Williams promised with a chuckle. "Funny kids," he said to himself, enjoying, nevertheless, the adventure. "I'll do the sleuth stuff in the corner store while you two are interviewing the Duchess—I beg pardon, the Queen."
The girls left Williams, as he suggested, at the little store, while they, tugging their basket between them, found and followed the path by the Rushing Water. It was as alluring as ever—berries still clung to the undergrowth, gleaming red against the dark of the fir trees; the dead leaves underfoot crackled softly as though protesting their intrusion; there was a whirring of wings and always the rush of the water.
"I'd forgotten how spooky it was," cried Beryl, drawing in her breath.
"I hope she won't be sorry we came."
This time Robin knocked. As before, Brina opened the door a little way. When she saw the two girls she scowled, but stepped backward, announcing their presence in crisp German.
The mistress of the house rose a little hastily from the table before which she was sitting. She was dressed, now, in a warm, trailing robe of soft velvet, a band of ermine circling her neck and crossing over her breast, where it was held in place by a brooch of flashing gems. At sight of her visitors her face softened from haughty surprise to a resigned amusement. Robin broke the silence.
"May we come in? We thought we'd like—that maybe you'd like—" Oh, it was dreadful to know what to say, when all the time you were thinking she really was a Queen!
"You have stumbled upon my little house again? Come in and sit down. Brina and I do not often have callers; you must pardon us if, perhaps, we are a little awkward in our hospitality. Cæsar, lie down He is glad to see you! I have been looking over a book of colored prints of old cathedrals. Would you like to pull your chairs up to the table and look at them with me?"
Beryl blinked knowingly at Robin as much as to say: "Isn't that just what an exiled Queen would be doing?" The prints were rare and exceedingly lovely and Robin noticed that they had come from a New York gallery. Their hostess told them of some of the quaint cathedral towns and the stories of the cathedrals themselves. Robin, who had an inherited appreciation of beauty, listened eagerly, putting in now and then a question or a statement of such intelligence that the "Dowager Queen" studied her with interest.
Beryl, thrilled by the ermine and the gleaming brooch, did not care a fig about the cathedrals but sat back in a rapture of speculation. There seemed something in the stately head with its crown of white hair, vaguely, tantalizingly familiar; she must have seen pictures of the Queen of Altruria somewhere. She watched each gesture and fitted it to her dream. This Queen who seemed really truly friendly now and almost human, might go back some day to Altruria, wherever that was, and of course, when she toured Europe, or maybe even when she was there studying, she could go and stay at the Palace just like a relative. It would be fun to visit in a palace and smile at all the fuss and crowns and things because you were an American and didn't believe in them.