"You should have heard him call me 'your highness,'" cried Beverly. "He
will loathe me if he ever learns that I deceived him."
"Oh, I think he deceived himself," spoke Yetive easily." Besides, you
look as much like a princess as I."
"There is something I want to speak very seriously about to you,
Yetive," said Beverly, making ready for the cast. "You see, he did not
want to enter Ganlook with me, but I insisted. He had been so brave and
gallant, and he was suffering so intensely. It would have been criminal
in me to leave him out there in the wilderness, wouldn't it?"
"It would have been heartless."
"So I just made him come along. That was right, wasn't it? That's what
you would have done, no matter who he was or what his objections might
have been. Well, you see, it's this way, Yetive: he is some sort of a
fugitive--not a criminal, you know--but just some one they are hunting
for, I don't know why. He wouldn't tell me. That was perfectly right, if
he felt that way, wasn't it?"
"And he had fought a lion in your defense," supplemented Yetive, with a
schoolgirl's ardor.
"And I had shot him in the arm, too," added Beverly. "So of course, I
just had to be reasonable. In order to induce him to come with me to a
hospital, I was obliged to guarantee perfect safety to him. His men went
back to the hills, all except old Franz, the driver. Now, the trouble is
this, Yetive: I am not the princess and I cannot redeem a single
promise I made to him. He is helpless, and if anything goes wrong with
him he will hate me forever."
"No; he will hate me for I am the princess and he is none the
wiser."
"But he will be told that his princess was Beverly Calhoun, a supposedly
nice American girl. Don't you see how awkward it will be for me? Now,
Yetive, darling, what I wish you to do is to write a note, order or
edict or whatever it is to Baron Dangloss, commanding him to treat
Baldos as a patient and not as a prisoner; and that when he is fully
recovered he is to have the privilege of leaving Ganlook without
reservation."
"But he may be a desperate offender against the state, Beverly."
plaintively protested Yetive. "If we only knew what he is charged with!"
"I'm afraid it's something dreadfully serious," admitted Beverly
gloomily." He doesn't look like the sort of man who would engage in a
petty undertaking. I'll tell you his story, just as he told it to me,"
and she repeated the meagre confessions of Baldos.
"I see no reason why we should hesitate," said the princess. "By his own
statement, he is not a desperate criminal. You did quite right in
promising him protection, dear, and I shall sustain you. Do you want to
play the princess to Baldos a little longer?"