I had been masticating longer than I realized for the light in the room
was already growing less when a knock came at my door; and I shoved my
unuttered verses into the drawer and grunted out, "Come in!"
It was Thusis, transfigured, sparkling, mischievous, audacious. And she
was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Her magnificent ruddy hair, unloosened, framed her face, its upcurled,
burnished ends falling to her waist.
Otherwise she was an exquisite French doll in knee-skirts and sash and
all over pale blue ribbons.
"I'm going to have a good time if I do murder to-morrow, Michael. Do
you like my costume? Really? That is so sweet of you! You always are
the most satisfactory of men! And you should see Clelia! She's like me
only her ribbons and sash are primrose. She is really charming."
"Thusis," said I, "you and Clelia shall sit at table and Smith and I are
going to turn waiters! No!" as she exclaimed in protest, "let's be
logical in our grotesqueries! This little world of ours here in
Schwindlewald is already absurd enough with you and Clelia waiting on
table. Let's turn it completely upside down and stand it on its head."
She finally consented, forced by my gay ardour, and, I think,
mischievously pleased at the prospect of protest from the Queen.
All over the house, now, I could hear snatches of loud laughter as my
Teutonic guests began to gather and visit one another in their costumes.
Thusis fled; and I opened the door and broke the news to Smith.
"Get into your evening duds," I added, "and announce dinner. We're all
going stark mad and I'm glad of it."
So I dressed, and found him ready when I was; and we went downstairs
into the large lounging room where Raoul was fitting disks into the
music-box.
He laughed when we told him our intentions, and then we went into the
kitchen and informed Josephine Vannis. That stately Juno condescended
to smile on us. She was rather tremendously imposing as a baby with
bonnet and stick-out skirts--as though somebody had decked out a
masterpiece of Praxiteles.
Retiring, Smith murmured: "Only the Parthenon possesses such
awe-inspiring symmetry; only the Acropolis could vie with her. Did you
ever see such superb underpinning in all your life?"
Stunned by such stupendous symmetry I admitted that I never had. And we
went away to announce dinner.
But it was not until the noisy company were gathered in the dining-room
that the Queen perceived the two empty chairs and began to realize my
intentions. And she came to me and made angry representations, refusing
to be seated on the right of a servant, or, indeed, to suffer servants
at all at table, and saying that if she chose to admit my waitresses to
the dancing hall, it was because such privileges sometimes were
graciously permitted to the peasantry who never misunderstood such
condescension.
"Madame," said I, "my housekeeper, Thusis, sits in my place at table
this evening. And if, madame, you are so deeply concerned about it,
comfort yourself with the explanation that in my housekeeper you behold
your host; she is my vice-reine, or vice-roy, or vice-regent--whatever
you like best, madame! She represents me! In her you see embodied the
inviolable authority of the master of this house wherein you are a
guest! However, madame, if you prefer to be served alone in the bar, I
will have a table set there for you----"
She almost spat at me; and Thusis entered, her hand linked in Clelia's.
I think the royal circus was stupefied by the beauty of these two young
girls. A rather frightful silence reigned for a moment; then the
Countess Manntrapp clapped her jeweled hands and sang out in her clear,
soprano voice: "Brava! Bravissima! They are beautiful, our little
waitresses!"
Eddin Bey removed his red fez and, swinging it by the tassel, gave three
hochs.
Then, instantly, the cheers broke out everywhere: I gave Thusis my arm;
Smith offered his to Clelia; and we seated them amid shouts and the
waving of napkins, the queen's eyes glittering like twin daggers all the
while.
Such an uproar as Smith and I served the soup! Gurgles, gulps, scraping,
sucking sounds arose from feeding Teutons. The fish produced a
frightful clatter of knives and forks, and the Princess Pudelstoff cut
her lip with her knife but stuck a patch on it and joyously immersed it
in gravy.
They--the kings and admirals and generals were drinking too much; I
noticed that in the din. And toward the wrecked climax of the dinner
when everybody was offering everybody else tinsel bon-bons, and people
were pulling snapping-crackers with one another, I sent Raoul out to
start the music-box; and Josephine Vannis emerged all clean and fresh
and scented to join the revelry.
Her appearance awed us all; again I felt that innate reverence for the
prodigiously beautiful, that awe for things superbly Greek. Her effect
upon the two kings, however, was pronounced. The wild-pig eyes of
Ferdinand became fixed and vitreous for a full minute; King
Constantine's orbs bulged. Both made straight for her when Thusis gave
the signal to rise; and I saw the exasperated Queen staring at her
spouse and fingering a large, sharp, jeweled pin.
But I went into the dancing room and took command without loss of time;
and Smith followed with a bottle of wine and a roast chicken--our own
dinner which we intended to discuss while supervising this party and
keeping the music-box busy.
"Silence!" said I, hammering on the glass lampshade with my fork. "The
party begins, like all children's parties, with children's games.
'Going to Jerusalem' will be the first game played!"
"How is that played?" demanded several at once.
I instructed them, gravely; and presently Smith and I, eating our dinner
beside the music-box, beheld our guests in their baby costumes marching
around and around a row of chairs and, at a given signal, falling into
the unoccupied seats with squeals and shrieks and bellows of laughter.
They tired of that, presently, and I laid aside my chicken and glass of
claret and, rising, instructed them in the game called
"Oats-peas-beans." They listened attentively, but Thusis and Clelia
appeared much disconcerted when further revelations on my part disclosed
that it was a "kissing" game; and they both withdrew, firmly declining
to play it, much to the dissatisfaction of Eddin Bey and Tino.
So Thusis and Clelia came over to where Smith and I were installed, and,
while we resumed our dinner, they cranked the music-box in which I had
inserted a disk containing the immemorial air of "Oats-peas-beans."
We then became pleased observers of royalty and nobility in baby
clothes, hands joined, walking very seriously in a circle in the center
of which stood the Princess Pudelstoff, and singing in unison and with
all their might:
"_Oats-peas-beans_
_And barley grow,_
_Though you and I and nobody knows_
_Where oats-peas-beans_
_And barley grow!_"
"_Thus the farmer sows his seed!_
(All made motions of scattering something.)
_Thus he stands and takes his ease!_
(All with hands on hips.)
_Stamps his foot,_
(All stamp)
_And claps his hand,_
(All clap.)
_And turns around to view the land,_
(All turn.)
_While waiting for a partner!_
_While waiting for a partner!_
_So open the ring_
_And choose one in_
_And kiss him when you get him in!_"
The singing ceased; the Princess Pudelstoff giggled; then, to his
dismay, she pounced upon Eddin Bey, almost throttled that handsome
Moslem in her enthusiasm, and gave him a resounding smack amid screams
of laughter and roars of approval.
And then the game waxed fast and furious: Eddin Bey chose the Countess
Manntrapp and kissed her delicately and courteously; she chose King
Constantine, but merely saluted his cheek, much to his exasperation.
Then Tino held the ring, waggish, jocose, bantering everybody with their
expectations. But though the queen eyed him commandingly, furiously, he
swaggered over to Josephine Vannis and soundly kissed that classic
memorial in animated Grecian marble.
The Teutons behaved rather grossly; King Ferdinand ranged the ring like
a liberated wild hog and presently charged the object of his osculatory
intentions--Josephine.
Probably nobody dared kiss the queen, but such respectful abstention
seemed to please her none the more, for presently she hissed something
into Tino's ear, and he chose her into the ring with an agility born of
terror.
Once there she glared at everybody and then, with a sneer, selected Tino
again, and the game, promising to become a monotony and a deadlock, I
rose and, waving a leg of the chicken to impose silence, proclaimed that
the games had ended and that dancing would now begin.
Raoul inserted a fox-trot of sorts; and the next instant everybody was
footing it.
"Raoul," I said in a guarded voice, "did you souse those Bolsheviki in
sheep-dip?"
"I did, sir."
"What did they do?"
"They made an agonizing noise, Monsieur. I fear it was, perhaps, their
first bath."
"Go up and dip 'em again."
"All Bolshevikdom will shriek," he said, grinning.
"Let it for a change. It's set all the world scratching. Let Bolshevik
Russia do a little shrieking, now that she feels the boche biting her
worse than her native cooties! Get some more sheep-dip and de-louse
that pair of things upstairs."
He went away, laughing.
*XXIII*
*THUSIS*
For a while the dancing was lively and good-humored hilarity reigned.
The Tzar of all the Bulgars had imbibed enough wine to dull, if not to
obliterate that continual desire of his to slink into corners and peep
out at a hostile world bent on his assassination. Only when somebody
spoke to him too abruptly behind his back did the customary symptoms
blanch his face and set his wild eyes roving and his big nose wrinkling
like a boar which winds an enemy.
He was having as good a time as such a person can ever have; and toward
supper time his exhilaration incited him to attempt a waddling sort of
Bulgarian dance with the Countess Manntrapp--an amazing exhibition of
mammoth movements on his part; and a sort of infernal and fascinating
grace on the part of the lithe Countess.
Dancing with Thusis, I hastily led her out of their way, and everybody
else stood in the circle, the center of which was pervaded by Ferdinand
and his lively vis-a-vis.
Which performance presently stirred Admiral Lauterlaus from a somewhat
beer-sodden lethargy, and he emitted raucous sounds of protest. But
Baron Bummelzug began to snap his fingers and stamp and caper in
imitation of the _schuplattl_ of the Bavarian peasantry; and all the
boche except the Queen, imitated him and seized partners.
Eddin Bey came to ask Thusis, and he was so faultlessly polite and so
gay and graceful that she cast a saucy glance of dismissal at me and
accepted him.
It was quite all right, of course, but it depressed me a little,
particularly because Clelia had inexorably refused everybody except
Smith.
Now there is a very beautiful Grecian dance supposed to be the
triumphant dance executed by the Ten Thousand when they caught sight of
the sea; and it is called "The Sea-dance."
Tino, rather drunk, climbed on a chair, shouted for attention, and
informed the company that he was about to perform this celebrated dance.
But when we all gave him room he jigged around a while like an
intoxicated soldier's drab, and, remarking jauntily that he had
forgotten it, offered ten thousand drachma to anybody present who could
dance the Sea-dance of the Ten Thousand.
He was rather vulgar about it, too, digging into his pockets and pulling
out fistfuls of hun gold, and loudly demanding that somebody should
attempt to win it.
I glanced instinctively toward Thusis who, her dance with Eddin
interrupted, stood in the circle opposite me.
Her gray eyes were brilliant, her cheeks delicately flushed, and the
shock of thick ruddy hair fairly glittered, every silky thread afire
with the gleam of molten gold.
She looked at me with the sweet, reckless audacity of a spoiled child;
then she laughed and said something to Clelia. I saw the latter go to
the music box, select a record, start it; and the haunting air called
The Sea-dance floated out.
Then Thusis seemed suddenly to melt into motion; her slim feet scarcely
touched the floor; head, arms, slender body, were all part of a single
and exquisite motion flowing from one soft curve to another.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room; and I did hear one--a big
jeweled affair, that clattered to my feet.
As I stooped to recover it the queen said hoarsely in my ear:
"Who is that girl?"