She ran to him, holding out both hands, like a child who asks indulgence. "If I can explain," she said, with quickening breath, her eyes shining, star-like, "if I tell you that it is quite, quite a mistake, that there was no thought of harm in my coming to this house, that I am true to all you thought me, to all I _hope_ you thought me, will you believe my word?"
Maximilian looked her in the eyes and straightway forgot that he and she were not alone. And the Chancellor saw that he forgot, and wished much to remind him of many things connected with his own presence. But even he dared not speak at that instant, and had to listen, biting his lip with a well-preserved tooth.
"Believe your word!" the Emperor echoed slowly. He would have said, "Why should I believe it, when it is enough that I believe my eyes?"
But he was gazing into hers, and so he could not say it. No other woman"s eyes had ever before had power to play tricks with his will, therefore he was the more ready to fall under the spell of hers. "I must believe it!" he p.r.o.nounced. "It is death to doubt you. Tell me you are all I thought you, show me how it can be so, and I will believe in spite of everything."
"Your Majesty!" groaned the Chancellor. But His Majesty did not hear.
It was the Prince who drowned the warning.
"Oh, come!" he exclaimed; "this is going farther than I bargained for.
I can"t stand all this talk about doubting and proving. The whole thing----"
"Is for me to explain, not you," broke in Sylvia. "It is my right. I will not have it taken from me. Maximilian, last night you said that you cared for me, or--this would never have happened. A few moments ago you asked if the Prince"s hunting-lodge were a fit place for me to remind you of that, and I answered yes. It was not time to tell you why, then, but it is time now. I said that this was the proper place, because it is my brother"s house, and if we are ever to be anything to one another, it is fitting that my brother should put my hand in yours."
"At last, then, I can introduce my sister, Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Crown Prince of Abruzzia, with a sigh of overwhelming relief.
For a moment n.o.body spoke. The room seemed to ring with Friedrich"s words, with the name which, till now, had held so little music for Maximilian"s ears. He heard it and was speechless, even as the Chancellor was speech less. He looked at Friedrich, as if he would have spoken; he looked at Sylvia, and forgot to speak. She held out her hands once more, and with an impulse which he did not strive to control, he went down upon one knee as he caught and kissed them.
Long ago she had vowed that he should bend the knee to her, if he were to win her; but now that the prophecy proved true, she bade him rise as he whispered the one word "Forgive!"
"Oh, it is I who must be forgiven!" she said, with tears instead of triumph in her voice. "You don"t half understand yet."
Friedrich and Count von Markstein stole from the room and were not missed. Their parts were played.
"I want no explanation," Maximilian answered. "I want only you."
"I won"t try to tell you how it all began--not now. But my ears tingle still with some words which my actions gave you the right to speak,"
she urged. "Last night I wanted to go into a convent, and, above all things, I wished to get away from Rhaetia. We were forced to wait, because of Miss M"Pherson"s illness. When Count von Markstein called, we excused ourselves. But when Fritz"s card came up, it was different.
We couldn"t guess whether or not he really knew who we were. His face of surprise showed us he _didn"t_. At first he was going to be secretive; but Fritz isn"t good at fibs, unless he"s had time to prepare them; and a plot he"d just been concocting with the Chancellor all came out. The truth was, he"d taken me for an actress with whom I"m afraid he"d been flirting in Abruzzia. It seems he"d informed her that there might one day be something between his sister and the Emperor of Rhaetia; she knew, too, that the real De Courcys were Fritz"s cousins, for she"d met them when acting in Calcutta.
Altogether, for these and other reasons, he fancied I might be Miss Brand, seeking revenge for a slight by humiliating his sister. Imagine how he felt when he saw _me_! And here"s the point where Count von Markstein turned into my guardian angel, instead of driving me from Eden with a flaming sword. He"d told Fritz that you were searching for Mary de Courcy to _ask her to be the Empress_. At this, from being the most miserable, I became the happiest girl on earth. I forgave Fritz, he forgave me, and--I at last induced him to let the plot be carried out to the end. I hadn"t doubted what that end would be till you came into this room and I saw the look in your eyes. It was like a dagger of ice in my heart. Tell me you forgive me for everything. Tell me that, if I"d been different, and content with conventionalities, you would not have loved me more."
He took her in his arms, and held her as if he would never let her go.
"If you had been different, I would not have loved you at all," he said. "Yet if things had been different, I could not have helped but love you, just the same. I should have been bound to fall in love with Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald at first sight, as I fell in love with Mary de Courcy."
"Ah, but at best you would have fallen in love with Sylvia because it was your duty. And you fell in love with Mary because it was your duty not to. Which makes it so much better."
"It was no question of duty, but of fate," the Emperor persisted. "The stars ordained that I should love you."
"Then I wish"--and Sylvia laughed happily, as she could afford to laugh now--"that the stars had told me last summer. It would have saved me a great deal of trouble. And yet I don"t know," she added more slowly. "It has been a wonderful adventure. We shall think of it when we are old."
"We shall never be old, for we love each other," said the Emperor.
THE END