“What—oh, what is it you see?” she implored, her heart leaping, then falling. But for once, the courtesy due to an honored guest was forgotten, and the distracted Frau Yorvan fled from the room without giving an answer.
Half paralyzed with dread of what she might have to see, the Grand Duchess tottered to the window. Was there—yes, there was a procession, coming down the hilly street that led to town from the mountain. Oh, horror upon horror! They were perhaps bringing Virginia down, injured or dead, her beautiful face crushed out of recognition. Yet no—there was Virginia herself, the central figure in the procession. Thank Heaven, it could be nothing worse than an accident to poor, dear Miss Portman—But there was Miss Portman too; and a very tall, bronzed peasant man, loaded with cloaks and rücksacks, headed the band, while the girl and her ex-governess followed after.
Unspeakably relieved, yet still puzzled and vaguely alarmed, the Grand Duchess threw up the window overlooking the little village square. But as she strove to attract the truants’ attention by waving her hand and crying out a welcome or a question, whichever should come first, the words were arrested on her lips. What could be the matter with Frau Yorvan?
The stout old landlady popped out through the door like a Jack out of his box, on a very stiff spring, flew to the overloaded peasant, and almost rudely elbowing Miss Portman aside, began distractedly bobbing up and down, tearing at the bundle of rücksacks and cloaks. Her inarticulate cries ascended like incense to the Grand Duchess at the open window, adding much to the lady’s intense bewilderment.
“What has that man been doing?” demanded the Grand Duchess in a loud, firm voice; but nobody answered, for the very good reason that nobody heard. The attention of all those below was entirely taken up with their own concerns.
“Pray, mein frau, let him carry our things indoors,” Virginia was insisting, while the tall man stood among the three women, motionless, but apparently a prey to conflicting emotions. If the Grand Duchess had not been obsessed with a certain idea, which was growing in her mind, she must have seen that his dark face betrayed a mingling of amusement, impatience, annoyance, and boyish mischief. He looked like a man who had somehow stumbled into a false position from which it would be difficult to escape with dignity, yet which he half enjoyed. Torn between a desire to laugh, and fly into a rage with the officious landlady, he frowned warningly at Frau Yorvan, smiled at the Princess, and divided his energies between quick, secret gestures intended for the eyes of the Rhaetian woman, and endeavors to unburden himself in his own time and way, of the load he carried.
With each instant the perturbation of the Grand Duchess grew. Why did the man not speak out what he had to say? Why did the landlady first strive to seize the things from his back, then suddenly shrink as if in fear, leaving the tall fellow to his own devices? Ah, but that was a terrible look he gave her at last—the poor, good woman! Perhaps he was a brigand! And the Grand Duchess remembered tales she had read—tales of fearful deeds, even in these modern days, done in wild, mountain fastnesses, and remote villages such as Alleheiligen. Not in Rhaetia, perhaps; but then, there was no reason why they should not happen in Rhaetia, at a place like this. And if there were not something evil, something to be dreaded about this big, dark-browed fellow, why had Frau Yorvan uttered that exclamation of frantic dismay at sight of him, and rushed like a madwoman out of the house?
It occurred to the Grand Duchess that the man must be some notorious desperado of the mountains, who had obtained her daughter’s confidence, or got her and Miss Portman into his power. But, she remembered, fortunately some or all of the mysterious gentlemen stopping at the inn, had returned and were at this moment assembled in the room adjoining hers. The Grand Duchess resolved that, at the first sign of insolent behavior or threatening on the part of the luggage carrier, these noblemen should be promptly summoned by her to the rescue of her daughter.
Her anxiety was even slightly allayed at this point in her reflections, by the thought (for she had not quite outgrown an innate love of romance) that the Emperor himself might go to Virginia’s assistance. His friends were in the next room, having come down from the mountain about noon, and there seemed little doubt that he was among them. If he had not already looked out of his window, drawn by the landlady’s excited voice, the Grand Duchess resolved that, in the circumstances, it was her part as a mother to make him look out. She had promised to help Virginia, and she would help her by promoting a romantic first encounter.
In a penetrating voice, which could not fail to reach the ears of the men next door, or the actors in the scene below, she adjured her daughter in English.