"Well, we are bosom friends once more, are we not? I am so relieved."

"I suppose Poopendyke told you the—the gossip?"

"Oh, no! I had it from my maid. She is perfectly terrible. All French maids are, Mr. Smart. Beware of French maids! She won't have it any other way than that I am desperately in love with you. Isn't she delicious?"

"Eh?" I gasped.

"And she confides the wonderful secret to every one in the castle, from Rosemary down to Jinko."

"'Pon my soul!" I murmured.

"And so now they all are saying that I am in love with you," she laughed. "Isn't it perfectly ludicrous?"

"Perfectly," I said without enthusiasm. My heart sank like lead. Ludicrous? Was that the way it appeared to her? I had a little spirit left. "Quite as ludicrous as the fancy Britton has about me. He is obsessed by the idea that I am in love with you. What do you think of that?"

She started. I thought her eyes narrowed for a second. "Ridiculous," she said, very simply. Then she arose abruptly. "Please ring the bell for Hawkes."

I did so. Hawkes appeared. "Clear the table, Hawkes," she said. "I want you to read all these newspaper clippings, Mr. Smart," she went on, pointing to a bundle on a chair near the window. We crossed the room. "Now that you know who I am, I insist on your reading all that the papers have been saying about me during the past five or six weeks."

I protested but she was firm. "Every one else in the world has been reading about my affairs, so you must do likewise. No, it isn't necessary to read all of them. I will select the most lurid and the most glowing. You see there are two sides to the case. The papers that father can control are united in defending my action; the European press is just the other way. Sit down, please. I'll hand them to you."

For an hour I sat there in the window absorbing the astonishing history of the Tarnowsy abduction case. I felt rather than observed the intense scrutiny with which she favoured me.

At last she tossed the remainder of the bundle unread, into a corner. Her face was aglow with pleasure.

"You've read both sides, and I've watched you—oh, so closely. You don't believe what the papers over here have to say. I saw the scowls when you read the translations that Mr. Poopendyke has typed for me. Now I know that you do not feel so bitterly toward me as you did at first."

I was resolved to make a last determined stand for my original convictions.

"But our own papers, the New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago journals,—still voice, in a way, my principal contention in the matter, Countess. They deplore the wretched custom among the idle but ambitious rich that made possible this whole lamentable state of affairs. I mean the custom of getting a title into the family at any cost."

"My dear Mr. Smart," she said seriously, "do you really contend that all of the conjugal unhappiness and unrest of the world is confined to the American girls who marry noblemen? Has it escaped your notice that there are thousands of unhappy marriages and equally happy divorces in America every year in which noblemen do not figure at all? Have you not read of countless cases over there in which conditions are quite similar to those which make the Tarnowsy fiasco so notorious? Are not American women stealing their children from American husbands? Are all American husbands so perfect that Count Tarnowsy would appear black among them? Are there no American men who marry for money, and are there no American girls given in marriage to wealthy suitors of all ages, creeds and habits? Why do you maintain that an unfortunate alliance with a foreign nobleman is any worse than an unhappy marriage with an ordinary American brute? Are there no bad husbands in America?"

"All husbands are bad," I said, "but some are more pre-eminently evil than others. I am not finding fault with Tarnowsy as a husband. He did just what was expected of him. He did what he set out to do. He isn't to be blamed for living up to his creed. There are bad husbands in America, and bad wives. But they went into the game blindly, most of them. They didn't find out their mistake until after the marriage. The same statement applies to husbands and wives the world over. I hold a brief only against the marriage wherein the contracting parties, their families, their friends, their enemies, their bankers and their creditors know beforehand that it's a business proposition and not a sacred compact. But we've gone into all this before. Why rake it up again."

"But there are many happy marriages between American girls and foreign noblemen—dozens of them that I could mention."

"I grant you that. I know of a few myself. But I think if you will reflect for a moment you'll find that money had no place in the covenant. They married because they loved one another. The noblemen in such cases are real noblemen, and their American wives are real wives. There are no Count Tarnowsys among them. My blood curdles when I think of you being married to a man of the Tarnowsy type. It is that sort of a marriage that I execrate."

"The buy and sell kind?" she said, and her eyes fell. The colour had faded from her cheeks.

"Yes. The premeditated murder type."

She looked up after a moment. There was a bleak expression in her eyes.

"Will you believe me if I say to you that I went into it blindly?"

"God bless my soul, I am sure of it," I cried earnestly. "You had never been in love. You did not know."

"I have told you that I believed myself to be in love with Maris. Doesn't—doesn't that help matters a little bit?"

I looked away. The hurt, appealing look was in her eyes. It had come at last, and, upon my soul, I was as little prepared to repel it as when I entered the room hours ago after having lived in fear of it for hours before that. I looked away because I knew that I should do something rash if I were to lose my head for an instant.

She was like an unhappy pleading child. I solemnly affirm that it was tender-heartedness that moved me in this crucial instant. What man could have felt otherwise?

I assumed a coldly impersonal tone. "Not a single editorial in any of these papers holds you responsible for what happened in New York," I said.

She began to collect the scattered newspaper clippings and the type-written transcriptions. I gathered up those in the corner and laid them in her lap. Her fingers trembled a little.

"Throw them in the fireplace, please," she said in a low voice. "I kept them only for the purpose of showing them to you. Oh, how I hate, how I loathe it all!"

When I came back from the fireplace, she was lying back in the big, comfortable chair, a careless, whimsical smile on her lips. She was as serene as if she had never known what it was to have a heart-pang or an instant of regret in all her life. I could not understand that side of her.

"And now I have some pleasant news for you," she said. "My mother will be here on Thursday. You will not like her, of course, because you are already prejudiced, but I know she will like you."

I knew I should hate her mother, but of course it would not do to say so.

"Next Thursday?" I inquired. She nodded her head. "I hope she will like me," I added feeling that it was necessary.

"She was a Colingraft, you know."

"Indeed?" The Colingraft family was one of the oldest and most exclusive in New York. I had a vague recollection of hearing one of my fastidious friends at home say that it must have been a bitter blow to the Colingrafts when, as an expedient, she married the vulgarly rich Jasper Titus, then of St. Paul, Minnesota. It had been a clear case of marrying the money, not the man. Aline's marriage, therefore, was due to hereditary cold-bloodedness and not to covetousness. "A fine old name, Countess."

"Titus suggests titles, therefore it has come to be our family name," she said, with her satiric smile. "You will like my father. He loves me more than any one else in the world—more than all the world. He is making the great fight for me, Mr. Smart. He would buy off the Count to-morrow if I would permit him to do so. Of late I have been thinking very seriously of suggesting it to him. It would be the simplest way out of our troubles, wouldn't it? A million is nothing to my father."

"Nothing at all, I submit, in view of the fact that it may be the means of saving you from a term in prison for abducting Rosemary?"

She paled. "Do you really think they would put me in prison?"

"Unquestionably," I pronounced emphatically.

"Oh, dear!" she murmured.

"But they can't lock you up until they've caught you," said I reassuringly. "And I will see to it that they do not catch you."

"I—I am depending on you entirely, Mr. Smart," she said anxiously. "Some day I may be in a position to repay you for all the kindness—"

"Please, please!"

"—and all the risk you are taking for me," she completed. "You see, you haven't the excuse any longer that you don't know my name and story. You are liable to be arrested yourself for—"

There came a sharp rapping on the door at this instant—a rather imperative, sinister rapping, if one were to judge by the way we started and the way we looked at each other. We laughed nervously.

"Goodness! You'd thing Sherlock Holmes himself was at the door," she cried. "See who it is, please."

I went to the door. Poopendyke was there. He was visibly excited.

"Can you come down at once, Mr. Smart?" he said in a voice not meant to reach the ears of the Countess.

"What's up?" I questioned sharply.

"The jig, I'm afraid," he whispered sententiously. Poopendyke, being a stenographer, never wasted words. He would have made a fine playwright.

"Good Lord! Detectives?"

"No. Count Tarnowsy and a stranger."

"Impossible!"

The Countess, alarmed by our manner, quickly crossed the room.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"The Count is downstairs," I said. "Don't be alarmed. Nothing can happen. You—"

She laughed. "Oh, is that all? My dear Mr. Smart, he has come to see you about the frescoes."

"But I have insulted him!"

"Not permanently," she said. "I know him too well. He is like a leech. He has given you time to reflect and therefore regret your action of the other night. Go down and see him."

Poopendyke volunteered further information. "There is also a man down there—a cheap looking person—who says he must see the Countess Tarnowsy at once."

"A middle-aged man with the upper button of his waistcoat off?" she asked sharply.

"I—I can't say as to the button."

"I am expecting one of my lawyers. It must be he. He was to have a button off."

"I'll look him over again," said Poopendyke.

"Do. And be careful not to let the Count catch a glimpse of him. That would be fatal."

"No danger of that. He went at once to old Conrad's room."

"Good! I had a note from him this morning, Mr. Smart. He is Mr. Bangs of London."

"May I inquire, Countess, how you manage to have letters delivered to you here? Isn't it extremely dangerous to have them go through the mails?"

"They are all directed to the Schmicks," she explained.

"They are passed on to me. Now go and see the Count. Don't lend him any money."

"I shall probably kick him over the cliff," I said, with a scowl.

She laid her hand upon my arm. "Be careful," she said very earnestly, "for my sake."

Poopendyke had already started down the stairs. I raised her hand to my lips. Then I rushed away, cursing myself for a fool, an ingrate, a presumptuous bounder.

My uncalled-for act had brought a swift flush of anger to her cheek. I saw it quite plainly as she lowered her head and drew back into the shadow of the curtain. Bounder! That is what I was for taking advantage of her simple trust in me. Strange to say, she came to the head of the stairs and watched me until I was out of sight in the hall below.

The Count was waiting for me in the loggia. It was quite warm and he fanned himself lazily with his broad straw hat. As I approached, he tossed his cigarette over the wall and hastened to meet me. There was a quaint diffident smile on his lips.

"It is good to see you again, old fellow," he said, with an amiability that surprised me. "I was afraid you might hold a grievance against me. You Americans are queer chaps, you know. Our little tilt of the other evening, you understand. Stupid way for two grown-up men to behave, wasn't it? Of course, the explanation is simple. We had been drinking. Men do silly things in their cups."

Consummate assurance! I had not touched a drop of anything that night.

"I assure you, Count Tarnowsy, the little tilt, as you are pleased to call it, was of no consequence. I had quite forgotten that it occurred. Sorry you reminded me of it."

The irony was wasted. He beamed. "My dear fellow, shall we not shake hands?"

There was something irresistibly winning about him, as I've said before. Something boyish, ingenuous, charming,—what you will,—that went far toward accounting for many things that you who have never seen him may consider incomprehensible.

A certain wariness took possession of me. I could well afford to temporise. We shook hands with what seemed to be genuine fervour.

"I suppose you are wondering what brings me here," he said, as we started toward the entrance to the loggia, his arm through mine. "I do not forget a promise, Mr. Smart. You may remember that I agreed to fetch a man from Munchen to look over your fine old frescoes and to give you an estimate. Well, he is here, the very best man in Europe."

"I am sure I am greatly indebted to you, Count," I said, "but after thinking it over I've—"

"Don't say that you have already engaged some one to do the work," he cried, in horror. "My dear fellow, don't tell me that! You are certain to make a dreadful mistake if you listen to any one but Schwartzmuller. He is the last word in restorations. He is the best bet, as you would say in New York. Any one else will make a botch of the work. You will curse the day you—"

I checked him. "I have virtually decided to let the whole matter go over until next spring. However, I shall be happy to have Mr. Schwartzmuller's opinion. We may be able to plan ahead."

A look of disappointment flitted across his face. The suggestion of hard old age crept into his features for a second and then disappeared.

"Delays are dangerous," he said. "My judgment is that those gorgeous paintings will disintegrate more during the coming winter than in all the years gone by. They are at the critical stage. If not preserved now,—well, I cannot bear to think of the consequences. Ah, here is Herr Schwartzmuller."

Just inside the door, we came upon a pompous yet servile German who could not by any means have been mistaken for anything but the last word in restoration. I have never seen any one in my life whose appearance suggested a more complete state of rehabilitation. His frock coat was new, it had the unfailing smell of new wool freshly dyed; his shoes were painfully new; his gloves were new; his silk hat was resplendently new; his fat jowl was shaved to a luminous pink; his gorgeous moustache was twisted up at the ends to such a degree that when he smiled the points wavered in front of his eyes, causing him to blink with astonishment. He was undeniably dressed up for the occasion. My critical eye, however, discovered a pair of well-worn striped trousers badly stained, slightly frayed at the bottom and inclined to bag outward at the knee. Perhaps I should have said that he was dressed up from the knee.

"This is the great Herr Schwartzmuller, of the Imperial galleries in Munchen," said the Count introducing us.

The stranger bowed very profoundly and at the same time extracted a business card from the tail pocket of his coat. This he delivered to me with a smile which seemed to invite me to participate in a great and serious secret: the secret of irreproachable standing as an art expert and connoisseur. I confess to a mistaken impression concerning him up to the moment he handed me his clumsy business card. My suspicions had set him down as a confederate of Count Tarnowsy, a spy, a secret agent or whatever you choose to consider one who is employed in furthering a secret purpose. But the business card removed my doubts and misgivings. It stamped him for what he really was: there is no mistaking a German who hands you his business card. He destroys all possible chance for discussion.

In three languages the card announced that he was "August Schwartzmuller, of the Imperial galleries, Munchen, Zumpe & Schwartzmuller, proprietors. Restorations a specialty." There was much more, but I did not have time to read all of it. Moreover, the card was a trifle soiled, as if it had been used before. There could be no doubt as to his genuineness. He was an art expert.

For ten minutes I allowed them to expatiate on the perils of procrastination in the treatment of rare old canvases and pigments, and then, having formulated my plans, blandly inquired what the cost would be. It appears that Herr Schwartzmuller had examined the frescoes no longer than six months before in the interests of a New York gentleman to whom Count Hohendahl had tried to sell them for a lump sum. He was unable to recall the gentleman's name.

"I should say not more than one hundred and fifty thousand marks, perhaps less," said the expert, rolling his calculative eye upward and running it along the vast dome of the hall as if to figure it out in yards and inches.

The Count was watching me with an eager light in his eyes. He looked away as I shot a quick glance at his face. The whole matter became as clear as day to me. He was to receive a handsome commission if the contract was awarded. No doubt his share would be at least half of the amount stipulated. I had reason to believe that the work could be performed at a profit for less than half the figure mentioned by the German.

"Nearly forty thousand dollars, in other words," said I reflectively.

"They are worth ten times that amount, sir," said the expert gravely.

I smiled skeptically. The Count took instant alarm. He realised that I was not such a fool as I looked, perhaps.

"Hohendahl was once offered two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Smart," he said.

"Why didn't he accept it?" I asked bluntly. "He sold the whole place to me, contents included, for less than half that amount."

"It was years ago, before he was in such dire straits," he explained quickly.

A terrible suspicion entered my head. I felt myself turn cold. If the frescoes were genuine they were worth all that Schwartzmuller declared; that being the case why should Hohendahl have let them come to me for practically nothing when there were dozens of collectors who would have paid him the full price? I swallowed hard, but managed to control my voice,

"As a matter of fact, Count Tarnowsy," I said, resorting to unworthy means, "I have every reason to believe that Hohendahl sold the originals sometime ago, and had them replaced on the ceilings by clever imitations. They are not worth the canvas they are painted on."

He started. I intercepted the swift look of apprehension that passed from him to the stolid Schwartzmuller, whose face turned a shade redder.

"Impossible!" cried Tarnowsy sharply.

"By no means impossible," I said calmly, now sure of my ground. "To be perfectly frank with you, I've known from the beginning that they are fakes. Your friend, Count Hohendahl, is nobler than you give him credit for being. He confessed to me at the time our transaction took place that the frescoes were very recent reproductions. The originals, I think, are in London or New York." I saw guilt in the face of Herr Schwartzmuller. His moustaches drooped with the corners of his mouth; he did not seem to be filling out the frock coat quite so completely as when I first beheld him. A shrewd suspicion impelled me to take chances on a direct accusation. I looked straight into the German's eyes and said: "Now that I come to think of it, I am sure he mentioned the name of Schwartzmuller in connection with the—"

"It is not true! It is not true!" roared the expert, without waiting for me to finish. "He lied to you, we—the great firm of Zumpe & Schwartzmuller—we could not be tempted with millions to do such a thing."

I went a step farther in my deductions. Somehow I had grasped the truth: this pair deliberately hoped to swindle me out of forty thousand dollars. They knew the frescoes were imitations and yet they were urging me to spend a huge sum of money in restoring canvases that had been purposely made to look old and flimsy in order to deceive a more cautious purchaser than I. But, as I say, I went a step farther and Deliberately accused Count Tarnowsy.

"Moreover, Count Tarnowsy, you are fully aware of all this."

"My dear fellow,—"

"I'll not waste words. You are a damned scoundrel!"

He measured the distance with his eye and then sprang swiftly forward, striking blindly at my face.

I knocked him down!

Schwartzmuller was near the door, looking over his shoulder as he felt for the great brass knob.

"Mein Gott!" he bellowed.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Come back here and take this fellow away with you!"

Tarnowsy was sitting up, looking about him in a dazed, bewildered manner.

At that moment, Poopendyke came running down the stairs, attracted by the loud voices. He was followed closely by three or four wide-eyed glaziers who were working on the second floor.

"In the name of heaven, sir!"

"I've bruised my knuckles horribly," was all that I said. I seemed to be in a sort of a daze myself. I had never knocked a man down before in my life. It was an amazingly easy thing to do. I could hardly believe that I had done it.

Tarnowsy struggled to his feet and faced me, quivering with rage. I was dumbfounded to see that he was not covered with blood. But he was of a light, yellowish green. I could scarcely believe my eyes.

"You shall pay for this!" he cried. The tears rushed to his eyes. "Coward! Beast! To strike a defenceless man!"

His hand went swiftly to his breast pocket, and an instant later a small revolver flashed into view. It was then that I did another strange and incomprehensible thing. With the utmost coolness I stepped forward and wrested it from his hand. I say strange and incomprehensible for the reason that he was pointing it directly at my breast and yet I had not the slightest sensation of fear. He could have shot me like a dog. I never even thought of that.

"None of that!" I cried sharply. "Now, will you be good enough to get out of this house—and stay out?"

"My seconds will call on you—"

"And they will receive just what you have received. If you or any of your friends presume to trespass on the privacy of these grounds of mine, I'll kick the whole lot of you into the Danube. Hawkes! Either show or lead Count Tarnowsy to the gates. As for you, Mr. Schwartzmuller, I shall expose—"

But the last word in restorations had departed.



CHAPTER XIV

I AM FORCED INTO BEING A HERO

My humblest apologies, dear reader, if I have led you to suspect that I want to be looked upon as a hero. Far from patting myself on the back or holding my chin a little higher because of the set-to in my baronial halls, I confess to a feeling of shame. In my study, where the efficient Blatchford put arnica and bandages on my swollen knuckles, I solemnly declared in the presence of those who attended the clinic—(my entire establishment was there to see that I had the proper attention and to tell me how happy they were that it wasn't any worse)—I say, I declared to all of them that I was an unmitigated fool and undeserving of the slightest mead of praise.

They insisted upon making a hero of me, and might have succeeded, had not the incomparable Britton made the discovery that the Count's revolver was not loaded! Still, they vociferated, I could not have known that at the time of the encounter, nor was it at all likely that the Count knew it himself.

I confess to an inward and shameless glory, however, in the realisation that I had been able to punch the head of the man who had lived with and abused that lovely creature upstairs. He had struck her on more than one occasion, I had it from her own lips. Far worse than that, he had kissed her! But of course I had not knocked him down for that. I did it because it was simpler than being knocked down myself.

The worst feature of the whole unhappy business was the effect it was likely to have upon my commonly pacific nature. Heretofore I had avoided physical encounters, not because I was afraid of the result, but because I hate brutal, unscientific manifestations of strength. Now, to my surprise, I found that it was a ridiculously easy matter to knock a man down and end the squabble in short order, thereby escaping a great deal in the shape of disgusting recriminations, and coming off victorious with nothing more vital in the way of wounds than a couple of bruised knuckles. (No doubt, with practice, one could even avoid having his knuckles barked.)

Was it not probable, therefore, that my habitual tendency to turn away wrath with a soft answer might suffer a more or less sanguinary shock? Now that I had found out how simple it was, would I not be satisfied to let my good right hand settle disputes for me—with uniform certainty and despatch? Heaven is my witness that I have no desire to be regarded as a bruiser. I hope that it may never fall to my lot to again knock a man down. But if it should be necessary, I also wish to record the hope that the man may be a husband who has mistreated his wife.

In the course of Blatchford's ministrations I was regaled with eloquent descriptions of the manner in which my late adversary took his departure from the castle. He went forth vowing vengeance, calling down upon my head all the maledictions he could lay his tongue to, and darkly threatening to have me driven out of the country. I was not to expect a call from his seconds. He would not submit his friends to the indignities they were sure to encounter at the hands of a barbarian of my type. But, just the same, I would hear from him. I would regret the day, etc., etc.

I had forgotten Mr. Bangs, the lawyer. Sitting alone in my study, late in the afternoon, smoking a solitary pipe of peace, I remembered him: the man with the top button off. What had become of him? His presence (or, more accurately, his absence) suddenly loomed up before me as the forerunner of an unwelcome invasion of my preserves. He was, no doubt, a sort of advance agent for the Titus family and its immediate ramifications.

Just as I was on the point of starting out to make inquiries concerning him, there came to my ears the sound of tapping on the back of Red Ludwig's portrait. Not until then did it occur to me that I had been waiting for two hours for that simple manifestation of interest and curiosity from the regions above.

I rushed over and rapped resoundingly upon Ludwig's pudgy knee. The next instant there was a click and then the secret door swung open, revealing the eager, concerned face of my neighbour.

"What has happened?" she cried.

I lifted her out of the frame. Her gaze fell upon the bandaged fist.

"Mr. Bangs spoke of a pistol. Don't tell me that he—he shot you!"

I held up my swollen hand rather proudly. It smelled vilely of arnica.

"This wound was self-inflicted, my dear Countess," I said, thrilled by her expression of concern. "I had the exquisite pleasure—and pain—of knocking your former husband down."

"Oh, splendid!" she cried, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Mr. Bangs was rather hazy about it, and he would not let me risk telephoning. You knocked Maris down?"

"Emphatically," said I.

She mused. "I think it is the first time it has ever happened to him. How—how did he like it?"

"It appeared to prostrate him."

She smiled understandingly. "I am glad you did it, Mr. Smart."

"If I remember correctly, you once said that he had struck you, Countess."

Her face flushed. "Yes. On three separate occasions he struck me in the face with his open hand. I—I testified to that effect at the trial. Every one seemed to look upon it as a joke. He swore that they were—were love pats."

"I hope his lack of discrimination will not lead him to believe that I was delivering a love pat," said I, grimly.

"Now, tell me everything that happened," she said, seating herself in my big armchair. Her feet failed to touch the floor. She was wearing the little tan pumps.

When I came to that part of the story where I accused Tarnowsy of duplicity in connection with the frescoes, she betrayed intense excitement.

"Of course it was all a bluff on my part," I explained.

"But you were nearer the truth than you thought," she said, compressing her lips. After a moment she went on: "Count Hohendahl sold the originals over three years ago. I was here with Maris at the time of the transaction and when the paintings were removed. Maris acted as an intermediary in the deal. Hohendahl received two hundred thousand dollars for the paintings, but they were worth it. I have reason to believe that Maris had a fourth of the amount for his commission. So, you see, you were right in your surmise."

"The infernal rascal! Where are the originals, Countess?"

"They are in my father's villa at Newport," she said. "I intended speaking of this to you before, but I was afraid your pride would be hurt. Of course, I should have spoken if it came to the point where you really considered having those forgeries restored."

"Your father bought them?"

"Yes. While we were spending our honeymoon here in Schloss Rothhoefen, Mr. Smart," she said. Her face was very pale.

I could see that the dark associations filled her mind, and abruptly finished my tale without further reference to the paintings.

"He will challenge you," she said nervously. "I am so sorry to have placed you in this dreadful position, Mr. Smart. I shall never forgive myself for—"

"You are in no way concerned in what happened to-day," I interrupted. "It was a purely personal affair. Moreover, he will not challenge me."

"He has fought three duels," she said. "He is not a physical coward." Her dark eyes were full of dread.

I hesitated. "Would you be vitally interested in the outcome of such an affair?" I asked. My voice was strangely husky.

"Oh, how can you ask?"

"I mean, on Rosemary's account," I stammered. "He—he is her father, you see. It would mean—"

"I was not thinking of the danger to him, Mr. Smart," she said simply.

"But can't you see how dreadful it would be if I were to kill Rosemary's father?" I cried, completely forgetting myself. "Can't you see?"

A slow flush mounted to her brow. "That is precisely what I was thinking, Mr. Smart. It would be—unspeakably dreadful."

I stood over her. My heart was pounding heavily. She must have seen the peril that lay in my eyes, for she suddenly slipped out of the chair and faced me, the flush dying in her cheek, leaving it as pale as ivory.

"You must not say anything more, Mr. Smart," she said gently.

A bitter smile came to my lips, and I drew back with a sickening sense of realisation. There was nothing more to be said. But I now thoroughly understood one thing: I was in love with her!...

I am something of a philosopher. I submit that my attitude at the time of my defeat at the hands of the jeweller's clerk proves the point conclusively. If I failed at that time to inspire feelings of love in the breast of a giddy stenographer, what right had I to expect anything better from the beautiful Countess Tarnowsy, whose aspirations left nothing to the imagination? While she was prone to chat without visible restraint at this significantly trying moment, I, being a philosopher, remained silent and thoughtful. Quite before I knew it, I was myself again: a steady, self-reliant person who could make the best of a situation, who could take his medicine like a man. Luckily, the medicine was not so bitter as it might have been if I had made a vulgar, impassioned display of my emotions. Thank heaven, I had that to be thankful for.

She was speaking of the buttonless lawyer, Mr. Bangs. "He is waiting to see you this evening, Mr. Smart, to discuss ways and means of getting my mother and brothers into the castle without discovery by the spies who are undoubtedly watching their every move."

I drew in another long, deep breath. "It seems to me that the thing cannot be done. The risk is tremendous. Why not head her off?"

"Head her off? You do not know my mother, Mr. Smart. She has made up her mind that her place is here with me, and there isn't anything in the world that can—head her off, as you say."

"But surely you see the danger?"

"I do. I have tried to stop her. Mr. Bangs has tried to stop her. So has father. But she is coming. We must arrange something."

I was pacing the floor in front of her. She had resumed her place in the chair.

"My deepest regret, Countess, lies in the fact that our little visits will be—well, at an end. Our delightful little suppers and—"

"Oh, but think of the comfort it will be to you, not having me on your mind all of the time. I shall not be lonesome, I shall not be afraid, I shall not be forever annoying you with selfish demands upon your good nature. You will have time to write without interruption. It will be for the best."

"No," said I, positively. "They were jolly parties, and I shall miss them."

She looked away quickly. "And, if all goes well, I shall soon be safely on my way to America. Then you will be rid of me completely."

I was startled. "You mean that there is a plan afoot to—to smuggle you out of the country?"

"Yes. And I fear I shall have to trouble you again when it comes to that. You must help me, Mr. Smart."

I nodded slowly. Help her to get away? I hadn't thought of that lately. The prospect left me rather cold and sick.

"I'll do all that I can, Countess."

She smiled faintly, but I was certain that I detected a challenge,—a rather unkind challenge,—in her eyes. "You will come to see me in New York, of course."

I shook my head. "I am afraid we are counting our chickens before they're hatched. One or the other of us may be in jail for the next few years."

"Heavens!"

"But I'll come to see you in New York, if you'll let me," I cried, trying to repair the damage I had done. "I was jesting when I spoke of jail."

Her brow was puckered in thought. "It has just occurred to me, my dear friend, that even if I do get safely away, you will be left here to face the consequences. When it becomes known that you sheltered me, the authorities may make it extremely uncomfortable for you."

"I'm not worrying about that."

"Just the same, it is something to worry about," she said, seriously. "Now, here is what I have had in mind for a long, long time. Why don't you come with me when I leave? That will be the safest plan."

"You are not in earnest!"

"Assuredly. The plan is something like this: I am to be taken by slow stages, overland, to a small Mediterranean port. One of a half-dozen American yachts now cruising the sea will be ready to pick me up. Doesn't it seem simple?"

"It seems simple enough," said I. "But there are a lot of 'ifs' between here and the little port you hope to reach. It will not be an easy matter to manage the successful flight of a party as large as yours will be."

"Oh," she cried, "I shall be quite alone, except for Rosemary and Blake,—and Mr. Bangs."

"But your mother? You can't leave her here."

"You will have to smuggle her out of the castle a day or two in advance. It is all thought out, Mr. Smart."

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, with more irascibility than I intended to show. "If I succeed in doing all that is expected of me, I certainly will be entitled to more than an invitation to come and see you in New York."

She arose and laid her fingers upon my bandaged hand. The reckless light had died out of her eyes.

"I have thought that out, too, Mr. Smart," she said, quietly. "And now, good-bye. You will come up to see Mr. Bangs to-night?"

Considerably mystified by her remark, I said I would come, and then assisted her through the opening in the wall. She smiled back at me as the portrait swung into place.

What did she mean? Was it possible that she meant to have old man Titus reward me in a pecuniary way? The very thought of such a thing caused me to double up my fist—my recently discovered fist!—and to swear softly under my breath. After a few moments I was conscious of a fierce pain in the back of my hand.

* * * * * *

Bangs was a shrewd little Englishman. As I shook hands with him—using my left hand with a superfluous apology—I glanced at the top of his waistcoat. There was no button missing.

"The Countess sewed it on for me," he said drily, reading my thoughts.

I stayed late with them, discussing plans. He had strongly advised against any attempt on Mrs. Titus's part to enter her daughter's hiding-place, but had been overruled. I conceived the notion, too, that he was a very strong-minded man. What then must have been the strength of Mrs. Titus's resolution to overcome the objections he put in her way?

He, too, had thought it all out. Everybody seems to have thought everything out with a single exception,—myself. His plan was not a bad one. Mrs. Titus and her sons were to enter the castle under cover of night, and I was to meet them in an automobile at a town some fifteen kilometers away, where they would leave the train while their watchers were asleep, and bring them overland to Schloss Rothhoefen. They would be accompanied by a single lady's maid and no luggage. A chartered motor boat would meet us up the river a few miles, and—well, it looked very simple! All that was required of me was a willingness to address her as "Mother" and her sons as "brothers" in case there were any questions asked.

This was Tuesday. They were coming on Thursday, and the train reached the station mentioned at half-past twelve at night. So you will see it was a jolly arrangement.

I put Mr. Bangs up in my best guest-chamber, and, be it said to my credit, the Countess did not have to suggest it to me. As we said good night to her on the little landing at the top of the stairs, she took my bandaged paw between her two little hands and said:

"You will soon be rid of me forever, Mr. Smart. Will you bear with me patiently for a little while longer?" There was a plaintive, appealing note in her voice. She seemed strangely subdued.

"I can bear with you much easier than I can bear the thought of being rid of you," I said in a very low voice. She pressed my clumsy hand fiercely, and I felt no pain.

"You have been too good to me," she said in a very small voice. "Some day, when I am out of all this trouble, I may be able to tell you how much I appreciate all you have done for me."

An almost irresistible—I was about to say ungovernable—impulse to seize her in my arms came over me, but I conquered it and rushed after Mr. Bangs, as blind as a bat and reeling for a dozen steps or more. It was a most extraordinary feeling.

I found myself wondering if passion had that effect on all men. If this was an illustration of what a real passionate love could do to a sensible, level-headed person, then what, in heaven's name, was the emotion I had characterised as love during my placid courtship of the faintly remembered typewriter? There had been no such blinding, staggering sensation as this. No thoughts of physical contact with my former inamorata had left me weak and trembling and dazed as I was at this historic moment.

Bangs was chattering in his glib English fashion as we descended to my study, but I did not hear half that he said. He looked surprised at two or three of the answers I made to his questions, and I am sure there were several of them that I didn't respond to at all. He must have thought me an unmannerly person.

One remark of his brought me rather sharply to my senses. I seemed capable of grasping its awful significance when all the others had gone by without notice.

"If all goes well," he was saying, "she should be safely away from here on the fourteenth. That leaves less than ten days more, sir, under your hospitable roof."

"Less than ten days," I repeated. This was the fifth of the month. "If all goes well. Less than ten days."

Again I passed a sleepless night. A feeling of the utmost loneliness and desolation grew up within me. Less than ten days! And then she would be "safely away" from me. She and Rosemary! There was a single ray of brightness in the gloom that shrouded my thoughts: she had urged me to fly away with her. She did not want to leave me behind to face the perils after she was safely out of them. God bless her for thinking of that!

But of course what little common sense and judgment I had left within me told me that such a course was entirely out of the question. I could not go away with her. I could do no more than to see her safely on her way to the queer little port on the east coast of Italy. Then I should return to my bleak, joyless castle,—to my sepulchre,—and suffer all the torments of the damned for days and weeks until word came that she was actually safe on the other side of the Atlantic.

What courage, what pluck she had! Criminal? No, a thousand times, no! She was claiming her own, her dearest own. The devil must have been in the people who set themselves up as judges to condemn her for fighting so bravely for that which God had given her. Curse them all! ... I fear that my thoughts became more and more maudlin as the interminable night went on.

Always they came back to the sickening realisation that I was to lose her in ten days, and that my castle would be like a tomb.

Of course the Hazzards and the Billy Smiths were possible panaceas, but what could they bring to ease the pangs of a secret nostalgia? Nothing but their own blissful contentment, their own happiness to make my loneliness seem all the more horrible by contrast. Would it not be better for me to face it alone? Would it not be better to live the life of a hermit?

She came to visit me at twelve o'clock the next day. I was alone in the study. Poopendyke was showing Mr. Bangs over the castle.

She was dressed in a gown of some soft grey material, and there was a bunch of violets at her girdle.

"I came to dress your hand for you," she said as I helped her down from Red Ludwig's frame.

Now I have neglected to mention that the back of my hand was swollen to enormous proportions, an unlovely thing.

"Thank you," I said, shaking my head; "but it is quite all right. Britton attended to it this morning. It is good of you to think about it, Countess. It isn't—"

"I thought about it all night," she said, and I could believe her after the light from the windows had fallen upon her face. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was quite pale. Her eyes seemed abnormally large and brilliant. "I am so sorry not to be able to do one little thing for you. Will you not let me dress it after this?"

I coloured. "Really, it—it is a most trifling bruise," I explained, "just a little black and blue, that's all. Pray do not think of it again."

"You will never let me do anything for you," she said. Her eyes were velvety. "It isn't fair. I have exacted so much from you, and—"

"And I have been most brutal and unfeeling in many of the things I have said to you," said I, despairingly. "I am ashamed of the nasty wounds I have given you. My state of repentance allows you to exact whatsoever you will of me, and, when all is said and done, I shall still be your debtor. Can you—will you pardon the coarse opinions of a conceited ass? I assure you I am not the man I was when you first encountered me."

She smiled. "For that matter, I am not the same woman I was, Mr. Smart. You have taught me three things, one of which I may mention: the subjection of self. That, with the other two, has made a new Aline Titus of me. I hope you may be pleased with the—transfiguration."

"I wish you were Aline Titus," I said, struck by the idea.

"You may at least be sure that I shall not remain the Countess Tarnowsy long, Mr. Smart," she said, with a very puzzling expression in her eyes.

My heart sank. "But I remember hearing you say not so very long ago that you would never marry again," I railed.

She regarded me rather oddly for a moment. "I am very, very glad that you are such a steady, sensible, practical man. A vapid, impressionable youth, during this season of propinquity, might have been so foolish as to fall in love with me, and that would have been too bad."

I think I glared at her. "Then,—then, you are going to marry some one?"

She waited a moment, looking straight into my eyes.

"Yes," she said, and a delicate pink stole into her cheek, "I am going to marry some one."

I muttered something about congratulating a lucky dog, but it was all very hazy to me.

"Don't congratulate him yet," she cried, the flush deepening. "I may be a very, very great disappointment to him, and a never-ending nuisance."

"I'm sure you will—will be all right," I floundered. Then I resorted to gaiety. "You see, I've spent a lot of time trying to—to make another woman of you, and so I'm confident he'll find you quite satisfactory."

She laughed gaily. "What a goose you are!" she cried.

I flushed painfully, for, I give you my word, it hurt to have her laugh at me. She sobered at once.

"Forgive me," she said very prettily, and I forgave her. "Do you know we've never given the buried treasure another thought?" she went on, abruptly changing the subject. "Are we not to go searching for it?"

"But it isn't there," said I, steeling my heart against the longing that tried to creep into it. "It's all balderdash."

She pouted her warm red lips. "Have you lost interest in it so soon?"

"Of course, I'll go any time you say," said I, lifelessly. "It will be a lark, at all events."

"Then we will go this very afternoon," she said, with enthusiasm.

My ridiculous heart gave a great leap. "This very afternoon," I said, managing my voice very well.

She arose. "Now I must scurry away. It would not do for Mr. Bangs to find me here with you. He would be shocked."

I walked beside her to the chair that stood below the portrait of Ludwig the Red, and took her hand to assist her in stepping upon it.

"I sincerely hope this chap you're going to marry, Countess, may be the best fellow in the world," said I, still clasping her hand.

She had one foot on the chair as she half-turned to face me.

"He is the best fellow in the world," she said.

I gulped. "I can't tell you how happy I shall be if you—if you find real happiness. You deserve happiness—and love."

She gripped my hand fiercely. "I want to be happy! I want to be loved! Oh, I want to be loved!" she cried, so passionately that I turned away, unwilling to be a witness to this outburst of feeling on her part. She slipped her hand out of mine and a second later was through the frame. I had a fleeting glimpse of a slim, adorable ankle. "Good-bye," she called back in a voice that seemed strangely choked. The spring in the gold mirror clicked. A draft of air struck me in the face. She was gone.

"What an infernal fool you've been," I said to myself as I stood there staring at the black hole in the wall. Then, I gently, even caressingly swung old Ludwig the Red into place. There was another click. The incident was closed.

A very few words are sufficient to cover the expedition in quest of the legendary treasures of the long dead Barons. Mr. Bangs accompanied us. Britton carried a lantern and the three Schmicks went along as guides. We found nothing but cobwebs.

"Conrad," said I, as we emerged from the last of the underground chambers, "tell me the truth: was there ever such a thing as buried treasure in this abominable hole?"

"Yes, mein herr," he replied, with an apologetic grin; "but I think it was discovered three years ago by Count Hohendahl and Count Tarnowsy."

We stared at him. "The deuce you say!" cried I, with a quick glance at the Countess. She appeared to be as much surprised as I.

"They searched for a month," explained the old man, guiltily. "They found something in the walls of the second tier. I cannot say what it was, but they were very, very happy, my lady." He now addressed her. "It was at the time they went away and did not return for three weeks, if you remember the time."

"Remember it!" she cried bitterly. "Too well, Conrad." She turned to me. "We had been married less than two months, Mr. Smart."

I smiled rather grimly. "Count Tarnowsy appears to have had a great run of luck in those days." It was a mean remark and I regretted it instantly. To my surprise she smiled—perhaps patiently—and immediately afterward invited Mr. Bangs and me to dine with her that evening. She also asked Mr. Poopendyke later on.

* * * * * * *

Poopendyke! An amazing, improbable idea entered my head. Poopendyke!

* * * * * * *

The next day I was very busy, preparing for the journey by motor to the small station down the line where I was to meet Mrs. Titus and her sons. It seemed to me that every one who knew anything whatever about the arrangements went out of his way to fill my already rattle-brained head with advice. I was advised to be careful at least one hundred times; first in regard to the running of the car, then as to road directions, then as to the police, then as to the identity of the party I was to pick up; but more often than anything else, I was urged to be as expeditious as possible and to look out for my tires.

In order to avoid suspicion, I rented a big German touring car for a whole month, paying down a lump sum of twelve hundred marks in advance. On Thursday morning I took it out for a spin, driving it myself part of the time, giving the wheel to Britton the remainder.

(The year before I had toured Europe pretty extensively in a car of the same make, driving alternately with Britton, who besides being an excellent valet was a chauffeur of no mean ability, having served a London actress for two years or more, which naturally meant that he had been required to do a little of everything.)

We were to keep the car in a garage across the river, drive it ourselves, and pay for the up-keep. We were therefore quite free to come and go as we pleased, without the remotest chance of being questioned. In fact, I intimated that I might indulge in a good bit of joy-riding if the fine weather kept up.

Just before leaving the castle for the ferry trip across the river that evening, I was considerably surprised to have at least a dozen brand new trunks delivered at my landing stage. It is needless to say that they turned out to be the property of Mrs. Titus, expressed by grande vitesse from some vague city in the north of Germany. They all bore the name "Smart, U. S. A.," painted in large white letters on each end, and I was given to understand that they belonged to my own dear mother, who at that moment, I am convinced, was sitting down to luncheon in the Adirondacks, provided her habits were as regular as I remembered them to be.

I set forth with Britton at nine o'clock, in a drizzling rain. There had been no rain for a month. The farmers, the fruit-raisers, the growers of grapes and all the birds and beasts of the field had been begging for rain for weeks. No doubt they rejoiced in the steady downpour that came at half-past nine, but what must have been their joy at ten when the very floodgates of heaven opened wide and let loose all the dammed waters of July and August (and perhaps some that was being saved up for the approaching September!) I have never known it to rain so hard as it did on that Thursday night in August, nor have I ever ceased reviling the fate that instituted, on the very next day, a second season of drought that lasted for nearly six weeks.

But we went bravely through that terrible storm, Britton and I, and the vehement Mercedes, up hill and down, over ruts and rocks, across bridges and under them, sozzling and swishing and splashing in the path of great white lights that rushed ahead of us through the gloom. At half-past eleven o'clock we were skidding over the cobblestones of the darkest streets I have ever known, careening like a drunken sailor but not half as surely, headed for the Staatsbahnhof, to which we had been directed by an object in a raincoat who must have been a policeman but who looked more like a hydrant.

"Britton," said I, wearily, "have you ever seen anything like it?"

"Once before, sir," said he. "Niagara Falls, sir."

* * * * * * *



CHAPTER XV

I TRAVERSE THE NIGHT

We were drenched to the skin and bespattered with mud, cold and cheerless but full of a grim excitement. Across the street from the small, poorly lighted railway station there was an eating-house. Leaving the car in the shelter of a freight shed, we sloshed through the shiny rivulet that raced between the curbs and entered the clean, unpretentious little restaurant.

There was a rousing smell of roasted coffee pervading the place. A sleepy German waiter first came up and glanced sullenly at the mud-tracks we left upon the floor; then he allowed his insulting gaze to trail our progress to the lunch counter by means of a perfect torrent of rain-water drippings. He went out of the room grumbling, to return a moment later with a huge mop. Thereupon he ordered us out of the place, standing ready with the mop to begin the cleansing process the instant we vacated the stools. It was quite clear to both of us that he wanted to begin operations at the exact spot where we were standing.

"Coffee for two," said I, in German. To me anything uttered in the German language sounds gruff and belligerent, no matter how gentle its meaning. That amiable sentence: "Ich liebe dich" is no exception; to me it sounds relentless. I am confident that I asked for coffee in a very mild and ingratiating tone, in direct contrast to his command to get out, and was somewhat ruffled by his stare of speechless rage.

"Zwei," said Britton, pointing to the big coffee urn.

The fellow began mopping around my feet—in fact, he went so far as to mop the tops of them and a little way up my left leg in his efforts to make a good, clean job of it.

"Stop that!" I growled, kicking at the mop. Before I could get my foot back on the floor he skilfully swabbed the spot where it had been resting, a feat of celerity that I have never seen surpassed. "Damn it, don't!" I roared, backing away. The resolute mop followed me like the spectre of want. Fascinated, I found myself retreating to the doorway.

Britton, resourceful fellow, put an end to his endeavours by jumping upon the mop and pinning it to the floor very much as he would have stamped upon a wounded rat.

The fellow called out lustily to some one in the kitchen, at the same time giving the mop handle a mighty jerk. If you are expecting me to say that Britton came to woe, you are doomed to disappointment. It was just the other way about. Just as the prodigious yank took place, my valet hopped nimbly from the mop, and the waiter sat down with a stunning thud.

I do not know what might have ensued had not the proprietress of the place appeared at that instant, coming from the kitchen. She was the cook as well, and she was large enough to occupy the space of at least three Brittons. She was huge beyond description.

"Wass iss?" she demanded, pausing aghast. Her voice was a high, belying treble.

I shall not attempt to describe in detail all that followed. It is only necessary to state that she removed the mop from the hands of the quaking menial and fairly swabbed him out into the thick of the rainstorm.

While we were drinking our hot, steaming coffee and gorging ourselves with frankfurters, the poor wretch stood under the eaves with his face glued to the window, looking in at us with mournful eyes while the drippings from the tiles poured upon his shoulders and ran in rivulets down his neck. I felt so sorry for him that I prevailed upon the muttering, apologetic hostess to take him in again. She called him in as she might have called a dog, and he edged his way past her with the same scared, alert look in his eyes that one always sees in those of an animal that has its tail between its legs.

She explained that he was her nephew, just off the farm. Her sister's son, she said, and naturally not as intelligent as he ought to be.

While we were sitting there at the counter, a train roared past the little station. We rushed to the door in alarm. But it shot through at the rate of fifty miles an hour. I looked at my watch. It still wanted half-an-hour of train time, according to the schedule.

"It was the express, mein herr," explained the woman. "It never stops. We are too small yet. Some time we may be big enough." I noticed that her eyes were fixed in some perplexity on the old clock above the pie shelves. "Ach! But it has never been so far ahead of time as to-night. It is not due for fifteen minutes yet, and here it is gone yet."

"Perhaps your clock is slow," I said. "My watch says four minutes to twelve."

Whereupon she heaped a tirade of abuse upon the shrinking Hans for letting the clock lose ten minutes of her valuable time. To make sure, Hans set it forward nearly half an hour while she was looking the other way. Then he began mopping the floor again.

At half-past twelve the train from Munich drew up at the station, panted awhile in evident disdain, and then moved on.

A single passenger alighted: a man with a bass viol. There was no sign of the Tituses!

We made a careful and extensive search of the station, the platform and even the surrounding neighbourhood, but it was quite evident that they had not left the train. Here was a pretty pass! Britton, however, had the rather preposterous idea that there might be another train a little later on. It did not seem at all likely, but we made inquiries of the station agent. To my surprise—and to Britton's infernal British delight—there was a fast train, with connections from the north, arriving in half an hour. It was, however, an hour late, owing to the storm.

"Do you mean that it will arrive at two o'clock?" I demanded in dismay.

"No, no," said the guard; "it will arrive at one but not until two. It is late, mein herr."

We dozed in the little waiting-room for what I consider to be the longest hour I've ever known, and then hunted up the guard once more. He blandly informed me that it was still an hour late.

"An hour from now?" I asked.

"An hour from two," said he, pityingly. What ignorant lummixes we were!

Just ten minutes before three the obliging guard came in and roused us from a mild sleep.

"The train is coming, mein herr."

"Thank God!"

"But I neglected to mention that it is an express and never stops here."

My right hand was still in a bandage, but it was so nearly healed that I could have used it without discomfort—(note my ability to drive a motor car)—and it was with the greatest difficulty that I restrained a mad, devilish impulse to strike that guard full upon the nose, from which the raindrops coursed in an interrupted descent from the visor of his cap.

The shrill, childish whistle of the locomotive reached us at that instant. A look of wonder sprang into the eyes of the guard.

"It—it is going to stop, mein herr," he cried. "Gott in himmel! It has never stopped before." He rushed out upon the platform in a great state of agitation, and we trailed along behind him, even more excited than he.

It was still raining, but not so hard. The glare of the headlight was upon us for an instant and then, passing, left us in blinding darkness. The brakes creaked, the wheels grated and at last the train came to a standstill. For one horrible moment I thought it was going on through in spite of its promissory signal. Britton went one way and I the other, with our umbrellas ready. Up and down the line of wagon lits we raced. A conductor stepped down from the last coach but one, and prepared to assist a passenger to alight. I hastened up to him.

"Permit me," I said, elbowing him aside.

A portly lady squeezed through the vestibule and felt her way carefully down the steps. Behind her was a smallish, bewhiskered man, trying to raise an umbrella inside the narrow corridor, a perfectly impossible feat.

She came down into my arms with the limpness of one who is accustomed to such attentions, and then wheeled instantly upon the futile individual on the steps above.

"Quick! My hat! Heaven preserve us, how it rains!" she cried, in a deep, wheezy voice and—in German!

"Moth—" I began insinuatingly, but the sacred word died unfinished on my lips. The next instant I was scurrying down the platform to where I saw Britton standing.

"Have you seen them?" I shouted wildly.

"No, sir. Not a sign, sir. Ah! See!"

He pointed excitedly down the platform.

"No!" I rasped out. "By no possible stretch of the imagination can that be Mrs. Titus. Come! We must ask the conductor. That woman? Good Lord, Britton, she waddles!"

The large lady and the smallish man passed us on the way to shelter, the latter holding an umbrella over her hat with one hand and lugging a heavy hamper in the other. They were both exclaiming in German. The station guard and the conductor were bowing and scraping in their wake, both carrying boxes and bundles.

No one else had descended from the train. I grabbed the conductor by the arm.

"Any one else getting off here?" I demanded in English and at once repeated it in German.

He shook himself loose, dropped the bags in the shelter of the station house, doffed his cap to the imperious backs of his late passengers, and scuttled back to the car. A moment later the train was under way.

"Can you not see for yourself?" he shouted from the steps as he passed me by.

Once more I swooped down upon the guard. He was stuffing the large German lady into a small, lopsided carriage, the driver of which was taking off his cap and putting it on again after the manner of a mechanical toy.

"Go away," hissed the guard angrily. "This is the Mayor and the Mayoress. Stand aside! Can't you see?"

Presently the Mayor and the Mayoress were snugly stowed away in the creaking hack, and it rattled away over the cobblestones.

"When does the next train get in?" I asked for the third time. He was still bowing after the departing hack.

"Eh? The next? Oh, mein herr, is it you?"

"Yes, it is still I. Is there another train soon?"

"That was Mayor Berg and his wife," he said, taking off his cap again in a sort of ecstasy. "The express stops for him, eh? Ha! It stops for no one else but our good Mayor. When he commands it to stop it stops—"

"Answer my question," I thundered, "or I shall report you to the Mayor!"

"Ach, Gott!" he gasped. Collecting his thoughts, he said: "There is no train until nine o'clock in the morning. Nine, mein herr."

"Ach, Gott!" groaned I. "Are you sure?"

"Jah! You can go home now and go to bed, sir. There will be no train until nine and I will not be on duty then. Good night!"

Britton led me into the waiting-room, where I sat down and glared at him as if he were to blame for everything connected with our present plight.

"I daresay we'd better be starting 'ome, sir," said he timidly. "Something 'as gone wrong with the plans, I fear. They did not come, sir."

"Do you think I am blind?" I roared.

"Not at all, sir," he said in haste, taking a step or two backward.

Inquiries at the little eating-house only served to verify the report of the station-guard. There would be no train before nine o'clock, and that was a very slow one; what we would call a "local" in the States. Sometimes, according to the proprietress, it was so slow that it didn't get in at all. It had been known to amble in as late as one in the afternoon, but when it happened to be later than that it ceased to have an identity of its own and came in as a part of the two o'clock train. Moreover, it carried nothing but third-class carriages and more often than not it had as many as a dozen freight cars attached.

There was not the slightest probability that the fastidious Mrs. Titus would travel by such a train, so we were forced to the conclusion that something had gone wrong with the plans. Very dismally we prepared for the long drive home. What could have happened to upset the well-arranged plan? Were Tarnowsy's spies so hot upon the trail that it was necessary for her to abandon the attempt to enter my castle? In that case, she must have sent some sort of a message to her daughter, apprising her of the unexpected change; a message which, unhappily for me, arrived after my departure. It was not likely that she would have altered her plans without letting us know, and yet I could not shake off an exasperating sense of doubt. If I were to believe all that Bangs said about the excellent lady, it would not be unlike her to do quite as she pleased in the premises without pausing to consider the comfort or the convenience of any one else interested in the undertaking. A selfish desire to spend the day in Lucerne might have overtaken her en passant, and the rest of us could go hang for all that she cared about consequences!

I am ashamed to confess that the longer I considered the matter, the more plausible this view of the situation appeared to me. By the time we succeeded in starting the engine, after cranking for nearly half an hour, I was so consumed by wrath over the scurvy trick she had played upon us that I swore she should not enter my castle if I could prevent it; moreover, I would take fiendish delight in dumping her confounded luggage into the Danube.

I confided my views to Britton who was laboriously cranking the machine and telling me between grunts that the "bloody water 'ad got into it," and we both resorted to painful but profound excoriations without in the least departing from our relative positions as master and man: he swore about one abomination and I another, but the gender was undeviatingly the same.

We also had trouble with the lamps.

At last we were off, Britton at the wheel. I shall not describe that diabolical trip home. It is only necessary to say that we first lost our way and went ten or twelve kilometers in the wrong direction; then we had a blow-out and no quick-detachable rim; subsequently something went wrong with the mud-caked machinery and my unfortunate valet had to lie on his back in a puddle for half an hour; eventually we sneaked into the garage with our trembling Mercedes, and quarrelled manfully with the men who had to wash her.

"Great heaven, Britton!" I groaned, stopping short in my sloshy progress down the narrow street that led to the ferry.

He looked at me in astonishment. I admit that the ejaculation must have sounded weak and effeminate to him after what had gone before.

"What is it, sir?" he asked, at once resuming his status as a servant after a splendid hiatus of five hours or more in which he had enjoyed all of the by-products of equality.

"Poopendyke!" I exclaimed, aghast. "I have just thought of him. The poor devil has been waiting for us three miles up the river since midnight! What do you think of that I"

"No such luck, sir," said he, grumpily.

"Luck! You heartless rascal! What do you mean by that?"

"I beg pardon, sir. I mean to say, he could sit in the boat 'ouse and twiddle 'is thumbs at the elements, sir. Trust Mr. Poopendyke to keep out of the rain."

"In any event, he is still waiting there for us, wet or dry. He and the two big Schmicks." I took a moment for thought. "We must telephone to the castle and have Hawkes send Conrad out with word to them." I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes past seven. "I suppose no one in the castle went to bed last night. Good Lord, what a scene for a farce!"

We retraced our steps to the garage, where Britton went to the telephone. I stood in the doorway of the building, staring gloomily, hollow-eyed at the—well, at nothing, now that I stop to think of it. The manager of the place, an amiable, jocund descendant of Lazarus, approached me.

"Quite a storm last night, Mr. Schmarck," he said, rubbing his hands on an oil-rag. I gruffly agreed with him in a monosyllable. "But it is lovely to-day, sir. Heavenly, sir."

"Heavenly?" I gasped.

"Ah, but look at the glorious sun," he cried, waving the oil-rag in all directions at once.

The sun! Upon my word, the sun was shining fiercely. I hadn't noticed it before. The tops of the little red-tiled houses down the street glistened in the glare of sunshine that met my gaze as I looked up at them. Suddenly I remembered that I had witnessed the sunrise, a most doleful, dreary phenomenon that overtook us ten miles down the valley. I had seen it but it had made no impression on my tortured mind. The great god of day had sprung up out of the earth to smile upon me—or at me—and I had let him go unnoticed, so black and desolate was the memory of the night he destroyed! I had only a vague recollection of the dawn. The thing that caused me the most concern was the discovery that we had run the last half of our journey in broad daylight with our acetylene lamps going full blast. I stared at the tiles, blinking and unbelieving.

"Well, I'm—dashed," I said, with a silly grin.

"The moon will shine to-night, Mr. Schmarck—" he began insinuatingly.

"Smart, if you please," I snapped.

"Ah," he sighed, rolling his eyes, "it is fine to be in love."

A full minute passed before I grasped the meaning of that soft answer, and then it was too late. He had gone about his business without waiting to see whether my wrath had been turned away. I had been joy-riding!

The excitement in Britton's usually imperturbable countenance as he came running up to me from the telephone closet prepared me in a way for the startling news that was to come.

"Has anything serious happened?" I cried, my heart sinking a little lower.

"I had Mr. Poopendyke himself on the wire, sir. What do you think, sir?"

A premonition! "She—she has arrived?" I demanded dully.

He nodded. "She 'as, sir. Mrs.—your mother, sir, is in your midst." The proximity of the inquisitive manager explains this extraordinary remark on the part of my valet. We both glared at the manager and he had the delicacy to move away. "She arrived by a special train at twelve lawst night, sir."

I was speechless. The brilliant sunshine seemed to be turning into sombre night before my eyes; everything was going black.

"She's asleep, he says, and doesn't want to be disturbed till noon, so he says he can't say anything more just now over the telephone because he's afraid of waking 'er." (Britton drops them when excited.)

"He doesn't have to shout so loud that he can be heard on the top floor," said I, still a trifle dazed.

"She 'appens to be sleeping in your bed, sir, he says."

"In my bed? Good heavens, Britton! What's to become of me?"

"Don't take it so 'ard, sir," he made haste to say. "Blatchford 'as fixed a place for you on the couch in your study, sir. It's all very snug, sir."

"But, Britton," I said in horror, "suppose that I should have come home last night. Don't you see?"

"I daresay she 'ad the door locked, sir," he said.

"By special train," I mumbled. A light broke in upon my reviving intellect. "Why, it was the train that went through at a mile a minute while we were in the coffee-house. No wonder we didn't meet her!"

"I shudder to think of wot would 'ave 'appened if we had, sir," said he, meaning no doubt to placate me. "Mr. Poopendyke says the Countess 'as been up all night worrying about you, sir. She has been distracted. She wanted 'im to go out and search for you at four o'clock this morning, but he says he assured 'er you'd turn up all right. He says Mrs.—the elderly lady, begging your pardon, sir,—thought she was doing for the best when she took a special. She wanted to save us all the trouble she could. He says she was very much distressed by our failure to 'ave some one meet her with a launch when she got here last night, sir. As it was, she didn't reach the castle until nearly one, and she looked like a drowned rat when she got there, being hex—exposed to a beastly rainstorm. See wot I mean? She went to bed in a dreadful state, he says, but he thinks she'll be more pleasant before the day is over."

I burst into a fit of laughter. "Hurray!" I shouted, exultantly. "So she was out in it too, eh? Well, by Jove, I don't feel half as badly as I did five minutes ago. Come! Let us be off."

We started briskly down the street. My spirits were beginning to rebound. Poopendyke had said that she worried all night about me! She had been distracted! Poor little woman! Still I was glad to know that she had the grace to sit up and worry instead of going to sleep as she might have done. I was just mean enough to be happy over it.

Poopendyke met us on the town side of the river. He seemed a trifle haggard, I thought. He was not slow, on the other hand, to announce in horror-struck tones that I looked like a ghost.

"You must get those wet clothes off at once, Mr. Smart, and go to bed with a hot water bottle and ten grains of quinine. You'll be very ill if you don't. Put a lot more elbow grease into those oars, Max. Get a move on you. Do you want Mr. Smart to die of pneumonia?"

While we were crossing the muddy river, my secretary, his teeth chattering with cold and excitement combined, related the story of the night.

"We were just starting off for the boat-house up the river, according to plans, Max and Rudolph and I with the two boats, when the Countess came down in a mackintosh and a pair of gum boots and insisted upon going along with us. She said it wasn't fair to make you do all the work, and all that sort of thing, and I was having the devil's own time to induce her to go back to the castle with Mr. Bangs. While we were arguing with her,—and it was getting so late that I feared we wouldn't be in time to meet you,—we heard some one shouting on the opposite side of the river. The voice sounded something like Britton's, and the Countess insisted that there had been an accident and that you were hurt, Mr. Smart, and nothing would do but we must send Max and Rudolph over to see what the trouble was. It was raining cats and dogs, and I realised that it would be impossible for you to get a boatman on that side at that hour of the night,—it was nearly one,—so I sent the two Schmicks across. I've never seen a night as dark as it was. The two little lanterns bobbing in the boat could hardly be seen through the torrents of rain, and it was next to impossible to see the lights on the opposite landing stage—just a dull, misty glow.

"To make the story short, Mrs. Titus and her sons were over there, with absolutely no means of crossing the river. There were no boatmen, the ferry had stopped, and they were huddled under the eaves of the wharf building. Everything was closed and locked up for the night. The night-watchman and a policeman lit the pier lamps for them, but that's as far as they'd go. It took two trips over to fetch the whole party across. Raining pitchforks all the time, you understand. Mrs. Titus was foaming at the mouth because you don't own a yacht or at least a launch with a canopy top, or a limousine body, or something of the sort.

"I didn't have much of a chance to converse with her. The Countess tried to get her upstairs in the east wing but she wouldn't climb another step. I forgot to mention that the windlass was out of order and she had to climb the hill in mud six inches deep. The Schmicks carried her the last half of the distance. She insisted on sleeping in the hall or the study,—anywhere but upstairs. I assumed the responsibility of putting her in your bed, sir. It was either that or—"

I broke in sarcastically "You couldn't have put her into your bed, I suppose."

"Not very handily, Mr. Smart," he said in an injured voice. "One of her sons occupied my bed. Of course, it was all right, because I didn't intend to go to bed, as it happened. The older son went upstairs with the Countess. She gave up her bed to him, and then she and I sat up all night in the study waiting for a telephone message from you. The younger son explained a good many things to us that his mother absolutely refused to discuss, she was so mad when she got here. It seems she took it into her head at the last minute to charter a special train, but forgot to notify us of the switch in the plans. She travelled by the regular train from Paris to some place along the line, where she got out and waited for the special which was following along behind, straight through from Paris, too. A woeful waste of money, it seemed to me. Her idea was to throw a couple of plain-clothes men off the track, and, by George, sir, she succeeded. They thought she was changing from a train to some place in Switzerland, and went off to watch the other station. Then she sneaked aboard the special, which was chartered clear through to Vienna. See how clever she is? If they followed on the next train, or telegraphed, it would naturally be to Vienna. She got off at this place and—well, we have her with us, sir, as snug as a bug in a rug."

"What is she like, Fred?" I inquired. I confess that I hung on his reply.

"I have never seen a wet hen, but I should say, on a guess, that she's a good bit like one. Perhaps when she's thoroughly dried out she may not be so bad, but—" He drew a long, deep breath. "But, upon my word of honour, she was the limit last night. Of course one couldn't expect her to be exactly gracious, with her hair plastered over her face and her hat spoiled and her clothes soaked, but there was really no excuse for some of the things she said to me. I shall overlook them for your sake and for the Countess's." He was painfully red in the face.

"The conditions, Fred," I said, "were scarcely conducive to polite persiflage."

"But, hang it all, I was as wet as she was," he exploded, so violently that I knew his soul must have been tried to the utmost.

"We must try to make the best of it," I said. "It will not be for long." The thought of it somehow sent my heart back to its lowest level.

He was glum and silent for a few minutes. Then he said, as if the thought had been on his mind for some hours: "She isn't a day over forty-five. It doesn't seem possible, with a six-foot son twenty-six years old."

Grimly I explained. "They marry quite young when it's for money, Fred."

"I suppose that's it," he sighed. "I fancy she's handsome, too, when she hasn't been rained upon."

We were half way up the slope when he announced nervously that all of my dry clothing was in the closet off my bedroom and could not be got at under any circumstance.

"But," he said, "I have laid out my best frock coat and trousers for you, and a complete change of linen. You are quite welcome to anything I possess, Mr. Smart. I think if you take a couple of rolls at the bottom of the trousers, they'll be presentable. The coat may be a little long for you, but—"

My loud laughter cut him short.

"It's the best I could do," he said in an aggrieved voice.

I had a secret hope that the Countess would be in the courtyard to welcome me, but I was disappointed. Old Gretel met me and wept over me, as if I was not already sufficiently moist. The chef came running out to say that breakfast would be ready for me when I desired it; Blatchford felt of my coat sleeve and told me that I was quite wet; Hawkes had two large, steaming toddies waiting for us in the vestibule, apparently fearing that we could get no farther without the aid of a stimulant. But there was no sign of a single Titus.

Later I ventured forth in Poopendyke's best suit of clothes—the one he uses when he passes the plate on Sundays in far-away Yonkers. It smelled of moth-balls, but it was gloriously dry, so why carp! We sneaked down the corridor past my own bedroom door and stole into the study.

Just inside the door, I stopped in amazement. The Countess was sound asleep in my big armchair, a forlorn but lovely thing in a pink peignoir. Her rumpled brown hair nestled in the angle of the chair; her hands drooped listlessly at her sides; dark lashes lay upon the soft white cheeks; her lips were parted ever so slightly, and her bosom rose and fell in the long swell of perfect repose.

Poopendyke clutched me by the arm and drew me toward the door, or I might have stood there transfixed for heaven knows how long.

"She's asleep," he whispered.

It was the second time in twelve hours that some one had intimated that I was blind.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVI

I INDULGE IN PLAIN LANGUAGE

The door creaked villainously. The gaunt, ecclesiastical tails of my borrowed frock coat were on the verge of being safely outside with me when she cried out. Whereupon I swiftly transposed myself, and stuck my head through the half-open door.

"Oh, it's you!" she cried, in a quavery voice. She was leaning forward in the chair, her eyes wide open and eager.

I advanced into the room. A look of doubt sprang into her face. She stared for a moment and then rather piteously rubbed her eyes.

"Yes, it is I," said I, spreading my arms in such a way that my hands emerged from the confines of Poopendyke's sleeves. (Upon my word, I had no idea that he was so much longer than I!) "It is still I, Countess, despite the shrinkage."

"The shrinkage?" she murmured, slowly sliding out of the chair. As she unbent her cramped leg, she made a little grimace of pain, but smiled as she limped toward me, her hand extended.

"Yes, I always shrink when I get wet," I explained, resorting to facetiousness.

Then I bent over her hand and kissed it. As I neglected to release it at once, the cuff of Poopendyke's best coat slid down over our two hands, completely enveloping them. It was too much for me to stand. I squeezed her hand with painful fervour, and then released it in trepidation.

"Poopendyke goes to church in it," I said vaguely, leaving her to guess what it was that Poopendyke went to church in, or, perhaps, knowing what I meant, how I happened to be in it for the time being. "You've been crying!"

Her eyes were red and suspiciously moist.

As she met my concerned gaze, a wavering, whimsical smile crept into her face.

"It has been a disgustingly wet night," she said. "Oh, you don't know how happy I am to see you standing here once more, safe and sound, and—and amiable. I expected you to glower and growl and—"

"On a bright, glorious, sunshiny morning like this?" I cried. "Never! I prefer to be graciously refulgent. Our troubles are behind us."

"How good you are." After a moment's careful, scrutiny of my face: "I can see the traces of very black thoughts, Mr. Smart,—and recent ones."

"They were black until I came into this room," I confessed. "Now they are rose-tinted."

She bent her slender body a little toward me and the red seemed to leap back into her lips as if propelled by magic. Resolutely I put my awkward, ungainly arms behind my back, and straightened my figure. I was curiously impressed by the discovery that I was very, very tall and she very much smaller than my memory recorded. Of course, I had no means of knowing that she was in bedroom slippers and not in the customary high-heeled boots that gave her an inch and a half of false stature.

"Your mother is here," I remarked hurriedly.

She glanced toward my bedroom door.

"Oh, what a night!" she sighed. "I did all that I could to keep her out of your bed. It was useless. I did cry, Mr. Smart. I know you must hate all of us."

I laughed. "'Love thy neighbour as thyself,'" I quoted. "You are my neighbour, Countess; don't forget that. And it so happens that your mother is also my neighbour at present, and your brothers too. Have you any cousins and aunts?"

"I can't understand how any one can be so good-natured as you," she sighed.

The crown of her head was on a level with my shoulder. Her eyes were lowered; a faint line of distress grew between them. For a minute I stared down at the brown crest of her head, an almost ungovernable impulse pounding away at my sense of discretion. I do take credit unto myself for being strong enough to resist that opportunity to make an everlasting idiot of myself. I knew, even then, that if a similar attack ever came upon me again I should not be able to withstand it. It was too much to expect of mortal man. Angels might survive the test, but not wingless man.

All this time she was staring rather pensively at the second button from the top of Poopendyke's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid button. She looked up with a nervous little laugh.

"I shall have to sew one on right there for poor Mr. Poopendyke," she said, poking her finger into the empty buttonhole. "You dear bachelors!"

Then she turned swiftly away from me, and glided over to the big armchair, from the depths of which she fished a small velvet bag. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled at me.

"Please look the other way," she said. Without waiting for me to do so, she took out a little gold box, a powder puff, and a stick of lip rouge. Crossing to the small Florentine mirror that hung near my desk, she proceeded, before my startled eyes, to repair the slight—and to me unnoticeable—damage that had been done to her complexion before the sun came up.

"Woman works in a mysterious way, my friend, her wonders to perform," she paraphrased calmly.

"No matter how transcendently beautiful woman may be, she always does that sort of thing to herself, I take it," said I.

"She does," said the Countess with conviction. She surveyed herself critically. "There! And now I am ready to accept an invitation to breakfast. I am disgustingly hungry."

"And so am I!" I cried with enthusiasm. "Hurray! You shall eat Poopendyke's breakfast, just to penalise him for failing in his duties as host during my unavoidable—"

"Quite impossible," she said. "He has already eaten it."

"He has?"

"At half-past six, I believe. He announced at that ungodly hour that if he couldn't have his coffee the first thing in the morning he would be in for a headache all day. He suggested that I take a little nap and have breakfast with you—if you succeeded in surviving the night."

"Oh, I see," said I slowly. "He knew all the time that you were napping in that chair, eh?"

"You shall not scold him!"

"I shall do even worse than that. I shall pension him for life."

She appeared thoughtful. A little frown' of annoyance clouded her brow.

"He promised faithfully to arouse me the instant you were sighted on the opposite side of the river. I made him stand in the window with a field glass. No, on second thought, I shall scold him. If he had come to the door and shouted, you wouldn't have caught me in this odious dressing-gown. Helene—"

"It is most fascinating," I cried. "Adorable! I love flimsy, pink things. They're so intimate. And Poopendyke knows it, bless his ingenuous old soul."

I surprised a queer little gleam of inquiry in her eyes. It flickered for a second and died out.

"Do you really consider him an ingenuous old soul?" she asked. And I thought there was something rather metallic in her voice. I might have replied with intelligence if she had given me a chance, but for some reason she chose to drop the subject. "You must be famished, and I am dying to hear about your experiences. You must not omit a single detail. I—"

There came a gentle, discreet knocking on the half-open door. I started, somewhat guiltily.

"Come!"

Blatchford poked his irreproachable visage through the aperture and then gravely swung the door wide open.

"Breakfast is served, sir,—your ladyship. I beg pardon."

I have never seen him stand so faultlessly rigid. As we passed him on the way out a mean desire came over me to tread on his toes, just as an experiment. I wondered if he would change expression. But somehow I felt that he would say "Thank you, sir," and there would be no satisfaction in knowing that he had had all his pains for nothing.

I shall never forget that enchanted breakfast—never! Not that I can recall even vaguely what we had to eat, or who served it, or how much of the naked truth I related to her in describing the events of the night; I can only declare that it was a singularly light-hearted affair.

At half-past one o'clock I was received by Mrs. Titus in my own study. The Countess came down from her eerie abode to officiate at the ceremonious function—if it may be so styled—and I was agreeably surprised to find my new guest in a most amiable frame of mind. True, she looked me over with what seemed to me an unnecessarily and perfectly frank stare of curiosity, but, on sober reflection, I did not hold it against her. I was still draped in Poopendyke's garments.

At first sight I suppose she couldn't quite help putting me down as one of those literary freaks who typify intellect without intelligence.

As for her two sons, they made no effort to disguise their amazement. (I have a shocking notion that the vowel u might be substituted for the a in that word without loss of integrity!)

The elder of the two young men, Colingraft Titus, who being in the business with his father in New York was permitted to travel most of the time so that he couldn't interfere with it, was taller than I, and an extremely handsome chap to boot. He was twenty-six. The younger, Jasper, Jr., was nineteen, short and slight of build, with the merriest eyes I've ever seen. I didn't in the least mind the grin he bestowed upon me—and preserved with staunch fidelity throughout the whole interview,—but I resented the supercilious, lordly scorn of his elder brother.

Jasper, I learned, was enduring a protracted leave of absence from Yale; the hiatus between his freshman and sophomore years already covered a period of sixteen months, and he had a tutor who appreciated the buttery side of his crust.

Mrs. Titus, after thanking me warmly—and I think sincerely—for all that I had done for Aline, apologised in a perfunctory sort of way for having kept me out of my bed all night, and hoped that I wouldn't catch cold or have an attack of rheumatism.

I soon awoke to the fact that she was in the habit of centralising attention. The usually volatile Countess became subdued and repressed in her presence; the big son and the little one were respectfully quiescent; I confess to a certain embarrassment myself.

She was a handsome woman with a young figure, a good complexion, clear eyes, wavy brown hair, and a rich, low voice perfectly modulated. No doubt she was nearing fifty but thirty-five would have been your guess, provided you were a bachelor. A bachelor learns something about women every day of his life, but not so much that he cannot be surprised the day after.