Otto looked also very often at the Emperor, contrasting his sovereign"s appearance somewhat unfavourably with his own. Maximilian was thin and dark, with a grave cast of feature; while Otto"s face had contrived to retain all the colour and beauty of youth. Alma Tadema would have wreathed him with vine leaves, given him a lute, draped him in a tiger skin, and set him down on a marble bench against a sapphire sky, when he would have appeared to far greater advantage than in the stiff uniform of a crack Rhaetian regiment. Maximilian, on the contrary, must always have been painted as a soldier, and it seemed to the young officer, since his grim brother had put the thought into his head, that there could be no question as to the ultimate preference of a normal girl.
Miss de Courcy did not--notice him at present, because the Emperor loomed large in the foreground; but Eberhard had evidently a plan in his head for removing that stately obstacle into the perspective.
Otto had not heard that Miss de Courcy was an heiress, therefore, even had there been no Emperor, he would not have prostrated himself at the attractive shrine. But now the shrine was newly decked. Otto dwelt much in thought upon the Chancellor"s apparently impulsive offer and the somewhat contradictory command which had, a little later, enjoined delay.
He had not, fortunately, been forbidden to preen himself under the eyes of the English beauty, and his desire now was, when the men should rejoin the ladies after dinner, to make his way at once to Miss de Courcy"s side. But, as bad luck would have it, Baron von Lynar detained him for a few moments with the account of a marvellous remedy which might cure the Chancellor"s gout; and when he escaped to look for Miss de Courcy in the great white drawing-room, she was nowhere to be seen. From the music-room adjoining, however, came sounds which drew him toward the door. He knew Miss de Courcy"s touch on the piano; she was there, playing soft, low chords. Perhaps she was preparing to sing, as she had once or twice before, and would need some one to turn the pages of her music. Otto was in the act of pushing aside the embroidered white velvet portiere that curtained the door, when his hostess smilingly beckoned him away. "The Emperor has just asked Miss de Courcy to teach him an old-fashioned English or Scotch air (I fear I don"t know the difference!) called "Annie Laurie,"" she explained.
"He was quite charmed when she sang it the other day; and I have been telling him that the music would exactly suit his voice. I think we had better not disturb them until the lesson is over. Tell me (I had hardly a moment to ask you last night), how did you _really_ find the Chancellor?"
Chained to a forced allegiance, Otto mechanically answered the quickly following questions of the Baroness, ears and eyes both doing their secret best to penetrate the curtain of white and gold.
Everybody knew of the music lesson, and everybody chatted in tactful pretense of ignorance. Once, twice, and thrice the mezzo-soprano and the baritone sang conscientiously through the verses of "Annie Laurie," with occasional breakdowns and new beginnings; then a few more desultory chords were struck on the piano: and at last silence reigned in the music-room. Were the two still there? If they conversed in low tones, it would not only be impracticable to catch what they said, but even to hear the murmur of their voices, in the drawing-room.
To interrupt such a _tete-a-tete_ was not to be thought of, but Otto was turning over in his mind some less conspicuous, equally efficacious way of ending it, when there came a sudden diversion.
Lady de Courcy received a telegram, brought by mounted messenger from Salzbruck, and was so much affected thereby that she showed signs of swooning. Her plump, pleasant little face grew pale; she rose from her chair, tottering, and admitted, in answer to Baroness von Lynar"s solicitous inquiries, that she had had bad news.
"Where is my daughter?" she asked. "I think, as I am rather upset by-- by disquieting accounts of a dear friend, I had better go to my room.
And I shall be so _much_ obliged if--Mary can be sent to me as soon as she comes in."
Now was Otto"s chance. While every one gathered round Lady de Courcy, and smelling-salts were in requisition, he lifted the white portiere and peeped through a small antechamber into the music-room. The Emperor and Miss de Courcy were no longer there.
Otto twisted his moustache; he usually twisted it on the right side when pleased; and he twisted it--a great deal more--on the left when he was displeased. He looked reproachfully round the room, and presently observed that one of the large windows leading to the Italian garden stood wide open.
The month of September was dying; but, though winter had begun in the Rhaetian mountains, warmth and sunshine still lingered in the neighbourhood of Salzbruck. A balmy air, laden with sweet scents of the flowers which Baron von Lynar had imported from Italy, floated to Otto"s nostrils. The languorous perfume suggested soft dalliance and confessions of love. The Emperor had taken Miss de Courcy into the garden: Otto knew that well enough; and if there had been a plent.i.tude of trees, with broad trunks, behind which a man"s figure might modestly conceal itself in the darkness, he would un.o.btrusively have followed. But he mentally reviewed the shrubbery, plant by plant, as he could recall it, and decided at last that the better part of valour for an officer and a gentleman lay in remaining within doors. He did not, however, return to the drawing-room, despite the concern for Lady de Courcy"s health which had taken him in search of her daughter.
Heavy curtains of olive-green velvet hung straight down over the windows of the music-room, and by neatly sandwiching oneself in a deep embrasure between drapery and window-frame, one found a convenient niche for observing a limited quarter of the garden. The moon was rising over the lake, and long, pale rays of level light were creeping up the paths, like the fingers of a blind man that touch gropingly the features of a beloved face.
Otto could not see very far, but if the Emperor and his companion returned by the way they had taken, as they were almost sure to do, he would know whether they walked back to the house in the att.i.tude of formal acquaintances or--lovers.
They had not been gone from the piano for many minutes, and they would not be likely to extend this duet which so logically followed the music much longer. One of the two, if not both, would have sense enough left to remember _les convenances_.
But the moments went on, and Otto, whose patent-leather pumps were rather tight, changed from one position to another, straining his eyes down the whitening alleys in vain.
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 in _memento 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 himself that 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 gra.s.s 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 the future.
"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 to think 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, pa.s.sionately, 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 your country? 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.
But now her pa.s.sionate impulse of grat.i.tude 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?
What 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 pa.s.sion 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 s.n.a.t.c.h it from him--(because he was to have his chance of explanation)--he kept it between both his own, as he talked on.
"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 inevitable. 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 out here 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.