Chapter XXXII—THE END
HELGA was waiting for me with a look of eager anxiety when I came out to her from my interview with the Emperor.
“Well?” she asked, as she came to me.
“Yes, it is all well,” I answered smiling. “All well, all the best it could be—for us. Not for the Prince,” I added drily.
“And my father?”
“Justice will be done to his memory, my dear, full justice. You were right in the kernel of your plans—to get to the Czar.”
“I was certain of that,” she said.
“If you could have got to him all this would never have happened. I never saw a man more moved. I left all the papers with him and he’s going to study them himself, and then see you. Never a breath of the truth has ever been allowed to reach him.”
“My dear father,” she murmured. “At last,” and she sighed.
“Old Kalkov has had things his own way and has had a fine past; but I don’t envy him his future.”
Marvyn entered the ante-room then.
“How have things gone, Denver?”
“Couldn’t have gone better, thanks to you.”
“By gorm, I’m glad,” he exclaimed with a sigh of relief. “The ice was so thin I was afraid we should be through.”
“It will bear every one except Kalkov, and it’ll put his light out. You may gamble on that.”
“It was a big risk to carry,” he said, thinking of himself.
I smiled.
“You should have had half an hour of ours,” I suggested.
“Yes, I know,” he answered with a quaint smile. “But one’s official responsibilities make such a difference, Denver.”
“True, but even unofficially one can have a sort of sneaking regard for one’s life and liberty.”
“I shall never forget your help, Mr. Marvyn,” said Helga, sweetly, as she gave him her hand.
“I would take the risk again for such a smile, Mrs. Denver.”
“Now you’re talking,” said I. “It’s very pretty of you, but I hope we shan’t have to ask for it; although we may still need the Embassy’s protection, if the Emperor carries out his threats.”
“How’s that?”
“He seems to contemplate putting an end to Mrs. Denver.”
“Harper?” cried Helga.
“It’s true—as true as it is staggering.”
“No spoke in the wheels I hope?”
This from Marvyn.
“He threatens,” I said, looking very grave.
“Then why are your eyes laughing, Harper?” cried Helga.
“It’ll be no laughing matter if we find our marriage annulled.”
“That’s only putting the riddle a different way;” and Helga slipped her arm into mine and clasped her hands on it.
“What is it?” asked Marvyn, seriously.
I had before observed his keen scent for trouble from afar. The serious side of things always appealed first to him.
“He threatens,” I repeated.
“Haven’t we had enough problems lately?” and Helga wrinkled her brows in half comical perplexity. “But I can wait quite calmly.”
“He wants to make out that as the daughter of a prince and his friend, you ought to be considered a kind of Imperial ward to whose marriage his consent was necessary; so that——”
Helga interrupted me with a laugh.
“I knew it was nonsense.”
“I don’t see that under the circumstances such a claim could be maintained,” declared Marvyn gravely.
“And further that Helga cannot be Mrs. Denver.”
“Who am I then?”
“He talks about making reparation of everything and giving you your father’s title.”
“But I can’t be a Prince, surely!”
“You would of course be Princess,” said Marvyn, in the same dry official manner.
“Mr. Denver’s Princess! What an odd mixture!”
“I think it would be rather the Princess’s Mr. Denver,” said I.
“And what did you say, Harper?”
“Oh, that as to the material compensation we could talk, but that about the title we’d go back to the hotel and discuss it. Will you come with us, Marvyn?”
He excused himself on the plea of business and left us, and Helga and I were just going when Colonel Vilda came to summon her to an audience with the Emperor. She was to go alone.
“I congratulate you, Mr. Denver,” he said to me when he returned from ushering her into the presence.
“I’ve been doing that to myself very heartily, Colonel, I can assure you.”
“The Princess will make a brilliant figure in the Court.”
“Which Princess, Colonel, and which Court?”
“The Princess Lavalski,” he answered, smiling.
“We have no Court in the States, Colonel.”
“But you will not take her from us in the very moment of our finding her again!”
“You’ve managed to get along pretty well without her so far, I fancy.”
“But, my dear monsieur! She’s so charming, so beautiful, so wealthy—the world will be at her feet.”
“It’ll have to be the western hemisphere of it then, I think.”
“Ah, but it would be a crime to take her away.”
“I shan’t take her away, Colonel—but somehow I have an idea she won’t much care to stop.”
“But it is too bad;” and he laughed and spread his hands.
There came a little commotion at the door then, and when it was opened, Prince Kalkov was carried in seated in a chair.
“Let His Majesty know that I crave an immediate audience with him, Colonel Vilda, on urgent matters of State,” he said.
“His Majesty is engaged, your Highness.”
“I am accustomed to be obeyed, Colonel Vilda,” returned Kalkov austerely.
The Colonel drew himself up at the tone, paused and then bowed.
“I will take your Highness’ message,” he said, and left us.
“You have seen the Emperor, monsieur?” said the Prince to me.
“Yes.”
“What passed between you?” he demanded, with much of his customary arrogant insistence.
“It was a confidential interview, monsieur.”
“If it concerned me I have a right to know.”
“I must ask you to excuse my saying anything. You and I began as friends, then we had a pretty sharp burst as antagonists; now if you please wemust be neutrals—I have nothing further to say to you.”
“I have yet to see his Majesty, monsieur.” Even now he was ready to threaten me in his indomitable doggedness.
I took no notice, and presently Colonel Vilda returned.
“His Majesty is unable to see your Highness,” he announced.
“I will not take that answer,” declared the Prince vehemently. “The matters are too urgent and vitally affect his Majesty himself, for me to take it. I have been his loyal adviser and faithful minister for many years. I am not to be thrown aside on the bare word of hirelings and traitors.” He was fast losing self-control in his passion when he checked himself and said: “Give my humble greetings to his Majesty, tell him I am ill and perhaps dying, and solicit most earnestly that he will see me. Say it may be the last time on earth I may ever speak to him.”
“His Majesty was very decided,” said the Colonel.
“His Majesty does not know either how ill I am or how urgent my business. Should I be here like this, if it were not?”
Colonel Vilda went in again and this time the interval before his return passed in silence.
When he returned, Helga was with him. I saw she had been weeping and that the tears were still in her eyes.
“They are tears of joy and gratitude, Harper,” she whispered, taking my arm and then started as she saw Prince Kalkov.
“His Majesty deeply regrets to hear of your Highness’s illness,” said the Colonel, “and he counsels your immediate return to your house, where he will communicate with you.”
The old man listened with frowning brows and unmoved firmness.
“It is not true,” he declared doggedly.
“It is as I say, your Highness; and his Majesty further bids me say that as your health has broken down, he will immediately relieve you of all your official duties.”
“He cannot mean this—and without ever seeing me,” he cried.
“His Majesty is too overcome by news which has reached him to-day, to be able to endure the strain of an interview with your Highness, and has retired to his private apartments.”
“My God! after all my years of service.”
“Come, Harper,” whispered Helga; and we hurried out glad to escape the sight of our enemy’s overthrow.
On the way to the hotel she told me all the Emperor had said to her; the regrets he had expressed; the sorrow he felt; the promises he made; and the hopes he had expressed for her future happiness.
“As a Princess?” I asked; “or as——”
She glanced and smiled and ran on into the hotel, leaving me unanswered.
At the hotel Ivan was waiting, anxious concerning our journey to Siberia, and overjoyed at seeing us together again.
“Has your Highness any commands?” I asked Helga.
“Harper!”
“Well, has Mrs. Denver any wishes?”
“We are not going to Siberia, Ivan,” she said to him. “Everything has come right.”
The great burly fellow laughed with the delight of a child.
“I could cry with pleasure, mademoiselle,” he said.
“Hullo, that’s still a third title for you—mademoiselle,” I laughed.
She would not hear me.
“But we are going on a long journey, Ivan, all the same,” she said, in a very matter of fact unconcerned tone.
“WE HURRIED OUT GLAD TO ESCAPE THE SIGHT OF OURENEMY’S OVERTHROW.”—Page 326.
“Where?” I asked.
“To New York, of course; where else should Mrs. Denver go, indeed?”
“Bully for you,” I cried and then—but Ivan was in the room; so I turned him out first and told him to go and pack, as we should start as soon as possible.
And we did.