A prince of lovers

THE moonlit gables of the city threw a zig-zag pattern on the cobble-paved streets, and brought alternately into view and obscurity the few passers-by, among whom were two women, who, hurrying along, seemed, by keeping as near as possible to the base of the triangular shadows, to shun observation. Recognition, indeed, would not have been easy, for the ample hoods of their grey cloaks were drawn well over their faces; only their figures and lightness of step told that they were young. As to their looks there was, for the reason already given, no room for more than speculation. Close as they kept together but few words passed between them, and those scarcely above a whisper. Of the people whom they met a good many turned to look after them in curiosity, but owing no doubt to their air of purposeful hurry, no man seemed to think it worth while to follow them. Up to a certain point, that is.

Arrived at the fork where one street ran into two the women paused as if uncertain which to take. It was necessary to look up and read the names, and as they did so a man crossing the street caught a momentary glimpse of one of the up-turned faces silhouetted against an oil lamp, which, from its place some yards away, was brought into level with the girl’s head. He stopped, almost with a start, then crossing quickly to the shadow of an entry, waited till the girls resumed their way, upon which he came out and followed them.

They went, however, but a couple of hundred yards farther. Before a house in a small secluded Platz they stopped and stood hesitating. On the door was a plate where by the light of a bluish lamp which hung in the portico could be read the one word, “Parabosco.” The courage of the two girls, if checked, soon returned; they went boldly to the door, which at their approach opened silently and admitted them. The man who had followed them now paced up and down the Platz in thoughtful indecision.

He was a good-looking young fellow, alert and soldier-like; yet in the strong moonlight the face seemed much more than that of a mere city lounger; its beauty was intellectual, its distinction manifestly came from a sense of power, power in action united with gentleness of manner. That was the man’s attraction, his easily imagined fascination, that sense of quiet, unobtrusive strength; the charm lay not in his mere features but in the spirit behind them.

Presently, as though his resolve was taken, he went up to the blue-lit door. An unseen hand opened it as before and, without a word, he passed in. Meanwhile the two girls had entered a room hung with dark velvet on which were worked strange cabalistic devices. The air was subtily perfumed and a light shining through a globe of blue crystal just illuminated the room enough to enhance its character of mystery. Perhaps the most striking feature of this was the dead silence, a stillness that seemed to strike the visitors dumb with its almost appalling intensity.

“I wish we had not come.” Fear forced out the whisper from one of the girls.

“We cannot help it now,” returned her companion, whose voice, scarcely above her breath, seemed only just to repress a tremor.

“I had no idea it was a place like this,” the other said, looking round with almost a shudder. “If they—he—the man should find out——”

“He will, easily, if you chatter.”

“Well,” persisted the irrepressible one, “this is not what I bargained for. I thought it would be a piece of fun, but I don’t—oh!”

Her talk was cut short by a woman in oriental dress who had suddenly appeared and, holding the curtains aside, was motioning the visitors to pass through. With a momentary hesitation they followed her gesture, and as they crossed a small ante-room a door in front of them swung open and they found themselves in the presence of the fortune-teller to whom their curiosity had attracted them. The sanctum of this modern soothsayer was furnished with the usual stock-in-trade of his profession, objects calculated to inspire awe—or something worse—in the vulgar, and to throw a glamour of the supernatural over what, stripped of the mystic surroundings, might have been a common-place personality. The flamboyant chart of the heavens, the divining crystal, a skull, the glowing brazier, all were there, and at a table by a great parchment volume sat the fortune-teller. A sharp-eyed man with clean-shaven, cunning face in which a certain suggestion of intellectuality was spoilt by the expression resulting from the habitual practice of roguery.

The light was so arranged that it fell on the visitors, leaving the fortune-teller in comparative obscurity, like a great spider in the corner of his web.

“Ladies,” he said in his professional phrase, with a well practised trick of voice, unnatural and therefore calculated to add to the air of the supernatural, “you have come, I presume, to consult the stars and the oracles of the unseen world whose humble interpreter I am. It is well; the time is propitious, the hour is golden.”

Doubtless the emphasis he laid upon the last word was intended as a hint, for with that he pushed toward his clients a silver shell in which lay several coins. Each of the girls added a piece of gold, at which the eyes gleaming out of the semi-darkness seemed to give a flash of satisfaction. With that the soothsayer made a show of the tricks of his trade. He described figures with his wand; cast chemicals into the brazier, causing ghastly flames to leap and spirt; he took, perfunctorily indeed, an observation of the heavens and affected an invocative rapture. All this, however, did not last long, possibly because the performer may have received an intimation that another visitor was waiting to consult him. But the farce was gone through with a gravity which did credit to the restraint behind that very mundane face.

“Now will one of you ladies advance and place the lines of your hand under observation?” he said in a tone of commanding request.

Still keeping her hood well over her face, one of the girls went forward to the table and extended her hand, a long aristocratic hand of exquisite shape, a hand that even to a man less shrewd than the fortune-teller must have revealed the station of its owner. Whether indeed he had suspected or not the character of his visitors, the man glanced up from the hand with a sharp look of inquiry at the half-concealed face. The scrutiny was but momentary, next instant he was bending with a magnifying glass over the outstretched palm. The time-honoured jargon of the fortune-teller was repeated; then the cards told the same tale with alluring variations, the stars gave a confirmatory horoscope.

“Jupiter in conjunction with Venus points to a great, we might almost venture to say a royal marriage,” the seer pronounced with professional glibness.

“No, no, not that!” the girl exclaimed with a vehemence which startled the professor. “At least, I mean it is not certain, is it? It can be prevented, it can be fought against?”

The smile on the man’s face did not hide the look of intense curiosity with which he regarded her.

“Fight against the stars?” he protested with a deprecating laugh. “You are a bold young lady to imagine that.”

“Against the stars? No,” she returned impetuously. “But against the powers here below that would coerce fate.”

“The fate I have predicted,” rejoined the fortune-teller dryly, “is scarcely one which a woman would fight against.”

“That may be,” the girl retorted, “but perhaps, Herr Professor, if your skill in divination were as great as is pretended you would hardly be surprised at my distaste for the fate you have predicted.”

The sharp eyes with their keen iridescence were fastened on her now in triumphant premeditation.

“My skill scarcely deserves your sneer, madame,” he replied with a repressing of his thoughts. “It may be greater than you imagine or than I claim. Dare you challenge me to put it to the proof? Will you—it is no light test—will you look into the magic mirror?”

“Why should I?” the girl asked half contemptuously.

“Merely that your scepticism may see how far it is warranted. The mirror may confirm my verbal forecast,” he gave a shrug, “or not. Only I warn you that what you shall see there may not be agreeable.”

The other girl who had so far sat intently silent rose and caught her companion’s arm. “No,” she urged in a frightened whisper, “do not look, I beg you. It may be terrible.”

“Worse than the royal marriage?” the other exclaimed with a scornful laugh. “I cannot stop half-way now. I have heard my fate, I must see its confirmation.”

“As you will,” said the fortune-teller quietly. “Only do not blame me should the result be displeasing.”

“Show me, Herr Professor.”

He rose. “For that,” he said, “you must be here alone. Your friend may wait in the ante-chamber.”

“You hear, Minna?”

“No, no; it is not right. I will not leave you. Surely you have heard enough.”

“No; I mean to see what this mirror has to show. What,” laughing, “did we come for but to know the future?”

The dark eyes out of the shadow were watching the two girls furtively, but their owner spoke no word of persuasion. Doubtless his knowledge of human nature told him that curiosity would prevail unaided. And so it was. The companion was forced reluctantly to leave them, and when the two were alone the fortune-teller quietly slipped round and, under pretence of seeing that the door was securely shut, slipped home its bolt.

“Remove your hood,” he said facing the girl.

“It is unnecessary,” she replied. “I came to see, not to be seen.”

“Precisely,” the professor returned with a sarcastic grin. “And you thought to trifle with our sublime art. You judge so meanly of it as to fancy that we whose knowledge passes human comprehension are ignorant of the very identity of those who consult us. You pay us a poor compliment, Princess.”

For a few moments there was silence as she stood, half-fascinated, watching his glittering eyes. The light was on his face now bringing out its Jewish cast, the lines of greed and cunning. If the face disquieted her, she did not show it, she was too proud, too completely mistress of herself for that. Simply, with a slight inclination of the head she accepted his protest, giving no sign of discomfiture at the word which proclaimed her identity, merely saying, as though she were speaking to a servant—

“Will you let me see what the mirror has to show?”

He was thinking, designing actively as he watched her. “Surely, Princess,” he said, with an affectation of humility, “the resources of my art are at your gracious disposal. Will you be seated till the moment of revelation arrives?”

He turned and busied himself with certain preparations. Presently with a gesture of warning he drew aside a dark curtain and disclosed a deep-set mirror, the surface showing nothing but a dead black reflection. Immediately it was disclosed, a vapour spread over and blurred the glass.

The Princess had risen and taken a step towards the mirror. Parabosco turned sharply as the vapour rose; there was evil intent in his face.

“Princess,” he said significantly, “you are not as ordinary inquirers are. The destinies of royal personages float in a higher plane, are woven in a grander frame than those of ordinary mortals. The rewards of divination must be proportionate.”

The man’s meaning was as obvious as his looks were evil. After a moment’s hesitation she took out her purse and laid another gold piece upon the table. The man’s eyes remained fixed in their greed.

“That is no price,” he said bluntly, “for the revelation of a royal destiny.”

“The rewards of divination, as you call them,” the Princess replied with quiet scorn, “seem to be governed not so much by proportion as by extortion. Here, I will give you no more.”

As she spoke she laid a second gold coin beside the other. Parabosco took them up and turned to the mirror, still obscured by the rising vapour. Without looking back, he beckoned her to his side and enjoining silence by a gesture, pointed to the recess. Gradually the vapour became less dense till at length it was so attenuated that the black reflection could once more be seen. The professor recited a rigmarole in the style of an incantation—once more the vapour swept across the glass and as it rolled away a picture became faintly visible. Standing erect, Parabosco signed to his companion to look closely into the mirror. As she bent forward to see through the tantalising mist, the dim picture grew clearer till she could make out its subject.

The interior of a church, a priest at the altar, before him a bride and bridegroom, the man in a splendid uniform. But the whole indistinct, and remaining only a few seconds before it was obscured by a fresh cloud of vapour.

“You saw?” Parabosco asked.

“Very little. The faces were hidden.”

“Was that less than you—bargained for, Princess?” he returned sarcastically. “The lady was yourself.”

“How do I know that?”

“The mirror shows the fate of none but the gazer.”

“Is that all?”

“By no means. It was hardly worth while to be shown that, except that it has confirmed what I have already predicted. Look,” he exclaimed, pointing with a swift gesture to the mirror, “the vapour is agitated! There is fate behind it; the great crisis, the real story, doubtless, of your life. Dare you read it?”

“Indeed I dare,” she answered half-mockingly, as though she had begun to see through the charlatan’s trick. “Do not delay; I have no time to waste.”

Her words were unfortunate, suggesting to him that for the time she was in his power. “You must give me a larger fee, Princess,” he demanded sharply. “Look! Quickly, before the charm dissolves.”

“I will give you nothing more,” she replied firmly.

“Then I will close the mirror, and the chance will be gone forever. See! Even now it may be too late,” he cried in a pretended excitement. “It is to see your fate for good or ill. Give me your purse. Quick! Your jewels, it is worth all that and more!”

She had drawn back and stood facing him steadily. “I will give you nothing more, I tell you,” she said resolutely. “Your conjuring tricks have been already overpaid.”

“Tricks?” he screamed. “You dare to blaspheme our sublime art and mysteries. You know not the risk you run, how near the brink of deadly horror you stand. You shall see your destiny. The fates are not to be invoked lightly. You came here to know the future, you shall know it and shall pay for the knowledge.”

The design of intimidation and extortion was manifest now in all its vulgar brutality, but the quack had in his victim, although a woman, yet a woman of character and spirit.

“Not one kreutzer more,” she maintained. “I have had enough of this nonsense and your rudeness. Show me the way out of this place.”

“Not till you have satisfied my just demands,” he returned with an ugly look of menace. “The revelation has been invoked for you and you shall pay for it whether you look or not.”

She took a step towards the door. He sprang forward and intercepted her.

“Not so, Princess. You go not till you give what I demand.”

Mortified as she was at having put herself in the man’s power and at risking the discovery of her identity which was sure to excite his greed, she yet never lost her presence of mind.

“You will let me go at once, fellow,” she said haughtily, “or it will be the worse for you.”

But he judged shrewdly that it might be the worse for him in any event. “You will pay me to the utmost of your power or it will be the worse for you,” he retorted. “I am sorry to have to speak to you bluntly, Princess, but necessity cannot dance attendance on fine speeches or miss golden opportunities, eh?”

For a moment she deliberated on the simplest way out of a false position, false enough and to most women terrifying, although her high spirit ignored its danger. Distasteful as it was to make terms with the ruffian, it yet seemed the most sensible way out. A scandal would to her proud spirit be hateful, and then there was Chancellor Rollmar to think of.

“I am content to pay for my folly in coming to this den of jugglery,” she said composedly. “I will give you two gold ducats beyond what you have already extorted.”

“I must have more than that,” he demanded threateningly. “What? Five ducats all told? It is absurd. Princesses do not come to me every day.”

As he spoke he made a grab at her purse and thrust it into the folds of his gown. “Now, your jewels, my Princess; they are trifles to you but much to me. Come! Don’t force my need to extremity. Pay your ransom, and then you shall go.”

Her hood was thrown back now, disclosing the proud beauty of her face in its defiant indignation. The lips were set in unutterable contempt and loathing. It was the first great indignity she had ever suffered, but if the situation brought its inevitable fear, that was repressed behind the steady, scornful eyes. Parabosco could not meet the look, could not raise his greedy eyes beyond the diamond at her breast.

“You shall pay for this, you ruffian,” she said between her teeth.

“I care not,” he flung back, “so that you pay first. Hand over your jewels, or must I take them?”

In her determination she glanced round as though for a weapon of defence, but none was available. Interpreting her look, the man sprang forward and clutched her wrist, at the same time endeavoring to force the rings from her fingers. It was the fellow’s brutal touch that now for the first time beat down her courage and extorted a cry for help.

“Minna!” she called desperately. “Minna! Come! Quickly!”

“It is useless to call,” the fellow protested as he struggled to open her clenched hand. “Your friend cannot hear you. You had best be quiet. So!”

Failing to force back her fingers he had seized her brooch and torn it from her bodice.

“Minna! Help!” she cried, putting her strength against her assailant’s in a fierce effort to regain the jewel.

The handle of the door was tried and rattled.

“Your friend cannot come to you,” the professor laughed. “Better be reasonable, and——”

With a great thud and snap the door was sent flying open and a man appeared in the opening; the young man who had followed the Princess to the house, and who now took in the scene with a frown under which Professor Parabosco manifestly quailed.

“What does this mean, ruffian?” he demanded. But the fortune-teller was silent. The young man turned to the Princess with a bow.

“May I ask you, madame?”

Save for the flush on her face, she seemed to have regained her habitual composure. “This man, this charlatan whom I foolishly came to consult, has robbed me,” she answered.

“Robbed you?” As he turned to the quacksalver his face, which had softened, resumed its stern expression. Behind him were now two anxious spectators of the scene, the princess’s companion, Minna, and the woman, his wife, perhaps, who acted as usher to the fortune-teller.

“Not robbed,” the fellow cried in defiant reply to the look. “The lady has availed herself of the most transcendent mysteries of our art, and refuses adequate recompense.”

He had dropped into the jargon of his calling, and his tone fell from bluster to complaint.

“You take a somewhat unmannerly way of enforcing your demands,” the other observed sarcastically. “I will take a leaf out of your book. Restore at once to this lady what you have taken from her.”

The professor gave a grin of cunning defiance.

“If I tell you who this lady is,” he returned, with a malignant look at the princess, who had meanwhile drawn over her face the hood and cloak which the struggle had thrown off, “you may think, my good sir, that I am not unreasonably paid.”

The veiled threat was significant, but before any possible effect could be apparent the young officer quietly took the wind out of the other’s sails.

“I am as well aware of this lady’s identity as you can be, Master Quacksalver,” he said. “Now, as her highness cannot wish to stay here longer, you will at once restore what you have taken.”

Parabosco hesitated. The diamond ornament was worth many a week’s income to him, and his game in that city was up. Quietly, but with intensely significant action, the young man drew his sword. The jewel was not to be kept; Parabosco sullenly tossed it on the table.

The other man took it up in surprise. “That?” he exclaimed. “You filched that, you scoundrel, to pay for your hocus-pocus! Princess, your brooch.” He placed it in her hand with a bow almost of homage.

“I thank you, sir,” she said simply, so coolly that under the circumstances the words sounded almost ungracious.

“That is not all, perhaps?”

“He took my purse.”

He held out his hand. “The purse!”

“It was my fee.”

“The purse!”

It fell with a sharp ring on the table and was presented to its owner as the brooch had been.

“I am indeed grateful, sir,” she said, this time with more animation, as though sensible of seeming ungracious. “This man had been already well paid for his trickery. I had given him five gold ducats.”

“Under compulsion, Princess, I fear?”

“Perhaps. But I am satisfied.”

“Then he must return at least four.”

“No, let him keep them; I must pay for my foolish escapade.”

“As you will, Princess. But——”

“Will you add to your service by escorting me out of this place?”

“I am honoured, Princess.” He stepped aside, and she moved towards the door. “May I say a word to this fellow, Highness?” he begged.

“Is it necessary?”

“Only to warn him that if he sees daylight in this place to-morrow, it will be through the bars of the town prison.”

The professor evidently thought it very probable; anyhow he did not dispute the contingency, and in a few moments his three visitors were outside in the street.

“Oh, Princess, what a horrible adventure,” cried the impressionable Minna.

“What an amazing piece of folly,” her mistress corrected with a little shudder of self-reproach. “One can scarcely blame the wretched man for trying to take advantage of it.” She turned to the young man. “Let me thank you again, sir, for having rescued us from an awkward predicament. It was a foolish whim that led us into it, but we had heard a wonderful account of the fortune-teller, and one gets tired of being always sensible.”

The explanation seemed wrung from her. The constraint of her tone from which a touch of haughtiness was not absent, showed that the speaker was not used to apologize or account for her actions. But here the intolerable humiliation of a false position made it imperative.

“A very natural curiosity, Princess,” he replied with a smile. “And the accident of the fellow’s rudeness was hardly to have been foreseen. It is very hard,” he continued with what seemed perhaps a strange temerity, “that those in exalted positions should be debarred from most of the fun and adventures of life.” Seeming to recollect himself, he added with a deferential bow, “I am truly favoured at having been permitted to free your Highness from an embarrassing situation.”

She had moved away, but now, as by an afterthought, turned back. “I may ask who has rendered me this service?”

“I am honoured, Princess. My name is Lieutenant Ludovic von Bertheim.”

“You live in this city?”

“No; I am at present a wanderer. My home is in Beroldstein.”

“Ah, in Beroldstein.” The name seemed to awaken thoughts which were hardly pleasant, but she dismissed them with a little inward careless laugh. “Well, good-night, Herr Lieutenant, and many thanks. I hope there is no need to ask you not to speak of this affair.”

Her manner was a curious mixture of coldness and a sense of duty which told her that she owed her defender some graciousness.

“There is no need, Princess,” he answered gravely. “You may trust my honour.”

For the first time there was manifest interest in the look which read his face. “I am sure of it. Again, good-night,” she said.

But he took a step after her. “Your Highness will not refuse my escort to the Palace. It is late and——”

She cut him short. “You are good, but an escort is unnecessary. It is not far, we are two, and we know our way.”

With innate good sense he divined an obvious objection to his proposal. “I may at least follow at a distance till I see that your Highness is safe,” he urged.

“As you please,” she replied coldly. “Come, Minna,” and the two hurried off.

Von Bertheim followed at a distance near enough for protection, too distant for remark or scandal. Nothing more than a few curious glances was encountered, and presently the Lieutenant saw them arrive in safety at one of the private doors of the palace. At the distance, some fifty paces, which he had punctiliously kept, he stopped and watched, hoping perhaps for a parting sign from the Princess; but she went in quickly without turning her head in his direction. Her companion, however, looked back and the watcher thought she made a sign to him. As she lingered he hurried forward.

“Good-night,” she said with a demureness which was obviously not quite natural. “The Princess thanks you again. And, oh,” she added with a burst of more characteristic eagerness, “you will not breathe a word of this folly, will you, Herr Lieutenant! It would be terrible for us all. The Princess trusts to your honour.”

Although it was more likely that the exhortation was rather prompted by her own fears than a message from her mistress, von Bertheim replied gravely, “I am sorry that the Princess should deem it necessary to mention it not twice but once even.”

“Oh,” she protested hastily, “it is my fault. Her Highness has every confidence in your chivalry. It was lucky,” she laughed with an admiring glance. “Good-night.”

The door closed upon her and he turned away. “Lucky?” he repeated. “Yes. How will the luck turn out? Ah, yes, it was a fortunate chance even if the luck stop there.”