XXI
Fessenden drew a long and audible breath. It had not occurred to him soon enough to keep tally, but he felt justified in assuming that he had answered eight hundred questions. The power and magnetism of the Emperor still impressed him, but the fascination had waned. When he had boarded the yacht early in the afternoon, excited with a sensation that was half eager curiosity, half aggressive fear of being patronized, and had received a hearty greeting from a man as informal as he was charming, Fessenden had promptly conceived his first enthusiasm for a contemporary. He had as promptly reminded himself that he too intended to inspire enthusiasms—that his was not the rôle of the follower; nevertheless he had beamed back upon his imperial host; and, in spite of a flinty reserve in the background of both pairs of eyes, a mutual friendship was conceived at once. The Emperor had taken care to cement his personal fascination by exhibiting the machinery of his new yacht to his curious young guest, and a twenty-minutes’ argument on a subject of which one had much practical knowledge and the other almost as much by theory and observation, established a respect as strong as the sentiment. But when they were seated alone on deck, the Emperor’s inquiring mind was no longer to be restrained. A conversation with Mr. Abbott the day before had excited his curiosity; his interrogations began upon Fessenden’s babyhood; and then, with the rapid strokes ofa minute impressionist, never losing sight of causes and effects, he built up a complete picture of a self-made boy with a beneficent providence in the background. In three-quarters of an hour he not only knew the boy in the wilderness as well as the boy had known himself, but the history of the Nettlebecks, the size and condition of their farm, their attitude—or, as he discovered, their lack of attitude—towards Germany, the area of the Adirondack tract, the attention—or lack of attention—given it by the government, the inferior condition, as compared with Germany, of its forests, its roads, its bridges. His questions and comments showed such grasp and activity of intelligence that for a time Fessenden was as interested as the Man of Questions, and there were intervals when he was permitted to give a bit of thrilling description, notably of logging-camps and “driving,” which, as the Emperor’s eyes kindled and his horned upper lip twitched, flattered him for five or six consecutive minutes.
But from the Adirondacks, William passed swiftly to the Western University, and here his curiosity threatened to be insatiable. His questions indicated that Harvard and Yale could tell him no secrets, but of this more modern institution he had never heard until the day before; and an enterprise so novel, practical, and cheap appealed irresistibly to a ruler bent upon modernizing his country and making it the strongest industrially in Europe. He made no secret of the cause of his interest, and Fessenden sympathized heartily with the ambitious and energetic young monarch, and glowed at the thought of flinging a handful of American seeds broadcast upon the German Empire. But at the end of an hour and a quarter, when he had not only presented a picture of the university in all its complex details, from its methods of military drill to the last drop of grease in the machine-shops,but had sketched the personalities of all the professors and the most notable of the students, the strident tones of the august interlocutor seemed to be banging about in his brain, the abrupt rapid firing to have torn his nerves to tatters. The impatient action of his lungs receiving no attention from his host, whose eyes were concentrated and glittering, he sprang suddenly to his feet.
“Look here!” he exclaimed. “I really can’t stand it any longer. I’ll come back to-morrow, if you like. I think you are a great man, and I’m only too delighted to help you in any way I can, but if you ask me another question to-day I’ll jump off the yacht.”
For a second the Emperor’s eyes had flashed with a haughty surprise which gave Fessenden a passing glimpse of outraged majesty, but he recovered himself swiftly, and before the plaint finished he had sprung to his feet and grasped Fessenden’s hand, looking like a contrite school-boy.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “How inhospitable!—I never was so tactless in my life. But you have interested me so deeply. You are the most extraordinary young man—will you forgive me? and will you do me the honor to return for dinner? Mr. Abbott comes too.”
A warm responsiveness rushed through Fessenden’s veins and flashed from his frank impatient eyes; and he returned the hearty grasp of the other’s hand. But although the two men were mutually and strongly attracted, almost to the point of effusiveness, they nevertheless, and almost unconsciously, stared hard and long at each other. For the moment, despite aggressive differences, they looked alike. Their personalities pushed aside the mask of their features and snatched the knowledge that for them it was love or hate, friendship or enmity,mutual assistance or a bitter lifelong struggle, which might waste their energies and thwart their most passionate hopes.
William was the older and subtler. He laid his hand affectionately on his new friend’s shoulder. “I have suspected something of your father’s ultimate plans for you,” he said. “Now I am sure. I can help you as much as you can help me. The next time we are alone, turn the tables and ask me as many questions as you like. There is no reason why you should ever remind yourself that I am an Emperor—why our friendship should not be as informal and sincere as that of your charming sister and the daughter of the Emperor of Austria.”
“Do you know my sister?”
“Of course, and since she was twelve years old. But her chosen friend is my sworn enemy.”
That night, in the retirement of his state-room, Fessenden brushed his hair backward and his mustache upright. The Emperor at dinner had drawn his coils more closely. He had been brilliant, demonstrative, instructive, humorous, almost unegotistical. He had made Fessenden shine without asking a question, and he had toasted Mr. Abbott in the effusive rhetoric with which one ripened sovereign disguises his fear of another. Fessenden forgot his long array of self-made heroes—even those who had been cradled in purple and yet ridden victoriously through the pages of history. He took up an autographed picture of William, presented at parting, and studied it attentively, then regarded his own smooth young face with dissatisfaction.
“However,” he thought, “in his earlier photographs he had even less character than I have. It’s since he got his own way that he’s put it on with a brush. Isuppose I can have that eagle roll of the eye in time, too, if I choose, and square my iron jaw, and look as if I were hewn out of finely tempered steel. He has a sensitive mouth, all the same.”
In a moment he parted his short hair rapidly and brushed his mustache into a dejected curve. “I’d like to see myself!” he thought, with some irritation. “Hewouldhave the laugh on me to-morrow!”
He sat for an hour and pondered deeply on all that had passed between himself and the Emperor of Germany that day. Then he started up suddenly, opened the door of the adjoining state-room, and awakened his father.
“What does William want?” he demanded.
“Europe and South America,” murmured Mr. Abbott sleepily.