He laughed, looking down into her serious upturned face. A brief smile
of understanding flitted across her lips as she broke away from him
and threw herself into the arms of tall, excited Uncle Caspar. The
conductor, several trainmen and a few eager passengers came up, the
former crusty and snappish.
“Well, get aboard!” he growled. “We can't wait all night.”
The young lady looked up quickly, her sensitive face cringing beneath
the rough command. Lorry stepped instantly to the conductor's side,
shook his finger vigorously under his nose, and exclaimed in no
uncertain tones:
“Now, that's enough from you! If I hear another word out of you, I'll
make you sweat blood before tomorrow morning. Understand, my friend.”
“Aw, who are you?” demanded the conductor, belligerently.
“You'll learn that soon enough. After this you'll have sense enough to
find out whom you are talking to before you open that mouth of yours.
Not another word!” Mr. Grenfall Lorry was not president of the road,
nor was he in any way connected with it, but his well assumed air of
authority caused the trainman's ire to dissolve at once.
“Excuse me, sir. I've been worried to death on this run. I meant no
offence. That old gentleman has threatened to kill me. Just now he
took out his watch and said if I did not run back for his niece in two
minutes he'd call me out and run me through. I've been nearly crazy
here. For the life of me, I don't see how you happened to be--”
“Oh, that's all right. Let's be off,” cried Lorry, who had fallen some
distance behind his late companion and her uncle. Hurrying after them,
he reached her side in time to assist her in mounting the car steps.
“Thank you,” smiling down upon him bewitchingly. At the top of the steps
she was met by her aunt, behind whom stood the anxious man-servant and
the maid. Into the coach she was drawn by the relieved old lady, who
was critically inspecting her personal appearance when Lorry and the
foreigner entered.
“Ach, it was so wild and exhilarating, Aunt Yvonne,” the girl was
saying, her eyes sparkling. She stood straight and firm, her chin in the
air, her hands in those of her aunt. The little traveling cap was on
the side of her head, her hair was loose and very much awry, strands
straying here, curls blowing there in utter confusion. Lorry fairly
gasped with admiration for the loveliness that would not be vanquished.
“We came like the wind! I shall never, never forget it,” she said.
“But how could you have remained there, child? Tell me how it happened.
We have been frantic,” said her aunt, half in English, half in German.
“Not now, dear Aunt Yvonne. See my hair! What a fright I must be!
Fortunate man, your hair cannot be so unruly as mine. Oh!” The
exclamation was one of alarm. In an instant she was at his side, peering
with terrified eyes at the bloodstains on his neck and face. “It is
blood! You are hurt! Uncle Caspar, Hedrick--quick! Attend him! Come to
my room at once. You are suffering. Minna, find bandages!”
She dragged him to the door of her section before he could interpose a
remonstrance.
“It is nothing--a mere scratch. Bumped my head against the side of the
coach. Please don't worry about it; I can care for myself. Really, it
doesn't--”
“But it does! It has bled terribly. Sit there! Now, Hedrick, some
water.”
Hedrick rushed off and was back in a moment with a basin of water, a
sponge and a towel, and before Grenfall fully knew what was happening,
the man-servant was bathing his head, the others looking on anxiously,
the young lady apprehensively, her hands clasped before her as she bent
over to inspect the wound above his ear.
“It is quite an ugly cut,” said Uncle Caspar, critically. “Does it pain
you, sir?”
“Oh, not a great deal,” answered Lorry, closing his eyes comfortably. It
was all very pleasant, he thought.
“Should it not have stitches, Uncle Caspar?” asked the sweet, eager
voice.
“I think not. The flow is staunched. If the gentleman will allow Hedrick
to trim the hair away for a plaster and then bandage it I think the
wound will give him no trouble.” The old man spoke slowly and in very
good English.
“Really, Uncle, is it not serious?”
“No, no,” interposed Grenfall Lorry. “I knew it was a trifle. You cannot
break an American's head. Let me go to my own section and I'll be ready
to present myself, as good as new, in ten minutes.”
“You must let Hedrick bandage your head,” she insisted. “Go with him,
Hedrick.”
Grenfall arose and started toward his section, followed by Hedrick.
“I trust you were not hurt during that reckless ride,” he said, more as
a question, stopping in the aisle to look back at her.
“I should have been a mass of bruises, gashes and lumps had it not been
for one thing,” she said, a faint flush coming to her cheek, although
her eyes looked unfalteringly into his. “Will you join us in the dining
car? I will have a place prepared for you at our table.”
“Thank you. You are very good. I shall join you as soon as I am
presentable.”
“We are to be honored, sir,” said the old gentleman, but in such a
way that Grenfall had a distinct feeling that it was he who was to be
honored. Aunt Yvonne smiled graciously, and he took his departure.
While Hedrick was dressing the jagged little cut, Grenfall complacently
surveyed the patient in the mirror opposite, and said to himself a
hundred times: “You lucky dog! It was worth forty gashes like this. By
Jove, she's divine!”
In a fever of eager haste he bathed and attired himself for dinner, the
imperturbable Hedrick assisting. One query filled the American's mind:
“I wonder if I am to sit beside her.” And then: “I have sat beside her!
There can never again be such delight!”
It was seven o'clock before his rather unusual toilet was completed.
“See if they have gone to the diner, Hedrick,” he said to the
man-servant, who departed ceremoniously.
“I don't know why he should be so damned polite,” observed Lorry,
gazing wonderingly after him. “I'm not a king. That reminds me. I must
introduce myself. She doesn't know me from Adam.”
Hedrick returned and announced that they had just gone to the dining car
and were awaiting him there. He hurried to the diner and made his way
to their table. Uncle Caspar and his niece were facing him as he came
up between the tables, and he saw, with no little regret, that he was to
sit beside the aunt--directly opposite the girl, however. She smiled up
at him as he stood before them, bowing. He saw the expression of inquiry
in those deep, liquid eyes of violet as their gaze wandered over his
hair.
“Your head? I see no bandage,” she said, reproachfully.
“There is a small plaster and that is all. Only heroes may have
dangerous wounds,” he said, laughingly.
“Is heroism in America measured by the number of stitches or the size of
the plaster?” she asked, pointedly. “In my country it is a joy, and not
a calamity. Wounds are the misfortune of valor. Pray, be seated, Mr.
Lorry is it not?” she said, pronouncing it quaintly.
He sat down rather suddenly on hearing her utter his name. How had she
learned it? Not a soul on the train knew it, he was sure.
“I am Caspar Guggenslocker. Permit me, Mr. Lorry, to present my wife and
my niece, Miss Guggenslocker,” said the uncle, more gracefully than he
had ever heard such a thing uttered before.
In a daze, stunned by the name,--Guggenslocker, mystified over their
acquaintance with his own when he had been foiled at every fair attempt
to learn theirs, Lorry could only mumble his acknowledgments. In all
his life he had never lost command of himself as at this moment.
Guggenslocker! He could feel the dank sweat of disappointment starting
on his brow. A butcher,--a beer maker,--a cobbler,--a gardener,--all
synonyms of Guggenslocker. A sausage manufacturer's niece--Miss
Guggenslocker! He tried to glance unconcernedly at her as he took up
his napkin, but his eyes wavered helplessly. She was looking serenely at
him, yet he fancied he saw a shadow of mockery in her blue eyes.
“If you were a novel writer, Mr. Lorry, what manner of heroine would
you choose?” she asked, with a smile so tantalizing that he understood
instinctively why she was reviving a topic once abandoned. His
confusion was increased. Her uncle and aunt were regarding him
calmly,--expectantly, he imagined.
“I--I have no ambition to be a novel writer,” he said, “so I have not
made a study of heroines.”
“But you would have an ideal,” she persisted.
“I'm sure I--I don't--that is, she would not necessarily be a heroine.
Unless, of course, it would require heroism to pose as an ideal for such
a prosaic fellow as I.”
“To begin with, you would call her Clarabel Montrose or something
equally as impossible. You know the name of a heroine in a novel must
be euphonious. That is an exacting rule.” It was an open taunt, and
he could see that she was enjoying his discomfiture. It aroused his
indignation and his wits.
“I would first give my hero a distinguished name. No matter what the
heroine's name might be--pretty or otherwise--I could easily change it
to his in the last chapter.” She flushed beneath his now bright, keen
eyes and the ready, though unexpected retort. Uncle Caspar placed his
napkin to his lips and coughed. Aunt Yvonne studiously inspected her
bill of fare. “No matter what you call a rose, it is always sweet,” he
added, meaningly.
At this she laughed good-naturedly. He marveled at her white teeth
and red lips. A rose, after all. Guggenslocker, rose; rose, not
Guggenslocker. No, no! A rose only! He fancied he caught a sly look of
triumph in her uncle's swift glance toward her. But Uncle Caspar was not
a rose--he was Guggenslocker. Guggenslocker--butcher! Still, he did not
look the part--no, indeed. That extraordinary man a butcher, a gardener,
a--and Aunt Yvonne? Yet they were Guggenslockers.
“Here is the waiter,” the girl observed, to his relief. “I am famished
after my pleasant drive. It was so bracing, was it not Mr. Grenfall
Lorry?”
“Give me a mountain ride always as an appetizer,” he said, obligingly,
and so ended the jest about a name.
The orders for the dinner were given and the quartette sat back in their
chairs to await the coming of the soup. Grenfall was still wondering how
she had learned his name, and was on the point of asking several times
during the conventional discussion of the weather, the train and the
mountains. He considerately refrained, however, unwilling to embarrass
her.
“Aunt Yvonne tells me she never expected to see me alive after the
station agent telegraphed that we were coming overland in that awful old
carriage. The agent at P---- says it is a dangerous road, at the very
edge of the mountain. He also increased the composure of my uncle and
aunt by telling them that a wagon rolled off yesterday, killing a man,
two women and two horses. Dear Aunt Yvonne, how troubled you must have
been.”
“I'll confess there were times when I thought we were rolling down the
mountain,” said Lorry, with a relieved shake of the head.
“Sometimes I thought we were soaring through space, whether upward or
downwards I could not tell. We never failed to come to earth, though,
did we?” she laughingly asked.
“Emphatically! Earth and a little grief,” he said, putting his hand to
his head.
“Does it pain you?” she asked, quickly.
“Not in the least. I was merely feeling to see if the cut were still
there. Mr--Mr. Guggenslocker, did the conductor object to holding the
train?” he asked, remembering what the conductor had told him of the old
gentleman's actions.
“At first, but I soon convinced him that it should be held,” said the
other, quietly.
“My husband spoke very harshly to the poor man,” added Aunt Yvonne.
“But, I am afraid, Caspar, he did not understand a word you said. You
were very much excited.” The sweet old lady's attempts at English were
much more laborious than her husband's.
“If he did not understand my English, he was very good at guessing,”
said her husband, grimly.
“He told me you had threatened to call him out,” ventured the young man.
“Call him out? Ach, a railroad conductor!” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, in
fine scorn.
“Caspar, I heard you say that you would call him out,” interposed his
wife, with reproving eyes.
“Ach, God! God! I have made a mistake! I see it all! It was the
other word I meant--down not out! I intended to call him down, as you
Americans say. I hope he will not think I challenged him.” He was very
much perturbed.
“I think he was afraid you would,” said Lorry.
“He should have no fear. I could not meet a railroad conductor. Will you
please tell him I could not so condescend? Besides, dueling is murder in
your country, I am told.”
“It usually is, sir. Much more so than in Europe.” The others looked
at him inquiringly. “I mean that in America when two men pull
their revolvers and go to shooting at each other, some one is
killed--frequently both. In Europe, as I understand it, a scratch with a
sword ends the combat.”
“You have been misinformed,” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, his eyebrows
elevated.
“Why, Uncle Caspar has fought more duels than he can count,” cried the
girl, proudly.
“And has he slain his man every time?” asked Grenfall, smilingly,
glancing from one to the other. Aunt Yvonne shot a reproving look at the
girl, whose face paled instantly, her eyes going quickly in affright to
the face of her uncle.
“God!” Lorry heard the old gentleman mutter. He was looking at his bill
of fare, but his eyes were fixed and staring. The card was crumpling
between the long, bony fingers. The American realized that a forbidden
topic had been touched upon.
“He has fought and he has slain,” he thought as quick as a flash, “He is
no butcher, no gardener, no cobbler. That's certain!”
“Tell us, Uncle Caspar, what you said to the conductor,” cried the young
lady, nervously.
“Tell them, Caspar, how alarmed we were,” added soft-voiced Aunt Yvonne.
Grenfall was a silent, interested spectator. He somehow felt as if a
scene from some tragedy had been reproduced in that briefest of moments.
Calmly and composedly, a half smile now in his face, the soldierly
Caspar narrated the story of the train's run from one station to the
other.
“We did not miss you until we had almost reached the other station. Then
your Aunt Yvonne asked me where you had gone. I told her I had not seen
you, but went into the coach ahead to search. You were not there. Then I
went on to the dining car. Ach, you were not there. In alarm I returned
to our car. Your aunt and I looked everywhere. You were not anywhere.
I shall never forget your aunt's face when she sank into a chair, nor
shall I feel again so near like dying as when she suggested that you
might have fallen from the train. I sent Hedrick ahead to summon the
conductor, but he had hardly left us when the engine whistled sharply
and the train began to slow up in a jerky fashion. We were very pale
as we looked at each other, for something told us that the stop was
unusual. I rushed to the platform meeting Hedrick, who was as much
alarmed as I. He said the train had been flagged, and that there must
be something wrong. Your aunt came out and told me that she had made a
strange discovery.”
Grenfall observed that he was addressing himself exclusively to the
young lady.
“She had found that the gentleman in the next section was also missing.
While we were standing there in doubt and perplexity, the train came to
a standstill, and soon there was shouting on the outside. I climbed down
from the car and saw that we were at a little station. The conductor
came running toward me excitedly.
“'Is the young lady in the car?' he asked.
“'No. For Heaven's sake, what have you heard?' I cried.
“'Then she has been left at O----,' he exclaimed, and used some very
extraordinary American words.
“I then informed him that he should run back for you, first learning
that you were alive and well. He said he would be damned if he
would--pardon the word, ladies. He was very angry, and said he would
give orders to go ahead, but I told him I would demand restitution of
his government. He laughed in my face, and then I became shamelessly
angry. I said to him:
“'Sir, I shall call you down--not out, as you have said--and I shall run
you through the mill.'
“That was good American talk, sir, was it not, Mr. Lorry? I wanted
him to understand me, so I tried to use your very best language. Some
gentlemen who are traveling on this train and some very excellent ladies
also joined in the demand that the train be held. His despatch from
O---- said that you, Mr. Lorry, insisted on having it held for twenty
minutes. The conductor insulted you, sir, by saying that you had
more--ah, what is it?--gall than any idiot he had ever seen. When he
said that, although I did not fully understand that it was a reflection
on you, so ignorant am I of your language, I took occasion to tell him
that you were a gentleman and a friend of mine. He asked me your name,
but, as I did not know it, I could only tell him that he would learn it
soon enough. Then he said something which has puzzled me ever since. He
told me to close my face. What did he mean by that, Mr. Lorry?”
“Well, Mr. Guggenslocker, that means, in refined American, 'stop
talking,'” said Lorry, controlling a desire to shout.
“Ach, that accounts for his surprise when I talked louder and faster
than ever. I did not know what he meant. He said positively he would not
wait, but just then a second message came from the other station. I did
not know what it was then, but a gentleman told me that it instructed
him to hold the train if he wanted to hold his job. Job is situation,
is it not? Well, when he read that message he said he would wait just
twenty minutes. I asked him to tell me how you were coming to us, but he
refused to answer. Your aunt and I went at once to the telegraph man
and implored him to tell us the truth, and he said you were coming in a
carriage over a very dangerous road. Imagine our feelings when he said
some people had been killed yesterday on that very road.
“He said you would have to drive like the--the very devil if you got
here in twenty minutes.”
“We did, Uncle Caspar,” interrupted Miss Guggenslocker, naively. “Our
driver followed Mr. Lorry's instructions.”
Mr. Grenfall Lorry blushed and laughed awkwardly. He had been admiring
her eager face and expressive eyes during Uncle Caspar's recital. How
sweet her voice when it pronounced his name, how charming the foreign
flavor to the words.
“He would not have understood if I had said other things,” he explained,
hastily.
“When your aunt and I returned to the train we saw the conductor holding
his watch. He said to me: 'In just three minutes we pull out. If they
are not here by that time they can get on the best they know how. I've
done all I can: I did not say a word, but went to my section and had
Hedrick get out my pistols. If the train left before you arrived it
would be without its conductor. In the meantime, your Aunt Yvonne was
pleading with the wretch. I hastened back to his side with my pistols in
my pocket. It was then that I told him to start his train if he dared.
That man will never know how close he was to death. One minute passed,
and he coolly announced that but one minute was left. I had made up my
mind to give him one of my pistols when the time was up, and to tell
him to defend himself. It was not to be a duel, for there was nothing
regular about it. It was only a question as to whether the train should
move. Then came the sound of carriage wheels and galloping horses.
Almost before we knew it you were with us. I am so happy that you were
not a minute later.”
There was something so cool and grim in the quiet voice, something so
determined in those brilliant eyes, that Grenfall felt like looking up
the conductor to congratulate him. The dinner was served, and while
it was being discussed his fair companion of the drive graphically
described the experience of twenty strange minutes in a shackle-down
mountain coach. He was surprised to find that she omitted no part, not
even the hand clasp or the manner in which she clung to him. His ears
burned as he listened to this frank confession, for he expected to
hear words of disapproval from the uncle and aunt. His astonishment was
increased by their utter disregard of these rather peculiar details.
It was then that he realized how trusting she had been, how serenely
unconscious of his tender and sudden passion. And had she told her
relatives that she had kissed him, he firmly believed they would have
smiled approvingly. Somehow the real flavor of romance was stricken from
the ride by her candid admissions. What he had considered a romantic
treasure was being calmly robbed of its glitter, leaving for his memory
the blurr of an adventure in which he had played the part of a gallant
gentleman and she a grateful lady. He was beginning to feel ashamed of
the conceit that had misled him. Down in his heart he was saying: “I
might have known it. I did know it. She is not like other women.” The
perfect confidence that dwelt in the rapt faces of the others forced
into his wondering mind the impression that this girl could do no wrong.
“And, Aunt Yvonne,” she said, in conclusion, “the luck which you say is
mine as birthright asserted itself. I escaped unhurt, while Mr. Lorry
alone possesses the pain and unpleasantness of our ride.”
“I possess neither,” he objected. “The pain that you refer to is a
pleasure.”
“The pain that a man endures for a woman should always be a pleasure,”
said Uncle Caspar smilingly.
“But it could not be a pleasure to him unless the woman considered it a
pain,” reasoned Miss Guggenslocker. “He could not feel happy if she did
not respect the pain.”
“And encourage it,” supplemented Lorry, drily. “If you do not remind me
occasionally that I am hurt, Miss Guggenslocker, I am liable to forget
it.” To himself he added: “I'll never learn how to say it in one
breath.”
“If I were not so soon to part from you I should be your physician,
and, like all physicians, prolong your ailment interminably,” she said,
prettily.
“To my deepest satisfaction,” he said, warmly, not lightly. There was
nothing further from his mind than servile flattery, as his rejoinder
might imply. “Alas!” he went on, “we no sooner meet than we part. May I
ask when you are to sail?”
“On Thursday,” replied Mr. Guggenslocker.
“On the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” added his niece, a faraway look
coming into her eyes.
“We are to stop off one day, to-morrow, in Washington,” said Aunt
Yvonne, and the jump that Lorry's heart gave was so mighty that he was
afraid they could see it in his face.
“My uncle has some business to transact in your city, Mr. Lorry. We are
to spend tomorrow there and Wednesday in New York. Then we sail. Ach,
how I long for Thursday!” His heart sank like lead to the depths from
which it had sprung. It required no effort on his part to see that
he was alone in his infatuation. Thursday was more to her than his
existence; she could forget him and think of Thursday, and when she
thought of Thursday, the future, he was but a thing of the past, not
even of the present.
“Have you always lived in Washington, Mr. Lorry?” asked Mrs.
Guggenslocker.
“All my life,” he replied wishing at that moment that he was homeless
and free to choose for himself.
“You Americans live in one city and then in another,” she said. “Now, in
our country generation after generation lives and dies in one town. We
are not migratory.”
“Mr. Lorry has offended us by not knowing where Graustark is located on
the map,” cried the young lady, and he could see the flash of resentment
in her eyes.
“Why, my dear sir, Graustark is in--” began Uncle Caspar, but she checked
him instantly.
“Uncle Caspar, you are not to tell him. I have recommended that he
study geography and discover us for himself. He should be ashamed of his
ignorance.”
He was not ashamed, but he mentally vowed that before he was a day older
he would find Graustark on the map and would stock his negligent brain
with all that history and the encyclopedia had to say of the unknown
land. Her uncle laughed, and, to Lorry's disappointment, obeyed the
young lady's command.
“Shall I study the map of Europe, Asia or Africa?” asked he, and they
laughed.
“Study the map of the world,” said Miss Guggenslocker, proudly.
“Edelweiss is the capital?”
“Yes, our home city,--the queen of the crags,” cried she. “You should
see Edelweiss, Mr. Lorry. It is of the mountain, the plain and the sky.
There are homes in the valley, homes on the mountain side and homes in
the clouds.”
“And yours? From what you say it must be above the clouds--in heaven.”
“We are farthest from the clouds, for we live in the green valley,
shaded by the white topped mountains. We may, in Edelweiss, have what
climate we will. Doctors do not send us on long journeys for our health.
They tell us to move up or down the mountain. We have balmy spring,
glorious summer, refreshing autumn and chilly winter, just as we like.”
“Ideal! I think you must be pretty well toward the south. You could not
have July and January if you were far north.”
“True; yet we have January in July. Study your map. We are discernible
to the naked eye,” she said, half ironically.
“I care not if there are but three inhabitants Graustark, all told, it
is certainly worthy of a position on any map,” said Lorry, gallantly;
and his listeners applauded with patriotic appreciation. “By the way,
Mr. Gug--Guggenslocker, you say the conductor asked you for my name
and you did not know it. May I ask how you learned it later on?” His
curiosity got the better of him, and his courage was increased by the
champagne the old gentleman had ordered.
“I did not know your name until my niece told it to me after your
arrival in the carriage,” said Uncle Caspar.
“I don't remember giving it to Miss Guggenslocker at any time,” said
Lorry.
“You were not my informant,” she said, demurely.
“Surely you did not guess it.”
“Oh, no, indeed. I am no mind reader.”
“My own name was the last thing you could have read in my mind, in that
event, for I have not thought of it in three days.”
She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, a
dreamy look in her blue eyes.
“You say you obtained that coin from the porter on the Denver train?”
“Within two hours after I got aboard.”
“Well, that coin purchased your name for me,” she said, calmly,
candidly. He gasped.
“You--you don't mean that you--” he stammered.
“You see, Mr. Lorry, I wanted to know the name of a man who came nearest
my ideal of what an American should be. As soon as I saw you I knew
that you were the American as I had grown to know him through the
books,--big, strong, bold and comely. That is why I bought your name
of the porter. I shall always say that I know the name of an ideal
American,--Grenfall Lorry.”
The ideal American was not unmoved. He was in a fever of fear and
happiness,--fear because he thought she was jesting, happiness because
he hoped she was not. He laughed awkwardly, absolutely unable to express
himself in words. Her frank statement staggered him almost beyond the
power of recovery.
There was joy in the knowledge that she had been attracted to him at
first sight, but there was bitterness in the thought that he had come to
her notice as a sort of specimen, the name of which she had sought as a
botanist would look for the name of an unknown flower.
“I--I am honored,” he at last managed to say, his eyes gleaming with
embarrassment. “I trust you have not found your first judgment a faulty
one.” He felt very foolish after this flat remark.
“I have remembered your name,” she said, graciously. His heart swelled.
“There are a great many better Americans than I,” he said. “You forget
our president and our statesmen.”
“I thought they were mere politicians.”
Grenfall Lorry, idealized, retired to his berth that night, his head
whirling with the emotions inspired by this strange, beautiful woman.
How lovely, how charming, how naive, how queenly, how indifferent, how
warm, how cold--how everything that puzzled him was she. His last waking
thought was:
“Guggenslocker! An angel with a name like that!”