A COSMOPOLITAN SHORT
Cosmopolitan's favorite chronicler of love’s springtime here writes his first book-length story-and it's a rollicking and royal romance of a girl from Boston. in a 1935 Graustark! It’s a grand story!
The Princess from America
by Royal Brown
Illustrations by E. M. Jackson
EVEN THOUGH she lives to be eighty, it is doubtful that Her Serene Highness, the Princess Natica of Leiderstein, will ever forget the night before Christmas, 1934. At twenty, which she then was, she came to a crossroads in her life. At that crossroads, to begin with, she lost her job, as Salesgirl No. 987.
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| "By taking tea with a stranger," thundered the duke, Your Highness has involved Leiderstein in scandal!" |
"The nasty little squid! I wish I'd socked him!" she was raging, as the elevated train on which she was privileged to hold a strap conveyed her from Boston toward Medford, where she had lived for all but a few months of her life.
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| "The idea is to stand up, " observed Johnny, and Natica wondered if knowing the blue-eyed American might not be more interesting, after all, than being a princess. |
Natica had worked in Fairfield's, in Boston, at the cosmetic counter. Everything about the job, when she had explained it at home, had seemed funny to her mother. Or rather, to her whom, through all these years, Natica had accepted as her mother.
At any rate, both her mother and her father had hopes to send Natica to college. But before she had finished high school the depression had come.
"I'd rather go to a secretarial school," Natica had consoled them. "I'll just love being a private sec. to some big man!"
They had feared, privately, that she would get nothing. But eight months before, Natica had come home breathless with excitement She was going to work. For a manufacturer of cosmetics.
"Cosmetics?" her mother had echoed, astonished.
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| "What are you going to do with me, Natica?" asked Johnny. "Marry you, of course," said Her Serene Highness. "But you can't!" he exclaimed. continued on page 184 |
By that time Natica’s mother was all tangled up, but eventually she got the idea. Natica, who hab studied to be a private secretary, was to be employed as a saleswoman by a cosmetic company which would pay her a salary for working in Fairfield's.
"But why should the cosmetic company pay you?" Natica's mother had persisted.
"It's a racket," Natica had explained. "A woman comes in and asks for a jar of cleansing cream. The idea is to sell her that, and half a dozen other things the company makes."
"But you wanted to be a private secretary, you said."
"Say, this job pays twenty a week!" Natica had reminded her. "And I'm a natural for it. The man who hired me said so himself."
Natica was. She had the skin anybody would love to touch. That proved to be the trouble. She had got along very well with the first territorial supervisor, who was all business. It was his successor who, as far back as October, had presaged trouble.
From the first Natica had his number. He was fat, forty and loved the ladies- or tried to. He was the type who considers himself irresistible when he rolls his eyes and calls a pretty girl "sister." His name was Robertson.
"Well, look who's here!" he had said, the first time he saw Natica. "How about lunch with me today?"
"Sorry," Natica had replied, "but I'm on an eighteen-day diet."
He had merely eyed her, unabashed. "You had better write a book about it," he had remarked. "Judging from results, it would go over big with some of your customers."
"You might try it yourself," Natica had retorted to herself.
No sense saying anything he might report as an insult. She had learned to control her temper. This morning, though-the day before Christmas-it had snapped.
Robertson had appeared just before ten, thrust a package toward her. "Something from Santa Claus!" he had remarked. "Perhaps when you step into them you'll think of me-and decide to be a little kinder."
Natica's lovely lips set for a second. Then: "If you ever say two words to me again, except on business, I'll report you to the general manager," she had told him.
The grin had faded from his face. "Oh, you will!"
As he walked off, one of the girls at the counter gasped, "Gosh, Nat, he'll never forgive you for that!"
Natica was not worried. The truth was, she felt she was better than the average salesgirl. Her customers bought and came back for more. In the last-minute Christmas rush she forgot Robertson. She remembered him when the buyer for the department came to her, just before closing time.
"I'm awfully sorry," the buyer had said, "but I've just received word that the cosmetic company is laying you off tonight."
"Laying me off?" Natica had repeated incredulously. Then she had recovered herself. "Oh, well, I guess I won't starve, anyway."
Nor would she, presumably. But she felt sunk. There was her squirrel coat, for instance. A reckless extravagance, even when she had her job. Besides her coat there were the Christmas gifts she had bought. She was in debt up to her pretty ears. Ruined, unless she got a job. "I simply must!" she told herself, as the elevated rattled on.
She thought of the territorial supervisor again. He had swaggered past the counter just as she was finishing her last day's work there.
"Merry Christmas, Miss North!" he had said.
"And I let him get away with it!" Natica rued, now. "I should have socked him."
She stood there, a slim gloved hand holding the strap. A lovely, angry girl, oblivious of the interest she aroused. She was used to that. She knew that she was lovely, even though she denied it. Actually, she was lovelier than she knew. There was a touch of glamour about her. Even the glances women gave her testified to that. As for strange men, Natica had learned not even to see them.
Tonight, it was not until she was at the Sullivan Square terminal, waiting for the Medford car, that she realized a man was watching her intently. She gave him a glance that slipped instantly beyond him, but even so, she remembered him. He had been in the store that afternoon. A tall, dark, foreign-looking man of fifty, perhaps. He had seemed to watch her then.
Natica wondered if he were following her. "If he is, it's going to be just too bad-for him!" she promised herself grimly.
The Medford car came, picked up its passengers. He was among them. The car stopped, presently, at her street. He got off. The night was overcast; Elm Street was a canyon filled with dark shadows. But Natica was not afraid.·
She took her keys from her handbag, slipped her fingers through the ring so that the keys lay on the back of her gloved hand. "If he says two words to me!" she promised herself.
He said but one. "Mademoiselle-" he began.
And with that Natica socked him, as she wished she had socked Robertson. She said not a word, nor did he. A moment later, she opened the familiar front door and stepped in.
"Why, what's the matter!" she gasped, stopping short.
Her mother was in the hall. She was not alone. Another woman was with her. A woman whose determinedly golden hair asserted she was no more than thirty but whose eyes, face and figure betrayed her as no less than sixty.
The latter took charge of the situation. "Darling!" she half said, half sang, taking the stratled Natica into her capacious embrace. "You can't remember me-you were such a mite when I saw you last. But I have never forgotten you, always loved you. I wanted to be the first to congratulate you."
"Congratulate me?" began the bewildered Natica. "What--"
"I know I really should kiss your hand," the fantastic female went on. "But I'm going to kiss you just as I did when you were a baby. I really think I have the right don't you?"
She assumed it, anyway, giving Natica a resounding smack.
"You have grown so lovely!" she announced, then. "No princess was ever lovelier. Don't you think, darling, it's all just like a fairy tale?"
Natica could only stare at her uncomprehendingly. "One of us is crazy," she decided, without much doubt as to which one it was.
"How did you feel when the envoy told you the news?" the stranger was asking, "Weren't you thrilled? I wish I could have seen your face."
She was seeing it now, though, and Natica's blankness penetrated.
"Haven't you seen the envoy?" she demanded. "Why, I told him you could be found at Fairfield's. I called up this dear lady, who I am sure has been a lovely mother to you, and she told me you worked there. Do you mean to say you haven't seen him?"
Natica had her number now. She was unquestionably taking a day off from some neighboring insane asylum. Harmless, but to be humored. "Oh, of course!" she said soothingly.
"But I can't understand. Why aren't you dancing with joy? Why, it's the most romantic thing I ever heard of in all my life. You go to work, just a girl at a cosmetic counter. You come home a princess. You are told you are to ascend the throne of Leiderstein."
"Of what?" asked Natica.
"Didn't he tell you he was from Leiderstein-the envoy?"
Natica laughed. "He must have got the wrong address. I never-" There she paused. She had suddenly recalled something. "What-what did he look like?" she gasped.
"Why, tall and dark; about fifty."
Natica said nothing for a second. Then: "Good gosh-and I socked him!" she breathed.
They could not guess what she meant. And before they could ask, the doorbell rang. Neither Natica nor her mother moved, but the door was opened by one whose manner suggested that she was experienced in opening doors.
And there stood he whom Natica had socked. His face cut by the keys, was a sight but his dignity was impeccable.
"Won't you come in?" asked the self-appointed hostess.
He came in, went straight to Natica. "I crave Your Highness' pardon," he said.
"For-for wh-what?" stuttered Natica.
"For permitting you to misunderstand me," he explained smoothly. But his eyes grew cold, relentless.
"I forgive you," Natica said uncertainly. And added, to herself, "But you will never forgive me."
In that she was right. Nevertheless, before she realized what he was going to do, he lifted the hand that had smote him and kissed it.
It was that kiss that made it all seem, if not yet credible, at least no longer utterly incredible. It was like a section of a picture puzzle that has yet to be fitted into the pattern, yet gives a glimpse of the whole. By the time she prepared for bed it was all there, or so she thought.
Eyes wide, she sat at her dressing table. Mirrored was the girl she had always known as Natica North. But she had never really been just Natica North.
"I wanted a baby of my own so much that I couldn't help answering the ad when I saw one was offered," her mother had wept, in the living room.
This was after dinner, which had been shared by the envoy and Lili. That, Natica had been told, was the name of that surprising creature who had greeted her in the hall.
"I never told. you you were adopted," Natica’s mother had continued. "I never wanted you to know. I felt that you were mine."
"So did I," Lili had interposed. "I can't tell you ,how torn my heart was when I let you go. That was why I did not just send you to a foundling asylum. I had to be sure you'd have a good home. So I put the ad in the paper."
Natica had sat beside her foster mother, holding her hand tightly. She had said almost nothing. Her foster father, smoking a cigar, had said even less.
But Lili was in her element. The center of the stage was, if one believed her, no more than her due, a birthright she had been cheated out of.
"I really should have been another Melba," she assured them magnificently. "But I met Mr. Faxton. He simply worshiped the ground I walked on; said I'd have everything, and so I married him."
Obviously, Mr. Faxton had not fulfilled his promises. At forty, he was dead and Lili was running a rooming house.
"I didn't usually take people without the highest references," she told Natica. "But the moment your father and mother came I knew they were quality, though I never dreamed he was a real prince and she a princess. I just knew they were having a hard time of it, poor dears."
The envoy had quickly explained why a prince and princess should be in America, having a hard time of it. They had eloped, he informed Natica. The Princess had been the betrothed of the ruling Prince but had fallen in love with his younger brother-Natica's father. They had gone off together, a week before the wedding.
"It was known that they had married and come to America," the envoy went on, "but no further word ever came."
"And there they were in one of my best rooms with a six-months-old baby and hardly a cent in the world," Lili had cut in. "I don't believe they even had enough to eat. When she caught the flu he tried to nurse her, and then he caught it and they both died, the poor dears."
"His Highness, the Prince Rudolph, never married," said the envoy. "He has lived much these past few years in Vienna. In Leiderstein it is known that his death is only a matter of weeks, perhaps of days. Naturally, there has been great concern over the succession, so I was commissioned to come to America to see if I could find any trace of his younger brother."
"And when he walked into my parlor this morning you could have knocked me over with a feather," Lili informed them all.
"In Leiderstein," the envoy continued, "there will be great joy when it becomes known that the succession is assured; that the Princess is coming to--"
Natica's eyes grew large. "You mean I-I'm to go to Leiderstein?" she gasped.
"You cannot change your destiny!" Lili assured Natica. "I had my fortune told the other day. Madame Zoroaster - she's marvelous. She said I was born to great things and would yet achieve them. She said I would cross water first."
"But what has this to do with me?" demanded Natica.
"It is the hand of fate. You are going to Leiderstein, and I am going with you." Lili turned to the envoy. "Of course she must have a chaperon. I speak German and some French. I studied music in Berlin. I know all about life abroad."
The envoy started to speak, then reconsidered. Instead he rose, addressed Natica. "It is getting late, Your Highness," he said suavely. "I trust I have your permission to retire. I shall return tomorrow, of course."
With that he bent his head to kiss her hand, and then he had departed.
Lili had remained. She was still talking. "And of course these dear people who have so loved you could settle in Leiderstein at some place near the palace, where you could see them often," she told Natica. She looked around the shabby living room. "You could do much for them," she added.
Natica thought of that, later, as she sat before her dressing table. It was all so breath-taking. Unless everybody was crazy, she was a princess-a princess with a castle!
"I'd like to see a picture of that," she soliloquized. "Then I'd feel it might be true."
Even so, still doubting, she was seeing things. Royal coaches. Princess. And then she came back to reality. Her foster mother. She would be miserable in Leiderstein, and she, Natica, could never leave her, anyway.
And besides, the thought of being a princess scared her. She'd have to go to a strange country. She'd rather stay here. Work in Fairfield's.
"Gosh, I've lost my job!" she remembered, and for a moment she felt sunk. Then she grinned. "But it certainly didn't take you long to get another one," she assured her mirrored image. "Princess of Leiderstein-no recommendations required. Gosh!"
Eventually, toward two, she got to bed. The night before Christmas, but if a creature was sleeping it was only a mouse. Natica could hear the murmur of conversation from the room her father and mother occupied. Her eyes filled.
"I can't leave them. I won't!" she assured herself passionately.
In the morning she would tell them so, trim the tree. But when she awoke it was almost eleven; when she went downstairs the tree was trimmed.
"Your father helped me," said her mother. "And-and it seems as if you shouldn't do things like that now."
Natica could not speak for a second. Then: "If-if you talk to me like that I'll-I'll sock you one," she choked. The next moment she was crying in the arms that had always been a mother's to her.
The rest of the day was like a kaleidoscope. Lili arrived at noon. A few seconds later the envoy came. He announced that he had brought photographs of Leiderstein. .
"This shows a corner of your castle at Leiderburg, the capital," he explained. "The figures in the foreground in medieval costume are the farm lads and village maids who give open-air performances during the summer, depicting events in the Middle Ages."
Natica said nothing but her eyes grew larger and larger. The castle-her castle-was indescribably romantic, with its turrets and courts and balconies and mullioned windows. There were many pictures, all beautiful. Especially one of a winding valley through which a stream flowed, with mountains rising snow-crested in the background.
It was the weirdest Christmas in Natica’s life. The envoy and Lili spent the afternoon urging her to be a princess. That evening the envoy isolated Mr. North, to talk about Natica and Leiderstein. It was Mr. North's idea, in the end, that he knew all about Leiderstein. The envoy knew he didn't know the half.
"I see, I see," Mr. North had murmured, at intervals.
Naturally, what he saw was what he was intended to see. The envoy did not, certainly, choose to tell him that there was a new Republican Party in Leiderstein which was backing a popular young yodeler for president. Nor did he think it wise to tell Mr. North that there was also, in the neighboring principality of Ehrenstein, an idea that this was the time to foment revolt, that Leiderstein might be annexed in the midst of the confusion.
This was what Mr. North did not know when he emerged to talk to Natica. "Can't you see we would never forgive ourselves if you didn't go?" he pleaded, "It would be as if we stood in your way."
Natica, still mutinous, could understand that.
In the end she surrendered, but her capitulation was characteristic. "I can always walk out if I don't like it," she said flippantly. "Expect me back in about six months."
And so Her Serene Highness, the Princess Natica of Leiderstein, sailed from Boston on New Year's Day, 1935. And Lili was with her. The envoy had acquiesced to that.
The cabin that had been reserved for Natica and Lili was no royal suite, certainly. Just a cubby-hole and on D Deck, at that. But that was because Natica was traveling incognito.
"You will arrive in Leiderburg as an American girl traveling with a companion," the envoy had told her. "You will stay at the inn until all is arranged."
"I thought all had been arranged," said Natica.
"In a way, yes," he soothed her. "But Leiderstein does not know the Princess has been found; the announcement will come as a coup d'etat, if you know what I mean."
Natica got the idea but it had made her ponder. "I wonder if we shouldn't have held out for expenses both ways," she remarked, to Lili.
Lili scoffed at that. "All will be well " she assured Natica. "Remember what the fortune teller said. About crossing water and everything."
They were certainly crossing water. Much of it seemed rather annoyed. The Atlantic in midwinter is apt to be. Natica didn't mind, but Lili did.
However, once ashore, she refused to . admit she had been seasick. "It was just something I ate," she informed Natica, with dignity.
They had no more than a glimpse of Paris, for they went straight on, boarding the Budapest express that night. Natica slept but little. At noon the next day she would be in Leiderburg. Her capital! Or was it?
"I might as well try to believe in Santa Claus and Goldilocks and the Three Bears," she thought the next morning, as the express crossed an imposing canal.
The train was running along a narrow plain between towering mountains. It passed a tiny chalet, snow-covered. Then a cluster of weather-beaten houses. Presently it slowed down.
"No one deposits here," proclaimed the conductor.
But Lili, glancing out of the window, clutched Natica's arm. "Our trunks- there they are!" she gasped.
Natica saw them, snatched at their hand luggage, caromed off the train with Lili before it resumed its progress.
And so Her Rather-Breathless Highness, Natica, arrived in her capital wearing a little gray hat over one eye-and a squirrel coat which had not yet been paid for.
"I'd certainly like to give that conductor a piece of my mind," Lili raged. "I guess if he knew who you are-"
"Shh!" said Natica hurriedly.
And then, abruptly, she forgot Lili. A mountain rose ahead, snow-clad, its flanks flecked by the sleepiest of old-world villages. And dominating this, as picturesque as anything that ever illustrated a fairy tale, was the castle-her castle!
Natica took a deep wavering breath; then abruptly came back to earth to meet the eyes of Johnny Lane.
The first face she was conscious of was his, unfamiliar to her yet as familiar as an unmistakably American face would be at such a time. He was blond and tall and wide of shoulder, lean of flank. Ever so briefly his eyes held her. Blue eyes, nice eyes. But there seemed to be a challenge in them, as if they were saying, "So you have arrived!"
In spite of herself, hers answered, "I have-and what are you going to do about it? Or have you any choice in the matter?"
She had, for a minute, forgotten that she was a princess come to her heritage. But Lili reminded her of that.
No royal coach met her at the station. She and Lili drove to the inn in an open sleigh Natica sat entranced, bemused.
The sleigh passed through a street with overhanging balconies and houses, the fronts of which were decorated with medieval tableaux, into a square dominated by the Renaissance government building. At the opposite end was the inn, whose huge sign portrayed a pelican feeding its young. The proprietor admitted that rooms had been reserved for them. He certainly never seemed to suspect he was entertaining royalty in disguise.
"I suppose we ought to go sight-seeing," Lili yawned, after lunch. "I'll just lie down for a few minutes first, though. I don't mean to sleep--just relax."
Apparently Lili snored when she relaxed.
To Her Serene Highness everything seemed an anticlimax. Here she was in Leiderstein, but what next? She stood pensively looking out of the window of the sitting room. A blue-clad figure swung across the square on skis. It came straight to the Pelican where, stopping, it bent to take its skis off. Then the figure in blue stuck the ends of the skis in the snow and entered.
"Perhaps he's stopping here," thought Natica, who certainly did not find that possibility disagreeable.
It was, of course, Johnny Lane, although she had yet to learn his name. That came later, sometime after midnight, and long after Natica had gone to bed. There was apparently nothing else for her to do in Leiderburg. She had wondered, after dinner, if there were any movies in town.
"But Natica, you can't go!" Lili had protested. "Consider your position, your future!"
"The future may be exactly as advertised," retorted Natica, who was beginning to doubt it, "but at the moment it's my present I'm considering. I'll yawn myself to death if some excitement doesn't come soon."
Instead, she had merely yawned herself to sleep in pale green silk pajamas which she loved. They were extreme of course; mostly suspender-back and little else.
"Do you' think you ought to wear those here?" Lili had asked doubtfully. "Suppose there should be a fire or something."
"No such luck!" replied Natica, who, it is to be feared, had had a sudden vision of a certain young American rescuing her.
What actually happened taxed her credulity rather than frightened her. It seemed more like a movie than anything that could really happen. She had been asleep. When she awoke it was her impression that Lili was trying to arouse her. But it wasn't Lili at all. Lili, in fact, was sitting up in her own bed, her eyes wide with horror.
"He says," she quavered, "that you will not be harmed if you keep silent, but that if you utter one sound he will kill you instantly."
Natica blinked and looked around. The "he" to whom Lili referred was, obviously, the man whose huge hand gripped her bare shoulder. He was one of four masked masculine visitors who had entered her bedchamber. "He says you are to dress quickly," Lili went on.
"I certainly won't!" retorted Natica spiritedly. "I-"
She stopped there. It was evident that her captor meant business. The huge hand that gripped her shoulder seemed to move toward her throat.
It was at that moment that Johnny Lane came in. In a way, that made it seem like a dream again. To begin with, he was still in skiing costume-and surely he didn't wear that to bed. And he came in so nonchalantly, with nothing of the air of a hero coming to the rescue. He was not armed, apparently; his hands were in his pockets.
They all stared at him stupidly. Except Natica, who was wide-eyed and unconsciously provocative and appealing all in the same breath.
Natica could not understand German, so she had no idea what he was saying. Whatever it was, it all seemed most pleasant, with Johnny doing most of the talking and unmistakably master of the situation. In any event, the four intruders turned sheepish, and when he had finished, they departed forthwith.
Natica watched them go, still wide-eyed; then turned to Johnny. "Is this a custom of the country?" she asked. "What happened?"
"Just a little mistake," Johnny assured her. "They came to kidnap you."
"Kidnap me?" echoed Natica. "What for?"
"Well, they may have thought you were an American heiress," Johnny grinned. "Had an idea that somebody would pay a big ransom for you."
"But what made them change their minds?"
Johnny did not meet her eye. "I did. I told them that they were all wet in their assumptions. That you and I were engaged-sorry if that is premature- and you had come here with your aunt, to join me. And that the best thing they could do was to walk to the nearest exit-and they did. That's all."
Natica’s astonished eyes sought his, but they still avoided her. She suddenly realized why. She had forgotten that she was attired in green silk pajamas. An unconventional costume, to say the least.
"Oh," she began confusedly, "I-I can't begin to thank you."
His eyes did meet hers then. "Let's postpone it until morning, anyway," he suggested. "I don't think you'll be bothered again, but if you are, perhaps this will make you feel safer."
From his pocket he drew an automatic pistol which he handed to her. She took it, glanced up to meet his smile.
"Good night," he said-and passed through the door.
Natica dropped her eyes to the automatic as the door closed behind him. She was puzzled. He had been armed, after all. And how had he happened to arrive so opportunely? It seemed to her that there was a great deal yet to be explained.
Lili broke in on her thoughts. "Oh, Natica, I nearly died! But wasn't he wonderful? I wish you could have heard what he said. He told that man who had hold of you if he didn't take his hand off you he'd crown him first and shoot him afterwards. He-oh, he was simply marvelous!"
Natica said nothing, but an odd little thrill ran down Her Serene Highness' royal spine.
It was a long time before she slept. She was wondering if knowing the blue-eyed young American might not be more interesting, after all, than being a princess.
In the morning she had a chance to experiment with what knowing him better might be like. He came over to the table where she and Lili were eating breakfast.
"Would you care to try skiing this morning?" he asked Natica.
He was tactfully ignoring what had happened during the night, she realized. Anyway, until he got her away from Lili.
"But I haven't anything to wear!" she protested. "Or skis, either."
"I can get you both," he assured her.
"Could you?" asked Her Serene Highness eagerly.
Lili disapproved of that. She disapproved even more of Natica in the skiing costume Johnny produced for her.
"I may be old-fashioned," Lili persisted, "but I never did think a girl should wear trousers. And a princess-"
"If these walls have ears, the first thing you know the envoy is going to land on your neck," Natica warned her. "Don't forget I'm incognito."
"But just the same you are-well, what you are! And you shouldn't let strange young men-"
"I wouldn't call him exactly strange" Natica reminded her. "He announced our engagement, didn't he? And you yourself said he was marvelous."
"But he's only an American!" Lili wailed. "He's just--"
"Sweet. I know," supplied Natica. "And he saved the Princess' life once and now he's saving it again. Or at least her lovely figure. If I don't get some exercise after the meals here, Leinietsren will think its ruler-to-be is twins."
"You should thank him-and sit on him! " persisted Lili.
"Do you advise that?" mocked Natica. "And if so, what part of his anatomy would you suggest? Not his lap, I hope!"
She did not sit on Johnny. She merely sat on herself rather frequently that morning. She sat down with the first step she tried to take, outside the Pelican. And sat down again while she was trying to get up.
"The idea is to stand up," observed Johnny mildly.
He himself was a marvel of ease and proficiency, as she realized when they raced through the town and came to a virgin slope.
"You're awfully good, aren't you?" she said.
"I used to be, at Dartmouth," he confessed. "But last year I went to China and the one before I spent in the South Sea Islands."
"South Sea Islands?" She quickened. "What were you doing there?"
"Getting local color-and hating it," he replied."Oh, it was picturesque enough, but what I remember chiefly is the spiders. And I had the most awful longing for snow. It got to be a mania."
"Well, you've come to a place where you see plenty," Natica suggested. She gave him a direct, searching look. He was, obviously, only a few years older than she, but he bore the unmistakable stamp of a youngster who has been places. Abruptly she added, "You speak of China in one breath and the South Seas in the next. Is there any place you haven't been?"
He grinned. "A few-and I doubt if it's worth bothering to see them. I was born with seven-league boots on, I guess-my great-grandfathers were both clipper-ship captains-but I think I'm about ready to settle down. Getting old, perhaps."
He didn't look it, lithe and easy in skiing costume, with bright-colored stockings rimming his shoes.
"What are you doing in Leiderstein?" she asked.
"Looking for excitement."
"What makes you think you'll find it in Leiderstein?"
"Well, I found a little last night," he observed. And then went on hastily, as if he wanted to avoid discussion of that: "Actually, the scene here is set for drama of some sort. The old Prince may pass out any moment, and there's a strong Republican sentiment--"
"Republican?" echoed Natica, surprised. "You mean-"
"That at least a segment of the Prince's none-too-loyal subjects feel that Leiderstein would be better off as a republic." He paused, to grin again. "Notice all the pictures of the village bands and singing societies around the inn?"
Natica nodded.
"The man who hopes to be Leiderstein's president has one talent that makes him almost unbeatable," Johnny went on. "These Leidersteiners take as naturally to song as they do to food and drink. It's their favorite indoor and outdoor sport. And the candidate has the best tenor voice in all Leiderstein. All he needs to do is yodel his campaign speeches and he'll walk in."
Natica looked at him suspiciously. Was he fooling?
Johnny read her thought. "It's true," he said, more soberly. "And that's not the half of it. There's not only a strong Republican sentiment, but it's being fomented by Ehrenstein, Leiderstein's nearest but not always dearest neighbor. It's larger than Leiderstein and would like to be larger still. That could be achieved by absorbing Leiderstein."
"Absorb Leiderstein! How could they?" protested Natica.
"By stepping In to prevent disorder when the old Prince dies. The aristocracy won't be in favor of a Republic if it can be helped, and that may mean bloodshed."
"But even so, what business is it of Ehrenstein's?"
"Ehrenstein is ready to become its brother's keeper-rush troops over the border to restore order and keep them here indefinitely, to preserve it."
"Oh!" said Natica. She glanced up at the castle. Her castle-to-be-or was it?
"How would, you like to live there?" Johnny demanded.
Her startled eyes met his. "I-I don't know," she said, confused.
"Well-" began Johnny, and stopped short.
The silence had been broken by a bell. As its reverberations echoed around them, he lifted his arm, glanced at his wrist watch.
"It's not striking the hour," he murmured, curiously intent.
The bell sounded again. Then again. Natica watched Johnny's expression. She felt drama in the air. Her throat tightened as he looked at her.
"The Prince is dead. They're tolling for him," he said. He was silent as his eyes held hers. Then: "How do you think you'll like being a princess?"
Natica stared at him. "Why-why, how did you know?" she gasped.
Johnny smiled. "I guessed it at the station, yesterday. And so did a few others. That's why you had visitors last night."
"You mean they knew I was the Princess?" she asked.
"They suspected it, but fortunately, I talked them out of it."
"But why should they?"
"The more zealous Republicans would naturally want you out of the way, wouldn't they?"
"I suppose so. But how could they guess?"
"The same way I did. You have your mother's nose."
"My mother's nose?" she echoed, astonished.
He did not explain. "They'll be looking for you. Both parties, perhaps," he remarked. "We'd better get back."
They were waiting for her, as he had prophesied. A delegation at the inn, where she arrived powdered with snow like a woolly doughnut. She had sat down three times on her way to this, the most momentous moment of her life. She could not doubt that it was that, for as they came into the square she saw a knot of Leidersteiners gathered around the Pelican, attracted by a two-horse sleigh guarded by four mounted outriders in gorgeous uniforms.
Eyes went to Natica, who felt absolutely inadequate. One of the outriders dismounted, intent on removing her skis. But Johnny forestalled him.
"You might," he remarked, as he finished, "at least give me something to remember you by." He spoke lightly, and yet when his eyes met hers there was that in them which made her heart con- strict.
"Remember me by?" she protested. "But you aren’t going away?"
"No, but you are," he said. He tried to grin but his mouth was strained.
"I-"
He was interrupted. "Your Highness!" a voice said freezingly.
From then on it was more like a dream than ever. She passed out of the brilliant sunlight into the murk of the inn's lobby, where a group of men clicked to attention.
"Her Serene Highness!" announced the envoy.
They kissed her hand, one after the other. And then, still in a trance, she went up to change from her ski suit.
"Oh, darling, didn't I tell you!" was Lili's greeting. "It's all coming out exactly as the fortune teller said."
Before Natica could answer there was a knock at the door and four women came in, with suitcases. They curtsied, kissed her hand, too.
"Your ladies in waiting," Lili explained.
They took charge of her as if she were a doll. Shoes and stockings, gloves and frock. A sealskin coat. All black. And finally a Queen Mary hat.
"Horrors! Do I have to wear that?" protested Natica.
They merely smiled and put it on her blond head.
Fifteen minutes later, she stood on the balcony of the government building and was proclaimed ruler of Leiderstein.
"The Prince is dead; long live Her Serene Highness, the Princess Natica!" the Lord High Chamberlain announced.
Natica stood shivering from sheer excitement. She felt small and inadequate and friendless as she stood there, flanked by Leiderstein's dignitaries. No wonder that, as the trumpets blared, she so forgot herself as to powder her nose.
"When in doubt, powder your nose," had ever been her flippant challenge to fate. "It's not only good for the nose but it helps the morale."
Of course she shouldn't have done it. Johnny Lane, standing in the square with the Leidersteiners, sensed that at once. "That," he thought, "will make as good a headline as a bomb would!"
In fact, the Lord High Chamberlain looked for a moment as if a bomb had gone off. "Her Serene Highness is very American," he remarked to other members of Leiderstein's ruling caste after the ceremony.
They were relaxing, quaffing beer in his private quarters in the castle. The past two hours had been a nerve-racking ordeal for all of them. But at least the Princess had been proclaimed and was in her castle.
"It is unfortunate that we should have such a princess at this so-uncertain time," the Lord High Chamberlain went on. "I fear it will take much time to teach her to become what a princess should be."
The Duke of Schann-Holstein set his mug down with a bang. "I almost think a Republic with that damned yodeling upstart would be better," he growled through his fierce mustachios. "A princess who is skiing when we come for her. Donner und Blitz! It will be all over Leiderstein by now."
Her Still-Anything-but-Serene Highness was in her sitting room. She had been brought to the castle in the sleigh with its four outriders, so that all might see this Princess from America.
"Like an oyster on the half shell! " Natica had remarked, to Lili.
It was not, she suspected, what a princess should say at such a moment. But she didn't feel like a princess yet, and she wasn't sure Leiderstein was going to accept her as one.
The castle, which had seemed like something out of a fairy tale as she had lifted her eyes to it from the ski hill now seemed more like a place where ogres eat little girls. A spooky place with many dark corners.
Even her own quarters depressed Natica. The walls were terribly high, the furnishing ancient and almost black with time. She wished passionately that she were back home. In another moment she would weep, and she hated tears.
"Well, what kind of a princess do you think I make?" she demanded.
Lili, who had taken off her shoes, flexed her toes luxuriously. "Absolutely perfect," she assured Natica. She rubbed her toes.
"I wish I knew what makes these shoes cramp my feet so."
"I wish I knew what makes this job cramp me so," replied Natica. "I feel in my bones that I'm not going to be a knock-out at it. Or perhaps I'll knock them out, at that."
In a way, that was prophetic. The first few days were particularly unnerving. The dead Prince lay in state, back I in his castle. Natica must simulate grief for this man whom she had never known, who lay in his candlelit casket around which four members of his bodyguard stood always at attention.
"Your Highness will please to kneel beside him and pray," the Lord High Chamberlain had coached her.
Natica knelt but the only prayer she could think of was "Now I lay me down to sleep." But they did not know that. And at least from that and from the ceremonies that attended the funeral and interment she emerged with credit.
"It isn't hard to fake being a princess when everybody hangs around kidding you that your every word is important, kissing your hand and all that," Natica told Lili "It's when they intrude on my private life that I forget."
A princess, Natica had discovered, had no more privacy than the goldfish she had heard mentioned in this connection. The ladies in waiting were her particular cross. They did not speak her language.
"Will you please tell them, Lili," Natica commanded, "that they give me the jitters. Put it politely but tell them I'll ring for them when I want them."
Lili made an effort to put that over in German. They didn't get the idea.
"Good gosh, can't I even powder my nose without their looking as if I were taking the bread out of their mouths?" demanded Natica, exasperated.
"It's not that," Lili explained. "They wish me to inform Your Highness that in European courts cosmetics are not used in any form."
"What?" gasped Natica. And added, "Well, you tell them that I've counted noses at this court and most of them simply cry for powder. Tell them that their complexions are wonderful-I'm crazy to know what they use-but their noses shine."
They did, rather. Natica was determined that hers should not. She was not to be changed that way, or in other matters of personal preference.
"I've always worn pajamas and I'm going to continue to wear them," she had announced, her first night as a princess. They were trying to persuade her that a nightdress was royal attire-and a flannel one, at that. "If I must wear a Queen Mary hat in public, I'll at least wear what I want to in private," she had added, reaching for her green pajamas. "And if you can't make that clear to them, I can."
She was standing in her great bedroom with its great bed, like a slender, silvery, very young Diana.
"They say it will be a scandal," Lili told her, "when people know."
"Tell them to keep it dark; then ,nobody will know," said Natica.
But she was wrong, as she discovered the next morning. She had not slept at once. She was thinking of being a princess-and of something else connected with somebody else. She remembered his eyes as he had said good-by. And how he had rescued her-why, only last night! It seemed a million years ago. She had had on these same pajamas, and he had been in his ski suit. She had forgotten to ask him how that had happened. But suddenly she guessed. He had known that she was the Princess, and that the Princess had enemies.
"He must have been standing watch, guarding," she thought.
The thought was very sweet, and on it she slept. She awoke to find sunlight streaming in. She blinked a moment, and then realized that sunlight was not all that was streaming in.
"Good gosh!" she gasped, so startled that she sat up in bed.
Four members of the royal guard were in her room. They were in uniform but carried no arms. Instead, the leader carried an immense bathtub, the others two great pails of water each. For a moment Natica gasped. Had they come to give her a bath?
"Listen!" she began imperatively, and stopped short. They were apparently blind, deaf and dumb. They deposited their burdens and, moving like robots, withdrew.
They were, she suddenly realized, schooled so to conduct themselves. They weren't supposed to see a princess-a princess who should have been asleep, superbly unaware of them.
"And so I've pulled another!" Natica realized dismally.
Her life was all that way. Apparently she could not move without doing the wrong thing. She began to be more careful. Even surrendered herself to the regimen; let the ladies in waiting bathe her and dress her and fix her hair; remained quiescent, let herself be molded.
Perhaps Johnny Lane was to blame for that. He seemed to have vanished, and she felt. curiously alone and friendless. She had reached the point where she wondered if there had ever been anything in his eyes, after all. He had never once tried to see her. She wasn't even sure he was in Leiderburg; decided dismally that he probably wasn't. .
The Lord High Chamberlain might have told her otherwise had he deemed it wise, which he hadn't, That tall young American who came to the castle every day asking for an audience with the Princess was a thorn in his flesh.
January gave way to February and February to March, each day proceeding with the education of a princess.
"Her Highness is learning fast," the first lady in waiting assured the Lord High Chamberlain complacently, one morning in April. "She is now docile and more aware of what is expected of her."
Natica had certainly got the idea. She stood at a window thinking it over. The snow still shone brightly beneath the April sun, yet there was a new quality to the morning. Subtly but unmistakably, spring was in the air. And it was in Natica as well.
For more than two months she had been in Leiderstein. She had yet to learn anything about it. The castle she knew by heart. She thought of it as a museum, almost a mausoleum.
Abruptly she turned from the window. "I'm fed up!" she announced to Lili. "Fed up with all this do-as-you-are-told, ask-no-questions stuff. I'm beginning to wonder who is the Princess-me or two other fellows!"
She was thinking of the Lord High Chamberlain and the Duke of Schann- Holstein.
Lili stared at her, startled. "Why, you are the Princess, of course."
"Yes!" said Natica bitterly. "They call me 'Your Highness' and kiss my hand and leave me to amuse myself-with nothing to amuse me-while they run things to suit themselves."
"But they know so much more about the country," Lili reminded her. "And you have had no experience."
"And never will have, if they can help it," Natica retorted.
She stopped there. The first lady in waiting had entered. Natica glared at her; then her expression changed. She stopped looking like an angry princess. She looked like a mischievous pixy--or perhaps just like herself.
"She says it's time for your German lesson," Lili translated.
Natica smiled sweetly. "Tell her that Her Highness cannot be bothered with her German lesson this morning. Tell her I wish to see the Lord High Chamberlain."
Lili did so. Natica did not wait for her to translate what the first lady in waiting replied. She guessed it was a protest.
"Tell her," she commanded, "that if she does not obey she's fired. And you might add that if the Lord High Chamberlain isn't here in five minutes he's out of a job, too."
"But Natica!" wailed Lili.
"Tell her!" Natica commanded firmly.
And Lili did. The first lady in waiting retreated with all her chins aquiver, leaving Lili almost in tears.
"Oh, Nattie darling," she besought. "You're not yourself."
"Oh, yes, I am," Natica assured her. "I've just decided to be myself."
"But darling, you can't be, here! You are a princess."
"I wonder," remarked Natica. "That's what I'm going to find out!" She glanced at her wrist watch and added, "If the Lord Chamberlain doesn't get here in one minute, he'll be looking at the want ads tomorrow."
The Lord High Chamberlain came at that moment. "Your Highness wishes to grant me an audience?" he said austerely. He at least could speak English.
"No, I just feel the need of one myself," Natica assured him. "I've got a lot of things to say. To begin with, I've decided that the castle needs modern plumbing. Install a private bath for me, at once."
"A private bath!" he gasped. "But Your Highness, the castle has never had a private bath."
"Yes, but it never had me, either," Natica reminded him. "So get busy; spare no expense. And speaking of expense, when and how is a princess paid?"
"I do not understand what you mean," he told her frigidly.
"I mean," Natica elaborated, "what do I spend for money?"
"All necessary expenses are met from the privy purse."
"You can bring that around later and I'll look into it," Natica informed him. "What, by the way, do you mean by 'necessary expenses'?"
"There is the upkeep of the castle. And Your Highness' personal expenses."
"Now you're getting warm," said Natica. "I'm going shopping this afternoon."
"Shopping? But Your Highness, you are in mourning."
"I'll say I am!" said Natica, looking at the plain black dress she wore. "How long am I supposed to stay in mourning?"
"For at least a year."
"Not me!" said Natica firmly. "I shall shop this afternoon."
"Your Highness cannot dream of such a thing! You do not understand. It would be a breach of court etiquette."
"That's another thing I meant to speak to you about," said Natica. "That thing I hear so much about-court etiquette. I don't care for it at all. Send the rules up to me. I'm going to revise them. In the meantime, order the sleigh for two."
"But Your Highness!"
"And that reminds me of something else," said Natica. "I suppose the sleigh is all that can be used so long as there's snow here. But I ought to rate something better when spring really comes. Isn't there a royal garage? And what did the Prince use?"
"A Rolls-Royce."
"That sounds more like it," said Natica. "Here's hoping we have warm weather soon. I want to get out and see the country. Where, by the way, did His Highness drive?"
"Usually to Vienna."
"That's an idea," said Natica reflectively.
"You mean you plan to go to Vienna? But Your Highness, such a thing is unthinkable!" he protested. "I beg you to reconsider. His Highness was a man. It was perfectly proper for him. But for you, the Princess!"
"Are you trying to tell me that's against court etiquette, too?"
"Naturally. It would cause much scandal in Leiderstein."
"Then you may as well make up your mind to one thing: there's going to be much scandal in Leiderstein shortly," Natica assured him. She gave him a curious glance. "What do the people of Leiderstein expect me to do to amuse myself?"
"Princesses do not amuse themselves." "This princess is going to. But what do other princesses do?"
"Many of them do fine sewing."
"Mine would be awful!"
"They marry and have a family."
"But how am I going to marry if I don't get out and about?"
The Lord High Chamberlain hesitated. Then, "Perhaps I should not so soon tell Your Highness, but a marriage for you may yet be arranged."
"Arranged for me?" said , Natica wild-eyed. "Who is arranging it?"
"It is an affair of state, naturally. Your chosen advisers-"
"Listen!" commanded Natica. "When it comes to marriage I arrange it myself. I have no chosen advisers. I marry the man of my choice."
"But Your Highness, remember you are a princess. You can marry only a prince!"
Natica’s pretty ears cocked up at that. The prospect of meeting a real prince was something to think about.
"A prince? What's he like?"
The Lord High Chamberlain, glad that the subject had been changed, answered in great detail. The Prince was Frederick of Ehrenstein. He had seen the Princess at the funeral ceremonies and had been much impressed by her loveliness. An ambassador had lately come to Leiderstein to suggest the possibility of the union of the two principalities by marriage.
"Of course this must be kept secret, while the court is in mourning," the Lord High Chamberlain interpolated. "And there are many other things to be considered. The benefits to Leiderstein, if any-"
"Yes-but what does he look like?"
"He is a prince!" said the Lord High Chamberlain impressively, as if that answered her question.
"Well, bring him around and I'll inspect him," she said. "I always wanted to meet a prince. And don't forget to have the royal sleigh here at two."
He looked at her, stupefied. "But Your Highness, I cannot!" he all but wept. "It would not be safe for you to appear just now. There are factions in Leiderstein which would prefer to have you elsewhere, and would not hesitate, if chance were given, to remove you!"
"What do you mean? Throw a bomb or something like that?"
"I grieve to say a few of your disloyal subjects might."
Natica grinned. "I'll tell you what to do. You issue a royal proclamation and say that I will punish severely anybody who throws a bomb."
For the first time in weeks, Natica was enjoying herself.
"You may go now!" she assured the Lord High Chamberlain. He did not move. She looked up at him, frowned. "I hope I never have to sock you one!" she remarked sharply. -
"Sock me one?" he repeated, shocked out of the last vestige of aplomb.
Then, remembering who and what she was, he quickly bowed and made his exit, leaving Natica with the impression that he had learned his lesson. Which was that, having tried to be somebody else, she was determined to be herself for a change.
Yet when she descended to the entrance hall, at two, there was no sleigh awaiting her. Only a tall, ruddy young Leidersteiner on guard.
"Ask him where the sleigh is," Natica directed Lili.
Lili obeyed. "He says he does not know."
"Tell him to order it at once," Natica commanded.
Lili did so. Then: "He craves Your Highness' pardon, but-"
"You tell him that Her Highness is getting sick of 'buts,' '' interrupted Natica.
All around were ancient coats of arms, suits of mail and antique weapons. Behind the guard, prominently displayed, was a blunt-pointed executioner's sword. Natica's quick eye caught it.
"And you can also tell him," she added impishly, "that the Princess is thinking of having that dusted off, and that the next person who says 'but' to her will get it in the neck."
Ten minutes later, the Lord High Chamberlain, glancing through the window, was horrified to see Her Highness bowling away escorted by four riders who looked as if they had dressed in a hurry.
And so the Princess rode into her capital. Not even the Queen Mary hat she wore could diminish her loveliness. Excitement made her eyes glow like lamps. Her glance missed nothing. And then, abruptly, she forgot she was a princess, as she caught a glimpse of a tall lithe figure.
"Hi!" she called impulsively.
Johnny turned around, and as his eyes met hers, Natica felt as if her heart had turned around, too. And then she remembered that she was a princess. She signaled the driver to stop, beckoned Johnny to her.
"Well," she demanded, "how does it happen that you haven't been up to kiss my hand yet?"
He looked tired, but his grin came swiftly. "Me?" he protested. "I'm but a commoner. I did my best to get an audience, but your Lord High Chamber- lain seems to think it's against court etiquette."
"He would!" remarked Natica. "Everything is-so I've just decided to forget it."
"I suspected as much," Johnny confessed. He hesitated a second. She was a princess and he was, after all, just Johnny Lane, Foreign Correspondent. But he knew she had the bit in her pretty teeth now, and he might well serve as-well, a friend, even though all else was out. As of course it was. "Are you sure you are wise? When in Rome, you know-"
"Oh, I know that one!" Natica broke in. "But I've thought of a better one. It's 'When in Rome, act the way Mussolini does.'''
Johnny grinned. "Does Your Highness realize that she is stopping traffic?" he asked. "And also that she is what might be described as the cynosure of all eyes?"
Natica glanced around. There did seem to be a lot of people about. "Get in," she directed Johnny. "I want to talk to you."
"Oh, Your Highness, it can't be done!" protested Johnny. He added impetuously, "I'd like nothing better than to have tea with you but--"
"That's an idea!" proclaimed the Princess. "Where can we go?"
"Listen," protested Johnny, "you can't get away with things like that. You've got to watch your step. Leiderstein is ready to revolt already."
"And so am I!" she assured him grimly. "In fact, I've beaten Leiderstein to it. One tea party started the American Revolution; let's start another."
"You-you mean you mean it? But you can't!"
"Just watch me!" suggested Natica. She gave him a swift, provocative glance. "But," she added plaintively, "of course if you don't want to, why . . ."
They had tea together at the inn, chaperoned by Lili, who made it plain that she did not approve. Neither did Johnny, for that matter.
"This is the first time I've really enjoyed myself since we skied!" Natica told him, as she poured his tea.
"Thanks," said Johnny. "But it may cost you your job."
"I've lost better ones than this," she retorted. "By the way, have you any idea what pay the Princess draws, if any?"
"Only the vaguest. Leiderstein is what is known as an independent state. You own three-quarters of it. Your income comes from the land rentals."
"Gosh! Nobody told me that. They're holding out on me!"
"I doubt if they're holding out much except bad news," he retorted.
"Bad news?" she echoed.
Johnny hesitated. Then: "I suppose you might as well know the worst. The Republican wing here is running on a new and popular platform. They're selling the idea that Leiderstein belongs to Leiderstein, and not to whoever happens to be in the castle. They're advising everybody not to pay the rent."
"You mean not pay me anything? But what do they expect me to live on?"
"I'm afraid the only answer most Leidersteiners would give to that would be a shrug," confessed Johnny.
"Meaning they should worry," Natica commented. "I suppose they don't care much. But why was I brought here?"
"Because Leiderstein has a few barons and counts and dukes who also depend on land rentals. If there hadn't been somebody to slip into the old Prince's shoes when he died, there might have been a president overnight."
"No wonder the Lord High Chamberlain was afraid I might stop a bomb," remarked Natica. "I'm not exactly popular, I gather."
"It's not personal; it's just what you stand for. The old Prince had a hold on them, as a matter of habit. He was linked with their traditions. You are not. They call you the Princess from America; the Republican Party says you are an interloper."
"Well, that practically makes it unanimous," admitted Natica. "I feel like one: I sometimes wonder if I really am the Princess; if there isn't some mistake."
"There's no mistake," he told her. "You have your mother's nose."
Natica gave him a quick glance. "That's what you said that day on the ski hill. What did you mean? You couldn't have known my mother."
"No, but I have a picture of her. Wait a minute and I'll get it."
He departed without ceremony. When he returned she took the picture he proffered her; sat there looking at a picture of her mother. A queer, indescribable sensation, that. Then: "Why, she's beautiful," she murmured.
"And very much like you," Johnny remarked slowly.
Natica gave him a swift glance, felt that curious little thrill run through her again. But her reply was characteristic. "Me? I'm not beautiful-not with my nose!" She wrinkled that adorably piquant feature as she spoke.
"It's her nose, too," he persisted. "That was why I was so sure you were the Princess the first moment I saw you."
"It sounds like a movie," remarked Natica." She Won a Throne by a Nose.' Only I haven’t seen a throne yet. Is there one?"
"Search me. But I doubt it," said Johnny. "To put it bluntly, you're pretty much of a figurehead. There is an administrator who has offices in the government house. He deals with your subjects, collects the rents."
"You mean he is supposed to collect the rents," corrected Natica. She paused to hand him his cup. "I think I'll appoint you something."
Johnny almost dropped his cup. "Me?"
"Well, it's an idea, isn't it?" she remarked. "What kind of minister would i you prefer to be?"
She was busy with a cup of tea for Lili. Her eyes did not meet Johnny's, but of course he knew that she was joking. He took his cue.
"Depends on salary," he said.
"I'm willing to promise any amount. The trouble would be in collecting," she told him. "Leiderstein is broke. Could you do something about that?"
"Become a press agent?" hazarded Johnny. "It certainly needs one. It's off the beaten track, and so small it's hardly a dot on the map."
"Small?" echoed Natica, surprised. "Why, I thought it was big."
"Big? Say, you could almost throw a baseball across it. It's about twelve miles long and seven miles wide. You could put on a pair of skis and slide down the hill here and land in Ehrenstein."
"Well, that may be something to remember. What's Ehrenstein like?" ,
"Much larger," said Johnny. "Famous for its big cheeses."
Natica laughed. "Leiderstein is full of big cheeses, but they're nothing to rave about. Isn't it famous for anything else?"
"It may be famous for its Princess yet," Johnny suggested.
"And how much money would that bring in?" demanded Natica. "Or are you suggesting that I go into vaudeville or something? It's plain that I'm going to need money. I'm desperate enough to pawn the crown jewels, if any."
"There aren't. The late Prince pawned them himself."
"He would!" Natica remarked. "But can't you think of something to make Leiderstein famous for-like Ehrenstein's cheeses?"
"Why pick on me?" objected Johnny. "I'm no press agent."
"But that's what we decided you would be!" she protested.
"Me?" said Johnny, astonished. He stared at her. She was a darned good actress. She looked as if she meant it, but he knew better. "There aren't any press agents any more, anyway," he went on, managing a grin. "They call them Public Relations Counsel. I'd have to be at least Minister of Public Relations."
"All right, you can be," she cut in. And then her lovely eyes met his. "Please, you will be, won't you?" she pleaded.
Johnny lost his grin. Good Lord, was she really serious? "But I can't be. I thought you were fooling. They'd never stand for it here. Anyway, I'm leaving Leiderstein tomorrow. I just had a wire from Paris to move on to Berlin."
"You're-you're leaving tomorrow?"
Johnny said nothing for a moment. Then; "I was," he said.
Even to himself that required a lot of explaining after tea, when Natica had driven off in the royal sleigh and re- turned to her castle. He was dizzy. Worse than that, cockeyed. "Oh, well," he finally decided, "a man is entitled to make a fool of himself once in his life."
Of course he could tell himself that the Princess needed a friend. He could also remind himself that she was in a tough spot, tougher than she realized. Excuse enough, this, for any white man to stand by. But he knew that that was only the beginning of it.
He wondered what Leiderstein would think of his becoming a minister, and how Natica would break the news to the Duke of Schann-Holstein and the Lord High Chamberlain. But Natica had already decided that.
"Leiderstein must become famous for something," she informed them calmly. "Mr. Lane is an expert and I have appointed him my minister."
They hastily adjourned to the Lord High Chamberlain's sanctuary.
"What she needs is a husband to keep her in place," growled the duke. "The sooner she is betrothed, the better!"
"But how can she be betrothed, with the court in mourning?" protested the Lord High Chamberlain.
"We'll all be in mourning soon if something isn't done," the duke prophesied. "If she keeps on, Leiderstein will soon be a Republic. Gott alone knows what she'll do next."
What Natica actually decided on next was to inspect her domains. No one could dissuade her, not even Johnny.
"This is no time for you to take a trip around the country," he protested. The best thing for you to do is sit tight."
"I shall have Lili on one side of me and the first lady in waiting on the other, so I probably shall sit tight," said Natica frivolously. "It will be like being wedged in between two feather beds."
"Do you mean you refuse to listen to reason?" he demanded.
"The Princess sets forth tomorrow morning at nine," Natica assured him.
And she did. Everybody except Natica herself was nervous about the trip, seeming to think anything might happen. But the Princess returned to her castle unscathed and triumphant. She had had, she assured Johnny, a grand time.
"You said I couldn't get away with it -but I did, didn't I."
"Once-but I wouldn't make a habit of it. I know conditions here better than you do."
"Better than I did!" she corrected. "That's why I went-to see how the people feel. They certainly seemed friendly."
From then on no one knew where she would appear next, or what she would do. Yet not only Johnny but even the Lord High Chamberlain had to admit, if only privately, that she was achieving a certain popularity in Leiderstein. The Duke of Schann-Holstein should have been pleased; but he could not forgive Natica for the way she had received him the day after her tea with Johnny. He had announced furiously that this princess must be taught her place; had demanded an audience.
"By taking tea with a stranger," thundered the duke, "Your Highness has involved Leiderstein in scandal! Your Highness forgets-"
Natica looked at him. Her lovely eyes were like points of steel. "I think Your Grace forgets!" she said icily.
The duke was defeated, but only temporarily. A husband, he reasoned, might succeed where even he had failed. Presently he took a trip into Ehrenstein. He returned satisfied.
Spring came at last to Leiderstein, and with it came the news that Frederick, Crown Prince of Ehrenstein, had formally offered his hand in marriage to the little Princess from America.
Leidersteiners stood around in groups, discussing that.
"Ehrenstein!" the Republicans vociferated. "Ehrenstein will gobble us up if this is permitted. Hoch die Repulik!"
"Behind this is the Duke of Schann- Holstein," said others. "It is he who is arranging it. He has been given assurances by Ehrenstein."
Even those who wished Natica well were filled with doubt. To Johnny Lane the news came as a complete knock-out. When, on the heels of it, he was summoned to an audience with her, he went laggingly, as a man to execution.
As always, she took him by surprise. "I'm an idiot!" she announced excitedly. "Here we've been looking for something that Leiderstein might become famous for and it's been under my nose all this time."
"What?" gasped Johnny.
"It's a mineral water," she went on. "And it's a gold mine."
"Mineral water?" repeated Johnny.
"We can bottle it, ship it to America, and-"
Johnny's brain still reeled but he protested that at once. "Listen, you can't ship mineral water anywhere-not at a profit. At least, not to New York."
"Why not? They ship perfume to New York, don't they? And champagne."
"Do you mean to say you think anybody in New York would pay perfume or champagne prices for mineral water?"
"Pay for it!" breathed Natica. "Say. they'd fight to get it. I'll bet if we put it up in four-ounce bottles and advertise it, women will pay ten dollars for it." "Why will women pay that for mineral water?" "Why, for their complexions, of course. I've been using it myself, and it really is wonderful."
"Wait a minute! I don't get this yet," he cried. "Let's begin at the beginning. You're using some mineral water for your complexion-"
"Now you're getting it-the complex- ion-you-crave-to-caress stuff. What all women want, you know."
"Something that comes from Leiderstein?"
"A special spring here-I learned of it from one of my ladies in waiting," Natica explained. "Women have used it for centuries. Haven't you noticed what lovely complexions they have? You just pat a little on your face at bedtime. It really does seem miraculous. I don't know what's in it."
"Faith, probably," suggested Johnny "You've always had a lovely complexion, anyway."
"Do you really think so? But it's even better, isn't it? Look at me closely."
Johnny's heart seemed to constrict. "It's swell," he said hastily. "But do you actually think women will pay such preposterous sums just--"
"Believe? I know!" she assured him. "I sold cosmetics for eight months, and you'd be surprised what women spend on creams and powders and lotions. Why, I myself paid $4.00 for face cream and $2.50 for tissue cream and $2.00 for face powder and-"
Johnny's expression changed. "Got a bottle of the stuff here?" he asked.
"Of course. I've been using it every night and-"
"Let me have it," he directed. "This is out of my line but there's a man at the inn-an American. He has something to do with the cosmetics business. I'll see what he thinks about it. I'll be back."
In something more than an hour he was. Natica glanced at him, read his expression and said triumphantly, "Well, what do you think now?"
"I guess I wasn't thinking so well today," he confessed. "I couldn't see it, but Harrington-that's his name - practically turned somersaults. He says, though, that it will take a lot of money for advertising. And that you'll have to have a distributor."
"We'll let the distributor do the advertising," Natica assured him. "Money is what we ain't got."
"That's Harrington's proposition. He'll take it over, advertise it and distribute it and give you a big rake-off on every bottle sold."
"Now you're talking!" Natica approved.
"Well, he is, anyway," admitted Johnny. "He was even beginning to discuss the advertising when I broke away, I didn't know how far you wanted to go, And by the way, who owns this spring? Harrington wants to be sure."
"Who owns three-quarters of Leiderstein-even if she can't collect the rents?" asked Natica.
"You mean you own it?"
"If I didn't I shouldn't have let you rush off so impetuously. You tell the man if he wants to put his proposition in writing-"
"There's one thing he spoke of," Johnny intervened. "He wants to tie it up to you. Personally, I mean. Use your picture and your crest."
"Well, if that will help sales, why not? I certainly need the money."
"But court etiquette-"
"Do you think there is much court etiquette left in Leiderstein?" she asked.
Johnny doubted it. But there was another angle to all this, and it was pressing on him heavily now. Why couldn't she see what he meant? Why did she look so puzzled-and so utterly adorable?
"But--but if you marry-" he began desperately, and then stopped. He couldn't go on.
"Marry?" she repeated. Then she gave him a swift glance, realized that he meant the Prince-and that he was jealous. Her heart could have sung a little song at that, but all she said was, "Well, suppose I do?"
Johnny's heart felt as if it had slumped down around his toes. "Well, the Prince might not approve," he man- aged. "Then it would all be off."
"Which-he or the mineral water?"
"Why, the mineral water, of course."
"Don't you believe it!" said Natica spiritedly. She gave Johnny another glance and added impulsively, "Don't forget that we aren't even engaged yet. I-I just thought I might as well look him over. I always wanted to meet a prince, so I thought--"
She stopped there, and for a minute there was silence. Neither looked at the other.
Johnny gulped. Then: "You mean you may not accept him when he comes?"
"Not if I don't like the looks of him," she said. "I-what's the matter?"
"Nothing," managed Johnny. "I-I was thinking of the mineral water."
"You looked as if you'd tasted it," she remarked.
As he went back to the inn Johnny felt as if he had. He knew that Natica had been tricked. No one had warned her that when she gave Frederick of Ehrenstein permission to appear at the castle she was also giving him assurance that she intended to accept his offer. And if she didn't accept it-well, there would be hell to pay, Johnny knew. Even so, he couldn't squelch something that soared in him. He felt sure that once she had seen Fat Freddie she'd never marry him. "And a lot of good that will do you!" he reminded himself.
At the inn the manufacturer of cosmetics awaited him. Harrington looked what he was, a successful business man who was being towed around Europe by his adored daughters.
"I think the Princess will talk business -if your proposition is good enough," said Johnny.
"It will be," Harrington assured him. "The more I think of all this, the better I like it. There ought to be money in it for all of us. If the Princess wants money-"
"She does," Johnny stated.
Harrington grinned. "Suspected as much. Minute I saw Leiderstein I wondered how the people made a living here. Picturesque and all that, but I wouldn't have stayed ten minutes if it hadn't been for the girls. By the way, they've heard about the Princess and they're all steamed up about this Prince they hear is coming. Next week, isn't it?"
"June third," Johnny corroborated.
"Any chance to get the girls into the reception the Princess is giving for the Prince?" asked Harrington. "They're after me to fix it up some way."
"I'll see what I can do," promised Johnny.
"Come along and meet them," invited Harrington.
The girls proved to be twins, and very pretty. They took one look at Johnny, decided that he was manna from heaven, and immediately took it for granted that he had nothing to do but show them the sights.
They slipped their hands under his arms and prattled prettily while he showed them Leiderburg that afternoon. They were enchanted with everything; thought it all too ducky for words. And then, abruptly, the older twin-older by a matter of minutes-clutched his arm.
"Look-the Princess!" she gasped.
Johnny looked. Natica saw him at that instant. At first she looked surprised; then she waved gayly.
"Isn't she lovely?" marveled the younger twin.
Johnny said nothing. He couldn't discuss Natica with them.
The next morning he waited until noon, expecting a summons from Natica. None came, and after lunch the Harrington twins commandeered him again. They wanted to be driven through the surrounding country, and they were. They loved the rows of stately poplars; the chalets were adorable, and the Virgin forests marvelous. And so on, back to the inn, where they found Harrington waiting for Johnny, whom he took aside. "This thing about the mineral water must have leaked," he said.
"There's a chap in town-a man by the name of Robertson, who is interested in cosmetics, too. He spoke to the Princess today, on the street."
"Spoke to the Princess?" echoed Johnny. "How could he?"
"Just stepped up to her on the street. Can you find out what he's up to? If it's another proposition, I'll better it. I'll lay my cards on the table, Lane. This stuff is good. If you can find out if he made her an offer I'll better it."
Johnny glanced at his watch. It was not quite six. "I might go up to the castle and see-" .
And see Natica. That was what he really wanted, though he chose to pretend otherwise. He told himself that it was necessary to find out about this man Robertson at once. But the truth was that a man will seize any excuse, even the flimsiest, when he's in love.
Natica received him. "Oh, hello!" she said coolly.
As if, that is, he was something that some gigantic, invisible cat had brought in. There she stood, only a few feet away, yet something in her manner gave him the idea that she was as remote as the Himalayas' loftiest peak. He couldn't understand it, but being masculine he resented it.
"Sorry to intrude," he said curtly, "but Harrington is worried. He says a man named Robertson is here."
"Tell him he needn't worry," Natica cut in. "Robertson happens to be an old acquaintance."
"You mean he didn't make you a proposition?" .
"Oh, he's always making propositions," Natica retorted. "In the old days it was that I go to lunch with him-'be nice,' as he put it. He hasn't changed his line much, though this time it happened to be dinner."
"You mean he invited you to dinner?" gasped Johnny.
"Perhaps it will simplify matters if I explain that he has no idea I'm the Princess-not yet," supplied Natica.
"No idea you're the Princess? Who does he think you are?"
"Lili's companion, I suppose. Anyway, he said he was here to see the Princess about the mineral water-some woman took a bottle back home and his firm heard about it-but that he wasn't in any hurry about that. Told me he could get my job back at more money if I'd stop being silly. That line, you know."
Johnny said nothing for a minute. Then: "I'll attend to him," he promised her grimly. "I'll look him up and-"
"You needn't," Natica assured him, "I've sent for him."
Johnny stared at her. "Sent for him?"
"He wanted to see the Princess, didn't he? I've arranged for that." She stopped, listened, and added, "I guess he's come."
Seven men entered the room. One of them was Mr. Robertson; the others were the six members of the Princess' body-guard who had been sent to bring him in state. And such a state! The cosmetic man looked like a badly tied package that has been sent by parcel post and come to pieces in transit.
Two of the guards held him erect. His hair was awry, his clothing disheveled. He began to bluster.
"This is an outrage! I'm an American citizen-"
"You're not!" announced Natica. "You're just a worm."
Startled, he stared at her, really saw her. "What-What are you doing here?"
"You wanted to see the Princess. Well, you see her," said Natica.
"You!" he gasped.
Natica ignored that. She was small and slim, but she looked positively regal. "Put him in the dungeon!" she directed the guards.
Robertson came to life. "You can't!" he screamed. "I've done nothing." "You have committed lese majesty," Natica informed him coldly. "Your life is forfeit."
"I demand to see the American Ambassador," Robertson babbled.
"That won't be necessary," Natica assured him. "He will be notified when your remains are ready for shipment."
"My-my remains!" Robertson babbled. He seemed about. to collapse.
"Of course you might plead for clemency," Natica suggested. "I mean, get down on your knees and kiss my foot, perhaps."
Robertson glanced at the six grim guards and shivered. Then he dropped to his knees, stooped to kiss the foot Natica held out. But before his lips could touch it she withdrew it.
"After all, I don't think I could stand it," she said, and added to the guards, "Take him away."
They took him away, struggling helplessly. Natica looked at Johnny. Her eyes were chill as steel, and so were his.
"Do you think you have any right to judge me?" she asked frigidly. "If you knew what he is like, how many girls he has pestered and bothered-"
"I am not judging you," said Johnny as frigidly, "but I do wonder if you are wise. He's an American citizen. You can't imprison him."
"I have no intention of imprisoning him. He'll be taken to the border and dumped over it. I just wanted to scare him out of his life."
"You darned near did!" Johnny assured her. Then he relented. After all, Robertson did rate it. "You certainly-"
"Now you can reassure Mr. Harrington," Natica interrupted. "And tell him that as soon as the Prince's visit is over, I will talk to him personally about the mineral water." She hesitated a second and added: "That will leave you free to occupy yourself with more pleasant diversions."
Johnny gaped at her. What had got into her?
"Was there anything else you wished?" she asked politely. "If not, don't let me keep you. I know you must be itching to get back. Which one are you going to marry, by the way?"
"Marry?" repeated Johnny dazedly.
"They are both charming, but you can't marry both," she reminded him. "You'll have to make up your mind. I just wondered if you had!"
Johnny realized that she meant the Harrington girls. That might have given him a clue but it never occurred to him that Natica might be jealous.
"I'd get a fat chance to ask either of them," he replied savagely. He was thinking of how they monopolized him, frustrated his efforts to escape. "They're always together."
Natica gave him a swift glance. "It must be awful to be so popular," she commented. "I suppose they both want you. Hard on them, too!"
At that Johnny exploded. "Great Scott," he began furiously, "can't you see-" He stopped short.
Natica was patting a small yawn. "Sorry!" she apologized. "I'm tired. So many arrangements to make about the Prince, you know. You may go now."
Johnny choked. Words failed him; at least, such words as he could properly address to a princess. All that he could manage was a parting glare. With that he left her. "And I'll be damned if I ever come back!" he assured himself, furiously, as he passed through the castle's portals.
Nor did he. Instead, he supplied Lili with more gossip to pass on to Natica about "the two charming young Americans that Lane boy is spending all his
time with." The Harrington girls was all they wanted of him from then on.
"I never slept a wink last night, I was so excited!" the older twin told him on the morning of the great day-it seemed so to her-that would bring Frederick of Ehrenstein to Leiderburg.
"I did-and dreamed of the Prince!" supplied the younger.
They were standing at a window in the inn, looking down on the square through which the Prince and his escort would pass on the way to the castle. The square was filled with Leidersteiners of all ages and conditions. A fanfare of trumpets sounded on the crisp morning air; the crowd below quickened visibly.
The Ehrenstein delegation came on horseback, with the Prince riding ahead. There was not a cheer to greet him as he rode into Leidergurg. His expression was part triumph, part a sneer.
"He's-why, he's fat, isn't he?" murmured the older twin.
"But he rides wonderfully," the younger twin protested. She caught her breath and emitted an "O-o-oh!"
Johnny held his breath too. A freckled towhead of eight or nine had suddenly broken the silence.
"Yah, Friedrich der Grosse!" he shouted shrilly. "Yah!"
The Prince's ruddy countenance flamed redder than ever. He glared at the small boy. For a moment it looked as if he would ride roughshod over his tormentor.
"And if he does!" thought Johnny, tense.
A murmur ran through the crowd. It was not loud but it held the more menace for that. There was dynamite in that crowd; it needed only a spark to set it off. The Prince evidently realized that, for he turned his horse, smiled contemptuously and rode on.
"Whew!" breathed Johnny.
The older twin spoke. "They don't seem to like him very well."
"She has never seen him-the Princess-has she?" asked the younger.
"No," said Johnny.
"It must be funny to get engaged to a man you've never seen," she went on. "But I suppose being a princess it's different. She can't marry anybody but a prince, can she?"
"No," said Johnny, again.
"Gracious, think of meeting a man at ten and being engaged to him at twelve," marveled the older twin. "They drive back to the government house at twelve to proclaim the engagement, don't they?"
"Yes," said Johnny.
Yet he couldn't, even now, believe they would. Not even when just before twelve a murmur ran through the crowded square. Four of the Princess' bodyguard rode by on horseback, gorgeous in their uniforms. And then came the Princess in her ancient Rolls-Royce. That had a landau top, down now.
"She is lovely!" breathed the older twin.
Johnny said nothing. There she sat, with Frederick of Ehrenstein beside her. Lovely, of course; she would never be otherwise. A princess, but a frozen princess. Quite different from the girl he knew.
"She doesn't look very happy," remarked the older twin.
The younger twin slipped her hand beneath his arm. "Let's go down to the government house," she said. "I'll get my movie camera and we'll take pictures of everything."
Johnny stared at her as if he had never seen her before. Then: "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't come. I've-I've got to send a wire to the Paris office."
He turned abruptly and went to his room. He couldn't bear to see Natica
again. He must get out of Leiderstien as quickly as possible. He sat down at his typewriter, wrote a wire to his chief.
Princess Natica betrothed Frederick noon today. Leaving three o'clock ex- press. Cancel leave of absence. On job tomorrow.
This finished, he began to clear his desk. The first thing he came upon was the advertising for the mineral water.
He tore it up, dropped it into the wastepaper basket. He was packed before one, ready to go. Nothing to do now but wait for the train, while that awful ache ravaged him.
"Well, you asked for it. You've known all along what you were headed for," eh reminded himself savagely. "You-"
Tumult outside snapped the thought. He listened. A minute later his door was flung open. Harrington came in, his face white.
"The Princess has been assassinated!" he gasped.
"Assassinated!" repeated Johnny. It couldn't be true, yet the sunlit room went black with horror. "She can't be!"
"On the way back to the castle," Harrington persisted. "The report is all over town. Somebody threw a bomb and-"
He stopped there. He had lost his audience. Johnny couldn't, wouldn't believe it. He must find out for himself. Rushing hatless from the inn, he stumbled over a, bicycle parked outside. He had no idea whom it belonged to and cared less. A bicycle, just then, was like an answer to a prayer.
The road to the castle was steep. Perspiration filled his eyes. At the castle he all nut fell off the bicycle, but he caught his feet and wavered on through the portals.
Inside, many people stood around. One glance at their faces told him that tragedy was in the air. He recognized the Lord High Chamberlain, went to him.
"The Princess!" he cried. "She- she-" He choked; he couldn't say it.
The Lord High Chamberlain eyed this inexplicably agonized young American with a frozen austerity. "Her Highness awaits you!" he said frigidly.
"Awaits me!" Johnny gasped. "You- you mean-"
The Lord High Chamberlain turned his back. A guard stepped forward. Breathlessly Johnny turned to him. His heart seemed determined to suffocate him as he went up over the stately staircase to confront a familiar door. There the guard stopped, and knocked.
And there was Natica. Alive! He cried the word aloud.
"Alive?" she echoed, wide-eyed. "Why shouldn't I be?" She gave him no chance to answer her. "Sit down before you fall down!" she commanded. "You look all in."
Johnny slumped into a chair. He couldn't help it, though she still stood.
"How did you get here so soon?" she demanded. 'I only sent for you a few minutes ago."
"You sent for me?" he repeated.
"I realize it was an intrusion. Was it so hard for you to break away? But-- well, I did feel as if I needed somebody to talk to; somebody who talks my own language. Do you know what this gang put across on me today?"
His brain cleared. She was unquestionably alive. And she had sent for him! If he could only take her in his arms! But he must not.
"You mean the Prince?" he asked.
"The Prince!" she repeated. She looked exhausted, he realized, yet she managed to grin. "And I always wanted to meet a prince. But they never told me that if I met one I'd have to marry him, not till he got here."
She gave him a swift glance, as if she thought he might say something, but Johnny was beyond words.
"And they said that Ehrenstein would declare war if I didn't go through with it," she went on. '
"So-so you did," Johnny managed, feeling sick again.
"So I did!" she said recklessly. "What difference did it make, anyway? To any- body, I mean."
In spite of the fact that she was a princess-and engaged, at that-Johnny all but told her. He wasn't even aware of the fact that Lili was present, registering chill disapproval, as usual. But perhaps Natica remembered that.
"It's no use blaming me," she went on hastily. "They kept talking until I said I'd go through with it. And-and I did."
"I know," Johnny broke in. His voice astounded even him, it was so flat. She was alive, not mangled as he had visioned her. He should be happy, perhaps the happiest man alive. What was the matter with him? He couldn't have her, anyway. But-well, Fat Freddie!. It was almost as bad as-
"Why bother to explain to me?" he asked desperately.
Natica gave him a glance that shook him. As if she were-well hurt.
"I mean of 'course "'I'm interested" he added quickly. "If there were anything I could do to make it easier" for you-"
He checked himself there: This" was hardly the thing to 'say to a princess 'on the day of her betrothal." 'There was just one thing he could say now. He "rose to his feet to say it, though it gagged him.
"I wish you great happiness," he began. "Always, great happiness." "Happiness?" she echoed. "You wish me that-now?"
Johnny felt dizzy again. "Isn't it customary to wish a prospective bride happiness?" he protested.
"But I'm not a prospective bride!" she protested. "That's off. That's why I sent for you-but I remember. You didn't get my message. I-but why did you come, then?"
"I-I heard that you were assassinated and-"
Natica gave him a swift glance. "Oh," she said. "But-but if I were assassinated, what was the hurry?"
"I couldn't believe it," he confessed. "I had to find out. So-" He did not finish. Yet his eyes did, in spite of him.
"Oh," said Natica again. Suddenly shy, she added confusedly, "They did attempt to assassinate me. Or, rather, he did. Poor boy."
"Poor boy!" exploded Johnny. "You don't mean-"
"He looked so scared, so pitiful almost, when they caught him and brought him back," she explained. "And so awfully young. I suppose he thought he was doing it for Leiderstein's good. He's one of the Republicans."
"But a bomb!" protested Johnny. "If it hadn't missed you-"
"It didn't miss me. It landed right in my lap." "In your lap? You mean, it didn't go off?"
"I guess it wasn't much of a bomb. He made it himself. And anyway, I threw it right back at him."
"You-you th-threw it b-back!" stuttered Johnny in utter amazement. "But what was Freddie doing all this time?"
"I'm not sure, but I think he was trying to crawl under the seat," said Natica. "He needn't have bothered. The bomb never did go off. Not even when it landed back at the poor boy's feet."
"I suppose Freddie was brave enough then," remarked Johnny grimly.
"He became a lion. I suppose he was ashamed, but that was no reason why he should have run his sword through the boy. I mean, when he was helpless, both arms held and everything."
"You mean he killed him?"
"No, but he would have if-if I hadn't socked him." "The boy?" gasped Johnny. "No-the Prince," confessed Natica.
Johnny went speechless. She had socked Fat Freddie!
"Well, what else could I do?" she demanded defiantly. "It's no use everybody telling me that he was avenging my honor, protecting me. He wasn't. He was just showing off. I told him to stop and he wouldn't, and so--"
She got no further. There was a knock at the door; it appeared that the Lord High Chamberlain desired an audience. He got it.
"I am grieved," he said, "to report to Your Highness that Prince Frederick and his escort were attacked as they rode through Leiderburg. A mob set on them. Shots were fired."
"Are you about to tell me that that means war?" Natica demanded.
"There can be no question of it."
"You told me that if I didn't marry the Prince that would mean war."
"A grave breach of etiquette such as that is tantamount to--"
"And then you told me that when I socked him that meant war," Natica re- minded him.
"I only felt it my duty, Your Highness, to point out-"
"And then when I said I would not surrender that poor boy to the Prince you said that meant war," Natica went on. "Well, that's three wars, already-so one more is no news. Please close the door behind you when you go out and-"
"But Your Highness, steps should be taken-"
"You take them!" directed Natica.
"Your counselors should be summoned."
"Summon them, then," said Natica. She added, "I said I hoped I'd never have to sock you, but if you hang around here much longer-"
He bowed himself out at once. He knew now that the Princess could sock. Natica said nothing for a moment. Then she looked at Johnny.
"Go on, say it!" she commanded. "I know you think I'm awful!"
"I think you're-you're-" began Johnny impulsively, and stopped. "I think you might have listened to him," he amended lamely.
"Listen to him! Ye gods!" moaned Natica. "I've done nothing else all day. They're driving me insane. That's why I sent for you. They're hopeless. They start off by saying Ehrenstein will declare war on any pretext."
"Ehrenstein has been looking for a pretext for some time."
"They've certainly got several now, then," Natica remarked. "Well, that means war. They say that Leiderstein hasn't a chance; that Ehrenstein is about three times as big as Leiderstein. Is it?"
"Approximately," Johnny admitted,
"Fifteen hundred?" repeated Natica. "Hasn't Leiderstein-?"
"Leiderstein has a standing army of eighty," Johnny told her soberly. "Eighty?" Natica looked blank. "You're fooling!"
Johnny shook his head. Natica said nothing for a minute. Then:
"A standing army of eighty-and most of them sitting down most of the time!" she murmured. "I certainly seem to have made a mess of things! I seem to be Leiderstein's hard luck." She considered that for a moment, lovely and mute; then she looked up at him. "What shall I do?"
Johnny wished he knew the answer. He had none. All he had was a swift vision of Ehrenstein's troops surging over the border." They'd run riot through Leiderstein, swiftly seize the capital, the castle and-his heart seemed to stop dead-Natica. The last eclipsed all else.
"Get out as quickly as you can," he said. "I'll get you over the border somehow. It's the only thing for you to do. You aren't safe."
Natica's eyes widened. "Leave Leiderstein?" she said. "But I can't. Would you go, if it were you?"
"That's different. I'm a man!" he protested. "You're-" .
"Her Highness, Princess Natica of Leiderstein," she interrupted him. "Sounds funny, doesn't it? I'm a hot princess, yet I am one. I'd hate to die for my country-or any country-and yet-well, somehow I can't see myself running away from the mess I've made."
"But what can you do?"
"Just stick around and see what happens, I suppose," she said.
To Johnny that was insanity. But there was no arguing her out of it. When, retrieving the borrowed bicycle, he coasted down to Leiderburg, he knew she would stay, come what might. And mingled with his hopeless adoration for her was a new admiration.
It was midnight when he returned to the inn, but he could not go indoors. He was thinking of what must be happening in Ehrenstein. The ruling caste drinking vainglorious toasts; inns filled with men singing the national songs exultantly.
"They know it's a push-over-and it is!" he concluded dismally.
Fifteen hundred trained troops. Less than a regiment, a mere movie army. Yet they could seize and hold Leiderburg within an hour.
"Yet a battalion of American marines would knock them dizzy!" he mused. He wished that he had a battalion. But he hadn't anything.
"Oh, we may think of something yet," Natica had said, at the end.
She had meant he and she, so he loved her for that "we." But he was, he knew, no Napoleon. Napoleon? He tautened. He remembered something. It became an idea. One minute he had been hopeless. The next he was striding quickly through the inn.
Harrington was in his room, but not abed. He answered Johnny's knock wearing a bath robe over his pajamas.
"I've been looking for you," he told Johnny. "If Ehrenstein declares war I suppose the mineral-water proposition is all off. I'm told Leiderstein hasn't a chance."
"Don't you believe it!" said Johnny. "Ever play poker?" Harrington looked surprised. "Why, yes. But---"
"We're going to play poker right now," Johnny informed him. "Tonight. With Ehrenstein. No, I'm not crazy. Ever hear of the battle of Arcola? The Austrians held a straight-forty thousand men. All that Napoleon had was a bobtail flush-four or five buglers. But he sent them to the rear of the Austrian army. The bluff worked. The Austrians thought Napoleon held four aces. They fled. That's history. Is that poker?"
"That's playing them," admitted Harrington. "But what's this got to do with Leiderstein ?"
"Listen, and I'll diagram it," commanded Johnny, his blue eyes alight.
Harrington listened. At first doubtful, then thoughtful. "That beats poker; but you'll have to work fast."
"Watch my smoke!'' suggested Johnny
Page 201
He slept not at all that night. It was eight the next morning when he returned to the inn, but he was not tired. He had a tub, a quick breakfast. He was at the castle soon after nine. He asked Natica to see him at once, on business of state.
Natica saw him. Her eyes were heavily shadowed. The Lord High Chamberlain and the duke were with her.
"Ehrenstein has declared war," she told I him, at once. "There have already been several clashes along the border. The duke says they will be in Leiderburg before noon. He wants me to go up into the mountains to his castle."
"Don't!" said Johnny. "stick where you are,"
The duke glared at him. "Her Highness has her advisers," he said. "They are considering what is best for her and for Leiderstein."
"Yeah?" said Johnny. "And what do you plan to do when Ehrenstein has seized Leiderburg?"
"We shall appeal to the League of Nations," the Lord High Chamberlain informed him.
"Why not write a letter to the New York Times while you're about it?" asked Johnny satirically.
Natica interposed quickly. "But what can we do?" she asked.
And that was Johnny's moment. He produced three copies of a flyer that he and a Leiderburg printer had toiled over all night, passed them around.
"It's been done," he grinned. "Read them-and laugh."
They read them. Johnny did not have to. He knew them by heart. He just seized the moment to light a cigaret. The Lord High Chamberlain and the duke never even noticed the breach of etiquette. They were reading:
Leidersteiners, fear not! Leiderstein ever has been free, ever will be. No enemy shall prevail. In this hour of national stress Leiderstein and its Princess have rich and powerful friends. They have arranged to spend millions in its defense. Leiderstein's army may be small but Leiderstein is not defenseless. Four bombing planes will arrive this morning and will be followed, if necessary by a great fleet.
Enemies of Leiderstein, take heed! Swift retribution awaits you. Invade Leiderstein at your peril. Living Hell will be unleashed on your towns and cities. None will escape. Your lands and homes will be laid waste, not Leiderstein's.
Leiderstein does not seek war. She seeks only peace. But invade her and she will strike back. Leiderstein is free, forever will be. Leiderstein warns before she acts.
Natca’s German was scant. She could get a word here and there, no more. "But I don't understand," she said.
The duke, however, did. "You have issued these?" he demanded.
"They are all over Leiderstein by now," said Johnny. "As soon as the planes get here, they'll be all over Ehrenstein."
The duke did not ask him by what authority he had acted. He merely turned to Natica. "We must take this to the council at once," he said, "if Your Highness will permit us to withdraw."
Her Highness permitted. The instant they were gone she turned to Johnny, holding out her copy of the warning. "Put it into English," she begged.
With his eyes on her, he translated it for her.
"But who are the millionaires?" she demanded.
"Actually, there is only one," Johnny confessed. "Harrington."
"You mean he is willing to subscribe millions?"
"He isn't, actually, subscribing much just a few thousand, charged to business overhead. Keep it under your hat but we're just playing poker, throwing a bluff. The old Napoleon stuff. I've wired four flying fools I know to get here as soon as possible. They're on their way."
"To bomb Ehrenstein?"
"I don't think we'll have to. Not with bombs. We'll bomb them with these pamphlets, and if that isn't enough I'll eat--"
He stopped there. An airplane was roaring overhead.
"The advance guard," said Johnny. "Chick Sawyer, on a bet. He'll weep if we 'don't let him throw a few bombs. I'll go down to greet him."
"I'll come, too!" said Natica excitedly.
Johnny started to protest, then changed his mind. "You would!" he said, more adoringly than he-but not Natica-realized. "It might not be a bad idea, at that. You may be surprised at the reception you get this morning."
Natica was. They rode in the ancient Rolls-Royce, and Johnny wondered why he had ever considered Leidersteiners stolid. They were vociferous enough this morning.
"Why, I thought they were mad at me!" gasped Natica,
"Mad about you," Johnny corrected.
"And so," his eyes confessed, "am I!"
Which, to Natica, was more important still.
They found Chick easily enough. He had picked out a landing spot and descended, to be surrounded immediately by all the small boys in town and a great many of their elders.
"The fleet's in," he remarked, casting a professional eye above, "Harry Dexter and Tom Dupont. I know those crates. Say, Johnny, isn't there anything we can do? I might fly a bit and glare down at the inhabitants of whatever is annoying the Princess."
"That might be an idea, but I'll supply you with some stuff that ought to go even better."
Bales of the printed flyers were given the aviators, and they took off at once.
"I think we'll hear from Ehrenstein shortly," said Johnny, as the Rolls-Royce rolled back to the castle.
Ehrenstein's emissary arrived, in fact, at noon. He was breathless and per- turbed. He had come to make it clear to Her Highness that Ehrenstein was filled only with an immense good will for Leiderstein.
Natica gave Johnny a glance. "What is he saying?" she whispered.
"Telling a bedtime story," explained Johnny, sotto voce. "The theme is that Ehrenstein merely wished to be sure that you would be protected against revolution, That war was only declared technically to prevent uprising, you know. That stuff-"
"You mean the war is over?" -
"Shh!" admonished Johnny. "You'll hurt his feelings. To hear him tell it, there never was any war. Just a little misunderstanding. "
Leiderstein rang that night to the echoes of the ultimatum the Princess had delivered to Ehrenstein's emissary. The burghers were not exactly dancing in the streets but they were certainly yodeling in every taproom.
They did not know it had all been a bluff, but they did know why Harrington was interested in Leiderstein. It was because of the mineral spring which they had known about forever, and which now, miraculously, would make Leiderstein rich, free them from taxes.
"The great millionaire says so," they explained.
A great day for Leiderstein. And a great day for Johnny, too, He had had a moment alone with Leiderstein's Princess-and his. Alone, that is, except for Lili. She was always there, in the background.
Natica had been very sweet, very grateful. "I think I should make you my Minister of War, too," she had said. "It was you who won the war."
He wanted to take her in his arms. Instead, he strove to grin, "Well, it's the quickest war I ever won," he said.
It was true, he supposed. He had won the war-and lost her forever. Natica was now, irrevocably, Leiderstein's Princess so long as she lived. And that meant she could never be his. Not a chance of that, ever.
When he returned to the inn he was sunk, He hoped to get ,to his room without having to speak to anybody, but Harrington was waiting for him,
"Well, it worked, I see," said Harrington. "You're good!"
Johnny merely smiled and turned away, intent on achieving the sanctuary of his own room. But the Harrington girls came in and captured him at once.
"I was never so excited in all my life as when the airplanes came," said the older twin. "I've used miles of films taking pictures of them."
"Chick has promised to fly to Vienna and get us some more for tomorrow if we need them" put in, the younger twin. "They'll have the open-air play, won’t they? I mean, up at the castle?"
Johnny's mind had to do a hop, skip and jump to understand what she meant. Then he remembered that, beginning with the first Sunday in June, farm lads and village maids gathered in the inner court at the castle, to present a sort of musical pageant, part allegorical, part historical.
"You'll take us, won't you?" demanded the older twin. "You can show us the castle and explain everything."
At the castle there were rude benches and beer booths everywhere. Family groups sat around. Plumed knights and long-gowned ladies, the players-to-be, strolled around self-consciously.
"O-oh, I feel just filled with romance," the younger twin announced. "Well, let some of it spill," suggested Chick, who was one of their party. "Oh, you!" she said. And then, grabbing his arm, "Look!"
Natica had stepped out through a long window onto a balcony that overlooked the great court. She had chosen to attire herself in national costume. A new Natica, breathlessly lovely.
Johnny's eyes were filled with the vision: Natica in a vivid red skirt embroidered with blue mountain flowers, a white blouse with colored stitching on the sleeves and a little black-velvet vest laced tightly across the front, accentuating the slim suppleness of her figure. On her blond head was a tiara of braided ribbons, the Leiderstein colors, ending in streamers.
A little murmur ran through the crowd, followed by a swift rising and the wildest, most spontaneous cheering Johnny had ever heard anywhere.
Yet it made him feel remote. The Princess was the Princess, and he was just one of the mob scene,
The tumult subsided. The play began. It was an all-day affair, with an intermission for what might be called lunch but what, from the hampers displayed, seemed to constitute a full-course dinner.
After lunch the Princess and her court returned to the balcony and the play went on. At five, as it drew to an end, one of the castle guards came up to Johnny.
"The Princess," he announced, "wishes you and your party to come to her
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