“Ach! no! This is too much!” Frei stormed at him. “The fountain! You criticized me because the water did not arrive to spout. I put you in the prison and now you come out and say you are me. Oh no! You are not me. Who you are, I forget. I purposely forget, because you are of no importance whatever. But you are not me.” He stopped, breathing heavily and glaring.
“This needs clearing up,” Mrs. Witherby said. She looked at Mrs. Mearely and her vagabond, and said it very positively.
As if in answer, the thickset figure of Teodor Carl Peter Lassanavatiewicz stumbled across the porch and into the room. He burst into sobs at the near view of his Sovereign. He rushed to Frei, fell on his knees—despite the wound he groaned at—and kissed his hands.
“Ach! Ich habe Sie gefunden. It is thou. All night have I in the wet grass and hard roads waited. But I have fallen asleep.” He caught sight of the vagabond and exploded, in angry astonishment, “Der Anarchist! der Teufel!”
Frei, deeply moved, looked down upon him.
“Ah—is it thou, my faithful Teodor?” Emotionally, with wet eyes, he indicated the kneeling figure to the silent group in Villa Rose. “Always he is searching the world for me! Ah—ah—so faithful! Faithful Teodor.” He observed a white linen strip about the faithful one’s nether limb. “You are wounded?” he cried, in dismay.
Indignation sounded through the kneeling man’s sobs.
“I—I have been abominably—execrably wounded in the leg.”
“Ah—ah! Poor Teodor.”
“You will go home with me? You will at last marry the Princess Olga, who adores you?”