Arms and the Woman

Immediately Pembroke and I journeyed to the feudal inn. When we

arrived a mixture of rain and snow was falling. But I laughed at that.

What if I were drenched to the skin with chill rain and snow, my heart

was warm, warmer than it had been in many a day. Woman is infallible

when she reads the heart of another. Phyllis said that Gretchen loved

me; it only remained for me to find her. Pembroke began to grumble.

"I am wet through," he said, as our steaming horses plodded along in

the melting snow. "You might have waited till the rain let up."

"I'm just as wet as you are," I replied, "but I do not care."

"I'm hungry and cold, too," he went on.

"I'm not, so it doesn't matter."

"Of course not!" he cried. "What are my troubles to you?"

"Nothing!" I laughed and shook the flakes from my sleeves. "Cousin, I

am the happiest man in the world."

"And I'm the most dismal," said he. "I wish you had brought along an

umbrella."

"What! Ride a horse with an umbrella over you? Where is your sense of

romance?"

"Romance is all well enough," said he, "when your stomach is full and

your hide is dry. If you can call this romance, this five-mile ride

through rain and snow, you are gifted with a wonderful imagination."

"It is beautiful here in the summer," defensively.

"I wish you had waited till then, or brought a mackintosh. Your

Princess would have kept." He shoved his head deeper into his collar,

and began to laugh. "This is the discomfort man will go through for

love. If she is a true woman she will feed you first and explain

afterward. But, supposing she is not here?"

"Where else can she be?" I asked.

"The world is very large--when a woman runs away from you."

This set me thinking. If she shouldn't be there! I set my teeth and

gave the horse a cut, sending him into a gallop, which I forced him to

maintain till the end. At length we turned into the roadway. A man I

had never seen before came out.

"Where is the innkeeper?" I asked, my heart sinking.

"He is not here," was the answer, "Is Her Highness the Princess Hildegarde--"

"Her Highness?" he cried, in astonishment. "She has never been here.

This is an inn; the castle is in the village."