The Princess Elopes Part 19

"Open your purse and look into it," he said. "I'm a brute; you are dying to do so."

"May I?"--shyly.

Then it came into Max's mind, with all the brilliancy of a dynamo spark, that this was the one girl in all the world, the ideal he had been searching for; and he wanted to fall at her feet and tell her so.

"Look!" she cried gleefully, holding up the packet of bank-notes.

"I wish," he said boyishly, "that you didn't have any money at all, so I could help you and feel that you depended upon me."

She smiled. How a woman loves this simple kind of flattery! It tells her better what she may wish to know than a thousand hymns sung in praise of her beauty.

But even as he spoke a chill of horror went over Max. He put his hand hurriedly into his vest-pocket. Fool! a.s.s! How like a man! In changing his clothes at the consulate he had left his money, and all he had with him was some pocket change.

The girl saw his action and read the sequence in the look of dismay which spread over his face.

"You have no money either?" she cried. She separated the packet of notes into two equal parts. "Here!"

He smiled weakly.

"Take them!"

"No, a thousand times, no! I have a watch, and there's always a p.a.w.nbroker handy, even in Europe."

"You offered to help me," she insisted.

"It is not quite the same."

"Take quarter of it."

"No. Don't you understand? I really couldn't."

"One, just one, then!" she pleaded.

An idea came to him. "Very well; I will take one." And when she gave it to him he folded it reverently and put it away.

"I understand!" she cried. "You are just going to keep it; you don't intend to spend it at all. Don't be foolis.h.!.+"

"I shall notify my friend, when we reach Doppelkinn, that I am without funds, and he will telegraph to Dresden."

"Your friends were very wise in sending you away as they did. Aren't you always getting into trouble?"

"Yes. But I doubt the wisdom of my friends in sending me away as they did,"--with a frank glance into her eyes. How beautiful they were, now that the sparkle of mischief had left them!

She looked away. If only Doppelkinn were young like this! She sighed.

"Can they force one to marry in this country?" he asked abruptly.

"When one is in my circ.u.mstances."

He wanted to ask what those circ.u.mstances were, but what he said was: "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"You are even more helpless than I am,"--softly. "If you are caught you will be imprisoned. I shall only suffer a temporary loss of liberty; my room will be my dungeon-keep." How big and handsome and strong he looked! What a terrible thing it was to be born in purple!

"Tell me about yourself."

His hand strayed absently toward his upper vest-pocket, and then fell to his side. He licked his lips.

"Smoke!" she commanded intuitively. "I said that you might."

"I can talk better when I smoke," he advanced rather lamely. "May I, then?"--gratefully.

"I command it!"

Wasn't it fine to be ordered about in this fas.h.i.+on? If only the train might go on and on and on, thousands of miles! He applied a match to the end of his cigar and leaned back against the cus.h.i.+on.

"Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning. I'm not one of those novel readers who open a book at random. I do not appreciate effects till I have found out the causes. I want to know everything about you, for you interest me."

He began. He told her that he was a German by birth and blood. He had been born either in Germany or in Austria, he did not know which. He had been found in Tyrol, in a railway station. A guard had first picked him up, then a kind-hearted man named Scharfenstein had taken him in charge, advertised for his parents and, hearing nothing, had taken him to America with him.

"If they catch you," she interrupted, "do not under any consideration let them know that you were not born in the United States. Your friend the American consul could do nothing for you then."

"Trust me to keep silent, then." He continued: "I have lived a part of my life on the great plains; have ridden horses for days and days at a time. As a deputy sheriff I have arrested desperadoes, have shot and been shot at. Then I went East and entered a great college; went in for athletics, and wore my first dress-suit. Then my foster-parent died, leaving me his fortune. And as I am frugal, possibly because of my German origin, I have more money than I know what to do with." He ceased.

"Go on," she urged.

"When the Spanish War broke out I entered a cavalry regiment as a trooper. I won rank, but surrendered it after the battle of Santiago.

And now there are but two things in the world I desire to complete my happiness. I want to know who I am."

"And the other thing?"

"The other thing? I can't tell _you_ that!"--hurriedly.

"Ah, I believe I know. You have left some sweetheart back in America."

All her interest In his narrative took a strange and unaccountable slump.

"No; I have often admired women, but I have left no sweetheart back in America. If I had I should now feel very uncomfortable."

Somehow she couldn't meet his eyes. She recognized, with vague anger, that she was glad that he had no sweetheart. Ah, well, n.o.body could rob her of her right to dream, and this was a very pleasant dream.

"The train is slowing down," he said suddenly.

"We are approaching the frontier." She shaded her eyes and searched the speeding blackness outside.

"How far is it to the capital?" he asked.

"It lies two miles beyond the frontier."