The Adventure of Princess Sylvia

by A. M. Williamson

One friend only had been taken into Sylvia's fullest confidence, and that friend was a lady whose husband had been British Ambassador at the Rhaetian Court. She knew "everybody who was anybody" there, and had entered with a fearful joy into the spirit of the escapade. Exactly how it was to end she did not see; but so far as she was concerned, that was a detail; and she had written for Lady de Courcy all the letters needful as an open sesame to the Court.

Sylvia did not wish to hurry away from Heiligengelt to Salzbrück, even though the inn was empty (save for her own small party) two days after their arrival. They had met: the rest lay on the knees of the gods. And since the best sitting-room was now at the ladies disposal, it was but fair to Frau Johann that they should remain for a time, if only to 83 make use of it. When they left at last, after a stay of a week, it was to go to Salzbrück for the great festivities which were to mark the Emperor's thirty-first birthday, an event enhanced in national importance by the fact that the tenth anniversary of his succession would fall on the same date. On the day of the journey, the Grand Duchess had a headache and was cross.

"I don't see what you've accomplished so far by this mad freak," she said fretfully to her daughter, in the train which carried them away from Pitzbühel. "We've been perched on a mountain-top, like the Ark on Ararat, for a week, our marrow freezing in our bones; and, after all, what have we to show for it—unless an incipient influenza?"

Sylvia had nothing to show for it; at least, nothing that she meant to show; but in a little scented silk bag which nestled against her heart lay a tiny folded piece of blotting-paper. If you looked at its reflection in a mirror, you saw, written twice over, in a firm, opinionated hand, the name, "Mary de Courcy." And Sylvia had found it 84 in a book after Frau Johann had made the best sitting-room ready for new occupants. Therefore she loved Heiligengelt; therefore she thought with silent satisfaction of her visit there.

To learn her full name he must have made inquiries, for Miss M'Pherson had not uttered it on their progress down the mountain. It had been in his thoughts, or he would not have committed it to paper in a moment of idle dreaming. Through all her life Sylvia had known the want of money, but now she would not have taken a thousand pounds for the contents of the silken bag.

Hohenburg is the family name of Rhaetia's emperors; therefore everything in Salzbrück that can be Hohenburg is Hohenburg; and it was at the Hohenburgerhof, Salzbrück's grandest hotel, that a suite of rooms had been hired for Lady de Courcy's party.

They had broken the journey at Wandeck; and Sylvia had so timed it that they should arrive in Salzbrück an hour before the first of the ceremonies on the birthday eve—the unveiling by the Kaiser of the 85 great national statue of Rhaetia in the Maximilian Platz, exactly in front of the Hohenburgerhof. At the station they were told by the driver of their selected droschky that he would not be able to take the high, well-born ladies to the main door of the Hohenburgerhof, for the passage of carriages was forbidden in the Maximilian Platz, where the crowd had been assembling since dawn for the ceremony; and that he would be compelled to deposit them and their luggage at a side entrance. As they left the station, from far away came a burst of martial music, a military band playing the national air which the chamois-hunter had heard the English girl singing at Heiligengelt. The shops were closed for the day; from nearly every window hung a flag or banner, while the old narrow streets and the broad new streets were festooned with bunting, wreaths of evergreen, and autumn flowers. Prosperous citizens in their best, peasants in gay holiday attire, streamed toward the Maximilian Platz. It seemed to Sylvia that the air tingled with expectation; she thought that she must have felt the 86 magnetic thrill in it, even if she had shut her eyes and ears.

"We shall be in time. We shall see the ceremony from our windows," she excitedly said.

But at the hotel she encountered a keen disappointment. With many apologies the landlord explained that he had done his best for the ladies when he received their letter a week before, and that he had allotted them a good suite, with balconies, overlooking the river at the back of the house—the situation considered preferable on ordinary occasions. But, as to rooms in the front, it was impossible; they had all been taken more than six weeks in advance; one American gentleman was paying a thousand gulden for an hour's use of a small balcony leading off the drawing-room.

Sylvia was pale with disappointment. "I will go down into the crowd and take my chance," she said to her mother when they had been shown into the handsome rooms, so satisfactory in everything but situation.