The Princess Virginia. Williamson Charles Norris

she saw and thought, in a flash; and then, the brown hand that had shaded his eyes, dropped. She caught sight of his face.

      It was the Emperor.

      A moment ago she had felt that she could look at him with indifference, and would a thousand times over prefer a glimpse of the dear old house at Hampton Court, with an easy way to reach it. But now, everything was changed. There was no longer any danger. He was there. He was coming to help her. A Power higher than his had arranged this as their first encounter, and would not have taken the trouble to bring him to her here, if the meeting were to end in ignominy or disaster.

      He had run across the plateau; now the nailed boots were ringing on rock. She could gaze down upon his head, he was so close to her. He was looking up. What a noble face it was! Better than all the pictures. And the eyes —

      Virginia was suddenly and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the steeply sloping rock.

      If the man had not sprung forward and caught her, she would probably have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an ace of being on her knees.

      After all, it had been a narrow escape; but the man’s arms were so strong, and his eyes so brave, that Virginia scarcely realized the danger she had passed. It seemed so inevitable now, that he must have saved her, that there was room in her thoughts for no dreadful might-have-been. Was it not the One Man sent to her by Destiny, when if this thing had not been meant, since the hour of her birth, it might easily have been some mere tourist, sent by Cook?

      All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of green felt adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she had seen in dreams. A dark, austere young face it was, with more of Mars than Apollo in its lines, yet to her more desirable than all the ideals of all the sculptors since the world began. He was dressed as a chamois hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn, almost shabby clothes to distinguish the wearer from the type he chose to represent. But as easily might the eagle to whom in her heart she likened him, try to pass for a barnyard fowl, as this man for a peasant, so thought the Princess.

      CHAPTER IV

      THE EAGLE’S EYRIE

      So she had gone on her knees to him after all – or almost! She was glad her mother did not know. And she hoped that he did not feel the pulsing of the blood in her fingers, as he took her hand and lifted her to her feet. There was shame in this tempest that swept through her veins, because he did not share it; for to her, though this meeting was an epoch, to him it was no more than a trivial incident. She would have keyed his emotions to hers, if she could, but since she had had years of preparation, he a single moment, perhaps she might have been consoled for the disparity, could she have read his eyes. They said, if she had known: “Is the sky raining goddesses to-day?”

      Now, what were to be her first words to him? Dimly she felt, that if she were to profit by this wonderful chance to know the man and not the Emperor – this chance which might be lost in a few moments, unless her wit befriended her – those words should be beyond the common. She should be able to marshal her sentences, as a general marshals his battalions, with a plan of campaign for each.

      A spirit monitor – a match-making monitor – whispered these wise advices in her ear; yet she was powerless to profit by them. Like a school-girl about to be examined for a scholarship, knowing that all the future might depend upon an hour of the present, the dire need to be resourceful, to be brilliant, left her dumb.

      How many times had she not thought of her first conversation with Leopold of Rhaetia, planning the first words, the first looks, which must make him know that she was different from any other girl he had ever met! Yet here she stood, speechless, epigrams turning tail and racing away from her like a troop of playful colts refusing to be caught.

      And so it was the Emperor who spoke before Virginia’s savoir faire came back.

      “I hope you’re not hurt?” asked the chamois hunter, in the patois dear to the heart of Rhaetian mountain folk.

      She had been glad before, now she was thankful that she had spent many weeks and months in loving study of the tongue which was Leopold’s. It was not the métier of a chamois hunter to speak English, though the Emperor was said to know the language well, and she rejoiced in her ability to answer the chamois hunter as he would be answered, keeping up the play.

      “I am hurt only in the pride that comes before a fall,” she replied, forcing a laugh. “Thank you many times for saving me.”

      “I feared that I frightened you, and made you lose your footing,” the chamois hunter answered.

      “I think on the contrary, if it hadn’t been for you I should have lost my life,” said Virginia. “There should be a sign put up on that tempting plateau, ‘All except suicides beware.’”

      “The necessity never occurred to us, my mates and me,” returned the man in the gray coat, passemoiled with green. “Until you came, gna’ Fräulein, no tourist that I know of, has found it tempting.”

      Virginia’s eyes lit with a sudden spark. The spirit monitor – that match-making monitor – came back and dared her to a frolic, such a frolic, she thought, as no girl on earth had ever had, or would have, after her. And she could show this grave, soldier-hero of hers, something new in life – something quite new, which it would not harm him to know. Then, let come what would out of this adventure, at worst she should always have an Olympian episode to remember.

      “Until I came?” she caught up his words, standing carefully on the spot where he had placed her. “But I am no tourist; I am an explorer.”

      He lifted level, dark eyebrows, smiling faintly. And when he smiled, half his austerity was gone.

      So beautiful a girl as this need not rise beyond agreeable commonplaceness of mind and speech to please a man; indeed, this particular chamois hunter expected no more than good looks, a good heart and a nice manner, from women. Yet this beauty bade fair, it seemed, to hold surprises in reserve.

      “I have brought down noble game to-day,” he said to himself; and aloud; “I know the Schneehorn well, and love it well. Still I can’t see what rewards it has for the explorer. Unless, gna’ Fräulein, you are a climber or a geologist.”

      “I’m neither; yet I think I have seen something, a most rare thing, I’ve wanted all my life to see.”

      The young man’s face confessed curiosity. “Indeed? A rare thing that lives here on the mountain?”

      “I am not sure if it lives here. I should like to find out,” replied the girl.

      “Might one inquire the name of this rare thing?” asked the chamois hunter. “Perhaps, if I knew, it might turn out that I could help you in the search. But first, if you’d let me lead you to the plateau, where I think you were going? Here, your head might still grow a little giddy, and it’s not well to keep you standing, gna’ Fräulein, on such a spot. You’ve passed all the worst now. The rest is easy.”

      She gave him her hand, pleasing herself by fancying the act a kind of allegory, as she let him lead her to safe and pleasant places, on a higher, sunnier level.

      “Perhaps the rare thing grows here,” the chamois hunter went on, looking about the green plateau with a new interest.

      “I think not,” Virginia answered, shaking her head. “It would thrive better nearer the mountain top, in a more hidden place than this. It does not love tourists.”

      “Nor do I, in truth,” smiled the chamois hunter.

      “You took me for one.”

      “Pardon, gna’ Fräulein. Not the kind of tourist we both mean.”

      “Thank you.”

      “But you have not said if I might help you in your search. This is a wild region for a young lady to be exploring in, alone.”

      “I