She gave him a queer look. "You must not think that your task is an easy one," she said meaningly. "There are other men in the world, you know."
CHAPTER XIX — "WHAT WILL MY PEOPLE DO!"
The Grand Duke and his party left Interlaken by special train early in the afternoon, and great was Robin's relief when Hobbs returned with the word that they were safely on their way to the capital of Switzerland. He emerged from the seclusion of his room, where he had been in hiding since noon, and set out for a walk through the town. His head was high and his stride jaunty, for his heart was like a cork. People stared after him with smiles of admiration, and never a cocher' passed him by without a genial, inviting tilt of the eyebrow and a tentative pull at the reins, only to meet with a pleasant shake of the head or the negative flourish of a bamboo cane.
Night came and with it the silvery glow of moonlight across the hoary headed queen of the Oberland. When Robin came out from dinner he seated himself on the porch, expectant, eager—and vastly lonesome. An unaccountable shyness afflicted him, rendering him quite incapable of sending his card up to the one who could have dispelled the gathering gloom with a single glance of the eye. Would she come stealing out ostensibly to look at the night-capped peak, but with furtive glances into the shadows of the porch in quest of—But no! She would not do that! She would come attended by the exasperating Mr. White and the friendly duenna. Her starry eyes, directed elsewhere, would only serve to increase the depth of the shadows in which he lurked impatient.
She came at last—and alone. Stopping at the rail not more than an arm's length from where he sat, she gazed pensively up at the solemn mistress of the valley, one slim hand at her bosom, the other hanging limp at her side. He could have touched that slender hand by merely stretching forth his own. Breathless, enthralled, he sat as one deprived of the power or even the wish to move. The spell was upon him; he was in thralldom.
She wore a rose-coloured gown, soft, slinky, seductive. A light Egyptian scarf lay across her bare shoulders. The slim, white neck and the soft dark hair—but she sighed! He heard that faint, quick-drawn sigh and started to his feet.
"Bedelia!" he whispered softly.
She turned quickly, to find him standing beside her, his face aglow with rapture. A quick catch of the breath, a sudden movement of the hand that lay upon her breast, and then she smiled,—a wavering, uncertain smile that went straight to his heart and shamed him for startling her. "I beg your pardon," he began lamely. "I—I startled you."