AT luncheon the next day the Grand Duke was in one of his tantrums. He sneered at Erica and the ladies of the court, he insulted the gentlemen-in-waiting and the heads of the royal household, he cursed the servants. As usual, he ate enormously; as usual, his face grew redder and redder; as usual, his temper rose as the luncheon progressed. At first the others made some attempts to start and carry a conversation. But finding that to speak was to make one’s self a target for sneer and jeer, all became silent. Erica endured with unprecedented meekness. Her thoughts were far away, and she had a feeling about her immediate surroundings which she did not attempt to explain to herself—a feeling that they were slowly fading from her real life.

When he could eat no more, Casimir pushed back his chair from the table and lighted a cigar. “Was ever man damned to such a life as this!” he snarled. “Surrounded by chuckleheads and numskulls, we go through life cracking our jaws with yawning. And here you sit or stand, mute, smirking, and bowing us on towards insanity!” He looked savagely round. “Well!” he exclaimed, “has nobody anything to say?”

All except Erica were trembling. They were accustomed to these outbursts; they knew that their lives and limbs were safe. But their sovereign was thundering, and it was their duty to fear and tremble. Besides, they might lose their places at court, might be banished from its glory, might be deprived of the honor and the happiness of receiving these humiliations and insults from exalted rank.

Choking with rage, Casimir rose and stamped from the room. In his cabinet he flung himself on a sofa and cursed and ground his cigar between his teeth. As he had never in his life been curbed, and as there was no public opinion to control him, no standard of private conduct to constrain him, he acted precisely as he felt, when he was not posing before the people. He despised the people, of course; but they paid the taxes, and they paid because they believed him a superior being, a shepherd without whom they, the lowly flock, would be in a miserable plight. He was most careful to keep up appearances before them, to do nothing that would discourage their loyalty to the throne, their tolerance of its tax-gatherers.

The cause of Casimir’s present outburst was Grafton’s failure to keep his appointment. “Has he gone away?” thought Casimir. “Or is he playing on my notorious craze for Rembrandts?” He sent his personal servant to the HÔtel de l’Europe privately to inquire. When he learned that Grafton was still there he began to fear that he was mistaken in thinking he had come to Zweitenbourg with a definite purpose. How to reopen the negotiation—that was the question.

He sent for Erica. “Read!” he said. “No; talk! Are you glad Aloyse is coming to-night?” This with a sneer.“I had forgotten it,” replied Erica, calmly.

“Forgotten it? Forgotten your sweetheart? Forgotten! Haven’t you seen this morning’s Gazette? It’s a love-match, the Gazette says, ‘The handsome and brilliant heir to the throne and his beautiful cousin have been lovers since childhood.’” Casimir laughed harshly. “Love! And you could forget my high-spirited, handsome, intellectual heir? Wonderful!”

“I had an adventure in the park yesterday that I’ve been thinking about ever since,” said Erica. And she went on to tell the story of the boar, saying as little as possible of Grafton, and being careful to put that little prudently.

The Grand Duke was so interested that he sat up, forgot his indigestion and his boredom and his departed youth. “And who was this man?” he asked. “He must be rewarded.”

“An American,” replied Erica. “A—a—I think he said his name was Graf something—yes, Grafton.” She concealed her delight at the success of her plan.

“Grafton!” The Grand Duke leaped to his feet and paced the floor excitedly. He rang a bell and told the servant to send Baron Zeppstein to him, then continued his impatient walk and his muttering until Zeppstein stood before him, bent double in a bow. “Baron,” he said, “go at once to the HÔtel de l’Europe and present our compliments to a Mr. Grafton who is there, and tell him that we have commanded his presence at once. We wish to thank him for having saved the life of Her Serene Highness.”

Erica was radiant. She took her uncle’s shrivelled hand, courtesied, and kissed it. “You are so good,” she said, gratefully.

“Good? Nonsense! He’s one of those Americans who pay enormous prices for pictures and take them away from us to that barbarous republic and they’re never seen by civilized eyes again. He’s got two pictures that I want. Your adventure gives me the chance to get hold of him.”

Erica went to the door. “Stay here, child,” said he. “I wish to talk at somebody. I must give the fellow something—the Order of the Green Hawk will do.”

“But you give that to hotel-keepers when you stay at their hotels and to tradesmen who make you presents of goods you like.”

“It’s enough; he won’t know the difference, and he’ll be beside himself with delight; it takes little to tickle a democrat. But how shall I bring up the subject of the pictures?—that’s what I’m considering.”

“I don’t think it would be tactful to speak of them at the first meeting,” said Erica. “You might invite him to dinner, or—to luncheon to-morrow.”

“That is an idea. He’s a well-appearing person and interesting.”

“Have you seen him?” Erica looked the amazement she felt.

“Talked with him for three hours yesterday,” replied her uncle. Then he laughed. “He’ll be surprised when he sees that the keeper of the galleries is the Grand Duke. I let him think I was the keeper.”

Meanwhile Zeppstein had found Grafton at the HÔtel de l’Europe, dejectedly preparing to leave. When he explained his mission, Grafton at first flatly refused. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I wish to get away from here on the next train.”

“But, my dear Mr. Grafton, think of the honor—His Royal Highness proposes in person to thank you! And—I don’t wish to raise false hopes, but I’m confident he will decorate you!”

“I’m overwhelmed!” said Grafton. “I should die of joy; I must not go.”

Zeppstein looked suspicious of mockery, then decided that he was mistaken, and went on with his pleadings. “His Royal Highness can be most gracious. He will not make you feel the difference in station.”

While he talked Grafton was not listening but reflecting. On impulse he decided to go. “Why not see her again?” he thought. “I can feel no worse.” His mind made up, he pretended reluctantly to yield. “I’ll waive the etiquette of the occasion, I think,” he said.

“The etiquette? Pardon me; I do not follow you.”

“Why, the Grand Duke should have called first.”

“My dear Mr. Grafton—”

“Isn’t he only a grand duke?”

“But, may I ask, what are you?”

Grafton looked cautiously about. “A king,” he said. “But I don’t want it known.”

Zeppstein grew nervous. “You Americans are great jesters,” he murmured.

“And we’re all kings, but we don’t use the title; it’s too common at home and too troublesome abroad. However, I’ll overlook the difference in our rank. Lead on!”On the way Zeppstein gave him detailed instructions in how to behave himself. “I shall probably be permitted to conduct you only to the door of the cabinet,” he said. “You must knock quietly and enter at once without waiting for an answer. As soon as you are inside the door, draw it shut behind you, but don’t turn round in doing so. You must be facing His Royal Highness and making a bow, head on a level with the loins, until he speaks. You might have your right hand ungloved. His Royal Highness may in the circumstances be graciously pleased to give you his hand to shake. If he should decorate you, you must sink to your knees, and when he has put the decoration over your bowed head you must kiss his hand—place the back of your right hand under his palm and kiss respectfully but not lingeringly. Be sure your lips are dry. His Royal Highness has a horror of being touched by damp lips. Be careful what you say; it is wisest to answer as briefly as possible such questions as His Royal Highness may be graciously pleased to ask. And don’t say ‘you’ to him, always ‘Your Royal Highness.’”

“And when I leave—do I walk, wriggle, or crawl?” asked Grafton.

“Walk backwards,” said Zeppstein. “Only members of the cabinet wriggle in and out on their knees, and they only when they’re sworn.”

“No; I think that’s too self-respecting,” replied Grafton. “I think I’ll crawl.”

“But, my dear Mr. Grafton, it is against all precedent. We haven’t crawled for several centuries.”“I’ll revive the fashion. This is a bumptious generation; it should be taught humility.”

“My dear sir, I beg that you will not crawl; you would bring disgrace upon me. I should be suspected of having so instructed you.”

“To oblige you, I’ll try to forego the pleasure of treating a sovereign as a sovereign should be treated. But it will be a sacrifice.”

When their names were sent up, the command came for both together. “Now,” whispered Zeppstein, as they stood at the door of the cabinet, “don’t forget my instructions.” He knocked and got his hips and shoulders ready for his presence-bow. “You must enter first,” he whispered.

Grafton walked in. The Grand Duke was standing facing the door with Erica a few feet away to his left. Grafton advanced towards Erica. “His Royal Highness first,” whispered Zeppstein, plucking at his sleeve.

Grafton went on to Erica and put out his hand. “How d’ye do?” he said. “I’m glad to see you again.” But his face was sad and his voice lifeless. He turned to the Grand Duke. They shook hands, and the Grand Duke laughed familiarly. Baron Zeppstein stood aghast.

“Her Serene Highness has been telling me—” began the Grand Duke.

“Yes; Baron Zeppstein here explained to me,” interrupted Grafton. “But it was nothing; your niece was in no danger—”

Zeppstein had sidled behind him and now whispered, “Not ‘you,’ but ‘Your Royal Highness,’ not ‘your niece,’ but ‘Her Serene Highness,’ and don’t interrupt!”“What’s Zeppstein whispering?” asked the Grand Duke, sharply.

“He’s very kindly instructing me in etiquette, but”—here Grafton hesitated, with a twinkle in his eyes—“I’ve been so differently bred in America that I fear I’m not reflecting credit upon him.”

The Grand Duke waved his hand at Zeppstein. “Take yourself off,” he said.

“I hope you won’t send him away,” interposed Grafton. “He’s to blame for me being here. It was his talk in Paris about your Rembrandts that made me come.”

“I’m beginning to suspect that you knew me yesterday,” said Casimir.

“I did; but I thought I’d humor your desire to be unknown. We could talk more freely.”

The Grand Duke took from the table the ribbon and medal of the Order of the Green Hawk, and held it as if he expected Grafton to kneel to receive it. Grafton stretched out his hand for it. The Grand Duke smiled as he gave it to him, and chuckled when Grafton, saying, “Thank you; it is very nice; a great honor; more than I deserve, I’m sure,” put it in his pocket. Erica turned away to the window, her shoulders shaking violently.

After a few minutes’ talk, Grafton rose to take his leave. Zeppstein frowned at him to wait until the Grand Duke rose to indicate that the audience was at an end. The Grand Duke said, “Won’t you lunch with us very informally to-morrow, at two?”

“Thank you,” replied Grafton; “but I have arranged to go on the night train to Ostend.”“There is a matter—some pictures—I’d much like to talk with you about it.”

Grafton hesitated. His wandering glance noted Erica’s face and its expression. “Thank you,” he said to Casimir, “I can easily change my plans.” And to himself he said: “Why not? I may at least, get my Spaniard.”

After leaving “the presence,” Grafton extricated himself from Zeppstein as quickly as possible, which was not so quickly as he would have liked. He set out alone for the walk to town. A quarter of a mile along that quiet, beautiful road and he saw Erica coming towards him by a side-path.

“I am late in my walk to-day,” she began, with shy friendliness. “You are going—perhaps to-morrow? I may not see you.” In spite of herself her voice trembled. “I wish to thank you again, to wish you—all happiness.”

They went down the side-path together. “I can think of nothing to say,” he said at last, in a dreary tone. “I have had bad news.”

She instinctively came nearer and looked up at him with quick sympathy. “Is it a death—some one you loved?”

“Some one I loved—yes,” he replied. “But not death—worse, I think—worse for me.”

“Forgive me; I did not mean to intrude—to hurt you.”

“I am the one to apologize; I ought not to have intruded my sorrow. Let me speak of your happiness. I read in the Gazette this morning that your engagement is about to be announced—that you are marrying some one you have loved since childhood. I wish you happiness. I’m glad that you are getting your heart’s desire.”

She sighed; it sounded very like a sigh of relief. She seated herself on a rustic bench and he sat beside her. “You don’t understand how it is with us,” she said, after a long pause. “I am marrying my cousin. It is not a love-match; we care nothing each for the other. That is the way everything is with us—never for ourselves, always for the house, for the state.”

“Trash!” he ejaculated, bitterly. “Of course I don’t understand; there’s nothing to understand. It’s all pretence and lies, vain show, theatrical nonsense. We belong to the present, not to the childish, ignorant past. Now, I suppose I’ve offended you; I regret it, but—”

“No; I’m not offended. I almost agree with you. Then—my surroundings, my inheritance are too strong for me.”

“Suppose you had only a day to live,” he burst out. “Suppose you knew that you would die at sunset to-morrow—wink out, vanish, be gone forever, pass away utterly. Would you spend your one day of life in such fooleries as these?”

“No,” she replied. “No, indeed!”

“Well; you have in reality only one day—your little span of life in the stretch of eternity. You must do the best you can with it; you won’t get another. You must enjoy it; you will never have a chance to enjoy another. You must be happy and contented and useful in it; to-morrow you vanish. And you tell me you’re going to spend it with a man you don’t love, spend it in this cold, empty, silly life of kissing hands and bowing and strutting, of vanity and gilt. What a life—what a miserable, degrading death-in-life!”

“You don’t understand,” she repeated, with a suggestion of haughtiness or attempt at haughtiness.

“Well, do you? There you sit—young, beautiful, a woman with love and passion in her eyes, a woman to be loved, to be happy, and to make others happy. And you think yourself superior—you who propose to spend your life in a way that—I’d hate to characterize it. Why did God give you beauty and brains and a common-sense education? Why did He bring you into the world a queen—not a toy queen, not a figurehead of a ‘house,’ but a real, royal queen—queen by the true, divine right? In order that you should act like a slave? That you should be dazzled by spangles like a vulgar peasant—play all your life with puppets like a child—be a puppet?”

“Why do you say these things to me?” She looked at him sadly, all the haughtiness gone from her face and voice.

“Because I love you; that is why. Because I know—it is useless for you to deny it—that you would like to love me—if you dared.”

Her bosom rose and fell rapidly. “Is it true?” she said, looking at him with a thirsty longing in her eyes. “Do you?”

“What does it matter?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I not only love you but I would win you, if you had—”

“Had what? Say it!”

“Courage!”

Both were silent a long time. He laughed bitterly, and said: “When I was a boy there used to be in one of our school-books the story of a man who went down in a shipwreck because he would not give up the bag of gold that was strapped to him. There was a silly moral; I forget it. But how human what he did was! How many human beings there are who drown their real selves because they won’t cut away some dead weight of false pride or false glory or gold or conventionality—” He rose abruptly. “Let us go.”

“And I am dragging you down into my unhappiness because I won’t throw away my dead weight.”

“That is not for you to consider. Your own case is quite enough.”

“Yes; I lack courage, or I am too foolish.”

“I don’t blame you; don’t think that I do. You’d probably be unhappy after you’d given up. I’ve thought of that. If I hadn’t, I’d—”“What?”

“Carry you off.”

“Why don’t you?” She stood before him, looking eagerly up into his face. “I wish to have my mind made up for me.”

“Not I! You must decide for yourself.” He stood very close to her. “But—how I love you! Not because you are a Traubenheim instead of only a Traubenheimer; not for the reasons that seem to count most with you; but just for the sake of your wonderful self that has dazzled me into this folly of loving you, dear—”

“Yes; go on,” she murmured.

There was the clatter of many hoofs on the main road; they were only a few yards from it. A brilliant cavalcade swept by; a young man in a gaudy field-marshal’s uniform, followed by a dozen officers in blue and white, with glittering helmets and cuirasses; after them several companies of the Household Guards.

“My cousin,” she murmured.

From the direction of The Castle came the booming of cannon and then the strains of a military band. Frederick and Erica stood, neither looking at the other. He began to walk towards the main road and she reluctantly followed him.

“Good-bye,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Good-bye,” she said. “That is—until to-morrow. You will come here at four—”

There was the sound of a horse at a gallop and soon round the bend of the road swept the young man in the field-marshal’s uniform. He looked a giant, in his tall helmet surmounted by three huge white plumes. He reined his horse near Grafton and Erica, and flung himself from the saddle. Grafton saw that he was not tall, but short; not broad, but narrow—that his imposing appearance had been due wholly to his uniform. Also it was apparent that he was in a fury. Leaving the horse, he stalked towards them, his sword clanking against his spurs. Erica was pale and nervous. If Grafton had been looking at her he would have seen that she watched her cousin with an expression of aversion.

Aloyse stepped on a loose stone and it slipped. His sword swung round and caught between his short legs. He tripped, toppled, plunged forward and, as his helmet flew off, his face ploughed into the dust. He was lying prostrate at Erica’s feet.

Grafton sprang to him and lifted him up and set him on his legs. “I hope you’re not hurt?” he said, with perfect self-control.

Aloyse’s hair, mustache, eyes, and mouth were full of dust, his uniform was coated with it. “Go to the devil!” he exclaimed, turning his back on Grafton and wiping his face with a handkerchief he drew from his sleeve. “Who is this person?” he demanded of Erica, in German. “And what are you doing here? I saw you hiding in the woods as I came by.” He spoke to her as if she were his property, and anger flamed in her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes.

“Try to seem a gentleman,” she whispered to him, in German. Then she turned to Grafton. “Mr. Grafton,” she said, in English, “my cousin, the Inheriting Grand Duke.”Grafton bowed coldly. Aloyse looked at him insolently from head to foot. “Take yourself off,” he said.

Grafton’s eyes blazed. He put out his hand to Erica. “I shall see you at luncheon to-morrow.” As Erica was about to shake hands with him, Aloyse struck his hand up.

“None of your impertinence. Be off!” he said, his weak, blond face ridiculous with rage and dust.

Grafton brought his hand down on Aloyse’s shoulder and closed his fingers. Aloyse shivered, winced, bit his lips till the blood came to crush back a howl of pain. Grafton set him to one side and released him. Then he shook hands with Erica, lifted his hat, and walked away. Aloyse and Erica stood looking after him.

“I hate him,” thought Aloyse.

“I love him,” thought Erica.