Arms And The Woman

Chapter 9

I took my pipe and strolled along the river bank. What had I stumbled into? Here was an old inn, with rather a feudal air; but it was only one in a thousand; a common feature throughout the Continent. And yet, why had the gods, when they cast out Hebe, chosen this particular inn for her mortal residence? The pipe solves many riddles, and then, sometimes, it creates a density. I put my pipe into my pocket and cogitated. Gretchen had brought about a new order of things. A philosophical barmaid was certainly a novelty. That Gretchen was philosophical I had learned in the rose gardens. That she was also used to giving commands I had learned in the onion patch. Hitherto I had held the onion in contempt; already I had begun to respect it. Above all, Gretchen was a mystery, the most alluring kind of mystery—a woman who was not what she seemed. How we men love mysteries, which are given the outward semblance of a Diana or a Venus! By and by, my journalistic instinct awoke. Who are those who fear the newspapers? Certainly it is not the guiltless. Of what was Gretchen guilty? The inn-keeper knew. Was she one of those many conspirators who abound in the kingdom? She was beautiful enough for anything. And whence came the remarkable likeness between her and Phyllis? Here was a mystery indeed. I had a week before me; in that time I might learn something about Gretchen, even if I could solve nothing. I admit that it is true, that had Gretchen been plain, it would not have been worth the trouble. But she had too heavenly a face, too wonderful an eye, too delicious a mouth, not to note her with concern.

I did not see Gretchen again that day; but as I was watching the moon climb up, thinking of her and smoking a few pipes as an incense to her shrine, I heard her voice beneath my window.

It was accompanied by the bass voice of the inn-keeper.

"But he is a journalist. Is it safe? Is anything safe from them?" came to my ears in a worried accent, a bass.

So the inn-keeper, too, was a Socialist!

Said an impatient contralto: "So long as I have no fear, why should you?"

"Ach, you will be found out and dragged back!" was the lamentation in a throaty baritone. Anxiety raises a bass voice at least two pitches. "If you would but return to the hills, where there is absolute safety!"

"No; I will not go back there, where everything is so dull and dead. I have lived too long not to read a face at a glance. His eyes are honest."

"Thanks, Gretchen," murmured I from above. I was playing the listener; but, then, she was only a barmaid.

"And it is so long," went on the contralto, "since I have seen a man—a strong one, I wish to see if my power is gone."

"Aha!" thought I; "so you have already laid plans for my capitulation, Gretchen?"

"But," said the bass voice once more, "supposing some of the military should straggle along? There might be one who has seen you before. Alas! I despair! You will not hide yourself; you will stay here till they find you."

I fell to wondering what in the world Gretchen had done.

"I have not been to the village since I was a little girl. Dressed as I am, who would recognize me? No one at the castle, for there is no one there but the steward. Would you send me away?"

"God forbid! But this American? You say you can read faces; how about the other one?" Silence.

"Yes; how about him?"

Said Gretchen: "We are not infallible. And perhaps I was then much to blame."

"No; we are not infallible; that is the reason why you should take no chance," was the final argument of the innkeeper.

"Hush!" said Gretchen.

"Confound the pipe!" I muttered. It had fallen over the window sill.

Five minutes passed; I heard no sound. Glancing from the side of the window I saw that Gretchen and the innkeeper were gone.