"Is it possible, Courtney, you are growing sentimental?" I demanded.

He shrugged his shoulders. "There's no fool like an old fool, you know," he answered.

"Unless it be one that is just old enough to be neither old nor young,"

said I.

Then we went in to dinner.

Courtney is a good fellow; one of the best friends a man can have; well born, rich, with powerful political connections in both Parties, and having no profession nor necessary occupation to tie him down. His tastes ran to diplomacy, and Secretaries of State--knowing this fact, and being further advised of it at various times by certain prominent Senators--had given him numerous secret missions to both Europe and South America. Legations had been offered to him but these he had always declined; for, as he told me, he preferred the quiet, independent work, that carried no responsible social duties with it.

It happened that General Russell, our representative at the Court of Valeria, was home on vacation. Naturally, he would now return in all haste. Here, I imagined, was an explanation of my sudden orders. He was an intimate of our family; had known me since childhood, and, doubtless, had asked for my detail to his household, and also for Courtney's. And Courtney, naturally, having been early consulted in the matter, knew all the facts and so was able to bluff at me with them. It would be just as well to call him.

"Is General Russell crossing with us?" I asked carelessly.

Courtney shook his head. "He is not going back to Valeria."

"Oh!" said I, realizing suddenly my mistake, "I didn't appreciate I was dining with an Amba.s.sador."

"It's not yet announced. However, I'm glad it does not change me," he laughed.

"I can tell that better after we reach Valeria--and you have danced with the Princess."

He sipped his coffee meditatively. "Yes, there may be changes in Valeria in us both," he said presently.

"Don't do the heavy reproof if I chance to forget the difference in our rank," I answered. "But you must manage one turn for me with Her Royal Highness, if you're to eat my dinner, you know."

"How many times have you been to Valeria?" he asked suddenly.

"Some half dozen," I replied, surprised.

"Ever been in the private apartments of the Palace of Dornlitz?"

"No--I think not."

"I mean, particularly, the corridor where hang the portraits of the Kings?"

"I don't recall them."

He laughed shortly. "Believe me, you would recall them well," he said.

"What the devil are you driving at?" I asked.

"I'll show you the night you dance with the Princess."

"A poor army officer doesn't usually have such honors."

"No--not if he be only a poor army officer. But, if he chance to be----"

"Well," I said, "be what?"

"I'll tell you in the picture gallery," he answered.

And not another word would he say in the matter.

II

CONCERNING ANCESTORS

However, I did not need to wait so long for my answer. I knew it quite as well as Courtney--maybe a trifle better. Nevertheless, it is a bit jolting to realize, suddenly, that some one has been prying into your family history.

On the west wall of the Corridor of Kings, in the Palace of Dornlitz, hung the full-length portrait of Henry, third of the name and tenth of the Line. A hundred and more years had pa.s.sed since he went to his uncertain reward; and now, in me, his great-great-grandson, were his face and figure come back to earth.

I had said, truly enough, that I had never been in the Gallery of Kings. But it was not necessary for me to go there to learn of this resemblance to my famous ancestor. For, handed down from eldest son to eldest son, since the first Dalberg came to American sh.o.r.es, and, so, in my possession now, was an ivory miniature of the very portrait which Courtney had in mind.

And the way of it, and how I chanced to be of the blood royal of Valeria, was thus:

Henry the Third--he of the portrait--had two sons, Frederick and Hugo, and one daughter, Adela. Frederick, the elder son, in due time came to the throne and, dying, pa.s.sed the t.i.tle to his only child, Henry; who, in turn, was succeeded by his only child, Frederick, the present monarch.

Adela, the daughter, married Casimir, King of t.i.tia,--and of her descendants more anon.

Hugo, the younger son, was born some ten years after his brother,--to be accurate, in 1756,--and after the old King had laid aside his sword and retired into the quiet of his later years. With an honestly inherited love of fighting, and the inborn hostility to England that, even then, had existed in the Valerians for a hundred years, Hugo watched with quickening interest the struggle between the North American Colonies and Great Britain which began in 1775. When the Marquis de Lafayette threw in his fortunes with the Americans, Hugo had begged permission to follow the same course. This the old King had sternly refused; pointing out its impropriety from both a political and a family aspect.

But Hugo was far from satisfied, and his desire to have a chance at England waxing in proportion as the Colonies' fortunes waned, he at last determined to brave his fierce old father and join the struggling American army whether his sire willed it or no. His mind once formed, he would have been no true son of Henry had he hesitated.

The King heard him quietly to the end,--too quietly, indeed, to presage well for Hugo. Then he answered:

"I take it sir, your decision is made beyond words of mine to change.

Of course, I could clap you into prison and cool your hot blood with scant diet and chill stones, but, such would be scarce fitting for a Dalberg. Neither is it fitting that a Prince of Valeria should fight against a country with which I am at peace. Therefore, the day you leave for America will see your name stricken from the rolls of our House, your t.i.tle revoked, and your return here prohibited by royal decree. Do I make myself understood?"

So far as I have been able to learn, no one ever accused my great-grandfather of an inability to understand plain speech, and old Henry's was not obscure. Indeed, Hugo remembered it so well that he made it a sort of preface in the Journal which he began some months thereafter, and kept most carefully to the very last day of his life.

The Journal says he made no answer to his father save a low bow.

Two days later, as plain Hugo Dalberg, he departed for America. For some time he was a volunteer Aide to General Washington. Later, Congress commissioned him colonel of a regiment of horse; and, as such, he served to the close of the war. When the Continental Army was disbanded, he purchased a place upon the eastern sh.o.r.e of Maryland; and, marrying into one of the aristocratic families of the neighborhood, settled down to the life of a simple country gentleman.

He never went back to the land of his birth, nor, indeed, even to Europe. And this, though, one day, there came to his mansion on the Chesapeake the Valerian Minister to America and, with many bows and genuflections, presented a letter from his brother Frederick, announcing the death of their royal father and his own accession, and offering to restore to Hugo his rank and estates if he would return to court.

And this letter, like his sword, his Order of the Cincinnati, his commissions and the miniature, has been the heritage of the eldest son.

In his soldier days his nearest comrade had been Armand, Marquis de la Rouerie, and for him his first-born was christened; and hence my own queer name--for an American: Armand Dalberg.

There was one of the traditions of our House that had been scrupulously honored: there was always a Dalberg on the rolls of the Army; though not always was it the head of the family, as in my case. For the rest, we buried our royal descent. And though it was, naturally, well known to my great-grandsire's friends and neighbors, yet, in the succeeding generations, it has been forgotten and never had I heard it referred to by a stranger.

Therefore, I was surprised and a trifle annoyed at Courtney's discovery. Of course, it was possible that he had been attracted only by my physical resemblance to the Third Henry and was not aware of the relationship; but this was absurdly unlikely, Courtney was not one to stop at half a truth and Dalberg was no common name. Doubtless the picture had first put him on the track and after that the rest was easy. What he did not know, however, but had been manoeuvring to discover, was how far I was known at the Court of Valeria. Well, he was welcome to what he had got.

Now, as a matter of fact, it was quite likely that the Dalbergs of Dornlitz had totally forgotten the Dalbergs of America. Since Frederick's minister had rumbled away from that mansion on the Chesapeake, a century and more ago, there had been no word pa.s.sed between us. Why should there be? We had been disinherited and banished. They had had their offer of reinstatement courteously refused. We were quits.