to the girl’s astonishment the landlady showed none of the delight her son had predicted. Surprised she certainly was, even startled, and certainly embarrassed. For an instant she seemed to hesitate before replying, then her emotion was partly explained by her words. Unfortunately her best rooms were engaged; four of the bedrooms with the choicest view, and the one private sitting-room the inn possessed. But if the ladies would put up with the second best, she would gladly accommodate them. Was it but for the night? Oh, for several days! (Again the apple face looked dubious.) Well, if the ladies would graciously enter, and choose from what she had to offer, she would be honored.
They did enter and presently wrote their names as Lady Mowbray, Miss Mowbray, Miss Manchester, and maid. An hour later when the new-comers, mother, daughter and dame de compagnie, sat down to a hot supper in a bed-chamber hastily but skilfully transformed into a private dining-room, the youngest of the three remarked to Frau Yorvan upon the peaceful stillness of her house.
“One would think there wasn’t a soul about the place except ourselves,” said she, “yet you’ve told us you have other guests.”
“The gentlemen who are stopping here are away all day long in the mountains,” explained Frau Yorvan. “It is now the time for chamois hunting and it is for that, and also the climbing of a strange group of rocks called the Bunch of Needles, only to be done by great experts, that they come to me.”
“They are out late this evening. Aren’t you beginning to be a little anxious about them, if they go to such dangerous places?”
“Oh, to-night, gracious Fräulein, they will not return at all,” said the landlady, warming impulsively to the subject. “They often stop at a kind of hut they have near the top of the mountain, to begin some climb they may wish to undertake very early. They are much closer to it there, you see, and it saves their wasting several hours on the way. They are constantly in the habit of stopping at the hut, in fine weather; but they are very considerate; they always let me know their plans beforehand.”
“If they’re away so much, I think it a little selfish in them to keep your one private sitting-room, when you might need it for others,” remarked the girl.
“Oh, but gracious Fräulein, you must not say that!” cried the old woman, looking as much shocked as if her young guest had broken one of the commandments.
The girl laughed. “Why not?” she inquired. “Are the gentlemen of such importance that they mustn’t be criticized by strangers?”
Frau Yorvan was embarrassed. “They are excellent patrons of mine, gracious Fräulein, that is all I meant,” said she. “I cannot bear that unjust things should be thought of such – good gentlemen.”
“I was only joking,” the girl reassured her. “We are perfectly satisfied with this room, which you have made most comfortable. All I care for is that the famous walks in the neighborhood shall not be private. I may, at least, walk as much as I like and even climb a little, I and my friend, Miss Manchester, who is a daring mountaineer,” (with this she threw a glance at the middle-aged lady in black, who visibly started and grew wild-eyed in response) “for I suppose that your guests have not engaged the whole Schneehorn for their own.”
The landlady’s hospitable smile returned. “No, gracious Fräulein. You are free to wander as you will, but do not, I beg you, go too far, or attempt any climbs of real difficulty, for they are not to be done without guides; and take care you do not stray into wild places where, by making some movement or sound before you were seen by the hunters, you might be mistaken for a chamois.”
“Even our prowess is hardly likely to lead us into such peril as that,” laughed the girl, who seemed much more friendly and inclined toward conversation than the two elders of the party. “But please wake us early to-morrow morning. My friend Miss Manchester and I would like to have breakfasted and be ready for a start by eight o’clock at latest.”
Again the placid features of the lady in black quivered; and though she said nothing, Frau Yorvan pitied her. “Would you not wish, in any case, to have a guide?” she asked. “I could engage you an intelligent young man who – ”
“Thank you, no,” broke in the girl, decidedly. “A guide-book is preferable to a guide, for what we mean to do. We sha’n’t attempt any places which the book says are unsafe for amateurs. But what an excellent engraving that is over the fireplace, with the chamois horns above it. Isn’t that a portrait of your Emperor when he was a boy?”
The landlady’s eyes darted to the picture. “Ach, I had meant to carry it away,” she muttered.
The girl’s quick ears caught the words. “Why should you carry it away? Don’t you love the Emperor, that you would put his face out of sight?”
“Not love Unser Leo?” cried the old woman, horrified. “Why, we worship him, gracious Fräulein; we would die for him, any day, all of us mountain people – and yes, all Rhaetians, I believe. I could not let you go back to your own land with the idea that we do not love the noblest Emperor country ever had. As for what I said about the portrait, I didn’t know that I spoke aloud, I am so used to mumbling to myself, since I began to grow deaf and old. But of course, I wished it put away only because it is such a poor thing, it does Unser Leo no sort of justice. You – you would not recognize him from that picture, if you were to see him now.”
With this excuse, Frau Yorvan hurried out to fetch another dish, which she said must be ready; to cool her hot face, and to scold herself for her stupidity, all the way down-stairs.
She was gone some time; and the girl who had, no doubt unwittingly, occasioned the old woman’s uneasiness, took advantage of her absence to laugh, excited, happy laughter.
“Poor, transparent old dear, so pleased and proud of her great secret, which she thinks she’s keeping so well!” she exclaimed. “I’m sure she doesn’t dream that she’s as easy to read as a book with big, big print. She’s in a sad fright now, lest we inconvenient foreigners should chance upon her grand gentlemen to-morrow, recognize one of them from the portrait, and spoil his precious incognito.”
“Then – you think that he is really here – in this out of the way eyrie?” half whispered the Grand Duchess.
“I feel sure he is,” answered Princess Virginia.
For a moment there was silence. Then said the Grand Duchess, with an air of resignation, “Well, I suppose we should be glad – since we have come to Rhaetia for the purpose of – dear me, I can scarcely bring myself to say it.”
“You may say it, since our dear old lamb of a Letitia knows all about it, and is in with us,” returned Virginia. “But – but I truly didn’t expect to find him here. One knows he comes sometimes; it’s been in the papers; but this time they had it that he’d gone to make a week’s visit to poor old General von Borslok at the Baths of Melina; and I thought, before we went to Kronburg with all our pretty letters of introduction, as he was away from the palace there, it would be idyllic to use up the time with a visit to Alleheiligen. I don’t want you and Letitia to think that I was just making catspaws of you both, and forcing you without knowing, to help me unearth him in his lair. Still, as he is here – ”
“Perhaps he isn’t,” suggested the Grand Duchess. “I don’t see that you have much ground for fancying so.”
“Oh, ground!” echoed Virginia, scornfully. “It’s instinct that I go upon, not ground. That woman’s face when she saw foreign tourists at her door, out of season, when she had a right to think she was safe from invasion. Her stammering about the best rooms being taken; her wish to get rid of us; her distress that she couldn’t possibly do so, without making matters worse. The way she talks of her ‘four gentlemen.’ Her horror at my lèse majesté. Her confusion about the portraits; her wish to impress it upon us that Unser Leo is quite changed. Instinct ought to be ashamed if it couldn’t play detective as far as that. But – of course we may not see him. If she can help it, we won’t. He won’t like being run to earth by tourists, when he is amusing himself; and perhaps the trusty landlady will send the intelligent young guide whom I refused, to warn