With this excuse, Frau Yorvan hurried out to fetch another dish, which she said must be ready; to cool her hot face, and to scold herself for her stupidity, all the way down-stairs.
She was gone some time; and the girl who had, no doubt unwittingly, occasioned the old woman’s uneasiness, took advantage of her absence to laugh, excited, happy laughter.
“Poor, transparent old dear, so pleased and proud of her great secret, which she thinks she’s keeping so well!” she exclaimed. “I’m sure she doesn’t dream that she’s as easy to read as a book with big, big print. She’s in a sad fright now, lest we inconvenient foreigners should chance upon her grand gentlemen to-morrow, recognize one of them from the portrait, and spoil his precious incognito.”
“Then—you think that he is really here—in this out of the way eyrie?” half whispered the Grand Duchess.
“I feel sure he is,” answered Princess Virginia.
For a moment there was silence. Then said the Grand Duchess, with an air of resignation, “Well, I suppose we should be glad—since we have come to Rhaetia for the purpose of—dear me, I can scarcely bring myself to say it.”
“You may say it, since our dear old lamb of a Letitia knows all about it, and is in with us,” returned Virginia. “But—but I truly didn’t expect to find him here. One knows he comes sometimes; it’s been in the papers; but this time they had it that he’d gone to make a week’s visit to poor old General von Borslok at the Baths of Melina; and I thought, before we went to Kronburg with all our pretty letters of introduction, as he was away from the palace there, it would be idyllic to use up the time with a visit to Alleheiligen. I don’t want you and Letitia to think that I was just making catspaws of you both, and forcing you without knowing, to help me unearth him in his lair. Still, as he is here—”
“Perhaps he isn’t,” suggested the Grand Duchess. “I don’t see that you have much ground for fancying so.”
“Oh, ground!” echoed Virginia, scornfully. “It’s instinct that I go upon, not ground. That woman’s face when she saw foreign tourists at her door, out of season, when she had a right to think she was safe from invasion. Her stammering about the best rooms being taken; her wish to get rid of us; her distress that she couldn’t possibly do so, without making matters worse. The way she talks of her ‘four gentlemen.’ Her horror at my lèse majesté. Her confusion about the portraits; her wish to impress it upon us that Unser Leo is quite changed. Instinct ought to be ashamed if it couldn’t play detective as far as that. But—of course we may not see him. If she can help it, we won’t. He won’t like being run to earth by tourists, when he is amusing himself; and perhaps the trusty landlady will send the intelligent young guide whom I refused, to warn him, so that if he chooses he can keep out of the way.”
“I almost hope she may send,” said the Grand Duchess. “I don’t think Providence wills a meeting here. You have brought no pretty dresses. I should like him to see you first when you look your best, since, to your mind, so much depends upon his feelings in this matter.”