"But I don't speak your language well," he protested.
"You speak it beautifully," she said. Baldos leaned forward painfully and spoke to the officer in the Graustark tongue.
"Don't you know your princess?" he demanded, a trifle harshly. The man's eyes flew wide open in an instant and his jaw dropped.
"Th—the princess?" he gasped.
"Don't stare like that, sir. Direct us to the main gate at once, or you will have cause to regret your slowness."
"But the princess was—is coming by the northern pass," mumbled the man. "The guard has gone out to meet her and—" Baldos cut him off shortly with the information that the princess, as he could see, had come by the lower pass and that she was eager to reach a resting-place at once. The convincing tone of the speaker and the regal indifference of the lady had full effect upon the officer, who had never seen her highness. He fell back with a deep obeisance, and gave a few bewildered commands to his men. The coach moved off, attended by a party of foot-soldiers, and Beverly breathed her first sigh of relief.
"You did it beautifully," she whispered to Baldos, and he was considerably puzzled by the ardor of her praise. "Where are we going now?" she asked.
"Into the city, your highness," he answered. It was beginning to dawn upon him that she was amazingly ignorant and inconsequential for one who enjoyed the right to command these common soldiers. Her old trepidation returned with this brief answer. Something told her that he was beginning to mistrust her at last. After all, it meant everything to him and so little to her.
When the coach halted before the city gates she was in a dire state of unhappiness. In the darkness she could feel the reproachful eyes of old Aunt Fanny searching for her abandoned conscience.
"Ask if Baron Dangloss is in Ganlook, and, if he is, command them to take me to him immediately," she whispered to Baldos, a sudden inspiration seizing her. She would lay the whole matter before the great chief of police, and trust to fortune. Her hand fell impulsively upon his and, to her amazement, it was as cold as ice. "What is the matter?" she cried in alarm.