Everybody was busy, and thrifty, and law abiding. He might just as well
have gone to Prague or Nuremburg; either was as old and as quaint and as
stupid as this lukewarm city in the hills.
Where were the beautiful women he had read about and dreamed of ever
since he left Teheran? On his soul, he had not seen half a dozen women
in Edelweiss who were more than passably fair to look upon. True, he had
to admit, the people he had seen were of the lower and middle
classes--the shopkeepers and the shopgirls, the hucksters and the fruit
vendors. What he wanted to know was this: What had become of the royalty
and the nobility of Graustark? Where were the princes, the dukes and
the barons, to say nothing of the feminine concomitants to these
excellent gentlemen?
What irritated him most of all was the amazing discovery that there was
a Cook's tourist office in town and that no end of parties arrived and
departed under his very nose, all mildly exhilarated over the fact that
they had seen Graustark! The interpreter, with "Cook's" on his cap, was
quite the most important, if quite the least impressive personage in
town. It is no wonder that this experienced globe-trotter was disgusted!
There was a train to Vienna three times a week. He made up his mind that
he would not let the Saturday express go down without him.
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