"What do you mean, dear? I don"t understand," she said, dully. "I"m so sorry you are ill. If it"s my fault in any way, I--"
Her mother pointed toward a writing table. "The telegram is there,"
she murmured. "It is too distressing--too humiliating."
Virginia picked up a crumpled telegraph form and began to read the message, which was dated London and written in English. "Some one making inquiries here about the Mowbrays. Beg to advise you to explain all at once, or leave Kronburg, to avoid almost certain complications.
Lambert."
Lady Lambert was the wife of the ex-Amba.s.sador to the Court of Rhaetia from Great Britain.
The Princess finished in silence.
"Isn"t it hideous?" asked the Grand d.u.c.h.ess. "To think that you and I should have deliberately placed ourselves in such a position! We are to run away, like detected adventuresses, unless--unless you are now ready to tell the Emperor all."
"No," said Virginia, hopelessly.
"What! Not yet? Oh, my dear, then you must bring matters to a crisis--instantly--to-night even. It"s evident that some enemy--perhaps some jealous person--has been at work behind our backs. It is for you to turn the tables upon him, and there isn"t an hour to waste. From the first, you meant to make some dramatic revelation. Now, the time has come."
"Ah, I meant--I meant!" echoed Virginia, with a sob breaking the ice in her voice. "Nothing has turned out as I meant. You were right, dear; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia."
The Grand d.u.c.h.ess grew paler than before. She had been vaguely distressed. Now, she was sharply alarmed. If Virginia admitted that this great adventure should never have been undertaken, then indeed the earth must be quaking under their feet.
"Ought not--to have come?" she repeated, piteously. "What dreadful thing has happened?"
The Princess stood with bent head. "It"s hard to tell," she said, "harder, almost, than anything I ever had to do. But it must be done.
Everything"s at an end, dear."
"What--you"ve told him, and he has refused to forgive?"
"He knows nothing."
"For Heaven"s sake, don"t keep me in suspense."
Virginia"s lips were dry. "He asked me to be his wife," she said. "Oh, wait--wait! Don"t look happy. You don"t understand, and I didn"t, at first. He had to explain and--he put the thing as little offensively as he could. Oh, Mother, he thinks me only good enough to be his morganatic wife!"
The storm had burst at last, and the Princess fell on her knees by the sofa where, burying her face in her mother"s lap, she sobbed as if parting with her youth.
There had always been mental and temperamental barriers between the Dresden china lady and her daughter; but they loved each other, and never had the girl been so dear to her mother as now. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess thought of the summer day when Virginia had knelt beside her, saying, "We are going to have an adventure, you and I."
Alas, the adventure was over, and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother"s eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, so sweet and loving withal!
"But, dear, but, you are making the worst of things," the Grand d.u.c.h.ess said soothingly, her hand on the girl"s bright hair. "Why, instead of crying you ought to be smiling, I think. Leopold must love you desperately, or he would never have proposed marriage--even morganatic marriage. Just at first, the idea must have shocked you--knowing who you are. But remember, if you were Miss Mowbray, it would have been a triumph. Many women of high position have married Royalty morganatically, and every one has respected them. You seem to forget that the Emperor knows you only as Helen Mowbray."
"He ought to have known that Helen Mowbray was not the girl to consent--no, not more easily than Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe. He should have understood without telling, that to a girl with Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins such an offer would be like a blow over the heart."
"How should he understand? He is Rhaetian. His point of view--"
"His point of view to me is terrible. Oh, Mother, it"s useless to argue. Everything is spoiled. Of course if he knew I was Princess Virginia, he would be sorry for what he had proposed, even if he thought I"d brought it on myself. But then, it would be too late.
Don"t you understand, I valued his love because it was given to _me_, not the Princess? If he said, "Now I know you, I can offer my right hand instead of my left, to you as my wife," that would not be the same thing at all. No, there"s nothing left but to go home; and the Emperor of Rhaetia must be told that Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe has decided not to marry. That will be our one revenge--but a pitiful one, since he"ll never know that the Princess who refuses his right hand and the Helen Mowbray who wouldn"t take his left, are one and the same. Oh Mother, I did love him so! Let us get out of this hateful house as soon as we can."
The Grand d.u.c.h.ess knew her daughter, and abandoned hope. "Yes, if you will not forgive him; we must go at once, and save our dignity if we can," she said. "The telegram will give us our excuse. I told the Baroness I had received bad news, and she asked permission to knock at my door before going to bed, and inquire how I was feeling. She may come at any moment. We must say that the telegram recalls us immediately to England."
"Listen!" whispered Virginia. "I think there"s some one at the door now."
Baroness von Lyndal stood aghast on hearing that she was to be deserted early in the morning by the bright, particular star of her house party--after the Emperor. She begged that Lady Mowbray would reconsider; that she would wire to England, instead of going, or at all events that she would wait for one day more, until Leopold"s visit to Schloss Lyndalberg should be over.
In her anxiety, she even failed in tact, when she found arguments useless. "But the Emperor?" she objected. "If you go off early in the morning, before he or any one comes down, what will he think, what will he say at being cheated out of his _au revoir_?"
The Grand d.u.c.h.ess hesitated; but Virginia answered firmly "I said good-by to him to-night. The Emperor--will understand."
CHAPTER XIII
THE MAGIC CITRON
Breakfast at Schloss Lyndalberg was an informal meal, under the reign of Mechtilde. Those who were sociably inclined, appeared. Those who loved not their species until the day was older, ate in their rooms.
Leopold had shown himself at the table each morning, however, and set the fashion. And the day after the parting in the garden, he was earlier even than usual. It was easy to be early, as he had not been to bed that night; but he had an extra incentive. He could scarcely wait to see how Helen Mowbray would meet him; whether she would still be cold, or whether sound advice from her mother would have made her kind.
This was his last day at Lyndalberg. By his special request no program of entertainment had been arranged; and before coming down to breakfast Leopold had been turning over in his mind plan after plan for another chance of meeting the girl alone. He had even written a letter, but had torn it up, because he was unable to say on paper what was really in his heart.
Breakfast pa.s.sed, however, and when she did not appear, Leopold grew restless. He did not ask for her before the others; but when he and the Baroness had strolled out together on the terrace, where white peac.o.c.ks spread their jeweled tails, the Emperor sought some opportunity of bringing in the name that filled his thoughts.
"I see the red October lilies are opening," he said. "Miss Mowbray will be interested. She tells me there"s nothing like them in England."
"Ah, she has gone just too soon!" sighed the Baroness.
The Emperor glanced quickly from the ma.s.s of crimson flowers, to his hostess"s face. "Gone?" he repeated.
"Yes," the Baroness answered. "They must have reached Kronburg before this. You know, they left their companion there. Perhaps your Majesty did not realize that they were leaving here quite so early?"
He turned so white under the brown tan the mountains had given, that the Baroness was alarmed. She had taken Virginia"s words as Virginia had meant her to take them, and therefore supposed that a formal farewell of some sort had been spoken. This impression did not prevent her from guessing that there must have been a misunderstanding, and she was tingling with a lively curiosity which she was obliged carefully to hide.
The romance which had been enacted under her eyes she believed to be largely of her own making; and, not being a bad-hearted woman, she had grown fond of Virginia. She had even had pangs of conscience; and though she could not see the way for a happy ending to the pretty drama, it distressed her that the curtain should go down on sadness.
"I did not know they were going at all," Leopold answered frankly, willing to sacrifice his pride for the sake of coming quickly at the truth.
"Oh!" exclaimed the Baroness. "I am distressed! Miss Mowbray distinctly said, when I begged that they would wait, "the Emperor will understand.""
"I do understand--now I know they have gone," he admitted. "But--Miss Mowbray thinks she has some cause of complaint against me, and she"s mistaken. I can"t let such a mistake go uncorrected. You say they must be at Kronburg before this. Are they staying on there?"
"I"m afraid not, your Majesty. They leave Kronburg for England to-day by the Orient Express."
"Do you happen to remember at what hour the train starts?"
"I believe at twelve."