The Princess Passes Part 14

But Joseph, less diplomatic than I, had not scrupled to seize the moment of Innocentina's recovery to pour into her ears the story of the escaped criminal, and the excitement in which he had plunged the neighbouring country. She was anxious to hurry on as quickly as possible, lest night should overtake her party on the way, and, still pale and tremulous, she sprang eagerly to the work of gathering up the scattered belongings. While she and Joseph put the tea-basket to rights, the boy and I rearranged the gorgeous fittings of the bag, and discovered that not even a single bottle-top was missing.

"What a burden to carry on a donkey's back!" I laughed. "You are a regular Beau Brummel."

"Why not?" pleaded the boy. "I like pretty things, and this is very convenient. It is no trouble for Souris. When the bag is in the _rucksack_, no one would suspect that it is valuable. I have carried all this luggage so, ever since Lucerne, and never had any bother before."

"What, you too started from Lucerne?"

"Yes. I had Innocentina and the donkeys come up from the Riviera, to meet me there. We have been a long time on the way--weeks: for we have stopped wherever we liked, and as long as we liked. Until to-day we haven't had a single real adventure. I was wishing for one, but now--well, I suppose most adventures are disagreeable when they are happening, and only turn nice afterwards, in memory."

"Like caterpillars when they become b.u.t.terflies. But look here, my young friend David, lest you meet another Goliath, I really think you'd better put up with the proximity (I don't say society) of that hateful animal, Man, as far as Aosta. Joseph and I will either keep a few yards in advance, or a few yards in the rear, not to annoy you with our detestable company, but----"

"Please don't be revengeful," entreated the ex-Brat. "You have been so good to us, don't be un-good now. I suppose one may hate men, yet be grateful to one man--anyhow, till one finds him out? I can't very well find you out between here and Aosta, can I?--so we may be friends, if you'll walk beside me, neither behind nor in front. I am excited, and feel as if I _must_ have someone to talk to, but I am a little tired of conversation with Innocentina. I know all she has ever thought about since she was born."

"It's a bargain then," said I. "We're friends and comrades--until Aosta. After that----"

"Each goes his own way," he finished my broken sentence; "as ships pa.s.s in the night. But this little sailing boat won't forget that the big bark came to its help, in a storm which it couldn't have weathered alone."

"Do you know," said I, as we walked on together, the muleteer and the donkey girl behind us, with the animals, "you are a very odd boy. I suppose it is being American. Are all American boys like you?"

"Yes," said he, twinkling, "all. I am cut on exactly the same pattern as the rest," and he smiled a charming smile, of which I could not resist the curious fascination. "Did you never meet any American boys, till you met me?"

"I can't remember having any real conversation with one, except once.

His mother had asked me in his presence (it was in New York) how I liked America, and I had answered that it dazzled me; that the only yearning I felt was for something dark and quiet, and small and uncomfortable. She was rather pleased, but the boy put a string across the drawing-room door when I went out, and tripped me up. Then we had a little conversation--quite a short one--but full of repartee. That's my solitary experience."

"I should have wanted to trip you up for that speech, too; so you see the likeness is proved. It is a funny thing, I know very few Englishmen. I've met several, but, as you say, I never had any real conversation with them."

"Maybe, if you had, you wouldn't be so down on your s.e.x when it has reached adolescence."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'DO YOU KNOW,' SAID I, 'YOU ARE A VERY QUEER BOY'".]

"I'm afraid there isn't much difference in men, whatever their country. But it's--their att.i.tude towards women which I hate."

I laughed. "What do you know about that?"

"I have a sister," said he, after a minute's pause. And he did not laugh. "She and I have been--tremendous chums all our lives. There isn't a thing she has done, or a thought she has had, that I don't know, and the other way round, of course."

"Twins?" I asked.

"She is twenty-one."

"Oh, four or five years older than you."

The boy evidently did not take this as a question. "She is unfortunately an heiress," he said. "Money has brought misery upon her, and through her, on me; for if she suffers, I suffer too. She used to believe in everybody. She thought men were even more sincere and upright than women, because their outlook on life was larger, and so it was easy for her to be deceived. When she came out she wasn't quite eighteen (you see we have no father or mother, only a lazy old guardian-uncle), and she thought everyone was wonderfully kind to her, so she was very happy. I suppose there never was a happier girl--for a while. But by-and-bye she began to find out things. She discovered that the men who seemed the nicest only cared for her money, not for her at all."

"How could she be sure of that?"

"It was proved, over and over again, in lots of ways."

"But if she is a pretty and charming girl----"

"I think she is only odd--like me. People don't understand her, especially men. They find her strange, and men don't like girls to be strange."

"Don't they? I thought they did."

"Think for yourself. Have you ever been at all in love? And if you have, wasn't the girl quite, quite conventional; just a nice sweet girl, who was pretty, and who flirted, and who was too properly brought up ever to do or to say anything to surprise you?"

"Well," I admitted, my mind reviewing this portrait of Helen, which was really a well-sketched likeness, "now you put it in that way, I confess the girl I've cared for most was of the type you describe. I can see that now, though I didn't think of it then."

"No, you wouldn't; men don't. My sister soon learned that she wasn't really the sort of girl to be popular, though she had dozens of proposals, heaps of flowers every day, had to split up each dance several times at a ball, and all that kind of thing. It was a shock to find out _why_. To her face, they called her 'Princess,' and she was pleased with the nickname at first, poor thing. She took it for a compliment to herself. But she came to know that behind her back it was different; she was the 'Manitou Princess.' You see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in Colorado, and he named the princ.i.p.al one 'Manitou,' after the Indian spirit. I shan't forget the day when a man she'd just refused, told her the vulgar nickname--and a few other things that hurt. But I don't know why I'm talking to you like this. I wanted to get away from you yesterday, because I--don't care to meet people. Everything seems different though, now. I suppose it's because you saved our lives. I feel as if you weren't exactly a new person, but as if--I'd known you a long time."

"I have the same sort of feeling about you, for some queer reason,"

said I. "Are we also to know each other's names?"

"No," he answered quickly. "That would spoil the charm: for there is a charm, isn't there? But we won't call each other Brat and Brute any more. That's ancient history. I'll be for you--just Boy. I think I will call you Man."

"But you hate Man."

"I don't hate you. If I were a girl I might, but as it is, I don't. I like you--Man."

"And I like you, Boy. We are pals now. Shall we shake hands?"

We did. I could have crushed his little brown paw, if I had not manipulated it carefully.

After that, we did not talk much. By-and-bye, he was tired, and remounted his donkey, but we still kept side by side, Innocentina sending at intervals a perfunctory cry of "f.a.n.n.y-anny," from a distance, by way of keeping the small brown _ane_ to her work.

So we reached the beautiful valley of Aosta, as the transparent azure veil of the Italian dusk was drawn, and out of that dusk glimmered now and then, as if born of the shadows, strange, stunted, and misshapen forms, gnome-like creatures, who stood aside to let us pa.s.s along the road. It was as if the Brownie Club were out for a night excursion; and I remembered my muleteer's lecture about the _cretins_ of this happy valley. These were some of them, going back to town from their day's work in the fields. I had set my mind upon stopping at a hotel of which Joseph had told me, extolling its situation at a distance from Aosta _ville_, the wonderful mountain-pictures its windows framed, and a certain pastoral primitiveness, not derogatory to comfort, which I should find in the _menage_. But when my late enemy and new chum remarked that he was going to the Mont Blanc, I hesitated.

"And you?" he asked.

"Oh, I--well, I had thought--but it doesn't matter."

"I see what you mean. Would it be disagreeable for you if I were in the same hotel?"

"On the contrary. But you----"

"I know now that we shall never rub each other up the wrong way--again. Besides, we shan't have the chance. I suppose you go on somewhere else to-morrow?"

"No, I want to stop a day or two. Some friends have asked me to tell them about the sights of the neighbourhood, and what sort of motoring roads there are near by."

"I'm stopping, too. So, after all, the little sailing boat and the big bark aren't going to pa.s.s each other this night? They are to anchor in the same harbour for a while."

"And here's the harbour," said I, for we had come down from the hills into a marvellous old town of ancient towers and arches, with a background of white mountains. Molly should have been satisfied. I had obeyed her instructions to the letter, and I was in Aosta at last.

CHAPTER XIII

Afternoon Calls