"No."
"Ah, from Berlin. I was not quite sure of the accent."
"I am a German-American,"--frankly. "I have always spoken the language
as if it were my own, which doubtless it is."
"America!" she cried, her interest genuinely aroused. "That is the
country where every one does just as he pleases."
"Sometimes." (What beautiful teeth she had, white as skimmed milk!)
"They are free?"
"Nearly always."
"They tell me that women there are all queens."
"We are there, or here, always your humble servants."
He was evidently a gentleman; there was something in his bow that was
courtly. "And do the women attend the theaters alone at night?"
"If they desire to."
"Tell me, does the daughter of the president have just as much liberty
as her subjects?"
"Even more. Only, there are no subjects in America."
"No subjects? What do they call them, then?"
"Voters."
"And do the women vote?"
"Only at the women's clubs."
She did not quite get this; not that it was too subtle, rather that it
was not within her comprehension.
"It is a big country?"
"Ever so big."
"Do you like it?"
"I love every inch of it. I have even fought for it."
"In the Spanish War?"--visibly excited.
"Yes."
"Were you a major or a colonel?"
"Neither; only a private."
"I thought every soldier there was either a colonel or a major."
He looked at her sharply, but her eye was roving. He became
suspicious. She might be simple, and then again she mightn't. She was
worth studying, anyhow.
"I was a cavalryman, with nothing to do but obey orders and, when
ordered, fight. I am visiting the American consul here; he was a
school-mate of mine."
"Ah! I thought I recognized the horse."
"You know him?"--quickly.
"Oh,"--casually,--"every one hereabouts has seen the consul on his
morning rides. He rides like a centaur, they say; but I have never
seen a centaur."
The stranger laughed. She was charming.
"He ought to ride well; I taught him." But the gay smile which
followed this statement robbed it of its air of conceit. "You see, I
have ridden part of my life on the great plains of the West, and have
mounted everything from a wild Indian pony to an English thoroughbred.
My name is Max Scharfenstein, and I am here as a medical student,
though in my own country I have the right to hang out a physician's
shingle."
She drew aimless figures in the dust with her riding-crop. There was
no sense in her giving any name. Probably they would never meet again.
And yet--
"I am Hildegarde von--von Heideloff," giving her mother's name. He was
too nice to frighten away.