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Everything in the garden that was not white was gray as a dove's wing that night. Even the shadows were not black. And the sky was gray, with a changeful glory of stars, like the shimmering light on a spangled fan that moves to and fro in the restless hand of a woman. White moths, forgetful that summer would come no more into their brief lives, fluttered out from the shadows like rose petals tossed by the south wind. On a trellis, a sisterhood of pale nun-roses hung their faces earthward inmemento mori.
It was a white night; a night of enchantment; a night for lovers.
Maximilian had only meant to take Sylvia out to see the moon rise over the water, turning the surface of jet to a sheet of steel; for there had been clouds or rain on other nights, and he had said to himself165that perhaps never again would they two stand alone together in the moonshine. He had meant to keep her to himself for five minutes, saying little, though it might be that he would think a great deal. He had meant that—no more; but they had walked down to the path which rimmed the cliff above the lake. And the moonlight lay on her gold hair and her fair face like a benediction. They did not look at one another, but out over the water, where the silver sheen cut the darkness like the sword Excalibur, rising from the lake.
Then came a sudden rustling in the grass by the side of the path, at their feet. It was some small winged thing of the night asking a lodging in a bell-shaped flower whose blue colour the moon had drunk. Maximilian bent to pluck the branch of blossoms, and at the same instant Sylvia stooped with a childlike impulse to "make the flower- bells ring."
Their hands met on the stem as it broke, and Maximilian's closed over hers.
The moment she desired had come; yet, womanlike, she wished it away—not gone forever, but waiting still, just round the corner of the166future.
"The flowers are yours," she said, as if she thought it was in eagerness to obtain the spray that he had grasped her fingers.
"You are the flower I want—the flower of all the world!" he suddenly answered. For the ice barriers had held back the torrent of which he had told her, had melted beneath the sun of love long ago. In turn, they had been replaced by other barriers, well-nigh as strong—his convictions; his duty as a man at the head of a nation. But now, in a moment, these too had been swept away. "I love you better than the life you saved," he spoke again. "I have loved you since that first hour, on the mountain; and every day since my love has grown, until I can fight against it no longer. Only say that you care for me a little—only say that."
"I do care," Sylvia whispered. She was very happy. She had prayed for this, lived for this. Yet she had pictured a different scene; she had seemed to hear broken words of sorrow and renunciation on his lips—a sorrow she could turn to joy. "I do care—so much that—it is hard to167think there is nothing for us but parting."
"If you care, then we shall not be parted," said Maximilian.
The Princess looked up at him in wonder, putting him from her, as he would have taken her in his arms. What did he mean? What was in his mind that, believing her to be Mary de Courcy, yet made it possible for him to speak as he was speaking now?
"I don't understand," she faltered. "What else is there for us? You are the Emperor of Rhaetia; I——"
"You are my wife, if you love me."
In the shock of her surprise she was helpless to resist him longer; and he held her tightly, passionately, his lips on her hair, as her face lay pressed against his heart. She could hear it beating, feel it throb under her cheek.His wife? How was it possible?
But he said the words again, "My darling—my wife!"
"You love me well enough—for that?" she breathed. Sylvia had not dared to dream of such a triumph as this. "But the law of your168country? Oh, surely you have forgotten! We can only love each other, and say good-bye." She was ready to try him yet a little further.
"We will love each other, but by heaven, we shall not say good-bye—not after this hour. I could not lose you. As for the law, there is nothing in it which prevents my being your husband, you my wife."
"It is strange." Sylvia's breath came quickly. "I have thought—I have always believed—that the Empress of Rhaetia must be of Royal blood. I——"
"Ah, my darling, the Empress of Rhaetia I cannot make you. If you love me as well—only half as well as I love you, you will be satisfied with the empire of my heart."
Suddenly the warm, throbbing blood in Sylvia's veins grew chill. It was as if a wind had blown up from the dark depths of the lake, to strike with an icy chill upon her soul. A moment more and she would have told him the whole truth, worshipping him because he had been ready to break through all the traditions of his country for her sake.169But now her passionate impulse of gratitude was frozen by that biting blast. If only it came from clouds of misunderstanding—if only the clouds would part, and give her back the full glory of a vanishing joy!
"The empire of your heart!" she echoed. "I should be richer than with all the treasures of the world, if that were mine. If you were the chamois-hunter I met on the mountain, I would love you as I love you now, and I would go with you to the ends of the earth, as your wife. But you are not the chamois-hunter; you are an emperor. Had you told me only of a hopeless love, having nothing else to offer save that, and a promise not to forget, since your high destiny must stand between us, I could still have been happy. Yet you say more than that. You say something I cannot understand. What an emperor offers a woman he honours, must be all or—nothing."
"I do offer you all," said Maximilian. "All myself, my life, the very soul of me—all that is my own to give. The rest belongs to Rhaetia."
"Then—what—--"
"Do you not understand, my sweet, that I have asked you to be my wife?170What can a man ask more?"
"Your wife yet not the Empress. How can the two be separated?"
He tried to take her once more in his arms, but when he saw that she would stand aloof, he held his love in control and waited. He was certain that he need not wait long, for not only had he laid his heart at her feet, but, to do that, he pledged himself to a tremendous sacrifice. The step upon which he had decided, in the moment when passion for her had overcome all prudent scruples, would create dissension among his people, rouse fierce anger in the heart of one who had been his second father, incense England and Germany because of the young Princess whose name rumour had already coupled with his, and altogether raise a fierce storm about his ears. When she had reflected, when she fully understood, she would be his, now and forever.
Very tenderly he took her hand and lifted it to his lips; then, when she did not snatch it from him—(because he was to have his chance of explanation)—he kept it between both his own, as he talked on.171
"Dearest one," he said, "when I first knew that I loved you (as I had not known it was in my nature to love a woman), for your sake and my own I would have avoided seeing you too often. This I tell you frankly. I did not see how, in honour, such a love could end except in sorrow for me—even for you, if it were possible that I could make you care. If you and Lady de Courcy had stayed at the hotel, I think I could have been faithful to the resolve. But when Baroness von Lynar spoke to me of your coming here, at the time of my own visit, my heart leaped up. I said in my mind: At least I shall have the happiness of seeing her every day, for a time, without doing anything to darken her future. I shall have these days always to remember, when she has gone out of my life, and no harm will be done, except to myself. Still, I only thought of parting, in the end—for that seemed in—itable. But not one night have I slept since I have been here at Lynarberg. My rooms open on a lawn at the other side of the house. Often I came out172here in the darkness, when every one else was sleeping; and sometimes I have stood on this very spot, where you and I stand together now—heart to heart for the first time, my darling—thinking whether, if you should care, there was any way to be found out of such difficulties as mine. At last a ray of light seemed to shine through the clouds. There was much to be overcome on both sides, and my mind was not yet clear, until I brought you here with me to-night. When I saw you by my side, the moonlight shining on your face, I caught at this way of binding our lives together. I knew that my life was worth nothing to me, unless it were to be shared with you."
"Yet you have not answered my question," said Sylvia.
"I am coming to that now. It was best that you should hear first what has been in my heart and mind, these last days which have held more joy for me than all the years I have left behind. You know that men who have their place at the head of a great nation cannot think merely of themselves and those they love better than themselves. If they173desire to snatch at personal happiness, they must take the only way open to them that is all. Don't do me the injustice to believe that I would not be proud to show you to my subjects as their Empress; but, instead, I can only offer you what men of Royal blood have for hundreds of years offered women whom they respected as well as loved. You have heard of an arrangement which in your country is called a morganatic marriage? That is what I propose."
With a low cry of pain—the bitter pain of disappointed love and wounded pride—Sylvia tore her hand from his.
"Never!" she exclaimed. "It is an insult."
"An insult? Then, even now I have not made you understand."
"I think that I understand very well—far too well," said Sylvia brokenly. The beautiful fairy structure of happiness that she had reared lay shattered—destroyed in the moment which should have seen its completion.
"I tell you that you do not understand, or you would not say—you would notdareto say, my love—that I had insulted you. You would174be honourably my wife in the sight of God and man."
"Your wife!" and Sylvia gave a hard little laugh which hurt more cruelly than tears. "You have a strange idea of that word, which has always been sacred to me. I would be your wife, you say; I would give you all my love, all myself; you—would give me your left hand. And you know well that, at any moment, you would be free to marry another woman—(a woman you could make an Empress!)—as free as if I had no existence."
"Legally I might be free," he answered, "but I swear to you that I would never take advantage of such liberty."
"To know you possessed it would be death to me. Oh, I tell you again, it was an insult to suggest a fate so miserable, so contemptible, for a woman you profess to love. How could you bear to break it to me? If only you had never spoken the hateful words; if you had left me the ideal I had formed of you—noble, glorious! But you are selfish, cruel—after all. If you had only said, 'I love you, yet we must part,175for Fate stands between', then I could—I could: but no, I can never tell you now what Imighthave answered if you had said that instead."
Under the sharp fire of her reproaches he stood still, his lips tightly closed, his shoulders squared, as if he had bared his breast for the blow of a knife.
"By heaven, it is you who are cruel!" he said at last. "How can I show you your injustice?"
"In no way. There is nothing more to say between us two, except—farewell."
"It shall not be farewell!"
"It shall—it must. Because—I wish it."
He had caught her dress as she turned to go; but now he released her. "You wish it? It is not true that you love me, then?"
"It was true. Everything—everything in my whole life—is changed now. It would be better if I had never seen you. Good-bye."
She ran from him. One step he took as if to pursue and keep her, but checked himself and followed her only with his eyes. In them there was more of anger than yearning; for Maximilian was a proud man, and to176have his love, and the sacrifice he would have made for love's sake, flung back in his face, came like an icy douche when the blood is at fever heat.
For love of this girl he had in a few days altered the habits of a lifetime. Pride, reserve, iron self-control, the wish not only to appear, but to be, a man above the frailties of common men; the desire to be admired almost as a god by his people all, all, he had flung aside for her. He was too just not to realize that if one of his many Royal cousins, of younger branches than his, had contemplated throwing away for love half that he was ready now to cast to the winds, he would have regarded such weakness with contempt. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound"; and until the Emperor had learned by his own most unlooked-for experience what love meant, what men will do for love while its sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly unable to sympathize with such passionate insanity as his own. A cousin inclined to act as he was bent on acting would once have found all the Emperor's influence, even force perhaps, brought forward to177constrain him. Maximilian saw this change in himself, was astonished and shamed by it; yet would have persevered, recklessly trampling down every obstacle, if only Sylvia had seen things with his eyes.
She had accused him of insulting her, caring not at all that, even to make her morganatically his wife, he must give great cause of offense to his Ministers and his people. He was expected to marry a woman of Royal rank, suitable to his own, and to give the country an heir. If Sylvia had accepted the position he offered, he could never have thought of another marriage. Not only would it be exceedingly difficult, in modern days, to find a princess willing to tolerate such a rival, but it would be impossible for him so to desecrate the bond between himself and the woman he adored. This being so, there could be no direct heir to the throne. At his death his uncle, the Archduke Egon's son, would succeed; and, during his own reign, the popularity which was dear to him would be hopelessly forfeited. Rhaetians would never forgive him for selfishly preferring his own private happiness to the good of the nation, or what they would consider its good; and178they would have a right to their resentment, as they had a right to demand that he should marry. He could fancy how old "Iron Heart" von Markstein would present this view to him, with furious eloquence, temples that throbbed like the ticking of a watch, eyes netted with bloodshot veins. He could fancy, too, how with Sylvia's love and promise to uphold him, he could have stood against the storm, steadfast in his own indomitable will. But now, the will which had carried him through life in a triumphal progress had been powerless against that of a girl. She would have none of him. A woman whose face was her fortune, whose place in life reached hardly so high as the first steps of a throne, had refused—an emperor.
Hardly yet could Maximilian believe the things which had happened. He had spoken of doubting that he had won her love; and so he had doubted. But he had allowed himself very strongly to hope, since in the annals of history it had scarcely been known that an emperor's suit should be despised. Besides, he had loved her so passionately,179that it seemed she could not be cold. He hoped still that, when she had passed the night in reflecting, in thinking over the situation, perhaps taking counsel with that commonplace but sensible lady, her mother, she might be ready, if approached for the second time, to change her mind.
For the first moment or two after the stinging rebuff he had suffered, Maximilian felt that he could not demean himself—having been so misjudged, so accused—to sue again. But, as he looked toward the house, and thought of Sylvia's sweetness, her beauty dimmed by grief—which he had caused—a great tenderness breathed its calm over the thwarted passion in his breast.
He would write a letter and send it to her room; or no, better give her a longer interval for repentance. To-morrow he would see her and show her all the depth of the love she had thrust aside. She could not withstand him forever; and now that he had burned his boats behind him, he would not go back. He could not give her up.
Sylvia had hurried blindly toward the house, and it was instinct rather than intention which led her to the open window of the music-room.180Tears burned her eyelids, but they did not fall until she stood once more where she and Maximilian had so lately been together. There she had sat, at the piano, while he had bent over her, and she had been happy. How little she had guessed the humiliation that was to come! How could she bear it, and how could she live out the years of her life after this?
She paused in the embrasure of the window, her little fingers fiercely clutching the heavy curtain, as she gazed through a mist at the picture called up by the open piano. Then a sob tore its way from her heart to her lips. "Cruel—cruel!" she stammered, half aloud. "What agony—what an insult! Ah, well, the dream's ended now."
Dashing the tears away to clear her vision, with desperation that must vent itself somehow, she flung the curtain aside and would have moved out into the room beyond, had not her gesture revealed the presence of a figure wrapped in the folds of velvet.
Some one else was there in the embrasure of the window—some one was181hiding, and had been spying. Dark as it was behind the satin-lined velvet curtain, she must have seen a form pressed back into the shadow, had not her eyes been blinded by her tears.
Now, her first impulse was for flight—anything to escape without recognition; but a second quick thought brought a change of mood. Whoever it was, had been watching, was already informed that Miss de Courcy had come in weeping, after atête-à-têtewith the Emperor. She must know who it was with whom she had to deal.
Sylvia had taken a step out into the room, as she flung back the curtain and touched the warm shape behind it. Wheeling suddenly round, she snatched the screen of velvet away and stood face to face with Captain von Markstein.
It was a crucial moment for him. Quailing under the lash of her glance, bereft of his presence of mind, he caught at any chance for self-justification. The girl had come back by a different path from the one he had watched; she had rushed in like a whirlwind, without182giving him the opportunity for escape which he had reasonably expected. If he stood waiting her condemnation, he was lost; he must step into the breach at whatever risk. No time to weigh words; the first which sprang to his tongue must be let loose.
"Don't think evil of me, Miss de Courcy!" he stammered, still groping for some excuse, in the cotton-wool which seemed to stuff his brains.
"I do not think at all." She held her head proudly; her eyes accused him and belied her words. With a swift step, she would have passed him, and he would have done well to let her go; but he had caught a whisper of inspiration from his evil genius. To turn the shame of this defeat to victory, to pose as hero instead of spy this was an ending to the game worth the throw of all his dice. So seemed to say something in his ear, and drunk with vanity he flung himself before her.
"Ibegof you to think," he cried. "I will not be misjudged. No man could stand still under the look in your eyes and not defend himself, if he were innocent. Your face says 'spy'."
"You have read your own meaning there! Pray let me go."183
"One moment first. You shall listen. I confess I knew you were in the garden with one whom we need not name To break in upon such atête-à-tête, for a man of my inferior rank, would be almost a crime, yet I would have committed that crime to save you. You are so innocent, so beautiful—I feared for you; I suspected—what I know now from your words has happened. I would have saved you this pain, if I could—but I was too late, only in time to see you coming in, to hear against my will—your exclamation. I waited to say that I can at least avenge you. I am at your service—your knight as in days of old. Tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it."
If Sylvia's eyes had been daggers, he would have fallen dead at her feet. For an instant she looked at him in silence. Then: "I would have you leave me, never to dare come into my presence again," she said. "And now I choose to pass."
Mechanically he gave way, and she swept by, with lifted head and the184proud bearing of an offended queen.
Otto was stricken dumb. Dully he watched her move across the long room to the door which led out into a corridor, not through the drawing- room. He saw the changing lights and shadows on her satin dress, as she passed under the chandelier; he saw the reflection of its whiteness mirrored on the polished floor. She was beautiful to him no longer, for he hated her because of his mistake, and because she had read his mind. She had seen the truth there, under his falsehoods, as he saw the reflection on the surface of shining oak. She knew that he was a moral coward, and that, had she accepted his fantastic offer, he would never have ventured to enter the lists as her knight against the Emperor. Fortunately, she had undoubtedly quarrelled with Maximilian, and would not carry tales. It would indeed be a sorry day for Otto if reconciliation ever came; and if by some strange chance of the future it seemed imminent, he must not let it come.
"Heavens! Does she fancy herself an Empress?" he sneered beneath his185breath. "Before Eberhard has finished with her, she may not even be what she is now!"
His ears still burned as if she had struck them. He could not return to the drawing-room until they had cooled. There was no hope for him now with Mary de Courcy, whatever the Chancellor's mysterious telegrams might contain, but he was too furious to mourn over lost hopes, lost opportunities. Eberhard was evidently trying to learn something to the girl's disadvantage and Otto's aid was only to have been bought in case of failure. Now, he was in a mood to offer it for nothing, and it occurred to him that he would ride over to Schloss Markstein early in the morning.
186
IT was for the refuge of isolation that Sylvia fled to her own room. Between her bedchamber and the Grand Duchess's was a boudoir, which they shared; and it was the door of this intermediate room that gave admittance, from the corridor outside, to both. To the girl's surprise, as she entered—her one comfort the assurance of being undisturbed—her mother looked reproachfully up from a pile of silken cushions on the sofa. Josephine was rubbing her hands, and the air was pervaded with the pungent fragrance of sal volatile.
"I thought you werenevercoming!" ejaculated the Grand Duchess. If she noticed her daughter's pallor, she believed it due to anxiety about herself.
Sylvia stared, half dazed, unable yet to separate her mind from her own private misfortunes.
"Never coming!" she echoed mechanically. "Why—are you ill—did you187expect me?"
"I nearly fainted downstairs," returned the Grand Duchess, "and it is entirely your fault. You ought not to have exposed me, at my age, to such terrible shocks. Josephine, you can go."
Sylvia grew as cold as ice. She could think of but one explanation. Otto von Markstein had not been the only spy. Somehow, news of what had happened in the garden had reached the Grand Duchess, reducing her to this extremity. The Princess was scarcely conscious of hearing the door close after the banished Josephine, yet instinctively she waited for the click of the latch. "How did you know?" she asked dully.
"How did I know? I had a telegram. A most alarming, disconcerting telegram. The question is, how didyouknow that I knew, and how did you—did I—oh, I am so distressed, I hardly knowanything!"
The word "telegram" showed Sylvia that somehow, somewhere, misunderstanding had entered in. Her mother's fretful complaints pried188among her nerves like hot wires; yet could she have believed it, the new pain was the best of counter-irritants.
"Are you suffering still, dear?" she questioned, carefully controlling her voice. With the Grand Duchess, it was always best to go back to the beginning, not to attempt picking up loose ends in the middle; thus, one sooner reached the end of a tangle.
"Yes, I am ill; very illindeed. Did no one tell you, no one send you to me, as I asked?"
"I have seen no one since I left you—no one, that is, who could tell me anything. Won'tyoutell—now?"
The Grand Duchess pointed a plump, dimpled forefinger toward a sixteenth-century writing-table. "The telegram's there, if you care to see it," she remarked crossly. She did not often lose her temper, or at least, not for long; but she had really borne a great deal of late, and, as she had observed, it was all Sylvia's fault, therefore it was Sylvia's turn to suffer now.
On the desk lay a crumpled piece of paper. Sylvia picked it up and read, written in English:
"Somebody making inquiries here about De Courcys. Beg to advise you189immediately to explain all, or leave present place of residence; avoid almost certain unpleasantness. Have just heard of complications.—WEST."
"Well, what do you think of that?" irritably demanded the Duchess, vexed at Sylvia's calmness. "Isn't it enough to make any one faint? That I—I, a woman in my position should be forced to appear a—er—anadventuress! If it were not so dreadful, it would be absurd. You might show alittlefeeling, since it is for you that I have done it all."
"I have plenty of feeling, mother," said Sylvia. "Only I—seem somehow rather stunned just now. I suppose Lady West means that busy bodies have been trying to find out things about the De Courcys. We have provided for most contingencies, but we had not thought of spies—till to-night."
"I allowed myself to be led by you," declared the Grand Duchess, "when I ought to have controlled you, as my child. I should never have allowed myself to be placed in such an ignominious plight. But here I190am, in it; and here you are also—which is quite as bad, if not worse. You have brought us into this trouble, Sylvia; the least you can do is to get us out. And, after all"—brightening a little—"there is, thank goodness, a way to do that. It ought not to be soverydifficult."
"What way—do you mean?"
"I wonder you ask—since there is only one. Stop this foolish child's game that you have deluded me into playing; explain everything to the Emperor and to Baroness von Lynar, and be prepared to turn the tables on our enemy whoever that may be. Your dear father always said that I had a head for emergencies, once I could get the upper hand of my nerves, and I hope—Ithink, he was right."
"But what you propose is impossible, mother."
Sylvia spoke in a low, constrained voice, and the Grand Duchess, rising from among her pillows, suddenly observed for the first time that there was something strange in the girl's manner and appearance. She admired her daughter, as a bewildered hen-mother might admire the beautiful, incomprehensible ball of golden fluff that sails calmly191away beyond her control in a terrifying expanse of water, while she herself can only cluck protest from the bank. The Grand Duchess had almost invariably yielded her will to Sylvia's in the end; but she told herself that she had done so once too often, and the weaknesses of her past buttressed her obstinacy in the present.
"I tell you it isn't impossible," she exclaimed. "It can't be impossible, when it's the only way left to save our dignity. We mustn't let our enemies have the first move. You meant to make a sort of dramatic revelation, sooner or later. Well, it must be sooner, that is all, my dear."
"Ah, I meant—I meant!" echoed Sylvia, the sound of a sob in her voice. "Nothing has happened as I meant, mother. You were right; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia."
The Grand Duchess's heart gave a thump. If Sylvia were thus ready to admit herself in the wrong, without a struggle, then matters must indeed have reached an alarming pass. Not a jest; not a single192flippancy! The poor lady was seriously distressed.
"Not—come—to—Rhaetia?" she repeated as incredulously as if she had not herself lately made the same assertion. "Why—why—what——"
"I scarcely know how to tell you," said Sylvia, with lowered lashes. "But I suppose I must."
"Of course you must. I thought you looked upset. You were withhim——in the music-room. Yes; I remember. Did you try to explain, and he—was it as I feared, only this evening before dinner? Wouldn't he forgive the decep——"
"He knows nothing about it."
"Well, what then? Don't keep me in suspense. I've had enough to try me without that." And the Grand Duchess raised a little jewelled vinaigrette to her nostrils. It had been given her by Queen Victoria, and was particularly supporting in a time of trial.
Sylvia's lips were so dry that she found difficulty in articulating. There were some things it was extremely embarrassing to tell one's mother.
"We—went out into the garden—to see the moon—or something," she193managed to begin. "He asked me to be—his wife. Oh—wait, wait, please!Don'tsay anything yet! I didn't know what to make of it, and—he had to explain. He put it as inoffensively as he could, but—oh! mother, I—I was only good enough to be hismorganaticwife!"
The storm had burst at last. There had always been mental and temperamental barriers between the parent and child; but, after all, a mother is a mother; and nothing better has ever been invented yet. Sylvia fell on her knees by the sofa, and, burying her head in her mother's lap, sobbed as if parting with her youth.
The Grand Duchess thought of the last time when the girl had so knelt beside her, the bright hair under her caressing hand; and the contrast betweenthenandnowbrought motherly tears to her eyes. That time had been in the dear old river garden at Richmond, when Sylvia had coaxed away her promise to help forward this very scheme—this disastrous, miserable,madscheme. Poor little Sylvia, so young, so inexperienced, so thoroughly girlish for all her naughty obstinacy and194recklessness, sweet and loving and impulsive! The child had been so full of hope then; why, only a few hours ago, she had said she was the happiest creature on earth!
All the Grand Duchess's resentment melted away as she rocked the sobbing girl in the comfortable cradle of her arms, murmuring and crying over her—the hen-mother, over the golden duckling that had ventured into water too rough and treacherous.
"There, there, dear," she crooned. "It isn't so very dreadful; not half as bad as you made me think. I'm sure hemeantwell. It showed, at any rate, that he loved you. Just at first, it came as rather ashock, of course, knowing who we are; but if you had really been Miss de Courcy, I suppose—I suppose it would have been a greatcompliment."
"I call it an insult; I called it so to him," gasped Sylvia in the midst of sobs.
"Oh, dear me, not as bad as that—not at all! Many ladies of very high standing have been in such positions, and every one has thoroughly respected them. Though, of course, such a thing would never do for195you; you must reflect that Maximilian couldn'tknowthat."
"He ought to have known—known that I would never consent. That no woman with English blood in her veins would ever consent. It was an insult. It has shown how poor was his estimate of me. It was—it was! It has broken my heart. It has killed me. Oh, mother, it's all at an end—everything I lived for. I can never bear to see him after this."
"You'll feel differently to-morrow, pet," purred the Grand Duchess, smoothing the tumbled waves of yellow hair.
"Never!"
"You are too young to fully understand the etiquette of Courts. Remember,hispoint of view is different from yours."
"That is the reason I am so miserable. His point of view is hateful. I want to go away—to go away at once."
Her earnest emphasis forced conviction. She really meant it. This was no girlish whim, to be repented in a few hours, a lovers' quarrel, to be made up to-morrow. The Grand Duchess's kindly face, already deeply196clouded, was utterly obscured in gloom. The small features seemed lost behind their expression of distress.
"But surely you will tell him the truth, or let me, and give him a chance to—to speak again? Now, more than ever——"
"What good would it do? Everything is spoiled. Of course, if he knew I were Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald, he would be sorry for what had happened, even if he thought I had brought it all on myself. But that would be too late to mend anything. Don't you see, don't you understand, that I valued his love because it was given to me, justme, not the Princess? If he said, 'Now that I know you are Sylvia, I can have the pleasure of offering myright, instead of mylefthand to you, as my wife, and everything can be very pleasant and regular,' I should not care for that at all. No, we must go home, mother; and the Emperor Maximilian of Rhaetia must be informed that Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald has decided not to marry. That will be our one revenge—the only one we can have—that little slap in the face to197His Imperial Majesty; so pitiful a slap, since he will never know that Princess Sylvia who won't marry him, and Miss de Courcy who can't, are one and the same. But, mother, I did love him—I did love him so!"
"Then forget and forgive—and be happy, while you can."
"I can't. I've just told you why. Oh, do let us make our plans to get out of this hateful house as soon as possible."
The Grand Duchess resigned herself to the inevitable, and only a deep sigh told the tale of the effort resignation cost her. For once she was expected to take the initiative, and the responsibility was a stimulant; this one consolation was left her.
"Well," she said, after a moment's abstruse reflection, "the telegram will give us an excuse. I was so overcome on reading it that I had to sit down again after getting suddenly up from my chair and borrow the Baroness's smelling-salts—poor, inadequate Rhaetian stuff. Every one was alarmed, and I explained, without going into particulars, that I198had received mostdisturbingnews from England. Directly I felt more like myself, I came upstairs, requesting that you should be sent to me, when you returned—though you were not to be speciallycalled. I begged the Baroness not to be anxious, but she said that, before she went to bed, I really must allow her to stop at the door and inquire how I was. We might say to her that the telegram had compelled our immediate return to England."
"Listen," whispered Sylvia. "There's someone at the door now."
She sprang to her feet, and, with the marvellous facility for meeting a conventional emergency possessed by all women in palace or tenement, between the time of rising and walking to the door, she had conquered the disorder of her countenance. Her hair was smoothed back into perfection; the laces on her dress had fallen into their original old graceful lines; her face, though flushed, would show no sign of tears in the softly shaded light.
Sylvia herself opened the door and gracefully besought the inquiring Baroness to come in. Immediately after the scene in the garden, she199could not have done this so quietly; but she had cried her heart out now, and reviled the offender to a sympathetic audience, thus facilitating the return of self-control. Even if the Baroness von Lynar guessed that she had been weeping, it would only be put down to the score of that mysterious "bad news."
"How good of you!" breathed the Grand Duchess, with a less coherent undertone of appreciation from Sylvia. "Oh, yes, thank you,somuch better; quite well again, though still very anxious.Somebodymust have been kind enough to tell dear Mary, for here she is, you see; and she and I have been talking matters over. We are quitedesolatedat breaking our delightful visit suddenly short, but unluckily it can't be helped. Thisunfortunatenews from home! We must positively not lose an hour in returning."
Baroness von Lynar was genuinely disconcerted, though perhaps her guests would scarcely have been flattered had they divined the true cause of her intense desire to detain them. Miss de Courcy had been200the bright particular star of the house party at Lynarberg, as the mistress of the castle delicately declared, and it was grievous that the sky must be robbed of its most brilliant ornament. But it was far more grievous that Maximilian should be annoyed, and the Baroness's own pretty, secret little scheme probably be brought to confusion.
"It is too cruel!" she exclaimed, with unwonted sincerity. "What shall we do without you? We could better have spared any others among our guests. Our poor party will be hopelessly shattered by your loss. Could you not wire home that you are coming at your earliest convenience, dear Lady de Courcy, and stay with us at least until the day after to-morrow, when the Emperor's visit will be over?"
"Alas! I am afraid we could not do even that," regretted the Grand Duchess, her eyes on Sylvia's face. "It is necessary that we reach England as soon as possible. We were thinking of quite an early train to-morrow. You will forgive us, I know, dear Baroness von Lynar; but we have both been so upset by these sad tidings that we shall hardly201be equal to facing any of our kind friends here again. These things are so unnerving, you know—and I give way so easily of late years. As a great favour to us both, pray mention to no one that we are going, until we have actually gone. If you would allow us to leave our adieux to be said by you, we would beg you for a carriage after an early cup of coffee in our rooms; then we could pick up Miss Collinson and the luggage we left at the Hohenburgerhof, and catch the Orient express from Salzbrück to Paris."
The Baroness was aghast at her own defeat and her powerlessness to retrieve it. For once she failed in tact. "But the Emperor?" she exclaimed. "He will be deeply hurt if he is denied the sad privilege of bidding you farewell."
The Grand Duchess hesitated, and Sylvia entered the conversational lists for the first time. "The Emperor will understand," she said quietly; "I said good-bye to him—for us both—to-night."
202
BREAKFAST at Schloss Lynarberg was an informal meal. Those who were sociably inclined at that hour appeared; those who loved not their kind until later in the day, broke their fast in the safe seclusion of their own apartments.
Maximilian had shown himself at the breakfast-table every morning since the beginning of his visit, and it had been Sylvia's usual custom also to be present. But Lady de Courcy invariably kept her room till later, and on one occasion the daughter had borne her mother company. On the morning after the misunderstanding in the garden, therefore, the Emperor was only disappointed, not surprised, to find that Sylvia did not come. He had spent another wakeful night, but he could not bring himself to believe that Sylvia would never listen to him, that she would not yet be brought to see the future through his203eyes.
It was his last whole day at Lynarberg, but, by his special request, no regular programme of entertainment had been made. As breakfast progressed, Maximilian turned over in his mind plan after plan for another meeting with Sylvia, and hoped that, by this time, she would be as ready to receive his overtures as he to make them. He longed to write her a letter, imploring her to come to him; but feared, unless he could make his first appeal in person, that he might defeat his own object. It would be better, perhaps, to wait until she was actually in his presence, then carry her away from the eyes of others by some bold stroke.
But she did not come, even when for half an hour they had all been strolling in the quaint pleasaunce, where the white peacocks spread their jewelled tails and shrilly disputed for possession of the sundial. The Baroness, who walked by the Emperor's side, and appeared singularlydistraite, despite her constant efforts at repartee, at length proposed that they should row out again to Cupid's Isle. The204morning was so fine, and the red October lilies which had been in bud there the other day ought to be open by now.
Maximilian approved the idea. "Shall you not send for Miss de Courcy?" he inquired, with a simulated carelessness at which Malvine could have laughed—had she not been more inclined to weep. "I think I remember hearing her say that there are no such lilies in England, and that she would like to see them in fuller bloom."
The Baroness glanced quickly behind her. None of the others were within earshot, if she spoke in a low voice. "Oh, but you have forgotten, have you not, Your Majesty? Miss de Courcy and her mother have already gone."
He turned so white, under the coat of brown the mountains had given, that Malvine was startled. She had believed Sylvia—more or less—supposing until now that the Emperor had actually been made aware of the intended flitting. There had been an affecting parting, perhaps, she had told herself; and for his sake she had refrained from mentioning the De Courcys at breakfast in the presence of other205guests. For the last few moments she had been impatiently waiting for Maximilian to introduce the subject, hoping that he might be confidentially inclined; but it was a genuine surprise to discover that he had really been kept in ignorance. Malvine was very angry with Sylvia's deception; for, had she dreamed, in time, that the Emperor did not know the girl was going, she would slyly have given him a chance to follow, if he chose. Now, it was in all probability already too late for this.
"Where have they gone?" he asked the only sign of feeling in the pallor of his face and the fire in his eyes.
"To Salzbrück, Your Majesty."
"Oh, is that all? Then they are coming back; or, at least, they are not leaving Rhaetia?"
"I am afraid they are leaving."
"When?"
"To-day, by the Orient express. I did all I could to keep them. But some bad news reached Lady de Courcy last night, in a telegram from England. They both insisted that they must go home at once, begging as a favour, since they felt unequal to farewells, that no one should206know until they were gone—except, of course, Your Majesty. Miss de Courcy said that—you knew; that you would understand."
The Emperor was silent for a moment, and Malvine would have glanced up at him from under her artificially darkened lashes, if she had dared. But she did not dare. Still, she was beginning to hope that the feeling she would fain have seen implanted in his heart had already taken root so deeply that it would not soon perish. In that case, after all, she would have thwarted the Chancellor—for a time at least; since a man, even when he is an emperor, cannot readily be persuaded to marry one woman when his heart is aching with love for another.
When Maximilian did speak, his voice was very quiet—aggravatingly quiet, thought Malvine—but his eyes were even brighter than before. It was a dangerous, rather than a pleasant brightness; and Malvine, who had no cause to fear its menace for herself, wondered what the light betokened.
"Miss de Courcy did speak of leaving earlier than she had expected,"207he said. "But if she gave me reason to suppose it would be so soon, I certainly did not understand. I am sorry that there was bad news from England."
So also was Malvine; but she began now to ask herself if the news alone had sufficed to snatch her guests so suddenly away.
"Is it long since they left Lynarberg?" the Emperor added.
"They went at about half-past seven this morning, before any one was up, except my husband and myself and the servants. By half-past eight they would have joined their companion, who remained at the Hohenburgerhof. Then there would have been a little packing to oversee, perhaps, and the Orient express is due in Salzbrück, I think, at precisely one o'clock. It is now"—she glanced half-apologetically at the watch in her bracelet—"it is now five minutes past twelve, so that in less than an hour the prettiest woman who ever came to Salzbrück will have vanished again." And, as Malvine von Lynar spoke, she sighed.
The blood rushed to Maximilian's face. He had a choice between two208evils. If he pursued and overtook the girl, he might persuade her to hear reason; at least, she would see that he was no laggard in love. But to follow, to cut short the visit at Lynarberg, which should not have ended till next day, would be virtually to take the world into his secret. The Baroness would know; others would suspect. A month ago such a question (when yielding to inclination meant a humbling of his pride as man and Emperor) would have decided itself. But within these last days Maximilian had learned that his valued strength of will in the past had been ruled, more or less, by the limitations of his desire. Now, he wanted to do a certain thing more than he had ever wanted anything in the whole course of his life, and the question was mentally settled as quickly as it would have been a month ago; the only difference being that it was settled in the opposite way.
"Baroness von Lynar, you and I are old friends," he said hastily.
"I value your friendship above all things, Your Majesty, and would keep it at any cost."
"Then keep something else for me as well; a secret—though it may not209be a secret long. You have seen me with Miss de Courcy. And you have guessed something, perhaps?"
"Women are ever quick to jump at romantic conclusions. But——"
"I am answered. A moment has come when I must choose between speaking frankly with you or leaving you to suspect what you will. I choose frankness. There's nearly an hour yet before the Orient express leaves Salzbrück, and you say Miss de Courcy is going with it. I can't let her go without seeing her again. I want—but you know what I want."
"You want your horse and your aide-de-camp's horse saddled; you want to ride away now, at once, to catch the train before it leaves the station; and you want me to give some plausible reason which will account to every one for your sudden departure. Anything, so that it is not connected with Miss de Courcy. Am I right?"
"Absolutely. If I get off in a quarter of an hour, I can just do it."
"I will slip into the house, Your Majesty, and send a servant at once210to the stables. Captain von Loewenstein shall be summoned, and you can be on the road in ten minutes."
"I'll go with you to the house, my friend."
"Everybody shall be given to understand that you are called away from Lynarberg on pressing business, but that you expect to return in the afternoon. If you find it bestnotto come, send a wire saying that you are detained. All will be deeply disappointed; but no one will guess the truth, and more than that, no one will talk."
By this time they were at the house steps. Malvine flew in to give orders, while Maximilian waited, his eyes on his watch. Four minutes later Captain von Loewenstein, the Emperor's aide-de-camp (who had been in the act of proposing to pretty Baroness Marie Vedera), stood ready to receive his master's orders. Ten minutes more, and the two soldierly figures rode at a gallop out from the park gates at Lynarberg.
"We're going to the station, to catch the Orient express, Von Loewenstein," said Maximilian. "I have—promised myself to say good- bye to some friends."
"Were you aware, Your Majesty," asked the aide-de-camp, "that the211time-table has just been changed for the autumn? The Orient express leaves ten minutes earlier than it has during the summer."
The Emperor used a strong word. "Are you certain, Von Loewenstein?"
"Certain, Your Majesty. I looked out the time for my sister, who goes to Paris next week. The new table only came into use yesterday."
"I'll kill my horse under me rather than lose the train," said the Emperor. And he loved Arabian Selim well, as Von Loewenstein knew.
"We've just a chance of doing it without that, Your Majesty. It's scarcely five miles now."
They rode as if their lives were at stake. And they rode without a word. At last they came to the suburbs, then into the outskirts of the town. In the distance, a church clock chimed the quarter before one. The two looked at each other. Five minutes, and the station was but a mile away. They would do the trick yet!
The upright line between Maximilian's black brows relaxed. He threw up his head and smiled like a boy, looking—Loewenstein thought—as he212looked when they camped in the Weisshorn and shot chamois.
"You shall have something to make you remember to-day, if all goes well," he said to the aide-de-camp; then drew in his breath sharply, for Selim had stumbled. A dozen yards away, on the dusty white of the road, lay a black crescent—Selim's shoe.
Quick as light, Maximilian sprang off. "Give me your mare, von Loewenstein," he said. "I must go on alone."
So they made the change, and the younger man watched his master disappear in a cloud of dust, as he, on Selim's back, followed slowly after. And he wished that he knew whether the little Baroness Marie would have said yes or no, and whether the Emperor's business with the Orient express were business of state or love.
Kohinoor had not the staying power of Selim; she was good for a spurt of speed; but she knew when she had had enough, and no mortal power could persuade her otherwise, when she thought that such a time had arrived. People stared to see a man urging a smoking thoroughbred213through the broad Bahnhofstrasse in Salzbrück, at a speed forbidden within the town limits, and stared still more at beholding a gendarme leap forward with a warning shout, then blunder back again speechless, with a crimson face under his shining helmet. Horse and man dashed by so madly that few could tell whether the rider were a person of importance at the Court, or a stranger. But a soldier of cavalry swaggering away from barracks with a friend, said, "Do you know who that is?"
"By the way he rides I should say it was his Satanic Majesty," declared the other, a country recruit.
"You're not far wrong, maybe; but, all the same, it is His Majesty our Emperor," replied the first.
The hands on the big, white clock-face looking down from the Bahnhof tower pointed at five minutes to one, when Maximilian reined up the mare before the main entrance, and bade adienstmannhold his horse, as if he had been a common townsman. Something the fellow shouted214about being there to carry luggage, not to hold horses (for he did not know the Emperor by sight), but Maximilian waited neither to hear nor argue. He sprang up the broad stone stairway, three steps at a time.
"Has the Orient express gone yet?" he demanded of the man at the door of the departure platform.
"Five minutes ago," returned the official, not troubling to look up.
An unreasoning fury against fate raged in Maximilian's breast. He ruled this country, yet everything in it seemed to combine in a plot to thwart his dearest desire. For a moment he felt as if he had come up against a blank wall and saw no present way of getting round it; but that was only for an instant, since the Emperor was not a man of slow decisions. His first step was to inquire what was the earliest stop made by the Orient express. In three hours, he learned, it would reach Wandeck, the last station on the Rhaetian side of the frontier. What was the next train, then, leaving Salzbrück for Wandeck? In twenty minutes, apersonenzugwould go out. After that, there would215be no other train for two hours. Thepersonenzugwould arrive at Wandeck only fifty minutes earlier than theschnellzugfollowing so much later, therefore most people preferred to wait. But Maximilian, having gathered this intelligence, was not of the majority; he chose the fifty minutes in Wandeck, for even if he courted publicity by engaging a special, so long a time must pass before it could be ready that he would gain no advantage.
Before taking his ticket, however, he telephoned the Hohenburgerhof, to satisfy himself beyond doubt that the De Courcys had actually gone. There was a delay of a few minutes before the answer came; but presently he was informed that the ladies had left the hotel. This decided his plan of action once for all, and the short remaining interval before the departure of the slow train he snatched for writing out two telegrams, one to Baroness von Lynar, the other to a person more important.
The first words of the latter ran fluently. "Miss Mary de Courcy, Orient express, care of the stationmaster, Wandeck," he wrote. "I beg that you will leave the train here and wait for me. I am following,216and will arrive in Wandeek three hours after you. I will look for you and hope to find you at the Maximilianhof."
So far it was very simple. He had expressed his wish and signified his intention, which would have been enough if Miss de Courcy were a loyal subject of his own. But unfortunately she had exhibited no signs of subjection; and the question arose, would she grant the most ardently expressed request, unless he could offer some new inducement? On reflection, he was ruefully compelled to admit that she probably would not. Yet what had he to urge that he had not urged last night? What could he say, at this eleventh hour, which would keep her from passing forever beyond his dominions and beyond hope of recall?
As he stood, pen in hand (each moment of hesitation at the risk of missing his chosen train), a curious memory came to him. He recalled a fairy tale which had been a favourite of his childhood, and had helped to form his resolve that, whenhegrew to manhood, he would never miss217an opportunity through vacillation. The story had for its hero a prince who went abroad so seek his fortune, and received from one of the Fates three magic citrons which he was told to cut by the side of a fountain. Obeying, from the first citron sprang a beautiful maiden, who demanded a drink of water; and while the prince gazed in amazement, vanished. With the second citron, it was the same; and the third maiden would have been irrevocably lost also, had not the youth recovered his presence of mind at the last moment.
Now, Maximilian said to himself, his knife was on the rind of the last citron. Let him think well before he cut, that his one remaining chance of happiness might not vanish like the two fairy maidens.
He had believed it impossible for a man to love a woman more than he loved Mary de Courcy; but, knowing that he was on the point of losing her, he found his love a thousand-fold greater than he had known. The sacrifice he had been ready to make had loomed large in his eyes; now, it was nothing, since it had not sufficed to win or keep her. What,218then, could he do? What other resource had he left?
Suddenly it seemed that a great light shone before his eyes, like a meteor bursting, and a voice whispered in his ear a thought that ran like fire through his veins.
Why not?he asked of his heart. Who was bold enough to say "no" to the Emperor's "yes"? Had he not proved more than once that his strength, his will, made him a law unto himself?
A dark flush stained his face, and he wrote quickly on and on. When he had finished, and signed his telegram "The Chamois Hunter," he hurried away to buy a ticket, and was only just in time. He sprang into an empty first-class carriage, and threw himself into a seat as the train began to move slowly out of the station.
In his brain rang the intoxicating music of his great resolve. He could see nothing, think of nothing but that. His arms ached to clasp the girl he loved; his lips, cheated last night, already felt her kisses. For she would give them now, and she would give herself. He was treading the past of an Empire under foot to win her, and every219throb of the engine brought them nearer together.
But such moments of exaltation come seldom in a lifetime. The heart of man or woman could not go on forever playing the wild refrain of their accompaniment; and so it was that, as the minutes passed, the song of the blood in Maximilian's veins fell to a minor key. He thought still of Sylvia, and thought of her with passion which would be satisfied at any cost; but he thought of lesser things as well. He viewed the course which his meditated action laid out before him, like a man who rides a race for life or death across strange country, where none have passed before.
There was no one on earth whom Maximilian of Rhaetia feared, but there was one to whom he owed much, and whom it would be grievous to offend. In his father's day, one man, old even then, had built upon the foundations of a disastrous past a great and prosperous nation. This man had been to Maximilian what his father could never have been; and, without the magnetic gift of inspiring affection, had instilled220respect and gratitude in the breast of an enthusiastic boy.
"Poor old Von Markstein!" the Emperor said to himself. "He will feel this sorely. I would spare him if I could; yet I cannot live my life for him——"
He sighed, and looked up frowning at some sudden sound. Like a spirit called from the vasty deep, there stood the Chancellor at the door between Maximilian's compartment and the next.
221
OLD "Iron Heart" was dressed in the long, double-breasted gray overcoat, and wore, pulled over his eyes, the gray slouch hat, in which all snapshot photographs (no others had ever been taken) represented him.
At sight of the Emperor, leaning with folded arms against the red plush cushions, he took off his famous hat, to show the bald, shining dome of his great head, fringed with hair of curiously mingled black and white.
"Good day, Your Majesty," he observed, with no sign of surprise in voice or countenance.
The train rocked from side to side, and it was with difficulty that the old man kept his footing; but he stood rigidly erect, supporting himself in the doorway, until the Emperor invited him to enter and be seated.
"I am glad that you are well enough to travel, Chancellor," cried222Maximilian. "We had none too encouraging an account of you from Captain Otto the day before yesterday."
"I travel because you travel, Your Majesty," said "Iron Heart."
They now sat facing each other, on opposite seats, and the Emperor, combating a boyish sense of guilt, stared fixedly at the square visage, on which the afternoon light cruelly scored the detail of each wrinkle.
"So?" said Maximilian.
"Your Majesty, I have served you, and your father before you. I think you trust me somewhat?"
"No man more. But this sounds a momentous preface. Is it possible you find it necessary to lead up to the subject, if I can have the pleasure of doing you a favour?"
"It is no preface, Your Majesty. I am too blunt a man to begin with prefaces when I serve in the capacity, not of diplomat, but friend. For you have allowed me to call myself your friend."
"I have asked it of you."
"If I seemed to lead up to what I have to say, it is only for the sake223of explanation. You are wondering, perhaps, how I knew that you would travel to-day, and why, knowing it, I ventured to follow. I learned your intention by accident" (the Chancellor did not, for all his boasted bluntness, tell what lay behind that accident); "wishing much to talk over with you a pressing matter which brooks no delay, I took this liberty, and seized the opportunity of speaking with you alone. Some men in my situation would think it wiser to pretend that business of their own had brought them on the journey, and that the meeting had come about by chance. But I am not one to work in the dark, and I want Your Majesty to know the truth." Which no doubt he did; but perhaps not quite the whole truth.
"You raise my curiosity," said Maximilian.
"I will not keep it waiting long," said "Iron Heart." "Have I your indulgence to speak frankly, not wholly as a servant of the Emperor to his master, but as man to man—an old man to a young one?"
"I would have you speak in no other way," answered Maximilian; but he224uttered the words with a certain constraint, and the softness died out of his eyes.
"I have had a letter from Friedrich, the Crown Prince of Abruzzia. It has come to his ears that there is a reason for your Imperial Majesty's delay in following up the first overtures for an alliance with his family. Gossip has told him that Your Majesty's affections have become otherwise engaged, and he has written to me as a friend, asking me to contradict or confirm the rumour."
"I am not sure that negotiations had progressed far enough in that matter to give him the right of inquiry," said Maximilian, flushing.
The old man spread out his hands—the pathetic hands of age—in a deprecatory gesture. "I fear, in my zeal for Your Majesty's welfare and the welfare of Rhaetia, I somewhat exceeded my instructions," he confessed. "My one excuse is, that I believed your mind to be entirely made up. I still believe so. I would listen to no one who told me225otherwise. And I will inform Friedrich that——"
"You must even get yourself and me out of the scrape as gracefully as you can, since you admit you got us into it," broke in the Emperor, sinfully glad of the chance to transfer a fraction of the blame to other shoulders. "If Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald is as charming as she is said to be, her only difficulty will be to choose a husband, not to get one. For once gossip has told the truth, and I would not pay the Princess so poor a compliment as to ask for her hand when my heart is irrevocably given to another woman."
"It is of that other I would speak with you also, Your Majesty. Gossip has named her. May I do the same?"
"I will save you the trouble, Chancellor," retorted Maximilian, "for I am not ashamed that at last the common fate of all has overtaken me—common, because they say every man loves once before he dies; yet uncommon, because no man ever loved such a woman. There is no one in the world like Miss de Courcy—the English lady who saved my life on226the eve of my birthday, as you know."
"It is natural that you should feel grateful, Your Majesty."
"It is natural that I should feel love; impossible that I should not feel it."
"Natural that being still young and inexperienced in such matters, Your Majesty should mistake gratitude for love; impossible that you should let the mistake continue."
"If it were a mistake! I am keeping to my bargain, Chancellor, and talking with you man to man, for I know you won't try me too far. In such a connection it would be better not to mention the word 'mistake'. I am glad that you followed me, for I may as well say that I meant you should know my intentions within a few days. You, of course, would have known before any one."
"Intentions, Your Majesty? I fear I grow old and slow of understanding."
"For you to be slow of understanding would be a change indeed. I spoke of my intentions toward Miss de Courcy."
"You would make the lady some handsome present, as an acknowledgment227of your indebtedness?"
"Whether handsome or not would be largely a matter of opinion," said the Emperor, smiling for the first time. "I am making her a present of myself."
The old man had sat with his chin sunk into his short neck, peering out from under his brows in a way he had; but he lifted his head suddenly, and there was a look in his eyes like that of an animal who scents danger from an unexpected quarter.
"Your Majesty!" he exclaimed incredulously. "You are your father's son. You are Rhaetia. Your standard of honour cannot be soiled for a woman's sake."
"You misunderstand me," said Maximilian, in haste. "I speak of marriage."
The Chancellor's jaw dropped, and the warm mahogany hue of his skin paled to a sickly yellow. For a moment his lips quivered in a vain effort to formulate words, but he fought with his weakness and conquered.
"I had dreamed of nothing as bad as this, Your Majesty," he blurted228out, with no sugaring of the truth this time. "I had heard the rumour connecting your most august name with that of a stranger from another country. I feared a young man's impulsiveness. I dreaded a scandal. But forgive me, Your Majesty, this thought of yours is no less than madness. For a man in your position, a morganatic marriage would spell ruin——"
"A morganatic marriage was in my mind, I admit," the Emperor cut him short once more. "But I saw the unwisdom, the injustice of that, and decided differently."
"Praise be to heaven!" devoutly ejaculated the Chancellor, who, in calmer moments, believed himself an atheist.
"I decided that, rather than lose something dearer than life, as dear as honour, I would make this lady—this peerless lady—Empress of Rhaetia," Maximilian went on.
With a cry the Chancellor sprang up, the veins in his forehead full to bursting. His eyes glared like those of a bull that receives the death-stroke. His working lips and the hollow sound in his throat229alarmed the Emperor, who, for a few grim seconds, feared the worst. But the iron heart of old Eberhard von Markstein was not to be stilled by a single blow.
He muttered a word which the younger man ignored, though it smote his ears sharply. Then, after a silence potent with meaning, and punctuated with a gasp, the Chancellor "found himself" again.
"No, Your Majesty; no, I say!" he panted.
"But I say yes, and no man shall give me nay. I have thought it all out and I see the path before me," insisted Maximilian. "I will make her a countess first; she shall be Countess of Salzbrück. Later, she shall be Empress."
"Your Majesty, it is impossible."
"Who dares say it is impossible? Answer me that, Von Markstein. She is already a lady of unimpeachable breeding, reputation, and birth——"
"Your Majesty's pardon, whileIsay it is impossible—I, Von Markstein. For I tell you she has neither the position nor the birth230that she claims, and I can prove it!"
Maximilian turned on him fiercely; then the old face, so closely associated with every crisis of his life, appealed to his youth and to his manhood. "Take care, Von Markstein," he said, but in a different tone from that which he had meant to use.