Phyllis and I were sitting in one of the numerous cozy corners. I had
danced badly and out of time. The music and the babel of tongues had
become murmurous and indistinct.
"And so that is the Princess Hildegarde?" she said, after a spell.
"Yes; she is your double. Is she not beautiful?"
"Is that a left-handed compliment to me?" Phyllis was smiling, but she
was colorless.
"No," said I. "I could never give you a left-handed compliment."
"How strange and incomprehensible!" said she, opening her fan.
"What?--that I have never, and could never, give you a--"
"No, no! I was thinking of the likeness. It rather unnerved me. It
seemed as though I was looking into a mirror."
"What do you think of her?" suppressing the eagerness in my voice.
"She is to be envied," softly.
And I grew puzzled.
"Jack, for a man who has associated with the first diplomatists of the
world, who has learned to read the world as another might read a book,
you are surprisingly unadept in the art of dissimulation."
"That is a very long sentence," said I, in order to gain time enough to
fathom what she meant. I could not. So I said: "What do you mean?"
"Your whole face was saying to the Princess, 'I love you!' A glance
told me all. I was glad for your sake that no other woman saw you at
that moment. But I suppose it would not have mattered to you."
"Not if all the world had seen the look," moodily.
"Poor Jack, you are very unlucky!" Her voice was full of pity. "I
feel so sorry for you, it is all so impossible. And she loves you,
too!"
"How do you know?"
"I looked at her while she was looking at you."
"You have wonderful eyes."
"So I have been told. I wonder why she gave you that withered and
worm-eaten rose?"
"A whim," I said, staring at the rug. I wondered how she came to
surmise that it was Gretchen's rose? Intuition, perhaps.
"Do you love her well enough," asked Phyllis, plucking the lace on her
fan, "to sacrifice all the world for her, to give up all your own
happiness that she might become happy?"
"She never can be happy without me--if she loves me as I believe." I
admit that this was a selfish thought to express.
"Then, why is it impossible--your love and hers? If her love for you
is as great as you say it is, what is a King, a Prince, or a
principality to her?"
"It is none of those. It is because she has given her word, the word
of a Princess. What would you do in her place?" suddenly.
"I?" Phyllis leaned back among the cushions her eyes half-closed and a
smile on her lips. "I am afraid that if I loved you I should follow
you to the end of the world. Honor is a fine thing, but in her case it
is an empty word. If she broke this word for you, who would be
wronged? No one, since the Prince covets only her dowry and the King
desires only his will obeyed. Perhaps I do not understand what social
obligation means to these people who are born in purple."
"Perhaps that is it. Phyllis, listen, and I will tell you a romance
which has not yet been drawn to its end. Once upon a time--let me call
it a fairy story," said I, drawing down a palm leaf as if to read the
tale from its blades. "Once upon a time, in a country far from ours,
there lived a Prince and a Princess. The Prince was rather a bad
fellow. His faith in his wife was not the best. And he made a vow
that if ever children came he would make them as evil as himself. Not
long after the good fairy brought two children to her godchild, the
Princess. Remembering the vow made by the Prince, the good fairy
carried away one of the children, and no one knew anything about it
save the Princess and the fairy. When the remaining child was two
years old the Princess died. The child from then on grew like a wild
flower. The Prince did his best to spoil her, but the good fairy
watched over her, just as carefully as she watched over the child she
had hidden away. By and by the wicked Prince died. The child reached
womanhood. The good fairy went away and left her; perhaps she now gave
her whole attention to the other." I let the palm leaf slip back, and
drew down a fresh one, Phyllis watching me with interest. "The child
the fairy left was still a child, for all her womanhood. She was
willful and capricious; she rode, she fenced, she hunted; she was as
unlike other women as could be. At last the King, who was her
guardian, grew weary of her caprices. So he commanded that she marry.
But what had the fairy done with the other child, the twin sister of
this wild Princess? Perhaps in this instance the good fairy died and
left her work unfinished, to be taken up and pursued by a conventional
newspaper reporter. Now this pro tem fairy, who was anything but good,
as the word goes, made some curious discoveries. It seems that the
good fairy had left the lost Princess in the care of one of a foreign
race. Having a wife and daughter of his own, he brought the Princess
up as his niece, not knowing himself who she really was. She became
wise, respected, and beautiful in mind and form. Fate, who governs all
fairy stories, first brought the newspaper reporter into the presence
of the lost Princess. She was a mere girl then, and was selling
lemonade at--at twenty-five cents a glass. She--"
"Jack," came in wondering tones, "for mercy's sake, what are you
telling me?"
"Phyllis, can you not look back, perhaps as in a dream, to an old inn,
where soldiers and ministers in a hurry and confusion moved to and fro?
No; I dare say you were too young. The Princess Hildegarde of
Hohenphalia is your sister." I rose and bowed to her respectfully.
"My sister?--the Princess?--I, a Princess? Jack," indignantly, "you
are mocking me! It is not fair!"
"Phyllis, as sure as I stand before you, all I have said is true. And
now let me be the first to do homage to Your Serene Highness," taking
her hand despite her efforts to withdraw it, and kissing it.
"It is unreal! Impossible! Absurd!" she cried.
"Let me repeat the words of the French philosopher, who said, 'As
nothing is impossible, let us believe in the absurd,'" said I.
"But why has Uncle Bob kept me in ignorance all these years?"
unconvinced.
"Because, as I have said before, he knew nothing till to-day. I have
even spoken to the Chancellor, who has promised to aid in recovering
your rights."
"And does she know--the Princess Hildegarde? My sister? How strange
the word feels on my tongue."
"No; she does not know, but presently she will."
Then Phyllis asked in an altered tone, "And what is all this to you
that you thrust this greatness upon me?--a greatness, I assure you, for
which I do not care?"
I regarded her vaguely. I saw a precipice at my feet. I could not
tell her that in making her a Princess I was making Gretchen free. I
could not confess that my motive was purely a selfish one.
"It was a duty," said I, evasively.
"And in what way will it concern the Princess Hildegarde's affairs--and
yours?" She was rather merciless.
"Why should it concern any affair of mine?" I asked.
"You love her, and she loves you; may she not abdicate in my favor?"
"And if she should?" with an accent of impatience.
Phyllis grew silent. "Forgive me, Jack!" impulsively. "But all this
is scarcely to be believed. And then you say there are no proofs."
"Not in the eyes of the law," I replied; "but nature has written it in
your faces." I was wondering why she had not gone into raptures at the
prospect of becoming a Princess.
"It is a great honor," she said, after some meditation, "and it is very
kind of you. But I care as little for the title as I do for this
rose." And she cast away one of Pembroke's roses. It boded ill for my
cousin's cause.
Presently we saw the giver of the rose loom up in the doorway. He was
smiling as usual.
"It is supper, Jack," he said; "I'm afraid you'll have to go."
"Does he know?" whispered Phyllis as we rose.
"Yes."
She frowned. And as they went away I mused upon the uncertainty of
placing valuable things in woman's hands.
The next person I saw was the Chancellor.
"Well?" I interrogated.
"There can be no doubt," he said, "but--" with an expressive shrug.
"Life would run smoother if it had fewer 'buts' and 'its' and
'perhapses.' What you would say," said I, "is that there are no
proofs. Certainly they must be somewhere."
"But to find them!" cried he.
"I shall make the effort; the pursuit is interesting."
The expression in his eyes told me that he had formed an opinion in
regard to my part. "Ah, these journalists!" as he passed on.
Everything seemed so near and yet so far. Proofs? Where could they be
found if Wentworth had them not? If only there had been a trinket, a
kerchief, even, with the Hohenphalian crest upon it! I shook my fists
in despair. Gretchen was so far away, so far!
I went in search of her. She was still surrounded by men. The women
were not as friendly toward her as they might have been. The Prince
was standing near. Seeing me approach, his teeth gleamed for an
instant.
"Ah," said Gretchen, "here is Herr Winthrop, who is to take me in to
supper."
It was cleverly done, I thought. Even the Prince was of the same mind.
He appreciated all these phases. As we left them and passed in toward
the supper room, I whispered:
"I love you!"