Princess Zara.

by Ross Beeckman.

CHAPTER I

A LADY OF QUALITY

The steamship Trave of the North German Lloyd docked at its Hoboken pier at eight o'clock one morning in December. Among the pa.s.sengers who presently departed from the vessel was a woman who attracted unusual attention for the reason that she was accompanied by a considerable suite of retainers and servants who were for a time as busy as flies around a honey pot, caring for their mistress' baggage, and otherwise attending to the details of her arrival. Nor was it alone for this reason that all eyes were from time to time turned in her direction.

There was about her a certain air of distinction, wealth, power and repose, which impressed itself upon the observers. Many there were who sought eagerly an opportunity to scan the features of this young woman's face, for that she was young, was immediately apparent, and the fact added not a little to the interest that was manifested in her.

The young woman, whoever she was, maintained an air of reserve which raised a barrier beyond which none of the curious might penetrate; and as if insolently disdainful of the attention she attracted, her face remained veiled; not too thickly, but effectively enough to set at naught these efforts of the curious throng.

A view of her face was, however, not required to determine in the minds of the beholders that she possessed more than ordinarily, the attractive feminine qualities. Her very presence told that; the air with which she moved about among her servitors; the simple gestures she made in giving her directions, and the quiet but resourceful and effective methods she used in administering her affairs, indicated that not only was she a person of great wealth, but that she was also high in place and in authority, and one who was accustomed to being obeyed.

Her costume was hidden entirely beneath the magnificent furs which enveloped her, and even the maid who attended upon her immediate wants was more elaborately gowned and wrapped than the average feminine personage of the western world is wont to be.

The immediate party of this distinguished pa.s.senger soon took its departure from the pier, leaving behind only those whose various duties consisted in caring for the seventy-odd pieces of baggage soon to be taken from the hold of the vessel; and this immediate party departed from the pier in carriages, for the hotel where accommodations had already been secured. The young woman and her maid occupied a conveyance by themselves; other maids followed in a second one, and a third contained two footmen, a courier and her official messenger.

At the hotel, where notice of her arrival in the city had been received, she was a.s.signed to a suite of rooms which occupied the greater part of one entire floor and which included every convenience which the most ill.u.s.trious personage travelling in the United States could have required, or would have found it possible to obtain.

The courier at once sought the hotel office and registered as follows:

Her Highness Princess Zara de Echeveria and suite, St. Petersburg.

And when his attention was called to the fact that the names of the entire party were required, he shrugged his shoulders and announced:

"I regret, sir, that I do not remember the names of all the persons who comprise her highness' suite, but I will supply you presently with a list of them."

In the parlor of the apartments occupied by the princess, her maid was removing the furs and wraps and making her mistress comfortable, for there is inevitably after a sea voyage, a few hours of fatigue which nothing but restful quiet and utter idleness will overcome; and therefore an hour or more later, when a visiting card was taken to the princess she did not even give herself the trouble to examine it, but said while she peered through half closed eyelids:

"Whoever it is, Orloff, say that I will not receive until four this afternoon."

Down below, in the office of the hotel, the gentleman who had sent up the card and who received this message in reply to it, shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the face of his watch to discover that it was yet barely noon-time, crossed to the book stall where he secured something to read and thereby while away the time, and then having sought a comfortable chair in a secluded corner deposited himself in it with an air of finality which indicated that he had no idea of departing from the hotel until after he had secured the solicited audience.

At four he sent a second card to the princess; at half past four he was admitted to her presence.

If the eyes of that curious throng of people who had watched her arrival at the steamship pier could have seen her then, when this man who had waited so long was shown into her presence, they would have been amply repaid for their admiring curiosity concerning her. It is trite to speak of a woman as being radiantly beautiful, commonplace to refer to it at all, save by implication, since feminine beauty is a composite attribute, vague and indefinable, and should possess no single quality to individualize it. Beauty such as that possessed by Princess Zara can neither be defined nor described. It is the _tout ensemble_ of her presence and her personal charm.

Zara de Echeveria needed no adornment to emphasize the attractions of her gorgeous self. She was one of those rare women who are rendered more attractive by the absence of all ornament and her dark eyes were more luminous and brilliant than any jewel she might have worn. Her gown, though rich, was simplicity itself, and inasmuch as her servants had found time during the hours since their arrival, to decorate the rooms according to the princess' tastes, she was surrounded by much the same settings that would have been contained in her own palatial home at St. Petersburg. When it is said that she was barely twenty-five in years; that her father had been a Spanish n.o.bleman in the diplomatic service at the Russian capital, and that her mother was of royal birth, we have an explanation for the exquisitely fascinating and almost voluptuous qualities of her beauty, as well as for her royal manner of command.

She did not leave her chair when this man was taken into her presence, but extended one small and perfectly formed hand upon which gleamed a solitary ring; the only jewel she wore that afternoon save a small pin in the lace at her throat, which was fashioned precisely after the same pattern as the ring.

The man lost no time in raising that beautiful hand to his lips, and he bowed low over it, with a courtly grace as distinguished in its gesture, as was her reception of him. One wondered why such a man as this had been contented to endure five idle hours of waiting upon her serene pleasure; and yet if one had looked past him to her, one might have ceased to wonder, and have thought a lifetime of waiting would be as nothing, if possession of her at the end of it could be its reward.

"It was kind of you to come to me so quickly after my arrival," she said to him in a low voice that was perfectly modulated.

"It was kinder of you to receive me, princess," he responded, stepping back again to the center of the room and standing tall and straight--before her in his commanding manhood. He was a handsome man, past fifty, distinguished, and like the princess he greeted, had about him the unquestionable air of authority.

"I am afraid I kept you waiting."

"One does not consider moments of waiting, if Princess Zara be the object of it," he retorted, smiling.

"Won't you be seated?"

"Thank you; yes."

He drew a chair forward so that they sat nearly facing each other across a low table upon which many of the princess' personal effects had already been arranged. Among them was a box of Russian cigarettes which she now indicated by a gesture, while with a smile which lighted her face wonderfully and gave to it that added charm that is indescribable, she said:

"There are some of your favorite cigarettes, Saberevski. I had you in mind when I included them among my personal baggage, having no doubt that I should encounter you when I should arrive in this country; but little thinking that you would be the first to greet me. You will pardon me for not indulging in one of them myself, for you know that I have never acquired the habit. Nevertheless they will perhaps suggest to you the flavor of home, and may transport you for a moment to the scenes which I know you are longing for."

"Thank you, princess," he replied, and lighted one. Then he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and for a time there was utter silence between these two. The man seemed indeed to have been transported in thought, to his native environment, not so much by the odor and flavor of the cigarette he puffed with such calm enjoyment, as by the presence of this magnificent creature who confronted him so daintily, and who received him so simply and yet so grandly. "You knew, then, that I was here in New York, princess?" he asked of her presently, peering at her through the smoke he was making; and he smiled comfortably across the distance that separated them.

"I knew you were in America, Saberevski; and to me America means New York. I believed that you would not be long in making yourself known to me after my arrival, for I knew that the papers would announce it, and that your--shall I call it your duties?--would require that you should not permit my presence here to pa.s.s unnoticed."

The man shrugged his shoulders, indulging himself in another smile as he replied:

"It is hardly kind of you to attribute this call to duty on my part.

When I am in your presence I find myself wishing that there were no such things as duties to be performed. When I look at you, Zara, I wish that I were young again, and that I might throw duty to the winds and enter the list against all others who seek you."

An expression of annoyance, as fleeting as it was certain, came into her eyes, and she replied with a little show of impatience:

"Spare me that sort of thing, Saberevski. One does not always wish to hear such expressions as that; and coming from you, addressed to me, they are not pleasant."

"Not even when you know them to be sincere, Zara? I spoke in the past tense, and only of what might have been were the disparity of our years less, and if the environment by which we are respectively surrounded could have been different."

"In other words," she smiled back at him, now recovered from her impatience, "if the world had been created a different one, and if we were not ourselves; as we are."

"Precisely," he replied, and laughed.

"I did not even look at your card when it was brought to me," she said, with an abrupt change of the subject; "had I done so I would not have kept you waiting so long. Tell me something about yourself, Saberevski; and why it is that you have deemed it wise, or perhaps necessary to become an expatriate, and to deprive St. Petersburg and all who are there, of your presence and your wise counsels."

"I am afraid it is too long a story and hardly worth the telling at that. St. Petersburg has tired of me. I am better away from it, and it is much better with me away; believe me."

"And his majesty, the czar? Is he also of that opinion, my friend?"

"His majesty, the czar, does me the honor, princess, to approve of my present plans and conduct," replied Saberevski with slow and low toned emphasis.

CHAPTER II

A WARNING

Alexis Saberevski leaned forward in his chair to secure another of the cigarettes, and having lighted it with studied deliberation, resumed his former position gazing between half closed eyelids toward Princess Zara. It was quite evident that he had gone to her with a distinct purpose in view which he meant to fulfill before his departure; and it was plain to be seen that Zara appreciated the fact. While he was silent, she waited, but with a half smile upon her beautiful face, that was quizzical and somewhat whimsical, as if in her secret heart she was aware of the purpose of his errand but for reasons of her own did not wish to antic.i.p.ate it. And he read her correctly, too. He believed that she understood him even better than he knew her; but viewed from his own standpoint he had a duty to perform in regard to her, and he had gone there to fulfill it.