Trafford's only answer was a most complacent grin.
"Good-night, Herr Saunders!" said the Princess in the sweetest of accents. "Remember me kindly to your wife and other Royalists. We may meet again or not—my impression is that we shall.... If so, remember that laughter is not always a symptom of child's play."
"Good-night, Princess!" returned Saunders with an exaggerated low bow. "Forgive me, won't you, if I take the threatened revolution lightly? The possibility of your sitting on the throne of Grimland," he went on with another obeisance, "opens up such delightful prospect that I shall fight against it with only half a heart. Still, I shall fight against it. Good-night, Prin—Your Majesty!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
CONFIDENCES IN A WINE SHOP
Nervy Trafford—comfortably covered by a warm rug, seated in an open sleigh next to a young lady of exalted birth, romantic temperament, and unimpeachable comeliness—was almost a happy man. It was not that he had fallen in love at first sight, that he had found swift consolation for his recent disappointment in a rapidly-engendered passion for the fascinating claimant to the throne of Grimland, that he was capable of offering any woman the fine spiritual worship he had accorded to the adorable Angela Knox; but to his temperament admiration came easily—and he had dined well. He had been the auditor of a wildly exciting song, had made the acquaintance of the inimitable singer, and because there was wine and music in his blood, and much beauty by his side, the nightmare of his past depression vanished into the biting air, and his pulses stirred to a Hit of amazing exhilaration.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed to himself, stealing a side glance at his companion's bewitching profile, "Saunders is right—life is too valuable an asset to fling away in a moment's madness. There is a beauty of the body and a beauty of the soul, and if the two are perfectly combined in only one woman in the universe, is that any reason why I should not admire a tip-tilted nose or a curved mouth when Fate puts them within a hand's breadth of my own scrubby cheek?"
"Do you know Weidenbruck, Herr Trafford?" the Princess broke in on his silent philosophising.
"Little beyond the Hôtel Concordia," he replied. "Where are we now?"
"The Domkircheplatz. That is the Cathedral."