The Prince of Graustark Part 41

"Your mind has gone horse-back riding, I fear. At present it is between here and Lauterbrunnen, jogging beside that roaring little torrent that--"

"I don't mind confessing that you are quite right," said he frankly.

"And I may add that the music makes me so blue that I'd like to jump into that roaring torrent and--and swim out again, I suppose," he concluded, with a sheepish grin.

"You are in love."

"I am," he confessed.

She laid her hand upon his. Her eyes were wide with eagerness. "Would it drive away the blues if I were to tell you that you have a chance to win her?"

He felt his head spinning. "If--if I could believe that--that-" he began, and choked up with the rush of emotion that swept through him.

"She is a strange girl. She will marry for love alone. Her father is determined that she shall marry a royal prince. That much I may confess to you. She has defied her father, Mr. Schmidt. She will marry for love, and I believe it is in your power to awaken love in that adorable heart of hers. You--"

"For G.o.d's sake, Mrs. Gaston, tell me--tell me, has she breathed a word to you that--"

"Not a single word. But I know her well. I have known her since she was a baby, and I can read the soul that looks out through those lovely eyes. Knowing her so well, I may say to you--oh, it must be in the strictest confidence!--that you have a chance. And if you win her love, you will _have_ the greatest treasure in all the world.

She--but, look! The Grand Duke is leaving. He--"

"I don't care what becomes of the Grand Duke," he burst out. "Tell me more. Tell me how you look into her soul, and tell me what you see--"

"Not now, sir. I have said enough. I have given you the sign of hope.

It remains with you to make the most of it."

"But you--you don't know anything about me. I may be the veriest adventurer, the most unworthy of all--"

"I think, Mr. Schmidt, that I know you pretty well. I do not require the aid of Diogenes' lantern to see an honest man. I am responsible for her welfare. She has been placed under my protection. For twenty years I have adored her. I am not likely to encourage an adventurer."

"I must be honest with you, Mrs. Gaston," he said suddenly. "I am not--"

She held up her hand. "Mr. Totten has informed me that you are a life-long friend of Mrs. Truxton King. I cabled to her from Paris.

There is no more to be said."

His face fell. "Did she tell you--everything?"

"She said no more than that R. Schmidt is the finest boy in all the world." Suddenly her face paled. "You are never--_never_ to breathe a word of this to--to Bedelia," she whispered.

"But her father? What will he say to--"

"Her father has said all that can be said," she broke in quietly. "He cannot force her to marry the man he has selected. She will marry the man she loves. Come now! Let us go. I am tired of the music."

"Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Gaston," he cried, with shining eyes.

"G.o.d bless you!"

She gave him a queer look. "You must not think that your task is an easy one," she said meaningly. "There are other men in the world, you know."

CHAPTER XIX

"WHAT WILL MY PEOPLE DO!"

The Grand Duke and his party left Interlaken by special train early in the afternoon, and great was Robin's relief when Hobbs returned with the word that they were safely on their way to the capital of Switzerland. He emerged from the seclusion of his room, where he had been in hiding since noon, and set out for a walk through the town.

His head was high and his stride jaunty, for his heart was like a cork. People stared after him with smiles of admiration, and never a _cocher'_ pa.s.sed him by without a genial, inviting tilt of the eyebrow and a tentative pull at the reins, only to meet with a pleasant shake of the head or the negative flourish of a bamboo cane.

Night came and with it the silvery glow of moonlight across the h.o.a.ry headed queen of the Oberland. When Robin came out from dinner he seated himself on the porch, expectant, eager--and vastly lonesome.

An unaccountable shyness afflicted him, rendering him quite incapable of sending his card up to the one who could have dispelled the gathering gloom with a single glance of the eye. Would she come stealing out ostensibly to look at the night-capped peak, but with furtive glances into the shadows of the porch in quest of--But no!

She would not do that! She would come attended by the exasperating Mr. White and the friendly duenna. Her starry eyes, directed elsewhere, would only serve to increase the depth of the shadows in which he lurked impatient.

She came at last--and alone. Stopping at the rail not more than an arm's length from where he sat, she gazed pensively up at the solemn mistress of the valley, one slim hand at her bosom, the other hanging limp at her side. He could have touched that slender hand by merely stretching forth his own. Breathless, enthralled, he sat as one deprived of the power or even the wish to move. The spell was upon him; he was in thralldom.

She wore a rose-coloured gown, soft, slinky, seductive. A light Egyptian scarf lay across her bare shoulders. The slim, white neck and the soft dark hair--but she sighed! He heard that faint, quick- drawn sigh and started to his feet.

"Bedelia!" he whispered softly.

She turned quickly, to find him standing beside her, his face aglow with rapture. A quick catch of the breath, a sudden movement of the hand that lay upon her breast, and then she smiled,--a wavering, uncertain smile that went straight to his heart and shamed him for startling her. "I beg your pardon," he began lamely. "I--I startled you."

She held out her hand to him, still smiling. "I fear I shall never become accustomed to being pursued," she said, striving for command of her voice.

"It is dreadful to feel that some one is forever watching you from behind. I am glad it is you, however. You at least are not 'the secret eye that never sleeps'!" She gently withdrew her hand from his ardent clasp. "Mrs. Gaston told me that she had seen you. I feared that you might have gone on your way rejoicing."

"Rejoicing?" he cried. "Why do you say that?"

"After our experience in Paris, I should think that you had had enough of me and my faithful watchdogs."

"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "I shall never have enough of you," he went on, with sudden boldness. "As for the watch-dogs, they are not likely to bite us, so what is there to be afraid of?"

"Have you succeeded in evading the watchful eye of Mr. Totten's friend?" she enquired, sending an apprehensive glance along the porch.

"Completely," he declared. "I am quite alone in this hotel and, I believe, unsuspected. And you? Are you still being--"

"Sh! Who knows? I think we have thrown them off the track, but one cannot be sure. I raised a dreadful rumpus about it in Paris, and-- well, they said they were sorry and advised me not to be worried, for the surveillance would cease at once. Still, I am quite sure that they lied to me."

"Then you _are_ being followed."

She smiled again, and there was mischief in her eyes. "If so, I have led them a merry chase. We have been travelling for two days and nights, Mr. Schmidt, by train and motor, getting off at stations unexpectedly, hopping into trains going in any direction but the right one, sleeping in strange beds and doing all manner of queer things. And here we are at last. I am sure you must look upon me as a very silly, flibberty-gibbet creature."

"I see that your retinue has been substantially augmented," he remarked, a trace of jealousy in his voice. "The good-looking Mr.

White has not been eluded."

"Mr. White? Oh, yes, I see. But he is to be trusted, Mr. Schmidt,"

she said mysteriously--and tantalisingly. "He will not betray me to my cruel monster of a father. I have his solemn promise not to reveal my whereabouts to any one. My father is the last person in the world to whom he would go with reports of my misdoings."

"I saw you this morning, riding with him," said he glumly.

"Through the telescope?" she inquired softly, laying a hand upon the stationary instrument.