Part 56 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXI
NIGHT-LIGHT
I
And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser had arrived; and Max, instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy entertaining him.
The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field of Mars which occupied a central s.p.a.ce in the largest of the royal parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and silver tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her.
By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood ma.s.sed in the distance waiting the signal to advance.
”Do you like soldiers?” inquired the Prince.
”It rather depends upon the uniform,” replied Charlotte.
”Oh! Do you like mine?”
She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little incongruous.
”It would be rather trying to some complexions,” she observed. ”But you look very well in it.”
”Ah! I have been abroad,” he explained. ”That has given me the colors of a Red Indian.”
”You look just as if you had dropped from the sky,” she said, smiling still at him.
”Oh, no, not this sky!” and he cast up a grudging glance at the opaque grayness overhead. ”Here you seem to have a sun that looks only the other way.”
She threw back a light remark, while her eye strayed over the field.
Presently he returned to the subject.
”So you only like soldiers because of their uniforms?”
”And when they ride well. I like drums too,” she added.
”Ah! good! I can play on the drum. It is my one instrument.”
”Does it require much practice?”
”Oh, yes; it is very difficult--to play well. But it has been very useful to me. I took a drum with me to South America. That is music that the natives can understand, it can make them afraid; and when one is all by oneself in the forest, then it helps that one shall not feel lonely.
One night when I had no fire left, I was saved my life from wild beasts just by beating at them with my drum. It is funny that you should like drums.”
”I like something with them as well,” said Charlotte.
”Ah,” grunted the Prince, ”that depends. There is some music in the world that ought never to be allowed.”
”Well, there is some of ours,” said the Princess, as the ma.s.sed bands of three regiments sent forth their blast. ”How does that strike you?”