"I promise not to try," replied Max. "My neck will serve me many years yet."
"It will not if you have the habit of running away with persons above you in quality. Actions like that are not permissible in Europe." The colonel spoke rather grimly, for all his smile.
The door slammed, there was a grinding of the key in the lock, and Max was alone.
The library at Doppelkinn was all the name implied. The cases were low and ran around the room, and were filled with romance, history, biography, and even poetry. The great circular reading-table was littered with new books, periodicals and illustrated weeklies. Once Doppelkinn had been threatened with a literary turn of mind, but a bad vintage coming along at the same time had effected a permanent cure.
Max slid into a chair and took up a paper, turning the pages at random.—What was the matter with the room? Certainly it was not close, nor damp, nor chill. What was it? He let the paper fall to the floor, and his eyes roved from one object to another.—Where had he seen that Chinese mask before, and that great silver-faced clock? Somehow, mysterious and strange as it seemed, all this was vaguely familiar to him. Doubtless he had seen a picture of the room somewhere. He rose and wandered about.
In one corner of the bookshelves stood a pile of boy's books and some broken toys with the dust of ages upon them. He picked up a row of painted soldiers, and balanced them thoughtfully on his hand. Then he looked into one of the picture-books. It was a Santa Claus story; some of the pictures were torn and some stuck together, a reminder of sticky, candied hands. He gently replaced the book and the toys, and stared absently into space. How long he stood that way he did not recollect, but he was finally aroused by the sound of slamming doors and new voices. He returned to his chair and waited for the dénouement, which the marrow in his bones told him was about to approach.
It seemed incredible that he, of all persons, should be plucked out of the practical ways of men and thrust into the unreal fantasies of romance. A hubbub in a restaurant, a headlong dash into a carriage compartment, a long ride with a princess, and all within three short hours! It was like some weird dream. And how the deuce would it end?
He gazed at the toys again.
And then the door opened and he was told to come out. The grand duke had arrived.
"This will be the final round-up," he laughed quietly, his thought whimsically traveling back to the great plains and the long rides under the starry night.