The Daily Silver State

GRAUSTARK
By
GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
Copyright, 1901,
by
Herbert S.
& Co.

SYNOPSIS of the Preceding Chapters—
Grenfall Lorry, a wealthy American
globe-trotter, stumbles into acquaintance
with a charming foreign girl
on the train from Denver to Washington.
The pair are left behind when
the flyer stops for repairs in West
Virginia. Lorry wires ahead to hold
the train. He and the unknown girl
ride twenty miles at a tearing pace
in a mountain coach. There is no love-
making, but a near approach to it
as the rolling stage tumbles the passengers about.
Lorry
dines with the
foreign party,
consisting of
"Miss
Guggenslocker,
Uncle
Caspar and
Aunt Yvonne.
They are natives of
Graustark, a country Lorry had never
heard of before.
Lorry shows the
foreigners the sights of Washington.
They leave for New York to sail on
the Kaiser Wilhelm.
Miss Guggens-
locker naively calls Lorry her "ideal
American," and invites him to come
and see her at Edelweiss. Wildly in-
fatuated, Lorry hurries to New York.
The name Guggenslocker is not on the
steamer list. He sees the steamer off.
Miss G. waves him a kiss from the
deck. Lorry joins his old friend, Harry
Anguish, an American artist, in Paris.
Graustark and its capital, Edelweiss,
are located by a guidebook. The
Americans get no trace of the Gug-
genslockers there. Lorry sees his
charmer driving in a carriage with a
beautiful companion of her own sex.
He gets a glance of recognition, but
the carriage rolls on, leaving the
mystery unsolved. Later he received
a note at his hotel signed Sophia
Guggenslocker, inviting him to visit
her next day. In the evening Lorry
and Anguish ramble about the grounds
of the castle where dwells the court
of the Princess of Graustark. They
overhear a plot to abduct the Princess
and resolve to capture the plotters
red handed. Following the conspir-
ators, Lorry finds himself in a room
he heard them designate as that of the
princess. Lorry tells the princess of
the plot. Mutual recognition: she is
Miss Guggenslocker.
Dannox, the
guard, is in the abduction plot. He
fells Lorry with
a terrible blow.
Anguish to the rescue.

CHAPTER XI
LOVE IN A CASTLE.
As the day wore on Lorry grew
irritable and restless.
He
could not bring himself in
to full touch with the situation,
not with starting Harry's frequent auto-
biographical recollections of incidents that
had occurred and that had led to their
present condition. Their luncheon was
served in the count's room, as it was
advisable for the injured man to go
to the dining hall until he was stronger.
The court physician assured him that
he would be incapacitated for several
days, but that in a very short time his
wound would lose the power to annoy
him in the least. The Count and Countess Halfont, Anguish and others came
to cheer him and to make his surround-
ings endurable. Still he was dissatisfied,
even unhappy.
The cause of his uneasiness and de-
pression was revealed only by the
manner in which it was removed. He
was lying stretched out on the couch,
staring from the window, his head aching, his heart full of a longing that
knows but one solace. Anguish had
gone out in the grounds after assuring
himself that his charge was asleep, so
there was no one in the room when he
awakened from a sickening dream to
shudder alone over its memory. He
turned on his side and curiously felt
the bandages about his head. How
lonely those bandages made him feel
away off there in Graustark!
The door to his room opened softly,
but he did not turn, thinking it was
Anguish—always Anguish—and not the
one he most desired to—
"Her royal highness,"
announced a
maid, and then:
"May I come in?" asked a voice that
went to his troubled soul like a cooling
draft to the fevered throat. He
turned toward her instantly, all the ir-
ritation, all the uneasiness, all the
loneliness, vanishing like mist before
the sun.
Behind her was a lady in
waiting.
"I cannot deny the request of a prin-
cess," he responded, smiling gayly. He
held forth his hand toward her, half
fearing she would not take it.
The Princess Yetive came straight to
his couch and laid her hand in his. He
drew it to his lips and then released it
lingeringly. She stood before him,
looking down with an anxiety in her
eyes that would have repaid him had
death been there to claim his next
breath.
"Are you better?" she asked, with
her pretty accent.
"I have been so
troubled about you."
"I thought you had forgotten me," he
said, with childish petulance.
"Forgotten you!" she cried, quick to
resent the imputation. "Let me tell
you, then, what I have been doing
while forgetting. I have sent to the
Regengetz for your luggage and your
friend's. You will find it much more
comfortable here.
You are to make
this house your home as long as you
are in Edelweiss. That is how I have
been forgetting."
"Forgive me!" he cried, his eyes
gleaming. "I have been so lonely that
I imagined all sorts of things. But,
your highness, you must not expect us
to remain here after I am able to leave.
That would be imposing"
"I will not allow you to say it!" she
objected decisively. "You are the guest
of honor in Graustark. Have you not
preserved its ruler? Was it an imposition
to risk your life to save one in
whom you had but passing interest,
even though she were a poor princess?
No, my American, this castle is yours
in all rejoicing, for had you not come
within its doors today would have
found it in mournful terror. Besides,
Mr. Anguish has said he will stay a
year if we insist.
"That's like Harry," laughed Lorry.
"But I am afraid you are glorifying
two rattle-brained chaps who should
be in a home for imbeciles instead of
in the castle their audacity might have
blighted. Our rashness was only surpassed by our phenomenal good luck.
By chance it turned out well. There
were ten thousand chances of ignominious failure. Had we failed would we
have been guests of honor? No: We
would have been stoned from Graustark. You don't know how thin the
thread was that held your fate. It
makes me shudder to think of the crime
our act might have been. Ah, had I
but known you were the princess, no
chances should have been taken," he
said fervently.
"And a romance spoiled," she laughed
and
"So you are a princess—a real princess," he went on, as if he had not
heard her. "I knew it. Something
told me you were not an ordinary woman"—
"Oh, but I am a very ordinary woman," she remonstrated. "You do not
know how easy it is to be a princess
and a mere woman at the same time.
I have a heart, a head; I breathe and
eat and drink and sleep and love. Is it
not that way with other women?"
"You breathe and eat and drink and
sleep and love in a different world,
though, your highness.
"Ach, my little maid, Therese, sleeps
as soundly, eats as heartily and loves
as warmly as I, so a fig for your judgment."
"You may breathe the same air, but
would you love the same man that
your maid might love?"
"Is a man the only excuse for love?"
she asked. "If so, then I must say that
I breathe and eat and drink and sleep
and that is all."
"Pardon me, but some day you will
find that love is a man, and"—here he
laughed—"you will neither breathe nor
eat nor sleep except with him in your
heart. Even a princess is not proof
against a man."
"Is a man proof against a princess?"
she asked as she leaned against the
casement.
"It depends on the"—he paused—"the
princess, I should say."
"Alas! There is one more fresh responsibility acquired. It seems to me
that everything depends on the prin-
cess," she said merrily.
"Not entirely," he said quickly. "A
great deal—a very great deal—depends
on circumstances.
For instance, when
you
were
Miss Guggenslocker it
wouldn't have been necessary for the
man to be a prince, you know."
"But I was Miss Guggenslocker because a man was unnecessary," she
said, so gravely that he smiled. "I was
without a title because it was more
womanly than to be a 'freak,' as I
should have been had every man, woman and child looked upon me as a princess. I did not travel through your
country for the purpose of exhibiting myself, but to learn and unlearn."
"I remember it cost you a certain
coin to learn one thing," he observed.
"It was money well spent, as subsequent events have proved. I shall
never regret the spending of that half
guinea. Was it not the means of bringing you to Edelweiss?"
"Well, it was largely responsible, but
I am inclined to believe that a certain
desire on my part would have found a
way without the assistance of the coin.
You don't know how persistent an
American can be."
"Would you have persisted had you
known I was a princess?" she asked.
"Well, I can hardly tell about that,
but you must remember I didn't know
who or what you were."
"Would you have come to Graustark
if you had known I was its princess?"
"I'll admit I came because you were
Miss Guggenslocker."
"A mere woman."
"I will not consent to the word
'mere.' What would you think of a
man who came half way across the
earth for the sake of a mere woman?"
"I should say he had a great deal of
curiosity," she responded coolly.
"And not much sense. There is but
one woman a man would do so much
for, and she could not be a mere woman in his eyes."
Lorry's face was
white and his eyes gleamed as he
hurled this bold conclusion at her.
"Especially when he learns that she
is a princess!" said she, her voice so
cold and repellent that his eyes closed
involuntarily, as if an unexpected horror had come before them. "You must
not tell me that you came to see me."
"But I did come to see you, and not
her royal highness the Princess Yetive
of Graustark. How was I to know?"
he cried impulsively.
"But you are no longer ignorant,"
she said, looking from the window.
"I thought you said you were a mere
woman!"
"I am, and that is the trouble!" she
said, slowly turning her eyes back to
him. Then she abruptly sank to the
window seat near his head. "That is