“You may leave to-morrow, Lorry, if you like, but I’m going to stay a while,” said Harry, a trifle confusedly.

“Haven’t you had enough of the place?”

“I don’t care a whoop for the place.  You see, it’s this way:  I’m just as hard hit as you, and it is not a Princess that I have to contend with.”

“You mean that you are in love with the Countess?”

“Emphatically.”

“I’m sorry for you.”

“Think she’ll turn me down?”

“Unless you buy a title of one of these miserable counts or dukes.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that.  These counts and dukes come over and marry our American girls.  I don’t see why I can’t step in and pick out a nice little Countess if I want to.”

“She is not as avaricious as the counts and dukes, I’ll wager.  She cares nothing fer your money.”

“Well, she’s as poor as a church mouse,” said the other, doggedly.

“The Countess poor?  How do you know?’

“I asked her one day and she told me all about it,” said Anguish.

XVI

A CLASH AND IT’S RESULT

“I feel like spending the rest of my days in that monastery up there,” said Lorry, after dinner that evening.  They were strolling about the town.  One was determined to leave the city, the other firm in his resolve to stay.  The latter won the day when he shrewdly, if explosively, reminded the former that it was their duty as men to stay and protect the Princess from the machinations of Gabriel, that knave of purgatory.  Lorry, at last recognizing the hopelessness of his suit, was ready to throw down his arms and abandon the field to superior odds.  His presumption in aspiring for the hand of a Princess began to touch his sense of humor, and he laughed, not very merrily, it is true, but long and loudly, at his folly.  At first he cursed the world and every one in it, giving up in despair, but later he cursed only himself.  Yet, as he despaired and scoffed, he felt within himself an ever-present hope that luck might turn the tide of battle.

This puny ray grew perceptibly when Anguish brought him to feel that she needed his protection from the man who had once sought to despoil and who might reasonably be expected to persevere.  He agreed to linger in Edelweiss, knowing that each day would add pain to the torture he was already suffering, his sole object being, he convinced himself, to frustrate Gabriel’s evil plans.

Returning late in the evening from their stroll, they entered a cafe celebrated in Edelweiss.  In all his life Lorry had never known the loneliness that makes death welcome.  To-night he felt that he could not live, so maddening was the certainty that he could never regain joy.  His heart bled with the longing to be near her who dwelt inside those castle walls.  He scoffed and grieved, but grieved the more,

The cafe was crowded with men and women.  In a far corner sat a party of Axphain nobles, their Prince, a most democratic fellow, at the head of a long table.  There were songs, jests and boisterous laughter.  The celebration grew wilder, and Lorry and Anguish crossed the room, and, taking seats at a table, ordered wine and cigars, both eager for a closer view of the Prince.  How Lorry loathed him!