill-pickle to stake 'em to a Greek
revolution?  And me a princess!  Sure, I know a
Rooshian princess ain't much of a swell, and the
Duchy of Naxos looked good to me.

"But the more I mix in with these here kings the
wiser I get.  Four-flushers is four-flushers
wherever you find 'em.  And these guys is all
alike—old Admiral bushy-whiskers, Bummelzug, General
Droly and that sore-eyed little Gizzler!—all want
to sell me gold bricks for real money!"

She waved her short, fat arms in furious
recollection of her wrongs.

"Say, even the Greek Queen ain't too particular
about chousing the long-green outer me!  She wants
to hand me the order of the Red Chicken!—costs
ten thousand plunks!  What do you know about that, Doc?"

I don't know whether Smith was as amazed as was
I by these revelations in argot.  He smiled his kindly,
undisturbed smile and patted her hand encouragingly;
while from depths long plugged burst the
excited recital of the woes of the Pudelstoffs.

"I'm through," she said.  "I got enough.  And I
told 'em so at the meeting after dinner to-night.
They talked rough to me, they did.  Puppsky, he
got riled and tells me I'm no sister of his.  And the
Greek Queen she was crazy and called me a kike in
German.  Which upset my dinner.

"Say, Doc, the Gophers and Gas-house gangs
ain't one-two-three with this bunch.  I'm scared stiff
they'll get me—that Ferdie has croaked more guys
'n people know.  I'm scared Sophy sticks me.  They
say she stuck a hat-pin into Tino.  You bet she
knows how to make that big stiff behave!  And she's
got a way of lookin' at you!—Me, I quit 'em cold
to-night.  'Nothing like that,' says I; 'no revolution
in Greece at $250,000 a revolute!  No Naxos!  No
Red Chicken!  Me, I'm on my way via Berne, Berlin,
Christiania, and Noo York!'"

"You've quarreled with them, Princess?" asked
Smith.

"I sure did.  Say, I don't have to stand for no
rough stuff from Wildkatz neither.  We ain't in
Petrograd.  But, mind you, I don't put it past him
to try his dirty tricks on me with bombs!"

"But why——"

"They're like all gun-men!  Once in you can't
get out, or they'll try to get you.  If you've got
enough and try to quit peaceable they think you've
been bought out.  You're a squealer to them."

"You believe they might offer you violence?" I
asked, incredulously.

"How do I know?  What was they doin' with that
bomb?  They're sore on me.  They know they're
gettin' no more dough outen me.  They know I've
quit and I'm goin' back to God's country."

"But Leo Puppsky is your own brother!" I
exclaimed, horrified.

The Princess shrugged her fat shoulders.

"He's a Red, too.  Bolsheviks is Bolsheviks.  You
don't know 'em.  You don't know what they done
in Rooshia.  No boche is bloodier.  Call 'em what
you like—call 'em all sons of boches—and you won't
be wrong."

Her flabby features had grown somber; suddenly
a shudder possessed her, and she opened her mouth
to scream; but Smith instantly filled the gaping
orifice with medicine, and only a coughing fit followed.

To me he said: "Please leave me alone with her
now.  It will be all right, Michael."

And he turned tenderly to the convulsed Princess
and patted her vast back.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CONFIDENCES`:

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   \XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   CONFIDENCES

.. vspace:: 2

As I walked through the corridor considerably
concerned over the statements made to us by
this east-side Princess and seriously disturbed
by finding myself in the very vortex of this
whirlpool of intrigue which every moment seemed to
spew up from its dizzying depths new plots and
counter-plots, I almost ran into the ex-Queen of Greece.

She was in curl-papers and negligee, standing just
outside her door, an electric torch in one hand, a
pistol in the other.

"Madame!" I exclaimed, "what in the world is the
matter?"

"I don't like this inn," she said.  "I consider it a
suspicious place."

"Madame!"

"What do I know about your inn?" she demanded
insolently, "or about you, either?"

"*Madame!*"

"You *say* you are a Chilean.  You don't look it.
Neither does your friend resemble a Norwegian.  If
you desire to know my opinion you both look like
Yankees!"

"Madame, this is intolerable——"

"Possibly," she interrupted, staring at me out
of chilly eyes that fairly glittered.  "Possibly, too, I
am mistaken.  Perhaps your servants, also, unduly
arouse suspicion—your pretty housekeeper may
really be your housekeeper.  The waitress, too, may
be a real waitress.  This is all quite possible,
Monsieur.  But I prefer to be prepared for any
eventuality in this tavern!"

And she went into her room and shut the door.

The ex-queen's insolence upset me.  I was
possessed by a furious desire to turn them all out of
doors.  The prospect of living in the same house
with these people for days—perhaps for weeks,
seemed unbearable.  Surely there must be some way
out of the valley!

Down stairs I saw Raoul coming from the front
courtyard leading two strange horses attached to
a sort of carryall.

"Where on earth did you discover that rig?" I
called out to him in the starlight.

"Two guests have just arrived," he replied, laughing.

I hurried out to where he stood.

"Guests!" I repeated.  "Where did they come
from?  Isn't the pass closed?"

"Sealed tight, Monsieur O'Ryan.  But when the
avalanche fell this vehicle and its passengers were
just far enough inside the pass to be caught.

"I understand they've been digging themselves out
of the snow all this time.  They've just arrived and
are in the long hall asking for accommodations."

"Who are they?" I demanded in utter disgust;
"more huns?"

"One is a Turkish gentleman," he said.  "The
other is the driver.  I will take care of him.  The
Turkish traveler's name is Eddin Bey, and he says
he's a friend of Admiral Lauterlaus."

I went into the house and discovered Eddin Bey
entering his signature on the ledger while Clelia with
keys and candle waited beside him to show him to
his quarters.

"Ah!" he exclaimed cordially when I named myself,
offering his dark, nervous hand, "I am
inexpressibly happy to have the privilege, Monsieur
O'Ryan!  A narrow escape for us, I assure you!—that
mountain of snow roaring down on us and our
horses whipped to a gallop!  Not gay—eh?  No,
sir!  And I thought we'd never dig out the horses
and our wagon and luggage!"

I replied politely and suitably, and Clelia presently
piloted this dark, lean, vivacious young man to
his quarters across the corridor from General von
Dungheim.

When she returned her flushed, set features
arrested my attention.  "Did that Turk annoy you,
Clelia?" I asked sharply.

She shrugged: "Tavern gallantry," she replied
briefly: "men of that sort are prone to it."

I said: "If any of these people annoy you and
Thusis come to me at once."

She laughed: "Dear Monsieur O'Ryan," she said,
"Thusis and I know how to take care of ourselves."  She
came nearer, looking up at me out of her lovely,
friendly eyes:

"Thusis is in her room.  It isn't very proper, of
course, but she is waiting for you.  Will you go?"

"Yes."

Clelia laid one hand lightly on my arm, and her
smile became wistful and troubled:

"You do care for my sister, don't you?"

"I am deeply in love with her."

"I was afraid so."

"Afraid?"

"Oh, I don't know how Thusis is going to behave,—how
she is going to take it!" said Clelia in frank
anxiety.  "Never before has she cared for any man;
and I don't know what she's going to do about
you—indeed I don't, Mr. O'Ryan!"

"Could you tell me," said I bluntly, "what
obstacles stand in the way of my marrying your
sister?"

"Thusis should tell you."

"She isn't already married?"

"Good Heavens, no!"

"Is it a matter of religion?"

"Thusis must tell you.  I could not speak for
her,—interfere with her.  My sister will act for
herself—assume all responsibility for whatever she chooses
to do....  As I do."

I took Clelia's soft hands in mine and looked
earnestly into her face:

"You, also, care for a man; don't you?"

She bent her head in wordless assent.

"What are *you* going to do about it, Clelia?"

"Whatever *he* wishes."

"Marry him?"

"If he wishes."

"You are an astounding girl!"

"I am an astounded girl.  I never supposed I
should take such a view of life, of its obligations,
of my own position in the world....  Lately, in the
probable imminence of sudden death, I became a
little reckless—perhaps excited—willing to learn in
these brief hours the more innocent elements of
love—curious to experience even the least real of its
mysteries—to play coquette in the pretty comedy—even
with you——"

She gave me a vague smile and slowly shook her head.

"All the while," she said, "I was in love with him.
I didn't know it because I didn't know him.  When I
felt frivolous and wished to laugh he was serious.
His solemnity stirred me to audacity; and when I
said a lot of silly things I didn't mean he preached
at me; and I bullied him and was impudent and
showed my contempt for a man who would endure
such tyranny....  That is how it began....  And
all the while, not knowing it, I was falling more
completely in love.  Isn't it odd?"

She smiled, pressed my hands, shook her head as
though at a loss to account for her behavior.

"The first hint of it I had," she said, "was when
he coolly warned me that he would thwart me.  And
I looked into his eyes and knew him for the first
time—knew him to be the stronger, the wiser, the
more capable,—and the more powerful.

"And I realized, all in a moment, that he had
endured my contempt and tyranny merely because he
chose to; that he was a real man, in cool possession
of his own destiny; that, if he chose, he could clear
his mind of me, and presently his heart; that I was
not essential to him, not necessary; that, indeed,
unless I instantly took myself in hand and made an
effort to measure up to him, he'd turn from me,—quite
courteously—and go his own way with a
kindly indifference which suddenly seemed terrifying
to me....  And I loved him....  And let him
know....  And that is how it happened with me."

After a long pause: "What would happen," I
inquired, "if I tried that sort of thing on Thusis?"

Clelia shook her head: "Thusis and I are
different.  I don't wish to be a martyr."

"Does Thusis?"

"I'm rather afraid she is inclined that way.  Of
course we both were quite willing to suffer physical
martyrdom if we failed to carry off these wretched
kings.  That is a different kind of martyrdom—a
shot in the brain, a knife thrust—perhaps a brutish
supplice from the boche——"  She shrugged her
shoulders.  "We were not afraid," she added.  "But
when another sort of death suddenly confronted
me—the death of love in him I loved—I had no
courage—none at all.  You see I am not the stuff of
which martyrs are fashioned, Mr. O'Ryan."

"Is Thusis?"

"Alas!"

"She prefers to suffer?"

"I am afraid she will become a martyr to a pride
which interprets for her the old, outworn doggerel
of ages dead....  I can't repeat it to you."

"Noblesse oblige?"

"That phrase occurs in it."

"Oh....  So Thusis, caring for me, will send
me away," I said.

"I cannot answer you."

"Can you advise me, Clelia?"

She looked up at me; tears sprang to her eyes;
she pressed my hands, but shook her head.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A LOCAL STORM`:

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   \XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LOCAL STORM

.. vspace:: 2

I knocked very gently at Thusis's door and
she opened it, signed for me to enter, then
closed it cautiously.

"Do you know," said I, "that it is after midnight?"

"I know it is.  But as long as others don't know
you are here, what does it matter, Michael?"

"Of course," I muttered, "you and I know there's
no cause for scandal."

Her delightful laughter welled up from the whitest
throat I have ever seen, but she instantly
suppressed it.

"We're very indiscreet," she said mockingly;
"we've exchanged hearts and we're here in my
bedroom at midnight.  Can you imagine what that
queen downstairs would say?"

"Had you meant to kidnap her, also?" I inquired.

"No," she said scornfully.  "The Allies can take
care of the Hohenzollern litter after they take the
sty."

"Berlin," I nodded.

"Berlin.  Hercules had no such task in his
Augean stable.  It *was* Hercules, wasn't it, Michael?
I always get him and his labors mixed up with
Theseus.  But the Prince of Argolis used address, not
bull force....  His mother's name was Æthra....
My mother's name was Æthra, too."

"That is Greek."

"Very.  And the name of the ancient pal—I mean
the name of our old house on the island of Naxos
was Thalassa!—You remember the Ten Thousand?"

"Yes.  Your house overlooked the sea?"

"The Ægean!  You enter from the landward lawn,
advance toward the portico—and suddenly, through
the marble corridor, a sheet of azure!  Thalassa!"

I said slowly: "Little white goddess of Naxos
with hair like the sun and eyes of Ægean blue, why
have you sent for me to come to your chamber at
midnight?"

Thusis looked at me and her happy smile faded.

"To ask one question," she said very gravely, "and
to answer one—if you ask it."

"Ask yours, first."

"What did that dreadful Princess say to you and
to Mr. Smith after I left the room?"

I told her what had passed.

"What!" she cried fiercely, clenching her hands.
"Tino had the impudence to offer her Naxos as a
bribe!"

"The Duchy of Naxos," I repeated.

I have never seen an angrier or more excited girl.
She sprang to her feet and began to pace the
bedroom, her hands doubled in fury, her face tense
and white.

"Naxos!" she kept repeating in a voice strangled
by emotion.  "That treacherous Tino offers Naxos
to a miserable, fat Russian Princess!  Oh!  Was
ever such an insult offered to any girl!  Naxos!  My
Naxos!  Could the civilized world believe it!  Can
the outrage on Belgium equal such an infamy!  Even
with the spectacle of martyred France, of Roumania
in Teuton chains, of Russia floundering in
blood—could the world believe its senses if Naxos is
betrayed!"

Her emotion was tragic, yet it seemed to me that
the lovely Thusis took Naxos a trifle too seriously.
Because I was not at all certain that this same
civilized and horrified world was unanimously aware of
the existence of Naxos.  But I didn't say this to
Thusis.

As she paced the room she wrung her hands once
or twice naïvely deploring the avalanche.

"Because," she said, halting in front of me, "Smith
or no Smith, I should certainly attempt to seize this
treacherous, beastly Constantine, and smuggle him
over the frontier.  The traitor!  The double
traitor!  For Naxos is not his!  No!  It is a Venetian
Duchy.  What if Turkey did steal it!  What if
Greece stole it in turn?  It is Venetian.  It is
Italian.  It is my home and I love it!  It is my
birthplace and I worship it!  It is my native land and I
adore it!"

"The King of Italy," I reminded her, "does not
seem to desire that Naxos be included in his domain."

"But *I* do!" she said passionately.  "I am a
Venetian of Naxos.  Have I not the right to decide where
my island belongs?  For six hundred years my
family has owed allegiance to Venice—and naturally,
therefore, to Italy.  Have I not every right to raise
the banner of revolt in Naxos and defy this
ruffianly ex-king who comes sneaking stealthily into
Switzerland to plot for his own restoration?—who
comes here secretly to offer Naxos to a vulgar
Russian as a bribe for financial aid?—offers to sell my
home for a few millions cash and buy cannon and
men and send them into Greece to fight for him and
his rotten throne?"

"Thusis——"

"No!" she said violently, "there is no argument
possible.  And God never sent His avalanche to ruin
my hopes and destroy all chance of freedom for
Naxos!  It was the bestial Gott of the boche who
loosed the snow up yonder—the filthy fetish of the
hun who did that!"  She flung out her white arms
and looked upward.  And "oh!" she cried, "for one
hour of the old Greek gods to call on!  Oh for the
thunderbolts of Zeus!—the spear of Athene!—the
tender grace and mercy of Aphrodite, and her swift
and flaming vengeance when her temples were
profaned!—when her children were betrayed and
disinherited!—Naxos—my Naxos——"

All Greek now, pagan, beautiful, the girl's whole
body was quivering with rage and grief.  And I
knew enough to hold my tongue.

While the fierce storm swept her, bending her like
a sapling with gusts of passion, I stood silent,
awaiting the rain of tears to end it.

None came to break the tension, though the gray
eyes harbored lightning and her brow remained dark.

"As Naxos falls, so falls the world," she said.
"The eyes of civilization are on her; the fateful writing
runs like fire across God's heaven!  Let the world
heed what passes!  The doom of Naxos is the doom
of freedom and of man!"

I, personally, had scarcely looked at it in that
light.  It did not strike me that the hub of
civilization rested on Naxos.  Nor do I believe the world
was under that impression.  But I was not going to
say so to this excited young Naxosienne—or
Naxosoise—or Naxosette,—whichever may be the
respectful and properly descriptive nomenclature.

And so, standing near the window, I watched the
tempest wax, wane, and gradually pass, leaving her
at last silent, seated on her couch, with one arm
across her knee and her head bent like the "Resting
Hermes."

When I walked over and stood looking down at
her she reached out and, without looking, took my
hand.

"It is your turn now, Michael; and I already know
what question you mean to ask."

"Shall I ask it, Thusis?"  After a silence her hand
closed convulsively in mine.

"I *do* love you....  I am not—free—to marry you."

"Could you tell me why?"

She slowly shook her head: "You will learn why,
some day."

"Is there no chance, Thusis?"

Again she shook her head.  Presently her hand
slipped out of mine and she rested both elbows on her
knees, covering her face.

I dropped onto the couch near her, framing my
own head in both hands.

The world had become sunless and quite empty
except for human pain....  And so, thought I in
a dull sort of way, this ends my romance with The
Laughing Girl....  The Laughing Girl of Naxos.....
Not laughing now, but very much subdued,
brooding beside me with both hands covering her
face, and the splendid masses of her hair now
loosened to her shoulders like a hood hiding the bowed
features.

"Don't grieve, Thusis," I whispered, forgetting
my own pain; but she suddenly huddled up and
doubled over, crying:

"If you speak to me that way I—can't—endure
it——"  Her voice broke childishly for the first
time, and I saw her shoulders quiver.

.. vspace:: 2

We had a rotten time of it—self-restraint on my
side, and on hers—a hard, sharp shower of
tears—terrifying to me because of her silence; not a sigh,
not a sob, not even one of those undignified gulps
which authors never mention—but which nevertheless
usually characterize all lachrymose feminine
procedure, and punctuate its more attractive silences.

.. vspace:: 2

It resembled a natural rainstorm in April—abrupt,
thorough; and then the sun.  For after
considerable blind fumbling, she suddenly leaned
forward and dried her eyes with the edge of the
bed-sheet.

"There," she said, "is an intimate act which ought
to breed mutual contempt!"

We both laughed.  She found a fresh section of
the sheet and used it.

"You are an adorable boy," she said, keeping her
face turned away but busy, now, with her sagging
hair.

"It's got to come right some day," I said with
the fatuous stupidity characteristic of the stymied
swain.

"It won't," she remarked, "but let's pretend it
will....  Is my nose red, Michael?"

"I can't see it when you turn your face away."

"I don't wish you to see it if it's red."

"But how can I judge——"

We burst into that freer laughter which welcomes
the absurd when hearts are heavy laden.

Her dresser was within reach.  I gazed at her back
while she powdered her nose.

"My eyes are red," she observed calmly.

"No, they're gray; it's your hair that is red, Thusis."

It was silly enough to invoke the blessed relief of
further laughter.  But when Thusis finally turned
toward me there was a new shyness about her,
exquisite, captivating, that held me quiet and very
serious.

"What a dreadfully sober gentleman," she said.
"The storm's all over, and it isn't going to rain
again."

I quoted: "It rains—in my heart——"  And she
laid a quick, impulsive hand on my arm:

"Have I not confessed that I love you?"

"Yes——"

"Very well.  Is it a reason for rain—in your heart
or anywhere else?"

"No——"

"Well then! ... You may touch my hand with
your lips."

Only her lips could be sweeter than the soft hand
I kissed, long and closely, until she withdrew it with
a tremulous little laugh of protest.

"We're becoming infamous; we're a scandal, Michael.
Have you anything further to say to me?  If
not, please go home to bed."

Casting about in my mind for an excuse to linger
I recollected the advent of Eddin Bey; and I told
her about it.

"What a barnyard full!" she said scornfully, "all
the creatures, now,—Turk, Bulgarian, Bolshevik,
and boche! ... To see them here—and the two
principal scoundrels almost within my grasp!  I
don't believe I can stand it," she added breathlessly.
"Smith or no Smith, and his exasperating majesty
the King of Italy to the contrary, I think something
is going to happen to Tino and Ferdie as soon
as the pass is cleared."

"One thing more," I said; "do you believe there
really was a bomb in the room next to the Princess
Pudelstoff's?"

"Do you mean, Michael, that those murderous
Russians might possibly suspect Clelia, Josephine,
Raoul, and me?"

"Oh no, I don't think that.  But possibly they
had other assassinations in mind and were trying out
a new species of bomb—experimenting with some
untried fuse.  That's what occurred to me—unless the
fat Princess really did dream it all."

"When I make the beds to-morrow," remarked
Thusis, "I shall search very carefully.  The only
trouble is that those Bolsheviki seldom leave their
rooms except to eat.  And then I'm obliged to wait
on table."

I nodded, a little troubled.  But it was unthinkable
that these treacherous Reds should even dream
of bomb-murder in Switzerland.  Whom might they
desire to slaughter, unless it were the poor, fat
Princess?  And they would scarcely blow up an entire
establishment in a neutral country for the purpose
of scattering portions of the Princess over the
adjacent Alps.

And yet I began to feel oddly uneasy, now.  Of
what such vermin might be capable I could not guess,
with the frightful example of the two arch-traitors
Lenine and Trotzky staring a sickened world in the
face,—a world already betrayed twice since its sad
history began—once by Judas, once by Benedict Arnold.

Judas would have sold the souls of all mankind:
Lenine and Trotzky sold only one hundred and fifty
million bodies to the anti-Christ.  Things were
improving on earth after all.

I said: "Smith is a good man to have here at
such a time.  He's a wonderfully level-headed
fellow.  I don't believe we need worry."

"I ought to dislike him.  But I don't," remarked
Thusis.

"Dislike Smith?"

"He's turned my sister's head!"

"But—good heavens!—if she cares for him——"

"I care for *you*!" she cut in crisply.  "But I
haven't lost my head or my sense of proportion——"

"I wish you had."

She looked at me in silence almost hostile.
Suddenly she blushed furiously:

"I wish I had, too!  I care for you as much as
my sister cares for Mr. Smith!  More!  Much more!
I'm—I'm quite hopelessly in love!  But I
don't—don't—forget that—that——"

She shook her head but sat looking at me out
of tragic eyes—suffered me to press her lovely hands
to my lips, watching me all the while.

"You had better go, Michael."

I laid her hands in her lap.  She clasped them so
tightly that the delicate nails whitened.

"It will come out right," said I, rising.

"It never will....  I—I love you."

At the door I hesitated.  But she did not speak.
And I opened it and went out.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SUS SCROFA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   SUS SCROFA

.. vspace:: 2

For two exasperating weeks, now, the
Schwindlewald pass had remained hermetically sealed
with snow, utterly isolating the valley.
It is true that a Swiss airplane had appeared
overhead and had dropped several tons of bread which
we did not require, and a message couched in
hysterical language reminding us that God would
protect us while several score of sweating Swiss dug us
out.

Personally I didn't care except for the highly
objectionable colony of boches with whom I was obliged
to share an imprisonment which otherwise would
never have bored me.

But the royal circus was a dreadful visitation—kings,
queen, lesser fry, and Bolsheviki became almost
unendurable, even when, during the first week
of our captivity, they flocked by themselves and
conspired to their hearts' content.

Had this condition endured, the situation might
have been borne with a certain philosophy.  But the
inevitable, of course, happened: one week of exclusive
gregariousness was enough for these people:
they began to bore one another.

It showed first, characteristically, at table.  Tino
and spouse, always engaged in continual bickering
to the vast discomfort of everybody, now had it out
in star-chamber proceedings; and the King, badly
battered but jaunty, appeared at table with one eye
partly closed and a mouth so swollen that he could
not comfortably manipulate a cigarette.  He
explained that he had bumped his head in the dark.
But it was perfectly understood who had bumped it.

King Ferdinand became moody, and his cunning,
furtive features often bore a white, scared expression.
He developed, too, a morbid mania for a most
depressing line of conversation—celebrated assassinations
being his theme,—and he ransacked the history
of all times in search of examples, Eddin Bey
slyly assisting him.

Sluggish livers and piggish feeding probably
accounted for the sullen lethargy of Von Dungheim
and Bummelzug.  Their ever latent and brutal
tempers blazed at absurd trifles, involving usually the
bad manners and lack of respect shown them by the
Bolsheviki, who chattered back at them like enraged
monkeys, terrifying the Princess Pudelstoff who had
never forgotten her "dream."

Admiral Lauterlaus, whose personal habits were
always impossible, now spent most of his time bullying
the wretched Secretary Gizzler or, with a
telescope such as chamois-hunters carry, squatted on
the veranda steps and swept the Bec de l'Empereur
for "gamps," and heaven knows what else.

Only the Countess Manntrapp and Eddin Bey
appeared to retain their good humor.  The Turk, a
handsome fellow of distinguished manners and gay
address, evidently possessed a lively eye for pulchritude.
He lost no time at all in paying his sly court
to my servants, beginning with Thusis, progressing
to Clelia, and ending with Josephine Vannis in the
kitchen: and he accepted defeat with such cheerful
and humorous alacrity that they all forgave him, I
think, and his perfectly frank suggestions that they
return to Adrianople with him and honor him by
becoming the nucleus for a zenana.

He found, however, a pretty bird of his own
vivacious and volatile temperament in the exceedingly
bored Countess Manntrapp.  And they were often
together and apparently having a jolly flirtation,
being cleverly aware of each other's character and
entertaining no delusions.

Except for these two at table and on the veranda,
and except for the companionship of Smith, and
now and then an opportunity for a few cautious
words with Thusis, those days would have been
insupportable for me.  A hungry hun is bad enough;
an ill-tempered one is worse; but a bored boche!—imagine
a penful of them with time heavy on their hoofs!

The old story—"What's time to a hawg!"—has
no significance among the *Sus scrofa* or the "Bosch
Vark."  Bored, the embers of that dull, slumbering
rage glow hotter; the sulky silence is broken by
grumbling, then by quarrels; the blind, senseless
instinct to brutalize and rend obsesses.  Small wonder
the boche desires a place in the sun where his herds
can spread out from the constricted and common
wallow!

.. vspace:: 2

Tino had again appeared at luncheon with the
other eye done in thunderous tints of purple, taupe,
and an exquisite mauve.  Parallel scratches adorned
his nose; some of his mustache was missing.  But I
must admit he took it jauntily enough, and his bland
explanation—something about tripping over a rock
in the woods—was accepted by all and believed by
none.

The queen, still somewhat pasty and pinched from
the effects of this ritual *in camera*, ate haughtily,
disdainful of what anybody might really think, and
calm in her conviction that the Hohenzollern is
responsible to Gott alone for whatever a Hohenzollern
may choose to do.

That she had done plenty to Tino was painfully
visible: but he was in a jocose and waggish humor,
and his barrack-room quips and jests were plainer
than usual.  In fact, they became so coarse that
even the Admiral bristled his beard and eyebrows,
sniffing lack of respect for himself in the
loud-mouthed levity of the King.

And I was getting madder and madder, Thusis
and Clelia being present to wait on table as usual,
and I was on the point of making a sharp observation
to King Tino, when a sudden burst of applause
from the other end of the table checked me.  The
Countess Manntrapp was speaking.  She continued:

"This enforced imprisonment is becoming exceedingly
dull for everybody.  Why not divert ourselves?
Has anybody any suggestions to offer?"

"A mountain party," rumbled Admiral Lauterlaus.
"I, in my time, a famous hunter of 'gamps' have
been."

"We don't wish to break our necks to divert
ourselves," sneered the queen.

"A fishing party!" exclaimed Von Dungheim.  "If
there is a good big net we can all help draw it and
clean out every trout in the stream!"

"Droly," expostulated Tino, "you have such
wholesale ideas!  Our host might possibly object,
you know."

At the very idea of anybody objecting to the
destructive wishes of a Prussian officer, General Count
von Dungheim glared at me.

"Why not give a baby-party?" inquired Smith, blandly.

"A—a *baby*-party!" repeated Baron Bummelzug
vacantly, in English; "what perhaps iss it a baby-party?"

Thusis, serving me, bent over and whispered in
my ear: "Not the sort of baby-parties they gave in
Belgium; there are no babies."  And she moved serenely
to serve the queen, her beautiful face placid
and inscrutable.

The Princess Pudelstoff began to clap her pudgy
hands excitedly:

"A baby-party!  A baby-party!  That'll be fun!
That'll be great!  And we'll have a feed and a
spiel——"

"Ach wass!" shouted the Admiral exasperated.
"Tell us once what it iss a baby-party, und stop
your noises yet!"

But the excited Princess had become uncontrollable,
and she began to hammer on the table with her
fat fists, shouting:

"A feed and a spiel!  For God's sake somebody
start something in this hellofa hole!"

Amid her clamor and the ominous roaring of the
infuriated Admiral, I tinkled my goblet with my
fork and presently secured comparative silence for
Smith.

In a few pleasant phrases he explained to them
the simple intricacies of the American baby-party.

"I'll come!" cried the Countess Manntrapp, delighted.

"I also!" echoed Eddin Bey.

Tino was visibly enchanted at the prospect, and
he clapped King Ferdinand on his elephantine back
exultingly:

"We'll go as twins!" he cried.  "This is most
agreeable to me!  Eh, Sophy?  I'm half dead for a
bit of a frolic!  Everybody must come.  Nobody is
to be excused.  Desperate cases require desperate
remedies.  Ennui is what is killing us; diversion is
what we need!"

He was pounding the breath out of King Ferdinand
who began to cough and dodge and blink wildly
at everybody out of his little wild-pig's eyes, when
I stood up giving the signal.

"The party," announced Smith, "is for to-night!
There will be games, a dance, and a supper.  All are
politely invited!"

"My God," said Secretary Gizzler to me, rubbing
his bony hands together, "to what foolishness does
noble company resort in order that ennui may be
escaped."

The Princess Pudelstoff overheard him:

"Crape-hanger!" she said, giving him a vigorous
dig in the ribs which almost disarticulated his
entire and bony frame.

The majority, however, trooping out to the
veranda where they could teutonically enjoy their
coffee and cognac "im grünen," appeared desirous
of engaging in the proposed diversion.

Even the queen deigned to inquire of me whether
there was, in the house, material with which to
construct a pair of ruffled panties for her husband.

Only the Bolsheviki remained aloof, chattering and
mouthing together and waving their soiled fingers at
each other and, presumably, at the bourgeois world
in general.

.. vspace:: 2

Later, Smith came into my room whither I had
retired to resume my series of poems to Thusis,—a
rather melancholy occupation yet oddly comforting,
too.

"Why the devil," said I, "did you suggest such
a party?"

"I don't know.  It occurred to me.  I'm rather
tired of their wrangling."

"But a *baby*-party!"

He laughed: "You see how they take to the idea.
Anything to dissipate this sullen, ugly atmosphere.
It gets on my nerves."

"Are *you* going?"

"Certainly."

"In costume?"

"Of course."

"Good heavens, Smith!  I didn't think you had
it in you to frivol."

"Why—I don't know," he said, smilingly.  "I'm
intensely happy."

I eyed him gloomily: "Yes," said I, "no doubt
you are—winning the affections of the girl you wish
to marry.  By the way, has she been civil enough
to tell you who she really is?"

"No," he replied cheerfully.

"Do you mean to tell me you are engaged to marry
a girl who refuses to disclose her identity?"

"Exactly."

"How the devil is she going to marry you?  Under
an assumed name?"

"That is for Clelia to decide."

"*That*," said I, "is a most remarkable view to take
of the situation."

"Why?  I am in love.  I dare believe she cares
for me.  It makes no difference to me who Clelia may
be.  That she is Clelia is enough—enough that she
will be my wife.  And when a man stands for the
first time inside the gates of happiness with the girl
he loves—what an ass he'd be to bother her about
details!"

This was a totally new and unexpected Smith, to
me.  I never dreamed it was in him.

"Don't you agree with me?" he inquired.

I nodded doubtfully.

"Wouldn't you accept Thusis as she chose to offer
herself?" he insisted.

A pang shot through me:

"Good Lord, yes!" I said.  "I'd marry her if she
were a beggar or a convict or the least creature of
her sex.  I'd never ask a question; I'd take thankfully
and happily what she offered.  You are right,
Smith—wonderfully right.  If you love, love!  If
you don't, worry!"

"Quite right," he said; "it's either love or worry;
the genuine article doesn't admit of both.  If you
really love you are satisfied; if you worry it isn't
love—it's merely something resembling it.  Love is
specific; there are sub-species and varieties, none the
real thing.  The acid test of love is contentment;
baser metal dissolves in trouble, and the sediment is
worry.  I——"

"Oh, shut up!" I burst out, nervously; "you're too
darned eloquent on the subject.  Besides," I added
with a perfectly new and instinctive suspicion,
"you're so confoundedly contented with yourself that
I believe you have begun to guess the identity of
Clelia, and that it pleases you enormously!"

He reddened.

"*Have* you any idea who she is?" I insisted.

"A vague idea."

"And that vague idea pleases you?"

"It does," he said with a shy sort of grin.

That was too much for me.  "Go to Guinea!" said
I, resuming my pen and paper and paying him no
further attention.

.. vspace:: 2

Clelia came for orders, sweet and serious in her
garb of service.  Again I laid aside my poem to
Thusis.

"I am glad," said I, camouflaging my melancholy
with a sprightly allure, "that you have renounced
kidnaping kings and have decided to kidnap Mr. Smith
instead."

She didn't seem to think it was funny.  The newly
engaged lack humor.

"Josephine," she said with dignity, "suggests this
supper-card."  And she handed me the written sheet.

"Fine!" said I.  "Stuff 'em till they're unconscious
and we'll have peace."

At that she laughed.

"Josephine desires to know what time the party
is to begin," she said.

"It begins with dinner, Clelia.  They all come in
costume.  After dinner they play games.  Supper
at midnight.  Then they dance—God help them."

"The Bolsheviki, too?"

"That's another breed of cat," said I.  "I haven't
the faintest idea what they intend to do.  All I
know is that they're not coming to the party.  So
give them a table by themselves in their rooms half
an hour before we dine.  Otherwise those chattering
apes are likely to spoil the party."

She agreed with me.

After she had departed I began again on my
poem called "Nobody Home":

   |  "She who, risen from the sea,—
   |  Body fashioned from its foam,—
   |  Once appeared to favor me,
   |  Now has left me all alone:—
   |  When I call she's not at home;
   |  Silent are the Temple closes
   |  Where her priestess used to roam
   |  Smiling at me, crowned with roses
   |  Underneath the Temple's dome;
   |  So I stand outside alone.
   |  From the dead fire on her altar
   |  Now I turn away and falter:
   |  Aphrodite's not at home.
   |
   |    Goddess born of sun and sea,
   |  Goddess born of sea and sun,
   |    Blue-eyed Venus pity me,
   |  I would wed my Dearest One:—
   |  She denies; and I'm undone!"—
   |

Just here I found myself in difficulties: the verse
called for two more words to rhyme with "sun," and
the available ones already unused included such
words as bun, dun, fun, gun, hun, nun, pun, run,
shun, ton, and won—at least these were all I could
think of—none among them available for classical
purposes.

Much disturbed I sat consulting my Rhyming Dictionary
and smoking a cigarette without relish, when
a terrific screaming from the Princess Pudelstoff's
apartment brought me to my feet and out into the
corridor.

The Princess stood in the hallway wringing her
hands and almost dancing with rage and fright while,
from their doorway across the hall, Puppsky and
Wildkatz jabbered at her in apparent fury.

"What the dickens is all this!" I demanded angrily.

"They've got cooties!" she screamed.  "I
suspected it!  I knew it!  All Bolsheviki have 'em!
Don't let 'em near me!  Lock 'em up and turn the
gas on!  Make 'em take baths!  They don't want
to, but make 'em!"

"What do you mean?" said I, feeling suddenly ill
and pale.

"I mean what I say!" she cried, wringing her
jeweled hands.  "They've got 'em but we don't have
to have 'em!  We ain't in the trenches, thank God!
No, nor we ain't in Rooshia where them things is
family pets!  I d-don't want any!  I don't want
any even from my own brother——"

I strode over to Puppsky and Wildkatz.

"Get into that room or I'll knock your heads off!"
I whispered in an ungovernable rage.

They began to chatter at me but thought better
of it and fled; and I tore the key from their door
and locked it on the outside.  Then I went downstairs
and out to the stable where I found Raoul and
gave him the key.

"You will take a couple of gallons of sheep-dip,"
said I, still in a cold fury, "and you will go up and
fill their bathtub with it, and then you may call me."

"Oh," said Raoul, coolly comprehending, "I can
souse them myself, Monsieur."

"Tell them I'll beat them to death if they stir
until I permit it," I added.  "Also be good enough to
burn their clothing and bedding, and fumigate their
rooms."

"Give yourself no anxiety, Monsieur," he said, amused.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PARTICEPS CRIMINIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   PARTICEPS CRIMINIS

.. vspace:: 2

Toward the dinner hour excitement in the
house became intense as the royal circus
fussed and pinned and basted and struggled
with its impromptu costumes.

Bells jangled to summon Thusis and Clelia; the
Princess Pudelstoff was too fat to braid her own
hair; the Countess Manntrapp required basting into
her boy's breeches; the Queen, desiring to go as the
infant Germania, had pasted tin-foil all over her high
Austrian corset, but still it didn't resemble armor,
nor did the oval boiler-lid furnished by Josephine
Vannis particularly resemble a shield.

Otherwise a blonde wig of tow in two obese braids
and a shiny fireman's helmet of 1840 which I
discovered in the garret, consoled the queen.  To these
properties I rashly added an eel-spear; and then,
remembering her quick temper, I feared for King
Constantine, wondering whether, if fatally prodded,
he would name me as accessory after the fact.

As for the men, they continually rang for Raoul
who acted as dresser and as messenger between them
and Josephine Vannis who had constructed their
costumes from odd scraps and from such of their own
garments as would serve.

Admiral Lauterlaus was monstrous as a sailor-boy
of six; Von Bummelzug, Eddin Bey, Von Dungheim,
and Secretary Gizzler were school-lads in socks, bare
knees, and denim blouses.  King Constantine who, it
appeared, rather fancied his own legs, went as a
smirking doll in a costume principally constructed
out of his wife's underclothes.

But the most gruesome sight of all was Ferdinand
as a youthful ballet-girl; and he most horridly
resembled an elephant on his hind legs in a stick-out
tulle skirt, and his enormous feet, cross-ribboned,
went shuffling and flapping to and fro as he
waddled about busy with powder and rouge.

Raoul laced his stays and tugged in vain to
indent his bulk.  It was useless, but we got him into
his corsage and left him before a mirror ponderously
prancing in imitation of the pony ballet, and singing
la-la-la! furtively peeping the while at his own
proportions with the unfeigned pleasure of perfect
approval.

Really, except for the characters of these
impossible individuals, the jolly noise and confusion
they made with their preparations and the lively
excitement that pervaded hall, corridor and stair,
resembled the same sort of delightful uproar one
hears at a week-end party in a big country house
under similar circumstances.

The queen's bell had been jangling persistently
for some minutes when, stepping from my room into
the hallway to see whether anybody was answering
it, I came face to face with Thusis.

Warm, and delicately flushed with her exertions,
she was half vexed, half laughing now as she cast a
prudent glance right and left along the corridor
before slipping through the door into my room.  I
followed, locking the door.

"Michael," she began, "the queen says there are
not enough women in the party and she insists that
Clelia and I find costumes and join.  I was furious—and
she's making a violent row about it now, insisting,
bullying, ordering Clelia about——"

"What!  Ordering my servants about!" I
interrupted angrily.

"Yes—your servants, Michael," dropping me an
ironical curtsey which brought me back to my senses.
We both laughed.  And suddenly it occurred to me
how adorable Thusis would be at a baby-party.

"Why not?" I exclaimed.  "Why not drop
hostilities for an hour and enjoy the ridiculous?
Absurdity always appeals to you, anyway, Thusis," I
added, "and the entire situation is so impossible that
it ought to attract you!"

"It does," she admitted with that engaging and
reckless little laugh I had come to know so well.
"Besides, you are my host, Michael, and I am
under your roof.  So who your ragamuffin-bobtail
guests may be does not concern me.  Clelia and I
are not responsible, are we?"

"Not at all," said I.  "The ignominy of this royal
riff-raff rests upon my shoulders.  Anyway, you do
not need to dance except with me," I added
reassuringly.

"Eddin Bey is rather attractive," she mused,
letting her glance rest on me sideways while the
innocent pleasure of this discovery parted her lips in a
honeyed smile.

"All right," said I shortly, "dance with him!"

"Michael——"

"Go ahead and dance with him," I repeated,
stabbed by the most ignoble of emotions.

"What an absolute boy you can be," she said.  "If
I do this thing at all it is because the tension of
months is becoming unendurable.  Reaction from the
tragic usually lands one on the edges of the
grotesque....  If you had been a girl, Michael, always
sheltered, secure, living a colorless restricted life,
and if you suddenly were cast upon your own feet
with the accumulated responsibility of your race on
your shoulders,—and if, in the very middle of your
first years of liberty and opportunity you suddenly
found this wonderful world flaming like hell all about
you, and all its inhabitants at each other's throats,
and all delight in living turned to hate and fear—and
if you concluded to take your fate into your
own hands and run away from authority, and, in
your own way, fight the good fight for God and
King and Country,—and if the strain became, for
an hour, too great—wouldn't you react—perhaps
to the verge of folly?"

"You bet I would, sweetness," said I, taking her
lovely hands in mine.

"I was a school-girl," she said, "when—it devolved
upon me, and upon Clelia, to determine our
own futures....  The loss of parents is a—bewildering
thing....  Our mania was travel and education
to fit us for—for what we considered to be
our rightful future positions in the world....  We
have been in your country,—I don't mean Chile.
We know England and France—God bless them
both.  Then, owing deference anyway if not
perhaps blind obedience to the—to a—gentleman in
Italy——"

"The King," I said soberly.

"Yes, the King of Italy.  We were expected to
return to Rome and defer to him all questions
concerning our future....  And we ran away."

"Why, Thusis?"

"Because we happen to have minds of our own,
Michael."

"And you immediately employed them by concocting
a plot to kidnap some kings!" I said.  "Oh,
Thusis, you are the limit!"

"I know I am," she said naïvely.  "A mind that
does not range to its extremest limits is a rather dull
one, isn't it?"

"It is," I admitted, laughing and crushing her
hands between my own.  "You are delightfully right,
Thusis; you are always deliciously right.  I don't
know who you are except that you're the lovely and
mysterious Laughing Girl.  What else you may be
I don't know, dearest, but you are doubtless
somebody or the King of Italy wouldn't bother his clever
head about you and your sister."

"He *does* bother, I am afraid," admitted Thusis,
smiling.  "I'm sorry we've been obliged to annoy
him.  But it couldn't be helped, because we differed,
politically, with the King of Italy.  And we ran
away from Rome to prove to him that our conception
of world-politics was right and his was wrong.
And we expect him, some day, to be very grateful
to us—because we really are, Clelia and I, two of
his most loyal subjects."

She spoke so frankly, so earnestly, that I dared
make no jest of what she said.

However, I think she saw a glimmer in my eyes,
for she flushed.

"Nothing," she said, "is sacred to a Yankee.  Let
me go."

"Shall I tell you what is sacred to a Yankee,
Thusis?" said I, retaining her hands.

"No!"

"I'll tell you all the same: liberty of mind!—liberty
within law!—liberty within the frontiers of conscience."

"Then you do not deny these privileges to me?"

"They *are* yours, Thusis.  No man can deny
essential rights and liberties."

"You believe I have a right to act as my
conscience dictates?"

"Absolutely."

"To run away from authority?"

"If your mind approves."

"And—and devote my life—risk it—to free my
native land and restore to my sovereign what once
belonged to him?"

"Naxos?"

"Yes."

I said gravely: "If, in your self-dedication to
this work there be no ulterior motive;—if you
undertake this unselfishly, and with a heart clean of all
personal ambition—then, Thusis, I say, go on! ... And
I am at your service."

Twice she started to speak, and hesitated.  In her
clear eyes, so intently, almost painfully fixed on
mine, I saw she was fiercely pondering my words.
Her intense and youthful seriousness in her concentration
held me fascinated.  And for a little while
neither one of us stirred.

And it gradually began to appear to me that what
I had said to her had suddenly opened to her young
and ardent eyes a totally new view of some things
in the world with which she had, perhaps, believed
herself thoroughly familiar.

She turned from her absorption; and now she was
presented to me in profile with downcast eyes and
bitten lip, and a least relaxation of her slender
figure which had been so straight and rigid.

It was becoming evident that she had nothing
further to say to me,—no reply to make to what I
had rather ponderously propounded as an ethical
axiom.

But, as responding to the restless pressure, I
released her hands, she turned back and stood looking
at me out of painfully perplexed eyes—eyes that
lacked no courage, either, yet doubted, now, almost
wistfully.

Then, not speaking, she unlocked my door and
went out.

.. vspace:: 2

Smith knocked at the doorway communicating
between our apartments, and came in at my
absent-minded invitation.

"Of course *you're* not in this, are you, Michael?"
he inquired.

"We weren't asked.  Besides, there are too many
men now, and the Queen wants Thusis, Clelia, and
Josephine Vannis to serve dinner in costume and
join the party afterward."

"Are they going to do it?" he asked, surprised
and amused.

"I don't know....  Tell me, Smith, whom do
you suspect Thusis to be?  I can see you have some
theory concerning Clelia—some idea.  Haven't you?"

"Yes, I have."

"Would you care to share it with me?"

"Yes.  But I can't."

"Could you tell me why you can't?"

"I think I may tell you that much.  The King
of Italy requested me to maintain silence in the
possible event of my discovering the identity of Thusis
and Clelia.  I am here on the King's service, with
certain definite orders.  I shall scrupulously observe
these orders.  Among these is his request concerning
the identity of these two charming young girls."

"Just one thing, then.  *Have* you discovered the
identity of Thusis?"

"No."

"Of Clelia?"

He reddened.  "Yes, I have," he said.  "Or rather
she has confirmed what I had begun to suspect."

"Clelia has told you who she is!" I exclaimed.

"She has."

"Isn't that disobedience of orders?"

"She told me before I could stop her.  I never
dreamed she was going to tell me.  It came out—like
a bolt of lightning—while I—I was—slipping
over her finger that ring I used to wear——"

"She wears it!"

"Yes.  She was glorious.  She——"

"And she's going to marry you?"

"Yes, God bless her."

So I wrung his hand in silence and strove hard
not to let any comparison of his situation and mine
taint with the slightest trace of bitterness my
happiness in his good fortune and my cordial
recognition of it now.

Thusis was not mentioned between us.  He didn't
say "buck up, old chap," or "go in and win," or
any insincere thing of that sort, for I felt that he
believed my case to be hopeless.

Presently he returned to his room and closed the
door.  And I sat down at my table and produced
pen and paper with a view to further poetry—my
only form of relief from grief.

But rhymes evaded me; and finally I gave it up
and rested my head on both hands, unhappy,
unsatisfied, feeling that I was a failure, and always
had been one.

After all what could such a glorious young thing
as Thusis see in an interior decorator from New
York?—a profession into which had minced all the
lady-like young men and lisping sissies in Manhattan!

Perhaps, after all, the profession was all right,
but the people who practiced it were weird and
incompetent.  And as for me I was perfectly aware
that I had no taste, no color sense, no glimmering
idea of composition.

Doubtless my artistic and financial success had
been due to my utter incapacity.

I proceeded to masticate the cud of bitterness.

.. vspace:: 2

I had been masticating longer than I realized for
the light in the room was already growing less when
a knock came at my door; and I shoved my unuttered
verses into the drawer and grunted out, "Come in!"

It was Thusis, transfigured, sparkling, mischievous,
audacious.  And she was the most beautiful
thing I ever saw.

Her magnificent ruddy hair, unloosened, framed
her face, its upcurled, burnished ends falling to her
waist.

Otherwise she was an exquisite French doll in
knee-skirts and sash and all over pale blue ribbons.

"I'm going to have a good time if I do murder
to-morrow, Michael.  Do you like my costume?
Really?  That is so sweet of you!  You always are
the most satisfactory of men!  And you should see
Clelia!  She's like me only her ribbons and sash are
primrose.  She is really charming."

"Thusis," said I, "you and Clelia shall sit at table
and Smith and I are going to turn waiters!  No!"
as she exclaimed in protest, "let's be logical in our
grotesqueries!  This little world of ours here in
Schwindlewald is already absurd enough with you
and Clelia waiting on table.  Let's turn it
completely upside down and stand it on its head."

She finally consented, forced by my gay ardour,
and, I think, mischievously pleased at the prospect
of protest from the Queen.

All over the house, now, I could hear snatches of
loud laughter as my Teutonic guests began to gather
and visit one another in their costumes.  Thusis
fled; and I opened the door and broke the news to
Smith.

"Get into your evening duds," I added, "and
announce dinner.  We're all going stark mad and I'm
glad of it."

So I dressed, and found him ready when I was;
and we went downstairs into the large lounging room
where Raoul was fitting disks into the music-box.

He laughed when we told him our intentions, and
then we went into the kitchen and informed
Josephine Vannis.  That stately Juno condescended to
smile on us.  She was rather tremendously imposing
as a baby with bonnet and stick-out skirts—as
though somebody had decked out a masterpiece of
Praxiteles.

Retiring, Smith murmured: "Only the Parthenon
possesses such awe-inspiring symmetry; only
the Acropolis could vie with her.  Did you ever see
such superb underpinning in all your life?"

Stunned by such stupendous symmetry I
admitted that I never had.  And we went away to
announce dinner.

But it was not until the noisy company were gathered
in the dining-room that the Queen perceived the
two empty chairs and began to realize my intentions.
And she came to me and made angry representations,
refusing to be seated on the right of a servant, or,
indeed, to suffer servants at all at table, and
saying that if she chose to admit my waitresses to the
dancing hall, it was because such privileges sometimes
were graciously permitted to the peasantry
who never misunderstood such condescension.

"Madame," said I, "my housekeeper, Thusis, sits
in my place at table this evening.  And if, madame,
you are so deeply concerned about it, comfort
yourself with the explanation that in my housekeeper
you behold your host; she is my vice-reine, or
vice-roy, or vice-regent—whatever you like best, madame!
She represents me!  In her you see embodied the
inviolable authority of the master of this house
wherein you are a guest!  However, madame, if you
prefer to be served alone in the bar, I will have a
table set there for you——"

She almost spat at me; and Thusis entered, her
hand linked in Clelia's.

I think the royal circus was stupefied by the beauty
of these two young girls.  A rather frightful silence
reigned for a moment; then the Countess Manntrapp
clapped her jeweled hands and sang out in
her clear, soprano voice: "Brava!  Bravissima!
They are beautiful, our little waitresses!"

Eddin Bey removed his red fez and, swinging it
by the tassel, gave three hochs.

Then, instantly, the cheers broke out everywhere:
I gave Thusis my arm; Smith offered his to Clelia;
and we seated them amid shouts and the waving of
napkins, the queen's eyes glittering like twin daggers
all the while.

Such an uproar as Smith and I served the soup!
Gurgles, gulps, scraping, sucking sounds arose from
feeding Teutons.  The fish produced a frightful
clatter of knives and forks, and the Princess Pudelstoff
cut her lip with her knife but stuck a patch on
it and joyously immersed it in gravy.

They—the kings and admirals and generals were
drinking too much; I noticed that in the din.  And
toward the wrecked climax of the dinner when everybody
was offering everybody else tinsel bon-bons, and
people were pulling snapping-crackers with one
another, I sent Raoul out to start the music-box; and
Josephine Vannis emerged all clean and fresh and
scented to join the revelry.

Her appearance awed us all; again I felt that
innate reverence for the prodigiously beautiful, that
awe for things superbly Greek.  Her effect upon the
two kings, however, was pronounced.  The wild-pig
eyes of Ferdinand became fixed and vitreous for a
full minute; King Constantine's orbs bulged.  Both
made straight for her when Thusis gave the signal
to rise; and I saw the exasperated Queen staring at
her spouse and fingering a large, sharp, jeweled pin.

But I went into the dancing room and took command
without loss of time; and Smith followed with
a bottle of wine and a roast chicken—our own dinner
which we intended to discuss while supervising this
party and keeping the music-box busy.

"Silence!" said I, hammering on the glass lampshade
with my fork.  "The party begins, like all
children's parties, with children's games.  'Going to
Jerusalem' will be the first game played!"

"How is that played?" demanded several at once.

I instructed them, gravely; and presently Smith
and I, eating our dinner beside the music-box, beheld
our guests in their baby costumes marching around
and around a row of chairs and, at a given signal,
falling into the unoccupied seats with squeals and
shrieks and bellows of laughter.

They tired of that, presently, and I laid aside my
chicken and glass of claret and, rising, instructed
them in the game called "Oats-peas-beans."  They
listened attentively, but Thusis and Clelia
appeared much disconcerted when further revelations
on my part disclosed that it was a "kissing" game;
and they both withdrew, firmly declining to play it,
much to the dissatisfaction of Eddin Bey and Tino.

So Thusis and Clelia came over to where Smith
and I were installed, and, while we resumed our
dinner, they cranked the music-box in which I had
inserted a disk containing the immemorial air of
"Oats-peas-beans."

We then became pleased observers of royalty and
nobility in baby clothes, hands joined, walking very
seriously in a circle in the center of which stood the
Princess Pudelstoff, and singing in unison and with
all their might:

   |  "*Oats-peas-beans*
   |  *And barley grow,*
   |  *Though you and I and nobody knows*
   |  *Where oats-peas-beans*
   |  *And barley grow!*"
   |
   |  "*Thus the farmer sows his seed!*
   |  (All made motions of scattering something.)
   |  *Thus he stands and takes his ease!*
   |  (All with hands on hips.)
   |  *Stamps his foot,*
   |  (All stamp)
   |  *And claps his hand,*
   |  (All clap.)
   |  *And turns around to view the land,*
   |  (All turn.)
   |  *While waiting for a partner!*
   |  *While waiting for a partner!*
   |  *So open the ring*
   |  *And choose one in*
   |  *And kiss him when you get him in!*"
   |

The singing ceased; the Princess Pudelstoff
giggled; then, to his dismay, she pounced upon Eddin
Bey, almost throttled that handsome Moslem in her
enthusiasm, and gave him a resounding smack amid
screams of laughter and roars of approval.

And then the game waxed fast and furious: Eddin
Bey chose the Countess Manntrapp and kissed her
delicately and courteously; she chose King Constantine,
but merely saluted his cheek, much to his exasperation.

Then Tino held the ring, waggish, jocose, bantering
everybody with their expectations.  But though
the queen eyed him commandingly, furiously, he
swaggered over to Josephine Vannis and soundly
kissed that classic memorial in animated Grecian
marble.

The Teutons behaved rather grossly; King
Ferdinand ranged the ring like a liberated wild hog
and presently charged the object of his osculatory
intentions—Josephine.

Probably nobody dared kiss the queen, but such
respectful abstention seemed to please her none the
more, for presently she hissed something into Tino's
ear, and he chose her into the ring with an agility
born of terror.

Once there she glared at everybody and then,
with a sneer, selected Tino again, and the game,
promising to become a monotony and a deadlock, I
rose and, waving a leg of the chicken to impose
silence, proclaimed that the games had ended and that
dancing would now begin.

Raoul inserted a fox-trot of sorts; and the next
instant everybody was footing it.

"Raoul," I said in a guarded voice, "did you souse
those Bolsheviki in sheep-dip?"

"I did, sir."

"What did they do?"

"They made an agonizing noise, Monsieur.  I fear
it was, perhaps, their first bath."

"Go up and dip 'em again."

"All Bolshevikdom will shriek," he said, grinning.

"Let it for a change.  It's set all the world
scratching.  Let Bolshevik Russia do a little shrieking,
now that she feels the boche biting her worse
than her native cooties!  Get some more sheep-dip
and de-louse that pair of things upstairs."

He went away, laughing.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THUSIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THUSIS

.. vspace:: 2

For a while the dancing was lively and
good-humored hilarity reigned.

The Tzar of all the Bulgars had imbibed
enough wine to dull, if not to obliterate that
continual desire of his to slink into corners and peep
out at a hostile world bent on his assassination.
Only when somebody spoke to him too abruptly
behind his back did the customary symptoms blanch
his face and set his wild eyes roving and his big nose
wrinkling like a boar which winds an enemy.

He was having as good a time as such a person
can ever have; and toward supper time his exhilaration
incited him to attempt a waddling sort of Bulgarian
dance with the Countess Manntrapp—an
amazing exhibition of mammoth movements on his
part; and a sort of infernal and fascinating grace
on the part of the lithe Countess.

Dancing with Thusis, I hastily led her out of their
way, and everybody else stood in the circle, the
center of which was pervaded by Ferdinand and his
lively vis-à-vis.

Which performance presently stirred Admiral
Lauterlaus from a somewhat beer-sodden lethargy,
and he emitted raucous sounds of protest.  But
Baron Bummelzug began to snap his fingers and
stamp and caper in imitation of the *schuplattl* of
the Bavarian peasantry; and all the boche except
the Queen, imitated him and seized partners.

Eddin Bey came to ask Thusis, and he was so
faultlessly polite and so gay and graceful that she
cast a saucy glance of dismissal at me and accepted
him.

It was quite all right, of course, but it depressed
me a little, particularly because Clelia had
inexorably refused everybody except Smith.

Now there is a very beautiful Grecian dance
supposed to be the triumphant dance executed by the
Ten Thousand when they caught sight of the sea;
and it is called "The Sea-dance."

Tino, rather drunk, climbed on a chair, shouted
for attention, and informed the company that he
was about to perform this celebrated dance.

But when we all gave him room he jigged around
a while like an intoxicated soldier's drab, and,
remarking jauntily that he had forgotten it, offered
ten thousand drachma to anybody present who could
dance the Sea-dance of the Ten Thousand.

He was rather vulgar about it, too, digging into
his pockets and pulling out fistfuls of hun gold, and
loudly demanding that somebody should attempt to
win it.

I glanced instinctively toward Thusis who, her
dance with Eddin interrupted, stood in the circle
opposite me.

Her gray eyes were brilliant, her cheeks delicately
flushed, and the shock of thick ruddy hair fairly
glittered, every silky thread afire with the gleam of
molten gold.

She looked at me with the sweet, reckless audacity
of a spoiled child; then she laughed and said
something to Clelia.  I saw the latter go to the
music box, select a record, start it; and the haunting
air called The Sea-dance floated out.

Then Thusis seemed suddenly to melt into motion;
her slim feet scarcely touched the floor; head,
arms, slender body, were all part of a single and
exquisite motion flowing from one soft curve to
another.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room;
and I did hear one—a big jeweled affair, that
clattered to my feet.

As I stooped to recover it the queen said hoarsely
in my ear:

"Who is that girl?"

I turned; she snatched the jewel and dug it into
her hair.

"That girl, madame, is Thusis, my housekeeper."

"Fiddle," retorted the queen.  "She's something
else, too,—or once was.  The first time I noticed
her it occurred to me that I'd seen her somewhere.
What was she—a celebrated dancer?—before she
became your *housekeeper*?"

The queen's nasty insolence froze me.

"I am not," said I, "as familiar with celebrated
dancers as your husband is—and the various men
of your immediate family."

That I had penetrated her incognito did not
appear to disturb her as much as my inferences
concerning Tino and the Kaiser and that degenerate
nest of reptiles, her nephews.

A white, pinched expression came into her frosty
face and her eyes flamed.

"I thought you were a Yankee," she said.

"A Yankee from Chile," said I, bowing.

She looked clean through me at Thusis.

"I've seen that woman somewhere," she said
without emotion.  "I'll recollect where, presently."

But my eyes and attention were now focussed on
the lovely Thusis and I paid no further heed to this
bad-tempered Hohenzollern.

Never have I seen such an exquisite dance, such
grace, such loveliness.  As for the boches, when
Thusis ended her *Dance of the Sea*, they were like a herd
of cattle galloping around her and bellowing their
satisfaction.

Tino, drunk and prodigal, began to throw handfuls
of gold at Thusis, and, enraged, I caught him
by the collar and jerked him onto a chair.

"Where the devil do you think you are—in the
Coulisse of the Opera?" I cried in his partly
deafened ear.

But he only grinned and wagged his head and
attempted to fish more gold out of his pockets.  But
now his thrifty wife interfered and she ordered
Secretary Gizzler to pick up every coin.  Then she
hissed something into Tino's car which seemed to
galvanize that partly soused monarch so that he
found his feet with alacrity and suffered himself to
be led aside by his tight-lipped spouse.

From time to time during the festivities I had
heard distant significant noises indicating that
upstairs the Bolsheviki were not enduring sheep-dip
and imprisonment with resignation.

Once I had slipped away to the corridor outside
their quarters, but, when I made my presence known,
Raoul from within calmly assured me that the
delousing was progressing successfully and that he
did not require my assistance.

Russia, forcibly scrubbed, had put forth
agonized howls; and now, Russia imprisoned, was
battering at its door and yelling murder.

Now and then, a hun noticed the noise and inquired
concerning its origin, but I always turned on
more music and they soon forgot in the din of the
dance.

Thusis had resumed her dance with Eddin Bey;
Smith and Clelia were dancing.  I said to Raoul,
who was starting to crank the music-machine: "I'll
just step up and quiet those Bolsheviki."

They were raining blows upon their door when I
arrived.  I rapped sharply.

"What do you want?" said I.

They gibbered at me in Russian.

"Speak English!" I insisted.

Perhaps Puppsky was so excited or so demoralized
by his first bath that he forgot he could speak English.

I tried them in Italian: "Whata da mat'?" I
inquired pleasantly.  They chattered back at me like
lunatic squirrels.

"What the devilovitch is the matsky?" I shouted,
incensed at their stupidity.  "You listen to me!
Your clothes are being boiled and you've got to stay
where you are!  Stop your noise, Puppsky!"

And off I went to inspect the big wash boiler in
the kitchen where, lifting the lid which had been the
queen's shield, I was gratified to observe the
garments of the Bolsheviki simmering nicely.

"It is not the only vermin that Germania's shield
covers," said I.  And much pleased with my *jeu
d'esprit*, I poured in another bottle of sheep-dip and
returned to the dance salon where supper was now
being served at little tables.

As soon as I entered the room I felt trouble brewing.
The inevitable hunnish reaction had set in.  A
tired boche is an ugly one; an intoxicated hun may
become either offensively sentimental or surly and
ingeniously bestial.  And now they were about to
become surfeited huns, heavy with wine, heavier with
food.  I did not fancy the looks of things very much.

The queen alone appeared to be perfectly sober;
the others were engaged in that sort of half insolent
raillery always provocative of a row, shouting
German pleasantries at one another from table to table,
lifting slopping glasses, cheering, singing and
leering at the ladies.

Bummelzug demanded that the music-box play
"Deutschland über Alles," but the disk was non-existent.

Von Dungheim, who exhibited an inclination to
weep at any mention of Germany, asked in a hoarsely
saturated voice for a folk-song.  And Raoul turned
on two; and the huns sang first "*Du bist wie eine
Blume*," which shattered them sentimentally so that
loud sobs punctuated the "*Lorelei*" which, of course,
followed.

Then Ferdinand, one arm around the Princess
Pudelstoff, and a chicken wing in the other hand,
lifted a voice choked with food and attempted a
Bulgarian folk-song—something about the "Kara
Dagh" and "Slivnitza"—but presently lost all
recollection of what he was doing and challenged
everybody to extemporaneous rhymes in praise of his
native land.

Nobody obliged.

"Too stupid!" he remarked thickly.  "Nobody
clever enough to rhyme '*Bulgarian*'—eh, mine host?"
looking around at me where I sat shielding Thusis
from the playful attentions of King Constantine
who was attempting to pinch her.

"Of course," said I, "'*Bulgarian*' rhymes with
'vulgarian'; but that's obvious."  And I smiled at
the Tzar of all the Bulgars and offered Thusis a
bon-bon.

She looked at Ferdinand, at Tino, at the queen:
suddenly she threw back her head, and that lovely,
childlike, silvery laughter rippled through the
Teutonic din.

There was no scorn in her laughter, only the delicious,
irresistible gaiety of a young girl face to face
with the excruciating.  And there is nothing on
earth more innocently insolent.

Every Teuton head was turned toward her in
stupefied displeasure; fishy, fixed, pig-like eyes stared
at this young girl who dared condone an insult to
Bulgaria with her fresh, impulsive laughter.

Suddenly behind me there was a brusque movement;
I heard Tino protest that his foot had been
trodden on; and, turning, I saw the queen
excitedly rising from her place.

"I know who that woman is now!" she said in a
voice as sharp as a blade.  She pointed at Thusis
like a vixen from the markets:

"That's The Laughing Girl!" she cried.  "Look
at her!  Anybody can recognize her now from her
photographs!"

Thusis colored crimson and shrank from the brutal
publicity against my shoulder, staring wide-eyed
at the hatefully sneering visage of the queen.

"The celebrated Laughing Girl!" repeated the
queen mockingly; "Mr. O'Ryan's *housekeeper*,
gentlemen—and our guest at dinner!  And what does
our German chivalry and nobility think of that
insult launched at us by a Yankee inn-keeper?"

"Be silent, madame!" I said sharply.  "If you
don't know how to conduct yourself I shall request
your husband to remove you!"

Then it came, the boche deluge!—a herd of huddling
swine on their feet, all grunting at me,
enraged, clamoring, waving their arms.  And in the
midst of the guttural uproar a thin, high voice
pierced all sound and dominated it—the sniffling
whine of Secretary Gizzler.

Possessed by a sort of cringing exaltation, he rose
to his thin, splay feet, and pointed a meager finger
almost in the shocked face of Thusis.

"That is the Duchess of Naxos!" he squealed.

At that Thusis was on her feet, white as a slim
sword-blade, and her gray eye charged with lightning.

I rose, too, incredulous, astounded.

"Thusis, Duchess of Naxos!" piped the excited
voice of Secretary Gizzler.  "She and The Laughing
Girl are one!  I know!  I was in the Intelligence!
I procured that photograph so that if this woman
ever gave our fatherland any trouble she could be
easily recognized wherever she might be!"  He beat
his temples and glared at Thusis: "Stupid!
Stupid!" he squealed; "why did I not recognize her at
once!  Why did not a single German present recognize
the chief mischief-maker in Greece!—the instigator
of revolt!—the pupil of Venizelos!—the enemy
of their majesties King Constantine and Queen
Sophia!—the plotter who aided in their
downfall!—Thusis, Duchess of Naxos!"

The huns seemed thunderstruck; Thusis, very pale,
swept them with insolent cool eyes.

All at once King Ferdinand got to his feet and
loomed up like a bad dream.

"Naxos!  Where is Naxos?" he demanded.

And when Secretary Gizzler would have answered
him: "The man's mad," he said heavily; "there's
no such place."

At that I saw Thusis's face flame; but the boche
all around her burst into a roar of ironic laughter.

"Let the fatherland tremble!" bellowed General
Count von Dungheim.  "Naxos declares war!"

"Look sharp!" shouted Admiral Lauterlaus, "or
we'll have Andorra invading us."

"And Monaco, too!" growled Bummelzug.  "*Gott
in Himmel*!  If Naxos defies us through her Duchess
we're as good as lost!"

"I tell you!" shrieked Secretary Gizzler, "that
it's no laughing matter!  That girl is the Duchess
of Naxos!  And the other—her sister—look well at
her, gentlemen!—she is Duchess of Tenedos!"

"That belongs to my country!" cried Eddin Bey,
laughing, "the island of Tenedos.  I sincerely hope
the Cyclades are not in revolt!  But if they are
I'm very glad so charming a lady is to own one of
them."

But his attempt at a good natured diversion made
no impression on the huns; and Gizzler, venomous
and quivering, held the floor and kept his weak,
vicious eyes on Thusis.

"It was the Ægean League that exiled the King
and Queen of Greece!" he said.  "She made that
league!—that woman standing there—Thusis,
Duchess of Naxos!"

"It isn't a Duchy!" cried the queen, choking with
fury; "it's a Greek Island!"

"It's a Venetian Duchy and belongs to Italy,
madame," I said calmly—having read up on it in the
Encyclopedia since I had fallen in love with one of
its inhabitants.

At that the queen turned on me like a fury.

"You lie!" she said.

I tried to control myself:

"Naxos is a Venetian Duchy, belonging to Italy,"
I repeated.  "I am happy and proud of the privilege
of acknowledging the restoration of Naxos to
Italy—and I salute its ruler—Thusis, Duchess of
Naxos!"

And I lifted the white hand of Thusis and touched
it with my lips.

"There's conspiracy here!" shouted Tino, very
drunk, and vainly attempting to stand up.  "We're
all tangled up in treason here!  We're in the web of
the Ægean League!  What are these people doing
here, anyway!—all these Yankees and Duchesses
running about underfoot——"

A hiccough terminated his activities and he slid
up against his spouse who shoved him away, her eyes
flashing.

"That lying Yankee," she began, almost beside
herself, "has set a trap for us here!"

At the word "trap," King Ferdinand, drunk as
he was, got up hastily and started toward the door.

"You'd better defend yourselves!" he shouted.
"I've got pistols in my room——"

His voice ceased: Raoul blocked his way:

"Stay where you are," he said, smiling and cool.
And placing a powerful hand on King Ferdinand's
chest he shoved him backward onto a chair.  Then,
to my surprise, Raoul slipped a pair of automatic
pistols from his side pockets and cast a merry glance
around him at the company.

"The first man that moves," he remarked, "is not
likely to continue the movement."

The dead silence which fell over everybody was
startling.  Raoul, resting gracefully on a table with
one leg on the floor, looked about him as though
immensely amused.  Then, as we awaited further
developments, his countenance assumed a thoughtful
expression—and he absent-mindedly hummed aloud
his favorite air:

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm
   |  You have done a heap of harm——"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RAOUL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   RAOUL

.. vspace:: 2

Raoul looked up, thoughtfully, playing with
his pistols, and said to King Constantine
in an unaccented and conversational tone:

"After all, who were you to rule Naxos?—you
cheap, treacherous, yellow dog!"

That partly cleared the king's muddy mind and
he lurched to an upright position and began to
take notice.

"You sold Greece to the boche," continued Raoul
in his serene, even voice, toying idly with his
pistols.  "What else you did—what else you are—is
a trifle too vile to repeat aloud——"

He turned and looked at the Tzar of all the Bulgars
whose ungainly bulk as he sat on his chair was
now agitated by visible tremors:

"Murderer and coward," mused Raoul aloud.
"Every time you hire your gun-men to kill an enemy
you hurry away to establish an alibi, don't you?
You cheap peddler of duped people—you made a
rotten bargain this time, didn't you?  When your
treacherous pal, Tino, betrayed Serbia, you
swindled your own people, didn't you?"

He shrugged, dangled his pistols, glanced at
Gizzler,—or rather *through* Gizzler as though, the
wretched creature were not there,—and his eyes
encountered the interested jet black orbs of Eddin Bey.

Both smiled, Eddin in the face of death; Raoul
with the generous grin of a man who recognizes in
his enemy a peer.

"Eddin Bey," he said, still smiling, "the Osmanli
fight fairly.  Ask the British Tommy....  And
your fool of a Sultan is dead.  And what do you
think of affairs at present?"

"They are not any too gay," replied Eddin Bey,
laughing, "especially in the Alps."

The half smile on Raoul's face flickered and faded:

"You're about done for, you Turks," he said
quietly.  "You bet on the wrong horse, too.  And
now Enver Pasha keeps running to Berlin to ask why
the all-highest doesn't make him Khedive of Egypt
as he promised.  And Taalat is scared, and the
butcher Djavid is in the dumps.  Oh, I know it was
not you Osmanli that set the Kurds and Bashi-Bazouks
on the Armenians.  That butchery of a million
souls, men, women, children, babies, was conceived
by the Berlin government and superintended
from the Yldiz Palace."

Raoul turned and looked contemptuously at the Germans:

"You square-heads," he said, "have achieved one
thing, anyway.  Never before in history has a
nation been indicted, and it was supposed it could not
be done.  But it has been done in your case.  And
for the first time also in history an entire race is
spoken of and known to civilization only by a
revolting nick-name—*boche*!

"Do you know what it means?  There have been
disputes concerning the origin of the term *boche*.
The French say it means a stupid fellow—a clown;
the Belgians think that it is a vulgar term for
'blockhead.'  But I shall tell you what it really does mean:
it means, in South African Dutch, an unclean and
degraded species of wart-hog; and it has been in use
for fifty years!"

He lifted one pistol and sat idly twirling it around
his fore-finger.

"I know why you came here to Schwindlewald,"
he said, "to put *that* back on the throne of
Greece!"—he nodded toward Tino.

"In Berne you live luxuriously and wastefully in
the midst of famine.  You eat as usual; your bread
is white; there are no restrictions for you in the
matter of food amid a hungry people.  You maintain
a court there with flunkies, stables, motor-cars—every
necessity and luxury which is now forbidden
by Swiss law and by the law of decency you violate
daily!"

He looked at the queen:

"Your effrontery, madame, is of course, in
keeping with Hohenzollern tradition.  But things are
happening now—now, madame,—at this very moment!
And I'm wondering just how long the Swiss
are likely to endure your behavior in Berne."

He sat silent after that for a little while, twirling
his pistols and whistling softly to himself:

   |  "Crack-brain-cripple-arm——"
   |

Suddenly Eddin made a quick motion and Raoul
shot the leg off his chair letting him down with a
crash.

The startling crash of the pistol-shot brought
them to their feet.

"Sit down!" said Raoul sharply, "or it will be a
living leg next time; and the time after that a wooden
head!"  He sat watching Eddin getting to his feet
with a shame-faced laugh:

"No use," said Raoul in a friendly voice, "it can't
be done, Colonel."

"I notice it can't," remarked Eddin, laughing.
"Well sir, you have entertained us very pleasantly
with your historical inappropos.  Is there to be a
denouément perhaps?"

"Did you expect one?"

Eddin shrugged: "A firing-squad, possibly.  But
of course I don't insist."

Raoul shook his curly head: "No, Colonel Eddin;
no firing-squad.  No Turkish atrocities, no
Bulgarian murders, no boche bestialities."  He turned
contemptuously on Constantine:

"You laid plans in Berne to entrap the leaders of
the Ægean League.  You forged instructions sent
to me by Monsieur Venizelos.  You attempted to
foment an uprising in Naxos because you foresaw
the trouble it would bring between two of the Allied
powers—between Italy and Greece!

"Also you conceived and encouraged a plot to
attempt the capture of yourself and your wife because
you believed that Greece, although now rid of you,
would resent such an attempt; and that chivalrous
America would be shocked at the kidnaping of a
woman—even such a notorious one as your
Hohenzollern wife."

He eyed him for a moment: "You *are* the cheapest
back-stairs scullion who ever grafted, Tino," he
said.  "But remember this little couplet the next
time you go gaily grafting:

   |  "'Grecian gift and Spanish fig
   |  Help the fool his grave to dig!'"
   |

"That's the motto of the Ægean League!" burst
out the queen in a white hot fury.

"It is, madame," returned Raoul, pleasantly.

Then he placed the other foot on the floor and got
up leisurely from his seat on the table.

"You're all free to go," he said carelessly.

A moment of suspense, then the boche herd scrambled
to its feet and rushed for the nearest exit.  And
Raoul came over to where I stood beside Thusis with
Smith and Clelia beside me.

"All their weapons are locked up in the cellar," he
said, laughing; "let them look for them.  Also I
have all their documents packed up.  We're through
with them," he added, smiling at Thusis.

But there was a thunder cloud on her white brow:

"Are we not going to secure and crate the kings,
Raoul?" she demanded.  "Do you and Josephine fail
me, now?"

"Duchess," he said smilingly, "news came to-night—a
real communication from Monsieur Venizelos."

"*How* could it come?" I asked.

"The Pass is open," he replied serenely.  "And,"
turning to Thusis, "so is the road to France.  And
we should travel it this night unless we wish to see
our papers taken from us and our persons subjected
to arrest by these somewhat singular Swiss gendarmes."

"What did Monsieur Venizelos say?" insisted Thusis,
tears of disappointment and vexation shining in
her gray eyes.

"The letter is here,"—Raoul touched his breast
pocket—"at the disposal of her grace the Duchess
of Naxos——"

"*Tell* me!" cried Thusis, angrily, "and let my
'grace' go to the devil!"

"Monsieur Venizelos warns us of Tino's forgery.
We are *not* to touch these kings: we are *not* to
proclaim Naxos an Italian Duchy and you its hereditary
ruler."

There was a painful silence.

Very slowly Thusis turned and looked at me.  And
I remembered then what I had said to her about the
purity and unselfishness of justifiable revolutions.

And now I realized that part of this revolution
in Naxos was the restoration of an ancient Duchy
and of a family as ancient, embodied in this young
girl before me.

At that moment Tino came lurching into the room
followed by the queen, and presently by the
majority of the huns in the house-party.

"Somebody has been through my luggage!" he
barked.  "Now I'm damned if I put up with
that——"

Raoul still held one of his pistols in his hand and
Tino's bloodshot eyes fell on it.

"Oh, very well," he said, turning on his heel.

The queen, pallid and ghastly with fury, faced us
a moment:

"You'll all pay this reckoning!" she whispered,—"every
one of you!"

"Madame," said Raoul gaily, "the Pass is open.
And really very wonderful news has come through.
But I'm afraid you don't like Yankees, and it won't
interest you to hear that the Yankee General
Pershing has wiped out the St. Mihiel salient, and
the guns of Metz are saluting the event."

"Lies!" she retorted; "Yankee lies!"  She bit her
lip, glared at us all, turned her Hohenzollern back
on us.  Behind her stood the huddled huns, sullen,
enraged, baffled in their headlong rush to find
weapons for avenging Prussian "honor."

They were quite helpless although outnumbering
us; and they seemed to realize it.

Raoul, watching them, passed his pistols to me
and walking coolly in among them and shoving the
Admiral and Von Dungheim out of his way, went to
the kitchen.  Josephine had wrung out the disinfected
garments of the Bolsheviki.  But they were
still steaming when Raoul unlocked their door and
flinging the clothing at them, bade them dress and
depart.

"The Pass is open," he said.  "It's a summer
night and you won't take cold.  Get into those
things and get out of this house!  And," he added,
"you ought to be obliged for what I've done to you."

When Raoul came back the huns had retired to
their several apartments; Smith and Clelia stood by
the window whispering together; Thusis was absently
looking over the letter from Monsieur Venizelos;
and I leaned in the doorway gazing out at
the high stars above the disfigured Bec de l'Empereur.

"Nature pulled his nose and twisted it, too,"
murmured Raoul, passing me.  Then he said aloud:

"It really is not healthy for us here any longer.
The Swiss gendarmes will arrive in the morning.
I have held the wagon that penetrated the Pass.
It's waiting for us.  So if you'll be kind enough to
pack your luggage——"

"Are you going?" I asked, appalled.

"We must," said Raoul gaily.  "And I regret to
say that I think you and Mr. Smith had better come
with us."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"It's too bad to have done this to you," said
Raoul, "but we couldn't very well avoid it.  You
had better cross with us into France until this blows
over.  The boche are sure to raise a terrific row;
and the Swiss are mortally afraid of invasion.  So
if you remain you'll be annoyed—held for
examination—possibly imprisoned.  But they won't
confiscate your estate: you know too much about the
Swiss Government's cognizance of these hun
conspirators, and their use of neutral soil."

I scarcely heard him; I was looking at Thusis
who stood bending over the music-box and studying
the disks lying there.

"Could I help you to pack up?" insisted Raoul.

"Thanks; I shall remain here," said I quietly.

At that moment the door burst open and Puppsky,
his clothing still steaming in spots, rushed in upon
us followed by Wildkatz in similar and vaporous attire:

"I been robbed!" yelled Puppsky.  "All my
papers und evertings it bass been robbed me alretty!"

Raoul shot a contemptuous glance at the
chattering pair of Reds: "I haven't bothered about
*your* papers," he said.

"Did I say you done it!  No, I did not say you
done!" shouted Puppsky.  "I see this here Countess
hanging around by the room of comrade Wildkatz.
What for iss she in this, I ask it?  She iss who,
perhaps?  I think she got my papers also comrade
Wildkatz he also believes it——"

"Go and ask her!" said Raoul bluntly.

When they were gone Smith turned from the
window where he had been whispering with Clelia:

"It's quite *en règle*," he said coolly.  "The
Countess Manntrapp is in the employment of the Siberian
government.  She came here to get what she wanted
and report on these Reds.  She left for the Pass an
hour ago, on foot."

The unseen web in the center of which I had
unwittingly stood for so long suddenly became partly
visible to me.

Raoul laughed.  "It's really a pity," he remarked
to me, "that we can't catch and box up these kings
and take them along with us.  But Venizelos says
no; and he's always right.  So we had all better pack
up and be on our way."

He went off whistling the "Crack-brain" song.
Presently, without noticing me, Thusis turned from
the music-box and walked over to where her sister
was standing; and I heard her say something about
dressing.

I turned away and went silently upstairs to my
room, and, closing the door, seated myself.

The baby-party indeed was ended.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DUCHESS OF NAXOS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE DUCHESS OF NAXOS

.. vspace:: 2

I was still sitting there when somebody knocked,
and, supposing it to be Smith, I said, "come in."

Thusis entered, and I rose.  We looked at each
other in silence, then I set a chair for her by my
table and she dropped onto it as though tired.

She wore a dark hat and a dark gown which I
had never seen.  Also she was gloved, another phase
hitherto unfamiliar to me.  And her beauty almost
hurt me.

"You are not going with us?" she asked in a low
voice.

"No."

"Why not?"

"There is no reason why I should go."

"You are not afraid to remain?"

I forced a smile.

"You choose to stay here in this house all alone
with these huns?" she persisted.

"What else is there to do?  Besides, they'll leave
to-morrow."

"And then you'll be utterly alone here."

I nodded, smiling.

"Won't you come with us as far as France?"

I thanked her.

"Why won't you?"

"I think I'd be rather lonelier in France," I said
lightly, "than I might be here."

"Will you be lonely?"

I did not answer.

"When I glanced across the table at her again she
had unpinned her hat.  I waited; but she tossed it
from her onto my bed.

"Why do you do that?" I asked.

"I shall not leave unless you do," she said serenely.

"That's nonsense!  I am in no danger!"

"I should be, if I left you alone here."

"In what danger?"

"In danger—of falling a prey to—grief—Michael."

My heart almost stopped: she was looking down
at the gloves which she was slowly stripping from
her wrists:

"Danger of grief," she repeated, "of lifelong
sorrow—for leaving you—here—alone....  Because,
once, I gave my heart to you...."

"You were only Thusis, then," I said, steadying
my voice and senses with an effort.

"Am I less, now, in your eyes?"  She lifted her
head and looked at me.

"You are the Duchess of Naxos."

She smiled faintly: "What was it you once said
to me about revolutions?—about the necessity for
purity of motive and absolute unselfishness for those
who revolted against tyranny?"

I was silent.

"Michael?"

"Yes."

"How can I incite my people to revolt unless my
motives are *entirely* free from selfish interest?"

"Are they not?"

"Why do you ask me?  You know that I would
be Duchess of Naxos if my country regains its
freedom under the Italian crown."

"Has that influenced you?"

Her candid, sweet gaze met mine: "I think it has."

And, as I said nothing, "I hadn't quite considered
it in that light," she said.  "I thought my motives
were pure.  Besides, I really am hereditary
Duchess of Naxos—if ever there is to be such a
Duchy again."  She laughed a little.  "A phantom
ruler in a phantom realm.  It must amuse you,
Michael."

"It may all come to pass," said I.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Monsieur Venizelos does not wish it.  Nor does
the King of Italy.  Also I am afraid that Naxos is
really quite contented under the Greek flag, now that
Constantino is exiled and because, moreover, that
same flag flies beside the flags of England, France,
and Italy....  No, Michael, there will be no
revolution now in Naxos; no Duchy, no Duchess....
And," she rose and looked at me, and stretched out
one fair hand, "come into France with me, Michael....
I can't leave my heart here with you unless I
stay here, too....  I can't become disembodied and
float off to France leaving heart and mind and body
and soul here—in your arms—in the arms of the
man I—love....  Can I, dear Michael?—*Can* I
my dear lover?—my dearest—my beloved——"

.. vspace:: 2

Her fragrant, flushed face was close against mine
when we heard Smith's trunk banging in his room
and Raoul's voice: "Easy, *mon vieux*!  *Mon dieu*,
but it's heavy, your Norwegian-American luggage."

"Darling!" she exclaimed in consternation, "you're
not packed up!  Quick, Michael!  I'll help you——"

"Thusis, I don't want this junk!  Do you know
what I am going to take with me?"

"What, darling?"

"My poems to you; the portrait of the Admiral;
and my photograph of The Laughing Girl....
And nothing else whatever."

I picked up the photograph from my dresser as
I spoke and slipped it into my breast pocket.

"Are we to start housekeeping with the portrait
of the Admiral and your heavenly poems of which
I never before heard?" she exclaimed, enchanted.

"Not housekeeping," I said smiling, and drawing
her into my arms.

"Aren't we going to keep house, Michael?" she
asked, her surprised eyes uplifted to mine.

"After the war," said I.

For a full minute she stood gazing at me.  Then:

"I understand."  And she offered her lips for the
first time to any man.  And for the first time I kissed
her.

"Yes," said I gaily, "I join Pershing.  Or the
Legion, if the Yankees won't take a Chilean——"

Smith rapped loudly on my door:

"Is Thusis there?"

"She is," said I.

"Did she persuade you to come with us?"

"She did."

"Good business!" cried Smith.  "Is your luggage
ready?"

"It is."

I handed Thusis my poems, unhooked the portrait
of the Admiral, and tucked it under one arm.

Thusis pinned on her distractingly smart little
hat, turned, flung both arms around my neck.

"There may be the deuce to pay for this in Italy,"
she whispered.  "Oh, Michael!  Michael!  I adore you!"

Half way down the corridor a door opened and
the queen's head in curl papers was thrust out.
When her hard eyes fell on us she stiffened for an
instant, then the celebrated Hohenzollern sneer
twitched her features:

"Your *housekeeper*!" she hissed.

And Thusis threw back her beautiful head and the
silvery laughter of The Laughing Girl filled the
house with its exquisite melody.

"Oh Michael, Michael!" she said, "they'll be the
death of the world after all—the boche!—for we'll
all perish of laughter before we're done with them!"

And we went gaily on downstairs, my poems
clasped to Thusis' breast, the Admiral's portrait
under my left arm, and the lovely little hand of Thusis
in mine—for ever, God willing—for ever and a day.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center

   THE END

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::