The Baroness Gratz stepped in between us, however, and lifted her hand as if to keep me away.
"The countess is here in my charge," she cried to me; "and while that is so I forbid you to go near her."
But love laughs at prohibitions. A moment later we were hand-locked, and she had read in my glad face that my news was good. Then she turned angrily upon the baroness, her face flushed and her eyes shining:
"You have no right to interfere with me," she said, her words shortly and sharply spoken. "I have just heard, to my intense indignation, that you have even ventured to tell my servants who shall and who shall not enter my house. Is this true?"
"So far as it relates to this person, of course it is true. You are in my charge, and it is my duty----"
"You have mistaken your duty and overstepped your privileges. You have no right to give such orders, and to do it in my name. You must have known as well as I that the last man in the world against whom my door would ever be shut would be--my affianced husband;" and she raised her head, and stood very erect, looking rarely beautiful in her pride and happiness.
"I did it to save you from the wiles of an adventurer who----"
"Silence, aunt Gratz, and shame to you for those words," cried Minna hotly. "It was this "adventurer," as you dare to say, who saved me from the hands of the villain whose schemes you helped, and from the cowardly double plot of the Baron Heckscher there. As for you, sir, if you knew the character of your puppet and tool von Nauheim, as I firmly believe you did," she cried to Baron Heckscher, "there are no words bad enough to paint the infamous vileness of your treachery. While pretending to conspire in my interest, and while professing loyalty to me and mine, you plotted to ruin and dishonor me; and when I find you here to-day I can only believe you have some further abominable motive or plot against me, and that you are here to suborn some of those about me for your purposes. Be good enough to leave the house."
"I have come to protest to you----" he began in reply.
"I decline to listen to you, sir," she interrupted, with quiet dignity.
He stood a moment, scowling viciously, and then, with an ugly glance at me, said:
"Your nameless friend there----"
"I have already told you," I broke in angrily, "that I am the Count von Rudloff, and that the Emperor himself has addressed me in my name."
"I have known for some time all the facts as to this," added Minna, a swift flash from her eyes telling me her delight at the news, "and of the load of infinite obligation I owe to the Count von Rudloff; not the least part of it is for the defeat and exposure of your schemes against me. Be good enough to spare me the necessity of bidding my servants expel you from the house."
"You had better go, baron," I put in. "You will probably find at your house by this time a summons to the Emperor"s presence, for he has heard from me the whole story of your acts."
This statement completed his disquiet, and without another word he hurried away.
"You will be troubled by him no more, Minna," I said. "I bring you the best of news. The Emperor has given a personal pledge to answer for your safety and to uphold your interests."
"The Emperor!" she cried in a tone of surprise.
"More than that: I have told him all, and he has acknowledged my t.i.tle,"
and I showed her the Imperial letter.
Her face shone with pride and delight.
"I can forgive every one now, for it has all ended so splendidly for you," she said.
"For us," I corrected; and she acknowledged the correction with a blush and a smile of love which exasperated the Baroness Gratz, who had been listening to us in indignant silence.
"Then I suppose you have no more use for me?" she declared, with an angry toss of the head, as she turned to leave us.
"I am afraid you yourself have made it difficult for you to share in my happiness--in our happiness, I mean," said Minna gently. "I am so happy that I have no room for any thought on that score but regret that it should be so."
"You were always an ungrateful girl, Minna," replied the old lady very ungraciously, bitter to the end against me. "And I have no wish to share with you, or deprive you of any part of, such happiness as you may expect to find in company with a man who is sometimes play-actor, sometimes Prince, and always an impostor," and with that parting taunt she flung away.
"Poor aunt Gratz!" sighed Minna.
Then she put her hands in mine, and, nestling close to me, asked with a winsome coquettishness:
"Am I ungrateful, Karl?"
My answer may be guessed, and it took long in telling. But we returned after a time to the ways of common sense, and then I told her what had pa.s.sed during the audience with the Kaiser; that I was to travel for a year, and then return to Berlin to take up formally my old t.i.tle and position.
At first the news brought a cloud to her happy face.
"A year is a long time, Karl," she murmured. "Shall you never be in either Munich or Gramberg all that time?"
"I think not. I expect it means at least a year away from the Fatherland."
She was silent and looked almost sad.
"But a year will soon pa.s.s," I whispered.
A gesture of pretty reproach answered me.
"If you would make a little sacrifice, it would help, I think."
"Sacrifice!" she echoed, not catching my meaning. And when I did not reply she lifted her head from my shoulder and peered into my eyes, her own full of curiosity.
"You used to pride yourself on reading my secrets," said I.
She thought a minute; then a look of wonderment shone in her eyes, followed almost directly by a great, glad blush that spread all over her face, dyeing her cheeks with crimson and driving her to hide them against my shoulder.
"I don"t guess this one," she said.
But I was sure she had.
"Don"t?"
"Won"t, then," she murmured into my coat lapel.
"It could not be yet, of course," said I. "But in three months----"
"You said sacrifice," she interrupted, and glanced up with a quick darting of the eyes.
"It would have to be very quiet--very, very quiet."
"It is no sacrifice to travel--in company."
And there we left it; but we knew well enough each other"s hopes and desires.
To accomplish our purpose called for some little tact and effort, because the Emperor was for having Minna taken to Berlin when the Munich troubles had been arranged.