INTRODUCING HOLLINGSWORTH CHASE
While all this was being threshed out by the persons most vitally
interested in the affairs of Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme, events
of a most unusual character were happening to one who not only had no
interest in the aforesaid heritage, but no knowledge whatever of its
existence. The excitement attending the Skaggs-Wyckholme revelations had
not yet spread to the Grand Duchy of Rapp-Thorberg, apparently lost as
it was in the cluster of small units which went to make up a certain
empire: one of the world powers. The Grand Duke Michael disdained the
world at large; he had but little in common with anything that moved
beyond the confines of his narrow domain. His court was sleepy,
lackadaisical, unemotional, impregnable to the taunts of progression;
his people were thrifty, stolid and absolutely stationary in their
loyalty to the ancient traditions of the duchy; his army was a mere
matter of taxation and not a thing of pomp or necessity. Four times a
year he inspected the troops, and just as many times in the year were
the troops obliged to devote themselves to rigorous display. The rest of
the time was spent in social intrigue and whistling for the war-clouds
that never came.
The precise location of the Grand Duchy in the map of the world has
little or nothing to do with this narrative; indeed, were it not for the
fact that the Grand Duke possessed a charming and most desirable
daughter, the Thorberg dynasty would not be mentioned at all. For that
matter, it is brought to light briefly for the sole purpose of
identifying the young lady in question, and the still more urgent desire
to connect her past with her future--for which we have, perhaps
intemperately, an especial consideration. It is only necessary,
therefore, for us to step into and out of the Grand Duchy without the
procrastination usual in a sojourner, stopping long enough only to see
how tiresome it would be to stay, and to wonder why any one remained who
could get away. Not that the Grand Duchy was an utterly undesirable
place, but that too much time already had been wasted there by the
populace itself.
It has been said that events of a most unusual character were happening;
any event that roused the people from their daily stolidity was
sufficiently unusual to suggest the superlative. The Grand Duke's peace
of mind had been severely disturbed--so severely, in fact, that he was
transferring his troubles to the Emperor, who, in turn, felt obliged to
communicate with the United States Ambassador, and who, in his turn, had
no other alternative than to take summary action in respect to the
indiscretions of a fellow-countryman.
In the beginning, it was not altogether the fault of the young man who
had come from America to serve his country. Whatever may have been the
turmoil in the Grand Duke's palace at Thorberg, Chase's conscience was
even and serene. He had no excuses to offer--for that matter none would
have been entertained--and he was resigning his post with the confidence
that he had performed his obligations as an American gentleman should,
even though the performance had created an extraordinary commotion.
Chase was new to the Old World and its customs, especially those
rigorous ones which surrounded royalty and denied it the right to
venture into the commonplace. The ambassador at the capital of the
Empire at first sought to excuse him on the ground of ignorance; but the
Grand Duke insisted that even an American could not be such a fool as
Chase had been; so, it must have been a wilful offence that led up to
the controversy.
Chase had been the representative of the American Government at Thorberg
for six months. He never fully understood why the government should have
a representative there; but that was a matter quite entirely for the
President to consider. The American flag floated above his doorway in
the Friedrich Strasse, but in all his six months of occupation not ten
Americans had crossed the threshold. As a matter of fact, he had seen
fewer than twenty Americans in all that time. He was a vigorous, healthy
young man, and it may well be presumed that the situation bored him.
Small wonder, then, that he kept out of mischief for half a year.
Diplomatic service is one thing and the lack of opportunity is quite
another. Chase did his best to find occupation for his diplomacy, but
what chance had he with nothing ahead of him but regular reports to the
department in which he could only announce that he was in good health
and that no one had "called."
Chase belonged to the diplomatic class which owes its elevation to the
influence of Congress--not to Congress as a body but to one of its
atoms. He was not a politician; no more was he an office seeker. He was
a real soldier of fortune, in search of affairs--in peace or in war, on
land or at sea. Possessed of a small income, sufficiently adequate to
sustain life if he managed to advance it to the purple age (but wholly
incapable of supporting him as a thriftless diplomat), he was compelled
to make the best of his talents, no matter to what test they were put.
He left college at twenty-two, possessed of the praiseworthy design to
earn his own way without recourse to the $4,500 income from a certain
trust fund. His plan also incorporated the hope to save every penny of
that income for the possible "rainy day." He was now thirty; in each of
several New York banks he had something like $4,000 drawing three per
cent. interest while he picked his blithe way through the world on
$2,500 a year, more or less, as chance ordained.
"When I'm forty," Chase was wont to remark to envious spendthrifts who
couldn't understand his philosophy, "I'll have over a hundred thousand
there, and if I live to be ninety, just think what I'll have! And it
will be like finding the money, don't you see? Of course, I won't live
to be ninety. Moreover, I may get married and have to maintain a poor
wife with rich relatives, which is a terrible strain, you know. You have
to live up to your wife's relatives, if you don't do anything else."
He did not refer to the chance that he was quite sure to come in for a
large legacy at the death of his maternal grandfather, a millionaire
ranch owner in the Far West. Chase never counted on probabilities; he
took what came and was satisfied.
After leaving college, he drifted pretty much over the world, taking pot
luck with fortune and clasping the hand of circumstance, to be led into
the highways and byways, through good times and ill times, in love and
out, always coming safely into port with a smiling wind behind. There
had been hard roads to travel as well as easy ones, but he never
complained; he swung on through life with the heart of a soldier and the
confidence of a Pagan. He loathed business and he abhorred trade.
"That little old trust fund is making more money for me by lying idle
than I could accumulate in a century by hard work as a grocer or an
undertaker," he was prone to philosophise when his uncles, who were
merchants, urged him to settle down and "do something." Not that there
were grocers or undertakers among them; it was his way of impressing his
sense of freedom upon them.
He was an orphan and bounden to no man. No one had the right to question
his actions after his twenty-first anniversary. It was fortunate for him
that he was a level-headed as well as a wild-hearted chap, else he might
have sunk to the perdition his worthy uncles prescribed for him. He went
in for law at Yale, and then practised restlessly, vaguely for two years
in Baltimore, under the patronage of his father's oldest friend, a
lawyer of distinction.
"If I fail at everything else, I'll go back to the practice of law," he
said cheerfully. "Uncle Henry is mean enough to say that he has
forgotten more law than I ever knew, but he has none the better of me.
'Gad, I am confident that I've forgotten more law, myself, than I ever
knew."
Tiring of the law books and reports in the old judge's office, he
suddenly abandoned his calling and set forth to see the world. Almost
before his friends knew that he had left he was heard of in Turkestan.
In course of time he served as a war correspondent for one of the great
newspapers, acted as agent for great hemp dealers in the Philippines,
carried a rifle with the Boers in South Africa, hunted wild beasts in
Asia and in Hottentot land, took snapshots in St. Petersburg, and almost
got to the North Pole with one of the expeditions. To do and be all of
these he had to be a manly man. Not in a month's journey would you meet
a truer thoroughbred, a more agreeable chap, a more polished vagabond,
than Hollingsworth Chase, first lieutenant in Dame Fortune's army. Tall,
good looking, rawboned, cheerful, gallant, he was the true comrade of
those merry, reckless volunteers from all lands who find commissions in
Fortune's army and serve her faithfully. He had shared pot luck in odd
parts of the world with English lords, German barons and French
counts--all serving under the common flag. His heart had withstood the
importunate batterings of many a love siege; the wounds had been
pleasant ones and the recovery quick. He left no dead behind him.
He was nearly thirty when the diplomatic service began to appeal to him
as a pleasing variation from the rigorous occupations he had followed
heretofore. A British lordling put it into his head, away out in Delhi.
It took root, and he hurried home to attend to its growth. One of his
uncles was a congressman and another was in some way connected with
railroads. He first sought the influence of the latter and then the
recommendation of the former. In less than six weeks after his arrival
in Washington he was off for the city of Thorberg in the Grand Duchy of
Rapp-Thorberg, carrying with him an appointment as consul and supplied
with the proper stamps and seal of office. His uncle compassionately
informed him beforehand that his service in Thorberg would be brief and
certainly would lead up to something much better.
At the end of five months he was devoutly, even pathetically, hoping
that his uncle was no false prophet. He loathed Thorberg; he hated the
inhabitants; he smarted under the sting of royal disdain; he had no real
friends, no boon companions and he was obliged to be good! What wonder,
then, that the bored, suffering, vivacious Mr. Chase seized the first
opportunity to leap headforemost into the very thick of a most appalling
indiscretion!
When he first arrived in Thorberg to assume his sluggish duties he was
not aware of the fact that the Grand Duke had an unmarried daughter, the
Princess Genevra. Nor, upon learning that the young lady existed, was he
particularly impressed; the royal princesses he had been privileged to
look upon were not remarkable for their personal attractiveness: he
forthwith established Genevra in what he considered to be her proper
sphere.
She was visiting in St. Petersburg or Berlin or some other place--he
gave it no thought at the time--when he reached his post of duty, and it
was toward the end of his fifth month before she returned to her
father's palace in Thorberg. He awoke to the importance of the occasion,
and took some slight interest in the return of the royal young
lady--even going so far as to follow the crowd to the railway station on
the sunny June afternoon. His companions were two young fellows from the
English bank and a rather agreeable attaché of the French Government.
He saw the Princess for the first time that afternoon, and he was bowled
over, to use the expression of his English friends with whom he dined
that night. She was the first woman that he had ever looked upon that he
could describe, for she was the only one who had impressed him to that
extent. This is how he pictured her at the American legation in Paris a
few weeks later:
"Ever see her? Well, you've something to live for, gentlemen. I've seen
her but three times and I don't seem able to shake off the spell. Her
sisters, you know--the married ones--are nothing to look at, and the
Grand Duke isn't a beauty by any means. How the deuce she happens to
produce such a contrast I can't, for the life of me, understand. Nature
does some marvellous things, by George, and she certainly spread herself
on the Princess Genevra. You've never seen such hair. 'Gad, it's as near
like the kind that Henner painted as anything human could be, except
that it's more like old gold, if you can understand what I mean by that.
Not bronze, mind you, nor the raw red, but--oh, well, I'm not a
novelist, so I can't half-way describe it. She's rather tall--not too
tall, mind you--five feet five, I'd say--whatever that is in the metric
system. Slender and well dressed--oh, that's the strangest thing of all!
Well dressed! Think of a princess being well dressed! I can see that you
don't believe me, but I'll stake my word it's true. Of course, I've seen
but three of her gowns and--but that's neither here nor there. I'd say
she's twenty-two or twenty-three years of age--not a minute older. I
think her eyes are a very dark grey, almost blue. Her skin is like
a--a--oh, let me see, what is there that's as pure and soft as her skin?
Something warm, and pink, and white, d'ye see? Well, never mind. And her
smile! And her frown! You know, I've seen both of 'em, and one's as
attractive as the other. She's a real princess, gentlemen, and the
prettiest woman I've ever laid my eyes upon. And to think of her as the
wife of that blithering little ass--that nincompoop of a Karl Brabetz!
She loathes him, I'm sure--I _know_ she does. And she's _got_ to marry
him! That's what she gets for being a Grand Duke's daughter. Brabetz is
the heir apparent to some duchy or other over there and is supposed to
be the catch of the season. You've heard of him. He was in Paris this
season and cut quite a figure--a prince with real money in his purse,
you know. I wonder why it is that our American girls can't marry the
princes who have money instead of those who have none. Not that I wish
any of our girls such bad luck as Brabetz! I'll stake my head he'll
never forget me!" Chase concluded with a sharp, reflective laugh in
which his hearers joined, for the escapade which inspired it was being
slyly discussed in every embassy in Europe by this time, but no one
seemed especially loth to shake Chase's hand on account of it.
But to return: the advent of the Princess put fresh life into the
slowgoing city and court circles. Charming people, whom Chase had never
seen before, seemed to spring into existence suddenly; the streets took
on a new air; the bands played with a keener zest and the army prinked
itself into a most amazingly presentable shape. Officers with noble
blood in their veins stepped out of the obscurity of months; swords
clanked merrily instead of dragging slovenly at the heels of their
owners; uniforms glistened with a new ambition, and the whole atmosphere
of Thorberg underwent a change so startling that Chase could hardly
believe his senses. He lifted up his chin, threw out his chest, banished
the look of discontent from his face and announced to himself that
Thorberg was not such a bad place after all.
For days he swung blithely through the streets, the hang-dog look gone
from his eyes, always hoping for another glimpse of the fair sorceress
who had worked the great transformation. He even went so far as to read
the court society news in the local papers, and grew to envy the men
whose names were mentioned in the same column with that of the fair
Genevra. It was two weeks before he saw her the second time; he was more
enchanted by her face than before, especially as he came to realise the
astonishing fact that she was kind enough to glance in his direction
from time to time.
It was during the weekly concert in the Kursaal, late one night. She
came in with a party, among whom he recognised several of the leading
personages at court.
Once a week the regular concert gave way to a function in which the
royal orchestra was featured. On such occasions the attendance was
extremely fashionable, the Duke and his court usually being present. It
was not until this time, however, that Chase felt that he could sit
through a concert without being bored to extinction. He loved music, but
not the kind that the royal orchestra rendered; Wagner, Chopin, Mozart
were all the same to him--he hated them fervently and he was _not_ yet
given to stratagems and spoils. He sat at a table with the French
attaché just below the box occupied by the Princess and her party. In
spite of the fact that he was a gentleman, born and bred, he could not
conquer countless impulses to look at the flower-face of the royal
auditor. They were surreptitious and sidelong peeps, it is true, but
they served him well. He caught her gaze bent upon him more than once,
and he detected an interest in her look that pleased his vanity
exceeding great.
Gradually the programme led up to the feature of the evening--the
rendition of a great work under the direction of a famous leader, a
special guest of the music-loving Duke.
Chase arose and cheered with the assemblage when the distinguished
director made his appearance. Then he proceeded to forget the man and
his genius--in fact everything save the rapt listener above him. She was
leaning forward on the rail of the box, her chin in her hand, her eyes
looking steadily ahead, enthralled by the music. Suddenly she turned and
looked squarely into his eyes, as if impelled by the magnetism they
unconsciously employed. A little flush mounted to her brow as she
quickly resumed her former attitude. Chase cursed himself for a
brainless lout.
The number came to an end and the crowd arose to cheer the bowing,
smiling director. Chase cheered and shouted "bravo," too, because _she_
was applauding as eagerly as the others. She called the flushed, bowing
director to her box, and publicly thanked him for the pleasure he had
given. Chase saw him kiss her hand as he murmured his gratitude. For the
first time in his life he coveted the occupation of an orchestra leader.
The director was a frail, rather good-looking young man, with piercing
black eyes that seemed too bold in their scrutiny of the young lady's
face. Chase began to hate him; he was unreasonably thankful when he
passed on to the box in which the Duke sat.
The third and last time he saw the Princess Genevra before his sudden,
spectacular departure from the Grand Duchy, was at the Duke's reception
to the nobility of Rapp-Thorberg and to the representatives of such
nations of the world as felt the necessity of having a man there in an
official capacity.