"Thank you, Herr Trafford," she said simply. "It is better to be a music-hall star in the ascendant than a princess in exile—it is far more profitable, isn't it?" No answer was expected, and in a trice her mood changed again. "When I fled the country three years ago, Herr Trafford," she continued, "I was penniless—my father dead, and his estates confiscated. True, an allowance—a mere pittance—might have been mine had I returned and bowed the knee to Karl." She stopped, her feelings seemingly too much for her; in a moment, however, she had mastered them. "But I was a Schattenberg!" she cried, with a little toss of her head. "And the Schattenbergs—as Herr Saunders will testify—are a stiff-necked race. There was nothing to be done," she went on, "but develop the gifts God had given me. Under an humble nom de guerre I have achieved notoriety and a large salary. Germany, France, Belgium, I have toured them all—and my incognito has never been pierced. So when I got hold of a splendid song I lost no time in hastening to Weidenbruck, for I knew it would go like wildfire here."
"A most dangerous step." The comment came from the American, but there was a light of frank admiration in his eye.
"Oh, no!" she protested, a faint touch of colour in her cheek, denoting that his approving glance had not escaped her. "It is years since I was in this place." And smiling at the Englishman, now, she added naïvely: "My features are little likely to be recognised."
"Indeed!" voiced Saunders, a touch of satire in his tone. "Photographs of the exiled Princess Gloria are in all the shop-windows, her personality is more than a tolerably popular one. When they are placed in conjunction with those of the equally popular Fräulein Schmitt, will not people talk?"
"I hope they will do more than that," confessed the Princess, growing excited.
"You want——?"
"I want Grimland," interrupted the Princess; and added loftily: "nothing more and nothing less. You will have me arrested?"
"Not yet!" declared Saunders with his brightest smile. "The night is cold—your dressing-room is cosy. No, my fascinating, and revolutionary young lady, the truce between us has been so long unbroken that I cannot rush into hostilities in this way. Besides, we are not now in 1904, and——"
"Oh, for 1904!" cried the Princess, her eyes ablaze with the light of enthusiasm. "Oh, for the sweets of popularity, the ecstasy of rousing brave men and turning their blood to wine and their brains to fire! I want to live, to rule, to be obeyed and loved as a queen!"
In an instant Trafford felt a responsive glow; he started to speak but Saunders already was speaking.