Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/508

504 The Princess had raised her eyes as she put her question, and they still remained fixed on Kurt's face. It was not as if she were looking at him: it was only as if she had forgotten to remove her eyes while she pursued her meditations. Kurt did not find that fixed gaze to be in the least degree embarrassing.

"She does not listen to you? Does she ever listen to anybody?"

"Not often, I admit; she has got such a terribly hard head, you see, and is so tremendously logical and strong-minded. I believe she fancies herself sent into the world as a sort of missionary to the great tribe of the illogical; what she would like best would be to distribute logic and justice all round; she says they are synonymous."

"Thank you; but please do not speak so fast."

The Princess was silent, carefully dissecting the various elements of thought which were contained in Kurt's phrase.

Kurt was silent also; he found the Princess puzzling, and he did not know what he was being thanked for.

Presently he found the Princess more puzzling still, when after a little silence she said –

"Then you think that she would understand justice?"

"I think she would box my ears if I told her she did not," said Kurt, cheerfully; and then he proposed that they should go on.

"Yes; I am fond of caves," said the poor Princess, in a rather woe-begone tone, as with the help of his arm she struggled to her feet and resumed the battle with the hill.

"Look, my shoes are all torn and my foot is bleeding," she had said to Kurt, merely as though stating a fact, not asking for any compassion; for after that one burst of tears at the foot of the beech-tree, she had made no more complaint. Her shoes were in tatters indeed, and the hem of her dress was in a fringe; but she dragged herself along, clinging to Kurt's arm, and bearing her sufferings in silent agony. There was something of an almost divine heroism about this heavily beautiful Roumanian princess.

When they had reached the top of the next steep slope, her face was flushed to a deep purple, and her fourth silk flounce had given way; and yet upon her breathlessly parted lips there was a smile, for she had thought out the situation. The case was intricate, and her means wellnigh exhausted. Tears, supplications, and reproaches, had all failed in reviving István's extinguished love. It is true that jealousy still remained; and Tryphosa had reflected upon the advisability of awakening István's jealousy – had carefully considered the idea, had weighed it, and rejected it. Such petty manœuvrings did not suit the Princess. There were none of those little weaknesses about her, and no taint of meanness. Her mind had been mapped out on a larger scale. She was going to use means more simple and more courageous – perhaps also more desperate. Having failed to work upon the man, she was going to try and work upon the woman.

"Where can they have all gone to?" asked the Princess, staring all round her and above her and below her in open-mouthed wonder; for they were standing on a tiny platform with no apparent egress.

Below there was a glimpse of rocky mountain-tops, surging away like a sea of petrified waves, to break on the horizon. Around the spot on which they stood the ground was covered with berberry-bushes, where the ripe berries hung