Abroad with the Jimmies Part 7

"Couldn't help it," he answered, laconically. "We'd better give in handsomely for three days. It'll pay us in the end. Get into your 'glad rags' and be good."

"But I didn't bring my 'glad rags,'" I said.

Just then Bee looked around from fastening a lace b.u.t.terfly in her hair on a jewelled spiral.

"I had two extra trays in my trunk and I put a few of your things in.

Would you like to wear your lace gown? You've never even tried it on."

My mouth flew open, contrary to politeness and my excellent bringing-up.

Jimmie collapsed with a silent grin, while I meekly followed Bee into my room.

When I saw my new gown all full of rolls of tissue-paper, packed by poor dear Bee, I went to my trunk and pulled out my smart Charvet tie. I handed it to her in silence.

"Take it," I said. "I hate to give it up, but you deserve it."

Bee accepted it gratefully.

"It's good of you to give it to me," she said. "You really need it more than I do, only this peculiar shade of blue is so becoming to me. I'll tell you what I'll do though," she added, heroically. "I'll _lend_ it to you whenever you want it."

I thanked her, dressed, and then humbly trailed down to dinner in the wake of my gorgeous party.

Jimmie had engaged a table on the piazza, nearest the street and commanding the best view of all the other diners. I very willingly sat with my back to all the people, with the panorama of the Lichtenthaler Stra.s.se pa.s.sing before my eyes, and in quiet moments the sounds of the great military band playing on the promenade in front of the _Conversationshaus_ coming to our ears.

A great deal of grandeur always makes me homesick. It isn't envy. I don't want to be a princess and have the bother of winding a horn for my outriders when I want to run to the drug-store for postage stamps, but pomp depresses me. Everybody was strange, foreign languages were pelting me from the rear, noiseless flunkies were carrying pampered lap-dogs with crests on their nasty little embroidered blankets, fat old women with epilepsy and gouty old men with scrofula, representing the aristocracy at its best, were being half carried to and from tables, and the degeneracy of n.o.ble Europe was being borne in upon my soul with a sickening force.

The purple twilight was turning black on the distant hills, and the silent stars were slowly coming into view. Clean, health-giving Baden-Baden, in the Valley of the Oos, with its beauty and its pure air, was holding out her arms to all the disease and filth that degenerate riches produce.

I wasn't exactly blue, but I was gently melancholy. Jimmie was smoking, and Bee and Mrs. Jimmie had their heads together, casting politely furtive glances at a table which held royalty. I certainly _was_ feeling neglected.

Suddenly a voice in English at my elbow said:

"Pardon me, madame, but were not you at the Grand Hotel at Rome last winter?"

"Yes," I said.

"I mean no impertinence in addressing you. I am the head waiter there in winter, here in summer. I remembered you at once, and I came to say that if anything goes wrong with any of your distinguished party during your stay, I shall count it a favour if you will permit me to remedy it. The hotel is at your disposal. I will send a private maid to attend you during your stay. I hope you will be happy here, madame."

Then with a bow he was gone.

I was in a state of exhilaration inside which threatened to break through at the sudden attentions of my party.

"Who's your friend?" said Jimmie.

"How nice of him!" commented his wife.

"Servants never remember me, yet I always fee better than you do,"

complained Bee.

"Console yourself. It is only porters and head waiters who care whether I am happy or not," I said, bitterly.

"Deary me!" said Jimmie, sitting up. "Come, let's get out of this. We must walk her over where she'll hear some music and see some pretty lights or she'll drown herself in her bath to-morrow."

We went, we promenaded, we showed our clothes, and came home smirking with satisfaction. We had been pointed out everywhere for Americans, which spoke volumes for our clothes and the smallness of our feet.

During two mortal weeks we stayed at Baden-Baden, taking the baths, improving our German and driving through the Black Forest and the Oos Valley to the green hills beyond.

Then on one happy day we were all packed to go. We sent our trunks down, saw every drawer emptied, pulled the bed to pieces, looked under it and decided that _this_ time we hadn't left so much as a pin. Bee stuck her "_blaue cravatte_," as we now called the necktie, under the bureau mat to put on when we came up, and then we s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty luncheon. In the meantime we turned our "private maid" and the chambermaid loose to see if we had overlooked anything.

When we came up they were still rummaging, but had found nothing.

Bee hurried to the bureau and looked under the mat. No tie. She asked the two women. They had not seen it. Then everybody hunted. Jimmie swore we had packed it. But Bee's gray eyes turned to green as she watched the flurried movements of the two maids. She walked up to them.

"Give me that blue necktie," she said, in awful German.

At that Jimmie, who hates a row when it is not of his own making, interfered and insisted that we must have packed it--he remembered numbers of times when we had made a fuss over nothing--it was of no account anyway, and if we would only come along and not miss the train he would send back to Charvet and get Bee another "_blaue cravatte_."

"For heaven's sake, take that man downstairs," I said to Mrs. Jimmie, "and let us manage this affair."

So poor Jimmie was whisked from the scene of action, still protesting and gesticulating, and being soothed but marched steadily onward by his wife.

When we came down we were heated but unsuccessful. I insisted upon reporting the affair to my friend the head waiter. He almost went back on his devotion to me in his a.s.surances that those maids were honest.

Then Jimmie had to come up and interfere, and those two men decided that we had packed it.

Bee was in a cold ladylike fury.

We gave all the servants double fees to a.s.sure them that meanness had not prompted the search, and got into the carriage.

"Remember," said Bee, "I claim that one of those women has that tie in her pocket now, because all four of us looked every inch of the rooms over together. I advise you to have them searched. On the other hand I will telegraph you from Nuremberg if I find it in my trunks."

We had half an hour before the train left. Bee, who was riding backward, kept looking out down the road whence we had come with a curious expression on her face. Jimmie, in spite of warning pressures from his wife's foot, kept sputtering about women's poor memories, etc. Bee didn't even seem to hear.

Presently, in a cloud of dust, up drove one of the men from the hotel, with a little package in his hand.

"_Blaue cravatte,_" he said, bowing.

"Where did you find it?" demanded Mrs. Jimmie.

"Between the mattress and the springs of the bed. Madame must have put it there to press it."

Jimmie looked sheepish and put us into the train with a red face. Bee simply slipped the tie into her satchel and put on her travelling-cap without a word, and began to read. Bee never nags or crows.

So much for Baden-Baden.

CHAPTER IV