Harold MacGrath - The Princess Elopes

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"There he is!" shouted the prince. "Do you know who he is?"

The duke took a rapid inventory. "Never set eyes upon him before."
The duke then addressed her Highness. "Hildegarde, who is this fellow?
No evasions; I want the truth. I have, in the main, found you
truthful."

"I know nothing of him at all," said the princess curtly.

Max wondered where the chill in the room came from.

"He says that his name is Scharfenstein," continued the princess, "and
he has proved himself to be a courteous gentleman."

Max found that the room wasn't so chill as it might have been.

"Yet you eloped with him, and were on the way to Dresden," suggested
the duke pointedly.

The princess faced them all proudly. "I eloped with no man. That was
simply a little prevarication to worry you, my uncle, after the manner
in which you have worried me. I was on my way to Dresden, it is true,
but only to hide with my old governess. This gentleman jumped into my
compartment as the train drew out of the station."

"But you _knew_ him!" bawled the prince, waving his arms.

"Do you know him?" asked the duke coldly.

"I met him out riding. He addressed me, and I replied out of common
politeness,"--with a sidelong glance at Max, who stood with folded
arms, watching her gravely.

The duke threw his hands above his head as if to call Heaven to witness
that he was a very much wronged man.

"Arnheim," he said to the young colonel, "go at once for a priest."

"A priest!" echoed the prince.

"Yes; the girl shall marry you to-night," declared his serene Highness.

"Not if I live to be a thousand!" Doppelkinn struck the table with his
fist.

The girl smiled at Max.

"What?" cried the duke, all the coldness gone from his tones. "You
refuse?" He was thunderstruck.

"Refuse? Of course I refuse!" And the prince thumped the table again.
"What do you think I am in my old age,--an ass? If you have any
fillies to break, use your own pastures. I'm a vintner." He banged
the table yet again. "Why, I wouldn't marry the Princess Hildegarde if
she was the last woman on earth!"

"Thank you!" said the princess sweetly.

"You're welcome," said the prince.

"Silence!" bellowed the duke. "Doppelkinn, take care; this is an
affront, not one to be lightly ignored. It is international news that
you are to wed my niece."

"To-morrow it will be international news that I'm _not_!" The emphasis
this time threatened to crack the table-leaf. "I'm not going to risk
my liberty with a girl who has no more sense of dignity than she has."

"It is very kind of you," murmured the princess.

"She'd make a fine wife," went on the prince, ignoring the
interruption. "No, a thousand times no! Take her away--life's too
short; take her away! Let her marry the fellow; he's young and may get
over it."

The duke was furious. He looked around for something to strike, and
nothing but the table being convenient, he smashed a leaf and sent a
vase clattering to the floor. He was stronger than the prince,
otherwise there wouldn't have been a table to thwack.

"That's right; go on! Break all the furniture, if it will do you any
good; but mark me, you'll foot the bill." The prince began to dance
around. "I will not marry the girl. That's as final as I can make it.
The sooner you calm down the better."

How the girl's eyes sparkled! She was free. The odious alliance would
not take place.

"Who is that?"

Everybody turned and looked at Max. His arm was leveled in the
direction of a fine portrait in oil which hung suspended over the
fireplace. Max was very pale.

"What's that to you?" snarled the prince. He was what we Yankees call
"hopping mad." The vase was worth a hundred crowns, and he never could
find a leaf to replace the one just broken.

"I believe I have a right to know who that woman is up there." Max
spoke quietly. As a matter of fact he was too weak to speak otherwise.

"A right to know? What do you mean?" demanded the prince fiercely.
"It is my wife."

With trembling fingers Max produced his locket.

"Will you look at this?" he asked in a voice that was a bit shaky.

The prince stepped forward and jerked the locket from Max's hand. But
the moment he saw the contents his jaw fell and he rocked on his heels
unsteadily and staggered back toward the duke for support.

"What's the matter, Prince?" asked the duke anxiously. After all
Doppelkinn was an old crony, and mayhap he had been harsh with him.

"Where did you get that?" asked the prince hoarsely.

"I have always worn it," answered Max. "The chain that went with it
originally will no longer fit my neck."

"Arnheim! . . . Duke! . . . Come and look at this!"--feebly.

"Good Heaven!" cried the duke.

"It is the princess!" said Arnheim in awed tones.

"Where did you get it?" demanded the prince again.

"I was found with it around my neck."

"Duke, what do you think?" asked the agitated prince.

"What do I think?"

"Yes. This was around my son's neck the day he was lost. If this
should be! . . . If it were possible!"

"What?" The duke looked from the prince to the man who had worn the
locket. Certainly there wasn't any sign of likeness. But when he
looked at the portrait on the wall and then at Max doubt grew in his
eyes. They were somewhat alike. He plucked nervously at his beard.

"Prince," said Max, "before Heaven I believe that I may be . . . your
son!

"My son!"

By this time they were all tremendously excited and agitated and white;
all save the princess, who was gazing at Max with sudden gladness in
her eyes, while over her cheeks there stole the phantom of a rose. If
it were true!

"Let me tell you my story," said Max. (It is not necessary for me to
repeat it.)

The prince turned helplessly toward the duke, but the duke was equally
dazed.

"But we can't accept just a story as proof," the duke said. "It isn't
as if he were one of the people. It wouldn't matter then. But it's a
future prince. Let us go slow."

"Yes, let us go slow," repeated the prince, brushing his damp forehead.

"Wait a moment!" said Colonel Arnheim, stepping forward. "Only one
thing will prove his identity to me; not all the papers in the world
can do it."

"What do you know?" cried the prince, bewildered.

"Something I have not dared tell till this moment,"--miserably.

"Curse it, you are keeping us waiting!" The duke kicked about the
shattered bits of porcelain.

"I used to play with the--the young prince," began Arnheim. "Your
Highness will recollect that I did." Arnheim went over to Max. "Take
off your coat." Max did so, wondering. "Roll up your sleeve." Again
Max obeyed, and his wonder grew. "See!" cried the colonel in a high,
unnatural voice, due to his unusual excitement. "Oh, there can be no
doubt! It is your son!"

The duke and the prince bumped against each other in their mad rush to
inspect Max's arm. Arnheim's finger rested upon the peculiar scar I
have mentioned.

"Lord help us, it's your wine-case brand!" gasped the duke.

"My wine case!" The prince was almost on the verge of tears.

The girl sat perfectly quiet.

"Explain, explain!" said Max.

"Yes, yes! How did this come?--put there?" spluttered the prince.

"Your Highness, we--your son--we were playing in the wine-cellars that
day," stammered the unhappy Arnheim. "I saw . . . the hot iron . . .
I was a boy of no more than five . . . I branded the prince on the
arm. He cried so that I was frightened and ran and hid. When I went
to look for him he was gone. Oh, I know; it is your son."

"I'll take your word for it, Colonel!" cried the prince. "I said from
the first that he wasn't bad-looking. Didn't I, Princess?" He then
turned embarrassedly toward Max and timidly held out his hand. That
was as near sentiment as ever the father and the son came, but it was
genuine. "Ho, steward! Hans, you rascal, where are you?"

The steward presently entered, shading his eyes.

"Your Highness called?"

"That I did. That's Max come home!"

"Little Max?"

"Little Max. Now, candles, and march yourself to the packing-cellars.
Off with you!" The happy old man slapped the duke on the shoulder.
"I've an idea, Josef."

"What is it?" asked the duke, also very well pleased with events.

"I'll tell you all about it when we get into the cellar." But the nod
toward the girl and the nod toward Max was a liberal education.

"I am pardoned?" said Arnheim.

"Pardoned? My boy, if I had an army I would make you a general!"
roared the prince. "Come along, Josef. And you, Arnheim! You
troopers, out of here, every one of you, and leave these two young
persons alone!"

And out of the various doors the little company departed, leaving the
princess and Max alone.

Ah, how everything was changed! thought Max, as he let down his sleeve
and buttoned his cuff. A prince! He was a prince; he, Max
Scharfenstein, cow-boy, quarter-back, trooper, doctor, was a prince!
If it was a dream, he was going to box the ears of the bell-boy who
woke him up. But it wasn't a dream; he knew it wasn't. The girl
yonder didn't dissolve into mist and disappear; she was living, living.
He had now the right to love any one he chose, and he did choose to
love this beautiful girl, who, with lowered eyes, was nervously
plucking the ends of the pillow tassel. It was all changed for her,
too.

"Princess!" he said a bit brokenly.

"I am called Gretchen by my friends,"--with a boldness that only
half-disguised her real timidity. What would he do, this big, handsome
fellow, who had turned out to be a prince, fairy-tale wise?

"Gretchen? I like that better than Hildegarde; it is less formal.
Well, then, Gretchen, I can't explain it, but this new order of things
has given me a tremendous backbone." He crossed the room to her side.
"You will not wed my--my father?"

"Never in all this world!"--slipping around the table, her eyes dim
like the bloom on the grape. She ought not to be afraid of him, but
she was.

"But I--"

"You have known me only four days," she whispered faintly. "You can
not know your mind."

"Oh, when one is a prince,"--laughing,--"it takes no time at all. I
love you. I knew it was going to be when you looked around in old
Bauer's smithy."

"Did I look around?"--innocently.

"You certainly did, for I looked around and saw you."

They paused. (There is no pastime quite like it.)

"But they say that I am wild like a young horse." (Love is always
finding some argument which he wishes to have knocked under.)

"Not to me,"--ardently. "You may ride a bicycle every day, if you
wish."

"I'd rather have an automobile,"--drolly.

"An airship, if money will buy it!"

"They say--my uncle says--that I am not capable of loving anything."

"What do I care what they say? Will you be my wife?"

"Give me a week to think it over."

"No."

(She liked that!)

"A day, then?"

"Not an hour!"

(She liked this still better!)

"Oh!"

"Not half an hour!"

"This is almost as bad as the duke; you are forcing me."

"If you do not answer yes or no at once, I'll go back to Barscheit and
trounce that fellow who struck me. I can do it now."

"Well--but only four days--"

"Hours! Think of riding together for ever!"--joyously taking a step
nearer.

"I dare not think of it. It is all so like a dream. . . . Oh!"
bursting into tears (what unaccountable beings women are!)--"if you do
not love me!"

"Don't I, though!"

Then he started around the table in pursuit of her, in all directions,
while, after the manner of her kind, she balked him, rosily, star-eyed.
They laughed; and when two young people laugh it is a sign that all
goes well with the world. He never would tell just how long it took
him to catch her, nor would he tell me what he did when he caught her.
Neither would I, had I been in his place!

"Here's!" said the prince.

"It's a great world," added the duke.

"For surprises," supplemented the prince. "Ho, Hans! A fresh candle!"

And the story goes that his serene Highness of Barscheit and his
Highness of Doppelkinn were found peacefully asleep in the cellars,
long after the sun had rolled over the blue Carpathians.

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