Her instant and abrupt appearance had an odd effect upon these three
people. They all started perceptibly. The Tzar of all the Bulgars even
jumped. Then he stared at her with the intentness of a wild pig in the
rutting season. And King Constantine also regarded her with a stealthy
sort of pleasure discreetly screened by a mask of bluff and hearty
indifference:
"Now, my good girl," he said loudly, "kindly show us to our quarters and
be quick about it. And maybe you'll find a pretty silver franc in your
apron pocket if you step lively! Such things have happened--haven't
they, Sophy?"
Thusis curtsied, then I saw her beautiful gray eyes lifted slowly and
fix themselves upon the coldly staring orbs of the Hohenzollern
princess.
"Madame will graciously condescend to follow," she murmured. "A
thousand reverent excuses that I precede the gracious lady. But it is
inevitable when the humble guide the well born."
The Queen's hard, suspicious face never stirred a muscle. She leisurely
inspected Thusis from head to toe, from toe to head without approval and
without mercy.
"Are you the chamber maid?" she demanded coldly.
"My house-keeper and waitress, Madame," I explained. "Her name is
Thusis."
The Queen stared intently at Thusis, then very insolently at me:
"Your house-keeper? Really," she said,--"your _house-keeper_? Fancy!
One might almost doubt that such a very young girl could possess
sufficient domestic experience for such an important position."
I turned red; not Thusis, however; and either the vulgar innuendo had
left her quite unconscious, or she coolly scorned the implication. And
she merely smiled upon the Hohenzollern and awaited her Prussian
pleasure.
"Come on, Sophy," said King Constantine, with a covert leer at Thusis's
ankles. And they all started upstairs, King Ferdinand shuffling in the
rear with the peculiarly ponderous waddle which characterizes the
progress of an elephant's hind quarters.
King Constantine halted on the stairs to turn and call back to me in his
noisy, unceremonious, jovial way:
"Wait a bit, O'Ryan! I forgot to say that we're expecting some friends
of ours. So fix 'em up in good shape when they----"
"Go on, Tino!" interrupted the queen impatiently. "Don't you even know
enough to keep on going when you start? And God knows," she added in
her disagreeable voice, "it's hard enough to start you."
"All right, my dear," he exclaimed with his loud forced laugh. "I only
wanted to rest Buggy's legs a bit."
And the anointed of the Lord resumed their shuffling progress upward at
the heels of the swift, light feet of Thusis.
As for me I went out to the court where their luggage lay piled. The
wagon which had brought them was gone, but Raoul stood there, his hat on
one side, hands on hips, chewing a wheat-straw and gazing blandly at the
pile of royal luggage.
"These," said I carelessly, "belong upstairs. Thusis will tell you where
to carry them, Raoul."
"Bien, Monsieur!"
We both looked gravely at the luggage, then my glance rested on his
pleasant, reckless face in which I seemed to notice a gaiety more marked
than usual.
For one moment, as he caught my eye, I thought he was going to wink at
me, but, even as his eyelid quivered, he seemed to recollect himself.
And, with an absolutely indescribable expression, he seized upon the
luggage, and, both arms full, strode toward the back stairs. And, far
in the passageway, I heard him singing under his breath:
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm,
You have done a heap of harm----"
until Josephine Vannis came to the pantry door, her superb arms all over
flour, and said in French: "Hush, Raoul, or I slay thee with my
rolling-pin, thou imbecile, curly, hot-head!"
"My Josephine adored," he retorted, "thou slayest me hourly with thy
Olympian beauty----"
"Be silent, addlepate, I implore thee! Is the very devil in thee,
Raoul, to endanger everything with thy empty-headed audacity?"
"Ruler of hearts," he rejoined, "remain tranquil. _Nous les aurons!_"
I went upstairs, discovered Smith lying on his bed and reading, and then
and there told him the whole story. He did not appear to be very much
surprised over the royal identity of my guests.
"That sort of king," he remarked, "is likely to run about under foot.
You'll find them a nuisance." And he resumed his novel and his pipe.