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those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an - "Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne"

William Smith - "A Smaller History of Greece"

Dorothy Kilner - "The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse"

William Makepeace Thackeray - "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan"

Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis

R >> Richard Harding Davis >> Princess Aline, by Richard Harding Davis




"So," continued Miss Morris, "I have decided to leave it to you."

"Well, if I am to arbitrate between the powers," said Carlton,
with a glance at the three uniforms, "my decision is that as
they insist on fighting duels in any event, you had better
dance with me until they have settled it between them, and
then the survivor can have the next dance."

"That's a very good idea," said Miss Morris; and taking
Carlton's arm, she bowed to the three men and drew away.

"Mr. Carlton," said the equerry, with a bow, "has added
another argument in favor of maintaining standing armies,
and of not submitting questions to arbitration."

"Let's get out of this," said Carlton. "You don't want to
dance, do you? Let us go where it's cool."

He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace. They
did not speak again until they had left it, and were walking
under the trees in the Queen's garden. He had noticed as they
made their way through the crowd how the men and women turned
to look at her and made way for her, and how utterly
unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such
discrimination, and Carlton himself held his head a little
higher with the pride and pleasure the thought gave him that
he was in such friendly sympathy with so beautiful a creature.
He stopped before a low stone bench that stood on the edge of
the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical trees, and
guarded by a marble statue. They were in deep shadow
themselves, but the moonlight fell on the path at their feet,
and through the trees on the other side of the path they could
see the open terrace of the palace, with the dancers moving in
and out of the lighted windows. The splash of a fountain came
from some short distance behind them, and from time to time
they heard the strains of a regimental band alternating with
the softer strains of a waltz played by a group of Hungarian
musicians. For a moment neither of them spoke, but sat
watching the white dresses of the women and the uniforms of
the men moving in and out among the trees, lighted by the
lanterns hanging from the branches, and the white mist of the moon.

"Do you know," said Carlton, "I'm rather afraid of you to-
night!" He paused, and watched her for a little time as she
sat upright, with her hands folded on her lap.

"You are so very resplendent and queenly and altogether
different," he added. The girl moved her bare shoulders
slightly and leaned back against the bench.

"The Princess did not come," she said.

"No," Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at
having forgotten that fact. "That's one of the reasons I took
you away from those men," he explained. "I wanted you to
sympathize with me."

Miss Morris did not answer him at once. She did not seem to
be in a sympathetic mood. Her manner suggested rather that
she was tired and troubled.

"I need sympathy myself to-night," she said. "We received a
letter after dinner that brought bad news for us. We must go
home at once."

"Bad news!" exclaimed Carlton, with much concern. "From home?"

"Yes, from home," she replied; "but there is nothing wrong
there; it is only bad news for us. My sister has decided to
be married in June instead of July, and that cuts us out of a
month on the Continent. That's all. We shall have to leave
immediately--tomorrow. It seems that Mr. Abbey is able to go
away sooner than he had hoped, and they are to be married on
the first."

"Mr. Abbey!" exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name. "But
your sister isn't going to marry him, is she?"

Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise. "Yes--why not?"
she said.

"But I say!" cried Carlton, "I thought your aunt told me that
YOU were going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on
the steamer when he came to see you off."

"I marry him--my aunt told you--impossible!" said Miss Morris,
smiling. "She probably said that `her niece' was going to
marry him; she meant my sister. They had been engaged some time."

"Then who are YOU going to marry?" stammered Carlton.

"I am not going to marry any one," said Miss Morris.

Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement. "Well, that's
most absurd!" he exclaimed.

He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly
adequate, but he could not readjust his mind so suddenly to
the new idea, and he remained looking at her with many
confused memories rushing through his brain. A dozen
questions were on his tongue. He remembered afterwards how he
had noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the
orange-colored lanterns, and that he had watched him as he
disappeared among the palms.

The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
significance in itself which Carlton recognized. He pulled
himself up with a short laugh. "Well," he remonstrated,
mirthlessly, "I don't think you've treated ME very well."

"How, not treated you very well?" Miss Morris asked, settling
herself more easily. She had been sitting during the pause
which followed Carlton's discovery with a certain rigidity, as
if she was on a strain of attention. But her tone was now as
friendly as always, and held its customary suggestion of
amusement. Carlton took his tone from it, although his mind
was still busily occupied with incidents and words of hers
that she had spoken in their past intercourse.

"Not fair in letting me think you were engaged," he said.
"I've wasted so much time: I'm not half civil enough to
engaged girls," he explained.

"You've been quite civil enough to us," said Miss Morris, "as
a courier, philosopher, and friend. I'm very sorry we have to
part company."

"Part company!" exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm. "But, I
say, we mustn't do that."

"But we must, you see," said Miss Morris. "We must go back for
the wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline."

"Yes, of course," Carlton heard his own voice say. "I had
forgotten the Princess Aline." But he was not thinking of
what he was saying, nor of the Princess Aline. He was
thinking of the many hours Miss Morris and he had been
together, of the way she had looked at certain times, and of
how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he had
pictured the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over
the same route, and without a chaperon, sitting close at her
side or holding her hand, and telling her just how pretty she
was whenever he wished to do so, and without any fear of the
consequences. He remembered how ready she had been to
understand what he was going to say before he had finished
saying it, and how she had always made him show the best of
himself, and had caused, him to leave unsaid many things that
became common and unworthy when considered in the light of her
judgment. He recalled how impatient he had been when she was
late at dinner, and how cross he was throughout one whole day
when she had kept her room. He felt with a sudden shock of
delightful fear that he had grown to depend upon her, that she
was the best companion he had ever known; and he remembered
moments when they had been alone together at the table, or in
some old palace, or during a long walk, when they had seemed
to have the whole world entirely to themselves, and how he had
consoled himself at such times with the thought that no matter
how long she might be Abbey's wife, there had been these
moments in her life which were his, with which Abbey had had
nothing to do.

Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes,
as though he saw her for the first time. He felt so sure of
himself and of his love for her that the happiness of it made
him tremble, and the thought that if he spoke she might answer
him in the old, friendly, mocking tone of good-fellowship
filled him with alarm. At that moment it seemed to Carlton
that the most natural thing in the world for them to do would
be to go back again together over the road they had come,
seeing everything in the new light of his love for her, and so
travel on and on for ever over the world, learning to love
each other more and more each succeeding day, and leaving the
rest of the universe to move along without them.

He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench,
and bent his face towards hers. Her hand lay at her side, and
his own closed over it, but the shock that the touch of her
fingers gave him stopped and confused the words upon his
tongue. He looked strangely at her, and could not find the
speech he needed.

Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and
drew her own away, as if he had taken hers only in an
exuberance of good feeling.

"You have been very nice to us," she said, with an effort to
make her tone sound kindly and approving. "And we--"

"You mustn't go; I can't let you go," said Carlton, hoarsely.
There was no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now. "IF
you go," he went on, breathlessly, "I must go with you."

The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her
breath with a slight, nervous tremor. Then she turned and
faced him, almost as though she were afraid of him or of
herself, and they sat so for an instant in silence. The air
seemed to have grown close and heavy, and Carlton saw her
dimly. In the silence he heard the splash of the fountain
behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.

He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight
that he was smiling. It was as though he wished to delay any
answer she might make to his last words.

"That is the waltz," he said, still speaking in a whisper,
"that the gypsies played that night--" He stopped, and Miss
Morris answered him by bending her head slowly in assent. It
seemed to be an effort for her to even make that slight
gesture.

"YOU don't remember it," said Carlton. "It meant nothing to
you. I mean that night on the steamer when I told you what
love meant to other people. What a fool I was!" he said, with
an uncertain laugh.

"Yes, I remember it," she said--"last Thursday night, on the steamer."

"Thursday night!" exclaimed Carlton, indignantly. "Wednesday
night, Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week
it was? It was the night of my life to me. That night I knew
that I loved you as I had never hoped to care for any one in
this world. When I told you that I did not know what love
meant I felt all the time that I was lying. I knew that I
loved you, and that I could never love any one else, and that
I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought then
you could care for me, your engagement or your promises would
never have stopped my telling you so. You said that night
that I would learn to love all the better, and more truly, for
having doubted myself so long, and, oh, Edith," he cried,
taking both her hands and holding them close in his own, "I
cannot let you go now! I love you so! Don't laugh at me;
don't mock at me. All the rest of my life depends on you."

And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her
not to do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came
so gently and sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that
though he let go of her hands with one of his, it was only
that he might draw her to him, until her face touched his, and
she felt the strength of his arm as he held her against his breast.


The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor
of the hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony
that reached out from it over the front entrance. And at the
time when Mrs. Downs and Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to
the hotel from the ball, the Princess Aline was leaning over
the balcony and watching the lights go out in the upper part
of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the trees and
statues in the public park below. Her foot was still in
bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from
the cold. Inside of the open windows that led out on to the
balcony her sisters were taking off their ornaments, and
discussing the incidents of the night just over.

The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help
Mrs. Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand
to another muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs.
Downs was ascending the steps, and before the second muffled
figure had left the shadow of the carriage and stepped into
the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw Carlton draw her
suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the check, and heard a
protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her
head and run up the steps. Then she saw Carlton shake hands
with them, and stand for a moment after they had disappeared,
gazing up at the moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat.
He drew out a cigar-case and leisurely selected a cigar, and
with much apparent content lighted it, and then, with his
head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as though he were
challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.

The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood
there leaning against the side. "That young Mr. Carlton, the
artist," she said to her sisters, "is engaged to that
beautiful American girl we met the other day."

"Really!" said the elder sister. "I thought it was probable.
Who told you?"

"I saw him kiss her good-night," said the Princess, stepping
into the window, "as they got out of their carriage just now."

The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at
the floor, and then walked across the room to a little
writing-desk. She unlocked a drawer in this and took from it
two slips of paper, which she folded in her hand. Then she
returned slowly across the room, and stepped out again on to
the balcony.

One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn
of her, and under which he had written: "This is she. Do you
wonder I travelled four thousand miles to see her?" And the
other was the picture of Carlton himself, which she had cut
out of the catalogue of the Salon.

From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she
could see the glimmer of Carlton's white linen and the red
glow of his cigar as he strode proudly up and down the path of
the public park, like a sentry keeping watch. She folded the
pieces of paper together and tore them slowly into tiny
fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into the
street below. Then she returned again to the room, and stood
looking at her sisters.

"Do you know," she said, "I think I am a little tired of
travelling so much. I want to go back to Grasse." She put
her hand to her, forehead and held it there for a moment.
"I think I am a little homesick," said the Princess Aline.




THE END

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