"It's much less than that," said Lorry, smiling, "But you surely don't expect to come to Edelweiss if we are fighting. We couldn't think of letting you do that, you know. Your mother would never--"

"My mother wasn't afraid of a much bigger war than yours can ever hope to be," cried Beverly, resentfully. "You can't stop me if I choose to visit Graustark."

"Does your father know that you contemplate such a trip?" asked Lorry, returning her handclasp and looking doubtfully into the swimming blue eyes of his wife.

"No, he doesn't," admitted Beverly, a trifle aggressively.

"He could stop you, you know," he suggested. Yetive was discreetly silent.

"But he won't know anything about it," cried Beverly triumphantly.

"I could tell him, you know," said Lorry.

"No, you _couldn't_ do anything so mean as that," announced Beverly. "You're not that sort."

CHAPTER III

ON THE ROAD FROM BALAK

A ponderous coach lumbered slowly, almost painfully, along the narrow road that skirted the base of a mountain. It was drawn by four horses, and upon the seat sat two rough, unkempt Russians, one holding the reins, the other lying back in a lazy doze. The month was June and all the world seemed soft and sweet and joyous. To the right flowed a turbulent mountain stream, boiling savagely with the alien waters of the flood season. Ahead of the creaking coach rode four horsemen, all heavily armed; another quartette followed some distance in the rear. At the side of the coach an officer of the Russian mounted police was riding easily, jangling his accoutrements with a vigor that disheartened at least one occupant of the vehicle. The windows of the coach doors were lowered, permitting the fresh mountain air to caress fondly the face of the young woman who tried to find comfort in one of the broad seats. Since early morn she had struggled with the hardships of that seat, and the late afternoon found her very much out of patience. The opposite seat was the resting place of a substantial colored woman and a stupendous pile of bags and boxes. The boxes were continually toppling over and the bags were forever getting under the feet of the once placid servant, whose face, quite luckily, was much too black to reflect the anger she was able, otherwise, through years of practice, to conceal.

"How much farther have we to go, lieutenant?" asked the girl on the rear seat, plaintively, even humbly. The man was very deliberate with his English. He had been recommended to her as the best linguist in the service at Radovitch, and he had a reputation to sustain.

"It another hour is but yet," he managed to inform her, with a confident smile.

"Oh, dear," she sighed, "a whole hour of this!"

"We soon be dar, Miss Bev'ly; jes' yo' mak' up yo' mine to res' easy-like, an' we--" but the faithful old colored woman's advice was lost in the wrathful exclamation that accompanied another dislodgment of bags and boxes. The wheels of the coach had dropped suddenly into a deep rut. Aunt Fanny's growls were scarcely more potent than poor Miss Beverly's moans.