Part 5

“But you know,” said the small girl, “you don’t look a bit like the kings of my acquaintance. They all wear gilt crowns and velvet and ermine robes, and carry scepters. And, besides, you are a great deal too young.”

The Great Man laughed. “I am afraid you have me there; at least, I mean, I suppose you are right,” said he, leaning back in his chair and regarding the Princess Iris with twinkling eyes. “I don’t look my part. But, then, I am not performing now myself. We are in the same boat—that is—”

“Oh, you needn’t bother to explain,” said the small girl, “I understand slang. Only I don’t talk it myself, now, except when I forget, because the Queen doesn’t like it.”

“So there is a queen, too, is there?” said the Great Man, the merry lines around his blue eyes growing deeper. “Dear me, we shall soon have the entire royal family.”

“Yes, there is a queen, and she is not to be laughed at,” said the child gravely. “In fact, it’s partly about her I’ve come. I—I wanted an audience.”

“Well, really,” said the man nervously, “I should like to accommodate you, but”—looking at his watch—“my train leaves in about one minute, and I don’t see exactly how I can.”

“Oh, my!” said the small girl, “can’t you even make your own train wait while a princess talks to you?”

“Well, since you put it that way, I suppose I can,” said the Great Man, pressing an electric button. Then, as the black porter appeared, listened deferentially to his whispered order and glided out again, the royal personage continued:

“Very likely I don’t get half the fun out of being a king that I might. You see, I sometimes forget the extent of my power.”

“Ah! yes, that’s the very thing I’ve come to speak to you about,” said the child. “I—I hope you will excuse me if I hurt your feelings,” she went on gently, “but sometimes it’s necessary, you know.”

Upon her hearer’s assurance that he would endeavor to bear up under censure, the small girl continued:

“It’s like this: I s’pose you’ve such a big kingdom you don’t get a chance to straighten out all the things that go wrong.”

“And something has gone wrong, now, has it?”

“Yes, as wrong as can be. But,” reassuringly, “of course I understand you couldn’t have known about it. It’s the train to Washita. It was put down on the time-table, you know, to go at four this afternoon, and we all came down to the station to get it. And now they say it may be two hours before it arrives; so, instead of getting to Washita at half-past six, it will be long after nine, and we’ll be too late to give our performance. And that will be a very d-r-eadful loss to the Queen.”

“How’s that?” said the Great Man. “One night can’t make very much difference.”

“Oh, but this is Saturday night, and the whole house was sold long ago. Washita’s the best show town in the State, you know, and the Queen was counting on the money.

“You see, it’s been a dreadfully poor season in the profession, and even the Queen has lost heaps. And just now when she found out we’d be late, her face got all white, and she hung onto my hand, oh, so hard, and said—”

Here the child stopped suddenly and, digging her little fists into the chair, blinked very fast and caught her breath. Then,

“It quite upsets me to think of it,” she said in a muffled little voice. “The Queen said that she was afraid that the company would have to disband now, and the season’s hardly begun.”

Two great tears rolled down the white little face.

The man stirred uneasily. There was a deep line between his eyebrows.

“That is hard luck!” he exclaimed. “But, then,” with an affected hardihood, “after all she’s only a play queen, you know, and I presume she’s—well—roughed it before. Anyway, you’ll probably all find nice engagements soon, and be just as well off as you are now.”

“How can you say that?” the child flashed out. “Of course we can’t be so happy with any one else. There never was any one half so sweet, and kind, and beautiful as she is. And we all love her dearly. And, besides, if the rest are make-believes, she isn’t; she is a real queen all the time!”

The child had risen. Her shabby hat had fallen to the floor and her big hazel eyes blazed angrily out of her pale little face. The next moment, with a shame-faced lowering of her head, she slid nearer to the Great Man’s side.

“I—you must excuse me if I hurt your feelings,” she said humbly. “The Queen wouldn’t like it if she thought I’d done that, and on her account, too; but, you see, I really couldn’t bear to have her called a make-believe. And now,” she continued, “I think I’ll go back to the station. My auntie and the Queen will be wondering where I am.”

“Wait a minute,” said the man, drawing the child to his side. “I want to know more about this real Queen. You know they say all the royal families are connected, and she may be a relative of mine.”

“No, she isn’t,” said the small girl, leaning a little shyly against the royal shoulder; “because she told me once that she had no relations left since her father died. You see, she used to live in a big palace in New York in the winter and a stone castle in Newport in the summer, and she had horses, and carriages, and diamonds, and—and all those things. But she wasn’t a queen because she had them, you know, but they belonged to her because she was a queen.

“Well, one day her father died, and they found he’d lost all his money, and some that belonged to other people besides, so the Queen had to go on the stage and get some money to take care of herself and to pay back what he—he borrowed, you know. And that was four years ago, and now she’s paid back all Mr. Denbigh’s debts except two thousand dollars—”

“Mr. Denbigh!”

“Why, what’s the matter?” said the child half turning. “Ain’t you feeling well? Your arm trembles so.”

“Oh, yes; quite well. Only I felt so sorry for your Queen.”

“I knew you would,” said the child enthusiastically. “Well, as I told you, she paid it all back except just that two thousand dollars, and this season she expected to finish it. And that made her so happy, because she doesn’t like being a make-believe queen, and it was only on her father’s account she did it.”

“You’re sure it was only that? She didn’t care to be famous, after all?” said the Great Man, clutching the tiny hand hard.

“Why, how queer your voice sounds,” said the little girl in a motherly tone. “I’m sure you can’t be feeling well or you wouldn’t say such things. I should think that being a king yourself you’d know that when a person’s been a real queen once she wouldn’t care about being a make-believe one.”

“But that’s just like men; they never do understand. Now there was one that the Queen knew. She told me just a little about him one day when things seemed very make-believey to her. She put it in a kind of story, you know, but I liked her so much I knew who it was about.

“Do you know, he thought just what you did, because she wouldn’t marry him instead of going off for what he called a—a ‘career’? And he’d known her ever since she was a little girl, too, and ought to have known better, oughtn’t he?”

“Yes,” said the Great Man huskily, “I suppose he ought. But you see the Queen didn’t tell him about—about the money she was paying back. And she was a great deal younger than he, and beautiful, with a voice that people said would make her famous, and he thought that she really cared more to be a stage queen than anything else.

“Tell me, dear, has she still the ring that he gave her when she was a little girl?”

“The teenty little forget-me-not ring that she wears on a chain and often kis— But—how did you know?” stammered the child, twisting around and staring up into his face. “I never told you the rest, and your eyes are so strange—”

But the Great Man had risen and was striding rapidly up and down the car. “And Alice really cared for me—she cares for me still,” he murmured. “While I, who ought to have stood by her have only hindered her. And now she needs help, and I with all my money haven’t the right to help her. It’s too late—I can never make up for the time I’ve lost—”

“I hope you don’t mind,” said the small girl who stood as if petrified just where he had left her; “but you spoke so loud I couldn’t help hearing the last. And if you mean the train to Washita, it isn’t too late. If you could get it here in fifteen minutes—and I s’pose that’s easy, for a king—we could give the performance, even if the curtain did ring up late.”

“Train to Washita,” murmured the Great Man—“Why, yes; of course! How stupid of me,” as he pressed the electric button. “Let’s see, how many are there of you?”

“Twenty-two now,” said the child, “but I don’t quite—”

“And you haven’t had the best of fare in the hotels?”

“Well, it hasn’t been very bad, but yesterday and to-day we’ve pretended we didn’t want any lunch, because we knew how things were with—”

“Never mind,” said the man with something like a groan, “I only wanted to know on account of the orders.”

Then, to the porter, “Ask the conductor to step here.”

“The Golden Crown Opera Company have been delayed here,” he said, when that official appeared, “and I want them to take this special train to Washita. Put the whole party in my private car. Tell the engineer he must make extra time to get them there at six-thirty. Telegraph ahead for a clear track, and to Casstown for supplies, so that dinner may be served in this car. When the train is ready to start step over to the station and tell the company that the train for Washita is waiting. And be sure that everything is done to make them comfortable. I will follow on the regular express.”

As the conductor withdrew, the Great Man found himself suddenly caught in the embrace of what seemed a small-sized tornado. “You really mean it?” cried the child, half sobbing. “We’re not going to disband, after all! Oh, I was sure from the beginning that you were a really, truly king, even if you didn’t wear a crown and velvet robes. But,” with a sudden clouding of her face, “you won’t go away just when the Queen’s coming?”

“Well, you see, the fact is,” said the Great Man, setting the Princess carefully in the depths of the Turkish chair, “these meetings with royalty are so unusual for me that I feel hardly prepared for another one the same day. So I think I’ll follow in a common car. And in the morning I’ll ask for a private audience with the Queen.”

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