XVI
After luncheon the two girls, by Alexandra’s manœuvring, were alone in Ranata’s sitting-room. It was a very beautiful room now, with its golden walls, its rich Oriental hangings and chairs. The windows were open, and the Hungarian sunshine flooded it. Ranata sat in one of the deep straight-back chairs so beloved of royalty, Alexandra in a rocking-chair which had been upholstered to match the rest of the furniture, yet was impertinent and incongruous. “There is only one thing that will reconcile me to parting with you when you marry,” the Archduchess had remarked when it arrived; “I can have a bonfire made of all those ridiculous chairs.” And Alexandra had replied, “I will convert you even to those before I die.”
To-day neither was sensible of pleasantries. Alexandra’s face was flushed, and the Archduchess, although her eyes were fixed absently on Pest, and her profile might have been cut in stone, was bracing herself for thecoming conflict. Her subtle brain cleared and balanced its parts. She was determined to lose neither her friend nor her friend’s brother, and an ill-considered word might lose her both. She needed all her resources, for no one understood her so well as Alexandra.
“You know I never beat about the bush,” the disconcerting American began. “You would think me a fool if I pretended any longer to be blind to the fact that you are entangling my brother in order the better to turn the tables on the German Emperor. If he were any one else’s brother I should follow your course with pleasure—I was as delighted as amused at your easy subjugation of poor Molnár this morning; for I am, up to a certain point, heart and soul with you in this great matter—but Fessenden is my brother.”
“I wish he were not. Can you look at this matter dispassionately and impersonally, Alexandra? Do you believe that I can succeed as well without your brother?”
“Possibly not. But I see no reason why any American, much less the most useful young man in the United States, should be sacrificed to the Austrian dynasty. If it were a matter concerning your happiness, I might hesitate, for I love you as well as I do Fessenden; but when patriotism goes into the balance with family affection, pride also casts in a heavy weight.”
“But why do you speak so surely of sacrifice? Men are always falling in love with women, and always getting over it.”
“I have thought a good deal in the last few days. If Fessenden fell in love with you, he would have a hideous time getting over it—if he ever did.”
“If he fell in love with me? You do not think he has, then?”
“He is in the first stage now. I suppose a man canget over that. But quite aside from his feelings, I don’t wish to see him made a fool of.”
“I have no desire to make a fool of him.”
“I should like to know what you call it. Do not let us quibble. If you cannot love my brother send him away.”
“How would it help the matter if I did love your brother? I hope you do not wish me any such unhappy fate as that.”
“I wish only for your happiness. You know that from my point of view the impossible is always possible. And it is not altogether the American point of view. Heaven knows the Hapsburgs have adopted it more than once. I hear that another of your illustrious cousins is about to renounce his rights of possible succession, and his titles, in order to marry an actress—or is it a girl in a chocolate shop?”
“They are insignificant—they lose nothing but their titles and their position at court, for which presumably they care nothing. And you know my sorrow and disgust at all such poverty of self-respect and sense of duty. We need not go over that old ground again. You know that with me it would always be my house first. I should never consider myself for a moment.”
“Then send my brother away. He was an after-thought. You had made all your plans to succeed without him.”
“I am convinced that when William has made his Germany as strong and prosperous—when he has fulfilled that first ideal of his reign—and when my father is dead—he means to make war on Russia, and that your brother means to furnish the enormous sum necessary. And if William conquered Russia—” she waved her hands expressively.
“It is by no means certain that William will conquerRussia. It is a large order. The rest of Europe, to say nothing of England, would have something to say about it.”
“With the best part of Austria and all of Hungary at his back he could snap his fingers at the rest of Europe. Without the interference of Russia in 1849, Hungary would be a free state to-day, and she only waits for her chance of revenge. Who knows what agencies are at work to give reality to the Pan-Germanic movement the moment my father dies? Bohemia might sympathize with Russia, but what could she do, hemmed in as she is? Besides, the Slavs outside of Russia have little desire to put themselves under the heel of the heaviest tyranny in Europe. Most of them would prefer annexation with Germany, if only because the German Emperor has learned the secret of prosperity. If he tempted them with that inducement, you may be sure that only a Pole would hesitate and stand out for complete independence. All this enthusiasm here for William in Hungary is genuine enough, no doubt, but Budapest is as active and ambitious as Berlin, and a ruler who could and would make Hungary as rich and as successful, industrially and commercially, as she should be with her resources and her enterprise, would be quite as acceptable if he were less fascinating. And I will confess that I am superstitious about William. I never raise my eyes to the heavens at night that I do not fancy I see his star laughing at me. Indomitable ambition has united Europe before. There is no sufficient reason why it should not happen again. Before every great change of the world’s map wiseacres have shrugged their shoulders at the impossible, and the barriers have been solemnly pronounced impregnable. How easy it all seems when one looks back upon it. And with your brother—perhaps the United States—as his ally—great Heaven! IfI were William I should sleep serenely enough, in spite of all the antagonistic forces in Germany itself. And he grows in tact. He has the brain to learn his lessons.”
“And it is your purpose to reduce Fessenden to such a state of idiocy that he would give you his pledge to let William take care of himself? Suppose he had already given his word to the Emperor of Germany? Have you not seen enough of him to know that he is a man who under no possible circumstances would break his word?”
“I have seen enough to know that he is a man who would give the one woman the world if she asked for it. It is not necessary to break promises. There can be misunderstandings, quarrels, which leave men mutually free of one another.”
Alexandra drew her breath in and her brows together. She had hardly expected such frankness, well as she knew the methods of diplomacy. But she answered readily: “A man does not sacrifice his honor and his friendship, and place the world at the feet of the adored object with no hope of reward. Do you mean to say that you purpose to dazzle my brother with the hope of ultimate success?”
“No; it will not be long before we understand each other too completely for that!”
“Whatdoyou mean?”
A deep blush suffused Ranata’s face, and she stood up suddenly. “I believe I shall love your brother,” she said distinctly. “I believe it is my destiny as surely as it is that I was born to be useful to my house. I have never seen another man who has touched—has interested me at all. There has never been any hope in my heart that I should not love sooner or later—perhaps no wish. Would you take this from me—from him? Cannot you understand what a great love may mean to natures like mine and your brother’s—that the earthlyconsummation of love has nothing to do with its immortal part? Your brother did not receive your letter asking him to come here. We met by the merest accident—apparently!—and he interested me quite independently of my ambitions, my purpose. If ambition and purpose had never been born I should implore you as I do now to let him remain near me as long as possible. I shall not relax in my determination to win him from the Emperor of Germany, but there is so much in my soul to give! I shall give it to him—and I believe he will be satisfied.”
Alexandra, who had been repelled by the half revelation of purely human passion, thrilled at the vision of poetic and spiritual love high on the snowy peaks of Imagination. Ranata looked too exalted to kiss, but the American girl was delighted to find the infrequent tears in her own eyes. In a moment, however, her practical brain replied:
“I don’t believe Fessenden is very sentimental. You will have to educate him.”
“He needs less education than you think.”
“Of course you have already begun to idealize him. He is accustomed to get what he wants. He loves obstacles—and he always surmounts them.”
“I shall give him what he wants.”
Alexandra considered. She had little regard for the ultimate wants of men, had, indeed, given them slight consideration. But she knew that man was extremely prosaic on the subject of matrimony, and she was allured by the prospect of beholding her brother, purified of earthly gross, standing alone on a lofty peak, wrapped in the chastity of spiritual love. She shivered slightly, and Fessenden, somehow, seemed to slip out of the picture; but it pleased her nevertheless, and it was not unlike her own cool and romantic visions ofRanata’s future. Besides, it was not necessarily final. There was always the possibility that Fessenden, if induced to climb his peak, would stay on it only long enough to create a scheme for the further and final subjugation of Ranata. She answered after a moment’s thinking—
“You have put such an entirely different complexion on it! I should be a fiend to betray you. William and Fessenden both know how to take care of themselves. I’m frightfully interested, old girl, and I’ll never turn a hair again.”
When Ranata was alone she sat straight in her chair and stared hard at the floor. “How much of that did I mean?” she said finally and aloud. “How much! I wish to God I knew!”