"I thought you had forgotten me," he said, with childish petulance.
"Forgotten you!" she cried, quick to resent the imputation. "Let me tell you, then, what I have been doing while forgetting. I have sent to the Regengetz for your luggage and your friend's. You will find it much more comfortable here. You are to make this house your home as long as you are in Edelweiss. That is how I have been forgetting."
"Forgive me!" he cried, his eyes gleaming. "I have been so lonely that I imagined all sorts of things. But, your Highness, you must not expect us to remain here after I am able to leave. That would be imposing--"
"I will not allow you to say it!" she objected, decisively. "You are the guest of honor in Graustark. Have you not preserved its ruler? Was it an imposition to risk your life to save one in whom you had but passing interest, even though she were a poor princess? No, my American, this castle is yours, in all rejoicing, for had you not come within its doors to-day would have found it in mournful terror. Besides, Mr. Anguish has said he will stay a year if we insist."
"That's like Harry," laughed Lorry. "But I am afraid you are glorifying two rattlebrained chaps who should be in a home for imbeciles instead of in the castle their audacity might have blighted. Our rashness was only surpassed by our phenomenal good luck. By chance it turned out well; there were ten thousand chances of ignominious failure. Had we failed would we have been guests of honor? No! We would have been stoned from Graustark. You don't know how thin the thread was that held your fate. It makes me shudder to think of the crime our act might have been. Ah, had I but known you were the Princess, no chances should have been taken," he said, fervently.
"And a romance spoiled," she laughed.
"So you are a princess,--a real princess," he went on, as if he had not heard her. "I knew it. Something told me you were not an ordinary woman."
"Oh, but I am a very ordinary woman," she remonstrated. "You do not know how easy it is to be a princess and a mere woman at the same time. I have a heart, a head. I breathe and eat and drink and sleep and love. Is it not that way with other women?"
"You breathe and eat and drink and sleep and love in a different world, though, your Highness."
"Ach! my little maid, Therese, sleeps as soundly, eats as heartily and loves as warmly as I, so a fig for your argument."