And out of the various doors the little company departed, leaving the princess and Max alone.
Ah, how everything was changed! thought Max, as he let down his sleeve and buttoned his cuff. A prince! He was a prince; he, Max Scharfenstein, cow-boy, quarter-back, trooper, doctor, was a prince! If it was a dream, he was going to box the ears of the bell-boy who woke him up. But it wasn't a dream; he knew it wasn't. The girl yonder didn't dissolve into mist and disappear; she was living, living. He had now the right to love any one he chose, and he did choose to love this beautiful girl, who, with lowered eyes, was nervously plucking the ends of the pillow tassel. It was all changed for her, too.
"Princess!" he said a bit brokenly.
"I am called Gretchen by my friends,"—with a boldness that only half-disguised her real timidity. What would he do, this big, handsome fellow, who had turned out to be a prince, fairy-tale wise?
"Gretchen? I like that better than Hildegarde; it is less formal. Well, then, Gretchen, I can't explain it, but this new order of things has given me a tremendous backbone." He crossed the room to her side. "You will not wed my—my father?"
"Never in all this world!"—slipping around the table, her eyes dim like the bloom on the grape. She ought not to be afraid of him, but she was.
"But I—"
"You have known me only four days," she whispered faintly. "You can not know your mind."
"Oh, when one is a prince,"—laughing,—"it takes no time at all. I love you. I knew it was going to be when you looked around in old Bauer's smithy."
"Did I look around?"—innocently.