"That sounds almost pro-hun," said I.
"It does sound so," he admitted.
"Of course you're not pro-German," I added incredulously.
"Of course not," he rejoined calmly.
"Then----"
"I can't explain. I'm merely warning you not to aid her in this
affair."
"Does Thusis know your attitude?"
"No, but she will."
"You are going to tell her?"
"No; but _you_ are."
"I certainly shall," said I, warmly. "And I'd like to know why you are
interfering with what she desires to do."
"I can't tell you why, Michael; but I'll tell _her_ why--if she asks
me."
"You may be very sure that Thusis will ask you, Smith," said I,
perplexed to the verge of exasperation by his amazing attitude.
"Suppose _you_ tell her," he said, amused. "All you need do is to
repeat this couplet to her:
"_Grecian gift and Spanish fig_
_Help the fool his grave to dig!_"
"What idiot's jargon is that!" I demanded.
"A jargon that is likely to hold our pretty Thusis for a while. It is a
word of warning--a signal of danger used by members of a secret society
known as the AEgean League. Also it is likely to start her looking for
me. And when she finds me I think she'll listen to reason and renounce
this silly and useless attempt to trap royalty wholesale for export
purposes. Not," he added gaily, "that I shouldn't expire with laughter
to see Raoul and you, for example, take that pair of kings by the slack
of the pants and run them Spanish into France. I'd applaud it, old top.
I'd give frequent cheers during the process. But Thusis and Clelia
mustn't start any such shindy. No! And if they inquire why, just
repeat that verse to them and refer them to me."
"Then you are _not_ here to watch these hun conspirators?" I asked in
astonishment.
"Only incidentally."
"Do you mean to say that you are here, primarily, to watch Thusis and
Clelia?"
"That is exactly why I am here, Michael. And I don't mind your telling
them so. I myself was going to tell them. I had intended to break the
news to them to-night. But the avalanche makes it unnecessary; they
can't get out of this valley with their cartload of kings, now.
However, let me suggest that you repeat that couplet to Thusis."
"This," said I, "is a most astounding and disagreeable series of
complications. I don't understand them. I don't understand Thusis or
you or that bagful of boches downstairs."
"Don't try to, old chap," he said in his friendly way. "And above all,
don't break your heart over Thusis. For when the snow that blocks the
pass melts, or when somebody digs through, I don't believe you are ever
likely to see Thusis again."
His kindly sincerity scared and angered me.
"Watch me!" said I. "An O'Ryan never loves but once. But when he does
love----"
"All right, old fellow. Go to it and God help you. They say He has a
warm spot in His heart for the Irish."
I nodded, looking at him very seriously: "It's quite impossible," said
I, "that she's royal. And if she's an actress I don't care, because I'm
so deeply in love with her that I don't know whether I'm afoot or on
horseback. And when an O'Ryan feels that way the world is his or he
continues on to Heaven."
"Does it really mean Life or Death to you already, Michael?" he asked
gravely.
"Life or death, sink or swim, survive or perish,--as some Yankee orator
said once. Nothing matters now except Thusis. That's my only reason
for living. Yesterday I wanted wealth, to-day my estate can go to the
deuce. Yesterday I was a rather sober, decent citizen, perpetrating
interior decoration in New York, to-day I figuratively kick the varnish
off period furniture, tear down tapestries, smash Chinese pottery, and
wipe my feet on the rags of Renaissance! Art is nothing! Thusis is
everything. If she wants a few kings to play with, she shall have them.
I'll bag them for her. I'll do anything in the world for her. And if
that's not enough I'll step off this damned old planet and pull wires
aloft for the honor and glory and happiness of the noblest, sweetest,
loveliest, most beauti----"
A slight exclamation behind me checked my excited confession.
Slowly turning in my tracks I beheld Thusis at the door in cap and
apron.
There was a terrific silence.
Then Thusis, her fair face deeply flushed, dropped us a curtsey.
"Dinner is served, sir," she said faintly. And was gone like a shadow.
*XV*
*A TRAVELING CIRCUS*
The royal traveling circus was already seated and whetting its appetite
with hors d'oeuvres, when I arrived in the dining-room and, saluting my
guests, took my place as host at the head of the long table.
Heaven! What a collection! Being incognito, I was not supposed to be
aware of the identity of royalty; but Thusis had seated the ex-queen of
Greece on my right and Tino on my left, and, beyond Queen Sophia, she
had put the Tsar of all the Bulgars,--with a clean napkin where he had
soiled the cover.
The new accessions to this traveling show had, very evidently, decided
among themselves the places at table to which they were entitled by
precedence of rank. And these they now occupied.
The two Bolsheviki, Leo Puppsky and Isidore Wildkatz, had been relegated
to the foot of the table where they sat hunched up and scowling about
them until noodle soup presently preoccupied them.
I do not know which one of my guests was the noisiest: the Tsar of all
the Bulgars sucked up his soup with the distressingly acute sound of a
sick horse drinking; the Princess Pudelstoff lapped and slobbered and
wheezed in her slopping plate; but the technique of the Bolsheviki was
simple and more effective, being reduced to a primitive, incessant
gobbling noise, followed by patient and persistent scraping.
Behind my chair stood Raoul as extemporary butler; Thusis and Clelia in
spotless caps and aprons sped lightly hither and thither; while from the
depths of the kitchen, Josephine Vannis fed us all with the most
delectable dinner which I think I ever tasted.
Ordinary wine being included on my bill of fare, the Tsar guzzled it
while his sly eye of a wild pig roved about reading labels on the
various bottles of more expensive wine ordered by the others.
The Bolsheviki, having plenty of the Russian people's money, demanded
"bowcoo tchimpagne"; King Tino drank goblets of a rather heavy claret;
his wife sipped only bottled water, while her cold, steely eyes
glittered from guest to guest.
I conversed politely when spoken to; otherwise I made no effort. The
Prussian admiral worked his bushy eyebrows and his coarse, fan-shaped
beard while munching, but whether in hostility to me or because he was
built that way, I did not know, and did not care.
He and Baron von Bummelzug sat all hunched up side by side, gobbling in
their whiskers and exchanging Teutonic grunts which seemed to be their
substitute for human conversation. Herr Secretary Gizzler, factotum to
the Baron, and seated with the Bolsheviki, devastated his plate and
seized ravenously upon anything eatable in his vicinity, which presently
elicited a chattering protest from Puppsky; and a quarrel rapidly
developed until squelched by General Count von Dungheim.
"Silence!" he said angrily: "you make so much noise that it is
impossible to hear oneself eat!"
The Princess Pudelstoff nodded violently, balancing a knifeful of mashed
potato before committing it to its dreadful destiny:
"They act," she said in English, "like they was never to a high-toned
dinner. It's them two Bolsheviks that ain't had a square meal since
Hindy licked the Rooshians at the Missouri Lakes."
Leo Puppsky made a violent gesture at her with the leg of a chicken:
"Is that the way to speak of us?" he said to his sister. "And you a
Russian and my own sister!"
"Ain't it true?" she asked with a loud laugh. "Get sense, Leo. There
won't be nothing to eat in Rooshia so long as you act ugly to
Germany----"
"Princess!" interrupted the queen of Greece, sharply.
"That's right," said Tino in a loud, good humored voice; "one doesn't
discuss politics while dining. No! One pays strict attention to what
one eats and drinks; eh, Sophy?"
The queen ignored him, and he slyly batted one eye at the pretty
Countess Manntrapp, his neighbor, and tossed off a brimming goblet of
deep red claret.
"Aha!" he said, smacking his lips, "that beats even the wine of Naxos.
Did you ever drink Naxos wine, Countess?"
"No," said she; "is it very excellent?"
"Heady, Countess, heady! After you crack one bottle you begin to see
the old gods of Greece sitting beside you on pink clouds in their
underclothes----"
"Tino!" snapped the Queen.
The Countess laughed. "I'd like to see them." She looked across at me
with her fascinating, audacious smile: "Wouldn't you like to drink Naxos
wine with me, Mr. O'Ryan, and see the old time gods come down out of the
blue sky and sit at table all about you?"
"It seems to me," said I, bowing, "that Aphrodite has already arrived
among us mortals."
She laughed, acknowledging the raw compliment, then pursing up her red
mouth but uttering no sound she nevertheless formed her question so that
I read every word on her mobile lips:
"Do--you--know--anybody--who--would--play--Adonis--to--my--Venus?"
And she laughed her daring little laugh and made me a pretty gesture,
intercepted by Ferdinand of Bulgaria who took it for himself and
continued to ogle her out of passionate, pig-like eyes until further
engrossed in a new relay of food.
It was a dreadful dinner party. Both the kings made life wretched for
Clelia and Thusis as they waited on table, slyly pinching them when
unobserved until, from Thusis' burning cheeks and trembling hands as she
served me, I almost feared she would launch a plate at the royal
libertines.
It was a weird company. The Bolsheviki chattered and grabbed at food;
all the Germans ate noisily--excepting only the pretty Countess
Manntrapp, who had been Lila Shezawitch, and not a Teuton by birth.
Constantine had had more claret than was good for him and now he was
pouring into himself countless little glasses of brandy, and was
becoming loudly and somewhat coarsely talkative, retailing bits of
barrack-room gossip to General Count von Dungheim and cracking dubious
jokes with Baron von Bummelzug until his wife spoke to him with such
cutting contempt that he winced and relapsed into a half hazy and
giggling exchange of whispers with the Countess Manntrapp. As for the
Princess Pudelstoff, she had never for one moment ceased stuffing
herself. Sweat stood in oily beads on her forehead and cheeks; her fat
hands plied knife and fork and spoon without interruption save when she
grasped her beer mug in both jeweled hands and drew mighty and noisy
draughts from the heavy quart receptacle.
The whole performance at my table was becoming a horrid nightmare to me;
I could not see any signs of satiation among these dreadful people--any
desire to call it off and quit and retire to their respective sties.
Smith caught my eye and I saw him suppress the smile that twitched his
features.
Then it suddenly occurred to me that I had news for the traveling circus
that might modify their appetites; and I said, distinctly, and raising
my voice sufficiently to command attention from everybody:
"There is some very serious information which I regret that it is
necessary to share with everybody here. I did not wish to spoil your
appetites. But dinner is over, and I had better speak."
All feeding ceased; everybody stared at me.
"I regret that I am obliged to inform you," I continued, "that the snow
field on the south flank of the Bec de l'Empereur, loosened by the warm
deluge of rain, has fallen, completely choking the pass which is our
only entrance to and exit from this valley."
"An avalanche!" exclaimed the Queen of Greece sharply.
"Yes, madame, a very bad one."
"We are blocked in," she gasped.
"Absolutely."
At that the Princess Pudelstoff uttered a squeak of fright: "We're all
going to starve!" she squealed in alarm; "that's what he means! There
isn't enough food for us and we'll all die the way they are dying in
Rooshia----"
"There's plenty of food," I interrupted.
"Ach, Gott sei dank! Gott sei dank!" she shouted, clapping her pudgy
hands and seizing knife and fork again.
But the others were now rising from their seats, exchanging glances full
of anxiety and perplexity; and, as I left the room with Smith, I saw
them all gathering around the Ex-Queen of Greece as though general
consternation had seized them. Only the Princess Pudelstoff remained in
her chair, devouring tartlets, her triple chin agitated by a series of
convulsive shudders as she bolted sections of pastry too large for her.
Coffee was to be served _al fresco_; Raoul had set a number of green
iron tables and chairs out by the fountain.
"My heavens, Smith," said I, "we should serve them coffee in a common
trough. Did you ever before endure such misery at any table?"
"Oh, yes," he said, "I've lived in Germany."
"Well I haven't, and I'm going to skip the demitasse," I rejoined. And
I walked around the house and entered the back door where two latticed
arbors flanked the stone walk.
Here I seated myself and lighted a cigarette, still unnerved by the
martyrdom of that dinner table.
It was quiet and peaceful in the sunset light under my roof of curly
grape leaves where sun spots glowed amid the tender green and two little
active birds climbed busily and silently about the foliage in search of
aphids.
I had been sitting there for ten minutes, perhaps, when the door opened
behind me and Thusis appeared with coffee. Her lovely features still
were tinged with the rosy glow of recent wrath; her gray eyes were still
brilliant with the same emotion.
"Coffee, if you please, sir?" she said crisply.