The Princess Elopes | Page 3

at the monthly reviews, but nobody ever worried; they knew where to
find him. And besides, he might just as well sleep in his cellars as in his
carriage, for he never rode a horse if he could get out of doing so. He
was really good-natured and easy-going, so long as no one crossed him
severely; and you could tell him a joke once and depend upon his
understanding it immediately, which is more than I can say for the
duke.
Years and years ago the prince had had a son; but at the tender age of
three the boy had run away from the castle confines, and no one ever
heard of him again. The enemies of the prince whispered among
themselves that the boy had run away to escape compulsory military
service, but the boy's age precluded this accusation. The prince
advertised, after the fashion of those times, sent out detectives and

notified his various brothers; but his trouble went for nothing. Not the
slightest trace of the boy could be found. So he was mourned for a
season, regretted and then forgotten; the prince adopted the
grape-arbor.
I saw the prince once. I do not blame the Princess Hildegarde for her
rebellion. The prince was not only old; he was fat and ugly, with little,
elephant-like eyes that were always vein-shot, restless and full of
mischief. He might have made a good father, but I have nothing to
prove this. Those bottles of sparkling Moselle which he failed to
dispose of to the American trade he gave to his brother in Barscheit or
drank himself. He was sixty-eight years old.
A nephew, three times removed, was waiting for the day when he
should wabble around in the prince's shoes. He was a lieutenant in the
duke's body-guard, a quick-tempered, heady chap. Well, he never
wabbled around in his uncle's shoes, for he never got the chance.
I hadn't been in Barscheit a week before I heard a great deal about the
princess. She was a famous horsewoman. This made me extremely
anxious to meet her. Yet for nearly six months I never even got so
much as a glimpse of her. Half of the six months she was traveling
through Austria, and the other half she kept out of my way,--not
intentionally; she knew nothing of my existence; simply, fate moved us
about blindly. At court, she was invariably indisposed, and at the first
court ball she retired before I arrived. I got up at all times, galloped
over all roads, but never did I see her. She rode alone, too, part of the
time.
The one picture of her which I was lucky enough to see had been taken
when she was six, and meant nothing to me in the way of identification.
For all I knew I might have passed her on the road. She became to me
the Princess in the Invisible Cloak, passing me often and doubtless
deriding my efforts to discern her. My curiosity became alarming. I
couldn't sleep for the thought of her. Finally we met, but the meeting
was a great surprise to us both. This meeting happened during the great
hubbub of which I have just written; and at the same time I met another
who had great weight in my future affairs.

The princess and I became rather well acquainted. I was not a
gentleman, according to her code, but, in the historic words of the drug
clerk, I was something just as good. She honored me with a frank,
disinterested friendship, which still exists. I have yet among my fading
souvenirs of diplomatic service half a dozen notes commanding me to
get up at dawn and ride around the lake, something like sixteen miles.
She was almost as reckless a rider as myself. She was truly a famous
rider, and a woman who sits well on a horse can never be aught but
graceful. She was, in fact, youthful and charming, with the most
magnificent black eyes I ever beheld in a Teutonic head; witty, besides,
and a songstress of no ordinary talent. If I had been in love with
her--which I solemnly vow I was not!--I should have called her
beautiful and exhausted my store of complimentary adjectives.
The basic cause of all this turmoil, about which I am to spin my
narrative, lay in her education. I hold that a German princess should
never be educated save as a German. By this I mean to convey that her
education should not go beyond German literature, German history,
German veneration of laws, German manners and German passivity
and docility. The Princess Hildegarde had been educated in England
and France, which simplifies everything, or, I should say, to be exact,
complicates everything.
She possessed a healthy contempt for