He was
astounded.
"Fireworks! Doesn't the prince hold by his old faith--he, a pupil of
Bakounine, Netschajew, and Kropotkin?" Just then the prince came in,
bearing a tray. He seemed happy.
"Here, sit down, dear sir, and partake of a few things. We live so far
from civilization that we seldom get a good chicken. But eggs I can
offer you, eggs and ham, cooked by me on an electric machine."
"You have no servants?" Gerald ventured.
"Not one. I can't trust them near my--toys. The princess plays Chopin
mazourkas after she makes the beds in the morning, and in the afternoon
she is my assistant in the laboratory." Again the young man looked about
him. If the room was a laboratory, where were the retorts, the oven, the
phials, the jars, the usual apparatus of a modern chemist? He saw
nothing, except an old-fashioned electric fan and a few dusty books. The
fireworks--were those overgrown wheels and gaunt windmills and gas-house
the secret of the prince's self-banishment to this dreary coast? What
dreams did he seek to incarnate on this strand, in this queer tower,
locked away from the world with a charming princess--a fairy princess
whose heart beat with love for the oppressed, in whose hand he might
some time see the blazing torch of freedom? He, himself, was enveloped
by the hypnotism of the place.
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