CHAPTER SEVEN

CONFIDENCES IN A WINE SHOP

Nervy Trafford--comfortably covered by a warm rug, seated in an open sleigh next to a young lady of exalted birth, romantic temperament, and unimpeachable comeliness--was almost a happy man. It was not that he had fallen in love at first sight, that he had found swift consolation for his recent disappointment in a rapidly-engendered passion for the fascinating claimant to the throne of Grimland, that he was capable of offering any woman the fine spiritual worship he had accorded to the adorable Angela Knox; but to his temperament admiration came easily--and he had dined well. He had been the auditor of a wildly exciting song, had made the acquaintance of the inimitable singer, and because there was wine and music in his blood, and much beauty by his side, the nightmare of his past depression vanished into the biting air, and his pulses stirred to a Hit of amazing exhilaration.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed to himself, stealing a side glance at his companion's bewitching profile, "Saunders is right--life is too valuable an asset to fling away in a moment's madness. There is a beauty of the body and a beauty of the soul, and if the two are perfectly combined in only one woman in the universe, is that any reason why I should not admire a tip-tilted nose or a curved mouth when Fate puts them within a hand's breadth of my own scrubby cheek?"

"Do you know Weidenbruck, Herr Trafford?" the Princess broke in on his silent philosophising.

"Little beyond the Hôtel Concordia," he replied. "Where are we now?"

"The Domkircheplatz. That is the Cathedral."

They were crossing a big open space, well lit, planted with trees, and adorned in its centre by a big group of statuary. To their right was a huge gothic building--a high ridged intricate structure of red sandstone--with a tangle of fretted pinnacles and flying buttresses, and a couple of lofty towers that stood out black against the starry heaven.

"A fine building!" commented the American.

"That is where I am going to be crowned," said the Princess, and she laughed a fine, free, silvery laugh that thrilled her companion with admiration.

"That's the right spirit," he said gaily; "and what's this depressing-looking place in front of us?"

"That's where I shall probably be confined," was the cheerful retort.

The building in question occupied the entire side of the square, and was as gloomy as it was vast. It was a plain rectangular structure totally devoid of ornament, and constructed of enormous blocks of rough hewn stone; irregularly spaced windows broke its sombre front with narrow slits and iron gratings, and a high-pitched roof of ruddy tiles crowned the grim precipice of enduring masonry.

"That's the Strafeburg," concluded the Princess, "the Bastille of Weidenbruck!"

"I see myself rescuing you from that topmost window," ventured Trafford.

The Princess turned half round and looked at him curiously.

"Thanks," she murmured, "but I shall keep outside as long as I can. As a foreigner you should visit it--as a sight-seer. It is a most depressing place, but there is a very valuable collection of armour and a collection of instruments of torture without its equal in Europe."

"Is it still used as a prison?" asked Trafford.

"They _say_ not." There was a meaning behind her qualified denial and Trafford demanded it. "Between official statements and actual facts there is apt to be a serious discrepancy in this unfortunate land," she replied. "Officially, no one resides in the Strafeburg but the caretaker and his daughter. As a matter of fact, I am told that several political prisoners are still rotting in its dungeons."

Trafford shuddered. He was a very humane man,--despite his explosive temperament. His companion noted keenly the effect of her words, and went on:

"Officially, also, the instruments of torture went out of use one hundred and fifty years ago."

"You mean----"

"I mean," she continued, "that our dear humane monarch does not stick at trifles when his interests are threatened."

Trafford opened his eyes wide, and regarded his companion with amazement. In his curious, excitable brain was a largely developed loathing of cruelty. Hard knocks he was prepared to give or receive in the world's battle, big risks to life and limb he was prepared to incur or inflict with heedless impartiality, but deliberate cruelty, the malicious and intentional infliction of pain on man or brute, always roused him to a frenzy of wrath. The Princess read his look and silence.

"The Archbishop of Weidenbruck, a political opponent of King Karl's, is said to have met a peculiarly terrible end," she said meaningly.

"Impossible!" muttered Trafford.

"Impossible things happen in Grimland. It is impossible, of course, that you should side against your friend, Herr Saunders, and your prospective friend, King Karl----" and she touched his hand with an unconscious impulsive movement,--"and help me in my legitimate ambitions."

Her words were in the nature of a suggestion, almost a question.

Trafford answered them between his teeth.

"That is the sort of impossibility that comes off," he muttered.

"You mean it?" demanded his fair companion, and her eyes were pleading as they had pleaded with Captain von Hügelweiler in the Thiergarten.

Trafford drank deep of their glance, and it intoxicated him.

"When I see these picturesque buildings," he returned, "with their garlands of snow and cornices of icicles, I feel I am in fairyland. And in fairyland, you know, the poor beast is changed into a handsome young man and marries the beautiful Princess." He was not insensible of his boldness, and carried it off with a laugh. "I feel the transmogrifying effects of this fairy kingdom already."

"And you are beginning to feel a handsome young man?" asked the Princess gaily.

"I have felt it this past quarter of an hour, Princess," he answered, twirling at his frozen moustache. "Already wild hopes are stirring in my bosom."

"You are not going to propose, are you?" she asked calmly, but with a most delicious quiver of the lips.

Trafford looked at his fair interrogator steadily a few seconds before replying. If ever encouragement was legible in bright eyes and challenging smile, it was writ clear in the facile features of the Princess von Schattenberg. Again he drank deep of beauty and his brain reeled among the stars.

"Not exactly a proposal, but I'll make you a proposition," he said in a voice typically American in its business-like tone.

They had entered a narrow side street, and the driver was pulling up his horse before a disreputable-looking wine shop. Dismissing the sleigh the Princess led the way into the building through a low, malodorous room--where a number of men were swilling beery smoking, and playing dominoes--and penetrated to inner chamber.

"And is this your home?" inquired Trafford.

"One of them," was the reply. "An outlaw must sleep where she can--it's wise to vary one's abode."

An old man in shirt-sleeves and apron entered the room and demanded their pleasure.

"We want nothing except solitude," said the Princess. "May we have that, Herr Krantz?"

"Most certainly, your High----, gracious lady. You will not be interrupted unless----"

"Thanks, good Herr Krantz, I understand."

The old landlord inclined his bald head and quitted the shabby apartment. The Princess motioned to her companion to be seated, pointing to a chair at a small table, then taking a seat opposite him, she rested her pretty head on her hands, her elbows resting on the table, and surprised him by suddenly popping out:

"And now about that proposition of yours----"

Trafford's countenance indicated that he thought that the bantering note in her voice and words was distinctly out-of-place, but notwithstanding he drew his chair closer and began:

"Princess, we have not known each other long----"

"We have not known each other at all," she quickly interrupted.

"Pardon me," corrected Trafford, with a fierce energy that always possessed him at a crisis. "You diagnosed me admirably in your dressing-room at the Eden Theatre. With equal perspicacity I have diagnosed you on our frosty drive hither. Shall I tell it?--yes? Well, then, a nature ardent but pure, fierce without being cruel, simple without being foolish. I see youth, birth and beauty blended into one exhilarating whole--and I bow down and worship. To a heart like yours, nothing is impossible--not even the capacity of falling in love with an adventurous American. I do not make you a proposal of marriage, but a matrimonial proposition." He paused to note the effect of his words before concluding with: "Now then, if by my efforts I can secure for you the throne of Grimland, will you reward me with your heart and hand?"

The Princess drew in a long breath, half-astonishment, half-admiration.

"That is one of the impossibilities that does not come off--even in Grimland," she told him at last.

"Listen," Trafford went on impetuously, "I shall only ask for my reward in the event of your being crowned in the Cathedral of Weidenbruck, and in the event of your acknowledging of your own free will that I have been mainly instrumental in winning you your sovereignty."

The Princess bit her lips and nodded silently, as if weighing his words. Something, however, impelled her to make the obvious objection.

"In the event of my being crowned Queen of Grimland," she reminded him, "I shall not be permitted to marry whom I will. If I married you without the consent of my counsellors and Parliament the marriage would be, _ipso facto_, null and void."

"All I ask is your promise to go through the ceremony with the necessary legal and religious forms."

The Princess remained a moment in silent thought. Then she broke out into her merriest laugh.

"We are building castles in the air," she hastened to say. "Yes, I promise--on those conditions. But you perceive the badness of the bargain you are making? A marriage that will be no marriage--a contract that will not be worth the paper it is written on?"

"I will chance its validity."

"In that event and on those conditions you shall have my hand."

The Princess stretched forth her right hand.

Trafford took it and pressed his lips to it.

"And heart?" he demanded.

As in the Thiergarten with Von Hügelweiler, the Princess Gloria hesitated momentarily, but long enough for the framing of a lie. But this time something strangled the conceived falsehood before it passed her lips.

"Alas!" she faltered. "Nature forgot to give me a heart." The words were seriously enough spoken, but somehow they did not ring true to him.

"You are incapable of love?" he asked.

The Princess flushed deeply as slowly she scanned the man who faced her. It was patent that a battle was raging in her heaving bosom. For a full half-minute silence reigned, a silence broken only by faint murmurs and the clink of beer glasses from the outer room. And all the time Trafford's face preserved an expressionless immobility, his eyes a gleam of stern directness. The Princess heaved a deep sigh. The battle was over; something was lost, something was won.

"Herr Trafford," she began in a mechanical voice, "I want to tell you the history of my maiden fancies. At the age of seventeen--when staying at Weissheim, at my father's schloss, the Marienkastel--I fell in love with a young officer in the Guides. He was handsome, aristocratic, a gallant man with a refined nature and a superb athlete as well. He loved me dearly--was more to me than my father, mother or anyone or anything in the kingdom of Grimland. But my infatuation was divined, and we were separated. I wept, I stormed, I vowed nothing would ever comfort me. Nevertheless, in six months I was a happy, laughing girl again with an intense love of life, and only an occasional stab of regret for a heart I had sworn to call my own."

Trafford's face showed his sympathy, but he did not speak.

"Then came the winter of 1904," the Princess went on with the same unemotional tone. "In our unsuccessful rebellion of that fatal winter an Englishman performed prodigies of valor. It was mainly owing to his foresight and daring that King Karl saved his throne--and my father and brother met death instead of the crown that was within their grasp. Later, it is true, this same Englishman saved my life and procured my escape from Grimland. But, even so, would any girl not dowered by Providence with a fickle disposition permit any feeling to dwell in her heart other than hate and horror for such a man? And yet, I was on the point of experiencing something more than admiration for this fearless Englishman, a second conquest of my heart was imminent"--she paused to scrutinise the face of the man at her side, watching keenly for some signs of disapproval--"when it was nipped in the bud, strangled in its infancy, if ever there, by his choosing a mate elsewhere. So, once again I was fancy free. What then is love--my love?" she exclaimed wistfully. "A gust that blusters and dies down, a swift passing thunder-storm, a mocking dream,"--her voice quavered and sank,--"a false vision of a sun that never rose on plain or on mountain."

Trafford met the sadness of her gaze with eyes that twinkled with a strange kindliness. The story of her life had moved him strongly. At the beginning of their interview he had felt like a seafarer listening to the voice of the siren. He had been bartering his strength and manhood for the silken joys of a woman's allurements. His native shrewdness had told him that he was being enticed less for himself than the usufruct of his brain and muscles; but the bait was so sweet that his exalted senses had deemed it more than worthy of the price he paid. Had the Princess Gloria avowed a deep and spontaneous passion for him, he would not have believed her; but he would have been content, and well content, with the agreeable lie. But she had been honest with him,--honest to the detriment of her own interest.

"You don't dislike me, do you?" he blurted out, at length.

"On the contrary," she responded frankly, "I like you well, Herr Trafford."

"It would be sad otherwise," he sighed, "for I like you exceedingly well."

And at that she put her hand bravely on his shoulder and smiled at him.

"Never mind, comrade," she told him, "your heart is big enough and warm enough for two."

"_My_ heart!" he exclaimed in a most lugubrious way, "my heart is several degrees colder than the ice on the Rundsee;" and added with terrible lack of tact: "whatever of warmth and fire it possessed was extinguished last Christmas Eve."

The Princess removed her hand from his shoulder in a manner that should have left no doubt in his mind of the thought behind it.

"Princess," he went blindly on, "you have told me your story, let me tell you mine--it is brevity itself."

The Princess inclined her head.

"I fell in love with a young lady named Angela Knox--an American;"--and his tone was fully as responsible as his words for bringing his companion's eyes back to his with something of the scorn his clumsy love-making deserved;--"the young lady, Angela Knox, refused me. I tried to blow my brains out, but Fate and Saunders willed otherwise. The latter advised Grimland as a hygienic antidote to _felo de se_. Behold, then," he concluded with a sigh, "an able-bodied man with an icicle in his breast!"

Trafford spread out his hands in an explanatory gesture, and then for the first time he noted the heightened colour in the Princess's cheek, that her eyes were aflame, and that an explosion of some kind was imminent.

"And you had the impudence to make love to me!" she cried in that wonderful voice that had captivated audiences with every intonation, from the angry tones of a jealous grisette to the caressing notes of the ingenue. "To amuse yourself by feigning a pure devotion----" But the Princess's words failed her, and the hand of a Schattenberg was raised so threateningly,--at any rate, so it seemed to Trafford--that in surprise and consternation he rose from his chair, and as he did so, his head came in contact with the electric light, which hung low from the dingy ceiling. Simultaneously the white fire in the glass bulb was extinguished to a thin, dull red line, and in two seconds they were in total darkness.