Alexia, and she
serves the princess whenever she can! Maurice, you are an ass!"

Having arrived at this conclusion, and brushing the dank hair from his
eyes, he thrust his hands into his oozing pockets, and proceeded
across the square toward the Continental, wondering if there was a rear
entrance. Happily the adventure absorbed all his thoughts. He was quite
unobservant of the marked attention bestowed on him. Carriages filled
the Strasse, and many persons moved along the walks. It was the
promenade hour. The water, which still dripped from his clothes and
trickled from his shoes, left a conspicuous trail behind; and this
alone, without the absence of a hat, would have made him the object of
amused and wondering smiles.

A gendarme stared at him, but seeing that he walked straight, said
nothing. Maurice, however, was serenely unaware of what was passing
around him. He did not notice even the tall, broad-shouldered man who,
with a gun under his arm, brushed past him, followed by a round-faced
German over whose back was slung a game-bag. The man with the gun was
also oblivious of his surroundings. He bumped into several persons,
who scowled at him, but offered no remonstrance after having taken his
measure. The German put his pipe into his pocket and advanced a step.

"The other gun, Herr," he said, "would have meant the boar."

"So it would, perhaps," was the reply.

"We've done pretty good work these two days," went on the German; but
as the other appeared not to have heard he fell to the rear again, a
sardonic smile flitting over his oily face.

When Maurice reached the hotel cafe he left an order for a cognac to
be sent to his room, whither he repaired at once. As he got into dry
clothes he mused.

"I wonder what sort of a man that crown prince is? Now, if I were he,
an army could not keep me away from Bleiberg. Either he is no judge
of beauty, or the peasant girls hereabout are something extraordinary.
Pshaw! a man always makes an ass of himself on his wedding eve; the
crown prince is simply starting in early. I believe I'll hang on here
till the wedding day; a royal marriage is one of those things which I
have yet to see. I have a fortnight or more to knock around in. I should
like to know what the duchess will eventually do."

He sipped the last drop of the cognac and went down the stairs.

CHAPTER V. BEHIND THE PUPPET BOOTH

While the absent-minded hunter strode down toward the lower town, and
Ma