The Prince of Graustark Read online

  CHAPTER II

  TWO COUNTRIES DISCUSS MARRIAGE

  Prince Robin of Graustark was as good-looking a chap as one would seein a week's journey. Little would one suspect him of being thedescendant of a long and distinguished line of princes, save for theunmistakeable though indefinable something in his eye that exactedrather than invited the homage of his fellow man. His laugh was a freeand merry one, his spirits as effervescent as wine, his manner blitheand boyish; yet beneath all this fair and guileless exposition ofcarelessness lay the sober integrity of caste. It looked out throughthe steady, unswerving eyes, even when they twinkled with mirth; it metthe gaze of the world with a serene imperiousness that gave way beforeno mortal influence; it told without boastfulness a story of centuries.For he was the son of a princess royal, and the blood of ten scorerulers of men had come down to him as a heritage of strength.

  His mother, the beautiful, gracious and lamented Yetive, set all royalcircles by the ears when she married the American, Lorry, back in thenineties. A special act of the ministry had legalised this union andthe son of the American was not deprived of his right to succeed to thethrone which his forebears had occupied for centuries. From his motherhe had inherited the right of kings, from his father the spirit offreedom; from his mother the power of majesty, from his father thepower to see beyond that majesty. When little more than a babe in armshe was orphaned and the affairs of state fell upon the shoulders ofthree loyal and devoted men who served as regents until he became ofage.

  Wisely they served both him and the people through the years thatintervened between the death of the Princess and her consort and theday when he reached his majority. That day was a glorious one inGraustark. The people worshipped the little Prince when he was inknickerbockers and played with toys; they saw him grow to manhood withhearts that were full of hope and contentment; they made him their realruler with the same joyous spirit that had attended him in the dayswhen he sat in the great throne and "made believe" that he was one ofthe mighty, despite the fact that his little legs barely reached to theedge of the gold and silver seat,--and slept soundly through all thebefuddling sessions of the cabinet. He was seven when the great revoltheaded by Count Marlanx came so near to overthrowing the government,and he behaved like the Prince that he was. It was during thoseperilous times that he came to know the gallant Truxton King in whosehome he was now a happy guest. But before Truxton King he knew thelovely girl who became the wife of that devoted adventurer, and who, tohim, was always to be "Aunt Loraine."

  As a very small boy he had paid two visits to the homeland of hisfather, but after the death of his parents his valuable little personwas guarded so jealously by his subjects that not once had he set footbeyond the borders of Graustark, except on two widely separatedoccasions of great pomp and ceremony at the courts of Vienna and St.Petersburgh, and a secret journey to London when he was seventeen. (Itappears that he was determined to see a great football match.) On eachof these occasions he was attended by watchful members of the cabinetand certain military units in the now far from insignificant standingarmy. As a matter of fact, he witnessed the football match from theordinary stands, surrounded by thousands of unsuspecting Britons, butcarefully wedged in between two generals of his own army and flanked bya minister of police, a minister of the treasury and a minister of war,all of whom were excessively bored by the contest and more or lessappalled by his unregal enthusiasm. He had insisted on going to thematch incog, to enjoy it for all it was worth to the realspectators--those who sit or stand where the compression is not unlikethat applied to a box of sardines.

  The regency expired when he was twenty years of age, and he becameruler in fact, of himself as well as of the half-million subjects whohad waited patiently for the great day that was to see him crowned andglorified. Not one was there in that goodly half million who stood outagainst him on that triumphant day; not one who possessed a sullen orresentful heart. He was their Prince, and they loved him well. Afterthat wonderful coronation day he would never forget that he was aPrince or that the hearts of a half million were to throb with love forhim so long as he was man as well as Prince.

  Mr. Blithers was very close to the truth when he said (to himself, ifyou remember) that the financial situation in the far-off principalitywas not all that could be desired. It is true that Graustark was inRussia's debt to the extent of some twenty million gavvos,--aboutthirty millions of dollars, in other words,--and that the day ofreckoning was very near at hand. The loan was for a period of twelveyears, and had been arranged contrary to the advice of John Tullis, anAmerican financier who long had been interested in the welfare of theprincipality through friendship for the lamented Prince Consort, Lorry.He had been farsighted enough to realise that Russia would prove a hardcreditor, even though she may have been sincere in her protestations offriendship for the modest borrower.

  A stubborn element in the cabinet overcame his opposition, however, andthe debt was contracted, taxation increased by popular vote and aperiod of governmental thriftiness inaugurated. Railroads, highways,bridges and aqueducts were built, owned and controlled by the state,and the city of Edelweiss rebuilt after the devastation created duringthe revolt of Count Marlanx and his minions. There seemed to be someprospect of vindication for the ministry and Tullis, who lived inEdelweiss, was fair-minded enough to admit that their action appearedto have been for the best. The people had prospered and taxes were paidin full and without complaint. The reserve fund grew steadily andsurely and there was every prospect that when the huge debt came due itwould be paid in cash. But on the very crest of their prosperity cameadversity. For two years the crops failed and a pestilence sweptthrough the herds. The flood of gavvos that had been pouring into thetreasury dwindled into a pitiful rivulet; the little that came in wasapplied, of necessity, to administration purposes and the maintenanceof the army, and there was not so much as a penny left over for theso-called sinking fund.

  A year of grace remained. The minister of finance had long sincerecovered from the delusion that it would be easy to borrow fromEngland or France to pay the Russians, there being small prospect of arenewal by the Czar even for a short period at a higher rate ofinterest. The great nations of Europe made it plain to the littleprincipality that they would not put a finger in Russia's pie at thisstage of the game. Russia was ready to go to war with her greatneighbour, Austria. Diplomacy--caution, if you will,--made itimperative that other nations should sit tight and look to their ownknitting, so to say. Not one could afford to be charged withbefriending, even in a round-about way, either of the angry grumblers.

  It was only too well known in diplomatic circles that Russia covetedthe railroads of Graustark, as a means of throwing troops into a remoteand almost impregnable portion of Austria. If the debt were paidpromptly, it would be impossible, according to international law, forthe great White Bear to take over these roads and at least a portion ofthe western border of the principality. Obviously, Austria would bebenefitted by the prompt lifting of the debt, but her own relationswith Russia were so strained that an offer to come to the rescue ofGraustark would be taken at once as an open affront and vigorouslyresented. Her hands were tied.

  The northern and western parts of Graustark were rich with productivemines. The government had built railroads throughout these sections sothat the yield of coal and copper might be given an outlet to the worldat large. In making the loan, Russia had demanded these prosperoussections as security for the vast sum advanced, and Graustark in anevil hour had submitted, little suspecting the trick that Dame Naturewas to play in the end.

  Private banking institutions in Europe refused to make loans under therather exasperating circumstances, preferring to take no chances. Moneywas not cheap in these bitter days, neither in Europe nor America.Caution was the watchword. A vast European war was not improbable,despite the sincere efforts on the part of the various nations to keepout of the controversy.

  Nor was Mr. Blithers far from right in his shrewd surmise that PrinceRobin and his agen
ts were not without hope in coming to America at thisparticular time. Graustark had laid by barely half the amount requiredto lift the debt to Russia. It was not beyond the bounds of reason toexpect her Prince to secure the remaining fifteen millions throughprivate sources in New York City.

  Six weeks prior to his arrival in New York, the young Prince landed inSan Francisco. He had come by way of the Orient, accompanied by theChief of Staff of the Graustark Army, Count Quinnox,--hereditarywatch-dog to the royal family!--and a young lieutenant of the guard,Boske Dank. Two men were they who would have given a thousand lives inthe service of their Prince. No less loyal was the body-servant wholooked after the personal wants of the eager young traveller, anEnglishman of the name of Hobbs. A very poor valet was he, but anexceptionally capable person when it came to the checking of luggageand the divining of railway time-tables. He had been an agent forCook's. It was quite impossible to miss a train that Hobbs suspected ofbeing the right one.

  Prince Robin came unheralded and traversed the breadth of the continentwithout attracting more than the attention that is bestowed upongood-looking young men. Like his mother, nearly a quarter of a centurybefore, he travelled incognito. But where she had used the somewhatemphatic name of Guggenslocker, he was known to the hotel registers as"Mr. R. Schmidt and servant."

  There was romance in the eager young soul of Prince Robin. He revelledin the love story of his parents. The beautiful Princess Yetive firstsaw Grenfell Lorry in an express train going eastward from Denver.Their wonderful romance was born, so to speak, in a Pullman compartmentcar, and it thrived so splendidly that it almost upset a dynasty, fornever--in all of nine centuries--had a ruler of Graustark stooped tomarriage with a commoner.

  And so when the far-sighted ministry and House of Nobles in Graustarkset about to select a wife for their young ruler, they made overturesto the Prince of Dawsbergen whose domain adjoined Graustark on thesouth. The Crown Princess of Dawsbergen, then but fifteen, was theunanimous choice of the amiable match-makers in secret conclave. Thiswas when Robin was seventeen and just over being fatuously in love withhis middle-aged instructress in French.

  The Prince of Dawsbergen despatched an embassy of noblemen to assurehis neighbour that the match would be highly acceptable to him and thatin proper season the betrothal might be announced. But alack! bothcourts overlooked the fact that there was independent American blood inthe two young people. Neither the Prince of Graustark nor the CrownPrincess of Dawsbergen,--whose mother was a Miss Beverly Calhoun ofVirginia,--was disposed to listen to the voice of expediency; in fact,at a safe distance of three or four hundred miles, the youngstersfiguratively turned up their noses at each other and frankly confessedthat they hated each other and wouldn't be bullied into gettingmarried, no matter what _anybody_ said, or something of the sort.

  "S'pose I'm going to say I'll marry a girl I've never seen?" demandedseventeen-year-old Robin, full of wrath. "Not I, my lords. I'm going tolook about a bit, if you don't mind. The world is full of girls. I'llmarry the one I happen to want or I'll not marry at all."

  "But, highness," they protested, "you must listen to reason. There mustbe a successor to the throne of Graustark. You would not have the namedie with you. The young Princess is--"

  "Is fifteen you say," he interrupted loftily. "Come around in ten yearsand we'll talk it over again. But I'm not going to pledge myself tomarry a child in short frocks, name or no name. Is she pretty?"

  The lords did not know. They had not seen the young lady.

  "If she is pretty you'd be sure to know it, my lords, so we'll assumeshe isn't. I saw her when she was three years old, and she certainlywas a fright when she cried, and, my lords, she cried all the time. No,I'll not marry her. Be good enough to say to the Prince of Dawsbergenthat I'm very much obliged to him, but it's quite out of the question."

  And the fifteen-year-old Crown Princess, four hundred miles away,coolly informed her doting parents that she was tired of being aPrincess anyway and very much preferred marrying some one who lived ina cottage. In fine, she stamped her little foot and said she'd jumpinto the river before she'd marry the Prince of Graustark.

  "But he's a very handsome, adorable boy," began her mother.

  "And half-American just as you are, my child," put in her fatherencouragingly. "Nothing could be more suitable than--"

  "I don't intend to marry anybody until I'm thirty at least, so thatends it, daddy,--I mean, your poor old highness."

  "Naturally we do not expect you to be married before you are out ofshort frocks, my dear," said Prince Dantan stiffly. "But a betrothal isquite another thing. It is customary to arrange these marriages yearsbefore--"

  "Is Prince Robin in love with me?"

  "I--ahem!--that's a very silly question. He hasn't seen you since youwere a baby. But he _will_ be in love with you, never fear."

  "He may be in love with some one else, for all we know, so where do Icome in?"

  "Come in?" gasped her father.

  "She's part American, dear," explained the mother, with her prettiestsmile.

  "Besides," said the Crown Princess, with finality, "I'm not even goingto be engaged to a man I've never seen. And if you insist, I'll runaway as sure as anything."

  And so the matter rested. Five years have passed since the initialovertures were made by the two courts, and although several slyattempts were made to bring the young people to a proper understandingof their case, they aroused nothing more than scornful laughter on thepart of the belligerents, as the venerable Baron Dangloss was wont tocall them, not without pride in his sharp old voice.

  "It all comes from mixing the blood," said the Prime Minister gloomily.

  "Or improving it," said the Baron, and was frowned upon.

  And no one saw the portentous shadow cast by the slim daughter ofWilliam W. Blithers, for the simple reason that neither Graustark norDawsbergen knew that it existed. They lived in serene ignorance of thefact that God, while he was about it, put Maud Applegate Blithers intothe world on precisely the same day that the Crown Princess ofDawsbergen first saw the light of day.

  On the twenty-second anniversary of his birth, Prince Robin fared forthin quest of love and romance, not without hope of adventure, for he wasa valorous chap with the heritage of warriors in his veins. Said he tohimself in dreamy contemplation of the long journey ahead of him: "Iwill traverse the great highways that my mother trod and I will lookfor the Golden Girl sitting by the wayside. She must be there, andthough it is a wide world, I am young and my eyes are sharp. I willfind her sitting at the roadside eager for me to come, not housed in agloomy; castle surrounded by the spooks of a hundred ancestors. Theywho live in castles wed to hate and they who wed at the roadside liveto love. Fortune attend me! If love lies at the roadside waiting, donot let me pass it by. All the princesses are not inside the castles.Some sit outside the gates and laugh with glee, for love is theircompanion. So away I go, la, la! looking for the princess with thehappy heart and the smiling lips! It is a wide world but my eyes aresharp. I shall find my princess."

  But, alas, for his fine young dream, he found no Golden Girl at theroadside nor anything that suggested romance. There were happy heartsand smiling lips--and all for him, it would appear--but he passed themby, for his eyes were _sharp_ and his wits awake. And so, at last, hecame to Gotham, his heart as free as the air he breathed, confessingthat his quest had been in vain. History failed to repeat itself. Hismother's romance would stand alone and shine without a flicker to theend of time. There could be no counterpart.

  "Well, I had the fun of looking," he philosophised (to himself, for noman knew of his secret project) and grinned with a sort of amusedtolerance for the sentimental side of his nature. "I'm a silly ass tohave even dreamed of finding her as I passed along, and if I had foundher what the deuce could I have done about it anyway? This isn't theday for mediaeval lady-snatching. I dare say I'm just as well off fornot having found her. I still have the zest for hunting farther, andthere's a lot in that." Then aloud: "Hobbs, ar
e we on time?"

  "We are, sir," said Hobbs, without even glancing at his watch. Thetrain was passing 125th Street. "To the minute, sir. We will be in inten minutes, if nothing happens. Mr. King will be at the station tomeet you, sir. Any orders, sir?"

  "Yes, pinch me, Hobbs."

  "Pinch your Highness?" in amazement. "My word, sir, wot--"

  "I just want to be sure that the dream is over, Hobbs. Never mind. Youneedn't pinch me. I'm awake," and to prove it he stretched his fineyoung body in the ecstasy of realisation.

  That night he slept soundly in the Catskills.