"They"re in a chronic state of emptiness," groaned Egon.
"On the fifteenth day of October your quarterly allowance will be paid," remarked his brother. "I would increase the instalment by the amount of five thousand gulden, if that would make it worth your while to talk--and forget nothing but your scruples."
"Oh, you know I"m always delighted to please you!" exclaimed Egon.
"It"s only natural, living the monotonous life you do when you"re not busy with the affairs of state, that you should like to hear what goes on in the world outside. Of course, I"ll gladly do my best as a _raconteur_."
"My dear young man, don"t lie," said the Chancellor. "The habit is growing on you. You lie even to yourself. By and by you"ll believe yourself, and then all hope for your soul will be over. What I want to know is; how far the Emperor has gone in his infatuation for this English girl. I"m not afraid to speak plainly to you, so you may safely--and profitably--do the same with me. In the first place I"ll put you at your ease by making a humiliating confession. The other night the woman von Lyndal tried to "draw me," as she would express it, on this subject, and I"m bitterly mortified to say she partly succeeded. She suggested an entanglement between Leopold and the girl.
I replied that Leopold wasn"t the man to pull down a hornet"s nest of gossip around the ears of a young woman who had saved his life. No matter what his inclinations might be, I insisted that he would pay her no repeated visits. This thrust the fair Mechtilde parried--as if repeating a mere rumor--by saying that she believed the girl was to stay at the country house of some old friend of the Emperor. At the time, I attached little importance to her chatter, believing that she merely wished to give me a spiteful slap or two, as is her habit when she has the chance. For once, though, she has succeeded in stealing a march upon me; and she kept the secret of her plan until too late for me to have any hope of preventing Leopold from fulfilling his engagement at her house. After that was safely arranged, I don"t doubt she was overjoyed that I should guess her plot."
"Do you think that, even if you"d known sooner, you could have stopped the Emperor from visiting at Lyndalberg?" asked Egon. "I know that you are iron; but he is steel."
"I would have stopped him," returned the Chancellor. "I should have made no bones about the reason; for I"ve found that the best way with Leopold is to blurt out the whole truth, and fight him--my experience against his will. If advice and warning hadn"t sufficed to restrain him from insulting the girl who is to be his wife, and injuring the reputation of the girl who never can be, I would have devised some expedient to thwart him, for his own good. I"m not a man to give up when I feel that I am right."
"Neither is he," Egon added. "But since you seem so determined to nip this dainty blossom of love in the bud, we"ll hope it"s not yet too late for a sharp frost to blight it."
"I sent for you," said the Chancellor, brushing away metaphor with an impatient gesture, "to show me the precise spot on which to lay my finger."
"I"ll do my best to deserve your confidence," responded Egon, gracefully. "Let me see, where shall I begin? Well, as you know, it"s simpler for the Emperor to see a good deal of the woman he admires, at a friend"s house than almost anywhere else, in his own country. This particular woman risked her life to save his; and it"s so natural for him to be gracious in return, that people would be surprised if he were not. There"s so much in their favor, at the commencement.
"Miss Mowbray and her mother arrived at Lyndalberg before the Emperor, had made friends there, and were ready for the campaign. The girl is undoubtedly beautiful--the prettiest creature I think I ever saw--and she has a winning way which takes with women as well as men. Not one of her fellow-guests seems to put a wrong construction on her flirtation with the Emperor, or his with her. The other men would think him blind if he didn"t admire her as much as they do; and none of the women there are of the sort to be jealous. So, are you sure, Lorenz, that you"re not taking too serious a view of the affair?"
"It can"t be taken too seriously, considering the circ.u.mstances. I"ve told you my plans for the Emperor"s future. Princesses are women, and gossip is hydra-headed. When the lady hears--she who has been allowed to understand that the Emperor of Rhaetia only waits for a suitable opportunity of formally asking for her hand--for she will surely hear, that he has seized this very moment for his first _liason_, I tell you neither she nor her people are likely to accept the statement meekly.
She"s half German; on her father"s side a cousin not too distant of William II. She"s half English; on her mother"s side related to the King through the line of the Stuarts. And in her there"s a dash of American blood which comes from a famous grandmother, who was descended from George Washington, a man as proud, and with the right to be as proud, as any King. All three countries would have reason to resent such an ungallant slight from Rhaetia."
"The little affair must be hushed up," said Egon.
"It must be stopped, and at once," said the Chancellor.
"Ach!" sighed the young man, with as much meaning in the long drawn breath, as the elder might care to read. And if it did not discourage, it at least irritated him. "Go on!" he exclaimed sharply. "Go on with your sorry tale."
"After all, when one comes to the telling, there isn"t a very great deal one can put into cut-and-dried words," explained Egon. "At table, the Emperor has his hostess on one side and his fair preserver on the other. The two talk as much together during meals as etiquette allows, and perhaps a little more. Then, as the Emperor has been often at Lyndalberg, he can act as cicerone for a stranger. He has shown Miss Mowbray all the beauties of the place. He gathers her roses in the rose garden; he has guided her through the grottoes. He has piloted her through the labyrinth; he has told her which are the best dogs in the kennels; and has given her the history of all the horses in the Baron"s stables. I know this from the table talk. He has explored the lake with Miss Mowbray and her mother in a motor-boat; perhaps you saw the party? And whether or no he brought his automobile to Lyndalberg on purpose, in any case he"s had the Mowbrays out in it several times already. One would hardly think he could have found a chance to do so much in such a short time; but our Emperor is a man of action.
Yesterday we had a picnic at the Seebachfall, to see Thorwaldsen"s Undine. Leopold and Miss Mowbray being splendid climbers, reached the statue on the height over the fall long before the rest of us. At starting, however, I was close behind with the Baroness, and overheard some joke between the two, about a mountain and a cow. The Emperor spoke of milking as a fine art, and said he"d lately been taking lessons. They laughed a great deal at this, and it was plain that they were on terms of comradeship. When a young man and a girl have a secret understanding--even the most innocent one--it puts them apart from others.
"Last night there were fireworks on the lake. The Emperor and Miss Mowbray watched them together, for everything was conducted most informally. Afterwards we had an impromptu cotillion, with three or four pretty new figures invented by the Baroness. The Emperor gave Miss Mowbray several favors, and one was a buckle of enameled forget-me-nots. This morning there was tennis. The Emperor and Miss Mowbray played together. They were both so skilful, it was a pleasure to watch them. At luncheon they each ate a double almond out of one sh.e.l.l, had a game over it, and Leopold caught Miss Mowbray napping.
That brings us to the moment of my coming to you. For the afternoon, I fancy the Baroness was getting up a riding party; and this evening unless they"re too tired, she"ll perhaps get up an amateur concert at which Miss Mowbray will sing. The girl has a delicious voice."
"The creature must be a fool, or an adventuress," p.r.o.nounced the Chancellor. "If she has kept her senses she ought to know that nothing can come of this folly--except sorrow or scandal."
Egon shrugged his stiffly padded, military shoulders. "I have always found that a woman in love doesn"t stop to count the cost."
"So! You fancy her "in love" with the Emperor."
"With the man, rather than the Emperor, if I"m a judge of character."
"Which you"re not!" Iron Heart brusquely disposed of that suggestion.
"The merest school-girl could pull wool over your eyes, if she cared to take the trouble."
"This one doesn"t care a rap. She hardly knows that I exist."
"Humph!" The Chancellor"s eyes appraised his young brother"s features.
"That"s a pity. You might have tried cutting the Emperor out. Her affair with him can have no happy ending; while you, in spite of all your faults, with your good looks, our position, and my money, wouldn"t be a bad match for an ambitious girl."
"Your money?"
"I mean, should I choose to make you my heir, and I would choose, if you married to please me. Who are these Mowbrays?"
"I haven"t had the curiosity to inquire into their antecedents," said Egon. "I only know that they"re ladies, that they must be of some consequence in their own country, or they couldn"t have got the letters of introduction they have; and that the girl is the prettiest on earth."
"Mechtilde talked to me, I remember, a good deal about those letters of introduction," the Chancellor reflected aloud. "But Rhaetia is a long cry from England; and letters might be forged. I"ve known such things to be done. Fetch me a big red volume you"ll find on the third shelf from the floor, at the left of the south window. You can"t miss it. It"s "Burke"s Peerage.""
Egon rose with alacrity to obey. He was rather thoughtful, for his brother had put an entirely new and exciting idea into his head.
Presently the red volume was discovered and laid on the desk before the Chancellor, who turned the leaves over until he found the page desired. As his eye fell upon the long line of Mowbrays, his face changed and the bristling brows came together in a grizzled line.
Apparently the women were not adventuresses, at least in the ordinary acceptation of the term.
There they were; his square-tipped finger pressed down upon the printed names with a dig that might have signified his disposition toward their representatives.
"The girl"s mother is the widow of Reginald, sixth Baron Mowbray," the old man muttered half aloud. "Son, Reginald Edward, fifteen years of age. Daughter, Helen Augusta, twenty-eight. Aha! She"s no chicken, this young lady. She ought to be a woman of the world."
"Twenty-eight!" replied Egon. "I"ll eat my hat if she"s twenty-eight."
"Doesn"t she look it, by daylight?"
"Not an hour over nineteen. Might be younger. Jove, I was never so surprised to learn a woman"s age! By the by, I heard her telling Baron von Lyndal last night, apropos of our great Rhaetian victory, that she was eleven years old on the day it took place. That would make her about twenty now. When she spoke, I remember she gave a look at her mother, across the room, as though she were frightened. I suppose she was hoping there was no copy of this big red book at Lyndalberg."
"That thought might have been in her mind," a.s.sented the Chancellor, "or else she--" He left his sentence unfinished, and sat with unseeing eyes fixed in an owlish stare on the open page of Burke.
"I should like to know if you really meant what you said about my marriage a little while ago." Egon ventured to attract his brother"s attention. "Because if you did--"
"If I did--"
"I might try very hard to please you in my choice of a wife."
"Be a little more implicit. You mean, you would try to prove to Miss Mowbray that a Captain of Cavalry in the hand is worth an Emperor in the bush--a bramble-brush at that, eh?"
"Yes. I would do my best. And as you say, I"m not without advantages."
"You are not. I was on the point of suggesting that you made the most of them in Miss Mowbray"s eyes--_until you brought me this red book_."
The large forefinger tapped the page of Mowbrays, while two lines which might have meant amus.e.m.e.nt, or a sneer, scored themselves on either side the Chancellor"s mouth.
"And now--you"ve changed your mind?" There was disappointment in Egon"s voice.
"I don"t say that. I say only, "Wait." Make yourself as agreeable to the lady as you like. But don"t pledge yourself, and don"t count upon my promise or my money, until you hear again. By that time--well, we shall see what we shall see. Keep your hand in. But wait--wait."
"How long am I to wait? If the thing"s to be done at all, it must be done soon, for meanwhile, the Emperor makes all the running."
The Chancellor looked up again from the red book, his fist still covering the Mowbrays, as if they were to be extinguished. "You are to wait," he said, "until I"ve had answers to a couple of telegrams I shall send to-night."