"Explain yourself, sergeant!" finally fell from Lorry's lips. The eyes of the princess were beginning to take on a rapturous glow.
"May I have a cup of coffee, please, sir? I've been so excited I couldn't eat a mouthful at home." She gracefully slid into the chair Halkins offered, and broke into an ecstatic giggle that would have resulted in a court-martial had she been serving any commander but Love.
With a plenteous supply of Southern idioms she succeeded in making them understand that the major had promised to let her visit friends in the legation at St. Petersburg in April a month or so after the departure of the Lorrys.
"He wanted to know where I'd rather spend the Spring—Washin'ton or Lexin'ton, and I told him St. Petersburg. We had a terrific discussion and neither of us ate a speck at dinner. Mamma said it would be all right for me to go to St. Petersburg if Aunt Josephine was still of a mind to go, too. You see, Auntie was scared almost out of her boots when she heard there was prospect of war in Graustark, just as though a tiny little war like that could make any difference away up in Russia—hundreds of thousands of miles away—" (with a scornful wave of the hand)—"and then I just made Auntie say she'd go to St. Petersburg in April—a whole month sooner than she expected to go in the first place—and—"
"You dear, dear Beverly!" cried Yetive, rushing joyously around the table to clasp her in her arms.
"And St. Petersburg really isn't a hundred thousand miles from Edelweiss," cried Beverly, gaily.
"It's much less than that," said Lorry, smiling, "But you surely don't expect to come to Edelweiss if we are fighting. We couldn't think of letting you do that, you know. Your mother would never—"
"My mother wasn't afraid of a much bigger war than yours can ever hope to be," cried Beverly, resentfully. "You can't stop me if I choose to visit Graustark."
"Does your father know that you contemplate such a trip?" asked Lorry, returning her handclasp and looking doubtfully into the swimming blue eyes of his wife.
"No, he doesn't," admitted Beverly, a trifle aggressively.