The Ghost Breaker Part 11

"No, sir. I cain't say as I did. I wasn't anxious to look."

The door opened, with a suddenness which caused both men to jump. It was the Princess. She smiled with relief as she saw the rehabilitation.

"How de do, Mrs. Princess?" was Rusty's polite greeting, with a bow.

His formality was growing more impressive, as the acquaintance extended. Here was "quality" indeed--Rusty was a judge of "breed"!

"How do you do, Rusty?" and she laughed girlishly.

Then she turned toward her va.s.sal. He wore a quizzical, friendly, and amusingly pathetic look. The bruises of his trip were evident upon the clear-cut features.

"I am so glad that you made it all right. But how they must have b.u.mped and banged and wabbled and whirled you!"

"I believe I could go over Niagara Falls in a barrel now, without turning a hair."

She saw the hand--with its red wound. She winced, and reached for the hand, womanlike.

"Oh, that's dreadful. You must have it attended at once. Let me get something."

Warren stoically drew it away from the gentle touch of the white fingers.

"Oh, it's all right. The ship's surgeon will welcome a little professional exercise. I'll be the first patient, as we're not out far enough for the seasickness practice yet."

He turned toward Rusty, who was making a mental comparison of the room with the steamboat cabins back on the Ohio River. Rusty decided that even the old _Gallia Queen_, in her palmiest days, could not have been much more resplendent than this "foreign" boat!

"You can go back and rest yourself, Rusty," suggested Jarvis. "And, listen--what's the number of the stateroom?"

"Seven-twenty-nine, sir."

"How did you get the tickets, in my name? I was registered differently at the other hotel."

"Oh, I jest told 'em dey was for Mr. R. Snow, a rich Southern gentleman. When I gits down here, I tells Mr. Snow has decided to send his repersentative! Den I had de name changed--dat's all, Ma.r.s.e Warren."

Maria Theresa smiled again, and Rusty accepted it as a supreme compliment.

"You are a diplomat, Rusty," she said.

"No, lady--I mean, Mrs. Princess.... I'm a Republican," and Rusty started for the door.

"Go lock yourself in there, and don't talk to anyone. Remember you are deaf and dumb. Understand, deaf and dumb!"

"Ya.s.sir--dumb's de word!"

As the door closed behind him, the girl turned toward Jarvis, a troubled cloud overshadowing her pleasant features.

"There is something I must tell you ... my cousin, the Duke of Alva, is on board of the _Mauretania_."

He smiled whimsically as he replied, "Yes, and he professes to love you devotedly."

She flushed furiously, and looked at the pattern of the rug.

"You overheard?"

"I underheard. The trunk was not my idea but yours, you know.... You're afraid of that man, too. What's the trouble? He's very sure of himself, isn't he?"

The girl hesitated, and then replied almost timidly:

"Carlos is very powerful.... I may be driven into his hands."

"You mean he may make you marry him?"

"Yes ... if you fail," and she cast an apprehensive glance toward the door to the promenade deck.

"If I fail," and Warren was dumbfounded, even after the unreal scenes which had prologued this situation. "If _I_ fail. What do you mean?

Wait a minute--let me get my bearings: things are coming too fast and furious for my poor intelligence.... I--you--the Duke--how do I fit in?"

The girl tried to regain her composure.

"You mustn't ask now: take things for granted until we can explain them together, alone. He may come in any minute. I can tell you before we get to the castle."

Warren lost his patience.

"I think I should know about this castle nonsense now. I admit you saved me from the police last night--although undoubtedly they may be on board the ship now, for we have not pa.s.sed the three-mile limit yet.

Can't you be frank with me, in spite of that ridiculous oath of allegiance which I took?"

"It was not ridiculous, Mr. Jarvis. It was in life-and-death earnestness. I would not have felt that I could truly trust you unless you had gone through that. Remember, I am a product of a different civilization from your own: I am still superst.i.tious, if you please to term it so, in the Old-World sense. I speak your language, and indeed think in it with you. But back in the inner shrine of my being I am a Spanish woman, true to my heredity. You are essentially an American--droll, well-balanced, cynical--and oblivious to any other national psychology than your own."

The girl's earnestness was droll.

"I am a bit hard and unsympathetic," agreed Warren softly. "I did not mean to be so. You and I came into each other's lives in a wild unreal way which an outsider would hardly believe possible. The truest thing in real life is its melodramatic, unbelievable unrealism. That's where the novelists, the poets, and the play-makers have a terrific handicap against them. Things which happen every day would be ridiculed in print. The great rule of actual existence is: 'It _can't_ be possible, but it _is_!' But, while we have time, tell me my cues, for I share your opinion of the Duke of Alva. I would never nominate him for President!"

The girl wrung her hands nervously--the first signs he had seen of a spiritual weakening.

"I am completely in the dark," added Jarvis; "I'm just a plain man, not a mindreader. Let's get down to bra.s.s tacks!"

She did not understand the local idiom. But she realized that at last she had found a sympathetic confessor.

"I hardly know where to begin. It seems absurd--in this pleasant day-lit stateroom--to talk of ghosts. But the fact is that my family castle is haunted."

Jarvis was lighting another cigarette from the battered silver case; he burned his fingers, as he studied her, in surprise. Then he laughed provokingly. "So I gathered from your amiable cousin. What kind of specters? Of the Hamlet variety or the old maid brand?"

She answered very seriously.

"Call it anything you like. But my castle is haunted, just the same.

This is absolutely a case of facts, which mean so much to me that I would not exaggerate _now_! My grandfather was one of the wealthiest n.o.bles in Spain. When he died my father went to take possession of the family estates in Seguro. The little town--as you count populations in America--was buzzing with weird stories of uncanny things and supernatural happenings in the old castle on the hill. It was deserted, after centuries of loyal occupancy. All the retainers had deserted their posts and fled. All told of a weird, horrible thing in armor which stalked the ancestral halls at night--of agonized groans, clanking chains, infernal fumes of sulphur--you know how ghost stories run?"

"I know the ghost stories, and most of the people who tell them run because of their own yellow streaks!" retorted Warren. "But, go on, your Highness. It's fascinating--I haven't heard a good 'hant' yarn since old Mammy Chloe died, back at Meadow Green."

She pouted, for his cynicism struck home. Yet was she earnest, and again she endeavored to impress him.