"CAPTAIN" TRAFFORD
In his room in the Hôtel Concordia, Nervy Trafford was standing
before a long looking-glass, surveying his mirrored image with an
ever-recurring smile. Two days had passed since the Strafeburg had
fallen, two busy days in the nation's history, and this particular
morning found him arrayed in the uniform of a Grimland Staff-Captain.
The dark green tunic with its fur trimming and black braiding suited
his face and figure admirably. He twirled his moustaches, and
disengaged his sword from between his legs, and his smile broadened
to a laugh.
"I only need a false nose," he said to himself, "and I should make a
splendid impersonator of Offenbachian opera." And, drawing his
sword, he sang with great spirit and much expression, that inimitable
air: "Voici le sabre de mon pere--voici le sabre de-e mon pere."
A knock at the door checked his vibrato.
"_Herein!_" he called.
A boy in a tight brown uniform, adorned with the usual unnecessary
buttons, entered.
"A note, Excellency."
Trafford took the missive, which bore the royal seal. It read as
follows:
"_Neptunburg._
"_My Good Friend,_
"_The procession leaves here at mid-day, when you must be in close
attendance on the Royal Person. Lunch at 2 p.m. After lunch, an
informal Council in the Throne room. After the Council, make your
way to the private apartments. I will give orders for you to be
admitted._
_Yours very bewildered,_
_G. v. S., I mean G. R._"
Trafford read, and at the conclusion he whistled. What did it mean,
what could it mean but one thing? The situation presented itself as
a syllogism of amazing but irrefutable argument. The Princess was
going to be crowned. It was undeniable that he had contributed
largely to that consummation. The corollary was a ceremony of
marriage between himself and the newly-elected sovereign. No wonder
the smile gave place to a frown of deep bewilderment. No wonder he
passed his fingers repeatedly through his thick and stubborn hair.
The compact that was now disturbing his peace of mind had been
entered into with the lightest of light hearts. The night he had
first met the Princess he had been a soldier of fortune primed with
good wine and the spirit of reckless adventure. But since then
things had progressed with him, as with the state of Grimland,
rapidly.
The condition of spiritual stagnation in which he had visited
Grimland was being slowly but surely overcome by fresh interests and
rousing incidents. Three days ago it would have seemed a capital
jest to go through the ceremony of marriage with an exceptionally
beautiful girl with a kingdom for her dowry. Now it seemed like a
piece of wanton blasphemy in the worst possible taste.
He put a cigarette between his lips, and took a match from a heavy
glass bowl that did duty as matchbox. He struck it on the ribbed
side of the bowl, but the match burned his fingers before even it
made acquaintance with the tobacco.
Supposing he went through this ceremony, he reasoned, and supposing
in this topsy-turvy country the ceremony was approved and ratified by
the State--what then? A queer thrill ran through him at the
supposition, but he shook his head fiercely. The more he saw of the
Princess the more he liked her, and the more he realised the
difference between liking and loving. There were strange ideals
still lurking in the recesses of his unconventional brain, and to wed
a woman for any less reason than a deep spiritual devotion seemed to
him a prostitution of God's choicest gifts. And he could not
honestly call his regard for the high-couraged little Schattenberg a
deep spiritual devotion. It was clean and healthy as the north wind,
and every whit as wholesome and refreshing--but was it even
approximately like the sentiment he had entertained for the
pedestalled Angela Knox?
He made a second attempt to light his cigarette, and this time with
success. He blew out a great puff of blue smoke and gazed earnestly
into its unravelling depths. And for a prolonged minute of
self-hypnotism he was dematerialised out of the picturesque uniform
of a Grimland officer, and was standing, smug and frock-coated, in a
New York drawing-room. Before him was a very tall woman with a
wonderfully correct profile and an abundance of honey-coloured hair.
This was the creature to whom he had offered the worship of his life,
the woman whose refusal of his suit had thrust him to the very brink
of the grim precipice of which no man knoweth the bottom. He gazed
and gazed and even admired--but he was unmoved. Slowly the smoke
faded, and the dream in the smoke, and he laughed aloud.
Self-analysis is a difficult game for all, and to one of his complex
temperament an altogether hopeless proceeding. And so, as if to blow
the crowded thoughts from his brain, he stepped to his high window
overlooking the city, and flung open the casement. The bells of the
cathedral were pealing joyous music into the winter air. The city
was _en fête_. The flag of Grimland was flying from all public and
semi-public buildings.
Shops, private houses, and hotels were gay with bunting and festoons
of artificial flowers. And the sun,--as if to honour the new dynasty
with its more than royal majesty,--was gilding men's handiwork till
tinsel became silver and gold, and every banner a brave thing of joy
and colour and heartfelt holiday.
Within two days of the supposed death of Karl the new dynasty was to
be inaugurated with all the pomp that State and Church could lend the
occasion.
Things had progressed, not at a run, but at a gallop. And for this
Father Bernhardt was responsible. The man was a wonder. He may have
been mad, but if so his madness was the distortion of a splendid
brain, not the aberration of a weak one. He had gathered the reins
of government into his own hands with the skill and confidence of a
born ruler. There was no anarchy, no confusion, no hiatus in the
city's ordering. Men were conciliated whom it was wise to
conciliate. Others were over-awed, a few were suppressed. He seemed
to know intuitively everyone's sentiments and every man's abilities.
Doctor Matti was made Prefect of Police, Von Hügelweiler became
Captain of the Guard. Trafford was given an official position on the
staff of the Queen's army. Generally speaking, there was little
redistribution of existing authorities. The army welcomed the new
_régime_, believing that a change of dynasty might involve a change
from the peaceful policy of the twenty-second Karl. Business men and
professional men accepted it even when they did not welcome it.
There was no alternative. Karl, so they believed, was dead. His son
was far away at Weissheim, and was far too young a little person to
rule the mad whirlwind of his country's policies. So the _fait
accompli_ became the thing accepted, and as the joy bells rang out
their message the contagion of their silver tongues turned the
hearts, even of the lukewarm, to glad allegiance to the young Queen.
"Poor little Princess," mused Trafford, as he gazed out at the
sparkling panorama of white roofs and snow-crested battlements, "what
an ordeal lies before you, to-day and to-morrow, and the day after
to-morrow! It is the day after to-morrow one fears in Grimland. The
sun does not always shine at Weidenbruck, and the cathedral bells are
not always instruments of joy."
Another knock at the door interrupted his reverie. This time it was
Von Hügelweiler who responded to his "_herein_."
"Good-morning," said Trafford genially, extending a hand in greeting.
But no answering smile showed on the Captain's stern and gloomy
countenance, and instead of grasping Trafford's hand, his own went up
in a stiff salute.
Von Hügelweiler was suffering from Trafford on the brain. His
natural dislike for the American, born of the latter's triumph on the
Rundsee, had been extraordinarily deepened by the events of the past
few days. It was Trafford to whom all glory for the capture of the
Strafeburg redounded; Trafford who had set the "Rothlied" going,
suborned the soldiers, "bossed" everything and everybody as if he
were a true born patriot instead of a foreign adventurer with the
devil's own luck. Why, next to Father Bernhardt this pig of an
American was the most popular man in Weidenbruck! All this, in
itself, was a source of considerable annoyance to the sensitive
Captain of the Guides; but what touched him on the raw, was the
footing on which Trafford seemed to stand with the Princess Gloria.
He knew nothing of the true state of their relations, but he
perceived at once an ease and understanding between them, which
embittered his spirit and spoilt his whole pleasure in life. He, Von
Hügelweiler, had forfeited his self-respect, risked all his
prospects, his soldier's honour, for the sake of a half-formulated
pledge, for the vague shadow of a promise of things unutterably
sweet. Were it to be that this sacrifice had been made in vain, that
this hated American was the one who had come between him and the
heaven of his desire, there would be a heavy price to be paid, a full
price, a reckoning in something more precious than gold and silver.
And so he had come to Trafford's rooms, not with any definite idea
either of eliciting information or forcing a quarrel, but
because,--as has been said,--he had Trafford on the brain, and he
felt it necessary to keep in touch with him.
"To what do I owe the honour of this visit?" the American went on,
getting no response to his greeting.
"I come with commands," said the Captain brusquely. He was mindful
of the _de haut en bas_ manner which Trafford had employed towards
him that night before the Strafeburg, and he wished to reverse their
respective positions once for all. "You have been appointed to the
Staff, and I am your superior officer."
"Salaam! Sahib," said Trafford with a facetious bow.
Hügelweiler flushed, and went on in angry tones.
"My orders are that you start with the royal procession from the
Neptunburg at mid-day. I, as Captain of the Guard, shall be in close
attendance on the Queen. You will bring up the rear with a company
of the Kurdeburg Volunteers."
Von Hügelweiler's tone was designedly over-bearing, but Trafford kept
his temper marvellously well, as he sometimes could, when occasion
demanded.
"Are those your commands or the Queen's?" he asked, tossing the glass
matchbox a little way into the air and catching it again. His
behaviour irritated Von Hügelweiler inexpressibly.
"They are commands--that is enough for you," he retorted crudely.
"Not nearly enough, I assure you," responded Trafford, with
exaggerated blandness. "I have her Majesty's orders to be in close
attendance on her royal person. Until I get counter-orders from an
equally high source I shall perform the pleasant and honourable duty
of being in the closest possible proximity to our dear Sovereign."
Hügelweiler's face became livid with rage.
"Show me your orders!" he demanded harshly.
"They were conveyed in a private note, otherwise I should have much
pleasure, my superior officer."
"I command you to show them to me!" cried the Captain, losing all
patience; "and for heaven's sake cease tossing that infernal
matchbox!"
This was altogether too much for Trafford's sorely-tried
self-control. He had held himself in with incalculable patience up
to now, but he felt that the moment had arrived for letting himself
go--thoroughly.
[Illustration: "If I see so much as an inch of blade this little
hand-grenade of mine will play havoc with your handsome features"]
"Von Hügelweiler," he said in peculiarly distinct tones, "we live in
stirring times. A King has just lost his throne, a number of high
functionaries have been laid low, a mass of--shall I say, scum--has
come to the surface. No, Captain, don't draw your sword," he said
sternly, as the Captain flushed crimson and made a threatening
movement with his sword-arm. "I am not an unarmed man, my brave
officer"--poising the substantial matchbox in his right hand, in the
manner of an athlete about to put the weight--"and if I see so much
as an inch of blade this little hand-grenade of mine will play havoc
with your handsome features. That's better," he went on, as the
other shrank back furious but cowed before the strange missile which
threatened his physical attractions, "that's much better, _mon brav_.
Curse and swear and vow vengeance, but don't play any monkey tricks,
or the Guards will want a smarter captain to lead them in the
procession to-day. And one more word before you withdraw the
sunshine of your presence from the room," he continued, as the other
made a movement towards the door with mingled fury and disgust on his
countenance. "I have taken a hand in the game which is being played
in Grimland. I have thrown in my lot with Gloria von Schattenberg,
and as her officer I am prepared to obey as well as command--in
reason. But I won't be bullied, Herr Captain. I'm not built that
way."
"You shall answer for your insolence!'" came viciously through Von
Hügelweiler's white teeth.
"Maybe, but if you can get the Queen to sanction my arrest you're a
cleverer man than you look, Von Hügelweiler."
A curse hissed from the Captain's lips, and he half raised his
clenched fist in a gesture of intolerable passion. Then his arm
dropped limp to his side and a look of suffering came into his eyes,
and when he spoke, it was hoarsely and with a break in his voice.
"What is Gloria von Schattenberg to you?" he asked.
"That is the precise question I was asking myself when you came in,"
was the response. "To answer it I need solitude, and solitude,
Captain,--as I need not point out,--is incompatible with your
presence here. Captain von Hügelweiler, I have the honour of wishing
you good-morning."