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"Tell Jack how it happened," said Dan; "it hurts me." On leaving me, Hillars and the innkeeper, after having taken a pair of pistols, had mounted the cavalry horses despite the protests of the owners, and had galloped away in pursuit of the Prince and Count von Walden. They caught sight of them a mile or so ahead. They were loping along at a fair speed.
"What is her Serene Highness to you?" resumed the Prince. "Nothing positively nothing." "Then you are afraid to acknowledge your regard for her?" "I?" Hillars dropped his arm from my shoulders. "I am not afraid of anything not even the Count here." Then he laughed. "If her Serene Highness was anything to me, your Highness, I should not be afraid to say so before the King himself."
Our London correspondent was a brilliant journalist; he had written one or two clever books; he had a broad knowledge of men and affairs; and his pen was one of those which flashed and burned at frequent intervals; but he drank. Dan's father had been a victim of the habit. I remember meeting the elder Hillars.
I did my best to keep the duel a secret, but it finally came out. It was the topic in the clubs, for Hillars had been well known in political and literary circles. But in a month or so the affair, subsided. The world never stops very long, even when it loses one of its best friends.
She had remained in her room, and all efforts of mine to hold communication with her had proved futile. I had stood at her door and supplicated; she had told me to go away. The innkeeper had scowled when I suggested that he carry a note to his mistress. He had refused. "The Princess receives no notes," he had said. "Gretchen it was a different matter." And Hillars had slept till after noon.
"He's in civilian dress; little black mustache and an imperial." "Look anything like Napoleon III?" "You've hit it. Who is he?" "They say he's Prince Ernst of Wortumborg," said Hillars; "but it is my opinion that he's the devil on a furlough." "Then he is the man " I began. "He is.
I watched Hillars as he moved about the room, tidying up things a bit, and I noticed now more than ever how changed he was. His face had grown thin, his hair was slightly worn at the crown and temples, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Yet, for all these signs of dissipation, he was still a remarkably handsome man. Though not so robust as when I last saw him, his form was yet elegant.
"You impudent " But a wave of the Prince's hand silenced the Count. "Have patience, my friend. This is not impudence; it is courage and prudence. I believe," re-addressing Hillars, "that once you were on the point of eloping with the Princess Hildegarde." Hillars thrust his hands into his pockets. "So they say." "And yet you deny your regard for her!"
"Count," he said, laughing, "it seems that the Princess gathers lovers as a woolen coat does teasels. Her lovers there must now be a legion!" "You lie!" said Hillars, in an oddly suppressed tone. "You know that you lie." The Prince's lips drew to a thin line, but that was all. "Still, who will disprove it?" he asked. "If you will allow me," said a voice behind us.
When the King presses an unwilling subject into the army, upon his discharge the unwilling subject, usually a peasant, becomes a socialist. These Rousseaus and Voltaires have a certain amount of education, but they lack daring. If a man like Hillars, who had not only brains but daring, should get mixed up in one of these embroglios, some blood would be spilled before the trouble became adjusted.
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