Until late that night General Mettlich and the King talked together. The King had been lifted from his bed and sat propped in a great chair. Above his shabby dressing-gown his face showed gaunt and old. In a straight chair facing him sat his old friend and Chancellor.
“What it has shown is not entirely bad,” said the King, after a pause. “The boy has initiative. And he made no attempt at evasion. He is essentially truthful.”
“What it has also shown, sire, is that no protection is enough. When I, who love the lad, and would—when I could sleep, and let him get away, as I did—”
“The truth is,” said the King, “we are both of us getting old.” He tapped with his gnarled fingers on the blanket that lay over his knees. “The truth is also,” he observed a moment later, “that the boy has very few pleasures. He is alone a great deal.”
General Mettlich raised his shaggy head. Many years of wearing a soldier’s cap had not injured his heavy gray hair. He had bristling eyebrows, white new, and a short, fighting mustache. When he was irritated, or disagreed with any one, his eyebrows came down and the mustache went up.
Many years of association with his king had given him the right to talk to him as man to man. They even quarreled now and then. It was a brave man who would quarrel with old Ferdinand II.
So now his eyebrows came down and his mustache went up. “How—alone, sire?”
“You do not regard that bigoted Englishwoman as a companion, do you?”
“He is attached to her.”
“I’m damned if I know why,” observed the old King. “She doesn’t appear to have a single human quality.”
Human quality! General Mettlich eyed his king with concern. Since when had the reigning family demanded human qualities in their governesses? “She is a thoughtful and conscientious woman, sire,” he said stiffly. It happened that he had selected her. “She does her duty. And as to the boy being lonely, he has no time to be lonely. His tutors—”
“How old is he?”
“Ten next month.”
The King said nothing for a time. Then—“It is hard,” he said at last, “for seventy-four to see with the eyes of ten. As for this afternoon—why in the name of a thousand devils did they take him to see the ‘Flying Dutchman’? I detest it.”
“Her Royal Highness—”
“Annunciata is a fool,” said His Majesty. Then dismissing his daughter with a gesture, “We don’t know how to raise our children here,” he said impatiently. “The English do better. And even the Germans—”
It is not etiquette to lower one’s eyebrows at a king, and glare. But General Mettlich did it. He was rather a poor subject. “The Germans have not our problem, sire,” he said, and stuck up his mustache.
“I’m not going to raise the boy a prisoner,” insisted the King stubbornly. Kings have to be very stubborn about things. So many people disapprove of the things they want to do.
Suddenly General Mettlich bent forward and placed a hand on the old man’s knee. “We shall do well, sire,” he said gravely, “to raise the boy at all.”
There was a short silence, which the King broke. “What is new?”
“We have broken up the University meetings, but I fancy they go on, in small groups. I was gratified, however, to observe that a group of students cheered His Royal Highness yesterday as he rode past the University buildings.”
“Socialism at twenty,” said the King, “is only a symptom of the unrest of early adolescence. Even Hubert”—he glanced at the picture—“was touched with it. He accused me, I recall, of being merely an accident, a sort of stumbling-block in the way of advanced thought!”
He smiled faintly. Then he sighed. “And the others?” he asked.
“The outlying districts are quiet. So, too, is the city. Too quiet, sire.”
“They are waiting, of course, for my death,” said the King quietly. “If only, you were twenty years younger than I am, it would be better.” He fixed the General with shrewd eyes. “What do those asses of doctors say about me?”
“With care, sire—”
“Come, now. This is no time for evasion.”
“Even at the best, sire—” He looked very ferocious, and cleared his throat. He was terribly ashamed that his voice was breaking.. “Even at the best, but of course they can only give an opinion—”
“Six months?”
“A year, sire.”
“And at the worst!” said the King, with a grim smile. Then; following his own line of, thought: “But the people love the boy, I think.”
“They do. It is for that reason, sire, that I advise particular caution.” He hesitated. Then, “Sire,” he said earnestly, “there is something of which I must speak. The Committee of Ten has organized again.”
Involuntarily the King glanced at the photograph on the table.
“Forgive me, sire, if I waken bitter memories. But I fear—”
“You fear!” said the King. “Since when have you taken to fearing?”
“Nevertheless,” maintained General Mettlich doggedly, “I fear. This quiet of the last few months alarms me. Dangerous dogs do not bark. I trust no one. The very air is full of sedition.”
The King twisted his blue-veined old hands together, but his voice was quiet. “But why?” he demanded, almost fretfully. “If the people are fond of the boy, and I think they are, to—to carry him off, or injure him, would hurt the cause. Even the Terrorists, in the name of a republic, can do nothing without the people.”
“The mob is a curious thing, sire. You have ruled with a strong hand. Our people know nothing but to obey the dominant voice. The boy out of the way, the prospect of the Princess Hedwig on the throne, a few demagogues in the public squares—it would be the end.”
The King leaned back and closed his eyes. His thin, arched nose looked pinched. His face was gray.
“All this,” he said, “means what? To make the boy a prisoner, to cut off his few pleasures, and even then, at any time—”
“Yes, sire,” said Mettlich doggedly. “At any time.”
Outside in the anteroom Lieutenant Nikky Larisch roused himself, yawned, and looked at his watch. It was after twelve, and he had had a hard day. He put a velvet cushion behind his head, and resolutely composed himself to slumber, a slumber in which were various rosy dreams, all centered about the Princess Hedwig. Dreams are beyond our control.
Therefore a young lieutenant running into debt on his pay may without presumption dream of a princess.
All through the Palace people were sleeping. Prince Ferdinand William Otto was asleep, and riding again the little car in the Land of Delight. So that, turning a corner sharply, he almost fell out of bed.
On the other side of the city the little American boy was asleep also. At that exact time he was being tucked up by an entirely efficient and placid-eyed American mother, who felt under his head to see that his ear was not turned forward. She liked close-fitting ears.
Nobody, naturally, was tucking up Prince Ferdinand William Otto. Or attending to his ears. But, of course, there were sentries outside his door, and a valet de chambre to be rung for, and a number of embroidered eagles scattered about on the curtains and things, and a country surrounding him which would one day be his, unless—
“At any time,” said General Mettlich, and was grimly silent.
It was really no time for such a speech. But there is never a good time for bad news.
“Well?” inquired the King, after a time. “You have something to suggest, I take it.”
The old soldier cleared his throat. “Sire,” he began, “it is said that a chancellor should have but one passion—his King. I have two: my King and my country.”
The King nodded gravely. He knew both passions, relied on both. And found them both a bit troublesome at times!
“Once, some years ago, sire, I came to you with a plan. The Princess Hedwig was a child then, and his late Royal Highness was—still with us. For that, and for other reasons, Your Majesty refused to listen. But things have changed. Between us and revolution there stand only the frail life of a boy and an army none too large, and already, perhaps, affected. There is much discontent, and the offspring of discontent is anarchy.”
The King snarled. But Mettlich had taken his courage in his hands, and went on. Their neighbor and hereditary foe was Karnia. Could they any longer afford the enmity of Karnia? One cause of discontent was the expense of the army, and of the fortifications along the Karnian border. If Karnia were allied with them, there would be no need of so great an army. They had the mineral wealth, and Karnia the seaports. The old dream of the Empire, of a railway to the sea, would be realized.
He pleaded well. The idea was not new. To place the little King Otto IX on the throne and keep him there in the face of opposition would require support from outside. Karnia would furnish this support. For a price.
The price was the Princess Hedwig.
Outside, Nikky Larisch rose, stretched, and fell to pacing the floor. It was one o’clock, and the palace slept. He lighted a cigarette, and stepping out into a small balcony which overlooked the Square, faced the quiet night.
“That is my plea, sire,” Mettlich finished. “Karl of Karnia is anxious to marry, and looks this way. To allay discontent and growing insurrection, to insure the boy’s safety and his throne, to beat our swords into ploughshares”—here he caught the King’s scowl; and added—“to a certain extent, and to make us a commercial as well as a military nation, surely, sire, it gains much for us, and loses us nothing.”
“But our independence!” said the King sourly.
However, he did not dismiss the idea. The fright of the afternoon had weakened him, and if Mettlich were right—he had what the King considered a perfectly damnable habit of being right—the Royalist party would need outside help to maintain the throne.
“Karnia!” he said. “The lion and the lamb, with the lamb inside the lion! And in, the mean time the boy—”
“He should be watched always.”
“The old she-dragon, the governess—I suppose she is trustworthy?”
“Perfectly. But she is a woman.”
“He has Lussin.” Count Lussin was the Crown Prince’s aide-de-camp.
“He needs a man, sire,” observed the Chancellor rather tartly.
The King cleared his throat. “This youngster he is so fond of, young Larisch, would he please you better?” he asked, with ironic deference.
“A good boy, sire. You may recall that his mother—” He stopped.
Perhaps the old King’s memory was good. Perhaps there was a change in Mettlich’s voice.
“A good boy?”
“None better, sire. He is devoted to His Royal Highness. He is still much of a lad himself. I have listened to them talking. It is a question which is the older! He is outside now.”
“Bring him in. I’ll have a look at him.”
Nikky, summoned by a chamberlain, stopped inside the doorway and bowed deeply.
“Come here,” said the King.
He advanced.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, sire.”
“In the Grenadiers, I believe.”
Nikky bowed.
“Like horses?” said the King suddenly.
“Very much, sire.”
“And boys?”
“I—some boys, sire.”
“Humph! Quite right, too. Little devils, most of them.” He drew himself tap in his chair. “Lieutenant Larisch,” he said, “His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has taken a liking to you. I believe it is to you that our fright to-day is due.”
Nikky’s heart thumped. He went rather pale.
“It is my intention, Lieutenant Larisch, to place the Crown Prince in your personal charge. For reasons I need not go into, it is imperative that he take no more excursions alone. These are strange times, when sedition struts in Court garments, and kings may trust neither their armies nor their subjects. I want,” he said, his tone losing its bitterness, “a real friend for the little Crown Prince. One who is both brave and loyal.”
Afterward, in his small room, Nikky composed a neat, well-rounded speech, in which he expressed his loyalty, gratitude, and undying devotion to the Crown Prince. It was an elegant little speech. Unluckily, the occasion for it had gone by two hours.
“I—I am grateful, sire,” was what he said. “I—” And there he stopped and choked up. It was rather dreadful.
“I depend on you, Captain Larisch,” said the King gravely, and nodded his head in a gesture of dismissal. Nikky backed toward the door, struck a hassock, all but went down, bowed again at the door, and fled.
“A fine lad,” said General Mettlich, “but no talker.”
“All the better,” replied His Majesty. “I am tired of men who talk well. And”—he smiled faintly—“I am tired of you. You talk too well. You make me think. I don’t want to think. I’ve been thinking all my life. It is time to rest, my friend.”
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto was in disgrace.
He had risen at six, bathed, dressed, and gone to Mass, in disgrace. He had breakfasted at seven-thirty on fruit, cereal, and one egg, in disgrace. He had gone to his study at eight o’clock for lessons, in disgrace. A long line of tutors came and went all morning, and he worked diligently, but he was still in disgrace. All morning long and in the intervals between tutors he had tried to catch Miss Braithwaite’s eye.
Except for the most ordinary civilities, she had refused to look in his direction. She was correcting an essay in English on Mr. Gladstone, with a blue pencil, and putting in blue commas every here and there. The Crown Prince was amazingly weak in commas. When she was all through, she piled the sheets together and wrote a word on the first page. It might have been “good.” On the other hand, it could easily have been “poor.” The motions of the hand are similar.
At last; in desperation, the Crown Prince deliberately broke off the point of his pencil, and went to the desk where Miss Braithwaite sat, monarch of the American pencil-sharpener which was the beloved of his heart.
“Again!” said Miss Braithwaite shortly. And raised her eyebrows.
“It’s a very soft pencil,” explained the Crown Prince. “When I press down on it, it—it busts.”
“It what?”
“It busts—breaks.” Evidently the English people were not familiar with this new and fascinating American word.
He cast a casual glance toward Mr. Gladstone. The word was certainly “poor.” Suddenly a sense of injustice began to rise in him. He had worked rather hard over Mr. Gladstone. He had done so because he knew that Miss Braithwaite considered him the greatest man since Jesus Christ, and even the Christ had not written “The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion.”
The injustice went to his eyes and made him blink. He had apologized for yesterday, and explained fully. It was not fair. As to commas, anybody could put in enough commas.
The French tutor was standing near a photograph of Hedwig, and pretending not to look at it. Prince Ferdinand William Otto had a suspicion that the tutor was in love with Hedwig. On one occasion, when she had entered unexpectedly, he had certainly given out the sentence, “Ce dragon etait le vieux serpent, la princesse,” instead of “Ce dragon etait le vieux serpent, le roi.”
Prince Ferdinand William Otto did not like the French tutor. His being silly about Hedwig was not the reason. Even Nikky had that trouble, and once, when they were all riding together, had said, “Canter on the snaffle, trot on the curb,” when he meant exactly the opposite. It was not that. Part of it was because of his legs, which were inclined to knock at the knees. Mostly it was his eyes, which protruded. “When he reads my French exercises,” he complained once to Hedwig, “he waves them around like an ant’s.”
He and Hedwig usually spoke English together. Like most royalties, they had been raised on languages. It was as much as one’s brains were worth, sometimes, to try to follow them as they leaped from grammar to grammar.
“Like an aunt’s?” inquired Hedwig, mystified.
“An ant’s. They have eyes on the ends of their feelers, you know.”
But Miss Braithwaite, overhearing, had said that ants have no eyes at all. She had no imagination.
His taste of liberty had spoiled the Crown Prince for work. Instead of conjugating a French verb, he made a sketch of the Scenic Railway. He drew the little car, and two heads looking over the edge, with a sort of porcupine effect of hairs standing straight up.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite sternly.
Miss Braithwaite did not say “sir” to him or “Your Royal Highness,” like the tutors. She had taken him from the arms of his mother when he was a baby, and had taught a succession of nurses how to fix his bottles, and made them raise the windows when he slept—which was heresy in that country, and was brought up for discussion in the Parliament. When it came time for his first tooth, and he was wickedly fretful, and the doctors had a consultation over him, it was Miss Braithwaite who had ignored everything they said, and rubbed the tooth through with her silver thimble. Boiled first, of course.
And when one has cut a Royal Highness’s first tooth, and broken him of sucking his thumb, and held a cold buttered knife against his bruises to prevent their discoloring, one does get out of the way of being very formal with him.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite sternly.
So he went to work in earnest. He worked at a big desk, which had been his father’s. As a matter of fact, everything in the room was too big for him. It had not occurred to any one to make any concessions to his size. He went through life, one may say, with his legs dangling, or standing on tiptoe to see things.
The suite had been his father’s before him. Even the heavy old rug had been worn shabby by the scuffing of his father’s feet. On the wall there hung a picture his father had drawn. It was of a yacht in full sail. Prince Hubert had been fifteen when he drew it, and was contemplating abandoning his princely career and running away to be a pirate. As a matter of fact, the yacht boasted the black flag, as Otto knew quite well. Nikky had discover it. But none of the grown-ups had recognized the damning fact. Nikky was not, strictly speaking a grown-up.
The sun came through the deep embrasures of the window and set Prince Ferdinand William Otto’s feet to wriggling. It penetrated the gloomy fastnesses of the old room and showed its dingy furniture, its great desk, its dark velvet portieres, and the old cabinet in which the Crown Prince kept his toys on the top shelf. He had arranged them there himself, the ones he was fondest of in the front row, so he could look up and see them; a drum which he still dearly loved, but which made Miss Braithwaite’s headache; a locomotive with a broken spring; a steam-engine which Hedwig had given him, but which the King considered dangerous, and which had never, therefore, had its baptism of fire; and a dilapidated and lop-eared cloth dog.
He was exceedingly fond of the dog. For quite a long time he had taken it to bed with him at night, and put its head on his pillow. It was the most comforting thing, when the lights were all out. Until he was seven he had been allowed a bit of glimmer, a tiny wick floating in a silver dish of lard-oil, for a night-light. But after his eighth birthday that had been done away with, Miss Braithwaite considering it babyish.
The sun shone in on the substantial but cheerless room; on the picture of the Duchess Hedwig, untouched by tragedy or grief; on the heavy, paneled old doors through which, once on a time, Prince Hubert had made his joyous exits into a world that had so early cast him out; on his swords, crossed over the fireplace; his light rapier, his heavy cavalry saber; on the bright head of his little son, around whom already so many plots and counterplots were centering.
The Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto found the sun unsettling. Besides, he hated verbs. Nouns were different. One could do something with nouns, although even they had a way of having genders. Into his head popped a recollection of a delightful pastime of the day before—nothing more nor less than flipping paper wads at the guard on the Scenic Railway as the car went past him.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto tore off the corner of a piece of paper, chewed it deliberately, rounded and hardened it with his royal fingers, and aimed it at M. Puaux. It struck him in the eye.
Instantly things happened. M. Puaux yelled, and clapped a hand to his eye. Miss Braithwaite rose. His Royal Highness wrote a rather shaky French verb, with the wrong termination. And on to this scene came Nikky for the riding-lesson. Nikky, smiling and tidy, and very shiny as to riding-boots and things, and wearing white kid gloves. Every one about a palace wears white kid gloves, except the royalties themselves. It is extremely expensive.
Nikky surveyed the scene. He had, of course, bowed inside the door, and all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him in the chest.
“Well!” said Nikky.
“Good-morning,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, in a small and nervous voice.
“Nothing wrong, is there?” demanded Nikky.
M. Puaux got out his handkerchief and said nothing violently.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” He looked about. He was quite convinced that M. Puaux was what Bobby would have termed a poor sport, and had not played the game fairly. The guard at the railway, he felt, would not have yelled and wept. “Oh, well, I threw a piece of paper. That’s all. I didn’t think it would hurt.”
Miss Braithwaite rose and glanced at the carpet. But Nikky was quick. Quick and understanding. He put his shiny foot over the paper wad.
“Paper!” said Miss Braithwaite. “Why did you throw paper? And at M. Puaux?”
“I—just felt like throwing something,” explained His Royal Highness. “I guess it’s the sun, or something.”
Nikky dropped his glove, and miraculously, when he had picked it up the little wad was gone.
“For throwing paper, five marks,” said Miss Braithwaite, and put it down in the book she carried in her pocket. It was rather an awful book. On Saturdays the King looked it over, and demanded explanations. “For untidy nails, five marks! A gentleman never has untidy nails, Otto. For objecting to winter flannels, two marks. Humph! For pocketing sugar from the tea-tray, ten marks! Humph! For lack of attention during religious instruction, five marks. Ten off for the sugar, and only five for inattention to religious instruction! What have you to say, sir?”
Prince Ferdinand William Otto looked at Nikky and Nikky looked back. Then Ferdinand William Otto’s left eyelid drooped. Nikky was astounded. How was he to know the treasury of strange things that the Crown Prince had tapped the previous afternoon? But, after a glance around the room, Nikky’s eyelid drooped also. He slid the paper wad into his pocket.
“I am afraid His Royal Highness has hurt your eye, M. Puaux,” said Miss Braithwaite. Not with sympathy. She hated tutors.
“Not at all,” said the unhappy young man, testing the eye to discover if he could see through it. “I am sure His Royal Highness meant no harm.” M. Puaux went out, with his handkerchief to his eye. He turned at the door and bowed, but as no one was paying any attention to him, he made two bows. One was to Hedwig’s picture.
While Oskar, his valet, put the Crown Prince into riding-clothes, Nikky and Miss Braithwaite had a talk. Nikky was the only person to whom Miss Braithwaite really unbent. Once he had written to a friend of his in China, and secured for her a large box of the best China tea. Miss Braithwaite only brewed it when the Archduchess made one of her rare visits to the Crown Prince’s apartment.
But just now their talk was very serious. It began by Nikky’s stating that she was likely to see him a great deal now, and he hoped she would not find him in the way. He had been made aide-de-camp to the Crown Prince, vice Count Lussin, who had resigned on account of illness, having been roused at daybreak out of a healthy sleep to do it.
Not that Nikky said just that. What he really observed was: “The King sent for me last night, Miss Braithwaite, and—and asked me to hang around.”
Thus Nikky, of his sacred trust! None the less sacred to him, either, that he spoke lightly. He glanced up at the crossed swords, and his eyes were hard.
And Miss Braithwaite knew. She reached over and put a hand on his arm. “You and I,” she said. “Out of all the people in this palace, only you and I! The Archduchess hates him. I see it in her eyes. She can never forgive him for keeping the throne from Hedwig. The Court? Do they ever think of the boy, except to dread his minority, with Mettlich in control? A long period of mourning, a regency, no balls, no gayety that is all they think of. And whom can we trust? The very guards down below, the sentries at our doors, how do we know they are loyal?”
“The people love him,” said Nikky doggedly.
“The people! Sheep. I do not trust the people. I do not trust any one. I watch, but what can I do? The very food we eat—”
“He is coming,” said Nikky softly. And fell to whistling under his breath.
Together Nikky and Prince Ferdinand William Otto went out and down the great marble staircase. Sentries saluted. Two flunkies in scarlet and gold threw open the doors. A stray dog that had wandered into the courtyard watched them gravely.
“I wish,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, “that I might have a dog.”
“A dog! Why?”
“Well, it would be company. Dogs are very friendly. Yesterday I met a boy who has a dog. It sleeps on his bed at night.”
“You have a good many things, you know,” Nikky argued. “You’ve got a dozen horses, for one thing.”
“But a dog’s different.” He felt the difference, but he could not put it into words. “And I’d rather have only one horse. I’d get better acquainted with it.”
Nikky looked back. Although it had been the boast of the royal family for a century that it could go about unattended, that its only danger was from the overzeal of the people in showing their loyalty, not since the death of Prince Hubert had this been true in fact. No guards or soldiers accompanied them, but the secret police were always near at hand. So Nikky looked, made sure that a man in civilian clothing was close at their heels, and led the way across the Square to the riding-school.
A small crowd lined up and watched the passing of the little Prince. As he passed, men lifted their hats and women bowed. He smiled right and left, and, took two short steps to one of Nikky’s long ones.
“I have a great many friends,” he said with a sigh of content, as they neared the riding-school. “I suppose I don’t really need a dog.”
“Look here,” said Nikky, after a pause. He was not very quick in thinking things out. He placed, as a fact, more reliance on his right arm than on his brain. But once he had thought a thing out, it stuck. “Look here, Highness, you didn’t treat your friends very well yesterday.”
“I know;” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto meekly. But Prince Ferdinand William Otto had thought out a defense. “I got back all right, didn’t I?” He considered. “It was worth it. A policeman shook me!”
“Which policeman?” demanded Nikky in a terrible tone, and in his fury quite forgot the ragging he had prepared for Otto.
“I think I’ll not tell you, if you don’t mind. And I bought a fig lady. I’ve saved the legs for you.”
Fortune smiled on Nikky that day. Had, indeed, been smiling daily for some three weeks. Singularly enough, the Princess Hedwig, who had been placed on a pony at the early age of two, and who had been wont to boast that she could ride any horse in her grandfather’s stables, was taking riding-lessons. From twelve to one—which was, also singularly, the time Prince Ferdinand William Otto and Nikky rode in the ring—the Princess Hedwig rode also. Rode divinely. Rode saucily. Rode, when Nikky was ahead, tenderly.
To tell the truth, Prince Ferdinand William Otto rather hoped, this morning, that Hedwig would not be there. There was a difference in Nikky when Hedwig was around. When she was not there he would do all sorts of things, like jumping on his horse while it was going, and riding backward in the saddle, and so on. He had once even tried jumping on his horse as it galloped past him, and missed, and had been awfully ashamed about it. But when Hedwig was there, there was no skylarking. They rode around, and the riding-master put up jumps and they took them. And finally Hedwig would get tired, and ask Nikky please to be amusing while she rested. And he would not be amusing at all. The Crown Prince felt that she never really saw Nikky at his best.
Hedwig was there. She had on a new habit, and a gardenia in her buttonhole, and she gave Nikky her hand to kiss, but only nodded to the Crown Prince.
“Hello, Otto!” she said. “I thought you’d have a ball and chain on your leg to-day.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, staring at the nets habit. “But yours look rather queer.”
Hedwig flushed. The truth was that she was wearing, for the first time, a cross-saddle habit of coat and trousers. And coat and trousers were forbidden to the royal women. She eyed Otto with defiance, and turned an appealing glance to Nikky. But her voice was very dignified.
“I bought them myself,” she said. “I consider it a perfectly modest costume, and much safer than the other.”
“It is quite lovely—on you, Highness,” said Nikky.
In a stiff chair at the edge of the ring Hedwig’s lady in waiting sat resignedly. She was an elderly woman, and did not ride. Just now she was absorbed in wondering what would happen to her when the Archduchess discovered this new freak of Hedwig’s. Perhaps she would better ask permission to go into retreat for a time. The Archduchess, who had no religion herself, approved of it in others. She took a soft rubber from her pocket, and tried to erase a spot from her white kid gloves.
The discovery that Hedwig had two perfectly good legs rather astounded Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He felt something like consternation.
“I’ve never seen any one else dressed like that,” he observed, as the horses were brought up.
Hedwig colored again. She looked like an absurdly pretty boy. “Don’t be a silly,” she replied, rather sharply. “Every one does it, except here, where old fossils refuse to think that anything new can be proper. If you’re going to be that sort of a king when you grow up, I’ll go somewhere else to live.”
Nikky looked gloomy. The prospect, although remote, was dreary. But, as the horses were led out, and he helped Hedwig to her saddle, he brightened. After all, the future was the future, and now was now.
“Catch me!” said Hedwig, and dug her royal heels into her horse’s flanks. The Crown Prince climbed into his saddle and followed. They were off.
The riding-school had been built for officers of the army, but was now used by the Court only. Here the King had ridden as a lad with young Mettlich, his close friend even then. The favorite mare of his later years, now old and almost blind, still had a stall in the adjacent royal stables. One of the King’s last excursions abroad had been to visit her.
Overhead, up a great runway, were the state chariots, gilt coaches of inconceivable weight, traveling carriages of the post-chaise periods, sleighs in which four horses drove abreast, their panels painted by the great artists of the time; and one plain little vehicle, very shabby, in which the royal children of long ago had fled from a Karnian invasion.
In one corner, black and gold and forbidding, was the imposing hearse in which the dead sovereigns of the country were taken to their long sleep in the vaults under the cathedral. Good, bad, and indifferent, one after the other, as their hour came, they had taken this last journey in the old catafalque, and had joined their forbears. Many they had been: men of iron, men of blood, men of flesh, men of water. And now they lay in stone crypts, and of all the line only two remained.
One and all, the royal vehicles were shrouded in sheets, except on one day of each month when the sheets were removed and the public admitted. But on that morning the great hearse was uncovered, and two men were working, one at the upholstery, which he was brushing. The other was carefully oiling the wood of the body. Save for them, the wide and dusky loft was empty.
One was a boy, newly come from the country. The other was an elderly man. It was he who oiled.
“Many a king has this carried,” said the man. “My father, who was here before me, oiled it for the last one.”
“May it be long before it carries another!” commented the boy fervently.
“It will not be long. The old King fails hourly. And this happening of yesterday—”
“What happened yesterday?” queried the boy.
“It was a matter of the Crown Prince.”
“Was he ill?”
“He ran away,” said the man shortly.
“Ran away?” The boy stopped his dusting, and stared, open-mouthed.
“Aye, ran away. Grew weary of back-bending, perhaps. I do not know. I do not believe in kings.”
“Not believe in kings?” The boy stopped his brushing.
“You do, of course,” sneered the man. “Because a thing is, it is right. But I think. I use my brains. I reason. And I do not believe in kings.”
Up the runway came sounds from the ring, the thudding of hoofs, followed by a child’s shrill, joyous laughter. The man scowled.
“Listen!” he said. “We labor and they play.”
“It has always been so. I do not begrudge happiness.”
But the man was not listening.
“I do not believe in kings,” he said sullenly.
The Archduchess was having tea. Her boudoir was a crowded little room. Nikky had once observed confidentially to Miss Braithwaite that it was exactly like her, all hung and furnished with things that were not needed. The Archduchess liked it because it was warm. The palace rooms were mostly large and chilly. She lad a fire there on the warmest days in spring, and liked to put the coals on, herself. She wrapped them in pieces of paper so she would not soil her hands.
This afternoon she was not alone. Lounging at a window was the lady who was in waiting at the time, the Countess Loschek. Just now she was getting rather a wigging, but she was remarkably calm.
“The last three times,” the Archduchess said, stirring her tea, “you have had a sore throat.”
“It is such a dull book,” explained the Countess.
“Not at all. It is an improving book. If you would put your mind on it when you are reading, Olga, you would enjoy it. And you would learn something, besides. In my opinion,” went on the Archduchess, tasting her tea, “you smoke too many cigarettes.”
The Countess yawned, but silently, at her window.
Then she consulted a thermometer. “Eighty!” she said briefly, and, coming over, sat down by the tea-table.
The Countess Loschek was thirty, and very handsome, in an insolent way. She was supposed to be the best-dressed woman at the Court, and to rule Annunciata with an iron hand, although it was known that they quarreled a great deal over small things, especially over the coal fire.
Some said that the real thing that held them together was resentment that the little Crown Prince stood between the Princess Hedwig and the throne. Annunciata was not young, but she was younger than her dead brother, Hubert. And others said it was because the Countess gathered up and brought in the news of the Court—the small intrigues and the scandals that constitute life in the restricted walls of a palace. There is a great deal of gossip in a palace where the king is old and everything rather stupid and dull.
The Countess yawned again.
“Where is Hedwig?” demanded the Archduchess.
“Her Royal Highness is in the nursery, probably.”
“Why probably?”
“She goes there a great deal.”
The Archduchess eyed her. “Well, out with it,” she said. “There is something seething in that wicked brain of yours.”
The Countess shrugged her shoulders. Not that she resented having a wicked brain. She rather fancied the idea. “She and young Lieutenant Larisch have tea quite frequently with His Royal Highness.”
“How frequently?”
“Three times this last week, madame.”
“Little fool!” said Annunciata. But she frowned, and sat tapping her teacup with her spoon. She was just a trifle afraid of Hedwig, and she was more anxious than she would have cared to acknowledge. “It is being talked about, of course?”
The Countess shrugged her shoulders.
“Don’t do that!” commanded the Archduchess sharply. “How far do you think the thing has gone?”
“He is quite mad about her.”
“And Hedwig—but she is silly enough for anything. Do they meet anywhere else?”
“At the riding-school, I believe. At least, I—”
Here a maid entered and stood waiting at the end of the screen. The Archduchess Annunciata would have none of the palace flunkies about her when she could help it. She had had enough of men, she maintained, in the person of her late husband, whom she had detested. So except at dinner she was attended by tidy little maids, in gray Quaker costumes, who could carry tea-trays into her crowded boudoir without breaking things.
“His Excellency, General Mettlich,” said the maid.
The Archduchess nodded her august head, and the maid retired. “Go away, Olga,” said the Archduchess. “And you might,” she suggested grimly, “gargle your throat.”
The Chancellor had passed a troubled night. Being old, like the King, he required little sleep. And for most of the time between one o’clock and his rising hour of five he had lain in his narrow camp-bed and thought. He had not confided all his worries to the King.
Evidences of renewed activity on the part of the Terrorists were many. In the past month two of his best secret agents had disappeared. One had been found the day before, stabbed in the back. The Chancellor had seen the body—an unpleasant sight. But it was not of the dead man that General Mettlich thought. It was of the other. The dead tell nothing. But the living, under torture, tell many things. And this man Haeckel, young as he was, knew much that was vital. Knew the working of the Secret Service, the names of the outer circle of twelve, knew the codes and passwords, knew, too the ways of the palace, the hidden room always ready for emergency, even the passage that led by devious ways, underground, to a distant part of the great park.
At five General Mettlich had risen, exercised before an open window with an old pair of iron dumbbells, had followed this with a cold bath and hot coffee, and had gone to early Mass at the Cathedral.
And there, on his knees, he had prayed for a little help. He was, he said, getting old and infirm, and he had been too apt all his life to rely on his own right arm. But things were getting rather difficult. He prayed to Our Lady for intercession for the little Prince. He felt, in his old heart, that the Mother would understand the situation, and how he felt about it. And he asked in a general supplication, and very humbly, for a few years more of life. Not that life meant anything to him personally. He had outlived most of those he loved. But that he might serve the King, and after him the boy who would be Otto IX. He added, for fear they might not understand, having a great deal to look after, that he had earned all this by many years of loyalty, and besides, that he knew the situation better than any one else.
He felt much better after that. Especially as, at the moment he rose from his knees, the cathedral clock had chimed and then struck seven. He had found seven a very lucky number, So now he entered the boudoir of the Archduchess Annunciata, and the Countess went out another door, and closed it behind her, immediately opening it about an inch.
The Chancellor strode around the screen, scratching two tables with his sword as he advanced, and kissed the hand of the Princess Annunciata. They were old enemies and therefore always very polite to each other. The Archduchess offered him a cup of tea, which he took, although she always made very bad tea. And for a few moments they discussed things. Thus: the King’s condition; the replanting of the Place with trees; and the date of bringing out the Princess Hilda, who was still in the schoolroom.
But the Archduchess suddenly came to business. She was an abrupt person. “And now, General,” she said, “what is it?”
“I am in trouble, Highness,” replied the Chancellor simply.
“We are most of us in that condition at all times. I suppose you mean this absurd affair of yesterday. Why such a turmoil about it? The boy ran away. When he was ready he returned. It was absurd, and I dare say you and I both are being held for our sins. But he is here now, and safe.”
“I am afraid he is not as safe as you think, madame.”
“Why?”
He sat forward on the edge of his chair, and told her of the students at the University, who were being fired by some powerful voice; of the disappearance of the two spies; of the evidence that the Committee of Ten was meeting again, and the failure to discover their meeting-place; of disaffection among the people, according to the reports of his agents. And then to the real purpose of his visit. Karl of Karnia had, unofficially, proposed for the Princess Hedwig. He had himself broached the matter to the King, who had at least taken it under advisement. The Archduchess listened, rather pale. There was no mistaking the urgency in the Chancellor’s voice.
“Madame after centuries of independence we now face a crisis which we cannot meet alone. Believe me, I know of what I speak. United, we could stand against the world. But a divided kingdom, a disloyal and discontented people, spells the end.”
And at last he convinced her. But, because she was built of a contrary mould, she voiced an objection, not to the scheme, but to Karl himself. “I dislike him. He is arrogant and stupid.”
“But powerful, madame. And—what else is there to do?”
There was nothing else, and she knew it. But she refused to broach the matter to Hedwig.
She stated, and perhaps not without reason, that such a move was to damn the whole thing at once. She did not use exactly these words, but their royal equivalent. And it ended with the Chancellor, looking most ferocious but inwardly uneasy, undertaking to put, as one may say, a flea into the Princess Hedwig’s small ear.
As he strode out, the door into the next room closed quietly.