The Slim Princess

XII

THE GOV­ER­NOR CA­BLES

“I don't be­lieve it. It's too good to be true. I am in a trance. It isn't you, is it?”

And he was still hold­ing her hand.

“Yes--it is.”

“The Princess--ah--?”

“Kalo­ra.”

“_That's_ it. I was so busy think­ing of you af­ter I left your cute lit­tle coun­try that I couldn't re­mem­ber the name. I thought of 'cal­ico' and 'Fe­do­ra' and 'Koko­mo' and a lot of names that sound­ed like it, but I knew I was wrong. _Kalo­ra_--_Kalo­ra_--I'll re­mem­ber that. I knew it be­gan with a 'K.' But what in the name of all that is pure and sanc­ti­fied are you do­ing in the land of the free?”

“You in­vit­ed me to come. Don't you re­mem­ber? You urged me to come.”

“That's why you no­ti­fied me as soon as you ar­rived, isn't it? How long have you been here?”

“I for­get--three months--four months. Sure­ly you have seen my name in the pa­pers. Ev­ery morn­ing you may read a full de­scrip­tion of what Princess Kalo­ra of Mo­rove­nia wore the night be­fore. For a sim­ple and demo­crat­ic peo­ple you are rather fond of high-​sound­ing ti­tles, don't you think?”

“I haven't read the pa­pers, be­cause I'm al­ways afraid I'll find some­thing about my­self. They don't de­scribe my cos­tumes, how­ev­er. They sim­ply say that I am try­ing to blow up and scut­tle the ship of State. But this has noth­ing to do with your case. It is cus­tom­ary, when you ac­cept an in­vi­ta­tion, to let the host know some­thing about it. In oth­er words, why didn't you drop me a line?”

“I will con­fess--the whole truth--since you have been can­did enough to ad­mit that you had for­got­ten my name. I tried to find you, through the Lega­tion. I de­scribed you, but--your name--_please_ tell me your name again? You men­tioned it, that day in the gar­den. Popo­va promised to go to the ho­tel and get it for me, but we were bun­dled away in such a hur­ry.”

“Heav­ens! Imag­ine any one for­get­ting such a name! Alexan­der H. Pike, Besse­mer, Penn­syl­va­nia, tar­iff-​fed in­fant and all-​round plu­to­crat.”

“Why, of course, _Pike, Pike_--it is the name of a fish.”

“Thank you.”

The young gen­tle­man from the army moved un­easi­ly, and they re­mem­bered that he was present. He hoped they wouldn't mind if he went to look up his part­ner for the next dance, and they as­sured him that they wouldn't, and he be­lieved them and was back­ing away when Popo­va ar­rived to sug­gest the late­ness of the hour and in­ti­mate his will­ing­ness to re­turn to the ho­tel.

His sud­den jour­ney to the west­ern hemi­sphere and his pe­ri­od of res­idence at Wash­ing­ton had been punc­tu­at­ed with sur­pris­es, but the amaze­ment which smote him when he saw Kalo­ra lean­ing across the ta­ble to­ward the young man who had in­tro­duced the gin fizz in­to Mo­rove­nia was sud­den and shock­ing.

Mr. Pike greet­ed him rap­tur­ous­ly and gave him the keys to North Amer­ica, and then Kalo­ra pat­ted him on the arm and sent him away to wait for her.

They sat and talked for an hour--sat and talked and laughed and pieced out be­tween them the won­der­ful de­tails of that very live­ly day in Mo­rove­nia.

“And you have come all the way to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in or­der to in­crease your weight?” he asked. “That cer­tain­ly would make a full-​page sto­ry for a Sun­day pa­per. Think of any­body's com­ing to Wash­ing­ton to fat­ten up! Why, when I come down here to reg­ulate these com­mit­tees, I lose a pound a day.”

“I nev­er dreamed that there could be a coun­try in which wom­en are giv­en so much free­dom--so many lib­er­ties.”

“And what we don't give them, they take--which is em­inent­ly cor­rect. Of all the sex­es, there is on­ly one that ev­er made a re­al im­pres­sion on me.”

“And to think that some day I shall have to re­turn to Mo­rove­nia!”

“For­get it,” urged Mr. Pike, in a low and sooth­ing tone. “Far be it from me to start any­thing in your fam­ily, but if I were you, I would nev­er go back there to serve a life sen­tence in one of those lime-​kilns, with a cur­tain over my face. You are now at the spot where wom­an is re­al su­per­in­ten­dent of the works, and this is where you want to camp for the rest of your life.”

“But I can not dis­obey my fa­ther. I dare not re­main if he--”

She paused, re­al­iz­ing that the talk had led her to dan­ger­ous ground, for Mr. Pike had dropped his large hand on her small one and was gaz­ing at her with large de­vour­ing eyes.

“You won't go back if I can help it,” he said, lean­ing still near­er to her. “I know this is a lit­tle pre­ma­ture, even for me, but I just want you to know that from the minute I looked down from the wall that day and saw you un­der the tree--well, I haven't been able to find any­thing else in the world worth look­ing at. When I met you again to-​night, I didn't re­mem­ber your name. You didn't re­mem­ber my name. What of that? We know each oth­er pret­ty well--don't you think we do? The way you looked at me, when I came across to speak to you--I don't know, but it made me be­lieve, all at once, that maybe you had been think­ing of me, the same as I had been think­ing of you. If I'm say­ing more than I have a right to say, head me off, but, for once in my life, I'm in earnest.”

“I'm glad--you like me,” she said, and she pushed back in her chair and looked down and away from him and felt that her face was burn­ing with blush­es.

“When you have found out all about me, I hope you'll keep on speak­ing to me just the same,” he con­tin­ued. “I warn you that, from now on, I am go­ing to pester you a lot. You'll find me sit­ting on your front door-​step ev­ery morn­ing, ready to take or­ders. To-​mor­row I must hie me to New York, to ex­plain to some ven­er­able di­rec­tors why the net earn­ings have fall­en be­low forty per cent. But when I re­turn, O fair maid­en, look out for me.”

He would be back in Wash­ing­ton with­in three days. He would come to her ho­tel. They were to ride in the mo­tor-​car and they were to go to the the­aters. She must meet his moth­er. His moth­er would take her to New York, and there would be the opera, and this, and that, and so on, for he was go­ing to show her all the at­trac­tions of the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

The night was thin­ning in­to the gray­ness of dawn when he took her to the wait­ing car­riage. She put her hand through the win­dow and he held it for a long time, while they once more went over their de­li­cious plans.

Af­ter the car­riage had start­ed, Popo­va spoke up from his dark cor­ner.

“I am be­gin­ning to un­der­stand why you wished to come to Amer­ica. Al­so I have made a dis­cov­ery. It was Mr. Pike who over­came the guards and jumped over the wall.”

“I shall ask the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al to give you Kol­do's po­si­tion.”

An enor­mous sur­prise was wait­ing for them at the ho­tel. It was a ca­ble from Mo­rove­nia--long, de­ci­sive, def­inite, com­posed with an ut­ter dis­re­gard for heavy tolls. It di­rect­ed Popo­va to bring the shame­less daugh­ter back to Mo­rove­nia im­me­di­ate­ly--not a mo­ment's de­lay un­der pain of the most hor­ri­ble penal­ties that could be imag­ined. They were to take the first steam­er. They were to come home with all speed. Sure­ly there was no mis­tak­ing the fierce in­tent of the mes­sage.

Popo­va suf­fered a moral col­lapse and Kalo­ra went in­to a fit of weep­ing. Both of them feared to re­turn and yet, at such a cri­sis, they knew that they dared not dis­obey.

The whole morn­ing was giv­en over to hur­ried pack­ing-​up. An af­ter­noon train car­ried them to New York. A steam­er was to sail ear­ly next day, and they went aboard that very night.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: They were to come home with all speed.]

Kalo­ra had left a brief mes­sage at her ho­tel in Wash­ing­ton. It was ad­dressed to Mr. Alexan­der H. Pike, and sim­ply said that some­thing dread­ful had hap­pened, that she had been called home, that she was go­ing back to a prison the doors of which would nev­er swing open for her, and she must say good-​by to him for ev­er.

She tried to com­mu­ni­cate with him be­fore sail­ing away from New York. Mes­sen­ger boys, bribed with gen­er­ous cab-​fares, were sent to all the large ho­tels, but they could not find the right Mr. Pike. The re­al Mr. Pike was liv­ing at a club.

She leaned over the rail­ing and watched the gang-​plank un­til the very mo­ment of sail­ing, hop­ing that he might ap­pear. But he did not come, and she went to her state-​room and tried to for­get him, and to think of some­thing oth­er than the re­cep­tion await­ing her back in the dis­mal re­gion known as Mo­rove­nia.