"Seriously----"
"I am quite serious, Don Michael."
"You're bent on searching their luggage," said I. "And Ferdinand has
two big automatic pistols."
"You're such a funny boy," said Thusis with her adorable smile. "But
now you must run away and let me do my dusting."
Her sleeves were rolled to her shoulders. I had never seen such perfect
arms except in Greek sculpture. I said so, impulsively. And Thusis
blushed.
"That is the sort of thing I had rather you did not say," she remarked.
"But if it's quite true, Thusis----"
"Does one blurt out anything merely because one believes it to be true?
Besides, ill-made or agreeable, my arms do not concern you, Monsieur
O'Ryan."
"Everything that you are concerns me very deeply, Thusis----"
"I will not have it so!"
"But you said I might pay my court to you----"
"But you don't pay court! You make love to me!"
"What is the essential difference?"
"To court a woman is to be polite, empresse, always ready to serve her,
always quick with some stately compliment, some pretty conceit, some
bon-mot to please her, some trifle of wit, of gossip." She cast a
deliciously wicked look at me. "I have no doubt, Michael, that you
could, without effort, measure up to the standard of a faultless
courtier.... If you'd be content to do so."
That was too much for me. I stepped toward her and slipped my arm
around her pliant waist. She laughed, resisted, flushed, then lost her
color and clutched my hand at her waist with her own, striving to
unloosen it.
"Don't do that, Michael," she said, breathing unevenly.
"I love you, Thusis----"
"I don't wish to listen----"
"I'm madly in love with you----"
"Michael!"
"What?"
"_Are_ you trying to kiss me?"
That is what I was trying to do. She twisted herself free and stepped
aside; and I saw the rapid pulse in her white throat and the irregular
flutter of her bosom.
For a moment the old blaze flamed once more in her gray eyes and I
expected a most terrifying wigging, but all she said was: "You are very
rough with me," in a small and breathless voice; and, suddenly, to my
astonishment, turned her back and laid her head on the handle of her
broom.
"Thusis----"
"Please d-don't speak to me."
"I only----"
"I ask you to go."
So I went, leaving her standing there with her clasped hands on the
broom supporting her bowed head.
Smith was sulkily smoking his pipe. Clelia, beautiful and indifferent,
leaned against the sideboard, awaiting the advent of royalty in the
breakfast-room.
I went on out. Raoul, standing under the dripping eaves, was just
hoisting an umbrella, and I took advantage of it and went over to the
bottling works.
"We're making quite a lot of money," said I, looking over the order book
and ledger.
Raoul smiled and ran his well shaped fingers through his curly hair.
"It's good spring-water," he said, "and God permits you an innocent
income not wrung out of the poor, not cheated out of the less fortunate,
not gouged out of business rivals whose loss is your gain."
I also smiled: "It is quite true, Raoul, that I do harm to nobody by
bottling and selling the water which God has seen fit to send out
gushing from these deep rocks."
"You'd never harm anybody anyway!" he said coolly. "One knows a
gentleman."
And he went about his work, singing the song he seemed always to
prefer----
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm,
You have done a heap of harm----"
And I began to wonder how the Queen would like that song if he came
carelessly caroling it in her vicinity.
However, it was not my business to direct the musical inclinations of my
household. I took the umbrella and, stepping to the door, spread it.
"It's quite a storm," I remarked.
"There'll be avalanches," said Raoul. I thought he spoke uneasily and
that there was a hint of apprehension in the glance he cast up at the
Bec de l'Empereur.
"Of course," said I, "we are safe enough in this valley."
"Yes, but a bad slide might choke the pass."
"What would that do to us, Raoul?"
"Cut us off from the rest of the world," he said simply.
"For how long?"
"Days, weeks--longer perhaps. Who knows what might happen if a big snow
broke loose from the Bec de l'Empereur?"
"Anyway," said I, "we have sufficient provisions."
"Plenty, Monsieur."
"Then it would mean only a rather dull and exasperating imprisonment."
He looked at me with an odd smile: "It might mean the salvation of the
world--or its damnation," he said.
I was silent but curious. He smiled again and shrugged. "For me," he
said, "I pray that no avalanche falls to block this valley within the
week." He looked upward into the heavily falling rain, standing there
bare-headed.
"I ask," he said in a low, serious voice, "that God should be graciously
pleased to hold His hand for one week longer before He lets loose His
eternal snows upon this valley."
When I returned to the breakfast-room royalty was feeding. All
acknowledged my greeting with civility, even Tino who, however, also
turned red and nervously pasted his roll with marmalade.
"For diversion," inquired the Queen, "what does one do here?"
I enumerated the out-door sports. Nobody cared to fish except with a
net. Tino expressed himself vaguely as in favor of a chamois hunt when
he felt up to it. The Queen wished to climb the Bec de l'Empereur, but
when I told her there were no guides nearer than Berne and also that
this rain made the mountains very dangerous, she decided to postpone the
ascent.
As for the Tzar of all the Bulgars he paid strict attention to his plate
and betrayed no inclination for anything more strenuous than the facial
exercise of chewing.
While the Queen was there neither King ventured to annoy Clelia, but
after her majesty had left the table they both evinced symptoms of
pinching, furtive leers and smirks.
However, there was a stoniness about my expression which served to
discourage them. Ferdinand scrubbed his beard in his finger-bowl with a
wallowing sound, dried it noisily on his napkin, rose, bowed to me, and
waddled back upstairs.
Tino seemed very uncomfortable to find himself alone with me. But I
conversed with him as good humoredly as though I had never told him what
I should do to him in the event of his misbehavior under my roof. And
we got on well enough.
He had mean eyes, however, and a fussy, jerky, nervous manner, yet
furtive for all that. An odd monarch with the most false face, except
for Ferdinand's, that I had ever beheld, though at first encounter one
might easily be deceived and take him for what he pretended to be--a
bluff, noisy, unceremonious, and somewhat coarse soldier with his
tete-de-militaire and his allure and vocabulary of the Caserne.
"We've some friends arriving to-day," he said. "Did my wife tell you?"
"Somebody mentioned it yesterday, I believe."
"Well, they'll be here to-day, so fix them up snugly, O'Ryan."
"The rain may prevent them from starting," I suggested.
"Rain or no rain they'll be here," he repeated, lighting a strong
cigarette.
He went away presently upstairs. And I did not doubt they would all
have their noses together in a few moments discussing whatever crisis
had brought them to this lonely little valley without escort or servants
and carefully camouflaged.