"
"What! Ride a horse with an umbrella over you? Where is your sense of
romance?"
"Romance is all well enough," said he, "when your stomach is full and
your hide is dry. If you can call this romance, this five-mile ride
through rain and snow, you are gifted with a wonderful imagination."
"It is beautiful here in the summer," defensively.
"I wish you had waited till then, or brought a mackintosh. Your
Princess would have kept." He shoved his head deeper into his collar,
and began to laugh. "This is the discomfort man will go through for
love. If she is a true woman she will feed you first and explain
afterward. But, supposing she is not here?"
"Where else can she be?" I asked.
"The world is very large--when a woman runs away from you."
This set me thinking. If she shouldn't be there! I set my teeth and
gave the horse a cut, sending him into a gallop, which I forced him to
maintain till the end. At length we turned into the roadway. A man I
had never seen before came out.
"Where is the innkeeper?" I asked, my heart sinking.
"He is not here," was the answer,
"Is Her Highness the Princess Hildegarde--"
"Her Highness?" he cried, in astonishment.
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