Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 138, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1912 — The Grand Babylon Hotel [ARTICLE]

The Grand Babylon Hotel

Copyright by Frank A Munsey Co. cSafier XIX. Royalty At The Grand Babylon. .. --f .= The royal apartments at the Grand Babylon are famous in the world of hotels, and indeed elsewhere, as bein& in their own way, unsurpassed. Some of the palaces of Germany, and in particular those of the mad Kink Ludwig of Bavaria, may possess rooms and salons which outshine them in gorgeous luxury and the mere wild, fairy-like extravagance of wealth; but there is nothing anywhere, even on Fifth avenue, New York, which can fairly be called more complete, more perfect, more enticing, or —not least important—more comfortable. The suite consists of five chambers —the anteroom, the salon or audience chamber, the yellow drawing room (where royalty, receives its friends) the library and the state bedroom—-to the last of which we have already been introduced.

The moat Important and most impressive of these five is, of course, the audience chamber—an apartment 50 feet long by 40 feet broad, with a superb outlook over the Thames, the shot tower and the higher signals of the Southwestern Railway. The decoration of this room is mainly in the German taste, since four out of every six of its royalty occupants are of Teutonic calling, a masterpiece by Fragonard taken bodily from a certain famous palace on the Loire. In one of the window recesses of this magnificent apartment, On a certain afternoon in late July, stood the Prince Aribert of Posen. He was faultlessly dressed in the conventional frock coat of English civilization, with a gardenia in the buttonhole, and the indespensable crease down the front of the trousers. He seemed to be fairly amused and also to expect some one, for at frequent intervals, he looked rapidly over his shoulder in the direction of the door behind the royal chair. At last a little, wizened, stooping old man, with a distinctly German cast of countenance, appeared through the door and laid some papers on a small table by the §ide of the chair. “Ah, Hans, my old friend!” said Aribert, approaching the old man. “I must have a little talk with you about one or two matters. How did you find his royal highness?” The old man salpted, military fashion. “Not very well, your highness,” he answered. “I’ve been valet to your highness’ nephew since his majority, and I was valet to his royal father before him, but I never saw”— He stopped and threw up bis wrinkled hands deprecatingly. “You never saw what?” Aribert smiled affectionately on the old fellow. You could pereeive that these two, so sharply differential in rank, had been intimate in the past and would be intimate again. “I)o you know, my Prince,” said the old man, “that we are to receive the financier, Sampson Levi —is that his name —in the audience chamber? Surely, the library would have been good enough for a financier?" "One would have thought so,” said Prince Aribert, “but perhaps your master has a special reason. Tell me,” be went on, changing the subject quickly, “how came it that yon left the Prince, my nephew, at Ostend, and returned to Posen?” “His orders, Prince,” and old Hans, who had had a wide experience of royal whims, and knew half the secrets of the courts of Europe, gave Aribert a look which might have meant anything. “He sent me back on an—an errand.” “And you were to rejoin him here?” “Just so, highness. And I did rejoin him here; though, to tell the truth, I had begun to fear that X might never see my master again.” “The Prince was very sick in Ostend, Hans.” “So I have gathered,” Hans replied drily, slowly rubbing his hands together. “And his Highness is not yet perfectly recovered.”

“Not yet. We despaired of his life, Hans, at one time, but, thanks to an excellent constitution, he came safely through the ordeal.” "We must tyke care of him, your highness.’’ "Yes, indeed,” said Aribert solemnly. "His life is very precious to Posen.” At that moment Eugen, hereditary Prince of Posen, entered the audience chamber. He was pale and laguid, and his uniform seemed to be a trouble to feto. But, at the same time, bere beyond doubt, was royalty. Nothing could have been more striking than the contrast between Eugen, a sick man in the shabby house at Os tend, and this Prince Eugen In the royal apartments of the Grand Babylon Hotel, surrounded by the luxury and pomp which modern civilization can offer to those born in high places. And the desperate episode of Os tend was now hidden, passed over. It was supposed never to have occurred. It existed only like a secret shame in the hearts of those who had witnessed it l ' % f Prince Eugen had recovered; at any rate, he was convalescent and he had been removed to London, where he took up again the dropped thread of his princely life. The lady with the red hat the incorruptible and brilliant Jules, the damp, dark cellar, the horrible little bedroom —those things were over. Only—only, Jules, Rbcco and Miss Spencer were still at large; and the body of Reginald Dipuapck lay buried in the domestic mausoleum of the palace at Posen; and Prince Eugen bad still to interview Mr. Sampson Levi. That various matters lay Jieavy on the mind of Prince Ehtgen was beyond question: Hfi seemed to have with* drawn wltbin himself. Despite the extraordinary experiences through which he had recently passed, events which called aloud for explanations and confidences between the nephew and the uncle, he would say scarcely a word to Prince Aribert Any allusion, however direct, to the days at Ostend, were ignored by him with more or Ims ingenuity, and Prince Aribert was really no nearer a full solution of the mystery of Jule’s plot than he had bden on -the night when he and Racksole visited the gaming tables at Ostend. Eugen was. well aware that he bad been kidnapped through the agency of the woman in the red hat, but,‘ doubtless ashamed at having been her dupe, he would not proceed in any way with the clearing up of the matter. “You will receive in this room, Eugen?” Aribert questioned him. “Yes,” was the answer, given pettishly. “Why not? Even if I have no proper retinue here, surely that is no reason why I should not hold audience in a proper manner. Hans, you can go.” The old valet promptly disappeared. “Aribert,” the hereditary Price continued, when they were in the room alone, you think 1 am mad. “My dear Eugen,” said Prince Aribert, startled in spite of himself, “don't be absurd.” “I say you think I am mad. Yon think that that attack of brain fever has left its permanent mark on me. Well, perhaps I am mad. Who can tell? God knows I have been through enough lately to drive me mad.” f Aribert made.no reply. As a matter of fact, the thought had crossed hi* mind that Engen’s brain had not yet recovered its normal tone and tyThis speech of bis nephew’* however, had the effect of immediately restoring his belief in the latter** sanity. He felt convinced that if only fee could regain his nephew’s trust, the old brotherly confidence which existed between them since the years when might yet be well. jvexzus rr£

confidence to anyone. The young Prince had come up out of the valley or the shadow of death, but some of the valley’s shadow had clung to him, and it seemed he was unable to dissipate it. . X • ' “By the way,” said Eugen suddenly, “I must reward these Racksoles, I suppose. I am indeed grateful to them. If I gave the girl a bracelet and the father a thousand guineas—how would that meet the case?” “My dear Eugen!” exclaimed Aribert, aghast. “A thousand guineas! Do you know that Theodore Racksole could buy up all Posen from end to end without making himself a pauper? A thousand guineas! You might as well offer him a sixpence.” “Then, what must I offer?” “Nothing, except your thanks. Anything else would be an insult. These are no ordinary hotel people.” “Can’t I present the little girl a bracelet?” Prince Eugen gave a sinister laugh. Aribert looked at him steadily. “No,” he said. “Why did you kiss her —that night?” asked Prince Eugen carelessly. “Kiss whom?” said Aribert, blushing and angry, despite his most determined efforts to keep calm and uneoncemed-. “The Racksole girl.” “When do you mean?” “I mean,” said Eugen, “that night in Ostend when I was ill. You though t I was in a delirium. Perhaps I was, But somehow I remember that with extraordinary distinctness. I remember raising my head for a fraction of an instant, and just in that fraction you kissed her. Oh! Uncle Aribert!” “Listen, Eugen, for God’s sake. 1 love Nella Racksole. I shall marry her.” x - : —• r. -——— “You!” There was a long pause, and then Eugen laughed. “Ah!” he said. “They all talk like that to start with. I have talked like that myself, dear uncle, and it sounds nice and it means nothing.” “In this case it means everything, Eugen,” said Aribert quietly." Some accent of determination in the latter’s tone made Eugen rather more serious. “You can’t marry her,” he said. “The Emperor won’t permit a morganatic marriage.” “The Emperor has nothing to do with the affair. I shall renounce my rights, I shall become a plain citizen.” “In which case you will have no fortune.” “But my wife will have a fortune. Knowing the sacrifices which. I shall have made in order to marry her, she will not hesitate to place that fortune in my hands for our mutual use,” said Aribert stiffly. “You will decidedly be rich,” mused Eugen, as his ideas dwelt on Theodore Racksole’s reputed wealth. “But hkve you thought of this,” he added, and his mild eyeß glowed again in a sort of madness. “Have you thought that I am unmarried and that I might die at any moment, and then the throne will descend to youi—to you, Aribert?” “The -throne will never descend to me, Eugen,” said Aribert softly,-“for you will live. You are thoroughly convalescent. You have nothing to fear.” “It is the next seven days that I fear,” said Eugen. “The next seven days! Why?” “I do not know. But I fear them. If I can survive them” “Mr. Sampson Levi, .sire,” Hans announced in a loud tone. (To be continued